A largely middle-of-the-road Quick Cryptic, but with a couple of tricky bits from Hurley today, which took me 4:56. I liked the aptness of the surface at 18A and the homophone at 6D, but my favourite, and LOI, was 1D. Thank-you Hurley! How did you all get on?
Fortnightly Weekend Quick Cryptic. This time it is my turn to provide the extra weekend entertainment. You can find the crossword, entitled “And They’re Off!” here. If you are interested in trying our previous offerings you can find an index to all 109 here.
Definitions underlined in bold italics, (Abc)* indicating anagram of Abc, {deletions} and [] other indicators.
| Across | |
| 4 | City celebrity interrupted by steel band at first (6) |
| LISBON – First letters of Steel Band in LION (celebrity). It comes up often enough, but I’ve only ever seen LION for celebrity in a crossword. Where have I not been reading it? | |
| 7 | Happy experience parking by field? Quite (8) |
| PLEASURE – P (parking sign) LEA (field) SURE (quite). | |
| 8 | One aims to shoot bird by river (6) |
| SNIPER – SNIPE (bird) R (river). I last saw a snipe on the River Deben. | |
| 9 | To higher level as purist possibly (8) |
| UPSTAIRS – (as purist)* [possibly]. | |
| 10 | Plan is doomed from the start, dead, outsiders leave (4) |
| IDEA – Ooh. This is a bit tricky for a QC, I think, but just follow the instructions… First letters of Is Doomed, and drop the outside letters of dEAd. | |
| 12 | Worker’s greed ran wild (8) |
| GARDENER – (greed ran)* [wild]. Not the friendliest of definitions. Horticulturist might have been easier to see. | |
| 15 | Winter coming is too much for contact system (8) |
| INTERCOM – Hidden in wINTER COMing. | |
| 18 | Dress artist’s recalled, reaching India (4) |
| SARI – RA’S (Royal Academician’s; artist’s) [recalled] -> SAR, I (India in the phonetic alphabet). Nice one. SARI being an Indian dress. | |
| 20 | Investigation about burn, achy when uncovered (8) |
| RESEARCH – RE (about) SEAR (burn) and inside letters of aCHy. | |
| 22 | Deny any connection with noise, as animal’s inside (6) |
| DISOWN – SOW (animal) in DIN (noise). | |
| 23 | Entitled to compete and fit for match? (8) |
| ELIGIBLE – Double definition. the second a cryptic hint. | |
| 24 | One owing money returning bed to seller in the end (6) |
| DEBTOR – BED [returning] -> DEB, TO selleR [in the end]. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Rapid pace cut short — a blow! (4) |
| CLIP – Triple definition, my LOI and my COD. | |
| 2 | Ancient Med city gate, arch, recollected (8) |
| CARTHAGE – (gate arch)* [recollected]. | |
| 3 | Enticing learner — University indication of engagement? (6) |
| LURING – L (leaner) U (university) RING (indication of engagement). | |
| 4 | One with income from property, not so much? Otherwise! (6) |
| LESSOR – LESS (not so much) OR (otherwise). | |
| 5 | Nautical equipment transaction reported (4) |
| SAIL – SAIL sounds like SALE (transaction) [reported]. | |
| 6 | Perhaps catch by chance located in this country it’s said (8) |
| OVERHEAR – OVERHEAR sounds like OVER HERE (located in this country). | |
| 11 | This is potentially dangerous, it may end disastrously (8) |
| DYNAMITE – (it may end)* [disastrously]. | |
| 13 | Bustling activity in sandbox on regular basis (3) |
| ADO – Alternate letters, [on a regular basis], of sAnDbOx. | |
| 14 | Those inside sect with figure in charge, joyful (8) |
| ECSTATIC – Middle letters, [those inside] , of sECt, STAT (figure) I/C (in charge). Another tricky one. | |
| 16 | Awkward position as public official misses centrepiece (6) |
| CORNER – COR{o}NER (public official) without the middle letter, [misses centrepiece]. | |
| 17 | New OC aims to produce colourful design? (6) |
| MOSAIC – [New] (OC aims)*. | |
| 19 | Heavy defeat — manager finally dismissed (4) |
| ROUT – Last letter of manageR, OUT (dismissed in cricket). | |
| 21 | Name caught by everyone (4) |
| CALL – C (caught) ALL (everyone). | |
Things were proceeding quite nicely except for the NW, where I finally twigged what was going on with CLIP at 11.50. CARTHAGE and UPSTAIRS were also hold-outs, but overall a nicely pitched puzzle. 23ac reminded me of Billy Bragg’s ‘Walk Away Renee’ in which his character claims to be the most illegible bachelor in town. That’s why I can’t understand your stupid letters, she replies. Thanks Hurley and John.
