Quick Cryptic 1334 by Orpheus

Author   CuraristPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
I enjoyed this, and I don’t think it’s too taxing. A couple of engineered anagrams, a tad of slightly obscure vocab, and some pleasingly corny homophones. I got repeatedly interrupted so I don’t know how long it took – no more than 10min, I think. I look forward to the kicking I shall no doubt receive in the comments regarding my knowledge of Indian history.

Across
1 Noisy bird —type of spaniel also, some say (8)
COCKATOO – sounds like COCKER, TOO. Arf
5 Assist with a B movie? (4)
ABET – A + B + ET, saccharine 80’s Spielberg film that I’ve never seen
8 Lie about Republican disharmony (8)
FRICTION – FICTION outside R
9 Smile broadly, having right to dip into drink (4)
GRIN – R inside GIN
11 Heartless mob in EU’s to board vehicle (5)
EMBUS – Heartless mob is MB, with EUS outside. Rather soutenu word for ‘get on a bus’
12 Shrub recollected in Gray’s Inn mostly (7)
SYRINGA – Anagram (‘recollected’) of GRAYS IN, (i.e. most of GRAY’S INN)
13 Second go required to orbit a planet (6)
SATURN – S + TURN around A
15 Steal from school, carrying can back (6)
SNITCH – SCH with TIN backwards inside
18 Act like a shopaholic, so to speak — eventually (2,3,2)
BY AND BY – Sounds like BUY AND BUY
19 Country featuring in main diagram (5)
INDIA – hidden word: maIN DIAgram
21 Exchange prisoners from the east (4)
SWOP – POWs backwards. Less familiar spelling of SWAP.
22 Workers securing sick leave at last in WI islands (8)
ANTILLES – Workers are always ANTS (unless they are BEES, or TU for trade union, or MEN, or HANDS). Insert ILL  and E (end of LEAVE)
23 Unfeeling Greek character, one with medical qualification (4)
NUMB – NU is the Greek character, MB is the medical qualification.
24 Meanly swindle leaders of Ireland’s loyal youths (8)
STINGILY – swindle is STING, + first letters of Ireland’s Loyal Youths

Down
1 Reportedly people unpopular in theatre boxes? (7)
COFFERS – Sounds like COUGHERS. Ha ha. I ran off on a massive wild goose chase to start with because of the word BOXES, which I though might be a verb. Overthinking it as ever.
2 Caught arm, perhaps, in mountaineering activity (5)
CLIMB – C + LIMB
3 Travelling most of Saturday to a Continental motorway (10)
AUTOSTRADA –  Anagram (‘travelling’) of  SATURDA (most of SATURDAY) + TO + A. Remember Curarist’s Law: any word that one is instructed to shorten, is only ever reduced by one letter, unless it’s specified (half, two thirds etc)
4 Player primarily on bench, or in second team? (6)
OBOIST – Initial letters of On Bench, Or In Second Team
6 Titled man’s circle in London borough (7)
BARONET – London borough is BARNET, with O inside. BARNET also means hair via Cockney rhyming slang (Barnet Fair = hair)
7 Knight wearing Roman garment in the Friendly Islands (5)
TONGA – N for Knight (in chess) inside TOGA
10 Change criminal into saint? About right (10)
TRANSITION – Anagram (‘criminal’) of  INTO SAINT + R
14 Players entertaining Aussie native in café (7)
TEAROOM – Players are TEAM, Aussie native is ROO
16 Tries always to identify gossip (7)
HEARSAY – Tries (in court) is HEARS, AY is always.
17 Extremely clumsy snare trapping tail of young bird (6)
CYGNET – Extremely clumsy is CY, snare is NET, with G (tail of younG) inside. Although a cygnet is a young bird, the definition here is just ‘bird’, because ‘young’ is part of the cryptic clue.
18 Pudding bowl, as found in rubbish receptacle (5)
BASIN – AS inside BIN
20 Once a capital food shop, we hear (5)
DELHI – Sounds like DELI. ‘Once a capital’? hmm. Not sure that Delhi (as opposed to New Delhi) was ever capital of India. Before New Delhi was established, the capital was Calcutta. Am I right?

24 comments on “Quick Cryptic 1334 by Orpheus”

  1. Very tough I thought. This too me exactly 22:00 of full concentration.
    I’ve been looking around garden centres recently and thought SYRINGA might exist but it was a guess;difficult when you don’t know what letter to leave out from the anagram (is this a new device in The Times? I have seen it before elsewhere).
    My last two were FRICTION and COFFERS. Lots of great clues and hard to nominate a COD -maybe TEAROOM.
    I was delighted to finish this correctly but I think many solvers will be glad this is a Bank Holiday with perhaps more time available to enjoy this excellent and difficult puzzle.
    David

  2. Total disaster. Took over 20 minutes and even then I got one wrong and forgot to fill in TEAROOM. Dead last on the leaderboard! LOI was ANTILLES – I’d accidentally filled in an across for a down and carelessly replaced the overtyped L of DELHI with another H and failed to notice that for ever. Also managed to mistype AUTOSTRADA, sticking in an E. Poor start to the Easter weekend – good puzzle though. EMBUS is today’s least appealing word.
  3. I shared some of the experiences above – LI were COFFERS and FRICTION and I also mistyped AUTOSTRAD(E). I liked COCKATOO and thought OBOIST was well done but thought that EMBUS was a bit desperate. In the SCC today – a little over 20 mins but too many interruptions to check accurately (especially with BBC Radio 4 on). Thanks to Orpheus and Curare. John M.

