Times Quick Cryptic No 1602 by Orpheus

38 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 1602 by Orpheus”

1. ….are exercises in getting an idea first, and then coming back later and using it. I suppose the fastest solvers use their idea right away, but it seems to need to sit in my brain for a few minutes before it resolves into the answer. I had ‘land’, ‘deb’, ‘Ur’ and ‘son’ as components, and every time I came back to the clue I saw the answer at once. Strange, how the brain can keep working in the background.

   With this unconscious multi-tasking, I cam in at a respectable 8:35, including a 30-second proofreading. I’ve been error-free for more than a month.

   1. I find I quite often put the answers in and the parsing follows while I’m solving the next clue or even later. Then sometimes the answer to a clue pops up without having to re-read it. I didn’t stop long enough to parse CROUTON today, though. 3:39.

      Edited at 2020-04-29 07:58 am (UTC)

2. No problems that I can recall. Biffed CROUTON and DEBUTANTE, parsed post-submission. Like Vinyl, I think, I was expecting DEB to be part of some other word. UR shows up rather too often as ‘ancient city’ or some variation on that. On RESISTANT: I think it’s RE-SIT as a noun, not ‘exam’ as a verb. 5:03.
3. My week creeps towards respectability. Done in 21m but with a pink square for the wonky U in LANDOWNUNG. Only 2 acrosses went in on the first pass and followed up with only 5 downs, so things were looking bleak. Then build from the bottom up enjoying, or at least appreciating, the clues as I went. Ignorance once again being my undoing – never heard of NORMA nor the ARNO. Arno was a great hidden, plenty of red herrings in a short clue. Also enjoyed THREE WHEELER – lots of Es in the anagrist – and because I like a clue where a lot is going on, AUDIO. Thankfully halfway through what has been a tricky solving week for me.
   1. Remember her; Norma (along with Aida) shows up a lot.
4. 8 minutes. Wot Kevin sed about RE-SIT. Liked the ELATED GIBBON in the 7th row!
5. Nothing too testing today, but no less enjoyable for it. It took me longer than it should have done to get 1a where I assumed that ABE would be involved in some way and the parsing of CROUTON needed some unravelling. My favourite was RESISTANT as the wordplay and answer pretty much summed up my academic career. Finished in 10.28 with LOI AITCH.
   My thanks to Jeremy
6. 20 minutes, exactly on my target, but with more biffing than usual. There seemed to be a lot of ‘usual suspects’ from crosswordland so I think beginners may struggle a bit.
   LOI was AITCH.
   Thanks to Orpheus and Jeremy

   Brian

7. I enjoyed this thanks Orpheus and plusjeremy. I wonder how long it will be before the capital of Harrow will be Haithch? I’ve heard adverts for Haitch SBC and frequent use of the extra letter from actors, presenters and continuity announcers even on the beeb. Maybe they think there is nothink wrong – maybe anythink goes 🙁
8. I failed to get four of the acrosses in the middle at first pass so this was a sandwich solve, having to get the filling after I’d assembled the bread. Maybe this is why my wife makes the picnics. Once I’d gone back and filled in the blanks, including a loooooong time staring at C_O_T_N, it was 2K and a Decent Enough Day. Also wasted some time at 15ac looking for an eastern race beginning EPA for the reversed primate. I don’t think DOSSER for “tramp” is polite usage any more.

   FOI PRESIDENTIAL, LOI CROUTON, COD AITCH.

   Jolly good fun, thank Orpheus, and thanks for the very informative blog, Jeremy.

