A rare 6 minute solve for me, including parsing. How did you all do?
As usual definitions are underlined in bold italics, {deletions and substitutions are in curly brackets} and [anagrinds, containment, reversal and other indicators in square ones]. “Aural wordplay” is in quotation marks. I now use a Caret sign ⁁ to indicate an insertion point in containment clues. I usually omit all reference to juxtaposition indicators unless there is a specific point that requires clarification.
 Across |
|
|---|---|
| 1 | Follow some milk carts heading west (5) |
| TRACK – Hidden [some] and reversed [heading west] in {mil}K CART{s} | |
| 7 | One page is fabricated — work of the CIA? (9) |
| ESPIONAGE – Anagram [fabricated] of ONE PAGE IS | |
| 9 | Call up the day before to secure permission (5) |
| EVOKE – EV⁁E (the day before) containing [to secure] OK (permission) | |
| 10 | American entertained by Greek character’s sexy dance (7) |
| LAMBADA – A (American) contained [entertained] by LAMB⁁DA (Greek character) | |
| 11 | Weapon I initially dumped in river (7) |
| TRIDENT – I + D{umped} [initially] contained by [in] TR⁁ENT (river – third longest in the UK) | |
| 12 | Cover up cuts in case of escape (7) |
| ECLIPSE – CLIPS (cuts) contained by [in] E{scap}⁁E [case of…] | |
| 15 | Quietly totting up unnecessary words (7) |
| PADDING – P (quietly), ADDING (totting up) | |
| 18 | Old flame sat out in the open (7) |
| EXPOSED – EX (old flame), POSED (sat) | |
| 20 | Clumsily I arm a US soldier (7) |
| SAMURAI – Anagram [clumsily] of I ARM A US | |
| 22 | An argument about right indicator? (5) |
| ARROW – A (an) ⁁ ROW (argument) containing [about] R (right) | |
| 23 | DIs go in to arrest second nonconformist (9) |
| DISSENTER – DIS ⁁ ENTER (go in) containing [to arrest] S (second). DIs = Detective Inspectors. | |
| 24 | Run-down spot, extremely dodgy (5) |
| SEEDY – SEE (spot), D{odg}Y [extremely] | |
| Down |
|
|---|---|
| 1 | Article on Financial Times robbery (5) |
| THEFT – THE (definite article), FT (Financial Times) | |
| 2 | Struggled in San Diego after surgery (8) |
| AGONISED – Anagram [after surgery] of SAN DIEGO | |
| 3 | Cricketer, one you don’t want to lose? (6) |
| KEEPER – Two meanings. Wicket keeper / a person or thing that is valuable and to be cherished [ODE] | |
| 4 | Field marshal married in capital at end of April (6) |
| ROMMEL – M (married) contained by [in] RO⁁ME (capital), {Apri}L [end of…l | |
| 5 | Cautions against keeping account of heroic deeds (4) |
| SAGA – Hidden in [keeping] {caution}S AGA{inst} | |
| 6 | Very happy after bishop delayed (7) |
| BELATED – B (bishop), ELATED (very happy) | |
| 8 | Noisy presence troubled priest let go (11) |
| POLTERGEIST – Anagram [troubled] of PRIEST LET GO | |
| 13 | Keep substitute under pressure (8) |
| PRESERVE – P (pressure), RESERVE (substitute) | |
| 14 | Mostly impressive poem about singular experience (7) |
| EPISODE – EPI{c} (impressive) [mostly] ⁁ ODE (poem) containing [about] S (singular) | |
| 16 | Republic is against return of old king (6) |
| ISRAEL – IS, then LEAR (old king) reversed [return of…] | |
| 17 | Ship carrying fruit for Britney? (6) |
| SPEARS – S⁁S (ship) containing [carrying] PEAR (fruit). An American singer, apparently. | |
| 19 | Ready for marriage? (5) |
| DOWRY – Cryptic with reference to money brought by a bride to her husband on their marriage | |
| 21 | Reportedly failed to notice fog (4) |
| MIST – Aural wordplay [reportedly]: “missed” (failed to notice) | |
6.16, and to be honest I thought I was going to be quicker than that because most answers went in with minimal hesitation. There was a bit of delay over EPISODE which needed crossers, and at LAMBADA I confused myself by looking for a dance with US in it. Apparently the OMEGUSA hasn’t taken off internationally just yet. Thanks Jack and Pipsqueak.
