Times Quick Cryptic 1660 by Wurm

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

My solving time was 9 minutes for all but 1ac, which after a further 5 I abandoned hope and resorted to aids as I knew it was a word I would never come up with from the definition and I was getting nowhere with any element of the wordplay. It turned out to be one of two answers where I wondered about their suitability for a Quick Cryptic but we all need to be stretched occasionally or we never learn anything new.

As usual definitions are underlined in bold italics, {deletions and substitutions are in curly brackets} and [anagrinds, containment, reversal and other indicators in square ones]. I usually omit all reference to positional indicators unless there is a specific point that requires clarification.

Across
1 Prehistoric creature complete in hollow place (10)
DIPLODOCUS : DO (complete) contained by [in] DIP (hollow) + LOCUS (place). It turns out this creature is my bête noire as here’s some of what I wrote on its last outing in the main puzzle about two years ago:

Dinosaur’s decline complete in the vicinity (10)

DIPLODOCUS – DIP (decline), DO (complete) contained by [in] LOCUS (vicinity). One of the two clues I failed to solve today. A search through TftT history reveals that I claimed not to know the word in 2009 and more recently in November 2016, but at least on that second occasion I managed to arrive at it because it was plainly clued as an anagram.
8 Inventor terribly snide about nothing (6)
EDISON : Anagram, [terribly] of SNIDE containing [about] 0 (nothing). Not the most pleasant of characters if his portrayal in the film The Current War is to be believed but it seems to be the fashion of our times to denigrate national heroes. Apparently he was not averse to stealing ideas off other inventors and taking all the glory  (and riches, of course) whilst the other bloke died unrecognised in poverty and squalor in his garret. Or something like that.
9 Disastrous   as many a dramatic production (6)
TRAGIC : A definition and a cryptic hint
10 British boxer comes to island (4)
BALI : B (British), ALI (boxer)
11 Nun holding in evil (8)
SINISTER : SISTER (nun) containing [holding] IN
12 Good learner in store to circulate (6)
MINGLE : G (good) + L (learner) contained by [in] MINE (store)
14 Live on the edge (6)
RESIDE : RE (on), SIDE (edge)
16 Sit one lecturer in ship that capsized (8)
POSEIDON : POSE (sit), I (one), DON (lecturer). With reference to the film The Poseidon Adventure (1979) and various sequels.
18 Troubled king coherent, losing head (4)
LEAR : {c}LEAR (coherent) [losing head]
20 Sweet drink to hand when holding court (6)
NECTAR : NEAR (to hand) containing [holding] CT (court)
21 His leg chewed in transport with dogs (6)
SLEIGH : Anagram [chewed] of HIS LEG. Mush!
22 Wounded Praetorian getting redress (10)
REPARATION : Anagram [wounded] of PRAETORIAN
Down
2 Home help sent up country (5)
INDIA : IN (home), AID ( help) reversed [sent up]
3 Surviving the French swindle (7)
LASTING : LA (the, French), STING (swindle)
4 Daughter at home making noise (3)
DIN : D (daughter), IN (at home – again)
5 Stop filming with single light out (3,3,3)
CUT AND RUN : CUT (stop filming), AND (with), RUN (single – cricket). I’m not familiar with ‘light out’ meaning ‘depart quickly’, but it’s in Collins.
6 Steamship round river doesn’t leave (5)
STAYS : SS (steamship) containing [round] TAY (river). The river is the subject of a poem by the world’s worst poet, William McGonagall:

Beautiful silvery Tay,
With your landscapes, so lovely and gay,
Along each side of your waters, to Perth all the way;
No other river in the world has got scenery more fine,
Only I am told the beautiful Rhine,
Near to Wormit Bay, it seems very fine,
Where the Railway Bridge is towering above its waters sublime,
And the beautiful ship Mars,
With her Juvenile Tars,
Both lively and gay,
Does carelessly lie
By night and by day,
In the beautiful Bay
Of the silvery Tay.

