Times Quick Cryptic 1690 by Orpheus

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

Solving time: 10 minutes. I completed all but two intersecting answers in 6 minutes, but needed another 4 to crack them.  I was pleased to get back to achieving my target after missing it for the last three puzzles.

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
8 Argument some used to get fine gauzy fabric (7)
TIFFANY : TIFF (argument), ANY (some). I was on the brink of biffing TAFFETA here but corrected myself after checking for wordplay.
9 Traveller rejected cold and hot fish (5)
PERCH : REP (traveller – sales rep) reversed [rejected], C (cold), H (hot)
10 Continental river horse, perhaps? Sounds like it (5)
RHONE : Sounds like “roan” (horse, perhaps). Only ‘perhaps’ because other animals can have roan markings. This was one of the two that held me up and very nearly cost me my target.
11 A reason for being beached? (7)
AGROUND : A, GROUND (reason)
12 Intrepid hound Aunt Edwina shows (9)
UNDAUNTED : Hidden [shows] in {ho}UND AUNT ED{wina}
14 Dine in hot weather in Albert Square? (3)
EAT : {h}EAT (hot weather) [in Albert Square]. ‘Albert Square’ is the fictional location of the TV soap EastEnders where being Cockerneys they drop their haitches. Tiffany, played by Martine McCutcheon,  was one of its leading characters  for a period so when her name appeared at 1ac I was on the lookout for an EastEnders theme elsewhere in the puzzle but was unable to find one.
16 Gratuity   possibly given on racecourse (3)
TIP : Two meanings
18 Sluggish type‘s second dejected trainer (9)
SLOWCOACH : S (second), LOW (dejected), COACH (trainer)
21 One who no longer works on Scottish island (7)
RETIREE : RE (on), TIREE (Scottish island)
22 Limited extract from religious cantata (5)
SCANT : Hidden in [extract from] {religiou}S CANT{ata}
23 Final letter from girl in borders of Oklahoma (5)
OMEGA : MEG (girl) contained by [in] O{klahom}A [borders]
24 In old vehicle at first, a ceramic wind instrument (7)
OCARINA : O (old), CAR (vehicle), IN, A. Traditionally made from clay or ceramic, but other materials are available including bone, wood, and of course plastic.
Down
1 Brush with celebrity over astral phenomenon (8)
STARDUST : STAR (celebrity), DUST (brush)
2 Have sufficient funds for a fine crossing (6)
AFFORD : A, F (fine), FORD (crossing)
3 Peace of mind provided by letters read aloud (4)
EASE : Sounds like [read aloud] “E’s” (letters). My other troublesome clue. I wasted time looking for two different letters.
4 Oppressor‘s extremely touchy diatribe (6)
TYRANT : T{ouch}Y [extremely], RANT (diatribe)
5 Unexpected cops’ raid occurring irregularly (8)
SPORADIC : Anagram [unexpected] of COPS RAID
6 Game bird King George observed on river (6)
GROUSE : GR (King George – Georgius Rex), OUSE (river)
7 Get rid of   garden facility (4)
SHED : Two meanings
13 In the saddle, master travels against the current (8)
UPSTREAM : UP (in the saddle), then anagram [travels] of MASTER
15 Islander a Venetian artist located outside a hotel (8)
TAHITIAN : TITIAN (Venetian artist) contains [located outside] A + H (hotel)
17 Sales talk? It’s not quite the model (6)
PATTER : PATTER{n} (model) [not quite]
19 Cat identified by old church group (6)
OCELOT : O (old), CE (church), LOT (group)
20 Fuss about a soldier’s leisurely movement (6)
ADAGIO : ADO (fuss) contains [about] A + GI (soldier). Musically speaking ‘Adagio’ is usually translated simply as ‘slowly’ and by extension it’s a slow movement,  so I was planning to quibble over ‘leisurely’ but SOED mentions it specifically
21 Overcharge   man on board (4)
ROOK : Two meanings. The first can be to swindle or defraud but overcharging is another option. The second refers to chess of course.
22 Photograph vessels going north (4)
SNAP : PANS (vessels) reversed [going north – in a Down clue]

33 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 1690 by Orpheus”

  1. NHO Albert Square, but it was pretty clear what the solution was. LOI EASE. 4:18.
  2. Enjoyable start to the week on a bank holiday here in sunny Rutlandshire. Switched off the timer as usual, but quite quick for me today with some hold ups around TIFFANY which is an almost-DNK.

    LOI was ROOK which I DNK.

    COD 1d for me, reminds me of Joni Mitchell.

