Times Quick Cryptic No 1503 by Tracy

Author   TheRotterPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
So here we go for the much anticipated, it felt like it would never arrive, election day!  I hope that, as for Christmas, you get what you wished for.

This lovely puzzle from Tracy shouldn’t delay your trip to the polling booth for too long.  I finished it inside 14 minutes, so within target, but there are a couple of unusual devices along with some great surfaces.  I award my CoD to the homophone at 20a and my WoD to CARAFE, because, no doubt, I will enjoy one whilst watching events unfold late into the night.

Hopefully, we won’t have to wait too long to see a small MOTORCADE driving to the PALACE for the installation RITUAL.  IN ANY EVENT, our new leader is likely to be FLAWED in one way or another, despite having PUT TO SHAME the other lot, by exposing their many PORK PIES and winning a majority as FORETOLD.  I could go on, but I’ll stop there before I get too political and end up in the CAN!

Across
1  Choose isolated area for a dip (10)
PICKPOCKET – PICK (choose) and POCKET (isolated area, as in a pocket of resistance or unemployment).  Dip is slang for pickpocket, and is kind of topical – Oliver and the Artful Dodger are dips in the favourite Dickens movie, Oliver, which is popular at this time of year.
7  Singer from Crete?  No, Rhodes (5)
TENOR – Hidden answer in {cre}TE?  NO, R{hodes}.
8 Unusual trial involving universal custom (6)
RITUAL – Anagram (unusual) of [TRIAL] and U{niform}.
10  The head left out clodhopper (3)
OAF – The head is the LOAF (Cockney Rhyming Slang – loaf of bread = head) with the first letter dropped (left out) to give another name for a clodhopper.
12 Venomous snake count discovered in steam engine (4,5)
PUFF ADDER – PUFFER (steam engine) with ADD (count) inside (discovered in).
13 Large insect runs inside on the ground (6)
HORNET – R{uns} inside ON, all inside anagram (ground) of [THE].  A HORNET is a large type of wasp, but it was also the name of my favourite comic when I was nowt but a lad!
14  Put round a large and splendid house (6)
PALACE – PLACE (put) containing (round) A (a).
17  Procession Democrat organised round Ohio’s capital (9)
MOTORCADE – Anagram (organised) of [DEMOCRAT] and O{hio’s} capital (first letter).
19  Sleep in ski pants (3)
KIP – Hidden answer in the letters of {s}KI P{ants}.  A KIP is a slang term for a nap, but also has several other meanings.
20  Reportedly knocked down, being imperfect (6)
FLAWED – Sounds like (reportedly) FLOORED (knocked down).
21  Instruct bishop to leave frontier (5)
ORDER – Remove B{ishop} from {b}ORDER (frontier).
23  Popular, a New York fixture, whatever happens (2,3,5)
IN ANY EVENT – IN (popular) A (a) NY (New York) and EVENT (fixture).

Down
1  Outdo mate, upshot uncertain (3,2,5)
PUT TO SHAME – Anagram (uncertain) of [MATE, UPSHOT].
2  Stick, almost all, in tin (3)
CAN – The stick is a CAN{e} from which the last letter is dropped (almost all).
3  The type of hat that can be eaten! (4,3)
PORK PIE – Cryptic clue.  A PORK PIE hat is so named because it is shaped like a pie.
4  Glass container depicted by artist in eating place (6)
CARAFE – RA (artist – Royal Academician) inside (in) CAFÉ (eating place).  In my not insignificant experience, not all CARAFEs are made of glass!
5  Spare bit player (5)
EXTRA – Double definition.
6  Book difficult to endorse (8)
HARDBACK – HARD (difficult) and BACK (endorse).
9  Uninhibited person, generous soul (4,6)
FREE SPIRIT – FREE (generous) and SPIRIT (soul).
11  Worry about ring, antique, as predicted (8)
FORETOLD – FRET (worry) around (about) O (ring) and OLD (antique).
15  Bizarre name associated with a solitary flower (7)
ANEMONE – Anagram (bizarre) of [NAME] and then (associated with) (ONE) solitary, to give the name of the crowfoot family of flowers.
16  Excuse made by average teacher at university (6)
PARDON – PAR (average) and DON (teacher at university).
18  Owl, dropping wings, lands in chestnut tree (5)
ROWAN – Owl dropping wings (outside letters) gives {o}W{l}.  The resulting W is then placed inside (lands in) ROAN (chestnut, as in the colour of some horses) to give ROWAN, the mountain ash tree.
22  Expected of the French and English (3)
DUE – DU (of in French) and E{nglish}.

