Times Quick Cryptic No 1129 by Pedro

Author   JohninterredPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

Hello fellow QC fans. Here we a have a juicy offering from Pedro that is full of bear-traps and, as you will see, I fell into just about all of them. Some sneaky definitions and unusual anagrinds plus a clue which seemed to have more than one possible answer (and I chose the wrong one) combined to leave me floundering for a good 50% over my average time before I received the “Congratulations” from the website. Along the way I enjoyed a couple of clues in particular, 12d and, my clue-of-the-day, 6d. This seemed to me at the harder end of the scale, but maybe I was just on the wrong wavelength today. Thanks Pedro for a great puzzle. How did you all find it?

Definitions underlined in italics, (ABC)* indicating anagram of ABC, {} deletions and [] other indicators.

Across
1 Shimmering sapphire emitting one, maybe (7)
PERHAPS – A bit of a sneaky one to start. Did anyone else fall into the trap of thinking the definition was “Shimmering” instead of “maybe”.  This is (sapph{i}re)* – you take the I out of sapphire [emitting one] and “shimmer” the letters about. A new and deceptive anagrind on me!
5 Head of kitchen first to lose heart (4)
CHEF – First is CHIEF. Remove the middle letter, to get what I am in my kitchen at home.
7 Want business to take on old soldier (5)
COVET – CO + VET (veteran). Good idea. Ex-forces personnel are generally very well trained.
8 Runs into vicious person with power, retreating in shock (7)
PERTURB – Don’t let this make you anxious. The vicious person is a BRUTE, insert an R (runs) and add a P (power) and reverse it all
10 Dismissed in contest, though not bowled (3)
OUT – The contest is not a cricket match but a BOUT. Lose the B for bowled. I hope this didn’t leave you Stumped. In case you were wondering, the other means of dismissal are Retired, Caught, Hit the ball twice, Hit wicket, Leg before wicket, Obstructing the field, Run out  and Timed out.
11 Against end of recital being given to singer (9)
CONTRALTO – CONTRA (against) + {recita}L + TO, the lowest female singing voice.
13 Screen feature not entirely superficial (6)
CURSOR – It took me a while to spot the screen wasn’t a partition, but what I am staring at as I write this blog. You take the end off CURSOR{y} (superficial) to get the thing that blinks where your next typing will go.
14 Raving aloud about quiet addition to website? (6)
UPLOAD – (aloud)* [Raving] about P (for piano; quiet). Another relatively unusual anagrind.
17 Salesman to begrudge exhibit (9)
REPRESENT – REP (salesman) + RESENT (begrudge). Not much of a salesman if he objected to exhibiting!
19 Healthy if faint on odd occasions (3)
FIT – Alternate letters of FaInT [on odd accasions].. if you had low blood pressure, perhaps.
20 Cleaner, fake, not entirely substandard (7)
SHAMPOO – SHAM (fake) + POO{r} (substandard) [not entirely]. I suspect the slang sort of SHAMPOO (Champagne) is more likely to be faked. Strangely, it would appear you can now wash your hair with a Champagne shampoo. What? Why?
22 Line presented in unadorned sound of horn (5)
BLARE – Unadorned is BARE, insert an L for line to get a loud parping noise.
23 What fills all of this room? (4)
LOFT – Hidden in alL OF This. Yes. My loft is full. With what? Just loads of stuff we can’t be bothered to throw out or give away, that’s what!
24 Liberty from having to go round ebbing river (7)
FREEDOM – The river is the DEE. It is ebbing, so flowing backwards. So reverse it and insert into FROM, [having to go round]. Without the Brig O’ Dee, the A90 would have to go further round, I suppose.

