Times Quick Cryptic No 3122 by Shay

78 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 3122 by Shay”

1. 7:42 for me did not parse LOI PRIMATE so thanks for that John. Shared a your shrug re PRELUDES

2. Not on wavelength with this one, and had quite a few clues that I wasn’t a huge fan of for one reason or another (including DEFOE, calMEr, SASSOON, STERN, PRIMATE, PRELUDES, FLOTSAM, HANDS DOWN). It feels like Shay is trying to do too much with some of these, and the difference between the easy and hard clues is particularly wide in this puzzle.

3. Another hidden missed, as I biffed address – well, that seems right. And it does help if you’ve heard of Siegfried Sassoon, which may give some Quickie solvers difficulty. I did glance ‘chases minor’ and wrote in marchioness at once, giving me a lot of crossing letters. I ended by biffing calmer and stopping the clock, but it took several minutes to work out the cryptic.

   Time: 8:56

4. Started fast but had to work hard in both NW and SE to finish. PHARMACY and PRIMATE caused me lots of problems and went in last but it was PRELUDES and CALMER that really slowed me down. All green in 18.20.

   1. I agree. In fact, I never got 17 D or 23 A until I checked out this channel.

5. 11.08. I liked this puzzle, but in a biffing frenzy I missed the finer cryptic points of CALMER and PRELUDES which I should have tried to figure out at the time. A couple of those long anagrams required putting pen to paper which delayed things a bit. Many thanks to John and Shay.

6. DNF
   Had SPINE, which seems just as good as STERN. Someone who has spine is unbending. Eventually backed it out, but never did get the second word of HANDS DOWN. And missed out on PRELUDES, I can never remember what the device “essentially” means: anagram, or outside letters, or something else.

7. A decent workout for me at 24 minutes. The mix of gentler clues with tougher ones was just the ticket for someone working to bridge the gap between the quickie and the biggie.
   Enjoyed INCUR and CICADA, needed help to parse PRELUDES.
   Thanks to Shay and John

8. 10 minutes. No problems.

9. We’re continuing or run out of the SCC with 19.20 today, happy days.

   Needed help parsing Primate, thanks John but got the rest one way or another, definitely a BTP day. LOI stern took too long. John cites reference 4 of back but I guess there are plenty more! Some smooth surfaces indeed, COD to gondola, lovely.

   Thanks Shay.

   1. Indeed looking on dictionary.com it shows 19 definitions for the noun and 10 for verb plus all sorts of adjectives!

   2. Your Club membership may be revoked soon!

10. I enjoyed this but I agree it was a bit chewy in places. Some clues were a bit beyond a QC in my opinion. I’m not sure contract works for incur – can’t think when you might say it (suffer maybe?) Thanks though

11. 17:23 Inane primate preludes Sassoon sums up my troubles. Bunged in from wordplay and checkers without parsing and with crossed fingers. Good to discover how my BIFD answers worked flotsam included.
    Ta JAS
    ps does anyone do the cryptic quintagram? I’m stuck on the half-parsed answer to ‘Stewing bit of chicken, what’s that tipped therein?’ It’s literally worrying me. Any help in fully parsing very much appreciated 👍

    1. It’s {s}ORRY (what’s that) without its first letter [tipped] in WINGS

       1. Aaagh, I haven’t done the Quintagrams yet!

       2. John thank you very much 👍

12. I had 7 down as a DD. Back as in Stern of a boat, and as unyielding.

    Also 20ac I’d got “flo” as flood briefly, which I put as floo at first before I saw the answer was flotsam. Is there a rule that a clue where a word is to be shortened it is only by one letter. That does usually seem to be the case.

    1. Yes. Sorry, I accidentally underlined the space between the 2 definitions in 7D, but I did say it is a DD. As for 20A, interesting idea, but I’ve never known “briefly” to refer to removing ore than the last letter.

13. 10:17
    I was slowed down by my LOI CALMER, where I did a fruitless alphabet trawl on LA*MER before eventually spotting that I had the L in the wrong place.

    Thanks John and Shay

    1. Ditto.

    2. That was me too, and I never did parse it!

14. 6.59

    Also thought the chewage content was on the high side, especially when I arrived at the tricky (but good) CICADA. Also liked PRELUDES and my LOI CALMER only seeing the w/p as the biff was being entered.

