Quick Cryptic 3080 by Cheeko

Author   CuraristPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

This was a slightly above par time for me, but an enjoyable solve nonetheless. It contains one wordplay trick that I don’t think I’ve come across before, and I will be interested to see if it causes any problems.

Across
1 Evil sort of long-term prisoner holding copper back (7)
LUCIFER – LIFER with CU backwards inserted
5 Nine divine sisters, married, with needs (5)
MUSES – M + USES
8 Combatant’s violent alarmist trait (7,6)
MARTIAL ARTIST – anagram (‘violent’) of ALARMIST TRAIT
9 Very strict role in Sid and Nancy to begin with (7)
SPARTAN – PART inside S[id] & N[ancy]
10 Grand young woman, one that can hold a drink (5)
GLASS – G + LASS
11 Scandinavian article about depression? On the contrary (6)
DANISH – DISH outside AN. Slightly obscure definition of dish, but acceptable.
13 Heavy old dog disheartened in pen (6)
STODGY – O + D[o]G inside STY
15 Gain knowledge from, off and on, illegal service (5)
LEARN – alternate letters of iLlEgAl + RN (Royal Navy, a service)
16 Spend a lot on French version of The Scream (4,3)
LASH OUT – LA SHOUT. ‘Splash out’ surely? ‘Lash out’ means attack unexpectedly, doesn’t it?
19 Inert sort unexpectedly bitten by Dutch South African dog (6,7)
BOSTON TERRIER – anagram (‘unexpectedly’) of INERT SORT inside BOER
20 Starts to spray crowd with drink, causing disorderly struggle (5)
SCRUM – S + C + RUM
21 Mild rebuke, not when partly backtracking (3,4)
NOW THEN – Now then, now then: this is the new device that I don’t think I’ve seen before: NOT WHEN only partly (i.e just the TW) reversed. Not the hardest clue to biff, but may trip up some.
Down
1 Large doctor breaking one’s legs? (5)
LIMBS – L + MB (doctor) inside (‘breaking’) IS (one’s)
2 Arian is cast in more concise preliminary dramatic piece (7-6)
CURTAIN-RAISER – anagram (‘is cast’) of ARIAN put inside CURTER (more concise)
3 Female is not commonly dim (5)
FAINT – F + AIN’T (how you say ‘is not’ if you’re common)
4 Concerning fast, give in (6)
RELENT – RE + LENT. Curarist’s top tip: FAST always = LENT
5 Ideal man’s power to accommodate bishop (2,5)
MR RIGHT – MIGHT (power) taking in RR, for Right Reverend, the title of a bishop. Compare with VEN (venerable) which is what you call an archdeacon.
6 Slipshod head of programming ain’t developing attention to neatness (4,3,6)
SPIT AND POLISH – anagram (‘developing’) of SLIPSHOD + P + AINT
7 Convince Express about The Independent’s sports features, primarily (7)
SATISFY – SAY (express) around T[he] I[ndependent’s] S[ports] F[eatures]
11 British dame hosting priest and southern composer (7)
DELIBES – DBE is Dame of the British Empire with ELI (priest from the Bible) inserted, + S. Curarist’s top tip: PRIEST always = ELI.
12 Tabloid space that could offer a bright perspective (7)
SUNROOM – SUN (tabloid newspaper) + ROOM (space). ‘Space’ arguably doing double duty
14 Adhesive containing trace of this new protein (6)
GLUTEN – GLUE containing T for trace + N
17 Small mammal, quiet, on top of woodpile (5)
SHREW – SH (quiet!) + RE (on) + W (top of ‘woodpile’)
18 Mathematician almost finds Italian city (5)
TURIN – Short for (Alan) TURING. Bletchley Park mathematician, who famously committed suicide by eating an apple laced with cyanide. Someone once told me that this was the inspiration for the Apple Computer logo, but like all the best stories it isn’t true.

99 comments on “Quick Cryptic 3080 by Cheeko”

  1. Thanks to Cheeko and Curarist.
    Rather buffable I thought, as the anagrams were a bit obscure, as in not sure what substitutions had been made.
    2a Muses. Does needs=uses? Can do I suppose.
    16a Lash out OK with me. I think I have heard it used by people who are economising on letters when they want to splash out.
    21a Now then, I was foxed but not delayed.
    2d Curtain raiser half biffed half parsed.
    11d Delibes ditto.

