Times Quick Cryptic 1827 by Jalna

Author   william_j_sPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
I failed to see 1ac on first pass (the topic not being my strongest subject) so this was a bottom up solve for me. A little over average time, possibly owing to the above, but all seems de rigueur in retrospect. COD to 13dn for the time I accidentally described someone as “in the pudding club” to friends, and was immediately scolded for being rude – a good example of crosswordland and the real world not really mixing very well!

As an aside, Felix left a tantalising message (assuming it’s genuine) on my last blog, to say that there was a Nina. I’ve wracked my brains and can’t see it. Perhaps you can help – I’ll post an image of the completed grid below.

Definitions underlined.

Across
1 Team not entirely fluid in possession of ball (6,6)
LEYTON ORIENT – anagram of (fluid) NOT ENTIRELY containing (in possession) of O (ball).
8 To the left, space to tie up boat (4)
MOOR – reversal of (to the left) ROOM (space).
9 Insult, loud, in a van (7)
AFFRONT – F (forte, loud) contained by (in) A and FRONT (vanguard, van).
11 Newborn child? No, a teen, strangely (7)
NEONATE – anagram of (strangely) NO A TEEN.
12 The best chocolate ultimately low in calories (5)
ELITE – last letter of (ultimately) chocolatE then LITE (low in calories).
14 Old organ used for stage musical (6)
OLIVER – O (old) and LIVER (organ).
15 Underground place, mostly nasty and hot on the inside (6)
GROTTO – all-but-the-last letter of (mostly) GROTTy (nasty), then the middle letter of (on the inside) hOt.
18 Ace captain, winning (5)
AHEAD – A (ace) and HEAD (captain).
20 Sign attached to back of iron gate (7)
POSTERN – POSTER (sign) then the last letter (back) of iroN.
21 Tooth in front of canine is yellow (7)
INCISOR – IN, first letter (front) of Canine, IS, then OR (yellow, or gold in heraldry).
23 Spot unwanted visitor in the garden (4)
MOLE – double definition. One would be very welcome in mine.
24 An outstanding feature of our economy? (8,4)
NATIONAL DEBT – cryptic definition.

Down
2 Energy company distributed monies, cut costs (9)
ECONOMISE – E (energy), CO (company), and an anagram of (distributed) MONIES.
3 Sailors having starter of eel, served raw (7)
TARTARE – TAR and TAR (sailors) with the first letter (starter) of Eel.
4 New diner is less cluttered (6)
NEATER – N (new) and EATER (diner).
5 Get irritated about loud weapon (5)
RIFLE – RILE (get irritated) containing (about) F (forte, loud).
6 Broody music featured in zombie movie (3)
EMO – hidden in (featured in) zombiE MOvie.
7 Appropriate, small amount of alcohol bloke stirred in pot (2,3,5)
TO THE POINT – TOT (small amount of alcohol), HE (bloke), and an anagram of (stirred) IN POT.
10 Hotel getting prolonged applause for introduction of fresh ideas (10)
INNOVATION – INN (hotel) and OVATION (prolonged applause).
13 Expecting free lunch, I bet! (2,3,4)
IN THE CLUB – anagram of (free) LUNCH I BET.
16 Took a liberty ignoring leader and started again (7)
RESUMED – pRESUMED (took a liberty) missing its first letter (ignoring leader).
17 Ambushes set up next to a city long ago (6)
SPARTA – TRAPS (ambushes) reversed (set up) then (next to) A.
19 Dance tunes made with snippet of Verdi score (5)
DISCO – hidden in (made with snippet of) verDI SCOre.
22 Dock workers’ organisation on the rise (3)
CUT – TUC (Trade Union Council, workers organisation) reversed (on the rise).

As promised, below is the completed grid for puzzle 1817 by Felix. His comment was, “There’s a Nina in this puzzle but rather an obscure one”. Can you find it, and put me out of my misery?

70 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 1827 by Jalna”

  1. Challenging. I felt this had a 15×15 vibe, especially as I had just come from a slow but steady solve of that one, and didn’t find this any easier overall. All pretty fair cluing but I seemed to get the wrong end of the clue more often than not — just not on the wavelength. Very deep into SCC territory by the time I finished.
  2. Bucking the trend I was on wavelength for that one. Wrote down the anagrist for LEYTON ORIENT and by magic it appeared. Then I did INNOVATION, so I was well set.

