Quick Cryptic 179 By Orpheus

Author   oliviarhinebeckPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
After a long hiatus here comes the office temp. Forgive the rush job. I don’t know if others had similar access problems. I rarely use the Times main puzzle site (I go via the Club) but of course for this I had to. I kept getting a silly message claiming I wasn’t logged in. The other 2 puzzles came up just fine. Another gripe to add to Jack’s long list. Obviously I was able to muscle it up in the end.

Across

1 COPRA. COP as in police constable. R.A. as in Royal Academician or artist. Crossword perennial. Which yields the definition which is the source of the oil.
4 CHASSIS. Framework of a vehicle. CHAS – short form of Charles. And SIS for sister.
8 RIPOSTE. A verbal comeback. POST = pole contained in R(hode) I(sland) and the E which is the last letter in ONE.
9 SHARE. Double definition. Another word for QUOTA. Also for the business end of a plough. Beating swords into ploughshares for example.
10 ARCHBISHOP. ARCH =chief. BISH = blunder. OP= work or opus. So we have the top prelate.
14 REALLY. First letter in E(ntries) inside RALLY or motor sport. Indeed yes.
15 VIOLIN. Anagram of OIL in VIN (French wine) for the fiddle.
17 COMMANDEER. Requisition is the definition. Deer are ungulates and the homophone sounds like common or ordinary.
20 PANDA. The first 2 letters in PARK are P and A.
22 STATION. Double def. Both the railway terminus and the position in life.
23 TESSERA. Mosaic tile. SET backwards. Then S for SON and ERA for TIME.
24 TREAT. Double def. You negotiate the terms of a treaty. And you go on a class trip with your school – which may or may not be a TREAT.

Down

1 CORK. Double def. Port in Ireland and bottle stopper.
2 PUPA. Puppy with an A on the end for the chrysalis part of insect development.
3 AUSTRALIA. Anagram of IT’S LAURA with another A.
4. CRECHE. Cree is the Native American holding CH for church which yields the baby-sitting arrangement.
5 ASS. P for PIANO drops off the mountain pass giving us the fool.
6 SEASHELL. SEA is the homophone for SEE as in notice. And shell is the ammo.
7 SWEEPING. S – first letter in SCHOOLBOY plus CRYING.
11 ITINERANT Anagram of IN TENT with RAI(N).
12 CRACKPOT Or loony using CRACK and POT.
13 GARMENTS GENTS (men) “clothing” i.e. surrounding ARM or “branch” yielding the attire.
16 ODESSA ODE = poem. Then SS for steamship. Plus an A giving us the port.
18 MINE. Double def. It can be a pit or a lethal device.
19 UNIT. U(niversity) plus TIN as in CAN reversed yielding the detachment.
21 ACE. As in super fabulous or terrific. First letter of Annapurna plus CE for Church of England.

18 comments on “Quick Cryptic 179 By Orpheus”

  1. Solved this after a visit to the dentist which involved the extensive use of a drill. That is my excuse for a slow, but correct, solve. Did not know the plough meaning of share. Only put in PANDA when I saw how the parsing went which led to my last in of ACE. Favourite was COMMANDEER although it was more of a groan than a smile when I saw it.

    Thanks for the blog Olivia.

    Edited at 2014-11-13 05:50 pm (UTC)

  2. I had never come across ungulate and I wonder how many of the target audience had.I think that tessera is out of place in this crossword and without any checking letters crackpot I would never have got.
  3. Hi Olivia, it’s nice see to a friendly face from the main puzzle and many thanks for the blog.

    This was definitely at the tough end for a quick cryptic and it would be interesting to know how many of the so called “target audience” would have completed it without cheats.

    It was a strange solve for me, with only a few across clues going in first pass, but then most of the downs went in quite readily. After that, just a steady work through, with the unknown TESSERA and TREAT causing problems. TESSARA was only put in with checkers in place and SERA clearly indicated. Did not know the first TREAT definition, but couldn’t think what else it could have been. Enjoyed 22c and 13dn.

    Still finding it strange to be at position 3 in the comments list instead of my usual last place 🙂

  4. Congrats on your emergency blog, O. 12 minutes for this one.

    Edited at 2014-11-13 07:12 pm (UTC)

  5. Thanks to all for the replies. I did a locum job because Cryptic Sue on the other puzzle left a message to say that Macavity, whose turn it was, had no broadband.

    TESSERA is definitely one to put in the memory bank. It must be a useful combo for setters because it crops up often. Sometimes they make reference to the Thomas Hardy heroine Tess of the D’Urbevilles which is a bit easier to spot than today’s more convoluted clue.

    TREATing can be retrieved because it’s what leads to things like the Treaty of Versailles ending WWI or NATO (N Atlantic Treaty Org.) in which opposing parties or allies “treat” with one another. Sometimes the more whimsical setters get sneaky and use “treaty” as an adjective to describe something that’s a pleasure.

    I quite agree that “ungulate” is obscure. I didn’t really bother with it and went on definition.

    The phrase from the King James version of the OT Isaiah about beating swords into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks is worth remembering for its great beauty. It’s inscribed into the U.N. HQ foundation stone, without too much to show for it unfortunately.

    P.S. Hope you’re recovered from the dentistry rubeculaw – sympathetic twinge here!.

    Edited at 2014-11-13 07:39 pm (UTC)

  6. Olivia, fully recovered tooth wise. Wallet will take a little longer to recover. Ploughshares has now gone into memory.
    1. Oops, let’s try again. I am confused about PANDA. The PA obviously come from PArk, but shouldn’t the clue also show how to get NDA?
  8. Well that’s only the second one I’ve finished without cheating ie referring to this blog because it wasn’t here when I did it at lunchtime. So I tried to cheat but couldn’t. Randomly I had no problem with tessera or ungulates. But I couldn’t parse all the answers.
    42 minutes including some break time.
    1. Congrats indeed! It takes time to throw away the crutches and every single one of us has been there, however proficient we may have become eventually. You’ve also touched on a recurring discussion as to whether these blogs should be time-lapsed so as to make it harder to sneak a peek. I think it would be a good idea. Except that unfortunately there are too many other ways to crib the answers on the net, or to post false times on the Club site (don’t get me started). Anyway, nice work.
      1. Not forgetting that for these puzzles the answers to individual clues are instantly are available via the “Check” button kindly supplied by the Times.
  9. 3 down. Australia is anagram of “it’s Laura” but there is a third “a” to be found in touring a!

    Edited at 2014-11-13 10:59 pm (UTC)

    1. Nice catch! Well it was a rush job but no excuses here. Blog corrected.

      Edited at 2014-11-13 11:06 pm (UTC)

  10. As part of the target audience I can confirm that I completed it without cheats. It was tough though and took a while.

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