Times Quick Cryptic 1637 by Orpheus

Author   william_j_sPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
Another well-pitched puzzle from Orpheus, with enough to chew on but not totally indigestible. I certainly started to get worried when 1ac, 5ac, and 1dn failed to appear, but as has been said many times on here, moving straight on rather than getting bogged down is the key. There are lots and lots of first/last letters to pick out, so good practice for this device, and plenty of standard crossword abbreviations/synonyms without feeling too clichéd.

Definitions underlined – now actually underlined!

Across
1 Way to capture foreign part of fortification (7)
SALIENT – ST (street, way) containing (to capture) ALIEN (foreign). An outward-pointing angle of a fortification – every day’s a school day.
5 Pith helmet — most superior one (4)
TOPI – TOP (most superior) and I (one). I get the feeling I’ve seen this before in Crosswordland, but couldn’t have defined it without the wordplay. (I now see it has appeared frequently – so the question becomes why haven’t I remebered it yet!).
7 Quiet member of the family? (3)
MUM – double definition.
8 Park-keeper visiting old Yankee where fruit-trees grow (8)
ORANGERY – RANGER (park keeper) inside (visiting) O (old) and Y (yankee).
10 Spice children initially think the world of (5)
CLOVE – first letter of (initially) Children, then LOVE (think the world of).
11 Substance burnt in church? Not something evangelicals initiated! (7)
INCENSE – IN, CE (church), then the first letters of (initiated) Not Something Evangelicals. I’m glad the final part of the word was spelled out for me, as I would probably have gone for -nce.
13 Cost of old-fashioned ballad (6)
OUTLAY – OUT (old-fashioned) and LAY (ballad).
15 Sound process identifying Russian plain (6)
STEPPE – sounds like (sound) “step” (process). A bit iffy in my opinion; I guess ‘sound’ as in ‘sound out’ is adequate as a homophone indicator, but ‘step’ is part of a process (a series of steps) rather than the whole thing, no?
17 A great many put me out — active men, ultimately (7)
UMPTEEN – anagram of (out) PUT ME, then the last letters from (ultimatley) activE meN.
18 Big house in local police area (5)
MANOR – double definition, the second unkown to me. It’s a slang term for a police district or area of operation.
20 Dreadful resistance restricting the indecisive type (8)
DITHERER – DIRE (dreadful) and R (resistance) containing (restricting) THE.
22 Ultimate feature of tennis court? (3)
NET – double defintion. As in ‘net earnings’ or ‘net cost’, ultimate i.e. after tax.
23 Very old French painter returning without son (4)
AGED – reversal of (returning) DEGAs (French painter) without the ‘s’ (son).
24 Wealthy duke associated with circle in Yemen somehow (7)
MONEYED – D (duke) next to (associated with) an anagram of (somehow) O (circle) in YEMEN.
Down
1 Her music so confused a section of the choir (10)
SEMICHORUS – anagram of (confused) HER MUSIC SO. Only vaguely known to me but generously clued.
2 State of oblivion of bishop in posh car (5)
LIMBO – B (bishop) in LIMO (posh car).
3 Acquit former partner on single charge (9)
EXONERATE – EX (former partner), ONE (single), and RATE (charge).
4 Calamitous stunt mostly taking in a guide leader (6)
TRAGIC – all-but-the-last letter from (mostly) TRICk (stunt) containing (taking in) A and the first letter (leader) of Guide.
5 Tie-on label cheers granny at first (3)
TAG – TA (cheers) and the first letter of (at first) Granny.
6 Dad’s pin-up eating top of raw vegetable (7)
PARSNIP – PA’S (dad’s) and PIN reversed (up) containing (eating) first letter (top) of Raw.
9 Lived it up, being famous (10)
CELEBRATED – double definition. My LOI, despite its simplicity.
12 Boat made by Russian woman in prison (9)
CATAMARAN – TAMARA (Russian woman, apparently) in CAN (prison).
14 First-class food garnish (7)
TOPPING – double definition. I must admit that the adjectival first definition did not come to mind, but Chambers has ‘surpassing, pre-eminent’. I biffed it from TOP and looked it up at the end.
16 Worker on edge in Ulster county (6)
ANTRIM – ANT (worker) on RIM (edge).
19 Simpleton’s lodging-place in US city (5)
NINNY – INN (lodgings) in NY (US city).
21 Brick carrier finally buried under house (3)
HOD – last letter of (finally) burieD under HO (house).

