Times Quick Cryptic 1751 by Mara

Author   ChrisPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

A solve of fits and starts and a minute over target at 11 minutes. I’m not sure that’s a good reflection of difficulty here as I was rushing in between other things or maybe it was the double definition count (I counted half a dozen). Thanks to Mara (who gets a mention in an anagram) – I enjoyed writing this one up.

ACROSS

1. Girl created sounds (4)
MAID – homophone (sounds) of created – made.
4. Look after at joker, jack , queen or king (4,4)
FACE CARD – look at (FACE) after which is joker (CARD).
8. Bring up figure in cooped up animal? (8)
HEIGHTEN – figure (EIGHT) cooped up inside coped up animal (HEN).
9. Spy contract (4)
BOND – double definition.
10. Sound the horn going forward and reversing (4)
TOOT – palindrome.
11. Real flat bombs, essentially (5,3)
AFTER ALL – anagram (bombs) of REAL FLAT.
12. Story about harbour (6)
REPORT – about (RE), harbour (PORT).
14. Pluck something from the wine cellar (6)
BOTTLE – COD to this double definition for the surface and how long it took me to get the first – pluck as in heart/grit/bottle.
16. During flight, loin cut in half – piece of meat (8)
ESCALOPE – inside flight (ESCAPE) is (LO)in – half cut.
18. Part of Cairo, metropolitan capital (4)
ROME – part of Cai(RO ME)tropolitan.
19. I appreciate that team one’s hailed (4)
TAXI – I appreciate that (TA), team (XI).
20. First of colonists in Armenia moving from Georgia, say? (8)
AMERICAN – (C)olonists inside an anagram (moving) of ARMENIA.
22. Big celebrity gets Mara excited (8)
MEGASTAR – anagram (excited) of GETS MARA – name dropper!
23. Tidy way to serve whisky? (4)
NEAT – double definition. Another drink related one.

DOWN

2. Individual after different name for plant (7)
ANEMONE – individual (ONE) after an anagram (different) of NAME.
3. Number enjoy computer technology (5)
DIGIT – enjoy (DIG), computer technology (IT).
4. Suitable attack (3)
FIT – another double definition.
5. One who had a brush with the law? (9)
CONSTABLE – yet another double definition and I think this pips 14ac for COD. Great surface and the first definition is the artist.
6. Plain circled by lion, perhaps, for entertainment (7)
CABARET – lion, perhaps was obviously (CAT) but what it was circling took a while – plain (BARE).
7. Learn to play on an organ (5)
RENAL – anagram (to play) of LEARN. Not sure about this one – if it was ‘of an organ’ then OK but it’s on an organ – so the definition is the organ which is the kidney – renal describes things that concern or are related to the kidneys. Does ‘on an organ’ work as renal? [on edit – the answer is yes – please see jackkt’s comment below].
11. A confident walk catching on with a spaceman (9)
ASTRONAUT – a confident walk (A STRUT) catching on with a (ON + A).
13. Air-con adjusted with a rare instrument (7)
OCARINA – anagram (adjusted) of AIR CON. Even if you don’t know this, there didn’t seem too many ways of filling the answer in wrongly – but what do I know? Let me know if this caused problems.
15. Greek character hosting a dance (7)
LAMBADA – Greek character (LAMBDA) hosting a (A).
17. Extra frugal (5)
SPARE – LOI to the last and tricky double definition. Extra as in over/frugal as in meagre, sparing, modest, plain.
18. For the auditor, check rule (5)
REIGN – homophone (for the auditor) of check – rein.
21. Installed in house, a reed organ (3)
EAR – inside (installed in) hous(E A R)eed. No quibbles with this organ.

