Quick Cryptic No 77 by Orpheus

Author   macavity123Posted on Categories Quick Cryptic
Solving time: Easier end of scale

Greetings everyone.

Standing in today after a late-night email from the boss! A nice straight forward quickie from Orpheus that should provide a pleasant solve for most new solvers. Couldn’t see too much in there that should cause much grief, perhaps “head” in 17 down may be new to some. 6 down took a little thinking out too.

Thanks to Morpheus for today’s challenge. if you are looking for something else to amuse you, today, the latest weekly Guardian Quiptic is up and it’s by the lovely Nutmeg, who knows how to set a good puzzle for the newer solver.

http://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/quiptic/762

<table cellspacing=”3″>

<

Across
1 SCOW – Boat = definition. CO (COMPANY) inside SW (South-west).
4 SONGBIRD – “Lark, possibly” is the definition here. Lied here is used as in the musical sense, think what is means in German. Add to this the slang word for a prison sentence.
8 BRAND NEW – Completely fresh = def. AND (with) + N (last letter of LEMON) inside BREW (infusion).
9 ZOOM – Move very quickly = def. M (married) At, i.e. after Whipsnade, perhaps = ZOO.
10 RICH – Double definition clue. “Rolling in it” and little, i.e. a shortened boy’s name.
11 EXPORTER – Engaged in international trade = def. EX (Former) + PORTER (railway worker).
12 MAY BUG – Insect is the definition. MAY (Might possibly) + BUG (irritate).
14 – European peninsula = def. SIBERIA (part of Russia) minus S (son leaves).
16 REARMOST – Nearest the back = def. REAR (Bring up) + MOST (the greatest number)
18 TYPE – Double definition. A word meaning a sort and blocks printers use for setting purposes.
19 ASTI – One of the oldest clues in crosswordland, I think. Sparkling wine = def. A + ST (way) + I (one).
20 SLOVENLY – Slapdash = def. S (Southern) + N (knight, in chess) inside LOVELY (beautiful).
22 INTRUDER – Gatecrasher = definition. I + RUDER (less polite) with NT (National Trust) inside.
23 DEER – Two definitions, one of them a homophone. Something that means expensive sounds the same as some animals (think Bambi!).
Down
2 CORSICA – Island = def. ROC (Legendary bird, reversed, i.e. rising) + SIC (thus) + A.
3 WINCH – Crank = definition. W (beginning to work) + IN CH (in church).
4 SIN – Err? = def. SIN(G) [what the answer to 4 ac does].
5 NEWSPRINT – Cheap paper = def. NEW (Unprecedented) + SPRINT (race).
6 BIZARRE – Had to think this through. Extraordinary = def. An anagram (variety) of ZEBRA + IR (first letters of In Rwanda).
7 RHONE – Two definitions, one a homophone. A type of horse sounds the same as one of the main rivers that run through France.
11 ENGROSSED – Absorbed = def. An anagram of SON’S GREED.
13 BARRIER – Dam = def. Creator of Peter Pan (BARRIE) + R (river).
15 IMPULSE – Urge = def. IM (Instrumental music, primarily, i.e. first letters) + PULSE (beat).
17 ESSEN – German city = def. E (English) + NESS (head, geographical term, reversed).
18 TREND – Fashion is the definition. TEND (Be inclined) with R (Dior’s last) inside.
21 OUR – Belonging to you and me = def. Hidden in word CONCOURSE.

See you on Thursday!

15 comments on “Quick Cryptic No 77 by Orpheus”

  1. Had all completed in under 15 minutes except for 10 ac where I convinced myself that the answer would include IT. After running through the alphabet a couple of times I changed track and finally saw the solution. Did not know lied for song but did know the German lieder and the linked 4 ac and down were my favourites.
  2. Took me just under 9′, once I printed out the copy from Jackkt–as of a few minutes ago–about 8:30am Greenwich–the Times had still managed to avoid making the puzzle available. I suppose I’m just faster typing; I don’t recall being slowed down by any particular clue. Have there been internally referencing clues (e.g.4d referring to 4ac) in a Quickie before? Thanks yet again, Jack.
  3. The Quickie is readily available on the Times android app, so it is possible to get it right!
  4. 8 minutes. Orpheus’s puzzles are consistently at the easier end of the spectrum according to my solving times, but that didn’t prevent this being a very enjoyable offering with some quite tricky wordplay leavened by a chestnut or two e.g. 19ac.

    I note the Times seem to be doing their utmost to kill off interest in their new baby and I almost despair. What can be so difficult about instigating a fail-safe procedure once it has been established, as it was long ago, that the automatic process is unreliable? We are now SIXTEEN weeks in and not a single week has passed without a hitch of some sort!

