An entertaining and none-too-tricky Quick Cryptic from Teazel today. (Well that’s how it felt to me, but, as always, your mileage may differ). It took me 4:55 and I would have been faster if I had not biffed 1A wrongly, which made rather a mess of the grid. I liked 8A and 14D but COD to 16D for the fun surface.
Fortnightly Weekend Quick Cryptic. This time it is Sawbill’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 123 here.
Definitions underlined in bold italics, (Abc)* indicating anagram of Abc, {deletions} and [] other indicators.
| Across | |
| 1 | Misjudge interest due — am struggling (13) |
| UNDERESTIMATE – (interest due am)* [struggling]. I biffed this wrongly seeing MISUNDER… in the anagrist and bunging in MISUNDERSTAND. Wrong! Doh! That held me up a bit when I got to the Down clues until I realised the error of my ways. | |
| 8 | Authority is silent? (3-2) |
| SAY-SO – A bit of a chestnut, I think, but worth seeing again. It is SAYS O (round letter = 0= nothing), (is silent). | |
| 9 | Source of better advice upset rest somehow (7) |
| TIPSTER – TIP (upset) (rest)* [somehow]. | |
| 10 | A city of China? (7) |
| DRESDEN – Cryptic definition. Dresden is famous for its china – see here. | |
| 11 | Gold-rush region over there involving us (5) |
| YUKON – UK (us) in YON (over there). |
|
| 13 | Board welcomes all willing to learn (9) |
| TEACHABLE – EACH (all) in TABLE (board). | |
| 17 | Pay for indulgence (5) |
| TREAT – Double definition. | |
| 19 | Disorderly mix of far right aggro seen at regular intervals (7) |
| FARRAGO – FAR R (right) and alternate letters of AgGrO, [at regular intervals]. | |
| 20 | Relative has a name for being grubby (7) |
| UNCLEAN – UNCLE (relative) A N (name). | |
| 22 | A little snow initially formed pool of water (5) |
| FLAKE – First letter of [initially] Formed, LAKE (pool of water). | |
| 23 | What’s on hand to deliver a nasty blow? (7-6) |
| KNUCKLE-DUSTER -Cryptic definition. Possessing or carrying brass knuckles is illegal in the United Kingdom. Brass knuckles, also known as knuckle dusters, are classified as offensive weapons under UK law. The possession, sale, purchase, and importation of offensive weapons, including brass knuckles, are prohibited. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Leading team’s positive (6) |
| UPSIDE – UP (leading) SIDE (team). Unlike in the surface reading, in the cryptic reading (i.e. the definition) “positive” is a noun. Setters love tricking us like that. | |
| 2 | Noon in non-residential care? (3,6) |
| DAY CENTRE – Double definition, the first a cryptic hint – the centre of the day is Noon. | |
| 3 | New diamonds found in hoard scattered somewhere in Wales (7) |
| RHONDDA – N (new) D (diamonds, the suit of cards) in (hoard)* [scattered]. “The Llyn Fawr Hoard is an Iron Age treasure trove found in the Rhondda Cynon Taff area of Wales. The hoard contains bronze and iron objects that were buried in the lake as offerings to the gods.” No mention of diamonds, though. | |
| 4 | Not make up one’s mind to pinion criminal? (3,2,3,5) |
| SIT ON THE FENCE – SIT ON (pinion) THE FENCE (criminal). | |
| 5 | Suggest easily losing head (5) |
| IMPLY – {s}IMPLY (easily) without the first letter, [losing head]. | |
| 6 | Towards the back in a paper (3) |
| AFT – A FT (Financial Times; paper). | |
| 7 | Make mistake with simple task (6) |
| ERRAND – ERR (make mistake) AND (with). | |
| 12 | Stop meeting and give something (not everything) away? (4,5) |
| KEEP APART – KEEP A PART (give something (not everything) away). | |
| 14 | Kite perhaps was in the air, we hear — other fliers may be sick of it (4,3) |
| BIRD FLU – BIRD (kite perhaps) FLU sounds like [we hear] FLEW (was in the air) . | |
| 15 | Impressed by way to compete for ball (6) |
| STRUCK – ST (street; way) RUCK (compete for ball in Rugby). | |
| 16 | Rev, you dreadful Peeping Tom (6) |
| VOYEUR – (Rev you)* [dreadful]. | |
| 18 | Slightly change start of walk through wood (5) |
| TWEAK – First letter [start of] Walk in TEAK (wood). | |
| 21 | Vineyard hacked out of scrub (3) |
| CRU – Hidden in [hacked out of] sCRUb. | |
This was my main source of entertainment today as the 15×15 proved too much for me. Quite a few I still struggled with though as I didn’t know RHONDDA and I could make no sense of SAY-SO, simple when you think about it which I didn’t! Didn’t know FARRAGO but the wordplay was clear. Liked DRESDEN but I suspect there’s not a lot of china left after WWII. COD to DAY CENTRE.
