Nice middling Quickie from Shay today, and a chance for me to bang on again about a familiar theme. I’m talking about the most obvious but overlooked tip in solving cryptic crosswords – “look for the definition”.
Cryptic clues are designed to mislead and redirect, but remember…the definition is right in front of you. Either at the start or the end of the clue, almost every time.
-
- 21 of the 26 clues had a one-word definition. 14 at the start of the clue, 7 at the end.
- Three clues started with two-word definitions, “furry animals”, “language variant” and “spread out”.
- The other two were three-word definitions, one at the start, one at the end.
In other words this could have been set as a Concise Crossword using just 33 words in the clues, and it would have been a walk in the park. All you had to do was work out whether to look at the start or the end of each clue.
Simple, right? Well not always, but worth keeping in mind when you’re stuck.
Enough with the tutorial, on with the parsing, then most importantly the comments. Please let us know how you went.
(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 | Expelled unwelcome journalist from the east (8) |
| DEPORTED – [DE TROP (unwelcome) + ED (journalist)] all reversed (from the east)
de trop is French for “too much, excessive, superfluous” |
|
| 6 | Runs away from rough cobblers (4) |
| GUFF – R (runs) “away from” G |
|
| 8 | Talk and tango after tea (4) |
| CHAT – T (tango) after CHA (tea) | |
| 9 | Report on China’s retracted immediately (4-4) |
| SLAP-BANG – BANG (report) on SLAP [PALS (china’s) reversed (retracted)]
This expression can be used in either a spatial or a temporal sense, ie “at an exact place” OR “at an exact time”. |
|
| 10 | Assess judge’s conclusion, wrongly at times (8) |
| ESTIMATE – E (judgE‘s conclusion) + (AT TIMES)* | |
| 12 | Fury of kid, butt of joke (4) |
| RAGE – RAG (kid) + E (“butt” of jokE) | |
| 13 | Furry animals cosy up happily (6) |
| COYPUS – (COSY UP)* | |
| 16 | Reportedly restrict wages and capital in Asia (6) |
| TAIPEI – Homophone (reportedly) of TIE (restrict) + PAY (wages)
Capital of Taiwan |
|
| 17 | Quiet monarch united country (4) |
| PERU – P (quiet) + ER (monarch) + U (united) | |
| 18 | Leninist organised wiretap (6,2) |
| LISTEN IN – (LENINIST)* | |
| 21 | Stellar leader is failing (8) |
| SIDEREAL – (LEADER IS)* | |
| 22 | Yank, falling back, welcomes second wind (4) |
| GUST – GUT [TUG (yank) reversed (falling back)] “welcomes” S (second) | |
| 23 | Outlet in Coventry (4) |
| VENT – Hidden in coVENTry | |
| 24 | Secretly meeting partner in tax fraud (8) |
| TRYSTING – TRY (tax) + STING (fraud) | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 2 | Character of those finally getting to the top (5) |
| ETHOS – THOSE with the last letter moved to the start (finally getting to the top) | |
| 3 | Reveal old case of unrest (3) |
| OUT – O (old) + UT [outer latters (case) of UnresT]
Out as a verb. |
|
| 4 | Inventor of some revolutionary false teeth (5) |
| TESLA – Reverse hidden (“of some” revolutionary) in fALSE Teeth | |
| 5 | Language variant in citadel abroad (7) |
| DIALECT – (CITADEL)* | |
| 6 | Material being read in a different way (9) |
| GABERDINE – (BEING READ)* | |
| 7 | Last act includes good trick (7) |
| FINAGLE – FINALE (last act) includes G (good) | |
| 11 | Reckless rascal with risqué books (9) |
| IMPRUDENT – IMP (rascal) + RUDE (risqué) + NT [books (New Testament)] | |
| 14 | Former head of Eton promptly packs (3-4) |
| ONE-TIME – ON-TIME (promptly) “packs” E (head of Eton) | |
| 15 | Prominent foreigner in street (7) |
| SALIENT – ALIEN (foreigner) in ST (street) | |
| 19 | Spread out for example around place (5) |
| SPLAY – SAY (for example) “around” PL (place) | |
| 20 | Digestive problem starts to enervate neurotic playwright (5) |
| IBSEN – IBS (digestive problem) + EN [first letters of (starts to) Enervate Neurotic]
Irritable Bowel Syndrome, since you asked. |
|
| 22 | Receive guests regularly (3) |
| GET – Alternate letters (regularly) of GuEsTs |
|
Didn’t find this easy at all, probably because I was fixated on the start of day two in Perth. Managed it though but thought there were some tricky answers, TRYSTING, SIDEREAL, GUFF, together with some unusual answers like ‘ONE TIME’ for ‘former’ and ‘SLAP BANG’ for immediately. But, followed the instructions and came up trumps in the end. COD to TRYSTING.
