I thought this quite a gentle 3rd Quick Cryptic from new setter Juji [Edit: But what do I know? From the comments it seems plenty of you didn’t find it easy]. I had all but 4 answers in a first pass through the clues finishing in 4:30 and no marks on paper copy except to underline the anagrist in 12D. Nice one. Thank-you Juji. Your mileage, as always, may differ from mine, of course – how did you all get on?
Fortnightly Weekend Quick Cryptic. This time it is my turn to provide the extra weekend entertainment. You can find the crossword, entitled “Going trekking”, here. If you are interested in trying our previous offerings you can find an index to all 130 here.
Definitions underlined in bold italics, (Abc)* indicating anagram of Abc, {deletions} and [] other indicators.
| Across | |
| 1 | Most ill-tempered priests opt to reform (10) |
| STROPPIEST – (priests opt)* [to reform]. | |
| 8 | Maybe a newspaper piece (7) |
| ARTICLE – Double definition, A being the indefinite article. | |
| 9 | Wipe out facility housing Resistance (5) |
| ERASE – R (resistance) in EASE (facility). | |
| 10 | Hide exposed spy, English lieutenant (4) |
| PELT – sPy without its outside letters [exposed], E (English) LT (lieutenant). | |
| 11 | Remove leads from dogs in Swiss cabin (8) |
| DISLODGE – First letters [leads] of Dogs In Swiss, LODGE (cabin). | |
| 13 | Liking sculpture primarily in gallery (5) |
| TASTE – First letter of Sculpture in TATE (gallery). | |
| 14 | Musketeer beat hostile guards (5) |
| ATHOS – Hidden in [guards] beaAT HOStile. One of the Three Musketeers along with Porthos, Aramis and D’Artagnan. Um. Doesn’t that make 4 musketeers? | |
| 16 | President locks spy chief in prison (8) |
| CHAIRMAN – HAIR (locks) ‘M‘ (spy chief), in CAN (American slang for prison). | |
| 17 | Section of fences supporting turning cat (4) |
| PUSS – Reverse hidden [section… turning] in fenceS SUPporting. | |
| 20 | Ring great Greek character (5) |
| OMEGA – O (round letter; ring) MEGA (great). | |
| 21 | Fabulous girl regularly dances on air (7) |
| ARIADNE – ARIA (operatic song; air) and alternate letters [regularly] of DaNcEs. | |
| 22 | Help repair broken device connected to computer (10) |
| PERIPHERAL – (Help repair)* [broken]. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Son with stringed instrument is keen (5) |
| SHARP – S (Son) HARP (stringed instrument). | |
| 2 | Earnest talks to resettle venomous reptiles (12) |
| RATTLESNAKES – (Earnest talks)* [to resettle]. | |
| 3 | Father on church step (4) |
| PACE – PA (father) CE (Church of England; church). | |
| 4 | Leader abandoning African land for European peninsula (6) |
| IBERIA – {l}IBERIA (African land) without its first letter. | |
| 5 | Wealth that woman had — love received by boy (8) |
| SHEDLOAD – SHE’D (that woman had), O (0; love) in LAD (boy). | |
| 6 | Difficult to take responsibility for part of motorway (4,8) |
| HARD SHOULDER – HARD (difficult) SHOULDER (take responsibility). | |
| 7 | Rest on ship, welcoming cruise on vacation (6) |
| RECESS – Outside letters of C{ruis}E, [on vacation], in RE (on) SS (SteamShip; ship) | |
| 12 | Come down from cedar and see ground (8) |
| DECREASE – (cedar see)* [ground]. | |
| 13 | Vacated tiny company, working for business magnate (6) |
| TYCOON – Outside letters of T{in}Y, CO (company) ON (working). | |
| 15 | State why Gawain hid away from all outsiders (6) |
| HAWAII – Remove the outside letters, [away from all outsiders], of wHy gAWAIn hId. | |
| 18 | Give letters of enchantment (5) |
| SPELL – Double definition. | |
| 19 | Unclothed parts of legs reaching far up (4) |
| HIGH – And another “remove the outside letters”, [unclothed], {t}HIGH{s} (parts of legs). | |
STROPPIEST was a write in after strop appeared yesterday but the anagrist made it clear anyway. Took me a while to see DISLODGE as I thought I was looking for a Swiss cabin as the answer, duh! Lots biffed today, HARD SHOULDER, PERIPHERAL, RATTLESNAKE and more. Liked ARTICLE in 8a where I was convinced ‘FT’ would be in there somewhere before the penny dropped. Thought ARIADNE and SHEDLOAD were good and the latter is my COD.
