Times Quick Cryptic 1701 by Wurm

Author   ChrisPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

My goodness, I found this 19dn. It is true that the building work next door has been somewhat vexing and that I haven’t had time since last Tuesday to enjoy any cryptic work-outs, but 18 minutes makes this a toughie in my book. I simply ‘wasn’t at the races’ with so many clues so hats off to Wurm and I hope you all fare better than I.

Good luck!

ACROSS

1. A scale showing quality (6)
AMOUNT – a (A), scale (MOUNT – as in scale a fence/mountain).
5. Harry rowed around one strange fish (6)
WEIRDO – anagram (Harry) of ROWED around one (I). I didn’t see the anagram for a long time.
8. Drunken pirate provided opening shot (8)
APERITIF – anagram (drunken) of PIRATE, provided (IF). What a definition!
9. On reflection, humour brings unpleasant fate (4)
DOOM – humour – mood (he was in a bad humour) backwards – DOOM.
10. Composer seen in November gathering (4)
BERG – seen in Novem(BER G)athering. Alban Maria Johannes Berg 1885 – 1935.
11. Obscure period without Sun and Times? (4,4)
DARK AGES – a period without light and culture is a dark age. Ho Ho. Well – I enjoyed it. Our friend The Rotter has, rightly, pointed out that it parses as without Sun (DARK), times (AGES).
12. Mock name for the common herd (6)
RAGTAG – mock (RAG), name (TAG). I’ve heard of a ragtag collection being a motley crew but struggled to see it as common herd.
14. Street vendor one clearing throat? (6)
HAWKER – double definition.
16. Back winner (8)
Champion – double definition.
18. Capital generated in two American states (4)
RIGA – states of Rhode Island (RI) and Georgia (GA).
20. Some para inevitably drops from sky (4)
RAIN – some of pa(RA IN)evitably.
21. He has dog rolling barrel (8)
HOGSHEAD – anagram (rolling) of HE HAS DOG.
23. Small son retaining very French accent (6)
STRESS – small (S) and son (S) holding ‘very’ in French (TRES).
24. Delegate stuck in river (6)
DEPUTE – stuck (PUT – if you stick something somewhere you put it there in a casual way) inside river (DEE). Delegate/depute as a verb.

DOWN

2. Mike cored apple in wood (5)
MAPLE – mike (M), apple without its core (APpLE).
3. Honourable leading Tories? (7)
UPRIGHT – leading (UP). Tories (RIGHT).
4. Dram from non-drinker getting round in (3)
TOT – non-drinker (TT) getting round (O) inside.
5. Narrow victory keeping father excited (5-4)
WAFER-THIN – victory (WIN) holding an anagram (excited) of FATHER.
6. Nation appears in Kremlin dialogue (5)
INDIA – inside Kreml(IN DIA)logue.
7. See church featured in OED is replaced (7)
DIOCESE – church (CE) inside an anagram (replaced) of OED IS.
11. Say Snoopy battles Red Baron in these? (9)
DOGFIGHTS – Snoopy is an example of (say) a DOG, battles (FIGHTS). The Peanuts cartoon featured Snoopy battling the Red Baron which makes this the stand-out COD for me.
13. Essentially a nasty threat (2,5)
AT HEART – a (A), anagram (nasty) of THREAT.
15. Love having dispute about vessel (7)
WORSHIP – dispute – row – backwards – WOR, vessel (SHIP).
17. Chopped meat Charlie dumped in pit (5)
MINCE – Charlie (C) inside pit (MINE).
19. Tissue transplant is hard work (5)
GRAFT – double definition.
22. Lord to leave with daughter (3)
GOD – leave (GO) with daughter (D).

56 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 1701 by Wurm”

  1. I barely remembered GRAFT from a 15×15 (it doesn’t have this meaning in the US). Otherwise no problems. 4:34.
  2. I even wrote out WOR… for 15 Down at one point, having understood the right wordplay. But stupidly thinking no word began that way, I put in WARSHIP, wondering how it could be right — and it wasn’t.

    I was held up for many minutes on the RIGA, GRAFT cross. Also HAWKER seemed to make sense but I kept taking it out, worrying that it was HOCKER. Only now do I realize that one ‘hawks’ one’s throat, not ‘hocks’. Just like one ‘shinnies’ up a pole, not ‘shimmies’ — mind blown.