Thanks Galspray and hope you’re enjoying the game, 19 wickets in one day. Unbelievable!
Two very entertaining days and I can catch up on my chores tomorrow!
Can someone explain how china becomes pal please? I biffed the answer but still don’t understnd it….
Hello Penny, me ol’ china.
I believe ‘china’ is Cockney rhyming slang for friend/mate/pal.
China plate / mate.
The rhyme is often lost when the slang phrase is shortened to a single word.
Cockney rhyming slang china plate = mate = pal. Think the apostrophe was misleading
7:19 WOE
I bunged in SLAM-BANG half-consciously wondering how SLAM worked; I know ‘slam-bang’, dnk ‘slap-bang’. Oddly enough, ODE has slam but not slap. Serves me right for biffing. At least I checked the anagrist before putting in gabArdine, which is how I’d spell it.
I was not so prudent
Nor me…
18 minutes of which I could have saved about 4 if I’d remembered to solve online in the Club which has a Pause button. I also lost time by originally writing TAIPAI at 16ac as I simply didn’t know the correct spelling. That led to problems coming up with FINAGLE which would have been hard enough anyway.
No problems with 6dn as GABERDINE raincoats were standard issue for many schoolchildren at one time. I grew out of a couple of them in the 1950s.
From ETHOS to SIDEREAL in 8:25. Just worked my way through steadily. Held up a while in the NE corner. Thanks Shay and Galspray.
Not sure I would call this a middling puzzle I thought it was by far the hardest of the week. Be very interested to see if it was just me or others found it so. I gave up after 20 minutes with no more than 50% done
Definitely the hardest of the week for me, at least five words that are not in my vocabulary, but then I was (am?) a scientist not a scholar.
Yep harderst of the week, found this very tough. DNK all of the following:
DE TROP
TRYSTING as a verb
COYPUS
GABERDINE
MER at SLAP BANG = immediately…
MER at China > Mate > PAL. Bit like saying team = “China cooked”
DNF @ 25 mins with DEPORTING AND SLAP BANG unsolved
Still found this far more enjoyable than mondays/tuesdays which didnt offer enough of a challenge for my taste
Hardest of the week for me too. I find myself at odds with our bloggers these days – easier ones are tagged tough sometimes.
Dnf…
Got everything in 22 mins, but for some reason thought “Taipen” was the capital of Taiwan. Should have trusted my instincts that the latter part didn’t parse and had another go.
Personally, I thought the rest was tricky in places.
FOI – 8ac “Chat”
LOI – 16ac “Taipen” (incorrect)
COD – 12ac “Rage”
Thanks as usual!
I found most of this straightforward but SLAP-BANG needed the checkers. And I was massively stuck at the COYPUS/ONE-TIME intersection, mainly because I would never in a million years have thought “happily” was an anagram indicator.
Pi ❤️
12:21 for a satisfying solve, as I often find Shay quite challenging. But as Galspray says, the definitions were well signposted here – which I needed for DEPORTED, as I biffed the answer but never parsed it.
