Times Quick Cryptic No 3086 by Pedro

Author   JohninterredPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

A neat Friday Quick Cryptic from Pedro. I was a bit slow getting started and it is a bit tricky in parts but I finished in an average time of 5:31. A cracking clue for 1A leads the way and I had to spell the cheese carefully out loud. (See what I did there?). I liked the chess clue too. Thank-you Pedro. How did you all get on?

Fortnightly Weekend Quick Cryptic.  This time it is Phil’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 137 here.

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

Across
1 Piano in bossa nova style? Arrangement of music secures band’s last award for sales (8,4)
PLATINUM DISC – P (piano) LATIN (in bossa nova style) and last letter of banD in [arrangement of] (music)*. Great charade clue… and surface!
8 Employer returned CV after dismissing me (4)
USER – RESU{me} (CV) without the ME, [returned] -> USER.
9 Contend company favoured blocking the writer (7)
COMPETE – CO (company), PET (favoured) in, [blocking], ME (the writer)
11 Bishop, pawn then rook? I end chess game (7)
PRIMATE – P (pawn) R (rook) I MATE (end chess game). Another nice surface.
12 Ape: copper returning to apprehend him (5)
CHIMP – HIM, in PC (copper) [returning] -> CP.
14 Loathing new articles about function (6)
NAUSEA – USE (function) in N (new) A A (two articles).
15 British and French article I state (6)
BRUNEI – BR (British) UNE (French article) I.
18 Deal with all competitors in competition (5)
FIELD – Double definition, the first as in “field a question”.
20 Indifferent regarding nerves, getting tense inside (7)
NEUTRAL – T (tense) in NEURAL (regarding nerves).
21 Impression obtained from church possibly causing friction (7)
RUBBING – Double definition.
23 Pleasure trip abandoned by Jack and relative (4)
AUNT – {j}AUNT (trip) without the J (Jack, in a pack of cards).
24 Enlarge limbs after recasting controversial sculptures (5,7)
ELGIN MARBLES – (Enlarge limbs)* [after recasting].
Down
2 Weariness leads us carelessly to accept it (9)
LASSITUDE – IT in (leads us)* [carelessly].
3 Row of houses excellent after town’s initial blunder (7)
TERRACE –  T{own} [‘s initial] ERR (blunder) ACE (row of houses).
4 Metal prison cell’s centre (6)
NICKEL – NICK (prison) and middle letters of cELl.
5 I am repeatedly upset about impressionist (5)
MIMIC – I’M I’M  (I am) [repeatedly] [upset] -> MIMI, C (circa; about).
6 Reserve that is seen around clubs (3)
ICE – C (clubs) in I.E. (id est; that is).
7 Chopped-up pear surrounded by cold cheese (10)
CAERPHILLY – (pear)* [chopped up] in CHILLY (cold).
10 Paid out for church, no longer a major influence (5,5)
SPENT FORCE – SPENT (paid out) FOR CE (church of England; church).
13 What can be considered bliss? Exotic region can (9)
IGNORANCE – [Exotic] (region can)*.
16 Runs tavern in centre? Nonsense (7)
RHUBARB – R (runs, in cricket scoring notation), BAR (tavern) in HUB (centre).
17 Name of encryption device deployed in game (6)
ENIGMA – [Deployed] (in game)*.
19 Graciously agree to plan, if son is excluded (5)
DEIGN – DE{s}IGN (plan) without the S (son).
22 Ask English in Great Britain to rise up (3)
BEG – E (English) in GB (Great Britain) [to rise up] -> BG.

71 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 3086 by Pedro”

  1. 9:20

    Not too many in on the first pass so had to jump about picking off the lower hanging fruit. Liked 1a and 16d particularly.

    Thanks John and Pedro

  2. Biff City: biffed PLATINUM DISC, USER, ELGIN MARBLES, LASSITUDE, CAERPHILLY, SPENT FORCE, parsed post-submission. 6:38

  3. 6:55. Lots of nice clues here and was enjoyably misdirected into thinking along Employee Of The Month lines for 1A. Thanks Pedro and John.

  4. I think the GK required here was a bit too much. I’d NHO ELGIN MARBLES, CAERPHILLY, and I didn’t know anything about Bossa Nova music. We had a crossword recently that was also quite tricky but required almost no GK and which was very enjoyable. This was just frustrating for me, both ELGIN MARBLES and CAERPHILLY are very hard to get from wordplay alone, the checkers aren’t super helpful. I guessed Elgin Marbles but went for CREAPHILLY, never considering CAE-.

  6. 10.25. In general the right-hand side was slower for me, with COMPETE, CHIMP and IGNORANCE coming late. LOI was CAERPHILLY, not parsed but guessed by crossers. PLATINUM DISC an absolute stand-out. Thanks Pedro, thanks John.

