Times Quick Cryptic No 1308 by Rongo

Author   rolytolyPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
Gentle enough from Rongo today. I did Tuesday’s not-too-tricky QC just beforehand, took about 14 minutes, and did this in a bit under half that. Missed three of the acrosses on the first read through: 12ac, partly because I don’t credit the word “breathe” with the status of a 7-letter word (it’s surely 6, right?), partly because it’s an uncommon name for a drink I don’t mind forgetting; 16ac was also missed, thanks to a Pavlovian shudder at the first bit of the clue, so I moved quickly on; and 20ac was missed legitimately, because of trickier wordplay and a certainty that there have to be loads of 13-letter words for “dispassionate” (none of which was immediately forthcoming). I also liked the spasmodic subdivision at 9ac and the neatness of 1d. I don’t remember that particular grid layout either. Anyway, many thanks to Rongo!

Across
1 Twice cook dead bird (4)
DODO – To do a meal = to cook a meal, repeat. And I suppose if you’re a dodgy accountant, doing the books and cooking the books are the same thing as well.
3 Move rider’s head on horseback — put his foot here (7)
STIRRUP – STIR (move) R (Rider’s “head”) UP (on horseback)
8 Parisian’s one in favour to receive furniture, to be remembered always (13)
UNFORGETTABLE – UN (Parisian’s one) FOR (in favour) to GET (receive) TABLE (furniture)
9 Latter half of erotic spasm (3)
TIC – latter half of eroTIC
10 Those people in front of English subject (5)
THEME – THEM (those people) afront E(nglish)
12 Breathe, stirring hot soothing drink? (4,3)
HERB TEA – anagram (stirring) of BREATHE. An earlier term for herbal tea.
14 Old saint put in mature, clever reply (7)
RIPOSTE – O (old) St. (saint) put in RIPE (mature)
16 After referendum, it’s unknown who wants a cracker? (5)
POLLY – POLL (referendum) Y (unknown). You can read why parrots are called pollys, and why they want crackers, here.
17 Fate of man whose wife turned to salt (3)
LOT – double definition
20 Unemotional lives go by, one likely to interrupt romantic meeting (13)
DISPASSIONATE – IS (lives: to be = to live = to exist) PASS (go by) I (one) ON (likely) to interrupt DATE (romantic meeting).
21 Overshadow cuts within Europe’s borders (7)
ECLIPSE – CLIPS (cuts) within EE (“borders” of EuropE)
22 Stick contents of bulges out (4)
GLUE – anagram (out) of ULGE (“contents” of bULGEs)

Down
1 Family member seeing changing of the guard (8)
DAUGHTER – anagram, (changing of) THE GUARD. Very nice.
2 Silly duke at the back of the boat (4)
DAFT – D(uke) AFT (back of the boat)
3 Strong smell from small fish (6)
STENCH – S(mall) TENCH (fish)
4 Bury broadcast or put in continuity break (12)
INTERRUPTION – INTER (bury), anagram (broadcast) of OR PUT IN.
5 Thick end in actual counterargument (8)
REBUTTAL – BUTT (thick end) in REAL (actual)
6 Composition of lines displayed regularly by pro team (4)
POEM – “displayed regularly by” P r O  t E a M.
7 Overworked forger might have this problem in holding pen (7,5)
WRITERS CRAMP – vaguely cryptic definition. Possibly a pun on “holding pen”, although unless the forger is making fake wool it’s hard to see what business they have being in a holding pen… aah, they could be sheep rustling, and altering a farmer’s identification mark.
11 Adoption of English as a second language involving power over America (8)
ESPOUSAL – ESL (English as a Second Language) involves P(ower) O(ver) USA (America)
13 Unsettled year when in no particular place (8)
ANYWHERE – anagram (unsettled) of YEAR WHEN
15 Part of rarely seen French palace (6)
ELYSEE – “part of” the letters of rarELY SEEn
18 Tool commercials on the radio (4)
ADZE – sounds like (heard on the radio) ADS (commercials)
19 Icy shower is welcome (4)
HAIL – double definition. Very true, if the ice is of the diamond variety.

