Quick Cryptic #2910 by Orpheus

100 comments on “Quick Cryptic #2910 by Orpheus”

1. At 5.15 I was two lousy seconds outside my PB, so this was pretty easy. Most answers went straight in except for ECLAT, EVASIVE and LOI PUNDIT. Thanks to Orpheus and the Doof.

2. I made the same mistake at 12a thinking that it was the first letter of effect inside a reversal of tale, but didn’t write it in. Everything else was either a biff or gettable from the wordplay without too much effort. Liked SHYSTER and EVANS, which always reminds me of ‘Why didn’t they ask Evans’, when I see it.
   Thanks D and O.

3. A random surname for an answer is pretty poor setting IMO and there’s nothing I’m aware of to tie Evans to Wales specifically, it’s quite a common name in other places. Nice puzzle otherwise.

   1. I think there are five surnames that are associated with the Welsh: Evans, Jones, Williams, Thomas and Davies – is that right? Someone will correct me I’m sure.

      1. I agree. Growing up in Cardiff, half of us in my class at my primary school had one of those surnames. Two of the teachers were Mr Evans, distinguished as “Evans the Head” and “Evans the Welsh” (he taught the language).

         1. Evans, Dai and Sian are the three Welsh names in my Crosswordland memory palace as having previously come up.

            The 5 surnames provided by Martinů are usually seen to be among the players on their national sports teams and I’d add Morgan to the list.

            1. Pretty sure I’ve seen an Ivor in a crossword too.

               Surnames? I lived in Wales for many years. There seemed to be an excess of Griffiths, Hughes and Thomases too.

      2. what about Price?

   2. I think it’s fair enough actually. Evans (and maybe Jones) definitely have their roots in Wales hence a host of jokes which we should no longer tell 🙂

   3. Evans to me is a famous Welsh name, I got it immediately

      1. My favourite is Evans Above, the undertaker.

4. 7:04. Yes, very gentle.

5. My solve was pretty sloppy, as I wasted time trying to get headmistress and not succeeding. Then I biffed eclat and shyster, and started to jump around the grid. I couldn’t spell temperament, didn’t think averred looked correct, and finished with the obvious inset.

   Time: 9:05

6. I foolishly bunged in ELUSIVE at 21ac, without trying to parse it, which of course caused a problem with (LOI) 18d–I was pretty sure that EBUSS wasn’t a Welsh name. Quickly mended matters, but still. 6:41.

   1. Did the same with Elusive and Ebuss!

      Great quick cryptic, v enjoyable c. 35 mins. Thanks Orpheus

   2. Identical error, identical time.

7. Missed out on going sub-10 by not remembering women could be school principals! Once Headmaster didn’t fit I had to move on (in my defence I could see ‘master’ in ‘dreams’ and moved on. Then carlessly saw ‘viva’ would fit in a space that mentioned exams and can’t have got to the rest of the clue. So a deserved pink square in 10.03.

   1. I bunged in VIVA momentarily and then made myself parse it and within seconds realised it wasn’t!

      1. I also put in VIVA – I think that works too. A VIVA is given at the end of a PHD, the final test that must be passed, i.e. “Pass exams at last”, and since VIVA is Latin it can be considered to be “in Roman way”. Thanks blogger, setter, et al.

8. 9.14

   Also couldn’t spell TEMPERAMENT but my huge problem was staring at P_N_I_ for yonks. Just couldn’t see it. W/p simple, though arguably I’ve never come across too many of them who could be described as learned!

9. It’s rare that I fill in a 12 letter anagram with no checkers but HEADMISTRESS was my FOI and the result of the puzzle flowed very smoothly from there. 6:59 for a rapid completion.

   Many thanks Doofers for the blog.

10. 8 minutes. My first sub-10 in 13 consecutive puzzles.

    I don’t have a problem with EVANS. As Wiki notes: The traditional name Evans is of Welsh origin. In its anglicised form, the name means “son of Evan”… it is a derivative of the name Ifan, a cognate of John. In the Welsh language, the f produces the v sound; Ifan (Ivan) became Evan. It’s not random because it’s supported by wordplay, and the new guidance to Times setters applies to wordplay, not answers. I also suspect that guidance will come to be disregarded in due course as it places an unreasonable restriction on setters.

