QC 2735 by Pipsqueak

101 comments on “QC 2735 by Pipsqueak”

1. 18:22. Took a long time on CARROT and didn’t see cruel meaning VIOLENT. PERVERSE was fun. Blog was fun too- thanks. I think OAR is every other letter of “on air”.

2. CARROT was v good I thought, and was my POI, which gave me the T I needed to get VIOLET.

   Done post dinner in Dallas, I was hoping to be 1st commenter, but I see curryowen beat me to it.

   Something more than straightforward, but on the easier side of things for me.

   5:30

   1. If you hadn’t lingered over dessert and coffee you might have just pipped me.

3. I messed up by putting ROYALIST in for CAVALIER, not noticing that I overtyped a crosser (not to mention the wordplay not working). That made GREASE impossible until I sorted that out.

4. Nice puzzle and nice blog, thank you Merlin. 12.08 for me, it might have been quicker but I’ve not been well. Not sure about cruel = violent but let’s not quibble. I, too, tried to force a B into CARROT. Embarrassingly my LOI was the GREASE/Greece chestnut.

5. I think 11a is alternate letters of OnAiR. OAR. But I could be wrong.

   1. As curryowen suggested 2 hours ago.

      1. Like stirring treacle, after an encouraging start I just struggled round and round the grid. Eventually decided OAR was some kind of mispronunciation of hour. Wasn’t drawn to VIOLET as cruel. Liked POM POM as a ship based cannon and wondered insanely if it throws up Ack-Ack.
         Not my finest hour.
         Thanks Pipsqueak for the wake up call and Merlin.

   2. Yes, as in from time to time meaning alternate letters.

6. No, I failed miserably today, on my birthday. But I’m having a lovely birthday nonetheless!

   Please don’t fill up these comments page with well wishes I will just assume you all did 😂 ❤️

   1. I’m not filling it up, but on behalf of the multitude who have honoured your request: 🎂 Happy Birthday 🎉🎈

   2. Couldn’t finish because of Perverse, go hung up on the ending having to be ‘so’ from thus in the clue. Otherwise quick and enjoyable. Thanks all

7. Lots to like and an average time for us of 23.28 with violet and perverse holding out longest.

   Some very smooth surfaces but COD to carrot, I do like a mental image and had a big grin at the idea of dangling a carrot in a bishop’s bedroom 😀 Oh, just read that back and realised it’s become a single entendre!

8. Unlike our blogger I found this very approachable and sped to a trouble-free finish in just over 8 minutes. Which proves that (a) we all react differently to these puzzles, and (b) if that is my time with only the occasional slight hold-up on the way, I’m never going to trouble the leaderboard. And I’m OK with both of those.

   Just one minor query: is MOOR still an acceptable term? I thought it was short for Blackamoor, and now archaic at least, allowed when referring to Othello but otherwise borderline offensive.

   Many thanks Merlin for the blog
   Cedric

   1. MOOR comes from the Latin “maurus”, in turn derived from the Ancient Greek ἀμαυρός. In all languages it referred to the Muslim people of North Africa, of mixed Arab and Berber descent. In English it is a C14 word and is much older than blackamoor, which is C16 and of unknown origin (probably derived from MOOR: definitely not the other way round). Although some people find many things offensive, MOOR should not be among them.

      1. Thank you. As is so common these days, I’m guilty of reacting to the word not because I myself find it offensive (for the record, I don’t), but because I had a vague inkling that someone, somewhere might at some time have decided it was.

      2. It is still seen in the name of the modern day country of Mauritania (same name as the Roman province of approximately similar location). And the mnemonic rhyme of Charles Martel : He defeated the Moors at Tours.

         Speedsters who equate their times with medieval dates should know this one: 7:32, makes a change from all those Mercian incursions of Wales.

9. Fairly gentle going until a brain freeze at the end where I completely missed the anagram for LEARNING 🤦‍♂️, couldn’t make head or tail of the GREASE chestnut and needed all the checkers for LOI VIOLET.
   All of which led to an averageish finishing time of 8.19 with COD to PERVERSE.
   Thanks to Merlin

10. This would have taken around 11 minutes but for a complete brain-freeze over my LOI PERVERSE. That took my solving time to 17 minutes.

    On reading Merlin’s query in the blog about OAR I read the clue and saw how it worked immediately, but then on referring to my printout I noticed that I had also failed to parse it.

