Times Quick Cryptic No 1673 by Teazel

Author   TheRotterPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
My thanks for a neatly crafted puzzle from Teazel, containing some nice misdirection, a healthy balance of very easy and cunningly trickier clues, and a smidgeon of General Knowledge that may catch some out.  All of this done very succinctly.  This took me 14 minutes to complete, all fully parsed, my first on-target solve of the week.

I was fortunately aware of PIN for cask, and DACTYL for foot, and nothing else was too problematic, despite never having seen The Sopranos.  How did you all get on?

Across

1  British tucking into quality steak (1-4)
T-BONE – B{ritish} inside (tucking into) TONE (quality).
7  Wildly enthusiastic, sure to get fancy personal grooming (9)
MANICURES – MANIC (wildly enthusiastic) and an anagram (fancy) of [SURE]
9 Secret store of money announced (5)
CACHE – Homophone (announced), sounds like CASH (money)
10 Hiker takes stroll between two rivers (7)
RAMBLER – AMBLE (stroll) inside (between) two R{ivers}.
11  Judged, even if finally innocent (7)
THOUGHT – THOUGH (even if) and {innocen}T (finally).
12 Criminal cases he finally came to drop? (7)
HANGMAN – Cryptic definition for the role of individuals such as Albert Pierrepoint.
15  Sack in here for vegetation (7)
HERBAGE – BAG (sack) inside HERE.
18  Statesman is part of cabal; ask anyone (7)
ALASKAN – Hidden answer (part of) in {cab}AL; ASK AN{yone}.  Not the type of Statesman you first thought?
20  Voice of gangster? (7)
SOPRANO – Double definition, the second referring to the popular TV series featuring mob boss Tony Soprano (The Sopranos).  I’ve never seen it, but almost everyone must have heard of it!
22  What to do with broken down car, namely? (2,3)
TO WIT – Humorous cryptic definition leading to ‘that is to say, namely’.  With a broken down car one might TOW IT.
23  Note colleague as little as possible (9)
MINIMALLY – MINIM (note) and ALLY (colleague).
24  Place to pull over was positioned close (3-2)
LAY BY – Double definition.

Down

1  Implied one is entering diplomacy (5)
TACIT – I (one) inside (is entering) TACT (diplomacy).
2  At a former time, completed cursory examination (4-4)
ONCE-OVER – ONCE (at a former time) and OVER (completed).
3  Come out east to join up (6)
EMERGE – E{ast} and MERGE (join up).
4  Sharpness of people supporting a copper (6)
ACUMEN – MEN (people) under (supporting) A (a) CU (copper).
5  Examination of gold and aluminium (4)
ORAL – OR (gold) and AL (aluminium).
6  Empress gives new order to artisan (7)
TSARINA – Straight anagram (new order) of [ARTISAN]
8  Their saloon replaced fuel (5,3,3)
NORTH SEA OIL – Anagram (replaced) of [THEIR SALOON].
13  Stars make much use of unknown route (5,3)
MILKY WAY – MILK (make much use of) with Y (unknown) and WAY (route).
14  That very person hates me to bits (3,4)
THE SAME – Anagram (to bits) of [HATES ME].  THE SAME can be used to mean ‘the aforementioned’, or that very person.
16  Almost all weapons creating panics (6)
ALARMS – AL[l} ARMS (almost AL{l} (drop the last letter) and ARMS (weapons)).
17  Foot caught as lady moves round (6)
DACTYL – CT (caught) with an anagram (moves) of [LADY] outside of it (round).  DACTYL is defined as ‘a foot of three syllables, the first accented’.
19  Like Brazil?  Unhinged! (5)
NUTTY – A brazil nut, not the country.
21  Cask is on time to provide a beer (4)
PINT – PIN (a cask of 4.5 gallons) on T{ime}.  A PINT or half-pint are the usual measures for a drink of beer in the UK.

44 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 1673 by Teazel”

  1. Straightforward, only I didn’t know PIN, so spent some time worrying about PINT. The double dactyl is a poem form consisting of 8 lines, 1-3 and 5-7 being double dactyls, 4 and 8 choriambs. Line 2 should be a name, 6 a single word. E.g.:

    Higgledy Piggledy
    Herr Rektor Heidegger
    Cautioned his students “To
    Being be true,
    Lest you should fall into
    Inauthenticity.
    This I believe-and the
    Fuhrer does too.”

    5:52.

    Edited at 2020-08-06 01:10 am (UTC)

  2. have never seen ct for caught, only c, so I had daftyl.
    I suspect Teazel did the 15×15 today as well.

    Didn’t like hangman.

    COD to wit.

    1. Last one in, daftyl. I knew it was wrong and daftly put it in. 16 mins but.
    3. Ct is quite often used by cricket scorers and is given as an alternative to c in Kaviscricket list of abbreviations .
      1. Random comment
        What does nobody complained mean?

        I just said I have never seen ct for caught.

