QC 1835 by Joker

Author   astartedonPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

I think this is the third puzzle in a row that I have blogged that has had a very low anagram hit rate. I think I got as far as 5D before the first one appeared, and then there was only one other major anagram at 11D before 20D which was so straightforward that it almost came out of the pages of Winnie-the-Pooh. Still, that brought back happy memories and many thanks to Joker for a puzzle that relied mostly on other devices for its considerable level of wit and humour.

FOI was 1A and the LOI I think was 14D, because I didn’t quite see the ‘joke’ quick enough. COD was for me a toss-up between the smooth surfaces at 1A and 6A, with the latter, appropriately enough in the context, winning the toss and electing to bat.

Last time I was on duty I was a bit sloppy with parsing on a couple of clues and many thanks to those who put me right. I was in a bit of a rush that day so apologies. Actually I’m in a bit of a rush again today but I hope I’ve done better this time.

Definitions are underlined as usual and everything else is explained just as I see it as simply as I can.

Across
1 One in a well, keen to pull themselves up? (8)
ASPIRING -A SPRING (a well) with I (one) inside.
6 Cricketers take them out to lunch (4)
BATS – I guess this is really a double definition as I can’t work out which is the ‘lead’ definition. Cricketers obviously take BATS when they go in (or out) to bat, and BATS is a slang term for mad, as is OUT TO LUNCH.
8 Body of rook found in small wood (6)
CORPSE – COPSE (small wood) with R (abbreviation for the chess piece) inserted.
9 I’d reversed some magic said to make disappear (6)
DISPEL – DI (I’D ‘reversed’) + SPEL (some magic said). The last part could work two ways. You could have ‘some’ magic said, where a SPELL is spoken magic (so magic ‘said’) but we only have ‘some’ of it because the last letter is missing. Or you can have some magic ‘said’, because a SPELL is some magic but if SPEL is said then it sounds the same as SPELL.
10 City house is sound again (4)
ECHO – EC (City of London postcode) + HO (house).
11 Perfect female breaking all the rules (8)
FLAWLESS – F (female) + LAWLESS (breaking all the rules).
12 Waterbird heads for good river estuary to live (5)
GREBE – first letters (‘heads’) of Good River Esturary + BE (to live).
13 Smell article relating to a person (5)
HUMAN – HUM (smell) + AN (indefinite article).
15 Grass covered by mould? (8)
INFORMER – IN (covered by) + FORMER (cryptically ‘mould’, i.e. something that FORMS).
17 Moral project involving saint (4)
JUST – JUT (project) ‘involving’ S (saint).
19 State offering some Alaskans a subsidy (6)
KANSAS – hidden word: ‘some’ alasKANS A Subsidy.
20 Part of school programme’s more taken off? (6)
LESSON – LESS ON (more taken off).
21 Thaw encountered around heart of Himalayas (4)
MELT – MET (encountered) ‘around’ L (the middle letter, and therefore the ‘heart’ of himaLayas).
22 Modern left party’s ending — we had a new union member (5-3)
NEWLY-WED – NEW (modern) + L (left) + Y (partY’s ending) + WE’D (we had), and then the definition is slightly cryptic.
Down
2 Old beset by criticism, mostly long-suffering (5)
STOIC – O ‘old’ beset by STICk (criticism ‘mostly’).
3 Urgently request ancient stories of devils? (7)
IMPLORE – IMP LORE might cryptically be said to be ‘stories of devils’.
4 Freeze ingredient for milk pudding that’s not started (3)
ICE – rICE (an ingredient for milk pudding ‘not started’).
5 Good and moving death for mafia chief (9)
GODFATHER – G (good) + anagram (‘moving’) of DEATH FOR.
6 Herb, one about to be cut from church building (5)
BASIL – BASILica. A BASILICA is a church building (e.g St Peter’s in Rome) and then you ‘cut’ I (one) + CA (circa, about) from it.
7 One needs time and motivation for such a crime (7)
TREASON – T (time) + REASON (motivation).
11 Secret society member criminal men so fear (9)
FREEMASON – straight anagram (‘criminal’) of MEN SO FEAR.
12 English law set up after weapon used in part of boat (7)
GUNWALE – E LAW reversed (i.e. ‘set up’ in this down clue) ‘after’ GUN (weapon).
14 Joke grasped by May Queen? (7)
MAJESTY – JEST (joke) ‘grasped’ by MAY. The ? indicates that  Majesty could be either ‘His’ or ‘Her’.
16 Beginning working group (5)
ONSET – ON (working) + SET (group).
18 Small company about to be successful (5)
SCORE – S (small) + CO (company) + RE (about).
20 Owl flying close to the ground (3)
LOW – straight anagram (albeit a very short one) of OWL (‘flying’). (And one of the characters in Winnie-the-Pooh was WOL – see comment in preamble).

