Quick Cryptic 2064 by Teazel

Author   CuraristPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
I found this a bit odd. Hard to get going, even though 1 ac is pretty obvious in hindsight. I’ve got issues with some of the clues as detailed below, and some might find this tricky as a result. 8 minutes for me.

Across

1 A measure of work in a lot of organs (3-5)
MAN-YEARS – MANY EARS
6 Really great to embrace peace at last (4)
HUGE – HUG + E
8 Out of order, so he put a sock in it! (4)
SHOE – anagram (‘out of order’) of SO HE
9 Fellow broadcasters with new entertainer (8)
COMEDIAN – CO-MEDIA + N
10 Remind one young lady to be lavish (8)
PRODIGAL – PROD + I + GAL
12 Farm animals head off for crop (4)
OATS – [g]OATS
13 Pearl here maybe made up story about English (6)
OYSTER – anagram (‘made up’) of STORY around E
15 Knock it back — healthy drink (6)
TISANE – IT backwards + SANE
17 The cheek of judge, a wise old bird (4)
JOWL – J for judge + OWL
19 Showing rashness, I must abandon car at a big town (8)
AUDACITY – AUDI minus I + A CITY. The definition is a bit wonky, suggesting an adverb rather than a noun. Unless you decide that ‘showing’ isn’t part of the definition, which breaks the nearly iron rule that the definition shouldn’t be in the middle of the clue. And that really should be an iron rule in the QC
21 Pointed remarks about a party island (8)
BARBADOS – BARBS with A DO inside
23 Feeble few days broadcasting (4)
WEAK – sounds like WEEK
24 Earnestly request quiet bit of sunshine (4)
PRAY – P + RAY
25 Finish tidily, part of competition being cancelled (5,3)
ROUND OFF – self explanatory

Down
2 Has a try to repair saucer (7)
ASHTRAY – anagram (‘repair’) of HAS A TRY
3 Lose years, dreadfully idle (5)
YIELD – Y + anagram (‘dreadfully’) of IDLE
4 Part of Joan’s circle? (3)
ARC – cryptic definition? Double definition? Don’t know how to describe it but the answer is fairly clear.
5 Pretended to be encouraged, wasting time (9)
SIMULATED – STIMULATED minus T for time
6 Ugly skin, old, on us (7)
HIDEOUS – HIDE + O + US
7 Allow George at first to sound off (5)
GRANT – G + RANT
11 Berliner for one rejected colourful herb (9)
GERMANDER – GERMAN + RED backwards. A plant of the mint family.
14 Everything British in miniature chest of drawers (7)
TALLBOY – ALL + B inside TOY
16 Cooking hot flan? Absolutely! (3,4)
NOT HALF – anagram (‘cooking’) of HOT FLAN
18 One broadcasting is walking here with delight? (2,3)
ON AIR – again, struggling to accurately categorise the clue, but if you are on air you’re broadcasting, and if you are walking on air, you’re delighted.
20 Subdued, being married together (5)
COWED – CO-WED. ?? Doesn’t really make sense does it? ‘Married’ already means ‘together’. How can you be ‘co-wed’.
22 Small coin not quite enough for broth (3)
SOU – SOU[p]. Fomer low-value French coin beloved of crossword setters

69 comments on “Quick Cryptic 2064 by Teazel”

  1. 19 minutes approximately today so for me a little easier than of late.
    FOI: ASHTRAY the word just leapt out.
    LOI: COWED
    COD: MANY EARS. Although I liked the building of TALLBOY too.
    BIFD TISANE. I had mistakenly included ‘Healthy’ in the def on the first read.
    1. 11 minutes. Once again I thought there was some tricky stuff some may consider out of place in a QC. TISANE, for example.

      I suppose couples at a double-wedding might be CO-WED.

      1. Sorry Alf, I didn’t mean to tag onto your comment. I was responding to the blog, not to your posting.
  2. DNK GERMANDER. COWED went in without any eyebrow movement at the time, but I think that at least a ? was called for. I suppose if two couples are married in the same ceremony, you could say that they were co-wed. There is no rule, iron or otherwise, that says where the definition should be; it’s just very difficult to write a clue where the definition is not at one or the other end. But I agree that ‘showing rashness’ is not very ept as a definition. 7:39.
    1. You posted as I was writing, but anyone not reading the timeline might think I got in first!
    2. I was about to ask if “ept” might be how the queen pronounces “apt”, but was wise enough to check a dictionary first…

      A “deliberate antonym of inept” indeed!

