Times Quick Cryptic 1866 by Orpheus

Author   chrisw91Posted on Categories Quick Cryptic

Something of a biff-fest today, many answers seemed so straightforward that only a very causal glance at the cryptic was required. This was a good thing as there’s quite a lot of moving and placing and some not quite straightforward terms in the cryptic. That was how it went until my LOI 21ac where I struggled to see what was going on. Still completed in less than 10 minutes so target hit.

Definitions are underlined.

Across
1 Bouquet made from cloth in European country (9)
FRAGRANCE – cloth (RAG) inside European country (FRANCE).
6 Pathetic type’s small circle including a couple of daughters (5)
SADDO – small (S) and circle (O) including a (A) and couple of daughters (DD).
8 Bring up easily portable car part (4,5)
REAR LIGHT – bring up (REAR), easily portable (LIGHT).
9 Beast of burden arrived, then left (5)
CAMEL – arrived (CAME), then left (L).
10 Drive carelessly, running front of taxi into foreman (9)
OVERSTEER – running (putting) (T)axi into foreman (OVERSEER). I had a little hesitation on this definition but I suppose it stands up.
12 Edges of double bed cut down to size (6)
DEBUNK – (D)oubl(E), bed (BUNK).
13 Thus one African country identifies an inhabitant of another (6)
SOMALI – thus (SO), African country (MALI).
16 Workman excited over pieta (9)
OPERATIVE – anagram (excited) of OVER PIETA.
18 Martial art expert in town in Japan (5)
NINJA – in tow(N IN JA)pan.
19 Misguidedly ask Hector for a biscuit (9)
SHORTCAKE – anagram (misguidedly) of ASK HECTOR. I always use shortbread but shortcake is the same thing.
21 Kid taken to court by police at last (5)
SUEDE – taken to court (SUED), beside polic(E). Another hesitation on the definition – suede is usually made from lambskin but can be made from many other animals including a kid/young goat. I was also thrown by the different pronunciation but this isn’t a homophone clue so no problem with that. LOI.
22 Infamous head of occupied port seized by other people? (9)
NOTORIOUS – (O)ccupied and port (RIO) seized by other people (NOT US). Loved the ‘not us’ bit – COD.
Down
1 Miserable with regard to grassy area, so to speak (7)
FORLORN – with regard to (FOR), homophone (so to speak) of grassy area – lawn.
2 Moderated bad temper displayed in commercial (6)
ABATED – bad temper (BATE) inside commercial (AD). Bate is, apparently, British slang for a bad temper or rage.
3 Regrets accepting Liberal regulations (5)
RULES – regrets (RUES) accepting (inside itself) Liberal (L).
4 Horse initially noted at Goodwood (3)
NAG – (N)oted (A)t (G)oodwood.
5 Excessive tax? Not to Eire, surprisingly (12)
EXTORTIONATE – anagram (surprisingly) of TAX NOT TO EIRE.
6 Back company in engaging American relative (6,6)
SECOND COUSIN – back (SECOND), company (CO) and in (IN) engaging (taking in) American (US).
7 Hateful mother with capacity to conceal name (8)
DAMNABLE – mother (DAM) and with capacity (ABLE) concealing name (N).
11 Person who’s tested an explosive device in river (8)
EXAMINEE – an explosive device (A MINE) inside river (EXE).
14 Consistency of old Tyneside head (7)
ONENESS – old (O), Tyneside (NE – in the northeast of England), head (NESS).
15 Star sign giving protection to a shrewish woman (6)
VIRAGO – star sign (VIRGO) protecting a (A).
17 Player on stage removing agent’s head (5)
ACTOR – agent f(ACTOR) without the head/lead letter. A factor is a person who acts on another’s behalf.
20 Old-fashioned books about university (3)
OUT – books (OT – Old Testament) about university (U).

52 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 1866 by Orpheus”

  2. I had difficulty getting started, hopping around the grid looking for easy pickings and not finding any for a while. I may consider revising my tactics and becoming prepared to spend a bit longer unravelling that first Across or Down clue before moving on to other options.

