Times Quick Cryptic No 1748 by Rongo

57 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 1748 by Rongo”

1. And so we have our 3rd consecutive QC without a clue at 1ac which leaves us with a bunch of unchecked letters at the beginning of words all around the grid. I must see if I can find the statement from months ago in which one of the editors (Richard or David) said this type of grid was to be discontinued for QC puzzles.

   Maybe this distracted me, but I took a while to get properly under way and I needed every minute of my target 10 to complete the task.

   Further stats on the setter, Rongo, are that this is his 49th puzzle having given us his first with QC#12 back in 2014. He averaged 8.5 puzzles a year 2014-2018, but last year gave us only 4 in total, and this year to date it’s only 2.

   Edited at 2020-11-19 05:54 am (UTC)

   1. Ah, thanks for the better stats than what I dredged up! Yes I thought I remembered the name more than I would have had his appearances always been that infrequent – I’ll be cheering for a bit more Rongo after today!
2. There certainly were a lot of baggage words in this puzzle, which gave me a woozy, anti-Ximenean sort of feeling. But upon reading your blog, it is clear that every word is accounted for. Especially surprising was the triple definition in 22 Down, which I’d missed entirely.
   1. Anti-Ximenean? Does that mean you felt the setter wasn’t following Crossword ‘rules’? But you changed your mind after reading the blog.
      1. I think Jeremy just means that you can get an impression of superfluous words when doing a puzzle – small things can stick out, like perhaps the “to” in 16ac that shouldn’t strictly be there (other than to service a smoother surface reading). And then a closer look shows that impression wasn’t quite the case.
3. I seem to be the first of the other end of the spectrum solvers. Only five on the first pass of acrosses and a sense that the ones I couldn’t do would not yield easily – in fact with 9m minutes gone I still had 11 clues to go. Finished in 23m with aids (CCD) and I still spelled PANORAMA wrong. So miles off the wavelength and in much need of the roly’s blog to see what was going on. Now I’ve read the blog I see there was a lot to like that I didn’t appreciate. If only I was a better solver, this wouldn’t have been such a joyless experience! Fingers crossed for a 1a tomorrow.

   Edited at 2020-11-19 06:37 am (UTC)

4. Where is everyone? I too found this a joyless experience.
   It bothered me for all of 19 minutes – I just never seemed to get going. Mr. Rongo is a wrongun.

   FOI 21ac MATTER – perhaps Matt Busby!? It is Sir Matt! This will have Kevin in a tizz!

   LOI 9ac INHALE really!? Vapid.

   COD 1dn JAUNDICE – which eluded me for ages.

   WOD sadly nothing of interest, other than the Old Trafford legend.

   1. Why would I, or indeed anyone, get in a tizz (I’ve actually never been in one, but) about a crossword puzzle? Given the def, and ER, I assumed that there was a Matt Busby somewhere; and indeed, it seems that there was.
   2. I always check your posts, horryd, but you do seem to be a bit more of a 12a today – your avatar would be pleased. It took me a minute longer than you but I still found quite a lot to enjoy. I don’t see Rongo as a ‘wrongun’ and hope we don’t have to wait another 6 months or so for his next QC. However, as you say, it is interesting that there are still so few posts, even at almost 10am. Yours in fellow(solver)ship. John. 😉

      Edited at 2020-11-19 10:10 am (UTC)

   3. What do the abbreviations FOI, LOI, COD and WOD mean in your post? I have seen others use them.

      Thank you.

      1. Last One In
         First One In
         Clue Of the Day
         Word Of The Day
         All can be found in the blog glossary –
         https://sites.google.com/view/tft-glossary/home

         Brian P

      2. FOI = first one in
         LOI = last one in
         COD = clue of the day
         WOD = word of the day

         These definitions are available in the glossary for which there exists a link somewhere. If, like me, you solve on an iPad, the link is harder to find.

         1. I don’t think that WOD (tizz?) is in the Glossary, so hard to find anyway.
            Sorry for being a 12ac but after Munich, Busby was a demi-god, In charge of the ‘Holy Trinity’ – Charlton Best Law, an old religion that hardly existed stateside.
            I’m only being me. horryd
5. Amp is the SI Unit of current. I is a common symbol as in V=IR
   1. I is the inyernstionally recognised symbol for current. No idea of the derivation
6. Let me join mendesest towards ‘the other end’. A mix of easy, quirky, and downright hard. I took just 20 on mins after a series of trips around the grid (yes, a 3rd with no 1ac – this is a conspiracy). I liked PANORAMA, MISERY, BEAT IT, UNIVERSE, TROPHY, and I thought ORAL was a nice construction. However, MATTER took me a while (despite living through Man U’s glory days in Manchester) and I’m still musing over TILL – was it very clever or just too clever? Anyway, a fascinating workout from Rongo and a much-needed, clear blog from Roly. Thanks to both. John M.