      Every day is a school day. 🙂

    3. Its a convention for sure, so maybe not written in iron, but he is essentially right he think especially in a quickie
      1. It’s not a convention, either; it’s a fact of clue-writing: it’s hard to put a definition in the middle of a clue.
        1. Maybe requires more imagination – so harder work for sure – but not necessarily difficult. I think he might have said it was an unwritten rule – that would be nearer the mark for me.
    4. I decrypted the seemingly redundant use of “together” giving the CO part.

      (i.e. “married” = WED, “together” = CO)

      Edited at 2022-02-04 12:20 pm (UTC)

  3. A slow start with a sting in the tail. Today ignorance was shown up by GERMANDER and TISANE and I also realised I never knew what the PRODIGAL bit of the prodigal son was about, not that I’ve read it since primary school. Took me until OATS to get going on the way to five on the first pass of acrosses. Enjoyed seeing the first few clues yield as checkers from the downs and coffee worked their magic. Enjoyed SHOE. All green in 16.

    On yesterday’s, my par solve is to rank 160th at the end of the day. Despite taking over 20m yesterday I came in at 129th in a field that was about 100 short of the normal number of finishers — one of my best ever rankings.

  4. 14 minutes and slowed by chucking in coriander where GERMANDER should have been. I’m not a great one for knowing my herbs or healthy drinks or herbal infusions so TISANE is a new word for that was 100% guesswork as I hadn’t picked sane = healthy. SIMULATED took a while too and AUDACITY – I don’t like the clue but see how it works ok. Did like SHOE very much.

    Edited at 2022-02-04 08:41 am (UTC)

  5. I found this tricky with the grid looking very empty after the first run through and without much prospect of further progress. I seemed to find the wavelength after about 10 minutes and whizzed through the rest until left with the unknown TISANE. So a bit of a slow quick slow solve for me, finishing in 14.55.
    Thanks to curarist
  6. Struggled again, gave up with TISANE, although I could see how the clue worked, did not see SANE=healthy. NHO TISANE, GERMANDER OR TALLBOY today.
      1. “Men’s sana in corpore sano”( Juvenal) was what our P E instructor used to quote to us every week or two .
  7. MANY EARS made me smile when the penny finally dropped, ditto AUDACITY.
    Had to think about many clues, with a few write-ins dotted about. LOsI included OYSTER, BARBADOS (another good clue) TISANE, GERMANDER and TALLBOY.
    Thanks vm, Curarist.
  8. A little tricky for a QC, I thought. I didn’t balk at “Showing rashness” when solving, but in retrospect it is a little unusual. Like others, I rationalised CO-WED as a double wedding. Thanks Teazel and curarist. 6:13.
  9. I agree that sane is not an obvious synonym of healthy but I stuck TISANE in anyway. A weird puzzle. I was slow to start, made more progress in the southern half and threw myself off track by biffing Coriander instead of GERMANDER (nho). That problem was only resolved when I saw PRODIGAL so that 11d had to start with a G. A very clever bear trap!
    TALLBOY took a while (isn’t this a very old-fashioned term?). I rather liked SIMULATED (obvious when it clicks) and AUDACITY which I parsed after writing it in. The clueing of COWED seemed a bit desperate to me but it had to be.
    Thanks to Teazel for a very quirky QC (which forced me just into the SCC again) and to curarist for a good blog. John M.

    Edited at 2022-02-04 09:39 am (UTC)

    1. ‘Sane’ is to mind, as ‘hale’ is to body, I’d say. We do tend to think of health as physical first, though, I suppose.
      Pam
  10. Nice an’ Teazelly today — awns aplenty. I was on the 14:45 to sunny Barbados.

    I too tangled with CORIANDER — but ‘ Ich bin einen Binliner’ came to mind!

    FOI 4dn ARC

    LOI 1ac MAN YEARS!

