Quick Cryptic 1484 by Rodney

Author   CuraristPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
Perhaps a bit chewier than recent offerings, but with a fair share of write-ins. LOI 1 dn, which I did not know.


Across
1 Support friend grabbing editor to issue retractions? (4-5)
BACK-PEDAL – BACK (support) + PAL with ED inside
6 Something needed for computer drive (3)
RAM – double definition
8 Role kid played as a Pole? (7)
RODLIKE – anagram (‘played’) of ROLE KID
9 Cube consumed orally (5)
EIGHT – 8 = 2 x 2 x 2. Sounds like ‘ate’
10 Unusually, I did Ness meat spread (12)
DISSEMINATED – anagram (‘unusually’) of I DID NESS MEAT
12 Dramatic work to approach doggedly after vacation (6)
COMEDY – COME + DY (‘doggedly’ with the insides removed)
13 Person longing — not the first — for something profitable (6)
EARNER – YEARNER minus the first letter
16 Fresh proposal, note, I’m on for reversing by state (12)
RENOMINATION – RE (note) + IM ON backwards + NATION
19 Delicate and charming, if partially self-indulgent (5)
ELFIN – hidden word sELF-INdulgent
20 Share some room together, having finished drink (7)
OVERLAP – OVER (finished) + LAP (drink)
22 Heavens, that’s risky, losing leading pair! (3)
SKY – RISKY minus first two letters
23 Scottish writer holding vespers briefly on street (9)
STEVENSON – ST + EVENSON(g)

Down
1 Queen visiting British Museum and bank (4)
BERM – ER inside BM. New one on me.
2 Mother protects one following rogue element (7)
CADMIUM – CAD (rogue) + MUM with I inside
3 Letter of public house, opening for inspection (3)
PHI – PH + I
4 Impractical Mae turning up in dull clothing (6)
DREAMY – MAE upside down inside DRY
5 Ambush requiring delay after lazy morning? (3,2,4)
LIE IN WAIT – LIE-IN + WAIT
6 Ceremony read out? Correct! (5)
RIGHT – sounds like ‘rite’
7 Ring fighter in tangle runs after trouble (7)
MATADOR – MAT (tangle) + ADO + R
11 Deposits sent south including US coin (9)
SEDIMENTS – SENT S with DIME inside
12 Runs people’s professional lives (7)
CAREERS – double definition
14 Pasta dish ultimately eaten a lot (7)
NOODLES – N (last letter of ‘eaten’) + OODLES
15 Call for more RE once, strangely (6)
ENCORE – anagram (‘strangely’) of RE ONCE
17 Tiny feet, initially remarkably agile (5)
NIFTY – anagram (‘remarkably’) of TINY + F
18 Cross country from which I must be excluded (4)
SPAN – SPAIN minus I
21 Listener’s vote for viewer (3)
EYE – sounds like ‘aye’, a vote in favour

40 comments on “Quick Cryptic 1484 by Rodney”

  1. At 13 minutes I found this quite hard and with BERM at 1dn completely unknown to me – it seems to have occurred only once in all the years TfTT has been going, in the main puzzle in 2007 just before I started contributing. The wordplay wasn’t unhelpful though.

    This was Rodney’s first outing so it’s too soon to judge whether it will prove to be typically 8ac.

    Edited at 2019-11-15 07:39 am (UTC)

  2. 34 minutes, well over my target for a difficult but very enjoyable puzzle. DKN BERM, but it sounded bank-like and a trip to Chambers confirmed it. LOIs were MATADOR and CAREERS.
    I thought Rodney’s surfaces were all excellent except for 10A – how exactly does one do Ness meat spread?
    Thank you Rodney, keep up the good work.

    Brian

  3. I found this on the tricky side and finished up over target at 11:06. BERM was unknown and RODLIKE took a while to see. Good puzzle though. Thanks Rodney and Curarist.
  4. DNF in about 45 mins does not give the full measure of my failure with this. Completed just 16 clues. But taking the positives, as all losers must these days, I was pleased with myself for getting STEVENSON.
    And I know what a BERM is. I’ve seen the Pink Panther.
  5. Re Berm – I’ll join the chorus of never heard of it but, a bit like rod-like, had to be even though I didn’t like either. Some clever stuff though – thanks!
  6. Long words noted.This was more 15×15 than usual and I made it in 15.

    FOI 22ac SKY

    LOI and WOD BERM as per Mr. Rusty, Clouseau for BUM!

    COD 17dn NIFTY

    LOI and WOD BERM as per for BUM!

    Rodney used to be a Plonker!

