Times Quick Cryptic 1620 by Orpheus

37 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 1620 by Orpheus”

1. Definitely an easy one. I biffed AWKWARD from the A_K, never did parse it. 4:47.
2. I didn’t sleep well so slow 16 mins ensued.

   Held up by lots of chestnuts and things I’ve seen before, but just couldn’t think of

   Debonair (cod), bosom (not beoom), tessa, editor, grosser! And LOI soya.

3. All done in 15.08 but the page took an age to load and the clock started at 17s! That put me 31st of 33 on the early leaderboard, so certainly this has proved less of a struggle than some. Good coverage after the first pass of acrosses and downs and i made short work of the West but then got through SE and NE with less ease. Enjoyably held up by TROUT and THORN where I could see what was going on I just couldn’t quite reach the definition or the word I needed to insert into – pleasurable groans for each when they finally fell. Thanks for the hints Jackkt, I needed them today to see where the extra ME in REMEDY came from – I’m a bit surprised that knowledge has eluded me for so long! LOI was YATTER, had considered that earlier when the grid was empty but didn’t think it was really a word and then finally I saw it right in front of me!

   Edited at 2020-05-25 06:36 am (UTC)

   1. RE clued as ‘sappers’ is a traditional crossword standby but recently in the main puzzle the setter used ‘sappers’ to clue REME and that led to some dissent in the ranks here as REME is an ‘umbrella’ title of which the RE are only a part, and sappering (?) is a specialist trade. Or possibly the people in the other trades consider themselves more skilled and don’t want to be lumped together as ‘sappers’.

      Edited at 2020-05-25 07:11 am (UTC)

   2. Didn’t have problem with REME but ‘introducing’ was a bad deception IMHO. Otherwise a good one.

      SRT

      1. 
         SOED has:

         introduce …begin, come immediately before the start of.

         I don’t see a problem.

         1. Ah I see, thanks. Think your explanation suggesting it to be ‘containing’ is confusing too.

            SRT

            1. Not only misleading but incorrect and now removed. Thanks, and as Captain Mainwaring was fond of saying, “I wonder who’d be the first to spot that!”

               Edited at 2020-05-26 03:23 am (UTC)

4. A quick whizz through in 8 minutes. A smile at 23ac but that’s probably old hat to the regulars (possibly all you’re meant to wear as a nudist?). LOI gathering as I got stuck on gate for crowd and had to get the final crosser from grosser (a good clue) before it clicked.
5. No horses were frightened in the solving of this puzzle, which I thought was very neat and witty. Even the random girl’s name clue was good. FOI QUIVER, LOI EXAM, COD DAMSON; all done and parsed in about 1.75K.

   Are we going to get a blog for johninterred’s fun weekend QC?!

   Thanks Orpheus and Jack

   Templar

   Templar

6. 22 minutes, about average for what I thought was a very good QC. I would have been quicker but for a strange mental block when my brain refused to fit my LOI NUDISTS into N***S*S, even though I knew it must be the answer. It was only when I got IDEA that the penny dropped.
   Thanks to Orpheus for an excellent puzzle, and to Jack for the blog and explaining the ‘me’ in ‘remedy’.

   Brian

7. I had a fast start in the NW but was slowed down by a number of clues, including writing out the fodder for DANDELION. My LOI was Debonair with 11:48 on the clock.
   Nice puzzle. David
8. A gentle holiday QC from Orpheus, for which thanks! A few pauses for me (not least for chuckles like 23) – DEBONAIR needed crossers and DANDELION took too long. Overall, I was well under target, at last, at ca. 2.5K. John M.

   Edited at 2020-05-25 08:35 am (UTC)

9. Much enjoyed this easy puzzle. Made me feel a lot better.
   Thanks all round.
10. Just over 15 minutes, and would have been less if I hadn’t initially put in my own name at 22 across!

    Thoroughly enjoyed, thanks.

    Diana

11. I always expect an Orpheus puzzle to be hard so this was a nice surprise with my LOI, 7 down YATTER, going in at 16 minutes. Some very kind clueing and no groan-makers anywhere. My only “not-seen-before ” moment was the abbreviation of “week” to WK…. Oh, and the full REME for “military engineers”. However, neither of these stood on the way of solving the clue even though, of course, I needed Jackkt’s blog to see the total parsing. I especially liked 4 across, POETRY, and 18 across, DEBONAIR. Thanks, jackkt, for the blog, and thanks, too, to Orpheus.
12. I thought we might be on for a pangram when the Q and the X appeared in the NW, but it was not to be. A brief pause over my LOI NUDIST was the only slight hold up as I finished this in 7.18.
    Thanks to jackkt
13. 11 minutes here, but should / could have been faster. No real holdups, LOI TROUT, FOI QUIVER, after YATTER fell. I wasn’t sure about BOSOM but it couldn’t be anything else. Thanks Jackkt and Orpheus.
14. ….and, after a flying start where a clean sweep looked to be on the cards, I was flummoxed at 20A. Maybe I’m doing too many Mephistos these days, but I’ve become used to South Africa being ZA not SA.

