Our last Times Quick Cryptic of 2022 is provided by Teazel. I found it very entertaining, if a little on the tricky side – it took me a couple of minutes over my average at 7:31, finishing with the elusive anagram at 7D. I liked “having wife to maintain” at 9A, 5D and the clever wordplay at 23A, but my COD goes to 1D for the surface. Thank-you Teazel. How did you all get on?
Fortnightly Weekend Quick Cryptic. This time it is Sawbill’s turn to provide the extra weekend entertainment. You can find the latest crossword here. Enjoy! If anyone is interested in our previous offerings you can find an index to all 67 here.
Definitions underlined in bold italics, (Abc)* indicating anagram of Abc, {deletions} and [] other indicators.
| Across | |
| 1 | Band’s worst artist? It is (4,7) |
| DIRE STRAITS – DIREST (worst) RA (artist) IT’S (it is). | |
| 8 | A carbon copy employer gives prosecutor (7) |
| ACCUSER – A CC (carbon copy) USER (employer). It’s funny how “carbon copy” is still used in the online world. Does anyone use carbon paper with a typewriter any more? | |
| 9 | Vacillate, having wife to maintain (5) |
| WAVER – W (wife) AVER (maintain). | |
| 10 | Pack animal shortly trails behind, like this (2,7) |
| AS FOLLOWS – AS{s} (pack animal) [shortly] FOLLOWS (trails). Tricky definition. | |
| 12 | Managed a shower? Not I (3) |
| RAN – RA{i}N (shower) without the I. | |
| 13 | Chucked, we are told, in high chair (6) |
| THRONE – Sounds like, [we’re told], THROWN (chucked). | |
| 15 | Show is about meat (6) |
| REVEAL – RE (about) VEAL (meat). Show the verb is the definition, although it’s a noun in the clue. A sneaky setter’s trick to watch out for. | |
| 17 | Regularly killed in US, one hears (3) |
| OFT – Another homophone clue, [one hears], OFFED (killed, in US slang). | |
| 18 | It takes a measure of time to cancel the guard (9) |
| STOPWATCH – STOP (cancel) WATCH (guard). It took me a while to spot the definition. | |
| 20 | Warms up for rounds of races (5) |
| HEATS – Double definition. | |
| 22 | Lost rib, shot in city (7) |
| BRISTOL – (lost rib)* [shot]. | |
| 23 | After revolutionary 30 seconds suggested to postpone card game (6,2,3) |
| CHEMIN DE FER – CHE (Guevara; crosswordland’s favourite revolutionary) MIN{ute} half of minute (30 seconds suggested) DEFER (postpone). Nice one. Chemin de fer is a baccarat card game where players bet against each other. A bit tricky, perhaps. Luckily I knew this and saw it from the checkers. I liked the 30 seconds device. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Died, face up in the drink (5) |
| DECAF – D (died) FACE [up] -> ECAF. I quite liked the surface of this, but maybe face down would be more likely. | |
| 2 | Whispering sounds from street interrupting pronouncements (9) |
| RUSTLINGS – ST (street) [interrupting] RULINGS (pronouncements). | |
| 3 | Regret one magpie may be for it? (6) |
| SORROW – Double definition, the second a cryptic hint referring to this magpie nursery rhyme. | |
| 4 | Cruel fight given up (3) |
| RAW – WAR (fight) going upwards [given up] -> RAW. | |
| 5 | In prose? The opposite (7) |
| INVERSE – IN VERSE (the opposite of in prose). Crikey! How do I classify this? It’s like the, ahem, “inverse” of a semi-&lit, where the the whole clue is the wordplay and part of it is the definition. Nice one. | |
| 6 | Choker left in unusual cargo area (12) |
| STRANGLEHOLD – L (left) [in] STRANGE (unusual) HOLD (cargo area). | |
| 7 | Disastrous scratch — patio ruined (12) |
| CATASTROPHIC – (scratch patio)* [ruined]. My LOI, needing the checkers to get to the answer. | |
| 11 | Singular aroma around garden site is distorted (4-5) |
| SKEW-WHIFF – S (singular) WHIFF (aroma) [around] KEW (garden site). A favourite expression of late Dad’s, but it may not be as familiar to some as I’ve never heard anyone else use it. | |
| 14 | Scramble to advance career — as traitor? (3,4) |
| RAT RACE – Double definition, the second a cryptic hint. | |
| 16 | Not good enough? Tough luck (3,3) |
| TOO BAD – And another, this time the first is the cryptic hint. | |
| 19 | Teacher that’s bad has nothing right (5) |
| TUTOR – TUT (that’s bad, as you might do in reaction) O (nothing) R (right). | |
| 21 | To be on the slopes is how many Russians finish (3) |
| SKI -Double definition, the second referring to Russian names ending in -ski. | |
I started this online, but gave up and printed it out. Slowly cane together from the bottom up. About 35 minutes of solving. Some very good clues- DECAF was very good. I finished with SORROW, and suddenly the ‘Magpie’ theme tune came into my head. One of the presenters was the lovely Susan Stranks if I remember correctly.
I used to have the first Dire Straits album on vinyl. I loved ‘the sultans of swing’.
Difficult. Took a long time, getting a clue here and there along the way. Eventually got CHEMIN DE FER and RUSTLINGS which helped, but NHO OFT or OFFED, so DNF.
Happy New Year to all QCers.
Tough one, last few were sorrow, dire straits and raw.
I like DS and Mark Knopfler is a great guitarist.
COD Stranglehold.
