Times Quick Cryptic No 2822 by Breadman

143 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 2822 by Breadman”

1. Got held up at the end with AJAX. Luckily I had already noticed it was a pangram with no J so it pretty much had to be AJA-something but I could only think of AJAR. I’d not noticed it was a double pangram and I’d missed the J in OBJURE. But I thought of AJAX in the end.

   I nearly put in ASTERISK just from the number of letters and “star” before I realized STERISK is not.drug but STEROID is. I didn’t know OBJURE either but the wordplay was clear.

2. I found this very hard, and DNF’ed again, my fourth of the week :(. I missed AJAX and SNAKEBITE, neither of which I think I’d ever get. Had to cross my fingers about OBJURE and SEPULCHRAL too. This puzzle did have it’s share of nice clues, but the hard ones took away most of the enjoyment for me.
   This has been a very poor week of QCs IMO, it’s good to have trickier puzzles, but maybe only twice a week, to leave space for a bit more variety in difficulty.

3. DNF in 11.18

   Have some sympathy with David’s view as at least one of the 15x15s has taken me less time than the Quickie this week, and I was slow again here, but my error today was horribly basic, failing to lift and separate the guitar and hero and mombling AJAM.

   No complaints – this was toughish but fair with clear w/p pointing you to the less common words

4. 12:56 which for me places it very much on the tougher end of the Quickie scale. In fact I checked at least twice to confirm that I was doing the Quickie and not the 15×15.

   Didn’t notice the double pangram and took a while to get AJAX and SNAKEBITE and to parse BRAZIL and LAZY EYE. And no John, I don’t recall seeing LA for “see” before. Briefly wondered if there was such a thing as a LOZY EYE!

   Well done Breadman, I enjoyed the challenge but… there will be letters.

   Thanks for the blog John.

5. Re LA!
   From a puzzle I blogged on 4th July last year:

   I’m surprised to see new bird making for top of dome (7)
   LANTERN
   LA (I’m surprised – Look at that! See!), N (new), TERN (bird).

   I added in a comment that I associate La! with fops wearing lace cuffs and waving handkerchiefs in Restoration comedies or Blackadder the Third, and the theatricals in Upstart Crow.

   As for today’s puzzle I failed for the second consecutive day. Yesterday I was missing one letter, today it was four answers. I may have got them eventually but having completed most of the puzzle in 12 minutes, when I found myself with no progress after anther 8, with 20 minutes on the clock I decided to throw in the towel.

   I won’t go through all of them but CHARLEROI was one, a Belgian city that somehow I never heard of despite having visited the country many times. OBJURE didn’t delay me unduly, but I’ve not come across it before and this was its first appearance here.

   1. Thanks. I hadn’t remembered LA as an interjection had come up before.

6. 14.33, another tough one. I didn’t know a SNAKEBITE was a drink but I do now. That and CHEQUE were my LOsI. Hard but fair from Breadman, and thank you John. I’m looking forward to some less taxing fare next week!

7. Hi – I’ve been lurking for about three months now after starting to learn these wonderful puzzles. Thank you bloggers and posters for helping me learn you are superb. I’ve even finished a handful without using Mr Google. But this week has absolutely thrown me. I won’t chuck the towel in but the QC has had the look and feel of the utterly incomprehensible 15×15. Surely there has to be a mix of challenges to keep all levels happy?

   1. If they are to be this varied, why not have an indicator like the Sudoku does. Surely the editor must have an idea, whether it is Easy or Fiendish. I don’t see any loss of enjoyment with this.

      1. I’m doubtful it’s possible to rate QCs as Easy/Moderate/Hard. You only have to look at the range of opinions on here to see there is discrepancy. I suspect it may be be algorithmically possible to define a Sudoku’s difficulty level due to its limited set of 9 numbers and its solving path.

         I’d also doubt whether the Editor (or anyone) would want to make that call. Firstly because it would begin to highlight that they’re not all just “quick” and secondly the days you misrate them are just going to frustrate solvers even more AND make the rater look inept.

         1. I agree that an editor would not much like to make that call. I think the quick snitch does an excellent job of ranking the difficulties. Todays is a stinker

            1. Problem with difficulty ratings is that one man’s meat is another man’s poison and also that, today is a good example, crosswords are generally not uniformly easy or difficult; yes, today’s was a bit trickier in a few places than most QCs, but a lot of it was pretty standard fare. Or, at least, that’s how it was for me; on many occasions I have come to this blog stumped on a clue or two (or more) to find that most solvers found it easy.