Apart from TRIDENT all the acrosses went in on a first read, 2:35. I wonder if Ms. Spears knows she has made her way into a Times Quick Crossword?
5:39
Straightforward, although EPISODE needed the checkers. Didn’t know, or forgot, that Rommel was a field marshal.
I did pretty well, but I needed some checkers to see poltergeist, didn’t see the chestnut trident immediately, and wasted nearly a minute staring at the crossing letters for Israel.
Time: 7:53
15:55. You speedsters! I struggled to see Rommel episode eclipse Lambada.
Ta JAP
After a busy weekend, this probably took longer than it should have, but all done in 16.12. Like others episode was LOI and thanks Jack for parsing of saga, d’oh!
Thanks pipsqueak
10:26, of which about two minutes on my LOI ROMMEL. The only other significant delay was SAMURAI – it didn’t look promising when I only had the final I checker. But otherwise a very pleasant and quite gentle start to the week.
Many thanks Jack for the blog.
16:10 – quite quick for me. Mainly straightening, but a couple needed some working out, especially LOI ROMMEL.
Fairly gentle but was held up by ECLIPSE, ROMMEL and EPISODE.
Finished in 6.37.
Thanks to Jack and Pipsqueak
20:07
LOI BELATED where I thought “bishop delayed” meant the B moved down the clue.
COD SPEARS
That’s the ticket! 16.45 for a rapid Monday start to the week without gnashing of teeth. AGONISED caused a momentary hesitation to consider whether DIAGNOSE or GONADS were involved but quickly dismissed. Liked cluing of ROMMEL and ISREAL. Old King heads straight to Lear these days without going to OK/ OR.
Thanks Pipsqueak and Jack
10:16
I mistyped ESPOINAGE, which caused me to wonder whether there were Field Marshalls called RIGMAL or LIMMAL, before eventually spotting my mistake.
EVOKE was my LOI.
Thanks Jack and Pipsqueak
Very friendly, thank you, Pipsqueak. NHO LAMBADA but Mrs M had. Liked LOI DOWRY. Thanks, Jack.
Yes I too saw SAGA in there – eventually.
5:13 – which feels over par for me on this puzzle. Still, no complaints. This was fun and full of nice cryptic definitions (favourite DOWRY).
A good puzzle with enough misdirection to take me to 16.90. I started slowly and needed a store of crossers to speed up a little. I would have been quicker but did not realised I had omitted SAGA and took a while to finally see the hidden (d’oh).
I especially liked ECLIPSE, SAMURAI and DOWRY.
Thanks to Pipsqueak and Jack.
8:29. Slow to get BELATED and for some reason ISRAEL and my initial thought for the ‘Field marshal’ was ROMMEL’s adversary, who clearly didn’t fit. Otherwise not too difficult, with even the cryptic def for DOWRY not putting up much resistance. Poor Britney SPEARS – all very sad.
Thanks to Pipsqueak and to our v. speedy blogger – well done.
Nice romp through. Actually a DNF, I saw Lear in 16d, but as I had put in Samuari for some reason I left it to come back to and then forgot. Thanks Pipsqueak and jackkt.
12 minutes for me, around my average. I was very slow to see LOI SAGA.
And I wanted my field marshal to be married in Oslo so ROMMEL was POI.
A good QC.
COD to EVOKE.
David
Very straightforward today, although rather inexplicably LOI PRESERVE held me up at the end. COD EPISODE, although I also liked ECLIPSE. Decidedly QC-ish (so everyone should be happy 😉). Thanks for the blog Jack.
4:54. I was a bit slow getting going, but speeded up once I got to the Downs. LOI and COD to EPISODE. Thanks Pipsqueak and Jackkt.
