It may be just me as I’m a bit out of sorts, but I thought this was on the very challenging end of the Quickie spectrum. It took me almost triple my median solving time to complete.
There were no real obscurities to deal with, but some complex construction required for many of the clues. So think of it as a good springboard into attacking the 15×15 and thank Joker for the challenge! After all, what better way is there to start your Saturday?
Or maybe you just breezed through it. Let us know in the comments.
| Across | |
| 1 | What gets water inside? Employ scheme when it’s baking outside (10) |
| HOUSEPLANT – HOT (baking) “outside” [USE (employ) + PLAN (scheme)]
Not the most obvious definition and we’re off to a slow start. |
|
| 8 | Complaining after church has gone very cold (6) |
| BITING – BIT A little surprised to see this term for complaining but it’s still in all the dictionaries. Let’s not have too much of it in the comments! |
|
| 9 | Weary about doctor’s tone of voice (6) |
| TIMBRE – TIRE (weary) “about” MB (doctor) | |
| 10 | Beast roaming two thirds of Oregon (4) |
| OGRE – [OREG (two-thirds of OREGon)]* | |
| 11 | State of stagnation far from new in barrels of oil? (8) |
| DOLDRUMS – OLD (far from new) in DRUMS (barrels of oil?) | |
| 12 | Who breaks things left behind London museum? (6) |
| VANDAL – L (left) behind V AND A (London museum) | |
| 14 | Car park associated with house? (6) |
| ESTATE – Double definition
A very subtle lift-and-separate required for car park. |
|
| 16 | To an extent, any fitter people running round will get trim (8) |
| PRETTIFY – Reverse hidden (to an extent, running around) in anY FITTER People | |
| 18 | Regretting missing university’s call (4) |
| RING – R |
|
| 20 | Time to maintain new pub (6) |
| TAVERN – T (time) + AVER (maintain) + N (new) | |
| 21 | Stones, v. small or v. large possibly (6) |
| GRAVEL – (V LARGE)* | |
| 22 | Inattention getting sack, perhaps, around a pit (10) |
| DREAMINESS – DRESS (sack, perhaps) “around” [A + MINE (pit)] | |
| Down | |
| 2 | Outstanding triumph in uphill advance (5) |
| OWING – WIN (triumph) in OG [GO (advance) reversed (uphill)] | |
| 3 | Allowance of three points (7) |
| STIPEND – S (point) + TIP (point) + END (point)
S being a compass point, in case you missed the, um, point. |
|
| 4 | Animal regularly appearing in spring (3) |
| PIG – Alternate letters of (regularly appearing in) sPrInG | |
| 5 | Army equipment badly blocking main road (9) |
| ARTILLERY – ILL (badly) “blocking” ARTERY (main road) | |
| 6 | Clock, say, showing minutes in order (5) |
| TIMER – M (minutes) in TIER (order) | |
| 7 | Concert pianist extremely quick to respond (6) |
| PROMPT – PROM (concert) + PT [first and last letters (extremely) of PianisT] | |
| 11 | Flirtation from each and every one during ball (9) |
| DALLIANCE – [ALL (each and every) + I (one)] “during” DANCE (ball) | |
| 13 | Something less than a major route overseas (6) |
| ABROAD – A B-ROAD (something less than a major route) | |
| 15 | Country’s queen formerly travelling by rail? (7) |
| TERRAIN – ER (former queen) in TRAIN (travelling by rail) | |
| 17 | Opening of the grass flower (5) |
| TWEED – T (opening of The) + WEED (grass)
You’ll recall from your first class in Cryptics 101 that round these parts, something that flows is a flower. |
|
| 19 | Wants what Able Baker does in radio comms? (5) |
| NEEDS – Homophone (in radio comms) of KNEADS (what an able baker does)
Sorry folks, the capitalisation is just there to trick you. And me. Which it did. |
|
| 21 | Brilliant cut and mounted? (3) |
| GEM – &lit*. MEG *&lit (crossword shorthand for “and literally”) describes a clue where the entire clue serves as both the definition and the wordplay. I agonised over how to categorise this one before settling on &lit, mainly because I had “brilliant” on its own as the definition. But you need to take the whole clue as the definition. ie a diamond (possibly a “brilliant”) that has been cut and mounted is an example of a GEM. The DBE (definition by example) is signalled by the question mark. Or you could look at the clue and the G_M, shrug your shoulders and say “must be GEM”. Either method works. |
|
I found this tough and had 30 minutes on the clock when I decided to set it aside as I had been staring blankly at the last remaining clue (8ac) for about 10 minutes. I returned to the task some time later and immediately spotted BIT{ch}ING.
