Times Quick Cryptic No 1592 by Izetti

59 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 1592 by Izetti”

1. I didn’t know (or had forgotten TUI) but I felt confident it couldn’t be anything else. I wanted 22A to be STARLESS since I’d not seen “least” in the clue. But it’s a letter short. Otherwise a steady solve. I thought the 15×15 was simple today, so I’d recommend it to any quickie solvers who want to have a go and be confident they are not going to walk into one like last Friday’s.
2. Steady if a bit slow. DNK TUI, but hardly a problem with the checkers in. GET ONES CARDS was more of a problem, and I waited until I had the checkers. Fortunately I thought of HUME right off, and didn’t have to worry about Bacon, Fodor, Hegel, Locke, Plato, or Quine. 6:56. I second Paul’s recommendation; the SNITCH gives the puzzle a 62, which counts as ‘very easy’.

   Edited at 2020-04-15 12:49 am (UTC)

3. A ted or teddy boy was a 1950s thing. Chambers says: An unruly adolescent, orig in the 1950s, affecting a dandyish style of dress reminiscent of Edward VII’s time (also fem Teddy girl)
   1. That sort of TED I thought comes up as “unruly youth”. I wouldn’t think of it as meaning “old rocker”.
      1. Wikipedia says “a mainly British phenomenon, the Teddy Boy subculture started among teenagers in London in the early 1950s, and rapidly spread across the UK, becoming strongly associated with American rock and roll music”, so I think it’s fair to call them “rockers”, and the 1950s would make them “old”.
         1. ‘Old rockers’ is certainly a more accurate definition than what’s usually offered here, i.e. juvenile delinquent. Dorsetjimbo, a longtime blogger and solver, and evidently former Teddy boy, has complained several times about the clues.
4. Much like Jack re-Teds and Time 12.15 mins.

   FOI 9ac TYROL German Italy

   LOI 15dn HUMANE

   COD 1ac BENIGHTED

   WOD TUI very well known hereabouts.

   I hammered today’s 15×15 in just under 15 mins – “which was nice. Today I are mainly eating seaweed.”

   I see the Trumpton Calendar has lost a month. Caesar! Beware the Ides of February!

5. 12 minutes, so target missed by 2. NHO TUI. I was caught out by HUME in another puzzle within the past week so he came to mind very easily today. Jim is still commenting regularly on the main puzzle and I hope he will give us his take on ‘old rocker’ later. I associate Rocker in British youth culture more with bikers than Teds.
   1. Quite right Jack. Mods and Rockers were from the 1960s. Rival groups that were quite frequently antisocial.

      Teddy Boys were the 1950s and whilst some were antisocial most were not. It was part of a teenage rebellion against the suffocation of the status quo demonstrated in a distinctive style of dress. We met in the new Mecca – the coffee bar – and played Elvis on the juke box.

      1. I was a mod – Lambretta with multiple mirrors, fur-trimmed parka, and into bands like the Who – but I was never unruly !
         1. I remember in 1965, a Giles cartoon (Daily Express) showed a couple of Teds on a street corner, one of whom was looking particularly miserable. A nearby news stand showed the headline ‘Death Penalty Abolished’ His girl friend was explaining to her friend, ‘Poor Eric, he was quite lookin’ forward to gettin’ hung!’
            Carl Giles lived in Suffolk and I can assure you Jimbo that in East Anglia and the Fens, the Teds lived on for quite a time, even after ‘The Battle of Skegness’.
6. I found this very tough. Only the two hiddens on the first pass of the acrosses and not too much more on the down. DISAGREEABLE and GET ONES CARDS gave some checkers and then it was a fun hard slog building from the bottom and finishing very close to 25m. Disappointing to find myself among the very slowest on the early leaderboard and without too many here reporting difficulties. Will try the 15×15.
7. Variation on a theme here. As we always get ’50s delinquent’, that’s what we’ve come to expect, true or not. An examination of the Book of Crosswordese would surely throw up many a sloppy def, or even… outright error.

   And to imagine for even a second that Jimbo once threw sand into the faces of Lambretta owners.

