I found this a stiff test to end a pretty stiff week – some complicated clues, a few obscure definitions and a collection of challenging wordplays, several of which I only worked out after getting the answer. Perhaps we need a new acronym, BTP, for “biff then parse”. I often have one or two of these, and writing the blog does force me to battle away at finding the parsings when otherwise I might just move on, but too many rather goes against the spirit of a crossword, which is meant to be an exercise in using the wordplay to derive the answer not (as I found myself doing rather too often today) using the answer to derive the wordplay. Must try harder!
That apart, Jalna is usually a setter I get on well with, so I can only suggest that my time of 18:32 (well over my par) showed that I was probably not on his wavelength this morning. But while battling the puzzle was hard, there was definitely satisfaction from completing it, and on reflection I don’t see anything deserving a red card.
So my thanks to Jalna for a tough work-out; just a bit of a shame it comes right after two equally bruising days. How did everyone else get on?
Definitions underlined in bold italics, (abc)* indicates an anagram of abc, and strike-through-text shows deletions.
| Across | |
| 1 | Business with many branches to manage? (8) |
| FORESTRY – A cryptic clue: those running a forestry planation will have a lot of trees to manage, and they in turn will have a lot of branches. One of several clues I did not get on the first pass and needed checkers for. | |
| 5 | Stimulate short burst of activity briefly (4) |
| SPUR – SPURT (short burst of activity) with the last letter deleted (“briefly”). | |
| 8 | Cut back on spending, maybe primarily in spring (5) |
| SKIMP – M (Maybe “primarily”, ie first letter of) in SKIP (spring). | |
| 9 | Have gangs succeeded? (7) |
| POSSESS – POSSES (gangs) + S (succeeded). A BTP clue (see introduction) that I biffed from the checkers and then spent some time finding the parsing of. | |
| 11 | Gold medal winner Adam? (5,6) |
| FIRST PERSON – I am scoring this as a DD, but the first definition is somewhat loose IMO and the second perhaps less than helpful, though the question-mark is a clue that lateral thinking is required.
Another BTP, indeed the answer was almost a write-in once I had the checkers, but explaining it took a bit longer. |
|
| 13 | A secondary route out of the country (6) |
| ABROAD – A (from the clue) + B ROAD (secondary route). My FOI and something of a chestnut. | |
| 14 | Wool coat to take to the cleaners? (6) |
| FLEECE – A straightforward DD. | |
| 16 | Start chatting in work downtime with new techie (5,3,3) |
| BREAK THE ICE – BREAK (work downtime) + THE ICE (anagram of techie, with the anagram indicator being “new”). | |
| 18 | Cover of outbuilding mostly retains warmth (7) |
| SHEATHE – SHE (shed, ie outbuilding, with the last letter deleted, given by “mostly”) containing (ie “retains”) HEAT (warmth).
The wordplay here for She is a perhaps little more involved than usual – she is more often in QC-land clued by referring to someone female – but the choice of construction allows Jalna to create a very smooth surface indeed, and it gets my COD. |
|
| 19 | ’70s music record with keyboards in the middle (5) |
| DISCO – DISC (record) + O (middle letter of KeybOards, given by “in the middle”).
My LOI, and another BTP – biffed from checkers and only subsequently parsed. A wee query about the definition here – is disco music really 1970s only? – but quite apart from that I was royally misled by “record with keyboards in the middle”, and was looking for something to do with a keyboard to insert into a record (EP or LP, say). Hat-tip to Jalna for the misdirection! |
|
| 20 | Some treat-size food (4) |
| EATS – Hidden in trEAT Size, the hidden indicator being “some”. | |
| 21 | Suspect is ready to admit anything at first, probably (1,4,3) |
| I DARE SAY – (is ready)*, the anagram indicator being “suspect”, containing A (Anything “at first”, ie first letter of).
Another BTP, though in this case a real D’Oh moment when I saw how the parsing worked and I perhaps should have got the wordplay faster. |
|
| Down | |
| 1 | In the end, if you stress, that’s trouble (4) |
| FUSS – Made up of the last letters (“in the end”) of iF yoU stresS, that’S. | |
| 2 | Strengthening check for building material (13) |
| REINFORCEMENT – REIN (check) + FOR (from the clue) + CEMENT (building material). | |
| 3 | Place to buy rump steak and, er, nuts (11) |
| SUPERMARKET – (rump steak er)*, with the anagram indicator being “nuts” | |
| 4 | Name of dance almost taking place (6) |
| REPUTE – REE (reel, ie a dance, “almost”, ie with the last letter deleted) including (ie “taking”) PUT (place).
