Times Quick Cryptic 1896 by Jalna

Author   ChrisPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

Short of time again today. Sorry for the minimal blog – and I’ve probably made tols of misteaks!

Went just over 10 minutes – unnecessarily held up by 1d but then struggled to finish in the SW.

Definitions are underlined.

Across
1 A politician lied, oddly enough (5)
AMPLE – a (A), politician (MP), (L)i(E)d.
4 Irritated and out of bed following injury (5,2)
WOUND UP – out of bed (UP) following injury (WOUND).
8 Majestic area somewhere in Georgia (7)
AUGUSTA – majestic (AUGUST), area (A). Think golf.
9 Specialized hospital in pleasant surroundings? (5)
NICHE – hospital (H) inside pleasant (NICE).
10 Activated with second reset (8,2)
SWITCHED ON – anagram (reset) of WITH SECOND.
14 Feels weird grabbing one personal photo (6)
SELFIE – anagram (weird) of FEELS holding one (I).
15 Gun rule read out (6)
CANNON – homophone of canon – a general rule or principle.
17 Place for pool, say, up for discussion (2,3,5)
ON THE TABLE – double definition.
20 Old character featuring in multi-author narrative (5)
THORN – inside multi-au(THOR N)arrative. Thorn or þorn (Þ, þ) is a letter in the Old English, Gothic, Old Norse, Old Swedish, and modern Icelandic alphabets, as well as some dialects of Middle English. Who knew? – but the directions were clear.
22 Plait rearranged around one girl’s head? (7)
PIGTAIL – &lit, I believe – anagram (rearranged) of PLAIT around one (I) and (G)irl’s.
23 Calls for demos: and for nothing (7)
DEMANDS – demos (DEM)oS – replacing O with (AND).
24 Emotional time before New Year (5)
TEARY – time (T), anagram (new) of YEAR. Clever anagrind.
Down
1 Assumed name lacks heart, unfortunately (4)
ALAS – assumed name (AL)i(AS) without the central letter. ANON wouldn’t go far enough away to allow me to solve this for a while.
2 Pay up front to be getting on section of website (4)
PAGE – (P)ay – up front – first letter- getting on AGE. Hmm – getting on = age or ageing.
3 Former wife in St. Helier, somehow (9)
ERSTWHILE – wife (W) inside an anagram (somehow) of ST HELIER.
4 Money made by breaking the law (6)
WEALTH – anagram (breaking) of THE LAW.
5 Be paid, reportedly, for pot (3)
URN – homophone (reportedly) of earn.
6 After ten years, books degraded (8)
DECADENT – books (NT) after ten years (DECADE).
7 Expecting power in control (8)
PREGNANT – power (P), in control (REGNANT).
11 Sheer and occasionally delicate part of a car (9)
HEADLIGHT – s(H)e(E)r (A)n(D), delicate (LIGHT).
12 Various ashtrays emptied — problem solved! (8)
ASSORTED – (A)shtray(S), problem solved (SORTED).
13 Plant erasing non-users initially from restored computer system (8)
PLATFORM – plant (PLA)n(T) – taking out (N)on-users, anagram (restored) of FROM.
16 Parties seen round university and its grounds (6)
CAMPUS – parties (CAMPS) around university (U).
18 Talk about a long story! (4)
SAGA – talk – gas – backwards (SAG), a (A).
19 Work steadily, hosting a performance (4)
PLAY – work steadily (PLY) holding a (A).
21 At first, nobody usually notices she might have a habit (3)
NUN – (N)obody (U)sually (N)otices.

54 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 1896 by Jalna”

  1. I wasn’t, but then I never am. I had trouble with PLATFORM (LOI). Also ERSTWHILE, where ‘former’ had me looking for EX-something. And I hesitated on SAGA, although I felt sure it was the solution, because it took me so long to parse it. Biffed SWITCHED ON, HEADLIGHT, parsed post-submission. 7:34.
  3. Badly delayed in the SE corner where it took ages to work out TEARY ( very neat) and that left me unsure what sort of long story . A . . would be, as I couldn’t parse it although it had to be SAGA once the final A appeared. Liked ALAS as anon was obviously so appealing but didn’t parse. Clever surfaces generally, I felt, and made me work harder than I expected after the first few went in quite quickly. About 35 mins in all.
  4. I don’t think there are ‘tols’ of them, but this puzzle is by Jalna, not Joker!

    It’s only Jalna’s 7th puzzle for us, the first having been in August 2019 followed by one in October that year. Two appeared in 2020, and today’s is the third this year so far. I failed to meet my target on every one them.

