Quick Cryptic 1564 by Wurm

Author   CuraristPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
Not sure what to make of this. A bit chewy in places because of some slightly stretched definitions. Can’t belive I didn’t get 20d immediately. Reasonably enjoyable overall, just over 8 minutes for me

Across

1 Monitoring body observe and follow closely (5-3)
WATCH-DOG –  WATCH + DOG. Not sure about the hyphen, my dictionary has that only as one word. Though many compound words were originally hyphenated e.g news-paper, so it’s probably ok.
6 White magic involving couple (4)
ITEM – Hidden word: whITE Magic
8 Wine: like it to be knocked back (4)
ASTI – AS + IT backwards
9 Actor, inept, has to be sacked (8)
THESPIAN – anagram (‘sacked’) of INEPT HAS
10 Sterilised wound looking neat (5-3)
CLEAN-CUT – CLEAN + CUT
12 Woman had an outhouse (4)
SHED – She’d
13 Stickler enraged and in bad mood (6)
PEDANT – Bad mood is PET, insert anagram (‘enraged’) of AND
15 Stab from Romeo in drama (6)
PIERCE – PIECE with R inside. Piece can mean a play.
17 Posh car with learner driver, in my opinion (4)
LIMO –  L + IMO (in my opinion in internet speak)
19 One having pension in the Loire, moving (8)
HOTELIER – anagram (‘moving’) of THE LOIRE. A pension is a type of hotel, obvs.
21 Flood defence breached by Norse god (8)
PLETHORA – Defence is PLEA, which works in the legal sense. Insert THOR
23 Composer drops in for meat slice (4)
CHOP – CHOPIN minus IN
24 See exercises for extended stride (4)
LOPE – LO (see) + PE (exercises)
25 Casual worker behind schedule establishes pattern (8)
TEMPLATE – TEMP + LATE

Down
2 Sailors love convoluted excuse (7)
ABSOLVE – ABS (sailors, AB = able seaman) + anagram (‘convoluted’) of LOVE
3 Punch a friend (5)
CHINA – CHIN + A
4 Party time for little Dorothy (3)
DOT – DO + T
5 Approaches snooker table but loses form? (4,2,3)
GOES TO POT – double definition
6 Deadlock that is about fool supporting MP (7)
IMPASSE – IE surrounding MP + ASS
7 English man raised in Dodge (5)
EVADE – E + DAVE backwards (‘raised’)
11 Court that condemned murderer (3-6)
CUT-THROAT – anagram (‘condemned’) of COURT THAT. Can’t help thinking that ‘condemned’ is an anagrind too far?
14 Preacher to lapse terribly (7)
APOSTLE – anagram (‘terribly’) of TO LAPSE
16 Heart-throb in bed generates smoke (7)
CHEROOT – HERO inside COT. ‘Smoke’ always means some type of cigar.
18 Digs in snow and ice? (5)
IGLOO – cryptic definition. ‘Digs’ meaning accommodation.
20 Number close enough? (5)
LOCAL – Now I got this but couldn’t parse it for a while, even though I of all people should have spotted it immediately. Its a double definition, the first short for local ANAESTHETIC, i.e. something that numbs. Durrr
22 Prepare to shoot excellent Frenchman (3)
AIM – AI + M (Monsieur)

49 comments on “Quick Cryptic 1564 by Wurm”

  1. At first I fancied that 9ac began with TREE in time honoured fashion, but Herbert Beerbohm was not starring. THESPIAN it was and my WOD.

    Like The Poisoner I was also just over 8 minutes and not too perturbed by the Wurm.

    FOI 1ac WATCH-DOG

    LOI 15ac PIERCE

    COD 19ac HOTELIER

    We’ve had rather a lot of 8ac recently!

    Edited at 2020-03-06 07:57 am (UTC)

    1. We have had a lot of ASTI, and this week we’ve also had TEMPLATE and IMPASSE. I sometimes wonder if the setters compete to set the best clue for a certain word.
  2. I was surprised at the hyphen at 1ac, too; and not pleased. GOES TO POT took a while, until I remembered the snooker term from a 15×15 (I don’t know from snooker). A brain freeze slowed me down at 23ac, as I couldn’t think of a 4-letter cut of meat beside loin. I was looking for the right sense of ‘number’–it’s been used again and again in the 15x15s–but it still took time. All in all, slower than I would have liked. 7:34.
  3. 10 minutes, but could have knocked at least a minute off that if I had entered IGLOO as soon as I thought of it instead of waiting for checkers to confirm it had to be the answer. I then lost another half-minute on the parsing before realising it was referring to THAT sort of ‘digs’.
  4. I flew through this until coming to a grinding halt in the SE, unable to think of “piece” for drama, or “hero” for heart-throb, or the right sense of “number” (even though you’ve fallen for this one before you great TWIT!). So ended up at 1.7K which would normally be very good but today can only be graded as a Decent Day.

