QC 1885 by Breadman

Author   astartedonPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

Once again I managed to do most of this sequentially, thrown off my stride only by 21A which should have been enough of a chestnut for me by now just to write it in. I even had the elements running through my mind (MAST and EWE) but spent long enough thinking about it for me to flip over to the next clue. Apart from that I should have just biffed it as I do know the term well. Just a momentary blind spot I guess.

FOI was 1A and LOI was the aforementioned buoyancy aid. COD to 6D because there is a good potential misdirection in it that I could have fallen for if I didn’t already have some of the checkers: if you were only skimming the clues you might well have taken ‘food shop’ as the definition and biffed DELICATESSEN (same number of letters as the answer) before reading the rest of the clue.

Many thanks to Breadman for a gentle but occasionally tricky Bank Holiday puzzle.

Definitions are underlined and everything else is explained just as I see it as simply as I can.

Across
1 Winner to embrace old French writer (6,4)
VICTOR HUGO – VICTOR (winner) + HUG (to embrace) + O (old).
8 Struggle with awful sleet on river (7)
WRESTLE – W (with) + R (river) + ESTLE (anagram (‘awful’) of SLEET).
9 Ring huge Greek character (5)
OMEGA – O (ring) + MEGA (huge).
10 Plain meal regularly selected somewhere in Peru (4)
LIMA – pLaIn MeAl ‘regularly selected’.
11 Parting sports arena after Ballesteros maybe (8)
SEVERING – Severiano ‘SEVE’ Ballesteros was a highly talented Spanish golfer. SEVE + RING (sports arena) gives the answer.
13 Mountainous region, to the west, Mallory traversed partly (5)
TYROL – reverse hidden word (‘to the west’ is a signal to us that we should read right to left): malLORY Traversed ‘partly’.
14 Chief magistrate once concerned with first woman (5)
REEVE – RE (concerned with) + EVE (first woman).
16 Snail Charlie found amongst storage at sea (8)
ESCARGOT – C (Charlie) ‘found amongst’ ESARGOT (anagram (‘at sea’) of STORAGE).
17 Hospital member suffering (4)
HARM – H (hospital) + ARM (member).
20 Classical theatre Oswald’s outside a very long time (5)
ODEON – OD (OswalD’s ‘outside’, i.e. the first and last letters) + EON (a very long time).
21 Part of sailing ship contains something woolly and life jacket (3,4)
MAE WEST – MAST (part of sailing ship) ‘containing’ EWE (something woolly). I don’t know the exact origin of this slang term for an inflatable life jacket, but I believe it may be partly rhyming slang (Mae West = vest) and also refer to the actress’s famously buxom figure suggestive of pneumatic support while in the water.
22 Conventional image of potter, eyes fixed (10)
STEREOTYPE – straight anagram (‘fixed’) of POTTER EYES.
Down
1 Perhaps a solemn promise by the Spanish (5)
VOWEL – VOW (solemn promise) + EL (‘the’ in Spanish).
2 Best item on dinner table at Christmas? A sort of biscuit (5,7)
CREAM CRACKER – CREAM (best) + CRACKER (item on dinner table at Christmas).
3 Ruminant animals lacking good cereal grass (4)
OATS – gOATS (ruminant animals ‘lacking’ G (good).
4 Type of dog, slippery creature, grabbed by that lady (6)
HEELER – EEL (slippery creature) ‘grabbed by’ HER (that lady). A type of antipodean sheepdog that herds sheep by biting at their heels.
5 Part of mathematics test beneath George and myself (8)
GEOMETRY – TRY (test) ‘beneath’ (in this down clue) GEO (George) + ME (myself).
6 Food shop to reproach lady removing contents on purpose (12)
DELIBERATELY – DELI (food shop) + BERATE (reproach) + LY (LadY ‘removing contents’).
7 Loosely hang fish at end of day (6)
DANGLE – D (one end of Day) + ANGLE (fish).
12 Unusual article about new musical instrument (8)
CLARINET – CLARIET (anagram ‘unusual’ of ARTICLE) ‘about’ N (new).
13 Small earthquake damaged Metro railway primarily (6)
TREMOR TREMO (anagram (‘damaged’) of METRO) + R (Railway ‘primarily’).
15 One-time pro associated with French sea (6)
FORMER – FOR (pro) + MER (French for sea).
18 Little child obtains right headwear (5)
MITRE – MITE (little child) ‘obtaining’ R (right).
19 Brave man in the rocket (4)
HERO – hidden word: ‘in’ tHE ROcket.

