Quick Cryptic 1784 by Pedro

Author   CuraristPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
More tricky than average, I’d say. Took me about 8 and a half minutes. No anagrams! COD 5dn

Across

1 Order ambassador to infiltrate elite (6)
BEHEST – Ambassabor in crosswords is HE (his/her excellency). Insert into BEST
4 Dozing snake has secured shelter (6)
ASLEEP – ASP round LEE
8 Giant bird, and tailless (5)
TITAN – TIT + AN(d)
9 Someone chasing a contented response, about to go to law (7)
PURSUER – PURR with SUE inside
10 What you get from burning a tree (3)
ASH – double definition
11 Monitor display with the whole thesis? (9)
WALLPAPER – W (with) + ALL (the whole) + PAPER (thesis)
12 Make a choice: revolutionary science, visual science (6)
OPTICS – OPT + SCI backwards
13 Sailor drilling into stone floor of ocean (6)
SEABED – AB is a sailor. Insert into SEED. ‘Stone’ as in peach stone, I suppose.
16 Run out cricketer, one in a cricket club? Very agile (9)
ACROBATIC – RO (‘run out’ in a cricket scorebook) + BAT (cricketer) + I inside A CC (a cricket club)
18 Fine to avoid long sentence — it’s a complete fiction (3)
LIE – LIFE minus F
19 Casual worker appears after not working (7)
OFFHAND – HAND (worker) after OFF (not working)
20 A cry of surprise about theatre’s foremost performer (5)
ACTOR – A + COR! with T for theatre inserted.
22 Regular small cuppa, duly emptied (6)
STEADY – S + TEA + DY (‘duly’ without its innards)
23 Solid work at University perhaps involves Republican (6)
STURDY – STUDY with R inserted

Down
1 Risk only half improved (3)
BET – half of ‘better’
2 Expert’s baking attempt (7)
HOTSHOT – HOT (baking) + SHOT (attempt)
3 Kent town with management team providing promotional material (8,5)
SANDWICH BOARD – self explanatory
5 Boxing promoter, as it were — refuse to be handled by him? (5,8)
SCRAP MERCHANT – I quite like this. Jokey description of boxing promoter. Note ‘refuse’ is a noun. This is Curarist’s first law when stuck with a clue – ask yourself if any word could be a different part of speech to that which you have assumed. See also 7dn and 17dn.
6 Supply online joke? (5)
EQUIP – E-quip. Seen this clue many times before
7 Bird seen in separate line of hills (9)
PARTRIDGE – part (separate) + ridge. Reading the clue you would think ‘separate’ was an adjective, but it is in fact a verb.
9 Sport in Post Office, behold! (4)
POLO – P.O. + LO
10 An old malicious heartless oddball (9)
ANOMALOUS – AN + O + MAL(ici)OUS. This is unusual, I think. ‘Heartless’ most often means removing a single letter, or sometimes two repeated letters. Not sure I’ve seen this version before.
14 Support son entering Bar with little hesitation (7)
BOLSTER – S inside BOLT with ER on the end.
15 Horse farm’s boss (4)
STUD – double definition
17 Weapon initially fired in anger (5)
RIFLE – F for fired inside RILE. I wasted time thinking it had to be RAGE, probably because I assumed ‘anger’ was a noun, when it is in fact a verb.
21 Ready to hide every other bit of sunlight (3)
RAY – alternate letters of ReAdY

60 comments on “Quick Cryptic 1784 by Pedro”

  1. I don’t recall anything about this, but my notes say I biffed ACROBATIC & STURDY, parsing afterwards. I didn’t (don’t) understand the definition of WALLPAPER, but the wordplay was gentle. DNK SCRAP MERCHANT. On ANOMALOUS: My understanding (hah!) is that the heart of a word can be any number of letters, so long as the remaining letters on either side are equal in number; so MAL OUS surrounding 3 middle letters. 5:48.

    Edited at 2021-01-08 08:10 am (UTC)

    1. The background image displayed on a computer monitor (screen) is sometimes known as a ‘wallpaper’.
  2. All done and all green in 19 but I’m afraid I didn’t enjoy the journey as much as usual. The west went in much, much more easily that the east.
  3. 12 minutes. I became a bit bogged down on the RH side, particularly the SEABED/BOLSTER intersection.

    Removing more than one letter ‘at the heart’ of a word is not unknown but perhaps we don’t see it often in the QC. It’s not too difficult to spot when the word to be ‘disheartened’ is actually in the clue (as in today’s example) but can be very tricky if you have to think of the word first.

