Times Quick Cryptic 1601 by Des

Author   ChrisPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
I found this quite a tricky offering from Des. However, it was fair and I completed in 12 minutes, the final minute spent struggling to see how 7dn worked.
Here are my workings, any questions please ask.

ACROSS

1. Female article carried by aeroplane (5)
JANET – article (AN) carried by aeroplane (JET).

8. Outlaw a lad disturbed in a country road (4-1-4)
ALAN-A-DALE – I didn’t remember the minstrel from Robin Hood but it was reasonably easy to fill in the blanks between all the As. Anagram (disturbed) of A LAD inside a country road (A LANE).
9. At no time near, coming round the night before (5)
NEVER – near (NR) coming round the night before (EVE).
10. Time out from college to go into space? (3,4)
GAP YEAR – partial &lit. Space = gap so time (say a year) spent in space/gap.
11. Inconsiderate thing for Billingsgate trader to do, it’s said (7)
SELFISH – homophone (it’s said). The thing for a Billingsgate trader to do is to sell fish – haha.
12. Not allowed, that is, to hug large, large lass! (7)
ILLEGAL – that is (IE) to hug large (L), large (L) lass (GAL).
16. Shouts ungraciously, partially defeated in choir competition? (7)
OUTSUNG – some of sh(OUTS UNG).
17. One’s crossing the street after unhappy, cruel people (7)
SADISTS – one’s (IS) crossing street (ST) after unhappy (SAD).
20. Supporter of Nicholas and co in dire straits (7)
TSARIST –  anagram (dire) of STRAITS. Cue some heavenly guitar riffs.
22. Island‘s goat given no corn (5)
CAPRI – the goat here is astrological one (CAPRI)corn – no corn.
23. Fabulous craic, gran in Ferrari, say! (6,3)
RACING CAR – anagram (fabulous) of CRAIC GRAN. I bet she had Dire Straits on loud as she raced along.
24. My wife, a lady never oddly to give in (5)
YIELD – never oddly (so the even letters) from m(Y) w(I)f(E) a (L)a(D)y.
DOWN
1. Scraps Chinese vessels (5)
JUNKS – double definition.
2. Author‘s new “first” (8)
NOVELIST – new (NOVEL), first (1st – IST).
3. Is rodent turning up bones? (5)
TARSI – football fans are familiar with the dreaded metatarsus – which is connected to the tarsus which is… Is (IS) and rodent (RAT) all turning upwards.
4. Figure of fun, slacking, ought to be corrected (8,5)
LAUGHING STOCK – anagram (to be corrected) of SLACKING OUGHT.
5. One danced around hawthorn tree with E European (7)
MAYPOLE – in my last blog – a week ago – this was clued as ‘Might European dance around it?’ I commented then that this was a couple of weeks early but a nice reminder of spring in the pleasant weather. Now it’s just one week early – but I’m looking forward to being able to say next week that’s it’s bang on time!  No surprise that this answer fairly fell into place. Hawthorn tree (MAY), E European (POLE).
6. Mother concerned with horse (4)
MARE – mother (MA), concerned with (RE).
7. Agitated, having erroneous belief about king (7)
FEBRILE – anagram (erroneous) of BELIEF about king (R). Took a long time for me to see that this was an anagram.
13. US soldier to employ very quiet English or Italian? (8)
GIUSEPPE – US soldier (GI), employ (USE), very quiet (PP), English (E). I doubt I’d have been able to spell it but the wordplay laid it out very clearly.
14. CT brought in entrances medics (7)
DOCTORS – CT inside entrances (DOORS).
15. Jail Una, unruly girl (7)
JULIANA – anagram (unruly) of JAIL UNA.
18. Disparage some crude cryptic (5)
DECRY – some of cr(DE CRY)ptic.
19. Sent up, went downhill fast? (5)
SKIED – double definition – the past tense and past participle of sky and ski. The first is from cricket – he skied the ball and was caught.
21. Vault seen in centre of Bavarian church (4)
ARCH – in centre of bav(AR)ian and church (CH).

