Times Quick Cryptic No 3024 by Teazel

Author   Mike HarperPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

Solving time: 9:56

There I was, sailing along quite merrily, until a great breezeblock rose up out of the water…

Yes, this appeared to be very accessible for the first 90%, but for me at least, came with a sting in the tail, not helped by an early biff, that took longer than it should have, to spot and resolve…. I hope that you won’t encounter the same issue.

There seemed to be a hint of a military theme to this puzzle (9a, 13a, 18a, 20a, 11d) though perhaps nothing more than a coinkydink…

How was it for you?

Definitions are underlined in bold italics, {deletions and substitutions are in curly brackets} and [directions in square ones].

Across
1 Square bill for bed (4-6)
FOUR-POSTER – FOUR (Square i.e. 22 = 4) POSTER (bill)
8 Chose surgical procedure by Edward (5)
OPTED – OP (surgical procedure i.e. short for ‘operation’) TED (diminuitive of Edward)
9 Furiously angered, one explodes (7)
GRENADE – Anagram (Furiously) of ANGERED
10 Stupidly chose poor method of prediction (9)
HOROSCOPE – Anagram (Stupidly) of CHOSE POOR

HOROSCOPE means “observing the hour” (of someone’s birth, etc.), from Greek hōroskopos from hōra “hour” + skopos “watcher”.

The casting of a nativity i.e. an observation or diagram of the heavens, showing the positions of planets, on any given day, is attested from 1650s.
12 Unwell, Pat is sent back (3)
BAD – DAB (Pat) reversed [is sent back]
13 Very common to carry large weapon (5)
RIFLE – RIFE (Very common) containing [to carry] L (large)

A RIFLE is a portable firearm having a barrel or barrels with a spirally grooved bore. As a verb, RIFLE means “to cut spiral grooves in“.
15 Health resort in the country (5)
SPAIN – SPA (Health resort) IN
17 Popular name for hotel (3)
INN – IN (Popular) N (name)
18 Hurry along appearance before market (4,5)
LOOK SMART – LOOKS (appearance) before MART (market)

I had bunged in LOOK SHARP here initially which considerably affected my ability to solve 7d.
20 Court proceedings are initiated by this waiter’s work (7)
SERVICE – Double definition, the first being semi-cryptic – Court proceedings here, refers to e.g. a tennis match, which would be started with a SERVICE
21 Kid, one in outbuilding (5)
BAIRN – I (one) inserted into BARN (outbuilding)
22 Insensitive with rowing team as a heavy encumbrance (4,6)
DEAD WEIGHT – DEAD (Insensitive) W (with) EIGHT (rowing team)
Down
1 Silly person, most robust and most imprudent (12)
FOOLHARDIEST – FOOL (Silly person) HARDIEST (most robust)
2 Pronounce complete (5)
UTTER – Double definition

An example of the second might be, “Jenny sat there in utter/complete disbelief as the truth of the matter dawned on her“.
3 At first, policeman asked dealer to come quietly (3)
PAD – Initial letters [At first] of Policeman Asked Dealer
4 American soldiers turned up, and not an Italian (6)
SIGNOR – GIS (American soldiers) reversed [turned up] gives SIG, then NOR (and not)
5 Light refreshment and teas regularly sustaining teams (9)
ELEVENSES – Alternate letters [regularly] of teas following [sustaining] ELEVENS (teams)

This being a down clue, I took ‘sustaining’ to mean ‘supporting’ in the sense that ELEVENS is being supported by ES.

This meal-between-meals phenomenon was first recorded in 1823 as an “elevener.” As tea became more affordable to the working class, the term evolved – In 1849, a Suffolk commentary on agricultural workers mentioned both “elevens” and “fourzes” as work breaks.

