Times Quick Cryptic No 1403 by Mara

Author   TheRotterPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
13 minutes for me, with a couple of hold-ups for parsing (23a and 3d), but a very nice puzzle from Mara.  No themes or NINAs that I can spot, but maybe Mara had a thirst when setting in the heat, needing a BOTTLE-OPENER to get at his STOPPERED ALE.

Nice to be back after a short break where RolyToly filled in for me.  How did you all get on?

Across
1         Hilarious beyond value? (9)
PRICELESS – Double definition.
6  Expression of contempt when son leaves party (3)
BAH – The party is a BA[s}H, with the S{on} taken out as instructed.  BAH is an expression of disgust or contempt.  What I hadn’t appreciated was that the famous ‘Bah humbug!’ expression was originally spoken by Ebenezer Scrooge in Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’.  If asked to attribute the expression, I would probably have picked Billy Bunter or similar character from my childhood.
8 Backing up, very cold outside and in (7)
POPULAR – POLAR gives us the very cold, which is outside (inside of which) is UP (reversed, or backing).
9  Remote route redirected (5)
OUTER – Anagram (redirected) of [ROUTE].
10  Bravery, key perhaps, in possession of drinker? (6-6)
BOTTLE-OPENER – BOTTLE is bravery, and a key is an example of an OPENER (perhaps).  In these days of ring-pull cans and screw-top bottles, drinkers rarely need a BOTTLE-OPENER, but they may have struggled to survive without one during my youth – how else does one open a ‘party-eight’?
12 Carry enormous animal (4)
BEAR – Another double definition…
13 People are competitive (4)
RACE – …and another one.  That’s three DDs and we are only half way through the across clues!
17  Dallas diva or wayward Catalan artist… (8,4)
SALVADOR DALI – Anagram (wayward) of [DALLAS DIVA OR]
20  …his stand comfort and love primarily? (5)
EASEL – Salvador Dali (previous answer, and subject of this one) would have used an EASEL as an artist (probably, hence the question mark).  Here it is derived from EASE (comfort) and L{ove} (primarily).  This is an example of connected clues (connected by the ellipses) which actually works, and of which I approve, so well done Mara!
21  Pirates disturbed trail (7)
TRAIPSE – Anagram (disturbed) of [PIRATES].
23  Lease back half of Swiss property? (3)
LET – This one took me longer to parse than to solve.  The Swiss property is a CHALET, the back half of which is our answer.  Of course, not all chalets are Swiss, hence the question mark.
24  Hit me (6,3)
NUMBER ONE – and one further DD to complete the across clues!

Down
1         Just beat time in the end for small flute (4)
PIPE – To PIP is to just beat someone or something, and in this case it is followed by {tim}E (in the end), to give the name for a whistle or flute.
2  Beg one extra having scoffed half of plum (7)
IMPLORE – One extra is I MORE, which has ‘scoffed’ (contains) the front half of PL{um}
3  Fish tails in the rice bowl (3)
EEL – Tails (last letters) in {th}E {ric}E {bow}L.  Cleverly disguised clue this one.
4 Profitable job student hasn’t started (6)
EARNER – The student is a {l}EARNER (hasn’t started means drop the first letter).
5  Poor dope with strep, bunged up (4)
STOPPERED – Anagram (poor) of [DOPE] and [STREP]. 
6  Keep playing cricket?  Give it a twirl! (5)
BATON – Cryptic definition for the drum-major’s knobbly stick.  To BAT ON would be to keep playing cricket.
7  Hospital overlooking a peculiar African city (6)
HARARE – H{ospital) over (overlookinhg) A (a) and RARE (peculiar), to give the capital of Zimbabwe.
11  Jack, boy in weatherproof material (9)
TARPAULIN –  TAR (Jack, as in sailor) plus PAUL (boy) and IN (in).  A TARPAULIN is strong linen that has been waterproofed, especially with TAR, which is the origin of TAR for sailor, so this clue is slightly self-referential, or even incestuous.
14  Pacy solo almost fluffed in Caribbean ballad (7)
CALYPSO – Anagram (fluffed) of [PACY SOL]{o} (almost indicates to drop the last letter of SOL{o}).
15  A rise in addition (2,4)
AS WELL – A rise could be A SWELL.
16  Two cats beat it! (3-3)
TOM-TOM – Cryptic definition for the hand drum.
18  Audible programme for composer (5)
LISZT – sounds like (audible) LIST (programme).
19  Month up and exhausted initially, give up (4)
CEDE – DEC{ember} reversed (month up) and E{xhausted} (initially).
22  Cap removed from white drink (3)
ALE – {p}ALE is ‘white’, with the initial letter (cap) removed to give the drink.

