Times Quick Cryptic 1776 by Breadman

Author   ChrisPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

I found today’s more difficult than yesterday but as many found yesterday’s quite hard maybe the reverse will hold true today.
I found this chock full of clever clues which I’ve enjoyed untangling for the blog.

I finished just on 12 minutes with LOI 8dn for which I had a great deal of troubling working out both the answer and the cryptic – click ‘read more’ to read of these travails below.

ACROSS

1. Animal shelter contains device which monitors small dwelling (7)
COTTAGE – animal shelter (CAGE) (COTE – a small shelter for sheep or birds) contains device which monitors (TAG).
7. At work, Ray, Lee and daughter like some cakes (7)
LAYERED – anagram (at work) of RAY LEE, daughter (D).
9. Beer seen outside South Africa game usually (2,1,4)
AS A RULE – beer (ALE) seen outside South Africa (SA) and game (RU – Rugby Union).
10. Holiday residence, home for criminal (7)
VILLAIN – holiday residence (VILLA), home (IN).
11. Jab acceptable during training (4)
POKE – acceptable (OK) during training (PE).
12. Wrinkled expert grasping new sequence of steps (4,5)
LINE DANCE – wrinkled (LINED), expert (ACE) grasping new (N).
14. Adult joint’s style of music (9)
BLUEGRASS – adult (BLUE – the magazine/movie type), joint (GRASS – as in drugs).
16. Cheese female consumed the wrong way (4)
FETA – female (F), consumed – ate – the wrong way (ETA).
17. Embarrassed when theatrical person meets newsman (7)
ASHAMED – when (AS), theatrical person (HAM) meets newsman (ED).
20. Loosen piece of hair after bun arranged (7)
UNBLOCK – piece of hair (LOCK) after an anagram (arranged) of BUN.
21. Devilish fifth grade male disrupts teacher in charge (7)
DEMONIC – the fifth letter of grad(E) and make (M) inside (they are disrupting) teacher (DON), in charge (IC).
22. Chaps on rocky peak finally broadcast anguish (7)
TORMENT – chaos (MEN) on rocky peak (TOR) and broadcas(T).

DOWN

1. One who applauds committee’s filming equipment (12)
CLAPPERBOARD – one who capplauds (CLAPPER), committee (BOARD).
2. Much appreciated handkerchief during short tour (5,3)
THANK YOU – handkerchief (HANKY) inside (during) short (TOU)r.
3. Regularly call funny Welshman (4)
ALUN – regularly c(A)l(L) f(U)n(N)y. I haven’t come across this typical Welsh name before.
4. Cricket team in novel event (6)
ELEVEN – inside nov(EL EVEN)t.
5. Bike rides embodying advert for Greek islands (8)
CYCLADES – bike rides (CYCLES) holding (embodying) advert (AD).
6. Legendary monster bore scar centrally (4)
ORCA – central chunks of b(OR)e s(CA)r. Well, ‘it must be’ a legendary monster but I haven’t found any references to it – killer whales – yes – monsters – no.
8. Imbecile Cockney journalist wearing black coat (6,6)
DONKEY JACKET – my problem clue today. It was LOI so I had all the checkers, jacket was obvious and I was itching to put in ‘dinner jacket’ but I couldn’t justify it at all. This transfixed me onto the definition being ‘black coat’ and I just couldn’t pick the clue apart. Eventually donkey jacket went in based on ‘imbecile’ but I still couldn’t work out the rest having considered anagrams (2 Cs in Cockney though). Post solve I looked up donkey jacket to find that it’s a dark BLUE jacket so I was able to prise apart black and jacket and it was obvious. Such a struggle so I must think this was a good clue – so COD.
Imbecile (DONKEY – often, sadly, heard from football crowds), cockney journalist (‘ACK – from hack) wearing (inside) black (JET).
12. Georgia, getting in hardwood, books “bony” joiner?(8)
LIGAMENT – Georgia (GA) getting inside hardwood (LIME), books (NT). My first COD contender for such a wonderful definition.
13. Crippled in heel on type of golf course (4-4)
NINE-HOLE – anagram (crippled) of IN HEEL ON.
15. Seaman reportedly avoided kidnap (6)
ABDUCT – seaman (AB – able bodied), homophone (reportedly) of avoided – ducked.
18. Border patroller’s opening drug (4)
HEMP – border (HEM), (P)atroller.
19. Second character in waterproof coat that gives skiers a lift (1-3)
T-BAR – second character – of the alphabet (B) inside waterproof coat (TAR). A T-Bar is an inverted T which hangs from a wire allowing 2 people to be supported – one on each half.

