Times Quick Cryptic No 1419 by Orpheus – How’s yer mother off for dripping?

Author   JohninterredPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
I found this a nice middle-of-the-road difficulty puzzle from Orpheus today as it took me just under my target time of 5 1/2 minutes. We are treated to some lovely smooth surfaces and a smattering of  none-too-obscure general knowledge including English and Asian geography, chemistry, embroidery and a literary reference. If you did yesterday’s 15×15 you might have had a bit of a sense of déjà vu over the king at 13A, which was my COD. I also liked 11A and 14A. Lovely job, Orpheus. Thanks. So how did you all get on?

Definitions underlined in bold italics, (Abc)* indicating anagram of ABC, deletions and [] other indicators.

Across
1 Secretive about explosive used to capture diamonds (8)
RETICENT – RE (about) and TNT (explosive) outside [used to capture] ICE (diamonds).
5 Electronically summon boy attendant (4)
PAGE – Double definition
8 Instrument little woman placed at end of bar (5)
BANJO – JO (little woman) after [placed at the end of] BAN (bar). Jo, of course, is one of the 4 March sisters in the book by Louisa May Alcott. I haven’t read it or seen any of the adaptations. Have I missed a treat?
9 A new ban upset one aspiring to greatness (7)
WANNABE – (A new ban)* [upset]. Nooo. Don’t give me a Spice Girls earworm!
11 Like good eating? Fantastic roast coming! (11)
GASTRONOMIC – Another anagram – [fantastic] (roast coming)*. Stop it. You’re making me hungry and I’m trying to lose weight.
13 Canny as boy king, Egyptian leader (6)
ASTUTE – AS TUT (Tutankhamon; boy king) and first letter of Egyptian [leader]. Very neat as King Tut was pharoah of Egypt.
14 Section of oratorio or such? Could be (6)
CHORUS – Another lovely surface, and our third anagram (or such)* [could be]. Nicely deceptive, well at least I fell for it – I spent some time looking for a hidden word plausibly indicated by “section of”. Did this catch anyone else?
17 Family emblem dropped to the ground? That makes us dejected (11)
CRESTFALLEN – CREST (family emblem) FALLEN (dropped to the ground).
20 Observer’s friendly greeting to listener? (7)
WATCHER – [to listener] tells us we are looking for a homophone – here a word that sounds like WOTCHA, Do people use that much any more? The dictionary tells me this arose in the late 19th century and is a contraction of “What cheer?”. I never knew that.
21 Police informer carrying old rope (5)
NOOSE – NOSE (police informer – not a meaning I was familiar with but similar to “snout” (which I did know) outside [carrying] O (old).
22 Quadrangle where low cart is reversing (4)
YARD – Another neat surface. The low cart is a DRAY; [reversing] it gives YARD. I’m guessing you would unhitch a dray to reverse it rather than ask the horse to walk backwards.
23 Feelers put out by worker backing English girl (8)
ANTENNAE – ANT (worker) and E (English) ANNE (girl) [backing].
Down
1 Republican given honour and ceremonial dress (4)
ROBE – R (republican) OBE (honour).
2 Mean to entertain cricket side in the near future? (7)
TONIGHT – TIGHT (mean) outside [to entertain] ON (cricket side).
3 Peevish little person wrapping last of this embroidery (5-6)
CROSS-STITCH – CROSS (peevish) TITCH (little person) outside [wrapping] [last of] thiS. “Cross-stitch is a form of sewing and a popular form of counted-thread embroidery in which X-shaped stitches in a tiled, raster-like pattern are used to form a picture.”, but I’m sure you all knew that.
4 Unused vessel in Notts town (6)
NEWARK – NEW (unused) ARK (vessel). I’ve passed by it many a time on the A1 without ever stopping to visit.
6 Panic US city raised over weapon (5)
ALARM – LA (US city) written upwards [raised] to get AL, [over] ARM (weapon).
7 Physical activity cut out without hesitation (8)
EXERCISE – EXCISE (cut out) outside [without] ER (hesitation). We’ve had “without” as an inclusion indicator before on my watch. Think “There is a green hill far away…“
10 Casual attitude of church fellow in north once (11)
NONCHALANCE – CH (church) ALAN (fellow; man’s name) [in] N (north) ONCE. I needed the wordplay to get the spelling right – no John, it’s not “nonchalence”.
12 Devise method to make opening in deck (8)
HATCHWAY – HATCH (devise, as in hatch a plot) WAY (method).
15 Old Asian port managed by stupid person? (7)
RANGOON – RAN (managed) [by] GOON (stupid person). Now called Yangon it is “… the capital of the Yangon Region and the largest city of Myanmar (also known as Burma). Yangon served as the capital of Myanmar until 2006″. Here is the famous Sule pagoda. Oops no it’s not – thanks to an anonymous commenter who corrected me, it’s the Shwedagon pagoda.
16 Unproductive nobleman, by the sound of it (6)
BARREN – Homophone [by the sound of it] of BARON (nobleman).
18 Woman abandoning husband in compound (5)
ESTER – The woman abandoning husband (i..e removing the H) is ESThER. “An ester is a chemical compound derived from an acid (organic or inorganic) in which at least one –OH (hydroxyl) group is replaced by an –O–alkyl (alkoxy) group. Many esters have distinctive fruit-like odors, and many occur naturally in the essential oils of plants. This has also led to their common use in artificial flavorings and fragrances which aim to mimic those odors.” I remember making some in Chemistry at school. I don’t suppose pupils get to do anything like that now.
19 Governor entertains Queen in this place (4)
HERE – HE (His Excellency; term of address for a governor) outside [entertains] ER (Her Majesty). HE can also stand for High Explosive, thus bringing us neatly back to the TNT in 1A. I do love cyclical symmetry!

