Quick Cryptic 1474 by Felix

Author   CuraristPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
Well, the theme of today seems to be the compound anagram, 15ac, 3dn, 5dn, 16dn. Assuming that doesn’t throw you it’s a pretty straighforward offering today. I love the Dallas reference, who’s going to claim to be too young to get it?

Across

1 Back in Galloway, having left without permission (4)
AWOL –  Reverse hidden word  – galLOWAy. Absent without leave.
4 US university rugby forward providing form of security (4,4)
YALE LOCK – YALE is the university and LOCK is the rugby forward
8 I hold what’s been laid on the table? (6)
EGGCUP – cryptic definition. An egg has been laid, and it’s on the table.
9 Arts graduate turns to jelly and bread rolls (6)
BAGELS – BA + GELS
10 Aware of our originally visiting tavern (2,2)
IN ON – INN with O inside
11 Osier: dry, withered and pathetic (8)
DERISORY – anagram (‘withered’) of OSIER DRY
12 They’re for raising flags (5)
JACKS – double definition
13 Stan’s partner not finishing ancient fairy story (5)
OLLIE – ancient is OLD, unfinished it is OL, add LIE for fairy story.
15 Puss, moving to catch part of bird, surges (8)
UPSWINGS – anagram (‘moving’) of PUSS with WING inside
17 A politician following leader of Conservative party (4)
CAMP – C + A MP
19 Pose without shirt? Don’t do that! (4,2)
STOP IT – Pose is SIT (for a portrait etc) with TOP inside
20 Rubbish very loudly placed in heap (6)
PIFFLE – FF is very loudly, inside PILE
21 Old religious warrior, more primitive, around S Africa (8)
CRUSADER – CRUDER with SA inside
22 Second of broadcasts, live, far from well done (4)
RARE – R is the second letter of broadcasts, add ARE for live

Down
2 Truck landed carrying silver (5)
WAGON – WON is landed with AG for silver inside
3 Nicola, awfully cold and saying little (7)
LACONIC – anagram (‘awfully’) of NICOLA + C for cold
4 Wages have gone up? That’s barking! (3)
YAP – PAY backwards
5 Difficult and unusual burials, with nothing going in twice (9)
LABORIOUS – anagram (‘unusual’) of BURIALS with O added in two places
6 Trail thus coming north arriving at African city (5)
LAGOS – LAG is to trail, thus is SO, reverse it
7 In tropical, oriental parts there’s some heat! (7)
CALORIE – hidden word tropiCAL ORIEntal
11 Ceased holding tabloid: it’s come apart (9)
DISUNITED – DIED with SUN IT inside
12 Huge body of Dallas character holding up short item (7)
JUPITER – JR (Ewing) is the Dallas Character, containing UP + ITE(m)
14 Nick the match (7)
LUCIFER – Double definition. Old Nick is a word for devil, Lucifer is a type of match
16 Cleans different pews one sits in (5)
WIPES – anagram (‘different’) of PEWS with I inserted
18 Someone beaming, heading off track athlete? (5)
MILER – Someone beaming is a SMILER, remove the first letter
20 Physical exercises right for each (3)
PER – PE + R

30 comments on “Quick Cryptic 1474 by Felix”

  1. 8 minutes. A very enjoyable and mostly straightforward puzzle from Felix with the added bonus of a sort of Nina – just look at the unchecked letters in the rows! Is there more than this going on I wonder? Not that it isn’t enough in itself.

    Favourite clue: 8ac. A brilliant cryptic.

    Edited at 2019-11-01 07:20 am (UTC)

  2. I’m not sure if JUPITER was my LOI, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it was; I had no idea what was going on in the clue, and biffed. I’m happy to say that I’ve never seen ‘Dallas’. 7:17.
  3. 10.42 and I’m going to claim to be too young to get 12D which I also biffed. The second definition for LUCIFER was unknown as well. Didn’t see the Nina but Treen I never remember to look…

    NeilC

  4. I didn’t spot the NINA and I do remember JR from Dallas. I used to watch it in my teens but then channel surfing was limited in the early 80s. My QC problems today were confined to the SW corner and mostly of my own making. I had swipe not WIPES for 16d which is what I do to clean my mobile screen but corrected it once I had CRUSADER. I then wanted to put in spuwings (I did watch a horror film last night with a lot of spewing) for 15a UPSWINGS but it didn’t look right. My LOI after quite a lot of deliberation was 11d DISUNITED which I think is a clunky word and one I never use. Other than that I DNK LOCK as a rugby forward. I completed in under 2K so an OK day.