23 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 1403 by Mara”

  1. I didn’t even notice that the suspension dots connecting 17ac and 20ac actually connected the clues, something that virtually never happens. ‘ballad’ struck me as an odd definition for CALYPSO. 4:51.
  2. Very nice puzzle, and my submitted time of 19 mins would have been better if not for some interruptions at work, bah!

    Last 2 were number one and tom tom.

    Fav clues popular, salvador dali, and tarpaulin.

  3. 7 minutes, so somewhat easier for me than the past couple of days which caused some dissent in the ranks and made me to miss my target 10 minutes.

    Having seen the checkers I was poised to write CALYPSO at 14dn before I had actually read the clue so I didn’t pay much attentioin to it, but since Kevin has raised a query I checked the definition in the usual sources and found this in SOED:

    A type of W. Indian (orig. Trinidadian) ballad or song, usu. with a topical theme.

    And in addition to a slow, usually romantic song, a ballad can be also be a narrative poem or song.

    ‘Ballad’ on its own might have been a bit of a stretch to define CALYPSO but the addition of Caribbean I think makes a difference.

    My first introduction to genre was Cy Grant performing them on the TV news magazine ‘Tonight’ introduced by Cliff Michelmore, and then Lance Percival who sang his own versions on ‘That Was The Week That Was’. The latter went on to make some sort of career out this in addition to his other activities, but would probably now have fallen foul of PC sensitivities and been accused of ‘cultural appropriation’.

    My LOI was STOPPERED, not a word that runs easily off my tongue.

    I did a double-take for a moment at the thought of Rotter opening his Party Eight with a BOTTLE-OPENER but then assumed he meant the lever thing that pierced cans in the days before ring-pulls and had a bottle-opener at the opposite end.

    Edited at 2019-07-25 05:23 am (UTC)

    1. Didnt have time to visit yesterday but dropped by today so hope this reaches you ! My instant recollection of Party 8s was that no-one ever seemed to have a bottle or can opener, and yet on more than one occasion said cans were attacked with screwdrivers, resulting in far less than eight pints! Quite why we had access to screwdrivers and not can openers is lost in the mists of time 😊
      1. Not so odd really as my recollection is that attempting to open them with a standard kitchen can opener resulted in starting with a very small hole through which the beer gushed out at such pressure that it might hit the ceiling until the initial release of pressure subsided. Using a screwdriver IN THEORY allowed a large hole to be made so that the pressure was released more quickly and less beer was lost, however as you have noted this didn’t always work out as planned and one really needed the lever tool designed for the task – or better still two of them so that you could make two triangular holes at the same time and never spill a drop.

        I’m sure in my day they were Party Fours and Party Sevens rather than Party Eights and there may have been a larger version called Party Twelve. It probably varied between breweries but these were from Watneys, I think. Otherwise we called them Pipkins.

        Edited at 2019-07-26 04:14 pm (UTC)

  4. A nice puzzle which didn’t tax the neurons quite as much as the previous 2 days, but was still a pleasure to solve. FOI, EEL, LOI, TRAIPSE. 5:46. Thanks Mara and Rotter.
  5. It was nice to have some light relief after a couple of toughies and this flowed in nice and smoothly from the bottom up.
    I thought I’d try starting at the bottom after john_dun’s comment last week about the later clues possibly being easier as the setter may have run out of steam by then. It seemed to be the case today and there were no real hold ups until it came to parsing LOI POPULAR.
    Finished in 8.03 with my COD being 24a for the simplicity of the surface.
    Thanks to Rotter
  6. 21 minutes so just on target for a very clever puzzle. The NW corner was blank until the end, with one checker leading to the next answer then to my LOI PIPE. It would have been a lot easier if I’d got that one first, it wasn’t a difficult clue.

