Happy New Year to one and all, and we have Quick Cryptic 2300 to mark the first puzzle of 2023.
My solving time was 14 minutes. I found this tough in places, missing my target by 4 minutes and getting an answer wrong at 13dn where I transposed two unchecked letters when unravelling the anagrist of an unknown word.
Oran is one of the many pseudonyms of Crossword Editor, Richard Rogan, who in some of his other guises often provides us with a theme or Nina. This is only Oran’s 20th QC since his first in 2014 and I have just one of those noted as having a theme — something to do with Northern Irish football. His reappearance after a break of nearly four years plus the milestone number of the puzzle might suggest there’d be something extra for us to spot today but my efforts to find it have not been entirely successful. I’ve come up with a few things, but nothing that makes a coherent whole, so rather than holding on until later in the blog I’m going to list these up-front in the hope that one or more of you can piece something together and point out what I have missed.
At 1ac / 7ac we have ABOVE SUSPICION, the very first novel by Helen MacInnes written in 1941. It’s a spy story set at the outbreak of WWII and was made into a movie in 1943 starring Joan Crawford and Fred MacMurray. The only other answer I have linked to this directly is 8ac LISZT whose music features in the story when an annotated copy of one of his piano pieces provides clues as to the name of a village in Austria where some of the action takes place. I’ve not read the book or seen the film so I would be unlikely to pick up other references
The remaining themed clues (if that’s what they are) don’t appear to have any direct connection to this but are related to acting :
11ac PLAYERS
12ac / 15ac AMATEUR THEATRE
23ac / 24ac CHARACTER ACTORS
I also wondered about 18ac / 20ac MAILING MACHINE and even 18ac / 8ac MAILING LISZT (!) before finding a more likely reason for the composer’s presence. Items possibly to be found in the theatre box-office.
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 | Boy briefly caught in hail overhead (5) |
| ABOVE | |
| BO{y} [briefly] contained by [caught in] AVE (hail – Latin e.g. Ave Maria) | |
| 7 | Pi cousin’s somehow causing scepticism! (9) |
| SUSPICION | |
| Anagram [somehow] of PI COUSIN’S | |
| 9 | Composer’s last letter found in register (5) |
| LISZT | |
| Z (last letter) contained by [found in] LIST (register) | |
| 10 | Public service’s lack of purpose when missing leader (7) |
| UTILITY | |
| {f}UTILITY (lack of purpose) [missing leader] | |
| 11 | Cast top layer, staying inside (7) |
| PLAYERS | |
| Hidden [inside] {to}P LAYER S{taying} | |
| 12 | A friend, you are not getting paid (7) |
| AMATEUR | |
| A, MATE (friend), UR (you are – text-spell) | |
| 15 | Tear wildly into the scene of operations (7) |
| THEATRE | |
| Anagram [wildly] of TEAR contained by [into] THE | |
| 18 | Posting message, initially poorly (7) |
| MAILING | |
| M{essage} [initially], AILING (poorly) | |
| 20 | Mechanical device in pit containing a chain (7) |
| MACHINE | |
| MINE (pit) containing A + CH (chain – 22 yards) | |
| 22 | Sunday dinner, perhaps right next to oven (5) |
| ROAST | |
| R (right), OAST (oven – a kiln for drying hops) | |
| 23 | Letter to be burned: react badly (9) |
| CHARACTER | |
| CHAR (be burned), anagram [badly] of REACT | |
| 24 | Thespian to go off — about to return (5) |
| ACTOR | |
| ROT (go off) + CA (about – circa) reversed [to return] | |
| Down |
|
| 1 | A Yank raised total weight of aircraft (3-2) |
| ALL-UP | |