GEM went in easily enough with G?M in place. I would have needed to do further research to understand exactly what was going on but couldn’t be bothered.
GRAVEL went in from ‘stones’, but I puzzled over the rest of the clue as somehow I managed to miss the anagram.
I’ve now not had a sub-10 minute solve since Wednesday of last week.
I am currently enjoying a Bovril and a rich tea in the Slow Coach Club, having ambled home in 27 minutes. Thanks, Gallers, for pointing out the cryptic bit of 27 down – fortunately I knew the meaning. STIPEND was quite tough, I thought, and PRETTIFY was the latest in a run of excellent reverse hiddens across both cryptic puzzles. SACK for ‘dress’ was only barely known by me, so that made that one difficult. HOUSEPLANT was very good, I thought, and BITCHING was perhaps Joker allowing himself a little joke.
Yes, expect a lot of ‘Angry from Purleys’ today…
17 down?
Ah, thanks. 21 down.
Agree, the difficulty level was high. Lots of the clues wouldn’t be out of place in a Mon-Wed 15×15.
I thought the clue for STIPEND was a little unfair as the ‘three points’ only become obvious once you have the answer — at least it seemed that way to me. BITING took a bit of thought but saw it eventually, initially thinking the ‘ch’ would be missing from the start or end.
Don’t think I’ve come across ‘possibly’ as an anagrind before so GRAVEL was slow to come, but must admire the rest of the clue with the setter needing to use ‘v’ for ‘very’ to allow the anagram to work. HOUSEPLANT went in from ‘use’ and ‘plan’. Wondered about sack for dress in DREAMINESS too. GEM was my LOI and waited till both checkers were in.
At least there was a chestnut in ABROAD.
Thanks G and setter.
20:13 for the solve. Didn’t really enjoy as very little jumped off the page as to what was wanted. Even when I’m struggling with a puzzle, I can usually think “that’s an anagram, I’ll come back to that” or “I just need a synonym for that word” but most of this cluing seemed a mystery. Had to parse STIPEND post-solve and never parsed NEEDS (and suspect never would have).
Joker used to be such a great setter in the QC slot but for whatever reason has lost the touch. HOUSEPLANT, ESTATE and GRAVEL were enjoyed though.
Thanks to Galspray and Joker.
Edit: Parksolve coming in at a massive 42:55. Fastest opening kilometre of this year’s parkruns at 4:19 (6:57/mile).
To be fair New Driver – your 20 mins is pretty good considering.
Absolutely – no particular complaints about my time for this puzzle especially now seeing what others have done while I was at parkrun. I just didn’t enjoy it very much, the clueing felt like I was tackling the 15×15
Another tough but enjoyable workout which I actually found it less difficult than yesterdays puzzle.
I needed an alpha trawl for LOI BITING where, like Quadrophenia I assumed that I’d be removing ‘ch’ or ‘ce’ from the start of a word, so was delighted that the first letter (for once) was at the start of the alphabet.
Finished in 11.08 with COD to HOUSEPLANT but I never did workout the parsing of NEEDS.
Thanks to galspray and Joker.
Am only 11 mins in ( Haven’t checked answers). 3 on first pass. I checked quitch and saw it was sky high.
I did wonder if it was OINK as I have PIG in a down clue- did not feel like Oink though.
I now see it is Joker.
Can’t help but think the name shows a strange sort of humour. ( Sorry Joker)
Will plod on for a bit but not my idea of a QC.
Has not been a great week for me and QC. Hope next week is enjoyable – and that the QC aren’t getting more difficult again.
Thanking you in advance for your blog.
Yep. A DNF.
Am getting on better with the 15×15.
