Times Quick Cryptic 1477 by Mara

Author   william_j_sPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
Sluggish to get off the ground, but completed in an average time. I was slowed down by clues that ended up seeming rather simple in hindsight; so touché setter. I’m left wondering about ‘you’ in 19 down, as the only reliable source I have at home is Chambers, and it’s not in there…

Definitions underlined.

Across
1 Plant herb, so winding around us (8)
ROSEBUSH – anagram of (winding) HERB SO around US.
5 Musical — crowning glory perhaps? (4)
HAIR – double/cryptic definition.
9 Strength of unusual wines (5)
SINEW – anagram of (unusual) WINES.
10 Managed, chief position (7)
RANKING – RAN (managed) and KING (chief).
11 In need of a drink, GP maybe ending in distillery (3)
DRY – DR (doctor, GP maybe) with the last letter of (ending in) distillerY.
12 Never-worn garment in a state? (3,6)
NEW JERSEY – NEW (never-worn) and JERSEY (garment).
13 Two letters did you say? Too much (6)
EXCESS – sounds like (did you say?) ‘x’ and ‘s’ (two letters).
15 Going up a trace (6)
ASCENT – A SCENT (a trace).
17 So fine art hewn, if sculpted (5-4)
WAFER-THIN – anagram of (sculpted) ART HEWN IF.
19 Joke: little one (3)
KID – double definition.
20 Cleaner back (7)
SWEEPER – double definition, the second referring to a sporting position.
21 Chuck to leave for game (5)
BINGO – BIN (chuck) and GO (leave).
22 Grass shoot (4)
RUSH – double definition.
23 See a nerd performing romantic song (8)
SERENADE – anagram of (performing) SEE A NERD.

Down
1 Remaining bits reused, I gathered (7)
RESIDUE – anagram of (gathered) REUSED I.
2 Name of son, also Yankee (5)
SANDY – S (son), AND (also), and Y (yankee).
3 Sad brown cape changed for fawn (3,3,6)
BOW AND SCRAPE – anagram of (changed) SAD BROWN CAPE.
4 First in sewing team, one has a thread (5)
SCREW – first letter of Sewing, then CREW (team).
6 A paper under consideration (2,5)
AT ISSUE – A TISSUE (a paper).
7 Good breaking stone in game (5)
RUGBY – G (good) inside (breaking) RUBY (stone).
8 Excessive labour seen travelling around North America (12)
UNREASONABLE – anagram of (travelling) LABOUR SEEN surrounding NA (North America).
14 Drinks: concerned with price to fill empty cups? (7)
COFFEES – OF (concerned with) and FEES (price) inside (to fill) the first and last letters of (empty) CupS.
16 Time pedalo moved for young swimmer (7)
TADPOLE – T (time), then an anagram of (moved) PEDALO.
17 More intelligent, a little nephew is erudite (5)
WISER – hidden in (a little) nepheW IS ERudite.
18 Animal in hospital, sore unfortunately (5)
HORSE – H (hospital) and an anagram of (unfortunately) SORE.
19 Nation understanding you (5)
KENYA – KEN (understanding) and YA (you).

38 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 1477 by Mara”

  1. Another sluggish day, where solutions just didn’t come when called. 2d was my POI, 8d LOI by a long shot. On the other hand, I biffed 17ac from checkers; I’m not sure if I looked at the clue. 8:29, probably something over 2 Phils.
    1. ….as I also overshot my target this morning, and therefore ’twas but 1.34 Phils.

      I started really quickly, and with my first six answers going straight in I was thinking it could be my first clean sweep for a few months. That idea was SCREWed and then I was all over the grid trying to get a foothold. After just over 5 minutes I was left with two pairs of crossers. Fairly quickly saw KID, without which I seriously doubt I would have solved KENYA. If I’d got RANKING sooner my LOI would have been easier to spot.