The term ELEVENSES came about during the height of the Industrial Revolution and was in use by 1887 as tearooms blossomed in towns and cities across the UK. Ever since, workers, idlers, shoppers and tourists alike have seen 11am as a convenient time for mid-morning refuelling.
6 Balm spread over daughter and a foreign character (6)
LAMBDA – Anagram [spread] of BALM gives LAMB, over D (daughter) and A

The eleventh letter of the Greek alphabet.
7 Woman’s clear about any number wanting to go with the group (4,8)
HERD INSTINCT – HER (Woman’s) DISTINCT (clear) about N (any number)

This was my breeze-block, not helped by entering a P at the end of 18a, the fourth letter of the second word here.
11 Bombardment fell all over the place in county (9)
SHELLFIRE – Anagram [all over the place] of FELL inserted into [in] SHIRE (county)
14 Easily angered, hiding new party clothes (6)
FINERY – FIERY (Easily angered) containing [hiding] N (new)

See also 9a, where ‘angered’ was used in a different manner.
16 Tail used to smoke? (3-3)
DOG-END – Double definition where firstly, a tail is definitely one end of a dog.

I have the second definition as semi-cryptic, a DOG-END in British slang being a cigarette butt, it would formerly (used to) have smoked.

Apparently (and in my humble opinion, not entirely convincingly), DOG-END is a 1930s armed forces corruption of ‘docked end’, a piece of a cigarette nipped off and saved for later.
19 A side creating huge admiration (5)
AWING – A WING (side)
21 Read out letter for social worker? (3)
BEE – Homophone [read out – past tense] of B (letter)

 

76 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 3024 by Teazel”

  1. I found this really tricky. HERD INSTINCT beat me and had to reveal but after seeing it I suppose I should have got it. ELEVENSES held me up too. Had fag-end until LOOK SMART went in. Liked FOOLHARDIEST and FOUR-POSTER. COD to DEADWEIGHT.
    Thanks Mike and setter.

  2. Like Quadrophenia, I had FAG-END–even though I couldn’t see how it worked–until I got LOOK SMART. DNK DOG-END. 7:17

    1. Jethro Tull, “Aqualung”:
        Leg hurting bad
        As he bends to pick a dog-end
        He goes down to the bog, and warms his feet

  3. I put SERVING instead of SERVICE for 20a which made DOG-END even more difficult. Took me a while to put things right, and kept me out past my average time. The rest of the puzzle was slow but fairly steady work and I enjoyed it quite a lot. COD HOROSCOPE. Thanks Teazel & Mike.

  4. 8 minutes. My first thought at 7dn was ‘herd mentality’ but it didn’t fit the grid so I had to think again.

  5. There seems to be a lot of shared experience today. HERD INSTINCT was my LOI (I too tried to make ‘mentality’ fit) and for DOG-END’s arrival I have to thank Ian Anderson. I slowed after a fast start to finish in 10.25. Many thanks to Teazel and Mike.

  6. I had a very similar experience to our blogger in finding this fairly straightforward until a tentative ‘look sharp’ came back to bite me with my LOI. Fortunately it didn’t take too long for HERD INSTINCT to come to mind which allowed me to reappraise 18a.

    Started with FOUR POSTER and finished with LOOK SHARP in 6.30 with COD to HOROSCOPE.
    Thanks to Mike and Teazel

  7. I also confidently had Fag-end; one only needs one word for it in one’s vocabulary and since for me it is fag-end, dog-end simply never occurred to me. I also found SHELLFIRE difficult, and with those two either blank or wrong, LOOK SMART also did not immediately appear. But most trouble and LOI was SERVICE, where I failed for far too long to see what “waiter’s work” was – rather vague and loose I thought as the penny finally dropped.

    A most odd puzzle in which 90% was straightforward and delightful and 10% was … not. I don’t think I can recall such a schizophrenic puzzle, almost as if set by two different people. Under three minutes of fun for most of it, nearer ten minutes of frustration for the rest, for a 12:48 solve in the end and not a puzzle I will remember with much enthusiasm.

    Many thanks Mike for the blog.

    1. I agree, so strongly, about the 90% and 10% and your additional comment about it seeming to be two, very different setters.

  8. 18:23… but not the time that elevenses came to mind for me. Elevenses polished off and heard instinct dispatched then looked smart but took an age to realise shellfire was coming down…
    ho hum. Tricksy Teazel. Thank heavens for Mike’s breezeblock which lightened my load

  9. 17:27 with a correction needed to unparsed lEAD-WEIGHT. Flying through until the same issues as others – SHELL-FIRE/LOOK-SMART, HERD-…, fag-END, -WEIGHT and never quite sure about SERVICE as missed the tennis ref. Good puzzle but frustrated to go from a potential 6-7mins solve to DNFing ten mins later. A poor week continues with 36mins of breezeblocking so far.

