Times Quick Cryptic 1357 by Rongo

Author   william_j_sPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

Good fun – not a total giveaway for me, as I was held up by the eternal youth and the anagram at 22ac (which for some reason would not come to mind). I was glad to be able to biff 2ac and 6ac then piece them together from their parts later. And thanks to the Friday 15×15 blogger, who evidently chose his nom de plume for just this scenario – without his foresight I would have been guessing at 11ac.

Definitions underlined.

Across
1 Lines appended to mail? (10)
POSTSCRIPT – cryptic definition; lines appended and lines sent by mail.
8 Not in hospital room facing away (7)
OUTWARD – OUT (not in) and WARD (hospital room).
9 Picture with sound of enemy trail (5)
PHOTO – homophone of (sound of) “foe” (enemy) and “tow” (trail).
10 Small amount of speed (4)
DASH – double definition.
11 French poet’s verse translation of La Reine (8)
VERLAINE – V (verse) and an anagram (translation) of LE REINE.
13 Perhaps a bit of snow following a large amount of water (5)
FLAKE – F (following, used in citations to indicate the following page) and LAKE (a large amount of water).
14 No cry out for friend (5)
CRONY – anagram of (out) NO CRY.
16 Don’t hew a yew: some of it is coming up (2,3,3)
ON THE WAY – hidden in (some of it) dONT HEW A Yew. A masterful hidden, made trickier I think by the multi-word answer.
17 Vessel in snake pit at last (4)
BOAT – BOA (snake) and final letter of (at last) piT.
20 Bad time to bring back group of soldiers (5)
TROOP – reversal of (to bring back) POOR (bad) and T (time).
21 Window fixer initially gets less inclined to work (7)
GLAZIER – first letter of (initially) Gets, then LAZIER (less inclined to work).
22 Entry line winding around hotel, essentially (10)
INHERENTLY – anagram of (winding) ENTRY LINE, surrounding (around) H (hotel).

Down
1 Poke about university, pleased with oneself (5)
PROUD – PROD (poke) surrounding (about) U (university).
2 Pleasure rested on one small dissenting subgroup (12)
SATISFACTION – SAT (rested), I (one), s (small), and FACTION (dissenting subgroup).
3 Hit friends turning up (4)
SLAP – reversal of (turning up) PALS (friends).
4 One who regrets accepting Doctor of Divinity as guide (6)
RUDDER – RUER (one who regrets) surrounding (accepting) DD (doctor of divinity).
5 People power unsettled a couple (8)
POPULACE – P (power) and an anagram of (unsettled) A COUPLE.
6 Towards eleven, company see main point for poisons expert (12)
TOXICOLOGIST – TO (towards), XI (eleven), CO (company), LO (see), and GIST (main point).
7 Humour to appear extremely dry (6)
COMEDY – COME (to appear) and outside letters from (extremely) DrY.
12 Eternal youth to dwindle and be exhausted (but not out in either case) (5,3)
PETER PAN – remove the ‘out’ (not out in either case) from PETER out (dwindle) and PAN out (be exhausted). At least, I think so. I’m not seeing the connection with ‘pan out’ and ‘exhausted’ (something to do with gold, perhaps?), but I’m happy to give the setter the benefit of the doubt for originality!
13 Cold tailless amphibian atop animal enclosure (6)
FROSTY – all but the last letter of (tailless) FROg (amphibian) on top of (atop) STY (animal enclosure).
15 Screw up masculine point of view (6)
MANGLE – M (masculine) and ANGLE (point of view).
18 Hang around, covered in pitch (5)
TARRY – double definition.
19 People go fast (4)
RACE – double definition.

32 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 1357 by Rongo”

  1. 13 minutes for this slightly sticky puzzle.

    FOI 3dn SLAP

    LOI 12dn PETER PAN

    COD 6dn TOXICOLOGIST (IKEAN)

    WOD 11ac VERLAINE gawd bless ‘im!

    His Lordship should be no longer than four minutes on this warm-up.

  2. A few days away from here but I’ve been solving on paper so shouldn’t be rusty but this was hard. All green in 26m but the slowest on the leaderboard by more than 6 minutes! Top went in quicker than the bottom but I was struggling throughout. Enjoyable though and all fair – although I’m another who couldn’t parse the second half of LOI 12d. Lots to enjoy here, not least VERLAINE, good to know he’s a poet as well as a top solver.
  3. I felt this was very much at the harder end of the spectrum but I completed exactly on 10 minutes (my target time). I’m not clear how ‘be exhausted’ = ‘pan out’.
    1. I didn’t even notice this–biffed PETER PAN– but I think William’s got it; if no more gold shows up when you’re panning, you’ve exhausted your claim.
      1. I was along those lines myself, but wouldn’t that be ‘panned out’? In any case it still seems a bit of a stretch to me, especially in a QC puzzle.
  4. 21 mins with a good chunk spent on satisfaction, peter pan, toxicologist, and loi inherently.

    Wasn’t 100% sure about tarry.
    Haven’t seen v for verse before.

    Cod the poison expert.

    I think in your intro William you mean 2d and 6d.
    Thanks.