   Templar

9. An enjoyable solve which took me longer than most of the above but none the worse for that. I had to jump around the grid a lot before getting a proper foothold in the S and SE and working steadily upwards. 4 Mins over target (all parsed, unlike some) but with too many smiles and doh moments to list so I won’t bore you. It would be quicker to list the few clues I didn’t like a lot. I found plenty of imagination and novelty (apart from the ever-useful UR) but then I am developing a bit of a ‘wipe-clean’ memory and just deal with clues as I see them rather than consciously pulling in past experiences. LOsI were AITCH & DOSSER. Many thanks to Orpheus and to Jeremy for a good blog. John M.
10. I can’t explain why my LOI was 1a PRESIDENTIAL but it didn’t delay my solve too much. I biffed CROUTON, LANDOWNING and DEBUTANTE but parsed all post solve without resorting to the blog. FOI ASIA and COD POLES APART. 1.9K and within target. Thanks to Orpheus and Jeremy for the additional information in the blog.
11. Just inside target range at a few seconds short of 15 minutes. I too wanted Abe to be in 1a, and in the end this was my LOI. I liked AITCH and POLES APART. Thanks both.
12. I found the NW was RESISTANT to my efforts, so worked the puzzle in a clockwise direction from the NE. NORMA was my FOI, and a few more of the downs from the top row allowed me to pop in the PRESIDENT. CROUTON and DEBUTANTE were biffed. A biffed MILES APART, OBSCURED 11a for a while, but STATURE put me right and I was all done in 8:06. Thanks Orpheus and Jeremy.
13. On paper today but never really on the wavelength. My last 5 or 6 were all hopeful biffs. LOI was GIBBON after CROUTON. COD to DOSSER also solved near the end. 13 minutes on the clock so not bad for me.
    My first thought at 12a was Deb so that helped later at 13d.
    This was a puzzle where you could get enjoyably stuck so thanks to Orpheus for a good challenge.
    David
14. Again fast to start with, helped by POLES APART but stuck in SE corner for a while not helped by guessing Baboon at first. Of course answers seemed obvious once solved, though stuck on DOSSER too.
    Thanks all round as ever.
15. ….I picked up speed, and roared home in 0.67K

    THREE-WHEELER brought back memories of my Reliants – a Regal 3/25, followed by a Supervan 3 (which is actually what Del Boy had – the Robin came later). They were both very unreliable, and I now shudder at the memory of flogging the van up and down the M6 every weekend when I came home from working in Birmingham.

    FOI ASIA
    LOI PAR
    COD DOSSER

16. I rather like the idea of a presidential three-wheeler – the outriders would probably be on scooters!

    Whenever I see Lincoln, I still tend to think of green or imp first, even though it’s nearly always Abe!

    Not too many problems today although DOSSER held me up for too long, taking me well over the 10 minutes I thought I was going to get at one point. Never mind – it was still below my 12 min par so counts as An OK Day.

    FOI Obscure
    LOI Dosser
    COD Aitch
    Time 11:08

    Thanks Orpheus and Jeremy

17. I made this harder than it should have been by looking at the wrong end of the clue in 1ac, and then trying to work Abe or green into the answer. A pity, because the other long answers all went in without too much difficulty, but the lack of those initial letters made the NW corner distinctly tricky. I was also slow to spot the Aitch/Horse pairing, despite having seen variations of both clues several times before. One day they will stick. Limped over the line just north of 25 mins. Invariant
18. DNF thanks to DOSSER, CROUTON & GIBBON. Not an easy puzzle.
19. DOSSER my LOI and COD – I note The Knight’s Templar has been at the smelling salts again over this impolite usage. It is simply a word in a crossword puzzle, my dear! Did you further note that J. Bloggs used the word ‘actress’ – and jaunty!!

    Time 6m.30s.

    FOI 1ac PRESIDENTIAL – another word that has been largely devalued recently!

    WOD 24ac THREE WHEELER – in ‘Gween’s Dictionary of Slang’ this expwession is slightly beyond the pale. Where’s the ‘sal volatile’?

    Edited at 2020-04-29 01:14 pm (UTC)

20. We made steady progress through the grid and then struggled with crouton and scorch because we originally incorrectly biffed landowners and not landowning – which is obviously the right answer. So we were at least 10 mins over our target.

