QC 3083 by Jalna

Author   MerlinPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

Not too much trouble from Jalna here, 7:57 for me.

Two very similar clue formulations at 8A and 22D, which is a little unsatisfactory.

Definitions underlined in bold, (Abc)* indicating anagram of Abc, synonyms in (parentheses), deletions in {curly brackets} and [ ] for other indicators.

Across
1 Sweet price periodically given by computer firm (5,3)
APPLE PIE – P{r}I{c}E follows APPLE (computer firm)

This would be sweet as in dessert.
6 Impulsive  outbreak? (4)
RASH – Double definition
8 In the end, you often tended to cancel (4)
UNDO – Final letters of “you often tended to”
9 More flexible about one service provider (8)
SUPPLIER – SUPPLER (more flexible) contains I(one)
10 Level covering a certain historical period (5,3)
STONE AGE – STAGE (Level) contains ONE (a certain)

This could be Level as in a computer game.
12 Assessment time put back (4)
TEST – T{ime} + SET (put) all reversed [back]

I kept trying to make this work with the wrong T, this led to my thinking up alternatives

  • Assessment time estimated (T +EST)
  • Assessment of note with saint (TE +ST)
  • Assessment of Hardy girl short on time (TES + T)
13 Complex  way to finish a phone call (4-2)
HANG-UP – Double def

For the kids, phones used to have two elements, a hand set which was attached by cable and a box bit with an element called the cradle. When you were finished you placed it in this cradle, and this was called hanging-up. Next week, we’ll learn about “dialling”.

And of course the other meaning is “an emotional or psychological problem”, its much newer than the other one, and dates from the early days of psychiatry, when they still used couches.
16 Extreme part of Christmas Eve revelry (6)
SEVERE – Hidden [part of] in “Christmas Eve revelry”
17 Do not remove 12 changes (4)
STET – Cryptic, with cross reference

Stet, is a typesetting instruction meaning “leave this alone”, or “don’t remove the changes”. The 12 indicates the answer to the clue at 12 across, “TEST” and the “changes” is an anagram indicator. Hence (TEST)* = STET.

Maybe this one escaped from the 15×15.
18 Reserve towel to begin with when visiting beach? (3,5)
SET ASIDE – T{owel} contained in SEASIDE (beach)

Not sure why we need a ? here, its a good clue, no whimsy needed.
21 Warning signal mistakenly altered after start of riot (3,5)
RED ALERT – (ALTERED)* follows R{iot}

Tricky as “altered” is usually the anagrind, and here it is the anagrist.
22 Get away from interminable filming session (4)
SHOO – SHOOT{t} (filming session)
23 Old chum is a gem (4)
OPAL – O{ld} + PAL (chum)
24 Splash of liquid in small dish (8)
SPLATTER – S{mall} + PLATTER (dish)
Down
2 Nothing in glass of beer and wine (5)
PINOT – O(nothing) contained in PINT (beer)

I tried POINT at first, it has many meanings, but I don’t think wine is one of them.
3 Ladies possibly love to wear large ring (3)
LOO – L{arge} + O(love) + O (ring)

It’s not so easy to get these in the right order. I guess “wear” can be used as a “precedes” indicator, but that doesn’t seem very natural.

This is gives two alternatives depending on which of the O’s you assign the Love and Ring to. Its either LO on O; or L on O, then O.
4 Ristorante dish done with artichokes originally (5)
PASTA – PAST (done) + A{rtichokes}

The use of Ristorante is supposed to cue up the fact that this is an Italian dish, but these “clues” often distract more than help.
5 Fast train   say (7)
EXPRESS – Double def

Say=express. Although it could be a triple definition, as express=fast (as in Express Checkout), and express is also a train (“Take the 10:00 Express from Euston”).
6 Fantastically versatile family (9)
RELATIVES – (VERSATILE)*

I’m always excited to see a new long anagram, where they are both single long words and most of the letters move about. Good one, Jalna.
7 Series featuring writers and poet (7)
SPENSER -SER{ies} contains PENS

Edmund SPENSER (English Poet 1552 -1599)  has appeared in these puzzles before. Wrote The Faerie Queen, then learnt to spell.

