Times Quick Cryptic 1747 by Joker

Author   william_j_sPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
DNF after staring at 2dn for a couple of minutes then giving up. I usually talk myself out of giving up when thinking that it’s a word I just don’t know, as that’s quite unusual in the QC. But this time I was right.

I also paused at 10ac (plants are not a strong point) and 8dn (to admire the clue). Thanks to Joker.

Definitions underlined.

Across
6 Grim at all times in southeast (6)
SEVERE – EVER (at all times) in SE (southeast).
7 Fur belonging to myself after earl, oddly (6)
ERMINE – MINE (belonging to myself) after odd letters from (odly) EaRl.
9 Man, say, in Paisley (4)
ISLE – hidden in (in) paISLEy.
10 Shrub with red or white flowers — unusually red alone (8)
OLEANDER – anagram of (unusually) RED ALONE.
11 Brief respite with time for papa to recover (8)
RETRIEVE – REpRIEVE (brief respite) with T (time) instead of (for) ‘p’ (papa).
13 Indifferent emergency appeal gains nought (2-2)
SO-SO – S.O.S. (emergency appeal) and O (nought).
15 Co-operating group assembling Brexit, Labour or Conservative leaders (4)
BLOC – first letters from (assembling… leaders) Brexit, Labour, Or, and Conservative.
16 Still on the sea bed around California and Maine (8)
BECALMED – BED containing (around) CAL (California) and ME (Maine).
18 Paraffin oil’s odd treatment for sore knee (8)
KEROSENE – anagram of (odd treatment for) SORE KNEES.
20 A mostly concrete neighbourhood (4)
AREA – A, and all-but-the-last letter from (mostly) REAl (concrete).
21 Fool in hospital left ecstasy — bother (6)
HASSLE – ASS (fool) in H (hospital), L (left) and E (ecstasy).
22 Coarse east European taking Victor for British (6)
VULGAR – bULGAR (east European) with V (victor) instead of (for) ‘b’ (British).

Down
1 What mollusc inhabits ocean’s lower regions? (8)
SEASHELL – SEA’S (ocean’s) and HELL (lower regions?).
2 Rue eroticism that’s deviant and only superficially attractive (12)
MERETRICIOUS – anagram of (that’s deviant) RUE EROTICISM.
3 Unscramble lyric after a month (6)
DECODE – ODE (lyric) after DEC (a month).
4 The Queen always up for respect (6)
REVERE – ER (the Queen) and EVER (always), all reversed (up).
5 Formerly working with civil engineer (4)
ONCE – ON (working) and C.E. (civil engineer).
8 Short word some feel bally son omitted to send back (12)
MONOSYLLABLE – hidden in (some) a reversal of (to send back) feEL BALLY SON OMitted.
12 Contend with immoral behaviour, shunning clubs (3)
VIE – VIcE (immoral behaviour) missing the (shunning) ‘c’ (clubs).
14 Bony eel takes cooking (8)
SKELETAL – anagram of (cooking) EEL TAKES.
16 Barley regularly ends in new ale and beer for him? (6)
BREWER – every other letter from (regularly) BaRlEy, and the last letters from (ends in) neW, alE, and beeR.
17 Quit after Conservative split (6)
CLEAVE – LEAVE (quit) after C (Conservative).
19 Former partner with morning paper (4)
EXAM – EX (former partner) and AM (morning).

70 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 1747 by Joker”

  1. Fairly straightforward, although I typed in REPRIEVE before giving the clue a second look. I assumed without checking that the anagrist was all there for MERETRICIOUS. And I biffed MONOSYLLABLE with the vague (and incorrect) sense that the anagrist was there, too; only saw the hidden after submitting (missing hiddens is my strong suit). 5:47.
    1. Ah REPRIEVE, of course. I couldn’t see why there were so many with one wrong today. Didn’t realise there was so much biffing going on.
  2. 14 down – I agree with your logic and came to the same conclusion, however, there aren’t enough Ls in eel takes for skeletal. Did the setter make a mistake?
    1. Good point! It looked fine at the time. ‘eel talks’ would work, if it didn’t make for a nonsense clue.
    2. Thanks Anon. This could be a new category of clue: anagrams that aren’t anagrams that some people just assume are anagrams!
      1. A bit late in the day, but I note the clue has now been changed to:

        14 Lee’s talk sadly in need of fleshing out? (8)

  3. 9 minutes having assumed that all the letters were present and correct for MONOSYLLABLE to be an anagram, and ditto for SKELETAL although in the latter case they were obviously supposed to be.

