Times Quick Cryptic No 1429 by Tracy

Author   JohninterredPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

Another neat QC from Tracy for our delectation today. Not too easy with plenty to make you think, but nothing too obscure, I reckon. Some lovely smooth surfaces and witty wordplay, with several worthy of the 15×15. I did enjoy the luvvy at 12A, the father-of-the-bride speech at 18A and the rubbish clue at 21A, for example – not to mention several of the Down clues too. 6:50 for me, which is somewhat over target. Thanks, Tracy. How did you all get on? I don’t expect anyone complaining, as we had the other day, that it was too easy! All comments and queries welcome.

Definitions underlined in bold italics, (Abc)* indicating anagram of Abc, deletions and [] other indicators.

Across
1 Nevertheless returned to cover separate social event (3,5)
TEA PARTY – YET (nevertheless), when it is reversed [returned] gives us TEY. Use it [to cover] APART (separate), i.e. put the latter inside the former. Not the easiest of clues to start with.
5 Friendly with member (4)
WARM – W (with) ARM (member). Member for arm or leg comes up quite often.
8 Ill-tempered woman ignoring a sign (5)
VIRGO – The ill-tempered woman is a VIRaGO. Remove [ignoring] the a to get the star-sign. My LOI once I got the V from 1D. It wasn’t the first word for ill-tempered woman that sprang to mind.
9 Initially find American to be in genuine denial (7)
REFUSAL – Take the first letter [initially] of Find, add US (American) and insert into [to be in] REAL (genuine).
11 Argument in bank (3)
ROW – Double definition; the second as in a tier or bank of seats in a theatre or sports arena.
12 Club official, person much valued at end of year (9)
TREASURER – A famous actor after a long career can be referred to as a national TREASURE (person much valued). Add the last letter of [end of] yeaR.
13 A grand on top (2,4)
AS WELL – I’m sure we’ve had this recently. A neat example of the setter’s trick of ignoring the enumeration of the answer (2, 4) in the wordplay… A SWELL (grand) is (1, 5).
15 Like Steve Austin on island cornered by writer (6)
BIONIC – I couldn’t remember who he was but the wordplay came to my rescure. It’s ON I (island) inside [cornered by] BIC (writer; the french make of pens). Now I remember… the Bionic Man.
18 A speech about daughter’s deep love (9)
ADORATION – A ORATION (speech) outside [about] D (daughter). Nice surface invoking the image of the speech of the father of the bride at a wedding. Now don’t be pedantic and say it should be AN ORATION. You need to separate the “a”and “speech” in the wordplay.
19 Everybody in a large lake (3)
ALL – We need two abbreviations here. A L (large) L (lake).
20 Excuses made by the Parisian to fine female carrying son (4,3)
LETS OFF – Another setter’s trick to be aware of. The definition (and answer) here is a verb, but in the surface reading it is a noun. LE (the Parisian, i.e. “the” in french), TO F (fine) F (female) outside [carrying] S (son).
21 Rubbish can be left in large receptacle at the end (5)
BILGE – I liked this surface too. The wordplay is L (left) inside [in] BIG (large) with the last letter of receptaclE [at the end]. I hope you don’t find this blog a load of bilge.
22 Cautious fighting by Dempsey, ultimately (4)
WARY – WAR (fighting) and [by] the last letter of DempseY [utimately]. The pugilist referred to is Jack Dempsey, also known as the Manassa Mauler.
23 Elected to add flavouring available (2,6)
IN SEASON – IN (elected) SEASON (add flavouring). Very neat.
Down
1 Pub having area for small restaurant (7)
TAVERNA – I was over-thinking this trying to replace an “s” with an “a” (having area for small) in a word for a pub. But it’s not that. It’s just TAVERN (pub) and [having] A (area) – small is part of the definition.
2 Missile, not wide, with top missing (5)
ARROW – nARROW (not wide) without the first letter [with top missing]. Top missing as we are writing words down the grid now. With yesterday’s plural version clued in a similar way, you could be forgiven a sense of déjà vu!
3 Moan — all do it when off drink (11)
AMONTILLADO – Our first anagram (Moan – all do it)*. A dry Amontillado is my favourite style of sherry.
4 Sailor needing to achieve objective (6)
TARGET – TAR (sailor, jolly Jack) GET (achieve).
6 One failing to gain a place in final — so rancorous (4-3)
ALSO-RAN – Hidden in finAL – SO RANcorous
7 Minutes before oral, damaged back tooth (5)
MOLAR – M (minutes) [before] (oral)* [damaged].
10 Popular tale about quiet Hebridean island (11)
FASHIONABLE – Don’t be misled, like I was initially, into thinking “Popular tale” is the definition. Take the FABLE (tale) and put it [about] SH (quiet) IONA (Hebridean island).
14 Wodehouse character in court, unsmiling mostly (7)
WOOSTER – WOO (court) STERn (unsmiling) without the final letter [mostly]. Hello Bertie.
16 Irish girl in place of learning lacking good name (7)
COLLEEN – COLLEgE (place of learning) without the “g” [lacking good] N (name).
17 Petty quarrel at home making ex-pat’s light midday meal (6)
TIFFIN – TIFF (petty quarrel) IN (at home). A meal taken by the British Raj originally referring to afternoon tea, but later adopted to mean luncheon.
18 Permit inexperienced leader to drop out (5)
ALLOW – Yet another letter deletion, here directed by [leader to drop out]. i.e. remove the first letter from cALLOW (inexperienced). Another great surface.
19 Reference book sadly includes typos at the start (5)
ATLAS – ALAS (sadly) [includes] first letter of Typos [at the start].

