QC 2819 by Teazel

Well-balanced puzzle from Teazel, I solved at a slightly slower time of 13:22.

One NHO held me up. Here’s a picture, you can see the deadlight covers the porthole (seems a bit of overkill to me, but, I’m not a mariner)

Marine Deadlight
Marine Deadlight

I don’t think Teazel is one of the Ninjaphiles, and I didn’t spot anything.

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

Across
1 The French Revolution? (4,5)
COUP D’ETAT – Cryptic definition

Cryptic Definition. The expression is French of course. I found this hard because the enumeration is really (4,1,4), DETAT is never written without an apostrophe.

6 Find a space to leave a coat (5)
PARKA – PARK(find a space) + A

The word is derived from the very obscure Nenets language of Arctic Russia and is the only Nenets word that is used in English.

8 House and grounds where one may find game (5,4)
VILLA PARK – VILLA (House) + PARK (Grounds)

Very nice. It’s one of the oldest football grounds in England, and Aston Villa (currently 4th in the Premier League) play there.

Odd to see those two PARKs juxtaposed in the grid.

9 Row of mountains resounded with echo (5)
RANGE – RANG (Resounded) + E{cho}
10 Porthole shutter, not at all heavy? (9)
DEADLIGHT – Double def, the second uses the idiomatic modifier of “dead” for “very”. So “Very light”, not at all heavy.

I really struggled here with Doorlight (a door is a “shutter”, it shuts).

OED tells me: A strong shutter or plate fitted to a cabin window or porthole to prevent water entering during a storm. NHO for me.

12 Compassionate, being English (6)
HUMANE – HUMAN (being) + E{nglish}
13 At critical moment, energy in dancer’s toes (6)
POINTE – POINT (critical moment) + E{nergy}

As in “Get to the point!”

Any dance terminology makes me worried, all I know is they are all French. We have had pas, plié and fondu in puzzles recently.

16 Card Peter played that may be put down for star (3,6)
RED CARPET – (CARD PETER)* [played]
18 Freight to travel on passenger transport (5)
CARGO – CAR (passenger transport) + GO (travel)

This is a bit of a chestnut.

19 Mexican dish and a Chile stew (9)
ENCHILADA – (AND A CHILE)* [stew]
21 Mum always very thin (5)
SHEER – SH (Mum) + E’ER (always)

Shh, keep quiet, stay Mum. And E’ER is one of those devices poets use when they haven’t got quite the right number of syllables. Best example: “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross” by Isaac Watts: which includes the beautiful line “Did e’er such love and sorrow meet, or thorns compose so rich a crown?”

22 Entreat men to accept medical help (9)
TREATMENT – hidden in “Entreat men to”

Not sure about the indicator of [accept]?

On first reading I thought it was an anagram of “Entreat men”, with “accept” being an anagram indicator, which makes about as much sense as most anagram indicators.

On edit: This clue also appeared as

To an extent, entreat men towards medical help (9)

Down
1 Meekly surrendered primitive shelter before row (5,2)
CAVED IN – CAVE (primitive shelter) + DIN (row)
2 Shoulder burden of file transfer? (6)
UPLOAD – Double def

If you shoulder someone’s burden you are taking up their load? Collins doesn’t have any non-computer definitions, the OED has “to load up (rare)”. Guess it sort of works as a cryptic definition (and this is a Cryptic Crossword).

3 Slow speech from doctor with sharp implement (5)
DRAWL – DR (Doctor) + AWL (sharp implement)
4 Squad of players not finishing drink (3)
TEA – TEA{m} (Squad of players)
5 Start to speak, leaving opponent nowhere to stand? (4,3,5)
TAKE THE FLOOR – Double def

I started to think “Take the Fifth” might work, but that’s actually ceasing to speak.

6 Serviceman in foreign capital is nosy, amid high tension (6,6)
PARISH PRIEST – PARIS (Foreign Capital) + PRIES (is nosy) inside H{igh} T{ension}

A priest is a serviceman, as they take services. Very clever misdirection.

7 Set free, did a bit of running and finally departed (8)
RANSOMED – RAN SOME (did a bit of running) + {departe}D
11 Police officer is man convulsed with greed (8)
GENDARME – (MAN GREED)* [convulsed with]
14 Blooming group of actors is untouchable (7)
OUTCAST – OUT (Blooming) + CAST (group of actors)
15 A poet, I fancy narcotic (6)
OPIATE – (A POET I)* [fancy]
17 A table for celebrities (1-4)
A-LIST – A + LIST (table)
20 Signal to line up for hearing (3)
CUE – Sounds like [for hearing] QUEUE (line up)

91 comments on “QC 2819 by Teazel”

  1. I usually don’t mind Teazel puzzles although I always find them hard, but this was far too much for me, and I DNF with 4 clues left after quite a long battle. I got POINTE but did not like it (there is nothing about POINT that means critical). I was stuck on the left hand side, never getting 6d, 7d, 9a, and 12a. I considered RANGE and got PRIEST but couldn’t convince myself of their correctness or finish them off, and would never have come up with RAN SOME for “did some running”.

