Times Quick Cryptic No 1043 by Joker

Author   TheRotterPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
I must be getting better at these things, as this is another QC solved well inside my 15 minute target (10 minutes and small change).  I may have to adjust my target down by a third, and disappoint myself more often!

Once again, I am struggling to find an interesting fact about the number 1043, except that it has a 5th power that consists entirely of digits 4 and smaller – and not a lot of people know that!  (The 5th power of 1043 is 1,234,302,311,013,443 if you are interested).

As far as this grid is concerned we had lots of nice clues and nothing to frighten the horses, although we did have another QC containing two (count them!) straight hidden clues (12a and 1d), which Jackkt maintains is contra to the rules or guidelines.  The puzzle did bring a new word to my vocabulary though – ‘tussore’.  I hope that you enjoyed it all as much as i did.

Across
1  Run found in woven tussore garment (8)
TROUSERS – Anagram (woven) of [TUSSORE] and R{un}.  Own up – how many of us had ever heard of tussore?  I certainly hadn’t, and the use of such an unusual word immediately alerted me to the possibility of an anagram, which was quickly deciphered – FoI.  Looking up tussore post-solve, I discover it is a fawn-coloured silk, its colour, or a dress made from it.
5  Second favourite reversed dance movement (4)
STEP – S{econd} and PET (favourite) reversed as instructed.
8  Able to remember role of landlord?  Exactly right! (6-7)
LETTER-PERFECT – The role of a landlord is to be a LETTER, and exactly right is, well, PERFECT.  An actor is letter- or word-perfect when they have the words of the part committed accurately to memory.
10  Number furious to see traveller (5)
NOMAD – NO (abbreviation for number) and MAD (furious)
11  Bad poetry on poster, perhaps (7)
ADVERSE – VERSE (poetry) on AD{vertisement} (poster)
12  Some cube numbers can be dull (6)
BENUMB – Hidden in (some) {cu}BE NUMB{ers}
13 Tastelessly loud supporter’s disheartened, say (6)
BRASSY – BRA’S (supporter’s – something of an old chestnut) and S{a}Y (‘say’ disheartened)
16  Missionary has job cutting beer (7)
APOSTLE – POST (job) in the middle of (cutting) ALE (beer)
18  Precise English – Times to take action (5)
EXACT – E{nglish} plus X (times) and ACT (take action)
20  Drive to discourage people on motorway (13)
DETERMINATION – DETER (discourage) and NATION (people) with MI (motorway) in the middle
21  Missing light vessel to east of delta (4)
DARK – ARK (vessel) to the east of (following) D (delta)
22  Military call always recalled unwell European (8)
REVEILLE – EVER (always) reversed (recalled) with ILL (unwell) and E{uropean} to finish

Down
1 Claw used in some brutal onslaught (5)
TALON – Hidden in {bru}TAL ON{slaught}
2  A family saying arising with northern Turkish (7)
OTTOMAN – N{orthern} A (a) and MOTTO (family saying) all reversed (arising in a down clue)
3  Do peers meet to get involved in gauge for HS2? (11)
SPEEDOMETER – Anagram (indicated by ‘get involved’) of [DO PEERS MEET]
4 Rebroadcast programme about natural fuel (6)
REPEAT – RE (about) and PEAT (natural fuel)
6  One who inherits after time what’s belonging to them (5)
THEIR – HEIR (one who inherits) after T{ime}
7 Get rotten referee in place years (7)
PUTREFY – REF{eree} inside PUT (place) and Y{ears}
9  Sound continuously from rarer bee vet treated (11)
REVERBERATE – Anagram (treated) of [RARER BEE VET]
12 Nicely stranded in base invaded by sudden attack (7)
BRAIDED – BED (base) with RAID (sudden attack) inside (invading)
14  Cross that is large breed of dog (7)
SPANIEL – SPAN (cross) IE (that is) and L{arge}
15  Cat good catching mice and weasel finally (6)
FELINE – FINE (good) with last letters (finally) of {mic}E and {wease}L inside (catching)
17  Cruel person’s beheaded river mammal (5)
OTTER – The beheaded cruel person is a {r}OTTER – here I am again getting a (virtual) mention in the QC!
19  Causing anxiety decades before EU’s beginning (5)
TENSE – TENS (decades) before E{u’s} beginning (first letter)
 

22 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 1043 by Joker”

  1. (The malformed comment above is mine; it seemed to auto submit before I had even begun to type and I can’t delete it as I wasn’t logged in)

    Yeah anyway so 7 minutes but totally tripped up by 12 down where I had BOARDED. Excellent clue because those of us who are in the habit of entering half-parsed answers will almost certainly get it wrong

    Edited at 2018-03-08 04:07 am (UTC)

  2. 23 minutes. Although with typo for brassy.

    Dnk benumb and was wary because of the double hidden mentioned by Rotter.

    Also held up by
    – trousers, relieved it was an anagram as dnk tussore
    – apostle
    – braided

    COD between braided and speedometer.

    Thanks setter and Rotter.

