Times Quick Cryptic 1541 by Hurley

Author   ChrisPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

The long anagram at 1ac didn’t click so the top section took some time at the end. Still finished in 9:38 so at the easier end for me (and the old stagers, I’d imagine). All experiences welcome and, of course, any questions.

ACROSS

1. Shampoo pup — it could become a new animal! (12)

HIPPOPOTAMUS – anagram (could become) of SHAMPOO PUP IT.

8. Little Women’s popular song (4)

WHIT – Women’s (W), popular song (HIT).

9. Coastal feature, unique, captivating husband (7)

SHINGLE – unique (SINGLE) capturing husband (H).

11. Nobleman with award that’s associated with organ? (7)

EARLOBE – nobleman (EARL) with award (OBE).

12. Good compere to write your article? (5)

GHOST – good (G), compère (HOST – on a TV show, say).

14. Perhaps painter from Hobart is talented (6)

ARTIST – from Hon(ART IS T)alented.

15. Something cutting your thistles, having edges, first and foremost?? (6)

SCYTHE – first and foremost letters of (S)omething (C)utting (Y)our (T)histles (H)aving (E)dges. I liked this – a partial or a whole &lit?

18. Kind of wheat container you heard brought in (5)

DURUM – container (DRUM) with a homophone (heard) of you (U) brought inside.

20. Rage about extremely volatile person seeking to retaliate (7)

AVENGER – I got the answer by thinking that it was an anagram of RAGE and (V)olatil(E) but found the ‘n’ during the blog so I now realise it’s rage (ANGER) about (V)olatil(E).

21. Old money at court vanished (7)

EXTINCT – vanished from the face of the Earth. Old (EX), money (TIN), court (CT).

23. Son, daughter, holding article that’s found on beach (4)

SAND – son (S) and daughter (D) holding article (AN).

24. Possible to get over male’s burnout after treatment (12)

SURMOUNTABLE – anagram (after treatment) of MALES BURNOUT.

DOWN

2. Beneficiary’s home — leading character seizing it meeting resistance (9)

INHERITOR – home (IN), leading character (HERO) around it (IT), resistance (R).

3. Holy, penning heartless tale, very sad (7)

PITEOUS – holy (PIOUS) penning (T)al(E).

4. Sign pastries include small currants initially (6)

PISCES – pastries (PIES) including (S)mall and (C)urrents.

5. Henry beset by metallic sound: object (5)

THING – Henry (H) beset by metallic sound (TING).

6. Silly face (3)

MUG – double definition.

7. Group we enter with courage and love (10)

SWEETHEART – group (SET), we (WE) enter into it, then courage (HEART).

10. Large dress must be altered, no matter what (10)

REGARDLESS – anagram (must be altered) of LARGE DRESS.

13. Describing multisided shape in lagoon, act strangely (9)

OCTAGONAL – anagram (strangely) of LAGOON ACT.

16. Church, different, with a London team? (7)

CHELSEA – church (CH), different (ELSE – something different, something else) with a (A).

17. From fish, a stench — move fast! (6)

HASTEN – from fis(H A STEN)ch.

19. Fellow on leave getting fruit (5)

MANGO – fellow (MAN), on top of leave (GO).

22. Sailor cheers run (3)

TAR – cheers (TA), run (R).

48 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 1541 by Hurley”

  1. Mostly straightforward but the long answers at the edges and 2dn and 13dn probably accounted for me only just hitting my target 10 minutes.
  2. I am wondering if you have fully grasped 15 across. It doesn’t quite neatly wrap up to me. Does the world Scythe mean foremost somehow??
    1. I think Chris may be unavailable to answer this morning so I’ll have a go at your query.

      My opinion is the blog is correct that the definition is semi-&lit. In a true &lit the whole clue is the definition but I’d say here that only applies to “Something cutting your thistles, having edges”. “First and foremost” indicates wordplay taking the first letters of the each of the previous words to make SCYTHE.

      Edited at 2020-02-04 08:02 am (UTC)

    2. Isn’t the “and” at the end of the clue double definition indicator?

      Something Cutting Your Thistles Having Edges – first = SCYTHE
      AND
      Foremost (as in foremost part of the clue) = Something Cutting Your Thistles = SCYTHE

      1. No. ‘First and foremost’ is a recognised expression meaning the same as ‘first’.

        On later edit, I didn’t mean to give the impression I was dismissing your analysis out of hand, only that it’s really not as complicated as all that, and one shouldn’t expect it to be, given that this is a Quick Cryptic.

