QC 2939 by Orpheus—Alas Poor Yorrick, I knew him

99 comments on “QC 2939 by Orpheus—Alas Poor Yorrick, I knew him”

1. 10 minutes for this with BRACKISH and the CHAP of CHAPFALLEN delaying me a little as my last two in.

   ‘Perhaps’ in 1ac is there to indicate a DBE as a SECOND- HAND might also be part of a clock or chronometer etc.

   No trouble over the spelling of TSAR at 17ac as it’s hidden in the clue.

   I think ‘connected with’ at 21ac just means ‘next to’ like we have ‘by’ or ‘with’ on occasion, rather than implying any particular order of the components parts.

   Collins and Chambers have CHAPFALLEN as one word no hyphen. I was ages thinking of this but it rang the faintest bell. Aside from a couple of Jumbos, it has appeared here only once before, 10 years ago.

   I knew NECK as impudence or audacity from the expression ‘brass neck’ but it can also stand alone.

   I know HOYDEN only from crosswords.

   BRACKISH as my LOI was another that needed dredging from the depths of my mind. It last appeared here in May 2024 when I note I made a similar comment.

   1. OMG – has QC really been going 10 years, where did that go?

      1. 11 years last week actually. But if you’re referring to my comment about CHAPFALLEN I should clarify that it was with reference to a 15×15 puzzle in October 2015. Unless otherwise specified I tend to lump QCs and 15x15s together when citing appearances in the archive. If I have reason to cite Jumbo, Mephisto and Club Monthly appearances I always mention them separately as the majority here don’t look at them.

   2. Straightforward until the last few – chapfallen for goodness sake – I guessed it in the end. And after looking up Sauto too I finally got that last once Brackish was worked out – I must remember Bish for error/mistake

2. I was interrupted by a phone call at 3:58; when I came back an hour later, all the clues I couldn’t solve were obvious. I had put in a wrong answer of face instead of neck, but I saw second hand at once and erased it.

   Unfortunately, the clues I hadn’t even looked at were not so easy, and I struggled a bit in the gossip/director/modest section.

   Time: 9:47

3. 8.48 for me, having been delayed at the end tracking down a typo. DNK neither CHAPFALLEN nor the term for gossip which has not been used, I gather, for 110 years. I, too, had TZAR for a while and also toyed with MAKEO. It never seemed right. Thanks Orpheus and Merlin, I’m with you on the joy of leafing through reference books. That practice shares some of the modern-day MAKER vibe I think.

4. Nothing too difficult today except maybe HOYDEN, which I’d never heard of but saw the wordplay straightaway. My thought on the second hand in 1a was that not all watches might have one, hence perhaps. DNK CHAPFALLEN but had a guess at chap with the ‘p’ from GOSSIP in place.
   Thanks Merlin and setter.

   1. What is the answer to Merlin’s poser?:
      Ladettes barge onto hideaway (8)

      1. hoy = barge, den = hideaway, Merlin is giving an alternative clue for the say answer using what for many was the NHO hoy in yesterday’s QC

         1. Doesn’t quite work as ladettes is plural?

      2. Sorry, should be (6)

         1. Should be ‘Ladette’ without ‘s’.

            1. But the singular doesn’t work, because Merlin needs “barge” for “hoy” but “ladette” would require “barges”. Tricky business, clue-writing, though Merlin is good at it!

5. “Csar” is never a correct spelling. The only valid alternatives are “czar” and “tsar,” with the latter the standard spelling when referring to the bygone Russian autocrat.
   I was happy to be able to think of CHAPFALLEN, which emerged covered with the dust of long decades…

   1. Tzar also in Collins and Chambers. Csar is included on Wiki (!) and there’s a interesting few posts about it here https://www.reddit.com/r/writing/comments/dshzhy/csar_to_tzar/?rdt=45225

      1. You won’t find any periodical or publishing house that has “tzar” or “csar” in its style guide.

6. Faded from a fast start (8 on the first pass of acrosses) to still pleasing 11.12. Hold up at the end when I needed the P from a hard won GOSSIP to let me see what the NHO was going to be. Would have struggled with HOYDEN had it been clued any other way (did enjoy the alternative though, Merlin).

