Times Quick Cryptic No 1858 by Teazel

Author   rolytolyPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
Quite an inventive puzzle today from Teazel. Of similar difficulty to yesterday’s, I found, coming in close to 8 minutes for both. It took me a while to get going, failing on the first four acrosses, and then had a bit of a delay at the end with the large animal bit of 9ac and the unknown game at 5d. Most enjoyable – many thanks to Teazel!

Across
1 Criminal act, one perpetrated in prison? (6,3)
INSIDE JOB – cryptic hint, referring to ‘inside’ = ‘in prison’.
6 American friend’s name rejected (3)
BUD – DUB (name) rejected = reversed
8 Have contempt for small crop (5)
SCORN – S(mall) CORN (crop)
9 Perhaps tape large creature next to tiny one (7)
SEALANT – SEAL (large creature) next to ANT (tiny one)
10 Musically, Jane was a disaster (8)
CALAMITY – cryptic definition, as in Calamity Jane, my knowledge of which is limited to the TV series Deadwood.
11 Land for each university (4)
PERU – PER (for each) U(niversity)
13 Improbable — I completely refuse! (3,6)
NOT LIKELY – double definition, the second as in ‘absolutely not’.
16 Henry swallowed strong emotion (4)
HATE – H (Henry, as in the regnal abbreviation) ATE (swallowed)
17 Horribly sick near use of cosmetics (8)
SKINCARE – anagram (horribly) of SICK NEAR
20 Vehicle snooty type gets to take away (4,3)
CART OFF – CAR (vehicle) TOFF (snooty type)
21 Some children always concerned with part of body (5)
RENAL – “some” childREN ALways
22 Solemn person starts to offer wise lessons (3)
OWL – “starts to” Offer Wise Lessons
23 Taken by surprise being put out of cricket ground? (3,3,3)
HIT FOR SIX – double definition

Down
1 Bug popular dissenting group (6)
INSECT – IN (popular) SECT (dissenting group)
2 Seat for sort of pigeon (5)
STOOL – double definition
3 Man wrestling with deity is explosive (8)
DYNAMITE – anagram (wrestling) of MAN with DEITY
4 Contemplate but don’t act; that shouldn’t happen (4,5,2,2)
JUST THINK OF IT – double-ish definition
5 Card game in British newspaper (4)
BRAG – B(ritish) RAG (newspaper). It couldn’t be much else, in fairness, but I’d never heard of it.
6 Courage of supporter to a great degree (7)
BRAVERY – BRA (supporter) VERY (to a great degree)
7 Extremely dire, lengthy journey, not a direct route (6)
DETOUR – DE (“extremely” DirE) TOUR (lengthy journey)
12 No ordeal disrupted Renaissance polymath (8)
LEONARDO – anagram (disrupted) of NO ORDEAL
13 Unforced, one may cancel a flat (7)
NATURAL – double definition, the second in musical notation
14 Share nothing, being mad (6)
WHACKO – WHACK (share) O (nothing)
15 Involuntary response having half-read cable (6)
REFLEX – RE (“half” of REad) FLEX (cable)
18 First off, discourages relatives (5)
AUNTS – take the first off DAUNTS (discourages). I could only think of ‘haunts’ for a while.
19 Smart shop fails (4)
POSH – anagram (fails) of SHOP

49 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 1858 by Teazel”

  1. I was slowed down a bunch by not knowing HIT FOR SIX in any of its meanings (and being slow to see POSH). Also DNK BRAG, but as Roly says. 7:46, but I overlooked a typo–hair-trigger keyboard gave me BRAVEER, hence 2 unforced errors.
  2. 9 minutes but the amount of revisiting clues that went on made this seem more difficult than it turned out in the event, the top RH corner being the most resistant to my efforts. SEALANT was my LOI.
  3. Nine on the first pass of acrosses and good progress from there but then slowed by WHACKO and SEALANT. Seals are smaller than I was thinking, not sure I got below hippos before resorting to an alphabet trawl to fill in the two missing letters. Seems plain now but nothing came to mind when faced with S_A_ANT. WHACKO also only came from an alphabet trawl — which I had to do twice because as usual I lost interest after T and wasn’t really paying attention at W the first time around. Whack for share was never going to arrive except by seeing then justifying. Found SKINCARE remarkably hard to get from the anagram until the K from JUST THINK OF IT and CART OFF also held me up for some reason. Another good puzzle.
  4. Flew through the top half, except for 9A, steady but slower progress below, still hopeful of an uncommon less than SCC time, then completely frustrated on returning to hunt the elusive seal. Drat and blast. But otherwise a good experience.