67 comments on “QC 1835 by Joker”

  1. An insane four minutes spent on CORPSE (and a little on INFORMER as well). I found this puzzle a bit chewy so was surprised to see that I was on pace to finish in 5 1/2 minutes, an unusually good time for me. Then the troubles began. I couldn’t get past the idea that “body of rook” meant OO. Oh well!

    Edited at 2021-03-22 12:42 am (UTC)

  2. Slowed down by INFORMER, which I just couldn’t parse. I was surprised to see ‘new’ both in the clue and in the solution. 7:20.
    1. Yes, the repetition of NEW did surprise me as well, but I felt it was more a matter of style than transgression of any actual convention. So I didn’t mention it and waited for someone like you to do so.
  3. Less easy than I was expecting before heading for bed, but no real problems apart from the parsing of INFORMER, which I think is more of a back page clue.
    ASPIRING was my favourite.
    ___

    Twmbarlwm

  4. 9 minutes. My solving times include parsing – as always unless otherwise stated which is a very rare occurrence – and if it were not for that I could have knocked off a minute to allow for 1ac where I saw the answer right away but took ages to spot the wordplay.

    I share our blogger’s dilemma over categorising 6ac because ‘out’ is really needed for both definitions yet double-usage is frowned upon. To avoid that it may need to be read all as one, but cryptic or &lit often places me in a dilemma. Sometimes it’s better just to bung in an obviously correct answer and move on. However categorised, it’s a rather fine clue given the fun there is to be had with the cricketing terms ‘in’ and ‘out’, and that cricketers also take their bats IN to lunch.

    Edited at 2021-03-22 06:26 am (UTC)

  5. I found this really hard but comments above and my position on the leaderboard suggest this is more my fault than Joker’s. Gaps at NW and SE added lots of time at the end particularly ASPIRIING, MAJESTY, HUMAN, STOIC and SCORE. All perfectly fine (especially SCORE where the definition threw me, I was looking for something like ‘thrive’ and just took too long to just assemble the parts). I needed the hints for INFORMER, I’ll try to remember former for mould but I fear it will go the way of hum for smell which was forgotten yet again today. All green in 21 for a tough start to my crosswording week.
    1. I also found this one tough; it took me 30 minutes to solve all but one clue (ECHO) which I just couldn’t see despite the crossers! I had it stuck in my head that I was looking for a city.

      Didn’t help that I’d NHO ‘EC’ for ‘London’ and NHO ‘HO’ for house! Out of curiosity, in what context would one see the latter (outside of crosswordland of course)?

      WB

      1. You’ll find Ho. = house on maps and in street directories etc.

        I doubt you will ever see EC for London or vice versa, but what’s commonplace is ‘city = EC’, so it’s best learnt and remembered.

