Times Quick Cryptic No 1058 by Rongo

Author   rolytolyPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
A tough one today from Rongo, providing a good bridge to the 15×15 crossword (although perhaps less so this week). I came in a bit shy of 17 minutes, twice the time of Tuesday’s QC which I did just before this. It made for a very satisfying solve as the difficulty came (mostly) from misdirection rather than obscure general knowledge, with pretty much all the answers being everyday words. Well worth persevering with if you found it a struggle, for there were some cracking clues: I liked the novelty of 5ac and the aha! moment of 19ac, but I loved the surface-level commentary on the motivations of the creator in both 1d and 14d. Honourable mentions also to a lovely cryptic definition at 10d, and the dilemma of a lazy-bones at 12d. Excellent puzzle, much enjoyed – many thanks to Rongo!

Across
1 Simple vehicle cut sharp moves (8)
PUSHCART – Anagram (moves) of CUT SHARP.
5 General sense that a lot of people studying science end with! (4)
GIST – Only parsed post solve: a scientist’s area of expertise will often give the title ____gist. Astrologist, for example. (Joke)
7 Bird’s carefree frolic (4)
LARK – double definition.
8 Ma, create fantastic meal with scones (5,3)
CREAM TEA – Anagram (fantastic) of MA CREATE.
9 Ecstasy widespread after a number arriving at Spanish island (8)
TENERIFE – E (ecstasy) RIFE (widespread) after TEN (a number). “Arriving at” is an elegant example of a “link-word” between wordplay and definition: in the surface reading it describes drug-running; in the cryptic reading it means “after doing the wordplay, one arrives at the answer”.
11 Bravo for flamenco in East End pit? (3)
OLE – A pit is HOLE, pronounced ‘ole in the East End.
13 Get bigger Detective Inspector in front of deceased (6)
DILATE – DI (detective inspector) afront LATE (deceased)
16 Shouts encouragement in board game with centre hidden (6)
CHEERS – CHEQUERS (board game) with the middle letters (QU) taken out of sight.
18 Support stage for Journey (3)
LEG – Double definition.
19 Air simple kind of shirt covering jeans (8)
TELEVISE – TEE (simple kind of shirt) covering LEVI’S (jeans). My last one in.
20 Reversing cap, one polite chap is hard-working (8)
DILIGENT – DIL (LID = cap, reversed) I (one) GENT (polite chap)
22 Grand, in the style of festive event (4)
GALA – G (grand) A LA (à la, in the style of).
23 Tory puffed out air in speech (4)
BLUE – BLEW (puffed out air), in speech the same as BLUE.
24 European among bidders wasted chicken feed, perhaps (8)
BIRDSEED – E(uropean) among/inside an anagram (wasted) of BIDDERS.

Down
1 Guided holy man from Sodom before heartless end (7)
PILOTED – PI (holy – short for pious) LOT (man from Sodom, whose wife became a pillar of the community); ED = E[n]D, heartlessly/without centre. Questionable judgement from God (and indeed everyone involved) in this merry little tale.
2 Throttle holy man with right point of view (8)
STRANGLE – St. (saint/holy man) with R(ight) ANGLE (point of view)
3 Designer is part of circle to beat English court (9)
ARCHITECT – ARC (part of circle) HIT (beat) E(nglish) Ct. (court)
4 Article appearing in Echo after Thursday (3)
THE – E (Echo in phonetic alphabet) after TH. (Thursday)
5 Maybe Sam Spade sticks with another tool for gardener (7)
GUMSHOE – GUMS (sticks) with HOE (another [i.e., not a spade] tool for gardener). Never heard of him: a PI in the Maltese Falcon. “Gumshoe” for detective derives from the stealthiness afforded by said footwear.
6 Refinery melts ore, somehow extracting oxygen (7)
SMELTER – anagram (somehow) of MELTS ORE, with the O (oxygen) removed/extracted.
10 Endless series of steps to get to the next level (9)
ESCALATOR – a lovely cryptic definition. On the surface it describes a Sisyphean task; in the cryptic reading it accurately, if obliquely, describes an escalator.
12 Vegetative lump partly turned to rise, unsupported (8)
LEVITATE – “Partly” means some of the letters of vegETATIVE Lump, “turned” means reversed. Great surface! A couch potato thinks about answering the door, thinks better of it. (The answer would be to levitate, but alas.)
14 Perhaps Shakespeare under the weather provides Iago’s motivation? (3,4)
ILL WILL – William = Shakespeare, perhaps. William under the weather = ILL WILL. An excellent clue: “ill will” might cover it, but Iago’s motives are open to a lot of interpretation. Here we have an interesting alternative theory for the creation of this villain: Shakespeare was suffering from a thoroughly miserable hangover.
15 Iago’s end almost excited worry (7)
AGONISE – Anagram (excited) of IAGO’S EN (end, almost = en). Iago again, this time (spoiler alert) with a surface-level reference to his imprisonment and torture.
17 Supervisor to attract aliens northward (7)
STEWARD – DRAW (attract) ETs (aliens), written upwards/northward.
21 Decline eastern bishop twice (3)
EBB –  E(astern) ; B(ishop), twice.