8. I was slow to get going and was pleased to finish in 13:38.
   LOI was ELAPSE which I had looked at two or three times en route; I’ll make that my COD.
   DNK TUI but was confident no other letters could fit the clue. I now realise that I do not know what BENIGHTED means so will look it up later. I got it from the parsing.
   A good test from Izetti. I thought the dog might be in for a long wait, but we can go out now. David

9. Over my target, clocking in with 23m.

   Prob the same difficulty as the main puzzle.
   LOI get ones/your cards and elapse.

   Dnk Tui.

   Dad liked rock music but acted/dressed more like a mod.

   COD plumb. Reminds me of Billy Butlers Hold Your Plums on the radio.

10. Typically smooth Izetti. I liked the underused BENIGHTED at 1A, the DISAGREEABLE seabird at 5D, but COD to MARRIAGE – surely a great way to arrive at a wedding. 4:55. By the way – today’s 15×15 is quite straightforward and many QCers might enjoy giving it a go. Sorry. I see that has already been mentioned.

    Edited at 2020-04-15 08:08 am (UTC)

11. One point of interest may be that the cards received on dismissal are, or rather were, National Insurance cards. In the old days these were stamped each week (sometimes mechanically, sometimes by pasting in special stamps) as proof that part of an employees wages had been payed directly to the government to fund certain services, principally the NHS in order to receive healthcare free at the point of use. On leaving employment the cards were handed back to the employee to lodge with his next employer or to continue stamping by other means.

    Edited at 2020-04-15 07:48 am (UTC)

12. I was totally immersed but found this a challenge, overall. The generally longer answers in this grid layout made it tougher and the 3-letter TUI was new to me. Surprised by clocking up a time way over my target (and close to tehe times posted by mendeset, flashman and rotter). I needed crossers for HUMANE and REINSTATED and enjoyed BENIGHTED, LOTTERIES, STARRIEST, and LOI ELAPSE. Good puzzle. Thanks to Izetti and Jeremy. Now to try the 15squared. John M.

    Edited at 2020-04-15 08:51 am (UTC)

13. Not a good one for me today. I’m never good at philosophers. Quite pleased to get tui though.
    Teddy boys and rocking to Elvis, brings back the memories. I wonder what happened to that first one, he certainly danced way better than the one I (happily) ended up with.
    Diana
14. … though I see I am in excellent company and rephrasing my time as 0.95 Rotters makes it sound so much better!

    Not sure why, as little here to actually complain about. Like others I found 12A Elapse very elusive; it was my LOI though having got it, I now cannot see why I didn’t see it earlier.

    18A Plumb = dead not a problem; in my cricketing days I was rather too often “plumb LBW”, ie trapped dead in front of the wicket.

    Thanks to Jeremy for the blog, and to Izetti.

    Cedric

15. Well I don’t mind admitting that this was one of my slowest solves of a QC in many a year, at close to 25 minutes. The grid didn’t help, and Izetti added his magic to the clues. I suspect that I was also jaded, having had a rare alcohol free day yesterday! I liked BENIGHTED, and had no problem with the definition of TED – in my memory at least, the rockers evolved from the teds. (I’m standing by for criticism of that statement). LOI HUMANE, I’m not very familiar with his works.
16. Helping my two eldest sons learn to do these puzzles has been one of the few pleasures of lockdown; they really struggled with today’s though, which rather exposed the limits of their vocabularies! (Or as they put it “It’s all so old fashioned.”)

    Izetti pushed me to 1.6K which I think I’m going to rate as a Very Good Day in the light of some of the times above. I didn’t help myself by misreading “country” as “county” in 13ac and spending a long time desperately trying to think of an English (no, Scottish … no, how about Welsh, … no, Irish?) county fitting _R_E_E! I also put GET YOUR CARDS at first, which led to ELAPSE being my LOI. I had no issue with TEDs being called “old rockers”, there’s a clear historic link with rock and roll music.

    Thanks Izetti and Jeremy.

