Quick Cryptic 171 by Joker

32 comments on “Quick Cryptic 171 by Joker”

1. Yes, quite straightforward, but elegant. COVEARGE was my favourite and TROWEL my last in.

   Those wishing to have a stab at the main course will find today’s pretty much as easy as it gets.

   1. And yet not easy enough for me. I managed about half. Ah well.
2. Agree with Jack and Ulaca. 3d was my LOI; I was misled by ‘process of renovation’ into looking for an anagram of ‘elevator’, which of course got me nowhere. Saved by checkers. I tend to forget PARA as a possibility for ‘soldier’, and I did it here, too, despite the ‘airborne’. 5:45.
3. Yes, very gentle – but I put in AMAM instead of ADAM!

   Amam is quite a common name in the middle east (where I worked with several Amams) and also in Hemel Hempstead (where I knew at least two…). So, have to say it sprang to mind more readily than Adam. Can’t recall ever having met an Adam, although I am, of course, familiar with Messers. Faith and Adamant. Thus, based on a highly personal world view, I would venture that Amam is more common than Adam – and both parse OK (in fact I would suggest you will hear Mam for Mother somewhat more frequently than Dam for mother, unless you spend an unhealthy amount of time in Cheltenham or Newmarket).

   Well, that’s my attempt to justify the wrong answer… 🙂

   1. Nice try but I don’t fancy your chances of getting it past an adjudicator in a competition 🙂

      For what it’s worth (i.e.nothing) I worked in Hemel Hampstead for 15 years for an accredited “diversity” employer and I never came across an ‘Amam’ – though come to that there were no Adams either in all that time, however I do think that Adam being, at least according to legend, the name of the first man of the species might count for something!

      Edited at 2014-11-03 07:15 am (UTC)

      1. Fair cop!
   2. Z8 & I have no such issues – our youngest grandchild – aged 3, with ash-blond curls, cheeky grin, and a passion for Angry Birds fan is called Adam!
4. Very good quick cryptic. Lots of different clue types and at the less difficult end of the spectrum. ALLIED last in and FELINE my favourite.

   In the paper version the enumeration for 18a is wrong at 5 instead of 6.

5. Very quick. Not 5 mins though!! The iPad app is claiming that DECIDE and FELINE are wrong. They’re not, obviously. The app is wrong.

   Perhaps I willtry the main xword today. Am I feeling brave? Dunno…

   1. Not just the ipad edition.. whoever keyed in the answers has switched those two, so that it thinks decide is feline, and vice versa..
6. Easiest yet, absolutely tore through it, only logged in to find how to parse ‘torn’. Oh B……!
7. Third ever solve for me and for the first time ever I can understand how you all do it so quickly – it all just seemed to make sense – but I fear it will be back to usual tomorrow. Sorry to be anon but I can’t work out how to sign in. Great blog, thanks again to all for all the help.
8. Looked here as I am puzzled. Am I missing something, or are the answers to 2d and 9a transposed in order to receive a “Solution Correct” message?

   Edited at 2014-11-03 09:30 am (UTC)

   1. No you are not missing anything – just seems a simple cock up from our buddies at SNAFU Central (as the IT / production department for the Quickie are affectionately referred to here)
      1. Thanks Nick.
9. I’m on blogging duty for the QC this Wednesday and have a lot of stuff happening at work, so was hoping to do a “sneaky” and prepare the blog in advance.

   Have rolled forward two days from today’s url in the usual fashion, but not getting anything. Just wondered if anyone else has found the link for Wednesday yet?

   Thanks

   1. Nick, I’ve sent you the link directly as there’s a view that we should not post the urls here in advance of the day. The code you’re looking for is 305
      1. Thanks very much Jack, greatly appreciated.
10. I have alerted The Times to the solution error. Because of the way the electronic solutions are created from a list of the answers, an ambiguity can sometimes occur where the checked letters in two entries are the same. Such glitches are usually reliably spotted and “hand-managed” by The Times staff but very rarely one slips through, as appears to be the case today.
    Thanks for the appreciative comments.
    Joker
11. 24 mins flying solo! Many thanks, Joker, for a QC that was both challenging and (ultimately) accessible and to Jack for a lovely clear blog.

    COD was ACID ROCK as I appreciate beautifully crafted contemporary clues 🙂

    LOI was FELINE I knew FE would be included but was thinking of Medes and.. I also thought empire (12 ac) was part of an anagram rather than part of a descriptor.

    I escaped the transposition issues as I always solve with treeware (and Laszlo’s invention).

12. The usual time. I agree with munk1puzl that the clue for ACID ROCK was excellent, and I enjoyed the puzzle overall. I wondered if somebody wouldn’t parse 23ac properly and enter “torn” in error. I didn’t even notice the enumeration error in the paper version of 18ac. Finally, FACELIFT was my LOI.
13. A nice introductory puzzle.
14. Yes! Nice AND easy today, although the transposition of 2 and 9 in the ipad edition did cause me a moment’s concern.

    Like Nick, I tried AMAM at first, and then changed to ADAM as being more likely. A quick search of the electronic telephone directory at my own place of work (a large and very cosmopolitan University in London) returns 184 Adams and amazingly zero Amams, as either a first or family name, although there are half a dozen Amans. I think that settles the AMAM / ADAM question reasonably conclusively.

    1. Yes, Amam 0 – 184 Adam is indeed a somewhat convincing scoreline, albeit my friends in Hemel would brand it a freak result or (more likely) just shrug and admit “yeah, we were a bit off form today…”

15. Around 15 minutes, so a record breaking time for me. Now that I’ve got to grips with most of the standard conventions, this one flowed very straightforwardly. Also this had quite a few anagrams, which seem to have been in short supply in the last few Quicks that I’ve attempted. For the beginner anagrams (if spotted!) are great for getting a few answers in, which then helps with the trickier cryptic clues.

    Flushed with success I’ll now give the main crossword a whirl.

16. Would have been my quickest ever if I hadn’t had the same Amam/Adam problem. Have never come across that meaning of dam before so will just resentfully store it away.

    Thanks to Joker for another fun puzzle!And Jackkt for the blog.

17. Travel timings mean I’m trying to access tomorrow’s crossword to get the blog set up and can’t crack the code – I’ve tried the usual techniques. Any help appreciated!
    1. I’ve sent you the link directly, Chris, but the code you needed was 305.
18. Along with most people I found this pretty straightforward. Didn’t know Amam as a name, so no confusion and ADAM went in very quickly. LOI FACELIFT and along with kevingregg wasted a little time thinking of an anagram for elevator. Once I got I from 12ac and realised it had to be something else, the penny dropped quite quickly. For info, the paper version has 5 letters for HAMLET, so not just the online version having a problem today.
19. Could you explain how ‘dam’ is mother?
    Thanks
    1. From Merriam-Webster’s dictionary:

       Definition of DAM: the female parent of an animal and especially of a domestic animal

20. 18A , answer hamlet, had me confused for a while as the clue says 5 letters in the answer. Should have checked the grid first!

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