Beautiful, beautiful! silvery Tay,
Thy scenery is enchanting on a fine summer day,
Near by Balmerino it is beautiful to behold,
When the trees are in full bloom and the cornfields seems like gold –
And nature’s face seems gay,
And the lambkins they do play,
And the humming bee is on the wing,
It is enough to make one sing,
While they carelessly do stray,
Along the beautiful banks of the silvery Tay,
Beautiful silvery Tay, rolling smoothly on your way,
Near by Newport, as clear as the day,
Thy scenery around is charming I’ll be bound…
And would make the heart of any one feel light and gay on a fine summer day,
To view the beautiful scenery along the banks of the silvery Tay.
7 Dope stashed in order for engine part (3,3)
BIG END : GEN (dope – information) contained by [stashed in] BID (order)
11 Pad, pre-set, tripped where boy racer nabbed? (5,4)
SPEED TRAP : Anagram [tripped] of PAD PRE-SET
13 One or two coming into Irish compound (6)
ISOMER : SOME (one or two) contained by [coming into] IR (Irish). Another unknown, but the wordplay was friendly.
15 Conspicuous way to involve stranger (7)
SALIENT : ST (way – street) contained by [to involve] ALIEN (stranger)
17 Some Aberdeen terriers go inside (5)
ENTER : Hidden in [some] {Aberde}EN TER{riers}
19 Trouble as wrecked Argo ships gallons (5)
AGGRO : Anagram [wrecked] of ARGO G (gallons)
21 Gentleman’s address? (3)
SIR : Cryptic definition

45 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 1660 by Wurm”

  1. Huckleberry Finn: “But I reckon I got to light out for the territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she’s going to adopt me and sivilize me, and I can’t stand it. I been there before.”
  2. CUT AND RUN came for me eventually but I didn’t understand it. I had BESIDE in place of RESIDE for a while for the other clue that really held me up so I was looking for CUT ONE B_N until I realised none of the vowels would do anything and a BIN really wasn’t a light. The end was really tough and in fact none of this was easy. I had five acrosses on the first pass which is quite normal but then I usually lose count of the downs – not today, only four. ISOMER held me up as I lazily assumed the I was from one and or two was up to something else. Pleased with myself for POSEIDON though as I’ve heard of the adventure but have no idea of plot – and for DIPLODOCUS where having seen the word would fit held me up for a bit getting it to fit the clue. Didn’t quite know SALIENT meant conspicuous, I don’t think I’ve heard it without being followed by ‘point’ and hadn’t quite thought that phrase could be substituted for ‘obviously’.

    Edited at 2020-07-20 06:15 am (UTC)

  3. A fairly gentle start to the week for me. I began very quickly and felt I should have finished in less than 13.49 but I was slowed by CUT AND RUN and DIPLODOCUS (until crossers emerged in each case), TRAGIC, and LOI SALIENT. I wasn’t sure about mine=store. BIG END didn’t come to mind quickly and ISOMER might be a bit esoteric for a non-scientist. Thanks to both. John M.

    Edited at 2020-07-20 07:35 am (UTC)

  4. I was clearly on the right wavelength today as this didn’t hold me up for long. Unlike Jack, DIPLODOCUS is one of my ‘go to dinosaurs’ – a phrase I never thought I’d be using – so I had no issues there. Light out was a new one to me but the wordplay was friendly as it was for my other unknown – ISOMER, which was my LOI. Lots of lovely surfaces today but LASTING, SINISTER and EDISON were the stand out clues for me. Finished in 6.48.
    Thanks to Jack for a very informative blog – I particularly enjoyed the poem
  5. 8:39 so it all went in pretty well. LOI 1ac which took a while. Unlike Jack, I seemed to have the constituent parts in my head (locus was one such) but really struggled to put them together in a way that made sense. Highly satisfying when they did ‘click’. COD to Poseidon – it looked so complicated but was, in fact, so simple.
  6. Undone by the engine part. Around twenty minutes for the rest, but couldn’t work out 7d for the life of me. Eventually gave up at 38 minutes and put in SIT END, hoping that dope = it and order = send. I’m guessing that dope means information = GEN?
    COD to 14a.
  7. Slowish for me at 17:51 – held up by BIG END which was not something I’d ever heard of, and I found hard to parse too, because I didn’t know dope meant gen. Otherwise a good day
  8. Held up at the end wondering how “od” could mean complete …