Down
1 Brag, perhaps, to follow having this collection of suits (4,2,5)
PACK OF CARDS – Cryptic definition, Brag being the game of cards you might use this for. PACK not DECK, as I had originally, until I figured 1a out. Slightly unsatisfactory that the wordplay doesn’t make it clear which is the required answer. But that’s maybe just sour grapes that I got it wrong to start with.
2 Shipyard work, note, falling into current (7)
RIVETER – The note is TE, which you drop into the RIVER (current). Here the “work” is not the act of rivetting, but the job of someone who does it.
3 Lorry that man used to transport satisfactory vegetable (9)
ARTICHOKE – ARTIC (Lorry) + HE (that man). Include [transport] OK (satisfactory) to get the vegetable. The Satisfactory Artichoke. Wouldn’t that make a great Pub name? Tripadvisor informs me that this Artichoke is more than satisfactory.
4 Drink in excess initially has you laid out (6)
SUPINE – SUP + IN + E{xcess} [initially]. If you drank to excess you may well end up supine.
5 Vehicle offering endless concern (3)
CAR – The concern is CAR{e}, which you drop the end off. I tried hard to make sense of the surface. A hospital ship, perhaps?
6 Queen interrupting peer, though not right peer (5)
EQUAL – This is slightly tricky. Instead of the usual ER we have QU for Queen. Then we put it into EA{r}L (peer), without the R [not right]. Nice surface.
9 Arts bloomed with revival in circulation (11)
BLOODSTREAM – (Arts bloomed)* [with revival]. Another sneaky novelty anagrind… did anybody else think “in circulation” meant take an anagram of revival?
12 Trustworthy theatre board accommodating Feydeau’s last (9)
REPUTABLE – REP (theatre) + TABLE (board) [accommodating] {Feydea}U [‘s last]. Georges Feydeau was “a French playwright of the era known as the Belle Époque. He is remembered for his many lively farces. He wrote over sixty plays and was a forerunner of absurdist theatre“. Nice clue. I wonder if this is the theatre in question?
15 Casual worker not working at first (7)
OFFHAND – Another sneaky one to give you practice in recognising some the tricks you find in the 15×15 clues. The definition is not “Casual worker”, as you might think (and I did). The answer is simply OFF (not working) [at first] followed by HAND (worker).
16 The French aristocrat given a pardon (3,3)
LET OFF – LE (The in French) + TOFF (aristocrat)…. and not sent to the guillotine.
18 Scotsman engaged in musical work, turning up this instrument (5)
PIANO – A large proportion of Scotsmen in crosswordland are called IAN (one to remember). The musical work is OP (the usual abbreviation for Opus). Put that upwards and put the Scotsman in it to get an instrument that is well-used in our house. Ours is a Yamaha.
21 Favourite exercises taking brief time (3)
PET – P.E. (exercises) + T (brief time). High intensity exercise is not for me. I’m more of a rambler. And I’m not referring to myself as a blogger, although I could, I grant you, be accused of that at times. Hmm. Better stop now.

28 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 1129 by Pedro”

  1. I did indeed start by thinking that ‘shimmering’ was the definition, but gave up that idea fairly quickly. Never figured out OUT; thought it was something crickety and decided the hell with it, checkers and def are good enough for me. I had PACK OF CARDS before I remembered brag the card game, which set my mind at ease. The hidden LOFT, of course, my LOI. 6:41.
  2. Many a problem for me here and in fact I had a technical DNF because as the half-hour approached with 13ac still missing and the main puzzle still awaiting my attentions, I thought “enough is enough” and looked up ‘superficial’ in a thesaurus to find the synonym ‘cursory’ to get me to the missing answer.

    I hadn’t been helped by biffing GAME OF CARDS at 1dn on seeing the words ‘brag’ and ‘suits’ which slowed me down solving 1ac and 7ac. The other difficulty in that quarter was RIVETER which I’m still having a slight problem accepting as ‘shipyard work’. I’d have expected this to lead to ‘riveting’, and ‘riveter’ to be clued as ‘shipyard worker’.

    I appear to have misunderstood all my life the severity of being perturbed about something. I’d have equated it with being slightly troubled or concerned rather than a state of shock, but the clue at 8ac suggests otherwise and the usual sources confirm it.

    The hidden answer at 23ac was my LBOI (last-but-one in).

    Not my finest (half) hour.

