Quick Cryptic 670 by Joker

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
This one by Joker took me 8 minutes, somewhat better than my times on his most recent four puzzles which I needed between 11 and 15 minutes to complete. I’ve also had many a 15 + minute solve on his watch, so he can be quite a tricky customer. There’s a couple of clues that may give trouble and I’ve noted them in my comments below but generally I think they are fairly conventional and straightforward. Here’s my blog…

 As usual definitions are underlined in bold italics, {deletions are in curly brackets} and [anagrinds, containment, reversal and other indicators in square ones]

Across
1 Bad headache from one rye, perhaps, consumed by me (8)
MIGRAINE –  I (one) + GRAIN (rye, perhaps) contained [consumed] by ME
5 Go up, cutting first bit off branch of tree (4)
LIMB – {c}LIMB (go up) [cutting first bit off]
8 Cavity made with spades in United States (5)
SINUS – S (spades), IN, US
9 Sustained attack of anger in pub? (7)
BARRAGE – BAR (pub), RAGE (anger)
11 Cutting short drab meeting that’s out of control (11)
ABRIDGEMENT – Anagram [out of control] of DRAB MEETING
13 No longer chilling in working environment (6)
OFFICE – If chilling is “on ice”, no longer chilling…
14 Page held by old and overused fastener (6)
STAPLE – P (page) held by STALE (old /overused)
17 Lie with vertebra broken —one may get back something like this? (11)
RETRIEVABLE – Anagram [broken] of LIE VERTEBRA
20 What’s partly over and above porch (7)
VERANDA – Hidden [partly] in {o}VER AND A{bove}
21 Don’t start cutting up top layer of wedding cake (5)
ICING – {d}ICING (cutting up) [don’t start]
22 Regret accommodating daughter that’s insolent (4)
RUDE – RUE (regret) containing [accommodating] D (daughter)
23 Article found in minor road in passing (2,3,3)
BY THE WAY – THE (article – definite) found in BY-WAY (minor road)
Down
1 Millions request protective cover (4)
MASK – M (millions), ASK (request)
2 Fan glad to be disguised as Tolkien’s wizard (7)
GANDALF – Anagram [disguised] of FAN GLAD. A write-in for many but not for others, however if one realises it’s an anagram and has the checkers there can be little doubt where the remaining letters have to go.
3 Concept of muscle’s pulling power (11)
ABSTRACTION – ABS (muscle’s), TRACTION (pulling power). The definition’s a tricky one here. This from Collins seems to cover it, but don’t ask me to explain it further!: the process of formulating generalized ideas or concepts by extracting common qualities from specific examples / an idea or concept formulated in this way.
4 What thin and tasteless wine has? Not one (6)
NOBODY – A straight definition and a cryptic hint that gives us NO BODY
6 Angry buccaneer denied power (5)
IRATE – {p}IRATE (buccaneer) [denied power]
7 Unusual three-bar interval (8)
BREATHER – Anagram [unusual] of THREE BAR
10 Again found cooked beast covered in sauce (2-9)
RE-ESTABLISH – Anagram [cooked] of BEAST contained by [covered in] RELISH (sauce)
12 Rally partner with fish taken on Thames? (2-6)
CO-DRIVER – COD (fish), RIVER (Thames)
15 Trailer parking needs formal assessment (7)
PREVIEW – P (parking), REVIEW (formal assessment)
16 A change involving island enclosure for birds (6)
AVIARY – A, VARY (change) involving I (island)
18 Bound round run getting exhausted (5)
TIRED – TIED (bound) round R (run)
19 Unsightly inner core of Bruges gets left years (4)
UGLY – {Br}UG{es} [core],  L (left), Y (years). A surface reading that’s rather rude about one of Europe’s most beautiful cities and especially its centre which is perhaps its most attractive part.

31 comments on “Quick Cryptic 670 by Joker”

  1. 3ac ABS-TRACTION I don’t see the difficulty – a concept and idea.