    Two days in a row with grids missing 1ac. So much for phasing them out!

  4. Started well then stalled on some very hard down clues. All the aids came out, otherwise I’d still be going. I note only 15 of the first 36 solvers on the leaderboard have error-free grids – not including me. Like Kevin I whacked in reprieve in place of RETRIEVE but unlike Kevin I wasn’t thorough enough to check the parsing in my eagerness to put this behind me! Never heard of MERETRICIOUS or OLEANDER and found those tough even as anagrams (and even with MERETRICIOUS clearly ending ICIOUS). Good misdirection caused me problems with SEASHELL and the reverse hidden was very impressive but passed me by as I bunged MONOSYLLABLE in from the checkers – apologies Joker, that clue deserved solving – but I did get SKELETAL despite as noted above the wrong letters being in the anagrist. I also made life hard for myself by thinking Maine was MA – states and the Greek alphabet are proving very hard to get to stick in my brain.
    1. The postal abbreviation for Maine is ME, but within the same system the postal abbreviation for California is CA. Lists of traditional abbreviations include Calif and Maine (sic).
  6. at 14dn? Or is the QC being reviewed by a SKELETAL staff due to COVID 19?
    Naughty Chairs for the Joker, the Frogger and the Editor!

    FOI 6ac (1ac) SEVERE

    LOI 2dn MERETRICIOUS

    COD 2dn MERETRICIOUS

    WOD 2dn MERETRICIOUS

    Time a Jackly 9 minutes! Just 15 seconds faster than my latest 15×15!

  7. I found this one really difficult. Took over an hour before I decided enough was enough, and that it was time to come here and learn how the answers were obtained. Do cryptic crosswords tends to get more difficult as the week progresses? I am sure I have heard it said that setters tend to make Monday crosswords easier, so as to ease us into the week gently.
    1. A perennial debate. A quick look at the website ‘Crossword SNITCH’ will give you the answer for the 15×15 (in summary, yes but not always).

      I’ve not noticed a pattern in the QCs but will check my notes later today and get back to you.

    2. Here’s my unscientific take on QC difficulty throughout the week (I’m sure Jackkt will be able to provide further evidence).

      Over the last 52 full weeks of QCs my average times for each day were:

      Mon 9m49s
      Tue 11m37s
      Wed 11m42s
      Thur 12m28s
      Fri 11m13s

      There’s a lot of variation between times on a particular day, but this suggests to me at least that Mondays tend to be a bit easier (or I’m a bit fresher) but there’s no clear trend of increasing difficulty Tuesday-Friday.

  8. Not the only one, I see, to biff MONOSYLLABLE without noticing the clever reverse hidden or that SKELETAL is not an anagram of eel takes. COD to KEROSENE for the surface. 4:13.
  9. The clock stopped at 23:45, so at least that was pleasing.

    DNK MERETRICIOUS (although it seems my spell-checker does, fair play) Lots of bear traps such SKELETON, BREWED and REPRIEVE. I left the third letter of the latter til the very end to make sure I had it the right way round, but got a red square for BREWED : “ends in neW alE anD” seemed fair to me.

    MONOSYLLABLE was late as well, never did see the hidden, or figure out the clue. An odd word like “bally” signals an anagram to me, but none of them quite worked out, and of course “son omitted” implied the ‘s’ missing from “some”: lots of red herrings in this clue.

