Quick Cryptic 1634 by Rodney

Author   CuraristPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
I quite liked this, though having overslept and overdone it last night, I could have done with an easier one. Lots of good clues, 23a is my favourite. Not sure about 18dn which seems to belong in a GK crossword.

Across

1 East of Cork, perhaps, a mean house (8)
BUNGALOW – Cork is BUNG, east of it we have A + LOW
5 Bachelor unwell, finding invoice (4)
BILL – B + ILL
8 Part of song Cyril botched (5)
LYRIC – anagram (‘botched’) of CYRIL
9 Snarer of wildlife returning in salesman role (7)
TRAPPER – REP PART backwards
11 She’s back in the USSR (3)
SUE – reversed hidden word: thE USsr
12 Very unpromising offer to accept right winger (9)
BLACKBIRD – BLACK + BID with R inside
13 Becomes strained when speaking a few words (6)
PHRASE – sounds like FRAYS
15 Thursday in March: a girl appears (6)
MARTHA – Thursday is TH, put it inside MAR A
18 Drunks are so smooth? (4-5)
WELL-OILED – double definition
19 They are for promoting a CID officer (3)
ADS – a detective sergeant
20 Firmly established moped is for repair (7)
IMPOSED –  anagram (‘for repair’) of MOPED IS
21 Dying remains end in three months (5)
EMBER – sepEMBER, novEMBER, decEMBER
22 E Sussex town, heading off Suffolk females? (4)
EWES – East Sussex town is LEWES minus its head. Suffolk being a type of sheep
23 Iron Maiden pursued by an employee of The Times? (8)
PRESSMAN – PRESS (iron) M (maiden) + AN

Down
1 Does sensible thing as driver and stops talking (5,2)
BELTS UP – double definition
2 Ultimately son, you fear, is like sister? (5)
NURSE – last letters of soN yoU feaR iS likE
3 Churchmen bow twice, awfully posh (11)
ARCHBISHOPS – ARCH (bow) BIS (twice) + anagram (‘awfully’) of POSH
4 Oxford University sent up Disney’s Robin Hood? (6)
OUTLAW – OU + WALT backwards
6 Popular books about voting system — one still being published? (2,5)
IN PRINT – IN (popular) NT (books) about PR (voting system) + I
7 Dreary, ugly? Oddly, on reflection, was attractive (5)
LURED – alternate letters of DrEaRy UgLy reversed
10 Awfully dark news was embarrassment (11)
AWKWARDNESS – anagram (‘awfully’) of DARK NEWS WAS
14 Fall back on large recess in church (7)
RELAPSE – RE (on) + L (large) + APSE
16 Too hurried, this unsuccessful contestant? (4-3)
ALSO-RAN – double definition of sorts
17 Girl Ed harassed in aircraft without a sound? (6)
GLIDER – anagram (‘harassed’) of GIRL ED
18 Billiard ball that’s not spotted? (5)
WHITE – one of the cue balls in billiards has a spot. Am I missing something else?
19 Binder, I hesitate to say, under a pound (5)
ALBUM – UM (I hesitate to say) underneath A + LB

50 comments on “Quick Cryptic 1634 by Rodney”

  1. Not very quick but it is Friday. Rather liked the OUTLAW and ARCHBISHOPS clues. Also PHRASE but suspect that is a chestnut. EWES somehow miraculously emerged despite wanting Rye to be the town. Nice clue. Thanks setter and Curarist
  2. Enjoyed this, and though I didn’t do great by my standards, I didn’t do too terribly either – 23:04.

    FOI: bungalow
    LOI: ads
    COD: ewes (although only after reading the blog – I biffed this when completing)

    1. I thought it referred to the fact that there are two white balls in a game of BILLIARDS. One of them has a distinguishing black spot – so there is only one purely white ball.
      The blogger’s explanation would be OK if the clue had said SNOOKER.
      kpc
  4. This is a Nina on the White (18dn) Album (19dn).

    Bungalow Bill; Back in the USSR; Martha my Dear; Blackbird – all tracks on the White Album.

    Templar

    1. Oh for Pete’s sake. The Rotter and Penfold hadn’t posted when I started typing that!!
  5. Enjoyed this – thanks setter and blogger. I did think that using mean to mean low was a bit mean for a quickie 🙂 I’m not sure there is anything complicated about the clue or the blog for white. It’s the plain ball in billiards – what’s more to say?
  6. I found this rather hard for a QC with my slowest time for a month. It was only when I’d completed the grid that I spotted the Beatles song about the TRAPPER. You can hear it here, and see the lyrics here. I liked EWES best. 8:15.

