Times Quick Cryptic 1730 by Teazel

41 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 1730 by Teazel”

1. …although I can’t figure out why either, but I know the SCC is not going to be very happy. My time was 16:08, as I mentally rehearsed every nationality and tribe in Africa, only to realize it was an antelope. I had a very tough time getting a foothold at the beginning, but even with crossers it was never easy.
2. Didn’t think this was hard at first, but ABASE (wanted APACE but didn’t work for the definition) and SEAL took me forever, and TABLE D’HÔTE took probably 8 minutes, because after putting in TABLE I thought surely I’d misparsed the clue when I saw the remaining letters. Could it be TABLE WHITE? Anyway, eventually I tried to fit in the letters as logically as I could, and when I saw DHOTE I realized I’d seen D’HÔTE elsewhere and breathed a sigh of relief.
3. I don’t know how I manage to submit before I’m ready but I’ve done it again when it should have been a solid (for me) 600 plus a little bit. COD formula one – kap
4. Up early this morning so I had time. And I needed it. This was very difficult for this quite experienced solver. Many of the clues contained crossword traps such as words with many meanings (flower, bank, race, row); and Lower has to be some sort of cow in a crossword? Clever misdirections abounded.
   I started slowly looking for an easy way in. Could not see one. FOI was LOSER. The African native was borderline for a QC, although I got it quite quickly.
   My last three were: ABASE, ATRIA and LOI MORIBUND.
   23:02 on the clock. Very pleased with that and to be all correct.
   Great puzzle but a very hard QC.
   David
   1. To Teazel’s many traps today, add Underground for not equating to “U”, in 14D.

      Edited at 2020-10-26 08:30 am (UTC)

      1. Is it Alic ie almost Alice as she who jumped into the rabbit hole?
         1. Yes, sorry if that wasn’t clear in my blog. I use {} brackets to indicate letters removed {e} in this case, and [] brackets for indicator words [mostly] in this case.
            1. Thanks – I understood you actually but I wasn’t sure what the comment was asking
      2. U for Underground? I don’t think I’ve come across that??? I was thinking TfL for a while …

         H

5. All the aids came out for this and even then there wasn’t enough information to help. I think this is the hardest QC I’ve come across and very, very far from being the most fun. Six went in on the first pass so things started OK but deteriorated quickly. I have never heard of TABLE D’HOTE and with only the starting T I saw table something pretty quickly but couldn’t do anything with the remaining letters. All those checkers would have been helpful as the LHS was where my problems lay, not helping my carelessly typing COPMASS which made MORIBUND go from hard to impossible. TROTSKY and IMPALA were both hard definitions and I didn’t get the cryptic for either and FREESIA pushed me too. Some damage was self-inflicted as it also took a long time to crack MASK and TRIM. One to forget. Next!

   EDIT: Also couldn’t get ITALICS and found UNSETTLE very hard to get from the anagrist for some reason.

   Edited at 2020-10-26 07:41 am (UTC)

6. Definitely a tough start to the week. Izetti wrong-footed me with many of these clues and yet there was little to complain about, on reflection. I had no problem with the anagrams but ATRIA, ABASE, SLIGHT and TRIM took me too long and FORMULA ONE provided the biggest ‘doh’ moment today. It finally took me 25 mins – my longest time for quite a while but I still thought it was a great QC with lots of clever twists. COD was ITALICS, closely followed by FORMULA ONE. Thanks to Izetti and jackkt. John M.

   Edited at 2020-10-26 08:27 am (UTC)

   1. Wasn’t it Teazel?
      1. Oops! Thanks for the correction. Careless. 🙄
7. A tough start to the week, and was booting up computer to enter the DNF, and while waiting for the PC got IMPALA and LOI ITALIC.

   I am shocked that after staring at most of the crossers, and having parsed the clue as ending in ONE for a track event, I still spent way too long on FORMULA ONE. And with Hamilton in the news all yesterday.

   Lots of Africans seemed to fit my checkers: UGANDA, SAHARA before seeing IMPALA. Not as an obscure word as ATRIA, surely. Although fans of Caecilius know Atrium from Book 1.

   But I banged in TABLE DHOTE straight away. Just shows that the definition of an “easy” or “hard” clue is highly subjective.

   At 22A (NAPOLEON) there was a double-bluff with “French” doing double duty as both no-French, and French Emperor. Often setters mislead with this trick, so this was a clever mis-mis-direction.

   COD FORMULA ONE

   1. In one way this was misleading but on the other hand just seeing ‘French emperor’ in a clue is going to make the average solver think immediately of Napoleon and realise it fits the grid. Wondering about the presence of ‘no’ may come as an afterthought when considering the parsing.