    Some excellent clues and a refreshing change of style. I really enjoyed that one.

    FOI LEYTON ORIENT, LOI MOLE, COD ELITE (brilliant), time squeaked under 10 for 1.1K and an Excellent Day.

    Many thanks William and Jalna.

    Templar

    PS did anyone else briefly wonder if 13dn was going to be UP THE DUFF?!

    Edited at 2021-03-10 12:54 pm (UTC)

  3. After a near PB yesterday, I guessed today’s QC might be hard work – especially when I saw it was by one of the less frequent setters. And so it proved. I found the across particularly problematic early on, and half an hour in I was bracing myself for an inevitable DNF. However, bit by bit the clues fell and solving 19a (POSTERN – from where I dredged that word up, I don’t know) was key to me completing the puzzle. I needed all the checkers for 1a (LEYTON ORIENT) and my LOI was 18a (AHEAD). My COD has to be the cryptic definition at 24a (NATIONAL DEBT).

    Many thanks to william_j_s for his excellent blog and to Jalna for a testing and enjoyable challenge.

  4. I didn’t have too much trouble with the puzzle. LEYTON ORIENT jumped out once I had the crossers. I finished with RESUMES and MOLE. Then I pressed submit at 9:20 and my laptop stopped responding. It had been a bit sluggish all morning. After a while it came back and let me press the second submit button, but gave me a time of 10:17. Then I discovered Windows was trying to update the system. It failed and totally crashed the laptop and I’ve just spent the last 3 hours getting it running again. After a lot of messing about, the update that was failing to install seems to have completely vanished. I wonder if %*”&* Microsoft have withdrawn it in the meanwhile. There are several references in Google to KB5000802 causing problems! Rant over. Thanks Jalna and William.

    Edited at 2021-03-10 01:23 pm (UTC)

  5. Despite taking nearly twice as long as my target, I thought this was a most enjoyable crossword. In fact, after putting my pen down, I said out loud ‘Well, that was fun!’

    As we’ve commented in the past, tackling and completing something a little more challenging can be much more rewarding than whizzing through in a few minutes. I think this may be the first Jalna I’ve finished with any confidence tbh! So many cracking surfaces today – 6d EMO really amused me, LEYTON ORIENT, INNOVATION and MOLE were excellent too, and looking again, I now find that it is going to be really difficult to pick a COD.

    Like others, LEYTON ORIENT was my LOI, and I too should have got it much more quickly, having lived in the area for a few years. I realised it had to be a football club but it clearly wasn’t Crystal Palace!

    FOI Economise
    LOI Leyton Orient
    COD In the club

    Many thanks to Jalna for the fun and to William for the clear explanations.

    Thanks too to Felix for putting us out of our misery. Ironically, because he is known for ninas, I did spend a few minutes looking for one to no avail at the time – I’m glad I didn’t waste any more. In-jokes are all well and good but really? Unless we had kids at the same school, we never had a chance 🙄

    1. I spent ages looking for that Nina … I was convinced it was something to do with physics because of “relativity” at 1dn, and searched the internet for physicists called Schumann!!
  6. Very tricky today, taking me 26 minutes over lunch. Knew LEYTON ORIENT but it still took me some time with some of the checkers in place. Rather an obscure team for a crossword I thought (sorry Orient fans!). NHO NEONATE or EMO but luckily these were fairly straightforward. Didn’t fall into the port trap at 8ac but didn’t know which way round the answer had to be until I solved 3dn fairly late on. Also spent a lot of time on 7dn before I could see what was going on with the clue. Thanks to Jalna for an enjoyable puzzle and to William for assistance with the parsing for GROTTO and INCISOR, which I had biffed.

    FOI – 14ac OLIVER
    LOI – 17dn SPARTA
    COD – 12ac ELITE

  7. ….10 minutes before I sat down with this puzzle, Sheila’s granddaughter and her partner dropped by to tell us that she’s IN THE CLUB for the first time, and that. September will bring a NEONATE.

