QC1575 by Orpheus

Author   astartedonPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

Obviously there is so much happening at the moment that I don’t have much time for a preamble. This was a medium difficulty puzzle and I can’t say much more than that as my eyeseight is getting so annoyingly bad at the moment that I am finding it easier to see the answers than the clues. I think a visit to the ophthalmologist is out of the question though at present; I mean how can you operate ‘social distancing’ while someone is sticking their fingers in your eyes?

My FOI was the obvious 1A. My LOI was 12A. I could see what the answer was right from the start but my reverse-parsing kept suggesting that the tree involved was ASH rather than ALDER. Many thanks to Orpheus for that bit of misdirection and for an enjoyable quickie that relied on fewer than the usual number of stock clues (only a couple of anagrams, one hidden word and no double definitions). 12A probably gets my COD too.

Definitions are underlined and everything else is explained just as I see it in the simplest language I can manage.

Across
1 Loose hood wife found in pass (4)
COWL – W (wife) in COL (pass).
7 Grim fellow visiting one-time sweetheart initially without bouquet (9)
ODOURLESS – DOUR LES (a possible ‘grim fellow’) ‘visiting’ OS (One-time Sweetheart ‘initially’).
9 Fish in pool in Gloucester (4)
LING – hidden word (‘in’) pooL IN Gloucester
10 Controlling chap meeting duke in Advent? (10)
COMMANDING – MAN (chap) + D (duke) in COMING (Advent).
11 Greek character bugged at first by another (4)
BETA – B (Bugged ‘at first’) + ETA (another Greek character).
12 Tree finally planted during party? Nonsense (10)
BALDERDASH – ALDER (tree) + D (‘finally’ planteD) in BASH (party).
16 Remarkable help one man arranged (10)
PHENOMENAL – straightforward anagram (‘arranged’) of HELP ONE MAN.
19 Curved structure builder ultimately installed in a church (4)
ARCH – R (buildeR ‘ultimately’) ‘installed’ in A CH (a church).
21 Useful note that is received by religious community (10)
CONVENIENT – N (note) + IE (id est, that is) ‘received by’ CONVENT (religious community).
23 Candid work in French (4)
OPEN – OP (opus, work) + EN (French for ‘in’).
24 Way park-keeper restrains large murderer (9)
STRANGLER – ST (street (way)) + RANGER (park-keeper) ‘restraining’ L (large).
25 It may be spun, in either sense of the word (4)
YARN – you can spin a YARN as in a tale or YARN as in cloth.
Down
2 Be suppressed by old woman (5)
OLIVE – LIVE (be) ‘suppressed by’ (i.e. ‘underneath’ in this down clue) O (old).
3 Primitive building primarily captured in a blog, oddly (3,5)
LOG CABIN – C (primarily Captured) ‘in’ an anagram (‘oddly’) of IN A BLOG.
4 Starchy class at Lancing originally (6)
FORMAL – FORM (class) + A + L (At Lancing ‘originally’).
5 Make large container carrying eggs, principally (6)
CREATE – CRATE (large container) ‘carrying’ E (Eggs ‘primarily’).
6 Sell archdeacon diamonds (4)
VEND – VEN (Venerable, title of an archdeacon) + D (diamonds, as in the card suit).
8 Most balanced article plugging southern shelter (6)
SANEST – A (indefinite article) ‘plugging’ S (southern) + NEST (shelter).
13 Colouring unknown in centre of Aden (3)
DYE – Y (unknown, as in algebraic x, y and z) in DE (centre of aDEn).
14 Hat raised by a politician given to delay (8)
DILATORY – DIL (LID (hat) reversed, i.e. ‘raised’ in this down clue) + A TORY (a politician).
15 Dispatches drunkards outside house (6)
SHOOTS – SOTS (drunkards) ‘outside’ HO (house).
17 Digging up Chinese porcelain around home (6)
MINING – the Chinese MING dynasty is famous for its porcelain. Place this around IN (home) and there you have it.
18 One with an eye for sewing? (6)
NEEDLE – cryptic definition.
20 Applaud guerrilla leader with hesitation (5)
CHEER – CHE (the most famous guerilla leader in Crossland, Che Guevara) + ER (hesitation).
22 British minister turning up for part of speech (4)
VERB – B (British) + REV (Reverend (minister) all reversed, i.e. ‘turned up’ in this down clue).

37 comments on “QC1575 by Orpheus”

  1. A quickie, all right, with several biffed. LOI 2d, where I got stuck on ‘suppressed’, not seeing it for what it is. 4:40.
    I’m not in England, and don’t know the situation, but I would have thought that even now, you’d be able to see an ophthalmologist, he’d have a mask and gloves on, and he’d be able to examine you. Don’t put it off until this crisis disappears.

