Times Quick Cryptic 1430 by Wurm

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

I completed this in 8 minutes but there are a few tricky bits and pieces along the way so I imagine that less experienced solvers may not find it quite so easy.  As always I shall be very interested to read how others got on.

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 Artist captures male bird (4)
RHEA : RA (artist) contains [captures] HE (male). Not the most familiar of birds perhaps, except to crossword-lovers for whom it’s required knowledge.
7 Wandering into Chile in bygone era (9)
NEOLITHIC : Anagram [wandering] of INTO CHILE
9 Drunk secures parking place (4)
SPOT : SOT (drunk) contains [secures] P (parking). This word for a drunk is another that’s probably rarely seen outside crosswords these days.
10 Purgative from sailors in Surrey? (5,5)
EPSOM SALTS : EPSOM is a town in Surrey and SALTS are sailors. Purgative is one of its many uses. For future reference, it doesn’t have to be plural.
11 Cry from wolf, horse and bird (4)
HOWL : H (horse) , OWL (bird).  After recent doubts I think we are now all agreed that h = horse in the equine sense is okay, but h = horse = heroin is also worth bearing in mind.
12 Dissent in work place? (10)
OPPOSITION : OP (work), POSITION (place)
16 Crowd in late evening do conga? (10)
ATTENDANCE : AT TEN (late evening), DANCE (do conga)
19 Honest old writer (4)
OPEN : O (old), PEN (writer)
21 Very fast percussion playing (10)
SUPERSONIC : Anagram [playing] of PERCUSSION
23 Fortieth curry in Bow? (4)
RUBY : Cockney rhyming slang [in Bow] for ‘curry’ – after Ruby Murray, a singer very popular in the 1950s. This was her biggest hit, a number one in 1955. The main definition refers to a fortieth wedding anniversary.
24 Outside clubs strangely easier to obscure things (9)
ESOTERICA : Anagram [strangely] of EASIER TO containing [outside] C (clubs  – cards)
25 Commotion in fox hole? (2-2)
TO-DO : TOD (fox), O (hole). Perhaps very tricky to parse if one doesn’t know TOD = fox, but the answer should be biffable with checkers and the hyphen in the enumeration to help.
Down
2 Massive beast in courtship position (5)
HIPPO : Hidden [in] {courts}HIP PO{sition}. The poor old hippo always seems to be clued with reference to its size.
3 Stake and pole destroyed the bounder (8)
ANTELOPE : ANTE (stake), anagram [destroyed] of POLE. ANTE clued by ‘stake’ or ‘bet’ is another essential in crosswordland.
4 Try Saracen’s Head to drink and chat (6)
GOSSIP : GO (try), S{aracen) [‘s head], SIP (drink)
5 Settled problem over chemistry paper (6)
LITMUS : LIT (settled), SUM (problem) reversed [over]. A very clever and slightly devious definition.
6 Doctor in time given a command to stop (4)
WHOA : WHO (Doctor in time), A. Also clever because one immediately thinks DR, MB, MO, GP etc for ‘doctor’.
8 Tory retaining too much material (6)
COTTON : CON (Tory – Conservative) containing [retaining] OTT (too much – Over The Top)
13 Skinned boar stuffed with five eggs (3)
OVA : {b}OA{r} [skinned] containing [stuffed with] V (five)
14 Hector upset at priest-in-charge (8)
THEOCRAT : Anagram [upset] of HECTOR, AT. In a theocracy it’s the priests who run things, claiming that they do so on behalf of a divinity.
15 Get used to a melody heard (6)
ATTUNE : Sounds like [heard] “a tune” (a melody)
17 Lovely home wants to evict one (3,3)
DES RES : DES{i}RES (wants) [evict one]. Short for Desirable Residence, this traditionally appears in small ads for property.
18 Messenger caught in strange union (6)
NUNCIO : C (caught) in anagram [strange] of UNION. This can be just a messenger but I’d guess its most common usage now is in the expression ‘papal nuncio’, the Pope’s ambassador to a foreign court or government .
20 Implant doctor in rising river (5)
EMBED : MB (doctor), contained by [in] DEE (river) reversed [rising]
22 Amorous archer burning up (4)
EROS : SORE (burning) reversed [up]. The Greek god of love is often depicted with bow and arrow as in the statue known as Eros in Piccadilly Circus, except as most regulars around here will know by now that statue is actually of Anteros, Eros’s brother.

