Times Quick Cryptic 2860 by Teazel

95 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 2860 by Teazel”

1. 25:01 with one error.

   I put DEBTORS in for DUBIOUS, once I had seen it for “promises of payment” I couldn’t unsee it. Of course I should have thought of IOUs, but “surely nothing else fits”.

   NHO GERMANDER, and it doesn’t look like a plant. Needed all the crossers. Didn’t really understand TEA FOR TWO, and that pop song is now 100 years old.

   I liked Cana=miraculous place, and Abel=murder victim. I didn’t know GRANITA was a food, just knew it as a North London restaurant where Brown and Blair plotted the rise of New Labour.

   Is a HACKER really a chopper, for what? Steak, wood?

   COD ACCENT

   1. Any song that’s remained universally popular for 100 years has more than earned its place here. It has been recorded literally thousands of times by a whole range of artistes, for example:

      A classic jazz recording by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong in 1956
      A pop version by Frank Sinatra in 1958
      A country version by Patsy Cline in 1962
      A rock version by The Beatles in 1969
      A contemporary pop version by Norah Jones in 2002
      And its popularity continues to this day.

      Collins can help you with HACKER – from HACK to cut or chop (at) irregularly, roughly, or violently.

      1. And don’t forget Anita O’Day’s amazing performance at the Newport Jazz Festival (worth a look on YouTube)

         1. Not really to my taste, but I appreciate her skill. Great fun watching the AI subtitles trying to keep up though!

      2. A flurry of cited recordings in 15 years, then one in the subsequent 55 years, 23 years ago. Not sure I’m convinced its popularity does continue to this day!

         1. Those are just examples. There are literally (sic) thousands of others.

            1. Maybe so but Wikipedia doesn’t list a charting recording or a notable cover more modern than 1959!

            2. But I bet many of us can sing most (if not all) of the words!

   2. The second line is ‘two for tea’, was my thinking, and it’s a number……

      1. Yes, as the clue mentions number first and meal after I immediately thought TWO FOR TEA.

   3. A “hacker” as a specific noun isn’t a chopper as far as I’m aware. As an agent noun, however, i.e. “one who hacks” then it works as a synonym for the agent noun “chopper”, i.e. “one who chops”.

2. Biffed a few, including the two long downs, never parsed them. Still took me too long. 8:14.

3. So that’s how ASEPTIC works, I had the answer but the parsing evaded me. Managed to remember ABEL as the murder victim but couldn’t see what was going on with CANALETTO. Mistook take-off in 21d as ‘imitate’. I think if you chop away at something, then you could be hacking at it. COD to CRADLE TO GRAVE.
   Thanks Jack and setter.

   1. My pruning is not really chopping but hacking, so hacker as chopper chimed with me.

4. Well, definitely not on the wavelength. I got very few in the first pass, and struggled to solve the anagrams, writing down all the letters and still not seeing them. Germander was the worst, as I had never heard of it and wasn’t sure if it was a plant or a river. Well, at least I could parse aseptic.

   Time: 16:19

   1. GERMANDER has appeared as an answer 7 or 8 times over the years, most recently in February 2022 when it was in the QC on Friday 4th and the Sunday Times on the 6th.

5. Well, I just proved that trying to do a crossword while Mitchell Starc is ripping through India (Oz got 445, India 4 for sod all with a rain delay) is not advisable. I’d guess my time would be north of 15 but there were so many delays, and so many lapses in concentration, that it’s fairly meaningless. I also failed on LIES so a DNF anyway. That, along with PEACHY, remained outstanding for so long that I eventually gave up on the former. Turns out it was easy. Liked CANALETTO, CRADLE TO GRAVE and ASEPTIC. In Oz GRANITA is a biscuit. Thanks Jack and Teazel.

   1. My inclination when I get stumped is to think of references or allusions which are more and more abstract or obtuse; most of the time it would be better to go the other direction and try to find the lowest common denominator.
      [Except for last Friday’s 15×15, of course]

6. Never really comfortable and definitely didn’t parse everything and I can’t spell CANeLETTO and couldn’t save myself by knowing Cana. One to forget. Not all green in 17.38.

