Times Quick Cryptic 2944 by Izetti

124 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 2944 by Izetti”

1. 14.26 A bitty solve with only half done after the first pass. LOI BREATHER. I was fixated on fish, roaches especially, and it took too long to parse. I still don’t know what “that’s” is doing in the clue. Thanks Jack and Izetti.

   1. I think “that’s” needs to stand for “that has” here, so that the reading is: Swimmer that has a word meaning about to go inside it for a word meaning rest.

      1. For me I read them as ‘that is’

      2. Ah ok, I see. Thanks Jack

      3. Oh! That’s quite tricky because you wouldn’t normally abbreviate that possessive sense of “that has”. Thank you.

2. Straightforward enough. DNK FLINT, and worried about it until I got the F. A MER at SEDATE: courting is not dating. 6:56.

   1. I wonder what distinction you are making? ODE has:

      court – be involved with (someone) romantically, with the intention of marrying.
      Examples: He was courting a girl from the neighbouring farm. We went to the cinema when we were courting

      date – go out with (someone in whom one is romantically or sexually interested).
      Examples: A few years ago, I dated the ex of a friend. They have been dating for more than a year.

      Seems okay to me.

      1. For me, anyway, ‘with the intention of marrying’ is the difference. One can, and often does, date without any thought of marriage; and one can court without dating. But ‘court’ is not in my vocabulary, and I won’t argue the point.

         1. For me this is at best extremely pedantic but I’m more inclined to describe it as plain wrong haha, such is the fun of these puzzles!

         2. To be fair, the ODE has that definition of ‘court’ as dated (as in old-fashioned).

            There’s a song in the musical Seven Brides For Seven Brothers called Goin’ Courtin’.

            1. I now remember from my childhood ‘Froggy Went a-Courting’ (which apparently dates back to the 16th century) and ‘On Top of Old Smoky’ (On top of Old Smoky/All covered with snow/I lost my true lover/For courtin’ to slow).

               1. Oh, yes! I know both of those well, probably courtesy of Burl Ives who specialised in that type of song.

            2. One of the questions always asked of contestants by Wilfred Pickles was “Are you courting?”

               1. “Give ‘er the money, Mabel!” I remember it well. With Ena Sharples on the piano.

      2. I think that you’ll find the youth of today neither court nor date. They ‘see’ a person. Within the concept of seeing a person there is breadcrumbing (leading someone on), benching (not ready to commit) and ghosting (pulling a disappearing act). At some point there may be a declaration of boyfriend and girlfriend status which means they are exclusively seeing one another.

         1. Having watched episode 2 of Adolescence over the weekend I learned that sadly there is a lot more than that going on these days.

3. I worked my way through this without any real hold-ups. Personally, I thought this was pitched right at the middle stump, not too difficult with some write-ins to get started.
   I liked LAWRENCE but he’s not the first author to come to mind but seeing ‘lace’ and then WOMANISER gave the answer. I don’t think I’ve heard EXAMINEE before and it took a while to get the ‘ee’ at the end until I saw the ‘starts to’ hint. Brain Surgeon for OPERATOR, I suppose so. FLINT came easily with the ‘f’ in place. CATCHMENTs are also used in Oz. Liked AT RANDOM.
   Thanks Jack.
   The 15×15 is very approachable today for anyone interested.

   1. Thank you! My 15 minutes saved here on QCC turned into a 50 min solve in the grownups’ puzzle. A few biffs and unknowns (US related) but in the end a sense of achievement and a good start to a breaking sunny day.

   2. T.E. Lawrence (“of Arabia”) wrote quite a lot too, his most famous book being The Seven Pillars of Wisdom.

      1. Yes, he was the other LAWRENCE I had in mind in the comment in my blog, along with DH.

4. It seems somewhat strange to be tackling a Monday morning QCC on a Sunday evening, but that said, this was pretty much what it said on the tin and a 15:10 finish is well under par. Managed to drag ATTIC(a) from a distant memory of a term of study before the Greek teacher left at short notice. I suppose that I will take Quadro’s direction towards a look at the grownups puzzle in the morning to take the place of my usual 30mins of QCC relaxation before breakfast.
   Thank you Izetti and Jack.

5. Yes, this must be the easiest Izetti ever – Don Manley has evidently taken our complaints seriously. Most of the answers were write-ins, although I wrote one in the wrong place and completely garbled another. Flint was very easy for a Welsh place.

