A neat proper Quick Cryptic from the ever-reliable Hurley today after yesterday’s toughie. Nothing here, I think, to scare the horses – I finished in an under-target 4:49. LOI was 19D only because it was the last I came to on a second pass through the clues. I liked 2D and 4D in particular. Thank-you Hurley.
Fortnightly Weekend Quick Cryptic. This time it is my turn to provide the extra weekend entertainment. You can find the crossword, entitled “The Hills Are Alive”, here. If you are interested in trying our previous offerings you can find an index to all 127 here.
Definitions underlined in bold italics, (Abc)* indicating anagram of Abc, {deletions} and [] other indicators.
| Across | |
| 1 | Source of funds may determine what this musician plays (5) |
| PIPER – Cryptic Definition which requires you to know the proverb “He who pays the piper calls the tune“. | |
| 4 | Musician very confused about instrument at the outset (7) |
| SOLOIST – First letter of Instrument [at the outset] in SO (very) LOST (confused). | |
| 8 | Element initially seen in layers, one much admired (7) |
| SILICON – First letters [initially] of Seen In Layers, ICON (one much admired). | |
| 9 | Doctor welcoming environmentally friendly furnishing style (5) |
| DECOR – ECO (environmentally friendly) in DR (doctor). | |
| 10 | Furious, referring to South American empire decline (12) |
| INCANDESCENT – INCAN (referring to South American empire) DESCENT (decline). | |
| 12 | Less difficult exams aid Earl regularly (6) |
| EASIER – Alternate letters, [regularly], of ExAmS aId EaRl. | |
| 13 | Popular team serving time (6) |
| INSIDE – IN (popular) SIDE (team). Serving “time” in prison, that is. | |
| 16 | Model objectives come together — cope financially (4,4,4) |
| MAKE ENDS MEET – MAKE (model) ENDS (objectives) MEET (come together). | |
| 18 | Vegetable, one cut twice, I tucked into (5) |
| ONION – I in [tucked into] ON{e} ON{e} [cut][twice]. Nice one. | |
| 20 | Moderate anger on road (7) |
| AVERAGE – AVE (avenue; road) RAGE (anger). “On” here is a juxtaposition indicator with ‘A on B’ (except in a down clue) conventionally signifying B then A. | |
| 21 | Credible figure having the necessary skills (7) |
| TENABLE – TEN (figure) ABLE (having the necessary skills). | |
| 22 | Despatched, we hear, for Cologne, maybe (5) |
| SCENT – SCENT sounds like [we hear] SENT (despatched). The “maybe” indicates that “Cologne” is a definition by example. Other scents are available. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Exam result that is about Victor not working (7) |
| PASSIVE – PASS (exam result), V (Victor in the phonetic alphabet) in I.E. (id est; that is). | |
| 2 | Topical note is redrafted for Nick (6,7) |
| POLICE STATION – (Topical note is)* [redrafted]. Ah! That sort of Nick! | |
| 3 | Never once reorganised to meet again (9) |
| RECONVENE – (Never once)* [reorganised]. | |
| 4 | Son playing tunes — daily event (6) |
| SUNSET – s (son) [playing] (tunes)*. | |
| 5 | Was first seen in double date (3) |
| LED – Hidden in doubLE Date. | |
| 6 | With no thought for others during argument against team grade (13) |
| INCONSIDERATE – IN (during) CON (argument against) SIDE (team) RATE (grade, the verb). | |
| 7 | Call time at school (4) |
| TERM – Double definition. You have to separate “call time” to get the definition. | |
| 11 | Publican is tersely checking metal containers? (9) |
| CANISTERS – Hidden in [checking] PubliCAN IS TERSely. | |
| 14 | In from France, handle petition earnestly (7) |
| ENTREAT – EN (In, in French) TREAT (handle). | |
| 15 | Employ engineer over long time (6) |
| ENGAGE – ENG (engineer) [over] AGE (long time). “Over” can be a positional indicator in a down clue (as here) or a reversal indicator. | |
| 17 | Bird sound that’s amusing (4) |
| HOOT – Double definition. | |
| 19 | Most important thing — bring up cake! (3) |
| NUB – Reverse, [bring up], BUN (cake) -> NUB | |
As you say, not too difficult. SOLOIST was the only real hold-up as was thinking of a cellist to begin with, but SUNSET came to the rescue to give me the starting ‘S’. Also wasn’t thinking of the right sort of ‘nick’ before POLICE STATION emerged from the anagrist. COD to the cleverly hidden CANISTERS.