I had never heard this version before, very cool, thank you. I now will have The Four Tops’ version as an ear worm for the rest of the day.
Oh yeah, the Four Tops! Excellent! Based on your correspondence I just listened to the original, by The Left Banke. They wrote a brilliant song but apparently the singer hated it because it was too hard to sing. You can hear why…
I’ll be seeing Billy Bragg in a couple of weeks at a festival. I wonder if he’ll do this number? I don’t know it – will have a listen.
I was determined to finish today’s, I came in just under 20 min. My LOI was ROUT where I was trying to find a word for ‘heavy’.
21:20 Well, I decided why not enjoy another relaxing visit to the SCC? OVERHEAR was the hardest of several that caused me a lot of trouble. I finally saw the light when the old George Cohan WW1 song Over There (The Yanks are Coming!) came to mind and I reasoned if “over there” is a country or countries across the ocean then “over here” must be your own country.
over here – more Billy Bragg
I didn’t find this as hard as everyone else, and I biffed quite a few – ecstatic, research, eligible, even intercom. Upstairs was more challenging, and I puzzled over clip – I was thinking of clipping in US football, but then thought of a clip in the ear.
Time: 8:38
CCL in the top and bottom rows alerted me to this being Hurley’s 250th puzzle, so congrats to him are in order.
13 minutes. I missed the parsing of ECSTATIC and that DYNAMITE was an anagram.
Well spotted.
Congrats to Hurley
Mind blown you saw that and knew why!
Well done for seeing that, and congratulations to Hurley who’s Quick Cryptics are unfailingly good and well-pitched.
Jack the Nina Ninja strikes again! Congratulations, Hurley, and thanks for all the lovely puzzles.
Also the 2750th puzzle, so Hurley has set exactly one eleventh of them
Good point! On a note of pedantry I should mention that actually this is the 2751st Quick Cryptic due to a puzzle published only online on Christmas Day 2014 not being awarded a number.
11.10
Still in bed and no caffeine may explain why I really struggled to get going with this one. Once I got a toehold some of the earlier ones perplexing me became obvious. Go figure!
Thanks Hurley and John
10:31 found this very straightforward, except 1dn where I was wanting to put SLAP but luckily thought about it long enough to see the correct answer, and my LOI ROUT where I was looking for a word ROUTx meaning manager, had to come here to see the correct parsing of the clue.
6:25 after a minute or so of pondering CLIP. I needed the blog (thanks John) for the correct parsing, but all the elements were there and I couldn’t think of an alternative, so in it went.
Agree that OVERHEAR was very good. Thanks John and Hurley.
Didn’t understand LESSeR, turned out to be LESSOR. A deserved pink square at the end of a hard work out. Left with DISOWN and ROUT to finish – by which time 22.45 has passed. So I limp away from a tricky crosswording week.
As with others, I puzzled for my LOI between Clip, Slap and Clap, considered Clap, short for Clappers as being suitably cryptic to get one red square and a sigh of annoyance in an enjoyable solve.
Assumed this was set by Oink when DISOWN dropped in (setter name not shown on phone), but I generally do well with Hurley and Oink and today finished in a satisfied 22 min.
COD DYNAMITE but several other worthy contenders. Have added Lion to my mental list of crossword idiosyncrasies.
Thank you John and congrats to Hurley.
Sun is beckoning, barbecue ahead. Have a good weekend everyone.
I was thinking this morning that it had been a while since I had a pink square and lo and behold I get one today for LESSeR – which how I thought it was spelt but the wordplay is clear so a trip to the naughty step for me to contemplate carelessness.
