Times Quick Cryptic 1907 by Mara

Author   william_j_sPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
Mid-difficulty for me. The biggest challenges were the two 11-letter answers in the middle of the grid, so much so that I ended up working around them until the very end of the solve. Lots of classy stuff here to enjoy – hope you did. My COD to 8dn for a much-needed original anagrind.

Definitions underlined.

Across
1 Minister’s previous tour oddly cancelled (6)
PASTOR – PAST (previous) and even letters from (oddly cancelled) tOuR.
4 Very little reworking of models (6)
SELDOM – anagram (reworking) of MODELS.
9 Generous sprinkling of Braille (7)
LIBERAL – anagram (sprinkling) of BRAILLE.
10 Regularly concerned with all the Commandments, perhaps (5)
OFTEN – OF (concerned with) and TEN (all of the Commandments, perhaps).
11 Red scarcely seen (4)
RARE – double definition.
12 As bell sounding, fight! (4-4)
DING-DONG – double definition.
14 GP innovates, after redesigning flag (6,5)
PAVING STONE – anagram of (after redesigning) GP INNOVATES.
18 Last metal: it gets processed after uranium (8)
ULTIMATE – anagram of (gets processed) METAL IT, after U (uranium).
20 Bread head! (4)
LOAF – double defintion.
22 Stage yet to be erected, back to front (3,2)
PUT ON – NOT UP (yet to be erected) reversed (back to front).
23 Turn very morose in the end after sweetheart returns (7)
REVOLVE – V (very) and the last letter of (in the end) morosE, after LOVER (sweetheart) reversed (returns).
24 Shoot messenger (6)
RUNNER – double definition.
25 Times editor removed (6)
ERASED – ERAS (times) and ED (editor).

Down
1 Little buddy with taste (6)
PALTRY – PAL (buddy) and TRY (taste).
2 Southern peninsula in part of modern Russia (7)
SIBERIA – S (southern) and IBERIA (peninsula).
3 Seen in fog, really hideous monster (4)
OGRE – hidden in (seen in) fOG REally.
5 Stretch out with a gentle novel about love (8)
ELONGATE – anagram of (novel) A GENTLE, containing (about) O (love).
6 The same part of depot tidied up (5)
DITTO – hidden in (part of) depOT TIDied reversed (up).
7 Bloke has time for run (6)
MANAGE – MAN (bloke) and AGE (time).
8 Initial success as gnat, firstly, squished (6,5)
FLYING START – anagram of (squished) GNAT FIRSTLY. Love it – without the mental image of a squashed fly, this anagram indicator wouldn’t work nearly as well.
13 I am into Italian writer — sparkling stuff (8)
DIAMANTE – I AM contained by (into) DANTE (Italian writer).
15 Far Eastern food, loads under chin in the end (7)
NOODLES – OODLES (loads) after (under) the last letter of (in the end) chiN.
16 Top flea, perhaps? (6)
JUMPER – double definition.
17 Upset with rotten conclusion (6)
OFFEND – OFF (rotten) and END (conclusion).
19 Colossus: it appears in bronze (5)
TITAN – IT contained by (appears in) TAN (bronze).
21 Part of cricket match finished (4)
OVER – double definition.

47 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 1907 by Mara”

  2. I’m afraid FLYING START was wasted on me; I biffed it and forgot to check the wordplay. 7:10.
  3. I tried to force ‘spumante’ in too and was relieved Dante had come up recently because otherwise I’d have struggled. My big hold ups were the 1s which held out to the end. I was fixated on BISHOP for 1a just because it fitted and hadn’t been separating ‘little’ from ‘buddy’ because I wasn’t sure which end to start. It was a big relief when PASTOR finally arrived. Only 4 on the first pass of acrosses and all of those in the top half so things weren’t easy but the anagrams reassured me that I could make progress. Enjoyed getting RUNNER from the double definition and the penny drop moment when I could finally justify PUT ON. All green in 17.
  4. I don’t quite know what happened, but I needed 20 minutes for this one over two sessions. After 13 minutes I had little more than half the grid completed and I ran out of the time available so I stopped the clock and returned to the puzzle later. I then saw a couple of answers that had been eluding me and I finished it off after another 7 minutes.

    I never did parse DITTO as I had intended to return to it but forgot. For a while I had PUT UP at 22ac so that needed to be corrected, and then with the N-checker in place I was convinced that 13dn had to be SPUMANTE (Italian for ‘sparkling’) which messed up the unravelling of the anagram at 14ac.

    So this was pretty much an all-round disaster for an experienced solver.

