Time’s Quick Cryptic 1401 by Izetti

Author   ChrisPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
Full of interest and a fine puzzle (well, yes, it’s an Izetti). I took 12 minutes and rather thought I could have done better. How did everyone else do?
Sorry for the lateness of the blog, by the way. I’m usually a little more prepared, so please help me out with typos etc.

ACROSS

7. Circle of light in house occupied by a learner (4)
HALO – house (HO) occupied by a (A) and learner (L).
8. Originator of map, extraordinary creator! (8)
MERCATOR – anagram (extraordinary) of CREATOR [with thanks to Flashman – plus the origin of (M)ap which makes this an great &lit clue]. The Flemish geographer and cartographer Gerardus Mercator came up with a map in 1569 which became the standard map projection for navigation because of its unique property of representing any course of constant bearing as a straight segment.
9. Sailor needs to understand what’s to be aimed at (6)
TARGET – sailor (TAR), understand (GET – get it?).
10. Muddled along in crazy English party (4,2)
MADE DO – crazy (MAD), English (E), party (DO).
11. Demeanour of fellows around one (4)
MIEN – fellows (MEN) around one (I).
12. I attempt to go after gang buccaneering (8)
BANDITRY – I attempt (I TRY) after gang (BAND).
15. Most miserable payment gets sanctioned (8)
FEEBLEST – payment (FEE), sanctioned (BLEST).
17. Drink making dame drunk (4)
MEAD – anagram (drunk) of DAME.
18. Pair facing first sign of danger — and ready for it? (6)
BRACED – pair (BRACE), (D)anger.
21. With patterned cloth returned, get reimbursed (6)
REPAID – well, repaid had to be the answer which is DIAPER returned (backwards). Having now looked it up, a diaper, as well as being a nappy, is a woven pattern on fabric consisting of a small repeating design, esp diamonds.
22. Words of congratulation and praise in lowly situations? (8)
PLAUDITS – praise (LAUD) in lowly situations (PITS).
23. Endeavour to have meeting with king (4)
SEEK – have meeting with (SEE), king (K).

DOWN

1. Military building for weaponry featured in periodical (8)
MAGAZINE – double definition.
2. Welsh pirate and maiden wanting something played at wedding? (6)
MORGAN – Maiden (M), something played at wedding (ORGAN). Further background reading – Sir Henry Morgan, or today famous as Captain Morgan, the face of the brand of spiced rum with the same name was a Welsh privateer, landowner and, later, Lieutenant Governor of Jamaica. He was born in 1635 in Llanrhymny in Wales.
3. Boast of conceited person, competent and worthy of being copied? (8)
IMITABLE – boast of conceited person (I’M IT!), competent (ABLE). I liked this one.
4. Short walk — so you won’t need this? (4)
TRAM – LOI as I didn’t think of short walk = (TRAM)p for a while and without the answer you can’t see what the ‘so you won’t need this?’ is all about. This looks like a cryptic come &lit clue and rates my COD.
5. Some dissembling and hiding political leader (6)
GANDHI – some of dissemblin(G AND HI)ding.
6. Congregation is female and not young (4)
FOLD – female (F), not young (OLD).
13. Naughty truant is one going round in birthday suit (8)
NATURIST – anagram (naughty) of TRUANT IS.
14. Madrid team, fantastic side brought into being (8)
REALISED – (REAL) Madrid, anagram (fantastic) of SIDE. They can be quite a fantastic football team at times – their player wage bill is certainly fantastic.
16. Like a boxer ready to fight again, getting support (4,2)
BACK UP – double definition. A boxer has to get back up from the canvass to be ready to fight again/support.
17. Dejected male — work is hard (6)
MOPISH – male (M), work (OP), is (IS), hard (H). Mopish turns out to be another term for mopey which means dejected/gloomy.
19. Sport the French dominate (4)
RULE – sport (RU – Rugby Union), the in French (LE).
20. Ineffectual person provides daughter with final message? (4)
DRIP – Daughter (D), final message (R.I.P.). A final piece of digging – R.I.P. is written on gravestones and expresses the hope that the person buried there may rest in peace (yes, I knew this but) – R.I.P. is an abbreviation for the Latin expression ‘requiescat in pace’ or ‘requiescant in pace’ (which I didn’t and maybe should have).

25 comments on “Time’s Quick Cryptic 1401 by Izetti”

  1. This all seemed pretty easy until I got stuck on 18a and 16d where I struggled with the definitions and the parsings. Eventually I remembered BRACE for pair and that unlocked things. I’d put BACK UP without seeing the parsing -thanks for that. Time was a bit over 15 minutes.
    However when I submitted I had an error.At 4d I thought Walk = Promenade and so a short walk became PROM. Didn’t quite get the parsing but carried on. Now I see the answer I’m not sure about WALK =TRAMP but I’ll leave that to the dictionary experts. David
  2. Well, I was BRACED for a tough-ish time when I saw Izetti’s name but found this his FEEBLEST effort for ages – it really put my BACK UP. I thought the last two clues were weak. I also shared David’s difficulty with TRAM which I must add to my list of problems. I don’t have a time – I broke off twice to deal with window cleaners and then the postman. Perhaps this affected my ability to handle today’s QC. To be fair, the rest if the puzzle was fine but I really thought the concerns with the clues mentioned above detracted fatally from this one. John M.