    For someone who likes a slightly trickier range of QCs I thought this was excellent.

    Thanks John/Shay.

15. 1:03:09 (average: 35, target: 37)

    I found this very hard indeed. Even looking back through the answers I found there was some complex construction and very lateral thinking required. The hardest of the month so far for me by a long way.

    Thanks John and Shay

16. Very pleased with myself when both the long down anagrams went in early, but even with that helpful start I found this very chewy, eventually completing the grid in 15:01. But far from all parsed – both my L2I PRELUDES and CALMER were biffed from checkers and I needed John’s blog to explain them. And I still don’t understand INCUR: how does “eaten by” give IN and in what sense does incur mean contract? Not so much Ho ho as Ho hum for me!

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

    1. It’s a whimsical definition. If a cur has eaten something it would now be in the cur. It reminded me of the old excuse for not handing in your homework.. “The dog ate my homework”.

       1. Ah! Far too good for me …

17. Deary me I was off wavelength with this one.
    Started with AGES and finished with CALMER in 11.24.
    Thanks to John and Shay.

18. Pleased to finish a Shay (LOI PRIMATE) but left with several queries answered by the good John, thank you. Drat: failed to see the very clever drone producer: a few days ago rogue was RAT but I did fear there was no such thing as a CIrAtA …. Agree some dubious definitions: contract = INCUR, old maid = PRUDE, incapable of bending = STERN. But the dictionary is king so we just have to get over it. I had CALMER = ACME + L + R but of course yours is better and for all I know acme isn’t chronic.

    1. Acne might be though!

       1. Whoops – where did I get acme from? Of course: it means that. Thank you: what a crazy confusion!

          1. Fictitious producer of electrical goods possibly. Could have been something from The Goons.

             1. Acme comes from the Greek meaning “highest peak”. It has therefore been used in English to indicate great excellence, hence its adoption by various commercial companies. It frequently appeared in eg the RoadRunner cartoons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acme_Corporation

19. Great puzzle. Just over 14 minutes including interruption from gas fitter. Lots of lovely clues including CICADA, EUSTON and ETNA.

20. DNF! Despite having only three clues (FLOTSAM, SASSOON and CALMER) left to solve after just 17 minutes, which is very fast for me, I never finished. Those three resisted everything I threw at them for a further 20 minutes, after which I gave up. And, reading John’s blog, I realise that I never got anywhere near the correct solutions. A most enjoyable, then most unenjoyable experience (Sorry, Shay!).

    Many thanks to John and Shay.

21. Quite tricky in parts. MER with old maid = prude. Held up a bit with 6D as originally sure it must contain OR. Could not parse CALMER. Thanks John for great blog.
    PS small typo (last not lest) for 21A.

22. Gave up after 30 minutes with HANDS DOWN and STERN outstanding. I should probably have got both those but I find I’m never on Shay’s wavelength. I don’t think I have ever finished one of his. Didn’t parse PRIMATE, FLOTSAM or CALMER (thanks John). Didn’t like PRIMATE (how does one’s translate to I’m?) or PRELUDE (old maids do not equate to prudes).

    FOI – 5ac AGES
    LOI – DNF
    CODs – liked INCUR and INANE but my favourite was definitely the rogue drone producer.

    1. One is (one’s) is the same as I am (I’m) but using the formal pronoun.

23. Tough one this. 16 minutes including time parsing LOI PRELUDES. Could that be right that old maids= prudes? Anyway it seemed to work for the QC.
    I liked the puzzle overall. Some excellent surfaces.
    David

24. Another long haul, with my last pair (Calmer and Preludes) ensuring that the 30min post was in plain sight as I finished. All parsed, including the chewier bits, but it was quite a struggle in places.
    I think Shay is still searching for the right balance – as David earlier on noted, there was a marked variation between the difficult and easy clues.
    CoD to Incur for the humour, if not the definition, a nose ahead of Inane. Invariant

25. 25:53
    Definitely chewy. I walked away from this twice with no ‘flow’ at all to my solving.
    Trying to find a famous chemist to fit in 1ac really didn’t help my cause.
    Took too long to spot INTENSE and MARCHIONESS were anagrams.
    I guess I should compliment Shay on their misdirection.
    No problem with PRIMATE though, prate being familiar, but I did biff CALMER.
    Hard work, but pleased I stuck with it.
    FOI: AGES
    LOI: PHARMACY
    COD: CICADA

    Thanks to John and Shay

26. Six anagrams, which helped today with a lot of checkers – needed for the stiffer clues!

    I too thought that LOI CALMER would start with L and end with R, so convincing myself that it was right took quite a bit of squinting. Funny how hard it can be to let go of an idea.

