Times Quick Cryptic 1500 by Juno

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

My solving time was 10 minutes. A rare appearance by Juno marks Quick Cryptic 1500 and is only her (?) 9th puzzle to date*.

There is a number-related Nina which I shan’t reveal until the very end of the blog to give all of you a chance to find it for yourselves

Following a recent discussion about the number of anagrams we might expect per puzzle I have been monitoring QCs for four weeks and here are my findings.

Highest number in a day: 7
Lowest: 2
Average per day: 4  (3 ‘pure’ / 1 ‘mixed’)

*Juno set 2 puzzles in 2014, 1 in 2015, 0 in 2016, 2 in 2017,  2 in 2018 and 2 to date 2019.

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
6 Harm caused by eg a crazy reversal (6)
DAMAGE : EG + A + MAD (crazy) [reversal]
7 Poor journalist, meeting editor, coughed uncomfortably? (6)
HACKED : HACK (poor journalist), ED (editor)
9 Size and state of Boston (4)
MASS : Double definition, the second with reference to Massachusetts, the title of a song by The Bee Gees which I mention only as an excuse to post this amusing link
10 Muralist’s unusual concern for others (8)
ALTRUISM : Anagram [unusual] of MURALIST
11 One entering party with New York’s American wine god! (8)
DIONYSUS : I (one) contained by [entering] DO (party), NY’S (New York’s), US (American). This is the Greek one; the Romans tended to use his other name, Bacchus.
13 Even ebb and flow in sound (4)
TIED : Sounds like [in sound] “tide” (ebb and flow)
15 Some game show network (4)
MESH : Hidden in [some] {ga}ME SH{ow}
16 Our mail’s redirected to a place in the sun (8)
SOLARIUM : Anagram [redirected] of OUR MAILS
18 Attorney with information to act badly somewhere in Greater London (8)
DAGENHAM : DA (attorney), GEN (information), HAM (act badly). Sometime home of Ford Motors (UK), the Dagenham Girl Pipers and home-town of Dudley Moore – hence the famous Dagenham Dialogues.
20 Burden is nothing when carried by boy (4)
LOAD : 0 (nothing) contained [carried] by LAD (boy)
21 Riotous scenes appear to revolve around the Spanish (6)
MELEES : SEEM (appear) reversed [to revolve] and containing [around] EL (the Spanish – not reversed)
22 I remain with Mike in the same place (6)
IBIDEM : I,  BIDE (remain), M (mike – NATO alphabet). A cross-reference within text meaning ‘in the same book, chapter, passage, etc’, most usually abbreviated to ‘ibid’.
Down
1 Supply of ammo that could be monthly (8)
MAGAZINE : Two meanings, the second as in a periodical.
2 Jam from mother and boy: something said to make you smile (6,6)
DAMSON CHEESE : DAM (mother), SON (boy), CHEESE (something said to make you smile). NHO this. I know of damson jam but not damson cheese which is apparently just a very thick version.
3 Daughter involved in Me Too briefly getting awards (6)
MEDALS : D (daughter) contained by [involved in] ME + ALS{o} (too) [briefly]
4 Loincloths do this after being adjusted (6)
DHOTIS : Anagram [adjusted] of DO THIS
5 Yours truly on steamship causing chaos (4)
MESS : ME (yours truly), SS (steamship)
8 Opposing allegation in a court Clem rubbished (12)
COUNTERCLAIM : Anagram [rubbished] of IN A COURT CLEM
12 Mysterious thing appearing regularly in outflow (3)
UFO : Hidden [appearing] in {o}U{t}F{l}O{w} [regularly]
14 Learned European eccentric cut dead (8)
EDUCATED : E (European), anagram [eccentric] of CUT DEAD
16 Division in mollusc: his membrane (6)
SCHISM : Hidden [in] {mollu}SC HIS M{embrane}
17 Problem walking I had, that’s clear (6)
LIMPID : LIMP (problem walking), I’D (I had)
19 Be featured in short commercial lying down? (4)
ABED : BE contained by [featured in] AD (short commercial)

NINA: Starting in the top row and moving clockwise, the unchecked letters at the edge of the grid read MD (1500), MD, MD etc all the way round.

40 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 1500 by Juno”

  1. I did this in 6 minutes. But DNF since I put REVELS (REVS around EL) for MELEES. It fits all the checkers and the clue, although not as well as the correct answer. I was really surprised when I got pink squared since I’d never considered any of the answers wrong.
    2. I put REVELS as well. If only we’d spotted the nina we’d have known it couldn’t start with R!
  2. Just a bit over my goal of 6′, slowed down a bit by DAGENHAM (DNK, I believe), MELEES, and SOLARIUM, where I needed a couple of checkers before I could sort out the anagrist. I never look for ninas in cryptics, and if I did I probably wouldn’t have noticed; but someone pointed it out on the club forum. 6:11.
  3. Found this hard: melees, altruism, dhotis(dnk), and LOI isidem, so dnf.

    Cod Dionysus.

