Times Quick Cryptic 2932 by Pipsqueak

80 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 2932 by Pipsqueak”

1. I started out quick, completing about a third in two minutes, but then I slowed down. I felt very dim when I saw the obvious eleven and the chestnut apostle. Startled should not have been that hard either. I finished up with geezer, which has an entirely different pronunciation in the US.

   Time: 9:22

2. Blimey! I found this pretty tough for a Monday. Everything came eventually but NHO or forgotten ‘caries’ but should have got it from ‘sign’. And the crossing DEADLINE didn’t help. I’m not sure that I would equate STARTLED with being in a ‘state of shock’. I originally thought 1a was ‘needs’ for some reason. 3d, ‘content of book’ for ‘oo’ was pretty unusual but I managed to see what was going on and get SOAP OPERA. Liked BAD HAIR DAY and GENESIS. COD to SEAT which had me stumped before an alphabet trawl.
   Thanks Jack and setter.

3. 4:29. Needed all the checkers for DEADLINE, and was trying to think of another word for pin at 5dn until the anvil dropped.

   Quite liked BAD HAIR DAY.

   Thanks Jack and setter.

4. 9.48. Instead of DEADLINE I charged ahead with dentistry (boring profession) which made a mess of the sw for a while. LOI SEAT (I keep forgetting that Spanish car). Thanks Jack and Pipsqueak.

   1. I tried DentistRY as well but it is too long. It does have D…RY=boring.

      1. Yes it was wrong in many ways …

5. Started well but had big gaps at the bottom after the first run through and those remained to the end. I think I’ve seen ‘caries’ here before but it hasn’t registered but in the end ARIES for sign was LOI after I finally let do of something to do with mining for ‘boring profession’ to get DEADLINE. A full third of my 16.25 on those two. Not that it mattered as I managed to type SOpa OPERA to muck up MISTAKE too – so two errors from two pink square from one typo.

6. This was straight forward until it wasn’t! The top went in pretty quickly and we thought we were right on the wavelength, but then the bottom took a lot of unpicking. Many PDMs, I’m looking at you “shock” in particular!

   Some really smooth surfaces and liked the goat.

   In the end after staring at our LOI for many minutes, resorted to an aid for words that fit the crossers, decided that sex drive was not a boring profession so went with deadline at about 34 minutes 😀

   Thanks Pipsqueak and Jack

7. I found this fairly straightforward right up to my last two.

   I made DEADLINE tricky by carelessly putting ‘big’ at the start of 17a (probably an unconscious jealously on my part as it’s a long time since that’s been a concern or mine!) and I eventually gave up on SEAT where I was trying to think of synonyms rather than brands.

   Despite those struggles I thought this was a cracking puzzle with my COD going to BAD HAIR DAY.
   Thanks to Jackkt

8. Fail. I bunged in SUMS for ‘More than one problem’ for 1d early on and forgot to go back to check my parsing and had HEADLINE for 13d. Not my day but I enjoyed the appropriate BAD HAIR DAY anyway.

   Thanks to Jack and Pipsqueak

9. DNF. Like others, I went fast until I got floored by the last few.

   Pi ❤️

10. 19:14 for the solve. About 10mins of actual decent solving punctuated by a dry spell from 8-13mins and then trying to avoid putting an unparsed hEADLINE in from 16mins onwards. Felt like a combo of some relatively straightforward clues (NIP) and very complicated ones (ERRAND, APOSTLE, SOAP OPERA).

    I very much enjoyed the GOAT clue! Seems like we have a DIE-HARD sequel clue 😄

    Thanks to Jackkt and Pipsqueak

11. 4:47. Held up for half a minute at the end on DEADLINE trying in vain to get HEADLINE to work. COD to the orator’s SORE THROAT. Thanks Pipsqueak and Jackkt.

12. I found that straightforward except for DEADLINE, which required head scratching, but Horlicksed it up by fat fingering EASR at 2d. So 07:12 but OWL, oh dear. COD to the excellent SORE THROAT.

