Times Quick Cryptic No 1729 by Felix

Author   JohninterredPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

A bit of a tester to finish the week from Felix, I think. I was held up at the end by my LOI 1A, not knowing the Dickensian character despite the hint in another clue. I also failed to spot one of the hidden answers for some time, finishing in 6:44 – well over my target time. Some nice clues though. My favourite for the great surface is the bibulous 10A, although I did enjoy the reminder of my first job at 11A. Thank-you Felix. How did everyone else get on? [Edit: There is a bit of a literary theme – thanks Kevin for spotting that; see his comment below].

Fortnightly Weekend Quick Cryptic. This time it is my turn to provide the weekend entertainment. You can find my amateur quick cryptic crossword entitled A Vegetarian Feast here. Enjoy! I think it is easier than today’s, but will be interested to hear how you find it. And if anyone would like to try any of our previous offerings you can find an index to them here.

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

Across
1 Harsh Dickensian Dr — niggard, sadly (9)
GRADGRIND – (Dr niggard)* [sadly]. DNK this but the only way the remaining letters coiuld fit with all the checkers. A character from Hard Times, Charles Dickens’ 10th and shortest novel.
6 Tom, perhaps, starts off cold, afterwards tender (3)
CAT –  First letters of [starts off] Cold Afterwards Tender.
8 Boxes, mostly thin on the ground (5)
SPARS – SPARSe (thin on the ground) [mostly].
9 Catalogue is quite miserable, being somewhat reduced (7)
ITEMISE – Hidden [being somewhat reduced] in quITE MISErable. It took me a while longer than it should have done to spot this was a hidden word.
10 Region for French wine: borders of Champagne (8)
PROVINCE – PRO (for) VIN (French for wine) and the outside letters of [borders of] ChampagnE.
11 Solid fuel, fine stored in church (4)
COKE – OK (fine) inside [stored in] CE (Church of England). In my first job I worked on the by-products plant at the coke ovens in South Bank, Middlesbrough, so I know all about coke.
13 Girl, behold, one in America (6)
LOUISA – LO (behold) I (one) [in] USA (America).
15 Rocks passed in the middle, concealing fish (6)
SHAKES – Middle letters [in the middle] of paSSed outside [concealing] HAKE (fish). Not SLINGS, as I tried in vain to get to work.
17 Urban area to west — and London’s east end (4)
TOWN – TO W (west) and last letter [east end] of LondoN.A little tricky this one – a common device is to refer to points of the compass, Conventionally, across clues are described as going west to east (and down clues from north to south). By extension “east end” becomes the last letter.
18 Worn out, as mostly predicted, strangely (8)
DECREPIT – Anagram [strangely] of (predicted)* [mostly].
21 Blackguard’s jumper (7)
BOUNDER – Double definition.
22 Poet’s line recalled in good French (5)
BYRON – RY (railway; line) [recalled] -> YR, [in] BON (good in French).
24 Stop a goal (3)
END – Double definition.
25 Titanic, possibly, the start of Hard Times: pa’s awful! (9)
STEAMSHIP – Anagram [awful] of [the start of] (Hard Times pa’s). And a clean sweep of definitions at the front of the across clues! Also a hint as to where you will find the character at 1A… which didn’t help me as I have never read it.
Down
1 Endlessly pant for air (3)
GAS – [Endlessly] GASp (pant).
2 Nearly all with a second mission (5)
ALAMO – [Nearly] ALl , A MO (a second). The mission was the location for the famous 1836 battle.
3 Windiest in August, I established (8)
GUSTIEST – Hidden in [in] AuGUST I ESTablished.
4 Stupidity of ten caught in awful DIY (6)
IDIOCY – IO (looks like 10; ten)  C (caught), inside [in] (DIY)* [awful].
5 Pass on first of tips in attempt to lose weight (4)
DIET – DIE (pass on) [first of] Tips.
6 Wind round and round, in crack (7)
CHINOOK – O O (round letter and round letter) [in] CHINK (crack).
7 Article, black, prepared for wealthy people (3,3,3)
THE JET SET – THE (article) JET (black) SET (prepared).
10 Pleasant friend getting a place in restaurant (9)
PALATABLE – PAL (friend) A TABLE (place in a restaurant).
12 Young creature: I’m holding her little angels! (8)
CHERUBIM – CUB (young creature) I’M outside [holding] HER. Read all about them here.
14 Relaxed after countries coming together are insulting (7)
UNWOUND – UN (United Nations; countries coming together) WOUND (are insulting) [after].
16 Her SAE transported in black car? (6)
HEARSE – (Her SAE)* [transported]. The vehicle for one’s final journey. I’ve never seen one that wasn’t black.
19 Forward Hearts found in Scottish city (5)
PERTH – PERT (forward) H (Hearts). The football team Heart of Midlothian, aka Hearts, are an Edinburgh team. St. Johnstone is the most notable Perth team
20 Publicity notice detective sergeant puts on (4)
ADDS – AD (publicity notice) DS (detective sergeant).
23 Pinch secret code after turning up (3)
NIP – PIN (secret code) reversed [after turning up] -> NIP.

