Times Quick Cryptic No 1329 by Izetti

Author   JohninterredPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
It’s Friday and we have our old friend Izetti to give us a proper Friday work-out. He has treated us to some great clues and entertaining and smooth surfaces today. Nearly all perfectly fair, although I only knew the scottish hooligan at 11D from a Mephisto crossword, I think. But sometimes you have to recognise the word from the definition and some of the wordplay and checkers and cross your fingers. Did anyone else have to do that here? Lots of worthy candidates for clue of the day, 10A, 13A, 17A , 21A and 4D all raised a chuckle, but I pick the concise 9A. This took me a sub-average 5:40, but I suspect some of our less experienced solvers may have found this a bit tricky. I enjoyed this a lot. Thanks Izetti! How did everyone else like it?

Definitions underlined in bold italics, Abc indicating anagram of Abc, deletions like this, and [] other indicators.

Across
1 Tortured genius had to be feeling pain (9)
ANGUISHED – Anagram [tortured] of genius had. Lovely surface to start.
6 Vessel to make discordant sound (3)
JAR – Double definition. Which reminds me.. when is a door not a door? When it’s ajar! …I’ll get my coat.
8 Servant without love — one who likes to row? (7)
BOATMAN – BATMAN (servant) outside [without] O (love). Nice potential misdirection in making you think of having an argument rather than propelling a boat, but I wasn’t fooled.
9 Son isn’t a good person (5)
SAINT – S (son) AIN’T (isn’t). My COD nomination….
10 This person may appear on stage if the screens need moving (5-7)
SCENE-SHIFTER – … although this was a very close second. Anagram of if the screens [needs moving]. A very neat semi-&lit, where the whole clue is the definition, but not all of it is the wordplay.
12 Hairy man in the sauna (4)
ESAU – Hidden in thE SAUna. Unlike his brother Jacob. As found in Genesis 27:11.
13 A head to give instruction? Not the head! (4)
EACH – To give instruction is to tEACH – take the first letter off [not the head], to get “per head”. Very witty.
17 Theatre feeling bitter about performing again? (2-10)
RE-PRESENTING – REP (theatre) RESENTING (feeling bitter). This one made me smile too.
20 One group getting left in small place beset by water (5)
ISLET – I (one) SET (group) with L (left) inside [in].
21 Finally arrived? Or not to be seen? (7)
NOWHERE – When you finally arrived you would be NOW HERE. Another, like 17A, where you construct the answer from two words to get something unexpected.
23 See odd characters leaving Henley (3)
ELY – Sneaky. The definition is the noun (a bishopric) not the verb (observe). Alternative letters [odd characters leaving] HEnLeY.  Ely cathedral, by the way, is a magnificent sight rising out of the fens and can be seen from many miles away – as I did on my walk with friends East of Newmarket on Tuesday this week.

No. Not my picture. We were a lot further away. Image Copyright: Andrew Sharpe www.sharpeimages.co.uk
24 Nominated member needing a short time to get into action (9)
DELEGATED – A bit tricky, this one. The member is a LEG, add A T (short time) and put it all inside [get into] DEED (action).

Down
1 A couple of bishops joining English priest in France (4)
ABBE – A B B (couple of bishops) [joining] E (English).
2 Good old weapons making oblique impacts (7)
GLANCES – G (Good) LANCES (old weapons). As in a glancing blow.
3 Set of beliefs is followed by millions (3)
ISM – IS [followed by] M (millions). A pretty horrible word IMO.
4 Decent hotel on East Street (6)
HONEST – H (hotel in the NATO phonetic alphabet) ON E (East) ST (Street). And a pretty decent surface too.
5 Democrat insisted on change — not one to toe the party line (9)
DISSIDENT – D (Democrat) and an anagram of insisted [on change].
6 Piece of meat, bit that’s eaten at home (5)
JOINT – JOT (bit) with IN (at home) inside [eaten]…. for Sunday dinner, perhaps. Yum.
7 Reply in respect of something wrong in law (6)
RETORT – RE (in respect of) TORT (something wrong in law).
11 Scottish hooligan grabbing a university chair? Makes you sick! (9)
NAUSEATED – The Scottish hooligan is a NED, possibly from an acronym of Non-Educated Delinquent? Insert [grabbing] A U (university) SEAT (chair).
14 Prisoner given shelter is happy (7)
CONTENT – CON (prisoner) TENT (shelter).
15 I’m turning up in something with feathers or fur (6)
ERMINE – The thing with feathers is an ERNE, which is a sort of sea eagle.

