Times Quick Cryptic 1537 by Hurley

Author   william_j_sPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
A middling difficulty excursion that has only a few unusual bits. But they’re mixed in with a very healthy number of simpler ones, and they’re all clued quite transparently. If you asked my five years ago, however, to define 2dn or 7dn, I’d have had not a bean.

There’s a slight military bent to the completed grid, but I can’t see a theme.

Thanks Hurley!

Definitions are underlined as usual.

Across
1 Woman’s greeting abrupt, extremely surly (6)
CURTSY – CURT (abrupt) and outermost letters from (extremely) SurlY.
4 Relative from America in the money? (6)
COUSIN – US (America) in COIN (money).
8 Test trouble (5)
TRIAL – double definition.
9 Packages gripping non-drinker in Waterloo, Stamford Bridge, say? (7)
BATTLES – BALES (packages) containing (gripping) TT (tee-totaller, non-drinker).
10 Beer from Wales (3)
ALE – hidden inside (from) wALEs.
11 Excitedly to race pro associated with group (9)
CORPORATE – anagram of (excitedly) TO RACE PRO.
12 Describing system of measurement, writer with short ruse? (6)
METRIC – ME (writer) and all-but-the-last letter of (short) TRICk (ruse).
13 Ridicule about six as extravagant (6)
LAVISH – LASH (ridicule) containing (about) VI (six).
16 Working group arrive with German note secured (9)
COMMITTEE – COME (arrive) containing (…secured) MIT (‘with’ in German) and TE (note).
18 Mine dump recalled (3)
PIT – reversal of (recalled) TIP (dump).
19 Phoned about family position (7)
RANKING – RANG (phoned) containing (about) KIN (family).
20 Blunder with English? Nonsense (5)
TRIPE – TRIP (blunder) and E (English).
22 Senior common room is most profligate first of all — economise (6)
SCRIMP – SCR (senior common room) and first letters from (first of all) Is Most Profligate. Or just the first letters from the lot!
23 Exchange involving pub worker, no end (6)
BARTER – BARTendER (pub worker) minus (no) ‘end’.

Down
1 About time for puss (3)
CAT – CA (circa, about) and T (time).
2 Intention to participate in regular payment for clothing (7)
RAIMENT – AIM (intention) inside (to participate in) RENT (regular payment).
3 Southern cleric, misfit, altered reflective judgement? (4-9)
SELF-CRITICISM – anagram of (altered) S (southern) with CLERIC and MISFIT.
5 Oil tax — one part adjustable — take it or leave it (8,5)
OPTIONAL EXTRA – anagram of (adjustable) OIL TAX ONE PART.
6 Saucy dance? (5)
SALSA – cryptic definition.
7 Military facility shuts, nine redeployed (6,3)
NISSEN HUT – anagram of (redeployed) SHUTS NINE.
9 Black vessel in stream (4)
BURN – B (black) and URN (vessel).
10 Camp sorry to change military formation (4,5)
ARMY CORPS – anagram of (to change) CAMP SORRY.
14 Popular picture, perhaps, still being sold (2,5)
IN PRINT – IN (popular) and PRINT (picture, perhaps).
15 Singular label for men only (4)
STAG – S (singular) and TAG (label).
17 Less important part of farm in Oregon (5)
MINOR – hidden in (part of) farM IN ORegon.
21 Make mistake — Deirdre oddly ignored (3)
ERR – even letters only from (oddly ignored) dEiRdRe.

33 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 1537 by Hurley”

  1. Good thing I didn’t need to know that SCR was an abbreviation. LOI LAVISH; DNK LASH=ridicule. Are there mandatory extra’s? 6:57.
    1. Bizarrely, yes there are in car purchase – specifying one optional extra can make another extra mandatory. Scratched my head over that configuring a new car some time ago!
    2. Extra’s ? A grocer’s apostrophe from Kevin? Surely not! There must be another explanation.
  2. 9 minutes. Another slightly surprised by LASH = ridicule here. Attacking someone or something verbally can take many forms of which ‘ridicule’ may be one but not the first that would come to my mind. However I see that Collins sanctions it specifically and SOED has ‘satirize’ which amounts to the same thing so I accept it’s perfectly valid, for crossword purposes at least.