  5. FOI: BUD
    LOI: WHACKO

    Held up by CALAMITY for a short while and then WHACKO.

    Thank you, rolytoly and Teazel

  6. I’m not sure I’d fully woken up when tackling this as everything seemed to take a little longer than it should have done – the LEONARDO and SKINCARE anagrams being prime examples. I was left at the end with WHACKO, where an alphabet trawl was required, and SEALANT. I had a MER at seal being described as large but I guess elephant or leopard seals would comfortably fit into that category, so fair enough. Finished in 11.52 with CoD to DYNAMITE.
    Thanks to Rolytoly
  7. Sadly, I have wrecked my run of three sub-20 minute solves by being unable to see PERU. Was fixated on EA=each, which left -EAU and so the unsatisfactory BEAU.

    LOI WHACKO, where quite a few words seemed close to fitting, THICKO was an early runner.

    With Jim Steinman’s obituary today I had the lyric “let me sleep on it” in my mind which led to “Just think on it” for 4d. What a great lyricist and composer, and using a word from earlier in the week, a peerless ARRANGER.

    COD CART OFF. Car toffs? There seem to be quite a few round where I live.

  8. … in fact, after reading all the across clues and solving just one of them on the first pass (21A Renal), I was wondering how I was ever going to get a toehold. But having fortified myself with a cup of tea, the down clues were a very different matter, and most of them were write-ins, which led to the acrosses falling too. So very much “a game of two halves”, and (allowing for the tea-break) a fraction over 12 minutes in all.

    Interesting to see the setter’s trick of supporter = bra again. It seems to have come up a lot recently, and sometimes it almost seems as though our setters hit upon an unusual meaning (ie not supporters = fans, backers or stays, guy ropes) which they think will amuse us — and then it ironically becomes the standard reading instead of a quirky one.

    Slightly surprised that some are querying whether seals are large enough to be called large creatures. Male grey seals can regularly grow to 3 metres and 300kg, which is large enough I’d have thought, and there was a famous one in the Shetland Islands a few years back which positioned itself by the outlet pipe from a fish processing plant and just wallowed there gorging on all the fish remains. A combination of endless food and no effort required to find it saw it grow to 5m and quite possibly over half a ton!

    Many thanks to Roly for the blog
    Cedric

    1. Bloomer, flower, banker and setter(=dog) are other clues that might have seemed clever when first appearing but are now well on the way to becoming Crossword Clichés.

  9. FOI: 21a. RENAL
    LOI: 9a. SEALANT

    Time to Complete: 93 minutes

    Clues Answered Correctly without aids: 23

    Clues Answered with Aids (3 lives): 9a, 10a, 14d

    Clues Unanswered: Nil

    Wrong Answers: Nil

    Total Correctly Answered (incl. aids): 26/26

    Aids Used: Chambers, Bradford’s

    I found this one very tricky, and really did not expect to complete it.

    9a. SEALANT – This was my last one in. I had ANT but could not see the preceding animal. A flick through Bradford’s Solver’s List gave me seal. It was only then did I see the definition as “Perhaps tape.” I must say I did not like that definition.

    10a. CALAMITY – Another life used on this one. I just could not answer this one. When Chamber’s gave me the answer, I immediately realised who the Jane in the clue was.

    14a. WHACKO – At first, I had PSYCHO pencilled in, although I could not for the life of me equate PSYCH to meaning share. As other clues were answered it became obvious to me that psycho was not the answer. Third and last life used to get WHACK. I put the O on the end of it to get the answer.

    18d. AUNTS – I answered this one due to the presence of the crossing letters. I had thought of aunts but could not see the “first off discourages” until I came here.

    At 93 minutes this completion was 18 minutes over my average full completion time of 75 minutes.

  10. I was going so quickly through this that the idea of three consecutive sub-Ks flashed through my mind … such hubris was promptly met by the nemesis of the SW corner, where I came to a grinding halt on WHACKO (tried very hard to make “cuckoo” work), HATE (thought Henry was going to = “Hal”) and NATURAL (music being one of my many weaknesses). Hey ho.

    Great puzzle with lots of variety. I thought we were going to have a pangram but no Q or Z.

    FOI INSIDE JOB, LOI & COD NATURAL, time 10:43 for 1.4K and a Decent Day.

    Many thanks Teazel and roly.