    COD VULGAR

  10. I found this hard going throughout, with little flow to my solve. Fortunately I missed the typo in 14d or that would may have added further confusion. The two long down clues were slow to reveal themselves, although I should have guessed that the MONOSYLLABLE was a hidden due to the slightly awkward surface reading. However the PDM when I saw what was going on makes it my COD. MERETRICIOUS was unknown and ended up being my LOI after very careful checking of the anagram letters (anagrist?). I just managed to avoid the REPRIEVE elephant trap after double checking the parsing. Finished in 18.27.
    Thanks to William
  11. I don’t agree with the blog in relation to 14 down. Eel takes is not an anagram of skeletal. Three letters e in anagram and two in skeletal.
    1. If you had read the comments posted before yours you would have seen this point had already been made several times.
  12. A DNF at my 20 minute target, with
    MERETRICIOUS and RETRIEVE left blank. The first was unknown (and un-guessable) and I didn’t notice the missing L in SKELETAL. There were also two ‘replace letter’ clues, which is one more than I’d expect.
    I don’t like this type of grid, but at least there were no double and triple unches.
    Thanks to William for the blog.

    Brian

    1. Should this be a term to be included in the Glossary of Terms..? I suspect it is crossing / co-linear words in a grid. Sometimes they can get crowded and occasionally give you an answer without even attempting the clue.
      Is that what we’re on about here..??

      Barry

      1. The opposite, Barry.

        Unches are un-checked letters, i.e. those that appear between the crossing words.

        Definitely a good addition to the glossary.

  13. I had fun with this puzzle. I did know MERETRICIOUS and that clearly helped in my time of just under 24 minutes. Having said that, I thought it meant lying or false. Consequently, once I’d finished the crossword, I looked it up. I found that meretricious is (obvs) of Latin origin and (not obvs) meant “prostitute” from an earlier meaning of “that which can be hired “.
    Astonishingly, I also saw 8 down, MONOSYLLABLE, as a hidden and gaped at it for a while, amazed that the setter had managed to conceal such a long word. So clever.
    On the other hand, I didn’t notice that an L was missing for the correct parsing of 14 down, SKELETAL.
    Also, I made life harder for myself initially by putting in ‘Scot’ for 9 across, imagining that it was an example of a man’s name if he were to come from Paisley. But I think that ends in two Ts. And anyway, I pretty soon after that saw SEASHELL, 1 down.
    And, in fact, those two, 9 across and 1 down, SEASHELL and ISLE are my CODs. Simple but smart.
    Thanks very much, William, for the blog and thanks too to Joker
  15. … as my nice 10 minute finish joins several others in being a “DNF – 1 error at 11A”. It didn’t feel quite right as I put it in, as I could not parse the clue, and once again I should note that if it doesn’t feel right it probably isn’t right.

    That apart I spotted the very impressive hidden in 8D Monosyllable (though I don’t think monosyllabic words are always short, eg strength?), I knew and found 3D Meretricious, and I even knew 10D Oleander … and plants are usually my weak spot. The setter-error at 14D Skeletal completely passed me by.

    I have sympathy with those who put in Brewed for 16D as I toyed with it myself. But it didn’t feel right, as it doesn’t quite fit the surface – what is “for him” then doing? So I thought again. If only I had applied the same smell test to 11A!

    Many thanks to William for the blog. No thanks to Editor though for a grid with more errors than 1 Across clues!

    Cedric

  16. Yes, I entered SKELETAL like all the posters above and didn’t give it a second thought. Otherwise, I thought this was a good puzzle despite the lack of a 1ac. I didn’t find it easy and ended up a few seconds over 15 mins. I liked RETRIEVE, BREWER, DECODE, MONOSYLLABLE (brilliantly hidden) and MERETRICIOUS (which magically appeared in my head without writing down the anagrist). I biffed SEASNAIL and only made sense of its surroundings when I recognised SEASHELL (but surely the mollusc is the living creature inside the shell?). OLEANDER took a while and VULGAR was a biff – thanks for the parsing, Jeremy, and thanks to Joker for a good, if flawed, QC. John M.
  19. 20 minutes here, struggling to recall MERETRICIOUS failing to spot the reverse hidden (I put in monosyllabic first, but that made VULGAR (LOI) impossible to get. Breezed confidently through SKELETAL without spotting the error, but at least I got OLEANDER straight away. It is always slightly unsettling and unsatisfactory when there is an obvious error in the QC (although I didn’t spot it until coming here)., so I’m with Horryd, naughty step for the Editor. Thanks Joker and William.
  20. 8:03 but with REPRIEVE. Should’ve read the clue properly! MERETRICIOUS was my LOI. Didn’t notice the error with Eel takes. Thanks Joker and William.
  21. Pleased to finish quite quickly despite worrying over SKELETAL – but it couldn’t be anything else but a clue clanger.
  22. Whilst I also succumbed to the “Repreive” error, after 20 mins I still hadn’t got 1dn and dnf. Much sighing when I checked here and saw the fairly straightforward answer. So much for my mollusc repertoire and trying to fit in Bivalve and Cephalopod.

