QC 1805 by Izetti

Author   astartedonPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

Very enjoyable puzzle with quite a few anagrams or anagram elements that were well signposted. One MER at 15D but no doubt someone will point out why I am wrong. FOI was 1A and LOI (I think) was 20A. I could see the anagram but the answer didn’t strike me as a particularly standard phrase so I hesitated to insert it even though it couldn’t really be anything else. COD was 7D both for the clever definition and for reminding me of Ronnie Barker’s FORK ‘ANDLES. Many thanks to Izetti for an entertaining Monday offering.

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

Across
1 Fuel company with a shortfall finally (4)
COAL – CO (company) + A + L (shortfalL ‘finally’).
3 Song in church provided by a new boy (7)
CHANSON – CH (church) + A + N (new) + SON (boy).
8 Ready-made red carpet I supply, brilliant for inside (13)
PREFABRICATED – anagram of RED CARPET I (‘ready-made’) with FAB (brilliant) ‘inside’.
9 Couple turning noisy, left out (3)
DUO – lOUD (noisy) ‘turning’, i.e. reversed, with L (left) removed.
10 Time to meet French friend, someone learning language (5)
TAMIL – T (time) + AMI (French for ‘friend’) + L (someone learning, as in an L-driver) gives this Sri Lankan and southern Indian language.
12 Junior tearaway, ultimately having no urge to reform (7)
YOUNGER – tearawaY ‘ultimately’ + anagram (‘to reform’) of NO URGE.
14 Month to go to a golf course in America (7)
AUGUSTA – AUGUST (month) + A gives the Augusta National Golf Course, the home of the US Masters Golf Tournament, known simply as Augusta whenever golf is the topic of conversation.
16 Admirer’s initial longing to construct a letter (5)
AITCH – A (Admirer’s initial) + ITCH (longing).
17 Fate of some plotters (3)
LOT – hidden word: ‘some’ pLOTters.
20 Cruel guys Tom’s mistaken for bad people (4,9)
UGLY CUSTOMERS – straight anagram (‘mistaken’) of CRUEL GUYS TOM’S.
21 A name is confused, memory being lost (7)
AMNESIA – straight anagram (‘confused’) of A NAME IS.
22 Bishop, experienced and fearless (4)
BOLD – B (bishop) + OLD (experienced).
Down
1 Rambling up to cafe to get a hot drink (3,2,3)
CUP OF TEA – straight anagram (‘rambling’) of UP TO CAFE.
2 Top chap expecting traps (4)
APEX – hidden word: chAP EXpecting ‘traps’.
3 Lad underneath vehicle shows bottle (6)
CARBOY – BOY (lad) ‘underneath’ (in this down clue) CAR (vehicle).
4 Gathering in university entertained by comical aunt dancing (12)
ACCUMULATION – anagram (‘dancing’) of COMICAL AUNT ‘entertaining’ U (university).
5 One sober person in view to avoid action (3,5)
SIT TIGHT – I (one) + TT (teetotaler, sober person) ‘in’ SIGHT (view).
6 Signal before entrance to every junction (4)
NODE – NOD (signal, as in ‘give the nod to’) + E (entrance to Every).
7 Supporters of wicked things (12)
CANDLESTICKS – cryptic definition. You have to flip your mind from ‘wicked’ meaning ‘bad’ to ‘wicked’ cryptically potentially meaning ‘having a wick’. Well, candles have wicks and they can be supported by the answer so there you go.
11 A good measure introduced by fellow who went on long expedition? (8)
MAGELLAN – A + G (good) + ELL (an old measure equal to 45 inches) ‘introduced by’ MAN (fellow) gives the famous Portuguese explorer who ‘went on a long expedition’ to try to discover the Spice Islands (although he was killed in battle before getting there).
13 Herd suffering with encroaching river given new shelter (8)
REHOUSED – anagram of HERD (‘suffering’) with OUSE (river) ‘encroaching’.
15 NW state unfortunately ends with black lava (6)
ALASKA – ALAS (unfortunately) + K + A (‘ends of‘ blacK lavA). My eyebrow is creeping upwards as I don’t believe this is correctly clued by ‘ends with black lava’, but this is surely what is intended.
18 Beast turning up — turning up in the morning (4)
PUMA – PU (‘turning’ UP) + MA (AM, ante meridiem, reversed, i.e. ‘turning up’ in this down clue). A clever use of two different cryptic meanings of ‘turning up’.
19 Model again getting embarrassed over nothing (4)
REDO – RED (embarrassed) ‘over’, again, in this down clue, O (nothing).