70 comments on “QC 1885 by Breadman”

  1. Many a biff helped me home. MAE WEST / MITRE was the end of the puzzle for me and what a head-scratcher it was!
  2. DNK HEELER. Biffed STEREOTYPE & CLARINET. I’ve seen MAE WEST & REEVE just a bit too often. 4:56.
  3. I whizzed through in 5:15 my fastest for a while and totally biff-free. (As sung by Matt Monro – earworm?)

    FOI 8ac WRESTLE

    LOI 20ac ODEON – Leicester Square perhaps?

    COD 1ac VICTOR HUGO- who wrote The Glums (Ron & Eth).

    WOD 21ac MAE WEST

    I’m 2dn-ed (Xmas? Export tins?)

    SCC Perhaps do not try the Monday 15×15 – its not quite what is written on the tin.

  4. 10 minutes on the nail, so only just within my target time.

    DNK HEELER.

    I’ve never heard the suggestion that MAE WEST originated as rhyming slang and would tend to discount it.

    Another I don’t believe is that ODEON when referring to the UK cinema chain comes from the acronym ‘Oscar Deutsch Entertains Our Nation’, Deutsch being the man who founded the chain in 1928. That was thought up later by his publicists.

    Edited at 2021-05-31 05:02 am (UTC)

    1. One of the co-founders of the ODEON chain – grocery store owner Mel Mindelsohn – suggested the name, after spotting it in Tunis, North Africa.
      Birmingham born Deutsch died in December 1941 from cancer – when he was only 48!
      1. No doubt you already know this (or better) but others may be interested: During World War II, former boxing promoter Sol Sheckman bought up cinemas nationwide and formed Essoldo Circuit (Control) Ltd, operating from Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The southern part of the business was operated by his brother, Captain Mark Sheckman, from London. He took control after Sol’s death in the late Sixties. At its height, Essoldo operated 160 cinemas. The Essoldo Circuit was very much a family concern: the name was made up from the first names of Sol’s wife, Esther, Soloman, and Dorothy, his daughter.
    2. Thanks for your comment on Mae West, jackkt.

      I was quite careful though to say only that I thought it was rhyming slang and nothing to do with Cockney culture, as the usage is clearly of American origin. I was fairly sure I had not made it up so I had a quick look at Wikipedia where I found the following:

      “During World War II, Allied aircrews called their yellow inflatable, vest-like life preserver jackets “Mae Wests” partly from rhyming slang for “breasts”[141] and “life vests” and partly because of the resemblance to her torso. A “Mae West” is also a type of round parachute malfunction (partial inversion) which contorts the shape of the canopy into the appearance of an extraordinarily large brassiere.[142]”

      As you can see from the copied numbers in the extract, both of these usages are supported by references to which there are links in the entry.

      Don

  5. FOI: 9a. OMEGA
    LOI: 13a. TYROL

    Time to Complete: 47 minutes (average: 72 mins)

    Clues Answered Correctly without aids: 22

    Clues Answered with Aids (3 lives): 13a, 21a

    Clues Unanswered: Nil

    Wrong Answers: Nil

    Total Correctly Answered (incl. aids): 24/24

    Aids Used: Chambers

    A nice start to a Bank Holiday Monday with a fast (for me!) solve at 47 minutes, and the booking of my second Covid jab.

    13a. TYROL – Not heard of this word before, but I now know it is an historical region in the Alps. First Life used.

    21a. MAE WEST – Even after 24 years in the Royal Navy, I have never heard of a life jacket being referred to as a Mae West. However, it does seem like a word that the Navy would use. Navy slang, or “Jack Speak”, often uses rhyming slang, or the substitution of a word with a person’s name. For example, David Gower (shower), Geoff Hurst (first – as in the First Watch). Second life used.

    7d. DANGLE – “at end of day” threw me, as I was looking at the Y. A bit misleading I think. If clue had read “Loosely hang fish at START of day,” it would have made more sense to me. However, the word dangle came to me and in it went.

    Now onto the 15×15.

    1. How surprising that someone who served years in the Navy would not know “Mae West”, a term familiar to many of us that have never spent longer on board than the duration of a cross channel ferry. Clearly a theatrical rather than a naval use.
      Thank you for your insight.
      1. Interestingly it seems originally to have been aviator kit, and some of the usual sources (and Brewer’s) have it only as that.

        Tyrol (aka Tirol) must be hard to avoid, as it’s surely the most famous holiday region of Austria.

        1. Jackspeak by Rick Jolly ISBN 0-9514305-2-1 defines a Mae West as “… the unofficial but frequently used name …. for an aircrew buoyancy aid. The large pectoral curves induced to one’s outline … are reminiscent of the splendid jahooblies possessed by Mae West in the 1930s”.
          I’ve always associated the expression with the Royal Air Force.
          1. He also authored the Red and Green Life-Machine, detailing his time as the Principal Medical Officer at the Falkland Islands conflict.

