Times Quick Cryptic 1860 by Tracy

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

7 minutes for me. How did you all get on?

As usual definitions are underlined in bold italics, {deletions and substitutions are in curly brackets} and [anagrinds, containment, reversal and other indicators in square ones]. I usually omit all reference to positional indicators unless there is a specific point that requires clarification.

Across
1 Document from Manchester United’s vault picked up (10)
MANUSCRIPT :
MANU’S (Manchester United’s), then CRIPT sounds like [picked up] “crypt” [vault]. I can never see the word “crypt” without thinking of the cat who crept into one…
8 Row involving tail of big animal (5)
TIGER :
TIER (row) containing [involving] {bi}G [tail of…]
9 Trainer struggling to find ground (7)
TERRAIN :
Anagram [struggling] of TRAINER
10 Playing one’s best against spinner for Middlesex, initially (2,3,4)
ON TOP FORM :
ON (against), TOP (spinner), FOR, M{iddlesex} [initially]. Good to see my home county getting a mention despite the attempts of Grocer Heath to kill it off. Of course it’s still prominent in the world of cricket as suggested  here, as Middlesex county cricket team survives and has its home at Lord’s.
12 Male carrying old gardening implement (3)
HOE :
HE (male) containing [carrying] O (old)
13 Change horse’s headgear after heading off (5)
ALTER :
{h}ALTER (horse’s headgear) [after heading off]
15 Mournful song‘s awful, including its ending? (5)
DIRGE :
DIRE (awful) containing [including] {son}G [its ending]. ‘Its’ refers back to the mournful song.
17 Secure   link (3)
TIE :
Two meanings
18 Applied to cheek, the best cosmetic (4,5)
FACE CREAM :
FACE (cheek – impudence), CREAM (best)
20 Girl‘s name, one in a story (7)
NATALIE :
N (name), A, then I (one) contained by [in] TALE (story)
21 Bishop and knight eating uncooked beef (5)
BRAWN :
B (bishop) + N (knight – chess),  containing [eating] RAW (uncooked). The meat dish brawn is usually made from pig so the ‘beef’ here is figurative, referring to muscle.
22 Unhappy having lots of money moved electronically? (10)
DOWNLOADED :
DOWN (unhappy), LOADED (having lots of money)
Down
1 Dramatic technique encountered doing chat, strangely (6,6)
METHOD ACTING :
MET (encountered), anagram [strangely] of DOING CHAT
2 Near end of flight in darkness (5)
NIGHT :
NIGH (near), {fligh}T [end of…]
3 Way of addressing a man in business I respect (3)
SIR :
Contained by [in] {busines}S I R{espect}
4 Budget speech lacking nothing (6)
RATION :
{o}RATION (speech) [lacking nothing – O]
5 Who may give injured camper aid? (9)
PARAMEDIC :
Anagram [injured] of CAMPER AID
6 Deserter, that woman? On the contrary (6)
RATHER :
RAT (deserter), HER (that woman)
7 Not yet resolved, working men endured it (12)
UNDETERMINED :
Anagram [working] of MEN ENDURED IT
11 Left large-sized book in case (9)
PORTFOLIO :
PORT (left), FOLIO (large-sized book)
14 Deal with leader of youth convention (6)
TREATY :
TREAT (deal with), Y{outh} [leader]. With a checker or two in place some may have biffed this from the first word of the clue, deal, which is actually part of the wordplay.
16 Show shield (6)
SCREEN :
Two meanings
19 Large antelope from eastern country (5)
ELAND :
E (eastern), LAND (country). A creature that’s always lurking somewhere in Crosswordland but I’m not sure we’ve seen a reference to its size before.
21 Voice disapproval when volume reduced (3)
BOO :
BOO{k} (volume) [reduced]

41 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 1860 by Tracy”

