Times Quick Cryptic 1447 by Teazel

Author   william_j_sPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
A toughie from Teazel, which kept me occupied for almost twice as long as usual. About half went in without much trouble, but scattered all over the grid, and the rest took a bit of staring at. Even then I had to stop the clock before parsing a couple. I’m going to blame some usages that are on the periphery of my knowledge at best, and a couple of cryptic hints that are nearly always trouble for me.

Good to be challenged, I’m sure you’ll agree. COD to the stand-out 6dn.

Definitions underlined.

Across
1 Equipment that can always let you down (9)
PARACHUTE – cryptic definition, needing all the checkers before I saw it.
6 Greek character died in wet earth (3)
MUD – MU (Greek character) and D (died).
8 Weakling gets full benefit of operation (7)
MILKSOP – MILKS (gets full benefit) and OP (operation). I was ignorant of this word until today; a ‘soft, unadventurous, or effeminate man’, according to Chambers.
9 Direct the steering, then leave river (5)
CONGO – CON (direct the steering) and GO (leave). Another DNK, from conduct. Looking it up reminds me that I have heard of the conning tower on a ship, but didn’t make this leap at the time.
10 Turning to broadsheet, like an old tiger (5-7)
SABRE-TOOTHED – anagram of (turning) TO BROADSHEET.
12 Detective left in the US in exchange (6)
SLEUTH – L (left) in an anagram (in exchange) of THE US.
13 Warp belt’s fastening (6)
BUCKLE – double definition.
16 Sick, far gone, ended in paradise (6,2,4)
GARDEN OF EDEN – anagram of (sick) FAR GONE ENDED.
19 Start working with group (5)
ONSET – ON (working) and SET (group).
20 Such a speech is a tonic (7)
KEYNOTE – double definition with a cryptic tinge. A keynote, or tonic, is the first note of a scale.
22 A state in America, none in particular (3)
ANY – A and NY (state in America).
23 One creating explosion when roster observed to be the wrong way round (9)
DETONATOR – ROTA (roster) and NOTED (observed) reversed (the wrong way round).

Down
1 Self-importance of parent banking millions (4)
POMP – POP (parent) containing (banking) M (millions).
2 Again let free (7)
RELEASE – RE-LEASE (again let).
3 Company on small Greek island (3)
COS – CO (company) and S (small).
4 Cheeky at university — shame (6)
UPPITY – UP (at university) and PITY (shame).
5 Pen that is put in envelope (9)
ENCLOSURE – double definition. Chambers has ‘that which is enclosed, esp. in an envelope’.
6 To chew noisily gets one thrown out of German city (5)
MUNCH – MUNiCH (German city) with the letter I (one) excluded (thrown out).
7 After entrance, fail to make final desperate effort (2-2-3)
DO-OR-DIE – DOOR (entrance) and DIE (fail). Desperate indeed.
11 Withdrew and negotiated again (9)
RETREATED – to treat is to negotiate, thus RE-TREATED is negotiated again.
12 Son nearly cut a lady from Italy (7)
SIGNORA – S (son), all-but-the-last letter from (nearly) IGNORe (cut), then A.
14 Fortification on strike: no entry! (4,3)
KEEP OUT – KEEP (fortification) and OUT (on strike).
15 Severe reprimand for firework (6)
ROCKET – double definition, the first of which yet another DNK for me.
17 Precarious run: one shown on satellite TV (5)
RISKY – R (run), I (one) and SKY (satellite TV).
18 Lecherous look from king when speaking (4)
LEER – sounds like (when speaking) “Lear” (king).
21 That there is Yvonne, oddly (3)
YON – odd letters only from YvOnNe.

