Times Quick Cryptic 1920 by Tracy

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

Solving time: 8 minutes. I don’t often report on surface readings as I’ve trained myself to ignore them when solving, but reviewing them for the blog I was struck today by how excellent they are. They read very naturally and there’s not a single forced one among them.

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
3 Reminisce about MP (8)
REMEMBER
RE (about), MEMBER (MP – of Parliament)
7 Writer outside extremely smart restaurant (6)
BISTRO
BIRO (writer) containing [outside] S{mar}T [extremely]
8 Expelled one female in group (8)
BANISHED
I (one) + SHE (female) contained by [in] BAND (group)
9 Attention needed after weight put on (4)
WEAR
W (weight), EAR (attention). Friends, Romans and countrymen…
10 Signal given by copper close to scene (3)
CUE
CU (copper), {scen}E [close]
11 Perfectly done imitation volume shows (8)
COPYBOOK
COPY (imitation), BOOK (volume)
13 Belly laugh coming from muscular oarsman (4)
ROAR
Hidden in [coming from] {muscula}R OAR{sman}
15 Piece of information I came across in retirement (4)
ITEM
I, then MET (came across) reversed [in retirement]. David Maclean clued ITEM as “piece of paper” in his latest ST puzzle.
17 Riddle, say, of second shoe (8)
STRAINER
S (second), TRAINER (shoe). SOED has ‘riddle’ as a large coarse sieve for separating corn from chaff, sand from gravel, ashes from cinders, etc.
19 Poem that’s outstanding, reportedly (3)
ODE
Sounds like [reportedly] “owed” [outstanding]
22 Graduate?  I don’t know (4)
PASS
Two meanings
23 Made live broadcast historic? (8)
MEDIEVAL
Anagram [broadcast] of MADE LIVE
24 Son in club concert (6)
UNISON
S (son) contained by [in] UNION (club). To be in concert is to be as one.
25 Having few worries about a judge appearing heartless (8)
CAREFREE
C (about), A, REF{e}REE (judge) [appearing heartless]. Alternatively CA (about) and ignore the ‘a’ in the clue. One might quibble that carefree is to have no worries rather than few, but is anyone ever in that enviable situation?
Down
1 Rescue vessel, if able to, at sea (8)
LIFEBOAT
Anagram [at sea] of IF ABLE TO
2 Factory ultimately supporting shop floor (6)
STOREY
STORE (shop), {factor}Y [ultimately]. ‘Floor’ as in levels of a building starting at the ‘ground floor’ in the UK.
3 Dress designer finally gets honour (4)
ROBE
{designe}R [finally], OBE (honour – Officer of the Order of the British Empire)
4 Nickname girl heard (8)
MONICKER
Sounds like [heard] “Monica” (girl). More usually spelt ‘Moniker’ I believe, and it doesn’t have to be a nickname, just a name.
5 Teacher of poor stream (6)
MASTER
Anagram [poor] of STREAM. To explain the surface reading, and in case it’s not a familiar usage overseas, I’d mention that in British schools groups of pupils are sometimes divided into ‘streams’ according to their ability.
6 Uniform happening to be short (4)
EVEN
EVEN{t} (happening) [short]
12 Witness waiter, perhaps, supporting old boy (8)
OBSERVER
OB (old boy – of school), SERVER (waiter, perhaps)
14 Dislike a particular interpretation (8)
AVERSION
A, VERSION (particular interpretation)
16 Phone   city in Alabama (6)
MOBILE
Two meanings
18 Following onset of illness, married couple weaken (6)
IMPAIR
I{llness} [onset of…], M (married), PAIR (couple)
20 Cheese produced by loud Greek character (4)
FETA
F (loud  – forte, music), ETA (Greek character)
21 Conservative   down in the dumps? (4)
BLUE
Two meanings. In the UK the Conservative Party is associated with the colour blue. Labour has red and the Liberal Democrats have yellow. UKIP were purple.