    Otherwise I must have been on the setter’s wavelength as I completed the grid well inside my target 10 mins

  9. I managed to complete this with likely answers which all proved to be correct but there were many which I couldn’t fully justify. Thanks jackkt for the explanations -they all make sense but a lot of of obscure stuff to say the least, cut and run, dope for gen to name just two.
  10. As any skoolboy kno, there are only two dinosaurs: T Rex and Dippy. Dippy must be the most viewed dinosaur in history because of all the plaster casts donated by Andrew Carnegie to museums all over the world. I remember as a boy being taken to the Natural history Museum and gazing in astonishment at it. The clue was a real brute though and puzzling out the parsing took a loooong time … phew.

    As usual I found Wurm a slippery customer, finally clocking off at 14:07 having spent 5 mins on my last two (BIG END and RESIDE). What the heck is a “big end” anyway? It only (finally) swam to the front of my memory because of double-entendres in some 70s comedy show like Dick Emery. POSEIDON went in on a wing and a prayer too.

    FOI DIPLODOCUS, LOI RESIDE, COD SLEIGH. Thanks Wurm and Jack, especially for the McGonagall.

    Templar

    1. The ‘big end’ is the larger end of the connecting rod between each piston and the crankshaft in an engine (internal combustion, steam etc.). The ‘big end’ bearings are two semi-circular metal ‘shells’ that fit around the crankshaft and the ‘little end’ bearing connects at the crankshaft end. I’ve replaced 6 of them myself (in a ‘straight six’ engine) but never quite believed that they could work for millions of revolutions without breaking. The oil helps, of course!

      Edited at 2020-07-20 09:46 am (UTC)

  11. My first thought was am I ready for Wurm on a Monday? As it happened I started quickly and kept going until the last few. FOI STAYS -thanks for the poetry Jackkt. DIPLODOCUS familiar from puzzles with the checkers. ISOMER from clear word play. Was delayed by SALIENT and LOI was AGGRO where I thought that the instruction was to get rid of a G. I must look up the meaning of Ships.
    11:28 on the clock so quite quick for me, especially for a Wurm puzzle which had its usual quota of clever and pleasing clues. David
  12. I skipped over 1a quite quickly thinking that I would need checkers to solve it. As it was I had all the checkers in place when I looked at it again and biffed the answer. It is also my COD. CUT AND RUN I constructed from wordplay but like Jack was unfamiliar with the definition. I have heard of a BIG END so that went in easily but I still don’t actually know what it is. My last two were POSEIDON and finally ISOMER. 9:33 for an OK day.

    P.S.
    I think SIR could also be a double definition as Collins has both gentleman and address listed.

    1. I think lines like ‘your big end has gone’ featured a lot in routines of old-fashioned comedians in the world in which I had the pleasure to grow up.
      1. Thanks jackkt. I tried to find a comedy sketch along the lines of ‘your big end has gone’ and failed although I did have a few chuckles watching a compilation of Dave Allen sketches whilst I was looking.
  13. 17 mins, held up at the end by tragic and big end.

    Big end was hard, but I think it has come up before…

    Red end from A Level physics always got a few laughs.

    COD sinister.

  14. Some tricky words in today’s offering from Wurm but I wasn’t held up too long. Needed all the checkers for 1ac but saw it quickly once I had them. Didn’t make the connection between 16ac and the film (which I haven’t seen) but it had to be from the wordplay. I had heard of CUT AND RUN and ISOMER rang a faint bell although I couldn’t have defined it. All in all a nice puzzle which I enjoyed, so thanks to Wurm for that and to jackkt for the informative blog and for the parsing of DIPLODOCUS, which had completely defeated me.