    Edited at 2019-07-23 09:28 am (UTC)

  3. I suppose if you walk you don’t need to use the tram and tramp can mean ‘to walk’ so it is fair enough if maybe a bit tough for a quickie. Enjoyable puzzle overall – thanks to setter and blogger!
  4. 27 minutes, average for an Izetti but longer than it should have been. I seemed to get the hard ones straight away but struggled with the easier ones – LOIs were MAGAZINE and FEEBLEST although I spelt MEIN wrong which didn’t help.
    I didn’t think that TRAM was up to Izetti’s usual standard.

    Brian

  5. I found this tough going with but I had particular difficulties with FEEBLEST, due to the spelling of BLEST, BACK UP, IMITABLE and the unknown MERCATOR, which was my LOI. In addition REPAID went in unparsed and I had to trust the wordplay at 3, 6 and 17d.
    I eventually stumbled over the line in 19.14, having narrowly avoided the PROM trap.
    Thanks for the blog
  6. I found this tough. Like Jack, I’d never heard of DIAPER as patterned cloth. MAGAZINE held me up as I’d carelessly typed MEIN at 11a. BRACED took ages as I was convinced it would start with PR. MERCATOR took a while too. 17:54. Thanks Izetti and Chris.
  7. Was BRACED for a dnf after a few weeks away, with a few clues o/s, but once that went in, plaudits, Rule (COD), magazine, and feeblest went in on the 20 min mark.

    Dnk diaper, or the archaic blest / blessed.

    Don’t think tram is an &lit but mercator is.
    Originator of map, M, plus the anagram of creator.

    Edited at 2019-07-23 09:28 am (UTC)

  8. This all seemed to be going very smoothly until I hit a brick wall in the SW corner and had to struggle for every one of the answers to 15ac, 16dn, 18ac, 20dn and 22ac.

    I eventually completed the grid in 17 minutes putting my solving time into the red (I use a traffic-light system) for the first time in more than a month.

    That wasn’t the end of my troubles though, as David’s second paragraph (above) applied exactly to me too.

    DIAPER as a patterned cloth was completely new to me.

    Edited at 2019-07-23 08:29 am (UTC)

  10. I found this Izetti QC very tricky. I biffed BACK UP for support without understanding the rest of the clue. MORGAN was constructed from wordplay and knowing it to be a Welsh name I wrote it in unaware of the Captain Morgan link. My last two in were IMITABLE which made me smile and the totally unknown MERCATOR with crossed fingers. I’m rather relieved to see other solvers on the blog found it tough. 16:23. Thanks Chris for the enlightenment.

    Edited at 2019-07-23 10:55 am (UTC)

  11. ….a nappy camper. I really struggled in the SW corner, and after going over target I came here to find that my biffed “prom” at 4D was the cause of a DNF. Don has to beat me sometimes I suppose !

    Didn’t know the sense of “diaper”, so REPAID was also biffed. At least that one was right.

    COD MERCATOR

  12. I put in PRAM (as in short for perambulation) – and you may not need it on a short walk? TRAM is much better.
  13. That was a stinker in the SW (even interrupting Phil’s progress!). Having done the rest of it fast I came to a juddering halt there while I banged my head against the last 5 or 6 clues, finally getting there in just under 20 minutes or 1 Plett. Hard yards. At least I knew Captain Morgan from his rum.

    FOI HALO, LOI FEEBLEST (crikey), COD MERCATOR.

    Thanks Izetti and Chris

    Templar

  14. The first 4 acrosses went in just like that–something that seldom happens to me. But I had memory problems dragging BRACE into consciousness, and feeble=miserable? took bags of time. Naturally NHO DIAPER; a bit much, maybe, for a QC? No problem with TRAM. 6:55.
  15. Another second sitting job. Going like a train but then had to go out for half an hour. My return coincided with the SW corner and I thought my mind had gone to bits, so I’m somewhat relieved to find that it wasn’t just me. I think 16d is probably the poorest clue I can remember from Izetti in a long time. If I can think of ‘car manoeuvre gets support’, surely Don could have come up with something better. Invariant
  16. I had to admit defeat on this, with most of SW incomplete after half an hour (more than it took for the 15×15). I did think of FEEBLEST at 15ac, but rejected it as the definition of ‘most miserable’ is rather dodgy, and ‘sanctioned’ is nothing like ‘blest’ – on reflection, I realise that either could be ‘approved’ but in rather different senses. Also found nothing other than PRIMED, which doesn’t quite parse, at 18ac – which prevented me finding a good solution for 16dn – tried PUMP UP, with WEEPIEST which don’t really work.
  17. The double-definition clue for BACK UP looks fine to me and I suspect that were Izetti to visit this site he could find worse clues from his collection!
    1. I have regularly sung his praises in the past and will, no doubt, do so again in the future, but that was a shocker today, imho.
  19. I liked the answer but also put in pram.
    Didn’t get Mien, or Morgan
    Thanks
  20. I liked the answer but also put in pram.
    Didn’t get Mien, or Morgan
    Thanks

Comments are closed.