Quick Cryptic Number 10 – double definitions running riot – by Myles

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
My first attempt at a blog, so bear with me if I wax too lyrical or get too patronising; since the solution is available online, I’ll just try to explain how the answers arise, for those new to cryptic solving. Only one slightly obscure word, in 16 dn. Here we go.

Across
1 TOSS – vaguely amusing cryptic definition
3 SPELLING – I assume you only need spelling skills for reading, not for riting or rithmetic.
8 PROSPER – Right = PROPER, insert an ‘S’ being the front letter of STAGE. The def. is ‘get on’.
10 BULLY – A BULL is attracted by a female cow, add a Y for yen (currency) to get BULLY which is a synonym for ‘COW’ meaning intimidate.
11 CAMARADERIE – (DEAR IN AMERICA)* (the * means it’s an anagram) definition friendship.
13 SOLVER – (LOVERS)* the definition is ‘you’ and ‘disturbed’ tells you it’s an anagram.
15 WATSON – Holmes’s friend, made from the first letters of (w)ho (a)dds (t)his (s)ort (o)f (n)ovelty.
17 WATER PISTOL – cryptic definition, hopefully not truly topical.
20 OWING – ‘outstanding’ is the definition, insert ‘WIN’ into OG short for own goal.
21 SINNING – take S the last part of INNINGS (part of a cricket Test Match) and move it to the front, definition is ‘doing wrong’.
22 OVERSEER – a compounded word made from O (love) VERSE (Poetry) ER (monarch), definition is ‘person keeping an eye on’.
23 FLAT – initial letters of (f)or (l)ieutenant (a)s (t)ailored, meaning uniform.

Down
1 TYPECAST – characters = TYPE, with pitch = CAST, definition ‘showing little variation as players’.
2 STORM – Hidden word, Tempe(st or M)acbeth.
4 PARODY – Wages = PAY, divided by staff = ROD, meaning ‘send up’.
5 LIBERTARIAN – Man on board, a sailor, is often TAR in crosswords; insert him into LIBERIAN for the solution, possibly a person opposed to government. AB and RATING are also common for ‘sailor’.
6 ILLNESS – NESS is a common crossword-speak for ‘head’, add I’LL ignoring the apostrophe, definition is ‘complaint.
7 GUYS – sounds like GUISE and means MEN.
9 PERCENTAGES – (CENTRE PAGES)* meaning relative amounts.
12 IN-FLIGHT – entertaining double definition; ‘running’ and the movie on your long haul flight. Personally I seldom find them ‘highly entertaining’.
14 LOWLIFE – ‘Crooked’ tells you it’s an anagram of FELLOW, with I (one) put inside, the entire clue is the definition.
16 CRUSOE – CRUS(O)E. Even if you’d never heard of a CRUSE (a small earthenware pot) you can guess it, there aren’t many famous fictional shipwrecked sailors.
18 TWILL – T = time added to WILL = determination, TWILL is the fabric.
19 SOHO – SO = thus, HO = abbreviation for house, to arrive at the now almost respectable part of London’s West End.

29 comments on “Quick Cryptic Number 10 – double definitions running riot – by Myles”

  1. Top stuff, Pip – brevity is the soul of wit, and all that. Quite chewy – 19 minutes, finishing with GUYS.

    I think perhaps you should put the setter’s name in the title rather than your own!

    1. Apologies to Pip for the lateness of this post as he had it ready hours ago, but I was in a meeting and unable to respond to the cry for help! For some reason LJ took away write access which was already in place and I had to put it back – possibly something that gets changed when new members accept the invitation to join the Community, as it happened to Olivia and Ian too.

      Anyway, nice blog for a Quickie that was slightly harder than usual (as last Friday’s was, so maybe a pattern’s emerging?)

    2. Fixed that, now I have been told who set it! I hadn’t realised one could name the setter. And now I’m having to learn some HTML after 20 years managing to avoid it by using FrontPage or WordPress.
  2. This is only the 4th quickie I’ve been able to attempt and I found it quite tricky, taking 15 minutes. That’s almost as long as the previous 3 put together.

    It took me a while to make a start but then I made my own problems by opting for speaking at 3. That made the anti-government clue tricky. Whilst “man on board” gave me the option of a wide choice of chess, nautical and directoral terms I couldn’t find one that would slot nicely into Angolan or Algerian and give me a word.

  3. Hi – I’m a brand-newbie to this but I have been occasionally mentioned in dispatches by my infinitely better half; Z8b8d8k!

    As I was feeling totally daunted, he gave me gentle hints & nudges for most clues. I did get 17 ac before him, my COD was 3 ac – unsurprising for a retired teacher – and the LOI was 15 ac which had both of us stumped. Talking of stumped – I appreciated the 2 cricket references. 🙂

    Pip, that was a lovely blog, with some gentle but telling comments.

    Edited at 2014-03-21 01:37 pm (UTC)

    1. And hello to you! I correspond with your husband here and on the Club Forum quite frequently. I blogged yesterday and got off lightly – this was several degrees harder. I don’t have a time because I had to break off to go and minister to husband who has come down with the bug that’s making the rounds. Excellent blog Pip.
    2. Welcome to Crossword Land! Hopefully you’ll find it’s fun and reasonably safe – although I should mention your other half has threatened a ‘beer comparison excersise’ which sounds fun and not very safe at all.
      1. That’s so kind, Chris. We were following James avidly during the Winter Olympics – incredible athleticism! I’m also fond of proper beer!
  4. I agree this appeared to be harder than usual but I attempted it immediately after solving and blogging the 15×15 puzzle which was a beast, so I’m not surprised by my lacklustre attempt at it. I gave up after 21 minutes with several blanks outstanding and took another 7 to complete the grid on resumption this morning. I liked 1ac particularly.
  5. Good blog, Pip. I hadn’t heard of CRUSE before (apparently “the widow’s cruse” is some story from the Old Testament) and was a tad surprised to see it cropping up in a Quickie. As you say, though, the answer was easily guessable from the definition, so having an uncommon word in the wordplay wasn’t a hold-up.

