QC 2993 by Teazel

Author   MerlinPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

15:43, took me a long time to get going, I needed checkers to make progress. Nice puzzle with no unknown vocab, and some smooth surfaces.

1A CARGO CULT is an interesting phenomenon. In WW2 Pacific Islanders built bamboo control towers hoping for supply planes. They tried to copy the behavioural by-products of the advanced societies that visited them instead of what made those societies advanced in the first place.

After a long career in the Tech sector, I’d argue that many corporations practice “Innovation Cargo Cult” – mimicking tech startup aesthetics such as Job Titles, dress, footwear and office layouts; then hoping that innovation will magically arrive.

Definitions underlined in bold , synonyms in (parentheses) (Abc)* indicating anagram of Abc, other wordplay in [square brackets] and deletions in {curly} brackets.

Across
1 Freight reduced outside Lima for religious movement (5,4)
CARGO CULT -CARGO (freight) + CUT (reduced)  contains L (pounds)
6 Escape from  insect (3)
FLY – Double def

As in “fly the nest”
8 All of us staff helpful (7)
MANKIND – MAN (staff) + KIND (helpful)
9 Gathering to celebrate, not all year (5)
PARTY – PART (not all) + Y {ear}
10 Gradually manoeuvre large frame (5)
EASEL – EASE (Gradually Manoeuvre) + L{arge}
12 Nuclear plant lacking a priest (6)
RECTOR – REACTOR (Nuclear plant) – A
14 Applauded, having trained a reluctant dog (13)
CONGRATULATED – (A RELUCTANT DOG)* [trained]
16 Fine sort of key dropped (6)
FALLEN – F {ine} + ALLEN (sort of key)

William G. Allen patented a method of forming screw heads around a hexagonal die in 1910, and as is often the case with simple inventions, many others claim to have also invented it.
17 Awful pain, caught in flap (5)
PANIC – (PAIN)* + C {aught}
19 Fool almost married in characteristic style (5)
IDIOM – IDIO{t} (fool) [almost=truncated] + M{arried}
20 Second cousins tantalised nurses (7)
INSTANT – Hidden in “cousins tantalised”
22 Aficionado of quiche losing pounds (3)
FAN – FLAN (quiche) – L (pounds)
23 Obstinate swine with such personalised notepaper (3-6)
PIG-HEADED – PIG (swine) + HEADED (personalised notepaper)

Whenever Piggy clues appear, I glance up to see if the setter is Oink. Not today.
Down
1 Arrive to collect luxury car for trading (8)
COMMERCE – COME (arrive) contains MERC (luxury car)
2 Manage  to flee (3)
RUN – Double def
3 Window, circular shape, that is held in both hands briefly (5)
ORIEL – O (circular shape) [i.e.=that is] inside R{ight} + L{eft}[both hands]

The “circular shape” is needed to get the O, not because that is the shape of an Oriel window, which is a type of bay window that protrudes from the main wall of a building but does not reach the ground.
4 Informal agreement from sitting for too long, presumably (13)
UNDERSTANDING – Cryptic Definition

The prefix of UNDER as in Undercooked, which means not cooked for long enough. By analogy, Understanding means not standing enough, hence “sitting for too long”.
5 Collapsed coalpit is in the news (7)
TOPICAL – (COALPIT)* [Collapsed]
6 Try to enter stronghold with number left behind (9)
FORGOTTEN – GO (try) inside FORT (stronghold) + TEN (number)
7 Toy — minus its head, twice tipped over (2-2)
YO-YO – Take Toy, then remove the T (minus its head) for OY, double it for OY OY, then reverse for YO YO.
11 General feeling as tension is released (9)
SENSATION – (AS TENSION)* [is released]
13 Sort of guess  one’s like this after school? (8)
EDUCATED – Double def
15 With bread, soak up seafood (7)
ROLLMOP – ROLL (bread) + MOP (soak up)

