Times Quick Cryptic 1321 by Teazel

Author   ChrisPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
Lots to enjoy here – and I took my time doing so – 13 minutes making sure I’d fully understood each clue. Some really do repay the effort – I particularly liked the brief but very intelligent 4dn but COD to 19ac. LOI 13ac. Have fun!

ACROSS

1. BARROW – northern town. Pub (BAR), quarrel (ROW).
5. BOTTLE – something for baby. A bottle may be deposited in a bottle bank when finished with.
8. CAUGHT NAPPING – taken off guard. Anagram (confused) of CHAP PUT IN GANG.
9. WELL – water-hole. We are going to=we’ll (WELL).
10. OBSERVER – double definition. A spy and the newspaper.
11. UTERUS – organ. Anagram (after operation) of SUTURE.
13. ACTING – cryptic definition. Only a temporary profession – e.g. acting President.
15. DROP-DEAD – I thought this was a double definition but I’m not sure if there’s a hyphen in the ‘collapse suddenly’ – drop dead. So I think the real definition here is sensationally as in drop-dead gorgeous.
17. INCH – walk very slowly. Inside (IN), church (CH).
19. MIXED BLESSING. I think that in the 15×15 this would just have been ‘it may suggest glibness’ which is a lovely &lit as, if you mix (anagram) BLESSING you get GLIBNESS. Teazel additionally gives us another definition of ‘good and bad in this’.
21. SHIELD – protective screen. Thrown (shied) around lake (L).
22. ELYSEE – palace. Cathedral city (ELY), notice (SEE).

DOWN

2. AGATE – stone. A (A), narrow opening (GATE). As an aside, a gat (which I think came from the term gate) is a narrow channel of water between sandbanks. For those without the experience, it may be interesting to know that the Thames estuary isn’t the wide stretch of open water it seems. It has lines of sandbanks running out into the North Sea through which one needs to negotiate the gats to cross from say Harwich to Ramsgate.
Nautical interlude concluded – let’s carry on.
3. REGULAR – double definition.
4. WIT – intelligence. What starts without? Answer (WIT)hout.
5. BRASS BAND – musicians. Money (BRASS), not good (BAD) with any number (N) admitted. I took a while to ignore ‘needing’.
6. TAPER – get less. Time (T) on copier (APER).
7. LANTERN – light case. A magic lantern was an early type of slide projector.
10. OYSTER BED – breeding ground. Anagram (running round) of DETERS BOY.
12. TARNISH – discolour. Mountain lake (TARN), is (IS), hard (H).
14. THIRSTY – wanting a drink. A number (THIRTY) eating seconds (S).
16. PIECE – musical composition. Homophone (sounding) of quiet – peace.
18. CANOE – little boat. Tin (CAN), b(O)x(E)s.
20. EVE – woman. n(EVE)r.

48 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 1321 by Teazel”

  1. I got off to a bad start, not getting a single across in the first pass. The downs weren’t too forthcoming either, but somehow I finished. I hadn’t thought of gates as particularly narrow (“For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter.”). Luckily, I’d just learned of bottle banks from a 15×15; as it was I needed all the checkers before getting 5ac, and then the penny dropped. I liked 19ac; would just “It may suggest glibness” work, though, without a definition? 7:56.
  2. 8 minutes, or a few seconds under that, to be exact. Like Kevin, I also had problems getting started, so I quickly resorted to hopping around the grid looking for easier pickings. Lost time tempted by biffing RATTLE at 5ac but just managed to stop myself.

    Anothere here puzzled by ‘narrow’ in the definition of GATE and I can’t find anything to support it in the usual sources. Gates to some farm fields have to be wide enough to accommodate huge pieces of machinery such as harvesters.

    1. But why? I’m with you, Jackkt. Surely, it’s no biblical reference…?
        1. That’s right, sorry I didn’t cite chapter and verse! But is that what the setter was getting at?
          1. I wouldn’t think so, since the verse would justify ‘wide’ as well as ‘narrow’. But then I don’t know what he was getting at.
            2. It surely can’t be that, can it? Because the full verses (Matt 7:13-14) have Jesus talking about both a narrow gate and a wide gate, leading to different places. (“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”)

              I found that an unsatisfying clue.