Insert I’M reversed [turning up in].
16 Essence of report of army officer (6)
KERNEL – A homophone [report of] COLONEL.
18 Quiet friend, as a friend may be (5)
PALLY – P (piano – quiet) ALLY (friend).
19 In conversation he would briefly care (4)
HEED – Another homophone [In conversation]. “He would” briefly is HE’D.
22 Witty person, one married to famous sportsman? (3)
WAG – Double definition, the second being the term for one of the Wives And Girlfriends.

34 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 1329 by Izetti”

  1. Lots of lovely surfaces. But I’m afraid SCENE-SHIFTER was wasted on me; it was so clear from the definition (with the enumeration) that I never saw the wordplay. 5:05.
  2. I felt a little pressure today because if I had solved this within my target 10 minutes I would have achieved two consective weeks of sub-10 solves for only the second time since QCs began 5 years ago. Needless to say I failed having required 13 minutes due to a last minute hold-up in the lower half. This came from assuming ‘Makes you sick’ at 11dn would end in S, so NAUSEATES, whereas the interpretation required should have been ‘Makes you (the solver, a word meaning) sick’ i.e. NAUSEATED. This then gave me problems solving 24ac.

    As mentioned in the past I have had lingering doubts about the validty of WAG being used in the singular but I see it’s now Collins defined as: the wife OR girlfriend of a famous sportsman, and categorised as a back formation of ‘wives AND girlfriends’ and as we have seen with our own ‘BIFD’, back formations can take on a whole new life of their own paying no 19dn to the usual rules of grammar.

    Edited at 2019-04-12 05:48 am (UTC)

  3. Under 15 minutes today but to my great surprise I was told I had an error. So I hit Reveal and discovered that Islot was wrong. I think I confused EYOT and ISLET -and also did not carefully check the parsing (i.e. I plus LOT = group plus S for small is not quite there as an L is missing).
    Enjoyed the puzzle. COD to NOWHERE. DNK NED and am still wondering about EACH.
    David
  4. 25 mins so a little over target for me. I was, however, pleased with the time as I found this challenging throughout due to some very clever clues and a lot of misdirection. I’m another who had no idea about NED but Nauseated had to be the answer.
  5. Not much under 3 Kevins but I’m still counting this as a Good Day because I enjoyed the puzzle so much! Thank you, Izetti. What an absolute cracker. So many COD contenders that it’s hard to pick just one and I’m going for joint honours to 10ac and 21ac.

    If anyone wants to find out more about Neds, enter “chewing the fat neds” into YouTube and enjoy a chuckle.

    Thanks for the blog, John.

    Templar

  6. The wrong side of 20m for yours truly, but some lovely clues here, and no complaints. Once again, the Don shows his mastery. I completely missed the anagram in 10, NHO NED, and I think my favourite clue was 21. Lovely start to the day.
  7. I’m with the above. Much to admire and smile at as pennies dropped. South east corner held me up most for 12.47. COD probably to 21ac. Misled by “fur or feathers” in 15dn by 15×15 yesterday where very similar wording clued BOA.
  8. A very nice puzzle indeed with some frustrating off-beat clues (often the short ones). 17.02 in the end so I’m back in my teens. I am happy to agree with John (excellent blog) re possible CODs. This is the sort of QC that makes me go back to the blog and look again at some of the subtleties and quirky bits that I glossed over in my hurry to complete. Thanks to both. John M.
    BTW, I confess to interpreting WAG as one (A) married to famous sportsman (WG) as in Grace… No I didn’t believe that either but it had to do at the time as I moved on.

