Quick Cryptic 735 by Izetti

Author   mohn2Posted on Categories Quick Cryptic
My attempts at predicting how difficult others will find any given Quicky have generally been lacking in accuracy, however I’m quietly confident that I will be in tune with the consensus when I say that this is a hard puzzle. We have several unusual words and a few parsings that may not spring immediately to mind, the whole producing a satisfying mental workout. Thanks to Izetti for creating a serious challenge befitting the first Quicky of 2017, and best wishes to all for the coming year.

The grid is also a pangram (i.e. it contains all letters of the alphabet at least once). Seeing rarer letters such as a Q or Z early on may put you on the scent of a pangram, which may then help with filling in subsequent answers, but bear in mind that there are many more non-pangrams than pangrams so this kind of thinking may produce dead ends too often to be a sensible tactic. Though I may just be saying that as I don’t think I have ever both spotted a likely pangram AND used that knowledge to solve a recalcitrant clue.

The puzzle can be found here if other channels are unavailable: http://feeds.thetimes.co.uk/puzzles/crossword/20170102/21483/

Definitions are underlined, {} = omission

Across
7 Taunt from joker, no good person at heart (4)
JEER – JE{st}ER (joker, no good person at heart, i.e. JESTER (joker) without ST (good person, i.e. saint) in the middle (at heart))
8 Cool-headed way in which Greek character protects queen (8)
TRANQUIL – TRAIL (way), in which NU (Greek character, i.e. the 13th letter of the Greek alphabet) surrounds (protects) Q (queen)
9 Weaver as lowest of the low? (6)
BOTTOM – double definition, the first referring to Nick Bottom the weaver from A Midsummer Night’s Dream
10 Longs to have time with partners at table (6)
YEARNS – YEAR (time) + NS (partners at table, i.e. North and South in card games such as bridge)
11 Row right after cup game? (4)
TIER – R (right) after TIE (cup game – referring to, e.g., a football match in a knock-out competition)
12 Big horse eats a medium soft plant (8)
SAMPHIRE – SHIRE (Big horse), around (eats) A + M (medium) + P (soft), to give (Chambers): “An umbelliferous plant (Crithmum maritimum) which grows on sea-cliffs”, where umbelliferous is the adjectival form of umbellifer, which means (Chambers): “Any plant of the Umbelliferae family, with umbels and divided leaves”, and an umbel is (Chambers): “A flat-topped inflorescence in which the flower-stalks all spring from about the same point in an axis”. Phew.
15 Chemical compounds got from crumbling deep pits (8)
PEPTIDES – anagram of (crumbling) DEEP PITS, where a peptide is (Chambers): “Any of a number of substances formed from amino acids in which the amino group of one is joined to the carboxyl group of another”
17 A female making comeback, this person is celebrity (4)
FAME – reversal (making comeback) of A + F (female), + ME (this person)
18 Foreign minister — namely, one to accompany Her Majesty (6)
VIZIER – VIZ (namely – short for the Latin videlicet) + I (one) + ER (Her Majesty), to give (Chambers): “A minister or councillor of state in various Muslim states”, i.e. you need to read the definition as a minister who is foreign rather than a foreign minister à la Boris Johnson
21 Sailor dispatched, not here (6)
ABSENT – AB (Sailor) + SENT (dispatched)
22 Support team that is 9 (8)
BACKSIDE – BACK (Support) + SIDE (team), to give us another word for the answer to 9 across (BOTTOM)
23 Wickedness not recorded after revolution (4)
EVIL – reversal of (after revolution) LIVE (not recorded)
Down
1 Some idle drunk to play music (8)
MELODISE – anagram of (drunk) SOME IDLE. Not a common word, with only ~26,000 Google hits, though it’s not much of a leap to get there from melody.
2 Old vehicle beginning to rust in pit (6)
CRATER – CRATE (Old vehicle) + R (beginning to rust, i.e. the first letter of the word “rust”)
3 Strange deities, about a thousand, put into list (8)
ITEMISED – anagram of (Strange) DEITIES, about M (a thousand)
4 Like something wicked making one irritable? (4)
WAXY – double definition, the first requiring you to interpret “wicked” as something with a wick (e.g. a candle) rather than evil, and the second an old informal British meaning. Tough clue, especially as I hadn’t heard of the second meaning.
5 Put an end to game (6)
SQUASH – double definition
6 Appearance of soldiers capturing island (4)
MIEN – MEN (soldiers) around (capturing) I (island). Pronounced the same as “mean”. Chambers and Collins both describe this as a literary usage, with Collins’ trend graph showing a sharp peak in 1779.
13 Communications taking long time after disorder (8)
MESSAGES – AGES (long time) after MESS (disorder)
14 Minor act excited one sort of poet (8)
ROMANTIC – anagram of (excited) MINOR ACT, to give a term used to describe poets such as Keats and Shelley
16 Awkward time with Richard (6)
TRICKY – T (time) + RICKY (Richard)
17 Encourage replanting of forest (6)
FOSTER – anagram (replanting) of FOREST. Maybe not a standard anagram indicator, but it suits the surface reading well.
19 Monk initially entering an hour after midnight as man of prayer (4)
IMAM – M (Monk initially, i.e. the first letter of the word “Monk”) in (entering) IAM (an hour after midnight, i.e. 1 AM)
20 Engineers at home making check (4)
REIN – RE (Engineers) + IN (at home)

53 comments on “Quick Cryptic 735 by Izetti”

  2. i expect to finish the quicky or at the most have one or two left but this was ridiculously hard i have occasionally finished the 15X15 and most times can complete about three quarters but on this i filled about half the grid !
    DaveG
  3. Back to normality (?) with today’s puzzle!

    I had computer issues yesterday, both when solving and later when trying to comment – those gremlins seemed in keeping with the gremlins at 4dn, 5dn and 8ac, none of which I overcame before looking at the blog.

    Looking back, I still don’t like those three clues: I don’t really associate TRANQUIL with people; I prefer “quash” to SQUASH as a synonym for “end”; and the trouble with WAXY has been sufficiently rehearsed above.

    But having said that, I was foolish for noticing that it might be a pangram and then forgetting to use this discovery.

  4. Hey gang, happy new year!

    I didn’t find this too hard, except for WAXY, which I didn’t get and which brought me here.

    Samphire reminds me of playing the game Baldur’s Gate years ago: it’s one of the plants you can pick up around the game world, if I remember correctly. I also remember seeing it in a recipe by a cook who got all his ingredients by foraging. Don’t think I’ve come across it in real life though.

    Some ingenious clues, and good puzzle I thought, except for 4d.

    1. I bought Baldur’s Gate II just last year but have yet to play it – I’ll keep an eye out for the samphires!
  5. Like so many others, this was my first DNF. I’m no neophyte requiring encouragement and a gentle introduction to cryptic crosswords. I’m 82 and have been doing them all my life. The Times’s 15×15 is not for me – just too difficult. That’s why I do the previous day’s Quick with my cooked breakfast, and usually end both at almost exactly the same time. I don’t want my brain to hurt at breakfast, so yes those responsible do actually have something to apologise for. If you say ‘Quick’, it should mean that quick is at least possible. This puzzle was clearly much too hard. I didn’t get waxy nor could I parse tranquil, though I did ‘solve’ it. And I too first entered melodies and considered murder.

  6. As I recall, “waxy” and “shirty” were often used by the boys at Greyfriars in the Billy Bunter stories to describe the “beaks” when they were angry.
  7. As I recall, “waxy” and “shirty” were often used by the boys at Greyfriars in the Billy Bunter stories to describe the “beaks” when they were angry.

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