Quick Cryptic 2709 by Trelawney

Author   galsprayPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

Parkrun + Solve = 33:38 (slow run, quick solve).

I’ll stick my neck out and say this was a relatively gentle offering from Trelawney, with no unfamiliar words in the grid.  There were a few little challenges along the way but nothing overly tricky imho.

Here’s how I parsed the clues.  Would be delighted to hear your thoughts / complaints / corrections:

(In the clues, definitions are underlined and anagram indicators are in bold italics.

In the explanations (ABC)* indicates an anagram of abc.  Deletions and other devices are indicated accordingly, I hope).

Across
1 Stop eating quickly (4)
FAST – Double definition

First instinct was to look for a synonym for “stop” and “eating quickly” until the penny dropped.
3 Curse after the setter gets new clothes (8)
MENSWEAR – SWEAR (curse) after ME (the setter) + N (new)

Assemble as directed.
8 Totally outstanding? That’s permitted! (7)
ALLOWED – ALL (totally) + OWED (outstanding)
10 Kick out swimmer holding ten pence (5)
EXPEL – EEL (swimmer) “holding” X (ten) + P (pence)
11 Offshore broadcasting from airport with aide, weirdly? (6,5)
PIRATE RADIO – (AIRPORT AIDE)*

Takes me back to an episode of The Goodies for some reason.
13 Character of new tea urn (6)
NATURE – (TEA URN)*
15 Slogan displayed by Pullman Trains (6)
MANTRA – Hidden in PullMAN TRAins
17 Outcome requiring a snap judgement? (5,6)
PHOTO FINISH – Cryptic definition

A snap (geddit?) to help judge the winner of a close race.

As a student my brother had a part-time job operating the photo finish at Toowoomba race meetings.  Less automated in those days and apparently quite stressful!
20 Expert with brief moment to create publicity (5)
PROMO – PRO (expert) + MO (brief moment)
21 Huge fixture for Three Lions, say? (3,4)
BIG GAME – BIG (huge) + GAME (fixture)

Slightly messy parsing.  A huge fixture is a big game, and lions are an example of “big game”.  The “Three” is there for the surface, a reference to the branding of some English national sporting teams, who do play in the occasional big game.

Would it work better without the “Three”?  I think so, as the Lions of rugby fame are no strangers to huge fixtures themselves (although their next scheduled sojourn will sadly be a bit of a walk in the park).

Always the chance that I’m missing something of course.  Let me know if so.
22 Study island’s building material (8)
CONCRETE – CON (study) + CRETE (island)
23 Garden party’s destiny announced (4)
FETE – Homophone (announced) of FATE (destiny)
Down
1 In a panic when program interrupts affair (8)
FLAPPING – APP (program) “interrupts” FLING (affair)
2 Also confused over rocks originally from the sun (5)
SOLAR – (ALSO)* over R [first letter (originally) of rocks]
4 Last to finish medicine with no cap (6)
ENDURE – END (finish) + CURE [CURE (medicine) without the first letter (no cap)]
5 Pat designed fresh method of matchmaking (5,6)
SPEED DATING – (PAT DESIGNED)*
6 Take advantage of bold deed (7)
EXPLOIT – Double definition

One for the noun, one for the verb.
7 Part of strange lore (4)
ROLE – (LORE)*
9 Painting that’s sea-blue? (11)
WATERCOLOUR – WATER (sea) + COLOUR (blue?)
12 Money just for soft wool (8)
CASHMERE – CASH (money) + MERE (just)
14 Extreme weather disturbed hot pony (7)
TYPHOON – (HOT PONY)*
16 Frozen dessert hardened around sphere (6)
SORBET – SET (hardened) around ORB (sphere)
18 Picture that is covering magazine (5)
IMAGE – IE (that is) covering MAG (magazine)
19 Long story captured by profile picture (4)
EPIC – Hidden in (captured by) profilE PICture

61 comments on “Quick Cryptic 2709 by Trelawney”

  1. I wasn’t sure what to make of 21ac, since for one thing I didn’t know what a fixture is, and I didn’t know what to make of the Three. But it had to be BIG GAME, so wotthehell. 5:41.

    1. Interesting. It hadn’t crossed my mind that “fixture” isn’t used across the ocean. Very common down here, but it’s a weird usage now that I think about it.

      1. ODE marks it ‘(Brit.)’. I think now I may possibly have come across it here once ages ago.

  2. 9:40. BIG GAME held me up longest because I had to get past BIG CAGE and BIG CATS first. When I finally thought of the sports sense of fixture the right answer appeared. ENDURE, MENSWEAR, and FLAPPING were favourites.