As the snitch is currently 161 – the highest ever for a QC – I am not surprised I found this beyond me.
Congrats to those who made it through 🎊
I wish the setters would road test these before they put them out. Somebody should have put Joker right!
SCC 23:53. No point bitching about the gravel and ending up with a gem 💎
Having correctly decided to leave the church out of this frosty conundrum I then tried too hard to find a word starting with ch. Should have known the church was at the centre of the problem.
Ta G and Joker you naughty naughty naughty person
Three naughties?!? Why so serioussssss….?
Tough but enjoyable – got there in just under 20 minutes. Thanks!!
15:07
Tough, but no complaints. I enjoyed the challenge.
Biffed GEM, without fully understanding how it worked.
My LOI was STIPEND, which also gets my COD.
Thanks Galspray and Joker
Tough enough to nearly warrant a bit of bitching but satisfying enough on completion to stay just the right side of QC. There’ll always be the occasional one that will act as a bigger step towards the 15×15 and this was definitely that.
I didn’t use either method for GEM as it certainly wasn’t a ‘must be…’, I just crossed my fingers that it wasn’t ‘gum’ or ‘gym’.
Thanks (just) Joker and Galspray for the blog.
DNF. 27 minutes, not many of which were enjoyable, only to fail on the very last. There are nearly 100 words, my cheat machine tells me, that fit the checkers for BITING, and I didn’t find the needle in that particular haystack. Well before that the puzzle had become one I was battling through with gritted teeth – did not parse STIPEND or NEEDS, and MER at grass = weed – and having for once decided to keep going past my usual stop time I feel doubly frustrated.
There’s no point in me querying whether this was suitable as a QC, because both Joker and our crossword editor apparently think it was. So let me just say that opinions differ.
Many thanks Galspray for the blog.
. . .I believe grass and weed are alternative names for cannabis, so I gave Joker a pass on that rather than a Mer.
A weed is a plant growing in the wrong place…
DNF after 30m with BITING being the only one unsolved. I was convinced it involved ICING, but couldn’t make it work. Needed the blog to understand what was going on there, and was somewhat surprised at the construction.
I biffed STIPEND and GEM, but again, needed the blog to parse them properly.
Glad to hear that others suffered as well…meant in the nicest possible way.
Pi ❤️
QTPi (not that serious😉)
Miles off the pace, DNF after 25 mins with multiple blanks.
Why would the setter choose “sack” as a way to describe dress. Seems unreasonably obscure.
COD VANDAL, very nice.
About 60% done was hard but interesting and a good learning opportunity. No complaints from me on this one. Thanks for the blog
DNF disaster. Needed help to start!
I did complete but had to reveal various – something I never do these days.
Eventually managed the RHS, but e.g. missed hidden PRETTIFY. Hm.
Liked VANDAL, TAVERN, DOLDRUMS.
Thanks for v much needed blog, Galspray. Could not parse my wild guesses.
7.59 WOE
Just bunged in PRETTILY which was more than a bit careless with the letters right in front of me. Otherwise one of those where there were a lot I couldn’t see on first look but by chipping away at the gentler ones and getting some checkers really helped.
Agree this was at the tougher end but I like the idea of these getting harder as the week goes on. Appreciate others might not
Thanks Gallers/Joker
14 minutes. Yes, pretty hard with 1a giving an indication of things to come. I had no hope parsing STIPEND and saw the cryptic def but missed the wordplay for GEM which made it into an &lit. I also took a while to spot the PRETTIFY reverse hidden and to see the DRESS for ‘sack, perhaps’ in DREAMINESS.
A bit of a struggle but still enjoyable. Favourite was the surface reading for DALLIANCE.
Thanks to Joker and galspray
Too much for me on a Saturday morning (or, on reflection, at any time). I enjoyed unravelling some clever clues and had some satisfying PDMs but a DNF for me after 25 mins with 5 still to do.
This reached 15×15 level for too many clues imho. Congratulations to those who finished it.
I was relieved to see that many expert solvers above found it tough, too, and that the QUITCH was as high as I have ever seen it (161).
Thanks to Galspray for a good blog but no thanks to Joker for setting an impressively clever but deliberately non-quick cryptic. He must have been in a very mean mood when composing this one.
