Quick Crytpic 521 by Mara

Author   ChrisPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
One too many gods (or one O too few) combined with a crossing COD plus a quick chemistry lesson made this trickier than it might have been and I came in at 15 minutes. Well, I would have done but for my own spelling mistake at 3dn so I was a DNF.
I thought this was just not one of my better days but I’ve just found this harder to blog (a lot of looking up references) than to solve so it may cause a few problems. All good fun though and a satisfying (for me) level of a QC.

ACROSS

1. Strap – belt. Components (PARTS) backwards.
4. Stepson – relation by marriage. STEPS ON.
8. Admirer – lover. Anagram (after a breakup) of MARRIED.
9. Grant – double definition. One being Ulysses S.
10. Chinchilla – South American animal. CHILL inside CHINA.
14. Retina – bit of a looker (an eye). On (RE), vessel (TIN), A. Easy when you get it but I lumped ‘a bit of a looker’ together and couldn’t figure out why Tina was a vessel so I award this my COD.
15. Orange – a shade. Old (O), compass (RANGE – in sense of limits – within the compass of education).
17. Banana skin – potential trouble. Bonkers (BANANAS), family (KIN).
20. Noise – sound. I (I) inside NOSE.
22. Reading – double definition – Reading being our example of a university.
23. Legless – under the table. Tables (well, types that hold drinks) have legs.
24. Early – definitely not behind. n(EARLY).

DOWN

1. Soap – double definition.
2. Rump – behind. Spirit (RUM), (P)hantom.
3. Parthenon – old temple. Anagram (rebuilt) of PANTHEON around R. My spelling mistake was to conclude the answer with ‘anon’.
4. Spring – bound. The month of March is in the spring.
5. Egg – breakfast item. In nutm(EG G)rater.
6. Starling – bird. Famous (STAR as in famous/star acts), fish (LING).
7. Nitrates – compounds. Anagram (compound) of SAT and INERT. Is there a chemist in the audience? I think a nitrate is a compound as it consists of something added to nitric acid – any salt or ester of nitric acid, such as sodium nitrate, NaNO3.
11. Hurricane – it will sweep you off your feet. Anagram (dancing) of RAUNCHIER.
12. Tribunal – court. Hearing (TRIAL) around something sticky (BUN).
13. Stonking – very good (not god). Boy (SON) accepts gif(T), a sovereign (KING).
16. Osiris – Egyptian God. So coming up (OS), Greek goddess (IRIS – the personification of the rainbow and messenger of the gods).
18. Tier – piece of wedding cake. Something which ties is a tier.
19. Ugly – hideous. Some of th(UG LY)sander.
21. Eye – one that can look. Spelled the same up or down.

34 comments on “Quick Crytpic 521 by Mara”

  1. 5.38 on the timer thingy, having struggled rather over RETINA .. I would tend to regard a vessel as somewhat different from a container or tin, more of a bowl sort of thing. Not complaining mind, I’m sure its in the dictionary.
    Reading = uni pops up fairly regularly. I remember looking it up once, thinking it was just a jumped-up poly, and was surprised to find it is a proper redbrick university chartered in the 1920s.
  2. There’s an old chestnut of a NYC joke as follows: Who is buried in Grant’s tomb? Well Grant of course. Although if you want to be pedantic it’s a mausoleum so he isn’t exactly “buried” in it.

    Yes, we’ve been seeing quite a bit of Reading lately and I didn’t parse RETINA until after the new “congratulations” thing popped up. A bit harder than yesterday’s I thought.

  3. I made very heavy weather of this one and at 17 minutes it was my worst solving time since Izetti’s last outing on 17th February which also took me 17 minutes. Where has he gone, by the way? I hope he hasn’t been relegated to the subs bench following remarks about how difficult his puzzle was that day.
  4. Quite difficult today. Why is Reading the only university used in crosswords? When I was a student , occasionally travelling from Swansea to London ( and back ), it was just a stop on the Paddington line!
  5. Found this on the tough side, which is always good if one aspires to the main crossword. Held up a bit by the spelling mistake in 13d. I’m not sure an admirer equals lover and shouldn’t 7d be “compounds”? Biffed 10a so thank you blogger for the explanation. COD and LOI TO 14a.
    Alan
    1. I’m pretty sure that nitrate (singular) is a compound (singular) and that compounds (plural) is the anagram indicator of both sat and inert but we may need a chemist from the audience.
      Thank you. I’d typed nitrate as the answer when it is nitrates. Many thanks – blog updated.

      Edited at 2016-03-08 11:21 am (UTC)