43 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 1308 by Rongo”

  2. After yesterday’s worst solving time for a couple of months, at 7 minutes today’s was my best solving time for a couple of weeks. Lost a litle time parsing ESPOUSAL and a little more thinking about POLLY before concluding it must be a reference to something I either never knew or had forgotten. Even after reading the explanation on the link above I can’t be sure I’ve met it before.
    1. Teaching a parrot to say, “Polly wants a cracker”, like naming a dog “Fido”, may have become so clichéd as to have disappeared, but I would have expected you to know it; unless it was only US parrots who got taught this?
      1. In my admittedly very limited experience parrot’s were traditionally taught to say ‘Pretty Polly’.
  3. Enjoyed a brief insight into Kevin’s world as I read and wrote in all the first half of the acrosses. Reality returned as I entered the choppy waters of the SW where ADZE, ESPOUSAL, WRITERS CRAMP and ECLIPSE all combined to leave my time at a fastish for me 13.29 – but well short of the massive pb I had begun to fantasise about.
  4. Certainly easier than yesterday. I was racing along, paused over POLLY -could that be right?- and ended up needing two with under 10 minutes on the clock.
    It took me several looks to get DISPASSIONATE and I thought the definition was One Likely to Interrupt Romantic Meeting at first. LOI was 11d where I was struggling to get the US into what became ESPOUSAL. 13:34 in the end. COD to 20a.
    David
  5. A steady solve today but was delayed at the end by 7d and 16a. The wordplay for POLLY was clear enough but I had no idea about what the definition was going on about, even though I assumed that it must be parrot related. Finished in 12.17
    Thanks for the blog
  6. Only delays were DISPASSIONATE (where I really wanted the answer to be “gooseberry” even though I knew it was too short) and LOI ESPOUSAL, since I DNK “ESL” as an abbreviation. In the end done and dusted in well under 10 but still over 2 Kevins … hard yakka! I’m still calling it a Good Day though 😊.

    Lots of fun, thanks Rongo. Lovely surface at 1dn and I thought 22acxwas neat, but COD from me goes to POLLY, beautifully topical. My only personal experience of what parrots are taught to say comes from my Great Uncle James, who got his African Grey to say “put that down” whenever anyone touched the decanter.

    Thanks for the blog, roly, and explaining DISPASSIONATE so clearly.

    Templar

    Edited at 2019-03-14 08:47 am (UTC)

    1. If you want to see what parrots can say, try Googling “Alex the parrot”.
  7. Any enticing crossword that will encourage many SCC members who will find it more accessible than usual (it will be a doddle for the usual speedsters). I moved through steadily from the NW to SE with LOI HAIL. Just a hiccup at 4d which I biffed as INTERMISSION without parsing properly, realising my mistake when HERB TEA (ugh) became obvious. Plenty of nice clues but I was just the wrong side of 10 mins. I liked ESPOUSAL, RIPOSTE, DISPASSIONATE, GLUE, and DAUGHTER and had never associated parrots with crackers (but it had to be POLLY). Thanks to Rongo for a fun, true QC with some chewy bits and to Roly for a very good blog. John M.

    Edited at 2019-03-14 09:04 am (UTC)

  8. I was right on my 20 minute target, although parts of my LOIs DISPASSIONATE and ESPOUSAL were partially un-parsed.
    Some research has shown ‘Polly wants a cracker’ is a line from a song from ‘Nirvana’, but as I’ve never heard of them or the song I would say it is definitely obscure GK. My standard parrot phrase is ‘ whos a pretty boy’ or ‘pieces of eight’. Perhaps the cracker/parrot link a US thing.

    Brian

    Edited at 2019-03-14 09:11 am (UTC)

    1. Similar experience to most others here. Looking like a PB, then a desperate series of biffs to squeak under the 10 barrier with 9.48. Never properly parsed DISPASSIONATE, ESPOUSAL, INTERRUPTION or REBUTTAL. POLLY and HAIL get nods from me.
    2. I saw 16ac, paused momentarily, and then thought to myself ‘that’s taken from Nirvana!’. Knowing the line ‘Polly wants a cracker’ is obscure GK, as you say—but to have never heard of Nirvana? They sold over 45m albums and transformed the US pop music industry in the early 1990s.

