Times Quick Cryptic 1737 by Mara

Author   william_j_sPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

Nice and easy. Only the SW put up a little resistance, and I had to guess the first meaning at 21dn.

Definitions underlined.

Across
1 Comedian in panic, I’m occasionally laid back (5)
COMIC – hidden in (in) paniC I’M OCcasionally when reversed (laid back).
4 Drink after drink for champion (7)
SUPPORT – PORT (drink) after SUP (drink).
8 Odd mountains behind street (7)
STRANGE – RANGE (mountains) behind  ST (street).
9 Store money, did you say? (5)
CACHE – sounds like (did you say) “cash” (money).
10 Understand clubs, for example, do the same thing (6,4)
FOLLOW SUIT – FOLLOW (understand) and SUIT (clubs, for example).
14 Payment subsequently withdrawn, including last part of commission (6)
RENTAL – reversal of (withdrawn) LATER (subsequently) containing (including) the last letter (last part) of commissioN.
15 Story about equine female from Scotland (6)
LASSIE – LIE (story) surrounding (about) ASS (equine).
17 Undecided where one might throw a ball? (2,2,3,3)
UP IN THE AIR – cryptic hint.
20 Cut on outside by blade reversed, so accurate (5)
EXACT – outermost letters of (on outside) CuT on AXE (blade) reversed.
22 Sticky stuff, plate fairly edible? (7)
GOODISH – GOO (sticky stuff) and DISH (plate).
23 Ghost creeps eerily round back of apartment (7)
SPECTRE – anagram of (eerily) CREEPS surrounding (round) the last letter (back) of apartmenT.
24 Composer left in temper when rejected (5)
ELGAR – L (left) in RAGE (temper) reversed (when rejected).

Down
1 Play with acts for all the actors! (4)
CAST – anagram of (play with) ACTS.
2 Spot former European currency (4)
MARK – double definition.
3 Certainly not a Tory boy, soldier possibly (9)
CONSONANT – CON (Tory), SON (boy), and ANT (soldier, possibly).
4 Cold-blooded fish occupying dirty home (6)
STEELY – EEL (fish) inside (occupying) STY (dirty home).
5 Shortly, choose image (3)
PIC – remove the last letter from (shortly) PICk (choose).
6 Certainly old, refocus after treatment (2,6)
OF COURSE – O (old) and an anagram of (after treatment) REFOCUS.
7 It’s ten, we suspect, for a decade (8)
TWENTIES – anagram of (suspect) IT’S TEN WE.
11 Tiring, I saw more failing with low grade (9)
WEARISOME – anagram of (failing) I SAW MORE, and E (low grade).
12 American in resort tailored garment (8)
TROUSERS – US (American) contained by (in) an anagram of (tailored) RESORT.
13 Item ain’t terribly close (8)
INTIMATE – anagram of (terribly) ITEM AIN’T.
16 Hunting dog heading for big, big bird (6)
BEAGLE – first letter of (head for) Big, then EAGLE (big bird).
18 Phone group of criminals? (4)
RING – double definition.
19 Some perch, a remarkable fish (4)
CHAR – hidden in (some) perCH A Remarkable.
21 Make lace: stuff of poor quality (3)
TAT – double definition. Tatting is the process of making lace.

41 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 1737 by Mara”

  1. Five minutes become almost nine, thanks to the RENTAL / CONSONANT crossing. I only figured out what was going on with the latter several minutes after submitting.
  2. RENTAL, CONSONANT were my last ones, too; tricky. I especially liked CONSONANT. 4:36.

    Edited at 2020-11-04 02:54 am (UTC)

  3. Another struggling to finish with the CONSONANT/RENTAL combination, and it was those two that took me past my 10 minute target to a 13 minute finish. Earlier I had been slowed only by 22ac where I spotted DISH immediately but had to wait for another checker before GOO came to mind.
  4. An annoying FOLLOS SUIT gave me two wrong answers. That must have happened when I changed to CONSONANT from ‘conscript’ which I whacked in on the strength of Conservative and soldier which is turn let me get FOLLOWS SUIT and wrecking WEARISOME. A shame because I thought I’d done well to finish a shade under 15m. Battles with GOODISH, where I got the GOO part immediately but didn’t equate goodish with edible so it dragged out for ages and RENTAL where there was an impressively large amount going on in the clue and it took a long time to even work out which end to start. I’d never have done that on paper so I’ll let me off (again) but I must get better at checking my typing.
  5. Like mendesest, I biffed conscript and regretted it later. Most when in very quickly but, apart from the write-ins PIC and CACHE, the NE was my last area to fill (after I sorted out CONSONANT and RENTAL). STEELY was my LOI. A confusing puzzle because I thought I was going really well and yet my time came up as 18 mins (shum mishtake shurely?). Thanks to both. John M.

