Times Quick Cryptic 1836 by Tracy

78 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 1836 by Tracy”

1. “Ctyptic” in the title of the blog, Chris.

   18 (GOVERNOR) was a tricky hidden: the clue suggested so many opportunities for wordplay.

   Didn’t know CENTRE for ‘resort’. A lot of tricky definitions held me up. Thanks for the blog!

   1. Thank you.
2. ….as I was on the wavelength for the 15 x 15, so it was 17 minutes for this one vs. 24 for the other. I was actually going pretty well, but I really got stuck at the end. Couldn’t see governor, didn’t have a clue about manger, thought over might be then, didn’t think thrash meant slaughter, so all kinds of problems.

   I don’t think the SCC will care for this one, and they won’t even know who to blame!

   1. Now confirmed from the printed edition, the setter was Tracy.

      Edited at 2021-03-23 04:34 am (UTC)

   2. I too thought that 19d might be THEN. What is more (haha) it allowed me to put ATTESTOR in 18a, thinking that it might be another word for a commissioner for oaths. Well, the only oaths were mine as I tried to solve 16d. With a final “Angels and ministers of grace, defend us”, I DNFd. But thanks to Tracy and Chris for an exacting workout and the illuminating blog.
3. This was a puzzle of two halves for me, each lasting 10 minutes. The first 10 were spent solving all but one clue; the rest of the time was needed to come up with MANGER where I had a blank spot and eventually arrived at the answer from wordplay.

   From the Christmas carol I was taught that a MANGER is a feeding trough for cattle and this is confirmed in all the usual sources (‘manger’ being the French ‘to eat’ is another connection) so I did not think of it from the definition ‘stall’, which is an individual compartment in a stable or cattle-shed. Chambers advises that ‘stall-feed’ is a term so perhaps that’s what the setter had in mind, but it’s of no help to me as I’ve never heard of it.

   Like our blogger I also had misgivings about resort/CENTRE but the substitution test works if you put ‘holiday’ in front.

   Edited at 2021-03-23 06:17 am (UTC)

4. Only four on the first pass of acrosses and a feeling that this might take some doing. Spirits rose when DELIBERATION arrived easily to provide lots of lovely checking letters but then the grind began. DRAW LOTS was last one in definitely stretched me — I’d wanted the second work to be ‘luck’ for about 18 and a half of the 19m it took to solve this. INTERMITTENT held out for ages and had to be written out before it appeared and even then I couldn’t parse beyond ‘intent’ (thanks Chris), MANGER and CENTRE held out too — many because I don’t think resort means centre Favourite moment came when I realised ‘academic’ wasn’t a noun and STUDIOUS became clear.
5. Hopeless. I could not parse INTERMITTENT, CLAPTRAP, THRASH, CENTRE. DNK Up was horseback and thought URBANE was the opposite of sophisticated. At one point I had most of the left side complete and nothing of the right which looked odd and didn’t help much. One of the first of the few that did seem to drop in logically was MANGER so I was hoping I was away and running but it was not to be. Even when I eventually spotted GOVERNOR I thought that the relation to Commissioner was tenuous but glad to be able to stop trying to solve it. Thanks Chris for making sense where I thought there was none.
   1. = “on horseback” rather than just horseback.

      Moreover, as it’s an across clue “appear on (a word for up)” would give you UP SHOW.

6. Thank you.
7. Struggled today, but no more than usual. Eventually pressed Submit at 25 mins with 4d unfilled. Did not see “close to” for final letter, a device that I am sure I have missed before. Felt that knowledge of Tuscan towns was a reasonable expectation (same class of knowledge as Oxford colleges), I also figured a vowel at the third spot was most likely in my alphabet trawls so came up with CREASE, TRIAGE etc. On seeing the answer I thought it was something to do with Pope Urban.

   No real trouble with any other clues. Definitions that are not 100%, but are close enough seem fair game to me. But, Seeing APSE again is tiresome, why do the same obscure words come up again and again?