    Edited at 2020-09-15 01:08 am (UTC)

  3. Quicker than yesterday but also more wrong! Three unparsed answers yielded two pink squares for warship (good to see I’m in good company, Jeremy) and deputy (not a speed solver Jack but still fell in the bear trap). I’m still pleased with today though because I finally saw ‘see’ and thought of DIOCESE immediately, some sort of rite of passage I reckon. I was confused in a few places, got MAPLE but by coring Mike to leave ME and then bunged APL in the middle – this is the sort of thing that looks sorts of right but makes no sense – glad of the hints to see how thoroughly five words managed to confuse me. I really liked APERITIF, never really thought about what might count as an aperitif and hadn’t I’d associated them with shots which bring to mind rugby players not refined diners (not that you can’t be both). The irony of sticking in ‘deputy’ given how Chris explains DEPUTE is not lost on me. Some good lessons learned today and in under 15m too.

    Edited at 2020-09-15 06:27 am (UTC)

  4. 11 minutes. I raced through most of this but then got stuck in the SE corner with 5 answers still missing.

    Not helped by first thinking HACKER at 14ac (as in ‘hacking cough’) and 18ac needing a checker before I could even consider constructing a national capital city from a combination of two US state abbreviations.

    My first thought at 24ac was DEPUTY so I was wondering if there was a River Dey somewhere in the world. Something of a bear-trap for speed-solvers, I would have thought.

    Edited at 2020-09-15 05:55 am (UTC)

  5. Tough going today, but no less enjoyable for it. Cored in 3d had me thinking it applied to apple leaving me with a wood starting MAE_ _. The appearance of two possible anagram indicators for LOI WEIRDO left me struggling for a while but I did manage to avoid the temptation to assume the River Dey existed somewhere. It also took me time to lift and separate Narrow victory 5d.
    An excellent workout that I finished just over target in 15.21 with DOGFIGHT just pipping APERITIF to COD.
    Thanks to Chris
  6. A slow slog on this, falling into all the traps and a lot of time spent parsing rather than biffing. Once I had APERITIF things started to drop into place. Very pleasing in the end but no easy ride for me. About an hour in two shots. COD WAFER-THIN. Thanks Wurm and Chris.
  7. A PB followed by a DNF. Failed on several accounts, where to start?

    5A/13D confirms my theory that any English word can be an Anagram Indicator, “Harry” was so tricky because of the initial H. Missed both of these.

    11D (COD) even though I didn’t get it, and had calculated that it must end -GHTS

    7D I had as an anagram of “in OED is”, but now I see that the initial “See” is a devilishly clever definition. Well done Wurm on a few of these today, and to blogger for unpacking them for me.

    Surprising number of 4 letter capitals had to be disposed of before hitting on Riga (Oslo, Lima, Rome that i thought of first)

    DNK BERG. But did get DEPUTE, at least I was not one of the solvers who would have had a single error right in the bottom corner. I had blanks all over the show. Tomorrow is another day puzzle.

  8. Way over towards the impossible today. I got half a dozen before giving up. I guess it’ll have been easier for those who usually sail through the quick cryptic and then complete the main Cryptic, but for me it was a major dnf.

    However I still enjoyed looking at the answers, so thanks, and admiration for those who can complete it.

    Diana

    Edited at 2020-09-15 07:47 am (UTC)

  9. Would anyone be speed-solving a QC? Only daily solvers warming up I’d guess, as this is, AFAIK, supposed to be some sort of nursery for those who would progress to the 15×15.

    Anyway, easy constructions throughout, though this one was spiced up with a dash of the evil found in the main puzzle. But only a dash: I spotted three, ‘harry’ at 1ac, plus the defs at 8ac and 7dn.

    Some very nice stuff here, as others have pointed out.

    1. I wouldn’t call it Speed Solving but posting a time does provide feedback in how easy/hard each solver found the puzzle. (DNF for me today, sigh) After all, The Blog is called Times for the Times.
      1. Hi Merlin.

        Well it is called that, isn’t it. I can only assume that people who come here are those who wish to enrol for the Championships, and who thus prefer clues that are quick to solve! At the Championships, judging by the puzzles for that competition which have subsequently appeared as dailies, potential winners would be better served in embracing whatever the compilers come up with — even where the puzzle relies much less now on e.g. literary knowledge than it once did.

