Quick Cryptic No 983 by Izetti

Author   TheRotterPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
This is a great QC in my opinion, with all sorts of richness and interest, some beautifully crafted surfaces, depth and nothing too obscure.  To add to the pleasure, it is a pangram, containing all of the letters of the alphabet, which we don’t see very often in the QC.

I took one minute more than my target time solving this, but would have been comfortably inside 15 minutes were it not for my carefully cultured lack of knowledge of things religious, and Saints in particular.  Of course I had heard of Saint Lawrence, but knew nothing about him, other than that he had given his name to a major North American waterway.  As indicated below, arriving at that answer cost me a couple of minutes.

I hope that you all enjoyed this as much as I did.  Thanks to Izetti for another great puzzle.

Across
1  A swan captured by woman of historic reign (8)
JACOBEAN – The swan is A COB (male swan), which is ‘captured’ (i.e. is inside) JEAN (the woman in question).  JACOBEAN refers to anything that belongs to, or is characteristic of, the period of James I of England (1603 – 1625)
5  American journalist is employed (4)
USED – US (American) and ED (in Crosswordland, journalist often signifies ED as in ED{itor})
8  Foreign money carried around by henchman or knight (5)
KRONA – Reverse (around) hidden (carried by) {henchm}AN OR K{night}
9  One of five children at home given one drug or another (7)
QUININE – One of five children would be a QUIN, IN is at home, and E (drug) is added to give the name of another drug QUININE, one of my drugs of choice, but only in G&T.
11  Being slushy drove one mad (11)
SENTIMENTAL – Lovely concise surface here – SENT (drove) I (one) MENTAL (mad) – it rarely gets better than this!
13  Little folk having food around nine or eleven (6)
PIXIES – Two clues in one here!  You are invited to choose between IX (nine) inside PIES (food), or XI (eleven) inside PIES.
14  Invaders coming round in the morning, returning people (6)
HUMANS – The invaders are HUNS, a powerful savage nomad race of Asia who moved westwards, and under Attila, overran Europe.  HUNS ‘come round’ or surround AM (in the morning) which is reversed (returning).
16  A monster hat – alternatively a wee cap(3-1-7)
TAM-O-SHANTER – In my (limited) experience, this is more often written TAM O’SHANTER.  Anagram (alternatively) of [A MONSTER HAT] to give the name of the traditional Scottish bonnet (wee cap) worn by men, and often abbreviated to TAM or TAMMY
18  Island child getting about (7)
MINORCA – Child gives MINOR and CA from ‘about’, as in C{irc}A (the bill was about / circa £100)
19  For example, writer rolling around in orgy (5)
BINGE – Writer here is NIB and EG is ‘for example’, and both are reversed (rolling around)
20  Agile agent strangles traitor finally (4)
SPRY – The agent is a SPY, which ‘strangles’ (surrounds) the last letter (finally) of {traito}R
21  Some love he-men, totally fierce
VEHEMENT – Hidden (some) in {lo}VE HE-MEN T{otally}

