Quick Cryptic 837 by Orpheus

Author   william_j_sPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
Some unusual vocabulary and phrases gave me a bit to think about here, but balanced with the clearly signposted anagrams and a couple of write-ins, culminated in an average time for me. COD to 12ac – easy to solve but posed with such economy and humour.

Definitions underlined.

Across
1 Take exercise? Stupid person! (4)
DOPE – DO (take) and PE (Physical Education, exercise).
3 First-class relish for food (7)
TOPPING – double definition, the first rather dated.
8 Alto in a chorus touring US state (5,8)
SOUTH CAROLINA – anagram of (touring) ALTO IN A CHORUS.
9 Service Europeans primarily associated with America (3)
USE – first letter of (primarily) Europeans next to US (america).
10 Contribution from trendy place? (5)
INPUT – IN (trendy) and PUT (place).
12 Hold forth, initially dismissing extravagant allegation (7)
DECLAIM – first letters of (initially) Dismissing and Extravagant, with CLAIM (allegation).
14 Ornate thread’s wilfully destroyed (7)
TRASHED – anagram of (ornate) THREAD’S.
16 Round container mate finally dropped in sea (5)
OCEAN – O (round) and CAN (container) with last letter of (finally) matE inside (dropped in).
17 Scottish port’s atmosphere, so to speak (3)
AYR – homophone of (so to speak) “air” (atmosphere).
20 Crazy about a 1960s dance? (5,3,5)
ROUND THE TWIST – ROUND (about) and THE TWIST (1960’s dance).
21 Painters in dire straits (7)
ARTISTS – anagram of (dire) STRAITS.
22 Put up with Paddington, for example (4)
BEAR – double definition.
Down
1 Area served by detective of severe character (8)
DISTRICT – DI (detective) and STRICT (area).
2 Persistently promote stopper for sink (4)
PLUG – double definition.
3 Sought and found church involved in jazz (6)
TRACED – CE (Church of England) inside TRAD (jazz).
4 Satellite state working to create port (12)
PROTECTORATE – anagram of (working) TO PROTECT PORT.
5 Start developing it in a tie (8)
INITIATE – anagram of (developing) IT IN A TIE.
6 Old lady managed to follow golf (4)
GRAN – RAN (managed) after (to follow) G (golf).
7 Talk too loudly, as bookies might? (5,3,4)
SHOUT THE ODDS – double definition.
11 Put down thirteen cards, in informal garment (8)
PLAYSUIT – PLAY (put down, i.e. cards) and SUIT (thirteen cards).
13 Title of chap receiving Northern Ireland politician (8)
MINISTER – MISTER (title of chap) surrounding (receiving) NI (Northern Ireland).
15 Scoundrel on the up owns country houses (6)
DACHAS – reversal of (on the up) CAD (scoundrel) and HAS (owns).
18 Killer whale in major catastrophe (4)
ORCA – hidden in majOR CAtastrophe.
19 Source of wealth belonging to this compiler (4)
MINE – double definition.

24 comments on “Quick Cryptic 837 by Orpheus”

  1. Nice example of the setter’s craft, with a collection of neat, plausible surfaces. ARTISTS and ROUND THE TWIST are just two examples.

    Thanks Orpheus, and thanks for the blog William.

  2. Fortunately we had ROUND THE TWIST in a recent 15×15; a DNK then. Also DNK SHOUT THE ODDS, but it was gettable easily enough after a few checkers. PROTECTORATE took some time. 6:20.
  3. 29 mins. Couldn’t parse ocean, I was thinking of a container with CEAN + E. Also for 11d I had put down as lay and couldn’t see where the P came from.

    Dnk declaim.
    COD 15d dachas.

    Thanks.

  4. Finished in 17 minutes, so my best finish for a long time. A few unknowns for me here, namely DACHAS and DECLAIM. I remembered PROTECTORATE from a previous quick cryptic, so that’s the only reason I got it. For some reason, I parsed 3ac as TOP = first-class and PING = relish. Can you have a certain ping for something? Probably not, but I still got the right answer. I don’t know wht, but 19dn held me up a while as well. Gribb.
  6. Fairly whipped through this but don’t time myself as I’m very much a learner and could do without that added pressure. Besides, confessing to ‘several hours’ (off and on) some days, would look rather sad.
    LOI PLAYSUIT took several minutes. Does anybody actually have such things? Don’t recall even my children having them. I had ‘play’ and -u-t ?? Bunged in the s and i and then remembered there was something to do with cards that’s called a suit. I’m assuming it means the collection from Ace, K,Q etc but as i can’t be bothered to go and find a pack and count them, I’ll just have to assume that’s correct.Unless someone tells me otherwise?
    Thanks to Orpheus and William.
    1. I don’t think it ‘looks sad’ to take several hours on and off to do the QC. That’s also me some days and then I get days like today when it takes me about 20 minutes which seems fast! Although, as I’ve commented before, who gets the most fun and satisfaction from a QC – the person who does it almost as fast as they can write (or type) or the person who takes all day picking it up and putting it down several times and eventually working it all out? Well, I’d vote for the latter naturally! Pexiter.
      1. Thank you, Pexiter, for your comforting reply. I agree, I enjoy mulling challenging clues whilst busy with other things. Surprising how effective that can be!
      2. Not the first time this claim has been made here. But I would recommend a look at any of Verlaine’s Friday blogs if you think speedy solvers are somehow denied the full pleasure of solving.

