Quick Cryptic 3133 by Izetti

Author   rolytolyPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

I found this quite tough.

Plenty of tricky clueing, a few uncommon words, some crosswordese, and a couple of random names thrown in the mix for good measure. Yup, after a run of fourteen somewhat gentler puzzles, Izetti seems to have thought it time to revert to type and stretch us a bit. Indeed, we have to go all the way back to February for a 100+ on the quitch from him (124 in QC2905).

Perhaps I was just way off the wavelength (my wavelengthometer has been a bit skew-whiff of recent), but this was my slowest solve for a while at a touch under 10 minutes, compared to 6:30 or so for yesterday’s done just before. All much enjoyed however – many thanks to Izetti!

Across
1 Carol keeping company with two females expressing derision (8)
SCOFFING – to CAROL = to sing, keeps CO(mpany) and FF (two females)
6 Headgear attached to front of enormous cloak (4)
CAPE – CAP (headgear) attached to E (“front” of Enormous)
8 Name of man, ’elpfully nearby? (4)
ANDY – HANDY = Helpfully nearby, drop the aitches.
9 Planned a short road around mountains (8)
ARRANGED – A, RD (“short” road) around RANGE (mountains). A good example of how an extra, superfluous word creates extra difficulty: we are very used to RD = road; having SHORT in there is not designed to help us!
10 Girl learning to install shower? (8)
LORRAINE – LORE (learning) to install RAIN (shower, as a verb). Easier if you were able to recall the LORE in the ENROL clue yesterday.
11 Cunning male dropping off front of procession? (4)
ARCH – M(ale) drops off front of mARCH (procession). ARCH for cunning arose out of its frequent connection with arch-rogue, arch-wag, arch-knave, and the like. Eventually the meaningful bit was dropped, just leaving the CHIEF bit to mean cunning.
13 Celebrities are pointless, I suspect (13)
PERSONALITIES – anagram (suspect) of ARE POINTLESS I
16 Tea? This writer is provided with beer mostly (4)
MEAL – ME (this writer) is provided with ALe (beer, “mostly”)
17 Pupil at one sort of school — unhappy creature with nothing to eat (8)
BLUECOAT – BLUE (unhappy) CAT (creature) with O (nothing) eaten. I was looking for anagram of CREATURE and O. News to me: a pupil at a BLUECOAT SCHOOL, a type of charity school set up in the 1500s, a number of which are ongoing.
19 The daughter crossing stream is very happy (8)
THRILLED – THE D(aughter) crosses RILL (stream)
21 One small island providing shelter for black bird (4)
IBIS – I (one) IS. (“small” Island) provides shelter for B(lack).
22 Skilful son of Eve reportedly (4)
ABLE – sounds “reportedly” the same as ABEL (sone of Eve).
23 Clever upstart we care about is being imprisoned (8)
WISEACRE – anagram (about) of WE CARE, with IS being imprisoned. From the Dutch for WISE SAYER (wijsseggher), with an unexplained shift to ACRE.
Down
2 Partially recant one’s explicit language (9)
CANTONESE – “Partially” reCANT ONES Explicit
3 Waiting area for receiving you (5)
FOYER – FOR receives YE
4 I chat endlessly — Scot, maybe or European (7)
ITALIAN – I TALk (chat “endlessly”) IAN (Scot, maybe). I couldn’t get IBERIAN out of my head, and was wondering what on earth other European there was that could fit I _ _ _ I A N.
5 Eat too much — deep depression? (5)
GORGE – double definition
6 Meeting prisoner with diplomacy (7)
CONTACT – CON (prisoner) with TACT (diplomacy)
7 Food needing to be cooked? It’s easy, they say (3)
PIE – from the saying “As easy as pie.”
12 French knight, honoured companion I reveal abroad (9)
CHEVALIER – CH (Companion of Honour = honoured companion) and an anagram (abroad) of I REVEAL
14 Cross sailor with hot temper (7)
SALTIRE –  SALT (sailor) with IRE (hot temper)
15 Learner so rude about holy site in France (7)
LOURDES – L(earner) and an anagram (about) of SO RUDE
17 Inferior to be despicable (5)
BELOW – BE hiding successfully in plain sight and LOW (despicable)
18 Country  chum (5)
CHINA – rhyming slang for MATE (chum)
20 Mischief-maker beginning to harass old boy (3)
HOB -H  (“Beginning” to Harass) OB = Old Boy, of a school etc. Wiki tells me that HOB is a diminutive of Robin, itself a diminutive of Robert: apparently hobs (and their related hobgoblins) were mischievous household sprites that would do bits and bobs around the house at night, and were quick to take offence. To make them seem less frightening, they were given breezy little nicknames, and the name that happened to stick was Hob.

