Times Quick Cryptic 1880 by Hurley

Posted on Categories Quick Cryptic

Solving time: 12 minutes. Tricky. The long answers were a long time coming and that really slowed my progress around the grid.

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 Country set — a bit tactless unfortunately (6,6)
BALTIC STATES
Anagram [unfortunately] of A BIT TACTLESS
9 Trouble envelops voting system for period (5)
APRIL
AIL (trouble) contains [envelops] PR (voting system – Proportional Representation)
10 First seaside attraction to include rock, English made, at outset (7)
PREMIER
PIER (seaside attraction) contains [to include] R{ock} E{nglish} M{ade} [at outset]
11 Unorthodox healer, very involved in Channel port (2,5)
LE HAVRE
V (very) contained by [involved in] anagram [unorthodox] of HEALER
12 Say no more — extremely elite name brings lustre! (5)
SHEEN
SH (say no more!), E{lit}E [ extremely], N (name)
13 Compiler coming into money: bond (6)
CEMENT
ME (compiler) contained by [coming into] CENT (money)
14 Day nursery somewhat mediocre, cheap (6)
CRECHE
Hidden in [somewhat] {medio}CRE CHE{ap}
17 Remove answer in Gaelic language (5)
ERASE
A (answer) contained  by [in] ERSE (Gaelic language)
19 In contest surpass inaccurate people (7)
OUTRACE
OUT (inaccurate), RACE (people)
21 Popular policy retaining Conservative slant (7)
INCLINE
IN (popular) + LINE (policy) containing [retaining] C (Conservative)
22 Swimmer heading away from Beatrix? (5)
OTTER
{p}OTTER (Beatrix) [heading away]
23 At work rather hot tea leads to conversation? (5-2-5)
HEART-TO-HEART
Anagram [at work] of RATHER HOT TEA
Down
2 A supporter overacting as Biblical character (7)
ABRAHAM
A, BRA (supporter), HAM (overacting)
3 Preacher on box in the Levant, not hard — member looking up is captivated! (13)
TELEVANGELIST
LEG (member) reversed (looking up) + IS contained [captivated] by T{h}E LEVANT [not hard]. Hard work! Anyone remember Garner Ted Armstrong? He was on radio when I became aware of him but I understand he graduated to TV later.
4 Bring up film — the girl’s a nonentity (6)
CIPHER
PIC (film) reversed [bring up], HER (the girl’s]
5 Travel after nice surprise includes certain valuable objects (8,5)
TREASURE TROVE
TREAT (nice surprise) contains [includes] SURE (certain), then ROVE (travel)
6 Note about kid’s large family? (5)
TRIBE
TE (note) contains [about] RIB (kid – tease)
7 Extraordinary street where there’s shooting? (7)
STRANGE
ST (street), RANGE (where there’s shooting)
8 Welcome cold shower (4)
HAIL
Two meanings. Not welcome at all, and there have been far too many such showers here this May.
13 Show great tenderness for teacher? I shall to some extent (7)
CHERISH
Hidden in [to some extent] {tea}CHER I SH{all}
15 Church with more suitable section of book (7)
CHAPTER
CH (church), APTER (more suitable)
16 Pairs originally from Bolshoi lead Roman dance (6)
BOLERO
BO{lshoi} LE{ad} RO{man}[pairs originally from…]
18 Fancy cereal used regularly in African city (5)
ACCRA
{f}A{n}C{y} C{e}R{e}A{l} [used regularly]
20 Regret about old currency unit (4)
EURO
RUE (regret) reversed [about], O (old)

44 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 1880 by Hurley”

  1. All green in 20 but it felt like longer. Only three on the first pass of acrosses with the gaps at the top remaining until the end. BALTIC STATES took a long time — and a fair few checkers to come to mind and TELEVANGELIST also took a long time to come, I saw the =evangelist bit early on couldn’t crack the cryptic and although it brought Billy Graham to mind it’s not a word I thought I knew — was the heyday the 1970s? Could be Monday morning grumps but I thought this lacked a little sparkle.
    1. The query was also raised in the Club forum but not taken up. It seems a long time since management engaged in any discussions about errors. Perhaps they’ve given up.

      Edited at 2021-05-24 06:40 am (UTC)

  2. Tough going today. Of the long answers only TREASURE TROVE went in quickly. I hopped around the grid a bit as I slowly tuned into the puzzle, finishing in 14.01 with OUTRACE, where despite OUTRAGE being clearly wrong I had to work hard to avoid just bunging it in. Lots of good surfaces but my COD goes to BALTIC STATES.
    Thanks to Jack
  3. Crikey! Bit of a struggle for me as well.

