Quick Cryptic 954 by Teazel

Author   CuraristPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
Perhaps the easiest quickie I’ve blogged for, came in at just over 5 minutes. I think my favourite is 11dn, mainly because I was pleased with myself for knowing the word, as a result of my inept attempts at carpentry. 13ac has a pleasing surface. A couple of naff cryptic definitions, but overall nice and light and tasty. I am still being slowed down by overcomplicating the ones where bits of the clue are used unaltered in the answer (12dn, 17dn) as this tends not to happen in the 15×15.

Across

1 Suspicion about daughter’s side-to-side measurement (7)
BREADTH – BREATH (suspicion) about D. Anyone know why ‘daughter’ is D? It always is.
5 Small beds for northerners (5)
SCOTS – S (small) + COTS.
8 I saw sleet when playing toy instrument (6,7)
SWANEE WHISTLE – Anagram (‘playing’) of I SAW SLEET WHEN. The instrument forever associated with Oliver Postgate’s stop-motion masterpiece The Clangers
9 A bit of crosswind lethal for rook (7)
SWINDLE – hidden word crosSWIND LEthal. Slightly arcane meaning of ‘rook’ but legit.
10 Visitor supposed to speak (5)
GUEST – homophone of GUESSED (‘supposed’)
11 American Indian conceals a singular wrinkle (6)
CREASE – CREE with A S inside. Cree again. Never Apache, never Cheyenne, never Nlaka’pamux. Always Cree
13 Soldiers pull back to observe (6)
REGARD – RE (Royal Engineers, soldiers) + GARD = DRAG (‘pull’) backwards. How many little words mean soldier(s)? Lets have a list: RE, RA, GI, Para, Men, OM, RM…any more?
15 Some tarmac cracks in African city (5)
ACCRA – another hidden word: tarmAC CRAcks
16 Go backwards, and initially reach way out (7)
REGRESS – R (initial of ‘reach’) + EGRESS, way out
19 Hairdresser’s perk? (6,7)
FRINGE BENEFIT – cryptic definition. Yawn. The tedious name of a million hairdressing salons worldwide.
20 Get up around noon and wash (5)
RINSE – RISE about N
21 Computer depots arranged to stock a thousand (7)
DESKTOP – Anagram (‘arranged’) of DEPOTS with K (thousand) in.

Down
1 Singer tours one ground (5)
BASIS – BASS is a singer, around I
2 Slightly dishonest fighting? This may keep you out of it (7,6)
EVASIVE ACTION – I guess EVASIVE is slightly dishonest and ACTION is fighting.
3 Terror of such locks? (5)
DREAD – as in dreadlocks
4 Salesman, one clearing throat (6)
HAWKER – double definition
5 Alone, crossing hard pebbles (7)
SHINGLE – SINGLE around H (hard)
6 Apparently where clock displays time? (2,3,4,2,2)
ON THE FACE OF IT – double definition
7 Appeared too hot in chair embracing wife (7)
SWEATED – SEATED (‘in chair’) around W (‘wife’)
11 Check wonky frame and cut off a corner (7)
CHAMFER –  CH (check) + anagram (wonky) of FRAME. A chamfer is a transitional edge between two surfaces, eg seen on table legs etc.
12 Sequin half gleams under bridge (7)
SPANGLE – ‘Bridge’ is SPAN, half of ‘gleams’ is GLE.
14 Induced to bury bone in garden (6)
BRIBED – ‘Garden’ is BED, ‘bone’ is RIB, put one inside the other.
17 Member of family has information on us (5)
GENUS – GEN is information, on US. A genus is part of a family in taxonomic rank. Altogether now: Life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species.
18 ‘Tis suggested, don’t go to bed (3,2)
SIT UP – now, what do we call these? Cryptic definition, I suppose. TIS is ‘suggested’ by SIT UP.

22 comments on “Quick Cryptic 954 by Teazel”

  1. I was pleased that after only 7 minutes on this I had plenty of energy left to face the beast that it today’s 15×15 and see it through to the end.
  2. … completing it in “just over five minutes” and STILL explaining things that slowed you down!!

    Anyway, back on Planet Mortal I found this medium hard and very enjoyable. FRINGE BENEFIT didn’t get a “yawn” from me, it got a chuckle and COD.

    Very useful tip that Indians are always Cree, I spent a while trying to make Cherokee fit in there somehow. I also have to learn to remember that thousand can = K as well as M (too much Latin, not enough Greek).

    Thanks to Teazel and curarist.

    Templar

    1. Indians aren’t always Cree ; there are Sioux , Apache and Nava(j)ho , as well.

      Edited at 2017-11-03 08:55 am (UTC)

      1. I would love to see Navajho under any of its spellings worked into a clue – perhaps Confused John embraced girl of native american?

        Edited at 2017-11-03 09:56 pm (UTC)

  3. 26:26. Another satisfying solve. LOI was DESKTOP, as was desperate to get the Roman Numeral ‘M’ in there.

