QC 1505 by Teazel

Author   astartedonPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

No idea about timing for this one, I was away on holiday at the time and too much else was going on, but I thought it was above average difficulty for a Monday quickie. Looking back over the clues they were mostly just that little bit closer to daily cryptic level than usual so a good test for those trying to step up a level (IMHO anyway – now I’ll wait for the court of public opinion to deliver the verdict that it was just me being slow to wake up on a Monday morning). Many thanks to Teazel for what I personally found a slightly tougher than usual challenge.

Once again, no time to say much so just the usual stats. FOI 8A. LOI 3D which is strange as I thought it was ultimately one of the easier pickings on offer but I was obviously tuned just a little bit off the wavelength. For COD there were a couple that appealed to me. I liked 16A, but because I run a domestic cleaning business it was a write-in for me and so I am reluctant to give it the rosette. (The number of times I have had cleaners for whom English is not their first language tell me that they do ‘hovering’ cannot easily be counted. The result is that the interesting mental image which that malapropism conjures up is never far from my mind’s eye.) I also liked 1D, but couldn’t quite bring myself to believe fully in the surface. In the end I think I’ll go for 13D.

Definitions are underlined and everything else is explained just as I see it as simply as I can manage.

Across
7 A curtain said to be useful (5)
AVAIL – A + VAIL (sounds like VEIL, curtain).
8 In NASA lab, a mad state (7)
ALABAMA – hidden word (‘in’): nasA LAB A MAd.
10 Current man on board (7)
DRAUGHT – double definition.
11 Island’s importance, short of energy (5)
WIGHT – WeIGHT (importance) ‘short of’ E (energy).
12 Goons hail different ruffians (9)
HOOLIGANS – straight anagram (‘different’) of GOONS HAIL.
14 On the front, extremely large, mature tree (3)
ELM – first letters (‘on the front’) of Extremely Large Mature.
15 For audience, bring in vessel (3)
URN – sounds like (‘for audience’) EARN (bring in).
16 Hanging around, putting in zero housework (9)
HOOVERING – HOVERING (hanging around) with O (zero) inserted.
18 Piece of information union contributed to barrier (5)
DATUM – TU (trade union) ‘contributed to’ DAM (barrier).
20 Hang on here: this is part of a circus act (7)
TRAPEZE – cryptic double definition.
22 Assessments of sailors? (7)
RATINGS – double definition.
23 Caught by tree branch, making this? (5)
CLIMB – C (caught) + LIMB (tree branch).
Down
1 Tough joint of meat for refuge, by the way (4,8)
HARD SHOULDER – HARD (tough) + SHOULDER (joint of meat) leading to a slightly cryptic definition.
2 About to tuck into reddish-brown biscuit (8)
MACAROON – CA (circa, about) ‘tucked into’ MAROON (reddish-brown).
3 Bung in favourable publicity (4)
PLUG – double definition.
4 Incantation provides chap with raised skill (6)
MANTRA – MAN (chap) + TRA (ART (skill) reversed, i.e. ‘raised’ in this down clue).
5 To ravage always wrong, note (3,5)
LAY WASTE – anagram of ALWAYS (‘wrong’) + TE (one of the notes of the musical SOL-FA scale).
6 Sudden noise? Exactly (4)
BANG – double definition. ‘Exactly’ as in ‘BANG in the middle of…’.
9 Maybe egoists changing gradually (2,4,4,2)
AS TIME GOES BY – straight anagram (changing) of MAYBE EGOISTS.
13 Cruel and senseless to inhibit what bees do (8)
INHUMANE – HUM (what bees do) ‘inhibited by’ INANE (senseless).
14 Wide outbreak of pied mice disrupted (8)
EPIDEMIC – straight anagram of PIED MICE.
17 Not an intelligent sort of angle? (6)
OBTUSE – cryptic definition.
19 WW2 leader’s some competitor! (4)
TITO – hidden word (‘some’): compeTITOr.
21 Principal gateway perhaps (4)
ARCH – double definition.

32 comments on “QC 1505 by Teazel”

  1. Following up on my blog can anybody give me some help? Since the recent revamp of the puzzles page I don’t seem to be able to scroll up and down (on my MacBook Pro) to see the full selection of puzzles and particularly the search function. By divers devious means I think I can manage to access everything I want to but it’s not working how it should be. Is anyone else having similar issues and does anyone know what to do about it?

    Thanks.

  3. No problems here, either. Other than being less than familiar with HARD SHOULDER (soft, yes; hard, no), and bunging in LOITERING for no good reason at 16ac. Gresham’s Law applies to crosswords, too: bad solutions drive out good ones, and I lost some time getting that bad solution out of my head. I didn’t realize that the puzzle page had been revamped; the vamp looks the same to me. 4:23.
  4. I never really got on the wavelength and dragged it out for 14 minutes. And neither did I too well on the 15×15 – it must be Boris effect. At least the Pound is back to where it was in 2008! But for how long?

    FOI 12ac HOOLIGANS

    LOI 18ac DATUM as TITO came so slowly – he was leader after WWII too…

    COD & WOD 16ac HOOVERING or DYSONING as it will surely become.

    Kev, what is the American for ‘hard-shoulder’?

    Where does one pull-off the highway in the US? The berm!?

    Edited at 2019-12-16 07:32 am (UTC)

    1. Mein Kampf? But to your question: I had to look up ‘hard shoulder’, but now I can reply to you with confidence: I don’t know.
  5. Count me as another who struggled a bit with this. There were half a dozen clues which held me up; my last two were PLUG and AVAIL. FOI was ALABAMA when I thought we were on for an easy Monday.
    As a UK solver HARD SHOULDER was easy, particularly as they are regularly in the news as the powers that be want to get rid of them. It’s the smart thing to do apparently.
    At 5d I thought To Ravage required a To at the front; To lay waste. But I got it no matter.
    COD to Hoovering. Time:16:12.
    David

  6. 31 minutes, so well over target, but held up by mis-spelling MANNRA which made DRAUGHT, one of my last two, impossible. LOI was AVAIL, held up this time with an obsession with ‘cold shoulder’ for 1D.
    I thought some of the answers, like my last two, were a bit obscure for a QC, but there’s nothing wrong with occasional obscure clues.