63 comments on “QC 1805 by Izetti”

  1. Definitely found this tricky on account of some harder-to-get long anagrams (PREFABRICATED and UGLY CUSTOMERS).
  2. Like Jeremy, I had trouble juggling the anagram fodder in my head. Also took a while for ‘wicked’ to register. I didn’t notice the black lava problem, but it is a problem, isn’t it? 6:42.
  3. 9 minutes slightly delayed by my POI, CANDLESTICKS where my first thought had been FIDDLESTICKS just as a word that so nearly fitted the grid, but fortunately the A checker already in place gave me pause for thought though I did lose time revisiting PREFABRICATED just to make sure it was definitely correct. I hadn’t at that stage got round to considering what in the clue could possibly have defined FIDDLESTICKS.
  4. Not quite on the wavelength today for a tricky puzzle with the trickiness coming from the cryptic since the vocabulary that wasn’t familiar to me like CARBOY and CHANSON was generously clued. Loved CANDLESTICKS, not seen ‘wicked’ used like that before and groaned at APEX when I finally saw what ‘traps’ was up to. Needed a month trawl to get AUGUSTA and it took a long time for ‘cold customers’ to be displaced by the less familiar UGLY CUSTOMERS. Got REDO quickly but held up by all the other four letters clues. Relieved to finish in 21 only to find I’d corrected a typo in MAGELLAN in the wrong square to muck up AMNESIA too — another week starts carelessly.

    Edited at 2021-02-08 07:33 am (UTC)

  5. Ran out of time after nearly an hour, DNF. Defeated by CANDLESTICKS, guessed it might be by the DL filled in early on. SIT TIGHT solvable by the cluing but not if it was too cryptic. Hopped around the grid without ever getting a good foot hold and without resorting to pen and paper to solve 8A, finally gave up.
    Thanks Izetti and Astartedon for the clarity.
  7. An excellent puzzle that slowly revealed it’s secrets. I stared blankly at LOI CANDLESTICKS for a couple of minutes at the end and trying to fit VICES into it somehow and then had an enormous PDM. I’ve seen a very similar clue before and struggled with it then as well – hopefully it will have lodged in the memory banks this time. Finished in 14.02.
    Thanks to astartedon.
  8. Enjoyable puzzle. Took me almost 18 minutes of which about 5 spent on 13d and 2d – for some reason 2d didn’t look like a hidden word despite the obvious (in retrospect) traps.
  9. 9 minutes here as a lot of the LHS went straight in. Given the amount of word juggling in cryptics, I didn’t have a problem with ALASKA – black and lava end ‘with’ K and A after all.
  10. … and after a slowish start the pieces all fell into place very smoothly for a 10 minute finish. And seeing some of the times and comments from the senior posters above me on the blog, it has been a Good Day to start the week.

    LOIs for me were the 3A/3D cross as I wasn’t expecting a French word at 3A Chanson, and had to dredge the memory-banks to recall 3D Carboy. Having the OY both given by checkers was a great help. 20A Ugly Customers also caused me a hold-up; not that the anagram was particularly difficult, just that it is not a phrase I am familiar with.

    I imagine 7D Candlesticks is an old chestnut, as I am sure I recall it from other puzzles, but it nevertheless made me smile when I realised how one was supposed to read (and pronounce) wicked, and I give it my COD.

    Many thanks to Don for the blog — a rare day of The Don blogging on The Don!
    Cedric

  11. Made somewhat heavy weather of this. Normally able to complete before bed but the NE diagonal just wouldn’t open up easily for me — finished in the morning in probably my slowest-ever time for a QC
  12. I started steadily and moved around the grid at the same pace. I had to write down the remaining letters for two of the long anagrams: ACCUMULATION and UGLY CUSTOMERS but the rest dropped out without resorting to pen and paper. MAGELLAN had to be but I did not recognise ‘ell’ which, I assume, is only ever seen in crosswords. I got a few twinges of satisfaction seeing some of the excellent clues but failed to stay below the SCC threshold by a couple of minutes. Thanks to Don for a fine blog (and, especially, for parsing CANDLESTICKS properly for me) and to the other Don for a super Monday test. John M.