    Edited at 2020-11-04 09:17 am (UTC)

  6. Slow over 21 mins, due almost entirely to being unable to count the number of letters in the anagrist on more than one occasion and so looking for something else, 12d and 7d being glaring examples, both of which were clearly and fairly indicated. Thanks Mara and William although under the circumstances could have done without the first words of the blog being “Nice and easy”.
  7. I was another who was left at the end with the CONSONANT/RENTAL combo. I didn’t know that meaning of the former so had to trust the wordplay and once all the checkers were in place RENTAL revealed it’s secrets. It also took me too long to spot the hidden in 1a even though the answer looked obvious.
    Snuck in just under the 10 minute mark with my favourite being STEELY and FOI STRANGE.
    Thanks to william
    1. I think you might be missing the subtlety of “certainly not a”. A is a vowel, so, in a Baldrick “not a cat” way, it’s not a consonant.
  8. Tricky for me but enjoyable – thanks Mara and william js. I saw female from Scotland and immediately put in Lassie. Then I thought it should be a canine story rather than equine, so I got it completely right but totally wrong didn’t I. Clever!

    Edited at 2020-11-04 09:32 am (UTC)

    1. I made that mistake too!

      I got everything except rental/consonant so it all took quite a long time – and certainly not “ nice and easy “

      But enjoyable as usual.

      Tks all.

      Diana

  9. My second ever (I think) sub-5 and STILL 1.1 Kevins! It’s Achilles and the tortoise all over again.

    Anyway. Leaving personal bitterness to one side, obviously I thought that that was a fun romp. Wasn’t a clean sweep, though, since I missed 3 acrosses on the first pass.

    FOI COMIC, LOI EXACT, COD SUPPORT, time 4:58!!!! (so excited!) for an Excellent Day.

    Thanks William and Mara.

    Templar

  10. Was up late/early listening to the puzzle that is the American Electoral College. I blame this for being a couple of clues short, the RENTAL / CONSONANT pair.
  11. This would have been mostly straight forward had it not been for coming to it tired. My brain was at first sluggish and then just completely shut up shop and went to sleep (literally) for half an hour or so. Even after that I wasn’t my usual self and so getting the RENTAL/CONSONANT crossers took ages and I ended up with 76:35. I wondered why CONSONANT meant “certainly not”, so I’m glad Plett11 wondered the same thing and Penfold came to the rescue above. A very devious clue and probably worthy of my COD although SPECTRE was good too. Looking at the puzzle now, I wonder if “COMIC SUPPORT STRANGE” might be a reference to the recent news that Comic Relief will no longer be sending celebrities to Africa to make appeal films. Thanks Mara and William
  12. 13 mins, with steely, consonant, wearisome, and LOI goodish holding me up.

    I have been spending my last few days as an expat celebrating quite hard, so my times have suffered accordingly.

    Liked steely, COD consonant.

  13. I found this a bit more difficult than the blogger and it took me 30 minutes to finally insert “Rental” for 14ac. Like many above, I also faltered on 3dn “Consonant”, but have to admit it was a very fine clue once the penny dropped.

    Didn’t like 1ac “Comic” and wasn’t too keen on 22ac “Goodish” either. In addition, I had one of those days where it seemed to take an age to sort out the anagrams: 13dn “Intimate” and 11dn “Wearisome” come to mind.

    FOI – 1ac “Comic”
    LOI – 14ac “Rental”
    COD – 3dn “Consonant”

    Thanks as usual.

  14. I was also held up by RENTAL and CONSONANT, but managed to compound my misery my having a typo at 4d: STELLY. 10:02 WOE. Thanks Mara and William.
  15. I found this much harder than william j s did and recorded a big DNF. CONSONANT, RENTAL, STEELY, LASSIE my failures. Gloom.
  16. As a beginner it is really frustrating to see the comment very easy or simple or straight forward. How about reflecting the difficulty for novices which is after all where these puzzles are aimed. I appreciate the blogs but cannot understand the obsession with proving one is the fastest solver. Does it really matter?

