Times Quick Cryptic No 3062 by Shay

Author   JohninterredPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

A nice Quick Cryptic from Shay today with plenty of easy clues but a few trickier ones – there are some well-disguised definitions in places. My LOI was 12D which took me a while to see. The puzzle took me 4:34 so well below my average, but other may find it a bit more tricky. Thank-you Shay.

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 135 here.

Definitions underlined in bold italics, (Abc)* indicating anagram of Abc, {deletions} and [] other indicators.

Across
1 Nice socialist relatives (7)
KINDRED – KIND (nice) RED (socialist). I didn’t know the meaning of the word as “A group of relatives, family, clan” but only “Similar in kind”, but that’s just my ignorance.
5 Piece of information concealed by chief actors (4)
FACT – Hidden in [concealed by] chieF ACTors. I sometimes struggle to spot a hidden answer clue, but not this one.
7 Left after naked auntie — or before? (5)
UNTIL – {a}UNTI{e} without her last letters [naked], L (left).
8 Spades and excavation in play area (7)
SANDPIT – S (spades) AND PIT (excavation). Don’t forget to bring along a bucket.
10 Caught shy fish (3)
KOI – KOI sounds like [caught] COY (shy).
11 Going to the bar and back? (5,4)
ROUND TRIP – Cryptic definition and my COD. You go to the bar to get a round of drinks in.
13 They are mostly rough and ribald (6)
EARTHY – (They ar{e})* [rough]. Mostly meaning lose the last letter od “are”.
14 Stupid amount of money for dumplings (3,3)
DIM SUM – DIM (stupid) SUM (amount of money). This article tells us “Some estimates claim that there are at least two thousand types of dim sum in total across China, but only about forty to fifty types are commonly sold outside of China.“
17 Bust put nearer entrance (9)
ENRAPTURE – [Bust] (put nearer)*. Sneakily, the surface reading makes you think the answer is a noun, but it isn’t – it’s the verb.
19 Reportedly go out with marine (3)
SEA – SEA sounds like [reportedly] SEE (go out with).
20 Downturn in trade after last month (7)
DECLINE – DEC (December, last month) LINE (…of business; trade).
22 See you and Mike run regularly (5)
ADIEU – Alternate letters [regularly] of AnD mIkE rUn. Luckily I spotted the definition straight away – it’s pretty well disguised, I think. Nice one.
23 Opening of exclusive retreat in paradise (4)
EDEN – First letter of Exclusive, DEN (retreat).
24 Famous chapel is set in Barking (7)
SISTINE – (is set in)* [barking].
Down
1 Joint leader is an idiot (11)
KNUCKLEHEAD – KNUCKLE (joint) HEAD (leader).
2 Chat about setter being better dressed (7)
NATTIER –  NATTER (chat) [about] I (the setter).
3 Hurls ripe bananas in supremo’s office (9)
RULERSHIP – (hurls ripe)* [bananas]. The surface conjures up an amusing image.
4 Endlessly debate athletic event (6)
DISCUS – DISCUS{s} (debate) without it’s end letter [endlessly].
5 Bit of fish finger, half gone (3)
FIN – FIN{ger} [half gone]. You have to separate the “fish finger” to find the definition.
6 Hop bud, pickled (5)
CAPER – Double definition.
9 Record means something important to tailor (4,7)
TAPE MEASURE – TAPE (record) MEASURE (a means to an end).
12 Finally reprimanded for one’s manners in roads (9)
DRIVEWAYS – Last letters of reprimandeD foR, I’VE (one has, one’s) WAYS (manners). A bit tricky for a QC, I think, and my last one in.
15 Japanese scoff and hiss — I am out of order (7)
SASHIMI – (hiss I am)* [out of order].
16 Force you to put on frock (6)
DURESS – U (textspeak for you) in DRESS (frock).
18 Drove fast car over England’s borders (5)
RACED – CAR [over] -> RAC, and outer letters [borders] of EnglanD.
21 Trendy new pub (3)
INN – IN (trendy) N (new).