35 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 1601 by Des”

  1. I biffed ALAN-A-DALE mainly from the hyphens, ILLEGAL, & LAUGHING STOCK. Like Chris, I had trouble seeing the anagram in 7d, and it was my LOI. 5:39.
  2. A whole five minutes quicker than yesterday but that still made it almost 25 minutes to rank last of the all green on the early leaderboard. Only five on the first pass of the acrosses but then lots and lots of downs, so thought I was in good shape. But ALAN A DALE held me up for an age. Completely failed to register “country road” referred to just one four letter thing and so spent minutes and minutes thinking that the whole lost must end RD with the anagram a country and the letter A in the mix – which meant it had to be a two letter country – UK, US or something. Lack of even middling culture lets me down yet again as I’d never heard of Alan so biffing possibility removed even when I had his first name, a hard slog through the clue. FEBRILE last in, hats off to Des, completely misdirected spent all the time trying to find a work meaning ‘erroneous belief’ to stick an R in. After the previous struggle with Alan I was very open to the possibility that it was just a word I just didn’t know. Finally the penny dropped. Hoping to be able to report a simpler struggle tomorrow.
  3. A nice puzzle from Des, a rare visitor who has set mostly 3 puzzles per year over the 6 years since the QC began.

    In fact he set the very first QC #1 back in 2014 which I had the privilege of blogging, so producing QC #1601 for us today has some significance as a milestone of sorts. It is also Des’s 20th puzzle.

    Generally I’ve found his contributions slightly trickier than the average level but this one delayed me only 9 minutes.

    Edited at 2020-04-28 06:17 am (UTC)

  4. JANET popped up far more quickly than JULIANA. I biffed GIUSEPPE from GI and PP. ALAN-A-DALE went in from crossers and was then parsed. My LOI was also FEBRILE, once I spotted it was an anagram. Nice puzzle. 9:08. Thanks Des and Chris.
  5. I hadn’t heard from the B/W Minstrel for many a long time. He was introduced to me years ago along with Errol Flynn and Triar what’sisname, the one with the bald pate – a mate of Spooner.

    Our founder Des (more Jack GK) kept me at it for all of 12 mins.

    FOI 1dn JUNKS

    LOI 19dn SKIED

    COD 7dn FEBRILE

    WOD 8ac ALAN A. DARE – middle name Alexander

    Are Percy and 18dn related?

    Edited at 2020-04-28 07:46 am (UTC)

  6. I would like to see Des appear more often based on the quality of this puzzle. A relatively swift solve but slowed down at the end by the long forgotten ALAN-A-DALE and the well disguised FEBRILE. It also had a rare occurrence for me with my COD going to a homophone for SELFISH.
    Finished in 11.25, with CAPRI going in unparsed due to my lack of celestial knowledge.
    Thanks to Chris and Des
  7. 14:55 minutes ! My first time below 20 minutes, therefore must be an easy one. And there were lots of people’s names ,which I don’t like normally. Now I’m bored for the rest of the day.
    Thank Des, you’ve made my day.
    1. Congratulations and welcome to the sunlit uplands of the sub 15 minute solve! If you register, for free, on LiveJournal you’ll get an email prompt should someone reply to you.
    2. But who are you!? It doesn’t count as a WR if we don’t have a name.
      Eponymous
  8. I’d’ve had a personal best if it hadn’t been for febrile which eventually defeated me.
    It would be good to see more of Des, I always enjoy his puzzles.
    Thanks to Chris, too.
    Diana
  9. Under 10 minutes but my poor typing skills had MATPOLE when I had intended Maypole. Would not have happened on paper.
    Anyway, a nice puzzle and I thought I was on for a PB before delays with FEBRILE and having to write out the letters for Juliana.
    JUNKS FOI and CAPRI unparsed.
    David
  10. A brilliant puzzle with a few testing clues for me. LOI FEBRILE. I biffed DOCTORS and only parsed it (and saw the double meaning) later. Back to normal at 3 mins over target (ca. 3K again….) but technically, a dnf because I mis-spelt GIUSEPPE. I will now revisit Chris’s blog to enjoy the clues I failed to savour in my rush to finish. Thanks to Chris and Des (I nearly wrote Chas and Dave 🙄). John M.
  11. Looking again there is something going on here. Maybe to do with the months of the year?
      2. Very well spotted, David! And only a few puzzles after Juno gave us the days of the week in QC#1590.
  12. This went fairly smoothly until I hit my LOI, 7 down, FÉBRILE, which I only got when I did an alphabet trawl to fill in the gaps contained in ” *E*R*L* “. Luckily, B arrived early in my search! Without the time spent on that, my time would have been 5 minutes over my target of a quarter of an hour. Very much liked 11 across and also thought that 20 across was rather good because of the excellent surface. Ditto, 22 across. Much less keen on the clueing of 10 across which is rather flat, I think. All in all, though, this made a pleasant start to a rainy Tuesday morning. Thanks, Chris, for the blog, and thanks, too, to Des.
  13. What is going on with all the names? I’m not complaining too much as 1a went straight in! I biffed quite a few entries including MAYPOLE (I was trying to parse it incorporating the E designating east), SKIED from downhill definition and OUTSUNG where I didn’t spot the hidden. I didn’t have a problem with FEBRILE, picking up on the anagram straight away, but my LOI caused me some delay as I had NHO ALAN-A-DALE. 10:48

