Times Quick Cryptic No 1882 by Izetti

Posted on Categories Quick Cryptic

Introduction

12:16 and I felt glad to finish! Tough Quickies are, to my taste, much more frustrating than tough 15x15s, as there are fewer ways to work your way into the grid.

Solutions

A brief summary of cryptic crosswords —feel free to skip— :

  • Each clue has at least one “definition”: an unbroken string of words which more-or-less straightforwardly indicates the answer. A definition can be as simple as a one-word synonym; but it can also be a descriptive phrase like ‘I’m used to wind’ for REEL or SPOOL. A definition by example must be indicated by a phrase like ‘for example’, or, more commonly, a question mark (?). Thus ‘color’ is a definition of RED, while ‘red, for example’ or ‘red?’ are definitions of COLOR. Punctuation is otherwise irrelevant. Proper nouns will appear capitalized, but otherwise capitalization is irrelevant as well.
  • Each clue may also have an unbroken string of words which indicates the answer through wordplay, such as: using abbreviations; reversing the order of letters; indicating particular letters (first, last, outer, middle, every other, etc); placing words inside other words; rearranging letters (anagrams); replacing words by words that sound alike (homophones); and combinations of the above. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but the general theme is to reinterpret ordinary words as referring to letters, so that for example ‘lion’s head’ indicates the first letter of LION: namely, L.
  • Definitions and wordplay cannot overlap. The only other words allowed in clues are linking words or phrases that combine these. Thus we may see, for example: “(definition) gives (wordplay)” or “(definition) and (definition)” or “(wordplay) is (definition)”.
  • The most common clues have either two definitions, or one definition plus wordplay, in either order. But a single, very misleading definition is not uncommon, and very occasionally a definition can also be interpreted as wordplay leading to the same answer. Triple definitions (and more) are also possible.

My conventions in the solutions below are to underline definitions (including a defining phrase); put linking words in [brackets]; and put all wordplay indicators in boldface. I also use a solidus (/) to help break up the clue where necessary, especially for double definitions without linking words.

After the solutions, I list all the wordplay indicators and abbreviations in a Glossary.

Across

1   Wasted energy involves everyone as a rule (9)
GENERALLY = anagram of ENERGY around ALL

6   Something valuable quietly presented to lord (5)
PEARL = P + EARL

8   Mechanic [showing] skill if joined by decorator (9)
ARTIFICER = ART + IF + ICER

9   Couple / who wrote American novels? (5)
TWAIN = double definition
This took me much longer than it should have.

10   Shortens / more than one agreement (9)
CONTRACTS = double definition
I could only think of ABRIDGES!

12   Numbers including crazy folk who can’t settle? (6)
NOMADS = NO.S around MAD

13   State [of] old character residing in British India (6)
BRUNEI = RUNE in B + I

16   Joining a couple of hundred, accompanied by / rebellious noises (9)
ACCESSION = A + CC + anagram of NOISES

18   The best / ointment? (5)
CREAM = double definition

19   Cleaner to fix / plant outside / entrance to bathroom (9)
NAILBRUSH = NAIL + RUSH around first letter of BATHROOM

21   Taken in [and] punished — not the first (5)
EATEN = BEATEN without the first letter

22   Boy, / turning ten, / always poetic [as] writer of verse (9)
SONNETEER = SON + TEN reversed + E’ER

Down

1   Looked [to have] organ around church (7)
GLANCED = GLAND around C.E.

2   Marking zero — that’s heartless! (6)
NOTING = NOTHING without the middle letter
Tricky, excellent, and my last in.

3   Apply to go up and down (5)
REFER = palindrome
I believe the sense here is, “What does that word apply/refer to?”.

4   Resin [supplied by] servant releasing key (3)
LAC = LACKEY without KEY
‘A dark red transparent resin’, according to Chambers.

