Quick Cryptic 755 by Howzat

Author   mohn2Posted on Categories Quick Cryptic
Unless I’m mistaken, this is the debut appearance of our setter Howzat (or at least the debut appearance of this particular incarnation of an existing setter), bringing the number of different pseudonyms in the Quicky series up to 32. There’s a generous dollop of anagrams and simple charades, some succinct clues and solid surfaces, all tending to suggest a straightforward passage to completion, though a somewhat sticky wicket then appears in the shape of a trio of potential unknowns (two particularly for non-Brits) that might confound, one of which is made harder by not having the correct enumeration. Howzat has belied his/her name by not including a single cricket reference, for which some of us will no doubt be grateful. So welcome, Howzat, and thanks.

The puzzle can be found here if the usual channels are unavailable: http://feeds.thetimes.co.uk/puzzles/crossword/20170130/22100/

Definitions are underlined, omission = {}

Across
8 Fresh oil needed on journey in African capital (7)
TRIPOLI – anagram of (Fresh) OIL next to (on) TRIP (journey). Seasoned solvers may, to their detriment, see “capital” and think of money, but in this case it’s the more obvious interpretation – the capital city of Libya.
9 Distant Head going off to show feeling (5)
EMOTE – {r}EMOTE (Distant Head going off, i.e. the word “remote” (Distant) without its first letter (Head going off)). The capitalised “Head” is presumably to make the surface reading appear to refer to a headmaster.
10 Stick with former head of economics (5)
PASTE – PAST (former) + E (head of economics, i.e. the first letter of the word “economics”)
11 Serious fellow heard (7)
EARNEST – homophone (heard) of ERNEST (fellow). Also exploited by Oscar Wilde.
12 It’s a crime breaking a truce (9)
ARMISTICE – anagram of (breaking) IT’S A CRIME. Nice surface for a good anagram that some may have seen before.
14 Cutting tool used to be returned (3)
SAW – reversal (returned) of WAS (used to be)
16 Wood seen in backing Daimler (3)
ELM – hidden reversed in (seen in backing) DaiMLEr. Not sure why the setter went with “backing” rather than the more natural (?) “reversing”.
18 Member is behind what parliaments can do (9)
LEGISLATE – LEG (Member) + IS + LATE (behind)
21 Ruffian spoiled travelling attraction (7)
FUNFAIR – anagram of (spoiled) RUFFIAN
22 The morning belonging to us for an affair (5)
AMOUR – AM (The morning) + OUR (belonging to us)
23 Transport animal a shopping centre returned (5)
LLAMA – reversal (returned) of A + MALL (shopping centre). The definition is presumably in the sense of a pack animal, as I don’t think llamas are usually ridden.
24 Rock played in Tangier (7)
GRANITE – anagram of (played) TANGIER. A clue perhaps inspired by Def Leppard’s 1995 concert there.
Down
1 Station messenger boy gets deduction from wages? (8)
STOPPAGE – STOP (Station) + PAGE (messenger boy). Not a meaning I knew – Collins has “a deduction of money, as from pay”.
2 Unclear total for Chinese food (3,3)
DIM SUM – DIM (Unclear) + SUM (total). A truly great culinary invention that is woefully under-represented in the North East of England – though the good people of Canton no doubt say something similar about the Parmo.
3 Only fish (4)
SOLE – double definition
4 Conceal lofty-sounding camp greeting (2-2-2)
HI-DE-HI – HIDE (Conceal) + homophone (sounding) of HIGH (lofty). This was the name of a BBC comedy series that ran through most of the 1980s, about a fictional holiday camp loosely based on (real-life) Butlin’s. Campers were greeted by members of staff with a cheery “Hi-de-hi!”. I’m guessing that neither the show nor its subject matter would be familiar to non-Brits, but the wordplay is fairly helpful.
5 Second to none, unlike the House of Lords? (8)
PEERLESS – literal interpretation. One of the definitions for “peer” in Chambers is: “A member of the House of Lords”.
6 Posers seldom troubled (6)
MODELS – anagram of (troubled) SELDOM
7 Study onset of tropical depression (4)
DENT – DEN (Study) + T (onset of tropical, i.e. the first letter of the word “tropical”)
13 Sailor with a method to keep secret (4,4)
SALT AWAY – SALT (Sailor) + A + WAY (method). I thought this expression simply meant to save, rather than necessarily implying any secrecy aspect, but ODO has: “Secretly store or put by something, especially money”.
15 Scottish churchgoers: we’re very cold when speaking (8)
WEEFREES – homophone (when speaking) of WE FREEZE (we’re very cold). I think the enumeration should be (3,5), giving us WEE FREES as the answer. For Wee Free, Chambers has: “A member of the minority of the Free Church that refused to join with the United Presbyterian Church in 1900”. Kind of helpful wordplay, even if it leads to an unlikely-looking answer (at least if you’ve never heard of them).
17 Dynamo working twenty-four hours (6)
MONDAY – anagram of (working) DYNAMO
19 Biker initially leaves rubbish in this part of house? (6)
GARAGE – GAR{b}AGE (Biker initially leaves rubbish, i.e. the word “garbage” (rubbish) without the initial letter of the word “Biker”), with the “this” in the definition pointing you towards a part of the house that a biker might necessarily frequent.
20 Trouble with lapse showing up a handsome young man (6)
ADONIS – ADO (Trouble) + reversal of (showing up) SIN (lapse)
21 Handled soft material (4)
FELT – double definition
22 Regrettably, a girl is cut short (4)
ALAS – A + LAS{s} (girl is cut short, i.e. the word “lass” (girl) without its last letter)

