Good morning, and we have another excellent puzzle by Cheeko to entertain us today. It is only his 4th of the year, and 9th I think overall, but it’s the third time I have blogged one from his mighty pen – when he started, that would have been a tough assignment indeed, but he has mellowed considerably from his fiery start and I find his puzzles now both very doable and very enjoyable. But still not straightforward, as my time of 14:13 suggests.
There is a near self-reference at 18A, and what could be construed as a very slightly slanderous poke at one of our political parties at 15A. There is also a Cheeko special in the middle across clues (11A to 17A inclusive) and the outermost down ones (1D, 6D, 14D and 19D) – I am sure I have seen a similar trick in some of his previous crosswords. Not knowing how to code the hide/reveal format, I shall describe it at the end after the last clue.
So, no obscure words or archaisms, fair wordplay and good fun. Thank you Cheeko!
How did everyone else get on? Tell me below, or if you are coming to the gathering at the George this afternoon, I hope to be there from about 3.30 pm.
Definitions underlined in bold italics, (abc)* indicates an anagram of abc, and strike-through-text shows deletions.
| Across | |
| 7 | Fragment of coin case, one from ancient Peru (4) |
| INCA – A hidden, in coIN CAse, with the hidden indicator being “fragment of”. | |
| 8 | Maybe scorpion found in handcar, I suspect (8) |
| ARACHNID – (handcar I)*, with the anagram indicator being “suspect”.
A DBE, as scorpions are a subset of the Arachnid family, whose full definition is “The class of arthropods that have a segmented body divided into two regions of which the front part bears four pairs of legs but no antennae, and including as sub-classes spiders, scorpions, mites and ticks”. |
|
| 9 | Tree snake pulled back, grabbed by short infant (6) |
| BAOBAB – BAB (baby, ie infant, with the last letter removed, given by “short”), with AOB (boa, ie snake, reversed, given by “pulled back”) inserted into it, given by “grabbed”.
Phew – quite a lot going on there. And I had to think very carefully to remember in what order the Bs, Os and As went. |
|
| 10 | Unopened letters scattered about thoroughfare (6) |
| STREET – (etters)*, the anagrist being letters without the initial L (ie “unopened”), and the anagram indicator being “scattered about”. | |
| 11 | One churchman or another missing company (4) |
| DEAN – Our first churchman here is a DEACON; removing the CO (“missing company”) gives us DEAN. An extremely elegant clue which I suspect may be a chestnut, but as I had not seen it before it gets my COD. | |
| 12 | Disadvantage of defender pursuing 0-0? (8) |
| DRAWBACK – DRAW (0-0; a match that ends 0-0 is a draw) + BACK (defender, for example in soccer or hockey). Though interestingly, in rugby a team’s backs are often their most attacking players.
The first part of this may be a little more challenging for those more familiar with sports that always play to a finish and a winner, whether through golden points, overtime, extra innings or the like. |
|
| 15 | Conservative returned by electoral division (8) |
| BACKWARD – BACK (returned) + WARD (electoral division).
To describe conservative as “backward” is I think a little pejorative. Traditional certainly, reactionary perhaps, backward-looking at a pinch, but just backward? Numerous political parties, from the UK Tories onwards, might take issue … |
|
| 17 | Scandinavian also cycling east (4) |
| DANE – DAN (and, ie also, with the D moved from front to back, ie “cycling”) + E (east) | |
| 18 | Fresh chapter that’s shocking and racy at the end (6) |
| CHEEKY – CH (chapter) + EEK (which one might say at something shocking) + Y (last letter of racY, given by “at the end”).