33 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 1503 by Tracy”

  1. Nothing to frighten the horses here. I even surprised myself by getting 20ac right off; in my dialect, of course ‘floored’ and ‘flawed’ do not sound the same. Biffed 12ac, 17ac, 2d. 4:58.

    Edited at 2019-12-12 02:22 am (UTC)

  2. Got off to a very shaky start, having to read half-a-dozen clues before writing in an answer that I was sure of, but things soon picked up and I finished in 8 minutes, my best time of the current week. MOTORCADE and ROWAN were my last ones in.
  3. 15 minutes with 1 typo caraff.

    Its the same, but hornet is just R inside anagram of (on the).

    Cod motorcade.

    1. How boring – I much prefer Rotter’s parsing, if only because that’s the way I did it. 😉
    2. I had HORNET as COD until your post – I parsed the long way and was impressed by how much, plus red herring of large, was crammed into only seven words. Shattering. Rest was nice too after a couple of trickier days. Mendesest
  4. Floored by one of those words I always misspell but, unlike Vinyl, I didn’t pick up my error in ANENOME. So a frustrating DNF in what was otherwise a relatively straightforward puzzle. My COD goes to 1a, which just pipped the hat in 3d.
    Thanks for the blog
  5. A nice puzzle and a bit more accessible than yesterday’s offering. I had to jump about having failed to see PICKPOCKET (my COD). I worked my way round clockwise to the NW (OAF, HORNET, CAN, PUT TO SHAME) but finally filled in ANEMONE and PALACE (not difficult with hindsight). 4K for me but an enjoyable outing.
    Thanks to Tracy and to Rotter for an entertaining blog which prompts me to observe that, without exception, all the major political OAFs have been PUT TO SHAME by their PORK PIES and the TENOR of the ‘debates’ which have been utterly out of ORDER. I CAN not and will not PARDON any of them. John M.

    Edited at 2019-12-12 10:46 am (UTC)

  6. A welcome change after the last two days. Finished in 9 minutes, one of my better times. I wonder though if the parsing of 18A is not R inside anagram of ON THE?

    I agree, COD is 20A, FLAWED. Sums up our politics pretty well on election day.

    Thank you for the blog. Cedric.

  9. I found this less tractable as I went down blind alleys in many of the clues before getting the correct interpretation. I eventually finished in 12:29. Thanks Tracy, and great blog Rotter:-)
  10. Terrific introduction, Rotter, worth the price of admission alone! Round of applause.

    Squeaked under 10 for 1.9999999K and a Good Day. Slowish start after failing to see PICKPOCKET but picked up speed. I parsed HORNET like Rotter, but I think flash and Cedric have it right.

    FOI PUT TO SHAME, LOI EXTRA, COD PICKPOCKET.

    Thanks Tracy and Rotter.

    Templar

  11. 19 minutes. Phew, after yesterday I began to wonder if I’d lost the plot.

    Thanks for this one!

    Diana

  12. ….that a Watford player is moving to Selhurst Park ?

    Nice puzzle, excellent blog, thanks to Tracy and Rotter. Completed within parameters (currently 5th on the leaderboard, but in Verlaine’s slipstream yet again)

    FOI TENOR
    LOI CARAFE
    COD PICKPOCKET

  14. Today’s offering from Tracy was more accessible than the previous two days, a great little puzzle for a novice like me – plenty of interesting straightforward clues with some more challenging.

    In fact, I didn’t finish but still enjoyed reading the blog afterwards and took away some lessons.

    10ac OAF was too tricky for me, despite only being 3 letters – I had never heard of clodhopper and assumed it was solely (!) a shoe of sorts. As I didn’t finish 1dn PUT TO SHAME, I didn’t have the first checker and couldn’t think of any shoes that ended with ‘F’! By the time a bit of cockney rhyming slang was thrown into the mix, I was completely at a loss…

    I biffed 13ac HORNET as the wordplay was too complicated for me, however it makes sense now in hindsight.

    Please could someone explain how/why ‘player’ is a definition for 5dn EXTRA?

