Quick Cryptic 2997 by Orpheus

Author   galsprayPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

Parksolve time = 36:10.  Good run, tough-ish solve.

Thanks to Orpheus (son of Apollo) for today’s Quickie.  I took a bit longer than usual, with most of the delay occurring in the south-west of the grid.

Please let us know in the comments how you went and what I missed.

(In the clues, definitions are underlined and anagram indicators are in bold italics.  In the explanations (ABC)* indicates an anagram of abc.  Deletions and other devices are indicated accordingly, I hope).
Across
1 Clumsy lad’s name, one living in the valley (8)
DALESMAN – (LAD’S NAME)*
5 Moan about parking on side of road (4)
CARP – CA (about) + [P (parking) on R (“side” of Road)]
8 Important poet carrying round electronic instrument (8)
KEYBOARD – KEY (important) + BARD (poet) “carrying” O (round)
9 Liveliness of British port (4)
BRIO – B (British) + RIO (port)
11 Backward youth regularly seeks Doctor’s adversary (5)
DALEK – DAL [LAD (youth) backward] + EK [alternate letters (regularly) of sEeKs]

Presumably most solvers would be familiar with Dr Who and his/her most famous antagonists.
12 In the past, nothing unknown like mischievous kids? (7)
NAUGHTY – NAUGHT (in the past, nothing) + Y (unknown)

Naught meaning nothing is regarded as an archaic usage, hence “in the past”.
13 Firearm encountered covering Welsh river (6)
MUSKET – MET (encountered) “covering” USK (Welsh river)

Played cricket at Usk once many years ago and wandered into a beer festival afterwards.  That’s all I remember.
15 Mawkishly sentimental agent eating chop? (6)
SLOPPY – SPY (agent) “eating” LOP (chop)
18 Chests of people unpopular in the audience, do we hear? (7)
COFFERS – Homophone (do we hear?) of COUGHERS (people unpopular in the audience)
19 Fertile spot in Samoa’s islands (5)
OASIS – Hidden in samOAS ISlands
21 Spoils of the god of war? (4)
MARS – Double definition

My favourite clue today.  Two wildly divergent meanings of “mars” linked by two wildly divergent meanings of “spoils”.
22 Lines in Moscow originally circulating revolutionary doctrine (8)
LENINISM – [LINES IN M (first letter {originally} of Moscow)]*
23 Extremely touristy northeast river (4)
TYNE – TY (“extremely” TouristY) + NE (northeast)
24 Star’s request introducing new rites (8)
ASTERISK – ASK (request) “introducing” (RITES)*
Down
1 Noble position of French Catholic dignitary touring our country (7)
DUKEDOM – DE (“of” in French) + DOM (Catholic dignitary) “touring” UK (our country)
2 Faithful member of ruling family has left for river (5)
LOYAL – ROYAL (member of ruling family) with L (left) replacing R (river)
3 Inform on zoo employee, one looking after store (10)
SHOPKEEPER – SHOP (inform on) + KEEPER (zoo employee)
4 Out-and-out troublemaker initially supporting Scottish island (6)
ARRANT – T (Troublemaker, initially) “supporting” ARRAN (Scottish island)
6 Flying craft’s greeting in Paris going wrong (7)
AIRSHIP – HI (greeting) in (PARIS)*
7 Small horse nibbling top of exotic flower (5)
PEONY – PONY (small horse) “nibbling” E (“top” of Exotic)
10 Remorse in East about large old executioner? (10)
GUILLOTINE – GUILT (remorse) + IN + E (East) “about” [L (large) + O (old)]
14 Flowering plant fine for developing in hospital (7)
SAFFRON – [F (fine) + (FOR)*] in SAN (hospital)

SAN is short for sanatorium but I’m not sure how commonly it’s used outside crosswordland.
16 Veil for example upset His Majesty (a king) (7)
YASHMAK – YAS [SAY (for example) reversed (upset)] + HM (His Majesty) + A + K (king)

A veil which reveals only the eyes, worn by some Muslim women.
17 Property placed in a steamship (6)
ASSETS – SET (placed) in A + SS (steamship)
18 Heavenly body your setter displayed in bed? (5)
COMET – ME (your setter) in COT (bed)

No photos attached so we’ll have to take Orpheus at his word here.
20 Exhale audibly if going over literary genre (3-2)
SCI-FI – SCI [homophone (audibly) of SIGH (exhale audibly)] + FI [IF reversed (going over)]

But wait! Is “audibly” doing double duty here?  According to most sources, a sigh needs to be audible, so can it be clued by just “exhale”?

