Times Quick Cryptic No 1188 by Hurley

Author   rolytolyPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
Slightly on the tricky side, I found, coming in two minutes over my target (with the possibly mitigating factor of a hangover). A fairly straight solve, but I was held up for a bit in the SE – at 16d, 19ac and 20d. I was very slow to see the parsing of 20d, which I only managed post-solve – nice clue. My other favourites were the image at 3d, and I thought 2d was very satisfyingly put together. Pleasant puzzle to soothe a sore head – many thanks to Hurley!

Across
1 Record speed, about one minute — notice difference (12)
DISCRIMINATE – DISC (record) RATE (speed) about/around I MIN (one minute)
9 Picture firm haggle regularly (5)
IMAGE – “regularly” appearing in firm haggle
10 Successful period in Cricket Club, Laker’s content to get party food? (7)
CUPCAKE – UP (successful period, as in ups and downs) in CC (Cricket Club) AKE (“contents” of LAKER).
11 Missile shelter Rhode Island Democrat enters (7)
TRIDENT – TENT (shelter) with RI D (Rhode Island, Democrat) entering
12 Garret room to some extent reminiscent of past (5)
RETRO – hidden, “to some extent”, in garRET ROom
13 Transport prisoner, extremely volatile at end of day (6)
CONVEY – CON (prisoner) VE (“extremely” VolatilE) Y (end of daY)
14 Strongly dislike oath dividing the French (6)
LOATHE – OATH enters LE (the, French)
17 Strange plea associated with introduction of passion fruit (5)
APPLE – anagram of PLEA together with P (“introduction” of Passion)
19 Concession about name for shellfish (7)
SCALLOP – SOP (concession) about/around CALL (name). “Sop” cropped up in a puzzle I blogged a month or two ago, where I learnt the phrase: “a sop to Cerberus”. A sop is a piece of soaked bread, and a drugged one was given to Cerberus to allow safe passage to the underworld, hence its meaning as a bribe/placation
21 Society to be important? Just a small amount (7)
SMATTER – S(ociety) to MATTER (be important)
22 Comparatively risky to ignore daughter becoming more aloof (5)
ICIER – DICIER (comparatively risky) ignore the D for daughter.
23 Residual hope of award for second learner — in repeatedly, good (6,6)
SILVER LINING – SILVER (award for second) L(earner) IN IN (in, repeatedly) G(ood)

Down
2 Garibaldi, say, secure at island after revolution (7)
ITALIAN – NAIL (secure) AT (at) I (island) reversed/after revolution.
3 Liqueur cheered Met men after storm (5,2,6)
CREME DE MENTHE – anagram (after storm) of CHEERED MET MEN.
4 Provoke using popular quote (6)
INCITE – IN (popular) CITE (quote)
5 Breaking promise over country crime? (13)
IMPERSONATION – anagram (breaking) of PROMISE over/above NATION (country). If “impersonation” was clued as “crime” in a non-cryptic crossword, you could feel legitimately aggrieved.
6 Expect to be away briefly at computer study (5)
AWAIT – AWA (away, “briefly”) at IT (computer study)
7 Ultimately horrible indeed — mineral that’s not nice to see (7)
EYESORE – E (“ultimately” horriblE) YES (indeed) ORE (mineral)
8 Tip: horse is not trying, just starting (4)
HINT – just the starting letters of Horse Is Not Trying
13 Mechanic has sister holding frame (7)
CHASSIS – “held” in the letters of mechaniC HAS SISter
15 Not like novel writer (7)
TOLKIEN – anagram (novel) of NOT LIKE
16 A wanderer having left for year? Heavenly? (6)
ASTRAL – A STRAY (a wanderer) with L(eft) for Y(ear). I was originally toying with something to do with “planet”, which means wanderer (from wandering star) in Greek.
18 Quiet nobleman one valued (5)
PEARL – P (piano – quiet) EARL (nobleman)
20 Opening centre with parking for 100 (4)
PORE – CORE (centre) with P(arking) for C (100 in Roman numerals)

30 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 1188 by Hurley”

  1. Yes, 20d was a bit of a snorter. But what an excellent example of the letter-substitution clue! Worth the admission fee on its own.
  2. I’ve been told they’ve lost my login cookie; this is to see if it’s still missing.
    Evidently they’ve found it. I had trouble with this one, with IMPERSONATION for one, also ASTRAL. I’d second Jack’s comments. 8:15.

    Edited at 2018-09-27 05:41 am (UTC)

  3. I noticed a somewhat disturbing degree of dissatisfaction with yesterday’s puzzle on the grounds of difficulty, loose definitions, extraneous words etc and I fear that this offering will not have done anything to allay the concerns of those who expressed them and others who may agree but did not contribute here.