    Many thanks Pip and Jack.

    PS there’s an enjoyable obituary today of Henry Bennet-Clark, who as well as being an eccentric insect biologist did the Times crossword every day.

13. 16m
    Got bogged down, especially seat, errand, bad hair day, and LOI deadline where I was looking for IN inside (boring) profession.

    COD apostle.

14. Like others, I started quickly and thought I was on for a smooth solve. Fat chance!
    I started to enjoy it once I realised I was going to end in the SCC and stopped bothering about my time.
    I spent ages over the last few – SORE THROAT, ERRAND, BAD HAIR DAY (great clue), and finally, DEADLINE and SEAT.
    A good puzzle with some excellent, clever clues but (dare I say it?) just not a QC for those of us who are mere mortals, not whizz kids. A lot of newer solvers will have been disheartened by this.
    Nevertheless, an enjoyable, testing start to the week for me; I was pleased to finish and parse it all. Thanks to Pipsqueak and jackkt.

15. Started very slowly and struggled to finish. Just not on the wavelength and quite a bit of biffing required to complete it. Hard work.

16. Tricky one! Started off with SPECS and SOME, but soon gave up the across/down sequence and leapfrogged around the grid trying to get more crossing letters. Eventually Finished with SORE THROAT and then SOAP OPERA. Didn’t see the anagrist until I’d put the answer in. Doh! 11:03. Thanks pipsqueak and Jack.

17. There was much to enjoy in this so thanks Pipsqueak and Jackkt. Not a quickie though! Dead for boring is a bit of a stretch for me and I think Pipsqueak was in his own world for much of this.

18. Splendid stuff, which made me smile throughout (esp the GOAT). I don’t know who Pipsqueak is, but the style reminds me very much of one our esteemed ‘fortnightly cryptic’ blogger offerings – just sayin’

    Thanks P and J – very much enjoyed (8:58)

19. One error 39 minutes. For the life of me I could not think of soap opera, so two pink squares.

    I found this hard, but doable – sort of. Some were biffed in without parsing.
    FOI PARKA, LOI DEADLINE, COD SPECS.

    Thanks to Pipsqueak and jackkt.

20. This took some time, not helped by entering SUMS for 1d. GEEZER was LOI, and COD has to be HAVE A GO AT. Questionable to use Bern in surface for Parisian university?

    1. Not questionable, as one of the main features of cryptic clue surfaces is to mislead solvers by the juxtaposition of words that need to be lifted and separated. Bern is part of the wordplay and not part of the definition.

21. 10:00 for a sprightly solve, which would have been much faster except for a breezeblock on DEADLINE. Not a great clue IMO, starting as it did with exactly the same word as the clue before it and contaning the questionable dead = boring.

    Very small MER at GEEZER/geyser clued as a steam gusher – in fact all of them, from the original Geysir in Iceland that gives them their name onwards, spout pressurised superheated water. Probably a level of detail only of interest to volcanologists though so I shall dismount.

    Many thanks Jack for the blog.

    1. That’s absolute quality information right there; this is what I pay my subscription for!

    2. So no steam is emitted?

       1. What comes out of a geyser really is water. It’s very hot, well above 100°C, but because it is under high pressure it is in liquid form. On leaving the geyser throat the pressure is released, and it turns instantly (and explosively) into steam – this rapid release of energy is what creates the plume, often several tens of metres into the air – but then almost immediately the steam cools and condenses back into water. If you stand close to a geyser (where you are allowed to!) you will get wet, as what falls on you is water, but you will find it is quite cool.

          Vents in the ground that produced steam direct do exist and are given the name fumaroles. Fumaroles are very common in areas of volcanic activity and as well as steam, many give off sulphuric gases.

          Incidentally the explosive power released when superheated water turns to steam was used in steam railway locomotives to create much more powerful engines – the technique was perfected by German railway engineers in the last years of the 19th century.