  2. For the second day running I struggled. Like yesterday a cluster of clues held me up at the end, but unlike yesterday I wasn’t pushed out to a double-par 17.27. No, today it was a double-par 16.42. PARKA, VILLA PARK, DEADLIGHT, POINTE, the misleadingly-enumerated COUP gave me considerable grief, as did TAKE THE FLOOR. PARISH PRIEST was a nice bit of misdirection and a cleverly constructed clue, but like some others not what we might expect in a QC. Thanks Teazel and Merlin.

  3. I can’t say that I found much of this difficult but I still managed to have 18 minutes on the clock as I filled the last square. Most of the problem was 10ac where the unknown and never-before-seen-here DEADLIGHT caught me out. Like our blogger I had followed the wordplay and gone for DOORLIGHT, not that it had sounded particularly likely, and that had prevented me solving 2dn UPLOAD – a clue which, as things turned out, also needed some lateral thinking.

    I have some sympathy with David’s POV about POINT and ‘critical moment’ but this example in Chambers seems to cover it for me: She lost courage when it came to the point. Fortunately I knew the ballet term so I was not delayed unduly over that one.

  4. Tough and low on sparkle (honourable mention to Parish Priest though). Took less than half the time to do yesterday’s Telegraph 15×15 which was much more fun (and renewal for puzzles there was 50p for the year!). All green in 25.13 – so I’m not far off an hour for the week and it’s only Tuesday. Hoping for a lighter puzzle tomorrow.

  5. Also found this tough with yet again the NW holding out longest. Parish priest and ransomed took a lot of our 25.39.

    Thanks for the blog Merlin. Btw, on the iPad app the clue for 22a is different to your blog. It’s now “to an extent, entreat men towards medical help” which is a fairly obvious hidden and makes more sense!

    Thanks Teazel

  6. Slightly bucking the emerging trend as I took barely 10 minutes for this, on the faster side of par for me. COUP D’ETAT needed a letter search when I was faced with D-T-T, and it does lead to the question of whether this should be 4,5 or 4,1,4. But would one enumerate shan’t as 4,1 for example?

    Only other major delay was LOI POINTE. Ballet is a closed book to me, and point = critical moment raised eyebrows at the time (though Jack’s example is I think fair enough), but trundling through the alphabet got me home. DEADLIGHT on the other hand a write-in, as a familiar term; it is one of those “easy if you know it” clues as the definition is a dead giveaway, but it can be constructed from the wordplay if you don’t.

    Many thanks Merlin for the blog
    Cedric

    1. Agree with you about enumeration of apostrophes Cedders – hadn’t read your post before mine. Congratulations on slaying this beast, it was too good for me!

    2. Like it or not–and I doubt anyone does–apostrophes are not indicated in Times cryptics, while hyphens are. This has come up here on several occasions.

  7. Blimey, that was tough and a genuine DNF (rather than a DPS) as I gave up trying to work out what was going on with POINTE and looked it up. Also struggled with the NHO DEADLIGHT.
    Some clever clues and I particularly enjoyed the PDMs for PARISH PRIEST and VILLA PARK.
    Thanks to Merlin

  8. DNF

    I found this extremely hard finally getting DEADLIGHT and UPLOAD (though the latter seems a real stretch) but failing on POINTE. HT for high tension was pretty obscure and although the PARIS PRIES was nice surely the clue needs a ? as “serviceman” is only ever a member of the armed forces?

  9. With Plett and Dvynys, though I did eke out a finish after deleting DOOR.

    PARISH PRIEST was v good, as was VILLA PARK but this was another grown-up Quick Crossword. Bravo to Cedders for walking it!

