Quick Cryptic 571 by Tracy

Author   ChrisPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
A mix of easy and less than easy clues here led to an enjoyable 13 minute solve – quite some time of which was spent in the NW. It contains some long definitions which can be confusing but satisfying when you get there. I’m going to have to look up the feathered friend to complete the blog.

ACROSS

3. Careworn – showing signs of stress. CAR, anagram (after crashing) of OWNER.
7. Proper – correct. PRO, PE before runs (R).
8. Insignia – badge. Soldier (GI) – coming back= (IG) inside an anagram (ordered) of INN AS I.
9. Once – no longer. I (ONE) consumes (C)heese.
10. Doe – female animal. Homophone (reportedly) of dough.
11. Kill time – to do something whilst waiting. Take out (KILL), US weekly (TIME).
13. Rate – measure. RAT, porcupin(E).
15. Arid – dried up. AID across river (R).
17. Titmouse – feathered friend? A titmouse is any small, active songbird of the family Paridae. Anagram (fancy) of EMUS OTT I.
19. Owe – be indebted to. (O)ur (W)arwickshire (E)leven.
22. Diet – double definition. What one eats and a legislative assembly in various countries such as Japan.
23. Revolver – gun. Right (R) one developing (EVOLVER). I’m sure I wasn’t the only one fooled into thinking that ‘developing’ was an anagram indicator.
24. Atrium – central hall. Note (A), decorative additions (TRIM) around university (U).
25. Open plan – without dividing walls. Start (OPEN), factory almost (PLAN)t.

DOWN

1. Frontier – border. Promenade (FRONT) as in sea front promenade – I was trying to find a word meaning walking for a while, that is (IE), ou(R).
2. Appeal – to be attractive. Homophone (said) of a peel.
3. Crib – bed. Constant (C), tease (RIB).
4. Resident – hotel guest. Anagram (disturbed) of TRENDIES.
5. Wagner – composer. WAGER around northern (N).
6. Rein – check. About (RE), home (IN).
12. Interval – a spell. Anagram (refurbished) of TAVERN feeding (inside) the in Italian (IL).
14. Tasteful – pleasing. Anagram (unexpectedly) of SALUTE FT.
16. Do down – humiliate. Act (DO), blue (DOWN).
18. Orders – double definition – instructs and classes or genres.
21. Bran – refuse. Republican (R) inside bar (BAN). Just before I solved this I had bran (or refuse) sticks as part of my breakfast.

21 comments on “Quick Cryptic 571 by Tracy”

  1. I found this one difficult but I still finished in my target time of 30 minutes. I’m not sure how, but every checker was useful (for a change) and answers seemed to pop into my head. Bran for Refuse (rubbish) was new to me but with three checkers out of four it couldn’t have been anything else. Perhaps it’s a crosswordland old chestnut.
    Brian
  2. At just under twelve minutes, my longest time for a while, and even then a dnf, had ‘fill time’ Like blogger, fixated on promenade meaning ‘to walk’. Good puzzle today.
  3. Found this one very difficult for a Quickie – just not on the same wavelength at all so DNF.
    How does bran mean refuse?

    Rita

    1. I think that refuse – as in waste – is used as the bran or husks of the cereal grain are separated from the flour so are not used in bread making – and thus are the ‘waste’ of the process. Bran is of course useful – especially in my breakfast!
      Another definition of bran is an indigestible food residue – which therefore gets ‘wasted’.
    2. Chambers has bran as the coarser or refuse part of anything. In the milling process its the husk part of the grain that’s separated when making flour.
  4. Just made it in 10 minutes today but it was a near thing with ORDERS and DIET taking the last 2 or 3.

    I thought 10ac was very pleasing as DOE, the animal, sounds like “dough” for bread in the making, but also “dough” as slang for “money” which can also be called “bread”.

