Times Quick Cryptic 1870 by Izetti

75 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 1870 by Izetti”

1. Well, I know what delayed me: POMANDER & RIPON. I also hesitated over LEDGE, although it had to be; I couldn’t see the appropriate ‘bound’ meaning. DNK USP, and just biffed SUSPECTS. 8:22.
2. As one who worked at the sharp-end of Charlotte Street for many a year, USP is actually ‘Unique Selling Proposition’, courtesy of David Ogilvy. (There was no Mather!)

   FOI 6ac BACH

   LOI 24ac TREATING

   COD 13ac LUMBER – Umm.. now where have I seen this clue before? And I thought lumber was getting expensive as per Eric Trump.

   WOD 9ac POMANDER from my time working on ‘Coty Pomanders’

   I thought the setting was somewhat lumpen as was my time – 8:45.

   Edited at 2021-05-10 02:43 am (UTC)

   1. All the usual sources have both point and proposition and they vary as to which they list first. SOED, which isn’t strictly a Times source, has ‘point’ only. According to Lexico (‘point or proposition’) it dates from the 1950’s and I must admit I had assumed it was a lot more recent than that.
3. Slowed towards the end with the RIPON / POMANDER junction but I was also held up by LUMBER — where I tried to get BUMBLE to work simply because it fitted — and RESTART where the checkers made me think it might start ABST (sailor get external support although I wasn’t sure where to go from there). RIPON was hard for me, missed what ‘wish’ was doing and it has never occurred to me that it might be a city — if it’s not on the football results (unreliable for Brechin!) — and I’ve never been. I’ve now learned that the city status had been conferred on that particular parish rather than on the whole local authority area as is more usually the case, which turns out to be the case for Wells too (my go to small city and my local city in my youth). All green in 13 in the end but looked like it might be a lot faster at one point — nine on the first pass of acrosses.
4. I initially had an eyebrow raise at PLUTARCH being clued as a philosopher, as I’ve always known him as a historian, but I had to to put the errant brow back in it’s place having googled him post solve.
   Other than that I had more difficulty with the definitions that the wordplay today so TREATING and LEDGE both went in with a shrug.
   Finished with what I thought was the tricky pairing of RIPON and POMANDER in 10.24.
   Thanks to Jack
   1. You appear to have included an errant apostrophe. I mention this in respect to John Richards’ obituary today.

   2. Having read Philosophy & Greek at uni, I also think of Plutarch more as a historian, I don’t think I ever came across him in the philosophical part of my degree!

      Edited at 2021-05-10 07:18 pm (UTC)

5. One of those mornings when my mind wasn’t working as it should.

   When I eventually gave up after about half done and checked the answers and realised I should have been able to get nearly all of them (I only knew POMANDER as a container and nho USP)) I had a cup of coffee and hoped I’ll be more with it tomorrow.

   Thank you Izetti and Jack

   Diana

   1. Don’t give up edmcbain. I have felt like you many times, and indeed I was not even going to attempt today’s crossword, as I do not like Izetti. However, I keep persevering and I have gone from to not being able to answer a single clue when I first started in January, to solving approximately 1 in 4 puzzles, albeit with help from dictionaries.

      Even if you can’t answer a single clue, do what I did when I first started doing cryptic crosswords: look at the answers and try to learn how the clue gave that answer. You will eventually get better, Please do keep going.

      Edited at 2021-05-10 08:05 am (UTC)

   2. Ed, the ‘twists’ are what give lots of the pleasure of Cryptics. These are not simply GK tests and are rarely a source of instant gratification for us ‘normal’ solvers, especially in the early stages of solving. They should not be approached as speed tests, at least until you have had lots of practice and have sharpened problem-solving skills.
      I started Cryptic Crosswords many years ago, encouraged by work colleagues to ‘group solve’ in coffee and lunch breaks. The shared activity was very helpful in showing how different minds work and often led us to answers that we could not reach individually. I moved on to solo solving with the help of a Crossword Dictionary. Synonyms of key words often gave the necessary push towards a likely answer. I have not used ‘aids’ for a long time, preferring to work around problem clues until I get the satisfaction of a ‘click’, even if it takes a while.
      I get great pleasure out of these puzzles and the Times QC was central in this. I have done every one since QC no. 1 and, whilst my timing has improved, I still manage the occasional single-figure solve (but I explore the SCC quite often — like today). I now routinely do at least a couple of Cryptics a day (I often do the Torygraph Cryptic online and enjoy the Private Eye puzzle every couple of weeks). I even manage the 15×15 once in a while and have actually won prizes from The Times, The Oldie, the Observer. I mention this only because I have shared your frustration. My own slowness and difficulties over a period of years mirrored yours but, like others have said on this blog, it is very satisfying when you start making break-throughs.
      As poison_wyvern says, don’t give up! His comments are apt (and a lot more succinct than mine!). John.

