Quick Cryptic 116 by Orpheus

Author   mohn2Posted on Categories Quick Cryptic
An enjoyable puzzle, with only the clue for 12A leaving me a little dissatisfied. It’s a solver-friendly grid in that only 4 answers have an unchecked first letter. There are various schools of thought as to how best approach a puzzle, but I think one of the better strategies is to look for a (preferably long) answer that will give you the initial letters of a bunch of other answers – though not all grids will give you such an opening (e.g. last Wednesday’s Quicky), in this case 1A gives you the initial letters of the first 5 down answers.

The puzzle gave me a large onscreen keyboard when I accessed it yesterday morning, but I haven’t been able to get this keyboard to appear again (not that I would be using it anyway, given that I solve on a desktop). I’m assuming this is a new feature for those solving on tablets.

Definitions are underlined.

Across
1 Popular French novelist’s son in Scottish city (9)
INVERNESS – IN (Popular) + VERNE (French novelist) + S (‘s) + S (son). This has appeared in the main cryptic clued by “Trendy French writer’s southern or northern city” (24958, September 2011) and “Aboard steamer carrying writer coming to northern city” (25117, March 2012), both of which I would deem as inferior to this offering
6 Greek island‘s salad ingredient (3)
COS – double definition, the first referring to the island also known as Kos, the second referring to a type of lettuce
8 Brain activity, however tortuous at first (7)
THOUGHT – THOUGH (however) + T (tortuous at first, i.e. the first letter of Tortuous)
9 Girl originally from Hebridean island (5)
FIONA – F (originally from, i.e. the first letter of From) + IONA (Hebridean island)
10 Idle scenes at new food shop (12)
DELICATESSEN – anagram (new) of IDLE SCENES AT
12 Car‘s condition in the old days (6)
ESTATE – double definition, though I 20A-d 15D-ly at the second one. Chambers has “state (archaic)” as one definition of estate, which satisfies “condition in the old days”, but this is the kind of wordplay I wouldn’t expect to find in the Quicky, especially when there are better alternatives
13 Individual starring primarily in Evita? (6)
PERSON – S (starring primarily, i.e. the first letter of Starring) in PERON (Evita?, a reference to Eva Peron and with a question mark to satisfy any definition-by-example quibblers)
16 Antipodean, sad to say, taken in by native of Vienna? (12)
AUSTRALASIAN – ALAS (sad to say) inside (taken in by) AUSTRIAN (native of Vienna?). This was clued similarly in the main cryptic as “Native of New Guinea, say, unfortunately taken in by European” (25587, September 2013)
19 Abbot’s deputy – an inquisitive type, we’re told (5)
PRIOR – homophone (we’re told) of prier (an inquisitive type). I don’t know whether everyone will be aware of that precise definition, but I would imagine that most people will know it’s something monkish
20 Stern fighter pilot’s facial distortion (7)
GRIMACE – GRIM (Stern) + ACE (fighter pilot)
22 Looker? Yes, by the sound of it (3)
EYE – homophone (by the sound of it) of aye
23 Blew up, invited for tryst outside college (9)
DETONATED – DATED (invited for tryst) outside ETON (college). I’ve always thought of a tryst as having illicit or clandestine overtones, but Chambers simply has “an appointment to meet”. It’s marked as archaic, which was also a surprise as I thought it was more common than that
Down
1 Knowledgeable about fashionable tops? Not half! (4)
INTO – IN (fashionable) + TO (tops? Not half!, i.e. only using the first half of TOps)
2 Aggressive workman finally admitted to plant (7)
VIOLENT – N (workman finally, i.e. the last letter of workmaN) inside (admitted to) VIOLET (plant)
3 Jazz piece provoking endless fury (3)
RAG – RAGe (endless fury, i.e. rage without the final letter). Rag in this sense means a piece of ragtime music, e.g. Scott Joplin’s “Maple Leaf Rag”, which you will know even if, like me, you never listen to jazz or its antecedents and don’t recognise the piece’s name. It was the theme tune for a couple of series of “Ask the Family” but has had a wider cultural reach than that would imply
4 Catch parent out (6)
ENTRAP – anagram (out) of PARENT
5 They put up with people undergoing pain (9)
SUFFERERS – double definition
6 Angry mule, perhaps (5)
CROSS – double definition, the second referring to a mule being the offspring of a male donkey and a female horse
7 Quiet girl on Irish river (7)
SHANNON – SH (Quiet, as an order) + ANN (girl) + ON
11 Like a 6 dn buried outside back of pub (9)
INTERBRED – INTERRED (buried) outside B (back of pub, i.e. the final letter of puB). The definition refers to 6 dn, i.e. CROSS – Chambers has for interbreed: “to breed together, esp of different races”
12 Former politician dipping into drink for instance (7)
EXAMPLE – EX (former) plus MP (politician) inside (dipping into) ALE (drink)
14 Set about man providing waterproofing substance (7)
SEALANT – SET about ALAN (man)
15 Trivial affront (6)
SLIGHT – double definition, the first an adjective, the second a noun/verb
17 Impale small fish (5)
SPIKE – S (small) + PIKE (fish)
18 Provide sustenance for European arrested by FBI member (4)
FEED – E (European) inside (arrested by) FED (FBI member, i.e. the slang term for a Federal agent)
21 Where we may find a bit of dinner? (3)
INN – semi-&lit, where the entire clue is the definition and the wordplay is a bit of dINNer, i.e. part of the word dinner

