Times Quick Cryptic No 2965 by Breadman

Author   rolytolyPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

Quite challenging today.

I had a very sparse grid after a first pass of the acrosses, with just five entered (1,9,10,11,21), and was then becalmed by a number of tricky clues at the end: BLOUSON was LOI and NHO, but I also struggled with UPSTAIRS, EVACUEE and CAKEWALK. These pushed my time out to 10:03, a fair bit slower than the seven-and-a-half-ish minutes for the previous two days.

A very enjoyable challenge – many thanks to Breadman!

Across
1 Hazel perhaps with time to pursue copper engraving (7)
WOODCUT – WOOD (Hazel, perhaps) with T(ime) to pursue CU (copper)
7 Evening containing a signal for person moved away from danger (7)
EVACUEE – EVE (evening) containing A and CUE (signal)
9 Vegetable cutlet prepared first in eatery (7)
LETTUCE – anagram (prepared) of CUTLET and E (“first” in Eatery)
10 Where to see actors taking part in Goethe? At rehearsal (7)
THEATRE – “taking part in” goeTHE AT REhearsal
11 Part of river Thames one’s seen repeatedly (4)
ISIS – I’S (one’s), repeated. The part that flows through Oxford.
12 Fish a French duke recalled on Hebridean island (9)
BARRACUDA – A and DUC (french duke) “recalled” = reversed on BARRA (Hebridean island)
14 Car reversed behind plot (9)
HATCHBACK – BACK (reversed) behind HATCH (plot)
16 Male’s small identifying mark (4)
STAG – S(mall) TAG (identifying mark). In the surface reading MALE’S is possessive, but in the cryptic it should be read as MALE IS, as in: the definition IS the following wordplay.
17 Giant pig restricts dog heading west (7)
GOLIATH – HOG (pig) restricts TAIL (dog/follow) “heading west”
20 Ordinary path around home (7)
ROUTINE – ROUTE (path) around IN (home)
21 Half of each can to corrode (3,4)
EAT INTO – EA (“half” of EAch) TIN (can) TO
22 British eccentric adopts American attire (7)
BLOUSON – B(ritish) LOON (eccentric) adopts US (American). I’d never heard of this word for a jacket drawn tight in at the waist, but it’s a common enough style, especially as Wiki says in military/law enforcement contexts.
Down
1 Tory’s feverishness after Bill through finally (7,5)
WILLIAM HAGUE – AGUE (feverishness) after WILLIAM (Bill) and H (througH “finally”). Now in the House of Lords, he also writes a weekly comment piece for The Times: another politician who leaves frontline politics and grows into this elder statesman dispensing much greater wisdom than was previously apparent. It’s almost like politics is hard, or something.
2 External equipment hasn’t drained totally (8)
OUTRIGHT – OUT (external) RIG (equipment) HT (HasnT “drained”)
3 Committee really upset initially by crucial point (4)
CRUX – Committee Really Upset “initially” and X = by, as in 2×4 = 2 times 4 = 2 by 4.
4 Sway social media user to ignore weight (6)
TEETER – TWEETER (erstwhile social media user) to ignore W(eight).
5 Dance   that is very easy to perform (8)
CAKEWALK – double definition: the first apparently being a dance-off where the winner gets a cake; the second is where if you describe something as a cakewalk it is a doddle.
6 Depart, still lacking energy (4)
QUIT – QUIET (still) lacking E(nergy)
8 Gemstone with fresh colour (7,5)
EMERALD GREEN – EMERALD (gemstone) with GREEN (fresh/wet behind the ears). It does seem a little weak to clue this colour with “gemstone”.
12 Middle Eastern graduate welcome to grab shower (8)
BAHRAINI – BA (graduate) HI (welcome) to grab RAIN (shower)
13 Dicky puts melodies in one’s head (8)
UPSTAIRS – anagram (dicky/sick) of PUTS and AIRS (melodies). As in: he’s not got much upstairs.
15 Beating path, robber hides (6)
ATHROB – pATH ROBber “hides”
18 Regularly flaunt unknown ice-skating jump (4)
LUTZ – f L a U n T “regularly” Z (unknown, in maths), more probable than LUTX or LUTY.
19 50 per cent of judges love sport (4)
JUDO – 50%  of JUDges, and O (love, zero)

106 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 2965 by Breadman”

  1. I was terribly slow, not sure why. I hesitated a bit at EMERALD GREEN, thinking there had to be more than this. A poor clue. One can hatch a plot, and one can plot, but can one hatch? 12:58.

