Times Quick Cryptic 1787 by Joker

Author   william_j_sPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
DNF – hopefully for technical reasons regarding 18ac. I’m sure you’ll let me know if I’m missing something… [On edit, looking at the leaderboard, it seems I’m in good company!]

Otherwise a puzzle of average difficulty. I didn’t get 1ac straight away and ended up swiping through clues to find some easy pickings before returning to the less obvious ones. I’m a big fan of 11dn (both the clue and it’s solution), but my COD vote goes to the original and funny 11ac!

Definitions underlined.

Across
1 Unruly argument in open discussion meetings with Liberal left (4-3-3)
FREE-FOR-ALL – FREE (open), FORA (plural of ‘forum’, discussion meetings), L (liberal), and L (left).
8 Kidnap a French duke in outskirts of Brest (6)
ABDUCT – A, then DUC (French duke) contained by (in) the first and last letters (outskirts) of BresT.
9 Sound quality of Britain reduced in time (6)
TIMBRE – BR (Britain, abbreviated (reduced)) contained by (in) TIME.
10 One mostly loved thought (4)
IDEA – I (one), and all-but-the-last letter of (mostly) DEAr (loved). Took a while to see the ‘dear’ bit.
11 Tanning facility located centrally in resort island, luring frumps? (8)
SOLARIUM – central pairs of letters from (located centrally in) reSOrt isLAnd luRIng frUMps.
12 Dandy around university runs business department (6)
BUREAU – BEAU (dandy) containing (around) U (university) and R (runs).
14 Better, except when editor’s replacing short part (6)
EXCEED – EXCEpt with ED (editor) replacing ‘pt’ (short part).
16 Brilliant group of puppies following good year (8)
GLITTERY – LITTER (group of puppies) after (following) G (good), then Y (year).
18 Noticed small cuts (4)
SOWN – no idea. I’m tempted to say that the clue and solution do not match here, perhaps due to an editing hiccough, but I also know that I am very stupid sometimes. I entered SAWS on the grounds that SAW (noticed) + S (small) = cuts, but got the dreaded pink squares and couldn’t (can’t) see an alternative interpretation.
SAWS – SAW (noticed) and S (small). Now corrected after an earlier mishap (see comments below).
20 Unproductive noble, by the sound of it (6)
BARREN – homophone of (by the sound of it) “baron” (noble).
21 Medicine man with counterfeit article (6)
SHAMAN – SHAM (counterfeit) and AN (article).
22 Some rubbish appears wet for recycling (10)
WASTEPAPER – anagram of (for recycling) APPEARS WET.

Down
2 Fanatical attack captures bishop (5)
RABID – RAID (attack) containing (captures) B (bishop).
3 Australian bird, a sort of teal, is mimic (7)
EMULATE – EMU (Australian bird) with an anagram (sort) of TEAL.
4 Not at home in Tynemouth (3)
OUT – hidden in (in) tynemOUTh.
5 Important transport link cut by hostile heavy guns (9)
ARTILLERY – ARTERY (important transport link) containing (cut by) ILL (hostile).
6 The French half murder Madagascan native (5)
LEMUR – LE (‘the’ in French) with half of MURder.
7 Gamekeeper’s beginning to stir up birds (6)
GROUSE – first letter of (…’s beginning) Gamekeeper, then ROUSE (to stir up).
11 Eastern US is mad for sweet wine (9)
SAUTERNES – anagram of (is mad) EASTERN US.
13 Loud PA broadcast put on a bigger system (6)
UPLOAD – anagram of (broadcast) LOUD PA.
15 Source of starch fool put in Spanish fizz (7)
CASSAVA – ASS (fool) inside (put in) CAVA (Spanish fizz).
17 Short time in drag for cast (5)
THROW – HR (hour abbreviated, short time) inside (in) TOW (drag).
19 Sea creature in western sound (5)
WHALE – W (western) and HALE (healthy, robust, sound).
21 View scene regularly omitted (3)
SEE – odd letters from (regularly omitted) ScEnE.

87 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 1787 by Joker”

  1. I had SAWS too (and pink squares after 6:45 to do the puzzle). If there is another word that fits, I can’t think of it, and there is nothing about SAWS that doesn’t match every single word in the clue.

    Going to the non-club version of the crossword, where you can click on “reveal” it is SOWN, like you say. But I don’t see how that fits the clue. A mistake, I suspect. The entire leaderboard for the crossword on the club has 1 wrong too.