  3. Lou, I’ve deleted it for you.

    As to this puzzle, as with Izetti’s offering yesterday I had a slight delay in finding my first answer so I was up against it to finish within my target 10 minutes but made it, just, as the final seconds ticked away.

    It’s interesting that we have two ‘straight’ hiddens answers again so soon after the last occasion, so perhaps the 15×15 convention doesn’t apply to the QC after all, although I find it hard to believe that I’d not have noticed it before over the past 4 years – yes, folks, it’s 4 years this Saturday 10th March since the QC first appeared!

    I hate to admit that if it hadn’t been for clear wordplay and the fact that its second vowel was checked, I’d have written PUTRIFY at 77n, based on the spelling of ‘putrid’. Not sure I ever knew this.

    Edited at 2018-03-08 06:18 am (UTC)

      1. Thanks. I don’t think I’d have made a mistake with ‘rarefy’ because of ‘rare, but ‘liquefy’ is another tricky one.

        Can’t edit my original now but of course I meant 7dn, not 77n.

    2. I thought I would check the early QCs for two straight hidden answers to see how long it would take to find an example. It took precisely two minutes as QC 1 by Des (published in March 2014 and blogged by me) had ‘THE’ hidden at 6ac and ‘DYLAN’ hidden at 20ac. So a precedent was established right from the start!

      I have resolved to shut up about this from now on because as far as QCs are concerned the convention never existed.

      Edited at 2018-03-08 08:05 am (UTC)

    3. It didn’t help that I confused it with “petrify” for a while, too. Am very glad there was a crosser for the ‘e’…
  4. I took 30 minutes, dead on my target but I spent a lot of time staring at the checkers for my LOI Putrefy and the vision of a tastelessly loud bra was a bit off-putting!
    I think Joker consistently has the best surfaces, thanks to setter and blogger as usual
    Brian
  5. I join jackkt in putting my hand up for nearly putting putrify – but the lack of the ref/referee held me. Would it petrify me to make such a mistake? Going through, this seemed a bit more tricky than the time indicated – 10/20. Loi 3dn.
  6. Not too bad, today. Held up by BRASSY and BRAIDED. And maybe someone could tell me why only the R is used in 1a, it not being a proper noun/phonetic alphabet. I got it, but normally the clue would say “first run” or “beginning of run”, wouldn’t it?
      1. Ah, I didn’t know that! Thanks John — I’ll add it to my list of cryptic shorthand 🙂
      2. Thanks John – I maybe should have explained that point in my blog, but just took it for granted. Common cricketing opening letter abbreviations also include w for wicket and m for maiden – there are probably others.
  7. I did the same as Chris and Jack with PUTRIFY, but changed it after carefully checking the wordplay. RIF for REF didn’t compute. Otherwise a steady solve saw me over the line in 9:39. FOI, TALON, LOI BRAIDED. Thanks Joker and Rotter. My mind is boggled by the 5th power of 1043!
  8. I took 30 minutes, dead on my target but I spent a lot of time staring at the checkers for my LOI Putrefy and the vision of a tastelessly loud bra was a bit off-putting!
    I think Joker consistently has the best surfaces, thanks to setter and blogger as usual
    Brian
  9. Long struggle today. Completely forgot the old chestnut Bra = supporter. Held up by BRAIDED as well. Didn’t link nicely and stranded, but a good definition. Never heard the phrase LETTER_PERFECT, but it had to be.
    Overall not one of my finest hours.
    John
  10. Most of this went in without too much difficulty, but the SW corner was slow going. I hesitated too long before entering ‘benumb’, having never come across the word, and even then, with the first letter in place, still took ages to see what was going on with 12d. Finally finished, just under 35mins, with the short but elegant 21ac nosing out 12d as my CoD. Invariant
  11. I was going through this at a fair old lick until 12d (COD) and 13a (LOI) brought me to an abrupt halt. I eventually saw what was going on with 12 but I had to take a break before getting 13, where I couldn’t get ‘crass’ out of my head. My time was probably around 20 minutes in total.
  12. For a change I started at 1a, and having got it, proceeded smoothly so that after 10 minutes I just needed the SW.
    That proved difficult for me. A slow grind followed and I had to get 21a where I had no letters to unlock the last few clues.
    20a ,my COD,helped and I managed to avoid Boarded as I was parsing carefully. LOI was 15d. 24 minutes in total.
    Another excellent Joker puzzle. David
  13. Bloodied and bruised from yet another unsuccessful tussle with Izetti yesterday, today’s was initially a soothing balm. That is until I came to my LOI 21ac. I just could not get this to work as I could not get a light vessel to go after d that meant missing. Then the penny dropped….I blame it on PISD (post Izetti stress disorder)
  14. I encountered similar problems to those mentioned above, ie struggled with 7d because I thought the word was putrify, wondered which light vessel had three letters (and even wondered if dark could mean missing, with ark being the light vessel).

    In the end though it was 4d that scuppered me – I biffed replay and paid the price.

    Thanks Joker and Rotter.

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