Quick Cryptic No 173 by Dazzler

Author   nick_the_novicePosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
Interesting mix of quite a few fairly straightforward ones, and a couple of decidedly tricky affairs (at least, I thought 23ac and 18dn were real doozies…). A bit of cricket knowledge helps, and those of you who paid attention in Chemistry lessons will be better placed than I was to master the dastardly 23.

Thanks to Dazzler for a most enjoyable puzzle, with lots of different clue types and some very elegant surfaces.

If anyone is struggling to access the puzzle, here is the link:

http://feeds.thetimes.co.uk/timescrossword/20141105/303/

Across
1 BATON – Double definition. In cricket parlance, if you decide to bat on you “don’t declare”: at the same time, baton is a type of “stick”.
4 PUBLISH – Print is the definition. Answer also from the wordplay PU (“turned up” – i.e. UP backwards) with first letters (“initially”) of Books Left In Safe Hands
8 ANTIWAR – against fighting is the definition. The wordplay also providing the answer is a tad complex: ANT (“Soldier” – as in the soldier ant) with RAW I reversed (“retreating” giving the reversal: “inexperienced” giving the RAW: and “one” giving I)
9 SOFIA – Capital is the definition (Sofia being the capital city of Bulgaria). Answer also derived from I “invested in” (i.e. included in) SOFA (“item of furniture”)
10 OUT TO LUNCH – Another double definition type of clue. The midday trip to the sandwich shop, and “out to lunch” being a term for somewhat barking (“nuts and crackers”)
14 AROUND – More or less is the definition. Answer also from A ROUND (as in buying a round – purchasing several drinks)
15 IBERIA – European peninsular is the definition. Answer also from SIBERIA – with the S (“originally spirited” – first letter of spirited) being removed from “part of Russia”
17 BAD HAIR DAY – very trying time is the definition. Answer is also an anagram of B (abbreviation of “Bishop”- chess notation) and “diary had a” – with the anagram being signalled by “new”. I suppose one of the upsides of life for our bald friends is that bad hair days are a thing of the past…
20 RINSE – What might add a bit of colour is the definition (the “blue rinse” favoured by ladies at Conservative clubs). This is also a nice example of the hidden clue type (signalled by “carried by”) in “barber in Seville.” –
22 GRIMACE – Disgusted expression is our definition. Answer also from GRIM (“stern”) with ACE (“master” – i.e. top performer)
23 ELEMENT – Thought this very tricky, and it took me a while to work out what was going on here. “HE” and “I” are both symbols (“briefly”) for ELEMENTS in the periodic table (Helium and Iodine respectively). “Lead” is also (“too”) an element. So, a kind of double definition and overall cryptic definition to boot. Quite neat once you get it ( he says, smugly…)
24 SPECK – Dot is the definition. Answer also from S (abbreviation of “small”) and PECK (“quick kiss”)

Down
1 BRAG – Game of cards is the definition. Answer also from GARB backwards (“dress up”)
2 TA-TA – Kind of double definition type clue. TA as in thanks / “cheers” twice (“and cheers”) and also TA-TA meaning goodbye (“so long”).
3 NEW GUINEA – Island is the definition. Answer is also an anagram (signalled by “confusion about”) of A GENUINE with W (“western”)
4 PIRATE – Bootleg is the definition (the verb “to bootleg” as in “to pirate”). Answer also from PI (“awfully good”) with RATE (“price”). Pi crops up a lot in cryptics (I guess it’s a useful device for setters needing to slip a P and an I into a solution). When I first came to this site (in the early days of my journey on the Times cryptic) I was consistently floored by this word, and railed against it. But, the senior pros confirmed it is indeed a legit word in its own right (short form of Pious) and still in use in some communities in the UK. So, advice to newcomers – get used to it!
5 BUS – People carrier is the definition. Answer also from BUST (“broken down”) without the final T (“before reaching terminus”) – with T being an abbreviation of terminus, I suppose (was not fully confident with the parsing of this one)
6 INFANTRY – part of army is the definition. Answer also from INFANT (“Child”) with RarelY (“extremely rarely”) i.e. first and last letters (extremes) of “rarely”
7 HEAR HEAR – Double definition. “Expression of approval” and sounds like (“say”) HERE (“at this point”) repeated
11 LIBRARIES – Neat double definition. LIBRA and ARIES (“signs”) run together and dropping one of the A’s (“Overlapping”), together with the more obvious “university buildings”
12 JAMBOREE – lavish party is the definition. Answer also built from JAM (“stuck”) with BORE (“dull chap”) and E (“last to leave” – i.e. last letter of leave)
13 CONDENSE – Shorten is the definition. The answer is also an anagram (signalled by “for a change”) of ENDS ONCE. The setter threw me for a while here as I was convinced I was looking for an answer built around SN – ends of shorten – second to LOI
16 BRIGHT – Promising is the definition (as in “the outlook’s bright…”). Answer also from BRIGHTON, with ON being a “cricket side” (the leg side) “taken from” Brighton (“coastal resort”). For non devotees of the greatest game ever invented, worth remembering that cricket “sides” often crop up in Crosswordland, being the “on” side and the “off” side. Nice neat clue and elegant surface, I thought
18 DAZE – Shock is the definition. Answer also a homophone (signalled by “on the radio”- i.e. we are in aural land here) of DAYS (“what you’ll get two of at the weekend”). This was my LOI and took an inordinate amount of time for the penny to drop. Did not pick up the “on the radio” device as pointing to a ‘sounds like’ kind of clue, and took it far too literally – ransacking the memory for famous radio shows featuring duos etc. etc. Anyway, at least it provoked an enjoyable trip down memory lane encompassing Goon shows, Round the Horn, the Archers Omnibus and worse…
19 DECK – Straightforward double definition
21 EXE – river is the definition – the beautiful Exe in Devon. Answer also from EX (“former”) and E (standard abbreviation for “English”)