    Enjoyed the rest though, although it felt like there were a lot of “V’s” and “Evers” and I didn’t spot the error in 14dn.

    FOI – 7ac “Ermine”
    LOI – 1dn dnf
    COD – 2dn “Meretricious” – never heard of it, but crafted in such a way that it was solvable.

    Thanks as usual.

  23. In my rush to finish this I’m another one who assumed all the letters were in play for SKELETAL. Thank goodness there was no error in the anagram for 2d MERETRICIOUS which was my LOI and built up from -cious. SEASHELL was also a late solve which I failed to parse at the time. VULGAR was biffed too. 6:20 for an excellent day. Thanks all.

    Edited at 2020-11-18 12:32 pm (UTC)

  24. On paper today. A fast start slowed down by several particularly my last two SEASHELL and an incorrect REPRIEVE. Like John Dun, I should have read the clue more carefully but I was rushing to finish before lunch. 10 minutes on the clock. David
  25. About 13 mins with at least 5 spent on oleander and meretricious, the latter got from putting in letters where they seemed to fit best.

    COD monosyllable.

  26. Quite a hard test from Joker, even without the added complication of 14d being mis-clued. Several hold-ups along the way to a 30min solve, with the Retrieve/Meretricious pair being the longest. I also spent a long time trying different letter combinations for the non-existent anagram at 8d, before giving up and biffing Monosyllabic, which subsequently needed its tail adjusting. Unfortunately, I did spot the problem with Eel Takes and so wasted a chunk of time trying to think of an alternative for Skeletal, but rejected Skeletae. CoD to 16ac, Becalmed. Thanks for the blog, William – don’t sit on the step too long. Invariant
  27. 20 minutes here, struggling to recall MERETRICIOUS failing to spot the reverse hidden (I put in monosyllabic first, but that made VULGAR (LOI) impossible to get. Breezed confidently through SKELETAL without spotting the error, but at least I got OLEANDER straight away. It is always slightly unsettling and unsatisfactory when there is an obvious error in the QC (although I didn’t spot it until coming here)., so I’m with Horryd, naughty step for the Editor. Thanks Joker and William.
  28. I changed skeletal to a biffed skeletae and, still using the paper, wasn’t aware if correct or not until checking the blog. Thanks people
    1. The only person who had a correct answer…!! Well done you…!

      Edited at 2020-11-18 06:19 pm (UTC)

  29. Around the usual 10 mins here, having bunged in SKELETAL with clearly scant regard for the wordplay. Loved the reverse hidden at 8d, very clever. Oleander (Laurier Rose) grows prolifically down here so no probs there. Thank you William for the blog.
  31. Got skeletal straightaway and then went for reprieve. Gutted to drop 2 points late on. So only one letter out on a horrible grid. Thx all. Johnny
  32. A Good Day for me as I ‘finished’ in under a quarter of an hour. Like many others I just assumed that the ingenious 8d was an anagram. I failed to parse 11a or 20a but I did try to use the actual letters of eel takes, inventing a Latin plural skeletae for a non existent Latin word. I shan’t count that as DNF as the clue was wrong.
    FOI severe, COD oleander – when on holiday in Italy I can never remember which is hibiscus and which is oleander. Maybe I shall remember now!
    Blue Stocking
  33. I found that straightforward except for MONOSYLLABLE, which I simply couldn’t see – absolutely brilliant by Joker to hide such a long word! On SKELETAL I’m afraid the answer had occurred to me too quickly actually to check the anagrist so I got it right anyway (slight blush).