41 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 1419 by Orpheus – How’s yer mother off for dripping?”

  1. A quick Quickie today. Didn’t care much for PAGE, for the reason Vinyl alludes to: a pager is (was? are there any still?) used to do what a human page boy did; it’s not so much a double definition as a single. And do either pagers summon? WATCHER might be a problem for non-UK solvers. And as V also notes, in the US a goon is a thug; I think of them mainly as thugs hired by bosses to intimidate strikers. 4:24.
    1. See my reply to Vinyl. Furthermore, the first definition is a verb and the second a noun, so I think it is a pukka DD.
  2. 11 minutes put me in the Amber again today and I can probably put that lost minute down to searching for a hidden word in 14ac as referenced by our blogger. A very fine QC puzzle (as is today’s rather difficult 15×15, btw).

    I fail to understand the nits being picked over 5ac.

    ‘The Goon Show’, as constantly referred to here over the years, was about crazy people not thugs.

    Edited at 2019-08-16 05:34 am (UTC)

    1. Neither Vinyl nor I were criticizing the goon clue, just pointing out the UK/US difference in meaning. With page, I’m happy to withdraw my comment.
      1. Cross purposes on this one, I feel, as I wasn’t taking either comment about ‘goon’ as criticism of the clue, only intending to shore up the English meaning by referencing something that you and Vinyl may have heard of as it has been mentioned here many a time.

        I was genuinely puzzled by the ‘page’ thing, but that seems to have been resolved now following explanations from both sides of the Atlantic, and I hadn’t seen johninterred’s additional comment when I posted. Two nations divided…and all that!

