Times Quick Cryptic 1611 by Orpheus

Author   ChrisPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

Getting the long clues surrounding the grid straight off would help – I got 2 out of 4 so didn’t come up with a fast time – 11 minutes. The rest were reasonably straight forward with 14ac adding interest.

Here’s how I stumbled along.

ACROSS

1. Energetically jovial team members having a drink(4-8)
BACK-SLAPPING – team members (BACKS – as opposed to forwards or midfield), having a drink ((LAPPING).
8. Northern town initially housing a single music group (5)
NONET – (N)orthern (T)own housing a single (ONE – from cricket, perhaps).
9. Momentum of this writer’s dog, perhaps (American) (7)
IMPETUS – this writer’s (I’M), dog, perhaps (PET), American (US).
10. Old man grabbing eastern bird’s plume (7)
FEATHER – old man (FATHER) grabbing eastern (E).
11. Drum mostly banned by Rossini at first (5)
TABOR – mostly banned (TABO)o, (R)ossini. A drum from the Middle Ages.
12. Attractive liberal replacing daughter in light entertainment (6)
COMELY – liberal (L) repalacing daughter (D) in light entertainment (comedy=COMELY).
14. Beware of sailors in underground chamber (6)
CAVERN – beware (CAVE), sailors (Royal Navy – RN). A cave is a guard or lookout – especially in the phrase ‘keep cave’. Presumably our Stone Age ancestors had to do sentry duty. From Latin cavē! Beware!
17. Correct liturgy for listeners? (5)
RIGHT – homophone (for listeners) of liturgy – rite.
19. Old part of play bishop held to be indecent (7)
OBSCENE – bishop (B) held between old (O) and part of play (SCENE).
21. Eg Victoria‘s position in life? (7)
STATION – double definition.
22. Release United fan finally before match (5)
UNTIE – United (U), fa(N), match (TIE).
23. Number one painting? (4-8)
SELF-PORTRAIT – cryptic definition – number one (SELF – as in look after number one) – painting of oneself is a (SELF-PORTRAIT).

DOWN

1. She sponsors France’s best exhibitions at first, somehow (12)
BENEFACTRESS – anagram (somehow) of FRANCES BEST, (E)xhibitions.
2. Tory ultimately organising a dance (5)
CONGA – Tory (CON), organisin(G), a (A).
3. Bag carried by friends at Chelsea (7)
SATCHEL – carried by friend(S AT CHEL)sea.
4. Birds’ enclosure originally accessed by means of railway (6)
AVIARY – (A)ccessed, by means of (VIA), railway (RY).
5. Songbird Greek character buried in mine (5)
PIPIT – Greek character (PI) buried in mine (PIT). Birds of the genus Anthus – looks rather like a thrush to me.
6. Lacking capacity to be distinguished (7)
NOTABLE – lacking capacity (NOT ABLE). A familiar clue.
7. Disunity of odd blokes in sci-fi film (12)
ESTRANGEMENT – odd (STRANGE), blokes (MEN) inside sci-fi film (ET – a favourite in Crosswordland).
13. Move abroad, developing ragtime (7)
MIGRATE – anagram (developing) of RAGTIME.
15. Attack an old sailor picked up by the ears? (7)
ASSAULT – homophone (picked up by the ears) of an old sailor (a salt).
16. Tiresome type carrying note round Pacific island (6)
BORNEO – tiresome type (BORE) carrying note (N), round (O). I hadn’t heard of the Sulu sea before but Borneo is between that and the Java sea.
18. Article I digested on female – one with taking ways? (5)
THIEF – article (THE) digested/consumed I (I), on top of female (F). I tried to get to grips with the surface but decided it was probably better not to.
20. Exceptionally wide, for example (5)
EXTRA – double definition – the second from cricket.

47 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 1611 by Orpheus”

  1. I only got one of the four long ones straight off (SELF-PORTRAIT), and biffed BENEFACTRESS. CAVE is a public school word for ‘Look out!’ 4:52.
    1. Cave is straightforward Latin for Beware; it most famously appears in a mosaic in Pompeii where there is a fierce black dog with the words “Cave canem” under it – “Beware of the dog”.

      (Tried to add a link to a picture but I learn now that this is not allowed and it was originally marked as spam).

      Cedric

  2. MajER 16dn BORNEO ain’t in the PACIFIC- Sulu, South China, Java Sea as per Chris.

    14.45 a sluggish performance with 1ac BACK SLAPPING and 1dn BENEFACTRESS coming late.

    FOI 14ac CAVERN

    LOI 12ac COMELY

    COD 3dn SATCHEL well-hidden at Stamford Bridge!