I started off very slowly but enjoyed this tricky offering. My FOI was CATASTROPHIC as I couldn’t make sense of either of the 1s at first. I was thrown by FACE being in the clue and the answer for 1d. I foxtrotted around the grid with my penultimate guess CHEMIN DE FER and LOI RAT RACE in 11:27.
I found this difficult with very little on first pass and then needing a lot of aids to finish. Also had NOT BAD instead of TOO BAD even though it didn’t really fit with ‘tough luck’.
I have been doing the QC since it started and this blog is a great addition to the learning experience. Many thanks to all contributors.
13:30. I wandered all over the place with this one, and got quite stuck in the SW corner, but at least I finished.
I can’t say anything really stuck out for me, but it was a pleasant enough solve. SKEW-WHIFF took a while, as I tend to think of it as one word (as, it seems, does Collins). It’s well-known to this southerner living in the Midlands, and still used from time to time. It does look very strange written out without the hyphen though.
Too many magpies in my garden these days! I’m not superstitious but I know people who always salute a magpie.
I quite liked AS FOLLOWS and SKI.
FOI Accuser LOI Chemin de fer
Thanks Teazel and John
I’d like to echo everyone’s thanks to the bloggers – you do a great job. But I’d especially like to thank John, Vinyl and Jack for their amazing work in getting the new blog set up and running so well.
Thanks also to all the posters for the highs and lows, the amazing range of GK, the laughs and your good company. Happy new year everyone 😊🥂
To my SORROW I quickly found myself in DIRE STRAITS with my brain all SKEW-WHIFF from this puzzle where I couldn’t crack the above three clues. I would like to second PennyB’s thoughts and express my gratitude for all the entertainment and stimulation provided by this forum and all who sail in it- very much appreciated!
I was hoping for a great time to end the year. Alas, it was not to be and I took just under 35 mins. As so often with Teazel, I couldn’t get on the wavelength and struggled throughout. Thankfully a short break to take a phone call helped just at the point when desperation was setting in.
I’ve realised that my GK is usually good enough for me to secure a decent time, but I am still stumbling over some of the word play, with today being a good example. I was convinced that 1ac was an anagram and, for 22ac, I thought the words comprising the anagram were rib and shot rather than rib and lost. D’oh!
Knew CHEMIN DE FER from the Bond books and SKEW WHIFF is a common term in Yorkshire. I always greet a magpie with the words ‘Good morning Mr Magpie’ to ward off SORROW, just as I was taught as a child.
With my legal hat on, slightly thrown by 8ac. I appreciate fully that the dictionaries have PROSECUTOR and ACCUSER as synonyms, but, to me, they are different. The accuser is the victim of an offence and the prosecutor is the solicitor/barrister who presents the case at court. It also didn’t help that I saw prosecutor and thought DA!
FOI – RAN
LOI – CATASTROPHIC
PDM – SKEW WHIFF
COD – OFT (brilliant)
Can I echo the comments of those above and thank all the setters, bloggers and contributors for the entertainment provided over the last year. I can’t compete with Cedric or L Plates when it comes to stats, but I have enjoyed countless hours puzzling over the daily QC!
My very best wishes to all of you for a happy 2023. After the turmoil of recent years, it would be nice to see a period of calm and peace.
Gary
Toughie today GA – but you got there. HNY to you – always appreciate your comments 👍
Thanks L-Plates😊 and well done for recording those statistics. They made for interesting reading and show just what progress you have made. You’ll be one of the bloggers before long!
Thank-you for all the comments thanking the brilliant setters and team of bloggers, to which I would like to add one more… the commenters! It is the interesting discussion and communal mutual support that really bring the blogs to life and make the effort to blog worthwhile. Thank-you to you all.
You all do a terrific job. I learn something new every day.
Agree! Happy new year and thanks to all.🥂🎊
Thanks to John and Teazel.
As a big fan, I kicked myself for only getting DIRE STRAITS from the checkers. Thanks to John Dunleavy for explaining the relevance of ‘Spanish City’ in the masterpiece that is Tunnel of Love – I’d always wondered.
Almost DNF, due to OFT. Am I the only one who doesn’t think oft (ie often/frequently) means quite the same thing as regularly (ie at regular intervals)? Many people use ‘regularly’ when they mean ‘often’/‘frequently’, but Chambers suggests the two are not strictly interchangeable. Additionally, as a clean-living boy, I’d never heard of OFFED, which didn’t help!
Like many others, enjoyed DECAF’s surface.
I am a quibbler about regularly and frequently not being the same thing. After all you celebrate your birthday at regular intervals but that doesn’t make it frequent. But I have got over myself and accept most people think of them as the same thing.
A really tough workout today – 67 minutes (across 3 stints for me)! I struggled with almost every aspect of crosswording – deciphering the wordplay, vocabulary, GK, the lot! LOsI were OFT and RAT RACE, but many others had me beaten for a very long time.
I will peruse all of the above stats over the weekend and will post a set of my own next week.
Very many thanks to Teazel and John for today’s puzzle, and Mrs Random and I wish everyone here all the very best for 2023.
HNY to all; I enjoy the blogs sometimes more than the crossword!
I spell it skew-wiff. I think.
Katy
Well done Mr Random. It was your statting in the first place that inspired me to keep them 👍
I think the joy to be had today was simply getting to the end of a tough one, Mr R. Well done for showing such perseverance.
we did not complete the puzzle today due to visitors, but wish all contributors the best for the new year. we enjoy this site very much, thanks to all.