   COD STUDIO I like subtraction clues like this, although they are tricky to solve.

   1. I guess, because those words come up “again and again”, they become less obscure and more commonplace!!
   2. Perhaps it’s because there are very few words _p_e? Would you you prefer opye, spae or spue?
8. I’m starting to realise I don’t like this sort of grid. FOI was 9 across, but found myself once again with lots of unconnected answers all over the grid. Guessed RIDDLE from the checkers but didn’t know DD had anything to do with theologians ? New one on me. Eventually got stuck in SW corner. Didn’t see GOVERNOR or MANGER, hence my final time of 25:27. Thanks for the explanations.
   1. DD = Doctor of Divinity. Another Oxbridge-ish dependent clue.
      1. Also Gilbert and Sullivan –
         ‘Though a Doctor of Divinity
         is located in this vicinity’

         1. Ah yes. Pirates of Penzance I think? One of my favourites,

            Edited at 2021-03-23 07:29 pm (UTC)

            1. Yes, Pirates!
         2. Ooh – I do love this site – the range of knowledge and interest is immense. I was in the chorus in The Mikado as a sixth former at school – ‘If you want to know who we are…’ – it was even recorded on a record – goodness knows if any LPs still exist – I fancy mine warped decades ago and was thrashed/slaughtered/soundly beaten/destroyed.

            Edited at 2021-03-23 09:12 pm (UTC)

9. … and couldn’t parse some of the clues despite my best efforts. This was one of the hardest I can remember. That’s two in a row this week where both my porridge and my coffee have been stone cold by the time I struggled over the line – only to go pink today with URBANE. Curses!
10. After a quick start in the NW this became a real slog and I felt miles off the setter’s wavelength. Perseverance paid off as GOVERNOR (COD) finally unlocked the SW and DRAW LOTS did the same in the NE- it was also a relief to get dumb luck out of my head.
    Finished with URBANE in 17.59, which I’m going to rate as respectable after seeing that others also found this difficult.
    Thanks to chris
11. I’m relieved to see that I’m not alone for once in finding this no fun.

    Too many of the clues were so complicated ( even when explained — thank you, Chris, I deeply sympathise with your struggles) that I knew I would never have managed to work them out.

    Surely a MANGER is in a stall, not the same thing. Resort = CENTRE? THRASH = Slaughter? More suitable for the main puzzle I’d’ve thought.

    A depressing breakfast, now for a cup of coffee to cheer me up.

    Diana

    1. My football team has been slaughtered/thrashed (too) many times.
12. This was an awful puzzle. No wonder the setter didn’t want to put their name to it!

    Okay, joking aside I did find this a very hard puzzle that I just could not get into. I answered slightly less than half of the clues, and quickly used my three lives.

    Surprisingly I did answer INTERMITTENT without aid, but I quickly lost interest in this crossword.

    Better luck tomorrow.

    1. Well done on intermittent – you’re becoming an ‘old hand’ at manipulating the parts of an answer.
       1. Thank you for your encouraging words!
13. … my first ever on a Tracy puzzle, who I usually find accessible. I think there are some really dodgy clues here, most already mentioned by earlier contributors — some I got (through gritted teeth) and some I simply did not see at all. A Manger is not a stall, Slaughter = thrash is very loose, cluing Town for urban seems to me to be very forced (they are different parts of speech for one thing). Didn’t much care for Lottery? = Draw either but by that time I was not in the mood to enjoy the setter’s vagaries.

