Times Quick Cryptic 2070 by Orpheus

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

Solving time: 9 minutes. I found this not entirely straightforward but still completed it 1 minute within my target 10. As is usual,  the trickier clues are balanced by easier ones, so the key thing is to move on if nothing is occurring to you after a few seconds. Concentrate on finding the easy answers, get some checkers in and build from there.

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

1 Reportedly wed good, mature woman (8)
MARIGOLD
MARI sounds like [reportedly] “marry” (wed), G (good), OLD (mature). A rare sighting of a homophone as only a section of wordplay.
5 Reflected sound from City house (4)
ECHO
EC (City of London), HO (house)
8 In Pennsylvania, a way to get Italian food (5)
PASTA
A + ST (way) contained  by [in] PA (Pennsylvania)
9 Pair of warrant officers appearing in book (7)
TWOSOME
WO’S (warrant officers) contained by [appearing in] TOME (book)
11 Fearsome, though again inviting uncertainty? (11)
REDOUBTABLE
RE- (again), DOUBTABLE (inviting uncertainty)
13 Burrowing marsupial initially wary of man with club (6)
WOMBAT
W{ary} + O{f} + M{an} [initially], BAT (club)
14 Direct-sounding channel (6)
STRAIT
Sounds like [sounding] “straight” (direct). A narrow passage of water connecting two seas or large bodies of water.
17 Casual attitude of church fellow in north once (11)
NONCHALANCE
CH (church) + ALAN (fellow) contained by [in] N (north) + ONCE
20 Neat and tidy   hospital attendant (7)
ORDERLY
Two meanings
21 Vacuous grandmother in Nimes regularly (5)
INANE
NAN (grandmother) contained by [in] {n}I{m}E{s} [regularly]
22 Travel by railway? It’s bloody! (4)
GORY
GO (travel), RY (railway)
23 Advance made by pair pursued by monster (8)
PROGRESS
PR (pair), OGRESS (monster)
Down
1 Brood, having dropped daughter off back of light motorcycle (4)
MOPE
MOPE{d} (light motorcycle) [having dropped daughter – d – off back]
2 Where one conducts or turns up to play unskilfully (7)
ROSTRUM
OR reversed [turns up], STRUM (play unskilfully)
3 Lofty, stout woman’s elderly relative (11)
GRANDFATHER
GRAND (lofty), FAT (stout), HER (woman’s).  Hardly elderly these days when the average age of a first-time grandparent in the UK is only 50. The youngest recorded in the UK in 2011 was 29.
4 Release the French racecourse spy (3,3)
LET OUT
LE (the in French), TOUT (racecourse spy)
6 Fellow doctor crossing old hillside hollow (5)
COOMB
CO- (fellow) + MB (doctor) containing [crossing] O (old)
7 Light stage work awkward to repeat (8)
OPERETTA
Anagram [awkward] of TO REPEAT
10 Notable? Not in status (11)
OUTSTANDING
OUT (not in), STANDING (status)
12 Final act of pallid lad in extremes of suffering (4,4)
SWAN SONG
WAN (pallid) + SON (lad) contained by [in] S{ufferin}G [extremes of…]
15 Mean to declare present point in life (7)
AVERAGE
AVER (declare), AGE (present point in life)
16 One forking out cash to engage Liberal actor, perhaps (6)
PLAYER
PAYER (one forking out cash), containing [to engage] L (Liberal)
18 Lowest point of broken drain (5)
NADIR
Anagram [broken] of DRAIN
19 A man’s piece of photographic equipment (4)
LENS
LEN’S (a man’s)

41 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 2070 by Orpheus”

  1. A mate of mine back in my Crawley days (he was from West Norwood and knocked Lloyd Honeyghan out twice when he was an amateur) was 33 when he became a grandad.

    Pretty straightforward stuff (as is today’s Biggie), even if I wanted to shove ‘combe’ in for some reason.

  2. I thought I saw the anagrist for ROSTRUM and put it in; only saw the light post-submission. Didn’t think strumming need be unskillful. Biffed NONCHALANCE. 4:55.
    1. It doesn’t, but it is possible: ‘to play (a guitar, banjo, etc.), esp. with long strokes across the strings and often in a casual or aimless way, or without much skill.’
  3. 20 minutes this morning from FOI: MOPE to LOI: PROGRESS. With only STRUM for play unskilfully. I suppose it can be but to strum chords on a guitar I would have thought to be skilful.
    COD: REDOUBTABLE. WOD: NADIR (Rikki).