    Lots of clever clues, liked CHOP and GOES TO POT in particular.

    FOI WATCH-DOG, LOI LOCAL, COD HOTELIER (brilliant)

    Thanks Wurm and curarist

    Templar

  5. A bit like the curates egg for me – too many tenuous definitions for a quickie. I remembered pet from a cryptic some years ago. Never heard it used in everyday conversation – maybe it’s a regional thing??? 20d is clever but because of the plethora of weak clues it tipped this into a 15 by 15 imo.
          1. Agh – I think you missed my point – I was suggesting that the clue turned it into a 15 x 15 standard rather than a quickie
                1. If easy = QC and hard =15×15, a difficult QC could be referred to as a 13×13 😉
                  1. OK I thought the quickie was always 13x 13 and the harder one always 15x 15
                      1. Thanks Horrid and Mr invariant Of course a 13 x 13 can be hard qc but I was simply suggesting that if it’s too hard it should be 15 x 15. It is only my opinion – I didn’t mean to rattle anyone 🙂
  6. I take pleasure in being the first contributor who didn’t manage a 10 second (or thereabouts) time. This was a real head scratcher for me and I slowed markedly after a fast start, finishing in the SE with CHOP (good clue), LOCAL (numb gets me every time) and AIM (I was diverted by ARM but couldn’t parse it). In the end, I took 3.5K and I have a feeling this is not going to be the longest time today. I liked PLETHORA, CLEAN-CUT, GOES TO POT and CHEROOT but thought IGLOO was a bit weak. A good Friday workout from WURM despite some stretchy definitions. Thanks to curarist, too. John M.

    Edited at 2020-03-06 09:50 am (UTC)

  7. After yesterday’s PB, back to the SCC today with a time just inside 20m. It’s funny how things turn out! Today my last four in were LOCAL, CHEROOT, EVADE and ITEM, all of which took far too long to get and then to parse. Good puzzle and blog though, with no complaints.
  8. …. So very little time to say any more than I thought this was a great puzzle! I loved it. Finished in about 12 – 14 minutes. Thanks so much to setter and blogger
  9. Wow, that is ambitious! Beyond The Valley of the Neutrinos?

    Edited at 2020-03-06 10:44 am (UTC)

    1. Oops! Clearly Wurm has scrambled my remaining grey matter. Or was it a test to check if anybody ever reads my posts? You passed….. John
  10. ….a WATCHDOG to arbitrate on whether there should or should not be a hyphen in various words. Usually it’s absent when I expect it, today it’s present when I don’t ! It certainly resulted in 1A not being my FOI.

    I argued with myself over “clean” and “clear” at 10A. I won the argument.

    A good enough time to breach the top 10 on the leaderboard before too many neutrinos foul it up.

    FOI ASTI
    LOI and COD IGLOO (also liked HOTELIER)

  11. After a nightmare yesterday with Mara, I thought today was going the same way, but got there after a lot of minutes. Hadn’t previously encountered “pet” or “number” as used here, so at least it was an educational slog. Also the list of potential anagrinds continues to expand remorselessly.
    Plymouthian
  12. It’s been a shocking week with serious brain glue in both the quickie and the 15×15, and today’s quickie was no better! Started off slowly and abandoned ship with one to go – 15a Pierce. As usual, Ithe answer was perfectly clear – I have no idea why I couldn’t see it!

    Some fun clues though – quite a few ticks in the margins. Goes to pot and Igloo were favourites. There has been lots of Asti recently – give me Cava any day 😊

    FOI Item
    COD Hotelier
    DNF in about 20 minutes (my giving up point)

    Thanks to Curarist and Wurm

    Bizarrely I finished the biggie today – no idea what’s going on!

