Times Quick Cryptic No 1663 by Joker

Author   TheRotterPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
Back on duty after a few welcome day’s break in Devon.

After my miserable failure to spot an obvious superhero theme in my last blog, I have searched in vain for a theme or NINA here.  Despite the appearance of SONIC the Hedgehog, I can’t see any others.  Maybe you can do better.

This was a relatively quick sub-10 minute solve for me.  I initially tried to make UNFURL work for 4d, and then attempted to justify the wrong parsing for the same clue after spotting the correct answer.  Other than that, it was all relatively straightforward.  I liked AFTER and HEPATIC.

Many thanks Joker for another of your excellent puzzles.

Across

1  True populism in a way is serving many aims (12)
MULTIPURPOSE – Anagram (in a way) of [TRUE POPULISM].
8  Boy in charge of sound (5)
SONIC – SON (boy) and IC (in charge).
9 Picture educational establishment with area for English (7)
COLLAGE – The educational establishment is a COLL{e}GE, with the first E{nglish} replaced by an A{rea}.
10  Awkward situation about old official at inquest (7)
CORONER – CORNER (awkward situation) surrounding (about) O{ld}.
11  In pursuit of more at the back? (5)
AFTER – Cryptic definition – if AFT as at the back, then AFT-ER could be even more at the back.
12  Genuine backing on both sides of the road for food store (6)
LARDER – REAL (genuine) reversed (backing) with RD (road) inserted in the middle (on both sides).
14  Singers in church or university society (6)
CHORUS – CH{urch} with OR (or) and U{niversity} S{ociety}.
17  Good rule for processing poor food (5)
GRUEL – G{ood} and an anagram (for processing) of [RULE].  GRUEL as made famous by Oliver Twist – “Please Sir, I want some more”.
19  Ruler pre-Rome?  That must be wrong (7)
EMPEROR – Anagram (that must be wrong) of [PRE-ROME].
21  Hearts set in individual stones (7)
SHINGLE – H{earts} inside SINGLE (individual).
22  Firm exporting small item of furniture (5)
TABLE – {s}TABLE (firm, losing the initial letter – S{mall})
23  Drop round professional copy (12)
REPRODUCTION – REDUCTION (drop) containing (round) PRO{fessional}.

Down

1  Male unusually solicitous about girl’s head is an expert at scoring? (12)
MUSICOLOGIST – M{ale} and an anagram (unusually) of [SOLICITOUS] and G{irl’s} (head = first letter).  A MUSICOLOGIST is an academic expert who studies music in its historical, scientific and other aspects, including musical scores!
2  Solitary individual – one making advances, it’s reported (5)
LONER – Homophone (it’s reported) – sounds like LOANER (one making advances).
3  Something intentionally burnt to be very annoying (7)
INCENSE – Double definition, ‘I incensed the atheists by burning incense’.
4  Straighten out upper-class knight about web address (6)
UNCURL – Slightly tricky parsing here for me originally, but I have now resolved it to my satisfaction.  U (upper-class) and N (knight in chess notation) with C (about) and URL (Uniform Resource Locator – the system of addresses for the World Wide Web).  My original dilemma was trying to fit N into UC for upper-class, when there was no clear insertion indicator available.
5  Send up some weak lopsided dance (5)
POLKA – Reverse hidden in {we}AK LOP{sided}.
6  One attending tea party after small break (7)
SHATTER – S{mall} and HATTER (one attending tea party in Alice in Wonderland).
7  New EU money to encourage highly-skilled operator (12)
NEUROSURGEON – N{ew} with EUROS (EU money) followed by URGE ON (to encourage).
13  Rake grabbing money exactly as usual (7)
ROUTINE – ROUE (a profligate, rake, debauched man, such as I) containing (grabbing) TIN (money).
15  Livery? It’s back in cheap supply (7)
HEPATIC – IT reversed (back) to give TI inside an anagram (supply) of [CHEAP].  The secret here is to think of the right definition of LIVERY!
16 What killer might do to act as leader (6)
BEHEAD – A rather grim choice of the options available to a potential killer, but any leader worth his salt will BE HEAD of something.  This could also be classed as a double definition, but the enumeration given only works with one of the possible answers.
18  Beer left to mature – right (5)
LAGER – L{eft} with AGE (mature) and R{ight}.  I think describing LAGER as beer should be prosecutable under the trade’s description act, but that’s just my opinion.
20  Law scholar losing time in talk (5)
RABBI – London Rhyming Slang (LRS) for talk is RABBI[t}, losing T{ime} = drop the last letter.

