Times Quick Cryptic 1886 by Orpheus

Ah, Orpheus again but without such a sting. 8 minutes for an interesting solve. Started slowly but then the biffometer started ratcheting up – a word to the wise here for other potential biffers  – make sure you correct the final letter of 21ac before you type the penultimate letter of 15dn – I held myself back just in time.

A little bit of geography, a bird and a mammal made this interesting and fun.

Definitions are underlined.

Across

1 Old man’s expression of thanks for Italian food (5)
PASTA – old man’s (PA’S), expression of thanks (TA).
4 Drive shown by politician in refurbished suite (7)
IMPETUS – politician (MP) inside an anagram (refurbished) of SUITE.
8 Action of Liberal with wife in a formal outfit (7)
LAWSUIT – Liberal (L), with wife (W) inside a (A) and formal outfit (SUIT).
9 As a mountain track may be, blustery and indirect (5)
WINDY – COD to a rather good triple definition.
10 Crusty old American on container ship? (12)
CANTANKEROUS – old (O) and American (US) after container (CAN) and ship (TANKER).
12 Bird — and cat beginning to track it (6)
TOMTIT – cat (TOM), (T)rack, it (IT).
13 Talkative, and spiteful about hotel (6)
CHATTY – spiteful (CATTY) about hotel (H).
16 Investigate loud noise of birds — Swedish, possibly (12)
SCANDINAVIAN – investigate (SCAN), loud noise (DIN), of birds (AVIAN).
18 French river, one embodied in folk tradition (5)
LOIRE – one (I) embodied in folk tradition (LORE).
20 What we learn by accepting established award (7)
ROSETTE – what we (can) learn by (ROTE) accepting established (SET).
21 Explosive device briefly associated with a Caribbean state (7)
GRENADA – explosive device briefly (GRENAD)e, with a (A).
22 Monkey found in Israel or Islamabad (5)
LORIS – found in Israe(L OR IS)lamabad. Loris – a nocturnal, slow moving prosimian primate with sad eyes.
Down
1 European jazz fan, one raising quite a stink! (7)
POLECAT –  Eurpopean (POLE), jazz fan (CAT). The polecat has some aroma issues apparently.
2 Device that provides a shuttle service for a seamstress? (6,7)
SEWING MACHINE – cryptic definition.
3 Excessive praise of grown-up touring area, one on cricket side (9)
ADULATION – grown up (ADULT) touring area (A), one (I), cricket side (ON – the side that a batsman/woman would naturally hit towards – to the left for a right-hander)
4 Recent arrivals sadly eat in kitchen at first (6)
INTAKE – anagram (sadly) of EAT IN and (K)itchen.
5 Leaders of priests equipped with seat in church (3)
PEW – (P)riests (E)quipped (W)ith.
6 Would it damage part of a shoe? It’s hard to say (6-7)
TONGUE-TWISTER – something which would twist (damage) the tongue of a shoe.
7 Island involved in risky enterprise (4)
SKYE – involved inside ri(SKY E)nterprise. A beautiful place btw.
11 Tries to get into Madrid team’s practice session (9)
REHEARSAL – tries (HEARS – as in a hearing) inside one of Madrid’s soccer teams (REAL).
14 US city built by characters from Orkneys (7)
YONKERS – anagram (built by characters from) ORKNEYS.
15 Travelling is rare in a mountain range (6)
SIERRA – anagram (travelling) of IS RARE.
17 Arduous job, initially, sawing wood (4)
SLOG – (S)awing, wood (LOG).
19 Woman Caesar’s salutation upset (3)
EVA – Caesar’s salutation – ave – upset (EVA).

52 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 1886 by Orpheus”

  1. I wasted a bit of time at 7d, taking ‘island involved in’ to indicate I in some 3-letter word; the Y cleared that up for me. Biffed ADULATION, SCANDINAVIAN, parsed post-submission. Somewhat surprised to see a small US city in the puzzle. 4:36.
  2. Neil Simon’s ‘Lost in Yonkers’ has stayed with me, thankfully, but I vaguely thought it was a borough, like Brooklyn or Queens. I agree it’s a solution you’d expect to see in a back-pager first.