Thanks John and setter.
The setter likes outside letters. D’Artagnan wasn’t one of the Three Musketeers. 8:27.
This was not so easy for me. While I filled in the top-left diagonal half in about two minutes, I was most thoroughly stuck on the rest. I wasn’t too sure of shedload, and even began to doubt Iberia. Once I got Hawaii and hard shoulder I began to make some progress, but dislodge, my LOI, was tough.
Time: 11:38
I didn’t find this easy at all and needed 18 minutes to fill the grid. The answers that particularly delayed me were CHAIRMAN, HAWAII and ARIADNE.
Like Vinyl1 above, I also had my doubts about IBERIA because {S}IBERIA is a chestnut but it’s not in Africa. Then I remembered Liberia.
Who was it who once named the Three Musketeers as Athos, Pathos and Bathos?
A search throws up “The Three Must-Get-Beers” featuring Pathos, Bathos, Arabic, and Dart Champion. First broadcast on the Home Service in October 1939. Well remembered, Jack
I always wondered why these musketeers never fired a musket, instead rather just engaged in dashing swordplay. Of course I only know them from the movies , maybe the original novel had some actual musketry involved!
DNF for first time in a while (stopped at SCC with 5D and 15D incomplete)
NHO and did not get SHEDLOAD (have heard less polite variation). Managed the rest though very slow on DISLODGE and spent too long wondering about president with name to fit C……AN.
We are not yet on Juji’s wavelength!
Thank you John, thank you Juji.
Quite hard throughout but I was still making good progress until the same three that slowed Jackkt really, really slowed me down. CHAIRMAN, ARIADNE and HAWAII. Gawain was such an odd word it had to be doing something and locks for hair should have been clear but the proximity of prison totally misdirected me, so the blame lies with me – finally got ARIADNE from a girl in my daughter’s class, must look up the real one. Four on the first pass of acrosses, then steady progress until the crawl to the line. All green in 21.13. Good one, thanks Juji and thanks too to John.
Re the girl in your daughter’s class, it is nice to see classical names still being used. Mrs S used to teach at a primary school and two sisters there had the resplendent names Persephone and Scheherazade. And the PA to a good friend of mine is called Afrodite (with an F, she insists, not a PH).
There were 32 Ariadnes born in England and Wales in 2023 according to the ONS’s Baby Names for Girls in England and Wales: 2023. Same for Loreleis. So it was a good year for Greek mythology – but even better for Norse mythology with 2,086 new Freyas. Olivia was the runaway winner at 2,906.
Persephone – 69!
Scheherazade and Afrodite did not trouble the scorers.
I love those sister names! I had a Cypriot neighbor named Antigony (her spelling) and was completely charmed.
This was straight forward until it wasn’t! Had all but LOI Hawaii at around 19 then properly breeze blocked taking a further 8 minutes to get it. Went backwards and forwards on different tacks, looked up what Gawain did, tried Malawi as an unparsed state then finally took the outside off Gawain and clang!! 27.28
Thought spell was very good.
Thanks Juji and John
Made swift progress through most of this before getting very stuck at the end on SHEDLOAD, a word I regularly use but discounted as being too ‘slangy’, HAWAII and ARIADNE, where I was initially looking for a synonym of ‘fabulous’ and even once I’d got the answer couldn’t parse. I assumed it started with an anagram of ‘air’ but then somehow took too many letters from ‘dances’.
All this lead to a slightly under average time of 8.06 with COD to ARTICLE.
Thanks to John and Juji.
Exactly the same mental contortions over ARIADNE!
A DNF for me too, couldn’t see HIGH (synonym that is then manipulated beyond knocking off a letter always tough), ARIADNE (NHO) and CHAIRMAN (I also looked for the name of a president)
What is “reaching” doing in HIGH? Just a connector?
Always disappointing to have the qitch tell you it was easy when you found it so tough, haha!
Yes “reaching” is a link word between Wordplay and Definition, albeit an unusual one.
I took a while to get going on this, but got there in the end. 24.54.
DISLODGE and ARIADNE took me ages, but on reflection, I can’t really see why.
