Times Quick Cryptic No 1462 by Mara

Author   plusjeremyPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

Introduction

Hats off to any puzzle that makes me take 23 minutes to finish. I was well-stymied in the upper-right while trying to take care of kiddos… my head wasn’t really in the game! Most of the puzzle was straightforward, but there was some lovely, deceptive wordplay in my last six or so clues.

Solutions

Across

1 Briefly look at rivet (4)
STUD – all but the last letter of (briefly) STUDY (look at)
Didn’t get the wordplay until writing the blog.
4 Defect isn’t [in] makeup (3,5)
WAR PAINT – WARP (defect) + AIN’T (isn’t)
This one fooled me good!
8 A Romanic, twirly sort of pasta (8)
MACARONI – A ROMANIC (a Romanic) anagrammed (twirly)
9 Race around some land (4)
ACRE – RACE (race) anagrammed (around)
Also didn’t see this one until late in the game, thinking it might be a reversal, and also trying to convince myself it was ASIA.
10 Opera star sending a short recording back (4)
DIVA – reversing (sending … back) A (a) + shortened word for (short) VIDEO (recording)
11 Getting into fights, naughty child shakes (8)
VIBRATES – inside (getting into) VIES (fights) [is] BRAT (naughty child)
Got held up on this one because I assumed the naughty child was IMP.
12 Dirty child staggering around, edges away (6)
URCHIN – LURCHING (staggering around) without first and last letters (edges away)
14 So — are you sure? (6)
REALLY – double definition, the first adverbial
16 Yellow bloom, particular flower (8)
PRIMROSE – PRIM (particular) + ROSE (flower)
18 Horse / cut (4)
HACK – double definition
19 Nothing good with respect to giant (4)
OGRE – O (nothing) + G (good) + RE (with respect to)
20 Extremely confident, / jumping over (8)
VAULTING – double definition
I had EXULTANT for quite some time.
22 Group just out of the medals, we hear, began journey (3,5)
SET FORTH – SET (group) + FOURTH (just out of the medals) replaced by homophone (we hear)
(First through third place recieve medals.)
23 Weeds found in Idaho especially (4)
HOES – letters in (found in) IDAHO ESPECIALLY (Idaho especially)
Here ‘weeds’ is a verb.

Down

2 More emotional row grabs attention (7)
TEARIER – TIER (row) around (grabs) EAR (attention)
3 Some spirit needed to put on a show (5)
DRAMA – DRAM (some spirit) + (needed to put on) A (a)
A ‘dram’ is a drink of alcohol (= spirit).
4 Court with outstanding officials, primarily (3)
WOO – WITH OUTSTANDING OFFICIALS (with outstanding officials) reduced to their first letters (primarily)
5 Compensate [for] first of redundancies, with me busier, somehow (9)
REIMBURSE – first letter of (first of) REDUNDANCIES (redundancies) + (with) ME BUSIER (me busier) anagrammed (somehow)
6 After a party, a mother [is] a state! (7)
ALABAMA – after (after) A (a) + LAB (party) [is] A (a) + MA (mother)
LAB for Labour Party, I believe.
7 Old Scandinavian feature inspiring reverence at first (5)
NORSE – NOSE (feature) around (inspiring) REVERENCE (reverence) reduced to its first letter (at first)
I kept trying to convince myself of CHI(R)N, until I finally got it from the definition.
11 North American city initially ushering in vehicle insurance (9)
VANCOUVER – first letter of (initially) USHERING (ushering) in (in) VAN (vehicle) + COVER (insurance)
This one really fooled me until I had enough crossing letters.
13 Translating Flemish, that man in the mirror? (7)
HIMSELF – anagram of (translating) FLEMISH (Flemish)
15 Allow change of scene after short story (7)
LICENSE – anagram of (change of) SCENE (scene) after (after) almost all letters of (short) LIE (story)
17 Villain, topping accent! (5)
ROGUE – removing first letter of (topping) BROGUE (accent)
18 Conspire to devise / an opening (5)
HATCH – double definition
21 Toughest part — that’s horrible! (3)
UGH – TOUGHEST (toughest) contains the letters of the answer (part)

33 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 1462 by Mara”

  1. I don’t get ‘extremely confident’; the only VAULTING I can think of is in the fixed phrase ‘vaulting ambition’, where it isn’t extremely confident ambition. And PRIM seemed a bit of a stretch for ‘particular’. Biffed 22ac and 17d, parsed post-submission. 6:26.
    1. As mentioned above it was news to me, but Collins has: vaulting 1. excessively confident; overreaching; exaggerated
      – vaulting arrogance.

      I didn’t look twice at prim/particular but on reflection it would seem to require a 3-point turn, and even then it’s a bit loose. On edit, Collins lists ‘particular’ as the second synonym for ‘prim’.

      Edited at 2019-10-16 03:20 am (UTC)

    2. A vaulting horse is a basic bit of gym equipment basically it’s just an obstacle you leap over. Hence the derivations of vaulting ambition etc
  2. 11 minutes. NHO that meaning of VAULTING before. The STUD and TEARIER intersection was hard and accounted for my overrun.

    Edited at 2019-10-16 12:09 am (UTC)

  3. I confess that with puzzles I can finish easily, I never scrutinize the definitions, especially if they have the slightest whiff of being correct.

    That’s no defense of a loose definition, though. I would hope that, especially in puzzles aimed at newer solvers, they would strive for really tight clueing. Ah well.

  4. 13 mins.

    Last few were vaulting, rogue, primrose, and loi the guessed hack.

    Cod primrose as its a flower I know!

