Quick Cryptic 597 by Flamande

Author   nick_the_novicePosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
I found this one at the easier end of the spectrum, though by no means a walk in the park.

Thought 3d was a particularly nice clue – good anagram and amusing surface with a cryptic kind of definition to boot. And 9ac was rather elegant. A bit puzzled by the second part of 12d, so hopefully someone can tell me what obvious thing I’ve overlooked!

Thanks to Flamande for an enjoyable puzzle.

Definitions underlined: DD = double definition: anagrams indicated by *(–): {-} indicates letter removed.

Across
1 Endlessly bad-tempered note (8)
CROTCHET – CROTCHET{Y} (bad-tempered loses its last letter – ‘endlessly’), leaving the musical note
5 Worthless types, a hundred in total (4)
SCUM – C (a hundred) ‘in’ SUM (total)
8 Resolve to discourage people crossing motorway (13)
DETERMINATION – DETER (discourage) + NATION (people) ‘crossing’ MI (motorway)
10 Ban makeshift boat heading for ocean (5)
TABOO – *(BOAT) – with “makeshift” as the anagrind – + O (heading for Ocean)
11 Company scheme to enlist one high flyer (7)
COPILOT – CO (company) + PLOT (scheme) taking in (enlisting) I (one)
12 Perhaps father cut several books in the Bible (6)
PARENT – PARE (cut) + NT (abbrev. New Testament – ‘several books in the Bible’)
13 Worry family member has forfeited first of rights (6)
BOTHER – B{R}OTHER (family member) loses his first R (forfeits first of Rights)
16 Large birds near centre of Balearic port (7)
SWANSEA – SWANS (large birds) alongside (near) centre of BalEAric
18 After heavy defeat English leader shows the way (5)
ROUTE – E (English leader) comes ‘after’ ROUT (heavy defeat)
20 Listen: a crowd’s running riot in royal residence (7,6)
WINDSOR CASTLE – *(LISTEN A CROWDS) with “running riot” as the anagrind
21 Rambler maybe spotted at first surrounded by deer (4)
ROSE – S (Spotted at first) ‘surrounds’ ROE (deer)
22 At home, cared for loved one (8)
INTENDED – IN (at home) + TENDED (cared for)
Down
1 Trainee acted wildly (5)
CADET – *(ACTED) with “wildly” as the anagrind
2 Love to be in credit for a few weeks (7)
OCTOBER – O (love) + TO BE ‘in’ CR (abbrev. credit)
3 Actor isn’t so outlandish in funny drawers (11)
CARTOONISTS – *(ACTOR ISNT SO) with “outlandish” as the anagrind
4 Prove uncle Vincent is not all there (6)
EVINCE – Hidden (indicated by ‘not all there’) inside unclE VINCEnt
6 Sick after church: a winter ailment (5)
CHILL – ILL (sick) ‘after’ CH (abbrev. church)
7 Keep an eye on lizard (7)
MONITOR – DD. Was not familiar with the lizard, but with the cross checkers and the first of the two definitions it couldn’t be much else!
9 It’s OK to steal (11)
APPROPRIATE – DD – neat and elegant clue
12 Job was almost right, from 1946 onwards? (4-3)
POST WAR – Answer clear enough from the definition, but a bit baffled by the parsing here – POST (job) + WAR. All I can see is that WAR are the first letters of Was Almost Right – but nothing I could see to indicate usage of these first letters (with the exception of R for Right, they are not standard abbreviations / initials). I fear I may have missed something…
14 NUT head distressed, troubled by ghosts (7)
HAUNTED – *(NUT HEAD) with “distressed” as the anagrind
15 Nurse fellow, having to suppress terror regularly (6)
MATRON – MAN (fellow) wrapping around (‘suppressing’) every other letter (regularly) of TeRrOr
17 Portion of lasagne satisfied woman (5)
AGNES – Hidden in (indicated by ‘portion of’) lasAGNE Satisfied
19 Newspaper chief engages people – to do his job? (5)
EMEND – ED (newspaper chief) takes in (engages) MEN (people)

41 comments on “Quick Cryptic 597 by Flamande”

  1. 26:56 – moderately tricky in my book.

    12a I parsed as WA (“was almost”, i.e. minus the last letter) + R (“right”).

    Edited at 2016-06-22 12:11 am (UTC)

    1. Of course… knew I was missing something obvious. Hey ho. Thanks for sorting that one.
  2. Nice puzzle. Slowed down a bit at 3d, as I was trying to do the anagram in my head and failing; also 1ac, where it took me a while, and some checkers, to remember CROTCHET. Nick, at 21ac I believe you mean ‘surrounded by’. 6′ exactly.