Pi ❤️
All good in about 10, liked DECREASE, confused by that sense of PERIPHERAL for a while. Thanks John and Juji
12.23 but for second day running a typo all through not being bothered to fire up laptop. Decent puzzle with a variety of devices. Didn’t fully parse a couple of them so thanks John. I’m looking at CHAIRMAN and RECESS.
LOI was ARIADNE
Cheers All
7:09 for the solve! Thanks to Juji for a great puzzle – thought there was some intricate clueing but also nothing making them up which would be unknown – so hopefully anyone new or up and coming will be able to get there with a bit of perseverance. HIGH and CHAIRMAN (LOI) taking me out past the six minute mark for what otherwise flew in.
Easily my fastest week ever coming in at a few ticks over 46mins – there was a time when I spent longer every day on the QC than that! Have a good weekend everybody who isn’t back tomorrow, and for those who are – have a good weekend.
Thanks to JohnI for the blog. Will try the Weekender later and update. Edit: scraped under 20mins – the 1s and 2 – a massive struggle. Only got 1D due to biffing from the theme
Good time today #5.
You completed the whole week in less time than it took me to finish today.
It’s like an episode of The Prisoner … “I am not #5, I am a free man” !!
Good perseverance on your part #5 👍
👏👏👏
I rather limped through this, and wasn’t much enamoured of some of its looseness. “Swiss cabin” had me thinking chalet, which was clearly wrong, and I thought it was particularly poor. I biffed ARIADNE , and still couldn’t parse it without coming here. My LOI held me up for over a minute as I couldn’t see “wealth” in the required context. Not the worst puzzle ever, but not my basinful of fun.
FOI STROPPIEST
LOI SHEDLOAD
COD HARD SHOULDER*
TIME 5:19
* I must also commend ARTICLE
I wish I could run half as fast as you can limp, Busman. 😉
Well said, John!
Thanks, Pam. Nice to see you back here. John
Ah, thanks, John.
Isn’t making us think “chalet” (as I did too) particularly good deception, not particularly poor?
12.12
Glad I’m not alone in puzzling over ARIADNE. Five minutes at the end laboriously trying to think of something that fitted. Quite straightforward when you see it. DISLODGE also took a good minute or two. Tend to agree that the Swiss reference was a bit puzzling…but then this is a puzzle!
Thanks Juji/John
8:49 and no problems except my LOI DISLODGE which took me a minute or so as it was quite cunningly phrased I thought
A quick top half but I slowed to a crawl in the SE. I had no trouble with ARIADNE but it took a while to see HIGH, SPELL and PERIPHERAL (despite recognising the anagrist). I ran out of steam on HAWAII and kicked myself when I read the blog.
I join those who found this a lot more chewy than did early posters. Some clever clues, though.
Thanks to both
Quite a quick solve but held up a bit convinced chalet must be part of 11A. Couldn’t parse CHAIRMAN – so obvious when you see it! ARIADNE not a problem once I could knew it ended -DNE. Thanks Juji and John.
Continuing my run of fast times with a 10:19 completion- so different from last week which was my slowest 6-day total since Saturday puzzles were introduced. Wonder if tomorrow’s puzzle will be equally kind and allow a full week of sub-par completions!
As for the puzzle, I thought it really good. I did not parse HAWAII while in flight, putting it in as the only 6-letter state I could think of ending in I (and no, I completely forgot about Malawi, despite having been there), and I needed time to remember Liberia for the headless African country (like Jack I could not get Siberia out of my mind), but all the rest went in almost first time. ARIADNE seems to be a marmite clue, with some struggling with it, but I thought it the pick of the bunch, if only for finding a word ending in -DNE.
Many thanks John for the blog, and I look forward to the Sunday Special.
HAWAII and ARIADNE the only stumbling blocks in this entertaining puzzle. A slightly quicker than average time of 19:11.
Reasonably straightforward with a bit of thought – that’s what a QC is all about, in my book. 8 mins of fun, with COD to ARTICLE.
John’s weekend special took me slightly longer, with some lovely clues, and much enjoyed
Thanks Juji and John.
Gentle it was not, but the last Juji was my absolute worst and thankfully this was better though still chewy. LOI DISLODGE, couldn’t see how that worked, thank you, John. And the spy chief – of course.
Loved the anagram for RATTLESNAKES, amazing. RECESS took ages to work out.
Phew: just scraped 50 out of 100 completed so far this year.
Enjoyable and speedy, I thought, but then slowed on LOsI ARTICLE – tried to fit in ST or FT – and DISLODGE – had considered chalets and villas.
