Quick Cryptic 459 by Oran

Posted on Categories Quick Cryptic
Thank you to Pip for coming to the rescue last week. I should now be up and running for the foreseeable.
A good workout this week, with just a couple of clues causing a bit of a hold up for me. I tried to make 6d ENNA, as in ANNE raised, but, as far as I know, no Uncle Ennas exist and anyway, that didn’t make use of the ‘finally’, so this was my LOI, only by biffing and thinking about it later. I also stared long and hard at 18d, thinking it had to be something to do with B and Y, a hollow body, before the PDM came.
Thanks, Oran.

Across
1 HEIGHTEN – raise; anagram (in need of repair) of THE HINGE
7 POETRY – verse; American writer = POE, attempt = TRY
8 DOCTOR NO – Bond film; dwarf = DOC, ripped = TORN, round = O
9 KNEE – joint; hidden in (reduced) reversal of (come back) bEEN Known
10 ICE – distance (as in coldness); wanted this to be arc for a while, but it’s one = I, church = CE (Church of England)
11 PENTAGON – defence department; Planning initially = P, followed by anagram (redeployed) of ON AGENT
13 RULE – law; the French = LE, following Rugby Union = RU
15 FLOW – run from; reversal (retreating) of wild animal = WOLF
17 ORDNANCE – munitions; regulation, exempting one = ORD(I)NANCE
19 REV – double definition
22 MAUL – paw (verb); obstinate beast with no tail= MUL(E), inserting A
23 COTTON ON – twig; fibre-producing plant = COTTON, reverse of NO
24 UNISEX – for him or for her; colleges = UNIS, partner no longer = EX
25 YACHTING – sailing; anagram (jogging) of CYNTHIA and beginning of Go

Down
1 JOHN PEEL – huntsman; anagram (mixed with) of JP HE LONE. Is this the same fellow causing discussion in an earlier blog this week?
2 STREET – thoroughfare; ash or elm = TREE, in the middle of cloiSTered
3 HYDE – dark side of doctor’s character; as in Dr Jekyll and …,homophone (it’s said) of conceal = HIDE
4 INCLINED – double definition; one slightly cryptic, and given, as in has a tendency to
5 HOOTER – double definition
6 EDNA – girl; reversal (raised) of with = AND, unclE
12 GIOVANNI – Italian; anagram (upset) of AVIGNON I
14 LECTURER – teacher; shocking treatment = ECT, included in seductress = LURER
16 WRETCH – miserable person; starts of With Rice, to eat in = ETCH
18 ARMPIT – body’s hollow; prepare = ARM, mine = PIT
20 SOFA – item of furniture; up to now incomplete = SO FA(R)
21 SNUG – cosy; reversal (raised) of arms = GUNS

18 comments on “Quick Cryptic 459 by Oran”

  1. Is it my imagination or are the Quickies getting a wee bit harder? Judging by my average times, I seem to be taking just a tad longer than I used to a few months ago – not by much but noticeably. Alternatively it could just be creeping senility on my part.
    Some nice neat clues here: 18d especially. I was dubious at first about ICE for 10a, but maybe it’s another example of ratcheting up the deviousness of the Quickies.
    LOI 6d as well.
    Strange how that well known Cumbrian has made yet another appearance in the crosswords this week. Mind you, I don’t think he’ll be doing much hunting there at the moment. My thoughts go out to all flood victims there this week.
  2. I struggled a bit with this one and needed 13 minutes to complete the grid. I think my brain was fried after a lengthy battle with the 15×15 and I should have been better off coming back to this later.

    Yes, John Peel came up in the main puzzle recently when the song about him was inaccurately clued as “Scottish air”. JP was from Cumbria.

