Times Quick Cryptic 2425 by Teazel – smooth!

114 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 2425 by Teazel – smooth!”

1. 15:19. Favourites were CATNIP, DOPE, and BONSAI. SMOOTHBORED took the longest because I tried to start it with short instead of SMOOTH.

   1. I tried “short” as well until realising it wouldn’t fit!

   2. ‘Smoothbore’ is something of a niche area to put it mildly. That said I well remember painstakingly explaining to Mrs ITTT the relative merits of rifled and smoothbored tank barrels, it being a particular area of interest of mine, but she didn’t seem very interested. As most people know, the majority of modern tanks are fitted with smoothbore guns, which do not utilise rifled barrels in order to impart spin to projectiles as they are fired. A notable exception is the British Challenger 2 tank, which uses the 120 mm L30 rifled gun.
      (And even I took an age to get it!)

   3. I have to thank you, curryowen, though your comment sent me into a slight panic this morning as the last word of it jumped out at me. I’d originally titled this post “Smooth!”, referring to the surfaces, but neglecting to see that it was part of the answer and might possibly be a bit of a spoiler. Fortunately, there were no complaints at that point so I could quietly remove it. (I will probably restore the title after a while, just for the sake of it.)

      1. Gee, glad one of my inane contributions was of some use(the things you bloggers have to be aware of……)!

2. For 17a where does Ready = Money come from? I get readIES for cash = money as in eg Del Boy saying “Give us the readies Rodders” but in the singular it’s new to me.

   1. Chambers – noun – Ready: ready money (also plural).

   2. Were there no cucumbers Lane? No sir, not even for ready money.
      IoBE Oscar Wilde

3. Regarding ‘ready’, I’ve only ever heard it in the singular funnily enough, ready money, presumably meaning available cash. But that was the least of my problems today, I found this enjoyable but very tough and I expect some other QC regulars will not be happy. No proper time but it was well over 20mins. Was a long time getting going and my FOI was in the downs, ABDOMEN f/b DUB. RH side yielded more quickly than the left and the NW quadrant was the toughest. Couldn’t see SNAFFLE, ORDER, CABINET and even TOM for way too long, and couldn’t get SMOOTHBORED and FIRST LADY until near the very end. Good puzzle but quite a workout to start the week!

   1. Good morning! What is f/b?

      1. Hi L, good morning to you but it’s nearly dinner time where I am in the antipodes. F/b was just a shorthand way of saying followed by, but judging by your response I guess it won’t fly!

         1. Hello LO !! I’m with you now. In the old country we use “then” 😂

            Best wishes
            LP 👍

            1. “Then”…that’s innovative, I like it, might give it a whirl! Cheers cobber

4. can someone explain why an etcher does a lot of eating out?

   1. He etches.

   2. To be specific, the acid the etcher uses eats out the metal in the etcher’s plate.

      1. Thank you. I knew the answer, but couldn’t work out how the setter had got there!

5. I was slow on this one, especially having trouble with LOI SMOOTHBORED. A word I don’t think I knew; and like curryowen I first tried to start with SHORT. I needed all the checkers to see that there was only one place for the M. 7:54.

6. I thought this was tough, at least at the end. The anagram for smoothbored was difficult – I was thinking it must start with shoot- or short-. However, my LOI was ready-made, which needed the R from smoothbored.

   Time: 11: 38

7. Both 1a and 1d hinted that this was not going to be an easy start to the week and I ended up taking 15 minutes. Some good clues and tricky parsing to work out. I liked ACT UP, given that UP can also mean ‘in a court’ (though not here) and ETCHER, mainly because I was so glad to eventually get it as my last in!

   Thanks to Teazel and Kitty

8. I found this hard and needed 14 minutes. I was generally slow throughout, but the main delay was making SMOOTHBORED from the anagrist at 1dn. I returned to it several times during the solve but didn’t crack it until it received my undivided attention as my LOI. Like others I had tried to start it with SHOOT and when I realised that wouldn’t work I moved on to SHORT. SNAFFLE and ETCHER both struck me as likely cause problems for less experienced solvers.