    Edited at 2021-02-08 09:49 am (UTC)

  13. Wrong side of 20 minutes for me, which I put down to having my first COVID vaccine on Saturday. The AstraZeneca jab really wiped me out yesterday, and I am still not feeling very well. It may also have something to do with watching the cricket at the same time. Hopefully, I’ll be back to normal tomorrow.
    1. Just had my Covid jab this morning and solved all bar 4 of today’s clues. Hope you feel better tomorrow!
  14. I found this a bit of a grind. Ugly Customer is in Chambers but I asked swmbo, who is a northerner and she has no more heard it used than me a (soft) southerner. Quite a bit of obscure stuff too (Carboy for example). Not outrageous though, so thanks for the challenge Izetti and to astartedon for the blog.
  15. FOI COAL
    LOsI CHANSON , NODE
    Also slow on CANDLESTICKS, and before that UGLY CUSTOMERS (a phrase I knew, maybe old-fashioned)
    Didn’t think of wicked as having a wick until I read the blog!
    The rest of the clues slotted in reasonably quickly via biff/parse.
    Thanks, Don, as ever.

    Edited at 2021-02-08 11:32 am (UTC)

  16. Just like Rotter, I blame the cricket for a slower time this morning (27:56).

    Also had FIDDLESTICKS, and did not see how CANDLESTICKS until the blog. How anyone proceeds with Cryptics with just the answers next day and no blog beats me. New solvers take heart, without this blog, there would be considerably more shrugging on seeing the solution next day in the paper.

    11A: the definition is easy, and the cryptic part very hard (“ELL”, not again). Most QC-ers (like me) will bang in Magellan and not try and go back and parse it.

    NHO CARBOY
    COD CANDLESTICKS

  17. A sluggish solve for me with some tricky wordplay. CANDLESTICKS held me up at the end, despite my having seen a similar clue before. Also held up by the long anagrams. Kept at it and got there eventually. 15:21. Thanks Izetti and Don.

  18. FOI: 1a COAL
    LOI: 3a CHANSON

    Time to Complete: DNF

    Clues Answered Correctly without aids: 16

    Clues Answered with Aids (3 lives): 3 (3a, 9a, 16a)

    Clues Unanswered: 4 (10a, 2d, 7d, 13d)

    Aids Used: Chambers

    Wrong Answers: 1 (5d)

    Total Correctly Answered: 19/24

    I knew I was off to a bad start when I printed out the crossword and was stumped by every clue. I thought to myself has the setter inadvertently given us clues from the 15×15? Then I realised that the mistake was mine. I had printed out the 15×15 in error. So I printed out the QC and started.

    My FOI (1a) was very quick, and I managed to get a good number completed before slowing down.

    3a – I spent far too much time trying to fit a three-lettered word for song into the abbreviation of CH (“Song IN CHURCH”). Then I started thinking that “boy” was the definition, and so spent time looking for a boy’s name which would fit the clue. In the end I had to use Chambers, where I found CHANSON. Now I see where I went wrong.

    5d – SIT TIGHT was another frustrating one for me. I initially put the correct answer, but then for some reason I changed it to SET RIGHT, perhaps because I had misread the letters already present.

    10a – TAMIL. Another frustration. I guessed the clue led to T (time) + AMI (French for friend), but I used the feminine variant AMIE. This gave me TAMIE, which made no sense. I was also looking for a definition of “someone learning language.” In the end I did not enter anything and only saw the answer here. Not sure I liked “L” meaning somebody learning. I do think perhaps that could have worded better, though that’s just my understanding, or lack of it. Perhaps the setter could have somehow alluded to somebody learning to drive in the clue. But I have no suggestions on how to do that. The most frustrating thing in this clue was that when looking through a dictionary for help, I saw “Tamil” and even read the definition. But I ignored it.

    16a – I liked this clue, and thought it was clever.

    So, a frustrating DNF for me, but I still enjoyed working on it.

    1. Hi Poison, good to hear about your progress.

      I agree really about the L, but sometimes these things are ‘close enough’ that you shrug and move on. I mean you’d never just refer to someone learning to drive as an L. An L-driver but not just an L.

      I like your philosophy though. Enjoyment of the challenge is the thing rather than necessarily overcoming it. Although that is always a ‘nice to have’!

      Keep up the good work.

      Don

    2. Well done. This was tricky and I count Izetti as a challenge every time. Your attitude here is great! It’s just fun to try.
    3. Well you got magellan!! I’m ashamed to say I’ve never heard of him so biffed Magallon (gallon for good measure and MA for fellow) hey ho.
  19. 14 mins but with at least 6 of them spent on my last 4 in MAGELLAN, UGLY CUSTOMERS, PREFABRICATED and LOI ACCUMULATION.
  20. when my LOI is a hidden..

    And so it was today. APEX. Following CHANSON and NODE, I had REDE in my head – RED being a signal on a traffic light.

    I finished in 6:44 but it felt longer.