  6. That one was hard, not helped by my last two 13ac and 14d being crossers. Over the hour again, so not good. Invariant
    PS 7d is 8 letters (nitrates).
    2. I used to think it was just the luck of the draw, but now believe it’s more to do with being on the setter’s ‘wavelength’. For example, I’m quite happy with Izetti puzzles, but often struggle with Mara. Still, it’s good to have a bit of variety. Invariant
  7. I was going well this week with two puzzles completed in under 30 mins but this one stumped me. Trying to think of the boy god. Surely it couldn’t be a misprint just to make things harder! and ‘re’ is ‘about’ not ‘on’ so DNF 14a and 13d.
  9. Just when I thought I had got the measure of the QC, this one brought me right down to earth. I struggled to find the “easy” clues to get started.Parthenon was one for me and Egg but then I couldn’t get going in any quarter. But I stuck at it and eventually unravelled some very good clues. I liked 8a (which misled me for ages) and 14a which was my last in. I nearly settled for Retank. Many more to commend.
    A very good test I thought which has left me too exhausted to try today’s 15×15.
    By the way there is an article in today’s paper about a crossword computer-page 15. David
  10. Too difficult for me today having had a good run for a week or more. By the way, what does it mean when folk put ‘invariant’ at the end of their comment? Hope it’s not obvious otherwise I will be in a right mood until tomorrow’s QC which I am hoping will be more to my liking!
    1. That’s the poster’s soubriquet, pen-name or whatever you like to call it. Some contributors choose not to open a Live Journal account so that they have an official user-id (it’s free, so why wouldn’t they, I often wonder) but instead they add a name of their choosing to their message so that they are recognisable rather than being completely anonymous. Perhaps you would care to adopt the practice? It’s more sociable and friendly.

      Edited at 2016-03-08 05:48 pm (UTC)

      1. Just to clear this up. . . I would like nothing better than to have a LJ account in my chosen name, but it has already been used/discontinued and apparently I have to pay to have it assigned to me. I decline to do so. I’m also not keen on adding numbers, as that would spoil the joke (a private one, I’m afraid). Invariant
      2. Thanks jackkt. I have created an account so I am now, and henceforth, pexiter. Better mind my manners now!
        1. Welcome as pexiter! Sorry I missed your posting earlier in the week, hence the delay in responding.
  11. Which is why I, as a novice, got the wrong answer of spanking (god: Pan) and took hours to complete.
  13. Found this really tricky even without the misprint! Def a DNF today. Roll on tomorrow!
  14. Thanks for all of blog, on a day when I was flagging, like others above I had a slow and sketchy start. After exhausting options for 14a, as I thought, ‘Rating’ looked like a good Biff, you even get them on a vessel! So, I never got this very clever clue. But, I did restrain myself from putting ‘Lion King’ for ‘God Boy’, a close shave there, and it did fit. Overall, biff rating not very good.
  15. Could someone explain 18D a bit more for me please – still can’t parse it…
    1. It’s a play on words. Wedding cakes can have two, three or more tiers (levels), but you can also tie something up (eg with string), in which case you would be one who secures, or a ti-er (tier). Invariant (again)
  16. Outrageous.
    Language twisted and perverted.
    Examples – 4a (risible) 14a (no words for this) 15a (it’s a colour not a shade ) 12d ( it’s a venue where trials are heard not a hearing) 18d ( when did you last year/ use the word tier).
    As for ling…
    The Times QC was trailed as an easier version of the main grid. The clue is in the title – Quick.
    Seasoned solvers – you the bloggers – may take this amiss. But this is simply unfair. And I speak not for the smug ( ” 7 mins today – caught a crab in the SE corner”) but the newcomers. Who are fed up.
    Maximus
  17. Maximus has some reading to catch up on. SHADE=colour and LING=fish are both in the OED. Chris’s parsing of TRIBUNAL was quite clear about the difference between a court and a hearing and how the clue works. Speaking of court’s, it’s preferable to keep things polite around here so words like “outrageous”, “twisted”, “perverted” and “smug” are out of order. If these puzzles are not enjoyable or quick enough there are plenty of others to choose from.
    1. Ah. Inclusion in OED justifies all?
      OED also has abscissin and hachure – will we be seeing them soon in QC?
      The fact that a word is listed in a dictionary does not ipso facto qualify it for use in a crossword – still less a quick one. This is not Scrabble.
      Look up orange in any dictionary – colour or fruit. Shade doesn’t appear. It’s lazy use of language.
      And no I won’t go elsewhere – that rather sums up the point I made in my earlier post. The QC should be accessible to all Times readers; not an aperitif for the pros before they embark on the main grid.
      The rest that love me – rise and follow me!
      1. Well, yes, if it’s in the dictionary it’s fair game for the setter. This also allows cryptic solvers to learn and enjoy words new to them.
      2. Well, yes, if it’s in the dictionary it’s fair game for the setter. This also allows cryptic solvers to learn and enjoy words new to them.
      3. Mr Maximus may wish to note that Chambers has “a variety or degree of colour” as one of its definitions of the word “shade” and orange is a colour.
        A little more flexibility please Mr Maximus and a less ranting tone would be helpful.
        Are you a native English speaker?
        1. Precisely.
          OED does not define orange as “shade”. At all.
          I’m of Polish extraction.
          Why?
  18. After a long day at the office this was not the gentle evening solve I was hoping for. Got there eventually though – there’s something very satisfying when you finally complete a tough grid I find. My only complaint was the typo in 13d (my LOI) as it ended up being a guess. CoD 17a.
  19. Another DNF, SW corner was where I hit the wall. Not seen a misprint before so was rather miffed. Thought “very God” was something out of the Nicene Creed. I liked Chinchilla, although I initially had INTEREST for NITRATES, I don’t always check my anagrams exactly (tsk tsk), and ‘compound’ suggested ‘interest’.
  20. re/on/about your comment: He spent ten minutes talking on the subject = .. ten minutes talking about the subject 🙂
  21. After thinking I would give up and consult the blog on several occasions I stood firm and about two hours later completed it with Retina unparsed. I agree with Plett11 – it is very satisfying to complete a hard grid. As I can’t even start the 15×15 some days I quite like the variation in difficulty in the QC.

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