Like Kevin I needed to check the anagram letters very carefully for GABERDINE – I too would usually spell it with a second A. But a quick internet search gives “Both spellings, gabardine and gaberdine, are correct but ‘gabardine’ is more common today for the fabric, while ‘gaberdine’ is the older spelling and usually refers to a long, loose garment”. Given that Shay has pointedly referred to a fabric/material not a garment, I think this qualifies as “not actually wrong but definitely sneaky”.
Many thanks Galspray for the blog and a good weekend to all.
Ahhhh. Thank you Cedric. I did wonder why I had been so confident that it was GABARDINE, I don’t think I’ve ever seen the alternative.
search Gaberdine Mac
play song by Freddie and the Dreamers
thank me later…
I found this hard. Nearly 20 minutes (although distracted by the disaster unfolding in Perth). Couldn’t parse deported, although I think I’ve seen DE TROP before. Dredged GABARDINE up form somewhere, but didn’t realise the alternative spelling.
Took ages to spot COYPUS and then LOI ONE-TIME. I’m not sure I’m happy about happily (sorry) as an anagrind, not recognising it as such was what held me up for so long. That is my logical / analytical / pedantic mind holding me back again.
18:31 for the solve. Thought that was a struggle – not because of the clueing but the choice of words – SIDEREAL, GUFF, SLAP-BANG, GABERDINE, TRYSTING, FINAGLE. All valid and nothing unheard of just not first choice words. Didn’t know “de trop” so DEPORTED went in with fingers crossed. I liked IMPRUDENT.
Thanks to Galspray and Shay – off to run mile repeats in lieu of parkrun on a wet morning.
PS Incidental to Galspray’s “look for the definition” – yesterday’s Guardian cryptic had the Special instructions “Eleven clues consist of wordplay only, their entries defined by the puzzle itself.” Damned impossible for someone of my ability – given that’s over a third of the clues without a definition to help out and you don’t know which ones do or don’t. And if you can’t get many answers, you can’t spot the theme which you probably need for wordplay clues!
That sounds very tough! In the same vein I always enjoy the Listener crossword. I haven’t a chance of ever completing even one clue, but just reading the instructions is most entertaining. I think one of my favourites was when the instructions started “There are two clues for each answer; they lead to two complete but distinct solutions using the same grid. Solvers must choose which of the two answers to enter for each clue”. Given that there were about 25 clues in that puzzle, and the required answer to each one could be either A or B, that is something like 2^25 possible combinations, which is well over 30 million! And you cannot use the checkers from one clue to solve the next, because you might have chosen the wrong answer.
I seem to recall someone, perhaps yourself, pointing it out – perhaps a Christmas or two ago as I’m sure it sounds familiar. Sounds like a good challenge if you have the crossword skills but anything above QC would be too much for me.
Anyway if you, or anyone else, would like to look at The Guardian puzzle it’s available with free access over at … https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/29858
A nightmare of a puzzle! NHO Sidereal – how do you pronounce that?! De Trop – never saw that coming. Agree re ‘ happily ‘ indicated an anagram – whaaat?! PALS = china’s …. cockney slang – me old mate me old china?! Threw in the towel after a long 25 mins – thank god for Galspray’s explanation! Off to walk the dogs with wellies on – me -not them!
China plate mate big jump to pals
Plates a meat – feet
Dog’s meat – feet – as in my dogs hurt
Don’t ask me about my trouble and strife…
I thought that was a proper toughie, so our blogger’s jaunty “nice middling” caused coffee to meet keyboard. I struggled through in just under eleven minutes only to be met by a DPS for my GABARDINE. I know it was an anagram but that’s the only way I’ve ever seen it spelt!
I have never seen “happily” as an anagram indicator and hope never to see it again; I can’t make it make any sense. Help me someone. Other hold ups included TAIPEI (non-Scottish geography always Kryptonite for me), SIDEREAL (edges of vocabulary) and DEPORTED. Shay the Merciless living up to his lofty position in Hardest Setters Table.