    11d was a new word. I also struggled with 16 across as thought it was and-initially, (=A), not initially-reach (=R). How does one know?

    COD 6d for a clever double def.

    I agree that Indian seems to always be Cree. As college is always Eton.

  4. Around 30 mins, so about average. I particularly enjoyed 18dn which I thought was a neat little clue. Never heard of a Swanee Whistle.
    Re American Indians, Crow crops up occasionally.
    PlayUpPompey
  5. I didn’t sail through this as quickly as our esteemed blogger or Jack, but completed it correctly in 11:07. I didn’t know the SWANEE WHISTLE, so that held me up while I wrestled with the anagram fodder. 11d is a word I don’t think I’ve seen in a crossword before, although I did know it. Nice puzzle though. Thanks Teazel and Curarist.
    I did last Saturday’s Jumbo Cryptic before going to bed last night, and wished I hadn’t as it took me over two hours! Ah well, on to the 15 x 15, with trepidation after seeing Jack’s comment!
  6. I found this difficult needing 30 minutes to finish it. I was grateful for the hiddens as I was struggling in two corners.
    Chamfer needed some working out. I had never heard of the Swanee Whistle (tried to get a version of Penny to fit), so even when I had used all the fodder I was not sure. My LOI was 4d; I nearly went for Howler (it would have been one) as time elapsed. I also tried to put an M in desktop. David
  8. 12 minutes today, maybe I am better on the rattler earlier in the morning (I’m working at home today, so tackled it later).

    Nice puzzle, nice blog. I knew CHAMFER but not SWANEE (also sounds like a native American tribe, or am I thinking of Pawnee).

    1. It’s all very non-PC now, but having been brought up in the days of Black & White Minstrel shows on TV I became familiar with the songs of the American writer Stephen Foster (The Father of American Music) whose famous titles include “Oh! Susanna”, “Hard Times Come Again No More”, “Camptown Races”, “My Old Kentucky Home”, “Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair”, “Old Black Joe” and “Beautiful Dreamer”. Also one of his was “Old Folks at Home” which is equally well-known by its first line “Way down upon a Swanee River”. SWANEE WHISTLE as a novelty instrument will be very familiar to fans of the Radio 4 game show “I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue” as it has regularly featured in one of the traditional rounds “Swanee Kazoo” in which it “produces a deranged version (of the tune) often only hitting the right note by accident”.

      Edited at 2017-11-03 06:17 pm (UTC)

  9. 15:53 which is probably about average for me on the QC.

    I also started off with M for thousand and wasted time trying to make AMSTRAD fit at 21a, probably because I watched The Apprentice on Wednesday. WOD 8a, which also featured heavily in Carry On films, usually accompanying someone bending over.

    Thanks for the blog – I think we can add OR (other ranks)to your list of service persons.

  10. I found this quite chewy and was relieved that the unknowns at 8a and 11d were kindly clued (although they still took a bit of figuring out). Also held up by 19a for some reason and my COD 14d. Completed in 24 minutes.
    Thanks for the blog
  11. I have been a couple of days behind for the last week or so, but now caught up! Some of this was decidedly chewy but got there in the end – maybe just fatigued from catching up! Glad to see TA and OR added. Thanks to our blogger for explaining some of the parsing where I saw most of the reasoning but not all! FOI 15a (happened to start there instead of 1a for no reason) LOI 11d (familiar enough word but first time seen in QC) COD 18d for cluing. Odd to see 5a after SCOT so recently. Thx too to Teazel for Steady end to the week.
  12. Agree that to have almost exactly the same clue -SCOT – two days in a row is odd?
    Medium-challenging otherwise for a regular solver and reader of this fantastically helpful blog who doesn’t normally comment!
  13. Thrilled after battling the QC every day of my fortnight off I at last finished the whole thing solo in a reasonable time! (for me…25 mins). Shame it took the rest 5-10 minutes but still glad to end the hol on a high!
  14. About 8 mins excluding swanee whistle which I dnk, even with all the crossers.
    In the SI (Systeme Internationale)system for physical units (which UK uses but USA doesn’t) a small letter is used for sub-units, including m for one thousandth (milli) (eg millimetre a thousandth of a metre), and big letters are used for multiples, sadly M (Mega) is then used for a million, not a thousand which is K (eg Kilogram a thousand grams). Just to confuse, a millionth is micro with the greek letter mu (µ)as a symbol (e.g.µF a microFarad which is a unit of capacitance) . Just to further confuse a Megabyte (MB) is not a million bytes as you might expect but actually 1,048,576, the nearest value in hexadecimal. Anyone still awake? Aren’t systems devised by committees wonderful!.

    Edited at 2017-11-03 09:59 pm (UTC)

  17. 23 minutes.

    Swanee whistle rang a bell, had fingers crossed for chamfer with ch = check.

    Didn’t know the throat clearing definition for Hawker.

    COD sweated.

    Edited at 2017-11-05 05:45 am (UTC)

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