    8.55

    10dn COD RE-ESTABLISH

    WOD VERANDA

    horryd Shanghai

  2. For some reason 5ac eluded me for the longest time, until I got BREATHER. I didn’t pause at ABSTRACTION, but Jack has a point: concepts ARE abstractions–they’re not concrete objects, after all–but that doesn’t make ‘concept’ a definition of abstraction. Still, not really a problem for the solver, I wouldn’t think. 5:41.
  3. 50.02, so below the hour!

    I was held up by 3d abstraction until traction went in, and 12d co driver as I was looking for rally as a definition.

    I thought 5a limb might be rise, but couldn’t link to a branch with first letter off.

    Thanks for the blog.

  4. I thought of ‘rise’, too, taking ‘go up’ as the def; didn’t fling it in (as is often my wont), but it made getting BREATHER that much harder.
  5. A fairly straightforward crossword, but I actually found the anagrams the hardest for some reason. It didn’t help that in 11ac I didn’t spot the anagram and was instead looking for a word for “out of control”.
  6. I think the question mark means if you were angry in a pub, it could be described as bar rage.
  7. … after last week’s really hard ones, I enjoyed this morning’s. Thank you, Joker. I didn’t understand the recent comment that the QC is guiding us towards the big one. Surely the point of the QC is that it’s for the likes of me who are very happy with having one that’s more difficult than the Concise but less tricky than the 15×15. It defeats the object if it gradually becomes harder, and sometimes I consider giving up altogether.
    Your blogs are so helpful, and I wish there was one for the QC book, as I am finding these incredibly hard – and there’s no-one, as far as I know, “unpacking” them, so much of the reasoning behind the answers remains a mystery.

    Diana.

    1. Does the book consist of completely new puzzles or is it (like the books for the main cryptic and Jumbos) a collection of puzzles that were originally published in the paper a couple of years ago? If the latter, then those puzzles will have been blogged when they first appeared in the paper – if you search this site for one of the clues (or, since not all bloggers include the clues, one of the more unusual answers) then you should be able to locate the blog. Hope that helps!
      1. It’s not clear from the intro whether they’re new or old, although it’s a good mixture of the usual setters. I don’t quite see how to search for individual clues on this site without it taking all day!

        Diana

        1. If you can give me an example clue and answer (preferably an answer that’s not run of the mill) then I can have a look.
          1. Thanks for your interest.

            How about “snake is something you can’t see”. four letters. the answer’s “wind”. I get snake/wind, but not the def.

            Diana

                  1. There is a search box (the magnifying glass symbol in the top right of the screen) however in my experience it’s not very accurate so I used Google instead and restricted the search to this site (which you can do by including the search operator site:http://times-xwd-times.livejournal.com/ in your search). Your particular example unfortunately turned out to be not trivial to search for because i) the blogger didn’t include the clues in their blog hence searching for the clue didn’t work, and ii) the answer was quite a common word that has cropped up in plenty of blogs. I ended up doing “site:http://times-xwd-times.livejournal.com/ snake wind” for my Google search, on the assumption that both these words would appear in the blog, and the required result was the very last one (though fortunately of not very many!) On reflection, I should have included “quick” as another search term, since most Quick Cryptic bloggers put that word in their titles.

                    I don’t know if you’ve completed that particular puzzle yet, so I won’t mention the answers, but – for future reference – finding the blog is easiest if you search for one of the more obscure answers, such as say 14A or 13D.

    2. Diana, guiding towards the big one can be one of functions of the QC if that’s what solvers are looking for but it’s also supposed to be stand-alone for those who prefer that.

      Here’s part of what the crossword editor wrote on launch day: Appearing Monday to Friday on the puzzles pages of Times2, it will be reduced in size and hopefully in difficulty too, the intention being to introduce new people to cryptic crosswords, and to encourage those solvers who’d like to have a go at the main puzzle but feel daunted by it, or who can perhaps only solve a handful of clues.

      The idea as I understand it is not that the puzzles should become progressively more difficult which would be self-defeating as new solvers are joining every day, but that puzzles should offer a range of difficulty over any given period. Unfortunately, as has been noted here in many past discussions, level of difficulty is a subjective matter and it may well be perceived (or in fact the case) that there may be a run of easier or more difficult puzzles for a few days before things swing back the other way. I hope you will stick with it and continue to enjoy QCs.