  21. A good challenge today; I too had to write out the fodder for the anagrams.
    I’ve now done enough puzzles for Wicked to suggest a candle very early so that gave me a lot of letters. But quite a few held me up. My last two were SIT TIGHT and AITCH. CARBOY new to me possibly.
    Back online today;14:11 on the clock.
    Another excellent Izetti QC.
    David
  22. A good, challenging puzzle that ultimately ended in frustration as I just couldn’t see 7dn “Candlesticks”. Up until then, I’d completed everything in 20 mins.

    Enjoyed 11dn “Magellan”, 5dn “Sit Tight” and 8ac “Prefabricated”, but thought 20ac “Ugly Customers” was a little vague. Just about remembered 3ac “Chanson” from previous solutions, whilst I had my fingers firmly crossed for that well known language 10ac “Tamil”.

    FOI — 1ac “Coal”
    LOI — 7dn — dnf
    COD — 7dn “Candlesticks” — very clever

    Thanks as usual.

  23. Quite tricky today IMO. It took me 25 minutes to complete with several of the longer answers unparsed (8ac and 4dn spring to mind). No problem with any of the vocabulary or with 15dn, just generally not on the wavelength.

    FOI – 1ac COAL
    LOI & COD – 7dn CANDLESTICKS

    Thanks to Izetti for a taxing but enjoyable puzzle and to Astartedon for the enlightening blog.

  24. Slow today — 30 min — but absolutely loved the light bulb moment when I saw CANDLESTICK! Thank-you Izetti! A very enjoyable puzzle.
  25. ….with Astartedon today, as regards that “with” in 15D. I confidently entered ALASKA on the basis that “ka” was an unknown black lava. I probably only quibble about one in every thousand of Izetti’s clues, but it’s “ends of” rather than “with”and doesn’t quite work for me.

    Surprised to find myself in 7th place of the leaderboard halfway through the day !

    FOI COAL
    LOI PREFABRICATED (needed all the checkers)
    COD CANDLESTICKS
    TIME 4:03

    1. I thought the with was inserted, so that the solver joined the ‘alas’, to the ‘k’ and ‘a’. No?

      1. Well possibly – but it really doesn’t read like the sort of clue Izetti is noted for. Even Homer sometimes nods !

  26. Too tough for me today. NHO CARBOY or CHANSON (in this context), needed help for CANDLESTICKS and PREFABICATED, guessed MAGELLAN, failed to get AITCH, SIT TIGHT or NODE – but now I see why. Not my greatest day.
  27. Not the easiest start to the week. My recent improvement in solving anagrams (poor rather than dreadful) went back a couple of steps, with Prefabricated and Accumulation needing nearly all the crossers — I even needed the O from customers to decide between U + (comical aunt) dancing and comical (aunt dancing). A pdm Candlesticks and the Tamil/Magellan (Ell in a QC?) intersection pushed me just north of 30mins, so quite slow today. CoD to the diminutive 6d, Node, for the surface. Thanks to both Dons. Invariant
  28. This went okay at first, but I slowed down after going through all the clues once and then extended what might have been a 40 minute or so solve, by wondering what was going on with 3a/d. The wordplay said CHANSON/CARBOY, my head said, “neither of those are real words, so they’re probably wrong”. Just sometimes (and not that infrequently where Izetti is concerned) there are words you haven’t heard of though and this was one of those times. I couldn’t see what else could go in, so eventually at 53:09, I had to bung them in and hope for the best. Hadn’t heard of an ELL either. On the plus side, I loved CANDLESTICKS. Thanks all.
  29. Just below average time today, but then it is an Izetti, so actually probably above average for this setter! In fact, this took just over half the time it took me to do the biggie today – have a go, those of you feel like trying to step up the challenge! I thought it was very approachable.

    Back to the quickie – a most enjoyable crossword, as per, with lots of great surfaces and, as others have said, the more unusual works were fairly clued. I spent the longest time on PREFABRICATED – I could see what needed to be done but didn’t see FAB for too long! As David says, I’ve been doing crosswords long enough now to think ‘candle’ whenever I see wicked, instead of – well, wicked! It’s a bit worrying about how crosswords start to warp your brain 😅

    FOI Coal
    LOI Prefabricated
    COD Cup of tea – one of these days …
    Time 14 minutes

    Many thanks to both Dons

  30. … was breathed by this random chap when I finally checked my solutions against those of astartedon. I crossed the line in 36 minutes, which is a good time for me, but not at all certain on several clues.

    I had never heard of CARBOY (3d) – although my grandfather was employed as a carman at one stage, ELL (part of 11d), or the phrase UGLY CUSTOMERS (20a). Also held up by 7d: CANDLESTICKS (I didn’t see the alternative meaning of wicked) and, surprisingly, by my LOI 18d: PUMA.