      I’m sure you realise it, but strictly speaking ‘French’ is not doing double duty here.

8. Yes. I found it hard too, taking over twice my target time and my slowest since December last year. I thought I was just being a bit muddle-headed this morning as even knowing they were anagrams I took a while to find both CHASTISE and UNSETTLE. LOI FORMULA ONE, which I thought was rather a good CD and head me head-scratching for quite a while. I liked ITALICS too. 10:27
   1. Really enjoyed the weekend puzzle. Thanks for setting it, we really appreciate it 😀
      1. Thanks. Glad you enjoyed it.
9. … as this took me 17 minutes before Teazel’s trickery finally succumbed. I agree there was lots of clever misdirection, though perhaps some of it was double-bluff to catch those who think they know all about setters’ tricks. One needs to have a certain amount of experience of crosswordiana to think “flower” could be river and “lower” could be cow; less experienced solvers would simply read them straight and in this case correctly!

   NE corner was my undoing; it took a long while to see 12A Trotsky – another Teazel double bluff I think, as one is so used to “revolutionary” being Trot that to see Leon Trotsky’s full name as the answer, rather than its abbreviation as a building block, is unexpected. And 15A Impala also took a long time – I had worked out it was not a national descriptor (eg Ugandan, Nigerian) as they almost all end in N, but there the little grey cells stopped. Missing both of these also made 10D Formula One hard to get; indeed it was my LOI and only got once all the checkers were in place.

   I am sure legions of Frenchmen will be upset to see Napoleon preceded by Traitor and Loser in the bottom half of the grid; I wonder if it is a coincidence.

   I think I may have asked this before, but why are apostrophes not indicated in the letter count, as hyphens are? Setters distinguish between (for example) 5,5 and 5-5; why is 3D not shown as 5,1’4.

   Many thanks to Jack for the blog
   Cedric

   1. Apostrophes in the enumeration would make clues too easy to solve. One might reasonably argue that they ought to be in for Quickies, but on the other hand if the QC is to be a training ground for the main puzzle (one of its stated aims) it’s probably not a good idea to have it using different conventions.
   2. I agree with your analysis. The misdirections were like double bluffs. So hard for the experienced as well as the inexperienced. Also I would have spelt Friesia like this as the flower; or am I confusing it with the lower?
10. I started off well with both 1s and MORIBUND going in quickly and large chunks of the grid quickly followed suit, however there was a definite sting in the tail.

    The unknown flower proved slow to fall and relied on me finally identifying the penguin killer. I’d never heard of 3d and I thought that I may have completely misunderstood the clue when left with the unlikely letters for the second part of it. Eventually I needed all the checkers before I tentatively wrote in the answer.
    I finished in the SW with ITALICS (COD) and TRIM in 17.15.
    Thanks to Jack

    Edited at 2020-10-26 09:25 am (UTC)

11. I think this was tricky too. A couple of definitions which were technically correct but not the way they are often thought of. Eg transfix for impale and for that matter an impala as a native – again correct but most people would have been thinking of a national. Ended up enjoying it so thanks all.
12. I must have been on the wavelength or something because I breezed through this in 12 minutes, with my only difficulty being a choice between RALLY and RELAY at 7d. I got it in my head that to rally may equate with to bank, making this a credible DD, but in the end, RELAY was the better fit and went in as LOI. Nice puzzle, good blog – thanks both.
13. Soon realised this was going to be a toughie when first in was 22A. The only other across clue I got on first pass was 24A.

    The downs were more forthcoming but still lots of gaps. Suspected it might well be a DNF but I kept getting the odd clue and did finish all correct. No time but it was slow. Last two were ITALICS and TRIM.

    COD the tricky TROTSKY.

    Enjoyed the puzzle and thanks to Teazel and Jack

14. Failed on abase, impala, Formula One, Atria and Italics, so a very bad morning.
    I did get Table D’Hote (can’t do circumflex). No problem there at least.
    I was trying to imagine an unknown African tribe for Impala. Maybe I should have given myself even more time. I did know Atrium was Latin for entrance hall so shd have got that, oh dear.
    But thanks as ever.

    Edited at 2020-10-26 11:03 am (UTC)

15. As a confirmed member of the SCC (and loitering at the back of that) I was delighted to stagger over the line, eventually, having been puzzled, misled and bemused throughout to varying degrees. However, all seem very fair, in retrospect, and excellent training to the likes of me that the answer really is in there, somehow, and each bit of the clue is there for a reason.
    Plymouthian
16. Thought I’d done disastrously at 13:42, but it seems most found it tricky. Stared for rather too long at ITALICS, SLIGHT and FORMULA ONE, but got there in the end. Not what you’d expect on a Monday, so there goes my chance of a quick time this week.

