Quick Cryptic 2936 by Breadman

115 comments on “Quick Cryptic 2936 by Breadman”

1. Another ‘Ouch!’ from me as I needed 24 minutes for this one.

   I got CURTAIN RAISER from ‘play’ without any idea what ‘Community Shield match’ was about.

   NHO SUNDEW as a plant so being told that it’s insectivorous was of no help.

   NHO the desert at 6dn, and it’s clued as an anagram so if one doesn’t happen to know it one is faced with flipping a coin to choose between ATAMACA and ATACAMA. There are no prizes for guessing which way up my coin landed. Bah!

   1. You have my sympathy. A few weeks ago in the Times newsletter, we were told that the editor was looking to avoid wordplay ambiguities in unusual words after ANNATTO garnered some grumbles.

      It seems since then we’ve had a few such examples in the 15×15 (plus Monday’s unfortunate ambiguity, which at least didn’t involve any unusual words), and now here. Anagrams for e.g. geographical/scientific terms seem particularly prone to this, so maybe those need a little extra attention in the process.

   2. the ATA at the start isn’t part of the anagram?

      1. Correct, but that still would have left a guess between ATACAMA or ATAMACA if you hadn’t heard of it (I had), given that it was pretty obviously a desert.

      2. Quite right. Amended now. Of course I meant ATACAMA or ATAMACA.

      3. No. ATA = At intervals Haitian.
         h A i T i A n

2. I had heard of Atacama and Sundew. Just proves any question is easy if you know the answer!! And no cricket references…..

   1. True, but SUNDEW is a perfectly valid clue whether one knows of the answer or not because there’s reasonably uncomplicated wordplay in support. The wordplay in the other clue falls short because it leaves the solver stranded.

      1. In fairness to Breadman, the Atacama is reasonably well known (I thought) as one of the driest places on earth, so not just an arid expanse but *the* arid expanse – I biffed it from ATA in Haitian anyway. It doesn’t strike me as any more obscure than many of the other things we’re expected to know for these.

         1. It rained (briefly!) when we were there and I’m rather fond of my photo of a rainbow over the Valley of the Moon. A write-in for me once I had the A_A…

         2. Obscure enough too have appeared only once before (8 years ago) in the 18 years since TFtT began. And this time in a Quick Cryptic of all places!

3. Terribly tricky if you don’t know that the first game of the season is the community shield, which I didn’t. But, l biffed it anyway. Couldn’t think of WEBCAM for the longest time. DEMOTIC from the wordplay. COD to SAILCLOTH.
   Thanks C and setter.

4. Indeed the same NHOs as our blogger but got with the word play, apart from the desert where we guessed right on the too options just because cama sounded better than maca 🤔

   Off the a flying start with 1a but peaked too soon. A good team effort this morning saw a steady solve until left with the webcam/acronym crossing taking 5 of our 23.23.

   Charity Shield remembered from my schoolboy days much to Mrs RH astonishment as that was the last time I had any interest in the sport!

   Thanks Breadmand and Mr C.

5. 23:54 today. Took ages to see WIZARD and BARRIER. NHO Community Shield matches (ball sports are alien to me), but managed to biff the answer.

   Pi ❤️

6. As others have said, this was tricky.

   Fortunately I’ve been to the ATACAMA and can highly recommend it as it’s a beautiful place if somewhat barren. My biggest challenge was the NHO BARRIER CREAM which, when combined with not knowing that Mr. Barrie was a Scot, meant I had resort to an alphabet trawl for my LOI.
   I also failed to parse CURTAIN RAISER despite being familiar with the football match.

   Crossed the line in 11.06.
   Thanks to Curarist and Breadman

   1. I was sure that 16a was going to involve Rabbie Burns Cream somehow …

      1. Same here, mainly because Burns was the only Scottish writer I could think of.

         1. Ooof. Sir Walter Scott, Ian Rankin, Robert Louis Stevenson and Irvine Welsh would like a word.

            1. Now you mention it most of those do ring a ‘Scottish bell’.

            2. Or even JK Rowling and Arthur Conan Doyle.

            3. About a month ago, I made a point of visiting the garden of Robert Louis Stevenson’s now demolished home – Skerryvore 🤣

               1. Great music from Skerryvore, the band.

            4. Delighted to report that Waverley is a real page-turner, not at all as forbidding as its reputation suggests. Mrs M and I both read it on holiday last week. These ‘classics’ are not classics for nothing. Can I put in a word for James Robertson whose ‘The Testament of Gideon Mack’ is wickedly brilliant?