    A DNF on Monday and a 17-minute solve today does not bode well for the rest of the week!

    For those who don’t keep track of setters, this is only Pipsqueak’s third offering since joining the team in May this year.

11. Failed to separate ‘old’ from ‘painter’ and so freted over AGED meaning ‘over’ before going for it anyway. Thanks for clearing that up Merlin. Also took a long time to see CARROT – until I abandoned B and finally tried RR. Also slow on VIOLET and found NAVIGATE hard to unravel. But much better typing today, all green in 14.43.

12. I couldn’t decide if this was a little tricky, or if my relatively slow completion was down to not being familiar with Pipsqueak’s style. MER at SLOI VIOLET (but I suppose it just about passes muster). I wasted time on the first clue by misreading the anagrist as “yet again”.

    FOI EDGE
    LOI GREASE
    COD PERVERSE *
    TIME 4:53

    There is a picture in today’s Times of a TORTOISE being removed after wandering onto the railway line near Ascot. It’s probably PERVERSE of me to suggest that it was spotted by a passenger on the train that it was overtaking…..

    1. 😀

    2. 😊

    3. Lol

13. There were no problems other than thinking ‘B’ for bishop until RR came to mind and AGED took a while to see.
    I enjoyed TORTOISE and no problem with MOOR it’s just Berber and Arab people. Also, PERVERSE is just the poet being paid ‘per verse’.
    I too didn’t see the correct parsing of OAR until I looked again after reading the blog.

14. For those tempted to venture there, the 15×15 today is worth a look…

    1. Thanks for the hint. I finished the 15×15 in just 2 minutes more than I spent on the ‘quickie’ and quite enjoyed it.
       This QC was interesting but, as Gordon Kennedy says below (with his distinctive but ever-inappropriate choice of adjective) it really was ‘too hard for a Quick Cryptic’.

    2. Thanks for the heads up! I finished it (a rare event in itself) in just under 20 minutes, thus completing both in an aggregate 28 minutes which is I think my best to date.

       1. Well done! I think I was broadly in the same territory
          On edit: Oops. I was way behind, confused my times, great work CS

    3. Did pretty well on the Big Cryptic, needed a couple of aids to finish in 30 mins or so.

    4. Definitely one of the easier ones I’ve tackled, although there are quite a few comments on the 15×15 blog about a lot of clues being very similar. I can’t say I even noticed 😅

15. 8:18 (choose between the Byzantine empire’s first recorded Viking incursion, or yet another Mercian raid into Dyfed)

    I enjoyed this crossword, and found it to be on the easier side. DECADENT was my LOI.

    The C of E still uses SEE in some contexts, including the “Vacancy in See Committee” that starts the process of attempting to appoint a new bishop.

    Thanks Merlin and Pipsqueak

16. I enjoyed this but came unstuck at the end because I couldn’t see Violet. I dislike these ‘first name’ clues, especially when they refer to girls and I only know of eg octogenarian women who have them, and here I think the setter could have chosen a better word than cruel. Thanks though!

    1. I don’t know any 80-year-olds called VIOLET. It’s more of a Downton Abbey name.

       1. My grandmother was Violet, but she wouldn’t be 80 now, more like 120, so I tend to agree – an Edwardian name if anything. She absolutely hated the name all her life and insisted, apparently from an extremely young age, on being called by her second name, Mary,

          1. In the 1980’s I worked with a Violet who hated her name so much she changed it to Leannne. Named after her Grannie I believe.

          2. My grandmother, too, was the only Violet I’ve ever known and she was born in 1888.

       2. I suppose Violet might be one of those revived names, but if she was in her of later years she might not always wanted to be called a girl 🙂

    2. I know a 2 year called Violet so maybe it’s having a very recent comeback and Pipsqueak was using it in the spirit of making the crossword more modern…

    3. Violet Beauregarde would be an octogenarian now.

       1. I guess Violet Elizabeth Bott would be even older 😅

17. As usual Plett’s entry sums up my solve, except mine took me 08:40.

    Many thanks Merlin and Pip.

    1. 👍👍

18. Finished it – correctly this time! – LOI MOOR, just needed that essential PDM.
    CNP POM-POM (NHO the gun) or LEARNING (ah – anagram – of course!).
    I’m sure someone must have beaten me to this one, but I assumed “from time to time” (11) means “regularly”, i.e. On AiR.

