Quick Cryptic No 120 by Marty

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
I think this is my first exercise supplied by Marty. I found it much trickier than Wednesday’s quickie, with several clues worthy of the main puzzle; it took me a good twenty minutes although once done the answers were clear and often brought a smile.

Across
1 PULL A FACE – FALL = sink, UP, all turned = PULLAF, ACE = expert (another chestnut), def. grimace.
6 JUNTA – JUN = a month with 30 days, TA = volunteers (another chestnut), def. ruling council.
8 NEGLIGENT – (NIGEL)* indicated by unruly, followed by GENT = fellow, def. careless.
9 COMMA – There’s a comma between gardens and occasionally, and a comma is a rather pretty butterfly with irregularly shaped wings.
10 COINTREAU – Anagram of CREATION with U (superior), indicated by exotic, def. liqueur.
12 ORATED – O = nothing, RATED = valued, def. made a speech.
13 ZAGREB – To the west here means it’s reversed, a hidden word, CLIM(BER GAZ)ED, not many cities with 6 letters end with a B. It used to be a great place to visit but I haven’t been back since the all night party after the Eurovision Song Contest 1990, just before the war.
16 ICELANDER – If you land the ice you win the lolly. Cryptic def. a European.
18 SIT-UP – Cryptic double def., stay out of bed or exercise.
19 SPAGHETTI – Witty indeed. Spaghetti Westerns, cowboy movies made originally in Italian in the 1960s; Spaghetti junction is a notorious early motorway interchange in Birmingham (UK), correctly called Gravelly Hill interchange, the term is now used generically for such complex tangles of concrete.
21 CURVE – CURE = French priest, taking in V = vicar at first, def. crook.
22 NAMECHECK – Complicated enough for the big puzzle, this one. ‘Bizarre’ indicates an anagram of CHANCE, with ME insterted, NA(ME)CHEC, then K = king, def. mention.

Down
1 PANACHE – Another complicated clue. PANACE(A) is a short solution, insert H = hard, def. confidence. I found the ‘everything’ bit misleading and unnecessary.
2 LEGS IT – Foot of hill = L, EG = for example, SIT = rest, def. does runner.
3 ATILT – ATILT means listing, leaning over; use the first letters of A(rticles) T(hat) I(nclude) L(ittle) T(hings), indicated by ‘first of all’. Easy once you see it, but tuning in to the intended meaning of ‘listing’ here took me a little while.
4 ALE – The odd letters of eArLiEr, def. drink.
5 EAT HUMBLE PIE – Cryptic def., and it gives you the U at the end of the liqueur, and the B for the city, which helps a lot.
6 JACK ROBINSON – ‘Before you can say Jack Robinson’ is a common phrase meaning ‘pretty quickly’. I looked up the origins of it; several versions of course, the most likely being According to Grose’s Classical Dictionary, published in 1785, the reference is to an individual whose social visits were so short that he would be departing almost before his arrival was announced.. The parsing is JACK = card, ROBIN’S = Christmas bird’s, ON.
7 NOMINATE – NO MATE is not a friend, insert IN = home, NOM(IN)ATE, def. put up (for election).
11 EUROSTAR – (TOURS ARE)*. Brilliant, witty, concise clueing.
14 AIRSICK – Cryptic def. I was less thrilled with this one, but with all the checking letter it was clear.
15 ODETTE – Girl’s name found reversed in REGR(ETTED O)NCE. Indicator ‘taken up’.
17 AD HOC – Sounds like ADD HOCK, def. for a particular purpose.
20 AIM – Double def.; if you plan for something, you aim for it; you train your weapon when you aim at a target. At least, that’s how I saw it.

25 comments on “Quick Cryptic No 120 by Marty”

  1. This was more of a longie than a quickie. As with Jackkt 13a was my downfall. At 25 minutes, it took almost as long as completing the 15×15. It took me ages to get going and I think it’s going to stump a lot of the less experienced solvers.
    Well done Pip – good blog.
    By the way I think “Panacea” is a “solution for everything” in 1d.
    Also with 14d, the more I look at it, the more I actually like the clue – it’s quite clever.
  2. Very tough and needed aids to finish. When looking at the answers there are some excellent clues, 9a, 13a, 14d, 15d but my favourite was EUROSTAR.

    9a and 16a reminds me of a quote from Frank Muir. He was driving a Commer van in Iceland during the second world war when it broke down. Over the radio he said “The Commer has come to a full stop.”

  3. I made a right dog’s breakfast of this one completing all but two in my customary sort of time but then failing to complete without resort to aids. What I missed was the reversed hidden at 13ac (what could I have been thing of, with “to the west” in the clue?) and 3dn, where having cheated to come up with ATILT I then failed to parse it. I think I might revert to solving after the 15×15 when hopefully my brain may be a bit sharper.

    Edited at 2014-08-22 06:37 am (UTC)

  4. 6 mins. I also thought that this QC contained several clues that were better suited for the main puzzle. At 1dn I agree with deezzaa that “short solution for everything” leads to PANACE(A) rather than just “short solution”. I got ATILT from the definition but I missed the required parsing and saw the wordplay as a convoluted A and IT (articles) with L and T included (Little Things first of all). The problem with that is there is nothing in the clue to indicate that the L and T are to be entered randomly. ZAGREB was my LOI and I see I wasn’t alone.
  5. Completed this on iPad in about 8 minutes (including the search for my customary spelling error). Having flown into Zagreb last September, I can report that all seems well, in the area around the airport at least.

