Times Quick Cryptic 1707 by Orpheus

Author   william_j_sPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
Nice puzzle – average time. Following on from yesterday’s Japanese poetry lesson, I was forced to guess a bit more general knowledge today (18ac, 20ac), and I was slow to think of the required woman at 11ac. I especially enjoyed the two clues with slightly more convoluted wordplay at 5dn and my COD 11dn.

Definitions underlined.

Across
1 Uncouth old swimmer crossing centre of bay (6)
OAFISH – O (old) and FISH (swimmer) containing (crossing) the middle letter (centre) of bAy.
5 Expression wears thin for listeners (6)
PHRASE – sounds like (for listeners) “frays” (wears thin).
8 Italian citizens coming from same line somehow (8)
MILANESE – anagram of (somehow) SAME LINE.
9 In Tiepolo, a notable advance (4)
LOAN – hiddin in (in) tiepoLO A Notable.
10 Opposed to books being dumped in main road (4)
ANTI – NT (new testament, books) inside (dumped in) A1 (main road).
11 Bitter woman coming in to do a song (8)
SCATHING – CATH (woman) inside (coming in to) SING (do a song).
12 Bloke keen, some say, to establish wine shop (6)
BODEGA – BOD (bloke) then a homophone of (some say) “eager”.
14 Cockney building boundary round field, moving slowly? (6)
EDGING – (h)EDGING (building boundary round field) as a Cockney might say it.
16 US politician caught deserter at end of rally (8)
DEMOCRAT – C (caught) and RAT (deserter) after (at end of) DEMO (rally).
18 She was Boaz’s wife? Pity (4)
RUTH – double definition; reference to the biblical story from the book of Ruth.
20 Hindu queen administered island (4)
RANI – RAN (administered) and I (island).
21 Scottish festival always associated with chap minding pigs? (8)
HOGMANAY – AY (always) next to (associated with) HOGMAN (chap minding pigs?).
23 Motto found in record kept by hospital (6)
SLOGAN – LOG (record) inside (kept by) SAN (sanatorium, hospital).
24 Insect originally good at digging for lost young? (6)
GADFLY – first letters from (originally) Good At Digging For Lost Young.

Down
2 Like birds initially imported in a commercial vehicle (5)
AVIAN – first letter of (initially) Imported inside (in) A VAN (commercial vehicle).
3 Envisage instruments originally employed in Enigma variation (7)
IMAGINE – first letter of (originally) Instruments inside (in) an anagram of (…variations) ENIGMA.
4 Shade used in houses regularly (3)
HUE – every other letter from (regularly) HoUsEs.
5 Common old man fed by priest before fast (9)
PREVALENT – PA (father, old man) containing (fed by) REV (reverend, priest) then LENT (fast).
6 Fellow engaged in moral philosophy (5)
RALPH – hiddin in (engaged in) moRAL PHilosophy,
7 Quiet girl on Irish river (7)
SHANNON – SH (quiet), ANN (girl) and ON.
11 Endlessly casting about, catching high-class marine creature (3,6)
SEA URCHIN – all-but-the-last letter from (endlessly) SEARCHINg (casting about) containing (catching) U (upper class, high-class).
13 General deliveries a couple of Liberals assembled (7)
OVERALL – OVER (six balls in cricket, deliveries) then A and two Ls (couple of liberals) all put together (assembled).
15 Fish on estate, perhaps, getting floral decoration (7)
GARLAND – GAR (fish) on LAND (estate, perhaps).
17 Outstanding old part of house (5)
OWING – O (old) and WING (part of house).
19 Track taking dog across river (5)
TRAIL – TAIL (dog) containing (across) R (river).
22 Suppress comedian’s joke (3)
GAG – double definition.

59 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 1707 by Orpheus”

  1. I biffed SEA URCHIN, only parsed post-submission. Slowed down a bit by BODEGA; do you people actually pronounce it [bodiga]? ODE says [bodeiga], as do I. 6:53. Today’s 15×15 is definitely worth trying; the lowest SNITCH I can remember.