    1. Collins gives it as a transitive verb – “to contrive or devise (a scheme, plot, etc)”.

  2. I found this very tough, with not much let-up in the difficulty of the wordplay, and quite a bit of GK that I didn’t have (ISIS, WILLIAM HAGUE, BLOUSON, CAKEWALK (for dance)). At least the wordplay was helpful for all except CAKEWALK, which I never solved. At least I knew BARRA, LUTZ, etc.
    I also couldn’t fully make myself comfortable about HATCH=plot, but the answer had to be right.
    I think I would have really enjoyed this puzzle with just a few easier clues to take some of the sting out.

  3. Blimey! I did this to relax after doing the 15×15 but found it pretty hard with some unknowns. DNK BLOUSON but figured it out from the wordplay after discounting ‘cam’ for eccentric. WILLIAM HAGUE took some time as I didn’t think the setter would be so kind as to clue ‘William’ as Bill. I had ‘EAT AWAY’ to begin with in my head but couldn’t parse it before seeing tin/can.

    Some very tricky clueing in OUTRIGHT, HATCHBACK, UPSTAIRS. In STAG, I wouldn’t have thought of a ‘tag’ as an identifying mark, more a kind of label, although I know it can also be a skin growth.

    COD to UPSTAIRS.

    Thanks Roly and setter.

  4. A trademark Breadman, with J, Q, X and Z but not a pangram (no F) – it seems a while since we have had one of those. And a pretty stiff puzzle too, which took me 15:09. I eventually parsed all but CAKEWALK – NHO the dance meaning – though like David I scratched my head at hatch = plot.

    Very nice blog, thank you Roly

    2. I noticed a symmetry in the placement of the QZ and JX pairs. Not sure it means anything, but perhaps when Breadman sat down to construct the puzzle he set himself a challenge by putting them in first.

  5. 20:35
    That was hard. First pass results very thin in the ground. Needed WILLIAM HAGUE, to open things up. Times crossword now referencing Times journalist.

    Never heard of the CAKEWALK, and quite a few words could be crowbarred into those checkers.

    This felt like a pangram so I checked with AI, which is quick at checking this kind of thing. Here’s the prompt I used “ I will paste in a crossword blog. I think the answers firm a pangram, please check.”, then pasted in roly’s blog. Answer straight back “ I’ve checked all letters of the alphabet, and it appears that the letter F is missing from all the crossword answers. Therefore, these solutions do not form a complete pangram.”

      1. It’s jack 1 Claude 0. The AI engine makes a basic mistake, and claims there is a Y in OUTRIGHT. Just shows that AI can make simple mistakes.

        1. Another poster missed it too, but that’s more understandable because if one is looking for a pangram and find F missing, why would one bother to look further.

  6. I smashed the 24-minute barrier with 23.59, a PW. I found it hard most of the way but there were about six at the end that simply would not yield. Finally I got the Tory, then the car and the dance together and basically lucked in on UPSTAIRS and BLOUSON. An interesting puzzle, not what I would call a QC but an enjoyable and tough challenge. I’m a bit gun-shy of looking at the 15×15 now. Thanks Breadman and Roly.

    1. Congratulation on your sub 24 🤣 It’s nice to see you at the SCC – you can check out but you can never leave!

      2. 😅. Some of us like it here so much we barely even try to leave. It’s not the winning, it’s the taking part – and finding the last bloody answer – that counts.

  7. 12 minutes. Not exactly a CAKEWALK (in another sense) for everyone perhaps but I didn’t notice anything difficult here and if I hadn’t bothered to parse everything and simply biffed away my completion time would have been well within my 10 minute target.