34 comments on “Quick Cryptic 755 by Howzat”

  1. Cheers to Appeal and Poppy – a nice level of puzzle, albeit I was helped by being au fait with the couple of obscurities. Brain shagged from a day’s Scrabbling but still managed to get under 10 minutes.

    Two classic anagrams: MONDAY and FUNFAIR. FOI DIM SUM LOI STOPPAGE.

  2. A fine DIM SUM from HOWZAT? (which for those of you in Trumpton is an appeal against a batsman to the umpire – HOW’S THAT? In or out? Hence the cricket reference.)

    I had a small 2dn DIM SUM yesterday lunchtime in Shanghai at DIN TAI FONG.

    WEE FREES was my LOI as it was a DNK – 9.01

    COD 4dn HI-DE-HI WOD SALT AWAY

  3. Being a bit too quick on 4d–put in ‘hi-de-ho’– helped slow me down when 12ac came along, but 15d added a minute or so to my time, as I hadn’t a clue as to what the word would be, so tried whe… and …fries, etc., until finally I got the right vowels in. 7:03.

    Edited at 2017-01-30 03:27 am (UTC)

  4. 39 minutes. Tough but fair.

    It was all going in fast until I hit a granite wall of 4 tough clues: 10a emote, 1d stoppage 5d peerless and 15d weefrees.

    DNK salt away, stoppage or weefrees.
    And I wasn’t sure of the parsing for 20d Adonis, I had the ado but didn’t spot nis reversed.

    COD peerless with emote a close second.

  5. 9 minutes delayed by 11ac because I was unsure of the spelling at 4d where I had biffed HI-DI-HI so I needed an extra minute to consider the wordplay more carefully.

    Yes, this is Howzat’s debut puzzle, and I’m pleased that my records tally with mohn2’s for the number of setter names that have appeared since the QC was instigated i.e. 32, but sadly we lost Dazzler a while back. Of the remaining 31 the following have set only 1 puzzle each so far:

    Ferbot (March 2015)
    Bart (September 2015)
    Santa (December 2015)
    Pelmas (January 2016)
    Alfie (October 2016)
    Howzat (today!)

    and the following only 2:

    Myles (latest April 2014)
    Noel (latest July 2015)
    Palpatine (latest April 2016)
    Breadman (latest August 2016)
    Bob & Margaret (latest January 2017)