    Edited at 2021-06-30 05:15 am (UTC)

    1. I was another who took far longer than I would have expected (I only did this because my tablet has the Tuesday 15×15, not today’s — I’m not in the Crossword Club but buy the main paper and do the cryptic in it. I’ve told them but no doubt they will tell me my equipment is unsatisfactory, because nobody on the 15×15 blog mentions this). Not helped by being sure that the last metal was tungsten (W might well be the last metal on the periodic table, and there’s an anagram of ‘gets’ in there).
      1. Odd. I wasn’t aware that there remains any means of having an online subscription that doesn’t also give access to the Crossword Club. From the paper it’s via the Puzzles page where there should be a Club portal to the left of the direct puzzle links. If you are still seeing yesterday’s puzzle, try clearing the cache and/or rebooting the device.
        1. Jack thanks for your efforts. But there is no Club portal that I can see. I tried rebooting but that didn’t work. There is no obvious way that I can see to clear the cache (I have a Samsung Galaxy Tab A). If I go to Settings > User Manual I get a page where I’m told ‘Sorry, we are having a problem executing your request. The page you requested could not be found.’

          So goodness knows.

          1. Okay. Sorry about that. I used to have a Samsung Galaxy Tab but swapped it some years ago for a Lenovo. They both run on Android though, so I wouldn’t have expected any major differences. Perhaps someone more technically minded than me will see this and offer advice.
      2. I’ve also recently had the problem of the previous day’s puzzle being presented on my Galaxy tablet; I have now switched from the old to the new Times App, which I’m hoping will solve this.
  5. Slow going in places today. Like Jack I Initially went for PUT UP, thinking that back to front could mean that it read the same both ways. Fortunately my favourite (only known) Italian writer quickly put me right. 14a (COD) had me scouring my mind for obscure national flags before I resorted to writing out the anagram fodder and PAVING STONE revealed itself.
    Finished with an alphabet trawl for PALTRY, which was made more complicated by thinking I was looking for a synonym for taste. Crossed the line in 13.07.
    Thanks to william and to Mara for the workout.

  6. FOI: 11a. RARE
    LOI: 13d. DIAMANTE
    Time to Complete: 50 minutes
    Clues Answered Correctly without aids: 19
    Clues Answered with Aids: 7
    Clues Unanswered: Nil
    Wrong Answers: Nil
    Total Correctly Answered (incl. aids): 26/26
    Aids Used: Chambers

    Some tricky clues in this crossword, including a word I have not heard of before (Diamante).

    14a. PAVING STONE – I did answer this one without aids, but only because the letters already present seemed to indicate it. I have no idea how flag relates to paving stone unless it is a type of paving stone.

    12a. DING DONG – I liked this one. Have not heard that expression for fight in a long time.

    22a. PUT ON – Initially I have entered PUT UP, but this messed with 13d. When I re-read the clue, I saw the correct answer.

    So, not a bad effort, for me. An enjoyable puzzle.

    1. Hi PW, flag is another name for what I used to call a SLAB — paving stone!
      2. Flagstone is a type of sedimentary rock which cuts easily into sheets (Similarly to slate). For that reason it was often used for floors and paving, but also for roofing and other uses for sheets of rock, e.g. gravestones. Not to be confused with modern paving slabs which are moulded concrete.
        1. I agree with your definition of flagstone, and your differentiation of the every day description of slab from the naturally occurring stone. However, Chambers has ‘slab — noun — a thin flat piece of stone, etc’ and ‘slab stone — noun — flagstone’.

          therotter

  7. I couldn’t work out the 1s so started a clockwise solve from SELDOM. No particular hiccups today but I’m another who initially entered PUT up using the same rationale as plett11. COD FLYING START needed quite a few checkers and I thought that it was a &lit clue. I didn’t see the anagram. My husband spends a lot of time squishing mosquitos. My LOI was RARE. I like my steaks this way so I’m not sure why the double definition was so elusive. 8:43 for a comparatively very good day.
  8. Many thanks for the blog and puzzle. I spent too long convinced that 1d was PALATE and couldn’t get RARE until the penny dropped. Ding ding reminds me of the ‘carry on..’ films for some reason…Leslie Phillips?
    1. Great spot.

      According to OED Popularized as a catchphrase by the British actor Leslie Phillips (b. 1924), used originally by his character Jack Bell in the film Carry on Nurse (1959)

  9. Oh dear, we just couldn’t see 1D. We had entered PALATE initially and it wasn’t until we solved RARE for 11A that we realised we had a problem but we couldn’t see the solution even though the answer was there right in front of our eyes. It took us 20 long minutes to achieve our DNF. Lots of great clues today – very enjoyable puzzle.

    FOI: SELDOM
    LOI: DNF (PALTRY)
    COD: PAVING STONE (but lots of contenders)

    Thanks to Mara and William.