  4. Like yesterday this felt tricky in places but my only major hold up was with ANOMALOUS, a new/forgotten word for me. I stared blankly at it for a while before seeing that the answer was pretty much staring me in the face. My CoD was SCRAP MERCHANT but also thought that OFFHAND was very good. Finished in 11.40.
    Thanks to curarist
  5. Spent many minutes working from NW corner before getting a single clue, FOI was ASH, so I was pleased with this time after a terrible start.

    Was very unsure about stone=seed, especially as I fancied “range” at the end of 7D for “line of hills”

    6D (EQUIP) was new to me, very clever. I also liked “monitor display” for WALLPAPER, certianly more up to dat than the tiresome “COR” which made another dismal appearance at 20A.

    LOI ANOMALOUS: Didn’t really figure out that “heartless” could be more than “MS”, so was struggling to see where the other letters could come from.

    COD the Double Def of SCRAP MERCHANT

    1. I seem to be alone in not much liking the definition for WALLPAPER. I work in IT so I guess it’s the perennial problem of disliking imprecision in one’s own field, but for me it’s far too vague. Substituting the word ‘display’ for ‘background’ would have been a lot better I feel.

      Still, I very much enjoyed everything else about this puzzle and I concur with your COD choice SCRAP MERCHANT.

      –AntsInPants

  6. After our first pass the grid was still a wasteland. It seemed an age before we began to populate the grid. However, we stuck with it and finished in 15 minutes (seemed like a lot longer). Good to start the day with a challenge – thanks Pedro.

    FOI: ash
    LOI: behest
    COD: scrap merchant

    Thanks for the blog Curarist.

  7. … but then I usually find Pedro provides a tough puzzle, and my 17 minute finish today was par for the Pedro course.

    Like Mendesest I found the east side much the trickier, and only started to unlock it when 5D Scrap merchant fell into place – a very clever clue with the reference to boxing promoters! That finally gave me 11A Wallpaper, which is another to add to Curarist’s list of clues where words do not have the part of speech they first seemed to – I read Monitor as a verb, and with the initial W tried very very hard to work Watch into the answer. Last 2 in were 14D Bolster – I was confused by the capital B in Bar, which led me to think of the legal profession and which even after seeing the parsing I don’t really understand the rationale for – and then 18A Lie, where I simply had a mental blank and even after entry didn’t see the parsing until reading the blog.

    I thought 16A Acrobatic was a very complex clue, with several parts to the construction of the answer, and was just a little surprised to see it in a QC. Much more surprising though is the complete absence of anagrams: I like anagrams and usually find they provide the way in to a puzzle, which may be why I found this one hard to start and a challenge throughout.

    Many thanks to Curarist for the blog
    Cedric

  8. Date: Fri, 8 Jan 21

    FOI: 10a ASH
    LOI: 22a STEADY
    DNF
    Clues used with aids: 21
    Aids Used: TftT
    Total Answered: 5/26

    Dear God, I feel dumb. Especially so when the one blogging says, “More tricky than average, I’d say. Took me about 8 and a half minutes…”. Now that makes me feel dumb. He found it trickier than average, but still managed to complete it in 8.5 minutes. Here’s me, after one hour and nowhere near completing. Laugh or cry? What’s the point in the latter? Best go for the former. Haha.

    Joking aside, I did find this one really tough. Yesterday I dipped my toes in the 15×15, did appallingly and so scuttled back here to the QC with my tail firmly between my legs. However, today’s QC left me just as baffled.

    So, I am off to console myself with chocolate. Let’s hope Monday will be a better result for me.

    Edited at 2021-01-08 09:17 am (UTC)

    1. The step up from QC to 15×15 is a big one. By all means have a look, and use the 15×15 blog to see how the clues work, but I really would stick with the QC until you are regularly solving without aids. Ignore the fast times – most of the enjoyment comes from understanding how the clues work. Invariant
    2. Indeed, you mustn’t be intimidated by the fast times of people like me who’ve been doing cryptic crosswords for over 50 years ! I would certainly read the blog for the 15×15, for it will give you plenty of insights as to how clues are constructed.

      Take notes if you think it will help. You’re already using decent reference books. It will be quite some time before you spot a key word in a clue on the first reading. Today we had “ambassador” which is commonly referring to the abbreviation for His Excellency. Some clues will reappear (“chestnuts”) and today STUD and SANDWICH BOARD were examples.

      Above all, keep plugging away and enjoy the journey.