    1. See if you were running hills like me – you’d have gone straight to BIG-GAME !

      1. Yes, yes, I agree I should be running hills but reading in easy chair instead is hard to resist!

  3. Just under 7 minutes, and as that suggests, I found this very approachable. No holdups or queries, other than the mildest of initial question marks over medicine = cure in ENDURE. But if the cure for say a hangover is paracetamol, then it works.

    Thank you Galspray for the blog
    Cedric

  4. I too puzzled over “three” in BIG GAME but I just put it in with a MER since it couldn’t really be anything else. LOI was ENDURE, I think because I never read the clue until the end.

  5. Typical offering from the squire – gentle but high quality.
    After a slightly slow start I motored through this one starting with ALLOWED and finishing with MENSWEAR in 4.59.
    I agree that BIG GAME would be better without the ‘three’ but I wonder if Trelawney was trying to either make it more QC level or tying it in with the Euros.
    Thanks to Galspray

  6. I love a Trelawney QC. They are approachable, without obscure words, and they make me feel like I know what I’m doing…occasionally.

          1. Ha ha! Yes “totes” is what I was looking for.

            I happen to be going to a 30th tonight (look at me). Will research “dank” and see if I can get it into a conversation.

            1. Hits different! Glad you both got stuck in on John’s excellent blog. Marmite! What fun!

  7. Well, a personal best of 14.14. Thank you Squire!

    Lots to like, some lovely surfaces and hard to pick a COD but probably photo finish gets it. LOI endure took some seeing.

    We thought three lions was a reference to the Euros footie.

    Thanks Galspray.

    1. Yes, “three lions” is pretty topical with the Euros and the T20 WC under way.

  8. A finish in c.30 mins which is around my PB so very pleased with this morning’s workout. Favourite was EXPEL, my FOI – working that out without any crosses is progress😁😁

  9. Pretty much a single pass through across and down, delayed only by making sure of the parsing. An interrupted c 14 mins which is good for me at present. Three Lions assumed to be a sporting reference to the England team that helped with the clueing, but would have worked without Three.

    Thanks to setter and blogger. Most enjoyable on both counts.

  10. The England football shirt badge features three lions, so Trelawney was attempting to be topical during the Euro 2024 tournament, at which they’re currently doing diddly squat for national pride (another lion reference – you can thank me later). I was sent a meme yesterday in which the lions had been replaced by donkeys, and it was sadly apposite. It was my LOI as I was thinking “cats” like others here.

    My speedy finish comes with the relief of finding that the 20 tortuous minutes I spent on the “yoof” puzzle hadn’t totally fried my brain. I won’t be going there again……

    FOI ALLOWED
    LOI BIG GAME
    COD SPEED DATING
    TIME 3:18

    1. Thanks for the gen re the new puzzle type. I will pride myself on never looking at one!

    2. Is this a new puzzle following the article on Gen Z’s being excluded from crosswords that was in The Times yesterday?

      1. Available in the online edition as “Sign of the Times cryptic #1”. John has put up a blog entry

    3. I genuinely enjoyed the new puzzle. My sweet spot for cultural knowledge is probably the 70s-90s (I’m in my mid-fifties). The new puzzle forced me to research more recent information, just as the regular puzzles push me back to usages of the Victorian age 😁

  11. New record! 26 minutes and 44 seconds. LOI was endure and we biffed in flapping without being able to parse it. Really enjoyable – thanks Trelawney!

  12. A bit dim this morning as DNF ENDURE. Should have been more patient. Does Cure=medicine though? Also a FETE is a great deal more than a garden party in our village!
    Otherwise did not parse FLAPPING or SORBET and slow on MENSWEAR (good clue tho). No problem BIG GAME.
    Also liked PHOTO FINISH, PIRATE RADIO, SPEED DATING, WATERCOLOUR, EXPEL.
    Thanks vm, Galspray.

  13. Less than 10 minutes. I found it a struggle to get going but went in bit by bit. England are commonly referred to as the three lions in the press referencing the badge on the shirt

  14. 9 mins…

    Probably my quickest ever Saturday QC since it began. Thought Trelawney was in a generous mood, and this ended up being a massive biff fest to be honest. Whilst “three lions” could be attributed to a number of English sporting teams, its usage has been pretty much embedded to refer to the English Men’s Football team. It may have been unnecessary for the clue, but did add some topical surface.

    FOI – 1ac “Fast”
    LOI – 4dn “Endure”
    COD – 7dn “Role” – simple and neat.

    Thanks as usual!

  15. 9 minutes. I was on target for quicker but I slowed in the NE quarter with the end post in sight.

  16. Much quicker than usual. Only half a cup of coffee needed today. Thanks Trelawney and galspray. Find myself reluctant to try the new crossword…which of course means I should definitely give it a go 😄 Thanks all

  17. 9:56 – thank-you Trelawney. Ninth sub-10 since start of April – four of them attributable to him!