18 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 1058 by Rongo”

  1. Be prepared for some complaints today about “too hard for a QC” and I have sympathy with that to a degree if expressed by relative newbies, but the Times is doing something of a balancing act here and catering for a broader church, so I think we have to accept that the level of difficulty will vary from day to day and occasionally there will be the QC equivalent of “a stinker”.

    I needed 19 minutes for this one – my first time over 15 minutes since a puzzle set my Mara on 19 January. In that one I raced through it and was delayed at the end by one particular clue, but on this occasion I struggled most of the way, with even two of the four 3-letter answers evading me until I had checkers to help me on my way. LOI TELEVISE.

    Edited at 2018-03-29 04:41 am (UTC)

  2. 33 minutes, quite tough.

    2 Iagos!

    Struggled with gist, the, gumshoe (unknown) and LOI piloted, for which I had pointed for a while which held up getting 7a lark.

    Some very good clues, liked televise and Tenerife. COD struggle

  3. This was quite tough for QC and I was introducing ‘the sport of QC’ to my son who is in Shanghai with his family.

    No time as such but I would have been over ten minutes.

    FOI 21dn EBB
    LOI 17dn STEWARD
    COD 14dn ILL WILL
    WOD 1ac PUSHCART

  4. It certainly took me more than twice my usual time (a bit like flashman) but a lot of fun and more satisfying than many QCs. A real mix of the simple and the very clever with lots of ‘aha’ moments (I privately used a different term). Thanks Rongo.
  5. I agree with Jacckt – this was a stinker, and I don’t mind admitting that it took me almost the whole of my 30m commute to complete. Thoroughly enjoyable struggle though, although I can imagine some of the newbies getting a bit disheartened with their progress. Worth sticking at, as this, in my opinion, is much closer to 15 x 15 standard.

    The Iago references went right over my head, but that didn’t prevent solving the first, and the second was clearly part of the anagrind.

    Excellent blog Roly, which cleared up a couple of the finer points of detail. I had biff’d 12d from definition and checkers without spotting the now obvious reverse hidden. Thanks, and thanks to Rongo.

  6. Glad I wasn’t the only one who found this tricky – my brain felt as if it was working at half pace today.
    Whilst staring blankly at my last 2 in (12d and 19a) I was trying to work out how big a disadvantage it was if your GK is lacking in some areas – if said GK appears in the clue. I’d vaguely heard of both Iago and Sam Spade but couldn’t remember in what context or what their stories were, but I solved both without too much trouble. However I can imagine scenarios where the GK is essential to solving the clue.
    Anyway enough rambling – I finally twigged 19a and crossed the line in 31.15.
    Thanks for the blog and clearing up the parsing of 5a
  7. A toughish challenge which took me over my 10 minute target to 11:31. I looked blankly at the NW for a while and then decided to cut my losses and look for easier meat elsewhere in the grid. This approach paid off and I made better progress, coming back to finish with PILOTED. It took me a while to see the wordplay for GIST, but I got there eventually. Liked TELEVISE. Nice puzzle. Thanks Rongo and Roly.
  8. Yes, this was a hard one that slowly (42mins) came together. The style of cluing was a cut above the usual QC level and would have been beyond me not so long ago. My thanks to Roly for explaining 16ac – I was getting nowhere using Chess as a base. Joint CoDs to 17d and 19ac, which both produced a smile. Invariant
  9. The phone app really needs to clarify the difference between capital I and capital L. I read both as Lago and was totally lost. Not sure that says much for my knowledge of Shakespear
  10. Glad to see I was not the only one struggling today, or trying to parse 16a unsuccessfully from chess, or failing to parse 5a completely. Thanks as always for the blog.
  11. My worst ever QC – defeated with seven clues unsolved. Gist, gumshoe, ole, televise, steward would never have been solved from the clue and I can only parse at a push with the answers (never knew ole meant bravo, not sure what I thought it was that crowds were shouting and although I know Sam Spade is a detective I’d never have got to gumshoe) but I only feel bad about levitate and perhaps birdseed. I shall regroup for tomorrow.
    1. I did wonder when I read Roly’s blog whether Gumshoe and Chequers hinted at an American connection for Rongo ? Invariant
  12. Great puzzle, I thought. Did it on paper, so not sure how long it took, but perhaps a quarter of an hour? Took a while to get started, with FOI 8a CREAM TEA, but it all went pretty steadily from there, with some fun clues.

    Ended up in the NE corner with 5a GIST quickly following 5d GUMSHOE.

    COD to the belter SMELTER at 6d, a very refined semi-&lit (for example, you’d extract oxygen from molten magnetite to turn it into iron.)

  13. Increasing numbers of proper nouns in solutions in TCs both QC and 15x!5. Some of them are very 60s’ counterculture (which I should know!). Today’s effort is Levi’s, and why didn’t I solve that one!
  14. A very good puzzle I thought. Tough but not unfair.
    It was a big help to know what Sam Spade did although Gumshoe was late in. LOI was 5a.
    COD to 19a Televise.
    It also helped that I have been trying the harder puzzles for a while now. A bit over 20 minutes for me. David
  15. As a newbie I found this difficult but well clued. Encourages me to perhaps have a stab at the main crossword. Well done to setter and blogger
  16. Enjoyed this and came in at 21 mins. As a relative beginner I’m encouraged that this is of the same ilk as 15×15. Would appreciate it if experienced solvers would identify suitable 15x15s for us learners to have a go at…

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