    10:33

  10. Im sorry but to park isn’t to “find a space” or to “find a space to leave”. Otherwise “find a space to park” means park to park

    This one was not fun for me

    1. “Sorry I’m late, took me ages to park” = “Sorry I’m late, took me ages to find a space”, I think

      1. I would argue that here park means “find a space and then put the car in that space”, since we assume it was the first part that took ages it looks like the sentences are synonymous, but I dont believe they are. Otherwise “sorry I’m late, it took me ages to drive along the M4” is synonymous with “sorry I’m late, it took me ages to drive between junction 14 and 15 of the M4”

    2. Not the best clue, B, I agree. I think M’s blog is missing a small but important detail: the definition in this clue is ‘find a space to leave’ rather than just ‘find a space’. We need to see the verb as transitive, with an implied direct object – ‘find a space to leave [something]’. Similarly, therefore, we have to understand ‘park’ in its transitive sense – to park something – rather than in its intransitive sense (which, arguably, we use more frequently – ‘we parked and went into the shop’). This reading gives us, for example, ‘it took me ages to park the car’, which we can compare favourably with ‘it took me ages to find a space to leave the car’. There is, of course, still a discussion to be had about whether the act of finding a place to leave a car is the same as the act of parking a car – one could reasonably argue that the former precedes the latter rather than that both phrases are identical in meaning. So all in all, not a flawless clue, as you rightly say.

      1. Not worth getting my nickers in a twist now, but I am tickled by the idea of someone driving around a car park for 10 mins, spotting a gap and immediately yanking the handbrake and leaving the car in the middle of the road claiming they have parked

  11. Hell’s bells and buckets of blood. That was a nightmare. Big fat DNF. Shout out to PARISH PRIEST.

    I have a bugbear with the convention of two apostrophised words being enumerated as one word (here D’ETAT being shown as 5 – I think it should be shown as 1’4 or 1-4). It feels unfairly misleading. Probably just the bitterness of the defeated.

    Many thanks Teazel and Merlin.

    1. They are indeed but they are quick cryptics in the Times universe; so just as one knows that a Times crossword is typically going to much harder than a lot of other crosswords, so the Times quick cryptic is going to be harder than many other quick crosswords.

      The point is that compared to the regular Time croswwords, the QC is generally significantly easier and little smaller so rather quicker to solve.

      1. Not today! That one took me as long to DNF as yesterday’s 15 took me to finish! Anyway, all party of life’s rich tapestry.

  12. Also a DNF here. Defeated by DEADLIGHT having eventually plumped for DRAWLIGHT.

    COD: PARISH PRIEST

  13. Well. Managed to finish it without aids, but didn’t enjoy it, full of CNPs, NHOs and MERs. FOI (only) TREATMENT, LOI RANSOMED (another struggle).
    NHO: DEADLIGHT, VILLA PARK
    MER: D’ETAT being clued as one word (5)*; surely toes plural would be POINTES?; SOME (for ‘a bit of’) is exclusively American
    *But take your point about shan’t, Cedric. Can anyone arbitrate?
    CNP: CARGO, CUE (thanks, Merlin).

  14. 12:30
    Slow to get going, with only a few of the across clues solved on first pass.
    NHO DEADLIGHT.
    My last two in were HUMANE and RANSOMED.

    Thanks Teazel and Merlin

  15. Did not find this easy. Biffed PARISH PRIEST, as NHO HT meaning high tension. Same thoughts as others re COUP D’ETAT, but not quite sure how you show an apostrophe following Cedric’s thoughts. Thanks Teazel, and Merlin for great blog.

  16. Well and truly beaten! I plugged away for about 30 mins then hit reveal for last two, DEADLIGHT and POINTE. With hindsight I really liked both, although COD to RANSOMED which made me smile when I finally worked it out. PARISH PRIEST was especially devious! Thanks for the blog Merlin.

  17. 39:41 but had put BOUNCE instead of POINTE. Thought it could be a double definition where bounce=critical moment.

    I thought that was atrocious for the QC slot. Wouldn’t have taken much to make things less obscure in the definitions or wordplay but instead we got 15×15 complexity. I may be restarting the “Are these getting harder?” movement soon.

      1. My DNF has equal weight to your DNF. I think we can both be proud of our lack of ballet knowledge.

        You may be the only diallight although I was convinced it was a darklight until UPLOAD appeared. I then switched to believing in drablight before inexplicably going for deadlight which I now claim to have dredged from memory

  18. Steady solve with much to enjoy so thanks Teazel and Merlin. However mum does not mean sh or shoosh – one would have to say keep mum. Upload and deadlight used in these ways are obscure to say the least, and don’t belong in quickies in my opinion! We should stick to everyday English for these.

  19. Still don’t understand how ransomed = set free. If your kidnappers have ransomed you, doesn’t it mean you’re a captive not free.

    1. I thought the same. But after looking it up it seems the ransom is what is demanded. When it’s been paid, the captive has been ransomed, or set free.

    2. Ransom as a transitive verb to release is the older usage. The paying for it came later. The older usage is now conflated with the new, so using it without the idea of paying for the release would now confuse.

