Times Quick Cryptic 1971 by Tracy

56 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 1971 by Tracy”

1. …but I was thinking as I solved it that some of the cryptics used oblique meanings, and some of the literals were a bit of a stretch. Nap/down, restrains/handcuffs, appalling/chronic, drastic/radical – they’re all not the first thing you’d think of, or even the second or third. Experienced solvers are of course used to this, but it is a step up.
   1. You put a baby “down” for a nap. That’s idiomatic enough I think. Chronic means “ongoing” and not appalling — agree that’s a stretch.
      1. from ODE, sv ‘chronic’ 2 (Brit) (informal) of a very poor quality. [their example] The film was absolutely chronic.
         That one puts a baby down for a nap doesn’t mean that down=nap.
         1. I agree. CHRONIC is often used as slang for awful, or apalling. But it is best avoided, because if you say “He’s really ill, it’s chronic” you are probably describing the reverse of the medical situation. And NAP I failed (and still fail) to parse. Enjoyed the puzzle but too many stretches, esp for a QC.
2. No problems, although I had a sort of MER for STOP=finish. CHRONIC in the required sense is not in my dialect, but I wondered if ‘appalling’ wasn’t too strong. 5:26.
3. 9 minutes
4. I found this one too difficult. I had 8 clues unanswered after one hour. Some of the clues made no sense to me. 18 clues answered, including 3 trips to Chambers. Not at all enjoyable.
5. Submitted with fingers crossed — didn’t know a private was a ranker and didn’t know that was how to say RANCOUR. A bit like yesterday, started fast (for me, seven on the first pass) but had to work hard for the last few: DRASTIC, NAP, MEANT.
   1. It definitely helps if you’ve seen the rancour/ranker clue half a dozen times before.
   2. Actually I parsed this as “rank, O/R”, and thought it a bit of a stretch!
      1. Sorry, not logged in for previous comment! I was tempted to stop after 10 seconds and claim I had finished — too many MERs in this for me. Another wrong parsing was to assume that “gang” was a misprint for “bang” in 13a — we have seen that sort of thing before and the answer was obviously “banish”.
6. A top to bottom solve, finishing in 8.33 in the SW with ADMISSION, MEANT and DRASTIC, the last of which took a bit of parsing.
   Thanks to Chris
7. Left hand side top to bottom, then right hand side bottom to top. Makes a change! I thought that both “not all stand” (for STIC) and “almost all of gang” (for BAN) were quite tough devices, since they require you think of the correct synonym before shortening.

   FOI SALVAGE, LOI SASH, COD CHRONICLE, time 09:17 for 1.7K and a Decent Day.

   Many thanks Mara and Chris.

   Templar

   Edited at 2021-09-28 07:32 am (UTC)

8. Fat fingered typing meant I was correcting typos in most words but one escaped attention unfortunately

   Otherwise must have been a decent effort to be close to Kevin

   On the trickier side but started in the NE and worked clockwise as the checkers appeared

   Enjoyed it

   Thanks all

9. About 15 mins, solved on train. Got much better since the last time I solved on the Waterloo line (Mar 2020)

   Very slow to get FOI, which was AMETHYSTS. I agree with Templar; a synonym followed by an operation is tough for the QC, LOI DISCUS. Although DRASTIC had me head scratching for a long time.

   COD LEGSPIN

10. I thought this was quite tricky, with my FOI pea, half way down the grid. The downs seemed easier and paved the way to a just over 20 minute solve.

    I ended up biffing drastic as it was the only thing that fit. I also didn’t know the snooker meaning of nap, thought it may be something to do with putting a baby down to sleep, and had nho of private= ranker.

    So quite a tricky collection from Tracy today.

    1. It isn’t just snooker! Nap is closely equivalent to down on a putting green, tablecloth and carpet or cloth. Seems perfectly ok to me.
       1. When you do dressmaking or upholstery using velvet or cord fabrics, you need to check the nap is going the right way on all pieces, or you could have a dress or curtains that look like one of those very stripy lawns!
11. A 35 minute Foxtrot around the grid (Slow, slow, quick quick, slow) puzzling over RANCOUR as I tried to fathom RUE with NCO to solve. NHO Ranker. Forgot RR re bishop so ERRAND was a Bif when all the other crossers were in place.
    Thanks Tracy and Chris

12. FOI: SIN
    LOI: RESERVATION

    Thank you to chrisw91 and Tracy

13. 10 AC “nap” means “down” as in “having a sleep” eg “Be quiet Herbert! the baby has just gone down!”

    1. It really doesn’t work like that.

       Lexico: “Nap (2) The raised hairs or threads on the surface of fabric or suede leather, in terms of the direction in which they naturally lie.”

       Lexico: “Down (2) 1.2 Fine, soft hair on the face or body of a person. 1.3 Short, soft hairs on some leaves, fruit, or seeds.”

