Times Quick Cryptic 1460 by Teazel

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

Solving time: 10 minutes but I needed at least 1 minute to find a clue that I could solve at first glance. Once I had got going it all fell into place fairly rapidly.

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 Casual juries condemned old dictator (6,6)
JULIUS CAESAR : Anagram [condemned] of CASUAL INJURIES
8 Lots of water, litres, to be taken during meal (5)
FLOOD : L (litres) contained by [taken during] FOOD (meal)
9 Gruesome as taxi is squashed by horse (7)
MACABRE : CAB (taxi) contained [squashed] by MARE (horse)
10 Mythical creature doesn’t have one on the other hand (3)
YET : YET{i} (mythical creature) [doesn’t have one]
11 Luxury car finished ends up on its roof (5,4)
ROLLS OVER : ROLLS (luxury car), OVER (finished)
13 Swelling: hospital creates paperwork (5)
BUMPH : BUMP (swelling), H (hospital). This is more correctly spelt ‘bumf’  as it was originally an abbreviation of ‘bum-fodder’ meaning ‘toilet paper’ which by extension describes worthless literature and official documents and papers.
14 The place for substitute judges? (5)
BENCH : A cryptic definition based on two meanings with BENCH as a place where substitutes sit in a sports ground and judges sit in a court of law
16 Hungriest to change? Absolutely (4,5)
SURE THING : Anagram [change] of HUNGRIEST
17 Fairy putting an end to himself (3)
ELF : Hidden in [putting an end to] {hims}ELF. A rare hidden answer that doesn’t span at least two words. Cue David Brent.
19 Girl, black, put out of action (7)
DISABLE : DI (girl), SABLE (black)
21 A carriage returns separately (5)
APART : A, TRAP (carriage) reversed [returns]
22 Refuse to agree reading in church is instructive experience (6,6)
OBJECT LESSON : OBJECT (refuse to agree),  LESSON (reading in church)
Down
1 Second judge uncertain (5)
JIFFY : J (judge), IFFY (uncertain). A very short space of time – ‘in a jiffy’.
2 Cat more domesticated? Not his (4-5)
LION-TAMER : LION (cat), TAMER (more domesticated)
3 Illicit to be drunk here (5,3,5)
UNDER THE TABLE : Two meanings starting with dodgy dealings
4 Arrive, extremely lively and attractive (6)
COMELY : COME (arrive), L{ivel}Y [extremely]
5 Intemperance by immoral girl that’s costly at airport (6,7)
EXCESS BAGGAGE : EXCESS (intemperance),  BAGGAGE (immoral girl)
6 Church vestment used in several baptisms (3)
ALB : Hidden [used] in {sever}AL B{aptisms}. A white garment worn by some priests.
7 Look through crumbling arches (6)
SEARCH : Anagram [crumbling] of ARCHES
12 Day cutting grape plant is profitable for wine (3,2,4)
VIN DE PAYS : D (day) contained by [cutting] VINE (grape plant), PAYS (is profitable)
13 Next to boy, insect buzzing round (6)
BESIDE : BEE (insect) containing [buzzing round] SID (boy)
15 Strip club that’s disreputable on street (6)
DIVEST : DIVE (club that’s disreputable), ST (street)
18 In merriment see to mattress (5)
FUTON : TO contained by [in] FUN (merriment)
20 Loan for boat (3)
SUB : Two meanings for this abbreviation, subsistence and submarine

36 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 1460 by Teazel”

  1. FOI 1ac JULIUS CAESAR

    LOI 13dn BESIDE

    COD 2dn LION TAMER

    WOD 12dn VIN DE PAYS

    Time 12 minutes

    Edited at 2019-10-14 04:51 pm (UTC)

  2. FOI 1ac, which helped. LOI 8ac, which I think I finally twigged to after JIFFY. Biffed 12d, parsed post-submission. 4:51.
  3. I was very slow to get going this morning. FOI was ELF then ALB. Either I was still asleep or this was a bit harder than it appeared. Once I got JULIUS CAESAR I speeded up and finished with SUB and finally OBJECT LESSON in 13:56.
    Looking back some of these clues were quite challenging if you were not quite on the wavelength. COD to Lion Tamer, but plenty of others also very good.
    David
  4. 30 minutes, bogged down by bumph disable, object lesson, beside, sub and loi divest.

