An entertaining, as ever, Quick Cryptic from Wurm today with just a couple of tricky bits. It took me 5:55, just about 30 seconds over average for me – I was held up in the end by the crossing 15A and 16D, but not unduly so when I trusted to the wordplay for the unknown play. COD to FOOTSIE for the surface. Thank-you Wurm. How did you all get on?
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 147 here.
Definitions underlined in bold italics, (Abc)* indicating anagram of Abc, {deletions} and [] other indicators.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Swimmer fine as filth swirls around (8) |
| FLATFISH – (f as filth)* [swirls around], with F for “fine”, as used in lead pencils. Nice surface. | |
| 5 | Period celebrated by mother and son (4) |
| XMAS – X (by; i.e. multiplied by) + MA (mother) + S (son). A bit sneaky. It’s worth remembering times = by = X as it often comes up. | |
| 8 | No backing with tune being broadcast (2,3) |
| ON AIR – NO reversed, [backing], -> ON + AIR (tune). | |
| 9 | Entertainer in Hobart is terrible (7) |
| ARTISTE – Hidden in HobART IS TErrible. A Tasmanian devil, perhaps? Sorry. I’ll get my coat. | |
| 11 | Observe bishop’s seat (3) |
| SEE – Double definition. | |
| 12 | One’s left us for dead (9) |
| EUPHEMISM – Tricky. “left us” is a EUPHEMISM for “dead”. Luckily I spotted it fairly quickly, but how about you? | |
| 13 | Riddle good in complex anime (6) |
| ENIGMA – G (good) in [complex] (anime)*. | |
| 15 | Transfer some money (6) |
| CHANGE – Double definition. I hesitated over this until I thought of “change trains” for “transfer to another train”. My SLOI. | |
| 18 | Manager or a singer possibly (9) |
| ORGANISER – (or a singer)* [possibly]. | |
| 19 | Small boy wanting first to lie down (3) |
| SAD – S (small) + {l}AD (boy) without [wanting] the first letter of Lie. You need to separate “lie down” to find the definition and wordplay. Another potential hold-up for some, I think. | |
| 20 | Cathedral cleric’s second one dismissed (7) |
| MINSTER – MIN{i}STER (cleric) with the second I (one) dropped. Minsters I have sung in include York, Beverly and Southwell. | |
| 21 | Mass with song for a von Trapp? (5) |
| MARIA – M (mass) + ARIA (song). “Maria Augusta von Trapp DHS (née Kutschera; 26 January 1905 – 28 March 1987), often styled as “Baroness”, was the stepmother and matriarch of the Trapp Family. She wrote the memoir The Story of the Trapp Family Singers, which was published in 1949 and was the inspiration for the 1956 West German film The Trapp Family, which in turn inspired the 1959 Broadway musical The Sound of Music and its 1965 film version“ | |
| 22 | Attend to male news boss (4) |
| HEED – HE (male) + ED (news boss). | |
| 23 | Willing in the morning to empower (8) |
| AMENABLE – AM (in the morning) + ENABLE (to empower). | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Wiggling of toe is flirtatious activity (7) |
| FOOTSIE – [Wiggling] (of toes is)*. Another entertaining surface. | |
| 2 | Top-grade puzzle? Wow! (5) |
| AMAZE – A (top-grade) + MAZE (puzzle). “Wow” the verb is the definition. | |
| 3 | Don’t overlook the writer’s bloomer! (6-2-3) |
| FORGET-ME-NOT – Double definition, the first a cryptic hint. | |
| 4 | Is upset about affected seafood (6) |
| SCAMPI – IS [upset] -> SI, about CAMP (affected). | |
| 6 | Fail to notice one on purpose (7) |
| MISSION – MISS (fail to notice) + I (one) + ON. | |
| 7 | Energy from second XI (5) |
| STEAM – S (second) + TEAM (XI; in football or cricket). | |
| 10 | Article on fielder in Carol Reed film (3,5,3) |
| THE THIRD MAN – THE (definite article) + THIRD MAN (cricket fielder). | |
| 14 | Uranium in engine bad for naive female (7) |
| INGENUE – U (chemical symbol for Uranium) in (engine)* [bad]. | |
| 16 | Absurd drama in close match (7) |
| ENDGAME – END (close) + GAME (match). Philistine that I am, I hadn’t heard of this absurdist drama by Samuel Beckett, so was puzzled by the definition and hesitated over putting in the answer. My LOI. | |
| 17 | Sheep under tree in hermitage (6) |
| ASHRAM – RAM (sheep) under ASH (tree). A word I learnt from crosswords. | |
| 18 | Drive round with zero speed? (5) |
| OOMPH – O (round letter) + O (zero shaped letter) + MPH (speed). Again you need to do some separation to find the definition, this time of “Drive round”. | |
| 19 | Rook in exotic bush, hibiscus maybe (5) |
| SHRUB – R (rook; as abbreviated in chess notation) in [exotic] (bush)*. | |
Not easy for me. Couldn’t see EUPHEMISM for the life of me. Also bunged in passion instead of MISSION thinking fail/pass. Also didn’t know the meaning of ENDMATE. Liked the two long anagrams, both write-ins. COD to OOMPH.
