Times Quick Cryptic No 2798 by Alex

86 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 2798 by Alex”

1. Never knew that meaning of REGIMEN either. Thought SMUGGLER was pretty clever for runner. TEAK took a while because I thought I was looking for A??N.
   Thanks J and setter.

2. Not too hard today even with a few meanings that I was unsure of such as REGIMEN (which I also only know as a diet). But the wordplay was so straightforward that one went in without a pause.

3. I didn’t see much difficulty myself, but I knew regimen and amphorae. I stumbled on the easy passage, and was left with the crossing of clearance and critical, which took a minute to see.

   Time: 7:06

4. Nothing too troublesome in the puzzle but I found a way of messing it up all by myself, inexplicably misspelling PRESUMPTUOUS ‘presumptious’ even though I knew the ‘sumptuous’ part. If it had been an across clue this would not have happened, but as a down I did not notice. So DNF in around 8, with FOI ERUPTED and last the very nice SMUGGLER (fooled me for quite a while). Is there still an office where you might find a LETTER OPENER? Thanks Alex and John.

   1. Me too, as I’d already put TIOUS assuming that that must be the ending with T?O?S in place. Same thought re LETTEROPENER, perhaps a home office.

      1. And me!

      2. And us !

         1. Me too! I just use a kitchen knife (or just rip them open 😅) Not that I get many letters these days.

   2. The place I worked at ten years ago still received many cheques and letters through the post as its clients were more usually retired – I would think it is still the case. The letter opener was an electronic machine which took a very thin slice off the envelope rather than the knife my mother has!

   3. Another PRESUMPTIOUS here too.

   4. Same problem for me

5. A brief MER at REGIMEN, where I would have expected REGIME but needed another letter; I see that ODE marks the ‘government’ meaning as (archaic). 4:05.

6. I thought this was a great QC, didn’t get too held up, but had to think about the clues carefully. Had to cross my fingers for AMPHORAE but with all the crossers I thought it was the most likely to be an actual word.

7. 9 minutes. No problems although my first thought at 5dn had been AMPHORAS until I checked the anagrist carefully, and I had PRESUMPTIOUS at 1dn but spotted my error when unpicking the wordplay.

   I have a LETTER OPENER in what passes for my office and use it daily, but aside from that, many types of electric letter-opening devices are available ranging from hand-operated slitters for one letter at a time to automated large-scale beasts that can deal with dozens of letters on their own once loaded and started.

   1. It never occurred to me that there might be such a thing as an automated letter opener! But of course large organisations would need such a thing, particularly in the days before they bunged us all over to online-only. A bit of research suggests that one can buy a machine which can open ten letters per second and now I want one, despite having no practical use for it.

      1. Long before the days of email I worked for a company in London that regularly recruited new office staff. Because they were hiring people with basic skills they didn’t have time to open the 500 or so envelopes that came in. Their trick was to include a fictitious name to send the application in to so they could be sorted in the post. Any that came in a brown envelope were binned without opening on the generalisation that nobody BOUGHT brown envelopes so they were probable half-inched form their current employer’s office!

8. I thought I’d got through the week without a single pink square but I hadn’t. I got three today and none of them typos – made the same PRESUMPTiOUS error as Lindsay but then also entered ‘clinical’ where CRITICAL should have gone. My only defence is that it was my LOI and I was just glad to find a word that fitted and at the time looked at least adjacent to the two definitions. Took me 17 mintues to fill the grid.

9. Mostly straightforward until held up at the end by the critical clearance pairing. Resorted to the thesaurus with nothing in evacuation but found it in authorisation. That gave critical quickly to finish in a decent time of 20.01 BUT we misspelt presumptIOus having started at the back end 😧

   Thanks Alex and John

10. A relief to have a relatively gentle offering today after what’s been a tough week.
    Very nearly screwed it up by biffing CRIMINAL from the checkers before deciding I ought to double check the wordplay.
    Started with ERUPTED and finished with CRITICAL in 6.28.
    Thanks to John

11. DNF. Just could not see PRESUMPTUOUS, went through the alphabet. Not convinced about PR for Press Release. Surely it means Public Relations, and therefore unlikely to mean Press Release in a similar field.

    AMPHORAE, first declension, nominative plural. Thanks, Caecilius.

    1. PR Press Release is in Collins online in their American section. Chambers has it too with no such qualification.

    2. Press Release for PR is actually the first definition in Chambers, maybe because it’s use pre-dates the invention of Public Relations departments (the 4th definition after Prize Ring and Proportional Representation).