    FOI – 8ac EDISON
    LOI – 16ac POSEIDON
    COD – 1dn INDIA for its simple but smooth surface

  15. Completed in 26 mins, but 5 mins of that was debating what 7dn was. I guessed “Big End”, but could have easily been wrong as I’ve never heard of it.

    Generally, a tricky start to the week I thought. Had to leave 1ac until I had more checkers and missed the cricket reference for 5dn until I checked the blog. Then had an internal debate about isomer and compound and whether the former had to be the latter. I always thought Diamond and Graphite were isomers of Carbon (an element not a compound), but I think that might be something totally different.

    FOI – 4dn “Din”
    LOI – 7dn “Big End”
    COD – 16ac “Poseidon” – mainly for bringing back memories of a classic 70’s disaster film.

    Thanks as usual.

    Edited at 2020-07-20 10:56 am (UTC)

  16. Too difficult for me. Only solved about half. Not in the mood for too much puzzling today.
    But thanks!
    (Isomer??)
    And thank you to Phil for the weekend QC which I did enjoy.
  17. Took about three times as long to come to the same conclusion as Jackkt – if you didn’t know the name of our prehistoric friend in 1ac, then the word play wasn’t terribly helpful. Up until that point (after about 25mins) things hadn’t gone too badly, bar a Beside diversion at 14ac, and a long pause over 13d, Isomer. CoD to 7d, Big End, which used to crop up in car conversations much more frequently before we had synthetic oils. Invariant
  18. DIPLODOCUS needed a few crossers before the wordplay made any sense, but I got there eventually. I’ve replaced several BIG END bearings (and cam followers and pistons) over the years, so 7d was easy enough. INDIA was FOI,and SALIENT LOI. 8:18. Thanks Wurm and Jack.
  19. for me, all done and parsed in 6:10.

    As Jack says, ISOMER was fairly clued for the only tricky bit of vocab.

    SALIENT came up fairly recently didn’t it? Or was that in a different puzzle?

    1. Salient definitely came up recently somewhere. Sometimes words are a bit like buses…
  20. First of all, I must say thank you to Phil for an entertaining puzzle at the weekend. Lots of cracking surfaces and very user friendly! I did it in about 11:30, which is just under par for me. The Times setters may need to watch out, what with Phil and John snapping at their heels! More please 😃

    On to today’s: like David, I wasn’t sure if I was ready for Wurm on a Monday, but in fact this ended up being an Average Day, when I completed it just under par. I didn’t parse 1a (diPLODocus or DIPlodocus?) so thanks for the explanation. I was another one who didn’t know light out as a definition of CUT AND RUN at 6D, and NHO of ISOMER at 13d, although the wordplay was clear. I remember that BIG ENDs were often ‘gone’ in the 70s!

    FOI Edison
    LOI Isomer
    COD Reside
    Time 11:57

    Thanks all

    Edited at 2020-07-20 12:37 pm (UTC)

    1. I’ve heard PLOD is correct but surely DIP is right? Lovely word ruined otherwise.
  21. Found this hard. DNK ISOMER, struggled with RESIDE (why does RE = ON?), guessed BIG END.
  22. I found parts very straightforward, particularly the short solutions such as BALI, LEAR, DIN and SIR – but others – DIPLODOCUS, CUT AND RUN and ISOMER – were all biffed as was BIG END which I did know as an engine part (from my father often saying one had ‘gone’ as Pebee pointed out) but I hadn’t heard of ‘gen’ for ‘dope’.
    Pleased to finish within my target at 14 mins so thanks to Wurm for a good start to my week.
    COD goes to LASTING.
    Thanks also to Jack – I enjoyed the poem which did indeed make me feel ‘light and gay on a fine summer day’!
  23. Oops! Must concentrate harder. The ‘little end’ of the con rod is at the piston end. How did my brain let me write it wrongly above?
    I still have a piston as a paperweight. It came from a 1967 Mustang whose engine I overhauled in the late ’70s. The piston rings had broken and one of the piston grooves was (and still is) filled with two bits of the ring, squashed in side by side. I’d never seen that before or since. No wonder it drank juice (but it still ran very well). I’m sure this is of absolutely no interest to QC solvers but there you go. John.