    Janet

  14. 13 minutes, with FEBRILE LOI. Last time I remember so many proper names in a grid (I was blogging, but can’t remember the name of the setter), I discovered a link between the names and Coleraine Football Club, but I detect no connection here between Alan, Giuseppe, Juliana and Janet. Thanks Des for a nice puzzle, and Chris for the blog.
  16. ….but I found this a poor puzzle. Whilst Des has undoubtedly been very clever to produce his calendar, I feel that the clue quality suffered as a result, to the point where I simply can’t offer a COD nomination.

    I thought ALAN-A-DALE was a little obscure for a QC.

    FOI JANET
    LOI RACING CAR
    TIME 0.74K

    1. Obscure? Friar Tuck, Maid Marian, Little John, and Alan-a-Dale; I mean, Robin Hood, for heaven’s sake!
      1. Obtuse Kev? Alan-a-Dale is by far most obscure of of Robin Hood’s Merry ‘Men’ that you have listed. Just for heaven’s sake how did you miss Will Scarlet?

        You also missed some equally obscure folk – Much the Miller’s Son, Arthur a Bland, David of Doncaster, Will Stutely and Gilbert Whitehand.

        Victor of Meldrewshire

  17. Not sure if there is one, but there should be a word to describe rattling through a crossword only to get hung up on one clue. In my case, it was 8ac “Alan-a-Dale”, which annoyingly extended a near 15 min solve to 25 mins, and then only because I couldn’t see what else it could be.

    I’ll be honest in that I’ve never heard of Alan-a-Dale. Probably my own ignorance, but if you asked a random member of the public to rattle off some of Robin Hood’s Merry Men I doubt it would be the first one to slip off the tongue.

    Anyway, other than that I enjoyed the rest of this.

    FOI – 1ac “Janet”
    LOI – 7ac “Febrile”
    COD – 22ac “Capri”

    Thanks as usual.

  18. Aargh! Raced through this one – could this be our fastest ever finish? No, because we DNF – didn’t see the anagram in 7D and couldn’t think of a solution 😔. So really appreciated your blog Chris.

    FOI: Janet
    LOI: febrile
    COD: selfish

    Thanks Des.

  19. …to the NINA spotters.

    Quickish for me at 5:56, and like others, FEBRILE was my last, after a good solid biff of ALAN-A-DALE from all the A’s and “outlaw”.

  20. 26mins of pleasure from 1ac Janet to the initially baffling 7d Febrile. A slight detour, courtesy of a miss-remembered Alan-a-Dell, but the horse prompted a more careful examination of the anagrist. I was also held up by the well hidden Outsung at 16ac. CoD to 11ac Selfish, which brought a smile. More from Des please. Invariant
  21. Chris, just to be pedantic I think there is an error in your 24 across, it is the even letters (never oddly). I only spotted it because I made the same mistake and then spent ages wondering what the “never” was doing there.
    Personally thought 14d was a bit feeble, simply supplying two letters to insert in a word for entrances, giving a surface which barely makes sense.
    1. I suppose I used oddly to be mean every other so I take your point – blog changed. Thanks.
  22. … with most of the clues going in pretty fast (including 7D Febrile, which seems fairly clued to me), and then a really slow finish, with 3D Tarsi the only possible answer but not a word I knew, and then LOI 8A Alan-a-Dale a complete guess. Not a name I recall from the tales at all! And the checkers going A-A-A-A-E weren’t the greatest help either …

    Thanks Chris for the blog, and others for the comments. Always worth reading and the month NINA was a most impressive spot.

    Cedric

  23. I wasn’t a massive fan of this either – two random Christian names (pet hate), DOCTORS was barely cryptic as paanliv says, we had both MAYPOLE and MARE within the last week, and overall as Phil has observed it felt like a puzzle where the quality of the clues had come second to the Nina (which of course I missed, great spot David). It wasn’t hard (1.6K) but I didn’t enjoy it all that much.

    FOI JANET, LOI RACING CAR, COD CAPRI (very neat).

    Thanks Des and Chris (and David!).

    Templar

    PS I did wonder whether the SHAKY in the bottom line was an apology from Des!

    Edited at 2020-04-28 05:36 pm (UTC)

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