    I thought this one was really hard and I needed my target time plus 50% (that’s 15 minutes in all) to put it to bed.

    Amongst things that occurred to me were CUPCAKE defined as ‘party food’. Why ‘party’? I haven’t eaten one for years, but cupcakes were an everyday part of my childhood, made by Lyons, I think, usually chocolate but other flavours such as lemon were available. They were served up at teatime any day of the week and were not considered as anything particularly special to be reserved for parties.

    IMPERSONATION is not a crime of itself or the likes of Rory Bremner, Jon Culshaw, Jan Ravens and a host of other comedians and satirists would have been banged up years ago. It’s only a crime when the intent is to defraud or deceive as in impersonation of a police officer.

    I known that both the above examples have question marks at the end, but to my mind that doesn’t really mitigate the looseness of the definitions because even as examples they are bordering on the dodgy.

    I lost time thinking TILT for ‘tip’ 8dn and then trying to justify it before rethinking completely and spotting the actual answer.

    I’ve never heard of a SMATTER, which every one of the usual sources defines as ‘a smattering’, a term I am fully conversant with.

    Reading back on this it looks like a bit of a rant, which was not my intention as I have no objections myself to being tested and stretched on the QC, and there has to be a range of difficulty or the puzzle would quickly die, but after yesterday I’m more aware of growing dissent in some quarters, and not just from beginners, so I viewed today’s puzzle with perhaps a more critical eye than I would normally.

    Edited at 2018-09-27 05:35 am (UTC)

    1. Very appropriate comments. I felt yesterday’s was hard and said so. Today’s clues as mentioned were just off. It may be that the setters really don’t care about beginners in which case say so. We need some hard but fair puzzles but we also need at least a couple of simpler ones if we are not to turn off the newbies. I an fairly new and find weeks when 4 out of the 5 puzzles are very difficult depressing. An occasional win is encouraging as any teacher knows. Nakrian kickiat.
      1. I’m with you. Struggled last couple weeks apart from the wonderful Joker. Hope i don’t lose interest.
        Graham
    2. I’m not sure it makes any difference, but while impersonation is not necessarily a crime, personation (minus the im) is, and often relates to fraudulent voting in elections.
      1. Heavens, if that turned up in a QC the cries of ‘foul’ would be loud and long and fully justified!
  4. ‘Smatter’ used an a noun I’ve certainly come across – in Stephen King, I think. As Jack points out, the question mark in 5d makes it more acceptable, if not, indeed, to my mind, perfectly acceptable. Ditto 10a. Good and fair deception, IMO.
    1. I probably wouldn’t have turned a hair at them in the main puzzle, but we’re both very experienced solvers and bloggers and I was trying to see things from a different point of view in the light of comments here yesterday.

      Edited at 2018-09-27 06:27 am (UTC)

