Times Quick Cryptic No 1489 by Mara – Shedding a tear for the deer

Author   JohninterredPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

“Well, this is a lovely entertaining QC”, I thought as I worked through this puzzle from Mara. I am reminded that my son has his driving test next week by the amount of reversing involved. A bit of knowledge of African geography may help and there are a couple of less common words (18A and 15D) that may not be in everyone’s vocabulary. But deriving unknown words from the wordplay is one of the joys of crossword solving, I think. Some taut and concise clueing, which I always enjoy, and a good number of entertaining surfaces too. I particularly liked those of 22A and 23A, among others. I finished this in a significantly sub-average time of 4:32, but maybe I was more in tune with our setter’s thinking than usual and luckily avoided getting fazed by the trickier bits. So thanks Mara. Lovely Job! How did everyone else get on?

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

Across
8 Bitter about letters, supporter of cause (7)
APOSTLE – ALE (bitter) [about] POST (letters).
9 Rwandan leader a hit in African capital (5)
RABAT – First letter of Rwandan [leader] A BAT (hit). Rabat is the capital of Morocco, as I’m sure you know (but I didn’t, although, fortunately, I vaguely remembered the name of the city).
10 Singer’s note read out (5)
TENOR – (note r)* [out], using R for read.This is actually a homophone clue – TENOR sounds like TENNER [read out]. Thanks jackkt for the correction.
11 Someone from Mumbai, for example, a state (7)
INDIANA – INDIAN (someone from Mumbai, for example) A. Don’t tell me you got stuck on this one!
12 Strong binding (9)
STRAPPING – Double definition, the first as in “he is a strapping young lad”.
14 Faithful animal deity rejected (3)
DOG – GOD (deity) [rejected], i.e. sent back -> DOG.
16 Pop peg back (3)
NIP – And another reversal; PIN (peg) [back] -> NIP. “I’ll just nip/pop out to the shop for some bread and milk”.
18 Awful blue rinse in spray (9)
NEBULISER – (blue rinse)* [awful]. My late mum didn’t have a blue rinse, but she did have a nebuliser for her chest condition. It’s “a device for producing a fine spray of liquid, used for example for inhaling a medicinal drug”.
21 Unravelling net, I’m so wet (7)
MOISTEN – [Unravelling] (net I’m so)*. Did you know “moist” was voted the least favourite word in the English language? See here.
22 Initially blubbing and more blubbing in Disney film (5)
BAMBI – First letters [initially] of Blubbing And More Blubbing In. Entertaining surface. Did the film make you cry when you watched it? Clue Of the Day for me!
23 Old communist, revolutionary figure on left (5)
LENIN – Our third reversal… this time it is NINE (figure) [revolutionary] -> ENIN after [on] L (left). Nice surface again.
24 Somewhat ailing or ill, a primate (7)
GORILLA – Not too well camouflaged, hidden [somewhat]  (geddit?) in ailinG OR ILL A.
Down
1 Guerrilla, creative type after power (8)
PARTISAN – Odd to start the next clue with a homophone of the previous answer! ARTISAN (creative type) [after] P (power).
2 Thus one heading for recovery earlier (6)
SOONER – SO (thus) ONE [heading for], i.e. first letter of, Recovery.
3 Lead fireball (4)
STAR – Double definition. Lead as in top of the bill.
4 Sign gear half gone on little motor (6)
GEMINI – GEar [half gone], i.e. losing the second half of its letters, MINI (little motor). Reminds me of “You’re only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!“. Sorry. Pardon the self-indulgance.
5 Prompt I miss, wasteful (8)
PRODIGAL – PROD (prompt) I GAL (miss). I do like a concise clue like this… and there are plenty others today.
6 A poet embracing love on a ship (6)
ABOARD – A BARD (poet) [embracing], i.e. outside, O (love; zero).
7 Volcano: bet goes up (4)
ETNA – Yet another reversal. ANTE (bet) [goes up] -> ETNA.
13 Person seeking forgiveness in prison, one figure locked up (8)
PENITENT – PENT (in prison) with I (one) TEN (figure) inside [locked up]. The answer is clear, but the wordplay is less obvious. I hope I got it right!
15 Early gremlin, a failing (8)
GERMINAL – (gremlin a)* [failing]. Not a word I was familiar with but I derived it from knowing “germination”.
17 Adaptable piece of art nail pinned up (6)
PLIANT – Reverse [up] hidden [piece of] arT NAIL Pinned -> PLIANT
19 Inoffensive group’s first to enter country (6)
BENIGN – Group’s [first] inside [to enter] BENIN (country)
20 Small enough specimen (6)
SAMPLE – S (small) AMPLE (enough). And a small enough clue.
21 Use white liquid (4)
MILK – Double definition. Neat.
22 Prison sentence swift, perhaps? (4)
BIRD – Another double definition. The second is a definition by example, indicated by the [perhaps?].

