Times Quick Cryptic 971 by Flamande

Author   ChrisPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
This grid was defined, to me, by the four 11 letter clues. I enjoyed 17ac and cod 5dn and struggled with the (part) anagrams in 9dn and loi 11ac. Add these to some African warriors and lots of intricate wordplay (which I’ve thoroughly enjoyed untangling for the blog) and I was quite happy with my time of 11:04.

ACROSS

1. Sale – double definition.
3. Air Force – service. Broadcast (AIR), supporting (FOR), church (CE).
8. Teashop – cafe. A delightful anagram (served mushy) of HOT PEAS.
10. Oasis – peaceful place. Old and relative (O SIS) taken round a (A).
11. In a nutshell – to put it briefly. Home (IN), anagram (turned out) of AUNTS (=A NUT S), a nightmare (HELL).
13. Galley – ancient boat. Anagram (remodelled) of LArGELY without the ‘r’ (not right).
15. Sphere – shape. (S)uper, gym (PE) which girl (HER) is getting into.
17. Mark my words – listen carefully. This seems like a pun/double definition of correct the vocabulary I use.
20. Exile – send away. Eleven (XI) in the Spanish (EL) and leagu(E).
21. Cartoon – drawing. Michelangel(O) put into box (CARTON).
22. Tightest – least relaxed. Homophone (we hear) of person from Bangkok (Thai = TIGH) before trial (TEST).
23. Bead – piece of jewellery. Debutante shortly (DEB) retires=BED clutching a (A).

Down

1. Sittings – sessions. Is painful (STINGS) to introduce (IT).
2. Llama – mammal. Rather gruesome image here. Picked up (upwards) of a (A) s(MALL) headless – without the ‘s’.
4. Impish – mischievous. Bantu warriors (IMPI), make less noise (SH).
5. Flower power – peace and love in the (19)60’s. I felt the answer was very gettable and liked the brevity of the word play – our rhymes showing – the two words of the answer (our) rhyme.
6. Rosalie – woman. I know that female names are not the favourite clue type for some of our posters but at least this one was definitively clued. Got up (ROSE) to protect former boxing champ (ALI).
7. Erse – language. Used by (in) writ(ERS E)xpressive.
9. House arrest – confinement. Anagram (awful) of OUR THERESAS.
12. Seasoned – maybe salty (food seasoned with salt). Waters (SEAS), one (ONE), avoide(D).
14. Lambing – helping with farm deliveries. Anagram (unexpectedly) of GLIB MAN. I turned up at some friends in NZ once and unexpectedly (not an anagram) got roped into helping to extract 150 eight week old and very boisterous lambs from ewes for inoculations (which I wouldn’t describe glibly as it was neither simple nor easy).
16. Smocks – items of clothing (possibly worn by a Wurzel when pretending to help with lambing). Hose (SOCKS) male (M) imported.
18. Rhône – French banker (river). About (RE) to receive (HON)our – only one half the word.
19. Heat – pressure (as in turn up the heat on). Former PM (HEAT)h – endless.

28 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 971 by Flamande”

  1. Haven’t seen ‘banker’=river in a long time; could this be the first time in a Quicky? DNK SALE, but it seemed to have to be. I biffed 5d from definition and only then got the (very nice) wordplay. 4:58.
    1. I wondered about SALE/AUCTION for a moment although the answer had come to me before the puzzle had finished printing out – I try to avoid looking at clues before starting the clock but this one caught my eye. It could be argued that ‘sales’ and ‘auctions’ are different modes of buying and selling but I think the terms ‘sales rooms’ and ‘auction rooms’ are interchangeable.

      Whilst I’m here, I needed 11 minutes, missing my target yet again. I was held up by 15ac as my LOI.

      1. Didn’t make myself clear: I didn’t have a problem with sale=auction–an auction is a sale. Rather, I wasn’t sure there was a town called Sale. But since I felt fine about the synonymy (or hyponymy, actually), I figured there had to be such a place.
    2. I have been doing the Quickie almost daily for ages and don’t remember seeing ‘banker’ before, so I was delighted with myself for working it out! Sale was easy for this former Mancunian.
  2. 33 minutes, held up by 9 clues I found tricky.

    Last two were sphere and heat.
    For 15a I had speeve for a while, but it just looked wrong.
    Glad to get Heath/heat clue, pm before I was born.

    Lots of contenders for COD (lambing, rhone, seasoned) but I liked air force.

    1. Pressure as in stress, or “intensive and unwelcome pressure or criticism, especially from the authorities”

      like the song The heat is on!