    ‘Plot / HATCH’ is in the usual dictionaries and thesauruses.

    These days TAGs are the identifying marks left by graffitists.

    2. Also in many industrial plants (refineries etc) individual equipment items are uniquely identified by a tag.

  8. Hard enough to push me out to 17:54. It needed to be done at a slow steady pace, like taking it in low gear. I liked OUTRIGHT and UPSTAIRS. LOI CAKEWALK. Nice one BREADMAN and thanks rolytoly

  9. Tough going today.

    I spent a lot of time trying to think of five letter words that ended with ‘ague’ (other than vague) before eventually realising that I was looking for a person. Other major hold ups included WOODCUT, BLOUSON, EVACUEE and LOI CAKEWALK.

    Struggled over the line in 14.36.
    Thanks to rolytoly and Breadman

    1. Ha ha – the synchronicity between our times is simply ridiculous. You beat me by two seconds today.

      2. Interesting… we find our times and those of Roundabout Here (seemingly another team of two) are likewise often bizarrely similar. I suppose attributable to a strange combination of nature of knowledge, way of thinking, age… education…life experience.. Whatever, it is intriguing.

  10. I agree with many above. Tough.
    I hope we finish the week with a QC tomorrow.
    Nothing more to say (except to offer thanks to Roly).

  11. 38:05 for the solve. Reached the thirty min mark with BLOUSON (NHO) going in and left to alphatrawl CAKEWALK before finally getting it from the 2nd half of the def. Generally speaking too many moving parts and lesser used QC-words (e.g. loon=eccentric, hatch=plot) making up those parts. But everything parseable, so thanks to Breadman.

    With TEETER, I was left wondering whether now Twitter is known as X – do people still tweet? Is this an example of GK that has been and gone in barely a decade and a half?

    Pleased to tick off another solve and thanks to Roly for the blog.

    1. This puzzle was a classic example of what I deem a “treacle” crossword – every clue felt like I was mentally wading through the stuff.

  12. Well I did get Isis….first pass….

    One hatches a plot. I think of it as the process of crystalising ideas into a structured plan.

    I thought some of the parsing required was a bit dubious, but then I am a beginner.

  13. Tough! Took me 12,45 with CAKEWALK and LOI, OUTRIGHT, causing holdups. Sadly this week’s fat fingers struck again. USPTAIRS. Drat! Thanks Breadmand and Roly.

  14. Some tricky wordplay for a QC. I feel the need to refer to Chambers for a steward’s decision.

    Home=in passes only because we are in crosswordland, but plot=hatch and dog=tail have senses that are adjacent at best.

    1. I’d say most people in the real world have used “Will you be home at 6pm?”

      1. “I’ll be staying in tonight” is also fairly common currency I’d say. So I’ve never had a problem with HOME = IN. I agree with other objections for HATCH / PLOT though.

    2. I didn’t get plot = hatch but I’m fine with home = in and I reckon dog and tail, in the sense of following something, is ok. Here.

  15. DNF. Crossed the line at 18:40 but with a fat fingered OUTRIigT.
    I wasted time looking for a pangram that wasn’t there, convinced I must have missed a Y somewhere.

    Thanks Roly and Breadman

  16. It seemed churlish not to explore the rabbit holes, including the (very easy)* Cakewalk, in today’s teaser from Breadman. However my main hold up was the result of putting Ilot in for Isis, which made loi Outright rather tricky. All sorted out in the end, and at just north of 25mins I was surprised to finish a fair bit quicker than yesterday. CoD to 13d, Upstairs, in quite a strong field. Invariant

  17. Very tough. Took 35:23 to finish, having to biff a few and dredge the depths of the brain to remember LUTZ and CAKEWALK . Hardest puzzle for a while.