    For me a difficult puzzle

    1. Sorry but exactly who is trying to prove they are the fastest solver? You seem to have completely missed the point of solvers mentioning their times and how difficult they thought the puzzle was.
      1. I might have missed the point, in which case I apologise, but it seems like bragging to me. Saying the puzzle is difficult fair enough, saying it is difficult and I did it in 4 minutes, as I said seems like bragging.

        When the puzzles were first introduced I thought it was done to encourage novices again sorry if I was wrong about that.

    2. …and who said these puzzles are aimed at novices ? If that were the case it would be called the “Easy Cryptic”.
  18. … with a few tough clues in a generally friendly puzzle. Glad I was not alone in being held up by 3D Consonant, but a very nice clue when I finally saw it. And 14A Rental also caused me to hesitate, though in this case I saw the word play quite quickly but just didn’t think Rental was enough of a synonym for Payment until the checkers left no alternative.

    On the other hand I thought 22A Goodish a weak clue – the surface is clunky and “fairly edible” = “goodish” is pretty tenuous.

    All added up to a 14 minute solve – which surprised me a bit when I saw it as it had not felt quite that much of a struggle while doing it.

    Thanks to William for the blog
    Cedric

    Edited at 2020-11-04 01:21 pm (UTC)

  19. …at 16 minutes as there was nothing really difficult here.
    I had to biff RENTAL and also thought the LASSIE clue was referring to the dog so was a bit confused by ‘equine’.
    SUPPORT, OF COURSE and WEARISOME were all enjoyable – and my COD goes to CONSONANT for being such a wonderful PDM.
    Thanks to Mara and to William for the blog.
  20. Once again we made good progress through the grid only to come to a screeching halt with rental/consonant/steely which seemed to take an age to solve. In reality we finished in 18 minutes – not great but not bad either. Thanks to Mara for a clever puzzle.

    FOI: support
    LOI: steely
    COD: consonant

    Thanks to William for the blog.

    Edited at 2020-11-04 02:08 pm (UTC)

  21. 42+ with aids. Consonant/Rental … IMHO Consonant only really fits the parsing, I was also thinking Conscript, but that would only fit the (wrong) definition. NHO Rental in that context either.
    Such is life.
    Thanks William and Mara
  22. ….CONSONANT, and I promptly thought “this is going to be tricky !”, but thereafter it fell into place easily enough.

    FOI STRANGE
    LOI SPECTRE
    COD CONSONANT
    TIME 3:52

  23. DNF. With of course Rental and Consonant remaining. Read the blog 3 times before the penny dropped for Consonant. Is Rental a noun?
    In 5 years I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many of us struggling on the same 2 clues. Thx all.
    Johnny
  24. Joined the crowd with troublesome 14a,3d pair. This took us another 10m to sort out. Would have helped if we had remembered soldier ants a bit quicker. We did not know the word consonant. Otherwise quite straightforward. Thanks to Mara and for blog.
  25. Very tricky today I thought, although for various reasons I was quite distracted so maybe that was the problem. Gave up timing myself due to multiple interruptions but it must have been north of 30 mins. Failed to parse 15ac and 20ac and, surprise surprise, struggled with the Rental/Consonant pair.

    FOI – 1ac COMIC
    LOI – 3dn CONSONANT
    COD – 23ac SPECTRE

  26. Like others, I could not get Consonant. I guessed Rental but couldn’t parse, so wasn’t sure.

    Enjoyed Follow Suit, Up in the Air and Beagle.

    Thanks all, as ever.

  27. 5:52. I had no trouble with this one, other than a five second pause working out why the answer had to be consonant (the word popped into my head as soon as I had the checkers). And yet I’m nowhere near the Ks or PJs! Maybe I should try pen and paper 🙂

    H

  28. It’s become quite clear through the comments of two people that new solvers are not welcome on this site. My apologies for trespassing. It won’t happen again
    1. What comments?

      New solvers have always been, and continue to be, welcome here. Look at the archives. You’ll find these blogs and comments very helpful as you improve.

      It’s polite if you identify yourself (even with a pseudonym), and refrain from criticising the aims of the site, or the people who regularly volunteer their time to blog and comment on it.

      Please do come back; we’d like to hear what you think of each day’s puzzle. We’re very much less interested in what you think of other contributors.

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