    Edited at 2016-06-22 01:20 am (UTC)

  3. 12dn Agree with previous note on POST WAR

    ‘9ac was rather elegant’ I think you are referring to 8ac DETERMINATION?

    COD 3dn CARTOONISTS

    7.23 so a pleasant ramble except for…..

    Nick, why do you persist with the word ‘anagrind’?

    “Unusually there was for once complete unanimity in the many responses I got to the question posed last month about whether ‘anagrind’ is a word fit for purpose in a Guardian crossword. A couple of people thanked me, because now at least they knew what it meant. But the answer was a resounding ‘No’. Everyone agreed that the trend towards the unnecessary use of jargon by crossword setters, or any other special interest group, should be resisted, even if the word involved can be found by Googling: particularly if it is a word as ugly as ‘anagrind’.”
    Hugh Stephenson,The Guardian, 2 April 2012.

    Hear hear!Please desist!’We all prefer ‘anagram’.

    horryd Shanghai

    1. The anagrind is the indication that the clue is an anagram; it’s not an anagram itself. (‘Wild pals in makeup’, say; ‘pals’ is the anagrist, ‘wild’ the anagrind.) I don’t care much for the term myself, but if we’re to replace it, it couldn’t be with ‘anagram’, but, say, ‘anagram indicator’–longer, but clearer.
    2. It’s a convenient contraction of “anagram indicator” and has been used here and elsewhere for the best part of 10 years to my knowledge, so we’re not about to stop using it now.

      From what you have quoted, the people who expressed an opinion were commenting only on its validity as an answer in a Guardian crossword, and I can’t speak for that as I don’t follow it, but it would only be valid for inclusion in a Times crossword if it made its way into one of the source dictionaries which it hasn’t as yet.

      As indicated above it doesn’t mean the same as “anagram”.

      Edited at 2016-06-22 01:26 am (UTC)

      1. Didn’t know that. That makes it a cleverer coinage than I’d thought, given ‘grist’. But I assume it’s pronounced to rhyme with ‘mind’?
        1. I imagine most people pronounce it like that too but that may only have arisen to fit when the back-formation “anagrist” was derived. Others with longer memories may know more but they tend not to visit QC corner too often.

          Edited at 2016-06-22 07:26 am (UTC)

    1. No, because there are enclosure indicators, deletion indicators, reversal indicators etc. If anagrind annoys you, be thankful we don’t have special jargon for all of those too!

      Edited at 2016-06-22 01:41 am (UTC)

  5. Jack,

    Ten years old! Whatever did we do without it! I shall continue to loathe it – please let me know when it is established in the dictionaries.

    Until that unhappy day, I shall remain in ‘mode Meldrew!’

    horryd – Shanghai

    1. I said “10 years to my knowledge” because that’s as long as I have been discussing puzzles with other crossword buffs on-line and since I first met it. It may well have been around for 50 years for all I know.

      Reference your comment below, I disagree that “andicator” would be more descriptive as it does not contain the rather pleasing “grind” element which suggests the letters are to be processed to produce something else. Like grinding grain to produce flour, which leads us nicely to the back-formation “anagrist” meaning the letters to be put through our imaginary mill in the same way that “grist” is the substance processed in flour production.

      Edited at 2016-06-22 05:14 am (UTC)

  6. Might I suggest that ‘andicator’ would be more descriptive and somewhat preferable to the benighted ‘anagrind’.

    Why not try it – someone?

    horryd – Shanghai

    1. Sorry, came a bit late to field the comments this morning. Re. anagrind, not much to add to Jack’s clear apologia for the word (and indeed its counterpart anagrist).

      In answer to your question, horryd, I “persist” in using it because
      – when I first came across this delightful forum three years ago as a complete novice, it (and its counterpart) were consistently used by the senior pros here, and it seemed like useful terminology to describe the indicator of an anagram
      – I was not aware of the Guardian debate. Had I been, I would have launched a stout defence of its continued usage. Whilst jargon for its own sake is to be deplored, the use of jargon as a convenient shorthand amongst people sharing a specialist interest / profession / whatever saves time. For example, football fans will use the verb “to nutmeg” as opposed to “beating his opponent by tapping the ball between his legs rather than dribbling around him” on the basis that it is significantly more economical.
      – Writing these blogs is time consuming enough, without having to stop and ponder whether each word that you use might conceivably displease some odd bod who happens to hang around the forum. Life’s too short…

      2. As I also didn’t know the derivation, I spent some time on the internet looking for it – without result.

        However Wikipedia does have the same expression in over 50 other languages, best for me is Israel who call it a skirt shot, as a long skirt would stop it if footballers wore them

        1. Thanks for that gem Graham – I’ll definitely use ‘skirt shot’ in the future: it will cause no end of roguish jocularity amongst my footy buddies…
    2. I’d just like to back Nick up – these blogs are time consuming to produce are unpaid and are free to refer to. Please don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. If a blogger is kind enough to provide this selfless service I feel they should be able to use whatever style or terminology they would like to.