43 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 1729 by Felix”

  1. Full of many words unknown to me but I finished out the week, finally getting one all correct!
  2. I didn’t think anything of GRADGRIND, didn’t notice Hard Times; but if I recall, Gradgrind’s children are Tom and Louisa, she marries BOUNDERby, and the story takes place in COKE TOWN. ON EDIT: and Bounderby’s housekeeper is Mrs. SPARSIT. If I had noticed, I might not have blithely typed in LOUISE. 6:09 but.

    Edited at 2020-10-23 05:28 am (UTC)

    1. Well spotted. Thanks, Kevin. Now you’ve got me wondering if there are any more references, so I had a look here and found Mrs SPARSIT appears in 8A/9A…. and I see you edited your comment as I was writing this!

      Edited at 2020-10-23 07:19 am (UTC)

    2. I spotted a Nina!! (OK, it was pretty well signposted.) But of course Kevin was there first. BOUNDERBY appears in full by reading across, like SPARSIT.
  3. An enjoyable struggle, taking me 10 minutes over my target of 20. I spent a long time on DECREPIT after a mis-typing error, and SHAKES took me longer than it should have done.
    All my Dickens knowledge comes from TV adaptations and I’ve never seen Hard Times, so 1A was my LOI and a DNK. I finally entered it as a ‘best guess’, and as usual the clever theme spotted by Kevin passed me by.
    Thanks to Felix for the puzzle and to John for the blog.

    Brian

    Edited at 2020-10-23 05:42 am (UTC)

  4. All green in a shade under 15. Eight on the first pass of acrosses which is about as good as it gets but I knew I was going to struggle with the clues I passed over. The NW was tough because I’ve never heard of GRADGRIND and didn’t know ALAMO was a mission, so those alone made for a nervous few seconds after pressing submit. CHERUBIM held me up before I realised I was solving a down clue and ‘holding’ might not mean ‘contains’ and so did CHINOOK which went in unparsed – I though the crack was the ‘nook’ the ‘in’ was literal and had no idea how to get CH from ’round and round’ (well done Felix!) – and it most readily brings up associations with helicopters not wind in my mind. I’m not sure I’ve seen IO for ten before, I liked that – and was certainly trying to force an X in for a while.
  5. 11 minutes. I lost time parsing CHERUBIM, an answer I more or less biffed although I had most of the checkers.

    I knew CHINOOK from the helicopter.

    I knew GRADGRIND as a character from a classic book I probably ought to have read, but had no idea which one nor even that it was Dickens. Since I’ve never read Dickens (I tried a few chapters of Pickwick Papers once and that was enough for me) I rely on film and TV adaptations for my knowledge of his work but it seems Hard Times has never been filmed since the silent era and on TV it has been done twice, but long ago, both of which I missed. In the 1994 version Bob Peck was Mr Gradgrind, and in 1977 he was played by Patrick Allen – remember him in his helicopter in the Barratt Homes commercials? Not a CHINOOK, though.

    Edited at 2020-10-23 06:29 am (UTC)

    1. Jackkt, you really should try revisiting Dickens – his work is mostly a delight, wonderful names and stories with plenty of humour.
      1. Yes, I’ve enjoyed many of them as classic films (e.g. by David Lean) and TV series, particularly the ones seen as Children’s TV serials in the 1950’s, but it’s not my kind of reading material these days.
  6. FOI 1a; LOI 20d; COD 6d. 1hr 7 min. But the significant thing about today’s QC is its number, associated with Srinivasa Ramanujan and GH Hardy. It is the smallest number expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways.
    1. Thanks. Very interesting. I see there is a Wikipedia entry here that explains the origin of the name (and that it is also called a taxicab number) and some other interesting properties.
    2. What an interesting point about the Ramanujan number! I couldn’t stop myself looking up the cube root of 1729 to see if this was also a whole number, thereby breaking Fermat’s last theorem, and it is close to doing that – 12.00231…. but not close enough! Fermat stated that no three positive integers a, b, and c satisfy the equation an + bn = cn for any integer value of n greater than 2. (n here should be superscript to represent the power to which a, b and c are raised, but I don’t know how to do that on my iPad). Andrew Wiles proved Fermat right in 1994, some 357 years after he made his conjecture.
  7. I found this was quite tricky in places and I wasn’t helped by my almost complete lack of Dickens knowledge – I needed all the checkers for 1a before trying to put the letters into some sort of sensible order. I spent too much time on PROVINCE but ended up staring blankly at the 9a/6d intersection for a while. Eventually ITEMISE went in which led to CHINOOK – I’m familiar with the helicopter but never knew what it was named after. Finished in 14.47
    Thanks to Felix for the educational and enjoyable puzzle and to John for the blog.
  8. Well over my target coming in at 20:54 today, but with an enjoyable crossword throughout. Lots of good clues today and a couple of NHOs – Gradgrind, blackguard (still not sure what this is).

