Quick Cryptic 1674 by Pedro

Author   CuraristPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
Nine minutes for me, probably towards the harder end of the spectrum. 1ac and 3dn held me up. 8 dn made me smile.

Across

1 See both wandering into shops, identifying store for a later date (8)
MOTHBALL – anagram (‘wandering’) of BOTH inside MALL (shops)
5 Female with weapon in ranch? (4)
FARM – F + ARM
9 Strength is recalled not having been used? (5)
SINEW – IS backwards + NEW
10 Keen character at the end showing envy after Judge departs (7)
ZEALOUS – Z (character at the end) + JEALOUS minus J for judge
11 Fast-moving pedestrian waves and runs beyond girl (6-6)
ROLLER-SKATER – ROLLERS + KATE + R
13 Analyse speed of light, getting astronomical distance (6)
PARSEC – PARSE + C
15 A great many nod off when presented to bridge team (6)
DOZENS – DOZE + N + S (north and south who are a team in bridge)
17 Unprecedented cut in money received by story (12)
INCOMPARABLE – INCOM{E} + PARABLE
20 Wrecked ship? Curiously intact when one’s boarded (7)
TITANIC – anagram (‘curiously’) of INTACT + I
21 Silly how love and hate both end (5)
INANE – Both words end IN AN ‘E’
22 I will leave New Zealand people, returning to travel (4)
ROAM – MAORI backwards minus I
23 Experts favoured limiting constant expectation (8)
PROSPECT – PROS + PET with C inside

Down
1 Chaos seen in Times Square (4)
MESS – hidden word: tiMES Square
2 Brown to depart for a dance (5)
TANGO – TAN + GO
3 Risk enveloping crazier fellows in confusion (12)
BEWILDERMENT – risk is BET, with WILDER MEN inside
4 Point in Cornwall where you’ll see reptile (6)
LIZARD – Double definition
6 A holy man enthralled by E European religious emissary (7)
APOSTLE – A + ST (holy man) inside POLE
7 Be suspicious of some nonconformist rusticated (8)
MISTRUST – hidden word: nonconforMIST RUSTicated
8 To support Conservative in boast is wrong as a reassertion of standards (4,2,6)
BACK TO BASICS – BACK + anagram (‘wrong’) of BOAST IS with C inside.
12 Small book producer, one doing a run (8)
SPRINTER – S + PRINTER
14 Cheese: actor appearing upset with it (7)
RICOTTA – anagram (‘upset’) of ACTOR + IT
16 Impudence, sitting on mother’s last item of crockery (6)
SAUCER – SAUCE (impudence) + R (last of ‘mother’)
18 Permission to go (5)
LEAVE – double definition
19 Run and hide (4)
PELT – double definition

27 comments on “Quick Cryptic 1674 by Pedro”

  1. Typical Pedro – quite a few easy clues and then the hard/quirky ones slowed me to a crawl. I thought I’d cracked it when BEWILDERMENT finally emerged but then was held up by BACK TO BASICS until ROLLER SKATER went in (why was I fixated on roller coaster even though it didn’t fit?). The SE corner took me ages. I liked MOTHBALL and INANE even though it took nearly as long to see the latter as did PROSPECT and my LOI PELT. Totally thrown by this one, taking 30 mins…. Thanks to Pedro for a lesson and to curarist for his blog. John M.
    P.s. Why am I the first to post? Did others find it hard, too?

    Edited at 2020-08-07 06:51 am (UTC)

    1. If you look at the time-line on curarist’s blog it went up only a few minutes before your comment so the usual early commenters won’t have seen it yet.
      1. Thanks. I thought it was odd. Ah well, my poor performance is at the top of the pile. Drat.
  2. Chewy in places, as I expect from PEDRO, and I was relieved that PARSEC has finally stuck in my memory after proving very difficult in previous crosswords (although I still needed all the checkers!). I made steady progress around the grid, finishing with PELT and PROSPECT in 12.56. I enjoyed MOTHBALL but my CoD goes to PELT for it’s simplicity.
    Thanks to curarist
  3. Back over 20 to end the week but all green again. Only 4 on the first pass. Ended up with the four letter words both with two checkers – took a while to find those four letters even thoigh we’ve had PELT similarly clued recently – took me a while to reject SWIK I’m not proud to say (even I knew it couldn’t be SIWK). Needed the blog for PROSPECT. Pleasing to have parsed parse in PARSEC – thanks to Han Solo. Enjoy the sun – see you Monday.
  4. I didn’t find this too difficult, but was held up by ICOMPARABLE, BEWILDERMENT and MOTHBALL untill I had the crossers. They were my last 3 in. MESS was my FOI. 8:33. Thanks Pedro and Curarist.
  5. I thought this was tricky but was quite pleased with my progress until I got to my LOI 13a. Despite an extensive alphabet trawl I threw in the towel with 15 minutes on the clock. PARSEC….really should have got that one in retrospect! Thanks Pedro and curarist.
  6. I was enjoying a welcome return to form this week with Mon-Thu puzzles solved within my target 10 minutes, but this one required 13 minutes.

    Like oldblighter I was fixated on ‘roller coaster’ for a while and even though it didn’t fit, once I had that in mind it was hard to think past it. MOTHBALL, SINEW and BEWILDERMENT all combined to slow me down in the NW corner.