   Edited at 2020-11-19 10:07 am (UTC)

7. I thought this was a bit tricky and the clueing is dodgy here and there in my opinion. Matt Busby will favour the older crossworders – anyone less than about 40 will more readily think about Sir Alex. What even some of us older ones may not know was that Busby was actually Sir Alexander Matthew Busby – so the first Sir Alex. Btw I totally missed the anagram gaff yesterday – saw it as skeletal straight away! Thanks all
8. This one took me an embarrassingly long time to complete, but I managed to get 41 answers myself before I called it a day and came here.

   7a I didn’t get, but when I looked at the answer I smiled; I thought it was a great clue. Very clever!

   5d I managed to get as I am currently playing a game called Atlas on my Xbox, and in that game, I had just built a ship of this kind.

   A typo of mine in 18d prevented mine from answering 24a for a long time. When I noticed my error, I could have slapped myself in the face. However, my working out of 18d, despite the typo, lifted my spirits somewhat as, when I read the clue I almost immediately understood what it was trying to get me to do to get the answer.

   21a I had to Google the word “Busby”. I kept thinking of a Coldstream Guard’s black hat, and the yellow/orange bird from years ago that used to advertise the Post Office telephone service as it was back then. Google told me that the Post Office bird was spelt with a Z. I did notice that the word Busby was written with a capital letter, which made me wonder of it was a person. Google gave me Matt Busy, which then brought a word to my mind, which was the answer.

   So, although it did take an awful long time for me to complete (too bad to admit the time here) I am feeling pleased with myself for the number of answers I did get.

   Edited at 2020-11-19 10:08 am (UTC)

   1. Never be embarrassed by your solving time, I salute your perseverance.
   2. Yes agree fully with danny – the times are just here to give an idea of relative difficulty. It would be both meaningless and dispiriting to compare your performance with people who have been doing these things for years, like me. It sounds like you’re enjoying the learning curve which is exactly the right attitude.
   3. I’m trying to work out how you got 41 answers when the grid only poses 26 clues!!! MM
9. FOI GLAD and quick progress after that until several clues held me up. I made wrong assumptions: at 17d was looking to include UR and BAR/INN; at 9a thought it might be an anagram of TO VAPE. Parsing of Harmless was difficult for me. My last two were JAUNDICE and INHALE. 14:50 on the clock.
   No objections to this puzzle. COD to TROPHY for subtle misdirections. Difficult grid as jackkt mentions.
   David
   1. I too thought that 9a was an anagram of To Vape. I spent ages with my Scrabble tiles trying to rearrange those letters.
      1. I considered the anagram, but it looked such an unlikely beast that I quickly moved on.
10. Did not really get on the wavelength, and stopped the clock with two short (MORBID & TILL). M_R_I_ were also checkers two days ago, when MARGIN fit, still no MERLIN though. “Announcement of” for a sounds-like was a new device to me.

    Missing a triple def (TILL) was a disappointment, although about 20+ words fitted in there.

    COD has to be PANORAMA. I’m sure it’s a chestnut, but it’s a new one for me. Well done, setter.

    1. Thought of you straight away when I saw M-R-I- in 18A! Alas, but perhaps a friendly setter – if they read these blogs – will step up and do the decent thing one day.

       Cedric

       1. I’ll try to oblige in one of my weekend offerings sometime. Merlin was my much-loved black labrador (1994-2003).
    2. So, Merlin, how would you clue merlin? 🙂

       H

       1. He’s not likely to answer…

          dnf in spades, and looking forward to tomorrow.

