Times Quick Cryptic 1606 by Tracy

Author   ChrisPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
I got nowhere in the top half of this puzzle so dropped down and built it back up again. Finally, I was left with three clues – 4ac, 4dn and 8ac which eventually fell in that order. Just over 10 minutes for what, in places, felt a little tricky. Apart from those three, solving this in a reasonable time seems to depend on getting the two long downs and the long across.
COD to both 4dn and 15dn which were the best of some clever, intriguing clueing. Thanks for the fun, Tracy.

With a question over the passing of 18 down, here’s how I worked it out.

ACROSS

1. Voice of inferior quality? Sounds like it (4)
BASS – homophone (sounds like it) of inferior quality – base.
4. Perfect print to order (8)
COPYBOOK – print (COPY) order (BOOK). I’m more familiar with the term textbook – Collins has copybook as an action which is done perfectly.
8. Protective garment needed by chap in a forest (8)
PINAFORE – it took me a long time to find the hidden (needed by) in cha(P IN A FORE)st.
9. Helpful hint about river excursion (4)
TRIP – helpful hint (TIP) about river (R).
10. Travel with the French writer almost direct (6)
GOVERN – travel (GO) with almost a French writer Jules (VERN)e.
11. Radio broadcast my English band crewmember (6)
ROADIE – anagram (broadcast) of RADIO, English (E).
12. Free snifters later – willpower’s required! (4-9)
SELF-RESTRAINT – anagram (free) of SNIFTERS LATER.
16. Test that woman, one who’s given birth (6)
MOTHER – test (MOT), that woman (HER).
17. A Royal son finally put in charge (6)
PRINCE –  so(N) put inside charge (PRICE).
19. Operatic star eager to return (4)
DIVA – eager – avid backwards (DIVA).
20. Principle involving guys in the flat (8)
TENEMENT – principle (TENET) including guys (MEN).
21. A nettle blown about court arm (8)
TENTACLE – anagram (blown) about court (C).
22. Pull bovine animal across rear of barn (4)
YANK – bovine animal (YAK) around bar(N).

DOWN

2. In the morning I depart leaving friend (5)
AMIGO – in the morning (AM), I (I), depart (GO).
3. Modern gallery in the quiet centre (5,2,3,3)
STATE OF THE ART – Gallery (TATE) inside quiet (SOFT), centre (HE ART).
4. Top title (5)
CROWN – double definition. The top of the head is the crown of the head. Title is maybe referring to the noun – the Crown but might be referring to the title of the TV show The Crown. This could also be a cryptic definition with top title in the country being the crown.
5. I make mistake filling cup for clown (7)
PIERROT – I make mistake (I ERR) filling cup (POT).
6. A bit hasty, mate shot nevertheless (2,4,2,2,3)
BE THAT AS IT MAY – anagram (shot) of A BIT HASTY MATE.
7. Work at home on island, on view (7)
OPINION – work (OP), at home (IN) on top of island (I), on (ON).
10. Mostly wise over fossil fuel (3)
GAS – most of wise – sage upside down e(GAS).
13. Causing strong feelings in European grounds (7)
EMOTIVE – European (E), grounds (MOTIVE).
14. Unreliable boy holding sailor up (7)
ERRATIC – boy (ERIC) holding sailor – tar upwards (RAT).
15. Be all square in match (3)
TIE – double definition and also the cryptic definition of the whole thing. Be all square is to tie, a match is a tie, be all square in match is to tie.
17. Change pound before church (5)
PENCE – (sheep) pound (PEN) before church (CE).
18. Member of the clergy caught on immediately (5)
CANON – caught (C), ah – I’ve only just seen this as I come to write it up – immediately/quite soon (ANON). He’ll be along anon. I was trying to use on as (ON) and got tied up whereas ‘on’ is actually ‘on top of’.

48 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 1606 by Tracy”

  1. I biffed a few –STATE OF THE ART (from ‘gallery’), PIERROT, BE THAT AS IT MAY, and (idiot!) PINAFORE–parsing after submitting, but it was still slow going. My last ones were TENEMENT (had the wrong end of the stick, looking for MEN in ‘flat’), TENTACLE, and ERRATIC, can’t remember in what order. Chris, you’ve got a slip at 22ac (bovine; and YAK). 7:50.
  2. 20 mins in 2 sittings.
    2nd coffee required before self restraint, erratic, tentacle, and LOI copybook fell.