7. An early hours 11.41 solve for me which based on the early comments I will take.

   Off to Loughborough for the funeral of an elderly relative today. Whilst contemplating this in the wee hours and completing the QC I imagined my late ‘Aunty’ Stella would have been quite proud for I remember a time as a kid in the 1980s when she visited us in Southport for Sunday dinner and arrived with a guest in tow who turned out to be quite a clever bloke called John Sykes who was introduced as the then 5 times The Times Crossword champion. He signed my Dads copy of the OED which maintains pride of place in his bookcase.

   Hopefully will get time for a pop at the 15×15 on the train.

   I guess COD for me has to be the collapsing codger.

   Thanks for blog Jack as there were more than one or two I didn’t fully parse at the time….

   1. I’ve just read Sykes’s Wikipedia entry – what a brain! (I particularly liked this bit – “Though he only spoke German and Dutch in addition to English, Harwell’s records attest that Sykes had scientific reading knowledge of fifteen languages, specializing in Russian translation. He developed his ability to read these languages by first learning the relevant scientific terminology and the grammar of the language without attending to the literature or spoken form.”)

      1. I will say…just…wow!

   2. Condolences from a Loughburian – I hope the day went as well as it could have

8. My GK was stretched by Teazel today with a few having to be dredged from the depths – CANALETTO (both the artist and the ‘miraculous place), GERMANDER and GRANITA being the obvious examples.

   All in all a steady and enjoyable solve starting with HACKER and finishing with PEACHY in 8.32 but with ASEPTIC unparsed – I got as far as a, sept for month and then a blank for the final ‘ic’, completely missing the replacement instruction. COD to DUBIOUS for the surface.

   Thanks to Jackkt

9. So I did this online, which I just about never do. 9.50 which is nearly double my target. Is this because it was a tricky puzzle, it didn’t seem so, or does it just take a while to get used to typing rather than quickly scribbling? I shall have to do this a bit more often and see.

   1. My experience that a phone solve is 50% slower than an ipad solve. I don’t do paper often but I think that’s probably even faster.

10. Got off to a good start down the left side and noticed the time was 9 minutes and something at that point so hoping to finish close to 20. The RHS was a different matter and took a lot of unpicking to end with cry and peach in 27.58

    Kept wondering about the anagram but dismissed it as surely “in lifelong” couldn’t be the definition, until it was. Nice one Teazel.

    Thanks Jack for the parsing of aseptic, also NHO Germander but with all the crossers and the anagrist it seemed the most likely option.

11. About 22mins when I bunged in CANALETTO unparsed and had NITS wrong – gave up alphabet trawling to try and correct it. I’d lost interest as it was a 15×15 stepping down rather than a decent QC. Barely knew GRANITA or GERMANDER – Jack’s comment above about the latter coming up in Feb 2022 – that’s two months after I started doing these. ATTIC for Greek is one the 15x15ers will put in immediately but if you don’t it completely buggers up ASEPTIC with the cross reference. Couldn’t parse GEL, CRY, ASEPTIC, didn’t know CANA or the artist’s name with certainty. Lots of things not to like.

12. Thanks Teazel and thanks Jack, especially for parsing ASEPTIC, which I bunged in. I found this harder than usual. Attic is also Classical Greek, the language of Attica, so perhaps the meaning of the clue could be the language Greek. Both work?

    1. Yes, Attic Greek is a language, mentioned in Dan Brown’s ‘Angels and Demons’.

13. Quite tricky but finished just within my theoretical 40 minute cut off time.
    Another one who couldn’t parse SEPTIC having missed the cross reference to 20a.
    COD: EXIST but also liked ACENT and CRY, both clever ‘take away’ clues.
    Thanks Teazel and Jack.

14. 8.36 WOU

    Thought it was just me but looks like others struggled with this one too. Finally wrestled it into submission but as the finger stabbed on the “submit” I saw the “98% complete” having not noticed LIES was not infilled.

    I’m not very familiar with plants so the alarm bells started ringing when the grist didn’t allow geranium!

