Quick Cryptic 8 by Orpheus- take a bow

Author   allan_sidcupPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
Day 8 of the quick cryptic, and hopefully it is enticing lots of new solvers to the enchanting world of cryptic crosswords. I think this was an excellent crossword for those on the beginner slopes- hopefully not too intimidating, without any general knowledge requirement and introducing solvers to some of the setters bag of tricks. My two’penceworth of tips for new solvers would be 1) Read Peter Biddlecombe’s times crossword guide (published in the times last year)- hopefully someone can link this in. 2) After you finish a puzzle, resist the temptation to immediately visit your favourite TFTT blog, and go over the clues yourself first and try and fully parse them. Sorry for the delay in blogging- here goes:

Across
1 FEEDBACK – FEED (paid) followed by BACK (footballer- a football position as in left-back, right back or flat-on back (after simulation to win penalty)), def= evaluative response. I’d welcome some ‘evaluative response’ on this blog, newer solvers will also hopefully be providing constructive feedback so that the editor can set the puzzles at the right level
5 PLUG – double definition, PLUG is to aggressively promote or an electrical gadget
8 ASSASSIN – two donkeys are ASS-ASS, home is IN. def=killer
9 SIGN – american soldiers are GIS (apparently stands for Government Issue). Reverse this to get SIG, add an N on for new. Def= board outside inn
11 THEME – HEM is the border, with TE (first 2 letters of taught efficiently) across it. Def= subject
12 ENTHUSE – a hidden answer, in ‘womEN THUS Easily’. Indicated by ‘some’. Def= go into raptures
13 CHUBBY – cook’s first letter is C, followed by HUBBY (husband). Husband normally represents H, so nice to see a fuller alternative. Def= Roly-Poly.
15 OGRESS – OG is go backwards, RE is on (concerning, with reference to- a crossword staple), SS is a ship (another staple), Def= monster
18 SHALLOT – ALL is everyone, with SHOT (rushed) outside it gives SHALLOT, every chef’s favourite posh onion. Def = type of vegetable. Not one of your 5 a day, I’m afraid.
20 EATEN – A double definition and a homophone indicated by ‘by the sound of it’. Eaten is consumed, and sounds like Eton (the college which rather too many of David Cameron’s closest advisors attended)
21 ADAM – a mother is A DAM in crosswordland, DAM is a mother usually of cattle or horses. Adam did not have a mother. Mine introduced me to cryptic crosswords for which I am eternally grateful.
22 OPTIONAL – OPTIONAL is an anagram of ‘PLAIN TOO’. The anagrind (or anagram indicator) is ‘unusually’. Def = voluntary
23 KEEN – double definition. KEEN can mean 1) Eager and 2) To lament the dead
24 SERGEANT – SERGE (a strong twilled fabric) is the cloth followed by ANT (‘worker’ in this clue, often a soldier). Def = NCO’s rank

Down
1 FRANTIC – TI is an Italian(IT) climbing, inserted in ‘FRANC’ (france with the e chopped off- ‘another part of europe mostly’). Def= Frenzied. MY attempts to blog this crossword by a reasonable hour.
2 ENSUE – EN are ‘directions’ (east and north) , SUE is to take legal action. Def = follow
3 BASKETBALL – BET is the wager, ASK is the ‘request’, so ‘entering wager, request’ gives BASKET. BALL is the dance. The game partly responsible for the sad decline of West Indies cricket. Def = game
4 CRIMEA – My clue of the day. Resort here is an anagrind (re-sort). AMERIC (‘America not a’) is the fodder (letters in the anagram). Re-sort AMERIC to give CRIMEA. I would have clued this as “Land grabbed by megalomaniac thuggish ex-KGB despot”, but I suppose that’s not very cryptic and perhaps a mite too political. Def= peninsula
6 LEISURE – IS is ‘ones’, found in ‘LE URE’. LE is french for ‘the’ and URE is a river. A spot of misdirection, the setter leading me to expect a french river such as Seine or Loire. Or maybe not- Martinp1 points out that there is a french river L’Eure. Def= Relaxation.
7 GENIE – GEE is the cry of wonder, ‘around’ the letters NI (northern ireland). Def = spirit
10 STAGGERING – double definition- staggering is ‘unsteady on one’s feet’ or ‘astonishing’
14 UNAWARE – UNA is the girl, last to argue is E, giving UNAE. WAR is the conflict, so UNAE ‘about’ WAR gives UNAWARE. Def = Ignorant
16 SINGLET -SINGLE is unmarried, followed by T (‘athlete’s second’ letter), giving ATHLETE. Def = vest
17 STAPLE – double definition- STAPLE can mean ‘principal’ or ‘device for keeping papers together’ .
18 STALK – A Homophone, indicated by ‘So to speak’. STALK sounds like stork (the ‘wading bird’). Def= stealthily pursue
20 TONGA – N is the knight (chess notation I believe, knight can also be K) ‘worn’ by TOGA (‘Roman garment’) to give TONGA. Def = South Pacific islands.