  18. As soon as put in my LOI, QUIT, I thought, “Damn, if I’d have spotted it was a pangram, I’d have got that earlier!” (I was staring at it for a good 5 minutes, pushing my time out to just under 20 minutes, but I do have a hangover). Then when I verified the pangram I noticed there was no F and realised it was good that I didn’t spot it as it would have been extremely hard to fit a Q and an F into _U_T.

  20. 9.04

    Started with TWEETER and steadily worked round. LETTUCE not really what I think of as a vegetable but hey ho. Liked WOODCUT and HATCHBACK. Not so keen on CAKEWALK (LOI) as the second definition is rather obscure.

    Thanks all

  21. Thoroughly tough, I thought – though I ought to have got through it in roughly par time, as I fought hard enough.

    Pi ❤️

    4. Bravo indeed! That would be the perfect sentence to read out for the class to spell if you were teaching English as a foreign language (and had something of a malicious streak).

      1. I think any French students would really struggle to pronounce most of it, let alone spell it!

  22. A tough (except for EMERALD GREEN – so easy that like others I wondered whether it was really the answer) and thoroughly enjoyable struggle. Pushed me way into the red zone but it never felt out of reach and I was completely absorbed.

    COD to GOLIATH, what a beltingly good clue. 14:38 to maintain lockstep with Plett and a Good Day, despite the time!

    Many thanks Breaders and roly.

  23. A good challenge, with OUTRIGHT taking me a full minute at the end to be LOI.
    Much enjoyed 9:43, thanks Breadman and rolytoly

  24. Another slog today. Some tricky clues and UPSTAIRS seemingly asleep – not a great combination! LOI was alphabet trawl for CAKEWALK which I knew but just couldn’t retrieve. Biffed then parsed BLOUSON. Got -CUT early on but just couldn’t think of the WOOD part, even though I knew what I was looking for… Followed the wordplay very carefully to spell BAHRAINI correctly. Liked OUTRIGHT once I’d solved it. Hopefully brain will start working again tomorrow! Many thanks RT and Breadman.

  25. “Challenging” was the description I had in mind for this; so I agree with our blogger.
    Mostly done in 16 minutes but I needed 5 more to get HATCHBACK, CAKEWALK and LOI OUTRIGHT (could not see how the clue worked for ages).
    I was looking for a pangram after FOI LUTZ.
    A good crossword and a hard QC.
    COD to BARRACUDA.
    David

  26. I really feel for the QC setters sometimes. They take stick for puzzles with some difficult clues, but when on the same day as one of these the setter throws in an easy clue (to EMERALD GREEN) he is criticised and told it is weak and poor! They must feel they can never win.

  27. I join the long list of those that found this tough. It was certainly no CAKEWALK which was my LOI and took me longer than any other clue to solve. I thought maybe WILLIAM HAGUE may prove tricky for those domiciled outside the UK, as I don’t think he made much of an impression on the world stage. In the end I crossed the line in 12.53, but looking at everyone else’s time, I will certainly settle for that.

  29. 13:09

    Well, that was certainly a step up from the Breadman. For his previous thirty puzzles, it has never taken me longer than 10:51, and I’ve averaged 7:32 – I’m very relieved to see that it was not just me.

    I was stuck on five answers at the end – three of them were unconnected to any other unsolved clue, so I had all of the checkers – BLOUSON fell first, then CAKEWALK and UPSTAIRS, leaving CRUX (where I finally decided that ‘Committee’ was not the definition) and LOI QUITE where I was far too late in thinking ‘if U think Q’.

    Bravo Breadman, and thanks to Roly for unravelling

    1. Yep – they were always one of the easier setters according to my solving times.

  30. 35 mins…

    Seriously thought my brain wasn’t working this morning, nearly every clue was a slog and after 10 mins only had about 4 answers. Imagine my relief when I read the blog and saw it was a toughie (aren’t they all now?)

    Overall – just pleased to have finished it, especially as many of the clues had cryptic definitions which are difficult enough in their own right.

    FOI – 9ac “Lettuce”
    LOI – 2dn “Outright”
    COD – 13dn “Upstairs”

    Thanks as usual!