      2. Ho is often found as an abbreviation for house on Ordnance Survey maps.

        Jim R

      3. The City of London — usually known as the City for short — is London’s historic financial centre. It encompass the four areas of the EC (east central) postcodes, so in crosswordland EC can lead you to city and vice versa. Hope that clarifies things a bit for you.
  6. 6A I had BATSMEN then take Them ie Men out to get BATS. But thoroughly cryptic even though the solution was obvious if OTL was known expression. With an almost empty grid I put in Aroma for 13A which I could parse to my satisfaction and only later had to correct it to HUMAN when it was obviously wrong and I had not thought of hum for smell.
    I found this difficult and many words biffed that I could not parse, so I did not enjoy it and jumped about all over the grid.
    Just about finished under an hour with a lot of gnashing and not much to smile about.
    Thanks Joker and Astartedon for making sense of what I couldn’t.

    Edited at 2021-03-22 07:36 am (UTC)

  7. A bit of a slow start but things sped up as the brain cell got tuned in. I then had a complete brainfreeze at the end trying to work out what the 2nd and 4th letters of LOI FLAWLESS might be and eventually resorted to an alphabet trawl.
    A very enjoyable start to the week with IMPLORE and MAJESTY (nice to see queen as the definition rather than the wordplay for once) being the standouts for me. Finished in 9.30 but with INFORMER unparsed.
    Thanks to astartedon
    1. Similarly for me, except that FEARLESS came to mind immediately, which was clearly wrong, but prevented me finding anything better
  8. Off the pace today with DNF after 25 mins: INFORMER, MAJESTY, JUTS. For informer I had the wrong type of mould, in American English they have different spellings, which seems a handy innovation, it would have helped me today. And for MAJESTY I had the clue backwards, looking for ‘joke’ as the definition.

    Single S for saint seems pretty infrequent compared to St. What examples come to mind?

    COD BATS

  9. … and all done in 11 minutes, though I biffed 15A Informer and could not see the parsing it until reading Don’s blog. I was stuck on mould = decay.

    17A Just also took time as I looked at J-S-, assumed the saint was ST at the end and then retrofitted the U for the solution (it couldn’t be Jest as that was in 14D). I reasoned that there are a couple of villages in Cornwall called St Just and so presumably a saint they are named after, and only saw the parsing JUT with S in it post-solve.

    Many thanks to Don for the blog and a nice puzzle to start the week.
    Cedric

  10. No problems here though started bottom up (as often) as couldnt immediately see the first ones in the NW.

    No standouts but a neat pleasant puzzle

    Thanks all

  11. FOI 12A: GREBE
    LOI 1A: ASPIRING

    This took me a little while to crack a clue, but with 14A I worked progressively anticlockwise with few difficulties.

  12. I share many of the reactions and comments from posters above. Slow to start and wrong-footed by many of the neat clues. I gradually circled the grid (as usual for me these days) and ended up back in the NW. I got STOIC and CORPSE early but mis-typed the latter which made IMPLORE impossible until I saw and corrected it. I was then able to see ASPIRING, IMPLORE, and my LOI ECHO. My error took me 3 mins over target. Good puzzle and blog; thanks to Joker and Don. John M.

    Edited at 2021-03-22 09:35 am (UTC)

  13. Got nothing on first pass until 19ac. Oh, well, the down clues would help – wouldn’t they? Only 4, 12 and 20 went in. Some inklings beginning in the mind, but couldn’t see why at first – grebe, lesson, something to do with a copse… Then dawn began to break. I do love it when this happens. A slow solve – twenty minutes – but all parsed therein. FOI Kansas. LOI newly wed, I found that clunky. COD – lots – aspiring, implore, etc, etc. Thanks, Don, for the blog, and Joker for the excellent entertainment today. GW.

  14. FOI: 8a CORPSE
    LOI: 17a JUST

    Time to Complete: DNF

    Clues Answered Correctly without aids: 20

    Clues Answered with Aids (3 lives): 1a, 2d

    Clues Unanswered: 10a, 3d, 18d

    Wrong Answers: 12a

    Total Correctly Answered (incl. aids): 22/26

    Aids Used: Chambers

    I like Joker as a setter because even though I do not always mange to complete a Joker crossword (only 2 out of 6), the clues are always fair and rarely obscure.