Thanks John and setter.
Like Quadrophenia I thought of ‘cellist’ (luckily, not pianist or violist) but refrained for once from biffing, and got the S from SUNSET. I can never remember the various meanings of ‘nick’, but having the P, C, S, & A, the right one came to me. I’m always slow to see a hidden, and CANISTERS was no exception. 7:26.
I started quickly but hit turbulence in the lower half, finishing in 7.58. L2I were ENGAGE and AVERAGE. I was grappling with every abbreviation for engineer I could remember, but ENG eluded me. Is a bun a cake? Never mind, all up a nice puzzle, thanks Hurley and John.
my in- law from Halifax calls cakes buns so I assumed it was common in the north.
Iced buns and cream buns must be at least cake cake-adjacent.
ENG for engineer is one I can’t say I recall seeing before. Once again, with it being a Down clue, I filled it in as soon as I wrote -N-AGE out horizontally
B Eng (Bachelor of Engineering) is the degree in engineering.
Chambers has “A kind of sweet roll or cake”, so that’s good enough for me. Which reminds me… I must make some hot cross buns today.
You make them? I am impressed! Apparently we can also call them hot cross cakes…
9 minutes. Although 1ac didn’t give me any problems it occurred to me that getting the cryptic reference was only one stage in fully understanding the somewhat oblique logic of the clue. From that I thought we might be in for another real toughie, but moving on, things became more straightforward.
10:38 so not too difficult from where I sit. Might have been a rare sub 10 but lost time jumping to wrong conclusions and trying to put a vowel in-between the two Ds of double date dad did dod dud then Infront add odd until like others the sunset soloist gave me the l and I saw the obvious lurker. RTQ as the teachers at my grammar school would tell me or in this case RTC
A very well pitched and enjoyable QC
Thanks Hurley and John
I had a slight query at AVERAGE for moderate – not really the same – and was also slow to equate Treat and Handle, but other than those two I was going relatively smoothly until my LOI, where I stared at the checkers for 16A for an age seeing only oNeS for the middle word. Eventually the penny dropped but it pushed my completion out to 15:09 for a Slow Day on what was a nicely pitched puzzle.
Many thanks John for the blog and I look forward to the Sunday Special.
Beware of the earworm in the Weekend Quick Cryptic!
Are you thinking of the verbs “average” and “moderate”? As adjectives, a crossword might be be described average or moderate difficulty.
21.26 for me. A new PB by quite some margin.
Made swift progress through most of this until hitting the buffers in the NE with SUNSET, SOLOIST, TERM and LED (where, like TC, I missed the hidden and was trying to fit 2 Ds into the answer) all causing me much bemusement.
Finished in 8.07 with COD to INCANDESCENT and PIPER unparsed.
Thanks to John and Hurley
A very balanced mix of clues, and a steady enjoyable solve. Assembly required, but clear instructions. LED took a little thought, and I liked the irate Incas. CANISTERS was well hidden.
Thanks John. Enjoyable QC. I too half raised an eyebrow, Lindsay, at a bun being a cake, but it might be where you’re from. Roll up! doesn’t quite work for the surface. Either way, rolls and cakes and therefore all buns are zero rated, so not at risk of legal rowing about what they really are. (See the Jaffa cake case).
Found it hard at the end to MAKE ENDS MEET and ENGAGE but otherwise steady going. A moderate start with five on the first pass which is par if not actually my AVERAGE. Enjoyed ONION among lots of fun clues. All green in 11.37.
12:34 for the solve. What a fantastic QC from Hurley (thanks). Really enjoyed most of that clueing for how easily it all slipped together. Even the ones which held me up (PASSIVE/SILICON, ENGAGE/AVERAGE I’m looking at you) were good. The only negative was PIPER which I couldn’t parse even after studying it for a couple of mins post solve but easy enough from the checkers. HOOT certainly gave a laugh and CANISTERS was a fab hidden, EASIER a great bit of alternation.
The weekdays coming in with 5 solves in 1hr33 which was rather extended by yesterday’s 38min effort. 4 escapes otherwise. For those who aren’t back for the Saturday puzzle, have a good Easter weekend. And for those who are back, have a good Easter weekend 👍
Thanks to JohnI for the blog and his weekend puzzle (6:54)
After initially drawing a blank at 1a I thought here we go again after yesterday’s shocker but it all came together in the end. I got 1a by default p*p*r had to be piper, but would never have got it from the cluing alone – ridiculous for a quickie in my opinion. Overall, though, enjoyable and very fair. Thanks Hurley and John!