    1. You came through fast after those slow beginnings. By comparison, in the first minute I had 4 of the first 6 Acrosses and was 2/3s done in 12mins. But as you said up above, it was treacle, every clue needing to be studied for 20-30s for any hint of what it might elicit.

  31. Fiendish. After about two hours it was clear no more PDMs were coming, so finally threw in the towel with five to the bad. NHO BLOUSON and cannot accept that a mere eccentric is a LOON. This smacks of the infuriating “If you see something unusual, ring British Transport Police ….” – what is wrong (loony) with an “unusual” eccentric? Calming down a bit:
    NHO ATHROB (is this a word? it’s not in my Collins), nor LUTZ, which only know from Rudolf Lutz, probably the greatest Bach interpreter in the world. Those, and UPSTAIRS, just far too difficult. (Was trying desperately to make it UnSTeady = dicky, whose first 5 letters are an anagram of tunes!)
    Yes, thanks are due to Roly for unveiling these mysteries to us all.

  32. I’m recording my time but it was a DNF with the NHO CAKEWALK. I didn’t know either of the definitions. So a CAKEWALK is what I’d call a ‘walk in the park’! 13:06 with a good couple of minutes spent looking at 5d.
    I also had the hidden ‘Ness’ monster as the answer for ‘Part of river Thames oNE’S Seen repeatedly’ until Mr Hague arrived.

    1. I’ve NHO CAKEWALK either. I’d call it a piece of cake. Between those definitions the answer was there somewhere.

  33. Really tough. I am throwing in the towel on the QC’s. They are just too hard for a beginnner. Too many nearly 15*15 which I have no interest or ability to do, and not enough true QC’s. Oh well it was fun for a while

    1. Yes it was tough, but if/when you get hooked on this game you will inevitably want to push the boundary to see how far you can go. Just use the daily Quitch to pick out the ‘easier’ ones if that’s all you want.

  34. 27:38 for me, so around 50% over target, but not a disaster. NHO of BLOUSON or LUTZ and didn’t pause to wonder if I’d heard of BARRA (probably have at some point). No problem with Hatch = plot. “What mischief have you been hatching?” a suspicious adult might ask. Anyway, COD to UPSTAIRS I think. Thanks Breadman and Roly.

  35. An enjoyable tussle with Breadman. LOI OUTRIGHT where I had OUT… some time earlier but wasn’t seeing how the clue worked. ATHROB was not in my vocabulary but parsable; may have trouble working it into conversation however… Might have fun trying.
    A bit of semi biffing required so thanks for the blog to tie up the loose ends.

  36. Tougher than usual, but there were some nice chewy clues

    Liked BAHRAINI, GOLIATH and UPSTAIRS (LOI) particularly.

    Thanks Breadman and rolytoly

  37. 24:45. Very tough assignment! For a long time I could only see TREECUT which luckily I didn’t settle for. I guess UPSTAIRS and OUTRIGHT were the hardest and most time-consuming for me.

  38. Me again. I have now homed in on an unsurfaced memory that was making me feel uneasy about CAKEWALK. The CAKEWALK was a fairground ride on which you had to try to walk on moving plates while struggling to keep your balance. And it wasn’t a piece of cake

    1. Gets a mention in Dire Straits’ Tunnel of Love, with both the fairground and piece of cake connotations.

  39. 2d COD Outright.
    13d Upstairs. Difficult.
    5d Cakewalk. From Wiktionary:
    “It derives from dance competitions by plantation slaves in which the style of dance lampooned the ballroom dances of the slaveowners. Slaveowners seem to have found the competitions entertaining and the habit of offering cake may originate from this period.”
    12d Bahraini. Could spell this because the Grand Prix was there recently and I checked the spelling when I realised I couldn’t. I went for “Bah! Rain” as memonic. Anyway the wordplay made it very clear, so I wasted my time.
    Thanks to rolytoly & Breadman.

