Quick Cryptic No 259 by Izetti – a trickier quickie?

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
After my DNF on Monday in the main Cryptic because of an unknown antelope, I was more clued up today when another obscure one showed up. There are several more uncommon words here too, in the lower half, but I think they’re quite gettable once you have the checking letters … edit: thanks to the setter for dropping by and apologising for the ‘inverse def.’ at 20a, it wasn’t really a problem.

Across
1 SNUB – It’s BUNS (food items) reversed; def. disdainful act.
4 REGIMENT – (GET MINER)*, def. army unit.
8 CARELESS – CARLESS = without transport, insert E (east); def. irresponsible.
9 NOON – A time which reads the same forwards or backwards.
10 HANKIE – A HANK is (or can be) a loop, add I.E. (id est = that is); def. piece of cloth.
11 RASCAL – (SCAR)* then AL (Capone); def. a baddie.
12 TURN THE CORNER – Double definition.
16 HAMPER – Another double definition. If you hamper someone, you might hold them up.
17 LATEST – LA = French ‘the’, TEST = match; def. most recent (news).
19 RANI – Hidden reversed in ORD(INAR)Y; def. queen. Rani means ‘queen’ in several Indo-Aryan languages, as well as being the first name of several Indian actresses.
20 LARBOARD – LARD = fat, around BOAR = wild pig; def. “right?” Actually the port or left side of the ship, an obselete term dropped by the British Navy in 1844. The word play is clear enough but I think the ‘wrong’ definition is a little vague, for such an obscure word in a quickie.
21 PEPTIDES – PEP = vitality, TIDES = ebbs and flows perhaps; def. chemicals in body. Another odd definition, peptides aren’t really chemicals, they’re like proteins but with smaller molecules; I could write you a fascinating book on the subject, but I won’t.
22 SHED – SHE’D = she would; def. peel off.

Down
2 NYALA – Hidden word in MA(NY A LA)NDOWNER; def. wild animal. One of the more interesting antelopes, with spiral horns; a good knowledge of types of antelopes will help you succeed with crosswords; mine is poor and there are many.
3 BREAKING POINT – Amusing double definition, for a critical moment.
4 REEVE – RE = about, EVE = first lady; def. old official.
5 GASTRIC – GAS = wind, TRIC(K) = kid, taken short; def. in the stomach.
6 MINISTRATIONS – MINI = little, ST = street, RATIONS = supplies; def. help.
7 NEONATE – NEON = gas (element number 10), ATE = took in food, def. young baby.
10 HOT – SHOT = hit, remove S = surrey’s opener; def. exciting.
13 UNAWARE – UNA = woman, WAR = fighting, E = energy; def. ignorant.
14 HURTLED – HURT = injury, LED = came first; def. raced.
15 RAT – RATHER can mean ‘pretty’ as in ‘I’m pretty tired’; take away the HER (“not her”) to leave RAT, a beast.
17 LORDS – LO = see, RD = road, S = south; def. house in London. I think House should have a capital H for this to be correct.
18 SURGE – S = son, URGE = longing; def. move ahead forcefully.

13 comments on “Quick Cryptic No 259 by Izetti – a trickier quickie?”

  1. I thought this was tricky indeed and that 21a went a little beyond the call of duty for a Quickie, with an obscurity (the “chemical”) being clued by two relative obscurities, for the first of which – PEP – one had only the central vowel. I finally got there after a couple of mental alphabet runs, but I think 1d is a better example of the cluing of a tricky piece of vocab, as it is easily obtainable from the wordplay.

    Actually, tricky vocab characterises this puzzle, what with RANI, HANK, NEONATE and LARBOARD (REEVE perhaps too). Not that I’m complaining, because to enlarge our word-power is one of the reasons we do these things. 10’45”.

  2. A technical DNF for me today, as was the main puzzle, because in each case I needed aids to find a final unknown word that I was unable to work out entirely from wordplay. In both cases I felt that if I’d known the word it would have been a write-in from the letters I had, and then explaining the wordplay would have been a simple reverse-engineering job.