33 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 1489 by Mara – Shedding a tear for the deer”

  1. NEBULISER (NHO) took a few extra seconds. Wasn’t GERMINAL one of the months of the French revolutionary calendar? I remembered it as the title of a Zola novel (which is as much as I’ve ever read of it). If you wept at ‘Bambi’, maybe you should try this:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8s3UogfAGg0

    4:45.

    1. Ha ha. So it is. Thanks. I will update the blog. Odd that my parsing works too… well almost – the R for read to complete the anagrist is probably a bit dodgy.

      Edited at 2019-11-22 06:17 am (UTC)

      1. I started down the same route as you, John, making it an anagram, but wasn’t happy with ‘r’ for ‘read’. We’ve had ‘r’ for ‘reading’ before (and quite recently I think) based on ‘the three r’s’ but I couldn’t think how to justify ‘read’, and then I spotted the soundalike.

        As soon as I read your comment about ‘moist’ I just knew the link was going to be connected with Oxford dictionaries because one of their lexicographers is Susie Dent who appears as the adjudicator on the daily game show ‘Countdown’ and she has been banging on for years about how she hates the word ‘moist’ and its derivatives.

        Edited at 2019-11-22 06:21 am (UTC)

  3. No significant problems today. LOI was STAR after APOSTLE. I had considered an unparsed Acolyte at 8a but was fairly quick to reverse it. I had to write out the letters and required some checkers to get NEBULISER. FOI was PARTISAN.
    Hard to pick a COD as there were lots of good clues.
    Time:12:22. David
  4. A nice end to the week. I was looking for more difficulty with some clues and speeded up when I took things more at face value (e.g. MILK). I rather liked APOSTLE (my FOI), GERMINAL, PENITENT, PARTISAN, SOONER. Over 3K again, though. Thanks to Mara and John. John M.
  5. Just inside 12 minutes here, so a middling day on the Rotterometer. I’m not sure why anyone should dislike the word MOISTEN – it seems perfectly innocuous (or benign) to me!

    Something about this puzzle created an image of Indiana Jones strapping a dog nip nebuliser to his thigh in preparation for another adventure. Now I can’t get the image out of my head, so I thought I’d share it with you.

    Thanks Mara and John.

    1. I had a similar reaction to the story about “moist” when I first heard it. I quite like the word!
  6. I found this very straightforward although I had to revisit a biffed STRINGENT at 12a when I became PENITENT. No problems with NEBULISER or GERMINAL. Took me a little while to see STAR as fireball. 6:49. Thanks Mara and John. I love that scene in the Italian Job:-)
  7. Tough day when you’re sub 10 and still over 2K … Kevin’s a machine!

    I’m going to break ranks and say I didn’t think that was a very good puzzle. Too many double definitions (and one of them pretty tenuous – MILK = use is a bit iffy I think, though obviously justifiable); one incredibly weak reversal clue (DOG/GOD); having two identical three letter reversal clues and putting them one straight after the other (14a/16a), so that when solving it you think “hang on, I’ve literally just done this!”. Plus a geographical obscurity. All in all, not the most enjoyable.

    On the plus side, PLIANT was brilliantly hidden and the surface for BAMBI was wonderful (I never got to see Bambi as a child, because my older sister sobbed so much when the mother deer was killed that we were asked to leave the cinema! Blubbing And More Blubbing Indeed.)

    FOI PARTISAN, LOI PLIANT, COD BAMBI

    Thanks Mara and John.