It probably can, and somebody will find a reference to support it, and then we, you, me, Orpheus and his heavenly body can just move on…

68 comments on “Quick Cryptic 2997 by Orpheus”

  1. Yes, a bit chewy in places but not too bad. DALESMAN didn’t come easily until I had a couple of checkers in place, don’t think I’ve heard it before or if I had I’d forgotten. GUILLOTINE was a write-in after seeing guilt/remorse and a nice clue. Liked the Dr Who clue for DALEK. Got YASHMAK from the helpful wordplay, knew it but have never had to spell it. I see it came up last year in a Sunday cryptic and before that in 2018. COD to COFFERS for the witty wordplay.
    Thanks G and setter.

  2. I didn’t notice the ‘audibly’ problem, which I suppose is a problem: ODE and Collins both specify ‘audible’ in defining ‘sigh’. The TYNE is, neatly enough, a northeast river; no problem, of course. I needed the DAL to recall the Daleks (never seen ‘Dr Who’), and would probably have spelled it Dalik if the E hadn’t been a checker. 8:39.

  3. I seem to recall that Terry Nation named his creations DALEKS after seeing the London Telephone Directories lined up: A-D, E-K, L-S (and T-Z). But this may be apocryphal. And probably is.

  4. FOI KEYBOARD. Another puzzle I got to the bottom and worked my way back up to the top. COD COFFERS. Struggled to parse LOI CARP until the penny dropped for Circa/CA. Managed to parse BRIO as BR and IO as in I/O port. Oh well, an explanation at least. Will raise a glass to DOM as in Perignon.
    25 mins. Thanks Orpheus and Galspray

  5. Chewy but enjoyable. All done in 28.02 but it didn’t feel that long,

    Schoolboy snigger at his heavenly body and COD, with coffers a close second. Reminds me of a favourite dad joke, man chatting to his neighbour over the garden fence who’s doing some carpentry: “how’s the wife”, “not so good, I’m afraid”, “is that her coughin’”, “no, it’s a chicken shed”. I’ll get my coat😀

    It’s ok to say “he breathed out with a sigh of relief” but that doesn’t quite answer your request G, thanks for the blog, and Orpheus for the entertainment.

  6. Felt a bit woolly headed solving this one so pleased to sneak in under 10 minutes.
    My brain fog was summed up by spending some time wondering if someone in a ruling family could be described as ‘loyar’ until I realised that I could replace the first ‘l’ with an ‘r’ as opposed to the final ‘l’🤦‍♂️.
    Started with DALEK and finished with CARP in 9.55.
    Thanks to Galspray and Orpheus

  8. Got off to a slow start wth DALEK FOI. Didn’t speed up much and struggled to parse LOI, CARP. Should’ve got DALESMAN long before I did, as I often sing the Dalesman’s Litany, written in 1900 as an exercise in writing Yorkshire dialect poetry by Frederick W Moorman, who preceded JRR Tolkien as Professor of English at Leeds University. 8:44. Thanks Orpheus and Galspray.

  9. A good challenge with some chewy clues and clanging PDMs. I finished in the NW quadrant and needed crossers to tidy it up. All parsed (apart from CARP) but I didn’t finish quite as quickly as I started.
    Thanks to Orpheus and Galspray.
    Note. I am probably being very thick but what is the standard length of a ‘Parkrun’? How does a ‘Parksolve time’ work? It doesn’t mean anything to me. Surely you don’t run around a park doing a Cryptic on a phone?

    1. Ha! Sorry Blighter, I guess it’s a bit of an in-joke with a few of the regulars on here who do the 5km Parkrun most Saturdays.

      It’s just the combined total of one’s Parkrun time and Quickie solving time on the day. For the few of us that keep track of these things, New Driver’s the one to watch. Usually solves a little bit slower than me but runs much faster.

      1. Thanks for your quick reply. I had wondered about it for a while. It all makes sense now (although it conceals your solving time!).
        I wonder if any other solvers shared my ignorance?

        1. And also rather cleverly conceals the Parkrun time too! Which I naively assumed was the objective …

          I wonder what it does to the SNITCH calculator

          1. Cedric, I think the primary source of data for the SNITCH is the Club Leaderboard, so it’s not an issue.

            I believe it only looks for times in the comments when there’s no online submission, and even then I don’t know if it checks the blog itself.

        2. We are trying to get the Olympic bods to include it as a Biathlon event. Run 1k, stop, solve 6 clues, then another k. Winner is first to cross the line with a full solve. There’s already Chess Boxing, which has some similarities.