    Edited at 2020-06-12 07:48 am (UTC)

  7. … much better than usual for a Friday.
    I think we had EWES recently- I enjoy the myriad ways our Setters find to clue the same word.
    COD OUTLAW.
    Thanks all.
    Diana

  8. … and for the first time ever, I saw the Nina before I read about it. I know it was obvious but still…. Pretty straight forward, I guess, today, although there were a few times where I put in answers, knowing they were right, and seeing the parsing, but still thinking it was a bit odd eg MARTHA and WHITE. Took me about 20 minutes or so to complete, with my LOI being that little word, ADS. Goodness knows why it foxed me so much but it did. I enjoyed the neatness of the surface coding in quite a few clues today, eg BUNGALOW BILL and EMBER. I do think a few words here are a stretch for a QC eg BIS (which I only know of from biscuit, twice baked ) but it absolutely did not stand in the way of the solving. Thanks so much, Curarist, for the blog and thanks, too, to Rodney.
  9. I wanted to be the first to mention the white album nina. It was obvious to me only after I had finished. I’m told if you have a very early copy of the white album (with a low serial number) it is now very valuable.
    I started this puzzle very quickly and thought a record might be on (not the white album) but was slowed down by the parsing of several clues including PRESSMAN and ARCHBISHOPS. LOI was BELTS UP where I had resisted Pulls Up as it did not parse.
    Time 13:11. Thanks to Rodney; just another 148 to go.
    David

    Edited at 2020-06-12 09:04 am (UTC)

  10. 11 minutes, so target just missed by 1.

    After all the recent 150th QC celebrations, today we have a puzzle by Rodney who is the newest recruit to the distinguished ranks of setters. His first and only previous Quickie was #1484 and appeared on 15 November last year.

    BUNGALOW BILL was also the nickname given to the Bill Wiggins, at one time married to Joan Collins. Labelled her ‘toyboy’ the tabloid press accused him of all sorts of disreputable things but I don’t remember if any of them were ever proven.

    Edited at 2020-06-12 08:11 am (UTC)

  11. Rodney (and three demanding phone calls) unsettled me so I have no idea of my time. It wasn’t within target, though – I’m sure of that. Some nice clues plus some off-beat(les?) offerings. I liked ARCHBISHOPS and EMBER and found BUNGALOW and BLACKBIRD harder than I should have. LOI was PHRASE. Thanks to Rodney for a good work-out and to curarist for a good blog which brought out many facets I missed en route. A funny week all round, Roll on Monday. John M.

    Edited at 2020-06-12 09:08 am (UTC)

  12. Started with 1d and then 1ac, and the top half quickly followed. I struggled with some of the clues lower down the grid, stumbling into some of the answers rather than solving. Either way, with 19mins on the clock I reached loi 15ac. It then took me a further 5mins to sort out what was going on with (CoD) Martha – I’m not sure the Nina would have helped, even if spotted. However, can’t moan too much, because the earlier 22ac Ewes was an unparsed biff. You really should visit us more often, Rodney. Invariant
  13. There are 3 balls in a game of Billiards, the Red, Spot White and Plain White. One player’s cue ball is Plain White, the other’s is Spot White. When the game starts or the red is potted, the Red ball is placed on the top spot, ie spotted. Thus the only ball that is never spotted is the Plain White ball.
  15. I spotted a couple of the White Album tunes, but not all of them. PHRASE was my FOI and WHITE my last. Was taken over my target time to 11:09. Nice puzzle. Thanks Rodney and Curarist. Should’ve been golfing today but the course was closed due to heavy rain and a Yellow weather warning. We’re going to try again next Friday.
  16. Have just picked up my physical copy of the paper.
    In 23a The Times is in italics.
    So is Robin Hood in 4d.
    There appears to be a similar convention in The Times Daily Quiz
    In fact whenever the paper mentions a film title, song title, newspaper etc, italics are used in both print and on-line editions.But not in the online crosswords.
    1. As this seems to be a recurring issue (our discussion here yesterday refers) I have raised the matter in the Times Crossword General forum. We may get a sympathetic response, but don’t hold your breath pending anything being done about it!
    2. Online can’t handle italics I’m afraid, at least not the tablet version

      The Editor

      1. And just to pre-empt the next question, online crosswords are processed differently from the main newspaper text.

        RR

      2. Many thanks for responding, Richard. So we can put that one to bed. I’m not sure it’s any great disadvantage to the solving process anyway.
        1. I used to use double quotes for all titles on all platforms, but decided that italics looked nicer in print and that rather than have italics for one platform and quotes (which are a bit naff really) for online, supporting two different styles, it was better just to leave it.
          As a matter of fact, we could get round the issue for the website, but the tablet, as I indicated earler, will not display them no matter what we do.

          Such is progress 🙂

          RR

  17. 14 minutes, so inside target range. I didn’t spot the Bungalow Bill reference until reading John’s comment below – nice! Was it on the WHITE ALBUM? Other references? I just also spotted BLACKBIRD, BACK IN THE USSR, MARTHA my dear. There are probably others.