          1. Thanks, Cedric, very interesting!

22. With about 12 mins on the clock I was defeated by SEAT. I had already biffed SOAP OPERA and didn’t go back to parse it and genuinely tried and failed to parse DEADLINE. Many thanks for the blog Jack.

23. Started fast, completed top half, then stuck. Smiled at HAVE A GOAT (COD). Biffed Codeword instead of KEYBOARD – nvg. Needed help in bottom half so DNF.
    All the same, liked ERRAND, APOSTLE, SEAT (runner-up COD).
    Just could not get BAD HAIR DAY or DEADLINE.
    Thanks for blog, Jack.

24. Huge fail today with seven clues unsolved at 30 mins. Needless to say I found this one tough!
    I had ‘bad hair day’ for 17a but didn’t put it in – I still don’t see why that means ‘occasion’. Ditto ‘boring’ for ‘dead’ in 13d and ‘nicking’ meaning to hold or include or surround in 9a.
    Just not on the Pipsqueak wavelength today.

    1. Collins gives ‘it was a horrible, dead little town’ as a context in which dead might mean boring. Nick here references its sense of taking into custody, which I think passes muster. Remember the setter must have his/her armoury!

       Occasion as ‘time of an event’ seems fine for bad hair day – a lengthy occasion, but one nonetheless.

25. It seems I am not alone in starting swiftly and gradually slowing. I was mainly troubled by my LOI DEADLINE, where I felt the clue directed me to fit IN into a six letter profession. Even though I put in DEADLINE, I still hadn’t properly parsed it, and hoped I hadn’t missed the point of HEADLINE. In the end, I stopped the clock at 11.01 and kept my fingers crossed.

26. Dnf…

    The SE corner dragged my time down and then I just couldn’t get 19dn “Seat” – not the most obvious of car maker.

    For me, 3dn “Soap Opera” is an interesting example of how more QC clues seem to be becoming slightly harder. I’ve noticed a subtle increase in the use of mixed format clues eg. an anagram that has to be solved but requires some other action beforehand or the inclusion of a synonym. Not uncommon in the 15×15, and have been sparingly used here as well, but it feels they are increasing in frequency.

    Never did parse 13dn “Deadline” – abandoning my initial attempts at trying to insert something into “Mine”.

    FOI – 1ac “Specs”
    LOI – Dnf
    COD – 1dn “Some” – took far longer than it should have.

    Thanks as usual!

    1. Yes, I was complaining about multistep clues on Saturday where BEDLAM was a prime example. By definition, a multi-step clue isn’t going to be quick so what’s it doing in the QC.

       1. Yep – I recall New Driver, which is probably why it made me think about it again.

27. Like many before us, we started with a smile, then a grin…. brief though it was before the groan.
    7d STARTLED stumped us for too long, 11d HAVE A GO-AT was a wonderful offering (when the PDM finally occurred), 12d KEYBOARD we fixated on Pin – knew it was wrong, but could not find Key.
    All was understood on reading the blog – thank you!
    A cleverly constructed and challenging puzzle. Thanks to Pipsqueak.
    27.26m having revealed KEY (Keyboard)..so a DNF for us

28. Six parsed and written in on the first pass then a grinding halt. Several clues stretched credibility for me. More than one problem would be sums for example. I guess it’s “more than” and “one problem”. I’m still learning…..

    1. Our blogger, Jackkt, has given a decent explanation for SOME up above – I’d recommend reading it.

29. I thought this was well hard, and thought I would be DNF, but struggled thru.
    15a Avenue. Coincidence.
    3d Soap Opera, took ages then biffed then saw what was going on.
    4d Geezer and geyser sound differently to me, ‘cos that’s how mum taught me to pronounce them. That one didn’t delay me much though. Mum said the latter was “Guy’s er”
    5d nip. Didn’t believe it could be that simple, so nearly LOI.
    6d Sorbonne. I must have not been reading the papers in 1970 when this was discontinued!