               1. As I’ve said before, the the objective of the Quick Crossword is to provide an introductory level for solvers that will help them graduate to the 15×15. This does not mean the crosswords always have to be easy. To my mind, anything that is easier than an average 15×15 (which this one is) is a valid QC and there will be a spectrum of difficulty up to that level. Yes this is at the harder end, but that does not invalidate it as a Quick Crossword. As for classifying the crossword’s difficulty, the best approach is that of the SNITCH, which requires a large number of solvers to get a value. I don’t think the subjective view of the setter or editor would be accurate enough.

   2. Welcome! According to the Quitch this has been, by far, the toughest week ever. I’m hoping normal service will resume next week.

      https://quick.xwdsnitch.link/

8. Threw in the towel at 34 with Ajax not found and cheque only just discovered.

   Some clever clues but we needed a lot of help with some of the parsing, thanks John.

9. Are these QCs getting much harder, or am I just falling behind in not doing them every day?

10. I only finished this because I’d noticed that there was a possible double pangram on the cards so started looking for high scrabble letters.

    I don’t usually complain about difficulty levels as I enjoy a challenge but I think the crossword editor has got it wrong this week. The average Quitch for the week is 12o at the time of writing whereas it’s usually in the 80s or 90s.

    Having said that there were some cracking clues and I particularly enjoyed the PDM for LOI AJAX.
    Fell over the line in 15.29.
    Thanks to John

    1. “The average Quitch for the week … whereas it’s usually in the 80s or 90s.”

       This isn’t quite correct.

       The Quitch data goes back to start of March 2023. It averaging 90s or 100s from there to end of January 2024. There was just one week in October 2023 where it averaged in the 80s.

       Then from Feb to June of this year it averaged 80s and 90s with only one week over 100. This is the period when people stopped complaining about “Are these gettting harder?”; we were all enjoying them.

       Since July they have gone back to averaging 90s or 100s with just one week in the 80s. Despair is beginning to set in again.

11. CHEQUE my LOI because I was looking for funky letters. Nice puzzle, some good surfaces here. I’m learning more and more about asteroids with these puzzles, I would have said they’re shaped like giant rocks rather than stars.

    1. But it is ASTEROID the adjective we need here, which means “shaped like a star”. Blog updated to make that clearer.

12. DNF. Or rather CTW (Complete Train Wreck). 4 left unsolved when I gave up, 4 wild guesses, eyebrows not so much raised as in permanent orbit 3 feet above my head.

    When a blogger of the skill and experience as John writes “Not a word I’d seen before” (COW CALF), “Never seen ‘LA’” for ‘see’” (LAZY EYE), “I thought ‘Bender’ for ‘snake’ was stretching things a bit” (SNAKEBITE), “That was a bit tricky” (FUSELAGE), and “I didn’t know the meaning of the word” (OBJURE) all in the same blog, something is amiss. I throw in from my side AJAX (no idea what was going on, NHO ax = US guitar), ASTEROID (“like a starfish” is about 15th on the list of the top ten most common meanings of the word), CHARLEROI (NHO, even if getable from the wordplay) and even WIT = sense (not very close IMO, and the best I could come up with was “he had his wits / sense about him” which is not very good), and it is clear that either I have misunderstood what a QC is meant to be or Breadman has.

    This is not to say that hard puzzles should never feature. But of late the variation between the puzzles has become much more notable and more extreme – that this puzzle can be put in the same slot as the one from Jimmy just two days ago suggests that the Times does not really know the audience for the puzzle. Moreover it is a complete random toss-up what one gets: there is no rhythm to the week, as there is for example with other Times puzzles such as the Polygon or KenKen puzzles which start easy on Monday and get tougher through the week, and there is no indicator of standard as there is with Sudokus etc. All of which means that one has no idea what to expect, and that leads to frustrations.

    The QC badly needs a Crossword Editor to re-establish some norms. The brief which includes both Wednesday’s and then today’s puzzle is too widely drawn.

    Many thanks John for the blog. I shall enjoy the Sunday Special even more than usual after today.
    Cedric

    1. In an earlier post I asked a question. Your post provides me with a comprehensive answer. Thank you.

    2. Re: your complaint about WIT .. I’d add IT=new technology … perhaps it was in the 90s.

    3. Thank you for that. You have said, but in a much more eloquent and precise and thorough way, what I have been feeling about these puzzles recently. And to think I used to look forward to trying, if not always completing, them

    4. I’m surprised that setters should need the discipline of an editor, but it seems you are right. Perhaps they are naturally inclined towards sadism, and aren’t averse to a bit of showing off, but even so I would have thought that they could stick to their brief. Would setting anonymously help? I wonder if not wanting to appear soft has a part to play.

