Quick Cryptic 1704 by Joker

Author   CuraristPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
I found this thoroughly enjoyable. Some fairly convoluted wordplay, but not too difficult. Describing a banjo as a ‘sort of guitar’ sounds like it might upset a purist somewhere. 6 minutes

Across

1 Miser upset about landlord’s political belief in the US (13)
REPUBLICANISM – anagram (‘upset’) of MISER set around PUBLICAN
8 Jack’s entering bar with old sort of guitar (5)
BANJO – BAN (bar) + O (old) with J (Jack) inside
9 Cowardly chap is after elegance and style (7)
CHICKEN – CHIC (elegance & style) + KEN (a chap)
10 Rubbish in Jerusalem rail terminus? (7)
STATION – TAT (rubbish) inside SION (Jerusalem)
11 Some panic here in specialised part of the market (5)
NICHE – hidden word: paNIC HEre
13 Pressure concerning young claimant to the throne (9)
PRETENDER – P (pressure) + RE (concerning) + TENDER (young, as in ‘tender age’)
17 Tons lacking power to make changes (5)
TWEAK – T + WEAK
19 A couple of people owe most, unfortunately (7)
TWOSOME – anagram (‘unfortunately’) of OWE MOST
20 Right pub in centre offering this item in crumble? (7)
RHUBARB – R (right) + BAR (pub) inside HUB (centre)
22 Leading pair abandoning the most doubtful visitor (5)
GUEST – Most doubtful is VAGUEST, lose the first two letters.
23 Enraptured current chaps score romantically (13)
SENTIMENTALLY – SENT (enraptured) + I (current) + MEN (chaps) + TALLY (score)

Down
1 Tough case of decay limiting public transport (6)
ROBUST – case of decay is ROT, with BUS inside
2 Peel ’n’ a pip has the makings of a fruit (9)
PINEAPPLE – anagram (‘has the makings of’) of PEEL N A PIP
3 Element oxygen many initially discovered in sea water (7)
BROMINE – O (oxygen) + M (‘many’, initially) inside BRINE
4 Absolutely certain company is into table tennis, strangely (13)
INCONTESTABLE – anagram (‘strangely’) of TABLE TENNIS + CO (company)
5 Six into articles about birds (5)
AVIAN – VI (six) inside A and AN (indefinite articles)
6 Annoy when spilling kir (3)
IRK – anagram (‘spilling’) of KIR
7 Got together outside popular university dance (6)
MINUET – MET outside IN (popular) + U
12 Hole in skin interrupting pink of the body (9)
CORPOREAL – PORE (hole in skin) inside CORAL (pink)
14 Period without a drink is difficult after start of drinking time (7)
DROUGHT – ROUGH (difficult) after D (start of ‘drinking’) + T (time)
15 Some fissure turned up as a source of life (6)
UTERUS – reverse hidden word: fisSURE TUrned
16 Good first appearance needed for the upper crust (6)
GENTRY – G + ENTRY
18 Fabric sounding like something driver should carry (5)
KHAKI – sounds like CAR KEY
21 Royal Navy is after universal vessel (3)
URN – U + RN

44 comments on “Quick Cryptic 1704 by Joker”

  1. Flew through this and then got thoroughly bogged down in the SW which took me to 22m. UTERUS looked like it ought to be a hidden but I failed to split ‘turned’ from ‘up’ so didn’t look hard enough at the words in reverse. Also even with ‘chaps score’ making 23a end MENTALLY and with the checking N I couldn’t get beyond ‘fundamentally’ which made no sense, although even once I remembered some basic physics and the S from UTERUS got me to SENT I wasn’t quite with the definition – loved the surface though. Also took a long time to get KHAKI which I’ve always, wrongly I admit, was a colour rather than a fabric but went straight in once I worked out I only needed one T for tons to give TWEAK. That whole corner was a mess!

    EDIT: It actually took me 23m.

