Times Quick Cryptic 1566 by Joker

48 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 1566 by Joker”

1. Something is messed up since I only see 1across. There is space for all the other clues but everything is blank. Maybe it is just my browser.
   1. Same here.
      1. Looks like the text is there — I can can copy + paste it — Some kind of formatting problem has rendered it invisible
         1. Yes, if you highlight it, the text appears.

            I have sent Chris an email, but it is highly likely that the entire UK is fast asleep at this hour.

2. …since Mr Anon has given us a way to view the blog.

   I whipped through in 8:54, which is a good time for me, and I got the impression that the puzzle was not very SCC-friendly. How many people think of ‘Cnut’ when they see ‘old king’? Only hardened crosswordians! And the two long ones were far from obvious, even if you see that the bottom one is an anagram. The top one certainly has a rather busy cryptic, and is not a word that immediately springs to mind from the literal.

3. I do not think of ‘Cnut’ when I see ‘old king’ but am reminded more of a ‘new king’.

   Time 12 minutes

   FOI 1dn RANGE

   LOI 13ac ONION

   COD 1ac PREPONDERANCE

   WOD 5dn ELECTRODE

4. I found this really quite hard and needed 15 minutes to complete it, 5 minutes over my target time.

   Re 13ac I was going to say I’ve never heard of ‘head = onion’, although ‘head of lettuce’ is common enough but then I remembered coming across an expression ‘use your onion’ for ‘use your head’ (i.e. think!), and I guess that’s what the setter had in mind. The only problem is I can’t find the expression anywhere on Google, so perhaps there’s another explanation after all.

5. Had most of this done in a rapid 20 minutes but then struggled over last four in top half but a finish is a finish. LOI 9a where I was looking for something crickety.
6. 27 minutes for a very tricky puzzle. I struggled towards the end with ORNAMENTATION, ILLICIT and finally INGEST. COD goes to ILLICIT for the great surface.
   Thanks to Joker and Chris, I think the blog text colour may have been inadvertently changed to white.

   Brian

7. I thought that one had one or two really tough clues in it – PREPONDERANCE, ELECTRODE and INSTIGATE all worthy of the 15×15. As Chris said, though, the bottom was easier than the top. I got there in 13:29, with my LOI accounting for at least 2 minutes. In the absence of Kevin I’m scoring that as a Good Day.

   FOI RANGE, LOI ELECTRODE (brute of a clue), COD ILLICIT (really clever).

   Thanks Joker and Chris.

   Templar

8. A good mix of head-scratchers and more straightforward offerings today. It took me a while to work through the wordplay at 1a and needed a few checkers point me in the right direction. MY LOI was ONION, which I’d not previously heard of in this context, but it couldn’t have been much else. I particularly enjoyed 14d. Completed in 11.08.
   Thanks to chris.
9. About 18 mins with 5 spent on lobster!
   I was convinced the definition was bolster, and the wordplay some witty cryptic definition for fishermen failing like no bites.

   LOI ornamentation.
   Cod lobster.

   15×15 is again worth a try, although I needed 2 educated (lucky) guesses to complete.

   Thanks

10. I agree with the comments above. This was not easy. In the end, I just broke into the SCC with PREPONDERANCE, ELECTRODE, and ERRAND holding me up for ages at the end. I worked out ONION but wasn’t really convinced by the definition. I liked ILLICIT. Thanks to JOKER. I am sure Chris will deserve the usual bouquet when we can see his blog…… John M.
11. I solved the QC from bottom to top in a lengthy 18 minutes with my POI PREPONDERANCE (PREP ON requiring an alphabet trawl and a leap of faith that preponderance didn’t just mean greater in quantity) and LOI ELECTRODE taking a good 5 minutes of the solving time. Room for improvement tomorrow.

    Edited at 2020-03-10 10:03 am (UTC)

12. I’d just like to apologise for the blog – I have no idea what’s going on. Many thanks to jackkt for somehow copying it out. Normal service, I hope, will be returned soon,
    1. Eh voila! And now for my next trick, the blog will magically reappear!