Anyway, good to be stretched and I enjoyed the struggle. Many thanks Shay and gallers.
I didn’t much like “happily” for an anagrind. We occasionally see “high” as one, in the sense of being drunk or “high as a kite”, so if I squint I can see an association.
I hope it wasn’t a laptop. I killed a laptop with coffee in the keyboard. I was told it conducts when it dries up. Never tried to test that. I was told if I did it again turn it off and rinse it with water (!) I never tried that either.
In the early days of having a PC at work, I spilled coffee into the keyboard. About half an hour later it started typing for itself – which probably confirms that it needs to dry up.
I called the Help Desk and claimed innocence, the man from Desktop wandered down, turned the keyboard over and unscrewed the cover; then he spent another 5-10mins unscrewing another 30 miniscrews which were keeping the actual tray keys firmly in place. In the meantime I continued to proclaim innocence as to how this mysterious self-typing had occurred. And then he turned over the unscrewed layout to reveal big globs of coffee all over it! “It looks like someone has spilled coffee in it …” he said … “I wonder who did that” I said …
Definitely one of the trickier puzzles today. Agree that ‘happily’ is a strange anagram indicator. Not seen GABERDINE with a middle E before, but as an anagram it had to be. SIDEREAL and FINAGLE both in the recesses of my brain, but not sure I knew the exact meanings. COD DEPORTED. Thanks Galspray and Shay.
Pleased with 8.40 only to find I, too, had fallen foul of GABERDINE/GABARDINE. SLAP BANG horribly appropriate for the cricket this morning
Tough. I always fail to get on Shay’s wavelength and he usually sends me into the SCC. I think I was intimidated by an early Shay QC that had a SNITCH rating of 170+ and have never really recovered.
I was relieved to see the first three posts above; like Kevin, I entered SLAM BANG and, like Templar, I failed to check the anagrist for GABERDINE, having always seen the word in my head as GABARDINE. Thanks to Cedric for confirming that it can be spelled either way.
In the end, I just tripped into the SCC but, at least, I biffed GUFF, DEPORTED, and TRYSTING correctly (I didn’t connect TRY and TAX at the time).
Luckily, I knew how to spell TAIPEI having been there for a conference many years ago.
A good workout; thanks to Shay and Galspray (but I join Templar in my reaction to ‘nice middling’. I mean, really!?). I will remain very wary when I see this setter’s name on a QC.
Very difficult but enjoyable as it was all medium slow rather than lots of easy and 2 or 3 nearly impossible which are the ones that I dont like. I get the “look at the definitions” bit, but I think Guff, Sidereal (Sigh – dee – re – al), Slap-bang, Trysting, Tesla and Finagle would have taken an eternity to get from definition only, even if you guessed the right end and one, two or three words (sometimes more). We also quite often get words that some of the bloggers (inc me) have never heard of which are ok because you can get them from reasonably straight forward wordplay.
Days are timing from the rotation of the earth, years from its rotation round the sun, and sidereal time is from the solar system’s movement with respect to the stars – definitely one for Patrick Moore wannabes only (me!). Thanks to Shay and galspray.
Like jackkt, I stuffed myself by misspelling Taipei with a second ‘a’, which left me with a mombled ‘fincagla’. I found the puzzle a bit tough for a Quick, but a good workout.
Very difficult. DNF, with bad guesses like Redacted instead of DEPORTED, Act instead of OUT. Needed CCD for GUFF, guessed NHO FINAGLE. Guessed Ethereal, NHO SIDEREAL. Missed COYPUS and ONE TIME due to 21a errors.
Liked TAIPEI, TRYSTING, but ….not enjoyable, I thought.
Thanks for blog, Galspray. I do always look for the definition, but, let’s face it, the definition can be an obscure word like SIDEREAL.
Well, we found this hard. Good old fashioned ‘hard’.
