Times Quick Cryptic No 1402 by Felix

Author   plusjeremyPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

Introduction

This was a pretty tough one for me, on the order of 15 minutes. I had trouble with upper-left corner specifically, but I also think it was mainly because there were a lot of UK-centric answers that I had to work out carefully from the wordplay. No complaints —it’s a British puzzle, after all— ,  just a possible explanation for why I found this one tricky. For all I know, this might be a very easy puzzle.

Solutions

Across

7 Often visit area in course of search (5)
HAUNT – A (“area”) in (“in course of”) HUNT (“search”)
8 Hard skin on foot, chest or back, initially, [or] part of ear (7)
CORNCOB – CORN (“hard skin on foot”) + CHEST OR BACK (“chest or back”) reduced to their first letters (“initially”)
10 Profits [from this] unsold merchandise? (7)
RETURNS – double definition
Technically, returns are sold, no? Whatevz.
11 Little change [in] patient, ultimately feeble (5)
TWEAK – PATIENT (“patient”) reduced to its last letter (“ultimately”) + WEAK (“feeble”)
12 Man hurt by shot? Don’t believe it (5,4)
URBAN MYTH – MAN HURT BY (“man hurt by”) anagrammed (“shot”)
Good advice, Felix.
14 Express article one runs (3)
AIR – A (“article”) + I (“one”) + R (“runs”)
There’s no question “by air” is a more apt synonym for ‘express’, but I’m sure someone can find a direct substitution. EDIT: john_dun was the first to point out that ‘air’ is being used in the sense of ‘voice (an opinion)’.
15 Returned note that’s for builder to carry? (3)
HOD – reversed (“returned”) DOH (“note”, the musical kind)
A stick with a container for carrying bricks.
16 Line on rugby pitch [that] all the soccer players make (6-3)
TWENTY-TWO – double definition
Soccer is played 11 versus 11, hence 22. As for the rugby line, never having played, it seems to be akin to the box in soccer/football in within which the goalie is allowed to pick up the ball.
18 A long letter (5)
AITCH – A (“a”) + ITCH (“long”)
This is the letter H. Great clue; it must be a chestnut but I’d never seen it before.
20 Problem / that’s as much as you can grasp? (7)
HANDFUL – double definition (or cheeky definition)
But then what do we make of “more than a handful”?
22 One who’s got out [of] PE: cease to be shocked! (7)
ESCAPEE – PE CEASE (“PE cease”) anagrammed (“to be shocked”)
23 Scholarly monk / saved [or] successfully brought home? (5)
BACON – triple definition
Roger Bacon was a monk scientist who invented peanut brittle. The other two definitions are references to the idioms “save one’s bacon” (rescue) and “bring home the bacon” (earn a living).

Down

1 Way, however harsh, to progress (12)
THOROUGHFARE – THO (“however”) + ROUGH (“harsh”) + FARE (“to progress”)
One of my last in, and I couldn’t get the wordplay until writing up the blog.
2 Send for publication … [and then] tuck in? (3,2,3)
PUT TO BED – double definition
I didn’t know the first. I only knew of the general idiomatic use, meaning “to finalize”. Er, ‘finalise’.
3 Use a spoon [for] porridge (4)
STIR – double definition
‘Porridge’ and ‘stir’ are slang for ‘prison’.
4 Eyes a commission coming up involving Irish playwright (6)
OCASEY – EYES A COMMISSION (“eyes a commission”) reversed (“coming up”) contains the answer (“involving”)
Sean O’Casey, author of The Plough and the Peanut Brittle .
5 Irritable, not having finished note (8)
CROTCHET – CROTCHETY (“irritable”) minus the last letter (“not having finished”)
6 Area [that’s] sacred, inside boundaries (4)
ACRE – SACRED (“sacred”) without the first and last letters (“inside boundaries”)
9 Part of underground movement in a rebellion ok (8,4)
BAKERLOO LINE – anagram of (“movement in”) A REBELLION OK (“a rebellion ok”)
13 Unrelated to comedian Bob? / Some chance! (3,1,4)
NOT A HOPE – double definition
A reference to comedian Bob Hope. As for the second definition, I can’t find it attested but I guess it’s sarcastic like ‘fat chance’.
14 Skill [of] boy if meeting wintry conditions (8)
ARTIFICE – ART (“boy”) + IF (“if”) + (“meeting”) ICE (“wintry conditions”)
How many boys named Art d’ya meet these days?
17 Repeated chapter appearing in English dictionary (6)
ECHOED – CH (“chapter”) in (“appearing in”) E (“English”) + OED (“dictionary”)
I knew all the pieces and couldn’t believe they made a real word!
19 Instant / credit (4)
TICK – double definition
Didn’t know the second, which is apparently an old-fashioned British idiom: to buy something “on tick” means with an obligation to pay later.
21 Arrests outlaw turning up with son (4)
NABS – BAN (“outlaw”) reversed (“turning up”) + (“with”) S (“son”)