Thanks John and setter.
DNF. All but one done in 10 minutes but after another 5 I gave up.
I was never even near to getting EUPHEMISM. I’d seen “one’s left us” and thought EX-PRESS which was obviously going nowhere when followed by ? M, but I then found it hard to see beyond it. Having said that, and without attempting to make excuses, I don’t particularly think of ‘left us’ as a euphemism for being dead; people are more likely to say ‘passed over / away’ or something more elaborate such as ‘gone to the great something-or-other in the sky’.
I agree about “left us”.
24:13 SCC The Wurm has turned. I’m sure Wurm has been having a nice time gaming with his end… and there’s a euphemism for you😉
Ta JAW
8:20 is by far my slowest of the year so far, so I’d class it as “challenging”.
Held up on CHANGE and ENDGAME, then on MISSION and XMAS. But the biggest obstacle was LOI EUPHEMISM, which I eventually got from the checkers and a bit of reverse engineering. Well done for spotting it quickly John.
Didn’t help myself by inventing the SALTFISH at the start.
Thanks John and Wurm.
Bit of culture wouldn’t have hurt today. NHO Carol Reed – didn’t even know he was a man – but I do know fielding position so via various sillies and gullies I got there and definitely NHO ENDGAME so grateful for clear clueing once I’d given up on ‘drama is’ as anagrist. RHS harder than LHS, so much so that one was done before the other started. I wrapped up with two lovely clues in the NE – XMAS, where I’d tried to convince myself ‘mass’ would work and MISSION. AMENABLE had previously caused me bother. All green in 17.33 – hard but ace.
The distinguished British film director Sir Carol Reed was the son of erstwhileTimes crossword favourite Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree. He was the uncle of Oliver Reed.
You have a treat in store. The Third Man is the finest British film ever made. IMHO.
Quick web search suggests it’s on iPlayer – should be good Sunday afternnon fare. Good idea!
Couldn’t agree with you more!
My husband thinks the same. He keeps suggesting I watch it.
Pam, occasionally husbands are right. It’s fantastic.
9:25, which counts as a fast solve for me, but EUPHEMISM was put in from the checkers alone as I had no idea how the clue worked, and then only very slowly parsed, and ENDGAME, which I did derive from the wordplay “close match”, was not parsed at all. I’m told it is considered a major work but I join John in being a Philistine on this one.
Many thanks John for the blog and I look forward to the Sunday Special.
This felt like an old school offering from Wurm i.e. decidedly tricky and ENDGAME went in from the checkers with fingers crossed as I had no idea what was going on.
Despite my struggles there was plenty to enjoy along the way including FOOTSIE and OOMPH but my COD goes to XMAS for the PDM.
Started with FORGET ME NOT and finished with HEED in 10.25.
Thanks to John and Wurm
that was a toughy!
18.05
Trickiest for a very long while, not knowing the drama and not seeing the definition for EUPHEMISM until the very last moment … just as I was about to open up an aid to help me for a DNF. Does anyone else do this to hurry their memory along? I swear this works more often than not 🙂
Definitely! As I start to type the letters in, the word suddenly becomes clear – although not often enough 😅
DNF here, beaten all ends up by CHANGE and ENDGAME. Old school Wiggly Wurm!
Started with a lazy SAILFISH without properly checking the anagrist. Eventually FOOTSIE sorted that out and the left side went in. Spent a while on XMAS (horrid word) and EUPHEMISM but got them. Then ground to a halt on the two I didn’t get. COD OOMPH, very good!
