Times Quick Cryptic 1887 by Mara

Author   william_j_sPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
I seemed to be on the wavelength with this one. Not a total write-in, as several clues needed returning to for a second go, but on the gentle end of the spectrum.

Definition underlined.

Across
1 Arena, attractive thing for opener (4-4)
RING-PULL – RING (arena) and PULL (attractive thing).
5 Briton back on his bed (4)
SCOT – last letter of (back on) hiS and COT (bed).
9 Brazilian steps into cheongsam bashfully (5)
SAMBA – hidden in (into) cheongSAM BAshfully. The unusual bit of vocab here, which one doesn’t need to know, is a fashionable Chinese dress.
10 Trouble with soldier, perhaps, brave (7)
GALLANT – GALL (trouble) and ANT (soldier, perhaps).
11 Intention to finish (3)
END – double definition.
12 Hawk in range, worm agitated (9)
WARMONGER – anagram of (agitated) RANGE WORM.
13 Red fruit carpet also’s covered (6)
TOMATO – TOO (also) containing (has covered) MAT (carpet).
15 Reform of trades looked hard (6)
STARED – anagram (reform) of TRADES.
17 Ticket seller cooler after fight cancelled (3,6)
BOX OFFICE – ICE (cooler) after BOX (fight) and OFF (cancelled).
19 Force in London encountered (3)
MET – double definition.
20 Passage runs into bar (7)
EXCERPT – R (runs) contained by (into) EXCEPT (bar).
21 Top grade, as it happens, existing (5)
ALIVE – A (top grade) and LIVE (as it happens).
22 Take courses perhaps in English following row (4)
DINE – E (English) following DIN (row).
23 Dog leads on rumbustious Yorkies, mine (8)
COLLIERY – COLLIE (dog) then the first letters from (leads on) Rumbustious Yorkies.

Down
1 Admire sceptre that’s fake (7)
RESPECT – anagram of (that’s fake) SCEPTRE.
2 No bananas for wanderer (5)
NOMAD – NO and MAD (bananas).
3 Wily father I suspect after power — tempt fate (4,4,4)
PLAY WITH FIRE – anagram of (suspect) WILY FATHER I after P (power).
4 Served up, magnificent drink (5)
LAGER – reversal of (served up) REGAL (magnificent).
6 Horse: might one be on the phone? (7)
CHARGER – definition and cryptic hint.
7 Egyptian king or teacher (5)
TUTOR – TUT (Egyptian king) then OR.
8 Something to swat with The Observer? (3,2,3,4)
FLY ON THE WALL – double definition. Actually, it deserves a better description, but I dont have one. It’s a bit &lit-ish, but using a double definition ‘device’ for the wordplay reading. Or maybe it’s a cryptic defintion?
14 National average inspiring cricket team, hundred following (7)
MEXICAN – MEAN (average) containing (inspiring) XI (eleven, cricket team) and C (hundred).
16 Unable to think clearly, that chap in Dirty Dancing (7)
DITHERY – HE (that chap) contained by (in) an angram of (dancing) DIRTY.
17 Roll of money? (5)
BREAD – double definition.
18 Piece of counterpoint, roughly a couple of bars to start (5)
INTRO – hidden in (piece of) counterpoINT ROughly.
19 Reportedly predominant state (5)
MAINE – sounds like (reportedly) “main” (predominant).

42 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 1887 by Mara”

  1. I biffed PLAY WITH FIRE, parsed post-submission. I don’t know what to call FLY ON THE WALL, but then I never do know what counts as a (semi-) &lit. 5:56.
  2. I was decidedly off it at 16 minutes.

