Times 28183 – Happy trails!

Author   vinyl1Posted on Categories Daily Cryptic

Time: 13 minutes
Music: Debussy, Iberia, Dorati/National Orchestra.

The run of easy Mondays evidently continues, with the SNITCH running at about 50.   I wrote in all the answers in with hardly a pause, and there are a few that have yet to parsed – I’m pretty sure that won’t be hard.    There were a lot of chestnuts and well-know crossword memes here, and experience will give your solve a bit of a push.   There will probably be a lot of personal bests today.  

Across
1 Element identified by sharp-witted cook at sea (11)
QUICKSILVER – QUICK + SILVER, Long John Silver, that is, whose prior occupation was indeed cook.
7 Swindles of husband initially appalling son (3)
HAS – H + A[ppalling] S[on].
9 Woman in Missouri shelter mostly the worse for wear (4-5)
MOTH-EATEN – MO (THEA) TEN[t].
10 Fling involving pair in 27, for example (5)
SPREE – S(PR)EE, where Ely in 27 is indeed an episcopal see.
11 Sings rhythm and blues primarily in part of UK (7)
WARBLES – WA(R&B)LES.
12 Collieries about to terminate regular pay (7)
STIPEND – PITS backwards + END.
13 Fabric bringing US city half of capital (5)
NYLON – NY + LON[don].
15 Sign a rough tap damaged (9)
AUTOGRAPH – Anagram of A ROUGH TAP.
17 The French strip — she washes and irons (9)
LAUNDRESS – LA + UNDRESS.
19 Fellow soldier fencing run for dog (5)
CORGI – CO-(R)-GI.
20 Yankee moneymaker, one with aspirations (7)
YEARNER – Y + EARNER, Nato alphabet for Y.
22 Bearing left for Luton, possibly (7)
AIRPORT – AIR + PORT.
24 Garlic mayonnaise made by girl about ten (5)
AIOLI – A(10)LI.
25 Foolishness, a crime in country Capone abandoned (9)
ASININITY – A + SIN + IN + IT[al]Y.
27 English youth leader seen around large city (3)
ELY – E(L)Y[outh].
28 Improved quality of cane men then distributed (11)
ENHANCEMENT – Anagram of CANE MEN THEN.
Down
1 Introductions to quiet old men in Iranian city (3)
QOM – Q[uiet] O[ol] M[en], sometimes spelt Qum, a rug-weaving city.
2 Popular monarch snatching time in Bury? (5)
INTER –  IN(T)ER.
3 King beheaded mischief-maker in citadel (7)
KREMLIN – K + [g]REMLIN.
4 Lacking will, belonging to trial rowing team, one hears (9)
INTESTATE – Sounds like IN TEST EIGHT.
5 Symbol of love, in Heaven usually (5)
VENUS –  Hidden in [hea]VEN US[usally].
6 Relaxing French art treasures originally pinched by gang (7)
RESTING – R(ES T[reasures])ING.
7 Material provided by hacks principally, or a shire, oddly (9)
HORSEHAIR – H[acks] + anagram of OR A SHIRE.
8 Pass plant, being extravagant purchaser (11)
SPENDTHRIFT – SPEND + THRIFT – creeping phlox, apparently, which I DNK.
11 Preacher touring north finally rejected beer and cheese (11)
WENSLEYDALE –  WE(N)SLEY + [rejecte]D + ALE.
14 Like speech praising old archbishop, a right-winger (9)
LAUDATORY – LAUD + A TORY.
16 Islander cheers Welsh girl entertaining crew (9)
TASMANIAN –  TA + S(MAN)IAN.
18 Study can ultimately define calcified tissue (7)
DENTINE – DEN + TIN + [defin]E.
19 Appreciative comment of one first seeing this moulding? (7)
CORNICE – COR! NICE!
21 Bill plugging Royal Opera House? Something fishy here (5)
ROACH – RO(AC)H.
23 Woman — old, as it happens (5)
OLIVE – O + LIVE.
26 Legendary mountain-dweller, one not appearing up till now (3)
YET – YET[i].

108 comments on “Times 28183 – Happy trails!”

