Times Quick Cryptic 1377 by Oink

Author   william_j_sPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
All the vocabulary known to me today, and the clues were easy enough to unpick, which led to a pretty quick time. I had to return to the two longish anagrams at the top and left of the grid. I think the latter because the letters to jumble were split up, and the former because I had always thought the phrase was spelled with a ‘gh’, but it’s narrow rather than neat. One to add to the list that already includes ‘shoo-in’ (not ‘shoe-in’) and ‘whet’ (not wet) the appetite.

Anyway, definitions are underlined.

Across
1 Prudish doctor startled CIA (6-5)
STRAIT-LACED – anagram of (doctor) STARTLED CIA.
9 Half of church service makes you heave (5)
CHURN – half of the letters of CHUrch, then RN (Royal Navy, service).
10 Pretend Rilke’s got this curly hair? (7)
TENDRIL – hidden in (…’s got this) preTEND RILke.
11 Peacekeepers felt in perfect condition (9)
UNTOUCHED – UN (United Nations, peacekeepers), then TOUCHED (felt).
13 Drug put in army’s drink (3)
TEA – E (Ecstasy, drug) inside (put in) TA (Territorial Army, army). Hopefully you were all paying attention to Vinyl’s comments this week!
14 Crowded, as lunch may be? (6)
PACKED – cryptic second definition.
16 Summary that’s almost exact (6)
PRECIS – all but the last letter of (almost) PRECISe (exact).
17 Diaries occasionally displaying anger (3)
IRE – every other letter from (occasionally) dIaRiEs.
18 Histrionics alarmed Mo terribly (9)
MELODRAMA – anagram of (terribly) ALARMED MO.
21 Outfit for the tango follower? (7)
UNIFORM – the letter after T (tango), in the phonetic alphabet.
23 Vicar taken aback by extremely strange poem (5)
VERSE – REV (reverend, vicar) reversed (taken back), next to the outermost letters of (extremely) StrangE.
24 Second right-wing bank clerk is a liar (11)
STORYTELLER – S (second), TORY (right-wing), anf TELLER (bank clerk).

Down
2 In which money may be kept tied up, you say? (5)
TRUST – sounds like (you say?) “trussed” (tied up).
3 Made sauna boiling time after time (2,7)
AD NAUSEAM – anagram of (boiling) MADE SAUNA.
4 Songbird perching on top of church, a little one (5)
TITCH – TIT (songbird) above (perching on top of) CH (church).
5 Article about northern woman (3)
ANN – AN (article, as in the part of speech) surrounding (about) N (northern).
6 Unpredictable boy catching rodent (7)
ERRATIC – ERIC (boy) surrounding (catching) RAT (rodent).
7 Scout cooking with Primus? Yummy! (11)
SCRUMPTIOUS – anagram of (cooking) SCOUT with PRIMUS.
8 Beardless son in spotless shelter (5-6)
CLEAN-SHAVEN – S (son) inside CLEAN (spotless) and HAVEN (shelter).
12 Stupidly derailed Victor, a reckless type (9)
DAREDEVIL – anagram of (stupidly) DERAILED and V (victor, phonetic alphabet again).
15 Scientific man Nietzsche mistrusted to an extent (7)
CHEMIST – hidden in (to an extent) nietzsCHE MISTrusted.
19 Yours truly’s following lake north of Italian border (5)
LIMIT – I’M (yours truly is) after (following) L (lake), all above (north of) IT (italian).
20 Concede Her Majesty must retire in time (5)
AGREE – ER (Her Majesty) reversed (must retire), inside AGE (time).
22 Row after pig has head chopped off (3)
OAR – bOAR (pig) without its first letter (has head chopped off).

22 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 1377 by Oink”

  1. 13 minutes, which is good for me.

    Seems to be a virtuous theme: strait laced, untouched, clean shaven.

    Thought there were loads of great clues, inc churn and untouched but uniform gets cod.

    Thanks

  2. 8 minutes. I’m not sure how I would have spelt 1ac but I guess I’d have thought of it with a -gh- as today’s spelling seemed odd to me, at least at first. Collins and Oxfords give ‘straight-laced’ as an alternative but Chambers has no truck with it.
  3. STRAIT-LACED took me a while, although not because of any confusion about spelling: I think I was sure it was STRAIT. The term seems odd either way, at first; but presumably it derives from an old meaning of ‘strait’, ‘strict, rigorous’. Anyway, there’s no room for the GH. I biffed SCRUMPTIOUS with a quick look at the anagrist. The two hiddens fooled me–not uncommon with hiddens–so that I toyed with ‘Rainer’ and tried to think of something Nietzsche said about science before seeing the light. 4:43.
  4. Everything fell nicely into place with ANN first in and STORYTELLER bringing up the rear. 5:26. Thanks Oink and William.
  5. Thanks again for the blog, which as a slow beginner, learner I find really helpful.
    I biffed Uniform, so needed explanation, and think it is very clever.