22 comments on “Quick Cryptic No 173 by Dazzler”

        1. We jumped forward 5 on Monday, back 2 on Tuesday and another 2 on Wednesday. On Thursday we go forward by 1 and jump forward 2 on Friday. That’ll see all the gaps filled in so we should be back in sequence on Monday, but who knows what will actually happen?
  2. Possibly my first ever DNF (without resorting to aids) for a Quickie, but I simply couldn’t bring myself to spend any more time on E?E?E?T when I still had no idea which part of the clue was the definition. 23ac is surely one that escaped from a 15×15 puzzle. Speaking of which, I note today’s puzzles have a word in common again.
  3. A little under ten minutes for this witty and elagant offering. Last in ELEMENT and JAMBOREE, but the standout has to be the grumpy Bishop.
  4. This blog is invaluable! I simply could not connect 3.14159265… with “awfully good” and although I wrote in ELEMENT I had no idea how to parse it. Now that the clue has been explained to me I think it’s brilliant. It’s good to have a 15×15 escapee once in a while, to help bridge the Great Puzzle Gap.

    Doesn’t terminus just mean “end” here, so it’s BUST without its end?

    1. Glad you find it useful! And fully agree your sentiments re. the occasional 15×15 escapee.

      Thanks for your thought on BUS – I think you may well be right there. I was struggling with it – one of those irritating short ones that is actually quite tricky to parse.

    2. Well done jcf_kiwi – you’re good. I completely agree with you and nick that it’s bust without reaching its end point of ‘T’. If you ever fancy a blog spot – let us know!
  5. 19 d came as a shock, I had already used the word at 1d deck (out) for dress up. 23 just too difficult for me and ‘daze’ out of reach because it’ s not an obvious synonym in my over literal mind. But I did learn some good stuff. New word ‘antiwar’ and two expressions I had met (and thus inserted) without any previous idea what they meant. ‘Out to lunch’ and ‘bad hair day’

    But great puzzle and thanks again for a top blog.

  6. Most enjoyable puzzle and I learned two new expressions. My wife does not speak of bad hair days although she says the expression is in common use! I don’t think that TaTa was very fair as I can’t connect TA with Cheers. Nor do I think that Element was very fair as both clues were about the periodic table. Nevertheless I got these.
    1. ‘Cheers’ can mean ‘thanks’ as can TA, so ‘cheers and cheers’ = TA TA = ‘so long’.

      I tend to agree with your point about ELEMENT, though my judgement may be clouded by the fact that it’s the first Quickie clue I have been unable to solve without referring to aids in 173 puzzles!

  7. Not particularly 16d today. Put in an unparsed WAVE at 18d and cheated to get 23a. I liked both 10a and 17a.
  8. This was quite tricky for me and needed more help from phone app than usual. Although I got pirate, I have never heard anyone use the word pi to mean awfully good and I think a bootleg is actually a smuggler not a pirate. The origin is from hiding smuggled hooch in their boots!
    1. This from Monkeypuzzle’s (sorry – can’t remember the exact styling of the moniker!) better (?) half’s recent blog: ‘Pi: Derives from “pious” and means a range of things from goody-goody to obsessively or obtrusively religious’.

      It’s inordinately common in crosswords – think of it from the setter’s point of view, having to piece together target words – so well worth looking out for.

      1. Munk1puzl 🙂 Definitely better 1/2 today. I was definitely not 16 dn. Your use of the word monicker tickles my fancy – my real name is Monica!
  9. I don’t think I was in the mood. I was cajoled through by Z8’s blandishments – including the Pi mentioned by Ulaca. Took 28 mins but would have given up after about 5 clues if I’d been flying solo.

    COD was INFANTRY – a straight write in. BAD HAIR DAY was a lovely clue but I needed to have it spelled out for me.

    LOI AROUND just couldn’t see it.

    Lovely blog – thx N the N 🙂

    Edited at 2014-11-05 05:20 pm (UTC)

  10. Possibly a little longer than my usual time, but I didn’t time it and I had an interruption mid-solve. I got ELEMENT and saw how it worked but I agree it is a little devious for a QC. My last ones in were the AROUND/JAMBOREE crossers. Although it was rare to see the overlapping LIBRARIES clue type at 11dn this sort of clue isn’t that common in cryptics at all.

    Jucrow – bootleg and pirate are synonymous verbs when they refer to music.

  11. I couldn’t finish this on my own (being tired and out of practice after a brief jaunt to the Breacons), and am very glad it didn’t turn up on my blogging day. Thanks for tackling it with such erudition, Nick!

    So many penny-droppers; LIBRARIES and ELEMENT would have been very satisfying had I got that far.

    Try again tomorrow…

  12. I thought this was tough and VERY glad to finish without cheats. There seemed to be more than a few clues that would have happily sat in the main puzzle (and not on an easy day), e.g PUBLISH, AROUND, LIBRARIES, ELEMENTS, JAMBOREE and others.

    LOI was elements, which has to be my COD. Not quite Tom Lehrer, but I know most of the periodic table and it still blindsided me.

    Well blogged Nick. I didn’t parse LIBRARIES, but it went in because “it had to be” and tend to agree with you re.BUS, but don’t remember seeing T as an abbreviation for terminus before. Again, put in because I couldn’t see any other answer would fit.

    Edited at 2014-11-05 08:00 pm (UTC)

  13. Consider my hat well and truly off to you, sir! Element was beyond me. From now on you’ll be nick-the-smug – and quite rightly too! 🙂
    Very happy this was NOT my blog day.

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