11. What Cedric said and 15.34 which rapid in these parts.

    Had the return to visa/averred in NW which was our only real hold up. Also spent time considering eelat.

    Liked bus I like and COD to temperamental which also added seconds while we counted a’s and e’s in the anagrist,

    Thanks Orpheus and Doofers

12. As others have said, this was a gentle offering and I would have dipped under 5 minutes if I’d not toyed with EeLAT at 12a – it’s reassuring that I’m in distinguished company.

    Started with HEADMISTRESS and finished with ECLAT in 5.10 with COD to EMAIL for the surface.
    Thanks to Doofers

13. 8:12

    I missed 1a the first time round – thought of HEAD but not MISTRESS – consequently, of the six downs hanging from 1a, I didn’t have their first letter and I only managed three on the first pass – maybe that’s the difference between great times for Lindsay, Cedric and others, and an average time for me…. Similarly across the bottom, only managed 23a once all of the checkers were in place – I blame those who speak into their ‘phones at stupid o’clock on the Glasgow train 😁

    Thanks Doofenschmirtz and Orpheus

    1. Maybe you’re right Mike because headmistress was my instant FOI and after that everything mostly went very smoothly. Also getting a long 1ac first up helps psychologically I think.

14. I seem to be the odd one out so far, as I found this slow-going, albeit quite satisfying.

    Pi ❤️

15. 13:12, Gentle solve, saving the 15×15 for the train this morning.

    Held up in SE, as thought TRENT might work, the River Trent has fish in it no doubt.

    Also had INMATE for INSIDE, and was then looking at how MAMMARY might work. Also thought BUSINESSLIKE was an anagram of “Transport IL”. Also couldn’t believe ELUSIVE was not right, but a vessel called a “luse” didn’t ring any bells as a ship, part of the body or container.

    COD EMAIL

16. Bucking the EELAT trend, I wondered whether CELAT was a thing. I also struggled to remember how to spell TEMPERAMENTAL. Otherwise a smooth passage to 05:15 and a Red Letter Day.

    COD to CAMPER for a neat surface and memories of Kenneth Williams. Many thanks Doofers and Orpheus.

    PS SHYSTER always makes me trot out a memory of a spectacular court-room row between Bob Alexander QC and Gordon Pollock QC, two titans of the Commercial Bar, in which Bob (tall and thin) called Pollock (tall and not thin) an “elephantine shyster”.

    1. I liked the Marx Bros. law firm “Shyster Flywheel & Shyster”, but even funnier in Leamington Spa there is a firm called “Wright Hassel” which breaks me up every time I pass it.

       1. Private Eye’s ‘Sue, Grabbit and Runne’ always brought a smile.

          1. PBS’s Car Talk had an equivalent: Dewey, Cheatham and Howe.

17. 10:42 with an EeLAT 😬 Held up by that and SHYSTER for last couple of mins.

    Funny how popular culture has changed PUNDIT from being learned to almost the opposite.

    1. Agree, anyone watching Footie on TV would laugh at the idea of a pundit being “learned”; Robbie Savage anyone?

       1. “The term originates from the Sanskrit term pandit (paṇḍitá पण्डित), meaning “knowledge owner” or “learned man”. It refers to someone who is erudite in various subjects and who conducts religious ceremonies and offers counsel to the king and usually referred to a person from the Hindu Brahmin but may also refer to the siddhas, Siddhars, Naths, ascetics, sadhus, or yogis (rishi).

18. Definitely “gentler” – very friendly, thank you, Orpheus. Mrs M helped with porridge which NHO, but otherwise all good clean fun. LOI (after an abc trawl) CAMPER.

    1. You could watch Porridge on TV. (Ronnie Barker).

       1. Ah, yes … without doubt … but that is where my GK is non-existent … don’t watch TV!

          1. There’s a whole world of entertainment awaiting you!!

             I don’t watch much TV. Didn’t have one for about 15yrs at one stage. Currently wading through the BBC’s 1978 adaptation of The Mayor of Casterbridge which I seem to recall I mentioned to you I was about to read the book. Have to say I rather enjoyed the book, the TV series is rather dire!

