Quick Cryptic No 578 by Dazzler – Times for The Times

A nice offering from Dazzler, this. I found it about as close to ‘average’ difficulty as I could pinpoint, whatever that might mean what with all the different wavelengths floating around. I’m not sure how well known the dog breed is, for example – I hadn’t heard of it before it cropped up in the main puzzle some time sufficiently recent for me to remember it, and the NJ of New Jersey made it a write-in. I had, however, forgotten that it is unable to bark, and in my mind I was quite sure it was a cute, fluffy, husky type thing from Japan. Ah, the garbled blurrings of clues past…

Most of it went in quite nicely, then, although I stumbled a bit with my last four clues – 6d, 14d, 19ac, and 22d. I couldn’t get ‘a’ for midday out of my head for 22ac – as in the middle letter of ‘day’. (I like that as a clueing device, more often seen in ‘midniGht’.) I was also unsure of the ‘cunning plan’ aspect of 19d, but the dictionary confirmed it. So, a dodge is a cunning plan – as in the Artful Dodger, with DIckens first using the term ‘artful dodge’ in PIckwick Papers. A very enjoyable puzzle – many thanks to Dazzler.

Across
1	Unusual object made of copper and wrought iron mainly CURIO: Cu is copper, followed by an anagram (wrought) of most of the letters (mainly) of IRO[n].
8	Not best pleased by term for puzzle CROSSWORD: Cross is not best pleased; a word is a term.
9	Picture that is providing cover for journal IMAGE: I.E. (that is) goes around MAG (journal).
10	Two ways in which beer is most flat STALEST: St = street, times it by two and in which goes ALE. If you carefully pour a can of cheap lager on a flat clean floor, before long it will have a complete absence of taste and fizz, and will also be as flat as possible in terms of surface area. The least uplifting experience in terms of consumption, however, requires a dirty floor – which will impart some taste or other. So that’s four ways, but only three are achievable at any one time.
11	Dog not barking — wretched one around New Jersey BASENJI: BASE is wretched, I is one, going around NJ.
12	Give up extremely detestable sort of meat DELIVER: extremely DetestablE is DE, liver is a sort of meat. I like the definition of ‘give up’ for ‘deliver’, rather than the more prosaic ‘post’, but I do like the image of sending some revolting meat in the post.
16	Hide in rough bar within sixty minutes HARBOUR: anagram (rough) of BAR goes inside HOUR.
17	Appearance associated with boss or idiot AIRHEAD: an air is an appearance; a boss is a head. Great surface reading here – probably my COD.
20	Taxi I catch for meeting of ministers CABINET: Cab I net = taxi I catch.
22	Before midday object to change AMEND: AM is before midday, an object is an end, in the sense of a goal to be achieved.
23	Excited economist’s smiles shown on screen EMOTICONS: Anagram (excited) of ECONOMIST. intriguing surface reading here – sounds like something you might be forced to watch in 1984.
24	That’s too bad: two Es for pupil! TUTEE: that’s too bad is TUT, add E and E. A wry, topical clue, given that it’s exam time in the UK.

Down
1	Caught leg making ascent CLIMB: c is our cricket term of the day for caught; leg is limb.
2	In list notice an open-top motor car ROADSTER: inside ROSTER (list) goes AD[vert] (notice). Lovely concise clueing.
3	Canoe in trouble in lots of water OCEAN: anagram (in trouble) of CANOE.
4	Conservative party helping shows thoughtfulness CONSIDERATION: CON = Conservative; SIDE = party (in the political sense of side); RATION = helping.
5	A sailor, we hear, is offensive ASSAULT: ‘A salt’ is ‘a sailor’, and it unquestionably sounds the same as assault. Another contender for COD.
6	Unknown: a single area ZONE: Z is an unknown in algebra; a single is ONE. This was my last one in – I do like a four word clue, the last three of which could each be the letter a, yet the answer doesn’t have an a in sight. (‘Single’ or ‘a single’ is more commonly I or ONE, but ‘a’ has been clued as ‘single’ before.)
7	I sorted out journalists EDITORS: anagram (out) of I SORTED.
13	Passionate animal doctor accepting macho types VEHEMENT: VET accepts in HE-MEN. He-men for macho types is quite good!
14	What initially gets cut and beaten? WHACKED: W is What, initially, HACKED is cut. My second last one in, and I like it.
15	Canadian policeman could be free after a second MOUNTIE: to free is to UNTIE, going after MO[ment] for a second. Unlike 6d, where ‘a single’ can be directly swappable with ‘one’, I would say ‘a second’ would strictly speaking have to be ‘a mo’, but I think that’s being overly pedantic.
18	Find fault with Sunday lunch? ROAST: the first of two very nice double definitions.
19	Avoid a cunning plan? DODGE: second double definition.
21	Show disapproval of British bloomer BOOB: show disapproval is BOO, B is British, and a bloomer is a boob is a mistake.