The world of foreign exchange was in deep mourning when the Estonian kroon – ISO 3-letter code EEK – was folded into the Euro in 2011 and ceased to be independently traded, as it was a favourite on the trading desks (cue cries of “I need some EEK!”). It would have been a tough piece of wordplay even when the currency existed to clue the three letters EEK by reference to it, and with it now long gone, I’m glad Cheeko didn’t even try. |
|
| 21 | Alight outside centre in Azores holiday location (6) |
| RESORT – REST (alight, as in “come to rest on/alight on”) surrounding (ie “outside”) OR (centre two letters of AzORes). | |
| 22 | Stopping retail, possibly, live for free (8) |
| LIBERATE – BE (live) included in (retail)*, the anagram indicator being “possibly”. | |
| 23 | Behind POTUS? Tense doesn’t come into it! (4) |
| RUMP – The current POTUS, or President of the United States, is as I am sure no-one at all needs reminding a certain Mr TRUMP, from whom the T (tense) has to be removed (“doesn’t come into it”). | |
| Down | |
| 1 | American working privately (2,6) |
| IN CAMERA – (american)*, the anagram indicator being “working”. | |
| 2 | Element of riotous behaviour outlawed originally in prison (6) |
| CARBON – RBO (ie the first letters of Riotous Behaviour Outlawed, given by “originally”) in CAN (prison). | |
| 3 | Help — old boy needs raincoat when going up country (8) |
| CAMBODIA – AID (help) + OB (old boy) + MAC (raincoat), all reversed (“going up”, as this is a down clue). | |
| 4 | Deep fish (4) |
| BASS – A DD. | |
| 5 | Small animal cuddles her innocent child (6) |
| CHERUB – CUB (small animal) with HER (from the clue) inserted into it, the insertion indicator being “cuddles”. | |
| 6 | Pay for the use of hotel on island retreat, shunning freebie? (4) |
| HIRE – H (hotel) + I (island) + RE (retreat, with treat, ie freebie, deleted or “shunned”). | |
| 13 | Civic dignitaries somehow learned to hold mass (8) |
| ALDERMEN – (learned)*, with the anagram indicator being “somehow”, including M (mass). | |
| 14 | Film-projection method Armenia developed under Communism, initially (8) |
| CINERAMA – C (Communism, initially) + (armenia)*, with the anagram indicator being “developed”.
No, I don’t think that is what Cheeko had in mind. I suspect he is instead referring to Cinerama the wide-screen projection method popular in the 1950s and 1960s that used three synchronised projectors to give a single image on a large, curved screen. It gave an immersive experience offering a sense of reality unmatched by traditional flat screens. The word was coined with reference to the word panorama, to emphasise the width of the picture. |
|
| 16 | Guardian, mostly enthusiastic, goes on through (6) |
| KEEPER – KEE (ie most of keen, enthusiastic) + PER (through). | |
| 17 | Abandon deeds learnt every so often (6) |
| DESERT – Every other letter (ie “every so often”) of DeEdS lEaRnT. | |
| 19 | Beneficiary in Scottish town mentioned (4) |
| HEIR – Sounds like (given by “mentioned”) the town of AYR, which is making its second appearance in 9 days after featuring in QC 3007 – as was pointed out then, a “Scottish town” is almost always Ayr, the likes of Kirkcudbright or Drumnadrochit being rather more challenging to fit into a grid. | |
| 20 | Indeed — right time (4) |
| YEAR – YEA (indeed) + R (right). For some reason I can’t hear the word Yea without wanting to follow it with Verily: probably due to time at Sunday School many decades ago. | |
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
And the Cheeko special that I spotted? A set of 4 anagram pairs in the answers, at 11A & 17A, 12A & 15A, 1D & 14D and 6D & 19D. As I say, he has done something similar to this before I think, and I was very pleased to spot it this time as such features usually completely escape me.
If you are going to the George, I will hope to see you later.
Pretty easy in the top half but stumbled towards the end. I knew it had to be KEEPER but didn’t understand the PER/THROUGH bit. Everything else was fairly gentle and well-spotted Cedric for picking up the four pairs of anagrams which I missed.
Hope all you guys have a great day at the George, sadly, 15,000 kms is a little far for a pint but will have a glass of red this evening about 10ish which is 1pm GMT to have a virtual catch-up.
Thanks Cedric and setter.
Yes, this puzzle his a step down in difficulty. There were quite a few I didn’t fully parse, just taking a bit of the wordplay and running with it. I don’t think noticing the anagram pairs would have helped, but in any case I didn’t.
