Times Quick Cryptic 2101 by Breadman

Author   ChrisPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

Started in the NE and worked round clockwise nearly finishing in the NE in 7 minutes. 7ac, 2dn and 3dn had other ideas, though, so after a bit of a late skirmish, I brought things to an end, happily, at 9:30. All good fun – thanks to Breadman.

Definitions are underlined.

Across
7 Giraffe-like animal comfortable with a Greek character (5)
OKAPI – comfortable (OK) with a (A), Greek character (PI).
8 Article by investigator’s about time in hellish place (3,4)
THE PITS – article (THE), investigator’s (private eye’s PI’S) about time (T).
10 Jotter from famous college brought back home (4-3)
NOTE-PAD – famous college Eton backwards (NOTE), home (PAD).
11 Some icon of fashion not constant (2-3)
ON-OFF – some of ic(ON OF F)ashion.
12 Dicky loved Italian city’s cycling stadium (9)
VELODROME – anagram (dicky – as in unwell) of LOVED, Italian City (ROME).
14 Show disapproval of incomplete tome (3)
BOO – inclomplete tome (BOO)k.
15 Track English whisky (3)
RYE – track (RY), English (E). Any officianados out there for a whisky vs whiskey debate?
16 Standard cart reversed by Rod (9)
YARDSTICK – cart – dray – reversed (YARD) by rod (STICK),
18 Relative getting drug in French resort (5)
NIECE – drug (E) in French Resort (NICE).
20 Therapeutic massage — it has relaxed us in retirement (7)
SHIATSU – anagram (relaxed) of IT HAS with us backwards (SU). Are we sure this isn’t a dog? Maybe it’s a dog giving a massage?
22 Period of fighting harsh, reflected by American magazine (7)
WARTIME – harsh – raw – backwards (WAR), American magazine (TIME),
23 Group of workers reportedly steal clothing item (5)
TUNIC – group of workers – trade Union (TU), homophone (reportedly) of nick.
Down
1 Yankee altering work on venue? It might happen (3,5,4)
YOU NEVER KNOW – Yankee (Y), anagram (altering) of WORK ON VENUE.
2 Remain outside a silent old prison (8)
BASTILLE – remain (BE) outside a (A) and silent (STILL).
3 Walk unevenly, drooping (4)
LIMP – double definition.
4 Boss on outskirts of Idaho where TV show is made? (6)
STUDIO – boss (STUD), outskirts of (I)dah(O).
5 She’s a devil getting head to support protest (8)
DEMONESS – head (NESS as in coastal feature) underneath (to support) protest (DEMO).
6 See about home floor covering (4)
LINO – see (LO) about home (IN).
9 Horse somewhere in East Anglia one associated with Judy (7,5)
SUFFOLK PUNCH – somewhere in East Anglia (SUFFOLK), one associated with Judy (PUNCH).
13 Poet laureate once twenty-four hours on Scottish isle (3-5)
DAY-LEWIS – twenty-four hours (DAY), Scottish isle (LEWIS).
14 Fractured rib racing with bikes on some French peninsula (8)
BRITTANY – anagram (fractured) of RIB, racing with (motor) bikes (TT), some (ANY).
17 New store runs rota (6)

ROSTER – anagram (new) of STORE and runs (R).
19 Aristocrat left overwhelmed by attention (4)
EARL – LEFT (L) underneath attention (EAR – as in ‘friends, Romans, countrymen…’).
21 Winos that regularly scrap (4)
IOTA – w(I)n(O)s (T)h(A)t.

38 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 2101 by Breadman”

  1. Tempted to try and get DISS into 8A, but THE DISS seemed unlikely. Then I realized it was PI not DI to be the investigator. I don’t really think of OKAPI as being that giraffe-like, the neck is not long enough. Not that I was held up since the wordplay was so clear.
    1. The okapi is the only other member of the giraffe family, although I grant you they don’t resemble them much.
      1. I suppose it depends on whether you consider a chihuahua to be great dane-like.
  2. I biffed 1d (didn’t we just have it in a 15×15?). ‘Giraffe-like animal’ seemed like a rather overgenerous definition even for a QC. I was surprised that I remembered SUFFOLK PUNCH; ‘Judy’ helped. 5:43.
  3. 5:14 was better than I deserved (though no match for the HKV today) as I was given an accidental leg-up by seeing SUFFOLK PUNCH appear in the comments. I had thought I was playing it safe by only looking at yesterday’s blog, but forgot about the feature where recent comments appear down the right-hand side. Whoops.
  4. 7 minutes for all but one answer, the misspelt dog that turns out to be a therapeutic massage. I needed nearly 3 minutes for that one and finished just within my target 10.
  5. All green a shade under 9, so one of my faster solves despite trouble seeing past ‘warlike’ for WARTIME, having to wait for all the checkers to be sure what to do with the letters for SHIATSU and just being dim for RYE (w for whisky foxed me for way too long).
  6. 19 minutes from NOTE PAD to SHIATSU with no real hold up other than LOI: SHIATSU where I needed the checking letters.
    BIFD YOU NEVER KNOW seeing the anagrist post solve.
    COD: BRITTANY also BASTILLE both for their surface and wordplay.