30. DNF
    Breezeblocked by GEEZER where I was looking for a homophone of a synonym for steam, meaning “chap that lets off”, and failing to think of any.
    COD to HAVE A GO AT

    Thanks Jack and Pipsqueak

31. A DNF for me but just because I am not good enough yet. I thought this a very fair QC unlike so many of last’s weeks, so thanks to Pipsqueak and Jackkt.

32. Despite a decent enough start, this quickly became quite a tricky solve. My last three answers: Startled, Geezer and Deadline took ages, resulting in a standing room only finish. I was suspicious when loi Headline wouldn’t parse, so had another go and finally came up with Deadline. Like others, CoD to Bad Hair Day – if only. Invariant

33. Much the same experience as previous posters – started off ok but then struggled to complete. Most of my problems were in the SW where my last 3 were keyboard, deadline and bad hair day. In fact I never did solve 13dn, eventually putting in headline in desperation.

    FOI – 10ac SORE THROAT
    LOI – DNF
    COD – 11dn HAVE A GO AT

    Thanks to Pipsqueak and Jack.

34. No less than three errors : SUMS, PARMA and HEADLINE.

    And was sure it was GUVNOR, isn’t GOVERNOR the part of an engine that lets off steam?

    1. No, it’s the mechanism that helps control the speed. I think you’re confusing it with a safety valve.
       PS . . . Eton ?

       1. Haha as I tossed in ETON I thought, “Pipsqueak is pulling our collective leg, isn’t he?”

35. Thanks Jack for explaining 10d. I too missed the anagrind and went for a tenuous aural wordplay parse if …Saw Through It with an Aussie accent!
    Just missed a seat in the SCC.
    Great blog Jack and tricky but good puzzle Pip

36. Humph. Four to the bad – yet must knuckles really be rapped? KEYBOARD, ERRAND: yes, fair enough. But 13d: does DEADLINE equate to Important date? Can DEAD be said to equate with boring, though granted the two words often go together? Is a BAD HAIR DAY really an “occasion”? Would never have tumbled to that one. Got 3d and 4d, glad to say. Liked SORE THROAT – brilliant. Thank you, jackkt.

    1. Re dead/boring, see my contribution above.

       1. You’re right: I was guilty of failing to read all the above comments before posting my own, due to having stepped off an aeroplane at 5 am (having not slept) and come home to 30 e-mails which competed for attention. Apologies! However, having duly read what you have written (between e-mails 53 and 54 – for they multiply as fast as I can answer them), I must confess to scepticism: one might describe a town as dead without calling it boring. A town can (or could, pre-1990) be dead on a Sunday afternoon but very much alive at other times, whereas a boring town is surely boring at all times. (Cf. Churchill: “Ah, madam, but tomorrow I shall be sober”.)

          1. If you are a fan of Churchill one line put downs, ‘If you were my wife, I would drink it’ takes some beating.

37. “But a seat is not a car! Is it?” Three alphabet trawls later and 34:46 into the solve I gave up, sure of a pink square or two. Surprise! A bit of googling and now I know. A Seat is a car, though a car seat is a seat not a car.

    Great puzzling experience other than that. SORE THROAT, BAD HAIR DAY and HAVE A GOAT made me laugh. I couldn’t parse SOAP OPERA. GEEZER took a long time because I forgot about the “other” pronunciation of geyser. I knew I was in for a slow morning when MISTAKE appeared, it should have been a write-in but somehow I couldn’t unscramble it.

    Thanks to Pipsqueak and jackkt.

    1. I’m not a car person (and you Google may already have told you all this) but I believe SEAT was a Spanish car company, pronounced SAY AT, who later got taken over by the Volkswagen-Audi group and therefore while the brand exists, they are decent cars as the underlying manufacturing and chassis are VW. Obviously with the tariffs you won’t be getting one 😜

       1. Thanks! My research didn’t extend beyond verifying that it is indeed a car.

          Tariffs. Hollow laughter ensues.

