Times Quick Cryptic 1806 by Breadman with a bishy barnabee

Author   ChrisPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

7 minutes for a very enjoyable and quick cryptic. The NW was my only hold up – the rest were in by a remarkable 4-5 minutes. LOI was the long anagram at 3dn where I wasn’t thinking of a name for far too long. I rather liked the proximity and similarity of 20 and 22ac and had a pang at 19dn. COD 7dn.

ACROSS

1. Scrounger‘s location beyond usual area (8)
PARASITE – location (SITE) after usual (PAR) and area (A).
5. Notice difficulty (4)
SPOT – double definition. I’m not sure about the second – can one say ‘I’m in a difficulty’?
8. Legendary knight‘s weapon, an item for auction (8)
LANCELOT – weapon (LANCE), item for auction (LOT). Aptly named legendary knight.
9. Police force heading west, and east, take great risks (4)
DICE – police force – CID – heading west/backwards (DIC), east (E).
11. Oriental cutlery stays on cut of meat (10)
CHOPSTICKS – stays (STICKS) on cuts of meat (CHOPS).
14. Relocated in same French city (6)
AMIENS – anagram (relocated) of IN SAME.
15. Rubber tyres a repairman partly rejected (6)
ERASER – some of the clue (partly) and backwards (rejected) – ty(RES A RE)pairman.
17. Colour of banana, next to sink, is a warning sign (6,4)
YELLOW FLAG – colour of banana (YELLOW) next to sink (FLAG). The yellow naval signal flag for Q flown with a second one to indicate there is disease aboard. Also chucked onto the pitch by American football referees to indicate foul play.
20. Couple one encountered upon return (4)
ITEM – one (I), encountered – met – upon return (TEM).
21. Friend with ideas altered fence of stakes (8)
PALISADE – friend (PAL) with an anagram (altered) of IDEAS.
22. Attorney outside of the court (4)
DATE – attorney (DA), outside of (T)h(E).
23. Magnificent rowing team picked up famous wine (5,3)
GRAND CRU – magnificent (GRAND), homophone (picked up) of rowing team – crew.

DOWN

1. European‘s quiet word of approval (4)
POLE – quiet (P), word of approval (OLE!).
2. Phoned and spoke (4)
RUNG – double definition.
3. Railway engineer sent phones for repair (10)
STEPHENSON – anagram (for repair) of SENT PHONES.
4. Back street containing inferior soldiers (6)
TROOPS – street backwards (TS) containing inferior (POOR).
6. Royal person in car initially surrounded by media (8)
PRINCESS – in (IN) and (C)ar surrounded by media (PRESS).
7. Briefly handle certain wealth stored up (8)
TREASURE – briefly handle (TREA)t, certain (SURE). Excellent definition disguised as directional instructions.
10. Fast celebrity on holiday, missing California (10)
STARVATION – celebrity (STAR) on top of holiday (VA)ca(TION) – missing California (CA).
12. Woman, with time in prison, spotted beetle (8)
LADYBIRD – woman (LADY) with time in prison (BIRD). These are known as bishy barnabees where I was dragged up (yep, we’re an odd bunch). Where the term came from is unclear. It was possibly named after Bishop Bonner – a 16th century rector of East Dereham, or Bishop Barnaby from the Fens. The connection may have been with the red cloaks worn by Catholic Bishops. The term ladybird may derive from Our Lady, the Virgin Mary who, apparently, was thought to wear a red coat and the seven spots on the ladybird represent the seven joys and sorrows embroidered on that coat.
13. The Italian reclines in street – most stupid (8)
SILLIEST – ‘the’ in Italian (IL), reclines (LIES) inside street (ST). I thought for a moment that IL was backwards but then reclines=lies became clear.
16. A pair of females ventilate business (6)
AFFAIR – a (A), pair of females (FF), ventilate (AIR).
18. Type of brandy Republican kept in raincoat (4)
MARC – Republican (R) kept inside raincoat (MAC). A brandy distilled from grape residue.
19. List of dishes chaps start to upgrade (4)
MENU – chaps (MEN), (U)pgrade. Anyone else had a dream about white linen tablecloths and food being brought to the table? Maybe just me then (I don’t, at the moment, get out much – lunchtime takeaway soups in the freezing cold are, just about, pulling me through).