    3. I sympathsise. Been doing these for 4 years and several clues today had me completely baffled. Having seen the answers I know I had no chance of finishing. Some 15x15s have been more doable.
    5. Someone recently compared doing cryptic crosswords with learning a language. I’d agree with that view. Like learning a language you inherently become more fluent the more you practice. I’ve found this to be so over the past 2 years of doing the QC. Things will suddenly just spring into place – a happy thought for you to ponder 🙂
  9. Too tricky for me, after 20 minutes I still needed about a third of the answers and some of the ones I had were guesses, rather than biffs.
    I’m not complaining, there’s enough to complain about as it is!
    Thanks to Curarist for the explanations.

    Brian

  10. I agree with everything commented on today. Difficult to get started, couldn’t get in the flow, was like stirring treacle. COD SCRAP MERCHANT, first time to see EQUIP, LOI WALLPAPER. Happy to get STEADY as it shows I have learned from Jeremy et al.
    Tip of the day: get some chocolate.
    Thanks Curarist and Pedro. Is there a weekend offering? I was tempted to ask for something for the weekend? 😏
    1. Sorry, weekend special only appears when John is the blogger, so it’ll be next week, and at fortnightly intervals.
  11. I agree that this was extra tricky, but for me it was a bit of a wavelength thing. I stared blankly for a good 3/4 minutes but once I put a couple in it seemed to flow. I tend to think of oddball as a description of an eccentric and I think cor crops up in crosswords quite frequently but I don’t think you hear many people actually say it these days (not even cor blimey). This is nit picking though so thanks setter and blogger!
  12. Pedro can be tough but I don’t mean to be querulous as I enjoy his puzzles.
    My FOI was LIE and there were some easy pickings like POLO.
    But there were some testers too. My last two were SCRAP MERCHANT (COD for me) and WALLPAPER where the cursor placing was not as I thought so I had to correct a spelling.
    Sandwich a reminder that we really must get round to playing The Open golf championship this year.
    Was finished in 14:34.
    David
  13. This was tricky (and I won’t add an infuriatingly short time, P_W – please don’t let the whizz kids get to you!). I got a few on my first pass but had to jump around the grid taking sustenance where I could find it. As crossers gradually emerged, most of my answers were biffs based on available letters, followed by doh! moments as I saw the parsing. A very clever puzzle from Pedro but most definitely not a QC in my opinion – actually a 13×13 to use the apt description used by a blogger yesterday. I ended up in the high 20s which is probably a pw and I have completed every QC since No. 1. Nothing else to say. Now to read curarist’s blog to see if there is more to enjoy here than I could see. John M.

    Edited at 2021-01-08 10:25 am (UTC)

  14. I usually struggle with Pedro but found today’s quite approachable. Maybe more sleep than usual helped.

    The big delay was ANOMALOUS, which I finally cracked by the ridiculous route of wondering whether the answer could be “anonymous” and it then hitting me in the face … Ahem, I mean I brilliantly broke down the clue and analysed all its parts.

    FOI BEHEST, LOI RIFLE (just because I hadn’t noticed I hadn’t done it), COD the excellent SCRAP MERCHANT, time 2K but I’m still counting this as a Good Day.

    Many thanks Pedro and curarist.

    Templar

    Edited at 2021-01-08 10:29 am (UTC)

  15. Poison Wyvern, take comfort from me. I’ve had 2 DNFs in a row now and I’ve been attempting this “Q”C for years.

    Either I’m getting stupider or these are getting harder. Very dispiriting. Not fun at all. Not quick, either.

    Having said that, the only one I didn’t get, even with all the checkers, was 23 across, STURDY. That was because a) I’d given in and b) I’d been looking for OP + U + R.

    Had no idea what was going on in 16 across, ACROBATIC, as all the references other than BAT were meaningless for me. I thought it was aerobatic which I couldn’t parse but didn’t really care because I’d spent nearly an hour chewing my pen by then.

    I thought that SCRAP MERCHANT, WALLPAPER, EQUIP and SANDWICH BOARD were excellent.

    Thanks to Curarist.
    Nirh

      1. Thank you, Phil. That’s kind of you to reply and in such a nice way . I think that I’m just letting the general despondency of the times get on top of me.
  16. Oh dear, after my too cocky blog yesterday, back to earth with a bump and a time of 19 minutes today, although I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge offered by Pedro. LOI ACTOR after trying to fit STAR in there somewhere (failing to lift and separate ‘foremost performer’. FOI BET, then BEHEST for a reasonable start, but like Jackkt, Mendesest and others, struggled in the east. I liked STEADY and SCRAP MERCHANT best of all. Thanks C for the blog.
  17. BET was my FOI. I then made steady progress, ending with BOLSTER, SCRAP MERCHANT and STURDY. Liked WALLPAPER. Biffed ACROBATIC and then reverse engineered it. 9:23. Thanks Pedro and Curarist.
  18. FOI 4A: ASLEEP
    LOI 9A: PURSUER
    COD 5D: SCRAP MERCHANT

    I’m unsure as to whether this was easier than yesterday – or whether I made heavy weather of yesterday’s puzzles … and therefore, having given myself a good talking to, set about today’s puzzles with greater determination.

