Quick Cryptic 707 by Izetti

Author   william_j_sPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
A grid full of perfectly everyday words, hidden behind Izetti’s trademark smooth clueing. Whether owing to mood or wavelength, I did not find it dropping into place fluently, though, and I still have one answer which needs parsing. On the other hand, 2dn and 9dn made me doff my cap in respect of the setter’s art.

Definitions underlined.

Across
1 Strong: alternatively, on reflection, broken (6)
ROBUST – OR (alternatively) backwards (on reflection), and BUST (broken).
4 Schoolchildren, turning round, stumble (4,2)
SLIP UP – PUPILS (schoolchildren) backwards (turning round).
8 Start to deal with a little daughter needing clothes (7)
ADDRESS – A, D (little daughter), and DRESS (clothes).
10 Rinse off sticky stuff (5)
RESIN – anagram of (off) RINSE.
11 Old part of building is outstanding (5)
OWING – O (old) and WING (part of building).
12 Dear Parisian entertaining member, one out to impress? (7)
CHARMER – CHER (dear, in French) surrounding (entertaining) ARM (member).
13 Delighted duke following portal (9)
ENTRANCED – D (duke) following ENTRANCE (portal).
17 Man having rest after tea (7)
CHARLIE – LIE (rest) after CHAR (tea).
19 Fear that envelops this planet (5)
EARTH – hidden in (envelops) fEAR THat.
20 Note a medicinal substance (5)
TONIC – double definition. Or is it note ‘a’, as in the first?
21 Dog to go astray entering bank (7)
TERRIER – ERR (to go astray) inside TIER (bank).
22 That woman’s lad played trumpet (6)
HERALD – HER (that woman’s) and an anagram of (played) LAD.
23 Detective left to probe dwelling-places (6)
HOLMES – L inside (to probe) HOMES (dwelling-places).
Down
1 Grounds are bursting with numbers going up (6)
REASON – anagram of (bursting) ARE, and NOS (numbers) going upwards.
2 Sympathetic attitude that could be found in men’s bar indeed (7,6)
BEDSIDE MANNER – anagram of (could be found in) MEN’S BAR INDEED.
3 Dexterity inappreciable, from what we hear (7)
SLEIGHT – homophone of (from what we hear) “slight” (inappreciable).
5 Life form of some peculiar variety (5)
LARVA – not sure. Almost the second hidden word of the day, but I’ve made the mistake before of assuming it’s anyone else’s error but mine! Help appreciated.
6 Artistic style making primmest don so upset (13)
POSTMODERNISM – anagram of (upset) PRIMMEST DON SO
7 Sleep being upset, go in room with food (6)
PANTRY – NAP (sleep) backwards (upset), and TRY (go).
9 A crowd getting ecstatic about religious ceremony (9)
SACRAMENT – A CRAM (crowd) with SENT (getting ecstatic) around the outside.
14 Final word I love after church always (7)
CHEERIO – I and O (love) after CH (church) and E’ER (always).
15 Put an end to whisky (6)
SCOTCH – double definition.
16 Broken pieces presenting difficulty aboard ship (6)
SHARDS – HARD (presenting difficulty) inside SS (aboard ship). I haven’t been doing crosswords long enough to have gotten bored of this device – still one of my favourites!
18 See visitor getting half cut in pub (5)
LOCAL – LO (see) and CALler (visitor) with half the letters cut.

22 comments on “Quick Cryptic 707 by Izetti”

  1. FOI ROBUST LOI SACRAMENT COD SLIP UP

    Yet to have an easy QC this week, although tonight after a sticky start my dexterity became more appreciable towards the end…

    I tink LARVA is either a mistake, or this setter doesn’t think the letters in a hidden answer need to be consecutive.

    Edited at 2016-11-23 12:50 am (UTC)

  3. Why did Izetti not use ‘particular variety’, instead of ‘peculiar variety’?

    We need to ‘go upstairs’ as they say in ‘crickit’

    This was a bit of a grind with 6dn POSTMODERNISM to the fore.