    Brian

  7. A good QC after the demands of the last couple of days. Like bripriuk, my LOI was pipe and I don’t know why it was so hard to see. After failing to move quickly in the top half, I moved to the bottom and worked up. The long-ish anagrams went in easily and were a great help. My time of a few seconds over 3K brings me back within my normal range. I liked POPULAR, NUMBER ONE, and IMPLORE. EASEL and EEL were nicely crafted. Thanks to Mara for an enjoyable outing and to rotter (welcome back). John M.

    Edited at 2019-07-25 08:38 am (UTC)

  8. Back to normal – thanks Mara and blogger! Small query – race = competitive?? I criticised yesterday’s offering (not anonymously!) as being far too tricky and I noticed there was quite an exchange in the comments. My own take is that for a quickie either the cluing or the answer can be obscure – but not both together! The real crossword buffs who sail through the 15 x 15’s often have no problem accessing the mindset of the different setters but most of us mere mortals rarely get into the stratosphere. Once you achieve a particular proficiency if you are stumped you should be able to look at the answer and say “fair cop”.

    Edited at 2019-07-25 08:52 am (UTC)

  9. Another quick solve for me today in 7:17 which is about as fast as I can go. I biffed POPULAR, BOTTLE OPENER and CALYPSO but parsed them after submitting. Thank you Mara and Rotter.
  10. ….with your Rhythm Stick” (Ian Dury & the Blockheads) was a NUMBER ONE that ranks high on my list of favourites.

    This was the perfect example of a QC that was both quick and well composed. Thanks Mara.

    I parsed POPULAR afterwards (I considered the momble “pupolar” but luckily resisted it !)

    FOI PRICELESS
    LOI LISZT
    COD NUMBER ONE
    TIME 3:19

  11. I enjoyed that very much, finishing in exactly the same time as Plett and thus clocking about 1.6K for a Very Good Day. Thanks Mara. Thanks also to the Rotter, especially because reading the blog made me realise I had not parsed LET properly – I lazily assumed it was something to do with William Tell backwards but losing a letter … well it made sense at the time (ahem). I wasn’t quite sure about “enormous” in 12ac – the Sun Bear isn’t particularly big, for example.

    FOI PRICELESS, LOI NUMBER ONE, COD BATON. Let’s hope England BATON and on and on today.

    Templar

  12. Late coming here today as we had an early dog walk to avoid the heat plus a few errands.
    I did not find this easy but I agree with other commentators that this is more QC like than some recently.
    I was slow to start. FOI was ALE. After that, steady progress with hold-ups coming over EASEL and Liszt. My last two were POPULAR and EEL. 20:00 exactly on the clock.
    When I saw HIT ME, the first thing I thought of was Ian Dury – a great track. I’ll make that my COD.
    David
  13. … when a Mara QC represents a return to normality, but that was the case today. A pleasant 26min solve with Priceless/Pipe/Popular responsible for about five of those. 10ac, Bottle Opener was my own clear favourite, but there was a good range of clues, so hopefully something for everyone. Invariant
  14. I liked the crossing BOTTLE-OPENER and STOPPERED ALE. Describing a BEAR as “enormous” did seem a but hyperbolic and caused a MER. 5:16
  15. Nice puzzle for a very hot day when the brain cells seem to slow up. Tried outre for 9a, which seemed to fit, until we came to 7 d, when we needed to rethink. Abt 25 m which is good for us.
  16. A great relief after a week of DNFs. I normally finish every QC even if I occasionally go way over my 20 minute target. I have failed miserably this week so I am glad to have succeeded today and with everything parsed, in agreement with The Rotter (thank you).
    I don’t mind being a member of the SCC as long as I finish. Thanks Mara for a return to normality. MM

    FOI ALE (Yes, I decided that perhaps I needed to start at the bottom!!)
    LOI EARNER
    WOD TARPAULIN
    COD NUMBER ONE – you can’t get more concise than that, can you?!!

  17. I still don’t like RACE = are competitive. Wouldn’t “People compete” have been tighter?
    And PALE = White??? Hmmm
  18. I must admit, I remembered them as Party 7s too – Watneys, I’m sure; also Double Diamond perhaps? Never actually drank the stuff though – or at least what was left! But that is so interesting about the science behind the screwdriver method – thank you 😊

Comments are closed.