    12 minutes, missing my target, with time lost trying to parse 23ac as an anagram and wondering why there was no anagram indicator.

    Edited at 2021-06-15 04:47 am (UTC)

    1. Thank you – title changed.

      I’d like to add my respect here for your milestone of 500 15×15 blogs. A tremendous feat of perseverance – and thanks for all your help to me on the way.

      Edited at 2021-06-15 06:59 am (UTC)

    2. Me too with regard to 23 ac “Demands”. Only appreciated it after reading Chris’s blog!
  5. Only three on the first pass of acrosses then briefly picked up the pace before having to work hard to get the last few, which were dotted about the grid with the SW having the biggest gaps. US geography let me down again before I remembered AUGUSTA from a previous puzzle, couldn’t parse DEMANDS (and even deleted it once) but thanks to Chris I now see it wasn’t that complicated, took me a while to justify TEARY (fell right into the trap of thinking it must end NY), spotted THORN on the first run through but didn’t have the GK to be confident and SELFIE took a while as the anagrist looked so unpromising. Liked AMPLE, lots going on to make a short word, and grinned at WEALTH, two high points in a great puzzle — all green in 17,

    Edited at 2021-06-15 08:02 am (UTC)

  7. Steady going today with brief hold ups for PIGTAIL, PLATFORM and ASSORTED. I seemed to have my anagram hat on so ERSTWHILE and SWITCHED ON gave me lots of early checkers to help me on my way.
    Finished in 9.01 with LOI THORN and TEARY just pipping SELFIE for my COD.
    Thanks to Chris
  8. I was slow to get going and, initially, only made progress in the lower half, which filled up steadily. I finished in the NW corner which had been completely empty. Jalna had me off-balance from the start — the style seems different from most QC setters (not a bad thing fir a change) and I went over target by a couple of minutes. ERSTWHILE was my COD. A very interesting puzzle, though. Thanks to Jalna and to Chris. Now back to Chris’s blog to double-check some of my parsing. John M.

    Edited at 2021-06-15 07:37 am (UTC)

  9. Missed 4 clues in the SW, but after seeing the answers in the blog feel that any one would have opened up the others. Maybe threw in the towel too early at 22 mins, but I have a busy day, my excuse.

    Should have seen SELFIE, but was looking at words ending in PIC. Also on the wave length for ‘empty ashtrays’ but did not know whether at the start or the end, and if the definition was ‘various’ or ‘problem solved’.

    18d (SAGA) was COD, great surface with all four words having equal billing. It’s a good clue to explain the concept of a cryptic crossword. ‘The code’ , as my daughter calls it.

    Edited at 2021-06-15 08:49 am (UTC)

  10. Had to wake up a couple of extra neurons to tackle this one. AMPLE was FOI, then some 10:58 later I reached the PLATFORM. Thanks JALNA and Chris.
  11. 2.7 Kevins yesterday, 0.95 Kevins today … HANG OUT THE FLAGS!

    That clicked for me, with hold ups only on THORN (I found Beowulf deathly dull until the rather startling intervention of Angelina Jolie) and PLATFORM. Cracking good fun along the way with lots of COD contenders.

    FOI AMPLE, LOI PLATFORM, COD WEALTH (brilliant), time 07:14 for that rarest and best of all days, a Red Letter Day.

    Many thanks Chris and Jalna.

    Templar

  12. FOsI AMPLE , ALAS, WOUND UP, WEALTH, PREGNANT but then hopped about a bit, solving or biffing random clues like HEADLIGHT and PLATFORM which I wrote in very faintly.
    Cd not parse PLAY, CAMPUS, SAGA, and forgot about THORN which we have had before.
    Liked SELFIE, AUGUSTA (LOI) PIGTAIL. TEARY cleverly misleading.
    Thanks all, esp Chris.
  13. 11 minutes, so well inside target for me, with no particular hold-ups. ERSTWHILE jumped out from the anagrist, THORN was familiar. DEMANDS was LOI and took a moment to parse, and I needed TEARY before I could commit to SAGA. Nice puzzle, thanks both. Now off for a round of golf with Mrs R.
  14. This was a great puzzle, probably my favourite of all the QCs I can remember – really imaginative clueing from AMPLE onwards. Thank you Jalna!

    PLATFORM was my LOI, from the checkers.