        1. There is a hardcore of contributors who take part in the Championships or perhaps aspire to do so but the majority, including myself, do not.
          1. Having competed regularly in the Times Championships since the early 1980’s, I’m very much a “speed merchant”. In those days, the 15×15 puzzles were designed to be finished quickly by the seasoned solver. At Manchester about 25 years ago, neilr of this parish won, even though I completed all four puzzles in 29 minutes !

            These days, the puzzles provided are generally much tougher, and speed is comparatively less important. However, I’m afraid it’s “old dog, new tricks” for me, and I do treat the QC as a warm-up for the stiffer challenge.

            1. I started here as a near beginner, but have gained experience and knowledge of Time Cryptic Crossword solving through practice and, more than anything, this site. I guess I count as a bit of a whizz-kid these days (although not in Phil’s league) and have attended and enjoyed the Championships for the last couple of years. Yes I do the QC before tackling the 15×15, but not as a warm-up per se, but to appreciate the brilliant setting of our compilers. I really enjoy being one of the QC bloggers for the opportunity to not just solve the crossword, but to stop and smell the roses.
  10. 14 minutes. My FOI was BERG (a guess that subsequently proved correct) and my LOI was RAGTAG which required an alphabet trawl for the first half. I didn’t understand the reference to the Red Baron in 11d but managed to solve the clue anyway. Harry as an anagram indicator is a new one on me and RIGA went in as a capital despite not knowing which country it is a capital of…Latvia on googling. Definitely hard graft today. Thanks Chris.
  11. despite consulting Crossword Dictionary several times. Guessed Warship! And Deputy.
    FOI Dark Ages.
    COD Dogfights
    I had no idea Harry meant anagram tho got that clue.

    All in all a large AMOuNT of STRESS with all the difficult Ragtag clues. We shall all need an aperitif soon.

    Thanks for blog but this QC would be most off-putting for complete novices, in my opinion.

    Edited at 2020-09-15 09:37 am (UTC)

  12. I think that was Wurm showing his/her credentials for the 15×15. It took me 30mins to get down to loi 5ac, and then another couple to spot the anagram and go through all possible permutations looking for a fish before the pdm with Weirdo. Hawker (hacker) and Depute (deputy) were examples of saved by the parsing, and RagTag took me back to Bobtail… CoD to 11d Dogfights – this was certainly one. Invariant
  13. 18 minutes – I need to look again at my target time, as I am consistently missing it at the moment. LOI WEIRDO as flummoxed for a while by Harry as an anagrind. Liked APERITIF. Chris, I parsed 11a slightly differently to you, as without Sun = DARK, and AGES a straight synonym for times. Thanks Wurm and Chris.
  14. Wurm usually produces tougher QCs and this was no exception; hard yards for me today. There weren’t that many clues that were a real blockage, but I found that I had to give each clue much longer than normal before it surrendered. My Shorter Oxford gives “the raff or rabble of the community” as the first definition for RAGTAG so I guess “the common herd” is fair enough, though it certainly wasn’t what sprang to mind!

    FOI AMOUNT, LOI RAGTAG (ridiculous how long it took me to find it when looking at _A_TAG), COD HAWKER, time 3.5K for a Terrible Day.

    When I saw the Snoopy reference I hoped Chris would be blogging this … Thanks Chris and Wurm.

    Templar

  15. … I’ve been on holiday in deepest, darkest, Wales, the Land of my Fathers. And what a cracking puzzle to begin decompression with! I did finish and I did parse everything but it took me ages because I fell into the bear traps already mentioned – warship and deputy. Thank goodness, the impossible parsing forced me to rethink. But my own glacial solving notwithstanding, I think this was a super puzzle, with many clever things going on in it. I’m not sure someone entirely new to cryptics would get far but, for me, this was a proper exercise in applying what I know in new ways eg harry as an anagrind and cored as an instruction. All in all, great fun. Thanks so much, blogger and setter.
  16. Tough Wurm today. I started with TOT and then generally found something I could solve. I briefly considered Warship but I was thinking clearly today.
    After 15 minutes I got DOGFIGHTS just leaving 12a. RAGTAG emerged after 15:42.
    Happy to finish this all correct. Good quality clues all round; hard to pick a COD.
    David
  17. … as a number of clues left me scratching my head a bit. Harry as an anagram indicator being one culprit – not in my mind a great addition to the genre and my list of words which compilers consider can be used to indicate an anagram is becoming so long that it will soon be quicker to list those that can’t. And Berg joins the very very long list of composers who are hardly household names and who I haven’t heard of – though at least the cluing in 10A was very friendly.