    12a GREBE – This was one of the last ones to go in and, unfortunately, a wrong answer. To be honest I was not convinced it was correct when I put it in, but I could see this was going to be a DNF, and so I just threw it in there. I answered with GOOSE. I initially took the first letters from Good, River, Estuary, To Live, giving me GRETL. That made no sense to me, and the only other waterbird I could think of was Goose. Sadly, I did at one time consider BE = To Live, but dismissed it, as I had never heard of GREBE. Oh well.

    10a ECHO – No idea on this one. I was looking for a four-letter city.

    18d. SCORE – Another unanswered clue. I was looking for a four-letter word for company which I intended to anagram (“about”).

    I liked many of the clues in this puzzle, such as 11a, 15a, 22a, 20a and 12d, with my favourite being 6a BATS, all of which I answered correctly.

    No candy for me today.

  15. Could not get ASPIRING until I scrolled down to the answer which then gave me STOIC but was trying to think of a city, too, rather than ECHO (clever clue).

    FOsI ICE, LOW, KANSAS. I had to hop around the grid for the rest. Liked HUMAN.

    Thanks, Don, as ever.

  16. I started with ICE, ECHO and STOIC and made steady progress, although ASPIRING and INFORMER gave me pause for thought. INFORMER was my LOI. 9:16. Thanks Joker and Don.
  17. 12 minutes this morning (rounded up), so satisfactory start to the week. FOsI STOIC, ICE followed by ASPIRING. I can’t see the states KANSAS or ARKANSAS without wondering about the difference in their pronunciation. One day I’ll get around to looking it up. Mind you, given the way we pronounce GUNWALE, who are we to question it. Last one in was JUST — I couldn’t see past ST being the abbreviation for saint for a while.

    Thanks Joker and Astartedon.

    Edited at 2021-03-22 10:35 am (UTC)

    1. ST *is* the abbreviation for Saint in 99.99% of usage. I mean who writes S. Pancras to save one letter?
      1. S is perhaps more common when doubled to indicate two saints, as in churches dedicated to SS Peter & Paul.
  18. As with ‘anonymous’, I had a DNF because of 2d and 10a: no idea of EC for City and the only 4 letter word ending in O for a city is OSLO, so that didn’t help! Nevertheless, an entertaining puzzle although with some hard to find answers.
  19. Could not get started this morning, not unusual with Joker. Never seem to be on his wavelength. Wandered all over the board with odd clues going in. FOI 11 down FREEMASON then slowly after that. 31 minutes after much guesswork. Very grateful for the explanations in the blog. Going to lie down now. Thanks Joker.
  20. A pleasing 16 mins for me — although I nearly put “Guncase” for 12dn until the something twigged in my memory and I changed it.

    Some lovely clues, including 1ac “Aspiring”, 11ac “Flawless” and 20ac “Lesson”. DNK the other definition of “out to lunch” but it couldn’t have been anything other than “Bats”. Parsing 5dn “Godfather” took far longer than it should have.

    I have to admit, I’m not a massive fan of really shortened abbreviations eg. “S” = saint, “HO” = house.

    FOI — 4dn “Ice”
    LOI — 15ac “Informer”
    COD — 15ac “Informer”

    Thanks as usual.

  21. Ding dong bell, pussy’s in the well … I was convinced that 1ac would have some feline connection and that slowed me up “something considerable”. Oh well.

    Usual smooth and witty puzzle from Joker.

    FOI STOIC, LOI BASIL, COD LESSON which made me smile, time 10:34 (so the hope of a full week of sub-10s evaporates on day 1) or 1.4K for a Decent Day.

    Many thanks Joker and Don.

    Templar

  22. I wasn’t in the right frame of mind today and not on the wavelength at all.

    Mind you had I seen the Nina earlier it may have helped me along the way.

