Times Quick Cryptic No 2906 by Cheeko

100 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 2906 by Cheeko”

1. Cheeko still yet to nail the QC brief I think.

   1. Along with other QC setters. Do our comments ever get seen by the Crossword Editor ?

      1. No info on the new one but it’s been clear in the past that the previous Crossword Editor looked in occasionally. Also the Puzzles Editor mentions TfTT comments in his weekly newsletter from time to time, so would appear to visit us too.

   2. If these is indeed still a brief, it would be quite nice to know what it is.

2. Slightly chewy? I found this to be perhaps the most difficult QC I’ve faced, and my time of 15.52 was in the region of double par. There were many clever clues but a number of these would be perfectly at home on the big board. My LOsI were in the NE, involving EJECT, STREAMER and the NHO plant which was solved largely by guesswork. I’m not saying it wasn’t enjoyable, just that it was seriously hard. Thanks John and Cheeko.

   1. I’ve removed “slightly” from the description 🙂

      1. That makes all the difference!

   2. id say the qitch agrees with the use of ‘slightly’

3. I really needed a quick quickie after yesterday but ’twas not to be. I think we might have more than a few comments today.
   Thanks J.

4. I agree this was rather difficult for a Quickie. To be fair, there were some chestnuts, like the weirdo, outwit, tractor, and the egrets who are always sending their regrets, and these helped me get started. The anagrams were mostly straightforward, but I found the tortoise plant difficult – after putting in plant, you are left with a strange collection of letters.

   Time: 10:26

   1. If you put in point or paint, you are left with an even stranger collection!

      1. I did have point for a bit, but then I solved adamant, and saw it must be plant.

5. 14 minutes. There was enough easy stuff here to get me through the more difficult bits although a couple of pieces of wordplay remained a mystery. The French team at 21ac for instance, which I probably knew at O-level 60+ years ago but didn’t know now. For all that, QUIP from ‘witty remark (4)’ and checkers was dead easy.

   I knew OXEYE, and in fact I have met it in a crossword very recently, but my first thought on seeing ‘attention’ in the clue was OXEAR which may well have been another plant.

   I didn’t know the ‘service’ reference re R AND R.

6. Only three on the first pass of across and had to pass over five clues to get going with OUTWIT but then PETROL STATION followed right behind – BANKRUPT when in from that P to get the downs going and I was off. Held up at the end by OXEYE and then ANORAK to finish. Annoying as it was right there in front of me. All green in 13.30. Good one.

7. Tough but it was one worth persevering for a satisfying solve. 17:20. Agree that some were biggie material – in fact it felt like a small biggie rather than a quickie!
   Didn’t know the plant but it had to be. Thanks Cheeko and John.

8. So the Crossword Editor is against random names? Well he failed here, didn’t he? And it seems we now have a new category creeping in: RFW (random foreign words).

   1. I’m not sure whether the new policy would apply to all puzzles immediately. We were only told about it last Saturday and there are sure to be some already in the pipeline.

      The announcement said the editor is “encouraging setters to avoid using male and female names as wordplay elements, at least when clued as ‘girl/boy/woman/man’” which sounds more like a guideline.

      TBH I think it’d be asking rather a lot of setters to impose an outright ban and I shall be very surprised if it actually happens in practice. Men’s and women’s names are an intrinsic part of the setter’s art and I would definitely not like to see setters including specific references to so-called famous people in order to comply with the new restriction.

9. I feel as though I’ve written ‘tricky in places’ a lot of late and this one fell into the same category. Fortunately there was enough relatively straightforward clues to provide checkers to reverse engineer the answers to the tougher ones.
   The plants were particularly chewy as was my LOI.
   Started with STREAMER and finished with ANORAK in 9.50 and WOD to BUMF.
   Thanks to John and Cheeko

10. Unlike the Izetti yesterday I finished this one but it was hard and took over 40m.
    NHO the tortoise plant and could not parse NUCLEAR or QUIP (once again ‘if there’s a U try a Q’ proving helpful)
    Now to try Phil’s crossed which I am confident will be more of a QC.

    1. Yes. I think you will find Phil’s is quite a bit easier.

    2. Unfortunately I gave up at 26mins on Phil’s. While all but four were done in about 10mins, I eventually revealed the last one.

       Hope you find it easier than me #5

       1. I was well on my way to finishing and looking forward to replying until the bottom section caught me out with four unfinished.

