Quick Cryptic 186 by Orpheus

Author   mohn2Posted on Categories Quick Cryptic
The puzzle can be found here: http://feeds.thetimes.co.uk/timescrossword/20141124/357/

Thanks again to william_j_s for standing in for me 2 weeks ago while I was away.

I found this puzzle rather trickier than average, though I suspect that some of that was due to crossword fatigue from a marathon session over the weekend catching up on all the main cryptics from while I was on holiday. 20A, 21A, 22A, and 2D are all words that I rarely encounter outside of crosswords, 7D makes use of a distinction that I suspect many people might not have been aware of (until it was pointed out in another Quicky recently), 14D has some complex wordplay, and 19A has minimally helpful wordplay (though the word in question is not obscure). So quite a chewy one all told but I liked it.

Definitions are underlined.

Across
1 Animal‘s means of control – costly by the sound of it (8)
REINDEER – REIN (means of control) + DEER (homophone (by the sound of it) of dear (costly)).
5 First-class article about Mahler’s last song (4)
ARIA – AI (First-class) + A (article) around R (Mahler’s last, i.e. the last letter of Mahler)
8 Show off verse written by relative (5)
VAUNT – V (verse) + AUNT (relative). Perhaps most commonly encountered in the phrase “much vaunted”. This came up in the Daily Telegraph in December last year clued by the similar “Boast of very small relation”, however it doesn’t seem to have appeared in any Times puzzle since records blogging sites began, apart from a Mephisto last year.
9 Indicter, a person who employs about two hundred (7)
ACCUSER – A USER (a person who employs) around (about) CC (two hundred, in Roman numerals)
11 One who has taken vows? Not any, some say (3)
NUN – homophone (some say) of none (Not any)
12 Implant is not in centre of tree, surprisingly (9)
INSERTION – anagram (surprisingly) of IS NOT IN RE, with the RE coming from centre of tREe
13 Returning, encounters Eastern regard (6)
ESTEEM – reversal (Returning) of MEETS (encounters) + E (Eastern)
15 European residing in very pleasant Italian city (6)
VENICE – E (European) inside (residing in) V (very) NICE (pleasant)
18 Quite a source of news and comment – now and then! (9)
SOMETIMES – SOME (Quite) + TIMES (a source of news and comment – a reference to the paper itself)
19 Turkish commander going to and fro (3)
AGA – the wordplay here (going to and fro) simply tells you that the answer is a palindrome, meaning that you have to delve into your store of words for a three-letter palindrome meaning Turkish commander, plus with the checkers you’ll have A_A. At that point, you either know it or you don’t. 
20 Marsupial allowed to eat top of this plant part (7)
ROOTLET – ROO (Marsupial, i.e. a shortening of kangaroo) + LET (allowed) all around (to eat) T (top of this, i.e. the first letter of this). A rootlet is a small root.
21 Daggers bishop plunged into old priest (5)
OBELI – B (bishop) inside (plunged into) O (old) ELI (priest). An obelus (†) is a dagger symbol used in print, usually to refer to footnotes, with obeli being the plural. Eli was, according to the Books of Samuel, a high priest of Shiloh – he emigrated to Crosswordland many years ago, where it has been hard to avoid bumping into him at any and all religious functions ever since.
22 Old railway publicity that has its point? (4)
BRAD – BR (Old railway, i.e. British Rail) + AD (publicity, i.e. the short firm of advertisement), to give us “a small tapering nail with a side projection instead of a head” (Chambers), hence the slightly oblique definition (a nail has a point). It’s also the same brad as can be found in bradawl. British Rail was finally privatised in 1997 and had a somewhat checkered reputation in the UK, not least for the quality of its sandwiches, but I still have a soft spot for the “This is the age of the train” jingle (Jimmy Savile notwithstanding).
23 The kind to confront design of print (8)
TYPEFACE – TYPE (The kind) + FACE (to confront). Arial, for this blog.
Down
1 Income still invested in French way (7)
REVENUE – EVEN (still) inside (invested in) RUE (French way, i.e. the French word for street)
2 Put in vessel, I race up north (5)
INURN – I + reversal (up) of RUN (race) + N (north). An awkward-looking word that was the least familiar (to me) in the puzzle.
3 Recklessly altered, mint can become harmful (11)
DETRIMENTAL – anagram (Recklessly) of ALTERED MINT. A warning about GM crops?
4 Pass English Liberal going over part of church (6)
ELAPSE – E (English) + L (Liberal) + APSE (part of church)
6 Composer and Antarctic explorer in one (7)
ROSSINI – ROSS (Antarctic explorer) + IN + I (one). Sir James Clark Ross mapped a good chunk of the coastline of Antarctica between 1839 and 1843, in particular the section that was used decades later by Shackleton, Scott, and Amundsen in their various attempts to reach the South Pole. Among other things in that part of the world, the Ross Ice Shelf was named in his honour. Gioachino Rossini is perhaps best known for his opera The Barber of Seville, based on one of three plays by Pierre Beaumarchais in which the character Figaro appears – another of these plays was the basis for Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro.
7 King visiting Irish islands, or a Scottish one (5)
ARRAN – R (King) inside (visiting) ARAN (Irish islands). The Aran islands lie off the west coast of Ireland and give their name to a style of cable-knit jumper. The Isle of Arran lies off the west coast of Scotland and possesses an astounding number of interesting place names – Thundergay, Sannox, Pimmill, Blackwaterfoot, Slidderywater Foot, Largybeg, etc. You can’t beat Wikipedia for time-consuming distractions.
10 Grain: formerly old Tyneside mainstay (11)
CORNERSTONE – CORN (Grain) + ERST (formerly, perhaps more commonly seen in erstwhile) + O (old) + NE (Tyneside, i.e. North-East). A nice spot by the setter to break it down this way.
14 Much upset about mob breaking up lottery (7)
TOMBOLA – reversal (upset) of A LOT (Much) around (about) anagram (breaking up) of MOB
16 Divorcee given a pit to inspect (7)
EXAMINE – EX (Divorcee, i.e. ex-wife or ex-husband) + A MINE (pit)
17 Forge, initially, should mould iron to help you (6)
SMITHY – initial letters (initially) of Should Mould Iron To Help You
18 Press employee takes hour in identifying woody plant (5)
SHRUB – SUB (Press employee, i.e. short for subeditor) around (takes) HR (hour)
19 District accommodating new stadium, perhaps (5)
ARENA – AREA (District) around (accommodating) N (new)