Down
1 Little woman kept missing gym – it makes you laugh (4)
JOKE – JO is the little woman (it works both as a reference to the character in the book of (nearly) the same name by Louisa May Alcott, and as a more general diminutive of JO{sephine} if one doesn’t know the book), and KE is what is left if you take PT (gym) out of KE{pt}
2  Romancer’s ex is abused?  One must ask many questions (5-8)
CROSS EXAMINER – Anagram (abused) of [ROMANCER’S EX IS]
3  Support trainees working out problem (5,6)
BRAIN TEASER – BRA is support, with an anagram (working out) of [TRAINEES]
4  Clear account, pretty short (6)
ACQUIT – AC{count} and QUIT{e} from quite / pretty (as in ‘the bill was quite / pretty big’), with short indicating that the last letter is dropped.
6  Roman Christian blasting a recent sin, keeping commandment (5,8)
SAINT LAWRENCE – This is an anagram (blasting) of [A RECENT SIN] ‘keeping’ LAW (commandment) inside of it.  This was my last one in, as I struggled to decide which particular Saint it might refer to, and it probably added a couple of minutes to my solving time as I tried to make a recognisable name from the letters _A_R_N_E, using the remaining anagrist of [CENER] (after using up [SAINT]), and looking for a three-letter word for ‘commandment’, which didn’t come easily for me.  Nothing wrong with the clue, it was just my poor knowledge of Saints.  I have since looked up SAINT LAWRENCE to discover the particularly gruesome story of his martyrdom.
7 Fighter expected to join fifty on register (8)
DUELLIST – Flat-pack assembly clue of DUE (expected) joining L (fifty in Roman numerals) and LIST (register)
10  Crazy niece, all but irresistable (11)
INELUCTABLE – Nice anagram (crazy) of [NIECE ALL BUT].  INELUCTABLE is an uncommon word for something ‘not able to be escaped from or avoided’, or irresistible!
12 Models, very good, appearing in English books (8)
EPITOMES  – E{nglish} TOMES (books) containing PI (very good).  PI has a few meanings, but one of them is ‘obtrusively religious, sanctimonious’, or very good! 
15  A female has to worry about what to present wine in (6)
CARAFE – A F[emale} inside CARE (worry, ‘about’)
17  Enthusiasm shown by final character is French (4)
ZEST – Z (final character, in our alphabet) and EST (‘is’ in French)

22 comments on “Quick Cryptic No 983 by Izetti”

  1. It was some trouble for me, anyway, with the long anagrams, since I don’t write down the anagrist when doing Quickies. Got SAINT fairly quickly, then dithered over St. Who, actually toying with Clarence (who?) before remembering LAWRENCE. I have no idea how they did him, but if he was like many of the early martyrs, he was no doubt a major pain in the proverbial. Surprised to spot the hidden VEHEMENT (missed KRONA until the K forced me to see it). SENTIMENTAL was lovely, marred only by the necessity of ‘being’ to make sense of the surface. 8:04.
  2. 13 minutes for me, so another day, another target missed, but not by too much. I also struggled with the long anagrams and gave myself a slight problem by semi-biffing JACOBITE at 1ac. I say ‘semi’ because it was spotting A COB (for ‘a swan’) that led me to guess the rest from definition.

    Like others I knew nothing about SAINT LAWRENCE other than his name, and I only knew of that from his waterway and the church in the neighbouring parish to where I grew up had a church dedicated to him where G.F. Handel played the organ that’s still there to this day.

    Edited at 2017-12-14 04:53 am (UTC)

  4. I enjoyed this too. Got caught out by Minorca because I’ve only ever had tickets for Menorca in recent years 🙂 Don’t like ‘pi’ but never mind

  5. I agree with Rotter, I lovely xword today. 11a made me laugh too. Like others, I got ‘saint’ pretty quickly but then fortunately remembered commandment = law so it all fell into place.

    Many thanks to Izetti and Rotter

  6. I am a beginner and this was as close to unsolvable as I have got. Probably got 6 or7 that was it. I am guessing that all those who wrote it was easy are pretty experienced as this was certainly not easy.
    1. Don’t despair, anon, tomorrow is another day, onwards and upwards and all that!

      I read back through the blog and comments and couldn’t see that anyone so far had claimed it was easy. One or two solving times posted might have suggested that, but as a beginner you don’t want to be worrying about that, just take your time and do what you can and enjoy it. It really does get easier with practice but we all have set-backs and bad days as the level of difficulty does vary.

      I hope you will persevere and comment here regularly, but please add a name at the end of your contributions, or alternatively open a free Live Journal account and give yourself a user-id.