    Edited at 2021-01-13 12:57 am (UTC)

      1. Fortunately, by the time I did this and checked the answers on my phone, the error had been fixed and ‘saws’ was all green. Might have had an exploding brain, otherwise…
  2. Got the 1 incorrect so came to see what it was, and I don’t see how you can get SOWN from the clue. Maybe that is Joker’s hidden extra?
  3. It’s got to be SAWS; SOWN makes no sense.
    Slow today, with my frozen fingers (this room is unheated, and the space heater in the kneehole of my desk doesn’t warm them up) leading to typo after typo. 8:14.
  5. With the same error as everyone else. Not the easiest puzzle, but definitely finishable. (With the exception of SAWS/SOWN of course.)

    Edited at 2021-01-13 01:57 am (UTC)

    1. Another victim of the SAWS/SOWN conundrum. Time, I think, for Joker or the Crossword Editor to come up with an explanation. Otherwise a nice puzzle.
  6. I would bet that it is an error in the puzzle solution rather than the setter. Why does the Times not correct errors in the club puzzles? I was doing one from 4 years ago, and like everyone else got the same clue wrong, which had been picked up in the blog at the time. It is frustrating when you get a good time, to see that you have made a “mistake”, when you haven’t!
  8. This is proving to be a tough week. I got just one on my first pass of the acrosses – GLITTERY – which since I’m sure I’ve never drawn a total blank is a personal worst. The early downs gave enough to get a foothold to finally finish in a little over 20m again. The puzzle stretched my vocabulary to the limit with SAUTERNES and CASSAVA both having to be right but unknown while ‘hale’ for ‘sound’ also caused me problems until I got the W of WHALE from SAWS. On SAWS I thought it was a great clue – only three letters but totally foxed me by making me want to put the S of small at the start from checkers, so I was looking for a three letter word for cuts to make a word meaning NOTICED (like ‘seen’). Had the same pink squares as everyone else – nice to be third on the leaderboard though – wish MelindaE and joseph came on here so we could ask how they parsed it!
  9. Ha – typical, only my second ever sub-5 and I get the dreaded pink squares in the same place as everyone else.

    Oh well, onwards!

  10. My heart sank when the pink squares came up for the second day in the row – so I’m glad to see that it looks like an editing snafu rather than a DNF.
    Other than that not much to say about this one as I found it fairly run of the mill. But it was a steady solve which I finished in 9.43 with LOI EXCEED.
    Thanks to William
  11. A nice puzzle despite the issue with 18A. Nearly a sub 30 solve but miss-spelling artillery with an ‘a’ made 14A Exceed quite difficult and 20A Barren also alluded me. Its not a definition I associated with unproductive, but I am sure its in the dictionary.

    Many thanks for the blog (and for everyone else not understanding why Saws was wrong!) and thanks Joker for a pleasant morning solve.

    FOI 4D Out
    LOI 20A Barren
    COD 16 Glittery. It conjured up a nice picture!

    33 minutes but with help for the last few.

  12. Time 14 mins (the 14.01).

    Where’s the editor!? How does that work!? I bet Mr. Wyvern toyed with SOWN!

    FOI 1ac FREE FOR ALL

    LOI 18ac SAWS/SOWN

    COD None!

    WOD 11dn SAUTERNES which I nearly bought this morning but opted for the Muscadet – I’m hosting ‘A Poor Man’s Christmas Luncheon’ tomorrow – Menu provided upon request.

    Edited at 2021-01-13 08:59 am (UTC)

  14. Thought it was definitely a PB but put SAWS too.
    FOI FREE FOR ALL , LOI EMULATE which I rather liked.
    For once I zoomed through without stopping really, with lots of happy guesses.

    Thanks vm, William

  15. … like everyone else. Perhaps Joker could kindly comment before the next 50-odd puzzled entries.

    But apart from that it was very enjoyable. Enough relatively easy ones to reassure and the others were gettable in the end.

    Thank you Joker and William

    Diana

    Edited at 2021-01-13 09:12 am (UTC)

  16. Under 12 mins but I join all those who wrote SAWS instead if SOWN. Obvious error in the solution, I suppose. Some very good, straightforward clues from Joker but spoilt by 18a. A pity because many newer solvers would have joined me in benefitting from an easier QC after some recent puzzles. Thanks to Joker (I assume he is innocent) and Jeremy. John M.

    Edited at 2021-01-13 09:26 am (UTC)

  17. I join everyone else …
    … with a speedy finish (for me) upset by what is clearly a system error.

    A shame, as otherwise a good puzzle with many nice clues. I particularly liked 11A Solarium, which was a nice PDM when I saw both the answer and the parsing – tanning facilities having initially led me off down the track of leather factories.

