Quick Cryptic 1524 by Mara

Author   CuraristPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
So, a tricky 1ac, but straightforward thereafter, loads of anagrams and double definitions. Illustrates the point that two-word clues are ALWAYS double definitions. 7 minutes for me

Across

1 In the City, unfortunately, half feel the need to get away? (5,4)
ITCHY FEET – anagram (‘unfortunately’) of THE CITY with FE (half of FEEL) inside. Quite a complex one to start with.
6 Go down quietly — I had returned (3)
DIP – P (piano) + I’D backwards
8 Pass round back of biggish group of trees (7)
THICKET – Pass is TICKET with H (back of BIGGISH) inside
9 Gun found in holster: I fled (5)
RIFLE – hidden word: holsteR I FLEd
10 Refusing to move, nine starting to budge (12)
INTRANSIGENT – anagram (‘to budge’) of NINE STARTING
12 Capital where king is evidently venerated, initially (4)
KIEV – first letters of King Is Evidently Venerated
13 Test: most ending in failure rejected (4)
EXAM – Most is MAX, ending in ‘failure’ is E, all backwards
17 Extraordinary athletes present — beat them all? (5,3,4)
STEAL THE SHOW – anagram (‘extraordinary’) of ATHLETES, plus SHOW (present)
20 Asian lady’s heading off before one (5)
OMANI – (w)OMAN + I
21 Worst thing, this pet running wild (3,4)
THE PITS – anagram (‘running wild’) of THIS PET
23 Listen to Asian link (3)
TIE – sounds like ‘Thai’
24 Source of personal information has to improve, as a rule (9)
GENERALLY – GENE + RALLY

Down
1 Jot letter from Athens (4)
IOTA – double definition
2 Song about one beginning to imbibe wine (7)
CHIANTI – CHANT round I, with I on the end
3 Bovine chatter (3)
YAK – double definition
4 Amount canvas destroyed? (6)
EXTENT – If you destroy the canvas I guess you have an ‘ex- tent’.
5 Being behind, rise, stand another way (9)
TARDINESS – anagram (‘another way’) of RISE STAND
6 Author due to lose heart over enemy (5)
DEFOE – DUE minus heart is DE, + FOE
7 Quite attractive (6)
PRETTY – double definition
11 Extremely unpleasant being mutinous? (9)
REVOLTING – double definition
14 While a coil fixed, detached (7)
ASOCIAL – AS + anagram (‘fixed’) of A COIL
15 Companion from different sector (6)
ESCORT – anagram (‘different’) of SECTOR
16 Country where simple abode found in block (6)
BHUTAN – simple abode is HUT, inside BAN
18 Girl upon wings of drake, duck (5)
EVADE – EVA is the girl, the ‘wings’ of DRAKE are DE
19 See some sketches, Pythonesque (4)
ESPY – hidden word: sketchES PYthonesque
22 Failing to start, expensive sound processing unit (3)
EAR – (d)EAR

29 comments on “Quick Cryptic 1524 by Mara”

  1. Managed to break my 30 min target and 4d made me smile. Thank you Curarist and Mara.
  2. 14 minutes. 1ac went straight in for me and I made good progress, but the longer answers took a while to assemble and I crossed into amber territory (>10 minutes) for the first time in more than a week. Rarely for me I biffed a QC answer (EXAM) and had been unable to parse it when I stopped the clock. Of course it soon came to me after that.
  3. I had a complete brain-freeze over this, at one point having to check I wasn’t doing the 15×15. In retrospect it wasn’t that hard, I was just barking up the wrong trees all the time, or maybe failing to see the woods for them. I liked STEAL THE SHOW best. Well over twice my average time. 12:29…. and 5 seconds slower than I took over today’s 15×15! Thanks Mara and Curarist.
  4. I found this very difficult, 35 minutes and a DNF with EXAM. Too many anagrams for me, and I think the definitions of STEAL THE SHOW and TARDINESS are a bit stretched for a QC.
    Thanks to Mara and Curarist