    Nila Palin

    1. Nice to hear from you again, Nila, you’re a very rare visitor to our discussions, but perhaps you read more often than you post?

      Like you, I knew of YONKERS from the Simon play, and I had also thought it was a borough.

  3. Enjoyable puzzle tonight.

    Quick note re 1d:

    Polecat = skunk here in US. Hence allusion to ‘stink’ made sense to me.

    ‘Cat’ for a jazz fan may be a bit dated, but it’s still a timeless, retro-cool sobriquet for a jazz musician, esp when one musician speaks of another.

    1. European Polecats are not skunks. (Distant relation?) There are attempts to re-introduce them in southern England. I didn’t know they were smelly!
      1. Funnily enough, I didn’t know they were being reintroduced, but I did know they were smelly. ‘Stinks like a polecat’ is a somewhat blunt but familiar phrase. British polecats are basically a wild ferret as far as I’m aware, so not a skunk! Probably equally evil-smelling tho!
  4. 10 minutes, but with one error as I carelessly wrote CONTANKEROUS at 10ac and then wondered if a CON-TANKER was jargon for ‘container ship’. Of course I knew the correct spelling, but I don’t know why I didn’t look at it again and notice my error.

    It was a bit distracting at 3dn having ‘on’ in the clue meaning ‘on top of’ followed by ‘cricket side’ cluing ON.

  5. Dredged up Yonkers – kept thinking of Barbra Streisand. After completion, 21 mins, I found it was from Hello Dolly! – the things you learn doing crosswords! Kindly Orpheus and thanks Chris.

    Edited at 2021-06-01 06:52 am (UTC)

  6. On par 6 and 6K for 27:26 but seemed quicker. LOI ROSETTE which I biffed then parsed. Several good clues to unravel and a very enjoyable puzzle.
    Now back to reality having to sort out damage and a dreadful mess left by a tenant doing a runner at the weekend.
  7. An enjoyable but gentle solve today. Started well with 1a and then followed the clues around the grid. Got stuck at the end wondering how ‘est’ fitted into 20a and then trying to parse ROSETTE once the answer became clear, but eventually the penny dropped.
    Finished in 7.00 with WOD to CANTANKEROUS.
    Thanks to Chris
  8. FOI: 9a. WINDY
    LOI: 20a. ROSETTE

    Time to Complete: 68 minutes (Av. 71, PB 32)

    Clues Answered Correctly without aids: 21

    Clues Answered with Aids (3 lives): 10a, 18a, 15d

    Clues Unanswered: Nil

    Wrong Answers: Nil

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

    Aids Used: Chambers, Bradford’s, Google

    2d. SEWING MACHINE – I answered this one quickly, but if I am honest, it was not due to working out the parts of the clue. It was the first thing that came into my head when I considered seamstress. Actually, it was the second thing I thought of; the first being a scene in Demolition Man when Stallone’s character was horrified to learn that he was a seamstress. I could not work out how sewing machine was obtained from the clue until I came here.

    14d. YONKERS – I have not heard of this city. However, it was the only plausible answer I could come up with using the anagram. So, in it went.

    15d. SIERRA – I could not get this answer to this one. It was not contained in Chamber’s Crossword Dictionary, nor in Bradford’s. A Google search of mountain ranges gave me the answer.

    A fairly tricky puzzle which took me a long time, but I am just pleased to have actually solved an Orpheus puzzle.

    1. Great title for your post! Reminded me immediately of Prometheus Unbound …
    2. Well done PW! I also struggle with Orpheus, solving only about 1 in 3.
    3. Great work! Now where’s that double Marathon bar you saved, to celebrate? 🙂
  9. 13:16, back on decent times, and also am well on the way with the 15×15.

    Could not believe YONKERS, as ‘New York’ looked tempting, as did ‘Yankees’, which fitted all the checkers. In our family we use ‘Yonkers’ to mean a long period of time, an Americanised version of the very British ‘Yonks’.

    LOI LOIRE as SLOG was penultimate, leaving Rhine And Seine as distinct possibilities.

    I liked the triple def, WINDY, but thought 2d was barely cryptic at all.

    NHO LORIS. ‘Lemur’ was mightily tempting after the initial L dropped a n. Isn’t there a goalkeeper called Loris?