Time: 6:52
18:51 for the solve. INCA was the only Across clue I solved on first readthrough. It felt torturous and far too much going on in the clues, which knocked my confidence and consequently enjoyment. Don’t know PER=through and the DD of BASS is a tough for those of who don’t go angling (or singing).
If I hadn’t known IN-CAMERA from previous puzzles to get me going on the Downs and then spotted its anagram for CINERAMA and likewise the DRAWBACK / BACKWARD pairing I would like never have finished. Missed the shorter anagram pairings.
Thanks to Cedric for another highly detailed blog, and to CHEEKO for the RUMP clue which was very good.
(PS Cedric – think you have a typo in your BAOBAB parsing – the snake is AOB backwards into BAB).
Thank you! Typo corrected.
My run of consecutive 11 minute solves this week continues for a fourth day.
The anagrammed answers are clever. I spotted DRAWBACK and BACKWARD as they are more or less next door to each other in the grid, but I assumed it was a coincidence and didn’t think to look for other examples.
Commenters yesterday were discussing setters being forced into a corner where the only alternative to reconstructing much of the grid is to pick a word that might be considered rather obscure for a Quick Cryptic, and I think BAOBAB is another example that falls in this category. The choice can easily be defended because it has appeared twice before in QCs, but on each of those occasions it was clued as a pure anagram whereas today’s wordplay involves a deletion and a reversal, and being made up of only three letters (ABO) makes it even more complicated to construct if one didn’t know the word (fortunately I did as it has caught me out before). There wasn’t much choice of word available – would EARBOB have been any better? – but I think more helpful wordplay would have been fairer to our less experienced solvers.
Couldn’t agree more, I have been on since QC0001, and that is one of the “readily solvable but irritating” answers.
Tricky in places but always fairly, and expertly, clued.
One day I’ll remember to include deacons and DEANs in my mental list of churchmen but it took an age to bring them to mind today.
Started with INCA and finished with an obdurate HIRE (would have been a lot easier if I’d spotted the pattern) in 9.52.
Thanks to Cedric and Cheeko
Tricky but some very good clues. I slowed towards the end and spent enough time on my LOI CHEEKY to tip me into the SCC. The name of the setter should have helped but I didn’t twig at first and I found ‘EEK’ a bit of a stretch.
I especially liked BAOBAB and RUMP, though.
I was too involved with individual clues to stand back and see some of the clever wordplay and patterns. Thanks to Cedric for pointing these out (I will now go back and explore clue by clue) and to Cheeko for a testing but satisfying puzzle.
Nice puzzle that we finished in 24.12 but with a couple of brief interruptions, so may have just crept out of the club on a straight solve.
Had ward for a long time but thought we were maybe looking for a name before the lift and separate.
Hope you have fun this afternoon, we enjoyed last year’s bash very much but it’s a concert day for my chamber choir.
Thanks Cedric and Cheeko
I found this a very satisfying puzzle as stretching clues fell one by one. I had all the right letters after 33 minute but victory was denied by a foolish ANACHRID in 8a
Thank you Cedric for identifying the pattern and Cheeko for a very nice QC on a wet day.
SCC EEK! Carbon Baobab across Cambodia did it for me.
Enjoyable leisurely romp (trod heavily tense doesn’t come into it!).
Thanks Cedric and Cheeko
Enjoyable but quite testing puzzle today. Slight MER at BACKWARD = conservative. COD RUMP. I remember going to my first cinerama film – very exciting. Thanks Cheeko for the entertainment and Cedric for pointing out the anagram patterns (hardly ever see these myself).
Got tripped up by a careless BAOBOB tree. 7,49 WOE. Thanks Cheeko and Cedric. See some of you later 🙂
Cheeko is obviously a very smart cookie.
I parsed seven to start. Probably could do with a bit more focus. One of my friends is throwing clues into chatGPT to see if “it” can figure them out. I’m assuming it’ll just use these blogs. Meanwhile I’m looking at how AI can produce avatar videos from written text by way of constructing information tutorials that I can charge for, rather than use me as a talking head.
