Quick Cryptic 934 by Hurley

Author   CuraristPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
Very straightforward today, but still some nice clues. 15ac my favourite. Still took me over 10min. I shall never be a neutrino like Verlaine (Neutrino: something that passes through absolutely everything at light speed)

Across
1 In Caracas sat awaiting ice cream (7)
CASSATA – hidden word: CaraCAS SAT Awaiting. They’re sat awaiting a lot more than just ice cream in Caracas right now.
5 Exchange involving Mike’s waterlogged area (5)
SWAMP – SWAP with M for Mike inside. Gotta know your NATO phonetic alphabet
8 Defective seascapes clue? These might give way out (6,7)
ESCAPE CLAUSES – anagram of (‘defective’) SEASCAPES CLUE
9 Complicated time: old invader departs (7)
TANGLED – T (time) + ANGLE (old invader) + D (departs)
10 Speaker’s arguments for ordinary writing (5)
PROSE – sounds like PROS  (‘arguments for’)
11 Succeeded at first with aloof manner in island (6)
SICILY – S (succeded) + ICILY (with aloof manner)
13 Somewhat retro, stereotyped, work list (6)
ROSTER – another hidden word: retRO STEReotyped
15 Make changes in plug fitting (5)
ADAPT – AD = Plug, APT = fitting. Very nice surface.
16 Agile learner lives a bit (7)
LISSOME – L (learner) + IS (lives) + SOME (a bit). This word had come up an awful lot lately, both with and without the E on the end
19 Well-known type of room for water board? (6,7)
PUBLIC UTILITY – double definitions
20 Left-winger returning with English cake (5)
TORTE – TROT backwards + E.  ‘left winger’ is usually either TROT or RED
21 Difficult situation of throaty Sue, pasty regularly (3,4)
HOT SEAT – alternate letters of tHrOaTy SuE pAsTy

Down
1 Talk about energy fraud (5)
CHEAT – CHAT around E
2 Back Companion of Honour over warning colour in House of Lords perhaps (6,7)
SECOND CHAMBER – SECOND (back) + CH (Companion of Honour) + AMBER (warning colour). In the 15×15 ‘CH’ is often clued as just ‘companion’. Some interesting names on the current list of CHs
3 Dad upset over friend’s dismay (5)
APPAL – PA ‘upset’ (backwards) + PAL
4 Are gripping rascal in shopping precinct (6)
ARCADE – ARE outside CAD. Note a big difference in the 15×15 is that words in the clue (e.g. ARE) very rarely find their way into the solution, and you are usually looking for a synonym. It means I keep overthininking things when I do the quickie
5 Soapy liquid not what it seems, poor, ultimately lacking (7)
SHAMPOO – SHAM + POOR without its last letter. Another example of my point in 4dn.
6 The cartoonist upset, having little advance warning (2,5,6)
AT SHORT NOTICE – a rather nice anagram (‘upset’) of THE CARTOONIST
7 Pioneering chemist super at broadcast (7)
PASTEUR – Anagram (‘broadcast’) of SUPER AT
11 Refuse to leave street? Indeed, sulk forgetting nothing (4,3)
STAY PUT – ST (street) + AY (‘indeed’) + POUT (‘sulk’) without the O (‘forgetting nothing’). A bit of a construction but perfectly fair, I think.
12 Large upper room with Eastern ornamental pattern (7)
LATTICE – L + ATTIC + E
14 Roughly hustle investigator (6)
SLEUTH – anagram (‘roughly’) of HUSTLE
17 Pole’s second attempt to win (5)
STILT – S (second) + TILT. To tilt at x is to attempt to win something.
18 Country for example you passed through initially (5)
EGYPT – EG (for example) + first letters of You Passed Through

17 comments on “Quick Cryptic 934 by Hurley”

  1. Same story here with loi 17dn. This turned out to be a rather tricky, but enjoyable, one for me – 14 minutes.
  2. Missed my target 10 minutes again today – that’s every day this week apart from Mara’s puzzle on Tuesday. I agree most of this was quite easy but I lost time at the end with my LOI, 17dn, where I had to do two alphabet trawls before arriving at STILT. Of course it is a pole when you think about it but I can’t say it has ever occurred to me before that’s what it is. 11 minutes.
  3. Same as Jack for me…. stuck for about 4 minutes on 17d. I did wonder for a time whether the definition was “to win” or “attempt to win” rather than “pole”. 15a my favourite. 11:00.