11. Did anyone else notice that the central down and across clues are all anagrams of each other? Spatter lotion, latter options, petrol station and tortoise plant? I don’t think I have seen that device before but would love to know if it’s a common ploy

    1. Well spotted! Thanks. I’ve seen that sort of Nina a few times in the Concise. Will update the blog intro.

       1. Cheeko has form for this. Two of the previous puzzles had – DANIEL/LEADIN/DENIAL/NAILED and SLATE/LEAST – ADHERE/HEADER leading to the centre – another had Hearts/Height/Hotel/Horse.

          Post solve I thought we had a pangram but turns out Z is missing.

    2. Wow, that is a phenomenal get! Well done!

    3. Well spotted!

    4. As if to go one better, today’s (Saturday’s) Concise (No 9762) has two pairs!

12. I forgot to say earlier that the homophone for NUCLEAR would not work for the ever expanding army of newsreaders, presenters and current affairs commenters who insist on saying “nuke-u-lar”.

    1. I think it would if you only have the NU being homophoned- the clear/patent are just synonyms. I presume if you say noo-clear you also say noo for new.

       1. Thanks. You’re probably right, but I feel better for my rant, which was really the only reason I mentioned it!

          1. I agree totally with your comment on NUKULAR. It makes my blood boil. Sadly, even a former US President couldn’t say the word properly and he had his finger on the NOOK-OO-LAR button!

    2. Homer Simpson pronounces it nuke-u-lar and he works in a power station, so he should know.

       1. 🤣🤣🤣

       2. 😂😂😂

    3. Yes, I grew up hearing “nu-cu-lar” in the 1950’s and was surprised when I saw how it was spelled.

13. Cheeko has put me to the sword on previous occasions and, having solved only PETROL STATION and a couple of others during my first pass, I feared the worst again today. However, I somehow managed to secure a foothold and started to make progress. I was very lucky to spot the NHO TORTOISE PLANT, which jump-started me again when I had ground to a halt with 7-8 clues to go.

    My LOI was QUIP and I breathed a hefty sigh of relief. A disaster avoided, I think.

    Many thanks to John for the blog.

14. Difficult QC from Cheeko but fair. Biffed several, then parsed afterwards. NHO TORTOISE PLANT but nothing else fitted. Hadn’t noticed the Nina – very clever. Learnt the origin of R and R today. Thanks John for great blog.

15. 19:51 for the solve. My fastest time on Cheeko’s six puzzles and thus first with SCC escape – who said these aren’t getting easier?!? 😄

    Was quite a lot going on in some of those clues. I couldn’t parse QUIP but seeing JohnI’s explanation I now understand why. I don’t live in France and haven’t spoken the language since giving it up 40 years ago when I opted to take German on my way to a poor CSE grade! Also couldn’t parse PARASITE which I had thought was some kind of soundalike. NHO TORTOISE-PLANT, MECON and barely remembered OXEYE from a previous puzzle a couple of years ago.

    Have a good weekend if you’re not back tomorrow 👍

    1. Having passed A level French over 60 years ago I had equally forgotten the French word for ‘team’.

       1. Even if you have an inkling of it, Equipe doesn’t give you any sense that you’ve got a word meaning team. It’s not like like say, “ile” which is French for island (I think)

16. Quite pleased to finish in 11.45 but several went in unparsed. Worked out QUIP but the subtleties of R AND R eluded me. NHO TORTOISE PLANT despite being generally aware of things botanical

17. An happily increasingly rare DNF for us (PEKE…. oh, so obvious when revealed).
    Slowed by TORTOISE PLANT (NHO -worth a Google image search) and BUMF (just us being dim).
    PARASITE SOI.
    Frustratingly often, when most find an offering easy we do not.
    This time, whilst certainly not easy, we considered the clues to be particularly logically consistent – and the answers to be there if we did as directed.
    Thank you John and Cheeko

18. I started with MACON and then had to employ the reserve neurons to make any progress. Another very tricky puzzle. Like Jack, I needed UNSETTLE to eliminate OX EAR from consideration. Didn’t completely parse POI, PARASITE. Had to write out the anagrist for the unknown TORTOISE PLANT. QUIP was LOI and I had to assume EQUIPE was French for team. 13:07. Thanks Cheeko and John.