    2. Isn’t it all relative? A 10m farm gate in a 2k fence, a gap large enough for a boat in a 10k sandbar, a sports stadium is massive but the turnstile/gate is tiny.
      1. I agree it’s all relative but I still wonder why the setter felt the need to qualify the definition.
        1. With the clue constructed as ‘A (definition meaning gate), stone’ the (definition meaning gate) must start with a consonant, hence the adjectival ‘narrow’. ‘An opening, stone’ doesn’t work. I feel the compiler was backed into a corner on this one.

          Otherwise a very satisfying workout.

          My thanks to setter and blogger.
          6’00”

  3. Over 20m for me again, so that’s twice this week already. An awful lot of that in the NE. BRASS BAND and BOTTLE both held out for an age. I wanted bottle to be rattle and, encouraged by LANTERN, that took a while to pass. Also held up by ACTING. Couldn’t parse MIXED BLESSING and had to read the explanation twice. AGATE not really parsed either but I knew it was a stone from crosswords, knew it started with A and had and A and a T so would have pressed submit with fingers crossed has I not forgotten about it during the BRASS BAND / BOTTLE battle.

    Edited at 2019-04-02 06:04 am (UTC)

  4. 20 minutes but found it difficult to get started.

    Had well for 9a straight away but wasn’t satisfied with the parsing so left it until I had the crossers.

    Also put in agape for rock, remembering it was agate.
    Loi acting.
    Liked wit, barrow and eve.

  5. I too was a bit slow to get started. FOI was TAPER. But after that I speeded up and pressed submit after 10:30.
    My doubts about Given Blessing for 19a were confirmed. MIXED never occurred to me and I now see what a brilliant and difficult clue it was.
    David
  6. 25 minutes for an excellent puzzle which needed a lot of thought.
    I’m not sure 2D would work without ‘narrow’ or some other adjective as the clue would start ‘AN Opening’ and you would not have ‘A from the clue’.

    Brian

  7. Quite tricky for a quicky, I thought. Like others, I struggled to get going. I finished with LANTERN and ACTING, my COD, but I liked WIT and BOTTLE too. 6:24.
  8. I found that tough too but my 19 mins sounds much better as 2.5 Kevins so it’s still a Decent Day. Phew.

    Lots of clever clues there, thanks Teazel, but even in a strong field MIXED BLESSING shone out – what a cracker. LOI UTERUS, which I thought was a very well concealed anagram.

    Thanks for the blog, Chris, which I needed to understand SHIELD – I got fixated on “shed” being the “thrown” and just could not work out what the “i” was doing in there! Durr.

    Templar

    1. (Favourite) clue of the day, last one in. There are more – do ask if you come across any.
  10. Firmly back in SCC today with 24.55. Good challenge. Kept missing anagrams: UTERUS, OYSTER BED and COD MIXED BLESSINGS.
  11. ….oh we don’t want to go to BARROW” (to the tune of “The Entertainer” by Scott Joplin). A football song we Altrincham fans sang when we were in the National League and they were in the division below. The roles are now reversed, but as we contemplate the play-offs I think we may reword it !

    This was an excellent puzzle (apart from that “narrow”) and took me just over my target because of being slow to crack the 21A/16D crossing. I didn’t manage to parse WIT, so thanks Chris.

    A lovely misdirection at 22A where I tried to fit “see” inside “Ely”. I suspect I was not alone.

    FOI BARROW
    LOI PIECE
    COD DROP-DEAD (gorgeous….)
    TIME 5:11

  12. I’m relieved after reading everyone’s comments. 24 minutes today (4 over par) and really struggled to get going but an enjoyable puzzle nonetheless.

    Thanks Chris for the blog – a couple of snippets in there that had passed me by.

  13. After two very quick times I was back in more familiar territory today with 25 mins. I join the ranks of those who were slow to get going and wanted to put a Rattle.
  14. I was becalmed in the NE and took 13:56 before ACTING, LANTERN and BOTTLE came to mind in that order. I wanted to put CAUGHT UNAWARE at 8a, but the P in the anagrist kept me form erring. Nice puzzle. Thanks Teazel and Chris.
  15. About 30 minutes today, after a PB of 12-ish yesterday! Obviously all the self-acclaim went to my head and I got complacent 😀
  16. Well, Teaser was back to his old ways. Like mendesest, I was way over 20 mins with interruptions (but I can’t blame them – I was just thrown by many clues today) and I also had inexplicable difficulty with BRASS BAND and BOTTLE. I groaned audibly when LANTERN finally clicked. LOI ACTING and COD ELYSEE. Thanks to Teazel for a very good puzzle and to Chris for another sterling job. John M.