  5. This was as hard as 1,2,3 for me. I had less than 10 minutes on the clock when I returned to the NW to finish the puzzle off. I thought normal service had been resumed after yesterday.
    However 1a 2d and 3d proved almost intractable. I thought AGALA might be some spirit (elflike) but finally found DRAM. I was convinced 2d ended … TIER;so I needed a three letter word for Attention -Oi plus one maybe. WEEPIER wouldn’t go away but I was sure about the pasta.
    I alphabet-trawled 1a twice and eventually got STUD and LOI was TEARIER.
    24:05 on the clock. I need breakfast now.
    David
  6. I enjoyed this one as it challenged me just enough to keep me interested throughout, without straining the grey matter too much. The 11s held me up at the end as, like our blogger, I was convinced that IMP would be the start of 11a and once that was proved impossible by REIMBURSE I had nowhere else to go. I finally broke the impasse when I remembered Canada was also part of North America – apologies to any Canadians on here.
    Finished in 14.14 with my favourite being WARPAINT.
    Thanks for the blog
  7. I enjoyed that, some quite slippery tricks on display from Mara making for a fun puzzle. I found the downs a lot easier than the acrosses and almost managed a clean sweep of them (HATCH was the only hold out, finally being POI). Have you ever seen anyone write or heard anyone say the word TEARIER, by the way? A real crossword word.

    FOI MACARONI, LOI HACK, COD SET FORTH for the lolz. Time 1.75K for a Very Good Day.

    Thanks Mara and Jeremy.

    Templar

      1. It’s a common usage in Scotland – one of my exes, originally from Musselburgh, used it often.
  8. I found myself at 7 minutes with less than half the grid complete, but a sudden spurt saw me complete in 10:11. DRAMA and STUD were my last 2 in. The unusual definitions of PRIM and VAULTING caused me some delay. Liked SET FORTH and WAR PAINT. Thanks Mara and Jeremy.
  9. 11.11 so harder side of average. I bunged in WAR WOUND at 4a from the first two checkers which stymied me on the state until I saw the error. Few others I didn’t fully parse like REALLY and ROGUE but they just had to be from checkers

    NeilC

  10. About 9 mins
    Nothing obscure
    Nothing decades out of date
    A delight
    Don’t know why I’ve switched to anon I used to be identified
  11. No worries with 20ac VAULTING

    23ac HOES can also be a couple of nouns, under certain circumstances.

    FOI 1ac STUD

    LOI 18ac HACK

    COD 4ac WAR PAINT

    Time 8.45 mins

    WOD 2dn TEARIER

  12. 14 minutes and a DNF of my own making as I stupidly entered LICENSE as LIsENcE and then I couldn’t solve the last clue 18a Horse cut. TBH even if I had picked up on the error I don’t think I would have got HACK. I also biffed VAULTING to mean jumping over. Is it me or is there a bit of a horse theme going on?
    1. You may be onto something

      STUD, (war)PAINT is a colour of horse, HACK, VAULTING (other type of horse). All set by Mare – sorry, Mara!

      1. Maybe MACARONI is a nod to Yankee Doodle Dandy’s pony. And did not Richard III memorably cry “NORSE, NORSE, my kingdom for a NORSE” ?
        I’m sorry – I’ll go and take my medication.
  13. ….by biffing “spot” at 1A (I was thinking of spot welding) before TEARIER immediately saved me. Then I shoved in AIDA at 10A, but fortunately realised it didn’t parse almost at once.

    I’m another who only considered VAULTING ambition, so I’ve learned something there. Finished within target.

    FOI TEARIER
    LOI HACK
    COD VANCOUVER

  14. Another strong puzzle for me today. Came in at 18.36, and and becoming more confident by the day.

    WAR PAINT my COD, biffed the answer and only noticed the word play reading the blog.

    Thanks
    RC

  16. An enjoyable puzzle today. I started off quite quickly but got bogged down in the NE corner, basically because I couldn’t spell Alabama 😅Once I realised it has 7 letters and not 8, I was in my way again. No problem with vaulting; didn’t parse rogue, so thanks for that Jeremy. I really didn’t like tearier – it doesn’t even look nice written down and I can’t imagine ever saying it!

    FOI Macaroni, although I misread the clue as a Romantic initially
    LOI Vaulting
    COD Myself – it made me smile
    WOD War paint – we all need some occasionally
    Time About 11 minutes

  17. A fairer puzzle today, although too hard for me. It would nice to have an easy one sometime soon.
  18. Always enjoy the puzzles where some go straight in and others seem intractable at first. But had enough checkers (mainly down) on first run through to finish in one of my faster times at 8:20. LOI was 16A – I’m hopeless on natural world. Smiled at 4A and 22A but 12A my COD for lovely surface.
  19. I was on the right wavelength today and raced (for me! ) through this one in about 15 minutes or even a bit less. Answered these pretty much in order with no especial problems. Very much liked 4 and 22 across. I was unable to parse 17 down – I even wondered briefly if an OGUE was the name of some kind of accent like an ‘acute’ or an umlaut. Thanks, Jeremy, for sorting that one out! Not wild about VAULTING because surely it doesn’t mean ‘confident’ until it’s attached to the word ‘ambition’? Thanks, though, to Mara for an enjoyable puzzle and to Jeremy for the blog.
  20. 11 not easy but enjoyable minutes. I had to think about the items raised above but had no problems with them being decent clues.
  22. Many distractions but approx 30 minutes.
    Enjoyable and as others struggled in the NE corner. Relieved to get Hatch and Hack too.
    Thanks all
    John George
  23. A late start and also an ecouragingly soft one for me but then it hardened. Some challenging clues kept me involved for a couple of minutes less than Jeremy. I think all my likes and difficulties have been listed above. Thanks to Mara and Jeremy. John M.
  24. A very late addition but I thought someone would point out that Shakespeare speaks of ‘vaulting ambition, that o’er leaps itself, and falls on the other side’ in Macbeth.
    RB

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