16:14 for us but spent a full 3 minutes trying to think of the Republic via the Old King (Harold, Offa,Idris??). I’m not a fan of words in the solution that are contained in the clue unchanged.
Otherwise a pleasant start to the week.
Thanks for the blog and to the setter
18:18
The LHS flew in but had a few problems on the right, struggling to parse ROMMEL, SAGA and LOI DOWRY which I only twigged after submission, oh, that sort of ready!
A relatively swift 8:02 with LOI EVOKE taking a little time to reveal itself. Liked both SAGA and DOWRY. Thanks, all.
15:53 and thought I was going to beat my 13 min record but held up by the crossing PRESERVED and EXPOSED. I biffed DOWRY without parsing and still do not understand it. Seems like a very odd cryptic without anything particularly cryptic about it. A dowry is the payment made by the bride’s family to the groom’s family to ensure her financial security whereas ‘ready for marriage’ must refer to the bride not the dowry. Odd.
The setter has clearly not visited the Samurai exhibition at the British Museum, otherwise would know that using ‘soldier’ for Samurai is a very poor definition indeed!
All the same, I enjoyed this puzzle very much so thanks to Pipsqueak for that.
Prof
I think ready = money, as in “a fair amount of the ready”, hence a sort of vaguely cryptic definition.
Indeed – any pure cryptic clue should have two ways of being read and if you jump straight to the answer then it doesn’t seem very cryptic.
5 letter answer without checkers – it could be BRIDE. She is ready for marriage.
But the required answer DOWRY – what is the ready (money being paid) for a marriage to go ahead
Slow on the acrosses to start with but then had better success with the downs which allowed me to polish everything off in a decent time of 15 minutes. Stopped for a while to wonder whether struggled really equated to agonised but decided it did. I also did not immediately see why 19dn should be dowry until the penny dropped.
FOI – 1ac TRACK
LOI – 9ac EVOKE
COD -19dn DOWRY
Thanks to Pipsqeak and Jack
A fairly straightforward Monday solve, but with a few needing some extra thought, including CoD Eclipse. I should probably have squeezed a sub-15, but time spent looking at the clue for 23ac and wondering how to get an answer that would fit in the space for 22ac didn’t help matters. Like others my loi was Episode, another CoD contender. Invariant
10:07, roughly par for my Mondays, held up by the NHO LAMBADA and EVOKE, which I stared at for a few minutes before parsing. Nice grid with some friendly smatterings of GK. Thanks setter and blogger. Thought 16d had a fantastic surface.
I was helped to a flying finish by getting all the Down clues on the first pass. MER at “soldier” for SAMURAI. It may be technically correct, but it doesn’t chime with me. I thought “DIs” could have been better expressed at 23A
FOI TRACK
LOI SAMURAI
COD DOWRY
TIME 2:40
From TRACK to ISRAEL in 7:10. Held up by ROMMEL, ECLIPSE, SAMURAI and ISRAEL. Thanks Pipsqueak and Jack.
I got off to a good start with TRACK and ESPIONAGE and made reasonable headway for a while before becoming bogged down with half a dozen or more clues to go.
EPISODE, ISRAEL and SAGA were my LOsI, but ROMMEL, DOWRY and a couple of others gave me trouble along the way.
34 minutes in the end, which is outside my target.
Thanks to Jack and Pipsqueak.
All but 5 solved in 20mins. An improvement on last week and a general trend upwards over the year. So something must be sinking in! My trivia knowledge or rather lack of it lets me down. However just about halfway through the quarterly Maths crossword that was published in the Times on Saturday. There’s no 5 minute wonders on those puzzles though. I’ve been doing them for 3 years now and they take at least three days to solve!
Careful, Ragman🙂. The GK in the QC is not usually trivial. Well, apart from Britney.
Dear CW1,
I agree re Britney, to some extent at least. However, one could also say the same about King Lear or anyone else invented by Bill S. Or even about the bard himself, as both he and Ms Spears was/is in the business of communicating fiction to the masses.
Er …. should I run for cover?
16 mins – with about a quarter of that spent on my LOI. Fortunaly had the two a’s in saga, so looked for the hidden without too much brow wrinking.