Thanks J. Minor point, you haven’t accounted for the ‘a’ in unclean.
I think it was Uncle has A name…
Yes, I was just pointing out that it was missing from the parsing. Thanks.
Oops. Thanks. Now fixed.
Hmmm, yes, the 15×15. Can’t say much in here but I’m looking forward to the blogger’s parsing of one clue in particular!
4d perhaps?
No, one of its crossers actually, but I see what you mean. Tough day at the office.
A royal cock-up here. I began by putting in misunderstand, which seems like it has the anagram letters. I wasted two minutes before I saw it couldn’t be right and erased it. Rhondda could just as well have been Rhoddna for all I knew, but the former felt right. I ended up putting in the US spelling of centre, something I always never do, causing further delay.
Time 11:14
I thought the same re RHONDDA but it was clued as “new diamonds” which implied the N should come before the D.
12:02. I was a little surprised to see FAR in the clue for FARRAGO. “Cwm Rhondda”is a beautiful Welsh hymn while “Help me, Rhonda” is a cheery Beach Boys tune- something for everyone!
Thanks for the earworms. I like the Beach Boys tune, but “Guide Me, O Thou Great Redeemer” is on another level.
Many thanks for “Cwm Rhondda”.
7.08, nice puzzle. I’m more familiar with Brian Wilson’s Rhonda so had fingers crossed on that one, but I figured it couldn’t be much else. Thanks Teazel and John, I never did look closely at KEEP APART and AFT.
16:58. Took a while to get going, and spent the final few minutes staring at SAY-SO and DAYCENTRE.
5:55 with a few hold-ups in the north-west. Not too bad elsewhere, enjoyed the pervy cleric.
Sawbill’s weekend quickie is excellent as always.
Thanks John and Teazel.
30mins – nice puzzle all in correctly, except YUKON. Still struggling with that one to be honest – I can sort of see YON as shorthand for yonder; and UK could I suppose = US in context… but both parts a bit of a shoulder shrug.
Great puzzle otherwise
Surely you’re not suggesting “yon lion’s ‘et Albert” is not everyday vernacular in the UK!
Reet enuff! Ee, me dad liked yon monologue…
Great clue The Yokon being a Canadian territory and not part of the USA. Therefore the US is us ie you from the settler’s perspective. But you can’t deduce that until you have the answer. I biffed it out of geographical ignorance 🙂
9:05. Off to a quick start when the big anagram at 1ac – UNDERESTIMATE – just popped out once I had rejected a MIS… beginning as too much like the definition (Misjudge). And the rest fell nicely into place. COD to DAY CENTRE
A strange solve as I couldn’t make head or tail of the first half of the across clues (after swiftly deleting ‘misunderstand’) so I went to the last of the down clues and worked my way swiftly up the grid, whereupon the top all fell into place.
Started with CRU and finished with DAY CENTRE in a pleasing 7.00 with COD to SAY-SO.
Thanks to John
8 minutes established a new run of easier solves which now stands at an amazing 2 !
I wondered about ‘simple’ in 7dn but after checking the dictionaries it seems to a factor when describing an errand.
