Times Quick Cryptic 1069 by Tracy

Author   JohninterredPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
I’ve been doing this QC blogging malarkey on an alternate Friday basis for over 6 months now and, I have to say, I enjoy it immensly. The QC was something that enticed me to doing the 15×15 Times Crossword again after many years of abeyance. A chance to learn the tricks of the trade I never fully understood before and an entertaining experience in its own right. And now I’ve come to appreciate that it is an art in itself – to introduce newbies to the ways and means of a cryptic crossword, but without dumbing down. A very difficult balance to tread, but I think our team of expert setters do it beautifully. It is a testament to that, that so many experienced solvers come here not just to warm up for the more difficult main puzzle, but for the enjoyment of the QC in its own right. So, while I might, nowadays, count myself as one of the aforementioned experienced solvers, finishing this on average in about 6 1/2 minutes, it is great to stop and smell the roses as I write the blog and appreciate our setters’ skills, wit and sense of humour.

If you are here to learn and improve (like I did) then welcome! Do not 12d if you find it difficult and get stuck. Our bloggers are here to help. All comments and questions welcome!

As for today’s…  A nice middle-of-the-road puzzle from Tracy today, taking me close to an average time. I didn’t find it easy to get started and there were one or two clues that made me stop and think, making it all the more enjoyable. But there are plenty of straight-forward ones that got me going, particularly the two long across clues. Did you find it the same? A number of really nice surfaces here, not least my COD 19d. Thanks Tracy – lovely job, as they say around here.

Definitions underlined in italics, (ABC)* indicating anagram of ABC, {} deletions and [] other indicators.

Across
1 Lengthens leases foremost of dukes hold (4,4)
LETS DOWN – LETS (leases) + D{ukes} + OWN. As in letting down the hem of your son’s trousers as he grows. Who still does that? Not in our household. Nor do my daughters do it to lengthen their skirts!
5 Ring up about second musical work (4)
OPUS – No telephone involved here. It’s O (ring) + PU (up backwards) + S.
8 Tory side helping, thinking of others (13)
CONSIDERATION – CON + SIDE + RATION. A classic charade where you build the answer in pieces. My FOI, helpfully providing a number of checkers for the down clues.
10 Vehicle coming from Ayr rolled over (5)
LORRY – Hidden in  [coming from]  and reversed [over] {A}YR ROL{led}. Accompanied by warning beeps, no doubt.
11 Exclusive group from lake bed shown first (7)
COTERIE – COT (bed shown first) + ERIE, one of the Greats. A bit cliquey for my taste..
12 Chinese food: turn down whole lot (3,3)
DIM SUM – DIM (turn down – as in an oil lamp) + SUM giving a bite-sized feast. I had a great one of those in Melbourne’s China Town nearly 2 years ago. Hello Bev. Thanks for the dinner!
13 Chase funds university invested (6)
PURSUE – PURSE (funds) with U (university) inside [invested]. Neat use of an unusual insertion indicator that makes a lovely surface to the clue.
16 Surprise the Parisian after dawn (7)
STARTLE – START (dawn) + LE (the in French). Start as in “…dawning of the age of Aquarius“. Earworm of the day… from 1969. Showing my age here, I fear.
18 Found group in a cheerful mood (3,2)
SET UP – SET (group) + UP. I hope this blog has found you all a cheerful mood after solving this nice crossword.
20 Notice plug (13)
ADVERTISEMENT – Double definition. Another easy one giving lots of checkers for the downs.
21 Function of register announced (4)
ROLE – Sounds like ROLL (register).
22 Flannel and soft soap (8)
FLATTERY – A nice bubbly bathtime double definition.