      I remember this very same question when learning Greek and seeing the 200 verb forms of λύω listed in Abbot and Mansfield as “To set free, to ransom”.

  20. Speedy but DNF in 7:29! I struggled with 3 clues COUP D’ETAT (I’m never happy when there is a missing apostrophe) but I did get there in the end. I wanted POINTE to be bOuNcE but couldn’t parse it and stuck with it. The one clue I gave up on was DEADLIGHT which I have NHO. My best guess was DrAwLIGHT.

  21. Just a comment that the Times enumeration device takes no notice of apostrophes or accents, so COUP D’ÉTAT will ever be (4,5). That’s life (5,4).

    1. You’re like the Trumpian cow in Babe the Sheep-pig, who tells Ferdinand the duck (as they watch his friend Rosanna being served up as duck a l’orange – 4, 1, 7) “The only way you’ll find happiness is to accept that the way things are is the way things are”.

      As Ferdinand so pithily responds – “The way things are stinks!”.

      1. Um… Trumpian? I sincerely hope not! More Niebuhrian: “Grant to us the serenity of mind to accept that which cannot be changed; courage to change that which can be changed, and wisdom to know the one from the other.”

  22. Just about on target with two to get, and then the wheels fell off completely. The two in question were DEADLIGHT and POINTE. An alphabet trawl for a synonym for shutter, was as it turned out wasted, and in the end I decided to put in the only word I could reasonably fit in DRAWLIGHT. After 17.30 had elapsed I drew stumps with another word that fitted 13ac with BOUNCE in the sure certainty that it was wrong. Two bad days on the trot, surely an improvement tomorrow I say hopefully.

  23. 19m
    No accurate time but a definite toughy from Teazel.
    New/temp editor does need to get a grip and enforce 2 different puzzles types, quick (for learners) and main. They are blurring and it should be renamed slightly smaller cryptic.

    Liked villa park, the priest, ran some (d) and COD deadlight.

  24. Another BOUNCE here. Another NHO DEADLIGHT. Another who found it really tricky, finishing in 27.22, well over usual time range.

  25. Failed with DRAWLIGHT. NHO DEADLIGHT. Considered it but I separated porthole and shutter so was looking for a 4 letter word for shutter to go in front of LIGHT. DOORLIGHT was my first thought, but UPLOAD put paid to that. 10.17 WOE. Thanks Teazel and Merlin.

  26. Technically a DNF as I had to use every aid going to complete it. NHO DEADLIGHT or POINTE, couldn’t figure out COUP D’ETAT as only 2 words for ages nor why RANSOMED = released. Too hard for a QC.

  27. Dnf…

    Finished in 24 mins, but put “Drawlight” for 10ac which I’d never heard of. I’ve said it thousands of times before, but I really don’t like those clues that require above average GK but don’t allow logical construction from the word play. “Draw” could be interpreted as “shutter” (as in drawing curtains). I guess you should always go with the most probable or likely, but it can be fine margins.

    Saying all of that, whilst difficult, I enjoyed it and thought there were some really good clues.

    FOI – 4dn “Tea”
    LOI – 6dn “Parish Priest”
    COD – 7dn “Ransomed”

    Thanks as usual!

  28. Thanks Merlin, for removing the shroud of confusion I’ve been feeling all morning. I didn’t even get near to finishing this puzzle – far too hard for me

  29. Similar experience to many others. NHO DEADLIGHT or POINTE so went with DRAWLIGHT and POUNCE. Duolingo has improved my French a lot, but we haven’t covered ballet terms yet. Guess I’ll be ahead of the game when we do. The rest was chewy but gettable I thought. Would have been 26:47. Thanks Teazel and Merlin.

  30. I objected to two definitions – a priest takes services but is not a serviceman and ransomed does mean set free. yours crossly!

    1. “Ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven,
      Who like me his praise should sing?”

      (I’m cross too but I thought that was fair enough!)

    2. Priest as a serviceman, one who gives services is meant to be whimsical, but agree a ? might have been fairer.

  31. DNF PARISH PRIEST, RANSOMED, HUMANE, DEADlight.
    Embarrassingly I marked 6d as 5,7 rather than 6,6 which did not help.
    Managed COUP D’ETAT and POINTE early on.
    Did not much enjoy this one but thanks, Merlin.

