Quick Cryptic 196 by Joker

Author   mohn2Posted on Categories Quick Cryptic
The link from the Times site is correct, though the URL numbering seems to have taken a leap. If you’re having problems, the puzzle can be found at: http://feeds.thetimes.co.uk/timescrossword/20141208/382/

I thought this puzzle was of average difficulty, with no obscure words and the only slightly involved wordplay to be found in 8A and 12D. No major quibbles but nothing that really grabbed me either.

Definitions are underlined.

Across
1 Not having enough space, set up a tent across river (7)
CRAMPED – CAMPED (set up a tent) across R (river). This appeared in the main cryptic in January of last year clued via “Overcrowded in tents pitched around river”.
5 Load vehicle and set off (5)
CARGO – CAR (vehicle) + GO (set off)
8 Tree exuding badly, splitting half of bark (7,6)
WEEPING WILLOW – WEEPING (exuding) + ILL (badly) inside (splitting) WOW (half of bark, i.e. half of bowwow). Quite a complicated construction here, though I must admit I guessed the answer from the inital W and the enumeration.
9 New-fangled lip test for saliva (7)
SPITTLE – anagram (New-fangled) of LIP TEST
10 Insects are often found trapped in this traffic light (5)
AMBER – double definition, the first referring to the fossilized tree resin that does a great job of preserving insects that came to a sticky end millions of years ago
11 Buy tea blend offering quality that appeals (6)
BEAUTY – anagram (blend) of BUY TEA
13 Metropolitan Opera initially is in competition with films (6)
MOVIES – MO (Metropolitan Opera initially, i.e. the initial letters of Metropolitan Opera) + VIES (is in competition with). The Met was where I saw the only opera (Madame Butterfly) and ballet (The Nutcracker) I’ve ever seen in my life – I fell asleep during both (though without snoring or drooling), but I’ll blame my workload at the time for that rather than worry that I’m actually a Philistine.
15 Start to tax one who receives the estate of those people (5)
THEIR – T (Start to tax, i.e. the initial letter of tax) + HEIR (one who receives the estate)
16 Source of fruit or vegetable (7)
ORCHARD – OR + CHARD (vegetable). Chard is one of many foodstuffs that I’m on nodding terms with in Crosswordland but in real life wouldn’t have recognised if it was literally served to me on a plate. For some reason, I thought it was similar to a turnip – a visit to Google Images just put me right.
19 Broadcasting band with great rate of repetition (4,9)
HIGH FREQUENCY – double definition
20 Tall and thin? Wanting lots of food’s not good (5)
REEDY – gREEDY (Wanting lots of food) without the g (not good). This cropped up in Friday’s main cryptic clued by “Shrill, grasping Head has departed” (and, like here, was the bottom left across clue).
21 Treatment of those people about criminal charge (7)
THERAPY – THEY (those people) around (about) RAP (criminal charge). Note that in this case the “of” is merely a link word, unlike in 15A.
Down
1 Royal regatta town is intimidating, it’s said (5)
COWES – homophone (it’s said) of cows (is intimidating). Cowes (on the Isle of Wight) hosts quite a famous regatta but I’m struggling to find any obvious references to it being a royal regatta (as opposed to, say, Henley). Still, I imagine any non-sailors will have a fairly short list of regattas in their memory banks, one of which is likely to be Cowes.
2 Emblem of the US representing a cleaner image (8,5)
AMERICAN EAGLE – anagram (representing) of A CLEANER IMAGE. The dictionaries equate the American eagle with the bald eagle, though it’s the latter name that seems to be overwhelmingly used on the web.
3 Spot beer, getting in round (5)
POINT – PINT (beer) getting in O (round). Note that “get in” can be used either to indicate enclosure (in the sense of entering) or, as in this case, insertion (in the sense of gathering).
4 Some deride Greek as an academic qualification (6)
DEGREE – hidden (Some) in deriDE GREEk
5 US city elegantly fashionable in the past (7)
CHICAGO – CHIC (elegantly fashionable) + AGO (in the past)
6 Curiously un-libertarian patriotic song (4,9)
RULE BRITANNIA – anagram (Curiously) of UN-LIBERTARIAN. Nice anagram – the web seems to suggest that it’s at least 20 years old but I don’t think I’ve seen it before. “Rule Britannia” was composed by Thomas Arne, Crosswordland’s composer-in-residence.
7 Where nurses work so as to make progress (7)
ONWARDS – (some) nurses work ON WARDS. The definition is quite a wordy offering but, if substitution tests are your thing, if you “go onwards” then you “go so as to make progress”.
11 More aggressively masculine slaughter (7)
BUTCHER – double definition. This was clued very similarly in Friday’s Quicky as “More aggressively masculine tradesman?” In the (possibly dim and distant) past, the editor of the main cryptic did not allow the same word to appear twice as an answer within a short period of time unless the clues were completely different, the obvious reason being that second time around the answer is something of a freebie (assuming you did the puzzle in which it previously appeared). Of course, not everyone will regard getting a freebie as a bad thing.
12 Careful with money – three-fifty and no payment returned (6)
THRIFTY – THRee-fIFTY without the eef (no payment returned, i.e. without fee backwards)
14 Time to follow fashions avoiding indecency (6)
MODEST – T (Time) after (to follow) MODES (fashions)
17 Initially coarse and unrefined? (5)
CRUDE – C (coarse) + RUDE (unrefined). I will call this an extended definition clue – I don’t consider it a true &lit because the “Initially” isn’t part of the definition, only part of the wordplay.
18 Rather ironically appearing regularly in dirty plays (5)
DRYLY – alternate letters (appearing regularly) in DiRtY pLaYs. If I were to write this, I would probably spell it “drily”, though the dictionaries have both.