65 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 1776 by Breadman”

  2. These post Christmas puzzles have been toughies! DONKEY JACKET was a struggle. Fortunately for me I had the the DONKEY first, but had B(ACK)ED for awhile until I got the T of JACKET. Woe unto those who put in DINNER JACKET… seems like it could be a common mistake. We shall see!
  3. This morning I took the 11.00 Shepperton to Kentucky.

    FOI 1dn CLAPPERBOARD as used by the clapperloader.

    LOI 14ac BLUEGRASS – duellin’ banjos an’ all that.

    COD 8dn DONKEY JACKET – Les Dawson’s present to his wife who had asked for a fur coat for Christmas.

    WOD 2dn I THANK-YOU from big-hearted Arthur.

    Edited at 2020-12-29 02:35 am (UTC)

  4. I biffed DINNER JACKET from the checkers without really looking at the clue in detail.

    But 1a doesn’t work like that since CAGE with TAG in would have two Gs. The shelter has to be COTE (like dovecote).

  5. I found this hard. All green in 17 but lots of missing general knowledge and shuffling of unknown answers as new checkers appeared – most notably as ‘cycleads’ became CYCLADES. But also didn’t know ‘lime’ was a hardwood so had GA and NT but no idea what else was to go in until BLUEGRASS (never knowingly heard I should probably be ashamed to admit) left me with –GAMENT, which in turn freed up LINE DANCE – I would never have arrived at LINED for wrinkled just from the clue. All fair in retrospect but had me sweating! No problem with DONKEY JACKET though with less than half the early leaderboard all green it seems to have caught many out! DNK COTE, so was also wondering was OTT was doing and NHO T-BAR in skiiing but makes sense. Just four on the first pass of acrosses but lots of the early downs went in quite readily to give hope.

    EDIT: I’ve now read Paul’s comment and realise I have heard of a dovecote and am even able to recognise one!

    Edited at 2020-12-29 06:52 am (UTC)

  6. 9 minutes. I lost some time parsing two biffed answers, DONKEY JACKET and T-BAR.

    I thought we’d discussed ORCA meaning ‘monster’ before and found that it was okay, but on checking I see it was ORC meaning ‘whale’ that was the point at issue – and it is okay btw, although it’s more usually a monster. I can’t find any support for ORCA as anything other than a killer whale so I’m wondering if the setter is confusing them.

    1. “Today Orcas are one of the most beloved animals on the planet, but the creatures were widely perceived as monsters long before activists began chanting ‘save the whales.’

      “Everybody knew that these whales were ferocious and dangerous, and if you got too close they would bite your head off,” said Mark Leiren-Young, author of ‘The Killer Whale Who Changed the World’.

      In the 1950s, the U.S. military launched an air strike on nearly 100 killer whales off the coast of Iceland — slaughtering them with rockets and gunfire — after fishermen complained they were eating too many herring.”

      Radio Canada (CBC)

  7. I shared some of jackkt’s experience spending time parsing obvious biffs (from COTTAGE via T-BAR to DONKEY JACKET). I thought this was whizzing by until some of the later clues made me scratch my head (LINE DANCE, BLUEGRASS, ASHAMED for example). This was an enjoyable puzzle but, in the end, took me over target by a couple of minutes again. Q of the day – ORCA (perhaps the setter is confusing this with a Tolkein Orc?). COD is definitely LIGAMENT – great clue. Thanks to Breadman and Chris. John M.

    Edited at 2020-12-29 07:22 am (UTC)

  8. Filled in at various times through the early hours to culminate in a resounding DNF. Fell for DINNER JACKET; well, at least it’s (usually) black not blue. And for some reason biffed DOMINIC for 21a, totally missing the definition. And then footling around google seeking a fictional schoolboy who terrorised fifth grade teachers.

    “He prospers, who burns in the morning
    What he wrote on the previous night.”

