Quick Cryptic 1664 by Orpheus

Author   CuraristPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
8 minutes. Immediately abandoned my attempt to do it as a clean sweep, having been unable to spot 1ac without a bit of help. Generally straightforward, unusual (and helpful) grid pattern. COD 1 dn for sure.

Across

1 Scare about ram running amok in plant (8)
SHAMROCK – anagram (‘running amok’) of RAM, inside SHOCK
5 Boundary marker set in ditch? Very funny! (2-2)
HA-HA – double definition
7 Island the Spanish sailor recalled (4)
ELBA – EL + AB (able seaman) backwards
8 Concur with former nurse about main colour? (3-5)
SEA-GREEN – AGREE inside SEN (state enrolled nurse)
9 A key choice, fostering (8)
ADOPTION – A + D + OPTION
11 Tyneside fellow finally up to date (3)
NEW – NE (tyneside) + W
13 Riddle of English graduate imbibing drink from east? (6)
ENIGMA – E + MA with GIN backwards inside
16 Extremely responsible chap, one standing in for monarch (6)
REGENT – RE (extremes of ‘responsible’) + GENT (chap)
18 Attention given by nobleman, briefly (3)
EAR – EAR(l). ‘Attention’ in crosswords is always ‘ear’
19 Occurrence I’d expected at first? It’s late in the day (8)
EVENTIDE – EVENT + ID + E
20 Advice from US soldier about university function (8)
GUIDANCE – GI around U, plus DANCE
22 Considered suitable material for a fedora (4)
FELT – double definition
23 Give up bird food, so to speak (4)
CEDE – sounds like SEED
24 Inspector, say, torn apart by son’s aversion (8)
DISTASTE – DI + STATE with S inside

Down
1 Incomplete cross-reference for “leak”? (7)
SEEPAGE – cross reference as in ‘see page x’. Nice
2 Heavenly food provided by male sibling in vast continent (8)
AMBROSIA – M + BRO inside ASIA
3 Stubborn old boys at home in gallery (9)
OBSTINATE – OBS (old boys) + TATE with IN inside
4 King originally exhibiting Antipodean parrot (3)
KEA – K + E +A
5 Husband going astray? Something fishy here (7)
HERRING – H + ERRING
6 He’d admit adopting old dance (7)
HOEDOWN – HED with O inside, plus OWN
10 Revel wildly in loch, lacking anxiety, perhaps (9)
NERVELESS – anagram (‘wildly’) of REVEL inside NESS
12 Spooky condition is serene, somehow (8)
EERINESS – anagram (‘somehow’) of  IS SERENE
14 Sea god’s heavenly body (7)
NEPTUNE – double definition
15 Important person taking old lady on river (7)
GRANDEE – GRAN + DEE
17 Dine regularly at first in the playhouse (7)
THEATRE – EAT + R inside THE
21 Become drowsy, lecturer having turned up (3)
NOD – DON backwards

37 comments on “Quick Cryptic 1664 by Orpheus”

  1. Biffed DISTASTE, HOEDOWN, & THEATRE, parsing post-submission. AMBROSIA took more time than it should; I stayed too long trying to get MANNA into it. Liked SEEPAGE, didn’t care much for NEPTUNE, even in a Quickie. 4:56.
  2. At the end of the week just managed to beat my target. In at 19:53. Got stuck on SEEPAGE and ADOPTION in the end. I was going really well until then. Didn’t know HAHA just biffed it. It’s been a bad week for me. Must have left my brain somewhere. Thanks Orpheus for restoring my confidence.
  3. A shade under 15. Don’t usually like odd grids but enjoyed being presented with EE and a load of blanks before solving EERINESS – after changing POE to NEW – he might have been a famous Geordie. Couldn’t parse SEEPAGE – now I see how it was done I really, really wish I had. Anither good solving week – see you Monday.

    Edited at 2020-07-24 07:55 am (UTC)

  4. I feel I made heavyish weather of this, getting very stuck at the end with the 1s. I could see that the answer to 1d was probably SEEPAGE but it took a couple of minutes of staring blankly at it before I worked out the parsing. Once the S was in place SHAMROCK became obvious. Finished in 14.12.
    Thanks to curarist

    Am I alone in disliking a grid where you can ‘solve’ a clue without even looking at it?

  5. I thought that that had some quite hard clues (SHAMROCK, GUIDANCE and DISTASTE spring to mind) and was pleased with my time even though it turned out to be 2.5K. I’m still calling this a Good Day!