    Edited at 2020-01-29 06:38 am (UTC)

  3. 16.41, slightly over target because I ended up writing all the anagrams out.

    Last 2 were battles and nissen hut.

    COD curtsy.

  4. I agree with our blogger; some devious clues mixed in with some healthy QC fare. I was never stuck but had to keep coming back to 1a which turned out to be LOI; so COD to CURTSY. The long anagram at 5d was very good; I needed to write it out with all the checkers. Time:13:51. David
  5. Thanks for the “lash = ridicule” stuff, Jack, I thought that was a bit of a stretch! Had to fight hard against myself not to write NISSAN for the hut and managed to put COOPERATE instead of CORPORATE at first but otherwise a fairly smooth solve. All done in 1.6K for a Good Day.

    FOI COUSIN, LOI OPTIONAL EXTRA, COD BARTER (very neat).

    Thanks Hurley and William.

    Templar

    Edited at 2020-01-29 09:00 am (UTC)

  6. Plenty to get ones teeth into today.

    Got held up on the two long anagrams 3dn/5dn and also struggled in the NW corner, missing 1ac CURTSY, DNK 2dn RAIMENT, and therefore had no checkers for 8ac TRAIL other than T.

    FOI 10ac ALE
    COD 13ac LAVISH

  7. Interrupted so no time but probably half an hour which for me is a middling effort. Struggled with NW corner, LOI the rather biblical RAIMENT.
  8. I enjoyed this overall so thanks setter and blogger. I thought that lash and maybe even trip maybe were a bit of a stretch – I’m not sure either was necessary. My own view is that for a quickie it’s better to stick with reasonably common usages.
  9. Just in my target time of 15m with an interruption (accounted for). Thankfully, I spotted my own mistake before completion – I had originally biffed BARK for 9d instead of BURN, I think seeing stream and a vessel that might ride in it as equivalent. Luckily, something niggled at me and I looked at it again.

    William, you have a typo in your blog at 13a where you have put IV (Roman 4) instead of VI (Roman 6) in your explanation.

  11. I recorded another sub 9 minutes solve so concur the QC was doable. Biffed METRIC. The two long anagrams were semi biffed using the checkers I had in place and a quick glance at the letters available. COMMITTEE also went in without parsing just because it contained the German MIT. Fortunately I did think about the parsing of BARTER. My first thought was banter. My LOI after RAIMENT was 1a CURTSY. I know how to do a curtsy but think it archaic and had a MER moment. Thanks William and Hurley.
  12. ….was something like the old Roman phalanx, whereas an ARMY CORPS is more a military unit. I’ve habitually inserted an E before the Y of CURTSY, but both spellings are apparently acceptable.

    MER at “lash = ridicule”. A tongue-lashing was where I was looking, and that’s more anger than ridicule.

    Comfortably within target.

    FOI TRIAL
    LOI IN PRINT
    COD COMMITTEE

  13. An odd mix of incredibly easy clues and some head scratchers which resulted in an above average completion time.

    I got held up by the NW corner with 1ac “Curtsy” and 2dn “Raiment”. DNK 7dn so took a punt with “Nissenhut” (rather than Nussenhit). I also wondered about Lash = Ridicule, but couldn’t see what else it could be.

    FOI – 1dn “Cat”
    LOI – 2dn “Raiment”
    COD – 23ac “Barter” (nice surface)

    Thanks as usual.

  14. I lost time trying to think of a woman’s name for 1ac, before a more careful read of the clue prompted Curtsy. After that it was fairly straightforward, with both long anagrams, for once, going in without too much difficulty. My loi was 4ac, Cousin, which I should have seen much earlier. At 18mins, this was a very welcome, and increasingly rare, sub 20 finish. The (detailed) Wiki article on Nissen Huts is worth a read… accounts of life in the huts are apparently ‘not positive’. CoD to the slightly clunky 23ac Barter. My thanks to Hurley and William. Invariant
    1. I went down the “extremely surly” definition route thinking the last letter was “h” (an abrupt greeting of “hi”).

