Times Quick Cryptic 1486 by Wurm

Author   ChrisPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
11 minutes needed here to complete an interesting QC full of great surfaces. In addition to familiar QC fare, there are a few twists in the parsing which would have made Agatha Christie happy. I refer particularly to 8ac but 5dn and 18ac also stopped me in my tracks for some time. I wonder if this puzzle will split along expert/newcomer lines – your posts are awaited with anticipation.
Definitions, where included, are from Collins.

ACROSS
1. One in a canoe at sea where islands abound (7)
OCEANIA – anagram (at sea) of A CANOE including one (I). Background/pub quiz reading – Oceania is a geographical area consisting of the islands of the central and S Pacific, including Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia, Australasia and the Malay Archipelago.
5. Bellow beginning to race with paddle (4)
ROAR – (R)ace with paddle (OAR).
7. Dictator keeping sulphur in warehouse (6)
DESPOT – Sulphur (S) inside warehouse (DEPOT).
8. Vicious perhaps to stop one being supportive (6)
ONSIDE – Vicious perhaps (SID – Vicious, born John Simon Ritchie, 10 May 1957 – 2 February 1979, was an English bassist and vocalist. He achieved fame as a member of the punk rock band the Sex Pistols, replacing Glen Matlock, who had fallen out of favour with the rest of the group) to stop (fill/be inside) one (ONE).
9. For cheese we need Sally churning (11)
WENSLEYDALE – anagram (churning) of WE NEED SALLY. Excellent clue, excellent cheese (hey, Grommit?).
10. Say purchase mushrooms for muscle (6)
BICEPS – homophone (say) of buy (BI), mushrooms (CEPS – another name for porcino).
12. Last of intake failing to pass (6)
ELAPSE – intak(E), failing (LAPSE – countable noun – a lapse/failing of concentration).
14. The plane designed in East like Jumbo? (11)
ELEPHANTINE – anagram (designed) of THE PLANE, in east (IN E).
17. Ring from vehicle little Terry (6)
CARTEL – vehicle (CAR), little Terry (TEL – most famously El Tel Venables?).
18. Good composer in The Stones? (6)
GRAVEL – good (G), composer (RAVEL). Thrown off track here by the surface.
20. Female by meadow in little jumper (4)
FLEA – female (F), meadow (LEA).
21. Snake upset king (7)
RATTLER – upset (RATTLE), king (R).

DOWN
1. Verse in Ariosto delights (3)
ODE – in Ariost(O DE)lights.
2. Flat-bottomed vessels in Devon river region (7)
EXPANSE – flat-bottomed vessels (PANS – not dhows but kitchen vessels) inside Devon river (EXE).
3. Beat up a Liberal in an old province (5)
NATAL – beat – tan – upwards (NAT), a Liberal (A L).
4. Attendant needing coal yet to be moved (7)
ACOLYTE – anagram (to be moved) of COAL YET.
5. Selassie devotee overthrowing an emperor (5)
RASTA – (Rastas view Haile Selassie as a symbol of their positive affirmation of Africa as a source of spiritual and cultural heritage) overthrowing (put upside down) of an emperor (A TSAR).
6. Letter opener? (9)
ADDRESSEE – I think this came up recently. Q. Who opens a letter? A. The addressee.
9. Government in spotless country house? (9)
WHITEHALL – spotless (WHITE), country house (HALL).
11. Academic clash or wrangling (7)
SCHOLAR – anagram (wrangling) of CLASH OR.
13. Trouble follows an enormous girl (7)
ABIGAIL – this also seems rather recent – trouble (AIL) follows an enormous (A BIG).
15. Run in next race (5)
EXTRA – a cricket run – in n(EXT RA)ce.
16. Man-at-arms announced time to retire (5)
NIGHT – homophone (announced) of knight.
19. Monarch embodies a musical gift (3)
EAR – monarch (ER) embodies (takes within itself) a (A). An ear for music is a gift.