    Edited at 2019-04-19 09:00 am (UTC)

  4. I no longer remember anything about this, although I sort of think something slowed me down a bit somewhere. 6:36.
  5. 9 minutes. No problems although I looked twice at SNITCH as I had forgotten it can mean ‘steal’; I’m more familiar with it as in informer, somebody who snitches on somebody else.
  6. My slowest QC solve for a month, not helped by initially having COCKEREL for 1A, but there’s nothing too tricky in retrospect. COD to OBOIST. 7:46.
  7. I thought this was quite challenging in places with some unusual vocabulary such as syringa and embus (is that really a word?!) Nonetheless, I was only slightly over target in 23:12 so an enjoyable solve.
  8. I may be wrong, but I think that conventionally “mostly” as an indicator means dropping a letter (or letters?) from the end. My problem with this clue was that I thought “recollected” indicated a reverse hidden and spent some time trying to find it before realising I was barking up the wrong (lilac) tree.
    1. Thanks. I went down a similar line looking for a reverse hidden. Curarist’s comments on Autostrada are helpful -leave out one letter unless instructed to go further. For the plant it was the last letter of INN which was dropped.
      BTW I also paused over SNITCH.
  9. Total disaster with slowest for ages 29.55 and two pink squares – AUTOSTRADE and SNATCH, knowing the latter didn’t work but not knowing SNITCH as steal. TEAROOM took ages as I was trying to find an aboriginal native. FRICTION and COFFERS LOI. Couldn’t see past ‘theatre boxes’. Blind to the first letter trick for OBOIST for far too long. NHO EMBUS. Ho hum, there’s always another day.
  10. Glad to see I wasn’t the only one who struggled with this. I had problems with COFFERS and FRICTION, but my main hold ups were with the unknown shrub, SNITCH which I decided to spell SINTCH making LOI TRANSITION tricky until I noticed the surfeit of I’s. I stumbled over the line in 22.8.
    Thanks for the blog
  11. I enjoyed this in the main. Quite a few tricky ones but all fair enough. My only quibble is snitch – ok so it can mean steal, but 99% of the time these days people use it to mean an informer or a grass. The other 1% use it to mean steal in crosswords. Unnecessary for a quickie in my view!
  12. I actually enjoyed this Orpheus QC. I was not particularly quick at 11:35 but I thought it a good work out with no biffs. SYRINGA was not a problem for me but I did hesitate with EMBUS. COFFERS and BY AND BY required a second visit but made me smile. My LOI was 10d TRANSITION largely because I was trying to find and anagram of criminal and st to mean right! Thank you curarist for the blog. I think Delhi was the capital of India after Calcutta and before it was renamed New Delhi.
  13. 32 minutes and a DNF with the shrub, but reading the comments above I’m happy to be only 12 minutes over target. I couldn’t be bothered to guess the shrub from the checkers so I looked it up, my last one before that was TRANSITION where I thought ‘change’ was the indicator even though I knew the letters didn’t fit.

    Brian

  14. Think 15ac is “snatch”. The can is not the tin but beat as in tan backwards ?
    1. Sorry to disappoint, but the published answer is SNITCH and your inventive wordplay doesn’t quite work as an alternative. I’d agree ‘snatch’ seems to fit better with the definition though, at least at first sight.
  15. EMBUS is quite common in the 15×15. Watch out for ENTRAIN too. COCKATOO went straight in but COFFERS took a while to crystallise. SYRINGA was a matter of throwing the remaining letters in the air and seeing where they landed. An enjoyable puzzle. 8:47. Thanks Orpheus and Curarist.

    Edited at 2019-04-19 11:28 am (UTC)

  16. 20 mins I agree that syringa is a poor clue as you can get about 10 possibles from the crossers. Would have been quicker if I hadn’t put DHELI
  17. ….dilly-DELHI over this, and although mer to SNITCH, it had to be right.

    FOI COCKATOO
    LOI COFFERS
    COD BY AND BY
    TIME 3:57

  18. Wrong side of 20m again for me after yesterday’s walk in the park. NHO SYRINGA, but no excuses otherwise. I just struggled to get on the wavelength. I didn’t help myself initially by bunging in AUTOSTRASA, which ought to be a continental motorway, but isn’t. Thanks ORPHEUS and CURARIST.
  19. 25 mins to get to my last pair – the 10d/24ac combination. And there I sat and pondered for what seemed ages before deciding that 10d couldn’t be an anagram of Criminal + St. Only then did I see that Change was the definition. Transition (and Stingily) then came without too much trouble. Overall, I thought this was quite a difficult QC. Invariant
  20. Fascinating! This took me for ever, but I got there. Almost every trap or misleading cul de sac encountered by others caught me out too. Really satisfying to finish for an habitual slow coach. DM

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