    Edited at 2020-09-23 05:36 am (UTC)

    1. No we don’t, we pronounce it (insofar as it is ever used) bo-day-ga, like the Spanish. Rubbish clue.
      1. I pronounce it the Spanish way too, but I have heard others pronounce it exactly as the homophone indicates and Chambers gives both: bo-dē’gə or (Sp) bō-dā’ga – note the short O in the English version, which makes it ‘bod’ rather than ‘bowed’.
        1. But isn’t this so often the challenge with homophones? “I say tomato, you say tomayto” and so on. The trick I find is not only to think how I myself say a word but how anyone in the (mainstream) Anglosphere might do so.

          Though I have to say that when you throw a foreign word like Bodega into the mix, you are asking for confusion all round!

          Cedric

          1. Well yes, homophones are tricky at the best of times and using one on a foreign word is asking for trouble. However, if a major reference work – especially one often cited as ‘the crossword bible’ – gives an exact pronunciation that matches the homophone (sans rhoticity), wouldn’t you say that’s good enough?
  2. 8 minutes as I knew all but one of the slightly obscure bits of GK that might otherwise have held me up. The one unknown to me was ‘Boaz’s wife’, but fortunately I knew ‘Ruth = pity’ from years ago reading a list of meanings of Christian names. That was a clue I thought perhaps a little bit much for a QC as both ways to the answer you either know or don’t know and there’s no way of deducing the answer other than by waiting for all the checkers and making a guess.

    Edited at 2020-09-23 05:14 am (UTC)

    1. The meaning of ruth is evident enough from ruthless I’d have thought. And whist I don’t know Boaz from Adam he sounds pretty biblical and and Ruth is a common enough biblical name to put two and two together.
      1. I agree it’s not a great leap for many and I wouldn’t have questioned it for a moment in the main puzzle, but I wondered about inclusion in a QC. Not everybody knows much or anything about the bible, whether that be for good or ill.
  3. It’s not often that it’s not a corner than causes trouble but today my four sticky solves were all in the middle. PREVALENT was the first to fall, I had PA but it took me a while to get and position the rest, that made SCATHING leap out where I’d run out of vocabulary trying to solve from the definition, which left OVERALL and BODEGA. Really enjoyed ‘over’ for deliveries when that fell into place and then realised I’d overthought the pair of liberals and in turn that let me see BODEGA and while I couldn’t have told you what it was before I started the puzzle it felt right enough written down, but I agree with Kevin that in this case EGA as a homophone of ‘eager’ is a stretch, making it a very tricky clue. All green in 15 in the end.

    Edited at 2020-09-23 06:17 am (UTC)

    1. I didn’t say that I thought EGA was a poor homophone for ‘eager’; given the non-rhotic standard of pronunciation here, it would be fine, IF in the UK ‘bodega’ is pronounced ‘bodeega’. My question was, is it?
        1. I just now looked at (and listened to) Collins online, and there, too, it’s pronounced [bodiga]. (Bod, of course, isn’t pronounced ‘bode’, but anyway.)
      3. There was a pub/wine bar of that name in my youth and it was pronounced locally just as the clue is (ignoring the r at the end which is a pretty standard part of homophones in UK puzzles). Also “some say” is in the clue to give a bit more latitude, so, all in all, it seems totally fine to me.
  4. 30+ mins

    A tough puzzle today, GK needed for RUTH – I knew her as Boaz’s wife but not as ‘pity’. Better luck with the only river I know in Ireland – SHANNON. And BODEGA is a pretty obscure word in England.

    AI (for A1) seems to date from the pre-motorway days, it doesn’t seem like a key road so much these days (sorry to our readers in Grantham and Wetherby). I’ve never seen “MI” clued for Road.

    Put “SAN” in the list of “chestnuts” which appear in crosswords but haven’t been used in regular conversation since Billy Bunter, Yarooh.

    LOI was SCATHING, as I had the “W” in there for woman with some near misses such as SWINGING/SINGING, SWEARING/SEARING.

    AVIAN appeared again, twice in a week I think.