    Templar

    1. It’s always ONES/ONE, never YOUR/YOU.
       1. Thanks Kevin, I’ll try to remember that
17. Not an easy puzzle, with its unusual grid and Izetti’s cluing, but I managed to complete it just within my target. GAMMA was my FOI, then GLEAN and NOTICE allowed me to get BENIGHTED. I then slogged my way through until I was left with 5d. I had just started writing out the anagrist when I saw DISAGREEABLE. 9:42. Thanks Izetti and Jeremy.
18. Well that was a slog, particularly in the SW, where amongst other things I misread 22a as Walls in… NHO GETTING ONES CARDS and both ELAPSE and HUMANE required alphabet trawls at the end. I should also have got CHESTNUTS a lot quicker considering the context! Relieved to finish at all in 16.33.
    Thanks to Jeremy
19. I really enjoyed this Izetti QC mostly because it expanded my general knowledge. I DNK TUI the bird, HUME the philosopher or IDA the princess but I felt confident with the wordplay. I’m not sure why OTTER = mammals, shouldn’t it be OTTERS? but this didn’t hold me up. LOI in just under 10 mins for a very good day was HUMANE.
    1. I thought Otter(s) wasn’t a good match for mammals(pl) as well. I suspect an editing typo.
       1. Yup – yet another typo I suspect. Again, I shrugged and pressed on
          1. Both are in the dictionary, Phil.
       2. OTTER and OTTERS are both correct.

          Edited at 2020-04-15 11:36 am (UTC)

          1. Could you be a tad less cryptic, Jeremy, and say why?
             1. Cryptic?! When I say both are correct, I mean nothing more than both are in the dictionary. I’m not sure there’s any other standard we’re working with here.

                Sorry for the confusion.

                1. OK, but one is singular and the other plural, and the answer required the singular version (Otter) while clued as a plural (mammals)?
                   1. “Both in the dictionary” and “both are correct” means that both OTTER and OTTERS are plural. I’m afraid I’m going to have to direct you to look it up in the dictionary yourself for further edification.
       3. Yes, baffled me too. “Look at those six otter over there” has a very odd ring to it!
          1. Would that be ‘A Ring of Bright Water’ moment?

             Game ‘bags’ tend to be singularised up in Norfolk and The Broads:

             ‘Six pheasant, two woodcock, fourteen partridge, five snipe and six otter’

             1. Izetti has confirmed below that this was indeed a slip up.
                1. I didn’t think he said it was a slip up…
                   1. 🙄
20. Just to add to notes above and encourage solvers to have a crack at the 15squared today. I found it accessible and enjoyable. It took me less than twice my time for the QC which is some recompense for a laboured QC. John M.
21. I started with 6d and 6ac and worked steadily (and slowly) across the lower half of the grid, but really struggled as I moved towards the NE, bar the long anagram at 5d. A biffed Advancing at 10ac certainly didn’t help, but even correcting that mistake didn’t unlock my last pair, 1ac and 2d. After a rest, trying to start 2d with Lo + Tic was close enough to make the jump to Notice, and then it was a case of following the cryptic for the unknown Benighted. CoD to the fiendish 12ac, Elapse, a short length ahead of 14d, Respect. I only hope those who moaned recently about Izetti becoming too easy are now satisfied. Invariant
22. Plugged slowly through and managed to finish in one fell swoop.
    In days of yore, one actually did have employment cards. As I recall, one of them said how much tax you had paid and the other how much national insurance. When you left a job voluntarily or otherwise, you got your cards. Now it is taking to mean being dismissed, of course.
    1. Oh sorry, Jckt has already explained about the cards
23. ….somewhere behind those eyes ?” (“Electric Blue” by the grievously underrated Australian band ICEHOUSE). An earworm I’m quite happy to be hit with.

    NHO TUI, but atypically spotted the hidden straight away.

    A strange grid – there was no need to waste time on BALLADS or RESPECT, since only one letter was unchecked. 0.55K.

    FOI LOTTERIES
    LOI ELAPSE
    COD GET ONES CARDS (or your P45 in my youth)

24. As noted by the blogger, some clues went in fairly easily but there were some headscratchers. After an hour, I had to give up with only 1ac to complete – I was convinced it was some variation on “bigoted”. I also questioned whether it should be “mammals” for “otter” in 8ac. I’m sure Otters is the plural, but happy to be corrected.

    Other than that, some nice clues, although I can appreciate for younger people 6dn and a few others, may not come easily.