7. Every day is a school day. Some very nearly forgotten words and some dusty GK dragged out on my way to the SCC’s welcoming portals.
   Hamlet did me at school, last time I would have seen CHAPFALLEN, and I have encountered no HOYDENs (sadly…!) for about as long. FINICKY is a word I should use more, it has a certain timbre. Didn’t know Stravinsky was NEOCLASSICAL, and will have forgotten by tonight, but a fairly obvious anagram.
   Liked SOUPÇON for the aural disconnect between the part of clue and answer.
   Thanks Orpheus, and Merlin for referencing Brewers which I will dust down and re-browse, and Partridge which I will research; sounds fun.

8. S.J. Perelman used CHAPFALLEN, less than 100 years ago. 5:15.

9. A DNF today due to HOYDEN and CHAPFALLEN, both DNKs. Not sure they qualify as GK, but they do give me 2 new words to irritate my kids with.

   Pi ❤️

   1. I think Hoyden in particular has great potential for revival. We need a feminine equivalent of “yob”, “massive lad” etc.

      1. Presumably the feminine equivalent of yob would be lrig – if only it was pronounceable.

         1. I see what you did there. I’ve also used “yobo” in the past, making your feminine alternative the more fluent “olrig”. Should we make it a thing?

            On edit: of course, that doesn’t work as it would be “lrigo”. Back to the drawing board. *sigh*

         2. Elrig is how Billingsgate fishmongers said it, in their alternative to cockney rhyming slang, where many words are pronounced backwards … delo (old), k-nab (bank), yob (boy), tish (****), etc.

10. Easy enough but not much to enjoy for me

11. Well, a week when the cost of season ticket for the SCC is looking to be poor value. 16.24 for a lovely puzzle. Also NHO Hoyden but can’t go wrong with that kind of world play, likewise chapfallen from the crossers and wordplay had to be.

    Was glad Mrs RH saw finicky, I know a few Nicolas and the variants of Nicky, Nicki, Nikki, Nikky makes writing to them a nightmare!

    Thanks Orpheus and Merlin for the parsing of Director which we saw early but waited until all of the crossers before taking a punt as couldn’t remember the OR bit for men.

12. Felt as though the little grey cells weren’t at full power this morning which didn’t help when faced with a number of new words. But I got there in the end with no pink squares which was a relief after yesterday’s carelessness.
    Started with SECOND HAND and finished with NEOCLASSICAL in 9.21.
    Thanks to Merlin and Orpheus

13. Couldn’t agree more with Merlin about the pleasure of reference books. I sometimes astound young colleagues by getting up and finding a law report in a BOOK on a SHELF, instead of bringing it up on screen. I’m fairly confident that they snigger about it behind my back, given that they snigger about it to my face!

    Gentle puzzle, much enjoyed. Three long ones (CANTANKEROUS, NEOCLASSICAL and LOI NHO CHAPFALLEN) held me up and needed all checkers. COD BRACKISH WOD HOYDEN. All done in 06:09 for 1.2K and an Excellent Day.

    Many thanks Orpheus and Merlin.

14. 22 mins…

    A good puzzle with a couple of unknowns that were still solvable. I was hoping for a sub-20, but 12dn “Brackish” and 22ac “Chapfallen” had me head scratching. The former I knew, but just didn’t know the “Bish” element, whilst the latter just looked wrong and forced me to look at any other combination until I decided it must be right.

    FOI – 10ac “Ajar”
    LOI – 22ac “Chapfallen”
    COD – 8ac “Finicky”

    Thanks as usual!

15. 10:58 to complete the grid, but WOE – CoNTANKEROUS. And after I had felt so pleased to get NEOCLASSICAL (a tough anagram, especially if you know very little about Shostakovich’s music), HOYDEN (NHO but followed the fairly obvious wordplay), CHAPFALLEN (ditto NHO, ditto fairly obvious wordplay) and GOSSIP (not familiar with Chew the Rag).

    And then at least as long going down the delightful rabbithole of how to spell Tsar etc – great link! For all the pain and damage caused by social media, the internet does still have a few delightful nooks and crannies. Many thanks Merlin both for the blog and for the link.

    1. Fortunately you didn’t need to know about Shostakovich … 😉

       1. Ooops! But it just shows that one modern Russian composer is the same as any other to me. I can recognise Tchaikovsky’s music though …

          1. What about Prokofiev ? Borodin ? Mussorgsky ?

             1. We went to a great exhibition in London a few year’s back, can’t remember where but it was portraits of famous Russians. The one of Mussorgsky was completely spellbinding “in the flesh” – talk about the tortured artist! It’s here https://limelight-arts.com.au/features/composer-of-the-month-modest-mussorgsky/

                1. Yikes! He looks like something out of Dostoevsky.

             2. I used to have trouble remembering which pieces were by Rachmaninoff and which by Rimsky-Korsakov.

                1. My dear great grandfather always used to refer to the Bite of the Fumble Bee by Rip-me-corsets-off! I suspect he borrowed it from somewhere but I still thought it was hilarious.