    11 minutes with NOTORIOUS unparsed because I biffed it and forgot to return to it before stopping the clock.

    1. Forgot to say I associate ‘bate’ meaning a fit of petulance or temper with school slang from a bygone era. Almost certainly used by Bunter and his chums.
      1. Bate …
        Certainly Bunter-esque and probably “dated” is fair, but not yet I think totally obsolete. I would not use it myself but would understand it easily enough if someone else did.
        Cedric

        Edited at 2021-05-04 08:22 am (UTC)

      2. “In a bate” was very much in use when I was at school in the 1970s and is still current in our family.

        Edited at 2021-05-04 09:01 am (UTC)

      3. Would frequently be in a bate with Bunter, who, as well as being corpulent, was never much good at doing his Latin homework either.

        Not that I read the Magnet in its heyday of course, but my grandfather had some hardback bound facsimiles of the comics. Quite an odd thing for a kid to read in the 80’s, but read them I did…probably because there was nothing else to do whilst staying with my grandparents!

  3. I forgot yesterday was Monday so this was the start of my crosswording week. Quite a challenge. Started fast but then slowed mightily to the end, especially VIRAGO where shrewish turns out to mean exactly the opposite of what I thought — lack of Shakespeare holding me up yet again, although that is how I got to the answer eventually. Thoroughly misdirected on REAR LIGHT where I had ‘bring up’ as a reversal instruction, which in turn gave me FORLORN and so correcting debase to DEBUNK. DAMNABLE came once I got pen and paper out and ABATED was tough and went in last. I have at least heard people say ‘bate’ in my lifetime, so perhaps not as dated as kerb drill, which I still seem to be grumpy about! NOTORIOUS wasn’t parsed as I couldn’t make the jump from ‘notus’ to ‘not us’. Crept in under 20.
  4. A bit of a sluggish start with FOI being CAMEL but then made good progress. My main hold ups were FRAGRANCE, where I was looking for flowers rather than smells and LOI DAMNABLE, where for some reason I decided that mother would be DAME rather than DAM which made the parsing tricky until the penny dropped.
    Finished in 8.46 with CoD to NOTORIOUS.
    Thanks to Chris
  5. Another steady but slowish day for me. Like Plett11 I started out looking for flowers and failed, so had to work back once I had got a toehold. i liked NOTORIOUS where the answer was biffable but the parsing was fun.

  6. FOI: 9a. CAMEL
    LOI: 22a. NOTORIOUS

    Time to Complete: DNF

    Clues Answered Correctly without aids: 15

    Clues Answered with Aids (3 lives): 22a, 7d, 14d

    Clues Unanswered: 13a, 21a, 2d, 6d, 11d,

    Wrong Answers: 14d

    Total Correctly Answered (incl. aids): 18/24

    Aids Used: Chambers

    On this Stars Wars Day – May the 4th (be with you), I was hoping for a completion, but it was not to be. I found this one particularly tricky.

    22a. NOTORIOUS – Just could not get this one. First life used.

    7d. DAMNABLE – Another one I just could not work out, yet on seeing the answer I realise how the clue worked. Second life used.

    14d. ONENESS – Even with an aid I got this one wrong. Bah!

    6d. SECOND COUSIN – No matter how much I stared at this, nothing came to me. The clue didn’t really make much sense to me until I saw the breakdown here.

    Let’s hope tomorrow is kinder.

  7. FOI: 6A SADDO and then largely completed anticlockwise.

    Thank you, chrisw91 and Orpheus

  8. Steady till the last …
    …but really struggled to see my LOI 21A Suede, which pushed a comfortable sub-10 solve out to nearly 13 minutes. I think of chamois as kid leather, rather than suede, but faced with S-E-E there was no real alternative.

    Very much liked the construction in 22A Notorious, my COD. Not seen Not us clued as Other people before; very clever.

    Many thanks to Chris for the blog
    Cedric

  9. I filled in the whole of the left hand side in double-quick time but this encouraged me to move into biffing mode which is always dangerous. This slowed me down and my thoughts of a super-fast time receded. I ended up just over target after a couple of necessary back-tracks. My LOsI were SUEDE and ABATED so I am in good company. My COD was NOTORIOUS. Good puzzle and blog. Thanks to both John M.