    COD 4ac SLIP UP WOD CHARMER

  4. As Barracuda and Horryd suggest; my guess is that Izetti was in fact thinking of ‘particular’ and slipped, but. 2d and 22ac very nice. 5:17.
  5. 11 minutes, but I put the minute over my target down to having to read 5dn several times because the obvious answer failed to parse in the clue as written. I hope it wasn’t a setter error as that then begs the question, why didn’t one of the editors pick it up?

    On Will’s query re 20ac, I think the definition is simply “note” as “tonic” in musical terms is relative and movable. It’s the first note of a scale and as such could be any letter name depending on the key in question. ‘A’ would be the tonic in A major or A minor, but in other keys ‘A’ might be the supertonic, mediant subdominant, dominant, submediant or leading-note.

    Edited at 2016-11-23 05:36 am (UTC)

  6. Found today very difficult, it took 15 minutes just to get the first clue 15d. Then the SW went in nicely.

    About an hour gone with last 2 remaining: 3d and 11a.

    Couldn’t parse: 5d (liarva as mentioned).
    9d cram for crowd? I have heard of crammed. And sent for ecstatic is tough.
    18d.

    In total about an hour and a half in a few sittings.

    1. SOED has cram for a crowd, but it also works as a verb, I think. We now have “cram-packed” of course, courtesy of the current Labour leader on his rail excursion. I wonder if we can expect that in a dictionary any time soon.
  7. Chambers has LARVA as an obselete word for a ghost, so we might stretch it, just. I once asked my tutor what made a particular book an example of POSTMODERNISM; ’contending discourses’ was the reply. I see RESIN makes another appearance, and note the relation between 12ac and 13 ac. About average today, thanks william and Izetti.
  8. I found this tough today, at 20 minutes, OWING to my inability to ADDRESS the NW corner for no very good REASON.

    It certainly looks like LARVA is a rare example of an error from either the setter, or the type-setter (or whatever they are called in this digital age) that hasn’t been picked up by the editor. It is easy to imagine mixing up peculiar with particular (as suggested by Horryd above).

    Otherwise, this was an enjoyable challenge, with everything else fairly clued so I have no idea why I struggled so much.

  10. 8.29 having abandoned the NW after a first glance and worked clockwise from 4a. I didn’t give LIARVA a second glance – much like the editor it seems. Been there, done it and got many T-shirts to prove it.
  13. No time for me today, having both forgotten to start my stopwatch (the Times’ iPad app timer is useless! It starts when I start the 15×15 in the morning, and runs until I finish the QC at lunchtime, damn it!) and been interrupted by a delivery driver for upstairs halfway through the grid.

    I don’t think I took longer than 20 minutes, though, with the entire eastern half of the grid falling more quickly than the west, but nothing too taxing. LOI 1d, for no particular REASON.

    I immediately assumed the LARVA clue was a simple mistake and never bothered coming back to it to think again, so I’m glad to see others think it’s an error, too…

    Edited at 2016-11-23 03:30 pm (UTC)

  14. I came to this later in the day than usual, and found it very difficult, but judging by the comments above an earlier start wouldn’t have helped. An hour in total, including a long pause at 5d. To be fair, it’s a wonder there are so few typos. Thank you William for parsing 9d – I had no idea. Invariant
  15. I had planned to solve this before playing golf today, but after 25 minutes still had 3d and 11a outstanding; and I had to leave.
    It was pretty dark when we finished at 4.15pm and it took a while for light to dawn on my return. But I saw Sleight and then Owing was clear. I liked 22a; and realised Larva had to be right somehow. David
  16. It’s been a tough week of QCs so far and this was the hardest by some distance. NW had me baffled for a long time, until I had a flash of inspiration for 1d and I missed the anagram in 2d until after I’d biffed it with the aid of checkers.
    For 9d (LOI) I really struggled to resist the temptation to chuck in Eucharist and it along with 20a were unparsed, so thanks for the clarification William. Interestingly I didn’t notice the typo in 5d.
    Solving time 30 minutes, COD 4a
  17. I had planned to solve this before playing golf today, but after 25 minutes still had 3d and 11a outstanding; and I had to leave.
    It was pretty dark when we finished at 4.15pm and it took a while for light to dawn on my return. But I saw Sleight and then Owing was clear. I liked 22a; and realised Larva had to be right somehow. David

Comments are closed.