58 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 1806 by Breadman with a bishy barnabee”

  2. Biffed CHOPSTICKS, don’t think I bothered to parse it. DATE took me a while, because I persisted in thinking DxxA. 6:35.
  3. 7 minutes. I thought there was a bear-trap at 2dn where my first answer was RANG, but nobody so far has mentioned it so it may just be me. Having realised eventually that RUNG was the better option I was still hampered by never having thought of a ‘rung’ and a ‘spoke’ as being the same thing, yet SOED reliably informs me that a spoke can specifically mean the rung of a ladder. News to me!

    I have the same misgivings expressed by our blogger over ‘difficulty’ = SPOT as every equivalent I can think of requires the indefinite article in front of SPOT.

    Edited at 2021-02-09 06:14 am (UTC)

      1. Yes rang as in it spoke to me or rang true. Princess in a car was a dark surface I thought. 1 pink square but pleased with my time today… aping one esteemed blogger I was under 3K! Many thanks

    2. I thought rang as well, being past tense, as is phoned. However, rang and spoke aren’t synonyms, so I shrugged and put rung.
  4. Six on the first pass of acrosses and across the line all green in 16. Found my vocabulary pushed again. DIdn’t know MARC and have never heard of AMIENS. Turns out it is about the size of High Wycombe — but has a rather better Cathedral. Shamefully slow on STEPHENSON, that O made me want to put TRENCHPERSON in, despite being too many letters, no R etc etc. And it took a long time to get scrounger = PARASITE which finally completed the NW.
    1. Joan of Arc came from Amiens and the Notre-Dame d’Amiens cathedral is a world heritage site. Very pretty city and a good place to stop for a meal en route to/from Calais as it has some good restaurants.
    2. It used to be the place where your train stopped for the diesel locomotive to be replaced by an electric one on the way from Calais to Paris
  5. Having woken early and failed to return to the land of nod, I decided to rise and, if not quite shine, glow feebly in the dark and partake of a coffee and a stab at the crosswords. Having successfully completed the Concise, the QC was my next port of call, and was dispatched in a leisurely fashion without any great difficulty. PARASITE went straight in, followed swiftly by POLE, RUNG and TROOPS. STEPHENSON arrived later when I realised I was looking for a name not a job. I was then shown a YELLOW FLAG and slowed down a bit. Eventually I had the SILLIEST final entry. 8:51. Thanks Breadman and Chris. I think another coffee may beckon now, and a stab at the 15×15.

    Edited at 2021-02-09 07:48 am (UTC)

  6. FOI 5A: SPOT
    LOI 3D STEPHENSON

    Worked around corners clockwise from NW starting with SPOT (with the same slight uncertainty already mentioned) but with little difficulty thereafter.

    Thank you, chrisw91 and Breadman.

  7. Unlike the earlier posters I had a bleak first run through and as seems to happen sometimes, started at the bottom and slowly worked my way up the grid. FOI MENU. Biffed TREASURE and still don’t know why TREA(t) = handle. Brain definitely distracted today waiting for outcome of a major project bid, if successful will definitely open a 23A.
    Held up for a while as was Kevin looking for DxxA but spotted it on return. Longest time bizzarely trying to solve DICE realising that WIFE was tempting but probably not appropriate, so my LOI.
    Thanks Breadman and Chris, although still don’t understand 7D. Hopefully someone will enlighten me.
    1. “Treat” here is the verb as in treating someone kindly. Good luck with the bid. I’ve been involved with them on both sides.
      1. Treat with care / handle with care was the way I saw it. Treat kindly / handle kindly brings rather different images to mind!
    2. Collins Online Dictionary is well worth a reference. Here’s the relevant entry on treat:
      1. VERB
      If you treat someone or something in a particular way, you behave towards them or deal with them in that way.
      Artie treated most women with indifference. [VERB noun + with]
      Police say they’re treating it as a case of attempted murder. [VERB noun + as]
      He felt the press had never treated him fairly. [VERB noun adverb]
      The issues should be treated separately. [VERB noun adverb]
      [Also V n like]
      Synonyms: behave towards, deal with, handle, act towards
  8. FOI 1d, LOI 22a DATE. I did not interpret “outside of the” until the end. Not the very end, because that was after correcting RANG to RUNG. Must watch my past tenses and past participles. So DNF but enjoyed it. Thanks to Breadman and chrisw91.
  9. Nothing to frighten the horses here, I think. FOI PARASITE, LOI STARVATION. COD LANCELOT. 4:04.
  10. … and all done in 9 minutes. I also tossed up initially between Rang and Rung for 2D, but while rung = spoke is perhaps not an immediate association, it is at least possible, and rang = spoke is not even that, so in went rung. Toyed also with Yellow card for 17A until the checkers made it clear that this was wrong — not familiar with the American usage in sports though.