    Brian

  5. DNF for me, I wasn’t in the mood to grapple with one as tough as this and gave up. Utterly spineless, I know.
  6. Tough. I expect a test from Mara but parts of this were harder than yesterday’s 15×15 for me. I quickly moved away from an empty NW corner and made slow progress clockwise, going back to fill gaps (EXAM, SOCIAL, EVADE) and finish the NW with IOTA, YAK, EVADE, and LOI EXTENT -ugh- (all of which became easier when ITCHY FEET came to me). Mid 20s for me so back in the SCC after an otherwise pretty good week. I would not describe an OMANI as ‘Asian’ but as ‘middle Eastern’ – I think of Asia as being further east but there you go – it had to fit. Mara has further cemented his reputation as a hard man but thanks to Curarist for a helpful blog. John M.

    Edited at 2020-01-10 09:53 am (UTC)

  7. I was going well on this one with most done by about 15 minutes, but then, after another five minutes or so my brain fogged over and I drifted off for a while (a worryingly frequent occurrence I know – I’m only 43). On the plus side, when I came to, I could focus properly again and the answers I had previously struggled with, revealed themselves in fairly short order and I stopped the clock on 46:06. I was expecting everyone to say this was on the easy side, so I’m quite pleased to see it was generally not found so. Had a MER with ‘Max’ meaning ‘most’ but it makes sense if you put a ‘the’ in front of both, so that’s okay. I liked the definition of a gene as a source of personal information. Only parsed this after biffing 24a, my second to last in. This allowed me to see that the ‘sound processing unit’ in 22d was the original one and not something man-made. As a biology teacher (now just a supply one – hence I’m here now), guess I should have seen that sooner.
  8. 24 painful minutes start to end for me. It seemed that every clue put up a fight, from FOI DEFOE through to LOI EXAM. In retrospect, all fair enough, but it ended up being a bottom-up solve with slim pickings at first in the north. Thanks Mara and Curarist.
  9. ….this was the trickiest QC for some time, and took me some 25% longer the upper limit of my target.

    In 1A, I felt that the clue indicated “FE” should follow the anagrind, and therefore that “unfortunately” should have been placed after “feel”.

    ASOCIAL wasn’t a ready synonym for detached either.

    Overall, though, an enjoyable battle.

    FOI DIP
    LOI BHUTAN
    COD GENERALLY
    TIME 6:26

  10. Personally I thought this was really hard. One of those puzzles where nearly every clue feels like walking through sludge, but when reviewing the answers they don’t seem that difficult. As a result, this took me about 2 hours on and off and made me late for an appointment. My own fault for going on about yesterday how much I’d improved. Sigh.

    As mentioned above, maybe it was the longish (and difficult to decipher) anagrams. It didn’t help that I stuck “Cow” in for 3dn which completely threw me for the NW corner. (Was convinced this was another slang definition for chatter – “to cow”).

    FOI – 12ac “Kiev”
    LOI – 1dn “Iota”
    COD – 17ac “Steal the Show” (as I still couldn’t see it with the majority of checkers)

    Thanks as usual.

  11. – so it wasn’t just me. I hauled myself over the line in 15 minutes with a few bruises,

    FOI 21ac THE PITS

    LOI 15dn ESCORT

    COD 16dn BHUTAN

    WOD 1ac ITCHY FEET

    And only 10 respondents thus far!

  12. A shade under 30m for me so slowest solve ever I should think. 17a loi even though the athletes anagram went in pretty early – definition didn’t work for me. Loved 5d, not many checkers but couldn’t crack the anagram for ages. ITCHY FEET also slowed me down, so bravo Mara, impressive balancing of fair clues with clever wrong-footing.
  13. I feel a bit better about having just scraped in under my target 10 minutes, having read the rest of the comments. Tricky stuff, but nothing unfair.IOTA FOI, LOI ASOCIAL. 9:54. Thanks Mara and Curarist.
  14. So it wasn’t just me to find this tricky – over 20 minutes: I’ve done the big one in less. Spent far too long trying to make 1ac from IN THE CITY, and then couldn’t think beyond ‘forest’ at 8ac which was no help at all.
  15. I decided to solve on paper today with a few distractions at the time. I soon realised this needed my full attention.
    FOI was DIP. After that, as others have said, nothing was particularly easy. My last in were OMANI ( did not think of this as Asian) and EVADE; Eider and some form of Deirdre had dominated my (distracted) thinking.
    About 20 minutes for me. Agree with John Dun: tricky but nothing unfair.
    David
  16. 8:32.