    Edited at 2019-11-15 09:58 am (UTC)

      1. I’ve just watched it on Youtube and am chortling away! So many jokes in that scene – Sellers disguised as a midget singing “Thank Heavens For Little Girls”; rummaging for change to tip the “special delivery” man and saying “I’m a little short”; then the immortal “A berm – were you expecting one?”. Wonderful.
  7. I found this deceptively straightforward at the start and then I decelerated rapidly. My LOI was DREAMY because I mis-typed DISSENINATED and could only think of duenna for 4d. I liked EIGHT, COMEDY, OVERLAP, SEDIMENTS, NIFTY. As the grid filled, a few write-ins emerged (such as STEVENSON but I thought the Evensong/Vespers thing was a but of a stretch). However, some real head-scatchers remained. I found this tough and took almost half a ruddy hour. A fascinating first QC from Rodney and a very good blog from Curarist. This was the hardest this week for me. John M.
  8. I wonder if “COMEDY EARNER” across the middle of the grid is a reference to Only Fools And Horses? I hope so, because I can’t see any other justification for including the awful RODLIKE!

    Anyway, I felt a right plonker as I took 21 mins over this, probably over 4K for the second day in a row. As a result of an O-level history project on Hadrian’s Wall I was fine with BERM (and in Clouseau-speak it means “bomb”, not “bum”) but struggled on RENOMINATION, COMEDY (saw the answer, couldn’t work out the parsing), SEDIMENTS and LOI OVERLAP. A curious mix of very easy and quite tough clues.

    Thanks Rodney and curarist.

    Templar

  9. ….to having broken the rule that was dinned into me by Angus McIntyre, my English teacher in my first year at Altrincham Grammar : “If you read a word you don’t know the meaning of, look it up !”

    I’ve used BERM quite often on Words with Friends, and in the back of my mind I thought it was a disease of cereal crops ! Luckily, the parsing was more or less obvious. I shall still have to flagellate myself with a bunch of stinging nettles though.

    I enjoyed this debut from Rodney, and was within my target.

    FOI BACK-PEDAL
    LOI SKY
    COD COMEDY

  10. Found this tough but got to expect a few of those. I thought some of the clues questionable, Is a comedy a dramatic work, overlap for share some room together. I am a beginner so this may be ok in crossword land, but not sure it is English. But then again what do I know
    1. It’s perfectly acceptable to use ‘drama’ for plays collectively as well as specifically to a particular type of play.
  11. Back to the wrong side of 20m for me after yesterday’s fast time. Enjoyable and challenging is how I would describe Rodney’s style, based on this first offering. I think I knew BERM from the opening attack of the first gulf war, which the allies mounted with the assembled tanks and vehicles by crossing from behind a berm, if I have remembered correctly. I paused briefly over 5d as I think to LIE IN WAIT is more to prepare for an ambush than to actually do one, but it couldn’t be anything else. LOI for me was EARNER after an alphabet trawl all the way to the penultimate letter looking for a fit.
  13. I finished after 22 minutes but ended up with an error: SAY instead of SKY. I wasn’t convinced at the time but ploughed on.
    FOI was EYE and it took me a while to get going.I thought some of the solutions were on the edge but gettable. LOI was the unknown BERM which I thought must be the error when the computer said Unlucky.
    David
  14. Welcome Rodney. An interesting first puzzle, with a deceptively gentle NW corner (I knew Berm, but couldn’t think why until I read Rotter’s post). The rest of the grid was a tad more challenging, with some 15×15 tricks – doggedly after vacation, and some well disguised anagrams (anyone else struggle with Nifty ?). I was happy enough to finish just short of 40mins, with loi Earner responsible for several of those. Invariant
    1. Yes – it took me ages to see Nifty. It was only when I finally got 16ac that the penny dropped.

      I also agree there were some 15×15 tricks in there, but I don’t mind that, otherwise I guess you never learn.

  15. I completed with a guess at 1d BERM in just under 10 minutes and given how others have fared I shall count this as an excellent day. I biffed MATADOR and I needed all the checkers for OVERLAP. I thought RODLIKE was a poor clue but I did enjoy the cluing for EARNER, STEVENSON and NIFTY. Thanks to curarist and Rodney.
  17. Well I came expecting a chorus of too easy comments. I still class myself as a beginner, although I usually manage to finish – with the occasional need to resort to aids. I’m lousy at anagrams and seeing words that fit the pattern of crossers. Anyway, apart from getting stuck for a while at the 12s I didn’t struggle much. Knew berm (it’s the same word in Dutch but I doubt that will come up in a QC). Don’t have a time as I did it in stages. Probably half an hour or so.

