Times Quick Cryptic No 2911 by Mara

Author   TemplarPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

Neat, tidy and satisfying from Mara, as always. I found this at the easier end of the spectrum and it took me 06:35; hope you enjoyed it too.

Definitions underlined in bold.

Across
1 Great composers moving Artemis (7)
MAESTRI – anagram [moving] of “Artemis”.
5 Cloak with hat back in wardrobe (4)
CAPE – CAP [hat] + E [back (i.e. last letter) in wardrobe]
7 Route passing through endless treetops (6)
STREET – hidden [passing through] in “endless treetops”. I didn’t spot “passing through” as a hidden indicator and needed the two Ts.
8 Stuff one person, originally, in lift (6)
FILLIP – FILL [stuff] + I [one] + P [person originally]. As in “That give me a real lift/fillip”. I looked up the origin of this and was amazed to find that it’s an onomatopoeic rendition of the faint sound that comes from flicking your finger!
9 Word competition’s queen of magic? (8,3)
SPELLING BEE – if you were a BEE you might be a “queen” and if you do “magic” you’d cast spells. Put them together [queen of magic] and you get a SPELLING BEE, ho ho! COD from me.
10 PC with chief on circuit (6)
LAPTOP – LAP [circuit] + TOP [chief]. Fortunately Bletchers reminded us all the other day that for an across clue the convention is “X on Y = X follows Y”.
12 Barking deeply, sounded like a dog (6)
YELPED – anagram [barking, i.e. mad] of “deeply”. Very good.
14 Push by channel, media lacking integrity (6,5)
GUTTER PRESS – GUTTER [channel] + PRESS [push]. I’m not aware of any conventions on the use of “by” as a positional indicator.
17 Building for animals unlikely to fall down? (6)
STABLE – definition with a faintly cryptic hint.
18 One who demonstrates device in bathroom (6)
SHOWER – someone who “shows” things could whimsically be called a “show-er”, I suppose.
20 Creative celebration fails to start (4)
ARTY – {p}ARTY.
21 Back in forest, ain’t I a smashing fairy queen! (7)
TITANIA – I thought for a moment this was a backwards hidden, but no: it’s T [back in forest] + an anagram [smashing] of “ain’t I a”. TITANIA is of course the Queen of the Fairies in Midsummer Night’s Dream; she last popped by on 28 January.
Down
1 Floor covering having dull surface (3)
MAT – double definition. I thought that the second one was always “matt” but no.
2 For example, lead component (7)
ELEMENT – cleverly deceptive and my LOI. The setter tempts us to think of “lead” as in “foremost”. In fact it is “lead” as in the dull grey metal which is also an ELEMENT (symbol PB).
3 Score, little one, a fifty (5)
TOTAL – TOT [little one, i.e. small child] + A [a] + L [fifty, Roman numerals].
4 Youth I have a crush on withholds name (7)
INFANCY – I FANCY [I have a crush on] which contains [withholds] N [name]. I took a moment over this because I read “withholds name” as indicating “drop an N”, not “add an an N”. The sense of “withholds” familiar to me is refusing to hand over, which seemed to fit with dropping a letter. But here it is used as meaning “holds back; restrains”.
5 Star cluster emitting light, extremely brightly first of all (5)
CELEB – the first letters [first of all] of “cluster emitting light, extremely brightly”.
6 A scream of incalculable worth (9)
PRICELESS – double definition – “She’s a scream/priceless”.
9 Killing jokes finally introducing amused reaction (9)
SLAUGHTER – S [jokes finally] going in front of [introducing] LAUGHTER [amused reaction].
11 Existing gift (7)
PRESENT – double definition.
13 Wild one disturbed rest (3,4)
LIE DOWN – anagram [disturbed] of “wild one”.
15 Label alongside cat (5)
TABBY – TAB [label] + BY [alongside].
16 Mail comes round I suppose (5)
POSIT – POST [mail] goes around [comes round] I. If you POSIT something you put it forward as an assumption for the purposes of a discussion; you postulate. It comes from the Latin ponere, positum (to place or put).
19 Time every second of retrial (3)
ERA – alternate letters [every second] of “retrial”.

92 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 2911 by Mara”

  1. DNF. FILLIP and CELEB caused my downfall. Maybe references to South Pacific island groups would have helped me. I was thinking Fabric for the former and that made the latter unfathomable. I got PRICELESS but not too keen on it.

  2. I’ve only ever known it as MATTE. Also I’m not sure about youth = INFANCY, if I was to encounter any kind of gang I’d prefer them to be infants, not youths. Generally an enjoyable and not, for me, especially easy puzzle, I took 11.52 and struggled with GUTTER PRESS, SLAUGHTER and the aforementioned youthhood. Was totally fooled by the deeply/YELPED anagram, thanks Templar and Mara.