    I always enjoy Joker’s puzzles and this was another cracker.

    FOI SEVERE, LOI (by miles) & COD MONOSYLLABLE, time 2K (entirely down to MONO) for what has to go down as a Poor Day in the circs.

    Many thanks Joker and William.

    Templar

  35. Other than the SKELETAL confusion, everything was pretty much plain sailing and I finished just within my target of 15 minutes.
    However, I was also one of those who entered MONOSYLLABIC first of all until I spotted the reversed hidden and this has to be my COD.
    LOI was MERETRICIOUS which I painstakingly pieced together and I think this deserves to be WOD.
    Thanks to Joker for proving that setters are human after all and thanks to William for the great blog.
  36. Very slow today, finishing in 37 minutes and with one wrong (REPRIEVE). I spent a long time considering the faulty anagrist at 14dn and wondering whether SKELETAE was a word. Also thought that 9ac might be SCOT which of course made 1dn and 2dn impossible. Failed to spot the hidden at 8dn (hiddens are not my strong suit, even less so when they are reversed). Knew the word MERETRICIOUS but not what it meant which resulted in a lengthy pause even once I’d correctly solved 9ac. Altogether a bad day!

    FOI – 6ac SEVERE
    LOI – 1dn SEASHELL
    COD – also 1dn, very neat, but lots of other contenders.

  37. All went in easily, but like most I missed the SKELETAL SNAFU. No problem with RETRIEVE or BREWER. About 7 minutes so far, but … I could not for the life of me see AREA! Heaven knows why 🙁

    On the bright side I finished the Concise in 2:30, so I can fill a grid on the iPad in this time (and I had to correct a couple of typos) so all I have to do now is get to the point where the QC answers come to me “instantly”. I’m not holding my breath 🙂

    COD SEASHELL

    H

  38. Fairly tough one today I thought, with the two long M words holding me up the most. I was left with 8d with about 29 minutes on the clock and assumed it was an anagram of something with an S for son left out. However, there was definitely an S in there as it was one of the checkers and in any case the “send back’ bit of the clue didn’t make sense. Thankfully the answer came to me without working out what was going on, so I bunged it in and stopped my watch just inside my target on 29:47. Sorry that I missed such a great hidden though. As for dodgy eel in 14d, I missed that entirely. There did seem to be a great many Es all round today, especially in the top half (I counted 20 out of the 109 letters today), so I wondered if something deliberate was going on. There are three separate EVEs and an EAVE too. Is Joker having an anniversary of some kind tomorrow? Anyway, thanks William and, as always, Joker.
  39. FOI meretricious – nice obvious anagram. Very impressed by monosyllable which I spotted with some astonishment – incredible hide! Got very tangled with the erroneous 14d but assumed it had to be an error. I should note that in all my years solving crosswords this is the first error I have ever seen. I would like some help, though. Even after reading the answer I don’t understand 20ac, area. Why is concrete REAI?
    1. I retyped this many times in different ways to avoid confusion – sorry I settled on an unclear version! The confusion comes from lowercase ‘L’ looking like an uppercase ‘i’.

      A mostly concrete = A + most of a word meaning ‘concrete’ = A + REAL (concrete) excluding its last letter (L) = A + REA.

    2. Concrete as an adjective = “real” e.g. a concrete fact. Most of real is rea(l) and with the a in front, area.
  40. 22 minutes, 7 of which spent on the last two, Retrieve and LOI Meretricious (NHO).
    Like Rotter I went for Monosyllabic having not bothered to read the clue properly hence missing the hidden.
    Skeletal went straight in because that came up recently, and, unusually I didn’t check it well enough (well thankful that I didn’t!).
    Oleander, Vulgar and Cleave all took a while too.
    Always pleased to finish, especially a Joker!
    Thanks all
    John George

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