          Diana

       2. Some firmer lingerie for wizard…
          1. Some firmer lingerie for wizard…

             Very good! I suppose we wouldn’t be allowed to substitute “a bird” for “wizard” these days 🙂

11. 12 minutes for me, and no real difficulties, although JAUNDICE held me up for a while. BEAT IT was LOI for no particular reason. Congrats on your time Roly, you seem to be getting quicker as I get slower (Roly and I share Thursdays, so I always look at his blog with extra interest – it could have been me!).
    1. Thanks! I was definitely a bit of an outlier today in finding it so much on the easy side. I vaguely remember having had quicker-than-usual spells in the past though, so I can be confident it won’t last!
12. Sometimes I astonish myself with my own doziness and today was no exception as I stared blankly at 1d (with all the checkers in place) whilst trying to work out what was going on. It took me the best part of 2 minutes to work out that ‘mix’ was possibly one of the more obvious anagram indicators available to a setter. Overall I enjoyed this one and thought there was a good mix of write ins and trickier clues. My favourites were MORBID and PANORAMA and I finished in 11.47 with LOI TILL.
    Thanks to Roly
13. I was off the wavelength today and also wasted time trying to make an anagram of To Vape. Was stuck for a while with 18a and 22d left. Saw MORBID first, but TILL took longer to come, even though I thought of it. I missed the double definition and only saw the cryptc eventually. 13:57. Thanks Rongo and Roly.
14. On first reading the cluing at 7a PANORAMA I glanced up to check I was actually doing the QC. I then promptly skipped across to 8a and wrote in CELL my FOI. The rest of the grid proved a steady solve and with three checkers in play I finally got PANORAMA (very amusing). My two hold ups were JAUNDICE (delay on spotting the anagram) and my LOI TILL where I failed to see how ‘Work’ played a part in the clue so thanks Roly for the explanation. I finished just within my target ten.
15. … with some very clever and innovative clues but also some fairly clunky surfaces to my mind: 4D and 15D for example would not win any prizes for elegance. Other clues seemed very generously signposted, with Rongo clearly very keen we did not miss how the clue was constructed!

    Still in two minds about 7A Panorama, which illustrates all of the above: it is extremely clever, but the surface is clumsy with the colon and the dash for the answer – not something we see at all often. I wonder if Rongo saw the construction of Panorama, thought it was very neat (which it is) and then struggled to see how to write a clue for it. The mirror world of the setter: whereas we see a clue and have to construct the answer, they have the answer and need to construct a clue!

    Anyway, all done in 13 minutes with the NW corner the sticky bit for me: I took a long time to see the anagram at 1D Jaundice and never parsed my LOI 12A Misery at all – I failed to get the I from “One …” so was wondering how MIY could be goodness. COD, despite the surface, to 7A Panorama.

    Many thanks to Roly for an excellent blog
    Cedric

16. I thought that that was tough but hugely fun. No obscurities but lots of challenges all over the grid and plenty of good penny drops.

    FOI INHALE, LOI ENTANGLE (I spent too long thinking that “snarl up” was the anagram indicator for net, and not the definition), COD PANORAMA (as Merlin said, if it’s a chestnut it’s new to me and it’s very funny!), time 11:55 for an estimated 2.1K but I’m still scoring this as a Good Day even though I missed target.

    Many thanks Rongo (ignore Horryd!) and roly (what a time, roly, well done).

    Templar

    1. Petch! Be seein you.
17. Not straightforward – took all of 19 mins having biffed quite a few. Still much more satisfactory than yesterday though. Some interesting clue constructions that I hadn’t come across before (or else I had forgotten), an example being 18dn. I must also remember current = i. Catches me out every time. Special mention to 17dn for an ancient city that was not Ur.

    FOI – 10ac SWORD
    LOI – 23ac ORAL
    COD – 18ac MORBID

    Thanks to Rongo and to Rolytoly for the explanations of those that passed me by.

    1. Yes, I tried to fit Ur in then knew it must be Troy
       1. Has Petra ever appeared? Woof woof :))

          H

18. Had to look up Entangle though, which enabled me to guess but not parse Misery.

    Smiled at Panorama when the penny dropped. Ditto Sofa. Mark was clever. And what would setters do without ET? Well, there’s French ‘and’ of course.

    I often don’t do the Q Crossword until after lunch, but today I took two sessions with a gap which helped subconscious solving.

    Thanks all.

19. I enjoyed this from the moment I figured out 7ac after which it was a gentle, pleasant and enjoyable solve. Lots of fun.
    PlayUpPompey
20. Slightly mixed feelings about this one. I enjoyed the top half, but less so the bottom. I thought 23ac, Oral, was downright sneaky, with the double omission, and I would add 13d to Cedric’s clunky list. Having said that, I can forgive a lot when a puzzle includes something as entertaining as 7ac Panorama (CoD by a mile). I took 20mins plus an extra 5 agonising over loi Till, having first convinced myself that the answer was Toll. Invariant
21. ….to many of our other QC suppliers, and those who struggle can probably blame “wavelength” issues with some justification. I’m glad I elected to return to solving on paper today, because submitting it online, with the quirky grid to boot, would have been a nightmare.