5   North-country folk irksome Henry upset (12)
YORKSHIREMEN = IRKSOME HENRY anagrammed

6   Holy figureheads transformed into Spartans (6,6)
PATRON SAINTS = anagram of INTO SPARTANS

7   A / bad person / in charge holds me up at university? (8)
ACADEMIC = A + CAD + I.C. around ME reversed

11   Conservative on mission [for] mastery (8)
CONQUEST = CON + QUEST

14   Farmer, an / Argentinian who fought between rivers (7)
RANCHER = AN + CHE between R and R

15   Very small / interval — much less than an hour (6)
MINUTE = double definition

17   Sword penetrates a breast — just part of it (5)
SABRE = hidden in PENETRATES A BREAST

20   Where to drink during November (3)
INN = IN + N

Glossary

Wordplay indicators

accompanied by = next to
and = linking word
around = containment
as = linking word
between = containment
entrance to = first letter
for = linking word
(to) have = linking word
heartless = remove middle letter
holds = containment
including = containment
involves = containment
joined by = next to
not the first = remove first letter
of = linking word
on = next to
outside = containment
part of it = hidden word
presented to = next to
rebellious = anagram
releasing = removal
residing in = containment
showing = linking word
supplied by = linking word
transformed = anagram
turning = reversal
up = reversal (in down clue)
up and down = palindrome
upset = anagram
wasted = anagram

Abbreviations and little bits

always = EER
boy = SON
British = B
church = CE
conservative = CON
hundred = C
in charge = IC
India = I
November = N
number = NO
quietly = P
river = R
skill = ART

81 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 1882 by Izetti”

  1. Straightforward enough, except for ACCESSION, where it took me much too long to see ‘rebellious’ as anagrind. Jeremy, in your Glossary you might note that ‘on’ means ‘next to and above’ in a Down clue, and ‘next to and after’ in an Across (I think I got that right; Jack?). 7:35.
    1. In the past I have elaborated on some of my glossary entries, giving context, variants, etc. I’m still considering how to make this section most useful (without simply compiling yet another YAGCC).
    2. Thanks for the name-check, Kevin, but I’m ashamed to report that I parsed ‘on’ in an Across clue incorrectly in my blog yesterday so I am feeling somewhat humbled on the subject at the moment. However I take some comfort from the fact that nobody noticed until 9:22pm when the business of the day was virtually over and done with.

      Edited at 2021-05-26 06:24 am (UTC)

  2. I got stuck on thinking key = E having NHO the resin, and spent ages trying to understand why servant = LACE. Of course key = KEY… and thanks for parsing it for me!
  3. I think “shellac” is more common than “lac” but I think they are the same. I messed up since I debated and then put CREME not CREAM (as in “la creme da la creme” and there are plenty of ointments with the “creme” spelling) and then didn’t notice later when I put in YORKSHIREMEN and didn’t notice that the M didn’t match.
    1. Shellac may be more familiar than ‘lac’ because it’s what 78rpm gramophone records were made of for many a year, but I think lac was used in the manufacture of shellac rather than they are two words for the same thing.

      Edited at 2021-05-26 05:24 am (UTC)

      1. You are right lac is the solid resin, in order to use it you have to dissolve it in alcohol. The solution is then shellac.
  4. This will ‘ave t’PC Brigade ought in force!

    5dn T’anagram of t’day!

    FOI 1ac GENERALLY

    LOI 11dn CONQUEST

    COD 4dn LAC

    WOD 8ac ARTIFICER

    Time 9 minutes

      1. Only someone from outside the UK could ask that!

        (PS for the benefit of any actual Yorkshiremen reading this, it’s a joke, we love you really xx)

