Times Quick Cryptic 1951 by Joker

Author   ChrisPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

Interesting – as I finished, I thought I could have done better than just missing my ten minute target. Having now completed the blog, I find that this was probably a good biffing puzzle – the definitions are quite reasonable – if you can see through the wonderful surfaces. How it all works is a lot trickier to work out and I think that’s where I was delayed. I think it fair to say that I’ve enjoyed writhing up the blog more than the actual solve. Let me know how you found it.

Definitions are in italics.

Across
1 Strange fatigue besetting millions — what smoking may do (8)
FUMIGATE – anagram (strange) of FATIGUE including millions (M).
5 Bird nesting in hibiscus (4)
IBIS – inside h(IBIS)cus.
8 Dismembered body is well to the east of hill (5)
TORSO – well (SO – so/well, we’d better get on with the blog then) to the east/left of hill (TOR).
9 Musician — one with a racket (7)
FIDDLER – double definition,
11 Think about complete tan when swimming (11)
CONTEMPLATE – anagram (when swimming) of COMPLETE TAN.
13 Player is among leaders of our best orchestras today (6)
OBOIST – is (IS) among (O)ur (B)est (O)rchestras (T)oday.
14 Sailor in base is capable of working (6)
VIABLE – sailor (AB) inside base (VILE).
17 An old soldier in being discharged is saying goodbye (5-6)
LEAVE-TAKING – an old soldier (A VET) inside being discharged (LEAKING). This wasn’t an obvious parse to me, but the answer was clear.
20 Talk about small herb (7)
PARSLEY – talk (PARLEY of The Black Pearl type) around small (S).
21 What holds cooking oil, very European? (5)
OLIVE – partial &lit where anagram (cooking) of OIL is part of definition and word play, very (V), European (E).
22 Fruit — penny off, the whole lot (4)
EACH – fruit minus penny – p(EACH).
23 One likely to succeed in search for gold (8)
PROSPECT – double definition – a prospect for the Gold Cup is inferred to be a good one, I think + what a gold prospector does,
Down
1 Notes what the future holds (4)
FATE – note (do re me FA TE do). On a quick dabble into solfège (for such is the name of the music education system in question), I find that most sources show the TE as TI, but as long as it rhymes with tea a la Julie Andrews (from The Sound of Music which I get confused with Mary Poppins – they came out a year apart), it’s OK with me.
2 Atlas range is here with fine leather for binding (7)
MOROCCO – hmm, where to draw the underline for the definition? I’ve separated the mountains from the fine leather for binding (Morrocan leather was used in the binding books from the 16th century) as they seem to be two distinct definitions (with ‘here’ applied to each). Equally this could be a straight crytic definition.
3 Stadium’s healthy upsurge in crowd feeling (11)
GROUNDSWELL – stadium’s (GROUND’S), healthy (WELL).
4 Sweet, one that’s rich with key energy (6)
TOFFEE – LOI as I couldn’t see ‘one that’s rich’ = (TOFF), key (E – music), energy (E).
6 A piece of cake being raised in a wood (5)
BALSA – a (A), piece of cake (SLAB – a large piece, then) all raised/upwards.
7 More aching with cold inside, queen’s a charmer (8)
SORCERER – more aching (SORER) holding cold (C), queen (ER). Couldn’t get away from seducer for too long even though it wasn’t the right length.
10 Democrat winning legal round before US two-timing (11)
DUPLICITOUS – Democrat (D), winning (UP), legal (LICIT), round (O), US (US). I remember being pleased with the sequential filling-in of the answer.
12 Everyone turned up when cutting wood in fall (8)
COLLAPSE – everyone – all, turned up (LLA) inside (when cutting) wood (COPSE).
15 Charm of funny Belgium mostly attracting English (7)
BEGUILE – anagram (funny) of (BELGIU)m (Poirrot, anyone?), with English (E).
16 Who might participate in trial with entering running relay (6)
LAWYER – with (W) inside an anagram (running) of RELAY. Excellent surface.
18 Like something valuable held by Maurice (5)
AURIC – held inside M(AURIC)e. In Crosswordland, we’re well used to gold=AU. Auric is rarer and means of or containing gold in the trivalent state. No – I didn’t know what the trivalent state meant either so I then found it means having a valency of three. No clearer there so I carried on and got lost when valency was described as ‘a property of atoms or groups, equal to the number of atoms of hydrogen that the atom or group could combine with or displace in forming compounds’.
19 Animal’s lair found by alien in street (4)
SETT – alien (ET) inside street (ST).

