Quick Cryptic No 274 by Ferbot – musical mystery tour

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
In a year of blogging quickies I haven’t come across “Ferbot” before, he or she sounds like an anagram on “Pointless” or a cuddly automaton, who knows. Another coded alias for one of our regular setters? But Ferbot has set us a good, fun puzzle here; I enjoyed it in the twelve minutes or so it took me to finish it and admire the wit, especially of the several music-related clues.

Across
3 PANIC – AN = article, inside PIC = film; def. terror.
7 PETROL – Hidden inside carPET ROLls; what we must put in the car, unless it’s diesel, like mine and 90% of French motors.
8 OVEN – (W)OVEN = like the web, with the W off, def. hotspot.
9 ANDANTES – ANDES = South American range, insert ANT = soldier perhaps, def. slow movements. I’m not convinced you can have a plural of andante, which the OED says is an adjective or an adverb, but I’ll not start an argument.
10 MIRE – M = Monsieur, IRE = anger; def. dirt.
11 SHARP PRACTICE – Double definition, with a little wit.
15 APFELSTRUDELS – (FLUSTERED PAL’S)*; def. German pastries. If you carelessly wrote in Applestrudel at first, without checking the anagram fodder, you’d be stumped on 12d.
16 MARS – Double definition.
18 HUNG JURY – HUNGRY = needing to eat, insert J U = initialy Jolly Upset; def. indecisive group.
20 HERO – HER = girl’s, O = ring; def. best man?
21 MIFFED – M(IF F)ED, IF F = fine in MED; def. cross.
22 PERRY – Double def; Alcoholic drink made from pears, and Fred Perry, the last Brit to win Wimbledon or the US Open until Andy Murray did so, and therefore the last Englishman to date, in 1934, 35 and 36.

Down
1 DEANSHIP – (PHINEAS’D)*; def. college fellow’s office.
2 ARIA – AIR = show, A, all reversed; def. a number from Carmen?
3 PLATYPUS – PLUS = bonus, insert A TYP(E) = a type that’s tailless; def. unusual creature.
4 NESS – A cape is a ness, and Loch Ness allegedly hides the eponymous monster. It’s maybe about time the Scottish Tourist Board organised a new ‘sighting’ to boost business?
5 COMMUTED – Double definition, of a sort, you commute to work and to commute is to make shorter or less severe.
6 PEER – Triple definition!
12 REED STOP – RE ED’S TOP = on leading journalist’s head; def. a set of pipes, part of a pipe organ.
13 AGRONOMY – (ARMY GO ON)*, anagrind ‘manoeuvres’; def. managing affairs in the field? Nice surface, Ferbot.
14 CALORIES – LO = look, inside CARIES = tooth decay; def. something weight watchers want less of.
17 ABEL – Sounds like ABLE = fit; def. murder victim, topped by his brother Cain, who was also married to his own sister. Happy families?
18 HEIR – HER(E) = present, almost; insert I = one; def. next in line.
19 JEFF – Chap, hidden in reversed STA(FF EJ)ECTED.

10 comments on “Quick Cryptic No 274 by Ferbot – musical mystery tour”

  1. I’ll comment on this puzzle, if I may.

    An excellent debut by as Pip I am sure rightly assumes a dab hand at the art and a Main puzzle setter. Fortunately, the first letter of the anagram fodder for the German pastry was an F and so – with virtually no German – I patiently waited until I had done the rest before polishing things off with this one. ‘Apfel’ indeed! What a strange tongue!

    I just notice that I got OVEN the “wrong way”, my imagination running wild and taking me to a “coven” of webby witches. And it’s the morning in HK and I haven’t touched a drop since last night. 10 minutes.

  2. Nice to have the blog back – thanks Pip. And thanks too to Mohn for stepping into the breach at the very last moment yesterday.
    Nothing too awkward here: under 10 minutes which is my benchmark, though I was a little 21a by the plural “dealings” in 11a as I wanted to put in “PRACTICES”.
    Yes, my LOI was 15a too, though 18d was pretty fiendish.
  4. “andante” can also be a noun – see Chambers – so it is perfectly correct to assume a plural form of the word.

    andante (noun) means a movement or piece to be played in andante time.

  5. As a (Dutch) Cryptic Novice I am delighted that the Quick format has been introduced almost a year ago.
    I manage to solve the puzzles in around an hour and enjoy the humour and ht e challenge.
    Thanks. Mac
    1. Well done Mac, a crossword in a second language is a challenge, I would not fancy one in Dutch, can’t even finish French ones either… I hope the blogs help.
  6. Well it’s been a shocking week of QCs for me, without a single completed puzzle. Today’s was either completely out of my league or I was just on the wrong wavelength and I didn’t even get close to finishing. I always struggle with musical clues and there were several words I was unfamiliar with e.g. 4d, 14d, 22a and I missed the anagram in 15a so put ‘apple’ in instead of apfel.

    Oh well better luck next week.

    1. My commiserations – Orpheus, Joker and Ferbot have all been really difficult this week – each one well over 2hrs for me, which thankfully is a rare event these days. How anyone could do today’s in less than 10mins is beyond me. I couldn’t read the clues and write the answers down that quickly. Invariant
  7. I was completely stumped and heading for a DNF with about 5 to go so left it for a couple of hours and then finally managed to get 8 and 18ac and 17(!), 18, 19d. I hope Ferbot is just an occasional visitor. . . Invariant
  8. I’m with the lasr couple of comments . When the quick cryptic started I was usually there or thereabouts. I don’t buy the Times every day but I always give this a go when I do. Now I’m never going to be the world’s best solver but I increasingly find that this has become something that is easy for the main crossword solvers but increeasingly hard for rest of us mere mortals.

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