    Thanks Teazel and Jackkt

    1. Or gardenia!

       1. Indeed. Actually I think that was the one I was thinking of. Green-fingered colleagues please look away!

15. Much of the above re parsing. Didn’t know the Greek relevance to ATTIC but it had to be. Spotted IOUS so missed that trap. Biffed CANALETTO then realised where CANA came from. In the end, sub 30. SCC is filling up but still room for me. I shall pass on the croissant as I am cutting down on pastries ahead of seasonal indulgences and gave up coffee a couple of months ago without remorse. Thanks Jack and Teazel.
    Thanks all.

    1. But how do you get your caffeine?

16. I got a bit stuck in the NE, which was largely blank after acrosses/downs tackled. Eventually ACCENT came and then they all tumbled in a rush. That left me to trawl -I-S, without being sure whether I was looking for insects or rests. After rejecting one of each (nits and sits, yes I do know that nits are only the eggs) eventually I got there.

    All that faffing around took me to 08:48 with ASEPTIC misparsed exactly as described by Plett. 1.1K and an OK Day.

    Many thanks Teazel and Jack.

17. I started this at a rush with most of the NW going straight in, and then slowed markedly. Several biffed but not fully parsed (could not parse ASEPTIC once I had decided the month was SEPT not SEP), and GERMANDER was a NHO guess as the most likely arrangement of the letters. And I still don’t understand the parsing of TEA FOR TWO – yes it is a meal, yes it has a number in it but how is the clue constructed?

    Still, some excellent clues alongside the ones I couldn’t fully work out – I particularly liked CRADLE TO GRAVE – and a 14 minute completion for a slightly slow start to the week.

    Many thanks Jack for the blog
    Cedric

    On edit Got the TEA FOR TWO five seconds after posting this – that sort of number …

18. 4:33. No problems and the long ones came quickly enough with the checkers from the across answers. I smiled at the surface for HOP. Thanks Teazel and Jackkt.

19. Found this a bit of a struggle today as there were very few that went in immediately. Biffed ASEPTIC and CRY – thanks Jack for the parsing. COD CANALETTO.

20. From HACKER to RELISH in 7:23. Not a geranium held me up for a while. Thanks Teazel and Jack.

21. 09:20 with one error as I invented some annoying insects called ‘skips’ in 15d…

    Otherwise I felt quite on the wavelength; NHO GERMANDER but with all the checkers, what else could it be?

    Thanks setter & blogger

22. Couldn’t do half of this. Thank you, jackkt; glad I didn’t spend any longer struggling as I’d never have got most of these in a million years.

    1. Nor would I have either. Much more difficult than usual.

23. 14:04, with the final three minutes stuck on 15d, where the list of annoying insects I went through in my head bizarrely did not include flies.
    It did not help that the crossword club site froze on me at this point, and I had to go into the settings of Chrome and clear the cache before continuing.

    Thanks Jack and Teazel

    1. I always clear cache before going to the club site: always.

24. Oh dear! I was lulled into a false sense of security as the NW corner went in very easily. Then I hit the buffers with GRANolA, CANA (unknown) DeBtOrS (couldn’t parse so stuck with it for DUBIOUS), GERMANDER requiring most of the checkers and finally LIES (not nits or tics). 11:10

25. 6:09

    Mostly OK – IOUS helped me to see 19a quickly, CANALETTO was an inspired guess and EXERCISE BOOKS an inspired biff. Had to write out the letters for unknown GERMANDER and for CRADLE TO GRAVE, but otherwise, fairly gentlish I felt.

    Thanks Jack and Teazel

26. I had a feeling I was on form today solving this in 8.08, as I sensed it was tougher than my time suggests. Some of the times posted by solvers who are almost always quicker than me, were slower today. I think perhaps I was helped by deciding to leave the two long anagrams at 3dn and 5dn until all the checkers were in place; a good decision as both were then fairly obvious. Although ASEPTIC was a fairly easy solve, I never got my head round the parsing, although the device used is common enough.

27. Waded through this in a slow-for-me time of about nine minutes. Nho GERMANDER, and CRADLE-TO-GRAVE was LOI (start by admitting, that from cradle to tomb…).

    The miracle at Cana is only in the Gospel of John, but it’s one that most people remember.

    Thanks Teazel and jack.

