Quick Cryptic 3089 by Izetti

Author   BletchleyRejectPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

On the harder end of the Izetti spectrum after several benign ones from our well-known setter.

As I write this blog (now 0200 UK time), this puzzle still isn’t available on the Club site, so you may have to do it on the (non-Club) puzzles page.

A lesser-spotted ‘painter’ at 12a crossed with a non-ionic ‘One’s charged’ at 6d crossed with a new ‘leading comedian’ at 13a and a new def at 16d so no complaints that this was just more of the same.

My LOI 2d caused me a lot of grief – just too clever for me.

Eventually finished in 14:22.

Thanks to Izetti

Definitions underlined in bold. Deletions and letters in wordplay not appearing in answer indicated by strikethrough.

Across
1 Cook with herb — prescribed amount (6)
DOSAGE – DO (‘Cook’) SAGE (‘herb’)
4 Sailor with a rod wandering about on ship (6)
ABOARD – AB (‘Sailor’) then anagram (‘wandering about’) of A ROD
8 Goods vehicle departs (7)
CARGOES – CAR (‘vehicle’) GOES (‘departs’)
10 Was first to get outside work and made great strides? (5)
LOPED – LED (‘was first’) containing (‘to get outside’) OP (‘work’)
11 Clothes carried by laundresses (5)
DRESS – Hidden (‘carried by’) launDRESSes

DRESS here as in the ‘clothes’ one is wearing, rather than a specific garment.
12 Drink, something bitter for painter (7)
CHAGALL – CHA (‘Drink’) GALL (‘something bitter’)

No, not ABSINTHE.
I was surprised to read he died as recently as 1985, aged 98.
13 Ban a panto — naughty leading comedian (3,6)
TOP BANANA – Anagram (‘naughty’) of BAN A PANTO

Hello, this looks familiar; almost but not quite.
Never seen this sense of TOP BANANA before (rather than “the boss”, as yesterday) but yes, it’s in Collins as “slang chiefly US: the leading comedian in vaudeville, burlesque etc”.
17 Supervise, as a bishop (7)
OVERSEE – Definition with cryptic hint

A ‘bishop’ is OVER (=in charge of) a SEE
19 Instrument with which celebrity enthrals India (5)
SITAR – STAR (‘celebrity’) containing (‘which enthrals’) I (‘India’)

The whole clue could also be read as an extended definition.
20 Posed wearing fine material (5)
SATIN – SAT (‘Posed’) IN (‘wearing’)
21 Sleeplike state, having eaten hot portion (7)
TRANCHE – TRANCE (‘Sleeplike state’) containing (‘having eaten’) H (‘hot’)

One of those non-technical words which seems to have become more common over the last few decades. This wasn’t however confirmed by the OED – the surge in its popularity (both slight exaggerations) began in the 1940’s-1950’s, though has continued this century.
22 Wild animals — any he’s found roaming? (6)
HYENAS – Anagram (‘found roaming?’) of ANY HES
23 Really popular exploit (6)
INDEED – IN (‘popular’) DEED (‘exploit’)
Down
1 Maybe the Sixties baddy plunged into river (6)
DECADE – CAD (‘baddy’) contained in (‘plunged into’) DEE (‘river’)

It took a while to expunge ‘swinging’, even though it has too many letters.
2 Plays out (6,7)
STREET THEATRE – Cryptic definition

Mm… Either very frustrating (my experience) or very clever. LOI by some margin. ‘Out’ as in “outside”.
3 Derbyshire town starts to seem sticky with viscous liquid around (7)
GLOSSOP – Seem Sticky (‘starts to Seem Sticky’) contained in (‘with… around’) GLOOP (‘viscous liquid’)

Not sure if I’d heard of this market town in the High Peak borough of northern Derbyshire. Fact for the day, courtesy of Wikipedia: The German philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (yes, he’s in the song so counts as a real philosopher) stayed at the Grouse Inn in Glossop in 1908 while at Manchester University.
Best definition of GLOOP is from Chambers: “Thick viscous liquid, esp a glob, spoldge or slow drip or dribble of such”.
My COD for the yucky surface.
5 Like scientific establishment set up in wood (5)
BALSA – Reversal (‘set up’) of both AS (‘Like’) and LAB (‘scientific establishment’)
6 One’s charged leading character, quiet leader? (5,8)
ALPHA PARTICLE – ALPHA (‘leading character’) P (‘quiet’) ARTICLE (‘leader?’)

