Times Quick Cryptic No 1038 by Hurley

Author   rolytolyPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
A tougher one today from Hurley, I found, pushing me over the 14 min mark. Some interesting general knowledge, enough imaginative cluing, and you can’t ask for much more than that. I learnt the name of that unattractive, spiky, tubular marshland grass type thing one often sees, and that it is a member of the same diverse and illustrious family as the water chestnut…  not especially surprising, perhaps, but it will make me look upon it with appreciation anew. Nor did I know the correct meaning of 6d, quaintly utopian as the concept seems. Also, with a ticking clock and a few seconds without any context to come up with what “lariat” meant, I’d have failed on that count as well. So yes, informative enough fun for me today – many thanks to Hurley!

Across
1 Insensitive Charlie, right fool! (5)
CRASS – C (Charlie – phonetic alphabet) R(ight) ASS (fool)
4 Worrier fired up seeing initially awkward situation (7)
FUSSPOT – FUS (Fired Up Seeing, “initially”), SPOT (awkward situation)
8 Be enthusiastic about account, one saying little about island (7)
ACCLAIM – AC. (account) CLAM (one saying little) about I (island)
9 Long twelvemonth at end of campaign (5)
YEARN – YEAR (twelvemonth) at N (“end” of campaigN)
10 Soothing word with the head of News, immediately (5,3,4)
THERE AND THEN – THERE (soothing word – as in “there there”) AND (with) THE (the) N (head of News)
12 A trial — faulty lasso (6)
LARIAT – anagram (faulty) of A TRIAL. From the Spanish “la reata”, or re-tied rope.
13 Finish repair work Monsieur’s left (6)
ENDING – MENDING (repair work), M (Monsieur) has left the building.
16 Central European with job — good place to start (4,8)
POLE POSITION – POLE (Central European) with POSITION (job)
18 Vain attempt you keep hidden (5)
EMPTY – hidden in attEMPT You
20 Go in advance of gym class, crossing playground with journalist (7)
PRECEDE – PE (gym class) crosses REC (recreation ground / playground) ED (journo).
21 He makes long journey finally short — about kilometre forward and back? (7)
TREKKER – T (“finally” shorT),  RE K (about kilometre) forward and back (KER)
22 Son nervous describing grasses (5)
SEDGY – S(on) EDGY (nervous). Sedge is a distinct family of marshy, grass-type things, Wikipedia tells me, with an impressive 5,500 species and counting. An Old English word, the OED tells me, when it was used imprecisely for a wide range of similar-ish plants.
Down
1 By sea, kiln for drying in California (7)
COASTAL – OAST (kiln for drying) in CAL. (California)
2 Metro ride chap arranged to see Paris monument (3,2,8)
ARC DE TRIOMPHE – anagram (arranged) of METRO RIDE CHAP
3 Identity assumed for men, woman and me (5,4)
STAGE NAME – STAG (for men), ENA (woman) ME. An ungainly use of a random name, if I’m to nitpick.
4 Foster often wrong, grabbing maiden (6)
FOMENT – anagram (wrong) of OFTEN, grabbing M(aiden)
5 Beastly home in West Yorkshire (3)
STY – “in” the letters of weSTYorkshire.
6 Newly evidenced, paid? This at conflict’s end? (5,8)
PEACE DIVIDEND – anagram (newly) of EVIDENCED PAID. If pushed, I would have defined this vaguely as a euphemism for “reparations”, but it is actually the extra monies available from reduced defence spending following the end of a war. As a rule, one imagines, the dividend will be many times smaller in practice than any figure conceived in anticipation. The OED has a 1995 quote from the Economist: “When the Soviet Union began to collapse in 1990, many people predicted a huge and long-awaited ‘peace dividend’.” Hmn…
7 Colour that is not trendy at first (4)
TINT – That Is Not Trendy “at first”
11 Pungency of a new drink girl imbibes (9)
TANGINESS – A N GIN (a new drink) imbibed by TESS (girl)
14 Lively good popular gallery, all going (7)
GINGERY – G(ood) IN (popular) G[all]ERY (gallery, “all” going)
15 Barrel-maker in company work, retro, off and on (6)
COOPER – CO (company) OP (work) ER – (r E t R o, off and on)
17 Done, and fast, extremely skilful (4)
DEFT – “extreme” letters of DonE and FasT
19 Animal talk (3)
YAK – double definition.

22 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 1038 by Hurley”

  1. This took me a while, and I don’t know why; too heavy a breakfast, maybe. Biffed COOPER, where an obvious definition rendered an elaborate wordplay pointless. Roly, you forgot to underline ‘long’ at 9ac. 7:20.
  2. 9 minutes with time lost biffing TRECKER at 21 before studying the worplay and realising my silly spelling error.

  3. DNF with the GINGERY/ENDING combination stumping me. GINGERY was a tough word, and also was trying to work TATE in for ‘gallery’.

    10a very clever, although these “swapping” clues are hard to parse a priori.