    So, all in all, a good start to the week and a 0-5 whitewash has been avoided again.

    Many thanks to astartedon and to Izetti.

  31. Ironically we seemed to sail through the 15×15 but needed a full 25 minutes to complete the QC. A super offering from Izetti which really challenged us – thank you.

    FOI: duo
    LOI: apex
    COD: candlesticks (loved it – very clever)

    Thanks to Astartedon for the blog.

  32. Serious mastication needed today. Knew the wicked thing; CARBOY and MAGELLAN but got completely the wrong end of the parsing for ACCUMULATION which clue took me well over the 10 minutes.

    No complaints though especially as ALASKA went in without overly attending to the last two letters

    Thanks all

  33. Biffed 7dn and then got the ‘wicked’ meaning. Definitely COD. About 15 minutes today. NHO carboy but otherwise an enjoyable QC. Thanks to blogger & setter.
  34. … Izetti hard and this was no exception.

    But I eventually finished it – well all but CANDLESTICKS as I’d managed to put TWO instead of DUO and didn’t think to check that one as I thought I’d got it right.

    So quite an achievement, thank you all.

    Diana

  35. Enjoyed this but failed to get candlesticks! Clever and I hope I remember it for the future. I think ugly customers is a standard English phrase for not nice people. Chanson is an English word although it does mean a French song! Feel I am improving 😌
  36. 50 minutes (the times of 2 sittings added together) for me which is a bit slow for a Monday. I didn’t post last Friday but was very pleased with myself for having completed all of that weeks QCs, so now on a 6 QC winning streak.

    Unlike some others I am familiar with ugly customers, although not in the plural. “He’s a real ugly customer” is a phrase from my (northern) childhood.

    2d (apex) and 6d (node) made me chuckle but COD is 7d candlestick). FOI 1d (cup of tea). LOI = COD.

    Many thanks to both Dons.

    Stephen

  37. I think the k in 15d refers to the CMYK colour system — k stands for ‘key’ which for some reason is black…
  39. An excellent puzzle; I finished in about twenty-five minutes but not all parsed. FOI coal, LOI, candlesticks which caused a head-scratch with the a checker from prefabricated spoiling fiddlesticks. Me too. Needed the blog to parse that one. COD accumulation. Thanks, blogger and setter. GW

  40. I’m certain the QC has had Candlesticks before, and clued in a very similar manner. Ugly Customer I would have thought very well known, but apparently not so. Biffed Prefabricated and discovered FAB by deconstructing the answer – very nicely done I thought by Izetti. FOI 1a Coal and then 1d gave me a good start but I soon ran dry! Liked 11d Magellan and familiar with ‘ell’ so no hesitation there. LOI 22a Bold as the checkers gave no other option. COD 13d Rehoused. Pretty chewy clues but very fair, as usual from Izetti. Very helpful blog too, thx.
  41. One and a half courses
    Really liked candlesticks as a clue.
    Veggie stew as the weather indicates

  42. Just about made it at the end ofa long and chilly day. This felt quite hard while I was doing it after the nice easy 1ac but actually I think it was a steady slog as was all done in just under 20 minutes except for 7dn. Like others I tried fiddlesticks and then realised candlesticks fitted but couldn’t for the life of me work out why. Thanks to Don for the explanation and Izetti for the blog.

    Edited at 2021-02-08 09:15 pm (UTC)

    1. Stowic, you may like to know that since you have a registered Live Journal user-id you can go in and edit your contributions after posting. Hover your mouse pointer to the right of your user name at the top and click on the Pencil (edit) icon. That way you could have posted just one message here instead of three times. The edit option won’t available if somebody has replied to your message using the Reply feature as I have done here – so you wouldn’t now be able to edit your message about carboy/carbuoy.

      Edited at 2021-02-08 09:15 pm (UTC)

      1. Thanks Jack, I’ve now edited the one above so just two comments from me rather than 3! Apologies

        1. Thanks but there’s no need for apologies, I just thought you might like to know. It’s very useful especially for someone like me who only spots errors after I’ve posted no matter how many times I’ve read through.
  44. So a quick comment — 19 minutes and very enjoyable if steady solve.
    Thanks all
    John George
  45. Had to rely on the old electronic dictionary bash technique in the end but got there.

    7D was biffed and LOI and my COD once I’d read the exegesis, thank you asterdon! Went a bit off piste with 9A which I thought was TWO (stoopidly) which threw 7D.

    Great puzzle, (Don)Izetti, usual excellent cluing ,thank you.

    Woodsy.

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