       1. Having seen the adulation heaped upon friendlier souls, Jimmy et al, and the invective towards the “tough” setters, it would be masochism rather than sadism encouraging them…

          1. Or revenge.

             1. I don’t think it’s anything of the sort. It is actually quite difficult (I say this from experience) for a setter to recognise a clue they have come up with might be tricky for a lot of solvers and to give up on a clever clue to search for an easier one. Sawbill, Phil and I in our Weekend Quick Cryptics use each other and a handful of regular test solvers who do the Times QC daily to try and keep a uniform standard but we often are left with one or two tricky clues.

    5. “more extreme” – yep, more trouble from global warming . . .
       Philip

    6. ‘sense’ and ‘wit’ are interchangeable in the phrase ‘you’d have thought he’d have the wit/sense to realise what was happening’

13. 18:06. A nice puzzle, but another hard one. I didn’t spot the double pangram. LOI CHEQUE: after I’d seen it (too late to help) I remembered the very good advice that if there’s a U consider a Q. I liked AJAX with the American guitar and VOLLEYBALL

14. Cracking, was it? *Q*C, was it? Couldn’t crack it at all, neither Q nor slow. Quite the very worst since as long as I can remember. Got four little ones at the bottom, then nothing. I’ll be intrigued to read your instructions, John, and see whether I should be rapping myself over the knuckles.
    Think the answer is No! Here (at the risk of being tiresome) are my MERs:
    1. In what context is AS for Anglo-Saxon found, please?
    4 (NHO COW or COW-CALF): abbreviation for California is CA (not CAL)
    10. Why is Dicky an anagram indicator?
    14. Note can be any A to G; bar can be any of ten or more entirely different words; unknown can be X, Y or Z. 7 x 10 x 3 = 210; so random that any foothold is impossible.
    23: you’ve said it all
    1: NHO AQUA (is it a word?), 2: NHO AX or AJAX (GK?? really G?), 6 NHO
    3: you’ve said half of it, but NHO the drink either (never was one for cocktails)
    5: tiny point: you’ve a typo here, John (wife, not wide)
    13: guessed Benz but DNK his first name
    Sorry about all that, but I’m feeling grumpy.
    Thank you, Cedric, for articulating most eloquently what a nipper such as I wouldn’t dare to.
    Finally thank you, John, for all your hard work – will try and learn!

    1. Once you start the game of “in what context is this initial ever seen” you are on a road to trouble. The answer seems to be “on a secret piece of paper passed around crossword setters since the 1930s”

       1. Thank you – do I rest my case?! Thank you also for your “Easy/Moderate/Fiendish” idea – yes, that would be good. Had it been headed Super Fiendish there would be no grounds for feeling grumpy.

          1. All definitions will be found in a dictionary (Chambers is the reference dictionary for Time Crosswords). I believe that setters are told a restricted list of abbreviations that they can use in clues (apart from the Mephisto where anything that can be found in the dictionary goes) so you will find a lot fewer abbreviations in the corpus of Times crosswords than in, say the Guardian or Independent. AS for Anglo-Saxon may not be common, but it must be on the list for the editor to let it through.
             Will fix the typo. Thanks.

             1. Thank you for your kind explanations, John – and for not furiously losing patience with me! All clear.

    2. It was a bit of a sod. I’m no expert on anything, but Cal didn’t seem too extreme, as in CalTech. Cow-Calf as such INHO but the verb to cow was known to me so the answer became apparent.
       AS for Anglo Saxon: couldn’t see any other way it could serve a purpose in the clue, graduates had to be BA, MA or the like, so I didn’t sweat it further when AMASS fitted nicely.
       Dicky as in dicky heart, something a bit off or wobbly, I think. Obscure in my view, but again it had to be doing something in the clue and the literal had to be Gloomy, and there were the right number of letters following. I work on the basis that if there is likely looking anagrist, there is almost no limit to how obscure the anagrand can be…

       1. Thank you, most kind. You’re right: we did have CALTECH the other day (NHO it then, should have learnt it now). Suppose you’re right about AS (admits reluctantly).

          1. Both CA and CAL are used as abbreviations for California. CA is the official two-letter abbreviation (all states are referred to by a 2-letter abbreviation), but CAL is more traditional.

