Times Quick Cryptic 1496 by Mara

Author   ChrisPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
This was all going well and would have finished inside 10 minutes had it not been for 8dn. I took an extra minute or so to realise what was happening and then, as ever, it all seemed so simple. COD to 22ac for affording a gentle stroll along an avenue of etymology.

ACROSS
1. Green, not unusual (6)
COMMON – double definition.
4. Patriotic tune the man composed (6)
ANTHEM – anagram (composed) of THE MAN.
9. Covered entrance I start to construct in Iberian city (7)
PORTICO – I (I) and (C)onstruct inside Iberian city (PORTO).
10. European city, wind consuming one (5)
TURIN – wind (TURN) consuming one (I).
11. Plant in rather isolated situation, initially (4)
IRIS – (I)n (R)ather (I)solated (S)ituation.
12. Fashionable attitude, for example (8)
INSTANCE – fashionable (IN), attitude (STANCE).
14. Funny bone providing gentle stimulation (3-8)
RIB-TICKLING – bone (RIB), providing gentle stimulation (TICKLING).
18. Reference a couple of pages, then conclude with nine (8)
APPENDIX – a (A), couple of pages (PP), conclude (END), nine (IX).
20. Feeling of irritation in suit, chafing (4)
ITCH – in su(IT CH)afing.
22. Animal taking a promenade back (5)
LLAMA – well, it had to be llama – and it was! A (A), promenade (MALL) backwards. On looking up I realise I’d never known this meaning of mall and thus not realised the origins of the American shopping mall. Mall – a shaded avenue especially one open to the public. Hence ‘The Mall’ in London but not Pall Mall which was named after a ball game played there during the 17th century presumably with mall-ets – mall in US being another word for mallet.
23. Strangely, nude art not valued (7)
UNRATED – anagram (strangely) of NUDE ART.
24. In net, dry rocks (6)
TRENDY – anagram (rocks) of NET DRY.
25. Diggers loading ship with stuff heading for Estonia (6)
SPADES – inside (loading) ship (SS) is stuff (PAD) and (E)stonia.

DOWN
1. Originally charging ahead, draw game (3,3)
CUP TIE – (C)harging, ahead (UP), draw (TIE).
2. Drink in vermouth sheepish male served up (7)
MARTINI – in (IN), vermouth (IT – a common crossword term – think gin and it where ‘it’ stands for ITalian vermouth), sheepish male (RAM) all served upwards.
3. God having some good intentions (4)
ODIN – some go(OD IN)tentions. Odin is associated with, well, pretty much everything – wisdom, healing, death, royalty, the gallows, knowledge, war, battle, victory, sorcery, poetry, frenzy, and the runic alphabet, and is the husband of the goddess Frigg.
5. You’re welcome, never! (3,2,3)
NOT AT ALL – double definition.
6. Ben riding chariot over great lake (5)
HURON – Ben-(HUR) the 1959 film, over (ON).
7. Day important for primate (6)
MONKEY – day (MONday), important (KEY).
8. Couple I snubbed, one of fifty in the US (11)
CONNECTICUT – couple (connect), I (I), snubbed (CUT). I think my problems came from not believing that ‘one of 50’ in the US would be a particular state – well, not for a long time.
13. Normal position on a road (8)
STANDARD – position (STAND) a (A), road (RD).
15. Introducing gallery, sign marked (7)
NOTATED – inserting (introducing) gallery (TATE) into sign (NOD).
16. Speculation about everyone dancing (6)
BALLET – speculation (BET) about everyone (ALL).
17. Island ways verbalised (6)
RHODES – homophone (verbalised) of roads.
19. Reportedly unattractive flier (5)
PLANE – homophone of plain.
21. Catch constituent up (4)
TRAP – constituent (PART) upwards.

32 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 1496 by Mara”

  1. Not slow overall, but a couple of clues were very slow in coming: CUP TIE, where for some reason I stuck with CA (originally charging ahead), and especially 16d and 24ac. Same problem as Chris with CONNECTICUT. Ben Hur is an 1880 novel. 8:53.
  2. The MARTINI clue seemed a bit odd, since Martini is vermouth. Gin and It is gin and Martini (typically) as opposed to Gin and French with Noilly Prat.

    But no problems for me. By the time I got to 8d I had most of the checkers so CONNECTICUT went straight in without bothering to parse it.

    1. In the US a martini is gin and vermouth. (Or–vodka martini–vodka and vermouth.) Still a bit odd, given that this is a British puzzle.
  3. 9 minutes with 8dn as my LOI only realised eventually from checkers. Knowledge of the Great Lakes is required in both puzzles today, and I wondered if in 6dn ‘great lake’ should have been capitalised according to cryptic crossword rules?

    Edited at 2019-12-03 05:34 am (UTC)

  4. 9.02 and a nice middle of the road puzzle. CONNECTICUT came easily but I’d never realised it was spelt like that until the cryptic made me believe it was. LOI TRENDY once I’d sorted out StANDARD. Thanks for blog as ever.

    NeilC

  5. Dashed onto a late running train without getting a paper. So solved on screen which is bad enough but also without glasses which I’d left in my bag in the overhead storage. Who knows how fast I might have been but with thoae handicaps it took over 20m with the top going in faster than the bottom. LOIs PLANE / RHODES / PART. Not sure why a blurry grid meant would mean I could ‘t crack homophones. Late running train now later still so gald I wasn’t faster.
  6. Like Kevin, I tried for some time to get 1D to start with CAP. I wisely left 8D till I had most of the setters and only remembered the C in the middle of CONNECTICUT when I tried writing it in without it. A neat puzzle with plenty of concise clues. COD to SPADES. 4:42.
  7. After a sub 2K on Big Puzzle yesterday, back to earth with a bump today for a DNF. All done in 9 mins except for 8dn, which alas I could not crack, not least because it turns out that my impression that the US has 52 states turns out to be without strong factual foundations (ahem). Oh well.

