Times Quick Cryptic No 1649 by Pedro – Sing along with me

Author   JohninterredPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

A fun Quick Crossword with a gentle theme from Pedro today. It took an about average time for me of 5 1/4 minutes, although I think one or two clues are maybe on the tricky side for a QC. On my first pass through the clues, having got 24A, once I got to 7D, I wondered if there might be a mini-theme here and, sure enough, the remaining parts appeared. We even got a genre of music to perform, an instrument to accompany us and a recording studio to record it in. Great stuff. Thanks Pedro. So how did you all get on?

And now for the weekend. We have previously discussed and bemoaned the absence of a Quick Crossword in the Saturday Times and 6 weeks ago I posted a link to a QC-style crossword I had done (which is still available here). That seemed to be quite popular and a number of people have asked if I could do another one. So I have. I should point out this is entirely an amateur effort and I’m no match for the brilliant pro QC setters, but hopefully it will provide some weekend QC-style entertainment for those interested. The Eccentric Horticulturalist has a theme that you will need to spot to solve one of the clues. My test solvers tell me it is easier than the last one. As before, I’ve provided a solution blog too. Enjoy – I hope!

Meanwhile back to today…

Definitions underlined in bold italics, (Abc)* indicating anagram of Abc, deletions and [] other indicators.

Across
8 Normal behaviour in occupying road (7)
ROUTINE – IN inside [occupying] ROUTE (road).
9 Closed discussion? Not quite complete (5)
TOTAL – This took a little thought to parse after the anwer went in from the definition and checkers. It’s TO (closed, as in a door) TALk (discussion) without the last letter [not quite].
10 Singer’s meaning heard (5)
TENOR – Double definition. Second as in “getting the drift”. “heard” made me think homophone, but the two definitions are spelt the same. As for the vocal part, I’m a tenor.
11 Bathroom purchase fake? Not entirely dreadful (7)
SHAMPOO – SHAM (fake) POOr (dreadful) without its last letter [not entirely].
12 Early indication favouring redistribution of estate (9)
FORETASTE – FOR (favouring) [redistribution of] (estate)*
14 No source of money remains (3)
ASH – Another deletion – this time from the front [no source] cASH (money).
16 Prisoner left with silver (3)
LAG – L (left) AG (chemical symbol for silver).
18 Church staff restricting a haunt of Beatles fans? (5,4)
ABBEY ROAD – ABBEY (church) ROD (staff) outside [restricting] A. The famous recording studios. [Edit: As vinyl points out below, our setter is probably referring to the album cover location rather than the recording studio].
21 Flamboyant Queen embraced by graduate and libertine (7)
BAROQUE – A little tricky, this one, I think, but having a Q crosser helped me see it. Q {Queen) inside [embraced by] BA (graduate) and ROUE (libertine). What piece of baroque music shall we sing? I vote for Bach’s St. John Passion. We can sing along with the lockdown version here.
22 Somewhere to write about Minister (5)
PADRE – PAD (notepad; somewhere to write) RE (about).
23 Quiet one eating American and Japanese food (5)
SUSHI – SH (quiet) I (one) outside [eating] US (American).
24 Singer in small musical work hurried over (7)
SOPRANO – S (small) OP. (opus; musical work) RAN (hurried) O (over).
Down
1 Pleased most of fireplace has variety of fuel (8)
GRATEFUL – All but last letter of [most of] GRATe (fireplace) [variety of] (fuel)*
2 Someone retreating right ahead of artilleryman — not good (6)
RUNNER – R (right) gUNNER (artilleryman) without the G [not good].
3 Story-teller in bar getting upset (4)
LIAR – RAIL (bar) reversed [upset] -> LIAR.
4 Count bridge team in church with us (6)
CENSUS – NS (North and South; bridge team) in CE (Church of England) US.
5 Plan great changes in farm building (8)
STRATEGY – (great)* changes [in] STY (farm building).
6 University best, excellent, rising — an ideal place (6)
UTOPIA – U (university) TOP (best) AI (excellent) [rising] -> IA.
7 Singer displaying some ethereal tones (4)
ALTO – Hidden in [dsiplaying some] ethereAL TOnes.
13 Be slow to grasp new question without agitation (8)
TRANQUIL – TRAIL (be slow) outside [to grasp] N (new) QU (question).
15 Line of plants in border region initially brought into question (8)
HEDGEROW – EDGE (border) Region [initially] [brought into] HOW (question).
17 Dressing without top of nightie? That’s tawdry (6)
GARISH – GARnISH (dressing) [without] the [top of] Nightie.
19 Baster ruined serving of chicken (6)
BREAST – (baster)* [ruined].
20 Difficult situation of French in language exam (6)
ORDEAL – DE (of, in French) [in] ORAL (language exam).
21 Heads for Baltic after some Scandinavian fish (4)
BASS – Initial letters [heads for] of Baltic After Some Scandinavian. I do like a nice piece of sea bass steamed with lime and ginger. Oh. And here we have a final part for our choir.
22 Piano that is swamping another piano and organ part (4)
PIPE – P (piano) I.E. (id est; that is) outside [swamping] P (another Piano).