40 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 1637 by Orpheus”

  1. After my DNF of yesterday I am cheered by a 19 minute effort this morning. Luckily 1d (SEMICHORUS) went straight in – (I used to sing in one, otherwise I think that could have been tricky) – and I laziIy put in ORCHARDS instead of ORANGERY which meant I struggled for far too long over 6d PARSNIP (today’s Doh! moment). Otherwise a very enjoyable start to the day so thank you Orpheus. LOI was 13a OUTLAY.

    Edited at 2020-06-17 05:09 am (UTC)

  2. I had the same qualm about STEPPE as William, i.e. one step does not a process make. DNK SEMICHORUS, and I think I biffed INCENSE. 5:23.
  3. Happy to confirm that two of the previous comments that SEMICHORUS will cause problems – missing all those checkers slowed me down. All green in 18m after getting six on the first pass of acrosses. The NW was my biggest problem, had never heard of SEMICHORUS, didn’t associated LIMBO with oblivion (although I should have been able to write LIMO and B straight in from the clue), hadn’t heard of SALIENT for fortification and didn’t know OUTLAY for ballad (bunged in from definition to finish). Elsewhere in the grid CATAMARAN was a total biff – I’d never have got TAMARA from “Russian woman”. So a good learning day – with thanks to William for helping me through it.

    Edited at 2020-06-17 06:22 am (UTC)

    1. OUTLAY = cost, LAY = ballad.

      Mea culpa, mendesest – I had forgotten to underline the definitions (now amended).

      1. Thanks! Turns out I was more wrong than I realised, thought it was a double definition. Will store LAY for future puzzles.

        Edited at 2020-06-17 10:57 am (UTC)

  4. 11 minutes, so in my amber area (>10 to 15) for the second consecutive day. Two clues gave me problems – my last two in – SALIENT (didn’t know the required definition) and CELEBRATED where I immediately thought ‘venerated’ which didn’t fill the spaces available but I found it hard to get it out of my head.

    I also knew SEMICHORUS but thought it may cause trouble for some as unless one has been involved choral singing or taken a particular interest in certain types of music it’s not a word that’s likely to be within one’s experience. To the average punter a chorus is simply a chorus.

    Edited at 2020-06-17 05:39 am (UTC)

    1. I *do* sing in a choir but NHO ‘semichorus’ (nor had my spell checker, which thinks it should be hyphenated). We do have a micro-choir, though, but that wouldn’t fit…

      Edited at 2020-06-17 01:53 pm (UTC)

  5. Didn’t like this one.

    Have never met a tamara in Russia, they all seem to be Sveta, Olga, Nastya, or Irina.
    Dnk semichorus, topi, or salient.
    Steppe is a poor clue. (Some goosestepped in flat grassland) more apt for quicky.
    Ultimate for net.

    Cod parsnip.

    1. Now we have to deal with not just random names (male and female) – which I find hard enough – but we’re expected to think of foreign ones as well. ‘René’ the other day and now Tamara. The only Tamara I know if is ‘Tamara Rojo’ and she’s Spanish, nor Russian. Definitely a GR from me..
  6. Absolutely no idea what was going on with the ultimate bit of NET but N-T for “feature of tennis court” didn’t allow too much room for error

    Otherwise had to write out the anagrist for 1d to see it – which together with OUTLAY were my POI and LOI

    Smidgen over 10 minutes

    1. It’s just a DD, I think. No need to construct it. ‘Ultimate’ is a bit of a stretch for ‘net’ IMHO.

      Edited at 2020-06-17 02:01 pm (UTC)