    Not my finest 30 minutes. Nor I suggest Tracy’s. Many thanks to Chris for the blog (and commiserations for his struggles)
    Cedric

    1. Town planning / urban planning?
    2. Will miss your tache!
    3. I agree some very obscure clues with dubious answers. I started the QC to learn but recently they have become so hard it is just dispiriting. But since the editor has said this is not the purpose of QC’s I guess they are designed as a warm up for those who do the 15×15 and to hell with everyone else.
14. All those unchecked starters in the top row always fills me with foreboding and I was soon darting all over the grid to try to get a toehold. I found it in the SE corner, although STANDOUT held out for a while, but I then worked out from there.
    URBANE took ages and several changes of approach before it revealed itself even though I had assumed the final letter was e from early on. Only saw that GOVERNOR was a hidden afterwards, at the time it clearly fitted so it went in unparsed. Deep into the remoter realms of SCC territory, but this was a satisfying finish if a bit gnarly during the completing.
    1. That was me, I had got logged out somehow.
15. I gave up very early (after 12 minutes) on this one. I detest this type of grid to start with, and the answers I was getting were obscure in the extreme, so I couldn’t be bothered to carry on. It must be time for the editor to comment on this when the blogger has a DNF and the fast solvers struggle.

    Brian

16. I think Tracy lost the plot on this one! I might have seen governor but I had already worked out that most of the answers were tenuous – not necessarily invalid but better suited to a 15 x 15. I don’t get Draw lots either. Thanks though!
17. Add me to the list who gave up on this. It wasn’t just the trickiness, it’s that lots of the answers raised an eyebrow even when solved. Not a hint of humour in the entire crossword either.

    Thanks Chris for slogging your way through this morning and providing the explanation. Hopefully we’ll get a fun one again some time soon.

18. This took the best part of thirty minutes. Three acs and three downs on first pass. FOI apse. Lots of vague maybes, unparsed, which just had to be because they fit just some of the clueing. COD deliberation, as it was one of the few I fully understood. Quite surprised to finish, finally, thought I was on for a DNF. Struggled with manger, LOI. I get market and anger, but a manger is a feeder, not a stall. Lots of obscurity, I could feel my brain almost having to physically move to get round this. Maybe a bit 15 x 15 ish in places, I thought. I derived a sense of satisfaction having finished, nevertheless, and in spite of the residual head scratching that is still going on inside me. Thanks, Chris, for parsing the whole fiendish article, and Tracy for the entertaining mental gymnastics. GW.
19. Difficult and demanding for a QC, I thought, but relieved to see that others found it so. I don’t feel quite so bad now about straying 1 min into the SCC. I was very slow to get moving and it was an almost random journey around the grid looking for crossers and inspiration.
    Most of my tough clues are listed above by others with URBANE being the most recalcitrant. My LOI was MANGER — just couldn’t see it at first. I thought there were some good clues amongst many that were really closer to 15sq standard.
    Thanks to Tracy for a good workout and to Chris for a helpful and honest blog. John M.
20. This was more like a 15 x 15 I thought. I felt like giving up, or at least coming back later, after I had most of the right hand side still to do after about 40 minutes, and not much of a clue about any of those I hadn’t got. However, I reckoned I should be able to get a few more, and slowly they went in. LOI after 85 minutes and the last of various alphabet trawls was URBANE, but on coming on here I saw I had one letter wrong so it’s really a DNF. That letter was the A of MANGER. I put MONGER in thinking that was a stall and that, either you could “onger” someone (pity I didn’t try putting that down here earlier, since spellcheck wanted to correct that to ‘anger’), or, more likely, perhaps “regno” was one of those Italian musical terms meaning to wind or to increase, and that the up indicated a reversal. Anyway, glad I managed as much as I did. I just hope tomorrow’s offering is a tad easier. CsOD to 11a and 14d. Thanks Tracy (Hmmm) and Chris.
21. I needed 23:37 to finish this with a long, and justified, alphabet trawl at the end trying to improve on ORNATE. I was looking for the name of a town. URBANE was a long way through the alphabet.
    Prior to that was MANGER which need all the checkers.
    GOVERNOR was a very clever hidden.
    Tough but a good challenge. I agree THRASH felt loose.
    David
22. Tough stuff! 14:35 with GOVERNOR LOI. Thanks Tracy and Chris.
23. Oddly enough I enjoyed this, although I agree that some of the definitions were tricky if you weren’t on the right wavelength eg. Thrash = slaughter, centre = resort.

