Quick Cryptic 3056 by Asp

Author   CuraristPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

I found this quite hard work, relying on checkers for many and quite a few unparsed until afterwards. There are an awful lot of first names in the grid which suggests some sort of Nina, but I have no idea how to link them. Dean Martin might be a clue.

Across
7 One can’t fly after Heathrow checks (4)
RHEA – hidden word, flightless bird
8 Constituency with small majority / in the Borders? (8)
MARGINAL – Double definition, which completely flummoxed me for ages.
9 Bully about to run after man (6)
HECTOR -C (about) + TO + R after HE
10 Fighting almost tore apart densely populated area (6)
WARREN – WAR + REN[T]. Densely populated with rabbits, obviously.
11 Beginnings of days always witnessed now? (4)
DAWN – acronym, and an &lit
12 Play-acting up to age nine starts to create empathy (8)
PRETENCE – PRE TEN (up to age nine) + C[REATE] E[MPATHY]
15 Wrong-headed way to read poetry? (8)
PERVERSE – Per verse, i.e. one verse at a time.
17 Spot check (4)
MARK – double definition
18 60 per cent of algorithms altered text praising God (6)
GLORIA – 60% of ALGORITHMS is ALGORI. Anagram it (‘altered’)
21 Military Intelligence officer in contact with poet (6)
MILTON – MI (military intelligence) + LT (officer) + ON
22 I chortle about tailor (8)
CLOTHIER – Anagram (‘about’) of I CHORTLE
23 Head of faculty’s area included in study (4)
DEAN – A inside DEN
Down
1 Tie required in Oxford but not Wellington? (8)
SHOELACE – ‘Oxford’ in crosswords always means shoe.
2 Singer and old lady right at home (6)
MARTIN – MA + RT + IN
3 Ripe romp could be seen as this (8)
IMPROPER – Anagram (‘could be seen as’) of RIPE ROMP
4 Charted road going north, east and west (4)
DREW – RD backwards + E + W
5 Transfix reader originally entertained by article? (6)
PIERCE – PIECE (article) with R for Reader inserted
6 English boy raised in valley (4)
DALE – E + LAD backwards
13 Remove broadcast about all time to come (8)
EVERMORE – Anagram (‘about’) of REMOVE, plus RE
14 Type of punishment for petty officer (8)
CORPORAL – double definition
16 Truth is really breached by information technology (6)
VERITY – VERY with IT inserted
17 Tune millions yodel badly (6)
MELODY – M + Anagram (‘badly’) of  YODEL
19 Flower I planted in lines close to rockery (4)
LILY – I inside LL + [ROCKER]Y
20 Land mass is receding within America’s borders (4)
ASIA – IS backwards inside A[MERIC]A

73 comments on “Quick Cryptic 3056 by Asp”

  1. 16 minutes, so I missed my extended target by 1 minute, perhaps because I took an extra moment or two to consider the WP in PERVERSE and spot both definitions of MARK.

    Does anyone check the Editor’s work? If so, they might have noticed the hidden word running down the centre of the grid. I hope it wasn’t perhaps intended as a comment on anything!

  2. 8.12

    Hardish . Even with the M my befuddled brain still wanted 13D to be ETERNITY.

    Liked PRETENCE and PERVERSE. Clue of the day has to be MARK I guess.

    Thanks Curarist and Asp

  3. 15.41, so about double my average. A few of these clues had a number of complicated elements to them and were perhaps MARGINAL in terms of what we might define QC as being, but it was all fair and an enjoyable solve. Thanks Asp and Curarist.

  4. Made pretty decent progress with all done bar Hector around 18. After failing with better, beater and others we finally saw the answer around 22 but a technical DNF
    Thanks Curarist, even though we finally biffed tune answer had no clue on the parsing
    Really liked pretence with perverse a close second for COD

    Thanks Asp

  5. DNF. Although none of the clues is outright IMPROPER, I think this PRETENCE at a QC was MARGINAL at best, if not PERVERSE. Getting 11A was a false DAWN, and I struggled pretty much EVERMORE from there on. Which is another way of saying I found this too hard, and called time with several unsolved.

    Many thanks Curarist for the blog.

  6. DNF with a bad start completely failing to parse the top left of the grid. RHEA, HECTOR and MARTIN. I think if I’d got any one of the three, I would probably have managed to get the other two. Particularly enjoyed PRETENCE and PERVERSE.

