Times Quick Cryptic 2091 by Pedro

Author   ChrisPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

Despite getting snarled up in the NW, where I finished on 11ac, my time was 9 minutes. The rest must have all slotted in pretty quickly.

Definitions are underlined.

Across
1 Pub’s first of eight in immediate area (6)
LOCALE – pub (LOCAL), (E)ight).
4 Bakery centrally getting behind beginning to create a bakery product (4)
CAKE – Ba(KE)ry after (C)reate and a (A).
9 Anger after second month with a fever (7)
FEBRILE – anger (RILE – not ire as I tried hard to include) after second month FEB.
10 Reputation overwhelming Liberal lover (5)
FLAME – reputation (FAME) around Liberal (L).
11 Royal honour is article given to church in reverence (9)
OBEISANCE – royal honour (OBE), is (IS), article (AN), church (CH CE). An Ikea clue.
12 Dismissed in contest, but not bowled (3)
OUT – contest b(OUT) without bowled (B).
13 Wall decoration to stop moving, we hear (6)
FRIEZE – homophone of stop moving – freeze.
15 Elm, say, planted in stone in part of city (6)
STREET – elm say (TREE) inside stone (ST). I wonder how granular ‘part of city’ could be clued.
17 Cunning insect (3)
FLY – double definition – unless you consider flies to be cunning in which case you’d go for an &lit.
18 An irksome job importing silver in Alaskan city (9)
ANCHORAGE – an (AN), irksome job (CHORE) holding silver (AG)
21 Damage seen around most of ancient tooth (5)
MOLAR – damage (MAR) around most of ancient (OL)d.
22 What should monarch have? Excellent beer, on reflection (7)
REGALIA – excellent (AI) and beer (LAGER) all backwards.
23 Popular music sees female abandoning dress (4)
ROCK – female (F) abandoning dress f(ROCK).
24 Farm building, not fresh, with black interior (6)
STABLE – not fresh (STALE) with black (B) inside.
Down
1 Launch unfinished biography with support of aristocrat (4-3)
LIFT-OFF – unfinished biography (LIF)e on top of arostrocrat (TOFF).
2 Telegram: TAXI LEFT HALFWAY THROUGH (5)
CABLE – taxi (CAB), half of (LE)ft. I QUITE LIKED THIS CLUE!
3 Not intervening — a variety of sizes satisfactory in Dior article (7-5)
LAISSEZ-FAIRE – a (A) and an anagram (variety of) of SIZES and satisfactory (FAIR) all inside the French article (LE). I’m not much of a chap for perfume but even I’ve noticed the j’adore adverts so I’m assuming Dior is a French company. This gets the complicated parsing of the day award.
5 Sailor, solitary, will find shellfish (7)
ABALONE – sailor (AB), solitary (ALONE).
6 Employ skilled person to remove phosphorus (5)
EXERT – skilled person (EX)p(ERT) – removing phosphorus (P). Well, another thing I didn’t know – I mistyped (and for once noticed!) in the blog phosphorOUs – which I’ve now looked up and it turns out it’s phosphorUs in a trivalent state.
7 Embargo involving English vegetable (4)
BEAN – embargo (BAN) including English (E).
8 Later addition making contribution to rafter, though temporary (12)
AFTERTHOUGHT – in the clue – r(AFTER THOUGH T)emporary.
14 I’d year the reverse of cold and ill — delightful (7)
IDYLLIC – I’d (ID), year (Y) with cold (C) and I’ll (ILL) reversed.
16 Juvenile horse last in race after support on course (7)
TEENAGE – horse (NAG) and rac(E) after support for golf (TEE),
17 Father carrying flightless bird’s bone (5)
FEMUR – father (FR) holding flightless bird (EMU).
19 What cow chews is about right for dairy product (4)
CURD – what cow chews (CUD) around right (R).
20 Notice Liberal making off-the-cuff remark (2-3)
AD-LIB – notice (AD), Liberal (LIB).