       I hope you can all read it OK now.

       1. Looks fine. I have removed my copy.
13. 13 minutes for me, even whilst distracted by some very dubious parking outside my house, so comfortably inside my target range. I stumbled over 1a until I found some checkers in the early down clues, which all went in easily except for ELECTRODE, revealing the 1a answer fairly quickly. Shame about the topicality of 14d after Leicester City’s 4 – 0 thrashing of Aston Villa last night, otherwise it was a good clue. My last three in were ELECTRODE, ONION and ERRAND. Thanks Chris and Joker.
14. Certainly a trickier offering than some, with some unusual definitions, but I managed to complete in 9:18, so just within my target. ONION not the first thing that springs to mind for head. Waited for all the crossers for PREPONDERANCE as I didn’t know that meaning. Thanks Joker and Chris. I assume the blog got fixed as I had no issues reading it.
15. Did anyone else make the same mistake?
    I convinced myself that someone in the sack could be a lier which sounds like lyre another stringed instrument
16. ….but found this a bit tricky. I had no idea what was going on with ONION – thanks Chris.

    FOI ERRAND
    LOI ONION
    COD INGEST

17. I agree there were some difficulties here. There were two that held me up at the end: ONION where I had put SCION provisionally; and I needed to correct that to get LOI ELECTRODE.
    About 10 minutes for the first bit and a further four for those last two clues; so a respectable 14 minutes in total. But this will challenge newer solvers I think.
    As ever a nice precise puzzle from Joker. I did not manage to parse everything as I went.
    COD to ILLICIT. David

    Edited at 2020-03-10 11:27 am (UTC)

18. Contrary to others, I found this one quite straightforward. ONION didn’t feel right but what else could it be? I have always taken PREPONDERANCE to mean the greatest number or proportion. This definition is favoured by most UK sources whereas US sources err more towards the greatest important definition. ORNAMENTATION needed all the checkers so LOI.
    COD to ILLICIT – very 15×15.

    My thanks to Joker and Chris.
    4’40”

19. Managed to struggle through with a bit of help and a guess or two. Put in ONION which is obvious from the clue, but still no idea why it is right. A rather unforgiving grid.
20. I struggled with preponderance, instigate and electrode and had no idea why onion related to head. Not a great day although I managed most OK. Thanks.
21. PREPONDERANCE, ELECTRODE, ILLICIT, ELECTRODE – all in from the definition and crossers.

    LOI was actually ORNAMENTATION, which I wrote down on paper (not standard practice for QC).

    Still got over the line in 6:34, would have been longer if forced to parse everything.

    Thanks for full enlightment Chris.

22. I have never seen PREPONDERANCE used in that sense. LOBSTER took a while to spot. Had no idea that LOTUS is a sacred symbol. Pleased to finish. Good QC.
    PlayUpPompey
23. … but enjoyed it all the same. Couldn’t get onion.
    I admit to looking up preponderance in order to get started.
    Cod 14d illicit – it made me smile
    Diana
24. Was on my way to a record busting 15 min completion and then got stuck on 1ac and 13ac.

    In the end, I put in “Onion” for 13ac as a wild, unparsed guess but got 1ac completely wrong and created a new word: “Prepannedance” – so in reality DNF. Still not sure whether Onion is another word for head or whether it relates directly to the Oxford Debating Society – thought it might be too obscure for the latter.

    Overall, there were some difficult clues that I only got quickly through my own limited experience. For example, “Ornamentation” for “embroidery” I have seen previously, but it wouldn’t immediately spring to mind.

    FOI – 4dn “Nut”
    LOI – 13ac “Onion”
    COD – 5dn “Electrode” (nice clue)

    Thanks as usual.