    FOI 11ac END

    LOI 21ac ALIVE

    COD 14dn MEXICAN

    WOD 12ac WARMONGER

  3. Maybe waking early and trying to solve at dawn didn’t work for me, but I wasn’t at all on wavelength. DNF. Did not enjoy. Assumed there was a fly on or in something at 8D but didn’t get the parsing, and COLLIERY eluded me too.
  4. After a brisk start this became trickier at the bottom of the grid. I needed all the checkers for FLY ON THE WALL and it went in with a slightly bemused shrug. Finished with EXCERPT and BREAD both of which held me up longer than they probably should have done. Finished in 9.46.
    Thanks to William
  5. A pleasing solve completed in 10 minutes, again on the nail and just within my target time. I was delayed at the end at 20ac where my first thought had been ‘extract’ and I found it hard to put that out of my mind and come up with something else to fit the checkers as they arrived.

  6. FOI: 9a. SAMBA
    LOI: 5a. SCOT

    Time to Complete: 47 minutes

    Clues Answered Correctly without aids: 23

    Clues Answered with Aids (3 lives): 10a, 20a, 6d

    Clues Unanswered: Nil

    Wrong Answers: Nil

    Total Correctly Answered (incl. aids): 26/26

    Aids Used: Chambers

    My solve rate is slowly climbing. Two months ago, I was at a solve average of 24%. Now it is 31%.

    12a. WARMONGER – At first, I was trying to think of types of hawk bird. I thought I had it when I considered WINDHOVER, but the O was in the wrong place. After a few more answers provided more letters, I saw WARMONGER. I did not understand the connection between HAWK and WARMONGER, but I felt it was right, and so WARMONGER went in.

    6d. CHARGER – This one had me perplexed. I was trying to think of a breed of horse, or perhaps a play on the word horse (hoarse) to do with chatting a long time on the phone. But Chamber’s showed me that I was perhaps thinking too deeply. Great clue.

    7d. TUTOR – This was my penultimate answer. King Tut always reminds me of the villain in the 1970’s Batman TV series.

    Good start to the day. Now off to tackle that jungle I call my garden.

    1. Hawks, metaphorically, are people who want to go to war, as opposed to doves who seek peace.
  7. A weird one. I was worryingly slow to start and picked my way slowly through the clues, failing to see most of them on first pass. I built up crossers and pennies gradually began to drop but I was most definitely off Mara’s wavelength. I ended up a minute or so into the SCC (all parsed) after a couple of under-target days. I think there are some nice clues here. Maybe I will enjoy Mara’s wit and wiles more by going through the puzzle again with William’s blog. John M.

    Edited at 2021-06-02 07:37 am (UTC)

  8. … especially the SE corner, and took 18 minutes to complete — considerably longer than my usual Mara finish.

    I too did not know quite what to make of 8D Fly on the wall — as a clue it seemed to be a bit of this, a bit of that, quite clever, but in the end I was more happy to solve it than sad at not being able to categorise it.

    Also took time over 10A Gallant, which I totally misunderstood, thinking it started GI for “soldier, perhaps”, then a 5-letter word meaning brave, with the whole meaning Trouble. Completely back to front! MER though at the connection Gall = Trouble: are they really synonyms? I would see gall as either impudence/effrontery, or spite/nastiness, or something bitter. But trouble?

    Many thanks to William for the blog
    Cedric

  9. On par 6K with nothing too daunting. Spent longer than I thought on TOMATO. Very good QC. COD MEXICAN.
    Thanks Mara and all.
  10. 13 minutes with no real difficulties. I always like it when I see 1a immediately, as happened here. Thanks both.
  11. A bit of a slog, and I eventually ran out of puff at the 28 min mark with EXCERPT left. Figured out the clue, and was also stuck on’Extract’. Only tested vowels in position 6, so missed the unlikely RPT ending.

    COD FLY ON THE WALL. I think clues may be like biological species, can be hard to classify and sometimes the borders between them are blurred. Anyway, good clue.

    I was distracted with the hidden ‘petals’ at 13a, which sort of fitted. Also ‘one’ as a hidden at 19a, setters often hide a short word in much longer ones, see ‘cheongsam’. I’m sure Force=One somehow.