   Time: 6:11

6. 7.29, no problems except for BREATHER which I could not figure out for the life of me. I was also looking for a fish, dammit. At 20ac I think the reference to Idi Amin can now be ‘favourite dictator’ because that’s what he is around here. Thanks Jack and Izetti.
   PS: Having now done the 15×15 I most whole-heartedly agree it is worth a go

7. Steady progress until it got tough at the end. Five on the first pass of across and then abolutely loads of the downs before being stretched to get WOMANISER, LAWRENCE (easy when you have the W) and CATCHMENT (having worked briefly in developer contributions for education in what is becoming a long career in town planning I found the definition lacked a bit of rigour which put me off! – especially when schools are getting full and developers are getting KCs involved) and then finally RUN UP and BREATHER, yes looking for a fish. All green in 12.25.

8. More like a QC today. FLINT was my LOI, only because it’s in the SE.

   ATTIC may test some. Two very different dictators also – I was in Serbia and Croatia recently, TITO is still revered, having kept Yugoslavia together.

   5’27”, thanks jack and Izetti.

9. Well who would have thought an Izetti would bring a bit of light relief but that is what this felt like after recent fare. c.45 mins for me. Thanks Izetti and jack

10. 19.05 Delight amongst the oft stragglers (if one can have ‘amongst’? perhaps must be ‘between’ if only two of us..). Would have been several minutes quicker but for FLINT which, for us, was not an easy Welsh town (few are). We missed the relevance of LINT, so a lucky guess between flint/flirt. BREATHER was slow – missed bather, distracted as we were by our hunt for hake, pike, cod or similar – biffed via checkers before parsed.
    So, thank you Izetti and Jakkt. We face the week with possibly misplaced renewed optimism.

11. A well pitched QC, with a couple of hold ups.

    WOMANISER was one of my last in so spent time trying to fit ‘s + hen/owl/tit’ into the middle of lace to find the author, before the blindingly obvious became clear. I also tried thinking of edible dressings for the Welsh town.

    Started with LAD and finished with FLINT in 6.56.
    Thanks to Jackkt and Izetti

12. 16:29
    LOI AT RANDOM where I was convinced “very small amount” was going to be “A TAD”. Slow with LAD, where I was going through boys names. (G)LEE was close.

    And was a bit to keen on “lift and Separate” for small bird, so was looking at STIT, SAUK, SOWL which all looked more plausible in the middle of a word than WREN.

    Absolutely smoked the 15×15 in 12:52, my fastest ever by a mile.

    1. Also went down the a tad rabbit hole

13. A most enjoyable QC. I stopped the clock at 30mins with only HIGH left. None were biffed other than LAD. Being able to solve the crossword is so much more satisfying than biffing.
    I found it hard to get started ( only one across clue on first look at these). However, after that I found the answers slowly appearing along with several thoughts of ” that’s clever”.

    No problems with OPERATOR. A surgeon operates, therefore they are an operator.

    Another one who tried to crowbar roach into 16ac.

    Hard to pick a COD: HIGH, LAWRENCE, BREATHER are among the contenders.

    Many thanks to jackkt for blog and for Izetti for a brilliant QC.

14. 11:25 here, and surprised to find that it was by Izetti when I came here. No real hold-ups, but BREATHER was parsed after submission. A slight eyebrow twitch at “high” = “drunk”. As I understand current usage, “drunk” is the effect of alcohol, “high” is from other drugs of varying legality.

    Thanks to Jackkt and Izetti.

    1. You are probably right about current usage, but all the usual sources mention both drugs and alcohol.

    2. Yes Mrs M pleads the same MER as you.

    3. You may be interested to know that in Neale v R. M. J. E. (a minor) [1985] 80 Cr. App. R. 20, a yoof had been nicked in Glastonbury (where else?) exhibiting signs of excessive merriment and was charged with being drunk and disorderly under s12 of the Licensing Act 1872. His defence, a testament to legal ingenuity, was that since the cause of his merriment was glue-sniffing rather than Croft ’55 he was not “drunk” within the meaning of s12. Rather surprisingly the Divisional Court bought this.

       1. 😂

       2. 😀

15. Very good, all done is very respectable 18.02. First thought for small bird was wren but I couldn’t believe there would be a word with than in the middle so moved on. Obvious once lace came later.

    Some great clues, like Tito best.

    Idi Amin takes me back to 1977 when there were all sorts of press stories about him trying to come to the UK for the Queen’s Silver Jubilee. I went to a local parade and one chap was dressed as him, full uniform and very non PC makeup. He was on a bike and on his back had a sign that said “Ah’m in” 😂

    1. 😂

16. 15:36 which for me, is quick for an Izetti puzzle. Bunged in Serene in half parsed effort but unable to equate Rene and court.
    Also DNK Flint but lint seemed right and Flint sounded familiar.
    Many thanks Jack and Don

17. I was prepared for a struggle when I saw who the setter was. but this was a most pleasant and enjoyable surprise, especially after the travails of the latter part of last week. 10:39, and all parsed. though with a few of my usual BTPs on the way – BREATHER and WOMANISER in particular.

