Times Quick Cryptic No 1932 by Joker

42 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 1932 by Joker”

1. I couldn’t recall Cyprus for some reason, so 14ac took an unnecessarily long time. Demi-biffed CHARLATANISM like Jeremy. Sorting the anagrist in my head for REPREHENSIBLE was what really slowed me down. 9:39.
2. I was locked in on CAPRI and took some time to think of Cyprus/CYPRESS. So I went and did the 15×15 and then came back to finish.
3. …after one obvious one after another. If you see all the long ones quickly, you will do well, but I didn’t. Three out of four isn’t good enough, as I struggled with charlatanism. Time: 9:13.
   1. Think how I felt with only one of the four long ones! Only DISAGREEMENT went in quickly, the others had to be painfully extracted. Apart from those BLIGHT and TEAROOM held me up — just couldn’t see the word from the anagrist for the latter. The quality of this puzzle is clear in retrospect but I’m afraid it was a grade or two above me as I solved.
4. 10 minutes but I found some clues quite hard and took a while over a couple of the longer answers.

   I had a MER at ‘misunderstanding / DISAGREEMENT’ but it’s in Collins Thesaurus and I accept that in some circumstances they can be synonymous.

   Edited at 2021-08-04 04:31 am (UTC)

5. DNF on CHARLATANISM. Thought cleaner was ‘cha’, which is tea? I don’t use either of those words and usually get confused. Was trying something starting with ‘charade’ as well.

   For islands I also had Capri, trying to make ‘caprice’ fit. An early runner was ‘corsica’, which as a seven letter Mediterranean island starting with ‘c’ was very tempting for us biffers.

   COD IMPROPER: just follow the recipe and in it goes.

6. 5:07 It was GRATIFICATION that was my last long one, although CHARLATANISM took a while to come too. A nice test from Joker. What does a PURITAN WEAR? It must be BUCKRAM.
   1. Wit aside, you can’t wear buckram, as it is a pretty solid stiff fabric used to back e.g. curtain pelmets. Later: oh sorry I see it was used to ‘provide shape to garments’.

      Edited at 2021-08-04 09:54 am (UTC)

7. After an hour I had only answered half of the clues. many were just too difficult or obscure for me.
8. This was tricky but, like yesterday, it felt as if my brain cell needed recharging as I also made hard work of some of the less difficult clues, such as SEAM, TEAROOM and THING. I went round the Med several times before remembering the correct island and all four of the long ones needed to be pried out with a crowbar, which didn’t help.
   All perfectly fair and high quality clues, Joker was just a bit too good for me today. Finished in 16.18 with LOI GRIP.
   Thanks to Jeremy for the blog and Joker for the workout
9. Managed an all correct- 8 in a row now- but got stuck with the SW corner, and had to put it down for a thinking break. REPREHENSIBLE CHARLATANISM great clues. Who does Joker have in mind I wonder?
   Lovely puzzle and very helpful blog
   BW
   Andrew
10. CHARLATANISM was my LOI and was a great big biff from CHAR.

    I liked DOGMATIC best of all, and apart from my LOI, everything was parsed.

    6:46

11. I was held up by REPREHENSIBLE, GRATIFICATION and LOI, CHARLATANISM. 10:51. Thanks Joker and Jeremy.
12. This felt difficult throughout. FOI was DOGMATIC which I mistyped making 10a impossible before a full review. Then ASH and some shorter clues.
    I managed to keep going just about with several semi-biffs and LOI was TEAROOM as I was thinking coffee.
    Time was 13:02.
    Another high quality puzzle from Joker.
    My favourite was DOGMATIC.
    David
13. An excellent, very enjoyable but testing QC. Like others, I got DISAGREEMENT easily, together with lots of shorter easier ones, but the other three long answers took longer and needed some crossers. In the end I came close to double yesterday’s time and I just tipped into the SCC. Still, It wasn’t much more than 2K so not too bad!
    I liked GRATIFICATION, PURITAN, CHARLATANISM, MUTINEER, SOLEMN and the long anagrams REPREHENSIBLE and DISAGREEMENT. My LOI was actually BLIGHT.
    Jeremy, I use the online version of the QC on my iPad and find myself flicking up and down the blog endlessly when I try to pick out my favourite clues whilst adding a comment. (My poor short-term memory does not allow me to memorise my ‘memorable’ clues as I go through the QC). I wonder if there is a way of including your very helpful glossary in the online version that avoids interposing it as a long list between your blog and solver’s comments? Just a thought — I wouldn’t want to lose it but I find the format frustrating.
    Many thanks to Joker and Jeremy. John M.

