I had a day off from the QC yesterday, as I was busy with some DIY jobs at home, and looking at the comments on Doofenschmirtz’s blog, it looks like I missed a good one.
I don’t have a time for my solve today, as I experienced a major interruption mid-solve, but I think I was comfortably inside my target. The only clue that caused me any real difficulty was the short 12 across, where I didn’t immediately recognise the equivalence of the answer and its definition, but I bif’d it anyway and a quick check in Chambers soon sorted out my confusion. How did you all get on?
Across
- Rock and R&B embraced by fellow (6)
MARBLE – R&B inside (embraced by) MALE (fellow).
4 Female, depressed, getting to run (4)
FLOW – F{emale} and LOW (depressed). Didn’t there used to be a TV ad for table salt that concentrated on its pouring / flowing qualities?
9 Mineral contributing to surreal garden (7)
REALGAR – Hidden inside (contributing to) {sur}REAL GAR{den}. REALGAR is arsenic monosulphide – which was new to me. Not many uses these days.
10 Finished after hour? Linger (5)
HOVER – OVER (finished) after H{our}.
11 There I sat, troubled person in two minds? (9)
HESITATER – Anagram (troubled) of [THERE I SAT].
12 Some crayon or pencil (3)
RAY – Hidden (some) in cRAYon. I was unsure about the equivalence of RAY and PENCIL until I looked it up after solving. Chambers gives Pencil = a narrow beam of light (physics), or a set of rays of light diverging from or converging to a point (geometry), either of which justifies it, I think.
13 Not all fear a Cheltenham girl (6)
RACHEL – Hidden inside (not all) {fea}R A CHEL{tenham}. One of two random girl’s names in today’s puzzle.
15 This writer’s son, twitching person aware of another world? (6)
MYSTIC – MY (this writer’s) and S{on} followed by TIC (twitching).
17 River that is cold before noon (3)
CAM – C{old} and AM (before noon – ante meridiem). The CAM is the main river in Cambridge.
18 Getting back from river late after swimming (9)
RETRIEVAL – Anagram (after swimming) of [RIVER LATE].
21 Bishop with bad feeling about scripture (5)
BIBLE – B{ishop} inside BILE (bad feeling – about).
22 One smoker, terribly irritating (7)
IRKSOME – I (one) and an anagram (terribly) of [SMOKER].
23 Northern poem makes a point (4)
NODE – N{orthern} and ODE (poem). A NODE is a point of intersection in any branching system.
24 A Royal marine promotion, with a lot of ships (6)
ARMADA – A (a) RM (Royal Marine) with AD[vertisement} (promotion) and A (a).
Down
1 Protester starts to experience regret after a month (7)
MARCHER – MARCH (month) followed by first letters (starts to) of E{xperience} and R{egret}.
2 Ways Greek island gets broadcast (5)
ROADS – Homophone clue, sounds like RHODES (Greek island).
3 Jolly girl hated the changes (12)
LIGHTHEARTED – Anagram (changes) of [GIRL HATED THE].
5 Small creature always invading rented property? (7)
LEVERET – EVER (always) inside (invading) LET (rented property). A LEVERET is a young hare.
6 Argument rising – this writer’s grovelling (5)
WORMY – ROW (argument) reversed (rising in a down clue) and MY (this writer’s). WORMY isn’t a common word, but Chambers gives ‘grovelling’ as its second definition. That’s the second time today that ‘this writer’s’ clued MY, which seems a tad lazy.
7 Run when something wrong turns up (4)
TROT – TORT (a wrong or injury) reversed or turned up in this down clue.
8 Worker on fruit farm who chooses the easy option? (6,6)
CHERRY PICKER – Double definition, the second a cryptic hint.
14 Theatrical educationist, one put up in tent?(4,3)
CAMP BED – CAMP (theatrical) and BED (B.Ed – Bachelor of Education – educationist)
16 Bad lad taken into care, possibly an occasional smoker (7)
CALDERA – Anagram (bad) of [LAD and CARE]. A CALDERA is the crater formed by the collapse of the central part of a volcano after an eruption.
17 Vehicle at home in shed (5)
CABIN – CAB (vehicle) and IN (at home).
19 Understand component of a tree (4)
TWIG – Double definition.
20 Lady that is part of orchestra (5)
VIOLA – Double definition, and the second of our random girl’s names.
12.39 Never heard of REALGAR or the relevant meaning of pencil, so pleased to have finished.
13 mins including a change of pen midway and some light chat with Mrs Prof, so this could easily have been a record time for me (sub 12) if I had been a bit more focused. I was a hesitater on Ray and Wormy but went for them both on confidence of the parsing. Very enjoyable solve.
Prof
I struggled with this one, finding it much harder than yesterday’s. After 24 minutes it was all complete except for the NW corner where I only had ROADS. I gave up for a while and had a second attempt over lunch. Still a struggle but eventually the two anagrams at 11ac and 3dn fell into place which opened up the whole corner. Not sure why MARCHER and MARBLE had caused me problems originally – both fairly straightforward clues. I had originally looked for a hidden at 9ac but rejected the idea as I couldn’t see any word that made sense – never heard of the unlikely-looking REALGAR. Never timed my second session but the final time must have been well north of 30 minutes. Couldn’t parse CAMP BED or RAY.