    1. I often start with Macon

       1. 😆

19. Not on the wavelength at all, managed less than half (worst result so far this year – by far). NHO OXEYE or TORTOISE PLANT, and my French is usually just about serviceable but eQUIPe is a word too far. Misery.
    Guessed BUMF but would plead that tramp = bum is somewhere between harsh and unwarrantedly rude. (Ha! this computer NHO OXEYE either, adds a wiggly line underneath. *Have* we had this recently (as JH below says)? I didn’t think so, but maybe in an online Saturday QC which I don’t see. Anyone care to do a search?)
    Of the four “chestnuts” (vinyl1 above) ok should have got egret, but definitely never seen the other three before. Whereas PEKE and CHAOS are (I’d have thought) much more chestnutty.

    1. It has appeared a few times over the years, the last being the 15×15 on 23rd January, number 29134, Daisy duck getting cross, I heard (5)

       1. You’re very kind to do the spade-work – thank you! But that’s not *quite* what I (or, I think, JH) meant. I wouldn’t have seen it there. The question is not so much “where was it last seen”, but when was it last seen in a QC? Now that would be interesting! Any chance?! Thank you!

          1. It appeared on New Year’s Day 2024 as “Poncey ex-oilman returned holding flower”. So whether that was ‘recent’ depends on your perspective!

             1. Well done! That’s most amusing – tout s’explique. Because, you see, New Year’s Day is the only day of the year that our newspaper delivery takes a holiday – so that’s why I didn’t see it! Otherwise, it would have been “recent” enough. Thank you for solving the dilemma, most kind.

20. Did finish this in 50 mins but only with help of a thesaurus and also Alexa for a translation.
    I enjoyed this and was more on Cheeko’s wavelength than Izetti’s. Nho of macon or the tortoise plant but was pleased to get these from wordplay and cross checkers respectively.
    Raised eyebrow at an abbreviation being an answer, and the need to know équipe was French for team.
    Tough but fair. A QC? Not sure.
    FOI bumf
    Loi macon
    COD parasite and weirdo

    Thanks John and Cheeko.

21. More fun than I was expecting, as the last Cheeko I did wasn’t very enjoyable – a definite struggle. Perhaps I’m getting to understand his methods better. I didn’t know the plant, so waited until the rest of the puzzle was done to solve it. Very apt, I imagine the two names are descriptive of the plant in question, which I’ll look up now.

22. I found that a lot easier than yesterday’s Izetti and really enjoyed the challenge. Lots of thinking required but I never got stuck. I thought that the unknown “elephant’s foot” was going to end “paint” or “point”, and in the end had to write the letters down at which point TORTOISE jumped out at me and PLANT followed.

    LOI PEKE, FOI & COD BANKRUPT. Really enjoyed that for 09:46 and a Good Day.

    Many thanks Cheeko and John.

23. Phew, finished all correct after a struggle. NHO TORTOISE PLANT/Elephants Foot but finally worked out the anagram. LOI NUCLEAR. Other slows included ANORAK, ADAMANT.
    Liked OUTWIT, BUMF, PEKE (Do not travel in the Peke Hour – used to be a slogan?) and lucky early solves QUIP, OXEYE and PARASITE.
    Had to start at the bottom and work up.
    I pronounce NUCLEAR as New Clee Uh, not new clear.
    Thanks vm, John.

24. Another puzzling day in which my experience is somewhat at odds with the consensus. Yesterday I suffered an unenjoyable slog to a very slow technical DNF on a puzzle many found “tough but fair”. Today, by contrast – and on a puzzle others deem chewy – I sauntered to a fast (for me) 10:00 completion, all parsed even if TORTOISE PLANT was unknown and put in from checkers and wordplay. I even parsed QUIP and PARASITE first time, though I thought as I did so that they were borderline not QC clues.

    I can’t explain it. But I did really like this puzzle. Many thanks John for the blog, and I look forward to the Sunday Special from Phil.

    1. I’m with you Cedric. Yesterday’s far too difficult for one who’s still finishing only some QCs. Today’s much more enjoyable with a finish in about 20 mins

25. I thought this was easier than yesterday’s QC. I was off to a good start with BANKRUPT and it’s offshoots. I also figured out the TORTOISE part of the plant clue early on and the remaining letters gave me plant. I know of the Elephant ear plant but the foot is a new one for me. Yes…my penultimate solve PARASITE was biffed. I couldn’t parse the ITE and my LOI QUIP required an alphabet trawl. My Spanish helped as I knew equipo = team. 7:55 which I am rating as an excellent day.

26. I too found this easier than yesterday – all green in 10:02. However this was probably aided by the fact that we have had PEKE and OXEYE in recent times. Slightly different to the normal fayre but I enjoyed it so thanks Cheeko.

    Never heard of TORTOIOSE PLANT and had to reach for a pen and paper to unravel that.

