Quick Cryptic 2960 by Teazel

71 comments on “Quick Cryptic 2960 by Teazel”

1. Hmm. If indeed it was a game, the score was Teazel 1 and me a big fat zero. I surrendered at 15 with the silk and AFOOT outstanding, as well as CALVE about which I am kicking myself because it was staring me in the face. I found the biggie a bit perplexing today as well, but at least I made it over the line. Thanks to both.

   1. Exactly the same here: NHO TUSSORE (although, having seen the answer, I think the clue is fair enough) and AFOOT just didn’t come; base=foot is a bit of a stretch I think, at least for someone as literally minded as me

      I didn’t like the DIRTY TRICKS clue either – nothing in it to suggest the TRICKS part, which I only got because I had the checkers; shouldn’t a clue be “self-contained”?

      I’m sulking because this is the first time I have ever failed to complete the QC.

      1. Base of the mountain / foot of the mountain?

2. 10 minutes. Our dodgy word for a QC today is TUSSORE. Leaving a couple of Mephistos aside, its previous appearances here have been mostly as a contributor to anagrist in clues to words such as TROUSSEAU and TROUSERS. In 2009 and 2015 it was in Jumbos as an answer in its own right, and also in 2009 in a 15×15. I shall leave it to others to comment if they wish on whether the wordplay was helpful today. That was how I got to the answer but it didn’t exactly leap off the page and could have taken me even longer had I not had all the checkers in place at that stage.

3. Just the last two acrosses, METAPHOR and STAY, on the first pass and a bit sparse on the downs too. Took far too long to see BEAUTY SLEEP and DIRTY TRICKS and needed to correct that last one from ‘party tricks’ which fitted the checkers but nothing else, before I finished with BORDERED. I’d had to work hard to get CALVE and TUSSORE before that. A bit too hard to be fun but an absorbing 20.09 – all green!

4. Tough but got there in the end at 26.20

   Found it hard to get any momentum and ended up getting a lot more clues than normal as a straight solve without any crossers – I guess that’s progress!

   Some HUGE PDMs this morning when the answers arrived. COD to am I able, looked at this several times and just thought “where on earth is he going with this” but there it is hidden brilliantly in plain sight.

   Also really liked obeyed once I was finally convinced that it really wasn’t obscene (even though it didn’t fit but seen = watched seemed likely somehow).

   LOI beauty sleep, even with all the crossers and sleep if took ages of alpha trawling, d’oh!

   Thanks Teazel and Curarist

5. I found most of the top half relatively straightforward but the bottom was a lot harder.

   My main struggles were with the unknown TUSSORE, where I wondered whether singular could clue ‘i’ (as in one) to give ‘tusiore’, OBEYED , AFOOT and SCARLET which had to be dredged from the depths.

   Started with RUBY and finished with AFOOT in 9.12 with COD to AMIABLE.

   Thanks to Curarist and Teazel

6. 39 minutes QC SC more like! Almost defeated by the moth/silk. Had last as well as rest down for stay… couldn’t see calve for an age nor obeyed. Abstract art also took a while and Scarlet was a hail Mary DNK the book but had to be.
   Still better late than never although the travelling hopefully was a strain and the arrival a relief.
   Thanks Teazel (I think) and thanks Curarist (he did a number on us all)

7. 11:11. That’s OK (even better if they have started giving our times in binary). A bit sticky in places today – BORDERED, DIRTY TRICKS, TUSSORE of course and LOI BEAUTY SLEEP. I liked REAPPEAR and FLATTERY.
   Thanks Curarist and Teazel

8. Thanks C and setter. A 44 minute slog, in which I learned a new word, TUSSORE. I went straight past the first Holmes and Watson book, remembering that Sherlock was often in a ‘brown study’, and couldn’t for the life of me think of a brown with those checkers. Not my morning.

9. 15:10 for the solve. Very pleased to get through that unscathed as final few mins spent on the TUSSORE/AFOOT pairing with the former NHO and the latter having potential for an unachievable alphatrawl. Rather liked OBEYED once I saw / eyed it. Have been reading Sherlock Holmes stories recently so SCARLET went in easily with the embarassed def.

   The weekday puzzles coming in at 1hr06 and my run of good form continues – going for 20 in a row tomorrow.

   For those who aren’t back for tomorrow’s QC – have a good weekend. For those who are – have a good weekend.

   Thanks to Curarist and to Teazel

   1. I was another 15 minutes solver!

      1. Great minds again!

10. Whizzed through until coming to an abrupt stop with six left to do. Found four of them, but gave up on 12 mins with TUSSORE and AFOOT missing – my excuse for the DNF is my visiting granddaughters waiting to go to the beach. Some super clues, with AMIABLE making me smile, and CALVE the COD.
    Super stuff – thanks T and C!