28 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 1430 by Wurm”

  1. Had no idea what 23ac was about, although I knew from ‘Bow’ that CRS was involved. And 17d was also impenetrable to me; the checkers suggested nothing English, and I didn’t know the term.
  2. Once again Wurm tied me up in knots so I exceeded my target time. The bottom half accounted for much of my travails, with ATTENDANCE LOI. I’ve seen it before, but it wouldn’t come to mind this time. DES RES and NUNCIO took time too. 13:38. Thanks Wurm and Jack.
  3. A 30 minute struggle with a lot of biffing – I don’t like short clues!
    There were unknown bits like ‘fox’ from the crosslandese archive, but I think the anagrams saved me in the end. There were some oddities, having the first five letters of ANTELOPE as checkers must be a record and made the answer too easy, while for my LOI ESOTERICA I had five vowels and no consonants which was a bit unfair!
    Thanks to Wurm, and to jackkt for the blog.

    Brian

    Edited at 2019-09-02 07:44 am (UTC)

  4. Rather a challenge for a Monday and quite a lot of rather obscure words and terms like Esoterica, Nuncio, Theocrat, Des Res, for a Quickie? Despite that I finished in 17:52 so quite pleased with my time.
  5. Supersonic start but ground to a halt with nuncio, theocrat, ruby, and attendance the culprits.

    Ruby was easy once I changed treochat. Thanks Jack as I knew it was crs for curry but not why.

    Cod ruby.

  6. A solve of two halves with the top being pretty much a write in but the bottom proving a lot more testing. TO-DO was a biff, having not heard of TOD/FOX before and the trickier clues slowly revealed themselves, often with a snort of amusement as the penny dropped e.g. my COD DES RES. NUNCIO was unknown but the anagram fodder meant it couldn’t be much else and I finished in 12.55 with LOI ATTENDANCE.
    Thanks to Jack and Wurm for an entertaining start to the week.

    Edited at 2019-09-02 09:37 am (UTC)

  7. Wurm is never easy and I was pleased to have just 16a left after 15 minutes. But I couldn’t work out the parsing and thought the definition was a type of dance. Could there be a STEELDANCE? After much thought I got ATTENDANCE ( so it must get COD) and the clock said 19:33.
    David
  8. Agree with Plett that the bottom was tougher than the top, but at least it was relatively doable for a Wurm … 15:35 here, with several minutes spent on LOI ESOTERICA (I was convinced that “outside clubs” must indicate “cs”). Some very clever clues but COD for me was SUPERSONIC, just for the pure joy of discovering that it is an anagram of percussion!

    Thanks Wurm and thanks for the very helpful blog, Jack (and chapeau for your time!).

    Templar

  9. This was a thoroughly enjoyable arm-wrestle from start to finish. Obscure (to some) vocabulary, concise cluing, penny drop moments – thank you Wurm. Thank you too, Jack, for confirming some of my less secure parsing and for introducing me to Anteros. I knew Eros to be a misnomer for the Shaftsbury Memorial Fountain, aka the Angel of Christian Charity, but not the fraternal alternative.
    8’00” approx.
  10. ….I found the bottom half far more challenging, but still ended up with only one clue missing after around 4 minutes. Add 50% to that time before the light bulb moment on my LOI, so a missed target yet again…

    FOI RHEA
    LOI DES RES
    COD RUBY (nice to see Bow not meaning dropped H)
    TIME 6:02

  11. Bang on 30 mins yet again, though I did waste several of those hopelessly trying to parse 25ac, having never come across Tod for fox – my times always include attempts at parsing. I also lost time with 6d, as I first had to go through the MD, MB, MO, DR and anagram indicator options before the (now all too obvious) answer came to mind. Quite tricky in places, with 17d Des Res a prime example, but certainly good enough for my CoD vote. Invariant

    Edited at 2019-09-02 11:40 am (UTC)

  12. Back inside my 15m target, but only just! I didn’t knowingly know TOD, and biffed the answer, but now I think on it, I feel I must have heard it before. Nice puzzle from Wurm, good blog and good time Jackkt.
  13. Really difficult today. Not really a QC unless you are a seasoned CW fiend. Had thought that the QC was meant for those like me with lessor CW skills – but last few weeks doesn’t support this.