      Edited at 2021-05-10 09:50 am (UTC)

   3. You said that before and you are still here! Worth persisting, I found.
      1. My reply is for Ed.

6. FOI: 6a EDAM
   LOI: TREATING

   Time to Complete: 82 minutes

   Clues Answered Correctly without aids: 23

   Clues Answered with Aids (3 lives): 1a, 9a, 4d

   Clues Unanswered: Nil

   Wrong Answers: Nil

   Total Correctly Answered (incl. aids): 26/26

   Aids Used: Chambers

   My first ever Izetti solve, albeit it in a very slow time.

   1a. PLUTARCH – I worked out PLUT(O) and had the H at the end. I did consider ARCH but could not equate ARCH to cunning until I looked it up in Chambers. First life used. I had not heard of PLUTARCH, but like Eurcon I trusted in the wordplay.

   9a. POMANDER – When I first read the blogger’s interpretation of Po meaning serious-looking, I must admit that my first thought was “what nonsense!” I even looked up PO in the CED, Chambers and Bradford’s. Nothing there. Then something crawled from the back of my mind, and the term “po-faced” presented itself to me. I had a vague recollection of hearing that term before. A Google search of po-faced showed me that the blogger was indeed correct. Apologies, Jackkt. Second life used.

   4d. RIPON – I had heard of Ripon but did not realise it was a city. I thought it was a town somewhere north of the Watford Gap. Something new learned today. Last life used.

   24a. TREATING – I had T _ E _ T_ N _ and I guessed that it was a word ending in ING. Knowing also that it was an anagram of Train Get, I was only left with R & A. The only word I could make was Treating and so in it went. I was a little reluctant as I did not see how Standing = Treating. However, after I had completed the crossword, I opened Chambers and saw stand under treat.

   I must confess that I almost did not bother with this crossword today. As soon as I saw the setter’s name I though “Meh!” I do not consider Izetti to be a good QC setter, and so I was not going to bother. However, I am glad I did. I am still not a fan of Izetti, but who knows, that may change in the future.

   1. I’m glad you satisfied yourself re ‘po’. Did you look in Chambers on-line or do you have a printed edition? The on-line web version (as opposed to the paid-for app) is a strange abridged version and doesn’t have the required meaning of ‘po’, but the printed edition has:

      2 po – a shortening of ‘po-faced’

      and if you then look up ‘po-faced’ it has – (also shortened to po) stupidly solemn and narrow-minded.

7. I struggled to a 30 minute DNF with POMANDER, although I resorted to Google’s list of cities for RIPON. I saw the ‘man’and ‘red’ bits, but ‘po’ defeated me. I’ve heard ‘po-faced’ before but not just ‘po’, but Chambers defines it as ‘adjective, a shortening of po-faced’ so I suppose it’s OK.
   Thanks to Jackkt for the blog

   Brian

   Edited at 2021-05-10 08:36 am (UTC)

8. Silly mistake with 20d as I put Twain which made NEXT difficult.
   Pleased to have got PLUTARCH and POMANDER.
   A good all round challenge.
   I believe RIPON has a cathedral and a racecourse.
   Thanks all, esp Jack.
9. I started well but slowed as I circled the grid. TEXAN (nice clue) provided the first of a few doh! moments. LUMBER and DOMINATE followed. I shared a few hiccups with Kevin. I was not comfortable with LEDGE even though it came to mind at once and I only got PLUTARCH (Pluto — doh again) and POMANDER (my LOI) after RIPON slowly emerged. I found this quite a test but an immersive one. I expected a slow time and, indeed, found that Izetti had just tipped me over the line into the SCC. Many thanks to both. John M.

   Edited at 2021-05-10 09:17 am (UTC)

10. in a reasonable time, RIPON last in after getting POMANDER from ??MANDER – not seeing PO as “serious-looking” at all.

    Didn’t spot that it was Izetti, quite gentle for one of his, apart from the “semi-biff” of POMANDER I suppose.

    5:50.

11. I have the printed (4th) edition of the Chamber’s Crossword Dictionary. However, I do not have a copy of the Chamber’s standard dictionary. Rather, I use a hardback copy of Collins English Dictionary.
12. … I started with Scooby Doo! If you thought “Scoob” wasn’t promising try my second idea, which was Huckleberry Hound. Then I decided it must be Snowy from Tintin (at least a philosopher starting “Snow” was plausible). In the end I had to come back to it once I’d got checkers.