       1. Yes I noticed that in Chambers, but I also noticed they are listed in alphabetical order and now I’m wondering if that’s their standard practice. I must check other abbreviation entries.

12. Ha ha I had exactly the same result as LindsayO putting an i in presumptuous, apart from that finishing in exactly 8 minutes. I had pencilled in the i earlier and forgot to change it. It’s something about being against the clock that leads to such mistakes.

13. 13 minutes. Add me to those who didn’t know that REGIMEN could mean government but put it in anyway, but most time was spent on PRESUMPTUOUS (like Merlin I was not sure about PR for press release) and then my L2I the CRITICAL / CLEARANCE pair. I often find DDs pretty tough if I don’t see them quickly as there is not a lot to go on to construct the answer, and missing both of them meant no starter letter for either.

    Many thanks John for the blog and I look forward to the Sunday Special.
    Cedric

14. The definition of REGIMEN I found rather arcane for the QC, which forced me to get the gloves off and actually solve the clue. Whatever next.

15. A neat puzzle which left me short of just my LOI after two passes – and that one took me over the 4 minute mark. Thanks Alex and John.

    FOI NUMERAL
    LOI PRESUMPTUOUS
    COD SMUGGLER
    TIME 4:14

16. I wasn’t on song for this one, failing to get 1a or 1d first up and so essentially having to solve from the centre outwards. I needed all the checkers to see PRESUMPTUOUS, and like many others my last two were the crossing pair CLEARANCE/CRITICAL.

    All in vain anyway, for just in time to be too late my eye registered OPENRR as my finger hit “submit” . So DNF in 09:07 for 2.2K and an Awful Day.

    Many thanks Alex and John.

17. 20:05

    Didn’t enjoy that as much as I was expecting. Once I started encountering words like AMPHORAE, ENDIVE and unparsable NOBLEMAN, my heart was sinking. And the double-defs of CLEARANCE/CRITICAL holding me up along with no idea what “white ant” wanted.

    On the other hand, REGIMEN went straight in.

    Definitely one for those stepping down to bif from the 15×15 rather than one for those on the rise. Nonetheless pleased to complete it and about 1hr30 for the week albeit I quit on Breadman’s Tuesday.

    For those not returning on Saturday, have a good weekend 👍

18. Couldn’t quite finish this; failed to see both 12s (no time – must get out of this house!) but 13 NOBLEMAN really too difficult for me (NHO head = NOB). Thanks for blog.

19. Not the easiest I thought, at least for me, but I still managed to finish just inside target at 9.40. I dithered about the spelling of PRESUMPTUOUS, spelling it correctly at first then changing the middle U to an I, but fortunately returned to it as I finally managed to parse it and the U went back in.
    My total time for the week was 55.23, a good chunk of which was spent on Mondays toughie, giving me a daily average of 11.05. I’ll take that given the start to the week at 18.15.

20. An unusually quick 14.08 for me. Similar DNHOs (Definitions Not Heard Of) for REGIMEN, NOB, STERN, but still content with result.

    Pi

21. Seems I can’t spell either. PRESUMPTIOUS – if I’d read the clue instead of biffing it, I’d have got it right, as I know how to spell SUMPTUOUS. Idiot.

    DNF

22. I was another held up by CLEARANCE/CRITICAL and took a while to unravel AMPHORAE. Challenging puzzle, I thought..

23. I found it hard. Spent looong time on 1a 1d pair. Never parsed Pres-umptuou-s as I saw the Press on the outside and couldn’t think what to do with the remainder, so a poor effort really. PR didn’t spring to mind at all.

24. Finished correctly in 45 minutes. First success for a while. Hooray !
    Did not like some of the answers :
    ” 1 Down – Press release by European — lavish and bold (12)
    PRESUMPTUOUS – PR (press release) E (European) SUMPTUOUS (lavish).”.
    To me presumptuous does not mean bold. Possibly excessively bold, but not just bold.

    “4 Down Goal I have to produce vegetable (6)
    ENDIVE – END (goal) I’VE.”
    Never heard of ENDIVE. Hope I dont’t hear of it again.”

    “5 Down Jars of puréed ham or pea (8)
    AMPHORAE -[puréed] (ham or pea).”
    Amphorae – ridiculously obscure. Difficult word to work into a sentence.
    N.B. – On entering a shop : “Can I have two amphorae of marmalade, please ?” .
    I don’t think that would work very well.

    1. ENDIVE = chicory. And I guess one thinks of amphorae being full of ancient Greek wine rather than marmalade.

       1. I have, in Kalimnos, a wonderful aunt by marriage who is a nun. When we were there in May she and some other sisters took us to the (dodgy) museum of some undersea scavenger/sponge diver who had collected scores of amphorae from ancient shipwrecks. I found a delightful redolence in learning they were used for transporting olives, wine, oil and honey, two thousand years ago.