53 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 1951 by Joker”

  2. I biffed LEAVE-TAKING without noticing. COLLAPSE took me a while, though I had LLA; I was thinking of a kind of wood (teak, etc.). AURIC is Goldfinger’s given name. Mary Poppins? 6:32.
  3. I was not particularly stuck on any one thing, but just took a long time on each answer. Only a few of them were at all easy, like oboist and sett – well, sett is easy if you know sett, as the setter has given a very easy cryptic to help those who don’t. Toffee was my LOI, should have been obvious.
  4. This was an elegant puzzle, bang on ten minutes.

    FOI 1ac FUMIGATE some sixties American tobacco scandal

    LOI 7dn SORCERER

    COD 15dn BEGUILE

    WOD 4dn TOFFEE — Bluebird from Everton

  5. Whilst you’re of course quite correct that aurous is the monovalent [AuCl] and auric the trivalent [Au2Cl6] oxidation state, I don’t think you need to involve this in the parsing.

    Chambers has auric as ‘relating to gold’ as the first definition – ie ‘like something valuable’.

    hw7

  6. Like our blogger I also just missed my 10 minute target, but completed a few seconds under 11 minutes. I always include parsing in my QC timings and it was LEAVE-TAKING that delayed me today. 15×15 solvers would have been helped by MOROCCO in the sense of ‘fine leather for binding’ coming up very recently when I blogged it with reference to the line in the title song of the 1942 film ‘The Road to Morocco’:

    “Like Webster’s Diction-ary, we’re Morocco bound’.

    Edited at 2021-08-31 05:20 am (UTC)

  7. 15d. Belgium mostly is BELGIU. Can Poirot solve this one?

    Edited at 2021-08-31 05:47 am (UTC)

  8. And ‘funny’ BELGIU can be BEGUIL, to which the E is added; as Chris said in his blog, except he forgot to delete the M.
    1. Wavelength PW ! If you haven’t actually read the blog, this is definitely the level of puzzle you should put aside once you’re stuck, and come back to it a few hours later.
      1. Good advice. Sometimes, I come back to a ‘too difficult’ -seeming qc, the next day, when I know I’ve got my head to myself and the answers almost write themselves in.
  10. Yet another one that I solved, very slowly, by guessing the answers, then checking whether they fitted the clues.

  12. I agree with Chris that it was quite biffable. I ended up biffing Morocco – had not heard of the leather but nothing else could fit – toffee, which I worked backwards at, and auric which I had also not heard of, but thought it must be related to au. I thought 17ac was rather clunky, you take ones leave but I don’t think I’ve heard it used as a gerund? I did like 16d which had me trying to fit in test somewhere until the penny dropped. I was under the 20 minute mark today, maybe closer to 18.

    Edited at 2021-08-31 07:40 am (UTC)

    2. I have seen “it was a protracted leave-taking” or similar on a few occasions to describe for example soldiers departing for war. I suspect it is mainly used to describe a situation where the separation is expected to be lengthy, and hence convey something more substantial than “bye”.
  13. Just under 20 today, quicker than I felt it would be whilst solving. The middle went in faster than the edges, 1A was obviously an anagram but I needed 1D ( which I really liked as a clue) to get it with a few other down answers in, then SORCERER also delayed me. More going on in several of the clues than the average QC, which I enjoyed.
  14. … as more than once I guessed the answer from the definition and then tried to work out why it was correct. In the end I got to the bottom of all of them except 2D Morocco, as I NHO the leather meaning, but chipping away at the parsings took almost as long as completing the grid and led to a 13 minute solve in the end.

    Not entirely sure why so = well in 8A Torso; but then as far as I can see from my children, almost any sentence can start with “So, …”. Also MER at each = whole lot in 22A. The two are not exactly synonyms?

    Many thanks Chris for the blog — and a very small tweak to your parsing of 17A Leave-taking. It is I think “An old soldier”, ie A VET, in leaking, thus: Le (A VET) aking.
    Cedric

    1. Thank you – the two ‘A’s confused me. I’ve also updated the blog to include ‘THE’ in the definition of each = the whole lot as I was about to reply to you with this example – ‘each/the whole lot of them deserved praise’.

      Edited at 2021-08-31 09:20 am (UTC)

      1. I think I agree with Cedric. “10 pence each or a pound for the whole lot”. Personally I could distinguish between the two in your example in the sense that a group may be praiseworthy collectively but not individually, but pedantry aside I see your point. I just think that it would have been better not to have clued it with something that normally means the opposite. It was still easily doable, just a MER in a very good crossword.
  15. ….which I was glad to finish within my target. No unknowns — just some quite fiendish parsings, all of them completely fair. One of those puzzles where a lot of enjoyment was gained from revisiting the clues after completion to simply enjoy their quality.

