Times Quick Cryptic No 1863 by Orpheus

65 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 1863 by Orpheus”

1. Pretty straightforward; I liked SEASON. (On the club version, ‘spring’ is not capitalized, making the clue a bit more difficult.) I just learned a useful mnemonic for keeping dromedaries and Bactrians separate: If you turn the D on its side, you get one hump; turn the B, you get two. 5:07.
   1. Sorry, spring is also not capitalised on my version, so that is my error — mea culpa.
2. …although I did have to poke around a little to get started in the bottom half. I thought newscaster was going to be some obscure person, and was pleased to find otherwise. My time was 7:38, much better than yesterday’s 13 minutes.
3. Kevin I do like your camel mnemonic!

   Time a camel plodding 12 minutes

   FOI 2dn AIR

   LOI 16dn RECESS

   COD 18ac ENOTE

   WOD 3dn CHINDIT Aud’s granddaughter Jane was a secretary at CDP back in the day. (Sorry, Jack!)

4. 10 minutes. CHINDIT was a problem but it’s what the wordplay and checkers gave me so in it went. I was going to swear I’d NHO it but I see it has come up in the 15×15 a couple of times over the years, most recently in 2017 when the answer was HINDI defined as ‘Asian language’ and the wordplay relied on thinking of CHINDIT and removing its end letters; I suspect I just biffed that one and didn’t pay much attention to the rest of the clue.

   Not sure I knew AGAVE, so relied on wordplay for that one too.

   As to Lord being abbreviate to ‘Ld’ I can’t think of an alternative unless one counts ‘Lud’ when referring to a Judge.

   Edited at 2021-04-29 08:41 am (UTC)

5. Started the acrosses wondering if I was going to have to know something like a Napoleon which may have put me in a grump as I wasn’t onboard with this one by the time I got to the end of the acrosses with only four having gone in. Stuck with it to finish all green in 20 but it was a slog.

   Edited at 2021-04-29 06:39 am (UTC)

6. Agree this was a very 6d puzzle particularly after yesterday’s struggle (solving which my daughter who’s only been doing these things for a few months got my betes noires LORRY and LAVENDER straightaway when we did the QC together yesterday evening. Ouch!)

   Also started at the bottom and worked up anticlockwise(ish).

   CHINDIT vaguely known and last one in

   NONET definitely clue of the day

   Thanks Rotter for parsing LED and the usual excellent blog and Orpheus

7. I thought this might be a quick solve when both 1s went in straight away but it ended up being a steady sort of affair. My confident start later caused me problems due to a typo in 1a so that CHINDIT was going to have to start with an ‘s’, which made it tricky.
   My LOIs were NONET and TYPESETTER, where I spent some time thinking that the definition was a breed of dog.
   Finished in 9.01 with my CoD going to FATALISTIC.
   Thanks to Rotter

8. Enjoyable, particularly NONET.

   Thank you, therotter and Orpheus

9. … as after yesterday’s outright failure (and slightly petulant post — apologies to Marty), we are clearly back in QC land today and this very pleasant puzzle was all done and parsed in 9 minutes. Much helped by all the 10 letter clues going in quite quickly — I was particularly pleased to get 23A Newscaster early on as on initially reading the clue I feared the worst. A nice PDM when the answer appeared.

   Several contestants for COD including 4D Season (very neat once I realised one had to separate main and issue) and 3D Chindit (a clever clue and an unusual word to see), but I think 21A Nonet wins it for me.

   Many thanks to Rotter for the blog, and to Orpheus for restoring my enjoyment of QCs
   Cedric

10. Nothing too troublesome but quite a lot that took some unraveling which pushed my time up to 40 mins.
    Struggled with 23A and 9D for too long thinking they were anagrams before seeing what I should have seen at a glance.
    No problem with NONET. I think that has appeared here in the not too distant past.
    Others here seem to have ways of finding out such things.
    Tried to substitute agave for sugar a while ago but didn’t like the after taste. Still have most of it sitting in a bottle on a shelf. Must resolve to throw it away. Came in handy today.
    Thanks all.
11. 15:36, back to a par time after yesterday’s toughie.

    CHINDIT was tough GK, somehow recalled although confused with “chit” in my brain.

