Times Quick Cryptic 1797 by Felix

Author   william_j_sPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
I hope I’m not alone in finding this one a bit of a struggle. The problem with blogging after solving is that in trying to break clues down and make the parsing clear, it all starts to look very easy and you wonder what all the fuss was about! I’ll give myself a pass on 14ac (despite having seen this tricky defintion before, it still went straight over my head) and 21dn which I think (assuming I’ve understood it correctly) crosses the line from ‘creativity’ to “wilful obstruction’.

Still, there was lots to be enjoyed along the way (the surface readings made me chuckle, as did some of the crafty definitions), as well as afterwards. Hat-tip to Jackkt for reminding me of this setter’s penchant for sneaking something extra into his grids…

Across
7 Proceeded casually — risked losing the lead (6)
AMBLED – gAMBLED (risked) minus the first letter (losing the head).
8 Feeble Hollywood movie: but it’s hard to shake off! (6)
LIMPET – LIMP (feeble) and ET (Holywood movie).
9 Dumbest fool, finally moving, nearly fell (8)
STUMBLED – anagram of (moving) DUMBEST with the last letter of (finally) fooL.
10 Got larger plug rewired, partially (4)
GREW – hidden in (partially) pluG REWired.
11 State of king meeting an elite army unit (6)
KANSAS – K (king), AN, then SAS (elite army unit).
13 Sporting events: matches? (5)
MEETS – double definition, the second as in ‘meets/matches the specification’.
14 I turn on stove in the end (3)
EGO – GO (turn) next to (on) the last letter of (in the end) stovE.
15 Did DIY in bathroom I’d let out (5)
TILED – anagram of (out) I’D LET.
17 Expedition’s endless voyage, covering a great distance (6)
SAFARI – SAI{L} (voyage) without the last letter (endless), containing (covering) FAR (a great distance).
19 Try second helping of this? Just starters (4)
SHOT – first letters from (just starters) Second Helping Of This.
20 Singular spicy dishes can give you runs (8)
SCURRIES – S (singular) and CURRIES (spicy dishes).
22 Stop to deliver outside of zone (6)
FREEZE – FREE (to deliver) then the first and last letters from (outside of) ZonE.
23 Article first put together for believer (6)
THEIST – THE (article) and IST (first).

Down
1 Skip round little boy, jumping up (4)
OMIT – O (round) and a reversal of (jumping up) TIM (little boy).
2 Article borne by diminutive, climbing, pack animals (6)
LLAMAS – A (article) inside (borne by) a reversal of (climbing) SMALL (diminutive).
3 I had poor Isolde worshipped (8)
IDOLISED – I’D (I had) and an anaram of (poor) ISOLDE.
4 Cruel old ruler’s verse on youth (4)
VLAD – V (verse) then LAD (youth).
5 One who’s fled bad regime? (6)
EMIGRE – anagram of (bad) REGIME.
6 One turning back from minister and queen twice embracing son (8)
REVERSER – REV (minister), then ER ER (Queen twice) containing (embracing) S (son).
12 Unconventional star upset before hit national shows (8)
ANTIHERO – reverse hidden in (upset… shows) befORE HIT NAtional.
13 Ticks abandon old fly (8)
MOSQUITO – MOS (moments, ticks) QUIT (abandon) and O (old).
16 Permissive character? (6)
LETTER – cryptic definition.
18 Person having stock of bacteria for germ warfare — murder, ultimately (6)
FARMER – last letters from (ultimately) oF bacteriA foR gerM warfarE murdeR.
20 Appear to understand spy chief (4)
SEEM – SEE (to understand) and M (character in James Bond, spy chief).
21 Rest of newspaper oddly skipped (4)
EASE – every other letter from (oddly) nEwSpApEr then reversed (skipped). Chambers has ‘skip” = ‘overleap’ = ‘to leap over’ so I suppose it’s a very clever reversal indicator that is easily misconstrued as part of the instruction to remove letters. MER from me though.

The perimeter squares around the grid read: OLIVER TWIST ASKS FOR MORE

89 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 1797 by Felix”

  1. I think the “little” boy for 1d is Tiny Tim.
    DNF as did not get 19a. After asking the internet version to reveal 19a, popped “antihero” in unparsed and had to refer to the blog for the parsing. Enjoyed the puzzle, and always enjoy the blog. Thanks, William, for the blog today.
  2. Why is TILED the answer to “Did DIY in bathroom?” My bathroom has just been tiled and no DIY was involved. Agree with many others that this was far too abstruse for a QC. Stephen
    1. Now that I think about it, “did work in bathroom” would have been better. I only tried DIY tiling once, and the industrial language that it caused will long be remembered by my next door neighbours !
    2. A definition doesn’t have to fit every circumstance, just one is enough, but technically specifying DIY makes the clue a ‘definition by example’ which some maintain needs to be indicated by a question mark or a word such as ‘perhaps’ or ‘maybe’, but would that have made the clue easier to solve? ‘I’d let out (5)’ is pretty obviously going to be an anagram.