    Thanks to Orpheus and Jackkt

    1. Glad to read about a fellow qc-er who is less about time and more about enjoyment.
      1. Hi Pam, thank you, yes. I have less time for x-words these days, principally as I’m not commuting anymore (which is a blessing I have to tell you). So given less time, you might think I was more conscious of solving against the clock, but actually the reverse is true for some reason. I tend to munch away at a leisurely pace, sometimes taking odd moments throughout the day to solve the grid. I’ve done the grown up cryptic a few times in the last few months, but there just aren’t enough hours in the day really!
  3. Surprised to be finished in 18m because I’d been held up in lots of places. LOI was EASE which I’d definitely been staring at for quite a while – it was the second trip round the alphabet before I started taking E seriously as a first letter. Couldn’t have defined ADAGIO or said where TITIAN was from, hadn’t heard of TIREE and just didn’t know TIFFANY but all gettable (in the end) Solid enough start to the week.

    Edited at 2020-08-31 08:16 am (UTC)

  4. For the record, Adagio means literally ‘at ease’ (ad agio). It was originally not particularly slow – lento was the instruction for this – and it was only in the last couple of centuries that adagio became the standard indicator of a slow movement.

    Martin

  5. I’m going to start giving my times in Years AD, with the cut-off for a DNF now 20:20. My average time is late Renaissance (as today), and PB is during the reign of Edward the Confessor.

    I DNK TIFFANY (and was starting to back track to TAFFETA, which I think was purposeful misdirection by Orpheus.

    Unlike our rhotic Scottish readers I don’t usually query the homophones (Rowan/Rhone) but I always pronounced that word as Row-an (as in Atkinson, Williams etc) But then I’ve never understood horse colours (bay, grey, dun) and they do seem to be a handy bit of crossword trivia, along with Scottish Islands such as RUM, EIGG and today’s TIREE.

    Was pleased to be able to get OCARINA from its construction, a word I was vaguely familiar with. But did not know ROOK=overcharge, so that was LOI.

    COD OCARINA

    1. I’m going to start giving my times in Years AD, with the cut-off for a DNF now 20:20. My average time is late Renaissance (as today), and PB is during the reign of Edward the Confessor.

      Excellent idea! And a great way to (re)learn (English) history. I’m somewhere in the Dark(ish) Ages today (718). If I’d paid more attention in school I’d probably know what was going on way back then 🙂 Anglo-Saxon kingdoms establishing themselves I imagine …

      H

      1. The first decades of the 8th century were when the Venerable Bede flourished and wrote his magisterial Ecclesiastical History of the English People. If you regularly finish in 7 minutes and a few seconds you might acquire the nickname “the Venerable H”!

        Cedric

  6. Once again I struggled with the GK in another Orpheus QC and ended up as a 18a. I did finish today but with guesses at TIFFANY (NHO), RETIREE (although I think TIREE has been used previously), OCARINA (NHO) and ROOK for swindle. I had no problems with EASE as this didn’t require GK. 13 minutes.
  7. I think the homophone is roan/Rhone as per Jack’s blog.

    Edited at 2020-08-31 08:24 am (UTC)

    1. Well there’s my problem. I have always “pronounced” roan as ROWAN. The not being a horsey person I have never actually heard it said, that I can remember.

      Edited at 2020-08-31 08:38 am (UTC)

      1. I had a similar problem and felt sure I’d heard it pronounced ‘rō’-ən’ somewhere. Checking all the online dictionaries reveals ‘rōn’ as the normal pronunciation, but Merriam-Webster does give our version as an alternative, so perhaps we’ve heard it in an American drama at some point.
  8. 19 minutes for me this morning, struggling at the end with EASE which I didn’t twig for the longest time. Also tempted by TAFFETA, but it didn’t fit either part of the clue, so couldn’t be. I liked the hidden UNDAUNTED. Luckily, I knew the correct meaning of ROOK and OCARINA. Thanks Jackkt and Orpheus.
  9. … so I was quite surprised that the clock stopped at 16 minutes. Lack of the required GK held me up on 8A Tiffany and 24A Ocarina, but Orpheus’s wordplay was crystal clear and once all the checkers were in place the answers created themselves.

    I sometimes wonder if there ought not to be a book for people like me of obscure or otherwise unused words approved for use in the QC, as there is for Scrabble players – though no doubt more experienced solvers will merely say to me “there is, it’s the dictionary”!

    I have on the other hand not only heard of but actually been to Tiree. It has the reputation for being one of the sunniest places in the UK, but was also very windy when I was there, as it is almost entirely flat!

    COD 12A Undaunted – magnificent to conceal a 9 letter word so well.

    Thanks to Jack for the blog
    Cedric

  10. Perhaps the difficult weekend puzzles prepared me for this as I was home in 07:18 with LOI TIFFANY. I needed all the checkers to parse it.
    No particular delays after FOI TYRANT.
    A good medium strength QC. David
  11. Had to look up wind instruments even though I got as far as OCAR…A.
    Enjoyed this puzzle. FOI Eat and Tahitian
    LOI Adagio. Am strong on eg horse colours, OK on geography and artists, not so good on music!