    Thanks Mara and Chris

    Templar

  8. A nice smooth solve for me for a change. Yes, 8d was my LOI too and took some deciphering. I was pleased to finish in 1.2K which is my best K-related score ever. A nice puzzle from Mara and a crisp blog from Chris. Thanks to both. John M.

    Edited at 2019-12-03 09:22 am (UTC)

  9. No problems today other than mistyping 1a with an initial M.This meant a longish delay solving LOI 1d but CUP TIE was obvious after I corrected the typing. Time was 14:09.
    FOI was COMMON (with the typing error).Another vote for SPADES as COD.Thought BALLET very good as well.
    David

  10. I enjoyed this overall. I couldn’t get Connecticut but it was a fair cop. I did get Martini because it had to be but the clue is unreasonable in my view.
  11. FOI 1ac COMMON

    LOI 17dn RHODES

    COD 8dn CONNECTICUT

    Pub Quiz:
    WOD 4ac ANTHEM – which National Anthem has no words?

    8 minutes

    Edited at 2019-12-03 09:53 am (UTC)

    1. Well, I didn’t know the answer was España until I just looked it up. Useful quiz fodder – thanks.
  12. A fairly gentle work out today and I had the bonus of learning that the US state had two Cs in it. My only minor hold ups were the homophones at 17 and 19d. Finished in 9.48 with my favourite being TRENDY, for the brevity of the definition.
    Thanks for the blog
  13. I thought I was going to solve this QC well within my 10 minutes target but at the 7 minutes mark I still had two to go, 8d and 17d. CONNECTICUT was first to yield and then RHODES. I eventually completed in just under 13 minutes. HURON was a guess and I didn’t understand the IT in MARTINI so thank you Chris for the explanation. Vermouth originated in Italy and is a fortified wine named after a German word for wormwood. There is also a French vermouth so I think IT = vermouth is quite obscure.
    1. Gin and It as a description of a Martini Cocktail is common in crosswordland and, I thought, common knowledge. But maybe I’m a bit of a dipsomaniac.
  14. 11 minutes and a handful of change for a good result for me. LOI was 8d, and I thought MARTINI was perfectly fair. Thanks Mara and Chris.
  15. A one hour finish for me today, but a finish nonetheless.

    Everything from Mara seemed fair and some nice wordplay seen in 18ac APPENDIX, 25ac SPADES and 8dn CONNECTICUT which incidentally went in straightaway – I was just racking my mind for a ‘long’ US state and parsed the clue afterwards.

    A couple of hold ups, however; NHO ‘rocks’ as an anagrind in 24ac TRENDY, and although I knew of 6dn HURON as a great lake, I DNK ‘Ben Hur’ which provided a few minutes of head scratching!

    WOD 9ac PORTICO – this took me back to my school days as The Portico Steps was where our photos would be taken – I never even realised it meant ‘covered entrance’…

  16. I wasn’t able to race through this puzzle, but nothing held me up for too long, apart from my LOI, CONNECTICUT, for which I needed all the crossers. A particular association that came to mind, apart from the fact that our esteemed blogger Vinyl1 resides there, was Mark Twain’s book, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, which was made into a film starring Bing Crosby, from which came the song, I’m Busy Doing Nothing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Cc62oBsUeE 8:08. Thanks Mara and Chris.

    Edited at 2019-12-03 11:04 am (UTC)

  17. ….is definitely not the same as Martini, so I was neither shaken nor stirred by the clue. Routine solve.

    FOI COMMON
    LOI/COD CONNECTICUT

    1. Oh. Really? In what way is it different? It may be a sweet martini cocktail (i.e with red vermouth rather than white) rather than dry, from what I’ve read (and, on edit, as Pebee says below). That’s still a martini cocktail, I think. But I may be wrong.

      Edited at 2019-12-03 08:51 pm (UTC)

  18. An enjoyable puzzle today, taking about an hour in total.

    FOI was 3dn “Odin”, LOI was 1ac “Common”.

    I also struggled with 2dn “Martini” (thinking the clueing was a bit odd) and for a while thought Ben-Hur was called Ben-Her (no idea why I thought it was Lake Heron).

    Without any other letters I nearly biffed Mississippi for 8dn until I realised it didn’t make sense.

    COD = 19ac “Appendix”

    Thanks to the setter and blog.

  19. About 25 mins, held up by having plain in 19d. Once that was fixed, ballet, trendy and LOI connecticut went in. The state taking the most time, like templar I wasn’t totally sure there were 50 states.

    Cod ballet.

  20. If I had trusted my instinct a bit more, this might have been a sub twenty minute solve. As it was, I waited for extra crossers before entering Rib Tickling, Connecticut and Standard, and also lost time (not) parsing 15d (thanks, Chris). Overall, I thought it was a slightly easier QC than normal from Mara, despite taking nearly 25mins. Invariant
  21. Just over 13 minutes today, which is about par for the course. Nothing too untoward, although like most others, I was slowed down by Connecticut.

    2d didn’t bother me – Martini vermouth is one thing, a Martini cocktail is another, although I suppose you’d be a bit peeved if you ordered one and got the other! I think Gin and It is made with a sweet Italian vermouth – no particular brand is specified.

    FOI Anthem
    LOI Connecticut
    COD Trendy

    Thanks Mara and Chris

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