            5. And the late, great Iain (M) Banks.

               1. So sad when he passed. I have mostly read the ‘M’ books.

            6. Some Scottish academics would have Drummond of Hawthornden up there with Chaucer.

               1. Gosh don’t forget William Dunbar!

                  1. And Robert Henryson ( actually it was him I was thinking of above re Chaucer instead of Drummond of Hawthornden).

                     1. Time for William McGonagall, poet and tragedian, to make his entrance.

                        1. Not to forget John Buchan!

                        2. William McG was born 200 years ago this month. Which gives rise to the following in his honour:

                           The poet William MacGonagall
                           Whose immortal lyrics never pall
                           Was born 200 years ago this year
                           An event not all recall I fear
                           And all his life he with his pen did strive
                           To be the very finest poet alive

                           1. Bravo!

7. 8:13. Had to check a couple of times to see if I’d opened the 15×15 by mistake. (The 15×15 turned out to be a monster as well, but that’s another story).

   A few cases of “that’s probably a word” eg SUNDEW and DEMOTIC and some diabolical wordplay made for a meaty challenge. I enjoyed it all, especially WEBCAM, but I think there’ll be questions (howls?) about whether it qualifies as a Quickie.

   Thanks Breadman and Curarist.

8. Thanks Curarist for the blog and Breadman for a QC which flowed then went slowly as I got stuck like others. 32:38. Perhaps DEMOTIC isn’t a stretch when popular is taken in its sense of ‘of the people’.

9. I really enjoyed that even though it took me into the red zone. Lots of clever clues; COD ACRONYM from a packed field. The villain’s achingly cool lair in the Bond film Quantum of Solace is in the ATACAMA DESERT so that was a write in for me. And I had a Venus flytrap aka SUNDEW as a boy (killed it by feeding it sausages).

   LOI CURTAIN RAISER, NHO that as a “play” but could see the sporting sense once I’d worked out the answer.

   All done in 11:16 for a Satisfying Day. Many thanks Breaders and Curarist.

   1. It was indeed a very enjoyable test. Sundews can also be insectivorous plants found in boggier parts of the U.K. The sweet dew attracts small flies which the plant then slowly wraps itself around, without the satisfying snapping-shut of the Venus flytrap which is native to the Carolinas

10. Got it done in 17:51, but felt hard.

    SUNDEW was LOI, and those last three letters were hard.

11. 18:07. Hard, but nothing unfamiliar except CURTAIN RAISER as a play (unless it’s the name of a play?). I did like ACRONYM. I never see Ninas/themes/whatever but there is a neat coming-together in the middle

    1. WWWWell spotted 👏

12. Only three on the first pass of acrosses after a promising start with ASCOT putting up minimal resistance at 1a. NHO SUNDEW and BARRIER CREAM only dimly familiar and although CURTAIN RAISER was well known I was sure Community Shield was going to be doing something far wittier. I was just slow on SAILCLOTH, WEBCAM and AIR KISS. Enjoyed ATACAMA DESERT and DEMOTIC emerging from the clue. All green in 19.

13. 18 minutes. Slow anyway but then had a brain fade in the SE corner, even including CLOSEST, so clearly not on form. I looked for the Breadman grid trick and saw the four W’s around the central black square; there may be more.

    Thanks to Curarist and Breadman

14. A quick start and then fairly rapid deceleration to deal with some knotty ones. I was immersed to the point where I was surprised (and disappointed) when I saw my final time: 20.31. At least I am in good company in finding it testing.
    My LOI was CURTAIN RAISER and I confess that I did not parse every one of my answers before completion. My COD was ATACAMA DESERT; I will never forget the experience of a drive through this arid area (and a long drive through similar terrain in Peru prior to a hairy flight over the Nazca Lines).
    Thanks to Curarist for a good blog (and for help with some parsing) and to Breadman for a clever but chewy Friday workout.

