Times Quick Cryptic No 1407 by Teazel

Author   plusjeremyPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

Introduction

Filling in this week. A very enjoyable puzzle, which I did not finish, on account of needing to look up shore birds at 1 Across, and Russian rivers at 2 Down. Teazel made me think, and I really had to grind out clues like 3 Across, 11 Down, and 22 Across. Some lovely answers like 21 Across and 13 Down.

Solutions

Across

1 Shore-bird [making] roughly a mile an hour (4)
KNOT – double definition
‘Knot’ is a bird as well as a nautical speed, 1.15 miles per hour.
3 One that flies first class, refusing at the start to go by sea (7)
AIRSHIP – AI (“first class”, as in A1) + REFUSING (“refusing”) reduced to the first letter (“at the start”) + SHIP (“to go by sea”)
8 Batsman / who is vigilant in the dark? (13)
NIGHTWATCHMAN – double definition
The former, from cricket.
9 Vegetable [that’s] sweet as a flower? (3)
PEA – double definition
‘Sweet pea’ is a kind of flower. Tricky, if it weren’t a three-letter clue!
10 Hastened to cut up cedar (5)
RACED – anagram of (“to cut up”) CEDAR (“cedar”)
12 Staggering drunkenly? [That’s] rich (7)
ROLLING – double definition
Both are (according to Collins, anyway) British slang, so this was a guess on my part, although the word is descriptive enough, and we do have “rolling in it” in the US.
14 In November, mud affects island (7)
BERMUDA – the answer is inside (“in”) NOVEMBER MUD AFFECTS (“November mud affects”)
16 Cold meat with no fat [is] uncontaminated (5)
CLEAN – C (“cold”) + LEAN (“meat with no fat”)
I hadn’t really though of ‘lean’ as a noun, until I remembered “…could eat no lean”.
17 Perhaps cat[’s] offended feeling (3)
PET – double definition
20 Corn hurt — enter for surgery [and] start to recover (4,3,6)
TURN THE CORNER – CORN HURT ENTER (“corn hurt enter”) anagrammed (“for surgery”)
21 Seaside entertainer [is] rubbish at his place of work (7)
PIERROT – ROT (“rubbish”) next to (“at”) PIER (“his place of work”)
22 Take the bait, we hear, [getting] a little information (4)
BYTE – BITE (“take the bait”) replaced by homophone (“we hear”)
I kept trying to convince myself of HYPE and finally ground out the correct answer.

Down

1 Sea creature bracing unnaturally to support end of neck (4,4)
KING CRAB – BRACING (“bracing”) anagrammed (“unnaturally”) under (“to support”) last letter of (“end of”) NECK (“neck”)
2 Heading off from Russian river, a local girl? (4)
OLGA – first letter removed from (“heading off from”) VOLGA (“Russian river”)
‘Local’ refers to the surface reading, meaning that the girl is in Russia.
3 Computer icon [shows] tank surrounded by regular cavalry characters (6)
AVATAR – VAT (“tank”) in (“surrounded by”) every other letter of (“regular”) CAVALRY (“cavalry characters”)
4 Memory about the offertory (12)
RECOLLECTION – RE (“about”) + COLLECTION (“the offertory”)
5 Crime [brings] one set of detectives into house (8)
HOMICIDE – I (“one”) + CID (“set of detectives”) in (“into”) HOME (“house”)
6 Feeble wordplay at end of story (4)
PUNY – PUN (“wordplay”) + (“at”) last letter of (“end of”) STORY (“story”)
7 [Having] mistaken path, gestured [for] member of family (12)
STEPDAUGHTER – anagram of (“mistaken”) PATH GESTURED (“path gestured”)
11 Insouciant, about to take charge of match, but not in the middle (8)
CAREFREE – CA (“about”) + REFEREE (“to take charge of match”) without the middle letter (“but not in the middle”)
Everything about this one is lovely.
13 Policeman [in] danger, messing with me (8)
GENDARME – DANGER (“danger”) anagrammed with (“messing with”) ME (“me”)
15 A phosphorus match [is] most convenient (6)
APTEST – A (“a”) + P (“phosphorus”) + TEST (“match”)
18 Prevent containers falling over (4)
STOP – POTS (“containers”) reversed (“falling over”)
19 Just working, extremely leisurely (4)
ONLY – ON (“working”) + first and last letters of (“extremely”) LEISURELY (“leisurely”)

