Times Quick Cryptic 1471 by Teazel

Author   ChrisPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
Another over-target 12 minutes today caused by longish holdups on clues around the grid where the definition wasn’t obvious to me – the best example being LOI 10ac. I’m not sure that this puzzle is as tricky as I made it so please see the times of others for a more reliable view of today’s difficulty.

ACROSS
1. In pipe, a coin, once (5)
DUCAT – in pipe (DUCT) a (A).
4. Less impressive moment in Italian city (7)
PALERMO – less impressive (PALER), moment (MO).
8. Stone hurtled into holiday cottage (7)
GRANITE – hurtled (RAN) into holiday cottage (GITE).
9. In French, sent back dessert to finish (3,2)
END UP – in French (EN), dessert (pud) sent back (DUP).
10. Stigma soon converted to be beneficial (3,2,5)
NOT GO AMISS – anagram (converted) of STIGMA SOON. No gripes here – the anagram was obvious but I just couldn’t get my head around the answer. If something goes amiss then it goes wrong – so it’s beneficial if it doesn’t do this.
14. Footballer saving his job? (6)
GOALIE – a footballer who’s job is to save. Very good.
15. In part, track orbiter (6)
PLANET – inside part (PT) is track (LANE).
17. Dry, riding? (2,3,5)
ON THE WAGON – what one would get on (ride) of one wasn’t drinking alcohol.
20. Part of church in Paisley (5)
AISLE – in P(AISLE)y.
22. Welcoming people back, a single flower (7)
ANEMONE – welcoming = accept inside – so ‘people (men) – back (NEM)’ is inside a (A) and single (ONE). Complex yet clear and satisfying clue.
23. Uncle regularly follows jazz? Slander (7)
TRADUCE – (U)n(C)l(E) follows jazz (TRAD).
24. In reception room, son almost by himself (5)
SALON – the ‘in’ makes the surface work – son (S), almost by himself (ALON)e.

DOWN
1. Prepares bed in lodgings (4)
DIGS – double definition – the first to do with garden beds.
2. Talk about headgear (4)
CHAT – about (C), headgear (HAT).
3. Old sea creature spewed bitter oil (9)
TRILOBITE – anagram (spewed) of BITTER OIL. So, it turns out that a Trilobite is nothing to do with lots of computer storage but is any extinct marine arthropod of the group Trilobita, abundant in Palaeozoic times, having a segmented exoskeleton divided into three parts. I ended up discounting tribolite as sounding slightly less plausible – and it isn’t a word but tribology is (study of friction) which I hope gives encouragement for anyone who went for this option.
4. Promise place with advantage (6)
PLEDGE – place (PL) with advantage (EDGE).
5. Be in position for story (3)
LIE – double definition.
6. Star treading carelessly (3,5)
RED GIANT – anagram (carelessly) of TREADING.
7. Friend on web pages is completely different (8)
OPPOSITE – friend (OPPO), on web pages (SITE).
11. More calls go out for everyone to arrive (3,6)
ALL COMERS – anagram (go out) of MORE CALLS.
12. I go to rave about note, knowing nothing (8)
IGNORANT – I go (I GO) and rave (RANT) about nite (N).
13. Film buff beginning to tour continent (8)
FANTASIA – buff (FAN), (T)out, continent (ASIA). It’s a 1940 American animated film produced by Walt Disney and released by Walt Disney Productions.
16. Destroy a volume in fury (6)
RAVAGE – a (A) and volume (V) in fury (RAGE).
18. Share possible feature of hotel (4)
POOL – double definition.
19. Girl in short trousers (4)
JEAN – one letter short for trousers (JEAN)s.
21. Bird not entirely demure (3)
EMU – not entirely d(EMU)re.

36 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 1471 by Teazel”

  1. Slow again, really slow, and I don’t know why; I felt that I was bipping along quite nicely, until I looked at the timer. LOI CHAT; I’d come up with the word early on, but couldn’t parse it until much later. I twigged to 14ac right off, too, but put in KEEPER. I remember TRILOBITES from the paleontology phase of my childhood; cases of them in the Natural History Museum. A MER at 10ac: if something doesn’t go wrong it doesn’t follow that it’s beneficial. 9:03. On edit: I meant to say that it wasn’t until I came here and saw Chris’s 16-point blog that I saw (8ac) that ‘hurled’ was actually ‘hurtled’; a brief self-query about run=hurl, but moved on.

    Edited at 2019-10-29 01:29 am (UTC)

  2. Doing this at 6am whilst kids at swim squad, so tired…but it still felt tough. Thought it was the Don, not Teazel.

    25 mins on phone.