    Liked the challenge. Not so keen on the major purchase from Ikea which was 3d

    Should have got 1a quicker

    TREASURE TROVE opened up the RHS but the LHS was slower

    Thanks Jackkt and Hurley

  4. Thought my brain had given up over the weekend.

    Struggled all the way round, never hitting the wavelength. I had to write down the anagrist for BALTIC STATES in the end. Biffed TELEVANGELIST. CEMENT took too long, and CIPHER was my LOI, as I wanted “ET” to be the film, and that definition was not one I was familiar with, so had to work it out from wordplay.

    Thoroughly beaten by Hurley, thanks for the blog jack.

  5. I thought this was going to be an unusually slow solve at first. ABRAHAM and APRIL seemed to be as far as I could get in the NW and I had to do my usual jump around the grid looking for easy answers. It began to come together but I needed plenty of crossers for the long answers. I managed all the anagrams without having to resort to pen and paper. A last-minute spurt allowed me to finish in 16 mins, a minute over target. Not bad (for me) in the circumstances, I think.
    There were some very fine clues so thanks to Hurley. I’ll trog through them again now with Jackkt as my helpful guide. John M.

    Edited at 2021-05-24 08:30 am (UTC)

  6. Much trickier for me than usual, but all correct. Hindsight suggests I should have been quicker. Thank you, jackkt and Hurley.

  7. Definitely tricky today. FOI SHEEN. Last in were ERASE and CHERISH. 15:04 on the clock.
    I could not bring myself to spell Cypher without a Y; and I did consider the reversed PIC. But why shouldn’t PYC be somewhere in Chambers?
    David
  8. Yup, hard yakka here too. Glad it wasn’t just me!

    Couldn’t do 1ac in my head, biffed TREASURE CHEST, thought the film was ET, typed CHERSIH and so couldn’t get INCLINE … the list goes on. It’s Monday and I badly need an espresso!

    FOI HAIL, LOI OUTPACE, COD the topical INCLINE, time 16:01 which is probably about a million Kevins and a Terrible Day.

    Many thanks Hurley and Jack.

    Templar

  9. DNF OUTRAGE which I knew was incorrect but after 3 alphabet trawls I still could not work it out for the LOI. Couldn’t be bothered to parse 3D and bifd the long anagrams. TRIBE and Cipher didn’t come easily either.
    Altogether I pulled the plug at 59mins as I could not get into the swing of it.
    Thanks Hurley and Jack. Onwards and upwards.
  10. The 15×15 took me 18 minutes – this QC 20 minutes!

    I thought there were some dodgy clues hereabouts. Particularly the lengthy 10ac PREMIER ‘Rock English Made’! The management have given-up!

    FOI 2dn ABRAHAM – not BRA again!

    LOI 4dn CIPHER

    COD 11ac LE HAVRE

    WOD 3dn MIKE PENCE

  11. Real grind today – some of it very obscure to say the least. I do think that setters should stick with familiar usages for the quickie ( or at least the main definitions in a dictionary). Thanks though!
  12. … as I gave up after 20 minutes. Proper DNF too, with blanks on the grid not just a pink square.

    To clue supporter = bra once is witty, unexpected and therefore fun. To do so every time rather kills the element of surprise. Could setters try something really radical (like supporter = fan perhaps, or short boast = bra) for a change?

    I think it is probably a bit of an urban myth that Monday’s puzzles are easier (and Friday’s correspondingly more difficult) but this was quite a lot tougher than normal and I might suggest pushed the boundary a bit for a QC. Very interested to see Horryd finishing the 15×15 faster than this — I will now go and try it and see how I fare on the supposedly tougher one.

    Many thanks to Jack for the blog, much needed today
    Cedric

  13. Tough for me, so I’m glad others found it tricky too. I always think CIPHER is spelt with a Y for some reason, so that didn’t help. Nor, come to think of it, does not having the faintest idea how CIPHER means nonentity. I thought it meant a code…

    …Well, I’ve just looked it up on Google and it says a dated meaning is zero, so I suppose that covers it. Anyway, finally got there in 49:42 putting in OUTRACE, something I hope to be doing again soon, though I fear my running form may have suffered irredeemable lockdown decline. COD to STRANGE. Thanks Hurley and Jack.