    FOI FUMIGATE
    LOI LEAVE-TAKING
    COD VIABLE
    TIME 4:48

  16. I’m a little tired after returning from my 5th airport run this week so I was pleasantly surprised to finish 1 sec over my target. My FOI was FUMIGATE. I biffed MOROCCO from checkers and Atlas. I tried putting in pontificate instead of CONTEMPLATE (sound off/think about are not even remotely similar!) and my LOI was the somewhat tricky COLLAPSE – I knew the LLA was in there somewhere. 9:01
  17. Half-hour solve involving a lot of biffing. Starting with an anagram was good – gave me a way in, but after that it was just stabbing around building things slowly.

    With Joker I sometimes find it difficult to be sure which is the definition and which the wordplay – a lot of time wasted looking for a fruit for 22a.

    Some clues so complicated I used brute force (“what can I squeeze into these intersectors?!”) – 10a and 17a, and some never parsed (11a, 12d).

    Completing a Joker is always more about a sense of achievement than fun, but nothing to complain about here really.

    Thanks to Chris for helping with my post-solve parse!

  18. Off to a fast start with the top row and most of the offshoots going straight in. However the bottom half proved trickier, particularly the SW, where Joker had me chasing my tail for a while. As others have said, all were fairly clued but there was some chewy parsing to be done. NHO the MOROCCO leather so that one went in unparsed.
    Finished in 14.57, with LOI EACH and the stand out clues for me were FUMIGATE and DUPLICITOUS.
    Thanks to Chris
  19. Sadly I had all the letters, three checkers, the definition, but did not see BEGUILE. Even looked up ‘euglibe’ which sounded as though it might be a magic spell(=charm).

    COD MOROCCO

    My excuse, I completed the 15×15 in a slowish 90 mins, so am clued out.

  20. I didn’t think much of SO for “well” or LEAKING for “being discharged”, but apart from that I thought that this was a typically witty, clever puzzle from Joker, much enjoyed.

    FOI FUMIGATE, LOI PROSPECT, COD OLIVE, time 08:37 for 1.3K and a Very Good Day.

    Many thanks Joker and Chris.

    Templar

    1. “So” has, of late, replaced “Well” as the word of choice for interviewees to buy a few precious brain-engaging seconds before answering a question. I’m not sure that was Joker’s intention here, but if it was it’s very clever !
  21. I managed to keep going on this quite tricky puzzle and finished with SORCERER in 10:26. FOI IBIS.
    I got Auric from Goldfinger.
    I agree with our blogger, lots of excellent deceptive surfaces but nothing too obscure, so biffable if you could see the definition.
    David
  22. Fifteen minutes, so two slower than yesterday but still five faster than usual. FOI Ibis. Only four on first pass, so a mild panic attack probably slowed me down a bit. LOI each, obvious in hindsight (isn’t everything?). The blog gave me nuances on leave-taking, toffee, duplicitous and collapse. I thought I had parsed them, but I hadn’t quite. Enjoyed all the clues so couldn’t elect a COD. It goes to Ibis , the only animal, by default. Wait, Parsley the lion is in there, the home of a badger, and a fiddler crab. Note to Merlin – don’t give up on Brontosaurus yet, it was resurrected in 2015 and the jury is still out…

    Thanks as usual for the blog, Chris, and Joker for the entertainment. GW.

  23. I found this tricky and was taken well over my target. IBIS and TORSO wee my first 2 in, but the NW yielded no more until later. The RHS was completed first, then most of the SW and then back to the NW with TOFFEE and FATE opening that part up. COLLAPSE and OBOIST brought up the rear. 13:02. Thanks Joker and Chris.
  24. I have more CODs than can sensibly be listed today. Each time I found a cracker that deserved the title, it was dethroned by another that was even better. It’s all just so clever and so smooth.
    I wondered for a while if there was some sort of Nina going on but it’s more a series of pairs, like AURIC/ PROSPECT; FIDDLER / DUPLICITOUS; FIDDLER / OBOIST, OLIVE / PARSLEY (and pEACH? ) ; BEGUILE / SORCERER. I guess it’s just chance.
    Really great. Thanks, Chris, for the super informative blog and thanks too to Joker
  25. I’ve mentioned before how I once considered Joker the easiest of our regular setters — how times change! I found this distinctly tricky in places, particularly the SW corner, so I was happy enough to finish fully parsed with a time edging towards 30mins. It could easily have been longer, but I was helped by recalling my incredulity at slab for a piece of cake the last time it came up. Now, if I could just remember ‘running’ as an anagram indicator… CoD to the smooth surface of 23ac, Prospect. Invariant
  26. RHS went in fairly quickly but slower on the left.
    I took 2d to mean the Atlas mts were in Morocco, as was the fine leather.
    I biffed LEAVE TAKING early on but couldn’t parse in detail, ditto DUPLICITOUS FATE.
    LOI, after some thought and PDM, was COLLAPSE.
    Thanks all, esp Chris.
  27. For 23a I had something along the lines of PROSPECT+OR. Where ‘search for gold’ means add ‘or’ to “prospect” and then the whole clue is then &lit. Not smooth enough for Joker, who is very precise, but worked for me.
  28. to have made a decent fist of this, given times so far, maybe because I haven’t put my lenses in yet, so can see the clues… The only real biff was LEAVE TAKING. Otherwise all parsed or mostly parsed as I progressed.

