Times Quick Cryptic No 1889 by Tracy

Author   JohninterredPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

I thought this a decent middle-of-the-road Quick Cryptic from the dependable Tracy to end the week, although I found a couple of the surfaces a little clunky. It helps if you know your flowers, European capitals and African republics, but the wordplay is helpful for those and there’s nothing out of the ordinary, I think. I enjoyed the out of place airman best and finished in about an average time for me of 5:08. Thanks Tracy. How did everyone else get on?

Update: Apologies for the wrong number. Now fixed.

Fortnightly Weekend Quick Cryptic. This time it is my turn to provide the extra weekend entertainment. You can find the latest crossword, number 26, entitled “Alphabet Soup”, here. Enjoy! And if anyone is interested in 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 Guys in forest got wild flowers (6-2-4)
FORGET-ME-NOTS – MEN (guys) “in” (forest got)* “wild”.
8 Become dejected when inferior diamonds returned (5)
DROOP – POOR (inferior) D (diamonds) “returned” -> DROOP.
9 Typical long-standing customer (7)
REGULAR – Double definition.
10 Subsequently learn to abroad (5,2)
LATER ON – (learn to)* “abroad”. Hmm. A bit of a clunky surface, methinks.
11 Rule, then abdicate, failing to produce son (5)
REIGN – REsIGN (abdicate) without, “failing to produce”, the S (son), A cleverly constructed surface.
12 Splendid salesman aboard bus heading west (6)
SUPERB – REP (salesman) “aboard” BUS -> BREPUS, reversed,  “heading west”, -> SUPERB.
14 Bad smell in small English boozer (6)
SPONGE – PONG (bad smell) “in” S (small) E (English). How many other words are there that mean “drunkard”, I wonder? I hope you weren’t stuck on boozeer = pub.
17 Fashionable fool, would you not agree? (5)
INNIT – IN (fashionable) NIT (fool).
19 Messenger‘s job secured by porter (7)
APOSTLE – POST (job) “secured by” ALE (porter; a type of ale). The definition is maybe a bit of a stretch, but the origin of the word is “Old English apostol, via ecclesiastical Latin from Greek apostolos ‘messenger’, from apostellein ‘send forth’.”
21 Similar type visually embarrassed (7)
KINDRED – KIND (type) RED (visibly embarrassed).
22 Small amount of exuberance, head being absent (5)
OUNCE – bOUNCE (exuberance) without the B, “head being absent”.
23 Having lost bottle, he blew unfairly (5,3,4)
BELOW THE BELT – (bottle he blew)* “lost”. Blew = gave a blow… and the answer is what an unfair one is in boxing. Almost quite clever, but I have trouble making sense of the surface.
Down
1 Cheats receiving criticism for such nonsense (12)
FIDDLESTICKS – FIDDLES (cheats) outside, “receiving”, STICK (criticism).
2 Perch in river and ducks on street (5)
ROOST – R (river) O O (two 0s; ducks) “on” ST (street).
3 Ruler exercises right during more rioting (7)
EMPEROR – PE (exercises) R (right) “during” (more)* “rioting”.
4 Airman out of place in yacht station (6)
MARINA – (airman)* “out of place”.
5 Queen almost raised in African republic (5)
NIGER – REGINa (queen; as in E.R.) “almost”, “raised” -> NIGER.
6 Large tavern in European capital (7)
TALLINN – TALL (large) INN (tavern). Tallinn is capital of Estonia. I’ve never been there but maybe I should put it on my list of places to visit.
7 Stand-in monarch‘s grin — pretence, somehow (6,6)
PRINCE REGENT – (grin pretence)* “somehow”.
13 Coppers welcoming an act of contrition (7)
PENANCE – PENCE (coppers) “welcoming” AN. No not policemen.
15 Offer in favour of model (7)
PROPOSE – PRO (in favour of) POSE (model).
16 Outlaw group over it (6)
BANDIT – BAND (group) “over” (it’s a down clue) IT.
18 Time, approximately, for delivery of trunk (5)
TORSO – T (time) OR SO (appoximately). “For delivery of” is just filling to make the surface work.
20 Stressful past, perhaps (5)
TENSE – Double definition, the second a definition by example hence the “perhaps”.