    Dnk baggage for immoral girl.

    Maybe lack of sleep because even julius caesar took a while to click.

    Cod divest.

    Edited at 2019-10-14 07:42 am (UTC)

  5. I was whizzing through this until I got a bit stuck in the SW corner where drew a complete blank for a couple of minutes. I finally saw what the last part of 3d was which gave me the first word of 22a and the rest swiftly followed.
    An entertaining romp to kick off the week which I finished in 9.39 with LOI SUB.
    Thanks to jacckt, especially for enlightening me about the origins of Bumf
  6. I had just one – 13D -to go. I was sure it had to be BESIDE but I spent another five trying to parse it before losing patience and bunging it in.
    This was my favourite type of puzzle, where each answer gave me another checker which led to another answer.
    Thanks to Teazel and to jackkt for sorting out the wordplay for ‘beside’

    Brian

    Edited at 2019-10-14 07:56 am (UTC)

  7. An enjoyable start to the week. A good, well-judged QC with just enough challenge post Monday breakfast. A little over 3K. Like bripriuk, I finally put in BESIDE without parsing. LI were YET and JIFFY. Liked VIN DE PAYS amongst many others. Many thanks to TEAZEL and jack. John M.
  8. I was a bit slow to get going but it all came together. I don’t get the ‘not his’ and I’m not sure where the P and S come from in Vin de pays. Probably just being obtuse
    1. Sorry I’m not clear what you are querying on VIN DE PAYS which I’ve blogged as: D (day) contained by [cutting] VINE (grape plant), PAYS (is profitable). The P and the S are in the word PAYS.

      ‘Not his’ at 2dn refers back to the first part of the clue. It’s not a definition of LION TAMER as such but if the question is posed “(whose) cat (is) more domesticated?” the answer would not be LION TAMER – so “not his”. This sort of clue is difficult to explain, and like jokes that need explanation they seem feebler the more you think about them! Hope that helps, anyway.

      Edited at 2019-10-14 08:51 am (UTC)

      1. Thank you for replying – much appreciated!

        I was being obtuse because I missed ‘more profitable’ and used day instead of d .

        As for the other one maybe my brain will click into gear but for now I’m none the wiser.

        1. Maybe someone else will be able to make it more comprehensible. It’s certainly odd to have something defined by what it’s not so perhaps here it’s best to arrive at the answer from wordplay [LION (cat), TAMER (more domesticated)] and swiftly move on.
          1. Yes thanks – Lion tamer was going to fit and I managed that from the first half. maybe if I do go back to it the lights will come on! It’s clearly only me.
            1. His, ie the lion tamer’s, cat is definitely not domesticated.

              That’s how I read it.

              1. Thank you for your patience and persistence, I finally get it – impressed by you if not the clue 🙂
  9. Is ROLLS OVER a dictionaried phrase? With that definition I’m not sure (looks up in Collins)… but of course it is. The only pause in this easy jaunt which took me 5 minutes.
  10. I didn’t help myself by bunging in RIGHT as the second word of 16A at first, but then, unsurprisingly, I couldn’t complete the anagram. EXCESS BAGGAGE helped me fix that. I liked BESIDE and LION TAMER. 4:57.