    Many thanks to William for the blog
    Cedric

  18. 18 Across must be SAWS.

    SOWN just does not fit.

    Not sure what these pink squares you mentioned are.

    1. It’s the pink letters that are highlighted when you think you’ve satisfyingly completed the puzzle but unfortunately have got something wrong. Which then means what you thought was your best time, isn’t.

      Posting as someone who’s all too familiar with them.

      Diana

  20. Even with VAR I cannot make SOWN work -like everyone else.
    Finished in 08:24 with pink squares.
    David
  22. Very glad to see that it wasn’t just me being daft. That aside, there are some pleasing clues here. I enjoyed the unusual wordplay in 11 across, SOLARIUM, and also liked WHALE, for the word class misdirection of “sound”. I was less keen on “ill” for “hostile ” in ARTILLERY, 5 down, and I needed the blog to unravel the parsing in THROW, 17 down. I parsed 10 across, IDEA, differently (and wrongly! ), getting to it via IDEA(L) , as one mostly loved.

    Thanks so much, William, for the blog, and thanks too to Joker.

  23. Date: Wed, 13 Jan 21

    FOI: 16a GLITTERY
    LOI: 20a BARREN

    Time to Complete: DNF

    Clues used with aid (3 lives): 3/3

    Aids Used: Chambers Crossword Dictionary, TftT

    Total Answered: 16/24 (3x aids) + 8x TftT

    The past few days have proved to be difficult for me when it comes to solving these crosswords, and yesterday’s one was not a pleasant experience. However, even though today’s one was a DNF, I enjoyed it so much more.

    I started off well, quickly getting my FOI (GLITTERY). I worked this one out using the parts of the clue (I think this is what some you more experienced crossword solvers call “parsing”?) I was a little unsure of the finished word, but I took a gamble and put it in anyway.

    I wasted a lot of time on 21a SHAMAN. My train of thought leaned far too much on trying to conjure up a more modern hospital type of medicine man.

    18a – I too cannot see how the answer was obtained from the clue.

    I am relying too much on using aids to answer clues and so from today I allow myself to have 3 lives using aids. The 3 clues I used an aid (Chambers) were:

    20a BARREN (I groaned when i saw this word)
    2d RABID
    11d SAUTERNES (I knew I’d have to look this one up. I’m no red-nosed sot).

    Clues not answered: 12a, 14a, 18a, 21a, 22a, 13d, 15d, 19d

    Edited at 2021-01-13 10:30 am (UTC)

  24. Without 18A this would have been a PB for me, so pretty frustrating. Was 10:29 even after a good two minutes on that one. Its the first time I’ve seen a flat-out error by the setter/sub-editor, so I’m cutting Joker some slack.

    COD SOLARIUM, don’t often see a completely new species of clue.

  25. It has got to be saws – along with everyone else, I cannot get sown from the clue. Obviously a typo or translation error on publishing
  26. An enjoyable puzzle as usual from Joker, apart from the editing error of course, but that didn’t worry me as I always solve on paper. Ended up with 35:10, though I got a lot of the answers from the clues alone. Unlike some puzzles where this is the case though, apart from the chestnut BARREN and OUT, they weren’t immediate write-ins and required a few moments thought. I know write-ins can make for fast times, but it’s not as satisfying if the clues are too easy, especially, as often seems to be the case, when the last few clues are at the opposite end of the spectrum and you spend half an hour pulling your hair out when you thought you were on for a pb at the three-quarters mark. My one real problem was SAUTERNES as I don’t think I’ve heard of it. Being an anagram as well as a foreign word made it particularly hard, but it seemed slightly more likely than STUREENAS or SAUREENTS. Perhaps I should start drinking, but then I’m not sure the time gained on the wine knowledge would compensate for the lost brain cells. LOI was EXCEED, mostly because I had spelt ARTILLERY wrong. Anyway, thanks Joker and William.
  27. Perhaps one of the 15 “all-correct” solvers at the top of the leaderboard would care to explain how they parsed SOWN.

    I won’t hold my breath.

      1. What an excellent idea. Would it be possible for the powers that run the TftT site to ask the 15 all-correct submitters how they explain their answer to 18A – and if they can’t, warn them that the sanction of barring them from the site for abusing it does exist?
  28. 11 minutes here with SAWS! It looks to me like a late change by the Editor which wasn’t followed through to rewrite the clue, and like others, I have wracked my brain to find a way to make SOWN fit the clue – without success. Otherwise, up to Joker’s usual standard. Thanks both.