Another BTP, or in this case biff-then-needed-aids, also known as Mrs S, to see what was going on. A very similar construction to SHEATHE at 18A, so perhaps I should have got it. |
|
| 6 | Official statements president finally makes about rental agreements (5,8) |
| PRESS RELEASES – PRES (president) + S (makeS “finally”, ie last letter of) + RE (about) + LEASES (rental agreements).
Broken record time – yet another BTP. Biffed relatively quickly, but this time it was the cluing of PRES as president without any indication that one is to take an abbreviation that was not obvious to me and held up the parsing. |
|
| 7 | Objected to being introduced without a leader (8) |
| RESENTED – PRESENTED (introduced) with the first letter deleted (“without a leader”). | |
| 10 | Great political orator to provide letters in order for file? (11) |
| SPELLBINDER – SPELL (provide letters in order) + BINDER (file).
Not the most obvious of definitions I think, but at least the wordplay leaves no doubt what was required. |
|
| 12 | Badly beat, slam and reprimand (8) |
| LAMBASTE – (beat slam)*, the anagram indicator being “badly”.
I would have got this rather quicker if I had known this variant of the spelling for the word I spell lambast. But it is given in the dictionaries as an accepted alternative. |
|
| 15 | Series of online messages is extremely tough to browse through (6) |
| THREAD – TH (“extremely”, ie first and last letters of, TougH) + READ (browse through). | |
| 17 | Venture to take on old politician (4) |
| TORY – TRY (venture) incorporating O (old). | |
I also found this slow tricky going, but I did enjoy it, finishing in about 1.5 times my average time. Jalna did a good job at not using obscure references/definitions, leaving difficulty in the wordplay, which I always prefer. Everything seemed solvable with time, and it was only REPUTE that really took me a few minutes of deliberate thought, the rest went in slowly but steadily.
Some nice surfaces too I thought, 18a, 9a (my COD), etc.
Thanks Cedric & Jalna.
I started this with a prayer, please Lord, not again. But it turned out to be gentle, at least when compared to the last couple of days.
My only real hold-up was SPELLBINDER but the wordplay helped. Can’t say I’ve heard it used in that form before, spellbinding, yes. After the last two days I was trying to be too clever with wordplay, cover of outbuilding for example led me to ‘OG’ before realising the obvious. LAMBASTE strangely, is the only spelling I knew. We had BREAK THE ICE just the other day in a reverse cryptic format so I saw that as soon as I saw ‘techie’. Lots of good stuff today, FORESTRY with its ‘lots of branches’, FIRST PERSON with Adam providing ‘first’ and ‘person’ coming shortly after, originally thought it might be ‘placed’. I DARE SAY was very good and REPUTE was my last in. Hard to pick a winner today but I’m going with FORESTRY.
Thanks Cedric, great blog as always.
I agree this was not that hard, and I biffed some without parsing. Forestry was the first word I thought of when I read the first clue, but I decided to hold off. I got the bottom ones first, which allowed me to get supermarket and press release. I was slow on first person, which might have been clued I, Adam.
Time: 8:53
Very nice clue, reminiscent of “I, Claudius” and “Madam, I’m Adam”
We can certainly agree that it was a toughie though less so than the previous two days. 18:20 for us with FOI POSSESS and LOI FORESTRY. Mrs T spotted the cryptic in the latter whilst I was struggling to think of words beginning with FIRM. It brought a smile to my face though and not just because either the SCC or dreaded DNF was staring us in the face. I can understand that this level might have upset some but it as pretty well pitched for us.
Edit: Hadn’t intended this post to be a reply but I was going to reply separately to you, vinyl1, to express not only my admiration for your rather better FIRST PERSON clue but also for you being able to see FORESTRY straight off!
“I, Adam”
!
Bravo!
23 minutes. I’m with Cedric in finding this a challenge but on reflection it’s all perfectly fair for a puzzle clearly not aimed at beginner level and bearing in mind that QCs need to have a range of difficulty.
I had misgivings over one definition ‘great political orator / SPELLBINDER’ simply because I’ve not come across it in that context before, but a quick check in Chambers and Collins soon confirmed that it is a specific meaning of the word.
My target QC time is 10-15 minutes. My hit rate has been pretty good over the last 11 years but I’ve failed to achieve it on 5 of the last 10 puzzles including Thursday (18m), Friday (30m) and Saturday (23m) this week. I’m not complaining, just making the observation.
Ah, thanks Jack, had not read this about political before our post. Also NHO
I agree that QCs “need to have a range of difficulty”. Trouble is they don’t have any more.