9. With zero evidence, I half-convinced myself that the artist in 4d was the Dutchman Escher. I kept returning to it until the PDM eventually put me right.

   1. I had exactly the same experience. Always happier when it finally parses.

10. Far too hard for a Monday. Defeated by ETCHER (put ESCHER), READY MADE and CATNIP. I spent almost an hour on this only to get lots of pinkies.
    Are these getting harder of am I just slowly losing my marbles? Either is possible.
    Answers on a postcard please to Mr ITTT, Dorset.

    1. Dear I3T

       Weather is good with hot and sunny days over here in BCP.

       Back-to-back DNFs for me and only last Wednesday we had a Teazel which I completed in 13mins (CAPITALIST, FLEA MARKET, GREAT LAKES). June started with 6 SCC escapes in the first 7 days. So in the microcosm “getting harder” but it is a standard complaint which surfaces every few weeks on the blog. Ne’er do you see any “are these getting easier?” rejoicing!

       Wish you were here … oh you are.

       Best wishes,
       LP

       1. We are with one mind then, as well as basking in sunshine!

    2. I can’t afford a postcard (I could if the cost of a stamp wasn’t so extortionate) but even this speed merchant can confirm that the puzzles are becoming trickier. For example my 60 years as a solver, plus my 3 years with Dastardly Denise, a committed equestrienne, meant SNAFFLE was a write-in for me. However, less experienced solvers, and those not of an equine disposition, were probably scratching their heads.

       1. I’ve been on a horse maybe twice in my life, and yet I knew SNAFFLE.

       2. Yes, I got SNAFFLE but it was a bit of a punt for me. I got the first half the definition but not the second.
          How on earth to you do it so quickly most days? Do you read the clues fully or do you just look at the similes?
          I have to say I’d feel pretty short-changed if I did it in under 10 mins but am fascinated to know how you do it!

          1. Hell if I know. Mainly I just do them, day after day; and mind you, I’ve been doing these since they started.

       3. Dastardly Denise is an excellent soubriquet.

          Most of what I know about tack comes from John Betjeman’s poem “Hunter Trials”:

          “It’s awf’lly bad luck on Diana,
          Her ponies have swallowed their bits;
          She fished down their throats with a spanner
          And frightened them all into fits.”

          And so on. Snaffles don’t feature though.

    3. Marbles well and truly lost here!

11. Very hard, though strangely, given the comments by several much more experienced solvers, I got Smoothbored fairly quickly (though I too would hyphenate it) – but even that didn’t speed things much.

    Major hold-up on Etcher (the checkers led me inexorably to Escher at first, but I could not parse it), and I needed first a letter search to get it and then Vinyl1’s comment above to understand it. Toughie in my view for a QC. Also, while the checkers clearly gave Act up, why does Up = Revolting? I can see “up in arms” as Revolting, but the link with just “up” seems tenuous at best.

    As for Ready in the singular, I think we have debated this before on TfTT, so it went in quick enough. But only with a shrug; while the phrase “ready money” is standard, for the word on its own I’m in the camp that would only recognise the plural Readies as meaning money.

    Many thanks to Kitty for the blog. I’d agree with you that there were some nice surfaces but overall this was too difficult and raised too many questions in my mind to be truly enjoyable.
    Cedric

    1. Hi Cedric, I’m wondering if the ready difference is geographical, here in Oz I haven’t come across ‘readies’ but someone might be ready with the ready so to speak. Interesting thing this language of ours…

       1. Thanks Lindsay, and you may well be right. It certainly sounds plausible, and the QC is clearly not a “British English only” zone, as numerous US usages will attest. The regular solvers obviously come from a global community, and so I believe do our bloggers. Perhaps some of the setters do too? No reason why not …

          1. I remember recently there was a little kerfuffle over Laredo (was it?) so maybe some might have a reason why not! I have no probs with the Times Xword being generally UK-centric, I accept it as the price of admission, but it must be a struggle for those who have no reasonable knowledge of UK geography or cricket…

             1. Not Laredo – ’twas LARAMIE.

                1. Ah yes that’s right. The Streets of Laramie doesn’t have quite the same ring…

    2. I was surprised at your surprise about ‘up’, as it seemed perfectly natural to me; but a (quick) look at ODE and Collins gives no example of up=revolting. It’s certainly been used here a lot.
       I’m another who has never seen ‘readies’, only ‘ready’.