    LOI was the short and simple 9A Dice. I didn’t immediately see it and was resigned to an alphabet trawl. -I-E is not the most helpful combination and there are, I gather, well over 100 common words that might fit! Fortunately Dice appears quite early in the list.

    Many thanks to Chris for the blog
    Cedric

  11. I had RANG too – “as she spoke, her voice rang out across the courtyard” etc.

    The rest was relatively straightforward, even if a few of them took a couple of minutes to get on the required wavelength. NHO MARC but the clueing was obvious.

    I’m off to find out who this Marc Stephenson is now. Seems he had an affair with a Princess and was caught on a date with her in a Chinese restaurant in Amiens, studying the menu and playing with his chopsticks for ages while she necked the Grand Cru wondering whether she’d die of starvation. Think he might have been a Pole?

    Thanks Chris and Breadman

    1. I think this MARC STEPHENSON chap will be in a SPOT of bother with the TROOPS, as the PRINCESS is LANCELOT’s LADY/BIRD. He seems a bit of a PARASITE and should be YELLOW FLAGged for stealing LANCELOT’s TREASURE. Pity, they were an ITEM.
  12. I had a similar solve to others it would seem – RUNG v. RANG, something to go in the middle of D_ _ A, looking for a job title, not a name at 3d and getting inexplicably stuck on LOI DICE. Having said all of that none of them held me up for too long and there was plenty to enjoy along the way. Finished in 8.21 with COD to STEPHENSON for the misdirection but with a nod to POLE.
    Thanks to Chris

  13. Am trying a new technique of doing the crossword early rather than in bits during the day. I finished this one in less than 20 minutes so think it must be on the easier side. I also erred on rang/rung but corrected myself. I don’t think I’d seen “picked up” as a homophone before but thought it had to be “Grand Cru” from the rest of the clue.
    FOI Lancelot
    LOI Parasite

    Thanks Chris for the blog and Breadman for an achievable challenge.

  14. Between eight and nine minutes today, quite quick for me. Same issue with rang/rung. FOI Lancelot, LOI and COD Starvation. This, Times2 and Kakuro all done by 09.05. What next? 15×15? Might try my hand. Interesting someone recently mentioned what constitutes cheating. I think if you are really stuck, you need help, it is how you make progress. And yesterday’s comment about waiting until the filled grid is printed in the paper the next day — I remember those days, so frustrating. Thanks, Chris, and Breadman. GW
  15. I enjoyed this and didn’t find it such a doddle as some posters. A bitty start in the North so I moved south and worked my way back up. No problem with STEPHENSON (nice clue) or GRAND CRU (we have a few) but only when I managed to get GREAT (sounds like GR ‘eight’ — crew — geddit?) out of my mind. I needed the I of AMIENS before the answer came. I liked STARVATION and popped in LADYBIRD without waiting to see ‘bird’ as time in prison. I shared the Rang/RUNG issue with others. In the end, I breached my target by 2 mins but was content with that. Thanks to Breadman and Chris.

    Edited at 2021-02-09 09:39 am (UTC)

  16. Much enjoyed. I must be sub SCC today!
    FOsI POLE, LANCELOT
    LOI DICE
    Thanks vm, Chris.
  17. I rarely moan about clues, but I didn’t like DICE.

    CID isn’t a police force, it’s a branch of most police forces. Then although DICING with death or disaster may well be taking a great risk, I’m pretty sure you can DICE with less egregious outcomes. Minor though, and I’m only moaning because it dragged me from 4m 30 or so to an eventual finish in 5:32.

    Also put in RANG first, and changed it as I couldn’t make RANG = spoke, whereas RUNG seemed more likely.