    1. Perhaps we could help Joker out with a nice clue for SOWN, here’s my attempt.

      18A : Scattered drifts, second to last (4)

      Edited at 2021-01-13 12:02 pm (UTC)

        1. Scattered = sown. Drifts=snow, then move the second letter of snow (n) to the end, for SOWN.

          Well, I’m new at clue-writing!

          Edited at 2021-01-13 12:43 pm (UTC)

  29. As above, put in “Saws” for 18ac, however I was also stumped with 14ac “Exceed”, putting in “Asscava” for 15dn (probably should have known it – but didn’t). As a result, after 25 mins I invented another word for 14ac “Exased” – which sounded nice, but was obviously wrong.

    Must have been a day for inventing words and random thinking as I nearly had Littergy for 16ac, and thought the parsing for 19dn was a homophone for the “Outlaw Josey Wales” 🤪

    Probably one to forget I think.

    FOI – 4dn “Out”
    LOI – 14ac – dnf
    COD – 1ac “Free For All” – if only…

    Thanks as usual.

  30. More pink squares here with SAWS….which must be correct! Otherwise I managed a 9 minute solve with FOI ABDUCT and LOI SHAMAN. I biffed FREE FOR ALL and SOLARIUM from checkers but parsed after submitting.
  31. FOI, OUT, LOI EXCEED. 6:04 with SAWS. Editing is getting a bit loose. Thanks Joker and William.
  32. I didn’t find this quite as easy as others, taking 25mins plus another five or so to sort out a couple of parsings – Exceed (just didn’t see the obvious) and Throw (where I had T for time…). Naturally I also had Saws for 18ac. CoD to the unknown 15d, Cassava. Invariant
  33. I’m assuming sown is an error too. Can anyone help me with a mystery from a different source. The Clue was “Rob again backed a fitter” and it has appeared a few times in different puzzles with the suggested answer TROWEL which is baffling me. I think TOOLER works better but does anyone agree with TROWEL and can explain why? Thanks anyway!
    1. I, like you, am baffled by TROWEL. I can see that TOOLER reversed to RE-LOOT is to rob again. Did the checkers support TROWEL? My best guess is that TOOLER is such a rarity that a spell-checker may have substituted TROWEL, which shares three letters in the same positions, at some stage in the compilation of the puzzle.
      1. Thank you – I’m waiting to see the answer this weekend. I don’t submit entries if I’ve googled a clue like this so it’s more an honour thing 🙂
  35. My sincere apologies. The error was clearly of my making, the result of a late change of word during cluing without remembering to update the grid to match, though the Editor is usually good at spotting such things. In this case I have just let the Puzzles Editor know and the error has been swiftly corrected.
    Joker
    1. Many thanks for your clarification Joker, and my apologies to the Editor for suggesting that the fault lay with him in my earlier comment.

      Your suggested clue for 18a made me smile, although it would be hard to choose between your suggestion and Merlin’s if choosing a COD.

    2. From memory, the editor DID spot it, but must have forgotten to update the online version

      The Editor

  36. Since poor old Joker seems to be missing a clue for SOWN, here’s my attempt:

    18A : Scattered drifts, second to last (4)

      1. Joker, thank you for your wonderful crosswords. Given the world context, if this is the worst thing that happens to me today I shall be extremely content.
      2. Brilliant. 18ac was the only clue I didn’t get in 20 mins. And I did the whole thing on paper🤣
  37. Like most people I was flummoxed by 18a. Did the rest fairly easily – a great change from the recent toughies.
  38. Unexpected bonus to having a long work call first thing – by the time I got to this, 18ac had been fixed. Shame it wasn’t a neutrino-trap though, that would have been excellent.

    Excellent puzzle as always from Joker, neat and witty. I delayed myself by entering DOCTOR at 21ac, on the basis that “counterfeit article” was a verb not a noun, but unscrambled it when I got WHALE. Fortunately the Q-ANON SHAMAN has had so much publicity recently that the correct solution readily presented itself.

    FOI FREE-FOR-ALL, LOI & COD EXCEED, time 1.2K for a Very Good Day.

    Many thanks Joker and William.

