Quick Cryptic No 553 by Joker

Author   TheRotterPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
This took me twice as long as it should have (20 minutes), mostly because I misspelt ISRAELI and couldn’t for the life of me make any sensible answer at 22 with the letters A_A_E.  I eventually saw the error of my ways, and it finally came together.  Incidentally, one of my favourite lines was from the 1987 film ‘Prick up your ears’, about the life of Joe Orton, where the playwright asks his new lover (played brilliantly by Alfred Molina) if he can spell?  His answer was brilliant,  “Yes, but not accurately!”.  I suffer from a similar problem and simply must remember, ‘E before A except after R’.

Other than my self-induced issues, this was a fairly simple test, with one uncommon word to catch people ouit, but even that was very fairly clued by Joker.

Definitions are underlined, anagrams indicated by [square brackets] and deletions with {curly ones}

Across
1  A top grad working with spin – as this? (12)
PROPAGANDIST – anagram (working) of [a top grad] with [spin]
8  Black Sea peninsula loses area in unlawful act (5)
CRIME – the Black Sea peninsula known as Crimea (much in the news recently) loses {a} for area
9  Cinema diet is fizzy drink and banal stuff (7)
POPCORN – the fizzy drink is POP and CORN is the banal stuff
10  Countenance including vase for ashes where body is burned (7)
FURNACE – countenance is FACE with URN (vase for ashes) in it
11  Character of the Niles mouth (5)
DELTA – we had this a day or so ago, but clued differently.  Today it is a double definition (dd) as in the Greek character / letter and the delta at the mouth of the Nile
12  Officer element (6)
COPPER – another dd, this time for an officer (of the police persuasion) and the element cu
14  Out of breath rearranging nearly all of wedding (6)
WINDED – anagram (rearranging) of most of [weddin]{g}
17  Strove to run ideally every day when beginning (5)
TRIED – first letters of (beginning) T{o} R{un} I{deally} E{very} D{ay}
19  Annual return initially brings up unpaid debts (7)
ARREARS – A{nnual} R{eturn} (initially) REARS (brings up, as in ‘rears its ugly head’)
21  Beaten unconscious university lecturer has little energy (7)
OUTDONE – OUT as in knocked out (unconscious), DON (university lecturer) and E{nergy}
22  Tell missing head to cheer up (5)
ELATE – {r}ELATE (to tell is to relate, missing head or first letter)
23  Gift men put in it leads to suspicion (12)
PRESENTIMENT – PRESENT is the gift, with MEN in IT to finish the answer.  Presentiment is a suspicion, usually bad, about the future.

Down
1  Ocean state losing name for conciliation (12)
PACIFICATION – an Ocean state might be a pacific nation.  Take out the {n} and squeeze the remainder together, and you get the answer.
2  Willow, oversize, that is over river (5)
OSIER – OS (outsize) IE (that is) and R{iver} give today’s less well known word.  An OSIER is any willow whose twigs are used for making baskets.
3  Mean to grow old around girl (7)
AVERAGE – AGE (to grow old) around VERA (nice old-fashioned girl’s name – I’ve ever only known one VERA, and that was enough thanks)
4  Fruit beers containing odd pieces of pepo (6)
APPLES – ALES (beers) containg the odd letters of P{e}P{o}.  Pepo incidentally is the type of fruit found in the melon and cucumber.
5  Tricked and abandoned minus millions (5)
DUPED – DU[m}PED (abandoned) with the m for millions taken out
6  Piano with dirty outside is diminished in value (7)
SPOILED – P{iano} is invariably abbreviated to P in crosswordland, and here we put it in SOILED (dirty outside)
7  Brilliant old Peruvian lineage (12)
INCANDESCENT – a nicely concise clue for a long answer.  Old Peruvian might be INCAN and lineage is DESCENT.  Put together and we get brilliant.
13  Playwright Harold entertains circle to offer piece of advice (7)
POINTER – Here, the playwright is PINTER, entertaining O (circle).
15  One serial broadcast from Tel Aviv, perhaps (7)
ISRAELI – Anagram (broadcast) of I (one) and SERIAL.
16  Time to maintain new inn (6)
TAVERN – T{ime} AVER (maintain) and N{ew} to give a type of inn
18  Rubbish REM at first occurring during sleep (5)
DROSS – R{em} (at first) inside DOSS (sleep, as in ‘you can doss here’)
20  Conscious of a watch on dead body (5)
AWAKE – our final dd, being conscious as well as a wake (as in a hooley at a funeral)