  2. My FOI MUSES seemed very straight forward given what followed in the QC. I managed a lot of ‘loose’ parsing e.g. I thought BOSTON TERRIER was just an anagram, I could see AN was in DISH but couldn’t see how DISH = depression. It had to be LASH OUT but the definition doesn’t work for me. Thankfully I did solve the NHO DELIBES from checkers and wordplay. My LOI was MR RIGHT as I just couldn’t see what could follow the M other than a Y. 11:26 and happy to have jogged over the line. Thanks Curarist.

  3. 14:01. FOI LUCIFER then steady progress. No hesitation with LASH OUT and, even though I can now see it alongside SPLASH OUT, I think it is still what I would do if I felt extravagant. LOI BOSTON TERRIER – NHO, but not hard to construct. I liked STODGY, SATISFY and MR RIGHT.

    I felt a MER coming on at MARTIAL ARTIST. MARTIAL ARTS, yes. But MARTIAL ARTIST suggests something like a war artist, or Turner painting the Fighting Temeraire, rather than a practitioner of the martial arts. I’m wrong, of course. The dictionaries have it, so there we are. I still don’t think the same construction would work with, say, pop art, where a practitioner would be a pop art artist. Enough, kapietro, get a life.

    Many thanks to Cheeko for this fine puzzle and to Curarist for the blog

  4. Found this one to be on the tough side, but enjoyed it. I have no problem with LASH OUT. It’s a well enough expression meaning to spend extravagantly, isn’t it? Loved the clue for DANISH. Very neat!

    Thanks Cheeko and blogger

  5. I stopped the clock after 29 minutes; and then spent at least a minute more trying to find something better than DANISH.
    I did eventually see the DISH and AN being surrounded. Not my favourite clue.
    I knew Delius and he led me to DELIBES; my car radio is tuned to Classic FM and Delibes comes up a lot- a one-hit wonder possibly.
    Took ages to work out the dog, fully parsed in the end.
    But LOI was MUSES as I was searching for naiads or wood nymph types; MAIDS was considered.
    So, not my best day but all correct in the end.
    Some excellent clues; Glass and Martial Artist were my picks.
    David

  6. I got glass ..

    If that’s a QC then I’m from The Netherlands.

    Scandinavian on the contrary – on the contrary – no way – and I round an R from somewhere for Norway – they don’t even share a border.

  7. 23:45 for me, and I even parsed some of them! I found this one very difficult.

    Thank you for the blog!

  8. Well this felt a right old Friday workout. Exceedingly long lunch break required. Didn’t know DBE but knew DELIBES. Loved the wordplay for LASH OUT even though I wasn’t completely sure about the definition. The two that really held me up were MR RIGHT and LIMBS, neither of which I could parse initially. LOI DANISH – biffed, needed blog, ah ok, get it now. Many thanks C. Hard but ultimately satisfying.

  9. Time spent: 91 minutes
    Outcome: DNF (1 clue unsolved, 1 error)

    Par for the course for me with this setter, who has still to work out how to compile a QC for non-expert solvers, IMHO.
    No further comments.

    Many thanks to Curarist for the blog.

    1. I could identify the anagrist and indicator in two or three but they were 10+ letters. Very difficult without any crossers to give so help for a semi bifd.

  10. 9:06

    Faster than my average against Cheeko (10:23) so happy with that. Like Jack, there were several that I didn’t bother too much about fully parsing in flight as the answer seemed clear – CURTAIN RAISER, SPIT AND POLISH and MARTIAL ARTIST i.e. all three are longer answers. NHO BOSTON TERRIER but couldn’t be much else once I’d written out the letters. LOI SUNROOM (previously had SUNSPOT before SCRUM went in).