  1. I rashly typed in THE at 10ac, which slowed me down. ELANDs are big, all right; adults weigh around a ton. I remember being surprised, on one of its many appearances in a cryptic, when it was defined as a jumper or something, but it’s capable of over 2 meters in height. 6:45.
  2. Made things hard for myself by forgetting to check the battery on the laptop which gave out within seconds on starting, so a quick rush round the kitchen to get the lead and plug it in gave me a slower start than usual on the way to being all green in 13. Despite that started quite fast and was never quite totally bamboozled by a clue I had to pass over until held up in the SE as I followed eurcon down the wrong route for ‘volume’ and (once again) didn’t remember ELAND, which I needed to suddenly spot the ‘loaded’ at the end of DOWNLOADED — I’d previously been thinking of the money transfer services advertised in shops all over London, although on review I can’t see how I thought the clue worked t make that possible.
    1. We had a phase in the 15×15 where antelopes kept turning up; apparently there are 91 species. ELAND seem to show up the most (probably their size).

      Edited at 2021-04-26 06:54 am (UTC)

  3. Both of the 1s went straight in which opened up the grid nicely and the rest of the puzzle followed quickly. A brief pause over the parsing of LOI NATALIE prevented this from being a rare visit to sub 5 minute territory. An enjoyable start to the week with BRAWN and DOWNLOADED being particularly good. Finished in 5.43.
    Thanks to Jack

  4. Hoorah! Sub10! (9.34) nothing to halter the horses, lots of classic clueing e.g rat for traitor eland as mentioned. Just one Oscar reference? Thanks as always

  5. 12:50, nothing too alarming. Was a bid slow with (H)ALTER, trying to make (B)RIDLE work. Was also tempted with ON THE BALL and other “on the” phrases. In cricket there is an off-spinner but no on-spinner, even though “onside” means “leg side”, which also means that surprisingly there is an “offside” in cricket. I’ve never heard of the slip cordon being called the “offside trap”, although it certainly is. Would be a cracking cryptic clue.

    Figured that NATALE might be a French loanword for a type of story, so thanks jack for clearing that one up.

    COD DOWNLOADED with the “money downloaded service” providing clever misdirection before “lift and separate” helped me rethink the excellent clue.

    Edited at 2021-04-26 08:53 am (UTC)

  6. Rattled along at a cracking pace for a sub 20 minute finish until I got to — A — HER and it took me 5 minutes before I smelled a RAT.
    Definitely on the easier side and in keeping with a Monday expectation.
    Thanks Tracy and Jack.
  7. … as the top half fair flew in and the bottom half, er, did not. With the top section of the grid all done in 3-4 minutes I was on for a very fast time, but a bit like Mendesest whose laptop battery gave out, so did my brain, and I eventually finished in just over 12 minutes.

    What a complex word Rather is. It has three basic meanings in my book: a sign of enthusiastic agreement (“Do you want to xxx?” “Rather!”), a qualifier meaning quite, fairly, somewhat, moderately etc, and a negative preference indicator (“I would rather do xxx”) which is I presume the meaning Tracy has in mind for 6D. So in turns, a sign of great agreement, a neutral and lukewarm indicator, and a sign of disagreement. One does sympathise with non-native speakers trying to learn the language!

    A fair start to the week, and many thanks to Jack for the blog
    Cedric

  8. A quick start which settled down to a steady solve finishing dead on target in 15 mins, all parsed. Some nice clues. I liked MANUSCRIPT and DOWNLOADED. Overall, a fair start to the week.
    The blog today shows QC 1860 by Tracy on my iPad whereas the QC online shows 1860 by Wurm (also the iPad version). I assume this is really Tracy, to whom thanks. Also thanks to jackkt. John M.

    Edited at 2021-04-26 08:41 am (UTC)

  9. I am so cross with myself.

    I was convinced that 1d was ACTING METHOD (having got 8a and 17a, both T’s were in the correct places) and of course having then put it in the wrong way round it destroyed any chance of filling in the rest of the answers across from there, and I had to give in.

    Otherwise it would have been a rare finish in reasonably decent time.

    It was a lovely puzzle, thank you Wurm and Jack.

    Diana

  10. Average sort of time. I did like the image of Man U’s Crypt – maybe where Fergie keeps his claret, and Kevin Keegan’s dignity…

    SCREEN was my LOI.

    5:43 on the clock.