    In the end, after 30 mins, I had one of those annoying last clue finishes that I just couldn’t get. A bit like the definitions above, 16dn “Manager” defeated me. Even after an alphabet trawl I just couldn’t see Stall = Manger and for quite a while wanted to put in “Hinder” until I finally got 15ac “Material”.

    Liked the long down clues of “Claptrap”, “Intermittent” and “Deliberation”.

    FOI — 6ac “Planet”
    LOI — 16dn dnf
    COD — 11ac “Primrose”

    Thanks as usual.

24. I enjoyed this QC and I was racing through it with the expectation of recording another sub 9 minutes target solve. For some time I did have three missing letters at 4d and had put in FLAT, deleted it and then re-entered it but it still felt like I was on wavelength. Then I ground to a halt with the GOVERNOR, MATERIAL, THRASH and MANGER intersections. As an accountant, trained in audit, I should have got MATERIAL a lot quicker which would have helped the solving of my LOI MANGER. I’m not complaining as it would seem my time of 9:25 is a STANDOUT in the scheme of things. Commiserations to those failing on URBANE as it was a lovely PDM when I got it.
    1. Congratulations — that’s a great time. As a fellow accountant I was also slow on 16ac “Material” — however I also tend to get stuck on abbreviations for accountant, wanting to put in ACA when a simple AC or CA seems to suffice.
       1. Yes you are right. I cannot remember seeing a clue structure for ACA but it is always the first abbreviation that comes to my mind.
25. Tracy took me well into the SCC today with this difficult grid / puzzle — just under 25 minutes for me. It could have been worse had I not spotted the two long downs reasonably quickly, and I was lucky enough to see the very well hidden GOVERNOR with minimal delay. Similarly PRIMROSE was less problematic for me than most plant names can be. I only partially parsed 1d, and wrongly, coming up with a different synonym for rubbish, which was very un-thundererish. LOI MANGER, FOI PLANET, COD the aforementioned GOVERNOR.

    Thanks both!

26. No, Chris, it definitely isn’t you having an off-day. I was glad that I didn’t know who the setter was because his name would have been Mud round here 😉 Now I know it was Tracy, I am genuinely surprised – I usually find his puzzles most entertaining if quite hard, but this was more of a slog. In fact, I did throw in the towel, as I didn’t trust M + Anger (pronounced MAN-GER with a hard G!) Pencilled it in but didn’t like the look of it – so frustrating! DRAW LOTS was wrong too – I couldn’t see it and put DEAL instead.
    Random names are bad enough, and I was muttering about random towns being a step too far, until the eponymous moment of URBANE. I take Jack’s point about town / urban planning but think that the noun town on its own to represent the adjective urban is a bit of a stretch.
    Definitely SCC today – more than double my target 😱 – and a (technical?) DNF to boot. Oh well, there’s the biggie to try now – hope I find it as approachable as Vinyl did, even if not matching his time! I’d just be glad to finish with none wrong.

    FOI Apse
    LOI Manger
    COD Primrose – lots in my garden at the moment

    Thanks (I think) to Tracy and definitely to Chris

    1. I think there’s a grammatical point about certain nouns such as ‘town’ in that they can be used as modifiers in which case they serve the same function as an adjective. All we need for crosswords is a context in which the two words can be substituted, so town/urban planning, town/urban life. They don’t need to be interchangeable in all circumstances, only one acceptable one.
       1. Fair point!
    2. … I hope not!

       P.S. Mrs Random absolutely THRASHed me today. She successfully solved the puzzle in 34 minutes, whereas I endured a 64-minute DNF with 5 clues unsolved. So, perhaps Mr Random is “bad enough” after all. But definitely not Mrs Random.