    Half the grid took a long time.
    Dnk trilobite but it sounded right.
    LOI pool.
    COD salon.

  3. I think the sense of 10a is “an easier clue would not go amiss” / “an easier clue would be beneficial”. I found that a difficult jump to make and I can’t produce an infinitive example, which leaves the poor “to” spurious.
  4. After my recent run of bad solves, taking 15 minutes for this one and then discovering a ‘tribolite’ error, my confidence is now draining away fast. I was going to say it’s at rock bottom, but no doubt it’s possible to fall still further.

    NOT GO AMISS was my LOI which for the reasons already stated above didn’t seem quite right, but on reflection (and having seen anon’s example where the definition is simply ‘be beneficial’) I have to admit it’s perfectly fair. It’s worth remembering that a definition doesn’t have to work in every context to be valid for crossword purposes, only one.

    Edited at 2019-10-29 05:51 am (UTC)

  5. Held up for a while by NOT GO AMISS as T just couldn’t see it until I got the checkers, so over target today. I didn’t care for OPPOSITE as the etymology for OPPO is an abbreviation of the answer. I liked the oil-spewing sea creature, though. 6:09.
  6. Another difficult puzzle, but at least I finished well over my 20 minute target at 32m. I thought some of the definitions were a bit wooly, my last three were NOT GO AMISS (shuffling available letters), POOL and JEAN (alphabet trawls), not a very satisfying finish.

    Brian

  7. I needed my 15×15 hat on for this one. Most of the anagrams I had to write down and phrases like NOT GO AMISS were on the hard side,but perfectly fair.
    FOI was AISLE as I struggled to get going. LOI was POOL after ANEMONE.
    Another tester which took me 21:34. COD to 10a.
    David
  8. I couldn’t get anything at first and almost lost my nerve before starting from the bottom up. I really found this tough and yet was impressed by how clever some of the clues were (but not all – there was the odd clunker). I spent a lot of time parsing and found that some biffs were way off. I parsed answers like ANEMONE after a bit of mental gymnastics. Ended up in the top left with DUCAT, DIGS, and CHAT (which I nearly put in at the start but didn’t see the parsing until the end (doh). All in all a fascinating mix of satisfaction and torment. 3K in the end. Glad to see one or two others were slower than usual. I’m not going to try to list the best clues but thanks to Teazel for a clever puzzle and to Chris for an excellent blog. Perhaps, like Chris, I made it a bit harder than it really was, looking back. John M.

    Edited at 2019-10-29 09:25 am (UTC)

  9. DIGS and DUCAT were my first 2 in, and I then made steady progress until I was left with 10a, 11d, 18d and 19d. Writing out the anagrist saw the first 2 of these off, but the last 2 required alphabet trawls and took me to 11:43. Liked TRILOBITE, but a background in IT saw me biff TRILOBYTE until GOALIE put me right. Doh! Thanks Teazel and Chris.
  10. Like oldblighter I couldn’t get going and after entering just one answer END UP jumped to the bottom of the grid. The bottom of the grid proved a lot easier with just 19d JEAN holding out (my LOI). I constructed NOT GO AMISS in reverse word order once the checkers were in place and like others returned to the NW corner to finish the grid. TRILOBITE was a toss up between that and tribolite and I submitted correctly in just under 1.5K. I was beginning to think that delving into a book of Telegraph cryptic crosswords was causing me problems solving the Times QC but based on this blog it is the QC that is evolving and getting tougher.

    Edited at 2019-10-29 09:50 am (UTC)

  11. The same issues as others took me to 18m for another over-target solve. POOL and JEAN were my last two in, but whilst thinking about them I spotted that I had put tribolite instead of TRILOBITE, so was able to correct that before completion. I knew the answer perfectly well, just typed it incorrectly. I was also held up by not being able to see past red dwarf for 6d. I also liked GOALIE Chris, and made that my COD.

    Edited at 2019-10-29 09:58 am (UTC)

  12. ….of really good clues with two rather poor ones (NOT GO AMISS, and OPPOSITE).

    I really struggled with this, not helped by stupidly biffing “on the rocks” at 17A. I was already outside my parameters when I finally wrote out the anagrist for NOT GO AMISS, and then had to alpha-trawl my LOI.

    FOI GRANITE
    LOI POOL
    COD FANTASIA
    TIME 8:04 (or about twice as long as usual !)

  13. Not just me, then. This felt a real struggle from the start, not helped by transposing two letters in PALERMO. I needed all the checkers and a pen and paper for NOT GO AMISS, my LOI.

