Though the aforementioned display problem prevented me from solving the puzzle in the normal way, it did give me all the clues/answers. I must say that writing a blog merely from a set of clues/answers is considerably less fun than doing so after having battled the thing in grid form, plus the grid itself can contribute to how difficult or easy a puzzle is so I can’t comment on that aspect of the experience.
This is Dazzler’s third Quick Cryptic puzzle, the previous two having met with general approval. It appears to be another good one with nothing likely to cause alarm, except maybe to overseas solvers not familiar with car breakdown organisations in the UK, though I think there’s a similarly named outfit in Australia and possibly in other Commonwealth countries. I particularly liked the smoothness of many of the surfaces, not to mention the image of the bothersome club-going chicken, but 14A gets my COD (Clue Of the Day) vote for stringing its parts together so well.
Note for tomorrow’s blogger: I can’t see tomorrow’s puzzle at either the location expected from the numbering system used in recent weeks, or the numbering system suggested by today’s puzzle. Tomorrow’s puzzle seems to have the correct date but 152 as the number.
Definitions are underlined.
Across | |
1 | Fast vehicle left on board motoring organisation sent back (6,3) |
SPORTS CAR – SS (steamship) around PORT (left), hence PORT is “on board”. Then add RAC reversed (motoring organisation, i.e. Royal Automobile Club, sent back) | |
6 | Outstanding, timeless couple’s song (3) |
DUE – the definition is in the sense of a debt. DUE |
|
8 | People possessing paintings about continued struggle to get on (3,4) |
RAT RACE – RACE (People) outside (possessing) ART reversed (paintings about) | |
9 | Officer in spot of trouble retreating with men (5) |
MAJOR – JAM reversed (sport of trouble retreating) + OR (men, i.e. other ranks) | |
10 | One politician with extremely exceptional drive (5) |
IMPEL – I + MP + E |
|
12 | Headless chicken in club a nuisance (6) |
MENACE – |
|
14 | Judge initially thinks burglary before midnight is very upsetting (13) |
HEARTBREAKING – HEAR (Judge, as in a court case) + T (initially thinks, i.e. the initial letter of thinks) + BREAK-IN (burglary) + G (midnight, i.e. the middle of night). Lovely! | |
16 | Crackling noise on radio not mobile (6) |
STATIC – double definition | |
17 | A great time – one eating good mushrooms (5) |
FUNGI – FUN (A great time) + I all around (eating) G (good) | |
19 | Alarm father and son finally (5) |
SIREN – SIRE (father) + |
|
20 | Ten Euros, not shillings, wasted when travelling (2,5) |
EN ROUTE – anagram (wasted) of TEN EURO |
|
22 | Rum starts off old drunkard’s dipsomania (3) |
ODD – initial letters (starts) of Old Drunkard’s Dipsomania | |
23 | Regulars must score when playing (9) |
CUSTOMERS – anagram (when playing) of MUST SCORE |
Down | |
1 | Frank‘s good poker hand (8) |
STRAIGHT – double definition, the second being five cards of sequential rank in at least two different suits | |
2 | Showing no resistance in crushing defeat is unacceptable (3) |
OUT – |
|
3 | Wake made by dog crossing river (5) |
TRAIL – TAIL (dog, in verbal form) around (crossing) R (river) | |
4 | Best nuts? They’re usually eaten with cheese (5,8) |
CREAM CRACKERS – CREAM (Best, e.g. the cream of the crop) + CRACKERS (nuts, i.e. mad) | |
5 | Look upset about sultanate becoming an EU member (7) |
ROMANIA – AIR reversed (Look upset) about OMAN (sultanate) | |
6 | Unhappiness shown by daughter over dismissal (9) |
DEJECTION – D (daughter) + EJECTION (dismissal) | |
7 | Make listener nervous at first (4) |
EARN – EAR (listener) + N |
|
11 | Drunk spelt and read poorly (9) |
PLASTERED – anagram (poorly) of SPELT + READ. One of those clues where you know it’s an anagram but you can’t tell immediately which end is the definition and which is the anagram indicator. There is an argument to be made that someone in a plaster cast (or a sticking-plaster) is plastered, which I suppose would make them poorly, in which case the definition and anagram indicator would be the reverse of what I’ve just described. | |
13 | English endlessly misused in America? A far from attractive trait (8) |
UGLINESS – anagram (misused) of ENGLIS |
|
15 | Enormous bird taking a short cut (7) |
TITANIC – TIT (bird) + A + NIC |
|
17 | Supporting attempt to give up (5) |
FORGO – FOR (Supporting) + GO (attempt) | |
18 | Capital found once in Czechoslovakia (4) |
OSLO – hidden in CzechOSLOvakia. An oldie but goodie. The “once” is arguably unnecessary, though it maybe makes the surface a little better. | |
21 | Good service (3) |
USE – double definition. An example of the first: “What is the good of worrying?”, and of the second: “Can I be of service?” |
Does pop up in puzzles from time to time along with fivers, tenners and nicker.
