Times Quick Cryptic No 1532 by Teazel

Author   plusjeremyPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

Introduction

Lovely puzzle, which I had finished under 7 minutes, but botched the last clue at 15 Across, so DNF for me.

Solutions

Across

1 Where strikers are lined up to fight after game (8)
MATCHBOX – BOX after MATCH
5 Fancy wife goes with that man (4)
WHIM – W + HIM
8 Computer player [is] more spirited (5)
GAMER – double definition (the second being, “more game”)
9 Small room with first musician (7)
CELLIST – CELL + IST (first)
11 Turning, lecturer [is] to indicate agreement (3)
NOD – DON (lecturer) reversed
12 Small fib about some number that’s marked on the road (5,4)
WHITE LINE – WHITE LIE (small fib) around N (some number)
13 Strongly desire extravagant praise (6)
ASPIRE – anagram (extravagant) of PRAISE
This one fooled me! I was looking for a double definition.
15 Church employee right on the edge (6)
VERGER – R next to VERGE
Not being a man of the church, I tried LEDGE+R and HEDGE+R before giving up. Come to think of it, though, the answer rings a bell.
18 Children’s theatre? (9)
PLAYHOUSE – cheeky definition
Not plays for children, as the wording suggests, but children acting out adult roles. I’ve already trained my three-year-old to cook and clean the entire house. The one-year-old does the laundry.
19 Stick [in] part of mouth (3)
GUM – double definition
20 Speaker’s fully absorbed, stuck into paper (7)
WRAPPED – homophone of RAPT (fully absorbed)
21 Mark time, and succeed holding area (5)
TWAIN – T + WIN around A
What a lovely, tricky clue!
22 Travel [using] free energy (4)
RIDE – RID (free) + E
Must remember RID = ‘free’.
23 State banks are failing (8)
NEBRASKA – BANKS ARE anagrammed

Down

1 Sort of red spy man shortly arrests (7)
MAGENTA – AGENT in MAN without the last letter (shortly)
2 Shy victim I disbelieved in part (5)
TIMID – hidden in VICTIM I DISBELIEVED
3 Admire the great man, or horsewhip viciously? (4-7)
HERO-WORSHIP – OR HORSEWHIP anagrammed
4 Reproved, going after golden flower (6)
ORCHID – CHID (reproved) after OR (golden)
This was in a recent 15×15.
6 Greeting husband, unwell (7)
HAILING – H + AILING
7 Headgear thrown at first in mud (5)
MITRE – first letter of THROWN in MIRE
10 Criminal trio elected — would have failed this test? (3,8)
LIE DETECTOR – anagram of TRIO ELECTED
14 Poster to position shortly over a road (7)
PLACARD – PLACE without the last letter + A + RD (road)
16 Country run — nothing taken with huge enthusiasm (7)
ROMANIA – R + O + MANIA
17 Put down “Time to pay membership fee” (6)
SUBDUE – “SUB(scription) DUE”
18 Might war prisoner and monarch meet? (5)
POWER – POW (war prisoner) + ER
19 Good girl that can hold her drink (5)
GLASS – G + LASS

36 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 1532 by Teazel”

  2. 8 minutes making it 4 consecutively within target following within a run of 5 missed. Funny how it goes!

    Lost time parsing 1dn where at first I tried M as the spy and GENT as the man.

    I think the second PLAYHOUSE reference at 18ac is probably to the children’s toy (as in ‘Wendy House’) rather than to ‘play(ing) house’ which would be two words.

    Edited at 2020-01-22 05:29 am (UTC)

  3. I enjoyed this and found it a smooth run after expecting a tough time from Teazel. A minute under 2K which is very good for me. My LOI took a while – SUBDUE. Thanks to Teazel and Jeremy. John M.

    Edited at 2020-01-22 07:34 am (UTC)

  4. My LOI was MITRE which took me 5 minutes on its own. Prior to that I had been pretty quick.PLAYHOUSE was 2LOI but I got that once I had all the checkers. COD to SUBDUE, one for all the golf club members.
    In the end:15:29. David
  5. I thought that an excellent puzzle: clever, witty and smooth. Lots of COD contenders – MATCHBOX, WHIM and PLAYHOUSE (which I parsed as Jack) just beaten by SUBDUE. I went wrong by putting “lip” at 19ac (giving someone stick/lip was the thought process) but managed to unscramble that to be done and dusted in 1.7K for a Good Day.

    Many thanks Teazel and Jeremy.

    Templar

  6. Under 20 mins (interruption, so approx) which is very fast for me. Got excited by getting first six across clues before hitting one I couldn’t do.
  7. about 5 minutes which was a pb I think. Never come across chid before though I know the word chide and it had to be that. Also at first I mistakenly took n for nothing away from run to give the older spelling of Rumania. Thanks all!
  8. Same comments as everyone else really, finishing inside 12 minutes for a good day. Thanks both.
  9. Good puzzle, this.. orchid came up the other day elsewhere, which helped.
    15 ac “the answer rings a bell ..” I see what you did there, Plusjeremy 🙂
  10. … at just under 9 minutes, helped a great deal by the two long anagrams at 3d and 10d which fell out almost at once.

    Not sure about Chid as a word in 4d – the answer to the clue was clear and I presume the word exists, but I don’t think I have ever met it actually being used!