16. 15:13 for the solve. Slowed up by falling for the MAKEo trick but when the grid also contained HOYDEN & CHAPFALLEN (NHO) AGAVE (vHO) – it didn’t get scrutinised as closely. No complaints about the clueing of those latter three though – all very buildable.

    Even so might well have struggled on BRACKISH if I hadn’t seen BISH=mistake yesterday as Mistake involving some lamb, maybe being salty (8) did for me in an Izetti last May.

    Thanks to Merlin and Orpheus

17. I got stuck at the end on DIRECTOR and MODEST. Not sure why other than I think I was overthinking them after spending a long time on CHAPFALLEN (what is such a word doing in a QC? Surely it is more suited to a Mephisto?) NHO CHAPFALLEN but worked it out from wordplay then looked it up afterwards. Over 15 minutes for me, so very slow.

18. Got off to a flying start with 1A which is always nice and carried on in the same vein, thinking a second sub 15 min finish was on the cards. Not to be but sub 20, 19.50. NHO HOYDEN and with (F)ALL(EN), CHAP had to be.
    COD SOUPÇON. Took a while and pleased to parse DIRECTOR.
    With an imminent trip ahead to the sunshine state and a mangrove bayou on the doorstep, BRACKISH was a write in.
    Thanks Orpheus and Merlin

19. finickity – that’s all I have to say about that

20. 15m
    Slowed down after a quick top half. Last few: modest, director, gossip, and LOI the NHO chapfallen.
    COD tentacle.

21. Finished in 9.14 with all correct and parsed, but in solving the time seemed quicker than that. Most of the clues went in easily enough including CHAPFALLEN which I’m sure I’ve come across before in a puzzle. It was the crossers TENTACLE and finally NEOCLASSICAL that cost me the extra time, the letters of both needing to be written out before they were solvable.

22. Apart from the unknown HOYDEN (which was helpfully clued), I was on for a good time until I reached the SE corner when my wheels just fell off. I got the FALLEN of 22a but couldn’t recognise CHAPFALLEN as a word and entered it in desperation. GOSSIP and my LOI SOUPCON took way too long so I ended up in the SCC wondering what had happened.
    COD Neoclassical.
    Thanks to both.

23. Not on the wavelength at all. Eight to the bad, mostly NHO. Disappointing; Orpheus is usually a most friendly setter. Thank you, Merlin, for sorting it all out.

24. 22:22 to finish, having eventually worked out the unknown HOYDEN and CHAPFALLEN after a slow start with the across clues.

25. 10.46. All pretty quick till unknown CHAPFALLEN though presumably came across it once in Hamlet (nice blog). Knew HOYDEN from crosswords or Polygon. Enjoyed GOSSIP and SOUPÇON

26. 7:11 but with one pink square for CoNTANKEROURS.
    COD SOUPÇON. LOI CHAPFALLEN.

    Thanks Merlin and Orpheus

27. An enjoyable puzzle. Hoyden- nho this meaning, but very clearly clued. NHO chapfallen so I guessed .

    COD GOSSIP.
    Thanks to Orpheus and Merlin

28. From SECOND HAND to TENTACLE in 7:13. Needed the wordplay for HOYDEN and CHAPFALLEN. Thanks Orpheus and Merlin.

29. On the wavelength, or so I thought until I stuck at CHAPFALLEN – biffed because it had to be but NHO. Other LOsI BRACKISH and MAKER because the latter seemed too easy.
    Overall very fast, for me. Smiled at SOUPÇON, COD. Also liked GOSSIP, MODEST, HOYDEN, SAUDI, GREEN.
    Thanks for all the helpful hints about dictionaries and dashes, Merlin. The iPad added the cedilla for me though the French don’t always use accents on capitals – must try the em dash again.
    And, come to think of it, my late husband and I used to give each other reference books as anniversary presents! Sounds a bit unromantic nowadays🙂

    1. Our SOED was a honeymoon purchase. . . it was on special offer 🙂

       1. Awwwwwww

       2. Jealous about SOED – having admired the two volumes, I know it isn’t exactly short.

          1. A to Markworthy, and Marl to Z (and addenda). In almost daily use before Google came along. And yes, we also have a Brewer’s, and the Complete Works, plus a well-thumbed Fowler’s (cracking read, especially for things like split infinitives: Class V 👍)

             1. For some reason the letters on the spines of the volumes of my childhood encyclopedia set are still in my brain! From A-Arc, Arc-Bil, Bil-Car etc all the way through to Und-Vis, Vis-Wes, Wes-Zyr.