      1. I understand your point, but I think it’s good to be stretched – taken out of your comfort zone, if you like – in this pursuit, as indeed in any worthwhile pursuit. Part of the fun of the game is to be found in the cat-and-mouse between setter and solver, and a few “false trails” have to be expected along the way.
  5. Definitely one of the trickier ones of late, taking me 25.17 for a DNF. My stumbling block was LOI 20d where I spent the last few minutes (unsurprisingly) unsuccessfully trying to parse PORT. Not being able to think of anything else that fitted I went with it.
    I also put ATTIC in for 12a but, unlike johninterred, it took me some time to spot my error making the NE even more challenging. I agree that 5d was a bit of a stretch for the QC even with the ?.
    Thanks for the blog
    1. I agree with the comments that this was too difficult for the newbie. I may as well have attempted the main xword for the progress I made. Whilst there has to be a challenge in order to feel the satisfaction of finishing, making it too obscure seems rather pointless. If I can’t finish, that’s not a total disaster if I can get near. I normally finish 4 out of 5 and I am close on the ones I can’t complete but nowhere near on this one.
  6. My second DNF in a row, again with five left after 40 minutes., and looking up the answer to one or two didn’t halp.
    I don’t mind the odd difficult one but two in a row is not really on.
    Brian
  7. I have to agree this was at the harder end of the difficulty scale for a QC. Anyone else put in ATTIC initially for 12a? But then I spotted the “to some extent” hidden word indicator and changed it immediately. I too had a MER at IMPERSONATION and I thought EYESORE and PORE were both a bit tricky. SILVER LINING my favourite. 7:52.
  8. Oh dear. I was going well and hit the buffers in the SE corner. My fault – I stupidly misspelt Tolkien and was therefore unable to make sense of 22a. Of course, 20d was an absolute stinker so was no help. An easy QC would make such a difference for a change – just one?
    Another tough week so far – I found yesterday’s main puzzle no more demanding than yesterday’s QC…… John M.
  9. Took me over an hour spread over 3 sessions, but at least I finished it, unlike yesterday. Much of that was because I failed to spot the letter substitutions and spent a long time trying to think of a shell fish with an “n” in it. “Winkle” didn’t help! I too fell for “attic” until it became clear that it wasn’t going to work. had no problem with 5dn given the “?” after “crime”. Overall I found it a strange mixture of the very simple and the very tricky.
    Quite a challenge.
    PlayUpPompey
  10. After 27mins I was down to my last two, 21ac and 20d. Another 2 or 3 mins of alphabet work and I had Smatter (with crossed fingers as dnk the noun). That just left P*R* for 20d. The difficulty here was that I had no idea what I was really looking for. Something using the N from opeNing perhaps ? (yes, thought of that, but it doesn’t ft the clue). And there I stayed, for quite some time before pulling stumps and reading Roly’s excellent blog for the answer. Perhaps on a good day, with a following wind etc.
    Going by my own times, it does seem that these have been getting a little more tricky of late, which I don’t mind as it helps in making the jump to the 15×15, but it must be pretty off-putting for newcomers. Invariant
  11. I fared so much better today finishing in 13 minutes. My penultimate solve was 5d IMPERSONATION which I biffed from wordplay. I was not keen on the clueing but I still had my LOI to solve 23a SILVER LINING so I didn’t dwell on the loose definition. 20d PORE also held me up a while but I thought it an excellent clue when the penny finally dropped.

    Thank you Hurley and roly for the QC and blog. Even when I have mer moments I keep coming back for more.

  12. Another tale of woe here. I decided to solve online but had to stop after 26 minutes to get on with other things.
    I thought I’d complete the solve on paper needing 10a 19a 22a 5d and 20d.
    LOI was 20d and I considered pretty much all the possibilities. I wrote in Pore but then crossed it out as I could not parse it I went with Perc (i.e. per hundred) so one wrong.
    I could not see Impersonation as a crime and thought Cupcake very difficult although I got both of those. Agree too that Smatter was unknown but guessable.
    No objection to hard puzzles and some of this was really good. David
  13. A very late night carousing with old friends, followed by an early morning to do a tour of the Morgan Car Factory seems to have dulled what passes for my brain, as it took me 23:24 to get through this puzzle, fortunately with no errors. PORE held me up for around 7 of those. ATTIC held me up for a while too. I think I need a sleep, but the 15 x 15 is still to tackle. Definitely a tricky one. Thanks Hurley and Roly.
  14. Had to give up yesterday and today. Just ran out of time. In today’s, I was utterly stumped by 19 across, feeling sure that there must be a “re” and probably an “n” somewhere in it. Also couldn’t see the answer to 22 across because I missed the instruction to lose a “d”. Bewildered, too, by 5 down as I didn’t recognise “breaking ” as an anagrind nor, now that I know the solution, can I quite accept “impersonation ” as a synonym for “crime”. I know this is just me and that I’m still learning but this is very frustrating! Thanks, setter and blogger
  15. …… eventually. It took me 45 minutes in two sittings to get to just one left. Yes, the tricky 20d! I kept revisiting it and in the end trawled through the alphabet until I found something that actually parsed. I was pleased to finish but it really was tough. In fact I have been struggling a lot in the last couple of weeks. I believe the qc has become much tougher. Until recently I was often completing within 20 minutes and sometimes quite a bit faster. Thanks for the blog and to all the contributors. As I said yesterday, it is reassuring to find that I am not the only one struggling.
    CODs Italian and Convey even though I was stuck for ages on both. MM
  18. I have tried aweful hard to crack these over the months. But really ? Aweful hard for beginners. Sadly wont buy the times for these anymore
    ken
  19. I’ve been attempting the QCs for 18 months or more, and although I now finish most of them, I get nowhere near the times quoted hereabouts.

    However, I have no issue with varying degrees of difficulty and enjoy the cerebral exercise if I do ‘get’ a poser – 20D a case in point! I find the most frequent challenges are my own lack of learning – clues with classical or musical references are definitely problems for me.

    On my part, then, I would like to thank the Setters and ask them to continue their good, and sometimes blasted work.

    Also, I’ll raise a cuppa for this good and generous people of this forum, without whom I’d still be sticking with the sudoku 🙂
    Steve.

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