60 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 1751 by Mara”

  1. Held up in the lower-left by not being able to see MEGASTAR. Also BOND took me frighteningly long to get!
  2. If ‘look’=FACE and ‘joker’=CARD, it would be CARD FACE, no? So I think FACE has to be ‘look after’.
      1. Right you are; I didn’t bother to go back to the puzzle, simply taking the clue as written here in the blog. (I said ‘has to be’ because I was reluctant to see ‘face’ mean ‘look after’, but could see no alternative.) So, clearly, it’s ‘look at’ FACE, ‘joker’ CARD, and Bob’s your etc.
  3. I had the same qualms as Chris about RENAL; I think the def has to be ‘of an organ’, since ‘organ’ by itself is a noun and RENAL is an adjective. And, say, renal surgery would be surgery on an organ. I was sluggish today. 7:29.
  4. Held up in the lower-left by not being able to see MEGASTAR. Also BOND took me frighteningly long to get!
  5. 8 minutes.

    I wondered why OCARINA was defined as ‘rare instrument’ which seemed a bit odd. I suppose it was necessary to insert a word between ‘a’ and ‘instrument’ or ‘a’ would need to become ‘an’ which would mess up the anagrist, but for an item that brings up more than 100 relevant items as sold by Amazon, ‘rare’ doesn’t seem the best choice available. ‘Simple’, ‘small’, ‘toy’ or perhaps ‘child’s’ might have been more apt.

    At 7dn I took ‘on organ’ to mean ‘on (the subject of an) organ’ which works for me as a definition of RENAL.

    Edited at 2020-11-24 07:50 am (UTC)

  6. Five on the first pass so quite a lot left to do before I finished all green in 16. This was the latest in a little series of puzzles I’ve found to be tricky. Like others I wasn’t sure RENAL was quite right and I think I must have heard FACE CARD but it didn’t come easily to mind. I enjoyed both HEIGHTEN and ESCALOPE, the second especially as I’d been fooled into thinking it must end in LOIN ended only when CONSTABLE finally yielded – and I needed FACE CARD to stop me trying to start that with ‘paint’. ‘Pluck’ made me think of musical instruments, so I made life hard for myself there too. I enjoyed this, especially in retrospect, an impressive amount of misdirection fallen for.
  7. I enjoyed this one more than yesterday’s offering. Took me 63 minutes to get 22 of the 26. I was particularly pleased when I was able to answer 8a (HEIGHTEN) as I avoided reading the surface clue (a newbie’s habit I keep falling foul of), and I read deeper into the clue.

    Clues I gave up on were:

    1a MAID – yes, I can see it now
    19a TAXI – Bah! Annoyed I didn’t see that one
    20a AMERICAN – should have got that
    7d RENAL – should have realised that “play” was indicating an anagram

    FOI: 18a
    LOI: 10a

    1. One trick if you’re struggling with a clue, read it backwards. This often helps you to spot the setter’s misdirection 🙂

      H

  8. A better day than yesterday. Alphabet trawl to get TAXI but couldn’t parse it, spent ages to work out BOND and SPARE, but got there in the end after circling round the grid in a curious manner. COD CONSTABLE. Thanks Mara and Chris
  9. 19:52 and at least 6 minutes on BOND/CABARET. I don’t often ask for help, but after working through many words ending in NE I asked my wife for help. She called it in 10 seconds or so, then CABARET dropped.

    Agree with above: RENAL was weak.

    COD 3D: DIGIT for splicing a common enough word in a cute way with a tidy surface.

  10. I had my traditional struggle with Mara and after 10 minutes over half of the grid was still blank. I was starting to wonder if I was going to need to resort to aids but I gradually tuned in and had a series of PDMs. In hindsight there was nothing too tricky and lots to enjoy, particularly CONSTABLE and BOTTLE. My last pair in were BOND and MAID and I eventually finished in 17.05.
    Thanks to Chris
  11. Also 17 minutes for me, with the hold-ups in the NE. CARD came quickly enough, but I didn’t connect to FACE for ages, which held up FIT (I was trying to make HIT work), and BOND and RENAL also slowed me down. I liked CONSTABLE and BOTTLE. Thanks Mara and Chris, although Chris, you have left the second A of ASTRONAUT unaccounted for in your otherwise excellent blog.
  12. … at 22 minutes, and a struggle throughout. Just not on Mara’s wavelength today I think, as few of the clues were so impossible in retrospect. NE corner the last to fall – DK the phrase Face card for what I call the honours, court cards or picture cards – isn’t three terms for them enough?! 7D Renal also delayed me, for reasons others have given, and 9A Bond didn’t fall until the checker N was in.