30 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 1407 by Teazel”

  1. Biffed a few: AVATAR (‘tank’), STEPDAUGHTER (checkers), CAREFREE (def), TURN THE CORNER (def, checkers). DNK the batsman, but didn’t need to. I hadn’t thought of a PIERROT as specifically a pier entertainer–he’s a French pantomime character, after all–but then I don’t know what goes on on English piers. I spent the last minute or so trying to think of a K_O_ bird, even double-checking 1d and 2d to make sure. 5:50.
    1. Sadly they no longer happen but in their day they were very popular. The Wiki article under Concert Party has more details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concert_party_(entertainment)

      I just caught the tail-end of their existence c1960 but the traditional Pierrot costumes were gone by then and they didn’t actually have to take place on piers although some did.

      Edited at 2019-07-31 05:55 am (UTC)

      1. NHO, not surprisingly. I think the last time I heard the term (*piero* ピエロ, ‘clown’) was when a colleague used it to characterize another colleague.
        I just learned that ‘snit’ is an Americanism; I wonder if it corresponds to PET, which isn’t (much?) used in the States.
  2. at 8ac requires a little more explanation.

    This is a low-order batsman, often a bowler, coming in to bat just before ‘stumps’ are called – in order to avoid a higher-order batsman having to face the few remaining overs/balls. His purpose is to ‘stonewall’ – keep his wicket intact, not to get out. He is usually ‘out’ early in the proceedings the following morning. I think Derek Underwood was a useful ‘nightwatchman’ back in the day.

    Simples?

    FOI 1ac KNOT a doozie!

    LOI 21ac PIERROT

    COD 14ac BERMUDA – a well hidden island

    WOD 8ac NIGHTWATCHMAN

    Edited at 2019-07-31 02:05 am (UTC)

      1. In cricket, certainly – I am not sure about baseball. Right up until a batsman crosses the boundary and enters the field of play. There is not even an obligation to let the fielding side know in advance. Switching the batting order is not just used to introduce a nightwatchman, but also as a tactical option to manage the scoring rate, for example.

        Enjoyed the QC today; steady and satisfying. No time, just a smile when I finish – doesn’t happen every day, but a good week so far. Thanks to setters and all on this forum, your contributions are a great help and much appreciated.

        1. Thanks; it’s not done in baseball, although the manager can replace a batter, who is then out of the game.
    2. Leach nearly made a century , as nightwatchman , in the Irish Test and was wearing glasses in a match sponsored by supersavers; I wonder if he has received a lucrative offer?
        1. Kev, I did not know that the batting order in baseball was sacred. Is the pitching order?

          In crickit (the Boycottian pronunciation) batsmen cannot be replaced per se, even if ‘absent injured’.
          One final point – the NIGHTWATCHMAN is only found in Test Cricket (5 day) and County Level games (3/4 day) and not in the 1 day game even though they are often played at night!

          2. Correct; however, witness Steve Smith and the first concussion substitute in test cricket.
  3. At Panic Stations for the early moments as no answer immediately leapt out at me in the first few Acrosses (including the 3-letter 9ac which was the most worrying) so I switched to the Downs and spotted {v}OLGA as one of only two Russian rivers I could name off the top of my head – the other being the Ural which crops up here a lot.

    Once I was started I was okay and finished in 9 minutes.

    LOI was the other 3-letter word at 17ac where I needed both checkers to bring PET to mind, so still some cause for concern, but I blame that on it being a DBE! Actually, on reflection I didn’t know the other meaning of PET required here as I’ve always believed it to be a fit of anger, if possibly a mild one. However only Chambers agrees with me on this, as both Collins and the Oxfords mention feelings offence taken and sulking.

    Edited at 2019-07-31 04:49 am (UTC)

    1. Was often told off, as a child, about my ‘pet lip’ when I didn’t get my way!
    2. … are SO useful to setters (not usually the Volga though)
      as well as Ural, there is Don, Neva, Lena, Ob – all major rivers and containing useful collections of letters
  4. No accurate time because of work interruptions, but about 18 mins.