54 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 1920 by Tracy”

  1. A bit sluggish, with LOI STRAINER a long time coming; partly, no doubt, because TRAINER (shoe) is not in my vocabulary, although no doubt I’ve seen it, here if nowhere else. My junior high and high school (San Francisco) had streamed classes. 7:01.
    1. Very interesting as I always assumed ‘trainer’ was an Americanism. In the UK we used to have plimsolls and gym-shoes, then suddenly it was all trainers.
      1. Well,for all I know it is an Americanism. Keep in mind that I moved to Japan in 1978, and except for 3 sabbatical years have lived here since; ‘trainer’ may well have been introduced in that time. For me, they were sneakers or gym shoes.
        1. My (Lancahire, working-class) mum bought me my first pair of trainers in the late 70s, possibly mid-70s, and definitely introduced them as a new type of footwear. Different from pumps (the term then used for tennis-shoe style items) and more suitable for kicking footballs, without going full footie-boot.

          I think at the time she used the term “training shoes” rather than “trainers”. “Plimsoll” and “gym shoe” were both, at the time, posh affectations to my ears.

        2. Collins and Lexico both say TRAINER is the English equivalent of the American sneaker. SOED doesn’t give the origin but classifies TRAINER as late 20th century.
      3. Don’t forget pumps. I’m convinced that we also called them baps in the Navy, but I can’t find any evidence of that in the usual sources. Personally, in my childhood, the only footwear I remember was Woolies plastic sandals!
          1. In southern Africa (South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia) they used to be called “Bata tackies” — Bata after the Czech firm who made them and exported them to the region, and tackies because in the African sun their shoddy manufacture was soon exposed! Not sure if the term still exists — and I should add that Bata shoes are now of a much higher standard.
            Cedric
        2. We called them daps when I moved to a school in Wiltshire. Previously, when I lived in the NE, they were plimsolls or gyms shoes. I don’t think we called them trainers until the early 80s — was that when “brands” appeared along with USPs and high prices?

          Edited at 2021-07-19 01:36 pm (UTC)

        3. There’s posh! We didn’t have shoes at all – gravel for breakfast…..
          My mother finally drew the line at plimsolls or ‘plimmies’ as they were known.

          Edited at 2021-07-19 02:42 pm (UTC)

      4. Mark interrupts young dog trainer? (4)

        I’ve just revisited QC 776 by Breadman, as part of my ongoing refresher course, and this popped up!

        1. Out of interest, where are you revisiting them?
          I’m working through some of the QC books (currently on Book 2, having just finished Book 4) but that doesn’t say what the original numbers were. I can find them here with the search feature, of course, and I do that when there’s a clue I can’t parse.
          1. If you go into the Crossword Club via the Times website or app, you’ll find a section called Crossword Search. You can access all types of Times crosswords going back 20 or so years, inc the quickies (which started on 10 March 2014). I’ve been revisiting them for quite a while now — as you can see from the fact that I’m on 776😅 Definitely useful for practising!
  2. Found this quite tricky and just got in under 20 minutes. Nice surfaces with some obscure definitions. Thanks J & T
  3. FOI: 23a. MEDIEVAL
    LOI: 11a. COPYBOOK
    Time to Complete: 46 minutes
    Clues Answered Correctly without aids: 21
    Clues Answered with Aids: 5
    Clues Unanswered: 0
    Wrong Answers: 0
    Total Correctly Answered (incl. aids): 26/26
    Aids Used: Chambers

    A slow start for this Monday morning. I needed some help with aids, especially with COPYBOOK. 46 minutes; not too shabby for me.