    Edited at 2021-08-04 09:02 am (UTC)

    1. What would you suggest?
       1. Jeremy, my attempts at web formatting have been pedestrian at best. Of course, two or more columns would shorten the length but that may not be easy.
          I was just making a suggestion. Others may not be bothered by this. In which case, leave it as it is — it is a very useful glossary. Thanks.
       2. I’ve never tried it – and hence this might be a complete non-starter – but you might be able to put a “Glossary” cut inside the existing “Read more …” cut.
    2. I agree, John. Your suggestion would be most helpful.
       Pam
14. eventually!
    Biffed many of the long ones. Had a PDM with e.g. cleaner=CHAR which helped but I did not fully parse several.
    FOI DISC, LOI OWN.
    Solved a few round the edge like BUCKRAM, MUTINEER, DOGMATIC but slowed to a crawl towards the end partic in SW.
    Thanks vm, Jeremy.
15. Just inside 13 minutes, and quite pleased with that given comments and times above. LOI for me was the old chestnut TEAROOM where I just couldn’t see the anagram, not helped by more usually seeing TEA ROOM. DISC and BUCKRAM were FTI, for a solid start. Thanks both.
16. One of those puzzles where past experience really comes into play as I don’t think I’ve come across BUCKRAM outside of here, nor the word CHARLATANISM. However, what would once have held me up for ages if I’d got them at all, went it quite quickly and it turned out to be a fairly steady, if a little outside target, solve at 27:14. FOI DISC, LOI GRIP, COD MUTINEER. Thanks Jeremy and Joker
    1. Menswear?
       1. Oh, sorry, I was laughing because I hadn’t seen that Ed was querying the use of WEAR; I’d only seen what he wrote about his DISAGREEMENTs with his wife. I thought ‘menswear’ was your cheeky way of suggesting what happens when they have those disagreements…
    2. I agree that WEAR is rarely used on its own (unlike sportswear, menswear as already mentioned by countrywoman1) but it does exist and it’s in the dictionaries, e.g. SOED has ‘wear’ as: a thing or things worn; esp. fashionable or suitable clothing for a specified activity or occasion.L16.

       On 7dn I expressed misgivings in my own posting above, but for a synonym definition to be valid it’s enough for it to apply in one context; it doesn’t have to fit every occasion, so despite my MER I concluded it was okay.

       On 14ac, the homophone seems close enough to me but they’re often controversial. On the size issue it’s all relative, and ‘big’ doesn’t have to mean the largest possible.

       Edited at 2021-08-04 04:47 pm (UTC)

    3. Casual wear.
17. Struggled with this, but still managed to get it done in about 30 mins.

    I also was somewhat misled by the definition of 5dn, but couldn’t see it to be anything else. Nearly put “bright” for 3dn, but knew the parsing didn’t make sense until I had a pdm. 12ac took ages — mainly because I was thinking of some kind of Italian bistro type thing (ending in “more” or “mora”) — doh!

    FOI — 6dn “Mend”
    LOI — 18dn “Grip”
    COD — 13dn “Mutineer”

    Thanks as usual!

18. Found parts of this quite easy but spent a long time on the 4 long clues and an even longer time locating the correct Mediterranean island. No exact time owing to several interruptions but probably around 20 minutes. Didn’t parse 4dn but otherwise all parsed while solving. Nice puzzle – thanks Joker.

    FOI – 1ac DISC
    LOI – 15dn SOLEMN
    COD – 1dn DOGMATIC. Also liked 8ac GRATIFICATION