15. Another DNF, and I finished the 15×15 in under 30. This was well hard. I truly think today’s 15×15 and QC got mixed up. Just check the size of the blog entries. Almost no additional explanations needed over on the Big One. Where’s today’s blog ( nicely done, John) has so many additional explanations. Starfish ?

    I missed the double pangram, not that it would have helped much. The checkers for the SNAKEBITE clue were terrible for alphabet trawling. At least 10 letters can plausibly fit between S and A, for example. I had the clue backwards anyway, looking for a “bender”.

    Surprisingly AJAX was my first one in, but didn’t see AX= guitar, it’s a brand? Or slang?

    And why LA for “see”. I seriously thought about LOZY EYE. “From Hollywood” or even “Note” would work much better. It’s already a tough definition.

    COD CHEQUE which I didn’t get, because the homophone I was looking for was CZECH!

    1. AX (or AXE over here) is slang for guitar; so AXEMAN for guitarist. Like “kitchen” is slang for the percussion section.

    2. TBF whenever I check the 15×15 blog (rarely, im still not there yet) its always light on explanation.

       I am very surprised that Americans spell Axe for guitar without the E, is that how they spell the chopping tool too?

       1. Indeed. I blame Noah Webster who had an anti-Brit streak. He was struck by the inconsistencies of English spelling and the obstacles it presented to learners (young and old alike) and resented that American classrooms were filled only with British textbooks. He started the spelling reforms such as “colour” with “color,” “centre” with “center,” “defence” with “defense,” “plough” with “plow,” “draught” with “draft,” and “gaol” with “jail.”.

          But the next round of changes were resoundingly rejected: Cloke: Cloak, Soop: Soup, Masheen: Machine, Tung: Tongue, Greef: Grief, Dawter: Daughter, Korus: Chorus, Nightmar: Nightmare
          Turnep: Turnip, Iland: Island etc

16. Another brain strainer. I guessed it was likely to be a pangram from early answers, and much later that a double was possible. That did help me to work out SNAKEBITE and CHEQUE, my last two in, after some lengthy pondering. Bender for snake seemed unnecessarily obscure, and until the answer came to me I wasn’t sure which end of the clue was the literal.
    CHEQUE should have been easier for me, but wasn’t. As soon as I twigged there was a floating U, and I tried a Q with it, all became obvious.
    OBJURE was barely in my vocab, but the clue was fair.
    It has felt like a tough week. I don’t chase times, but I know breakfast hasn’t seen me through most of them, requiring additional caffeine. I don’t (now) mind harder ones, and even the occasional DNF, but if I were newer to this I don’t think I would be enjoying it much.
    Excellent blog, as ever.

17. Another lot of hard yakka. Blimey. What a week.

    At least I finished this one, but LOI SNAKEBITE tested my trawling skills to destruction. When the penny dropped I wasn’t that impressed with “bender maybe” for “snake”. And LA for “see”? Geddouttahere.

    On the other hand I did like the (hard but fair, and extremely clever) AJAX, and CHARLEROI, and VOLLEYBALL, and the excellent hidden TITUS. So this gave plenty of pleasure, even if it made my brain hurt.

    The QUITCH is running at 147! Absolute scenes.

    All done in 11:54 which in the circumstances I’m classifying as a Pretty Damn Good Day. Many thanks Breaders and John.

18. The main puzzle is easier today. far too tricky for a quickie!!

    1. Yes, I rarely attempt the 15×15, but I did today and it was noticeably easier than this.

19. For once saw the double pangram which helped with my LOI BRAZIL. I agree with all John’s comments. Thanks jackkt for your comment which reminded me that ladies in historical novels (eg Georgette Heyer) regularly said ‘la’!

20. 27:51 for the solve!

    The last four mins spent going through the pangram to establish I was missing both J and X and then vaguely having heard of AJAX as a classical hero. The trouble with pangrams is they can force the setter to find unfamiliar words.

    It’s been a tough week . For those not coming back on Saturday, have a good weekend 👍

21. DNF

    Great puzzle, all done just on my target 20 minutes but foiled by a DPS by biffing Karl with a C. In my defence, I spotted the double pangram and already had two Ks.

22. I did manage to complete this and I don’t time myself.
    LOI AJAX became a write-in once I realised the double pangram and there was only one J & X.
    With SEPULCHRAL I waited for all the checking letters before sorting the anagrist.
    I enjoyed the challenge.