  10. I didn’t lose much time to it (compared to 1a/19d), but lacking any prior knowledge I put in DUNCES JACKET for 8d which doesn’t quite fit the singular definition in the clue but could conceivably have been a thing.
    1. Excellent. I now have the image of posh schools which have upgraded from the Dunces Cap to the Dunces Jacket. With a lot of 1950 s Bunteresque slang (Cave, tuck, Fives, Wall game etc) finding its way into these puzzles it could definitely have been a thing at Eton.
      1. Snap! I spent ages on 8d and also arrived at DUNCES JACKET, which then stayed in the grid for a long time. However, I couldn’t understand where the S came from, so I reconsidered and eventually managed to find DONKEY JACKET just before I put down my pencil (I do these puzzles on paper). I was very pleased with myself until I read chrisw91’s blog and found three other errors in my solution.
  11. CLAPPERBOARD and a few of it’s offshoots got me off to a quick start but there was some chewy stuff in this entertaining puzzle. CYCLADES I was vaguely aware of so trusted the wordplay, ORCA went in with a shrug as it couldn’t be anything else and I managed to avoid the elephant trap at 8d. Fortunately I knew that DONKEY JACKETS were blue which helped untangle the correct answer. MY LOI BLUEGRASS brought me my biggest PDM and therefore pips many other excellent contenders for my COD.
    Finished in 9.57, with COTTAGE unparsed – I couldn’t work out what sort of device an OTT was, so thanks to Zenpublisher for clearing that up.
    Thanks to Chris

    Edited at 2020-12-29 08:24 am (UTC)

  12. Ah, DINNER JACKET. I couldn’t work out why there were so many on the leaderboard with one wrong. Having often worn a DONKEY JACKET while misspending my youth I never thought twice about the answer to 8d. TfTTers are generally more familiar with the smarter garment it appears.
  13. 12:58, another steady solve. Several clues needed this helpful blog for me to understand what was going on. I was happy with my semi-parse of animal shelter=CAGE, I don’t know how any sub-10 solver can get through a puzzle without some short cuts.

    Also felt I dodged a bullet with DONKEY JACKET, another semi-parse. And I’ll also put T-BAR in the same category as “second character in waterproof” turned out not to be the letter “A”. At one point I thought there might be a device like an A-frame, that you put your head through, and get pulled up. An A-BAR.

    COD AS A RULE, nice surface with South Africa and Rugby joined together.

    1. I also put A-BAR, for the very reason you describe. However, as I couldn’t parse the clue and have never been skiing, I realised my mistake only when I read chrisw91’s blog.
  14. This felt like hard work late last night. 23:22. Perhaps I should have gone to my bed and left it for this morning. FOI CLAPPERBOARD so an encouraging start. I struggled with, but liked, COTTAGE LIGAMENT BLUEGRASS and others. Kept going back to 8dn each time managing to resist writing in DINNER until the DONKEY arrived.

    And, yes, ÇOTE. My mother-in-law once mentioned a local dovecote. She was Scottish so called it a doocot. When I asked what that was she told me (so unhelpfully) it’s where the doos bide.

  15. Worked my way through the Acrosses without success, so started at the SE corner and worked up. Never really got in the right wavelength length. Did not like T-Bar, Hemp, Donkey jacket, Ashamed, Bluegrass and by the time I got up to Cottage had lost the will to associate Cote with dovecote to parse it correctly. So, for me, not a joyful exercise but an hour of gnashing of teeth. C’est la vie. I am sure others thoroughly enjoyed this, but for me it was a “nul points”.
    Thanks to Chris for the unravelling and to Breadman for giving my frustration an exercise.
  16. We found this to be quite challenging but immensely enjoyable. Unlike yesterday’s puzzle this one really got our little grey cells working at quite a pace and, even then, we came in at 21 minutes. Thanks Breadman for your late Christmas present.

    FOI: layered
    LOI: donkey jacket
    COD: abduct

    Thanks for the blog Chris.

  17. … big time. I just couldn’t get onto the wavelength today.

    I found many of the clues complicated even when explained ( thank you, Chris!), and felt that several of them were more suited to the main puzzle.

    So I crawl back, defeated, into my hole and hope tomorrow’s more accommodating to my tiny brain.

    But I am full of admiration for those who managed it.