    LOI and COD to ANORAK.

    Thanks John and now to read your explanation of how R&R works….

27. Another very testing puzzle. Took me 35:50 to finish having feared a DNF before biffing NUCLEAR and working out TORTOISE PLANT anagram. PEKE and PARASITE also took a while. Hopefully the ban on (parts of) random girls’ names (MARTINI) is nigh.

28. 11:10

    Tough for me, but impressed by the nina.

    Thanks all.

29. 19:09 A very tricky puzzle. My final two of NUCLEAR and the unknown TORTOISE PLANT very nearly defeated me.

    Thanks John and Cheeko

30. Highly enjoyable solve but it took 30 minutes so SCC for me! I found the parsing and wordplay helpful and pretty straightforward – maybe it’s a wavelength thing. EVICT went in at 5d (unparsed) before EGRET scuppered that one and (R)EJECT had to be. Duh! Anyone with government or military service would know R and R. My COD is 21d – to remove two Es from Equipe and be left with QUIP struck me as very clever. Thanks Cheeko and John

31. 38:26

    Too hard for a QC. Even the first one, BUMF, seemed impossible from the clue. In fact I only got on 2 of the across clues on first pass. They eventually went in. PARASITE perhaps subliminally helped by Coldplay singing para para paradise at the time on the radio. NHO TORTOISE PLANT or LOI OXEYE.

    1. I always thought it was “Bumph” which threw me for quite a bit.

       1. Me too!

       2. As in ‘phodder’!

32. I didn’t know Tortoise plant but i thought it was an anagram

    no joy from solver but it did throw up PETROL STATION – coincidence or what

    1. No coincidence. See TonyG’s comment above.

33. A good start for me and then an interruption for a long, long, very technical phone call.
    I had lost the plot when I returned to the puzzle. I thought there were some excellent, thought-provoking clues as well as some neat PDMs but some of the GK was not very G for me. I had to use pen and paper for the two long anagrams; I would never have got TORTOISE PLANT in a month of Sundays otherwise.
    Tough but interesting. Not a QC but actually quite enjoyable once the usual time pressure had been released. I think there is a moral there….
    Thanks, both.

34. 9:24

    Cheeko seems to have an oblique approach to some answers which I enjoy. Found it difficult to get into the NW at first, but eventually spotted the anagram at 1d which sped things up considerably. Failed to see the full parsing of ANORAK, didn’t know what a French team would be, and like most, if you slapped me across the face with a TORTOISE PLANT, I’d still not know what it was. I didn’t notice the crossing anagrams though.

    Thanks Cheeko and John

35. I wasn’t too happy with my time until I logged in, and perhaps 11.51 was not too disastrous after all. I’m pleased I wasn’t alone in finding this very tricky, and this seems to be the new norm of late. I stated that I thought yesterday’s puzzle was too tough for a QC, and this was moving in a similar direction, although easier than yesterday’s, at least for me.
    My total time for the week was 68.26, giving me a daily average of 13.41 well adrift of my ten minute target. It was only recently that I said that I had recorded my worst weekly average since the QC started, and here we are again when I have to record that this is worse again.

36. 4d was appropriately slow – I’m not too bad on plant names, but this was a new one to me and consequently added a couple of minutes to my time. Still, as some of us were saying yesterday, it’s good to have a challenge and I’m glad to have worked it out. Slow and steady wins the race 🐢
    R AND R barely seemed cryptic to me, and I wasn’t sure how to parse PARASITE, so yes, John – WOO!
    As for QUIP, well my French is ok if rusty, so it wasn’t a problem, but really equipe is not a common word for non-Francophones, so in my view this wasn’t a fair clue. Yes, Jack is right that you could biff it from the checkers, but even so … Top marks for the nina though!
    I discovered just the other day that BUMF is short for bum-fodder – 19thC slang for loo paper, later it meant any paper you throw away. That made me chuckle.
    14:38 FOI Bankrupt LOI Tortoise plant COD Outwit got a smile A special mention for 19a, as my picture is an OXEYE daisy, also known as a moon penny.
    Thanks Cheeko and John

37. I am surprised this is a puzzle people are saying is too hard for a QC. Its certainly above average but if QCs never got this tough then that would be a shame.

    I finished it in 21mins, quitch has my average at 18. But I did have an error and its the exact same error I made a few months ago when a vertually identical clue came up!