 

67 comments on “Quick Cryptic 3133 by Izetti”

  1. Well. The words I did know, they were ok.

    But so many words were new to me. I nho of SALTIRE (I know what it is now), WISEACRE, BLUECOAT, LOURDES, CHEVALIER (I probably would have gotten this but by this time I was giving up)

    I would be interested to meet a girl Lorraine.. I would imagine the bulk of them will be women 😂.

    I really liked the CANTONESE hidden and I too, tried to fit in IBERIAN instead of ITALIAN.

    I didn’t love the definition of PIE being ‘food needing to be cooked?’ but I can’t say why. Because it’s not wrong.. I just.. Didn’t like it.

    I did recall both the rill and the china plate = mate from previous crosswords so go me!

    1. I’ve been making this point for years Tina, but it falls on deaf ears. I know quite a few women who object to being called girls! I think they should stick to male or female!

      1. Oh that wasn’t my point, but I’ll definitely take it. I hate being referred to as ‘the girls’ at work (my team is made up of women).

        I was more talking about how Lorraine isn’t a very modern name and there probably aren’t many five year old girls running around named Lorraine, they’ll probably all be grown.

    2. I once had a lovely lady friend called Larraine (sic) and assumed there would be a pink square on her birth certificate.

      1. Little red squiggly line underneath!

        Lots of yooneeq spellings amongst the youth now. Tragedeighs abound.

        1. 🙃😆
          came across an MlE…. pronounced ’em (M) /el (l)/eeeeeee (E) > Emily.
          Why would you condemn your child to a lifetime of having to explain /spell their name?

    1. There is a Bluecoats School in Reading. I think it was adjacent to White Knights Park home of the University when I was there in the early 1970s. And I still didn’t get it. Not enough crossers…

      1. My friend used to set a really good Christmas Quiz to raise funds for his alma mater, the BLUECOAT School in Oldham.

      2. Hi Nutshell, The Reading Bluecoats School is situated in Sonning just outside Reading. You may possibly be thinking of Leighton Park School (a Quaker school) which is across the road from the Whiteknights campus of Reading University. I was at RU from 1969-1972 so maybe our paths might have crossed.

  3. Izetti sending his 15×15 clues to the Quick editor by mistake again…

    Someone should help them with their admin 🙂

  4. 17 minutes. Yes, harder than most recent Izetti puzzles, with SALTIRE for ‘Cross’ not occurring to me until I had all the checked letters and THRILLED also taking a while, not helped by a typo in the crossing LOURDES. I just remembered the term BLUECOAT in connection to ‘Pupil’ but knew nothing else about it.

    I liked the apt surface for PERSONALITIES.

    Thanks to Izetti and roly

  5. Going pleasingly well until the SE took longer than the rest of the puzzle. Eventually crossed the line in 26.38. One of those mornings where Mrs RH gave me some history lessons as opposed to the ones where I giver her a science lesson 😀

    COD to personalities for the great anagram. Thanks Roly for the proper parsings of below and ibis which inexplicably eluded us. Only heard of Hob Goblins so assumed that was the derivation.

    Thanks Izetti, welcome back!

  6. One of those puzzles which contained a lot of staring at clues with no idea what was going on until suddenly the penny dropped. Once completed though, the reason for all the long delays was less than obvious – I did know all the vocabulary, even BLUECOAT, and I don’t think any of the wordplay is that obscure. Nevertheless, a slow completion it was, in 13:57. Hat-tip to CANTONESE, a great hidden.

    Many thanks Roly for the blog.

    1. Agreed, tough but fair with the most obscure definition in my opinion (HOB) softened by the simpler wordplay. And yes CANTONESE was a real slap-of-the-forehead gem

  7. I was up late so started this after midnight. Got to eight after 20 minutes but that was it. Went looking for the blog at one AM. I semi-bifd Lourdes from the L. Missed the Cockney clues of Andy and China which I may have solved on a third pass.