11. A struggle today. NHO TUSSORE. First thought OBSCENE of course didn’t work. Biffed SCUM, AMIABLE & ABSTRACT ART before PDMs. Very pleased with myself for dredging A Study in Scarlet from the recesses of my brain although not read. COD AMIABLE. Thanks Curarist.

12. Finished all correct, but not fast today. LHS went in fairly quickly but slower on right. I knew TUSSORE fortunately. CNP FLATTERY. Don’t know why I was slow on LOI ORDEAL, ditto ABSTRACT ART and BORDERED.
    Liked DIRTY TRICKS, PRIVATE EYES, BEAUTY SLEEP.
    Thanks vm, Curarist.

13. Dnf…

    Didn’t have a lot of time today, so had to pack in after 20 mins with the before mentioned 21ac “Tussore” and 18dn “Afoot” unsolved. I did nearly get the former, putting in “Tusiore” (thinking singular was “I”), but I’ve never heard of it, so was never confident.

    Some good clues in the rest of the grid, but it weirdly felt like a repetition of yesterday: a pretty swift top half just to become unstuck by a couple of clues in the SE corner.

    FOI – 1ac “Ruby”
    LOI – Dnf
    COD – 9dn “Beauty Sleep”

    Thanks as usual!

14. Only six today. Missed the lounger two word clues completely.

    Thanks setters and bloggers …

15. Quite a long haul. Spent ages trying to get SEEN into 4d. Didnt know the silk but it was not difficult from the wordplay and the crossers. Thanks to both.

16. 6:32. Super crossword. Held up for an extra minute at the end by my last two, the unknown TUSSORE and AFOOT. COD to the neat Support Remain but I liked the daughter dropping the pancake too. Thanks Teazel and Curarist.

17. Another DNF here, defeated by TUSSORE and AFOOT. If I had thought to look for a Sherlock Holmes theme I might have spotted AFOOT, but it would not have helped with the unknown silk. Not aware of S=singular, and I was trying to fit in ONE or I.

    Thanks Curarist and Teazel

18. I’m another one who decided that the unknown silk had to be TUSIORE, and in truth I didn’t give a thought to the inclusion of an S instead of the I. Unfortunately ambiguous perhaps, I think potential unknowns need to have no alternative parsing possibilities. Other than that I was relatively pleased to finish under target at 9.13.
    The stats are slightly floored by the DNF, but my total for the week was 46.47, giving me a daily average of 9.21.

19. Ended up with a coin flip between TUSSORE and TUSIORE; guessed right. Phew. Also slow to get BORDERED and OBEYED. Some tricky stuff in there.

    COD to ABSTRACT ART, I did like that. SCUM also had a clever double meaning.

    All done in 08:24 for a Decent Day. Many thanks Teazel and Curarist.

20. First time doing the crossword in quite a few months. 35:20 – it appears I’ve lost my touch. Took a while to shake ‘one’ in an anagram (ripped) of ‘silk’ for 21a, but ‘sonlike’ doesn’t quite fit American as a definition. Onwards and upwards I guess.

    1. I find a hiatus of even a few days is enough to throw me off. Stick around!

21. 3a Bordered took me a while too. Dunno why.
    20a Calve; couldn’t see it without crossers.
    21a Tussore; recognised the word, could not have defined it.
    2d Blini. Misread clue and wrote blind. Corrected by Private Eyes.
    COD 12d Flattery.
    Thanks to Curarist and Teazel.

22. DNF.
    Pulled out all the stops but just could not finish this puzzle.
    With clues like these, I had no chance :

    “17 It is not representative of appropriate skill (8,3)
    ABSTRACT ART – ABSTRACT (appropriate, verb) + ART (skill)”
    “21 American, singular in ripped silk (7)
    TUSSORE – US + S inside TORE. A coarse type of silk from a moth of the same name”

    I would just say to setters : please remember that these puzzles are supposed to be “Quick Cryptics”
    and not 15 Acrosses.

23. DNF. I was never going to get TUSSORE as I thought myself very clever having solved 18d as AgenT. A base in chemistry can be an agent and I thought an agent (spy) could be in operation! GR for TUSSORE. Thanks Curarist

24. Setter’s name warned of a struggle and indeed it proved an ORDEAL: a long and determined attempt eventually reduced the failures to three. No wonder; NHO TUSSORE or outside broadcast = OB (frantically trying to think of a “sounds like” for outside); and AFOOT, oh well, next time.
    Also NHO verb to ABSTRACT = to appropriate (but 17 had to be), and not sure where TRICKS comes from (but again, had to be). Thank you, Curarist (and hope you, at least, enjoyed it).