    1. More likely where they keep what’s left of their integrity, following the ESL debacle!
      1. There was hardly any integrity in evidence BEFORE that debacle. There’s absolutely none now !
  11. I came at NATALIE from the wrong end, thinking that “a story” was the “ALIE” and then being baffled by the NAT; took a while to puzzle that out. Otherwise I found this quite straightforward, though I didn’t see FACE for “cheek” for quite some time.

    FOI METHOD ACTING, LOI SCREEN, COD FACE CREAM, time 07:01 for K+16 for an Excellent Day.

    Many thanks Tracy and Jack.

    Templar

  12. I started off in the crypt with a rush but was slowed down by biffing IN TOP FORM and trying to find some sort of METRIC dramatic technique. NATALIE took a while, but once she and the TREATY were in place, and I stopped trying to fit the bridle on the horse and saw ALTER, ACTING dropped into place and METHOD followed. I thought 15a was a bit weird and struggled to interpret where the G came from, although DIRGE was the obvious answer. 9:07. Thanks Tracy and Jack.
  13. 11 minutes rounded up, which is a good start to the week. 1a and 1d each going in on first examination helped. Like Oldblighter, I was confused to see Tracy’s name in the blog. I mostly solve on my iPad, where the puzzle is attributed to Wurm. Whoever it was, thanks to them and to Jackkt.

  14. FOI: 1a. MANUSCRIPT
    LOI: RATION

    Time to Complete: 97 minutes (Average: 76 mins / 1 in 5)

    Clues Answered Correctly without aids: 21

    Clues Answered with Aids (3 lives): 11d, 14d, 16d

    Clues Unanswered: Nil

    Wrong Answers: Nil

    Total Correctly Answered (incl. aids): 24/24

    Aids Used: Chambers

    I started off well, getting most of the top half of the crossword completed, but the last half dozen or so slowed me down.

    11a. PORTFOLIO – I used a life on this one and was so annoyed when I saw the answer. How can I, an ex-matelot, forget about LEFT = PORT! I kept trying to use L for left.

    14d. TREATY – Try as I might this one would not come to me. Second life used.

    16d. SCREEN – Ditto above

    1a. MANUSCRIPT – My first one in and I got it just from the Manchester United (MANU) reference, which was a good job as the vault had me baffled.

    19. ELAND – Took me a while, but then the word eland crawled from the back of my mind, having seen it in crosswords before.

  15. is indeed Tracy. For some reason the iPad version is still showing last Friday’s setter.

    RR.

  16. Started well, but slowed horribly at the end and took a long time to sort out my last two; 7d and 22a. Finally realised that the first part of the latter was DOWN and then saw the obvious answer. Stopped my watch on 30:03, so not a disaster, but should have been better judging by other people’s times. Didn’t properly parse a few as well. COD (and FOI) to MANUSCRIPT for the image it brought to mind. Wonder whose bodies they might be storing down there. Thanks Tracy and Jack.
  17. On paper today after a haircut.
    FOI was MANUSCRIPT and LOI, after a pause, DOWNLOADED; I’ll make that COD.
    Under 9 minutes.
    Accessible, enjoyable QC.
    David
  18. All done and dusted in 14 minutes today, which smashes my previous best time. I can scarcely believe it. 1a and 1d went in more-or-less straight away, which really helped of course. My only doubt at the end was DIRGE, as I didn’t fully see the parsing until after I had put my pencil down.

    FOI: METHOD ACTING
    LOI: ELAND
    CoD: All of them (It’s a PB, so how could they not be?)

    N.B. Mrs Random is very pleased for me, and is happy for me to take the limelight today. She’s such a darling!

    Many thanks to jackkt and to Tracy

  19. How very dim of me. Missed out on great clues PORTFOLIO and DOWNLOADED (COD).
    Otherwise very fast.
    Thanks all, esp Jack.
  20. A bit tricky in places, but a fairly steady solve at 23mins. Main hold-ups were with 11d Portfolio, where I had to wait for the F from Face to get folio, and the parsing of Natalie (Nat-a-lie didn’t work) and Boo, where I thought Boom/volume was weak… Book/volume on the other hand makes much more sense! CoD to 22ac, Downloaded. Invariant
  21. I seem to have bucked the trend today by starting slowly, hopping all over the grid, but finishing fast. Finished in 16 minutes with several unparsed, so thanks for the explanations Jack.

