A decent Fridayish Quick Cryptic from Breadman today. One or two tricky bits took me 3/4 minute over my average time to 6:16. Did anyone else get hung up on making an anagram of GAME I LOST for 19A or take a while and need both checkers for 20D? Thank-you Breadman. How did you all like it?
Fortnightly Weekend Quick Cryptic. This time it is my turn to provide the extra weekend entertainment. You can find the crossword entitled “The Kitchen Garden” here. Can you find the thematic references and the related song and children’s TV series? If you are interested in trying our previous offerings you can find an index to all 148 here.
Definitions underlined in bold italics, (Abc)* indicating anagram of Abc, {deletions} and [] other indicators.
| Across | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Sport that Lion developed involving resistance (9) |
| TRIATHLON – R (resistance) in (that Lion)* [developed]. | |
| 6 | Doorkeeper and drug dealer leaving quietly (5) |
| USHER -{p}USHER (drug dealer) without [leaving], the P (quietly). | |
| 8 | Unusual flies circling old chap’s insular UK location (4,2,3) |
| ISLE OF MAN – O (old) in [unusual] (flies)* + MAN (chap). | |
| 9 | Saying taken from go-ahead agency (5) |
| ADAGE – Hidden in, [from], go-aheAD AGEncy. | |
| 10 | Party platform ignoring last thing affected by Reform (4,5) |
| STAG NIGHT – STAG{e} (platform) without the last letter, [ignoring last], + (thing)* [affected]. | |
| 12 | Woman’s concealing corroded radiator? (6) |
| HEATER – ATE (corroded) in HER (woman’s). | |
| 13 | Fix fight against European (6) |
| SCRAPE – SCRAP (fight) + E (European). Scrape the noun. | |
| 16 | Reportedly study good article on gold musical instrument (4,5) |
| REED ORGAN – REED sounds like [reportedly] READ (study) + OR (gold in heraldry) + G (good) + AN (indefinite article). | |
| 18 | Type of paint Gloria half used outside in stages (5) |
| GLOSS – First 3 letters of GLOria [half used] + outside letters of StageS. | |
| 19 | Game I lost unfortunately leading to a rage (9) |
| SOLITAIRE – (I lost)* [unfortunately] + A + IRE (rage). | |
| 21 | Son Kelvin that is heading for ruin — someone going downhill fast? (5) |
| SKIER – S (son) K (Kelvin, the unit of absolute temperature) + I.E. (that is) + first letter of, [heading for], Ruin. | |
| 22 | Total in writing correct (9) |
| DOWNRIGHT – DOWN (in writing, as in “He had it down on paper”) + RIGHT (correct). | |
| Down | |
|---|---|
| 1 | Samples tagliatelle on vacation somewhere in Italy (7) |
| TRIESTE – TRIES (samples) + T{agliatell}E without the middle lettes, [on vacation]. Nice surface. | |
| 2 | Quite afflicted state (3,3) |
| I’LL SAY – ILL (afflicted) + SAY (state, the verb). | |
| 3 | Ancient character’s a spiky thing (5) |
| THORN – Double definition. The first definition referring to the letter in the Old English, Old Norse, Old Swedish and modern Icelandic alphabets, as well as modern transliterations of the Gothic alphabet, Middle Scots, and some dialects of Middle English. It is equivalent to the modern “th”. | |
| 4 | Meat reduced to pound (3) |
| LAM – LAM{b} (meat) [reduced]. | |
| 5 | No news there, I broadcast, still in ignorance (4,3,5) |
| NONE THE WISER – (no news there I)* [broadcast]. Another nice surface. | |
| 6 | Writer in university’s meeting editor without permission (12) |
| UNAUTHORISED – AUTHOR (writer) in UNI’S (university’s) + [meeting] ED (editor). | |
| 7 | Violent, aggressive person owned box containing ecstasy (8) |
| HEADCASE – E (ecstasy) contained in HAD (owned) + CASE (box). | |
| 11 | Cheerful Simon regularly observed 51 plants (8) |
| GLADIOLI – GLAD (cheerful) + alternate letters, [regularly observed], of sImOn + LI (51 in Roman numerals). | |
| 14 | Tory visitor avoiding United crowd (7) |
| CONGEST – CON (Conservative; Tory) + G{u}EST (visitor) without [avoiding] the U (United). Crowd the verb. | |
| 15 | Travel up with Heather casting amorous glances (6) |
| OGLING – GO (travel) [up] -> OG + LING (heather). | |
| 17 | Aquatic mammal having excessive energy on river (5) |
| OTTER – OTT (over the top; excessive) + E (energy) + R (river). | |
| 20 | Vulgar animal noise (3) |
| LOW – Double definition. I need both checkers to see this. | |
17:46 for me, so that’s all 5 days so far this week over my average time, which will no doubt soon go up. But when you compare that with the multiple hours it usually takes me to finish – or not – the 15×15, I have no issue with the difficulty.
I fell into the same traps as everyone else, with SOLITAIRE and ILL SAY my L2I.
Thanks to Breadman and John.
23:16, sigh, kicked into the Club by the frustrating HEADCASE (had no idea of the “violent” meaning, over here it’s just an insane person) and I’LL SAY, because I forgot that apostrophes are invisible in crosswordland (and of course, “I’ll say” and “quite” aren’t substitutable in my dialect but I do read books so that’s no excuse.)
Up to that point I had a nice time, particularly enjoying STAG NIGHT and the tricky SOLITAIRE, where I fell into the trap you know. Cozy in there. Surface of the day to TRIESTE.
Thanks to Breadman and John.
Far from easy for me, but I managed it with the exception of ‘heater’ and the much discussed ‘head case’ . Thanks to setter and David
Interesting and thoughtful comments today.
With the exception of ILL SAY, I thought this was a fair puzzle. I enjoyed ‘thing affected by Reform’- a clever and topical anagrind I don’t think I’ve seen before. On the broader question of whether things are getting too difficult, I have no complaints – it’s surely fine to experience puzzles that are a little too hard to solve from time to time (as I did experience with one of this week’s QCs). 11:30.
I concur with wombat – started straightforwardly enough then wasn’t also TRIATHLON mispelt as’ triatholon didn’t help. Idiot
Another fine QC which I completed at my usual leisurely pace. Tricky in places, yes, but nothing unfair, and always plenty to learn. LAM and THORN were remembered from previous crosswords. COD I’LL SAY. This was my LOI but it did make me smile when the penny finally dropped. Please don’t dumb these puzzles down. Enjoyment comes from the challenge; finishing is surely a bonus. Many thanks to John and Breadman.
DNF. I couldn’t solve HEADCASE (not a good descriptor) and ILL SAY. It is quite difficult for me to ignore punctuation in the QC. I suspect it is an age thing. Retired injured with 11 minutes on the clock.
Never thought of HEADCASE despite having all the crossers and never thought ILL was actually I’LL so a dnf here – but 20 minutes or so of fun and interesting solve. Like others I spent an age trying to anagram ‘game I lost’ before biffing SOLITAIRE without parsing. Personally I don’t mind the odd iffy word and I’m too old to be woke, so thanks Breadman and blog much appreciated
29 minutes.
B****y awful time to end a b****y awful week.
Over 2 hours this week (124 minutes). It doesn’t get any better no matter how hard I try. I am still nowhere near what I consider to be a decent level of competence given the amount of experience I have.
9 short on proper crossword.
I’ll curse myself all weekend and then return for more agony next week.
No improvement = no fun!
☹️