    _E_E a dog thats a homophone of top… BETE! isnt BETE noire black dog… possibly… is BETE a homophone of beat… probably somewhere.. lets do it

38. 18:12
    Felt pleased to get this one done under target. TORTOISE PLANT was so hard, as I couldn’t see how any phrase could be a synonym for “Elephant’s foot”, so assumed that was just a T.

    Last two were QUIP/PARASITE, but I did solve QUIP by thinking of “equipe”, which gave PARASITE, for LOI and not parsed. “Barely” (a new device to me) on a word (“cited”) which is an obscure synonym for a word “mentioned” which is usually a convention for a homophone, all after PARAS, not a common crossword device for soldiers (OR, RE, TA, MEN etc had to be discarded first). Sheesh.

    1. But these are tough soldiers, so they more likely to be PARAS or SAS, or maybe even SS.

       1. Well yes, but the clue was so hard to understand that “tough” could be a definition.

39. Not only NHO Tortoise Plant but nor has Mr Google. I am unconvinced that it is a generally accepted name. However having subtracted PLANT from the lotion splatter I gave up and put it into the anagram part of my Cheating Machine, and got a tortoise so it had to be.
    I’m unsure whether to add “tortoise plant” to CM. If any other setter might use it then it should go in, but if Cheeko has invented it then I don’t want it. I’ve played a game called Elephants Foot, so that IS going in.
    Cross with self for not spotting the Egret hiding in 10a. It’s a chestnut and I’ve solved it lots of times before. DOH!

40. I found this easier than yesterday’s but still pretty tricky. Finished with everything parsed in 19 minutes. Interesting puzzle.
    FOI – 11ac R AND R
    LOI – 4dn TORTOISE PLANT
    COD – 12ac OUTWIT

    Thanks to Cheeko and John

41. 32 mins…

    Seriously thought I wouldn’t finish this – but I slogged on and managed to get my LOI 25ac “Peke” after a bit of an alphabet trawl. Have to admit though – didn’t enjoy it. Apart from “Macon” and “Tortoise Plant” there wasn’t anything too obscure, but the way it was constructed felt like torture.

    Another one completed though, albeit another slight bump in my average time.

    FOI – 7dn “Rite”
    LOI – 25ac “Peke”
    COD – 16dn “Anorak”

    Thanks as usual!

42. I usually struggle with Cheeko’s puzzles, so I approached this with some apprehension, only to find that Bumf and Streamer were write-ins. Of course it got harder after that, but a 25min finish was both significantly quicker than yesterday’s Izetti and easily my best for Cheeko, so no complaints from me. Same hold-up as others, with the unknown plant that wasn’t a point, and loi Eject confirmed I can be an crossword ‘eejit’ at times. CoD to the Anorak in disguise at 16d. Invariant

43. About 12 mins, nice crossword with certain elements of a 15×15 and great spot by TonyG on the crossing anagrams! However is RANDR really a cryptic? It just seems a well-known military abbreviation that’s moved to common usage? Is that enough to merit being cryptic or have I missed something…

44. 19m
    Found this very tough. Anorak was the catalyst to get me started again and finish.
    Like Jack oxear didn’t help proceedings.

45. This was a struggle but I enjoyed the challenge. Completed in 23 minutes, though not all quite parsed.
    Easier than yesterday’s.

46. An elephant’s foot was once upon a time a favourite lunchtime treat from the sadly missed Field’s Bakery in Sale – it was a caramel topped eclair type of cake, but more or less square, and filled with fresh cream. I don’t know if the NHO TORTOISE PLANT is edible, but suspect it would be no contest. Never saw the Nina, but even I, with my sworn dislike of such affectations, have to admit it’s very clever. I didn’t like R AND R though

    FOI NUCLEAR
    LOI WEIRDO
    COD ANORAK
    TIME 4:54

    Good luck to those of you having a go at my Weekend Special – I promise you there’s nothing as taxing as recent offerings in the paper!

47. 10.59 That wasn’t so bad. The top half except for TORTOISE PLANT all went straight in but I slowed at the bottom. Having solved NUCLEAR I wondered if elephant’s foot was a Chernobyl reference. But it wasn’t. LOI PEKE took a couple of minutes. I didn’t solve it when it appeared recently and it still needed an alphabet trawl this time. Thanks John and Cheeko.

48. I’m often well beaten these days, but eventually completed this one with help from aids for a couple. So definitely tough, but doable.

49. 16:31. OXEYE, MADCAP, PARASITE, WEIRDO, and ANORAK were favourites.

50. 19:54, and I even parsed some of them.

    Thank you for the blog!

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