    Edited at 2019-04-12 08:53 am (UTC)

  9. I am normally on wavelength with Izetti but not today. Yes, I crossed my fingers with ABBE, NAUSEATED and EACH. I needed all the checkers and then some extra time for BOATMAN but it was KERNEL (even though I’ve seen it before) and LOI NOWHERE which were my undoing. SCC today at 19 mins. Thanks John for the blog which I needed to understand the hooligan NED and the per head EACH.
  10. I did the same as Jack at 11d and struggled with 24a until I revisited the wordplay for 11d and spotted the vaguely remembered NED. Like Kevin, I biffed SCENE SHIFTER without really looking for any deeper wordplay. FOI, ABBE. LOI< KERNEL. 9:31. Thanks Izetti and John.
  11. And, indeed, it didn’t! Two really (for me!) fast solves in a row and fell at the third. However, if I’m going to stumble, then who better to be the cause than the tricky Izetti! In fact, most of today’s clues weren’t too challenging – I especially liked 8, 9, 17 and 21 across – but I was felled by 15 down which, even with all the checkers in, I just couldn’t see. I’ve never heard of an “erne” and it didn’t help that, though I’d written in “Ely” for 23 across, I couldn’t understand why it was right so I doubted it. Nice to see Henley, my place of residence, in the crossword, though! Thanks so much, John, for the blog and thanks, too, to Izetti even if you did cause me dyspepsia over the breakfast table this morning…
  12. DNK NED, so just biffed it. Found myself held up a while in the SE until KERNEL and WAG (doh – that easy?) plopped into my head. Some lovely surfaces and lots of fun.
  13. I thought this was a bit easy for an Izetti puzzle at first after I got three of the first four clues straight away (the other being jar), but then I ground to a halt as none of the other across clues went in at all apart from Ely which I didn’t put in at first as I didn’t know how it could mean ‘see’. I remembered a bit later something about a holy see and then put it in. Anyway, I persevered and eventually was left with 17a and 16d, and they took ages but I did get them and stopped my watch at several minutes over an hour and a half, though I still hadn’t parsed representing properly I later found. Why exactly does ‘rep’ mean theatre? Still a good learning process and satisfying to finish even if I was ridiculously slow.
  15. 23m which is good for us. Ermine, nauseated, put in without understanding the word play fully. Did not know scene shifter, but obvious from the crossers. A pleasant solve with thanks to Izetti and other contributors.
  16. Shouldn’t this be servant with (not without) love hence batman plus o.
    Please explain someone. Thanks to all as ever. Johnny
    1. This, I think, refers to “without” in the sense of “outside”. A source of great perplexity in my early schooldays was the hymn “There is a green hill far away without a city wall…” Why on earth should a green hill have a city wall in the first place, thought I. Jeffrey
  18. For once, this all came together very smoothly, and I managed to finish in 19mins – my first sub 20 Izetti. I wrote in Scene Shifter, so unfortunately missed the anagram, but my only other unparsed answer was Nauseated, with the mysterious Ned. I liked 12ac, Esau, but my CoD has to be 21ac, Nowhere. A typical Izetti masterclass in the setter’s art. My thanks to Don and John. Invariant
  19. Slow going for me today across the board but not helped by biffing DISSENTER for 5d, which made the anagram at 10a troublesome. However a good workout to end the week with my favourite being SAINT, although there were many contenders. Finished in 20.02 with LOI 24a.
    Thanks for the blog
  20. Slower than usual (and I’m an SCC member), but beautifully crafted clues made for an enjoyable evening solve. My own COD is 13a EACH, but the others mentioned are also worthy contenders. I parse as I go, so enjoyed the cleverness of SCENE SHIFTER, even if it was an easy clue. Struggled like others with thinking that 11d was NAUSEATES, but I can see how it works. Many thanks to Izetti – and I must confess to being in awe of those who can solve this in less than 6 minutes!
  21. I thought this was a masterpiece of a crossword so I had to say something!! I only came to it at 11pm after a day out and I hope that is why it took me so long (about 35 minutes – shocking!). I didn’t know NED and my big hold-up was due to putting in NAUSEATES. I changed it in the end but had no idea why it worked. Thanks for the superb blog which explained all. MM
    FOI ABBE
    LOI KERNEL
    COD 17a or perhaps 10a but there again there is of course 15d. No, it is impossible to choose – all the surfaces are so brilliant! Izetti is a genius and I forgive him for taking up so much of my time!!
    1. No it’s not too late. Thanks for sharing your experience. Glad you enjoyed it too.

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