    On the wavelength I suppose, if others found this hard. I wasn’t delayed by anything particularly, and 1.3 “phils” is a good time for me.

  17. LOI at 22 minutes was 4d EXTENT after a biffed ITCHY FEET. A very tricky offering from MARA indeed.
  18. Sadly DNF today. Could not get IOTA, ASOCIAL or TIE. Guessed EXAM and THICKET without getting the clues. A bit hard for a quick cryptic.
  19. This is not the first time a run of fairly straightforward QC puzzles, leading me to feel I’d improved massively, comes to end with a very tough one – leading me to conclude that I haven’t improved that much after all! At least I can now enjoy the tough ones, whereas previously much grumpiness would ensue.
  20. 24 minutes for me and very surprised to see others put it on the hard end of the scale because I just plodded through it – although suffering as per crispb in nodding off a bit.
    Helped by remembering Pretty and Omani etc. Slowed thinking 1a was anagram of In The City but could see Itchy after Yak went in.
    FOI Rifle
    LOI Chianti
    COD Revolting (I have used the phrase “we’re revolting” when as a deputation a team would try to question something – it was always a good way to defuse any unpleasantness)
    Thanks all
    John George
  21. Quite a tricky one from Mara to end the week. Handicapped myself by not being able to recall Iota quickly enough to help with 1 and 8ac, trying to make 4d into an anagram of Canvas, and wondering whether the first ‘Liz (E1R) was involved with what turned out to be the wrong sort of duck. Even so, I got within (RSM) shouting distance of a 30min solve, which seems respectable enough given other contributors’ comments. CoD to 24ac, Generally – as with many of Mara’s clues today, I had no idea what was going on until the crossers gave the game away. Invariant
  22. A challenging end to the week, coming in over my target time in 16.03. Struggled at the end with STEAL THE SHOW, EVADE (where I went down the feathery route) and ASOCIAL. But nothing felt unfair or overly obscure so hats off to Mara. COD to GENERALLY.
    Thanks for the blog.
  23. Finished in just over 12 minutes, which from the remarks above by some very seasoned solvers may not look too bad. But too many guesses and unparsed answers for comfort.

    Started poorly with 1a, which was clearly ITCHY FEET, but having thought that the Itchy bit was “half (H) in city unfortunately” I could not get how feet, the obvious rest of answer, came from “feel the need to get away”.

    Didn’t like 13a much either: max and most are not the same really. But again, it could not be anything else so in it went.

    Otherwise not obvious why I was not faster, especially once one sees Curarist’s excellent blog. Many thanks and a good weekend to all.

  24. Well I got there in the end but at 25 minutes (my target is 20) I had two left to complete. I had stupidly put Irani instead of Omani. When I looked back, I managed to finish in another 5 minutes, but I have to admit that there were several clues that I hadn’t completely parsed. I am very grateful to Curarist for sorting them all out and to Mara for a good workout! MM

    FOI: IOTA
    LOI: ESCORT
    COD: EX-TENT because there I hate camping!!!

  25. OK, so I stopped after 24 hours and did not actually finish. I had to look up ASOCIAL and I’d biffed EXAM and had to read your explanation before I “got” it. In general though it was much easier for me than 1523 so I’m not so gloomy now 🙂
  26. Completed at work on a Sunday, 25 mins, which is slow, but reading the comments its not too bad.

    LOI was exam.
    Cod extent.

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