      Mohn2 (above) has given good advice for tracking down the blogs to past puzzles but I feel sure there’d be no objection to your raising queries about clues in past puzzles any time in our daily QC thread. I’m usually around but many of our other bloggers and contributors would be very willing to help.

      Edited at 2016-10-03 09:11 am (UTC)

      2. Thanks for your response, Jackkt, I’ll certainly continue for now! And of course I do appreciate that we come from all ends of the crossword-nerd spectrum. I didn’t mean”nerd” disrespectfully, but unfortunately the dictionary definition is “a foolish, feeble or uninteresting person”. I think the term is considered less unflattering nowadays. Well, I would, wouldn’t I!

        I have even occasionally managed one or two of the 15×15, so there you go.

        Diana

  8. I had difficulty with 9 across. I think the clue should read “Sustained attack of anger BY pub”, rather than in, as this seems to indicate a containment type of clue.
    Regards
    Andy
    1. Hi, Andy, of course it’s part of the setter’s job to misdirect and mislead but I understand the point you are making. Perhaps the way I’ve blogged it as two separate items adds to the confusion but an incidence of “anger in a bar” might well be reported in a headline as “BAR RAGE”. Hope this helps.

  9. A pleasing challenge for. Monday, particularly after a dnf elsewhere. Agree that ABSTRACTION/concept is not quite rigorous enough. Delayed by 5ac for the same reasons as others. On 1ac, discovered quite recently that I have occasionally suffered from non-headache migraines, so I could be counted as lucky. 6′ today. Thanks jack and Joker.
  10. Not the easiest start to the week, with the long anagrams causing a few hold-ups along the way. 45 minutes for a full house, which (for me) puts it towards the harder end of Joker’s range. Invariant
  11. I thought this was fairly gentle by Joker’s standards, but I did manage to get the long anagrams quickly. It took me 11 mins to complete, with all parsed for a change. Like others I found my LOI 5a surprisingly tricky and needed 7d before the penny dropped.
  12. I found this pretty straightforward, although I have never come across ABS meaning muscles.

    Like others here I have no ambition to move on to the 15×15, although I have managed a couple over the years. The quick cryptic suits me very nicely in its own right.

    As far as difficulty goes, my take from the blogs is that difficulty varies from solver to solver. We all have different experiences, backgrounds, knowledge etc. What is difficult for one is straightforward to another. (today I appear to be the only blogger here who did not relate ABS to muscles). Vive la difference!
    PlayupPompey

  13. I enjoyed this and found it mainly straightforward. My favourite clue was 7d and I did have a breather nodding off part way through so my time was something less than 20 minutes.
    I was emotionally exhausted after The Ryder Cup. David
  14. Finally finished one and in 25 mins. This was definitely at the easier end which was nice because finishing one every so often keeps us beginners at it.

    Tim

  15. I enjoyed this and found it mainly straightforward. My favourite clue was 7d and I did have a breather nodding off part way through so my time was something less than 20 minutes.
    I was emotionally exhausted after The Ryder Cup. David
  16. 25:03, and CO-DRIVER definitely COD. My POV is that the QC serves both purposes, I’m happy at solving 70% of all QCs in about 30 mins, and then stopping. I’ve been at the same level for 6 months and am not really looking to step up to the 15×15, as I don’t have the time. So, with this blog, the QC is just perfect, and I’m not going anywhere.
  17. Not sure why I found this an easier one when Joker usually gives me a real struggle. Maybe our short holiday has kicked in! It feels a PB but without proper timing I can’t be sure although must be under 35 minutes. COD 12d co-driver LOI 7d breather. Sometimes I look at the 15×15 but by the time I get to look at the QC the main paper has been binned. Count me as another happy to be teased by the QC in its own right.
  18. Not sure why I found this an easier one when Joker usually gives me a real struggle. Maybe our short holiday has kicked in! It feels a PB but without proper timing I can’t be sure although must be under 35 minutes. COD 12d co-driver LOI 7d breather. Sometimes I look at the 15×15 but by the time I get to look at the QC the main paper has been binned. Count me as another happy to be teased by the QC in its own right.

Comments are closed.