34 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 1447 by Teazel”

  2. Slogged through at a steady pace, to the best of my memory. DNK CON, but as Jack says. In retrospect, I can remember Capt. Kirk (and, I think, other captains in movies) handing over control of the ship to another officer and telling him, “You have the con”. For some reason, although I knew the word MILKSOP, I typed in MILLSOP; and I don’t think it was a typo, but rather what I unthinkingly intended to type. Idiot. 6:56 but.
  3. The bottom half was straightforward enough but the top, and NW in particular, had me scratching my head. Finally getting PARACHUTE opened things up and I crossed the line in 11.11, with the second definition of KEYNOTE being new to me.
    Thanks for the blog
  4. I struggled a bit with this. FOI was ETA at 6a and then ESSEN at 6d both of which caused major delays later. A short pause for parsing would have helped.My solve was largely bottom up.
    The ones that caused me problems at the end were the tiger, the river and the pen. LOI CONGO after corrections.Also DNK this meaning of CON.
    18:34 on the clock. Tricky stuff from Teazel. David
  5. 9 minutes but I was quite surprised to finish within my target 10 as I had two answers missing in the NW quarter throughout the solve and they put up further resistance when I returned to them having completed the rest of the grid. But eventually I thought of MILKSOP, and the P checker it provided enabled me to come up with UPPITY at 4dn. The CON of CONGO was new to me but what else could it be?

    Have I been missing a ‘Check spelling and preview’ option when posting comments all these years or has it just arrived in the unannounced changes to Live Journal as discussed here yesterday? Edit: Having just used it I must say it’s very messy with no option to click on various suggested amendments listed in the first section, and in the Edit field the errors are not highlighted in any way, so you have to remember them from the errors list which by necessity at that stage is out of sight further up the page.

    Edited at 2019-09-25 05:51 am (UTC)

    1. My impression–a not particularly trustworthy impression, but it’s mine–is that this has always been there. It’s never occurred to me to check my spelling, unless the red underline appears, and often not then.
      1. I’ve certainly never seen a red underline when typing comments. I wonder if there’s a spellcheck settings option somewhere and I’ve had it turned off all these years? I must investigate further!
        1. Strange; I just typed grogl, for instance, and the red line appeared immediately. For what it’s worth, I use Firefox on a Mac desktop (I’m almost positive it appears on my Mac laptop as well).
          1. Now that you mention Firefox, Kevin, I’ve the vaguest idea that many years ago I used to have an add-on or extension spellchecker that operated when I posted on websites but it disappeared in one of the many Firefox updates. I’ve long since abandoned Firefox because I found it too slow compared with Chrome, but it’d be worth my investigating whether there’s a Chrome add-on that might do the same job.

            Edited at 2019-09-25 07:51 am (UTC)

            1. Just found it’s already there in Chrome under
              Settings
              Advanced
              Privacy and security
              Languages
              Basic spellcheck
              English (United Kingdom)

              I now have wavy red lines aplenty!

              Thanks for your input on this.

              Edited at 2019-09-25 07:59 am (UTC)

              1. I’ve just googled the solution for my Samsung phone:

                Settings
                Language and Input
                Samsung Keyboard
                Auto check spelling
                On.

                I’ve been struggling for years without it – thanks!

                Brian

                Edited at 2019-09-25 08:29 am (UTC)

  6. I’m out of step the right way round for once, since I thought that was pretty straightforward and clocked in at only 1.3 Kevins for an Excellent Day. What’s the “always” doing in 1ac? Sometimes parachutes fail!

    FOI POMP, LOI CONGO, COD RISKY (also liked SIGNORA v much)

    Thanks Teazel and William.

    Templar

      1. Ha. Yes, thank you. There’s a letter in today’s Times about a forest guide being asked if the mushrooms could be eaten – she replied “All the mushrooms can be eaten, some of them only once”. Same principle I suppose!
    2. Unusually, I also found this one straightforward, doing it over lunch on the paper version. Didn’t even need any aids.

      I’m used to reading how easy the QC is when I’ve struggled to finish. I suspect it took me around 20mins.

  7. I was surprised to take 22 minutes, the same as yesterday, for what I thought was a much more difficult puzzle. I seemed to biff a lot, and some remained unparsed, but it helped that I got five of the first six on the first pass. The musical KEYNOTE is not in my Chambers app, but one definition and all the checkers were enough although it was my LOI.
    Thanks to Teasel and to William .

    Brian

    1. Very odd that the musical definition is not in your Chambers app as it’s in their free online dictionary and my printed edition. On line it’s: 1 the note on which a musical scale or key is based; the tonic. And it’s the very first definition, which is fitting because it’s the one from which all the other figurative meanings (as in ‘keynote speech’) are derived.