19. At 7:09 I was surprised to find myself so high up on the leaderboard for what seemed to me a doable QC. I had just a few moments of hesitation with GRIP, GRATIFICATION and my LOI CHARLATANISM which I only parsed after submitting. I have seen many cryptic clues for TEAROOM but I think today’s reads so smoothly that I’m awarding it COD.
20. Another tough one from Joker. Despite a good scattering of easier clues, they didn’t quite succeed in making up for the difficulty in solving the four long answers. Like others, only Disagreement came easily to mind, with Gratification and Charlatanism a very stubborn final pair. 28mins with parsing, but it could have been a lot worse. Invariant
21. My hold-ups were BLIGHT, my LOI, and GRIP. I answered 3 down fairly early on — but I knew it must be wrong as I couldn’t parse it and so returned to it at the end. I had put in “bright ” thinking B for British and light for brilliance. However — and rather ironically — this solution was frustrated by the fact that I couldn’t see how “frustrate ” fitted in. I only solved 18 down via an alphabet trawl and my initial answer there was “trap “, thinking it fitted the definition of “bag” and was some (though not “most” of grouse ) backwards. Once I’d put my brain back on, I realised that this was unlikely to be the correct solution.
    Some great clues and lots of super misdirection today. Thanks, Jeremy, for the, as always, excellent blog and thanks, too, to joker
22. ‘Joker at his best’ I thought, as I zipped through this. Witty, neat clues – and, as far as I’m concerned, not too hard. In fact, I finished in around 7 minutes, so about .7K – that is definitely A Red Letter Day! It just clicked with me today.
    So many ticks and smiles, but the clue for 1d made me smile ruefully. The puppy hasn’t eaten any carpet yet but was having a jolly good go at the hearth rug last week. Not any damage there, but he has left teeth marks all over my new kitchen chairs! I did like ASH, OWN and GRIP a lot.
    FOI Disc
    LOI Blight
    COD Cypress
    Many thanks Joker for the fun and to Jeremy too
23. We had to work hard to come in at 13 minutes. Very enjoyable puzzle.

    (Even briefer posting than usual — we’re getting ready for guests to arrive)

    FOI: DISC
    LOI: GRIP
    COD: GRATIFICATION

    Thanks Joker and Jeremy.

24. Done in front of test match with numerous interruptions from dogs, spouse and deliveries. The resultant lack of a time has probably spared my blushes since it felt pretty tough and I really had to winkle quite a few out. Didn’t feel like the usual Joker.

    FOI DISC, LOI CYPRESS (I too was hung up on Capri, with occasional thoughts of Crete), COD TEAROOM.

    Many thanks to the two Js.

    Templar

25. ….at DISAGREEMENT, but he’s justified it so I concur. Only minor hold-up was erroneously entering ‘ness’ at the end of 4D. I’m currently 9th on the scoreboard, which I didn’t expect.

    FOI DISC
    LOI CHARLATANISM
    COD IMPROPER
    TIME 3:36

26. 3:44 just before lunch. For some reason I felt I had taken longer, so it must have been an absorbing solve. As was the case yesterday, solving the four long clues quickly was key (as others have already noted). From memory I think in each case the solution came to mind first, followed by parsing.
    COD 20 ac “reprehensible” — and so true as well!
    Thanks to Jeremy for a most succinct blog and to Joker for his witty contribution.
27. Going like a train, then came unstuck. DNF. FOI disc, ones not able to solve grip, puritan, solemn. Enjoyed the puzzle anyway. Once I had read the blog, I quite liked grip as COD. Thanks, Jeremy, and Joker. GW.
28. I was going well with just 7-8 to do at the 20 minute mark, but then the going became really sticky for me. Each of the remaining clues fell only after a real struggle – e.g. NHO BUCKRAM or GRIP for ‘bag’. CHARLATANISM was my LOI, although GRATIFICATION, TEAROOM, AGENT and MUTINEER all caused me problems for a long time.

    I finally put down my pencil after 56 minutes, very pleased to have survived this offering from Joker. However, having now read plusjeremy’s blog, I am hugely disappointed to spot that my BRIGHT (for brilliance) should have been BLIGHT. I clearly forgot to check back with the whole clue once I had come up with my answer.

    Mrs Random also toiled away for twice as long as usual, but she completed the puzzle successfully in 44 minutes.

    Many thanks to Joker and plusjeremy.

29. 29 minutes. I prefer two or three word answers when 12 or 13 letters, so this was very hard going. Of the long answers, I saw Gratification first then Disagreement, Reprehensible and Charlatanism as LOI…
    So from feeling it was going to be a lazy DNF it slowly became a success. So I guess ultimately pleasing, but a hard grind and not too much fun for me in the process.
    Thanks all
    John George
30. Quite a workout …
    … with some clues that were definitely testing I thought. All done in the end in 11 minutes, but more than 2 of those was on my LOI 4D Charlatanism, which refused to come quietly.

    Many thanks to Jeremy for the blog
    Cedric

31. Miserable DNF. Just could not do most of the bottom half. My worst effort for ages.
32. Was this supposed to be a QC?
    DNF on charlatanism. I suppose if I’d known char for cleaner (bit Daily Telegraphish!) I could have biffed it as others did.
    Also got Cyprus wrongly spelt — thought it was the actual island
    Never heard of buckram but guessed it

    Nick

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