    1. I saw youth = infancy as being how you might generically describe being at the beginning of life.

      1. It just doesn’t work for me. When someone says ‘in my youth’ they never mean ‘in my infancy’ and I refer again to the ease with which I might overcome a gang of infants, but less so a gang of youths. Those infants wouldn’t know what hit ’em…

    2. Mat for matte or matt often seems to appear in crosswords, and nowhere else. Like “lam” for hit, rather than “lamp”.

  4. 16 minutes – double my time for yesterday which had been my best for ages. I found myself hopping around the grid in an attempt to keep things going and I never really got into its flow.

    I’ve developed a squint trying to follow how ‘withholds name’ means ‘contains N’ and I’m still not fully on board with it. Perhaps if it were used like that in a familiar expression it’d be more convincing.

  5. I found this really hard on average. Bottom half went in smoothly but I had to battle all the way with the top. Trying to anagram S and reaction to get a killing added a lot of time – good headslap when I got to SLAUGHTER but needed Templar to explain PRICELESS which was my first thought but I couldn’t justify ‘scream’ – and after yesterday’s VIVA fiasco I was on parse-watch. Enjoyed more in retrospect – an all green 20.11.

  6. Typical Mara, full of misdirection. We had a decent run through with the NW holding out until just yelped and fillip remained. Completely fooled into ignoring barking as an anagrind until yelped became obvious from the crossers, oh barking!!!
    21.20 but at least 3 minutes on fillip.

    Thanks Mr T for the parsing of priceless = scream, hmmmm.

    Our favourite was maestri, one of those Latin/italian plurals that rarely gets used instead of maestros, also because it’s just so good to “get” the first one. Reminds me of a great choir master we had who talked about tempi rather than the more used tempos (indeed the iPad knew the latter but not the former).

    Thanks Mara

    1. It’s a difficult one, this. I agree tempi is pretentious, and we would more likely say maestros than maestri. Mozart’s allegros are usually cheerful (never allegri). And always concertos (not concerti) – but what about concerto grosso? You can’t say six concerto grossos – it can only be concerti grossi. So it’s hard to lay down the law.

  8. I was on course for a nice time, but got totally breeze-blocked by FILLIP. Fun though.

    Pi ❤️

  9. Made swift progress until delayed by my LOI LIE DOWN, which I’d made harder by thinking the queen of the fairies was called Tatiana – a mistake I also made when it appeared recently. It looks like it’s going to be one of those that I need to see a few dozen times before it sticks in the memory banks.

    I agree with LindsayO that youths aren’t infants (Collins doesn’t seem to be definitive) and was also not completely convinced by the withholding wordplay.

    Other than that an enjoyable solve which I finished in 6.44.

    Thanks to Templar

  11. Very sluggish today, at 14:22. Did not like “withholds” for an inclusion in INFANCY (or for that matter Infancy for Youth) when solving and still don’t. What next, using “add” to mean “delete”? Took an age to see PRICELESS and even longer to see YELPED, my LOI. At least the last was a brilliant clue and had me fair and square; INFANCY though gets my “raspberry of the week”.

    Many thanks Templar for the blog.

  13. Thanks Templar. Exactly the same time as RH (21:20), so straightforward for me, and me with the same reservations as others. But a nice QC Mara. On MAESTRI you get some Italian plurals which rarely see their singular form in Britain: eg you’d get some hard stares if you asked for a panino. Is that stray bit of pasta a fusillo?

    1. As a keen viewer of some television cooking programmes I’ve definitely noted the use of “raviolo” for a singular, large filled pasta parcel, usually served as a starter.

  14. I was clearly on Mara’s wavelength today as had no problems, although biffed INFANCY, CAPE and FILLIP before parsing. Interesting derivation of FILLIP – thanks Templar for explanation. SLAUGHTER reminded me again of how difficult it is for foreigners to learn English – adding the S to LAUGHTER changes pronunciation completely.

  15. From MAESTRI to ERA in 5:39. Didn’t hang around to ponder over INFANCY. Thanks MAra and Templar.

  16. 30:02. Mostly straightforward but with some harder clues and misdirection.
    I’m so used to a PC being Cop etc that LAPTOP was my last one in, preceded by FILLIP and INFANCY.
    Thanks to Mara and to Templar for explaining INFANCY.

  17. 7:58 for the solve ⚡ I was flying today.

