Times Quick Cryptic No 1679 by Wurm

Author   johninterredPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

A nice middle-of-the-road Quick Cryptic to end the week from Wurm today which I finished in just under my target time of 5 minutes. Nothing too obscure, I think, but a couple of tricky cryptic definitions to tease us. Not being much of a TV watcher, and never a fan of soap operas, I had to use the wordplay to remember where Walford at 11A is. Other than that I don’t think I was stuck for long on anything. COD to the entertaining cryptic definition at 5D. So thank you Wurm! How did everyone else get on?

Fortnightly Weekend Quick Cryptic. This time it is Phil’s turn to provide the extra-curricular entertainment. You can find his weekend quick crossword here. Enjoy!

Definitions underlined in bold italics, (Abc)* indicating anagram of Abc, deletions and [] other indicators.

Across
1 Moody Maureen meets another woman (6)
MOROSE – MO (Maureen) ROSE (another woman’s name).
4 A charge for crossing southern islands (6)
ATOLLS – A TOLL (charge for crossing) S (southern).
8 County for male deer (5)
BUCKS – Double definition, BUCKS being the common abbreviation for Buckinghamshire.
9 Glorious under the Linden tree? (7)
SUBLIME – SUB (under) LIME (another name for the Linden tree)
10 Cunning schemes Friar Tuck conceals (3)
ART – Hidden in [conceals] FriAR Tuck.
11 Dicky entered as Walford resident? (9)
EASTENDER – Anagram [Dicky] of (entered as)*.
12 Complaint from youth in spring month (6)
MALADY – LAD (youth) [in] MAY (spring month).
13 Fancy basin containing round miniature plant (6)
BONSAI – [Fancy] (basin)* [containing] O (round letter).
16 Soldier and sailor back after leave (6,3)
DESERT RAT – TAR (sailor) [back] -> RAT [after] DESERT (leave).
18 Cooking vessel in sink (3)
POT – Double definition. The second as in sinking a snooker ball into a pocket.
19 Game ending in draw? (7)
LOTTERY – Cryptic definition. Nice one.
20 Four stuck into the drink — bubbly? (5)
ALIVE – IV (four in roman numerals) [stuck into] ALE (drink).
22 Speak pompously about knight decorated (6)
ORNATE – ORATE (speak pompously) [about] N (knight in chess notation).
23 Disbark in flames (6)
ALIGHT – Double definition.
Down
1 Crowd inside Guantanamo Bay (3)
MOB – Hidden [inside] GauantaneMO Bay.
2 Statement true about city dumping yen (7)
RECITAL – REAL (true) [about] CITy without the Y (dumping yen).
3 Subtle changes besetting one laying out money for underwear (9,4)
SUSPENDER BELT – (Subtle)* [changes] outside [besetting] SPENDER (one laying out money).
5 In which bars have swingers who score? (5,8)
TABLE FOOTBALL – Cryptic Definition. That made me smile.
6 Landowner in den with duke (5)
LAIRD – LAIR (den) D (duke).
7 Small fruit with perfect flavour (9)
SPEARMINT – S (small) PEAR (fruit) MINT (perfect).
9 Indifferent over after spinner on song initially (2-2)
SO-SO – O (over) [after] Spinner Of Song [initially].
10 Mutating mallard duck devours one animal (9)
ARMADILLO – [Mutating] (mallard)* O (zero – duck) outside [devours] I (one).
14 Rather younger elder? (7)
SAPLING – Cryptic definition – a little elder tree.
15 City score, retaining ball (4)
TROY – TRY (score at rugby) outside [retaining] O (round shaped letter; ball). I’m not a fan of O for ball, but it’s not the first time we’ve seen it.
17 Stain ruined shiny material (5)
SATIN – (stain)* [ruined].
21 Devour pork for instance without starter (3)
EAT – mEAT (pork, for instance) without the m [without starter].

49 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 1679 by Wurm”

  1. Biffed RECITAL, SUSPENDER BELT (not a term I use), parsed post-submission. Biffed ARMADILLO before reading the clue. Not knowing Walford, I had to wait for enough checkers to spot EASTENDER. Same for DNK POT; I had to wait for SPEARMINT to choose between pot and pan. I liked SUBLIME & DESERT RAT. 6:52.
  2. 12 minutes. I raced through the LH side but slowed considerably on right mainly because I couldn’t work out what the cryptic 5dn was referring to. My first thought was music (score, bar, swing) and I found it hard to think past that. Once I’d spotted FOOTBALL as the second word the first followed very quickly. I live right on the Beds/BUCKS border, so had no problem with that one.
  3. Very much a left then right day. 15D was LOI as I assumed, for no reason, it must refer to an English city and I didn’t see how the clue worked. Ball = o didn’t occur to me at all until after I put in TROY as the only city that did fit.
    LIked SAPLING as a younger elder, and 9A SUBLIME.
    Plymouthian
  4. A fair and enjoyable end to a very variable week. I also enjoyed SUBLIME (LOI), SAPLING, TROY. I thought TABLE FOOTBALL was a brilliant cryptic. I expected to be quicker than my 14.03 but at least I came close to 2K for a change. Thanks to Wurm and John. John M.

