Quick Cryptic 3065 by Jalna

Author   BletchleyRejectPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

 

A good challenge from Jalna today, especially to parse everything properly.

As usual, my hopes of a speedy (for me) time were dashed by 1a and 1d, both of which brought nothing but a blank response from the grey matter so I retreated to the sanctuary of the SE corner to get started. Worked steadily from then on, before finishing with 1a as my LOI (surprise, surprise, not really that hard after all) in 10:12. No cryptic defs, which was a help.

Thanks to Jalna for a puzzle which I found enjoyable and difficult enough to be satisfying to solve.

Definitions underlined in bold, letter deletions and letters in wordplay not appearing in answer indicated by strikethrough.

Across
1 Heart-rending depression ultimately ate into us (7)
PITEOUS – PIT (‘depression’) atE intO (‘ultimately ate into’) US (‘us’)
7 Sound broadcasting organisation (7)
CHANNEL – Double definition

‘Sound’ as in a narrow stretch of water, not the sort of ‘Sound’ that first came to mind, especially with the second def.
9 Finished in the short stuff next to the fairway (7)
THROUGH – THe (‘the short’) ROUGH (‘stuff next to the fairway’)

The wordplay seems not to make sense, but the ‘stuff next to the fairway’ really was ‘short’ at the recent Scottish Open at the Renaissance Club, more so than at The Open at Portrush. I bet the Americans were relieved to have a wayward drive not be punished as severely as it would have been on their US courses.
10 Casting starting late is cause of irritation (7)
ITCHING – PITCHING (‘Casting starting late’)
11 Crass, somewhat bacchanalian affair (4)
NAFF – Hidden (‘somewhat’) in ‘bacchanaliaN AFFair‘

I think of NAFF as a very British word.
12 Be successful with computers and such? Don’t be daft! (4,3,2)
COME OFF IT – COME OFF (‘Be successful’) IT (‘computers and such?’)
14 By the way, when agitated, Ann’s a pest! (2,7)
EN PASSANT – Anagram (‘when agitated’) of ANNS A PEST

A term from the French but it is in 2/3 of the standard dictionaries in this sense.
16 Mountain in France and North America (4)
ETNA – ET (‘in France and’) NA (‘North America’)
17 Inform of a competition reward on the radio (7)
APPRISE – A (‘a’) then aural wordplay (‘on the radio’) of PRIZE (‘competition reward’)
20 New route up peak maybe being developed (7)
NASCENT – N (‘New’) ASCENT (‘route up peak maybe’)
21 Good-natured, socialist family (7)
KINDRED – KIND (‘Good-natured’) RED (‘socialist’)
22 Following a strike, senior journalist is humiliated (7)
ABASHED – ED (‘senior journalist’) after (‘Following’) A (‘a’) BASH (‘strike’)

I couldn’t find ‘humiliated’ specifically in the dictionary definition for ABASHED in the usual sources, although it is included as a synonym in eg Oxford Dictionaries.  ‘Humiliated’ just seems a bit strong to me; “embarrassed” would be the first synonym to come to mind.
Down
1 Show of approval from group of animals eating that bone frantically (3,2,3,4)
PAT ON THE BACK – PACK (‘group of animals’) containing (‘eating’) anagram (‘frantically’) of THAT BONE

My second last in and COD for the descriptive surface. Yum!
2 Computer processing speed changed after large operation (8)
TERAFLOP – Anagram (‘changed’) of AFTER then L (‘large’) OP (‘operation’)

Maybe we’re all meant to know such things these days, but to me this qualifies as geek speak. Looking it up, a teraflop is an indication of how powerful a computer is, “representing one trillion (=tera-) floating point operations (mathematical operations with numbers containing decimal points) per second”. I’m not sure if this is correct but AI tells me my laptop can operate at several hundred gigaflops.

I was also misled into thinking ‘after’ was a positional indicator so didn’t spot the anagram immediately.
3 Responsibility of old group of students (4)
ONUS – O (‘old’) NUS (‘group of students’)

NUS for National Union of Students, a crossword stalwart.
4 School is on top of multiplication and division (6)
SCHISM – SCH (‘School’) IS (‘is’) above in a down clue (‘on’) Multiplication (‘top of multiplication’)
5 Be careful how a cut possibly throbs initially (5,3)
WATCH OUT – Anagram (‘possibly’) of HOW A CUT then Throbs (‘throbs initially’)
6 Against books getting fed into AI (4)
ANTI – NT (‘books’) contained in (‘getting fed into’) AI

NT for ‘books’ = New Testament.

