Quick Cryptic 1317 by Mara

Author   william_j_sPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
A lovely little crossword from Mara, with just the right amount of whimsy, general knowledge, crosswordese, chemistry, cricket, and the rest. I had one clue to fathom after solving (7dn) as I couldn’t decide which end contained the definition at first, and one clue that raised an eybrow (12dn) and sent me searching through Chambers (in vain).

Definitions underlined.

Across
1 Head of Mafia caught by hired gun, surprisingly — wow! (9)
HUMDINGER – first letter (head) of Mafia inside (caught by) an anagram of (surprisingly) HIRED GUN.
6 Return extra money — mine! (3)
PIT – reversal of (return) TIP (extra money).
8 Clerk as unruly, apathetic type (7)
SLACKER – anagram of (unruly) CLERK AS.
9 Troll taking no medication’s hiding (5)
GNOME – hidden in (…’s hiding) takinG NO MEdication.
10 Where Romans found ten teams — went crazy (3,9)
NEW TESTAMENT – anagram of (crazy) TEN TEAMS WENT.
12 Club page complete (6)
PUTTER – P (page) and UTTER (complete).
13 Respect domicile full of silver (6)
HOMAGE – HOME (domicile) surrounding (full of) AG (or Ag, silver in the periodic table).
16 Quite, quite twee (6-6)
PRETTY-PRETTY – PRETTY (quite) and PRETTY (quite).
19 Ring section in modern style (2,3)
OP ART – O (ring) and PART (section).
20 Communist leader Elizabeth I, perhaps? (7)
REDHEAD – RED (communist) and HEAD (leader).
22 Hard fruit — one’s cracked! (3)
NUT – double/cryptic definition. One who’d cracked might be described as a nut.
23 Total when dismissed twice? (3-3-3)
OUT-AND-OUT – OUT (dismissed, in cricket) AND OUT (i.e. dismissed twice).

Down
1 Sound of snake in bath is sinister (4)
HISS – hidden in (in) batH IS Sinister.
2 A home beneath me, most shabby (7)
MEANEST – A NEST (a home) after (beneath, in a down clue) ME.
3 Sort fine material, discarding the first (3)
ILK –  sILK (fine material) missing (discarding) its first letter (the first).
4 Loud witch gobbling knight up (6)
GARISH – HAG (witch) containing (gobbling) SIR (knight), all reversed (up).
5 Large Miro sabotaged: complicated procedure (9)
RIGMAROLE – anagram of (sabotaged) LARGE MIRO.
6 Call very acidic? (5)
PHONE – PH ONE (a substance with a pH of 1 would be very acidic).
7 The boards are the best, ultimately for building (7)
THEATRE – anagram of (for building) ARE THE and the last letter of (ultimately) best.
11 Couple of football teams, this is on the rugby pitch! (6-3)
TWENTY-TWO – two football teams would be 22 players, and the 22 is a line on a rugby pitch.
12 Lemonade and cheese snack (7)
POPCORN – POP (lemonade) and CORN (cheese). DBE + tenuous synonym = comments expected!
14 Traced new and old decorative style (3,4)
ART DECO – anagram of (new) TRACED then O (old).
15 Drink bottle (6)
SPIRIT – double definition.
17 Rigorous law now repealed? (5)
EXACT – EX ACT (law now repealed).
18 Change poor diet (4)
EDIT – anagram of (poor) DIET.
21 Spanish title put on (3)
DON -double definition.

36 comments on “Quick Cryptic 1317 by Mara”

  1. 12 minutes. I looked twice at 12dn whilst solving but concluded it’s fine, the definition being ‘snack’ for POPCORN. ‘Lemonade’ leading to POP is okay as DBEs are allowed in wordplay, and I took CORN (cheese) in the sense of ‘corny/cheesy/sentimental’.

    Edited at 2019-03-27 05:22 am (UTC)

    1. Yes, it is the ‘pop = fizzy drink = e.g. lemonade’ in the clue I was thinking of, not the actual definition. I didn’t know they are ‘allowed’ in the wordplay, and while this one caused me no delay in solving, I do prefer to see them indicated in some way.

      Corny = cheesy: that’s how I read it too, but ‘corn’ stood out to me as weird so I looked it up afterwards. It’s there as “old fashioned or hackneyed”, but cheese in this sense isn’t! (Cheesy is). Of course, I may just have the wrong dictionary.