    Thanks to Mike and Teazel

      1. Thanks Blighter. It certainly is frustrating. I’m never going to be a really quick solver, but I do enjoy comparing my solving time daily against other commenters who are, generally, in the same ‘time zone’ as me. Best wishes.

  11. Yes, FAG END extended my time until the inevitability dawned with LOOK SMART. Nevertheless, I finished in 14 mins despite the ‘classic’ Times site on my iPad not stopping to show my final time – it is still rising on the QC crossword page but the ‘completion page’ still shows completion with a time of 0.00. This happens every day now -I am glad to know I am not alone, George.
    My LOI was ELEVENSES; too many good clues to pick out a COD but HERD INSTINCT is a serious contender.
    An enjoyable puzzle and, in my view, the easiest Teaze for some time.
    Now to enjoy Mike’s blog.
    Thanks to both.

  12. All green in 10:39. Was rattling along and thinking top ten territory then paused briefly to help No 1 child find his golf clubs and it destroyed my rhythm. Also like our blogger Mike wrongly biffed LOOK SHARP which as for him made my LOI HERD INSTINCT difficult to come by….

  13. 9:37 (Battle of Brunanburh)

    I initially put TAP for 12a (if water is not from the well, it might be from the tap), but LAMBDA forced a rethink.

    LOI was AWING.

    Thanks Mike and Teazel

    1. “Nor was there greater slaughter on this island ever yet” from the great Anglo-Saxon poem about the battle.

  14. Resisted LOOK SHARP on going through the acrosses because it wouldn’t parse, so inserted just LOOK and waited for checkers. That, BAD and SERVICE were the only acrosses remaining, then all downs fell (long pause over DOG END, which I think I dredged up from Spike Milligan’s war memoirs!), then mopping up.

    Lovely puzzle. COD to my LOI SERVICE, very good! All done in 06:33 to maintain lockstep with Plett and an Excellent Day. Many thanks Teazel and Mike (cracking information about horoscopes!).

  15. Was doing quite well until 7 down resorted to ChatGPT to test its worth didn’t have a clue! Thank you for the nudge….

    1. Try the Crossword Genius app on the iPhone. I suspect it has trained its language model on Crossword blogs like ours.

      Its “party trick” is to let you take a photo of a cryptic puzzle and watch it solve it.

  16. 12:59.
    Also got off to a flier with 1d and 1A leading to all the initial letters, but bottom right held me up, with SERVICE/SERVING and LOI FINERY.

    ELEVENSES are called “second breakfast” by Merry in Lord of the Rings, a term I have heard my children adopt.

    Couldn’t get SHELFLIFE out of my head.

    COD and FOI FOUR POSTER

  17. I started off at a gallop and thought I was on for a quick time. I got bogged down towards the end however, and my biffed FAG END certainly didn’t help. DOG END was solved after LOOK SMART came to mind, and I stopped the clock at 8.46 for a half decent day.

  18. Another breeze blocked by HERD INSTINCT. Didn’t help that I couldn’t get LOOK SHARP out of my head. I also slowed down DOG END by putting SERVING at 20a. Eventually worked out HERD INSTINCT and saw LOI, LOOK SMART. 8:59. Thanks Teazel and Mike.

  19. Yes, Fag END didn’t help but got there in the end. Fairly quick but Much held up by LOI ELEVENSES (PDM). Had pencilled in AWING doubtfully.
    Enjoyable puzzle. Liked many inc 1d 1a.
    Thanks vm, Mike.

  20. 20 mins…

    Agree with Mike, some of this was fairly straightforward, but there were about 4 or 5 tricky clues that dragged out my time – namely 7dn “Herd Instinct”, 18ac “Look Smart” and 14dn “Finery”. Like a few, I also initially put “Fag End” for 16dn until I realised it didn’t work with 18ac.

    FOI – 8ac “Opted”
    LOI – 16dn “Dog End”
    COD – 16dn “Dog End”

    Thanks as usual!