        Edited at 2020-02-04 01:59 pm (UTC)

  3. I found Hurley’s QC rather enjoyable today.

    1ac HIPPOPOTAMUS was FOI, but I then struggled to make anything of the related down clues until later on.

    DNK WHIT as ‘little’ however the wordplay was easy enough. Similarly for 12ac GHOST, I wasn’t familiar with a ‘ghostwriter’ but G+HOST was doable.

    Held up on 24ac SURMOUNTABLE having not realised it was a long anagram, instead tried to work in SPA, an anagram of MALES and then sat wondering what else to do!

    Lastly I was looking for a synonym for a road sign or suchlike for 4dn PISCES. I’m guessing that in crosswordland the signs are most commonly of the zodiac variety. Lesson learnt.

    Can someone enlighten me as to why there are two question marks in 15ac??

    Thanks for the blog Chris.

    Edited at 2020-02-04 08:10 am (UTC)

  4. I found this relatively straightforward, just scraping in under the 10 minute mark. I got to AVENGER in exactly the same way as chris so spent a moment figuring out where the ‘n’ came from. I finished with a tentative WHIT as I don’t think I’ve seen this definition of little before, but the wordplay seemed clear.
    Thanks to chris
  5. Biffed 15ac–never noticed the initials–20ac, and 7d. LOI WHIT, which I can’t see as an adjective. 5:42.
    1. I wondered about that too but concluded that ‘little’ has to be taken as a noun, ignoring its use as an adjective in the surface reading.
      1. I thought of that, too, but couldn’t think of a context where they could be interchanged.
            1. It doesn’t make a little of difference?
              In any case, I think that if one has to fetch this far for a parallel, one shouldn’t be offering this as a QC clue. Mind you, the wordplay was pretty convincing.
  6. 7.31 with a hold up on INHERITOR and WHIT for the last minute or two. Otherwise a nice solve today. I didn’t stop to think too long about 15 across as I guessed SCYTHE from the checkers and having seen the initials, bunged it in and moved on.

    NeilC

  7. 25 mins with at least 10 stuck on surmountable, extinct, whit, and LOI inherited where I was trying to fit star and SA for IT.

    Dnk durum.
    COD scythe because it took the longest for me to parse.

  8. c24 mins and pleased to finish. Didn’t know tin = money, another use only found in crosswordland? Intrigued by the ?? in 15a, and knew WHIT from exposure to Gilbert & Sullivan.
    2. Tin for money must be very archaic now, but was well-known to me through the lyrics of the Camptown Races! (“I come down there with my hat caved in, doo-dah, doo-dah, I go back home with a pocketful of tin, oh doo-dah day!”)
  9. Neither 1ac or 10db clicked till I had a couple of crossers but otherwise my only real hold ups were being totally thrown by the double ?? in 15ac – I was sure that this represented some fiendish new trick – and taking forever to assemble the pieces of EXTINCT. (There seemed to me to be quite a lot of “assemble the pieces” clues, the paradigm being the Uber-Clunk at 2dn – what a ghastly surface.)

    All done and dusted in 1.8K for a Good Day. FOI WHIT, LOI EXTINCT, COD SWEETHEART. Thanks Hurley and Chris.

    Templar

  10. I’m struggling to see 6d as a DD. Not seeing MUG defined as silly, or even as an adjective?
    1. I think it’s “silly” as a noun – “What a silly I feel whenever I see Phil Jordan’s time”, for example. Collins has this as British informal, “a foolish person”, which is a rather good definition of a mug too.
    2. It isn’t an adjective but a noun: if you are a silly, you are a mug
      I’m afraid the fact that neither you nor I are likely to use it that way cuts no ice so long as it is technically possible according to the dictionaries, which it is.

      Edited at 2020-02-04 09:54 am (UTC)

  11. 21 minutes, about the same as yesterday, but a very different puzzle. I really enjoyed every clue yesterday, but today every one was a struggle and I was surprised to finish so quickly, especially with the long anagrams. I can’t see ‘mug’ = ‘silly’ but M_G can’t really be anything else – weak, like many of the answers.