I won’t be coming to The George. Bit awkward from rural Oxfordshire by wheelchair. Will there be an online kitty that I can throw some pennies into?
Have a good afternoon – cheers
I note your Avatar.
As a student, my flatmate used to play organ with Alexis Korner at Ronnie Scotts.
Sadly the sleepless nights took its toll
I lived in High Wycombe in the 1960s. We had The Blues Loft at The Nags Head and the Town Hall on Tuesday evenings, in the days when chart groups toured the towns. I did get to see The Who a couple of times. Alexis Korner had a hand in forming The Who at The Ealing Club reportedly, and a hand in The Rolling Stones as well. I missed out on Ell Pie Island too. Jaggar’s house in Richmond had a commanding view of that stretch of the river.
This was early 70’s, London. Alexis Korner was charming. My next-door neighbour from home learned his craft playing organ at weddings and Sunday services, not always to the liking of the congregation. 12 bar Onward Christian Soldiers raised a few eyebrows.
Never a dull moment!
Someone (I think it was Merlin) went through a big spate of testing clues through AI last year and reporting the results.
Ross, of the crossword genius app will eat most QC clues for breakfast. He’s pretty good on the 15×15 too.
Another brilliant offering from Cheeko, with some great clues. I thought BACKWARD was fine for conservative (with a small c) – “resistant to change”, for example.
Some super clues – BAOBAB, CAMBODIA, CARBON and more – but my COD is CHEEKY, as it made me smile.
I hope you all have a splendid gathering – the cricket will be done by then, what a great match for galspray to have attended (IIRC from a recent blog).
Thanks Cheeko and Cedric
NHO BAOBAB but well clued. Puzzled over DANE before the penny dropped.
Good mix of clues but overall a little tricky, possibly contributed to by the pint of pre-flight draught Guinness at Dublin airport at 08.00, raised to those of you meeting at The George. Cheers.
My first comment was lost by a server error.
Anyway, I found this difficult. DNF SW corner.
Liked BAOBAB, CAMBODIA, BASS and COD RUMP.
Biffed several inc ALDERMEN, CARBON. Mer at conservative=BACKWARD.
Blog much needed, so thanks vm Cedric.
BAOBAB featured in a childhood story – can’t remember which – but that’s why I remember it. Must be Kipling.
Dnf…
25 mins, but put “Backyard” for 15ac, thinking it related to “division”. Obviously couldn’t parse it properly, but conservative=backward seems a bit harsh.
The rest had some excellent clues. As it was a Cheeky puzzle, happy to get just about there.
FOI – 7ac “Inca”
LOI – 15ac “Backyard” (incorrect)
COD – 23ac “Rump”
Thanks as usual!
Stumped with 6 clues left, and a few of my answers i put in nor understanding how the wordplay worked. Interesting puzzle, learnt new stuff, got stuck on thinking “fresh” for 18a would be chilly or another synonym. Not sure I quite understand STREET still, if LETTERS are unopened, why does it lose the L from the start? Thank you for the blog 😁
. . .because ‘L’ is the opening letter of Letters
Ooh! First time I think I’ve seen unopened for meaning losing the first letter. I’ve seen opened in a clue before which means to take the first, or first and last letters off a word. Will have to keep that in mind. Thank you!
Tough for me. The Times being a traditional Conservative organ I fear the answer backwards may annoy a number of readers. Is it a fair answer to the clue?
I nearly pulled stumps several times, but the occasional feeling of success from solving another of Cheeko’s little teasers kept me going. Loi, after about 30mins, was Backward: rather an odd way to describe someone who is conservative, though I would have said generous if it refers to the political party. . .
Cambodia was another of those ‘impossible’ clues that suddenly become obvious, and the Carbon Baobab pairing made a good log jam (😉) in the NW corner, but my CoD vote goes to 22ac, Liberate. Invariant
Stopped at 30mins with 11ac and 22ac left.
I found this difficult but with some pdm and some enjoyable clues. Missed the paired anagrinds.