    Some tough definitions for which I needed the enlightenment of the blog (“bound” for “edge”, “standing” for “treating”). Otherwise a good puzzle with lots of Izetti’s light touch elegance, I thought.

    FOI BACH, LOI DOMINATE, COD POMANDER, time 09:51 for 1.2K and a Very Good Day.

    Many thanks Jack and Izetti.

    Templar

    Edited at 2021-05-10 09:02 am (UTC)

13. FOI BACH then I got each clue I looked at straightaway, until I didn’t. So a likely sub 7 minute time became longer. Could not parse TREATING; thought LEDGE worked just about. Also thought of SNOOPY first.
    Delayed by POMANDER which I thought started with R for Red. My LOI was DOMINATE. Time 10:50.
    Some excellent clues as always from Izetti. My favourite was TEXAN.
    David
14. A steady solve for me, ending up on 27:52, though it certainly wouldn’t have been not too long ago as it contained several words and parts of words I know only from having come across them before in crosswords (HAM, POMANDER, CHEROOT, ARCH, TAR). I didn’t see that EDAM was a hidden, but I was quite happy with “pantomime” being an anagrind as I thought it must refer to something being made up/theatrical/false etc. Surely it makes as much sense as some other anagrinds that are used. Anyway FOI was BACH, LOI DICE, COD to 23a ONCE. Thanks to Izetti and Jack.
15. Snoopy never crossed my mind, but Templar has set me thinking of cartoon dogs. This is my list so far:

    Spike (from Tom and Jerry), Droopy, Fred Bassett, Snoopy, Scooby Doo (and Scrappy Doo of course), Marmalade (from “Heathcliff and Marmalade”), Deputy Dawg, Santa’s Little Helper (from The Simpsons), Huckleberry Hound, Snowy, Pluto, Goofy, Dogmatix (from Asterix), Brian (from Family Guy), Lady and the Tramp.

    I’m sure there must be loads more.

    Edited at 2021-05-10 09:28 am (UTC)

    1. Wasn’t it Marmaduke?
       1. Ah, yes, of course, so it was.
    2. Muttley!
    3. Rhubarb (and Custard), Boot from the Perishers, and never forgetting Gnasher and Dougal 🐕 Goodness, once you start thinking about cartoon dogs, the list just gets longer and longer!
       1. Dougal from the Magic Roundabout use to scare me as a child.

          Funny how it’s always the traumatic stuff you remember when you were really young.

          1. That’s so sad. I hope you’ve got over it. Mind you, I always thought Florence was unbearably smug 😅
16. … which slightly surprised me when I checked the time as this felt more of a struggle than that. Both NW and SW corners slow to succumb, as I did not see 1A Plutarch for some time — neither the dog nor cunning = arch came to mind — and although I suspected 14D was Unicorn I felt uneasy about backforming the noun corn (NHO) from the more commonly met adjective corny. But I see the dictionaries to have it, so another day when I have learnt something.

    I never saw the hidden in 8A Edam — I applied Statherby’s law that the list of words that can indicate an anagram contains just about every word in the English language, and assumed therefore that pantomime was yet another anagrind with dame the anagrist. It worked for me …

    COD for me 9A Pomander — a nicely constructed clue. Like Jack though I was only aware of the current meaning as a container not the older meaning of the aromatics themselves, so a second thing learnt today.

    Many thanks to Jack for the blog
    Cedric

17. Not convinced. I get EdgeL from the clue, what indicates that the L comes first?
    1. ‘on’
       1. But isn’t it the wrong way round? “Bound to get left on” – surely it’s “left” that is on “bound”, and as our blogger constantly reminds us, “a on b in an across clue equals b followed by a”
          1. As you say Left (L) is on bound (EDGE), which gives us LEDGE.

             The rule you quote is correct and you have noted it applies to Across clues, but this is a Down clue where ‘on’ simply means ‘on top of’.

