Times Quick Cryptic 2127 by Joker

Author   william_j_sPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

I had to consult the dictionary over 9ac before seeing the answer to 2dn, so DNF after many long minutes staring at those last two clues. Apart from that, and despite some other unknowns, a very enjoyable test.

Definitions underlined.

Across
4 Direct concert with Preludio Tragico to begin with (6)
PROMPT – PROM (concert) then the first letter of (to begin with) Preludio Tragico.
7 Arrived, returning a sick plant (8)
CAMELLIA – CAME (arrived), then a reversal of (returning) A and ILL (sick).
8 Small and humble dwelling, something that might be taken for digs? (6)
SHOVEL – S (small) and HOVEL (humble dwelling).
9 Girl beheaded Danish king Filbert (8)
HAZELNUT – HAZEL (girl) then cNUT (Danish king) missing the first letter (beheaded). I had so much trouble with this one! Firstly, I have never heard of this definition. Then I thought it would end cANUT, and once that led nowhere, I started to think it was not the king that was beheaded, but the girl. Gave up and looked for ‘filbert’ in the dictionary.
10 Sent back a little information (4)
DATA – reversal of (sent back) A TAD (a little).
12 Got sole trading rights to wheat before the beginning of December (8)
CORNERED – CORN (wheat), ERE (before) and the first letter (beginning) of December. I didn’t know that ‘corn’ could refer to the seeds of many cereal plants, not just maize.
15 What might stretch boot? Here toes will need flexing (8)
SHOETREE – anagram of (will need flexing) HERE TOES.
18 Follow orders, getting medal with end of hostility (4)
OBEY – OBE (medal) with the last letter (end) of hostilitY.
20 The hearts of free Yemen, urged to rise again (2-6)
RE-EMERGE – the central letters from (hearts of) fREe, yEMEn, and uRGEd.
22 Cheap US whiskey, rye containing English notes (6)
REDEYE – RYE containing E (English), D and E (notes). Another NHO for me, but the wordplay was very transparent.
23 Suitable anger with father returning for sherry before meal? (8)
APERITIF – FIT (suitable), IRE (anger), and PA (father) all reversed (returning). DBE hence the question mark.
24 Wait on a table, taking each new dish — entrées only (6)
ATTEND – first letters from (entrees only) A Table Taking Each New Dish. An original indicator that suits the surface so well.
Down
1 First man in space — right in going? Crazy (4)
GAGA – GAGArin (first man in space), after removal of (going) ‘r’ (right) and ‘in’. My LOI since I had no checkers and got fixated on ‘yuri’ being involved somehow .
2 Demote English envoy after resistance (8)
RELEGATE – E (English) and LEGATE (envoy) all after R (resistance).
3 Mostly get on well around popular medical centre (6)
CLINIC – all-but-the-last letter of (mostly) CLICk (get on well), containing (around) IN (popular).
4 Forgotten heart of Tory minister (6)
PASTOR – PAST (forgotten) and the middle letters from (heart of) tORy. Was a MER at the time, but now I see ‘times past’/’times forgotten’ so now it’s just a mer.
5 Wind instrument made from old bone, not new (4)
OBOE – O (old) and BOnE excluding (not) ‘n’ (new).
6 First appearance of queen in touring empire (8)
PREMIERE – ER (queen) contained by (appearing in) an anagram of (touring) EMPIRE.
11 Hard teen upset follower (8)
ADHERENT – anagram of (upset) HARD TEEN.
13 Number over eight, initially (3)
ONE – ON (over) and the first letter of (initially) Eight. Mathematics getting in the way of a great potential clue: it is a shame 1<8.
14 Ruined ice store is little-known (8)
ESOTERIC – anagram of (ruined) ICE STORE.
16 Review text concerning colour round first letter (6)
REREAD – RE (regarding, concerning), then RED (colour) containing (around) A (first letter).
17 Football team drawn after the Spanish (6)
ELEVEN – EVEN (drawn) after EL (‘the’ in Spanish).
19 What determines inheritance — information and end of probate (4)
GENE – GEN (information) and the last letter (end) of probatE.
21 Fast-talking major holding line up (4)
GLIB – BIG (major) containing (holding) L (line), all reversed (up).

