Quick Cryptic 1894 by Pedro

Author   CuraristPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
So after a run of tricky ones, I think this will come a bit of welcome relief, being a romp for the most part. That said, I couldn’t get started in the usual place, and ended up going clockwise from the NE corner. 6 minutes for me.

Across

1 Expert way to cover half of Olympics (8)
POLYMATH – PATH round OLYM
5 Plans returning this unwanted correspondence (4)
SPAM – MAPS backwards
9 Growing season, putting out new branch (5)
SPRIG – SPRING minus N for new
10 Be audacious in the fitting-room? (3,2,2)
TRY IT ON – Double definition of sorts
11 Hot, with sources of some peppers removed, implies cold (3)
ICY – SPICY minus S(ome) and P(eppers)
12 Farmer, maybe, having unhappy experience with computer network (9)
LANDOWNER – DOWNER with LAN (local area network) in front.
13 Poorly-lit weaving machine blocking outside of gallery (6)
GLOOMY – G(aller)Y with LOOM inside
15 Prize in conflict secured by Communist (6)
REWARD – WAR inside RED
17 Riotous cheering around Western part of London (9)
GREENWICH – Anagram (‘riotous’) of CHEERING + W
19 Bath, say, having reduced width (3)
SPA – SPAN without the last letter
20 Dull photo with flowery girl in it (7)
PROSAIC – ROSA inside PIC
21 One million going to a good European picture (5)
IMAGE – I + M + A + G + E
22 Remains of the French Saint (4)
DUST – DU + ST
23 Vision certainly possessed by rowing crew (8)
EYESIGHT – YES inside EIGHT

Down
1 Handing over additional information about a carol (7)
PASSING – PS (additional info) with A inside, + SING
2 A lot of historical knowledge attached to railway truck (5)
LORRY – LORE is historical knowledge. I suppose ‘LOR’ is a lot of ‘LORE’. Add RY for railway.
3 Power-crazed individual confused by a magical omen (12)
MEGALOMANIAC – Anagram (‘confused’) of A MAGICAL OMEN
4 Giant bird heads for Alpine nest (5)
TITAN – TIT + A(lpine) N(est)
6 Peanut I fancy as a flowering plant (7)
PETUNIA – Anagram (‘fancy’) of PEANUT I
7 One digs up some chrysanthemum in error (5)
MINER – hidden word: chrysanthemuM IN ERrror
8 Cryptic shone fantastically: a spectacular display! (12)
PYROTECHNICS – Anagram (‘fantastically’) of  CRYPTIC SHONE
14 Old Emperor taking on America, implying a lot of work (7)
ONEROUS – O + NERO + US
16 Dictionary includes “beer” as local usage (7)
DIALECT – ALE inside DICT. I suppose ‘dict.’ is some sort of recognised abbreviation of dictionary.
17 Doctor penning article: editor looked astonished (5)
GAPED – GP round A + ED
18 Church in urban area losing head, getting irritated (5)
ITCHY – CH inside [C]ITY
19 Industrial waste receiving name in informal language (5)
SLANG – N for name inside SLAG

51 comments on “Quick Cryptic 1894 by Pedro”

  1. 1ac required a few checkers so my FOI was 9ac SPRIG.

    LOI 2dn LORRY!

    COD 1ac POLYMATH

    WOD 8dn PYROTECHNICS

    But… a lousy 14 minutes due to the ICY artic north-west.

    Edited at 2021-06-11 07:06 am (UTC)

  2. Made things hard for myself in the SW by not spotting that ‘cheering’ has a G in it making the anagram tricky and by putting in ‘last’ where I should have had DUST. All sorted in teh end for an all green finish in a little under 15 — not bad but after getting nine on the first pass of acrosses i had thought things might have gone better. POLYMATH held me up while I worked out what ‘half of olympics’ was about and it seems PROSAIC doesn’t mean quite what I thought it did — plus ‘flowery’ in the clue made me think there was extra work to do. Good one to end a good week.
    1. I was flying towards a sub 6minute PB but was thrown by ‘last’ instead of DUST. The superfluous inclusion in the clue of the word ‘the’ now irks me because this was a DNF as a result. Ho hum. Record will have to wait.
      1. du=of the; nothing superfluous in the clue

        Edited at 2021-06-11 07:21 am (UTC)

  3. A gentle end to the week, which surprised me as I often find Pedro quite tricky. Started with SPAM and made made my way quickly around the grid. I had a brief flirtation with LAST at 22a but GAPED put me back on track. I left the PYROTECHNICS until the end to make working out the anagram easier.
    Finished in 7.58 with my CoD to PASSING.
    Thanks to Curarist
  5. At 10 minutes this was a return to form for me after yesterday’s lapse following a long run of success. I raced through most of it, but like our blogger I was unable to start in the usual place so I had to find a way in elsewhere and work my way back to the NW corner. In the end the POLYMATH/PASSING intersection delayed me even with checkers in place and I only just hit my target with a second or two to spare..
  6. 13:44 after another week with a high DNF count.