68 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 3062 by Shay”

  1. Another standard 36 minutes for me, with no particularly tricky ones, though I was stumped for a while by the FACT/FIN/CAPER collection in the NE corner until I saw the hidden word. Couldn’t get the parsing for DECLINE – biffed it thinking ‘in’ was part of the wordplay – and similarly KOI, my LOI since I didn’t get KNUCKLEHEAD until having almost all the other checkers. Thanks John and Shay!

  2. A game of three thirds, Brian – after going through the acrosses I had all the top and bottom thirds, but the middle belt remained largely blank. After downs the most head scratching took place over EARTHY (where I didn’t see what was going on for quite a while) and LOI DRIVEWAYS (comments as per others).

    All green (sadly not for as long as Galspray) in 08:03 for a Decent Day. Many thanks John and Shay.

  3. I see that Chloe Hutton polished this off in two minutes dead, but as I’m not superhuman I’m happy enough with 09:14, which I think is my first sub-10 for a while. I agree that DRIVEWAYS was pretty hard (and bashed in unparsed in my case) but enjoyed it a lot overall.

    Thank you for the blog!

  6. 6:32 with 1 error due to ENRUPTURE.

    Having polished off the concise in record time to put me above some distinguished solvers, I was eyeing sub-3 for this.

    The distinguished solvers are distinguished solvers because they’ve remembered second meaning of ‘entrance’, and one’s = I’VE is an immediate possibility to them.

  7. I had to dodge all over the grid to make any progress on this one. It was straightforward in places but rather tricky in others. I crossed the line in 21 minutes which is one of my better efforts on a Shay puzzle. I couldn’t parse KOI, EARTHY or DRIVEWAYS, so thanks for the explanations John.

    FOI – 5ac FACT
    LOI – 17ac ENRAPTURE
    COD – 11ac ROUND TRIP

    Thanks to Shay and John

  8. Reasonably straightforward, though I needed both crossers with Koi and Sea, so not at my best. I was also greatful that crossers took care of both the i’s in Sashimi. Sadly the parsing of Driveways proved beyond me, despite giving it a good stare for a couple of minutes at the end. A window seat finish, with CoD to Sandpit for the surface. Invariant

  9. Thanks Shay and Johninterred.
    Was a bit MER-ish about 4d Driveways, but the wordplay excuses the weak def IMHO.
    15d Sashimi; I put it in confidently enough but when I looked at it it seemed wrong. I thought it was unusual for Japanese words to have alternative spellings?

  10. A very good crossword from Shay I thought, and I felt I was on form to finish in 8.20. I spent a little time on my LOI DRIVEWAYS trying to parse it before stopping the clock, but failed. Not being able to think of an alternative answer I crossed my fingers, and was pleased to see it was correct.
    My total time for the week was 46.03 giving me a daily average of 9.13. The third consecutive week at least that I’ve finished under my ten minute target, so things are looking up!

  11. Thought I might be on for a really fast time for a while, maybe 8 or 9 minutes, but my last two, EARTHY and finally DRIVEWAYS, well and truly put paid to that. Limped home in 16:06 and was then glad I hadn’t done a super quick time as I’d put SUSHIMI in for 15d. COD to ROUND TRIP. Thanks all.

  12. An entertaining QC, although I consider myself a little fortunate to have crossed the line unscathed and quite quickly (for me).
    Time ~23/24 minutes.

    My first full pass took an inordinately long time (~15 minutes) and yielded only four Across and Four Down solutions. However, my pace picked up markedly after that.

    I never parsed DRIVEWAYS (my LOI) and SASHIMI was a NHO. I think I probably also qualify as KNUCKLEHEAD of the day for taking almost 20 minutes to think of the most famous chapel in the world.

    Many thanks to Shay and John.

  13. 12 mins…

    Thankfully, I managed to get the two long clues of 1dn “Knucklehead” and 9dn “Tape Measure” pretty much straight away, which helped many of the across clues on the way down. Apart from initially misspelling 15dn Sashimi, everything else went in without too much hesitation. The days of getting a round in for everyone seem like a distant age unless you want to bankrupt yourself for the rest of the night.