  10. My experience has already been well summed up by jackkt, mendesest, and rotter. Same time as jackkt, too. To say more would be unnecessary and a bit pretentious. Many thanks to Mara and William. John M.

    Edited at 2021-06-30 10:23 am (UTC)

  11. Like many, PUTUP caused the trouble, but then compounded by seeing POE as writer at the end of 13d, being pleased that I had done a “lift and separate” of “Italian writer” and was homing in on IT=Italian. This yielded IIAMTPOE which was supposed to be a sparkling wine.

    Also needed pen and paper for PAVING STONE, although I did have a modern day equivalent of the Blarney Stone, a place where smokers trying to quit make pilgrimage, the VAPING STONE.

    20a, Bread head is a clue where the rhyming slang appears with the definition itself. “Loaf of Bread” being rhyming slang for bread.

    COD DING DONG

  12. Like others I went for PALATE -with a doubt- and PUT UP -which works both ways, so no doubt. I needed some time to unravel those.
    FOI was LIBERAL. LOI PALTRY, which I think has to be my COD. I almost chose PAVING STONE which was late in and a good anagram.
    Time 14:36.
    David
  13. Found it taxing, but managed everything except PAVING STONE – just didn’t see the connection with FLAG! Doh!!
    1. Likewise. Just couldn’t see what was going on here. Nice puzzle overall.
  14. I started with PASTOR and then wasted some time trying to justify PALATE, until RARE came along. Still took me a moment to see TRY for taste! Then steady progress with FLYING START then PAVING STONE, last 2 in. 9:25. Thanks Mara and William.
  15. Taken out to 18 minutes by biffing the unparsable PALATE at 1d (taste), which made 10a impossible until spotted and corrected. This after I got off to a 8d by seeing 1a and 4a immediately. I loved PAVING STONE for flag, and enjoyed many others. Thanks both.
  16. For once I may have bucked the trend as I found this enjoyable and more or less straightforward, coming in at 16 mins.

    Usually find Mara difficult, but had one of those days where answers just appeared and things slotted into place. Must have hit a sweet spot in that mysterious wavelength.

    Getting the cross section of 8dn and 14ac helped, and had a cheeky smile as I also thought of Leslie Phillips and his “ding dong” (the expression that is). Main hold up was trying to fit an Italian sparkling wine into 13dn until I had a flash of inspiration.

    FOI — 3dn “Ogre”
    LOI — 13dn “Diamanté”
    COD — 6dn “Ditto” — beautifully hidden answer whilst trying to rearrange “depot”

    Thanks as usual!

  17. 24 and 16 were the last ones in for me, but the long anagram at 14 took a while. All correct though.
    Thank you for the blog, and many thanks also to the setter. I will now attempt the 15×15, where I am having a lean run.
    Andrew
  18. … with an 11 minute solve for me. Not without some head-scratching though, and I was one of many it seems who had Palate for 1D at first before realising that made 11A Rare impossible.

    I don’t always find double definitions easy — one either gets them fairly immediately or one doesn’t at all, in my experience — and 24A Runner was my LOI and took some time. On the other hand, 20A Loaf went in straight away, which rather reinforces my point that DDs are binary clues: easy or impossible.

    I never did parse 23A Revolve satisfactorily so needed the blog here, but with the R-V checkers at the start if could not be anything else.

    Many thanks to William for the blog
    Cedric

  19. PALTRY was my LOI. PAVING STONE needed writing down, and still took a while, PUT UP was entered, until I got my favourite of the day – DIAMANTE, which forced the re-think to PUT ON.

    I liked the puzzle, so thanks to Mara and william, as I realise, on reading the blog that DITTO was a biff!

    9:14

  20. Struggled to a 33min solve, but with Ring Gong for 12ac (an improvement on the earlier Ring Tone, but still wrong). Hold ups all over the place, but especially the SW, where I had Put Up until loi Diamanté wouldn’t fit. CoD to 1d, Paltry, which actually went in without too much trouble once I had the P from Pastor. Invariant
    1. Just to say that I also had RING GONG for quite a while (then SING SONG briefly), before DING DONG came to mind.
  21. … I finished, all correct and with all-but-one clue fully parsed in exactly 30 minutes (a jolly good time for me). However, as I couldn’t see the horticultural meaning of RUNNER (for ‘shoot’), I had to endure a futile alphabet trawl to eliminate all other possibilities for R_N_E_. This took me a further 5 minutes and, as I still couldn’t see the connection, I was forced to “Biff” and hope for the best – something I really hate doing, especially for the LOI.

    Looking on the bright side, 35 minutes is still a good time for me and it was my eighth successful solve in a row, which is a rarity.

