Quick Cryptic 2731 by Teazel

64 comments on “Quick Cryptic 2731 by Teazel”

1. DNF Well I was quite the moron tonight as I entered ACTION REPEAT and STYX instead of the real solutions. At least I learned the nursery school meaning of RECEPTION and had a smile at RIO TACT. Also enjoyed much intriguing info from Templar’s blog. I noticed the grid threw up seedy private eye, EDDY CHARTRES, and his nightclub singer girlfriend, LUSTRE LITTLE.

2. 9.21, distracted by the RNC freak show on TV, so many shiny people that have had so much work done. And who couldn’t love the carefully choreographed spontaneity? Very informative blog from Templar, and I now understand what was going on with RECEPTIONIST. There was much to like in this effort of Teazel’s, though I make an exception for my LOI LITTLE which I thought was kind of weak. I was on the verge of a gag about what SCREW meant when I was growing up but decided to hold off…

3. I was definitely off wavelength on this one, and found it a slog. Had to guess LOI SCREW.
   Not at all convinced that OVERS = DELIVERIES, a delivery is one ball, an over is six. I guess a few overs is a few deliveries, but a few deliveries is not an over

4. I found myself working up from the bottom as things dropped nicely into place. Corrected Repeat to REPLAY but couldn’t see what Regiment had to do with it. Thanks Templar for explanation. COD RIOT ACT and honourable mention for VICTORY and Rotter too.
   Thanks Izetti. Artisanal croissant beckons in the club.

5. 8 minutes. My LOI was LITTLE and I share Lindsay’s view that it is a bit weak. I’ve no problem with ‘deliveries / OVERS’.

6. Very enjoyable crossword. COD to EERIE. thanks for the excellent blog Templar.

   (as per my comment yesterday, PROOFREADING the VIOLIN and candlestick took place months ago)

7. Took my time to unscramble UNEVIABLE at the beginning and then flew through the acrosses but the downs held me up mightily, especially ACTION REPLAY and MISALIGNMENT – had all the checkers for both before I could sort them out and was then left with LITTLE which yielded in the end but took me out to very nearly 20. All green though. Good one.

8. Regiment = RE = Royal Engineers?

   1. Do you know what, I think you’re right. Thanks. I’ll amend the blog.

9. 4:39 and three typos spotted and corrected, but I missed the fourth one and was thus well and truly “SXREWED”.

   COD to RIOT ACT.

10. As said by others and our blogger, seeing Teazel as the setter makes one sit up a bit straighter. Or as I heard from a friend recently in a wonderful malaprop, that we should “gild our loins”!

    Anyway, top went in quite quickly but lower half took more teazing. It was finally seeing screw that unlocked things but a decent finish in about 26 was satisfying.

    Thanks Templar for the great blog, we needed your help for reception = first class but that PDM makes it COD. We also only heard of soy sauce so thanks for clearing that up too.

    Thanks Teazel

    1. *Or as I heard from a friend recently in a wonderful malaprop, that we should “gild our loins”!*

       Sounds like a more refined form of vajazzling…😉

11. Definitely at the gentler end of the Teazel scale but still full of the wit which makes him one of my favourite setters.
    Started with EDDY and finished with a semi-parsed LITTLE in 6.52 with COD to RIOT ACT.
    Thanks to Templar

12. Sparkling time from our Blogger but I spectacularly failed to match it or find the wavelength, taking 15 minutes to crawl to the finishing line. Some excellent clues (I very much liked the Brazilian tact and the idea of Quiet at home leading to a SHINDIG – I think “quiet” is possibly the very last adjective one would associate with one), but I also felt some very dodgy ones. I agree with LindsayO that the clue for LITTLE is not Teazel’s finest – the surface doesn’t really flow – and I would quibble that an ACTION REPLAY isn’t necessarily broadcast “repeatedly” – it might only be shown once.

    But that is a minor quibble compared to my issues with my LOI SOYA, which I stared for ages before putting it in with a huge shrug. Soya just doesn’t feel right here – the correct usage is Soy sauce, not soya, and the fact that Collins has found one case of someone once using the word wrongly, and therefore recorded it as “a usage” (no complaints, this is what dictionaries do: they record usage not act as arbiters of correct usage) doesn’t change this IMO. There are other and better words going S-Y- Teazel could have worked with, and they might also have led to a smoother more elegant surface than the collection of apostrophes in Twain’s Tom’s.