66 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 1889 by Tracy”

  1. I biffed 1ac, parsed post-submission. Pretty straightforward, although I too thought BELOW THE BELT was rather awkward. 4:55.
      1. What Kevin means is that he solved the clue just from the definition and didn’t have to bother to solve the anagram. “Biffing” is something invented by one of the TimesForTheTimes commenters in a back-formation from BIFD (Bunged In From Definition). It struck a chord and has entered the forum’s vernacular as lots of solver do it. I think I maybe did the same with 1A and worked out the parsing to write the blog.
  2. Harder time with the quickie than the 15×15 today. Wasn’t helped by writing down ‘pretense’ instead of ‘pretence’ which was leaving me with the wrong fodder for 7 Down.
  3. Myosotis sylvatica – how could I forget to time myself! My FOI at 1ac.

    LOI 6dn TALLINN blue-eyed descendants of mine.

    COD 23ac BELOW THE BELT

    WOD 1dn FIDDLESTICKS! Mark Gatiss is the 7dn in Taboo! (Where ‘fiddlesticks’ is hardly heard!)

    Edited at 2021-06-04 06:32 am (UTC)

  4. 9 minutes brings to an end a full week of solves within my 10-minute target, most of them just within a few seconds of running over, but this was welcome after a much harder run of puzzles last week when I only succeeded once.

    I suspect the main problem here would be getting the four 12-letter answers but fortunately they all came easily for me.

    Edited at 2021-06-04 05:09 am (UTC)

  5. I had the exact opposite experience of yesterday, where the answers had to be pried out with a crowbar. Today they seemed to appear in my mind almost before I’d finished reading the clues. The exceptions were BELOW THE BELT and LOI SPONGE, where I was looking for the establishment not the person drinking it’s wares.
    Finished in 5.22 with my favourite being KINDRED.
    Thanks to John for the blog and in advance for the weekend QC
  6. Back from a short break and it seems a little rusty (terrible signal in coastal Essex so hard enough to get the puzzles let alone posting). Saw FORGET-ME-NOTS immediately but waited until the end to put it in as I couldn’t see how it worked (looking for an anagram of guys not working) and the same for NIGER (thought it might be NIG(H) plus ER but (obviously) couldn’t make that work as the ‘nearly’ had to be up to something else). Also slow on FIDDLESTICKS so lots of lovely checkers missing. My crossword glasses are still packed which added a few seconds to my 21m as I repeatedly read ‘trunk’ as ‘truck’ — much easier with the right clue. Challenging end to a good week.
  7. Blazed through three quarters of this in about 5 mins, was really on the right wavelength and was looking at a pre-Domesday time. But the SE corner stopped me in my tracks, eventually throwing in the towel with TENSE/APOSTLE remaining.

    I stared at A – O – – L E for more time than the aggregate of the rest of the clues. Tried alphabet trawls, tried any possible messengers, and thought AROLELE must be maybe an understudy to Hermes who never got the main gig.

    NHO Sponge for a drunkard, add that to the long list of slang for drunks or being drunk.

    COD Tallinn, put it on your list. Perfect little city, only downside is too many Brits on Stag parties. Prague suffers in the same way.

  9. Fairly straightforward, although, as usual for me, the last clue added about 5-6 minutes to my solving: TORSO this time.
    15×15 is proving more difficult for me today than yesterday.
  10. I could hardly make a start on this one at first, in fact I got nowhere until the SE corner whence I slowly clawed my way back. As posts above make clear, it is a ‘wavelength’ thing and I was utterly de-tuned.
    I gradually built up speed and finally finished 4 mins over target (but I stayed out of the SCC which was beckoning seductively,,,,,).
    There were no unreasonable clues (although BELOW THE BELT and INNIT were a bit weird). Overall, I found much to enjoy and wondered why I had been so slow to start. I particularly liked TORSO, PENANCE, TALLINN (nice place), and APOSTLE. An interesting end to a week that promised a return to form for me at first and then degenerated somewhat. What will next week bring? Many thanks to Tracy and John. John M.