      FOI ROSEBUSH (Mer at 8, not 4,4)
      LOI SCREW
      COD SWEEPER
      TIME 6:17

  2. It didn’t even occur to me to query this–I’ve seen eg ‘See ya!’ so many times–but for what it’s worth it’s in ODE.
  3. The usual sources seem a bit sniffy on this one, with Chambers and the Oxford Concise ignoring it completely. Collins defines it only as an abbreviation for Young Adult, but in the same entry gives three examples of sentences in which it clearly means ‘you’. The Oxford English Dictionary holds its nose and allows ‘you, used informally or so as to represent American pronunciation’, but it’s left to the Shorter Oxford to define it simply as ‘you’ or your’.

    Edited at 2019-11-06 06:07 am (UTC)

  4. Long interruption so my guess is 20 mins.

    Enjoyable, lots of anagrams today, no real hold ups but slow to get going.

    Question mark next to kenya.

    Last few were screw, unreasonable, and rush.

    Cod screw.

  6. 22 minutes, so two above target but I spent 4 on my LOI SWEEPER which should have been obvious but wasn’t.
    Thanks to Mara for an excellent puzzle with lots of deception and nice surfaces, and (for once) a homophone which actually worked for me.

    Brian

  7. 12.43 but that included bunging RUSK not RUSH as my last one in for no obvious reason other than being frustrated I hadn’t finished it. Took me a while to unravel the letters for 8D as well

    NeilC

  8. just over 15 mins for this slow fox-trot.

    FOI 18dn HORSE

    LOI 23ac SERENADE

    COD 6dn UNREASONABLE from IKEA

    WOD UNSEASONABLE from the weatherman

  9. Another tricky puzzle from Mara which took me 23:20.
    LOI was SWEEPER.
    The answers all seemed obvious when you got them, the sign of a good puzzle.
    David
  10. Good puzzle which unfolded quickly for me in under 2K. 3, 4 & 6 down appealed to me. LOI was RUSH which didn’t click. Thanks to Mara and William. John M.
  11. I often struggle to get on Mara’s wavelength but this came together. Thanks setter and blogger. I put Ken YA in reluctantly – it was one of those where I thought ‘I bet there is some obscure use somewhere and sure enough there is’. Normally Mara has too many of these but I don’t mind the odd one 🙂
  12. 31:50 took a long time to see 6D and couldn’t figure 8D – LOI – for ages. Was almost ready to abandon.
  13. I seemed to get stuck in treacle and went way over my target at 14:59. UNREASONABLE took an unreasonable amount of time, and KENYA didn’t make any sense until I had all the crossers and was my LOI. However, as noted by many, there seemed no reason for the hold ups once you had the answer. Well played Mara and thanks William.
  14. Like others I found this a mixed bag, with four or five clues conspiring to hold me up till finishing in 1.75K for a Good Day. LOI was SWEEPER, since the position seems to have have gone completely out of fashion, and UNREASONABLE needed all the checkers and a good long headscratch. I liked the surface for SERENADE so that’s my COD.

    Thanks William and Mara.

    Templar

    PS the 15×15 is worth a crack today, I did half of it in my remaining 15 mins on the train (no doubt won’t get any further)

  15. Hmm, wasn’t that keen on this one – too many anagrams, Kenya (!) and Rose Bush as one word didn’t make for a fun solve. 30mins in total, with my inability to associate bin with chuck (it’s caught me out before) not helping. Invariant
    1. Agree about the anagrams, unusually a problem with yesterday’s Izetti as well. Only small relief was the anagrinds/anagrist were often well concealed, but I do find anagrams a bit mechanical and boring!
  16. Pretty slow for me… and unfortunately I thought AN ISSUE was suitable for a paper and under consideration. AT ISSUE definitely works better! Also couldn’t see RUSH… but a nice puzzle. Liked SCREW.
  17. About 12 minutes then got stuck on the kid / Kenya crossing. The only country I could see was Tonga, which led to tad (little one?) but obviously I couldn’t parse it, so gave up 😧 Mara is often my nemesis – when I see his name, I always think: ‘Well, here goes!’ I do find his minimalist cluing challenging, but always good value with plenty of PDMs.