But seriously SER for series? I had to check, and found The ISO 4 international standard for abbreviating scientific journal titles, where “Series” does indeed become “Ser.”
11 Weird thing initially frightens everybody when it gets dark (9)
NIGHTFALL – (THING)* [weird] + F{rightens} + ALL (everyone)
14 Port — a new one worthy of contempt (7)
ANTWERP – A + N{ew} + TWERP (one worthy of contempt)
15 Have sheriff’s gangs succeeded? (7)
POSSESS -POSSES (sheriff’s gangs) + S{ucceeded}

That placement of the apostrophe means that one sheriff has multiple posses available. /pedantry
19 Complete  wreck (5)
TOTAL – Double def

Total as in the verb, usually used in reference to a wrecked vehicle by an insurance company, short for “Total loss”
20 Monotonous sound of remote-controlled aircraft (5)
DRONE – Double def
22 Firm ultimately bucks the market (3)
SET – Last letters of “bucks the market”

85 comments on “QC 3083 by Jalna”

  2. At 5.32 this was sailing close to PB territory, so not a toughie today. A top-to-bottom solve for me, with the final SE quadrant presenting the most problems until SHOO, SET and SPLATTER arrived. Thank you Merlin and Jalna.

  3. Seven on the first pass of acrosses on the way to a speedy 6.49. I tried ‘pinto’ at first knowing it didn’t parse but not being able to see ‘point’ (thanks Merlin) or PINTO. That made STONE AGE tricky, plus I was being too literal and thought a meant ‘a’ not ‘one’ for a while. Enjoyed HANG-UP. Finished with SHOO which came to me just as panic was rising. Good one.

  4. 11 minutes. STONEAGE was the one I spent most time on. It seemed a likely biff, but I waited for all the checkers before writing it in and only saw the parsing later.

    SER for ‘series’ is used in academic and library cataloguing and also in legal citations.

  5. 9 minutes. For the first few days, a QC without any major roadblocks. One which did trick me was 4d which I thought might be an anagram of ‘dish’ and ‘a’ with ‘Ristorante’ as the def but it didn’t take long to see that wasn’t going to work.

    Favourites were the EXPRESS triple def and my last in, the onomatopoeic SPLATTER.

    Thanks to Merlin and Jalna

  6. A top to bottom solve starting with APPLE PIE and finishing with SPLATTER in 4.30.
    Thanks to Merlin and Jalna

  7. 26:01

    My average is 37 mins and I set my target at 27 today.

    This was a really engaging puzzle. Didn’t even have a sip of the coffee I’d made as I worked through the answers.

    Most clues required a bit of thinking for me. One or two write ins like PINOT, LOO, EXPRESS and OPAL. But most needed some time to match the answer to the clue. PASTA, TEST and SHOO all required particular consideration. Like Merlin I just couldn’t quite make TEST work for a while. SHOO was my LOI.

    My COD is RELATIVES because it’s a nice clean anagram that isn’t too obvious at first glance. Normally I see anagrams fairly quickly, but I like the ones where you have to double check that it works (like CARTHORSE for ORCHESTRA).

    Thanks Merlin for the write up. There were definitely a few in there that I wanted to check my thinking on. Thanks Jalna for a solid puzzle.

  8. Popped in TASK for 12A without much consideration and this returned to haunt me when I got to 17A with ? T ? T. This solved as STET in its own right which took me back to 12A to correct to TEST. Pity really as I was going so well up to that point. COD RED ALERT. 21 mins.
    Thanks Merlin and Jalna

  9. A good, involving puzzle. I spent 17 mins on it; not bad for a Jalna for me since he has often tipped me into the SCC. I filled in bits of the top half and then worked up from the bottom. Given a few more crossers, I wondered why some of my early ‘passes’ hadn’t been easier for me from the beginning.
    Like BR, I was looking for an anagram of dish and ‘a’ at first; I only saw the light when PASTA emerged as my LOI. Strangely, I only saw TEST after I solved STET. A MER for SER despite what some reference works say.
    Many other points made by posters above chime with my experience so I won’t add more.
    Thanks to Jalna and Merlin.

  10. A gentle accompaniment to my morning coffee, faster north than south but not by much. STET took a few minutes for the 12 reference to drop.

  12. I stupidly biffed “bulls eye” at the start of my second pass,with absolutely no justification for doing so, leading to a major hold-up in sorting out the NW corner on the third pass. I still sneaked inside my target time, but missed my average Snitch rating by quite some way

    FOI UNDO
    LOI TOTAL
    COD SET ASIDE
    TIME 5:30

  13. Exactly right: not too much trouble … but no idea about the sheriff so my guess there was wrong, and CNP STONE AGE, so thank you, Merlin. May I suggest the problem with TEST is that the clue is the wrong way round: usually the elements are clued in the correct order, whereas here “time put back” implies the T (= time) comes first.

