Times Quick Cryptic 1160 by Juno

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

Solving time: 9 minutes

Juno is a rare visitor to QC-land, this being only the 6th puzzle he/she has posted for our delight. The first was QC65 which appeared on 6 June 2014 and was themed to mark  the 70th anniversary on that date of the D-Day landings with ‘Juno’ being the code name of one of the Normandy beaches. I don’t think there is a theme today*. Much of this puzzle is straightforward but there are one or two trickier clues to keep us on our toes.

*Later edit:  Please see Kevin’s comment below (timed at 04:07). Emily Bronte was born 200 years ago this year.

As usual definitions are underlined in bold italics, {deletions and substitutions are in curly brackets} and [anagrinds, containment, reversal and other indicators in square ones]

Across
1 Female bobcat: her inelegance shows (9)
CATHERINE – Hidden [shows] in {bob}CAT HER INE{legance}
6 Note that conveys annoyance (3)
DOH – Two meanings
8 Sent for and told what to do (7)
ORDERED – Two meanings
9 Fellow at hotel is former PM (5)
HEATH – HE (fellow), AT, H (hotel – NATO alphabet). Edward Heath was Prime Minister from June 1970 until March 1974 and regarded by many as the most disastrous of the modern era since Eden. Others are now busying themselves with a view to surpassing him in the near future. He ran for office under the slogan “Man of Principal”, an epithet that’s applied by some to one of the current aspirants to the position, which perhaps ought to be a warning to us all!
10 Eastern rulers unaltered by move to west (5)
SHAHS – The answer has to be a palindrome as signalled by ‘unaltered by move to west’
12 Flighty singer with the short career (6)
THRUSH – TH{e} [short], RUSH (career)
14 Good fellow offers to recruit for English county (13)
STAFFORDSHIRE – ST (good fellow – saint], AFFORDS (offers), HIRE (recruit)
16 Menuhin, happy at last, his daughter regularly returning (6)
YEHUDI – {happ}Y [at last], then {h}I{s} D{a}U{g}H{t}E{r} [regularly] reversed [returning]. Any solver who’d not heard of him may have been in difficulty with this one.
17 Facility, initially lamentable, that artist uses (5)
EASEL – EASE (facility), L{amentable} [initially]. The definition at the end of the clue refers back to its first word.
19 Stony-faced chap? (5)
CLIFF – Cryptic definition
20 Free lager? Ta awfully! (2,5)
AT LARGE – Anagram [awfully] of LAGER TA
22 Kid’s charity event (3)
RAG – Two meanings
23 Settee hid unusual list of things to eat (4,5)
DIET SHEET – Anagram [unusual] of SETTEE HID
Down
1 Comes over on time, most annoyed (8)
CROSSEST – CROSSES (comes over), T (time)
2 Little daughter pursuing volunteers (3)
TAD – TA (volunteer – Territorial Army), D (daughter)
3 Each navy’s merits (5)
EARNS – EA (each), RN’S  (navy’s – Royal Navy’s)
4 Poor internet media of uncertain value (13)
INDETERMINATE – Anagram [poor] of INTERNET MEDIA
5 Urges former host briefly to accept empty river-boat (7)
EXHORTS – EX (former), HOS{t} [briefly] contains [to accept] R{iver-boa}T [empty]
6 Director initially phases in new academic posts (9)
DEANSHIPS – D{irector} [initially], anagram [new] of PHASES IN
7 Wall that’s sunk for a bit of a laugh? (2-2)
HA-HA – Two meanings
11 Coming to a boy perhaps in a part of prison building? (9)
AWAKENING – A + KEN (boy) contained by [in] A + WING (part of prison building)
13 Accommodation that is for camp-anologists? (4,4)
BELL TENT – A cryptic definition that relies on a play on words. ‘Camp’ has associations with ‘tent’, and  ‘campanology’ is the art of bell-ringing.
15 Trivial stuff editor made a mess of (7)
FLUFFED – FLUFF (trivial stuff), ED (editor)
17 Boy or girl’s name turning up in lists, illegible (5)
ELLIS – Reversed and hidden [turning up in] {list}S ILLE{gible}. I tried to think of famous people with the first name Ellis and only managed to come up with Ellis Powell who was the first actress to play Mrs Dale of Diary fame on BBC radio. I  wasn’t able to think of a famous man called Ellis.
18 Mark for good spelling, chemistry and reading: first in each (4)
SCAR – S{pelling} C{hemistry} A{nd} R{eading} [first in each]
21 Caviar that’s rank, we’re told (3)
ROE – Sounds like [we’re told] “row” (rank)

25 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 1160 by Juno”

  2. Didn’t feel that easy to me, as I’d never heard of BELL TENT or DIET SHEET. YEHUDI was a gimme, but I suppose by now his fame is fading; où sont les neiges and all that. 6:58. Just noticed that ELLIS BELL is in the grid. Also HEATH CLIFF and CATHERINE! I don’t suppose ‘Wuthering Heights is set in STAFFORDSHIRE?
  3. Nelly DEAN was a narrator of said excellent novel.Catherine’s surname was EARNShaw. Set at THRUSH/CROSS Grange.(I looked up the third of these). I have walked the moors to Top Withens, meant to be the setting for the Grange.