    Edited at 2020-08-14 08:26 am (UTC)

  5. I was pleased with my time of 12:11 today which included about a minute to get LOI LOTTERY.
    FOI was MOB. A nicely balanced puzzle I thought. Not easy but far from the difficulty of yesterday for example.
    COD to SUBLIME. David
  6. The LHS of the grid was all done and dusted in sub 3 minutes but the RHS took longer. Similar to Jack I got FOOTBALL before TABLE and BUCKS was no problem as I also live on the BUCKS/BEDS border. I didn’t have a problem with EASTENDER as Walford is the fictional location of EASTENDERS (I hasten to add that I haven’t watched it since Angie and Den were characters). I enjoyed a lot of the wordplay but particularly liked SUBLIME and SPEARMINT and my LOI in 8 minutes was the ancient city of TROY. Thank you to Wurm and John (particularly for the link to the weekend QC).

    Edited at 2020-08-14 08:55 am (UTC)

  7. ….or a DESERT RAT. I was a tad slow by my standards, and I can’t quite see why I should have been.

    FOI MOROSE
    LOI SPEARMINT
    COD TABLE FOOTBALL
    TIME 4:42

    Any queries or comments on my “weekend” puzzle are welcome by email at 1147philjordan@gmail.com

  8. 8 mins, only hold up was LOI lottery.

    I’m not sure the footballers swing, but we bought a table for the girls during lockdown and there is a yellow card for any spinning!

    COD for EASTENDER, especially because of the Tricky Dicky reference.

    Thanks for the weekend puzzles, will have a go soon.

    Edited at 2020-08-14 09:03 am (UTC)

  9. 17 minutes for me for no accountable reason, just slow. LOI TROY, FOI MOROSE and COD pick from SUBLIME, SAPLING or TABLE FOOTBALL. Lots of good stuff here and no complaints. Thanks Wurm and John.
  10. nice pleasant crossword that was done in just over 5 minutes. think sublime and table football were my last couple to fall
    thanks setter and blogger
  11. Definitely in a minority this week – I found this one really quite tricky, compared to other posters, and was well below my par of 12 mins. In fact, it was probably my worst time this week, whereas I enjoyed yesterday’s and got through it in my regular time. Today I struggled with the various cryptics – 9a, 5d and 14d. Funny, because normally I’m not too bad on plants but either didn’t know or couldn’t remember that lindens are a sort of lime tree. However, once the penny dropped, I very much liked the clue.

    FOI Morose
    LOI Football table
    COD Spearmint
    Time 17 mins

    Thanks Wurm and John

    Last night I posted this on yesterday’s blog, but it was too late for anyone to see, so I wonder if someone can answer a query for me today.

    I posted on my Kindle yesterday morning and saw my entry come up on screen as usual, but then it completely disappeared! This has happened a couple of times before. I don’t think I said anything controversial. Does anyone have any idea what may have happened?journal
    journal

    I’ve also got a strange problem that when I press enter for a new paragraph, if I’ve been using swipe (on Kindle) and also if I put a title in, the last word appears (see example of journal above and below) Normally I backspace to get rid of them but left them in this time as an example. It never happens on the laptop.
    journal
    journal
    Does anyone have any idea what’s going on? Thanks in advance.

  12. A slow but steady solve up until about 35 minutes I think, when I was left with 9a and 5d. I had no idea what the Linden tree was and I couldn’t think of an answer to what I realised was a cryptic. Eventually after nearly 50 minutes (I was in a bit of a hurry today) I gave up and stopped my watch, but, as I am wont to do, kept on staring at the puzzle for another minute or so. Suddenly I saw SUBLIME and then TABLE FOOTBALL was obvious Thanks Wurm and John
  13. A bit of a struggle but got there in the end with a couple of flashes of inspiration! A testing but fair puzzle.
  14. Either all crossword solvers are smart and I am not, or only those who find these easy comment. I did not find it easy still don’t understand some of the clues having read the blog. Have no idea what dicky has to do with eastenders. I thought, wrongly it appears that you should be able to work out the answer from the clue. Yesterday’s puzzle was hard but I got there for that reason. Today’s was hard and the some of the clues led me nowhere.

