Times Quick Cryptic 1656 by Izetti

Author   ChrisPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

At 8:04 this solve was 1 second faster than yesterday’s which was generally considered to be an easy start to the week.

Lots to enjoy. With a fair smattering of question marks, I’ve been trying to sort out definitions by example – DBE. These are where the definition is not a synonym of the answer and may be an example or sub-type of the answer. I’m sure our regular posters will sort me out and I look forward to all comments.

ACROSS

1. Medical practitioner dwelling by old track (9)
HOMEOPATH – dwelling as a noun (HOME), old (O), track (PATH).
6. Energy of half a dozen maidens (3)
VIM – half a dozen in Roman numerals (VI), maidens (M). Although it’s just one M, the surface needed the plural.
8. Peculiar stone associated with mountains (7)
STRANGE – stone (ST), mountains (RANGE).
9. Rope, see, that is tied around donkey (5)
LASSO – see (LO) around donkey (ASS).
10. Dilapidated postwar sheds: they’re there to help workers (4,8)
SHOP STEWARDS – anagram (dilapidated) of POSTWAR SHEDS.
12. Drink noisily, not quietly? That brings disparaging comment (4)
SLUR – drink noisily (SLUR)p – not quietly (no P).
13. Old animal set about Mexican food (4)
TACO – old (O) and animal (CAT) set about – backwards. Not too many four lettered Mexican foods? Go on – tell me if there are.
17. Confused daughter is taken to gig by boy (12)
DISCONCERTED – daughter (D), is (IS), gig (CONCERT), boy (ED). ‘Taken to’ and ‘by’ are positional instructions.
20. Religion for Marx shows nothing holy? Let me think now! (5)
OPIUM – nothing (O), holy (PI – pious), let me think now (UM). The ever changing kaleidoscope of language has turned so that younger generations use ‘like’ as their filler word rather than ‘um’. Unless it’s moved on again and I’ve missed it. I do think it must be exhausting to be young these days as everyone seems to be excited or super-excited to do reasonably normal things. Oh yes, forgot to mention – Marx’s quote ‘Religion is the opiate of the people’ is, apparently paraphrased and misinterpreted. Here’s the real truth from Wikipedia (so it must be right): The full quote from Karl Marx translates as: “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people”. Often quoted only in part, the interpretation of the metaphor in its context has received much less attention. So, now we know.
21. Schemer heading off with yen for risky operation (7)
LOTTERY – schemer with its heading letter missing p(LOTTER), yen (Y).
23. Youngster‘s little drink (3)
TOT – double definition.
24. Soldiers getting dealt with for having withdrawn from battle? (9)
RETREATED – soldiers (RE), dealt with (TREATED). I think this is a DBE and that question mark shows that withdrawal from battle is one example of retreating – the tide can also retreat.

DOWN

1. Army entertainer (4)
HOST – double definition – although if an army entertainer can also be described as a host then this would also be a cryptic definition.
2. Officer in boggy land by a lake (7)
MARSHAL – boggy land (MARSH – I tried for ‘fen’ for a while), a (A), lake (L).
3. Individual to confess (3)
OWN – double definition.
4. Warnings from realist sadly I ignored (6)
ALERTS – anagram (sadly) of REALiST – without the ‘I’.
5. Stand up, getting dreadful row halted (4,5)
HOLD WATER – as in an argument/solution – anagram (dreadful) of ROW HALTED.
6. Victor is leading soldiers – his face showing through this? (5)
VISOR – victor (V), is (IS), soldiers (OR – ordinary ranks). Another DBE?
7. Tom is a violent Communist (6)
MAOIST – anagram (violent) of TOM IS A. Not much else to be done with all those vowels.
11. Queen entertained by quiet old actor? (9)
PERFORMER – Queen (ER) inside quiet (P) and old (FORMER). The third DBE?
14. The French fellows in court showing mercy (7)
CLEMENT – the in French (LE) and fellows (MEN) inside court (CT).
15. A doctor with occupational therapy, one bound to be skilful (6)
ADROIT – a (A), doctor (DR), occupational therapy (OT) with one (I) bound inside. OT is a new acronym abbreviation to me.
16. Old bed accommodating the Spanish cat (6)
OCELOT – old (O) and bed (COT) accommodation ‘the’ in Spanish (EL). I’ve seen ocelot many a time in crosswordland but have never before looked it up – one benefit of blogging. It’s a feline mammal inhabiting the forests of Central and Sout America having dark-spotted buff-brown coat.
18. Relations in street unable to spend any money?
SKINT – relations (KIN) inside street (ST). So here we have another question mark but I don’t think it’s a DBE and I’m not sure what it’s doing there – except to confuse me – which is Izetti’s prerogative!
19. Last bit of puzzle you had looked at (4)
EYED – puzzl(E), you had (YE’D).
22. Letter said to offer little support (3)
TEE – homophone of the letter T. Tee also appears in column 8.

