Quick Cryptic No 252 by Mara

Author   nick_the_novicePosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
Thanks to Mara for an enjoyable puzzle. Probably towards the easier end of the spectrum, but with plenty of wit and a nice variety of clue types. 4d was particularly good I thought – the kind of droll clue I enjoy.

A few throwbacks to vocabulary of a bygone era which may challenge younger solvers who sadly missed out on conversations with grandparents who had grown up in the days when music hall was king. But I think that is all part of the charm of the Times crossword: it combines the likes of 11a and 9d with more contemporary stuff such as SLOMO in yesterday’s offering.

The online versions seem to be behaving themselves at the moment, but in case anyone is struggling the link is here: http://feeds.thetimes.co.uk/timescrossword/20150225/751/

Across
1 ARSENAL – Double definition. That nice Mr. Wenger’s outfit and the weaponry store. Fairly easy if you are au fait with the beautiful game: possibly quite tricky if you are from a land where “the roundball game” (as it is still quaintly referred to by many in Australia) does not have the quasi-religious status that it enjoys across Europe and elsewhere…
5 BATS – Nocturnal creatures is the definition. Answer also from STAB backwards (“attack when retreating”)
7 FLING – Another concise double definition. Always liked the idea of the Highland Fling – sounds very dramatic and potentially quite hazardous
8 STAPLER – Device for fastening is the definition. Answer is also an anagram (signalled by “loose”) of PLASTER
10 RYE – Grass is our definition. Answer also a homophone of WRY (“crooked”) as in wry neck, wry smile, but not much else – I’ve never heard of a wry accountant or a wry line. Interesting how some adjectives only seem to be used in conjunction with a small number of nouns: I’m sure someone has written a thesis on this…
11 TOODLE-PIP – I’m leaving is the definition. Answer is also a word sum kind of clue with TOO (“as well”), with DLE (“led astray” – i.e. anagram thereof) and PIP (“just beat” – as in pip at the post). There may be a generation (or two) of solvers out there who have not come across this particular form of ‘goodbye’: well, wait until nah poo comes along! Worth boning up on your music hall gear…
13 ANDREW – patron saint is the definition. Answer also constructed from AN_DR_EW – DR (“doctor”) “taken in” by A and NEW (“modern”)
14 STATIC – Still is the definition. Answer also from the reversal (“making a comeback”) of C_IT_ATS – “it appears in musical”. CATS crops up quite a lot as the setter’s preferred musical – as does PINTER as the preferred playwright: worth bearing in mind
17 INTERLUDE – Break is our definition. Answer is also an anagram (signalled by “that’s cracked”) of UNDER TILE
19 ILL – Cryptic ‘hidden’ sort of clue. Answer is included in “some” of PAINKILLERS – and these might be required if you are ill…
20 EASTERN – from one particular direction is the definition. Answer also built from E (“start to Edge”) with ASTERN (“backwards”)
22 BLINI – Pancakes is the definition. Answer also built from B_L_IN (“left in waste receptacle”) with an additional I (“heading for incinerator”). The Blini is a highly disruptive foodstuff in my experience. I was for a time living with a delightful (if somewhat eccentric) Ukrainian lady: Christmas came and the lady’s family were of course invited for a curious kind of Anglo/Ukrainian feast. I’d done a full trad English roast turkey with all the trimmings to impress the “outlaws”. My Ukrainian better half made delicious home made blinis served with cream and salmon for a starter, with an endless stream of glasses of neat iced vodka. We never got around to the turkey… A short but spectacular Xmas lunch
23 BRAG – Boast is our definition. Answer also derived from R (“whopper finally”) to “enter” BAG (“net” – as in bag a few prawns / net a few prawns)
24 ANGOLAN – African is the definition. Answer also from GOL (LOG backwards – “record rejected”) “in” AN and AN (“two articles”). Useful for newcomers to the dark art to know that “rejected” often means reversed / backwards

Down
1 AFFIRMATIVE – Yes! is the definition. Answer also built from A FIVE (“a number”) including (“catching”) TRAM IF rearranged (with the anagram being indicated by “drunk”)
2 STIPEND – Fixed salary is the definition. Answer also from TIP (“extra pay”) inside SEND (“in post” – post as a verb). I believe some members of the clergy are still on stipends – not sure who else is these days. I’m sure the contributors here will know of a few others
3 NIGHTWEAR – Bed clothes is the definition. On edit (thanks to Rubeclaw!):Answer is also an anagram (signalled by “mangled”) of WATER with NIGH (“near”)
4 LESSON – A (somewhat extended) double cryptic definition – very droll and my COD. Having LESS ON will result in revealing more flesh, and a LESSON is a class
5 BRA – Underwear is the definition. Answer also built from B (standard abbreviation of “black”) with first letters (“tops”) of Really Attractive
6 TULIP – Bulb is the definition. Answer is also an anagram (signalled by “with a switch”) of LIT UP
9 RAPSCALLION – Rogue is the definition. Answer also built from SCALLION (“onion”) “below” RAP (“pan” – as in criticise). Again one from a bygone era: rapscallion is a splendid word which I hereby resolve to use at my workplace at least once before this week is out
12 LITTERBUG – someone discarding trash is the definition. Answer also built from LITTER (“brood” – several wee furry things) with BUG (“error” – as in computer programming)
15 TRIVIAL – that’s not important is the definition. Answer also built from I and V (“one” and “very” abbreviated) “into” TRIAL (“test”)
16 GUINEA – Double definition. The old guinea was worth 21 shillings, and we have the African state of the same name. Primary school arithmetic books in the 1960s still included guineas in the sums and problems, albeit the guinea was pretty much dead and buried by then. That said, Wikipedia informs me that the guinea is still used in valuations by dealers buying and selling rams. Well there you go!
18 TASER – a stunner is the definition. Answer is also an anagram (signalled by “wildly”) of STARE
21 EGG – Potential chicken is the definition. Answer also built from EG (“for example”) with G being the last letter of clucking (“clucking in the end”)

