Another chewy challenge from cheeky Cheeko today, with a couple of tricky clues among the more usual Quick Cryptic fare. I was a bit slow getting started with 10A my FOI, but it was my wrong enumeration on my paper copy for my LOI the unknown plant at 4D (I showed it as (9,4) instead of (8,5)) that held me up for more than an extra minute at the end to take my time out to 7:40. See where else I was led astray along the way in the blog below. Thank-you Cheeko! How did you all get on? [Update: Can you see the anagramatic Nina spotted by by TonyG and mentioned in his comment on the puzzle?]
Fortnightly Weekend Quick Cryptic. This time it is Phil’s turn to provide the extra weekend entertainment. You can find the crossword here. If you are interested in trying our previous offerings you can find an index to all 122 here.
Definitions underlined in bold italics, (Abc)* indicating anagram of Abc, {deletions} and [] other indicators.
| Across | |
| 1 | Tramp following superfluous documents (4) |
| BUMF – BUM (tramp) F (following). “Following” must be a positional indicator, I thought. Wrong. | |
| 3 | Ship crossing equator finally shows flag (8) |
| STREAMER – Not SS for ship, but STEAMER (ship) with last letter of equatoR inside. | |
| 9 | Delivered new patent having lethal weaponry? (7) |
| NUCLEAR – No not an anagram of “n patent”. “Delivered” is a homophone indicator… NU (sounds like new) CLEAR (patent). | |
| 10 | Bird regrettably chokes (5) |
| EGRET – My FOI. Hidden in rEGRETtably. | |
| 11 | Service break? (1,3,1) |
| R AND R – Cryptic definition. A military abbreviation for Rest and Recreation or Recuperation. In the UK, the term applies to a type of leave granted to military service personnel during an overseas deployment which allows them to return home to the UK to visit their family. | |
| 12 | Best fool led by Open University (6) |
| OUTWIT – OU (Open University) TWIT (fool). | |
| 14 | Fuel outlet’s latter options revised (6,7) |
| PETROL STATION – (latter options)* [revised]. | |
| 17 | Reckless cad stupidly blocks plan (6) |
| MADCAP – (cad)* [stupidly] in MAP (plan). | |
| 19 | Daisy, cow, internally cross with attention (5) |
| OXEYE – Middle letter, [internally], of cOw, X (cross), EYE (attention). | |
| 22 | Extremist in Kabul traced (5) |
| ULTRA – A second hidden answer – in KabUL TRAced. | |
| 23 | Resolute chap overwhelmed by dodgy data (7) |
| ADAMANT – “What’s a synonym for resolute chap?”, I thought. Wrong. You need to split the words…. MAN (chap) in [dodgy] (data)* | |
| 24 | Tough troops barely mentioned hanger-on (8) |
| PARASITE – Woo. One from 15×15 land I think… PARAS (tough troops) and {c}ITE{d} (mentioned) without its outside letters, [barely]. Did you parse it or just biff it and move on? | |
| 25 | Picked up top dog (4) |
| PEKE – A homophone (sounds like) clue – PEKE sounds like, [picked up], PEAK (top). | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Ruined tub with prank going wrong (8) |
| BANKRUPT – (tub prank)* [going wrong]. | |
| 2 | Staff drinking company wine (5) |
| MACON – CO (company) in MAN (staff, the verb). | |
| 4 | Spatter lotion around elephant’s foot (8,5) |
| TORTOISE PLANT – (spatter lotion)* [around]. This unknown plant was my LOI and biggest hold up (over a minute) as it took me ages to see I had drawn the enumeration on my paper copy as (9,4) rather than (8,5). Bah! | |
| 5 | Chuck out defective item without opening (5) |
| EJECT – {r}EJECT (defective item) without the first letter. | |
| 6 | Drink can girl briefly holds (7) |
| MARTINI – Not just a random girl’s name, but an abbreviated one, in this case MARI{a} or MARI{e}, around TIN (can). | |
| 7 | Ceremony is appropriate for the audience (4) |
| RITE – Another sounds like clue. RITE sounds like RIGHT (appropriate) [for the audience]. | |
| 8 | Eccentric dam party (6) |
| WEIRDO – WEIR (dam) DO (party). | |
| 13 | Disturb forged steel nut (8) |
| UNSETTLE – (steel nut)* [forged]. | |
| 15 | What can pull soldiers south of extended area (7) |
