Quick Cryptic # 2994 by Joker

Author   DoofenschmirtzPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

 

16:09 here, proudly in 5th place on the leaderboard as I start writing this (of, um, five). Most of this went in reasonably quickly, but I shot myself in the foot by choosing the wrong part of TITBIT for 22 down and not spotting my error until after I had done a whole alphabet trawl for 22 across.

The full parsing of BEARABLE escapes me, and I really hope I’ve missed something in the parsing of BIT, since I do not like the way I’ve currently got it. [Edit: I had indeed missed the much better way of parsing this clue, details updated below.]

Definitions underlined, synonyms in round brackets, wordplay in square brackets and deletions in strikethrough. Anagram indicators italicised in the clue, anagram fodder indicated like (this)*.

Across
1 Dead month at the end of the year went slowly (8)
DECEASED – DEC (December), EASED (went slowly, as in “eased into”).
6 Dread musical ability going after fever’s onset (4)
FEAR – EAR (musical ability) after the first letter [onset] of Fever.
8 Call back youth around one (4)
DIAL – LAD (youth), reversed [back] including [around] I (one).
9 Word differently with hearers confused about page (8)
REPHRASE – (hearers)* including P for page.
10 Permit the growing of crops that can be sustained (8)
BEARABLE – ARABLE is clearly ‘the growing of crops’, but how ‘permit’ leads to BE is a mystery to me. Unless I’ve totally misunderstood the clue, of course.

I look forward to the hive mind telling me what I’ve missed.
12 Small child’s slide (4)
SKID – S for small + KID (child).
13 March is leaving Shangri-La, say (6)
PARADE – PARADisE (Shangri-La, say), with IS leaving, literally.
16 Upset fish in tin (6)
SHAKEN – HAKE (fish) in SN (the chemical symbol for tin).

I was confident that “tin” would be “can”, so I pencilled in the C and the N on my first pass, which caused a problem for 5 down.
17 Splash out on grabbing ring float (4)
BUOY – BUY (splash out on) including [grabbing] O for ring.

I was looking for something a bit more dramatic for “splash out on” than the slightly pedestrian “buy”, but the crossers made it obvious what this had to be. Thank heavens this wasn’t a homonym clue, as this word is said dramatically differently on different sides of the Atlantic.
18 Cruel coalmine I bar (8)
PITILESS – PIT (coalmine), I, LESS (bar).

I’ll confess, I have been here for a good 5 minutes trying to come up with a sentence where ‘bar’ can be replaced by ‘less’ and have failed. I can see the commonality in meaning, but I think it is a bit of a stretch for the Quickie.
21 Line one item of clothing not having right tough fibre (8)
LIGAMENT – L (line), I (one), GArMENT (item of clothing) with the R removed [not having right].
22 Embarrassing mistake docking bird’s tail (4)
BOOB – BOOBy (bird) without its last letter [docking tail].
23 Charge including time for outdoor function (4)
FETE – FEE (charge) including T for time.
24 Prison officer reported very little inspection (8)
SCRUTINY – SCRU (sounds like [reported] ‘screw’, slang for a prison officer), TINY (very little).
Down
2 The best part of A-level I teach (5)
ELITE – hidden in A-levEL I TEach.
3 What holds fishing line that’s run out for fish (3)
EEL – rEEL (what holds fishing line) with the R removed [run out].
4 Perhaps rose a short time in submarine (5)
SHRUB – HR (hour, a short time) in SUB.

I don’t fancy the idea of being in a submarine at all, so I suspect an hour would feel like a long time to me.
5 Lower deck is holding record (7)
DEPRESS – DRESS (deck, as in ‘out’) containing EP (record).

“Record” is often LP or EP.
6 Anticipate topping everything with wood (9)
FORESTALL – FOREST (wood) on top of [err, topping] ALL (everything).
7 Gold — something generating interest — is a favourable sign (7)
AUSPICE – AU (chemical symbol for gold), SPICE (something generating interest).

I don’t think I knew this meaning of AUSPICE. It is much more common in the plural with the meaning of “with the help or protection”, as in “under NATO’s auspices”.
11 Prepare servant verbally for immediate employment (5-4)
READY-MADE – READY (prepare), MADE, which sounds like MAID (servant), the homophone indicator being “verbally”.
14 Disparaging area public transport one has (7)
ABUSIVE – A (area), BUS (public transport) I’VE (one has).

For the last part, think of how the King would say he owned something. I had a MER at the definition: ‘abusive’ in my book is much stronger than ‘disparaging’.
15 Train like a former Times reporter? (7)
EXPRESS – Ex-press.

The most chestnutty of chestnuts, I feel.
19 Teacher taking up harmful alcohol? That’s not good (5)
TUTOR – ROTgUT (harmful alcohol) reversed [taken up, since this is a down clue] and minus the G [not good].
20 Laugh at son over trite humour (5)
SCORN – S for son above CORN (trite humour, as in ‘corny’).
22 Bird driving another away in scrap (3)
BIT – TitBIT (scrap) with TIT (a bird) having been removed [driving away].

Both BIT and BIRD for ‘girlfriend, companion’ seem to me to be well past their Use By Date. I’d be delighted if there is a way to parse this that doesn’t leave this slight bad taste in my mouth.

I tried to parse it with SCRAP being the definition (as in ‘a scrap of paper’) but I couldn’t see a way to make it work without having SCRAP do double duty because it has to be interpreted as TITBIT to make the wordplace sensible.
22 Bird driving another away in scrap (3)
BIT – BITTERN (a bird) with TERN (another bird) having been removed [driving away].

Thanks to the early commenters for giving me this far more palatable parsing of this clue.

88 comments on “Quick Cryptic # 2994 by Joker”

  1. 10:16 but still in the top 100 at 18:45! So it was a tough puzzle, not just me being slow after another day walking in the heatwave besetting the West Highlands 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿😎.

    Many thanks Doofers and Joker. Never did parse BIT.

  2. Also couldn’t parse BIT (in the end I saw it was the outer letters of bluetit and assumed luet might be a nho meaning another). Rest was tricky for a QC but felt on wavelength so reasonable time if a bit off my best.

    Cheers blogger

  3. Total, utter nightmare.

    First 15 clues went in immediately. Then the descent into Hell.

    Finished after 45 minutes. Took forever to get BEARABLE, BOOB, SCRUTINY, SCORN and BIT.

    I am no good at this and never will be. I wish I’d never gone anywhere near cryptic crosswords. They leave me angry, frustrated and unhappy. 4.5 years to be this bad! 😡

    1. Gary, most commenters found this QC challenging- I certainly did. But really, life is far, far too short to actively choose an activity that leaves you ‘angry, frustrated and unhappy’. What do you reckon?

  4. Nearly gave up after 15 minutes with only 5 or so answers. Then solved 1a and 6a and wrestled the rest to the ground. Well into SCC territory, but happy to complete eventually. Grateful to Doofers for parsing the ones I biffed and to Joker for a chewy puzzle.

  6. I found a lot of this hard and finished in 25:21, though having resorted in frustration to aids for BOOB at the end, I suppose that’s a DNF.

    Thank you for the blog!

  7. Learnt the hard way from Joker’s non-QC . Oh well, hoping for a better day.

  8. I don’t time myself, but didn’t see that the timer was on, so: 13 min 58 sec.
    Good, pretty straightforward qc, or else I was on Joker’s wavelength. No obscure words.
    Thanks, Joker and Doofers.

  10. 16:44. found this quite tricky for a QC but I liked it. I enjoyed BEARABLE and thought it and SHAKEN were more akin to 15×15 clues IMHO. many thanks to both!

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