          1. I still maintain that it should also involve the quaffing of Guinness before or during each leg.

            1. I understand the Languedoc marathon, which wends its way around the local vineyards, provide wine (and water) at the various drinks stations and, according to a friend of mine, an oyster station at about the 20-mile point.

        3. Share ignorance? You can rely on me/us more often than not… though now we all know ( in part..) : )

      2. I thought today was finally going to be my day to best your time Galspray as I was 12:16 for the QC. But no, a heavy-legged effort and 18mph wind at some points on the course. My parksolve trailing in at 36:53

        1. We had a perfect day here for my 200th Parkrun. Cool and crisp with barely a breeze and I went ok.

          Unfortunately “ok” for me these days is 28:28.

          7:42 for the solve.

  10. Fairly quick trot through, only mild hold-up at guillotine/sloppy, looking for the person rather than the apparatus, and initially thinking sloppy only meant of poor quality.

  11. 23:33, so a sojourn in the SCC for me.

    Got delayed in NE, until saw that GUILLOTINE wasn’t an anagram of “remorse” + other stuff.

    LOI CARP, which I didn’t parse. A RAMP is at the side of a road, and Mar=moan looked close (about=reversed)

    SAN is on my Pet Peeve list. Dated and restricted to Public School usage. I only ever came across it in Billy Bunter.

  12. A slightly chewy, but tasty, end to a somewhat chewy week for me. Maybe the hot weather is to blame (he said hopefully). Anyhow, thanks for explaining CARP which I couldn’t fully parse when solving. Otherwise it all made sense, gradually, with NAUGHTY and ARRANT taking a while to come to mind as I meandered into the SCC.
    I love Blighter’s suggestion of doing the QC whilst doing the timed 5km run – or maybe you do! Probably a bit dangerous though… Need designated lanes to avoid crashes… Solve an anagram to be allowed to start… I’m sure there is a potential TV show there!

    …and I’ve now read the later entries above responding to Blighter. Surely The Times would sponsor this event with such an innovative approach?!

    1. Isn’t there a race in the UK where they chase a wheel of cheese down a hill? We need to talk to the promoters of that event!

      1. There is indeed – in Gloucestershire. And here’s another ‘sport’ – Hallaton bottle-kicking. But there is much more to it than kicking a bottle. That would be much too simple. Hare pies, processions, tug of war and a lot of beer are also involved. It takes place in the Leicestershire village of Hallaton (against their deadly enemies in Medbourne) on Easter Monday. It involves kicking a bottle (really a wooden barrel) across a mile-long playing area.
        There are virtually no rules to the bottle-kicking, except eye-gouging and strangling are not allowed, and no use of weapons. The emergency services are always on stand-by. I’ve just cried with laughter at reading that bit 🤣 🤣🤣

          1. We’ve yet to go, although it’s not that far. One of these days… I think it sounds completely bonkers 🤣

  13. No time as I needed aids (aka Mrs S) to finish this one – the COFFERS/SAFFRON combo proving obstinate. SAFFRON in particular took some teasing out (ie it took her more than 10 seconds), with an abbreviation (San) for an uncommon word (Sanatorium – not something I’ve often seen used in real life) containing an abbreviation and an anagram. Phew.

    Before that I was on course for an average time, but that hides what I thought a slightly odd mix of clues, several of which were quite straightforward and a few of which were much more chewy. And a MER at SLOPPY for “mawkishly sentimental” – to me that’s Soppy not Sloppy, which I use for careless (or over-watery, as in sloppy clay).

    At which point someone will point out that there is a dictionary somewhere that quotes a usage that backs Orpheus up in perhaps the umpteenth meaning of the word, after all the more usual meanings, and Statherby will be proved Wrong Yet Again! But the eyebrows were definitely elevated.

    Many thanks Galspray for the blog.

    2. Oh well, someone has to do it:

      Oxford Dictionaries: sloppy – (of literature or behaviour) weakly or foolishly sentimental:
      lovers of sloppy romance. (Definition 4)

      Collins has it too, definition 2.

    3. We, too wondered whether it was a little sloppy to equate soppy with sloppy…as we never have nor have we ever heard of such before ( that latter fact of course meaning little in the overall scenario) – nevertheless, our eyebrows danced with yours.

  14. Dnf…

    A bad end to a bad week, with at least 5 errors in trying to fill something by 30 mins. Some poor decisions in the bottom half of the grid meant I was never going to finish this: “Closets” for 18ac, “Meridian” for 22ac and the unknown 16dn “Yashmak”.

    Saying that, there were a few clues that definitely gave me the “mehs” – especially 15ac “Sloppy”.