  14. Oh, should have worked harder on SHOO – put Shot, though I knew it was wrong.
    Otherwise OK. Relatively easy, even. CNP SPENSER though.
    Liked ANTWERP, SUPPLIER, APPLE PIE, STET.
    Thanks vm, Merlin.
    STET means ‘let it stand’ in Latin. So if somebody made a proof-reading change you disagreed with, you wrote STET. Now it’s different, of course.

      1. The origin of hang up is even older than you describe. It comes from the era of candle stick phones with the detachable ear piece. Early wall mounted phones had a similar forked cradle on the side.

  15. DNF – this twerp could not see ANTWERP for love nor money. Otherwise, all good.

    Pi ❤️

  16. No problems today. Interesting comment about HANG UP. Similarly, we used to have an old-fashioned toilet in our 1920s house so our children knew what ‘pull the chain’ meant – totally meaningless nowadays. Thanks Merlin for great blog.

  17. DNF, with a failure on SPLATTER because I had mistyped and then didn’t spot an erroneous DRONr. Annoying as until then was going well and was in line for a fast solve. Can’t remember the last time I heard TWERP in real life, but certainly felt one when I spotted my error.

    Many thanks Merlin for the blog.

      1. It’s just an abbreviation. Apparently used in tables of genealogies and lists of office holders.

  19. 15:51
    A descent solve for me but left me feeling a little unfulfilled. No idea why – some really easy clues mixed with some head scratchers. Perhaps it was the distance between the two? Or probably just me.
    Anyways:
    FOI: RASH
    LOI: SHOO (a head scratcher)
    COD: HANG-UP (possibly because of Merlin’s blog 😊)
    Thanks to Merlin and Jalna

  20. Yesterday a PB, today a sub-Phil. The end days are upon us.

    All acrosses on first pass except TEST (where stupidly I took the first T as “time” and then couldn’t parse TSE so moved on); STET (because cross-reference, grr); and SET ASIDE (where I couldn’t think of SEASIDE for beach).

    Then all downs in order, then mopping up. All done in 05:14 for a Wunderbar Day. Many thanks Jalna and Merlin.

  21. 5:35 for the solve and one of my top five all-time times! Didn’t help myself by thinking PLIANTER might work in SUPPLIER but quickly removed that when I looked at PASTA. Spent a good half min on unravelling the unknown SPENSER on first read rather than moving straight on. While much of this felt straightforward but there were also some parsings which just delayed me a touch e.g. STONE-AGE, TEST, LOO. At the end, STET and ANTWERP just adding a few seconds.

    Thanks to Jalna for a lovely QC and to Merlin.

    PS Prior to solving I noticed this year’s times for Jalna puzzles fit into two distinct groups – 10,11,11,12,13, 14 and 19, 22, 22, 24, 24, 31 – i.e. nothing between 14-20mins

  22. Some nice ones from Jalna I thought and was content to clock in in 9:06. Mucked around a bit having entered SPENDER despite accepting that would be a relatively obscure series which I was giving recency bias having watched an episode recently. Anyway the cross play between STET and TEST baked me out. Thanks for blog Merlin.

  23. 12.53 One of my fastest solves.
    I was on Jalna’s wavelength and found this straightforward.
    FOI: RASH
    LOI: SPLATTER
    COD: SPLATTER

    Thanks Merlin and Jalna

  24. 16 mins…

    A great puzzle I thought. I took a while to get going, and I did wonder about “Ser” = Series – but other than that, and not knowing 7dn “Spenser”, everything else seemed straightforward.

    FOI – 2dn “Pinot”
    LOI – 7dn “Spenser”
    COD – 18ac “Set Aside”

    Thanks as usual!

  26. 3:20

    PB! By a full three seconds too. Nearly managed to screw it up though as I fumbled around for the submit button (one of those laptops where the trackpad is invisible and you have to approximately guess where the left side of the trackpad is!) which probably cost me five seconds.

    Everything went in more or less first time though I got neither on the top row on the first pass – much easier with checkers!

    Thanks Merlin and Jalna

  27. An enjoyable solve, finished in 30 minutes, stuck at the end with SHOO. Was between that and SHOT, and had to look up what interminable meant, which pointed me to the right answer. Thank you for the blog 😁

  28. Squeezed a sub-20, which I’ll take for a Jalna. Required the help of crossers with a few too many clues for my liking, but generally it was steady progress. I also had to write the crossers in loi Antwerp out horizontally before the head slap pdm 🙄. CoD to Red Alert. Invariant

Comments are closed.