    Edited at 2020-09-18 06:49 am (UTC)

  2. I got off to a flier with 1a and most of its offshoots going straight in but slowed down in the bottom half, where many of the clues had to be eked out of the wordplay. Getting RHUBARB allowed me to finally get the long anagram at 4d and it was steady going from there on in. Finished in 13.16 with LOI GENTRY and my favourite was KHAKI – not often I make a homophone my COD.
    Thanks to curarist
  3. … and not too challenging. I agree about khaki, but it’s also a colour. Having got TWEAK it couldn’t have been anything else.

    A good start to a sunny morning.

    Thank you, Joker and Curarist.

    Diana

    1. Yes it could have been Khadi, which is what I wrote. It is a hand-woven natural fibre made with cotton. But it only works if you invert the wordplay. It sounds less like something a driver should carry and more like someone who carries a driver. Time, about 45 minutes spread between the middle and morning watches.
  4. Very enjoyable. Top half went in quickly then slowed down. Couldn’t parse GUEST but guessed it was right. Struggled to get TWEAK then KHAKI (COD) dropped in. Under 40 minutes, so not so difficult for a Friday.
    Thanks Joker and Curarist. Have a good weekend everybody.
  5. 9 minutes. No problems. I wondered about BANJO but didn’t have to look far to find a dictionary defining it as ‘of the guitar family’.
  6. After a week of quick times for me, this one topped it off coming in at 9:12. Maybe I’m starting to actually improve… Enjoyed KHAKI as this is something I often think when I’m getting the car keys
    1. Yes, in response to the question “Where’s my car key?” I regularly reply “but it’s not khaki, it’s black” much to the irritation of my family who have heard it too often!!MM
  7. Enjoyed this- tricky here and there but perfectly fair. I knew it had to be corporeal but couldn’t understand why till I read the blog. Thanks curarist and of course joker
  8. I’m impressed by some of the times above. I found this tough and was thrown by deciding early that ‘case of decay limiting’ meant that 1d must be D****Y. Only when I finally saw that 1a was REPUBLICANISM did the penny drop. How the mind can get stuck on tramlines. I thought there were some very good clues – I liked BROMINE, BANJO, CORPOREAL, STATION, and AVIAN amongst others and chuckled at KHAKI. I only saw the hidden UTERUS late on, too. In the end I doubled most of my recent times at almost 25 mins. A salutory lesson rather than a satisfying Friday but thanks to both. John M.

    Edited at 2020-09-18 11:28 am (UTC)

  9. I was another who thought 1d must be D****y, and then, with 1ac in place, changed my mind to R***dy, so not a great start. In fact, I only got 1d near the end by assuming the clue contained another misprint and read cause for case. My other hold up was the 17ac/18d combination, where Tweak took a long time – I knew I had next to no chance of finding a fabric from a homophone clue without the first letter. North of 27mins, so a sluggish end to the weak. Invariant
  10. Nice to stop the clock on a date which was very familiar. This is seems to be my average time, and this puzzle from Joker was pleasingly paced.

    Unlike others, I did not see 1A early, instead going for the more obvious anagram or “Peel n a Pip” as FOI. For newer solvers, any time you see obscure wording like this it is a hint that it must be an anagram.

    I could not parse 10a (SION=Jerusalem, one to remember), or 22a, GUEST was biffable with first and last letters in. So thanks Curarist.

    I got my Roman Numerals mixed up at 5d, so was looking for AXIAL, AXIOM etc. I also was tempted by the 15 letter potential anagram “current chaps” at 23A. “Enraptured” is no more obscure than many as an anagram indicator (e.g. “harry” from last week). Nice misdirection from Joker.

    LOI TWEAK as I was sure I was looking for a 6 letter word, then dropping a P for “lacking power”.

    KHAKI went in quite quickly as I remember it from some ancient book of riddles.