    FOI – 1ac “Dalesman”
    LOI – Dnf
    COD – 10dn “Guillotine”

    Thanks as usual!

  15. Quite slow. I was stuck and needed hints for MUSKET and SLOPPY, but then sailed or chugged on to the end all correct.
    Horsey people get upset if you call a pony a small horse.
    Luckily YASHMAK sprang to mind straight away.
    Liked DALEK, COD COFFERS. Forgot about San so CNP LOI SAFFRON.
    Thanks vm, Galspray.

  16. I have been married to a nurse for 25 years now and I have heard “San” for hospital approximately never.

  17. 13:11 (completion of Lincoln Cathedral, at the time possibly the world’s tallest building)

    LOI CARP, not fully parsed. I knew that C could mean about, but had forgotten that CA can also, so I had an A not accounted for.

    I agree with Cedric about SOPPY v SLOPPY.

    Thanks Galspray and Orpheus

  18. Around 26 minutes, so a good day for me. My progress was steady throughout and (remarkably) without any interminable, long brain freezes.

    I never fully parsed CARP or NAUGHTY and I wondered if a SnitchKEEPER might be a real job before crossing the line with LENINISM, my LOI.

    Thanks to Galspray and Orpheus.

  19. Quite slow. 15:10 with 1 error. Namely CARP, because I was only aware of RD for road, not just R. Went for HARP and assumed har = road somehow.

    Here’s a rundown, partly to demonstrate what not sleeping until 3am does to my solves. Straightforward ones left out.

    1a Somehow couldn’t get ‘dales’ for ages.
    8a key > keyboard took a while
    11a Easy with checkers
    12a Tried to PTB (‘parse the biffable’, my term) for ages before realising the def is obviously naughty with the odd checker.
    15a Not aware of this meaning of sloppy. ‘Soppy’, I would have said.
    18a COD
    21a Straightforward though only on second run-through when the coffee had kicked in more
    22a Fell prey to the assumption that the quickie never requires more than straightforward parsing, which held me up a bit.

    2d Fell prey for a while to looking for a specific example rather than synonym for member of royal family. Was going nowhere with PLINCE of course.
    4d NHO (‘ardent’, yes…) but got it from ARRAN
    6d “‘Greeting in Paris’ = salut/bonjour, non?”…as it turned out, non indeed. Held me up for 20 secs.
    7d Should have been straightforward. It was when this went in that I knew I was on poor form.
    10d Fell prey to the old ‘that looks too hard’. Was not too hard.
    14d Along with PEONY, another plant that made me doubt my sanity a bit. Was convinced for = PRO. NHO SAN = hospital.
    16d Careful parsing needed for NHO YASHMAK.
    18a almost COD

    1. Just to clarify, I don’t think we ever have R for road. In this instance it’s “side of” (ie left letter of) road.

      1. Thanks, of course. Not sure I like ‘side = first letter’ very much, though. I’d want to assume that side = either the first or last half of the word, i.e. RO or AD.

        Although I suppose it could be road = RD and then ‘side of RD = R’. Hmm…

        1. Yes, side can refer to a particular (possibly left or right) half of something.

          But it can also refer to a particular (possibly left or right) edge of something, eg a side of a polygon, so I think it passes muster.

  20. 10:41

    Slowish from the start today – couldn’t commit to CARP until AIRSHIP went in, and even then, still didn’t appreciate the wordplay. Liked COFFERS and MUSKET (where the Welsh river just wouldn’t come to me). Last 2 in were NAUGHTY and ARRANT.

    Thanks Galspray and Orpheus

  21. The coach had long gone by the time I finished, so Shanks’s small horse for me today. Stuck for ages on Guillotine/Sloppy, the latter repeatedly rejected as an option because I thought a veil could surely never begin with ‘Y’. . . until I wrote the letters out horizontally 🙄 Carp and Coffers were my two favourites, for the parsing and smile respectively. Invariant

  22. A leisurely solve accompanied by TMS on the wireless – what a fabulous way to spend some time! I shared Cedric’s MER about SLOPPY, but Jack has put us right; and I also struggled with LOI CARP – for some reason I always forget CA (rather than plain C) for ‘about’. San for hospital is very common in crosswordland, so no worries there.
    Lovely stuff – thanks Orpheus and galspray.

  23. Thanks galspray & Orpheus.
    28 mins so very slow. Fat fingered 6d aOrship, so DNF. Took a wee while to find the error. But I was nearby as the unparsed 5a Carp was suspect number 1 for the error.
    5a Carp, biffed. Thanks for the explanation galspray.
    12a Naughty. I don’t consider naught as archaic, nor does Wiktionary. Delayed me a bit.
    20d SciFi, didn’t notice the double duty and I don’t mind anyway.