Overall I thought this was quite chewy in places but all fairly clued and was pleased to ‘finish’ under target. COD to LOI CLIP.
Thanks to John
A nice puzzle but 15 minutes had elapsed by the time my LOI went in, and I’m still not entirely sure where the time went. Nothing too unusual (I’m a bit surprised John picks out IDEA as “tricky for a QC” – we’ve seen far worse), and all parsed except a biffed DISOWN, but I was just not firing on all cylinders.
Many thanks John for the blog and I look forward to the Sunday Special.
Cedric
Looking at it again, I’m not sure why I thought IDEA tricky as the wordplay was unmistakable. I think I may not have been firing on all cylinders either.
I vacillated between CLIP and slap, but luckily biffed the right one. Thanks to John for demystifying it, and congratulations to Hurley – I’d never have spotted that clever signature without Jack, so thanks to him also ( this is getting to be like an Oscars speech…..)
FOI PLEASURE
LOI CLIP
COD INTERCOM
TIME 4:32
Well, we were on a completely different wavelength to Hurley and everyone else. Struggled for 20 minutes, barely getting a foothold then slowly got going for a long slog of 46.00.
Spent a long time trying to find a word for fast paced to take the end off before entering clip and crossing figures.
COD to dynamite, nice.
Thanks Hurley and John for blog, especially the parsing of the clever clip.
A good workout today, taking 15:27. LOI CLIP – it’s too easy to assume “cut short” is wordplay. Very clever.
LIONS are sports celebrities, not my field, so someone else will have to explain it
Lions are not necessarily anything to do with sport. For example there’s an expression ‘literary lions’ with reference to accomplished authors.
If someone is ‘lionised’ wouldn’t you expect them to turn into a lion?
Struggled for over 8 mins, and failed anyway!
I’d bunged in SLAP with no idea how it worked, and was duly punished. INTERCOM was my LOI, and I only just spotted it was a hidden.
Edit: I see that if I’d spotted the 250 indication then I’d have had a better chance of getting CLIP correct! Well done Hurley on the 250.
DNF
16:31 (Death of Thomas Hobson, famous for Hobson’s Choice and Hobson’s Conduit)
I found this very much on the tricky side. LOI was ROUT, where I was looking for a word meaning manager, with its last letter removed.
Thanks John and Hurley
Grumpy because having to work while on holiday. Thought I’d cheer myself up with this in a break. Took ages. Fat fingered LESSRR. Didn’t matter because I’d bunged in SLAP in desperation for my LOI.
DNF disaster. Done like a kipper today. Back to work. Next!
Many thanks John and Hurley.
I found this tricky too. Not for the first time this week made quicker progress with the main one. Could be a wavelength thing I suppose ! Thank all though. I’m with you on Lion. I hope setters will think about discarding stuff that’s only in crosswords. In my opinion these puzzles shouldn’t be for cliques or nerds!
Erm…I suspect you’re talking to a clique of nerds….
😂 indeed! Although I sympathise with the original comment – it’s a fine line, and a mobile one. One man’s GK is another man’s cliquey nerdism etc
😂
Guilty as charged 😉
Pretty difficult, I thought. A slow DNF. Failed on SNIPER (doh!) and DISOWN (again).
Managed CLIP, luckily the first word I thought of. Couldn’t parse DYNAMITE, CARTHAGE (missed anagram indicators).
Liked INTERCOM, ELIGIBLE, UPSTAIRS, OVERHEAR, IDEA.
Thanks for much needed blog, John.
Thought this was quite tricky. Some went in easily, most took a bit of thought. UPSTAIRS, despite being an angram, was tricky, requiring writing out the letters, but revealed the obstinate CLIP as a triple def. As Kapietro says, ‘cut short’ suggested a letter removal. Liked ELIGIBLE, which was bifd and post-parsed. Congratulations to Hurley and thanks to John for the blog.