12. Decidedly tricky in places with LOI ETCHER taking me well over target. Relieved I’d never heard of Escher or I may have chucked it in out of desperation half way through my alpha trawl – a rare example of ignorance being a good thing.
    No problem with SMOOTHBORED but the NE in general held me up with DUB, DOPE and a desire for CABINET to start with an ‘l’ all causing a lot of harrumphing.
    A quality puzzle from Teazel that I finished in 12.49
    Thanks to Kitty

13. DNF. I went for TUCKER, for the American impressionist, who “eats out”. Did not occur to me that it was wrong, NHO SNAFFLE so that remained empty. SMOOTHBORED took a long time, as noted.

    Liked DOPE, but UP=revolting looked poor. Doesn’t “in a court” mean UP, I’m sure we’ve had that before.

    1. Up went in with a shrug from me. I suppose the people are rising up against the powers that be.

       I believe you’re right that UP can also be related to court, as in “up in front of the judge” and I seem to recall it’s also used for going to university. In both cases there is an opposite of being sent down.

       1. Must confess I’m still puzzled by up = revolting. The fact that revolting = rising up or up in arms doesn’t seem enough of a connection to me. What next, up = complete because complete can be finish up? or up = neat because neaten = tidy up? For a very small word it’s being asked to do a lot of heavy lifting as a synonym for revolting.

          1. Not sure I used the correct term when I said “shrug” but I meant it prompted some kind of small reaction of uncertainty whether that’s an eye roll, mer or whatever 🤷‍♂️

             Certainly I wasn’t entirely comfortable with it but fortunately no alternatives unlike escher/etcher. My usual benefit of the doubt has devolved to a paranoia that Teazel deliberately did that to prompt a few DNFs.

          2. Agreed. ‘The peasants are up’ doesn’t have the same ring to it.

14. 30.36 corrected DNF with MC Escher. Do we have to be an expert on the process for a lesser used form of art now to complete the QC?!? Along with SMOOTHBORED – expert on types of guns and SNAFFLE – horse bits … hmmm. And NHO LANDAU other than Martin.

    Those aside thought there were some fantastic clues in THE-STICKS, CATNIP, ABDOMEN, FIRST-LADY, TISSUE-PAPER among others.

    Off to work up a sweat on the local hill.

    1. The leaderboard shows 100 people who evidently were ‘experts’ on the ‘lesser used form of art’, and on guns, and on horse bits, and who knew that a landau was a carriage. Perhaps the problem isn’t in the clues.

       1. Maybe those 100 at the top of the leaderboard made the right guess between Escher and etcher ….

       2. Neutrinos, the lot of ’em! Shan’t be convinced otherwise.

15. Slow, well into the SCC which I expect may be busy today, but glad to finish. My thoughts are largely reflected above. MER at UP but it worked, ditto READY. Liked THE STICKS. 1A and 1D went in late on.

16. DNF x 3. ETCHER (despite having all the checkers), SMOOTHBORED and READY MADE unsolved.

17. Enjoyed it with COD to ETCHER which made me smile but, then, I love a good surface (bit like an etcher probably).

18. 13 minutes, LOI ETCHER after SNAFFLE went in – both good clues, but like the horse’s bit, a bit chewy. Great to see Sawbill, Keriothe, Reinterred, et al at the meet on Saturday, putting some faces to names. I enjoyed meeting everyone there. Thanks Kitty and Teazel.