    Brian

  7. I found this at the easier end of the scale with the exception of the NE, where I was held up by my conviction that the answer to 8a was an anagram of NASA lab. Interestingly whilst doing this I kept coming back to ALABAMA, but it didn’t fit the checkers so discounted it! Needless to say there was an almighty clang when the penny finally dropped. For sending me round in circles it also gets my COD. Finished in 9.15.
    Thanks for the blog
    1. I thought exactly the same and responded just as you did, trying for ages to construct a state from “NASA lab”!
  8. At the time I thought the clueing was a bit tough but reading the blog it was all reasonable enough. I’d say tricky but fair 🙂 Thanks all!

    Edited at 2019-12-16 10:10 am (UTC)

  9. DNF after about 30 mins, NW corner four short, and took me a while to see DRAUGHT even with the blog explanation.
    Seem to be going through a lean spell.
  10. FOI, AVAIL, LOI, RATINGS. Liked HOOVERING(the clue not the occupation). No problems. 6:37. Thanks Teazel and Don.
  11. ….AS TIME GOES BY” or so Dooley Wilson sang in “Casablanca”. And they certainly do when solving cryptic crosswords. I finished inside my target, but there were definitely a number of clues which needed careful parsing.

    FOI AVAIL
    LOI INHUMANE
    COD MACAROON (One of the few things I miss about my second wife is her macaroon-topped mince pies. A delight !)

  12. Not an easy one for me. Over 4K but inside the SCC limit. I liked DRAUGHT, WIGHT, INHUMANE. Thought BANG was a bit weak. Thanks both. John M.

    Edited at 2019-12-16 11:10 am (UTC)

  13. Like Horryd, 14 minutes for me, so middling tough on the Rotterometer. I tried the first across without success, and then the first half a dozen down clues, only suspecting BANG, but not having the conviction to bang it in. Only when I looked deeper into the grid did it start to resolve itself, completing the bottom half first, and finally working round to complete in the NW. Thanks Don and Teazel.
  14. Good Monday workout. Nothing too difficult but plenty to chew on and a couple of chestnuts (MACAROON, RATINGS, etc.)
    My thanks to Teazel and Don.
    4’20”
  15. Got quick cryptic done inside 5 mins. Well, apart from a few minor details like draught, avail and plug, which I stared at for 4 mins, before they all fell simultaneously, bringing me in at 9:23. Frustrating.
  16. I had a similar experience to HopkinB – although the timings were somewhat longer! About 10 minutes to fill in most of the grid and then I stared blankly – literally – at a load of gaps on the west side for almost half the same again. Got there in the end in about 15 minutes.

    An interesting mix – some pretty gentle ones such as elm, trapeze and epidemic, and then some slightly tougher ones. I never did parse datum, and avail took ages to fall. I liked As Time Goes By and obtuse, which is how I’m feeling today. I’m so used to thinking of man on board as being a chess piece that it took me a while to think about other board games!

    FOI Alabama
    LOI Avail
    COD Hoovering

  17. A good start to the week – completing in about 25 mins. Maybe I was just on the right wavelength, but I didn’t find it too bad; a good mix of straightforward and slightly more thoughtful clues, especially double definitions.

    Started in the NE and worked around in a clockwise fashion only hesitating at length in the NW corner. I twigged 10ac was “Draught” (linking the “board” element to either chess or draughts) but I’m still not sure about the current man element. Also got hung up on 13dn for a while, convinced that what Bees do is “sting”. Have to admit, thought about “Swarm” and “Buzz” as well, but “Hum” was a new one on me.

    FOI = 8ac “Alabama”
    LOI = 7ac “Avail”
    COD = 16 “Hoovering” (also convinced it was “loitering” for a while).

    Thanks as usual.

  19. I did this with my middle son, who is just getting into crosswords. With me explaining to him how the clues worked as we went along but refusing actually to tell him the answers (except for AS TIME GOES BY, which I blurted out because it just popped into my head) we did it in 28 very enjoyable minutes. What fun.

    Thanks Teazel and Don.

    Templar

    1. Exactly how I started on cryptic crosswords under the guidance of my Dad. Good to see you giving encouragement.
  20. Really struggled with this, and had thought I was improving!
    Still don’t understand 23 across – how does climb mean this?
    2. Sorry, I think that is my fault. I didn’t explain it fully enough. The definition ‘this’ makes the clue into a form of &lit.

      That is to say, the wordplay is quite clear: C + LIMB obviously gives CLIMB. But your question is how is that defined as ‘this’? Well, ‘this’ here refers back to the whole clue. That is to say if you were making ‘this’ (a CLIMB) then you could very well get caught by a tree branch as the clue says.

      I hope that is clearer? As I say, had I been more conscientious as a blogger I would have included that in the original explanation.

      1. Don’t put yourself down, Don, as it’s impossible to write a blog that covers every single point. And it’s good to have interaction with contributors posting queries about things they don’t fully understand as it’s often the way that new people come on board.
  21. Like Horryd, 14 minutes for me, so middling tough on the Rotterometer. I tried the first across without success, and then the first half a dozen down clues, only suspecting BANG, but not having the conviction to bang it in. Only when I looked deeper into the grid did it start to resolve itself, completing the bottom half first, and finally working round to complete in the NW. Thanks Don and Teazel.

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