Times Quick Cryptic 1687 by Mara

Author   william_j_sPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
I raced through this one, helped by plenty of double definitions and opportunities to biff. I did pause on blogging at 16dn thinking that some double duty was afoot, and at 5dn wondering if the fruit developed from top to bottom or vice versa.

I liked 13ac – my COD.

Definitions underlined.

Across
1 Left going in terribly straight to produce shiner (9)
STARLIGHT – L (left) inside (going in) an anagram of (terribly) STRAIGHT.
6 Fashionable joint (3)
HIP – double definition.
8 Alight, boogie! (3,4)
GET DOWN – double definition.
9 Put swimmer on the phone? (5)
PLACE – sounds like (on the phone) “plaice” (fish, swimmer)
10 Might one organise the classroom? (12)
SCHOOLMASTER – anagram of (organise) THE CLASSROOM.
12 Passed fingers over material (4)
FELT – double definition.
13 As lute starts, organ starts too (4)
ALSO – first letters (starts) from As Lute Starts Organ.
17 Somewhere for the players to hear script that’s rewritten (9,3)
ORCHESTRA PIT – anagram of (rewritten) TO HEAR SCRIPT.
20 Don’t spend penny on brush (5)
SKIMP – P (penny) at the end of (on) SKIM (brush).
21 Former lover, large specimen (7)
EXAMPLE – EX (former lover) and AMPLE (large).
23 Fish skin, but no head (3)
EEL – pEEL (skin) without the first letter (with no head),
24 Try getting fit for game (4,5)
TEST MATCH – TEST (try) with MATCH (fit).

Down
1 Herb, guru (4)
SAGE – double definition.
2 For example, the recital’s pitiful (7)
ARTICLE – anagram of (pitiful) RECITAL.
3 Sign in trouble, ominously (3)
LEO – hidden in (in) troubLE Ominously.
4 Lanky, like a group of criminals might you say? (6)
GANGLY – cryptic hint. Gang-ly might be a way to describe the actions of a large group of criminals (or gang).
5 Leader, first of those on hand? (3,6)
TOP BANANA – cryptic hint. Bananas grow in groups called ‘hands’.
6 Middle card (5)
HEART – double definition.
7 Little time invested in ropey novel, creative work (6)
POETRY – T (abbreviation for (little) time) inside (invested in) an anagram of (novel) ROPEY.
11 Under pressure to answer, perhaps, immediately (2,3,4)
ON THE SPOT – double definition.
14 Darling goes after bargain a bit (7)
SNIPPET – PET (darling) after SNIP (bargain).
15 Sweet animal picked up by the ears? (6)
MOUSSE – sounds like (picked up by the ears) “moose” (animal).
16 Capital in Asia then, Seoul (6)
ATHENS – hidden in (in) asiA THEN Seoul.
18 On top of elevated location, caught cold (5)
CHILL – C (caught) at the start of (on top of) HILL (elevated location).
19 Yours truly shut up network (4)
MESH – ME (yours truly) and SH (shut up).
22 This person is underlining a point (3)
AIM – I’M (this person) beneath (underlining) A.

35 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 1687 by Mara”

  1. It took me a while to remember plaice, making PLACE my LOI. I biffed SCHOOLMASTER & ORCHESTRA PIT, fairly confident that the anagrist was there. If you used a semicolon instead of a comma, 1d would be a perfect Concise clue. William, I’M = this person is. 6:02.
  2. I was off the pace by the time I finished the SE

    FOI 3dn LEO

    LOI 15dm MOUSSE

    COD 5dn TOP BANANA (Gross Michel?)

    WOD 4dn GANGLY

  3. I’m surprised I even got close today. I felt quite sluggish on what felt like it should have been easier. HAND in a banana context has come up recently, I believe.
  4. I thought this was going to be a straightforward solve until I got bogged down in the SW with the MOUSSE/SKIMP intersection. I assumed that 5d was going to be TOP BANANA but waited until I had all the checkers before writing it in as I’d not heard of the hand/banana thing before.
    Finished in 11.30 with LOI SNIPPET, which I had a brain freeze over and my favourite was GANGLY
    Thanks to william
  5. Made life hard for myself with a load of unspotted typos and having heard of neither SKIM nor SKIMP – although I do know ‘scrimp’. Once I corrected ‘on the atop’ (no idea how I typed that except that I’m big and phones are small) TEST MATCH became rather easier and so the bottom filled up. Over 20 minutes again, lots on CHILL and SKIMP, and with a pink square for yet another typo – HEATT for HEART. Quite enjoyed in it retrospect but didn’t realise that at the time.

    Edited at 2020-08-26 07:05 am (UTC)

  6. Well, at 12 minutes this one terminated my run of 7 consecutive 10-minute targets achieved, and since I had completed all but one answer within 8 minutes it was all down to a single clue, 15dn.

    It should have been easier, and as vinyl1 has pointed out ‘mousse’ for ‘moose’ is a bit of a chestnut, but finding a creature from the entire animal kingdom that sounds like a word meaning ‘sweet’ and with no other information to go on proved to be not so easy for me. Especially as up to the very last minute I was thinking in terms of sucky sweets or terms of endearment rather than puddings. In the end I resorted to an alphabet trawl.