    Thank you, curarist and Pedro

  19. The same experience as others for me, but I did enjoy this challenge. A similar time to yesterday (a minute longer) at 52:12, but unlike that one there was no single clue that did for me. There was also nothing obscure that I hadn’t heard of, so thanks to Pedro for a good workout. Thanks also to Curarist of course – some good advice in your first law. FOI 8a, LOI 6d, COD 2d, WOD BEHEST
  20. 35 mins for me – 10 of which was trying to get 11ac “Wallpaper” and 6dn “Equip”. The last one was particularly infuriating as I went through an alphabet trawl, skipping out the obscure letters, just to find on my third attempt it was a “q”. So obvious in the end, but sometimes the harder you stare at something the further it goes away.

    I thought this was tricky as well. 16ac “Acrobatic” was eventually biffed with enough checkers, but on seeing the cluing I thought it was more akin to a 15×15. Seemed to be more difficult use of things like bar = bolt for 14dn (another one that took longer than it should) and rile = anger. Even simple write ins like 18ac “Lie” took ages to work out.

    However, still achievable and got a lot of satisfaction from getting clues I would never have got 3 years ago.

    FOI – 1dn “Bet”
    LOI – 6dn “Equip”
    COD – 5dn “Scrap Merchant”

    Thanks as usual.

    PS. Have to admit, when I saw Monitor Display I started thinking flatscreens, LCD’s and various other hardware paraphernalia. Didn’t think of the display “on” the screen, but it has been on here before. Saying that, for a while I did think it was “Willpower”, believing it might be an obscure usage of “monitor” ie. monitor or check oneself

    Edited at 2021-01-08 12:17 pm (UTC)

  21. Hello QCers, I have been doing the QCs for years but rarely comment as normally print the whole weeks out on a Friday (my day off) and then work through. But I am an avid follower of the blog which held fill in the gaps and clarify my guesses. I still feel I’m a long way off progressing to the 15×15 and do appreciate when an easier one is flagged.

    I thought I’d start backwards this week so I could comment and got started on Pedro’s offering. Sadly it was a DNF for me as I just couldn’t get Scrap Merchant, which of course is now obvious. I keep fixating on Strap, thinking about belts and such like.

    I too found the west for easier than the east and was all done in 15 bar the clue I couldn’t get.

    Thanks for the blog and the comments.

    1. Welcome, stowic, and it’s good that you are getting so much enjoyment from the QC’s. If you are only solving on Fridays it seems like an excellent policy to start with the Friday puzzle so that you can join in the latest discussion. Looking forward to hearing more form you.
  22. …again.

    Like some others, I couldn’t finish it by a wide margin (v. wide so I’m not admitting as to how many I couldn’t get)..

    Please, why does the E in EQUIP stand for online? I’m sure I ought to know!

    Diana

  23. Ah Pedro – my nemesis! I always find his puzzles the hardest, closely followed by Alfie/Noel and Wurm, and today was no exception. For some reason I started halfway on the down clues – I spotted POLO and just went on from there! Although I found it tricky, I thought there were some great clues – hard to pick a COD today 😊 Got ANOMALOUS wrong – I was looking for an alternative to malicious to ‘dishearten’ but couldn’t find anything to fit so a DNF for me.

    FOI Polo
    COD – top three: Wallpaper, Equip and Scrap merchant
    DNF in 14 minutes

  24. To say this was tricky underestimates how hard it was particularly for those of us new to the game. It was not enjoyable getting two clues on the first go through and after 15 minutes I gave up. I think this was too hard for a QC. Not fun and not a fan of Pedro
  25. All correct (without aids) in 40 minutes, today – a full half hour quicker than yesterday. I also won a rare family point, as Mrs Random was slower than me. Her usual method of randomly guessing every clue correctly (at least I assume that’s why she’s normally much quicker than me) didn’t work today. I sometimes wonder whether my approach – working out the solutions from the clues – will never allow me to compete with the fast solvers.

    I liked 5d: SCRAP MERCHANT, 11a: WALLPAPER and 6d:EQUIP (my LOI), and I was pleased the puzzle did not include any archaic, foreign or rarely used words (especially after wasting half an hour on ANIMUS earlier in the week).

    Many thanks to curarist (I didn’t see SEED = stone or BOLT = bar, even though I solved both clues) and to Pedro.