    Edited at 2022-02-14 05:28 am (UTC)

  4. Finished all correct but with a ridiculous time since I was watching the Superbowl and only occasionally looking at solving a clue.
  5. NONCHALANCE held me up, Alan hid well and I was trying to break ‘north once’ in the wrong place. All green in 8m to certainly rank among my fastest ever times. Started with MARIGOLD at 1a and ending with PROGRESS in the far SE. It wasn’t a sequential solve though. Eight on the first pass of acrosses. Enjoyed GORY appearing and the brief nostalgia from MOPE. I used to get to Yeovil College on a Honda MT5. That led to a Yamaha DT125 and a Suzuki RG250. I seem to be escaping middle age without urges to return to motorcycling — you can’t fall off a car and motorbikes don’t have heaters.
  6. A gentle offering from Orpheus. Started with 1a and then followed the checkers around the grid until ending up with COOMB and TWOSOME. The parsing helped with the spelling of NONCHALANCE as I was tempted to put an e in it but other than that no real concerns.
    Finished in 6.53.
    Thanks to Jack
  7. Held up by AVERAGE and STRAIT … but 8:06 achieved with a sigh of relief. Biffed loads, ROSTRUM and NONCHALANCE included, and am always impressed when words like the latter can be clued fluently… I hope the setters get a similar satisfaction in the process of setting as I do in the post-biff rationalisation.

    Thanks Orpheus & Jack

  9. 9 minutes with several answers needing to be built up – especially nonchalance – I typed in nonchalEnce and an alarm sounded – it didn’t look right so I then spent a while considering whether Alen was a name (post solve it looks like it is from Google). Went for Alan as the more likely name and the better ‘look’ of the answer.
    3dn works fine for me – I’m sure I qualify as elderly!
  10. An enjoyable start to the week completed in 12 mins.

    I’ll need to check, but I was also thinking “Combe” at first for 6dn — mainly because in Cumbria we have “Black Combe” which dominates the northern skyline from the Furness peninsula and has a notable hollow. Might be just alternative spellings.

    FOI — 1dn “Mope”
    LOI — 5dn “Let Out”
    COD — 17ac “Nonchalance”

    Thanks as usual!

    Edited at 2022-02-14 11:15 am (UTC)

  11. Quite difficult I thought. It took me 14 minutes on paper.
    Last in was OPERETTA after the unknown COOMB.
    COD to SWAN SONG.
    David
  12. Twelve minutes, nineteen on first pass. Did not completely parse redoubtable, nonchalance, operetta or swansong but they were obvious from the clues. A very satisfying solve, though I think I prefer to ponder or ruminate a bit more. I think. Maybe. COD has to be wombat for me! Thanks, Jack, and Orpheus.
  13. Just inside 12 minutes with a slight delay over the spelling and parsing of NONCHALANCE, but resolved satisfactorily. Thanks Orpheus and Jackkt.
  15. After Friday’s solve of 5:55 I’ve managed another quick solve in 6:33 today. I biffed ROSTRUM and NONCHALANCE. COD to SWAN SONG. Thanks Jack. I find it strange that you say the average age of a first time grandparent is 50 when the average age of a first time mother is 29!

    Edited at 2022-02-14 11:15 am (UTC)

  16. Same time as rotter today and happy with that for a change. A late start for me but that perhaps let my brain have time to warm up a little. A nice QC. Thanks to Orpheus and jackkt. John M.
  17. A straightforward solve in 8 mins, which is about as fast as it gets for me. Could even be a PB but I don’t keep records so I don’t really know. I’m pretty sure it’s the first time I’ve ever beaten the time recorded by the day’s blogger. I’d worked up quite a head of steam by the time I got to 17ac, so didn’t fully parse NONCHALANCE, although I could see church, north and once. All in all a very good day.

    FOI – 5ac ECHO
    LOI – 15dn AVERAGE
    COD – 12dn SWAN SONG

    Thanks to Orpheus and Jack.

  18. Hesitated over the spelling of NONCHALENCE and got it wrong. Drat! 5:55 WOE is me. Thanks Orpheus and Jack.
  19. ….as MARIGOLD needed a few checkers. Fairly straightforward puzzle for me, and I was top of the 7 player leaderboard at 0020 before retiring. I’m down to 9th of 131 now, so quite happy with the performance.

    FOI ECHO
    LOI MARIGOLD
    COD REDOUBTABLE
    TIME 3:17

  21. I thought this was quite tricky in places, or perhaps I was a little too generous with the digestifs last night. Either way, I’m happy enough with a 19min solve to start the week. CoD to 12d, Swan Song, (Wiki has quite a good article on the expression) for the pdm. Invariant
  22. …but became a little too nonchalent rather than NONCHALANT. Oh well, still very enjoyable 😆 FOI ECHO, LOI PROGRESS, COD MARIGOLD. Many thanks Jack and Orpheus.
  23. Zipped along in 6:50 – must be one of my fastest times. I too was determined to enter combe – it’s certainly the spelling I’m most aware of from holidays in Dorset and Devon. And in Welsh it’s CWM!
    There are a few coincidences going on here – I’m reading a book with a character called MARIGOLD, we’ve been discussing G&S OPERETTAs over the weekend, and of course we must say a big hello to SHNWOMBAT!
    FOI Marigold
    LOI Nonchalance
    COD Lens
    Many thanks Orpheus and Jack
  24. … a DNF in 66 minutes, although this time with only two errors. I’m astonished by how many contributors above found this “a gentle start to the week” (or similar).

