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. I’m going to comment prior to reading the blog as I may go back to the puzzle.

    I bifd one across based on the letter count. Terrance was a write in.

    Parsed user which I was chuffed about.

    Struggled for a bit after that. Wrote in “mate” and “force”. The R gave me rubbing as in brass rubbing of course. Eventually paid out lead to spent, and the P to PRImate at which stage I twigged chimp. Rise up as in beg and also an indicator as in go up. Field was pretty easy.

    That’s it for now. 12 so far.

    Thanks J and P

  2. Thanks to Pedro and Johninterred.
    1a Platinum Disc/k took a while, but sped things up a lot once I rumbled it. I sort of assumed it came from US so was surprised by the C but I notice they are usually called “awards” officially so as not to have to worry about spelling, and the first one (silver) was awarded to a Brit (George Formby, Cleaning Windows.)

  3. 06:27. This flew in fairly easily for a change. I’m now wondering what to do with the rest of Friday…

    getting 1ac early on was a big help with loads of down crossers.

  4. A chewy one, but a steady solve nonetheless. 29:28 to just miss the VSCC if that exists. LOI IGNORANCE. Thanks Pedro and John.

  5. 17:36 for me. I got 1a quickly which helped a lot, but struggled mightily in the SW corner. SPENT FORCE, NAUSEA and FIELD collectively added five minutes or so to my solving time.

    Thank you for the blog!

  6. 13.35 PLATINUM DISC, SPENT FORCE and CAERPHILLY needed lots of checkers. LOI COMPETE. Thanks John and Pedro.

  7. Dnf…

    I was going pretty well and on schedule for a sub-20, but then had a mental block on the 19ac/19dn axis. Probably thought about every synonym for “plan” apart from “design”, and even an alphabet trawl couldn’t save the day.

    Saying all that, this was an enjoyable puzzle with some great clues.

    FOI – 5dn “Mimic”
    LOI – Dnf
    COD – 7dn “Caerphilly”

    Thanks as usual!

  8. 28:11
    This was a slow hard struggle for me with none of the crosses on the first pass. No complaints though, all the clues were fair, though I did have a MER with DEIGN. I thought it was to condescend or stoop to do something, not “graciously agree to” – happy to be educated to the contrary.
    FOI: LASSITUDE
    LOI: FIELD (as andybry – struggling with that FORCE FIELD)
    COD: CAERPHILLY
    Thanks to Johninterred and Pedro

    1. . . .vho Lassitude was almost my loi. I’m a bit surprised no one else has even mentioned it.

        1. Vaguely Heard Of (ie a short step back from Never Heard Of, nho) – you are the second person in recent weeks to struggle with what I have (clearly mistakenly) always regarded as a well known abbreviation in these parts. Sorry for the confusion.

          1. No worries – gets my vote to be added to the glossary! 😊
            (“A deadly lassitude had taken hold of him” – 1984, Orwell)

  11. Challenging! 39 minutes for me, although ten of those were spent on my last three clues – COMPETE, DEIGN and FIELD.

    My FOsI were USER and TERRACE, and I made good progress …. until I didn’t.

    Two CsOD: RHUBARB and PRIMATE.

    Many thanks to John and Pedro.

  12. 18:30 today, but after a long time phiddling with it carephully, I could not construct the NHO CAERPHILLY (American IGNORANCE not bliss in this case) and resorted to the internet, so really a DNF. PLATINUM DISC was a biff-then-parse, with a hint from crossers and piano music. ELGIN MARBLES begged to be biffed so in it went. LASSITUDE was fun to work out, not a word I see very often. SPENT FORCE is COD for the apt commentary.

    Thanks to PEDRO and John.

  13. Just a little slower than average today at 13:06 with NAUSEA and FIELD causing us some difficulty at the end. One of those days when you have the F, E and D checkers, a clue which, in hindsight, is screaming the answer at you, and the words FREED and FIEND are going uselessly round and round in your head! Thanks, John and Pedro.

  14. Huh, witty comment lost to a server error and now I can’t remember what it was. Ho hum. A slow 23:07 here.

    Thanks to Pedro and John.

  15. Might as well comment after unexpected finish can’t place the cheese but can spell the name. More ‘can’t be anything else’ clues I think than pure unparsing. Church supplies a lot of clueing material, even archaic, is modern church a SPENT FORCE I wonder, others can say. Good go today thank you.

  16. Had to do in two sittings today. First was very slow, second, much quicker until last two FIELD/DEIGN. Waited for a few crossers before attempting 1a which gets COD for the brilliant, if wordy, surface. Also enjoyed CAERPHILLY. Couldn’t get LASSITUDE during first sitting but it jumped out as soon as I looked at it in round two. Enjoyable. Thanks Pedro and John.

  17. Managed to do the crossword all right, but really struggled getting onto the blog, with that wretched Error 500 – Internal Server Error! Glad I succeeded, because I wanted to know the parsing of Field – thanks Johninterred for the explanation.

  18. Great puzzle. Good clues and interesting solutions. I was happy with 1ac – yes it was long but it was also clever and it seems to me fine to have one or two long clues in a puzzle. I’m often surprised how setters manage to get in a long clue for a short word – that’s just as clever as setting a short clue for a long word.

  19. This resident of the SCC thought this was a good QC. It helps that I’ve heard of CAERPHILLY and the ELGIN MARBLES, and also BRUNEI. Yes challenging, but satisfying for me.

  20. Another day in hell to end a bad week.

    After slogging through the 15 x 15 (90 minutes and 2 wrong answers), I approached this with weary resignation.

    23 minutes later I thought I had finished but had forgotten to complete 14ac. I might have got it eventually, but we’ll never know. What a stupid oversight! Sums up where I am with these puzzles.

    2 hours for the week. Awful.

    Computer now off for the weekend.

  22. Well, Mr Gary A, you did better than we did. We had our worst time for ‘ages’… yet, on reading the blog, not so sure why, as most were entirely achievable.
    As for the 15×15, the not so recently seen ‘ ROUNDABOUT HERE’ suggested a good way to enter that world is, at the end of the week, to look at the Snitch and to go for the one with the lowest figure. That has (in the main) worked for us.
    Back to this – can’t say we enjoyed it – clearly not on the wavelength – however, we’d hate to eat the same meal every day and so it is with crosswords… variety, spice and all that.
    Thank you all and happy weekend.

  24. 8:56 felt like that was an above average performance from me on what seemed like a toughish puzzle

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