    Being able (no semi pun intended) to post a screenshot of a partial solve would save having to explain it in words here.

    Are embedded hyperlinks supported?

    Thanks Roly and Izetti

  9. 13:14 with 5 minutes of my life that I won’t be getting back wasted on a bluecoat wiseacre and misplaced saltire. And it was all going so well… but looks like I had more fun and was QTPi 😉
    Ta RAI

  10. DNF. I started off quite quickly with just a small lapse putting in PEA (easy peasy) instead of PIE. Unfortunately I ground to a halt in the SE corner. The culprits were the B words BELOW and BLUECOAT. The only bluecoats I know of were entertainers at Pontins Holiday Camps. I did however manage WISEACRE and SALTIRE. Thanks Roly

  11. All completed in 14.21 so pretty happy given the difficulties elsewhere. Helped by there being a Bluecoat school building locally but wiseacre and hod taken on trust from the wordplay as never heard of.

  12. 5:34 I didn’t find this too hard – just an average time for me and I got though most of it in a little over 4 minutes. But I got a bit stuck on WISEACRE, BELOW and then LOI the NHO BLUECOAT type of school. It’s always good to learn something new from a crossword. Nice one Izetti and thank-you Roly for the blog.

  13. I got through most of this fairly quickly but ground to a halt in the SE where BELOW eventually proved to be the key to unlocking the two unknowns – BLUECOAT and WISEACRE. I almost pressed submit with an unparsed ‘enry’ at 8a but, fortunately, remembered to go back and check it.

    Finished in 7.40 with COD to PERSONALITIES.
    Thanks to Roly and Izetti

  14. I thought Izetti was in a good mood until I hit the last few clues in the SE and slowed down. I made a stupid error mis-typing LOURDES and the missing ‘U’ made the difficult BLUECOAT impossible. It took me too long to see, and correct, my error and another couple of minutes after that to see my LOI BLUECOAT.
    Pleased to get it all correct in the end and annoyed with myself for letting carelessness waste precious minutes and tip me just over the line into the SCC. Darn it!
    WISEACRE and CANTONESE just appeared to me, given crossers, and I parsed them after completion. I have never heard of HOB but it had to be. Elsewhere, there were too many excellent clues for me to list them so I won’t.
    Thanks to Izetti for a very good puzzle with twists and to Roly for the usual thorough, interesting blog.

  15. Did it – though more by luck than knowledge. Trouble in SE: NHO LOI WISEACRE, not in Chambers though is in Collins. Small island (= IS?) seemed the wrong way round but I do see, thank you Roly. Wasn’t totally happy about despicable = LOW but it had to be. With both SCOFFING and GORGE up there the good Don evidently had a good MEAL, CANTONESE or ITALIAN perhaps?

  16. I like Izetti, my favourite harder setter. I find him very fair even when being obscure. No major problems today, only a little slower than my slow average, no unknowns even if a bit of rummaging in the grey cells was required.
    CANTONESE was a very good hidden which I went back to once a few crossers went in, and gave me ANDY. LOI BLUECOAT. Now happily relaxing in the SCC and reading the blog.

  17. Izetti back to his usual form, I’m pleased to say. Enjoyable solve with only WISEACRE NHO. Had forgotten BLUECOAT and HOB needed the B checker to be sure of. Nice hidden in CANTONESE.

  18. Surprised to see a grid including an answer (13a) in which fewer than half the letters are checked. I thought it was a long-standing rule in the Times that this shouldn’t be the case.

    Same issue as others in the rather isolated SE corner. Liked CANTONESE and LOURDES.

  19. Always love an Izetti. Always happy to learn something new, in this case BLUECOAT. I’m vaguely aware that I may have heard it before, in a previous lifetime most likely, and though the parsing was straightforward I couldn’t see it. Rather than spend the entire day glaring at it I conceded defeat on 11:30.
    FOI CAPE
    LOI (completed clues) CHINA
    CoD SCOFFING

  20. Clicked with this one, hitting the buffers only in (you guessed it) the SE. WISEACRE then begat BELOW begat BLUECOAT begat LOI CHINA. All done in 06:28 for an Excellent Day.