    Using vacation to signify the first and last letters is a new one on me and not intuitive, IMHO.

    I still don’t understand why ‘dull clothing’ = dry, can anyone clarify?

    1. Dull = dry = unexciting. Clothing indicates that DRY goes around(clothes) the other part of the clue EAM(MAE reversed).
    2. dull = dry. Clothing is the action indicating DRY covers the other letters in the clue.
        1. I’m with you on this – if it had said “with dull clothing” I think that would have been OK, but the “in” is redundant with the suggested parsing.
          I knew berm from regularly taking a walk on the one built to protect the Tudor Speke Hall from the airport next door (wait for the question “why did they build it so close to airport….”)
          1. This threw me as well. Not particularly struck on Dreamy=Impractical, but it’s in the dictionary so I can’t argue.
    3. This is a variant of the setter’s device of using ’empty’ to indicate the use of the outside letters of a word
  18. When driving in the US you will sometimes come across a sign “Pedestrians on Berm” which means loo kout for that rare species, a walking American, on the side of the road
  19. Far too difficult. Got 2 clues so not at all enjoyable and too hard for QC in my humble opinion
  20. Like the Rotter I came across ‘BERM’ in the First Gulf War, as a large defensive bank constructed by the Iraqis as part of their almost prehistoric defence lines. In fact the allies simply lobbed MLRS over it and decimated the poor devils in the trenches behind it. Apaches used it as cover as well, by hovering behind it, popping up, loosing off a few missiles and dropping back down behind it again.
    Enjoyed this offering, with some original cluing. Good to see a new kid on the block.
    PlayUpPompey
  21. Hard. But luckily I had an early meeting and then a gap before the next so had two leisurely stabs at it. LOI was COMEDY ahead of SEDIMENTS and CAREERS. Very few on first pass and had to work hard throughout – top before bottom. Great puzzle because of the shape of my day – the usual routine would have yielded a DNF I fear.
    Mendesest
  22. Having got on well in the last two days, I wasn’t on the right wavelength for today’s offering. I was pleased with myself for getting back-pedal, disseminated, renomination, sediments and lie in wait but I then struggled, resorted to aids and gave up with about seven clues unsolved. I’ll try to do better next time, Rodney.
    Bluestocking
  23. I rattled along in just under 10 minutes until returning to 1d, which took ages 😟 I got the wordplay but didn’t believe it so did a check to discover that berm is indeed a word!

    Otherwise, after a slighty shaky start, this scored highly on the wavelength-ometer. I guess rodlike is just a subtle hint, teling us what to expect in future! I did find Ness (and her spread) a bit messy but I liked cadmium and encore.

    FOI Cadmium
    LOI Overlap
    COD Stevenson
    Time 9 minutes and then some

    Thanks curarist and welcome to Rodney

  24. 15 minutes – so I join those who found it tricky. The bottom half caused me most trouble but all the clues ended up being fair – and therefore enjoyable. Thanks all.
  25. I enjoyed this, despite it taking me just over my 15 minute target. I got particularly held up in the SW where ELFIN, NIFTY and finally RENOMINATION had me staring vacantly at the screen for a while.
    The only low spot for me was 10a where I agree with Bripriuk that the surface makes no sense at all. But overall a very entertaining QC debut from Rodney.
    Thanks for the blog
  26. Technically I DNF as I got 13ac wrong. Like a few others, this ended up being an alphabet trawl and I resorted to “GAINER”, although I obviously couldn’t parse it. Was convinced at one point it was “BANKER” and that the first letter replaced an “H” (Person Longing=Hanker), but it didn’t fit with Noodles, so like the pasta itself I got in a bit of a mess.

    Overall, apart from the one I got wrong, this took about an hour, with the SE corner giving me the most difficulty (I got stuck on 20ac for quite a bit). A few other clues 4dn “Dreamy” and 17dn “Nifty” also caused a few headaches.

    There were a couple of clues I struggled to parse and I’m still not clear from the blog.

    mat = a tangle
    vespers = evenson(g)

    Apologies in advance if there are standard and I’m just not seeing it.

    FOI/COD = 2dn “Cadmium”

    Thanks as usual.

  27. Felt different to other puzzles and so it proved with a new setter. While I failed as usual and got caught by the use of vacation among others, I struggled also comedy = dramatic, overlap – the whole clue, the scottish writer – my fault, berm – guessed on parsing, but bizarrely I liked the Ness clue, nifty – i spotted it, earner – good old Del boy.
    Graham
  28. Somehow I knew berm in spite of hearing it in Inspector Clouseau’s voice!
    Can’t see the justification for capital P for pole. Just to confuse.?
    What’s LOI please?

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