    COD UTERUS for tidy definition as “source of life”

  11. I was very quick to get going and had everything bar 15d in 10 minutes. I then stared at it for ages looked in vain for a hidden and decided my best bet was STORKS. Very annoying but well done to Joker for an excellent puzzle.
    Good to see GENTRY again, a reminder of the Preston North End away fans who wear bowler hats and collars and ties to one away fixture a season.
    Now I’m going to listen to The Pretender by Jackson Browne to calm down.
    David
  12. Another excellent puzzle from Joker, but fairly tough I thought. After going through all the acrosses I only had NICHE and TWOSOME plus the PRE from 13a. I had thought of RHUBARB and GUEST but couldn’t see how either of them worked so didn’t put them in until I had checkers. I never did properly parse them. Thankfully I had more luck with the downs and eventually everything went in. Time was 41:51 so quite a way off my 30 minute target, but at least that meant I had time to appreciate some great clues. I liked KHAKI a lot, but COD goes to STATION. LOI 16d. Thanks to Joker and Curarist
  13. That was a super fun puzzle. Apart from SENTIMENTALLY, which was a bit mechanical, I enjoyed pretty much every clue. What a triumph of setting.

    FOI REPUBLICANISM, LOI & COD KHAKI (proper snort of pleasure when the penny dropped). On the leaderboard Kevin was 7:31 so that’s 1.2K and an Excellent Day.

    Many thanks Joker and curarist.

    Templar

  14. I found this tough but enjoyable, so was pleased to come in just under 30 mins. Main hold up was the SE corner, with 14dn “Drought”, 16dn “Gentry” and 22c “Guest” all taking longer than they should. I never did parse the latter, but couldn’t see what else it could be (likewise with 8ac).

    Luckily I managed to get the longer clues of 4dn “Incontestable” and 23c “Sentimentally” early.

    FOI – 2nd “Pineapple”
    LOI – 16dn “Gentry”
    COD – 18dn “Khaki” – made me smile.

    Thanks as usual.

  15. ….when I remembered Sion (or Zion as Boney M had it in “Rivers of Babylon”).

    Nice puzzle – I can forgive Joker for the BANJO.

    FOI BANJO
    LOI UTERUS
    COD DROUGHT
    TIME 3:52

  16. I can’t remember any of this other than KHAKI, which I recall from ages ago on a 15×15, when I discovered that you guys pronounce it differently: for me (us over here), it’s ‘kacky’. 7:31, as templar notes.
  17. I found this the easiest for many a day with a sub-10 finish, and almost a clean sweep top to bottom and left to right. With 1a appearing immediately I read the clue, I was off to a good start, and the rest followed almost seamlessly. LOI was GUEST. Thanks Joker and Curarist.
  18. This seesaw week has bounced back again with today being A Very Good Day at about 30 seconds slower than Kevin.

    I always enjoy Joker’s puzzles and this was no exception – I rather like clues where you build a word like SENTIMENTALLY (I can’t remember the correct term), and ticks also went alongside PRETENDER, PINEAPPLE and MINUET.

    FOI Republicanism
    LOI Tweak
    COD Khaki
    Time 8 minutes (I’ve given up measuring the seconds)

    Many thanks Joker for more fun and Curarist for the blog

  19. I was steady away for this solve, with a raised eyebrow at 8a. IRK was my FOI and I finished with DOUGHT. I typed SENTIMENTALLY in increments as I read through the clue. Enjoyable puzzle. 9:45. Thanks Joker and Curarist.
  20. Top half and long clues fairly quick, but I was slow to see Uterus, then got Tweak, LOI.

    Liked Khaki (which often appears in Codewords and GK crosswords). Failed to parse Guest and Drought, and Station. Must remember TAT = rubbish.

    FOI Robust then Republicanism which helped a lot.

    Thanks all, as ever.