    Edited at 2021-06-04 08:42 am (UTC)

    1. Some vinegar with that chip on your shoulder old bean?

      If you can’t do them, it’s not worth traducing the quicker solvers here, most of whom also do the 15×15. They can only solve what’s in front of them. Most have many years and thousands of puzzles under their belt.

      For the nth time. It’s the “quick” cryptic, not the “easy” cryptic. It’s also worth remembering it’s a “cryptic” crossword. The clues are meant to be “mysterious or obscure”. It takes time and practice to learn the crossword “language”. Invest the time, learn from the blog when you can’t do it, or just give it up as something that ultimately is a pointless pastime for people who enjoy a certain kind of mental exercise.

      1. Try the Mensa Test – if one gains membership – puzzles appear to be far less puzzling
    2. I’m sorry you feel that way. Do make use of these blogs to help you find the cryptic clues less mysterious. I also recommend the Concise as a good way to build skills in finding words from the definition. It is also quite fun to find the hidden message/theme in it every day. As for this one being too hard for a Quick Cryptic, that stats on the club site say the average solving time for this is 10:17, which makes it, by that reckoning, the 2nd easiest of the week, and I think this weeks have been generally easier than last week’s.
    3. I’m a complete duffer at these things and am yet to finish a 15×15. But this one was fair. A few anagrams to provide a foothold but nothing particularly obscure.
  11. … which I found on the challenging side, taking 14 minutes to complete, but never unfair or questionable.

    I had exactly the same two MERs as John over clues 10A Later on and 23A Below the belt. The surface in 10A doesn’t work for me, and given Statherby’s First Law (that almost any word in the English language can be used as an anagrind), it was odd of Tracy to choose the clumsy “abroad”. How about “Subsequently learn to shuffle”? As for 23A, I was puzzled as to what the anagrind was in the first place. At one point I thought it was “unfairly”, and tried to turn Bottle he blew into something meaning “having lost”. Not in my view the most elegant of surfaces.

    But then one person’s MER is another’s COD, as I see 23A has Horryd’s seal of approval. Which is one of the great plusus of the TftT blog — seeing other people’s points of view.

    Many thanks to John for the blog, and I look forward to the Saturday Special.
    Cedric

  12. FOI: 1a. FORGET-ME-NOTS
    LOI: 20d. TENSE

    Time to Complete: 53 minutes (Av: 71, PB: 32 )

    Clues Answered Correctly without aids: 22

    Clues Answered with Aids (3 lives): 19a, 15d

    Clues Unanswered: Nil

    Wrong Answers: Nil

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

    Aids Used: Chambers

    My FOI (1a) I saw immediately, and this gave me hope for a good puzzle. But then things quickly went downhill for a while, with only 3 answers on the first run through. However, I got there in the end with 53 minutes. This reduces my average solve time from 72 minutes to 71 minutes, and my average pass rate from 31% to 32%. I am improving!

    14a. SPONGE – Yes, I was one of those stuck on this one for a while, assuming I was looking for another word for PUB. I had correctly guessed S_ _ _ _E quite quickly. PONG did not spring to mind until it was my penultimate clue to answer. When PONG arrived producing the word SPONGE, I did not understand how. But I assured myself I had the right answer.

    7d. PRINCE REGENT – I kept trying to squeeze REGENT in the top half of the clue, becoming frustrated when it did not fit. I was watching an episode of Blackadder the Third last night, and I think this caused the answer to come to me, eventually.

    A nice finish to the week. It is a shame I DNF yesterday as I would have had a clean week.