49 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 1402 by Felix”

  1. I also found this quite tough, taking 16:03 to complete. I never saw the anagram for BAKERLOO LINE and biffed it. ARTIFICE took forever to put together. Took ages to see O’CASEY hidden in 4d. Jeremy, for 14a I saw it as Air/Express an opinion. ACRE seemed well hidden too. Thanks Felix and Jeremy.
  2. Very tough; I wasn’t sure I was going to finish it. TWENTY-TWO from the hyphen and 11. Took forever to see how PUT TO BED could be ‘send for publication’. Took another forever to remember what came before LOO, although I knew it wasn’t WATER. I agree with John on AIR. 10:51.
  3. 12 minutes with some delay thinking about BACON and wondering whether it had escaped my notice that Sir Francis had at one time been a monk. There’s a good reason for that as it turned out, and if ever I knew of Roger of that ilk I must have forgotten about him.

    Also I was delayed over my LOI at 1dn where I had been trying to make an anagram out of ‘however harsh’ but by that stage the arrival of checkers had put paid to the idea.

    It’s rather a sad state of affairs, but has anyone under the age of about 60 ever heard of Bob Hope?

    Edited at 2019-07-24 05:18 am (UTC)

  4. 38 minutes, almost twice my target and probably the most difficult puzzle I’ve finished, so I’m actually quite pleased.
    LOI was CROCHET although the key was THOROUGHFARE.
    ‘Returns’ can be goods such as newspapers which are unsold by the retailer and sent back to the wholesaler, and the 22 in rugby is a bit like the blue line in hockey.
    Thanks to Jeremy for the excellent blog.

    Brian

    Edited at 2019-07-24 05:35 am (UTC)

    1. I’m glad you mentioned newspapers. I was also going to mention the expression ‘sale or return’ but then forgot.
  5. Pretty tough. Nothing on the acrosses until 14a and then things looked like they might improve. Thought the bottom was going to be complete first but suddenly the left hand side was done. Then the SE leaving the NE where I really struggled. I had written out OCASEY at one point but could convince myself it meant anything, also felt went the wrong end for definitions for each of the CORNCOB, CROTCHET and ACRE clues – LOI TWEAK (!). Only bright spot is I accidentally didn’t solve through the club page so no one will ever know I had REYURNS at 10a which would have counted double.

    Never heard of Sean O’Casey – Wikipedia shows he was pretty prolific.

  6. It’s a good job I was not in a rush this morning as this puzzle took me 30 minutes of hard work. I too thought RETURNS were items which had been sold once but I see the point about unsold newspapers. Too many problems to mention. My LOI was CROTCHET after OCASEY (possibly the first time I’ve seen this convention in a puzzle -6 , not 1,5). I did not know the playwright but I did think of BEDE for the monk which delayed me a bit. This was tough but gettable if you had time. Hats off to Felix for giving us a 15×15 in disguise. David
    1. Hyphens are noted in clues (and on the grid), but apostrophes aren’t (I wonder if this has come up before in a QC; there has been occasional discussion elsewhere in TftT). This can be a problem, as you’ve seen, not only with Irish names, of course, but also eg French expressions.
      1. Seems odd to me. It is just as easy to say (for example) “1’5” as it is to say “4-2”.
        1. It’s certainly easy to specify the enumeration in the clue: (1’5 is as easy as 1-5); the problem is, I think, that it’s much more informative: I can’t think of anything to put in the first square of 1’5 than O, while 1-5 could be A(-level) B(-girls), E(-mails), X(-rayed), …
  8. As a relative beginner I found this sooo hard! I didn’t finish, so thank you very much for the blog which helped me to stumble my way through!
    It didn’t help that I put in Surplus for 10 across at first, which I still think would have been a good answer. Would be interested to know what others think.
    Carolyn
    1. Surplus isn’t a bad answer at all, Carolyn. Thank goodness I didn’t think of it, or I’d still be stuck.
    2. I had surplus too and it seemed such a good answer it took me forever to decide it must be wrong.
  9. I failed to mention my route to 1d. After a while, I had two checking Hs and so I thought it could be an anagram of HOWEVER HARSH with the definition being WAY. This incorrect assumption proved to be a big help.
  11. Big struggle, still not back on xwd wavelength.

