Times Quick Cryptic No 1252 by Tracy

Author   plusjeremyPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

Introduction

Some challenging wordplay here! Finished just under 20 minutes. Distracted by children, but also legitimately stuck on the lower left-hand corner of the grid.

I didn’t take full notes on my solve, but I’ll do second-best and give some thoughts on the clues in the approximate order I solved them in. First, the solutions.

Solutions

Across

1 Speed [of] sportsmen running on pitch, initially (10)
PROMPTNESS – SPORTSMEN anagrammed, next to first letter of PITCH
7 Command [from] frontier leader of battalion ignored (5)
ORDER – BORDER without first letter of BATTALION
8 False report [in] article penned by witty person (6)
CANARD – AN in CARD
I knew ‘card’ more as an eccentric or funny person, but I’m sure ‘witty’ is attested somewhere.
10 Luminous discharge solar cell can show (3)
ARC – hidden inside SOLAR CELL
12 Musical — say Hair with different opening (5,4)
STATE FAIR – STATE + HAIR with F instead of H
A Rodgers and Hammerstein joint. I know zero songs from it.
13 Wake [in] a river, the one passing through York (6)
AROUSE – A + R (‘river’) + OUSE
14 Dark time reportedly [for] Lancelot? (6)
KNIGHT – homophone of NIGHT
The question mark indicates a definition by example.
17 Soldier [or] sailor returning on leave (6,3)
DESERT RAT – TAR reversed, next to DESERT
‘Desert’ as in ‘abandon’.
19 Mischievous child [of] eleven, German (3)
ELF – double definition
‘Elf’ is German for ‘eleven’.
20 Fling before end of vacation [brings] complete happiness (6)
HEAVEN – HEAVE + last letter of VACATION
21 Film star[‘s] account to head of RKO (5)
ACTOR – AC (‘account’) + TO + first letter of RKO
23 With every chance of success, I then messed up game of snooker (2,3,5)
IN THE FRAME – anagram of I THEN + FRAME

Down

1 Publicity material [has] right look, it’s said (10)
PROPAGANDA – homophone of PROPER GANDER
2 Old theologian, / peculiar (3)
ODD – double definition
Odd Bondevik, that is.
3 Sherpas translated groups of words (7)
PHRASES – anagram of SHERPAS
4 Delicious drink [out of] new crate, fizzy (6)
NECTAR – anagram of N (‘new’) + CRATE
5 One-way ticket left out [for] char (5)
SINGE – SINGLE without L (‘left’)
6 Percussion instrument — have a dispute about right one (8)
TRIANGLE – TANGLE around R + I
I didn’t look at the wordplay until writing this blog, and for a moment I thought there might have been some famous dispute regarding Pythagoras and right triangles! (After all, he is said to have had one of his followers killed for proving that the square root of 2 is irrational.)
9 Sheer physical strength [of] beast might (5,5)
BRUTE FORCE – BRUTE + FORCE
11 Dish cut into pieces the old American served up (4,4)
CHOP SUEY – CHOP + (YE + US) reversed
If I recall correctly, ‘ye’ is a mistranscription. The first letter was simply the old letter ‘thorn’ (þ), which sounds like what we write today as ‘th’. [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ye_olde ]
15 Less than fifty percent? Very much so (3,4)
NOT HALF – double definition
16 Group of people eating last of super meal (6)
BRUNCH – BUNCH around last letter of SUPER
18 Black chicken decapitated (5)
RAVEN – CRAVEN without its first letter
22 Drink [from] the bar, oddly (3)
TEA – odd-numbered letters in THE BAR

Discussion

In what follows, I am leaving out all my incremental work towards a solution (because I didn’t write it down). But this is approximately the order I got the answers in:

  1. 7 Across. I tried to think of words meaning ‘frontier’ which had a B in them, and BORDER revealed itself quickly.

  2. 10 Across. Pretty clear indication for hidden word.

  3. 19 Across. Since I speak some German, this was easy.

  4. 2 Down. I got this from ‘peculiar’, and just hoped the other definition worked!