16 comments on “Quick Cryptic No 553 by Joker”

  1. 40 mins with one mistake: AWARE for AWAKE. I found all of the long perimeter clues quite tough although no complaints and all good clues (esp INCANDESCENT, which now gives a handy mnemonic for how to spell it). ‘Doss’ for ‘sleep’ didn’t seem very natural, but that was my only quibble. Relieved that ‘pepo’ was in the clue rather than an answer, never heard of it, and looked like a typo. OSIER another new word, but guessable.
  2. Reasonably straightforward from top to bottom slight hold up in SE where COD and LOI was 16d, is there an anagram of new inn?. After completion reread the clues and all were beautifully crafted, a slight misdirection here a little smile there. Thank you Joker for a very pleasant start to my morning, and thank you rotter for the quote.

    Tyro tim

  3. A very amusing and erudite blog from The Joker – loved the quote -the boy done well!

    11.58 which was only two minutes less than the ‘big one’.

    Methink OSIER is old crossword fare.

    horryd Shanghai

  4. Found this one fairly difficult- took me a good 30 mins. Quickie graduates might enjoy trying today’s main crossword.

    Rita

  5. Really liked INCANDESCENT. Have decided to do the Quick first each day before tackling the big one.
  6. Another excellent puzzle which I completed in 10 minutes. Thanks for reminding me of the quotation, Rotter, which I suspect owes more to Alan Bennett (who wrote the screenplay) than to Halliwell himself.
  7. All quite straightforward today and completed in about 20 minutes. A very enjoyable solve with my COD being 7d.
  8. Flew in (for me) at around 15 – 20 minutes.

    Will take a look at the 15×15 when I’ve actually done some work!

  9. 46 minutes and a DNF, but still very enjoyable, as usual for a Joker puzzle. I wasted a lot of time by mis-reading my ‘n’ as a ‘w’ as the last letter of 16D which led to half a page of anagram attempts. I failed on 7D but it was a heroic failure – I had ‘inca’ and ‘descent’ at different times but never thought to imclude an ‘n’.
    Brian
  10. I normally struggle badly with the last few clues for Joker but flew through within half a cup of coffee. Must be easiest ever quick cryptic for me.

    7D was my COD. 22A was Loi

    Chris

  11. I started slowly being unable to get either 1a or 1d. Once 1d went in the rest followed quickly. 22 minutes.
    I thought this was a good challenge and also liked 7d, an excellent clue. David
  12. 8 mins with no real problems. Both the long downs were well clued. Not so sure about 18d. Doss for sleep was fine but not entirely happy with ‘r’ being clued as an initial initial. It made for a neat surface but a contrived cryptic.
    1. I don’t understand your point, anon. Indicating first or last letters of words, abbreviations or acronyms for use in wordplay is standard practice in cryptic puzzles. It’s only “contrived” in the sense that all cryptic puzzles are necessarily contrived, by definition.
  13. I knew we were due a punishment for two easy days, or maybe I was just off form. Required two sittings to complete this offering from Joker, mainly because I struggled with the perimeter clues, especially the anagram at 1ac. Invariant
  14. Found this really easy and set a new personal best time of 12:27.

    I came across the word PRESENTIMENT recently (well, a couple of years ago) for the first and only time, in Hans von Bulow’s nickname given to Chopin’s prelude number 2, “Presentiment of Death”. I suppose it’s a bit more memorable than “the one in A minor”.

  15. I did exactly the same as our Blogger, and misspelt Israeli, causing great problems with 22a. 1a was also slow as for some reason I wanted to use a word meaning spin in the anagram instead of spin itself. Oh well!! Four successes in reasonable time this week. Fingers crossed for tomorrow.

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