QC 1585 by Teazel – Life During Wartime

Author   astartedonPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

I think this was the easiest QC I’ve ever done. Apart from one clue. And even that was easy but I just didn’t see it. An example of being hidden in plain sight if ever I saw one. I wrote everything in straight away apart from that single clue (12A) which took me about 3 minutes. My buttocks are still smarting from the number of times I kicked myself and I will probably carry on doing so when I wake up in the morning.

There is no excuse. I am a fan. I have been to Bletchley Park and knelt in obeisance at the desk where Alan Turing worked (even though he was apparantly no good at crosswords, contrary to the impression given in The Imitation Game). I took so long going round the place that I am going to have to pay a second visit. Added to that Elgar’s Variations are one of my favourite pieces of music. How on earth did I miss it? I’m sure it must have been a write-in for everybody else. The only thing I can say in my defence is that my mind was off in the world of ancient engines of war such as the petard, trebuchet and particularly the ONAGER which matched two of the checkers and had me running a merry chase for plurals or alternative spellings. Many thanks to Teazel because although my buttocks do hurt I do appreciate being stitched up like a kipper every now and again. It’s great fun.

So, not much else to say except that FOI was 1A and LOI and definite COD was 12A. Definitions are underlined and everything else is explained just as I see it in the simplest language I can manage.

Across
1 Wry expression from serious expert (7)
GRIMACE – GRIM (serious) + ACE (expert).
5 None of this affects the Rolling Stones (4)
MOSS – Cryptic definition.
8 With continuing success, have jam here? (2,1,4)
ON A ROLL – well, that is where you might put some jam isn’t it?
9 Don’t take holiday (5)
LEAVE – double definition.
11 At will, any mug can be prepared for soup (12)
MULLIGATAWNY – straightforward anagram (‘can be prepared’) of AT WILL ANY MUG.
12 Wartime machine with some variations? (6)
ENIGMA – cryptic definition referring to Elgar’s ‘Enigma’ Variations.
14 November in an Italian city: go to bed (4,2)
TURN IN – N (November) ‘in’ TURIN (Italian city).
15 In making these profits, London maybe catches up (7,5)
CAPITAL GAINS – CAPITAL (London) GAINS (catches up).
17 Abandon rear of house completely (5)
QUITE – QUIT (abandon) + E (rear of housE).
18 Curious way leading to the mountains (7)
STRANGE – ST (street, way) + RANGE (mountains).
20 Woman in need named (4)
EDNA – hidden word: ‘in’ neED NAmed.
21 Unfavourable notice given to stanzas (7)
ADVERSE – AD (notice) + VERSE (stanzas).
Down
2 No-good relative was managing (3)
RAN – gRAN (relative) with no G (good).
3 Mark exam in lesson (5)
MORAL – M (mark) + ORAL (exam).
4 Name a particular period to stop work (4,2,1,3)
CALL IT A DAY – CALL IT (name) A DAY (a prticular period).
6 Start song outside (4-3)
OPEN-AIR – OPEN (start) + AIR (song).
7 Decade with which number of dwarfs will have connections (9)
SEVENTIES – SEVEN (number of dwarfs) + TIES (connections).
10 Severely criticised cadets’ gait when marching around (10)
CASTIGATED – straight anagram (‘when marching around’) of CADETS GAIT.
11 So tiny, I ruminate sadly (9)
MINIATURE – straight anagram (‘sadly’) of I RUMINATE.
13 Shimmer of gold, initially — pay attention (7)
GLISTEN – G (Gold initially) + LISTEN (pay attention).
16 Idol from India, sorcerer (5)
IMAGE – I (India) + MAGE (sorcerer).
19 Grass regularly used as fuel (3)
GAS – GrAsS ‘regularly’.

48 comments on “QC 1585 by Teazel – Life During Wartime”

  1. Definitely an easy one; Verlaine’s in in 1:30, and I expect Phil to be in that neck of the woods. QUITE slowed me down a bit, and LOI MOSS a bit more. 3:48; that may well be a pb.
    1. ….for, when a time of 0.8K only puts you in position 22 on the leaderboard, you know it was easy !

      FOI ON A ROLL
      LOI MOSS
      COD LEAVE (for its topicality !)

  2. Oops! That was me. Still half asleep and didn’t log in properly. John M.
  3. An early start for me – couldn’t sleep. Most answers just flew in and then my brain decided to lock down over some simple ones – IMAGE (have I heard of Mage as a sorcerer?), ENIGMA, QUITE, for example. 3 Mins inside my target but I should have been quicker – that will teach me to try the QC in the middle of the night. There will be some F1 performances today. A good puzzle from Teazel. John M.
  4. Only 17ac QUITE made me stop but I took my ‘cue’ fairly smartly. My LOI & COD

    FOI 1ac GRIMACE

    WOD MULLIGATAWNY – how I miss you!