    At 8A I had “The French used for as “ALA” (á la) and was then looking for an unknown horse type.

    If LD is an abbreviation for Lord, then my rule of “any single letter can be an abbreviation for any word” just got even broader.

    Apparently “Abrdn” is an abbreviation for Aberdeen, in the same spirit.

    Main=SEA, Issue=SON, supporter=TEE are all a bit tiresome.

    I liked NONET, although that word also exists in crosswordland much more than musicology. COD for that one, although also liked SALUTE and STOOGE.

    Edited at 2021-04-29 09:29 am (UTC)

12. This seemed to scoot along really quickly so I was staggered to see a time of a minute over target when I completed it. The culprits were STOOGE (I wanted the TOO to be part of STOOLY for fall guy) and my LOI RECESS (a tough one, I thought) where I was thrown by the Y of ‘stooly’ and tried to shoe-horn LYME (bay) into it until I sorted out STOOGE. My fault for not parsing 20ac properly. Ah well. Thanks to Orpheus and Rotter. John M.

    Edited at 2021-04-29 08:34 am (UTC)

    1. I know how you feel, but it really does get easier in time. Although I rarely finish it even after a few years, and have no hesitation in using checkers, I never mind, and am learning something new every day (I just wish I could remember them better for next time!).

       Diana

    2. I’m not sure how long you’ve been having a go, but — truly — it does get easier! The blog is a great way to learn and everyone is always happy to give advice and support. Oh yes, and — as Diana says — there is no shame in using aids.
       I’ve said in the past to others who are struggling that it took me a good six months before I completed a grid. That was only after finding TffT and then it was still sporadic for months after! Although I’ve been doing these since they started I still have days when I don’t finish or it takes ages. Don’t give up — one day it will fall into place and you’ll be chuffed to pieces 😊

       Edited at 2021-04-29 11:20 am (UTC)

       1. LIES! I’ve been doing cryptic crosswords for the best part of 10 years, ever since we started getting a free newspaper with the shopping. And I can honestly say, like many others who have got completely disenchanted, that you can either do cryptics — or you can’t!

          I STILL struggle to get even one or two of the main Times xwd and STILL only get about 50-60% of the quick cryptic. A decade of trying to do them has not improved my ability, and you’ll notice from the comments section, that many others have fallen by the wayside for exactly the same reason.

    3. Dear edmcbain,
       I’ve been tackling these QCs for 11 months now and this week has seen both extremes for me. Monday was a PB and yesterday was almost my worst ever DNF. My performance each day is still wildly unreliable, so I take heart each time I think I’m making progress.
       Keep trying and good luck!
       Mr Random
13. Very nearly a true clean sweep but one of the acrosses (INCLEMENT) and one of the downs (RECESS) resisted on first pass. Otherwise plain sailing and completed in sequence; unusually so for Orpheus, whom I often find tricky.

    The Chindits were a controversial outfit and argument still rages about whether their operations in Burma were a net asset or not. The Imperial War Museum’s “History of the War in Burma” is rather dismissive of their impact, while acknowledging their immense personal courage and skill. I think Slim took the same view.

    FOI FRANCISCAN, LOI RECESS, COD NONET, time 06:33 for 1.3K and an Excellent day.

    Many thanks Orpheus and Rotter.

    Templar

    Edited at 2021-04-29 09:07 am (UTC)

14. What’s a PDM please?

    Diana

    1. Penny Drop Moment! (There’s a link at the top right to a glossary of such terms.)
15. FOI: 13a. SALUTE
    LOI: 4d. SEASON

    Time to Complete: 101 minutes (embarrassed cough)

    Clues Answered Correctly without aids: 21

    Clues Answered with Aids (3 lives): 1a, 3d, 16d

    Clues Unanswered: Nil

    Wrong Answers: Nil

    Total Correctly Answered (incl. aids): 24/24

    Aids Used: Chambers’, Bradford’s

    How I managed to complete this one I will never know. I had answered perhaps half of the clues when my mind just went blank. Several times I almost gave up, but just as I was about to, another answer would come to mind, which encouraged me to go on.