    Many thanks Jack for the blog. A good start to the week.

18. Breezeblocked by LTI – took a long time to see both BREATHER (which I couldn’t parse properly) and RUN-UP (which I couldn’t parse at all, apart from UP).

    Would never have picked this as an Izetti – wot no Biblical/church clues?? Enjoyed it very much, COD to SEDATE, home in 08:24 for a Bang Average Day.

    Many thanks Don and Jack.

    1. Izetti’s last few have been much less ecclesiastical, I’ve noticed. Personally, I miss that.

19. Thanks Jack, and Izetti for a proper QC. 10:09 for me, which was a PB. ATTIC we’ve had as Greek some time in the last year.

20. Should we be worried about Izetti? Despots, tyrants and two dictators plus womanising and dating? Sounds like a heady mix to me. Might explain why for he was a little benign today. Bang on par for me at 16m. Thanks Jack and Izetti

21. 4:15. I was a bit slow getting started and side-tracked momentarily by trying to find a word ?ODON???? for 5D before I had more checkers. But No real hold ups. COD to PEACH for the neat surface. Thanks Izetti and Jackkt.

    1. Sorry I’m very slow. Where did you get ODON from?

       1. The clue has “old fellow”, which I saw as O (old) DON (academic fellow).

22. Thanks to Izetti for a well-pitched Monday QC with some diversions for the unwary (i.e. me).
    Even with (like TC) some time wasted trying to enter SERENE instead of SEDATE, I was on to finish well within a relaxed 15 mins. However, my LOI LAWRENCE took me to 17 mins and a PDM. I had LACE but was stuck on WEE for small (d’oh).
    Thanks to Jack, too, for a good blog and for confirming some hurried parsing for me.

23. Very approachable, but got totally breezeblocked by FARE, of all things! How daft am I? SCC for me.

    Pi ❤️

24. That’s more like a QC! Thank you, Izetti. The SW corner held me up for longest, couldn’t see the brain surgeon or the approach to bankruptcy, or why a BREATHER is a swimmer, but filled it all in and read about it later. Thank you, jackkt, for the various explanations

25. WOMANISER, BREATHER and RUN UP took longest, but generally a quick solve for an Izetti puzzle – a welcome change from the brain scramblers of last week. 20:47 to finish.

26. Enjoyable to complete an Izetti in a steady solve. Only slow in SE. Actually went to boarding school in Denbighshire near FLINTshire so should have remembered it sooner.
    Liked TITO, SEDATE, DESPOT, LAWRENCE, among others.
    Thanks vm, Jack.

    1. As did my sister, Howells, while I went to a prep school a few miles away!

       1. I might have played hockey or lacrosse against your sister!

          1. Very possibly! Oldest sister was there 1955-61!

             1. I went to Lowther. I did learn Latin but not much else.

                1. Gosh. I went to Heronwater, Betws-yn-Rhos, 5 miles from Lowther. School was run on the principle of Scouting so Patrols rather than Houses.
                   I learnt how to tie knots but never managed to light a fire with 2 sticks. Left at 13 and went to Surrey and learnt how to dissect dogfish and play squash. All in all, good life skills.

27. 7:27 (death of St Frideswide)

    I thought this was going to be hard when I got as far as 11a before getting my first one in, but then it all fell into place.

    BREATHER and WOMANISER were my last two in.

    Thanks Jack and Izetti

28. A little tricky but a steady solve. My heart drops when I have to find a writer from the thousands he or she might be. The small bird was no help either but womaniser helped to pin him down. Minor quibble with drunk for high – I think people use that to refer to other drugs. Very enjoyable overall – thanks Izetti and jackkt

    1. When I were a lad it was commonly held that the wren was the smallest bird native to the UK, so in that respect it might be the first ‘small bird’ that some would call to mind. Apparently this was wrong or more recent studies have superseded it as it seems that goldcrests and firecrests are even smaller.

       Also in those days the wren featured in our daily lives as it appeared on the reverse side of the farthing coin that was in circulation from 1937-1961. It wasn’t worth much by my time but it could buy an individual sweet such as a chew.

       1. I am old enough to have had farthings in my loose change as a small child, and the chews you refer to might have been blackjacks or fruit salads, both individually wrapped and costing a farthing. I favoured blackjacks as they made your tongue go black.

          1. IIRC farthings were rarely seen for some time before they ceased to be legal tender and sweetshops sold chews etc @ four-for-a-penny or two-for-a-ha’penny.