    FOI – 5ac “Fact”
    LOI – 13ac “Earthy”
    COD – 12dn “Driveways”

    Thanks as usual!

  14. I found this hard. No time as I left the app running
    I convinced myself that 5ac was LEAD. It was only when 5D became clear I saw the error.
    Some enjoyable clues. DIM SUM made me smile. I liked DRIVEWAYS but it took a while to work out.
    SE was hardest for me and I needed all checkers before I could biff the nho SASHIMI.

    I am grateful I survived this crossword.
    Thanks John and Shay.

  15. It’s unusual for me to tackle a QC in the morning but maybe I should try more often as, despite being wary of Shay from his earlier form, this went in pretty easily as I dawdled through waiting to pick up my wife from the dentist. Pretty well solved top to bottom. Some clever misdirections and several clues well worth the smile they raised.
    FOI 1a Kindred
    LOI 15d Driveways – I share some of the mer-like comments
    COD 11a Round Trip.
    Would like more like this – some challenge/some wit/some ingenuity needed.

  16. Great QC that needed an extra coffee. Didn’t know S = spades and this made SANDPIT a bit tricky. Biffed CAPER, not really understanding hop bud until after the event. Didn’t have any issue with DRIVEWAYS being roads. Mine certainly wouldn’t qualify as a road but many do, and I thought the wordplay was fair and generated a fantastic surface. Easily COD, although I did like FIN 😆 LOI ADIEU. Many thanks John and Shay.

  17. 13:44. NATTIER and KNUCKLEHEAD were favourites. For a long time I couldn’t see U inside DRESS as I thought the U would be on the front of the answer. Now happily reconciled to how it works!

  18. Managed to finally complete a puzzle this week! This was a nice way to round off what I found to be a great selection of puzzles through the week. Really liked the clue for SISTINE. Thanks for the blog 😁

  19. A reasonable puzzle but did not like driveways. Also rulership to describe an office seems off, and I certainly can’t find a definition to fit that.. A DNF for me but that is not unusual.

  20. An enjoyable 12:07 which is reflective of the Quitch for us. Briefly wondered whether HEARTY could be equated to ribald but, thankfully, KNUCKLEHEAD prevented me being one. Similarly, a first (dim) thought of WON TON, which didn’t nearly parse, was put paid to by checkers. I’m with John in finding ROUND TRIP to be COD. Thanks to him and to Shay for the spontaneous smile.

    1. Also had WON TON but (wrongly) parsed it as WON (currency unit in Korea) TON is a ‘stupid amount
      of money’ (with the slangy use of stupid = extremely)

      1. Bad luck with that. It’s certainly a credible parsing but the answer doesn’t fit the checkers.

  21. 12.50 Many of the clues needed a second visit and I was held up by DRIVEWAYS at the end, which I did parse eventually. Thanks John and Shay.

  22. Back after a holiday, I had a quick start and slow finish on this.
    LOI DRIVEWAYS after 16 minutes.
    However to get there I had corrected FAT LOT to FAT SUM to BIG SUM. I was so relieved to get Driveways that I failed to parse 14a properly; that was dim.
    Enjoyed it. Some good surfaces.
    David

  23. 19 minutes, at least 6 of which were spent on DRIVEWAYS. As others have said, not the greatest of clues and a disappointing way to conclude the week.

    Thanks for the blog John.

    PS: I see the Snitch for the 15 x 15 is in the ‘very hard’ bracket. Think I’ll pass on that today.

  25. I too enjoyed the mix of easier and chewier questions. I thought the parsing of DRIVEWAYS was a bit steep for a QC. Just one quibble: I always thought that ‘au revoir’ meant “see you”, while ‘adieu’ meant that you did not expect to see that person again and were commending them to God.

  26. I decided to have a crack at the 15 x 15 and got 17 (and half of another).

    Time – 2.5 hours.

    Better than watching The Hundred 🤣

  27. Way too difficult for us, but everyone else seemed to love it. Adieu dies not mean See you. It means goodbye for ever. Driveways is a parking space.

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