    1. I’m sorry I never really got chance to talk to you on Saturday – an omission I shall rectify next time out paths cross.

       1. Same here (to both of you).

19. Nothing too difficult, but took over average time, slightly more than usual for Teazel, on whose wavelength I usually am. DNF on two… clumsily biffed CATNAP at 16d, and having dragged MC ESCHER (museum in The Hague and asteroid named after him) from my subconscious, couldn’t let him go. Anagram of CHEERS when eating out? I wasn’t really convinced! All good fun! I think REDIES far more usual and have encountered READY for CASH only in crosswords. FOI SMOOTHBORED, LOI CATNAP, COD FIRST LADY. Thanks Teazel ansd Kitty.

20. I enjoyed this, but knew that others would find it tricky.

    On the subject of “up’ it’s a setter’s chestnut, but I’ve only encountered it in “up before the judge” or “up at Oxford”. Yet both of those situations are used to clue it in isolation. Just one of those quirks of Crosswordland.

    I biffed ACT UP, not having spotted CT=court, so thanks to Kitty (sorry you weren’t there on Saturday – it was a good event), and thanks to Teazel, whose clue surfaces are one of the standards I aspire to.

    FOI SNAFFLE
    LOI SMOOTHBORED (NHO)
    COD FIRST LADY
    TIME 4:10

    1. Hi Busman. I’m also sorry I wasn’t at the George on Saturday, but glad to hear it went well. I will do my best to be there next time.

21. “Your puzzle is 99% complete, Templar. Do you want to fill in the missing letter between L and P at 19a, or do you want to hit submit anyway like a great galoot?”

    “Why thank you Crossword Club, I think I’ll hit submit anyway and then blub about it.”

    “Excellent choice sir, that gives you 09:03, 1.25K, one Dreaded Pink Square and a morning of bitter self-loathing.”

    Aaarrrghhh.

    Many thanks Teazel and Kitty.

    Templar

    1. Hah! I did exactly the same last week, and have returned to concise and 15×15 on the club site only.

22. Too tricky for me, leavig a lot of the SW corner. On to tomorrow!

23. Worked round steadily to the right with the same initial holdups as noted today. Forgot horse’s SNAFFLE but just put the bit down to a QCC anomaly. Thanks Kitty. Having my second cup of coffee in the club. Enjoyed several clues for crafty construction. COD ZIP. Hat off to ETCHER for crypticness.

24. #MeToo on UP, ETCHER and READY. It was all going so well. Swimmingly well. Too well. I was on track to exit the SCC for the very first time, before Teazel guided me back to my usual chair with those 3 clues. Expletives were uttered.

25. A very good puzzle with lots of very clever clues.
    Not a QC though.
    I finished but I share many of the comments above. I needed the crossers for READY MADE and SMOOTHBORED seemed a bit desperate to me. I would always think of a smoothbore gun rather than a smoothbored gun (and I would hyphenate the latter if I felt I had to use it). I fell into the ESCHER trap.
    Thanks, Kitty. Moving on………

    1. My thoughts too. As said elsewhere there was a fair bit of specialist knowledge. And I was a DNF because I knew MC Escher (clearly I have the wrong specialist knowledge). Pleased to get close to finishing though.

26. It was lovely to meet some of you on Saturday. Thanks to the organisers, bloggers and commentators for all you do to enlighten us in this art. I am now encouraged to add my tuppenceworth.

    Made a couple of mistakes on this. I thought a catnap might be tempting for a Persian and for those regularly raising a beer even though I couldn’t quite see how it parsed. Also I so wanted to put in Bacon or Munch but opted for Escher as the artist who did a lot of eating.

    1. Welcome and it was great to meet you (and The Gentleman by the Window).

27. Thanks Kitty. I parsed 3d as last letter of may… bit late in the day. Under 20 so pleased to find Teazel hasn’t consigned me to SCC today!