27 comments on “Quick Cryptic 8 by Orpheus- take a bow”

  1. Congrats on your first blog, Allan. I was only 1 minute outside my current target for the Quickie which is 10 minutes with all the parsing indicated on the page. My best so far after a disastrous start on #1.

    Edited at 2014-03-19 11:10 am (UTC)

  2. Thank you Allan. Great explanations. You made me laugh with 4d.

    Was this the article you referred to?

    http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/newsreview/brainpower/article1357649.ece#prev

    All completed apart from three within 30m but a DNF within my hour. I just couldn’t get THEME, STALK or KEEN. No reason why, perfectly good clues that I had worked out but the solutions just didn’t come to mind.

    I didn’t think much of 5a PLUG. A plug is a mention rather than aggressive promotion and I’m not really sure it fits the definition of gadget. Dunno who I think I am. Can’t solve ’em let alone set ’em 😀

    1. Thanks Ian, yes that was the article I was referring to. It can be frustrating but I think you have to allow the setter some ‘poetic licence’ on the definitions sometimes. Good synonyms are sometimes surprising difficult to come up with and you don’t want a give-away definition.

      Edited at 2014-03-19 12:09 pm (UTC)

    2. Unspammed as requested, Ian. I think you need “maintainer” access to post links in comments without getting spammed and to be able to see suspicious comments.

      Edited at 2014-03-19 12:00 pm (UTC)

  3. I agree with Allan that this is a great Quick Cryptic puzzle and the sort of thing that the Editor should be aiming for. Enough examples of the basic tools in the setters toolbox without the complications and distractions that can appear in the main one. And great first blog Allan.

    Edited at 2014-03-19 02:10 pm (UTC)

  4. Thanks Allan for the blog and pointing out the setter’s use of resort as re-sort. I did not see that.

    Quickest time for me so far, by far, at 25 minutes. Most done in 20 minutes, then thought it would be like yesterday with the last few taking yonks but after seeing 1d completion soon followed.

    Only got the second meaning of keen after recalling, I think Mr Coliins in Pride and Prejudice “feeling the death keenly”.

    I liked the construction of 3d, my COD.

  5. Thank you, Allan, for a very informative and entertaining blog. How I agree with you about the gangster, Putin! 4d was my COD because of the clever use of resort/re-sort. Interestingly, in 6d, just to complicate matters slightly, there is a River Eure in France. It’s a tributary of the Seine which also gives its name to two departments, Eure and Eure et Loir.
  6. 40 mins with much of that parsing the last few before writing them in (I don’t like entering answers until appreciating the wordplay, even if the answer’s staring me in the face).

    Having said that, I did not know the second definition of KEEN and had to guess that SERGE was a fabric. I was totally had by “American resort” – my COD too.

    Thanks to setter and blogger.

  7. A lovely crossword for the beginner – filled as it was with so many ‘old friends’ of the very experienced solver.

    My fastest time yet for a quick puzzle (2:40) (I’ve found some of the earlier ones quite tricky, but this time I did the main puzzle first before trying the quick which seemed to help).

  8. I’ve been an avid sudokalist since their inclusion in the Times and I would then go on and do the Times 2 and Lexica if time permitted. The Times Cryptic Crossword filled me with horror even after an in-depth tutorial from a friend of mine explaining how to go about solving it. I tried, but it was just too hard for a total beginner and I wasn’t going to change my newspaper just to get an easier-to-solve cryptic crossword.