    I struggled with strait laced having forgotten that doctor is an indicator of an anagram (an anagrind? – just learning the lingo! ) Not helped as I put NaN not Ann – as thought about article reversed an to na, plus n. And after all nan is also a woman!

    I personally find names in crosswords a bit annoying – there are so many!

    1. Quite agree. NAN was my FOI which had me puzzled to solve 1A (LOI) until I realised nan was wrong despite certainty it wasn’t! Also biffed UNIFORM without picking up on why. Otherwise straightforward and hit 25 min mark. Thanks to all.
    2. I’m with you on the names thing! And good luck with your crossword education, I’m about two years into my cryptic crossword odyssey, and still get confounded by what seems to be routine to many a solver on here 🙂
    3. It’s all down to the wonderful adaptability of the English language. In this case the exact meaning of about. You can indeed interpret “article about” as NA, but this time you have to take it as meaning encircling. Thus no reversal but AN is still about N: A(N)N.
  6. “Strait-laced” is the original spelling but “straight-laced” seems to have been used from at least 1810. (As to origin: “etymonline.com shows that ‘strait-laced’ dates from the 1550s, and was used to refer to bodices and stays, meaning that the woman’s clothing in question was very tightly bound and allowed little to no freedom of motion: it was laced in a strait fashion (strait = narrow, constricted, tight, limited, or strict).”)

    Anyway, I confess to writing in the GH without thinking and getting a nasty shock when I ran out of squares!

    Note Oink’s trademark porcine reference at 22dn.

    A really enjoyable puzzle, done and dusted in 2.5K for a Decent Day. Thanks Oink, and thanks William. FOI STRAI(GH)T LACED, LOI and COD UNIFORM (very neat).

    Templar

  7. A nice, accessible QC. I still can’t get close to Kevin but I was under 2.5K so that is OK for me these days. FOI TITCH and LOI TRUST. Like vezetque, I often find names in crosswords a bit of a bind but ERIC and ANN dropped out in this case. I liked CHURN, CLEAN SHAVEN, and UNTOUCHED but I needed crossers for STRAIT LACED. Many thanks to Oink and William. John M.

    Edited at 2019-06-19 08:37 am (UTC)

  8. Nicely inside 10 minutes this morning, with no difficulties. I always assumed that STRAIT-LACED was a referral to corset lacing, where strait (narrow) lacing implied a stiff or reserved, tightly held in woman, hence prudish. I’ll have a search to see if I can find any evidence for that assumption after breakfast. Thanks Setter and Blogger.
  9. ….I found this an enjoyable challenge, which presented me with no serious difficulty.

    FOI TEA (I’d entered the “UN” of 11A and moved on)
    LOI UNTOUCHED (lightbulb moment)
    COD OAR (nice midirection – and OINK becomes history)
    TIME 3:57

  10. Initially had NAN (‘about’ clearly meant reversal) at 5dn, so 1ac couldn’t be an anagram, hence put puzzle aside part-done but forgot to stop clock. On return, saw what was wrong so probably done within 10 minutes – hence didn’t submit to board as recorded time was nearly half an hour.
  11. A fast time for me today, not quite PB but up there in 7:23. I skipped over 1a on first pass and started with 7d. From 7 onwards I solved every clue on first reading but I did slow to make sure I was using the correct letters in the many long anagrams. Spelling is not my forte. I finished off with 1a STRAIT-LACED which I thought was tricky in retrospect and LOI 2d TRUST. Thanks Oink and William.
  13. Enjoyed this one….
    liked the rather grisly 22D (row after pig has head chopped off).
  14. There I was, thinking that oar is the piece of wood you row with. Can anyone enlighten me, please? Good puzzle, thanks. Sal
    1. To oar a boat is to row it. Oar can also refer to the blade, and the bloke that pulls it. Women can also be oars if you’ll forgive the expression.
  15. I started with 1a (no issue with the spelling) and flew through the rest of the puzzle, which is unusual for me when Oink is the setter. Finished with TENDRIL in 6.56.
    An odd week with two sub 7 minute solves split by a DNF!.
    Thanks to William
  16. Thanks to william_j_s for the blog, and to all who’ve made comments.

    ‘About’ is very useful to the setter. As well as indicating reversal or containment, it can also indicate an anagram.

    Happy solving everyone.

    Oink

Comments are closed.