Quick Cryptic 1414 by Wurm

Author   CuraristPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
So, not straightforward I would posit; took me well over 10 minutes. Rather rewarding in the end though. There’s a great example of an important device that beginners should all learn from: the familiar two-word phrase which needs to be separated to unlock the clue. See ‘European Union’ in 7dn. There’s arguably another example at 13ac where ‘Standing up’ has to be dismantled to solve the clue.

Across

1 Income in year unfortunately reversed (6)
SALARY – YR + ALAS all backwards
5 Society very large for instance (6)
SAMPLE – S (society) + AMPLE
8 Agreement makes sense (13)
UNDERSTANDING – Double definition
9 Go without nookie? (4)
EXIT – EX (without) + IT (sex)
10 Nuts on plane carrying old emperor (8)
NAPOLEON – Anagram (‘nuts’) of ON PLANE + O
11 Demon drink? (6)
SPIRIT – double definition
13 Standing up tree, swaying (6)
REPUTE – Anagram (‘swaying’) of  UP TREE
15 Taken and treated, keeping fit (8)
CAPTURED – CURED with APT inside
17 Banish some nervous tension (4)
OUST – hidden word: nervOUS Tension
19 Harbour Dutch pirate? (4,2,7)
HOOK OF HOLLAND – jokey double definition
21 Group about to fix old instrument (6)
SPINET – SET (group) around PIN (fix)
22 Sitting in punt, ask for picnic hamper (6)
BASKET – ASK inside BET (punt)

Down
2 Join woman on Times (5)
ANNEX – ANNE + X
3 Criminal assistant one to have flutter? (7)
ABETTER – double definition of sorts
4 Ultimately Mary Seacole was right (3)
YES – last letters of marY seacolE waS
5 Fish in tangled reeds escaped (9)
SCARPERED – CARP inside an anagram (‘tangled’) of REEDS
6 One demonstrating fashion line? (5)
MODEL – MODE (fashion) + L (line)
7 Ruffian entertaining in European Union move (4-3)
LINE-OUT – This is my favourite. Spent ages trying to wedge ‘EU’ in the answer somehow, before the penny dropped. A Line-Out is a set-piece play in rugby UNION, hence ‘union move’. LOUT (ruffian) with IN + E (European) inside.
10 Web expert able to make money after tax (3,6)
NET PROFIT – NET (web) + PRO (expert) + FIT (able)
12 Aesop cooked up dish (3,4)
PEA SOUP – Anagram (‘cooked’) of AESOP + UP
14 Papa has many dogs (7)
POODLES – P (phonetic alphabet) + OODLES. A frequent flyer, this one.
16 Nominal figure all right to be accepted (5)
TOKEN – TEN with OK (all right) inside
18 Son in church from that time onwards (5)
SINCE – S + IN + CE
20 Major Bloodnok hosts ball (3)
ORB – hidden word: MajOR Bloodnok

30 comments on “Quick Cryptic 1414 by Wurm”

  1. I started quickly with SALARY and had solved a few clues before noticing the setter was Wurm who is very tricky normally. But after two 20 minute solves in the last two days I am building up my stamina. Just as well, as Wurm again presented a tough challenge to me.
    At 11a I had SPRITE (are brands allowed?) for quite a while. And I was very slow to get 14d POODLES, my COD.
    MY LOI was LINE OUT but I went back to CAPTURED before submitting as I could not parse it; CARED for Treated plus PT for keeping fit left me with a stray U. But I couldn’t think of an alternative and submitted.
    Happily all correct in 20:16.
    David
  2. This one had me worried, as I had no idea what a LINE-OUT was, and had never heard of HOOK OF HOLLAND, my LOI. 7:02.
  3. It took me a little while to separate European and Union, but I got there eventually. I once sailed from Harwich to HOOK OF HOLLAND so that was easy. No major hold ups. 9:02. Thanks Wurm and Curarist.
  4. I agree that some of this was quite hard. I missed my target 10 minutes and at 16 minutes went into the red on my traffic-lights system by 1 minute. Most of the answers had gone in within the target time but SAMPLE, LINE-OUT and finally CAPTURE delayed further progress for a while.

    Edited at 2019-08-09 07:04 am (UTC)

  5. Well over my target time again. SW corner needed PEA SOUP to find my last 2, SPINET and SPIRIT. I loved LINE-OUT – very clever. 7:12
  6. I enjoyed this and thought it was a great puzzle. Only one I’m not sure about is Exit. I thought ‘it’ was more about sex appeal (he or she has got ‘it’ ) rather than nookie itself.
    1. I totally agree. I got the word but found the parsing a bit odd.

      Another difficult day – what a week.

      Carolyn

  7. A disappointing end to the week time-wise (I was in the VSCC for the second time this week) but a great QC. Amongst many very good clues, I liked LINE-OUT (very neat), SCARPERED, POODLES but my COD is HOOK OF HOLLAND. I thought I was doing the EYE crossword when EXIT emerged – IT for nookie in The Times?? I intend to spend a few minutes with curarist’s blog now to savour some of the clues I didn’t linger over in my ‘rush’ to finish. Many thanks to Wurm but I hope for a slightly easier time next week. John M.