  15. Solved in two sessions. Thought I was on for a DNF as was completely stuck in the west. FOI erstwhile, that is, I got nothing across on the first pass. Wealth and urn went in as write-ins, thank goodness, and gave some traction to the solve. I dotted about acrosses and downs then, with the help from the checkers. In the second session, the penny dropped with platform, which opened up the SW of the grid, then I saw page, which did the same for the NW. Very pleased to complete. No idea of time – except lots of it. Did not parse switched on, teary or headlight, all biffed. COD – couldn’t pick one, all very good. Thanks, Chris, and Jalna. GW.
  16. Quite pleased with my 20 minute solve as I seem to remember experiencing great difficulty with the last Jalna puzzle I tackled. Never managed to parse TEARY, PLATFORM, HEADLIGHT or DEMANDS, so thanks for the blog and explanations Chris. In common with others most of my problems were in the West, especially the SW, although 1dn also held me up for far too long. Knew THORN as an OLd English character, so no problems there. Thanks to Jalna for a fine puzzle.

    FOI – 1ac AMPLE
    LOI – 23ac DEMANDS
    COD – 4dn WEALTH

  17. I enjoyed this very much, not least because of the smoothness and clever misdirections going on.

    I finished this in just over 15 minutes but would have been faster had I not stuffed up by initially putting “in the frame” for 17, rather than ON THE TABLE. Once I’d got CAMPUS, 16 down, I corrected it but it did delay my final submission.
    We’ve had THORN before and I posted some links at that time to some interesting articles about it. I’ll try and dig them out. I studied linguistics at university and did my thesis on the Finnsburg Fragment which features in Beowulf.

    So many great clues today but I especially liked the sneaky PAGE, plus PREGNANT and PLATFORM.

    Many thanks to Chris and to Jalna.

  18. Started quickly in the NW and thought this was going to be a doddle, but it got a lot harder further down the grid. The SW corner, in particular, caused problems until Assorted came along. Biffers will have missed out on some terrific clues, with at least half a dozen CoD contenders nosed out by 13d Platform. Thank you Jalna for a very pleasurable 25mins. Invariant
  19. 6:58. I hope I’m still not suffering from the mental scarring of watching Scotland playing in the Euros yesterday, at this rate I could be hoping for their early exit!
    I have to say I found this a challenging QC, consisting of a well constructed and sometimes cleverly misleading set of clues. For example I didn’t always immediately spot the anagram indicators this morning and for 23 ac “Demands” I was looking for an anagram where there wasn’t one!
    Plenty of candidates for COD but my choice would be 13d “Platform” where I was misled into looking for the name of a plant for a while.
    Thanks for the blog Chris (which was fine by the way) and to Jalna for a top notch QC.
  20. … for a finish in just under 10 minutes. Would have been faster but I took time to parse 23A Demands — the answer was clear once the checkers were in but I tried to make it an anagram of “demos and” without the O. “For nothing” doesn’t really mean “leave the O out of the anagram” though, and once the correct parsing emerged it was of course obvious. I find that is the case so often with these clues …

    I always find Jalna’s puzzles have variety and interest, so delighted to see he/she is becoming a more frequent setter.

    Many thanks to Chris for the blog — and congratulations to Jack for his 500th 15×15 blog today. That represents many many hours of blogging!
    Cedric

  21. An enjoyable 25 mins for me. Got into a little muddle in the SE thinking 18dn was “Yarn”, but once I sorted 24ac then “Saga” was the only option.

    DNK “August” = majestic — guessing that’s some Roman thing and wasn’t sure about parties = camps for 16dn. Spent too much time trying to a slot reboot or something similar into 13dn — and thought it was a little sneaky to make the initial the first letter of a hyphenated word.

    FOI — 1ac “Ample”
    LOI — 16dn “Campus”
    COD — 13dn “Platform”

    Thanks as usual!

    1. James, I also looked twice at parties = camps, but it makes sense in political terms, I think, sides in an argument etc.
      1. Ah – with regards to politics it now makes sense. Thinking too much about frivolity and canvas tents.
  22. I did OK, but didn’t appreciate the elegance of SAGA, DEMANDS, SWITCHED ON, PLATFORM or HEADLIGHT, so thanks for the elucidation!

    I did like PREGNANT of those that I did manage to parse..

    6:10, but does it count with so many biffs?!

    1. Absolutely! For learning purposes and writing blogs you need the parsing, but in competitive solving the only things that count are speed and correct answers.

