Times Quick Cryptic No 1468 by Pedro

Author   rolytolyPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
You know you’ve competed in a classy pub quiz when your ability to apple bob in an outsize bucket nets your team enough points to win, and you wake up in your clothes with a choice of how and when you might wish to deal with a potential hangover. I spent a bit of time looking at 1ac, wondering if it was an optimistic or a pessimistic outlook. Remained undecided, moved on, admired a number of the surfaces – 12ac seemed pertinent, had I been in charge of a car – and eventually managed to solve a clue at 18ac: perhaps an optimist’s description of aching in places you previously didn’t know to exist? I clicked on that nice ‘Reveal Grid’ option before too long just so I could diligently bring you the parsing, herewith. Probably a very good puzzle that looks to be on the trickier side – many thanks to Pedro!

Across
1 50% healthy, not completely fine at first (4)
HALF – HALE (healthy) not completely = dock the last letter; F (Fine at first). Nice!
4 Church the Italian put in primary area (8)
BASILICA – IL (the, Italian) put in BASIC (primary ) A(rea)
8 You won’t be caught napping with this (8)
INSOMNIA – cryptic definition, and the answer is also obscure to my current circumstances.
9 Support walk, heading off … (4)
ARCH – MARCH (walk) deduct the heading.
10 …long walk to reach Eastern Kinross, initially (4)
TREK – Clues with ellipses should be read like lengthier Donald Trump tweets: profound when read as a whole but perfectly intelligible in their own right. Or something like that…
11 Church title recalled when including a couple of Saints and Bishop? (8)
CHESSMAN – CH(urch) NAME (title) recalled = reversed, insert SS (a couple of Saints)
12 Ruin part of garden when reversing? I’m expected to pay (6)
DEBTOR – ROT (ruin) BED (part of garden), reverse. Have to say, some very nice clues so far. Doesn’t seem particularly easy when coming cold at the answers.
14 Fame about now, heading for notoriety (6)
RENOWN – RE (about) NOW, N (“heading” for Notoriety). Lovely.
16 Many shops recognised item of hardware (8)
CHAINSAW – CHAINS (many shops) SAW (recognised)
18 Secures new muscles (4)
NABS – N(ew) ABS (muscles)
19 Virus containing note getting illicit payment (4)
BUNG – BUG (virus) contains N(ote). The OED says: criminals’ slang, etymology unknown, but possibly from the idea of to put forcibly. The etymology for this is described as ‘echoic’. I suppose it is.
20 Spider rain had disturbed, securing cover initially (8)
ARACHNID – anagram (disturbed) of RAIN HAD, securing/holding C (Cover “initially”)
22 Reduced order? Mine will become dilapidated (8)
DECREPIT – DECREE (order), reduced = dock the tail; PIT (mine).
23 Little kindergarten’s opening in seven days (4)
WEEK – WEE (little) K (kindergarten’s “opening”). Sennight is a nice word – we still use fortnight in a non-computer game context, don’t we?

Down
2 A popular plant for a racecourse (7)
AINTREE – A ; IN (popular) ; TREE (plant)
3 Female to startle in a dress (5)
FROCK – F(emale) to ROCK (startle)
4 Prohibit regular extraction from brain? (3)
BAN – regularly extract the letters from BrAiN. Nuff said.
5 Concern in South Carolina over line that’s frightening? (9)
SCARECROW – SC (South Carolina), insert CARE (concern) over/above ROW (line)
6 Article is probing hero’s love affair (7)
LIAISON – LION (hero) probed by A (article) and IS
7 Drink companies start to advertise (5)
COCOA – if a CO is a company, then two are COCO ; A (“start” to advertise)
11 Fraudulent player keen to support comical character (4-5)
CARD-SHARP – SHARP (keen) to support/prop-up CARD (comical character).
13 Pooh’s friend is about right to set off (7)
TRIGGER – TIGGER (Pooh’s friend) goes about R(ight)
15 We swallow the bait, hogging second spot on the Net (7)
WEBSITE – WE ; BITE (swallow the bait, literally and figuratively) hogs S(econd)
17 Home, seeing us in garden (5)
HOUSE – to HOE = to garden, insert US
18 Skill, by the sound of it? Definitely not (5)
NOHOW – sounds the same as KNOW-HOW (skill)
21 Agreement with no power in law (3)
ACT – PACT (agreement), deduct the P for power.

32 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 1468 by Pedro”

  1. Slowest I’ve been in a long time, and I don’t know why. Clues that have ellipses should be read as if they don’t, since virtually never is one clue relevant to the other. Roly, I think the underline at 5d should include “that’s”. 8:32.
    1. Thanks, yes well spotted – it’s a bit late to change it now, any confused late stragglers will have to read your comment!
  2. Slowest I’ve been in a long time and I know why!
    Ellipses? Watching too much Fox & Fiends. 11 mins.