Another DNF here – stopped at door of SCC with BITING, PRETTIFY and DREAMINESS incomplete.
NHO PRETTIFY.
MER re dress/sack in DREAMINESS
21d GEM didn’t think of Mega, wondered about Gee, cut > Ge.
EDUCATION -Added ‘uphill=reverse’ and ‘cut and mounted = truncated and reversed’ to our list of directions. Said list kept in head so recovery at a later date not guaranteed.
2a VANDAL brought a chuckle
COD 3d STIPEND. Clever : )
Thanks to Joker and Galspray.
Happy weekend all.
Dnf…
There are complaints…probably my worst performance in a long time – only had about 6 answers after 20 mins and then had to pull the plug due to having other things to do. Didn’t help that I spelt “Timbre” wrong.
Upon reflection, there are some answers I should have got – but there were some sneaky definitions, both in terms of answers and in the parsing, which meant getting a foothold was pretty difficult. As a result, I never really got going.
FOI – 4dn “Pig”
LOI – Dnf
COD – 5dn “Artillery” – but not a lot to choose from to be fair.
Thanks as usual!
Ouch. 32 odd, though shouldn’t have taken so long over LOI PRETTIFY, completely missing the reverse word container. Needed Galspray’s help again to fully parse ABROAD and STIPEND. Enjoyed the definition of HOUSEPLANT. Rounded off a challenging week
Got there in the end in: 90mins (my average according to the Snitch is about 40mins although that obviously does only include the ones where I somehow made it into the top 100 on the club – at least while the data was scraped). Made one mistake on 13D. Put (F)AIRWAY thinking of FAIRWAY as a shipping/nautical route and then AIRWAY as being overseas. Maybe could have just about worked if there was a question mark at the end. I saw the error of my ways as soon as I saw all that pink. ABROAD is a bit of a chestnut so was kicking myself. Was expecting some pink, but was thinking it would most likely be on the E of GEM which I hadn’t fully parsed (and definitely don’t blame myself for after seeing Galspray’s excellent explanation).
Despite being a relative new comer to the Times Crosswords (at least in paying them daily attention) I don’t really mind the toughness of this puzzle. I really enjoyed many of the clues and have really enjoyed all of Joker’s puzzles that I’ve had a go at and like the way they think and the expansion of my own thinking that comes with it. I can always get there now with a bit of perseverance on the QC and even many of the 15x15s. However, this week and going into the end of last there has been a run of about 10 puzzles on the QC that have really pushed me. I think if they were spaced out a bit more with some slightly easier puzzles in between or one or two clues with less complex construction were thrown in to add some more checkers I would have enjoyed myself a bit more and better managed my mornings. I’ve enjoyed the challenge nonetheless and feel good for hanging in there every day.
Thanks to Galspray, Joker, Starstruck (for the Snitch which is really useful as a newcomer for pacing yourself and working out if you can attempt the 15×15 without feeling too demoralised) and the many daily commenters whose thoughts and insights are really valuable. I’m a particular fan of Jackkt’s precision and Cedric Statherby’s frank humour.
Thank you for your kind comment, Andybry, and welcome, as I think this may be your first posting here. The remarks about your approach to solving are interesting and refreshing.
Glad to see you here!
My thanks too; most kind of you. I only started doing crosswords at all, let alone cryptic ones, in lockdown 5 years ago, and this blogsite and its many varied contributors has proved both educational and very entertaining.
Far too hard for me. Gave up with only 9 done. Even after looking up the answers one at a time I could only get a couple more from the crossers. Third DNF in a row.
The QC was supposed to be an “on ramp” for new starters, if this was the first cryptic crossword a new starter attempted I think they would be extremely unlikely to come back for a second one.
Not sure I agree that this would put off new solvers. When I was just starting, every single puzzle was equally daunting. “Easy” and “hard”, they were all the same to me — very, very hard.
I didn’t finish but feel encouraged by this blog as I wasn’t alone in finding it difficult and I did get about 3 quarters of the clues.
Came here to confirm the difficulty wasn’t just me being drowsy from flu tablets. Nice to have something on the higher end in the Quickie, though. Never did parse STIPEND but I can see it plain enough now.