Biffed ARIADNE. Started with 1a and 1d and zoomed along.
Liked HAWAII, CHAIRMAN, TYCOON, SPELL, among others.
Thanks vm, John.
Enjoyed this but thought SHEDLOAD for wealth is a bit of a stretch, Can’t think of a sentence where one could replace the other.
S/he has a shedload/wealth of experience solving QCs.
Ah yes. That would do it. Much obliged,
Anything but gentle for me John taking 54 minutes but I thought it was an excellent puzzle with some very clever clueing.
Liked the well disguised anagrams and joint COD to RECESS and HAWAI.
Held up for ages by ARIADNE and LOI DISLODGE.
Thanks Juji and John.
Really nice puzzle today with lots to get the brain cells whirring. The tricky ones for me were CHAIRMAN and DISLODGE, with lots of time also spent trying and failing to parse HAWAII and ATHOS (doh). Liked SHEDLOAD as rather unexpected but COD to CHAIRMAN for surface. Many thanks Juji and John.
Eight and a half. Would have been nine had I had paper to hand to work out rattle having deduced snakes. Bifd article, sort of bifd Hawaii, was foxed by how the N disappeared.
I should spend more time thinking, but that’s never been my strong suit. I either get it or I don’t. That would probably be called ADHD these days to go with my lacsidasical approach to spelling (dyslexia), and my desire to line pens and pencils up on my desk (OCD). I’m pleased to say my desk is now a heap of stuff, because everything is ordered in my computer 🙂
Liked this puzzle a lot. Romped through the NW half including my CoD SHEDLOAD but the parsing of CHAIRMAN and ARIADNE held me up. Both seemed obvious as soon as the pennies dropped.
Hadn’t come across a Juji puzzle before. Will look forward to the next one
Thanks Juji and John
Despite putting -IEST at the end of 1a, I didn’t immediately put in IBERIA as SIBERIA was the first thing to come to mind and Liberia didn’t surface until much later. SHEDLOAD similarly took a while to emerge. My LOI, ARIADNE also invoked a furrowed brow and some delay. 8:45. Thanks Juji and John.
All in except 16a after one cup of coffee, completely unchanged, and no real ideas, after two.
Hadn’t got chairman = president but on reflection they are certainly similar enough for crosswordland.
I had already drifted into a quite full SCC by the time I was down to my last two: Dislodge and Ariadne. The former fell first with a pdm, but the girl proved to be elusive rather than fabulous (sigh), despite seeing the possibility of a -dne end. Pulled stumps at the 25min mark, with 18d Spell getting my CoD vote. Invariant
12:26
Breezeblocked by DISLODGE. Like others, I had chalet stuck in my head, even when it was clear there was no way of fitting it in.
Thanks John and Juji
I finished a few seconds outside target at 10.03, but considered myself to be on form to achieve that time,as I felt it was quite a toughie. The first seventy percent or so went in quickly enough, but I got bogged down particularly by my last three, HAWAII, PERIPHERAL and finally ARIADNE. An enjoyable puzzle with some excellent clueing.
My total time for the week was 45.21, giving me a daily average nicely under target at 9.04.
As usual Plett has already described my experience, in particular my inability to parse ARIADNE. A very entertaining puzzle with some high class deception. COD to ARTICLE.
All done (but ARIADNE not parsed) in 08:14 for a Decent Day. Many thanks Juji and John (blog much needed today).
After 10 minutes I had three left.
PUSS and SPELL took me another 5 minutes.
LOI DISLODGE where I was looking for a Swiss term or Ski lodge perhaps. I thought of a lot of dog breeds en route.
So 18 minutes in the end. Good fun. I enjoyed it.
COD to ARTICLE.
David
5:25
Must have been on the wavelength today (and indeed, it’s been a decent week so far), as nothing really held me up for any length of time – saw all of the tricks early. The only answer not fully parsed on entry was ARIADNE but having taken the alternate letters from dances, thought of the answer quickly. LOI was SHEDLOAD.
Thanks John and Juji
Finished correctly in 35 minutes. a bit of a relief after yesterday’s disaster (gave up after 20 minutes on Thursday’s puzzle).
I thought that this was quite tough, though.
14 Across – ATHOS – from the book by Dumas. In the version by Clint Eastwood :
“Were there four musketeers – or only three ? In all the excitement I can’t really remember – so the question is, Richilieu ,do you feel lucky ? Well do you, punk ?”