    Rob

  6. 16 minutes, but this is a serious test, with a nmumber of tricky clues and well-hidden definitions. The two that are likely to cause the most trouble (13a and 3d) are excellent examples of two clue types that are especially easy when done without too much thought and especially difficult when done well (as here).

    I was not alone in ending with the reverse hidden (Jack, the beauty of the clue is that many people will fail to lift and separate and look for a word meaning ‘gazed’ reversed ‘to the west’). I myself shoved in Warsaw on that basis. And ATILT would have been very difficult to unearth (like the Arab capital in today’s main crossword) if the first letter had not been provided, so well was the ‘initialisation’ command hidden.

    Bravo, setter, and well blogged Pip. Look forwadr to hearing more of your Euro 90 story.

  7. Well, I took twice as long as the blogger but I completed it correctly. Strangely I found some of the ‘tricker’ clues rather easy (write ins, almost) than some of the easier ones. Zagreb was my LOI despite having been there often and having the B from the start (eat humble pie was my first write in). One quibble – Iceland is not a member of the EU and I don’t think they regard themselves as European. I got held up on airsick – which I thought was carsick which obviously hindered seeing Zagreb. Best clue – spaghetti. That opened up the whole thing and once I had that I finished very quickly.

    Edited at 2014-08-22 10:19 am (UTC)

  8. Tricky and enjoyable. Struggled for ages with ZAGREB and ATILT.

    Thanks to setter and pip for nice blog.

  9. Relieved to see that lots of people found this difficult – after half an hour, I still didn’t have Zagreb, Atilt, or Comma. I’m only really annoyed by Zagreb though as I seem to miss every single hidden answer in every QC! Particularly frustrating when the answer really is staring you in the face. I still don’t think I really understand Airsick either – is it just because you will have gone up in the air to have this complaint?
  10. Nice blog horrible puzzle. Got nowhere near completing it. Serious backward step today.
  11. I agree with others that his was one of the tougher quickies, and see I am not alone in failing to spot for a long time the beautifully disguised hidden word in 13a. In total, just under 10 minutes – my longest yet.
  12. That was trickier than usual – the SW corner was the last to fall, until the excellent Spaghetti clicked:) 38 minutes….
  13. Nice to see I wasn’t the only one to resort to aids. At first I thought it would be stroll, but then hit a wall. ATILT took ages to see, thought of COMMA (nothing else seemed to fit) but had no idea it was a butterfly and ZAGREB eluded me too. Well blogged pipkirby!

    Nigel from Surrey

  14. Very enjoyable challenge. Clocked ‘swallow one’s pride’, but why can’t I parse ‘going with tart’?

    Philip

    1. My take on this is that if the setter had left it at ‘swallow one’s pride’, it wouldn’t really be a cryptic clue at all just a straight swap of synonymous expressions. So he invents a scenario in which a fellow decides to do what he promised himself once he would never do, so that the tart now functions in the surface of the clue as part of the setter’s little story and in the cryptic part as a way to work in ‘pie’, which otherwise is not derivable from the clue, which already covers the eating and humility parts.
  15. Lovely blog narsty crossword. Needed lots of Z8ery & even then I only finally wrung its neck after 36 mins.
    COD was CURVE because I know a French priest is a cure ( sorry the tablet doesn’t do accents aigus).

    LOI ATILT missed the first-letter-of-each-word hint.

    Feeling battered & bruised but looking forward to leaving early in the morning for a long w/e celebrating Z8 putting up with me for 41years of marriage.

  16. Took ages and still didn’t finish so thanks for the superb explanations. I did get Zagreb though!!
  17. First time using this blog.
    This clue is incorrectly described, because the letters of the answer are the EVEN letters of “earlier”, not the odd ones! Then the presence of the A and E forced a re-look, and all was clear. Had the clue been longer and more complicated it might have posed a bigger problem. On the whole, good clues, tougher than average for the TQC. Andy Holton
  18. I work for Granted in Business Development. Granted is the largest career community on the internet for job seekers. It provides professionals with jobs, reviews, company salary content, and interview questions.
    I wanted to reach out and see if you would be interested in a partnership with Granted. We are looking to partner with employers seeking high conversion rates and competitive CPA’s. Job seekers looking for the right position give our site millions of visits each month. In addition, our jobs are posted on more than 40 other websites, giving you huge exposure.
    We also have excellent customer service and are easy to get in touch with in order to meet your needs. Our main office in Ephraim, Utah is staffed by people like me who know how to get you the right hires and would love to develop a long-term relationship with you.
    You could capitalize on this audience by posting your jobs on Granted. I would love to discuss the options that we have available and how we can start sending you traffic using your job feed. Please let me know what a good time would be for me to get in touch with you about this opportunity.
    Thank you,
    Christy
    cmoon@granted.com

Comments are closed.