    COD PASTA, a classic cryptic to start us off.

    1. Hugo Loris is the Spurs goalkeeper, a Frenchman. Not too many teams make a monkey out of him.
  10. POLECAT always reminds me of Saki. “Do one thing for me, Sredni Vashtar!”. I fared better on this than Mrs De Ropp did in the shed, though.

    FOI PASTA, LOI SIERRA, COD REHEARSAL, time 08:55 for 1.9K and a Good Day.

    Many thanks Orpheus and Chris.

    Templar

  11. A quite straightforward 15 minutes; DNK YONKERS but it was fairly obvious in the end. Enjoyable.
  12. Good puzzle. Plenty of easily biffable long answers as the crossers emerged from the more difficult, shorter ones. Almost a minute under target today at 14.15 but it seemed a lot quicker. LI were ROSETTE and TOMTIT. Thanks to both. John M.
  13. … with all done in 11 minutes. The painful struggles of last week are receding into distant memory with another very addressable QC.

    Like Merlin my last 2 in were 17D Slog and 18A Loire; there are a number of French rivers that go –I-E. But otherwise few hold-ups. I surprised myself by dredging Yonkers up out of goodness knows what memory bank — I have certainly never been there, nor could I tell you where it is, but somehow, somewhere I had heard of it. The things one remembers …

    I was worried at first that I had mis-parsed 3D Adulation. The ADULAT bit was clear and then I thought the cluing “one on” gave the -ION, leaving me wondering whether the cricket side was superfluous. Perhaps if Orpheus had written “… one with cricket side” I might have been less confused.

    Many thanks Chris for your blog. But after alerting us in your intro to the fact that we need to watch the last letter of 21A Grenada very carefully, you have unfortunately got a typo in the parsing of the clue itself — (GRANAD)e.
    Cedric

    1. Thanks for checking – I often don’t proof read very well. However in this case, the description of how the answer is made up is correct.

      explosive device briefly (GRANAD)e, with a (A).

      I’m showing that grenade without the final letter (briefly) gives us GRENAD and then add on A.

        1. Oh my goodness – I must have read that 10 times but suppose I was concentrating on the final letter. Thank you so much for your patience in continuing to take the horse to water!
  14. Didn’t have much time for this as I’m going out soon and perhaps that little extra pressure helped as I flew through this. Only missed getting SCANDINAVIAN and GRENADA out of the acrosses and had a similar success rate, albeit with the help of checkers on some of them, with the downs. Put YANKEES briefly in for 14d, but thankfully quickly thought of YONKERS despite not seeing the anagram (I was aided by the fact that I’m writing a book on the history of the marathon and Yonkers is where the second oldest US marathon is held, started 1907 I think. It was the national championships for many years despite being an evil course by all accounts and held when it was usually uncomfortably hot). Wasn’t sure what Caesar’s salutation might be until I got GRENADA and then I quickly saw LOI SCANDINAVIAN. Stopped my watch, hoping for a pb, but was 13 seconds out on 10:11. Still, can’t complain at that, especially as others don’t seem to have found it especially easy. Oh, slight MER at 22a: a LORIS is a primate, but not a monkey. And on that note, off to the zoo to meet sister and neblings. Thanks Orpheus and Chris.
  15. With a smile at SCANDINAVIAN and time extended working out LAWSUIT and POLECAT, 20ish mins of entertainment, accelerating as I moved from the NW. I also thought YONKERS was part of somewhere else but no idea where, and I don’t know why I knew it at all but there wasn’t much else those letters could produce.
  16. What a pity. I always forget award can equal ROSETTE. (Used CCD)
    Biffed lots of the long answers. SEWING MACHINE seemed too easy. CANTANKEROUS, TONGUE TWISTER, SCANDINAVIAN made me smile.
    FOI PASTA, IMPETUS
    Thanks VM, Chris.
  17. All done in ten minutes, all parsed except for Eva. FOI impetus, LOI Scandinavian which is also my COD. Thanks, Chris, and Orpheus. GW.
  18. Just a few seconds inside target at 14:50 with CANTANKEROUS being the main culprit. I also biffed WONKY for WINDY, but was fortunate to reconsider as it didn’t parse well (or at all). Just like me to miss the parsing when I have three attempts to get it right. Like others, YONKERS was recalled from who knows what or where, but it was there, buried, until needed. Thanks both!
  19. FOI PASTA, LOI TOMTIT. Knew YONKERS from somewhere. No real holdups. 8:44. Thanks Orpheus and Chris.
  20. To date, I have experienced more difficulty with puzzles set by Orpheus than by any other setter, although Teazel runs him close, but today (day 1 of year 2 for me) was an Orpheus PB in 33 minutes.