    Edited at 2021-05-04 08:32 am (UTC)

  10. I enjoyed this so thanks setter and blogger. One thing I sometimes think is that it can take a while for a new word to get into a dictionary, but words or meanings which have become defunct or changed can survive and cause confusion, or maybe mischief, for crossword setters and solvers. The word today is ‘bate’ which the blogger assumed is British slang. It says so in my OED now but in my opinion it would never be used today ( I’ve never heard it in my best part of 7 decades) . I’ve heard it used to mean to goad. For the quickie I think we should avoid the overly obscure. Maybe it’s just me1
    1. Rather than an assumption, it only became ‘apparent’ to me when I looked it up in Collins for the blog.
      I think the term for goad is bait.
      1. Oh yes of course you’re right – it is bait, thank you! – I stand by the comment about bate for rage though!
        1. I parsed this differently in that I had BATE in the sense of reduce (bated breath) so temper=bate in that sense – but then I couldn’t work out what to do with BAD, so I’m clearly wrong here. Despite being the right generation, I’ve NHO BATE in the Bunterish sense.
    2. “Gosh, he’s in a bit of a bate” is fairly common in our family and also when I was working, although the presence on the desk of my fine former colleague Ian Bate may have contributed there…
      Tim (not that Tim)
      1. I suppose it would be a bit perverse if it was in the dictionary and nobody used it.
  11. Steady rather than stellar here; like others I hunted for flowers at 1ac, but on the other hand I had no delays for BATE or SUEDE. Main delay was not having my anagram hat on and so having to write out the anagrist for both SHORTCAKE and EXTORTIONATE.

    FOI SECOND COUSIN, LOI EXTORTIONATE, COD SUEDE, time 10:53 for 1.8K and a Decent Day.

    Many thanks Chris and Orpheus.

    Templar

    Edited at 2021-05-04 08:45 am (UTC)

  12. This grid with its four black squares where 1 across should be is aesthetically ugly. Let’s start a campaign for beautiful grids. This one looks like a game of battleships.

    On the solving front, Another failure, could not see SUEDE, even after trawling the alphabet for both blanks. And there I was pleased that I had ‘EXAMINEE’ not ‘examiner’.

    SADDO is an obscure word, seems like 90s slang rather BATE which as noted above seems from the Bunter Age “I say, Quelch is in a bit of a bate”.

    COD NOTORIOUS

    2. Battleships! There was also a MINE in the grid (EXAMINEE).
  13. Very difficult. F(doubtful)OI = SADDO, then FRAGRANCE and NAG. Slow on EXTORTIONATE, SECOND COUSIN.
    Failed on SUEDE and OVERSTEER.
    DefinAtely not on the wave length. (joke spelling)

    Thanks for much needed blog, Chris.

  14. I proved to myself today that careful parsing is worth it. I had EXAMINER at 11d thinking of both mine and the river but not the missing E. So when I came to my LOI 21a after 08:30, I had a problem.
    Fortunately I paused to parse 21a properly and then saw the error of my ways. So LOI and COD SUEDE.
    Time 09:49. Good puzzle.
    David
  15. I started off with NAG and then put in the A and D for 2d. BATE had to wait until REAR LIGHT went in. It did ring a faint bell, but it’s not a word I’ve seen used much. The rest of the puzzle went in without much trouble. VIRAGO needed the crossers before I stopped trying to fit Kate into it. Proof reading revealed that I’d biffed EXAMINER and turned my kid into SURDE, so I was pleased to catch that before submitting! 7:56. Thanks Orpheus and Chris.
  16. Thought I was on for another DNF for the sake of one clue, which happened to me yesterday with Java which I’d heard of, but could not bring to mind. Today’s bugbear was suede. I dithered about examiner/examinee, and decided on examinee, which left me with s-e-e. An alphabet trawl gave me sieve and suede, but I could not see how either would fit. After deciding to record a DNF and doing the drying up after breakfast first before posting, I saw sued, the end of police, and found the connection between suede and kid, which I think is tenuous. Therefore it was the LOI. So a long solve — a short solve but with a very long break in it. Did not parse notorious, abate was the only word that vaguely fitted, and had to wait for the penny to drop about the rag in France, which I enjoyed; COD to that. Thought the relative would be some kind of son for a while, but finally saw reason with cousin. FOI saddo. Did not like this clue or answer. I don’t often take issue with what the setter sets, but this did not chime with me for some personal reason I can’t quite fathom. Otherwise, an intriguing puzzle which I mostly enjoyed. Thanks, Chris, and Orpheus. GW.
  17. I seemed to have fared better than most today. My FOI was FORLORN and my LOI the much discussed ABATED which required an alphabet trawl all the way to the end and back to the beginning again for the two missing letters. I did consider abased and amazed but neither worked with the definition. Looking back I didn’t parse NOTORIOUS or see the hidden NINJA and like john dun and David EXAMINEr caused me a short delay with SUEDE. Similar time to john in 8:03.