    Elsewhere I had bunged in GET DOWN and hoped for the best. I thought my uncertainty here would be down to not knowing the relevant meaning of ‘boogie’ but I now discover that it was not knowing the relevant meaning of GET DOWN that was the problem. Anyway it didn’t really delay me either way.

    Edited at 2020-08-26 06:15 am (UTC)

  7. All done in just under 15 minutes. First in was HIP.

    Like others the SW was where I had most trouble with last 2 being SKIMP and then MOUSSE.

    COD the hidden ATHENS.

    Enjoyable puzzle, probably my quickest Mara solve for some time.

  8. So proud of myself for recalling, from previous crosswords, that ide is a go-to three letter fish, it surely had to be the answer to 23A ((h)IDE). This misplaced certainty made the SW tricky and it was only after I accepted Chill as being equally certain that the final pieces fell into place. Nice puzzle with thanks to Mara and William for the blog. Sam
  9. I think there is something wrong with the clock on my iPad. Even when I think I have raced through a QC it still shows a time of around 17 mins, give or take. I shared some of the hiccups mentioned by posters above, especially my LOsI – SKIMP and MOUSSE. I liked EXAMPLE and TEST MATCH and laughed at GANGLY which I think was prompted by Barry Cryer on ‘I’m sorry I haven’t a clue’. Thanks to Mara and William. John M.
    1. We never trust the clock on the iPad (it’s always wrong) – we always note our completion times ourselves
      1. and if you’ve done,say, the concise before starting the QC then the times are cumulative. Stupid or what.

        H

  10. DNF after 30 mins after refusal to believe that APT was wrong for “person is underlining” also “a point”. Not helped by not seeing MATCH=FIT. Probably too stubborn but I also did not get MOUSSE as I had not twigged Homophone indicator number 678 “picked up by ears”, although number 677 “on the phone” was new for me today.

    I love the expression TOP BANANA, gonna use it more.

    Pleasing to see GET DOWN for boogie, although it’s a bit 80s, it does show that the QC is HIP (6a).

    COD, like others voted, was GANGLY.

  11. My biffed GASLIGHT at 1a was quickly removed as it was too short and it didn’t go with my next one in, SAGE. I then made reasonable progress until I came to proof read at the end and discovered I had typed CHOOLTEACHER at 10a, which had made a total mess of several other answers. Sorting that out and spotting the real answer took a minute or so, thus taking my time up to 9:10. Thanks Mara and William.
  12. Another tough one today I thought. FOI, though only tentatively as I wasn’t 100% about the “GET” part, was 8a, but I only got three more of the acrosses on the first pass and that included IDE for 23a, which, like Sam above, I was pleased to remember and disappointed to discover later was incorrect. I did think of TEST MATCH too, but dismissed it at first because I didn’t see that MATCH fitted FIT. Or should that be that FIT matched MATCH? Anyway, things started to fall into place and then I was distracted by getting the disappointing news that the mechanic who was supposed to be coming to fix my car this morning, was unable to do the job because of the danger of working under a car in the wind. Hence I am left carless for at least another day. This is my excuse for not seeing the anagrams at 10 and 17a sooner. I was also held up by 20a and 5d and by the alphabet trawl I had to engage in to get my LOI 15d. Total time 55:03, so slightly better than yesterday, but still getting on for double my target time. Nevertheless an enjoyable solve, so thanks Mara and William.
  13. Didn’t think this was straight forward, so I was pleased with my time of 32 mins.

    Some really good clues, a few of which I should have got earlier (10ac “Schoolmaster” and 17ac “Orchestra Pit” come to mind). After trying to fit “thumb” into 5dn, I eventually clocked what was going on, and for once I wasn’t deceived by “sign” meaning constellation for 3dn. Also liked 13ac “Also” and 14dn “Snippet”.

    FOI – 1dn “Sage”
    LOI – 15dn “Mousse”
    COD – 2dn “Article” – nice and neat

    Thanks as usual.

  14. 12:00 today with a couple of minutes at the end finding SKIMP and LOI MOUSSE (I was thinking of the Scottish mouse when I got it). Not easy finding a homophone without the first letter. And SKIM for Brush wasn’t that close in my brain.
    I must remember the Hand and Banana link which I have also seen recently. A fun puzzle which seemed easier at first than it turned out to be. David
  15. Like Sam above, I didn’t help myself in the SW by confidently entering IDE / hIDE for 23a, which definitely works if the connecting clues are ignored. Spotting my error when CHILL occurred to me cost me a couple of minutes, first looking for a sweet to fit xOxxxI and then rethinking the fish. As a result, I was a couple of minutes over my target at 17 minutes. Thanks Mara and William.
  16. ….to GET DOWN, and I was tardy in that respect this morning. Then I found that we’d run out of teabags, and my TOP BANANA was, in fact, my last banana. ASDA aren’t delivering until tomorrow night, so it’ll be coffee for two days, and toast for breakfast tomorrow. I’d nip to the shops but for having a puncture, and heavy rain is again forecast so walking is out (15 minute round trip on foot so ample opportunity to catch a soaking).