38 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 2127 by Joker”

  1. Everything came out right in the end after remembering Gagarin and that corn encompassed other grains too .Also that REDEYE is a US tipple and GLIB means fast-talking and not just smooth-talking. Pleased to remember Knut- oh wait I see it’s Cnut – as Danish king. I had only ever heard proms and not prom singular in that connection but then I’ve had a somewhat sheltered life. Thanks,W j s, for helpful blog.
  2. I knew ‘filbert’ and I knew HAZELNUT, but I didn’t know they were the same thing (are they? ODE lists them separately). REDEYE my LOI; I had trouble recalling the word. 6:17.
    1. IIRC Hazelnut is generic term – filbert and cobnut are different varieties of hazelnut. We once had four sheep called Cob, Filbert, Hazel and Avellana (which, I think, is from corylus avellana – the cobnut. My other half is the gardener and namer of assorted pets)

      Edited at 2022-05-04 10:20 am (UTC)

  3. A bit of general knowledge gaps for me again. I.. Didn’t know the name of the first man in space. I wonder if that’s an age thing, but also seems important to know so that’s on me.

    I also didn’t know that canute = cnut and that filberts were hazelnuts. I didn’t know that corn is a word for seeds of wheat and I had never heard of a red eye whiskey

    I mean, I biffed all of them, but lots of things I don’t know 🙁

    This week a lot of the wordplay gave me the actual word this time instead of me biffing it and parsing it later.

    My fave was the ATTEND. It was so surprising!

  4. I found this quite tough. I needed 14 minutes for all but 22ac and then gave up because I knew I would not know the US whiskey. I should probably have got to it via wordplay.

    I’ve come across REDEYE before only in connection with flash photography.

    Edited at 2022-05-04 05:18 am (UTC)

    1. I associate REDEYE with overnight airplane flights; the whiskey term struck me as dated.
        1. And Gabby Hayes would have a glass of sarsaparilla; as I said, dated.
    2. I knew ‘filbert’ from the Music Hall song I’m Gilbert, the Filbert, the colonel of the nuts
  5. 18 minutes.
    FOI: RELEGATE.
    LOI: GLIB only because it was the last one I looked at.
    BIFD ATTEND.
    COD: ONE. One over the eight is a reference for having drunk too much beer.
  6. Had to look up Filbert and NHO REDEYE either. Otherwise enjoyably came together after what seemed like a tough start. All green in 16, with a little help.
  7. Back-to-back completions after a dry spell since mid-April!

    Admittedly I finished this off yesterday with the early online publish after yesterday’s success. Had given up at 1hr20 with GAGA, HAZELNUT, REDEYE left but gave it one last look and that was after another 20-min look at midday.

    Had exactly the same problems on HAZELNUT as william. Couldn’t remember what a filbert was until checkers gave me the NUT ending but then went down the EaNUT ending.

    GAGA … I eliminated Yuri quickly (doh) and was trying for some kind of mad / Adam first man worldplay.

    REDEYE – suspect I would have got this 20-mins earlier were it 3-3 rather than 6 letters. But also was trying to shove an N for notes or some version of DO-RE-ME in there. Or WE for US.

    Held up on the left side by putting ATAD instead of DATA for a good 20+ mins until RELEGATE became obvious and then able to slot in ADHERENT.

    GLIB was only one I couldn’t parse due to think it was some to do with G-major.

    FOI OBOE
    LOI REDEYE
    COD GENE (but kudos to many others)

    Thanks to Joker and William

    Edited at 2022-05-04 06:30 am (UTC)

  8. My usual APERITIF is Heaven’s Door Straight Bourbon… bottled with the imprimatur of Bob Dylan. I was not familiar with (my LOI) REDEYE in this sense. There are some fine inexpensive native brands (rye generally costs more).
    Cheers!

  9. Anyone else find that this QC was in yesterday’s online version of The Times?

    1. And not in today’s, at least on my Time app. – that should say iPad!

      Edited at 2022-05-04 01:35 pm (UTC)

    3. Yes, I posted a sticky about it here yesterday shortly after publication at midnight to keep people informed. It’s gone down the page now since I removed its sticky status.

      Edited at 2022-05-04 01:14 pm (UTC)

  10. 18 minutes and held up in the end by the two xAxA words, which took a while to see, despite knowing Yuri Gagarin as first man in space. Luckily, I knew filbert as hazelnut — as a young Leicester City supporter, I wondered at the origin of Filbert Street and looked it up once. DATA just took a long time to see. My LOI was actually GLIB — I was surprised after entering DATA to see that I hadn’t yet finished! Thanks both.
    1. My grandfather used to take me down Filbert Street in my childhood. It always amused me that the surrounding streets were Hazel Street and Walnut Street. Nutty!