  7. Back after a nice holiday on the south coast. Felt this was tough and so was pleased to finish in 13:55.
    Last two were BACK TO BASICS and ROLLER SKATER. Was very pleased to derive PARSEC, a word I must remember.
    Excellent puzzle with some testing but fair clues. David
  8. Inside 13 minutes for the fastest solve of the week, but that didn’t make it easy. My LOI was 1a after BEWILDERMENT fell. Liked INANE and PARSEC. Thanks Pedro and Curarist.
  9. Didn’t find this too bad, although I ended up with a DNF because, after 35:20, I was keen to stop the clock and decided to risk leaving my LOI, 19d, as TEST (figuring you can have a test run of something and the outer coat of something is called a test – except, on looking it up, I think that only refers to seeds and it seems to always be “testa”). Of course, I shouldn’t have been so eager and looked for an alternative, but I knew run has so many meanings (I now see that it has even overtaken “set” as the word with the most meanings – 645 in the OED that will be published in 2037) and I could be in for a long alphabet trawl with _E_T to work with. Last in apart from that was 17a as I was looking for something ending in “fable” for a while. 21a would also have stumped me had I not come across it a few days ago in the 15×15 I think. As it was it was a write in. COD to 3d. Thanks as usual to Curarist and Pedro
  10. … quite the three pipe problem in fact. All finished in just over 15 minutes but 10A Zealous biffed (couldn’t be anything else once I had the Z) and LOI 19D Pelt only falling to an alphabet search. I am not good at short words with common letters as the checkers!

    But that is still faster than I usually manage for Pedro so a Good Day. COD 21A Inane, a very clever clue.

    Thanks to Curarist for the blog and a good weekend to all. No bonus Saturday puzzle though this time – roll on next weekend!

    Cedric

  11. A bit too hard for me today. DNK PARSEC, failed to get SAUCER, PELT and PROSPECT. Hope for better on Monday.
  12. Missed Mothball and hence Bewilderment. DNK Parsec. Looked up Sinew.
    Oh well.
    Pleased to have got most of the rest but it was a struggle.
    Thanks as ever.
  13. A Poor Day today. I really struggle to get on Pedro’s wavelength at the best of times, and felt some of these clues were borderline biggie standard – 1a, 13a and 8d in particular. It’s not so much fun when you feel like it’s like pulling teeth! I was just about to abandon ship with one to go after 20 mins, when I had a PDM and managed to finish with all parsed. Phew.

    FOI Mess
    LOI Parsec
    COD Parsec
    Time 21 minutes

    Thanks both, as ever

  14. After 30mins was stuck on 15ac “Dozens” (just couldn’t see it) and then faltered on 21ac “Inane”. I now know why – I had “Bolt” for 19dn which seemed sensible at the time.

    Apart from that, enjoyed the rest with some good, challenging clues, particularly 1ac “Mothball”, 3dn “Bewilderment” and 17ac “ Incomparable”.

    FOI – 5ac “Farm”
    LOI – dnf
    COD – 8dn “Back to Basics” – couldn’t help but think of John Major.

    Thanks as usual.

  15. 13 mins, held up only by mothball, and the excess see.

    Liked parsec and roller skater.

  16. Some nice, straightforward clues including APOSTLE, RICOTTA and TITANIC.
    INANE was in Tuesday’s 15×15 as crispb has mentioned (‘stupid way Cymbeline ends’) and luckily had stuck in my mind.
    I puzzled over PARSEC as I didn’t know ‘c’ for the speed of light and 8D BACK TO BASICS took me a long time to unravel.
    COD to INCOMPARABLE and WOD to BEWILDERMENT which were both very pleasing.
    Thanks to Pedro and Curarist.
  17. nice puzzle to finish the week, with DOZENS my LOI.
    just under 7 minutes
    thanks blogger and rotter
  18. ….and never really got a foothold anywhere. My slowest solve for quite some time.

    FOI FARM
    LOI MOTHBALL
    COD INCOMPARABLE
    TIME 6:51

  19. expecting to see people saying it was a puzzle of average difficulty, only to see that I am in the exceedingly rare position of being sub-Phil with a time of 6:33.

    Just goes to show how much influence wavelength has on these puzzles.

    PELT was my LOI, and held me up a little, as the crossing letters weren’t that friendly.

  20. The sun is shining and, as we tried to keep cool, we thoroughly enjoyed this tasty morsel from Pedro. Some excellent clues of various constructs provided us with great entertainment for 18 minutes.

    FOI: farm
    LOI: parsec
    COD: inane (really clever – loved it)

    Thanks to Curarist for the blog and to Pedro for the QC.

  21. Don’t have a time today as my solving was subject to multiple interruptions, however it was definitely slow going. 13ac PARSEC rang a faint bell but I had to look it up to check its meaning. Like Vinyl I got hung up with trying to work fable into 17ac until the penny dropped and I spent quite a long time on this and 3dn which were my last two. A tough one I thought.

    FOI – 5ac FARM
    LOI – 17ac INCOMPARABLE
    COD – 21ac INANE – a real lol moment

  22. Similar experience to many others. A mistype at the end of saucer made 23ac, unnecessarily, LOI. 13 minutes.
  24. I was taught that “envy” was the discontented or resentful feeling aroused when thinking of the possessions of others, including the desire to possess them (covetousness), whereas “jealousy” was a feeling about our own possessions when we do not wish them to be shared with or possessed by others. I suppose usage has blurred the distinction. Anyway I got all except mothball. Thanks to Pedro and curarist.

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