    Grumble over. Many thanks Templar for a very interesting blog
    Cedric

    1. I’m sorry I have to disagree over the validity of ‘sauce / SOYA’. As you have noted it’s in Collins, but they haven’t found one case of someone using it once wrongly. ‘Soya’ (more fully ‘soya sauce’) is in all the source dictionaries as a valid alternative to ‘soy’ and in some of them with its own separate entry. The SOED which give origins states that it derives from the Dutch soja from Japanese shōyu and dates from the late 17th century.

       1. Fair enough, and after all we accept archaisms and obsolete words in our puzzles without too much of a murmur, so why not “valid alternatives even if not widely used”.

          Well, not widely used in the UK, at least. “Further research” (OK, 5 minutes on Google Images) shows that there are indeed bottles for sale in the English-speaking world which are labelled Soya Sauce. None of them seems to be in the UK, where “Soy sauce” is universally the preferred if not only spelling, but “Soya sauce” appears to be a common alternative spelling in Australia, so perhaps some of our Antipodean solvers are more familiar with that spelling.

          And it doesn’t in my mind stop it being a disappointing clue with an ugly double-apostrophe surface. But that is another matter.

          1. That’s right Cedric, here in Oz soya is not uncommon but I think it was used more by older generations (ie my mum and dad) and soy is gaining hegemony.

13. Was about to give up on LOI 3d when REPLAY suddenly jumped into view nudging REPEAT out of my mind. I could not understand the parsing so thanks Templar. Agree with Cedric re this clue.
    SCREW for wages and RECEPTION for a nursery class were new to me.
    44m to cross the line
    Thanks both.

14. 3:48. It all clicked for me, apart from my last one, LITTLE, which accounted for 20s at the end. SOYA made me laugh. CHARTRES cathedral is indeed wonderful. I remember singing an a capella concert under the tower lit by a single spotlight above. Members of the audience afterwards told us they could see bats flitting through the incense-laden cone of light above us. Thanks Teazel and Templar.

    1. What was the piece you sang?

       1. It was the Tudor Singers of London. I don’t remember what was on the programme – it was in about 1981 so a long time ago. Our core repertoire was sacred music from Tudor times (hence the name of the group) through to 20th century with some secular repertoire too. It might have included some Tallis, Byrd, Palestrina and maybe Harris Faire is the Heaven, the best piece ever for unaccompanied double choir.

          1. Crikey! A colleague had a weekend house in Levéville (just outside Chartres) and we went to the odd concert in the cathedral in 1981 – 1984, but I can’t swear we heard you, John! I would remember Faire is the Heaven because it is glorious.

    2. What an evocative image, John, that’s marvellous.

15. I was not on wavelength, band, or frequency. Anyway, I crawled to the finish, but definitely needed the blog today. Could not parse RECEPTIONIST and OVERS (I never see effing cricket references). Thanks Temps.

16. Another one not quite at the races here – I think I’ve struggled all week in fact. Another dark orange day for me I suspect.

    Mostly enjoyed the puzzle though, OLD BILL went in last, and I liked RIOT ACT. Not so fond of LITTLE.

    7:42

17. DNF.
    Very nasty.
    Be nice to have one like Tuesday’s (one which I could do) for tomorrow.

18. 9:16 (Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians, sends army to raid Wales)

    Reception class is for those who will reach 5 years old during the school year, so is the 1st class of primary school, the next stage after nursery school.

    SCREW was my LOI. RIOT ACT my COD.

    Thanks Templar and Teazel

19. 8:48. I struggled with screw=wages recently in a 15×15 so that was fine. Several clues went in with some musings – little (the fairy bit), soy/a, proof-reading (didn’t click the prof bit for a while). Liked bestowed. Thanks all.