  13. I was quicker than yesterday and finished only a minute behind Kevin so I’m scoring that as an excellent finish to the week. My FOI was ITEM, I was wrong footed by ‘pension’ trying to fit in a retiree related word and missed ‘digs’ meaning accommodation having guessed IGLOO from checkers. My LOI was CUT-THROAT purely because I had inadvertently typed in a wrong opening checker with CLEAN-oUT instead of CLEAN-CUT. Thanks all for your insights.
  14. I picked the wrong day to try and finish the QC quickly before an early dog walk.
    After 18 minutes I had to abandon the puzzle with four to solve. At least it wasn’t raining today;in fact beautiful sunshine here.
    On my return to the puzzle I got PIERCE, then CHEROOT then CHOP and finally LOCAL.
    As usual Wurm had caused me problems; but no complaints, an excellent puzzle. COD to LOCAL.
    Time 23:52. David
  15. This beginner found this one pretty straighforward except for a few unparsed. Not heard of pet for bad mood so PEDANT was my last in. CHEROOT took me a bit of staring at heart-throb before I thought of hero but otherwise the old brain was working well today.I got LOCAL but hadn’t twigged the other meaning of number! Having failed to do any of the hard yesterday I don’t think there is any comparison between these quick puzzles and the hard one. Still going to look at that one though for learning if nothing else.
    Thanks
  16. Reasonably straightforward with a few tricky ones to keep us on our toes.

    FOI: watch dog
    LOI: plethora
    COD: goes to pot

    1. Rowena – two Dachsunds – let me guess ‘Dackel und Teckel’?

      Edited at 2020-03-06 03:59 pm (UTC)

  19. 10:30.

    CHOP and LOCAL were my last two.

    No real reason for the sluggishness, just a tougher puzzle for me.

    Yes Rowena, a couple of pooches.

  20. Obscurantism like this puts me off cryptic crosswords, you shouldn’t have to learn a huge list of “definitions” that aren’t really definitions…
    1. I keep banging on about this too 🙂 Words which are never used in everyday English
      1. I had met Pet – “he’s in a right pet today”. I think it is a north of England dialect word and it may be connected to Petulant.

        OTOH I had not encountered Number = anaesthetic = local before – one to store away. Which is one of the joys of both this crossword and the excellent blogs as it is a rare week that I don’t learn new tricks.

        COD 21A Plethora, but only because it is a bit of a family joke:

        “The priest asked me to say a word at auntie’s funeral. I said Plethora. Thank you, he replied, that means a lot.”

        With apologies for that, and a good weekend to all

        Cedric

    2. Nice comment, anon, from contributor using a word I never heard of in my life!

      Edited at 2020-03-06 08:47 pm (UTC)

      1. Ah. But you maybe didn’t have my advantage of having a university set text of Professor E McSquared’s Original Fantastic and Highly Edifying Calculus Primer, wherein you will find the phrase, if I remember correctly, “Obfuscatory obscurantism, my little chickadee”.
  21. Well, that was quite a tricky end to the week. Didn’t get many on the first pass, and had no idea what was going on with several of the clues, but fortunately I had a few initial letters and managed to get a foothold. For a long time I thought 19ac was going to be my CoD, with the Loire nod to boarding arrangements (demi or otherwise) in France, but just in case I’m reading too much into it, I’ll plump for 23ac Chop instead. At 40mins, a slow but enjoyable solve. Invariant
  23. Everything clicked for me today and I completed this in a sub-kevin for the second Friday in a row – I can only imagine that next Friday I’m in for an almighty shock. Lots to enjoy but my favourites were HOTELIER and PLETHORA, with an nod to CHOP, but I think I’ve seen this before. Finished 7.24 with PIERCE.
    Thanks for the blog.
  24. Came to it late in the day and couldn’t crack the bottom. Spotted what number was up to but still couldn’t get it and guessed pedant but couldn’t parse. If only I’d done it 14 hours earlier with breakfast – it allmight have been so different!
  25. Late one for me but completed in around 45 mins. I enjoyed this even though it was a bit head scratching in places.

    Loved the “Local” clue – just didn’t see the “number” part (until I read the blog) although I have come across it in previous puzzles. Also DNK “Pet” = Bad Temper. This has been used as “favourite” quite a lot recently which is why I was confused at first.

    Thanks as usual.

  26. About an hour and a half – not too easy and failed to parse a few – but at least finished.
    Pet? Piece? Local?
    Will try and remember for future use!
    Nick

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