    FOI Tadpoles – I’m not a very orderly solver and tend to let my eye roam until something jumps out at me; so it was here
    LOI Coffees (before giving up)
    COD Tadpole – rather a sweet clue imo

    I agree with Templar that the big boys puzzle is definitely worth a go, although I would say that it’s not completely straightforward!

      1. 💡💡💡 The irony is I have been to Kenya and nowhere near Tonga, but that combination of letters still flummoxed me!
  18. On Mara’s wavelength today and romped home in 1.25 Kevins for a very good day. FOI HAIR and LOI RANKING – don’t know why! I didn’t really question YA for you probably because all the checkers were already in place when I solved the clue. I did try to invent a new word ‘stoha’ = thread from the first letters of the words ‘sewing team one has a’ but NEW JERSEY showed me the error of my ways. Thanks all.
  19. Did anyone else get Sonny? Son and NY. Sonny and Cher?
    Just me then!
    1. That was definitely my first thought, but I decided that there was no way Mara would be generous enough to use “son” in a clue if the answer was “sonny” – that’s 60% of the answer right there!
  21. Spotted them all at first read but made for a 30 min solve most of which came in the last 5.

    Did I read once that too many of a particular type of clue was not the done thing?

    Johnny

    1. I’m not sure there was ever a hard and fast rule but Peter Biddlecombe, founder of TfTT, former Times champion and current editor of the Sunday Times puzzles drew up some guidelines which may be available here somewhere. As I recall the one on anagrams was no more than 5 pure anagrams per puzzle. Bearing in mind that was for a 15×15 so we possibly need to knock off 1 for the 13×13 QC.

      In this puzzle we have 5 pure anagrams (i.e. all the letters of the answer come from anagrist) at 9ac, 17ac, 23ac, 1dn and 3dn. Additionally we have 4 partial anagrams (some letters are clued separately) at 1ac, 8dn, 16dn and 15dn.

      Whilst accepting that ‘rules’ are there to be broken on occasion, today’s abundance of anagrams does seem a little excessive.

      Later, on reflection, another view might be that as the QC is a training ground for the 15×15 it might be useful to have plenty of anagrams to give newer solvers practice in spotting and deciphering them. It has never occurred to me to count them before but I suspect I shall be doing so from now on!

      Edited at 2019-11-06 06:15 pm (UTC)

  22. A rare solve – even though I put Sonny in which I really liked..! Enough of technicalities- took me ages but I get the most satisfaction through perseverance and building on checkers that at 1st run through seemed illusive. A pleasant change versus the last 2 Izetti’s that I failed dismally with.
    Graham
  23. Re 2 Down, I had Sonny after the All Blacks’ Centre. Son and NY for Yankee seemed reasonable!
  24. Quicker than yesterday, but once again I got a couple wrong. I had “Wisen” for 17dn (More Intelligent=Wise, Little Nephew=n) which in hindsight I’m not even sure is a word, let alone whether it fits. As a result, I couldn’t get 22ac.

    As above, I also parsed AT ISSUE based on a newspaper rather than tissue paper.

    Not sure whether it’s a rule that all types of clue have to be included, but I knew something wasn’t right when I couldn’t find the hidden word. Alas, it was staring right in front of me in 17dn!

    COD = “Screw”, mainly because I had forgotten it was an equivalent for Thread and took ages for me to see.

    Thanks

  25. Thx Jacktt and for all your blogs. My improvement in the last 2 years has amazed Me due to the help of you and others. Thought I’d cracked it Monday till Tuesday brought me back down. A rare DNF which previously was the norm. Cheers. Johnny
  26. I found the west side of this puzzle relatively straightforward but I got very bogged down in the east, particularly with 8d, 21a and finally with the 19s. A good challenge completed in 16.41 with my favourite being AT ISSUE.
    Thanks to william

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