33 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 2091 by Pedro”

  2. I needed every second of my target 10 minutes to fill the grid. I lost a little time checking wordplay for the correct the spelling of OBEISANCE but otherwise I think I was just generally a bit slow off the mark with too many clues.
  3. Yet another foul-up: I put in OBEDIENCE and forgot about it, then failed to notice what LAISSEZ-FAIRE did to it. 7:47 WOE.
  4. Around the 25-minute mark, top to bottom solve.
    FOI: LIFT-OFF.
    LOI: STABLE.
    I too tried IRE until RILE came to mind also LE ‘Dior article’ was the only part of LAISSEZ-FAIRE unparsed as I didn’t see the French connection.
  5. 8 on the first pass of acrosses on the way to all green in 12. Spelling test in the NW with care needed over OBEISANCE, LAISSEZ FAIRE AND FRIEZE. I know ANCHORAGE from seeing Michelle Shocked support Billy Bragg at the Colston Hall a long, long time ago.
  6. About a normal time for me for a first thing in the morning solve (still in bed truth be told, hooray for WFH!)

    Liked FEBRILE and BOUT

    Thanks Chris and Pedro

  7. What’s the significance of the capitalisation of the last half of this clue?
    Thanks for the blog.
    1. It’s how a telegram would have been sent so it makes the surface – and also confuses!
  8. I also put “obedience” for 11ac until I realised 3dn wouldn’t fit. The rest went in fairly steadily, although I have to admit I thought the clue for 2dn “Cable” was an error until I saw the explanation above.

    FOI — 2dn “Cable”
    LOI — 6dn “Exert”
    COD — 2dn “Cable”

    Thanks as usual!

    Edited at 2022-03-15 09:38 am (UTC)

  9. Ten minutes, a bit too quick to be properly satisfying. Maybe I should have taken time to parse the ones I knew I’d biffed. FOI cake, LOI locale. Did not parse laissez-faire or teenage, or indeed out, I see, after reading the blog. Saw the lager but not the A1 in regalia. COD teenage, now I’ve seen how it works. Thanks, Chris, and Pedro.
  10. 14 minutes for me, so no walkover here. My last two in were OUT and EXERT. I was torn between OFF and OUT for 12a, probably still reflecting on the red card in the rugby on Saturday, but couldn’t make ExExF work for 6d, so opted for OUT, which then revealed the EXpERT device. There were a lot of deleted letters in this puzzle. Thanks both.
  11. An unusual grid and a different feel to the puzzle today. I was home in 13 minutes. LOI LAISSEZ FAIRE -was wondering what word could end in Z. That was after correcting a lazy OBEDIENCE. I thought Ich Dien might somehow be involved; of course it wasn’t.
    COD to TEENAGE -it made me think of Cheltenham which starts today.
    David

  12. Very enjoyable puzzle which I completed in 18 mins a shade under my 20 min target. Held up with parsing of LAISSEZ FAIRE for which I feel that ‘French article’ might have been fairer for a QC than ‘Dior article’ but c’est la vie n’est pas?

    COD to TEENAGE which I thought contained a clever misdirection (juvenile horse) on which I spent at least 3 of my 18 minutes despite having all the checkers.

    Thanks Pedro and Chris as always. Prof

  14. Seven across clues and ten down clues on my first pass (an unheard of success ratio for me), although my first pass is never very speedy – perhaps 30-40 seconds per clue before I move on. Then I went round the grid mopping up the remaining clues and crossed the line in just 26 minutes. Wow!
    Mrs Random, who sped through her attempt while I was hanging out the washing, had forewarned me of “a couple of traps for the unwary” and, given that I am often unwary, I spent much of the latter part of the solve worrying about which clues would instigate my fall. But, I’m pleased to report they never really materialised.

    I would never have got (or correctly spelt) OBEISANCE without Pedro’s precise wordplay. Similarly, I wouldn’t have seen FRIEZE without the Z from LAISSEZ FAIRE. I noticed two foodstuffs in the grid, BEAN CURD and ROCK CAKE – one of my favourites.