             1. Yes I do seem to remember we were discussing Thomas Hardy a few months ago. One total revelation was Happy Valley which Mrs M and I both thought nothing short of genius, but all recommended follow-ups (“if you liked that, you’ll like this”) have been disappointments and we’ve given up again.

                1. We came late to Happy Valley. Wow! I’m guessing you’ve tried Blue Lights and Line of Duty. But far better (IMHO) are Life on Mars, The Wire and The Killing (in Danish).

                   1. So sorry, I keep forgetting to reply to you. NHO any of the above except The Killing which was (indeed) one of the “follow-ups” recommended to us. It was far too complicated for me; couldn’t make head nor tail of it. Whereas HV (to which we also came late, hardly a year ago) was direct, simple, compelling, edge-of-seat stuff. Chalk and cheese. IMHO, anyway!

19. I approached this QC in a relaxed frame of mind and was immediately rewarded by filling in 1a. It all went well (with caveats and diversions described by others above) apart from some fat-fingered iPad work. Luckily, I spotted my typos in time but the corrections tipped me over 15 mins.
    I liked PUNDIT, EVASIVE and PROVERB; ECLAT held me up for a while.
    Nice puzzle, good blog.

20. Another nicely pitched QC taking 33:31.
    After quickly and shamefacedly replacing MASTER with MISTRESS in 1a I was off to a flying start with no real holdups for once.
    I didn’t think of ‘Sum’ for ‘problem’ and forgot that ‘point’ can be NSE or W but otherwise all parsed
    Thanks Orpheus and Doofers.

    1. I don’t think I’ve ever seen ‘problem’ in a clue that didn’t mean SUM.

21. I didn’t find this particularly easy at all and struggled home in half an hour. Obviously on a different wavelength.

22. 7:08 with no hold-ups. LOI was ASSESS.

    Thanks Doofers and Orpheus

23. Enjoyable witty puzzle. Quick today as the long clues were relatively easy. AVERRED made me smile. Also liked PUNDIT, EVASIVE, PROVERB (PDM), SUMMARY and PADDOCK, among others.
    Thanks vm, Doofers.

24. 14.12 and a typo. All slid in till CAMPER and PADDOCK refused to reveal themselves for an unconscionable time

25. Pretty much on par for me at 11:09 whereas looking at the NITCH others found it more relatively straightforward.

    Struggled with the long ones until quite a few checkers in. Had I seen HEADMISTRESS a lot earlier I imagine would have been a different story. Grumpy now. Could have been slower though – AVER seems to appear once a week in one form or another and SAW as a definition of PROVERB is something I only knew from a previous QC.

    Decent puzzle thanks Orpheus and of course Doofers for taking the time to write it up.

    LOI PUNDIT

26. The headmaster was quickly revised to Headmistress when I saw the two blanks – I went to an all boys school with an all male staff, but that’s still a poor excuse. Businesslike also went in quickly, but the two long down answers needed a few crossers, and a long think about the spelling of 5d (who would have thought it was pera and not prem…). Wasted another minute or so with ‘eelat’ at 12ac, and loi Paddock didn’t exactly jump off the page either, but all done and dusted in time for a welcome sub-20. CoD to21ac, Evasive – surely only if you count Montmorency 😉 Invariant

    1. I first tried Prairie for PADDOCK.

27. Second day in a row with a “proper”QC. Hope it lasts.
    Took 30 mins. Helped by FOI being headmistress. LOI visa. COD eclat.

    Had a raised eyebrow at race being equated with nation. I thought the term race was no longer used in this context for obvious reasons. Even if ethnicity is substituted is this really a nation? Hmmm.

    Otherwise an enjoyable crossword and useful blog. Thanks to Orpheus and Doofers

28. Not on the setter’s wavelength today which led to a 20 minute solve for what was in hindsight a relatively simple puzzle. In particular I was held up by not considering the female variant at 1ac having rejected headmaster and headteacher and by looking at the wrong end of the clue for the definition at 13ac. Didn’t manage to parse proverb.

