Author   JohninterredPosted on 14th June 2024 at 1:22 AM13 June 2024Categories Quick Cryptic
For once a relatively gentle Friday Quick Cryptic from Teazel today, if my experience is anything to go by, taking 3:39. Of course others may find their mileage differs. A total of 7 double definition clues, so plenty of practice for us of that clue type today. COD to 13D for the neat surface. Thank-you Teazel! 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 105 here.
Definitions underlined in bold italics, (Abc)* indicating anagram of Abc, {deletions} and [] other indicators.
| Across | |
| 7 | Nervous, I change holiday purchase (8) |
| SOUVENIR – (Nervous I)* [change]. | |
| 8 | Japanese drama about a boatman (4) |
| NOAH – A in NOH (Japanese drama). | |
| 9 | Leave, and need regularly to have escaped (6) |
| EVADED – Alternate letters, [regularly], of lEaVe AnD nEeD. | |
| 10 | Beat poet? (5) |
| POUND -Double definition. Clever…. Was Ezra Pound a beat poet, I wondered? No he wasn’t, which is a shame for the clue. | |
| 11 | Antelope hung back to avoid horse (3) |
| GNU – {h}UNG reversed, losing the H (horse) -> GNU. I’ve previously been surprised to find that a gnu is an antelope but I know better now. By the way it is correctly pronounced “Noo”. I blame Flanders and Swann for making me think otherwise… here‘s the evidence. | |
| 12 | Born rascal that goes on foot (6) |
| BROGUE – B(born) ROGUE (rascal). A sort of shoe… which, of course, rhymes with GNU. I’ll get my coat. | |
| 14 | Place is in perfect shade (6) |
| PURPLE – PL (place) in PURE (perfect). Very imperial. | |
| 16 | Ulster’s remarkable outcome (6) |
| RESULT – (Ulster’s)* [remarkable]. | |
| 18 | Flag officer once? (6) |
| ENSIGN – Double definition. The lowest commissioned rank in the British infantry until 1871, hence the “once”, although the rank is still used in the US Navy and other US services. | |
| 19 | Memory rocky at first in the morning (3) |
| RAM – Computer memory, that is. R{ocky} [at first], AM (in the morning). | |
| 20 | Female competent to produce old wives’ tale (5) |
| FABLE – F (female) ABLE (competent). | |
| 21 | Change into suit (6) |
| BECOME – Double definition. | |
| 23 | Only a small body of water (4) |
| MERE – Double definition. | |
| 24 | Shedding outside layer, initially making a defensive move (8) |
| CASTLING – First letter of L{ayer} in CASTING (shedding). A chess move taking the king away from the centre and moving the rook to the other side. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Study poetry and talk (8) |
| CONVERSE – CON (study) VERSE (poetry). | |
| 2 | Old poet in pandemic losing head (4) |
| OVID – {c}OVID (pandemic) without the first letter. | |
| 3 | Nervous, and liable to fall? (2,4) |
| ON EDGE – Double definition, the second a cryptic hint. I remember walking along Striding Edge many years ago. I was definitely nervous about falling as my balance is distinctly dodgy. | |
| 4 | Support for one in litter (4,2) |
| PROP UP – PRO (for) PUP (one in litter). I think I’ve seen this in another puzzle recently, but can’t find it. | |
| 5 | Asks how paper may be folded (8) |
| INQUIRES – Double definition, the second a cryptic hint. I was slightly surprised by this knowing only of the meaning as 24 (or more commonly now 25) sheets of paper, but Chambers tells me “Formerly, four sheets of paper or parchment folded together to make eight leaves”. | |
| 6 | Put down, face up (4) |
| LAID – DIAL (face of a clock) [up] -> LAID. | |
| 13 | Complained malingering finally has been found out (8) |
| GRUMBLED – Last letter of malingerinG, RUMBLED (found out). My COD for the great surface. | |
| 15 | Connective tissue: mangle it when injured (8) |
| LIGAMENT – (mangle it)* [injured]. | |
| 17 | Fish around river channel (6) |
| TRENCH – R (river) in TENCH (fish). A tench may well be found in a river. | |
| 18 | Raise me up above manager (6) |
| EMBOSS – ME [up] -> EM, BOSS (manager). | |
| 20 | Handle fine fish (4) |
| FEEL – F (fine) EEL (fish). | |
| 22 | With which to shoot horse? (4) |
| COLT – Double definition. | |
5:46 I don’t think I can go much faster. Only FEEL really held me up, as EEL was the last three- letter fish I could think of- after dab, gar, ray, ide, and cod. I would say that CASTLING isn’t just a defensive move as while it tucks the King away safely, at the same time it gets the Rook out into a more offensive position. PROP UP, EMBOSS, and BECOME were my picks.
