Times Quick Cryptic No 2821 by Lupa

I found this tough.

After breezing through yesterday’s in under 6 minutes just before, I came crashing down with this effort: DNF as the 14 minute mark approached, when I gave up and clicked on the answer to 10d. More glad than I normally am, when I do that sort of thing, as I could have easily been staring at it for some time with no success. Especially on a day that eking out the easier PERSEVERED and REPETITION took much more effort than they should have.

Other stumbling blocks were DECORATE, VERGER, and the maybe-possibly-heard-of STAGGERS. Will be interested to see how this compares to Tuesday’s on the Quitch. An interesting puzzle, with a mix of some gimmes, some toughies, some cracking clues, and a stinger in the tail – many thanks to Lupa!

Across
1 Skinny chap to live with an East European (8)
BEANPOLE – to BE = to live, with AN, and POLE (East European)
5 Missile among dangerous cudgels (4)
SCUD – “among” dangerouS CUDgels. I remember in my youth these seemed to feature prominently in the ’91 Gulf War.
8 Cut pack and speak grace (8)
DECORATE – DECK = pack (of cards), “Cut” = dock the last letter; ORATE (speak). Tricky, and not the first synonym of GRACE that springs to mind.
9 Baltic supplier seen in moderation (4)
ODER – “Seen in ” mODERation. Hmm… my geography would have been found dismally wanting had I been asked the path of this river.
11 Repeat concerning request (10)
REPETITION – RE (concerning) PETITION (request)
14 Attendant king on edge (6)
VERGER – R. (Rex = king) goes on VERGE (edge). VERGER has cropped up a couple of times recently in QCs: a church official with a range of general responsibilities.
15 Short break before prompt recovery (6)
RESCUE – REST (break), “short” = dock the last letter, before CUE (prompt)
17 Confused Piers heard subscribers (10)
READERSHIP – anagram (confused) of PIERS HEARD
20 Tragic villain DiMaggio regularly ignored (4)
IAGO – d I m A g G i O “regularly ignored”
21 Irate Mod disturbed negotiator (8)
MEDIATOR – anagram (disturbed) of IRATE MOD
22 Prime Minister’s paradise? (4)
EDEN – double definition
23 Animal disease   causes amazement (8)
STAGGERS – double definition: a range of diseases affecting a range of animals, it seems.
Down
1 Unpleasant European gave orders (4)
BADE – BAD (unpleasant) E(uropean)
2 Principal  curve (4)
ARCH – double definition
3 Kept going for each terrible day (10)
PERSEVERED – PER (for each) SEVERE (terrible) D(ay)
4 Hide missing note: it’s froth (6)
LATHER – LEATHER (hide) missing E (musical note)
6 Private protection from sham firearm? (8)
CODPIECE – COD (sham) PIECE (firearm). As in a thing to protect your privates. Very good! A “cod” is an obsolete word for a bag/a pod/the male genitals: from Old English codd, a small bag.
7 In bewilderment, called in contract (8)
DERANGED – RANG (called) in DEED (contract). For the definition, as in: The farmer appeared out of nowhere, in nothing but a yellowed codpiece, wielding a firearm. Deranged/In bewilderment, the verger fled into a nearby field full of strange sheep staggering around the place. Yes, he had to finally accept, after catching his breath, the bishop was definitely sidelining him.
10 Haphazard line in passing place causing demotion (10)
SIDELINING – anagram (haphazard) of LINE, in SIDING (passing place). Collins has SIDING as a short stretch of railway to allow trains to pass on the same track. I also had some trouble equating the answer with the definition, but Chambers defines sidelining as “relegating someone to a minor, peripheral position, preventing his or her participation in the main or most important area of activity”.
12 Remove it possibly for extra payment (8)
OVERTIME – anagram (possibly) of REMOVE IT
13 In error altering instrument (8)
TRIANGLE – anagram (in error) of ALTERING
16 State an inevitable truth in hearing (6)
ASSERT – in hearing, the same as A CERT (an inevitable truth)
18 Infection found in crusty eye (4)
STYE – “found in” cruSTY Eye. Could be an &lit, if you like.
19 Upset tender love god (4)
EROS – SORE (tender) and in a down clue, upset = reverse

91 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 2821 by Lupa”

  1. The standard of the QCs seems to be very inconsistent at the moment. Tuesday’s Snitch was 138, followed by 83 and today’s 125, which left me with two DNFs. Looking back to January of this year there was only one score over 110 in the whole month – that was 123. The vast majority were in the 90 – 110 range, which is where I feel most comfortable with my level of solving.

  2. DNF, with about half the grid remaining as I approached the half hour and gave up. I enjoyed CODPIECE, less so the rest of it.

    Thank you for the blog!

  3. 51 minutes DNF

    Put DECKRUTH for DECORATE and failed to get SIDELINING or STAGGERS.

    This week – 139 minutes, 3 DNFs.

    A QC that will please the experts and disillusion everyone else.

    I did better on the real crossword!

    I am so close to quitting and I suspect I’m not the only one (I haven’t the energy left to read the other comments).

    Very, very unhappy 😔. I am unable to recall the last time I found this to be enjoyable. I have ZERO confidence left!

  4. Very late in the day for us and, running out of patience with 10d and it’s unhelpful checkers, we only finished in a ver slow 22:36 we only finished by doing a word search. Unsurprised to find many with similar problems. Congratulations to those who persevered and succeeded in decent times without aids. Surprised to find that the Quitch wasn’t higher. We found Tuesday’s QC to be much easier.

  5. Very late in the day for us and, running out of patience with 10d and it’s unhelpful checkers, we only finished in a very slow 22:36 by doing a word search. Unsurprised to find many with similar problems. Congratulations to those who persevered and succeeded in decent times without aids. Surprised to find that the Quitch wasn’t higher. We found Tuesday’s QC to be much easier.

  6. We have been doing these puzzles since Number 1, and this has to be our least successful solve to date. Quite a slog to get the clues we did solve, and really not at all enjoyable for us.
    We have been lurkers on this site from early days, but now feeling up to contributing a bit. Many thanks to all the bloggers who have helped us along the way. You are doing a great job day by day.

  7. Another DNF here. Was having a complicated day anyway so set it aside for Friday, managed to see STAGGERS, how, I’ll never know, but couldn’t see SIDELINING.

    Loved CODPIECE.

    Thanks for the thrashing to Lupa, and to rolytoly for the amusing blog!

  8. Dnf…

    I’ve come down with the flu and attempted this between pounding headaches. As a result, not surprised I didn’t finish – but I thought it was pretty tough even through my brain fog. It seems I wasn’t alone.

    Looking at the blog above, the majority of things seemed attainable, but some of the definitions were obscure: 8ac “Decorate” for example, and 6dn “Cod Piece” (although I will admit that was clever).

    FOI – 1ac “Beanpole”
    LOI – Dnf
    COD – 6dn “Codpiece”

    Thanks as usual!

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