  5. You can always rely on Tracy for a good selection of head-scratching clues. The NW corner today was certainly that, so I’m happy enough with a 40 min finish. CoD for me was 1d. Invariant
  6. Refuse to have Republican in bar? On first pass I wrote in CRAP as in R in CAP. Quickly amended once OPEN PLAN went in.
  7. Couldn’t work out how to not be anonymous
    This is about xword 532
    There was a lot of discussion re ‘rad’ and new words – isn’t rad just short for radical or am I missing the point
    I’m always doing old X words as my W does the Times 2 and I have to hide them away till later.
    Just a point – I’ve been doing them since they started and still sometimes I sit looking at a blank grid but then sometimes it’s easy for 3/4 and then stalemate.
    Is looking in a thesaurus cheating?
    Re the main xword – I dont think the quick one is any route in – I’ve looked at main one and sometimes I can’t understand the answer! Sometimes the answer is a word not in my vocabulary and I’m a classicist!
    Your blog/answer site is so helpful and is part of the fun – knowing if I’m stuck I can find one word across the top (always the 1st clue) to get me going
    Hope this is not too boring for you all – in Princess Grace (London) sitting X wording whilst my wife recovers from a hip op. Have today’s to do then I shall get on with Gerald Durrell the Corfu History interspersed with Churchills History of English Speaking Peoples vol 1 – both books recommended
    Sure I’ve broken lots of rules here but what the ???? (Nibble at food turning in first of page for hotel initially) haha
    Tor Prim
    1. Welcome. Well there’s a few things to go through there – so I’ll try to take them in order. Let me know if you want any clarification.
      To not be anonymous, the best way is to create a free Livejournal account – then any replies you get will be notified to your mail inbox. Otherwise you can just your name at the bottom of an anonymous post as you have done.
      The blog site has a calendar – click on the date you want and you’ll see the blog and comments for that day.
      In terms of cheating – it depends what game you’re playing – and you can make up your own rules. The times given on this site are for those people playing by the rules not to use aids to solving.
      Route to the main crossword – obviously the 15×15 grid can be much harder than the QC but there are days when it is relatively easy – look out for comments from those who have completed both.
      I and the other bloggers are very happy that you find the site helpful – it’s what keeps us going.
      All comments are appreciated – but do try to keep it clean. 😄
      1. The joy of the quickie for beginners is that it has a good selection of give away clues to get us started which then help in nailing down the harder clues. When faced by 15×15 it can be a struggle just getting started. Sometimes I wish I could find a discarded paper with only the 10 most obscure clues inserted so I could then complete the rest. Or maybe a “Sudoku” style crossword with random letters populated the grid….
  8. An interesting mix today of the straightforward and the difficult. Eventually completed in 22 minutes – although my LOI, 21a, was unparsed and I had to run through the alphabet to pick out the most likely option. I didn’t realise 17a related to a real creature until reading the blog – I’d always assumed it was a made up word or came from a cartoon or something. COD 11a
  9. An enjoyable challenge today and it took almost an hour, but got there in the end even though I couldn’t really justify BRAN – thanks all for the explanations above. Last in was ONCE although I am still not completely convinced with No Longer as a definition.
  10. Have not spoke up for a bit, but 24ac … My parse was rather different. Refuse is ban, with R in equals Bran. Answer is Bar, you get Bran Bars for breakfast, Wiki says so! Don’t really like Bran as waste or refuse, agree it’s a byproduct, but a good feed for horses, hardly just rubbish. Any comments?
    2. Well, any parsing or train of thought that gets us to the right answer has served its purpose in a way but to understand the finer points of clue construction one has to look beyond that. I’m afraid to start with I might have a problem with refuse = ban as they’re not really the same thing unless qualified by other words, so “refuse to allow something” might mean to ban it, but “refuse something” doesn’t, in my view at least.

      I assume you mean the definition is Bar, rather than the answer, but bar = bran is simply too big a stretch to be credible, I’m afraid.

      One or two others, including myself, raised an eyebrow at refuse = bran but it’s in Chamber’s (as mentioned in my original posting) so we have to accept it’s fine for crossword purposes and any complaints would need to be aimed at their lexicographers rather than the setter.

      I hope this helps. That you are thinking along the lines suggested is very good in itself, so I hope you will accept my comments in the constructive manner in which they are intended.

      Edited at 2016-05-17 08:03 pm (UTC)

  11. 18:38

    Found this pretty straightforward, except TITMOUSE which was a guess since I’d never heard it before. According to Wikipedia it’s a North American bird, and that would explain why.

  12. After 25 minutes on the train I still had several unsolved, particularly in the NW.
    A long second look left me with some ideas: Titmouse guessed from the anagram.
    I had Down Time for 11a and that caused me big problems. I replaced it with Fill Time -which I now see is wrong, but I did manage to get the tricky 1d and 2d was what I thought it should be.
    So after several days of completing fairly quickly in one sitting, this brought me down to earth. A good and fair test. David
  13. Started late in the day and left with TITMOUSE and REVOLVER (so not an anagram of ‘Right One’, after all!) Mark me down as another DNF, but limited the damage to 30m.

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