    Templar

  11. FOI BUD then fair progress. Had DON’T THINK OF IT at 4d.I think that’s better than the answer; a phrase I am unfamiliar with. But INSIDE JOB forced the correction. LOI was SEALANT after nearly going for STAGANT (tape could be a lot of things).
    I was also troubled by PERU having had EAU waiting a long time for a good first letter.
    In the end all correct in 13:58. Good challenge.
    David
  12. I raced through most of this. FOI was INSECT. I had no problem with BRAG or SEALANT. I was expecting to finish in a rare sub 6 minutes until I hit the SW corner. POSH needed both the checkers. NATURAL was biffed from the first definition and then my LOI WHACKO involved a long slow alphabet trawl pushing my time out to 7:21. Thanks Roly for the explanation for NATURAL which I couldn’t decipher.
  13. 11m and 20s here, so not too bad on the Rotterometer. FOI INSECT then INSIDE JOB, so a quickish start. I saw the long down answer with just the J to help, which is quite remarkable really — it isn’t a phrase that trips lightly off my tongue. No problem with BRAG, I played a lot of it in my youth, 3, 5, 7 and 9 card, although never very successfully. After brag, I moved on to poker, and these days, bridge.

    Thanks Roly and Teazel. Off for jab 2 now, let’s hope I don’t feel as bad as after jab 1.

    2. I had jab 1 on Sunday – Moderna, all I got was a slightly sore arm for 24 hours. I’d heard all kinds of stories about a couple of days in bed, fever, aches, pains etc.
    3. I had jab 2 (Pfizer) yesterday — very sore arm in the evening but otherwise ok. I’d had no problems with the first jab. The nurse told me that people mostly seem to get side effects either from the first AZ jab or the second Pfizer jab, but not the other way round! Certainly MrB wasn’t great after his first one — and yes, it was AZ. Purely anecdotal though 😉
      Hope all went well Rotter — and everyone else who’s getting jabbed 😊

      Edited at 2021-04-22 01:15 pm (UTC)

      1. I was quite unsettled by the first Pfizer jab and have needed an almost constant supply of Leibniz chocolate biscuits interspersed with packets of salted cashews and a large box of Turkish delight consigned to remain at the back of a cupboard until recently discovered. Fortunately after several weeks weaning myself onto Cadburys wholenut bars and oranges (for a balanced diet) I think I am showing some improvement in my symptoms but worrying whether my blood sugar is ready for a second jab.
          1. After 12 months in lockdown my relationship with our wine merchant has never been better.
            The absence of any need to drive has kept my conscience (and licence) unblemished.
    4. Glad to hear you’re a fellow bridge player. That’s why I find your blogs so enjoyable!
  14. I only got 4 acrosses on first pass which must be a record low. Thankfully the downs were more forgiving but I still clocked in more than 90 seconds over target.

    Last in was SKINCARE. I just couldn’t unscramble the anagram until all the checkers were in place, embarrassing really as my younger daughter is studying Cosmetic Science at uni.

    I can’t recall encountering the phrase “just think of it” before.

    Quite a few solvers with one error on the the leaderboard. I wonder what the problem was.

  15. Whip crack away, whip crack away on this one. Remember the family being taken en masse to the local flea pit to see a re-run and singing all the way home.
    Couldn’t see the Dub for quite a while despite BUD dropping straight in. Another cracking day with a <3K time and no passes. SEALANT my COD. Thanks Teazel for the ear worm, Roly for explanations always grateful received and Doris Day for the entertainment long ago.
  16. FOI scorn, then this all fell into place very quickly. LOI whacko. COD sealant. About ten minutes. Much to enjoy. Brought to mind “Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold.” Either I’m getting more skilled at these or we have had a run of ones that are on my wavelength. Yesterday’s was similar. I couldn’t post yesterday as I was giving a Zoom lecture in Cambridge then went for a walk in a woodland nearby to see the bluebells, wood anemones and oxlips. By then it seemed too late. Good luck with the jab, Rotter, our second ones are booked for next week. Thanks, Roly, and Teazel. GW.
  17. DNF after 35 mins with just SEALANT to go – could not for the life of me get it. I blame being mildly hungover with a terrible head cold.

    Overall I found this very bitty, and just couldn’t get on the setter’s wavelength. Biffed the majority of my answers and even thereafter sometimes failed to parse completely so wrote in on a wing and a prayer; thanks to the blogger for explaining!

  18. Lovely and varied puzzle – thanks Teazel. I just scraped into my target range of 15-20 minutes, having everything solved and fully parsed in 19 mins. I had to dodge around the grid though as I came to a halt in several areas and had to restart. Needed all the crossers for 10ac as I had no idea what was going on in the clue or who Jane could possibly be, and spent a long time on the anagram at 17ac.

    FOI – 6ac BUD
    LOI – 9ac SEALANT
    COD – 13dn NATURAL

    Thanks to Rolytoly for the blog.

