Times Quick Cryptic 1640 by Mara

47 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 1640 by Mara”

1. …as it is difficult for me to break 7 minutes unless I am lucky, so I cam in at 7:13, madly correcting typos as I went along. The current average solving time is 5:16, so there are a lot of very low times.

   My stumble with not remembering that incandescent has an N in the middle cost me, as the two long ones are the key to cracking the puzzle, with all those nice crossing letters.

2. I had the feeling there were a lot of anagrams. I semi-biffed INCANDESCENT (the INCAN was enough for me); and got LADDERS from wordplay alone, having never played the game. 3:27, which puts me in 4th place (Phil hasn’t arrived yet), the three all (legitimately) under 3 minutes.
   1. It was 0245 here when you posted Kevin. Insomnia is a problem I don’t have ! However, 9 hours later I can’t even break into the top 10.
      1. I solve on paper so do not appear on the leaderboard. Coming back after a day out walking, I see that even my second best time ever today of 2:49 would have have me in only 16th place.

         Edited at 2020-06-22 07:48 pm (UTC)

3. I found this one pretty straightforward and came in at a record 14:21. My first time under 15 minutes, I’m pretty sure. I spelled 3d INCANDESCENT wrongly to start with, which held me up a little, (stupidly putting in an extra N into INCA – I blame the keyboard m’lud). Otherwise it was a nice clue. I also liked 6d PERTAIN and my LOI 9a TONIC, although I think that is quite obscure unless you’ve learned music theory.
   A great start to my week so thanks Mara.

   Edited at 2020-06-22 05:26 am (UTC)

4. Managed to squeeze a pink square in again – removing the U not the A to give ANNAL, can’t explain what was going on in my head for that. Otherwise, pretty good. Ten on the first pass of acrosses made me think this would be fast but held up by LADDERS and REDUCTION. I could see it must be L and ADDERS but couldn’t parse, so thanks to Jack for pointing out the reflexive definition (!) – also slow on REDUCTION, my LOI – had all the checkers and could see what the word must be but for some reason it look me far too long to realise DIP was the definition.

   Edited at 2020-06-22 05:47 am (UTC)

5. The same two as mendesest held me up, ladders and reduction, elongating my time to 17m.
   Cod reduction.
6. A gentle start to the week, my only query being the musical meaning of TONIC which was new to me. My favourites were REDUCTION and INCANDESCENT and I finished with PERTAIN in 7.39.
   Thanks to jackkt
7. 16 minutes, but it could have been a second-best time as at 13 I had only PERTAIN to put in, but I couldn’ t see the connection with ‘concern’. After another three minutes I put it in anyway, and was surprised to see it was right. I can see it now, but it was the middle of the night! Apart from that I was right on the wavelength and enjoyed the puzzle.

   Brian

8. Thought I’d get under 10 mins here but I was stuck for over 3 mins on PERTAIN, not seeing that “daubed” was the anagram indicator. Seemed like quite an easy puzzle today.

   FOI: examiner
   LOI: pertain
   COD: ladders

9. Just on 2K so this all went smoothly. I liked the misleading/good surface clues to reduction and general.
10. An enjoyable start to the week. Reasonably smooth progression which was helped, as jackkt says, by lots of anagrams. It still took me just under 14mins although it felt quicker than that. LOI was REDUCTION. Thanks to Mara and jackkt. John M.
11. As per ChrisW. FOI EXAMINER, LOI REDUCTION, COD INCANDESCENT. Thanks Mara and Jack (John!).

