Times Quick Cryptic 1490 by Orpheus

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

At 6 minutes this was equal to my fastest regular solving time as achieved on 30 previous occasions. I’ve beaten it only twice over the years, coming in at 5 minutes. For the record, I don’t make a note of seconds but I round them up to the nearest minute. Only two anagrams today!

As usual definitions are underlined in bold italics, {deletions and substitutions are in curly brackets} and [anagrinds, containment, reversal and other indicators in square ones]. I usually omit all reference to positional indicators unless there is a specific point that requires clarification.

Across
1 Lectures on ethnicity in Aintree, for example? (10)
RACECOURSE : RACE (ethnicity), COURSE (lectures). Home of the Grand National.
8 Spot a woman’s plucked instrument (6)
ZITHER : ZIT (spot), HER (woman’s). Here’s some delightful zither music. Shirley Abicair is a name from the 1950’s I associate with zither-playing, and then there’s the theme from The Third Man…
9 Parisian who introduces revolutionary savoury tart (6)
QUICHE : QUI (Parisian ‘who’), CHE (revolutionary). CHE as in CHEstnut?
10 Fashionable greeting in Conservative circles primarily (4)
CHIC : HI (greeting) contained by [in]  C (conservative) + C{ircles} [primarily]. You can apply ‘primarily’ to both ‘Conservative’ and ‘circles’ if you wish but C = Conservative can stand alone as I have indicated in my parsing.
11 Observe article, displaying extreme anger (8)
SEETHING : SEE (observe), THING (article)
12 Sanctuary unknown in a squalid area (6)
ASYLUM : Y (unknown) contained by [in] A + SLUM (squalid area)
14 Extremely tricky scam involving old business magnate (6)
TYCOON : T{rick}Y [extremely] + CON (scam), containing [involving] O (old)
16 Shut away nearby with 1950s youth (8)
CLOSETED : CLOSE (nearby), TED (1950s youth – Teddy boy)
18 Work in outskirts of Rochdale making stout cord (4)
ROPE : OP (work) contained by [in] R{ochdal}E [outskirts]
20 Grass in which a couple of sheep are head to head (6)
MARRAM : RAM (sheep #1) + RAM (sheep #2] [couple]. #1 is reversed to meet #2 [head to head]. Today’s first tricky word, but fortunately I knew it from previous puzzles.
21 Prison is more funky! (6)
COOLER : Two meanings
22 Musician‘s son’s boast I misconstrued (10)
BASSOONIST : Anagram [misconstrued] of SON’S BOAST I
Down
2 Stupid Greek character hiding in tree (5)
APISH : PI (Greek character) contained by [hiding in] ASH (tree)
3 Morally correct, as the laic could become (7)
ETHICAL : Anagram of [as…could become] THE LAIC
4 Other ranks carrying a blade for use in a row? (3)
OAR : OR (other ranks) containing [carrying] A. The Eton Boating Song contains the line ‘Blade on the feather’.
5 Search in grass as asked (9)
REQUESTED : QUEST (search) contained by [in] REED (grass)
6 One of the Sitwells noted it here in the centre (5)
EDITH : Hidden [in the centre] in {not}ED IT H{ere}
7 Second husband knowledgeable about Japanese religion (6)
SHINTO : S (second), H (husband), INTO (knowledgeable about)
11 Quite a paper – now and then! (9)
SOMETIMES : SOME (quite), TIMES (a paper – the paper, surely?)
13 Salutation upset mother, sad to say (6)
SALAAM : MA (mother), ALAS (sad to say) reversed [upset]
15 Box containing Low’s second satirical drawing (7)
CARTOON : CARTON (box) containing {l}O{w} [‘s second]. A reference in the surface here to David Low (1891-1963) the famous political cartoonist.
17 Do away with rough vegetation (5)
SCRUB : Two meanings
19 Urge to identify a section of the media (5)
PRESS : Two meanings
21 Aquatic bird has tail bitten off? Goodness me (3)
COO : COO{t} (aquatic bird) [tail bitten off]

40 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 1490 by Orpheus”

  1. Many thanks jackkt for the blog and Orpheus for an enjoyable puzzle with some clever surfaces.

    A glacially slow 26:31. COOLER for a prison cell was new for me.

    1. Wot, never seen The Great Escape? The enigmatic character played by Steve McQueen was nicknamed ‘The Cooler King’ spending much of the film in solitary confinement tossing a baseball against the wall of his tiny cell before failing to escape the Nazis on a motorbike.

