Times Quick Cryptic 570

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
This one took me exactly 10 minutes. Looking back at my solving times it seems I had a problem with Flamande’s puzzles in the early days of the Quickie in 2014 when they took me regularly over the 15 minute mark, but since May 2015 he/she has set 25 puzzles of which I solved 21 in 10 minutes or under, and the remaining 4 were under 15.  I can’t see that there’s anything particularly hard in this one, though there are a couple of things that some may not be familiar with, the priest and the ancient city, for example, but these are both old crossword favourites so they need to be learnt at some point. I am indebted to mohn2 for a new method of producing the blog that saves a lot of time and I think he plans to make it available to other bloggers in due course if they are interested. It works for both the Quickie and the main puzzle.

As usual definitions are underlined in bold italics, {deletions are in curly brackets} and [indicators in square ones]

Across
1 Top people having some bread with evening meal, but no starter (5,5)
UPPER CRUST – {s}UPPER (evening meal) [no starter], CRUST (some bread)
8 Swimmer going off course near entrance to harbour (7)
HERRING – [entrance to] H{arbour}, ERRING (going off course)
9 American Indian disposes of horse quickly (5)
APACE -APAC{h}E (American Indian) [disposes of H for horse]
10 Journey I had taken through Renfrewshire’s borders (4)
RIDE – I’D (I had|) contained by [taken through] R{enfrewshir}E [‘s borders]
11 Keep secret wine container, say, at university (6,2)
BOTTLE UP -BOTTLE (wine container, say), UP (at university)
13 For him principally money is so essential, right? (5)
MISER – First letters [principally] of M{oney} I{s} S{o} E{ssential} R{ight}. The definition is &lit
14 Corpulent   porter (5)
STOUT – Double definition, the second with reference to beer
16 Maybe Christian always is behind bishop and priest (8)
BELIEVER – B (bishop), ELI (priest), EVER (always)
17 Man, for example, first to vacate gangway (4)
ISLE – {a}ISLE (gangway) [first to vacate]
20 Rope — look — restraining donkey (5)
LASSO – LO (look) contains [restraining] ASS (donkey)
21 Cinema advertisement for caravan (7)
TRAILER – Double definition
22 Pre-wedding fight? (10)
ENGAGEMENT – Cryptic definition
Down
1 Escort female into city of old (5)
USHER -SHE (female) inside UR (city of old)
2 Poem father introduces is read lots in translation (8,4)
PARADISE LOST -PA (father), anagram [translation] of IS READ LOTS. The epic poem by John Milton.
3 Complain loudly in bar (4)
RAIL – Double definition
4 Ignore newly-developed area (6)
REGION – Anagram [newly-developed] of IGNORE
5 Most clever son taking early spring exam? (8)
SMARTEST -S (son), MAR (early spring – March), TEST (exam)
6 Produced German wine when entertaining one young lady from Strasbourg? (12)
MADEMOISELLE – MADE (produced), MOSELLE (German wine) containing [entertaining] I (one). German wine with a French spelling in this case!
7 Democratic leaders identify tyrant (6)
DESPOT -DE{mocratic}[leaders], SPOT (identify)
12 New fort constructed to protect eastern port in Sierra Leone (8)
FREETOWN – Anagram [constructed] of NEW FORT contains [to protect] E (eastern)
13 Phone spy about British head of intelligence (6)
MOBILE -MOLE (spy) contains [about] B (British) + I{ntelligence} [head]
15 Some remember that woman’s name (6)
BERTHA -Hidden in [some] {remem}BER THA{t}
18 Bird, say, about to perch on top of tree (5)
EGRET -EG (say – for example), RE (about), T{ree} [top]
19 Run ahead of expert in athletics event (4)
RACE – R (run), ACE (expert)

14 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 570”

