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. Got bitten by Asp’s non-QC with clues for Perverse, Shoelace , Pierce and Pretence being the blockers but solvable. For some perverse reason I did enjoy it. Thanks all.

  2. Knew it was going to be fun but tricky when I saw the setter’s name. Technical DNF as I revealed MARGINAL along the way. Couldn’t parse HECTOR which was biffed from ‘bully’ (thanks C). Knew it was something VERSE but the PER part took an age. Wasn’t sure what was going on with the Nina but the ‘arse’ down the middle made me laugh out loud. Really liked RHEA, DALE and SHOELACE (for PDM). Many thanks Asp. A real Friday workout.

  3. 14 down is not a correct double definition. Petty Officer is a RN rate that is the equivalent to a sergeant not a corporal.

  4. 20:48. A tough one for which I couldn’t avoid the SCC. There were plenty of clues to slow me down, eg PRETENCE, PERVERSE and EVERMORE. One I did manage to see early on was the clever DAWN. Having the checked letters meant at least the last few went in quickly; till then it was looking as though I was going to be much slower.

    Saw all the names and the central Nina, but except for DEAN MARTIN couldn’t take things further. I agree with Crispian above that there’s probably more to it.

    Thanks to Asp and Curarist

  5. It may have been brain fog on my part, but this seemed to be the hardest Quickie I’ve ever done, limping in at just under 14 minutes.

    I think the nina is that ALL the 4- and 6-letter answers are names.

  7. I am sorry but this was a ridiculous puzzle for a QC. Not even close to being appropriate. No fun at all.

  8. All do-able for us but it was hard work and took us substantially over par at 15:35. LOI MARTIN IIRC and more than a MER at that. A martin certainly isn’t what I’d call a songbird: beautiful flyers but more accurately described as twitterers I would have said and I rather doubt Mrs T would classify my wittering as singing! Nevertheless, good to have something a little out of the ordinary. Thanks to Curarist and Asp.

  9. A perfect QC for those of us who prefer a decent workout to a write-in, but frequently simply haven’t got the bandwidth to sit down with the 15×15.
    Great stuff – 10 mins, COD HECTOR. Thanks Asp, and Curarist for the blog.

  10. DNF
    Failed on NW corner.
    Seemed very hard for a QC.
    Thanks for the much needed blog Curarist.

  11. 39 minute DNF.

    Put TERROR for HECTOR and MARRIN for MARTIN after staring at them for over 20 mins. MARTIN was easy and would probably have given me HECTOR. Why couldn’t I see such an obvious clue?

    Another useless display for a truly awful week and a weekend that will be spent wondering why I bother when I clearly lack the talent.

    Too disillusioned and saddened by my sheer incompetence to even look at 15 x 15 today.

    1. I think everyone who reads your comments also wonders why you continue to do something that makes you miserable. Life’s too short, find something you enjoy.

  12. Just too hard for a QC, IMHO. My experience with this setter suggests he is still struggling to gauge where to pitch the level of difficulty of his puzzles, unless of course he is deliberately aiming to flummox all but the most capable of solvers. And that’s fair enough I suppose, but only if he appears occasionally.

    I struggled to get started (apart from DAWN) and slowed down from there all of the way to the finish, which was nearly 70 (seventy!) minutes later. Sorry Asp, but this was not really my idea of relaxation over a cup of tea/coffee. My refreshment was long gone well before I’d reached the halfway point.

    Many thanks to Curarist.

  13. Stretched by this one, taking 26:54. Hat-tip to 7dPenguin for pointing out that all the 4 and 6 letter answers are names: can there be more to it than that?

    COD to PRETENCE.

    Thanks to Asp and Curarist.

  14. Got nowhere with this 15*15 level puzzle. Not fun for me anyway. Hopefully don’t see another Asp for a while.

  15. DNF

    Staggeringly, I was defeated by HECTOR of all answers!

    Had MARVIN for the singer which left HECTOR impossible. Very slow going anyway but disappointing to fall a the last.

  16. Managed to get all bar 4 in about 30 mins. Then came back after a couple of hours and had inspiration to get in finished. I doff my cap to Asp for this -the variety of clues to get so many names in there without the random man or woman definer is really skillful. The rather precise 60% in 18 across seemed to answer some previous grumbles here too.

    FOI Dean
    LOI Martin
    COD Improper

    thanks Asp and Curarist

  17. Steady solve, except for the parts where it took a while to separate the definition in the right place for Marginal and then to equate Transfix with Pierce. Nice blog, Curarist

  18. Too hard for me. I managed the whole of the South but was stumped by the same clues as others above.
    Although I didn’t get PRETENCE I thought it was a rather good clue.
    Thanks Curarist and well done for working it all out.

  19. DNF, found this one too hard for me. Thank you for the blog, needed more than half the puzzle explained to me 😊

  21. I can’t say I really enjoyed this. As soon as I saw Asp’s name, I braced myself for the onslaught 😂 I average around 10 minutes these days, but anticipated that I’d need rather longer today. Usually, if I go beyond twice my average, I abandon ship, unless there is only one to go. Today there were MARGINAL, WARREN and PIERCE left, and I couldn’t see what was going on with any of them, so a DNF at about 30 minutes, including a break to see if that helped. It didn’t! I couldn’t parse PERVERSE, but the PDM when HECTOR showed up was colossal 😅
    However – and it’s a big however – now the list of names has been pointed out, I think it’s a very good nina. But as editor, surely Asp saw what he’d left down the middle column – was it an accident? Of course, it made me giggle when it was pointed out – I really need to grow up!
    FOI Dawn COD Improper
    Thanks Asp and Curarist

  23. We didn’t manage to complete this – 8 clues not solved when we reached our cut-off time of 30 minutes. Similar problems to others raised above. Not very enjoyable for us. Looking back at the 5 QCs from Asp that we have tackled this year, we have only managed to complete 1 and that one we found tricky.
    Thanks very much ,Curarist, for the blog -really needed today.

  24. It’s Saturday already so this might go unread Quite cuffed that I managed 12 given some of the comments. It did take me about an hour.

    CoD for me was Gloria, first time I’ve seen percentage used in that way.

    And I did spot study=den (at last).

    Healthwise back on an even keel hopefully. Brain seems to have kicked into key on a couple of other pet projects as well.

    Best wishes all, have a great weekend.

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