59 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 1649 by Pedro – Sing along with me”

  1. I never did figure out TOTAL; forgot that use of TO (not in my idiolect). Failed, unsurprisingly (well, I wasn’t surprised, anyway) to notice the musical theme. 6:33.
  2. An enjoyable puzzle for me – a relative newbie. Biffed 21A as I DNK ‘roue’. Thanks Pedro and John.
  3. Pulled up well before the finish line this morning. After a week of good runs I well and truly limped off the course with a nasty injury to my pride.

    Edited at 2020-07-03 05:12 am (UTC)

  4. I struggled to start and to finish this one but I was okay in between, finishing in 15 minutes. I was distracted at one point thinking that TENOR was supposed to be a homophone and had myself doubting the spelling of the word meaning ‘meaning’.

    The SOED entry for the second meaning* confirms that there is no reason to have ‘heard’ as part of the definition as it can apply to written material as well as spoken, so I can only conclude it is in the clue to add to the surface reading and/or to sow confusion in the minds of solvers.

    *tenor 1 the general sense or meaning which runs through a document, speech, etc.

    Edited at 2020-07-03 05:21 am (UTC)

        1. Yes, it would. In fact most alternatives would have been better because the “heard” was completely pointless and that’s a GR from me!
  5. All green in 17 but I was never in total control today and some answers not as parsed as fully as I would usually like. Only four on the first pass and one of those was TENOR which I wasn’t happy with until SOPRANO was fourth in – I think this is the first time I’ve had my nina suspicions confirmed as a puzzle unfolds, so BASS and ALTO were write-ins. BAROQUE is the latest word I’ve realised I’ve never really understood but it seemed close enough once I realised I might need a Q not an ER for Queen but even with that Q TRANQUIL gave me the most trouble – changed my mind about where the definition was plenty of times on the the way to filling it in – before LOI TOTAL where it was only solved when faced with T_T_L having finally got SHAMPOO and so killed off notions of GRANNERY being the farm building even though I knew there was no chance of that being an alternative spelling. Toughest of a gentle week.

    Edited at 2020-07-03 06:48 am (UTC)

  6. Found this a bit trickier in parts than yesterday and the day before, so a little over my target upper limit at 20:20. Several things I didn’t know slowed me down slightly – “tenor” being “getting the drift” was completely new to me, “roue” as “libertine” I didn’t know, and then a couple of the parsings passed me by until I finished.

    FOI: shampoo
    LOI and COD: garish

  8. I found this tough in places, and I never did parse TOTAL, but at least there were not pink squares today. I got very stuck at the end with 21a and 13d. Like mendesest I’ve never really known what BAROQUE meant so have learnt something today. I also spent time trying to get RAKE into it – I knew that libertine was a 4 letter word beginning with R but got the wrong one. For LOI TRANQUIL I was looking at the wrong end of the clue for the definition until the Q put me on the right track. Finished in 12.38 and was oblivious to the nina, as usual.
    Thanks to john
  9. … much enjoyed. I rarely finish on Fridays.

    Oh the Beatles – joyful memories of the sixties.

    An excellent puzzle, thank you.
    Diana

  10. Not my favourite Pedro I must admit; some clunky surfaces and some over-elaborate cluing (sometimes both in the same clue – looking at you, HEDGEROW). Completed in 1.8K for a Decent Day. Having not got any of the first 5 acrosses I switched to the downs, got the first 4 and then switched to the “cluster” method, proceeding Widdershins around the grid to finish in the NE. I too spent I while trying to get Cavern into 18ac!

    FOI GRATEFUL, LOI CENSUS, COD PADRE, GRs to HEDGEROW and TENOR.