14. Found this very tricky with around half of Tracy’s offering unanswered after 45 minutes. A lot of the wordplay was too obscure for me and tended to be coupled with the less obvious definitions.

    I didn’t have a chance to comment on yesterday’s blog, but found Mara’s QC very enjoyable with a healthy mix of clues. Finished in the cruise between BTS-STN, approx 45 minutes.

15. ….but I thought some of Tracy’s surfaces were uncharacteristically loose.

    I can’t believe how many people are querying NAP. You may “put down” a baby for a NAP, but that meaning just doesn’t fit the parsing of the clue. Enough already !

    FOI ROGUE
    LOI ADMISSION
    COD NAP
    TIME 3:50

    1. I find these comments disturbing, as they suggest a basic misunderstanding of how cryptic clues work.
16. 10 across “nap” = “down” as in “have a sleep”, no?

    My LOI was errand. Didn’t know Right Reverend was a bishop’s title. With = and… Very sneaky!

    1. Er, no. As Chris explains, both nap and down refer to soft fuzz on the surface of something.
       1. As someone said, Nap specifically refers to the direction the ‘fuzz’ lies, most obvious in suede. Nap and down are not the same. Maybe in snooker though? Still, I solved the clue from Nape.
17. A slight delay before FOI LEG SPIN, then no hold-ups. LOI was DISCUS. Time 07:53.
    Lots of good clues and surfaces I thought. My favourite was CHRONICLE.
    David
18. I’m afraid I found this uncharacteristically tough from Tracy. I got most of the short answers very quickly after a grid hop but slowed as I filled in the rest. I was slow to see many of the answers mentioned above by others, not least RANCOUR which I only saw when I got the crossers and entered without knowing ‘ranker’.
    DRASTIC and LEG SPIN took me too long and, like others, I forgot RR for Bishop so ERRAND was my last one in (and only when I couldn’t imagine a word beginning EBR). The anagrams went in fine but I still find ADMISSION a poor clue (please, no replies telling me how logical and good it was). MEANT and CHRONICLE were neat, though.
    Well, I was into the SCC today (and feeling a bit thick since so many regulars had no issues). John M.

    Edited at 2021-09-28 09:39 am (UTC)

19. Started well in the NW but then fell into the wrong end of the clue trap with 12d, Chronicle, which prevented me seeing handcuffs until after a restorative cup of tea. I found this a really tricky puzzle, so a tip of the hat (Trilby sometimes, never a Stetson) to those who managed a decent time. Invariant
20. FOI SPRINGBOARD, but struggled after that. Must remember to look through all the clues first, because had I spotted easy ones like AMETHYSTS and SCOFF sooner I wd have done better.
    Liked SALVAGE, LEG SPIN.
    Looked up ADMISSION. Lots of biffing today.
    Thanks all, esp Chris.
21. 11 minutes for me and a fastish time for the second day in a row — let’s hope it continues through to my blogging day on Thursday. FOI SALVAGE, LOI ERRAND (trying to get B in there somewhere). I liked RANCOUR when I finally saw it, and DRASTIC held me back for a while. WOD to CHRONICLE. Thanks both.
22. FOI ROGUE, LOI DISCUS. Some loose definitions imho too. 7:50. Thanks Tracy and Chris.
23. Took a long time over the last four clues. Had to go and have a shower and come back. DRASTIC RANCOUR ERRAND MEANT last ones in.
    Thank you, Chris, and Setter
    BW
    Andrew
24. Ten minutes. FOI rogue, 12 on first pass then these helped. Some only partly parsed – rancour got from the definition, not the homophone, drastic from radical, saw the doctor, not the stick, tried to fit a B in errand but just went with the blinding obvious in the end. Strange mixture, this one. Some things to like – amethyst, salvage, springboard, chronicle (the word, not necessarily the cluing), some gifts – tip, corgi, sin. Some ?’s e.g. a p for a page. Chronic for awful is sloppy accepted usage rather than definition, and as a pedant I’d discourage it. Thanks, Chris, and Tracy. GW.
    1. It’s not ‘a p’ = ‘a page’ it’s ‘a = a’ then ‘p = page’. ‘Lift and separate’ is a basic rule for parsing clues.
25. Must be in a slight minority as I found this tough — stumbling after 30 mins on my final clue 4dn “Errand”. Just couldn’t get “B” out of my head for bishop and it all went downhill from there.

    I got “nap” = down, although I could see why some people are questioning it. My biggest query was “mean” = “low” — presuming that’s in the sense of that’s a “low” thing to do by being awful rather than anything mathematical or temperature related.

    FOI — 5dn “Sin”
    LOI — 4dn dnf
    COD — 1dn “Springboard”

    Thanks as usual!