    Time 6 minutes 15 seconds – have been under six but not recently. How Did Lord V. manage? 90 seconds? That’s an answer every four seconds! and two seconds to press SEND! Only the setter himself could manage it quicker.

    Edited at 2020-04-06 04:32 am (UTC)

  5. 5 minutes, my best time for a QC achieved only twice before in May 2015 and January 2017. I promised myself that if I were to find myself regularly in 5 minute territory I would start recording my times in minutes and seconds instead of rounding up but it’s such a rare occurrence I don’t see the need for that.
  6. Another big PB here, a more modest 16.01. Even the anagrams went in with only a moment’s thought, but IMAGE held me up until I guessed that the singular of magi might be mage.
  7. The only disappointment is that having gone under ten minutes in the first time in ages and under 9 for probably the first time ever I was only 44th of 51 on the leaderboard, so any fleeting ideas of my great genius were quickly dashed. With all the squares filled in and parsed and the clock at 8.50 odd I pressed send without checking the spelling of the soup and anagrind so a terrible few moments before getting all green and 8.53. IMAGE was LOI and STRANGE the SLOI. Held up most by QUITE, it wasn’t until the checking U that I was sure which end of the clue was the definition. Not sure how to best squander these extra 10m a faster solve has given me.
  8. 13 minutes but with lots of distractions in the background, clarinet and maths lesson!

    Last 2 image and quite.
    COD seventies

  9. A new pb for me , and thoroughly enjoyed.
    Isn’t mulligatawny a lovely word.
    Diana
    1. Tamil:pepper-water – sound slightly Irish to me. De-licious if properly – made- no cans!)

      Edited at 2020-04-06 09:01 am (UTC)

  10. Wow -some fast times. I had a similar experience to our blogger and others it seems. I was under 7 minutes needing just one, 17a, which took me QUITE a long time. I thought that ENIGMA was the only other difficult one; I needed the checkers for that; have often thought about going to Bletchley Park but have never made it. An awkward journey for me.
    7:45 for me.COD to ENIGMA. David
  11. PB for me too. No hold-ups, obviously. I’m not sure I can write them in any faster and I was still over a minute slower than Verlaine! LOI IMAGE. 2:44.
  12. Crikey! Fireworks today. 6:05 for me which is not PB but not far off it, and yet I’m still at 1.6K. And as for Verlaine … look upon his works, ye mighty, and despair. I think I can only give it a Very Good Day.

    MULLIGATAWNY is absolutely disgusting and I now feel faintly sick. Another coffee to take the taste away is in order.

    Thanks Teazel for the gentle Monday and thanks to Don and indeed his buttocks for a highly entertaining blog.

    Templar

    1. It is on days like this that you can appreciate the sense of pride that I feel on those rare occasions when I achieve a position on the leader board above Verlaine !
  13. A gentle offering to start the week but for some reason the anagram at 11d held me up for a bit which prevented me from getting into pb territory. Enjoyed 4d and finished in 8.21 with LOI QUITE.
    Thanks for the blog
  14. I enjoyed this puzzle and it took me about my usual time which is 15 minutes. But I didn’t race through, faster than the eye can see nor brain comprehend, as some have done. Longish answers, and multi-word ones, always help, I suppose, as in, eg, 8 and 15 across and 4 and 10 down. Also, there aren’t any especially difficult anagrams nor opaque references. I especially liked 4 and 6 down but thought that 5 across was rather literal. Good fun for a Monday, though, especially these particular sorts of Mondays. Thanks, Don, for the blog and thanks, too, to Teazel.
    1. Louisa it would help if you used the actual answers rather than just- ‘8 and 15 across and 4 and 10 down… liked 4 and 6dn but thought 5ac was…’ Are we supposed to scroll-up seven times to discover what you are relating to?

      If everyone did this….

        1. Don’t listen to him Louisa. You’re not there for his convenience. Just do what you like. Plenty of other people;e refer to clues by numbers.
  15. I was at 3:42 with only 17a left, and hoping for my first sub 5 minute solve, but it wasn’t to be. Took me too long to see QUITE. 5:51. Thanks Teazel and Don. I’ve been to Bletchley 3 times and really enjoyed it.
  16. Just over the 8 minute mark for me, which is about as fast as I can do it, but short of a PB. LOI QUITE, COD to LEAVE. Thanks to Teazel and Don.
  18. Funny how some people find things straight forward and easy.

    There was nothing difficult in here, although I must be the only person who hasn’t heard of Mulligatawny soup, but it did take a while to pull everything out and I still ended up doing this in around 45 mins.