    Diana

  18. I enjoyed this – thanks Breadman and chris. I thought blue for adult was a bit of a leap, and I always think using ‘cockney’ to drop an aitch is a bit forced but overall there was some witty stuff here so thanks again.
  19. … and today was no exception for an 8 minute solve. A very pleasant puzzle, and I avoided the bear-trap at 8D Donkey jacket – unlike many it seems, it was the Donkey bit that was a write-in for me as soon as I read the clue and then I had to work out the Jacket part.

    Only two clues caused me any hesitation, and both have already been discussed at length above. I join those who saw Cage as the animal shelter in 1A Cottage and then wondered what an Ott was (how revealing that so many of us thought of a cage as a shelter not a prison for the poor animal inside), and I also wondered why 6A Orca was considered legendary. I am lucky enough to have seen orca twice in the wild, off the coast of Snæfellsnes in west Iceland and in Puget Sound near Seattle, and they are neither legendary nor for that matter monsters, but very real and totally magnificent.

    LOI was 14A Bluegrass, for which I needed the checkers, and too many excellent clues all round for a stand-out COD.

    Many thanks to Chris for the blog
    Cedric

    1. I saw a huge (20-30?) pod a little further north – on the ferry from Point Roberts to Vancouver Island. 20-30 years ago but an experience which stays a lifetime.
      1. A sight never to be forgotten – we saw them in Antarctica. Only later did I see the clips from TV Wildlife programmes showing how clever they are and how they work together to catch terrified seals.

        Edited at 2020-12-30 08:35 am (UTC)

  21. Inside my target of 15 minutes, but initially failing with DINNER JACKET, which was obviously only partially parsed After getting a fail result, I was forced to look again for an alternative, when DONKEY emerged and the parsing was completable. All the more frustrating as I used to wear a donkey jacket when running the touch line for my School rugby team – I was too small and unsporty to make any of the teams! At least I didn’t fall for the COTE / cage trap, seeing that answer fairly quickly. Good puzzle and blog, thanks both.
  22. One of my sons spent two weeks as a volunteer aboard the Silurian, the sailing ship used for research by the Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust. They saw a pod of orcas somewhere off Lewis and so he learned a lot about them – including the fact that there is no recorded instance of a fatal attack by an orca on a human in the wild. Google it – it’s true!

    Anyway, black tie and a black eye for me – carelessly bunged in “dinner jacket” for a DNF after 12 mins. Hey ho.

    FOI CLAPPERBOARD, LOI BLUEGRASS, COD LIGAMENT.

    Many thanks Breadman and Chris.

    Templar

    PS Could some knowledgeable person please tell me whether (and if so when) there’s a jumbo in the paper over New Year? I like to do those on paper not screen, but always seem to buy the wrong edition (eg I rushed out on Christmas Eve to get the Times eagerly expecting a Christmas jumbo but alas no jumbo). Thank you!

  23. Date: Tue, 29 Dec 20

    FOI: 16a FETA
    LOI: 18d HEMP
    WOD: DONKEY JACKET

    Total Answered: ALL

    To steal a phrase from therotter: “Well, I’ll go to the foot of our stairs!” I have done it again! My second completion of a QC.

    I must admit that I did not think I would complete this one. It was a tough one! After about 30 minutes I only had 4 answers in. I could not see myself completing this. But taking advice from various people here, I stopped subjecting myself to a time limit, and, when stuck, went off to do something else, then came back. It works. I did have to resort to a crossword dictionary eventually.

    10a VILLAIN threw me for a long time. I did have the word “VILLAN” in my mind, but it was one letter short. I always thought villain was spelt “villan”. Quite embarrassing for an ex-military policeman!

    8d DONKEY JACKET came to me in bits and pieces. I had worked out that the second word was jacket. Then donkey came to me, not immediately because of imbecile, but because of a fashion that trended for a short while when I was about 13. Donkey Jackets. I remember wearing one and feeling pretty tough about it!

    So, yes, another completion. Removing the self-imposed time constraint really did help. I also noticed that hiding the timer did not stop it ticking down, but it does appear to pause when the browser window is closed down.

    1. I subscribe to the Times and in the UK on-line version under the Puzzles tab, QC, there are three lines in top right corner which leads you to where you can swipe off the timer. But I normally solve in the paper paper which I find much easier.
    2. We all do these for enjoyment. I only look at times for the QC as I can do them most days and am interested in how I did – no exact science here but when you get to know how others usually fare and compare against them, it can give an indication.
      I always print off the weekend 15x15s and enjoy doing them at any quiet moments during the week – with no thought of how long each one may take overall.
      Great progress – keep enjoying!
    4. Congratulations again, PW! You beat me fair and square today, as I put my pencil down after 64 minutes and then found I had made three errors. I did use the pause-and-come-back tactic, and it helped me solve two or three clues – but, unfortunately, not all.