    Templar

  8. ….as I was almost a minute behind Kevin. I struggled just a little with this, especially my LOI which I visited three times. Totally agree with your view on unknown words John – thanks for the blog.

    FOI DOG
    LOI BENIGN
    COD PRODIGAL

  9. Back to normal! I often find Mara’s puzzles quite difficult, what with the very consise cluing and often tenuous DDs, so was pleased to finish in just over 10 minutes. Milk / use clearly is acceptable, but – to my mind – only just, and I had to wait for the checkers before Star came to mind at 3d.
    Still that clue took me down musical memory lane to the early 70s and Deep Purple. Fireball – pretty good, In Rock – brilliant!

    Otherwise no major problems, although I too was trying to make Acolyte fit in 8a – that is, until I saw the light 😊 I liked Nebuliser, Strapping and Rabat – all great surfaces.

    FOI Dog
    LOI Star
    COD Bambi – so true, but Dumbo is even worse. I can’t watch it to this day
    Time 10m 15s
    Earworm Fireball

    Thanks Mara – and thanks to John for the (as ever) entertaining and enlightening blog. Good luck to your son with his driving test. Not sure which is preferable – ferrying them around or having them drive themselves!

    1. I can take or leave “Fireball”, but “In Rock” is nearly as good as “Machine Head”. Whenever that one’s in the player, “Lazy” gets played at least three times !
      1. tbh I only really remember the title track to Fireball, but I think Child in Time definitely bears repeat playing 😊 No-one could scream quite so musically as Ian Gillan!
        1. I’m in total agreement on “Child in Time”. “See the blind man shooting at the World” could refer to any number of our current batch of political lame ducks !
    2. Thanks. I think I know which is cheaper… insurance premiums for a 17-y-o boy? It is almost more cost-effective to hire a chauffeur!
  11. GERMINAL was new to me until I had the ‘germ of an idea’. I ground to a complete halt halfway through this, but on a second visit it all fell into place quite easily. Good, enjoyable end to the week.
    PlayUpPompey
  12. I’m another who usually struggles with Mara, but didn’t have too much trouble today, that is until it came to some of the parsing. I had 10ac the same way as John and didn’t like it at all – it makes much more sense now as a homophone. A biffed Adoptee at 8ac, was a problem no matter what I tried, so I was relieved to eventually see Apostle. Similarly, the final letter in 13d was floating without a home until I realised that prison was Pent and not just Pen. Tidying up the loose ends pushed me just north of 25mins, which is OK for Mara, but it could have been closer to 20. Invariant
  13. Did this in about an hour but then found I had 22dn wrong. I’d put in “Bars” rather than “Bird”, even though I knew it was a bit iffy with the parsing. Should have thought of that Birdman film and then maybe it would have come.

    Overall, I enjoyed it. Didn’t know “Germinal” but thought of germinate so another educated guess. “Rabat” did ring a bell, but couldn’t pinpoint it exactly on a map.

    FOI = 18ac “Nebuliser”
    LOI = 8ac “Apostle”
    COD = 20dn “Sample” – purely for its simplicity.

    Thanks as usual to the setter and blog.

  15. I thought 9 across was the initial (Leader) of the first 5 words and came up with Rahia a city in Agadir🤣So pleased with myself until I worked out 6 down and realised that I was wrong!Then Rabat came to me from somewhere.Pride really does come before a fall….Hood luck with the driving test.My son recently failed as when he asked to reset a parallel park the examiner refused and he duly made contact with the curb.My advise is don’t ask just do it.Enjoyed this crossword altho it was a DNF for me.Housetraining new pup did not help.Thanks Mara and John
    1. Unspammed. Anon, you need to put a space between the end of each sentence and the first word of the next to avoid your contributions being treated as suspicious spam.
  16. I seem to have found this tougher than most, just missing my target time of 15 minutes. I toyed with ACOLYTE for 8a but couldn’t make it work (unsurprisingly) and STAR also took me an age to see. Nothing particularly tricky in hindsight but the grey cells were clearly not at full throttle today.
    Thanks for the blog
  17. 17 mins with evil hangover. Good puzzle.
    Held up by sticking enmoist for 21a!
    Dnk rabat.
    Loi pliant.
    Cod gemini.

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