12 minutes for me, including two at the end trying to find MAKE ENDS MEET. I had assumed the middle word was ONES. TAKE ONES SEAT and many more.
A very nice QC.
COD to PIPER. Clearly views differ.
David
24:11, just a bit more than usual for me. Solutions went in somewhat haphazardly, giving sufficient crossers to biff a couple I couldn’t parse. Good fun for a Good Friday. Happy Easter to all.
11.35
Quickish yesterday, slowish today. Didn’t see some easier ones for ages and SOLOIST wouldn’t come at all.
Liked it. Personally thought PIPER was weak but maybe I’m very fussy when it comes to cryptics.
Steady solve with a brief glimpse into the inner circle before finishing on 21:09.
A very nice mix of clues and I liked INCANDESCENT and SOLOIST.
To me a bun is not strictly a cake but no complaints about the one.
Thanks John and Hurley.
I never have any complaints about cakes or buns 😋
Very enjoyable. Close to a one-pass finish with only 3 acrosses (1,4,21) and one down answer (2) missing. A (very) rare finish the crossword before the coffee.
Thanks to setter and blogger as always.
DNF Disaster. Found yesterday’s much easier.
But thanks, John.
From PASSIVE to CANISTER (where I missed the hidden and biffed) in 7:58. Remembered who paid the PIPER. Nice puzzle. Thanks Hurley and John.
5:31
Gentle Friday fare – took a few moments for the penny to drop on how SILICON was constructed, but everything else was entered either on the first or second pass.
Thanks John and Hurley
I had to abandon the NW quite quickly despite getting PASSIVE as my FOI. POLICE STATION, SILICON and PIPER (couldn’t parse it) took a long time to arrive near the end of the solve. TENABLE was my penultimate solve with the ENG of ENGAGE bringing up the rear. 8:10 Thanks John
I’m going to change my icon to me on a bike…
11 in 15 minutes so a good result for me.
Liked onion.
Sun as in sounds like son, set as in the collection of tunes played by a jazz band. “That was a good set tonight.”
A proper QC, but that didn’t stop me struggling with 1ac, having completely overlooked the old saying. Fortunately both long down answers came quite easily, and opened up the grid to enable a 16min solve – relatively quick for me.
Loi Canisters still had me scratching my head for the Publican connection, so I can certainly attest to it being well hidden, and I also struggled to see how Entreat worked.
CoD to the little Onion at 18c, not the smoothest surface but still a good clue. Invariant
Excellent puzzle as always from Hurley where I was lead down the garden path a few times. Was tempted to biff FLUTE for 1ac and CELLIST for 4ac, but resisted the temptation and moved on. It was only subsequently getting PASSIVE that led me to PIPER, although after stopping the clock at 11.35 I still had no clue about the parsing. On reading John’s explanation I recognised the proverb, but I’m pretty sure it would have taken some time to think of it, if ever! I could only muster as parsing, some connection with a ‘Personal Independence Payment’ acronym, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t that.
My total time for the week was 51.10, giving me a daily average not far over target at 10.14.
The best I could do with piper was that the money might be in the pipeline.
Well done on your week 👍
Usual pattern here. Slow to get started, but then good-ish progress until the grid was about two-thirds complete. Then the best part of 10 minutes of standing stock still, before one clue (today it was ENTREAT) unlocked the rest of the puzzle.
LOI = TERM. Time ~35 minutes.
These QCs would be so much more enjoyable without such periods, but I’ve had to just get used to them. It’s as if my brain just stops working, however hard I try. Absolutely maddening!
Many thanks to John and Hurley.
The dry spell are always a little frustrating – I had one lasting fifteen mins yesterday.
But I interpret it as a sign of improvement. When I was a beginner, it would likely have been multiple dry spells e.g. solve a clue, crickets for 5+ mins, solve, crickets, solve, crickets… Now I tend to bung in a load of answers, short interlude, finish off.
Yes that was a lovely friendly one, thank you, Hurley. LOI TERM (trying to make time = T).
All done in 14 minutes for a good day. Couldn’t parse SOLOIST (thanks John) and biffed CANISTERS, completely missing the hidden. Otherwise no particular problems and a most enjoyable puzzle.
FOI & COD – 10ac INCANDESCENT
LOI – 7dn TERM
Thanks to Hurley and John.