The surface is referring to the concerns about the misuse of Artificial Intelligence.

I used my browser’s AI to help explain 2d above and 19d below. As far as I’m aware, no books were harmed in the generation of either explanation.
8 Jovial girl hated the dancing (5-7)
LIGHT-HEARTED – Anagram (‘dancing’) of GIRL HATED THE
12 Dismisses employees who take money? (8)
CASHIERS – Double definition

In the first sense, used as a verb in usually (?exclusively) a military context.
13 Female travelling to their ruby wedding anniversary (8)
FORTIETH – F (‘Female’) then anagram (‘travelling’) of TO THEIR
15 List of information absorbed by a US legal representative (6)
AGENDA – GEN (‘information’) contained in (‘absorbed by’) A (‘a’) DA (‘US legal representative’)

The ever-reliable DA.
18 Lightly-coloured tattoo beneath bottom of hip (4)
PINK – INK (‘tattoo’) below in a down clue (‘beneath’) hiP (‘bottom of hip’)

Shades of pink which are not ‘lightly-coloured’ are often preceded by a modifier, eg hot pink, bubblegum pink.
19 A southern island area where most people live (4)
ASIA – A (‘A’) S (‘southern’) I (‘island’) A (‘area’)

Asia is the most populous continent, containing about 60% (ie ‘most people’) of the world’s population. At least that’s what AI tells me.

86 comments on “Quick Cryptic 3065 by Jalna”

  1. This took me a while to trundle through but I found lots to like along the way, especially EN PASSANT, APPRISE and PITEOUS. LOI, inevitably, TERAFLOP. Many thanks BR and Jalna

  2. Coming to this layer in the day and maybe the little grey cells work better in the afternoon, as I recorded a satisfying 9:40. Not without some stutters though: I do know TERAFLOP but never thought to see it in a QC so stared at the checkers for some time before the penny dropped, and I do of course know PINK but didn’t like the definition “lightly coloured” – there are lots of delicate shades of blue, green, mauve etc as well.

    Many thanks BR for the blog.

  3. ‘Teraflop’ has been around in practical terms for a long time! Showing my age but…I was working for Control Data Corporation – aka CDC – and recall having to go to a press conference about 1978/9 where we announced the world’s first mainframe capable of teraflop computing. CDC was a sprawling outfit with about 4800 employees in the UK (a lot of manufacturing) and about 48000 worldwide. It was known as one of the two supercomputer manufacturers – along with Cray.
    A toughie in places from Jalna.
    FOI 11a Naff
    LOI 5d Watch out – couldn’t parse this for ages
    COD 2d Teraflop – for the memories!

  4. Another horrible day.

    20 minutes of angst & frustration. I still can’t read clues in the right way, despite hours spent on Don Manley’s book last week.

    Still way short of my comparators.

  5. 10:08. I liked this one – quite hard for a QC, but all doable. Many thanks both.

  6. Like others a slow start, so moved to the bottom of the grid, with Asia, Pink and Kindred getting me started. NHO Teraflop, but it was fairly clued.

    FOI Asa
    LOI Onus
    COD channel

    thanks Jalna and BR

  7. Over an hour on 15 x 15 for just 10
    answers. Completely out of my league. I have absolutely no ability to do hard puzzles. Why does all my hard work never pay off? All that effort for nothing.

  8. 28:57
    I seemed to make hard work of this, but then it’s been a very long day involving red wine towards the end and during this solve.
    Zero crossers on the first pass and then only 2 downs.
    Fatigue overtook, biffing the last 3 in – CHANNEL, ITCHING & WATCH OUT.
    FOI: 3d ONUS
    LOI: 5d WATCH OUT
    COD: APPRISE
    Thanks to Jalna & BletchleyR

  9. I’d heard of TERABYTE, many years ago, so, once I had T—FLOP, I put ERA in, but I had no idea what either meant. One seems to be about speed, so, maybe the other is about data?
    Anyway, good QC, with some straightforward and others, tricky.
    I don’t time myself.
    Thank you Jalna and BR.

  11. For 11 across I put in anal from bacchanalian!
    Didn’t see naff even once I had put in 1 down

  12. This resident (geek obviously!) of the SCC was delighted with TERAFLOP. As is often said, one person’s NHO or “totally obscure GK” is another person’s “obviously” 😊. This clue played to my strengths, thanks Jalna.

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