    COD to PRELUDES (POI) because it’s such a great surface.

    All done in 08:20 for a Decent Day. Many thanks Shay and John.

27. A nice chewy puzzle, the last two clues of which held me up for some time – CALMER, which I had as Templar parsed it and CICADA – no excuse for not thinking of CAD except brain freeze! I had a MER over old maids being prudish too, but then I thought that you actually never refer to an unmarried woman as an old maid; you’d just say ‘single’. So the term has come to define someone of a certain mindset – mob caps and prissiness and prudery. Hope that helps!

28. Finished eventually, then glared at PRELUDES for ages trying, and totally failing, to parse it. Came here and it’s an “ugh!” from me. Haven’t looked at dictionaries but I’d never have made the jump from Old Maids to Prudes.
    I found this fairly tricky throughout, similar issues to the mentions above, but all (except 23a) were fair on reflection.

29. 20:48 on the clock but with a briefish interruption, so I’m not sure whether or not I’m in the SCC today. A curious mix of very easy and very hard clues, I thought.

    Thank you for the blog!

30. 36 minutes with 10 spent looking dumbly at 23a until I finally got there. A challenging puzzle which was just about as hard as I can do so very pleased to have finished although I did biff PRIMATE and FLOTSAM. Thank you Shay for the workout and John for the explanations. Have a good weekend.

31. Just over 10 minutes. A few of the anagrams plus the ‘Italian smoker’ helped eased the way, but I didn’t parse FLOTSAM and had no idea about CALMER, so just trusted to the def. I was fooled by ‘gold’ in 6d unusually not clueing AU or OR, making the GONDOLA anagram much harder than it should have been; one up to the setter.

    Thanks to John and Shay

32. Slowest this week so far, but mostly enjoyable. EUSTON, CALMER and INANE really slowed me down and I never did parse CALMER. I liked MARCHIONESS, CICADA and GONDOLA.
    13:20 FOI Primate (I saw that before I even picked up my pen!) LOI INANE (not ending in an E, then) COD Incur 😂
    We’re dog sitting today and tomorrow – who knows what they’ll try and eat!
    Thanks Shay and John

    BTW We had a wonderful time in your home town last week, John – what a lovely place to live 😊

    1. You should have told me you were coming and I’d have shown you around or at least joined you for a coffee.

       1. I sort of mentioned it passing! I didn’t want to presume. We really enjoyed ourselves – spent hours just wandering round the town on the first afternoon, had a delicious meal in the Blue Fig and off to Ickworth the next day.
          I’m sure we’ll go back another time and you and MrB can work out if you know anyone from BG days 😅

33. Tricky but enjoyable. All finished and parsed, but the cuppa was decidedly cool when I finished.

    Parsing of FLOTSAM and PRELUDES held me up a bit. Does a cicada really drone?

34. Really needed the blog today so many thanks John. Couldn’t parse PRIMATE or PRELUDES and missed out on the humour in INCUR (lovely). Decidedly tricky but all fair in retrospect. Liked EUSTON and HANDS DOWN. Many thanks Shay.

35. A difficult one. Much biffing employed to struggle home in 29:31. Needed the blog to parse 5. Hard work!

36. We had a rather better day today, enjoying an interesting but not overly challenging run through in 10:32. Shared the MER about prudes; old maids already sounds rather unkind these days without stretching it to prudes, though in Shay’s defence we saw the reference quite quickly! COD INCUR which made us both smile. Thanks, John and Shay.

37. 17:44

    Misspelt TESTIMONIAL, put an extra A in the middle which left me with 3 As in 15ac. Thought it was going to be another AGA SAGA. Thankfully that didn’t fit so went back to count the vowels in the anagram and saw my mistake. All of which added a chunk of time to the clock. Failed to parse PRIMATE and PRELUDES. LOI Euston.