  7. Chewy in parts and my heart sank when I read the clue at 1d so I left it right to the end. Fortunately once all the checkers were in place it became clear that it was kindly clued. 1a was also unknown but the wordplay was generous. Finished in an averageish 13.47 with my favourite being MONEYED.
    Thanks to william
  8. My FOI was TAG and then I was slow until some checkers arrived and I sped up needing just 1a after about 12 minutes. DNK the required meaning of SALIENT but it emerged after parsing.13:55 on the clock.
    Agree with comments above about NET and some others. SEMICHORUS new to me so it arrived the hard way. Biffed AGED as Degas did not occur to me at all.
    Quite a tough challenge I thought. David
  9. The sun’ll come out Tamara … I biffed CATAMARAN, saw CAN, saw AMA, assumed AMA was a Russian variant on AMAH, thought “that’ll do” and moved on. Thanks for the proper parsing, William!

    A whisker under 10 for 1.9K and a Good Day. No problem with SEMICHORUS – never heard of it but it was an anagram, CHORUS jumped out and that only left 4 letters so … Anyone who hasn’t heard of MANOR didn’t waste enough of their youth watching The Sweeney.

    FOI SALIENT, LOI TRAGIC (spent ages trying to make an anagram (“calamitous”) out of part of “stunt”), COD ORANGERY. Many thanks Orpheus and William.

    Templar

    Edited at 2020-06-17 08:30 am (UTC)

    1. I watched an episode of The Sweeney recently as it was filmed in a pub I used to frequent – The Warrington in Maida Vale. Was still a cracking bit of TV…!
  10. Finished in 23minutes, a good time for me. Had to guess SEMICHORUS, as I’ve never heard of it.

    COD LIMBO, an entertainingly imaginative picture formed in my mind.

    Thank you, Orpheus.
    Diana

  11. Held up for too long by OUTLAY and SEMICHORUS (LOI) which needed all the crossers and was then obvious. I took 16 mins in the end. A bit of a biff fest in parts – words just appeared from the definition in many cases but I parsed them all before completion. SALIENT and TOPI appeared magically from the depths of my memory. I hesitated over NET and TOPPING but liked UMPTEEN amongst many other nice clues. Thanks to Orpheus and William. John M.
  12. I also didn’t know SEMICHORUS or SALIENT as a fortification, but once I had my FOI, CLOVE, and had deduced LIMBO and MUM, SEMI jumped out of the anagrist for 1d and CHORUS followed. I then trusted the wordplay for SALIENT. I still had to employ the spare neuron to work my way through the rest of the puzzle, finishing in a rush, and daringly hitting sumbit without proofreading, to come in at 10:01. Thanks Orpheus and William.
  13. I started well but then had to resort to biffing for INCENSE, DITHERER and CATAMARAN so thanks to William for his helpful blog.
    ORANGERY and SEMICHORUS were contenders for my COD but in the end I chose NINNY for raising a smile.
    Pleased to finish within my 15-minute target so thanks also to Orpheus.
  14. I started off very slowly as I DNK SALIENT or SEMICHORUS and TOPI only rang a faint bell and I needed the checkers. My FOI was CLOVE. I was trying to work the anagram at 1d but had to give up. Fortunately the rest of the grid yielded relatively easily although TOPPING was a doubtful entry. 1.8K and within my target 10 minutes for a surprisingly good day.
  15. Many of these went in largely unparsed, having to check as I went, 12D catamaran in particular! I also struggled with 15D steppe, partly because it surely had to be a specific Russian plain (which the steppe is not), or include an ‘r’!

    A little over 60 minutes in the end, with FOI 10A clove, LOI 21D hod and COD 11A incense because parsing it helped correct my spelling!

    Thanks for the excellent blog and for the puzzle!