      As a result, I also wasted time on a 5 letter woman’s name beginning with “C”. I came to the conclusion there aren’t many…

      1. Knowing a Celia, a Clare and a Chloe – not to mention several signing themselves Chris – I am not sure I’d agree they are rare. But definitely none of them fit the clue …
        1. What I should have said was a woman’s name beginning with “C” and ending in “s” (as I had 3dn as a checker). Did think of Chris, but thought that would be slightly ambiguous and obviously the resulting word made no sense whatsoever!
  15. Another who initially thought BARK for 9D. Held up only by mis-spelling 7D as NISSAN HUT… corrected by 11A. Not to be confused with a car showroom. LASH = ridicule caused no eyebrow twitching for me. Finished well under target about 30s behind Phil.
  16. A bit like yesterday, only really held up by slow fingers. 5:13. OPTIONAL EXTRA was the last one that I unravelled.
    Thanks to “Liz” and William.
  17. CAT and CURTSY were my first 2 in. Then a steady solve finishing with OPTIONAL EXTRA. 9:15. Thanks Hurley and William.
  18. As a rare finisher this one hit the spot, especially as at first look I didn’t have much of a scooby do but perseverance pays off and once the anagrams revealed themselves I rattled through the rest. A good level of difficulty for me. Well done setter.
    Graham
  19. Nice steady solve with little hold ups. Anagrams fell into place comfortably with the cross checkers. Managed to put “tip” for 18a, which slowed us down. Thanks to Hurley and blog.
  20. Lots to like here. A nice mix of clues with some very easy – I’m thinking of the 3-letter answers of “cat”, “ale” and “pit” – and altogether trickier (to my mind ) answers such as “curtsy” – which I would have spelt with an “e” – and “raiment”. I liked the long anagrams which I got relatively quickly, mainly because of the unusual letters in them (like f and x). Like some others, I, too, wonder about “lash” as a definition for “ridicule “, and “blunder” for “trip” but hey-ho… My COD is probably 12 across but I very much liked 2 down as well. Thanks so much, William, for the blog, and thanks, too, to Hurley for a pleasant challenge.
  21. … for a change, and a very pleasant 6 1/2 minute solve. Sometimes it goes that way and one takes it when it does – especially as I think it is my first sub-1K ever.

    No doubt tomorrow’s will revert to form and wipe the smile off my face! Thanks to Hurley though for a happy day today.

    Edited at 2020-01-29 04:36 pm (UTC)

  22. Enjoyed this over about 25 mins whilst also watching tennis. Didnt work out 1A for a while and the NW corner was a bit slow, but all fell into place gradually. Enjoyed the long anagrams.
    Plymouthian
  23. I found this relatively straightforward with but needed all the checkers to feel confident with LAVISH and I had a brief pause whilst working out the parsing of LOI RAIMENT. I also very carefully checked the anagram fodder for the hut at 7d. Finished in 9.58.
    Thanks to william
  24. Great start with the easy Cat and followed quickly with Curtsy and Trial. Many clues consolidated what I have learnt to date and did go In quickly.
    But it took me a bit of time on both long anagrams down – particularly Optional Extra. Last ones in Barter and Raiment – I didn’t fully parse either but knew that they were correct. So thanks for the blog.
    I did think about bartender and didn’t get the end missing – which was a shame as I like that one!
    15 minutes.
    Thanks all
    John George
  25. A fair QC with some short write-ins and some head scratchers. I started late and was interrupted but certainly over 3K for me. I had BANTER as an ‘exchange’ instead of BARTER until I realised I could not shoe-horn Bar and Ant into a sensible parse. Thanks, both. John M.

    Edited at 2020-01-29 09:45 pm (UTC)

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