  4. Banker = river was a new one to me, must remember it for next time (I won’t, of course). So RHONE was my LOI.

    I raced through most of this but was then left chewing my pencil over a fair few tough (for me) nuts. Even after I’d worked out SEASONED I couldn’t for the life of me understand it – I could break it down but because I was reading “salty waters” for “seas” I was trying to see how SEASONED could = “maybe”. Eventually I wrote it in because the wordplay made it inexorable but I still had to come on here for the explanation, so thanks to Chris.

    Like Flashman I dallied with speeve … got there in the end. And last that bloody banker.

    So a tough solve for me today, but a good puzzle, thanks Flamande.

    Templar

  5. Nothing too tricky today but some of the word play needed a bit of working out e.g. at 5d, 12d and 11a. I wasn’t familiar with the banker/river definition but the clueing was kind. Enjoyed 17a in particular, completed in 16 minutes with LOI 12d.
    Thanks for the blog
  6. A nice puzzle with some clues that took a bit of untangling taking me to 11:25. FOI SALE, LOI ROSALIE. I felt as though some clues fell into place as I read them, and others made me feel as though I was doing the 15×15. An enjoyable session. Thanks Flamande and Chris.
  7. Once again monday’s Puzzle a proper beginners puzzle with today’s and probably the rest of the week if past form is anything to go by, far too difficult.

    No wonder I have heard from so many that don’t bother with them anymore as there is no progression over the week. More importantly over the last few months the supposed quick cryptichas been anything but.

    These puzzles it seems are really aimed at experienced crossworders who complete in 10 min and seem to have a competition with themselves who can do it the quickest.

    So if there really is an intention to develop new puzzlers start grading the puzzles so they get harder during the week not unsolvable from the start.

    You don’t encourage anyone by making these so difficult that they are unsolvable even in part by those learning. Hard ok on occasion but not every day.

    1. I totally agree. I have been doing cryptics for over 50 years (though Tele level rather than Times or Grauniad) and I thought this one ridiculously difficult. All you showoffs saying you did it in xx minutes just exacerbate the discouragement of real beginners.
      I am weary of this timing one-up manship. You are not true beginners, just old hands showing off.
      1. There is no way of establishing the difficulty – hard/medium/easy. I’ve tried for the last several years to judge this in the blogs for others and always find that the experience of others is different to mine. It’s to do with what general knowledge you have (if it’s literary or musical I struggle) and whether you ‘just see’ the answer right away (wavelength thing). Su dokus are mathematical and are, I suspect, generated by computer so can be graded.
        So I now give my times in the QCs as a yardstick so that people who are aware of my ‘normal’ times can have some sort of feel of difficulty – others do the same which broadens how people, generally, have fared. You can then compare this to your own experience.
        It’s a take it or leave it thing and given freely for the benefit of others. As such I do object to your description of a group of people who are purely solvers like yourself, but who are prepared to help others out on a voluntary basis.

        Edited at 2017-11-29 03:15 pm (UTC)

  8. 16 minutes for me today, so rather tricky.

    In response to Anon’s comment above, this blog is called ‘Times for the Times’, so is about reporting our various times. What it isn’t, IMHO, is a competition between us, experienced or otherwise. I’d call myself experienced, but can’t get anywhere near the faster solvers times here, and definitely not on the 15 x 15, where my average time is more like 45 minutes.

    I would ask Anon if having an easy puzzle on Monday, and (according to him) more difficult ones the rest of the week, isn’t what he is asking for, some sort of gradation across the week? However, I can’t ask as I don’t know who he / she is.

    Publishing our times here is nothing to do with one-upmanship. It does allow us all, experienced and inexperienced, to get an understanding of how we are performing against others, and where we are on the cryptic learning curve. Coming across new or unusual devices are one way of learning and getting better / faster.

    1. I find others’ times interesting and informative, but not a competition, especially now I’ve gradually got to know the various levels of experience among the regulars. Or perhaps it’s a case that if I do compete, it’s with people I’ve gradually learned are around my “level” (and not out loud!)

      As a relative newcomer to the 15×15 (I’ve been doing—or at least trying—it regularly for about 18 months, I think) I do the QC to help me try different strategies, and to have a puzzle to do which I think should be within my grasp, which certainly isn’t always the case with the 15×15.

      My times still vary wildly on both, and probably aren’t indicative of anything much, but I’m just in the habit of posting them in the 15×15 blog replies, where they seemed de rigueur among the regulars, and that was the case when I started doing the QC, too, so I didn’t really think twice about it.