      Edited at 2021-01-27 05:44 pm (UTC)

      1. I am prepared to agree that it was obvious one was was looking for an anagram — though for me, it only became so once I had the checkers — but to learn that “out” can be used as an anagrind does make me wonder whether there is any word in the English language that can’t be!

        Cedric

        1. Cedric, you may find it useful to take a look at Tim Moorey’s item on anagram indicators reproduced on my own journal here: https://jackkt.livejournal.com/

          Lists of indicators are available e.g. in Chambers Crossword Dictionary, but however long the list (some of them run to many hundreds of words) they all fall broadly into 10 or 11 categories as in Tim’s table. I would say that ‘out’ could come under ‘Movement’ or ‘Disturbance of Order’.

  4. What everyone else said! I found this really hard and was pleased to have finished in 18 minutes, especially now I realise that it wasn’t only me who found it so difficult. The only problem is that, having read the blog, I discovered that I hadn’t actually finished it at all, having left the notorious 12d out 😅 Definitely a high score on Louisa’s exasperometer today!

    FOI Ambled
    COD Scurries — made me smile and wince at the same time
    DNF

    Big thanks to William for sorting this out

  5. A good day. Just as well it had nothing to do with solving this QC, which was a DNF. I put EVO (turning the end of Stove) and should have concluded my rule, if you can’t parse it, it’s probably wrong. Surprisingly spotted ANTIHERO and FREEZE with barely a mo’s pause, which makes it all the more sad that I got the QUITO in Mosquito but couldn’t fathom the MOS. Eventually got Ease but felt it unfair as I didn’t think the reverse skip was indicated. Tried to make sense of Farming bacteria before the obvious stock penny dropped with a smile. CoD REVERSER.
    I huffed and puffed over this and exceeded my usual maximum time (about an hour) but has quite a lot of waiting around one way or another and it was a good time filler.
    Definitely difficult, but, since are easier than others, and this wasn’t one of them.
    Thanks Felix, William and commenters.
  6. user jackkt posted a query about the difficulty of this puzzle on the Times Puzzle pages and I replied as follows

    Unfortunately sometimes a puzzle comes long which is trickier than most. That is almost inevitable given the fact that the clues are still “cryptic”. It’s never the intention to make one puzzle harder than another. It’s hard for me to comment really on the difficulty, other than to apologise and hope that the less easy ones are the exceptions.

    Apologies also for the error in the clue to EASE. A replacement clue will be posted for the online version.

    RR

    1. I think that the role of editor includes the obligation to ensure that the QC is not pitched at too high a level of difficulty. However, your comment suggests that you do not take complexity into account.
      The QC was designed to encourage novice cryptic solvers to gain skills, before progressing to the 15 x 15.
      On recent form, you are deterring them. That’s a shame.
      John and Phil provide a consistently fair and enjoyable parallel to the QC, on alternate Fridays. Maybe have a look at a few of them?
  7. I congratulate Felix on squeezing a 15×15 into a QC. I came nowhere in this one. I accept that I was not on the wavelength, nor at my best, but with only 9 answers after simply ages (I usually persevere, and hate giving up) I threw in the towel and came here for enlightenment. From Chris’s excellent blog, I can see that had I been thinking straight I should have got at least another half a dozen, but that would still have been a resounding DNF. With such a poor showing, I can’t really offer any FOI/LOI/COD. I hope I am seeing more clearly tomorrow, and there is a kinder puzzle! ‘Evening all’….
  8. Far to difficult for me. After a year of trying I think I am going to call it a day. Much appreciate the blogs. Actually thought I was getting somewhere but the last 2 months it seems most of the puzzles have got far more difficult and of course for me far less enjoyable.

    Once again the blogs have been much appreciated.

  10. Yes William, I agree this one was rather tough. Resorted to the dictionary to finish it off.

    I always find Felix’s puzzles quite difficult – he has a habit of bashing indicators and definitions around which don’t fit together – this is to say the surfaces are rarely very smooth and it’s really not clear at all which way to read the clue. I suppose that makes a good cryptic but the style grates on me. 13A is a good example – I really couldn’t work out what was going on there. Perhaps that’s because of the clever ticks=MOS.

    5D my COD (good surface and pithy).

    Thanks Felix for a tricky puzzle and William for exegesis.

    Woodsy.

  11. It’s also Tiny Tim the Dickens character in Christmas Carol. Tiny Tim is a well known saying

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