    The 20-minute mark seems to be my yard stick.

  7. No rush. Remembered NESS from previous puzzles, useful to keep handy. Thanks Breadman and Chris.
  8. … so surprised to DNF in 27-mins, not knowing DAY-LEWIS.

    Today’s QC really highlighted that Geography is not one of my favoured subjects with mentions of Scottish Isles, French resorts and peninsulas, East Anglia and Italian cities raising my anxiety levels of not being able to complete. As it turned out Rome (been there), Nice (been there), Suffolk (been to Norfolk), Brittany (only about sixty miles away from where I live on south coast). So just Lewis doing for me.

    Oh and poet laureates not a favoured subject either. If the clue had been “Oscar winning Best Actor once (or thrice) …” – I would have stood a chance! I see now they are father-son.

    FOI STUDIO
    LbOI DEMONESS
    COD IOTA
    NHO RY=track

    1. Of course, your DAY-LEWIS suggestion, as good as it is, would be precluded by the ‘no living people’ rule.
  9. OKAPI straight in, then a bit of a romp until LOI, SHIATSU, which I had to ponder over for a while before making sense of the wordplay. 6:39. Thanks Breadman and Chris.
  10. More carelessness — stuck in SHATISU meaning to come back to it and didnt realise that BRITTANY had meant it had to be SHIATSU (which did ring a bell anyway). Should have left it blank till the end.

    Thought some of this was quite tricky (or at least there were some GK bear traps)

    As we’re about to have our kitchen floor tiled I’ll give WOD to the neat LINO

    Thanks Breadman and Chris

    Thanks

  11. I enjoyed this, and although there were a few clues I didn’t know, they were obtainable from the clueing (9dn “Suffolk Blue” and 13dn “Day-Lewis”).

    I also thought 20ac was a dog — but couldn’t see what else it could be (again, clueing was fairly favourable). For those on Eton watch, 10ac will have brought some angst.

    FOI — 10ac “Notepad”
    LOI — 9dn “Suffolk Punch”
    COD — 14dn “Brittany”, although I also liked 12ac “Velodrome”.

    Thanks as usual!

  12. If I’d been brave enough to skip proof reading, this would have been a very rare sub-5 minute solve, although I forgot to go back and fully parse BASTILLE. I had all the GK and it was one of those days where everything clicked. Started with OKAPI and finished with BRITTANY in 5.23 with my favourite being THE PITS.
    Thanks to Chris and Breadman
  13. got through it all in about 4m 30s except for BASTILLE, which took about 1m 30s to guess, then another 20s or so to parse it.

    I liked SHIATSU’s surface.

    6:22

  14. Needed a checker for SHIATSU – NHO and DEMONESS – never heard of the feminine of DEMON. Took a while to see BASTILLE too.
  15. 17 minutes with my favourite being LIMP. I hadn’t heard of or had forgotten DAY-LEWIS but it was gettable from the cryptic, albeit slow to think of LEWIS so LOI. Otherwise a very good QC IMHO. Thanks Breadman and Chris. Without spilling any beans, I meant to say yesterday how much I enjoyed the 5,000th Sunday Times puzzle on Sunday.
  16. ….a top-to-bottom solve, but was thwarted by SHIATSU. Had I got it (and that was unlikely !) I’d have achieved that feat, as the only other clue I missed on the first pass was the crossing LOI and the missing T would have settled that.

    FOI OKAPI (In my boOK A PIg is giraffe-like)
    LOI BRITTANY
    COD VELODROME
    TIME 4:10

    Note to self : 46 words is far too long for a one sentence critique !

    Edited at 2022-03-29 11:24 am (UTC)

  17. Either on the wavelength or this was much easier than yesterday’s puzzler. This went in with very few hold-ups leading to a 14 minute finish with everything parsed except BASTILLE. Had to come here to understand that (thanks Chris). Never heard of the massage but was pretty certain it couldn’t be anything but SHIATSU, which I checked post-solve. A nice puzzle IMO – thanks to Breadman for helping to prove that not all my brain cells have withered.