    2. Because of the debate, I’ve just heard the Ying Tong song again for the first time in many years. Slightly before my time but I caught Monty Python (of the same ilk) when they came around.
  3. I thought this was another challenging QC. Hardly any answers occurred to me straightaway so it was down to the wordplay and hard work. Trying to work LEG into 2d was interesting and I needed the late appearing 1a to get it.
    I ended up in the SW needing four; Watcher was a big breakthrough enabling me to construct HATCHWAY (not a word I knew). That led to DRAY and then the guessed LOI ESTER (not sure this came up in my Chemistry O Level); I didn’t know yesterday’s chemical either.
    20:23 in the end. David
      1. I only avoided that by having the T and N checkers in place before I got to the downs.
  4. 23 joyless minutes for me. Felt much, much longer than yesterday’s Izetti despite it taking almost exactly the same time. Must brush up my names for informers – recently beaten by NARK but at least I’d heard of it, I am certain I’ve never come across nose in the sense used here. Also held up by HATCHWAY and ESTER. Feel I should have known HE for Governor, hopefully I will next time. Next!
  5. I was relieved to get no pink squares today after my struggles this week. Like our blogger I had concerns over the spelling of 10d and spent some time looking for a hidden at 14a. WOTCHA took me back to a brief period of time in my youth when it was the preferred greeting amongst my friends. Finished in 11.54 with the last couple spent trying to think of alternatives to NEWURN, which looked unlikely.
    Thanks for the blog
  6. 23 minutes, as close to my 20 minute target as I’ve been for over a week, so hopefully the run of stinkers is over ☺.
    A very nice puzzle where I needed a combination of both wordplay and definition to find the answers to many of the clues.
    It’s a long time since I heard anyone say ‘wotcha mate’ but it did bring back memories.
    Thanks to John and Orpheus.

    Brian

    Edited at 2019-08-16 08:26 am (UTC)

    1. I think the traditional Cockney expression is ‘Wotcha, cock!’ (can also be spelt ‘wotcher’). Collins Slang Dictionary advises that the traditional Cockney response to this is ‘How’s yer mother off for dripping?’
      1. Fascinating. Blog title to get an addition. A bit of googling leads to another traditional greeting… “How’s your belly off for spots?”. We do go down some interesting rabbit holes here, don’t we?
  7. Easy osey, done in just over 1.5 Kevins sitting waiting for the ferry on a very blustery Iona. My wife always refers to the level of collective idiocy on display among our sons as the “goon factor” so no problems there. Excellent blog, John, thank you.

    Templar

  8. I had no qualms about PAGE or GOON, as Jackkt mentions, the Goons are ingrained in British culture both as the radio show and the Telegoons https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BflmK8n6gbM and I used to be dragged out of bed in the middle of the night by an electronic pager to fix computers somewhere in the North East of England in the primeval era before mobile phones. I also had to check the wordplay carefully for NONCHALANCE as I’ve been caught out by that one before. I enjoyed this puzzle. 8:31. Thanks Orpheus and John.
  9. Once again, I thought I was coasting but hit a rough patch. I think this was challenging, overall, for the less quick-witted of us. No complaints but it was not a smooth or especially enjoyable solve. I strayed into SCC territory again so either this has been a fairly rough week or I am gradually losing my marbles. My LOsI were PAGE and BANJO – both pretty obvious with hindsight but they tripped me up. I liked ASTUTE, CHORUS, and NONCHALANCE. No problem with goon – and it had to be RANGOON as soon as both Ns were in the grid. Thanks both – good blog, John. JOHN M.

    Edited at 2019-08-16 09:24 am (UTC)

  11. Finally! First finish of the week – thanks for clear blog and enjoyable crossword within the reach of mere mortals.

    Actually the most famous pagoda in Rangoon is Shwedagon as pictured here by Johninterred and visible throughout the city. Sule Pagoda is in the middle of down town and also serves as a traffic roundabout so much less visited!

  12. For me I whizzed through this today and (almost) finished in a good time (I don’t record my times), but could not work out 18D, so somewhat frustrated looked up the blog. So thanks for the explanation, but chemical compounds are not my thing so suspect I still would not have got there!
  13. ….on my old BANJO. ( 5 seconds of strumming) By Jove, I needed that !” (Ken Dodd on his Light Programme Sunday show about 1962).

    Apart from having my “leg”pulled at 2D (see earlier), I found this straightforward. It also raised a smile or two. What’s not to like ?