    FOI 4dn BAN

    LOI 11ac CHESSMAN

    COD 16ac CHAINSAW

    WOD 5dn SCARECROWS Ken Dodd 1960s and Les Dawson 1970s.
    My mother-in-law is so scary that when she stands in a field, the crows bring back corn they nicked four years ago! Tut!Tut!

  3. A DNF after 30 minutes, with three still to go:
    CHESSMAN – wordplay too intricate
    CARD-SHARP – DKN this meaning of ‘card’ but it’s definition no.17 in Chambers (obscure?) and
    DECREPIT – no excuse.
    The rest was fine with excellent surfaces, and for once the homophone worked for me.
    Thanks to rolytoly for sorting everything out

    Brian.

  4. Sounds like wild night rolytoly!

    16 mins. Last few to yield were trigger (wanted piglet), debtor, nohow (nho), chessman, and loi by a mile insomnia, which although I had it last night, didn’t immediately appear.

    Cod nabs.

  5. At 12 minutes this was my best solving time so far this week but it also means I have yet to hit my target 10 last achieved last Friday. I think I start to lose confidence if I don’t immediately solve one of the first two or three clues I tackle, and that slows me down.
  6. Pedro delayed my breakfast this morning. I started well but knew I would have to come back to some answers with missing first letters (like INSOMNIA).The last three took me a long time. Firstly CHESSMAN ( luckily I remembered clues where the answer is a chess piece and the parsing was clear once you had the answer;tough to get there).Then COCOA where I could not see how to get the plural of companies;for too long COLA and COSTA and CHINA were suggesting themselves. Finally ARCH- it’s very hard when the first letter has to be discounted like this-ALLY was favourite for a long time, which fitted with COLA.
    Very tricky from Pedro today. Not one to do with a hangover. Breakfast delayed by 28:41 but at least I finished.
    David
  7. I usually find Pedro on the trickier side, but managed to get through in just under my target time. My proof read revealed that my biffed WEBPAGE had become WEBPIGE causing a swift rethink, but unfortunately failed to reveal that I had typed AAT for ACT. Bah! 9:38 but with a typo(WAT). Thanks Pedro and Roly. Hope the hangover subsides quickly!
  8. I didn’t have a hangover before I started this puzzle but after limping through it in 3 Kevins, my brain seemingly made of porridge, I now feel as though I do. Ouch. I made very heavy weather of that, my worst time in a long time. My undoing was really the CHAINSAW/SCARECROW/CHESSMAN axis, which just took ages to unlock. I had been sure that the definition in 5dn was “Concern” so was fixated on a medical term beginning SCOL (South Carolina – over – line) like scoliosis. And I didn’t know “saint” could be used to indicate just S instead of ST, and I thought that the definition must be a church title, and and and … complete analytical gum today.

    FOI HALF, LOI CHESSMAN, COD RENOWN.

    Hey ho, well beaten by Pedro today, there’s another puzzle tomorrow! Thanks Pedro and roly (and the “reveal grid” function!).

    Templar

  9. A warning against trying to start with the shorter clues first… I had (t)RAMP, (t)RACK and (t)RAIL before the penny dropped.
  10. A difficult workout from Pedro. I started fairly well jumping about the grid but soon slowed markedly. Held up by CHESSMAN, DEBTOR, SCARECROW, WEBSITE. Didn’t like NOHOW or HOUSE but put them in anyway. LOI was CHAINSAW (doh). Like others above, Roly’s parsing skills were appreciated in a few cases. Over 3K today but it rushed by. Thanks to Pedro for a challenge. John M.
  11. ….”now” at 14A, I enjoyed this tricky offering from Pedro. I missed my target by a smidgen, but was still within the parameters to not declare my time.

    FOI HALF
    LOI HOUSE
    COD INSOMNIA

  12. 17.51 today for myself, which is better than the rest of my attempts this week, but it felt just as tough.

    Again was left with 3 or 4 clues for a long time at the end. Stared at the eventual DEBTOR for too long, with all available checkers. Eventually clicking ‘garden bed!’. Ah!

    Thank you for the blog,

    RC

  13. 22m here to continue a run of QCs that have taken me over my target, or in the red zone as Jackkt would say. I enjoyed this though, and felt satisfied at the end – thankfully I wasn’t suffering the same malaise as my alternate Thursday blogging partner – Roly.

    Good job Pedro.