    The SW corner then proved difficult to crack open, and the DEBONAIR/BOSOM crossing (an interesting concept !) took over a minute to register.

    FOI QUIVER
    LOI BOSOM
    COD GROSSER
    TIME 5:10

15. Not a great day for me. Took a well over target 54 minutes, though there were plenty of clues that I should have seen quicker in retrospect. Took a long time over my last ones in TESSA/BOSOM. Didn’t remember Deb for society girl, but I think I’ve come across it before on here. Biffed EXAM and forgot to come back to parse it. Not sure of time being the same as tide. Surely they’re different if the saying is time and tide wait for no man. Oh well, tomorrow is another day.
16. … and a straightforward enough solve in just under 14 minutes, which appears to be becoming my New Normal. Only one slight hold-up while I worked out that the Time in 16D wasn’t just the T of Editor but Tide. “Time can equal Tide” duly added to the List Of Things To Remember.

    I too thought we might be on for a pangram after the NW corner. I wonder if Orpheus had it briefly in mind but then abandoned the idea.

    Thanks to Jack for the blog.

    Cedric

17. Nice start to the week completed in around 20 mins – so from my perspective it probably was on the easier side.

    Only issues were not reading 1dn properly and nearly biffing “Quartz”. Also, DNK the definition around 19dn “Bosom” – so thanks to the blog for the explanation and Shakespearian reference.

    FOI – 1ac “Quiver”
    LOI – 5dn “Outstrip”
    COD – 18ac “Debonair”

    Thanks as usual.

18. An enjoyable start to the week from Orpheus, that took me what now looks like a slowish 22 mins. Started well in the NW, but got stuck in the NE (though thankfully nowhere near Cummings…) until 5d Outstrip opened the gate, with a well-hidden (fooled me anyway) Yatter being my loi. CoD to 8ac Debonair, just ahead of the aforementioned Outstrip. Invariant
19. Very straightforward today. Enjoyed DEBONAIR. To be pedantic, a regimental flag is a colour not a STANDARD. ‘Trooping the standard’? Hardly.
    PlayUpPompey
20. Sola is also a leguminous plant, though I admit L is not normally used in Maths for unknown. Nice crossword.
21. This must have been easy. Not only did I smash my PB but I also beat Kevin. The only two that I didn’t write in straight away were TESSA and my LOI OUTSTRIP. 4:16 for an exceptional day.
    1. Rapid! You beat Kevin and Phil!
    2. Wow!! Well done
22. …up by NUDISTS, maybe for the first time.

    Otherwise straightforward, though my time of 8:27 would suggest not!

23. Well, this is the first time we’ve solved the crossword in the garden – the sun is shining and we’re relishing it. We really enjoyed this one (thanks Orpheus) – some lovely clues. We were on target for a very fast time until we got the NE quadrant and started to overthink every clue. That’s how you end up taking 20 mins when it should have been a lot less. But, we’ve decided to be transparent about our travails so that any newbies may benefit from knowing that, even those of us who have been doing the QC for a few years, sometimes take longer than expected.

    FOI: quiver
    LOI: outstrip
    COD: instance

    Thanks for the blog Jack

24. A pleasant solve for a lovely sunny day. No real holdups except we could not immediately remember quiver, and had shiver for a while. 17m is as good as we have ever done, perhaps get to 15m some day.
25. A nice easy one for holiday Monday. Some nice clues but nothing too obscure or difficult. Liked the refined society girl.

    FOI – 1ac quiver
    LOI – 18ac debonair
    COD – 18ac debonair

26. just under 7 minutes with debonair my LOI. Was a little unsure with standard. Other than that it was all ok, but practice does help- I wouldn’t have got Remedy or Damson when I first started these.
    thanks blogger and setter
27. Time a turgid 11 minutes.

    FOI 1ac QUIVER

    LOI 22ac TESSA

    COD 18ac DEBONAIR

    WOD 7dn YATTER

28. LOI. Nudists. But as a cryptic should this not have had a question mark?
    Second last was dandelion. Thought it was a weed but if a weed flowers then it’s a flowering plant even if not a flower. Just google the difference between flower and weed. Of course in crosswordland a flower is a river but we’re all bonkers.
    Casual 20 mins today. Thx all. Johnny
    1. There’s no rule or convention that cryptic definitions have to be signalled by a question mark although they often are. That would be making life too easy for solvers, which is not the setter’s job.
29. Enjoyable solve;
    LOI EDITOR tide is not a synonym for time in the dictionaries that I frequent;
    COD 11A “endlessly regretting insolvency (4)”

    Edited at 2020-05-26 07:26 pm (UTC)

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