Quick Cryptic 1124 by Alfie

Author   CuraristPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
Now, I expect this one will divide opinion. It was an enjoyable solve, and the wordplay is by and large reasonable, with the exception of 2dn maybe, and possibly 26ac if you think reversed hidden words are not fair in the QC. The main issue is with some of the definitions which are iffy to say the least, and solutions which are obscure in some cases and arguably not words at all in others. It’s also a pangram (i.e. contains all the letters of the alphabet) if you like that sort of thing. 9 minutes for me.

Across
1 Group organised by wife to become more adult (6)
UPGROW – anagram (‘organised’) of GROUP + W. Not sure I approve of this word. It sounds made up and is not in my dictionary.
5 Supporting, loudly, college teacher (4)
PROF – PRO (supporting) + F (loudly)
9 Plucky musician with a beam following band endlessly (8)
BANJOIST – BAN(D) + JOIST
10 Country artist with a measuring of intelligence all round (4)
IRAQ – Artist is RA (Royal Academy), measuring of intelligence is IQ
11 Girl embraced by Lorenzo ecstatically (3)
ZOE – hidden word: LorenZO Ecstatically
13 Retreat from act by sponsor (4,4)
TURN BACK – Act is TURN as in (‘star turn’), sponsor is BACK
16 Nimble artisan appearing regularly in Spain and Portugal (6)
IBERIA – Alternate letters (‘appearing regularly’) of nImBlE aRtIsAn
17 Day beginning for old Scottish town (6)
THURSO – THURS + O
18 Yacht I’m manoeuvring left? Not true! (8)
MYTHICAL – anagram (‘manoeuvring’) of YACHT I’M, with L on the end
20 Fool having short film wound back (3)
DIV – short film is VID, backwards. Short for DIVVY, a fantastic 1970’s term of abuse meaning stupid person.
22 Initially fed up, joins in finding Japanese volcano (4)
FUJI – First letters of Fed Up Joins In. Luckily the only Japanese Volcano I know.
23 English girl: a railway representative (8)
EMISSARY – E + MISS + A + RY
25 Rosemary, perhaps, the female bishop (4)
HERB – HER + B
26 Some impugn a government, returning to combine in opposition? (4,2)
GANG UP – reversed hidden word: imPUGN A Government

Down
2 Quiet snoring sound stifling a flamboyant quality (5)
PZAZZ – Quiet is P. Snoring sound, I guess, is ZZZ, put round (‘stifling’) A. Possibly a bit stiff for the QC?
3 British rule in shock after uprising (3)
RAJ – shock is JAR, ‘uprising’ means backwards for a down clue.
4 Their timing is off the cuff? (12)
WRISTWATCHES – cryptic definition
6 Detained by wet weather on bad run, I collapsed (4-5)
RAIN-BOUND – anagram (‘collapsed’) of ON BAD RUN I
7 Managed to block football club’s money, once (5)
FRANC – Managed is RAN, put FC around it. I don’t agree with the definition. Adding ‘once’ implies the answer is no longer money. Francs are still money in Switzerland.
8 Counting the number of floors out loud? Doing some recounting? (5-7)
STORY-TELLING – Hmm. Rather a weak homophone.
12 Hitler era corrupt, and more materialistic (9)
EARTHLIER – anagram (‘corrupt’) of HITLER ERA
14 Audibly criticises Scottish theologian (4)
KNOX – Sounds like KNOCKS. Refers to John Knox, founder of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland
15 Strict, if retiring, resident magistrate (4)
FIRM – IF backwards + RM (resident magistrate)
19 The lad Tuohy upset (5)
YOUTH – anagram (‘upset’) of TUOHY. A Tuohy needle is used to insert epidural catheters, not that it is necessary to know that.
21 Victor, with Irish trade union, displays artistic taste (5)
VIRTU – V (Victor in phonetic alphabet) + IR +TU. New one on me.
24 Second home is something bad (3)
SIN – S + IN

42 comments on “Quick Cryptic 1124 by Alfie”