    Some lovely clues and some chestnuts that I still miss — Treason! Doh! Flawless!
    Undone by 1a, and 6a — i had Bats but just didn’t see it — insane! Even had Echo in mind but stopped myself…
    DNF

    Thanks all

    John George

      1. The starting letters of the across clues- alphabetical sequence
      2. I see that Cedricstatherby explained it far more eloquently than I did! It wasn’t that exciting. Just pleasant.
        1. Thanks heathrow, Cedric hadn’t posted about the Nina when I queried it, and your explanation was fine.
  23. I found today’s puzzle a real slog for more-or-less all of the 69 minutes it took me. All but one of the clues seemed fair enough after the fact, but only once I’d got the solution. This is probably a sign of good setting and I should have enjoyed the process, but many of the clues seemed too abstruse for me, so I feel just happy enough to get it done and out of the way. Sorry, Joker!

    Best CoD: 22a (NEWLY-WED) Several elements, but all solvable
    Worst CoD: 6a (BATS) ‘Out to lunch’ is the definition and is OK, but ‘Cricketers take them’ is very weak IMHO and not a definition. Cricketers obviously ‘take’ their bats to where they’re playing in the same way that anglers ‘take’ their rods and painters ‘take’ their brushes to where they’re operating, but cricketers taking bats is not a phrase I’ve come across since I first played the game more than half a century ago.

    I found the NE corner the hardest area to crack but, in truth, I had gaps all over the grid for most of the time and I’m just thankful not to end up with a DNF.

    Mrs Random was surprised at my travails. She finished in 24 minutes, today – but she has never played cricket.

    Thanks to Joker and astartedon

    1. I guess the way I looked at it was that cricketers do indeed take their “bats” out with them onto the field when they are batting. Whilst it may not be a specific cricketing expression, you can’t deny it’s true.
  24. Some other (reasonably) well-known cities ending in ‘o’: Vigo, Waco, Brno
  25. and that’s even with all the biffs – INFORMER, BATS, INSPIRING.

    So, thanks for the elucidation astartedon!

    I suppose with all the biffs it doesn’t *really* count, but I finished in 7:35.

  26. 12 minutes, which is about as fast as it ever gets for me, so it felt straightforward.

    Edited at 2021-03-22 02:13 pm (UTC)

  27. Having just (only just) noticed that the 14 across clues start with the letters A to N, I’m wondering if this counts as a half-NINA. A full set of 26 clues, across and down, running from A to Z, would be remarkable indeed (and would need a very friendly grid}, but even a half-NINA is worth saluting.

    Cedric

  28. A bit late to this today as I was on a train for the first time for ages. I was not quick in solving this. INFORMER unparsed came very late. LOI ASPIRING needed all the checkers.
    FOI ECHO and possibly my favourite clue today. I thought this was very high quality and not at all easy. Perhaps COD to MAJESTY. No time recorded but easily over 15 minutes in fits and starts.
    David
  29. An excellent start to the week with a 8:19 solve and just less than a minute over Kevin’s time. Interestingly I also got stuck on INFORMER and submitted it unparsed. I’m still not convinced FORMER = mould. Oh well. Thank you astartedon for the explanation.

    Edited at 2021-03-22 02:46 pm (UTC)

    1. Formers are widely used in the construction of small and large items. Examples are in boat hull construction or formers for metal shapes like aircraft bodies, car body panels. It seems to have wrong-footed quite a few posters above, even Kevin. Hope this helps.

      Edited at 2021-03-22 03:24 pm (UTC)

  30. That was a very clever puzzle that really made us think. After a very slow start, took us a very enjoyable 15 minutes to solve.

    FOI: corpse
    LOI: bats
    COD: newlyweds

    Thanks to Joker and Astartedon.

  31. Well this one will certainly encourage new people to try the puzzles— not

    After last week you would have thought they might set an easier puzzle or two

  32. Oh this was a struggle for me, I nearly missed my namesake too! I found the cricket clue rather tricky, I don’t think I would have thought of “out to lunch” as meaning bats. And I’m not entirely sure I understand the clueing of 15 AC with mould=forms. Also I did get 3D but shouldn’t “stories of devilS” be impSlore.