‘Leader?’ for ARTICLE as in “editorial”.
7 Led astray, eating strange piece of cake! (6)
DODDLE – Anagram (‘astray’) of LED containing (‘eating’) ODD (‘strange’)
9 Cameras shot holy books in religious ceremony (9)
SACRAMENT – Anagram (‘shot’) of CAMERAS then NT (‘holy books’)

I didn’t know, but Protestant churches on the one hand and Roman Catholic and Eastern churches on the other, have different SACRAMENT(s).
14 Avoid drink? Don’t commit to a view (7)
ABSTAIN – Double definition

The question mark in the first definition since you can ABSTAIN from other things apart from ‘drink’. The second definition as in ABSTAIN from voting. Both seem pretty much the same thing to me.
15 For the most part, put up with school soup (6)
BORSCH – BORe with last letter deleted (‘For the most part, put up with’) SCH (‘school’)
16 Finish after day five as main man? (6)
FRIEND – END (‘Finish’) following (‘after’) FRI (‘day five’)

Well, ‘day five’ of the working week anyway. I thought ‘main man?’ may be referring back to give a meaning of a “man Friday”. However looking it up, I see that ‘main man’ is in the usual references as a N. American informal term for a trusted or best male friend.
18 Plant with two names found in salt water (5)
SENNA – NN (‘two names’) contained in (‘found in’) SEA (‘salt water’)

75 comments on “Quick Cryptic 3089 by Izetti”

  1. My thanks to Izetti and BletchleyReject.
    Fairly easy I thought, with a couple of sticky ones.
    13a Top Banana, DNK this meaning. I didn’t let that worry me though.
    6d Alpha P biffed, didn’t get the editorial thing. Didn’t think really.
    16d Friend; I put Friday but had to erase that when 21a Tranche came along.

  2. Seemed to be a whole lot of clues here where clues maybe work if you kind of squint at them but didn’t feel natural at all. Glossop was one of the only write-ins to me, never been there but there’s only about five known places in Derbyshire. “Dress” is possibly the worst hidden I’ve ever seen, hesitated to even put it in because it didn’t seem to fit the idea of a hidden clue at all.

    1. I love your dismissal of Derbyshire.
      Derby and Chesterfield must be the two largest places I suppose, but there are plenty of other well-known and oft-visited towns and villages: Matlock, Ashbourne, Castleton, Bakewell, Eyam, Tideswell, Hathersage, Buxton, Tissington, Hartington, Bolsover, Edale, ……. I could go on.

      2. And Whaley Bridge, where I grew up, which was briefly famous in 2019 when the reservoir was at risk of collapse. It’s quite weird to see your backwater of a home town on national telly.

      3. … and Wormhill! So long ago I think I’m fairly safe this will not immediately identify me.

          1. No sorry. Ha Ha kind wishes to Mrs Random, this modern communication through the ether thing also draws a veil over gender! The ‘gardener’ is a little ironic but actually we do have a new garden and it is coming on, and the photo is our new crab apple in blossom.

  3. A second successive DNF (and my third in four days). I was left with only four clues to solve after 22 minutes (quite fast for me), but had added only INDEED and STREET THEATRE by the 33 minutes point and my final two never came.

    I got the PARTICLE bit of 6d but, despite several ALPHAbet trawls, ALPHA did not reveal itself. No matter really, because I’d NHO the painter and I also DNK bitter and GALL were synonyms. So, I still wouldn’t have finished in a month of Sundays.

    It was disappointing to fail after 40-something minutes, but poor GK and/or limited vocabulary often cause my downfall. Wrong type of education/reading/life experience? Maybe, but probably just dimness on my part.

    Many thanks to BR and Izetti.

  5. I am afraid I will buck the trend by saying I did not enjoy this at all and thought it a poor crossword replete with weak definitions and obscurities. Cook = DO was an unhelpful start, GLOSSOP is a tough one for non-UK solvers, CHAGALL is not exactly the best known painter, FRIEND as “main man” is vague at best, TOP BANANA for lead comedian is a stretch, ARTICLE for leader is another unusual one, BORSCH is (I presume) an allowed spelling but it certainly isn’t the usual one and I didn’t understand the clue for STREET THEATRE even after getting it via a letter search (and yes I did see Screen … first, but discarded it luckily).

    I did finish, in 10:18, so my disgruntlement was not that I found it a hard puzzle, but it was certainly in my view an unsatisfactory one. One expects the odd curveball from Izetti, it wouldn’t be a puzzle from the Don without them, but this had too many clues which left me thinking “Really?”

    Many thanks BR for the blog. And apologies all for a less than upbeat post.

    1. Upbeatness isn’t compulsory, Cedric. Mine was also rather downbeat today. I just post as I feel at the end of my effort.

  6. Another day, another top banana.
    14 minutes for me including some hard work on several clues. DNK ALPHA PARTICLE but worked through the parsing.
    I did know GLOSSOP which helped.
    My LOI was BORSCH which I thought had a T somewhere; and I had put up with = BEAR before realising it could be the past tense.
    I did enjoy it, but definitely not easy.
    David

  7. Dnf…

    17 mins for everything, but put “Chapail” in for the NHO of painter in 12ac. Thankfully I did know Borsch and Alpha Particles, although for a while I was bizarrely wanting to put Apple in there.

    FOI – 1dn “Decade”
    LOI – 12ac “Chapail” (incorrect)
    COD – 7dn “Doddle”

    Thanks as usual!

    PS. Anyone else constantly getting Internal Server Errors when try and click on the site?

  8. I grew up about ten miles from Glossop so that was an easy one, even though (unlike most of you lot, apparently) I don’t recall ever actually going there.