    Thanks Curarist and Cheeko

  11. Based on previous experience with Cheeko, I didn’t bother looking at my start time, so I was a bit annoyed with myself when things started dropping into place. I have no idea why Curtain Raiser would pop into my head, but it did with just a few crossers in place. A similar experience occurred with Spit and Polish.
    I’ve come across the ‘reverse’ trick in the 15×15, so Danish went in without difficulty. CoD Lash Out, on the other hand, took some time to see, but I suppose it’s a close enough cousin of Splash Out and Fork Out, so in it went.
    No real idea of time, but at least 25mins, most of which were enjoyable 😉. Invariant

  12. Amazingly easy for a Cheeko … until DELIBES and the BOSTON TERRIER (didn’t) hove into view. Had to resort to pen and paper for the dog, being more familiar with the Boston Whaler and indeed the Boston Strangler, and then trust the wordplay for the composer (whom I had completely forgotten despite only recently digging into the similarities between his Flower Duet and Bizet’s Pearl Fishers’ Duet! Durr.).

    Got there in a squeak under 10 at 09:56 for a Pretty Good Day. Terrific puzzle, I thought.

    I regularly LASH OUT on “ridiculous” (per my wife) purchases so that was well within vocabulary.

    Many thanks Cheeko and Curarist.

  14. I enjoyed this one and seem to have returned to the land of the living with a reasonable time of 15:27, in spite of the NHO LOI LASH OUT. Also dish=depression is more than slightly obscure and I simply biffed after a couple of long, long looks. MR RIGHT held me up much longer than it should have as I was playing with P and B to no avail. If I could only LEARN how to quickly see alternate letters in a word, accept that STODGY can mean “heavy”, and remember that RN can be “service”, life would be perfect.

    Loved the biting dog, the riotous crowd, and the unethical doctor. And I’m a fan of the NOW THEN clue.

    Thanks to Cheeko and Curarist.

  15. Another one on the trickier side though, at 13:48, we fared rather better than yesterday. We were others who wondered about needs = uses though it seemed clear what the answer needed to be. Didn’t fully parse NOW THEN. COD LASH OUT. Thanks, all.

  16. Like others, I didn’t really work out how “NOW THEN” parsed – didn’t really try; since all the required letters were together in the clue, that was enough for me.

  17. Very very slow, dnk the dog, the composer or the devices in 11a and 21a. Couldn’t parse a few. Lash out rang only the faintest of bells. I prefer ones a bit easier that this one, but none the less quite enjoyable, thanks to Cheeko and Curarist.
    (I also did yesterdays this morning, that was even harder)

  18. Hard work for this SCC resident. Really didn’t like “LASH OUT” for “spend a lot”. I’ve only ever heard the phrase in terms of a (violent?) physical reaction.

    Glad to have “on the contrary” in 11a explained. I wondered why it was there.

    And a grumble about a NHO dog. Though no doubt others will claim its obvious GK and Alan Turing is NHO and obscure (!!)

  19. 26 minutes of hell.

    Parsed very little and, despite all my time on 15 x 15, still unable to read clues correctly. When we are always being told to ‘lift and separate’, how am I supposed to realise that ‘Dutch South African’ is meant to be read as one thing? How do the good solvers know this and I don’t?

    A dreadful week. I can’t be bothered to add up my times, but they must closer to 2 hours than 1.

    My only consolation is that it hasn’t dented my confidence as I have none left to dent.

    1. I’m waving from further away from 1 hour than you seem to be. Take heart. Daily inconsistency is the norm on our part. Sometimes a crossword is nearly done, we’re heading for a PB, before the last few clues defeat us.
      We try to ‘do as we are told’ and in hindsight, with blog and comments, we can usually see the pathway with clarity. Ah! we say.
      Many report, ‘very slow today, 10 minutes(or less)’ or that their first one in was our last one in (or not in ..DNF). Yet, we know they, too, started where we are. Maybe we won’t get to where they are – but the goal is to ‘get the game’ and increasingly, we ARE ‘getting the game’. … so, we plod on, at variable speed AND we learn all sorts of obscure facts on the way. We see how some people find one puzzle easy when others don’t – even within the ‘road runner crew’.
      As a mental exercise, a challenge, it’s usually enjoyable. We started thinking 5-7 answers was good, now we usually finish. Even on ugly days, we have to concede that overall, we see more clearly than we did, and that it was just a bad day.
      I’m a little relieved to find there are others like us out there. So, if you’re having a tough session, know that we can usually be found waving from the mud : ).
      Plus, this site seems to be full of decent people – people I’ll never physically meet or know, yet, in a world of connections ‘out in the ether’, this seems to be pleasant link. Good luck!