Not easy if you’ve never heard of a RollMop Herring. Interesting derivation, the Mop comes from the German for a Pug Dog (mops) which the food is supposed to resemble. It was first “rollmops”, and only later was the s assumed to be a plural indicator.
17 Adhesive tapes coming unstuck (5)
PASTE – (TAPES)*

Very smooth surface, and my COD.
18 Quarrel: it turns very loud (4)
TIFF – TI [IT reversed] + FF (very loud)
21 Assistance said not to have succeeded (3)
AID – s{AID} [s=succeeded, as in genealogy lists]

I thought this was some kind of homophone (“said”), but whoever I said it I couldn’t come up with an equivalent for “to have succeeded”

 

64 comments on “QC 2993 by Teazel”

  1. From CARGO/COMMERCE to CULT in 7:37. Please add me to the many here who have NHO of CARGO CULT. I too enjoyed the anagram for CONGRATULATED, not least because I saw the answer straight away. Thanks Merlin.

  2. 16.09 – again, similar to ROUNDABOUT HERE.
    A VERY slow start.
    Lingered long on CARGO CULT having tried to forge a link between cart and freight.
    UNDERSTANDING still not sitting entirely comfortably
    Nearly satisfied with biffing IDIOT (which would have rendered me one) had Himself not queried the relevance of married ( he has questioned that in various forms over many years…).
    Once on the move, very much enjoyed this.
    Thanks Teasel and Merlin.

  3. 16:59
    Been away for a while so really pleased to finish what I thought was a very enjoyable QC.
    Like others, NW corner took some head scratching and NHO CARGO CULT. Guessed at AID but couldn’t think what else it could be.
    Thanks to Teazel and Merlin

  4. About half the time it took me to complete yesterday’s bruising round with Pipsqueak! I wonder if, after all this time, I’m beginning to get the hang of Teazel’s puzzles – I certainly always find them enjoyable, if still on the tricky side, but they don’t seem to take quite as long as they used to. That’s tempting fate – wait for the law to kick in next time.
    I got nearly halfway through the acrosses, though, without a FOI so moved to the downs to get the ball rolling. CARGO CULT was a completely new phrase and concept to me too, and the misdirection sent me down the same wrong path as many other posters!
    Sometimes I struggle to enjoy a good clue if it has a sad surface, and that was the case today with TOPICAL. But I really liked FAN, COMMERCE, YO-YO and EDUCATED.
    10:57 FOI Run LOI Forgotten COD Congratulated – a cracking anagram, and we can relate to the surface 🐕😅
    Thanks Teazel and Merlin

  5. Finished in 14 minutes apart from Cargo Cult which I have never heard of and couldn’t get the wordplay right, even though I thought cut for reduced outside L, but I was putting it in the wrong place.

  6. 5.04 My third quickest. CARGO CULT went straight in. The last few, EASEL, SENSATION and FALLEN, felt a bit slow. All parsed. Thanks Merlin and Teasel.

  7. Seemed more straightforward than yesterday, even with two NHOs in CARGO CULT and ROLLMOP. Really liked UNDERSTANDING but COD to AID (now that I understand it of course 😆) Many thanks Merlin and Teazel.

  8. Very few answers flew in but made steady progress.

    My time however was doubled by the crossing pair of ROLLMOPS (far from my favourite food) and more so the LOI FALLEN. After getting nowhere with the wordplay I resorted to the tried and tested method of staring at it and repeatedly asking what the … could you be? Eventually it came.

    COD: PIG-HEADED

  9. Dnf…

    A couple on here I’d never heard of: 1ac “Cargo Cult” and 15dn “Rollmop”. Add in the fact I put “Idiot” for 19ac and it wasn’t long before I exceeded my cut off time. A shame really, as I’d been on a good run.

    FOI – 2dn “Run”
    LOI – Dnf
    COD – 3dn “Oriel”

    Thanks as usual!