    But I didn’t spot the theme.

    Good puzzle, thanks jack and Juno.

  4. This felt very different to a regular QC. I was writing in answers and then belatedly checking the parsing. My penultimate solve was 1a CATHERINE having missed the hidden reference and my LOI 10a SHAHS. Completed in 14:59.
  5. 13 minutes – took a long time to see that LOI deanships was an anagram. Thanks for the insight into the theme – which completely passed me by. I liked staffordshire but cod to the slightly corny camp-anologists.
  6. I took 23 minutes, 7 under my target, but I was lucky to get helpful checkers in the anagrams.
    I’ve been doing the QC for about three years now, but I remember that when I was starting I found ‘Theme’ puzzles and Pangrams always more difficult than usual (I’m not sure why).

    Brian

  7. I found this slightly trickier than usual, taking 13:13 to solve. CATHERINE was my LOI and CROSSEST and STAFFORDSHIRE held me up. I missed the theme too, but it was getting on for 1am when I tackled the puzzle. Thanks Juno and Jack.
  8. This was actually a very difficult puzzle for a beginner. I have been at this for 3 months and this was unsolvable to me. I am pretty sure no other relative newbies would have found this straightforward. Nakrian kickiat
  9. This was supposed to coincide with EB’s 200th birthday. Unfortunately my edition of WH claims she was born on Aug 20, when in fact she shares her birthday someday intriguingly with Kate Bush a month earlier.
    Sorry some found it v difficult: it’s probably more or less impossible to provide a puzzle that is both ‘cryptic’ and ‘quick’ for a beginner
    1. Thank you for the background Juno. I am afraid your EB theme was totally wasted on me, but it did provide for an interesting puzzle that I completed in about average time. Don’t get the first meaning of HA-HA so had to guess between HA-HA, HE-HE and HO-HO. More familiar with ELLIS as an island than a christian name, but my COD for such an unusual answer. LOI CATHERINE.
      PlayUpPompey
  10. I really struggled with this one. I felt as if I was on a very different wavelength from the start and then got horribly bogged down with my last two, 12a and 6d, where I couldn’t get THRACE and DEANERIES out of my head, both of which I knew couldn’t be right. I eventually spotted the correct anagram fodder which left 12 as a write in.
    Not easy but not as hard as I made it. Completed in 33.39.
    Thanks for the blog
  11. For reasons that seemed fine at the time, I thought 6ac was Soh. Naturally this meant that my loi (after 30mins) was 6d with s*a*s*I*s. I then spent 5 mins reading up on Staysails, before deciding that was too hard an answer (and unparsed as well, but we’ll let that go) for a QC. At that point I realised 6ac was Doh (the irony is not lost. . .) and Deanships became obvious. Ah well, we live to fight another day. CoD by the way was the rather tricky 11d, Awakening. Invariant
  13. Super puzzle – I always enjoy Ninas even though it always needs someone smarter than I am to point them out to me!

    Would have been quite fast but got totally stuck on DEANSHIPS – I missed the anagram element and for some reason when I do a puzzle on screen I find it much harder to “see” a word from the checkers than when I have paper in hand. So in the end I wrote it out and got it immediately, leaving me at 2.5 on the Kevometer.

    Really liked AWAKENING and CATHERINE. Thanks, Juno and Jack (and Kevin!).

    Templar

  14. I had an Uncle Ellis, but he wasn’t famous. And Awakening left me stumped, even when I got all the other clues in place. I never had an Uncle Ken.
  15. An excellent puzzle with a nice mix of relatively straightforward clues and challenging ones that unbalanced me somewhat. Many thanks to Juno and jack. A slow one today for me. Not timed because I was looking after our 1 year old granddaughter and she was even more demanding (in a nice way, of course). John M
  16. For what it’s worth (these things can be very subjective) today’s 15×15 is doable – I only needed to biff two answers. Invariant
  17. Don’t know anyone called Ellis or anyone called Ken under the age of 80 let alone a boy. There’s a Kenneth in Benidorm and I’d love to see a cryptic clue for him. Got there in the end. Thx Juno. John
  18. Home late. This was tough. LOI Shahs.
    I struggled with 11d and missed the Nina totally.
    A male member of my family was called Ellis bit I’ve never come across a female with that name. David
  19. Nobody has mentioned Ellis Peters, who also wrote as Edith Pargeter, and her excellent Brother Cadfael novels. RB
  20. Found this very difficult. On the up side no words last used by a Mercian blacksmith in the 10th century.

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