  5. 3 Down. I recognized this as an anagram right away, and the crossing R helped.

  6. 4 Down. Another clear anagram.

  7. 5 Down. A five-letter word for ‘char’ made me think DAILY, but that wasn’t right. Then I started thinking of synonyms for ‘char’ as in ‘burn’. SINGE came to mind quickly, and the wordplay checked out.

  8. 9 Down. The definition along with the F from ELF helped me pop this one in.

  9. 15 Down. Just an expression I know, but ‘less than fifty percent’ gives it well away.

  10. 16 Down. I had the H from 23 Across (I had IN THE…), and I tried to think of a synonym of ‘meal’ with an R in it, ending with H.

  11. 22 Down. Clear indication for hidden letters.

  12. 8 Across. I had C _ N _ _ _ , and I knew A/AN needed to be in there, and that was enough.

  13. 12 Across. I had S _ A _ E / _ _ _ R . ‘Say’ gave me STATE and the definition gave me FAIR.

  14. 14 Across. Not sure why I didn’t get this the first time. Oldest homophone in the book. I think I hurriedly had parsed it as ‘time, reportedly, for Lancelot’, and was looking for an outdated word for ‘time’? Anyway, the crossing letters helped.

  15. 21 Across. I had A _ T _ R so it was nearly impossible not to get at this point. But now I started getting really impressed with the wordplay. ‘Account’ gives AC but ‘to’ is actually part of the answer! This explains why I missed it the first time: I was looking for a four-letter word meaning ‘account’ to stick on an R.

  16. 23 Across. I knew there was an anagram component giving IN THE, and I had guessed FRAME, but had never heard of the expression. Now I had the crossing letters to put it in confidently.

  17. 6 Down. With all the crossing letters I put in TRIANGLE easily from the definition.

  18. 20 Across. I have only the N so I’m looking for a five-letter word meaning ‘fling’ to put before it. HURL? THROW? SKY? The definition helps me think of HEAVE and again I’m happy to have been fooled by the difference in pronunciation between HEAVE and HEAVEN.

  19. 18 Across. I have _ _ V _ N which helps (C)RAVEN come to mind. I didn’t know the definition.

  20. 17 Across. I have _ _ _ _ R _ / R _ T , and ‘sailor returning’ gives me RAT, and somehow DESERT RAT comes to mind. I had no idea what this meant until I looked it up.

  21. 1 Across. I have _ _ O _ P _ N _ S _ , and I know this is an anagram. First I put in NESS from the part of speech and then I have it.

  22. 1 Down. I have P _ O _ A _ _ _ D _ . I always assumed the answer started with PR for ‘publicity material’. I drew the right conclusion from the wrong reasoning! Fortunately I had enough crossing letters that the answer suggested itself right away, and I was pleasantly surprised to have been fooled. Of course, my delay in solving has also to do with the difference in pronunciation between British and American English.

  23. 13 Across. I’d forgotten about the OUSE. There was a time, I feel, when the chestnutty rivers appeared in puzzles more frequently, and so I could recall them easily. I’d wrestled with the wordplay here, wondering if IT stood for ‘the one’, or if there was an abbreviation for York I didn’t know.

  24. 11 Down. Finally with all the crossing letters I had C _ O _ / S _ E _ . Could it be CHOP SUEY? That’s a word I haven’t heard in years. But it made sense, and picking out ‘the old’ is certainly 15×15 level stuff!

As you can see, the first 14 answers were more or less straightforward, but of the last 10, seven were quite tricky! Tougher definitions, subtler wordplay… it all added up to a nice challenge.

26 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 1252 by Tracy”

  1. Odd Bondevik? It’s O (old) + DD (doctor of divinity). Although Bondevik is dead, he’s hardly an old theologian; not to mention I can’t believe there are many solvers who know the name. I certainly didn’t!