I found this quite hard, with several clues where it was difficult enough to spot the target, let alone get the answer. Needless to say, that produced a very slow solve, albeit ultimately successful, but with the 30min post in the rear view mirror. Public Official (16d) is a very broad category as a starting point, especially as it didn’t have the benefit of the Worker’s anagrist (12ac). Loi Eligible joined a long list of answers that took longer than they should have to come to mind. Invariant
But of a slow plod today but all correct eventually. DYNAMITE (didn’t spot anagram) and INTERCOM (didn’t spot hidden) were PDMs. LOI ELIGIBLE is COD because I’ve only just got the ‘fit for match’ bit – very good 😆 Thanks Hurley and Jack. Would never have spotted the CCL thing – congrats Hurley.
Well it seems most found it hard, so I am happy to finish under target at 9.18. Hurley’s puzzles are never on the easy side, but always beautifully crafted. My only hesitation was at the end where I thought of ROUT easily enough, but tried to parse it in the wrong way. I’m pretty well up on my football, but was there a ROUTH that escaped my notice? Eventually decided to take a risk with ROUT after a fruitless alphabet trawl.
A fairly tough week I think, at least for me. My total time amounted to 58.40, giving me a daily average of 11.44.
DNF. Completely stumped by DISOWN. I also had LESSeR and was not entirely sure about CLIP having missed the triple definition. The INTERCOM/CORNER intersecting pair took some time too. I gave up with 12 mins on the clock but congratulate Hurley on his 250th puzzle.
Well spotted jackkt, congrats to Hurley on his 250th.
1d Clip, I was foxed until I finally spotted the triple. Doubt I would have got it without the two checkers.
Oops! At 11d Dynamite, I sneered at the weak def and missed the anagram completely. Post-solve COD.
9a Upstairs oddly difficult anagram I thought, and thus a good one.
Not a fast solve at 22 minutes but very enjoyable.
LOI clip.
COD dynamite
Had to concentrate on this one but managed to come in under my target. Took ages to see the triple at 1d. FOI was SAIL. LOI ELIGIBLE. Liked OVERHEAR. 9:22. Thanks Hurley and John. Congrats to Hurley on the milestone!
Yet another SCC escape opportunity blown out of the water by just two clues. Only five to solve at the 12 minute mark (very fast for me) and three of them – CARTHAGE, OVERHEAR and DISOWN – took me to 17 minutes.
CLIP then required a full-scale alphabet trawl and much gnashing of the teeth before I gave up trying to find anything better. Those two middle words (cut short) seemed redundant to me, but I knew they had to be there for a reason. Unfortunately, worse was to come.
S_I_ at 5d should have been easy, but it didn’t appear in any of my first three increasingly thorough alphabet trawls. It should have appeared in second place, alphabetically, but it kept not doing so and it eventually made it onto my list in 23rd place. Maybe 12-13 minutes on this one clue. What a wazzock!
Total time = 37 minutes.
Thanks to Hurley and John.
10:20
I thought this was on the harder side (borne out by snitch currently at 123). I found I had several individual answers left to solve which didn’t then contribute to anything else. Finally left with UPSTAIRS which took longer than it should have with three checkers in place, and then CLIP which took several additional moments to consider the possibilities.
Thanks John and Hurley
Dnf…
Three still to get by the time I got to 30 mins: 1dn “Clip” (failed to see the triple definition, and thought it could have been a number of different words), 8ac “Sniper” and 23ac “Eligible”. The latter two seem so obvious I have no idea why I didn’t get them. In addition, didn’t parse 19dn “Rout” correctly, thinking it was something to do with “Router”, although I couldn’t see where the “e” was removed.
Not a great week overall.
FOI – 5dn “Sail”
LOI – Dnf
COD – 11dn “Dynamite”
Thanks as usual!
Agree “largely middle-of-the-road”, but three stumped me. NHO bird SNIPE; -L-P too difficult to get CLIP (clip over the ear is hardly a ‘blow’; hardly HO = rapid pace); ‘in this country’ a bit far-fetched for OVER HERE. Rest fine if an unusual struggle for a Hurley.
Had to be ECSTATIC but figure = STAT is hard for a QC (may I suggest?). Ditto IDEA (as you say).
Off to sunny Crete on Sunday – see you all in 2 weeks. Thank you, John, for your good blog.
Overhear is not far-fetched if you know the standard comedy line referring to US soldiers in WW2 – overpaid, oversexed and over here. I don’t know who originated it but it was used a lot.