             1. Bugger — must have been holding the crossword the wrong way
18. … Izetti. I have NHO Plutarch or Pomander and why they should be included is beyond me. Am I supposed to feel grateful for being introduced to such gems? l don’t feel like that, as they are too elitist to include in general conversation. Do you think they are the first words the setter puts into the grid, or they are the last and chosen because other words don’t fit? Other aspects seemed fair. although bound and standing were a stretch for me. Thanks for the blog. DavidS
    1. I don’t think Izetti sets a QC with any of us in mind as individuals so I don’t see the need to take things personally. I am constantly impressed by the setters’ skills and Izetti sits near the top of the pile even though he mangles my brain quite frequently.
       I tried to set a couple of Crosswords for a departmental Newsletter once and failed. I began to understand just how difficult it can be. There are always a number of us solvers who have difficulties and need to look things up (either to explain or confirm our answers). That is partly why the blog is so useful. John.
       1. Nice words, John.
          1. Thank you, Pam.
          2. Thank you, Pam.
    2. Never heard of Plutarch?
       1. I am sometimes surprised by what people have never heard of, but perhaps the young don’t read so much. Surely most know USP?
          1. Yeah, you’d have to be really dumb not to know USP.
             1. 😀
    3. Re Pomander. We’ve been married over 50 years and a classic 21st birthday present in the early 60’s was a pomander. I still have a number somewhere!
19. A rather gentle start to the week from Izetti IMO. All finished and parsed in the (for me) reasonable time of 15 mins. I did spend some time at 1ac wondering whether Snoopsly was some obscure philosopher but carried on with the rest while I waited for checkers to appear. Otherwise no particular hold-ups.

    FOI – 6ac BACH
    LOI – 24ac TREATING
    COD – 9ac POMANDER – raised a smile when the penny dropped.

    Thanks to Izetti and Jackkt

20. A pleasing 20 mins for me — for once I was on the right wavelength and with no distractions went through this fairly efficiently.

    Mind you, I also couldn’t get Scooby Doo out of my head (and his awful sidekick Scrappy Doo — the Jar Jar Binks of its time), so it took a few checkers until “Plutarch” somehow popped into my head. Strangely enough, “Pomander” and “Cheroot” did the same, all words picked up from doing these crosswords, although they were solvable from the wordplay.

    Got slightly hung up on my LOI “Dice” — was overthinking and thought it had something to do with cube numbers — so I nearly biffed “Nine” even though 9 isn’t the cube of anything and has nothing to do with cutting anything up as far as I am aware.

    FOI — 2dn “Ledge”
    LOI — 17ac “Dice”
    COD — 18ac “Suspects”

    Thanks as usual!

21. Brain was a bit fuzz this morning, but got there eventually. A typo in BONOAPART held up LOI SUSPECTS, until I realised I needed an E after USP. Have spent some happy times in Ripon, both at the Racecourse and also watching my grandchildren in Brass Band competitions held in the cathedral. TOM and LEDGE were my first 2 in, thus eliminating Snoopy from consideration. 12:34. Thanks Izetti and Jack.
    1. Is that the break up of U2?
22. 29:08, took a break after 20 mins, and did finish eventually.

    There are a lot of cartoon dogs, and I’ll add “Muttley” to cris’s list above. I was worried that there might be a 19th century German out there that didn’t feature in the Python song.

    EDGE=Bound is pretty obscure, so that was also a late clue along with RIPON/POMANDER. —ON just didn’t look like a city in England at all. Especially as I had –RON for some time, thinking RED had to be “about perfume”, tried to make REMANDED work.

    WOD CHEROOT : does anyone smoke these any more?

23. FOI: 3D TOM
    LOI: 20D TEXAN

    Slow progress (and with one interruption) and then discovered I had entered DONINATE when I had finished. (I also took pantomime to be the anagrind for DAME).

    Thank you, jackkt and Izetti

24. What a small world! Last week we were in North Yorkshire, quite near one of crosswordland’s favourite rivers – the Ure, which I was looking forward to mentioning. Today we have RIPON which is very near where we were staying. Embarrassingly though, it took me a while to solve, so that was a real d’oh moment 😅 It does indeed have a cathedral and a racecourse.
    Anyway, at the risk of being accused of lying (thanks Anon from 5 May), I’ll say that I didn’t think this was too hard for an Izetti, with some most enjoyable and witty surfaces done and dusted in 11 minutes. I too left 1a for a while as I realised the dog couldn’t be Snoopy but I’d forgotten Pluto (Goofy – there’s another one!). I’m with Countrywoman – what people do and don’t know is interesting. I’ve heard of Plutarch but haven’t read any of his works – that’s probably as good a definition of GK as any I guess! You don’t need to know the detail 😉
    FOI Bach
    LOI Unicorn
    COD Karate – it conjured up a most entertaining image!

    Many thanks Izetti and Jack

25. The ancient custom of beating the bounds takes place during Rogationtide in the Anglican calendar, which includes today as a rogation day, the Monday preceding Ascension Day. I attended the ceremony many years ago in Cheshire. Thankfully it did not include the practice of beating a child’s head on a boundary stone to firmly imprint the parish boundary on his or her memory.
    1. We still have a Rogation walk though seems to be curtailed due to new landowners.
       1. Perhaps they should be inducted into the tradition of having their heads bumped on the boundary markers?
26. I have found that those who actually work in a particular trade or profession are more likely to know what is correct terminology than dictionary writers. Many years ago, I had a discussion with Peter B over a bit of baseball terminology that was in dictionaries, but that baseball professionals would reject as incorrect.
    1. There is nothing incorrect about USP = Unique Selling Point.

