Quick Cryptic 1324 by Pedro

Author   CuraristPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
This was not straightforward. I seemed to do quite a lot of biffing* for a QC, with the parsing only coming later. There are a couple which I don’t think quite work, and a few devices that are perhaps a bit sneaky for the QC. I am interested to see what you all made of it. Just under 10min for me.

(*BIFFING: from BIFD, Bunged In From Definition. When you guess the answer from the definition part of the clue, but have no idea how the cryptic part works)

Across

1 Slave back in shifting coal out of doors (8)
ALFRESCO – Slave is SERF, backwards, inside an anagram (“shifting”) of COAL
5 Rejection of plans for annoying emails (4)
SPAM – MAPS backwards
9 Nonsense written about a small Sunday meal (5)
ROAST – ROT outside AS
10 Recalled diving bird going behind one cold Arctic feature (7)
ICEBERG – GREBE backwards after IC
11 Baked food? Large quantity, not left (3)
PIE – PILE without L for left
12 Brothers I found in care of revolutionary priest of heavenly aspect (9)
AMBROSIAL – Brothers is BROS, with I inside LAMA backwards. The other words used to denote preist include REV and ELI (biblical figure). Other ecclesiatiacal abbreviations: ‘Archdeacon’ usually denotes VEN (venerable), ‘Bishop’ is usually B as in chess, but is occasionally RR for right reverend
13 Sheltered area is covered by agent not fully alert (6)
SLEEPY – LEE inside SPY
15 Newspaperman recalled repetition about one day (6)
EDITOR – ROTE backwards around I D
17 Soccer playing about to finish leading to increasing noise (9)
CRESCENDO –  anagram (“playing”) of  SOCCER, around END
19 He perhaps requires odd bits of glass (3)
GAS – Alternate letters of glass. He is helium. Beware chemical elements masquerading as common words. The other one often seen is arsenic (As)
20 TV Andre recycled, being green (7)
VERDANT –  anagram (“recycled”) of TV ANDRE
21 Make speech over level of tax? (5)
ORATE – O (over, cricket) + RATE. The question mark indicates that level of tax is one example of the use of RATE, rather than a direct definition.
22 Rule applied to new part of garden (4)
LAWN – LAW + N
23 Always getting the same part of cooked pasty etc. (8)
TYPECAST –  anagram (“cooked”) of PASTY ETC

Down
1 A lot of words about musical work may be to the point (7)
APROPOS – I’m not sure this one quite works, and its maybe a bit stiff for the QC. ‘A lot of’ sometimes denotes a word that has been shortened. Here it’s the word PROSE, placed around OP for musical work. Trouble is, you need the A at the beginning. If the A in the clue is perfoming that task, you are left with the phrase ‘Lot of words’, which has to somehow generate PROS
2 Peel having something false about Liberal (5)
FLAKE – FAKE outside L
3 Replaces taxi after crash? Wonderful (5-7)
EXTRA-SPECIAL –  anagram (“after crash”) of REPLACES TAXI
4 Company’s first member to head for the top (5)
CLIMB – C + LIMB
6 Foresee alcoholic drink turning up in pint container? (7)
PREDICT – another slightly stiff one. Here the alcoholic drink is CIDER,  which is placed backwards inside P and T, being the ‘container’ of PINT. I don’t think I’ve seen that device before, and again I dont think it entirely works. P and T are not the container of ‘PINT’, if anything they are the container of ‘IN’.
7 Magnate’s way of working? Ear pricked up (5)
MOGUL MO (modus operandi) + LUG backwards
8 Outstanding: another century, then adding single (6-2-4)
SECOND-TO-NONE – SECOND TON (another century) + ONE for single.
14 Watch British quarrel that’s curiously raised? (7)
EYEBROW – EYE (watch) B (British) ROW (quarrel). Raised when you’re curious.
16 Others adopting physical exercise about to get appreciation (7)
RESPECT – Others is REST, around PE and C
17 Six in California make petty complaints (5)
CAVIL – CAL  with VI (6) inside
18 Looking swanky a couple of times in US city (5)
NATTY – A + T + T inside NY
19 Mostly vague when stewing a fruit (5)
GUAVA – another one that I think belongs in the 15 x 15. It’s an anagram (“stewing”) of an incomplete word (VAGU, i.e. mostly vague), with A added on.