    FOI – 1dn “Ballads”
    COD – 10ac “Ascending”

    Thanks as usual.

25. Maybe it was the rare late night working, but this puzzle took me ages at 17:02. I’m normally in the 6 to 8 minute bracket.

    Took me ages to get going, and I was held up by more than a few, but they kept coming, albeit slowly. MARRIAGE, then CHESTNUTS were last two in. I kept trying to put RAP in as a headless TRAP until I twigged the correct horse drawn vehicle. Then it was a shortish alphabet trawl to get the CHEST of my LOI.

    Still, I didn’t chuck my toys out of the pram, and it was a very decent challenge from Izetti for this solver. Now off to see if I can do the 15×15 in a similar time.

26. Just to add to notes above and encourage solvers to have a crack at the 15squared today. I found it accessible and enjoyable. It took me less than twice my time for the QC which is some recompense for a laboured QC. John M.
27. Really good challenge today. Got off to a very slow start and never really speeded up! I guess we were about 5 mins over our ever evolving target (in the downwards direction)

    FOI: gamma
    LOI: humane
    COD: starriest

    What an interesting week we are having – such a variety of styles. Keeps us on our toes – who needs Joe Wickes! 😂)

    Thanks

28. Done and dusted in only 3 minutes more than today’s QC.
29. I enjoyed this amd finished in ok time for me (I don’t time myself). I didn’t know TUI but it couldn’t be anything else. Must say I agree with BENIGHTED being an old fashioned word. Must remember it’s always ONES not your as I have done that before and it caused a bit of a hold up. I took a long time to get STARRIEST even when I had all the crossers. Thanks all and also for the comment regarding the 15×15 which I am now going to try!
30. I think the “ted” in 1 across is probably a reference to Teddy Boys, who were rockers compared with mods.
    1. Why don’t you read the earlier part of this blog? Teds have been mentioned about 35 times already! Dear me!
31. I took a long time over this but got there in the end without resorting to aids. DNK tui and dithered between ‘your cards’ and ‘one’s cards’. As pointed out above, I should know by now that it is always ‘one’s’.
    FOI Tyrol
    LOI humane
    COD icehouse
    Thank you Izetti and Jeremy. Maybe I should try the 15X15 with my afternoon cup of tea
    Blue Stocking
32. Based on what everyone else has said about this classic Izetti, I’m really quite happy with my time today! TBH I wasn’t really trying to get a fast time but wanted to savour the journey, and I did. It wasn’t particularly easy but the surfaces, as you’d expect, were lovely – I liked TYROL (well, I really like the Tyrol, having spent a few days there last year), ELAPSE, CRETE, DISAGREEABLE – difficult to choose a COD.

    Having been somewhat baffled by the problem in 8a, I’ve just checked in my old Collins dictionary, and it does indeed say that the plural of the mammal in question can be otter or otters. Personally, I’ve never come across it before in relation to otters, but people might say that they’re looking for giraffe or rhinoceros on safari, for example. I guess it dates from hunting terminology, which would make sense in terms of the poor old otter that was nearly hunted to extinction. Or could it be – on this occasion – a typo?

    FOI Tyrol
    LOI Ascending
    COD Tyrol – more mountainous than rolling but beautiful
    Time 14:25

    Thanks Izetti and Jeremy

    I’ll echo the comments on the 15×15 – I did it in less than twice this one! So if you haven’t had a go yet, try it out 😊

33. Apologies for the plurality of OTTERS – must have got carried away with the little things. Otherwise grateful for appreciative comments, Izetti
    1. Thanks to Izetti for popping in with a mea culpa. Given that OTTER transpires to be also correct, I’d have been tempted to keep my head down!

       Interesting grid today with only two first letters and two end letters unchecked. Must find a way to bring BENIGHTED into everyday conversation.

       Many thanks again to Izetti and to Jeremy.
       5’15”

    2. This must be one of those rare occasions where the setter apologises for something which is in fact correct 🙂

       RR

34. Having bought a lockdown-induced Times subscription this was my first digital QC, having printed off the other one.

    DNK TUI or IDA, but guessed correctly.

    Fiddly doing it on my phone but time was similar to previous experience with paper version.

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