    Edited at 2020-07-20 01:33 pm (UTC)

  24. A DNF at 55 minutes. I struggled with 5D Cut And Run, 7D Big End and 13D Isomer, though the latter at least made sense from the word play. The other two not so much! I knew of Diplodocus but was convinced that “hollow place” was referring to p/e being the start and end letters for a looong time! And then needed the blog to parse it as it didn’t make any sense once I put it in the grid! Similarly I had the e in Big End being dope (ecstasy) and was looking for a longer word for order. Ah well. A few new words to remember for next time.

    COD was definitely 11A Sinister for being nonsensical, right up until it was suddenly obvious.

    Thanks for the blog and the puzzle.

  25. … with several words not fully parsed as I stopped the clock on 12 minutes. Knew about our dinosaur friend but even so could not work out the clue, and did not recall the sinking ship reference at 16A Poseidon. Also struggled to see store = mine in 12A Mingle until Jack’s explanation. But 5D Cut and run a familiar phrase, and a very nice clue.

    COD 3D Lasting; nice thoughts of “French swindle” being a phrase like “Dutch courage”.

    LOI 13D Isomer; not a word I knew, and I had to wait for all 3 checkers before accepting that “one or two” could be some. “Two or three” could be some, certainly, but one is singular not some?

    Thanks to Jack for the blog
    Cedric

  26. We enjoyed this puzzle, with one of us being familiar with the 1a creature and the 13d isomer, and the other provided 7d big end, and 6d cut and run, so a pleasant joint effort. Thanks Wurm and the blog.
  27. ….DIPLODOCUS (parsed afterwards), but if I saw one I’d CUT AND RUN !

    MER at “transport with dogs”. In “Jingle Bells” the SLEIGH is propelled by one horse. Dogs pull a sled.

    I’m most surprised to find myself 8= on the leaderboard so late in the day.

    FOI EDISON
    LOI POSEIDON (the last 6 letters are an anagram of EDISON !)
    COD RESIDE
    TIME 3:21

    Edited at 2020-07-20 03:26 pm (UTC)

  28. Many thanks for the blog and the poem.

    I also enjoy the sequel poem on the Tay bridge

    Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay!
    Alas! I am very sorry to say
    That ninety lives have been taken away
    On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
    Which will be remember’d for a very long time.

    ‘Twas about seven o’clock at night,
    And the wind it blew with all its might,
    And the rain came pouring down,
    And the dark clouds seem’d to frown,
    And the Demon of the air seem’d to say-
    “I’ll blow down the Bridge of Tay.”

  29. I remember my children saying that years ago… they are both in their forties now… so I couldn’t possibly fail on 1a. I even understood the parsing!
    I took 17m40s so within my target. This delights me as I had quite a few struggles last week. I really enjoyed our extra weekend QC too. Thanks, Phil!! It took me bang on my 20 minute target. MM

    FOI 4d
    LOI 13d I formed this from the parsing but then felt that it was lurking in the recesses of my brain from O level Chemistry!
    COD 11a
    WOD has to be 1a

  31. Enjoyable puzzle with FOI INDIA, LOI SIR, and COD SINISTER. As a child, I had a board game on a driving theme where one of the penalty squares said something like “Big end went”, which puzzled me for many years. May have missed this in the above comments but there’s a famous (?) DJ/producer whose stage name is Diplo, from a youthful interest in dinosaurs. Thanks Wurm and Jack.
  32. Really enjoyed it – some great clues. Thank you very much!

    (I can’t seem to post comments on the blog itself)

  33. We ended up completing this one is 26 mins but it took 2 sittings. Some tricky clues provoked some head scratching and we stopped the first session with 3 gaps (reside, big end, isomer) which we quickly polished off on our return. Thanks to Wurm for the workout.

    FOI: diplodocus
    LOI: isomer
    COD: lasting (made me smile)

    Thanks to Jack for the blog.

Comments are closed.