    PASTA and IMPETUS went in more-or-less straight away, which helped, and I found the whole of the top half of the grid relatively straightforward (although I needed INTAKE before confirming the spelling of CANTANKEROUS – Great word!). The lower half of the grid posed more problems – I had never heard of YONKERS or a LORIS – and I finished in the SW corner with GRENADA, SLOG and LOIRE.

    I’m afraid I can’t report on Mrs Random’s effort yet, as she is entertaining a close friend, whom we haven’t seen since last Summer.

    Many thanks to Orpheus and to chrisw91.

  21. 3:22. An enjoyable puzzle where I seemed to have the right crossers in place at the right time (just a matter of luck) so that the answers to the longer clues jumped out at me.
    I was amused by COD 1 down “Polecat” – as a long time jazz fan (particularly European jazz) I won’t take it personally!
    Thanks to Chris and Orpheus
  22. Took about ten minutes of solving, sitting in the sunshine. Great fun. Excellent surfaces, IMO . I needed the blog to explain the full parsing of 3 down, ADULATION, caught out, as it were, by the cricket reference yet again. Thanks, Chris! CODs include SEWING MACHINE, TONGUE TWISTER and REHEARSAL.
    With many thanks to blogger and setter
  23. This had quite a familiar feel to it, with several old friends making their appearance – PASTA, ROSETTE, TONGUE TWISTER and SKYE, for instance, but most enjoyably clued. They certainly helped me to achieve a very quick time – just over 6 minutes today, and on paper too! Hopefully newcomers will enjoy it too – especially after last week!
    There were some great surfaces today – I thought 9a, 18a and 11d were especially pleasing, and it was hard to choose a COD.
    Like Random, PW and others, I used to find Orpheus very tricky, but recently I’ve been getting on a lot better with his puzzles – I don’t know if that’s because he’s making them a bit easier or if I’ve finally got onto his wavelength. A bit of both perhaps? But suffice to say – there’s always hope 😊
    FOI Pasta
    LOI Cantankerous
    COD Impetus – lovely surface that makes wonder me if it was written before or after the No10 wallpaper row!

    Many thanks Orpheus and Chris

  24. Sorry, used a different computer. Should have signed in properly. I repeat:

    Was delayed for a short time putting GRENADE instead of GRENADA, and took much too long to get my LOI ROSETTE. FOI was WINDY.
    Loads of successful biffing today.

    Over the Bank Holiday Weekend I started doing the 15x15s on a number of Times issues on my iPad and was pleased to have achieved around 80% success on average. Have also learned that doing the “proper” crossword is very good exercise for the QC as it really does force one to think laterally and not be too swayed by what appears on the surface.

    No completion time today because interrupted on numerous occasions, but probably around the 18 minute mark. Would have been about 12 had it not been for the stubborn ROSETTE.

  25. I thought this was fairly straightforward and managed to complete it in 13 mins. It seems the pendulum has swung the other way this week, with the main hold up being the anagram for 15dn “Sierra”.

    Didn’t have a problem with Yonkers as once worked for a while in Connecticut and often passed the signs for it on my way out of New York City. However, dnk “cat”= jazz fan nor “Loris” was a monkey.

    FOI — 1ac “Pasta”
    LOI — 12ac “Tomtit”
    COD — 11dn “Rehearsal”

    Thanks as usual!

  26. All is forgiven Orpheus. I romped home today despite not knowing LORIS but I picked up the hidden indicator. POI was the stinky POLECAT and my LOI TOMTIT. Lots of COD contenders today. I liked INTAKE, CANTANKEROUS, REHEARSAL and my LOI TOMTIT. 6:36
  27. Was delayed for a short time putting GRENADE instead of GRENADA, and took much too long to get my LOI ROSETTE. FOI was WINDY.
    Loads of successful biffing today.