    Edited at 2014-06-24 07:38 am (UTC)

  5. A little under 6 mins. For some reason a few of the clues held me up longer than they should have done, and MAY BUG was my LOI after ENGROSSED.
  6. You can find the puzzle by fudging the URL to have 191 as the last number instead of 184.
  7. First, a big thankyou to jackkt for riding to the rescue and publishing the crossword for those of us reliant on online access. Words (yet again) fail me at the incompetence of those “managing” Snafu Central, as The Times IT Department is now justifiably known as following our colleague kevingregg’s brilliant coinage on yesterday’s blog.

    As for the offering itself, managed to wrap it up fairly quickly but I found the GK required pretty challenging. Fortunately, I was able to work all the obscure ones out from wordplay and cross checkers (and then subsequently validate through research) – otherwise I’d have been really struggling.

    This is a tricky area as the definition of an “easy” GK question is “something I happen to know” – and vice versa. I may be wrong, but I suspect quite a few solvers who would pride themselves on having a fair level of GK would be struggling with some / all of
    – SCOW – OK I’m not a dedicated sailor, but have spent a fair amount of time on yachts (and in yacht club bars) and have never encountered this term
    – ROC – never heard of it
    – LIED as a homophone for song – no idea: thanks macavity for the pointer to German, but I’m not familiar with that reference at all
    – ROAN (homophone central to getting RHONE): again, not a horsey person but know a lot who are and have never come across this
    – NESS – never heard of this usage

    All that said, an enjoyable puzzle!

    Edited at 2014-06-24 10:14 am (UTC)

    1. Yes it’s interesting how and where one acquires such knowledge so I gave your examples some thought with reference to myself.

      SCOW is the one I know only from crosswords.

      ROC came from mythology – not hours spent studying historic texts I’m afraid but time wasted in childhood watching some tacky version of “Sinbad” in which the giant roc takes revenge for loss of its egg by sinking ships rather spectacularly.

      LIED I knew as the singular of Lieder, German songs by Schubert and his ilk. Not actually my cup of tea though I love his instrumental music.

      There’s a song connection with ROAN too, as many years ago I had a penchant for gunfighter ballads and trail songs, and ‘roan’ came up often in the lyrics. The was even a song called “The Strawberry Roan”.

      NESS I knew from Devon holidays. The massive headland at the mouth of the River Teign is called The Ness.

      I suppose it’s all pretty random to a degree!

      1. I’d suggest buying one of those little A-z index books and list words like ROC, SCOW etc, as they are often used in cyptic crosswords as indicators.

        ETUI anyone?

      2. Thanks, Jack, for your thoughts – appreciated.

        It is indeed pretty random. For example, in today’s main offering (15 ac) there is a reference to a type of tern that went in straightaway for me, because I know about birds (“Confessions of a Teenage Twitcher”). But I would wager that maybe only 2 of the 50 brightest people I know as personal friends/acquaintances would have ever heard of this particular denizen of the avian kingdom. On the other hand, maybe 10 of them would have been familiar with Lieder.

        Not sure where this ramble is heading, other than into an Absurdist cul de sac where all is random and the quest for structured progression as a solver is dependent on knowing things that you don’t know.

        At this point I will follow macavity’s advice and buy a little A-Z book and fill it out whilst waiting for Godot to arrive – and pour myself a particularly generous G & T!

    2. I agree with Nick (said Dave?)

      I find much more satisfaction in the clever clues eg 5 than obscure words solvers only know from doing crosswords. My bias reinforced by knowing I will never remember them.

  8. 13mins for me so a medium-strength solve. As with Macavity, I found 6d took a little time to work out. I thought Orpheus did a good job in including several devices that are regulars or crop up reasonably regularly in the big Cryptic such as: lied = SONG, ASTI as a sparkling wine, NESS = head, ROC is a mythical bird and the use of indicators for single letters (‘beginning to work’, ‘English head’ and ‘Dior’s last’)
  9. As a new solver, it took me a while to work out and thought it was far from easy. Delighted though that I finished it all on my own and managed to parse the clues. It is great though to be able to check on this website after.
    Susie
  10. Well done Susie (above)! I’m new too and this was the perfect puzzle for me. It kept me busy on and off all day, made me think *really* hard, and made me insanely happy when I got there in the end. I was stuck for a long time with 15d IMPLORE instead of IMPULSE (just because I can’t quite parse it sadly doesn’t mean it’s definitely wrong) making it difficult to get 20a SLOVENLY.

    I’m beginning to notice a trend that when I do well with the crossword, England don’t do so well at the cricket 🙁

    Edited at 2014-06-24 07:03 pm (UTC)

Comments are closed.