Down
1 Large cola ordered in neighbourhood pub (5)
LOCAL – (L COLA)* [ordered]. Mine’s a pint of best bitter, thanks.
2 Worker, having drink after time, displays a fit of temper (7)
TANTRUM – T (time) + ANT (worker) + RUM. I’ve changed my mind. Can I have a mojito, please?
3 Girl on sailing boat makes a delivery (5,6)
DAISY CUTTER – A cricket clue to remind us that the 2018 County Championships start today. DAISY (girl) + CUTTER (sailing boat). A horryd sort of delivery to get as a batsman… and, with the deliberate typo,  hello to our eastern correspondent.
4 Pull young girl across river (6)
WRENCH – A bit of an old-fashioned name for a young girl , perhaps considered non-PC these days? I must try calling my younger daughter that and see what she thinks. WENCH outside [across] R (river).
6 Earlier religious building, incomplete (5)
PRIOR – The religious building without its last letter [incomplete] is a PRIOR{y}.
7 Frank‘s following on (7)
SINCERE – SINCE (following) + RE (on). Picking up on the cricketing theme from 3d.. His side must have been bowled out cheaply.
9 Hear Stuarts rebuilt this Scottish landmark (7,4)
ARTHURS SEAT – (Hear Stuarts)* [rebuilt]. Another neat surface. But, as a huge chunk of volcanic rock, Arthur’s Seat is not something to be easily rebuilt!
12 Lose heart, as pride injured (7)
DESPAIR – (as pride)* [injured]. Don’t do this if you can’t finish the crossword. Keep coming here and learn.
14 Defiant remark made by heavy drinker in this place (2,5)
SO THERE – It’s worth remembering this device – to change the enumeration. Here we go from (3, 4) to (2, 5)… SOT (heavy drinker) + HERE. Got it?
15 Cheery one, a learner driver after information (6)
GENIAL – GEN (information) + I + A + L. A nice 4 part charade.
17 Iron block, a feature of Elizabethan village (5)
ANVIL – Hidden in {Elizabeth}AN VIL{lage}. From the days when any decent village had a smithy and his (or her, to be politically correct) forge.
19 Small-minded, rather lacking in character, ultimately (5)
PETTY – A bit of a sneaky one to finish and another neat surface. You take PRETTY (rather) and remove {characte}R [ultimately]. Lovely-jubbly!

38 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 1069 by Tracy”

  1. Pretty straightforward, although DAISY CUTTER took a moment to surface from memory; I only know it from 15x15s. FLATTERY seemed hardly cryptic. ‘Wench’ surprised me; I don’t think one would get away with it in conversation. 4:01.
  2. 18 minutes, after struggling forever with my LOI at 13ac. I ended up doing an alphabet trawl of possibilities and took some time to get to words starting with P.

    I was surpised to read Kevin’s comment about WENCH until I looked it up in Collins and found that it has meanings I was not aware of, particularly in the US where it has racial connotations. Nevertheless its principal meaning remains what I thought it to be, an old-fashioned, often jocular, term for a young woman that’s more or less synonymous with ‘maid’, which surely no-one could object to. FWIW ‘wench’ / ‘wenches’ appears 83 times in Shakespeare. I haven’t checked every example but the ones I looked at are in the innocent sense I have described above.

    Edited at 2018-04-13 05:13 am (UTC)

    1. I was (am) unaware of any racial connotations; I just thought (think) that the word wouldn’t be used in conversation–other than jocularly. Ditto for ‘maid’; having lived 40 years (and grown 40 years older) in Japan, my interaction with young, English-speaking women is limited, but I can’t imagine them taking kindly to being referred to as a maid–unless they’re maids, of course.
          1. Dutch courage. And a group of friends to hide behind:-) And definitely tongue in cheek. I wouldn’t like any of our mixed audience to think I’m an unreconstructed MCP.

            Edited at 2018-04-13 08:22 pm (UTC)

            1. As promised, I asked her and she said she would definitely be offended if she was called one. But then she said she wasn’t actually sure what it meant… was it something to do with old witches? Clearly not a word used in common use around here! Smarty-pants son, though, knew the word from Shakespeare, which takes us back to what jackkt said.

              Edited at 2018-04-14 04:41 pm (UTC)

    2. You’d be surprised. “Wench” is fairly strongly objected to by many feminists nowadays: it has connotations of inferiority, servility, objectification, and patronisation.
      1. No, I wouldn’t be surpised because some people will take offence at anything these days. But it all depends on context, and here it has none. It’s just a word.
        1. True enough, but I think Anon has a point about why it’s not a word used in everyday conversations these days, even if you might hear it in the theatre.
  3. Though I think I enjoyed the blog more! Thanks, John, for a lovely chat through the puzzle, and for explaining 11ac (my LOI) to me.

    Templar

  4. Why are there so many cricket references in crossword land? I’ve never heard of a Daisy Cutter, but put it in anyway and crossed my fingers.

    1. I’m not sure that it’s Crosswordland generally or just The Times where it’s simply the nature of the beast and traditionally so. Cricket is one of our national sports and has a colourful language of its own established over the years, so it’s a rich source for answers and wordplay. I suggest you learn from it and enjoy, even if you don’t care for the sport itself.

      P.S. A name or handle of some sort would be appreciated at the end of anon messages if you don’t want to open a (free) Live Journal account.

      Edited at 2018-04-13 10:15 am (UTC)

      1. Sorry about the anonymous. My name’s Jo and I’m a bit new to this… but am learning my cricket references… extra seems to come up a lot, as does over. I suppose as a Times reader, I’ll just have to get over it then!!
  5. I struggled to get my head round 1a until I had a few checkers, and 3d was my LOI, despite my knowing it. Otherwise a straightforward puzzle which I completed in 6:58. Thanks Tracy and John.
  6. I also struggled a bit with this, despite the long answers coming quickly. I took 20 minutes, twice my new target time, so definitely harder on the rotterometer. There is nothing too obscure if cricket is your national sport, which it is for the primary target audience. However, I can imagine some of our overseas solvers (where the game is yet to establish itself :-)) struggling with 3D.