    I am now off to Christchurch in Dorset (where I was brung up) to collect my parents, who are 91 and 89 years of age. They haven’t visited us or anyone else for a couple of years or more, so it may be quite an adventure (ordeal?) for them.

    Many thanks to Mara and william_j_s, as usual.

    P.S. Mrs R will no doubt rattle through her attempt later today, as she is busy preparing for the arrival of her outlaws.

  22. Failed on PALTRY, DING DONG (a COD) MANAGE – forgot to go back and look at the latter two having pencilled in a couple of bad guesses.
    I nearly put Tory as being scarcely seen among Reds in order to fit in better with The erroneous Palate.
    Liked LOAF, JUMPER, OFTEN, RUNNER.
    Thanks vm, William.
    1. You’re right, Ed: they’re for an elite group. Admittance to this group requires many years of struggling with puzzles that are too hard to even start, wasting one’s time, and engaging positively with this blog. You’re two thirds of the way there.
      1. Well said, Will. There comes a point if somebody comes here regularly and posts nothing but negativity to suspect that they are only here to disrupt and have no interest in seeking to improve, nor add anything constructive to anyone else’s experience. They may be genuine but sometimes one has to conclude, sadly, that they may be a troll and should be treated as such.

        Edited at 2021-06-30 07:55 pm (UTC)

    2. I’m a newbie to this forum and to cryptic crosswords generally and I hope you experts don’t mind me giving my thoughts from a beginner’s perspective. I started having a go at some Times QCs around 4 years ago. I would look at the answers and be absolutely none the wiser! I’ve been a lurker on this forum for around 3 years now and, with the benefit of the daily blogs, am just starting to be able to complete a QC, although it still takes me forever! It’s well worth the perseverance — I am totally hooked — you’ve just got to keep going!
      1. You’re so very welcome, and your opinion is as important as the old-timers’ 😊 There are a few people here who definitely should be called experts but most of us are enthusiasts who have — like you — been plugging away and lurking for years before raising our heads above the parapet! I have found the blog to be a tremendous source of help and encouragement, as well as often being very informative — and highly entertaining! Congrats on starting to complete more regularly — time doesn’t matter if you’re enjoying yourself 😊
  23. Ah, THAT sort of flag. I found this tougher than this week’s previous two, and wasn’t helped by biffing “palate”. At least I seem to have been far from alone.

    FOI SELDOM *
    LOI PAVING STONE
    COD FLYING START
    TIME 4:29

    * Seeing OFTEN immediately beneath SELDOM, I wondered if I’d actually spotted a theme for once — but it’s just coincidence, and there are no more antonyms !

  24. My slowest solve of the week at 22 mins. Even then, as I had run out of time, I needed aids to get my LOI. I also had PUT UP for quite a time, making 13dn impossible. Not a terribly good day!

    FOI – 4ac SELDOM
    LOI – 1dn PALTRY
    COD – 14ac PAVING STONE

    Thanks to Mara and William

  25. …but managed to finish with no wrong answers! OK, I was timed overall at 1+ hours but… a finish is a finish, and all under my own steam — chuffed, sorry couldn’t resist. Like others I initially had palate but then realised it didn’t work with RARE. Loved FLYING START. Spent an embarrassingly long time over RUNNER. So enjoyable. Many thanks all.
    1. Well done — it’s always satisfying to finish a puzzle correctly, regardless of how long it takes.

      Make it a rule to check this blog for every clue that puzzles you, and don’t be afraid to ask questions — most of us don’t bite !

      Think of it as learning the rules of grammar in a foreign language, and you shouldn’t go far wrong.

  26. Biffed flying start but loved the reasoning!
    About 20 minutes.
    Following on from a previous comment if something is easy it ain’t worth trying.
  27. Gave up on 32 after a fairly fast start. Spent ages getting the JUMPER/RUNNER crossers and that just left 11a, for which I had considered RARE, but it didn’t fit with PALATE. As I couldn’t see why rare=red (it came to me immediately as soon as I saw that it was definitely the answer), I stuck with PALATE and assumed the answer to 11a must be some unknown red wine. Anyway, COD to PUT ON. Thanks Mara and William
  28. Am having a break in Oxfordshire at the moment but as sltrach commented earlier, this is an addictive pastime and being on hols is not going to stop me! Did this in 12 minutes before going out this morning. I liked it and thought there were some cracking clues — trouble is it was so long ago, I can’t remember the details 😅 LOI was definitely PALTRY and COD was PAVING STONE — that’s it!
    Many thanks Mara and William
  29. Like others I tried SPUMANTE before figuring out DIAMANTÉ, and also took too long to work out PALTRY, which stalled progress, but even so, completed in 15 minutes. FOI the good ol’ cricket clue, OVER, and LOI RARE. Enjoyable, thanks.

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