    Edited at 2019-08-09 09:17 am (UTC)

  8. I found this Wurm QC tricky but doable. I worked out LINE-OUT from the wordplay without much thought to the separation of union. HOOK OF HOLLAND was a correct guess once all the checkers were in play. I finished in the NW corner since I failed to solve 1a SALARY on first pass and without it I couldn’t get 2d ANNEX or 9a EXIT. Just over 10 minutes.
  9. 17m, so two over target, which seems about par for this little gem from Wurm. HOOK OF HOLLAND took far too long, and I loved LINE OUT.
  10. A little tricky, but all the clues made sense, and the splitting of the two words in the clue was good. COD 19A
  11. 37 minutes, about the same as yesterday for another difficult but clever puzzle. This time my problems were sorting out the tricky wordplay, like my LOI LINE-OUT.
    Like yesterday, this was just on my upper limit of acceptable difficulty, but still fair and enjoyable.

    Brian

  12. Yet another solve needing more than one sitting – this has not been a good week for confidence boosting. Nothing was impossible (though I wasn’t that keen on ample for very large), but after the first half dozen or so answers, filling in the rest of the grid turned into a marathon struggle. Definitely not on Wrum’s wavelength today. Invariant
  13. A slow start on this one, with 4d the first to tumble! I never time myself accurately but I’d say this took between 15 and 20 minutes with lots of dotting around the grid. Never really on Wurm’s wavelength so I have to work hard to solve, which makes a complete finish all the more satisfying 😊 I didn’t parse line-out, so thanks curarist for the explanation – what a clever clue. But 19a gets my vote as it made me smile!

    FOI Yes
    LOI Captured via an alphabet trawl
    COD Hook of Holland

  14. No real time as several interruptions but probably 25 minutes or so.
    But somehow everything seemed to fall in after a lot of thought and therefore I thought that the clues were excellent!!
    Struggled with Understanding which annoyed me because I know similar have appeared and it was near last in. Abetter and Captured sealed the deal after just seeing Apt.. A good number of smiles along the way (recently unusual for me) for 7d especially with Dutch pirate.
    Great
    Thanks all
    John George
  15. Well I was worried to see Wurm’s name ar the top and that was justified. Third difficult QC this week and we just didn’t enjoy it at all.
  16. Three in a row over 15 mins, crikey. This one was 2.5 Kevins so an OK Day but hard yakka on the QC this week. CAPTURE took forever!

    Thanks Curarist.

    Templar

  17. Join those who found this tricky. Needed help, also with two wrong 5a and 15a. Not the easyist of weeks.
  18. I had abettor and Chambers has “abettˈer or (esp law) abettˈor noun“ which I’d interpreted that when in law use “-or”.
    Can someone explain where I’m wrong?
    1. The alternative spelling (-or) would be valid for ‘criminal assistant’, the main definition, but the answer to the clue needs to fit the wordplay too, so A BETTER is ‘one to have a flutter’. There’s no such word as BETTOR.

      Edited at 2019-08-09 03:53 pm (UTC)

      1. thanks.
        yes, tend to agree, but the word then doesn’t quite fit the main definition?
        1. ‘Abetter’ is still perfectly valid as somebody who assists an offender but I think all Chambers and other dictionaries mean re ‘abettor’ is that ‘-or’ is the spelling favoured by the legal profession in their documentation, possibly for the sake of consistency. It doesn’t prevent other people using ‘-er’ and indeed that would seem to be the spelling favoured by others.
  19. Not straightforward, but quite pleased to do this in 13:26, including an interruption. LINE-OUT would have been LOI but I had ABETTOR (both meanings OK in American?), which was rejected and took a bit more time.
  20. …. I’ll keep it brief. Slow to get going, but steady-ish thereafter. Crept just inside my target.

    Disappointed to see “ask” as part of both clue and answer at 22A, but otherwise a decent challenge.

    FOI NAPOLEON
    LOI SALARY
    COD LINE-OUT (I’m a Rugby League man personally)
    TIME 4:51

  21. We settled for “sample” for 5a, but I was very tempted by “simile” S + 1 mile (very large) because simile seemed to fit instance much better than sample, eventually discarding it as it would really have needed “very long”. Very annoyed to have biffed 20d missing the hidden!
    Paan
    1. I did the same – simile was tempting. I ended up realising jt just wasn’t going to fit.
  22. I didn’t find this as tricky as some but I think that must have been a wavelength thing as I could see that many of the clues were complex but the answers came without too much trouble. LOI was CAPTURED, where the parsing needed some unravelling. Finished in 10.52.
    Thanks for the blog
  23. Just wondering if it should be abettor rather than abetter? Doesn’t change the crossword but would explain the presence of a question mark at the end of the clue
    1. Don’t think so. The question mark indicates a degree of quirkiness (better = one who bets) and as Jackkt has explained above, abettor just doesn’t fit the cryptic.
  24. Very late post but a frantic week meant this only being completed on Sunday! Yes, hard but won’t be dazzled by Wurm again after having the Goons and Mary Seacole (my current bedtime read) in the same puzzle. I thought only I could be so eclectic in taste!

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