    Many thanks to Pedro and Chris.

    Edited at 2022-03-15 10:59 am (UTC)

  15. Some interesting clues and quite tough for a quickie, but I didn’t care much for 1a. “Pub’s” suggests that Pub is the definition – shouldn’t it just be “Pub first of eight…”?
    1. Mr C, it’s worth remembering that an apostrophe ‘s can stand for ‘has’ as well as ‘is’. It’s to be read as ‘is’ here in the surface reading, but as ‘has’ in the wordplay.

      Edited at 2022-03-15 11:45 am (UTC)

  16. I was down to the last clue after about 6 minutes, but stalled on EXPERT and finished up at 8:06. CABLE was FOI. Thanks Pedro and Chris.
  17. ….other than being very slow to see CAKE (not normally a problem for me !)

    FOI LOCALE
    LOI EXERT
    COD LAISSEZ-FAIRE
    TIME 4:06

  18. Re 11 Across:

    “11 Royal honour is article given to church in reverence (9)
    OBEISANCE – royal honour (OBE), is (IS), article (AN), church (CH). An Ikea clue.”

    Should church(CH) be (CE) ?

    Mao.

    2. Yes, indeed. I’ve corrected the blog. Many thanks. No wonder I struggle constructing furniture!
  19. Found this above averagely hard for some reason. FLAME, OBEISANCE, and TEENAGE took forever to appear, so missed the 10 minute target by a couple. Some nice vocab in here which I only remember from previous Xwords, so a satisfying day overall.
  20. I was able to complete this unusually early in my day while waiting for a big delivery. Also unusually, I escaped the SCC, where I usually amble in long after all the regulars have dined and left! Not sure if this is a PB but certainly very quick for me. Particularly pleased to do this when faced by Pedro. FOI 1d Lift Off to confirm 1a; LOI 10a Flame. COD 3d Laissez-faire. 9a and 11d on first pass and then just mopping up.
  21. FOI LOCALE then BIFD most of the SW corner – MOLAR, IDYLLIC, FLY doesn’t seem that cunning but had to be with FEMUR (which I did understand).

    Then more biffing in the SE with TEENAGE, REGALIA. Should have got STABLE much earlier as there’s only so many farm buildings and stale flashed through my brain at one time.

    Top half left me issues and again CABLE was slow. LIFT-OFF couldn’t think of an L-word instead of cast-off or send-off.

    Wibbled on the spelling of FRIEsE but when LAISSEZ-FAIRE suddenly BIFD itself, I knew what to do.

    More BIFFING with CAKE and OUT (figured it out much later). FLAME just wouldn’t ignite in my brain until AFTER i’d THOUGHT about that one.

    Locked onto PEAS and LEEKs (especially thinking that might be an extra clever double-play because of the English vegetable bit). Eventually I realised OBE might be the start of something and simply built the answer to the instructions. I am the man who read the instructions and had no parts left over.

    All ruined by not alphabet trawling through to X and ElEcTing to go with something else even though I knew it wanted a dropped P.

    Oh well, overall still pleased to get it done in under an hour. It felt tough without any obvious anagrams or hidden words; and many of the clues being composed of initialiams.

    FOI LOCALE
    LOI BEAN
    COD CAKE
    NHO OBEISANCE

    Edited at 2022-03-15 02:48 pm (UTC)

  23. But with a couple of hold ups as we went along
    Some fun clues but still cannot work our I’d year for 14d which was biffed
    1. The blog is available if you click ‘read more’.
      Here’s how 14dn works – IDYLLIC – I’d (ID), year (Y) with cold (C) and I’ll (ILL) reversed.
  24. Mostly fairly straight forward, but took too long to get TEENAGE and far too long to get EXERT. Ended up on 19:31 so still avoided the SCC. COD to AFTER THOUGHT, as it’s quite impressive to hide 12 letters. Thanks Chris and Pedro.

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