    WOD 9ac surely IMPOTUS (not IMPETUS)!

    NB Extras do not exist in Aussie Cricket!

  3. Accidentally solved not in the crossword club so quite surprised when ‘congratulations’ flashed up. Shame as I was looking forward to seeing how the leaderboard looked. Flopped over the line in 26m. None of the four long clues came easily, with BACK SLAPPING holding out almost to the end. Never heard of a PIPIT or a TABOR or a NONET although the last was generously clued. Also didn’t know where BORNEO was but since I knew it existed I put it in. Didn’t get an across until COMELY at 12a and then a run of five in a row. Downs started well but faded leaving me with lots of gaps in the top half of the grid and that’s where I suffered, especially in the NE. Appreciated SATCHEL, took the checkers to realise what was going on. The unknown TABOR was last one in, took me a long time to get to taboo for banned, had it more as frowned upon than prohibited but the real problem was probably BACK SLAPPING if only I’d done better at working out what four letter work fitted B_C_ – seems so obvious now!
  4. Thought I’d leave a comment just to give some succour to fellow stragglers out there. Today took me 30m 22s. I was a little despairing as I only got 4 of the most obvious clues on my first scan before going back to try to work things out. I then got BACK SLAPPING pretty quickly which was a huge help to the top row of Down clues. (Funny how psychologically I prefer Down clues to Across clues!) Then once I’d figured out BENEFACTRESS and ESTRANGEMENT the rest wasn’t too bad, but they were more word-recognitions than actual clue solving if I’m honest. But then I guess we all have our methods! NONET and TABOR held me up at the end. Nice puzzle though.
    1. I, and many others, really appreciate your comment. The SCC (see ‘glossary’ under ‘links’ top right) is well respected by this blog. The QC has a great role to play in bringing newer solvers to Crosswordland so all and any encouragement is much appreciated.

      Edited at 2020-05-12 07:36 am (UTC)

      1. I’m satisfied if I get a few more clues correct each week, and reckon that 40 minutes is long enough to struggle before I come here for help.
        I rarely finish but love the brain exercise.
        Dnf this one as usual but much enjoyed the journey. 21a made me smile.
        Diana
  5. I’d think this was a good example for improvers, with long anagram and letter substitution examples. I started off badly thinking 1a as Side Spltting but couldn’t make it work. Fortunately Benefactress came to my aid and it was a steady solve from there. Tabor gave a bit of doubt. Just over 12 minutes. Today’s 15×15 was too much for me though. Thanks all.
    1. I started by writing in SIDE before I saw splitting didn’t fit the spaces left… or the clue. Saved by BENEFACTRESS once I spotted S_N_F… for 1D wasn’t very promising. LOI COMELY, a rather nice letter substitution clue. 4:28.
  6. 12 minutes, delayed by the long answers of which I got only one (SELF-PORTRAIT) without needing most of the checkers. This has broken my run of seven consecutive 10-minute targets achieved.
  7. 17 mins, held up by tabor, self portrait, migrate (stuck on emigrate), assault, and LOI cavern. Only distraction today was the noisy washing machine, not exactly Rossini.

    COD Cavern.

    1. Strangely, my washing machine is Schubert not Rossini as it plays the opening to the Trout when it’s finished.

      BTW I thought this was a tricky puzzle, spending far too long on my LOI 16d to just go over my target of 10 mins.

