Times Quick Cryptic 141 by Teazel – Take Cover!

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
I solved this in 9 minutes and I think it’s at the easy end of the spectrum.  There’s a lot of warfare and general unrest going on here, what with hostility, war, a WW1 battle, conflict, fight, fright, beware, gun shot and silencer, Royal Engineers, action, another battle, revolution and finally the Military Police.

Curley brackets indicate deletions.

Across
4 Perhaps scribble on an assortment of notes (6)
DEFACE – Simply an assortment of letters used as notes of the musical scale i.e. A-G. I have an aversion to this sort of clue and consider it lazy when, as here, it applies to the whole answer.
7 Reclines, flopping in part of car (8)
SILENCER – Anagram [flopping] of RECLINES
8 Bet he’s from New England (6)
YANKEE – Double definition, one straight, one sort of cryptic
9 Flag raised initially in ship (8)
STREAMER – R{aised} inside STEAMER (ship)
10 Heard neckwear is Asian (4)
THAI – Sounds like [heard] “tie” (neckwear)
12 Confusing argon with tin is uneducated (8)
IGNORANT – Anagram [confusing] of ARGON TIN
15 Lacking energy, but worked in kitchen (6,2)
WASHED UP – Two meanings
18 Aesthetic and robust? Not he (4)
ARTY – {he}ARTY (robust, with ‘he’ removed)
20 Insincere praise of coffee accepted by Cook (8)
FLATTERY – LATTE (coffee) inside [accepted by] FRY (cook). There’s a rule about capital letters which I think says that a word that doesn’t need one can be capitalised as part of the wordplay, but a word that needs one can’t begin in lower case. I’m sure somebody will put me right if I have that wrong.
22 Caution: six-footer is full of hostility (6)
BEWARE – BEE (six-footer) encloses [is full of] WAR (hostility)
23 Study WW1 battle in first course (8)
CONSOMME – CON (study), SOMME (WW1 battle)
24 Run into conflict in terror (6)
FRIGHT – R (run) inside [into] FIGHT (conflict)

Down
1 Skirt left among clothes (4)
KILT – L (left) inside [among] KIT (clothes)
2 Seafood keeping always hot … (8)
FEVERISH – FISH (seafood) enloses [keeping] EVER (always)
3 naughty boy takes one (6)
SCAMPI – SCAMP (naughty boy), I (one). The definition is ‘seafood’ in 2dn which forms the first part of this clue. None of the usual sources has ‘scamp’ as exclusively male so we might have had a question mark, ‘perhaps’ or some other indication that ‘naughty boy’ is an example.
4 Forget lines, and flee rehearsal (3,3)
DRY RUN – DRY (forget lines – in theatre-speak), RUN (flee)
5 It’s used in printing of revolutionary books (4)
FONT – OF reversed [revolutionary], NT (books – New Testament)
6 One pulled from fire, in the old joke? (8)
CHESTNUT – Double definition one cryptic. This can also be an overused clue or device in Crosswordland.
11 I agree to try more than once (4,4)
HEAR HEAR – HEAR (try) x 2
13 Gun shot big beast (3)
GNU – Anagram [shot] of GUN. Its silent G is often silent no longer, thanks to the efforts of Michael Flanders and Donald Swann
14 Corps joining battle in response to revolution (8)
REACTION – RE (corps – Royal Engineers), ACTION (battle). I’ve included the last two words in the definition though to my mind they weaken it. I’d have been happier with a question mark here too.
16 To go over to the enemy is a fault (6)
DEFECT – Double definition
17 Moan one’s stuck in factory (6)
PLAINT – I (one) enclosed by [stuck in] PLANT (factory)
19 A number of criminals, some getting angry (4)
GANG – Hidden inside gettinG ANGry
21 Swindle run by a policeman (4)
RAMP – R (run), A, MP (policeman – a military one, to be precise)

16 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 141 by Teazel – Take Cover!”

  1. 8:10, felt slower somehow. I actually like ‘to revolution’ in 14d; although it’s certainly not needed, it makes a nice counterpoint to ‘revolution’, and add a red herring (I pondered ‘rotation’ for a few seconds when I had fewer checkers). But a ? was called for. I’m pretty sure Jack’s got the capitalization thing right: ‘what cook discovered’ would be no good for ‘Hawai’i’, say. I know only one meaning (or 2 related ones) for YANKEE; I take it it’s also some sort of bet? For what it’s worth, I got to the puzzle by the normal means. (Well, normal for me: go to the Times URL, click on puzzles, then crosswords, then get told that I’m already logged in on another machine–I’m not–wait for them to switch me (5′), and Bob’s your whatsit.)
      1. Thanks; and thanks for refraining from pointing out that I could have looked the damn thing up myself. (Since I can’t edit my previous message, I’ll edit it here: once I log in and they tell me I’m already logged in, it takes them 5 seconds not minutes to ‘switch’ me and let me see the puzzle.)

        Edited at 2014-09-22 05:10 am (UTC)

  2. For a newbie, is there a convention around the use of ellipses (eg 2d… …3d)? Do they always link the clues?
    1. I think I’ve known clues that could stand quite separately despite being linked by an ellipsis but I’m not sure of any rules and conventions so I’ll leave it to others to comment further.
      1. In my experience over the last several years I have found that ellipses are, more often than not, used purely to link the surface readings of sequential clues. When they are used to link a shared definition like they are in this puzzle it tends to throw me because I’m not looking for it, and that was the case here. There seems to be no hard and fast rule about it.
  3. 6 mins. I didn’t find this as straightforward as a lot of the recent QCs, and the REACTION/ARTY crossers were my last two in.
  4. Very straightforward today but I had not previously known that meaning of RAMP. About 10 minutes in the afternoon sunshine.
  5. Very much agree with Andy’s comment. Just over the 6 min mark, bit it felt more of a struggle than some others clearly found. Last one in was ARTY – wasted too long trying to find a word that works ending in HE rather than beginning with it. Why? Beats me!
  6. Found this one tricky and was clearly not on the same wavelength as the setter. Never come across RAMP as “swindle”, but the wordplay seemed correct. Didn’t help myself by putting in DOODLE instead of DEFACE, but once CHESTNUT came to mind things fell more into place. But still missed YANKEE – again, I’d not come across it before as meaning a type of bet. Thanks to Jackkt for putting me straight.
  9. I’m a begginer at this cryptic crossword malarkey (this blog is essential to my learning and sanity – many many thanks to all the contributors). Could someone please explain why hear = try in 11 down.
    1. Hello, Guido, and welcome to TftT. I like your classy userpic!

      Here = try in the sense that judges or a court will “hear” or “try” a case brought before them.

      I was surprised to note the date of my blog you are commenting on as it’s rare to go back to one so long after posting and we usually work day to day. As duty blogger on that day I was notified of your contribution by email but unfortunately I doubt many others would see it. Since you have taken the trouble to open an account with Live Journal you are obviously very keen to join in and are very welcome to do so. I hope to hear from you on the latest QC puzzle each day as it’s published. Best regards.

      Edited at 2016-03-25 06:34 pm (UTC)

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