An enjoyable QC with no problems. Saw the long anagram immediately which made a nice change. Thanks Teazel for some great clues, and John, as always, for the interesting info.
A friendly one from Teazel! Managed that (a rare TREAT), though failed to see SAYS O (of course) and NHO RUCK but both had to be. LOI BIRD FLU. Thank you, John – yes I too wasted a few minutes on the blind alley of MISUNDERSTAND, then tried MISINTERPRET. All wrong – what a FARRAGO!
An enjoyable puzzle. I found this hard with first clue in being FARRAGO, but I did speed up. Resorted to aids for last three. My favourites were UNCLEAN, TWEAK, KEEP APART ( also LOI).
Birds of prey get bird flu through eating diseased birds. My area is not yet in a mandatory housing zone. Am hoping it warms up and that virus prevalence reduces before my pet chickens need to enter FlockDown. Am glad my neighbour doesn’t feed the gulls anymore (wild fowl, gulls, poultry are all very very susceptible to bird flu).
Many thanks to john and Teazel.
I found this quite hard taking 48m but looking back I don’t know why. I just wasn’t on Teazel’s wavelength today.
Enjoyable mix of clues though and I rather liked BIRD FLU.
Thanks John for explaining STRUCK.
Had I not briefly gazed out the window to watch the wind trying to rearrange the garden I wouldn’t have reached the SCC, but here I am, having enjoyed the journey. Nicely balanced for a bear of little brain such as myself, and I see I wasn’t the only one to leap to a false assumption on 1A before checking the anagrist.
Dodgy vicars are always good for a laugh, FARRAGO was my first guess but with FAR already in the clue I tried to find a sneaky alternative, which wasn’t there.
Welsh in-laws meant RHONDDA was an immediate write-in but well done anyone not so familiar with the region.
13:09, held up by the DRESDEN/DAY CENTRE pair. I spent a while wondering whether DUNEDIN had a ceramics industry.
Thanks John and Teazel
11:30 for the solve! These must be getting easier as I didn’t break 15mins with Teazel all last year, in fact of the 80 puzzles they’ve set since I began this was easily my quickest having at best recorded 13:05 (June 2023), 14:30 (July ’23 DNF) and 14:30 (Nov ’23). That said, I’ve got some 9min solves from the books of 2016-17 QCs.
As I was solving I hadn’t thought it was that easy of a puzzle so was pleased/surprised to finish so quickly. Enjoyed the FLAKE clue where I’d thought we were looking for a pool of water.
Coming in at 1hr14 for the weekday puzzles but with yesterday’s DNF negating the clean sweep. Nonetheless feeling positive about my solving this year.
For those not back for parksolve, and those who are, have a good weekend 👍
19:01. Very heavy going, with only a few clues done at the halfway point. Finally cracked the 1a anagram (doesn’t start with MIS- or DIS-) things moved on fast then, LOI DAY CENTRE.
FOI YUKON, via good GK. Didn’t understand SAY SO (doesn’t work for me). “Pinion criminal” looked like an anagram to me.
Getting UNDERESTIMATE straight away was a huge help here, and from there the puzzle flowed seamlessly to a 7:35 completion. It seemed quite a UK-centric puzzle, with a Welsh valley, a technical term from rugby, the British spelling of centre and the YUKON clue all favouring those with a UK base, so hats off to anyone from elsewhere who sailed through it.
Many thanks John for the blog, and I look forward to the Sunday Special.
A fairly quick solve today despite a slow start. Is CRU a vineyard, I know it as a form of appellation . COD BIRD FLU, as it made me smile and that’s always welcome!
Nice Crossword thanks. On the mild side. I produced audible chuckles at 8A and 4d, very enj0yable.
11 minutes, or one second quicker than vinyl1 to be more precise. Probably the most enjoyable QC this week for me with DAY CENTRE, DRESDEN, FARRAGO and VOYEUR my favourites.