    Having said that, and I’m referring to 21ac in this puzzle, I only needed to come up with a 3-letter word meaning “vitality” to fit ?E? and go with TIDES of which I was certain, yet I failed to do so, so I only have myself to blame. If I’d thought of it I’d undoubtedly have made a connection with “peptic” as something to do with the body and would have known it was correct.

    Incidentally a quick search of TftT comes up with only one previous instance of PEPTIDE and that was in Mephisto 2700 on 3 June 2012, by the same setter, which may say something about its suitability for inclusion in a Quick Cryptic.

    Along with the blogger I also have misgivings about the definition at 20ac which I think for a Quick Cryptic needs more than just a question mark to indicate that the answer is the opposite of the given word.

    Still it was very entertaining and a good reminder that the Quickie has to cater for a cross-section of solvers and even the older hands need to be properly tested occasionally.

    20 minutes to the point when I gave up on 21ac after 5 minutes on that alone.

    Edited at 2015-03-06 07:43 am (UTC)

    1. I was fine with this one. A steady solve, lots of head scratching but I got there with no despair. I thought it was much more doable than most of this week’s offerings – I guess the vocab just matched my own knowkedge base? I got larboard very early in because I only know the one type of wild pig. It was also nice to see a dr who related clue (19A) – obviously I’m sure it wasn’t actually meant to be dr who related but I take ’em where I get ’em. 🙂
  3. I agree the vocabulary in today’s was somewhat obscure, but I was most concerned in the phrasing of 20a in that the “?” is supposed to represent “not”, which is quite offputting.
    Fortunately I knew the word LARBOARD. As I understand it, the reason for changing to PORT was that in a raging souwesterly gale, for someone in the crowsnest to shout to the helmsman “Hard to ‘arboard” could too easily be confused – with dire consequences!
  4. Oh dear, I wouldn’t make a sailor! Sorry! (Always check the definitions of words you know — advice to self)
  5. I thought it was definitely trick today so was rather pleased to finish at all, in about 35 minutes. Wasted plenty of time not seeing Larboard in spite of getting Lard, Boar and being a sailor – just a bit thick I guess!
  6. Thanks to the Don for dropping in and clarifying that the “right?” definition for LARBOARD was a mistake (it was my LOI). Isn’t the editor supposed to check that sort of thing as well? Funnily enough I had no problem with PEPTIDES, although I agree that this was towards the trickier end of the QC spectrum.
  7. Completed, but must have taken me at least 50 minutes. Might have been quicker as I had thought of ‘larboard’ early on but discounted it on the grounds that it did not mean right. Decided it had to be correct later though when more letters were in.

    I was glad to see that some basic science knowledge came in useful for once (peptides). I sometimes think that a degree in ancient history is a prerequisite for crossword success.

  8. The top half went in in reasonable time for me but I was completely stumped by the later across and down clues. I thought I was mastering the quickies but it was back to earth with a bump. Strangely I find the short answers most difficult to understand especially a five word clue like 10down. There is no way I would have got RANI or LARBOARD (even if had been correct). I don’t think I’ll bother to look at the main one today; I’ll have a break and try again on Monday
  9. Definitely a tricky quickie today. Not many write-ins and was left relying on the cryptic for quite a few clues, e.g. MINISTRATIONS, the unknown NEONATE and LARBOARD. Luckily for me I had no idea which side larboard was, though I knew the word, so it went in without any worries. Sometimes ignorance can be bliss 😄.
  10. Even by Izetti’s standards, I thought this was a really tricky QC. Got there in the end, but had to guess at rani and nyala as I had never come across either before. I will forego my usual rant about obscure words in a QC, but you know what I mean. Invariant
  11. I managed it today in my usual 50 minutes or so. I could not parse RANI although I recognised the Queen. I knew about peptides, larboard and neonate just
  12. I always find Izetti a struggle and today was no exception. I didn’t help myself by spelling 10a with a y, but not sure I would have got 4d anyway as I was sure it involved and L from First Lady. Quite pleased in the end to have only missed out on 4 answers (19 & 21a and 4 & 17d), although a couple of others went in unparsed. COD was 6d.

Comments are closed.