    COD Undaunted, I agree.

    Many thanks.

    Edited at 2020-08-31 11:02 am (UTC)

  12. I thought I was going to be in for a battle today as it took a while for the grey matter to warm up – my first run through the across clues only yielded 4 answers (two of which were EAT and TIP). Fortunately the downs proved more fruitful and eventually I was left with EASE and the unknowns TIFFANY, which had very helpful wordplay, and OCARINA which went in last with fingers crossed. Finished in 10.54
    Thanks to Jack
  13. Harder than expected. I shared the difficulties with TIFFANY and EASE (LOI). Just into the SCC after a few minor tussles. I liked ADAGIO, RHONE, amongst others. Thanks, both. John M.
  14. ….I spend” – well not quite “the lonely night”, but certainly 20 seconds – wondering if STARDUST is definitely correct.

    FOI PERCH
    LOI STARDUST
    COD RETIREE
    TIME 3:22

      1. I know I’ve seen ‘dust’ for ‘brush’ in a puzzle within the past week or two but am unable to find it now. I’m also having difficulty finding support for it in any of the usual dictionary sources, but for me they are synonymous in the context of making light contact e.g. passing somebody on a crowded pavement you might dust or brush against them.

        Then there’s the old Fred Astaire song that goes: … pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start all over again.

        I’d suggest that ‘brush yourself off’ would have worked just as well.

        Edited at 2020-08-31 06:31 pm (UTC)

  15. Unlike some, EASE was my FOI. DNK TIFFANY, but the word play made it obvious. Got stuck for 30 secs or so on RETIREE and PATTER. Finished in 7:18. COD UNDAUNTED.

    H

  16. Initially stumped by 1d/8ac, so I moved down to the SW where the clues seemed more friendly. I had the same issue as Merlin with Roan/Rowan/Rhone, but knew Rook, and Ease didn’t cause too much trouble either. So, after 18mins I was left with my initial problem pair. DNK Tiffany as a fabric, gauzy or otherwise, but it fitted the cryptic and Stardust eventually came to mind a minute or two later. CoD by a country mile to 20d Adagio – lovely surface and a lol moment. Invariant
  17. Quite tough, but got there in the end with some help. TIFFANY unknown, ROOK & EAT guessed, OCELOT looked up.
  18. One of those ones where I think if you have the GK then it was pretty straight forward. However, I DNK 8ac nor 24ac and, with the latter as least, I’m not sure the wordplay helped.

    Like a few people, I thought 8ac could be Taffeta, but then switched to something relating to argument, thinking it may be a variant on Theory. To be honest, I found the whole NW corner a struggle, but that’s probably me rather than the puzzle.

    Overall, took around 45 mins but then gave up with those two to go.

    FOI – 16ac “Tip”
    LOI – DNF
    COD – 20dn “Adagio”

    Thanks as usual

    Edited at 2020-08-31 11:52 am (UTC)

  19. Oh dear, not a great start to the week. Thanks to Orpheus for many lovely clues that were fun to solve. Sadly, we didn’t get 8A without help so it was a DNF 😟 and our time reflected our struggle (31 min with about 10 mins due to 8A).

    FOI: tip
    LOI: Tiffany
    COD: slowcoach

    Thanks to Jackkt for the blog.

  20. Thanks to Orpheus for the very precise wordplay which helped me to finish within my target of 15 minutes and enabled me to guess TIFFANY and OCARINA.
    Amongst my favourites were UNDAUNTED, OMEGA and UPSTREAM and my COD is ADAGIO for its straightforward construction.
    Thanks to Jackkt for the blog. I, too, thought that we were going to have an EastEnders theme – not that I can remember many of the characters these days.
  21. As soon as I got SLOWCOACH I tried “club” for all remaining 4 letter clues … alas no. NHO TIFFANY or OCARINA but on the other hand have a painting of an OCELOT on my bedroom wall and would be able to see Tiree from my window up here if Mull wasn’t in the way.

    FOI RHONE, LOI PATTER got fixated on “pitch” first time through), COD RETIREE, time 1.75K. Great puzzle.

    Thanks Orpheus and Jack.

    Templar

  22. Technical DNF, as I wasn’t convinced by STARDUST (which was LOI at 10min) as a ‘phenomenon’ or ‘brush’= dust, so used aid to see if there was anything better to fit at 1d.

    So ended with time about 15 minutes.

  23. Felt like it was as fast as I could go. I always hope to outdo Kevin by a second or two, but I’ve never solved a puzzle in 4 minutes!

Comments are closed.