    FOI PAGE (two nations again divided by a common language apparently !)
    LOI RETICENT
    COD GASTRONOMIC (lovely anagram)
    TIME 3:53

  14. Found this one hard going, particularly at first with only 9 and 23 of the across clues going in first time round. As often seems to happen, the downs were a little more forthcoming, but I still ended up with 49:46, so about 50% longer than for Izetti’s offering yesterday. Maybe my brain just wasn’t in gear. I have no issues with either page or goon, but hadn’t heard of a nose for an informant, and I was thankful for a rhyme mentioning a brewer’s dray that my mum learnt from her father (something about a cyclist passing one, but then dying as he attempted to pass between two trams), though I had no idea what sort of vehicle it was. Guess it’s a low cart. That was my second last one in and enabled me to get my LOI Hatchway.
  15. I remember seeing Jasper Carrot start a gig in Newark by telling them what it’s an anagram of.
    It won’t take you lot long to work that one out 🤣
    Johnny
    1. Sorry Johnny, I’m a bit deaf, could you spell it out please!?
      Here’s an anagram of said Jasper Carrot – ‘Jercs a parrot’. I thank-yew!

      Edited at 2019-08-16 04:14 pm (UTC)

  16. Finished within our target, so pleased. Thanks for the informative and amusing comments, cheers up the miserable weather outside.
  17. A slowish 35 mins, mostly due to a punt on Leg as the cricket side when I just had the g from Gastronomic, and not remembering Nose could be an informer. The Reticent, Newark, Wannabe grouping didn’t exactly jump out either, but otherwise not too difficult. Invariant
    PS I’m still trying to work out how you could reverse a loaded dray without using the horse ?

    Edited at 2019-08-16 04:07 pm (UTC)

  18. was fun today. johninterred doing a masterful job in repelling those who wish to invade Greenland. That used to be the ice’s job. No longer!

    FOI 1ac RETICENT

    LOI 20ac WATCHER

    COD 11ac GASTRONOMIC

    WOD 4dn NEWARK Notts as noted up top. Pronounced Knewuk as opposed to Nuwuk N.J. and Nuwuks Cal. Ark. and Del!
    Quality not quantity.

    Edited at 2019-08-16 04:09 pm (UTC)

  19. Am new to this blog so could someone explain what ‘on’ has to do with cricket in order to produce ‘tonight’.
    Thanks
    1. Welcome to the blog. I hope you find it helpful. Sorry for not explaining more fully against the clue in the write-up. Times crossword setters assume a knowledge of cricket which often catches out (as it were – that’s another cricketing term) people who don’t know the game. In cricket the fielding areas on the two sides of the wicket are known as the off side and the leg side (i.e. behind the batsman’s legs as he stands at the wicket). The leg side is also called the “on” side. See here for more explanation.

      Edited at 2019-08-17 05:34 am (UTC)

      1. That’s that explained so why does outside mean entertain? I’m a newbie too and I very much appreciate the help of the bloggers.
        1. Good question. It’s not immediately obvious. Sometimes some of the wordplay indicators can be a bit indirect. A thesaurus can be of use. In this case, from Chambers thesaurus we get for “entertain” 1 … captivate
          2 … accommodate, play host to, host
          3 harbour…, all concepts which imply holding inside. Does that help?
  20. to entertain is ‘to host’, thus the word ‘TIGHT’ hosts the word ‘ON’ = T ON IGHT = TONIGHT.

    Are you sure you are up for this?

    1. It may seem obvious to a seasoned solver like you, but this is very much the sort of thing that puzzled me when I first started solving cryptic crosswords. We were all newbies once! Entertains = hosts = containment indicator for me is probably remembered by example than derived by logic. A word hosts another word? Eh? What does that mean? Methinks a little more charity is in order. This blog is for helping people learn not putting them off!

      Edited at 2019-08-17 04:08 pm (UTC)

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