    4d. SEASON – My LOI and the one that caused me most grief. I thought I was going to end up as a DNF with one unanswered. Then I suddenly recalled something I had read in one of those “How to solve cryptic crosswords” books back in January, when I was starting out. The author explained that issue can mean child. That lead me to SON, thanks to the crossing DROMEDARY, and SEASON (Spring) hit me. However, I do not understand how main = sea. Yes, it’s in my Chamber’s Crossword dictionary, but it does not appear as a definition under sea in my Collins English Dictionary.

    1a. FRANCISCAN – I had to use a life here, but once seen the answer was so obvious to me.

    2d. CHINDIT – Another life used. I had C _ _ _ _ _ T and tried squeezing various languages inside. However, HINDI was not one of them.

    16. RECESS – Third life used. It seems odd to me that I can answer some of the more difficult clues without an aid, but when an aid is used it often shows itself to be an easy clue that I should have been able to answer.

    My brain needs a rest. Fortunately, I have a bag of Opal Fruits (yes, OPAL FRUITS!) that need some loving.

    Edited at 2021-04-29 09:19 am (UTC)

    1. Well done!
    2. Do you also have a Marathon bar?
       1. I did the other day.
    3. >I do not understand how main = sea. Yes, it’s in my Chamber’s Crossword dictionary, but it does not appear as a definition under sea in my Collins English Dictionary

       Main isn’t a definition of sea, but sea is one of the definitions of main. Have you looked up MAIN in your Collins?

    4. One definition of MAIN is the high sea! Think of the Spanish Main from the pirate films we used to watch.
       1. The Spanish Main was originally the mainland, according to the OED. And that’s the only usage anyone ever seems to quote.

          Spanish Main n. the mainland of America adjacent to the Caribbean Sea, esp. that portion of the coast stretching from the Isthmus of Panama to the mouth of the Orinoco; in later use also, the sea contiguous to this, or the route traversed by the Spanish register ships. Now Historical.

    5. Well done and beautifully described. You earned that candy!
16. 18 min; it just took me too long to get started, but once I did it went in smoothly enough. DNK CHINDIT. Thanks as always to setter and blogger.
17. That’s better, a really splendid one today, although dnf as I simply couldn’t work out NONET and then felt stupid at seeing the explanation.

    Thank you so much, Orpheus and Rotter.

    Diana

18. Spent an enjoyable 15 mins until all that was left was 16dn. Needed a further 3 mins to crack this one. Still a much better time than yesterday when I was pleased to finish at all! Nice puzzle – thanks Orpheus and thanks to Rotter for the informative blog.

    FOI – 10ac LED
    LOI – 16dn RECESS
    COD – a tie I think between 4dn SEASON and 21ac NONET, both of which raised a smile.

19. Once again I was held up by a hidden. STOOGE stretched my time from 10 to 13 minutes.
    A good puzzle. FOI AIR. RECESS clever and tricky.
    COD to SEASON.
    David
20. Whilst I completed this in 25 mins, I still didn’t think it was straight forward. Agree that the clueing was fair, but it still needed a degree of GK to answer some of the clues with confidence (3dn and 12ac come to mind).

    NW corner was slow to go in (1ac and 1dn particularly) — and I got hung up on looking for a type of setter for 9dn, only to realise it was a “Typesetter” 😀

    Luckily, standard fare of 15dn “Antenna”, 23ac “Newscaster” and 6dn “Pleasant” were fairly quick write ins.

    FOI — 2dn “Air”
    LOI — 9dn “Typesetter”
    COD — 1dn “Fatalistic” — great surface

    Thanks as usual!