  8. I stared blankly at 1a for a while before deciding to start elsewhere. Fortunately BENEFACTRESS proved more amenable and opened up the left hand side of the grid. After that I made steady progress round the grid before my final two – ESTRANGEMENT and CAVERN – put up a bit of a fight. Finished in 10.36 with my favourite being COMELY.
    Thanks to chris
  9. I could not have done this any faster. Started with Benefactress and LOI was Estrangement. 08:17 on the clock -that’s as fast as I can think and type.
    It wasn’t an easy puzzle in my view but there were lots of words and devices I have learnt from crosswords in the last three or four years.
    The only slight unknown was Tabor but I had the parsing. And I think the Pipit popped up fairly recently. COD to CAVERN. David
  10. A good puzzle but the layout made it a bit forbidding at first – none of the long answers dropped out quickly for me and I needed a few crossers. Just a couple of minutes over target in the end but well under 4K. I liked TABOR, COMELY, PIPIT, ASSAULT. Thanks to Orpheus and to Chris. John M.
  11. NONET and CONGA were my first 2 in, then BENEFACTRESS leapt out at me giving B_C_ at 1a which soon became BACK SLAPPING. A good start which allowed me to make quick progress, until I was delayed a bit by finding, after a blockage in the SE, that I’d managed to type, STRANGEMENTT at 7d. After I’d sorted that out, I was done at 7:39. Thanks Orpheus and Chris.
  12. Found this one really tough and took 56:44, but actually a DNF as I had TUBER instead of TABOR. My reasoning for this was that I thought “tubed” might be some obscure word meaning banned and that a tuber might be some kind of drum I’d never heard of, just like, as it turns out, I’ve never heard of tabor. There were various other words and parts of clues that are not part of my usual vocabulary too (nonet, cave, benefactress for example), but I could work those out. Anyway, it was a good work out and a lot more enjoyable than the physical work out (a run) on which I am about to embark.
  13. Like others I took a while to solve the long clues. SELF-PORTRAIT was the first of these to fall and ESTRANGEMENT the last. TABOR was my POI and CAVERN my LOI and very much a guess. I DNK CAVE as beware. 14 minutes.
  14. I saw benefactress relatively quickly which then lead to back slapping and this opened up the top half. I was slightly held up by 13dn where I was trying at first to fit in emigrate and by 15dn and 20dn. The correct answers occurred to me almost immediately but I had some difficulty with the parsing. Must remember to consider cricketing references because they seem to come up quite frequently.

    FOI – 8ac Nonet
    LOI – 20dn Extra
    COD – Quite a few contenders today but I think my favourite is 17ac Right

  15. ….BORNEO is in the Pacific is rather like saying that Great Britain is in the Atlantic. MER at “Disunity = ESTRANGEMENT”, but, while Chambers doesn’t give it, Bradford’s does.

    Held myself up immediately by thinking that 1A must begin with “side”, but once I did get going it wasn’t too bumpy a ride.

    FOI SATCHEL
    LOI ESTRANGEMENT
    COD BACK-SLAPPING
    TIME 0.97K

  16. Challenging but in a good way – thanks Orpheus and chrisw51. Benefactress seemed to be likely from b n f but I didn’t spot the anagram – exhibition is a new one on me!
    1. Please see comment from Mr. Rotter above – the blog now correctly states the anagram.
  17. 14 minutes here, comfortably within target range, for a lovely puzzle from Orpheus. PIPIT was dragged up from somewhere deep in cold storage, as was TABOR.

    Chris, you have the anagrist and anagrind slightly mixed up in 1d. The indicator is ‘somehow’, and the extra letter needed for the grist is E{xhibitions} at first.

    Thanks both.

    1. Well, I obviously didn’t solve it that way – but made a large Oink’s ear of writing it up. Thanks!
  18. 7.57 but somehow my bird became pipet!! Darn, I knew what I was doing (pi in pit) so not sure where my “e” came from! Other than that cavern was my LOI I think. NHO Tabor so that was done on trust from the cryptic. Thanks blogger and Orpheus.
  19. Thought this was definitely on the harder side and took me around an hour – getting 12ac the wrong way around at first didn’t help.

    Hadn’t heard of 11ac “Tabor”, but remembered “Pipit” from previous puzzles. 14ac should have been more straight forward but I was initially thinking of a dungeon or underground cell which meant the NE corner was the last to go in.

    FOI – 8ac “Nonet”
    LOI – 11ac “Tabor”
    COD – 1dn “Benefactress”

    Thanks as usual.

  21. Started very slowly and realised that we wouldn’t clock up a fast time today. However, once we got our teeth into it we enjoyed the challenge – thanks Orpheus.

    FOI: conga
    LOI: estrangement
    COD: self portrait and assault (couldn’t pick between them)

    Thanks for the blog Chris

  22. Took around 50 minutes. Took me a long time to get onto the wavelength. None of the long clues came without a number of checkers, so bound to be a bit of a struggle. Enjoyed STATION. Fun clue.
    Good challenge, enjoyed it which for me is the point of the exercise.
    PlayUpPompey
  23. was actually quite quick. Not many acrosses, but the downs went in more easily, and when checkers appeared, so the solutions to the acrosses came to mind. Finished with EXTRA, liked CAVERN. 06:21.
  24. STATION was good but not helped by my guess of Benefactrice originally.
    I should parse more carefully.

    Have just looked at the biographies of the bloggers – interesting.

    Thanks as ever.

  25. 12A was my FOI and I had to check that I hadn’t clicked on the 15×15 by accident!
    I also had Benefactrice to start with, thinking it would be a French word.
    My COD goes to ASSAULT which is what the puzzle did to my brain today but it was satisfying to finish even if it did take me just over 23 minutes.
    Thanks to Orpheus and Chris.
  26. … of just over 10 minutes a puzzle, and today is another day where I just fail to solve in single digits. How do people rattle in 2 and 3 minute solves – I can’t even fill in the grid that fast!