  7. Didn’t enjoy this at all. Not fit for purpose as a QC. And after a ridiculous 7:23 which was largely down to only solving two Across clues on the first pass, the whole sorry exercise was negated by yet another typo (“marttn”). I will probably be in a bad mood for the rest of the morning. I’ve got a diabetic eye test, so can’t drive. The bus stop is 5 minutes walk from the clinic, and it looks like rain.

    COD SHOELACE – the only one that raised a smile.

    2. I have for the past several tests requested the pupil dilating drops not to be used and they have nicely agreed.

  8. Asp seems to be saying he doesn’t like the new rule about not using random first names. We have about 15 first names in the answers, along with perverse and improper, and, to top it all, ARSE down the middle!

    1. As Asp is the Crossword Editor and decides the rules, I doubt he has an issue with it! The rule is no random names in the clues.

  9. Hard. Only got 3 across clues at first, but a few more down which helped me to make some headway. Several answers biffed and parsed later, but it was hard work. 27:11, a good deal slower than usual for me.

  10. After taking well over the average time on most of this week’s QCs, I found this one OK and generally enjoyable. 10:06.

  11. I enjoyed this a lot. Took a little longer than usual, but that seems fine for a Friday. Particularly enjoyed HECTOR and PIERCE. 11:00

  12. 32:37 for the solve. About half that was spent on MARGINAL, PIERCE, SHOELACE and PERVERSE. On reflection I should have banged these in as piece=article have seen before and was never misled by the cities of Oxford / Wellington and was playing with it beginning SHOE- but just couldn’t see it. Had pencilled in conVERSE but felt the O ending was unlikely.

    It was almost Quick for me. But the vocab is a step up – clothier, evermore, gloria, hector=bully, pierce=transfix, marginal for politics and a portcullis grid is rarely helpful. That said, I rather enjoyed DAWN, DREW and PRETENCE. For a while thought the Singer referred to was Chris Martin 🤣

    Tough week overall with a quit, a DNF and going back to last Saturday three puzzles I’ve spent 30mins on.

    Thanks to Curarist and Asp

  13. 10:22

    Yes, a surprising number of names – sixteen of the twenty-four answers are first names, some (a lot) rarer than others… RHEA, HECTOR, WARREN, DAWN, MARK, GLORIA, MILTON, DEAN, LILY, MARTIN, VERITY, ASIA, DREW, PIERCE, MELODY, DALE. I wonder what it could all mean…

    Thanks Curarist and Asp

  14. Extremely difficult (hardest one for over 4 months), verging on the PERVERSE. Managed some of the southern ones, but even after reading the blog (thank you, Curarist!) can hardly berate myself for a dismal result, 16 to the bad.
    Singer MARTIN is the bird, I presume? No one has yet said.

    1. Yes, take your pick of the house martin or the sand martin or quite a few others.

      Sings better than Chris Martin too…

  15. DNF. Barely got a handful of these clues.

    A really hard one which ruined my week. Far too hard for a “Quick Cryptic”.

  16. 17:52 (Britain adopts the Gregorian calendar)

    I found this very hard, and had to pause with two unsolved and return later. LOI was HECTOR, unparsed.

    Thanks Curarist and Asp

    1. Gregory himself adopted it in 1582, and the Russians not until 1918 meaning that the October Revolution took place in November.
      I remember it as the PR1ME o/s used 1/Jan/1582 as the date of zero. Excel uses 1/Jan 1960 which means I can’t put my birthday in it as a date. Well done Microsoft… not!

  17. Tricky one, but I managed to come in on the right side of my target. FOI, RHEA, LOI, MARK. I did notice the backend in the middle column. 9:36. Thanks Asp and Curarist.

  18. It is fascinating how different peoples’ minds work. I find some of the clues people have trouble with immediate write-ins, while I struggle with others, and I couldn’t even read all the clues in under 10 minutes, never mind solve them. However, this was relatively straightforward for me, and I was well ahead of my very modest schedule until held up by 7 across and 5 down, where an alphabet trawl was required before both clicked. I am not even going to comment on those who spotted the ARSE in the middle! COD a toss up between DREW and PRETENCE for me.

  19. DNF Well, fellow bloggers – what a relief to find this blog not full of cheer about how easy all found it (as is sometimes the case when we have had ‘A Bad Day’). Even BUSMAN. Gosh.
    Full marks to some clues – PRETENCE, PERVERSE.
    Our boundaries were pushed by various, including 7a RHEA… (thought of Kiwi,Emu). Now see it is a hidden, however, can someone please explain the role of ‘checks’ in that clue? Is it a pointer to cut back (check) the letters of ‘after’ and ‘Heathrow’?
    CORPORAL was another (my lesson of the day – didn’t know the rank), CLOTHIER went in parsed, but NHO.
    So – did quite well until we didn’t…and when we didn’t, we stopped with 3 or 4 not solved.
    Thank you ASP – and Curarist.

