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”

  2. Ah, light dawns. D for day hadn’t occurred to me so I was reading it like Cedric. Thank you!
  3. Tackled this in the afternoon after a medium sized Scottish hill in the morning and limped more on the puzzle. Spent an age on my LOI, being determined to make the R do double duty as the ending of a word like putter or driver or some other ER which could have described Seve. And all the time It was just Seve … *slaps forehead*.

    FOI VOWEL, LOI SEVERING, COD CREAM CRACKER, time 09:58 for an estimated 2K and a Reasonable Day.

    Many thanks Don and Breaders.

    Templar

  4. Enjoyable solve abt 20m, good for us. We also had opera for 20a before seeing the error of our ways, which slowed us down with 12a clarinet. Thanks Breadman and Don
    1. It was seeing CLARINET that convinced me that OPERA must be wrong. This caught quite a few of us, I think. John.
  5. ….but today “geoeetry” has just debunked that optimistic theory. A fairly straightforward paper solve, where I wondered briefly why 7D might be “yangle”.

    FOI LIMA
    LOI TYROL
    COD MAE WEST
    TIME 3:58

  6. Got there in the end but spent ages over 4d – not sure if this is actually a Breed…? also 11a where I was starting with Steve, rather than See, and 7d Dangle – being fixed on Drape. I always read the blog and apart from being eternally grateful to the bloggers for their generous explanations, I am often impressed and amused by the comments and discussions, sometimes erudite but usually amusing. Today thanks to Astartedon and Breadman for a gentler start to the week than we endured last week.
  7. 3:46 for what I thought was a gentle and fair QC today.
    Perhaps I gained some inspiration from our wonderfully warm day out at Japanese gardens in central Scotland, with an al fresco lunch for the second day in a row and photo opportunities galore for those of that persuasion.
    NHO 4 d “Heeler” but it had to be!
    COD 1 d, “Vowel” – easy to miss the drift although I have an inkling I’ve seen this clue somewhere before.
    Thanks to Don for the blog and to Breadman.
  8. This time last year, having watched Mrs Random progress quite rapidly from never having tackled a cryptic crossword to becoming quite proficient and completing more than a half of those she tried, I decided to switch away from my usual diet of mathematically-oriented puzzles and to make a concerted effort at mastering the Times QC. Trouble is, they involve actual words – definitely not my strong point.

    We agreed some rules between us: no conferring; no recourse to aids; no spelling errors. And we decided to keep track of our progress. Mrs Random’s target has always been just to finish the puzzle in time to get on with something useful, whereas I (rather naiively) set myself the goal of finishing inside an hour.

    261 QCs later, my first year is now up and our respective numbers are as follows:
    a) Personal Best Time: Mrs R = 11 mins; Mr R = 14 mins
    b) Escaped the SCC (<20 mins): Mrs R = 30 times; Mr R = 5
    c) All correct in 20-39 mins: Mrs R = 126; Mr R = 68
    d) All correct in 40-59 mins: Mrs R = 57; Mr R = 84
    e) Finished in >60 mins or DNF: Mrs R = 48; Mr R = 104
    f) Median performance: Mrs R = 33 mins; Mr R = 55 mins

    We both think we are more accomplished at this strange activity than we were a year ago, but we also both realise that we need a few more decades experience. I have also decided to revise my target for the coming 12 month period to ‘All correct in <40 minutes’. A tough ask, I think, but let’s see.

    Many thanks to all of the setters, bloggers and regularly contributors to this forum. I have really enjoyed the year.

    1. Good for you (both!). I would say that’s a solid first step. Having personally grappled with the Times Crossword Puzzle since 1975 I would just say not to expect your improvement to be linear but enjoy all the ups and downs en route, because improvement there will be!
      1. I understand. Our improvement has most certainly not been linear so far. Just as we think we’re mastering it the setters lay a load of unfamiliar traps. All part of the challenge, though.
  9. Thought I was on for a really quick one this morning when most of the clues went in straight away, but sadly I slowed a lot with about five to go and ended up taking 27 minutes. NHO MAE WEST meaning life jacket or the original meaning of ODEON. FORMER and DELIBERATELY just took longer than they should have done, as did DANGLE which was my LOI, partly because I chose to focus on the trickier clues first and partly because I was slightly wrong footed by the “end of day” bit of the clue. Very glad I stopped to parse TYROL – I’d have spelt it with an ‘I’. Thanks to Breadman and Astartedon.
  10. All done in around 15 minutes. No real stumbles or hurdles. NHO HEELER but the clueing was explicit. Ta.

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