    Edited at 2018-07-06 05:30 am (UTC)

    1. I had the same feeling about ‘perturb’, and still do; being perturbed is not being shocked. And ODE has ‘make (someone) anxious or unsettled’, with a bunch of examples from their corpus none of which suggests shock or dismay. On edit: I actually went to Chambers online, which gives ‘to make someone anxious, agitated, worried, etc.’ True, my Japanese English-Japanese dictionary gives a much stronger definition, in effect ‘upset’, and the etymology (Latin per- ‘completely’ + turbare ‘disturb’–ODE) suggests a stronger meaning originally, but.

      Edited at 2018-07-06 06:15 am (UTC)

      1. Thanks. On reflection I may only have checked one source and having found this in SOED I assumed I was mistaken and moved on: Disturb greatly (physically or mentally); cause disorder or irregularity in; unsettle, disquiet; agitate, throw into confusion. LME.

        I now think we are correct and the clue definition is a bit of a stretch.

        Edited at 2018-07-06 06:19 am (UTC)

  3. Relieved to see it is not just me. Solving online again I took a break after about 25 minutes needing 13a and 23a.
    Also I was convinced that there was an error in the clue for 2d which has to be Shipyard Worker. However that did not hold me up for more than a couple of minutes.
    Eventually I got Cursor and my first thoughts for 23a were Post and Boot. I ended up with Loft and only realised it was hidden when I came here.
    So victory to the setter but with a Riveter rider. It took me a while to get Perturb but I think it’s fine.
    Add on 10 minutes for the last two. David
  4. I’ll forgive anything for Le Toff. This was indeed a somewhat sticky puzzle, and like others I struggled in the top right corner. The PACK/DECK dilemma had no wordplay help, which slowed apprehension of 1ac, a very good clue superbly deceptive. CURSOR was also hard to pin down.
    I confess I’ma bit perturbed, but not shocked, by 8a, and not quite riveted by 2d. 11 minutes – well blogged, John.
  5. I found this very difficult, a DNF with 3 left after 50 minutes. I normally don’t mind the occasional difficult one as I can appreciate the cleverness of the setter from the blog, but not this one. I thought a lot of the clues were ‘wooly’ (rather than obscure) even after the excellent blog.
    By the way, 20A reminded me of the hypochondriacs who went to a champagne party . . .

    Brian

  6. I approached this with some trepidation having read the comments on the other blog but had it all wrapped up in just over five minutes, the last minute of which was spent on CURSOR. I missed all the possible bear traps, I think perhaps because I already had helpful checkers in place. I seem to remember a comment from Peter Biddlecombe that sometimes the order of solving can be the difference between a good and slow time?
  7. I found this tricky too, with 14:03 elapsed before I submitted. I also started with DECK OF CARDS and that made 1a my LOI after I changed 1d to PACK. I am unconvinced by RIVETER as work rather than the person doing it, and that held me up as I considered RIVULET which was fortunately scotched by OUT. As seems to be the consensus, I’m unhappy with PERTURB as shock too. Unusually, I started with SHAMPOO and LOFT, working my way back to the upper levels. Not how I normally tackle a QC. Thanks Pedro and John.
    1. Was difficult and I only got about 75%. However there has to be a couple of harder ones and this week there have been 2. Not unreasonable. Still learning. Nakrian kickiat.
  9. I agree with others that several definitions were rather unsatisfactory, so being reluctant to enter answers found took me to about double my usual time for a QC.
    By the way, the website had two copies of the puzzle, one attributed to Pedro, one not. I did fill in the second one after to see how fast I could do it while avoiding typos, and got about half my usual time – but noticed that there are people three times as quick, so I’m never going to get anywhere near the top of the leaderboard. (I never did learn how to touchtype, so I still occasionally have to look for a letter I need.)
  10. Nearly half an hour and then having to reach for the thesaurus for CURSOR (I thought “screen feature” was a bit of an iffy definition for it, too – it’s just something that appears on a screen, rather than being a feature of the screen itself. But that’s probably just the bitterness of the defeated talking!). Didn’t like the definitions for RIVETER or PERTURB either, or the fact that you couldn’t tell if it was PACK or DECK in 1dn (though none of these held me up, as it happens – I just didn’t like them).