Many thanks Worm and John.
We agree on quite a lot, not least XMAS. I only saw your post after I posted mine. 🙄
Tough. Most of it went in very quickly (but I was slow to see OOMPH, despite it being in a recent puzzle) but the NE did for me. I could not see EUPHEMISM, ENDGAME or XMAS (horrible word) for ages and needed them to see STEAM. SCC in the end.
Thanks to Wurm for a frustrating Slow Cryptic (only one of his recent half dozen puzzles has actually been a QC for me) and to John for a much-needed blog.
I enjoyed this, but felt that EUPHEMISM was not suitable for a QC, and I needed all the checkers. It might have got my COD in a 15×15 – but not here.
FOI FLATFISH
LOI EUPHEMISM
COD XMAS
TIME 3:49
Oooh, made me think! Am now happily ensconced in the SCC (22:49) along with my dog who insisted on ‘helping’ this morning – don’t worry he’s very well behaved and seated quietly beside me eating a biscuit.
Didn’t know the play, did know the director and was much amused by OOMPH. Last in was EUPHEMISM only because it fitted.
Thanks to Wurm for the entertainment, John for the enlightenment and Jack for the extra info about Carol Reed.
25:58
Another struggle, especially the RHS where XMAS and MISSION caused problems, failed to parse ENDGAME and took ages to understand LOI EUPHEMISM.
EUPHEMISM was LOI taking up a couple of minutes alone. FOOTSIE needed all checkers. QUITCH has this at 118, but I think it is failing to account for DNFs. I would say more like 130.
FLATFISH was FOI, then I put MASS at 5a but hesitated and went for 6d and 7d. STEAM confirmed the final S but I wasn’t happy as nothing jumped out for 6d. I then noticed the “by” in the clue and suddenly it was XMAS and MISSION accomplished. Well the first 4 clues anyway! FORGET ME NOT and SCAMPI gave me the crossers required for 12a which was obviously going to end with ISM, and I spotted EUPHEMISM fairly quickly. Another Philistine who didn’t know the Beckett play, but ENDGAME came easily from checkers and wordplay. LOI was MINSTER when I managed to separate Cathedral from cleric. 8:24. Thanks Wurm and John.
13:01, with EUPHEMISM, OOMP and MINSTER my last three in.
Thanks John and Wurm
6:30
Enjoyable, though didn’t know the absurd drama, and EUPHEMISM took a few moments to drop.
Thanks John and Wurm
For 12A I had DEPARTED – double definition of “One’s left us” and “Dead”. As written, shouldn’t the clue have “?” at the end because it’s a Definition By Example?
I see I was a letter short – one must have departed!
It is DBE, hence the ONE’S at the front end.
Held up by crossing of 15A and 16D (John you have a typo in your intro for this). Could not see SAD which is sad when I knew ENDGAME and THE THIRD MAN (as mentioned above, this is a brilliant film). Found this quite a tricky puzzle but all fairly clued. Thanks Wurm and John for your usual informative blog.
Oops. Thanks. Will fix.
Another bad DNF, missing XMAS, CHANGE, EUPHEMISM, ENDGAME.
I’m sure you’d have got them if you allowed yourself the amount of time that I do! Do you set a time limit, maybe the length of the train journey to work?
“Couple of tricky bits” is exactly right: stumped by cathedral cleric and speed (rush? dash?). Thanks, John … how stupid to forget minster, slap on the wrist. But golly OOMPH was difficult.
22:59
Tough.
Not that long ago I would have given up on this one which, interestingly, leaves me with mixed feelings – too tough to be an enjoyable QC (for me), or really enjoyable because I finished and its a measure of my progress?
I bunged in the last two after 5 minutes in desperation unparsed. SAD I should have seen but NHO the drama.
I think I’ll view Wurm’s offering as a positive.
FOI: FLATFISH
LOI: ENDGAME
COD: OOMPH (nice!)
Thanks to Wurm and a big thanks to John
I was a little slow to get started but after ENIGMA everything else followed easily and I was finished in 8 minutes. LOI CHANGE.
I knew all the GK including Endgame and parsed EUPHEMISM quickly having seen it must be the answer.
Lots of nice clues but hard to pick a COD; I liked SHRUB.
David
Quick in NW, completed SW, but then slowed. I knew MARIA and THE THIRD MAN (am a Graham Greene fan), biffed ENDGAME, then SAD and XMAS, but DNF EUPHEMISM.
