Times Quick Cryptic No 1388 by Teazel

Author   TheRotterPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
I am filling in for Rolytoly today, who is on holiday at the moment – I know not where!  Roly will do the next two Thursdays after he gets back. 

I found that I wasn’t on the wavelength today for this puzzle from Teazel, and took 17 minutes, two over my target.  My first pass through the across clues didn’t fill many squares, and I needed to dot about a bit to make any progress.  9a was my LOI and COD – a well disguised anagram, and I also liked 8d.

Enjoy your break Roly, and we look forward to seeing you back next week.

Across
1         Fish that swells you up? (7)
BLOATER – Cryptic clue to the fish that is smoke dried, and traditionally hails from Yarmouth.
7  Oxygen, for example, just a hint? (7)
ELEMENT – Double definition, the first by example and the second referring to a trace or smidgeon of a thing.
9 Person’s extreme elation breaks out (7)
TOENAIL – Anagram (breaks out) of [ELATION].  Despite the ugliness of the answer, I like this clue!
10  Eastern, rockier-sounding land (7)
Estonia – E{astern} and STONIA (sounds like stonier – rockier sounding).
11 Advantage of clipping front of boundary shrubs (4)
EDGE – The boundary shrubs are a {h}EDGE, with the aitch dropped (clipping front).  To have an EDGE is to have an advantage.
12 Strangely certain it is complicated (9)
INTRICATE – Anagram (strangely) of [CERTAIN IT].
14 Broccoli sample from rustic a lab re-sent (9)
CALABRESE – Hidden in (sample from) {rusti}C A LAB RE-SE{nt}
16  Catch small horse (4)
SNAG – S{mall} and NAG (horse).
17  Current is most important, I state (7)
TOPICAL – TOP (most important) followed by I (I) and CAL{ifornia} (state).
20  Smooth fellow, a powerful athlete (4,3)
IRON MAN – IRON (smooth) and MAN (fellow).  An IRON MAN can be either a man of extraordinary strength, or a winner of an endurance test comprising of surfing, swimming and running events (both Australian in common usage) or (when a single word – IRONMAN) a long distance triathlon race consisting, usually, of a 2.4 mile swim, a 112-mile bicycle ride and a 26.2-mile run.
21  Cuts roughly round extremely loose dog hairs (7)
HACKLES – HACKS (cuts roughly) outside of (round) L{oos}E (extremely loose, i.e. first and last letters).
22  African party enters ten year rental agreement (7)
TENANCY – ANC (African National Congress – African party) between (enters) TEN (ten) and Y{ear}.

Down
1         Toffee spread with whisky (12)
BUTTERSCOTCH – BUTTER (spread) and SCOTCH (whisky).  This clue wouldn’t work with whiskey, as whiskey isn’t SCOTCH!
2  Exercise in muddy lagoon – it shouldn’t be missed (4,4)
OPEN GOAL – P{hysical} E{xercise} (exercise) inside (in) an anagram (muddy) of [LAGOON].
3  What awful weather! (4)
THAW – Anagram (awful) of [WHAT].
4  Engineers take forty days to ease off (6)
RELENT – RE (Royal Engineers) and (take) LENT (forty days).  LENT is the name given to the forty days of fasting in the Christian religion between Ash Wednesday and Easter.
5 Woman threshed grain (8)
BEATRICE – BEAT (threshed) and RICE (grain).
6  Intend to be average (4)
MEAN – Double definition, the second referring to the mathematical MEAN.
8  Come here for a holiday? (6,6)
TRAVEL AGENCY – Cryptic definition with mis-direction pointing you to a holiday resort, rather than the place one might go to procure a holiday.
12  One doctor picked up infestation on head of envoy, the idiot! (8)
IMBECILE – I (one) MB (doctor – Bachelor of Medicine) followed by LICE (infestation) reversed (picked up) on E{nvoy} (head of).
13  A boy lifting title, unanimously (2,3,3)
AS ONE MAN –  A (a) SON (boy) and NAME (title) reversed (lifting).
15  Join up two points on catalogue (6)
ENLIST – E{ast} and N{orth} (two points – of the compass) on LIST (catalogue).
18  Kiss Gregory? (4)
PECK – Referring to the famous actor Gregory Peck.
19  Continue being a thug (4)
GOON – GO ON (continue), when concatenated makes a GOON (thug)

17 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 1388 by Teazel”

  1. 15 mins, last few hackles, toenail, goon and loi beatrice.

    Foi edge.

    Cod ironman seeing as I did the Austrian one just over a year ago.

