Quick Cryptic 222 by Felix

Author   nick_the_novicePosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
Relatively gentle offering, I thought, but most enjoyable. Plenty of wit, a droll cryptic clue, and a couple of bits of GK that might force some solvers (like me!) to resort to working it out from wordplay and cross checkers alone.

Online offering seems OK today, but given the recent issues with accessing it here is the link
http://feeds.thetimes.co.uk/timescrossword/20150114/515/

Many thanks to Felix for a good puzzle.

Across
1 WACKO – Mad is our definition (as in Wacko Jacko). Answer also from first letters (“initially”) of “woman attacking customer” with the addition of KO (“big blow” – i.e. knock out punch)
7 DO A RUNNER – Double definition. The runner bean, and the 60’s / 70’s slang “split” as in ‘let’s get out of here’
9 RIGID – Not yielding is our definition. Answer also from ID (“identity”) “after” RIG (“tackle”)
10 BLUE PETER – Flag is the definition (the Blue Peter being flown means that a ship is ready to sail). Answer also from BLUE (“depressed”) and PETER (“chap”). Fond memories of Valerie Singleton making a robot out of toilet rolls and empty baked bean tins, or something similar…
11 HUE – shade is the definition. Answer constructed from H(U)E – “man” (HE) with U (abbreviation of “university”)
12 LIE IN WAIT – to prepare an ambush is the definition. Answer is also an anagram (signalled by “forms”) of WE INITIAL
14 GO TO SLEEP – to drop off is the definition. Answer also from GOT O (“achieved nothing”) and PEELS (“skin’s about to drop off”) backwards. Slightly complex clue as the “about to drop off” gives us both the main definition and is also involved in part of the wordplay. On edit – see much better parsing from Krys_Kelly below
16 DUD – Double definition. DUD[E] (“stylish fellow briefly”) and, well, a dud. Checked the definition of dude afterwards and rather liked (Chambers) “a man from the city holidaying out West”
19 SPEEDWELL – Creeping plant is the definition (apparently in the flowering plant family Plantaginaceae – hands up all those who are quite pleased that was not the answer!) Answer also built from SPEED (“rapid progress”) “by” WELL (“spring”). Did not know this plant, but reasonably easy to guess from the wordplay in combination with crosscheckers
20 ELLEN – girl is the definition. Answer revealed (“to show”) in part of Excellent (“contracts”)
21 ANDANTINO – musical direction is the definition. Answer is also an anagram (signalled by “changing”) of IN AN AD NOT. Apparently, this term means slightly slower than Andante. Had vaguely heard of it, but had to double check the meaning
22 NASTY – Unpleasant is the definition. Answer also from N A STY – “article” (A) “written in” (i.e. between) N (abbreviation of “new”) and STY (“pen”)

Down
1 WARMTH – tenderness is the definition. Answer also from WARPA(M)TH: PA leaves (“Father abandons”) WARPATH and replaced by M (“minute”)
2 CIGARETTE END – Nice cryptic clue. Had not come across “drag performer” as a smoker before – very droll… In fact, I’ll award it my COD
3 ODDBALLS – eccentrics is the definition. Answer also from ODD (“occasional”) BALLS (“dances”). Brings to mind the young man from Devizes – but let’s stop there…
4 CANUTE – Cryptic clue, referring to the 10th / 11th century King of England and most of Scandinavia who, legend has it, demonstrated his human limitations to fawning courtiers by proving that he could not turn back the tide
5 BUMP – Double definition, one slightly cryptic – “Sign one’s expecting” being the tell tale swelling
6 ARARAT – a mountain mentioned in the Bible is our definition. Answer also built from A R A RAT: “A river” (A R), A and RAT (“desert”)
8 NUTS AND BOLTS – those are the basic details is the definition. Answer also built from “headbutts” (NUTS) and “scarpers” (BOLTS). Cue Billy Connolly jokes…
13 NAPOLEON – great emperor is the definition. Answer is also an anagram (signalled by “strangely”) of PAL NO ONE
14 GUSTAV – Holst points us to the composer’s first name Gustav (he of the Planet Suite and much else, I’m sure). Answer also from GUST (“Suddenly get up” – as in a gust of wind suddenly got up) with A and V (“verse”)
15 EYELID – cover for viewer is our definition. Answer is also an anagram (signalled by “Broadcast”) of YIELDED but without one of the D’s the final D (“mostly”) – thanks to Kevin for this correction. Sent me up the garden path for a while as I tend to think of broadcast as an indicator of a homophone
17 DISNEY – animating American is our (excellent!) definition. Answer also built from DI’S (“girl’s”) with YEN backwards (“raised money in Tokyo”)
18 DANK – what a dungeon’s like is the definition. Answer also from “Desperate” DAN the cartoon “character”, with a K (“knows at first”)