26 comments on “Quick Cryptic 186 by Orpheus”

  1. This went in fairly smoothly, although 10d took a while, even though I had CORN; just didn’t pay enough attention to the clue, I suppose. 14d was a problem, too, but somehow TOMBOLA (which I don’t know the meaning of) came to mind.Didn’t know of Ross, either, but figured someone must have done something down there to get a sea named after him. British Rail–and BR should be kept in mind by solvers–always reminds me of a Beyond the Fringe monologue that includes “British Rail lavatories–[shuddering] British Rail lavatories! …” 6′
  2. 10 minutes for this, which definitely apes a main crossword vocabulary-wise in places. I’m not actually sure I’ve ever met INURN anywhere.

    SMITHY last in – cleverly hidden wordplay, I thought, and I at least was looking a verbal meaning at first.

    AGAS are better known these days for owning racehorses, of course. Many of us discovered we had mistakenly been calling them Arran sweaters when ARAN came up in a puzzle recently.

    Edited at 2014-11-24 03:48 am (UTC)

    1. If you were to visit an American undertaker’s–not that I recommend it–you’d be offered the choice of burial or cremation (no dumping in the Thames) with inurnment.
      1. Probably heard it in ‘Six Feet Under’ (which the wife and I watched for maybe a series on DVD a few years ago), but it obviously didn’t stick.
  3. 12 minutes but I felt there were a couple of things that probably shouldn’t be in a Quickie. INURN has already been mentioned, and 7dn would have had me completely baffled if it hadn’t been for the discussion about a recent 15×15 referred to immediately above.