19. DNF VIOLET. Cruelty doesn’t necessarily involve Violence. And also I needed a hint for CAVALIER .
    CARROT was good too. I was quite fast until those three blocked my run.
    Also liked GREASE, PERVERSE, TORTOISE, POM POM, MOOR.
    Some clues were very easy and some not, as I said.
    Thanks vm, Merlin.

20. DNF.
    A really nasty one.
    Much too hard for a “Quick Cryptic”.

    1. Nasty? What was nasty about it? You didn’t finish? Well learn from the blog about the ones you couldn’t get and maybe your skill will improve and you wont find a crossword “nasty” or “too hard” just because you couldn’t finish it.

21. Was going like a train (well, one that’s running/on time that is) until the final two crossers of AGED/ELAND and CAVALIER/VIOLET. Agree with CurryOwen re On AiR. COD to PERVERSE. 13 minutes.

22. Starting at the bottom everything went in quickly apart from 18d. At the top, I struggled a bit with OAR (could not parse),VIOLET and CARROT.
    Returning to 18d, my LOI, I was stumped and finally saw an early error- TOM TOM (did not pause long enough to parse carefully ).
    Corrected, and time was 17 minutes.
    Some very easy clues mixed up with some tricky ones.
    COD to PERVERSE.
    David

23. Quite quick until I was down to the last few stragglers: Carrot, Aged and the Violet Cavalier (a relative of the Scarlet Pimpernel?) Applying lift and separate sorted out Aged, and RR for Bishop made Carrot a write-in, just a shame it only came to mind after exhausting all options involving B for Bishop. Cavalier still took a long time, and Violet wasn’t exactly forthcoming either. The upshot was a very slow time, redeemed by the smile solving CoD Perverse. Invariant

    1. There’s always two clues that when put together sound like an eighties Indie band, an early faller at the Grand National or a 1990s Military Operation. I think VIOLET CAVALIER scores in all categories!

24. 8:54

    Hardest of Pipsqueak’s three grids thus far in my opinion. Plenty of gaps after the first round, but finally left with PERVERSE and several in the NW which were completed in the order CAVALIER, GREASE, CARROT, VIOLET. NHO of the POM-POM cannon.

    Thanks Pipsqueak and Merlin

25. I prefer to think, like Busman, that I am not familiar enough with Pipsqueak’s style to race through this – otherwise, I was unaccountably slow in getting some of the answers. LOI PERVERSE, which should have been a write in. MER over Violent = cruel. You can bang a nail in violently or treat someone cruelly without violence being involved.

    1. You make an interesting point about ‘cruel / violent’. The standard response about synonyms in crosswords is that they don’t need to work in every context, only one that’s in general use, but on checking the usual dictionaries I could find no mention of ‘violent’ under ‘cruel’. So I then consulted 5 thesauruses (3 in print and 2 online), all with the same result – no mention of ‘violent’ under ‘cruel’ but they all listed ‘cruel’ under ‘violent’. If they are to be believed then the synonym works one way but not the other and the setter is on the wrong side of this.

26. 11 minutes. I managed to get this out without being held up by many clues (CARROT was one) but I had the same doubts as a few others about VIOLE(N)T and ‘Cruel’. I liked PERVERSE even if I would have had difficulty explaining it.

    Thanks to Merlin and Pipsqueak

27. Couldn’t finish this one. I found it too tricky and there was nothing here that motivated me to keep at it.

    Excuse #4: Didn’t sleep well last night.

    My verdict: 👎
    Pumpa’s verdict: 😾

28. 11:45

    Pretty tough I thought, but very enjoyable.

    Thanks Merlin and Pip

29. All went well, and enjoyably, well within SCC limits, until my last two. Don’t know why MOOR held me up, but it did, and then I was totally stumped by PERVERSE. I assumed correctly that illogical was the definition, but I got no inspiration from the rest of the clue and I failed to summon up the, in hindsight obvious, answer despite having all the checkers.
    Funny how the brain works, even more so at times how it doesn’t. I’ll just go and try the allegedly approachable 15×15 and see if the little grey cells improve.

30. Two minutes longer than yesterday, so on the tricky side for me. COD to PERVERSE as it made me smile.
    I am clearly the only one who does not see supercilious as an obvious synonym for cavalier. Similar perhaps, but distinctly different nuances in my usage.

