Times Quick Cryptic 2704 by Hurley – Times for The Times (2024)

So far more solvers have made an error than not. I wonder if we’ve all spelled ‘cameraderie’ the way I do?

17:03. I had trouble remembering how to spell PIRANHA until I realized IRAN was the country involved. I didn’t like the “most” in the definition for STAPLE, “important” seemed sufficient for me. GALLOP took a while as I forgot GOP and tried to make something out of R and DO. PIECE and WOEBEGONE were favourites.

I had SCARPER since I didn’t think of CAMPER, even though I thought it was probably wrong.
WOEBEGONE was my LOI by a long shot, that’s a very hard clue I think.
Didn’t enjoy this puzzle, it felt all pretty loose in terms of definitions/wordplay.

I thought this was an excellent example of the setter’s art at Quickie level. Collins has ‘of prime importance’ for staple, so no problems there. WOEBEGONE really got the grey cells working. It took ages to think of the correct position of the O in the wordplay. 8:25

Today I learnt that I cannot spell camaraderie after five goes at it even after being given all the correct letters.

‘Sounds like Bouncer’ begin with B – can surely only be BARK. Needed the W from BAWL when I gave up on the Neighbours dog to see WOEBEGONE – not sure I would ever have solved that from cryptic alone. Ended up all green in 8.24.

I found this quite tricky in places and never did parse my last one in which only succumbed to an alphabet trawl. Fortunately managed to avoid biffing ‘scarper’ and double checked my spelling of CAMARADERIE.
Started with SET and finished with WOEBEGONE in 10.14.
Thanks to Jackkt

Lovely puzzle solved with some head-scratching and careful spelling.
I didn’t know GOP for ‘Republican Grand Old Party’ but the answer was clear from the P and ‘Everyone’
FOI: ROSTRUM.
LOI: FRANCHISE.
Nice succinct but clear blog Jackkt.

NHO GOP, so no chance of guessing that; WOEBEGONE just too difficult (and obscure); otherwise all fine (no problem with CAMARADERIE). Thank you, John, for an enjoyable meeting on Saturday.

I didn’t realise that FRANCHISE could mean the right to vote in public elections but the wordplay was clear. Ditto re GOP for Republican Party. Guess I’m not a fan of politics. I checked the anagram fodder for CAMARADERIE so avoided a pink square. From SCAMPER to SERVILE in 7:33.

Three errors:
– had no idea where the clue for WOEBEGONE was going apart from a word for gloomy.
– misspelt PIRANNA which looked wrong and didn’t parse.
– CAMERADERIE like several others.
Corrected SCAMPER in time though and gave it COD.
Thanks Jack and Hurley

DNF.
Gave up after 20 mins. with just 8 clues gotten.
Just too tough for me.
A rotten start to the week.

DNF couldn’t see WOEBEGONE, too hard for my abilities, hopefully I will get there one day. I have to say I disagree with Cedric – once I saw the answer I was relieved I had looked it up. I think its a perfectly fair clue but not one that is particularly satisfying to see solved

Meant to go back and check the spelling of CAMARADERIE but didn’t. Woe is me that I scarpered too. LOI BRIDAL. I found it fairly easy once I got going – apart from my mistakes.
Liked STAPLE, PIECE, MASCOT.
Didn’t know GOP but GALLOP it had to be.
Thanks vm, Jack.

Parsing problems today. I stopped to correct SCARPER and then was slow to see PIECE.
Even so after 12 minutes I just needed to parse WHEREFORE. Over 5 more minutes I had WE plus REFER (ask) and OR for option, so with a feeling of doubt I came here. WOE is me. Definitely a tough clue.
If it doesn’t parse, …
Very good to meet fellow solvers at The George on Saturday and more thanks to John for organising.
David

I had scarper instead of scamper. Personally I think a better answer to the clue

All done and dusted ere I reached the portals of the SCC, so a good start to the week for me. The longer ones each took a little thinking and parsing time, but nothing held me up particularly and it was all fair and fun. PIECE seemed obvious but the parsing confused me until I realised it was a triple, not a double def.

DNF as David above. Foxed as I wrote 1a SCARPER; where did the per come from? Nowhere came the stern reply.
Found this tricky. Was fixated on suffrage for the 9d voting thing, puzzled by the Big Beast Bear at 9a.
Couldn’t see 14a CAMARADERIE and so on. 3d PIECE triple def foxed me too.
Nevertheless a good quickie. COD 20a HELLo.

Like most others spelt CAMARADERIE with a fourth letter E initially, but (smug face) took the trouble on completion to check the anagrist, and changed it to an E. The extra seconds taken here together with over two minutes spent solving my LOI WOEBEGONE, took me from a pretty quick time to a more average (for me) time of 9.02.
Like Templar watched Rory heartbreakingly disintegrate on the final four holes last night, but I’m more forgiving than Templar, those greens were treacherous. At least England did the business at the Euros, so not such a bad day.

Well off the pace today, and pulled stumps at the 25min mark with Woebegone, Piece and Servile unsolved for a really quite poor DNF. Invariant

20m
Finished eventually but no idea on exact time as kept taking breaks.
Struggled with forbearance, franchise, and LOI woebegone.
COD shower

4:25 but another CAMERADERIE. LOI WOEBEGONE… which I am after the spelling lesson. Are we misspellers in the majority? Maybe we should lobby for the dictionaries to be changed. Thanks Hurley and Jackkt.

I was initially scooting, rather than scamping, and spent some time establishing spelling of CAMARADERIE, plus WOEBEGONE left me so. . I’d give myself a dnf, I’m afraid

Never heard of GOP as have little interest in US politics and add me to the SCAMPER but what about the PER group?

Frustrating mixture of easy, straightforward clues and some quite tricky wordplay. French speakers know their camarades so no problems there, but I struggled with staple and with forbearance and entered the SCC at the opposite of a scamper. Enjoyed dub for call and serve for wait: got there (just) in the end. And summer has come to Suffolk today – all doors and windows open at last. Hooray! Thanks Hurley and jackkt.

Having come a cropper with CAMERADERIE several times in the past, I was particularly careful this time and counted the As and Es in the anagrist to confirm. SCAMPER was FOI: many of my muso friends have camper vans, so I wasn’t distracted by scarper. Took a while to get GALLOP as I was distracted by R for Republican. My longest holdup was LOI, WOEBEGONE, and I had to write out the letters I had horizontally before I could make sense of it. 8:25. Thanks Hurley and Jack.

21.04 DNF. My run of terrible form continues but at least I’m in good company today. I also biffed SCARPER and misspelled CAMERADERIE, and was held up by BRIDAL and PIECE, where I took far too long to realise it was a triple def. Thanks Jack and Hurley.

Another cameraderie here. Held up inexplicably by BROWN/BAWL otherwise mostly straightforward. Didn’t know GOP = Republican. Tried scarper before realising the error of my ways. Didn’t know that meaning of FRANCHISE. Maybe not so straightforward after all. Many thanks Jack. Would love to have come on Saturday. Enjoyed seeing the photos. Maybe next year.

I’m another CAMERADERIE so one pink square. No excuse since it is an anagram. Otherwise no problems.

Completed not too far outside our normal time, but personally I was put off by the ugliness of the surfaces, in many cases seeming to be just a random selection of words. To me one of the worst examples of setting I have seen, I assumed that there must be something else going in the clues for them to be so bad, but nobody seems to have spotted anything

O what ails thee knight at arms so ragged and so woebegone
While the sedge has withered from the lake and no birds sing
I think, from memory