    I started with ECHO and PASTA, but nothing else came until right the bottom of the grid. Moderate progress ensued, but the NE corner was a killer for me. OPERETTA required a lengthy alphabet trawl, as I didn’t see the anagram. TWOSOME and REDOUBTABLE took ages to crack and I rejected COOMB, as I ‘knew’ it was spelt COMBE (or CWM in Wales) and that CO didn’t equate to ‘fellow’. So, I ended up entering CHOMB with the CH standing for Companion of Honour. Ridiculous, I know, but I often don’t know some of the words here.

    My other error was down to my poor spelling. I couldn’t decide between NONCHALENCE, NONCHALANCE and NONCHALONCE. I thought of AL, HAL, HALE and LEN for ‘fellow’, but not ALAN. I also thought of NONC______E, NON______CE, NO______NCE and N______ONCE for ‘church fellow’, and CH and CE for ‘church’. In the end I plumped for NONCHALENCE and found it was wrong.

    Mrs Random couldn’t understand why I was struggling, as she finished all correct in 19 minutes, just as she did on Friday. She is now knitting a replacement jumper for a friend’s childhood teddy bear. Our friend took the bear in for repair and found, despite its poor condition, that it’s worth several hundred pounds. Her decision was to repair it only to the extent that its condition won’t worsen.

    Many thanks to Orpheus and Jack

  25. What a great puzzle — very enjoyable solve. We came in at 9 minutes so just within our 10 minute target.

    FOI: MOPE
    LOI: TWOSOME
    COD: REDOUBTABLE

    Thanks Jackkt and Orpheus.

  26. Struggled to spell NONCHALANCE — liked John D wanted it to end ENCE

    Used to live in Coombe Lane. Now live on Englishcombe Lane so wasn’t held up by that one even though this was a third variety

    Thanks Orpheus and Jackkt

  27. Finished in total of 58-mins. 41-mins this morning then another 17 later. Got the left side done in under 30-mins and felt clues were all quite generous – lot of biffing going on. Enjoyed it.

    FOI MOPE
    LOI OPERETTA
    COD OUTSTANDING
    NHO COOMB spelled that way – (lots of local places ending COOMBE with the E but couldn’t decrypt the bits).
    NHO EC for City of London

    Edited at 2022-02-14 02:15 pm (UTC)

    1. EC for City (of London) comes up all the time in Times cryptics, so is worth making a mental note of.
        1. The City of London’s post codes are EC1-4 (East Central if I remember correctly) – hope that helps. Congrats on getting out of the GC!
          1. Ok that makes sense. I’m more likely to remember abbreviations if I know what they stand for. Thanks for your reply!
  28. Finished in 20m approx which is quick for us, had to alter our 3d to coomb, to solve 11a. Thanks Orpheus for a gentle start to the week.
  29. … and all done in 10 minutes, with only the (to me) less familiar spelling of 6D Coomb holding me up — I’m another who is more familiar with Combe or Coombe (there is a Coombe Lane 1/2 mile from my house). But I see Coomb is allowed, and given that the original word is Welsh and spelled Cwm with w as a vowel, which we don’t have in English, I guess one can transliterate it any way that sounds right. Why we wanted to put an extraneous and silent B on the end though is not clear …

    Slight stumble also at age for “present point in life” in 15D Average, but the answer could not be anything else. But otherwise, an enjoyable and relatively straightforward puzzle.

    Many thanks to Jack for the blog
    Cedric

  30. in my case means I wasn’t trying very hard. Just writing down answers as and when, with casual parsing. If this seems a sleepy sort of solve, it was quite pleasant today! 24 min a GN5.
  31. Lots of biffing though, so thanks for much needed blog, Jack.
    FOI MOPE, LOI OPERETTA.
    Favourite clue WOMBAT.
  33. Left the clock running, ironically whilst cooking pasta, which I struggled to get, biffed PENNE and faced gridlock. Only when REDOUBTABLE went in did I change GREATFATHER (don’t ask) to GRANDFATHER and the pieces fell into place at 36 minutes, so probably around 25 minutes excluding cooking break.
  34. A most enjoyable puzzle with just the right degree of difficulty. I’m probably still in the SCC but not by much!

    Gary A

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