    1. Great to see how you are getting more successful. You’ll be a dab hand before you know it.
  13. A bout of insomnia saw me tackle this with a mug of hot chocolate at 4am and then head back to bed, where I eventually slept fitfully for another couple of hours before reluctantly rising again. Surprisingly I had no problems and polished it off in 8:19, with FORGET ME NOT first in and TALLINN bringing up the rear. Even more surprisingly, I’ve just completed the 15×15 in a tad over the half hour. Still feel a bit dopey though. Roll on bedtime! Thanks Tracy and John.
  14. I enjoyed this thanks Tracy and johninterred. I think sponge works as something which drinks in but I’m not convinced that many people would use it as a drunkard. I’ve more regularly heard a sponge as being a cadge, or a taker rather than a giver.I have a personal gripe with Innit – I’d like to know whan this came into being but it feels like an affectation that has become undeservedly widespread – grates on me !
    1. … has appeared as an answer in several Times since 2017, most recently on watch in QC1539. I fear this will not be its last appearance.
  15. Oh no, in my rush I missed out SPONGE. Otherwise finished..
    Liked FIDDLESTICKS, BELOW THE BELT.
    FOI MARINA
    Got APOSTLE by looking at the puzzle out of the corner of my eye.
    Many thanks, John.
    2. “I Got APOSTLE by looking at the puzzle out of the corner of my eye.”
      I will try that approach in future to avoid the mote which frequently obscures my view of a solution.
  16. Just inside target at 14:50, so happy enough with that. LOI TALLINN, not a European capital that springs immediately to my mind, in fact I have barely heard of it. I wondered about INNIT and providing a degree of legitimacy to this awful expression by including it in the Times QC, but there was no alternative, innit bruv. It’s not often that we see anagrammatically linked answers in the same puzzle, as in the case with 2d and 18d. Thanks Tracy and John.
    1. By the way John, I just noticed that your blog heading is for QC 1879 instead of 1889 – thought I’d gone back in time for a moment.
  17. A nice end to the week; finished in 22mins with 23ac last in.

    A few of the same head-scratchers identified by others.

    Thanks blogger and setter.

  18. I really enjoyed this even if I came in at a not so speedy 24 mins. However, it was a tricky start as I could get no purchase whatsoever in the NW corner.

    Whilst the right-sided answer of “Prince Regent” went in straight away, it took me to the end to see “Fiddlesticks”, especially as I had “hoodwinks” stuck in my head for “cheats”.

    Luckily the rest went in steadily in between. Still can’t stand “innit” as a word/expression though.

    FOI — 11ac “Reign”
    LOI — 1dn “Fiddlesticks”
    COD — 13dn “Penance”

    Thanks as usual!

  19. Same experience as Vinyl — struggled to get started; REIGN was first in, but proceeded apace thereafter.

    All the Baltic capitals are worth visiting, particularly Vilnius

    Thanks johninterred and Tracy

  20. Couldn’t see “having lost” as an anagram indicator and so wasted time on my LOI. Otherwise fun and straightforward.

    FOI FORGET-ME-NOTS, LOI BELOW THE BELT, COD ROOST (great surface!), time 08:33 for 1.7K and a Very Good Day.

    Many thanks Tracy and John.

    Templar

  21. I thought this was pretty fair and quicker for me than yesterday. It was nice to start with forget-me-nots which are all over the place at the moment.

    I couldn’t parse reign but didn’t see what else it could be so thanks for the explanation. I did wonder if there was some sort of royal theme going on with the Prince regent and reign but couldn’t spot one.