  24. 26:34

    Didn’t think SAFFRON was a flowering plant, just the name of the spice produced from the stamen of a type of crocus. The answer was obvious though. Instead it was the NHO LOI YASHMAK that held me up.

    Parksolve? OMG!

    1. Likewise was looking for something horticultural for SAFFRON.

      But anything with a stamen must, presumably, also have a flower

  25. A slow end to the week though at least finishing on an upward trend after the last couple of days. 14:51. COD COFFERS. LOI LENINISM which I can’t say I’ve heard of previously, recognisable as it is once you’ve worked it out. Spent time trying to justify NIHILISM which can be made to work apart from the H (both Is and L for ‘lines’ , but ASSETS eventually forced the rethink. Thanks, Galspray and Orpheus.

  26. Bit slow today after rather too much whisky last night. At least that’s my excuse.
    I had a MER at an ASTEROID being described as a ‘star’ until I noticed my error. Sorry Orpheus, ASTERISK was a very good clue as was COFFERS.
    Thanks Galspray and fellow bloggers.

  27. All done in 06:48, which is much faster than I expected when I was stuck on CARP, YASHMAK and LOI LENINISM.

    COD to COFFERS, ho ho!

    Many thanks Gallers and Orpheus.

  28. 11.57 A slow start but improved then SAFFRON and COFFERS took a couple of minutes at the end. Thanks galspray and Orpheus.

  29. 10:48 I dithered between storekeeper and stockkeeper until I realized both had one too many letters!

  30. Liked this one although same feeling as others re: soppy/SLOPPY. Struggled to parse CARP and AIRSHIP so thanks galspray. LOI SAFFRON – needed that checking S to remember ‘san’ for hospital. COD COFFERS/COMET 😆 Many thanks Orpheus and galspray.

  31. Once again, straightforward (helped by SHOPKEEPER and GUILLOTINE) until it wasn’t, with probably 8 or 10 minutes of my 19:22 total spent trying to figure out CARP. I never did parse it, considering also RAMP and YAWP, until I got too frustrated to go on, and submitted with surprise at the absence of the dreaded pink square. So thanks as usual to the blogger for the parse, and I see it’s an action-packed clue, with three elements contributing to a four-letter answer.

    Who wouldn’t like COMET, so cute! YASHMAK was unknown but the clue was kind. Liked the small horse and flower image. I liked MUSKET simply because the word USK tickles my fancy. Now that galspray points it out, I see that MARS is cleverer than I appreciated.

    Thanks to Orpheus and galspray.

  32. Took me ages to finish this non-QC.
    Dukedom ( dom) , Arrant (arran), Naughty(naught), Saffron (san) , Coffers (coughers), Guillotine(guilt) were the main blockers due to the terms in the brackets.

  33. 17:37 here. LOI and COD to COFFERS, ho ho.

    Thanks to Orpheus and galspray.

  34. Close to the SCC again at 18:48. I enjoyed Orpheus’s heavenly body, not least because I came up with something similar a few months back:

    Note nameless singer’s incandescently hot body (6)

    Originally I used “heavenly body” for the definition, but a bit of googling suggested that it doesn’t quite work.

    Thank you for the blog!

  35. Just tried to post and my laptop is having some sort of mad moment. Didn’t even have time to make a copy before I lost everything!
    The dictionaries may say SLOPPY and SOPPY are interchangeable, and at a push, I guess they can be. But I still raised my eyebrows.
    Otherwise I enjoyed this one, especially BRIO, MARS, LENINISM and PEONY.
    9:10 FOI Oasis (because I saw it as I picked up my printout) LOI Carp (I thought I’d finished with Guillotine but had missed 5a) COD Coffers (because it made me smile)
    Thanks Orpheus and Galspray

  36. Took something over 30 mins and like Cederic had to resort to marital aids to be guided to carp as my LOI. I’d also gone for “noughty” as being in the past – the noughties- and sounds a bit like mischeviousness. No idea why the more obvious and correct parsing did not come to mind. Thanks for the puzzle and blog.

  37. We were sailing until we put Samizdat instead of Leninism .. which mucked up the bottom right corner

  38. We were sailing until we put Samizdat instead of Leninism .. which mucked up the bottom right corner! Otherwise a lovely puzzle

    1. Good feedback MM, but you may be missing a key point. They’re not questions, they’re clues.

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