      2. Jeremy dear, thank-you for your conceit. I was actually referring to Yorkshirewomen, who reputedly eat their own young. I’m sure Mr. Jordan can provide us with further details.
      3. Tha’ can allus tell a Yorkshireman, but tha’ can’t tell ‘im much!
  5. Off to a flying start with GENERALLY but that was one of only two that went in on the first pass of acrosses but as is often the case with Izetti the wavelength slowly arrived and I ended up all green in 16. Like Kevin it took a while to see what was going on with the end of ACCESSION also look a while to see that key meant key. I’d not heard of LAC (and having shellac wouldn’t have helped but thanks for the info paulmcl) and fell into the trap of thinking a cleaner was going to be an occupation not a thing. Biggest relief was finding SABRE quite a lot of head scratching before ‘if in doubt look for a hidden’ was applied. Never knew what was being read in ‘reading the runes’ so hopefully that’s retained. Nice to be able to finish but I did enjoy the bruised and bloodied bounding in yesterday’s blog.
    1. Yes I was trying to think how ‘une’ could be an old anything in BR…I and had a Doh moment on reading Jeremy’s blog. Always find Izetti tricksy. 28min and resorted to anagram aid for our Northern compatriots.

    2. BTW I use Crossword Solver King App on android as I do the crossword on my phone

  6. This weeks QCs seem off the scale in difficulty compared to the norm. At least I finished one today, although outside target time. (26:25)

    A long list if NHOs. ARTIFICER, SONNETEER, LAC, icer=decorator ( maybe in making an Ice Castle?). I also refused to put in REFER=apply, since I don’t see them as synonyms. NOTHING also late in, good clue, and I was slow to see that 1a was an anagram, “wasted” doesn’t leap out as an anagrand, and “energy” often =E, so I had not understood the clue. Final misdirection in this corner was “key” which often means a letter A-G, although Germans might allow H.

    Oh, and it’s an ugly grid, starting with a “battleship” where 1 across should be!

    COD BRUNEI

    1. I had no problem with Wasted indicating an anagram — it obeys Statherby’s First Law, which is that almost any word in the English language can be used as an anagrind if one tries hard enough. In this case I assumed wasted as in drunk, befuddled, confused, smashed, reeling, wrecked, etc.

      There really are hundreds of synonyms for “having had too much to drink”. Funnily enough there don’t appear to be anything like as many for its opposite, ie sober.

      Cedric

      1. Teetotal, temperate, dry, abstinent, abstemious, as a judge, stone-cold, on the wagon, off the juice, off the bottle, on the pledge, etc., but I think you are right — we revel in the darker side much more readily. (Thanks to Chambers Thesaurus for their help).
          1. Virtually none of your terms mean ‘sober’; I’m sober (at the moment, fairly), but I’m certainly not teetotal, temperate, dry, abstinent, abstemious, on the wagon, off the bottle etc. I suspect that it’s just that we have more terms for variance from the norm than we do for the norm. Lots of words for fat or thin, not many for of normal size. Lots of words for lacking in intelligence, not many for having the normal amount of it. And so on.
  7. Goodness this was hard work and I needed 18 minutes to complete it. 11dn alone took me 5 minutes! Good puzzle but another hard QC in a difficult week so far.
  8. I’m getting slower and slower as the week goes on! Today it was the left-hand side of the grid that stumped me. The potentially useful PATRON SAINTS ended up being my LOI, as I assumed I was looking for an obscure religious statue or icon and got completely lost.
    CONQUEST was also tricky but in truth the whole grid was a bit of a slog as I was miles off the elusive wavelength.
    I think I’ll review it again later when my frustration has worn off a bit so that I can appreciate the puzzle better. Finished in 17.33
    Thanks to Jeremy
  9. … on two counts actually, as firstly I found this one went in a lot faster than most Izettis (and, even more surprisingly, my time of just under 8 minutes seems to look good even against some very experienced solvers), and secondly I thought the Don slipped ever so slightly from his usual high standards in the NE corner, where I did raise an eyebrow at 3D Refer for Apply, and 4D Lac is my least favourite sort of clue, where one is left with a 3-letter word one does not know and really as far as I could see it could have been any of Lac, Lec, Lic, Loc, Luc. I nearly went with Lic but thought that even in a crossword one does not call servants Lice, before the penny dropped and I saw Lackey.

    Still, I have now learnt that Lac is a type of resin (it is apparently secreted by insects called Laccifer Lacca, who live on lac-host trees), so a New Fact Learnt, which makes it a Useful Day.