25. Not a Great Day – but glad to see it wasn’t only me. I started off well enough but slowed down quite quickly – quite a common occurrence in these parts. I too was a bit confused by the definition of preponderance – I think of it meaning majority, but if it’s in the dictionaries, then fair enough. And I’ve just realised that I didn’t even work it out properly – just bunged it in semi-parsed.

    FOI Present
    LOI Onion
    COD Illicit – I’m sure the setter was thinking about Manchester and not Leicester! Not much in it at the moment anyway 😉
    Time 16m

    Thanks Joker and Chris

    I’d echo Flashman’s comments about the 15×15. If it hadn’t been for a very silly spelling mistake, I would have completed it today in not a lot over the time I took to do this one!

26. Came to this late in the day and after 30 mins I was down to my last pair – 5d and 13ac. After a long pause I eventually saw Electrode, but 13ac continued to elude me. I could see that Onion would fit, but I have never come across onion for head, so turned to the blog to find the answer was indeed onion… hmm, really? 14ac, Illicit, just pips the aforementioned Electrode for my CoD vote. Overall, I thought this was a tricky puzzle. Invariant
    1. I now realise, with all the format problems earlier, that I haven’t underlined the definitions – but it’s a bit late now. Onion = head, to me is as in ‘use your onion/head, old bean’.
       1. Thanks Chris. I accept the answer, but I’m a tad surprised I haven’t come across it before.

          Edited at 2020-03-10 08:53 pm (UTC)

          1. You need to have read PG Wodehouse!
27. … but I had to guess 13A Onion (it was the clear answer from the clue, but like others I was left scratching my head onion as to why), and I only found 5D Electrode by trawling through all the words I could think of starting E.E.T (not a fast process as there are at least 10 5-letter words that could start the answer).

    But to prove the point made earlier about Electrode being more of a 15×15 clue, my other half, who regularly solves the biggie, sometimes in less time than I take for the QC, got it pretty much immediately!

    Time 12 minutes, with guesses and incomplete parsing. COD definitely 14D Illicit – lovely clue on every level.

    Thank you Chris for blog and Joker for the puzzle.

    Cedric

28. As an avid reader of PG Wodehouse as a teenager, I can now confirm what I suspected when ONION didn’t seem too unusual to me: Here is an extract from the New Republic Webiste https://newrepublic.com/article/68100/the-moral-baby>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Unnecessary letter, indeed: all the fun in Wodehouse has to do with unnecessary letters, with the non-necessity of language. Take, for instance, Wodehouse’s many words for the head: the onion, the brain (“the brain seemed to be tottering on its throne”), the coconut (“I was still massaging the coconut”), the lemon (“I shook the lemon”), the bean (“No situation is beyond Jeeves. … In fact I believe something is fermenting now inside that spacious bean”), the lozenge (“He kept on oscillating the lozenge”). Or the several verbs devoted to exits and entries: Jeeves never enters the room, he shimmers or floats or filters into a room. Sometimes he leaves a room by “oiling off”; someone else is described as having “biffed off.” A young woman might be a “pancake,” a “blister,” or “an attractive young prune.” A hat might be a “lid,” and a face a “map” (“a dazed expression on the map”). A beard is a “fungus” (“he was still fumbling at the fungus”). Bertie’s morning tea, faithfully brought to his bedside by Jeeves, is numerously re-described, perhaps most musically as “the vital oolong.” We may also find such words as “bobbish,” “snurge,” “bunce,” and “dekko.” (One sees Wodehouse’s influence on a contemporary comic writer such as Martin Amis, who delights in the creation of alternative languages–“sock” for pad or apartment, “rug” for hair; a haircut in Money is a “rug rethink.” All this is essentially Wodehousian.) <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
    1. Absolutely love your comment – and all its Wodehousian references. Pip pip old chap!
       1. Glad you like it! Toodle Oo Old Bean:)
29. Onion = Head? Not on this planet Mr Joker!
    1. See my comment above re PG Wodehouse!
30. DNF I found this harder than the 15×15 which i did finish
    DaveG

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