Times Quick Cryptic No 1078 by Mara

Author   rolytolyPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
Tricky enough one today, I found, taking me nearly four minutes over my target ten – as a comparison, I did yesterday’s immediately before this and came in two minutes under. Not my finest performance: a series of semi-parsings, and a couple of made-up words bunged in for good measure. There was “codalie” for a while at 15d as a synonym for “wally” – an implausible looking word, although the “cod-” prefix was tempting. Worse was to come at 5d, where I dredged up King Manus the Forgotten from some ill-firing neuron somewhere. (It didn’t come close to parsing, but there’s bound to have been a King Manus at some point in human history.) This revealed the Unlucky! sign as the clock struck thirteen minutes, which was mildly satisfying. 16d held me up as well: “entice” didn’t fit, but it seduced me sufficiently to make it my last correct one in. I also three-acrossed at 3ac, for no good reason whatsoever, and was tricked into using the wrong anagram indicator for a while at 14ac. Some very good clues, now that I look at it more closely, and it was in fact a lovely puzzle. Many thanks to Mara!

Across
1 Risk a second letter (4)
BETA – BET (risk) A
3 Beginning to skate, took a fall — slipped up (8)
STUMBLED – S (beginning of Skate) TUMBLED (took a fall)
9 Info at the bottom? (3-4)
LOW-DOWN – double definition-ish
10 Rover has no crackers (5)
NOMAD – NO, MAD (crackers)
11 Ostentation comes initially in story, looking back (5)
ECLAT – C (Comes, initially) in TALE (story), reversed/looking back. Nice word, from the Old French esclater, to burst out – the OED gives a secondary sense of notoriety or scandal that I was unaware of, although a showy display is on the same spectrum. There’s also the verb, to eclat: “to make notorious, bring into publicity”, but expect a perplexed look if you shove that into a conversation.
12 Throw Austen out (6)
UNSEAT – a nice anagram (out) of AUSTEN
14 Unfortunate incident arose, being careless (13)
INCONSIDERATE – anagram (unfortunate) of INCIDENT AROSE. “Being careless” is an equally plausible anagram indicator – nice misdirection.
17 Curry cold — very cold! (6)
BALTIC – BALTI (curry) C(old)
19 Watch, maybe, to send back (5)
TIMER – REMIT (to send), back/reversed. Nice again.
22 In fact, a long claw (5)
TALON – “In” the letters of facT A LONg
23 Formerly large case (7)
EXAMPLE – EX (formerly) AMPLE (large). And very nice again.
24 Muscular men mostly backed fee being revised (8)
BEEFCAKE – anagram (being revised) of “mostly” BACKE[d] FEE. The plural “men” threw me a bit, but I see “beefcake” can be singular or plural. It originally referred to the semi-naked photos of men thus equipped, being a play on the earlier “cheesecake”, a 1920s term for alluring photos of women. So I’ve learnt that “cheesecake éclat” can be a lot more than simply a display of good cooking.
25 Tolerate a beast (4)
BEAR – double definition.

Down
1 Fast traveller in news item (8)
BULLETIN – BULLET (fast traveller) IN
2 Nothing in wet rubbish left drier (5)
TOWEL – O (nothing) in an anagram (rubbish) of WET; L (Left)
4 Playful language getting not very far — yikes! (6-2-5)
TONGUE-IN-CHEEK – TONGUE (language) getting INCH (not very far) and EEK (yikes). Took me a while to separate “playful” and “language” in the (post-puzzle) parsing, not that “tongue-in-cheek” could be clued as “playful language”.
5 Old king, some person I met on the way up (5)
MINOS – “some” of the letters of perSON I Met, reversing/on the way up.
6 Greek character embracing a dance (7)
LAMBADA – LAMBDA (Greek character) embracing A. This cropped up a couple of weeks ago in the Sunday Times puzzle.
7 Remarkably odd, old old bird (4)
DODO – anagram (remarkably) of ODD, O (old)
8 Cushion frequently seen under bottom of missus (6)
SOFTEN – OFTEN (frequently) seen under S (bottom of missuS)
13 I agree to try and try again! (4,4)
HEAR HEAR – to hear a case = to try a case, repeat. Very nice!
15 Fish, a whopper for Wally (7)
CHARLIE – CHAR (fish) LIE (whopper) – you should simply ignore the “a” here – take it as a linkword, a bit like 25ac. A Charlie is a wally/fool/simpleton/ass, as in “a right royal Charlie”. I was unaware of (or had completely forgotten) this usage until it cropped up as recently as last Friday’s 15x crossword.
16 Seduce mate almost entirely the wrong way (6)
ENTRAP – PARTNER (mate), almost entirely = dock the last letter, the wrong way = reverse. This took a bit of post-puzzle parsing as well.
18 Restorative note (5)
TONIC – very nice double definition, as in a restorative, and the first note of a scale.
20 Treasure finally found under different palm tree (5)
MAPLE – E (treasurE, finally) found under an anagram (different) of PALM.
21 Hurt toe, perhaps, first in slippery bath (4)
STUB – S (first in Slippery) TUB (bath)

18 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 1078 by Mara”