    COD to SCOFFING. Lots of fun today. Many thanks Izetti and roly.

  21. Delighted to see I’m not the only Izetti fan, especially so when he’s pushing me a little bit harder. I understand that not everyone likes the trickier puzzles but on the other hand I rarely complete the 15×15 and if I’m ever to consistently get to grips with them I need to be stretched. Speaking of stretching…I’m off to yoga 🙂

  22. While solving today’s fair but challenging puzzle from Izetti, I couldn’t but help think about the number of eyebrows being raised up and down the country. It’s certainly been many a year since I heard someone called a Wiseacre, and I was grateful for having walked past the impressive Liverpool Bluecoat building more than once when I was a student. However, that smug feeling from having the required GK completly disappeared when I was breezeblocked by loi Andy. Like Plett, I was (yet again) stuck at the wrong end of the clue with ‘Enry, and needed another coffee to loosen the penny. CoD to another of Izetti’s little teasers, Saltire, a much better cross than the humble mule. Invariant

  23. 18:22, that was a tough one.
    LOI ANDY, saw that the clue could work either way, so was also considering names such as Harry, Henry etc. The hidden CANTONESE was holding it up.

    NHO HOB, but thought of Hobgoblin to justify it. Only ever heard of Hobgoblins in that odd hymn about Pilgrims
    “No Hobgoblin or foul fiend / shall daunt his spirit”

    Robin Goodfellow, aka Puck in Midsummer Nights Dream was a Hob. I remember looking this up when his full name appeared in a Jumbo recently.

  24. Definitely a tougher Izetti today. I drew a blank in the NW. CAPE was FOI and I ploughed my way clockwise, eventually changing the biffed IBERIAN to ITALIAN when ARRANGED arrived. LORRAINE raised a smile as she evoked Luton Airport. I took far too long to spot CANTONESE. LOI was the NHO BLUECOAT. 9:58. Thanks Izetti and Roly.

  25. 25 mins…

    Definitely felt like an increase in difficulty from what we’ve had recently. NHO of 23ac “Wiseacre”, but the rest were fair, if somewhat a struggle to untangle. Never a fan of names, so 10ac “Lorraine” irked me a little – but luckily I did remember “Lore” from the other day.

    FOI – 6ac “Cape”
    LOI – 10ac “Lorraine”
    COD – 14dn “Saltire”

    Thanks as usual!

  26. 9:08

    Same time as yesterday and right on par with the Quitch currently at 101. Like others, wasn’t too familiar with either BLUECOAT or WISEACRE but dredged them both up from somewhere. Had to write out the letters for the celebrities at 13a – some celebs of course have no PERSONALITY…

    Thanks Roly and Izetti

  27. 19 minutes of hard work after a fast start.
    LOI LORRAINE. POI BLUECOAT, worked out without knowing precisely what it meant.
    David

  29. 20:07

    Just pushed into the SCC by the SE corner. Dug out WISEACRE which led to BELOW and finally, the unparsed BLUECOAT.

  30. 4.50

    Something in my coffee this morning or lucky I knew all the GK, take your pick. Came across loads of BLUECOAT schools when younger but still a bit surprised to see it here; ditto WISEACRE. Liked PERSONALITIES but as I have started my periodic re-read of the O’Brian canon COD to SALTIRE.

    Thanks Roly/Izetti

  31. Certainly tough as far as I was concerned needing 11.50 to cross the line. Held up quite a bit at the end before finally getting ARRANGED, as for a long time I couldn’t get ARDENNES out of my mind, even though it’s a forest and not a mountain range; although it fitted with the available crossers I had at the time. Rather pathetically, bearing in mind my name, it took me well over thirty seconds to get ANDY with all the checkers in place!

  32. A steady solve finishing in 19 minutes, all parsed. I had vaguely heard of WISEACRE and BLUECOAT but never heard of HOB. However I assumed the latter was akin to a hobgoblin and entered it with a shrug.

    FOI – 6ac CAPE
    LOI – 18dn CHINA
    CODs – CANTONESE and PERSONALITIES for the sheer brilliance of the hidden and anagram respectively.