    Like Chris I am more familiar with textbook.

    COD pinafore.

  3. I think that’s a personal worst for me at 34:08. All green but although all parsed I didn’t submit with full confidence. Things were tough right from the start with only 2 acrosses on the first pass and that was followed up with only 2 downs. All on the left hand side so built generally built across. All the answers were dangling just out of reach so although I wasn’t in tune with Tracey I never felt like flouncing off. LOI was the wonderful PINAFORE – If only I’d have opened my eyes, I could have done with those letters earlier on.
  4. I found this quite tricky and missed my target time by over a minute. There were hold ups all over the place but the key seemed to be a) realising that 6d was an anagram and b) spending a couple of minutes unraveling it. That gave me COPYBOOK (is that an Americanism?) and helped clear the top which just left me with the PRINCE, CANON and PENCE triumvirate – in that order. Lots to enjoy but I’ll join those nominating PINAFORE as COD. Finished in 16.21.
    Thanks to chris
  5. 8 minutes on the clock although it seemed a little longer than that in the solving as I had to hop around the grid quite a lot to maintain momentum.

    I was familiar with COPYBOOK as an alternative to ‘textbook’ in the context of ‘a copybook / textbook performance’. And surely everyone knows the expression ‘to blot one’s copybook’ meaning to mess something up that was previously perfect?

    1. I’d always thought that COPYBOOK was UK, but ODE and the New American Oxford are neutral; but ODE sv blot gives ‘blot one’s copybook’ as an Anglicism, and the American Oxford doesn’t mention it.
  6. Clever but tough and unsettling. 10 mins over target which is my slowest for quite a while. Definitely SCC today. I don’t think I will be the only one! Thanks to Chris for a good blog and to Tracy for a sharp lesson. John M.

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

  7. … for a 13 minute solve, all parsed, but not without a couple of queries. Like others I am less familiar with Copybook as an adjective meaning perfect – I wonder if it is more a generational thing than a US/British divide.

    I thought 4D Crown was a little strange – Crown is not really a title, is it? And it took me a few moments to accept 18D Canon – the answer was clear, but to me anon has more of the meaning shortly, in due course than immediately. If my wife said to me “I’ll do it anon” I think I would expect to need to be patient.

    COD 17D; with Pence as the answer it is clever to get Pound in the cluing.

    Thanks to Tracy for the puzzle and Chris for the blog
    Cedric

    1. I thought the same about CROWN and CANON.
      PENCE for change presumably in the sense of an amount less than a pound, but not directly interchangeable -you don’t carry ‘loose pence’?

      I thought PRINCE was also clever with ‘son’ suggesting itself as part of the definition.

  8. A great puzzle for improvers. Trust the wordplay and you can solve. Mind you it took me over 15 minutes LOI Pinafore. How many times must I remind myself to look for hidden words! The 15×15 is also a good example of gettable clues if you trust the wordplay. Thanks all
  9. I’m rating this QC as very difficult. My target time for solving is 10 minutes but I needed 20 minutes today. The clues that gave me most trouble were all at the top of the grid BASS, PINAFORE, CROWN and my LOI COPYBOOK.

    Chris, I took title to be a synonym of crown in the sense of championship. E.g. he took the title, he took the crown. I parsed 18d as you did.