  1. I found this tricky. I raised eyebrows at UPGROW, DIV and VIRTU which were unknown to me. I agree with our blogger that FRANCs are only currency, once, with respect to France; perhaps Nancy should have popped into the clue! GANG UP was well hidden too. 13:36. Thanks Alfie and Curarist.
  2. This was noticeably harder than usual – I felt there were a number of pitfalls for the unwary. Anyone who got through this unscathed, well done, and you’re ready for the 15×15!
  3. Quite enjoyed this but I totally agree with your reservations. You can have upgrowth but I doubt ‘up grow’ would appear in any dictionary, and if it does it shouldn’t because it would never be used. Virtu is in my OED but, again, you are right there are a couple of other dubious references
    1. ….and in Chambers without so much as an (obs) Mind you, I put GROW UP first, ignoring its absence anywhere as a single word. Slowed me down to the longest solve of the week.
  4. So my hopes of completing a second week of solves within my 10-minute target were firmly dashed by this one for which I needed 16 minutes in all.

    UPGROW, DIV, BANJOIST, THURSO, KNOX and VIRTU all delayed me although VIRTU was the only answer I didn’t actually know.

    ‘Alfie’ has set for us only once before (QC 676 in October 2016) and on that occasion he produced a spectacular themed puzzle in the sense that each of the clues had a first word in alphabetical sequence, so the Across clues started with the letters A-M and the Downs started with N-Z. Being aware of this I was looking for something unusual in this puzzle but failed to spot anything other than it is a pangram.

    The same setter has also appeared as ‘Noel’ on four occasions, firstly setting the unnumbered Christmas Day puzzle in December 2014 which threw the QC numbers out of kilter with the total published, and later the memorable near-pangram which contained every letter except L (so there was No elL – geddit?).

    Rather hoping that there is something going on here that we have all, so far, failed to notice.

    Edited at 2018-06-29 08:32 am (UTC)

    1. Every one of the 26 answers ends with a different letter of the alphabet. Hence RAJ, IRAQ, PZAZZ, KNOX… etc.

      Edited at 2018-06-29 10:38 am (UTC)

      1. Oh, well spotted. I guessed he was up to something – nothing else could explain UPGROW and VIRTU – but couldn’t see it. Perhaps such trickery is best applied to the 15 x 15?
      2. Thanks very much for pointing that out!

        Templar

        PS I completed this puzzle unscathed but I’m afraid I regularly retreat in bafflement from the 15×15, it’s another level altogether

      3. Well spotted, V. So we have a pangram of last letters of answers to go with the pangram of first letters of clues on Alfie’s first outing. Maybe in another two years he’ll return and try sneak a pangram of first letters of answers past us! Or last letters of clues?

        Edited at 2018-06-29 12:59 pm (UTC)

      4. I spotted that the last letters were the entire alphabet after about 19 minutes. How long did it take you as the most brilliant blogger on this website. Dare I ask you what you do for a living, and don’t reply if you think that it is none of my business
        1. It’d be nice to say that I am as good at jobs as I am at crosswords but sadly all I am is an indifferent developer! Was doing website stuff in the music industry for 7 years but now I’m trying to expand my range and am currently building quite dull insurance applications :-/ If anyone’s got any good ideas for a better career path for an imaginative quizzer and crossword solver, sing out!
  5. I made the mistake of doing this online.I had to resort to paper for the anagrams at 6d and 12d which held me up quite a bit. I was also held up by the difficulty of the puzzle. Quite a few odd words -Upgrow in particular-and difficult meanings -Virtu and Rain Bound.
    Anyway after 30 minutes I was running out of time and my LOI -8d- was Store Telling when I submitted. So I got one wrong. David
  6. 40 minutes, 10 over my target and I think just at my top level of difficulty, so I was pleased to finish it. There were also a record number of obscure or unknown words for me but they were all in Chambers, so I quite welcome that. I’ve noticed that setters often resort to obscurities when constructing a pangram.
    Brian
  7. I got stuck on 1 across thinking the answer was grow up and the setter had made it one word. A very poor clue for a QC. I thought 9 across a poor clue with the first 3 letters only obvious from the clue. I did get a good number of the other clues but did not finish. Overall as a relative beginner I found it hard and was not impressed with my first Alfie puzzle. Nakrian kickiat
  8. … to be showing my middle son (aged 21) how to do the QC! We started with 1ac … oh dear. I thought it looked like being “GROW-UP”, but that seemed too simple and so I was suspicious. So then we tried using the first letters that that would have given to the down clues, and of course none of them worked. By now we are five minutes in, not a clue and solved and he was lifting a sceptical eyebrow at my breezy assertion that the QC was easy and fun!