  14. A toughie today but struggled through in the end with a couple of guesses, but got DEBTOR wrong. Good fun though.
  15. I don’t seem to have struggled as much as some but this was still a nice chewy puzzle. The first few were downed quickly – Aintree, Arachnid, Frock; others took a bit more savouring – Insomnia, Scarecrow, Chainsaw, and a few hung on to the bitter end – Debtor and Renown.

    Sorry Roly – I hope that little flight of fancy doesn’t increase your suffering😅 I just hope the people who run our pub quiz don’t see this and get any ideas!

    I too got stuck on Piglet – I suppose you could add an R to make a small goody-goody. Never parsed Half; really don’t like Nohow – I think it looks much better hyphenated; and I really did wonder briefly about the Ets muscle group!

    FOI Week – it just jumped out me as I scanned the clues (on paper it is at the top of column two)
    LOI Renown
    COD Chainsaw
    Time 16 minutes

    Many thanks for your dedication Roly – hope the day gets better! Sounds like it was worth it though!

    1. Thanks yes improved enough – was good fun as a Halloween novelty but I’m with you that I could do without it in my normal pub quiz. It would have to be called something like a pub activity night, which sounds like it could get quite messy!
  16. This blog can be quite uplifting when you struggle through a QC and find that you are in good company. I solved this QC in an anticlockwise direction mostly writing in what seemed appropriate answers and then checking the parsing. My FOI was 1a HALF and at the 12 minute mark I had solved and parsed all but three clues. My last entries were CHESSMAN, DEBTOR and finally INSOMNIA. The cryptic definition of the latter threw me given how hard I had to work on most of the clues. Less than 2K so seemingly a good day.
  17. No time, as was interrupted when gasman came to call about non-functioning oven.
    Had biffed RENTER at 12a (R by misreading ‘ruin’ as ‘run’, but no idea for ‘enter’), and agree Piglet was more of a friend than Tigger.

    Edited at 2019-10-24 11:30 am (UTC)

  18. Well, I don’t think I could describe today’s QC from Pedro as fun, but it was certainly an entertaining and challenging 40mins, including parsing. A one-eyed Mer at (to) Hoe for garden at 17d, as it seems to open up too many other possibilities – weed, dig, sow etc, but apart from that, everything seemed to fit eventually, albeit several times with the benefit of starting from a biffed answer. 16ac, Chainsaw, just nudges out 5d, Scarecrow, for my CoD vote. Invariant
  19. Not even close today. Much too hard for me. Thought a couple of clues to hard for a QC but that’s life. After a year of trying these QC I sometimes feel I am making no progress when I get a puzzle like todays.
  20. Tricky in places but the only clue that brought me to a complete halt was INSOMNIA, which I stared at blankly for a couple of minutes at the end. As someone else commented I’m really don’t like NOHOW as a word, it just looks wrong. Apart from that an enjoyable puzzle that I completed in 14.20, so just under target.
    Thanks for the blog
  21. I thought I was being a bit slow with this, but I see others didn’t find it at all easy. I messed up the grid by writing The answer for 10A in 9A, which didn’t help. Like others, CHESSMAN my LOI. Some nice clues though. I liked AINTREE, BUNG and COCOA 6:58
  22. We also found this tricky and finished way above our target. Slow on a number of clues, and as ever, they seem easy when the penny drops. Thanks for the challenge.
  23. So that’s how you spell liaison! Couldn’t even get that second i with an alphabet trawl. Will I remember next time? Many thanks Pedro and RolyToly
    IanH
  24. A really enjoyable challenge. Very little joy with the across clues first time through, acceleration with the vertical ones and good progress until the final three in the NE corner. Eventually COCOA (not COSTA!) revealed itself and ARCH and COD CHESSMAN swiftly followed. Just over 15 mins, which felt like a good time for me for a tricky but fair puzzle. Thanks Pedro
  25. Way, WAY too tricky for me. Yesterday’s was easy, but today a dnf by a long way. Grrrrr!
  26. Almost 30 minutes for this one, so way over my 20 minute target, but very enjoyable nonetheless, especially when I found that it really was a tough one by most people’s standards. Thanks to Roly for making the effort under the circumstances(!!) and to Pedro for a very satisfying challenge. MM

    FOI: HALF
    LOI: CHESSMAN. I thought I was going to have a DNF after 4 minutes of looking at this when suddenly the penny dropped!!!
    COD: DEBTOR
    WOD: SCARECROW

  29. Like some others had costa for a while and also ally (dally anyone for walk?!) Managed trigger on first pass. COD card sharp but also really liked scarecrow ( although only got it trying to fit in sorrow!) thanks Pedro and Rolytoly

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