    Over the Bank Holiday Weekend I started doing the 15x15s on a number of Times issues on my iPad and was pleased to have achieved around 80% success on average. Have also learned that doing the “proper” crossword is very good exercise for the QC as it really does force one to think laterally and not be too swayed by what appears on the surface.

    No completion time today because interrupted on numerous occasions, but probably around the 18 minute mark. Would have been about 12 had it not been for the stubborn ROSETTE.

  28. Managed to finish in just under 30 mins today but wrestled with ROSETTE for way too long. Biffed ADULATION and needed Chris to explain what ‘on’ means in cricket — many thanks! COD 10a
  29. A much gentler start to the week, with an 18-minute solve yesterday and a PB today at just over 12 minutes!

    Absolutely on Orpheus’ wavelength this morning, missing only 1 across clue on the first pass.

    Should probably have made it in under 10 minutes, except I simply could not parse or biff 20ac, trying all manner of gongs, medals, wreaths, and ribbons before finally resorting to an alphabet trawl. Very frustrating.

  30. An experience similar to Countrywoman and Oltoc — I was on for sub 10 minutes but finished in 13 having spent at least four minutes on LOI Rosette. But pleased to have seen it and completed.
    I have been disparaging towards Orpheus in the recent past but this was a good QC with emphasis on the Q!
    Yonkers seemed to easy that I hesitated
    Thanks all
    John George

    Edited at 2021-06-01 03:11 pm (UTC)

  31. ….and I’m delighted to scrape into the top 10 on the leaderboard. I’d love to sit silently behind Verlaine while he’s doing one of these though. 57 seconds faster than me, and I was going full chat ! He must just be a blur !

    FOI PASTA
    LOI LOIRE
    COD TONGUE-TWISTER
    TIME 2:35

    1. Blinking flip, that’s proper rapid phil. I think Verlaine exists in a quantum plane, he thinks the answers onto the page/screen..
  32. Fairly straightforward. All completed and parsed in 16 mins of which at least 3 were spent on 20ac, which for some reason proved hard to crack. Had heard of Yonkers, having once worked for a company which had an office there, and had also heard of loris, so maybe I should have been a bit quicker!

    FOI – 1ac PASTA
    LOI – 20ac ROSETTE
    COD – toss-up between 4ac IMPETUS and 11dn REHEARSAL, but lots of other lovely clues

    Thanks to Chris and Orpheus

  33. Same time as yesterday’s, which I forgot to post. Hampered by phone keyboard on both days.

    I liked SCANDINAVIAN today.

    5:14.

  34. I struggled with a few of these today. I guessed TOMTIT was the answer for 12a, though it is not listed in the index of my RSPB book of British birds. The container ship in 10a had me thinking of those huge ships piled high with metal boxes. I can never work out why they don’t roll over in rough seas. I have the same feelings about cruise liners that look like floating tower blocks. 2d and 6d went in fairly quickly, which helped with a lot of the crossers.
  35. Just noticed that my earlier post has disappeared, so here it is again:

    Straightforward enough, though I still managed to nudge into SCC territory by virtue of the NHO Yonkers combining with my effort to squeeze Est into 20ac Rosette. CoD to 16ac Scandinavian. An easier week so far. Invariant

  36. Time 8:45 mins

    FOI 1ac PASTA

    LOI 15dn SIERRA

    COD 10ac CANTANKEROUS

    WOD 6dn TONGUE-TWISTER

  37. Accessible for an Orpheus puzzle and very enjoyable with nature themes to envisage.
    Took me ‘roughly half an hour’ with all but Eva/Ave parsed.
    Thank you, to blogger and setter.
  38. Just a few seconds inside target at 14:50 with CANTANKEROUS being the main culprit. I also biffed WONKY for WINDY, but was fortunate to reconsider as it didn’t parse well (or at all). Just like me to miss the parsing when I have three attempts to get it right. Like others, YONKERS was recalled from who knows what or where, but it was there, buried, until needed. Thanks both!
  39. I’m very late in getting round to this but it’s done and dusted in ten minutes. Nothing especially challenging on the way to the finish line.

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