  16. Just a tad (hour and a half) quicker than yesterday at 25:52, so a good day for me. Like several others I’d never heard of SALIENT or SEMICHORUS and TOPI only rang a bell after I got it. Had never thought of Tamara being a Russian name, so I wondered if there was a famous one in a play or something. I was pleased with myself for getting AGED straight away and also when LAY came immediately to mind when I thought of ballad. It’s amazing what sticks in there after a while of doing these. LOI was 9d and COD goes to 20a. On the subject of process = step, in biology a process is something that sticks out like a bit of bone, so I wondered if a step might also be considered to be something that sticks out. Alternatively, could someone not process/step down the aisle?
  17. … as despite finishing in 12 minutes rather too many of the clues were biffed not parsed.

    Stumbling blocks were 18A Manor (NHO the meaning “police area”), 22A Net (not the most obvious synonym for Ultimate, and all I could think of was the unlovely phrase “net net” meaning “at the end of the day”), 12D Catamaran (I can think of many Tamaras who are not Russian and many Russian women who are not Tamara, so a bit of a GR this one for me), and 1D Semichorus.

    Indeed looking at the comments above we have not so much a Semichorus singing from the DNK hymnsheet on this one as the massed choirs, almost perhaps an entire eisteddfod. But then, one of the joys of this game is meeting words and phrases one has not come across before.

    COD 17A Umpteen, because it is such a friendly word.

    Many thanks to William, without whose blog today would have been unsatisfying.

    Cedric

    Edited at 2020-06-17 10:19 am (UTC)

  18. Very pleased, though could not parse Salient and guessed Semichorus.
    FOI Orangery
    LOI as above

    An enjoyable crossword, many thanks.
    (Ashamed I didn’t parse Aged either, forgot to go back and think about it)
    Manor makes me think of (PC) Dixon of Dock Green in days of yore!

  19. Challenging but enjoyable again for me – thanks setter and blogger. Semichorus has evaded both me and the management, despite her being in choirs for over 20 years. Also not sure why Tamara is a Russian – but in both cases the clueing demanded those answers.
  20. This took me just over 22 minutes and I was pleased with that time even though it is over my target. This is because I felt to have properly and carefully worked on it, trusting the wordplay when I couldn’t see the answer. Occasionally, it felt like following a satnav in an unknown city. But the instructions were fair and safe and I reached journey’s end, that being 1 across, SALIENT. Some nice clues here, including the little 3-letter ones, like MUM. I couldn’t see the parsing of NET, though, until I read the, as always helpful, blog. I also had problems with the parsing of INCENSE, 11 across, because it seemed to me that this answered the definition of “substance burnt in church” which meant that I did not have enough stuffing left for the remainder of the clue. I also stumbled over the parsing of 4 down TRAGIC. I always have difficulty when the clue needs me to think of a synonym that’s out there somewhere, and then do something to it, and then stick it in the solution. Ah, well – getting better all the time. Thanks, William, for the blog and thanks, too, to Orpheus.
  21. ….I can’t nominate a COD. I needed to work out the anagrist for NHO SEMICHORUS. Both STEPPE and NET were poorly defined, and the puzzle was riddled with chestnuts (MUM, LIMBO, and ANTRIM for example).

    Whilst the first Tamara that comes to mind is Bernie Ecclestone’s daughter, I do remember the controversial Russian shot putt/discus champion of the early 60’s, Tamara Press. She and her sprinter sister Irina were often referred to as “the Press Brothers”, but retired from competition before compulsory sex testing was introduced.

    On a similar theme, one of my favourite (if non-PC) anagrams :

    Yes, a secret man ! (6, 7)

    FOI SALIENT (I know my castles !)
    LOI STEPPE (eyebrow approaching scalp level)
    TIME 0.67K

    1. Do give the answer to the anagram! Tracey someone?

      Many thanks
      Cedric

        1. Ah. Thank you. Very un-PC as you say and I have to say my sympathies are with the poor girl in question. But that is a whole new discussion and not for this forum!