       3. I got mine free as an introductory offer from The Folio Society along with a Brewers Phrase & Fable, Chambers Slang Dictionary and a Penguin Encyclopaedia. I was committed to buy four books over the next year, but that was no hardship. The SOED is in a presentation sleeve and has gold leaf edges. It sits on the shelf looking great, but I never access it because it also came as a CD-ROM I loaded to my computer for easy access which I do every day.

          1. No CD-ROMs in 1981 !

             1. Where have you got 1981 from?

                1. . . .the year of my marriage 😉

                   1. Ah, I see. I misunderstood you.

                      1. My fault for not being clear.

    2. Not at all! MrB and I give each books most birthdays and Christmases, and they are nearly always non-fiction, if not reference books. What lovely memories you must have when you dip into one.

       1. 🙂

30. 11.31 This did feel quite tricky. NHO HOYDEN or CHAPFALLEN. Suspicion to SOUPCON was a bit of a leap. LOI MAKER was delayed by a typo in CANTANKEROUS. Thanks Merlin and Orpheus.

31. NHO chapfallen or chewing the rag but on the other hand knew hoyden and agave. Started very well but I was held up by the modest/director crossing and by chapfallen. Ended up all parsed in 17 minutes and managed to avoid any stupid spelling errors, unlike yesterday.

    FOI – 1ac SECOND HAND
    LOI – 22ac CHAPFALLEN
    COD – 21ac SOUPÇON

    Thanks to Orpheus and Merlin.

32. I was held up at the end by the intersecting BRACKISH and CHAP. I got the unknown CHAP before BRACKISH but then I didn’t do the 15 x 15 yesterday. Other than those two I solved steadily to finish in 8:09. Thanks Merlin

33. Again, a flying start with promise of joy not to come.
    DNF with HOYDON – clearly clued for all but the blind.
    SAUTO? Yes -we, too, momentarily wondered who and where they were.
    No lack of familiarity with NIGHTCAP
    Quite a few delightful PDMs – ah! BRACKISH ah! SOUPÇON!
    Much enjoyed, and as always, a lesson lurked- today, CHAPFALLEN.. will try that in casual conversation.
    Thanks to Orpheus and Merlin.

34. Finished correctly in 50 minutes. Two in a row.

    Not easy this one. Never heard of hoyden, chapfallen.
    I was not sure of the spelling of tsar. Various sources use tsar, tzar, csar or czar.

    I never thought of Stravinsky as neoclassicist (considering the Rite of Spring, the Firebird ,etc.) , but apparently he adopted different styles in 3 major periods : Russian Period, the Neoclassical Period, and the Serial or Modernist Period.

    1. La Baiser de la Fée, Symphony in Three Movements, Symphony of Psalms, Dumbarton Oaks concerto etc, etc

35. I was on course for a (very very rare) sub-5 minuter with two to go, but those held me up for almost a full minute: the unknown meaning of ‘chew the rag’ and the NHO CHAPFALLEN. 5:29.

    Great blog as always, Merlin, and thanks to Orpheus.

36. 28:38

    NHO HOYDEN, but obvious from wordplay and checkers. Didn’t know Stravinsky was NEOCLASSICAL but the anagram was fair. But it was LOI CHAPFALLEN that really stumped me. Crestfallen, yes but NHO chapfallen. Probably spent 10 minutes on the final 3.

37. This got my brain working – thanks Orpheus. All fairly plain sailing until my last few: NEOCLASSICAL/TENTACLE (doh), CHAPFALLEN (guessed as NHO) and LOI SOUPÇON which gets COD. Very pleased bish has come up so recently as this made BRACKISH solvable. Lovely puzzle and great blog Merlin, especially giving context to CHAPFALLEN, never to be forgotten! Thanks all.

