Times Quick Cryptic No 1413 by Tracy

Author   TheRotterPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
No time for me today as I was distracted and interrupted several times, but it felt quite quick, with no major difficulties.  I’ll be interested to see others’ times.  Thanks Tracy.

Across

1         Register includes unknown Hungarian composer (5)
LISZT – LIST is the register, and Z the unknown that is included.  We had LISZT in the QC that I blogged exactly two weeks ago, clued then as a homophone.
4  Creeping plant in American’s caravan (7)
TRAILER – Double definition, the second from US culture.
8 What psychoanalyst gives male during wild party? (7)
THERAPY – HE (male) inside (during) anagram (wild) of [PARTY].  The definition part is cryptic.
9  Training doctor poorly (5)
DRILL – DR (doctor) and ILL (poorly).
10 Eventually entered for a marathon? (2,3,4,3)
IN THE LONG RUN – Double definition, the second cryptic.
12 Finish university, about to go through (6)
ENDURE – END (finish) and U{niversity} followed by RE (about).
13 Stroke is worried about onset of storm (6)
CARESS – CARES (is worried) and S{torm} (onset = first letter).
16  Shopkeepers had brass here in resort (12)
HABERDASHERS – Anagram (in resort, or in re-sort) of [HAD BRASS HERE].
18  A bottom in the air (5)
AFOOT – A (a) and FOOT (bottom).  To be AFOOT is to be in play, or in the air!
20  Messenger’s job to intercept porter (7)
APOSTLE – ALE is porter, as in beer, and is interrupted by POST (job).
21  Most of clothes left with child star (7)
GARLAND – GAR{b} (most of clothes) with L{eft} and AND (with).  Referring to Judy GARLAND who was a child star before going on to become an even greater legend.
22  Just ahead of time in competition (5)
EVENT – EVEN (just) and T{ime}.

Down

1         Room inside the French grill (7)
LATTICE – ATTIC (room) inside LE (French for the).  At first, I thought that the definition might be ‘room inside’ and tried, unsuccessfully, to make LATRINE fit.
2  Hard work disturbed Swede at party (7,6)
SWEATED LABOUR – Anagram (disturbed) of [SWEDE AT] followed by LABOUR (as in the political party).  SWEATED LABOUR is defined in my Chambers as ‘hard work obtained by exploitation’.
3  Not entirely where studying at university may lead one (2,1,6)
TO A DEGREE – Double definition.
4 Much younger lover in rhyme (3,3)
TOY BOY – Helpful cryptic definition.
5  Help female servant male deserted (3)
AID – The female servant is a {m}AID – with M{ale} deserting to give AID. 
6  Recreational complex has unusual line – rest cure to conserve energy! (7,6)
LEISURE CENTRE – Anagram (unusual) of [LINE – REST CURE] with E{nergy}.
7  Part of official list announced (4)
ROLE – Sounds like (announced) ROLL (official list).
11  Happy, having stumped one former Prime Minister (9)
GLADSTONE –  GLAD (happy) and ST{umped} (cricket shorthand) and ONE (one).  I wonder if our American colleagues across the pond feel the same sinking feeling when a clue refers to an ex-Prime Minister as I feel when a clue refers to one of the many ex-Presidents?
14  Have doubts about group protecting American leader in Paris (7)
SUSPECT – SECT (group) surrounding (protecting) US (American) and P{aris} (leader, i.e. leading letter).
15  Somehow drew diamonds, holding ace and king (6)
EDWARD – Anagram (somehow) of [DREW] with D{iamonds} and holding A{ce}.  We currently have a Prince Edward, but here in England / the UK we have had a goodly number of Kings of that name in the past.
17  Report made by knight in case (4)
BANG – N (knight in chess notation) inside BAG (case).
19  Eleven, maybe, not finishing this drink (3)
TEA – The eleven refers to a TEA{m} (not finishing).

26 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 1413 by Tracy”

  1. I put in ALOFT at first, but couldn’t make sense of “bottom.” AFOOT came up in trawling the alphabet for the first blank.
    But I’ve always heard 4d as BOY TOY, so that held me up until I saw TRAILER and reluctantly acquiesced.

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

  2. I finished in 12 minutes, missing my target but staying out of the red, however I should have taken longer as I had ALOFT at 18ac despite not seeing how LOFT could be derived from ‘bottom’.
  3. This took me 5 minutes longer than yesterday’s impossible puzzle so it will be interesting to see reactions.
    I started quickly with Liszt which I can’t spell but To A Degree confirmed things. But then plenty of clues slowed me down including COD LATTICE. Was not sure I had heard of Sweated Labour but it emerged without competition. I ended up stuck in the SW. I had ALOFT but I could see it did not parse. After correcting that I still needed BANG (easy once you see it but …) and finally Garland where I was looking for the name of a star in the sky; I did not see GARB for clothes and was working on WEAR.
    So 24:05 in the end; tough. David
  4. 32 minutes, 12 over target but about average for a Tracy, always one of the trickier setters. Like others I tried to get ALOFT to work but resisted and finally got it with a trawl. As usual with Tracy there was lots of deception , I particularly enjoyed 14D where I was sure ‘American leader in Paris’ was AEN, not USP.
    I think this is the level a QC at the ‘difficult’ end should be.