| A, then PULL (yank) reversed [raised]. This was unknown to me but not hard to work out. SOED has it as the weight of an aircraft, total, including crew, passengers, cargo, etc., when in the air. | |
| 2 | Bolt case after adjusting bar (8) |
| OBSTACLE | |
| Anagram [after adjusting] of BOLT CASE | |
| 3 | Judge meets up with European (6) |
| ESTEEM | |
| E (European), then MEETS reversed [up]. I was unaware of ‘esteem’ as the verb it’s required to be here. Later edit: Thanks to Bletchley Reject’s example below I now realise that of course I knew it as a verb and have used it here many times myself. | |
| 4 | Quartz that’s still pit-coal, oddly (6) |
| SILICA | |
| S{t}I{l}L {p}I{t} C{o}A{l} [oddly] | |
| 5 | Skirt I located after thirty seconds? (4) |
| MINI | |
| MIN (thirty seconds – half a MINute), I | |
| 6 | In New York, a road outside area of tavern (7) |
| INNYARD | |
| IN, NY (New York), A, RD (road) | |
| 8 | Ill at ease as gum provides savoury filling (7,4) |
| SAUSAGE MEAT | |
| Anagram [ill] of AT EASE AS GUM | |
| 13 | Something stirring, etc, in tax reforms (8) |
| EXCITANT | |
| Anagram [reforms] of ETC IN TAX. I didn’t recognise this word and as mentioned in my intro I managed to transpose two of the unchecked letters to give an incorrect answer. |
|
| 14 | Cat in bag: initially hard to put up with (7) |
| STOMACH | |
| TOM (cat) contained by [in] SAC (bag), then H{ard} (initially) | |
| 16 | Asian state broadcast match lacking in colour (6) |
| TAIWAN | |
| TAI sounds like [broadcast] “tie” (match), WAN (lacking in colour) | |
| 17 | I go off course in SA mountain range (6) |
| SIERRA | |
| I + ERR (go off course) contained by [in] SA | |
| 19 | Something snappy held up by protagonists! (5) |
| GATOR | |
| Contained and reversed in [held up by] {p}ROTAG{onists} | |
| 21 | Fellow placing tea on piano (4) |
| CHAP | |
| CHA (tea), P (piano) | |
Hard yards! 15 mins, but as that turns out to be a little over 1K, I don’t mind quite so much 😅
I thought this was tough and – sorry to say – not so much fun.
FOI Liszt LOI Players Nothing really stood out as a COD
But thanks anyway to Oran, and of course to Jack 😊
Very glad I wasn’t the only one to find this a slog. Gave up after 30 mins with ALL UP, PLAYERS and TAIWAN unsolved. When I looked at the blog I wasn’t sure why I had made such a meal of things as all the clues were fair (in retrospect!). AMATEUR was my LOI before giving in. Wasn’t familiar with INNYARD. Liked STOMACH. Generally a bit ho-hum about this one. Many thanks for the much-needed blog. Happy New Year all.
Found this hard. Had to resort to aids for UTILITY and then biffed the nho INNYARD and was a little surprised when it turned green. Struggled with 16d as well but probably shouldn’t have.
If I’d compiled this, and then sent it to John for submission as a Weekend Special, I’d expect him and his fellow testers to be critical of a number of clunky clues. Although I finished within my 5 minute target, I’m afraid it afforded little satisfaction or entertainment.
FOI SUSPICION (I misread the clue for ABOVE, or it would have been that !)
LOI PLAYERS (after I finally saw ALL-UP)
COD SAUSAGE MEAT (I fancy a runny M&S Scotch Egg !)
TIME 4:29
23 mins…
Definitely a toughie to start the new year. I wasn’t a fan of 1dn “All Up” or 6dn “Innyard”, and the anagrams of 2dn “Obstacle” and 13dn “Excitant” took far longer than they should have.
In terms of a Nina, I thought there may be some linkage between the horizontal answers eg.
Above Suspicion,
Utility Players,
Amateur Theatre,
Mailing Machine,
Character Roast (as in coffee)
Character Actor
However – the above may all be totally random and unrelated for all I know.
FOI a 4dn “Silica”
LOI – 2dn “Obstacle”
COD – 1ac “Above”
Thanks as usual!