A couple days ago we narrowly avoided the SCC. Today we find ourselves petitioning for a redefinition of it based upon the difficulty of the challenge. We only had a handful of clues after 10 minutes+ though we did escape the DOLDRUMS as more checkers became available. Finished in 20:52 though we couldn’t parse STIPEND and the cryptic element of GEM flew over our heads (well done and thank you, Galspray, for that one in particular!). Rather liked HOUSEPLANT once we saw it but the whole puzzle was much more like a 15 x 15. Thank you (just!), Joker.
I was going to give up with a nearly empty SE corner, when I noticed that I had artillAry 🙄. Correcting that immediately (these things are always relative) gave me Estate and Terrain and I finished with Dreaminess a few minutes after that, albeit by then well north of the 30min post.
While I was pleased to eventually finish (class V), especially given some of the other comments, I do wonder why Joker persists with these wildly inappropriate QCs.
I had Prompt down as my CoD for the smooth surface but, having seen Galspray’s parsing of Stipend, I will acknowledge three points for the win😉 Invariant
Certainly the most difficult QC I’ve attempted. I couldn’t do half of the clues. Even the ones I had correct, I don’t think I’ve ever had so many unparsed.
I attempt the QC as I’m a beginner to cryptic crosswords. I usually take an hour to solve an average difficulty QC. If I wanted a much more difficult cryptic crossword, there are lots of other places I could go. It seems pointless to make the QC so difficult.
It’s occurred to me more than a few times that the 15×15 is immediately available to those who enjoy a stiffer challenge, so I’m inclined to agree.
I took more than 21 minutes and made one mistake,yet still scraped into the top 100. It must have been a toughie.
Able Baker is more than a random capitalisation. Before the introduction of the harmonised NATO alphabet (Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot…) the standard used in military Radio Comms was Able, Baker, Charlie, Dog, Easy, Fox…
Yes, I didn’t mean to suggest that it was random, just that it was misleading in terms of the definition of the homophone.
I enjoyed this despite not getting inside my 6 minute target, but have to thank Galspray not only for his blog in general, but also for parsing GEM which totally eluded me
Yes it was at the top end of of the QC equivalent of Moh’s Scale of Hardness, but it is the weekend, and theoretically most of us have more time to consider the puzzle.
FOI TIMBRE
LOI TWEED *
COD GRAVEL
TIME 6:23
* DREAMINESS was my major hold-up, largely because I spent too long considering “Trent”, using “opening=rent” as a tenuous excuse.
I also went for TRENT initially…
My lunch breaks are steadily getting longer and longer… Needed more than a bit of perseverance but got there in the end. Spent much of my time on PRETTIFY, HOUSEPLANT and TERRAIN, none of which were that tricky on reflection. Biffed then parsed STIPEND (very clever) and DREAMINESS (sack=dress?). Favourite clue, of course, NEEDS 😁 Many thanks for the blog. Thanks Joker – tricksy.
My goodness me! I had hoped, after a 91 minute DNF with Cheeko yesterday, for a little light relief today. But no, it wasn’t to be. I did however reach the finish line, albeit after 77-78 minutes of proper hard graft.
My first full pass took me 10-12 minutes, but by then I had only 5 solutions written into the grid – PIG, TIMBRE, PROMPT, RING and TAVERN. My solving pace slowed markedly after that. Many clues had to go in without parsing, not because I was racing for a time, but because I simply had no idea what was going on.
DOLDRUMS was my LOI, after which I breathed a huge sigh of relief.
Many thank to Galspray for the blog.
DNF. I abandoned this one when I saw I had more than 30 minutes on the clock and was just sat staring at the last four in the northwest corner: BITING, OGRE, OWING and STIPEND.
Still, an impressive puzzle. Thanks to Joker, special thanks to galspray for the blog and an extra thankyou to Invariant for explaining grass=weed, which completely passed me by
LOI and COD to VANDAL. What a clever clue once the penny dropped.
This one was hard but the puzzles earlier this week seemed to have prepared me for the battle and it was finished in just under an hour. I didn’t think it was as hard as the Snitch score indicates.