    I notice he was in generous mood with the clues for PROMO and IMAGE containing moment and magazine. Other setters would have used “little time” and “publication” or some such.

    Still it wasn’t a write-in – my first runthrough the Acrosses only netted MANTRA, PROMO, CONCRETE and FETE. The NE held out to the end with MENSWEAR (LOI).

    Today’s quick time redeemed my week after three 27min solves, a 17 and a corrected DNF on the 12min Izetti. Two hours plus a few seconds for the week. Have a good weekend everybody! 👍

    Edit: QCpr coming in at 34:24. If I had gone to Basingstoke as planned to meet a friend, I’d have hopefully knocked out a sub-22 pr. But we didn’t so after an hour steady run yesterday, today was a recovery run with 5K time taken from Strava’s stats.

    2. I assume (hope!) that you’re considerably younger than me if you’re covering 5k in less than 22 minutes. Impressive running in any case.

      I cling to the hope of getting a sub-30 QCPR before I become too decrepit. But even with a PB on the solve I’d need to wind back the clock a couple of years on the run, so I’m probably dreaming.

      1. Thank-you, I’m 53 this year and was running close to 20mins last year. Hopefully I’ll be back there later this year.

        Bit of interval training to improve speed never goes amiss – especially as you get older.

  19. There seem to be a few new PBs today, including for me! 8:09, and would have been under 8 if I hadn’t convinced myself that I was looking for a curse in 3a.

    Thank you to Trelawney for the puzzle and to galspray for the blog!

  20. 11:14

    I was all done in about 4.5 mins but good time scotched by having return for 13 across which made last 2 in hard: flapping/fast.

    Anyway enjoyable.
    COD ROLE

  22. 14:31, fast for me. It would have been a DNF if I hadn’t been attentive to my support staff aka inner voice miraculously dredging out the information that “fixture” has something to do with sports in Britain. LOI with a prayer was thus BIG GAME, ignoring the issue of where “three” came from. Also DNK FETE and fate were homophones in standard English.

    Lots of fun doing this one, a nice brain massage. Off to try out the trendy one, gulp.

    Thanks to Trelawney and galspray!

  23. 6:36 (death of King Ecgric of East Anglia)

    A very gentle crossword. Thanks Trelawney and Galspray

  24. “Three Lions” in a clue –
    Nicely done Trelawney;
    Wasn’t hard to do
    Nothing really thorny.

    It took me five
    It took me five
    It took me five (and thirty two)

  25. Trelawney at his most forgiving. I settled down for a good long solve but tootled through, with parsing, and discovered I had only reached the steps to the SCC. Have to go somewhere else for my coffee today…
    FOI 1d Flapping
    LOI 4d Endure
    COD 11a Pirate Radio.

  26. Pretty straightforward today with only MENSWEAR holding me up a little. I see that our blogger has put PART designed instead of PAT in the explanation for 5d.

  27. I whizzed along for the first half, wondering if I might get a clean sweep (solving in quadrants) but I never get my hopes up, and was right not to be too optimistic 😅 But I think it was quite easy and finished in 5:22.
    FOI Fast LOI and COD Photo finish
    Thanks Trelawney and Galspray.

    I started the one-off puzzle – out of my depth with a lot of it. But if it enables post-boomers to enjoy the joys of crosswords, then I’m all for it. I just won’t bother to try if another one appears 😅
    TBH, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard either of my millennial offspring use much of the slang. They would undoubtedly get a good amount of the references though. The phrase they both use a lot is ‘reach out’ which I dislike, but try to ignore!
    I’m off to a 60th shortly – I suspect there won’t be too much of that young person’s slang / argot / patois there 😉

  28. Enjoyed today’s puzzle especially the BIG GAME clue with topical reference. Tried the new sign of the times puzzle but not my cup of tea. Hopefully it will encourage those it’s aimed at.

  29. 7:42
    MENSWEAR was the SOI (slowest one in), after CASHMERE I wasn’t expecting more John Lewis-adjacent references. I will be intrigued to find out tomorrow how galspray works ‘dank’ into a natural sounding conversation, and moreover what the surrounding youths make of it.

    1. They couldn’t hear me over the music so they just sat me in the corner with a rug over my knees and a cup of cocoa.

  30. 6:00! Pretty sure that is my second fastest time ever, which I’m really happy with. Now to figure out what to do with all this extra time…

    Thanks to Trelawney and Galspray.

  31. 6.25 Very late to this but it flew in. FAST and FLAPPING were the last two. Thanks galspray and Trelawney.

  32. 5:32

    Late to the party with this one, having been down in London – lots of driving to get there and back, so little time for crosswords. Only real hold up for me was puzzling out MENSWEAR from three checkers before bunging in EXPLOIT as my LOI. Liked SPEED DATING.

    Thanks Trelawney and Galspray

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