11.37
On the tougher side – pleased that the unknown EXCITANT proved correct. Didn’t notice any nina…
Thanks both
Oh dear, not the start to 2023 I was hoping for. I took somewhere just short of an hour to slog my way through this. There’s little I can add to what has been said above, save that I was perhaps not at my best. I will content myself with the knowledge that I finished and avoided a DNF (which seemed likely for much of the solve).
NHO ALL UP or EXCITANT, and found INNYARD a rather odd word.
FOI – SUSPICION
LOI – TAIWAN
COD – TAIWAN
PDM – LISZT
Back to work tomorrow. Hope my brain is a bit sharper than today.
Thanks for the much-needed blog.
Happy new year to all.
I don’t seem to have found this as perplexing as some, though it pushed me outside target by a little bit.
LOI was INNYARD, favourite was UTILITY.
6:49
Happy new year to all!
A new year and a new setter (to me, at least), but a similar experience to many previous QC attempts. just three clues remained as I approached the half-hour point, but I’m afraid they took another 15 minutes. Those clues were OBSTACLE, which I didn’t see as an anagram until way too late, PLAYERS and ABOVE (my LOI). In fact, I spent so long trying to solve A_O_E, that I nearly threw in the towel. My total time = 44 minutes and Mrs Random clocked in at 26 minutes..
Following the publication by some solvers of their 2022 solving data, here are a few selected stats of my own:
a) Success ratio = 84% (76% in 2021)
b) Average time (excl. DNFs) = 36 minutes (39 in 2021)
c) No. SCC escapes = 14 (8 in 2021)
d) No. DNFs with >1 unsolved clue = 17 (31 in 2021)
Of the most frequently appearing dozen or so setters, those with whom I have most success are Breadman, Trelawney and Oink, and those who I find most challenging are Teazel, Wurm and Orpheus.
One final observation: Since I started these infernal puzzles in June 2020, I have broken free from the SCC on 24 occasions (roughly once every 6 weeks). However, despite having set a total of 144 puzzles between them during that period, I have yet to achieve this honour with Orpheus, Pedro, Felix, Jalna and Corelli.
Many thanks to Oran and Jack.
Well done on your solve today Mr Random.
Nice concise set of stats highlighting your improvement. Thanks for sharing 👍
Interesting stats Mr R, showing a steady improvement 👏. I’m very much with you when it comes to the individual setters and how I fare against them.
I know I am not at my sharpest today, but still reckon this was very tricky. If I had to use a single word to describe it, it would be ‘uneven’. Not a satisfactory puzzle to solve.
Congratulations to Jackkt both for resolving it, and to researching the NINA.
dnf by three which should have been solved
never heard of innyard and all up instead of gross weight?
Tough today. 3 clues not finished. Not being a pilot I can forgive myself for all up. But innyard? I’ve been boozing for 40 years and never heard of that. My dictionary phone app has not heard of it.
A made up word? Can’t be US as they only have bars. No inns pubs or taverns. 😡
If you google, you can see INNYARDS were a kind of pub courtyard sometimes used as theatres.
NHO INNYARD, ALL UP or EXCITANT , but from wordplay, definitions and crossers I had no doubt all were correct, which pointed to an expert setter.
Interesting that INNYARD too is theatrical, which suggests that there was going to be a theatrical theme, but the plan was abandoned, hence, eg, SILICA, LISZT, TAIWAN, ROAST, GATOR. But there does seem to be something with five pairs of across clues, 1+7, 10+11, 12+15, 18+20and 23+24.
Maybe we shall be told tomorrow?
I seem to be the only person who knew ALL-UP (though no idea why other than a lifelong love of aeroplanes thanks to Airfix kits). A good workout if you were on the setter’s wavelength ( I was, my wife sadly wasn’t). But like others NHO EXCITANT.
DNF
Foiled by ALL UP.
Driving back from Somerset yesterday, via dog walking on the beach at Burnham-on-Sea, so very late to this. Ended up all green in 14. Could have got a second sub-K if only I’d seen the hidden PLAYERS quicker. Tough but enjoyable I though.
Found this difficult- managed to finish on the second day with a fresh brain!
At least the word play was fair – allowing some fairly obscure if not artificial words eg Innyards.