    1. Wow – that is very impressive! I was just reading the description and thinking “that sounds impossible”.
  2. I’ve been solving on paper recently but back to the website today. I was so out of practice I did this one on the puzzle page not the crossword club, just as well as IO had an OWN GOSL. Once that was corrected, all done in 14:18. Pretty pleased with that as I dotted about the grid. Only a few really easy clues in here, it all required quite a lot of work but all fair once the penny dropped. A great puzzle. LOI was 9a for me too, finally falling when OPEN GOAL went in – unusual to be held up for so long by anagrams.
  3. I can echo the comments of Rotter and the first solvers to report. I was chasing round the grid looking for easy clues to get going and couldn’t find them.
    FOI was THAW; hold-ups were many. LOI was BEATRICE. No doubt there will be comments about random names but the clueing was clear if difficult for A QC.
    I finished in 15:32 which could have been much longer.
    And Rotter has reminded me that I always forget the difference between whisky and whiskey!
    David
  4. I got off to a flier with the 1s going in straightaway which opened up the grid nicely, but like others the elusive 5d added a chunk of time at the end.
    Finished in 10.34 with my favourite being TOENAIL.
    Thanks to therotter.
  5. Thank goodness CALABRESE was a hidden word because I glumly looked at the clue realising that I didn’t know how to spell what seemed likely to be the answer! I found the down clues relatively easy and wrote in the first four immediately, thus allowing me then to fill in the left side and work across, so not too much dotting around for me.

    All done in 9:42 for an estimated 2K and a Good Day. Held up by TOENAIL (clever), TENANCY (was trying to work “do” in there for “party”) and LOI + COD GOON. (On edit – I thought that “ten year” was rather weak for TEN Y.)

    Thanks Teazel and Rotter.

    Templar

    Edited at 2019-07-04 08:07 am (UTC)

  6. An excellent puzzle. Too many good clues to list but my last few in chime exactly with flashman’s list. I managed to add a few seconds to his time, though. Most of the top half went in very quickly and I stared at a blank lower half for a minute or two. Then BUTTERSCOTCH clicked and the rest capitulated steadily. Many thanks to Teazel for an excellent start to the day and to rotter for his usual interesting blog. John M.

    Edited at 2019-07-04 08:30 am (UTC)

  7. 10 minutes, so target achieved, but it was another skin-of-the-teeth job. I was done, all except 5dn after 8 minutes but I needed all of the remaining two to finally arrive at BEATRICE as the missing woman.

    I didn’t know of HACKLES specifically referring to dogs and on checking I find that it doesn’t – cats, birds and even ‘etc’ are mentioned in the usual sources, so strictly speaking this is an unsignalled DBE.

    Took IRON MAN on trust from wordplay and checkers as I didn’t know the athletic term.

    Edited at 2019-07-04 07:44 am (UTC)

    2. A friend of mine was in training for an Iron Man competition last time I saw him. He’s an ex squaddie. My nephew also trains for the swimming and cycling sections for fun. I don’t think he does the marathon bit. Makes me want to crawl back under the duvet!
  8. Must have been on the right wavelength today, or maybe going to bed a bit earlier is the secret, but after passing over the first three clues, they started to go in very nicely. Was down to three left after about 18 minutes and thought I might be on for a pb (I’ve only once ever scraped under 20), but then got stumped by LOI 9a for a few minutes. Couldn’t believe it turned out to be an anagram. Anyway, all finished in 24:15 and under 1.5 Rotters – I’ll definitely take that. Had only vaguely heard of a bloater and didn’t know what sort of fish it was. Can’t say the name inspires me to want to eat one. I’d prefer a bit of 1d.
  9. Took me a while to spot the hidden CALABRESE, but apart from that I was only held up by my LOI, BEATRICE. BUTTERSCOTCH was a 2d as it appeared in another puzzle quite recently. Nice puzzle. 8:15. Thanks Teazel and Rotter.
  10. FOI BLOATER and LOI BEATRICE. There was a moment when I had yet to solve BUTTERSCOTCH that I thought I was heading for a DNF but with all the first letter checkers in place I romped home in just over 7 minutes. I’m also glad CALABRESE (spell checker doesn’t like it) was a hidden and like others my COD goes to TOENAIL which was my penultimate solve. Thanks Rotter for the blog.
  11. ….IRON MAN, as Black Sabbath informed us on their first album. I don’t think Ozzy Osborne would be partaking of the physical torture described (lifting a full pint does me nicely thank you).

    Enjoyable puzzle, no real problems.

    FOI BLOATER
    LOI/COD BEATRICE
    TIME 3:46

  12. I’ve had a good week, and again under my usual target of 30 minutes. I think the slowest this week, but still pleased. LOI was TOENAIL, and got there almost by accident. With the crossers, I had T*E*A*L, and thought “extreme elation” could be EN, and further that somehow “break” might mean AIL, so got to T*ENAIL, and looking for a word T*E meaning person, and the definition of “out”. Then it dawned on me that I was barking up the wrong tree, and it was in fact TOENAIL
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