  32. 8:48

    I can see why the Quitch is currently at 140. Two-thirds of this was fairly solid going (though I did biff TAKE THE FLOOR and PARISH PRIEST from checkers). Needed to solve the C___/D_T_T conundrum to get UPLOAD and then the NHO DEADLIGHT. Thank heavens too that Mrs H and I forked out all those years for our daughter’s now long-discontinued ballet lessons – POINTE came without too much thought. Finally left with the easyish HUMANE and the less easy RANSOMED which I pencilled in before covering my eyes and pressing ‘Submit’…

    Thanks Merlin and Teazel

  33. DNF. Gave up after about 40 minutes with COUP D’ETAT and POINTE outstanding. NHO the latter or DEADLIGHT. NHO UPLOAD except in computing although I suppose you could say it is the opposite of ‘offload’. Biffed PARISH PRIEST when I had all the crossers but I was too demoralised by then to bother to parse it!

    FOI – 18ac CARGO
    LOI – DNF
    COD – 7dn RANSOMED

  34. 1a CoupDEtat, checked that this was in Cheating Machine as both (4,1,4) and (4,5). It was.
    10a Deadlight. NHO AFAIK, but I see the point of it. There isn’t a doorlight in Wictionary. I cheated by consulting Wiktionary on a guessed Deadlight; def in clue is perfect.
    24 LOI Upload. NHO as Shoulder burden.
    Enjoyed it.

  35. 20.21 Slow throughout. I was very dubious of SH being equated with Mum. DEADLIGHT was new. RANSOMED and HUMANE were the last two. I was pleased to finish after some recent poor results. Thanks Merlin and Teazel.

  36. Mer, so quite a few leading to biffs on COUP DETAT inter alia, went for DOWNLIGHT not DEADLIGHT,until foiled by crosser. Went along okay until about 4 left, then caved in

  37. 24:58 for a very slow finish, stuck for ages on POINTE. Hung up on the almost-works “bounce” and didn’t allow for foreign language possibilities. But mainly, didn’t concentrate on the real issue, i.e. what part of the clue could serve as a precise definition. A school day.

    NHO DEADLIGHT or VILLA PARK so the brain is rejoicing in all kinds of new stimulation. Not much ego food though haha. Liked PARISH PRIEST. Misled by COUP D’ETAT but “French” got me there eventually.

    Thanks Teazel and Merlin!

  38. We enjoyed this this – thought there were some very nice surfaces, thanks Teazle. Also thanks to Merlin for the informative blog and for DEADLIGHT as we had “drawlight”.
    I thought “serviceman” for PARISH PRIEST was quite a clever definition, along the lines of “barman” for “composer” which generally doesn’t raise too many eyebrows (unless that only happens in the 15×15 – we do both and they can blur a bit).

  39. One of the hardest QCs I can remember. Got no immediate acrosses until Red Carpet and needed a great deal of aid from word searches etc to get finished as there were many rabbit holes to lead one astray.

  40. Thought I had accidentally strayed into the big boys cryptic. Doing the across clues first only gave me Red Carpet and Treatment. Downs slightly easier but defeated by several clues. Proudly solved Parish Priest. Thanks all

  41. Very happy to get home in just under 10 today. Wow some of these are getting challenging. Liked the serviceman for parish priest.

    Anyone wanting to do the 15×15 today there’s nothing too scary ( certainly nothing as obscure as deadlight😊)

    Thx Merlin and teazel

  42. 14:18, pleased with that. Liked VILLA PARK, PARISH PRIEST and RANSOMED.

    I knew DEADLIGHT from Patrick O’Brian: an acquired taste, the trick is to realize that you don’t have to care about all the ropes! The first book is the hardest.

    Thanks to Merlin and Teazel.

  43. I didn’t know DEADLIGHT, my LOI, and spent some time worrying something else might fit since I thought LIGHT was “not at all heavy” and so I was looking for a word for “shutter” to go in front of it (which DEAD is not). Otherwise no problems.

  44. DNF. RANSOMED didn’t come up in my (necessarily) rushed alphabet trawl before my 40 minute cut-off clicked by and I had to guess a lot against the clock towards the end, just to give myself a chance of finishing. Several clues remained unparsed, as a result. Not an enjoyable experience.

    That makes 15 DNFs in the last 25 QCs. I would normally expect just two!

    Many thanks to Merlin, of course.

  45. I took a long time to get going and in the end (30 minutes) solved from the bottom up. Good to know the apostrophe convention – looking at D-T-T it had to be d’état with coup preceding, but the 4,5 marking fooled me for quite a while. Quite liked the doctor with his awl and the greedy French cop: fun solves. PARKAs are more in evidence lately so that (eventually) went in, leading to loi PARISH PRIEST. Thanks Teazel and Merlin

  46. Late to this.
    DNK DEADLIGHT ( considered it and Doorlight) and went with DRAWLIGHT.
    A very hard clue for a QC.
    David

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