20. 20:22
    Tempted not to post today but must document the failures as well as the successes. I had no problems at all until three in the SW: LITTLE, SCREW, and BESTOWED, which together probably took me twice as long again as the entire puzzle up to that point. So, far from breaking 8, I came in at over 20 in the end. Frustrating though it is to grind to a complete halt, at least I won’t be typing in SIRES for “Warder’s” any time soon. Thanks Templar and Teazel.

21. Not on the wavelength, couldn’t see how ACTION REPLAY worked, and went with the unsatisfactory ACTION REPEAT. But was more fearful of LITTLE, which made no sense, I think it’s a bit of a weak clue.

    SCREW for salary is only the fourth most widely used metaphorical sense. “Cheat” is number 2 and we all know number 1.

    RIOT ACT, top clue. Also liked SAWYER/SOYA which will annoy the Scots and Cornish.

22. 8.35 DNF

    Very difficult to see beyond REPEAT once it was in bunged so I was also an ACTION REPEAT

    Anyone for FLAG rather than HOLE?

    Thanks to the two Ts

23. Gentler than usual for a Teazel QC, but with characteristic wit. Particularly liked RIOT ACT and RECEPTIONIST. Thought of LUSTRE straight away but took a while to parse as hadn’t thought of remarkable as anagram indicator (doh). Knew Sawyer but LOI SOYA took an age to arrive. As others have mentioned, I too am more used to soy sauce. Very enjoyable. Thanks Teazel and Templar (info about Victory particularly interesting).

24. I dont think ‘broadcast repeatedly’ quite works as a definition for ACTION REPLAY, can anyone convince me of it?

    1. Well it’s a undeniably a repeated broadcast as far as TV audiences are concerned.

25. May I offer an answer to Templar’s comment in his blog on 6 down. When I worked for the Met, an old stager told me that “Old Bill” refers to the cartoons a man who was an officer in France in WW1, called Bruce Bairnsweather (SP ??) who tried to keep up moral by drawing cartoons which where circulated in the trenches. He invented a character called “Old Bill”, a miserable old soldier with a droopy mouustache. When the war ended and the Met Police had to seriously recruit they decided to use Old Bill in their recruitment posters. Hence Met = Old Bill.

    1. Yes – that’s sense 9 and 10 of the link I posted in the blog.

       Since I can’t work out how to make that a live link, here’s what it says in full.

       The slang phrase “Watch Out! Old Bill’s about!” was in use in Covent Garden in 1968, and “Old Bill” was used in Maidstone in 1966. It is probably much older than these personal recollections. It is now commonly used as a slang phrase referring to the police, certainly made more familiar to the general public by the TV series “The Bill” about the police. It does not appear in the comprehensive Slang Terms and Criminal Jargon in The Book for Police published by Caxton in 1958. Partridge’s Dictionary of Slang dates it from the 1950s or ‘perhaps earlier’

       The Official Encyclopedia of Scotland Yard has 13 possibilities for the origin of the phrase (the origin probably being distinctly different from when it came into common use):

       1 Old Bill referred to King William IV who came to the throne in 1830, a year after the Metropolitan Police were founded.
       2 The Custom of the Century a play of 1619 by John Fletcher has constables of the watch refer to themselves as “us peacemakers and all our bill of authority”
       3 Old constables of the watch were sometimes nicknamed for the bills or billhooks they carried as weapons
       4 Kaiser Wilhelm I of Prussia (Kaiser Bill) visited England about the time that police adopted the current shaped helmet in place of a top hat in 1864 and this association may be relevant.
       5 The ‘old bill’ was in Victorian times a bill presumed to be presented by the police for a bribe to persuade them to turn a blind eye to some nefarious activity
       6 New laws for the police start their life as bills in Parliament
       7 ‘Old Bill’ might refer to the music hall song “Won’t you come home, Bill Bailey” also referring to the Old Bailey court.
       8 In the 1860s a popular Sergeant Bill Smith at Limehouse was asked for as ‘Old Bill’
       9 Many police officers did wear authoritarian looking ‘Old Bill’ moustaches like Bruce Bairnsfather’s famous WW1 cartoon character, the wily old soldier in the trenches.
       10 In 1917, the government adopted Bairnsfather’s cartoon character in posters and advertisements putting over wartime messages under the heading ‘Old Bill says..’ and for at least some of these, the figure was dressed in Special Constable’s uniform.
       10 The original vehicles used by the Flying Squad had registration plates with the letters BYL
       11 The London County Council at one time registered all police, fire and ambulance vehicles with plates including letters BYL
       12 According to the late author Robin Cook, ‘old bill’ is a racing term for an outsider or unknown quantity; hence a dodgy prospect for an illegal gambler’s point of view.