    1. It’s not ‘player’ but ‘bit player’; an actor who has a bit part–actually, that’s stretching things a bit isn’t it? An extra doesn’t even have a bit part, since he doesn’t speak.
  15. Looked hard at first but answers gradually dropped into place and guesses at HORNET and ROWAN turned out to be right! A neat puzzle.
  16. Well, there was enough there to keep my mind off certain other things going on today for a good 25mins. Held up a bit by trying to do 1d with no checkers – too many options to make any sense of what was going on, but it became clear enough when I had a few more answers in place. Despite one or two dissenting voices, I will stick with Rotter’s version for the parsing of 13ac, Hornet, which consequently gets my CoD vote: left field solutions do sometimes come true. Invariant
  17. Liked 1a a lot. It reminded me of my youthful days as a baby policeman in Notting Hill, working on the Dip Squad in Portobello Road market.

    Return to solving normality today with 3’55”.

    My thanks as ever to Tracy and Rotter.

    Edited at 2019-12-12 12:07 pm (UTC)

  18. I was held up puzzling over the ‘a’ in 15d. It seems redundant to the parsing and surface. ‘associated with solitary flower’ would have done the trick?
  19. The clever intro to the blog made me smile. Thanks Rotter! A bit of a slow start for me with this one, but it came in steadily once I got going. I liked MOTORCADE and the still-life painting at 4D. 5:46.

    Edited at 2019-12-12 01:16 pm (UTC)

  20. Had a brain fog to start and didn’t get a thing until 19ac “Kip”. Thankfully things fell into place after that and I managed to complete the grid in about 45 mins, averting the possibility of having a week of DNF’s.

    Overall, I enjoyed this. As mentioned, there were some clever surfaces and things that made me think twice before committing an answer.

    Got in a bit of a tangle trying to parse 12ac “Puff Adder”, thinking the “adder” part referred to the count. Also, initially had “Flat Cap” for 3dn thinking it could be a mushroom!

    There are certain answers that always seem to crop up and Anemone is one of them. However, I still had to wrestle with trying to remember if it was Anemone or Amenone.

    FOI/COD = 1ac “Pickpocket” – clever use of “dip” – it had me going off in all sorts of “pickle” related rabbit holes.

    Thanks as usual.

  21. A very droll blog Rotter which made me smile. As to the QC my solving time was 2K which I was quite pleased with given my last three in included 1a and 1d. I biffed and parsed after submission FORETOLD and ROWAN which is a pity as the wordplay was clever but my COD goes to my LOI HORNET. I keep forgetting ‘ground’ can be an anagram indicator.
  22. A bit of respite after yesterday’s shameful towel throwing. 4 seconds under 7 minutes.
    It didn’t feel all that easy though. Pickpocket LOI, as I was looking for something along the lines of hummus, and couldn’t get piccalilli out of my head…mmmm piccalilli.
  23. A very enjoyable puzzle. I have struggled and not finished on the last two days so this was encouraging and fun. My COD was 18d; I was wondering how on earth a horse chestnut could be involved and then, guessing rowan remembered the horse. Thank you Tracy and Rotten.
    Blue Stocking
  24. Thank you to all the bloggers and setters, of course. Great fun.

    Am a newish quick cryptic addict – occasionally I solve all and sometimes, eg yesterday , I give up.

    Finally signed on to LJ today to make the pedantic remark that a roan coloured horse is not chestnut. Quite different in fact.

    Happy Christmas!

    1. I have to shamefacedly admit, having shared three years of my life with a committed equestrienne, that I totally took Tracy on trust and never considered the error – which, on consulting Wikipedia, is actually quite blatant !
  25. Brilliant intro Rotter, and congrats to OldBlighter for further giggles!

    I enjoy Tracy’s crosswords – enough to chew on but always a few easier ones to get you started / lull you into a false sense of security. 7a, 8a, 4d and 5d all went in very quickly and I thought I might be in for a good time. But no – it all went a bit quiet on the western side until Motorcade got things moving again.

    So a bit slow today at 3.6K. I’d be pleased to get 2K one of these days – whatever the K might be! But An OK Day, as at least I finished with all parsed. BTW I parsed Hornet as R inside an amagram of ON THE. Also an MER at chestnut / roan – I thought was paler?

    FOI Tenor
    LOI Hornet
    COD Rowan (liked the misdirection even if a bit confused by equine colours)

    I’m not going to stay up tonight – but I say that for every election!

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