  1. Sub 10 is certainly hen’s teeth for me, but I have dipped under 9 before.

    13:48 for the combined QC and 15×15 on the same day must certainly be a PB though, so I’ll take that. Let’s go and see if there’s more of a challenge elsewhere.

    9:18.

  2. I’ll join the long list of PBers with a 14.03.

    Over 7 and 1/2 mins better than the previous mark. Almost too much of an outlier tbh!

  3. It was a few minutes before I realised that this was as easy as it was, completing bottom left, then bottom right then the top half, leaving two sets of two crossers to think about (RESTING/SPREE and MOTH-EATEN/KREMLIN). If I had spotted the easiness earlier (though I would argue that THEA was a pretty random choice of woman’s name), I might not have bothered to parse what I did.

    I’m going back to parse what I missed now….

  4. Not a PB but only because I got distracted half-way through. ASININITY the only one to make me pause for any length of time.

    Nice to see ELY get a double mention. Other episcopal cities are available.

    Thanks to vinyl and the setter.

  5. 10.45. Not much bite to this. I could possibly have gone quicker but paused to mull over thrift, whether there might be a radoh fish and to see how 27 related to spree. Asininity took a few seconds at the end too.
  6. Less than 30 minutes over lunch. Started with HAS and HORSEHAIR. Ended rather slowly with KREMLIN, not my first thought for a citadel and I often quake at words beginning with K. WARBLES POI.
    I liked AIRPORT and SPREE.
    David
  7. We’re using the SNITCH to help identify 15x15s for us to try. We’re having a go at all of the easier puzzles and we finished this one in its entirety — good day
    1. SNITCH is a good pointer, but if there’s a “bear trap” clue that catches a significant number out, it can skew the readings.
      1. Thanks Phil, that’s a really good point. I think we’ll just have a go at all of them!
  8. 12 minutes. I think a PB. I prefer them a bit harder so as to wring the maximum enjoyment out of solving.
  9. 15 minutes for me. Not quite a PB. Held up for a minute at the end on ASININITY. A lot went in without parsing fully.
  10. Took me far too long to parse 9a because I didn’t consider “Thea” as the woman; silly me!
  11. Yet another pb – 9.35 for me. Must be what Verlaine feels like every day, But Is it bad manners to say I would have preferred a stiffer challenge.
    1. I think we all prefer a stiffer challenge normally, but this did serve as a nice confidence booster.
  12. Not a PB here, even without my clumsy typing technique resulting in HORDEHAIR, possibly the cloth which Genghis Khan’s people wore as they went about their invading. But that’s fine, I am built for comfort rather than speed these days.
  13. Usually in the SCC with the Quick Crossword. Enjoyed this even if it took best part of an hour. Happy Dave and Sal.
  14. That may have been a ‘PB’ for me, I don’t know. But then I got to thinking ‘was this crossword really worthy of representing my best solving performance?’ I don’t think so. Perhaps my lowest WITCH score would be a better measure of achievement. I don’t know what this is either.
  15. I don’t time myself, but given that I wrote just about every answer in with barely a pause for thought, which is very rare for me, I’m pretty sure that was a personal record (I know it was significantly less than ten minutes), which probably means that, as the Times crossword goes, this was a very easy one. I confess to not completely parsing MOTH EATEN or RESTING, but both were obvious given the letters I already had and my partial parsing. I suspect that this one was too easy to satisfy the real crossword buffs, but it made me feel good 🙂
  16. Broke previous PB by about 40%. Worried that I’ll never beat this time of 21:31.

    LOI KREMLIN, stuck on citadel=KEEP
    COD CORNICE

  17. Late entry. Another PB. Under a bit of pressure as my twin did it in 10 minutes or so (see above) so was trying to get close to that and pleasantly surprised at the time. And with no typos which has been a real problem recently.

    I was fully caffeinated (c/f Galspray above) which helped

    SPREE also the last one in with the same MER as others.

    Still didn’t make the top 100 🙂

  18. Thanks Vinyl and Setter and congratulations to all the PBs out there. I much prefer something knottier but what’s wrong with an easy one like this occasionally? Nowt!
  19. I normally stick to the QC, but rumours have been circulating that this was a very generous offering for the 15×15. And so it proved. Not fast but my first time completing the big brother.

Comments are closed.