    Liked Mara’s self reference in 22A. Oink will have to watch out, others are encroaching on his trademark!

    Thanks to Chris for the blog, thought two minor thoughts. I read 8A as “figure (=eight)” in “cooped up animal (=hen)”, the coop going with the hen. Otherwise the surface doesn’t work, surely? It would need to be “figure cooped up in animal”. And in 11D, it is presumably ON A in Strut not just ON.

    Cedric

    1. That was how I (eventually) read HEIGHTEN too – the “cooped up” must be a reference to a chicken coop.
  14. I always find Mara difficult, and thus it came to pass. Some great clues here, eg DIG IT and CONSTABLE, but after nearly ten minutes of staring at my last two in, I had to resort to an alphabet trawl for HEIGHTEN and TAXI. Ah, well. Thanks, Chris, and thanks too to Mara
  15. Oh dear! Another painful SCC solve for me. If Jeremy is unusually easily frightened by being slowed down to 7.59 by one clue, where does that leave me? I must be scared witless. Perhaps I won’t go out today in case something frightens me to death.
    Getting back to reality, this was another unsettling QC for me despite some very nice clues. Like Jeremy and Merlin, I was slowed by BOND (and CABARET) and I only got DIGIT after realising that I had stupidly entered MADE instead of MAID (doh). TAXI and SPARE held me up and I agree that RENAL was poor, as phrased. I liked CONSTABLE and ESCALOPE.
    Ah well, I’m off to hide under the stairs until the fear subsides. 🙄 Thanks, both. John M.

    Edited at 2020-11-24 10:36 am (UTC)

  16. Tough here too, doubling my time by not being able to see FIT or HEIGHTEN. In hindsight perhaps trawling for 3 letter words beginning with F wasn’t the smartest move because there are an awful lot of them! (And even though FIT was on my list I didn’t twig to it straight away.)

    So lots of pain on those two but pleasure elsewhere. NHO OCARINA by the way. Maybe COATIS play them.

    FOI MAID, LOI HEIGHTEN, COD DIGIT, time 2.7K ouch ouch ouch for a Rubbish Day.

    Many thanks Mara and Chris.

    Templar

    Edited at 2020-11-24 10:10 am (UTC)

  17. Despite the fact that all the answers and the parsing makes sense now, I found this really hard, and resorted to looking up the definitions and a few answers in the blog to help towards the end. The clock says an hour but a definite DNF!

    Like a few others it seems, 4A Face Card, 9A Bond and 19A Taxi all held me up. I couldn’t see 8A Heighten or 16A Escalope either!

    Is XI in taxi taken from the 11 of a football team? I’ve seen eight for rowers, but don’t recall seeing other numbers for team.

    Thanks for the blog and for the mind boggling puzzle. I shall persevere and will be a 10 minute solver one day!

    1. Yes, XI for a team is common enough. In addition to eight/s for rower/s I have also seen four/s but it’s very rare.
          2. I’m sure someone can think of a better clue than:
            A bug from a French pear devouring a Union side with you and me?
  18. I found this tough. I was held up by BOND, FACE CARD and (LOI)HEIGHTEN. Liked CONSTABLE. 12:30. Thanks Mara and Chris.
  19. Found this very hard today and resorted to help to crack a few clues (HEIGHTEN, MAID, ESCALOPE). Not sure about RENAL as an organ, although anagram easy to solve. COD definitely CONSTABLE.
  20. After 5 minutes I thought here we go again with another difficult QC. However, I plodded through and managed to complete in 37 minutes – but it was one of those “treacle” puzzles, where every clue felt like extracting teeth – even more annoying when the answers were staring at you. All those 3 or 4 letter clues come to mind: 4dn “Fit”, 9ac “Bond”, 19ac “Taxi”, 23ac “Neat” all took far longer than they should have.

    That’s not to say I didn’t appreciate some of Mara’s clever clues. 4ac “Face Card”, 6dn “Cabaret” and 14ac “Bottle” were all nicely done. Only quibble was 7dn “Renal” which I thought related to an organ but wasn’t actually one.