  4. I wondered if there would be a nina to mark QC 1500 but forgot to look whilst solving (and probably wouldn’t have spotted it anyway) so thanks for pointing it out jacckt.
    The puzzle was mostly straightforward, although the unknown IBIDEM went in (last) with fingers crossed. The rather unpleasant sounding ‘cheese’ was also unknown but couldn’t really be anything else. Finished in 11.35.
    Thanks for the blog
  5. I did look for a Nina and still didn’t find it! Well spotted and thanks, Jack. I was hunting for something relating to the Apocalypse, since the only thing I remember about 1500 from prep school history was that in Western Europe there was widespread fear of the end of the world (because of the phrase “a time, times and half a time” in Revelation).

    Fun puzzle done in 1.6K for a Good Day. No real hold ups, though CHEESE took a lot longer than DAMSON and I took a long time to do the anagram of SOLARIUM – I wasn’t sure whether I should be trying to make the name of a hot country.

    FOI MASS, LOI DAGENHAM, COD DHOTIS.

    Thanks Juno and Jack.

    Templar

    Edited at 2019-12-09 08:45 am (UTC)

    1. An irrational fear of course because 1500 is just a number, man-made so to speak, and therefore of no possible significance. And even our puzzle number is false because this is actually the 1501st QC puzzle. The 209th puzzle from Christmas Day 2014 was only published on-line and was omitted from the numerical sequence.
  7. I also had REVELS for 21a, which on a very close inspection doesn’t quite fit the clue, but was close enough for me to chuck in at the end with my fingers crossed!

    Could someone please explain how DAM = mother in 2d, i’ve never heard of that and I can’t seem to come up with an educated guess at this time on a Monday morning… thanks in advance 🙂

    Edited at 2019-12-09 09:29 am (UTC)

    1. SOED has
      2) A (human) mother. Now derogatory. ME.
      and
      3) A female parent (of animals, now usually quadrupeds). Correl. to sire. LME.

      I think we can take it that the setter meant it in the animal sense.

  8. A very nice puzzle with some first class clues. However, my ipad version shows Rongo as the setter. I worked smoothly through it apart from CHEESE (it didn’t click at first although I know lemon cheese – lemon curd – from childhood) and taking time to remember that ibid is short for IBIDEM. Another milestone – I can’t help feeling I should be speeding up after doing all 1500 QCs but I seem to be going the other way. Still, under 3K today so par for the course. Many thanks to Rongo or Juno and to jack. John M.

    Edited at 2019-12-09 09:44 am (UTC)

    1. Interesting. I checked it’s credited to Juno in the printed paper which is usually reliable when there are discrepancies.
    2. Maybe it’s a residual error in the system because Rongo set the previous QC last Friday.
      1. Thanks for your reply – it could be as you suggest but it is a new one on me. No-one else seems to have seen this so I took a screenshot. I have deleted and re-loaded the main section and the page still shows Rongo in the Contents and on the QC page itself. It doesn’t matter, of course, but it seems very odd. John
  9. 8:11 but with a really careless ALTRUIST. Note to self: Check the anagrist! Thanks Juno and Jack.
  10. Like OldBlighter, I have now attempted all 1500 quickies (having revisited the first ones online as I didn’t try any for the first few weeks) and I too feel that I’ve reached my optimum time! How Magoo solves the grand final puzzle in half the time it takes me to get one like this wrong is mind-blowing!

    Congratulations to all who took part on Saturday. I’ll never be in the Champs, but perhaps one day will reach the George 😊

    This is a good opportunity to say how glad I am that I found TftT – everyone’s contributions have definitely been a big help! As has the encouragement and (mostly) good humour – ignore the anons 😉 Not forgetting the setters, of course – such clever people.

    Anyway, back to today: it took me about 9 minutes to complete the grid bar one – I got fixated on carabine and couldn’t see magazine, so that was that.

    FOI Hacked (yes, I’m hacked off with myself)
    COD Dionysus – I could have biffed it but enjoyed the wordplay
    DNF

    ps Dagenham has been Ford’s UK home since the early 30s and produced nearly 11,000,000 cars over 70 years. It still produces engines. So an important part of American industrial history! I remember going there on a school trip in the early 70s – the size of the place also blew my little mind!

    1. Many years ago I was doing some work for Ford in Dagenham. Our office was in Weybridge, Surrey – almost diagonally across London. My colleague and I who were going to a meeting there did a little experiment. He went anti-clockwise around the M25 and I went clockwise… and we arrived within a minute of each other!
      P.S. I was a little embarrassed to park my Rover car in among all those Fords!
  11. A DNF thanks to Damson CHEESE (never heard of it and didn’t get the clue) and MELEES – I put REVELS like a few others, it seems.
  12. ….was referred to by the owner as a “DAGENHAM Dustbin”. It was certainly very unreliable.

    I was glad that DIONYSUS was easy to parse, since I can never remember which way round the I and Y fit in.

    NHO DAMSON CHEESE, though I’m partial to the lemon variety – must try to find some !

    Missed the NINA (always do), but enjoyed this one, and was well within target.