15 comments on “Quick Cryptic No 578 by Dazzler”

Is it just me but do all this weeks QCs seem to be on the tricky side?
Needed Mrs Tim to confirm the dog so a technical DNF, at least for the QC, I need all the help I can get for the 15×15. Not too sure about 23a EMOTICONS and smiles, some do smile, but not the ones I am sending to my roofer at the moment.

Edited at 2016-05-26 07:14 am (UTC)

I had the same fixation on A at 22ac; I think it took DODGE to overcome it. I liked 1ac; it should be noted that ‘mainly’ normally means ‘all the letters but the last’, rather than, say, ‘most of the letters’ or ‘all but one’. I also liked 12ac because for me liver is an extremely detestable sort of meat. 5:24.

Things move so fast, emoticons were as above until very recently, now apparently they’re a language. After BASENJI and ZONE was looking for a Q to help a pangram, about which I have recently learned, but no, not today. COD 13d, excellent as mentioned. 5’17” today, helped by journalists and Canadian policeman. Thanks setter and blogger.

I thought I was on for a very fast time today as the answers went in on reading the clues. I knew the dog straightaway and soon was in the SE corner hoping to finish off before returning to 10a. But 13d held me up as did 24a and even 22a resisted. LOI was 10a.
In the end all done in under 20 minutes. Some very nice clues ; I liked Emoticons and Dodge. David

I got through most of this quite quickly but had to put it down for a while before sorting out the SE corner and 21d (LOI), where I assumed the B for British referred to the first letter not the last. 17a took me a long time to figure out. Pretty chuffed to get 11a from the wordplay as I’d not heard of it before. COD 13d. Not sure of the time but I’d guess it was round the 45 minute mark.

I agree with Tim that this has definitely been a hard week. Took nearly an hour today, but that included working out the unknown dog. 17 and 23ac were good, but just beaten to my CoD by 10ac. Invariant

Agree with much of the above, definitely a harder than average week. Got there eventually aftr a couple of revisits, but that has been the course of the week for me.
PlayupPompey

Found this difficult – DNF
Couldn’t get Peter Kay’s joke out of my head for 12ac
Customer to butcher: Do you deliver?
Butcher: No, just beef , lamb and pork!

Rita

Anonymous says:

26 May 2016 at 12:31 PM

Quite. Liver isn’t meet, it’s offal – as in this was offal hard and got me in to all sorts of bother, especially around 11ac to name but one.
Three out of four completed this week seems quite good considering the comments regarding difficulty.
Dave the Diver

Basenji and Tutee? Oh dear.

Agree with pexiter’s comment and had assails for 5d. Well nearly there.
Why is the SE corner always seem to be the hardest. Maybe should start there!

Disastrous showing, a big fat DNF with many clues missed. Not sure what went wrong today, but these seemed the hardest for some time.

After struggling for the last few days, I flew through this at pro speed. BASENJI was the only real hold up. I saved EMOTICONS at the end for my wife to fill in the gaps but despite her social media expertise she failed 😉

Very late posting today, I found this one the hardest of the past fortnight, though not by much, at 12 minutes. The unknown dog did for me.

This was a fun puzzle. Not fast, around half an hour; stuck at the end on DODGE which I just couldn’t see, so actually a DNF with that last one remaining.

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