NHO SLAP-BANG other than in reference to place (‘S-B in the middle’)
NHO COYPUS, FINAGLE
Can get by in French, nevertheless, DE TROP did not spring to mind as a synonym for ‘unwelcome’.
Likewise – the leap from China’s > mates > pals was, for us, a veritable Olympian ‘hop, step, and jump’.
SIDEREAL whilst known, is not in common use around here nor is GUFF! Though talk of this being middling could be deemed the latter in our small world.
A good work out with a different flavour – one we feel best tasted in moderation.
Thank you SHAY and GALSPRAY
12:55, with SLAP BANG my last one in. Only familiar with its usage in phrases such as “the house was slap bang in the middle of the town…” so did not equate it with “immediately”.
I have vague memories of the Two Ronnies singing a song that contained the lyrics
“Aberdeen has lovely houses,
Gaberdine makes lovely trousers.”
Thanks Galspray and Shay
🙂
Very hard indeed, taking 34:03 to struggle home. SIDEREAL a pure guess, top LH corner the last bit to biff. By far the most difficult QC for ages.
I managed five in 20 minutes. Those didn’t give me any crossers that I could work with.
A tough one as others have said. I was pleased with the clues I managed to solve such as Trysting and Sidereal but was defeated by DEPORTED, GUFF, FINAGLE (is that really a word?) and SLAP BANG.
Enjoyable all the same and good practice for future puzzles.
Thanks Galspay for the helpful reminder about looking for the definition.
6.45 but neither can I spell GAB…
This felt tough with words/synonyms straying into main fare territory but nothing unheard of for me (including – phew – SIDEREAL). So I liked it.
Thanks Gallers and Shay.
Couple of words only vaguely remembered – SIDEREAL and FINAGLE. But I thought I had this sewn up, only to find an unusual spelling of the material, which I was quite confident about, so didn’t check the anagrist, led to my downfall, since the A/E wasn’t a crosser. Apart from that annoyance, I thoroughly enjoyed this, with Shay producing his usual high-standard clues. TAIPEI had me worrying about unfamiliar Asian currency until the T and I gave me ‘tie pay’. No problem with ‘happily’ as an anagram indicator, given that almost anything can be an anagram indicator!
Our blogger’s “simple” advice is fine if you know that SIDEREAL, FINAGLE, TRYSTING, DE TROP and IMPRUDE are real words. Trouble is I didn’t and the absence of checkers from those words caused me no end of problems with several of the adjoining clues. Outcome (after ~55 minutes!): DNF with 7 clues unsolved.
Very far from a QC in my view.
Many thanks for the blog.
IMPRUDE isn’t a word, but IMP and RUDE both are.
As feared, a DNF for this ‘middling’ (🙄) effort from Shay – I hope we are spared a hard one.
Having slowly worked my way through, I fell at the last fence (Taipei), probably from exhaustion, as I was aware of the capital but couldn’t bring it to mind and was fixated on -bet/bhat for the final syllable.
I thought the parsing pick (of a very mixed bunch) was Slap Bang. Invariant
16 mins. Middling except for several potential sticking points. For me it was SLAP BANG which to me means “precisely” so was unable to spot the definition. For 5 mins.
I knew SIDEREAL being a sciencey type but it could be considered obscure and clued as an anagram makes it guesswork. And Happily as an anagrind?
Clue for clue the 15×15 was probably quicker. Have a go if you don’t normally. Thanks to galspray and Shay.
11.19 DNF with a careless GABARDINE. I don’t suppose that’s the last time I’ll be caught out by an anagram of a variant spelling. I thought the rest of the puzzle was quite tough. SLAP BANG, SIDEREAL, FINAGLE and GUFF all slowed me down. Thanks galspray and Shay.
DNF. When OH advised with three remaining that happily was an anagrind, that unlocked 13 across and 14 down, but I was left pointlessly recycling letters for Sidereal and no option stood out. Was probably helped by having just bought a length of gaberdine fabric though.