      Type ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ into youtube and listen to a song which generated shock waves in popular music culture.

      Martin Hill

      1. Sadly a gap in my musical knowlege which never really progressed past skiffle ☺

        Brian

  9. An easier offering today. I paused slightly at POLLY, not knowing the cracker reference. Like Jack, I find Pretty Polly a more common term. FOI DODO, LOI ANYWHERE. 6:22. Thanks Rongo and Roly.
  10. Well, not me today. I made heavy weather of this, not helped by biffing “intermission” at a very early stage. Failing to spot DODO immediately didn’t help either. I might otherwise have sneaked inside my five minute target.

    FOI STIRRUP
    LOI DAUGHTER
    COD POLLY
    TIME 5:05

  11. Just under 10 mins with LOI 7d WRITERS CRAMP. I biffed 20a DISPASSIONATE and 11d ESPOUSAL. I hesitated over the spelling of ADZE and I have never heard of POLLY wants a cracker but it was doable from the wordplay. Thanks Rongo and Roly.
  12. A nice steady solve for me, completed in 9:12. Needed the blog to parse 16a and 11d. I had 7d as Writers Block initially, which didn’t help in SW corner. Thanks to Rongo and Roly.

    Adrian

  14. 25m. I struggled more with this one, esp dispassionate, espousal, and made worse by not knowing the tool and plumping for adse over adze. Would have preferred tool smashed daze!

    I’m blaming the late night watching the footy and red wine.

    Cod daughter.

  15. Theses were going in very nicely until the end. Many were biffed in and parsed after. Unfortunately, despite biffing in ADZE, I couldn’t parse it for ages, so deleted it. I also had quite some time on ESPOUSAL. If it wasn’t for these two and DISPASSIONATE, this would have been my first ever sub-10 mins. However, I ended up with 18mins, which is still a good finish for me.

    Edited at 2019-03-14 02:21 pm (UTC)

  17. I don’t really agree with the derivation of 1AC. Since when has “doing a meal” been a thing? Maybe I don’t frequent the appropriate entertaining circles. And accountants would be most upset at the conflation of doing the books and cooking, ie fiddling, the books. Definitely a PIC.
    2. Hence the quite specific reference to a “dodgy” accountant.

      I’m not sure for how long doing lasagne has meant the same as cooking lasagne, but probably quite some time.

  18. After yesterdays dnf this was the other end of the scale. Put in polly without parsing and also stirrup likewise. 14m and a very pleasant solve, thanks Rongo.
  19. 8 minutes with a whole lot of biffing going on. Now that would make a catchy tune.
  20. Lots of good stuff here but I agree that do is a poor clue for cooking. Polly had to fit but if you think many would have got the reference you must be crackers 🙂
  21. I’m another (UK based) that has never heard the cracker expression. Have vaguely heard of. Nirvana but lost interest in pop music several decades ago. A dodo is extinct, dead is very misleading.

    Liked Lot a lot

    A very slow solve. I think I must have plateaued at around the 60 min mark as they rarely seem easy to me..

      1. We too took nearly an hour but do try to parse as we go along. Failed in that with Polly and Writers Cramp although we got the answers.
        1. No, that one was a Jacob but these days we have a small flock of pet ouessants – supposedly the world’s smallest breed at 18″ (45cm) to shoulder.
  22. Much easier than yesterday’s and I thought I might be on for a PB but it took me 15 minutes. I didn’t know the Polly thing, though the answer was obvious, and failed to completely parse dispassionate. I couldn’t understand 7d, but it couldn’t be anything else. Still relying on this amazing website for all the explanations. Thank you, Rolytoly, and all bloggers and contributors. I learn so much. MM

    FOI DODO
    LOI DISPASSIONATE and also COD now I understand it all!!
    WOD RIPOSTE

  25. After yesterdays dnf this was the other end of the scale. Put in polly without parsing and also stirrup likewise. 14m and a very pleasant solve, thanks Rongo.
  26. After yesterdays dnf this was the other end of the scale. Put in polly without parsing and also stirrup likewise. 14m and a very pleasant solve, thanks Rongo.

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