Very much appreciated the blog today, mohn.
If we’re on 152 tomorrow that resumes the sequence where it left off on Friday but in the meantime for today’s we have jumped back to 146 which was omitted from the sequence last Monday.
In this case, I agree with mohn that 14ac was excellent. I thought it was worthy of the main puzzle. 8ac was good, too. 2 days after Eurovision had reminded me of the days of ‘Norway -nul points!’, I had no problems with Oslo. Again, a nice blog, john; very clear. Middling-to-difficult: 16mins.
14a was clever and took me a long time to get but was able to parse fully. 4d was my favourite.
Found this one fairly straightforward (maybe as a result of the prior session with the big one), but some clues that were trickly.
Shared the difficulty of parsing USE. Had to be the answer, but hard to validate. Thanks to mohn for such a clear explanation.
LOI was HEARTBREAKING – only got it once all cross checkers were in place.
COD 1dn – not that hard, but compact and elegant surface I thought.
1. I got RAT RACE for 8ac but even after reading the blog I can’t explain why it’s the right answer. I understand the definition but not the word play. Can anyone make this clearer for me?
2. I’m not sure what this means — is it just about the topology of the grid?
Thanks as ever
“People possessing paintings about” = “Race holding art backwards” = raT RAce
2) surface = surface meaning (the deliberately misleading but natural way to read the clue).
If they’re smooth or neat, you don’t even notice on first glance, and that is both frustrating for the solver and accomplished from the setter.
Please ask for a better explanation if this doesn’t help!
OK I see it now!
I was confused because I thought RAT was the “art backwards” part of the clue but now I realise it was rather “art jiggled about a bit”
And surfaces, nothing to do with the shape of the grid then. So the smoothness of a puzzle is a measure of it’s sophistication.
I’m getting there slowly. Getting better at the puzzles, learning about the statistics and now coming to grips with the terminology 🙂
I often get caught out by indicator words that could indicate more than one operation, like “about”, which could indicate an anagram or a reversal (about turn). Another that springs to mind is ” without x”, which could mean “missing x” or “outside of x” (as in, without the city walls).
I’m sure the others could add many more.
As a solver, though, it’s best to ignore (!) the surface since it may well send your mind in different directions to that which will actually help you solve the clue. A common misdirection is for the surface to indicate one meaning of a word whereas solving the clue requires you to realise it’s another, e.g. 6A, where the surface makes you think outstanding in the sense of excellent, but you actually need to think of it in the sense of unpaid. Similarly in 1D, where the surface seems to be referring to a proper noun (a person called Frank) but the meaning required to solve it is an adjective. Since 99.99% of all human writing has been with the purpose of conveying information (or entertainment) as clearly as possible, one of the hardest things for beginning cryptic crossword solvers is to suspend that expectation and treat a clue as simply a set of letters/words rather than a context. (The one exception to that is a type of clue called an &lit, but that’s a subject for another day …)
A cryptic definition has no wordplay – it’s simply a surface that’s designed to mislead. Examples from the same site are: http://bestforpuzzles.com/cryptic-crossword-tutorial/cryptic-definitions.html though one of my favourites is “An alarming blood count?” (7), the surface suggesting some kind of dangerously high leukocyte levels but the answer being DRACULA.
Thanks so much for taking the time to spell these out so clearly. I’ve definitely got the hand of CDs (and the Dracula clue is highly amusing!). The &Lit examples in your link are harder and I’ll have to work on those a bit more.
If ever you need help with SuDoku I’d be happy to repay the favour….
Obviously never worked in law, PR, politics, or, as I am finding out after sending our daughter to the same school I attended 30-odd years ago, private education! 🙂
Was convinced 2d was going to be OHM (reference to resistance, and I had the starting O) which held me up a bit. Was also convinced 14 across would have a J in (from “judge initially”). But in the end it was 6ac that was my LOI. Ugh. Liked 4d though – my COD.
The midnight thing is definitely a step away from Ximenes, though the Times hasn’t been properly Ximenean for a while – you’ll see occasional harrumphs on the main cryptic blog due to definitions by example (even in this puzzle we have one with mushrooms at 17A). I didn’t even blink when I parsed 14A, though that’s probably because I regularly do crosswords in other places where such constraints don’t apply, so I have found it less confusing for my brain to not look out for or rely on newspaper-specific rules. Though many beginners may not know of Ximenes, it’s interesting that a couple of people have pointed out that they were stumped by midnight, which may suggest that it didn’t follow whatever rules they may have become used to in the 45 Quick Cryptics before this one.
In both cases though, without the editor chiming in, it’s impossible to know if such things are a deliberate, erroneous or unknowing change of policy.
I got round to this one today and enjoyed it up to 21dn – thanks for the explanation.