          1. A Greek aunt who is a nun – wonderful🙂

             1. Sounds like the first line of a rather dodgy joke 🙂

25. “Get your nob out of that book” was common parlance at my North Devon prep school so no problems there for me. And the N gave me CLEARANCE which then gave me CRITICAL – that intersection seems to have given lots of us pause for thought. My query is SMUGGLER for runner: I thought the runners were the men who caught the smugglers (Bow Street Runners). SMUGGER plus a L had to be SMUGGLER so no problems, but left with a nagging thought. Loved 4d. And 19d. All done in 14 minutes – thanks Alex and John

    On Edit: Brewer lists NOB: Slang for the head (probably from knob): also for a person of rank and position. Hah!

    1. Think rum-running. For those who play cribbage, “and one for his nob” is the phrase used for scoring a point for holding the Knave of the same suit as the turned up card.

       1. Thanks for that. I used to play cribbage about 50 years ago. I vaguely remember the phrase “one for his nob” (one for his head) and that it referred to the Knave but not that it had to be the same suit as the turned up card.

       2. So where does the “two for his heels” come from ?

          1. That’s when the dealer turns up a Knave at the start!

26. Spotted the stray I in PRESUMPTiOUS just after pressing Submit. Had biffed TIOUS before getting the wordplay and neglected to change it when I got the rest of it. Drat! 7.45 but WOE. Thanks Alex and John.

27. A nice easy QC I thought and it took me less than 20m to get it wrong thanks to an I instead of U in 1d. So a DNF but perfectly happy with that.
    Thanks both.

28. Some trickier clues but nothing I didn’t know so happy with that. Waiting for car to be fitted with new tyres for the winter so now got to think of something else to while away the time…
    FOI 1a Passage
    LOI 13d Nobleman
    COD 1d Presumptious – for the misleading split in the clue

29. Maybe I haven’t quite recovered from 48hr flu, but I found this hard. DNF PRESUMPTUOUS which I do know how to spell but could not get. Also missed CLIP and OPENER. I do have a paper knife somewhere, by the way.
    And, feebly, I needed a hint for CRITICAL. So DNFx4. NVG.
    Liked OUTLINE, SMUGGLER, ENDIVE.
    Thanks vm, John.

30. 9:57, and generally feeling on the wavelength today. My only real problems were the CRITICAL / CLEARANCE / NOBLEMAN set, which I solved in that order with little confidence about in parsing of the third.

    Thank you for the blog!

31. 7:01

    L2I the 12’s once I’d decided upon the NHO AMPHORAE (unusual to get a NHO in a QC).

    Am I the only person who saw ‘key’ and went to Rob Key, the opener (in cricket) for Kent and England rather than the intended unlocking (not opening) device?

    Thanks Alex and John.

32. Felt a wally not knowing how to spell 1D but seems I am in good company

33. Dnf…

    This has felt like one of the most difficult weeks I’ve had on the QC. Every puzzle has felt hard and led to a number of DNF’s – this being no exception. Interestingly, whilst I feel things are getting harder, my stats show a completion rate comparable with last year (around 70%) and a mean completion time of 21 mins (a minute worse than last year), whilst the median figure has stayed the same. So maybe it’s all in my head (or not as the case may be!)

    FOI – 1ac “Passage”
    LOI – Dnf
    COD – 21ac “Sealant” – nice surface

    Thanks as usual!

    1. Totally agree – it has felt a difficult week

34. Gentler than of late although LOI SMUGGLER took some perseverance – was thinking of athletes and plants. That meaning of nob was also new to me. Had to check anagrist closely for AMPHORAE and built up PRESUMPTUOUS very carefully. Thanks for explaining NOBLEMAN John. Nice QC.

35. SMUGGLER last one in,took longer to see light than should have done, apart from that relatively healthy skip through, PRESUMPTUOUS wobbled as I was sure of TIOUS rather than TUOUS

36. 16:02. I wasn’t able to parse PRESUMPTUOUS or NOBLEMAN but threw them in anyways.

37. I was held up by 1dn, 2dn, 12ac and 12dn. Despite understanding the wordplay for the first two they took a long time to come to mind. Having eventually thought of PRESUMPTUOUS I did at least manage to spell it correctly. There was then another delay while I looked for inspiration on CLEARANCE/CRITICAL. Still, got there in the end after a trying week on the crossword front, coming in at 21 minutes.