A slow time for me – just over 20 minutes – didn’t spoil the enjoyment. Great puzzle, but one of those days where everything just seems to take longer than it should. Lots of clues to like, including onion, piper and soloist.
Mainly straightforward.
1a Piper. The saying initially passed me by, and I biffed Piano thinking the source of funds was F which is the second part of pianoforte. Might have worked if we started with P not F.
8a Silicon. Not a clue, filled in the blanks to give an element, shrugged, moved on. Not my finest hour.
Thanks to Johninterred and Hurley.
Easier than last two QCs but there were still a couple of answers that took a while to arrive (POLICE STATION and LOI PIPER which I couldn’t really parse, even though I know the saying). Liked SOLOIST and HOOT. Learning for today: Engineers can be ENG. Many thanks Hurley and John.
19 mins…
Probably took longer than it should, mainly because I had doubts about 1ac “Piper” (initially thought “Paper”) and struggled on 16ac “Make Ends Meet”. The rest was a hoot, so to speak.
FOI – 4dn “Sunset”
LOI – 16ac “Make Ends Meet”
COD – 22ac “Scent” – a chestnut, but still made me chuckle.
Thanks as usual!
I’d say that felt as tricky as yesterday’s. We were back to an around average time of 12:47 but at one stage it was starting to feel like it could have taken quite a bit longer. Thanks, John and Hurley.
Unlike our blogger, I found this harder than yesterday’s, taking 21:37 to finish it. Pass the croissants, please. It didn’t help that I seem to have developed a blind spot for “initially”, “primarily”, and so on, with the obvious consequences. My COD SOLOIST made me smile when I finally saw it. My usual dullness about straight cryptics meant I never understood PIPER, so thanks to John for that. INCANDESCENT took forever due to having the wrong end of the clue, very neat. ONION also cute. Thank goodness POLICE STATION and INCONSIDERATE went right in, or I would have been here all day.
Thanks to Hurley and John.
12ish min finish. Pretty good after a stumbling start. But once I got on the wavelength the answers flew in. Never passed Piper. Thanks all
17:02. ONION, PIPER, and INCANDESCENT favourites.
Super QC, as usual from Hurley, with my CsOD going to SOLOIST and PIPER. 8 mins.
Splendid fortnightly crossword too, John – with several clues making me smile.
Glad you enjoyed the Weekend Quick Cryptic. I had fun compiling it.
12.03 A fairly average time for me but I made hard work of it. Like trying to biff CANISTERS with a double N. LOI HOOT. Thanks John and Hurley.
Having been on the wavelength yesterday I think I must have been off it today, struggling in various places but getting there in 16:14.
Thank you for the blog!
A proper QC!
FOI9a Decor
LOI 4a Soloist – only parsed by writing it out – very neat clue
COD 18a Onion
Avoided SCC by a whisker and found it fair, logical and properly challenging – I was indeed so lost at 4 a until it clicked. Slight query over moderate = average but it had to be. Took a while to get the anagram at 2d, wondering like others who Nick was and where he fitted in. 17 d was indeed a. Thanks Hurley and John for excellent blog.
Enjoyed all 14:51 of this one. Liked the Incan descent best, I think.
Thanks to John and Hurley.
Managed to finish today, though found it just as challenging, and enjoyable, as yesterday’s. Only got PIPER, as another blogger put before, thinking PIP may have meant “source of funds”. INCANDESCENT was my favourite clue today, and finished with HOOT, which seemed quite apt. Thank you for the blog, always interesting to find out about new sayings 😄
15 mins.
Got just 9 on 15 x 15 in well over an hour! At my level, I struggle to get a start and, if that proves elusive, I have no chance. It really did nothing for my already fragile confidence with these puzzles.
Another disappointing week. 2 hrs, 4 mins with a DNF and an awful 50-minute solve. Bookended by 2 SCC escapes, but still a struggle.
Thanks for the blog John.
Gary, did you actually read the 15×15 blog and comments?! It was a monster that even the very experienced solvers found difficult… It was however also a fantastic way to learn new cryptic tricks 😃
Thanks fabian.
I’ve read it now. Having seen the Snitch score, I did well to get as many as I did.
Some of those clues were astonishingly hard.
9.07.
No time today as I was interrupted but forgot to stop the clock. Would have been well into SCC territory anyway as I was stuck bottom left for an eternity, not helped by being convinced the amusing sounding bird was a Lark. Only when I saw ONION did I reread the clue.