23. DNF. As with most of these puzzles for the past fortnight.
    In my humble opinion – just too hard for a Quick Cryptic. Very good for the ‘experts’ – but then they have many other tough ones which they can have fun with. It has just ruined the end of the week for me. I suspect that there are quite a few others, though, for whom these puzzles are becoming less and less do-able. These QCs are the main reason why I get The Times on a daily basis. So I am at the point of cancelling my subscription.
    Does anyone agree that these puzzles are becoming too hard to be considered ‘Quick Cryptics’ ?
    Please speak up if you agree with me .

    1. These issues are discussed at great length earlier in the blog Gordon

    2. As I’ve said before… the objective of the Quick Crossword is to provide an introductory level for solvers that will help them graduate to the 15×15. This does not mean the crosswords always have to be easy. To my mind, anything that is easier than an average 15×15 (which this one is) is a valid QC and there will be a spectrum of difficulty up to that level. Yes this is at the harder end, but that does not invalidate it as a Quick Crossword. Indeed it took me less than half the time of today’s 15×5 which, with a SNITCH of 82, is at the easier end of 15x15s.

24. Another toughie to either entertain or perplex us, depending on your point of view. I biffed quite a few but resolved to carefully check everything on completion. This paid dividends when I corrected my initial spelling of FUSELAGE. I stopped in my tracks at the cryptic LA for ‘see’, but it had to be LAZY EYE so in it went. AJAX followed by CHEQUE were my last two to be completed, not helped by the fact that I failed to notice the double pangram. Come to that I didn’t notice it was even a single pangram! I crossed the line in 13.18 feeling it wasn’t an unreasonable time for a puzzle of that difficulty. Quite a few of the clues wouldn’t have looked out of place in the 15×15.
    My total time for the week was 66.00, giving me a daily average of 13.12. Without doubt the toughest week, for me at least, since the QC started.

25. 8:58

    I am firmly on the ‘cracking puzzle’ side of the fence, though I can certainly see why it did not agree with so many. That I knew of both AJAX and of AX = US guitar (though as a former axeman myself, I would have spelt it AXE), SNAKEBITE as a drink (drunk regularly by one of my pals – hardly a cocktail though!), CHARLEROI (never been to Belgium but this was one of the venues for the Euro 2000 football championship held in Belgium & The Netherlands), and BENZ’s first name, all certainly helped to complete this grid in a decent time. Having said that, I had not heard of a COW-CALF before, and couldn’t have been sure of the meaning of OBJURE, but the wordplay in my opinion, was all very fair.

    Many thanks to John for unravelling, and to Breadman for the challenge.

    1. I also only remembered CHARLEROI as one of the venues for the Euro’s of 2000. Given their proximity to World Cup France ’98 – I’m never quite sure which country it’s located in.

       FWIW SNAKEBITE was clued as “mixed drink” which it is.

    2. I thought that the NZ was going to end up in eNZo (Ferrari).

26. So many have already mentioned the unfathomable LA for ‘see’. Can anyone explain where such a definition can be found? I suspect it may be a mistake.
    Barry J

    1. Quick google has Merriam-Webster with LA = “used for emphasis or expressing surprise” which could be synonymous with how someone exclaims “See!” when they spot something or prove it. Tenuous for a QC but I’d assume that’s what the setter was working with.

    2. See Jackkt’s comment above. It has appeared in a Times Crossword before.

27. I liked it better than yesterday, but let down by unnecessary cluing like bender for snake – what??
    I’m starting to warm to the idea that Ninas are a problem for QCs.
    Thanks John and Breadman

    1. I came to the conclusion a long time ago that Ninas often produce an unbalanced, disjointed, odd puzzle. I have said so on many occasions but some solvers always disagreed.
       I think they are unnecessary and simply satisfy an odd compulsion that some setters suffer from.

       1. Exactly.

    2. The pangram wasn’t the problem, it was the cluing that was obtuse. I mean why choose LA=see when there are plenty of other ways to clue it. And the ASTEROID as being star shaped. Its not, its rock shaped.

28. I agree with Cedric’s long post above and also with Merlin and others. This week has been horrendous with a marked shortage of QUICK Cryptics. Good puzzles fail us if they are set at an unrealistic level. We are not all ‘whizz-kids’!
    Like Merlin, I completed the 15×15 in much less time than it took me to fail to finish this one.
    We will never increase (or even maintain) the number of QC solvers if puzzles at this level are presented as ‘quick cryptics’.
    The QC needs an effective Editor. It manages to maintain an excellent selection of bloggers, not least John today. It should be possible to filter out the puzzles that clearly belong on the 15×15 page.