    Edited at 2019-04-02 10:46 am (UTC)

  17. No time, as needed to go out before finishing, being stuck in NR, as I had DIAPER at 5ac (REPAID, suggested by ‘bank’, reversed). Looking at downs on return soon showed me that wouldn’t work.
  18. Although I had most of these, despite a rather slow start, I was sat looking in despair at 19ac for the longest time.

    _I_E_B_E / _S_N_ – what on earth could this be? Alphabet trawl eventually unearthed ‘USING’ as the only even vaguely possible answer for the second word, but whilst I could think of a few ‘able’ words, none of those made any sense in the clue.

    Eventually I gave up, and looked it up, for MIXED BLESSING to be an obvious answer. At which stage, I looked again at the question, and realized I was a blasted idiot who fails to read the question.

  19. Four clues left after 20 m, then stuck, until we realised for 3d we had regalia. Once corrected the rest fell into place, after another 10m. Once again we had not parsed 3d carefully and just biffed in an answer. Never learn!
  20. A paper solve today in about 15 mins at the hairdressers but with a biffed LANTERN and a non existent word for discolour ‘torlish’. So glad I didn’t submit to the Crossord Club leaderboard!
  21. Got there in the end and enjoyed the puzzle, but just wondered if 11 across should have read ‘After operating, etc’. I don’t see that ‘operation’ in context indicates an anagram.
    1. I read it as ‘after operation = in a state of having been operated on’. This worked for me as an anagram indicator.
    2. I read it as ‘after operation = in a state of having been operated on’. This worked for me as an anagram indicator.
  22. BARROW, AGATE and WIT went in straightaway so I thought I could be on for another quick solve but then it all slowed down and I hopped around the grid trying to find footholds. Eventually ended on 11a where it took a while to spot the anagram. Finished in 13.22
    Thanks for the blog
  23. Oh dear, this took me 40 minutes to finish… and that included help from my husband. He has no interest in cryptic crosswords (the fool!!) but I was very stuck at one point and told him that I had a 6,3 clue which had the definition Breeding Ground. He came up with BED for the second half. From then on I was able to finish. Despite all that I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge set by Teazel. MM

    FOI 22a Yes, it took me that long to get started!!
    LOI 21a
    COD 19a now I understand exactly how it works – thanks for the explanation, Chris.

    1. 40 minutes well spent, I’d say. There was a lot to go through. A couple of suggestions – 1. get a free live journal login then you’ll get an email alert when someone replies to your comment, 2. tell your husband he has great potential in crosswordland! It’s good to know that you’re enjoying it – that is what counts and why we all do it. Welcome to the club.
      1. Thank you for your response. I really should get a live journal after all this time, but I haven’t got round to working out how yet!!
        My husband is hooked on Sudokus (I prefer the killer ones) and occasionally we do a straight crossword together. He claims that he can’t be bothered to learn the language of the cryptic. He doesn’t know what he is missing, does he?
        I am so grateful for this blog, which has taught me so much. I am still intimidated by the 15×15 and rarely even look at it. Perhaps once I am retired I’ll have more time… though must retirees tell me that doesn’t happen! MM
        1. Since I retired I have less spare time than I ever did! I started doing the Independent crossword as well as the Times, but had to stop as I couldn’t spare the time:-)
  24. Four clues left after 20 m, then stuck, until we realised for 3d we had regalia. Once corrected the rest fell into place, after another 10m. Once again we had not parsed 3d carefully and just biffed in an answer. Never learn!
  25. Cryptic newbie here and I found this one tough. Example: Soldier in uniform had me looking for words to form with GI inserted into synonyms for uniform…the word IN threw me, as it often cues you to insert words, or look for a word in another. Anyway, I found a few niggly things like that in this one to throw the beginner. 8AC – I’m used to the word chap needing to be turned into man or guy, so this also threw me. Ah well, hopefully the next one will be easier on the noobs.
    1. Well, you’re on the right lines. Sometimes it’s easy to make things too complicated. I hope it encourages you to know that, after a while, it becomes easier to pick up what type of clue it is – anagram, word play, insertion etc.
      1. Thanks Chris, I’m nothing if not stubborn, so I’ll get there. This forum is a great help.

        Cheers.

  26. Way too difficult for a quickie. Never got started whereas today I’ve nearly finished.

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