    Many thanks to Jeremy for the blog
    Cedric

    1. Slow for me too. Super puzzle, I thought, full of wit.

      I decided to do the long outside clues first and they all fell very quickly, except for PATRON which I just couldn’t see until it was P-T–N! So I thought it would be fast from there with so many useful checkers, but alas for long minutes my grid remained like early maps of Australia, with lots round the edge and nothing in the middle. Needed all the checkers for both of NAILBRUSH and RANCHER (“Che” not clued as revolutionary? Shocking!), and CONQUEST took some winkling out too.

      Hey ho, it may have been slow but it was fun!

      FOI GENERALLY, LOI BRUNEI (I thought “British” would = “BR” not just B), COD SONNETEER, time 15:08 for 2K and a Not Great Day.

      Many thanks Izetti and Jeremy.

      Templar

      Edited at 2021-05-26 08:39 am (UTC)

    2. Collins has ‘to refer (a word, epithet, etc) to a person or thing’ for one of the senses of ‘apply.’
  10. Another happy day, even nudging into “not the SCC” territory. ARTIFICER was known as, when I was younger, over the river in Torpoint the Navy had a base where they were trained with a big notice outside proclaiming the fact. There was hardly a clue I didn’t like today, nicely misleading often but very fairly clued to guide you back to the answer. Many thanks to Izetti for a positive start to the day. Excellent commentary.
  11. Very tough for a QC, I thought (even for Izetti). I struggled to start but made more progress at the sides and then worked up from the bottom with LOsI being LAC and NOTING. Lots of biffing (then parsing) as crossers emerged. My longest time ever for a QC at 28 mins. I’m sure there is lots to admire but I’ll need to recover before going through Jeremy’s blog to extract the pearls. Thanks in advance, J.
    Get ready for a stream of complaints today from less experienced solvers — perhaps we’ll exceed the number of postings we saw yesterday (was that a record?).
    Very clever but not really a QC IMO. This week’s offerings are becoming more and more testing. I wonder what Thursday will bring. I’m thinking of trying the 15sq first tomorrow! John M.
    Note. Like others, I have found the T-Graph Cryptic hardly harder that the Times QCs this week.

    Edited at 2021-05-26 10:18 am (UTC)

  12. FOsI PEARL, TWAIN, then stuck for a while. Managed PATRON SAINTS and YORKSHIREMEN and stuck again.
    Liked LAC, SONNETEER. Lots of wild guesses otherwise, mainly right fortunately, or used CCD for e.g. ARTIFICER (??). Must also remember the new-to-me use of Argentinian = che. (normally it’s Red or rebel)
    LOsI. BRUNEI, NAILBRUSH
    Thanks for much needed blog, Jeremy.

    Edited at 2021-05-26 12:23 pm (UTC)

    1. I had the same reaction as you but I think it’s actually ‘Argentinian who fought’
      1. Yes, I said as much in my blog. But I gathered countrywoman1 was perhaps pointing out she didn’t know or didn’t recognize Che Guevara being referred to as Argentinian.
        1. Yes, as I said, normally he is Red! And not the first Argentinian to spring to mind.
  13. Tougher one, but I finished.

    NHO ARTIFICER, but constructed, didn’t see the anagram in ACCESSION for too long, contsructed SONNETEER.

    Good stuff from Izetti.

    10:05

  14. I think after the travails of the last two days I went into panic mode and for the first minute or so drew a blank. Once I calmed myself I saw PEARL and then PATRON SAINTS and I was away. Those first letter checkers make all the difference. There were some words that are not in my day to day vocabulary e.g. LAC and the intersecting ARTIFICER but all were fairly clued. YORKSHIREMEN and EATEN were my LOsI. I finished outside my target 9 mins at 10:11. I’m scoring that as a win. Thanks Izetti for the confidence booster.
  15. I always struggle with Izettl, and today was no exception. After 45 minutes I had answered 6 clues, and could see I was going to get no further. In the end I gave up.

    This week sure has been tough on the QC front. What surprises me is that so far this week I have fared better with the Daily Telegraph cryptic crossword than I have here at the QC.