    I took the same route of clockwise from FOI SPAM, and ended up with LOI PASSING which took much time. Posting, Pasting, Pushing all fitted the definition of “handing over”. I didn’t get the verb sense of Carol, so was struggling to see how that could work.

    COD POLYMATH. I’m sure I wasn’t the first to say “No way OLYM can be in the middle of a word,” and so I went for PICS instead.

    Did not parse EYESIGHT until coming here. Better clue than I thought. I had FORSIGHT first.

    “But Greenwich is not a Western part of London!” — Lift and separate, my child.

  7. Add me to the “surprisingly easy for a Pedro but couldn’t start with 1ac or 1dn” club.

    I liked the flowery girl and the fact that “giant bird” didn’t mean ROC for once (still tried it though).

    FOI SPRIG, LOI REWARD, COD PROSAIC, time 07:49 for 1.4K and a Very Good Day.

    Many thanks Pedro and curarist.

    Templar

  8. A pleasant romp from LORRY to PYROTECHNICS. 7:07. Thanks Pedro and Curarist.

  9. FOI: 5a. SPAM
    LOI: 1d. PASSING

    Time to Complete: DNF

    Clues Answered Correctly without aids: 22

    Clues Answered with Aids (3 lives): 17d

    Clues Unanswered: Nil

    Wrong Answers: 19a

    Total Correctly Answered (incl. aids): 24/25

    Aids Used: Chambers

    I thought I had this one in the bag at 47 minutes. But it turns out that one incorrect letter gave me a DNF.

    19a. SPA – I put SEA. I had S _ A, and so I did an alphabet trawl. Unfortunately, I only used the vowels, and therefore SEA was the only answer I could come up with. I could have kicked myself when I saw the answer here.

    22a. DUST – For much of the duration of the puzzle I had LAST (“a French”, LA; “saint”, ST). But when I tried to answer the crossing 17d I became suspicious that LAST was not correct. In the end in went DUST.

    Despite this, the week has ended on a high note for me.

  10. Pity as started NE corner and zoomed round until I stuck in NW. Looked up LORRY, rather feeble of me, changing Ice to ICY and tentatively writing in PASSING. I had all the checkers for 1a but …

    FOI PETUNIA. Liked PYROTECHNICS, GLOOMY, TITAN. COD POLYMATH.

    Thanks for much needed blog, Curarist.

    Later: pity I didn’t read the Obits first as they featured a Polymath.

    Edited at 2021-06-11 11:16 am (UTC)

  11. I was slow to start and ended up going clockwise from the NE too. Enjoyed the challenge so thanks setter and blogger. Sing for carol was in a recent puzzle I seem to recall. Doesn’t work for me, not because it isn’t correct but I don’t think people ever use it that way nowadays.
    1. Interchanging sing for carol has become bit of a chestnut over the years producing an almost Pavlovian resction when I see it in a puzzle. I very much agree with your observation but for whatever reason it keeps re-appearing.
  12. I don’t always find Pedro easy but I enjoyed this and moved steadily around the grid returning to the NW corner when I was sure of PASSING and POLYMATH (the latter was my COD although I liked ITCHY, ICY, and EYESIGHT, too). I also got caught by the clever LAST/DUST thing but quickly saw my error when GAPED emerged. Almost 2 mins under target at 13.07. Thanks to Pedro for a neat puzzle and a pleasant end to the week. Thanks to curarist, too. John M.

    Edited at 2021-06-11 08:54 am (UTC)

  13. 10:20 for me today with time needed at the end to remove LAST at 22a and rethink. GAPED was clear from parsing -eventually-and so DUST was LOI (COD to that-I’m sure the setter knew what he was doing).
    Some quite tricky parsings today but as others have said, nothing too difficult.
    High quality clues; a good QC.
    David
  14. Held up a bit by POLYMATH and PASSING, and I had also put in ICE instead of ICY, which meant I had to think a bit about LOI LORRY before realising that ICE was wrong.