  1. 3 minutes over my target 10 and delayed only by getting ‘Arctic’ in my head early on for 17ac and whilst appreciating immediately that it had to be wrong I had difficulty thinking of an alternative. I had been missing the A-checker for a while as CHARLIE was the other answer that put up resistance. BALTIC was pretty obvious once arrived at although I admit I didn’t know it meaning ‘very cold’ until I came across it in a puzzle some years ago.
  2. Really slow slogging through this one; I think my first one in was TIMER, and they didn’t come flowing in after that. Like Jack, I thought of ‘Arctic’ then couldn’t get it out of my head; there’s a sort of Gresham’s law in crosswords, where bad solutions drive out good. I couldn’t remember what a Wally was, which didn’t help matters. I raised an eyebrow (one of mine, so it’s OK) at ECLAT, whatever OED says; and one shouldn’t have to go to OED in a Quickie (ODE only gives the meaning I knew). 10:38.
  3. 19 minutes. LOI the unknown éclat. Well it was that or Ealct.

    Couldn’t parse 4d which seems obvious after reading the blog.

    Liked hear hear, baltic and soften but COD to soften.

  4. 18:02 Slow going with unknown fish CHAR and LOI 16dn ENTRAP not parsed. A tricky one for me today.
  5. This took me over my target to 11:20 with similar hold ups to others and ENTRAP entered unparsed, with trepidation, after discounting ENTICE. No trouble with BALTIC, but dallied with COD for 15d before seeing the light. FOI BETA, LOI ENTRAP. Thanks Mara and Roly.
  6. I thought I was being a bit thick today but judging by some of the comments I wasn’t the only one to struggle. It took me 23.56 to complete with a hefty chunk of that spent on my last 2 in 1d (no idea why) and 16d, which eventually went in with fingers crossed.
    Thanks for clearing up the parsing of 4d and 16d
  7. Lots to enjoy as usual. Must admit I’ve never heard of beefcake. Not disputing it as it’s in the OED but my wife has never heard it either – is it a regional thing?
    1. It’s of 1940s American origin, with cheesecake being twentyish years its senior. Which is appropriate, because if it was ever to be used in the UK (not that I’ve never heard it uttered in real life) I’d say it could only really be used as a sort of tongue-in-cheek description of a toyboy. I’ve a vague feeling I’ve heard used in that kind of way on TV. It’s a dislikeable word, like boffin, but it does improve a lot knowing its derivation.
      1. Ah thanks – I’m disappointed to know it actually, because one of my issues with the QC is that it is occasionally the preserve of an older generation, with references to a long gone culture. Some films and celebrities, for example, had their day in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s but they did not become classics because they were not cherished by later generations but they crop up in the QC and my 30 year old son would not stand a chance of solving a related clue.
  8. Tough one today. Never heard of ECLAT, so that was a “suppose it must be”. Seduce = ENTRAP? Bit of a stretch I thought, and never did parse it. Enjoyed 4dn. Lovely clue and for me “playful language” works very well for “tongue in cheek”. Overall good, tough challenge.
    PlayUpPompey
  9. I needed to go through all the gears to solve this one which took me 25 minutes.
    I fell into most of the traps it seems: had Entice at 16d and Codalie at 15d until better ideas emerged. Most clues required a fair bit of work especially the long 4d. Had Baltic but was not sure it meant Very Cold but it felt OK. LOI was at 1a where a late change from Bite to Beta saved my bacon. Excellent challenging puzzle. David
  10. I found this tricky too, taking 1 1/2 minutes over average. BALTIC, my LOI, held me up most as I was trying to make ARCTIC fit for too long. 4d my favourite.
  11. On behalf of us slow-coaches – a tough to get a toe-hold puzzle, but once started it was a good ‘un. A gentle 50 minutes in Costa this evening. FOI 10a LOI 17a COD 15a. Needed some inventive thinking to get some eg 17a but all the more satisfying for the. Thanks for the helpful blog and to Mara.
    1. Yes I meant to say that, that’s what I found as well – by the time I’d finished yesterday’s (and all that us faster-coaches have had is a lot more practice, btw!) most of the grid remained blank. It’s a satisfying sort of puzzle that falls into place after a difficult start and middle, but how a setter could possibly engineer that is beyond me.
  12. Glad it wasn’t just me that found this tough – and that I’m in good company for considering CODALIE! The SE corner took me most of the total half hour…had REMIT instead of TIMER for a while, which didn’t help. So thanks Mara and Roly for expanding my cryptic skills.
    1. I even looked it up afterwards, to see if the word existed – the closest the OED had to offer was “codille”, which is something shouted in a Spanish card game. And then I spent more time than I’d care to admit wondering how the non-existent word might be pronounced. I ended up with cod-a-lie if it was an English word, ca-dally if it was Scottish, and coh-da-lee if French – they’re all good words for an idiot in my opinion!
  13. Yes, this was very hard going, to the point of a second sitting to tidy up the NW corner and confirm that my original guess for 17ac was still the only thing that vaguely fitted. Spent most of my time trying to work out what words to use in the anagram for 4d. . . I agree with others that Eclat was a bit of a stretch for a QC, but I suppose it helps prepare for the ‘it must be’ feeling with 15×15 unknowns. Invariant
  14. Still no idea where the definition is in 14 ac. A DNF for me as I couldn’t sort out the top left. Filbert42

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