Thank you! I did slightly wonder whether this might be another example of US culture (“over” here implying across the pond). I do find there’s too much US culture in our crosswords (always wonder whether US crosswords include an equal amount of UK culture – bet they don’t!), but this does seem to be GK, so fair enough. Thanks.
A long way off the ball today. 20:06. Didn’t get many on the first pass through the acrosses but our real holdup was with LOI UPSTAIRS. With all the checkers we must have considered every other anagram (UPSTRIAS?!), convinced that it had to be some obscure NHO before the penny finally dropped. Thanks to all.
14.13 This was enjoyable but quite tough. OVERHEAR was nice. DISOWN was LOI. I was surprised to get onto the leaderboard again. Perhaps people are on holiday. Thanks John and Hurley.
Took me a while with CLIP and LESSOR (with an O) taking the longest to get. Well done Hurley on your 250th. Keep up the good work! Off to enjoy the sunshine now.
LESSER rather than LESSOR, and needed explanation for CLIP, which in retrospect should have been obvious, not a huge success today, although did finish after long while
Went for CLAP as in go like the clappers, rather than CLIP or SLAP as I did not see the triple definition. Also had LESSER.
Another CLAP here but otherwise pleased to ‘finish’ this one which was quite a challenge in places. Confidence restored after yesterday.
COD: Dynamite for the clever anagram surface with INTERCOM a close second.
Thanks both. I needed the blog for some parsing.
39 joyless minutes to complete a dreadful week.
I’m no good at this and never will be. My mind doesn’t work in the right way for cryptic puzzles. I can’t do anagrams, I’m no good with synonyms and homonyms take forever. Now I’m missing hidden words as well.
UPSTAIRS took an age today because I was looking for some fancy Latin/Greek word for being on a higher plane. That is the level of my ineptitude. I don’t know whether I’m looking for something simple or complicated half the time.
I have taken 78 minutes for the last 2 days. That is embarrassing. What really hurts is that I have been trying to improve by having a go at the big crossword. Since I started this, my performances on the QC have deteriorated.
Thanks for the blog.
You have to think more ‘outside the box’ in order to make progress with the 15×15, so it’s not too surprising that you sometimes imagine non-existent issues when tackling QC clues. I have exactly the same problem.
Thanks Invariant
21:48, so back in the SCC, and as usual I am my own worst enemy. I read “gate, arch, recollected” and instantly decided that I therefore had to find a word for gate, and a word for arch, and reverse them both. It didn’t go well. Finally considered the possibility of an anagram and got it immediately.
Thank you to John for the blog, and congratulations to Hurley on the milestone!
17:54 with one error: I had SLAP for 1d because it fitted. I had spotted the CCL in the bottom line, was trying to make it something for puzzle number 2750, but failed miserably, since S isn’t a Roman number!
Thanks to Hurley and John.
Found it hard, like some others, to finish. LOI CLIP after a long think, and not fully parsed.
ROUT also caused parsing problems; clever misdirection.
Excellent QC with a sting or two.
David
A bit of a challenge today! But no complaints about the clues. All seemed fair enough in retrospect. A DNF as I settled on Slap – missing the triple and so the better answer. Also missed a hidden and an anagram but got he right answers! Congratulations and thanks to Hurley for such a successful run of puzzles. Thanks too for the blog – typically, as usual, very helpful! Liked 10a idea
FOI 10a Idea
LOI 1d Slap/Clip!
COD 15a Intercom – despite missing the hidden!
Looking forward to having two puzzles to tide me over the weekend.
I attempted the big crossword and came agonisingly close to finishing it. I missed 3 answers. It took me 90 mins.
More frustration and angst. ☹️
Very good. COD – CLIP
A late entry means it was hard for me. Sadly no smiley face annotations on my grid. Never mind I got there in the end and single-handedly and enjoyed the challenge.
Many congratulations to Hurley and thanks John.
Does taking a bit over an hour still allow entry into the SCC? Paused with 8 to go and expecting a substantial DNF. Fortunately something worked better after the break and the puzzle was eventually finished. Very hard work for me!