    Then, last week, The Quick Cryptic arrived and I’ve not looked back! I tried solving it one day on, using the previous day’s paper with the answers to help decode the clues. I was still only understanding about half the answers so I Googled a particularly troublesome clue and found your blog. Fantastic! Wonderful! Brilliant.

    Now my method is
    1. Try and solve as many clues as I can unaided — currently about 5 or 6
    2. Carefully look at your blog to seed the rest of the grid with just a few of the *long* answers so the letters help me solve the other clues, trying not to look at the other answers.
    3. Solve more clues — I managed 14 today!
    4. Carefully read the explanations especially for the clues I couldn’t solve so I can do it better next time.

    I’m improving every day and thanks so much for making it an achievable challenge. My aim is to graduate to the “grown up” crossword eventually… and to find more time in which to do it!

    Edited at 2014-03-19 02:20 pm (UTC)

    1. I suspect you’ve just made a crossword editor very happy.

      And it’s great that you’ve found your way here, too. Do keep contributing. I’m rather envious of the journey you have ahead.

        1. I’d never heard of that film, BT, but the online reviews makes it sound rather interesting. I’ll have to try to see it some time. Thank you.
    2. Well done, docbee6. Keep persevering- some days will be harder than others, but there’s nothing like practice to learn the tricks and improve.
    3. Good to hear from you, docbee6. You are doing exactly the right thing, so keep it up.
  9. Good blog Allan and 7m for me today – my fastest on the quickie. Some nice surfaces here and my COD vote to 18a as the growing season is upon us!
  10. 3:58 here, so definitely on the easier side, although no slipups on entry this time also helped. Good point from crypticsue though – it really was a very instructional puzzle for a beginner, which probably made it easier for the old hands, as there were a lot of cryptic clichés in there.
  11. 5 mins, and I agree that this was exactly what the QC should be like. FRANTIC was my LOI after I finally saw the humorous FEED BACK.
  12. About 5′, I think; would have been faster if the damned square-jumping thing were eliminated. The combination of today’s puzzle and Allan’s elegant blog reinforced my sense that this new series, especially when combined with our new set of blogs, make a wonderful introduction to cryptics. Keep up the good work, guys.
  13. Nice blog, Allan.
    5m, wind-assisted. I knew one of the answers was going to be CHUBBY but still didn’t spot it first time through! I agree with others that this is what the quickie should be like.
  14. I am a beginner at cryptic crosswords and have been trying on and off to do them as I’ve found it fascinating. These quick puzzles are ideal for me to learn and today I completed it all without having to resort to a blog. However Allan your blog is most informative and has helped further. I will try and find the link you mention. Thank you very much!
    1. Welcome aboard, Anon and congratulations on first completion. If you give yourself a name, you will be recognised going forward and there is the advantage that you can correct things that you type, a big plus for me!
  15. Very nice blog, Allan. Your observation re. basketball as the root cause of the decline of the Windies was a particularly interesting “aside”… Got me thinking, anyway.

    Agree all the other comments about the pitch of this offering and its alignment with the stated intent of the QC. And welcome docbee6.

    Personal COD was THEME – thought this was elegant, compact wordplay.

  16. Good blog, Allan, for what seems to me to be precisely the kind of puzzle that will prove enticing to newer solvers. COD to the donkey-owning killer.
  17. New to cryptic crosswords and this Times Quick has got me hooked, and my husband and any one else who comes into the kitchen! Got over half today after about 1 or 2 without help last week. Funny how some just come to you e.g Stalk, Keen, Shallot and some evade all solutions – leisure, ogress, frantic – and I thought it was a play on France!!!
    Keep up the blog as by 10pm I need help, and answers in order to sleep!
    1. One of the real delights of crossword solving (especially cryptics) is watching the subconscious at work, making connections you might otherwise be unaware of. That only gets to be a problem in real life when you start making cryptic jumps in conversation that startle others and frighten the horses. Possibly the best exercise for the brain there is.
      Welcome aboard, and see comments above for giving yourself a name: it’s easy and free here.

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