26. I liked this one from Teazel and must have been on the wavelength as I completed it in 13 minutes, which is a goodish time for me. I didn’t get much in the top half when tackling the acrosses but things improved with the downs and I just had to mop up a few in the second pass to complete. All parsed except 3dn which was my LOI and I had all the crossers.

    FOI – 5ac HOLE
    LOI – 3dn ACTION REPLAY
    CODs – 17ac RECEPTIONIST and 20ac RIOT ACT

    Thanks to Teazel and Templar

27. A wavelength puzzle – I was on it, and all done in 15 minutes. At first I put REASSIGNMENT at 8d (listing men for transfer) until SHINDIG scotched that and I realigned. I wondered how the non-Brit solvers would fare with OLD BILL, SCREW and SHINDIG but no real complaints so far. After 30 years as a diplomat, I wouldn’t regard tact as a precise synonym, but hey ho. Great blog from Templar and thanks Teazel for a fun and witty puzzle (COD RECEPTIONIST!)

    1. 30 years as a diplomat? Ah.

       1. A while ago. I’ve now been retired for almost as long as I served!

28. Like Templar totally on the setters wavelength with this one finishing in 6.01. A minor hold up at the end when I had to decide if REPEAT formed part of the answer to 3dn. Not wanting to drop a clanger and spoil a quick time I reassessed it and managed to parse ACTION REPLAY.
    CHARTRES Cathedral in France is widely acknowledged as the finest example of gothic church architecture anywhere in the world. I remember our tutor in the School of Architecture having to mop away the tears when he was giving us an illustrated lecture devoted solely to it (very sensitive souls architects you know!). It was thirty or so years later that I finally got to visit, and indeed it is magnificent.

    1. Boom! Rapid

29. Finished a Teazel! And especially apt as I’m at this moment engaged on PROOFREADING a VIOLIN part. LOI LITTLE (which I agree was a bit weak). Liked RIOT ACT.

30. Phew. Exhausted but finished all correct. Smiled at HOVERS. Managed the top half OK but slow on CHARTRES which then helped with RIO TACT (!), RECEPTIONIST, and finally LOsI SCREW, BESTOWED and LITTLE.
    FOsI 1a and 1d but that encouraging start gave me false confidence.
    Liked OLD BILL, SHINDIG, VICTORY, VIOLIN, among others.
    Yes, agree about Soy. But now found that one of the three kinds of Soy sauce in my larder says SOYA.
    Thanks vm, Templar.

31. An enjoyable crossword and blog, thank you Teazel and Templar. I didn’t get SCREW until BESTOWED was in, but since there’s no explanation of the term, my interest was piqued and I researched the origin. It seems it comes from the 19th century, when workers’ wages were put into a piece of paper, the top of which was screwed round to secure the coins. It preceded the wage envelope.
    I had no quarrel with LITTLE as a clue, or SOYA, and liked the SA diplomacy and the clever RECEPTIONIST, with its misleading first class.
    One of the last in was EDDY, which has to be one of the easiest, the more so as I had, and still have, a kitten of that name on my lap!

32. 6:40

    Pretty quick but had forgotten first class = RECEPTION – answer clear enough from definition. Needed all checkers to work out 8d anagram. MER at SOYA as sauce as discussed already. Still not entirely used to SCREW = money, not in use these days it would seem. I agree with others that the clue for LITTLE was not Teazel’s finest hour – NHO fairies and the like being called ‘the little people’ – but couldn’t imagine anything else that might fit the clue.

    Thanks Teazel, and Templar for the breakdown

33. 20 mins…

    I didn’t find this too bad. I never properly parsed 3dn “Action Replay” and was slightly unsure about “Screw” for 18dn, but the rest went in fairly steadily.