    Thanks Pedro and John. Hugely looking forward to the weekend QC, John, thanks!

    Templar

  11. I was rather careless today. Going quite well I typed ABBET ROAD and failed to notice until right at the end with LOI STRATEGY correcting my mistype. I also biffed THANKFUL at 1d. That added a few minutes to undo. I also spent a long time parsing TOTAL which I did do before coming here.
    23:41 on the clock. COD to ABBEY ROAD.
    Thanks John for the extra puzzle which I will have a go at.
    David
  12. I really liked all the musical answers today. Luckily, I spotted it fairly early on and it really helped. It took me just under 23 minutes but I’m happy with that because I really don’t think that it was an easy one. I had everything parsed by the finish line except for TOTAL, which I couldn’t see even though I had realised that TAL(K) was in there. Thanks, John, for explaining that and thanks so much, too, for preparing another Saturday crossword for us. I really enjoyed your last one. I agree with Templarredux that some of the surfaces here are a bit bumpy eg 6 down UTOPIA, which was basically a list. Bit of a mixed bag, I guess, as others here are really quite smooth eg 12 across FORETASTE. Jolly good fun all round. Thanks, John, for the blog and thanks, too, to Pedro
  13. I should be most grateful if someone would explain to me why it is that I was able to finished yesterday’s puzzle in 10 minutes, but would be unlikely to finish today’s, if I sat here until Christmas.
    2. It was a badtard, couldn’t tune in at all, fair play to all that could, but me,, blumminora
  14. A bit of biffing, but delighted with <25m, especially after johninterred said it was tricky for a QC! Even more delighted to spot the the and mentally shout ALTO at the mere sight of the word “singer”

    FOI – 16a; LOI – 17d; COD – 18a

    Many thanks for the weekend homework!

  15. Tough one today I thought, but I persevered and eventually got SHAMPOO after 64 minutes (that includes some time being distracted by some pet rats). I did manage to parse everything so I can’t complain. COD to 15d. All in all, very enjoyable, so thanks Pedro and John.
  16. Started off in a random fashion, darting around the grid to get some crossing letters, before being able to settle into my stride. LIAR and LAG were my first 2 in. Spotted the musical theme, but failed to parse TOTAL and HEDGEROW. GARISH was LOI. 8:47. Thanks Pedro and John.
  17. That makes it 3 from 3 in July for me – a definite first! This was by far the slowest of the three though, and I wasn’t feeling too confident having only written in a few on the first pass. Still I got there eventually, using a theme to aid my solving for the first time: I didn’t know the second definition of TENOR, and knew neither ROUE or BAROQUE in the flamboyant sense, but they seemed too musical to be wrong.

    Some enjoyable clues today, notably ABBEY ROAD and ASH, but my favourite has to go 5d, bringing an amusing image to mind of my father who has recently renovated an old pig sty in the garden to an office. Not sure if there was much of a STRATEGY there!

    FOI: 1d GRATEFUL
    LOI: 22a PADRE
    COD: 5d STRATEGY

    Thanks to Pedro and John.

    Edited at 2020-07-03 11:15 am (UTC)

  18. I wonder if Pedro was tempted to use Milton Jones’s joke for shampoo. It’s similar to the Dublin audience who threw shamrocks at him but unfortunately they were real!
    1. Champagne gets a mention by Milton in the same routine too. Thinking of that joke was how I actually came to the answer in this case
  19. I seemed to be on the right wavelength today and biffed several clues from the checkers.
    But I couldn’t parse Total either.
    Always encouraging to get some clues straight away. FOI Routine, Grateful, Abbey Road

    LOI Census

    Was hoping for Baritone somewhere.

  20. …but quite a lot of thought needed today.
    I had to biff BAROQUE (as I didn’t know roué) and CENSUS (as I didn’t think of N&S for the ‘bridge team’) so thanks to John for the enlightenment.
    ABBEY ROAD and ORDEAL were both clever but STRATEGY has to be my COD.
    Thanks to Pedro for a great end to the week (well, apart from John’s special treat tomorrow!)
  22. ….but I doubt it would have helped. Five clues in before starting, and found some of the clues clunky. Just missed my target.