    Edited at 2019-11-01 08:34 am (UTC)

  5. 12:58 for me with not everything parsed. At times I felt I was living on the edge of getting completely stuck but was able to find an answer to unlock things; e.g.WIPES at 16d opened up the blank SW for me.
    LOI was JUPITER and I thought JACKS was tricky.
    COD to EGG CUP.
    I have just looked at all the unchecked letters in the grid; all the vowels and the Is twice. Perhaps he’s telling us to use our Is.
    David
    1. Please click the Glossary link top right under the calendar. There’s a lot more info there which may be of interest.
      1. Just in case other people have a similar layout in LJ as I do, you might alternatively need to scroll right down past all recent crosswords on the front page of TffT to find the glossary etc. I was baffled for some time by instructions to click on the top right – I don’t have it on my Kindle!
  7. I was going unusually well until I hit the SW corner where I ground to a halt. I ended up at a disappointing 3K after thinking I would approach a pb early on. I liked many of the ‘easy’ clues but it took ages to get JUPITER, JACKS, DISUNITED, and UPSWINGS. STOP IT took longer than it should have, too. Thanks to Felix for an interesting end to the week and to Curarist for a taught blog. John M.
  8. I was tipped over my target time by 8a, which eventually arrived accompanied by a loud clanging noise. I needed JUPITER before I was able to see JACKS. I do remember JR Ewing, although I mostly tried to avoid watching the program. I remember the DERISORY PIFFLE the script writers came up with to reinsert a dead character back into the series! COD to EGGCUP though. 10:31. Thanks Felix and Curarist.
  9. ….but this time entirely attributable to the damned smartphone. “Lagps” is NOT the capital of Nigeria. Roll on Monday when I’m back to solving on good old-fashioned paper. Never saw the Nina, but then I never do. If I had, maybe I’d have spotted that rogue P !

    FOI AWOL
    LOI STOP IT
    COD EGGCUP

    Edited at 2019-11-01 09:50 am (UTC)

  10. I never spot Ninas, so thanks to Jack for pointing it out. (In the Guardian puzzles, which are often themed, I almost always miss the themes, too…)

    Thought this was good fun; DERISORY took the longest to sort out as I resorted to the trick of waiting for all the crossers then putting the leftovers in the gaps in a completely arbitrary order and swapping pairs of them until a word sprang out. I try to do the QC without writing anything down, but I’m pretty terrible at doing anagrams in my head.

    Edited at 2019-11-01 10:21 am (UTC)

  11. Very similar experience to John M – fast start but then delayed by those same clues for 2.5K and an OK I Suppose But Could Have Been A Lot Better Day. Agree with Des that DISUNITED is clunky.

    Brilliant Nina, which of course I missed – thanks for pointing it out, Jack. And COD definitely to EGGCUP, which gave me a chuckle.

    Thanks Felix and curarist (I needed the blog to parse STOP IT!).

    Templar

  12. 14:17 today and an enjoyable puzzle. I particularly liked 8 ac EGGCUP which brought a smile.

    Never noticed the Nina so thanks for pointing that out. And thanks for the blog.

    RC

  13. Way over target on this one thanks to the SW corner which took about half of my total 48:40. I can’t even claim to be ignorant of Dallas and knew the answer might well involve JR. If I’d only tried the J at the top, at least that might have hastened me seeing Jacks. As it was, even with Jacks in place, and the P and R it took a minute or two to see Jupiter. I just didn’t connect body with planet. Anyway, I suppose that means I should award Jupiter my COD. LOI was 19a, WOD Piffle. Hats off to Felix for the Nina and an enjoyable workout.
  14. Started quickly enough, but as I moved down the grid I found the answers taking longer and longer to work out. The SW, in particular Jacks, Jupiter and Upswings, took ages. In the end, I was relieved to finish just north of 40mins. As usual, didn’t spot the Nina, which would actually have been quite helpful. CoD to the far from awful 19ac Stop It. Invariant
  15. An enjoyable end to the week, completed in around 45mins which is pretty good for me.

