Times Quick Cryptic No 1333 by Hurley

Author   TheRotterPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
Another sub-10-minuter for me at exactly 8 minutes, so easy on the Rotterometer.  There is little here to cause any problems to experienced solvers, with a minimum of gentle general knowledge required and the usual mix of Setter’s tricks.  That’s not to say that this was boring – I enjoyed the succinctness of the clues.  However, the puzzle seemed to me to be lacking in any stand-out humour or surprise.  Thanks Hurley.  How did you all do?

Across
1  Helps gullible people, you say? (8)
SUCCOURS – Sounds like (you say?) SUCKERS (gullible people).
5  Photo on Net? Impressive! (4)
EPIC – A photo on the world-wide interwebby thing might be described as an e-pic.
8 Abandon holiday (5)
LEAVE – Double definition.
9  Quiet girl on Irish river (7)
SHANNON – SH (quiet) ANN (girl) and ON (on).
11  Rock hero given to playing well (2,3,6)
IN THE GROOVE – Anagram (rock) of [HERO GIVEN TO].  The expression IN THE GROOVE can mean ‘in excellent form’.
13 Criminal dealer meets resistance fighter (6)
FENCER – A criminal dealer is commonly known as a FENCE, which is followed by R{esistance}.
14 Clergyman’s previous life with ordinary soldiers (6)
PASTOR – PAST (previous life) with OR (other ranks or ordinary soldiers).  In my experience, soldiers, sailors and airmen are rarely ‘ordinary’!.
17  It’s small, wobbly – I’ll nail it up (11)
LILLIPUTIAN – Anagram (wobbly) of [I’LL NAIL IT UP].  A LILLIPUTIAN is ‘an inhabitant of LILLIPUT, an imaginary diminutive country described by Swift in Gulliver’s Travels, inhabited by tiny people’ (Chambers).  It can also mean diminutive (or small) as an adjective, so an object that is LILLIPUTIAN is one that is small.
20  Envy, no end, returning Pole’s wrap (7)
ENVELOP – ENV{y} (no end) and POLE (reversed or returning).
21  From Treviso, a very Italian wine (5)
SOAVE – Hidden in (from) {trevi}SO A VE{ry}.
22  Had impact at first that one loved dearly (4)
TOLD – First letters of (at first) T{hat} O[ne} L{oved} D{early}.
23  Ten years associated with heartless nest, corrupt (8)
DECADENT – DECADE (ten years) and N{es}T (heartless).

Down
1         Only one flatfish (4)
SOLE – Double definition
2  Such inspiring call from family about Brazilian port (7)
CLARION – CLAN (family) with (about) RIO (Brazilian port).  A CLARION call is a stirring summons to perform a duty, etc.
3  Learner in their hovel, dilapidated, past best (4,3,4)
OVER THE HILL – Anagram (dilapidated) of L{earner} and [THEIR HOVEL].
4  In thesaurus setter finding name of apple (6)
RUSSET – Hidden in (in) {thesau}RUS SET{ter}.
6  Criticise extremely taboo stage show (5)
PANTO – PAN (criticise) and (extremely – first and last letters of) T{abo}O.  A PANTO{mime} is an informal stage show around Christmas-time.
7  Charlie near bar, rebuilt, in capital city (8)
CANBERRA – C{harlie} and an anagram of (rebuilt) [NEAR BAR].
10  A cadet’s air I blasted sailing here? (8,3)
ADRIATIC SEA – Anagram (blasted) of [A CADET’S AIR I].
12  Rich, a female speaking foreign language well (8)
AFFLUENT – A (a) F{emale} and FLUENT.
15  One complaining in distinctive voice seeing capacity of ship (7)
TONNAGE –  NAG (one complaining) inside (in) TONE (distinctive voice)
16  Addition not meant, we hear, to be flexible (6)
SUPPLE – SUPPLE{ment} (addition) dropping the MENT (not meant, we hear)
18  The French versus the Spanish, with neither side leading? (5)
LEVEL – LE (the, in French) V{ersus} EL (the, in Spanish).
19  Right to interrupt indulged person, impudent (4)
PERT – R{ight} inside PET.  PERT as a noun is defined as an impudent person in my Chambers app, which surprised both myself and Kevin (see below).  Here it is an adjective meaning impertinent or impudent.

23 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 1333 by Hurley”

  1. No hold-ups today; IN THE GROOVE biffed without verifying that the anagrist was all there; ditto ADRIATIC SEA. A couple of nits, Rotter: I think the underline shouldn’t extend to It’s at 17ac; if LILLIPUTIAN is a noun here, then ‘it’ is inappropriate, so I take it to be an adjective. And I was surprised to hear that PERT can be a noun; but in any case it’s an adjective here. 5:01.
    1. I’m no semanticist, and I leave it to them to phrase the following more meaningfully, but I read the clue for 17a as follows:
      “It’s (a word meaning) small…” or “It’s (a thing that is) small…”. In either case, I think that “It” is appropriate, and “It’s” I take as a part of the definition. I agree with you and take the answer to be an adjective meaning diminutive. Underlining “It’s” as part of the definition also allowed me to maintain the convention that, in Times cryptic crosswords, the definition is always at the very start, or the very end of the clue, and not hanging suspended in the middle. One could argue that the word “It’s” is redundant other than adding to the surface.

      Regarding PERT, I agree. My Chambers app doesn’t use ‘impudent’ to define the adjective form, just ‘impertinent’, which is very similar. However, ‘impudent’ does appear in the definition of the noun PERT (the existence of which surprised me too!) hence my observation in the blog. I didn’t mean to imply that the answer here is a noun.