    Edited at 2017-10-06 08:34 am (UTC)

  4. Oh go on, I’m not that fast! I do aim to solve these in under 3 minutes, but I fear my dreams of a 90-seconder may be utopian…
  5. This one took me 11:54, with at least three minutes spent staring at S_C_L_, and wondering why SACOLD seemed so unlikely to be a real island. STILT came quickly once I had UTILITY. It was all in vain, however, as I had two typos. Somehow LATTICE had gone in as LATTIRE, and APPAL had gone in as AAPPL. A correct solve, wrongly entered. Bah humbug! Let’s see if I can now screw up the 15×15. Thanks Hurley and Curarist.
    1. I wish I’d spent those three minutes. SACOLD was what I bunged in, and I couldn’t think of anything else. I’m really doing badly at crosswords this week.
      1. Commiserations Matt! We all get bad weeks. Just keep plugging away and don’t let it get to you 🙂
        1. Thank you. I may take a short break—I started a new contract this week and I have a lot less time in the mornings now—but I will keep plugging away!
  6. I forget pretty much everything about this after 11 hours, but I do remember thinking it was going quite fast, and being surprised at my time. STILT definitely slowed me down; not only as Jack says does ‘pole’ not spring to mind, TILT is poorly defined by ‘attempt to win’. 7:06.

    Edited at 2017-10-06 01:49 pm (UTC)

  7. As used here, to the best of my knowledge, ‘neutrino’ refers to those solvers whose times are not a legitimate indication of how long it took them to solve; to cheats, not to put too fine a point on it. However fast Verlaine gets–and Lord, does he get fast–he is not a neutrino.
    1. Is that right? Not my intended implication obviously. That does rather suggest that when the subatomic particle manages to pass through all matter in the universe without losing energy, it’s basically cheating.
      1. I did not take it as a dig, but it’s true that I first understood the term “neutrino” to refer to the people at the top of every club leaderboard who “do” the puzzle in half Magoo’s time every day. Full disclosure: I do actually post neutrino-times for the Mephisto every week as I print it out on paper and then type it back in to submit it to the competition. But all my QC times are kosher, even the 100 seconder!
  8. Medium strength puzzle which I completed in 16 minutes.
    LOI 17d -of course.
    Quite happy with Tilt = An attempt to win.
    David
  9. Thanks for the blog.

    In 15a I thought “in plug fitting” meant “part of the word adapter”. I suspect your explanation is far likelier!

    14 mins, so not too bad.

  10. FOI 1ac CASSATA. LOI was the dreadful-ish 17dn STILT.

    COD 11ac SICILY

    WOD 14dn NEUTRINO!

    Half a Magoo! – how is it confected?

  11. This went in fairly quickly apart from my LOI 9a as I’d written arccad for 4d, which took me a while to spot. 17d also proved tricky. 16a would have taken me longer if it hadn’t appeared in the Concise puzzle recently and I needed all the checkers to confirm the unknown answer to 1a.
    An enjoyable end to the week which I completed in 15 minutes.
  12. Won’t bother writing much as nobody will read, but had to write something as I just got a PB of 32:45. Guess I was on Hurley’s wavelength today as several words came to me easily when they might have caused a problem – Sicily, Stilt from the i and t, Adapt, though I was thinking something to do with an adapter too. As for Verlaine’s “100 seconder”, that’s just insane.

    Crispian

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