  7. Pretty speedy today even after I’d had to untangle the mess I’d made by being 100% sure it was ‘innocence is bliss’ even though I’m perfectly aware of the real saying – brains are weird. That made NEUTRAL hard with a rogue C to deal with. Thought this was going to be tough at first with a lot going on in both the first two across clues but ended up all green in 8.38. Didn’t know Bossa Nova was Latin but ELGIN MARBLES and CAERPHILLY went straight in – had thought brass RUBBING might be a bit niche for non-Brits (I’ve made my daughters do it (before the eye rolling at any suggestion phase set in).

  8. 8:57 was biffing along merrily and thinking Pedro has made some of these a bit too obvious and then ground to a halt needing all of the wordplay to get the last handful. Last two in were the cheese followed by NEUTRAL.

    Cheers for blog John.

  9. 12 minutes. I took one look at 1ac and decided to wait until I had most of the checkers before revisiting it. A great clue but very hard to solve in isolation.

  10. I found this quite tricky and had little joy on my first run through. I found the bottom more forgiving than the top so gradually worked my way up the grid.

    Started with USER and finished with CAERPHILLY in 9.42 with PLATINUM DISC unparsed (NHO bossa nova).

    Thanks to John and Pedro

  11. 8:32, which surprised me as it did not feel that fluent a solve. Several quite wordy clues which I left for later and more checkers, and the result was I was jumping all over the grid, but fortunately the answers never quite dried up and the long clues eventually emerged. LOIs CAERPHILLY and then PLATINUM DISC; I DK bossa nova but by then there were enough checkers for that not to matter.

    Many thanks John for the blog and I look forward to the Sunday Special.

  12. 25:49 (average: 37, target: 36)

    I thought this was a nicely balanced QC. Almost nothing went in straightaway, but by working with the letters given by the clues and building up the checkers I was able to construct all the answers so very satisfying.

    FIELD was my LOI after struggling for a while to get the FORCE in SPENT FORCE only to finally see that it was one of those times it was actually right there in the clue. Coming from Wales can definitely help with some of the nastier spellings that crop up so CAERPHILLY went in reasonably quickly (although the place name in Wales is actually CAERFFILI in Welsh, but not the cheese).

    Thanks for the blog, John and for the entertaining puzzle, Pedro.

  13. 10:14. Yes, 1a was v. good, but like Jack I put it on the back burner till I had a few checked letters. CAERPHILLY was similar but I did know the cheese which helped. PRIMATE and CHIMP are next to each other but I can’t see anything more for a related theme.

    I liked the ‘Exotic region can’ for IGNORANCE.

    Thanks to Pedro and John

  14. My run of sub ten minute solves came to a grinding halt today, finishing in a tardy 13.57. I only solved two on my first pass of the across clues, so the writing was on the wall early on. On second reading I looked at 14ac and thought NAUSEA fitted the grid, but I was looking for an alternative for too long as I didn’t think of it as a close enough synonym for ‘Loathing’. I should hang my head low for spending over a minute solving my LOI which was CAERPHILLY. It is one of my favourite cheeses, and the town of Caerphilly is just a little over ten miles from where I live.
    My total time for the week was 42.25, giving me a daily average of 8.29. Normally I’d be more than satisfied with that, but it’s tinged with disappointment as I only needed a solve of 11.30 today to put my daily average in the 7s not 8s.

  15. 10:04
    A pleasant challenge.
    Spotted 1a straight away, which helped a lot.
    As a native of South Wales, CAERPHILLY came to mind easily; one cheesemaker now uses the correct Welsh spelling of Caerffili, but that would have been one letter too few for the grid.
    LOI was FIELD. For a while I could only see FIEND, which would not have made sense.

    Thanks John and Pedro

  16. A good puzzle from Pedro – not easy for me (17.50 all parsed) but full of very good clues. I was reasonably quick in the top half but I slowed as I moved south and then west. My LOsI were FIELD and NAUSEA (entered with fingers crossed because it didn’t really work for me).
    My COD was Caerphilly but 1a was a close contender. To be honest, there were too many contenders for COD.
    The first time for a while that I have avoided the SCC for a Pedro puzzle so that is pleasing.
    Thanks to Pedro and to John whose blog offered an excellent recap showing how good a puzzle this was.

  17. 20:01 for the solve. Ninth puzzle from Pedro this year, seventh visit to the SCC! About four mins spent at the end on the FIELD/DEIGN pairing and a lot of getting the wrong end of the stick on clues. Nice enough puzzle – thanks to Pedro.