    Edited at 2019-10-14 08:07 am (UTC)

  11. Just under 18 mins, probably about as fast as I ever manage, so pleased with that. Only know the time because I started as the news came on, then realised I wasn’t getting delayed as much as usual. How can anyone read, think and fill in in under 10, let alone 5, minutes? I am in awe… But still pleased! Divest took a couple of minutes at the end until I separated the first two words of the clue and saw it properly.
    Plymouthian
  12. I struggled to get going this morning and after 6 minutes the grid had only three entries YET, SURE THING and SEARCH. I then saw JULIUS and the pace picked up. Biffed EXCESS BAGGAGE and NHO BAGGAGE to mean immoral girl. LOI OBJECT LESSON. I think the 14 minutes I took shows that I was not on Teazel’s wavelength but all the clues seemed fair. Thanks Jack for the blog.
  13. Poor old Julius – orator, historian, general, political reformer, Emperor … reduced to “dictator”. Them’s the breaks.

    Anyway, he was FOI and I then moved rapidly through the grid till grinding to a halt in the SW corner, which held out like Mafeking. LOI DIVEST finally surrendered for a whisker under 3K and an OK Day.

    COD BENCH, neat. Thanks Jack and Teazel. (Why is “Sid” clued as “boy” and not “man”? Is there anything juvenile about Sid, or are boy/man interchangeable as indicators for a male name?)

    Templar

    1. I think that ‘boy’ is intended to suggest that the name is a shortened version of Sidney.
    2. When I started here there seemed to be a convention that ‘boy’ was used for an abbreviated name but it seems to have gone by the board now so boy/man are usually interchangeable as you have suggested.
        1. His official title at the time of his death was ‘Dictator for Life’. ‘Dictator’ was a constitutional position – used during emergencies. ‘Dictator for Life’ was more iffy – and those whole assassinated him did so because they thought he was aiming at kingship – anathema to the Romans.
  14. A fairly quick solve today at 24:49, but I had a number of circled down clues to pay particular attention to the explanations of. Never heard of baggage meaning immoral girl (that’s got to be a phrase frowned upon by feminists), or alb, didn’t manage to parse ‘beside’ and wasn’t au fait with sub meaning loan. In fact, I’m still not sure what it is an abbreviation for. Anyway, overall a very enjoyable puzzle, with my favourite clues being 1d, 13a (thanks Jack for the info on the origin of that) and 15d.
    On the subject of a jiffy, although in everyday language a jiffy just means a short time and so could be a second, various scientists have attempted to define it for use in their own fields and it’s always a much shorter time than a second, e.g. the length of time it takes light to travel a foot, one cm or even one femtometre. This last definition makes a jiffy only about 0.000000000000000000000003s. (sorry for not using standard form there, but getting a super script -24 on here was beyond me).
      1. The exact derivation is proving rather harder to pin down than I had expected but it seems to come from ‘subsistence’.

        SOED has

        noun 3 a small loan; an advance payment, eg from someone’s wages to help them subsist.

        verb (subbed, subbing) 3 to lend (especially a small amount of money) • Can you sub me a quid till tomorrow?

    2. Lol. So how far does a neutrino travel in a Jiffy? See the discussion on today’s 15×15 where our own guru data scientist and originator of the SNITCH, starstruck_au, has unmasked them. FYI, “neutrinos” are the ones who do the 15×15 faster even than Kevin (or even Phil) does the QC by solving offline and then typing in the answers as fast as they can.
  15. I also struggled to get my first entry, but ALB and then COMELY got me going after almost 2 minutes. I had to write out the anagrist for 1a before Julius popped up. Things flowed smoothly after that but it was 11:09 before I was able to submit. Thanks Teazel and Jack.
  16. I was another one who found it slow getting going, although having workmen popping in and out didn’t help. I shall look on EXCESS BAGGAGE in a whole different light in future. Btw Templar, Caesar was never Emperor. It was because he wanted to be that he was murdered.
    PlayUpPompey
  17. ….and changed tack twice. Eventually went one second over my personal target.

    FOI MACABRE
    LOI SUB
    COD DIVEST

  18. Blimey! After 2 DNFs last week and then a Teazel today I feared the worst, but romped through with no problems at at all. Can’t believe it!!

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