    FOI – 1ac “Maid”
    LOI – 13dn “Ocarina”
    COD – 5dn “Constable” – guessing another chestnut, but still made me smile.

    Thanks as usual.

  21. I took the 8.45 this morning from Shanghai, Hong-Qiao Hub.

    FOI 1ac MAID

    LOI 8ac HEIGHTEN

    COD 5dn CONSTABLE

    WOD 2dn ANEMONE

    Nice to see MARA getting excited

  22. Felt like I was jumping around all over the grid with this one. But eventually I got enough toeholds that the rest slotted in easily enough for a 7:14 finish. Had no problem parsing RENAL and remembered how to spell ANEMONE for once! Amused to see setter’s self-reference in 22a – as somebody else already said, Oink look out 🙂

    CODs REPORT & CONSTABLE

    H

  23. ….I was tempted to hail TAXI as my COD, but resisted. A second consecutive top 10 ranking (9th at the moment) supports my view that this was easy for those more experienced solvers.

    FOI MAID
    LOI RENAL
    COD CONSTABLE
    TIME 3:03

  24. I didn’t have any particular problems. There were no quadrants lacking checkers although I did have four across clues which belatedly revealed themselves. In reverse order my last four in were HEIGHTEN, ESCALOPE, BOND and finally MAID. Sub 9 minutes for a good day. Thanks to Chris and Mara.
  25. A relaxed solve on paper today in about 14 minutes. Held up by my last two, BOND and RENAL which gets my vote for COD.
    FOI MAID. A nice puzzle from Mara.
    David
  26. Found this a tough one. Finished in 24 mins without having parsed TAXI. Really quite a struggle all round the grid. In retrospect some nice clues, so thanks to Mara.

    FOI – 10ac TOOT
    LOI – 19ac TAXI
    COD – 14ac BOTTLE which had me mentally trawling through wine regions and grape varieties – but of course it was much simpler than that!

  27. Fortunately I hadn’t put the crowbar away from yesterday, as it again came in useful. A painfully slow 45min solve – I really should have gone away and come back to it later in the day. Hold ups all over the grid, with Renal, Toot (peep), Bottle, Escalope, and Spare just some of the ones that caused difficulty. On the other hand, Face Card, Heighten, Constable and Astronaut were write-ins. Go figure. Invariant
  28. at 6:32.

    NE corner was the last to go in, with FACE CARD last of all.

    Better than my standard experience with Mara, which involves much wailing and gnashing of teeth.

  29. Decided 4a must be Pick (a) Card which does make sense, and so 4d was Pop, which meant I couldn’t solve Heighten and was trying to think of an animal though Hen did occur to me. Oh dear. Have been playing bridge for years but think of honours or court cards. NHO Face Cards.

    Don’t know why I didn’t get Escalope as I cooked them recently.

    Liked Bottle and Bond, biffed Renal, Anemone.

    FOsI Ear, Rome, Neat, Maid, Megastar, Constable.

    Not a good day, but thanks all, as ever.

    Edited at 2020-11-24 02:03 pm (UTC)

  30. DNF for me as I had EIGHT for 3D being the only five letter number ending in T and tried in vain for a four letter girl’s name to go in 1A. The rest were dragged kicking and screaming from brain with much resort to aids and I still couldn’t parse TAXI in the end
  31. What a chewy little puzzle! We’ve never heard of a face card so it was particularly pleasing to solve it. The kidney is the organ – renal is not so, although the solution was obvious, the clue was a bit clumsy. So, we ducked and we weaved and got there in the end – no time recorded due to a series of interruptions but would guess 25 mins. Thanks Mara – we enjoyed it.

    FOI: maid
    LOI: fit
    COD: digit

    Thanks to Chris for the blog

  33. Much jollier than yesterday’s face-pucer, and caught by some wonderfully elegant surfaces with CONSTABLE being my pick of the cop. MEGASTAR FOI. Thank you Mara and Chris.
  34. COD 5D “one who had a brush with the law? (9) “
    missed the self reference to the setter.

    Edited at 2020-11-29 11:29 am (UTC)

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