  33. Didn’t get ASPIRING for a while, and NEWLY WED even with the crossers only came slowly, but enjoyed this generally. Trying to get the answer to 11A to fit the 11D space didn’t help either! Woke up eventually for a slow but fun start to the week.
  34. Rather slow today, worked from the bottom and came to a halt for a while with 1a, 2d. Also forgot th ec for city which did not help. Quite a tough start to the week.
  35. Joker’s puzzles are always a challenge for me and this one lived up to that expectation.

    15A I guessed the ‘grass’ was some sort of whistleblower but couldn’t see a way in with this clue. A mould forming something was beyond me today.
    Similarly with 3D IMPLORE I guessed the answer but imp lore didn’t come to mind.

    11A FLAWLESS got hung up assuming ‘breaking’ meant taking F for ‘female’ and putting it inside ‘rules’.

    Thank goodness for explanations, so, thank you Asartedon for that!

    Onwards to Tuesday…..

  36. ….these confounded NINA’s. They’re wasted on most of us anyway.

    FOI DISPEL
    LOI INFORMER
    COD FREEMASON
    TIME 5:08

  37. I found this quite hard to start, and after the first pass the ones I did get were not much help. I eventually came to a halt with just 1ac/2d extant, but couldn’t see how Stoic was long suffering — I’ve always thought of it as unemotional. Went away for a bit, and grudgingly entered Stoic on my return, but still took some time to see Aspiring. Gave up trying to parse Informer around the 30 min mark. CoD to 3d, Imp-lore. Invariant
  38. Found this one very chewy and ended up taking 51:32, but I guess it makes it all the more satisfying when that last one goes in. Didn’t manage to parse JUST, even though I had thought the saint might just represent “S”, and INFORMER also confused me, even after I had taken ages to come up with the alternative meanings of “grass” and “mould” and got the answer . SPRING, STOIC and LOI SCORE also took ages, so I obviously had some sort of aversion to S’s today. Never noticed the Nina, so thanks to Cedric for pointing that out. Perhaps it was Joker’s way of making a difficult puzzle a bit easier for the observant. Unlike some other Ninas, there weren’t any obscure words, so it didn’t make things more difficult. Anyway, FOI CORPSE, LOI SCORE, CsOD to 11a, 6d and 7d. Thanks Joker and Astartedon.
  39. A tough puzzle with lots of pencil that turned out to be ok when I went to the website and checked later. I don’t equate well = spring. Knew it would be tricky when I had my FOI at 12 Grebe and saw how it was clued. Also 13a Aroma had to be changed and I remembered Hum. Liked 15a Informer – a lot of building eg The South Bank – was built using timber moulds into which was poured concrete – hence ‘formers’ = shaping and containing, also in casting metal in a foundry. Confused by 17a Just as I had the ST and couldn’t parse the JU but it was the only word that fitted that sort-of made any sense. Lots of other nice solutions eg 2d Stoic, 3d Imp-lore, 7d T-reason, 14d Majesty. So, FOI 12a Grebe; LOI 14d majesty – I had everything but just failed to see the whole answer (me being daft really); COD 10a Echo – simple and succinct. Good workout that nearly defeated me form Joker, and thanks to Astartedon for a very useful blog.
  40. Did this while eating lunch in about 10 minutes and before going out for a walk . Lots of birds inc teal, a goosander and two mergansers — I’m sure Sawbill would have liked them 😊 But no grebes today at the nature reserve, only here! Of course I never noticed the nina, so thanks to HeathrowExpress and Cedric for pointing it out. I wonder how frustrating it must be for the setters when their clever tricks are completely missed?
    Like Templar, I was sure 1a was pussycat but it wouldn’t parse, so I moved swiftly on! Have just realised that I got 11a wrong — biffed fearless and forgot to go back and double check. I was in a hurry …

    FOI Ice
    LOI Corpse
    COD Human, closely followed by Freemason — great surfaces
    DNF — more haste, less speed!

    Thanks to Joker and Don

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