    FOI HA-HA, LOI DISTASTE, COD SEEPAGE (very neat!).

    Thanks Orpheus and curarist. I’m now going to Google “kea” to see what it looks like.

    Templar

  6. More difficult than I expected. A very slow start and dramatic acceleration (more crossers) towards the end for me. Like rotter, I found the grid distracting and I agree with plett that many more answers than usual just emerged as the grid filled. The parsing often followed rather than leading to the answer. I agree with suggestions above for a number of very nice clues but ended up feeling mildly discomfited by the whole puzzle (and by my time which exceeded 20 mins again). Thanks to Orpheus for a weird experience and curarist for an excellent, crisp blog. John M.

    Edited at 2020-07-24 10:46 am (UTC)

  7. Enjoyed this – thanks setter and blogger. Minor quibble with nod on its own to mean drowsy – I think it needs off to mean that, otherwise it nearly always means acknowledgement or assent.
  8. Snap! 8 minutes here too. I can never remember the parrot but assumed 4dn involved initial letters.
  9. Although I found this on the tough side, it was an enjoyable solve – completing in around 35 mins.

    I normally try and follow a logical course around the grid, but today’s was a bit of a random affair. Initially thought I’d gone wrong when confronted with two “E’s” on 12dn and a “wn” combination at the bottom of 6dn. Similarly, starting with “adopting” for 9ac caused issues later with 10dn. However, the rest went in gradually and I particularly liked “Obstinate”, “Sea Green”, “Distaste” and “Eeriness”.

    Main struggle was the NW corner with 1ac and 1dn being the last ones in, the latter not really parsed until I read the blog.

    FOI – 5ac “Haha”
    LOI – 1dn “Seepage”
    COD – 1dn “Seepage”

    Thanks as usual.

  10. 16 minutes, not being sure what held me up – it should have been quicker. Perhaps I was distracted by the grid. SEEPAGE was very good as was DISTASTE. GENT reappears in the ninth column. Thanks to Orpheus for the puzzle and to Curarist for the efficient blog.
  11. I had to biff SEEPAGE, AMBROSIA and THEATRE so thanks to Curarist for the clarification and, now I understand it, I agree that the ‘see page’ cross-reference is very clever.
    Amongst my favourites were GUIDANCE, EERINESS and SHAMROCK (I didn’t have a problem with ‘shock’ meaning the same as ‘scare’), and my COD is HERRING which, although simple, amused me.
    An OK time of just under 17 minutes so a satisfying end to the week. Thanks Orpheus.
  12. ….a “Biffer’s Grid”, and it certainly helped me with DISTASTE (thanks Curarist).

    Fostering is not the same as ADOPTION. Ask any foster parent !

    Today’s earworm is HOEDOWN by Emerson, Lake and Palmer.

    FOI HAHA
    LOI GUIDANCE
    COD SEEPAGE
    TIME 0.72K

  13. A steady solve, starting with ELBA and finishing with SHAMROCK and SEEPEAGE. 9:43. Thanks Orpheus and Curarist.
  14. I’m currently 8th, and the usual neutrinos are all currently missing ! Has some kind of action been taken to block them ? It could only be a good thing !
    1. Have to admit, I thought that about adoption as well. But I took it in the general sense of fostering/adopting something rather than the role of fostering a child etc.
  15. Not with it at all this morning. Missed a couple of the across clues I should have got straightaway in retrospect (ADOPTION, REGENT) and then spent some time wondering what god/heavenly body could possibly fit T_E_T_ _ before noticing I was looking at the wrong clue. After an over-target 44:51 I gave up on parsing my “LOI” DISTASTE before coming on here and reading curarist’s initial comment, whereupon I realised I hadn’t actually solved 1d at all. I reluctantly restarted the watch and then spent another 25 minutes doing alphabet trawls and thinking it must be a clever clue which contained a clue for the word leak within a definition for cross that was missing a letter. At 70 minutes I gave up and stopped my watch again, only to immediately see the light of SEEPAGE at last. Not a great day, but thanks anyway Orpheus and curarist.
  16. 1 across.
    Shock does not mean the same as scare. This is a cheat. The last time I waste my time on this rubbish.
  17. Normally I do the QC over a cup of tea in the morning when I drag myself out of bed. Today I went for a run before it got too hot and then participated in a Zoom yoga class. Perhaps I should do this more often as I happily skipped through the grid for a change. FOI HA-HA, then a clockwise solve, no problems with DISTASTE, initially typed in BALI instead of ELBA (Yes I know il is the in Italian) and then finished off with the unknown KEA. COD to SEEPAGE. 1.5K for an excellent finish to the week.
    1. Here in the Middle East it will be 37 degrees when I do my run tonight at 6pm. I could wait until tomorrow morning but it will still be 34 degrees at 4am! And I don’t like running in the morning.
      1. Thanks. I shall think on that when I next venture out on a run and start whinging about the heat and humidity in Mallorca.
  18. 14 mins, couldn’t parse seepage. We have a haha road near us in London.
    COD adoption.
  19. Struggled with SHAMROCK and SEEPAGE but got there with a bit of help. Found the grid pattern helpful (too helpful?).
  20. Not my favourite of the week – sorry. I wasn’t overly keen on the grid for the same reason as plett and found it all a bit frustrating. Ten minutes to do everything bar the last two – 24a and 1d, which took three minutes! And I never did fully parse them 😕 So thanks curarist for the reasoning.