            I had the pleasure of working with Surg Capt Jolly RN, as he was then, when he was a locum GP (having formally retired from the Andrew) at HMS RALEIGH Medical Centre. I was a recently qualified medic based at Raleigh, before I was carted off to CTCRM Lympstone for the Commando Course. He was such a fascinating person to speak to and work with.

            For those who remember Treasure Hunt with Anneka Rice on the TV; Rick Jolly once bought into the centre, Malcolm Malric-Smith (I think I have his name correctly). Malcolm was the pilot of the green comms helicopter you’d sometimes see flying near the helicopter that Anneka and her TV crew travelled in.

            Rick Jolly taught me so much.

  6. A top to bottom solve with no hold ups, which was helped by the unknown dog being kindly clued. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen (or heard of) George being shortened to GEO before but the answer was clear.
    Finished in 5.44 with LOI STEREOTYPE, which happened to be the last clue I looked at. My COD goes to SEVERING for for bringing back memories of my favourite ever golfer.
    Thanks to astartedon
    1. Thanks for your comment, plett11.

      I believe Geo. is a fairly standard abbreviation for George, and I am sure I have seen it in the context of Hanoverian royalty, for example on the spines of legal tomes of cases and statutes from the era. But you can definitely see it in the names of long-established businesses, particularly those that trace their heritage back to Victorian times. A good example is the men’s grooming establishment of George F Trumper. Their original 1875 shop in Curzon Street is called G. F. Trumper, but their St James’s shop in Duke of York Street bears the style Geo. F. Trumper.

      I am probably the last person that would ever set foot in such a place but it certainly has an eye-catching shop front that I regularly pass on my way to the London Library. From glancing in its window I have learned of the existence of several products that I would never have dreamed existed. Such things as Lavender Moustache Wax and Spanish Leather Stick Deodorant for instance.

      By the way I have just checked their Wikipedia entry and it seems they have quite a literary curiosity value having featured in books and TV drama by Ian Fleming, Evelyn Waugh, John le Carre and Agatha Christie.

      Edited at 2021-05-31 07:55 am (UTC)

      1. Geo Akins bookmakers used to be a common sight in Nottinghamshire in the 80s and 90s before they were bought out. I think he went on to own Rock City nightclub in the city too.
        1. Rock City – much loved by the rockers in my house. I’ve only ever stood outside it!
  7. Greetings from glamping on the Essex coast! Had to walk along a track to get enough signal to get the puzzle — and back to type this! Found it tough to unravel STEREOTYPE without the pen and paper I’d use at home and by trying to force oxen into the OATS space. Finished with MITRE & the vaguely known MAE WEST — M_E looked most unpromising for a bit.
  8. Bit sluggish this morning. Seen REEVE plenty of times but gazed at M_E_E_T at the end not knowing what was going on.

    Nice start to the w/e

    Thanks all

  9. Never heard of a heeler but assumed it was a better trained dog than ours which is more of a sniffer. Rated this a mid scale 5 and at 4.5K, pretty much on par. Would have been a 4 if I had not spent 5 minutes pondering on a species of snail beginning ECC.
    Thanks Bradman for a better start to the week than last and Don for the precise dissection.
  10. At 13:40 good to be back in the Finishing Club after a week in DNF Purgatory. This one seemed way easier than anything last week. Although LOI ODEON took several minutes.

    NHO HEELER.

    Was surprised that TREMOR is so spelt, it looks American English to me.

    COD VICTOR HUGO

  11. A Lancashire HEELER is a medium size terrier which was bred to nip the heels of slow cattle, I dimly remember. The one I met did not like Labradors either.
    No problem with REEVE, ODEON, MAE WEST, ESCARGOT.
    But stuck on WRESTLE and didn’t know Ballesteros was referred to as Seve. I knew he was a golfer but that’s all. So DNF.
    Penny has just dropped – perhaps ‘A’ , being a vowel. Obviously I put vowel because it couldn’t be anything else, so a belated parse!
    GEO used to be a common abbreviation for George in the same sort of era when Thomas was Thos, I think.
    FOI VICTOR HUGO, Last Solved One In OATS.

    Thanks vm, Don.

    Edited at 2021-05-31 10:10 am (UTC)

  12. Managed a finish after last week’s lean run. Got Mae West straight away. FORMER was LOI- for some reason took an age.
    Now back to yesterday’s AZED…
  13. … and managed an 8 minute solve, which is about par for the course for me for puzzles by Breadman. Only 4D Heeler was unknown, but it was very generously clued.