    1. Large sections of the A1 are now classified as A1(M), and it’s still a very busy highway, particularly between Leeds and Newcastle.
    2. I’m surprised you’ve never seen that, Merlin, as it comes up all the time although I couldn’t be sure whether it has appeared in the QC or only the main puzzle. Anyway it’s one to remember as you are sure to meet it one of these days.
  5. Perhaps I am the first of the slow brigade. The NW corner was a doddle for me but then I lost the plot. I was slow to see OVERALL, BODEGA, SLOGAN, and GADFLY (doh) and I biffed SEA URCHIN when I got a couple of crossers. I finished with LOI PHRASE only after SCATHING and PREVALENT finally went in. A tough call for me and it took almost 30 mins – a shock after a good start to the week on Monday. Thanks to Orpheus for a tough midweek QC and to Jeremy for a helpful blog. Now to see if I can repair my shattered confidence with the 15×15. John M.

    Edited at 2020-09-23 09:18 am (UTC)

  6. Knew a synonym for Common was the answer but I had to look up Prevalent – should have remembered fast=lent.

    Got Ruth immediately and Bodega, which I liked, made me laugh out loud. It’s strange how Ruth and Boaz stay in the long-term memory whereas I can’t always remember new acquaintances‘ – or even old acquaintances’ -names.

    FOsI NW corner. LOI Scathing. Phrase also one of the last.

    Thanks all, as ever.

    Edited at 2020-09-23 10:57 am (UTC)

  7. We thought this puzzle was stuffed full of clever clues and was all the more enjoyable because of the challenge. We don’t have an accurate time as we were interrupted by a phone call but it was in the region of 15 minutes. Thanks you Orpheus.

    FOI: loan
    LOI: scathing
    COD: prevalent

    Thanks to William for the blog.

  8. This was harder than yesterday’s and took me ten minutes more to crack, putting in my last answer, SCATHING, at just under 24 minutes. I was fine with the GK but, even with all the checkers in, 11 across had me staring at it for too long. I very much liked PHRASE and IMAGINE today because I was impressed by the smoothness of the clues. Less keen on 12 across, not so much because of the homophone issue but because of the word BOD as a synonym for bloke. Like the bird, ERNE, in yesterday’s puzzle, the fish GAR in today’s is only known to me via the QC. I agree with other posters that SAN and the A1 are pretty dated expressions – have they become almost items of GK? As in, this is what medical units in eg schools, used to be called, and this used to be a catch-all term for major roads? Thanks to William for the blog and thanks too to Orpheus.
    1. The busiest trunk roads were always classified ‘A’ but the A1 is the traditional route from London to to the North East. See my earlier response. I wholeheartedly agree about ‘san’ though !
  9. A straightforward solve as I had all the required gk, apart from Boaz’s wife, but I did know RUTH as pity. HUE was FOI and OWING, LOI. 7:44. Thanks Orpheus and William.
  10. Never in all my born etc etc have I heard BODEGA pronounced bod-eager. I see (or rather hear) that Collins has it but all other sources (Cambridge Dictionary, Oxford Learners, Wiktionary etc etc) only give bow-dayga. Booo rubbish get off the stage, since had I not had to chew my pen this would have been a Red Letter Day.

    That aside I thought this was easier than many of late, with all the downs (started there for a change) being solved in sequence without pause, but then I guess it always feels like that if you know the GK.

    FOI AVIAN, LOI BOOOOOOOODEGA, COD PHRASE, time 1.2K for a So Near And Yet So Far Day.

    Thanks Orpheus (learn some Spanish) and thanks William.

    Templar

    Edited at 2020-09-23 02:11 pm (UTC)

  11. Got there, but needed a bit of help with SCATHING and BODEGA (thought it is pronounced BODAYGA). Guessed RUTH, GARLAND and SLOGAN – thanks for explanations.
  12. ….to visit a ‘”beaudayga” but the clue spoiled what was otherwise a decent enough puzzle.

    FOI MILANESE
    LOI GADFLY
    COD SCATHING
    TIME 4:01

  13. I was solving at a steady pace – not sub 20, but not far off – when I came to a halt with 11ac/d and 12ac/13d outstanding. Sea Urchin was first to fall, which helped with Scathing, but even then Overall and loi Bodega took ages. Annoyingly I remembered Bodega as soon as I had the answer, but had latched onto Cove for bloke and only gave up on that idea after an alphabet trawl for the missing letter came up blank (… twice). All that pushed me just north of 30mins, so not good. CoD to 11d, Sea Urchin. Invariant
  14. Although a lot of it is now technically the A1(M) the A1 is far from dated or “not a key road”.