      Edited at 2021-06-15 11:52 am (UTC)

        1. I’ve recently been printing 15x15s and thoroughly enjoying going through them at leisure – and have kept up to the current day’s offering for a week now. Rather like vaccines/cases and admissions, I hope I’ve broken the link between cryptics and times. The QC, however, I like to look at as a ‘romp’. Always enjoyable, though.
  23. 12:54 for me today with my last two being PLATFORM and DEMANDS, both unparsed. Prior to that COD ERSTWHILE took me a long time to unravel.
    As said above, a very clever puzzle, which I had started quickly before finding the tricky bits.
    Good stuff from Jalna.
    David
  24. for my ‘MOT’ at Shanghai No. 1. Dreadful MRI! Time 20 mins.

    FOI 1ac AMPLE

    LOI 12dn ASSORTED!

    COD 4dn WEALTH

    WOD 3dn ERSTWHILE

    My grandfather didn’t like Tolkein too much, and thus we never got to read Beowulf!

  25. There was lots to like about the puzzle. I enjoyed the cluing for AMPLE, NICHE, TEARY and WEALTH. My FOI was AMPLE and then I solved the top half very quickly but was slowed in the SW corner. I biffed HEADLIGHT and my LOI DEMANDS which I failed to parse post solve. 8:28
  26. Took us a magnificent 23 minutes to make it to the finishing line. Frustratingly, we solved quite a few of the clues straightaway but then doubted ourselves and had to revisit. Never mind, it’s just fun to be back.

    FOI: WEALTH
    LOI: DEMANDS
    COD: ON THE TABLE

    Thanks to Jalna and Chris.

  27. Took only 4 minutes to be left with 13D, but could make no sense of the clue. I considered PLATFORM as it was the only word I could see that would fit in, but I couldn’t parse it so rejected it. The “computer system” usage was unknown to me. Gave up at the 8 minute mark. I could have biffed it I suppose, but had zero justification for doing so.

    COD SAGA

  28. I was pleased to have only four clues left to solve after 35 minutes (quite quick for me). But, for the third QC in succession, I then hit the buffers and after a further 35 minutes I gave up, having solved only one of them (DEMANDS). My three unsolved clues were:

    7d (PREGNANT): I did not know REGNANT for ‘in control’ and also thought the solution probably ended in ‘…ing’.

    20a (THORN): I never saw the hidden and DNK the old letter. However, I did put TWAIN, thinking that he was some cryptic ‘multi-author’. P.S. Why was ‘multi-‘ in the clue at all?

    13d (PLATFORM): Too convoluted a clue for me, I’m afraid (e.g. I thought that ‘nu’ had to be removed from something).

    Mrs Random also struggled with DEMANDS, THORN and PLATFORM, but finally got home in 56 minutes.

    Many thanks to chrisw91 and Jalna.

    1. I think ‘multi’ is there as padding to make the clue read a little easier (aka to provide a better surface) 🙂
    2. Regnant is worth remembering – we know ER = Her Majesty = Elizabeth Regina.
  29. After a quick start with1a and 1d we had to fight to progress. Finished with platform 13d after abt 35 minutes. Good tasking puzzle.
  30. Another very hit and miss day, and well over target again, at 15 minutes. Did it this morning so can’t remember much detail! A quick start with the first half dozen downs going in like clockwork, then oh dear. The acrosses didn’t make themselves so clear, and the last couple — PLATFORM and DEMANDS — took five minutes on their own😨
    Definitely a different feel with Jalna, although I’d be hard-pressed to descibe how or why, but always entertaining. I liked the misdirection at 17a — I got In the swim stuck in my head even though it didn’t fit or, indeed, make sense!
    FOI Alas
    LOI Demands
    COD Wealth
    Thanks to Jalna and Chris
  31. One of the most enjoyable puzzles I’ve done I think, with contenders for COD all over the shop. Liked NICHE early on, but I think it was outdone in the end by the wonderfully smooth surface of WEALTH at 4d. Never parsed SWITCHED ON or DEMANDS, but in retrospect both clues are also excellent. THORN was unknown to me, but gettable from wordplay so the puzzle was even educational as all the best ones are. LOI was CAMPUS for a 23:26 finish. Thanks Chris and Jalna. More please.
  33. I didn’t find this easy but ground my way through, finally getting PLATFORM and AUGUSTA. A very neat puzzle. Guessed THORN from clue – NHO.
  34. Stumbled on the final five of ALAS where I wanted to put ANON, which threw out that corner. Didn’t see ERSTWHILE or AUGUSTA, nor TEARY in the opposite south-east because I was looking for a word ending NY. And thus couldn’t find SAGA and became preoccupied with TAIL/TALE. Silly. Inexperienced. Frustrating. Oh well…

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