    1. As I’ve said before… the objective of the Quick Crossword is to provide an introductory level for solvers that will help them graduate to the 15×15. This does not mean the crosswords always have to be easy. To my mind, anything that is easier than an average 15×15 (which this one is) is a valid QC and there will be a spectrum of difficulty up to that level. Yes this is at the harder end, but that does not invalidate it as a Quick Crossword.

29. DNFx3 AJAX, SNAKEBITE, CHEQUE. Should have got the latter but was worn out by then. Managed CHARLEROI once I got SEPULCHRAL.
    Oh, another error? I put ABJURE – OBJURE not in my dictionary. Solved COW CALF with MER.
    Failed to see double pangram, or I might have done better. Cleverness by the setter doesn’t often result in an enjoyable QC, imo.
    Thanks vm, John, for vital blog.

30. A mix of enjoyable and horrid! Objure is not a word I know and sepulchral is definitely not! I am getting a bit fed up with extremely obscure words and definitions – this is meant to be a QUICK cryptic!

    1. See my reply to John’s comment above. One of the skills to develop is to routinely derive a word you’ve never heard of from the wordplay. COW-CALF was an example for me today.

31. Another tricky one. NHO, CHARLEROI or COW-CALF but the wordplay was fair. Took a while to see SNAKEBITE. I knew the drink and spotted it from crossers then made the bender/snake connection. Remebered the La/Lo thing from a previous puzzle. A bit of a rarity in everyday speech! CHEQUE was LOI. AJAX and AQUA were first 2 in. Aqua is in fairly common usage as a colour in the rag trade. Didn’t notice the pangram as usual. 11:44. Thanks Breadman and John.

    1. I’m struggling to know when a “COW CALF” in any way stops confusion with other calves like whales, elephants or reindeer. No other domesticated animals have calves. So when a farmer talks about calves, he’s talking about cows.

       1. Humans have calves. Mine are behind my shins. However, Mrs Random would question whether I have ever been properly domesticated.

          1. 😄

          2. 🤣

       2. I’m guessing the important distinction is between a cow-calf and a bull-calf. I think farmers normally prefer the females

       3. If you are a dairy farmer it is VITALLY important to have cow-calves rather than bull-calves as one bull is enough for many cows, but bulls don’t give milk and have to be eaten young instead of growing into a milker.

32. I finished this nearly an hour ago, but needed some time to calm down before commenting. Suffice to say that, when they get this difficult they cease to be enjoyable. God only knows what newbies will make of this week. Invariant

33. I couldn’t begin to do this crossword: I agree with Martinu that it is quite the hardest I have encountered in many years of doing the quick cryptic. Also left in a VERY bad mood!

34. Agree with these comments. Just no fun, some of these clues were boggling in their obscurity. Sorry to say this smacked of a setter’s self indulgence , without any heed at all for the fact that it is supposed to be a QUICK Crossword for some people (like me) who don’t aspire to the dizzy heights of the 15×15.

    An editor for T2 Quick crosswords – soon please.

    1. See my reply to John’s comment above.

35. Crawled home in 45:08, but AJAM turned out to be wrong. Kicking myself because I did consider AJAX. Thought there was a hero of that name, but didn’t see how it fitted. If only I’d noticed the double pangram. No cigar for me. Thanks all.

36. I posted the following yesterday, but probably too late for most people to see it. With Friday’s Snitch currently running at 144 I feel the QC is just becoming a mini 15×15, which is beyond my capabilities and brings me very little pleasure.

    The standard of the QCs seems to be very inconsistent at the moment. Tuesday’s Snitch was 138, followed by 83 and today’s 125, which left me with two DNFs. Looking back to January of this year there was only one score over 110 in the whole month – that was 123. The vast majority were in the 90 – 110 range, which is where I feel most comfortable with my level of solving.

37. Death, taxes and bleating here if you can’t do a cryptic crossword in the time you expect, or have to think about how to construct a NHO from wordplay.

    I’ll be commenting on the 15×15 only from now on, it’s just tedious.

    LOI CHEQUE was a belter, as was the surface for VOLLEYBALL, ABOVE ALL was good too. A cracking crossword indeed from Breadman, full of good surfaces, a variety of clue types with a double pangram to boot. What’s not to like?

    8:26

    1. Noooo, don’t leave us Hopkin. Bad dog.

    2. That would be a pity (ruth?) after your comprehensive and very civilised reply to my (hopefully civilised) response to your post yesterday.