    At 4min15, I just had the NE corner left. Then nothing for over 3mins until I spotted the -LESS of PRICELESS with a minute to go. A good 30+ secs of that was spent parsing CAPE, FILLIP (NHO), INFANCY (witholds?) and YELPED (LOI).

    What an unexpected treated from Mara.

    7. Brilliant! We, too were left with FILLIP (NHO), INFANCY and YELPED… though there the similarity ended – we sat at that point with 10 minutes on the clock… your dust trail was long gone…

  18. 8:08, with ELEMENT my LOI, having been completely misdirected by “lead”.

    Thanks Templar and Mara

  19. Enjoyed this so thanks Mara and Templar. Like one or two others I’m not keen on PRICELESS but I usually have many more problems with Mara so I’m not complaining 🙂

  20. On occasions you just get it. Today was one of those days. I sped from MAESTRI to GUTTER PRESS in 5:09. I semi parsed a few i.e. INFANCY, TITANIA and LAPTOP. COD to YELPED.

  21. Lovely, friendly … until the LOI – stared at S-A-G-T-R for about 20 minutes and then it finally came. Phew! For me it was the SW corner that was last. Thank you, Mara.
    Wow, four days in a row completed – one more and it’ll be up to 50% since the beginning of the year.

  22. A mixed bag. Good start for me but soon found myself off-wavelength biffing answers on the basis of crossers with (to me) stretched definitions such as scream/priceless, infancy. Withholds for hold is just daft and I still don’t like mat for matte (although it was an easy solve).
    Some clever clues (YELPED, ELEMENT, SLAUGHTER) and some nice/frustrating misdirection, as always from Mara. However, I found this bit of a slog after picking off the easy ones and, once again, just ventured into the SCC.
    Thanks to Templar for a solid blog.

  23. I found this difficult, not being at all on Mara’s wavelength. Struggled to finish in 30 minutes. FILLIP, INFANCY and PRICELESS took longest to fathom.

  24. 12:59, the time spent dutifully following all the misdirection. Nice one.
    I’m always a bit apprehensive at the swimming pool going through the door marked “male showers”

  25. Looking at the times posted so far, it seems a curious mixture of those that found it fairly straightforward and others well outside their usual times. I was in the former category with answers coming easily, finishing in 5.44. Definitely on Mara’s wavelength today.

  26. Easiest of the week with eight plus a biff.

    I’m sorry but celeb does not belong in the English language. Similar to my position on the monarchy, the aristocracy, and the elite. The only issue I have is that I’m not one of them.

  27. 15 minutes for me; held up at the end by FILLIP and CELEB. I too had to reconsider FABRIC which did not parse but occupied the brain.
    I liked this mainly. COD to YELPED.
    David

  28. Fairly straightforward with some nice surfaces. COD SPELLING BEE, LOI YELPED which took me a time to see. Reading these contributions over the past few weeks it’s clear that the QCs which some solvers find relatively simple are a challenge for others and vice-versa.

  29. DNF

    Missed the obvious with hindsight YELPED. One letter out with YELLED, which, of course, doesn’t work. Otherwise medium difficulty for me. Couldn’t parse PRICELESS.

  30. 4:58

    Found this very much on the easier side today. Slight pause for FILLIP, but that gave INFANCY and LOI YELPED. Liked SPELLING BEE.

    Thanks Templar and Mara

  31. Great puzzle thank you Mara!

    Took 20 mins and DNF but nearly did! Couldn’t figure out element (was hooked on EG start as “for example”) , and Deeply foxed me too.

  32. That felt hard but I finished in 15:21, which is roughly on par for me. Needed help parsing ELEMENT, for some reason, when it should have been perfectly obvious to me. Oh well.

    Thank you for the blog!

  33. Slow and DNF. Just could not decide between COPE and CAPE.

    Also I had YELLER, because it sounds like the dog “ol yeller”.

    Last minute change from EVEREST to ELEMENT saved a few more pinks.

    Withhold for “include” makes as much sense as “without” for include. Both technically correct but never used this way. Cue example of City churches and Easter Hymns.

    1. I wish you hadn’t mentioned Old Yeller because now I have to sit down and have a good cry.

  34. A lot went straight in, especially at the bottom which was soon complete. However after that it was like pulling teeth, falling into every trap set by Mara. Some rather tenuous definitions imo as noted by others. I eventually finished in 32 minutes having parsed everything except celeb.

    FOI – 1ac MAESTRI
    LOI – 12ac YELPED
    COD 9ac SPELLING BEE

    Thanks to Mara and Templar.

  35. 11 minutes. Took a while to see some answers that should have occurred to me earlier eg CAPE. I liked the ‘Barking deeply’ wordplay for YELPED and the sneaky ‘lift’ def for my LOI FILLIP.