  1. A couple of perhaps too easy clues–‘port in Sierra Leone’, say, or ‘corpulent porter’, or ‘Man, for example’–but some misleading ones, too; at least I was misled (and here I’m tempted to say that misling the solver is the setter’s job, but I’m above that sort of thing). 13d, for instance, had me looking for an internal M; ‘loudly’ in 3d had me looking for an internal F. As Jack points out, UR and ELI are definite musts for one’s list of setter’s tricks. With regard to the (correct) use of ‘American Indian’ in 9ac, I might add that–so far as I can recall, anyway; correct me, Jack, if I’m wrong–‘native’ (American/Australian, etc.) in a clue (almost?) always indicates a plant or animal, not a human. 3:56, a PB I think.
  2. I feel the same about this one as kevingregg above, but I would add SAY in 11a is another misdirection, I was looking for a homophone until I had the checkers in place and my LOI 6d had me trying to find an anagram for a German wine until the penny dropped. All in all a nice middle of the road test for a Monday, thank to Flamande and blogger, thought 15d COD great surface.
    1. My memory may be at fault but I can’t remember “say” on its own ever serving as a homophone indicator, so I’d automatically take it to indicate an example. As today in fact where if it were not present people would be pointing out that a wine container is not necessarily a bottle and vice versa. “Some say” would be another matter.
      1. Thanks, point taken and filed for future use, unfortunately my filing system is notoriously fallible.
  3. Mademoiselle was my clue of the day but I needed all the checkers before I could find it. Having had several PBs last week with each done within 30. Today it was Congratulations you have solved the crossword in two hours and thirty minutes. For me Freetown, Stout and Man were not too easy although I did kick myself when I eventually got them.
  4. Misled myself on 15d looking for ‘her’ (that woman’s), so LOI. Misspelt MADEMOISELLE for the umpteenth time, then corrected. EGRET is another of those crossword words. 6’06”.
  5. Most of this went in quite quickly but my last 4 (3d, 9a, 17a and 18d) held me up for a while. I eventually completed in about 22 minutes. I have done enough of these now for Ur to become an automatic response to an old city but Eli still takes a bit of remembering. COD 17a
  6. DNF due to struggles in SE corner, just did not see MAN=ISLE, which must be a common crossword mis-direction, which worked on me. I thought there would be an ‘in’ clue in my four remaining clues, but didn’t see BERTHA. Thought 6d was a great clue, and liked the multiple misdirections in MOBILE, how could head of British Intelligence not be ‘M’.
  7. I took 40 minutes over this one, ten over my target. An enjoyable struggle.
    I was pleased that I remembered Ur, Eli, and that a fish is a swimmer and Man is an island – all crosswordland regulars.

    Brian

  8. Maybe it is just that I don’t like Mondays, but somehow this was a bit short on fun for me. I agree that ISLE was well crafted and this held me up but not much else to enjoy.

    Anyway it is still a lot better puzzle than I could set….

    1. You’re not without company on that score, Chris! I sometimes wonder how we dare criticise anything at all.
  9. For once I solved this from top to bottom. Usually I look for an easy way in and go from there but I could see 1a must start with Upper and I went from there. As a result my last two were 22a (wasn’t sure about the fight part) and 18d which I thought was quite tricky.
    I did not think this was easy but I was sharpened up by Saturday’s very tricky puzzle (several still to solve) and finished in 14 minutes. I liked 6d; it reminds me that German wine is very underrated. David
  10. Just scraped under the hour, but that was with Upper Brass, which at least was an improvement on my initial guess of Upper Class, but still wrong. SE corner (14, 17 and 21) was particularly difficult until 6d provided some checkers. Invariant
  11. I found this one of the most difficult in recent weeks, but it could be due to lack of sleep on my behalf. Took me 48 minutes, including 10 minutes in the middle where I’d reached a temporary wall, and went off to browse the internet. I thought, for some reason, Strasbourg was in Germany, which led me to try to somehow shoe-horn Liebfraumilch into the answer.

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