26 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 1429 by Tracy”

  1. I wasn’t particularly pleased to find Steve Austin–as in, “Who the hell is Steve Austin?”–in a clue (today’s main cryptic has Jill Masterson, yet), but the checkers were helpful. I mistakenly took 2d to be ARROW minus the W, and tried to make something of that; finally saw the light. 5:44.
  2. I was a little surprised to find 12 minutes on the clock (that’s 2 over my target) as I completed the grid because I had not been aware of any hold-ups whilst solving other than not remembering exactly who Steve Austin was. I knew he was some sort of super-hero but his USP escaped me and only came to mind once I had all the checkers in place.

    A very good puzzle only appreciated to the full after reading John’s blog. Perhaps in future I should think less about hitting my QC target and take more time to enjoy the surface readings. There are some crackers here.

  3. It felt as if I made heavy going of this. Like Jack I remembered that Steve Austin was some kind of superhero but not which one. I had a complete brain freeze on the Wodehouse clue, I was sure it would have CT in it and completely forgot about the main character. I needed the obdurate AS WELL before the penny finally dropped. LOI was the unknown drink which went in with fingers crossed that I had the unchecked letters in the right order. Completed in 13.48.
    Thanks for the blog
  4. I thought this was a very elegant, well-crafted crossword. i am a sucker for a smooth surface and this has plenty. Just the right level of difficulty too, for a QC. Thank you, setter
  5. An enjoyable puzzle, for which I just managed to keep within my 10 minute target. I remembered Steve Austin and knew that he had been rebuilt for 6 million dollars, but still needed the wordplay to remember his name. No problem with TIFFIN, I’d been reminded of it somewhere else quite recently. As John says, some lovely clues here. 9:38. Thanks Tracy and John.
  6. Once again, just outside my target 15m by a handful of seconds – I must be slowing down. My hold up here was the NW, where I couldn’t remember virago, couldn’t see AS WELL until Bertie appeared, and was looking for a type of pub where I could swap an a for an s. all sorted in the end though. Good puzzle and blog, thanks both.
  7. ….of Birmingham band We’ve Got a Fuzzbox and We’re Gonna Use It. The title was dropped in the States, where the album simply became eponymous. I suppose the cry of glee “that’s absolutely bostin’!” was considered too much of a leap into the unknown for America, since it’s very much a Black Country expression.

    Excellent puzzle, and, despite needing to hit the fourth clue to kick it off, I was inside my target.

    FOI REFUSAL
    LOI TEA PARTY (not a bostin’ one !)
    COD ALLOW
    TIME 4:20

  8. My impression was that this was pretty tough, so I was surprised to stop the clock at 2K for a Good Day. I think it’s because I really struggled in the NW corner, and that is where I always start, so my initial impression was that this was really hard. In fact I still think that 1ac was really hard!

    A very non-bilge-like blog, John, thank you for it, and thanks Tracy.

    FOI WARM, LOI TEA PARTY, COD & WOD COLLEEN.

    Templar

    1. I guess my blog comment on 1A is a bit of litotes, then. Blimey! I never thought I’d be able to work that word into a blog here.