Thanks to John and Teazel
Interesting how our experiences differ – I found this one to be a horrifying nightmare and struggled through it in 21:53. I’d quite like to ban Teazel from using question marks, but the rest of you seem to enjoy them (you’re all completely bonkers) so I don’t suppose there’s much chance of that.
Thank you for the blog!
6:22
Fairly gentle if you’ve heard of DRESDEN china and are aware of the YUKON as a gold-rush location. I wasn’t really held up at all except for my LOI – what could go with DAY? Ah…
Thanks John and Teazel
10.18
Hard going here but no coffee yet and a 2am finish after travelling to Lisbon for the first time. Eventually teased them out but a mind blank on _E_R_E at the end didn’t help.
Won’t be essaying the 15×15 straightaway…!
Thanks John/Teazel
I am on the “found it difficult “ side. Really struggled with the across clues, but after getting a few down answers I gradually got home in a dismal 34:51. Is there a prize for slowest of the day?
I was stretched to finish this inside target, but I managed it in 9.29. No trouble with RHONDDA or its spelling as it’s only twenty or so miles away from me. I did hesitate with FARRAGO, and note others share my discomfort with FAR being part of the clue.
I managed to get 4 out of 5 puzzles this week finished in under the ten minute mark, with a total time of 47.42, giving me a daily average of 9.32. It’s nice to get some semblance of normality after two atrocious weeks.
Very slow to get going but picked up speed once I’d filled in most of the bottom half of the grid. A fair few biffed then parsed. Slow to see SAY-SO but will look out for now I know it’s a chestnut! All fair with hindsight so not really sure why I struggled to get going. COD to TIPSTER (yes, I was very misdirected by the ‘better advice’ to start with). As ever, an excellent puzzle from Teazel. Many thanks John.
DNF. I gave up around 20 minutes after reaching my final clue (in ~30 mins, which is about average for me). Despite an intense period of alphabet trawling, up, down and sideways, DAY _E_T_E remained firmly out of reach. One reason was that I concluded part way through the trawl that there were no words to fit CE_T_E. My fault entirely, as I couldn’t parse the clue either.
I am beaten or very significantly delayed by my final clue or two so frequently, that I’m convinced my brain just closes down at that point. Galling!
Many thanks to John and Teazel. I’m now off to kick my neighbour’s cat.
8s Say So. Biffed, forgot about says 0.
POI 23a Knuckle Duster. I was a Customs Officer for 10 years or so and never noticed that these items were in C4 (prohibited imports) and the export book whose name I have forgot. But I hope I would have looked there if I had seen some.
Aargh. DNF. Day CENTRE, of course.
Started at the bottom with CRU and worked upwards fairly quickly but slow on UNDERESTIMATE only reached via PDM UPSIDE.
Liked YUKON, FARRAGO, TREAT, SIT ON THE FENCE, among others.
Not an easy puzzle, imo.
Thanks vm, John.
Glad to see not everyone found this on the easier side, as I drifted way into the SCC with 26:06. Only vaguely heard of FARRAGO and DRESDEN as a German Stoke equivalent, and didn’t realise CRU was a vineyard, although I can’t say that held me up at all. Anyway, FOI MISUNDERSTAND (D’oh), COD to TEACHABLE, LOI DAY CENTRE. Thanks John and Teazel.
Would’ve been fine had I not put Meissen for Dresden
A simple but enjoyable pre-prandial stroll.
FOI UNDERESTIMATE
LOI DAY CENTRE
COD RHONDDA
TIME 3:52
Thought at first I was going to be completely beaten, but then found a foothold and finished with a tiny bit of help.
17:16, held up by thoughtlessly spelling CENTRE the American way until I was stuck on 17a TREAT. Too many good surfaces to mention but 1A UNDERESTIMATE especially pleased me because it reminded me of G.W. Bush’s excellent coinage “misunderestimate”. Everyone I knew sneered at it but I like it!
FOI UNDERSTIMATE, LOI TREAT, COD FARRAGO.
Thank you Teazel and John.