  18. FOI: 11a CHOPSTICKS
    LOI: 21a PALISADE

    Time to Complete: DNF

    Clues Answered Correctly without aids: 17

    Clues Answered with Aids (3 lives): 3 (5a, 14a, 23a)

    Clues Unanswered: 3 (9a, 15a, 7d)

    Aids Used: Chambers, Google

    Wrong Answers: 1 (22a)

    Total Answered Correctly: 20/24

    When I first scanned through the clues on this puzzle, my heart sank. I just couldn’t make sense of any of it initially. However, as I persevered I started to see parts of clues being formed in my head, and off I went.

    9a – Just couldn’t get this one at all. Now that I look at the answer I wonder if Police department might have worked better for me than Police Force. With Force I was trying to think of one of the 43 Police Forces in the UK (45 if you include MDP and BTP), and how they might be abbreviated. If department had been used by the setter, it may have led me to try to think of a department within the Police, and CID may have popped into my head. But I guess that if Department had been used, it might have led people into thinking of a US Police agency.

    22a – I got DA, but I had D–A, as the clue seemed to suggest to me that DA went outside of “the court”. I could not think what the last two letters could be, and so I thought I might as well put something and you never know, I might get it right. I put DATA. So a wrong answer for me. Now that I see I should have seen outside of “the” (T, E).

    23a – I had to use Chambers for this as I am not a drinker of wine.

    2d – I put RANG. I did consider RUNG, but the word spoke didn’t seem to fit rung. However, RANG seemed to fit spoke better, as I have heard it said “He rang out” as in “He spoke out”.

    So, yet another DNF for me. But I am pleased with my effort.

    Edited at 2021-02-09 09:59 am (UTC)

  19. DNF after 25+ minutes, and can’t even blame the cricket this morning as the match ended before I woke up.

    Just could not get the final word in YELLOW FLAG, even after alphabet trawl. Also made mistakes with DATA/DATE and RUNG/RANG.

    COD: PRINCESS, for memories of that classic British Leyland model, which never seems to feature on “Life on Mars”

  20. FOI MARC and then quickly completed the bottom half.
    Like others I found the NW a struggle. Took ages to get 3d even with the fodder written out; STEPHENSON a candidate for COD. Last in was RUNG after I corrected RANG which did not ring true.
    Had I been online today I might have pressed Submit with Rang but it didn’t look right and RUNG seemed better, but not an obvious synonym of Spoke.
    15 minutes. COD to STARVATION but lots of good ones.
    David
  21. An enjoyable 25 mins for me which felt just on the right side of difficulty.

    I think there were some definite bear traps — apart from the 2dn “Rang/Rung”, I nearly biffed “Stockade” for 21ac and was looking for something more generic for 3dn rather than a name.

    11ac “Chopsticks” took far longer than it should of, as did 1ac “Parasite” (not what I usually think of as a scrounger). Didn’t have a problem with “Spot” as it could be used in the expression “in a right spot here”. Like a few people my LOI was “Dice” — I was also thinking of a particular force eg. the Met — so that threw me for a while.

    FOI — 1dn “Pole”
    LOI — 9ac “Dice”
    COD — 10dn “Starvation”

    Thanks as usual.

    Edited at 2021-02-09 11:10 am (UTC)

  22. Relatively straightforward and my fastest time (9 mins) for quite a while. No real hold-ups and no problems with the vocabulary. In common with several others I was looking for a job title for the anagram at 3dn but it didn’t hold me up too long once I had most of the checkers in place.

    FOI – 8ac LANCELOT
    LOI – 9ac DICE
    COD – 3dn STEPHENSON

    Thanks to Breadman and Chris.

  23. I wasted a lot of time with some of the 4 letter clues today. I am another who put in RaNG at first and then, thankfully, I deleted it before continuing. DATE took a while to see and my POI was DICE. STEPHENSON was a late solve but my LOI after much procrastinating in just over 9 mins was RUNG. Thanks to Chris and Breadman.
  24. First run through yielded very little but gradually things fell into place except for DATE and DICE, despite having 2 of the 4 letters in each case until seeking help! Some entertaining clues today.
  25. A nice gentle QC from Breadman that I still managed to mess up. I had doubts over Rang, but failed to resolve them and, worse still, spent a couple of minutes over Amiens despite having visited the place only a few years ago. I’m just grateful that I never considered putting card with yellow for 17ac… CoD to 23ac, Grand Cru — sorrows will be drowned this evening in something a tad less expensive. Invariant

    On edit: Today’s 15×15 is approachable, via a few long biffs to open up the grid.