    Thanks to Templar and Mara

  36. I enjoyed this: just the right level of challenge. had to biff SPELLING BEE (never heard of) and STREET (I always miss hidden words). 17 minutes, which is quite good for me.

  37. 9.29.

    4+ minutes staring at F_L_I_, until I put in fillip with a shrug – never heard of it.

  38. We both like a bit of Mara (including one of his other incarnations elsewhere where he’s known for his occasionally ribald humour) and this didn’t change our minds – thanks, Mara.
    As we were doing it, I said to Mr SR that I thought “PRICELESS” would attract some comment. It’s definitely used in some of the Enid Blyton school series which I devoured as a child and her books are still read today.
    Had no idea about the derivation of “FILLIP” so thanks for that, Templar, and for the rest of the blog.

  39. I crossed the line successfully, but with many interruptions, so very much a stop-start process for me. Untimed, but probably around half an hour in total.

    My first two in were MAESTRI and STREET, and I returned to the top of the grid with FILLIP and INFANCY as my last two. Nothing too difficult along the way, but very few write-ins, either.

    Many thanks to Templar and Mara.

  40. Zooming along nicely, until I returned to ‘polish off’ the last few stragglers in the NE corner that Mara had sub-contracted to a different setter. Infancy, Fillip, Yelped and Priceless took as long as all the other clues put together. Doubly annoyed about Yelped, because I had flagged ‘Barking deeply’ as a potential anagram during my first run through, only to ignore the obvious until it was loi. As a result, it was standing room only by the time I got to the SCC. Invariant

  41. Very quick then stuck. Had to dash out before solving LOI YELPED, but saw it immediately on return. Strange, that, but it often happens.
    Enjoyable QC. Puzzled by ‘withholds N’ but INFANCY it had to be.
    Thanks vm, Templar. DNK origins of FILLIP.

  42. 12a biffed Yapped, sniffing slightly at the def, then finally saw the anagram for Yelped.
    Loved the COD 9d Slaughter.

  43. Found this fairly straightforward although got breeze-blocked somewhat by LOI YELPED (misdirected by the lovely surface) which gets COD. Never been sure about the precise meaning of FILLIP but it parsed so in it went. Didn’t understand PRICELESS at the time – thanks for explaining Templar. Also interesting to hear about origin of FILLIP. Enjoyable.

  44. It wasn’t quite the disaster that I foresaw yesterday – just back to average.
    Funnily enough, when I got to 9a, my gut response was: Is this something to do with TITANIA? Then she actually appeared at 21a. I find this sort of thing happens surprisingly often. After I read the clue for SPELLING BEE properly, I liked it a lot. I wasn’t so keen on INFANCY for the same reasons as LO, Jack and others. I didn’t parse CAPE- thanks for the clarification, so obvious now!
    No problem with PRICELESS, although I suppose it’s a bit dated to say something was absolutely priceless for very funny. But then, so is ‘S/he’s a scream’!
    10:08 FOI Maestri LOI Infancy COD Element – what a difference a comma makes 😅
    Thanks Mara and Templar

  45. 9:24 WOE. Like Merlin, I went with YELLER for 12ac, my LOI and unparsed. On the other hand, I got all the downs in a single pass, which is a first. What a nice feeling.

    Thanks to Mara and Templar.

  46. 22 mins…

    At least 5 minutes of this was spent on 12ac “Yelped” – only seeing the anagram after exhausting “Yeller”, “Yoller” and “Yelper” thinking they were some kind of dog breed I hadn’t heard of. For a time, I also had “Scrabble Bee” for 9ac. Wasn’t massively convinced by the double definition for 6dn “Priceless”.

    FOI – 1dn “Mat”
    LOI – 12ac “Yelped”
    COD – 14ac “Gutter Press”

    Thanks as usual!

  47. I enjoyed this puzzle, which I found pretty approachable until I was unable to finish on 10a. Hilariously, after my career in computing, I could not read “PC” as “personal computer”, or “circuit” as “lap” either, and got stuck on the idea that I must need to know some weird British slang for “police constable”. I thought about my long to-do list for the day and gave up. Everything else yielded to a first or second look and I expect there may be some PBs today.

    Ah well, there’s always tomorrow.

    Thanks Mara and Templar.

  48. DNF. Like another commentator went for YELLER – which of course it couldn’t have been… what a wonderful film though. thanks both.

  49. We found this quite straightforward. FILLIP went in quickly and by the time we got to INFANCY we didn’t stop to worry about WITHHOLD, which does look odd in retrospect. The hidden STREET was actually our LOI, didn’t see it on the first pass. 8:16. Thanks Mara and Templar.

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