          2. Fruit salads were my go to sweet when I found a penny on the street. I walked past a twent pence piece the other day and didn’t bother picking it up.

             1. I make that 192 fruit salads you could have bought with that find!

                1. spot on – but by the time that coin came out in 1982 you wouldn’t get many 🙁

       2. Well I had a 1953 farthing in a coronation set, but never saw one in the wild. Dad told me he could go to the bank and demand some, but he didn’t. My feeling was that they weren’t minted after 1945 or so (apart from the coronation ones.)

          1. They were minted until 1956.

             1. Minted? Well! Not very many of them I assure you. I used to buy 4 blackjacks for a penny or 2 for a halfpenny but never expected Mr Salmon to accept a farthing, and certainly never expected to get one back if I offered a halfpenny for one. Sometimes Mr S ran out of halfpennies and would offer two blackjacks as change.
                In Italy they ran out of all denominations below 1000 lire at one point and the change used to be either sweets, motorway toll station “cheques”, mainly 100 and 250 lire, or Italy Telco phone box tokens, 50 lire each I think.

       3. 960 fruit salad or black jacks for an old pound 🙂

29. 16 mins…

    Not sure if it was totally straight forward, but it was definitely more like a QC. Slightly annoyed with my time as I could have been quicker – getting inextricably held up on 16ac “Breather” and 18ac “Fare”, the latter requiring an alphabet trawl before the penny dropped.

    Thankfully, managed to avoid bunging in Torture for 15dn. This clue came up many moons ago and remember at the time not being able to parse it.

    FOI – 3dn “Peach”
    LOI – 18ac “Fare”
    COD – 4ac “Lawrence”

    Thanks as usual!

    1. I thought TORTURE first too till crossers nixed it.

30. I got the feeling that Izetti had been told to produce a “proper QC” -which this was for me.
    7 enjoyable minutes with LOI CATCHMENT, waiting for checkers.
    No hold-ups other than a pause for HIGH meaning drunk. I’m sure it’s fine.
    Well constructed and nice surfaces. COD to SEDATE.
    David

31. Nicely straightforward after some of last week’s shenanigans. Completed in two passes.

    FOI SOME
    LOI WOMANISER
    COD AT RANDOM
    TIME 4:02

32. 6:48 for a nice but very easy puzzle by Izetti standards. Which is a bit of a shame, as I enjoy Izetti’s more devious offerings, but totally understandable given the deafening ‘not a QC’ roar, particularly of late.
    Thanks I and J!

    1. I’ll second that!

33. Very friendly puzzle to start the week. Last dregs of cuppa still warm when LOI BREATHER went in. Lots of nice surfaces.
    Thanks Izetti and jackkt

34. A well judged, genuine QC from Izetti – thank you – I just hope a few of our newer setters take note.
    An early hold-up with 6d, which I thought was going to be Assured until the Wren popped up, and a couple of minutes spent failing to parse loi Breather (thanks, Jackkt) spoilt the faint chance of a sub-15, but I’m happy enough with the sub-20. CoD to 17d, Run-up, for the somewhat intriguing surface. Invariant

35. Thank heavens for a gentler start to the week to get your confidence back after Friday. No trouble at all really with this one finishing in a reasonable 7.48. I resisted the temptation to biff SERENE for 14ac, and SEDATE was obvious once the D was in place from ENSURED. LOI was OPERATOR, which in spite of being straightforward, held me up a lot longer than it should of done.

36. 7:26

    Gentlish Monday puzzle where nothing was particularly troublesome, just took a little while to see where a few of the answers were going e.g. CATCHMENT, LAWRENCE (needed all checkers) and FLINT (sounds Welsh but not sure if I knew of the place, again needing all of the checkers).

    Thanks Jack and Izetti

37. 5.32

    Also thought of Lovelace straight off even though I have no idea who (s)he is. Otherwise no hold ups here.

    1. Ada Lovelace, Countess and world’s first programmer wrote a bit. She worked with Babbage on the difference engine. A programming language, Ada, was named for her.

       1. I think she’d be classed as a mathematician rather than an author. The Lovelace I had in mind was Richard Lovelace (1617 – 1657). By the same measure he was really a poet rather than an author but until I looked him up I couldn’t be sure of that.

38. Nine, so slightly better than my average.

    High does not compute with drunk in my sphere. Drunk is a debilitating state more akin to a down, not that I ever went down the path of illegal substances. I think 5d was pushing it a bit as well.

    1. High used to mean drunk, I remember. But agree a womaniser is quite a bit worse than a flirt.

39. A lovely Monday morning treat from a benign Izetti. A most enjoyable 15 minute solve: which must be my fastest-ever for Izetti.