    Edited at 2021-02-09 05:08 pm (UTC)

  26. …another one letter error but not a typo this time. I got the DA and TE thing but managed to come up with DOTE which sort of works with the definition. Whoops.

    Didnt parse CHOPSTICKS which was my LOI. Liked the rest particularly the STEPHENSON anagram

    Thanks all

  27. A long struggle for me today – 26:35 — right up to LOI STEPHENSON having to write out the anagram even with all the checkers. But plenty of clues to enjoy. I liked ERASER and DATE.

    I was disappointed not to see a bread reference, because I had thought we were on a run. Hunting around afterwards I find there is a 6dn PRINCESS bread making machine…

  28. All correct in 35 minutes (which is good for me), although I struggled to get going and was constantly thinking I would grind to a halt at any moment. It just takes one awkward clue or silly mistake for any attempt to end in a DNF, after all.

    Also, I have now finally reached a 50% solve-rate with Breadman. Onwards and upwards!

    FOI: SPOT (5a), although not 100% confident at the time.
    LOI: PARASITE (1a), after a short alphabet trawl.
    COD: STARVATION (10d), as I solved it from back to front.

    Many thanks, as usual, to chrisw91 for the excellent blog and to Breadman for an enjoyable and accessible puzzle.

  29. We had to ponder on a few of the clues and took 17 minutes to complete the puzzle. Thanks to Breadman for a fun challenge.

    FOI: Lancelot
    LOI: dice
    COD: grand cru

    Thanks to Chris for the blog.

  30. ….which I unusually did first today, I took out my wrath on this one, and find myself 9= on the leaderboard — which makes me feel a little better.

    Had no problem with RUNG, and agree with others that
    the CID are not a force (“Met” would be).

    FOI SPOT
    LOI STARVATION
    COD DATE
    TIME 3:19

    1. The clue you DNF’d on in the 15×15 took me a good 2 or 3 mins. Ruined what was looking like (for me) an excellent sub 15.
  31. FOI Rung
    LOI Dice
    COD Eraser

    Nice and steady.
    Date was tricky — same issue as Kevin…
    And Premier Cru delayed Grand Cru — oh for happy days in Chateau Mersault (among others!)

    Thanks all
    John George

    1. P = piano = quietly in musical terms, (Italian). You sometimes see p or pp (very softly) in a hymn book. The first line of the chorus ‘O come let us adore Him’ is sung pp, for instance. Am not musical but these things vaguely sink in.
      1. At the other end of the volume spectrum, look out for f=forte=loud and ff=fortissimo=very loud.
        Until I looked this up I, hadn’t realised there was a mp- mezzo-piano and fp=forte piano which, between them, make up the ‘average’ volume scale. Maybe have to look out for them in the 15×15.
  33. Yellow flags are used in Formula 1 to warn drivers they are approaching a possible hazard. Apart from RUNG and DICE this went fairly smoothly for me with just the odd pause for thought. Most enjoyable.
  34. This was going in very quickly today with 8a and 10d giving me only 6 to study harder. Deceived by 2d Rang/Rang as neither ‘spoke’ to me… and then had to go away and rummage in the loft for an hour before trying again for the remaining 22a Date and 9a Dice. Suddenly figured the correct meaning of ‘court’ but didn’t see the ‘t-h’ until I came here. Have the same reservations regarding CID in 9a but nothing else fitted and afterwards I rationalised it as just about ok. FOI 5a LOI 9a Dice COD 16d Affair. A DNF on 2d rang. Several clues to like – Grand Cru/Ladybird/Chopsticks among several. An enjoyable puzzle from Breadman and a helpful blog by Chrisw91.
  35. No one has queried fast=starvation, so I guess I must ge in a minority in thinking that they are different parts speach.
    1. I think it’s the noun. A fast=a starvation. I agree that the verb to fast=to go without food – rather than dying of lack of food.
  36. Thanks to our blogger for the bishy-barnabee. We first met it in a book of Norfolk dialect

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