  12. Solved in just under 30 minutes, so clearly I found this much harder than the last couple of days. Enjoyed the puzzle nonetheless.

    Top half fell into place fairly quickly, had a lot more trouble with the bottom half:

    LOI 23ac, needed a long hard stare before finally seeing the answer. Also tricky were 16dn, where I took far too long disassociating Dirty Dancing, and 20ac where I needed an alphabet trawl before finally getting there.

    Top work setter and blogger – thank you both!

  13. Just over target with FOI SCOT followed by a clockwise solve. I too tried to make extract work at 20a and EXCERPT was my LOI. I liked FLY ON THE WALL and MEXICAN but my COD goes to EXCERPT for the simplicity. 9:36
  14. three in a row successfully completed- miles better than last week. 20a held me up at the end for 10 minutes. I wonder if any english speaking dialects pronounce the ‘P’?
  15. on phone meant this took a bit longer than it should have.

    Liked BOX OFFICE. LOI was BREAD, which i also liked.

    6:12

  16. I was another one who got stuck on extract instead of EXCERPT for a bit. 10a was a bit problematic, as I too was trying to add GI into the mix somewhere. I also nearly biffed push ones luck when I only had the P for 3d, but decided to wait – am glad I did, or it could have really messed the grid up!
    Quite a bit slower today at 12 minutes, so below target, but I liked it, especially WARMONGER and STARED (reminders of Paddington Bear).
    FOI Ring pull
    LOI Gallant
    COD Fly on the wall

    Many thanks Mara and William

  17. Rather busy with garden at the moment so didn’t want to spend a lot of time on the QC – that’s my excuse for having to consult CCD for LOI EXCERPT. Moral: Always think of every alternative meaning for e.g. passage.
    Much enjoyed this one. Liked RING PULL, WARMONGER, BOX OFFICE, FLY on THE WALL. Was stupidly slow on TOMATO.
    I would have thought a cheongsam was traditional Chinese rather than fashionable, though I dimly remember owning one in the sixties. Maybe it was fashionable for Westerners too then. Reckon it is a fitted dress with a Mandarin collar and a slit skirt.
    Thanks vm, William.

    Edited at 2021-06-02 02:17 pm (UTC)

  18. A shame this wasn’t by Oink, because I certainly made a pigs ear of solving it. After a flying start at the top of the grid, a pause to deal with the postman proved a fatal delay and I really struggled on my return. Excerpt, Dithery (tip for newbies: implied words not actually in the clue, He in this instance, are never altered) and Charger all held me up, but Warmonger (wrong hawk), Fly on the Wall (!) and loi Colliery (!!) had me stumped for very long time. All of them were fairly clued and at least provided some whopping pdms. Must have been over 30mins in total, but Mara’s humour, as in CoD 8d, kept me going. Invariant
  19. Way off wavelength today. Perhaps I was thrown by the power dip which caused all my computers, clocks and my router to shut down or reboot, and caused me 45 minutes unwanted hassle resetting everything. RING PULL went straight in, but at 9 minutes I’d completed less than half of the grid. I eventually pulled it all together in 14:12. LOI was EXCERPT. TOMATO took far too long as I was trying to put the carpet outside of the also. Doh! Thanks Mara and William.
  20. Might blame the heat, but after 30 mins still had three to go and with a few things to do today I had to concede defeat.

    Struggled with 20ac “Excerpt” and, embarrassingly, 5ac “Scot” and 6dn “Charger”. Annoyingly I even thought of “Cot” for bed — but was thinking more along the lines of Celt and Pict and various other ancient types rather than more straightforward answer. Just shows how easy it is to overthink things sometimes. Similarly with “phone” I was thinking of a receiver rather than the modern peripheral of a mobile.

    Lots to like though and enjoyed the longer clues.