29 comments on “Quick Cryptic 1324 by Pedro”

  1. I thought this a high quality and quite difficult challenge from Pedro. After a quick and fruitless look at the NW, FOI was SPAM and then I solved steadily and with 13:30 on the clock just needed four in the NW. Then I got very stuck.
    Eventually I got PIE which led to APROPOS.The last two were FLAKE and ALFRESCO.
    Time in the end 25:32.
    I didn’t think any of it was unfair, although I’m now wondering if Al Fresco is two words!
    David
    1. ‘al fresco’ is two words in Italian and this is the format accepted by the Oxford dictionaries, but Collins and Chambers have it as one one word when adopted into English.
      1. ..and BTW al fresco does not mean “in the open air” in Italian, that would be “all’ aria aperta”. Thanks for blog and comments.
        Richard J
  2. I scraped in just under my target at 9:58. I thought this was tricky and failed to parse 1d correctly even after spending extra time on it before submitting. I took PT to be an abbreviation for Pint. Otherwise a well crafted puzzle which took some careful decrypting. Thanks Pedro and Curarist.
  3. 9:40 here, which I’m guessing was just over 2 Kevins and thus a Good Day. Far from thinking that PREDICT didn’t quite work I had it as my COD, parsing it as PT (= pint) acting as the “container” for reversed CIDER. Very neat! Thanks Pedro.

    Took me ages to see why He = gas (durr). Thanks for the arsenic tip, curarist, and the very clear and helpful blog.

    Templar

    1. Yes, “container of pint” means “contained in pt” not that “pt” is the container of “pint” which wouldn’t make sense.
      1. Not sure I agree, if PT is the abbreviation for pint, then the word ‘container’ is superfluous
        1. Well, it’s a joke, isn’t it? Hence the “?”. Cider does come in a pint container. I liked it!
  4. This took me a long while, and now I can’t remember why. I do remember worrying about GAS, having totally forgotten the He trick, or not expecting it in a QC. A Very Good Day for Templar. 10:41.
      1. Busy day yesterday so only just catching up on Templar’s Very Good Day – for whom I’m thrilled. To add to the general level of festivity, I also sub-K’d, but, and to continue Templar’s unbounded joy, in 10:33 – which today can be counted as one and a bit T’s!
        As for the puzzle, I resisted biffing so hugely enjoyed working it all out. This included predict which I was happy to accept as cider turning up inside PT as a container.
  5. Just inside my target range at 14m and change, therefore hardish on the Rotterometer. I was slowed at the start by getting fixated on a capella for 1a even though I knew it was something else, and it took a while before ALFRESCO revealed itself. After getting 1a, the rest fell reasonably straightforwardly. CAVIL is not a word in common usage for me, but I was aware of it, and GUAVA is not a fruit I have ever knowingly eaten, but both were generously clued. Thanks Pedro and Curarist.
  6. I found this tough but when explained it was all fair enough. I’m not to keen on anagrams where you have to perm so many letters (vague) but it’s a minor gripe – thanks.
  7. Found this tricky but satisfying with a SCC time of 18.21. Thanks curarist for the pertinent blog, in particular the element explanation which eluded me. Good to see verlaine almost as quick as the neutrinos on the leaderboard with an astounding 2.31! I take a substantial part of that enlarging the text!
  8. Tricky stuff here so I was surprised to find myself home in a few seconds under my 10-minute target. SECOND TO NONE took me the longest to parse after solving it.
  9. Difficult today I thought. Biffed quite a few then worked out why afterwards (or not). Thanks for the blog. Totally missed “He” for Helium.
  10. ….and only fill it to one third capacity to enjoy a dozen ales at Oldham Beer Festival. Apart from a MER at that one, I was reasonably quick to get through a decent puzzle. A few traps in there for the inexperienced solver.