    But I liked LE TOFF, SHAMPOO and CONTRALTO (among others) so a curate’s egg for me today. Thanks to Pedro and John for an excellent blog.

    Templar

  11. I too looked for a word meaning shimmering, until the checkers revealed what was going on. Didn’t like RIVETER. That surely is a shipyard worker not shipyard work. Never thought of PERTURB as anything other than mild disquiet. CURSOR (my LOI) took several letter trawls before the penny dropped.
    By the way blogger you missed stumped and handling the ball from your list of dismissals.
    TGIF
    PlayUpPompey
    1. Lol. Read again. Stumped is there. As for handled the ball . You cant be out like thst any more.
      2. Yes you can still be given out ‘handled the ball’. All that has changed is if the batsman picks the ball up when it is ‘dead’ to give to the fielder/bowler, then that is ‘not out’. If you protect your stumps by eg deliberately using your hand to deflect the ball away, then that can be given ‘out’. Mr Grumpy
        1. Yes. That is true, but since the rule change last year it is given out as “obstructing the field”. See here.
  12. What a chewy offering today! Plenty to get my teeth into here, and I’m obviously improving because I remembered “Ian” and “Qu”! Took a while — wanted to fit Char for cleaner into 20A, which didn’t help. Loved SUPINE and BLOODSTREAM (too much champagne in the second may well lead to the first, I guess), and a great blog from John to boot. Thanks John and Pedro 🙂
  13. Hardest ever in my recollection – took me 3 or 4 times the usual amount of time! I was unfortunate to settle on DECK OF CARDS as quickly and as firmly as I did, as I don’t think 1ac would have been as hard as I found it without that mislead.
    1. Hence my point about solving order. I wrote PERHAPS straight in so DECK was never on the cards so to speak.
  14. I was once given out when my batting partner caught my hit! This was far harder than the main puzzle today so any improvers nearly completing can feel happy. Stuck staring at my computer cursor blinking for ages – doh! Thanks all
  15. I was blaming my slow time of 23:55 on the heat of the day. From the blog I now see that I fell into all the same traps as others. My LOI was 13ac CURSOR which certainly pushed me over the 20 minutes mark on a slow trawl through the alphabet. I also spent a lot of time on 1ac PERHAPS having to use a mental scrabble rack to solve. I really enjoyed 16dn Le Toff but thought 8ac PERTURB was too tricky for the QC. Thank you Pedro and John.
  16. Biffed my way through the first half of this and then struggled somewhat on the last few. Only got “cursor” through fitting in letters which made sense. That last clue took me as long as the whole of the rest of the puzzle. I know I’m new to this but it felt awfully contrived to me. “screen feature ” I could understand but it was only when I read the blog – thank you! – that I could see the “not entirely superficial” link. Head on fire with trying to work it out on my own!
    Louisa
  17. This was a tough end to a tough week – my average solving time for the week must be in the high 20s as opposed to my normal mid teens.
    I was left at the end with 13a and LOI 2d, a clue I was distinctly unimpressed by. Eventually fell over the line in 27.05. Particularly enjoyed 1a and 16d
    Thanks for the blog
  18. Two sittings over the best part of an hour trying to get the better of this ‘quick cryptic’. Eventually, an early deck of cards left me staring for ages at loi D*r*a*s. Couldn’t think of anything that would fit, and resorted to electronic aids. Only when none of the 4 possibilities would parse, did I realise that 1d was wrong.
    Overall, I thought this was far too difficult for a QC, but I do thank you, John, for the blog. Invariant
  19. Managed a few of these – mostly the three letter clues. Some others I could biff but not parse. I’ve given up with three quarters not done.

    Not one to enjoy in my book…

  20. Not in my book either. Why mince words (isn’t the precise use of words the essence of crossword clueing?) Riveter is an agent; work is not. Perturb does not equal shock.10a and 6d are too tricky for a Quick.

    I do not admire this level of clueing.

    treesparrow

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