FOI – 4ac FLOW
LOI – 9ac REALGAR
COD – 8dn CHERRY PICKER
Thanks to Izetti and to Rotter for some much-needed explanations
I had the same initial problem with 1ac/d, and was looking for ‘a month’ = ajan, afeb etc and wondered where the extra letter was going to come from 🙄 Not my best start to a QC.
Did nt get 6d and 12a, also 7d tort. Found this tricky but as always the Izetti wordplay is helpful.
That’s a bit better – 10 min more or less on the dot. I agree with the comments about my x 2, WORMY and RAY but overall I enjoyed this one. Lots of ticks so quite hard to choose a COD, but I especially liked HESITATER, IRKSOME, CHERRY PICKER and CAMP BED. REALGAR was totally unknown but couldn’t be anything else!
FOI Flow LOI Caldera COD Marble (by a whisker)
Thanks Izetti and Rotter
Hopeless. I need a teacher. My collection of “Everything You Need to Know About How to Complete a Cryptic Crossword” books are just not hitting the mark.
You’re doing alright Ian. A step back and try not to live the highs and lows day-by-day. It was 20/24 a few days back.
As much as I preach not to get disheartened, I also know that when I was in the middle of Pedro yesterday it began to get to me and I felt like I was back at Beginner school. But when I looked at my records, I saw Pedro is probably the setter I do worst with. Izetti was feared earlier last year but now I feel I can complete them but they will be slow. So being a little more nuanced in your evaluations and tailoring your expectations to the setter may help.
In the end, you can check out any time but you can never leave 😉
As one who considers myself a novice at these puzzles may I presume to give you some advice following your cry for help and first ask if you allow yourself to use aids, or perhaps you consider that to be cheating? Perhaps the purists wouldn’t agree but I think that in the early stages anyone should regard aids as “research” not cheating, which is generally considered a perfectly acceptable method of learning.
Do you have Anne Bradford’s Crossword Solver’s Dictionary, which is most useful for looking up synonyms? And if you are looking for a synonym you have thus demonstrated that you have recognised the keyword of that particular clue.
Do you use on-line anagram solvers? If you have resource to one of these you are demonstrating that you are beginning to recognise anagram indicators and to sort out the letters which are required for the anagram even if you cannot yet manage the anagram. And having a few answers from anagrams in place will give you some useful crossing letters to help you with other answers.
There are also some useful on-line crossword solution finders to resort to if stuck in which one can use the letters one already has to see words which fit those particular letters and from which you can make a choice for your answer. Choosing the correct answer usually involves being aware of this word’s particular parsing which again shows that you are gradually absorbing the complexities of puzzle solving.
The more success you have with finding solutions the more confident you will become and you will feel less like giving up. Because it is really only by constant repetition that one can build up the experience to recognise the different clue types, which I’m sure your “How to complete” books have explained to you but which, when you’re starting out, never seem to apply to the particular clue in hand. This wonderful blog, too, explains everything so clearly and, in retrospect, makes the answers seem so obvious, that one can begin to feel a bit dim in the early days. But keep at it and you will find that in time you will only need to check the blog for specific clues that you may have biffed and failed to parse. This process is definitely akin to learning a new language; in the early days it can be a slow and frustrating slog but it assuredly will become easier and after much practise you will find that you are able to complete more and more and will be resorting to the aids – or researching – less and less.
I hope you find this helpful and are not in fact already doing all this research but still feeling frustrated! Not being worried about resorting to any methods I have needed to use is certainly the only way that I have managed to get anywhere with these quick cryptics and I’m certainly not very at home with the “grown-up” puzzle yet, though I do try when given a tip via the blog that it is an easier one, and have actually finished some before now, so I do understand your frustrations.
Best wishes, and keep at it, LN
I still haven’t completed yesterdays QC, and ground through todays in 24:38. Thought REALGAR was very obscure. Sounds more like a Norse/Icelandic god, than a chemical. Also RAY=pencil looked distinctly odd.
CID CAMP BED
16:58
Something of a geology theme today with MARBLE, REALGAR and CALDERA so as a geologist perhaps I should have finished much faster but have to confess I’d not heard of the mineral. Didn’t know RAY for pencil either so fingers were crossed hitting submit.
Question to Mr Rotter (today’s blogger) or anyone else …
16 Bad lad taken into care, possibly an occasional smoker (7)
CALDERA – Anagram (bad) of [LAD and CARE].
I had decrypted “bad” and “possibly” as both being anagrinds i.e. anagram of LAD taken into anagram of CARE. Not that it makes much difference to the overall result.
Just intrigued on your thoughts?
Hi LP, you are totally correct – it is one distinct anagram inside another, and that is how I parsed it as I solved it, with bad and possibly both being anagrind for their particular anagrist. However, at the very least, possibly appears to be doing double duty, as not all CALDERAs are occasional smokers, and I left that bit out when writing the blog. Thanks for pointing it out.
Thanks for your reply 👍
Come off it. REALGAR? WORMY? And cherry picking is not the easy option. It is selection with a bias. I think Izetti is confusing ‘ low hanging fruit’. Bah. DNF