    Otherwise a nice puzzle with some lovely clues.
    LOI 1d, which I guessed but could not parse, having decided that the man in the clue was Gent, and “shortly arrests” was the final a. Parsing is obvious once one sees Jeremy’s blog!

    Thank you to Jeremy and to Teazel

    Edited at 2020-01-22 10:01 am (UTC)

  11. 15 minutes but I also had ledger, submitted and almost instantly saw the correct verger.

    Think 21a twain needs a question mark.
    LOI subdue.
    Cod Nebraska

  12. I was able to charge through this one until I hit my LOI, NEBRASKA, at which point I wrote out the anagrist and then saw it straight away. Nice puzzle. 6:58. Thanks Teazel and Jeremy.
  13. A most enjoyable puzzle. Thought I was on for a really fast time (for me) when I’d gone through all the clues, getting most of them, in about 11 minutes (my pb is 16), but of course it’s the ones you don’t get that are likely to hold you up. After another seven minutes, I hadn’t got many more, but seeing orchid (even though I’d never heard of chid) was the key to unlock almost everything I had left. LOI RIDE at 25:24, COD to TWAIN.
  14. I thought this was a lovely puzzle. My only hold ups were the CHID in ORCHID which I pondered over and guessed was a derivative of chide, MITRE from wordplay and SUBDUE. VERGER was a write in for me. My LO’sI were GAMER and MAGENTA which eluded me on first pass and required further checkers to solve. An excellent day in 1.1K.
  15. Fizzed through this one with the merest pause over SUBDUE. With all the biffing it was only after finishing that I was able to appreciate some of the surfaces, particularly 5a which made me chuckle.

    My thanks as ever to Teazel and Jeremy.
    3’15”

  16. ….would a MATCHBOX hold my clothes ?”. A Carl Perkins ditty that the Beatles covered on an EP with Ringo on vocals.

    Within target on this entertaining puzzle, pausing only on my LOI where “extravagant” was an unexpected anagram indicator.

    FOI MATCHBOX
    LOI ASPIRE
    COD WRAPPED

    1. I still have that EP(and the Long Tall Sally one) 🙂

      Edited at 2020-01-22 12:13 pm (UTC)

  17. Every now and then I wonder whether my brain has taken a day off and today was one of those days.

    I really struggled with this and I’m not sure why. The fact that my FOI was 22ac “Ride” pretty much sums it up. I got there in the end but I stopped taking any notice of the time once I got beyond the hour mark.

    Upon reflection I think there were some really clever clues but there were also some I should have got earlier. It didn’t help that I biffed “Pantomime” for 18ac (again – I didn’t parse properly) and I subsequently stared at this for an age until the penny dropped.

    FOI – 22ac “Ride”
    LOI – 19ac “Twain”
    COD – 19ac “Twain” – very clever – completely missed the point in my continual fug.

    Thanks as usual.

    1. I don’t know how old you are nor how long you’ve been doing crosswords but we frequently find we get near the hour mark – or over it – even with two brains!
      1. I guess it’s all relative. I’ve been doing the QC for about 2 years (I’m in my late 40’s) and have substantially improved from when I first started. However, my PB is 20 mins and I cannot ever see me getting anywhere near the 5 mins mark let alone regularly completing the 15×15.

        My problem is that I sometime try and do it whilst listening to something else. Fine if it’s straightforward, but fatal if it requires more thought.

  18. Which I zoomed through in 5:41.

    Enjoyed MATCHBOX and WHIM, but COD definitely TWAIN. LOI was HAILING, solely because that was the last one I returned to, rather than it holding me up.

  20. held me up in what was a very good QC, which distracted me for all of fifteen minutes.

    FOI 1ac MATCHBOX I’d forgotten all about Ringo

    LOI 15ac VERGER

    COD 17dn SUBDUE

    WOD PETTIFOGGING from JR

  21. Held up briefly at the end with my last 2, NEBRAKSA and ASPIRE (where, Like Jeremy, I was looking for a double definition, not spotting “extravagant” was an anagrind). COD to MATCHBOX, but I liked PLAYHOUSE too. 5:17.
  22. I parsed 1d as MATA (Hari) around GEN(t) – man shortly, which works perfectly except that the spy is arresting the man, instead of the other way round.
  23. Getting to this late but I , too, liked today’s offering from Teazel. I had done all but three by 15 minutes – 13 and 20 across and 14 down. I don’t know why but PLACARD , in particular, took me ages . Once that was in, the rest were straightforward. Some great clues today – I especially liked 21 across which made me giggle. Very clever. Thanks so much, Jeremy , and thanks, too, to Teazel.
  24. A gentle but enjoyable solve for me. Briefly foxed by TWAIN and I left the homonym at 20a until the end. Another vote for SUBDUE as COD. Finished in 8.35.
    Thanks to Jeremy
  25. Seemed straightforward at first pass but found a few trickier at the end. Not helped initially by seeing SOLOIST before CELLIST imposed itself. LOIs TWAIN and SUBDUE, the latter for me too COD. Great fun.
  27. With the P and the E I biffed this for Children’s Theatre with the ensuing carnage taking me over 30 mins. Just me?
    Got Verger pretty quick. Always associate with Mr Yeatman in Dads Army. Just me again?
    Johnny

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