    FOI FORETASTE
    LOI CENSUS
    COD GARISH
    TIME 5:03

  23. Not my finest solve. I didn’t spot the music theme and I got stuck in the NE corner. Had I solved UTOPIA quicker I might have sneaked in on target but all I could think of was Arcadia, Elysium and Nirvana. The P was essential to me solving SHAMPOO and the T for biffing TOTAL. 14 mins. Thanks John for the explanations.
  24. I was not really in the mood today after a fraught morning so I was glad to hear that not all of our contributors found this one a doddle. Definitely the toughest of the week for me and I only just avoided th SCC. I thought TRANQUIL and BAROQUE wre testing for a QC. LOI was CENSUS. Thanks, Pedro, for putting me in my place and to John for the blog. John M.
  25. 16 minutes and small change here, so definitely at the harder end of the Rotterometer. Spotted the theme early although I’m not sure it helped much. My LOI was still BAROQUE, which I had thought of earlier, but couldn’t parse. After all the checkers were in, I revisited it and saw the elusive ROUE. Thanks for the blog John and Pedro for the challenge. Incidentally, there is an URGE or impulse hidden in the middle row, but I don’t think it means anything.
  26. Struggled quite badly with this. FOI was 16ac (!), but the downs were slightly easier. Even so, I was left with a very sparsely populated grid after the first pass. Lots of the clues seemed clunky, and progress only came in fits and starts. Agonised over the missing homophone in 10ac Tenor, and spent far too long failing to parse Total and Hedgerow (thanks, John). Towards the end it looked as though 13d was going to be a very apt LOI, but 21ac Baroque held out just long enough and pushed me a few seconds over 37 mins. Invariant
  27. A DNF for me after 60mins with 21ac and 13dn to go.

    I found this good fun but quite difficult. Annoyingly I did think of “Baroque” for 21ac, but couldn’t parse it and just couldn’t get “ER” out of my head for Queen. Looking at the blog above, not sure I would have got “Tranquil” either.

    I did spot a “singing” theme, but failed to appreciate that this extended to a wider music one (Abbey Road, Baroque etc.)

    FOI – 16ac “Lag”
    LOI – DNF
    COD – 5dn “Strategy”

    Thanks as usual.

  28. Each day my wife and I look forward to the Quick Cryptic

    Each day we are duly impressed by the wizards that complete the test in
    8 minutes and less, whilst we can spend a cumulative time of 180 minutes

    . (we can take even longer}!!!

    Sounds dreadful but the real question is, which party gets the
    greatest enjoyment ?

    G and M

    1. Some of the 15x15s take me a couple of days (on and off), and I agree that there is a definite sense of satisfaction when the penny drop moment comes with an impossible clue. If you can afford the time, enjoy the journey!
  29. 16 minutes and small change here, so definitely at the harder end of the Rotterometer. Spotted the theme early although I’m not sure it helped much. My LOI was still BAROQUE, which I had thought of earlier, but couldn’t parse. After all the checkers were in, I revisited it and saw the elusive ROUE. Thanks for the blog John and Pedro for the challenge. Incidentally, there is an URGE or impulse hidden in the middle row, but I don’t think it means anything.
    1. Sorry about these repeat posts – I have no idea why they are occurring.
  30. Not my best day, sadly – Pedro is at the top of my list for non-wavelength, although I generally enjoy his puzzles, and this was no exception. I did see the theme – hard not to with my family’s interest in music and a few personal connections too!

    At 21a, my initial reaction was Mercury (Queen were undoubtedly flamboyant – definitely BAROQUE’n’roll) although I knew it couldn’t be that! And of course I biffed Penny Lane, until ABBEY ROAD became clearer. Apart from going to the studios from time to time, I used to pass them everyday on the 139 from West Hampstead and probably crossed the zebra crossing more often the Beatles – although from a different direction and in far more mundane mode of transport! Incidentally, there’s a wonderful photo of the elderly Elgar and a very young Yehudi Menuhin standing on the steps of the studios, some time in the early 30s.

    Anyway, back to the puzzle: I liked STRATEGY and FORETASTE, agree with Templar that HEDGEROW was a bit of a clunker, and never quite parsed TOTAL, but otherwise it was a nice challenge.