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

  10. This seems a trickier Tracy puzzle than normal. I found it quite hard, finishing it in half an hour which is double my target. The minutes piled up as I ended up alphabet trawling to get 4 across, COPYBOOK . It didn’t help that I hesitated for ages over 4 down, CROWN, not believing that that could be the answer. I enjoyed the 2 long clues today, 3 and 6 down. Thanks, Chris, for the blog, and thanks, too, to Tracy.
  11. I didn’t feel as though I was struggling with this one but was well towards my target 10 minutes before I hit submit after a cursury proof reading. However, as the confirmation screen came up I somehow spotted a stray letter and cancelled submission to check. Just as well, as I’d typed EMOTICE at 13d. A close shave! Managed to parse as I went along. BASS, FOI, CROWN, LOI. 9:34. Thanks Tracy and Chris.
  12. Just the wrong side of 20 minutes by a few seconds, so definitely tough on the Rotterometer, and that was without spotting the hidden LOI with PINAFORE, which I didn’t see until I came here – I biffed that on the strength of the definition alone. Unusual for me not to spot a hidden, so well done Tracy. Some great clues here – thanks to Tracy for the workout and Chris for the blog.
  13. Found this one tough from the start (well, after I had written in BASS) and finally, with a cry of anguish, saw PINAFORE and stopped my watch on 58:47. I did spell tenet/tenement with an A instead of the second E, but I’m going to ignore that. I was vaguely familiar with copybook, but it took a while before the penny dropped and I didn’t manage to parse a few others, including 17a. The only one I really haven’t heard of is Pierrot. I assume he is a clown character in some great literary work that I am showing my appalling ignorance of by admitting I’ve never heard of him.
    1. I got very stuck on Pierrot on a QC a while back, never having heard of it before. I had to dredge the memory banks to recall it today and I can’t for the life of me remember where it comes from.
      1. Pierrot (/ˈpɪəroʊ/, US also /ˌpiːəˈroʊ/; French: [pjɛʁo]) is a stock character of pantomime and commedia dell’arte whose origins are in the late seventeenth-century Italian troupe of players performing in Paris and known as the Comédie-Italienne; the name is a diminutive of Pierre (Peter).
  14. I found this tricky but satisfying once it came together. Thanks Tracy and chrisw91. I was intrigued to discover that my Chambers gave ‘immediately’ as a possibility for anon’. My personal view is that sometimes dictionaries become wrong because there hasn’t been opportunity to update to acknowledge modern usage. In this case however I think Chambers has just got it wrong. OED more correctly describes anon to mean’shortly’ or ‘soon’. I would go so far as to say that it is illogical to use the word to mean immediately.
    1. Collins has forthwith as a synonym – which, in turn, has immediately. I think Collins dictionary is better giving the American version of anon=immediately as archaic.
      1. Thanks for replying – I need to get Collins – it is often favoured it seems! In this case their acknowledgement that this usage is archaic, as opposed to rare, is spot on – it doesn’t have that meaning any more.
      2. Thanks for replying – I need to get Collins – it is often favoured it seems! In this case their acknowledgement that this usage is archaic, as opposed to rare, is spot on – it doesn’t have that meaning any more.
  15. A fast start but then slowed down by some clever and intricate clues. FOI AMIGO, LOI TENEMENT. A question mark about CROWN which is my daily lockdown viewing at present as previously I had not watched any of it-a brilliant production.
    COD to ROADIE, a very clever clue I thought.
    13:41 on the clock. David

  16. Struggled with this one from the start – Passe/pass/past anyone? – slowly inching my way around the grid. I even resorted to deliberately looking at the other end of the clue, and still managed to miss Pinafore. I knew Textbook must be wrong, but couldn’t think of copybook, so Crown was beyond me. Might have got there with a second sitting, but by then the enjoyment factor was in short supply. Relieved to see that some regulars found it hard as well. Invariant
  17. Gosh I was expecting some fast times because that flew in for me – 7:02, a Sub-Kevin and thus a Red Letter Day! I must just have been in tune. (Whereas yesterday’s, which I caught up with today before doing this one, I found hard and everyone else breezed through! Maybe doing two in a row is the trick.)

    Loud forehead-slap when I spotted POI PINAFORE – hiding in plain sight as always. Share a couple of minor eyebrow twitches about ANON and CROWN. FOI BASS, LOI TENTACLE, COD BE THAT AS IT MAY.

    Great puzzle, thanks Tracey, and thanks Chris.

    Templar

  18. Thought it was just me and the fact that I suffered multiple interruptions but I see that a number of people struggled with this one. I thought of ROADIE and MOTHER quite early on but for some reason couldn’t parse them immediately. It took me ages to see the well-hidden PINAFORE.

    FOI – 9ac TRIP
    LOI – 4dn CROWN (entered with a shrug – couldn’t think what else it might be)
    COD – 8ac PINAFORE

  19. Like some others I struggled with Copybook. Entered the answer as it fitted and guess it was what the setter intended. In general a “textbook performance” is perfect, whereas to “blot one’s copybook” is pretty much the opposite of perfect. Still a crossword that I found a challenge but enjoyable and finished it. So a good day. Bill70
  20. Finished eventually, but found it a struggle.
    Didn’t give me much of a buzz today, apart from STATE OF THE ART
  21. ….words have two meanings” as it says in “Stairway to Heaven”. And Tracy opted for the obscure meaning of “anon”. I had no difficulty with that clue, nor with CROWN, which is normal usage for a sporting champion. Don’t we still refer in Rugby Union to the “Triple Crown” when one of the four home nations beats the other three ?