    Peanut Brittle seems to feature twice in the blog.
    I have heard of Bob Hope and Im just over 40.

    Once, crotchet went in, the rest followed ok.
    Acre, haunt, thoroughfare, returns, stir and the unknown o’casey.

    Cod bacon.

  12. Hi Jeremy – you stirrer! It’s nothing like soccer. Behind the 22 metre line (used to be 25 yards pre metric) is where the defending team can kick the ball out on the full.
  13. Far too tricky for a quickie. I reckon there will be a lot of dnf’s out there today.
  14. As a Quick Cryptic the description was 50% correct. Way too close to a 15×15. A fascinating puzzle but a misjudgement, I fear. John M.

    Edited at 2019-07-24 09:08 am (UTC)

  16. ….a bit of a HANDFUL for overseas solvers, what with Rugby Union, the London Underground, and the Irish playwright who wrote “The Plough and the Stars”, but complainants should note that the parsings are 100% fair.

    One of the pleasures of cryptic crosswords is successfully working out the ones you’ve never seen by using the wordplay in the clue. If you want 90 seconds of filling in the gaps without using any grey matter, pick up the Metro News instead. If you want to progress, tackle a puzzle like this one, go over all the wordplay to see how things work, and above all lean on our bloggers and correspondents when something has eluded you. I promise you, it’s worth the effort.

    After yesterday’s DNF, I began to sweat nervously when I was left in the NE corner at just over 3 minutes. Once I finally “caught the Tube” I saw it off within my target.

    FOI HAUNT
    LOI ACRE (I was trying to make it too hard !)
    COD URBAN MYTH (anagram well concealed)
    TIME 4:18

    1. The QC isn’t really aimed at people as fast as you, Phil, so I’m not really sure that you’re best placed to calibrate whether any particular puzzle fits the genre or not. You just crunch them all in under 5 minutes anyway.

      No-one is saying they want brain mush – but most of the QC regulars don’t want a mini 15×15 either. I certainly don’t. Fortunately it doesn’t happen too often; when it does, however, people are entitled to voice their views without being lectured.

      1. My issue with the difficulty is time available at work.

        I have just over an hour which I split roughly 20 mins to the QC and the rest to the 15×15. So when the qc is tougher, my productivity suffers!

      2. It wasn’t intended primarily as a lecture Templar. I hope it encouraged posters like Vezetque, who clearly approached it in the right way after acknowledging the difficulty of the puzzle.

        However I do get a little brassed off with anonymous postings like “way too hard” and “what’s going on” when those posters probably haven’t bothered to analyse why they found it difficult.

        The QC should be no different to the 15×15, in that some days will be stiffer than others.

        I appreciate that many are like your good self, in that they don’t have the time available to tackle the larger puzzle, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t take time to appreciate the work that the setter has put in !

        Incidentally, I quite frequently fail my 5 minute limit, and of course I totally failed to finish yesterday’s offering correctly. Yes, I’m quick, but that comes from well over 50 years experience. No offence intended, and certainly none taken.

        1. Thank you for a gracious response to a grumpy comment, Phil!
    2. The Plough and the Stars is well known in the US. Name of wonderful bar/restaurant in Philly off Chestnut.
  17. Even Kevin was in double figures. Nuff said. That sucked as a QC.