    6:17

  15. About fifteen minutes for me today. An enjoyable solve, and all parsed, for once. Thirteen on first pass. FOI spam – I did wonder which was returning and put maps in until miner put that straight. LOI passing, needed all the checkers, and a bit of cogitation until I realised we were talking about a P.S. The giant bird was a clever mislead. COD landowner. Thanks, Curarist, and Pedro. GW.
  16. Made it through in the end in 23 minutes with a little trouble solving TITAN and LANDOWNER. Couldn’t parse PASSING but bunged it in anyway, otherwise this all seemed very fairly clued.

    My thanks to blogger and setter.

  17. … as I too thought this a pleasantly approachable puzzle for one from Pedro, and only the NW corner delayed me much on my way to an 8½ minute solve. The anagrams — long but surprisingly accessible — certainly helped speed me on my way.

    As well as the classic “lift and separate” in 17A Greenwich that Merlin identifies, there is another delightful one in 4D Titan. Any clue that starts “Giant bird” and needs one to supply Tit is worth the COD from me!

    I think my farming friends — of which I have a few — might take issue with 12A Landowner. Most of them are tenant farmers, and the one who does actually hold the freehold to his land commented to me when I told him of the clue just now that it feels less like he owns the land and more like the land owns him.

    Many thanks to Curarist for the blog, and a good weekend to all
    Cedric

    1. On the LANDOWNER clue, what you say is true but the definition includes ‘possibly’ as indicated by curarist, which covers the DBE.
  18. A very similar experience to everyone else, finding this a bit easier than usual for Pedro, dotting around a bit, struggling with 1d, and falling into the last / DUST trap! Didn’t parse ICY properly either. I particularly liked TRY IT ON and GREENWICH among some lovely clues. Came in under target at 9 minutes so a nice end to what has been quite a good week on the whole — apart from quite a challenge courtsey of the Don 😉
    FOI Megalomaniac
    LOI Passing
    COD Titan
    WOD Wot horryd said! I 💖💖💖 fireworks!

    Many thanks Pedro and Curarist

  19. I really must learn that it’s no good trying to do these at breakfast time.

    Settling down to it mid-morning is much more satisfying.

    Thank you Pedro, for an excellent puzzle which I much enjoyed completing in the end, nursing my coffee.

    Now back to the garden …

    Diana

    2. Couldn’t agree more! Mid-morning, a bit of peace and quiet, just the job 😊
  20. 4:15 with nothing too problematic.
    FOI 5 ac “spam” with steady progress thereafter. Slight delay at 18 d “itchy” because I read the clue too fast!
    COD 1 ac “polymath”. I do wonder if there will be any Olympics this year , let alone half.
    Thanks to Curarist and Pedro.
  21. Once the long anagrams 3D and 8D were in it was pretty straightforward though I biffed 19and 20A having failed to understand how they worked.

    Thanks to Pedro and curarist!

  22. A bit of a biff-fest for me as I couldn’t parse several including LANDOWNER and SPA. So thanks for the explanations in the blog..

    A bit of a MER at LORRY as I could sort of see how it worked. And, for some reason, didn’t think of GP for doctor. Apart from that, much the same sort of comments as others. Wasn’t convinced by LAST for 22a and put it in on my phone to check before writing it in.

    Oh well, at least I got there in the end in about 30 mins, so not bad at all for me.

  23. I had the grid filled in by 32 minutes (a fast-ish time for me), but with question marks beside 1d, 2d and 22a. I was unsure of the parsing of these three clues, so I set about my task. The rationale for PASSING, and correcting DEST to DUST didn’t take too long, but 2d held out for more than 20 minutes.

    The cause of my frustration was that I had confidently entered ICE for 11a, which left me with L_R_E for 2d. I wanted to enter LARGE (meaning ‘A lot’), but something prevented me from doing so and I eventually spotted my error. In the end I was all correct in 55 minutes, but I can’t explain why I so often take inordinate amounts of time over the final clue or two.

    N.B. Mrs Random will catch up with yesterday’s and today’s puzzles in due course.

    Many thanks to Pedro and to curarist.