FOI chat
LOI DNF
COD trysting
Thanks Shay and Galspray
18:36 but GABARDINE dang it.
I biffed then parsed DEPORTED, my COD. But in fact this is a stellar puzzle. I’m amazed at the high standard of smooth, misleading surfaces that after all are solvable by the likes of me. Loved TRYSTING too; I suppose I have two CsOD. FOI CHAT, LOI ONE-TIME.
Thanks Shay and galspray. An excellent solving tutorial, though I don’t feel, as a not-seasoned solver, that COYPUS would show up along my walk in the park.
Tough. Fell asleep in the middle but then DNF so what would have been a slow time didn’t matter.
DNK SIDEREAL. Beaten by DEPORTED.
Well I like to pushed occasionally and this certainly did that. No complaints.
Off to find a dictionary to learn about this stellar thingy.
Several tricky clues, finally ending in DNF. The one that really caught me out was 6A, where I came up with DAFT for a 4-letter word related to nonsense, which could be obtained by removing R from DRAFT, as in a draft/rough outline. Given that 6 down was a (for me) obscure anagram containing D, this seemed fairly incontrovertible, until I finally came to the unknown “material” for what I thought was my last one in. Resorted to aids to discover the solution was GABERDINE. So much for my confidence in DAFT 🙁
I found this tough- middling well into the SCC – but fortunately I checked the anagrist of GABERDINE so no DPS. I was surprised by the spelling so I googled it. According to ‘The Content Authority’ it is a common mistake to interchange gaberdine and gabardine and they are not alternative spellings but two different fabrics.
https://thecontentauthority.com/blog/gaberdine-vs-gabardine
17:06, which means I found this on the hard side. I was reduced to the “enter the letters and then move them around” technique for GABERDINE, which meant I didn’t give any thought to the spelling, where I would definitely have used two As. I only know the word from Simon & Garfunkel, “She said the man in the gabardine suit was a spy.”
Thanks to Shay and Galspray.
We avoided the SCC – just! 19:46 so definitely at the harder end for us and we didn’t parse either DEPORTED or SLAP-BANG. Fortunately the GABARDINE spelling is not one I am familiar with. Thanks, all.
A very slow plod to the finish line, but much enjoyed. DNK SIDEREAL but sounded like a real word. COYPUS took a while to parse (happily?) and slow to see DEPORTED and TESLA. Liked GUFF, just because it’s such a fantastically descriptive word, but COD goes to TAIPEI. Many thanks Shay and galspray (very useful solving tip – should stop me getting so bogged down in the wordplay…).
Not so easy for me! One of the slower solves this week, and another day when the 15×15 was only a bit over double the quickie.
I had the GK and the vocab, but de trop, TRYSTING, FINAGLE and SIDEREAL in a quickie? And happily as an anagrind? A bit much, I thought.
Having said that, I thought it was quite a fun puzzle, and I got on a lot better with Shay today than in the past. So not a bad way to spend a very soggy day, doing puzzles while dog sitting 😊
12:23 FOI Chat LOI Ethos COD Imprudent
Thanks Shay and Galspray
The brief moment of joy I experienced after completing the 15 x 15 today (well over an hour, so hardly a great accomplishment) was quickly snuffed out by this. I had my usual Saturday nightmare.
No sense of enjoyment or achievement whatsoever ☹️. Why do I persist with the delusion that I will ever be competitive here?
You know why Gary. It’s so that you can entertain us with your uplifting comments!
Well done on the 15×15 BTW.
👍
28:39, which is about double my average, so well done to those of you who romped through it. Regarding “happily”, I used to joke that literally any word could be an anagram indicator, but now I’m starting to think that perhaps I should take it a bit more seriously.
Thank you for the blog!
SLAP-BANG is the worst clue I’ve seen for a long time. One can say “he called me slap-bang in the middle of dinner” but I can’t see the temporal sense of “immediate” at all.
Collins has “directly or immediately” as its second definition of SLAP-BANG.
Other sources have similar.