  5. A tricky puzzle today! I was assisted at 11a by our other blogger having been used by setters in previous 15x15s. Took ages to get past FROZEN at 13d. TROOP eventually put me in the right animal pen. I biffed our eternal youth, who was my LOI. 12:22. Thanks Rongo and William.
  6. A bit slow to get started this morning:SLAP was FOI. Then steady progress and needed two after 15 minutes -13d and 16a. I was sure there was a FROG in 13d but it still took me a while to get FROSTY (my COD). I had made no sense of 16a ,but with all the checkers, the hidden finally became clear and I finished in 16:44.
    It felt very slow but I see others have also struggled.
    Another good QC. David
    PS Verlaine’s best known verse:
    Les sanglots longs des violons de l’automne blessent mon coeur d’une langueur monotone. Tout suffocant et blême, quand sonne l’heure, je me souviens des jours anciens et je pleure
    1. There’s also
      Il pleure dans mon coeur
      Comme il pleut dans la ville;
      Quelle est cette langueur
      Qui pénètre mon coeur?
      or words to that effect
      1. This gives me an irresistible picture of the scene in Intouchables where Francois Cluzet is dictating Baudelaire as part of a love letter.
    2. …et je m’en vais au vent mauvais qui m’emporte deçà, delà, pareil à la feuille morte
  7. I can’t remember a thing about this, other than being pleased to see our Verlaine. And like John I was stuck for a while at FROZEN, despite not having a clue, rightly, about ZEN. 6:08.
    1. Verlaine and FROZEN… me too. BOAT and TARRY my last 2 in. I liked ON THE WAY. 6:43.
  8. 11.04 with no quibbles, though I too was glad of Friday’s blogger for 11AC as had no idea Verlaine was a french poet. Thanks setter and blogger.

    NeilC

  9. I finished in just over 30 minutes, but with a lot of biffing, LOIs were INHERENTLY and FROSTY after looking up ZEN in three different dictionarys.
    Thanks to William for sorting out my biffs, and a gold star to Rongo for the long multi-word lurker and the five element charade in 6D.

    Brian

  11. Terrific puzzle, thank you Rongo. Turning ON THE WAY into “Don’t hew a yew” takes a special kind of genius; my COD by miles even in a strong field. All done and dusted in 1.8 Kevins, a Very Good Day though was hoping for sub ten at one point. Held up by PETER PAN, which I hesitated over – I’ve only ever come across “pan out” as meaning “work out” (as in “let’s see how things pan out”), never as exhaust. But it’s in the dictionary, so …

    When I saw VWXYZ I was sure it was going to be a pangram, but no. Thanks for the clear blog, William.

    Templar

    Edited at 2019-05-22 10:11 am (UTC)

  12. The 4 long clues all required quite a few checkers before I could solve them, particularly 1a and 2d. I struggled with 9a PHOTO. The homophone tow for trail was lost on me. Like others I only got 11a VERLAINE from his 15×15 blogging duties. 12d PETER PAN was a write in as soon as I saw dwindle so I didn’t read the rest of the clue. My FOI was 1d PROUD and LOI 10a DASH because until I solved 2d SATISFACTION I had incorrectly entered drop and I am not even sure why! 10:41
    1. I read it as “toe”, meaning the end of something, meaning trail
      3-point turn in a thesaurus it may be, but it got me there
  13. ….meets the gold of the day, I’m usually still knocking out the zeds. This may explain my early morning tendency to take much of the QC clueing on trust. I didn’t overthink PETER PAN, and now I’ve read the comments above I see it’s a little less than perfect. An enjoyable offering from Rongo nonetheless.

    FOI POSTSCRIPT
    LOI MANGLE
    COD VERLAINE
    TIME 3:21

  15. Didn’t know 11a poet but guessed correctly.
    Pan out certainly does not mean exhausted. You are right that it comes from gold mining whereby a prospector would claim or buy the rights to a stretch of stream and would then pan it. The only judgment of the merits of that bit of stream would be the amount of gold he got in his pan I.e how it “panned out”, could be lots. It just means the outcome of a situation, not necessarily either good or bad.
  16. Not on Rongo’s wavelength today. FTF. Don’t really understand why tow should be interpreted as trail in 9ac.
  17. Haven’t tried yesterday’s as yet but this was fun. FOI 1a LOI 20a COD 5d AND 16a. No real hang ups for a change. A nice way to sip a Costa at 45 minutes.
  18. An excellent puzzle that felt quite tricky in places so I was surprised to complete it in 10.22. I left the poet to the end thinking that it was going to be nigh on impossible so was grateful when the answer appeared without too much of a delay. 16a was superb.
    Thanks for the blog
  19. Just a typo, I’m sure. Queens in French are always feminine – LA REINE.
  20. First time I have tried the QC on my iPad. What a pain! It took me longer than it should have but when I added my last one, DASH, it told me I hadn’t finished correctly. I tried more than once with the same result. Had to check here to know it was correct. Don’t understand this. Good puzzle, though. John M.
    I can’t sign in as Oldblighter, either…..
    1. I meant this was the first time on my iPhone; the iPad is fine. I finally got the sign-in to work. Does anybody else have problems on their iPhone?
  22. Haven’t tried yesterday’s as yet but this was fun. FOI 1a LOI 20a COD 5d AND 16a. No real hang ups for a change. A nice way to sip a Costa at 45 minutes.

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