      I have attempted some further clarification by amending the blog following your comments, for which I thank you.

      Edited at 2019-04-18 08:29 am (UTC)

  2. Closer to 5 minutes than 6 today and that included all parsing. I didn’t need to return to any clue along the way.
  3. 23 minutes, so just over my target but I spent 3 on my LOI ‘FENCER’ – I kept trying to fit “Che’ in. A nice puzzle, and thanks to the blogger, I hadn’t spotted ‘rock’ as the indicator in 11A and wondered where it was.
    Brian
  4. I found this the toughest of the week and took very, very nearly 20 minutes to get there. All quite fair, just fell for misdirection and exposed my ignorance: missed rock as anagram indicator, didn’t know SUCCOURS meant help and wasn’t at all confident that PERT meant impudent.

    Edited at 2019-04-18 07:20 am (UTC)

  5. This was pretty much a write in for me completing it in 6.15 with LOI 1a. I particularly enjoyed EPIC and the surface of 6d.
    Thanks for the blog

    Edited at 2019-04-18 07:39 am (UTC)

  6. I started off very slowly – 1a was my LOI. After jumping around the grid, things began to gel and I accelerated to finish in 13.52, a minute longer than yesterday. I quite liked some of the longer anagrams e.g. 3d, 11a, & 17a. COD EPIC. Fair and enjoyable – thanks to Hurley and Rotter. John M.

    Edited at 2019-04-18 07:51 am (UTC)

  7. Just over 15 mins with a phone in one hand and tuna sandwich in the other so pretty good.

    Couldn’t parse in the groove, anagrams seem to be my achilles heel or supple.

    Soave looked vaguely familiar.

    Cod russett or tonnage.

    Thanks Rotter/hurley.

  8. A slightly muzzy head after a late night didn’t seem to cause too many problems here with a fast (for me) 8.48.
  9. What a great way to celebrate my anniversary on Times for the Times live journal. This was not my quickest solve but is up there at 7:25. I biffed 16d SUPPLE and my last two in were 2d CLARION constructed from the wordplay and 1a SUCCOURS which I guessed and confess I am not familiar with. Thanks Rotter.

  10. It looks as though I didn’t find this quite as easy as others. 25mins, and then another 3 or 4 trying to see why 16d had to be Supple, rather than something beginning with Sum. Still couldn’t see it and had to be enlightened by Rotter’s blog. Pert was another one that went in with fingers crossed. Invariant
  11. Hello! Your entry got to top-25 of the most popular entries in LiveJournal!
    Learn more about LiveJournal Ratings in FAQ.
  12. ….as I wasn’t on Hurley’s wavelength this morning, and only just made my target. Didn’t spot SUCCOURS or EPIC straight away, so 30 seconds down at the start. After moving swiftly through three sectors (including the two clues above), I ground to a halt in the SW corner. Eventually I picked up LEVEL (I don’t often resort to an empty light in mid-puzzle !), and both TOLD and ENVELOP immediately surrendered. Although it wasn’t LOI, the problem was LILLIPUTIAN really.

    FOI LEAVE
    LOI FENCER
    COD EPIC
    TIME 4:55

  13. I enjoyed it – 12 minutes for me so on the easier side my my reckoning. I agree with Rotter in that nothing stood out but pleasant nonetheless.
  14. I was off the wavelength too and took 13:23 to get through it. I often find Hurley a challenging setter. SUPPLE was my LOI as I’d biffed ENVELOPE at 20a and not noticed that left me with ENVELOE, which made SUPPLE a bit of a challenge. Spotted it eventually. Thanks Hurley and Rotter.
  15. 12:15 for me, which would have been faster had I not typed Over the Hill in completely incorrectly which caused difficulty with checkers below until I eventually spotted my error.
  16. Back from a golfing holiday in Northumberland and having had a rest from puzzles. Perhaps it did me some good as I was home today in 07:02,not far off a PB.
    LOI was PERT which I thought of immediately but then worried about the parsing.
    IN THE GROOVE was 2LOI .
    A fun puzzle. I agree with Rotter (borne out by comments above),fairly easy for the experienced solvers but still plenty of work to do. I thought CLARION might delay a few people. David
  17. Quite a lot of unfamiliar words today, or at least words that I would have been hard pressed to define – succours, fence, OR, soave, clarion, pert – but it’s amazing what you can dredge up from the back of your mind when you have a few checkers in place, so I actually finished a little faster than average in just under 33 minutes. I particularly liked the neatness of 18d, so I’ll make that my COD, though I wouldn’t be surprised if it was an old chestnut to some. Thanks Hurley and Rotter.
  18. Having biffed “break” for abandon holiday there were a few hold ups in the NW. Otherwise one of the easiest ever.
  19. Agree with most that this was the easiest of the week. Well within our modest target of 30m, but should have been quicker if we had not misspelled affluent, which cause a delay with 17a. Thanks to Hurley and all contributors.
  20. I found this the easiest of the week so far. Managed to parse eveything, eventually. That’s a relief as it’s been a tough week so far.
  21. I was a bit slow getting going on this, so I, for one, didn’t find this the easiest of the week. But once I got to the Down clues the answers started coming more easily. I liked 21A, wondering whether SOAVE comes from Treviso. So I looked it up. And the answer is, well, not quite, as Treviso is Prosecco country but the centre of Soave production is only about 20-30 miles away. Nice. 5:37.

    Edited at 2019-04-18 06:58 pm (UTC)

Comments are closed.