    FOI – 9ac INSET
    LOI – 13ac PUNDIT
    COD – 10ac SUMMARY

    Thanks to Orpheus and Doofers

29. In the 1960s Pierre Boulez composed a piece of music which he titled ‘Eclat’ – so (as a fan of his music) this word – a fairly frequent inhabitant of Crosswordland – doesn’t usually fox me. There are plenty of others that do though. Yes, a nice gentle solve, another model QC.

30. On the wavelength with 4:34.

    Thanks for the blog.

31. Weird one.

    First pass across and down yielded almost nothing, but then I started to get on Orpheus’ wavelength and progressed steadily through

    At some point I am going to have to start looking for hiddens though – I missed both of them today, biffing them once I had enough crossers.

32. More haste less speed so the proverb goes, and in this case less accuracy. Like a few others I biffed ELUSIVE for 21 ac and forgot to parse it, and was left with EBUSS for 18dn. Instead of backtracking I assumed this was some Welshman I’d never heard of and stopped the clock at 8.34. So a big fat DNF instead of a comfortable completion. Certainly made worse by the fact that I live in Wales, so no excuses!

33. HEADMISTRESS jumped off the page and I was off for a run of acrosses until I missed the hidden OMEGA and stumbled over ELUSIVE, which I changed to EVASIVE before moving on. BUSINESSLIKE had to wait for some crossers from the downs. PAD-O– caused a holdup and was LOI after BUSINESSLIKE. 6:19. Thanks Orpheus and Doofers.

34. 16:14
    A very rare trip out of the SCC for me (and a massive improvement on yesterday), missing out on a PB being slow to see my last 4 in – PROVERB, PUNDIT, SHYSTER and VISA.

    Thanks Orpheus and Doofers.

35. Slow on 1a HeadM (12), as I thought dreams + thesis only came to 10 letters DOH!
    COD to 23a Bus I Like crossing Ness.

36. I worked my way fairly quickly through the top half of the grid, but found the bottom half much more of a struggle. Several interruptions, but approx 40 minutes actual puzzling time.

    I knew SHYSTER as a word, but not its connection with lawyers, and I’d NHO ECLAT. And I can’t imagine it coming up in conversation any time soon, around here.

    I could not parse BUSINESSLIKE and spent many minutes at the end trying to solve _e_P_R at 14a (CAMPER), due to my mis-spelling of TEMPERAMENTAL.

    Earlier on in the proceedings, before I had any checkers, I wondered whether 13a might be ORACLE (Learned person), somehow derived from CORACLE (flat bottomed boat).

    Also (we’ve had this before):
    ‘race’ = NATION? I don’t think so. Certainly not these days.

    Many thanks to Doofers and Orpheus.

    1. Etymologically, yes, since both race and nation refers to the descendants of a particular person.

       1. Thank you, Vinyl. I stand corrected.

          1. Well, you are correct for modern usage. Few people feel the root meanings of the words they casually use. But if you are reading an 18th century text, you may come away with the wrong impression.

    2. Isn’t a coracle a round bottomed boat?

       1. Well, I suppose they are. Not very rounded, but definitely not flat.
          I have never had a go in one, although I’d love to, or even seen one in real life. But they come up on the telly from time to time, so I should have known.

37. 5.56, with a few excursions to get the correct grid back when my iPad jumped to adjacent puzzles.

38. 26:46

    Another one I found tricky. Started fine but the last 5 added 10 minutes. NHO ECLAT and couldn’t parse SHYSTER so they were tough. Struggled with PADDOCK and finally fell over the line with LOI PUNDIT.

39. Very gentle. Biffed ELUSIVE but then realised it didn’t parse. LOI TEMPERAMENTAL. Liked TROUT. Thanks D and Orpheus.

40. Quite accessible and might have done a clean sweep if I hadn’t biffed ELUSIVE (I think the elusive/evasive pair has tripped me up before, better remember it). 12:24 of enjoyment.