    Edited at 2018-12-26 03:24 am (UTC)

  2. This took me a while. I share Jeremy’s doubts about CARD=wit, but as he says. A bit surprised to find ELF, especially in a QC. NHO IN THE FRAME, and DNK FRAME in the required sense, so it was checkers and hope. One of Thurber’s “Fables For Our Time” is about a goose who is praised as a very proper gander, which is misheard by another bird, and soon the ugly rumors are spreading and he’s driven out of the country. What the hell, it’s short:
    Not so very long ago there was a very fine gander. He was strong and smooth and beautiful and he spent most of his time singing to his wife and children. One day somebody who saw him strutting up and down in his yard and singing remarked, “There is a very proper gander.” An old hen overheard this and told her husband about it that night in the roost. “They said something about propaganda,” she said. “I have always suspected that,” said the rooster, and he went around the barnyard next day telling everybody that the very fine gander was a dangerous bird, more than likely a hawk in gander’s clothing. A small brown hen remembered a time when at a great distance she had seen the gander talking with some hawks in the forest. “They were up to no good,” she said. A duck remembered that the gander had once told him he did not believe in anything. “He said to hell with the flag, too,” said the duck. A guinea hen recalled that she had once seen somebody who looked very much like the gander throw something that looked a great deal like a bomb. Finally everybody snatched up sticks and stones and descended on the gander’s house. He was strutting in his front yard, singing to his children and his wife. “There he is!” everybody cried. “Hawk-lover! Unbeliever! Flag-hater! Bomb-thrower!” So they set upon him and drove him out of the country.

    Moral: Anybody who you or your wife thinks is going to overthrow the government by violence must be driven out of the country.

    Edited at 2018-12-26 03:57 am (UTC)

    1. Also took a while (28.27 so in SCC terms rather than Kevin’s) hitting all the blocks mentioned elsewhere and requiring the odd assist from Mrs soj (not a crossworder but with uncanny ability to see instantly words I’ve been stuck on for ages). Anyway, loved being reminded of Thurber. Not relevant, but the story brought to mind a brilliant absurdist cartoon of his in which a man is saying to his wife, “Did you hear a seal bark?”. There is a seal sitting on the top of the wardrobe.
        1. Thanks! Age had dimmed the memory and I see I’d conflated the seal with the first Mrs Harris on the wardrobe.
  3. Technical DNF here as having been stuck for 5 minutes without any progress on my last two clues I used aids to arrive at HEAVEN and then its crosser, RAVEN, immediately sprang to mind. The brick wall arrived after 8 minutes of routine QC solving. Having said all that I remain not entirely convinced by ‘fling/HEAVE’ as to my mind the second involves heavier and more sustained effort than I associate with the first.

    I’ve no misgivings about CARD however, as Collins has ‘witty’ as the first characteristic of such a person: a witty, entertaining, or eccentric person, and the ODO has just an ‘amusing person’ with no specific requirement for eccentricity.

    Edited at 2018-12-26 05:53 am (UTC)

    1. I tend to distinguish the two as you do, although I’d think they’re close enough here. There’s Dorothy Parker’s famous line from a book review (quoted from unreliable memory): “This is not a book to be tossed lightly aside; it should be flung with great force.”
  4. After 11 minutes of steady solving I needed three :18d 20a and 12a.
    I had thought of Raven for Black and went back and parsed it. A bit of thought then got me to Heaven!
    After that, a long look at 12a and I relied on the clue to give me State and then a guess that it must be Fair. I had never heard of this musical despite being a fan of such things.
    I crossed the line in 16:27. Interesting that early commentators also found these clues tricky. Otherwise fairly straightforward QC stuff. FOI was Odd.
    David