    Not very enjoyable for me. It would be nice for those solvers where it does take a while to get there to put their times. This might act as a bit of encouragement for new solvers. I spent 30 minutes to solve around 80%.

    2. Sorry you didn’t enjoy this. “Dicky” is an anagram indicator and you scramble the letters of “entered as”. My rubric at the top says I put indicators in square brackets and letters to be scrambled in bold italics between normal brackets and a * afterwards. Hope this helps. What others did you have trouble with? If there’s anything you don’t understand please do ask. The chances are others had the same problem.

      Edited at 2020-08-14 11:17 am (UTC)

    3. I agree that people who are not so experienced shouldn’t be embarrassed to post their times or talk about their struggles – you’re certainly not on your own! It was months before I even completed my first puzzle! I lurked here for years before being brave enough to put my head above the parapet, and even then was too embarrassed to share my times – exactly what you’re saying. You don’t say how long you’ve been having a go but I’d say 80% in 30 minutes is very good for a beginner. I used to feel really out of my depth, but sticking around definitely helps. People like to help if you get stuck, and no-one wants anyone to feel bad 😊 So keep with it, and – don’t forget – it’s meant to be fun!
    4. It’s almost inevitable that the fast solvers will post early on. If you come back later in the day I think you will find the average solving time will be more to your liking – I can usually be relied on to push it out a bit 😉
    5. I agree. 80% in 30 mins is good. I don’t time myself because, after 2 years I still struggle fairly often. I just had a good day today.
  15. That’s a relief after yesterday. A comfortable 20 min solve, COD was SUBLIME as I only recently learnt that Linden meant a lime tree after a recent visit to Berlin.
    1. Hi, Merlin, it seems ages since you last posted, or have I just been unobservant?
  16. Zoomed through almost without stopping. Must have been on the right wavelength for a change.
    Did not understand Dicky but biffed Eastenders.
    COD Table Football
  17. Another “bad” day after yesterday’s DNF. No real reason for it, but I just spent time picking off ones and twos here and there. Not many went in “instantly” and I eventually finished in just over the ten minute mark.

    On the plus side I made very few typing errors – I suspect when one is on form and galloping along one tries to type quickly as well and errors then abound!

    COD – SUBLIME.

    H

  18. 35 mins for me. I still thought this was on the slightly harder side, with a few head scratching cryptic definitions.

    Biffed 3dn “Suspender Belt“ and 10dn “Armadillo” but struggled on 5dn “Table Football” which held up the NE corner. Upon reflection nothing wrong with the clue in my mind – the footballers are on bars and they do swing. Wasn’t sure about 20ac “Alive” meaning bubbly though – not the most obvious definition.

    Oddly, the clue I spent most of my time on was 19ac “Lottery. Was trying to be clever thinking it had something to do with duelling 🙄. Once The penny dropped 15dn came easy.

    FOI – 1dn “Mob”
    LOI – 15dn “Troy”
    COD – 7dn “Spearmint” – great surface

    Thanks as usual.

  19. I thought this was going to be a repeat of yesterday’s solve – a quick start (down the LHS) followed by a complete halt with half a dozen or so still to do. I eventually remembered that Lindens were Limes, which gave me CoD Sublime and that unlocked Table Football and the remaining few on the RHS. Loi, after nearly 28mins was 15d Troy, a clue I had visited several times, but I still needed a further minutes concentration to see what was going on. Invariant
  20. Four while minutes on TROY / LOTTERY at the end even though I knew ball must have been O. Wrote it horizontally and saw it straight away – weird. That made the penny drop for LOTTERY nanoseconds later. So all bar two in 11 and all done in 15. Late today because we went camping yesterday, pitched in the only dry part of the day by some miracle – and it’s taken until now to sit with my phone and solve – laptop with proper coffee is better – roll on Monday.

    Edited at 2020-08-14 12:25 pm (UTC)

  21. Taking me almost 25 minutes, I found this the most difficult QC for a while.
    There were some very straightforward clues – BUCKS, ART, MOB, LAIRD, EAT and SO SO – but many more tricky ones which I did manage to parse though so it’s not all bad.
    Amongst my favourites were MALADY, ARMADILLO and SUSPENDER BELT and SPEARMINT is my COD for its straightforward wordplay.
    Thanks to Wurm and John – and thanks in advance to Phil.
  22. We wondered if disbark meant disembark as it wasn’t in the OED and had to assume it did. Just surprised no-one else commented?
    2. Us as well, although it is in Wiktionary (a definitive source!) as an obsolete alternative. Since there seems no reason to use an obsolete word when it is so close the normal choices, we assumed it was a typo.
  23. Took us 20 mins to complete the puzzle due to the cleverness of the clues (biffs we’re thin on the ground – probably <25% were write ins). However, a great puzzle and we really enjoyed it – thanks Wurm.