    Templar

  39. Pleasing to get my own back on clue writers with a bit of misdirection, scattered not being an anagram indicator

    1. Great clue Merlin. I thought as an alternative you could use “Scattered” as an anagrind and just have “Scattered snow”, which is possibly a semi-and lit, but I must admit I’m not too great at recognising the different types of clue.
  40. Yes, I can see exactly what you are doing. And you had drifts as another potential anagrind into the bargain.
  41. 52 minutes today, which makes it nine unaided solves from the last 10 QCs. My average solve time has risen, however, by 10 minutes or so. Focusing on fully parsing each clue, rather than trying to beat the clock, has significantly improved my success rate and this, in turn, has led to greater satisfaction and less frustration/annoyance on my part. Mrs Random is much relieved, as you might imagine (BTW, she did 24 minutes today, so I have a way to go yet).

    As I solve on paper, I did not suffer the ‘pink squares’ problem when I entered SAWS for 18a. I did, however, take an age to realise that EXCEED is not spelt excede. I could see that GROUSE was correct for 7d, but still spent many minutes trying to justify GROUND in it’s place, purely to work with my incorrect spelling of 14a.

    My main stumbling block, though, was the LHS of the grid, and I still had eight unsolved clues (all intersecting) after about 45 minutes. The penny eventually dropped on 3d: EMULATE, and the remaining seven clues fell fairly quickly thereafter.

    As always for me, a tough workout from Joker. Many thanks to william_j_s for the explanations.

  42. In case it hasn’t yet been reported here, David Parfitt has posted this in the Times forum:

    Many apologies for the error in the solution for 18A. This has now been corrected and the puzzle rescored.

    1. Have the “SOWN” brigade been marked as having an error? I can’t remember who any of them were to be able to check.
  43. ….as I didn’t get here until after lunch. I’m glad we don’t have to diSOWN Joker, whose puzzle was, as usual, neatly presented.

    FOI FREE-FOR-ALL
    LOI SOLARIUM
    COD ARTILLERY
    TIME 3:34

  44. Solving in the afternoon as I usually do means that any problems have been ironed out by the time I post. I can therefore say I had it all correct in 14 minutes. Nice puzzle – thanks Joker. Thanks also for the blog.

    FOI – 1ac FREE FOR ALL
    LOI – 14ac EXCEED
    COD – 11ac SOLARIUM

  45. This has been fascinating to understand that almost everyone must complete online to get all the pink squares….

    I enjoy the newspaper print copy.

    20 minutes with some tricky bits – NHO Cassava although gluing generous – couldn’t see why Throw – thanks for the blog..
    LOI Solarium – couldn’t think of the word and didn’t see the obvious constitution…

    Many thanks all,
    John George

    1. I buy the actual paper. I find it more difficult to solve crosswords on line. And also the Births, Marriages and Deaths are not in the on-line version. (Now reached the age where I mostly look at the latter.) I do read other papers on line though.

      Edited at 2021-01-13 05:49 pm (UTC)

    2. Happily we also complete on paper, because this was a resounding PB for us at around 9 minutes, made all the better by Kevin’s frozen fingers – never dreamt of getting with a minute of him! I have to say though that I think this is about as good as it gets, every clue seemed to be read, immediately see an answer, check the parsing and write it in, so utmost respect to those can complete in half the time.
    3. I can only say that (a) I buy the paper and complete with pen and ink, but (b) am guilty of from time to time using the phrase “all green” as a metaphorical way of saying all correct. I may not be completely alone in this …
    4. Re: buying the newspaper: I’m currently classed as ‘clinically extremely vulnerable’ and therefore advised to shield so I am not visiting our village store on a daily basis to purchase a physical newspaper. In December, I decided to emerge from lurking here and try to improve my solving time by completing online against the clock.
  48. Posting late has its advantages and on paper. We realised something was up from the 60 + comments. Otherwise a nice puzzle which we finished in a good time for us, thanks for the entertainment above.
  49. Distracted by my sister’s birthday (it’s a milestone one and we’re trying to make it special from afar). Anyhow, we raced through the his one but, like everyone else it seems, got stuck on 18A (so pleased that the answer isn’t sown as it made no sense to us at all) which pushed our time up to 12 minutes. Other than that some very nice clues – thanks Joker.

    FOI: rabid
    LOI: DNF due to 18A
    COD: cassava

    Thanks for the blog William.

  50. I found this so much easier than yesterday and did it in under 20 minutes which is Very Good for me.
    FOI out
    LOI shaman
    COD solarium. I only spotted how it worked after I’d put it in. Very clever.
    I took a while to do 18a but I can’t see why there is a problem with SAWS. Noticed = saw, small =s, saws = cuts.
    Thank you William and Joker
    Blue Stocking
    1. There isn’t a problem with SAWS, but earlier entries had that marked as incorrect, with SOWN as the correct answer.

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