  19. I started off quickly enough with BRAG and the other top row downs, which soon revealed the INSIDE JOB, but became becalmed with WHACKO and SEALANT, my nemeses. An alphabet trawl finally revealed WHACKO, and some time later after cast the STAG aside as the large creature, saw the SEAL. 13:08. Thanks Teazel and Roly.
  20. … until six to go. Then, six minutes per clue until the end. Total time = 56 minutes.

    Really stuck on HATE (I could only think of HAL for Henry), WHACKO (I just couldn’t see it) and CART OFF, where not realising my error in JUST THINK OF IT (I had ON instead of OF) didn’t help. Neither did my lack of conviction over POSH (I didn’t like ‘fails’ as an indicator of an anagram).

    I liked SEALANT, even though it took me ages to get it, and STOOL as a type of pigeon – It’s a while since I’ve heard that word.

    N.B. Mrs Random took 28 minutes, precisely half my time, and couldn’t see why I had any problems.

    Many thanks to Teazel and rolytoly

  21. I found this one tricky and slow moving, not helped by a slightly sore head after leaving my borough to go to an actual restaurant for the first time in months.

    Struggled with whacko, and Calamity – could we please get references to movies that are less than 50 years old? And ditto for the card game Brag, which I think I may have read about in a Victorian novel but don’t believe is widely played today!

    On a techhy note, does anyone have problems with the LJ app? I can sometimes only view the across clues and then have to go online to see the rest. Also varying fonts & sizes, although they’re readable.

  22. CART OFF, HIT FOR SIX, nice surface for REFLEX, INSIDE JOB.

    It didn’t detain me for long – 4:19. I seem to be on a bit of a roll with the QC at the moment.

  23. I enjoyed this, even though it was on the slightly trickier side. Therefore, I was surprised to see only 18 mins had passed when I slotted the last one in.

    Felt like there were quite a lot of double definitions/actual cryptic answers, with 10ac “Calamity”, 4dn “Just Think Of It” and 23ac “Hit for Six” being personal favourites. For a while couldn’t get “Snap” out of my head for 5dn and struggled a little for 13dn until my musical theory miraculously reappeared at the most appropriate time.

    FOI — 6dn “Bravery”
    LOI — 19dn “Posh”
    COD — 20ac “Cart Off” — I could just imagine a member of the aristocracy saying such a thing.

    Thanks as usual.

  24. This seemed fine, with no DNKs, but it still took me 28 minutes. I was slow to see WHACKO, HATE and CART OFF so a shortage of checkers held up completion in the SW corner. Thank-you.
  25. WHACKO sprang to mind fairly quickly and SEALANT with the checkers so not held up too much overall.

    Still, a bit on the trickiesh side

    Thanks Roly and Teazel

  26. Enjoyable puzzle but was interrupted by 2nd jab etc. (AZ)
    Wrong biff for Peru. Otherwise OK, liked all the double meanings. A bit slow SW corner.
    Liked CART OFF, HIT FOR SIX, INSECT. A few write-ins like LEONARDO. I often have to write the anagram letters in a circle but not this time.
    Thanks all, esp Roly.

    Edited at 2021-04-22 02:44 pm (UTC)

    1. Recommend a glass of white wine and chocolate to take the sting of the jab away. If that does not work…
      Repeat.
  27. Late start for me today. This went pretty smoothly but with hiccups at WHACKO and STOOL. All sorted, though, in just over 13 mins. I can’t believe this was my third sub-2K time in a row.
    Good puzzle with plenty to think about, as usual, from Teazel. Thanks to both. John M.
  28. I must have been on Teazals wavelength today!

    A quick glance at the clues and I immediately spotted three write ins although FOI was Calamity and the rest of the top left corner went in easily as did the top right apart from Sealant where the word play for the small animal was easy but it took a while for the Seal to drop into my head.

    I had three clues left at eleven minutes but missed the hidden Renal which I biffed and then Whacko and Owl.

    COD Hit for six which I managed to avoid in my first game on Tuesday

  29. Thought I would try the app to avoid the random logouts that leave me posting anonymously, but it is really dreadful. Today’s blog comes out with the Across clues completely unstructured as a continuous block of text, and the Downs simply missing altogether! Stick to the browser and put up with being logged out seems to be the answer.
    1. Never used the app – didn’t seem to want to work for me. I just use the mobile browser if I’m out and about.
    2. How strange. I use the Livejournal App all the time, both on my Android phone and on my PC, depending where I am, time of day etc. Other than the problem of poor finger targeting the correct letter sometimes on my phone, I have no problems with the App at all. I haven’t seen many other complaints here about it but maybe if people have had problems they just don’t use it.
      I expect there is a simple explanation but doubt it is the App itself which is causing you the problem.

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