    Can’t help with the setter’s name, I’m afraid – it hasn’t been in the online version for the last few puzzles.

  6. Pip,

    The setter’s name is Myles.

    Also, forgot to say congrats on a spot on maiden blog.

  7. 10 mins so definitely the hardest for me so far. Count me as another who didn’t know CRUSE but the answer was obvious enough from the definition. I only parsed LOWLIFE post-solve and the excellent WATSON was my LOI.

    I have to say that I think all the new bloggers have done really well so far.

  8. Thanks for the blog pip.
    I did this more quickly than yesterday,about 30 minutes today, but 1 wrong. Could not decide between billy and bully for 10a and finally put in billy.
    I am getting better at spotting the setter’s tricks and as soon as I saw initially in 23a I looked at all the first letters.
    Was convinced 1a would include the letter p but this was my COD when I spotted the coin was in the air.
  9. This is my first attempt at a crossword since I left UK, maybe that and maybe the altitude allowed me to breeze through this in 13 minutes – so have been surprised by the comments of others. I must therefore have experienced the ‘setter’s wavelength’ for the very first time – and what a pleasurable wave to surf! Good blog, Pip.
  10. Well done pip.

    Definitely a step up on yesterday but no excuses for spending 10 mins on my LOI (15ac) as my surname is . . .

    Edited at 2014-03-21 04:01 pm (UTC)

  11. 12m for this, the toughest so far. However quite a lot of that was spent on my last in WATSON. In the iPad app there is a little tick to the side of the clues, which sometimes covers up some of the text. This rendered the clue for 15ac ‘Doctor Who adds this sort of novelty, a first’.
    Nice blog pip, thanks.
  12. 15 minutes for me, starting with Camaraderie and finishing in the NW corner with Typecast then Toss.
    I’ve not tackled all the Quick Cryptics but have enjoyed all the ones I have done. Some of the surface readings have been beautiful.
    I think the blogs by the new team have all been excellent.
  13. Nice puzzle and blog. Ashamed I can’t spell camaraderie. Cruse is a bit obscure, but as Pip says hopefully fairly guessable.
  14. …it wasn’t. 19 mins here. Thanks, Pip, for a very good blog. Very succinct, In fact all the blogs have been good. it’s a pity that no-one has carried on with creating a thread in The Times Crossword Club Forum. I started some threads last week but no-one has carried it on. Perhaps there is some residual resentment at the Quickie not being included as a Club crossword. Today Watson fooled me for ages.
  15. I had been contemplating volunteering to join the Quickie bloggers but in the end chickened out citing lack of time etc. I’m mighty glad I did!
    I got there in the end with todays, but couldn’t parse quite a few (e.g. 3a, 21a).
    Well done Pip, good blog – nice going.
  16. I think it was under 10′, but at 12d I automatically tossed in ‘on’ (‘running’), and forgot to correct it once I got the FLIGHT part. I am still unable to get the damned cursor from jumping all the hell over the place; clicking on the icon produces nothing. Since with the Club I automatically hit Return to advance to the next clue, here I keep skipping a clue. And trying to replace a mistaken solution means moving the cursor letter by letter. I do hope this is not what we have to look forward to in the new crossword dispensation. Anyway, thanks again to all the bloggers.
    1. Well I’m glad I’m not the only one around here Kevin. I usually print and then enter (not possible with these) and I was beginning to feel like a right moron. And by gum it wastes precious time (for some of us) having to constantly make sure the damn thing hasn’t surreptitiously substituted its own choice of letter while we weren’t looking. It made my “chubby” into “chibby” earlier in the week all by itself without permission and it wasn’t a typo by me. And no it’s not funny if this is what we get when the new system is launched.
  17. Still struggling along trying to get to grips with the clues and all the clever tricks. I managed 9 clues all by myself today after getting my husband to read out some of the answers on the blog to seed the grid. Proceeding to mock me for not getting/understanding the answers I felt was mean of him. I’m glad you experts thought it was a hard one.

    Does anyone know why there’s no Quick Cryptic on a Saturday? I might get further if I had two whole days to complete one!

    1. Oops, that didn’t work very well. Sorry. That comment was from me *embarrassed face*
      1. Keep on keeping on! Crosswords seem to me to be a kind of personal thing. Sometimes you want to chew for hours (days) over some and others you throw in the towel and have a look at the blog. It is possible to perfect the technique of homing in to the explanation of one specific clue without looking at the others. It’s a great way to get going again if you’re stuck – better than having unwanted judgements anyway! Good luck and enjoy!
  18. Trickiest so far, I thought, but very enjoyable. Several of the clues sent me off in the wrong direction. For example, was convinced 1 ac had to have a P in it as start of Play, and at 1 dn Pitch had me going on a grand tour of football grounds (though admittedly Ibrox was rapidly dismissed as an unlikely contender).

    Watson was very cunning and LOI. Sinning was complex wordplay (I thought) and I was quite elated when suddenly the penny dropped.

    Congrats on first blog pip.

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