    Thanks you blogger and setter.
    6’30”

  14. A fairly tough one today, but given other people’s comments, I’m quite happy with 32:58. Like others I had a slight pause to consider whether something not going amiss was beneficial, but I suppose it’s like something being described as “not bad” actually being quite good. What I really hadn’t heard of was a gite being a holiday cottage, which nobody else seems to have mentioned. Also didn’t know oppo for friend. On the other hand, trilobite was something I thought everyone would know, as they are those woodlouse-looking things that, along with the spiral ammonites, must be the most commonly shown fossils. If I remember rightly, they were the dominant large animals for a good 100 million years from about 500 million years ago. They died out just over 250 million years ago, so they were around for a bit longer than we’re likely to manage. Anyway, just shows that we all inhabit our own little bubbles and think other people will know what we know. I was pleased to get ducat and traduce as these were words I can put firmly in the category of those learned from doing the QC.
  15. Not too bad today, particularly considering some of the other comments. Slow but steady progress, although it did take a while to get going, so definitely a bit of a challenge! I also wasn’t overly keen on 10a Not go amiss – perfectly fair clue but somehow it just doesn’t sit quite right. Sorry Teazel! Thanks for everything else tho 😊

    No problem with trilobite – have collected many of them (well broken bits anyway) at Charmouth.

    Thanks also to Chris for the excellent blog.

    FOI Aisle
    LOI Chat – I didn’t parse it and wondered briefly if it was another old fashioned term for a hat! So obvious too – c for about isn’t unusual after all
    COD Trilobite
    Time Around 12 minutes

  16. 13:40, for an ugly 5 over par!

    It was the anagrams i couldn’t immediately spot today. “All comers” and “not go amiss”. Jean and pool were actually my LO’sI though.

    A good test.

  17. Alternatuve answer On The Horse as in clothes horse for dryjng. Confused me for a whike
    1. Yes, me as well, but wasn’t happy on the basis that clothes horses would be beyond too many people’s memory/knowledge. Also slightly delayed by having “keeper” for 14 across, which in IMHO is a better answer! I am always convinced it is tribolite not trilobite, one of those words where I know I get confused but then sort of double bluff my way to the wrong one.
  18. I had no problem with ‘not go amiss’ as in ‘a glass of wine would not go amiss’, a sentence I utter at around 7pm every day.
  19. This went in steadily, completing the grid in 12.08 but my 50/50 guess at 3d was wrong so a DNF today. Like others I found 10a clunky but enjoyed the rest of the puzzle.
    Thanks for the blog
  20. This started off quite well for me. FOI was “Lie” and I worked steadily around the grid, but then I got completely stumped by the SE corner – in particular “Anemone”, “Pool” and “Jean”. It didn’t help that I put “Deal” in for 18dn, thinking that a hotel “deal” was a possible feature!

    10ac also got me wrangling with the definition.

    I usually give it until early evening if I haven’t got a few clues, but in this case I had to concede to my mental block. My own COD was “Traduce” – only because for once I remembered Trad was a form of Jazz!

  21. A DNF after a fractious day racing about and running out of stamina to soon to get my last two 16d and 18d. A puzzle tackled whenever I had a an opportunity – so very fragmented solve. Especially reckoning IRE rather than RAGE in 16d led to a mental block. A good half of the rest was in pencil as I was not so confident they were actually correct. This s where the blog is so helpful, so thanks to Chris and the rest of the contributors too! A good start in the NW, then on to the SW, then NE before running of steam. Can’t really fault the puzzle either so deduce that leaves me to blame… FOI 1a. LOI 22a. COD 6d.
  22. Slow to start, and slow to finish. Unusually there were quite a few I didn’t parse – DNK OPPO for friend, for example, and by the time I finally filled in the NW corner I didn’t have the energy to parse DUCAT either. I also had KEEPER and ON THE (clothes) HORSE pencilled in to start with, and DNK ON THE WAGON, having to look up synonyms of “sober” to be able to complete it, so all in all I felt a little bit out of this puzzle. COD GRANITE.
  23. Was it you who offered a video to help new solvers? Please can you tell me how to view it? Thank you. EP
  24. As others, DNF the SE corner. Thought flower could me a river, figured out men reversed but didn’t get anemone – thought that was a sea creature.
    Nick
  25. I am in totally awe of you all. I found this one a real baffler..and for all of you that solved it in minutes….I am still struggling, a week on 🙂
    1. It was generally considered to be hard – full marks for commitment and attitude! All I can say is that we all started the same – perseverance and experience are the only answers – and you only get these if you’re enjoying the journey – so I hope you do!

Comments are closed.