COD: RUMP.
I am wondering if there is any link of 15ac with 23ac.
I did have a raised eyebrow at 15ac but I now have a smile regardless of Cheeko’s actual intentions.
Thanks to Cheeko and to Cedric.
I found this a challenge, especially in the SW being very foxed by 18a 19d 20d and 22a.
18a Cheeky, mainly biffed. I could see it probably ended in Y from racy but never thought of EEK until I had biffed it.
Shoulda thought of Heir/Ayr but didn’t for ages.
20d Year not very hard but it would not come at first.
22a Liberate; had to guess it then parse (quite easy once I saw it.)
15a Backward, had several pauses before entering it as I didn’t think Cheeko would describe conservative as backward.
6d Hire, biffed, I never found the treat/freebie.
I finally noticed a Nina when I found all those anagrams; a first for me. I didn’t notice the careful arrangement though.
Thank you Cedric Statherby and Cheeko.
Really enjoyed that. Didn’t spot the trick so was reluctant to enter LOI BACKWARD because it seemed clumsy for the setter to have it straight after DRAWBACK. I should have had more faith.
07:59 after a lovely morning sail in north Norfolk. Just the ticket. COD to CHEEKY.
Many thanks Cheeko and really splendid blog, Cedric.
18.35 Slow again. I spent way too long trying to justify GAMBOL for 2d. The penny dropped and DEAN followed to finish. I’m surprised to find myself on the leaderboard. Maybe the Quitch is boosted by non-finishers. Or everyone’s on the way to the pub? Not me sadly. Have fun. Thanks Cedric and Cheeko.
14:09. YEAR, CHEEKY, and CAMBODIA were favourites.
Has Cheeko been on the QC training course, I wonder? I finished (somehow) in 38 minutes, which is a first for me with this setter and in not such a bad time.
Very few solutions went in to start with, but my pace picked up through the middle phase and my confidence grew. Quite how I found my L2I (HEIR and LIBERATE), however, I’ll never know. Alphabet trawling H___ and _I_ E_A_E wasn’t a pleasant experience.
Many thanks to Cedric and Cheeko.
FWIW, a Scottish town is nearly always AYR. Comes up time and again.
DNF
And all because I failed to notice who the setter was, falling down on CHEEKY. Failed to associate eek with shocking and put eel in desperation.
No trip to The George today, or indeed anywhere, as this damned slipped disc prevents me sitting for more than 5 minutes. I hope all who go have a most splendid time.
7:29
Had been hoping that my daughter would wish to come back from Sheffield uni today rather than yesterday, in which case I could have semi-justified an extended trip from Lancaster down to London. Alas, it was not to be, so hope you all have a splendid afternoon at The George.
As for the crossword, similar to Asp the other day, this produced my fastest time yet against Cheeko, still enjoyably chewy, but a shade more accessible perhaps. I spotted the longer pairs of anagrams but not the shorter pairs.
Thanks Cheeko for the puzzle, and thanks Cedric for the excellent blog. BTW, to add the ‘hide/reveal’ button when editing your post, click on the little red arrows where it says ‘Collapse-Expand’ – hopefully it should be fairly obvious what to do from the window that opens…
Very much a tale of two halves today with the top half going in quickly but the bottom half almost impenetrable, leading to a time of 15:56. I really spent way too much time on 23a, trying to work out if it was one of the anagrams of POTUS without the T. In my defence, I try to forget who the POTUS actually is.
I hope my fellow solvers are having a splendid gathering, confusing other pub patrons with talk of flowers and numbers meaning rivers and anaesthetists!
Thanks to Cheeko and Cedric.
Rather hard going in places and the helpful blog needed to clarify a few answers that I biffed. No time as I started before breakfast and finished whilst partaking of an aperitif late afternoon. Cheers!
Very nice to come up to London and meet people. As for the crossword all I can say is “dear oh dear” I had it completely solved and asked those present to help with the parsing, quite a few of which eluded me. Even in such august company none could.
23D appears to be incomprehensible garbage, even when explained. How on earth does T = tense, even if you know what a Potus is.