  3. I didn’t find this as simple as others seem to have this morning but still respectable, all green in 16. Good initial progress slowed as I closed in on the last few that caused me trouble. HERBAGE fell first, I think I’ve been freezing on seeing a bit on seeing a hint of needing to know the names of plants since agrimony last week. DACTYL look much, much longer than it should have even with _A_TYL in place because I seem to have forgotten caught can be CT as well as C, so wasted a lot of time wondering where the T came from and doubting I’d unraveled the clue correctly – I’d never previous seen the word except as part of pterodactyl and even though their feet aren’t their immediately defining feature I thought I was safe. HANGMAN was last one in, I was just straight up misdirected and tried to write ‘henchman’ in the gaps about 50 times before it emerged with a lovely penny drop moment.

    EDIT: just properly read Rotter’s typically excellent blog and I now fear I’ve been even dimmer with DACTYL than I originally thought.

    Edited at 2020-08-06 06:15 am (UTC)

  4. 9 minutes. Left to my own devices outside the constraints of a crossword I suspect I might have used the word ‘herbiage’ when speaking of vegetation, probably confusing it with ‘verbiage’.
  5. I found this to be mainly straightforward despite a couple of unknowns in PIN and DACTYL. Having said that I came to a complete halt with just HANGMAN and MILKY WAY outstanding and needed all the checkers for the latter, where WAY led me to the wrong end of the clue for the definition.
    A typically entertaining offering from Teazel but I particularly enjoyed TOW IT and finished in 10.18.
    Thanks to Rotter

    Edited at 2020-08-06 07:30 am (UTC)

  6. Enjoyed this, coming in at a pretty average (for me) 15:13. Lots of nice clues – got DACTYL from good old A-level English, but thing this is the first time I’ve seen CT being used for ‘caught’ rather than for ‘court’, although it’s possible it’s been seen before. Also DNK ‘pin’=’cask of 4.5 gallons’, so learnt something new.
  7. Nice steady solve. Spent some time figuring out MILKY WAY and DNK PIN but had to be PINT.
    Dactylitis is a swollen finger or toe.
    About 30 minutes. Fell asleep after solving the first 5 clues, woke up to a straightforward solve this morning.
    Thanks to Teazel and Rotter.
  8. Hopeless today, I wasn’t on the same wavelength at all.
    Dactyl my least favourite, not a familiar word.
    I liked ALASKAN though.

    Diana

  9. Wow! 12:02, my second best time, and the the first time I’ve ever been faster than the blogger!
    Everything was parsed, and although I DNK the ‘triple’ meaning of DACTYL, I thought of Pterodayctals and Chambers has ‘digit ( zoology) as an answer.
    LOI was MINIMALLY, one of many excellent clues.
    Thanks to Rotter for the blog, and I’ll even forgive Teazel for the strange grid and the triple checkers.

    Brian

    Edited at 2020-08-06 08:07 am (UTC)

  10. I quite liked the grid for a change. A steady effort moving around it and finishing with DACTYL after, like others, toying with DAFTYL. Just over my target 15mins yet again. Some nice clues. I liked ACUMEN, TO WIT, and the neat misdirection in ALASKAN. Thanks to both. John M.
  11. I managed a sub 10 minutes today but a couple of times I made up a meaning and hoped it worked. For example I hoped that a pin might be a cask and, as pointed out, it is indeed, but I don’t think many people would ever think of it. I was looking for a real gangster for a few moments before the penny dropped. Thanks Teazel and therotter.
  12. I thought this was perfectly pitched for a QC. I only biffed one clue from checkers -MANICURES but the parsing was straight forward. I, like others, did not know PIN for cask but I have added that to my vocabulary along with firkin. My final two solves were MILKY WAY and LOI HANGMAN. 9 mins Thanks all.
  13. I was a bit sluggish with this one, mainly held up by reading 6d a “express” instead of “empress”. doh! DACTYL took some thought too. FOI was T-BONE and LOI was HERBAGE. 10:49. Thanks Teazel and Rotter.
  14. Was only going to have a 5-minute look at the crossword but then found myself zooming through, well, zooming by my standards.
    Somehow Milky Way came to me early on, ditto Dactyl. (Spondee also in lower reaches of my memory)
    NW corner easy, LOI Hangman which finally dawned on me when I said the consonants aloud.
    Feels good to be on the same wavelength for a change.
    Also liked acumen and To wit

    Many thanks.

    Edited at 2020-08-06 04:07 pm (UTC)

  15. Dactyl aside, a really nice puzzle from Teazel completed in 19 mins.

    However, I didn’t think this was massively straight forward. A number of clues had me scratching my head: 22ac “To wit”, 12ac “Hangman”, 6dn “Tsarina” and the aforementioned 17dn which I didn’t like (or know) and so was a bit of a guess thinking it had something to do with dinosaur feet.

    But, I did enjoy 20ac “Soprano”, 13dn “Milky Way” and 11ac “Thought”.

    FOI – 1ac “T-Bone”
    LOI – 17dn “Dactyl”
    COD – 23ac “Minimally” (simple clue and nice surface)

    Thanks as usual.