    Edited at 2020-03-23 10:20 am (UTC)

  2. 4 minutes 45 with another 4 minutes of proof reading

    FOI 1ac COWL

    LOI 13dn DYE

    COD None

    WOD 14dn DILATORY

  3. 7 minutes. Nothing more to say except, like Don, my eyesight is not what it was, and I misread ‘bugged’ in 11ac, somehow managing insert additional letters -er- to make another word. But at least it didn’t affect the wordplay and livened up the surface reading to give me a much-needed laugh amidst the prevailing doom and gloom.

    Edited at 2020-03-23 03:45 am (UTC)

  4. 15 mins. I was not finding it easy, I biffed a lot of answers and then tried to work out the parsing.

    COD balderdash.

  5. I found this hard, taking 22m. All green but very low on the early leaderboard. Bottom half went in well enough, though I did have to work at the clues but the top half was tricky. “Coming” is fair for advent but it was a long way from my mind and I was looking at the wrong end of the clue for the definition with ODOURLESS – that without had me wonder what ‘bouquet’ meant I should remove. LOI OLIVE, failed to spot that ‘be’ and ‘suppressed’ were doing different things and pressed submit with fingers crossed – needed the hints to unravel – now kicking myself. Thanks all, see you tomorrow.
  6. 18 minutes, two under target, a nice mix of easier and harder clues. I got all the four letter answers first time through, but not much else, but there were just enough checkers to see me through. ODOURLESS took a long time and I didn’t see Les in the wordplay, but it gave me my last two CREATE and FORMAL.
    Thanks to Orpheus for the puzzle, and to Astartedon for the blog and for pointing out Les.

    Brian

    Edited at 2020-03-23 07:38 am (UTC)

  7. No particular problems today. LOI was CREATE as I went through all the containers I could think of.
    FOI FORMAL. Once there were a few letters in the grid,this was relatively easy; the definitions were well hidden at times. 10:28 on the clock.
    David
  8. Not a single mark on my copy except the answers in the grid. After unproductive first glances I left the long acroses until I had some checkers. PHENOMENAL COMMANDING BALDERDASH indeed. 4:05
  9. Relatively straightforward but like a couple of others it took me a while to spot what was going on with LOI 2d, where I took suppressed to be part of the definition. Finished in 11.00 with my favourite being 24a due to its surface.
    Thanks for the blog
  10. Nice puzzle. Accessible but with some quirky clues. It is getting tedious quoting on the K scale because I never seem to get under 3K these days so I will just, like others, set my own new personal target at 15 mins. I was within it today but wouldn’t have been for much of last week. I was thrown by OLIVE until I did an alphabet trawl and the penny dropped. I liked SANEST, DILATORY, SHOOTS (sots came to mind at once for some reason), STRANGLER, and COMMANDING. LOI ODOURLESS. Thanks both. John M.
  11. Well inside my target range today for an easier start to the week. 13 minutes. FOI COWL, LOI VEND. Thanks all.
  12. Like Old Blighter, my personal target is 15 minutes. Anything below that is a Very Good Day. I always stop at 30 minutes, finished or not, otherwise it turns into a rabbit hole experience. Today was bang on 15 minutes so I’m happy with that. Some very nice clues especially 7 across for the misdirection (a synonym for “grim” was my first hunt). My FOI was 9 across, led there by the usual ‘hidden’ trigger warning of the clue not making much sense! My LOI was 15 down because, although I could see it was probably SOTS plus H, I had not expected “house ” to be abbreviated to both of its first letters. Thanks for the blog, Don – sorry about your eyes. Let’s hope these surreal days are soon behind us and you can get to the opticians without having to wear a balaclava. Thanks, too, to Orpheus, for a lovely puzzle.
    2. Thanks Louisa, but hey, my eyes aren’t that bad. I’m just at that time of life where changes in the sight seem to happen relatively quickly and prescriptions need to be updated more regularly. For most purposes they are fine but it is reading and looking at computer screens that causes the problems because if one eye starts changing then the ‘one size fits all’ reading glasses that you buy off the shelf won’t correct the eyes individually. But then of course it’s not worth paying huge amounts for prescription reading glasses when the prescription is changing so rapidly!
      1. I know what you mean! I wear contact lenses but have to wear reading glasses on top plus tinted reading glasses if it’s sunny. And it I don’t wear my contacts, then I have glasses plus reading glasses plus prescription sunglasses. It’s getting to the stage that, when I go on holiday (what they?), the optical gear that I have to take with me almost outnumbers my clothes
  13. Looks like it was just me then, but I didn’t think Orpheus was taking any prisoners today. I found the NE corner particularly tricky, with 5, 6, 7 and 10 my last four. Thought I had finished just short of 25min, but I needed a last minute parsing sweep to correct a biffed Commandant at 10ac. CoD to the deceptively clued 2d, Olive. Invariant
  14. ….in which two eight letter solutions have only one unchecked letter. No problems, 0.78K.