    Brian

    Edited at 2020-02-04 09:33 am (UTC)

    1. I think the best usage is mug punter. A slang description of a silly, or gullible purchaser, or gambler.
      Sal
  12. Hurley wrong-footed me today. I felt buoyed when the long anagrams came to mind very quickly and I went smoothly around the grid at first. However, I slowed fairly dramatically towards the end and finally stumbled into the SCC with INHERITOR, PITEOUS, and LOI SWEETHEART. I wanted 4d to be poster until pies came to mind and PISCES clicked. WHIT had to be, I suppose, but my COD was SCYTHE without a doubt. Thanks to Hurley and Chris. John M.

    Edited at 2020-02-04 09:40 am (UTC)

  13. I seemed to be on Hurley’s wavelength with the long clues on the outsides – three nice anagrams and 7D Sweetheart my COD. With these done the rest of the puzzle was mostly a pleasant jog for a 6.30 finish.

    LOI 2D Inheritor – not the most elegant cover for me, and I only worked out the parsing after getting the answer from checkers. Is there a need for the opposite of COD, perhaps?

    Thank you to Hurley and Chris for the blog.

    Cedric

  14. Enjoyed this one, about middleweight I would think.
    Sign = sign of the zodiac is fairly common. Another one that catches me out regularly is key = esc., del., or enter ..
  16. A slow start,nothing for about a minute; and a slow end taking over a minute to get LOI SWEETHEART. Apart from that very quick,as I was finished in 09:42.
    FOI was CHELSEA.
    A very enjoyable test; hard to pick COD but I’ll give a vote to EXTINCT. David
  17. A fun puzzle to begin the day. I enjoyed 11 across and 4 and 16 down, especially. I agree that there are a few slightly awkward surfaces here (inc 2 and 16 down)but they are outnumbered by the smooth ones e.g my COD, 20 across.I am another person who had never heard of ‘tin’ to mean ‘money’ – but it had to be the answer. Re Cyril’s thoughts on the possible need for an “opposite of COD”, I guess we have MER and GR. I don’t think there were any of those today, though.Thanks so much, Chris, for the blog, and thanks, too, to Hurley, for the puzzle.
  18. 13m so middle of the road for me. Some very easy (SAND, MANGO, EARLOBE) and others harder to see (SURMOUNTABLE, INHERITOR), but all fair enough in the end. Thanks Hurley and Chris.
  19. Maybe I’m in the minority here but I found this quite straightforward. Overall I took about 20 mins, with only 16dn “Chelsea” and 24ac “Surmountable” holding me up.

    I have no idea why I struggled with 16dn as I had all the checkers apart from the last letter. I guess I was looking for something more obscure beginning with “C” and just didn’t see the obvious.

    DNK 8ac “Whit” was a noun for little nor “Tin” was an old expression for money – so something new learned there. As with the blogger I also initially misparsed 20ac “Avenger” and was struggling to find the “n”.

    FOI – 1ac “Hippopotomus”
    LOI – 16dn “Chelsea”
    COD – 3dn “Piteous”

    Thanks as usual.

  20. Plain sailing until I hit the buffers at 2d/8a. Like other, I had STAR in mind for ‘leading character’. It was only when I saw WHIT that my LOI appeared.

    Many thanks to Hurley and Chris.
    6’10”

  21. ….SURMOUNTABLE, and was marginally quicker than yesterday – and, more crucially, error-free.

    FOI HIPPOPOTAMUS
    LOI SCYTHE
    COD GHOST

  22. No major problems with this, but it extended me a whit over my target to 10:39. Nice puzzle though. Thanks Hurley and Chris.
  23. I saw 1ac and 7d quite quickly and that helped with the rest of the grid, but then got held up by Scythe (!) and Regardless, before spending a full 5mins on loi Extinct, to finish just short of the half hour mark. Too many clunky surfaces for this to be enjoyable, but there were some good clues as well. Invariant
  24. A Good Day time-wise but as others have commented, I also found this a mixed bag. – 2d in particular. I had the same issues with Avenger as others too – I never did work out where the spare N came from so thanks to Chris for working that one out!

    Clues I did like include Ghost and Thing – I fell for the misdirection and took a while to work out the definitions.

    Look out for rhino as another term for dosh / bread / dough / moolah / readies / wonga – oh the list is endless!

    FOI Earlobe
    LOI Thing
    COD Hippopotamus, closely followed by Regardless
    Time 8m 15s approx

  25. A write-in for me on account of the following from The Goodies, c. 1975
    Tim Brooke-Taylor: I want to be an Earl and an OBE
    Bill Oddie: That would make you an earlobe.
    Anyone else recall that? Why is that still in my brain 45 years later? Johnny

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