    FOI: CAT
    LOI: SPARS
    COD: PROVINCE for its nice surface

    1. Blackguard, pronounced “blaggered”, is just another outmoded term for scoundrel, bounder or cad. These days we’d use something considerably coarser I suspect !
  9. Tough in parts. My erratic solve was interrupted so I have no precise time but it must have been in the high teens. I’m afraid I was caught by the well-hidden ITEMISE until I got crossers and, like Kevin, I wrote Louise for 13a. I liked IDIOCY, PROVINCE, CHERUBIM, and PALATABLE raised a grin. Thanks to Felix and John. John M.
  10. Heavy going today. Have never read Hard Times so had to get the checkers for 1ac and even then carelessly wrote in GRANGRIND. Had to dodge around the grid a lot and revisit quite a number of clues several times before the penny dropped. Didn’t parse CHINOOK or STEAMSHIP but did know that the helicopter was named after a wind.

    FOI – 5ac CAT
    LOI – 9ac ITEMISE
    COD – 4dn IDIOCY

  11. Another DNF ends a poor week, with a less than 50% completion rate. I’m obviously off the pace, not even spotting the 1729, even after reading Hardy’s classic short book “A Mathematician’s Apology” this Monday.

    Thanks John for the blog and let’s hope for a better finish rate next week.

  12. Well after two DNFs in a row, I was pleased to finish this even if it did take me 48:53. Unlike the aforementioned DNFs, it was a satisfying solve with lots to chew over, but nothing too difficult. A gradual grind (or GRADGRIND) if you will. I also like it when you get taught something and for me it was a bit about Hard Times, about which I knew nothing, and that a CHINOOK could also be a wind (though I might just have come across that before). I had “cyclone” down for a while until SHAKES put paid to it. Oh, and I needed reminding what a blackguard is too. FOI 11a, LOI 9a, COD 10d WsOD DECREPIT and BOUNDER. Thanks Felix and John
  13. Didn’t know that the helicopter Chinook was named after a föhn wind. (Always happy to extend my vocab.) Knew Gradgrind which helped FOI. Short ones also solved quickly, plus steamship and Louise. Oh dear, shd have been Louisa.

    Liked Bounder and Palatable. Was really slow to see Itemise LOI.

    Enjoyable though. Thanks all.

    Edited at 2020-10-23 09:35 am (UTC)

  14. Just inside 15 minutes for me whilst waiting for a non-existent dental appointment. I have read most Dickens, including Hard Times, but the theme passed me by. LOI BYRON, FOI GRADGRIND. Nice puzzle, thanks both.
  15. A Felix Friday and hard work. FOI was HEARSE after looking at several clues. I biffed Provence and Louise but realised I needed to look at the parsings; glad I did and corrections made. Last two were CHINOOK -I could see the word fitted but needed several looks to get the parsing; and LOI was ITEMISE- interesting that several others had that as LOI.
    My Dickens was up to it although I have not read Hard Times. Accordingly missed the theme.
    Very clever puzzle and a tough QC. 18:20. David
  16. … with the GK familiar (even the wind) and a 9.30 finish to end a generally Good Week. COD to 10A Province – nice clue and close enough to Provence (which is not close to Champagne!) to get me dreaming of sunny days and lovely wine in the South of France.

    Very much looking forward to our fortnightly Saturday special; thanks John in advance. Thank you also for the blog, and a good weekend to all
    Cedric

      1. Yes! A number of us were bemoaning the lack of a QC in the paper at the weekend. We got the cold shoulder from the Puzzle Editor but lo – two saviours arose among us, and John and Phil have been composing weekend QCs to bring joy to the world once a fortnight. If you look at the intro to John’s blog, you’ll see a link to the latest one.

        The puzzles have been really good – well-constructed (as you would expect from those two ninja solvers) and lots of fun.