    I have actually been to Riga and with the R checker it could only start RI, so on that one I was not delayed unduly, but several others were more toothsome for a 15 minute finish, not all parsed by some way, and in general Wurm probably had the better of the tussle today.

    COD 11D Dogfights – great clue. Many thanks to Chris for the blog.

    Cedric

    Edited at 2020-09-15 11:57 am (UTC)

    1. Harry=hassle/upset works for me. I had a mere 7 or so ‘cruise hours’ in Riga but enjoyed it a lot. Upsetting history but great park by the river and I loved the huge indoor market – always an insight in how people who actually live there get on.
  18. Hard work, but made it in about 40mins or so. Had worse. Some unusual anagrinds. DNK BERG, but had to be. Not convinced by ‘stuck’ = PUT.
    Overall tough challenge so all the more enjoyable to complete.
    PlayUpPompey
  19. I thought I’d clicked on the 15×15 by mistake as 20A was my first one in!
    The Downs went in much more easily and I was then able to start unravelling the more complicated clues.
    Harry was unknown to me as an anagram indicator and I was trying to fit in the letter H somewhere.
    I enjoyed APERITIF (well, I will later), STRESS and WAFER-THIN and my COD goes to RAGTAG for, like Invariant, reminding me of Rag, Tag & Bobtail.
    Thanks to Wurm for a workout of just over 20 minutes and to Chris for the great blog.

    Edited at 2020-09-15 12:19 pm (UTC)

    1. Rag, Tag and Bobtail? Reminded me of my childhood mug depicting Little Grey Rabbit, Squirrel and Hare, a mug which still sits in our dresser. Still, now that I have put away childish things (carefully, where they won’t be broken), to the crossword. Mostly harmless, but the NW corner I found difficult. No pain, no gain, so many thanks to Wurm and Chris.
  20. After a good run of sub-10 minute solves in the last few days, this put me firmly back in my place! I thought it was very hard, and as others have said, would be very off-putting for beginners. But again, as we often say, it doesn’t hurt to be tested every now and then. I think I enjoyed it. I parsed DARK AGES like Rotter and Desdeeloeste.

    I’m sure we’ve had BERG before, perhaps in the biggie. Alban Berg was an Austrian composer and pupil of Schoenberg – his music was described to me by my husband as ‘somewhat minimalistic plinky piano stuff’, although he did compose two operas as well. Berg, that is, not my husband!

    I’ve definitely seen harry as an anagrind a few times now. Have just done a quick search and found this great clue from # 27716 in July this year, which Jack blogged: Harry Potter’s chair, where theatre’s inferior players sit (9,3)

    FOI Berg
    LOI Graft
    COD Dogfight (I too was hopeful we would see Chris’s avatar today 😀 )
    Time 21 minutes

    I actually did the biggie in just over 35 minutes today, although with one wrong, so make your own judgments!

    Thanks Wurm and Chris

    1. Berg is not all ‘plinky plonky’ by any means. Definitely worth exploring. Start with Verklarte Nacht.
        1. Yerssss. I’ve had a funny day and just finished a 300 mile journey at the wheel listening to Schoenberg’s Pelleas and Melisande from Edinburgh thinking ‘You prat, John. It was Schoenberg. Must correct that when I get home.’ Too late! My apologies to you and to Peebee. The take home message is ‘don’t rush blog posts when you are in the middle of doing something else’. 🙄☹️
        2. John. Now I have unpacked and had a coffee, I can read the blog properly (and actually think!). I should have agreed wholeheartedly with your comment on the Berg Violin Concerto. I have a handful of recordings of it and I can pick any one of them and be moved beyond words. Not easy at first but tremendously rewarding when you get into it. John.
  21. Nice to see RAGTAG, as we recently had TAGRAG in the 15×15 and it caused some debate (it means the same thing). As a seasoned solver, this was right up my alley, but I readily see how SCC members would have struggled.