  22. Forget-me-nots went straight in, but even with the first letter in place, Fiddlesticks had to wait for more crossers. A steady, if slow, solve thereafter but with a few tricky ones left out where I had no idea what was going on. At the 20min mark I just had 11ac, 17ac and 18d left, and it was the scarcely believable ‘Innit’ (in the Times?), that unlocked CoD Torso. Reign, which I see others had as their FOI, finally fell via an alphabet trawl at the 25min mark. Some clunky cluing and solving today. Invariant
  23. Love the idea of some cool dude saying ‘Would you not agree’- the opposite to Armstrong and Miller’s RAF pilots talking in 21st century slang! I agree with James that INNIT is not a great word but the clue made me smile.
    Exactly the same problem as Vinyl – a slow start with REIGN first to appear. Indeed, the whole thing was a bit ponderous and I ended up completing it in 12 minutes – I just couldn’t find a way in and jumped all over the place. Don’t know why – there was nothing BELOW THE BELT (apart from that clue which seemed to be a semi &lit but also not!) I also found 10a very clunky. I liked Cedric’s suggestion – much more fluid. There seems to be a bit of a regal theme across both clues and answers today 👑
    I’m currently waiting in for a parcel. The delivery time is quite approximate (across four hours) but the time scale was exact, starting at 10:38 precisely! If it hasn’t arrived by 14:38, there will be trouble 😉
    FOI Reign
    LOI Tallinn – I was making it so much more complicated!
    COD Emperor

    Many thanks Tracy and John – look forward to the weekend special

  24. 3:31. Aah, the elusive “wavelength”. Yesterday I wasn’t on it but today I picked it up immediately. Yet I have read that others have experienced the exact opposite – one of the reasons the puzzles are so fascinating IMO.
    Helped by solving 1ac and 1 d immediately, so it became a friendly grid with concise clueing.
    COD 11ac “reign” with a neat surface.
    Thanks to John and Tracy for providing a pleasant end to the week
  25. A very welcome interlude to pass the time sitting in Out Patients and being shuttled from place to place having eye tests which made focusing on the puzzle on my phone a bit challenging after eye drops!
    An encouraging start with FOI 1A followed by 1D and then a hop about the grid ending with some head scratching in the SE corner.
    Could not make any sense out of BELOW THE BELT so thank you John, even though I am still not sure that it fits together very nicely for a QCC. COD APOSTLE just pips TORSO for me, but several others in contention.
    A fitting end to a good week of distractions from the realities of life. Thanks Tracy.
  26. Not on the wavelength for the second day running, eventually coming in in a pedestrian 32 mins. Couldn’t parse 5dn (thanks John) and didn’t stop to parse 1ac. I share the general dislike of the “word” innit at 17ac and waited for all the crossers before actually entering it. Spent a long time on 13dn trying to fit some form of policeman in and it also took far too long for the correct meaning of trunk to occur to me at 18dn. As for 6dn, I was reduced to a mental trawl of European capitals but unaccountably forgot all about the Baltic States. However all in all an enjoyable if not very speedy exercise, so thanks to Tracy.

    FOI – 10ac LATER ON
    LOI – 6dn TALLINN
    COD – 18dn TORSO

  27. First half: 21 clues in 25 minutes. FORGET-ME-NOTS went in almost immediately and some of the connecting down clues followed more-or-less straight away. FIDDLESTICKS is a wonderful word, but INNIT should be consigned to the dustbin IMHO (One of my sons used it incessantly a few years back).

    Second half: 3 clues in 24 minutes.
    The interconnecting OUNCE, APOSTLE and TENSE trio held out for more than 20 minutes, despite an extensive alphabet trawl. Then, all of a sudden, OUNCE came to mind, followed quite quickly by the remaining two clues. One of my friends (a scientist) thinks that an inability to readily recall known information is caused by a lack of connections in the required part of the brain. If he is correct, I have little chance of overcoming these agonising ‘last few clues’ hold-ups.

    Total time = 49 minutes (but at least I finished)
    N.B. Mrs R still has her QC to do, plus yesterday’s and Wednesday’s. I will post her results in due course.

    Many thanks to Tracy and to johninterred.

    1. Mrs Random has finally started to catch up on this week’s QCs. She had one hour (max.) before dashing out again to an appointment, so she finished today’s puzzle in 20 minutes, followed by yesterday’ offering from Joker in 33 minutes. Her only stcking point today was finding the right word to fit in T_R_O, but UPTOWN, FOLDER, WORSHIPPER and YOKE all made her pause for thought when doing yesterday’s.