    Cheered up a little by this nice offering from Mara, where my last 30 seconds or so were largely spent spotting MOUSSE (you could eat one in that time) so that I could nail my LOI.

    FOI STARLIGHT (an express solution !)
    LOI SKIMP (I’m more used to “scrimp”)
    COD GANGLY (raised a smile)
    TIME 4:18

  17. Put me down as another who entered IDE, which is a perfect solution at 23ac. It’s a weakness of doing all the acrosses first that it takes a while to realise from checkers that something has gone awry and it took me a long time to unscramble it. I do think that it’s sub-optimal to have a clue with two perfectly good answers.

    FOI STARLIGHT, LOI MOUSSE following the unscrambling, COD SCHOOLMASTER for the excellent surface, time 2K for an Indifferent Day.

    Thanks Mara and William.

    Templar

  18. Couldn’t parse Banana. DNK hand in that context.
    Should have got Hip in the beginning!
    LOI Mousse and Skimp
    Missed anagram but guessed Schoolmaster
    Though I solved 2d as I saw it was an anagram of Recital, I couldn’t work out it meant (definite) Article, i.e. ‘The’.

    Many thanks as ever for helpful blog.

  19. Took me a while to readily think of “Article” as something from grammar rather than a newspaper. It’s the same with “number” meaning an actual figure or an anaesthetist.
  20. Seemed hard at first, but got through it apart from MOUSSE, which I did not see at all as a homophone.
  21. I started off very quickly but soon slowed down when I got to SCHOOLMASTER (my COD). Indeed, I needed quite a few checkers to solve it. The other long one ORCHESTRA PIT also took some time. Checkers were required for TEST MATCH and my last two were MOUSSE (I was wondering if there was an animal that sounded like toffee) and SKIMP. Finally I submitted in just over my target 10 mins and am feeling quite 18d as there were no unknowns. Thanks to William and Mara.

    Edited at 2020-08-26 12:35 pm (UTC)

  22. Seems to be a rut we’re unhappily settling into at the moment. We progressed through this enjoyable puzzle well within our target time until we happened upon skimp/mousse and then probably doubled our time as we struggled to solve the last 2 clues. However, we persevered and came in at a disappointing 33 minutes. But thanks to Mara for keeping us on our toes.

    FOI: sage
    LOI: mousse
    COD: top banana

    Thanks to William for the blog.

    Edited at 2020-08-26 12:43 pm (UTC)

  23. …but, as seems to be the case with some others, I hit a bad patch in the MOUSSE, SKIMP and ORCHESTRA PIT corner which took my time up to 18 minutes.
    Like desdeeloeste, I was pleased not to have any unknowns and I was amused by TOP BANANA and GANGLY.
    COD to SCHOOLMASTER for being such a clever anagram – also new to me.
    Thanks to Mara and to William for the blog which I always enjoy checking in case I’ve missed any hidden meanings!

    Edited at 2020-08-26 01:17 pm (UTC)

  24. A bit quicker than the last couple of days at 16 mins. Biffed 10ac without noticing the anagram. I was another one that considered IDE at 23ac but luckily I didn’t go so far as to write it in, so it didn’t put too much of a brake on the SW corner.

    FOI – 6ac HIP
    LOI – 15dn MOUSSE
    COD – 11dn ON THE SPOT

    Thanks to Mara for an enjoyable puzzle and to William for the blog

  25. Slow today, 8:35, but I blame it on IDE! Got stuck in the SW because of that and it wasn’t until I sussed CHILL that everything suddenly fell into place. I tell myself repeatedly, usually after the event, that if two or three clues just won’t “go” then one of the crossers must be wrong so figure out which one! But do I ever listen …

    COD SCHOOLMASTER, what a great anagram! Maybe an old chestnut, but new to me.

    H

  26. Pleased to finish in 25m after seeing the comment above. Bunged in schoolmaster without noticing the anagram, v clever, helped by one of us having been a schoolteacher. Took a little time to sort out 22d. Top banana seems to appear from time to time, the mention about hand is worth remembering. Thanks to Mara and the blog.
  27. Another busy day, so came to this late and tired. I was surprised therefore to find I was within sight of a 20min Mara finish with just two left. Unfortunately they turned out to be the Skimp/Mousse combination and took another 5 mins to to see. CoD to 5d Top Banana, which I thought was straightforward, but then I knew they came in hands. Invariant
  28. … and clearly too late for the little grey cells as I DNF. SW corner my downfall; didn’t get 20A Skimp, and therefore also found 15D Mousse beyond me. Shame, as much enjoyment from the clues I could do.

    Thanks to William for the blog and will resolve to get to the puzzle earlier tomorrow!
    Cedric

  29. Can I just say that I thought 10ac to be the best QC clue in 1687 puzzles. I got it without spotting the anagram.
    No time today indeed I’m not sure I finished. Lunch started at 1130 so I’ve been doing the odd clue on the phone ever since. But definitely inside 12 hours 🍷🤣

Comments are closed.