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Mate, I’ve only just check-ed the blog but you’ve made my knight with that time – you are the king of the castle today. I think you done all white 🌟
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Ho ho ho, good to hear from you! Hope your running is going well and your break from the pleasures/frustrations of solving is re-galvanizing your spirit. Maybe you’ll get back here one of these days?
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Still been solving – but my spare computer died last month which had all the 2024 QC data on. So took that as a good opportunity to get away from the numbers game. I still keep it logged somewhere and I was 11mins yesterday (albeit POTTERy-WHEEL corrected) and 9min45 on Oink on Tuesday.
Running every day continues … 7.47 miles today in 58min28 … now that I do continue to log!! Or rather simply upload from my watch
Once again I can only say – 5:46 – brilliant time.
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Folded in a third person today to give us our fastest time ever – 35 minutes and 23 seconds. Really enjoyable – thanks Teazel!
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8 minutes for me, with LOI CASTLING. I did not know that meaning of QUIRE although that didn’t really hold me up. I don’t remember anything that slowed me down although I wasn’t trying to speedrun it, a steady solve.
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Beaten by the pair of NOAH/LAID. I had NHO of NOH, so that clue was effectively not possible. LAID is the kind of clues I find really hard, an obscure definition of a word that requires further manipulation, all in a clue that could easily be a DD.
Other than those I got on quite well with this, including the normal Teazel eye-rolls.Reply
NOH is worth remembering. It comes up a lot.
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Yes, “NOH” was used last Friday as part of answer NOSH.
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Also spelt ‘NO’.
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Yes, but that would be NO fun.
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We too (/ two) were DEFEATED by NOAH which we revealed. LAID then came after some further head scratching. I know I have come across NOH before but I couldn’t recall it. Perhaps next time! Otherwise all fairly straightforward. Thank you, J and Teazel.
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7 minutes, no problems.
We had QUIRE as a measure of paper in QC 2692 by Breadman, blogged by me on 3rd June. There was some discussion about it, the number of sheets etc, so it may have lodged in the memory of those who didn’t know it previously.
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A good time here for a Teazel of 25.33. Puzzles like this always take us longer as we enjoy savouring the mastery of the clue writing. This one has lots of very clever stuff and brought some very loud clanging PDMs. What a great way to start the day.
A dodgy start by putting in sunvisor as something on holiday that’s an anagram of nervous I (well, nearly) until converse showed the error.
Thanks Teazel and Mike.
Really looking forward to meeting some of you tomorrow. Hoping not to get too wet watching the parade on The Mall for Trooping the Colour beforehand.
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A gentle end to the week from Teazel, and only 5 clues remained after the first pass. I needed COLT on the second pass to clear up my LOI. I don’t care for chess, and know only the basics.
FOI SOUVENIR
LOI CASTLING
COD BECOME
TIME 3:18Reply
Surprised to be so far out of step with everyone else, I found this megatough! RHS went in pretty fast but I had big gaps on the left that took real pain and grit to unravel. BECaME arrived with a huge clang but it turned out it should have been BECOME so I got a pink square anyway. Before that EMBOSS, CASTLING NOAH and POUND had already caused me problems. Not all green in 18.
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Likewise!
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And me! Racked my brain once it was clear that Kerouac would not fit for Beat poet and NHO NOH so needed the checkers. Made a mental note to add it to the lexicon. More On edge than On the road but memories of being a student in San Francisco in 1971 made it worthwhile. Definitely relaxing in the club with a coffee after a post 20 minute finish. Nothing to distort the reality of time.
Thanks TeazelReply
A 12 minute completion with no real queries suggests a routine solve, but this hides a lightning fast ¾ of the puzzle followed by a much slower assault on the NE corner, with considerable time spent on PROP UP, then POUND (did not immediately recall Ezra) then LOI LAID. I agree with David above that clues like LAID are often very challenging to unpick, even when (especially when?) quite short words.
The puzzle also seemed rather DD-heavy, which can be my downfall as I find such clues “either you see it or you don’t”, and if you don’t then there isn’t a lot you can do about it except wait for inspiration to strike. But fortunately today they fell into place gratifying quickly.
Many thanks John for the blog and I look forward to seeing you and I hope several others tomorrow.
CedricReply
Gentle going on the whole and very enjoyable but dithered over the parsing of PURPLE and caused trouble for myself in the SE by putting in ‘bolt’ at 22d – I had a very vague memory from reading Dick Francis novels in my schooldays that a bolt was something used to put down injured horses (although I may be misremembering).
Started with NOAH and finished with EMBOSS in 7.04 with COD to INQUIRES.
Thanks to JohnReply
I share your vague memory. It’s a good thing I didn’t think of it while solving!
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I didn’t find this easy at all and needed all the checkers to finally struggle home. Teazel always seems to be on a slightly different wavelength to me.