       1. We all look forward to meeting Mrs Random at some point – and continuing to hear the tales (like ours) of your travails.
       2. Sorry, have only just picked this up! My sincerest apologies for casting aspersions on such a fine name 😥 We’re going to have find a new way of complaining when setters include arbitrary names in clues 😅
27. Add me to the moaners; I was reasonably on wavelength but too many loose definitions to make this a really enjoyable solve.

    FOI PLANET, LOI URBANE, COD PRIMROSE, time 10:37 which I thought was a bit meh at the time but I’m now going to grade as a Good Day!

    Many thanks Chris and Tracy.

    Templar

    1. Well, I’d say better than good in the circs 😊
28. As a pretty good guesser I saw THRASH but was unconvinced by the connection to ‘slaughter’
    Could not see MANGER
    Could not get CENTRE as was thinking of CH for ‘church’, not CE. Don’t see this as a resort myself.

    Not the easiest, but I did better than yesterday at least.

    One year of lockdown and one year of Cryptics for me! At least I have learned a new ‘skill’ !!

    1. Yup. One year of locked in, today. Hopefully I’ll be out on parole soon after my second jab. Also tried to fit TRENCH using CH but that made even less sense than CENTRE which I was none too keen on either.

       Edited at 2021-03-23 10:30 pm (UTC)

29. ….which I was simply relieved to finish after a 2 minute alpha-trawl for my LOI, although I was already over my target before that. I usually stroll through Tracy’s puzzles, and enjoy rereading them afterwards to admire the clueing — but not today.

    FOI PLANET
    LOI MANGER
    COD URBANE
    TIME 8:42

30. …what a nice mental workout that puzzle was. Bit of lateral thinking, terse surfaces, the only one I biffed was the well hidden GOVERNOR (blithering idiot, thanks to chrisw91 for showing me the light!).

    My accountancy training (as others above I note) meant MATERIAL was easy enough. Favourite was URBANE.

    8:28.

    EDIT: I must have been on wavelength, maybe my 2nd ever sub-Phil.

    Edited at 2021-03-23 01:02 pm (UTC)

31. After a trip to Waitrose, I forgot to go back and try to solve URBANE. Also, I would like a stewards’ enquiry – I agree, a MANGER is absolutely not a stall. A stall is where horses are kept – a large stable building may be divided into stalls.
    But, Oh well, I guess there is:
    ‘And His cradle was a stall’

    Yes, I found this pretty hard too – a great deal of biffing then parsing after some thought. FOsI BUST, SPA, FLAT, TO DO. LOsI , apart from errors, THRASH, STANDOUT.

    Thanks, Chris, very much.

    Edited at 2021-03-23 01:40 pm (UTC)

32. I guessed several answers from crossers including — studio, riddle, urbane with no idea of parsing till I read your comments.
    1. That’s what we’re about. Read us regularly, join in the fun and your understanding of how clues work will improve very quickly.
33. We thought this was quite hard. We completed most of the puzzle pretty quickly but slowed down in the SE corner. However, with only one clue left to solve we were feeling upbeat – I mean with 3 checkers (including the first letter) how hard could it be? Well, I’m afraid MANGER simply stumped us….and we have a DNF.

    FOI: planet
    LOI: manger (DNF)
    COD: primrose

    Thanks to Tracy and Chris.

    Edited at 2021-03-23 01:47 pm (UTC)

34. At one point, I had a complete LHS and nothing (not even Bust) on the RHS. I should have stopped then and cut my losses. Instead I persevered and arrived at loi, 4d, at the 30min mark. Couldn’t think of anything other than Ornate, which I suspected was wrong, but at that point, Tracy, I couldn’t be bothered to try and think of something else. One to forget. Invariant
35. I found it fairly straightforward; 17 minutes is about average for me. I saw GOVERNOR straightaway, and wrote in CENTRE without questioning it, although I see the problem now.
36. Very tough and DNF for me. Guessed a few without being able to parse them but left with the MANGER (= stall?? it’s more a trough) and GOVERNOR (= commissioner??) where I just did not see the hidden word.
37. A very tough one today but I don’t agree with some of the comments that it was unfair. The offset grid is always a daunting start but I got away ok until derailed completely in the bottom half which took me a while to fathom.