    Edited at 2021-05-04 10:32 am (UTC)

  18. Rather struggled with this for some reason

    All done bar ABATED in 9.30 but it didn’t matter how many alpha trawls I did I couldn’t come up with an answer so the setter wins today. Not sure I would ever have come up with BATE but the actual answer was gettable enough of course from the definition

    Thanks Orpheus and Chris

  19. Late post today as seconded as driver for the weekly message-go-round. 14 minutes with LOI ABATED holding out at the end. I questioned OVERSTEER definition, and liked NOTORIOUS. Thanks both.
    1. Absolutely does not work for me. If you are criticising a driver you might say (s)he is over steering – note the space – but oversteer is a handling characteristic of the car not the driver. Had the clue been 4,5 rather than 9 then all would be OK IMHO.
      Andyf
      1. I thought that too (oversteer used to be a characteristic of some vehicles) but decided it couldn’t be anything else and moved on. You’re quite right, though.
  20. This certainly felt difficult, with initial no shows at 1ac/d and answers and parsings having to be teased out, and with more than just a few pdms along the way. My last two, Suede and Abated, took a fair chunk of the 27mins, especially since I had settled on Abased until a nagging doubt forced a re-think. CoD to one of the pdms, 12ac Debunk, but it was a strong field. Invariant
  21. SUEDE. No complaints though, just couldn’t see it.

    I mention above, that strangely for a child of the 80’s, I read plenty of the Magnet and Gem comics, so the “20’s slang” of boys at an imaginary minor public school is well known to me…

    I also see that I never parsed NOTORIOUS, which is a v good clue in retrospect, so thanks chris!

    7:54.

  22. I found this a proper test, but came through successfully in 51 minutes. Not knowing BATE for bad temper, NESS for head, or the meaning of VIRAGO slowed me up significantly towards the end, and my LOI (SUEDE) took what seemed like an eternity. My cause was not helped by me inadvertently writing in EXAMINER at first (instead of EXAMINEE) and therefore having to work meticulously through a second alphabet trawl once I’d realised my error.

    In summary, not quick for me, but definitely cryptic and fair (I think). In fact, it’s now a week since I last dipped under 50 minutes, so despite very occasionally getting close to 20 minutes, I am still a fully signed up member of the SCC.

    Mrs Random is visiting her parents today, so she will probably take her attempt tomorrow.

    Many thanks to Orpheus (whom I invariably find hard) and chrisw91 (for explaining the finer points so concisely).

  23. … “I’m in a bate “ was frequently heard during my childhood, and went in easily.

    This was a good mix of easy and less-so, but all made sense and were doable.

    COD SUEDE.

    Thank you, Orpheus and Chris.

    Diana

    1. Yes, me too. Some solvers seem surprisingly young to a child of the 40/50s!
  24. DNF because I put examineR not examineE which teaches me always to reread a clue. However, I would never have got SUEDE from the clue. Guessed ABATED, but had no idea about meaning of BATE.
  25. Found this quite hard with a number of hold-ups along the way. Didn’t parse NOTORIOUS or SECOND COUSIN but loved the parsing of the former once explained (thanks Chris).