    Nice puzzle, very nice blog – thanks.

    1. I got curious following the comments. Although I tagged it as a cricketing term it is used in other sports too, including, according to this, baseball.
  7. Tougher, today, I thought. DNK DAISY CUTTER – kept trying Daily as in a delivery of milk, papers etc so a DNF due to that. Bah. Must improve my cricket knowledge…
    And couldn’t parse PETTY (even though I got it right), so thanks John for that! COTERIE was tough, too, as I assumed ‘shown first’ meant there was an S on the end of the answer. Oh dear.
    Still, a good week for this novice – I even (nearly) completed the 15×15 on Tuesday!
    Thanks Tracy, and John — your blogs are always a great read 🙂
  8. Typical Tracy with annoyingly obscure synonyms eg 7d, 19d, 22a led me to my first dnf for a long time. Grrr!
  9. Pretty (with an R) straightforward I thought. Never heard of ARTHURS SEAT, so needed all the checkers for that. Long time since I have heard the term DAISY CUTTER (not even Chappel’s infamous delivery attracted that appellation).
    Enjoyable run out (and no, not the cricket version).
    PlayUpPompey
  10. More than just a scattering of tricky ones today – about par for Tracy. Quite pleased with 32mins given that I didn’t have much to show for after the first pass. Had to wait for all the crossers before having a stab at Arthur’s Seat, but my favourite today was 12ac. Invariant
  11. Quickest finish for a long time, must have been on the the right wavelength. Having said that, 22a delayed me as flattery just didn’t seem cryptic! DDs are usually two different definitions, and this just seemed too straightforward. I wasn’t that keen on a couple of other clues – I can’t think of any context for “since” as “following”, it seems to me to be once removed, i.e. after means following and since means after. Slightly less bothersome, I thought “pretty” for “rather” a slight stretch. In both cases, while I didn’t like it I could see that someone else (Tracy) might. My main problem was trying to connect Longleat with 1a!
    Paulw
    1. Hi Paul. Interesting points. If I were to say your comments were “pretty good”, would you think I meant something different than if I had said “rather good”?
      As for “since” and “following”.. well I’m no expert on the rules, but I get the feeling that if two words have a common synonym (in this case “after”) it is OK for one to act as wordplay for the other. But what do I know? Now you’ve mentioned it, I’ll have to look out for examples!
      1a and Longleat? Now you have me baffled! Do tell.
  12. firstly, many thanks to the bloggers and contributors to the site. today’s blog encouraged me to remind myself that after approx. 8 months, I’ve begun to finish more than not! There’s always the odd curveball and something new to learn, but that’s where the enjoyment is gleaned! I admit, I’m still hovering around the 30-40 mins per QC and still nervous of tackling the main cryptic (confidence is growing!), but enjoy the QC and the corresponding blog & comments: a big thanks to all.
    today? and very odd for Friday, I rattled through this quite quickly and all parsed except for 19d.
    advice to other newbies (I’m fast becoming not …), practise, practise and practise using the archived puzzles.
    1. Congrats on your progress, templec! Glad you are enjoying the puzzles and that you find the blogs useful.
    2. I was going to say the same, but I see jackkt has beaten me too it. You are most welcome.
  13. I found this quite gentle, apart from the parsing of LOI 7d where it took me a moment to link re with on, and completed it in 9.53.
    Thanks for the blog
  14. Solved this after a game of golf and nodded off half way through so no time recorded. This was a peasant puzzle without any hold-ups for me. My last two were 7d and 5a.
    I did need to think about Opus for a bit. Agree 19d an excellent clue. David
  15. Only been doing cryptic since QC started. Perfect for me. Best 7 mins delighted with 20. Often DNF.
    Been playing and watching cricket for 50 years. Never miss a Lord’s Test and umpire kids matches. I know all 11 types of dismissal. And I NEVER spot the cricket clues. Always biff them 🤣. Johnny
  16. Two cricket-related points. The first is that a daisy cutter is no longer a legal delivery. Secondly, there used to be ten, not eleven, ways a batsman could be dismissed; now there are nine, handled the ball having been absorbed into obstructing the field since October 2017. For those who may wish to know, the other ways of getting out are: bowled, caught, lbw, stumped, run out, hit wicket, hit ball twice and timed out. DM
  17. Just done this very late. Have to agree re 22 being a a double single definition and thought the same about 20. Late night tuck in to main cryptic now
  18. I usually do the Friday puzzle on Sunday, but missed this one.

    17 mins and more on Tracy’s wavelength now.
    Only parsing issue, I couldn’t get why found = set up. Past tense is easier to see: Founded etc.

    COD opus.

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