    COD 5dn SIMULATED

    WOD 6dn HIDEOUS

    TTFN

  11. 1 second into the SCC today after also putting in CORIANDER first, but that was pretty quickly corrected by PRODIGAL. I had a MER at ASHTRAY for saucer, but it was still FOI. TISANE typically LOI after HIDEOUS fell, and it was only vaguely remembered, requiring all of the crossers to be recalled at all. Thanks both.
  12. Half an hour’s struggle for me. No idea why it took so long, it was clear enough with hindsight. I’m another to pencil in coriander and have to correct it once prodigal was obvious. FOI jowl, the 9th clue across, did not bode well. Eleven on first pass also made me sweat a bit. Straws clutched at in this one I think – e.g. is an ashtray a saucer? I suppose you could use a saucer as an ashtray, but…
    We had a ‘utility’ tallboy at home as part of a bedroom suite until about the 1970’s. In retrospect nicer than its white melamine-faced replacement. I agree that cowed is also weak. LOI germander, after prodigal. COD simulated. Thanks, Curarist, and Teazel.
  13. relieved to find that GERMANDER was indeed a thing.

    “Rashness” must the definition being “shown” by the wordplay, but I thought the wordplay was clear enough, and as with Kevin, not even a twitch of the eyebrow.

    MAN YEARS was my favourite.

    Reasonable time given chewiness.

    6:57

  14. Slow to start, with MANY EARS taking an age to see. I struggled to see ASHTRAY as a saucer until it had to be. TISANE went in from wordplay as a vaguely remembered word, but I couldn’t have said what it was. ARC and SHOE went in first followed by YIELD. Once that corner was sorted, the rest went in without much trouble, although I also had a MER at “showing rashness” defining AUDACITY. I ROUNDed OFF the puzzle with BARBADOS, then PRAY. 9:57 (squeaked in). Thanks Teazel and Curarist.
  15. … on my way to an 8 minute finish, and in the process missed many of the subtle MERs that others have mentioned. All except 11D Germander (NHO) went in smoothly, and even that was very generously clued.

    In retrospect, Sane = Healthy isn’t obvious, and Co-wed is strange, but some of the other comments such as where in the clue the definition goes are above my pay grade. It is sometimes good to not be in the ranks of the experienced solvers and so not notice these things! All in all though a bit of a curate’s egg despite my fast time.

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

  16. Wasn’t Hercule Poirot fond of a tisane? But I balked at sane = healthy and didn’t put it in! Man Years also defeated me … Teazel always tough for me. Thanks for the answers in the blog.
    1. Count me as another who immediately thought of Poirot! Just finished watching all the David Suchet versions, and I was actually wondering how long it would be before TISANE cropped up in a puzzle…
  17. ….as the Romans had it — a heathy mind in a healthy body. No problem to a classicist like what I am.

    The clue for AUDACITY would have been less clunky if the opening was “Being bold….”.

    I parsed ON AIR as a double definition, splitting after “One broadcasting is”.

    Not my favourite puzzle of the year, but it wasn’t Teazel’s fault that I missed my target. I seem to be in need of some sort of fillip, rather like a car needing an oil change.

    FOI COMEDIAN
    LOI AUDACITY
    COD SHOE
    TIME 5:39

    Edited at 2022-02-04 10:35 am (UTC)

  18. Enjoyed this one though. Answers went in steadily until I was stuck on last two at about 1hr05.

    – Was never going to get PRODIGAL while I had coriander. But given there were a few other clues I couldn’t parse, I figured it was some word like predical that I’d never heard of (RE being the reminder).

    – TISANE was the final issue. Got the IT backwards but plumped for TISANK thinking if you knock it back it’s been sank.

    FOI ASHTRAY
    COD SHOE
    NHO GERMANDER, TISANE

  19. 30 minutes for me still with covid brain-fog. But at least I finished it all correct. NHO Germander like lots of others. Lived in France for years so Tisane no problem. I thought it was all fair, except “showing rashness” is not the same as “audacity”, although at the time I just wrote it in.
  20. Quite a teasing puzzle from Teazel.
    Finished correctly in 45 mins.