    FOI: mob
    LOI: alive
    COD: sublime but we also liked lottery, table football and desert rat

    Thanks to John for the blog.

    We will definitely have a go at Phil’s crossword which I see is described as “Fortnightly weekend quick cryptic” – happy days!

  24. This was a slow end to an overall slow week for me, although better than yesterday. Like others the left side went in much more easily than the right side, which was completely blank for quite a while. Ended up with all correct (but without parsing 3dn and 11ac) in 23 mins. Like the anonymous comment above I raised an eyebrow at the word DISBARK in 23ac. Still all in all a nice puzzle, so thanks to Wurm for that and to John for explaining some of the clues.

    FOI – 1ac MOROSE (seems ages since I managed to kick off with the first across clue!)
    LOI – 14dn SAPLING
    COD – 9ac SUBLIME

  25. … as all solved and parsed in 6.40, or Just Under 1K. Never done that before and perhaps an indication that it was quite a “British-centric” puzzle, with Desert rat, Eastender, Bucks, Pot (snooker championship on BBC TV just now), Try and even Table Football. Anyway right on my wavelength and a very enjoyable end to the week.

    I share the MER at disbark – not a felicitous addition to the language IMO – but otherwise a very nice puzzle. COD to 5D Table football for the image of swingers scoring.

    Thanks to John for the blog and hurrah for another Saturday puzzle! A good weekend to all.

    Cedric

    1. Well done on the first! I did consider commenting on DISBARK in the blog… I would have used the more common DISEMBARK, but I didn’t think it significant. On checking in Chambers now, though, I see the word is flagged as “obs.”. I’m wondering now why the setter chose to use that.
  26. Most of this went without too many problems but the NE proved tough to crack. Seeing ATOLLS was the breakthrough I needed and suddenly TABLE FOOTBALL and SPEARMINT became obvious, which was lucky because I had no idea what a Linden tree was so needed all the checkers for SUBLIME. My LOI was TROY but mainly because I forgot about it and very nearly pressed submit without completing it. Finished in 11.21 with my favourite being 5d.
    Thanks to John
  27. I didn’t comment in the blog because I didn’t think it significant, but I did think it odd. But now I consider it, it does seem an odd choice to use the “obs.” word when “disembark” would do just as well. I wonder why the setter/editor chose to do that?

    Edited at 2020-08-14 07:47 pm (UTC)

  28. We all have our own ways of doing things, I guess.
    I read this blog most days and enjoy it immensely.
    I don’t post my times because I have my own way of doing crosswords which, like everything else, more or less, in life involves using the internet. I solve on the iPhone and check correctness every so often as I go along.
    I self rate my performances on time taken vs aids used.
    Interestingly today’s was very similar to yesterday’s. 20mins with 3 or 4 aided clues.
    In my book the real fun is in unlocking the clue. No point being bogged down if you just don’t know something.
    My 10p worth
    Barry 😉
    1. Thanks for commenting, Barry. These crosswords are designed for newbies to get to grip with cryptic crosswords and it is always good to hear how they get on… not least so that experienced solver bloggers like myself can provide the support that’s needed. I like your philosophy. It’s one I apply to the harder crosswords like the Mephisto and Monthly Club Special.
    2. Thanks Barry. Unfortunately as a Newbie, and in Canada, it’s extremely frustrating when there are so many unknowns. Not to mention that after 20+ minutes the site tells me I’m less than 30%. Then I come here and read things like “easy solve to end the week”, “not much to trip one up here”, etc.
      Any suggestions where to go to hear from people that don’t complete the puzzle in less time than it takes the average person to read half the clues?
      1. It usually takes me over half an hour and that is often with the help of aids on a couple or so. And I’ve been doing them for three years – ho hum…

        I don’t often post as it’s usually late before I get round to it. The blog is a big help.

  29. Got there eventually with a dictionary search for 5d. Just couldn’t get my head around what was being indicated. These kind of joke clues are the hardest for me. Lower quality cryptics like the Evening Standard one are full of them which is why I avoid it.

    MER at POT = sink which seems very specialised but I suppose has to be acceptable.

    Thanks for explanations.

  30. If it helps others (though they are unlikely to read it now) I limped over the line (with my wife’s assistance) at lunchtime today – a week “late”. Many clues quickly solved but 5D, 7D, 16A and 20A particularly resistant. But teasing out the parsing (which we call deconstructing) is sometimes beyond us and that is where the blog is really helpful. For example, we did not twig that Dicky was an anagram pointer.
    Misocapnic
    1. Good to hear from you. Glad you find the blog helpful. It gets easier with practice, I promise!

      Edited at 2020-08-21 07:52 pm (UTC)

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