41 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 1486 by Wurm”

  1. ‘Selassie devotee’ struck me as rather too obvious a definition. Fortunately ‘knight’ and ‘night’ don’t have the same number of letters, as the clue could work either way otherwise (I keep forgetting the name of this type of clue, coined by Val Law, formerly of this parish; they virtually never appear, unless the setter has slipped). I was slowed down by 17ac–never heard TEL as a nickname for Terry–and 8ac, even though I thought of Sid early on; ONSIDE=supportive never occurred to me. 4:56. Chris, you’ve got a typo at 14ac.

    Edited at 2019-11-19 02:10 am (UTC)

    2. Also watch out for Derek/Del, Karen/Kaz Darren/Daz, Garry/Gaz. Be interesting to know if the latter 3 are just Teesside abbreviations!
  2. Minor typo in your blog where you misspelled ELEPHANTINE.

    I’d never heard of TEL for Terry and wondered if there was a Terry Tel I’d never heard of. But Google tells me there is a character in Eastenders who used to be Terry and now is Tel. Apparently it is a London thing.

    Latched onto Sid Vicious immediately. His version of “My Way” is a classic.

  3. 10 minutes, but the last 2 of these were devoted entirely to the ABIGAIL/ELAPSE intersection and I’d found everything prior to that very easy.
  4. A very enjoyable 21 minutes, one over target, although I had just three to go after 14. First of them was ABIGAIL, which gave me GRAVEL and finally ELAPSE.
    Thanks to Wurm for a very good puzzle and to Chris for the blog.

    Brian

    Edited at 2019-11-19 07:57 am (UTC)

  5. Seeing the anagrams at 9A and 14A straightaway helped me whizz through this. After mopping up the less than a handful of clues that were left after reading through them once, I stopped the clock in a second best time ever of 3:14. Even so, I’m still more than a minute slower than Verlaine!
  6. Perhaps not Wurm’s hardest puzzle, but tricky in places nevertheless.
    FOI ODE followed quickly by OCEANIA -a good start. Hold-ups WHITEHALL and BICEPS but not for long. LOI was ELAPSE.
    Some smiles along the way and finished in 12:30.
    David
  7. 22 mins.
    Quite tough, especially expanse, natal (dnk), rattler, addressee.
    LOI elapse.
    Had no idea about how onside worked.

    CsOD biceps, abigail, and gravel.

    Edited at 2019-11-19 08:16 am (UTC)

    1. My dear Flash,

      ‘dnk natal’!!

      In ‘Flashman and the Tiger’, our eponymous hero correctly
      predicts that the Zulus will attack Natal. Are you really he?

      Meldrew

  8. Much like Lord Vinyl but got there just short of 9 minutes.

    Paul McL must lead a very sheltered life. It is simply just a London thing, as is this crossword! – Terry Wogan was Irish and was known to himself as ‘Tel Boy’. Terry Aviv is Israeli and suburban Terry Scott was always on the telly.

    FOI 1ac OCEANIA

    LOI 18ac GRAVEL

    COD 6dn ADDRESSEE simples!

    WOD 9ac WENSLEYDALE

    So its curried fish tonight.

  9. Yet another 4K car crash, I’m on a bad run. Got stuck on three clues in the NE: ADDRESSEE (where I was looking for an alphabet trick); ONSIDE (where I misunderstood the function of “to stop” – I thought it indicated an i being inserted into a word meaning vicious); and LOI ELAPSE (parsed it time but just couldn’t see the word!). But a fair puzzle and good fun. COD to GRAVEL (did anyone else see HESTON as a hidden word here and wonder briefly if he could be called a “good composer”?!).

    Thanks Wurm and Chris

    Templar

      1. I used to play cricket for Heston and I’ve eaten in one of Heston B’s restaurants – the former has much happier memories!