       P.S. I would also love to tackle 3-4 crosswords each day, but I’m afraid I just don’t have 3-4 hours to spare.

       P.P.S. I managed to construct the NHO OBJURE from wordplay.

       1. All civilised indeed! Appreciate the reply.

          Edit: I don’t have 3 – 4 hours free either! I do what I can in an hour or so.

    3. Hear hear, old chap.

    4. I don’t often attempt the 15×15 but I did today, and it was rather easier than the “Quick”, as others have also commented. It doesn’t seem unreasonable for people, especially the less experienced who are still learning, including how to cope with a NHO from parsing alone, to raise an eyebrow; we all had to start somewhere and this is where we would want them to do it, surely?

38. Clearly going against the grain here but I thought this was a cracking puzzle. Where’s the fun in being able to complete something easily every day? I’ve had an extra long coffee break this morning – what’s not to like?! In the process I’ve learned that American ax = British axe, that la = see, that SEPULCHRAL means gloomy, and that there is such a thing as a COW-CALF. I do concede that I don’t care whether I finish a puzzle or not, nor how long it takes; the enjoyment is in the process. Isn’t that the point? I guess I’m in a rather small minority. Thanks for the excellent blog John. I do understand everyone’s frustration; I just don’t share it. Thanks Breadman. Particularly liked ABOVE ALL and SEPULCHRAL (biffed, but now I know what it actually means!). Thanks all. Great to hear everyone’s different perspectives and all given in such a respectful manner.

    1. Well, easier than yesterday but I only finished with aids and use of check button in 35 min and one error – c/karl

       I got cow calf but nho. A quick search showed cow-calf as something to do with trains.
       Cow-calf dairies are also apparently a thing. It is where calves are raised with their mothers until 5-6 months.

       Cheekily looked up Benz and saw wiki Carl Benz so bunged that in. Thinking car + l..

       Quite a few biffed in, so thank you for helpful blog.

39. I’m sure you know whats’s coming: a resounding DNF of course, but this time with only 4 clues unsolved (it was 11, yesterday). That means 17 of the last 30 crosswords (and 6 of the last 7) have beaten me. Ridiculous, given that I had steadily built up my long term success rate to 90+% before this all started around 3 months ago.

    The culprits today were AJAX, CHEQUE, CHARLEROI and INEPT. Such a shame after I had started well with 10 clues solved during my first pass. Most of the rest of the time was just sheer torture.

    Many thanks for the blog, John.

    1. Certainly no quibble that they’ve got harder.

       But isn’t your 90+% solving rate based on struggling for as long as you were willing? What is the adjustment if you count successful solves taking longer than 40mins as DNFs?

       1. I normally do 30 mins…which plunges my success rate to 68%

          1. My mental cutoff is any puzzle taking over 25mins is tough. My early 2023 stats were lost in the Great Crash of May but I still have some data since.

             What I hadn’t realised is that 10 of the past 19 puzzles have taken me out past 25mins. (Last 3 weeks).

             Compare that to when I restarted my records in July and just 8 of the next 50 took over 25mins.

40. I guess ‘la’ can mean ‘see’ if you speak Singlish, la. It’s a very useful word.

    1. How are you doing Tina? You have been conspicuous by your absence this week.

       1. Oh that’s very sweet of you ND! turns out the daylight savings is screwing with me a bit – the crossword comes out an hour later than it used to, and that timing often means I don’t get to it til much later in my day. Coupled with how busy I’ve been and how hard the puzzles have been, I’m throwing in the towel mid puzzle!

          1. I see. I’m sure it will all settle down again soon 🤞

41. Yet another very difficult QC. DNF – AJAX unknown – apart from being a cleaner. Needed all chekers to get SEPULCHRAL, not seeing the anagram. Biffed CHEQUE and COWCALF. Phew.

42. This took me 25 minutes compared with yesterday’s 22, so another hard puzzle, and not really fitting the description of a QC.
    But I thought it was a good challenge and at least the Roman Emperor was a hidden and not clued partly by an old dominion (a recent 15×15 clue).
    My LOI was SNAKEBITE which took a lot of decoding. An excellent and difficult clue and a reminder of a drink which I sensibly gave up when still a student.
    I toyed with AZUR at 1d but the spelling and parsing were dodgy and AJUS? was removed by UNAWARE.
    COD to CHARLEROI.
    Lots more to comment on but I’ll leave the lazy eye etc. as covered above.
    David

43. Finished without TOO much trouble, with more time spent on AQUA, SNAKEBITE and CHEQUE than on the rest of the puzzle put together.