27 comments on “Quick Cryptic No 252 by Mara”

  1. 9′ 30″ for this interesting offering, with much to trap the slapdash solver (I had ‘ink’ for ILL, ‘thing’ for FLING and ‘littering’ for LITTERBUG for a while).

    Re 10a, there has been a plethora of theses on this subject (‘collocation’), especially since the advent of computer corpora of huge numbers of words and the tools to analyse them with. As Firth (John not Colin) once said, ‘You shall know a word by the company it keeps’.

    Nick, you should write a book about your life one day. Make bits up and no one will know the difference!

  2. That’s my cue: I threw in ‘litterbag’ simply because I finally saw that it was littersomething and didn’t bother to think. Wasn’t the GUINEA once the unit charged by professionals like doctors instead of the pound? No problem with TOODLE-PIP, so aside from the one error, everything was tickety-boo. 6:30.
  3. Enjoyed this puzzle. Count me as another who initially had littering but saw the error after getting BLINI. Particularly liked STATIC & LESSON. Last in ANDREW.

    Nick, I think the parsing of 3d is NIGH (near) TWEAR (anagram of water). Great blog.

  4. I found it impossible and gave up this is clearly because the whole thing was fatally tainted by 1A the correct clue for which should have been spawn of the devil. Other than that there were two food clues which also sank me. I was fine with litterbug and toodle pip though. 🙁
  5. Well, well, my most difficult for a long while. I am constantly surprised by what some find difficult and others easy.
    Someone on this blog asked last week how I could find Friday’s easy, but this one took me over three times as long and yet Nick found it straightforward.
    One man’s meat…
    1. I’m with you on this one, deezzaa. At 20 minutes I found this very heavy-going and there was very little flow in my solving process. In the end I spent 5 minutes+ on 1ac and 4dn alone. 4dn was a “doh” moment when the answer came to me; I had been distracted by thinking 1ac would end in S to indicate plural.

      Edited at 2015-02-25 09:27 am (UTC)

      1. Yes, I too found this relatively tough for a Quickie with quite a few clues that would not have been out of place in the main paper cryptic. But I don’t share the view of anonymous below that it’s “totally unsuitable”. It still falls comfortably within the Quick range of difficulty and there is no reason why the level of difficulty shouldn’t vary from day to day.

        1. Oh yes, I’m with you there, Mike, and actually I get a bored with the complaints about varying levels of difficulty re the Quickie as it has to cater for a range.
  6. Yes, it’s weird. There’s undoubtedly a wavelength thing at work, and also areas of knowledge / interest. Also (at least for me – doing these things in the evening here in Oz rather than the morning in UK) there’s the glasses of red count that also comes into play…
  7. Here we go again – totally unsuitable for a QUICK cryptic. What is wrong with the crossword editor? There have been some excellent puzzles recently using common words with tricky clues. Using uncommon/obscure/old fashioned words with fiendish clues is surely not what is required for a QUICK cryptic. Yes I have emphasised QUICK three times now. There’s an excellent cryptic crossword an the back of the main paper which can be as fiendish and obscure as the setters can make it because it is not a QUICK (four times) cryptic.
    I assume the intention is that these puzzles are able to be solved fairly quickly by those who find the main puzzle too difficult. If in fact the intention is that it is for those who can do the main puzzle in a reasonable time but want a quick workout then today’s puzzle would be a fair test. So which is it? Some days it seem to be the former and other days the latter.
      1. I assume you are being funny by trying to be ‘cryptic’? What do you mean by ‘more’?
        1. No, I wasn’t intending to be funny but your question gave only two alternatives as to whom the puzzles might be intended for. I’d have said the target “audience” probably doesn’t fit so neatly into those two categories, so “more” covers any others.

          I’ve been hoping to get the Editor’s message about the Quick Cryptic as published on the first day available to read on TftT but so far this hasn’t happened. In the meantime you can read it here if you wish http://jackkt.livejournal.com/. One of the points is that the QC is to enable solvers to learn and progress to the main puzzle and it follows that there needs to be a range of difficulty if this is to be achieved.