    “TISANE” was a new one – nearly rhymes with Ghislaine, as in Maxwell.
    “ASHTRAY” nearly caught me out – you don’t see many of these now.
    “AUDACITY” – a bit of free advertising for the Audi brand.
    “MAN YEARS” = “many ears”, very clever.
    Regards all, have a good weekend.

  21. I enjoyed this and finished in 10 minutes, but with one wrong, which was 1a. I couldn’t see MAN YEARS for love nor money, despite it being the sort of clue I really like, and it would have been a candidate for COD if I’d got it! PAY YEARS was the unparseable entry but I just couldn’t see anything else 🙄 I don’t even know what they might be!
    My immediate reaction to 11d was doughnut, but when I saw herb, I thought of GERMANDER straightaway. A plant that we often see here – SPEEDWELL – has a form called germander speedwell. You may not know the name but I’d bet that many of you will be familiar with it when weeding!
    FOI Arc
    LOI would have been MAN YEARS if I’d got it right
    COD Shoe
    Thanks Teazel and Curarist
  22. Interestingly TISANE was my first one in for the reason suggested by Frankyanne — erstwhile devotee of M Poirot. Never actually knew what one was but he certainly drank a lot of them

    GERMANDER loi like others with a slight twitch of crossed fingers but not sure it could be much else

    Certainly a bit on the chewier side

    Thanks curarist and Teazel

  24. 24 mins — quite a few of which were spent teasing out Barbados (the “b” threw me, so I couldn’t stop thinking of Bali as an actual party island).

    The rest was pretty enjoyable — although I DNK “Germander” and for a while had “Germanium”. Similarly, 15ac “Tisane” had me crossing my fingers.

    FOI — 4dn “Arc”
    LOI — 21ac “Barbados”
    COD — 8ac “Shoe”

    Thanks as usual!

  25. Three unknowns for me today. TISANE, GERMANDER and the lavish meaning of PRODIGAL. The intersection of the latter two did not help things along. Crawled home in 13:11.
  26. … plus 15 minutes for (the NHO) TISANE. So, 44 minutes in total. Whilst she was significantly faster, Mrs Random suffered a similar delay to me – and on the same clue.

    I interpreted the clue in several different ways and alphabet-trawled more than 100 options, but just didn’t see ‘healthy’ = SANE for nearly a quarter of an hour. Even then, I put down my pencil and crossed my fingers. Why does the clue contain two anagrinds (‘Knock’ and ‘back’)?

    GERMANDER also posed some problems, as I DNK the plant and found it hard to believe that ‘rejected colourful’ lead to DER. Or have I mis-parsed the clue?

    It was a shame about these two clues, as they spoiled an otherwise excellent crossword.

    Many thanks to Teazel and curarist.

    1. colourful = RED therefore rejected = DER (according to the blog)

      I was sure coriander was a “colourful herb” because it must be one of those colours you get from paint companies!

    2. The clue has no anagrinds, as there’s no anagram. ‘Knock it back’ means ‘reverse IT’, with the misleading suggestion of ‘drink it’.
  29. After applying a liberal quantity of witch-hazel to my yesterday’s bruises and a night’s rest I tackled today’s QC refreshed and with renewed vigour. Sadly it did not go according to plan and although OYSTER opened up a number of pearls of wisdom, my lack of knowledge in exotic herbs and related herbal teas let me down. Comments otherwise as above.
    Thanks Curarist, Teazel and contributors one and all
  30. 2 mins better than yesterday at 24 mins, but that’s not saying much. Are these getting more difficult or have the advancing years finally killed off too many of my brain cells? SW corner went in ok and I solved from bottom up in an anti-clockwise direction more or less, but really struggled in the NW. Not helped by bunging in coriander at 11dn (no of course I couldn’t parse it) and hose at 8ac, which was not remedied until ashtray appeared right at the death. Thanks to Curarist for helping with the parsing of comedian, which had defeated me, and for the excellent blog. NHO the herb at 11dn, but then plants in general are not really my forte. No problem with tisane.