      Edited at 2019-11-25 05:59 am (UTC)

  2. I’m glad I learned Aintree a while back (from a 15×15), or 1ac would have taken quite a while. Not that it mattered, as it turned out, as I didn’t think of the right meaning of ‘funky’, flung in CLOSER, and, typically, failed to go back to consider it. 3:15, a blemished pb.
  3. First time I recall getting every across answer at a first glance led to my personal best time of 2:18
    1. Fabulous time George ! Better than my own PB, and half a minute quicker than me today.
  4. I scrambled through this in 4.45 – which was fast enough.
    George 2.18 is disgraceful! Speed cameras flashing, sirens wailing!

    I was held up by my LOI COOLER which I had decided earlier was CHOKEY but was NQR.

    FOI 1ac RACECOURSE

    COD 15dn CARTOON (I am very fond of Sir David Low’s work, glad he’s still remembered)

    WOD 21dn COO!

  5. I too was pretty quick today finishing in 08:24. The incredible times already posted show this was easy for very experienced solvers but I think there was enough here to present a challenge.
    My FOI was OAR. Others followed quickly; no dither over ZITHER, but I was not at all sure about APISH (although parsing was clear). I have spent too much time hacking out of Marram grass on golf courses but not everyone will be so familiar with it. LOI was SALAAM, half parsed, and I was not certain about it.
    David
  8. Thank heavens for CLOSER, or my rare sub-seven would still have been over 2K! As the times are suggesting this is a relatively straightforward puzzle but nevertheless I thought it was full of wit and sparkle and I enjoyed it very much. Hon mentions to OAR and SOMETIMES but COD in the end to MARRAM, my LOI and very neat indeed.

    Thanks for the blog, Jack. You’ve got a minor error at 3dn, where you’ve included AS as part of the anagrist. (Do you only ever round up? So does 5 mins 1 second get logged as 6 mins? Very high minded if so!)

    Thanks for a fun puzzle, Orpheus.

    Templar

    1. Thanks, T. Typo now corrected.

      I don’t actually use a stopwatch, only noting my start and finish times but always starting on the whole minute. I dare say the odd second or two might go astray occasionally but generally speaking I think in terms of rounding up.

      I might have added in my intro (although I have said it a number of times before) that my solving times always include parsing unless otherwise stated (which happens very rarely) so they don’t necessarily equate to those of fast solvers who complete the puzzle online where understanding of the parsing is not being measured.

  9. I don’t think I’ve ever come under 5 minutes, but today I did the puzzle in 5:10, so I’ll consider that a PB. Not a difficult challenge, but a couple of words it helped to have seen before. Scorching time George! Thanks Orpheus and Jack.
  10. Thanks to Orpheus for a gentle but enjoyable start to the week. Under 8 mins for me for a change (all parsed) with a smooth journey from top to bottom. It would have been quicker but my time didn’t come up on the iPad screen. I was so pleased to ‘finish’ on SALAAM that I hadn’t appreciated that I had missed out the middle O of COO. An easy one for jack to blog, too; thanks. John M.

    Edited at 2019-11-25 09:42 am (UTC)

  11. Inside 8m by a few seconds, so a lovely start to the week. When I saw ZITHER and QUICHE on the same row I was on the alert for a pangram, but that may have actually slowed me down a touch. Very satisfying, nonetheless.

    Edited at 2019-11-25 10:20 am (UTC)

    1. I’d also looked for a pangram but would you believe there are 6 letters missing? F K J V W X, which I suspect is something of a record of itself! Almost certainly in a puzzle where Q and Z have been accounted for.
      1. I considered a pangram early on as well. It’s obviously a bigger challenge to a setter to fit one into a 13×13.
        1. True, but from memory we’ve had quite a few. I make a note of Ninas but not pangrams so unless someone else is keeping count we shall never know.
  12. Another who found this straightforward but fun. LOI COOLER was the only one to hold me up. Some lovely surfaces. I liked ZITHER but COD to TYCOON. 3:57.
  13. Thought I might be in for a long one when I saw Orpheus’s name, but like others have said it was mostly straightforward. I stopped my watch at 24:18, but it would have been at least a minute or two faster had I not checked to see if I could think of any other word for the unknown ‘salaam’. I assume that’s a Jewish greeting like Shalom? Hats off to the super solvers who managed it in under 4 or even 3 minutes. It took me 14 to go through all the clues, writing in those I could see more or less straight away, so as usual, I am in awe.
    1. SALAAM is an Arabic/Muslim form of greeting, and involves bowing. I remember Popeye doing one in old cartoon, and saying “Salami, salami, boloney”. Obviously not very PC these days !
    2. One of the rare occasions I can add anything; Salaam is an Arabic word meaning peace. Worked in Iraq for the past five + years and have learned embarrassing little Arabic beyond the standard greeting as-salaam alaikum (peace be upon you) and response wa-alaikum salaam (and unto you peace).