  26. Bucking the trend for once….I found the QC very approachable. I often come unstuck with anagrams so perhaps the absence of them played to my strengths i.e. tricky wordplay and no testing GK. I semi biffed ACROBATIC but fully parsed it after submission and I wasn’t convinced BOLT= bar but went with it anyway. Happily home in 7:04 for a lovely end to the week. Thanks to Pedro and curarist.
  27. Towards the tricky end of QCs at 8:45.

    LOI ANOMALOUS. I never did parse ACROBATIC, bunging it in from RO BAT and definition.

  28. One of those cryptics where I can’t see a way in for several minutes until TITAN was scribbled in.
    Good point to consider whether a word is a verb/adj etc. — I thought ANOMALOUS was correct but dismissed it as was looking for a noun (oddball).
    Haven’t ever actually used the word BEHEST, but that’s just me perhaps.
    A real challenge to end the week with.
    Thank you for the explanations.
    1. ‘The day thou gavest, Lord, is ended,
      The darkness falls at Thy behest,’

      A favourite hymn
      But I failed on behest despite knowing HE.

  29. Far too difficult, as far as I am concerned. Got very few, then stuck. Returned after lunch and, in desperation, peeped at Curarist’s first answer which somehow enabled me to solve or guess most of the rest. Thought of Anomaly so don’t know why I didn’t get ANOMALOUS. Failed on OPTICS.
    Given up by the time I got to STURDY.

    FOI PURSUER, POLO, ACTOR , SEABED, STEADY, not much else! Liked PARTRIDGE and EQUIP.
    Bad day. But thanks for blog

    Edited at 2021-01-08 03:58 pm (UTC)

    1. Me too… My technique is to do as many as I can without using aids and then start biffing, once I have few crossers. Then I can usually reverse parse the clue to confirm. Where I’m not sure I have the right answer, I’ll put it in the electronic version on my phone and use the check function to make sure I’ve got it right. Others might think I’m cheating but I need the crutch!

      If, once answered and confirmed, I can’t see what on earth is going on with the clue, it gets ringed on the paper version. Today, most of the acrosses and a few of the downs were ringed 🙁
      Didn’t enjoy todays, a real slog.

      I’ve been doing these for over three years and I don’t think I’m going to get any better than I am now, my brain works too slowly – quite frustrating really.

  30. I really must have been half asleep this morning. For reasons I still can’t explain, I started by writing the answer for 22ac in the space for 1ac. That made the NW distinctly tricky before I spotted what I had done. Just over 30mins later I was down to my last pair, 14d and 23a, in the SE. I hadn’t been able to parse 18ac Lie, which made me doubt the ‘L’ in 14d, but eventually I saw bolt would fit for bar, and Bolster and Sturdy quickly followed. CoD to the amusing 5d, Scrap Merchant, but overall it was hard yards today. Invariant
  32. Definitely a tricky one today, taking me a minute outside my target range of 15-20 mins. Spent far too long on some of the easier (in hindsight) clues such as 4ac and 20ac. Also spent some time trying to parse unrobotic for 16ac until the penny dropped on 10dn. A good workout from Pedro – thanks to him and to Curarist for the blog.

    FOI – 10ac ASH
    LOI – 13ac SEABED
    COD – probably 5dn SCRAP MERCHANT, although I also liked EQUIP, SANDWICH BOARD and OFFHAND

  33. ….and I needed Curarist to parse WALLPAPER (thank you !)

    FOI ASLEEP
    LOI BOLSTER
    COD HOTSHOT
    TIME 4:25

  34. We also found this far from easy and needed a lot of preservance to eventually complete, but satisfying when we finally got there. A quick start with 3d but a slow plod from then on.
  35. Definitely tricky; that’s two in a row for me; strange after getting used to sailing through the Quick Cryptics with just the odd clue left at the end to seriously challenge me. But the challenge makes it all the more satisfying to complete. Thanks.
  36. Tried on and off all day and still only solved 12 clues. Just too hard for me – perhaps my poorest effort ever at the Quick Cryptic.
  37. The perfect QC. It all lookeddifficult but everything was crackable without obscure knowledge. A great brain teaser. More like this, ED.
  38. Is this Don Manley aka Don(Izetti) in a different guise I wonder? Don Pedro seems plausible…

    Wonderful puzzle with many beautiful indirections and smooth surfaces which not only make sense but wink and nudge the solver’s ribs!

    Any one of these clues would be COD for me, but 13A and 17D personal faves.

    Took me a little longer than usual but got there in the end, without recourse to solving aids.

    Thank you all!
    Woods

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