49 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 1656 by Izetti”

  1. Pretty straightforward, with 24ac my POI and 11d LOI. I biffed ADROIT, OT being new to me, too (it’s not an acronym, unless it’s pronounced ‘ott’, which I doubt). MAOIST is an anagram of TAOISM, so you can at least do that with the vowels. 6:35.
  3. No typos today, all green in 15. First read through left me stumped in a few places so ended up with five acrosses entered – also has NIP in for TOT which I knew was wrong but since I couldn’t summon TOT I left in place which slowed down SKINT and ADROIT. LOI was OWN, I just couldn’t quite persuade myself it fitted both definitions even when just left with O_N. Nothing yielded too quickly but no major hold ups, another great Izetti puzzle. Picking up on Vinyl’s hint I shall now try to solve the 15×15 for in successive days for the first time.
  4. 6.14, not sure I could get much quicker, my touch typing is already pretty good.

    COD vim.
    LOI retreated

    Thanks.

  5. 10 minutes. Many DBE’s are cut-and-dried but there are often differences of opinion expressed here over particular examples so generally now I try to avoid discussions on the subject. The most liberal view is that they don’t matter anyway (or not much) even when unsignalled.
  6. Started this on my phone at breakfast and finished it off on my laptop, so I had to calculate the result – I make it 15:12, which is ok. Think I was slowed down slightly by using a phone for the beginning, but realistically most of the time is spent thinking, so little wasted there.
  7. Got off to a slow start in the NW so left it for later and then proceeded round the grid clockwise from the NE With nothing holding me up for long. I think my block in the NW was caused by a disconnect in my head between homeopathy and medicine. Like mendesest I struggled a bit with the individual definition of LOI OWN and I had no idea what Marx was doing in 20a or even what the definition was, so had to rely on the wordplay and checkers. Finished in 8.43
    Thanks to chris
  8. Thoroughly enjoyable; an elegant puzzle. Mild eyebrow raise at HOMEOPATH being defined as “medical practitioner” given the lack of any high quality evidence to show that homeopathy works, but there we are.

    Only SHOP STEWARDS required a second visit and so all was done in K minus 8 seconds which makes this a Red Letter Day. I bought a painting of an OCELOT last year, because it was by an artist called Keith Henderson and I’d just read and enjoyed his autobiography “From 4 to 21”.

    FOI HOMEOPATH, LOI TEE (because I hadn’t noticed I hadn’t done it), COD – well, lots of competition but I settle for LOTTERY.

    Many thanks Chris and Izetti.

    Templar

  9. I completed this on the iPad today in just over 11 minutes. Most of the clues flew in with the exception of row 1 and row 11. FOI was STRANGE and my LOI on row 11 was OPIUM from wordplay. I was unaware of the Marx quote so thanks for the explanation. LOTTERY required all the checkers and COD to VIM.

    Edited at 2020-07-14 08:21 am (UTC)

  10. There seems to be much learned disagreement on whether a set of initials pronounced separately e.g. BBC is an acronym or an abbreviation. I’ll go with common usage (and OED?) and call it an acronym.
    1. There may well be disagreement, although I doubt any of it is learned. And the usage may by now be common, in which case there’s nothing to be done. ODE defines ‘acronym’ as ‘a word formed from the initial letters of other words (e.g. laser, Aids)’.
      1. I changed the blog to say abbreviation – which is the catch-all. OT are the initial letters of the term but as there are only two, I felt it worth the change.
  11. Ah well, somebody had to break the 20 min mark (in the wrong direction). I think I was brain-dead this morning. Like plett I couldn’t get a toe-hold in the NW and worked slowly round the grid gaining more traction in the lower half. I found many clues quirky but some just needed a crosser or two and then fell out. I did like OPIUM, ADROIT, SKINT, VIM, and TEE but was not impressed by HOMEOPATH (medical??), YE’D, OWN (though it had to be) and I spent too long trying to parse ‘lenient’ instead of CLEMENT. Not a good day. Thanks to chris and I hope I am more receptive to the next Izetti.
    And the 15×15 took me well over an hour…… John M.

    Edited at 2020-07-14 10:19 am (UTC)

  12. I enjoyed this – thanks Izetti and chrisw91. I’m not keen on like as a punctuation but I like pi even less because it only really crops up in crosswords these days in my view. Also ye’d is a bit strained for me but there was a lot of clever stuff to compensate for theses minor irritations so thanks again.
  13. Further to my previous comment, it would seem the most accurate term is an initialism. But I’ll still go with common usage of acronym to cover both word-acronyms and initialisms.
  14. I’d’ve finished this if I hadn’t put PERFORMED at 11d which made RETREATED ungettable.

    An excellent puzzle, thank you Izetti.

    COD ADROIT – just because it’s a lovely word.

    Diana

  16. On paper today. FOI OWN. I followed Rotter’s path and tried Houseman and Lannery before finding the correct answers. LOI and COD was PERFORMER. About 12 minutes.
    Thanks for all the stuff about Marx. Very interesting. David
  17. ….as the first thing I wrote was “ory” at the end of 1A. My FOI quickly showed that a railway was the wrong track. Soon after that I found I couldn’t spot SHOP STEWARDS, and went to the SW corner and worked upwards, and so managed to remain inside my 5 minute target.