  10. Slow on the acrosses but better on the downs. Steady overall at 18 minutes. Everything parsed except AID where I was looking for a homophone. NHO of CARGO CULT but couldn’t make anything else work.

    FOI – 9ac PARTY
    LOI – 1ac CARGO CULT
    CODs – 8ac MANKIND and 13dn EDUCATED.

    Thanks to Teazel and Merlin.

  11. Despite not knowing Cargo Cult and Rollmop, I was able to figure out with the checkers and the wordplay. On the whole a satisfying QC.

  12. 15:58 here. I don’t know if he invented the term, but Richard Feynman talked and wrote about Cargo Cult Science back in the 70s.

    Thanks to Teazel and Merlin.

  13. That felt more straightforward than I expected from Teazel, taking me 17:19. A pleasant surprise after my dismal performance yesterday.

    Thank you for the blog!

  14. A witty puzzle. Took ages to find my FOI at 12a but the down clues proved approachable and with plenty to checkers the across clues fell into place without too much difficulty.
    FOI 12a Rector
    LOI 13d Educated – no idea why it took so long!
    COD 8a Mankind – I thought this clever but was really clear once seen.
    Will now try to finish yesterday’s puzzle…

  15. Oh boy. The intersection of the two complete unknowns Allen key (we have Allen wrenches here so it took a long, long time to think of it) and ROLLMOP (I was contemplating RAGEMOP at one point haha), took my solving time to 33:08 and made for a frustrating end to an otherwise enjoyable solve. Maybe it’s better to be less PIGHEADED. Also, couldn’t parse that one; I’m either not classy enough or not British enough to know “headed notepaper”.

    Do any Americans here believe that Americans eat rollmop? rollmops?

    I’m impressed by the many solvers who got CARGO CULT in spite of never having heard of it. Kind of puts my hesitation over ROLLMOP to shame.

    Liked CONGRATULATED and YO-YO. Thanks to Teazel and Merlin. Interesting observation about organizational cargo cult behavior.

  16. 18:51

    Of course, Allen key! Failed to see that and had to biff my LOI FALLEN unparsed.

  17. Same QSnitch as yesterday at present but today we were very much faster at 9:41. CARGO CULT certainly wasn’t our FOI but I’m surprised at how little known it seems to have been. Perhaps it’s an age thing but to me it seems to be something that really ought to have cropped up in an Alan Whicker programme. Can’t find any evidence of that but it did feature in an early (1960) Attenborough documentary – not that I’m likely to have remembered that from the age of 4 but who knows? Funny thing memory. LOI MANKIND which, as for vinyl1, should have come more readily. Thanks, all.

  18. 11:09 that was quite a fun one. not as hard as I had been expecting given the average times on it. fascinating to learn about CARGO CULT and ROLLMOP. thanks both!

  19. DNF with 2 clues stumping me. Very interesting to learn about CARGO CULT and learnt what a ROLLMOP is. Really liked the clue for PIG-HEADED. Thank you for the blog today 😁

    1. Chambers defines “easel” as “a frame for supporting a blackboard, a picture during painting etc”

  22. Done in three sessions today, with lawn tennis intervening (had to cut, roll and mark as well as play). So no idea of time, but longish. SCC for sure.
    Biffed CARGO CULT and learned something new. Misdirected by 3d and toyed with OVIAL, OGIAL, before realising that it had to include R and L and tried ORIEL (thinking of the Oxford College) without knowing why. Hah! My cod was 16a – F plus ALLEN (key) to give dropped made me laugh! And RECTOR without the A was fun! Thanks Teazel and Merlin.

  23. 22A FAN – This doesn’t really work – L is an abbreviation for “pound”, not “pounds”, according to both Chambers and Collins

    1A CARGO CULT There is an slip in your explanation – the L is from Lima.

    1. I’m a bit surprised that the dictionaries don’t specify L as ‘pounds’ but I’d argue that usage trumps that. For many years UK currency was written as £.s.d. and referred to as LSD or ‘pounds, shillings and pence’.

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