    I have a Marathon Duo waiting for me in the refrigerator. Oh well, perhaps tomorrow.

    1. I often get the DT on a Saturday to do their prize crossword – my experience has been that that is at about the level of a medium QC with one or two much tougher clues, so it doesn’t surprise me that the midweek ones are more accessible than the QC.
      1. Yes. I find that the DT has some more wordplay involved in the clues. I am still not up to scratch for attempting The Times 15×15. I occasionally look at it but scuttle away rather rapidly. I look forward to the day I can progress and comment on it.
    2. Nothing struck me as odd about your message until I remembered Marathons became Snickers 31 years ago. Some quick web research revealed one paper thought the Marathon branding was coming back. So is it a genuine Marathon Duo or are you (quite rightly) just stubbornly refusing to move with the times? (and I hope you get to eat it tomorrow)

      Edited at 2021-05-26 04:44 pm (UTC)

      1. I have always preferred Topic to Marathon (hazelnut versus peanut) although pound for pound (literally and figuratively), Marathon gives more bang for buck.
        Sadly I am on a total chocolate exclusion diet at the moment and accordingly, can look on only with envy.
        1. Life doesn’t sound much fun for you at the moment — I do hope you make a speedy recovery.
      2. Hi mendesest

        Unfortunately it still says Snickers on the packet. I am just being stubborn. I still call Starbursts, Opal Fruits.

        That is interesting to hear the possibility of Marathon coming back, perhaps seeing as we are now out of the EU. If that is correct then bring back Opal Fruits. While they are at it perhaps they could bring back Pacers, Fry’s Five Centres and Texan Bars.

        PS> I ate the Marathon Duo yesterday. It was just too tempting.

  16. As said by several here re difficulty, I concur, this one was a brad in my coffin.
    Struggled to start, struggled to finish. Was it the grid or just too cryptic, I am not sure. Either way my head was just not in tune with Izetti and a DNF.
    Well done everyone. Thanks Jeremy.

    Edited at 2021-05-26 09:07 am (UTC)

  17. LAC was my FOI, followed by GENERALLY and YORKSHIREMEN. Despite all the helpful letters provided by these, I failed to get under my target 10 minutes, but at least had no typos or errors. PATRON SAINTS was another helpful entry. CONQUEST was my LOI. 10:55. Thanks Izetti and Jeremy.
  18. Another toughie having failed miserably with yesterday’s, although that was partly to do with trying to start it at nearly midnight again. Never heard of ARTIFICER, TWAIN meaning couple (although I do know the East is East saying so it wasn’t too hard to figure out), SONNETEER and LAC (although I’m sure that’s come up before). REFER = “apply” seems a bit of a stretch and I didn’t know our good friend CHE was Argentinian. I wasn’t sure ACCESSION meant “joining” either, so it was only when I saw the anagram that I was able to put that as my LOI and stop my watch on 48:27. COD to the irksome North-country folk of 5d. Thanks Izetti and Jeremy.
  19. Yet to get below 20 mins this week but was closer today at 21 mins. Used aids to get to 11dn (LOI) due to shortage of time but managed the rest without undue problem – just rather slowly. Took a long time to unravel the anagram at 6dn and also far too long on 22ac although I had realised that it probably ended —NETEER. I always find Izetti hard and am rarely on his wavelength, so I wasn’t too disappointed in my time.