    1. Yes, I’ve done that long trip, and the flight! Amazing sight/site however, worth the fear factor. Not so keen on quite so many sand dunes…

       1. Small world!
          (Although it feels pretty big when you are surrounded by so much sand!)

15. Retired hurt. I would say at the first hurdle but I only know Ascot as a flat racing course.

    1. 😂

16. Sometimes you just have the right GK at the right time, and just under 15 mins is rapid for me. Knew the desert (it really is an awful lot of sand…), the football match and the plant. BARRIER CREAM was biffed with the checkers I had by then, and the rest went in smoothly with a slight holdup for the rather obvious WIZARD, where I was focused on X and Y rather than Z.
    Thanks Breadman, who is usually on my blacklist, and Curarist.

17. 11:55 (death of Geoffrey of Monmouth)

    A very enjoyable puzzle. I take no interest in football, but have heard of the Community Shield. I took a while to remember Barrie. My LOI was WEBCAM, after having failed to fit FAX into the answer.

    Thanks Curarist and Breadman

18. I thought this was a bit tricky, but managed to finish in 13,25, sadly with a typo. The WIXARD of OX anyone? ASCOT was FOI and ACRONYM was LOI. BARRIER, CLOSEST and ACRONYM were all held up by a careless CAMERA until I revisited and swapped it for a WEBCAM. Thanks Breadman and Curarist.

19. As Plymouthian says – not so hard if you have the GK. I have been to the ATACAMA, so that did not delay me, and the COMMUNITY SHIELD game was also familiar. Several of the others though were biff-then-parse, or in the case of WEBCAM biff-then-CNP. BARRIER CREAM was another hold-up, put in from checkers (it’s not something I am familiar with or have ever knowingly used).

    Slightly puzzled on two counts by HI-TEC, firstly because the European Commission – who I did some work for at one stage – is almost never in my experience abbreviated to EC (that was reserved for the European Community), and secondly I would spell it HI-TECH. I see from the internet that HI-TEC exists, but it is the proprietary name of a company which interestingly sells hiking gear not computer stuff.

    Nevertheless, I am in the no doubt smallish group for whom much of this was straightforward enough, and that led to a completion in 11:32, which is faster-than-par for me.

    Many thanks Curarist for the blog.

    1. The first pair of running shoes I bought in the early 1990s were Hi-tec Silver Shadows. They still sell them today as a retro shoe and while I’d like to give them a test to how they compare – at £65 I’m not that desperate to try.

20. 10:40 for the solve. Short hold up in the SW with the NHO SUNDEW, not being able to think of BARRIE until I biffed WEBCAM and ACRONYM (LOI).

    Easily my fastest Breadman solve ever – by almost three minutes. And I hadn’t been under fifteen minutes in the past year with him so very grateful for this one. 1hr37 for the week but with a bad fail on Weds.

    Have a good weekend all those who won’t be back for Saturday’s puzzle; and a good weekend to those who will be.

    Thanks to Curarist for the blog.

    1. Good time. Well done.

    2. Great time for hard puzzle!

    3. Well done #50. That’s an impressive time for a hard puzzle.

    4. Thanks all – my GK is generally very goodand as I say, was a PB for a Breadman puzzle – I guess it just clicked today

21. Unusually I managed a better time than most of the solvers in my ‘yardstick’ list. I always worry when i have to think about a writer when there might be 100’s to choose from and some I’ve never heard of but once I saw cream I soon got Barrie. Similarly I saw Curtain and readily recognised the Community Shield ( Charity Shield as was). Until then I had been looking for the name of a play. I think Curtain raiser for play is a bit thin but hey. Thanks all!

22. DNF 21.30 SUNDEW (NHO) without DEW.
    Started off at a gallop, then plodded in circles with slow entries CURTAIN RAISER (NHO), ACRONYM (just didn’t log in to the clue) CLOSEST (a PDM…).
    Knew of desert, 11 d- ‘loth’ ‘loath’ delayed a little – 22a -HI-TEC minus H momentary hesitation.
    For us, one of the harder offerings, made simpler in hindsight of course by Curarist.
    Thanks also to Breadman.