    None of which excuses one of my all-time poorest performances on a QC, where

    a) I entered ERRATIC at 13D instead of 14D

    b) I then altered it to “emotion”

    c) I consequently struggled with TENTACLE

    d) I biffed “textbook” and stared at 5D thus beginning X

    e) I needed to write the anagrist for my LOI

    f) I missed my 5 minute target (unsurprisingly)

    g) I made a typo when transcribing it online.

    FOI BASS
    LOI SELF-RESTRAINT (sadly lacking today !)
    COD STATE OF THE ART
    TIME 5:35

    1. Jordan – that is simply dreadful! But fastest hereabouts!
      This self-loathing is most refreshing! Can you try for the 6:00?

      I was on the 14.45 from Shanghai Central.

      FOI 2dn AMIGO

      LOI 1ac BASS

      COD 11ac ROADIE

      WOD 5dn PIERROT

  22. Mostly ok, coming in under my par, although I was quite surprised – it seemed to be taking longer. In fact, I’m wondering whether to change it to 11 minutes, as that seems to be the norm at the moment! Tomorrow will undoubtedly be terrible and I’ll have to go back to 15 minutes!

    CROWN and COPYBOOK – meh / MER, but otherwise I agree that there were some great Tracy-style clues. Definitely a workout but ticks all over the place – I particularly liked PINAFORE, PRINCE (a nod to Prince Charles there perhaps – will his day come?), and STATE OF THE ART.

    FOI Bass
    LOI Crown
    COD Self-restraint
    WOD Pinafore – such a lovely old-fashioned word
    Time 11 mins

    Thanks to Tracy for the challenge and to Chris for the blog

  23. Had everything done after 30 mins, but just couldn’t get 4ac, 4dn and 10ac.

    “Copybook” is definitely not something I would obviously recognise and I can see the issues with “Crown” for 4dn. Kicking myself for 10ac as I was thinking of someone being curt or blunt rather than an order or direction. Also – didn’t spot the hidden answer in 8ac for ages.

    However, on the plus side, I did remember Pierrot the clown!

    Other than that – a good work out.

    FOI – 9ac “Trip”
    LOI – DNF
    COD – 3dn “State of the Art”

    Thanks as usual.

  24. A tad over 19 minutes today so just within the Rotterometer.
    Thanks to Chris, especially for the explanation of STATE OF THE ART and PENCE which had passed me by.
    Like a lot of others, I took an age to spot PINAFORE and I first entered AVID instead of DIVA as I always get confused over this sort of clue.
    I don’t really think of a TENTACLE as an arm but other than that I enjoyed Tracy’s puzzle even though it was a bit of a ‘casse-tête’ as my neighbours would say!
  25. Very satisfying under 30 mins today.
    COD 7d and LOI 6d
    I feel reassured when I see that the “old hands” find difficult some of the clues I get straight away.
    Tks all.

    Diana

    1. … clues are easy when you know the answer, and difficult when you don’t 😉
  26. …and I mean literally. Except of course that we took twice as long. That said, it seemed to take much longer than it actually did. Good mental workout today – thanks Tracy.

    FOI: gas
    LOI: pinafore
    COD: govern

    Thanks for the blog Chris

  27. Like Chris I did the bottom half first. This took me a while, particularly as I was slow to get the long anagrams, but I enjoyed it much more than yesterday. I had to use aids for 4a and 11a – I should have got roadie as I had realised it was an anagram.
    FOI diva
    LOI copybook
    COD plenty to choose from but I’ll go for govern, lovely surface. It reminds me of reading Travels with a donkey and Lettres de mon moulin.
    Thank you Tracy and Chris
    Blue Stocking
  28. Obviously a soft in the head day for me. On the first pass of the downs the only 3-letter fossil fuel I could bring to mind was oil, despite my working in the GAS industry, and even though I was saying to myself “that’s MEN in TENET” as I was typing in 20a it still came out as tenAment, earning me a lovely pink square.
  29. Lots seem to have this as their LOI – me included!

    Struggled with GOVERN, COPYBOOK and CROWN.

    Hard for me today at 13:07. I always have difficulty with Tracy…

  30. Like others, made slow progress, although the two long down clues went in fairly quickly. Finished in nw corner. A good test today.

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