    Thanks to Izetti and Rolytoly

  33. 12:38. Like everyone else, a slow finish in the south-east. LOI BLUECOAT. At 4dn I thought IBERIAN before getting ITALIAN. I count four of us so far. Why on earth would we think of that one first? Thank you Izetti for a fine puzzle and rolytoly for the fine blog

  34. Tough, taking 29:14 to limp home. Knew BLUECOAT as there is such a school nearby and finally saw WISEACRE (LOI), dredged from a distant memory. Strong cup of coffee now required.

  35. No matter how difficult you may find an Izetti puzzle, you can be assured that the surfaces will be of excellent quality, and the parsings scrupulously fair. My time was bang on my QSNITCH average, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

    FOI CAPE
    LOI/COD BLUECOAT
    TIME 4:45

    1. Thank you kind sir! The great crossword setter Ximenes, of course, taught at a Bluecoat school.

  36. Tricky, but I came in only slightly over my average at 16:08. NHO BLUECOAT but I think I was lucky with the GK today because I’d at least vaguely heard of the others, with WISEACRE floating into my brain from a very long way away.

    Thank you for the blog!

  37. Excellent crossword, thanks to Izetti and rolytoly.
    Steady solve all the way through with no holdups except loi Gorge, where I was looking at G_A_E, toying with Graze (to eat) and Grave (deep depression) until I realised that the A was actually a very poorly written R. (doh!).
    Amused by the comment of Lorraine being past its sell by date, who ever would have thought the QC would have something decades out of date in it?

  38. Found the clue for Bluecoat the hardest because of the clunky definition. But took it like a sport. Thanks all and to Rolytoly for relating the heritage behind some of the words.

  39. Always late to the party, but bizarrely enough found this one of the easier ones! I don’t even always finish so a solve for me in under 20 seems a breeze. For me, nothing obscure except wiseacre, and everything clearly and in some instances (French holy site, son of Eve) generously clued. It’s all about wavelength – and usually Izetti is in a different spectrum from me….
    Thank you blogger and setter.
    Ps i am another for Iberian first

  40. Darn, forgot I had not gone back to solve ARCH, as I took ages on ITALIAN and ARRANGED. ( Had also been fixated on Iberian.) PDM with BLUECOAT. NHO WISEACRE but biffed, ditto dubious about HOB.
    Liked CHINA, THRILLED, SCOFFING.
    Very slow today, including on the anagram 13a.
    Thanks vm, Roly. Blog much needed.

  41. 9.50 I went to school near a Bluecoat school so that was known. LOI CANTONESE. I just could not see the hidden but it seemed like it ought to be one so I started typing in the letters. And a language appeared! Thanks rolytoly and Izetti.

  42. hmm… DNF – NHO WISEACRE, BLUECOAT, SALTIRE…nor ‘rill’ as stream. Sadly lost interest somewhat.
    Not our favourite – but as always, some good clues and fun moments, variation spice of life and all that.
    Thanks to all.

  43. 35 minutes, but a DNF. I put ENRY in faintly at 8a, sort of as a placeholder, but I forgot to return to it at the end. Rather annoying, but I was otherwise quite pleased with how things went, given the increased level of difficulty.

    Many thanks to Rolytoly and Izetti.

  44. Rolytoly… GREAT name.. my better half is called ROLLO..again a GREAT name which people massacre by saying Role eeeee!! Presuming it’s an abreviation of Roland!! I told a neighbour once it’s pronounced to rhyme with Apollo or follow…next xmas card had Rollow on it!! . First Duke of Normandy started all this!!! Merci et Vive la France!

  46. At last, crosswordland acknowledges there are schools other than Eton and Harrow.

    Got there in 40 min despite nho HOB or WISEACRE.

    I enjoyed this.

    Thanks Izetti and rolytoly

  47. 19:41, with BLUECOAT my LOI with a shrug, as I’d never heard of it. Pleased that I unpicked PERSONALITIES, as long anagrams are the clues I struggle with most. I had a vague memory of HOB being in Shakespeare somewhere.

    Thanks to Izetti and rolytoly.

  49. Finished, as always Izetti needs hard braining I mean thinking! Swerved the Girl thing when ‘Lo Rain!’ came to mind. We’ve had a new shower installed and it’s very nice when it works first time. It was the last to go in, and of course forgot entirely that yesterday’s ‘Lore’ is now a topical QC word.

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