23. 6:14. A little on the tricky side but I had all the GK required; I remembered the ATACAMA DESERT as being the driest non-polar desert in the world. I thought of Venus Fly Trap for 12A, but took a while to remember its cousin the SUNDEW. If I’d spotted that sooner and the 4 Ws in the middle WIZARD would have been quicker at the end. Thanks Breadman and Curarist.

24. DNF++!
    NHO SUNDEW, failed also on SAILCLOTH, WEBCAM (oh dear), CURTAIN RAISER. NHO Community Shield.
    Oh dear all round, in fact. Except I liked CHICANE, WIZARD, HI TEC and had vaguely heard of the desert. Pleased I managed DEMOTIC though I don’t define it as ‘popular’ exactly.
    But thanks, Curarist.

25. DNF – SUN-E -. ? NHO and couldn’t guess SUNDEW. Struggled with BARRIER CREAM, SAILCLOTH and DEMOTIC. Tough for a QC.

26. I’m with Cedric on HI-TEC/HI-TECH, but it couldn’t be anything else. Biffed SUNDEW and CURTAIN-RAISER. NHO Community Shield but remembered Atacama Desert from school geography. Just shows that one person’s NHO is another’s GK. COD ACRONYM, my LOI and PDM. Thanks Curarist.

27. 15.36 The GK was mostly OK. I was quite quick but bogged down at the end by HI-TEC, WEBCAM and ACRONYM. I’d thought of LOI CURTAIN RAISER much earlier on but I didn’t know what the community shield was doing. Thanks Curarist and Breadman.

28. Ouch, ouch and ouch! I did not know of the desert, the insectivorous plant and I detest football so I DNF. I did however manage to string together the NHO DEMOTIC. This was a 15 square squeezed into a 13 square grid in my opinion. As it is Friday I can retire to lick my wounds. Thanks for the blog Curarist.

29. Well, I finished with recourse to thesaurus and internet (deserts), technical DNF.
    Some I could not parse at all, but they went in as they fitted ( CURTAIN RAISER). Got Hi Tec but am unhappy with this, as the dictionaries I looked at spell it as Hi Tech. Is HiTec an obscure spelling in OED or elsewhere?

    There were some that were obvious once I had thought of the answer – EDEN.

    Missed the hidden for ages. Wondered if Canadians had a specific term for racecourse, looked up Nova Scotia abbreviation – NS. I also now know it has a racecourse at Truro, NS. D’oh.

    COD SUNDEW

    Thanks for blog Curarist.

30. Found this reasonably straightforward except for the final two (ST ANDREWS and AMASSES) which took me ages – just didn’t think to shorten STANLEY to STAN for the anagram. Sigh. 11:23. Thanks C and B

31. Well. NHO SUNDEW or ATACAMA DESERT but had to be. Have read Peter Pan but DNK he was Scottish; NHO BARRIER CREAM (we call it sun cream here). Cannot equate companion with CRONY; we have friends and also cronies, but enjoy company of friends while cronies are kept at arm’s length. Yes I suppose you might meet up with some cronies at the pub (as we do – ha!), but they still cannot qualify as companions – no. Cannot allow HI-TEC; must be HI-TECH (as this computer confirms by a wiggly line under the former). NHO Community Shield (agree with D above, detest football), SAILCLOTH or WEBCAM. Misery. Thank you, Curarist for wading through all that sludge.

    1. While I fully accept your personal preference for how you use the word CRONY Martinů, I think it hard to argue with both Roget’s Thesaurus and the Chambers Thesaurus which both give CRONY as a synonym for COMPANION and vice versa. I think we have to say that Breadman is on safe ground with that one.

       It can be frustrating, I know, but I think some of the fun of these crosswords come from learning different usages of words, don’t you?

       1. Yes you’re absolutely right. Usually I try to at least look in the dictionary before I give vent to my impassioned views about a word, but this time I confess I omitted to do so. As you say, we learn here so much about the discrepancies between our own personal usage of words and that which is deemed to be the general one. Apologies and thank you for putting me right!