    I’m now able to access the club site again (the solution was to uninstall the app, and then reload it – thank you Times help desk !), and am currently 11th on the leaderboard. At least 5 above me are genuine players, so I must try harder tomorrow !

    FOI COWL
    LOI OPEN
    COD BALDERDASH

  15. I found this relatively straightforward and completed it inside my target 10 minutes. COWL was my FOI. OLIVE and BETA made me think for a moment. Biffed BALDERDASH after noticing ASH. Some of the rest went straight in and others required a moment’s pondering, but nothing to frighten the horses. 8:35. Thanks Orpheus and Don.
  16. Not too hard today. Biffed a couple but finally did mange to parse (2d, for example). LOI was 8d. Didn’t think of nest for shelter – was fixated on ‘lee’ – and on the wrong sort of balance..

    No precise time as I started on paper before plugging my answers into the app to check them – under 30 mins, though. A good day.

  17. Would agree it is of medium difficulty. Although the we got the right answer (we biffed it) we don’t understand the solution to 2D. Would appreciate some help

    Thanks

    1. The definition is woman = OLIVE.

      To LIVE is to BE.

      If something is on top of something else then it can be said to be ‘suppressing’ it. As suggested in the blog, this would not work for an across clue as only in a down clue can something be ‘on top of’ something else. But this is a down clue so it works.

      So here BE = LIVE and is ‘suppressed by’ O (old) = OLIVE.

      Hope that makes sense?

  18. Not a bad start to the week – crossword-wise anyway, and it’s a lovely day here! The problem with this staying at home business means that you (or rather I) can’t avoid all the housework and gardening any more – it’s staring me in the face and there’s no escape. However, the crosswords are always a welcome distraction 😉

    I often find Orpheus quite tricky and there were certainly a few clues here today which didn’t jump straight out at me – 7a and 14d in particular. In fact, I didn’t parse odourless at all, so thanks Don for the explanation. But overall I didn’t find this puzzle too hard to get into or complete, so it can go down as A Good Day.

    FOI Cowl
    LOI Odourless
    COD and WOD Balderdash
    Time just under 10 minutes

    Thanks all and stay safe 😷 😊

  19. Off the pace today – bereft of my morning train I didn’t get round to it till just now and I’m obviously better in the morning! A full 3K for a Bad Day; it was the NE what dunnit guv.

    Never mind, a welcome distraction and sometimes the setter beats you! Thanks Orpheus and Don. FOI COWL, LOI SANEST, COD BALDERDASH.

    Templar

  20. Sounds like my parents – their house is like an opticians with various reading glasses etc. scattered about.
  21. Found this tricky today – seem to be continuing the malaise I had last week – although again, upon reflection, there seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary. As a result, it took about an hour (over 2 passes).

    Generally found the bottom half harder than the top, although I did struggle with the parsing on 7ac. (I though the Grim Fellow was just “dour”). Also, forgot Sot = Drunk, so that took longer than it should.

    FOI – 1ac “Cowl”
    LOI – 22dn “Verb”
    COD – 14dn “Dilatory” – apt for me today.

    Thanks as usual.

  22. … as I really struggled with the NE corner, staring at 7A for ages until Odourless popped into sight. Never like clues where one has to derive a specific name (in this case Les) from a generic “fellow”!

    Just under 20 minutes to complete, but did get there in the end. COD 12A Balderdash, because it has the magnificent distraction of two different trees in the solution.

    Cedric

  23. Found this to be a rather tricky one for me.

    Still, I’m learning each time and appreciate the guidance on this blog.

    Cheers all

  24. Got there but slowly except for VEND which I couldn’t get even with just trying the alphabet when I had the E and D. I think a low level of background anxiety re the present mess doesn’t favour my brain workng well! Thanks to all.
  25. Well inside my target range today for an easier start to the week. 13 minutes. FOI COWL, LOI VEND. Thanks all.
  26. Why does col = pass? Don’t get it. Could some kind soul enlighten me please
    1. A col is the lowest point on a ridge between two adjacent mountain peaks. Partridge’s “Origins” says it is derived from “collum”, Latin for “neck”. (2nd declension neuter) Looked at mathematically, it is a minimum of the curve which includes the peaks and a maximum of a family of other curves which go down on either side of the ridge. KevlnS
      1. I should add that it is therefore a point at which it is relatively easy to cross the ridge from a lower position and is therefore a mountain “pass”. KevinS

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