    A couple of cross references to the biggie today!

    FOI Ha-ha
    LOI Seepage
    No COD today
    Time 13 m

  21. Ashamed to have missed Shamrock. Wrote Seepage in the margin but couldn’t parse! Adoption is definitely not the same as Fostering, but it is otherwise a good clue.
    All the rest went in easily.

    Thanks as ever.

  22. Another slow 30min solve. Gave 1ac/d a miss and started with Ha-ha in the NE before jumping around to pick up crossers here and there. After 20 odd minutes had everything bar 24ac and the 1s, but those three took me ages to work out, especially CoD Seepage – a really good example of the pleasure from parsing a difficult clue. Invariant
  23. Back to normal for me, which is around 15 mins, after taking 30 mins yesterday and 25 the day before. I was going to have a whinge about equating fostering and adoption but I see I have been beaten to it by several others. Didn’t have a problem with shock/scare though, although they are clearly not synonymous. Biffed DISTASTE and THEATRE.

    FOI – 5ac HA HA
    LOI – 17dn THEATRE
    COD – I just loved 1dn SEEPAGE

  24. Within our target but slower than necessary due to putting in adopting for 8a, so took too much time sorting out 10d, our loi. Otherwise a fairly straightforward solve.
  25. Late again to the puzzle today. 08:30 to get all but 1a and 1d.
    I got SEEPAGE eventually and thought the pesky plant was Spamrook (spook around ram).
    12:05 when I got the “Unlucky” message.
    Oh well, plants are another country for me.
    A good puzzle. David
  26. … with some interesting clues (I especially liked 8A Sea green and COD 1D Seepage) and some talking points for us all here. Solved in 11 minutes with all except 24A Distaste parsed; it was my LOI and I needed Curarist’s excellent blog to explain it.

    It’s been a good week of interesting puzzles, enough to think about, with nothing unfair but not too simple either. Thanks to setters one and all, and to Curarist for today’s blog. A good weekend to all.

    Cedric

  27. I would say that this was very difficult in many places so big hats off to most of you here. When Orpheus plays rough I never can quite finish and I really tried here. I just couldn’t see Seepage or Distaste…
    Ha-ha a write-in but every other clue slow. Only just got Shamrock.
    Oh well here’s to next week.
    At least 50 minutes of toil..
    Thanks all
    John George
  29. I like Orpheus a lot but have a gripe with hoedown (6). Obscure with not nearly enough help!
  30. A day late, again, but couldn’t let 9a go without raising a very big MER. As President of a national fostering organisation, and one of the handful that are charities, the distinction between fostering and adoption is treated in too cavalier a fashion. I recently posted that I generally take a broad and tolerant view about crossword definitions, but even in the ‘to adopt an idea’ is totally different to ‘foster an idea’. Adopting implies taking ownership. Fostering implies giving. That’s a 180 degree difference (just as in adopting/fostering children).
  31. An enjoyable 17 minutes spent puzzling over Orpheus’ teaser. We found the checkers particularly helpful as we biffed a couple of answers.

    FOI: ha ha
    LOI: distaste
    COD: enigma

    Thanks to Curarist for the blog – appreciated clarification over seepage

    Ps having a bathroom fitted next week so we’ll almost certainly fall behind again 😂

  32. There is a line of Horace which I have seen translated as, “I too am indignant when the worthy Homer nods, but in a long work it is allowable to snatch a little sleep.” I don’t know who the translator is.

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