  5. Thanks Jeremy, I needed the blog for a few today. Finished in 18:40 so only moderately slow but submitted in hope for TRIANGLE, STATE FAIR (if I had to list all the musicals I know I’d be stuck after Cats), PROMPTNESS (missed the anagram and only got to a biffable stage by guessing PRO for sportsman but that left a real mess of the rest of the clue) and RAVEN (thoroughly wrong footed by chicken. Not the LOI but most time used on CHOP SUEY, thought it might be a soup until I entered HEAVEN with a groan. Managed to enter BRUTT FORCE so have turned off “skip filled squares” weeks and weeks after first resolving to do so.
  6. Dulled by yesterday’s excesses, perhaps, this was my slowest QC solve for over a month. I was held up somewhat by 1a and 1d, but mostly by STATE FAIR, which I had never heard of, but finally bunged in from the wordplay. I also had trouble finding HEAVE for ‘fling’. COD to BRUNCH, which I guess we’ll have here when everyone is eventually up. 10:23.
  7. Back in the SCC with a vengeance and a few seconds slower than sonofjim at 29.04. I seemed to jump all over the grid to find clues I could solve and made a few errors along the way such as wanting the second word of 11d to be soup (I know….). After finally completing the SE qudrant, I was slow to get 1d and LOI 1a. Perhaps yesterday’s indulgence dulled the brain. Good puzzle and blog. Thanks, both. John M.
  8. I did this after walking back to the hotel from my brothers house after a day of indulgence. My senses were a bit dulled, but it’s nice to see I wasn’t the only one to find this slightly tricky. I’d biffed STAGE as the first part of 12a but BRUTE put PLAY out of play as it were for the second bit. I didn’t have too much trouble with the rest of the puzzle but the musical (NHO) was my LOI and went in from word play and an alphabet trawl with crossed fingers, and accounted for several minutes angst. 12:53 Thanks Tracy and Jeremy
  9. ….a proper gander before causing myself a delay by biffing “proclaimed”. Even when I saw the error of my ways, I had to write the letters and spacing at the foot of the page before coming back to it at the end.

    No problems otherwise, although I exceeded my target time by 11%.

    FOI ORDER
    LOI PROPAGANDA
    COD RAVEN
    TIME 5:33

  10. 29 minutes, one under target, with at least 5 spent on my last two, 1A and 1D. Anagrams are more difficult without paper and once I realised 1A was one it took a lot of brainwork to shuffle the letters around in my head, but I suppose that is why I do cryptics. My LOI 1D took a lot of random letter placing in the unches as the wordplay didn’t help.

    Brian

    Edited at 2018-12-26 10:38 am (UTC)

  11. About 8 minutes for this one, which is less than my target. Thanks to Tracy and Jeremy for his excellent blog.

    Adrian

  12. Happy Christmas to the bloggers. This was way to hard for me definitely a very difficult QC. Tim
  13. Delayed by 1a, 8a and 12a. Both 8a CANARD and 12a STATE FAIR I guessed from the checkers and wordplay. The anagram at 1a PROMPTNESS also required all the checkers. I had no problem with the bottom left corner but still needed 10:31 to complete. Thanks Jeremy and Tracy
  14. I was deep in the SCC with this quickie. Nasty propaganda and promptness were the main reason for that although there were others like raven, heaven and in the frame. Have to take it like a sport sometimes.

    Happy holidays all!

    SRT

  15. I am definitely improving to my relief although I rarely finish one. (Oh the joy when I do!) I limit the time spent solving which takes away the stress. You bloggers are such a help, thank you all. And I really appreciated your explanations today Jeremy.
    Happy Holidays-as they say over here in Connecticut where we are mopping up yesterday’s detritus abandoned by grandchildren.
    Diana. 🇱🇷🇬🇧
  16. I was firmly in the SCC with this one with 1d causing me most of my problems – even with all the checkers in place – and it eventually went in unparsed. I also struggled with HEAVEN, CHOP SUEY, RAVEN and the obscure (to me) musical. Eventually completed in 24.18.
    Thanks for the blog
  17. I wonder if we’re just collectively suffering from reduced brain function attributable to calorie/alcohol consumption?!

    SCC for me too with the HEAVEN/RAVEN crossing chewing up time and the unknown STATE FAIR requiring a trawl and a guess. Blimey. Misery loves company, so nice to see that others struggled too.

    Templar

  19. too much excess in our household! multiple sittings and the final 3 clicked today after 1/2hr. and, they’re partly the same as others, RAVEN and HEAVEN, but CANARD too.
    FOI:1a
    LOI: 8a
    COD: 9d
    thanks to blogger, setter and all who contribute.
    Carl
  20. Happy Christmas to the bloggers. This was way to hard for me definitely a very difficult QC. Tim

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