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7:23. A straightforward end to the week, with no real hold ups. Liked GRUMBLED.
Thanks Teazel and John
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NW corner quick, then dotted around to a slow SE for an enjoyable 22 minute completion.
A lot of biffing, only seeing how the answer parsed as I was writing it in (PRO PUP, BECOME). Some (PURPLE, ENSIGN) guessed only from crossers with no idea how they worked until I came here. Several made easier by seeing them discussed here very recently (quire, noh).FOI SOUVENIR
LOI COLT – too long pondering a means of shooting up heroin…
COD INQUIRES for the satisfying PDMThanks all!
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I see I’m not alone in my drug-induced dreams….
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8:47
Very slow in the SE. Took an inexplicably long time to unscramble LIGAMENT/PURPLE, which I needed for LO’sI BECOME/COLT.
COD BECOMEThanks all, see some of you tomorrow.
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18:04
Had to take a break to reset the grey cells, then the last few came until DIAL/LAID, which seemed to elude my alphabet trawls: tried gamely to make WARD/DRAW and YARD/DRAY work. They don’t.Is this the first sighting of COVID in a crossword. Too soon?
COD INQUIRE
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12 minutes. I didn’t find this easy and was generally slow without any one clue causing me undue trouble. GRUMBLED was my favourite today too along with the COLT double def.
Thanks to Teazel and John
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8.13
Not quite so gentle for me. COLT held me up at the end thinking it was something to do with injecting drugs. What am I on?!!
Liked the PRO PUP
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Ha ha – I went down the Trainspotting route for a bit too!
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Perhaps a large proportion of us have some misspent youth behind us!
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A green grid in 12:15, but had all but the final two (LAID and POUND) done and dusted in about half that time. Another frustrating finish where I was looking for a synonym for wrong sense of ‘face’, as in ‘confront’, and likewise the literary recall would not shut up about Proust and Poe, but failed to uncover Ezra in good time.
Never sussed out CASTLING and cheated for PURPLE, so no, not easy for me.
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I thought this was extremely tough today. 9/26.
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Dunno if Teazel has gone soft, but this was pretty straightforward for me. He used to regularly have me in double figures.
OVID LOI after the submit button told me I was only 98% complete. POUND was the one before that, after my COD PROP UP. BECOME was also very neat indeed.
4:52
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I can confirm that he has not gone soft 🙁
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15:30 held up by NE corner. NHO NOH. Laid dial couldn’t bring to mind despite looking for a word for face in reverse. Quire I remember as a stack of papers…but as the main part of the answer having a NHO definition (and a different one to Breadman at that) seemed a tad harsh for QC. Once I got the crosser U in pound I looked for the Q (someone has given that very good advice in this forum)
Well at least I avoided the often used Teazel Transport (SCC)
Thanks John and TeazelReply
No problems with this today finishing in a fairly speedy 7.15. I hesitated longest on my LOI which was CASTLING, it helped that I played a fair amount of chess in my younger days.
My total time for the week was 48.20, giving me a daily average of 9.40, a little under target.Reply
Neat, friendly, puzzle today. Finished in 11 minutes, all parsed, doing it on paper.
Thanks for the puzzle and blog. Happy weekend, one and all.Reply
23 mins…
This could be the first week in an age I haven’t had a Dnf – although I found this on the trickier side. For quite a while, I had “Enquires” for 5dn, but was nagged by a feeling it didn’t feel right. Thankfully, I found the light and realised it could be “Inquires” which made more sense. I had my fingers crossed for 24ac “Castling” though.
FOI – 11ac “Gnu”
LOI – 24ac “Castling”
COD – 14ac “Purple”Thanks as usual!
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Defeated by purple, convinced the answer had to be a shady place somewhere: silly me. 12 minutes to that point so thought I was heading for a good time: in favour of the pup at 4d and filled in gnu with relish (humming Swann as I did so). Castling required a minute or so, penultimate solve, and I think it’s fair to say initially defensive move because it’s all done behind the line (of pawns) as it were. Nearly wrote enquires for 5d, but how folded converted me to in quires – clever clue. Highly enjoyable and great blog: thanks to both and bon weekend!
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I was also defeated by PURPLE and also put enquires before realising it was INQUIRES.
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6:24
Pretty gentle though like Roundabout Here, I toyed with SUNVISOR initially before realising it had no E. Perhaps the thing that held me up the most was solving the puzzle on my ‘phone rather than on my laptop where Samson is warming his belly… 🐈⬛️
Thanks John and Teazel
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4.50 so in theory on the easier side, but as I did it I did not feel that way about it.
COD to BECOME for its brevity.Reply
Well I seem to be in a small minority that found this rather hard going. Lots of inexplicable PDMs including BROGUE, MERE and EMBOSS. Hesitated over LAID/NOAH and again over BECOME/COLT (another to try bolt). Overall very fast in some places and incredibly slow in others. Liked BROGUE when I’d figured it out. As usual for a Teazel, very enjoyable. Thanks John.