          1. Ok, thanks that was very useful to read and I now understand that the Quick puzzle is, as one of its purposes, intended to act as a ‘trainer’ for the main cryptic puzzle. I look forward to the Quick puzzle each day as an entertainment and ‘brain exercise’ in itself, so I get irrationally angry when I can’t complete it. I don’t really have any ambition to graduate to the main puzzle but I now accept that there will be days when I struggle and that I should just accept it and wait eagerly for the next day’s puzzle!
            1. You’re welcome. You might be surprised how many contributors who were new to cryptics started on the Quickie and are now tackling the main one, so don’t rule it out! Good luck and enjoy.
  8. I usually just read this forum and, rarely bother to pass comment but:
    This for me was one of the quickest finishes since I started doing the QC. I do realise that this does depend on being on the wavelength of the setter.
    So my thanks to Mara for a very enjoyable early morning exercise and Nick for the wonderful blog.

    Eurc.

  10. I join the ranks of the those on the wavelength (12 minutes just to give my yardstick). As my Mum still uses the term scallion and I love PG Wodehouse (Toodle pip), I agree, as usual with Nick, that it sometimes just falls into your knowledge areas – no need to get upset if it doesn’t as that’s when you learn new terms.
    LOI 4dn which went in with a groan and smile – which must be worth COD! Loved the blini story Nick – keep ’em coming!
  11. I didn’t find this one too bad, apart from 16d, which I gave up on. I always struggle with the old coinage so spent ages thinking about florins, bits (was there such a thing) etc but completely forgot about the guinea, which just so happened to be one of the few African countries I didn’t pick up on my mental run through.
    Like Nick I’m going to try to introduce 9d into my vocabulary as it’s a great word.
  12. Not a stroll by any means today. Had very few clues in on first pass, but then guess I hit Mara’s wavelength and things went very smoothly after that. So, yes, I can understand the differences in hard/easy comments today. I thought there were a number of excellent clues that wouldn’t have been out of place in the main puzzle, e.g. 1ac, 11ac, 4dn. My COD was ARSENAL which I thought was nicely succinct and deceptive and, with todays news, TASER seemed very topical, sadly so.

    Many thanks to Mara for the enjoyable puzzle and to Nick for the blog.

  13. Mis-read the setter as being Maria and then wondered why she was being unusually difficult. Another slow solve for me, which seems to be the theme this week, but still enjoyable. Regarding the discussion re ‘quickness’, everytime I try the 15×15, I realise why the T2 version is called the QC 😊 Invariant
  14. As a relative beginner – but hooked on the QC for several months, this was the very hardest I have encountered. But I am not complaining – still at the stage where I am forcing near into the anagram instead of nigh and getting nowhere! North-west corner was very hard, I thought.
    1. I think many of us more ‘seasoned’ solvers will just bung in NIGHTWEAR when we have a few checkers, and check the parsing later – if at all! Sometimes, it pays to step back from the trees and view the whole wood, as it were. Some might say this is sloppy, but I would say just another arrow in the quiver.
  15. Forget the sheep – far more importantly Guineas still common in buying and selling horses and prize money at the races!
  16. Just revisiting this thread having woken up to a damp and cool Friday morning here in Sydney. Always interesting to see what comes in overnight, and the diversity of view as to degree of difficulty on this one is particularly marked.

    Trying to pick through and make some sense of it all, seems like the NW corner generally proved hardest for those who found the puzzle overall a tough challenge. Which brings me to make an observation about clue types.

    In addition to the wavelength and vocabulary issues already canvassed, it occurs to me another variable that could make a puzzle easier or harder for any given individual is the clue types that predominate. Some people’s minds are more naturally attuned to certain clue types but not others (just like in old fashioned IQ tests I breezed through logic problems but struggled with spatial / shape type questions).

    The NW corner has several double meaning / pun type offerings – 1a, 7a, 10a and 4d. These are my personal favourite clue types (misspent youth writing scripts for student revues in an era when Benny Hill and Frankie Howard set the tone for popular entertainment).

    These can be hard for people who do not intuitively think that way, not least because (e.g. with the concise two word clue types such as 1a and 7a) there’s not much else to go on – you either get it or you don’t and there is no other angle of attack to unpack the clue.

    At the same time, other clue types which are more based around restructuring words (I think lift and shift might be the technical term?) do not come naturally to me and take an age to see – whereas others seem to spot these very easily.

    Anyway, just a thought…

    Edited at 2015-02-25 10:30 pm (UTC)

    1. It’s a truism that questions are easy if you can see the answer and difficult if you cannot. The surprise is that we still seem surprised by the variation in perceived difficulty, – you may well be right that a clustering of the “wrong” type of clue will cause problems.
      Having said that, I have sone sympathy with the argument that it’s perfectly possible to set a tricky clue that doesn’t need obscure language (‘incubi’ for example from the other week still rankles). Invariant

Comments are closed.