    FOI – 12ac HOE
    LOI – 4dn RATION
    COD – liked 11dn PORTFOLIO and 22ac DOWNLOADED – both very smooth surfaces

    Thanks to Tracy for an entertaining puzzle

  22. A dnf for me as I just couldn’t see 22ac “Downloaded”. Couldn’t get wire transfers and other things connected to shifting money out of my head rather than something specifically electronic. For some reason 16dn “Screen” just wouldn’t come either.

    A pity, as I started in roaring fashion in the NW corner, seeing 1dn “Method Acting” straight away. The rest steadily went in until that mid bottom section scuppered me. In addition, I must add Antelopes to Shakespeare names and flowers for things I should just learn.

    FOI — 1dn “Method Acting”
    LOI — dnf
    COD — 11dn “Portfolio”

    Thanks as usual!

  23. Possibly a PB as sub-5 minutes is v rare for me

    Seems to have been sort of average difficulty for everyone else so not sure why I found it on the gentler side

    Thought many of the surfaces were excellent. PARAMEDIC my CotD

    Thanks all

    1. V good speed – I’ve not seen Phil post yet, but you’re the quickest of the regulars here so far.
  24. A moderately paced solve but I’m not sure why. I do remember struggling with DIRGE and my LOI SCREEN which I stared blankly at for quite some time! COD PARAMEDIC. 8:19
  25. Started well, slackened off and then after seeing 1d and 5d finished in 18 minutes.
    Had a problem with an urge to spell durge but got there.
    Enjoyable!
    Thanks all
    John George
  26. First crossword in many months, as I’ve been snowed under since working from home. However, I was rather pleased with a sub-20 minutes time of 18.53. I’m generally happy with anything under 30 minutes, so I’m pleased I can still remember how to do them.
  27. Good Mondayish solve at leisurely pace, probably in SCC range by a little. No real problems although DOWNLOADED took a bit of working out. Liked PARAMEDIC.
  28. A good start to the week with no real problems.

    Second time I’ve had ELAND in this quiz recently, so that was an easy one.

    Thank you for the explanations!

  29. Twenty two minutes. FOI hoe. Only three on first pass, though a few suspects. Unusually, the down clues were as chewy as the acrosses today. LOI ration. COD manuscript. Not entirely on the wavelength today, but I rather like having to work a bit harder to unravel the QC, so I enjoyed this for its absence of write-ins. Couldn’t work out where the g came from in dirge, but it couldn’t have been anything else, so was pleased to see where it came from via the blog. Thanks, Jack, and Tracy. GW.
  30. Pleasant start to the week, abt 20m, so good for us. Loi 22a, got from the checkers. However not quite 10a.
  31. ….but it wasn’t quite a write-in. I was held up by NATALIE, where I thought “lie = story” so couldn’t parse it, tried to work something beginning with “blue” into 22A (“Bluetooth” wouldn’t parse, or even fit), and didn’t see FACE until after CREAM went in (it was a usage I’d not knowingly seen before).

    FOI TIGER
    LOI/COD SCREEN
    TIME 3:44

  33. I found this enjoyable but quite chewy. I had four clues left to solve in the SW. I was thinking 11d began PER and meant ‘in case’ in the sense of ‘just in case’ but once I realised left meant port, I finished it all off, completing it in 25 minutes- a respectable time for me.
    FOI: hoe
    LOI: screen
    COD: on top form. I too am a native of Middlesex and as a cricket fan I liked the surface.
    By the way, isn’t 5d a case of ‘& lit’? Quite tricky I thought as I was expecting it to mean just ‘Who may give’.
    Thank you Jack and Tracy for a satisfying start to the week.
    Blue Stocking
  34. In a nutshell, we thought this was a great puzzle. We finished it in 11 minutes and enjoyed solving it.

    FOI: MANUSCRIPT
    LOI: NATALIE
    COD: MANUSCRIPT (made us laugh).

    Thanks to Tracy and Jackkt.

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