    1. No, add me to the list

    2. You are right. Cavalier means, metaphorically, careless of normal rules, whereas supercilious means snootily superior, imo.

       1. For what it’s worth SOED has: cavalier – offhand; (esp. haughtily) careless in manner; curt; supercilious. M17.

          1. Interesting, but, despite the dictionary, I still feel there are differences of emphasis. (Can’t remember who first used that phrase about disagreement!)

             1. Fair enough.

    3. I’m another who was more bothered by cavalier / supercilious than cruel / violent and, after finishing, did get as far as checking it in multiple sources. The equivalence can be found as per jackkt below but it was new to me. Anyway, at the time it fitted and we moved on! COD definitely to PERVERSE IMO. 11:19 overall put it on the easier side for us. Thanks to Merlin and Pipsqueak and to others for the interesting comments re MOOR.

31. I was doing nicely with an eight minute solve on the cards until I ground to a halt with 3dn and 12ac. It was a full two minutes before CARROT came to me, and even with all the checkers a further two minutes to get VIOLET. The clues were quite fair I think, so it was just me being slow to twig them. I eventually staggered over the line in 11.33.

32. DNF. Revealed VIOLET. Just couldn’t think of a girl’s name ending L_T and synonyms for cruel didn’t include violent (doh). Much to like, especially PER VERSE (brilliant) and CARROT. PDM with GREASE (took me ages). I thought this puzzle was perfectly pitched for a QC, albeit at the slightly trickier end and I really enjoyed it. Thanks pipsqueak and great blog Merlin. I now know that a POM-POM is not only a hat bobble but also a gun.

33. 20m
    Too hard for a quickie.
    Tempted to give up but persevered.
    Carrot, learning, perverse, report, violet, and LOI cavalier all took a long time.
    COD Carrot.

34. CAVALIER and VIOLET (cruel = violent?) took a while, POM-POM unknown in this context, but no problem with the rest. COD must be PERVERSE.

35. I seemed to have mislaid my anagram hat. I struggled with the anagrams for both NAVIGATE and LEARNING. I solved clockwise from EDGE with my LOsI VIOLET and CAVALIER. My favourites were PERVERSE and CARROT. 8:21

36. Great crossword, thank you, Pipsqueak! Like Cedric, I found it very straightforward, with only PERVERSE holding me up – lovely clue.

    I’ve said it before: it’s a shame that there’s so much negativity in this blog, bordering on the downright rude. If you don’t like it go somewhere else more suitable for your capability, but stop insulting compilers who put a lot of effort into these things, which the vast majority of us thoroughly enjoy as they are.

    1. Well said.

    2. Well said!👍

    3. Totally agree! Not straightforward for me today, but good fun persevering to get there in the end. Nothing to moan about and thanks to all Setters.

    4. I couldn’t agree more Dai – although I would venture that it’s only a few who are really negative (and rude). We can all have bad days (or weeks) but it’s just a question of taking the rough with the smooth and most people are just a bit rueful rather than unpleasant when things don’t go well.

    5. Well said. We try not to censor comments but there a some commenters who are… um… unappreciative. If I fail to solve a crossword, take longer than I think I should or fail to understand a clue I think “stupid me” or “well done clever compiler”. To blame one’s inability to solve a crossword as being the fault of the compiler is, frankly, absurd, and egotistical in the extreme. There are two commenters today who have crossed the boundary (and both not for the first time). My apologies if not censoring their comments has caused offence. Their comments in future will not be published without moderation.

       1. John – I for one am not offended, just irritated! And you have nothing to apologise for.
          It does seem a shame that the only time we hear from some people is when they want to moan – it would be nice to hear about their successes too.
          Have only just scrolled to your further comments.

37. A tricky one imo and I eventually had to use aids to get to CAVALIER and VIOLET. The bottom went in more easily than the top, especially the NW quadrant but I’m not sure that I have an excuse, other than just being dim. Struggled with RETARD (until I realised that I had entered ‘decadend’ at 5dn), GREASE (a chestnut) and NAVIGATE (despite realising immediately that it was an anagram). Couldn’t parse OAR (doh!). 24 minutes after using aids. Not a good day – should I tempt fate by saying it can only get better?

    FOI – 8ac EDGE
    LOI – 12ac VIOLET
    CODs – liked PERVERSE, CARROT and LEARNING

    Thanks to Pipsqueak and to Merlin for the much-needed blog

38. Started with RAIDER and finished with LOAN. Took a while to see NAVIGATE, CAVALIER and VIOLET. Tried CONVERSE until ESCAPE put me right. 7:30. Thanks Pipsqueak and Merlin.