    FOI – 6ac HUGE
    LOI – 8ac SHOE
    COD – 21ac BARBADOS

    1. An observation regarding your question on difficulty (plus recent comments from quite a few other bloggers).
      I am convinced the difficulty of the QC has been getting significantly less consistent of late (and often harder than in previous years).
      Once again, I moved to the DT cryptic after this one and my time was within a minute of my QC time today.
      My order of difficulty used to be clear: QC -> DT Cryptic -> Times Cryptic (with fair gaps between them). This no longer holds.
      Just saying! 😉
  31. Thought we were going to have a reasonably quick time, for us, until we fell into putting coriander, and were very slow in sorting out many years and tisane.
  32. Definitely, Hercule was always drinking tisanes — so this one was a write in for us.
  33. Steady solve for us today — we finished in 15 minutes. NHO GERMANDER but the answer appeared to be there in the clue so we took a punt.

    FOI: SHOE
    LOI: AUDACITY
    COD: PRODIGAL

    Thanks Curarist and Teazel.

  34. Am I alone in thinking that loose definitions like ashtray for saucer and yield for lose are gradually becoming more common in both the QC and its big brother? Fair dos in the latter, think, but shouldn’t setters strive for more accuracy in the QC? I agree with comments that a few other clues were inappropriate for a QC though I saw what was needed quite quickly and enjoyed the puzzle so thanks to setter and blogger, FOI ashtray LOI germande, COD Barbados.

  35. Massive struggle with the OATS/GRANT crosser. I don’t really think of goats as farm animals, I don’t know why!

    FOI OYSTER, LOI OATS, COD MAN YEARS, time a sluggish 14:57 for 2K and a Poor Day.

    Many thanks curarist and Teazel.

    Templar

  36. A ‘saucer’ was indeed a type of porcelain ashtray in the early fifties. And to yield or lose ground a generally synonymous.

    COD 1ac Man Years. WOD 14ac Tall Boy. Time 5:04 mins.

  37. except I shall look for some Germander to plant in the garden. And it’s Friday, time = hopeless.
      1. Sorry to confuse you: germander speedwell is a little wildflower that might be regarded as a weed. Personally I think it’s really pretty and don’t mind having it in the lawn, along with the daisies, clover etc. Germander is a different plant – a Mediterranean shrub traditionally used as a herb.
          1. You’re absolutely right, and I did hesitate as I typed lawn in the above 😅 The current state of it after two puppies have been rampaging means there are barely any wild flowers (not weeds) or grass at all, just a churned up mud bath!
        2. Thank you for your useful comments on my ‘No useful comments today’ comment! A light-hearted and full of useful information QC is a better QC …
  38. We have a permanent seat in the SCC but really enjoyed the QC today. For us it worked well, no eyebrows raised for CO-WED. Liked 3 different outings for “broadcast” and smiled at MANY EARS (only got with all the crossers). Thank you Teazel. Dave and Sal
  39. Embarrassed to say it took me an hour or so. Struggled to get going as I saw many answers (audacity/tisane/germander) but lacked the confidence to put them in. I’m far too inexperienced to question any of the clues, but I did find one or two rather strained.

    Gary A

  40. Late in the day to ask but…why so many solvers opting for CORIANDER? Just because it has the right number of letters? FOI 6a Huge. LOI 12a Oats. COD 21a Barbados (for the construction).
    1. Because coRiANDER and geRmANDER have 6 letters in common and share 4 of the 5 ‘crossers’. It is not because they both have the ‘right number of letters’.
      As I said, it is a clever bear trap for those of us (lots of us) who have never heard of GERMANDER (and who temporarily let down our guard on the parsing front). Most of us realised our mistake when PRODIGAL emerged. John.
      1. Thanks — I see that I hadn’t the crossers to mislead me. I had the G to start with. Just a different order to my solve.
  41. Thanks. It is always easier if you can go top to bottom and get as many first letters as possible for down clues (as you did). Unfortunately, I often lose momentum and start again from the bottom — as I did here. John

    Edited at 2022-02-05 01:16 pm (UTC)

  43. Only just finished after 3 sittings over 2 days… Found this tricky. BIFD AUDACITY, NHO GERMANDER but guessed correctly. Like others I’m a Poirot fan so no trouble with TISANE. COD has to be MAN YEARS 😂 Always find Teazel tricky. Many thanks Curarist.

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