Quick Cryptic 561 by Joker

Author   ChrisPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
Not much time to blog today so this is about as brief as it gets. A good, accessible crossword though – there should be plenty of completers today. My time was 13 minutes. Hopefully other bloggers can fill in if I’m not around. I’ll be back later to pick up the inevitable typos.

ACROSS

1. Supplant – replace. Small (S), out of bed (UP), shrub say (PLANT).
5. Belt – waistband. Left (L) inside BET.
7. Away – on holiday. A, WAY.
8. Baguette – stick with the French. Anagram (garbled) of BUT GET A with English (E).
9. Detritus – accumulated debris. Anagram (to be moved) of I TRUSTED.
11. Ere – before. w(ERE).
13. Rococo – ornate architectural style. Anagram (adapted) of mOROCCO – not the first letter.
16. Caress – lovingly touch. Son (S) after CARES.
18. Ref – match official. He(REF)ord.
19. Scarcity – shortness of supply. SCARY around CITY.
20. Macaroni – pasta cooked with cheese. I guess Macaroni was a dandy.
22. Yeti – mythical creature. YET, I.
23. Mood – state of mind. Low (MOO), key (D).
24. Nuthatch – small bird. NUT, HATCH.

DOWN

1. Slander – malicious report. I(SLANDER).
2. Practice – rehearsal. PRICE holding ACT.
3. Albatross – bird. A, large (L), flying mammal (BAT), arctic explorer (Sir James Clark) ROSS.
4. Tag – double definition.
5. Blender – mixer. L inside BENDER.
6. Litotes – understatement. Small child (TOT) inside LIES.
10. Socialist – left winger. SO, CIA, LIST.
12. Reticent – retiring. RECENT holding IT upwards (TI).
14. Oregano – herb. Liver (ORGAN) and something round (O) containing eastern (E).
15. Offhand – rudely abrupt. Unsatisfactory (OFF), worker (HAND),
17. Stylish – impressively smart. Anagram (drunk) of THIS SLY.
21. Own – possess. g(OWN).

21 comments on “Quick Cryptic 561 by Joker”

  1. Nothing to scare the horses here, although I was a bit surprised to find LITOTES (one of the means of intimidation used by gangland chief Doug Piranha) and MACARONI. As a child–and even as an adult–I used to wonder about the song ‘Yankee Doodle’: He put a feather in his cap and called it macaroni, which made no sense to me. ‘Macaroni’ meant, back then at least, a fop, or dandy. I assumed the usage died out long ago, and my SOED marks it as Obs., but. 4:04.

    Edited at 2016-05-04 02:54 am (UTC)

  2. Pretty quick, LOI 20a trying to find an anagram of pasta with a three letter cheese “O?I” that meant dandy, then the clouds cleared. Thanks Joker you never disappoint me. 3d and 8a particularly neat.
    As a Canary I would like to join in the celebrations for the Foxes, but I’ve never really forgiven them for nicking Martin O’Neill. Also I am consumed with jealousy. Oh all right then, well done for putting it to the money clubs. Luckily Burnley will keep our place warm, as usual, for 2017/18 if it doesn’t go our way.
  3. 16:31, a Personal Best. LITOTES was a word I only vaguely recalled and was LOI. Unable to quite parse 19a (at 04:16, I haven’t seen the blog yet), I see SCARC(E) + CITY. How does ‘most of’ relate to ‘frightening’ and what’s ‘around’ doing there?
    Thanks to the blogger who saw a YETI mistakenly yesterday, kept it in my mind for today.
    COD 3D, I was convinced it would be Amundsen, Shackleton or Scott somehow. Forgot about Mr Ice Shelf.
  4. I was well below par today and needed 17 minutes to complete this, most of the extra time spent on 3dn, 5dn and 8ac. Not being able to think of the required word for a drunken spree was a little disconcerting to say the least. I thought LITOTES might cause problems for some.

    Edited at 2016-05-03 06:54 am (UTC)

  5. Came in at 9:58. LOI 5d, but only held up by 20a. I assumed Dandy was a reference to the nursery rhyme Yankee Doodle?
  6. Didn’t parse MACARONI. Have been playing Yankee Doodle on the piano, and now finally understand it! A pleasing 7′ today. PRACTICE caused pedantry to kick in. Does one ‘do’ practice? Not really, one practises, or turns up at practice. Just saying. Enjoyed the puzzle.
  7. Litotes and Macaroni fine by me but a DNF as couldn’t get 23a having forgotten that cattle low!
  8. I spent 35 enjoyable minutes on this one – Joker is definitely my favoirite setter. Litotes was a new word but the dictionary confirmed it, along with Dandy for 20A although ’18th century” puts it firmly in Crosswordland.
    Brian
  9. 14:13. Might have been faster if I’d been a bit braver about putting in LITOTES… I have made up words before and it’s come back to bite me… thought this might be one of them! But it wasn’t.

    COD BAGUETTE, nice misdirection, since “the French” usually means “le” or “la”.

  10. I used to find Joker too hard, but now just fun. I must be improving. I did this while my HK Chinese wife made a salad. As usual I saved the last clue for her. Today it was MOOD, but cattle in nearby field gave a big hint. LITOTES and NUTHATCH were new to me but well signposted.

    Chris

  11. An enjoyable 14 minutes for me- I was clearly on the right wavelength. My favourite was 8a (LBOI) and I had saved 12d till the end as I didn’t see it first time through. A nice mix of clues. David
  12. Quick solve on the left hand side except for macaroni. Struggled to remember litotes from schooldays long gone, I expect the 6 year olds will know now, in view of the palaver with the sats! Ian and Elin
  13. Slow for me again today but I was once again not really focussing. DNF too as I also failed to come up with Bender for drunken spree. Some amusing clues and misdirection though.
    1. The number of slang words for drunk are huge, and “drunk” as an anagram indicator means that you’re never quite sure you’re on the right track. Sympathies.
  14. Another slow solve at this end. I might be going off the boil, but I managed the BH jumbo, so still some hope. Litotes and Macaroni didn’t help today, but I was slow with the others as well.
    Congrats Merlin on your new PB. Invariant
  15. DNF for me today, I eventually gave up on 6d. Annoyingly Litotes was one of the options that went through my head but it just looked wrong – I should have had faith in my ability to trust the wordplay.
    Other than that I thought this was a very entertaining puzzle. 20a also had me scratching my head for a while. COD 8a
  16. No need for pedantry on practice. Rehearsal is practice. Price includes act. The cast are acting not practising.
  17. Another enjoyable puzzle that had me despondent on first read-through, but word-play successfully forced out a couple of new words for me. My COD 20d.
  18. Yankee Doodle went to town
    Riding on a pony
    Stuck a feather in his cap
    And called it macaroni

    Song from childhood c 1960 for me

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