25. 17.05 Completely off the wavelength today. I hesitated over SCUM because the 1979 film seemed very obscure. The other explanation seems much more plausible. TUSSORE was new and I finished with AFOOT. Despite today’s poor time, 50 minutes for the week is my fastest since August. Thanks Curarist and Teazel.

26. DNF

    Like Curarist I flew through most of this albeit without fully parsing BEAUTY SLEEP or ABSTRACT ART. But NHO CALVE, tried colve and NHO TUSSORE so that was all but impossible. Failed to see AFOOT but should have got it with Sherlock Holmes on my mind.

27. Really liked this one from Teazel. Took me a little while to get over the line but throughly enjoyed. LOI OBEYED (didn’t think of OB for outside broadcast). NHO TUSSORE but had to be. Liked SCUM for the misdirection towards a cinematic film and ABSTRACT ART because I was just so slow to see what was going on 😆 Ditto PRIVATE EYES. COD to CALVE but I also liked SCARLET. In fact, I liked everything about this puzzle. Thanks Teazel and C.

28. I’m sensing an emerging theme in this week’s QCs of generally less challenging puzzles (has our crossword editor been having a word?), with one clue (and it is usually only one) that really stretches the definition of what should be in a QC. Two days ago it was SINGER, very very difficult to get if one DK the painter, with almost no help from the wordplay. Yesterday it was AMICE, another SK (specialist knowledge) not GK word, but fortunately this time generously clued. Today’s sting in the tail was TUSSORE, made even more devilish by neither wordplay nor checkers ruling out the equally plausible (if one DK the word) TUSiORE.

    As it happens I did manage to dredge the right word out of goodness-knows-what remote part of my memory, so I posted a relatively smooth completion in 10:21. And the rest of the puzzle was most enjoyable. But that one clue stood out as out of keeping with the rest as I was doing the puzzle, and has elicited a lot of comments. So I hope our esteemed setters will accept that I am not speaking as a failed and frustrated solver when I offer the thought that, just as one bad apple can ruin a whole barrel, a true QC should have all the clues, not all bar one, gettable by the average QC solver. 99% good QC clues and one over-obscure one risks not making a 99% good QC, but a 100% unsatisfactory one.

    Many thanks Curarist for the blog and a good weekend to all.

    1. I only thought of ‘S’ as an abbreviation for ‘singular’. Is ‘I’ also an accepted abbreviation?

       1. I think a number of people interpreted “American, singular” as “US 1”.

          1. Yes, I think they did, but I wonder if the 1/I is valid? The only dictionary I own (Chambers) lists ‘s’ for singular, but not 1/I

    2. Agreed, except that it can’t be 99% with the QC. 96% yes, but 99% no.

       1. Eek, now I’m totally lost! I’m not following the percentages thing at all!

          1. I guess SRC means if there were 100 clues and 1 was bad you could say 99% were good. Since we have way fewer than 100 clues 99% can’t work. Say if 24 of 25 were good that would give 96%.

             1. Yes. That is my reasoning.

                1. Ah, ok, I see, thank you.

                   My feeling is that if the wordplay is demanding an ‘S’ and people incorrectly think it demands an ‘I’, then that in itself does not make it a ‘bad’ clue, just a clue that some people got wrong today, but won’t on another occasion…

29. Relatively straightforward until I arrived at last 2 in, AFOOT and the NHO TUSSORE. AFOOT arrived first and then TUSSIOR was all that came to mind. I checked it and was presented with TUSSORE. An unsatisfactory end to the puzzle. 12:15 with a bit of assistance. Thanks Teazel and Curarist.

30. Big DNF. TUSSORE, very obscure, couldn’t see even with all checkers. I was looking at singular=ONE, so never got to TORE. Also missed CALVE and BEAUTY SLEEP. DIRTY TRICKS took an age, I knew it would be a cryptic, but did not see any way to unlock it.

31. Same as many others. OK until TUSSORE/AFOOT. AFOOT should have been OK. The silk, although nho, is reasonably clued though though I can see how TUSIORE fits as well.
    New day: new word.
    Some enjoyable clues.
    Thanks to Teazel and Curarist.

32. DNF, due to OBEYED and (the NHO) TUSSORE. OB for outside broadcast? S for singular? Really? Nonsensical, IMHO.

    I thought of ‘one’ and ‘solo’ for singular, but that’s all. Neither OB nor S would have occurred to me, even if I’d carried on until next Friday. Such clues ruin otherwise good QCs, in my view.

    In fact, almost the whole puzzle gave me real trouble. Hard to get started. Even harder to continue. Impossible (for me) to finish, despite nearly an hour of toil.

    Many thanks to Curarist for the blog.

    1. I agree on s for singular, “sing.” is how it appears in Grammar books. Someone will quote a dictionary, but I challenge anyone to come up with an example.