18 comments on “Quick Cryptic 116 by Orpheus”

  1. Just under 4′, my pb, and indicating a pretty easy one. INVERNESS, for instance, went in once I saw ‘popular’ (=IN, and how many IN- Scottish cities are there? At least, how many are there if you’re as ignorant of UK geography as I am? Along with IN, note ETON for ‘college’; the other possibility being MIT, even though that’s not a college.
  2. For what it’s worth, on the one hand, “man’s estate’, ‘the fourth estate’, the Estates-General, etc., are arguably part of one’s GK, while on the other hand, ‘estate car’ is a UK term generally unknown in the US. Somehow or other (especially with a few checkers), that sort of GK got me the solution.
  3. Nodded off again so I have no solving time to offer, but I didn’t have any problems when actually conscious.

    SOED has ESTATE: 2 Condition as regards health, prosperity, etc. arch. LME. ▸ †b Natural or normal condition; good condition, health, well-being. LME–L16. Maybe a bit obscure for a Quickie but the other definition was more straightforward especially combined with checkers – for UK solvers at least.

    Scott Joplin’s considerable output of ragtime music was given a new lease of life in 1973 following the release of the film “The Sting” which featured a number of his works, though not “Maple Leaf Rag” mentioned by the blogger. Most popular was “The Entertainer”, the one used as the theme music.

  4. Thanks for the comment about the onscreen keyboard which prompted me to try (and succeed) in using the ipad onscreen keyboard in landscape mode. For the last 6 months this has only worked on the left hand side. So – back to the crossword – I’m aware of quite a few Scottish towns which start Inver – so got hung up on this although the ‘city’ should have cleared it up. Then the person/sealant cross took longer than it should.
  5. Liked 1ac, but overall found this a bit of a plod. Not too easy, not too hard, nothing particularly funny / witty… Sorry, probably post-holiday ennui kicking in here.

    Struggled with parsing ESTATE.

    Thanks for the blog mohn.

  6. 5 mins. I’d have probably been a minute quicker had I seen 1ac right away, but I moved on to the rest of the puzzle and only got my last three, 1dn, 1ac and 2dn when I got back to the top. I agree that the clue for 12ac might be difficult for overseas solvers.
  7. Less than 5 minutes, most of them went straight in. Tried to spell COS with a K initially, but 6d was obvious and corrected it. I stumbled over the parsing of 11d, although the answer was obvious. I wanted to use IN___BRED and was looking for RET backwards in the middle (short for RETRO = BACK?), but then couldn’t make sense of pub (unusual for me, I usually find them highly relevant!). I eventually saw the light.
  8. I was happy with my 21 mins – pooh to all you 5 min merchants! I always find good experiences are longer-lasting 😉
    I worked out GRIMACE quicker than Z8 so the paduwan is growing in the Force! That was my COD.
    SEALANT was LOI just went blank; it doesn’t help having a grandson called Adam; all other A_A_ combinations melt into insignificance.
    I was going to mention ‘The Sting’ – genius film brings back memories of just married times…
  9. I agree with other comments – generally straightforward but 12ac doesn’t seem right. ESTATE is not another word for car or a car’s condition, it is a particular type of car and the second half of the clue suggests ‘STATE’ which leaves a hanging ‘E’
    1. Please see my reply to Hannah above for the parsing.

      An estate is a car in the same way that Inverness is a Scottish city (1A) or a rag is a jazz piece (3D), i.e. the answer is an example of the word/phrase used in the definition part of the clue. The majority of clues are either of this type or where the definition/answer are synonyms. Complaints tend to arise more when it’s the other way around, e.g. if “estate” was used to clue CAR, which is a so-called DBE (definition-by-example).

      Hope that helps.

  10. Just under 5 minutes and held up only by unaccountably failing to see 17 down (my LOI) for a while. Agree with the comments about 12 across – although it couldn’t be anything else, I suppose. Overall, quite an enjoyable quickie.
  11. I enjoyed this one – I got stuck with the SW corner. The missing ones made sense once you explained them apart from 12a. I don’t understand why “Car’s” (car makes sense) and how is “in the old days” an estate?
    thanks
    Hannah
    1. The first definition is just “Car” – though the apostrophe s in the surface reading will make you think of a possessive, in the cryptic reading it equates to “is”, i.e. merely a link word connecting the two halves of the clue (6A uses the same device). The second definition is “condition in the old days”, which is to be read as “an old word meaning condition”, which gives the archaic definition of estate that I wasn’t happy with.
  12. I won’t say how long I took,but only got stuck on 6down when I thought it must be Kos and it took me ages for some reason to realize it was Cross….
    Quite easy and enjoyable. AnonK
  13. 13 minutes for me. Mr munk1puzl – your comments about the 5 minute merchants made me laugh; I used to feel the same way! I do sense camaraderie amongst this community and it’s great to learn from everyone else.
    1. Hi Earl!
      Mrs Munk1puzl, if you please!! I’ve been married to Z8b8d8k (on this blog) for almost 41 years and have identified myself elsewhere as a Grandma!

      Thanks so much for your comments, much appreciated 🙂

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