    5:39

  29. Much faster than yesterday’s which was a real struggle, but still over my target range at 25 mins.. So far this is not proving a good week. Maybe it’s because I was on holiday last week and the brain cells have yet to be reactivated. Was held up by VIABLE, FATE, COLLAPSE and EACH for much longer than I should have been. Thanks to Joker for a fine puzzle and to Chris for helping me out with LEAVE-TAKING, which I had biffed.

    FOI – 5ac IBIS
    LOI – 22ac EACH
    COD – 10dn DUPLICITOUS

  30. Not fun at all. Not a puzzle for anyone starting out, and clearly only for experienced solvers. Got about 5 clues.
  31. Found this difficult, long clues do not help. Needed help to get leave taking, and failed to get propect. By the time we got to the last few clues our brains seemed to fail us. Thanks, Joker for keeping us busy on a dull afternoon outside.
  32. Got interrupted 15 mins in and had to come back to it later (which in hindsight was probably a good thing). As a result, a few clues came quite quickly after my break (2dn “Morocco”, 7dn “Sorcerer” and 12dn “Collapse”). Not sure of the exact time, but probably around 30mins in total.

    Overall a really good puzzle, although I’m not convinced that all “toffs” are rich. Oddly enough, 1dn “Fate” also works if you mix the standard musical notes of “F” and “A” with the phonetic one of “Te”.

    FOI — 5ac “Ibis”
    LOI — 17ac “Leave Taking”
    COD — 1dn “Fate”

    Thanks as usual!

    2. Some friends of ours have a lovely phrase for non-wealthy types who some may refer to as toffs – “distressed gentlefolk”.
  33. Nearly twice as long as yesterday’s at 17 minutes. I seem to be veering all over the place at the moment. Of course the surfaces are great, so hard to choose a COD. I’m afraid I didn’t parse LEAVE TAKING either.
    FOI Ibis
    LOI Prospect — that took more than 2 mins on its own
    COD Fate
    Thanks Joker and Chris

    Did you see David Parfitt’s homage to Joker in the Saturday Times feedback column? As we know, he includes a nina every day in the Times2 concise, but rarely does so in the Times2 Jumbo (hardly surprisingly!) but for the 1500th, he did. Worth reading 😊

    1. Yes, I did read the article. Very interesting, but Mr Grimshaw is fast disappearing off my Christmas card list at the moment. There’s always next time though, and Mrs R rarely has any trouble with his QCs.
      1. I agree that Joker puzzles seem to be getting harder, or at least I’m finding them so. Still super witty and clever though!
  34. I tackled this puzzle earlier in the day, but have only just found the time to post these comments.

    I threw in the towel after 70 minutes of very hard labour, with COLLAPSE and LEAVE TAKING unsolved. In fact, both of these clues have been on my mind all afternoon and I still needed to come here for their solutions. It could have been worse though, as AURIC and EACH arrived only a minute or two before I gave up.

    I think Joker may have read that I find Orpheus and Teazel the most difficult of the QC setters, as I have now failed to finish all three of his last offerings. He’s certainly winning the awkwardness prize at the moment.

    Many thanks to chrisw91 and (through clenched teeth) to Joker.

    1. Don’t worry about the lateness of the hour. All comments get read. I keep a paper version of the 15×15 to hand when out and about (very helpful when whiling away the time when Mrs C ‘pops into’ a shop or two) – in which case my comments may be days/a week or so late.
  35. This started so well with the top half going straight in but gradually slowed down until I was stuck in the SW corner for 10 minutes. Wondered if the ist in oboist referred to 1st September, but then that’s tomorrow and took forever to see leave taking.
  36. I came to this in the evening after an exceptionally full and busy day. I wasn’t really in the mood but felt I had to maintain my record of completing every QC since number 1. In the end, I staggered to the finishnline and just avoided the SCC.
    I should have waited until tomorrow. I will read Chris’s blog then to see what examples of Joker’s art I missed in my dutiful slog. Thanks both. John M.
    1. Take a medal for commitment and attitude! You’ll sleep even better now. Well worth the read tomorrow – there was a lot of art.
  37. Not fun at all. Not a puzzle for anyone starting out, and clearly only for experienced solvers. Got about 5 clues.
  38. Got the top half — apart from SORCERER — but missed 5 in the bottom half.
    Spent well over 2 hours.
    I suppose this may be quick if you can do the 15×15 in less than an hour but for the rest of us this is surely too much.
    I did yesterday’s and I can usually manage Joker but this is too much. The cluing was just too obtuse for me.
    Nick

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