    This was quite tricky, but I got the footy clue at the second attempt — it actually describes the team pretty well, which probably accounts for them sacking their manager recently ! I once visited their ground (Brisbane Road) to see Altrincham in an FA Cup replay (which we lost).

    FOI MOOR
    LOI SPARTA
    COD LEYTON ORIENT
    TIME 5:21

    1. Congratulations on the In the Club news, Phil.

      Strangely I raced through this and had that “this is too easy to be satisfying” feeling (and I’m not a strong solver) before being held up on the last half dozen. I’m pretty well up on football but still struggled with, but eventually got, Leyton Orient. I’ve never been to Brisbane Road but often used to go Moss Lane to watch Alty (and went to school just round the corner).

      On reflection, a satisfying puzzle today. FOI MOOR, LOI POSTERN, COD LEYTON ORIENT.

      Thank you, William and Jalna.

      1. It’s a small world ! I remember the original game at Moss Lane better — we should have won, but an error by former Manchester United and England goalkeeper Alex Stepney cost us our chance.
  8. 11:27 the resumed / mile intersection taking forever to reveal itself.

    Very enjoyable puzzle thanks William and jalna.

    In hopeless on NINAS and no help at all on this one I’m afraid

  10. We were doing well until we has 1a and 3d to do. Took another 10 minutes to realise port was wrong, and and an alphabet trawl for the second half of the football team. No problem with postern, an interest in castles years ago helped, they usually had a postern gate. Enjoyable puzzle, thanks Jalna and for the blog.
  11. – badly. I put in LOI postern on 18 minutes and still couldn’t see why it worked – so thanks for the blog – so simple! Jalna provided a different puzzle today which was certainly a challenge. I shall approach any future ones far more carefully.

    As for the nina – there are an unsurprisingly large number of authors out there who have many book titles – which is the direction I was working away at. However, there are an even greater number of school teachers – rather obscure in the same way as the ocean is rather big and rather wet.

  12. I found this really hard today and had to hunt round the grid to find somewhere to start. I eventually spotted disco, emo, in the club and other anagrams. However I decided it was a day to use my Crossword-Genie app as much as necessary and completed it all eventually. There were some clues I should have got without assistance but I felt it was a difficult puzzle.
    COD ‘to the point’ as I worked it out unaided!
    Blue Stocking
  13. Tough but fun to do… A couple of new words – EMO and NEONATE but worked them out eventually but had to check they were valid. 1a I saw Orient from the crossers and so it had to be Leyton. That unlocked the rest of the NW where I had several pencilled answers that proved correct (with moor as an option for port at 8A). Then to tackle the SE again. I had 24a National but was unsure about Debt although it seemed obvious. 15a Grotto unlocked the corner and everything suddenly fell into place. I agree that finishing a tricky puzzle can be more satisfying – and this one was no exception. Several amusing answers eg 14a O-Liver once I forced myself to stick with the clue and banished my ear worm of Oklahoma. Also amused by 23a Mole. FOI 10d Innovation (it took me that long to get my FOI!). LOI 23a Mole simply because of the way the clues fell in turn. COD 1a Leyton Orient – took a long time for the PDM of a team name to occur. Great puzzle from Jalna and a useful blog from William.
  15. I really enjoyed this. I started to attempt cryptic crosswords last March. This setter was new to me,and so I was filled me with trepidation, but a lovely surprise to DNF within only 25 minutes ha ha and I will forever remember Leyton Orient football team . I think I biff about half of the clues but with the help of this blog I hope to parse more. The language of cryptic crossword solving is a thing of itself !!! I think I said that right….
    1. You’re doing precisely the right thing in coming here to understand the clues that you either biff or miss out on — after over 40 years of doing 15×15 puzzles I still need to have things explained !

      Keep going, absorb the necessary knowledge along the way…..and, above all, enjoy it !

  16. We didn’t get to this until Thursday. We were not on Jalna’s wavelength at all – took us absolutely ages. Lots of blank looks and head scratching resulted in a >30 minutes solve.

    FOI: moor
    LOI: mole
    COD: Leyton Orient

    Thanks Jalna and William.

  17. Biffed nearly all the answers as the clues made no sense and still don’t. No complaints though- just not on this setter’s wavelength

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