25 mins…
A good puzzle, but once again I can’t help but feel a year or so back I would have been doing this in around 17 to 18 mins. Trickiest clue was 8ac “Say So” which I never really parsed properly. I’m sure I saw 23ac “Knuckle Duster” here a few weeks ago, but don’t remember Dresden being a centre for china.
FOI – 6dn “Aft”
LOI – 10ac “Dresden”
COD – 11ac “Yukon”
Thanks as usual!
A bit late to the table so this probably won’t be seen, but I think the comment for the parsing of 11A would be better expressed as “Very good as “over there” can refer to across the pond / North America… where the YUKON is”.
The Yukon is not in the US but in Canada, and with tensions running high over recent attempts at territorial landgrabs by Trump & co, probably best to be as accurate as possible?
Yes. Thanks. Blog amended. It even said it was in Canada in the quote I included!
Yvon of the Yukon was a rather funny cartoon that my kids watched 20 years ago about a smelly Frenchman cryogenically frozen in the gold rush and brought back to life when peed on by a husky. I’m not sure if it was Canadians having a laugh at French Canadians or French Canadians having a laugh at the French. Either way probably wouldn’t be made now.
Hither thither and yon is an archaic English expression. The nearest today is I guess here there and everywhere, rather than yonder. J
We were a bit slow on this. The top half went in quite steadily but then the SW corner and the KNUCKLEDUSTER brought us to a halt for a while. Once we had the latter then the rest fell into place but took us 14:46 all in. SAY-SO went in from the definition and checkers but we didn’t see the parsing so thanks, John
13:17 here, around my average time. The feeling of smugness when 1ac went in at once evaporated as I got nothing else in the top half. But then the downs came to my rescue.
Thanks to Teazel and John.
8.01 The quickest of 2025 despite being slow at the end on SAY-SO, UPSIDE and DRESDEN. Thanks John and Teazel.
We had say no for 8a otherwise completed in a reasonable time for us with minimal help. Enjoyable puzzle.
Realised I didn’t know know to spell Farrago – only ever heard from Flanders & Swan – and took ages to work it out from the actual clue. Happily I saw the three long answers straight away, and that helped a great deal. Then was hopping around until all done in much longer than it should have taken me.
FOI 1a Underestimate
LOI 9a Tipster
COD 23a Knuckle Duster.
13m
No exact time but around par.
Liked say so, tipster, and voyeur.
6.09. Another pleasant, if short, diversion.
Apart from Tuesday, this week continues to go well. I liked the succinct wordplay for DRESDEN and SAY-SO, which I couldn’t parse at the time, but get now – thanks John 😅 FLAKE and DAY-CENTRE also got ticks.
9:24 FOI Underestimate LOI Struck COD Treat
Thanks Teazel and John
My attempt at the biggie, however, was beyond dismal. Our blogger described it as superb – not a word I would have used to describe it! It’s the first time since I started having a bash at the 15×15 some years ago where I got no more than three clues (and two half-pencilled in) before getting stuck 😧 Not one for the faint-hearted!
Solved in two sessions (had to dash). FARRAGO a great word – two of the late, great Beachcomber’s books were A Bonfire of Weeds and A Farrago of Nonsense. Enjoyed TWEAK (said with a lisp). VOYEUR was my foi and DRESDEN my loi, after I corrected my misspelt RHONNDA – duh. Fun puzzle – thanks Teazel and blogger.
A bit of an up down in out day…. like many, we initially fell for ‘MISUNDERSTAND’ (in and out).. Wales and regions were beyond us (never went in) FARRAGO was a NHO (stayed out).. TWEAK (down) was delightful, FLAKE also pleasing..we had happy times parroting makers of tea sets (tangible remnants of long gone grandparents.. I suppose we, also, are tangible remnants ..). Took us a while, DNF (Rhondda) though rather enjoyed this.
Thank you all for daily education and more.
Nowhere near with this one today, only managed 5 clues after 90 minutes. Thank you for explaining the puzzle, some of the clues were fab but for some reason couldn’t get the brain to work today