      Enjoyable puzzle today, finished without aids. Thanks to setter and blogger.

      Sam

  14. Unlike George (respect !) I don’t do my sweep by reading every clue sequentially. Once I’ve cracked 1A, I go for the down clues through it in order, then those acrosses that are now partly filled, and so on. For good measure, I ducked inside 3 minutes for the first time this month.

    This crossword proves that it needn’t be particularly challenging to be enjoyable. Lovely clueing – thanks Orpheus.

    FOI RACECOURSE
    LOI SALAAM
    COD TYCOON
    TIME 2:47

  15. Just over 7 minutes, no significant holdups, except possibility of pangram got me looking for an X as the unknown in 12ac.
    Having in the past submitted with typos, even after a quick pre-submit readthrough, I now look to verify each keypress, so there’s no way I can do much better than 5 minutes, even when I solve the clues instantly.
  16. Nice and gentle and I would have been close to a PB but for the unknown ZITHER, where I eventually required an alphabet trawl, which in future I might try starting at the end!!
    It was still a quick solve for me, coming in at 7.28. COD SHINTO.
    Thanks for the blog
    1. Well done! Have a lie down! Do not try the 15×15 just yet!

      Edited at 2019-11-25 12:31 pm (UTC)

  18. Mostly super fast but for MARRAM, SALAAM and EDITH. 20a seemed very likely to finish RAM but it took an age to try to same again but backwards. Never heard of the Sitwells and misdirected enough to miss the hidden – only parsed here (ignored / failed to recall “when in doubt look for hidden”. SALAAM fell with MARRAM. Good start to the week.
    Mendesest
    1. There are three famous Sitwells but I doubt we shall be seeing Osbert anytime soon nor Sacheverell ever in a QC.
    2. Dame Edith Louisa, Osbert Sacheverell and Sacheverell Reresby (the latter was The Sunday Times Columnist ‘Atticus’ before Ian Fleming’). They hailed from Scarborough – professional attention seekers – obviously they missed yours!

      Edited at 2019-11-25 12:41 pm (UTC)

  19. Definitely a good way to start the week – very quick but still entertaining 😊
    So A Very Good Day with another PB here.

    I tackle the grid in exactly the same way as Phil, so no chance of a clean sweep, and I time myself a la Jack! Learn from the masters 😉

    FOI Racecourse
    LOI Salaam
    COD Zither – it raised the obligatory smile
    Time 5m, give or take a second

  20. Congratulations to all those who achieved PBs today. I gleaned from the Times leaderboard that my solving time today was way off the pace. I blame it on the thick fug of doubt induced by the medication I’ve been taking following a fall from my bicycle at speed. DNK SHINTO so that was a guess. I enjoyed the wordplay for ASYLUM and TYCOON. My real struggles were with 21a and 21d. I thought of Coot for a bird but wasn’t sure it was an aquatic bird and the C still didn’t help me with my LOI COOLER which I stared at vacantly for some minutes. Crossed the line in 12:40.
  21. Nowhere near as fast as others, but I was heading for a respectable (for me) 20min finish when I came up against my last pair – 21ac/d. I promptly became obsessed with the idea that 21ac was an anagram of ‘is more’ and spent the next few minutes trying to Google a very unscientific prison connection for Isomer. Those whom the Gods wish to destroy… In the end, I switched to solving 21d first, and even then I didn’t really like Coo for goodness me, but at least it prompted Cooler. Not a good start. Invariant
  22. Many thanks for the enjoyable comments above, very amusing. Quick solve, for us, at 18m, just short of a pb.
  23. Frustratingly I DNF as I couldn’t get 13dn “Salaam” nor 20ac “Marram”, although I was close with variations on both.

    For everything before this, it took around 35 mins. I found it slightly more challenging than has been suggested, but I guess that’s just me. Like a few above, I was trying to find an anagram in 21ac until the Great Escape reference popped into my head.

    FOI = 10ac “Chic”
    COD = 16ac “Closeted”

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