    FOI HACKED
    LOI EDUCATED
    COD MELEES

  13. I saw the Nina very early on and, with more than a shade hubris, used the Ms and Ds as additional checkers. Still took me nearly 7 minutes though. A very fine puzzle to my mind, with IBIDEM and DIONYSUS towards the outer edges of my GK.

    My thanks to Jack and Juno.
    6’50”

  14. I thought this was a high quality puzzle with a bear trap that I nearly fell into.
    I was done in 9 minutes on paper but felt uneasy about REVELS; I couldn’t get it to parse so I spent a couple of minutes on alternatives and found MELEES which clearly works.
    So I now have a warm feeling in contrast to that when I left The George on Saturday having stood outside for over three hours. The craic was good though, as were the environmentally unsound outdoor heaters.
    David
  15. The 15×15 is very approachable today. Even some of the more unusual / obscure vocab is gettable from wordplay. I’m sure lots of you will enjoy it – I hope so anyway 😊
    1. Thanks for the suggestion but it didn’t work for me – I managed about 5 and for some of them, I had to pretty much biff and then put them in on my phone and use the check button to be sure I was right.
      I have tried before and found the 15×15 to be a massive step up from the QC.
      I must go and look at the blog and see where I’m not seeing the wood for the trees….
      1. I’m so sorry about that. I certainly wouldn’t want to have misled anyone.

        I’m not particularly adept at the biggie, although I having been plugging away at it for a couple of years now, and get closer to completing more often than I used to. It still takes me about an hour to nearly finish, always with a few gaps! So perhaps yesterday was just one of those days when everything fell into place for me.

        It just goes to show – yet again – that a lot of it is about wavelength. Well, that and practice! In the meantime, good luck – I hope to see you on the other side from time to time 😊

        1. No – it’s just me! I did struggle on and managed to finish it in the end, with copious use of aids. Had to resort to the blog for a few parsings. I think I have a pretty good vocabulary but there were a couple of strange terms in there, plus a definition (inept) that I didn’t know about.

          I feel a better person for it!

          Mind you, Wed QC was just as hard… HoHum

          1. Yes, there was quite a discussion about inept v inapt, wasn’t there! And I think quite a lot of people struggled with today’s quickie – I know Muggins here did 😊
  16. For a good day, though I used up most of the “3 under” minute, coming in at 5:52.

    LOI was magazine, and I don’t recall any real headscratchers. I only really know ibid from my terrible undergrad dissertation, where I relied a lot on one source, so my footnotes were littered with “p.127 ibid” and similar…

  17. I had a chat in The George with Richard Rogan, the crossword editor, after The Championship on Saturday, and he mentioned there would be a Nina today, so I was looking for it. Very neat. As for the crossword itself, I seem to have managed to avoid all the bear traps here and somehow finished in one of my fastest times. 3:28.
  18. Quick solve until..22a. I just could not get it so DNF.

    Surprisingly I got the Nina and Juno has still set my favourite quick cryptic on D-Day 2014

  19. A disappointing DNF for me.

    It didn’t start well, biffing “Bulletin” for 1dn which held me up for quite a while. I then got bogged down in the SW corner, putting “Lewisham” in for 18ac. As a result, I just couldn’t get anything else. Didn’t know 4dn nor 22ac and although I’d heard of Damson Chilli, Damson Cheese was a new one on me.

    Apart from the Lewisham mistake I wasn’t too disheartened as I don’t mind not completing the grid if I literally don’t know the answer.

    Thanks to the setter and the blog.

    1. A hidden theme or motif – for a fuller explanation, have a look in the glossary, which may be at the top or bottom of the site’s opening page, depending on what sort of device you’re using! Today’s Nina links into the fact that this is Quickie No 1500, so if you look around the edge of the grid, you will see the pattern MD MD MD etc. Hope that helps 😊
  21. Quick enough, at just over 20mins, but I’m surprised no one has had at lest a Mer, if not a full blown GR, at 4d, Dhotis. I know it’s an anagram, but if you don’t know the word and hadn’t spotted the Nina, *h*t*s was not a great help towards where the d, o and i had to go. I’ll grant you the D was favourite to start what was clearly a foreign word, but the O and I seemed equally interchangeable to me. 22ac, Ibidem, is hardly an everyday word either. Definitely mixed feelings about this as a QC. Invariant
    1. I had a “Mer” on both Dhotis and Ibidem. The problem with the former was that even though it was obviously an anagram if you didn’t know the word then it was pure guess work.

      That’s fine for the odd clue, but there were at least 3 or 4 today that were beyond normal knowledge range (IMHO) for the QC.

      1. Exactly – and I’m sorry I didn’t acknowledge your view in my earlier comment.
        1. No need to be sorry (I don’t expect everyone reads every comment!) – just thought I’d mentioned you weren’t alone on this one.
  22. Thanks Jack. I suspected there might be a Nina but I didn’t spot it during the solve. Not a quick solve today with tentative entries for DIONYSUS (fine wordplay)and Bacchus did not fit, DHOTIS (guessed which way the vowels went) and IBIDEM (toss up between that and isidem). 2K plus 2 minutes.

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