    Has felt an uncomfortable week. The sub-8s of Monday& Tuesday forgotten by the imposition of a new design and quitting the Weds puzzle and then a DNF yesterday due to waking up in a bad mood. Would come in at about an hour for the week if I discount the extra time on Weds puzzle. Re: the new design – I’m now settled into it.

    Have a good weekend everybody and thanks to JohnI for the blog. Will try the Weekender later.

    Edit: fail on the Weekend. NHO of 19D and couldn’t decode the clue. Everything else done in under 15mins. Bit tougher this week, I’d say.

  18. Found this hard and took a very slow 35:11 to struggle home. Lots of biffing required. Clearly not at all on Pedro’s wavelength.

  19. Hello SCC. 21:27 for me, with the last two PLATINUM DISC and NAUSEA taking me over. I wanted function to equal f, fn, sin etc before finally landing on USE. I can’t really make use=function, whether it’s a noun or a verb.

    COD PRIMATE. Top clueing.

    2. I think I agree. Whilst they are sort of related, they’re not the same thing:
      Use the spoon to stir your tea/the function of the spoon is to stir the tea.
      (Or, as Neo said – there is no spoon.)

  20. Quite hard, but got there slowly. Had to hop/stagger about the grid. ELGIN MARBLES and ICE FOsI.
    Lots of biffing. Eventually solved LHS, then plodded through the rest. LOsI included IGNORANCE (COD), RHUBARB and CHIMP. Fortunately CAERPHILLY sprang to mind when I saw the ‘c’.
    Liked SPENT FORCE, ENIGMA, NICKEL, among others.
    Thanks vm, John.

  22. Couldn’t see anything at first, eventually FOI TERRACE, then got there in the end (way over 30 mins, though, Steakcity). NHO CAERPHILLY (as cheese, that is), but Mrs M laughed at me so no sympathy there. POI SPENT FORCE, then it had to be FIELD. Liked BRUNEI with which Mrs M has a close connexion.

  23. Didn’t see PLATINUM DISC until I had most of the crossers, at which point it became obvious. ICE was my FOI. RHUBARB brought up the rear. Some heavy duty NEU(t)RAL effort required today. 8:40. Thanks Pedro and John.

  24. I thought PLATINUM DISC was a terrible clue, which just shows that there’s no accounting for tastes! If the surface spreads over 4 lines, in my view the editor should reject it and tell the setter to have another go (“here’s a long clue; sorry, I didn’t have time to write a shorter one”). As soon as I read it I thought “I bet this is Pedro, King of Wordiness” and lo it came to pass.

    CAERPHILLY (my COD), by contrast, was a perfect example of the setter’s art.

    Anyway. I’m not a biffer and I found this pretty chewy. In particular I got stuck on LOI RHUBARB, because that closing B made me sure that the “tavern” involved “pub”. I also struggled with BRUNEI, because I spent years thinking that “British” signified BR and having to learn that in fact it always signifies just B. Except today it was BR. Grr.

    Limped home in 09:33 for 1.5K and an Indifferent Day. Many thanks Pedro and John.

  25. Tip of the hat to those who started with 1ac. I took one look and decided there and then that this wasn’t going to be an easy solve. My ‘half empty’ outlook duly mimicked the grid after 30mins, so I stopped for another coffee, came back and rattled through all the previously impossible clues. Good to finish, but can’t say that I enjoyed the experience. Invariant

  26. Just over 2K @ 13:35.
    BIFD Platinum disc so pearl and swine come to mind.
    A la John cheesy joke… how should you approach a Welsh cheese?… Caerphilly
    …what cheese can coax a grizzly ?… camembert
    what does the cheese say when it looks in the mirror… halloumi
    and my favourite…
    what do you call someone else’s cheese…Nacho cheese
    Apologies all and Ta J&P

    1. I accept your apology and with your permission will pass these on to friends who enjoy painful puns!

  27. 9 minutes today with no big hold-ups, but not all parsed whilst solving.
    LOI CAERPHILLY written in carefully.
    Some good clues. My picks were PRIMATE and IGNORANCE.
    I went to see the Elgin Marbles recently, although the British Museum does not call them that. A lot of the best bits are missing- in other museums such as Copenhagen and Athens.
    David

  28. Very enjoyable solve in a slowish 16.46. Brain went AWOL in the NE corner but after stopping to give the pooch a tummy rub the answers fell easily.
    Have a good weekend all.

  29. My LOI, an unparsed PLANTINUM DISC made for a lengthy solve. I was also slow to see SPENT FORCE so I was solving the gird with very few first letter checkers in play. I bunged in ‘innocence’ instead of IGNORANCE so NEUTRAL took longer than it should have. 9:29 and COD to the topical IGNORANCE. Thanks John

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