    1. I think Dazzler/Bart/Vista were all the same person. RR also mentioned a while back that Alfie and Noel are the same setter. There may be other multiple personalities that we’re unaware of – there’s certainly a suspicious number of Johns on this forum …
      1. Thanks for this. I’ve just noticed I had a note already pasted in my records that Dazzler, Bart and Vista were all Bob Hesketh, but nothing to say where it came from. Presumably it came up somewhere when he died. I vaguely remember that Breadman was notable for some reason but I’ve no record of why.
  6. … is quite tricky, with a number of uncommon words and less-than-helpful clues. As always though, worth a go for Quicky solvers looking to flex their solving muscles.
  7. I also put hi-di-hi until 11ac showed the error of my ways. Dim sum is alive and well in Sheffield – thankfully. LOI 19dn which only went in after 18ac gave the ‘G’ – up until then I was convinced it began with ‘B’. Due to the various wrong turnings this took 13 mins.
  8. I’m crying foul on 15d. It was my LOI at 7′ 48″ but I eventually biffed it from the cryptic after much huffing and puffing – I’ve never heard of them (at least I don’t remember hearing of them, which is entirely different). I reckon it’s a wee bit obscure for a Quickie. Mrs Deezzaa, being of Scottish ancestry, got it immediately of course.
    Apart from that, well done Howzat.
  9. After a crashing dnf on the main puzzle, was pleased to finish this in 4’19”. WEEFREES may be beyond some, and PEERLESS may puzzle overseas solvers. A fine debut from Howzat I thought. Thanks mohn too.
  10. … cold enough to make your 15d!
    Around 7′ today, last 2 spent figuring out the above.
    GeoffH
    1. It’s not beyond the bounds of possibility that one of the Sunday Times setters might use that homophone one day …
  11. All very straightforward, although 15d did raise an eyebrow. Not a Quicky kind of word in my view and I was grateful for the opening W. I can imagine it caused a bit of bother for many.
  12. Defeated today by 15d, where an unknown word combined with my seemingly endless struggles with homophones created a perfect storm of befuddlement. Other than that I found this to be an enjoyable debut from Howzat of about average difficulty. COD 12a
  13. Enjoyable mixed offering from Howzat, though I feel ‘Weefrees’ deserved a yellow card if not a straight red!
  14. I’d never heard of WEEFREES, but managed to deduce it correctly, and finished in 8:20. Got the right spelling for Hi-De-Hi first go as I already had EARNEST. FOI, DENT, LOI WEEFREES. An enjoyable puzzle. Thanks Howzat and Mohn.
  15. There are some words which deserve to be strangled at birth – this might head my list.

    Off topic I know, but why do so many english words beginning with sn…. have ugly connotations? A google search reveals no answers.

    Philip

    1. I must admit a snog in the snug with a snake-hipped snowboarder sounds quite appealing, but being snotted on by a snaggle-toothed snob mid-snore I could do without. I hadn’t particularly thought of words beginning with sn* as having ugly connotations – what made this cross your mind, may I ask?
      1. A snooper sniggered at me while I was sniping for snippets in my thesaurus. I’m intrigued by words and etymology.

        Sorry about this . .

        Philip

  16. Have to agree with 15D comments, definitely should be (3,5).
    No way is it all one word!
    DNF today, but nearly! still enjoyable, thanks to setter and bloggers.
  17. I had stow away as a secret sailor for 13d for ages thinking it was quite a neat clue, but eventually legislate overruled it and the resultant salt seemed a disappointment by comparison.
  18. This seemed very straightforward apart from 15d. I finished in 13 minutes having guessed at Weefries as the plural of an unknown-to-me Scottish churchgoer.
    My response to Howzat is that this clue was a No ball. Otherwise enjoyed it. David
  19. Typically, I managed (after a struggle) to get the obscure ones like peerless and weefrees only to come unstuck with loi 11ac. Even all the checkers couldn’t coax earnest to surface. Invariant

  20. Good time (sub 20) ended in WHEFRIES, the little known Presbyterian sect. Followers of Minister Callum Whefrey….

  21. Lovely puzzle that I thoroughly enjoyed until I crashed and burned on WEEFREES. Obscure is one thing, but for heavens sake!!!
    PlayupPompey
  22. Found this fairly straightforward until we bunged nairobi in 8a without parsing, so 1 down became a problem until we went back to parse 8a. Strange that two capitals have i and o and another i in the right positions. Elin and Ian.
    1. I admire your restraint in noting that the existence of two (African) capitals of the form ??I?O?I is merely “strange” – it’s the kind of annoying coincidence that makes me turn the air blue when I fall foul of it! In this case, though, having seen “Fresh oil” at the beginning of the clue, I was already expecting an anagram of OIL to appear somewhere in the answer so I would have been suspicious of Nairobi if it had come to mind before Tripoli.

      Actually, while researching the blog, I saw that Tripoli is also the name of cities in Greece and Lebanon that are the capitals of their administrative divisions – you’ll sometimes see this sense of capital used in the main cryptic, but even there I think the Greek and Lebanese Tripolis might be considered a tad obscure.

  23. Excited to sail through only slowed by not taking my pencil to Costa and having to remember the answers….until I hit the wall with only 7d and 15d to go. Soon resolved 7d and then a DNF on 15d. I see it caused problems for others but impressed some managed to deduce it anyway. Well done them! I recognise the term, but too late now.

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