21. AIR was FOI, quickly followed by FRANCISCAN. I then had no particular hold ups and went where the crossing letters led me until I was left with 9d, TYPESETTER as my LOI. I didn’t feel I was especially quick, but was surprised to find I’d submitted at 5:36. About as fast as I ever get. Liked NONET. Read a couple of books about the CHINDIT operations, so that was a write in. Thanks Orpheus and Rotter.
    1. Wow! Cracking time, well done
22. Assume I just wasn’t on wavelength today. I couldn’t work out either SEASON or RECESS and everything else was slow going. Guessed CHINDIT.
23. Brain-fade today as I regularly identified the wrong part of the clue as the likely definition and failed to see the wordplay more often than not. Many PDMs and much gnashing of teeth over what was a good puzzle. DNK CHINDIT but wordplay saw me through once I had some checkers, similarly NONET. LED confused me for ages, not knowing the abbrev.
24. Can’t remember ever posting before noon, but managed it today. A second really good puzzle in a row. I had to work harder than usual but really loved the cluing. It took a while to get on the wavelength and I was reluctant to enter too many pencilled answers until I was sure I was firing on all cylinders… so FOI had to wait until 14a Palace. LOI 16d Recess. COD – so many to like but possibly 21a No-net, or maybe 9d Typesetter (am on my fourth Irish Setter) or the simple 4d Season. Took me ages but enjoyed every minute, so thanks to Orpheus and to Rotter for his informative blog.
25. I found this a bit of a slog, not seeing SEASON until late and guessing TARSI (nho), with a lot of pondering over FATALISTIC. Got there in the end, though.
26. Close to a PB today! Certainly a much better time than yesterday — like a third! An enjoyable puzzle and an Excellent Day (snap Templar!)
    I don’t know much about horses but thought that Arabs were forebears of thoroughbred racehorses — imagine one of those skittish things pulling a plough 😅
    FOI Franciscan
    LOI Season
    COD Nonet
    Many thanks Orpheus for the morale boost, and Rotter for the usual super blog
27. NONET raised an actual grin, and SEASON was well constructed. CHINDIT was put together from the wordplay and vaguely rang a bell as a soldier.

    Lots of good clues in fact. Thanks Orpheus, and indeed to Rotter – I don’t thank the bloggers enough for their sterling service. I think I’m at the level to volunteer to become one now if required, but I’m an early to bed type, so people would be hanging on unduly!

    5:33

28. Managed to finish (50:50 for me currently) in 24 minutes. Lockdown has got me up from only finishing 1 in 5 as doing most days.
    Felt some of the words were obscure or my vocabulary v poor!
    Chindit, Tun, Tarsi — all words I had to guess and also didn’t know main= sea and issue = son. Still don’t understand, but got from spring near the end.
    Thanks
    1. The main is an old word for the open sea, like the Spanish Main, and issue is another word for one’s descendants inc sons and daughters — just put them together to make SEASON — hope that helps 😊 Congrats on your increasing success — lockdown had to be good for something! We’ve certainly done more DIY in the last year than in the previous 10 😅
29. A rather daunting looking grid, that really needed 1ac or 1d to open up. Unfortunately I couldn’t see either answer on first reading, so this turned into a foothold search. Eventually I had enough crossers to help sort out the NW, and managed to finish in 22mins, with loi Recess (tricky). CoD to 4d Season, which I suspect is a chestnut for old hands. Nonet has certainly come up recently, and the Chindit exploits used to be well known. Invariant
30. A DNF today, with several words and clue types I’d not come across before before. Nonet, Chindit, Tarsi, all NHO, and both Clement for old pope and Ld for Lord unfamiliar.

    Ah well, chalk this up as a learning experience.

31. With only five clues solved after 20 minutes, I was expecting another disaster – perhaps even worse than yesterday. However, I managed to keep calm and nibbled away at Orpheus’s puzzle bit by bit, finally (and most surprisingly to me) crossing the line in 52 minutes.

    I had never heard of CHINDIT, or NONET, or TARSI, or LD for Lord, or Pope CLEMENT,. so I had to rely on only my parsing of those clues. My FOI (after nearly 5 minutes) was STOOGE, and my LOI was RECESS. My CoD was 22d (NUT), because beer and nuts are two of my favourite things.

    Mrs Random finished in 38 minutes, although she also found it hard going. She particularly enjoyed 1d, but feels sorry for FAT ALI with her annoying problem. I think I’m Mrs R’s most annoying problem.

    Many thanks to therotter for explaining everything, and to Orpheus of course.