    A nice puzzle from Orpheus and only my LOI 11A Tabor an unknown word for me. But it was very fairly signposted and with the checkers fell into place easily enough.

    Liked 8A Nonet for the misleading clue – i spent some time thinking of a 4 letter Northern town (we had Bury very recently) I could add an H (“initially housing”) at the end of before the penny dropped.

    Thanks to Chris for the blog
    Cedric

  27. Squeaked in under 10 for a satisfying 2K and a Good Day. Only real hold ups were BORNEO (eyebrows raised as by others re geography) and CAVERN, where I spent too long trying to work in ABS or TARS.

    Many thanks Orpheus and Chris.

    Templar

  28. Enjoyed this one. Slowly working through with difficulty trying to put Impulse in for Impetus and then Stately for Station…but all good in the end.
    Didn’t know Cave = Beware.
    Still trying to learn more Latin from the excellent SPQR App….costs a little but well worth it…
    I thought that Back-Slapping would be nigh impossible without checkers so that was also late in.
    But very pleased to finish!!
    Thanks all
    John George
  29. I tackled this a bit later in the day than usual. I’m not sure whether my mind wasn’t in crossword mode (conga was my FOI, and I was then convinced 10ac had to begin with Pea-), or this was a genuinely hard puzzle. Either way, I seemed to spend ages on several clues before seeing what should have been the obvious answer, eg Feather. The nett result was a very slow 40min solve, with Tabor and Estrangement my last pair. It might have been a different outcome if Benefactress had come to mind, but I needed most of the crossers first. Invariant
    1. For what it’s worth, I initially had “Peacock” in for 10ac. Thought there was some tenuous link with plumage and it almost parsed as well (Pa, accepting “e” with cock for bird). As it happens “feather” was much more straightforward.
  30. No back-slapping but definitely a better day today! Having found Orpheus’s puzzles quite challenging in the past, I seem to be getting on his wavelength a bit more. Overall, I found this nicely straightforward although I too raised an eyebrow at Borneo being in the Pacific, but I just thought my geography was wrong. I was fairly sure 11a was TABOR but hung on to the end to make sure – once I’d got ESTRANGEMENT, it went in without a peep!

    No problem with PIPIT – we’ve had it quite often (along with NONET!) Pipits are part of the group known informally by birdwatchers as LBJs – little brown jobs! Difficult to distinguish as they shoot past you, for sure. Even if you’ve never knowingly seen a pipit, there’s a fair chance that actually you have if you’ve walked in open country (meadow pipit) or rocky coastlines (rock pipit)! They may be little and brown but they’re cute 😊

    FOI Nonet
    LOI Tabor
    COD Satchel
    Time 11:07

    Thanks Orpheus and Chris

    1. Thx Pebee
      Pipit is a bit of a pet family name for us. Decades back we walked in the Peak District where we were told to watch out for the meadow pipit. Presumably that sounded like its call? Anyhow we called a pet cat Pippit as we liked the name but as you can see, forgot the spelling!
      Johnny
      1. That’s so nice – and perhaps you’ll be able to go walking in the Peaks again before too long 😊
  31. Technically, seas (with the exception of inland seas such as Caspian and Aral which are more accurately lakes) are sections of oceans. For example, the North, Irish, Mediterranean and Caribbean Seas are part of the Atlantic Ocean. That being said, I still raised an eyebrow at BORNEO. Otherwise all plain sailing in 3’50”.
    Thanks as ever to Orpheus and Chris.
    1. Well, let’s hope that setters don’t reckon that e.g. Corfu is an Atlantic island.
  32. I always seem to find Orpheus a tricky but fair setter and today was no different. It took me 25 minutes which is longer than I’d like but at least I finished it…. I find DNFs so dispiriting! There was an interesting range today between easy ones like my FOI 10 across, FEATHER and more complex ones like 7 down, ESTRANGEMENT. I have only ever encountered NONET and PIPIT in Crossword Land and realised pretty quickly on seeing the clues that they would both be making a reappearance today. I stuffed things up rather by putting in BACKSLAPPERS – this was a result of my fingers lacking co-operative function with my brain. It certainly made 6 down, NOTABLE, harder than it should have been until I noticed my 1 across mistake. All in all, a good fun puzzle. Thanks, Chris, and thanks, Orpheus.
  33. Finished ar our modest target and like others worked from the inside out till 23 fell into place. Dnk tabor but the clue was very helpful. Otherwise a pleasant straightforward solve.

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