    1. Me too, TC! Thanks – blog now corrected.

       1. You are most welcome and thank you for your reply

28. 6:47

    An unknown (SNAFFLE as horse thing) and unheard-of (SMOOTHBORED) as well as not knowing that ETCHERs use acid when eating out – every day’s a schoolday. Otherwise, pretty comfortable.

    Thanks Teazel and Kitty

29. 23 mins – but dnf as I also put Escher for 4dn. In hindsight, I can see “etching” as ‘eating out’ material, but it felt somewhat vague for a QC.

    Other issues were sorting out 1dn “Smoothbored” (NHO) and initially putting “Citizen” for 20ac (which I obviously struggled to parse).

    The “ready/readies” discussion has come up a few times I think. I’ve often thought of it being used in the plural form, but realised (as a result of this QC) it can be used either way.

    FOI – 5ac “Dope”
    LOI – 4dn “Escher” (incorrect)
    COD – 16dn “Catnip”

    Thanks as usual!

30. Given that I stared at this for about five minutes without finding a single clue to get me started, I was pleased to end up (after an hour) stumped by only two (NHO CATNIP, and PLEADER). Still can’t see why “nothing” = ZIP, but it had to be. Why is a CATNIP tempting (or not) for a Persian, please?
    Lovely to meet some of you on Saturday for drinkies. Mrs M asked me afterwards “where, when do they all eat?”

    1. A Persian is a breed of cat.

       1. So it is! Another for Kitty, of course.

    2. It’s just a phrase you occasionally hear in American films or TV “he’s got zip” to indicate “he’s got nothing”. Sorry, I can’t think of a better example.

       1. Thank you; seems an excellent example. I’ve NHO it, but we’re all learning.

    3. Barrister = PLEADER implies judge = PLEADEE. Both are nonsense, of course.

       1. That’s just not true. “The learned pleader” is a regular phrase when one is about to lay into the deficiencies of the pleadings …

          1. They’re not called pleadings any more. They are now statements of case! Pleadings went out with the Civil Procedure Rules.

             1. I can assure you that if you’re a KC over 55 talking to a Judge over 60, they’re still the pleadings …

                1. I grew up with pleadings too. When I’m teaching Civil Lit. I still occasionally refer to them and get a blank look from my students. Old habits die hard!

31. I’m another who couldn’t find ETCHER and put EsCHER, satisfying artist but not the rest. I’m blaming my recent major abdominal surgery but I’ve been desperately slow with these the last week or so – today was no exception at 34 mins and a pink square. I’m hoping my brain cells recover as the rest of me does over the next few weeks. Thanks Teazel and Kitty.

    1. Bad luck – takes many weeks to get over a general so be easy on yourself!

       1. Much appreciate your kind words – which I think you could well do to apply to yourself following your frustrating pink square!

32. Like some others I was a fair bit slower than usual crossing the line in 15.35. The main culprit was 1dn where I was determined for far too long that the word began with SHORT, and I then discovered that I had copied out the letters forming the anagram incorrectly. It took for ever to find my mistake but I eventually went back to basics and then discovered my doh moment.

33. Taken over target by this one, with SMOOTHBORED and ETCHER accounting for the hold ups. FOI was DOPE. LOI, ETCHER. 10:41, Thanks Teazel and Kitty.

34. Another Teazel, so soon after the last one…my heart sank.

    For a change, I did OK, better than OK really, as the unparsed and LOI ETCHER went in only after a minute or so. Had to write out SMOOTHBORED – wanted it to start with SHOOT.

    I liked SNAFFLE.

    6:46

35. I loved this one despite falling into the Escher trap; I knew it didn’t parse but submitted anyway. No problems otherwise, although I would agree it was on the trickier side. LOI READY MADE. Particular highlights included CATNIP (great surface) and PLEADER. Nice one Teazel – challenging but fun. Thanks Kitty.
    P.S. How do we hear about meet-ups, or are they by invitation only?

    1. There was a note on the front page of the site for a while, though I can’t find it now! All welcome I think. I noticed it was a pub in Borough, so I have very little excuse for not popping along for one in future, as my office is probably a 5-10 minute walk away.