    Templar

    1. Thanks for the name-check after my comment last week but I’m happy to stick with Jack as I’m the only one regularly around here, whereas we have Johns in abundance!
12. Practice on the difficult weekend puzzles may have helped me as I rattled through this in exactly 8 minutes.
    FOI was OPUS. LOI ESTONIA. I often leave the anagrams until I have checkers but as Jackkt mentions there were so many you had to take them on.
    A nice puzzle. I wasn’t able to parse everything as I went so thanks for the explanations. David
13. I enjoyed this so thanks setter and blogger. I can’t get my head round ladders. I get L on top of adders and I understand that it’s good to be at the foot of a ladder rather than at the head of a snake but I can’t read any of that from ‘these better’ . Maybe it doesn’t help that the combination jars with me. Just me perhaps – i have my dense moments 🙂
    1. It’s just a reference to ladders being better than snakes if you’re playing Snakes and Ladders. Ladders(these) better than Snakes.
14. I worked steadily through this with a slight pause trying to parse my LOI, LADDERS, and failing until seeing Jack’s blog Doh! FOI was EXAMINER. INCANDESCENT went in from INCA without further consideration. IN THE LONG RUN was another quick Biff. 6:59. Thanks Mara and Jack.
15. Should have been quicker as nothing was too difficult in the end, but for some reason the SW took a while and I ended up with 30:53. A few too many anagrams I thought. They are often welcome, but when everything else is going in fairly easily as it was in this case, they can hold you up a bit. Being a runner, I particularly liked 17d although it was my second last one in (LOI was ROSE) although 8d might be a bit close to home as I think my long run yesterday may have strained my hamstring. Still, a good excuse to take it easy today. Thanks Mara and Jack.
16. All pretty straightforward but it still took me 22 minutes, all parsed, with a chunk of that time staring at 1 down, ESTONIA, not realising that it was an anagram. I was also held up by thinking that the anagrist for 13 across, ASLEEP, was “in lapse” , rather than “e” plus “lapse” , being too dopey to notice that the numbers were wrong. A slight eyebrow raise at the surface of 19 down but that is vastly outweighed by the neatness of the rest, especially all those cleverly hidden anagrinds . Some lovely clues here, with my COD being REDUCTION, 17 across, because it conjured up some comedic pictures of nutty dips. Thanks, Jackkt, for the blog and, thanks too, to Mara, for a fine puzzle.
17. I enjoyed all the anagrams and, thanks to EAGER/AGREE, now know that ‘to dance’ is another pointer.
    Some nice, straightforward short ones – OPUS, NIL, DUE and ROSE – helped me to finish in exactly 13 minutes.
    COD goes to LADDERS as this brought back many happy memories.
    Thanks to Mara and to Jackkt.

18. A fairly straightforward introduction to the week. There were so many anagrams that I found myself ignoring later ones on the grounds that yet another one seemed unlikely. I was only held up slightly by 17ac where I didn’t recognise nutty as an anagram indicator. Once I had all the crossers the answer was obvious and at that point the penny dropped.

    FOI 5ac Opus
    LOI 17ac Reduction
    COD Quite a few to chose from but 7dn Split made me smile.

    Thanks to setter and blogger.

19. Just inside 10 minutes for me, and a good day – anagrams are my friends! Most of the acrosses went straight in, although I did think North Star initially until I spotted that there was only one R in the anagrist. LOI RACER after REDUCTION fell into place. Thanks Mara and Jackkt.
20. I thought Mara was in an unusually generous mood today, with a fairly straightforward top to bottom solve. I was held up at the end with the Reduction/Ladders intersection, before I realised that nutty flagged (yet) another anagram. With the clock inching towards 20mins, I bunged in an unparsed Ladders, but needed Jackkt’s excellent blog to understand what was going on – no excuses, as I used to enjoy snakes ‘n ladders as a boy, probably because my parents used to invent rules to help me avoid some of the longer snakes… CoD to the sadly topical 18d, Impel. Invariant
21. ….and I ROSE to the occasion, being EAGER to CLEAN UP quickly and then SPLIT.

    FOI EXAMINER
    LOI ROSE
    COD ESTONIA
    TIME 0.88K

22. This was a fast one for me submitted in 6:06. My only hesitations were the parsing of ANNUL, a delay in solving the anagram for ASLEEP and my LOI 1d ESTONIA where I was trying to make an anagram from turn and sea. Thanks Mara for an excellent start to the week and of course to Jack for the blog.
23. As has already been commented, this was fairly anagram heavy. However, I still enjoyed it and came in around 24 mins which is better than average.

    Nothing really too troubling or controversial, although for the past few weeks I seem to struggle with starting in the NW corner.

    FOI – 5ac “Opus”
    LOI – 17ac “Reduction”
    COD – 3dn “Incandescent”

    Thanks as usual.

24. Well, we really enjoyed Mara’s puzzle. Yes, there were lots of anagrams but there were also lots of fun clues that brought smiles to our faces. We finished in 11 minutes so quite a fast time for us.