    FOI – 8ac “On a Roll”
    LOI – 17ac “Quite”
    COD – 7dn “Seventies”

    Thanks as usual.

  19. I was QUITE quick but still nearly a minute outside my PB and all because I needed an alphabet trawl for my LOI 17a QUITE. I really must think of a Q when I see a U. I wasn’t sure MOSS was going to be the answer at 5a so I waited for the two checkers and the MULLIGATAWNY anagram really tested my spelling abilities. MAGE for sorcerer was also a guess. COD to ENIGMA variations. 7:22 (PB remains at 6:28)

    Edited at 2020-04-06 12:35 pm (UTC)

  20. Lovely (easy) start to the week – mostly write ins and we nearly achieved a PB but had to cogitate on “quite” for a moment or two.

    Thanks for the 15×15 tip. We are dipping our toes into that pool and, every now and then, managing to solve most of the clues.

    FOI: grimace
    LOI: quite
    COD: enigma

  21. What a rolling stone fails to gather for a good 30 seconds or so, which took me up to 5:28.

    Did the 15×15 too, also held up by the last couple of clues. I often find myself in that situation, like my mind just goes on strike, when all before were falling into place easily. Oh well, it’s nothing of any import.

  22. Really enjoyed this and no problems just a steady solve. My last one in was IMAGE and I wasn’t sure it was right as I have never heard of Mage. I will try te 15×15 today. Many thanks all.
  23. So first in a while – found the long anagrams time consuming and spent time on 16d looking forward a hidden (LOI and eventually biffed assuming Mage meant sorcerer)
    Pleased to discover it was all done and correct in 10 minutes – so another PB.
    Had fingers crossed for Moss since it didn’t quite feel a complete clue but I suppose “I gather none of this affects the Rolling Stones” would have been too much?!
    Thanks all
    John George
  25. I sailed through this and thought it would be a PB until I got to 17a which held me up for 5 minutes. Eventually I put in QUITE but I wasn’t convinced it was correct. Doesn’t ‘quite’ usually mean ‘rather’ not ‘completely’ ? Still, I did QUITE well finishing in 18 minutes and it was very enjoyable.
    FOI 8A
    LOI 17a
    COD 12a
    Thank you Teazel and Astartadon
    Blue Stocking
    1. I think in the context of quite right or quite wrong it takes on the required meaning.

      Edit to say that in my Chambers app the first definition is “completely, wholly entirely” while “somewhat, fairly” doesn’t get a look in until the third definition.

      Edited at 2020-04-06 03:17 pm (UTC)

  27. Much like everyone else enjoyed this start to the week, last one in was QUITE, will try the 15×15 thanks for the heads up thanks all
  28. A rare clean sweep for me, and would have broken 5 minutes for a PB if I hadn’t got ahead of myself and entered ADVERSE at 18a, so needed to go back for the clues skipped.
    However, when I then went on to the 15×15, after opening it, I was distracted by needing to check on an expected delivery, and forgot to pause it, so didn’t complete it till about an hour and a half had elapsed – which would have been something like a personal worst time if I’d submitted it to the leader board 🙁
  29. … at 4m30, and although everyone is saying it was less than challenging – which I cannot disagree with – I shall still enjoy the moment. But how on earth does anyone even complete the grid in just over a minute, even with minimal thinking time! Truly hats off …

    My mother served at Bletchley Park so 12A Enigma was a pleasure to fill in. We held a big family party there for her 80th birthday, in the years before it became the most successful museum it is now. If you have not been there and are reasonably close to it, do pay it a visit when the lockdown ends. And allow twice as much time as you initially expect!

    Thank you to Don for the blog and to Teazel for facilitating a Good Day.
    Cedric

    2. I mean, she actually knew everybody. What must it have really been like?
      1. Thank you. She worked on Japanese ciphers and was there for the last year and a half of the war. By then it was a huge establishment and I am not sure how much the hut girls saw of the real stars. She always said that the very busiest day of all was the day after the first atomic bomb was dropped in August 1945 – every Japanese field unit cabled their HQs to find out what on earth had happened.
        1. Of course. Enola Gay and Little Boy, which apparently ran on rails as the Yanks say. Not like Fat Man and Bockscar which was a mission so full of errors it makes Apollo 13 look like an afternoon playing with your Meccano set. Nevertheless Fat Man apparently became the model for the Western nuclear armaments for years afterwards but then it was a ‘superior’ design (I was just reading up on it a few weeks ago). It was just the handling of the mission that was incompetent.
  30. Easiest Teazel I can remember. Ran through it with hardly a hitch. A bit different from a couple of last week’s puzzles.

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