  20. It feels as though it’s been a while since we had a real toughie so I quite enjoyed the workout despite getting horribly stuck in the NW. Had I seen the hidden RHEA earlier and remembered the Oxford/shoe connection things might have been different.
    Started with DAWN and finished with SHOELACE in a tardy 13.27.
    Thanks to Curarist and Asp.

  21. I was going pretty well with this with just over six minutes expended and only five to solve. The difficulty of the puzzle then caught up with me, and it took me as long again to get PRETENCE, EVERMORE, IMPROPER, MARGINAL and finally PIERCE. I crossed the line in what I thought was a disappointing 12.39, but looking at the comments and times posted so far it doesn’t seem quite so bad!
    My total time for the week was 48.11, giving me a daily average of 9.38. My weekly averages seem to have improved of late, but if we get too many puzzles like todays offering that will soon change.

  22. Too hard for me. Had to give up on pierce, shoelace, marginal and hector. Don’t think I even knew transfix had a literal meaning like that, didn’t know Oxford would mean shoe, will have to remember that, Hector was just too many different bits for me to put together where the answer had a million options, and marginal I always struggle with punny stuff like that, although to be fair if I had realised that constituency with small majority was a definition I would’ve thought of the answer. Really the problem with all four clues was the horrible checking letters that didn’t help at all.

    Edit: After skimming over the blog I now realise that Hector was actually defining bully not man. I’ve never heard of this meaning so had even less chance of guessing it than I realised.

  23. Yes, that was a toughie. Not helped by taking a long time over SHOELACE, which made me grin when I saw the light. Liked that plus PRETENCE and PERVERSE. Anyway all finished and parsed in what felt like a long time.

    Good to have a challenge now and again

    Thanks Asp and Curarist

  24. DNF disaster and not enjoyable.
    Various moans inc -Petty Officers are in the RNavy. Corporals are NCOs.
    Had to reveal various in the top half, but liked IMPROPER, GLORIA, PERVERSE.
    Thanks for blog, Curarist. Much needed.

    1. Here’s the get-out from Oxford dictionaries, rather a fine point for a QC though!

      corporal – 2 hist. Orig., a petty officer on board a warship responsible for teaching the use of small arms; later (also ship’s corporal), a superior petty officer who attended solely to police matters under the master-at-arms. E17.

  26. 19.07 Slow throughout with five minutes spent on LOI HECTOR. It all looks very reasonable in hindsight. Thanks Curarist and Asp.

  27. Dnf…

    Just had three clues to go in the NW corner after 30 mins – but I wouldn’t have got them as I put “Bootlace” for 1dn – thinking it related to a bootlace tie – not sure why I ignored the Oxford bit.

    Asp has always been a difficult setter, so no surprise it was a fail. A good challenge though, and I nearly got there.

    FOI – 11ac “Dawn”
    LOI – Dnf
    COD – 12ac “Pretence”

    Thanks as usual!

  28. Well off the wavelength with this, to the point where I gave up (twice), only to return for more punishment. Eventually crossed the line in about 30 – 40mins of solving time. Not an enjoyable experience, but I suppose if it doesn’t kill you it makes you stronger? CoD to Pretence for the smile, GR to Corporal for mixing services. Invariant

    1. It’s finding the solution that makes you stronger, not whatever might have killed you!

  29. I paused after 21 minutes with about half a dozen left unsolved. I polished off 5 of these on the restart but didn’t restart the timer. Gave up with 2dn unsolved on what must have been around 26 minutes. I originally had converse at 15ac so was slow to see shoelace.

    FOI – 18ac GLORIA
    LOI – DNF
    COD – 3dn IMPROPER

    Thanks to Asp and Curarist.

  30. Not as bad as many have made out for me. A steady solve for twenty minutes which left me, or so I thought, with just 1d to fill in. I wasn’t entirely happy with my CONVERSE for 15a though, and after several minutes, and a PDM with SHOELACE, it was confirmed as wrong. With the E it didn’t take too long to come up with PERVERSE, however, and I stopped my watch on 28:13. Given all the comments above, I’m reasonably happy with that. Shame someone couldn’t come up with a Nina though. With all those names, surely by chance there must be a book, film or football team that contains a few of them. Thanks all.

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