      P.S. Someone once said to me that achieving something technically difficult may just be luck, achieving it twice may just be coincidence, but achieving it a third time demonstrates an unarguable skill. I will be watching out for your third full solve.

  24. I warmed up by looking at a couple of clues on the 15×15 today; and ended up finishing it. So I came here full of confidence. FOI POKE. Then I felt I was walking through quicksand. This was not easy.
    My final two were LINE DANCE which required a back-to-basics look at the clue-could not see the Wrinkled or the Expert. Having got that I must have spent 2/3 minutes getting LIGAMENT, again from very careful parsing. All correct, but not everything parsed. Time 19:15.
    Thanks for the explanations. A very good puzzle.
    David
  25. Found I had to do more building of the clues and less guessing than usual.
    FOI VILLAIN. Thought of CLAPPERBOARD and DONKEY JACKET fairly quickly which helped.

    NHO BLUEGRASS style of music (LOI). But I confess I googled ‘style of music’ and saw Blues which helped me guess.

    CsOD. LIGAMENT, THANK YOU, CYCLADES.

    Thanks, Chris, and all.

  26. Fooled by DONKEY jacket – just saw black and assumed DINNER without knowing exactly why.
    The answer is extremely convoluted. DNK T-BAR – put A BAR since A is second letter of waterproof as a guess. Guessed ORCA -not known as a monster, only a whale, and COTTAGE without understanding why. Not keen on HEMP as a drug. A challenge today.
    1. Hemp, according to Collins is:
      Also called: cannabis, marijuana
      an annual strong-smelling Asian plant, Cannabis sativa, having tough fibres, deeply lobed leaves, and small greenish flowers: family Cannabidaeceae
  27. I put in DINNER JACKET, too. I couldn’t parse it but just assumed I was being thick and that the blog would put me right. Which it did. Cue, loud slapping of head…
    I was ok with the parsing of COTTAGE, 1 across, because of knowing dovecote but couldn’t parse 19 down, T-BAR at all. Not only that, I’d parsed 17 across as “A-SHAM-ED”, and raised an eyebrow at the article not having been provided for in the clue. Hmmm…. putting together the imbecile of 8 down and the embarrassed of 17 across just about sums it up, I think.
    Loved the knotty parsing of LIGAMENT 12 down.
    Thanks so much, Chris, for setting me right with the solutions and parsing and thanks too to Breadman
    1. Well, we/most of us (and certainly not I ) can’t always get sub 10s. No need for 17ac’s or 8dn’s – it’s all about enjoying the ride and such masterstrokes as 12dn. As it happens – I really enjoyed writing up the blog today – so many clues were more complex (=clever) than I first thought.
      1. Thanks, Chris, for taking the time to reply and also for being – as always – kind in your response.
        Wishing you a great new year! Lisa
  28. Couldn’t parse 8dn and now I know why. Other than that, all completed (albeit with the one obvious error) in 20 mins.

    However, I really enjoyed this and, as Chris has said, some nicely structured clues. Particularly enjoyed 21ac “Demonic”, 12dn “Ligament” and 2dn “Thank You”.

    FOI – 7ac “Layered”
    LOI – 12dn “Ligament”
    COD – 15dn “Abduct”

    Thanks as usual.

  29. Well, I see the Christmas spirit was in short supply in the Breadman household. I thought this was quite hard in places, with several clues, (eg 12d, 21ac), more akin to the 15×15 (so well done PW). Crossed the line around the 30 min mark and then spent at least another five trying to parse Donkey Jacket, Bluegrass and Cottage, and only succeeded with the first of those three. Not my area of expertise, but is grass really interchangeable with joint? CoD to the QC clued Clapperboard. Invariant
  30. Fortunately it would appear that , at least in France, T-bars have been phased out in favour of button drag lifts which pull individual skiers up the mountain. Haven’t had to tackle a T-bar for years. Always a struggle to balance bodyweight on the snow if your partner on the T was a child or a hefty bloke. However jokey references still remain e.g. cafes called the T Bar.

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