OOMPH made me smile. Also liked MINSTER, FORGET-ME-NOT and FOOTSIE.
Thanks vm, John.
My thanks to Wurm and Johninterred.
Not too hard apart from the ones Johninterred found hard, and also 19a.
12a Euphemism, fair but took me an age.
19a Sad. Oh, that is what “lie” is doing. Doh!
12a The Third Man, just read Wiki on this film; no wonder I didn’t follow the plot as an 8 yr old!
16a Endgame, NHO.
DNF. Needed aids to finish. I found XMAS and SAD particularly hard.
I really needed the blog this morning. Thanks to both.
23:23 – slightly above average with a few unparsed solutions holding me up: SAD, EUPHEMISM, XMAS and the unknown ASHRAM.
ENDGAME was Beckett’s next play after WAITING FOR GODOT.
13.34 Mostly OK but I was breeze-blocked by ENDGAME, CHANGE, MISSION and EUPHEMISM, which I put in simply because it fitted. Thanks John and Wurm.
Felt tough but that I was on wavelength. All green in about par time of 9:21.
Like others stuck in ENDGAME as LOI with a bit of a deep breath.
Good stuff from Wurm. Thanks John for the full parsing.
A DNF for me. I found this one extremely tricky, as I guessed I might for a Friday.
My first lap yielded 5. Then it was downhill all the way apart from a small number of a very small lightbulb coming on in my head.
Most enjoyable. I was going swimmingly until held up in the northeast corner: took me another 4 minutes to work out MISSION, XMAS and EUPHEMISM. So took me 20.33 to complete.
I so very nearly gave up on this, and it was pure bloody mindedness that drove me on. After nine or so minutes I had four to get, but I couldn’t see them for the life of me. After an eternity I finally got MISSION which allowed me to get XMAS. Shortly afterwards SAD was solved (why I couldn’t see it sooner I don’t know), and the D allowed me to clean up with ENDGAME. My slowest finishing time at 22.20, to go nicely with my previously quoted slowest time of 18.30 as recently as Tuesday!
Thanks to those two disasters, my total time for the week was 65.04, giving me a daily average of 13.01. Must do better!
I was DNF after staring at SAD and ENDGAME for ages. I had thought of sad quite early but couldn’t get it to mean “lie down”, so a bit of a fail not spotting the correct lift and separate. I’ve NHO ENDGAME (the play) but that was the only word I could think of that fitted (even before I cheated on SAD). I was trying to think of how it related to Chess.
RE: EUPHEMISM, I read the clue as “left us for dead” is a euphemism and passed it off as a fairly weak cryptic, I guess the absence of a question mark should have told me otherwise. I can see that “left us” [is a euphemism] for “dead” works better.
Revealed second letter of LOI EUPHEMISM, and then of course the penny finally dropped. Great clue with the benefit of hindsight! Also appreciated SAD and OOMPH (when I’d worked out what was going on). A bit tricky for a Wurm puzzle but always happy to try one that makes me think. Thought the surface for FOOTSIE was rather clever. DNK the absurd drama (thanks John). Nice one Wurm.
All parsed and correct, but rather slow.
Fittingly LOI was ENDGAME
Liked XMAS and OOMPH
Thanks Wurm and John
DNF. Could not see EUPHEMISM but then I was fixated on X being the second letter. I also took an age to see ENDGAME. Thanks John for your expert parsing.
I needed two sittings for this, with Oomph/Heed, Sad/Endgame and Euphemism all stuck in the remedial class and needing extra work.
Although the crossers made it fairly obvious, I would put Ingénue in the same group as, say, Incubus: words that do not belong in a QC. As to the regrettable use of the word ‘xmas’, I always take the view that it says a lot about the user. . .
Invariant
Well and truly in the SCC at 25 minutes. Like many others commenting above, EUPHEMISM, ENDGAME and XMAS gave me a lot of trouble and I was lucky to end up with no pink squares.
Thanks to Wurm for a real Friday challenge and to John
Tricky! And a bit weird too, in my experience: the left-hand half was surprisingly easy before the right-hand half stopped me dead all over the place. Couldn’t parse ENDGAME or SAD, and my LOI EUPHEMISM took ages.
Anyway, 18:18 overall. Thank you for the blog!