    COD ITALICS

    H

17. Too hard today and a sad DNF despite a few guesses that turned out to be right. Just not on the right wavelength with ATRIA, ORDAIN, IMPALA, ABASE. Hope for better tomorrow.
18. DNF for me as I gave up at 25 minutes just needing 9ac. I considered CELL in the sense of a lock-up but it clearly had nothing to do with penguins. Don’t know why I couldn’t think of SEAL. Spent too long on 6dn also because I was firstly looking for a river and then, when I decided it really was a flower, not realising that there are 2 e’s in FREESIA. Not a good day.

    FOI – 1ac CHASTISE
    LOI – DNF. Penultimate one was 6dn.
    COD – 10dn FORMULA ONE

19. I started well but struggled with RELAY (didn’t think of ‘rely’ for ‘bank’), ORDAIN (didn’t think of ‘din’ for ‘row’) and ITALICS (was trying to fit in a ‘u’ somewhere).
    There were some nice, simple clues though including TRAITOR, TRIM and FREESIA. COD goes to TABLE D’HOTE for being such a clever anagram.
    Thanks to Teazel for this 25-minute challenge and to Jackkt for the helpful blog.

    Edited at 2020-10-26 12:25 pm (UTC)

20. 18 minutes with LOsI FORMULA ONE and ITALICS. I wasn’t sure about the use of ALICE but got there in the end. Certainly not an easy offering for a Monday.

    Edited at 2020-10-26 12:52 pm (UTC)

21. Stinkeroony! Welcome to Monday, everyone!

    FOI CHASTISE, LOI SEAL (defined as “penguin killer”?? You’ve got to be kidding me), COD TROTSKY, time 21:01 for a Dreadful Day.

    Thanks Jack and (I suppose!) Teazel. Next!

    Templar

22. To echo pretty much everyone else apart from Rotter, I found this one really hard going, but at least it was of the tough-all-round-but-gettable-eventually sort. And when I use “eventually” I don’t do so lightly as I took 79:21 to polish this off. I should have been a lot quicker to spot lots of them though, particularly NAPOLEON (how many French emperors are there?) and FORMULA ONE. Still, I was pleased to finish with all correct. FOI CHASTISE, LOI and COD to ITALICS, WOD MORIBUND. Thanks Jack and Teazel
23. Arriving late, I fully expected weeping, wailing, and the gnashing of teeth on here ! Remember Monty Python’s “Inflammatory Hungarian Phrasebook” sketch ? Well my hovercraft was full of eels for some time before I got a foothold. A long time since I saw so many misdirections in a QC, but I was inside my target.

    FOI AFAR
    LOI IMPALA
    COD UNSETTLE
    TIME 4:39

24. I also needed aids for this and there were six that I wasn’t sure about the parsing. I thought AFAR was correct and turning it gave me Rafa (Nadal) whose service I returned. I wish!
25. A big fat dnf for me…

    Probably my worst performance for as long as I can remember. Tough one for a Monday I thought.

    Thanks as usual.

26. Awful.

    Diana

27. I wanted so badly to finish this but I was absolutely nowhere near after at least 40 minutes.
    Not heard of Table D’Hote and probably never will again which was really annoying because I had the EDOTH letters – which made no sense….
    Tort = is wrong? Heaven = sky?? I guess we are 15×15 territory here…Impala?!!!
    I even thought of Seal and was trying too hard to put in Orca…
    Freesia??!!! I suppose if I had put ia at the end I might have got it – but you start to despair and even ones you might normally get you pass on.
    Formula One???!!! The trouble was that l didn’t see Napoleon despite E and NON
    I should have got Sanity and Slight but the doubts were there..
    Failed on 11 clues so after 5 years of effort I have to say that this one sorted the men from this sad boy…..
    Learnt the meaning of Moribund though….
    and was delighted to have got Atria with only the first letter A.
    Thanks all,
    John George
28. but very good;
    liked the locked up penguin killer at 9A.

29. This was a toughie but solvable and we did so in 21 minutes. The majority of the clues were pretty straightforward but the last few took some thinking about and really extended our solve time. But what does not kill us can only make us stronger 😅. Thanks Teazel.

    FOI: afar
    LOI: abase
    COD: formula one or impala (a close call)

    Thanks to Jackkt for the blog.

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