  14. A DNF with OUTRACE — after 35 minutes I couldn’t face another alphabet trawl. I spent a lot of time on TELEVANGELIST as I thought it was an anagram of ‘in the levant’ and ‘leg’ and I couldn’t see where the ‘s’ came from. Not really a good QC.
    Thanks to Jackkt for the explanations.
    Brian P
  15. Leapt all over the grid to find ways into this, then crawled through the remainder. It felt like there were more 15×15 type clues than usual. The definitions seemed better hidden than the QC norm. Didn’t like OUTRACE although the parsing works. Brain cells now well warmed up for the week, may even go and grapple with the 15×15.
  16. FOI: 11a. LE HAVRE
    LOI: 7d STRANGE

    Time to Complete: DNF

    Clues Answered Correctly without aids: 15

    Clues Answered with Aids (3 lives): 23a, 7d, 8d

    Clues Unanswered: 9a, 10a, 14a, 17a, 2d, 4d

    Wrong Answers: 1a

    Total Correctly Answered (incl. aids): 18/24

    Aids Used: Chambers, Bradford’s

    Wow, this was a tough one! On my first go round I had only 2 answers. Some of these clues just made no sense to me (before I saw the answers here, that is). DNF, despite giving it a jolly good go.

    1a. BALTIC STATES – I put UNITED STATES, which did indeed fit, though it messed with my ABRAHAM for 2d. It took me some time to even get an understanding of the clue. “Country set” just made no sense to me. Now, of course I realise it was referring to a set of countries.

    7d. STRANGE – First life used here, and what an idiot I felt. For some reason I was convinced that street (ST) went at the end of the clue. That was my undoing for this clue.

    8d. HAIL – Of course! Second life used.

    3d. TELEVANGELIST – I got this one correct. Nice clue.

  17. Tough one this. I bunged in CALL for 8dn, wondering how it worked. It clearly didn’t. Pleased to get TELEVANGELIST though!
    It is nice to be back. Having recently retired from the NHS, I have more time for solving.
  18. Took me half an hour but I got there! Some pretty bumpy surfaces here but the solutions are easier to spot in these than in the smoothly deceptive ones. I liked BOLERO 16 down.

    Thanks, jackkt, for the blog and thanks too to Hurley.

  19. Failed on CIPHER as was also trying to fit in ET. Biffed Outpace rather than OUTRACE.
    A major struggle all round, biffed United States though I knew it was wrong. Pulled myself together and got BALTIC eventually.
    FOsI. LE HAVRE, SHEEN, OTTER, HAIL
    LOsI ABRAHAM (ashamed I used CCD), APRIL.
    Thanks for much needed blog, Jack.
  20. Heavy going, nothing early to get my teeth into. I mis-spelt as “Le Harve”, which is how I have always pronounced it, this scuppered TELEVANGELIST. I couldn’t figure out either of the constructions of these long down clues, and ended up with TREASURE STORE, which led to ONSTAGE at 19a.

    NHO the ERSE language, seems pretty obscure. CIPHER is also a pretty tough word. I liked compiler=ME, I’ve not seen that before.

    20d had the tempting “MARK” for “old currency”.

    COD 22A OTTER

  21. Left with 19a after 9 mins — a further minute to come up with OUTRACE even with all of the checkers.
  22. Struth — that was hard work. A disappointing DNF, riddled with errors of my own making.

    For some reason I thought the biblical character was Aproham and felt pleased with myself for picking out such an obscure name that I guessed was in the Old Testament. What an idiot! Then I spelt “Le Havre” wrong and thought 4dn ended in “et”.

    So overall, a bit of a Monday morning shambles. Fair play to Hurley though for a testing puzzle, as none of the answers were massively obscure, but teasing them out was a completely different matter!

    FOI — 8dn “Hail”
    LOI — dnf
    COD — 6dn “Tribe” — took me ages to even work out the parsing of this.

    Thanks as usual!

  23. I started with CIPHER and TRIBE, then STRANGE which allowed me to put STATES in 1a. I suspected BALTIC for the other bit but waited for more crossers rather than write out the anagrist. TELEVANGELIST and TREASURE TROVE came without too much cogitation and helped with a lot of crossing letters. I was almost at my 10 minute target when I entered my LOI, EURO, but decided to do a proof read rather than just submit and hope, which turned out to be a rather good plan as I’d managed to type CCHERIS at 13d! 10:19. Thanks Hurley and Jack.
  24. A protracted solve all of my own making! Like PW I put in UniTed STATES and I didn’t think to go back and check when I couldn’t solve ABRAHAM and CIPHER. I’d already biffed TELEVANGELIST with the T checker compounding the problem. 17 minutes to unravel.