Yes, first pass on the across clues left a worryingly blank grid, but a few downs went in and from there I could patiently work my way through most of it.
Thanks to Cedric, particularly for some of the more obscure BTPs, and to Jalna.
Hurrah, an under target solve for the first time in a while! Having said that some thought was required in areas.
The spelling of LAMBASTE threw me off and I got fixated on it finishing with ‘blast’ once the b checker was in place, the ‘a’ in the clue for RESENTED caused me problems and the definition of SPELLBINDER wasn’t the most obvious.
With regard to BTP, that’s how I solve a lot of my clues as the definition/answer often leaps out on first reading in the same way as when solving the concise crossword – this may explain my issues graduating to the 15×15.
Started with SPUR and finished with RESENTED in 9.24.
Thanks to Cedric and Jalna
I wonder a lot about BTP. I was watching Cracking the Cryptic the other day and noticed that he very often switches back and forth between working from the wordplay and and working from the literal, which is also my usual experience when performing reasonably well. Not sure that an absolute biff without understanding the wordplay is all that common for me. Yes, today on I DARE SAY, but that was because I got stuck in an absurd way. Sometimes, too, it seems that I get the wordplay on a subliminal level at the same time that I see the answer, then bring it to consciousness. I don’t know, the workings of the human mind are obscure.
I agree, I’m not really sure why BTP seems to be slightly looked down upon.
DNF after 20 mins. I got all but 3 solved after about 14 mins, but just couldn’t get the last ones despite staring at them for 6 mins. They were the interconnected REPUTE/POSSESS/SPELLBINDER.
DNK LAMBAST with an E.
So, end of a tough week for me. Maybe next week will provide a lift. 🙏
Pi ❤️
Might i suggest getting an early start by having a go at Phil’s approachable, clever and fun Sunday quickie? 😄
I’ve learned my lesson over the last couple of days. Check here first.
Won’t be trying the QC today, for the first time this year. I’ll do the Guardian one instead.
Took a long time to get into this, then fairly steady progress before taking an age to complete the SE. A leisurely Saturday morning meant we were happy to persevere for 46.15 with a little help from M. Roget. Lots of BTP here too.
Not sure what is political about a spellbinder.
Regarding disco and ‘70s after Saturday Night Fever won several Grammies in 1978/79 a new Grammy award was created for Best Disco in 1980 (won by Gloria Gaynor) then the award was canned as disco had died! If you’re ever in Cleveland, Mississippi there is a Grammy museum that’s well worth a visit.
Thanks Jalna and Cedric
Maybe this run of toughies has stressed out the quick snitch which appears to be down this morning!
I finished this after 44 mins.
I found it a struggle and biffed many answers. LAMBASTE was new to me, as was the definition of SPELLBINDER as orator. The crossers helped me with the latter.
COD FORESTRY
Thanks Cedric and Jalna
In good company with not knowing the alternative spelling of LAMBASTE and the specific definition of SPELLBINDER as a political orator. Thanks Cedric for new acronym of BTP as that summed up how I completed several of the clues in this QC, although couldn’t see how REPUTE worked until I read today’s blog.
DNF. Could not see REPUTE.
Snap!
Yes I’m a great utiliser of the BIFD then Parsed method! I call it a ‘half parsed answer’ or HPA perhaps?
24:21 so definitely on the trickier side today. Held up by Reinforcement and Repute among others.
All fair methinks.
Many thanks Cedric and Jalna
I think this week has worn me down, and at the very end REPUTE defeated me after I’d struggled to find SKIMP, LAMBASTE (even though it was obviously an anagram, and I had the checkers) and SHEATHE. On a better day I think I would have got there.
It wasn’t easy but no complaints from me, although if I was more of a newbie I think I’d be looking for a new pastime after this week.
I don’t keep records but this has been the hardest week I can remember; certainly I can’t recollect having more than 1 DNF in a week before even if some other times were v slow. And my check button has been exercised somewhat. Mercy, Jason…
Cedric, thanks for the blog.
This challenging puzzle took me only 5 mins longer than jackkt so that makes me feel a lot better.
Some very good clues and some that were tough even when crossers were available. I DARE SAY was neat and I was held up by SPELLBINDER and my LOI REPUTE (a biff – thanks for the parsing and a good blog, Cedric).
Thanks to Jalna for another toughie.
What a week!
Stuck for ages on last 2 in, FORESTRY and REPUTE. 15:47. Thanks Jalna and Cedric.
After the last two visits to the SCC, relieved to finish in 13.33. Several BTPs or BBNPs, in particular REPUTE which was LOI. Decent challenge and enlightening blog!