    FOI – 7ac OKAPI
    LOI – 2dn BASTILLE
    COD – 12ac VELODROME

  18. My only difficulty was the spelling as I thought it was shiatZu but once I parsed the clue, it had to end SU (for us in retirement).

    A quick trawl round the internet shows there is no shiatsu dog breed … there is a SHIH TZU … which seems to be pronounced sheet-soo … no hard prounounciation of the AT part

      1. Not at all poor, there were other posters who mentioned their NHO shiatsu massage. And I must admit I always thought this was the name of the dog as well as the massage.

        Strangely when I searched for “shiatsu dog” – I came across a book called “Shiatsu for Dogs” (I kid you not) and another website detailing it!

        Thank-you for your replies

  19. But still firmly in the SCC. Biffed YARDSTICK as NHO ‘dray’ for cart. Spent ages on TUNIC as hadn’t immediately seen TU for ‘group of workers’. DNK ‘ness’ as coastal head (one to remember) and DEMONESS was my LOI. FOI OKAPI and COD BRITTANY. Really enjoyed this puzzle. It was doable for me but with things to learn along the way. Many thanks Breadman and Chris.
  20. I took PI as being short for Principal Investigator, which is what it always used to mean in the world of clinical trials
  21. 10 minutes. FOI okapi , sixteen on first pass, LOI Bastille, unparsed but obv. Late posting as have been to Cambridge today for a training session. Stopped by one of the woods on the way back for a walk in the rain. Lots of oxlips out, and a few early bluebells. COD demoness, didn’t know there was such a thing, but enjoyed how it was clued. Thanks, Chris, and Breadman.
  22. This is one I wished I had timed as I had 10a and 10d on first pass and that made the others pretty straightforward. After a quick (for me) Joker yesterday I reckon Breadman was also giving us a break today. Happily I quickly saw I had entered19 as 21d – that helped a lot (!) but reflects that I was going at too goodly a pace.FOI 8a The Pits, LOI 2d Bastille which I saw strata way but hesitated until I could parse to my satisfaction. COD 12a velodrome. It’s nice to sometimes rattle through, but I really enjoy loitering to have some relaxation time. Happily lots to do this evening instead.
  23. Misspelt Shiatsu, also put in omega for 7a until we returned to the nw corner to sort out the other clues. Otherwise finished in target and enjoyed the puzzle.
  24. NOTE-PAD and ON-OFF got me started, but I didn’t add many more on my first pass through the acrosses. However, I then managed to solve 10 of the 12 down clues on my first pass (an unimaginable success rate for me), which set me up for a fast completion – 23 minutes in total. I know this is still in the SCC, but it’s very rapid for me.

    I had NHO the therapeutic massage (SHIATSU) and so had to trust the wordplay, and I had to dredge OKAPI out from the recesses of what’s left of my brain. My last three in were WARTIME (where I initially toyed with ‘warlike’ and ‘warvile’), THE PITS (because I was looking for a single 7-letter word) and BASTILLE. Unfortunately, Mrs Random biffed CASTILLE here, so she suffered a rare DNF.

    Many thanks to Breadman and chrisw91.

    1. Good performance – but your post has left with with a disquieting mental image of animals bursting out of the human body – ‘Alien’ eat your heart out!

      Edited at 2022-03-29 09:50 pm (UTC)

  25. Finished again
    Is not okapi mentioned by Flanders and Swann as not being a gnu?

    Edited at 2022-03-29 05:30 pm (UTC)

  26. Raced through most of this, but then slowed horribly with about a quarter to go. Finally stopped the watch on 19:06, only to find my DISS was wrong. I was sure I had previously come across some “hellish place” called DISS, but a quick Google reveals it only has one S, unless you consider Diss in Norfolk to be particularly unpleasant. Other than that, I felt it parsed okay since a second could be a time. Took a while to recall being flummoxed by SUFFOLK PUNCH once before, but LOI was DEMONESS.
    Thanks to Chris and Breadman.
    1. Loch Ness is on the river Ness. No idea what that has got to do with a headland but presumably it could have some relation. It has come up before as some sort of head cryptic, no doubt a setter’s aid to finish off a word where …ness is not so easy to clue. Diss is rather a nice town. I remember buying a substantial amount of field fresh broad beans in its market which I ate later, against advice, with disastrous consequences on an evening train to London. No animosity held against Diss but lesson learnt of the effects of raw legumes when eaten in quantity.
      1. Orford Ness, Caithness, Dungeness spring to mind – I’m sure there’s a whole lot more. It means a promontory or headland.
  27. Very easy today. NHO SHIATSU or indeed, SUFFOLK PUNCH but the clues were pretty generous.

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