    Brian

  5. After yesterday’s abomination by Des, I loved this QC. It was a great mixture and whimsical. Well done Tracy! Let’s have more like these.
  6. I appreciated this after yesterday’s disappointment. All fair enough for me and enjoyable too! If I had one slight reservation it is that like many of these puzzles it is a bit ‘ageist’ inasmuch as it relies on a knowledge which has been gleaned by old fogies like me. Judy Garland would not occur to many under about 40 and the cluing was tough for this as well. Likewise you don’t see many haberdashers around ( though that was a gentler anagram)
  7. Tougher than yesterday’s toughie. 13.40 but with one wrong ALOFT. I assumed there was some meaning of LOFT I didn’t know. Oddly I was ok with that guess but highly suspicious of GARLAND as couldn’t parse it (somehow too easy to neglect words like “with”). BANG took a while but then report for fire came up in the 15×15 recently so was vaguely fresh in the mind, if something can be vaguely fresh… Also not heard of SWEATED LABOUR but makes sense. I expect there will be some complaints today, but not from me, all good practice.

    NeilC

  8. I fell into the elephant trap at 18a with ALOFT. Otherwise I was still tardy at 12:39. I see even Verlaine took almost 4 minutes on this one and had 1 error! Took me a while to see GARLAND. All very fair though. Thanks Tracy and Rotter.
  9. Some chewy stuff in here, particularly in the SW. Fortunately I managed to avoid the temptation to bif ALOFT and resorted to an alphabet trawl for my LOI. I’d not heard of SWEATED LABOUR and needed all the checkers before the penny dropped.
    Finished in 14.32 with my favourite being APOSTLE.
    Thanks for the blog
  10. Latrine and aloft for me, I couldn’t parse either so suspected they were wrong. Travelling today so busy at work so just pressed submit after 26 mins.

    Lots of errors on the crossword site. Even Verlaine.

    Cod garland.

  11. I was well over target completing in 18:33. My hold ups were 15d EDWARD, 18a AFOOT (after two alphabet trawls) and my LOI 16a HABERDASHERS where I completely missed the anagram indicator ‘resort’, now committed to memory.
  12. ….and can also be used as a clue for LEISURE CENTRE.

    Once I discarded “aloft” I quickly picked up AFOOT. No other problems, other than wondering whether the porter was intercepting the job at 20A rather than the other way round….

    FOI LISZT
    LOI SUSPECT
    COD ROLE
    TIME 3:47

  13. Sometimes (aka often) I come across a clue where I have no idea what’s going on. I leave these well alone until I get a few crossers in place. Unfortunately there were three today (17, 18 and 21) all clustered down in the SW corner, so no help was forthcoming. I eventually switched from a K to N for knight, and managed to get Bang, which prompted Garland, but that still left loi A*o*t. At that point I threw in an unparsed About as the only thing I could think of that fitted at least part of the clue. I might possibly have got Afoot with a bit more patience, but for the second day running I was defeated by my loi – at least today it was an English word. Invariant
  14. Proved to be tougher than expected after quick start, but not as gruelling as yesterday’s. Ashamed to say that 16AC was LOI, even though I spent 11 years at a school with that name. As for others, ALOFT just felt right…
  15. SCC again…. I just wasn’t on Tracy’s wavelength today. I shared some of the problems above, especially aloft (before deciding that loft could never relate to bottom). It hasn’t been a good week. Thanks both. John M.
  16. SCC for me today. I had it finished with ALOFT for 18A in abut 6 minutes, but knew that would be wrong and took more than the same time again to work through the alphabet twice to get to AFOOT. 14:55.

    Edited at 2019-08-08 12:12 pm (UTC)

  17. Basically what everyone else said! Got 1a immediately, thought ‘it can’t be this easy for the rest of the puzzle’ and was proved right! No Penny Drop Moment for me re 18a – bunged in aloft knowing it was wrong but not having the energy or time to do an alphabet trawl 😕

    I always find Tracy’s crosswords to be quite challenging, but fair and entertaining. No time – less than quarter of an hour but that doesn’t count as it was a DNF.

    FOI Liszt
    LOI Aloft – except it wasn’t
    COD In the long run

  18. As one who complained bitterly yesterday, I found this one much more approachable. I did struggle to spot a couple of anagrams and biffed away..

    Thanks Tracy and Rotter

  19. Another stiff one but not nearly as bad as yesterday’s! (Even Phil noticed yesterday …) Lots of clever clues, thanks Tracy and Rotter.

    Templar

  20. I’m afraid that I found this to be equally as tricky as yesterday’s puzzle if not worse! Just could not get on the wavelength at all. Still don’t understand how report means bang. Feeling very stupid. I want to be challenged, but two toughies in a row is a bit demoralising.
    Carolyn

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