    FOI: examiner
    LOI: pertain
    COD: incandescent (and we liked ladders too)

    Thanks to Jack for the blog

25. Way too many anagrams. Lazy settling.
    1. Don’t you just love anonymous posters ? Can’t even be bothered to read his/her post to correct “settling” to “setting”, yet it’s the setter who’s lazy !
       1. I totally agree, Phil. And what is wrong with having lots of anagram practice in a QC? Personally, I thought it quite fun. And why is an anagram clue lazy anyway? They are just as hard to get a decent clue from as any other clue type, I think. But what do I know .
26. … RACER on the PLANET, so a 7 minute CLEAN UP for this was quite a TONIC with which to start the week. All RIGHT too, with NIL pink squares to ANNUL my efforts.

    I’m EAGER to ELONGATE this OPUS but I expect my readership is SPLIT, with half already ASLEEP. (And I can’t see a way to get ESTONIA into it anyway!)

    Thanks are DUE to our EXAMINER Mara and to Jack for the blog.

    Cedric

27. A quick time for me today but still a smidge under 2K! How do you guys do it? Nevertheless, I’ll say it was A Very Good Day.

    Good fun, but as others have commented, a surprising number of anagrams. I thought that Mara was being particularly generous today, but a glance at the word count of each clue shows that he is still setting very tight clues with super surfaces (apart from 19d, which I agree was a bit weak).

    FOI Opus
    LOI Asleep
    COD Clean up, with Planet a close second
    Time 6:50

    I’ve just bottled up some homemade limoncello – when is too early to sample?

    1. I’m assured that the sun is always over the yard arm somewhere in the world so why wait? 🙄
    2. Intrigued to hear about the Limoncello. I think I have a recipe in my Drunken Botanist book. But what abut gin time? Tassel gin #3. I confess I didn’t wait and sampled some as soon as everything was cleared away.
       1. Tassel gin #3 sounds very interesting, but wasted on me I’m afraid – I’m not a gin drinker. Limoncello is very easy – vodka, lemon peel and sugar syrup. I’m also halfway through making elderflower liqueur – those blossoms are busy infusing the other half bottle of vodka!

          Have just had first sip 🍋🍋😋

28. An early submission from me as solved waiting my bread to prove. I found this to be a very relaxing solve for a Mara puzzle. FOI 1a examiner. LOI 10a general as I had to think about the parsing. COD 1a as I found it amusing to read and solve. An enjoyable 45 minutes. Thx to Mars and Jackkt too.
    1. I love the idea of doing the QC while your bread proves. My routine is Concise, QC, 15×15 before I can have any breakfast.

       Edited at 2020-06-22 07:46 pm (UTC)

       1. Wow. If I tried that, I’d starve! I find I’m out of step with the Concise now I am on the QC, and I seldom get more than half of the 15×15. Happily I don’t generally get to the crossword until late afternoon – so it might only cost me supper.
29. Very quick for us, the many anagrams helped although we did not see the anagram in 6d until afterwards. So 14m, first time under 15m and pb, a very good day.
30. Completed in 11 minutes exactly . A record for me since I consider anything under 30 minutes is good . So it was easy, but it’s Monday so we needed something to make us feel good. Thanks Mara .
31. No time as I did it on paper over lunch but it was very fast (for me) probably 15 or 20 mins with everything parsed. So a very good day. It must have been at the simpler end of the scale as I rarely get below 30 mins and often have to resort to aids – especially for anagrams as my brain is not anagram friendly. Today’s must have been straightforward as I spotted them all quite quickly.

    Thanks to Mara for a gentle start to the week and to Jack for the blog

32. Under a lovely late sun with a beer in hand and no distractions. Loved the anagrams (because I got them all without having to write down and mix the letters up) saw Estonia and Split quickly – always worried about places and lands I’m not too sure about – so they were kind.
    Pertain gave me cause to pause and think..generally a brilliant Monday crossword that was right up my street.
    Thanks Mara for the gentle one.
    Thanks all
    John George
33. The first time I’ve completed a cryptic crossword fully! (Still learning). Took at least an hour but it was good fun.

    Thanks for breaking down all the answers, helps massively when learning.

    1. Congratulations! Keep enjoying the ride 😊
34. A little late to the party having had a sadly crossword free week so far! But this was a beautiful puzzle. Some fabulous clues (I loved 14D Ladders especially) and personally I enjoyed the anagrams. A personal best at 35 minutes and no aides needed for perhaps the first time ever.

    FOI: 1A Examiner
    LOI: 22A Rose

    Thanks for a great blog and a lovely puzzle!

    1. Well done and congrats! It will get easier with practice. Glad you enjoyed the blog.

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