  4. Echoing jackkt’s comment, I found this both well constructed and enjoyable. Very fast for the first three quarters then a slow down. LOI by a long was was TRAINER. Still – 9 minutes for one and a bit Ks sounds good!
  5. Spent a long time over 11 and 17. 25 minutes in all. Nice start to the week.
    We had trainers, and then those ‘green flash’ ones became very popular.
    Thanks to blogger and setter
    Andrew
  6. I tuned straight into this one and thought I might be on for a very rare sub 5 minute solve until LOI CAREFREE made me pause for thought.
    I agree that the surfaces were particularly smooth but UNISON gets my COD. Finished in 5.27.
    Thanks to Jack
  7. Yes, a super-smooth puzzle. I blotted my COPYBOOK by seeing “shows” and biffing COPYCATS, but fortunately MONICKER sorted that out. Then a looooonnnnngggg time staring at the checkers before STRAINER emerged – so frustrating!

    FOI REMEMBER, LOI STRAINER, COD BANISHED, time a pleasingly symmetrical 08:08 for 1.2k but it could have been so much better and so I’m going to rate this as a Disappointing Day.

    Many thanks Tracy and Jack.

    Templar

  8. 20 mins for me, in the sunshine. Nothing too hard although having immediately thought of sieve on seeing riddle, STRAINER took rather a long time to pop up. My dad would have rejected the notion of trainers being “shoes”! Footwear maybe, but of inferior status to proper shoes which could be polished and shiny.
    Liked LIFEBOAT clue. Pleasant start to the week.
  9. Off to a flying start with REMEMBER and its danglers, and then kept going. LOI was AVERSION. 6:49. Thanks Tracy and Jack.
  10. A very quick start for me but I got rather bogged down half way through and, like others, I spent too long on my LOI STRAINER. A very good puzzle with lots to enjoy. I liked UNISON, BISTRO, and MONICKER but took my time with WEAR. I failed to hit my target by just a few seconds 15.08. Thanks to Tracy and jackkt. John M.

    Edited at 2021-07-19 08:23 am (UTC)

  11. I agree with Jack that the surface readings are excellent today. Well done Tracy. FOI was ROBE and LOI because I misread imitation as irritation was COPYBOOK. 7:17 for an excellent day.
  12. 18 mins again — for an excellent puzzle from Tracy.

    Main hold ups were 17ac “Strainer” and 9ac “Wear”. For a while I thought the latter could easily have been “Bear” — (double definition of “attention needed” and “after weight put on”) — but I guessed I may have been complicating things and adopted for the simpler answer.

    FOI — 3dn “Robe”
    LOI — 9ac “Wear”
    COD — 1dn “Lifeboat” — simple, but a lovely surface.

    Thanks as usual!

    Edited at 2021-07-19 08:50 am (UTC)

  13. Smooth for me today on this high quality puzzle from Tracy. I agree with Jackkt about the surfaces.
    FOI CUE; LOI ITEM. Time 07:22.
    Probably STRAINER was the hardest to get but the cryptic led me there.
    David
  14. Morning Jack — just a quick heads up (I’ve not looked at the puzzle yet).

    Don’t mention solving times on the Guardian site. Some of them on there are a little precious about that practice. I started a real row about two weeks ago, and my time wasn’t even particularly quick. I was accused of “bragging” which I certainly wasn’t. I calmed it down, and I now seem to be tolerated on there (if not quite accepted !).

    If you go back in, I’ve gently warned you on there as well, and have also opened a discussion on a topic I brought up on here some months ago.

    Laters (as the young folk say).

      1. I went off to 225 to see if you’d set off a scrap, after solving myself in what turned out to be a minute longer than you took (2 mins on my LOI).

        Might be worth a bash for others here who are interested in a challenge (It’s Cryptic 28,501 by Vulcan). Guardian clues can be a bit “looser” than Times ones, but this one is quite gentle.

        1. Nobody seemed interested, so good for them. I later found and read the site guidelines on what’s allowed or not and there was no mention of solving times, so if it’s a problem it’s down to some contributors creating their own rules and trying to impose them on others. Never a good thing.

          Edited at 2021-07-19 01:06 pm (UTC)

  15. … as this really was a joy to complete with barely a duff clue. I was a little unsure about the link Belly laugh = Roar in 13A, but that apart, as fine a set of surfaces as one could hope to see and some really elegant clues.