44 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 1663 by Joker”

  1. A bit slower than I’d like. Biffed LARDER & NEUROSURGEON, parsed post-submission. Sure enough, HEPATIC was my LOI. 7:27.
  2. 11 minutes, so another target missed. I’ve achieved it only once (Tuesday) when solving the last six QC’s. The difference today was that I wasn’t aware that I was falling behind schedule and it came as a surprise to me when I stopped the clock and found I had run over time. I didn’t spend excessive time on any individual clues, so it must have been a more general slippage.

    I was going to refer to the definition of MUSICOLOGIST and Rotter has already mentioned it, however it might be worth emphasising that a musicologist does not have to be a musician of any sort. Lexico defines musicology as: ‘The study of music as an academic subject, as distinct from training in performance or composition; scholarly research into music’. ‘Expert at scoring’ suggests to me active participation in the process which is possibly not correct as musicologists might never have put pen to manuscript paper in their lives. I appreciate that the setter put ‘at scoring’ to achieve a good surface reading but it doesn’t really fit the answer in my view whereas ‘expert on scoring’ might cover it.

    Edited at 2020-07-23 05:43 am (UTC)

  3. Faster than I thought it might have been at 15m and HEPATIC was LOI. Knew it was an offal clue but then let myself down by trying to get ‘renal’ in there and if it hadn’t been for the nerve I may never have got there, especially as the supple bit of supply kept itself hidden for so long. MULTIPURPOSE took a bit of untangling even after MULTI leapt straight out and I needed Rotter’s wisdom to see how REPRODUCTION worked – I was nowhere near ‘reduction’ for drop and I now see I hadn’t appreciated all there was to AFTER, so thanks for Rotter for the blog.
  4. 8 something for all but BEHEAD which failed to emerge with increasingly unconvincing alpha trawls so DNF today

    Thanks all

  5. I only fared slightly better than yesterday. My heart sank when I saw the 4 long ones at the grid edges but I did get MULTIPURPOSE straight away. I was another UNFURL. Very little of the grid yielded easily but my two biggest hold ups were BEHEAD and finally HEPATIC. I’ve been caught out before by the use of supply as an anagram indicator and I wasn’t thinking of the right livery! 16 mins. Thanks Rotter for the blog.
  6. Bit of an average time for me at 18:30, but lots of enjoyable cluing here, particularly HEPATIC, EMPEROR and BEHEAD – although this last one took me some minutes to get. Stuck in the end on ROUTINE which took me a long time to get, even though I was thinking of the right usage of ‘rake’ and even though we’d had ‘roue’ used quite recently!
  7. I thought that Joker was on top form today. I found most of it relatively straightforward as the 1s went in straight away and things continued smoothly thereafter.
    However I hit the proverbial brick wall in the SE with the two long clues, BEHEAD and HEPATIC outstanding. Each proved to be a bit of a battle but I find it very satisfying when a previously incomprehensible clue finally reveals it’s true meaning. Finished in 14.31 with LOI REPRODUCTION and joint CODs going to BEHEAD and NEUROSURGEON.
    Thanks to Rotter
  8. A better day! DNK TIN for money but had to be right, spent 15 minutes trying to work out BEHEAD before the penny dropped. UNCURL was a challenge as I started with UNC as in file location nomenclature and K for Knight but realised UNCORK was wrong and UNC too esoteric so switched to URL.
    WOD HEPATIC. Thanks Joker and Rotter.
  9. It’s odd how the same words so often crop up within a week of each other – yesterday GALLOP, now “livery”. It’s as if the setters get sent a list of words they have to work into their next 3 puzzles.