    FOI – 6ac PEARL
    LOI – 11dn CONQUEST
    COD – 2dn NOTING

    Thanks to Izetti and Jeremy

  20. Inside target today at 13 minutes, which, given the comments above, I am very happy with. No problem with ARTIFICER as I once was one — starting my naval career at the same establishment in Torpoint as mentioned by Plymouthian above (HMS Fisgard) before doing the bulk of my training at HMS Caledonia in Rosyth. LAC was familiar to me, but CONQUEST took some effort and was LOI. A VERY GOOD, BUT TOUGH QC in my opinion, despite the unhelpful grid. Thanks both.
    1. If I recall correctly Fisgard was also the squadron for new entry artificers at HMS RALEIGH.
      1. Correct. Originally, Fisgard was across the road from Raleigh as a separate establishment (when I was there in’68). It later became a Division within Raleigh. Sadly, artificers are no longer a part of the RNs plans I believe, after 150 plus years of service.
        1. I was in Raleigh in ’92. Not as an artificer but as a soon-to-be MA.
    2. Fisgard is now a mini industrial estate. Raleigh however is very much modernised and rebuilt, and going strong.
  21. Yet another tough one. Needed help to finish as NHO ARTIFICER nor LAC. Hoping for something easier tomorrow after 3 hard days!
  22. All done, but not all parsed, in 25 minutes. Very enjoyable. FOI Yorkshiremen, did not inspire me with confidence that I might make any inroads into this. Patron saints came next. This opened up the west nicely. The rest slowly appeared out of the fog, like the Fighting Temeraire. LOI accession, a guess even after I looked it up in the OED, then I checked on here to see if it was right. A really witty, clever puzzle. Thanks, Jeremy, for the blog explaining the ones I could not parse, and Izetti for a perfect puzzle. I would be grateful if someone could tell me which aids I am allowed to use which do not constitute “cheating” among this group. I don’t want to cheat. Thanks for your input. GW.
    1. Any and all! Knock yourself out. There’s no cheating here. The question is, Do you want to solve the puzzle, or do you want to solve it without anybody’s assistance?
    2. I am doing the QC for fun and, if desperate, I will consult my paper Chambers Crossword Dictionary, but mostly avoid it unless stuck, as today. I wouldn’t use Google or Danword, but that’s my personal system.
      Am not competing, so not cheating anyone.🙂
      1. I unashamedly use aids whenever I like. I consider this a totally personal fun challenge and it’s really no one else’s business whether I use aids or not. That’s what makes this group so pleasurable.

        Diana

  23. Took a snail pace 39 minutes, but I got there in the end. I’ve seen “Artificer” before, but I was still too slow to recognise it immediately.

    For 13ac, spent an age trying to work out whether it was the obscure state of “Itishi” or “Shindi” — until I finally realised it was neither. Perhaps if I’d got the two long anagrams earlier I would have been a lot quicker.

    FOI — 6ac “Pearl”
    LOI — 8ac “Artificer”
    COD — 13ac “Brunei” — deceptive!

    Thanks as usual.

  24. Another DNF for me this week – 3/3 so far, making it my worst week for a few months even supposing I manage tomorrow and Friday’s offerings!

    Similar story to others here – many NHOs, lots of tricky wordplay and unfamiliar usages that completely passed me by, cunning surfaces that misdirected me skilfully.

    Gratified that it’s not just me having trouble this week, but happily admit to being completely outwitted so far.

  25. 5:03 which is better than usual for me for an Izetti QC.
    FOI 5d “Yorkshiremen” and then a steady solve with a slight delay over the anagram for 6d “Patron Saints” where “figureheads” in the definition had me visualising statues for a while, which wasn’t helpful.
    I thought each clue was neatly and cleverly structured, COD was 2d “Noting”.
    Thanks to Jeremy for the blog and to The Don.
  26. Sorry for asking this here but I did not know where to post it.

    Is there any way I can block a certain person here from seeing and replying to my posts?

    Unfortunately there is a moronic person here on TftT that I would rather not have to deal with.

    Thanks.

    1. Live Journal doesn’t have such a system as far as I’m aware for individual contributors to use but on reading through the discussion this afternoon, before I got to your query I had already seen the comment I think you are referring to and had removed it. The poster in question has been warned many times previously about making such comments and at some point may incur the ultimate sanction of being barred.
  27. I thought this was tricky, but doable. Unfortunately my mind was on other things today and so I struggled and needed a second sitting to get Contracts and Conquest. My parsing was up the spout as well, leaving me baffled as to why icer had anything to do with painting and decorating, and wondering how Con could mean more than one… Must have been well over 30mins in total. Invariant
  28. Very difficult. Forty-eight minutes and I would venture to say, based on my experience and that of regular posters here, that this is rather too tough for a quickie.
    I would really like the puzzles editor and setters to recalibrate their difficulty checker.
    1. Dear Pam,

      Just to reiterate something I’ve heard the editor say on numerous occasions: the Quick cryptic is supposed to be faster than the 15×15 — not necessarily easier, although of course it will have to be easier in ways so that it can be solved faster. Some of those ways include: more obvious wordplay than the main, more standard vocabulary, more hidden words and anagrams, etc.