    FOI SPAM
    LOI EDITOR
    COD GAS
    TIME 4:11

  11. About 25, stuck on pie, alfresco, apropos. Almost typo on mogul.

    Cod eyebrow or predict.

    Picking up a foster dog now supposedly for 1 week.
    We got the “foster” cat 6 years ago.

    Might get some Leffe.

  12. I thought this was a disappointingly slow 35mins finish to the week, but having read the early posters, it now doesn’t seem quite as bad, especially as a chunk of that time was spent trying to make sense of the parsing for Apropos. Other hold ups along the way were Alfresco and Mogul (I had 12ac as AmbrosiaN for a long time). Quite a mixed bag of clues, of which 14d, Eyebrow was my favourite. Invariant

    Edited at 2019-04-05 11:40 am (UTC)

  13. An 11 minute solve but I too struggled with the parsing of 1d APROPOS and even toyed with opus as the musical work. I didn’t overthink 6d PREDICT as once I saw CIDER the answer was obvious. I DNK 17d CAVIL but the wordplay was straight forward. 19d GAS went in despite not having understood the clue. FOI SPAM and LOI ALFRESCO. Thanks Pedro and curarist.
  14. A tough offering. Some good clues but some quirky angles. SCC for me but under 2 Kevins. Thanks to Pedro for a good workout and to Curarist for a necessary and helpful blog. Roll on Monday….. John M.
  15. Found this hard going. The parsing of APROPOS looks fine to me if you accept ‘prose’ as a synonym for ‘words’. for PREDICT I also simply took PT (pint) as the ‘container’ for ‘cider’ reversed, so no problem with that either. Neither did I think GUAVA that unusual. In fact the more I ponder, the more I wonder what took me so long. POETS day syndrome I guess.
    PlayUpPompey
  16. 35m so over our target. Found nw corner slow going, got both 1d and 1a from checkers, but failed to parse. Knew 12a was some form of ambrosia,ending in c, or n or l, but chose c which caused problems with 7 d. Overall tricky.
  17. Tricky going today and I ended up with a DNF for MOGAL – and I wondered why I couldn’t parse it!! Like others I failed to parse 1d and it took a while for the penny to drop for the GAS/HE link. Filled in all the squares in 14.57 with the tricky 8d.
    Thanks for the blog
  18. Found this tough. Stuffed myself by putting in Flail for peel. Fail (false) plus left. Made the baked goods tricky!
  19. Really enjoyed this offering from Pedro even though it took me almost 30 minutes to complete! The only non-parsed clue was GAS (very clever!). I thought all the clues were fair and pleasing. 8d held me up for the longest time as I was convinced that the first word was going to be BEYOND. It fitted the checkers and seemed as if it could have something to do with ‘outstanding’. I was relieved when the penny finally dropped. MM
    FOI SPAM
    LOI SECOND TO NONE
    COD ICEBERG
  20. A DNF for me, scuppered by APROPOS and MOGUL. I was unsure about a few others that I’d guessed fine, just because I didn’t get the parsing (particularly GAS). Thanks for the great explanations in the blog – I’ve learnt a lot from it – including where BIFFING comes from! Is there an FAQ somewhere that I’ve missed with all this sort of info?
  21. Enjoyed that, a solid solve with LOI EYEBROW. Some lovely surfaces, as I believe the pros among you describe them.
    When an old cricketer leaves the crease ton and one happily jump out (though I never got near a century), so no worries there.
    COD AMBROSIAL
    Tim (not that Tim)
  22. We thought that QCs were all about letting us lesser mortals have a chance!
    This style of crossword, whilst teaching some of us newbies ‘new tricks’ should parse really clearly …I’m not sure that 1d, 2d, 12a were ‘in the spirit’ as they took too much time to justify … also 1a IS two words!

Comments are closed.