    Templar

    1. I’m with Phil here–well, as usual several minutes behind him, but anyway, I don’t see what makes you say this puzzle ‘sucked as a QC’. Perhaps you could give an example or two of a clue that was inappropriate (as opposed to just difficult)?
      One difference I’ve noted between solvers here and solvers of the 15x15s is in what counts as GK; I’ve often been surprised by what is not known here. So BACON, say, might be a problem. Any others? (And I had to deal with the rugby clue, and the Metro line that I’ve never been on. And, contra Phil, O’Casey [Irish] is a world-class playwright who should be equally known to Murcans as to Brits.)
      If you don’t want a mini 15×15, what do you want?
      1. It’s too hot to get sucked into an internet argument, Kevin. All you have to do is read the comments above and indeed below to see that plenty of people thought this was too difficult for a QC (as I did). The fact that you and Phil (our two fastest solvers) didn’t says more about your own amazing abilities than it does about the puzzle!
  18. Oh joy of joys. I have just submitted on the Crossword Club leaderboard and find I am just behind Kevin. FOI CORNCOB, slow-going with ARTIFICE, RETURNS and URBAN MYTH and LOI O’CASEY. I found my LOI difficult because of the missing apostrophe. 11:06 and comparatively an excellent day.
  19. Well thank goodness other people found this one hard. 75:39 for me, but at least I did finish. Last two in were thoroughfare and returns. I have only occasionally tried a 15 x 15, so it’s good to hear that some of the faster solvers rated this as that sort of level of difficulty. Personally I’m not sure I agree. It might well be my inexperience with the 15 x 15 clues, but many of those seem a lot more complex to me, whereas with the quickie, the clues are generally straightforward to understand, even if you have never heard of Sean O’Casey or that monk Bacon. This was a hard, but satisfying puzzle, as opposed to the occasional one you get where something feels unfair, so I don’t think it was out of place being a QC. Thanks to Felix and Jeremy.
  20. Certainly not helped by the heat, but I found myself resorting to alphabet trawls when I only had 4 or 5 answers in place. Slowly started to fill the grid in, but eventually decided to pull stumps with half a dozen still unsolved. Sadly, quite a number of the 15x15s I’ve tried are harder still. Invariant
  21. 1401 puzzles since I started out on this malarkey. And today marks the day when on a 2 hour train journey I failed dismally on this one with 4 or 5 unanswered clues BUT managed to complete its Big Brother in the Main Paper. So I think this one is officially tough!
  22. We found this about average, and certainly easier than a number of recent ones. Don’t time them, but probably around 22-24 minutes, with our usual time being in the 20-30 minute range, so certainly not speeders. We thought the clues were clever, and very fair, admittedly biffed thoroughfare as it seemed the only possibility from the checkers. I didn’t know there was a 22m line in rugby, my rugby days were imperial, but the clue was fairly clear with a couple of checkers. I wonder whether sometimes the difficulty depends on the order of approach – if you look at a clue with a couple of checkers in you see it immediately, if you see it blank and then return when you have the checkers you have already formed ideas and fail to see it.
    Paan
  23. About an hour’s hard graft, but well worth it. Took an inordinate length of time, despite years on the ‘stone’ putting the paper to bed, to see that one. The shame!
    Yes, it was tough, but a real sense of achievement at the end.
    Tim (not that Tim).
  24. One of the dangers, I feel, in having such a difficult “quickie” immediately after yesterday’s stinker, is that new, aspiring solvers will lose heart and give up. I’m trying to encourage my son to enter into the wonderful world of Crosswordland – I tackle the 15 by 15 while he attempts the QC. Outdated slang, references to long-dead comedians, obscure Irish playwrights and “scholarly monks” are not conducive to fostering a can-do attitude. I generally manage, eventually, to finish the 15 by 15, although some clues go into my “not in a million years category” – today’s 15 down being of that ilk – but I also struggled with this one. Jeffrey
    1. Yes, I thought the monk was a very odd clue. I had the B starter and (I’m sure like others) thought Bede would be involved. If you really needed Bacon as the answer, why not have a pig based clue? The fact that Jackkt hadn’t come across the monk rather suggests that it’s a tad obscure, even for experienced 15×15 solvers.
    2. To my mind, there’s no question the quickies are very do-able, and are definitely on a different order of difficulty from the 15x15s in every way.

      However, I am in your camp that if cryptic crosswords are to survive into future generations of solvers, we need puzzles that are not only easier, but fresher. The quickies are easier, yes, but I don’t think they are doing the job they could as an educational stepping stone for newer solvers.

      I’d like to see more care put into the references and vocabulary — wordplay obscure, answer more common; or wordplay common, answer obscure; but not both obscure. And in fact I’d like to see trickier wordplay, just done with easier pieces.

      Not easy from a setter’s perspective, but good educational material IS harder to make than a daily puzzle aimed at solvers who already have a very wide range of contextual knowledge.

  25. Too hard for me to complete unaided, although possibly the heat made me slower and less patient than normal. I enjoyed BACON, partly because I had heard of him. Managed to decipher OCASEY once I had all the checkers. JUst couldn’t summon the effort to crack THOROUGHFARE, though – parsable one I had it, but not easy to conjure up just from the clue.
  26. I came to this late today and it turned into a bit of a biff fest as my brain melted some hours ago and I couldn’t be bothered to work out how some of the more complicated clues worked. With hindsight I should have waited until tomorrow as I found it a rather unsatisfying way to complete it.
    It was certainly at the tougher end of the spectrum and I finished it in 19 minutes and change.
    Thanks for the blog Jeremy

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