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)*. | |
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.
12 minutes.
Still an awful week. 2 stupid DNFs stopped me from getting 5 SCC escapes.
68 mins but only 3 finishes. Annoying.
1.5 hours on yesterday’s 15 x 15 and still 7 short. Way out of my depth!
DNF…
I thought this was tricky – both 5ac “Xmas” and 14dn “Ingenue” (I put ‘Eugenie’) went unsolved, whilst I had my fingers crossed for 16dn “Endgame”. A shame really, as I had pretty much everything else within 15 mins.
FOI – 8ac “On Air”
LOI – dnf
COD – 1dn “Footsie”
Thanks as usual!
Shame on me – biffed EUPHEMISM -won on that one, biffed MUNSTER for Cathedral, lost on that one. DNF OOMPH
Carol Reed new to us. The QC is full of educating moments.
Thank you Wurm, even though we rightly quake when we see it’s you. Thank you John I.
We DNF – 2 ND & 2 NFPd. We NHO the play ENDGAME; both saw 15A CHANGE immediately so we were surprised it caused others issues. We recalled THE THIRD MAN as being something our parents watched on TV in the fifties. Agree with others about the word XMAS. In all it seemed a bit trickier than we think a QC should be.