    FOI ALERTS
    LOI RETREATED
    COD LOTTERY
    TIME 0.68K

  18. Failed on Opium but otherwise won through in the end. Put Admiral instead of Marshall at first which also didn’t help.

    Interesting re Marx.

    Thanks as ever.

  19. Way off the wavelength today, with 8 minutes gone before I completed the top half. Another 7 or so to finish. I was also distracted by the HOUSEMAN, and HOMEOPATH was way down my list of medical practitioners. Must be suffering from that glue brain thing! 15:20. Thanks Izetti and Chris.
  20. I was slow again today at 18 minutes. Hold-ups were looking for a real medical practitioner at 1a (I played with HOUSEMAN or some such variation before HOMEOPATH was revealed), and trying to justify the non-existent LANNERY for LOTTERY.

    In response to Chris’ challenge, how about sopa, yuca, popo as well as taco?

    Thanks Chris and Izetti.

  21. On the wavelength today, and only OPIUM caused any trouble (now that you mention it, Chris, the quote does ring a bell, but not at the time). Good to see the little supporter again – don’t think I’ve seen it crop up here for a while.

  22. Had a bit of a fits and starts experience with this as I rattled through quite a lot of it before I’d get distracted for a minute or two on one clue or other, then remind myself to just come back and then repeating the process. Anyway, I eventually stopped the clock on 27:45, but then started it again to try to parse ODIUM or find an alternative, which I did after another two minutes, stopping the clock again at 29:50, so just within target. Tried putting in PSYCHOPATH in for 1a at one point, but that didn’t seem to fit with the definition of medical practitioner. Then again, I’d agree with John M that HOMEOPATH doesn’t really either. Anyway, a satisfying solve, so thanks to Izetti and Chris.
  23. Completed in 25 mins, but I will confess that 20ac “Opium” was a bit of a guess, not knowing Marx that well. However, equating “um” with “let me think about it” meant my partial parsing did contribute somewhat.

    Some nice clues from Izetti, with 14dn being particularly deceptive. I also went for “lenient” until I realised it wouldn’t go with my “Taco” at 13ac. Still not completely sure about 5dn, but luckily knew 16dn “Ocelot” from previous completions.

    FOI – 10ac “Shop Stewards”
    LOI – 20ac “Opium”
    COD – 17ac “Disconcerted”

    Thanks as usual.

  24. All correct in 37 minutes which is a lovely feeling for me! Nothing was particularly problematic and there were lots of lovely surfaces today, though I would agree with others that a homeopath is not a medical practitioner!

    FOI 4D Alerts
    LOI 17A Disconcerted (such a clever clue)
    COD 21A Lottery, a nice surface and for once I was able to see the word I needed to take a letter from.

    Thanks for the blog and the puzzle as always.

  25. Thanks Izetti for a few head scratchers and Chris for providing the MO. A few biffed that had to be correct (OPIUM), now I know why. Usual two bursts, midnight and midday. Combined time around 30 mins. Must try harder.
  26. On the subject of acronyms / abbreviations etc, my favourite is TLA – three letter acronym, even though it isn’t officially a TLA! On the subject of TIPOFFS (yesterday’s quickie, 12a), I did the concise just before bedtime, so too late to post. But at 14d, it had the same answer – spelt as two hyphenated words! Different setters, different editors too?

    Back to today: I thought this was like a super-great puzzle from Izetti 😉 It took me a few clues to get going but then a steady solve took me to just under par – which for an Izetti is good enough for me. Lots of lovely surfaces, tight cluing and humour – ticks all over the place, inc HOMEOPATH. Some irony there, perhaps? Anyway, crispb’s suggested psychopath made me laugh out loud. No problems with the GK – I knew the (partial) Marx quote, but was very interested to see the whole of it – thanks Chris.

    FOI Taco
    LOI Host
    COD Lottery
    Time 13 mins

    Many thanks Izetti and Chris

    Re today’s biggie: I think it’s ok. I finished it, but it took twice as long as yesterday. Maybe worth a look – just to carry on with the training, if nothing else!

  27. Lots going on at the moment (in a good way) so we’re very distracted and it’s definitely impacting our QC sessions (we haven’t even looked at Monday’s puzzle yet😟). Thanks to Izetti for a great puzzle which took us 21 mins to solve.

    FOI: lasso
    LOI: opium
    COD: hold water

    Thanks to Chris for the blog

  28. Quite a lot of thought needed on some clues and I ended up over my target at 18 minutes.
    I had to biff VISOR and OPIUM but I loved the SHOP STEWARDS anagram – who would have thought it possible from ‘post war sheds’?
    My COD goes to LOTTERY for being so straightforward.
    Thanks to Izetti for the challenge and to Chris for the interesting blog.
  29. I remember when Izetti would have me well into double digits.
    7:10 today for a neat puzzle.

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