FOI Track
LOI Evoke
COD Dowry
Thanks Jack and Pipsqueak
10mins, held up by ISRAEL,
11 minutes
Just back from a funeral, so maybe not the best preparation for tackling a crossword. Nevertheless I thought it was pretty straightforward finishing in 6.35. I spent far too long on my LOI SAGA, where as usual I initially failed to spot the hidden.
I was slow to see KEEPER, ESPIONAGE, POLTERGEIST (needing most of the checkers) and LOI DOWRY.
7:01 Thanks Jack
8.02 Slow in the NW with KEEPER, AGONISED and EVOKE bringing up the rear. Thanks Jack and Pipsqueak.
11:55 so not exactly speedy, but good fun. On review I see a set of extremely smooth surfaces, special honors to ESPIONAGE.
Thanks Pipsqueak and Jack.
Pretty quick for me. I only failed to spot TRIDENT and ECLIPSE on the first pass, and had all the downs. It didn’t take long to get those last two when I went back. Was actually surprised it wasn’t quicker as it didn’t feel like I’d been held up at all (might have wasted a few seconds trying to make LEAVE work for 9 accross). I came in at 5:13, which is my joint 10th fastest all time solve.
Thanks Pip and Jack
12 mins…
Good start to the week with a sub-15 (which is my new daily aim). Nothing massively slowed me down, but I did wonder whether a Samurai was a solider, then decided I was mixing it up with a Shogun. After visiting the exhibition at the British Museum a few months back, I probably should have known.
FOI – 1dn “Theft”
LOI – 16dn “Israel”
COD – 12ac “Eclipse”
Thanks as usual!
Struggling to re-engage brain after a holiday with limited time for crosswords, not to mention variable internet connectivity. Friday was grim, Saturday sluggish but this was a very welcome offering. All done inside 10 minutes despite having to answer the door.
FOI TRACK
LOI ECLIPSE
COD DOWRY
Thanks both
7:02 TYTBAS
Very fast then stuck on LOI DOWRY – needed a hint for that sense of Ready.
Enjoyable puzzle. Not dead easy apart from the NW corner. Liked many inc EXPOSED, PADDING, EVOKE and ROMMEL.
Missed the hidden SAGA but it had to be.
Thanks vm, Jack.
15:52 here, pleading Monday-itis as the cause. EPISODE took forever to see, even with all the crossers.
Thanks to Pipsqueak and jackkt.
Pure agony on 15 x 15.
DNF by one again. Left the clue incomplete because I didn’t understand it at all. Had I inserted the missing letters which seemed to fit, I would have had the correct answer.
Maddening!
I was one short as well, though probably not the same one (22ac)
So close and yet so far!
My downfall was 18ac.
The lesson for me from today is, on the last clue, always have a go and put something in the grid.
Couldn’t get Rommel & missed seeing SAGA!! Raging I missed the latter!
Otherwise I enjoyed this.. thanks to all
Couldn’t get Rommel & missed seeing SAGA!! Raging I missed the latter!
Otherwise I enjoyed this.. thanks to all
Grrr… posted twice!! Dangerous to let me loose on anything technological ! I attempt these crosswords on good old fashioned paper
If you use ‘click to edit’, there is also a delete box 😉
I thought I’d heard an echo.
I also solve on paper, although some papers are Echos. I’m confusing myself, now.
Missed evoke and Israel which everyone else got. I did get episode from poem = ode and the definition.
Statement of the obvious: the more crossers you get the easier it becomes unless you run out of patience. That usually happens to me at about 40 minutes with anything up to five left these days, so there has been some progress in the two years I’ve been attempting these.
Thanks setter and blogger
Embarked on this after tea and greatly enjoyed a 30 minute solve! Ready at 19d immediately suggested money: having played Lane in The Importance of Being Earnest, the line is imprinted on my brain: “No cucumbers?” “No Sir, not even for ready money”. It always got a laugh.
Lear is becoming the Eton de nos jours. Never danced the Lambada but heard of it. Cod for me was 18a EXPOSED. Thanks Pipsqueak and Jack.