🤣
What an image!
All done in a fairly standard 18 minutes except CHAIRMAN, ARIADNE, DECREASE, HAWAII and HIGH. I then stared at these until my normal cut-off time of 30 mins by which time only HIGH had fallen. This was despite writing out the anagrist for DECREASE and still not being able to see it. On the other hand I didn’t have too much trouble with DISLODGE (which seems to have caused quite a lot of grief) once I stopped trying to crowbar chalet in there.
FOI – 1ac STROPPIEST
LOI – DNF
COD – 6dn HARD SHOULDER
Thanks to Juji and John
12 min DNF due to NHO ARIADNE. Could have got it with A_I_DNE had I thought of AIR = ARIA, but I didn’t.
HAWAII held me up for a long time. 4 minutes turned to 9 in far less than 5 minutes from my perspective, and I think HAWAII was largely to blame.
Glad to see (L)IBERIA rather than the beyond-overused (S)IBERIA, which I hope never to see again.
Also, is anyone else’s crossword club site playing up? Had to play this on the normal times site. Whenever I try a crossword on the crossword club, I get a weird sort of screen with the settings buttons in an odd place and no actual crossword displayed.
I had to switch browsers some weeks ago due to similar behavior.
some really elegant clues today – many thanks
Not too tricky for me – my second quickest time this week! It’s been a good week, with all sub-10s so far, but who knows what tomorrow holds? I’m away for a couple of days with my daughter, and will be solving on my phone, so fat fingers will abound, I’m sure 😅
1K+2 secs – that’s the nearest I’ve got for some time!
So much to like here: ARTICLE, DISLODGE, ATHOS, ARIADNE and DESCENT just for starters.
8:29 FOI Stroppiest LOI Chairman COD Peripheral
Thanks Juji and John
I did have a go at RR’s last biggie – got the right day today! A very similar experience to yesterday, so – again – I’d say have a look. A few were quite quickie-friendly 😊
Almighty comedown for me after the past 3 days. A few bits I didn’t know, Adrianne, Aria meaning air, couldn’t get the wordplay for chairman or shedload at all, and for dislodge I only ever read the definition as being cabin, and thinking we needed to remove first letters.
We had Strop yesterday which helped with stroppiest very quickly. Another good QC although like some had to figure out Ariadne parsing. As well, Iberia went in quick but I was puzzled about which Africa land’s first letter got chopped off.
15:16. I was wondering if Siberia had at one time been part of Africa ( before all those plates and land masses shifted). OK, pretty far-fetched I have to admit- but wait, of course- Liberia!
James Michener wrote books called Iberia and Hawaii but after looking up his many titles nothing else seems relevant to our puzzle.
DNF
Oh dear, and I thought I was starting to do quite well.
Two clues left after 12 mins – called time 15 mins later with no hope of getting them:
ARIANDE (NHO but understood the clue once revealed)
CHAIRMAN (needed John’s blog to educate me)
Many really enjoyable clues though, I think my favourite was SHEDLOAD
Thanks to Juji and Johninterred
That “oh dear, and …” feeling is very familiar to me. But frustration continues to abate and skill continues to increase in spite of the bumps.
Just seen your reply – thank you, that’s very kind.
22 mins…
Frustrating, as 7 mins were spent trying to dig out “Ariadne”, which finally twigged once I’d gone through all kinds of combinations. Other than that, I also thought it was on the more gentle side.
FOI – 1ac “Stroppiest”
LOI – 21ac “Ariadne”
COD – 16ac “Chairman”
Thanks as usual!
A good start in the NW was backed up by steady progress around much of the grid until I was slowed by my last five clues. They were ARIADNE, PERIPHERAL, HIGH, HAWAII and (my LOI) DISLODGE. Time ~26 minutes, which is faster than usual for me.
Many thanks to John and Juji.
17.10 DNF. This was going well until the last three. ARIADNE and CHAIRMAN took an age then I chucked in MALAWI for the state. Thanks John and Juji.
From ARTICLE to RECESS in 15:10. An excellent puzzle, with my vote for COD going to HAWAII.
Many thanks to Juji and John.
Like the son of ARIADNE’s maze creator, I was flying – until I wasn’t. Struggled with CHAIRMAN, but she was my LOI by a long stretch.
Thank you, Juji, and John for the link in the blurb.