    Seemed to be on the right wave length today (or maybe it was just easier), but a lot of the answers I could write straight in with the parsing coming after.

    I’m old enough just to remember watching Dallas, so I had a feeling “JR” had to be in 12dn somewhere. Living not too far from Stan Laurel’s birthplace, it would be criminal if I didn’t get 13ac although it was the one clue I struggled to parse properly.

    Like everyone else, enjoyed 8ac “Eggcup” – and this ended up being my COD.

    Thanks as usual…you definitely did something to help me!

  16. Not too bad today – about 14 minutes. I thought this was a nice challenge but not too laborious, with a few – Jacks and Jupiter in particular – giving pause for thought. I got the JR ref straightaway but couldn’t think of an alternative to huge beginning with J – jinormous perhaps? Too many letters as well! But no, it was a huge body – hah! I didn’t fully parse Ollie or Jacks so thanks for clearing those up.

    FOI AWOL
    LOI Jacks
    COD Lucifer
    WOD Laconic
    Off to try the big boys one now – on first glance, I don’t feel too hopeful 😕

  17. Fairly straightforward I thought with only 8ac holding me up briefly.
    Couldn’t parse lucifer ( knew old Nick but not match).

    A question for solvers: do you rush through clues looking for easy wins and then retrace with some (hopefully) helpful checkers. Or do you go through the clues methodically until you solve each or eventually give up and move on? Which is better?

    1. For me, strategy depends a bit on the grid. I usually default to trying to get started in the top left corner, and if I can get on a roll from there I just continue. If not, then I’ll usually try to find a weak spot among the shorter answers—while it *is* possible for a three-letter word to be very cunningly-clued, there’s generally less scope for the imagination—and then try to roll on from there.

      On the other hand, if the grid has, say, some big answers that might help to get others started (some of the 15×15 grids, for example, have four fifteen-letter answers around the grid perimeter, giving you scope to get a lot of start-of-word/end-of-word checkers for other answers) I may head straight for those and risk spending more time on something that will really open up the rest of the grid.

      I’ll often be influenced specifically by how many starting letters of other answers cracking a particular clue might reveal, as I’m a heck of a lot better at coming up with the answer if I have the first letter. I hate “awkward” grids with a lot of unchecked first letters.

      (If I *really* fancy a challenge I’ll try to do the across clues, in order, followed by the downs, in order, without any reading ahead, but I think I only managed to succeed like that once on a QC…)

      Edited at 2019-11-01 02:25 pm (UTC)

  18. Is there something spooky going on today? I haven’t seen / can’t find the blog for the 15 x 15.

    Edited at 2019-11-01 02:51 pm (UTC)

      1. I’ve just seen a notification from verlaine, timed mid-morning, to say that he’s running late – hope all is ok.
  19. Well, some dodgy definitions here: Jack, camp and won caught me out and I biffed (if that’s the right word when I didn’t see the definition) from checkers and what looked like would fit. Others I couldn’t parse included 12d, 13a and 22a, so thanks to Curarist for the explanations

    Struggled with bottom left as, whilst I might well have seen Dallas in the past, I couldn’t bring any of its characters to mind.

    I guess I must be improving as I spotted things like 10a from the word play, even though it took me a while to realise what the phrase actually was.

    Probably around 40 mins in total over a couple of sittings.

    1. For what it’s worth – I wondered about “won” in 2dn as well. However, as the answer was fairly “biffable” I just accepted it and moved on.

      However, it’s the sort of thing that would catch me out on a more complex clue.

      1. SOED has:

        b fig. gain or win (money, a prize, etc.); obtain (a job etc.), esp. against strong competition. M19.

        e.g. Back in England he managed to land a job in the City.

  20. Came to this late today and was relieved that it didn’t tax the grey matter too much. I did briefly put UPSWELLS in for 15a which made LOI 11d tricky. Completed in 11.01.
    Thanks for the blog
  21. DNF because of disunited. Got sun but didn’t get the it bit.
    Won as landed? Biffed that.
    And a few more tbh.
    Nick

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