    Anyway, fortunately we got going with PROF and then worked our way steadily clockwise back to the NW corner. In the end 1ac was our eventual LOI and was a pretty unsatisfactory finale – UPGROW wasn’t in the OED on his phone and obviously if it’s not on a 21 year old’s phone, as far as he’s concerned it’s not real. He also said that if it WAS a word, it was (I quote) “obscure and old and a really stupid thing to put as 1ac in what you said was supposed to be an easyish crossword to help beginners”. I can only concur. He was then very pleased to see curarist voicing similar sentiments!

    Never seen PZAZZ spelt like that but both it and VIRTU were on the magic phone dictionary so they got the youth vote.

    I got him to spot the hiddens, which he found very satisfying, and do some anagrams. We saw the pangram.

    It was hugely fun talking a complete novice through the puzzle and I am very grateful for all the help and tips I’ve had from bloggers and solvers on here which enabled me to do so!

    Thanks to Alfie (despite UPGROW!) and curarist.

    Templar

      1. I also was saying to my sister over from New Zealand what a good crossword it is. Her view – what a load of cr*p. Can’t say I disagree
  9. I was most surprised to find that I finished this only a little over my usual 30 mins or so. It felt much longer. I started with GROWUP. I simply did not believe it could be UPGROW until it just could not be anything else.. Never heard of DIV or VIRTU either. Never heard the abbreviation ‘RM’ for a resident magistrate. In fact I have never heard of a resident magistrate, why not a ROYAL MARINE? Thoroughly enjoyed PZAZZ and STORY TELLING though. Pleased to have finished at all really
    PlayUpPompey
  11. At 8:31 more than double yesterday’s time and my slowest for some while. I had similar misgivings to others over several clues and I can this one leaving less experienced solvers a bit deflated.
  12. Quite a sting in the tail this week. Two sittings and even then I was left with D*v for 20ac and without a clue as to which vowel to insert. Common in the 70s ? Must have slept through that decade (I was a student then, so quite possible). Didn’t like Upgrow (neither does my spell-checker), and Virtu was completely unknown, but couldn’t be anything else. My commiserations to any newbies struggling with this. Invariant
    1. It’s a bit feeble. STORY sounds like STOREY, obviously. TELLING is COUNTING in the way that a bank TELLER is someone who counts money.
  14. Sorry Alfie but I wasn’t so keen on this for a QC 🙁 Certainly wasn’t Q for me, anyway! I made the same mistake at 1A thinking, “This is going to be a breeze,” and then…knew DIV (will we get JOEY DEACON one day?!) but not VIRTU, and the “a” in the 9A clue threw me completely — BANAsomething…er…and I really wasn’t sure of the spelling at 2D.
    Still, some good clues (18A, 23A, 4D) and now I’m going to have a bash at the back page.
  15. Getting the last letter of each answer to be the 26 letters of the alphabet is a stunning achievement! Although it did lead to some rather obscure but necessary answers eg UPGROW, PZAZZ, DIV, RAIN-BOUND.
    1. I agree. The setter’s forgiven everything for achieving that. I wonder if anyone’s done it before. Diana
      Didn’t finish it but v pleased to have got pzazz.

      Edited at 2018-06-29 12:52 pm (UTC)

    2. Yes, sorry about that. UPGROW is a horrible word, and the one that gave me the most pause, but as it’s made up of two common words I reckoned it was just about feasible. VIRTU has no place in a QC either really. And yes FRANCs are still all the rage in Switzerland indeed.

      This sort of thing will be a rare indulgence in the QC series tho I think!

      A.