    All done for me in just under 8 minutes, with 17A Strainer my LOI — and I see it has excited quite a correspondence under Kevin’s original post above.

    Many thanks to Jack for the blog
    Cedric

  16. Inside 12 minutes by 10 seconds, so a gentlish start to the week. REMEMBER FOI, L3I BLUE, AVERSION and UNISON in that order. COD has to be CAREFREE. Thanks Jackkt and Tracy.
  17. As Jack says, I try not to notice them whilst doing a puzzle, but the comment in Jack’s blog made me re-read them. They really are good.

    Anyway, AVERSION seems to have gone in last, after STRAINER, but no real hold ups. I did biff CAREFREE and LIFEBOAT. Having read the blog and now seen how CAREFREE actually worked, I’m going to say that’s my favourite, if such blatant hindsight is allowed!

    4:52

  18. Put Hear instead of WEAR, and had to look up STOREY, which gave me COPYBOOK.
    Otherwise all was well. FOI REMEMBER.
    Liked MOBILE, STRAINER, MONICKER, PASS.
    Biffed the clever CAREFREE.
    Many of my early answers gave me only vowels for crossers, I noticed.
    Interesting quite a proportion of you are Brit expats or American.
    Thanks, Jack, vm.

    Edited at 2021-07-19 02:58 pm (UTC)

  19. I think the heat is getting to me. A very slow start with Cue foi, and struggled thereafter to get out of first gear. Had to keep on leaving clues until a crosser or two would give me a hint as to what Tracy intended. That made for painfully slow progress, especially with my last pair — Strainer (should have seen that) and Unison. Annoyingly, I had thought of Unison quite quickly, but couldn’t parse it because I had Uni for club (no idea why), and had to wait until the brain cells got round to Union. Moni(c)ker also seemed a bit odd, but it had to be. Knocking on 30mins in total. Invariant
    1. Have to admit, I didn’t think it had a “c” either. But couldn’t see what else it could be.
  20. 4:04 this morning.
    I found this relatively straightforward and as others have already mentioned, I would echo Jack’s comments regarding a very neatly constructed set of clues.
    4 d “monicker” caused a slight delay, until I remembered homophone indicators aren’t always designed for a Scottish accent but I’ve been doing these puzzles long enough for that not to be an issue!
    COD and LOI 17 ac “strainer”.
    Thanks to Jack and Tracy.

  21. Pretty slow today and had to use an aid to get my LOI as I had run out of time. Eventually finished in 23 mins. Biffed CAREFREE and nearly came to grief with 10ac CUE where for some reason I had originally entered the (obviously) unparsed BYE.

    FOI – 3ac REMEMBER
    LOI – 14dn AVERSION
    COD – 3ac REMEMBER

    Thanks to Tracy for the mental workout and to Jackkt for the explanations.

  22. Most of the top half of the grid went in quite quickly and I seemed to be on a roll – until about the 20-minute mark, that is. Every solution from then on (mostly in the lower half) had to be chiselled, rather than eased out of its clue, and I eventually crossed the line in 53 minutes. Not quick, but not disastrous.

    My last few in were BLUE (I had GLUM for ages, even though I knew it was wrong), CAREFREE (never really fully parsed) and WEAR, where I could only think of BEARing (for ‘attention’). In fact, I still think WEAR was a poor clue – very tenuous, IMHO (e.g. Where might one see W, rather than ‘wt’, for ‘weight’ in real life?).

    Mrs Random also found this a “tricky” QC today, although she still finished in 31 minutes, only just outside her unofficial target time.

    Thanks, as usual, to Tracy and jackkt.

  23. Well, it must be a Monday thing because we were on for another 5 minute finish. Yes, really, we were surprised too. However, we had 9A to solve and it took us ages to come up with WEAR which resulted with a final time of 7 minutes. Fun puzzle and we enjoyed it.