    A fine puzzle which I enjoyed a great deal. Having both the “ones” as anagrams was a kindness. Major hold ups were HEPATIC (I have never come across “supply” as an anagram indicator and can’t immediately see how it works – is the idea that it is a sort of jokey adverb from “supple”?), TABLE (was trying to work “co” in there”) and BEHEAD (my usual “no first letter” blindness). All done in 1.4K but I can only give this a Good Day I think.

    FOI MUSICOLOGIST, LOI BEHEAD, COD EMPEROR (very neat surface). Many thanks Joker and Rotter.

    Templar

    2. That was actually in my weekend special, so the list theory doesn’t hold !
    3. Yes, I saw it as the adverb of supple, sometimes (more clumsily IMHO) supplely.
  10. About 20 minutes, so over target. Held up by neuro, after, behead, reproduction, uncurl and LOI hepatic, which was a guess between that and hapetic.

    Blame today is the late night boozy celebration of Liverpool winning the league. The last time I was 13!

    COD emperor. Which I usually misspell.

  11. Disaster. First, an incoming phone call. Then, despite finding the long anagrams very manageable, I made a stupid typo with one of them – NEUROSUTGEON (T is next to R on the keyboard) which meant that I couldn’t get 19a and, even given HEPATIC, couldn’t see an answer based on –P-R-T. Difficult to see my typo in a down answer. So, I pratted about and took much too long to see BEHEAD. It all dropped out when I finally saw my slip. Serious SCC territory today so roll on Friday. Good puzzle, though, with HEPATIC, UNCURL, ROUTINE and, of course, EMPEROR my choices from a great range of clues. Thanks to Joker and welcome back, Rotter. John M.

    Edited at 2020-07-23 09:12 am (UTC)

      1. I’m sorry for my too-detailed account. It was just so frustrating. I’m getting to be very fat-fingered! John
  12. Slightly quicker than yesterday, but still quite a struggle – Reproduction was the only long answer to fall quickly and final letters are never as useful as starters. I liked the clues for Larder and Shatter, but CoD to the succinct 11ac, After, even though it took some time to see. Loi was 13d, Routine just as the clock reached 30mins. Invariant
  13. ….(or, at least, what’s left of them) to squeeze out URL. No other problems.

    FOI SONIC
    LOI UNCURL
    COD TABLE
    TIME 0.6K

  14. Slow today, but lots to enjoy and a few new words, as I’d never heard of either roue or rake meaning a debauched man, nor, as far as I recall, tin for money. LOI after the well over target 44:42 was BEHEAD and my second to last in was my COD HEPATIC. Thanks as usual to Rotter and Joker.
    1. ‘Tin’ for ‘money’ crops up a lot in cryptics, so is well worth remembering.
  15. I was unable to get to sleep lastnight, so rose at 3am to have a cup of hot chocolate and did the Concise and QC. Obviously not a brilliant idea, as I took about 7 minutes to come up with my last 3 answers in the QC. I’d done the same as several of you with 4d, and put UNFURL, so was held up with COLLAGE until I revisited and saw the wordplay actually indicated UNCURL. I then spent another age trying to make sense of REPRODUCTION, and mentally kicked myself when I finally saw it. 18:10 and a weary trip back to bed where I failed to sleep for another 2 or 3 hours. zzzzzz. Thanks Joker and Rotter.
        1. you need a long dull audiobook to send you to sleep. Via your Iibrary’s Borrowbox?
  16. Even slower than yesterday, so I found this quite tricky. Got off to a flying start by solving 1ac straight away but after that it became quite a struggle and I eventually finished in around 30 minutes with 4dn and 11ac unparsed. I too had toyed with unfurl at 4dn (and also unkink before I had 10ac) and at one point had more or less the whole of the right hand side completely blank. Nevertheless an enjoyable puzzle so thanks to Joker and thanks also to the Rotter for providing explanations where necessary.