    Edited at 2014-11-24 03:54 am (UTC)

  5. A game of two halves, as the footy pundits say. First read through resulted in around half going pretty much straight in. The second 50% took a long time, for all the reasons already mentioned.

    Had to take a punt on a couple which I simply did not know (BRAD and INURNED), but fortunately both were gettable from the rest of the clue.

    Took me an age to see TYPEFACE for some reason.

    COD to SMITHY – elegant surface and nicely deceptive.

  6. Definitely seemed a bit stickier than usual to me. It took me 20 minutes with 22 being my LOI a couple of mins behind the rest. Quite a few bits of vocab that I wouldn’t have expected to find in a QC – INURN, BRAD, ARAN & AGA. More of a Monday morning workout than I was expecting!
  7. Definitely quite a few clues here that would not have been out of place in the main paper cryptic. Just over 14 minutes for me, which included checking the dictionary to persuade myself that INURN was a real word.
  8. All clicked pleasingly once checkers in place.

    “old railway publicity” conjured up Brashaw’s – too much Michael Portillo, right word, wrong track . . .

    What a lovely word is Obeli. Would make an attractive plural for obelisk, to which it must be related.

    Philip

  9. Didn’t enjoy this one – too many clues that were just boring nuts and bolts wordplay, not that difficult to work out but once done generating a “meh” rather than that lovely lightbulb feeling that the best clues give you. eg ARRAN, ARIA, INURN – I didn’t find them too hard to get (even though INURN was a new word to me, pleased to see I wasn’t alone in looking it up to check it was real!) but got little satisfaction from them.

    Quite liked TYPEFACE and ESTEEM though.

    Hey ho, different solvers like different setters.

  10. The left hand centre mini grid should contain a group of cells that add up to 21 not 28 as printed in paper….doh…did any one else notice this?
    1. I think you must have misread it because the cells extend into the bottom mini grid to include a 7, making 28 in total.
  11. For those relative beginners such as myself, this was tricky. New words for me were INURN, BRAD and OBELI (this last one further depending on knowing that eli=priest). Fortunately I was vaguely aware of Ross and I know my Aran from my Arran. Got 10d, but I find NE = Tyneside a bit weak to be honest; I wonder what the Wearsiders would say?

    Having said all that I did enjoy it (particularly REVENUE and INSERTION) and managed to complete, but it must have been around the 40 minutes mark.

  12. A very well put together and therefore enjoyable crossword. Hats off to ye Ed for coming back with the correct Arran only a few weeks after the Quick and 15×15 discussion. COD to 14dn for the brain excercise.
  13. i thought that in a cryptic crossword clue there should be two ways to the answer? in 19 ac if you don’t know the word there is no other way to the answer
    daveG
    2. The main category of clues that doesn’t satisfy that general rule is cryptic definitions, which I think is one reason why they often meet with opprobrium (I remember one from the Guardian last year for that well-known word CALUMET). However I don’t recall seeing a clue like the one for AGA where you were simply told that the answer was a palindrome. As a fairly experienced solver I didn’t need to read past “Turkish commander” before thinking of AGA, but I can understand that it might have been baffling, if not annoying, for someone who hasn’t encountered the word before to be given such unhelpful wordplay.
  14. Definitely at the trickier end of the Quick Cryptics, with quite a few clues that, as ulaca and jackkt note are perhaps more in place in the 15×15. For me the clues were, as mohn2 suggests, 20ac, 21ac, 22ac and 2dn, but also 10dn, 14dn and 18dn.

    Enjoyed 17dn, not a word seen much these days, but they were at the heart of many villages and towns in times gone by 🙂

    2. As Bob said – I think the posting time is the local time of the blogger and today’s blogger is in the States, which explains why my posting time (from the UK) appears later than his even though I posted before him.
  16. Too difficult for me. I find no pleasure in obscurity; it’s the clever, neat, witty stuff that I find enjoyable.
    A user? Not sure I associate that with employing people.
    But Sometimes I did like.
    1. The clue says “a person that employs” so user seems fine in the sense that they could be employing a tool, say, rather than a person.

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