    Edited at 2015-12-11 08:39 am (UTC)

  3. They seem to be getting a bit easier for me about twenty minutes but without pen and paper. I agree that the distance between distance and ice is very thin and I had been searching for another connection. Last in was Giovanni.
  4. At a little over 10 minutes, well over target for me. This seemed the hardest for quite a while, but maybe I was just on the wrong wavelength today. 6d my last one in too.
  5. Definitely *seem* to be getting harder, which is welcome. This one, for example, was a real struggle. Like everyone else, 6d LOI.
  6. Took me an hour before I gave in and chalked up a DNF with two remaining: ARMPIT and MAUL. A mix of difficulties: many answers that could be bunged in from reading half the clue, and some rather difficult. HEIGHTEN took me longer than it should since a bad circuit in my CPU led to me trying to spell it HIGHTEN, and I didn’t know what to do with the spare E.

    re: difficultly, I prefer it when they’re on the easier side. It’s supposed to be a quick crossword. If I want difficult, there’s the 15×15.

    Edited at 2015-12-11 12:16 pm (UTC)

    1. I do think that the QC has a duty to prepare newbies like me for the grown-up puzzle, though. I had a crack at today’s 15×15 and got a few clues. A few months ago, I wouldn’t have got any.

      Is there a case for the QC to become progressively trickier, as the main crossword does?

  7. Difficult, 20 minutes more than my usual half hour with Armpit from my checker app, but still enjoyable. I didnt see ICE as Distance, but the dictionary has ‘coolness of manner’ so its probably just OK.
    I got nowhere with the big cryptic today but I got a record half-way yesterday – a big vote of thanks to the QC and the bloggers.
    Brian
  8. Please tell me how to find and print the Times Quick Cryptic? I am a member of Times Online but can’t find it. Thank you. LD
    1. On the ribbon at the top of The Times webpage, click on Puzzles, then Crosswords, then Quick Cryptic, play. I think the only way to print is to do a print screen to a separate document in two stages to get all the clues , but if anyone has a better way, please do say.
      1. If you use Firefox, you can go to the puzzle and and right click, select “This Frame” > “Show only this frame”. It will display the puzzle “full page” like it used to, so everything will fit in one page (adjusting zoom if required).

        edit: I tried it. It doesn’t seem to print well directly from Firefox. So (assuming you’re on Windows), use the Snipping Tool, then paste the snip into Word / Wordpad / Paint, and print from there.

        Edited at 2015-12-11 11:00 pm (UTC)


    2. From the Puzzles editor:
      I appreciate this isn’t ideal, but for the time being, there is another way to print the Quick Cryptic (or in fact any other part of the paper).

      – From the main Times site, go to ‘Papers’ in the top menu
      – Select MINDGAMES in the Table of Contents to the right of the front page
      – Right click on the page that appears, and select Print Custom Area
      – Draw a box around the Quick Cryptic, and then follow the onscreen instructions

      DP

      The new edition appears around dawn each day otherwise you may get the previous day’s puzzle

  9. As a newby can somebody please explain how “voracious” helps the solve of “FLOW” from “WOLF” (which I understand from the reversal indicator alone) or is it otiose? Thanks again to all the bloggers, their work is much appreciated.
    Also note that electroplexy has been used twice this week: just a coincidence having not seen it before?

    Edited at 2015-12-11 05:27 pm (UTC)

    1. I think it’s to indicate a scary wild animal rather than, say, a hedgehog. And yes, coincidence, but these things tend to happen in crosswordland!
      1. You’ve obviously not got the same sort of hedgehogs in your garden as we have got: they do indeed eat the dog’s food voraciously. Seriously, thanks for the reply to my question; I’m still not sure the word “voracious” adds much to the solving though.
  10. Finished the week with a DNF – I couldn’t make head or tail of 6d. One of these days I’ll remember that with often indicates and in crosswordland. As to the difficulty level I thought it was possibly the toughest of the week.
    I don’t know if my memory’s gone but didn’t a virtually identical clue to 14d appear earlier in the week?
    CODs 8a and 18d.
  11. This was a real struggle for me, but I eventually got there, albeit with my wife’s help along the way. Invariant
  12. Challenging today; I thought I’d cracked it and was left with 22a. I considered Maul but couldn’t parse it, so tried Mous(e) as a beast with no tail -wrong! David

Comments are closed.