       Collins says “ S or s is an abbreviation for words beginning with s, such as ‘south’, ‘seconds’, and ‘son’.”. Later on it gives more examples including “succeeded” which we’ve had before, “singular” and “see”, which would be even worse.

33. 7 clues stumped me today, but learnt some good words from this puzzle. Favourite clue was for REAPPEAR. Thank you for blog today 😊

34. 5:26

    Enjoyable crossword with a workoutable sting in the tail – TUSSORE – I can see that some might have opted for an I rather than a second S – fortunately I guessed correctly. SCUM is indeed a rather unpleasant film.

    Thanks C and T

35. 15:46. CALVE and OBEYED held me up most- BEAUTY SLEEP was COD.

36. 9.40

    No problem with AFOOT but wanted SOLE for singular and was looking for a ripped silk so unsurprisingly that one took a long to sort out at the end.

    Not sure about having odd words in the QC. Probably that they are fine if the w/p is very clear which arguably it wasn’t quite here with folks wondering about i for singular.

    Thanks all

37. I found this pretty hard in places with some clues taking ages to solve: AFOOT, OBEYED, CALVE and REAPPEAR for example.
    Got there in the end after a bit of checking.
    Thanks both.

38. 13:17 here (my timer issues finally solved by reinstalling the app) of which at least three minutes were spent on LOI and NHO TUSSORE. Biffed ABSTRACT ART and didn’t worry about it. For the silk, however, I couldn’t see any word which would fit so settled down to the hard graft of making sense of the wordplay. Very nearly gave in but patience and crossed fingers paid off. New word learnt I hope after the hard work. Thanks, Curarist and Teazel.

39. Having got the initial C, I spent ages trying to convince myself that “20a Bear young learner into hollow” could be CUBBY.

    But apparently not.

    1. I also had Cubby there for ages. I also had ‘hold’ for ‘support remain’.

       Some quite easy solutions but also some far beyond me!

40. 13m
    Lots of hard clues today including calve, scarlet, repel, obeyed.
    Last 2 were dirty tricks (couldn’t get AC⚡DC’s dirty deeds out of my head) and abstract art.
    COD amiable.

41. Nho TUSSORE, gave up after various ‘ tissue’ based failures

42. Massive failure, giving up after around 15 minutes with half a dozen unsolved. I thought it was just me, as I’m very tired and my brain has gone to sleep, but at least I’m not the only one who found parts of it tricky.

    Thank you for the blog!

43. I didn’t know observed as a meaning of obeyed? Well I have learnt something new!

    1. If you observe the speed limit in your car, you are obeying the law.

44. I too was defeated by TUSSORE: closest I got was TUSSOLE. Also couldn’t see CALVE, which is annoying in retrospect. Otherwise an enjoyable QC.

45. A couple of stingers today – looking at you 21a – pushed my time and brain out beyond any reason.
    FOI 1a Ruby
    LOI 4d Obeyed
    COD 1d Reappear

46. NHO OB for outside broadcast. Surely it would be more usual in Crosswordland for an old boy to do the watching? Did get them all, though, even Tussore.

47. A quick start with both the ones going in straightaway, and a few gimmes, like DELI and SCARLET, but it all got rather bitty after that. I managed to dredge TUSSORE from the back of my mind – I probably read it in some historic novel when the heroine gets a ballgown made out of it (or similar!) – but it slowed me down a bit, as did DIRTY TRICKS, BEAUTY SLEEP and CALVE.
    I’m sort of surprised that OB for outside broadcast has bamboozled so many – I’m sure it’s commonly used in all sorts of live transmissions. But as usual – one person’s GK etc etc!
    Enjoyable though, and I have certainly spent rather longer on some of Teazel’s puzzles in the past, so no complaints! Ticks went next to METAPHOR and OBEYED.
    14:19 FOI Ruby LOI Calve COD Amiable – that got a big smile
    Thanks Teazel and Curarist

    1. Yes, I thought OB for Outside Broadcast was normal GK.

48. Oh Teazel you are always entertainingly hard. This took me 17:30 to solve (albeit with a magically altered letter giving me a pink square, but “I solved it in my head”).

    COD ABSTRACT ART, runner-up AMIABLE. FOI RUBY, LOI CALVE. NHO TUSSORE. MER plurality of BLINI. Didn’t know Santa lived in a cave.

    Thank you Teazel and Curarist.

49. 6.55. Fortunately, I knew ‘tussore’ as my late wife was an adept needlewoman and had an interest in all kinds of textile. I’m sure that I still have some tussore silk somewhere in the house.

50. I didn’t know what connected Santa to GROTTO but the wordplay said there must be something.

    1. Santa’s Grottos appear in many department stores in the r7n up to Christmas. In the UK, at least.

       1. Yeah, I did look it up, of course. Must not be an American thing.

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