    1. Still being remembered after 2000+ years is not bad going!

       1. It’s not the kind of thing you expect from a religious figure, ensuring that free booze is on tap!

          1. Well, Jesus liked to party, but in this case his mum told him to do it.

          2. I always thought a refreshing pale ale would have gone well with the loaves and fishes.

             1. Or a Theakston’s maybe

28. 49 minutes. One error (kips in place of LIES) but did not use aids.

    Not sure why I made heavy weather of this, but I did.
    Spent ages trying to work out if pupils refered to students or to eyes, and I was determined that debt was going to be part of 19 across for far too long.
    My downfall was LIES. This word did not come to mind, and I decided that there must be annoying insects called skips.

    An enjoyable solve. COD attic.

    Thanks to Teazel and jacket.

29. A struggle, but finished all correct in 20 minutes.
    LOI LIES- I was looking for insect life and NITS were hard to get rid of.
    POI CRADLE TO GRAVE – did not see the definition until the phrase emerged from checkers and thought.
    No problem with Canaletto -there are loads of his pictures in London galleries, but as with all GK, if you don’t know it , you don’t know it.
    Overall a tough QC. I liked CHABLIS and PEACHY amongst others.
    David

30. Having read the comments above I don’t feel so bad about only getting four today. Some of the clues didn’t feel “quick” to me.

    1. Teazel can be very tricky – that’s been my experience anyway. Good luck and keep plugging away 😊

31. My GK is a lot better than my crossword ability and this is the first puzzle I’ve done where I felt that really helped. Still, count me among the crowd who needed all the checkers for GERMANDER.

    At least I’ll now be locked in if I ever see “Plant contains really hollow boundary changes (11)” or such like.

    1. I too thought of GERryMANDER so appreciate your clever clue!

       1. Yes, and now that it’s been explained to me I applaud it too!

32. HHO 10d Germander, which I only know from someone above saying it had been here before; it was totally forgotten. Required all the checks.
    Very slow on L2I 21d/23a Cry and Peachy.
    However was confident on 14d Aseptic, and shot straight off to 20a to put in Attic, providing “proof” for both answers.

33. Struggled through to an all correct, but didn’t understand ASEPTIC and CANALETTO. Some excellent clueing here. Tricky.
    Thanks for the blog, Jack

34. A witty puzzle. Forgot to go back and try to solve PEACHY.
    A bit slow on several inc EXERCISE BOOKS ( had pencilled in wrong word length- oh dear) and RESIST, DUBIOUS.
    Managed GERMANDER, unparsed CANALETTO, ATTIC, ASEPTIC.
    Liked GRANITA, DUBIOUS, HACKER, LABEL, CRY.
    Thanks vm, Jack.

35. Another great QC from Teazel. Very slow to see CRY/PEACHY and LIES. Didn’t parse ASEPTIC – thanks Jack. GERMANDER was only VHO. Smiled when I worked out LOI PEACHY so that gets COD. Thanks all.

36. 17 mins…

    Apart from trying to find an anagram for 7dn “Tea for Two” and being unaware of “Cana” for 11ac “Canaletto”, I thought this was a fairly straightforward QC. However, I will concede I never really parsed 14dn “Aspetic” properly.

    FOI – 1dn “Hop”
    LOI – 13ac “Strait”
    COD – 2dn “Chablis” – lovely clue and certainly true.

    Thanks as usual!

37. 13:50. NHO GERMANDER or GRANITA and PEACHY held me up because I had to banish ITCHY from my brain to allow ACHY in.

38. DNF after 12:25. Didn’t see how POI CRY worked, easier in hindsight!, but it was 15d that did for us where I finally bunged in (K)NITS not being able to see LIES / FLIES. No, I didn’t know ‘knits’ meant rests either. Thanks to Jack and Teazel.

39. Carried on from where I left off last week – slow throughout. I eventually came home in 21 minutes by when the club was getting full. Didn’t stop to parse ASEPTIC (not sure I would have been able to anyway) and CRY was only parsed after the event.

    FOI – 8ac PEACE
    LOI – 15dn LIES
    COD – 23ac PEACHY

    Thanks to Teazel and Jack

    1. I now remember that we couldn’t parse ASEPTIC either (didn’t get the 20 reference) but at least it didn’t detain us for long.