    FOI – 1dn “Eddy”
    LOI – 3dn “Action Replay”
    COD – 17ac “Receptionist” – just for the “first class” = reception element, which I thought was super.

    Thanks as usual!

34. 12:47
    Took a long time to get action replay, vaper, and LOI little.
    Candidates for COD: enviable, violin, receptionist, or old bill.

35. No, the bottom half of the grid didn’t click at all. I thought of SOYA (only familiar with soy), LITTLE (although seemed likely) and SCREW (didn’t know of the wages definition). As I didn’t want to risk pink squares I DNF.

36. Regarding SOY/SOYA, I am in my late 60s and I have lived in England and Wales throughout my life. I always think of the sauce as being SOYA.

37. Completed but did not enjoy, having to rely heavily on Pumpa.

    30:58

    My verdict: 💤
    Pumpa’s verdict: 😺

    Excuse for poor performance #1: The old favourite “not on the wavelength”. 🤣

38. I started with EDDY, had a mer at LITTLE, which I shoved in with a shrug, and finished with some unexpected mental gymnastics with SOYA. In a touch of deja vu, I also finished in exactly the same time as our esteemed blogger! 6:23. Thanks Teazel and Templar.

39. I think Teazel was being generous today. Pretty well all the top half went in easily enough and dotting about the rest created enough checkers to see me through quickly enough.
    FOI 1d Eddy
    LOI 16d Little – pretty obvious
    COD 17a Receptionist – recognised from the checkers so faintly surprised by the parsing given by our esteemed blogger.

40. Well we weren’t really on the wavelength but 14:24 isn’t too far south of where we would typically be. LOI LITTLE which I rather liked but I’d give COD to RECEPTIONIST.

41. Absolutely galling! I really struggled for 20 minutes over my last four clues (MISALIGNMENT, LITTLE, SCREW and BESTOWED) only to find, upon coming here, that my tentative ACTION REPeAt at 3d was wrong. I had written it in faintly and marked it with a question mark, as I suspected that my answer was not entirely correct, but the wave of relief that swept over me when I finally cracked BESTOWED caused me to forget to come back to it. Dash, dash and double dash!

    Outcome = DNF (1 error) in 41 minutes.

    Many thanks to Templar and (I suppose) to Teazel. My stats clearly show that, for me, Teazel is in a league of his own when it comes to ranking the relative difficulty of our main QC setters.

42. Happy just to have completed this without any errors. We have always said Soya and it was only when I checked our cupboard that I discovered all our sauce bottles were Soy! I must have lived too long in Indonesia. Didn’t get the reference to Reception so guessed it was something to do with ist, so thanks for the blog.

43. 8.31 It did click today. ACTION REPLAY was the only hold up taking a couple of minutes at the end. I did hesitate briefly over LITTLE but I remembered the little people and it seemed fine. Thanks Templar and Teazel.

44. I struggled today: 16:48 with two errors. I also had the unsatisfactory and unparsed ACTION REPEAT. Add a careless typo on CHERTRES cathedral for a total of three pink squares. Ah well, RIO TACT made up for that, a lovely clue.

    Thanks to Teazel and Templar.

45. Finished in about 30m, good for us. No problem with soya or screw, probably showing our age, wellaware of the various meanings over the decades. Enjoyable puzzle again.

46. Kicked back into my rightful place in the SCC with 21:39, thanks to MISALIGNMENT and LITTLE. I was lucky to get the former at all, since I’d identified the correct anagram fodder but the wrong definition.

    Thank you for the blog!

47. I found this consistently hard throughout, but fair and enjoyable. Did not know Lustre = Renown. LOI Chartres.

48. 25 minutes

    Totally stressed out by this. As the seconds tick by, I feel the pressure build. I haven’t got the mental agility that this demands and, as a result, I struggle to find any enjoyment or satisfaction.

    Thanks for the blog.

    PS I came within a whisker of completing the ‘proper’ crossword. It took 1.5 hours. There’s really no hope! ☹️

49. Much better than yesterday

50. Although in the end I finished in 7:32 I definitely thought this was on the hard side.

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