      I noticed that Mrs R has the ability to arrive at correct solutions even though she doesn’t know why they fit the clues, whereas I parse the clues correctly, but then struggle to find the right words. Weird!

  28. Took me a while to find the blog today as I always just search the crossword number.
    John, I think it should read 1889 rather that 1879….
    1. My apologies. Not sure how I managed to get that wrong. I will take more care in future to check.
  29. Correcting all the typos and jumping from clue to clue randomly while doing so.

    Anyway, I took a while to get going, but did so eventually. Not too hard, not too easy, nothing stood out for me. Probably because i was busy battling my phone screen.

    7:45 in the end, so above average difficulty for me, but not nudging into hard.

  30. FOI FORGET-ME-NOTS and LOI TALLINN as I was waiting for all the checkers. 8:31. Thanks John and Phil for a years worth of fortnightly weekend QCs.
    1. Thanks. We have a lot of fun doing them and seeing how people get on.
  32. ….(at least not with the crossword — hospital visits are my problem right now). I love the way that Tracy uses unusual anagram indicators.

    FOI FORGET-ME-NOTS
    LOI BELOW THE BELT
    COD SPONGE
    TIME 3:40

  33. A good challenge which took me a while. Could not see TORSO or TENSE for ages and a few others that weren’t immediately obvious.
  34. Very late posting today as we drove back from Norfolk via a rather traffic-congested Cambridge – to a wood near Addenbrooke’s hospital – to see the helleborines in flower and at the peak of perfection. So I will probably be unread or even unskimmed today. I haven’t done the crosswords since Monday or Tuesday as we have been on a break, walking around Dersingham Bog and along the Peddars Way in the hot sunshine. My priorities on getting home were deadheading the irises and the lilac and spreading bark on the garden. It took me ages to do the crossword, not helped by trying to do it whilst listening to the muzak on the phone whilst trying to rebook a chat with the GP that was cancelled. Over twelve minutes wait but still, mustn’t grumble, I have managed to rebook said chat. Unless it is cancelled again. Anyway, other than being driven mad by the muzak, I enjoyed the crossword. My FOI was forget-me-nots so I thought I might rocket through, but I was slow. LOI Tallinn, was unsure of the spelling. Did not parse Niger or penance. Not a fan of innit. Liked the way emperor was clued. Thanks, John, and Tracy. GW.
    1. Glad you enjoyed the helleborines, Dersingham Bog and Peddars Way. I’ve spent the day doing a 20 mile walk from Eye via Hoxne and Stradbroke today. Rain for the last 4-5 miles, but mustn’t grumble… apart from the stinging legs from the nettles. Glad you enjoyed the QC too!
  35. South east did for me — would not get Sponge for Boozer and missed out on Ounce Apostle and Tense.

    Fiddlesticks took forever and yet Forget-me-nots and Prince Regent quick.

    No time recorded before towel thrown but tricky all round with some good clues that needed thought (as though no other crosswords need thought!!)

    Thank all
    John George

    1. Yes. That’s what I said. It’s the surface reading of the clue I thought didn’t make sense.
  38. Late to this as ever, but an enjoyable end to the week. Done in 15, with TORSO my LOI. Adding my tuppenceworth to the dialogue above about who does these and why, I find them a useful training ground re the tougher 15×15, which I still usually struggle with. I think that’s down to an intimidated brain freeze. I approach the 13×13 in a more relaxed frame of mind because they are less intimidating, and because I know I can usually do them, and yet I still learn some new trick from them every day. I know what I’m learning to do here will eventually pay off on the 15×15. This blog is an invaluable part of all that, so thank you, all.
  39. …but I got there! So pleased I persevered. May try the Saturday 15 x 15, although will probably take me a whole week at this rate! Loved FIDDLESTICKS, LOI was BELOW THE BELT (took about 3 hours 😂)
    1. Well done in persevering! I know the feeling when I get stuck on a hard 15×15 but don’t give up.

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