    Edited at 2020-09-18 11:40 am (UTC)

  21. Enjoyed this a lot, especially KHAKI, which made me giggle. Like some others here, in 17 across, I spent some time trying think of a word meaning tons that I could take a P from to mean “to make changes”…very nice clue. Took me ages to see UTERUS, even though, once I’d seen it I couldn’t remember why I hadn’t been able to see it before. I think 5 down is pretty clever too. Actually, I think they’re all great clues today. But can someone tell me why “i” = “current”? Is it an electrical current thing? Thanks to Curarist for an excellent blog and thanks, too, to Joker for a great puzzle.
    1. Yes, Louisa – electric current.
      Wikipedia says: ‘The conventional symbol for current is I, which originates from the French phrase intensité du courant (current intensity).’
      The unit of current is the Ampère (A). Apparently the I symbol was used by André-Marie Ampère, after whom the unit of electric current is named, in formulating Ampère’s force law (1820).
      I didn’t know that so thanks. 🙂
      John

      Edited at 2020-09-18 12:58 pm (UTC)

      1. Every time “current” comes up, it fills me with happy memories of high school physics. V=IR, P=IR^2 etc etc and the ohms law triangle of V, I and R
      2. Every time “current” comes up, it fills me with happy memories of high school physics. V=IR, P=IR^2 etc etc and the ohms law triangle of V, I and R
  22. Fairly smooth solve today coming in at around 18 mins but with several interruptions – probably around 15 mins solving time. A very enjoyable puzzle full of fine clues and with nothing particularly obscure.

    FOI – 1ac REPUBLICANISM
    LOI – 18dn KHAKI
    COD – a toss up between 18dn KHAKI for making me laugh and the very well hidden 15dn UTERUS.

    Thanks to Joker for the puzzle and to Curarist for explaining a couple which I hadn’t stopped to parse.

  23. About 13 mins, LOI robust.
    Bit tired today, made the mistake of having a large whisky at the end of a meal, and woke up with heartburn at 3am.

    COD chicken. Station was unparsed.

    thanks

  24. At 6:21 I thought, though it turned out to be DNF, as I can’t spell INCONTESTABLE, even with the anagrist to help.

    Oh well!

  25. Thanks to curarist because most of this went in without full parsing, and I think if I’d insisted on full understanding before pressing Submit, I’d’ve had a much higher time.

    As it is, I am happy to have slightly outpaced Kevin and Vinyl today, as they are my benchmarks for being of sound mind.

  26. I was heading for twenty minutes as I hadn’t the vaGUEST idea what 22ac was all about! My LOI

    FOI 1ac REPUBLICANISM or what’s left of it.

    COD 20ac RHUBARB RHUBARB RHUBARB

    WOD 12dn CORPOREAL

    Back to square one!

  27. We solved most of this fairly quickly until reaching the SW corner. Painstakingly worked out 23a, although we did not like sentimentally for romantically. Failed to see the hidden at 15d, so a poor finish for us. Thanks Joker and for the blog.
  28. Late today…
    …after a lovely day out in the ☀️ which is forecast to disappear for several days but meteo.fr is often wrong!
    Great puzzle which I solved on my iPad on the balcony in 16 minutes, helped by a glass of chilled wine.
    So many wonderful clues including TWEAK, ROBUST, DROUGHT and STATION. COD has to be KHAKI for making me laugh out loud.
    I didn’t parse GUEST or SENTIMENTALLY so thanks to Curarist for the helpful blog and also to Joker for a great end to the week.
    1. I have unspammed your second go, Gill. It’s the ref to metro.fr that put you into spam. Any full stop not followed by a space will have that effect.
  29. … and all green in 10 minutes, though not all parsed as I never saw Vaguest in 22A, and bunged in Sentimentally for 23A as my LOI without working out the moving parts.

    Otherwise all relatively plain sailing, though I was initially slightly unsighted by the spelling Sion for the much more usual Zion in 10A. 18D Khaki is very familiar to anyone who does the Times’s Codeword puzzle – it is their go to word with two Ks!

    COD 17A Tweak for its misdirection; I was one of several who spent some time looking for a word meaning Tons that I could take a P out of!

    Many thanks to Curarist for the blog, and a good weekend to all.

    Cedric

  30. Another great puzzle with lots of humour. We finished in a very satisfying 14 minutes. Thanks Joker!

    FOI: pineapple
    LOI: corporeal
    COD: khaki (a lol moment)

    Thanks to Curarist for the blog

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