39. I struggled in the NW, not helped by the lack of first letters in this grid.
    Eventually looked up CAVALIER which allowed me to finish with VIOLET and GREASE – kicking myself on the latter.
    COD CARROT but ELAND was a close second.
    Thanks Pipsqueak and Merlin.

40. Enjoyed this, thank you Pipsqueak, and thanks for the informative blog, Merlin.
    GREASE last one in, shamingly, given it’s a chestnut and one of my favourite musicals (I realise it’s very much of its time – but so am I!).
    Actually saw it first in South America with Spanish subtitles and the name translated as “Vasalina” 😃

    1. 😂😂😂

41. Despite the grid and struggling early, i was surprised to complete it in a reasonable time. Hallmarks of a clever puzzle in my book.
    Thanks Merlin and Pipsqueak!

42. A clever/hard puzzle greets me on my return. 25:14, struggling with CARROT/VIOLET at the end. A few stretchy synonyms (violent=cruel, cavalier=supercilious, went=disappeared), but mainly I was held up dumbly staring at the bishop and poet clues. Hard to decide whether PERVERSE or CARROT gets COD from me. FOI EDGE, LOI VIOLET. Could we have women occasionally to give us relief from all these girls?

    (👀I’ll sneak in a Happy Birthday to Tina while she’s not looking 🎂🎶)

    Thanks Pipsqueak and Merlin!

43. That was enjoyable! The only hold up was CARROT, wondering if CABROT was a word….. COD PERVERSE.

44. Shot through down clues then slowed up – not sure violent=cruel, missed PERVERSE which should have picked up with crossers, shame – great clue

45. 19 mins…

    I enjoyed this and thought there were some really good clues, including 24ac “Perverse”, 21ac “Pom Pom” and 3dn “Carrot”. Main hold ups were in the NW corner around 1dn “Cavalier” and 12ac “Violet”.

    FOI – 8ac “Edge”
    LOI – 1dn “Cavalier”
    COD – 6dn “Aged” – always like a good painter reference.

    Thanks as usual!

46. DNF. Back to earth with a bump. Having escaped the SCC yesterday, on the special table today with 4 unsolved. But COD for me was PERVERSE, that definitely made me smile!

47. I do hope my comments get published – this wS one of the worse puzzles in a while sloppy obtuse clues or grossly ill- defined clues all over the place, especially 11,14,18 across and 1,3 down. how 11 across can be oar I simply do not know. No fun at all, Pipsqueak.

    1. If you read the very first comment (by curryowen) you would understand OAR.

    2. You are entitled to your view, but I concur with Daipugh’s comment.

    3. You have chosen to vent your frustration in what could be construed as libellous terms on the compiler of a perfectly good Quick Cryptic Crossword which everyone else here enjoyed. Please explain exactly why you think the clues you have mentioned are “sub-standard”, “sloppy”, “obtuse” and “grossly ill-defined”. I personally think they are all perfectly good cryptic crossword clues and nobody else here seems to thinks otherwise except you.. Perhaps you should stop trying to solve these crosswords if you are so narrow-minded to think that if you don’t like, don’t understand or can’t solve a clue it must be a bad one. If you want a straight definitions crossword stick to the Times Concise, but I dare say you would find nits to pick with that too. From your comments today and in the past you clearly don’t appreciate a good crossword!

48. 28.55 I spent a very long time on last two CARROT and VIOLET. Distracted by a B. A nice puzzle though. Thanks Merlin and Pipsqueak.

49. I found this one a bit of a mixture but ultimately a good puzzle that warranted this afternoon’s lengthy Costa. Had to work at a few – 10a Eland had me needing some WD40 to shift the rusty memory banks; 12a Violet was probably the one that drove the extended time.
    FOI 8a Edge
    LOI 12a Violet after a very lengthy couple of alphabet trawls
    COD both 3d Carrot and the amusing 24a Perverse.
    Happy to have more like this!

50. Thoroughly enjoyable challenge finished in about seven sittings, aggregate time of about an hour. Last two in were CAVALIER and PERVERSE followed by a huge sigh of satisfaction. I am glad I PERSEVERED.
    Thank you Pipsqueak and Merlin.

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