      1. It’s in the Oxford on-line:

        informal The quality of being too obviously sentimental.

        ‘the conversations tend too far towards cheese’.

        Over DBEs in wordplay I can’t find any previous discussions and I’m starting to doubt there are any hard and fast rules, but I seem to remember a consensus that they are not frowned upon in the same way as when they appear as the definition of the whole answer. I’ll have another rummage later.

        Edited at 2019-03-27 10:38 am (UTC)

  2. Nowhere near the pace today. Trouble stated early so switched to downs before the acrosses were all read through. Then dotted about the grid for 20 joyless minutes before admitting defeat and came here to see what had been going on. Blogger and jackkt both seem to have enjoyed it and leaderboard not noticeably different from usual so I must be on an off day. Next!
  3. Mara often sets tricky puzzles and I struggled to get going. FOI was PIT but then I got PRETTY PRETTY and I was able to solve steadily after that. Once I thought of Popcorn , I didn’t have a problem with it. My last two were PHONE and THEATRE. Time: 12:38.
    Lots of good stuff. COD to THEATRE for holding out till the end.
    David

  4. Nice crossword, about 15 mins but not rushing.
    The “22” is a line on the pitch in rugby 22 metres from the goal line
    1. It’s 22 yards (ie a chain – same as a cricket pitch) from the goal line, now known as the ’20metre’ line.
      1. In Rugby League, I think you’re right.

        In Rugby Union it is 22 metres, as Graham says.

  5. Very good puzzle. 14.58 and one wrong (biffed TRESTLE for THEATRE which was pretty obvious when reflecting after the pink squares showed). COD REDHEAD. DNK OP ART. PRETTY PRETTY came to mind quite quickly, having heard Hotel California on the radio yesterday. Checking the lyrics, I found a Mondegreen. I had always thought the lines went: “Her mind is definitely twisted, she got the Mercedes Benz//She got a lot of pretty pretty boys she calls friends”, but it’s “Tiffany-twisted” and “Mercedes bends”. And I now have an ear-worm.
  6. Thirteen here, much spent on LOI 7dn where I had to stop myself writing in “trestle” simply because it fitted and had something to do with wood and tables which is a bit like boards …. got there in the end!

    As Graham has already said, William, 22 is not a position in rugby but a line painted on the pitch (in my day known as the 25, because it was 25 yards from the goal line … then it went metric at some point).

    Very good puzzle, chewy in places, thanks Mara. COD to PHONE, a real chuckle when the penny dropped. Thanks for blogging, William.

    Templar

    Edited at 2019-03-27 08:23 am (UTC)

    1. While 36 is a rugby player…at least as Geordan Murphy nicknamed Billy Twelvetrees (try it in an Irish accent, if you haven’t heard it).
  7. As Templar says, quite chewy in parts. I found myself jumping around the grid again after a few write-ins (always the sign of a tricky puzzle for me) but completed in 17.05 which is getting better. I biffed a couple and parsed later – e.g. GARISH which I thought was a good clue. LOI PUTTER. I quite liked, EXACT, HUMDINGER, PRETTY PRETTY and OUT AND OUT but PHONE was definitely my COD. Thanks to Mara and William. John M.

    Edited at 2019-03-27 09:31 am (UTC)

  8. PHONE definitely gets my vote for clue of the day, but there were plenty of other very good clues here, taking me 16 minutes to unravel, just outside my target time. I was also going to comment on the TWENTY TWO, but it’s already been done, and THEATRE was also my LOI after stopping myself entering ‘trestle’. Excellent puzzle from Mara and good blog, thanks both.
  9. I got off to a flying start but slowed down when I got to the bottom half and ended up with 16:28 which is sub-target for me. Thanks, William, for explaining PHONE which I agree is an excellent clue.
  10. ….I wasn’t a SLACKER and just broke the three minute barrier.

    Had no issue with POPCORN. Nice to see Izetti get a name check at 21D.