      I’m glad my enquiry about spellcheckers was helpful in finding yours.

      Edited at 2019-09-25 09:14 am (UTC)

      1. Thanks Jack, I’ve looked again in Chambers and it’s the first definition! I think I missed it as I expected it to be obscure and well down the page.
        The new spellcheck is great, although it prefers spellchecker.

        Brian

  8. I managed this ok and enjoyed most of it – thanks again to setter and blogger. However I did think it pushed the limits for a quickie with quite a few obscure or little known uses- con, keynote, treated for starters
  9. 22 minutes for me. No problem with CON as I knew it, but didn’t know the musical version of KEYNOTE.
  10. Not on the wavelength and was happy to finish in 17m.

    Like David I thought the german town would be worms or essen.

    Last 3 were parachute, enclosure, and the unparsed congo.

    Cod mud or detonator.

    Edited at 2019-09-25 09:16 am (UTC)

  11. Apart from “con” I knew everything and rattled through it.

    FOI PARACHUTE
    LOI KEYNOTE
    COD MILKSOP
    TIME 4:08

  12. Like others have said, a fairly tricky one today, but came in at 35:18, so within my target range. I didn’t spot any of the anagrams at first but there were enough other write ins to get me started. Hadn’t come across that meaning of con or keynote meaning tonic, wasn’t quite sure about the parsing of enclosure but I do see it now it has been explained, and never come across treat meaning to negotiate, but since we have treaties I suppose it makes sense. Also didn’t think of uppity meaning cheeky. I always thought it meant snobby. I’m sure it’s used that way in the Mr Man book Mr Uppity, which is pretty much the only place I can remember coming across the word. When I looked it up online, it said it meant arrogant, which would fit in with that. Interestingly though, it is also apparently a racist term if used to describe a black person, harking back to the days when black people who “didn’t know their place” were described as such.
    And just to be picky, sabre-toothed tigers are usually called sabre-toothed cats now as they are not that closely related to tigers and there were many species of them.
    LOI was milksop. Almost put in millsop, as I thought I might have come across that term, but thankfully resisted the urge as I couldn’t parse it and took another couple of minutes to think some more.
    Finally, on the subject of spell check, it always amuses me how many answers from the crossword get the redline treatment.
    1. This came up a couple of years ago in a 15×15 puzzle, and as OliviaRhineb and I pointed out, it’s a word that one couldn’t use in the US now, precisely because of its association with the age when being ‘uppity’ was a capital crime.
      1. “Nobody here is la-de-da or UPPITY, there’s a cuppa tea for all” (Consider Yourself, from the musical “Oliver”). Great homonym….
  13. A rare bus journey. Only a short one, so still plenty of clues left to go at my destination. Finished over coffee. Broadly bottom to top – grateful for the crossing Ks to help gather momentum. Enclosure and retreated not really parsed – the former because “put in” worried me the later due to ignorance of second meaning of treated but felt close enough to entreat to enter without too much angst. Good one!
  14. Borrowed my niece’s Macbook to do this one. Took me a while to figure why SENORA didn’t fit at 12d(I’m in Spain), otherwise a straightforward solve. 8:30. Thanks Teazel and William.
  15. I’m not sure why it took me so long to spot ENCLOSURE was just a double definition and no word insertion was required. I liked PARACHUTE. 4:54.
    1. CON = direct the steering of 
      GO = leave.
      Congo is the river.

      Milksop doesn’t have a hyphen in my dictionary.

      Edited at 2019-09-25 02:25 pm (UTC)

  18. I could just about conjure milksop from memory and con was fine. So I was going along pretty well but then misread 13ac as ‘warp BELL’s fastening’ – this, together with not having got 5dn at that point, pushed me to 12 minutes. A good puzzle I thought.
  19. A slower and so more engaging solve for me. Missed the double definition at 5d so thx for the explanation here. Bottom half completed first and NW last. FOI 2d LOI 8a (I reckon not heard in the last 60 years) COD 4d. I’m sure ‘con’ has cropped up in a QC before. A good puzzle to gently wind down the day, and a helpful blog. Thx all round.

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