    No problems with vocabulary, although bate is definitely of an age which I only dimly remember.

    FOI – 1ac FRAGRANCE
    LOI – 2dn ABATED
    COD – thought 13ac SOMALI was very clever

  26. Worked through it in about 16 minutes with out too many hold ups. DNK BATE. The pedantic part of me cannot equate ABLE with CAPACITY. But an enjoyable puzzle as always. SUEDE held me up too, but that was because I had foolishly written in EXAMINER. Examinees should always read the question properly.Thank-you blogger.
  27. Overall this seemed to suit us with few holdups. Well within our target for a good day. We have never heard — in a bate, presume a regional saying. The crossers to 2d gave the answer.
  28. ….in a BATE while solving this, and was pretty quick. My only complaint concerns my LOI, where I thought that “cut down to size” was a very weak definition. The only contemporary use of DEBUNK that I can find relates to theories, and generally means that they’ve been totally discredited. Maybe it’s just me (yet again).

    FOI FRAGRANCE
    LOI DEBUNK
    COD NOTORIOUS
    TIME 3:20

    1. Collins has cut down to size as : to reduce the prestige or importance of

      A totally discredited theory would have (much) less prestige or importance?

      1. I’d argue that it had no importance at all ! I still think it was a little wishy-washy.
  29. 30 mins to complete but a dnf as I had two wrong: 2dn and 15dn.

    For 2dn I put in “Araged” thinking it was an obscure word I hadn’t heard of. In reality, the “Bate” part of the clue was the obscure word I hadn’t heard of. Unfortunately, “Leo” wasn’t the star sign for 15dn, so the invented description of “Lisaeo” was never going to cut it either.

    Liked 13ac “Somali” and 22ac “Notorious”. Wasn’t sure about Shortcake being a biscuit, but as noted above if this is the same as Shortbread then fair enough.

    FOI — 6ac “Saddo”
    LOI — 15dn — dnf/wrong
    COD — 21ac “Suede” — mainly because this has defeated me before and this time I saw it!

    Thanks as usual!

  30. A good day for me, considering this felt reasonably tricky. FOI was SADDO and I had no bad hold-ups after that until I was left with the 7d and 12a crossers and 2d. I’d already put the DAM bit in for “mother” so it wasn’t too much of a leap to get DAMNABLE, which gave me DEBUNK, and then it was on to 2d. I came up with ABATED probably for the wrong reasons as I think I had the verb “bait” in the back of my mind. I wasn’t at all sure of it, but it kind of sounded like it might be right. I wanted to do an alphabet trawl to check I wasn’t missing anything better, but when I looked at my watch and saw I was still under 16 minutes, I decided a top 10 time (for me) was worth the risk of a DNF. I stopped the clock on 15:43 (in at number 8) and hoped for the best. Now feeling quite pleased with myself. COD to CAMEL for its elegant simplicity. Thanks Chris and Orpheus.
  31. Needed aids for this one…but feeling a bit slow generally so probably not on proper form. This conclusion reinforced by having some clues popping to mind straight-away and others just not. FOI 1a Fragrance, where I immediately suspected bouquet=aroma. LOI14d Oneness. COD probably 8a Rear Light for misdirection. All fair enough, so it was probably just me this evening and not Orpheus. Good job I had the blog to check out at the end! Must try to get an early night…
  32. More than two courses tonight as we foind it difficult
    I do not like saddo as a word
  33. I also believed that 2d should be Araged and couldn’t biff Abated. Bate NHO as bad temper.

    Didn’t know Dam for mother — who uses that? — so didn’t see Damnable.

    Which meant that I didn’t get Debunk — not aware that equalled Cut down to size. I had the De start but couldn’t think of bunk for bed.

    Oh well another Orful one for me.

    25 minutes for the rest.

    Thanks all
    John George

    1. Dam/Ma/Mum are all Crosswordland staples. Worth remembering. Doesn’t mean anyone uses it, of course!

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