20 comments on “Quick Cryptic 222 by Felix”

  1. Moving along nicely, thank you, until 5d and 10ac slowed me down; it took me a while to see BUMP as meaning ‘sign one’s expecting’, even though I’d twigged to ‘expecting’=pregnant. SPEEDWELL shows up from time to time in the regular cryptics; with a name like that it’s hardly surprising. I’d almost forgotten the (what I think is the original) meaning of ‘dude’, which ironically implies ineptitude, fish-out-of-wateriness.(A dude ranch is a vacation spot with horses that even I could ride, etc.) At 15d, Nick, ‘mostly’ indicates that it is the final letter (D) that is omitted; so far as I know it’s illegitimate to use that device simply to delete one letter somewhere. 7:10.

    Edited at 2015-01-14 01:50 am (UTC)

    1. Thanks for the 15D observation Kevin – that’s a very useful “rule” to know. Blog amended accordingly.

      Yes, dude is interesting. Reason I looked it up later was because I had not readily associated it with dandyism or the like – just thought of it as a contemporary American origin generic expression for bloke/guy.

  2. 10 minutes. An excellent and amusing puzzle that I thought may cause a few problems if one doesn’t have the necessary GK, such as GUSTAV (Holst) and (Mount) ARARAT. I agree that 2dn was the best of a rather good bunch of clues, and 8dn too.

    Edited at 2015-01-14 05:08 am (UTC)

  3. Really enjoyed that. My lack of botanical knowledge is compensated for by my knowledge of watership down (there’s a rabbit called speedwell). So that was alright. Thanks to the blogger and the setter.
  4. 9m for this pleasant offering. Some smooth surfaces, such as 12a and 14a with 8d raising a smile too. Thanks for blog, Nick.
  5. A nice puzzle.

    For 14ac, I’m not sure this is right: ‘Slightly complex clue as the “about to drop off” gives us both the main definition and is also involved in part of the wordplay’.

    I think it’s “skin’s about” to indicate “peels” backwards and “to drop off” for the definition”

  6. Speedwell went in quickly – there is a cavern in the Peak District near here with that name – I assume the plant grew there and it was so named. 21ac had to wait for all the checkers when there weren’t many other options, but 5dn had me stumped for ages. So easy when it’s seen as usual. Thanks to Felix and Nick for an enjoyable outing.
  7. Made a very enjoyable start to the day with some interesting lateral thinking required. The use of the verb ‘contracts’ in 20a rather than the noun is clever. COD for me was 8d , reminds me of the ‘Eats Shoots and Leaves’ joke. Thanks for the excellent blog, Nick.
    1. Reminds me of the old schoolboy joke about the newspaper headline for an incident where a madman went into a laundry, had sex with the female workers and then ran away – ‘Nut screws washers and bolts’.
  8. ‘Headbutt’ is truly tautological. Even the Telegraph Style Book implores us to use ‘butt’,which would have served the clue well without lapsing into tabloid/football speak.
  9. Didn’t quite get the parsing for 7ac. How does ‘do’ mean ‘cook’? Must be missing something!
  10. A satisfyingly gettable puzzle today (in contrast to yesterday’s).Two sessions totalling about 40 minutes.
    My LOI was 5d and, on reflection, that was my favourite clue.
  12. A much easier offering than yesterday, thank god, proved by the fact that I finished it. Nearly gave up on 5dn but put in bump for impact just before checking the blog, also couldn’t parse (if that’s the right word) 14ac, so thanks for the explanations.
    1. I’ve always used this word to mean sorting out why the rest of clue makes up the answer. Your question prompted me to check the definition and this one works quite well:
      a. To break (a sentence) down into its component parts of speech with an explanation of the form, function, and syntactical relationship of each part.
  13. Well, I thought this was the 3rd tricky one in a row, albeit I got there in the end, which I certainly wouldn’t have done a few months ago. Come back Joker ! Invariant
  14. As most have commented, I also thought this was a very gentle offering and also very enjoyable. Completed it in one pass, in that I finished all of the down clues in one pass and filled in any missed across clues as I went along.

    But alas, I had written 2dn as CIGARETTE ENT for some reason, and not knowing ANDANTINO made up the anagram for 21ac. I had wanted the 3rd letter to be a D, after which the correct answer would have been the most likely word, but didn’t double check my misspelt 2dn. Lots of things I could call myself, but changing the userpic seemed the best option.

    Edited at 2015-01-14 05:14 pm (UTC)


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