    2. Hope you don’t feel you’re being picked on M, but I’d also like to mention that barrier cream and sun cream / lotion are different things. Barrier creams add an extra protective layer to skin – think Vaseline or Sudocrem for babies, to prevent nappy rash, for example. I must admit that I lost some time going down the wrong alley trying to find a 7 letter word meaning sun before the eponymous P dropped 🤣

       1. Not at all, Penny – on the contrary, delighted to learn from others’ feedback and different knowledge from my own. Thanks. Yes of course I do know of other creams than sun cream, just never (personally) called them “barrier creams”. But I am only one among millions, and my own personal usage is of no consequence. I’ll learn – as we all do from these crosswords. It’s all part of the reward of doing them – which, by the way, we wouldn’t have but for this blog, for which thanks to all who created and maintain it.

          1. So true – this is a great place to benefit from everyone’s shared knowledge and different skills 😊

          2. Barrier cream is also a very specific substance, given that name, rather than the generic vaseline etc. It is used by e.g. motor mechanics to prevent the noxious substances used from harming the skin. Amazon stocks about half a dozen different brands.

    3. Barrier cream is to protect hands from dirt, not sun. For gardening in particular- its very useful.

32. 8 minutes yesterday and I thought I was going to be quicker on this at first.
    But I soon realised that this required my 15×15 hat (i.e. slow down and look at every part of the clue).
    So I did and finished in 21 minutes with LOI WEBCAM.
    My first guess at the unknown to me desert was ATACAMA but I changed it on review. These things happen but naturally I feel the clue was unfair as I did not have this GK.
    No problem with NHO SUNDEW.
    A tough QC.
    David

33. I could see that 2d might be Curtain Raiser, but NHO such a play, prob ‘cos there isn’t one. But I loathe footie so NHO Community Shield, so had to wait for all the crossers, except the A from 16a Barrier C, remembering only after I had all the crossers that JM B was Scottish.
    Wiktionary has Hi-tec as Finnish for hi-tech, Ho ho! But it is in Cheating Machine so may have been (mis)used before.
    Wiktionary has popular as a synonym for 14d Demotic.
    COD 8a Air kiss which had me pondering how the clue worked.
    Thanks Curarist & Breadman.

34. Challenging puzzle from Breadman. Had all the GK but just took a while to parse everything. Came to a halt with two clues to go, went to make a cuppa and came back only to see the missing answers in a trice. LOI was WEBCAM. Given that I have three devices from A***E at my disposal, I consider myself to be a ‘Macman’, so should have spotted that more quickly! A big ‘Doh’ there.

    Really enjoyed the trickier than average puzzle. Thanks Breadman and Curarist for the blog.

35. As per Muscovite above, even down to LOI WEBCAM. I find if my GK holds up I can usually hammer the rest into submission.

    Thought HITEC was a bit off.

36. Toughest of the week by some distance. I struggled from the off with this one, and after the first pass I had a grand total of four solved. I did eventually come to my senses and the answers started to come, but not easily. I didn’t help matters by biffing CAMERA for 15dn, but once ACRONYM was in place I could see what was wanted. I spent far too long on my LOI BARRIER CREAM, but eventually got there in 16.08
    This pushed my total time for the week out to 56.04, giving me a daily average of 11.13.

37. Dnf…

    Back to earth with a bump today. To be fair, only had two to get: 2dn “Curtain Raiser” and 12ac “Sundew” after 30 mins, but couldn’t see the first at all and dnk the second.

    Overall, a fairly tough puzzle I thought.

    FOI – 1ac “Ascot”
    LOI – Dnf
    COD – 15dn “Webcam” – seems a fairly quaint word now.

    Thanks as usual!

    1. Have to say I expected it to be difficult as I sense Friday puzzles have been tending this way recently. That I had a flier doesn’t discount from it being objectively tougher for most on here.

38. DNF.
    Could barely get one of these clues.
    Quick cryptics should give even non-experts some chance.
    Ridiculously hard.

39. Ouch indeed. A second successive 30min DNF as I refused to guess the nho cama/maca ending for the desert in 6d and looked it up. About as obvious a GR as you might (not) wish to find. Somewhat ironically, 18ac Oasis is my CoD for the reluctant smile. Invariant

40. DNF Foiled by the desert!

    1. Sounds like you need to drown your sorrows with dessert 😋

       1. Or at least a dessert wine.

          1. Does sherry trifle count?!

             1. Oh yes, good call.

41. 19m
    Very hard. Knew the Atacama Desert from watching countless Dual Survival shows!
    Dnk sundew.
    COD acronym.