    FOI Ash
    LOI Baroque
    COD Baroque
    Time just over 16 minutes

    Thanks Pedro for the memories, and John for the great blog. I’m looking forwrd to having a go at your latest effort 😊

  31. What a delightful crossword! So many lovely clues with elegant surfaces. Thank you Pedro (and John). Hard to choose COD, I do like baroque and Abbey Road but I think I’ll go for hedgerow. As an alto I’m delighted to be associated with ethereal tones.
    Blue Stocking
  32. A bridge team contains four players, so I was looking for a word containing N, S, E and W.
    N and S are better described as Bridge Partners
    1. A bridge table is N,S,E,W, a team is the two sitting opposite, I.e. N and S, or E and W. The teams compete against each other, so cannot be described as being on the same team.
  33. … and I limped home in 19 minutes, one of my slowest full finishes. Though at 1.2 Rotters (my new preferred measure) it doesn’t sound quite so bad.

    Los of biffing and groaning: needed John’s excellent blog for 9A Total (closed = to defeated me completely), didn’t see what the word heard was doing in the clue for 10A Tenor (like others I saw this as a simple double definition), didn’t think the clue for 4D Census quite right (as others have observed, a bridge team is four people not just N-S), thought 15D Hedgerow a very clunky clue, took a while to realise that the question in 13D Tranquil implied qu not just q. And so on. Sorry for being Mr Grumpy but this wasn’t my favourite QC.

    I shall look forward to John’s weekend special which I am sure will be a much more enjoyable and elegant compilation.

    A good weekend to all
    Cedric

    1. Yes a bridge game has 4 players, but an individual bridge hand is played by 2 opposing teams (partnerships) – N-S and E-W. Sorry you didn’t enjoy this and good luck with mine!
      1. John – a simple matter I think of whether we consider the bridge “team” to be the two at the table or the four that form the duplicate team. Both right, and my fault for not thinking beyond my immediate answer (in my defence I play much more duplicate these days).

        On a much happier note, I’ve just tried your Eccentric Horticulturalist puzzle. What fun, and I tried to leave a comment on your blog site. I think I failed, so I repeat it below:

        John

        Thank you for this really enjoyable crossword. It has made my Saturday so much better. And I think you have judged it just right: it took me 12 minutes, bang in line with my QC average these days; it included 2 biffs (4D Wither and 7D Army), both of which I guessed but could not parse till I read your blog (again, 2 biffs is par for me); and several chuckles. And not a single dubious GK or call for a MER.

        I’m delighted you are prepared to put in the effort for these puzzles, and I think the innovation of the cluing for 7D referring to the theme of the whole puzzle is a really nice idea.

        Thank you again
        Cedric

  34. Furthermore, in duplicate bridge, the most widely played version of the game, a team consists of 2 players and will be either N-S or E-W and compete against other teams playing the same hands. The pairs rotate so (ideally) each N-S pair plays one or more hands against each E-W pair.
  35. We thought this was quite tough in parts and easy in others. Sadly some of the tougher bits were clustered so checkers were few and far between. However, we pressed on and eventually came home in 24 minutes. Thanks to Pedro for the mental workout.

    FOI: tenor
    LOI: runner
    COD: foretaste

    Thanks to John for the blog and for creating another weekend puzzle – we’ll give it a go 😀

  36. Haha! TOTAL got me! I enjoy the challenge but not too ‘quick’ …. 🥴
  37. Thank you! What a treat to have a QC on a Saturday. I have enjoyed both of them but have been unable to comment on your page. I failed on ARMY and also made a silly error on 20d. I had SALTER. I can see how I parsed it but, how I thought it answered the clue, I shall never know. Those resulted in a DNF but, nevertheless, I felt that it was set just right as it took me about 20 minutes (my QC target time). MM
    FOI: ORIGAMI
    COD: WITHER
  38. We have just completed your puzzle John and really enjoyed it. Some lovely clues and we were only really held up by 7D when we eventually biffed “grey” to complete the puzzle.

    Really appreciate the hard work and creativity you put in to creating the challenge.

  39. Most of this one didn’t get past pencil! Needed aids too to verify some. Didn’t spot the theme either! 18a had me wondering about fab.. – four having ruled out the cavern very early on. Limped home after several restarts over Fri, Sat and Sunday. Glad to have checked my pencil work here as now I can have a go at ‘the eccentric horticulturalist’ – I thoroughly enjoyed the last one, so add my thanks for another.
  40. Lol
    Still couldn’t finish
    Know nothing about bridge so 4d a no-no.
    Got stuck with RA For artilleryman in 2d
  41. A bridge team contains four players, so I was looking for a word containing N, S, E and W.
    N and S are better described as Bridge Partners

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