    Agree that barrel maker (COOPER) was a “gimme”

    Apart from 60s coronation st characters how many Ena’s are there, I know a Lena and a Mena, and tried to get them in there.

    COD 10a

  4. Over an hour with interruptions.
    Didn’t enjoy this today. Not on Hurley’s wavelength.

    Ena for the random woman.
    dnk lariat, sedgy, peace dividend, foment.

    COD deft.

  5. I found this fairly straightforward. Knew sedge so SEDGY was not a great leap. Remember LARIAT from watching the Lone Ranger and similar in my youth. Took a while to spot 4ac, but two straightforward 13 letter clues got me off to a good start.
    PlayUpPompey
  6. 10:27 with the parsing for TINT and half the parsing for FUSSPOT eluding me in my dash for the finish line. Fortunately no typos, and my educated biffs were correct. I biffed COOPER from definition too. Toughish puzzle and quite enjoyable. Thanks Hurley and Roly.
  7. Yes, this comes out as slightly trickier than usual on the rotterometer, taking me 18 minutes.

    Roly, you have a small parsing error on 8a, where the I comes from I{sland} rather than 1 (one).

    WoD has to be FOMENT. Thanks Hurley and Roly

    1. Thanks – well spotted! Bit late in the day but will change it now. I agree re “foment”. I just looked up its etymology – Latin for cherish/warm, and in some early uses was used in this positive sense – it’s always interesting how some words develop purely negative/positive connotations.
  8. Just to buck the trend this took a mere 7 minutes today – with the wavelength fully tuned in I didn’t pause to parse 4ac, 8ac and 15dn but enjoyed chewing through them on review. Agree with William – it’s enjoyable to learn with cryptics – a joy unavailable in the word puzzle concise crosswords.
  9. 7.52 today, and not really able to explain to myself why (especially given my 15×15 performance shortly after).

    Some good clueing, along with some more 15×15-ish vocab (SEDGY, FOMENT, PEACE DIVIDEND, LARIAT all spring to mind), made it feel far more like a small version of the main event today.

  10. I just couldn’t get on the wavelength today, and together with the relatively unfamilar words which others have mentioned it led to a resounding DNF.
  11. DNF for me. Had gingers for 14d (couldn’t parse the last four letters unsurprisingly), so a letter trawl yielded nothing for 22a. Whole thing a bit of a battle. Roll on tomorrow – assuming I can battle through the blizzard to the newsagents.
    1. None of my newsagents have stocked papers for 2 days so I have been grateful for the internet.
  13. Got there in the end, just short of the hour mark, but can’t say I really enjoyed the experience. In particular, I thought 10ac was a poor clue. Yesterday’s 15×15 was no harder, but a lot more satisfying to work through. Invariant
  14. After 3 days of virtual write-ins plus my first 2 completes of the 15×15 it was reassuring for Hurley to be whispering “momento mori” in my ear. Came in at a slow 42 minutes and was was reminded of my limitations. Thoroughly enjoyed it though and shared similar struggles with other bloggers. Thanks to Hurley and Roly.
  15. Like others I found this tough and had to put it down for a few hours with 2 left unsolved. The break seemed to do the trick as I stopped trying to put fit lass into 11d and that led to me finally getting 10a. No exact time but I would estimate around the 30 – 35 minute mark.
    Thanks for the blog
  16. Least enjoyable for a long time. Awful surfaces and incredibly laboured clues, my dictionary does not list an adjectival form of sedge, nor does it give a meaning of lively for “gingery” – presumably this is by extrapolation from ginger up although given the derivation of the phrase, not a very good one. Got both as the word play made them the only possibility, but…Defeated by 13a as I had “tastiness” for 11d – Tess for the girl, Asti for the drink, and n for new. Gave up looking as I found it so unpleasant.
    1. You don’t say what your dictionary is. The main Times cryptic uses Collins and the Oxfords mainly, and Collins has for ‘gingery’: adjective
      3. full of vigour; high-spirited, which I think covers ‘lively’.

      Collins also lists, under ‘sedge’
      Derived forms
      sedgy (ˈsedgy) adjective

      Collins and some Oxford Dictionaries are readily available online free of charge.

      Edited at 2018-03-01 06:43 pm (UTC)

      1. Indeed. The online OED is free if you have a Local Authority library card. I use it regularly.

  17. I found this tough but all the clues were fair. After 20 minutes or so I needed two: 3d and 22a. For some reason nothing occurred to me for 3d for ages -Slave and Spare were considered. But the clue said “for men” and that led me to the answer. 22a nearly beat me. Again much further consideration led to the answer. So about 30 minutes in total.
    I’m spending more time now on the 15x15s and some of the clues here were of that standard (e.g. 11d and 14d).
    Also let me add praise for Cracking the Cryptic on Youtube. David
    1. Interesting looking channel – thanks for pointing it out. I’m definitely going to kick back and watch a Listener sometime soon!

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