  21. As above, straight in with 1D and 1A and after a few moments to consider MART to parse 18A, I reached a near record time with only LOI and COD, HERD INSTINCT left to finish. It did not drop in until I tentatively tried HER at which point DI(N)STINCT completed the grid with a satisfying, Yes!.
    No time as I fell asleep after 1A and 1D with the clock running, but definitely less than 20 mins.
    Thanks Mike and Teazel

  22. Solving both 1a and 1d right at the outset gave me a great start and I reached halfway before five minutes were up, which meant that I was on PB schedule – I have never broken 10 minutes. Inevitably, however, the solutions came a little more slowly thereafter, but I still made it to the finish line in just over 16 minutes – an SCC escape and one of my best ever times for this setter.

    So, all good today – enjoyable and sufficiently challenging for a QC.

    Many thanks to Mike and Teazel.

  23. Would SERVICE be a triple def?

    After all, court proceedings are initiated by the service of documents.

  25. DNF

    All pretty easy, ran through this in just over 10 mins but failed on DOG END. Opted for TOE END after an alphabet trawl, without much hope.

  26. 10.45 A similar experience. I had LOOK SHARP and all but HERD INSTINCT, BAIRN and AWING done in under 5 minutes. And then I was stuck. Got there in the end. Thanks Mike and Teazel.

  27. This was indeed a sting in the tail non-QC by Teazel. Dog-end, Awing, Look Smart, Herd instinct made me miserable at the fag end, dog-end : call it by any name, it is what it is.

  28. Found this very tricky for the second day running. Four poster held me up massively, still don’t really understand it. Four for square is very weak and I don’t see how poster is synonymous with bill? Foolhardiest was similarly troublesome but made sense when I had enough letters in it. Herd instinct took a long time, problem was that woman’s clear about n gave the correct number of letters so I assumed it was an anagram of all of that, rather than needing to find her distinct for woman’s clear.

    Had serving for service which delayed me a while. Never heard of dog end meaning something you smoke so that was fairly unguessable. Initially had numb skulls instead of dead weight, which I thought seemed quite good, not really knowing what heavy encumberance meant. Went back to it when none of the ending letters were working with the downs and found dead weight at the second time of asking.

    1. Hi Rob: To expand on Mike’s blog, four poster works like this – four is a square number (watch out for this, it appears quite often, along with nine; cube can also be used in this way). A bill is another name for a poster / advertising flyer. I remember seeing ‘Stick no bills’ stuck on walls/ lampposts etc – always found that quite ironic!
      I agree with you about HERD INSTINCT – tricky, but once I thought of ‘her’ for ‘woman’s’, it became more ‘distinct’ 😅
      The misdirection of ‘court proceedings’ and its like for anything to do with tennis is also one to watch out for – but it gets me every time.
      Hope that helps.

      1. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of bill for advertising material. Will have to remember.

      2. ‘BILL POSTERS WILL BE PROSECUTED’ was another one, often defaced by hand-written comments such as ‘Poor old Bill’ and ‘Bill Posters is innocent’.

    2. Interesting how we all think differently, isn’t it? I got four poster at once, but got very stuck on both 6D and 7 D and six done, to be honest.

  29. Tricky but a bit easier than yesterday for me. Took a while to solve HERD INSTINCT and LOOK SMART, latter partly due to fag-end. Liked the surface for HOROSCOPE 😆 Many thanks Teazel and Mike.

    1. Insensitive = lacking in sensation or feeling = dead

      e.g. Her fingers had been rendered insensitive/dead by the cold

  31. I started at 1a and went straight to 1b, as I changed tack today and worked in quadrants. Fullish-ly I didn’t seem to know how to spell FULLHARDINESS, which made getting 8a very hard 🤣 But the light dawned and putting those two Os in made a considerable difference! 16d also took its time – like so many, I had FAG-END for a while.
    Apart from that, I found this a fairly typical Teazel – a few friendly ones and a few trickier ones made for a slowish but ultimately satisfying challenge. I especially liked GRENADE and ELEVENSES.
    12:00 FOI Four poster LOI Dog-end COD Horoscope
    Thanks Teazel and Mike

  33. At last – completed without getting one wrong although I was worried about AWING!
    Took about 35 minutes with a lot of head scratching to get HERD INSTINCT.
    FOI FOUR POSTER
    LOI LAMBDA
    CoD DEADWEIGHT
    THANKS Teazel and Mike

  34. 14:33. Some great clues: FOOLHARDIEST, LOOK SMART, DEAD WEIGHT, HERD INSTINCT, SHELLFIRE among them. FINERY took me the longest. I thought FAG-END first too like many others but luckily “tail” brought DOG to mind.