      Edited at 2017-12-14 11:50 am (UTC)

  7. This one took me to 12:42, so harder than average. JOKE and JACOBEAN were my first two in with the Little Women reference and the swan popping straight into mind. My LOI was SAINT LAWRENCE, and I only got him without a major delay due to equating LAW to commandment. Experience definitely needed for this puzzle. Having got the GE at 19a I pondered what a PENGE might be but discarded it. INELUCTABLE required pen and paper. Thanks Izetti and Rotter.
  8. A typical Izetti. Very challenging and very satisfying to finish after 50 mins or so. I think I had about 4 after my first pass, so nothing came easily. Took a long time to equate law to commandment (perhaps because I have never seen commandments as more than guidance to be considered occasionally), and INELUCTABLE really had me searching the recesses of my memory. Enjoyed PIXIES. Clever clue I thought.
    Smashing crossword.
    PlayUpPompey
  9. I am a beginner and this was as close to unsolvable as I have got. Probably got 6 or7 that was it. I am guessing that all those who wrote it was easy are pretty experienced as this was certainly not easy.
    1. This fitted into my medium category – the long anagram and loi Saint Lawrence which eventually fell when I saw ‘law’ for commandment. Great fun all round.
      Ah – I seem to have ‘replied’ rather than ‘commented’. Apologies – but as I’m here I’m happy to sympathise with anon – a lot of clues were well hidden today but it is all a learning exercise – enjoy the ride!

      Edited at 2017-12-14 03:05 pm (UTC)

    2. Not sure why you have posted this again, anon, after I took the trouble to reply to your original posting, but perhaps it’s a bug in the system. Please refer back up the thread to see my response.
      1. Over the last few months I’ve noticed several postings mysteriously reappear further down the blog, so it could easily be a bug.

        Edited at 2017-12-14 06:27 pm (UTC)

  10. I found this extremely difficult and after a couple of sittings only had about half the grid completed. I decided to have one more go at it before coming here with my tail between my legs. I finally spotted that 11a wasn’t an anagram of ‘being slushy’ and that Jacobite was incorrect, after which the rest fell into place.
    LOI 14a, COD 11a, time probably around the hour mark.
  11. I usually enjoy the challenge of an Izetti puzzle, but today’s QC was really hard going. Two sittings and electronic aids before staggering over the line north of an hour. 6d, 10d and 11ac were responsible for most of the hold up, albeit assisted by 3d and 12d along the way. 12ac, Pixies, was my favourite, but this wasn’t one to fondly remember. Invariant
  12. Nothing to obscure – apart from ineluctable- which you describe as an uncommon word (obscure?)
    If the purpose of the qc is to practice/learn how to unravel a cryptic clue then uncommon words should be avoided! I know one learner (not me) who doesn’t even attempt izzeti because she finds those qc not fit for purpose (to learn)
  13. I am a novice but I find Izetti the most satisfying, usually finish eventually, always fair elegant and neat.
  14. Finally got there in about double my target time, very much held up at the end by the unknowns of INELUCTABLE and SAINT LAWRENCE, and not helped by only getting HUMANS and BINGE quite slowly, too. Still, at least I got there.
  15. I solved this on a train returning from a long Christmas lunch in town. In the end I was pleased to finish it. LOI was 6d as I waited for all the checkers before grinding out the answer- the Law insert was clever.
    An excellent puzzle I thought, difficult in places, and I was not able to parse everything so thanks Rotter for the full blog and Izetti.
    Time taken -not sure, rather like the train I was on which decided it would not go to its stated destination and everyone had to get off at Orpington. David
  16. Cor, that was tough. Chewed my way through, double normal time. Same difficulties as everyone else.

    Loved PIXIES.

    Haven’t seen PT for gym for ages – so spent some time removing the PE from “kept” and thus not getting anywhere! (My pa always called lying down “Egyptian PT”.)

    Thanks Izetti and Rotter.

    Templar

  17. I always like Izetti crosswords: fair and beyond dispute. In this one, though, he punishes complacency. It was much harder than usual and doubled my usual fairly leisurely QC time (from about 15 minutes to 30). I never sink to timing myself. It’s not a time trial, it’s a leisure activity.

    6d held me up for a long time (kept thinking it was going to be St Clarence, so couldn’t of course make the clue work. And only when i finally cracked it could I get 14a, my loi and, I thought, pretty fiendish.

    Cod: 14a, which made me smile too.

    Thanks to Izetti and therotter.

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