    Only held up by last 2, knot and carefree, where I couldnt parse, having only REF for take charge of match!

    Cod airship.

  5. PIERROT my LOI, but only because my poor handwriting made the last letter ofr STEPDAUGHTER look like an A. COD to CAREFREE as the parsing of it held me up the longest. 5:22
  6. 13 mins and on the harder side. I had CAREF… for 11 and biffed without knowing where the REE bit came from so thanks for that. And PIERROT unknown but evident from wordplay. A nice puzzle thanks

    NeilC

  7. I remembered KNOT from previous puzzles so was off to a flying start. OLGA and KING CRAB swiftly followed. Took a moment to parse AIRSHIP. Wanted to put REELING at 12a but couldn’t parse it, then Recollection put me right. PET was my LOI and took a while and both checkers to see. No problem with PIERROT. Nice puzzle. 7:33. Thanks Teazel and Jeremy.
  8. 21 minutes, so just on target for a nice puzzle which was a bit challenging vocabulary-wise. I seemed to get a lot of consonants as checkers which helped and my last two were ROLLING and RECOLLECTION. COD was CAREFREE – I wrote it in from the wordplay but it took a while for my brain to re-organise the pronounciation to get the definition.

    Brian

  9. On paper today and was racing through this with just two left after 8 minutes -17a and 15d. I could not see a type of cat nor a cat’s name that worked. Eventually I got PET and then considered a word starting with A and probably ending EST.I could only think of HEAT for match, unforgivable in the cricket season, and came here for enlightenment. So DNF in the end.
    I was very impressed by our nightwatchman Jack Leach who effectively won the test for England -reward? Dropped. Such is the cruelty of professional sport.
    David
  10. Agonisingly close to a Red Letter Day at 1.05 Kevins but alas. I’ll settle for an Excellent Day. I first encountered the Knot as a boy on holiday on the west coast of Scotland. Intrigued by its habit of running down the beach after a retreating wave and then back up the beach to avoid the next wave, I looked it up in my father’s bird book and was greatly amused to discover that its Latin name was Calidris canutus.

    Had no idea that a Pierrot was a seaside entertainer and indeed I’ve only ever heard of them through mentions in Lord Peter Wimsey novels.

    FOI RACED, LOI CAREFREE (tough parsing!), COD BERMUDA (brilliantly concealed).

    Thanks Teazel and Jeremy.

    Templar

  11. Completed over a leisurely breakfast with my parents. My mother knew PIERROT (which was NHO for me), and my father knew KNOT (which I had NHO as a bird), but strangely neither of them knew this meaning of PET, which I had a vague memory of. Enjoyed parsing AIRSHIP and CAREFREE.
  12. Another puzzle with which I made no progress at the top. It went quite well when I started from the bottom, though. I liked CAREFREE and APTEST and thought BERMUDA was the best-hidden answer I have seen in ages. Well under 2.5K so closer to my target. Thanks to Teazel and to jeremy for confirming some tough parsing. NHO Pet as an offended feeling but it had to be right. John M.

    Edited at 2019-07-31 10:03 am (UTC)

  13. ….KNOT. No real problems here, although AIRSHIP had me briefly scratching my head. I thought that if you go by sea, you sail. If you send something by sea you ship. The dictionary disagrees with me, thus I concede.

    FOI KNOT
    LOI CAREFREE
    COD BYTE
    TIME 3:57

  15. ….is eminently suitable for those wishing to hone their skills. Only one clue is contentious, and it’s an easy biff once the crossers are in place.
  16. Most of this went in without too much trouble but I was left at the end with KNOT, which required an alphabet trawl, BYTE and PIERROT, where I dubiously trusted the wordplay as it was a new one to me. I was surprised to look it up afterwards and see no mention of the seaside, but will now follow Jack’s wiki link for more info. Finished in 11.02.
    Thanks to Jeremy

    Edited at 2019-07-31 05:32 pm (UTC)

  17. Had AP_EST & still failed to get APTEST, hence dnf. I always seem to get the ones most missed by others, but bring my very own brand of stupid to the odd easy one.
    Still, always most enjoyable so thanks to all concerned. I’m even making progress with the 15×15 now, thanks entirely to the QC & blog.

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