       Whether ‘Proposition’ was the original ‘P’ I am in no position to say (and I doubt that H is either) but through usage over the years ‘Unique Selling Point’ is what many if not most people understand it to mean and the dictionaries reflect that along with the alternative option which I never heard of until today. I have also worked in business environments fuelled by jargon – 15 years in banking/legal administration followed by 16 years in the Civil Service. We also had to ‘sell’ our new products, services and ideas and USP was always a factor when presenting our case.

       Edited at 2021-05-10 01:19 pm (UTC)

    2. Quite right. Dictionaries are not authorities, they are collections of regular usage.
27. After a rather inauspicious start – I managed only a few on first pass – things started to come together and I ended up fishing in 32 minutes, which is jolly good for me and orders of magnitude better than my last two attempts at Izetti QCs, both of which were hopeless DNFs.

    Both PLUTARCH and POMANDER were only faintly in the distant recesses of my brain, but both were also very well clued, making them possible to solve cryptically. My COD was a toss-up between DOMINATE and ONCE, both of which gave me a good feeling of quiet satisfaction when they were solved. In fact, the whole puzzle was very enjoyable today, perhaps because I did not have to endure any interminable alphabet trawls or agonising LOI problems.

    Many thanks to Izetti and to jackkt.

    1. Perhaps you were going at it from the right ‘angle’ 😅
28. 23 minutes; spent far too long revisiting 24a as I couldn’t see how TREATING was equivalent to STANDING and wasted time trying to find another anagram. Thanks for the explanation — not hard really.
29. Apologies if this came up in reference to the main puzzle but at 9a, I’m unable to find this definition for ‘po’ (without the added ‘-faced’)?
    1. I mentioned it in a comment up-thread, but no problem reproducing it here:

       Chambers has:

       po – a shortening of ‘po-faced’

       and if you then look up ‘po-faced’ it has – (also shortened to po) stupidly solemn and narrow-minded.

30. Happy to have my brain back into some sort of order to finish this. Time irrelevant due to constant interruptions and restrictions from inconveniently placed IV, hopefully soon to be a thing of the past.
    Lots of enjoyable clues within my ability. Thank you Izetti and Jack
31. So, comparatively much more difficult for me than the main, which only took me 5 minutes longer. Didn’t get the sense of CORN or TREATING, and I was only saved on POMANDER by the appearance of PO last week.
32. My first thought when I saw CUNNING PHILOSOPHER was Blackadder but he’s too long!.

    I got on better with this than I usually do with Izetti but had to resort to the blog to understand the definitions for EDGE and TREATING.

33. Seemed gentle for Izetti with no real hold ups, so a very pleasant start to the week.
34. The comments reflect that this was pretty tricky in parts. Over 12 minutes here – apart from USP I thought this all fair Izetti material and so enjoyable.
35. ….which is very unusual. I didn’t know USP, but otherwise I just wasn’t with it and missed my target

    FOI BACH
    LOI UNICORN
    COD EDAM
    TIME 5:27

36. Not our fastest time but definitely not our slowest – we finished in 14 minutes. Nothing that we hadn’t come across before, it just took us time to work out some of the answers.

    FOI: PLUTARCH
    LOI: TEXAN
    COD: POMANDER

    Thanks to Izetti and Jackkt.

37. Thought we did well finishing in one course then found we had nest (which parsed) but couldn’t see texan so put titan.
    Oh well must parse better next time. Got pomander through parsing as we did plutarch.
    As to the comment about not knowing a word we use a dictionary to check.
38. Well done, PW!
39. Late to the party. No problems to delay my solve other than a couple of unknown definitions i.e. LEDGE and TREATING (my LOI) but both getable from the wordplay. 8:12

40. Intense day at work so the QC felt quite relaxing by comparison. I was on the wavelength today, coming in at around the 16 minute mark, anything under 20 is quick for me. I needed the blog to explain why treating was standing, and thought pomander was something to do with pomade, but fairly clued.

41. Hard work in parts. FOI 1a Plutarch. LOI 24a Treating (took too long to see how it worked). COD 7d Cheroot. I’m another who saw pantomime as the indicator and just reworked dame = edam. The blog helped with better parsing and a good puzzle that kept me thinking!

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