19 comments on “Quick Cryptic 196 by Joker”

  1. This went in quite quickly, although as almost always, speed was bought at the expense of parsing, as with WEEPING WILLOW and AMERICAN EAGLE. I liked the irony of the CHICAGO clue: ‘chic’ is not a word one associates with the city. Back in the 19th century, when Chicago had become the 2d largest city in the US, a local booster was bragging that they had whatever New York had plus; he admitted that they didn’t have much culture, “but when we get some, we’ll make it hum.” 4:50.

  3. Straightforward and fun to solve. I liked THEIR as a definition and THEY as wordplay.

  4. Quick time for me today although held up a bit in the bottom right with MODEST last in and ORCHARD my favourite.

    Count me as another who did not parse WEEPING WILLOW.

  5. My fastest time to date, and I suspect that’s about as fast as I can write them in. 1a went straight in, as did the four downs leading off it, so I already had the first four checkers in place by the time I got to 8a. I read the first word of the clue and wrote in the answer. I then spent a few seconds pondering the wordplay, saw WEEPING/exuding but that was all, so I moved quickly on.
    I also thought it very odd to have two of Friday’s clues – BUTCHER & REEDY – reproduced so quickly and in such a similar way. Surely the editor should have picked up on this?

    Edited at 2014-12-08 09:44 am (UTC)

  6. A much much easier one than most of last week’s offerings. HOWEVER. The iPad app has changed – the form of the crossword today was the same as it is in Sundays. I hate it. It doesn’t time you, it doesn’t say well done at the end. It’s small and fiddly and rubbish and I’d like the old format back please. Does anyone know to whom I should complain?
  7. Incidentally despite my fears I was going backwards last week, I had my best ever Everyman in the observer on Sunday – I usually finish eventually but yesterday I finished in record time, before leaving for mass (and we go to a ridiculously early mass). I expect it will turn out to have been an unusually easy one, but still. Restored my confidence a bit.

    I do wish the times ipad people would take a leaf from the Graun app’s way of doing crosswords. In every other respect the times app is better but for crosswords the Graun is infinitely superior.

  8. Quick and if I’m honest a bit dull. Annoying to have BUTCHER when it was used only a few days ago with more or less the same clue. CHICAGO is an ancient cliche of a clue, I remember the thrill of getting it when I was 15, which is itself a long time ago, only for my Latin master (who devoted one period a week to teaching us crosswords) to tell me that he remembered it well from his own youth! Oh well – let’s call it patina. I thought the clue for WEEPING WILLOW was desperately artificial.

    I liked ORCHARD very much though, and ONWARDS.

    Thanks for the blog.

  9. Handle dobree49. Thought this was the easiest of the last week. First I have ever finished. I note the comment of the person who said it was dull and he remembers one clue from when he was 15. But for those of us who are new to crosswords and have not been doing them since the age of 15 this level is great to help us understand the process. Thank you again bloggers
  10. Used the ipad app so no precise time but think it was about 10 minutes which would be a record for me. Have to say that I found it pretty easy, which is nice but unusual for me.

    Thanks to the bloggers – it is down to your efforts I can do these at all.

  11. 🙂 Just 20 minutes or so. LOI ORCHARD and MODEST. Off to try todays grown-up crossword now as the blogger above says “If they had put this puzzle in for the Quickie, no one would have complained.”
    1. Just seen your comment on the main cryptic blog – don’t be disheartened! The blogger may well have found the puzzle very easy, but there’s such an unquantifiable “wavelength” element to solving that the only way to generalise about a puzzle’s level of difficulty is in the aggregate. Looking at the leaderboard on the Crossword Club together with the comments on the main cryptic blog, I would say the consensus is that today’s main cryptic is slightly easier than an average main cryptic – which would still put it at (or beyond) the hard end of the spectrum for Quickies. So don’t be disheartened – it was by no means the equivalent of a Quicky for most people!
      1. Thanks for the kind words. The good news is that I got as far with that main puzzle as I did with my first Quick Cryptic, so there’s hope for me yet.
  12. Finished in 29 minutes which is an improvement on last Friday (45 minutes). Cowes is a royal regatta town in the sense that it is frequented by the Royal Family, especially Prince Philip who used to take part in the yacht races. It also puts me in mind of that old schoolboy joke which needs to be spoken rather than written down – “What is red and white and comes out of cows(sic)?” answer the Isle of Wight Ferry. Sorry to lower the tone. By the way I had a go at the main crossword today and did about half before resorting to the blog so thanks to the bloggers again for their help.
  13. I’m either getting better or that was the easiest one to date. I did it in less than 20 minutes, which is like my first ever golf score under 100.
  14. As a newbie, I find Joker to be about the right level. I only wish some of the other setters would follow his lead on standards. Particularly liked Chicago, which was new to me. Invariant.
  15. I thought it was “what’s brown and comes out of Cowes?”. mind you, it reminds me of the Monty Python joke, “What’s brown and sounds like a bell?”, to which the answer is “Dung!” – again you need to say it out loud in a ding-dong sort of way. Anyhoo…shame about the iPad app today. When I called up the crossword on the iPad, half of the crossword had been completed for me – how mystifying!
    1. Your version is probably better but to be pedantic the Red Funnel ferries from Southampton to Cowes are red and white. I only know this as I used to live in Hampshire.
  16. Count me in as another who opened the crossword on iPad to find many of the clues filled in already and using the truly awful ST format. The IT department there really need to check things and please, please stop using the ST format. Especially on Sundays!

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