    FOI: presidential
    LOI: stature (have never heard of Ur, but stature was the only possible answer)
    COD: landowning

    Thanks Orpheus and Jeremy

    1. Ur-um – vide Kevin above! UR is crossword ground-zero! It is biblical!
       1. Well, let’s hope I remember next time 😀
21. ..but I came to a standstill at 12A as I’m not familiar with ‘U’ for ‘posh’ and I was trying to think of a Sloaney name. I came back to this when ‘Norma’ and ‘Debutante’ meant that it couldn’t be anything other than ‘Audio’ but I didn’t know why so thanks, Jeremy.
    Our friends from Poland are getting a lot of mentions just lately but it was an enjoyable clue.
    My COD is ‘Debutante’ for its cleverness.
    A quick time for me at seconds over 15 minutes so thanks too to Orpheus.
    1. I didn’t know “U” for Posh until I started doing the 15×15 – but it does crop up here from time to time. Still don’t know why “U” means posh though.

       Edited at 2020-04-29 01:50 pm (UTC)

       1. Thanks James
          I’ve just looked up ‘U’ online and it is indeed used to refer to upper social classes – maybe it’s short for ‘Upper’. I’ll try to remember it in future.
          Glad you enjoyed today’s solve apart from ‘Users’. I’m sure we’ll both get better with practice!
       2. U stands for Upper Class and non-U for middle class, according to Nancy Mitford’s book “Noblesse Oblige” – obligatory reading for aspiring debutantes (13d) in the fifties.

          I don’t understand the answer to 8a. What has Conway got to do with it?

          1. A Sian is a welsh girl from which your remove the central letter of coNwy to get the answer
          2. Thanks for that…simpler than I thought.
22. Was happily on my way to a 20 min solve when I got hung up on 4dn. This is a bizarre repetition from yesterday’s solve when I couldn’t finish that either.

    Nothing wrong with “Dosser” but, like may answers sometimes, wasn’t the first that popped into my head when I thought of Tramp.

    Other than – some really nice clues.

    FOI – 1ac “Presidential”
    LOI – DNF
    COD – 18ac “Aitch”

    Thanks as usual.

23. I liked DOSSER and GIBBON, being an idle primate myself. I know that we were looking for the rough sleeper definition, but I would tend to use DOSSER to describe a lazy person.

    LOI was LANDOWNING, and I had to stare at it for quite a a while before completion in a very slightly under my target 6 mins and 49 seconds.

    I never quite got round to parsing CROUTON, so thanks for that!

24. No real problems today but held up by having biffed “intestate” at 2dn. Couldn’t parse it but it had test in it and seemed to mean unwilling! Took longer than I should have therefore to solve the really quite straightforward 1ac.

    FOI – 14ac elated
    LOI – 18ac aitch
    COD – got to go to 10dn – loved it.

25. Is tramp presidentially non-U?
    Good fun today with no real hold ups.
    My thanks to Orpheus and Jeremy.
    5’10”
26. … and a 12 minute solve for me, though I didn’t parse 7D Landowning as I didn’t associate W and N with quarters. Yet another thing to add to the book of Things To Remember. It is growing to be quite a tome!

    We seem to have had quite a few Poles recently, what with Maypoles aplenty. And horses, after the Mare yesterday. I wonder if the setters ever confer, either to set a theme or even just to avoid repeating answers.

    Thanks to Orpheus, and Jeremy for the blog
    Cedric

    Edited at 2020-04-29 04:41 pm (UTC)

27. Exam is not a verb. Re-sit is a noun here.
    1. When you come to a puzzle late in the day and there are already some 30+ comments beneath the original blog it’s not a bad idea to check whether somebody has already made the point you have in mind. The explanation re ‘exam’ was given in the second comment posted at 02:02 am – 16 hours before your contribution!
28. It’s possible he just missed the previous explanation. Sadly we’re not all as perfect as you

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