Got stuck on REPUTE as our LOI. We understand SPELLBINDER as a great orator, but why does it have to be a political one? Hmm. All in all, a pleasing but more difficult QC.
14 so very pleased, half solves, half biffs.
1ac was only ever a biff surely. I got it as soon as I got the F from 1d.
FOI first person
12d COD we had sales manager whose surname was Lamb, nickname lambasted.
Dnf…
I think this was equally as difficult as some of the ones we had earlier in the week and, like Cedric, there was a lot of BTP going on.
After 30 mins, I had everything apart from 9ac “Possess”, 4dn “Repute” and 10dn “Spellbinder”, of which I am pretty certain I wouldn’t have got the last two no matter how long I spent on them.
My Saturday woes continue.
FOI – 1dn “Fuss”
LOI – Dnf
COD – 21ac “I dare say”
Thanks as usual!
I was expecting a challenge, with Jalna setting, and I wasn’t disappointed. A good workout, with all done except REPUTE, where I knew what was required, but was fixated on PL as an insertion and never thought of reel – ridiculous, as it’s an obvious crossword dance, along with ball, disco and bop. Not enough coffee, clearly! Eventually resorted to aids for that one. Thanks, Jalna and Cedric.
Nice crossword, held up at the end by the unknown SPELLBINDER which needed all the checkers. That, along with the tricky REPUTE and POSSESS took me to 9:21. Thanks Jalna for a nice workout, and Cedric for an excellent blog.
Yay! 29.37. While slower than preferred, delighted to have finished.
In hindsight (the clarity of which was kindly enhanced by the blog – thank you) we’re not sure why it took so long, as bar the extra (in our world before today) ‘e’ on LAMBASTE, all was there for the finding.
We, too, overuse the BTP sequence, though as we learn to recognise the signs, we find the flagged route is usually faster.
Thank you Jalna and Mr S.
7:17
Not too tricky I felt, getting to 6 minutes with just two remaining – 9a and 4d. I spent some time trying to recall the word POSSES for gangs – I knew what I was thinking of, but the word just wouldn’t come. Once that was in, the ‘PUT’ in 4d became obvious and the surrounding letters filled themselves in.
21a always reminds me of the cart man in The Railway Children, as in this clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xm15KUZUh14
Thanks Cedric and Jalna
I’d forgotten about the cart man 😂
19:36 for the solve. The left side of the puzzle went in fairly easily but the right side I had to work up from the bottom. REPUTE and POSSESS last two in once SPELLBINDER (NHO) came together. Should have got FLEECE much earlier and struggled to think exactly what Adam was FIRST for. Mr Peaty was intruding on my thoughts.
Not sure how many were BTPs but certainly the last two and SPUR were parsed postsolve.
I particularly enjoyed the clues for THREAD, I-DARE-SAY and DISCO. Answering Cedric’s question while disco may have lasted into 1980 maybe even trickled beyond; I’d say the New Romantics took over in 1981-82 along with the backend of the punk era – so it’s essentially a 70s thing.
Four SCC escapes for the week is nice. Parksolve coming in at 43:40 today – as I didn’t push too hard on the run to avoid aggravating my hamstring.
Thanks to Cedric and Jalna.
A little easier than the last few QCs but still some rather tricky clues. Thanks for confirming the political aspect of SPELLBINDER Jack. Haven’t come across this before. Last two in were POSSESS/REPUTE which needed a degree of perseverance! Took me a while today but thoroughly enjoyed. Helpful that BREAK THE ICE has appeared so recently; similarly TORY echoes ‘Green’ which was another to appear in the last few days and which stopped me fixating on a specific politician. Haven’t seen LAMBASTE with an ‘e’ but had to be. Needed help with the parsing of PRESS RELEASES as I hadn’t clocked/known about PRES for president – thanks Cedric. Liked I DARE SAY and FIRST PERSON. Many thanks Jalna and C.
I’m not sure I see the problem with BTP–other than it’s not an acronym (unlike NATO, say, or AIDS, it’s not pronounced as a word). Often enough I think of a word, often triggered by some checkers. Should I suppress the thought and try to think of the wordplay without reference to the word?
Acronym v abbreviation. Glad someone else knows the difference.
DNF in half an hour. All but four done in ten minutes. SPELLBINDER, POSSESS and RESENTED took another ten. REPUTE defeated me. This has been my slowest week since the last week in October. Thanks Cedric and Jalna.
I fell over the line (again) in 50-55 minutes, which is way too long for a QC. Long periods spent cycling through the clues to no avail. Far too many BTPs for any real enjoyment.