    FOI HUMDINGER
    LOI REDHEAD
    COD PHONE
    TIME 2:58

    1. 3 minutes! Wow. I found this tough. Phone was very good. About an hour for me all told and I never did get redhead, I managed the rest though.
  11. I got off to a very slow start with the NW remaining totally blank after a first scan. PIT became my FOI and eventually RIGMAROLE and HOMAGE joined it. Returning to the NW I began to make progress with MEANEST and eventually got into my stride. I was eventually left with 7d which took some serious cogitation, and event then I only saw the definition and not the wordplay. 12:07. Thanks Mara and William.
  12. I was either not on the wavelength or just very thick today, but I didn’t have a lot of time so I gave up after 30 minutes with a lot still to do.
    Brian
  13. This felt like a tough examination, but very enjoyable, matron!
    Last few pretty pretty, not plenty plenty which i put in initially, spirit and phone

    Really liked popcorn, theatre, pit, putter, hiss, garish, edit but cod definitely to phone.

    Dnk op art.
    Thanks

  14. I can’t remember a Mara puzzle that I have enjoyed as much as this one. Lots of clues that brought a smile when solved, especially 6d Phone. Missed the anagram in 7d and consequently struggled with the parsing, but I was more than happy with the rest of my 26mins. Anyone with a few minutes to spare might like to look at the (US) word origin of Humdinger on stackexchange. Thank you Mara, and William. Invariant
  15. FOI 1d HISS but then I had to adopt the scattergun approach. I liked 5d RIGMAROLE and needed all the checkers for 4d GARISH. 7d THEATRE was an early solve unlike 6d PHONE my LOI which required an alphabet trawl and then was biffed. Thanks to William for the explanation in the blog, obvious when you read it. I think 1 spelled out as ONE was my undoing. 12 minutes.
  16. Very entertaining and a bit of a games theme, perhaps? 6A (card game) 11D (football and rugby), 12A (golf) and 23A (cricket) I particularly liked PHONE, POPCORN and OUT-AND-OUT. 4:24.
  18. What an excellent puzzle- really enjoyable!
    About an hour and a half – good for me.
    Reading a book on chemistry so brilliant clue for phone. (Did you know PH can be less than 1 or more than 14 – that is just the normal range…)
    Took ages over the Romans – was going through buildings and places until the penny dropped
    Well done Mara and thanks again for the blog
    Nick
  19. Over our target time due to being slow to sort out the sw corner, and confusing senors with dons at 21d. Clever clues – redhead, popcorn, romans and so on. Enjoyable puzzle, thanks to Mara and the blog.
  20. 9:25 – loi and cod to phone – excellent! Is there a bit of theme going on? Op art, Art Deco, theatre and possibly pretty pretty redhead?
  21. I was getting a bit concerned when I had to get as far as HOMAGE before solving my first clue but the bottom half proved a lot easier. I eventually ended up in the NE with GNOME, PHONE (COD) and THEATRE finishing in 11.00.
    I had no problem with POPCORN but did look sideways at HUMDINGER as it didn’t feel like a synonym of wow. In my mind you might say wow if you saw a humdinger e.g. a great drive on the golf course. Not sure I’m much clearer after checking the dictionaries.
    Thanks for the blog
  22. 11d “The field rings again and again to the tramp of the twenty-two men”
    Line chorus school song.
  23. Sorry to come in so late on this but we’ve only just had a chance to finish it and look up the blog. Apart from putting trestle instead of theatre we finished but are puzzled as to what a DBE might be.
    1. Sorry for the late reply, and thanks for asking!

      A ‘definition by example’ is when the definition part of the clue is merely an example of the answer, e.g. if the definition part of the clue was ‘car’ (an example) and the answer we are supposed to derive from the clue was ‘vehicle’ (the larger group). Note that ‘vehicle’ in the clue to define ‘car’ in the answer is totally uncontroversial.

      DBEs were frowned upon during the time when cryptics developed their rules; now less so.

      Most of the time, a setter can get around the DBE problem by fairly indicating that the word in the clue is an example of the larger group which is to be entered as the answer, by writing ‘car, perhaps’ or ‘for example, car’, or sometimes just ‘car?’.

      Jackkt mentioned above that this convention (no DBE unless fairly indicated) only applies to the word in the clue that provides the definition, which makes sense. In my blog, I had assumed that *any* word in the clue that is supposed to provide a synonym used in the answer, should follow the convention. It seems I am mistaken, and I’m happy to be corrected.

      In any case, the rules are there to be broken, and I doubt such conservative conventions are applied in the crosswords of other newspapers. I only mentioned it in anticipation of complaints, not realising I was the only one (sort of) complaining!

      There’s a much better explanation of all this here: https://www.crosswordunclued.com/2010/06/definition-by-example.html

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