      Edited at 2019-08-30 11:49 am (UTC)

  9. I also struggled to get going in the NW corner, but once I moved elsewhere I built up a head of steam and it didn’t seem so hard when I eventually came back to it. 15:26 in the end so another sub 20 minute solve for me which is pleasing.
  10. 24 minutes, just over my target of 20. I thought it was going to be faster as I seemed to be on wavelength and there were no real hold-ups until AS WELL, but I think it’s the sign of a good puzzle when time flies.
    Thanks to Tracy for another excellent QC and to John for explaining BIC, the only bit of the wordplay I didn’t get.

    Brian

  12. On the easy side for me, but with one or two things to enrage beginners perhaps? Steve Austin is going back quite a bit for a QC, and the EXCUSES clue I thought a bit clunky (the ‘to’ bit) and also maybe overly misleading for QC sense (verb not noun).
  13. I seem to be in a run of 30min solves at the moment, but given that this was Tracy up to his tricks on a Friday, I’ll take that as a reasonable time. Couldn’t see 1ac and 1d to start, but 2d was a write-in. It must be at least 24hrs since we had a ‘take the first letter off a word to leave Arrow’ clue… However, I shouldn’t be churlish, as there was a lot to enjoy in the parsing of the clues that were a struggle to solve – 1ac being a good example. Not easy to pick a favourite, but I think 16d, Colleen, just gets there. Invariant
    1. I didn’t solve yesterday’s until today… and after I had completed the blog, otherwise I’d have mentioned it sooner.
  14. A good challenge from Tracy. Some straight in, some baffling at first, but all revealed with a bit of work. Steve Austin LOI. Loved the reference book with typos..
  15. Found this one really hard. Finished on 82 minutes dead, but it was actually a DNF as I had never heard of the drink at 3d which made that clue just a stab in the dark, and even more difficult when it’s never occurred to you that ‘sign’ might be referring to a star sign. That was stupid I’ll admit, but I think setters should try to avoid long anagrams of, to my mind at least, fairly obscure names of drinks where you’ve got no wordplay to fall back on. I put down ‘verid’ for 8a hoping that meant ill tempered and was formed by Vera without the a, with ID meaning to sign something. I hadn’t heard of that Steve Austin (to me “Stone Cold” Steve Austin is a wrestler, though I am pretty sure he’s still alive so it couldn’t be referring to him) but I had heard of the bionic man so that went in eventually. Didn’t know callow as a word, so didn’t manage to parse 18d. All in all, not a good day at the office. Or even at home.
  16. Steve Austin was a write in – perfect for the low brow early eighties child. Struggled on both the long clues – had no faith in my letter guesses for the sherry (had it ending “illo” for ages) and must admit to switching off from 10d when I realised I was going to have to know some Hebridean Islands – also expected p not sh from quiet. So the lack of checkers held me up as did the scarcity of anagrams. Bit out of practice – new job earlier starts so breakfast solves not yet in routine – so perhaps just rustiness but I found this hard. Sherry and island stored for future endeavours.
  17. I enjoyed this and the time flew…. not a good time but enjoyable. Thanks Tracy. I was seriously delayed by my LOI BIONIC. (Who the hell is Steve Austin? I thought of BIC but it didn’t click (get it?). No problem with the sherry and I liked BILGE and FASHIONABLE. I parsed it all on the run but still enjoyed john’s blog. John M.

    Edited at 2019-08-30 05:09 pm (UTC)

  18. Wasn’t aware of grand = a swell? Is that like a ground swell or a swell chap?
    1. It’s grand = swell as in the adjective, described in the dictionary “Swell (informal and dated) excellent; very good. e.g. ‘that’s a swell idea’” or, as you said, “a swell chap”.
      1. Thanks John, I had heard that definition but it was the “a” that was throwing me off.. I would have thought that “a swell” should be “a grand” rather than just “grand”
        1. Ah yes. I understand you problem now. And very instructive it is too! It’s a shame the other QC commenters have been and gone as they might appreciate this as well…

          The trick is you have to separate the “A” and “grand” in the wordplay, so “A” appears at the start of the answer, with “grand” = “swell” making up the rest of it. This is known as “lift and separate”. See here.

          I bet you will remember this now!

  19. Hard but fair I thought. Just right for me, who has been doing these for about a year. This setter has a good grasp of the concept of the QC. Thanks to blogger and setter

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