    1. Being able to work out the answer when you haven’t come across the word before is a very useful skill as you progress towards more challenging crosswords, so well done today.
32. V enjoyable – thanks Rotter and Orpheus. Wingate meant to be a very unusual character known to put a big alarm clock on the table and leave meetings when it loudly went off at the appointed ending time. Also known to jump up and tear open the door to see if anyone was listening! (General Wingate founder of the Chindits)

    Edited at 2021-04-29 11:59 am (UTC)

33. But rather slow in parts. Quick on FRANCISCAN, DROMEDARY, PALACE, TEE, AIR,
    and then CHINDIT somehow emerged from the deeper recesses of what’s left of my brain.
    Slow on TYPESETTER, NEWSCASTER, RECESS (LOI) and NONET.
    Puzzled by the parsing of LED but it had to be. When I saw Lord Emsworth I thought it must be an Oink puzzle, but no.
    Thanks all, esp Rotter.
34. I have just downloaded the new Times app so I had a new empty grid for the QC. I thought it would be interesting to see how long it would take me to fill in the grid, having completed the puzzle some hours ago.
    It took me over 5 mins. I don’t have a photographic memory (obviously!) and I had to rethink a few clues but it just emphasises how incredible are some of the quoted times on the blog and the Times Crossword site. Most impressive. John M.
35. From my anatomy days the bones were tarsals, not “tarsi” but I see Chambers allows
36. DNF — SE corner defeated me — didn’t know TUN or NONET.
    Not convinced by LD for Lord!
    Nick
    1. Hi, Nick, and welcome, but Ld = Lord is a standard abbreviation available in all the usual dictionaries.

37. Steady solve today and around average for me at about 20 minutes. I’ve seen ‘nonet’ before in three QC’s I think so it comes up more frequently than anyone would actually use the word in real life 🙄.

    I laughed at ‘fatalistic so that gets COD from me.

    Overall very enjoyable QC and best of all is I have now learned how to remember the camel types so thanks to Kevin for that!

    Thanks as always to the Rotter for the blog

    1. NONET doesn’t come up quite so often as the closely related ETON. They are (too) often found together. 🙄 John
38. ….but the heat went down all too soon and I laboured a little with the last few clues.

    FOI FRANCISCAN
    LOI EMOTE
    COD RECESS
    TIME 4:21 *

    * On paper — but for some unknown reason I totally lost concentration when transcribing online, and entered “shadow” at 4D.

39. Oof. One of those days where I was looking for a way in, and once I got 1A, NW corner followed, but ground to a near halt in SE corner.

    Clues such as 9D TYPESETTER proved tricky : I wasn’t sure how to tackle the clue. Similarly with 20A.

    All in all a challenge today!

    Thank you to Orpheus and therotter.

40. Still a newbie to the quick cryptic (about a year) and I don’t always finish. Took me around 30 mins today and although I only did not know just one of the words (tarsi) it was fairly self explanatory, season caused me issues even though I knew it had to be season I couldn’t connect main with sea. Have looked it up now and can see it’s a fairly archaic word but one I hope to remember for future puzzles.
41. Pleased to hear everyone else seems to have breezed through this. I took 12 minutes and found it chewy – particularly in SW where I had lots of blanks for lots of time. Thanks for the blog.
42. Was distracted today and had my son’s online parents’ evening to “go to” so I had to stop my watch before I had finished. That was after 31 minutes and I still hadn’t got TYPESETTER and RECESS. I didn’t bother restarting my watch but it took several more minutes after our last appointment before I got those last two. Really liked COD FATALISTIC. It was worth doing just for that one. Thanks Orpheus and Rotter.
43. One course tonight..once 1A and 1D were in the grid opened up nicely.
    Physiotherapist wife had a mer about tarsi.
    Thanks to all on the site
44. FOI tarsi, LOI newscaster, COD newscaster. Thanks, Rotter, and Orpheus. Time not noted. GW.

45. I thought this was hard. Much slower than usual and never did get RECESS. Maybe I left it too late and was too tired. Thanks to blogger.

46. I found this much harder than usual. Finally stuck on 16dn (and quite drunk) I eventually thought “Holiday? Bay? Leaves!”. Wrote in LEAEVS. Gave up.

    /C

47. Really, really busy week in the garden so the QC has had to take a back seat. Actually, I’m glad we’ve finished on this one because we finished it in a reasonable time (12 minutes). We’ve been too distracted to fully track our efforts this week but it feels as thought there have been some real stinkers. On the plus side, the garden is looking fantastic!

    FOI: TARSI
    LOI: DELICATE
    COD: NONET

    Thanks to Orpheus and Rotter.

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