40. 18:48, the year of many revolutions. Not a fast time, but given that Teazel is a nemesis I was happy to avoid getting stuck, though I needed an alphabet trawl for my LOI LIES due to being a bit hung up on nItS. Liked CANALETTO, loved mimiCRY.

    Thanks to Teazel and jackkt, and extra thanks for the Art Tatum video, what a joy!

    1. Glad you enjoyed it.

41. 31:05 to complete this toughie. Couldn’t parse quite a few (ASEPTIC, PEACHY, CRY CANALETTO, GERMANDER), but biffed them successfully once enough letters were in. NHO CANA nor GERMANDER, sadly.

42. 16.10 The NW corner was quick but the rest was slow, especially LOI LIES. I’m still confused by TEA FOR TWO. Thanks Jack and Teazel.

    1. Apologies if the blog wasn’t clear about TEA FOR TWO. ‘Number’ can mean a piece of music, a song. Tea is an ‘afternoon meal’. TEA FOR TWO is a popular song (number) about (regarding) an afternoon meal. ‘Two’ in the answer is not relevant to ‘number’ in the clue, although it adds a nice touch as a different meaning of ‘number’.

       1. Thank you! I’m being slow today. When Cedric wrote “that sort of number” my mind turned to anaesthetists, which didn’t help.

          1. Isn’t that the truth – what years of crossword solving does to you 🤣 I nearly always think of ether when I see number these days!

             1. …. and I thought of ‘river’ when I saw flower in the GERMANDER clue.

43. Finished after about 45 min, so pleased with that. We found it tricky.

44. A tricky one for me, finishing in 19:18 (a year in which nothing much of interest happened, AFAIK). I was lucky with the flower and had little confidence in the artist, and needed the blog to parse CRY, ASEPTIC and CANALETTO.

    I think my first miracle was the occasion upon which I set fire to the tea cosy in the kitchen and wasn’t punished for it. Seems to have been a one-off, sadly.

    Thank you for the blog!

45. That was hard, but I did manage to struggle across the line.

    No idea what was going on with CRY (…. Mimi misses) and ASEPTIC (…. for first time in 20). Also, NHO the miraculous place (CANA), the dessert (GRANITA), the flower GERMANDER or ATTIC for Greek.

    My FOI was ACCENT, my LOI was LIES and I’m glad it’s now over.

    Thanks to Teazel and Jack.

    1. You’d better have a word with Mrs R about germanders! I’m afraid in our garden we only have germander speedwell – little blue flowers in the lawn and very pretty 😊

       1. Actually, Penny, once I’d written it in I realised I had heard of GERMANDER as some sort of plant. Mrs R would be holding her head in her hands if she knew I’d struggled with it.

          1. Ssh then 🤫
             We’ve just been watching an old programme about the fens and it featured water germander!

    2. Sounds like my experience, several bits of not very general knowledge required. Also couldn’t parse ASEPTIC (thought we didn’t do cross references in the QC?). And failed on LIES (like others entered NITS because they are annoying).

       1. Yes, I thought the 20 might be a cross reference. Trouble was that I didn’t manage to solve 20a until just before the end.

46. 15m
    Got really stuck on aseptic, lies, peaches, and mimicry.
    COD Canaletto

47. I really enjoyed this puzzle. Only got a handful on first pass of the acrosses but 5e downs went in more easily and a second work through completed it in 14 minutes. I guessed Germander. COD was Canaletto

48. I did come unstuck! DNF due to my inability to solve 15d, which is particularly irritating as I am being pestered by some very annoying little flies, and I don’t know where they’ve come from! Yes, I tried nits too. I had already spent about 14 minutes on the crossword, which I found pretty tricky, and as I had a big project to sort out today, I didn’t want to spend any more time on it. I’ve barely made any headway with the biggie either. Never mind – there’s always tomorrow!
    FOI Hop LOI Cry (not counting the blank spaces at 15d) COD Attic – very neat
    Thanks Teazel and Jack

49. Put passe in for 8 across (which works but was wrong)
    Enjoyable today once I had changed 8ac to peace. my peace is often not silent.

50. 29:56

    Solving this one post work Xmas lunch, so rather full of food and wine. The grey cells function quite slowly at the best of times but this was slow progress. Got stuck in the SE with CRY and PEACHY. LOI the innocuous LIES.

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