      1. Thank you for your kind comments and words of encouragement. They are appreciated.

        Like you, I will persevere.
        😊

      2. I’m afraid I have a small thing about times which really don’t bother me. Long ago I tried to be quick but didn’t like it so I stopped. Now I do all the clues I can and if I’m fading I go to the wonderful blog to complete, on a not good day I go to the blog to keep going. The blog is very special, I couldn’t learn to do cryptic crosswords without it. The QC is more or less my level and I’m quite happy being there. Rings bells?

  20. 19:31, and I had to look up “types of terrier” to get my LOI. So that’s something I’ve learned today. COD to NOW THEN, by a nose from DANISH.

    Thanks to Cheeko and Curarist.

  21. I made life difficult for myself by biffing BORDER TERRIER! I saw ‘sort’, thought it might be the anagrind, didn’t investigate any further, and bingo – a dog’s dinner in the SW corner 😅
    When I suddenly realised that 2d was CURTAIN RAISER, it made all the difference.
    Despite that, I think I can safely say that this was the most enjoyable CHEEKO puzzle to date.
    About 15 minutes FOI Lucifer LOI Danish COD Mr Right
    Thanks Cheeko and Curarist

  22. Late in the day – I am babysitting a very energetic 2-year-old grandson so my time is not exactly my own – and I’m not sure it was worth snatching the 17 minutes or so that this took to solve. Rather too many MERs for this to be enjoyable – is MARTIAL ARTIST a real term? LASH OUT for Splash out? NHO BOSTON TERRIER (OK my failing), DANISH biffed (I mean, there aren’t that many Scandinavians to choose from) but Dish for depression too complex for me to parse. I did know Delibes, worked out how NOW THEN worked after biffing it, and eventually thought of Turing, but the puzzle as a whole was I suspect aimed at the upper echelons of the QC world. Which I am not!

    Many thanks Curarist for the blog, much needed today.

  23. Lovely puzzle from Cheeko, which I did more quickly than usual first thing this morning, with the top left corner going straight in. Clearly toned down in difficulty, but I didn’t mind as the clues were of the usual high standard. No problem with any of the vocabulary, but a bit of a mer at needs = USES. Worked my way down ending with NOW THEN, so with crossers in I have no idea whether it would have held me up otherwise. LASH OUT/SPLASH OUT are synonyms – nothing wrong with the term.

  24. Not easy for me today too many to look up to keep me going though except for BOSTON TERRIER I did know all the words, nearly. Our landscaper does martial arts and I’ll see if he says he’s an artist, he reckons his sparring partner is usually out to kill him! Let’s see how the Jumbo will be tomorrow.

  25. Spent well over 2 hours on 15 x 15 and got just over half. Glad the week is at an end!

  26. Dnf…

    After 20 mins I had everything apart from 10dn “Delibes” and 15ac “Learn”. Stupidly, I actually put both of them down but couldn’t parse them, so scratched them off. Excusable perhaps for “Delibes” which I had vaguely heard of, but not for “Learn”.

    Overall, this was a tricky puzzle – lots of answers I thought were write-ins, but the parsing proved much more difficult. 10ac “Danish” and 21ac “Now then” come to mind. Like Curarist, wasn’t keen on “Lash Out” for 16ac, which I’ve never heard of in that context.

    FOI – 3dn “Faint”
    LOI – dnf
    COD – 1dn “Limbs”

    Thanks as usual!

  27. Held up putting in stardom for 12d. Star for the tabloid and dom (domain, space?) meaning a bright perspective with the S and M already in.But alas no. Not sure also if the Star is to be mentioned here.

  29. Another relative toughie though, at 14:38, we fared rather better than yesterday. We were others who wondered about needs = uses though it seemed clear what the answer needed to BE. We didn’t stop to parse NOW THEN properly. COD LASH OUT. Thanks, all.

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