        (I speak from the safe position of being one of the also-rans on the 15×15).

  7. Please scrub that last bit – OF COURSE, 13 cards = 1-10 + A,K,Q.
    Brain must have imploded at having completed QC so quickly.
    1. Or 1-10 + J,K,Q 😉

      Found this relatively easy, especially after wanging SOUTH CAROLINA in. LOI PLAYSUIT COD INPUT

      1. Yes, Adrian, double Doh! for me today. In a hurry to get out and get on.
        So, it’s evening now and time to try the 15×15 and see if I can achieve more than my usual half dozen or so. Hmm, don’t think my luck will last, somehow.
  8. Hi all, I’ve been ‘lurking’ on this site for a while and using it to learn the black arts here.

    I’ve gone a bit crazy on the QC in the past few weeks, having bought the two paperback collections as well as doing the dailies.

    Addictive eh?

    Thanks for the blogs and I can now generally finish most of them unaided.
    LOI today was ‘Ocean’. Round container is just the sort of thing I like but usually miss for a while.

    Geoff

    Edited at 2017-05-24 10:25 am (UTC)

    1. Welcome in from Lurkland, Geoff. I hope we hear from you regularly now that you’ve made the transition.
  9. Quickly saw, and solved, the anagram at 8a and then for some reason wrote in NORTH Carolina, which made 1&2d rather difficult until I saw the stupid mistake.
    COD for me 20a just for its surface
  10. A confident ‘inset’ biffed at 10a rendered 11d unsolvable. It never occurred to me that I could possibly have made a mistake, there’s arrogance for you! Otherwise nothing terribly difficult. Thanks to blogger and setter.
    GeoffH
  11. A week’s holiday seems to have re-charged the batteries nicely. 23 minutes for Orpheus is good by my standards. A good mix of clues, with loi 11d my favourite, though I did smile at 20ac as my children use to watch the Australian programme of the same name. Invariant
    1. Great programme. There was one episode with a scarecrow that scared the life out of me when I was about four. Gribb.
  12. Again some thought and crossers required to solve quite a few of these clues. 4d, 7d, 8a and 20a were a great help in opening up the grid. A nice workout. 10:08. Thanks Orpheus and William.
  13. Well there you go – I had the checkers for 16a and forced myself to resolve by round=o container=c mate finally=e ditto in sea but reversed (dropped)! What the hell… if there’s a difficult way, I’ll take it. Even so, about 45 minutes which is fairly quick for me. FOI 1a. LOI 15d (I’d overlooked it jumping around the grid for a change) COD 19d for Orpheus and the underworld… thx too for the blog and discussion
  14. I made this more difficult for myself than I should have done by crossing out the wrong letters when solving the anagram in 8a (if that makes sense to anyone). It was plainly south something but I’d left myself with a t to fit into the second part of the answer. I thought I was going mad or being particularly stupid not being able to think of any ‘south states’ apart from Carolina and Dakota. Fortunately I finally noticed my mistake which helped unlock the NE. One day the Trad/Jazz link will stay at the front of my mind instead of having to dredge it up from the depths every time it appears
    LOI 11d, completed in 17 minutes.
  15. I think I was on the wavelength today and this seemed easier than the last two days. I wrote in many of the answers on first read including South Carolina. Was held up a bit by parsing Topping and my last two were 4d and finally Declaim.
    Enjoyable puzzle finished in 11 minutes. David
  16. Given that I still have to use a few ‘aids’ (I have a brain that can’t do anagrams – south carolina, for example, although I did manage dire ‘straits’ and ‘in a tie’ on my own. But I did have most of the crossings for the latter).

    I managed to finish this one without sitting staring at impenetrable clues on and off for most of the day. That’s real success!
    Either I’m getting better at it or, more likely, this wasn’t as tough as recent ones.

    Thanks to Orpheus and William

    Edited at 2017-05-24 09:08 pm (UTC)

  17. Thought it was pile – as in large building and from compiler!

    Ahh well.

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