      There are certainly people doing the 15×15 daily who can put in the correct answers faster than I could even fill a QC grid with random letters, and I can see how that could be dispiriting, but perhaps I’ve just got used to it now! I actually find it rather inspiring. I certainly don’t think they’re “showing off”; everything I’ve seen tells me that the great majority of regulars are gracious types (and they’ll always spare some time to explain something to a newcomer…)

      Edited at 2017-11-30 07:50 am (UTC)

      1. Personally, I find it useful to see others’ times to judge my own form against the difficulty of the crossword, and I post my own for others to do the same. Yes I’m an experienced solver (now) and my average time is now well under 10 minutes, but posting here is not a competition. If I wanted to do that I would do the crossword on the club site. What has become clear, though, is that there is no decent way of measuring the difficulty without getting a cohort of solvers to report their times. If you don’t do the 15×15, you might not have come across this… One of our community has set up a wonderful mechanism to measure the difficulty of the main cryptic, called the SNITCH. The “About” page explains it rather well.
        As for my time on this crossword, it was about 6 minutes, so nearly a minute faster than average for me. Apologies if some here find that a bit intimidating, but I have had a lot of practice. Even so, coming here is always instructional – yes I do sometimes get stuck and not finish, or not understand a clue, and I try to give back with my own comments on what I liked or struggled with.
        I was a learner too once, and I found the QC and this site brilliant for helping to learn the devices and conventions… without this I suspect I would still be struggling to finish more than a couple of days a week.

        Edited at 2017-12-02 08:01 am (UTC)

  9. I agree with Anon’s comment that it may help to grade the puzzles over the week (or, to run a risk of disapproval, grade the puzzles easy to hard – after all the Sudoku puzzles Do this). Irrespective I thought this puzzle was an excellent one for improvers, with many conventions used in the 15×15. People have noted how banker=river – another good one to remember is that flower can also be river. Took me a while over Impi=Bantu but then sometimes you just have to enter what seems reasonable. COD 3a as this also contained a convention that often trips me up (Church Service where I fall into the obvious trap). A steady solve in about 15 minutes. Thanks blogger and setter.
    1. I only learned how to do cryptic puzzles when The Times introduced the quick cryptic. I never do any other crossword puzzles. I have progressed from doing one or two clues to finishing a couple of times each week. The blogs from experienced solvers have helped me immensely. It has never occurred to me that it was some kind of competition.
      1. Well done – sounds like you’re doing really well – and you’re right, it’s not a competition – see comment above in reply to the other anon. By the way if you get a free livejournal ID not only could we refer to you by name (rather than anon) but you also get an email notifying you of any reply. Thanks for your comment.
  10. Nice puzzle but couldn’t help being miffed about sphere. Surely it is not a shape but a form. I was looking very hard through the known geometry of two dimensional shapes.
  11. Quite a struggle today. About 20 minutes to get all but 19d. Sphere took a while as did Erse.
    I put the puzzle down and came back to it much later and was about to come here for the solution when a final alphabet trawl yielded Heath. So that was about another 20 minutes.
    A good challenging puzzle. COD to 12d. David
  12. I’m happy to take whatever degree of difficulty is presented on any day. In fact, for me that variety is part of the challenge.

    Today was a dnf as I didn’t work out 18d banker=river, and was struggling to make re+obe into anything remotely possible… Thanks to the blog I just might not get caught out again. Thx to Chris and the contributors for the insights, and Flamande for an enjoyable hour in Costa this evening!

    FOI 1a LOI 15a COD 22a

    Puzzling over 18d pushed me over the hour before I gave up and came here.

  13. Well, came to this late in the day after doing some plumbing for my daughter. As I worked my way through, I kept wondering what the regular bloggers’ comments would be like. I thought there were quite a few clues at the 15×15 level, such as 3 and 14ac, 2and 18d. Definitely a step up from the usual Flamande, but still enjoyable. Invariant
  14. DNF for me here. Got everything else in ten minutes but gave up after another five staring at 19d. Just didn’t think of HEAT. Given that Ted Heath was PM when I was born, it seems a shame I couldn’t drag him to mind, though I found plenty from both earlier and later to play with.

    I’ve never been good at filling in the blanks when you can’t get the first letter….

  15. …catching up on several days of crosswords. Chris, I parsed 5 slightly differently, as flower and power both being rhymes of “our”. Rather a nice clue, I thought.

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