    The fact I live less that a mile from it (near Wetherby for the record) is neither here nor there. If you want to get to Hatfield, Welwyn Garden City, Stevenage, Peterborough, Stamford, Newark, Doncaster, Darlington, Durham, Newcastle or Berwick the chances are you’ll be on the A1 at some point.

    I wish the volume of traffic on it was evidence that it wasn’t key.

    Oh, it also goes to London.

        1. I deliberately left Huntingdon off the list as I have bad memories of the place. Plus it’s more A14 than A1.
            1. Spent 9 months working for a horrible boss whilst being away from the family (when children were young) during the week.
  15. FOI 2d. LOI 19d. Pleasingly symmetrical. COD 18a RUTH. Felt good about that, then remembered this exchange, which I had to look up:
    Gussie Fink-Nottle: So, you’ve won the Scripture Knowledge prize, have you, G.G. Simmons?
    G.G. Simmons: Sir, yes, sir.
    Gussie Fink-Nottle: Yes, you look just the sort of little tick who would.
  16. I did the 15×15 first today without any tip-offs that it was at the easier end.I finished it in 24 minutes with one wrong (an unknown word from an anagram).
    This puzzle seemed harder for the most part. FOI SHANNON then slowish progress but I was distracted by outside events. I struggled with several including BODEGA but I knew the word; and LOI GADFLY. A good testing puzzle which felt slightly different from normal.15:23 on the clock. David
  17. Not often I abandon with quite a few clues to go, but after happily working my way through the top half and ensuring I got “Prevalent” for 5dn rather than “Plentiful” – I hit a brick wall at the bottom.

    Some of it was GK, 12ac “Bodega” and 18ac “Ruth”, but the rest just wouldn’t come no matter how much I looked. I tried the old techniques of walking away and looking again but after straining a few sinews I eventually let out a big sigh of defeat and dug out the “wavelength” excuse.

    FOI – 3dn “Imagine”
    LOI – DNF
    COD – 13dn “Overall”

    Thanks as usual.

  18. … all done in 16 minutes, though with Sea Urchin unparsed and I needed William’s blog to explain it.

    Ruth as the wife of Boaz was one piece of GK I did know – for me the meaning of ruth = pity was the stretch! One knows ruthless = pitiless, but is ruth itself ever used in the sense of pity these days, or is it a back-formation – like that wonderful word gruntled to mean happy, not disgruntled?

    LOI 12A Bodega, put in with a shrug, but others have commented at length on the pronunciation controversy already. I’d rather be in one than debate how to say one.

    Many thanks to William for the blog
    Cedric

  19. I whizzed through this one with a shrug at the dodgy BODEGA homophone and a very brief pause for my LOI SCATHING. My biggest issue, as it always is with this word, is a compulsive urge to spell 21a HOGMONAY (and the possibly mistaken belief that Scots pronounce man mon helped me to justify it). Fortunately the checkers came to my rescue today. Finished in 6.49
  20. Bodega was fine by me but I agree that homophones are a dicey road to go along if you don’t want to rattle people. I don’t know anyone called Boaz so it was almost certainly going to be biblical as in the Book of Ruth. If you haven’t read it, it’s a lovely story even if you may not have a faith. Boaz is listed in Jesus family tree btw.
  21. Didn’t have any problems with BODEGA, went straight in. In fact most went straight in, apart from SEA URCHIN and HOGMANAY that took rather too long. I mean, what other Scottish festival could it possibly have been? I was thinking Orkney and Viking festivals! Apologies to the Orcadians if they don’t regard themselves as Scottish …

    FOI AVIAN
    LOI HOGMANAY
    COD PHRASE

    H

      1. The Viking festivals tend to be in Shetland not Orkney – Up Helly Aa is the best known. And (a little known fact) the Shetland Islands Council is the only such body in the UK whose motto is in Old Norse – “Með lögum skal land byggða”. It means “With laws shall the land be built” – Boris Johnson please note!