  35. 09:30. Mostly straightforward and thought was on for a really good time when FOUR-POSTER went straight in. ach well… some clever cluing there – LOI was FINERY, which I could only get once SERVICE was in. thanks both!

  36. 20 minutes with a few correct biffs and a quick change when LOOK SHARP was clearly wrong.

  37. It feels like a long while since we’ve been beaten. Not helped initially by, like others, going with SERVING rather than SERVICE. Sorted that out eventually and got to DOG-END but… LOOK SHARP (!) also took a long time but 7d still resisted. Was tempted then to reveal it but instead ‘checked’ SHARP; once the mistake was revealed we eventually saw LOI 7d after 28+ minutes with much cursing over unhelpful checkers and potential wordplay variants too numerous to list, followed by a final curse once the penny dropped! Thanks, Mike and Teazel.

  38. 25:39, continuing a run of slow times. As others, LOOK SHARP and SERVING held me up, and I never cottoned on to the tennis nature of “court”: I was stuck on the serving of documents.

    Thanks to Teazel and Mike.

    1. Entirely agree. Neither my wife nor I had heard of AWING, though it seemed to be the only word that would fit.

  40. Very tricky in places, and I wasn’t surprised to be edged into the SCC with 20:08. I seem to have been lucky in that HERD INSTINCT and DOG-END came to mind fairly readily, although SHELLFIRE caused me no end of problems.

    Thank you for the blog!

  41. Another tough one but I managed to stay out of the club at 18:22. There was no merry sailing for me but a tortoise-like progress from beginning to end, with many interruptions not really helping much. I rather dimly never thought of tennis for 20a, but got there by thinking of serving legal papers. NHO DOG END, just had to hope.

    Teazel always pleases as well as teases, and I loved HERD INSTINCT, my LOI like many others, but COD to HOROSCOPE.

    Thanks to Teazel and Mike.

  42. Well I liked this but with 2 MERs.
    18a Look Smart is IMO green paint, in that it is not a recognisable phrase. The wordplay made it clear but that isn’t good enough.
    For 16d Dog-end the tail is fine for dog but used is not good for end. The clue seems incomplete in some way.
    Well my 2 pennorth.

  43. Like so many others – going great guns until we weren’t. For us, AWING, DOG-END and SHELLFIRE slowed us to a crawl …then to checkers… then to the awful reveal for the NHO AWING.
    Nevertheless, enjoyed the challenge and delighted in the blog.
    Thanks to all.

  44. 49 minute DNF.

    Took ages to get AWING. Put FAG END for 18ac. Got SMART but not the rest. Couldn’t see SHELLFIRE (because I’m useless!).

    You’ve no idea how humiliating it is to come here and record such an abject failure. I am having an awful time with this and am thoroughly depressed at my total inability to solve these puzzles.

    When I fail so miserably, is it and wonder I am so self-critical? Solvers who never go near the 15 x 15 routinely beat me here, so all that effort I make to improve seems to have been pointless.

  45. Had a hard time with 1d as there weren’t enough spaces to end in ‘ness’ and couldn’t find an alternative until I had POI 20a (oh, that kind of court!). The rest was entertaining!
    FOI 1a Four Poster
    LOI 1d – see note above
    COD 7d Herd Instinct

  46. If it interests anyone, I took 90 mins to get about half the answers on 15 x 15. Tortuous. 😱

    That’s over 2 hours on cryptics today, with nothing to show for it but angst, frustration and self-doubt.

    1. Keep going, it’s *exactly* where I started only a few years ago, and although I will never be top tier, it’s amazing how just keeping every day practising does help to reach a reasonable proficiency

  47. Came to this very late after a good day in Oxford. Most of the acrosses, rather less of the downs and I’m not ashamed to say DOG-END did not come easily. All green in 14.35.

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