          Edited at 2020-06-17 08:28 pm (UTC)

  22. 17 minutes for me, with the usual suspects mentioned above taking me out of my target range. Did anyone else wonder about MUM, MAM or MOM for 7a? I know the expression is ‘mums the word’, but I couldn’t help stumbling over the possible alternatives with the unchecked middle letter. I can’t blame that for my tardiness though, that was down to SALIENT, SEMICHORUS and LOI NET. Thanks to Orpheus and William.
  23. Stopped after about 29 minutes missing CELEBRATED and OUTLAY. Should really have got CELEBRATED but never knew that lay was a ballad, and couldn’t be bothered to alphabet trawl to get the answer. Not great for me, but agree that some of the clues were questionable this time round.
  24. Made a real pig’s ear of this, despite a good start with 1ac straight in – has no one remembered all the references to the Ypres salient during the WW1 centenary? Topping was the first major hold up, where I was thinking the answer was top (first class) plus a four letter food to make some sort of garnish – those whom etc. Having sorted that out, the next problem was 15ac, where I saw process and Russian plain and instantly wrote in Stepps, thinking myself so clever I didn’t even bother to check the spelling… Celebrated took some time to unravel. Finally, and worst of all, I was convinced 4d was an anagram (calamitous) of Stun{t} and AG. The fact that that didn’t leave anything as the definition was a minor inconvenience. So, all sorted in the end, but certainly not a good day. Invariant
  25. I didn’t find this too difficult although I share some of the previous comments about semichorus (NHO) and net (doesn’t equal ultimate in my book). Never managed to parse ditherer. However all in all an enjoyable exercise, so thanks to the setter for that.

    FOI – 10ac Clove
    LOI – 9dn Celebrated
    COD – 2dn Limbo, if only for the mental picture it conjured up.

  26. Although there were quite a few I couldn’t parse, I still managed to finish in around 45 mins which is pleasing in itself.

    Personally, I enjoyed it and whilst I can see it may be flawed in some people’s eyes I’d rather complete something a little more chewy than something totally straight forward.

    Like many DNK 1dn “Semichorus” and had niggles about 22ac “Net”.

    Parsing issues were with 20ac “Ditherer”, 11ac “Incense” and 12dn “Catamaran” although they were all easily biffable. With regards to the Russian Woman I thought it was something to do with Catherine the Great – Tamara didn’t even enter my head.

    FOI – 7ac “Mum”
    LOI – 13ac “Outlay”
    COD – 3dn “Exonerate” – nicely constructed

    Thanks as usual.

  27. Around 10 minutes for this, I thought it was quite hard, and I tied myself in knots as spelling is not a strong point of mine, although i knew the boat was going to be catamaran, which was my first thought, I then thought surely it can’t be all As, so wondered if it was catamEran, with tamera as a russian, then could it be catEmaran but that didn’t look right so in then end I had to use google go check the spelling. So a definite GR here- any names are bad enough- but Russians now as well?? Disappointing although maybe I will now have learned how to spell that particular vessel.
    On the plus side, I think, I have learned a new definition for salient
    Semichorus was LOI.
    Thanks blogger
  28. As one of those who have been frenetically busy over recent months, I haven’t posted for a while. Some weekends I’ve had 5 QCs to solve! Not helped by the week we had the wrong puzzles printed, or the one where I finally gave up just over half completed only to find it was the 15×15 (I quickly promoted myself from Zero to Hero). I have however persevered with them all and read the all blogs here – all informative and entertaining. Today, I am up-to-date again. Hopefully I can keep up… I did find this harder than usual, but the acrosses went in fairly well, starting on a roll with 1a, 5a, 7a and picking up speed again with 18a and 23a. This gave plenty of crossers for the down clues. No problem with 12d although not fully parsed – as an ex- (and very amateur) sailor I can say these craft are VERY FAST and they have given me several hairy moments in congested waters. FOI 1a. LOI4d as I had to work out the clue again. COD 3d for the construction. Time? – immaterial as far as I am concerned, but LONG.

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