And where did the “stopping” go to in 22A, it appears to have no function and is not mentioned in the blog.
I think ‘t’ represents tense in the grammatical sense (past/present tense, etc).
‘Stopping’ is a containment indicator here. The anagram of retail contains (or is stopped by) ‘be’ = live.
I do know what a tense is. Where before have you seen it abbreviated to “t”.
Wot fabian said, plus POTUS has been around since 1895 according to OED, although it didn’t come into more general use until the 1970s. FLOTUS for the First Lady is also worth knowing.
Lower case ‘t’ for ‘tense’ comes up quite a lot and is in Collins and Chambers, but not in the Oxfords, I think, which seems a bit odd since they regard themselves as authorities on matters of language and grammar. ‘Incomprehensible garbage’ seems a little overstated perhaps?
Apart from being in one of the many dictionaries – can you cite a real world use of it?
Almost ditto for potus – I cant recall seeing it in the Economist which I use to stay up to date with world politics.
In the May 2nd blog … Templar stated “T = tense is a standard abbreviation in linguistics, for example TAM = “tense/aspect/mood”
Here’s a couple of links to articles from The Guardian which include it.
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/apr/24/tv-tonight-everything-trump-did-in-his-first-100-days-as-potus-20
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/sep/04/from-potus-to-half-an-egot-as-barack-obama-wins-emmy
T for tense is used in linguistics. Also proof-reading and editing e.g. to indicate a tense inconsistency in a piece of writing.
Times crosswords use three dictionaries, COD, Chambers and Collins, and ‘t’ for ‘tense’ is in two of these.
POTUS is used plentifully in the US tv programme ‘Veep’ (Julia Louis Dreyfus as the vice-president of the USA)
Yes, I watched that. Very good!
T=tense was discussed extensively on 2nd May when Hurley used it in a QC. As I said in the comments, I’ve seen it used regularly over at The Guardian and JohnI found an example from a March 15×15 here.
I would have said POTUS is a reasonably well known acronym these days for anyone who reads about world politics. FLOTUS perhaps less so.
And agree with Fabian about “stopping” telling you to “bung up” the anagram of retail with be.
(Edit: looks like Jackkt posted while I was typing)
As above – not sure what world politics sources you are using. Perhaps you could cite them.
A search on POTUS on The Times newspaper site currently returns 17,847 hits. It’s in common use. End of, as far as I’m concerned.
Late solve today. Much enjoyed although took quite some time! Several parsed after the event, including CARBON, DEAN, LIBERATE and LOI BACKWARD. Favourites were CHEEKY and RUMP. Many thanks Cheeko and Cedric.
A cheeky little number from Cheeko – is he going to go down the Oink route? It would be fun to see how that worked out 😅
I enjoyed this – enough to make you think but not brain-scrambling.
Clever nina – I got the across ones, but not the downs!
10:06 FOI Inca LOI Backward COD Rump, closely followed by Cheeky
I haven’t read the blog yet, so hope I haven’t said the same thing as others.
Thanks Cheeko and Cedric.
Hope all George-goers had a good time today 😅
Cedric kindly forebore to discuss the Quickie in my presence today, as I mentioned I was saving it for the return journey. However, all completed now, Cedric, with a bit of an alphabet trawl for HIRE as LOI, which I understood the intended meaning of as soon as I arrived at R. A typically fun puzzle from Cheeko, though I didn’t see the anagram pairs that would have given me HIRE straight off. I never do notice that sort of thing at the time – like Jacktt, just thought the two ‘backs’ were a coincidence.
Lovely afternoon at The George! I highly recommend booking the date for the next session.
8.39
Bit sluggish after being in The George for seven hours. But wonderful to meet so many faces today, Cedric and Alter amongst them. Actually thought this would have been a smidgeon challenging even without a few bevvies. Knew the GK but it needed careful teasing out.
I like Cheeko’s puzzles and was very disappointed that he would use backward as a defiition for conservative, even with a big or little C. Let’s keep opinion out of the crossword. Otherwise a most excellent puzzle.