      1. Hoist by your own petard.
        If something heals no place in a QUICK Xword then why is it there?
        Is it more about you than the solvers?
  16. Found this in the Merriam-Webster dictionary online, but it was so unusual, they asked you to log where you had seen the word. A lot of slightly weird answers, but that was probably because of the discipline the setter was imposing on himself. That said, I did get it finished (in some cases on the Sherlock Holmes basis that if you’ve ruled out everything else what remains must be the solution). Malcolm
  17. I agree a bit arcane hear and there.
    I found VIRTU (having presumed it to be the solution) as associated with Nicolo Machiavelli!!
    I was around in the 70s and never heard of DIV.
    UPGROW really is ancient.
    Love your daily solutions; many thanks.
    Stuart
  18. I was looking forward to tackling the paper version of the crossword as a car passenger on my way to Wales. Unfortunately my husband had other ideas and in his haste to cut out his entry for The Times Sudoku Championship he cut off part of my Down clues. So this made a very tricky crossword somewhat trickier. E.g. 4dn Their timing is off th…..so guessed cuff. Spotted the likelihood of a pangram so that helped but did not like 1ac UPGROW falling into the same trap as others and 2dn PZAZZ variant spelling. Time about 1hr!
  19. With the exception of 1a I thoroughly enjoyed this puzzle and the Nina, which I would never have spotted, makes it even better.
    Unfortunately I had a complete shocker at LOI 8d and stuck in Start Talking from the checkers, so a DNF in just over 20 minutes. I think I was getting overly cocky after a run of quick times, so it’s probably not a bad thing to have been put back in my box.
    Thanks for the blog
  20. What a brilliant feat getting all 26 clues to end with a different letter! I forgive the odd words UPGROW, DIV and PZAZZ and they were all fairly clued so I was less than a minute slower than average at 7:17. Of course, like many others, I had to overwrite GROWUP for 1ac.
  21. I don’t see why Alfie should be an apologist in the slightest.. If you are preparing for the 15×15 there should be clues at the end which are more testing. Virtu was hard but what else could the word be. I didn’t think. that upgrow was hard once one had filled in the easier clues. Thank God that one was not stymied by obscure botany or zoology and the overall shape of the crossword was memorable-every final letter being the whole alphabet. The setters and the bloggers are utterly brilliant and for no personal reward they guide us to getting better ourselves. When people say that there is no such thing as a free lunch they should recall the help that we are given by this fantastic website.
  22. Well, as still a beginner who can’t get anywhere with the 15×15 (even the one that was supposed to be easy, earlier in the week), I didn’t find this too bad . Unusually, I managed to complete it in one sitting of 40 mins without much resort to tools.

    I agree about the strange words. Raj was my FOI so I knew it couldn’t be ‘grow up’ (that’s two words, in any event). When I had 2d (wrongly spelled to start with) I wondered about a pangram and was looking at every ‘U’ in case there was a ‘Q’ before it.

    I had never come across ‘div’ but worked it out from the clue, once I had the checkers. Vaguely knew ‘virtu’, 12d was also odd, in my book. But, as an ex civil engineer, I knew ‘joist’.

    Happy to try another Alfie and thanks to the blogger.

  23. With 11 still to get I had to abandon ship, but felt much better after reading the comments!
  24. I am probably too late for this but I was out at work and play yesterday! I just feel that|I have to say that I think Alfie must be a complete genius. Just compiling a crossword is a huge task, but managing to incorporate such an amazing theme is incredible! It was certainly a triumph for him, but also a triumph for me as I finished it! Okay, it took me almost 35 minutes but I got there in the end. It was so satisfying… especially coming here to find that other people had struggled too. A huge thank you to Alfie, curarist and all those who comment on this site. The help is invaluable. I still can’t approach a 15×15 but all the time I enjoy the QC so much, I really don’t mind.
    All those incredible words and clues, so it is hard to admit that my LOI was PROF. MM
  25. Had several stops and starts to finish this on Sunday…. I congratulate Alfie on being able to create a puzzle with all these features! And our blogger for finishing in such a short time to help us slowcoach strugglers. I think we have to forgive the more contrived answers to see the brilliance behind. Also the testing needed if we are to advance. I needed some aids to finish but nonetheless I’m pleased that I persevered.
  26. I got stuck on 1 across thinking the answer was grow up and the setter had made it one word. A very poor clue for a QC. I thought 9 across a poor clue with the first 3 letters only obvious from the clue. I did get a good number of the other clues but did not finish. Overall as a relative beginner I found it hard and was not impressed with my first Alfie puzzle. Nakrian kickiat

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