        Held up by the 13d/18a crosser. Had GARNET at 18a on the back of Thomas Arne. Took me a while to unRAVEL my mistake.
        5’20”

  11. Took a while to see EXPANSE, which was my LOI. Otherwise no problems. 6:57. Thanks Wurm and Chris.
    1. I got stuck on expanse for a while too- for some reason I ignored the plural form of vessels and kept on trying to shoehorn ‘punt’ in – that will teach me to read the clue properly. Your time is in a realm that I can only dream of, so I suspect your ‘a while’ differs quite a bit from mine! Well done.
  12. 23:15 which is quick for me despite being held up in the NE corner where four tricky ones intersect. Had to biff a few – SID never occurred to me, and continue to not see that a clue is an anagram for too long. Remembered EXE from the other day. Don’t know my rivers.
  13. After 12 months of solving I still consider myself a beginner, normally chipping away at the puzzle over the day – usually completing it but with the time being in hours rather than the minutes often achieved by others. However, today was a nice surprise as I finished it in under half an hour whilst on a very tedious conference call. Maybe a reflection of my recent dalliances with the 15×15? Or maybe I was just on Wurm’s wavelength today? Where I was unsure of the general knowledge references I thought that the wordplay was very generous.

    FOI – 1ac
    LOI – 8ac
    COD – 6dn

  14. A good puzzle with some interesting diversions. I took a break from doing other things and approached this later than usual which may be a good move for me. I was well within 3K which I am comfortable with. LOI was ELAPSE and I liked ABIGAIL, EXPANSE, ADDRESSEE, ONSIDE, and BICEPS. Thanks to WURM and to Chris for his usual, impeccable, tight blog. John M.
  15. 17m today with at least two on GRAVEL as LOI even with all the checkers. Must work on my culture – I have heard of Ravel But couldn’t call him to mind until I saw Gravel. Wikipedia suggests Torvill and Dean are the reason I have any recognition at all.
    Mendesest
  16. All but 5 done in 4 mins. Then a further 11 mins of gaping at the clues with not a scooby.
    All on the right hand side, Abigail, elapse, rattler, addressee and onside. Still didn’t get onside until I came here.
    Nothing difficult in hindsight, just a complete mental block.
  17. A really good puzzle, but I DNF and just couldn’t get 8ac “Onside” and 5dn “Rasta” which was frustrating. I could have carried on and tried later but, from looking at the blog above, I definitely wouldn’t have got 5dn and the Sid Vicious reference (whilst very clever) just passed me by.

    Interestingly, I got 4dn “Acolyte” as it was in the Times2 crossword yesterday (this seems to happen a lot).

    COD was 13dn “Abigail”.

  19. 8ac- being young I had no chance
    18ac- Didn’t know the composer

    Best clue 17ac
    Worst clue- 8ac

  20. Well, that was a little teaser from Wurm. I found myself hopping around from one end of a clue to the other, trying to find something that matched the rest of the cryptic, on more than one occasion. All done and dusted, with parsing (even Sid), in 27 mins, including an alphabet trawl for loi 12ac Elapse. Lots of contenders for CoD, but my vote goes to 6d, Addressee – probably a chestnut, but I still enjoyed it. Invariant

    Edited at 2019-11-19 05:04 pm (UTC)

  21. ….I managed a clean sweep on this ! I was on the train, and decided not to time myself. However, as I completed it between Stockport and Piccadilly with a couple of minutes to spare I must have been within target.

    FOI OCEANIA
    LOI FLEA
    COD ONSIDE

  22. A DNF for me today as the curse of the type returned – AGIGAIL anyone? Other than that frustration a highly entertaining puzzle which I’d have broken 10 minutes on if I hadn’t bothered with my somewhat pointless spellcheck. Lots of contenders for COD but my favourite was LOI WHITEHALL.
    Thanks for the blog
  24. DNF
    Spent a couple of hours trying to get the last 5:
    DESPOT
    EXPANSE
    ONSIDE
    ADDRESSEE
    ELAPSE
    Not very quick for me!
    Nick

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