        Cedric

        1. The Viking festivals tend to be in Shetland not Orkney

          I’m afraid I can never remember which one is further north …

      2. Edinburgh Fringe? Granted it doesn’t fit and has nothing to do with pigs.

        Fair point – missed that one too. I did glance to see if the puzzle was set by Oink once Hogmanay dawned on me!

        H

  22. Unless I have misinterpreted his post (which is quite possible), this is Orpheus’s 1999 crossword for the Times. His 2000th is today’s 15×15. Unbelievable achievement over many decades.
    1. Indeed, and this is Orpheus’s 157th Quick Cryptic. Here’s what I posted when he passed the 150 milestone in June:

      Congratulations this morning to Orpheus who with this offering becomes the latest setter to achieve 150 Quick cryptics. His first was QC#8 published on 13 March 2014 but his career as a Times setter of 15×15 puzzles and Jumbos goes back much further than that, to 1972, which makes him the longest serving compiler of modern times. 48 years and still going strong is an amazing achievement, and long may he continue to delight us!

    1. Well, we all react differently but I cannot agree. This QC was not easy, granted but, having been sucked into today’s 15×15 by comments from other whiz-kids, I thought it was almost as tough as the average ‘biggie’. Chacun à son goût. 🙂
      1. Hmm, I thought it was definitely easier, apart from the two (18/19) I couldn’t get, but should have!
  25. …at just under 17 minutes but enjoyable all the same.
    I was trying to think of a US politician containing a ‘y’ for ‘end of rally’ before checkers led me to DEMOCRAT. I didn’t have a problem with BODEGA but at 21A I did think that ‘always’ was ‘aye’ which obviously didn’t fit.
    I smiled at OAFISH and PHRASE and my COD goes to PREVALENT for the very precise definition.
    Thanks to Orpheus and William.
  26. Congrats to Orpheus but what of Euridice? (My favourite Opera) I have been doing the Times since 1967 and am beginning to slow down rather badly, as everyone else on the 15×15 was coming in under 10 mins, with quite a few PeeBees!I stumbled along in the 27 Club!

    As for the QC – the regulation 15 mins.

    FOI 3dn IMAGINE

    LOI 23ac SLOGAN

    COD 11dn SEA URCHIN (Ikura delicious! Can I have yours!?)

    WOD 21 ac HOGMANAY from the jewish festival?

    And 8ac MILANESE is so good on the ear.

    Merlin, you need to get out a bit more!

  27. I’m expecting a stinker tomorrow as I have managed to submit all the QCs this week in well under 9 minutes. Re today, I didn’t overthink BODEGA because it fitted the checkers but my LOI caused me some consternation as I wasn’t aware of either reference in the double definition RUTH. I just went with a guess at a Biblical name.
  28. It’s a rare day I get to look at the QC before evening. Today, having some time before going out, I went to download the puzzle for later. I started to look at the clues on-screen and to help my mental workout put in some answers there and then. I found I had finished in 33m+ a few seconds. This was the first time I have solved on-line against the clock. A very different experience to pen and paper. I soon forgot the clock and found the larger size helpful. I’m still pondering whether it helped my acuity. Others may have their own experiences (‘tho it is late now). I suppose I biffed more (something I dislike doing – preferring the security of parsing as I go). This was probably because I didn’t have the luxury to trying out solutions in the margin. FOI 9a loan. LOI 20a Rani (dragged out of undergrad sessions 55 years ago on Comparative Religion) and COD 7d Shannon which had immediately to mind before trying to find a river starting in P…
    Working without paper, William’s blog was especially helpful, and Orpheus a welcome setter who I thought was especially generous today.

  29. Let me say first I had to change the auto correct from homophobic…!!
    Anyway, what is the base sample we need to refer to?
    I’m guessing British English as spoken by our Queen.
    Also, those pesky Cockneys, droppin’ their flippin’’aitches all the time. Oh, and an occasional NE = Geordie…
    Good luck to our overseas solvers on those clues.

    B


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