38. Given some of his other offerings today, I’m quite disappointed that Orpheus didn’t take the opportunity to squeeze in Dodecaphonic (caddie poncho)* as the answer to the Stravinsky clue, but each to their own.
    The Brackish/Chapfallen pairing pushed me out beyond 25mins, but that doesn’t feel too bad as today’s solve included some tricky parsing. CoD to 13d, Modest, for featuring a second Russian composer. Invariant

39. 6:05

    I seemed to have the GK for this, though wasn’t sure of CHAPFALLEN – needed BRACKISH to confirm. HOYDEN only known from these parts. As for Stravinsky, I almost mixed him up with Shostakovich, but hit the right answer once several checkers were in place. I liked FINICKY.

    Thanks Merlin and Orpheus

40. 3:46. A clean sweep bar the unknown (to me) CHAPFALLEN my LOI and derived from the wordplay. Neat puzzle from Orpheus as always. Thanks Orpheus and Merlin.

41. 17:04. Many toughies that were satisfying to finally crack. Canadian musician Daniel Langlois had a popular recording The Maker in the 90’s(well maybe just popular in folk music circles)-
    “In the distance I saw a light
    Jean Baptiste
    Walking to meet me with the Maker.
    I can’t work the fields of Abraham
    And turn my head away
    I’m not a stranger
    In the hands of the Maker.”

    1. I would have mistaken it for Bono and U2 … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-JtAcpKtYQ

       1. Hey, thanks for providing that link!

42. I raced through the top half (apart from GREEN since I was hung up on MP) but was slowed down in the south: never heard of CHAPFALLEN, though maybe I still had a fleeting memory from studying Hamlet for A Level, which got me there. Also delayed by GOSSIP and SOUPCON. I did know HOYDEN but don’t know why. Overall a highly enjoyable 18 minutes.

43. Mostly smooth and entertaining, but I ended up in the Club at 22:51 after a tussle with CHAPFALLEN and – of all things – MODEST. I got hung up on the idea that “saving time initially” had to mean include a T. Lately I’ve been stumbling over a lot of these “errors of scope” (guess my former profession!). Anyhow I was reduced to using an alphabet trawl to see the error of my ways. Then DIRECTOR appeared by magic. “Other ranks” (as well as “bish”) is still out there on the margins of what I can remember. GREEN took a few looks since the Green Party here is pretty much a nonentity.

    Thanks to Orpheus and Merlin. I completely agree about flipping through reference books – not least because I often run across something fascinating that wasn’t what I was looking for. That is how one becomes erudite.

    PS: love the ladettes clue.

44. 8.49 – a couple of NHOs which were gettable from wordplay. Slowed down by needing to dig pen n paper out for the Stravinsky one

45. We enjoyed this puzzle, slowed down by words mentioned above, a nice challenge and pleased to finish.

46. 6.09

    Didn’t know CHAPFALLEN but the w/p and checkers gave it to you.

    Thanks all

47. DNF in half an hour, undone by SOUPÇON. A bit of eyebrow action at the definition but it should have been clear enough from the wordplay – I just couldn’t see it. Now that I come to think about it, I’m not sure that I knew how to spell it in the first place.

    Thank you for the blog!

48. Aaargh – my comment went missing. Usually I copy it before posting because such things have happened before, but I didn’t today – what a BISH.
    To cut a long story short: I liked FINICKY because it features a couple of family members. NEOCLASSICAL is more architectural than musical for me, but I’m sure the Stravinsky fans in the family would have known that. NHO Chapfallen – I didn’t study Hamlet (and haven’t ever seen it) but even though I spent years on Macbeth and R&J, I doubt I could summon up many quotes from them these days either!
    9:20 FOI Second-hand LOI Chapfallen COD Nightcap
    Thanks Orpheus and Merlin, especially for the additional info about the soliloquy

49. Decent start but slowed at the end with BRACKISH, GOSSIP and the NHO and LOI CHAPFALLEN. Vaguely recalled having heard HOYDEN before once we’d worked out what it was. COD SOUPCON though GOSSIP was also good. 11:46 all in. Thank you Merlin and Orpheus.

50. Congratulations to all you expert solvers with some stunning completion times. However, like many other puzzles which have appeared recently this does not fit the bill for a QC. Too many clues which could/should be in a 15×15

    1. In case you missed the discussion on Saturday, you may be interested in this from the Times Crossword Editor about the level of difficulty in Quick Cryptics.

       1. Very interesting and helpful.
          Many thanks

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