Substantial delay in putting in our LOI ENDGAME as we joined others in being unable to see how it worked. NHO the play. Thanks for the education, John! However, in it went at 11:33, slightly faster than our average, albeit with fingers crossed. EUPHEMISM also delayed us – my thanks to Mrs T for seeing that one. COD OOMPH. Thank you, Wurm.
Several very tricky clues taking this beyond the scope of a QC in my opinion. Thanks to John for his Blog and I hope to find a friendlier Wurm next time.
7.39. Unimpressed with 5a.
For a while, I thought Wurm was being unusually kind (for him) as I reached my five-to-go point after just 25 minutes or so. Trouble was that all of those clues were clustered together in the SE corner and, unbeknown to me at the time, I had (somewhat ridiculously) biffed SHORT LEG for the fielder in 10d. This error effectively blocked my access to the SE corner.
Eventually (after a further 10+ minutes), I got the M for mass in 21a which led me on to THE THIRD MAN at 10d and I crossed the line much relieved after 43 minutes.
Other awkward clues included INGENUE and ASHRAM (both unknown) and XMAS, EUPHEMISM and ENDGAME (all unparsed).
I don’t think I’m very good at this game.
Many thanks to John and Wurm.
I thought EUPHEMISM was brilliant once I’d worked it out. Held up by the unknown ENDGAME and the difficult SAD, so home in 9′ on the nose.
Very enjoyable, thanks Wurm, and John.
On edit: I’ve just done the weekend special, which was also excellent – thanks, Sawbill!
Another entertaining puzzle in a week of enjoyable crosswords *, which I finished in about standard time. The only really tricky one was EUPHEMISM, which slowed me right down, and I didn’t fully parse ENDGAME, although having read John’s blog, I realise I’ve heard of the play. I’m most unlikely ever to see it though 😉
I’m not finding Wiggly Woo as tricky as I used to – perhaps I’m finally getting on his wavelength, or perhaps he’s easing up on us! (On edit: having just fully read the blog, I think I’m on my own today!)
Just paused to do a quick internet trawl and discovered that Wurm is Paul Bringloe – he chose his Times name because ‘Wurm is Part C of Starship Trooper, a track on The Yes Album, and wurms can be wriggly.’ So that confirms what we already thought. Also one for the prog rock fans! The Guardian website has its uses (Meet the setter, if you haven’t come across it).
10:06 FOI Flatfish LOI Euphemism COD Footsie (that gets 100 from me)
Thanks Wurm and John
* Can’t say the same about the biggies – another challenging week!
Hello Penny.
Prog fan here, as you know.
I have seen/heard Starship Trooper played by Rick Wakeman a few times but, sadly, never saw it performed by Yes. Oh well, I have it on vinyl and will listen to it now.
Thanks for mentioning.
I’ve just checked in with MrB and he reckons he’s been to about 10 Yes concerts over the years. Apparently they’ve played Starship Trooper most times (not trying to rub your nose in it!) Last time was in Birmingham 18 months ago. Not that he’s obsessive or anything … btw They’re in Bournemouth on 28 April 😊
…. three days before Focus at Trading Boundaries! But if I just happen to be visiting my dad on the 28th …. I wonder.
Slow and steady but got there in the end: got ENDGAME as a close match without even thinking of Beckett: duh, so obvious now (and I’ve seen the play!) The EUPHEMISM had to be, passed might have been more current. FOOTSIE was an entertaining clue, ditto FORGET ME NOT. Time spent embarrassing (outstaying welcome in the SCC) but on a rainy Friday…. Thanks Wurm and near neighbour John!
Hard for us today needing help for many clues.
18:29 here. I was missing the GK on the play and the director, so both of those had a mental shrug as I put them in. Liked EUPHEMISM: my COD.
Thanks to Wurm and John.
And another DNF to end a miserable week for me. No idea about ENDGAME, had PASSION rather than MISSION so no chance with XMAS (horrible abbreviation) and also failed on OOMPH. Hopefully next week I’ll do enough to be admitted into the SCC.
Tough going today with a DNF. Eventually got Endgame from the checkers but NHO the play. Then, in frustration, I chucked in Sid for small boy. Pah.
I actually enjoyed much of this but got dragged down by the last few including Xmas, mission, euphemism – which all took their time.
Many thanks to Wurm for the challenge and John for the excellent explanations.