    Edited at 2020-06-12 08:40 am (UTC)

    1. Yes, definitely a theme. Without checking you’ve also got BLACKBIRD, MARTHA my dear and BACK IN THE USSR.
  18. ….my guitar gently wept, and while it wasn’t quite helter-skelter I’ve sneaked into 8th place on the current leader board – and, as I’m ahead of Verlaine, it’s a very good day ! My happiness isn’t a warm gun though.

    FOI BILL
    LOI EWES
    COD PHRASE
    TIME 4:29

  19. Found this one very hard going and in the end (after over an hour) it was a DNF as I couldn’t get the 1a/1d twosome. I thought PULLS UP might do for 1d and eventually settled on the highly unsatisfactory PANMANOR for 1a thinking that there might be an obscure Irish place of that name and that to pan something was being mean about it. I still don’t really seem why mean means low, though I suppose you could say “that’s a bit mean/low”. I am not familiar enough with the White Album to have seen the Nina so it wouldn’t have helped even if I had. Anyway, still plenty to enjoy. I liked EMBER and PRESSMAN and EWES when I eventually figured it out, so thanks Rodney and Curarist.
  20. I was happy to finish this inside 15 minutes which is my new target.
    Nothing particularly difficult but I biffed BUNGALOW and still don’t understand where ‘a low’ comes from.
    My COD goes to PHRASE and I thought AWKWARDNESS was a nice anagram.
    I didn’t spot the nina but agree it’s very clever and brings back some lovely memories.
    Thanks to Rodney and Curarist.

  21. Managed about half of these before hitting a brick wall even with some help. I obviously was not on the setter’s wavelength! It appears Friday tends to be the difficult one.

    Thanks for the blog, which at least explains the many clues I could not parse!

  22. Well – I’m just going to have to put this week behind me – as I had another DNF (third or fourth on the trot). Days like today when I wonder if I am finally starting to lose it. However, it was a good puzzle with some great surfaces.

    Struggled with 1ac – wouldn’t have minded but I had all the checkers and I still couldn’t get it, even after going through every form of house known to man (apart from the answer of course)

    Whilst some of the phrases such as Bungalow Bill did ring a bell, I’ve never been a fan of the Beatles so didn’t know any of the other tracks from the White Album (not my generation I’m afraid).

    FOI – 5ac “Bill”
    LOI – DNF
    COD – 12ac “Blackbird”

    Thanks as usual.

  23. Found this tough but enjoyable.
    Not sure of the time. Most likely over 20 mins. Corona and red wine induced brain fog.
    LOI Phrase.
    COD pressman. Iron Maiden, not my favourite metal band but a good surface.

    Edited at 2020-06-12 12:03 pm (UTC)

  24. very enjoyable crossword by the lesser spotted Rodney. Awkwardness was my LOI, and I didn’t parse archbishops, oh and the nina completely passed over my head, not a clue did I have about it.
    just under 7 minutes
    thanks blogger and Rodney
  25. A neat puzzle with the White Album references raising a smile, although I found it a struggle to complete – did not see the ADS even when I had A-S!! Did not get PHRASE either. We have had a bit of a hard week, I feel.
  26. I seem to be in a minority in finding this quite tricky with WELL-OILED, WHITE and the 1s proving particularly slow to succumb. I’m not familiar with the White Album so missed the nina but even without it was one of my favourite QCs for a while. BLACKBIRD, EWES, EMBER and PRESSMAN all in contention for COD. Finished in 14.22 with LOI BUNGALOW.
    Thanks to curarist for the blog and a lets hope Rodney appears a bit more frequently in the future
  27. … and a good workout with a 14 minute solve. Only one holdup, over my LOI 13A Phrase; it took a while to see, and then another while to accept, that fraying was the same as becoming strained. Ragged, yes, but strained?

    Otherwise much enjoyment – I hope Rodney can be persuaded to entertain us more!

    Thanks to Curarist for the blog and a good weekend to all
    Cedric

  28. Well that was a fun challenge which we completed in 17 minutes. A nice mix of write ins and head scratches – thanks Rodney.

    FOI: bill
    LOI: ads
    COD: ember

    Thanks to Curarist for the blog.

  29. I didn’t spot the theme either. Although I am of that generation, I always thought The Beatles rather over rated. Sorry Beatles fans! BLACKBIRD, ALBUM and EMBER held me up today and I’m afraid I got no time as I made errors.
    Have a good weekend everyone.
  30. We also did not spot the nina, age problem I suspect. Finished in just over our 30m target, the almost new setter provided us with plenty of head scratching which was enjoyable. Thanksto Rodney, and the blog.

Comments are closed.