      Just as with the main puzzle, some Quickies are easier, some or more difficult. Many main puzzles I can solve in 10-15 minutes, some take closer to 30, and some very difficult ones take me an hour or more (or I can’t solve them at all). Similarly, many Quickies I can solve in 5-8 minutes, some take more like 12, and some very difficult ones have taken me 20 or more (or I can’t solve them at all).

      If you are truly looking for a beginner’s-only experience, the Times Quick Cryptic will have much to offer you, but the editor’s aims do not fully align with your needs. Keeping that in mind will hopefully make you less frustrated. I might suggest you set a time limit for yourself, and feel comfortable about putting the puzzle down after your time is up. After all, there’s always another puzzle tomorrow!!

        1. Good luck! And as I said in the preamble to this blog, I feel your pain: I find tough quickies much more frustrating than tough 15x15s.
  29. I have two words that frequently cause me problems — spruce and quest! I just go blank. So you can guess where I met my nemesis today 😅
    All the same, the storytelling was — as usual — top notch today. The Don can really make you wonder what might happen next!
    FOI Generally (so I thought I was off to a good start, but slowed down right away)
    COD Yorkshiremen (quite a few friends and family from God’s Own County)
    DNF after 16 minutes because of that pesky mission

    Many thanks Izetti and Jeremy

    ps I use The Crossword Solver when stuck — I find it easy to use and pretty reliable

    Edited at 2021-05-26 05:53 pm (UTC)

  30. Hard to get into but finished in pne course eating slowly!!
    Never heard of sonneteer before but able to work it out
    Failed miserably yesterday so happier this evening
  31. … in 83 minutes, which including a completely barren period of 24 minutes when I still had 7 clues to work on.
    Apart from my FOI (GENERALLY) just about every clue felt like I was having my teeth pulled out – and this coming on the back of Orpheus’ horror show of yesterday and an hour-long solve on Monday. ‘Quick Cryptic’ is most definitely a misnomer in my opinion, and I just feel too brain dead now to discuss (or even think about) any of the clues.

    Mrs Random finished successfully in 44 minutes today, but even she said it was very tricky.

    What is going on at the moment? Is it a conspiracy?

    Many thanks to plusjeremy and (I suppose) to Izetti. Roll on tomorrow.

  32. ….and I didn’t need a toughie like this at such a late hour.

    FOI ARTIFICER
    LOI CONQUEST
    COD YORKSHIREMEN (you can tell me owt, but happen I’ll not believe thee !)
    TIME 8:13

  33. Particularly enjoyed Sonneteer and Twain, and a past connection with the RN helped with Artificer. But ultimately another DNF because of Brunei. Just did not see ‘rune’ in that context and was fixated on the answer being a state in India.
  34. Hardest quick cryptic I’ve ever done, I just couldn’t get on Izetti’s wavelength at all🙄
  35. Stumbled at my last two gaps, 8ac and 11d. Knew it was ART something but not what, and kicking myself for not getting CONQUEST. That’s so obvious, for goodness sake. Thanks for the Glossary. Homework!
  36. A sub-K and sub-Phil counts as an exceptional Red Letter Day. Helps having had breakfast and not thinking about the work emails probably

    Some of the clues needed a 15×15 mindset but minimal anagrams and double defs meant it was more up my street

    The long ones were all accessible and they gave me enough checkers to tease out the rest

    For what it’s worth, I have absolutely no hesitation using aids once I’ve spent say 15 minutes on the QC or say 45 minutes on the main fare. I chalk it down as (a) a win for the setter and (b) learning experience

    Thanks all

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