      As for the crossword – I made a complete horlicks (no apologies for using this expression) of it and crawled home in 19 minutes. I put Cold War for no apparent reason which tied me in knots.

      Thanks for the blog Nick.

      Edited at 2016-06-22 02:08 pm (UTC)

  8. 7.45 and 13 comments, knew something had kicked off as soon as I opened the blog, can’t say I’m that bothered, had never heard of anagrind until I started reading the blog, and soon worked out what it meant. No it’s not a nice word but I don’t like photoshopped either or most of the words that have their origins in the past few year come to that, old fogey that’s me.
    Steady solve held up by a total inability to spell CROTCHET. I agree with AetherElemental re parsing of 12d. COD 20a lovely anasomethingorother.
    Thanks blogger and Flamande
  9. 20:55. I didn’t really parse POST WAR either, and think it’s a bit of a weak clue, but others today make up. A clever 1ac always sets me up in a good mood, and CROTCHET is COD for me. LOI was MONITOR, as the ‘on’ in a down clue led me to believe it was a piecemeal clue, not a double def– good misdirection from setter. EMEND is an obscure word, had to check the definition after guessing.
    I find ‘O’ as an abbreviation for ocean a bit unlikely, there are only three of them, and always plenty of room on maps to write them in full. And who is ever going to say the ‘Arctic O’, rather than just the ‘Arctic’?
      1. Got it, a ‘headind’, not an abbreviation from an Atlas after all, to go with ‘R’iver, ‘I’sland etc…
  10. Nice puzzle today and a sub 30 time which is always a bonus. COD for me was 9d. I needed all the crossers and didn’t think there was enough info in the clue but then light dawned.
  12. Nick,

    Few bloggers use these loathsome words these days.

    You use an interesting exemplar – the footballing term

    nutmeg as a verb. From where does this expression come – have you

    any idea!? Or is life too short?

    Odd bod – Shanghai

  13. This took me 3 visits. I never did parse MATRON as I was stuck on the “fellow” being RON. Never parsed WAR either. I spent a long time on 3dn trying to find a word for funny trousers rather than funny sketchers. Also didn’t like “O” for Ocean, but have come to accept that initial letters are used increasingly for almost anything. Lazy setting in my view.

    So all in all a real challenge and pleased to have finished at all.
    PlayupPompey

  15. About 25 mins but again had to take phone calls, also couldn’t parse war, but obvious from the clue.
    CODs joint 3d and 22a. both pearls (for me a better use of pearls than for teeth)
    A bit bemused by muttering about anagrist and anagrind, surely anyone who can be happy with prehistoric deities, mythical creatures, portiere for a curtain and endless cricket can accommodate a pair of only 10 year old words, particularly the grist / grind bits which I would have thought would have appealed to any crossword solver, and are not “ugly” at all.
    1. Goodness me, I wish I could have put it so well. My feelings entirely. Have you ever seen so many comments on a QC, and all because a blogger is trying to help us poor mortals.
  16. Good crossword. Now learning to love Flamande’s puzzles. Thought that “funny drawers” Cartoonists was an excellent definition and a great clue!
  17. I found this quite straightforward and finished in an 15 enjoyable minutes. My one question mark was that I’d always thought of 11a being hyphenated but the answer couldn’t have been anything else. COD 3d. LOI 16a
    Thanks for the blog Nick – as invaluable as always
    1. Of the usual sources, Collins has it without, COED has it with, and Chambers has both, with first and without as an alternative.
  18. Enjoyable but with some tough ones for me. 12a I started with Pa and assumed parent but couldn’t figure out rent from the Bible. Thanks to the blog I see I was both right and wrong! 13a bother was a bit of bother too.
  19. Still taking longer than it should, but a Flamande full house encourages me to think that I’m getting back to normal. Invariant
  20. 8:29 for me which I am delighted with. Didn’t parse post war. Re Anagrind, if Nick is prepared to blog it, I’m more than happy to have him use whatever jargon he likes. Thank you Nick.
  21. 22 minutes today for a high quality crossword. Some clues reminded me of the main cryptic. I liked 2d and 9d amongst others. LOI was 4d which I had noted earlier; needed to get 1a first which wasn’t easy. David
  22. Too busy at the theatre to comment today. Thanks for the excellent blog, Nick.
  23. Further ‘A slightly more extreme view was expressed by Barry E. ‘Whoever it was that coined the word ‘anagrind’ should be taken out and shot, revived and shot again for a Sisyphean eternity.’ Guardian 2 April 2012

    Surely there must be a better word!

    How about ‘nutmeg’?

    horryd – Shanghai

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