    FOI – 1ac MULTIPURPOSE
    LOI – 16dn BEHEAD
    COD – 7dn NEUROSURGEON

  17. About 30 mins today, split over two sessions, as I had to make a journey and didn’t finish the first bit in time.

    Luckily I saw 1ac fairly early and managed to avoid the “unfurl” pitfall of 4dn. Main hang ups were in the bottom of the grid, especially 15dn which I DNK.

    FOI – 1ac “Multipurpose”
    LOI – 15dn “Hepatic”
    COD – 16ac “Behead”

    Thanks as usual.

  18. …but I enjoyed the workout and finally finished in 24 minutes with just a couple of biffs – NEUROSURGEON and HEPATIC. I have now added ‘supply’ to my list of anagram indicators.
    I remembered roué from the recent ‘libertine’ clue and spotted that ‘exporting’ signified a missing letter.
    Thanks to Joker and to Rotter for his blog and for making me smile at his admission at 13D which I’m sure isn’t true!
  19. was flying until shuddering to a halt over CHORUS, HEPATIC and BEHEAD.
    ‘Exactly’ seems superfluous in the definition of 13d?
  20. Late to the puzzle today. Started quite quickly but slowed down by several and ended in the SE where I eventually got the unknown Hepatic and finally Behead occurred to me. 14 minutes became 18:48.
    Quite a tough puzzle I thought. I had an intermezzo at 1d trying to fit in Mascagni or some other Italian with a very long name. Should have paid more attention to the cryptic.
    Good stuff from Joker. COD to UNCURL. David
  21. I didn’t know that ‘rabbit’ was cockney slang. We used to rabbit on quite a bit in Manchester too when I was a girl.
    1. The full expression in CRS / LRS is ‘rabbit and pork’ for talk, as opposed to ‘ball and chalk’ for walk. Would you Adam and Eve it?

      Edited at 2020-07-23 03:05 pm (UTC)

  22. but did enjoy it.
    FOI Sonic
    LOI Shatter which should have been more obvious.

    Thanks as ever, as there were several I failed to parse, e.g. Routine, Larder., Coroner.

  23. Quite tough, help needed to get MUSICOLOGIST and SHINGLE, guessed HEPATIC.
  24. Not a great day, unfortunately. I’m not sure why but I found this quite difficult to get into, but as it was a Joker, I knew it was going to be fun anyway. And by the time I got to the end, I still didn’t know why I found it tricky, but I had enjoyed it! So many great clues with fab surfaces – 1a, 14a, 19a, 6d, 15d, the list goes on. I got UNCURL quite quickly, but couldn’t parse it – I had the same problem as Rotter with where to put the Us and Cs!

    FOI Sonic
    LOI Behead
    COD Behead
    Time Just under 17 minutes, so way below par. The biggie, on the other hand, flew in – it took just twice as long.

    Thanks to Joker as ever, and Rotter, for the entertaining blog

  25. Failed to see hepatic and it took us far too long solve 7d and 23a. The sw corner gave us problems with behead and rabbit, so not a good day, but a good challenging puzzle. Thanks Joker and for the usual informative comments above.
  26. … with 16D Behead taking an age (but what a nice clue when you see it), and 15D Hepatic only falling to a word search. Not a word I know, nor is “supply” an anagram-indicator I’ve met before. Another to store away, and thanks for the explanation above that it comes from supple not supply/provide!

    But overall a 13 minute solve, so a Good Day given that I often find Joker a challenge. The long clues round the edge were kind – all four fell early and were among my first 8 or so in – which certainly helped the time.

    Thanks to Rotter for the blog
    Cedric

  28. Found this really difficult but then I’m still learning
    Thanks to setter and blogger
  29. Still, better late than never. Really great puzzle – excellent clues – thanks Joker. We came in at a respectable 16 minutes.

    FOI: multipurpose
    LOI: behead
    COD: behead

    Thanks to Rotter for the blog.

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