Only one Across clue (EATS) and three Down clues (FUSS, SUPERMARKET, LAMBASTE) were solved during my first pass through the clues and only 2-3 more (all on the LHS) had been added by the time I was ushered into the SCC. After that, the RHS got even worse and I was reduced just to guessing words at random. Pathetic!
Many thanks to Cedric for the blog.
Rent?
A typo. Mrs R started explaining something to me whilst I was writing my post and I typed what I was hearing, rather than what I had intended. EATS was my FOI and a big relief, as I had nearly exhausted all of the Across clues (and I always give each one ~30 seconds before I move on). Something is clearly wrong (with me, the setting or both) if, after nearly 5 years, I am still struggling even to get started on a QC.
13:30. Moved fairly steadily through this puzzle then spent the last few minutes wrestling with REPUTE.
8.05
REPUTE sprang to mind but I couldnt see the parsing. Bunged it in anyway.
Personally the joy of these is solving them; and very slowly getting more proficient. I have never worried about parsing everything, and certainly dont rely first, foremost and only on the w/p. But obvs each to their own. No approach is wrong or right
Thanks Cedric and Jalna
Similar issues with the last four in being possess, repute, resented and spellbinder. Slowed myself down a lot by refusing to accept that lambaste was a fair spelling, FOI abroad, COD I dare say. Tough but my best effort with Jalna for a while.
Thanks C and Jalna.
DNF REPUTE, POSSESS, SPELLBINDER (did not like the latter).
Thanks for blog, Cedric.
The weekly email from Puzzles Editor Mick Hodgkin mentioned the discussion on:
‘the TimesFor theTimes solving blog about how relatively hard a relatively easy puzzle should be. The clue “This may attract attention of a barge (4)” was felt by many to be unfair as the answer, AHOY, required one to know – or guess – that a hoy is a kind of boat.’
Actually I thought AHOY was relatively easy to biff. I very often BTP.
Good puzzle, upper end of the QC spectrum. REPUTE (LOI) was jolly hard, I thought.
COD to I DARE SAY, lovely clue.
Got there in 09:52. Many thanks Jalna and Cedric.
19:30, and I had a pretty easy time of it until getting stuck on I DARE SAY and TORY. It so happened that I had _ D_R_ S__, and somehow the phrase “a dark sin” came to mind and would NOT go away. Oh dear, what will my analyst think?
So I went away and came back and put in TORY and all was well. I simply hadn’t seen “suspect” as an anagrind.
My COD is FORESTRY, not because I love the clue, but because for once a straight cryptic was a write-in for me. SPELLBINDER led me around the barn as I saw “stellar” from the crossers and thought it was a good way to account for “great”. Dead end, but backing out took some time. Thank you Jalna for getting me to at last look up how to pronounce LAMBASTE; Collins’s audio made me laugh at the truly grating American accent (and I am American and don’t generally like the knee-jerk anti-Americanism of many of my educated peers).
Thanks to Jalna and Cedric.
Interestingly I found this one more difficult than Juji yesterday. Several of my answers were BTP but having got the answers then parsed them I couldn’t really see what had held me up.
Thanks Cedric and Jalna
Too busy this morning, so an unusually late in the day solve for me – I will try not to repeat the experiment. Struggled my way through nearly all of this, but then Spellbinder used up most of my remaining patience, so when loi Repute resisted I (wisely) decided to pull stumps.
What a week. Invariant
My wife and I do the Concise and the Quick Cryptic in the evening, so I am very late to the party… As we started doing these well after the QC had begun, I recently bought Book 1 of the Times Quick Cryptic crosswords. In his 2016 introduction Richard Rogan wrote “… the same rules of the cryptic crossword are applied, only a little more gently. In this way, we hope to cater for newer or less experienced solvers, and also for the seasoned expert, who may wish to polish a few off before lunch, or before bed!”
Going by the level of difficulty seen more recently, perhaps it is time for some of the setters to be reminded of this!
A DNF for me. Couldn’t solve REPUTE or SPELLBINDER.
I enjoyed most of this puzzle but these clues were beyond me.
CODs THREAD and DISCO.
Thanks both.
11.46.
I came in one second slower than Cedric, at 18:33, and needed his help to parse REPUTE. I think I’m definitely a BTP sort of solver, though I do enjoy the occasions where the wordplay reveals an answer that I wasn’t expecting. In my view this one is an appropriate QC for the difficult end of the spectrum, though I can’t imagine that anyone was breathlessly awaiting my verdict.
Thank you for the blog!