    I appreciate your blog, especially because of the explanations – but wonder if it influences the setters. The times you regularly post could spur the setters to set more challenging puzzles instead of aiming for a wider audience?

    DavidS

    1. Thanks for your input, David. I can assure you that not posting QC solving times here would have no effect at the Times. Many people solve on-line at the Times own site which is integrated with league tables for fastest times etc, so if they want to know how long solvers take they only have to look at their own data.

      Edited at 2019-09-02 01:08 pm (UTC)

    2. You’re half right – but the QC is also intended for busy people without the time to tackle something more demanding.
    3. My thoughts entirely. I sometimes wonder if the setters forget about the less experienced solvers. Or perhaps they are competing against each other.
  14. With meadvale on this, lots of neat ideas, and of medium difficulty at worst.

    Wurm not the sort to waste words it seems, and I wonder if this eases or causes the challenge he sets? Once you’re there it’s obvious for sure, even where this only took me 10 minutes.

  15. Lot of biffing needed for this. Didn’t know H = HORSE, or RUBY = curry. Remember Ruby Murray though. Not much help! Did not know TOD = fox.
    Enjoyed EPSOM SALTS. What do you call a sailor in SURREY? Lost.
    PlayUpPompey
  16. Another challenging puzzle today, but I did manage to squeeze inside my 40 minute target with 39:01. Unlike most other people on here I found the top half more difficult than the bottom despite never having heard of nuncio or a theocrat or perhaps esoterica, though I knew esoteric. I guess that’s the mark of a good QC, that even if the words are a bit obscure, you can work them out if you have a few checkers. I also liked this because there’s a lot of animals and other science in it – rhea, hippo, antelope, ova, litmus, neolithic, supersonic – which makes a nice change. I hadn’t come across tod for fox, except that the fox character in Beatrix Potter books is called Mr Tod.
    So, overall a very enjoyable puzzle. LOI (appropriately) 6d, COD 17d
  17. Lots of biffing for me on this one, too. Took a while, and stopped for my lunch before coming back to it, but I did finish. Never heard of TOD, I had to look it up to check, but it has apparently been in the dictionary all the time, and I’ve never seen it before. Never heard of NUNCIO either, but had seen the anagrind, and had enough checkers. LOI was DES RES, never seen the term, but realised I could drop the I from desire to get something plausable. I thought it might be latin or something (I’ve never studied Latin…).
  18. Pleasedto finish within our 30m target. Did not know Tod, or the cockney slang but they were biffable. Slowed down sorting out the anagrams at 14d and 21a, but an enjoyable solve. Thanks to Wurm and for the comments above.
  19. Very hard puzzle and I got nowhere. No pleasure in a puzzle where I can only get 6 answers. Definitely wurm is not for beginners.
  20. Very difficult and unsuitable for a QC I thought. I’ve noticed that hardly any beginners seem to be bothering any more which is a shame but inevitable given that the puzzles are relentlessly increasing in difficulty. I will probably give up soon. Alan
  21. Well I still think of myself as a beginner, based on how I often struggle with the QCs. I keep going as there are the occasional simpler ones – just enough to prevent me giving up.

    I managed to finish this one but with a fair bit of biffing. But it’s nice to see clues like 1ac and work them out, I must be making some progress.

    5d was a biff – never thought lit for settled but I suppose it can be, must look up the etymology…

  22. Too difficult for a QC. Not fun at all. Puts me off trying them. From reading the comments I will not bother with Wurm again.
    1. If you think this was difficult (and it was) you should take a look at Monday’s 15×15. And therein lies the problem – how to give ‘new’ solvers enough experience of the setter’s dark arts to go on to tackle the main puzzle.

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