    FOI: REMEMBER
    LOI: WEAR
    COD: MONICKER

    Thanks Tracy and Jackkt

  24. Managed in just under 30 mins. Happy with that. Took a long time over STRAINER, WEAR and IMPAIR. Biffed CAREFREE. Liked GRADUATE although initially I was trying to solve with BA/MA, etc, then realised late in the day that it was a verb… this regularly catches me out but I continue to be entertained by my own stupidity! Many thanks all.
  25. I knew the quahog from Ogden Nash:

    The Pilgrims ate quahogs and corn, yet
    Which a gourmet would scorn through a lorgnette.
    For this kind of living,
    They proclaimed a thanksgiving.
    I’m thankful I hadn’t been born yet.

    Edited at 2021-07-19 01:32 pm (UTC)

    1. Wrong blog! But I wish I’d read the quickie blog before starting the biggie — I might have finished it 😅
  26. So after 15 minutes gave up with several in the SE corner to do.
    I thought it was tricky and maybe it’s too hot in the sun so did not solve Aversion Impair Strainer Pass and Unison (which I thought of but could not see how that meant concert).
    Anyway I must be more patient tomorrow.
    Thanks all
    John George
    PS. Sparkling golf by Morikawa yesterday!!
  27. I’m going to blame the heat and say I had brain melt! Despite a nice quick start and steady progress over 11 minutes, I came unstuck at 25a and 21d, so this is A Deeply Disappointing Day, particularly — as everyone has said — as it was a super puzzle with lovely surfaces. Frustratingly, I couldn’t finish the biggie either — with just one clue to go 😕
    FOI Remember
    COD Feta
    DNF
    Thanks Tracy and Jack
  28. Slowed in the South-East with 24ac UNISON not coming fast enough. And I believed, wrongly that 21dn had a ‘C’ up front. Thus my LOI BLUE came out of the blue as it were!

    FOI 3ac REMEMBER

    COD 16dn MOBILE

    The surfaces were impeccable but just a single word of interest from Tracy, which is his MONICKER. Thus my 4dn is WOD.

  29. I bought my fist Nike’s at ‘The Athletes Foot’ in New York in summer of ’75. Yellow camel-heels with a bright red swoosh! They were all the rage from Atlanta through Pittsburg to mid-town Manhattan: but then in London the Nike brand was only just known. Nike kinda prevails – however ‘The Athlete’s’ Foot is gone, already! COD to STRAINER for all the discussion it has caused, from Japan to Jo’berg.

    Edited at 2021-07-19 03:13 pm (UTC)

  30. ….Tracy has provided us with a beautiful example of the QC, with not a dubious clue to be found.

    FOI REMEMBER
    LOI STRAINER
    COD LIFEBOAT
    TIME 3:23

  31. A steady solve from me at 25:48, though it might have been a bit quicker had my son not phoned me mid-solve and distracted me for a few minutes. Haven’t seen MONICKER spelt that way before, and I don’t think I’ve come across MOBILE, Alabama, but it couldn’t be anything else. For some reason I couldn’t think what ODE could sound like either. Anyway, FOI REMEMBER, LOI BLUE, COD CAREFREE. Thanks Jack and Tracy.
    1. Just in case you need the Alabaman city again, it’s actually pronounced MOW-BEEL. Bob Dylan has a song entitled “Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again” on his album “Blonde on Blonde”.
  32. With a typo

    Lots went in quickly but 90 secs at the end on STRAINER after which that meaning of RIDDLE rang a bell.

    Otherwise a nice pleasant puzzle

    Thanks Jackkt and Tracy

  33. I often find that the later I do these the better I get.

    After a day enjoying the bird life on the N Norfolk coast ( a long way from home in Hampshire) this proved a pleasant evening. Our first time away from home for over 11 months, we are lucky to be able to be here in such glorious weather.

    Thanks Tracy and Jack for a satisfying evening.

    Diana

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