    1. Using mean and low in those senses is typical of the English of 18th and 19th century, not modern usage. They reflect a hereditary class hierarchy that no longer exists, but was still current when Dickens wrote.
       1. Thanks – just looked it up and it does indeed have it as a dated expression for low birth or social status.
26. 3:30 this morning. Definitely on the wavelength, as I agree some of the clues were a little loose but it didn’t seem to matter to me for whatever reason.
    FOI in 1 ac “salvage” followed by 1 d “springboard” which opened the puzzle up.
    LOI 20 ac “drastic” which I got from the definition and parsed as I was entering the letters.
    COD 5 ac “sash” — quite liked the surface.
    Thanks to Chris and Mara.
27. Definitely on the trickier side. I had major problems in the NE, finally finishing in 26 mins with SASH, RANCOUR and ERRAND all biffed. Thank you for the explanations in the blog, Chris. Agree with others that there were some loose definitions.

    FOI – 7ac ROGUE
    LOI – 4dn ERRAND
    COD – 1dn SPRINGBOARD

28. … with an 11 minute finish to follow yesterday’s friendly offering from Mara. Not without its challenges and interesting points though, most of which have already been mentioned. I never made the connection Nap/sleep = Down/put down, and I don’t think one needs to; as Chris says, Nap is just a shortened version of Nape, the back of your neck.

    My biggest holdups were 8a Rancour and 20A Drastic; both clear from the crossers but working out the parsing was beyond me. Stick = stand seems a stretch to me (though I suppose the linking works in Pontoon/Vingt-et-un), and although I know the term “other ranks” I am not familiar with ranker as a term in general, or to specifically mean the rank of private.

    As for the linking Appalling = Chronic, I accept that it exists in some argots but I thought that to see it in a Times crossword was, shall we say, appalling …

    Many thanks to Chris for the blog
    Cedric

29. I don’t recall any problems with the solve. NAP went in just before LEG SPIN (I’m not a fan of cricket so I tend to wait for all the checkers before solving what looks like a cricket reference clue) and I needed HANDCUFFS to solve CHRONICLE. Safely home in 7:16 for a very good day.
30. Not so easy, but managed it all eventually. Guessed RANCOUR – NHO Ranker. I don’t like the clues that require the last/first letter to be omitted.
31. We got to this very late in the day and solved it, without pen and paper for the anagrams, in the lounge of a very nice hotel. We agree that some of the clues were a bit obtuse but we completed it in 14 minutes so we must have been on Tracy’s wavelength.

    FOI: SIN
    LOI: STOP
    COD: NAP (we didn’t think the clue was controversial at all)

    Thanks Tracy and Chris.

32. You are definitely not alone in finding it tough going.
33. After a set of dnfs happy to solve today’s offering.
34. …held me up for more than 40 minutes at the end. I thought of RANCOUR very quickly, but couldn’t convince myself that it meant resentment and I DNK ranker = private. Also, I DNK bishop = RR, and never saw with = AND. My total time was 68 minutes — awful!

    Mrs Random couldn’t parse these clues either, but with her better vocabulary she finished in 39 minutes.

    Thanks to Tracy and Chris

35. Did this in 11:57 on the laptop which is why I can be precise! Can’t remember the details as I did it this morning before going out for the day – we’re on hols in very wet Wales! The Mumbles, rather than mombles 😅
36. All seemed easy enough until the last 2 whereupon I ground to a halt after 20 minutes. Rancour eventually fell but was left with ebrand simply to give the B from Bishop a home. Obvious with hindsight but that’s 2 DNFs in a row.
37. Chronic simlply means over a long period of time, from chronos Gr.

    Naps— babies!?I I spy strangers!

    FOI 21dn TIP

    LOI 4dn ERRAND

    COD NONE

    WOD 15dn PAPYRUS

    Dreary.

    Edited at 2021-09-28 08:03 pm (UTC)

38. 17 minutes but POI Rancour was without understanding why and Errand LOI not knowing that RR was a bishop, so biffing I suppose.

    Nap went over my head (and down my nape) — I thought it would be Pan (down = reversal command) until FOI Springboard made me change it without revisiting the clue,

    Thanks all
    John George

39. Too many 15×15 level clues here
    Guessed rancour — never heard of ranker for private and didn’t get the homophone clue
    Never heard of RR for Bishop
    Chronic is not appalling- it is surely to do with time.
    Missed out on three.
    Thought this a bit unfair
    Nick

40. So “down”, in that sense, doesn’t mean nap? Are we agreeing?

    1. Down does mean nap – see 2.

       1.
       a. the raised fibres of velvet or similar cloth
       b. the direction in which these fibres lie when smoothed down
       2. any similar downy coating
       3. Australian informal
       blankets, bedding
       VERB
       Word forms: naps, napping or napped
       4. (transitive)
       to raise the nap of (cloth, esp velvet) by brushing or similar treatment

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