    FOI – 1ac PASSAGE
    LOI – 12ac CLEARANCE
    COD – 10ac INHABIT

    Thanks to Alex and John

38. 9.23 A nice puzzle, which felt quite hard. Nothing came easily but I didn’t get stuck. LOI CRITICAL. Thanks John and Alex.

39. My 4th DNF in 5 days – something that hasn’t happened since I first started these QCs more than four years ago!

    I crossed the line in 24 minutes, comfortably inside my target, but I had CLINICAL instead of CRITICAL (which never came to mind, despite an alphabet trawl). It worked for me and, whilst not as strong an answer, still does. Even CRIMINAL, which I had initially, half works.

    At least this was a proper QC, unlike several we’ve had recently.

    Thanks to John.

40. If I were a beginner, I’d be feeling discouraged by all these difficult puzzles but I guess it is a question of KBO.

41. It’s been an up and down week with today being back on the (slightly) faster side again. Add us to the list of not knowing that meaning of REGIMEN but once we had the checkers there was no pause. LOI SMUGGLER and candidate for COD for its play with ‘runner’. 11:51. Thanks John and Alex.

42. I was somewhat presumptuous in thinking I had finished but upon checking the blog I had one letter wrong!
    25 minutes. COD 21a
    Thanks Alex and John

43. 14m
    Easy until it wasn’t and then needed a second sitting to finish.
    A bit harsh cluing Amphorae as an anagram in a quickie.

    COD terminate.

44. 8:29

    Behind the Quitch today (currently 89) – slow on NOBLEMAN where I failed to lift and separate ‘Head piece’ and slower still on SMUGGLER which, I feel sure, has caught me out before.

    Thanks John and Alex

45. Strolled through, enjoying AMPHORAE, SMUGGLER, OGLE and other delights, only to find my time is a personal best, broke the Big Ten at last for 9:53 finish. Who knows why these things happen? [Edit: actually it’s pretty obvious why: no weird slang, no cricket, no football, no pop stars, and no geography.]

    Now what do I do with the rest of my allotted morning puzzle time, boohoo 🙂

    Thanks Alex and John!

    1. Well done!
       Like you, if I finish in a relatively fast time I feel as if I’m missing out on part of my morning fun! But if it’s particularly hard, that can be annoying. We can be hard to please, us solvers!
       I enjoyed this one, only SMUGGLER held me up for a long time. I didn’t think AMPHORAE was obscure, probably too many visits to historical sites and museums. They are everywhere in Greece.

    2. Congratulations ⚡

    3. 🍾

    4. Well done on the PB

    5. Great effort – first of many I’m sure

    6. Congratulations 🎉 Do you also try the biggie? Today’s is testing my patience – I have definitely spent more than my allotted time on that one 😅

       1. Every once in a while, usually when someone here comments that it’s on the easier side, and I’ve finished one or two. But it can be a huge time sink! I randomly looked at one while waiting for something a few days ago, and didn’t solve a single clue in 20 minutes.

          Thanks all for the good wishes!

    7. 👏👏👏👏👏

    8. Well done Steel City!

    9. 👍 I’m green with envy 🤣

    10. Congrats on the PB Steel City!

46. 15:51 for me today. Liked SMUGGLER and INHABIT. I’m another who didn’t know PR could be an abbreviation for press release.

    Thanks to Alex and John.

47. Certainly the easiest of the week for us, although we had the spelling mistake at 1d. A nice finish to the week.

48. This has been the most difficult week for me for some time. Failed to get two clues on Monday (the ones that most people found elusive) and couldn’t get 5D yesterday. Still, I found this one easy, apart from parsing Nobleman (thanks John), so a successful end to the week of printed crosswords. Still looking forward to tomorrow’s online QC and Phil’s weekend QC with my optimism about my chances undiminished.

49. Two sittings for this. In truth I had already come to a halt with Clearance/Critical/Nobleman extant, but the (early!) arrival of the plumber forced a prolonged pause. On return, the three went straight in, and I was left wondering what the problem had been. Funny things, minds. CoD to 14ac Terminate, for the pdm. Invariant

50. I thought this was a very neat and tidy crossword – concise clues and a nice mix of the easy and slightly more tricky, and a couple of smiles on the way.
    I’m not so sure about pureed ham and peas (sounds like baby food) , but pea and ham soup is one of my favourites. Loved the clue though 😊 I also liked PRESUMPTUOUS and SMUGGLER.
    All done and dusted in 7:15.
    FOI Erupted LOI Critical COD Amphorae
    Many thanks Alex and John

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