Times Quick Cryptic No 2099 by Jalna

25 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 2099 by Jalna”

1. …although I got off to a pretty good start. I did not know motte, although the cryptic seemed to be pointing in that direction, so I hesitated to put it in. For some reason I couldn’t recall Fleet Street for a while, and then had an unlikely collection of crossing letters for 1 across, which took me a minute to see. Time: 10:21.
2. 11 minutes. Nothing unknown here, but I was a little slow. This means I have gone the whole week without achieving my 10 minute target.

   I’m not sure that ‘part-time worker’ is valid as definition of TEMP.

3. Lots to like here. I thought tumulus was the only ancient mound I knew until I finally saw what was going on. We had to draw motte and bailey castles at primary school and they’ve stuck in my mind ever since. It was still my last one in though. All green in 15. John’s blog reminds me I didn’t parse MOTHERBOARD. Took me a long time to get going today, only two on the first pass of acrosses but then good progress. RUSE was the other big hold up.
4. 20 minutes.
   FOI: LAMP then a steady work through with no real hold-ups other than working out the long anagrams. INCREDULOUS going in on checking letters then seeing the anagram post solve. LOI PARENTAL BIFD parsing post solve.

   LABRADOODLE reminded me of a past friend who had two.

   COD: TARIFF although I had put a mark against LEAPFROG as a contender.

5. … a 21+ min PB, had I not spent an extra 6-mins rethinking / alphabet trawling RUSE from my initial BIF and then DNFing anyway on MOTTE and SAMOA. The latter with its doctor initialism – there seem to be so many GP, MB, MD – but I should have got the country with more thought.

   SW corner was empty after 15-mins and needed to spot the INCREDULOUS anagram to get going down there.

   CALL was a difficult parse for me and with lack of checkers was wondering about “bawl” for cry.

   For some reason, I always want to put spell DILEMMA as dilemna, so pleased to have Jane Austen helping out there.

   FOI LAMP
   LOI RESISTER (as RUSE initially went in before)
   BIFD FLEET-STREET, CALL, TARIFF, ESTATE, MOTHERBOARD
   NHO MOTTE

6. RUSE took well over a minute at the end — just couldn’t see it

   Stuck in SAMBA knowing it needed more thought and forgot to go back. Not my finest hour 🙂

   Otherwise on the tricky side

   Really liked LABRADOODLE and LEAPFROG

   Thanks Jaina and John

   1. Me too:-(
      1. I went for SAMDA *facepalm*
7. Twenty minutes, with two pink squares. Did not parse Oslo, but having Osl left few options. Did not parse motherboard – had few checkers at first and thought it might be micro something. Had to wait for checkers to get the PDM. Did not parse estate, tariff or attempt. Attempt was interesting – I saw a tt and the pt for part-time, but couldn’t see where the em fit. Saw the street but had to wait for leapfrog for Fleet. Had to leave the mound for checkers – cairn fit; could menhir be spelled without the h? Anyway it was neither, as Fleet Street proved. Only four on first pass. I had rasp for the device – rs with ap. An exceedingly good puzzle. FOI dogma. LOI rasp, never mind. COD motherboard. Thanks for the blog, John, and Jalna for this tricky offering.
8. Could not do any of the QCs this week. This was the last straw. I do not understand some of the answers let alone the clues themselves. Are there any other ordinary mortals out there who thibk that these Qevri;uI think
   1. Oh dear. If there some answers I haven’t explained adequately in the blog just ask and I will enhance the explanations.
9. 8:10 but with a careless SAMBA. Drat! Thanks Jalna and John.
10. ….and took me well over target.

    FOI OSLO
    LOI LEAPFROG (saw how it worked, but just couldn’t crack it)
    COD INCREDULOUS
    TIME 6:38

11. 16 minutes and, like Jackkt, over target again. It has been a tough week in QC Crosswordland. I also played with SAMBA, BAWL and thought PARENTRY might be a thing (PAY around RENT and I couldn’t account for the other R). Glad to have finished without aids today, and avoiding the as mentioned pitfalls. Thanks J and J.
12. I didn’t find this too tricky, finishing in 18 mins, which is about average for me. Didn’t parse MOTHERBOARD and never saw the anagram at 10dn, putting in LABRADOODLE from the crossers. Thanks for the explanations on those two John. I thought 8ac was going to be a word I didn’t know until I saw how the clue worked (a bit of a PDM) but even then had to delve deep into the memory banks for MOTTE.

    FOI – 5ac OSLO
    LOI – 16dn TUNDRA
    COD – 7dn ON AND OFF

    Good puzzle – thanks to Jalna

13. … and I only just avoided a DNF. I had made a note of my time, put down my pencil and was on the way here when I remembered the question mark I had by 6d: SAMbA. Luckily, I chose to reappraise my answer and managed to find SAMOA (MB and MD for ‘doctor’ are OK, but MO often catches me out).

    I had already spent several minutes trying to parse PARENTAL and ESTATE (I don’t like calling time if I still have unparsed clues), RUSE took a full-scale alphabet trawl to find, and CALL took ages to arrive (after bawl and wail were rejected). 42 minutes in total – not impressive, but it did ensure an infrequent 5-0 week versus the setters. Hooray!

    Many thanks to Jalna, whom I always find hard to crack, and John (for his excellent explanations).

    Edited at 2022-03-25 12:04 pm (UTC)

14. For the 2nd day in a row the SW proved problematical, but finally getting RESISTER cracked it open. Spent too long thinking about the wrong sort of plain for LOI TUNDRA and had a slight MER at it when it finally succumbed. Loved the surface for DOGMA.
    Finished over target in 11.02
    Thanks to John
15. 2 down feels unfair. You can have full-time temps and part-time permanent employees. In what way can part-time be a valid clue for temp?
    1. You have a fair point, I think, although I didn’t bat an eyelid at it. Mind you, trying to stick up for our setter here… temps are only employed for a period of time, so if over a year they are employed for 6 weeks then they could still be described as part-time in the sense of “(done) for part of the usual working time only”.
    2. I agree Steve and I mentioned my dissatisfaction with the definition in my comment above, though without explaining it as you have done.
    3. Very good point! Didn’t even cross my mind as temp seems to appear quite a lot in these things
16. Thought this was ok and seemed more gentler than yesterdays offering.

    Main hold ups were 8ac “Motte” where I was thinking it was “Me” at the beginning until the penny dropped. Similarly, had to do a bit of an alphabet trawl for 22ac “Ruse”.

    FOI — 1dn “Lamp”
    LOI — 8ac “Motte”
    COD — 11ac “Motherboard”

    Thanks as usual!

17. Spot on 20 mins fully parsed today so hit my target (though far from my PB!). That included a full 4 mins having to do an alphabet trawl for RUSE which gets COD from me. I also liked ON AND OFF and DILEMMA which were clever clues.

    Ref use of Temp for part time worker, seems fair enough to me. It’s a cryptic crossword after all. A temp can be full time or part time temporarily.

    Thanks Jalna for a nice puzzle and John for the blog. Prof

18. We also found this tricky in parts, 22a ruse, and we had wail for 19d, although the word play is very fair. As others we have found this a hard week.
19. A very slow start and needed a break to think. Gradually got to grips with it, with RUSE being LOI. A good challenge.

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