       1. Many thanks – will try to be more observant!

36. Not on the wavelength at all today, in contrast to last week when I was right on Teazel’s wavelength. Finished up in 27 minutes but then found I’d carelessly entered DUPE at 5ac – no, of course it doesn’t parse. Some nice surfaces but slightly obscure vocab in places.

    FOI – 7ac ORDER
    LOI – 17ac READY-MADE
    CODs – 1ac SNAFFLE and 4dn ETCHER

    Thanks to Teazel and Kitty

37. 10 minutes exactly. Act up had to be but I wasn’t 100% sure about the parsing.

    Not keen on Etcher but clues like this come up in the 15×15 so I suppose its good practice. I toyed with escher, but couldn’t justify it so went with etcher.
    Sometimes the QC just needs simpler cluing to help less experienced, esp on Monday:
    Artist blended Cher, ET.

    COD Abdomen.

38. Surprisingly I found this on the easier side. Switched between ESCHER and ETCHER for LOI 4d until the penny finally dropped.
    Thanks as always.

39. Our cat much prefers a CATNAP to CATNIP.

    One pink square there. Doh.

    1. Mine’s a pant, then!

40. Rather slow and had to look up LOI ETCHER, though maybe it wd have come to me if I had waited, or maybe not. Needed help above to parse.
    Fortunately I was a horsey child, so got SNAFFLE, COD.
    Also liked TISSUE PAPER, FLIP, BONSAI, LANDAU, FIRST LADY, DENIZEN.
    FOI DUB. Worked out SMOOTHBORED.
    Recently planted CATNIP relation/Nepeta Six Hills is doing very well in a hot dry flowerbed.
    Thanks vm, Kitty.

41. Couldn’t finish this one as I found it too difficult. Four clues left unsolved, including ETCHER, which I thought was a very poor clue indeed.

    Smoothbored caused me some trouble, though it might have been easier if the clue had indicated a hyphen. I know it’s not necessarily spelled with a hyphen, but I’ve seen it more commonly used with one.

    CABINET also led me astray as I kept wanting to start the answer with L (front of Lorry).

    Never heard of Landau, but solved it by thinking it looked like it might be a word.

    I liked CATNIP and DENIZEN.

    An enjoyable QC let down by a poor clue (4d), though I wasn’t too taken with SNAFFLE either.

    1. Hard luck PW. I also failed on ETCHER. However, I wouldn’t say that it was necessarily a poor clue, but I would say that cryptic definitions (invariably difficult to solve) should not be combined with niche/esoteric GK in the QC.

42. I jinxed myself on Friday. Nearly 40 minutes with 2 wrong. DUPE for 5a was just daft but I couldn’t make any sense of 4d and put ESCHER. SNAFFLE was also a guess, having not heard of the horse tack. There were many PDMs, for example with CATNIP and PLEADER. Thanks to Kitty and Teazel.

43. DNF, just too hard for me today. Failed to get ETCHER (still don’t fully understand that one) and four of the SE corner, including LANDAU which I’d NHO.

    Oh well, tomorrow is another day. Thank you for the blog!

44. 5.02. No dramas.

45. I am resigned to never being able to get to grips with Teazel. Even after 3+ years my success rate with him is still less than two-thirds and today was another DNF. At least my execution wasn’t long and drawn out on this occasion. Time = 27 minutes. No. errors = 2.

    Errors:
    ETCHER – I put ESCHER, as I had (and still have) no idea what’s going on with this clue.
    PLEADER – I had PAELDER, as in A + ELDER (senior one). Izetti would not have put the A in the clue.

    Correct, but …
    SNAFFLE = bit? DNK (GK failure)
    ACT UP: UP = revolting? Surely not!
    CATNIP: A Persian what? (GK failure, I presume)
    SMOOTHBORED: DNK (GK failure)
    FLIP: F = following? Really?

    Just too weird for me, I’m afraid.