    I didn’t understand INSIDE though I’m sure I’ve seen it before here. Another one for the memory banks. COD to ECLAT for leading me around the barn several times.

    Thanks Orpheus and Doof.

41. Not one of our fastest but nevertheless certainly on the gentler side. A little surprised by EVANS but nevertheless easy to see. FOI HEADMISTRESS. PUNDIT was our LOI and a little slow to go in because I’d always thought of it as someone who was opinionated without necessarily being ‘learned’, though having now looked it up I stand corrected! Thanks all.

42. (Mrs Wade) I was flying until I met turbulence in the south east – again. Flummoxed by PADDOCK and CAMPER, though no idea why. Got there eventually. So what could have been under 15 minutes ended at 21.

43. I didn’t find it as easy as some here and my time of 7:16 is outside of the top hundred on the leaderboard. The main culprits were PROVERB (needing a PDM) and PUNDIT.

44. 8.52 Pretty quick for me but unnecessarily slow at the end. A fat-fingered SLEDNER delayed PADDOCK and LOI CAMPER took another minute. Thanks Doofers and Orpheus.

45. Enjoyed this one – just about the right level for a QC IMHO. Fair wordplay and no 1960s slang such as Watering Hole = Pub.
    Didn’t look hard enough and put VIVA instead of VISA – thinking about exam.
    45 mins with one error.

46. Dnf…

    Everything after 20 mins, but then got stuck on 19ac “Slender” (I put “Sleeker”) and thus couldn’t get 15dn “Paddock”. Kicking myself really as this should have been straight forward.

    FOI – 1ac “Headmistress”
    LOI – Dnf
    COD – 23ac “Businesslike” – mainly for sending me down a non-existent anagram route.

    Thanks as usual!

    1. Hard luck Mr 46! I also toyed with SLEEKER for quite a while, and it slowed me down on PADDOCK.

47. 05:53
    LOI shyster (didn’t see hidden).
    COD evasive like Invariant, great book!

    1. I was wondering if anyone would spot the reference – well done in that respect. Your time’s pretty impressive as well.

       Three Men on the Bummel is also really funny.

48. Nice to have another accessible QC after a strenuous day left my brain working unduly slowly. Pretty well top to bottom and beat the SCC for a change. 19a – toyed with Pandit (a correct word), but had to have the U. These days I can’t equate pundit=learned person – more just anybody who fancies themselves sounding off. Held up by 14a Camper and 15d Paddock.
    FOI 1a Headmistress
    LOI 14a Camper
    COD 4a Inside – probably a tad UK-oriented?

49. 6:18 – a sub-K and sub-HB, therefore a Red Letter Day! The Law will apply tomorrow.
    FOI Headmistress LOI Businesslike
    Thanks Orpheus and Doofers

    1. 🏆🔥💐

    2. I believe the law you refer to is known as “regression to the mean” – Mr Random can probably confirm as I think he knows about these things

       1. Well, all statistical parameters (means, medians, variances, coefficients of kurtosis and the like) can change over time. Hopefully, Mme B is in the process of transitioning to a new level.
          Actually, I’ve been transitioning to a new level over the past six months or so – a level to which I’d rather not be transitioning.

          1. Why do buses travel in threes? You’ve definitely tried to explain that to us!
             On edit: I say tried – MrB understood!
             Anyway, you had a good day yesterday – here’s to some more 👍

             1. I’d assume the simple answer is the first bus does all the pickups while the ones which follow have no-one to pick up and aren’t allowed to overtake!

       2. Mr R can certainly explain statistics and probability, and you are undoubtedly right! But maths and science are my (very) weak points.
          It was our resident legal eagle who coined the name Penny’s Law after I commented that inevitably there would be a backlash to a Good Day 😂 😂 😂 So I hold no great hopes for tomorrow!

          1. When I played golf, I always said the day you think you’ve got cracked it is the day before your game goes to 💩

             1. Sounds familiar!

    3. 💥 boom!

50. 09:05. reasonably straightforward. SHYSTER took quite a bit of finding… as did RATE where I definitely needed both crossers. ta both!

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