40. Huzzah for Izetti! (and Phil’s weekender).
    Thanks Jackkt

41. From SLAP to TITO in 8:18. Didn’t really get into gear with this one and had to leap around the grid. Fixated by LOVELACE and A TAD instead of an ATOM for a while. Thanks Izetti and Jack.

42. Easy, but there was a bit of a trap in 20a Examinee. Speeding, I bunged in examineR but spotted it just in time.
    POI 18d Flint; I knew it is on the marches but was a bit surprised it is on the Welsh side. No idea why my geography was so weak here.
    Thanks jackkt & Izetti.

43. I completed this in 13 minutes- a very decent time for me for an Izetti. Unfortunately it was spoilt by a careless ‘examiner’ at 20ac. An enjoyable exercise nonetheless. Couldn’t parse breather or ensured (the latter left until last to get all the checkers).

    FOI – 1ac SLAP
    LOI – 6dn ENSURED
    COD – 13dn POACHER

    thanks to Izetti and Jack

44. 8:13. RUN-IN and BREATHER were the main holdups, the rest were pretty quick.

45. A nice steady solve taking 39 minutes.
    Forgot about OM for ‘order’ but assumed COMIC came from the wordplay.
    COD: FARE
    Thanks Jack and Izetti.

46. Finished correctly in 1 hour+.
    Straightforward ? Maybe, in a round about sort of way.

    23 Across “Some thought it obvious he was a Communist leader (4)
    TITO. Hidden in [some – again!] {though}T IT O{bvious}. Real name Josip Broz, Tito was president of the former Yugoslavia.”

    Many of these communist leaders changed their names to make themselves sound more impressive:
    Joseph Dzhugashvili became Stalin. (Cannot really blame him for that name change).
    Vladimir Ulyanov became Lenin.
    Lev Bronstein became Trotsky.

47. 8:20

    Quicker in my head, but I couldn’t find the fish in BREATHER so I held on to the clock for an extra minute. Now I see it, it’s COD.

    Thanks Jack and Izetti.

48. Pretty straightforward for me, as was the biggie, despite WOE (need to check the anagrist!) But nowhere near Merlin’s cracking time – congratulations! And well done to everyone else who has got top times over there today. As others have said, it’s definitely worth a look for those of you who don’t often venture there.
    Back to the quickie: a pleasant solve and a nice way to start the week. I do like wrens. On the other hand, I don’t enjoy the works of DH Lawrence! Back to O levels – Sons and Lovers really didn’t do it for me, and probably put me off for life.
    Rather a lot of dictators today, what with Tito, Amin, and the Bridezilla reference. And perhaps a hello to our resident statistician at 8a? I had a wonderful wooden jigsaw of England and Wales when I was a child – all the pieces were the shapes of the counties, and I remember Flintshire as being the smallest one.
    9:15 FOI Some LOI Breather (although I didn’t parse it – despite all the explanations, my eyebrow is still slightly raised 😅) COD Despot
    Thanks Izetti and Jack

    1. For all those who had LOI BREATHER, it goes to show you’re crossword old hands. Who else would construe ‘swimmer’ immediately as fish, rather than bather? And breather normally signifying lung or gill? We inhabit a slightly weird vocabularic world where nothing is quite as it seems…

       1. Swimmer might not be a fish;
          Vessel’s not always a dish;
          Number’s possibly a six;
          Jam just might not be a fix.

          Yes we know,
          That is so.

          (Guess what I did over the weekend.)

          1. G&S, is my guess
             What is more
             Pinafore.

             Memories of our school production, being a British tar…

             1. 👏

          2. A friendly Izetti, and a doable 15×15 (thanks for the tip off). What is the world coming to?
             No doubt Jason is softening us up for unimaginable horrors later… 😩🫣
             Confused of Plymouth.

          3. 🙂

    2. Yes, I’m here Penny. But 8a still took a long time to come.

49. Very approachable by Izetti’s standard, and I finished in 17:38.

    My LOI, BREATHER, had me thinking about the discussion over the weekend about biff-then-parse versus getting the answer from the wordplay. It seems to me that it would be incredibly difficult to get this one via the second approach – did anyone manage it?

50. I thought I’d got this fully parsed and correct in a squeak under 20 mins, but found my assumption that the blog would tell me that “a tom” was a NHO term for a small amount was incorrect. Doh!

    Thanks to setter and blogger.

    1. Reminds me of the joke about the Nottingham man who consults a vet about his cat. “Is it a tom?” “Nay veterinary, it’s out in’t car.”

       1. 😀

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