    I didn’t like TANK UP, because there is no such verb that I’m aware of. One may “get tanked up” but “get” is the verb, and “tanked up” an adjective.

    I was brought up on the aftermath of the Busby Babes (a Stretford End regular in the 1960’s, but saw the Babes themselves play maybe a dozen times 1956-8) and was once privileged to have Sir Matt in my cab (albeit briefly).

    FOI/COD PANORAMA
    LOI INHALE
    TIME 4:06

    1. SOED: tank – Chiefly foll. by up. ▸ a verb intrans. & refl. Fill oneself with (alcoholic) drink, get drunk. slang.
22. I found this too hard and gave up with 5 clues unsolved, all on LH side. This type of grid makes life harder, too. Worst result for weeks.
23. It took me a while to get going and I couldn’t parse MISERY (forgot ‘my’ for ‘goodness’) or ORAL (very crafty). Thanks to Roly for the explanations.
    Amongst my favourites were MORBID, MATTER and MEMORY – and PANORAMA also gets my vote for COD – what a gem!
    Thanks to Rongo for 16 minutes of head-scratching – we’ll be ready for you next time…
24. Maybe because I came to it late in the day.

    8:38, with TILL proving very hard for me!

25. Got stuck for a short while on UNIVERSE, because I’d put MOROSE in instead of MORBID. Fortunately, today, I remembered the golden rule – if a clue ain’t working out check the crossers. At which point I realised I needed MORBID and things all fell into place for a slightly tardy 8:11.

    I think one or two(?) people said they didn’t like the grid??? What was wrong with it?

    COD MISERY

    H

    1. The grid layout, not having 1ac, nor any answers running along the edges makes life more difficult for solvers as the first letters of (in this case) 11 answers are unchecked and it’s harder to think of an answer when you don’t have its first letter. Normally solving, say, 1ac would give you the first letters of several Down answers.

       Of course in the main puzzle one doesn’t expect to have things made easy but the Quick Cryptic is supposed to be more accessible to less experienced solvers and, as mentioned in my comment at the top, it has previously been stated by one of the Times Crossword Editors that this type of grid was to be discontinued for QC’s. That was some time ago, yet today was the third consecutive day we’ve been presented with such a grid.

       Edited at 2020-11-19 09:28 pm (UTC)

26. A late one for me, but completed in 30 mins. Felt this needed a different mindset to other setters with each clue needing to be prised out. Whilst I normally wouldn’t like this , I quite enjoyed it in the end, with each answer being inserted at a steady pace rather than the flying through one corner only to be held up by another.

    Liked 15dn “Universe”, 17dn “Trophy” and 24ac “Harmless”. Didn’t have a problem with Matt Busby (being a United fan) and would have thought he was well known enough beyond football circles.

    One thing I am starting to notice is that if the clue is a little clunky, or contains something random like place names, then the answer is probably hidden within the clue itself. Guess this is fairly obvious to more seasoned solvers, but 18dn is a case in point.

    FOI – 4dn “Basset”
    LOI – 16ac “Beat It” – trickier than I thought
    COD – 7ac “Panorama”

    Thanks as usual.

27. I had two left after 23 minutes and will often give up at this point – but such was the challenge that I eventually got Morbid and Universe (LOI) at 28 minutes.
    Universe should have dropped much sooner.
    Like another the top half was easier than the bottom for me but thankfully 18d, 18a and 20a came to the rescue.
    I wasn’t keen on Tank Up (dated) but had many pleasing penny drops with the likes of Trophy, Harmless, Misery, Sword (after thinking of Spear for too long) and Panorama.
    Many thanks to Rongo.
    And to all who contribute.
    John George
28. 7 a great clue by any standards. Shame about the rest. 14 & 16 a I seem to recall my grandfather saying in the 70’s just the half century out of date. Not too bad I suppose as the QC is always 30 or 40 years out of date
29. While I had no trouble with Joker yesterday it was another dnf with Rongo. I found this really difficult but at least it kept up my average week of one completion and four dnfs. Really appreciate the blogs and always enjoy these quick cryptics. I’ll get there sooner or later.
30. liked INHALE and PANORAMA

    Edited at 2020-11-20 09:37 pm (UTC)

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