    I was initially slightly surprised to see 16A Escargot in an English language crossword as I only know the word as French, but I see from the dictionary that it can be used in English provided the snail is edible. I wonder if it is another product of the Norman period, when food was referred to in English by the lowly Anglo-Saxon farmhands (cow, pig, sheep) and Norman French when on the aristocratic lord’s table (boeuf, ie beef; porc, ie pork; mouton, ie mutton).

    LOI was 7D Dangle — I was very slow to grasp that “end of day” could mean the front end of the word. I’ve never seen the first letter of a word clued as “end of” and I spent some time trying to see where a Y could go in the answer. Slightly underhand in my opinion!

    Many thanks to Don for the blog
    Cedric

    1. For what it’s worth, I parsed 7d as: angle (fish) following on from (at end of) d (day).
      1. Yes so did I, eventually. My surprise was that D was clued as end of day. “End of day” would usually imply Y.
    2. FWIW I took “at end of” as a positional indicator specifying ANGLE came after D for day. Whatevs. Oops. I see Invariant has already said this. Great minds?

      Edited at 2021-05-31 03:36 pm (UTC)

      1. I know. I do get it, it’s just that to say something is ‘at the end of’ a single letter just doesn’t sit quite right with me. But there have been worse misdemeanours.
  14. 18 mins 8 secs today. FOI Harm and LOI Odeon. No real problems with the rest except that I biffed Delicatessen until I saw Reeve, and put Miter (alternative spelling?) until I saw Stereotype. COD Severing.

  15. I knew VOWEL must be the answer to 1d but for the life of me couldn’t work out why until I saw the blog (much appreciated).

    LOI MAE WEST to my shame – I enjoyed the efforts attempting to explore its etymology.

    Have a good Monday everyone, and I hope you don’t have to spend too much of it in a traffic jam. My American son informs me that it’s raining in Connecticut.

    Diana

  16. I rambled through this starting at 1a and following where the next crossing letter took me, finishing with STEREOTYPE, so a straight through solve although not in clue order. 6:41. Thanks Breadman and Don.
  17. A bank holiday Monday relaxed pace solve in 8:46. Fortunately I had all the general knowledge bar HEELER which was my POI. My LOI was SEVERING.
  18. Just a few seconds over 10 mins. Nice to have a ‘Quick’ Cryptic for a change. Some attractive clues with one or two to chew over — HEELER being one that was a logical solve but unknown to me. I liked DELIBERATELY and needed some crossers before MAE WEST clicked. Thanks to Breadman and Don. John M.

    Edited at 2021-05-31 09:57 am (UTC)

  19. I’m not a dog fan so didn’t know HEELER, but I’m used to deriving dog breeds from the wordplay. I was a little surprised to see GEO. for George at first, but then I thought of some examples – thanks for the comment on this earlier, Don. My Uncle George has never been a Geo. to my knowledge. COD to DANGLE. No dramas in whizzing through this in 3:38. The Bank Holiday Jumbo, however, was a different kettle of fish.

    Edited at 2021-05-31 09:26 am (UTC)

  20. All finished and all parsed in ten minutes for once. NHO heeler, but generously clued as noted above. Thanks, Don, and Breadman. GW
  21. A very pleasant 16min solve from Vowel to Deliberately. My only real hold up was 2d Cream Cracker, where I had Cracker down as best and then had to wait for the crossers to get Cream. Thankfully the unknown dog (sounds like a charming pet…) was generously clued, and Reeve has come up so often that it has become a go to word for magistrate. CoD to 6d, Deliberately – a good example of a build-up clue. Let’s hope the tone has been set for the week. Invariant

    Edited at 2021-05-31 11:15 am (UTC)

  22. 13 minutes exactly, slowed down by initially biffing OPERA for ODEON, but spotting my mistake when I couldn’t account for the P. The rest of the clue sort of worked though. A nice change from the harder puzzles last week — let’s hope the rest of this week is as amenable. COD to VICTOR HUGO for reminding me how much I enjoyed his books many years ago. I had to chuckle at Horryd’s alternative title for Les Mis (which I am slightly reluctant to admit that I love, both the book and the show). Thanks both.
    1. I agree — my husband thinks that Les Mis is the best musical of all time (he’s banned for playing it now if I’m in hearing distance although I think it’s excellent). But the book is magical.