38. Tricky start to the week. LOI SPECS. Wasn’t sure about clue for DEADLINE (boring=dead?), otherwise much to like including BAD HAIR DAY and GEEZER (I pronounce geyser and geezer the same so easier for me than some maybe). Spent a while on ELEVEN, failing to spot the hidden for a rather long time. Also liked ARIES. Thanks Jack and Pipsqueak.

39. DNF

    Failed to meet the deadline.

    Thanks all.

40. Quite difficult to get properly started, but then made fair progress until about the 20-minute mark. Despite still having ten clues to work on at that point, I ground to a complete halt and made no progress at all for the next 10-15 minutes.

    Eventually, ERRAND came to mind, which lead to APOSTLE and then to SEAT. The remaining problem clues fell sporadically thereafter and were DEADLINE and BAD HAIR DAY in the SW, and SORBONNE, PARKA, NIP, GENESIS and GEEZER in the NE corner. Total time: ~45 minutes.

    Many thanks to Jack for the blog.

41. 16:48 with no errors. Can’t believe GEEZER was my LOI as it now seems obvious. I liked BAD HAIR DAY but COD must go to the excellent HAVE A GO AT which made me chuckle. FOI was SPECS. Thanks Pipsqueak and Jack.

42. I’m circa 6 months into regular attempts at the QC and found this a steady solve – until it wasn’t. Needed a steer from the better half (at crosswords at least) to get “geezer”, “keyboard” and “seat”, and I gave up on “deadline”, as neither part of the construction came to mind.

    Thanks to setter for an enjoyable test, and blogger and commenters for the explanations and comment.

43. I solved the 15×15 first today and completed it without undue problems. So I felt on form.
    This QC took me 25 minutes- about 10 minutes more than my average- and I now see that having bunged in SUMS I had one wrong.
    LOI was DEADLINE having thought long about Headline and why it might work.
    No problem with the puzzle which was excellent. Some great clues: COD to SOAP OPERA or ERRAND. Can’t decide. Other good ones as well like ARIES.
    I drive a Seat -another clever clue.
    David

44. Rough one for me. Never heard of GEN for info, CARIES for tooth decay, still don’t understand how POST = situation. I don’t particularly like the BAD HAIR DAY clue either, it’s just not an answer I think fits with the surface of the clue and I needed a lot of checking letters before I got it. All round a real grind for me today!

    1. The jobs (posts) pages in newspapers used to be titled ‘situations vacant’. Hope that helps!

45. Tricky but rewarding, though I was well into the SCC with three to go…and I came out the other side with 7d unsolved so a dnf. So obvious now I know – STARTLING lack of brainpower for this solver! I thought BAD HAIR DAY was going to be BIG BANG DAY at first, until DEADLINE and ERRAND fell. Cod for the ruminant clue – brilliant. Thanks Pipsqueak and Jack.

46. DNF. All but two done in ten minutes. In the next thirteen I solved GEEZER but not DEADLINE. Thanks Jack and Pipsqueak.

47. 17:47, but with aids for DEADLINE, which seems obvious in retrospect. Liked HAVE A GO AT and BAD HAIR DAY a lot.

    Thanks to Pipsqueak and Jack.

48. DNF

    Failed to see DEAD as a synonym for BORING. Ended up putting HEADLINE for important without being able to parse. The rest was done inside target.

49. DNF
    I’ve been away from the QC for a couple of weeks so expected a struggle – but some of this was a real struggle.
    Threw the towel in at ~40mins also failing to associate DEAD with boring and just not seeing SEAT.
    Shame, some really nice clues – SORE THROAT and BAD HAIR DAY brought a smile.
    Thanks to jackkt & Pipsqueak

50. DNF. Failed on ‘Deadline’.

Comments are closed.