  40. v. tough, not sure about ATHROB or LUTZ being actual words,( as blogger above, not in Collins, )fairly irrelevant as most of rest of grid a mystery

  42. Nope, it was yesterday’s Wurm that was hard (at least for me). What a difference wavelength makes. Plenty of green on the WITCH side of the QUITCH suggests that although most folk took longer than normal, they did well vs difficulty.

  43. It probably would have been a good idea to wake up more thoroughly before doing this. It was fun though. No getting stuck, but it took 20:16 to finish it, starting verrrrrry slowly and finishing ditto. A few should-have-been write-ins like QUIT were head-scratchers, leaving me feeling distinctly more Harriet than Emma. Oh Miss Woodhouse, what can it be? I liked the big pig best and the eccentric attire was also good, though it took a while to accept that BLOUSON could be English. NHO WILLIAM HAGUE so had to cross fingers there. Ditto LUTZ but could it really have been LUTX or LUTY? No.

    In short (but I’m seldom short) not the CAKEWALK it ought to have been.

    Thanks Breadman and roly.

    Edited to say after reading the comments apparently I wasn’t as sleepy as I had thought! I revise my score to an honorable visit to the Club.

  44. Took ages but got there in the end, so that felt like a big achievement. Extra slow until PDM WILLIAM HAGUE, but that gave me WOODCUT, ISIS, and HATCHBACK. LOsI OUTRIGHT and CAKEWALK.
    Come to think of it, also struggled with ATHROB and BLOUSON.
    FOI EMERALD GREEN. Knew LUTZ from TV sports.
    I did like many but now exhausted after huge shop and v tricky puzzle. Maybe COD GOLIATH.
    Thanks vm, Roly. Wasn’t sure how to parse W HAGUE or UPSTAIRS, ‘in one’s head’.

  45. This was a DNF, as I only had the final square of 18d to fill, but couldn’t decide between X, Y or Z as the “unknown”, but at least it’s a new word I’ve learnt! Found it a very hard puzzle, but one where the clues eventually came to me, which made it very fulfilling and enjoyable. Thank you for the blog today, and clearing up any confusions I had about the clues, especially CAKEWALK being a dance too! 😁

  46. SCC and DNF – what further ignominy can lie in wait?! My dnfs were BLOUSON and UPSTAIRS – stared for ages but they would not come. I nearly went astray with OUTBOARD (external equipment) at 2d but ISIS corrected that. I thought for a while that 14 a would start with S, if 1d was WILLIAM’s fever, but AGUE had to be, and HATCHBACK suggested itself! CAKE WALK was fun with its ‘piece of cake’ implication but my cod was BAHRAINI. Thanks Breadman and Roly.

  47. Had to try to complete in 10 minutes and failed on BLOUSON, UPSTAIRS and OUTRIGHT.

    I Could see that, for what turned out to be BLOUSON the answer would contain B and probably US and that I needed a word for ‘eccentric’ but ‘loon’ didn’t occur to me, and doesn’t it mean a madman rather than an eccentric? I have heard of ‘blouson’ though and would have been better off biffing than trying to work it out – probably would have done so successfully if I’d had the ‘S’ from the unsolved UPSTAIRS.

    OUTRIGHT is the kind of clue I don’t get on with, where the wordplay breaks the answer down into three or more bits – a matter of experience, or lack of.

    And I was never on the right lines at all to get UPSTAIRS – a bit hard for a QC clue?

    2nd QC failure in consecutive weeks – I’m definitely on the slide…

  48. I was determined to finish this after giving up on yesterday’s. I staggered over the line in a very undistinguished 35 minutes and was rather relieved to find that a lot of others had struggled. I knew both meanings of cakewalk and the ice-skating jump so no excuses really. MER at athrob – not previously in my vocabulary.

    FOI – 7ac EVACUEE
    LOI – 1dn WILLIAM HAGUE
    COD – 20ac ROUTINE

    Thanks to Breadman and Rolytoly.

  49. 15.27 An enjoyable challenge. I spent a good five minutes on HATCHBACK, OUTRIGHT and CAKEWALK at the end, the latter going in with fingers crossed. Thanks rolytoly and Breadman.

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