      Diana

      1. … is how I have always thought of it. It is a real Marmite case in our household. My wife absolutely loves it and soon after we got married she booked tickets for us to see it together and I found it the most tedious and turgid 3 hours of my life. Having said that I am not a great musicals fan anyway because I can never quite suspend belief long enough to accept that at key points in a drama everybody will drop what they are doing and burst into song. That is a generalisation of course and there are some musicals where the songs are ‘part of’ the drama and I do enjoy them greatly, but I found this score so leaden and featureless that no highlights really come back to me. The only one I seem to remember is something called ‘Bring Him Home’(?) for which I can just about recall a tremulous, warbled three notes. This seemed to be one of the favourite numbers but the only taste it left me with was saccharin sentimentality.

        Sorry Geraldene, I really would have loved it to be a great shared experience for us but it wasn’t to be.

      2. … is how I have always thought of it. It is a real Marmite case in our household. My wife absolutely loves it and soon after we got married she booked tickets for us to see it together and I found it the most tedious and turgid 3 hours of my life. Having said that I am not a great musicals fan anyway because I can never quite suspend belief long enough to accept that at key points in a drama everybody will drop what they are doing and burst into song. That is a generalisation of course and there are some musicals where the songs are ‘part of’ the drama and I do enjoy them greatly, but I found this score so leaden and featureless that no highlights really come back to me. The only one I seem to remember is something called ‘Bring Him Home’(?) for which I can just about recall a tremulous, warbled three notes. This seemed to be one of the favourite numbers but the only taste it left me with was saccharin sentimentality.

        Sorry Geraldene, I really would have loved it to be a great shared experience for us but it wasn’t to be.

    2. I think ‘The Glums’ was coined in one the first-night reviews when the show opened at The Barbican in 1985. Most of the critics utterly panned it. Shows what they know!
  23. A pleasant stroll on the keyboard, so an exact time and A Good Day – 8:42. Let’s hope this is the beginning of a happier week for everyone. The sun is out, so that’s a start – trouble is so are all the weeds now!
    I liked DELIBERATELY and SEVERING. I had the same issues with HEELER and DANGLE as everyone else.
    FOI Wrestle
    LOI Dangle
    COD Vowel

    Many thanks Breadman and Don

  25. A satisfying 18 min completion for the beginning of the week.

    Struggled a bit to start, but found more purchase at the bottom of the grid and worked my way around in anti clockwise fashion. DNK “Heeler” nor “Mae West” but the clueing was generous.

    Liked 1ac “Victor Hugo”, 5dn “Geometry” and 2dn “Cream Cracker”.

    FOI — 10ac “Lima”
    LOI — 21ac “Mae West”
    COD — 1dn “Vowel” — simple, probably a chestnut, but raised a smile.

    Thanks as usual!

    Edited at 2021-05-31 12:18 pm (UTC)

  26. Agreed, but what I’m saying is that the ‘at end of’ bit is the instruction to put ‘angle’ after d = day (as in h = hour, etc). We could do with a comment from Breadman.
  27. … especially after last week’s travails. After a rather sticky start I thought my run of DNFs might continue, but the grid gradually filled up. Solving 1a (VICTOR HUGO) around two-thirds of my way through helped considerably, and I finally crossed the line in 31 minutes, which is quite good for me. I had to trust to luck a bit with HEELER, as I had NHO the dog breed, and I had forgotten the life vest term until I saw M_E. Prior to that, I had assumed _E_T would be BELT.

    Mrs Random has quite a few things on her to-do list today, so she decided to solve it in just 18 minutes. She seems to be able to choose how quickly or otherwise she completes these QCs, whereas I just get buffeted about and feel totally at the mercy of the setters.

    Many thanks to Breadman and to astartedon.

    P.S. Today marks the end of my first year of trying to solve The Times QCs (my first attempt was on 1st June last year), so I will look back at my records and will post a few headline stats later today. It has been an interesting and rewarding experience.

    1. Congrats on your anniversary — and your success today 😊 Here’s to many more of both!
      1. Thankyou peebee. I have found the kindness and camaraderie within this forum most heartwarming, especially when one has had to endure a run of frustrating DNFs (like last week!).
  28. Just realised comment was anonymous — total newbie, now safely logged in. Very pleased to have finished my fist QC. COD 22a. Couldn’t have done it without this community! Many thanks!
  29. Interesting, I hadn’t thought of it like that. But now I look at it I don’t think either is entirely satisfactory. I don’t have any problem at all with ‘end of day’ because there are definitely two ends to the word and I actually find it quite refreshing if the setter has decided to use the less common end (a bit like setters always use LE for French ‘the’ but hardly ever LA or LES which are equally valid). I just don’t think the rest of the clue clearly tells you how to put the bits together however you read it. But both are close enough to say that we can see what the setter means and that’s obviously what the answer is and it’s only the Monday QC after all so let’s just write it in and get on with our lives.

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