    Anyway, 12:13 for me, but I googled the painter so I suppose that’s a DNF. It generally felt kinder than peak Izetti, though, with a fair few write-ins.

    Thank you for the blog!

  10. I spent 14:04 to finish this, and was a little surprised it wasn’t more, with a feeling that I was over-thinking everything. I’m thankful that just staring at S_R_E_T_E_T_E somehow produced STREET THEATRE, otherwise it could have been a long long search. I’m having a lot of difficulties so far this week with BANANAs–comedian? Thanks to Bletch for looking that up.

    It’s reassuring to have the usual ecclesiastical vocabulary from Izetti today, as well as many elegant clues. In spite of being “too easy”, I award COD to SITAR for the aptness and smoothness of the surface. Overall a very enjoyable tussle.

    Thanks to Izetti and Bletch.

  11. A quick start but ultimately a DNF after 11:03. Cook = DO proved no problem to Mrs T who saw DOSAGE straight away and GLOSSOP and CHAGALL also went in quickly. Our problems were with the two long down clues. ALPHA PARTICLE was a self inflicted hold up due to a careless fast entry of ABROAD, which fitted the wordplay and wasn’t entirely nonsensical. That was corrected by a revisit after O_P_A proved intractable and then 6d became immediately obvious. S_R_E_ was another matter. Yours truly suspected SERVES but ‘checked’ to enable progress.! Too late then to see STREET THEATRE which I thought was COD. Thanks, BR and Izetti.

  13. Well this resident of the SCC enjoyed this QC. Knowing GLOSSOP (I once lived in Chesterfield), CHAGALL and ALPHA PARTICLE certainly helped. Also I really liked STREET THEATRE, such a brilliantly terse clue!

    Clearly we are all different!

  14. There will be a whole bunch of bananas by the end of the week at this rate!
    I didn’t think this was too tricky, although I did slow myself down by biffing Worksop. GLOSSOP is a very nice town from all accounts, but this was a rather strange surface! Friday for day 5 confused me. I liked CHAGALL and SITAR, and STREET THEATRE was close to being COD.
    9:00 FOI Dress LOI Indeed COD Doddle
    Thanks Izetti and BR

  15. DNF. Bunged in Screen Theatre hoping it was a thing, which is really annoying as it is a nice clue, and both street theatre and playing out (as kids) are familiar. Grrr.

    FOI decade
    LOI Street theatr
    COD Loped

    thanks all

  16. Tackled this morning, but then out all day. I didn’t find this one too difficult, making steady progress until completely foxed by the loi painter. Got the Cha bit, but I thought the painter was Chagill and so couldn’t see where the bitter came in (I know beer is pricey down south, but surely a half is still the smallest measure. . .). In the end, Googled famous painters and (g)all was revealed for a 25min DNF. CoD to Rutherford’s Alpha Particle. Invariant

  17. 28 minutes. Dreadful.

    Most answers were write ins, but I put in TOP BANANA and CHAGALL only to cross them out. Thought the latter had only one L and didn’t think the former could be right as it only came up yesterday. I understand neither the clue nor the answer for STREET THEATRE (I don’t want an explanation) and NHO ALPHA PARTICLE.

    A thoroughly depressing experience (as usual) and further evidence of my utter inability to comprehend cryptic puzzles.

    I got about 2/3 of 15 x 15, but gave up through sheer frustration and anger at my lack of ability. I try so hard and get nowhere with this.

    PS Now seen Snitch score. My misery is complete. How can I spend all that time on the 15 x 15 and still record a time of 28 minutes on the QC? I just don’t get it, but perhaps it’s simply not having the mental acuity that this competition requires.

    1. There must come a point where you decide that this hobby provides you with more sorrow than joy. Why don’t you try something else?

        1. Please don’t despair & think of giving up. Your comments cheer me & give me courage to carry on. Like you I enjoy the struggle even while cursing & I love to finish however long it takes!!

  18. 44:05 (average: 37, target: 30:30)

    Generally I find that Izetti’s puzzles are amongst my favourites and feel on the wavelength. An Izetti puzzle was my first full solve. Today I found this very hard though. I didn’t find it unfair and to be honest I really enjoyed it. I think Izetti always has trickier meanings to the words that I ultimately find very satisfying and can often see quite quickly. I don’t think it helped that I solved this at the end of the day rather than the norm of it being the first thing I do. This is my first one over my average since the infamous Saturday Joker puzzle.

    LOI was CHAGALL who I did have to verify as a painter as I hadn’t heard of him before but managed to get from the wordplay.

    Thanks BletchleyReject and Izetti.

  19. DNF ALPHA PARTICLE! I knew of “second bananas” so assumed from their existence that TOP BANANAS must also be real.

  20. Held up with 12a having got c*a****, ‘drink,something bitter for a painter’ and putting in chablis. 😥. Must learn to get all the crossers. So near yet so far.

  21. STREET THEATRE is brilliant, surely, since most bloggers here contend the two word clues are almost always double definitions? I enjoyed it anyway

  22. Horrible!Chock-full obscurities.Give up,especially on SE corner.Time for a rebrand,should be call Slow Cryptic

Comments are closed.