  24. Completed in 30 mins, but one of those puzzles where I did everything I could to get things wrong.

    It all started with an innocent biff thinking 4dn was “Eagle” — thought this was some cryptic clue relating to Hitler’s mountain retreat — which led to “Get it on” for 10ac. The dominoes of despair continued to fall when I put in “Ice” for 11ac and then spelt 3dn “Megalomanic” wrong. Some respite was felt in an easy SE corner, but the top half head scratching continued.

    It was only when I realised “Pyrotechnics” had to be the answer for 8dn, that I had to do some rapid reverse engineering. Thankfully things fell into place after that.

    Overall a good challenge from Pedro. Not sure if it was his skill or my own ineptitude that sent me scurrying down all sorts of dark alleys, but guess I got there in the end.

    FOI — 5ac “Spam”
    LOI — 18dn “Itchy”
    COD — 1dn “Passing” — simple but lovely surface

    Thanks as usual!

    1. “Get it on”, bang a gong, “get it on” … Marc Bolan & T Rex (1971).
      My first entry to 10a was ‘Big it up’.
  25. Well — much easier than yesterday — when after a while I discovered that the clues on my android tablet bore no relation to those in the blog. It turned out that I had been presented with today (Friday’s ) clues and Thursday’s grid. Was this just me?
  26. Pretty straightforward until left with 2d and 11a for which I had ICE, so could not work out 2d with L-R-E. The penny eventually dropped!
  27. Couldn’t get started at the top, so started at the bottom and worked up steadily. Just had to go back and sort out the GAPED/DUST intersection.
    Glad to end week on a high, as I had a DNF with the 15×15 (SW corner)
    Thanks for the blog
    Andrew
  28. A steady solve today, finishing in 18 mins with a couple of short interruptions. No particular problems anywhere in the grid and managed to avoid the ice/icy and last/dust traps.

    FOI – 5ac SPAM
    LOI – 1dn PASSING
    COD – 10ac TRY IT ON

    Thanks to Pedro and Curarist

  29. LOI was 1a POLYMATH. I’m rather glad I didn’t spend a lot of time at the start of the puzzle wondering which half of OLYMPICS was most likely to appear in the solution. I biffed LANDOWNER and prior to solving Greenwich and Prosaic I was trying to justify ‘dread’ for GAPED. My solving time was an acceptable 8:42.
  30. ….”lolymane” I changed corners and progressed without mishap.

    FOI SPAM
    LOI POLYMATH
    COD LORRY
    TIME 3:48

  31. No, we weren’t on holiday (chance would be a fine thing) – we were doing some major landscaping work in the back garden and it consumed all of our time and brains – so no space for the QC. Any how, we missed you….

    A bit of a slow restart – took us 28 minutes today. However, we plan to complete the QCs we’ve missed so hopefully we’ll speed up again.

    FOI: TRY IT ON
    LOI: GAPED
    COD: LANDOWNER (although there was lots to enjoy today)

    Thanks to Pedro and Curarist.

  32. In at number 9 for this one as I completed in 14:11. Would have been a bit faster, but like others I put “LAST” in for 22a and that held me up getting 17d. GREENWICH and PROSAIC took a while too. COD to POLYMATH. Thanks Curarist and Pedro.
  33. Had to work round to the NW corner but not too difficult
    Have a good weekend folks
  35. Good puzzle, avoided the LAST trap, TITAN was my favourite for the counter intuitive use of a tiny bird as part of the answer.
  36. Actually completed this early this morning before a long car journey. The early start certainly didn’t help, but being unable to see beyond ‘road’ for a four letter way made polymath impossible, at least until I had all the checkers. Likewise Greenwich was spotted early but resisted because I didn’t see riotous as an anagram indicator… (there must be a better word than ‘stupidity’ to describe this). A fixation on Posting for loi 1d almost produced a DNF, but thankfully it didn’t parse. What felt like (and confirmed by other posters’ comments) a slow 26mins in total, with CoD to the surface of 23ac, Eyesight. Invariant
  37. Started this evening when very sleepy. That’s my excuse anyway! Could not see POLYMATH or PASSING for love nor money. Easy when you know how — thanks curarist. Loved LANDOWNER, my COD. Maybe I’ll do better tomorrow…

    Edited at 2021-06-11 08:50 pm (UTC)

  38. Ten minutes, with a bit of a hiccup in the north-west corner where I tried to shoe-horn in PRO-something until I figured out POLYMATH. Otherwise, a straightforward solve here. Thank you.

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