    Edited at 2021-05-24 01:20 pm (UTC)

  25. First of all, a tip of the hat to anyone who worked out the Baltic States anagram without any checkers — it was almost my last one in. Certainly a hard start to the week, and one that I was simply grateful to finish, just short of 30mins, via an alphabet trawl for Outrace having finally rejected an unparsed Outgame. I couldn’t parse Cement either, because I was fixed on ‘C’ (early version of C++?) as the compiler. Not one to remember. Invariant

    Edited at 2021-05-24 11:01 am (UTC)

    1. I had Outpace for quite a while…one of those annoying ones where there could be multiple answers so inevitably the trawl begins…
    2. I had to write the anagram letters in a circle, then cross off S T A T E S, and see what I was left with!
  26. 15 minutes and a good challenge. Like others I biffed TELEVANGELIST without parsing. Thank-you!
  27. 6:06 this morning. Clearly a trickier than average QC, however I felt the clueing was perfectly fair as is usually the case with Hurley. I also felt there wasn’t anything too obscure with the GK requirements although I appreciate opinions on this aspect will vary.
    I particularly liked the surface of 10 ac “Premier”.
    Thanks to Jack for a very clear blog and to Liz.
  28. Really enjoyed Hurley’s challenge today – great mix of clues and some super anagrams. We were all done in 16 very focused minutes.

    FOI: BALTIC STATES
    LOI: APRIL
    COD: ABRAHAM (although there were lots of great contenders this one made us laugh)

    Thanks to Hurley and Jackkt.

  29. Hard work today. Had to dodge around the grid and took a long time to solve the anagrams. Never parsed 3dn but needed all the checkers before being sure. Also struggled with 6dn where I didn’t equate RIB with KID and therefore couldn’t see how it worked. Eventually finished in 25 mins.

    FOI – 10ac PREMIER
    LOI – 6dn TRIBE
    COD – 7dn STRANGE

    Thanks to Hurley and Jackkt

  30. My FOI was OTTER, but only after 5 minutes of increasingly desperate searching. I then slowly managed to fill most of the lower half of the grid, but as the half-hour approached the top half was still completely blank. BALTIC STATES came very late in the day (I thought it was CATTLE something), but that led me quickly to CIPHER and TRIBE. My LOI (OUTRACE), however, was back in the lower half of the grid and required a careful alphabet trawl.

    In the end, I was mighty relieved to finish, all correct, in 54 minutes.

    Mrs Random also struggled today, although she did have to cope with several interruptions during her 66 minute effort. We’re both glad that this one is now behind us.

    Many thanks to Hurley and jackkt.

  31. A just below average day at 12 minutes but it felt longer. Have seen CIPHER = nonentity in the biggie but didn’t remember it until I grudgingly entered the letters as it couldn’t be anything else!
    FOI Le Havre
    LOI Erase — I thought it was Cipher then discovered I’d missed one out!
    COD Baltic States
    Thanks Hurley and Jack

    The biggie wasn’t too bad — apart from one obscurity (to me) 😊

  32. Way over our modest target, needing help to finish. Stumped for ages with 1a and 4d. Only getting two of the four long clues quickly did not help. We also blame the burst water pipe yesterday evening which was stressful. Happily not much damage.
  33. A very good challenge worthy of the 15 x 15 in places I thought. It took me 40 minutes to complete this. I had never heard of cipher used in this context. Some of the clues were pushing the boundaries – April is a month, I can’t see it’s anything else. NHO TELevangelist – the evangelist was clear enough, and I got the Tel(e) part from the clue. Not many easy clues today. Thoroughly enjoyable. Having spent so long on this I’ll pass on the biggie today. FOI premier, LOI April. Liked all the clues.
    Technical DNF for one letter, I had outpace, which would not parse, but could not see an alternative. Plenty to learn from the blog, thanks, Jack. Thanks to Hurley for the entertainment. GW.
  34. ….there must be a good chance of me finishing the 15×15 more quickly than I did this.

    FOI APRIL
    LOI CIPHER
    COD TELEVANGELIST
    TIME 6:49

    On edit — not quite. It took 53 seconds longer.

    Edited at 2021-05-24 03:59 pm (UTC)

  35. Defeated today – DNF after a long struggle. NHO TELEVANGELIST but looked it up. Still failed to see CIPHER and PREMIER, which I should have solved. Not a good start to the week.
  36. Found this one really difficult. DNF with six clues still unanswered after 30 mins. Was pleased to get PREMIER and TREASURETROVE. NHO TELEVANGELIST and wrongly thought that the definition was ‘captivated’. Very disappointed with myself, but the week can only get better.
  37. I’m glad I came here because I struggled with the top half and thought I was having a very off day, but no, it was a tricky one for a Monday. Phew.

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