Failed to parse STIPEND or GEM but otherwise it all made sense.
Thanks Galspray and Joker
16:20, also found this hard for a QC but once I got warmed up I enjoyed it. Thought the 3 points clue was clever. LOI BITING took an alphabet trawl as I was looking for the missing CH at the start not in the middle, but luckily just needed to reach B and there it was
I thought I was a bit on the slow side today, until I came here. Even though it’s the middle of the afternoon I’m well up the leaderboard, relatively speaking. From PIG to BITING in 15:07. Managed to parse GEM but not NEEDS. Thanks Joker and Galspray.
Ooof. Might have managed my last four eventually but had other things to do. Lots of v hard but nothing wholly unfair – although the removing CH from inside a slightly obscure synonym (to me) was borderline non-QC.
Nothing to add generally to all above. Despite the DNF I was pleased with what I did solve, and various lessons learnt.
Effusive thanks for the blog, Galspray, much needed!
Too difficult for me. Roll on Monday.
25.16 DNF. A tough one after a week away. I put in PRETTILY at the end and I’d typoed TERRIAN for three errors in total. Thanks galspray and Joker.
DNF. BITING was my downfall. Got all the rest, hooray, but with quite a few the parsing was a mystery!
That felt like running across a slippery log expecting to crash and knock my teeth out at any moment, but somehow miraculously making it to the other side.
08:29 is nothing special but today feels like a Miraculous Day.
Many thanks Joker and gallers.
As a newbie, relieved to see this was difficult for this crowd as well.
Can someone explain how car park works as ESTATE? Still can’t see it. Is there something an American wouldn’t know about going on, or am I just being slow?
A station wagon in the US is an Estate car in UK.
A park associated with a (grand) house would be an Estate.
Double defn (as Galspray says) but you have to separate ‘car’ and ‘park’. Sneaky!
I will just add that “estate” as a car, vehicle, etc. comes up a lot in these puzzles. I added it to my internal dictionary of British thingies early on.
Ah, got it, thanks!
Wowsers!
Joker has really done it this time, providing an entertaining head-scratcher that took me 30:52 to finish. To be fair though, a lot of it was my ineptitude in entering DALLLIACE when I meant DALLIANCE. After repairing that I was so flummoxed that I couldn’t see PRETTIFY and finally got it by attempting to parse it as “somewhat” = PRETTY containing a mysterious IF.
In my garden, grass is a weed (grrrrrr), but in general? (Oh, cannabis, thank you Invariant.)
FOI OGRE, LOI PRETTIFY (a great clue). Could not parse NEEDS at all, at all. The rude BITING, the very British VANDAL and ESTATE were excellent, but COD to STIPEND.
Thanks Joker and galspray.
13:24 here, bucking the trend by being faster than normal for me. I particularly liked STIPEND and BITING, which were my last two in.
Thanks to Joker and Galspray.
50 minutes!
That was rather tricky.
I note the quicksnitch has this second hardest since records began.
I seem to be enjoying the comforts of the SCC more recently these days, with 21:24 today. It started well with HOUSEPLANT coming fairly quickly and I was lucky to hit upon the rather surprising wordplay for BITING without too much trouble. I was unsure about PROMPT (which does not mean “quick to respond” as far as my copy of Chambers is concerned) and things went downhill from there. Generally a bit too much for me, I’m afraid.
Thank you for the blog!
Had to resort to a synonym trawl to get biting, but otherwise a steady enough solve for me. Must have been on wavelength as I gor through most of it no slower than usual. Have masses of couch grass to wrestle with in the veg garden, so didn’t need to think of the drug ref to get to weed. I really enjoyed this – tough, but fair with some nice clues.
FOI Pig
LOI Biting
COD Dolddrums
Thanks Joker and Galspray
Massive DNF. Despite abandoning and coming back for another go, I could only manage half of it. Way too hard for a QC. Disheartening.
I was only a few seconds quicker than the prize. No obscure words but as said some constructions which I thought were a bit beyond the QC or at least what I have encountered before. But maybe I’m just a bit tired after a long day.
COD HOUSEPLANT
Thanks blogger and setter.