    CHEQUE – no excuses, the “plastic” = payment method penny suddenly dropped; it should have dropped a lot sooner.

    AQUA – needed an alphabet trawl. I’ve not heard of “aqua” as a colour, but once I got to Q, I thought that it might be the answer, especially since nothing else really worked, and I saw the “half tank” thing, although I thought of “aqualung” rather than “aquarium” – comes of being a Jethro Tull fan I guess.

    SNAKEBITE – LOI. I know the drink concerned (vile, and tends to mark you out as a lager lout) and, having thought of it, I could see how it parsed; but “bender” = snake? if you say so…

44. if a qsnitch of 100 is meant to be an average difficulty QC, why do so many (especially this week) have a qsnitch of over 100 . . . And today a long way over 100?

    This is not a complaint about a range of difficulties. This is asking why (it seems) so few are at the easier end of the range. Thanks.

45. I thought this was very tricky, but I did finish. As always totally missed the double pangram.
    4a Cow Calf. Rather “green paint” I think. Wiktionary has bull calf as a derived term from calf, but without its own entry.
    23a Lazy Eye bifd. Does LA, Los Angeles, have a bishop, making it a see? My Aunty Joyce had a lazy eye.
    3d Snakebite. I think bender=snake is odd. Didn’t stop me but slowed me.
    6d Asteroid. Doesn’t mean star-shaped except for the starfish meaning, it means resembling a star. That was in terms of a bright spot visible thru a telescope. Asteroids are irregularly shaped. So a MER.
    7d Charleroi, super clue, but NHO AFAIK. On checking I added it to my Cheating Machine YEARS ago, so HHO.
    13d Karl Benz not in CM, added, unusual spelling. He was in as Carl. Took ages as didn’t parse without using the brake with its K. It might have been kinder to clue it with a brace?

    1. Wiki has this FWIW:
       Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles
       Not to be confused with Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles.
       The Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles is a community of 48,874 Episcopalians in 147 congregations, 40 schools, and 18 major institutions, spanning all of Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, Santa Barbara, and Ventura counties, and part of Riverside County.

       1. Cow-calf, as mentioned in comments above, is a term used to differentiate male from female calves (cf bull-calf). As for LA being a diocese, nice lateral thinking, but it is simply an alternative to “Lo!”. See jackkt’s comment above.

46. DNF. Failed on SNAKEBITE and AJAX. I knew abjure so OBJURE wasn’t too much of a stretch. I stared at CHEQUE for a long time before the penny dropped. LA? Well, it seemed possible. Also I thought of Charlevoix first and cARL BENZ before solving those. Even with all those difficulties I enjoyed the solve. To me it’s not either/or, black or white, I solve successfully (hurray!) or DNF(what a horrible waste of time!) I enjoy the ones I crack and hope to learn from those I miss, so even on a hard challenge like this puzzle I solve around 5 or 6 times as many as I fail on.

47. What a tour de force congratulations to Breadman. I´ve been doing Times and Grauniad 15×15 for the last61 years.Since the halcyon days of Araucaria,Bunthorne,Xerxes…et al and under the editorships of E.Akenhead,John Grant…Richard Rogan.IMHO this was worthy of mention in such esteemed company.Many thanks I’ll definitely look forward to more 13x13s of this calibre..

    1. It is certainly a very clever crossword. Some of the clues show great ingenuity. I am not a regular at the 15×15 so I will take your word for it that it ranks alongside the great 15×15 puzzles. But that rather makes the point that so many on this blog have been making, which is that it is not a QC and should not have been offered us in the QC slot.

       Château Pétrus is a superb wine. But if I want a simpler wine for quaffing and someone offers me a Pétrus, then they have misunderstood what I was hoping for and have got it wrong.

       1. I think it’s just at the harder end of the QC spectrum. Yes it has some good clues but there is nothing fiendish.

48. Way beyond my ken,I agree fun goes out of it if you rapidly realise you’ve got no chance of completion

49. DNF in half an hour. I gave up with CHEQUE unsolved but I also had a pink square for the obviously wrong ABJURE. I agree with andyf, COW-CALF seems like green paint. Thanks John and Breadman.

50. Yet again a setter has missed the QC brief it’s beginning to get very boring. Please would the editor restate some standards for the QC versus the main crossword!

    1. See my comment to John (and others) above. It is just at the harder end of the range of difficulty designed to be an introduction to the 15×15.

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