    FOI — 11ac “End”
    LOI — dnf
    COD — 8dn “Fly on the wall”

    Thanks as usual!

  21. 4:55 – I felt this was less straightforward than the first two QCs this week but there was nothing too obscure IMO.
    Several neat surfaces inc. 17 ac “Box Office”, 12 ac “Warmonger” and 16 d “Dithery”.
    Tutankhamen seems to been popping up in various guises recently in a few Times crosswords.
    Thanks to William and Mara
  22. This was a go-stop-go-stop-go-struggle-DNF experience for me. I started well in the NW corner, but then ground to a halt before getting going again in the SE corner and grinding to a halt again. At one stage, I had both of these corners filled in and a sea of blank cells elsewhere. Finding WARMONGER and BOX OFFICE then opened up the NE and SW before my usual struggle with the last few clues.

    In the end I floundered on 20a (EXCERPT), because I was too impatient. I had parsed the clue correctly and had thought of the required meaning of ‘bar’. Unfortunately, EXCEPT did not come to mind, so an alphabet trawl ensued. I found EXCEAT, stuck an R in it to make EXCERAT, and assumed it was a word I had never heard of. Pure stupidity on my part, as I couldn’t really make it work with the clue. Upshot = DNF in 49 minutes.

    Many thanks to Mara and to william_j_s

  23. Some tricky (but fair) clues resulted in my being just outside my target range at 21 mins. Took a long time to unscramble the anagram at 12ac, where I had managed to think of 2 meanings for hawk – neither the right one – and biffed 3dn without realising it was an anagram. Finished in the SW with 20ac, 14dn and 13ac as last in.

    FOI – 5ac SCOT
    LOI – 13ac TOMATO
    COD – loved the simplicity of 2dn – NOMAD

    Thanks to Mara and William

  24. Finished abt 30m with a little help. SE corner caused the most trouble with excerpt falling only when we had the cross checkers, and still could not parse it. Too much time thinking of the wrong sort of passage. Thanks for a good puzzle.
  25. ….and I can’t really see why.

    FOI RING-PULL
    LOI DINE
    COD FLY ON THE WALL (though it’s borderline 15×15)
    TIME 3:47

  26. All went in without too much headscratching until I got to the SW corner. EXCERPT finally fell but I couldn’t see 17d or 22a. For the latter, I eventually came up with LINE – L in E – for “learn in English” and LINE is OK for ROW. Tried it on my phone and got a pink square… Ho hum. Looked at 17d and did an alphabet trawl for the second letter and had a PDM. That gave me DINE which I eventually managed to parse.

    Not a bad day as I finished without resorting to the crossword solver app on my phone…

    Thanks for the explanations, William. A quiet day today with only 30 or so comments – must be uncontroversial!

  27. … completely stumped by MEXICAN and had to check William’s explanation (many thanks). I’m still very new to this but get so frustrated by my inability to think outside the box! Totally hooked though — the only way is up (Yazz?)
  28. See the Glossary – top right, on the iPad anyway.
    FOI is first one in. COD is clue of the day.
  29. Late solve after golf.08:12 with LOI EXCERPT. DITHERY and MEXICAN caused minor delays.
    Enjoyable.
    David
  31. new to this — so pleased that i finished. what does FOI and COI in the comments mean?
    1. Well done! Why not join the gang with a name? As Countrywoman says, you can find the glossary at the top of the opening LJ page on some devices. On others eg Kindle, Android phone, it’s right at the bottom. Just keep scrolling! There are lots of other useful links there too. LOI — last one in, SCC — slow coach club, DNF — did not finish, the list keeps growing 😅
  32. The above soldier was in use again today.
    Had to change the login as Toxshot and the other Mark Davis seem to have vanished.
    Can one of the moderators help?

    Cheers

  33. Took a few minutes to find the wavelength but once I had I was off and running, with a minor stall in the south-west. LOI COLLIERY in around fifteen minutes.

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