      Edited at 2022-05-04 01:28 pm (UTC)

      1. My husband, who used to work in the area, says there is also a Brazil Street nearby 🇧🇷 🔩
  11. Held up at the end by REDEYE, taking me to 10:50, but it was all in vain as I missed a typo at 17d, ELELEN! Picked up another typo at 18a, OBET corrected to OBEY. Drat. Knew what a filbert was. Thanks Joker and William.
  12. ….but the perverse grid construction was begging to have a typo inserted into it, and I obliged with EEEVEN.
  13. No problem with FILBERT, of course. Couldn’t do 22a – I could see I needed RYE and E and some sort of notes but couldn’t make any sense of it. I thought REDEYE was some kind of overnight flight. Obviously I don’t read enough cheap American literature (where, I assume, I’d find it).
  14. Mainly pretty straightforward, but 3 or 4 real puzzlers which took ages to see: DATA, GAGA, REDEYE (a guess) and HAZELNUT (sudden flash of inspiration).
  16. in the difficult camp

    Stared at _E_E_E for a long time before inserting the R, the Y and the other random musical note.

    I did like the clue for HAZELNUT

    10:43 for the second well over target solve in succession.

  17. Strewth! I found this hard — especially the NW corner, most of which I still had to complete after my 30 min cut off.

    I was fixated on both “Yuri” and “Adam” for 1dn, thinking a reverse “mad” might have something to do with it. For 9ac, the only “filbert” I know is a type of paintbrush, and thinking the Danish king was Hamlet also didn’t help. Whilst I didn’t know 22ac “Redeye”, it was at least obtainable from the clueing.

    FOI — 5dn “Oboe”
    LOI — dnf
    COD — 12ac “Cornered”

    Thanks as usual!

  18. A half an hour gone and only four clues to solve. Jolly good for me, given that Joker was our setter. However, having solved only three of the remaining clues in the next half-hour, I gave up beaten by 9a (HAZELNUT). I had absolutely no idea what ‘Filbert’ was meant to be, did not know the Danish king, and thought that the girl had to be beheaded. Also, several lengthy alphabet trawls failed to unearth the correct answer.

    The three clues I did manage to solve during that interminable second half-hour were REDEYE (only ever heard of as an overnight flight), CAMELLIA (took ages to see CAME for arrived) and GAGA (just couldn’t see how the clue worked). GAGA was my LOI and its clue structure was similar to that for ORAL, which was my LOI yesterday. I should probably try to cement that type of clue structure into my head for future reference.

    Mrs Random “lost the will to live” and threw in the towel after 50 minutes. She failed to solve GAGA and HAZELNUT (despite being a very knowledgeable plantswoman). She got CAMELLIA, of course, but she thinks that ‘Filbert’ was more ESOTERIC than GK. “A bit obscure for a QC” was her verdict.

    Many thanks to Joker and William.

  19. …by GAGA (thought it might be something to do with Adam, even though knew Gagarin) and REDEYE (never heard of). Couldn’t parse APERITIF, thinking suitable was apt, not fit,,, Thanks for the explanations. Enjoyable even though ultimately defeated. Thought GAGA was a tricksy but very clever clue — thanks Joker

  20. 22 mins and held up in the middle by REDEYE (had the word – familiar from old Western films but couldn’t parse it – simple when I saw it of course) and by RELEGATE at the end. Not sure why as I had all the checkers.

    Very much enjoyed this puzzle, lots of clever clues. COD to GAGA.

    Haven’t been on for a while due to work commitments so nice to ‘see’ everyone again.

    Thanks William and Joker. Prof

      1. And hopefully, once the new blog is up and running, we’ll see lots more old friends back again 😊

        Edited at 2022-05-04 10:08 pm (UTC)

  21. I had similar problems to some others having NHO REDEYE or filbert but I managed to reverse engineer the latter from the Danish king. LOI in was GAGA where I needed all the checkers before the penny dropped.
    Finished in 11.05.
    Thanks to William and Joker for the education
  22. Solved and parsed in 17 minutes without too many hold-ups, although it took me a while to get going. Managed to recall the meaning of filbert from some obscure corner of my brain. NHO redeye in this context but got there in the end. Nice puzzle – thanks Joker and to William for the blog.

    FOI – 15ac SHOETREE
    LOI – 2dn RELEGATE
    COD – 12ac CORNERED

  23. A late solve, not timed -but it would not have been quick.
    Last two were GAGA and HAZELNUT. Both parsed but required some GK and some crossword experience.
    Quite a tough QC; but I enjoyed it.
    David

    Edited at 2022-05-04 01:26 pm (UTC)

  24. The clock had passed 30 minutes and I was nowhere with HAZELNUT, even though I’d seen the NUT ending the definition meant nothing to me.

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