    A big nod to the superbly hidden governor with a surface that suggested lots of ways to solve the clue other than the real one.

    12:15 thanks Chris and Tracy

38. Got off to a flying start and then it got worse and worse throwing in the towel after 42 overs The grid was horrible and the clues really tough. Nee mind eh? Johnny
39. Join those who found this hard work. Failed to get manger, we had mended in desperation. Urbane also caused us trouble.
40. This felt like swimming against a strong current and I never managed to get going. The clues provided few enjoyable moments and, I’m afraid to say, I found it a largely turgid experience today. So, after more than an hour of toil, I gave up with five clues still unsolved – GOVERNOR, OVER, CENTRE and MANGER in the SE corner, and URBANE.

    Sorry not to be more positive, but I felt like I was playing an opponent a couple of levels above me.

    Thanks to Tracy and to chrisw91 for his much-needed explanations.

41. 
    Come on Tracy, you can do better than this! If it wasn’t lockdown, it would have gone in the bin.
42. Found this hard. I can usually finish tgese days — occasionally I get stuck over the lazt one or at most 2. I gave up with 10 still to solve! Not a good day.
43. Glad to see that the failure today was not just us
44. Pretty poor effort by me — this type of crossword sorts the regular 15×15 solvers from the ‘QC only’ brigade I suspect.
    Count me firmly in the latter category.
    The problem is that once some clues are so obscure you don’t even see the ones that in hindsight are reasonable…
    Gave up after 25/30 minutes with less than half completed.
    Thanks all
    John George
    1. Life is full of differences. I print the weekend cryptics to solve in spare time during the week. For these I know I need to slow down and enjoy them carefully with no thought of how long it takes, I approach the QCs as a different beast – something to charge at and, hopefully, complete in a decent time. So – I’m a regular 15×15 solver but was in the QC only brigade today, I suppose I’m saying I’d have fared better if I’d have settled down to enjoy this as a 15×15 but ended up losing patience because it wasn’t fulfilling my burst-of-speed expectations. There’s probably a lesson in that for me and any others interested. Not sure any of this is down to Tracy but how we approach it.
    2. It’s not just a ‘QC only brigade’ thing. I always finish the Private Eye cryptic aiming to complete it the same day it drops on the mat. And most weeks I do the same with the Sunday Times cryptic. With work and kids I just don’t have the time in the week for a full one though, so a well crafted QC is perfect for me to enjoy in 10-20 mins over coffee and toast before getting on with the work of the day. When it gets much trickier than that, there’s really no point to it for me – the 15×15 would only take a short while longer.

       Edited at 2021-03-24 12:12 am (UTC)

45. I have never posted on here because I always do the QC last thing before bed and don’t usually allow myself to retire until it’s done, when everyone’s finished and no one will read it! However this means the harder the crossword the more beers I have — it’s been a good night for that and a most pleasant hour although it took ages to get manger and to spot the hiding commissioner. A great way as ever to end the day.
    1. Glad you had a good evening – and I hope you’re all fresh and bright this morning! I find that a printed cryptic on a flight makes even that an enjoyable experience.
    2. I can’t speak for anyone else but I pop into the blog off and on through the day as there are always more posts to enjoy. Hope to see you again 😊
46. Can’t remember when I last DNFed but the towel was chucked in after 20. Eventually got THRASH but that took some time and MANGER OVER GOVERNOR and URBANE were unsolved. Not sure I’d have got the last of those if I’d had another 20 minutes

    Hats off to Tracy for a superb hidden but some of the other synonyms were a tad of a stretch

    Thanks . ..I think!

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