42. I started steadily, but progress slowed relatively early in the proceedings. However, the combination of some lucky biffing and hard graft meant that I crossed the line unscathed (and mightily relieved) in a little over 40 minutes.

    ASCOT and EVADE were my first two in and my last few were all in the lower half of the grid – ACRONYM, WEBCAM, CLOSEST, SAILCLOTH, BARRIER CREAM and SUNDEW.

    Many thanks to Curarist for the blog.

43. I’m getting quite the case of whiplash from doing the QC these days. Today’s solve was longer than yesterday’s by a factor of five, 42 minutes. Of course, if I had put CURTAIN-RAISER in (in spite of not being able to parse it) and contemplated the possibilities for 16A, I would have seen BARRIE a lot sooner, so there’s a lesson there. I’ve never seen BARRIER CREAM before, boohoo. Didn’t know CHICANE or HI-TEC either. Tree for CASHEW was sly, just to turn the screw a little more I suppose. This might be the wordiest QC I’ve ever done.

    All is forgiven though, because just now I went and looked at pictures of the Atacama Desert (I’d forgotten where it is) and it is wow. As a surprising number of the commenters here seem to know first hand.

    Thanks to Breadman and to Curarist for much-needed parsing.

44. If you’re going to use mac as a synonym for a computer, why not use HP or Lenovo? A mac is a brand of computer. Allied to some rather odd spelling (22a), questionable definitions (14d) and some utterly bizarre vocab (16a), it’s no wonder I couldn’t finish. A turgid week.

45. 8:39

    No real issues after having only posted three across answers (ASCOT, EVADE, ST ANDREW’S DAY plus the ST from 20a) on the first pass. Had more joy from the downs – ATACAMA DESERT went in first time (saw ATA and picked out DESERT from the anagrist) – didn’t know what DEMOTIC meant, but it fit. BARRIER CREAM and CURTAIN RAISER (knew the Community Shield reference) only bunged in when plenty of checkers to help. LOI CHICANE.

    Thanks Curarist and Breadman

46. 1:09:45 according to the crossword app.
    Determined to finish this. Two remaining this morning so I went for a long walk and two coffees and lo and behold solved them both in about 2 minutes.
    Seen plenty of SUNDEWs which helped but NHO Community Shield so CURTAIN RAISER was biffed.
    LOIs: ACRONYM and WEBCAM (also biffed)
    Thanks both.

    1. Well done on persevering #5 👍

47. All green in 2:08!

    Which will surprise anyone familiar with my usual solving times, easily explained by the fact that it’s hours and minutes. Some of that was spent in meetings (I forgot to pause the crossword) but it must have been well over half an hour. Tricky, and I didn’t help myself when I confused Atacama and Kalahari to come up with Atacami. Quite a nice word, I think – could be a girl’s name, or perhaps a small Renault hatchback. Needed help to parse St Andrew’s Day and the football nonsense.

    Thank you for the blog!

    1. That is wow !

48. Once again, NOT appropriate for a QC. Very disappointing

49. Looking at many of the comments today I can feel satisfied that I redeemed myself after yesterday’s tardiness with a faster than average 11:28. At least it might head off hints of smugness from Mrs T when she returns. Knowing the desert and the plant certainly helped. What didn’t was, having already filled in the E as an obvious precursor to ST in 20a, being flummoxed for quite a while as to what 4 letter word beginning with C might mean ‘end’. Doh! I needed 20a to help me see LOI SAILCLOTH which went in unparsed. Also biffed was CURTAIN RAISER which went in from checkers and ‘play’; I’m not a football follower and certainly didn’t realise what the Community Shield was. Not sure how easily I’d have got to Barrie as a Scottish writer without it having come up here in the recent past but at least my memory is not totally shot.

    Thanks Curarist and Breadman

50. Was feeling pretty pleased with myself when I completed in about 17 mins, which is fast for me, only to find I had spelt Atacama with a k as I whacked it in without bothering to fully parse. 🙁

Comments are closed.