        1. Indeed they are great fun. And impressively, John and Phil have hit exactly the right level for a QC right from the first one – my solve times are bang in line with my average weekday solves. That is some achievement.

          Even more impressively, they have avoided any controversy, dodgy clues, complaints or anything like that. If you want to see how a setter can go wrong and cause a serious level of complaining, have a look at the 15×15 blog today. 65 entries or so at the time of writing and fully 50 of them lambasting the setter and editor!

          Cedric

      2. It’s a reference to the Weekend Quick Cryptic crossword. See the link in the blog intro.
  17. For once I remembered a setter’s propensity for Ninas, looked for one and spotted it. So satisfying.

    Quite a chewy puzzle, though the top half I found a lot easier than the bottom. Throighly enjoyable.

    FOI GRADGRIND, LOI (appropriately) END, COD BOUNDER, time 2.1K for what should go down as a bad day but which I am reclassifying as a Good Day because the Nina pleasure!

    Many thanks John and Felix.

    Templar

  18. A satisfying end to the week after yesterday’s struggle. At one point they were going in quick enough for a sub-20, but the SE corner and my general ignorance of anything Dickensian (beyond Scrooge & Tiny Tim) put paid to that. I very nearly put Louise for 13ac, wondering where the ‘e’ came from, before the penny dropped. After 22mins, I spent another couple agonising over loi Gradgrind vs Grangridd (both equally implausible) before luckily opting for the former. CoD to 10ac Province. Invariant
  19. Another Very Good Day at the end of A Very Good Week! Most days have been under 10 minutes, with three being under 7:30. This will be a fluke and I am expecting lots of struggles and DNFs next week.

    Although I’ve only read a bit of Dickens at school, I was aware of GRADGRIND, so that went in straightaway – however I know nothing about his family, so the nina was lost on me! I noticed that the recent David Coperfield film is on Prime now – great fun if you haven’t seen it 😊

    FOI Gradgrind LOI Itemise – I’m another one who couldn’t see the hidden for a while COD Gas – simple but effective Time 7:30

  20. I was slow to start but, once I got going, everything started to flow and I finished just over my target at 16 minutes.
    NHO GRADGRIND so completely missed the Nina, DNK IO for ten and I had to biff PERTH.
    There were many fine clues including the two hiddens ITEMISE and GUSTIEST (what a lovely word!) and I particularly enjoyed PALATABLE which raised a much-needed smile now that my area of France is in a high alert zone.
    Thanks to Felix for a great puzzle and to John for the informative blog.
  21. in respect of the NINA.

    Biffed ITEMISE – slightly mortified to discover it was a hidden….Also, on review, I noticed that though I had carelessly entered PROVENCE at 10ac, putting in GUSTIEST at 3d automatically corrected my error.

    Otherwise no real hold ups, and a time of 6:16.

  22. Zipped through half of it, then struggled with the rest. Took a while to spot ITEMISE and to see BYRON and why it was CHERUBIM. Guessed PERTH: does PERT = forward? An enjoyable end to the week.
  23. ….”Hard Times” indeed ! My lack of Dickensian reading was revealed earlier, but I do know a lot of the synopses, so I spotted GRADGRIND, and noted COKETOWN as I passed through. The rest passed me by (although I’ve heard of Bounderby).

    FOI GRADGRIND
    LOI PERTH
    COD SPARS
    TIME 4:30 (which puts me 12th on the board. That, 14 hours after publication, supports the view that this was tricky !)

  24. Full of many words unknown to me but I finished out the week, finally getting one all correct!
  25. A late one for me and a DNF as I incorrectly put Cyclone for 6dn. As a result this stuffed me for 9ac and 15ac.

    When will I ever learn that if it doesn’t seem to parse, and I’m unsure, then it’s probably wrong??!!!

    Other than that – very enjoyable although I’ve never read Hard Times so had to guess 1ac.

    FOI – 1dn “Gas”
    LOI – dnf
    COD – 10ac “Province”

    Thanks as usual.

  26. Got really deceived by this clue and was insistent on Stones for Rocks (was also in another recent QC?). Pleased with myself when I found tone fish In Wikipedia. Took long deliberation over Cherubim to set me straight.
  27. Thank you, John, for a lovely Sunday (busy yesterday) challenge. I took 12:44 for this one so was surprised to find that some thought it quite tough. My target is 20 minutes so that is a good time for me. I was obviously on the wavelength (the theme definitely helped!!). MM (Anonymous so I can’t comment on your actual puzzle page. – Sorry)

    FOI: 1a but I first put PEPPER which was hastily changed to POTATO!
    LOI: 4a BEAMER – not good on cricket references.
    COD: 13a CARROT – but there were many superb clues.

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