38. 13 mins…

    Some clever and enjoyable clues here. Wasn’t convinced my LOI 1dn “Primate” was right, but I did vaguely recall it from previous crosswords, even if I struggled to parse it properly. 1ac “Pharmacy”, 22ac “Etna” and my COD 17dn “Calmer” all brought a smile.

    My current completion streak continues into unchartered territory.

    FOI – 5ac “Ages”
    LOI – 1dn “Primate”
    COD – 17dn “Calmer”

    Thanks as usual!

39. Comfortably the toughest of the week as my time of 13.10 would suggest. The only time this week over my ten minute target, so I guessed we might have a more challenging puzzle today. I share our bloggers reservations about PRELUDES, as PRUDES for ‘Old Maids’ is decidedly iffy, and my doubt was such that I was delayed looking for a suitable alternative.
    My total time for the week was 44.43, giving me a daily average of 8.57 for a very good week.

40. 19 after a slow start and several revisits. 1d and 8ac too subtle for me. Missed the obvious address.

    Thanks John and Shay

41. Do NOT understand how contract = INCUR and along with everyone else take great
    exception to …old maid = PRUDE! NHO prate. Also grumpy about …. one’s = I’M … works for the Royal Family but me- not so much! Not a happy bunny in Reigate this morning.

    1. Not sure whether it will help but … Collins on “contract”:
       4. (transitive)
       to acquire, incur, or become affected by (a disease, liability, debt, etc)

42. 9.22 INANE took a moment. Having spent a while looking for a word beginning with L I biffed CALMER to finish. 44.40 for the week is a PB. Thanks John and Shay.

43. 10.39. Biffed ‘calmer’.

44. 23a. John. I’ve never seen essential to mean middle letters in 10 years to doing the QC. Have I missed something? John.

    1. Hi John. It’s not uncommon in crosswords but maybe not used much in QCs. The rationale is that the essence of something is at its core, hence essential has come to reference the middle letter (if the word has an odd number of letters) or the middle 2 letters if the word has an even number of letters. You can also see ‘core’ or ‘at heart’ to mean the same sort of letter selection. It occurred most recently in Times 29360 earlier this week (see the clue for 26a)…

       1. …but also in QC 3044 by Cheeko in July. [Sorry if you got multiple notifications but I had to do this bit as a reply as the site prevented me having 2 web links in a comment].

45. Failed on Incur & Primate. Was heading towards 30 mins, so I found this hard with having to revisit clues several times to decode them. But pleased with my 90% finish. Thanks all

46. I started slowly, probably intimidated by memories of one of Shay’s early QCs which had a SNITCH of 170. Then I checked and realised that I have done recent Shay puzzles much more quickly (low teens).
    However, I started getting interruptions after about 5 mins and they got worse. I gave up on time after a break of 2 hours but I did finish. I found this chewy, overall, with a mix of some easy and many rather difficult offerings. It is probably a mercy that I stopped the clock early.
    Some excellent clues, in retrospect.
    Thanks, both.

47. From PHARMACY to PRELUDES in 10:34 with a MER at prude =old maid. CALMER took a moment to parse. Thanks Shay and John.

48. Tough for me, longish solve (with a break) so no idea of time taken. Having got 1a my first mistake was to biff PRELATE for 1d: much later, when I had E – C -R I revisited the bishop and PRIMATE dawned, to give loi INCUR. My cod was SASSOON, surrounded as I was on Wednesday by the very special forces honouring their former leader in Westminster Cathedral. No 3d in the congregation but it was 9a and took 5a – enough. I found some clues delightfully straightforward and some a bit verbose, but entertaining and enjoyable overall. Thanks Shay and near-neighbour John.

49. 10:30. Enjoyable, but quite tricky. I felt INCUR didn’t quite work but seemed to be the only reasonable solution.

50. Had a go at ‘Prelate’ who is a Bishop and ‘Pleiades’ as possibly loveless Greek muses but not Overtures, and confused by ‘Old Maids’ who are loveless and in songs in a Garret, so stuck in and parsed PRIMATE and did do PRELUDES finally.

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