    Many thanks to Teazel and Kitty.

    1. Yes, I don’t think a non-horseman would know about types of bit. But, eg, re gun I saw BORED and biffed the rest from the anagram. ACT UP was an early biff but hard to parse. An ETCHER eats away lines on a copper plate, I believe. I guess one could google the process. (In days gone by seducers used to invite young ladies to come and see their etchings/or prints, apparently)
       A Persian cat!
       I got LIP=insolence because it seems to be a favourite with setters.
       Also a DNF, but funnily enough, I don’t mind these days.

    2. “f = following ” is absolutely standard in reference books; see p.8f means pages 8 and 9 (i.e. 8 and following). But I have to say I prefer to write “see pp.8-9”.

    3. Forgot to congratulate you on the milestone last week. Never gets any easier, does it? 🤣🤣🤣

46. 18:43, but with a vile pink square after totally failing to parse ETCHER & bunging in ESCHER with a “well, it fits” shrug. On the tough end of the spectrum, but some have to be, otherwise there isn’t a spectrum!

    Thanks to Teazel & Kitty.

47. Turns out guns, tack, carriages and proofreading are all things I need to know more about. That’s an incredible five successive days of typos. Got there in the end but with a bit of checking answers were actually things.

48. WOW – 18:15, with one wrong 🙄 I didn’t get going until 10a TOM, which is a bad sign, and I spent ages on ETCHER, which I simply couldn’t see and eventually entered ESCHER. I couldn’t parse it, but then I couldn’t see the definition for a few moments even when faced with the correct answer! I had the same issues as others with up = revolting, which prevented me entering ACT UP until nearly the end.
    Perhaps it was because of my struggles with this one, but I can’t say I enjoyed it very much – a shame as usually I like Teazel’s puzzles, even though I’ve often found him to be very challenging. I did like SNAFFLE though, and the misdirection for FIRST LADY was fun.
    I’ve been away and then very busy over the last couple of weeks, but have been reading the blog, hence my first post for ages.
    Thanks Teazel and Kitty

    Reading the comments above about ‘experts’, I’ve noticed a few posters use this term when they get stuck. It always strikes me as being a bit unnecessary. I have a good amount of GK – does that make me an expert? I don’t think so, but words like SNAFFLE, LANDAU and ETCHER don’t cause any problems. I’ve only been riding a few times and I’ve never been in any sort of carriage (although I am interested in art) but they aren’t the details that are needed to solve a crossword. NHO SMOOTHBORED but just worked at it – if only I’d got ETCHER right 😅

    1. I mentioned experts and I’m not sure if that’s a reference to me. It wasn’t a dig at the better solvers but at the level of GK required today across the grid.

       Like you, I solved SNAFFLE, LANDAU, SMOOTHBORED. The latter I know enough about guns that they have “bores” to figure it out. So while they were difficult, the clueing was good enough.

       Like you, my GK stretched to MC Escher for art (not a subject I know lots about) but had no idea of how etching is done. Making it nigh on impossible to solve.

       But overall I feel like it wasn’t my GK knowledge that solved what I solved, it was my cryptic knowledge. And if the setter is sticking unknown GK in then it really tends not to be solved so quick. And isn’t that the point of the QC?

49. Look here … Up … does not mean revolting. And revolting … is not known as ‘ up ‘. Setter’s quirks should not be allowed. No wonder I’ve never finished a Quick Cryptic – ever! Only been at this for 4 years now. Shriek!

50. Decided to give it another go. Wished I hadn’t.

    Well inside SCC for all except 4dn.
    E-C-E-🤷‍♂️. Put in EXCHEF. Thought there might be a lesser known artist with this name. Gave myself a laugh if nothing else.

    How the heck am I supposed to know the intricacies of etching? SNAFFLE was borderline but this was too much.

    Thanks for the blog.

    1. Exchef … where did you cook that one up from? 🤣

       Glad to see you made the mistake of coming back. You can check out but you can never leave ….

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