    FOI AMOUNT
    LOI STRESS
    COD DIOCESE
    TIME 3.23

    Edited at 2020-09-15 12:32 pm (UTC)

  22. I’m with Chris on this one – I found this hard work. As a result, I crawled in around 55 mins which is my worst time in quite a while.

    5ac took ages to see (still looking for a fish that isn’t there), whilst 3dn “Upright”, 12ac “Ragtag”, 13dn “At Heart” and 8ac “Aperitif” all caused further delay. Nearly biffed “Close Call” for 5dn until I realised it wouldn’t parse.

    However, I did enjoy the rest, including 11ac “Dark Ages”, 23ac “Stress” and 5dn when I eventually got it.

    FOI – 1ac “Amount”
    LOI – 13dn “At Heart”
    COD – 11dn “Dogfights”

    Thanks as usual.

    1. I should probably have realised that 5ac was never going to be a fish, but having come across Wrasse in yesterday’s big puzzle, I gave it a damned good go.
      1. I initially tried to create one out of Harry, but apart from a new kind of “ray” it wasn’t happening.
  23. Quite hard work today but a lovely puzzle for all that. I found I had to jump around the grid throughout, there was no flow to my solving at all. I had it finished and parsed in a shade under 20 mins, although at least 3-4 mins of that was spent on the RIGA/GRAFT crosser. Eventually GRAFT sprang to mind with RIGA following straight afterwards.

    FOI – 10ac BERG
    LOI – 18ac RIGA
    COD – the wonderful 11dn DOGFIGHTS

  24. in 6:30, except for trying to get an unknown fish (probably one of those ugly buggers from the deep, with lanterns hanging off their foreheads) from the letters ROWED and I. A minute or so passed before twigging that I was not looking for a fish…

    Not getting the “dislike” for this puzzle, seemed perfectly fair to me – they can’t all be easy, and this wasn’t even *that* hard – that would be into > 10 mins as a calibration.

    1. Think it’s called an Angler Fish and funnily enough that’s the kind of thing I was thinking of as well.

      The bio-luminescence thing on the end of its projection acts as a kind of bait I believe – I’m guessing that’s where the name comes from.

  25. I managed to take a 20 minute break in a very busy day and just finished within this time. Not easy. No chance to add more. Thanks to Wurm and I’ll read the blog later. John M.
  26. Actually had to go to work today for the first time in almost 6 months, and only completed this upon my return, which is why this is somewhat late and hardly anybody will read this. I found this chewy in places but not as tough as some have said, and came home in 35:51. Biggest hold up was the SE. Had to weigh up whether it was more likely that there was an unfamiliar word for the answer to 24a or an unknown river (the Dey). There are a lot of rivers I haven’t heard of, but somehow DEPUTE seemed the more likely option, so thankfully I went for it. LOI was RIGA even though I saw what was going on and knew that Rhode Island was the only state beginning with R. I couldn’t think of a capital starting with RI though, so I still tried putting ROME in and only saw the correct answer when GRAFT went in second to last. Overall very enjoyable, so thanks Wurm and Chris.
    1. As you probably know, you get an email ping when anyone replies so there is no such thing as too late, Well done on completion. Depute was tricky but I felt it in terms of deputise.
      1. This word can be, I think, an adjective. A little googling shows that Robert Burns held the Masonic office of “Depute Master”.
    1. Yes it was a toughie, and there will be hundreds/thousands in the same boat as you who don’t post on this blog, so don’t worry, we have all been there. Read Chris’s blog for the ones you missed and next time it will be that little bit easier. Good luck on your journey 🙂
  28. 5 across: Initially thought I was looking for a 6 letter fish beginning with H !
    15 down: Confusing: war / wor (row backwards)
  29. That was 32 minutes of very hard graft! Wow, a real mental workout culminating in a sense of relief and delight at having completed it. Approx a quarter of our time was taken up with solving the last 3 clues. Thanks Wurm.

    FOI: maple
    LOI: weirdo
    COD: graft

    Thanks to Chris for the blog, especially for explaining “weirdo” which we biffed.

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