| TRACTOR – TRACT (extended area) OR (other ranks; soldiers). “south of” here is a positional indicator meaning “after” in a down clue. | |
| 16 | Coat of paint on road at regular intervals, beginning on kerb (6) |
| ANORAK – The definition is not “coat of paint” of course. Alternate letters [at regular intervals] of pAiNt On RoAd, and first letter of Kerb. Clever. My COD. | |
| 18 | Charles throttling Oscar in disorder (5) |
| CHAOS – O (Oscar in the phonetic alphabet) in CHAS (Charles, informally). | |
| 20 | Periodically serve Andrew duck (5) |
| EVADE – More alternate letters, this time indicated by “Periodically”… sErVe AnDrEw. Ignore the surface meaning, the required answer is a synonym of “duck” the verb. | |
| 21 | French team ignoring every English witty remark (4) |
| QUIP – Another tricky one to finish. Remove both “e”s [ignoring every (e for) English] from the French for “team” is {e}QUIP{e}. | |
9.30. This puzzle seemed to hit my ‘sweet spot’ and I wish that I had spotted the nina as it is superb. Sadly, I am terrible at seeing ninas or themes that are not declared. Tortoise Plant’ was new to me, but readily solvable.
Thanks to Cheeko for a very enjoyable challenge and to John for the blog,
Failed on Tortoise (but not Plant), Quip and Parasite. Pleased I got the rest, in this difficult puzzle. I looked up Elephants foot, vaguely recalling it is a plant. And Tortoise Plant was not referred to. Harrumph!
Thanks Cheeko and John
Feel pleased to DNF with only 2 missing (OXEYE and ANORAK). Must do better on “lift and separate” (coat of paint).
For some of us, ELEPHANTS FOOT is a large pile of radioactive waste at Chernobyl. For others its a large cream cake! NHO the plant.
And credit to contributors for having good taste in wine and not thinking MACON was obscure 😋
I found this easier than yesterday and rather enjoyable, if tricky in places. Held up by R AND R and the plant. Lots to like including NUCLEAR, BUMF, ADAMANT and PARASITE. Many thanks Cheeko and John.
I always spell 1a as BUMPH….Easier than yesterday but still had me reaching for my anagram solver – which spotted the Nina for me! Tough and fair but not much fun for me.
25 minutes.
Lousy performance to end an abysmal week – 2 hours, 46 minutes of suffering. Three DNFs and one SCC escape. How can I be that bad? This is quite possibly my worst week in over 2 years.
The more I attempt cryptics, the worse I get. It was fun when I was learning and improving. That enjoyment no longer exists. For me the time does matter and I can’t pretend otherwise.
I got 12 on the 15 x 15 in 90 minutes. I had bits of others but really was nowhere near. It’s not happening for me. I can’t crack this, no matter how hard I try, and that makes me feel thoroughly miserable.
I’m trying to look at the QC each day
This one I found tough – more like a Cryptic in my opinion.
Appreciate the explanations!
Dear fellow solvers,
I’ve been doing the Times Quick Cryptic for about 10 years now. I’m not a native English speaker and only rarely finish, but after half an hour or so I usually have most of the grid covered and all in all it’s quite enjoyable.
Of late however I often find myself staring at a half empty grid after my allotted time and rather than dreaming about one day advancing to the 15×15 I am now considering to give up.
Any recommendations for easier cryptics elsewhere?
Thanks
Hi Mervyn. You should find our collection of Weekend Quick Cryptics, in the style of the Times Quick Cryptics a bit easier than some of the recent Times QCs. You can find the latest one here. For introductory level cryptic puzzles I can recommend the Guardian Quick Cryptic series, which you can find here. I use them with my U3A Cryptic Crosswords group of novice cryptic crossword solvers. I hope this helps. P.S. If you would like access to my collection of tutorial material for that group, drop me an email to [email protected] and I’ll send you some links.
Thank you John, I will definitely check out the Weekend Cryptics. Much appreciated.