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Finished correctly in 55 minutes.
Did not find it as easy as some.Nonetheless, a “16 Across” is a “16 Across”.
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…and not a “23 Across” “16 Across”!
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Very Good.
Thanks.Reply
9.28 A steady solve held up a little at the end by FEEL and the chestnut MERE. LAID is the kind of answer I often get stuck on but we’ve had DIAL for face a few times now. Thanks John and Teazel.
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I tackled this much later than usual after a series of calls and just was not at the races. Much of it flew in but then I was stuck in the SE, with BECOME, COLT and CASTLING engaging me in hand to hand combat, and finally POUND and LOI LAID needing a bayonet charge. Phew.
Finally got there in 10:23 to finish outside the top 100 for the first time in a long time. A Day of Shame.
Many thanks Teazel and John.
Templar
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I’ve found that my leaderboard position very much depends on the time of day. Later on there is more competition.
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Not that easy in parts. LOsI CASTLING, BECOME, COLT, PURPLE.
Liked INQUIRES (old enough to remember Quire/Ream, and luckily didn’t think about the folding aspect), BROGUE, RAM, EMBOSS, ENSIGN, PRO PUP. Lots of DDs. FOI NOAH.
A witty puzzle, but sometimes the pennies dropped slowly. Glad to finish.
Thanks vm, John.Reply
7a didn’t materialise quickly so I started with the downs. ON EDGE was FOI. Eventually saw SOUVENIR after all the crossers were in place, then went back to the across list. Briefly considered whether 5d should be INQUIRES or ENQUIRES, but the wordplay definitely pointed to the former. CASTLING was LOI. 6:58. Thanks Teazel and John.
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Only COLT / BECOME EVADED me today, so no GRUMBLEs.
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13:32 so about par.
Liked ovid, inquiries, and prop up.Reply
Nowhere near it today. Way off the pace. Don’t think I would ever have got the ones I didn’t get. Still I enjoyed the ones Indid get.
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20:49 today, which is not too bad when I meet up with a Teazel. I get nervous as soon as I see the name, and it gave me quite a turn to encounter the word “nervous” twice in my first four clues. Worse, 7A comes along right when I discover the airline canceled my August flight to faraway parts. I felt, ah, he’s onto me!
So I was pleased when most of it went smoothly, until I got hung up on the idea of “hypo” as a solution to 22D 🙃. I didn’t stick with it but the idea hung around interfering with the whole southeast corner, which I finally talked myself through aloud at great length.
Thanks to Teazel for the very entertaining puzzle, and to John for the enlightening blog!
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Yes, a gentle Friday for once! From SOUVENIR to LAID and POUND in 6:34. CASTLING was an unknown but had to be.
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I had ten minutes to do this before lunch. I had three left after that time.
It took me quite a while to find LAID and LOI COLT.
A nice puzzle with some tricky bits.
COD to CASTLING.
DavidReply
Teazel must have gone soft-if anything this was a bit too straightforward. PURPLE was the only one caused a slight delay
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11:11. No real hold-ups today. COD to OVID, is the fact that this made me smile a sign of healing?
Have fun at the meet-up tomorrow, looking forward to the reports.
Thanks to Teazel & John.
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This is a real marmite one with most finding it very easy or very hard. We’re the latter with a DNF due to castling and brogue.
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20 mins but got Land for Laid, was looking forward to our blogger parsing it for me, only to be devastated by it being wrong! Thought Become was a clever DD. Thanks Jack and Teazel.
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Thought I would be on a sticky wicket when I saw it was Teazel but got all except PURPLE. I was also looking for a shady place. Thanks Jack and Teazel.
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I enjoyed this, enough thinking to entertain but nothing to stress me unduly. LAID took a while, as did POUND, kept nipping back to them until the PDM. About 22 mins of coffee and fun, thank you Teazel.
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I found that quite easy until suddenly I didn’t, grinding to a halt over BECOME, EMBOSS and COLT. Still happy to be outside the SCC with an eventual 16:09. It’s conceivable that I’m now outside more often than I’m inside, which would be nice, but perhaps we’re currently enjoying a gentle run after a few recent monsters.
Thank you to John for the blog!
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Why do I bother?
Finished in 11 minutes and thought I had finally achieved my target (5 finishes in under 2 hours).
Of course I hadn’t. A wretched DNF as I put CARD for 6dn.
A horrible end to the week. Please don’t tell me that I did well today. I didn’t. A DNF is a DNF, whatever the circ*mstances. There is no consolation to be had. At this precise moment I never want to see another QC, although that will no doubt change by Monday.
Thanks for the blog John. I hope you have an enjoyable day tomorrow.
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