    Edited at 2020-08-06 10:04 am (UTC)

  16. ….bound to cure blue lethargy” (Jethro Tull : “NORTH SEA OIL”, from the album “Stormwatch”)

    I had no problems with this decent offering from TEAZEL, and was helped by having once ordered real ale for a party in a polypin.

    FOI T-BONE
    LOI PINT
    COD HANGMAN
    TIME 3:34

    1. Can I ask – are you doing this with pen and paper or on a computer? I really would be pushed to just type all the answers in (on an iPad) in 3:34, never mind think of them!

      H

      1. Pen and paper. I then submit online to match the time. I only have a Smartphone and online solving is too messy.
        1. So pleased to hear you say that as the fiddliness of a small smartphone is what puts me off abandoning pen and paper, but I wasn’t sure if solving on paper and re-entering online made me a dreaded neutrino! I may do as you do and solve then re-enter with care to ensure the same time.

          Cedric

          1. There are occasions when I finish almost too quickly, and then I make typo in trying to enter the grid in time.
  17. didn’t find this particularly easy, as I was unsure about pin in pint, whether dactyl was a word and herbage. took a while for soprano to reveal itself.
    pint was LOI with fingers crossed
    8.38
    thanks as ever to the blogger, really appreciate the job you (all) do, and the setter
  18. A bit late starting today, so I’m glad it was a fairly straightforward solve. FOI, as I’m sure it was for most people who started at 1a, TBONE, but then it all went horribly quiet and I got worried this was going to be another car crash. One, two, three, four, five clues went by with no idea what was going on, before I got HERBAGE. After that things started going in easily, although trying to make a word out of ‘ASLADY’ held me up a little. I stopped my watch just before 25 minutes but then went back to have another look at the very unsatisfying DAFTYL (glad to see I wasn’t the only one who went down that road) and after a few seconds realised that the answer must be DACTYL. I have vaguely heard of the poetry usage of this, but I am much more familiar with dactyl meaning finger/toe as in pterodactyl or a pentadactyl limb and this seemed to be close enough to foot to be correct. So I’m calling this 25:30 for my first sub-target solve for some time. Never heard of ‘pin’ or ‘TSARINA’ but they couldn’t be anything else. Thanks Rotter and Teazel.
  19. Did not know DACTYL or PIN but guessed answers. TSARINA anagram took some working out. Thanks for explanatory notes.
  20. I enjoyed this one and finished it in 14 minutes so many thanks to Teazel.
    HANGMAN and PINT puzzled me but there were many great clues including TO WIT, THE SAME and NORTH SEA OIL – who would have thought that this could be an anagram of THEIR SALOON?
    COD goes to MINIMALLY for its satisfying structure.
    Thanks to Rotter for the enjoyable blog, as ever.

  21. Really enjoyed this QC – thanks Teazel. We raced through the grid in what was going to be a very respectable time and came to a juddering halt at 17D when it took us an age to solve it. We finished in 18 minutes.

    FOI: T bone
    LOI: dactyl
    COD: to wit

    Thanks to Rotter for the blog.

  22. 7:41 today. The only unknown was PIN, but what else could it be.

    Would TO WIT as (2,3) also work as TOW IT (3,2), or does the clueing demand TO WIT? If so, what would the clue’s wording be if the answer had been TOW IT?

  23. 21 down solution PINT from PIN (4.5 gallon cask) + T.

    Who has heard of this 4.5 gallon cask ? I certainly have not. Unfair clue !

    1. If you get your beer home-delivered from a brewery they supply it in mini pins or poly pins. Great for high days and holidays…and in lockdown.
  24. … which I did in just over 7 minutes. The GK was for a change friendly (I both know and have served from pins of beer, and polypins too) and the only DNK was 20A Soprano – but the answer could not be anything else.

    COD 23A To wit, and as mentioned above it could just as easily be marked as 3,2 ie Tow it!

    Thanks to Rotter for the blog
    Cedric

  25. All done and dusted in about 15 minutes with no great problems on the way. DNK pin for a cask but it wasn’t hard to guess. Put in MILKY WAY and ALARMS without parsing. Nice puzzle from Teazel so thanks to him and to Rotter for his informative blog.

    FOI 1ac T-BONE
    LOI 3dn EMERGE (this took more time/thought than it should have done)
    COD several candidates but I liked 12ac HANGMAN and 18ac ALASKAN for the clever misdirection.

  26. Did this much earlier but have only just found time to post! A Good Day today – best time for a while 😊 This was just my cup of tea – I too have never seen The Sopranos and didn’t know DACTYL but they were relatively easy to work out so absolutely fair IMO. Liked TO WIT; didn’t like HANGMAN – after THE ROPE in the biggie (I think) the other day, it’s getting a bit dark round here.

    FOI T-Bone
    LOI Emerge
    COD Alaskan
    Time 8 minutes

    Many thanks Teazel for the fun and Rotter for the blog

  27. My main problem was self made since I put in North Sea Gas.

    Also I toyed with Daftyl but could not see what the definition would be if that was the answer.

    All sorted out eventually with 22a COD.

    I am on a roll of all correct, but slow, solves. Having said that no doubt tomorrow will be a stinker.

  29. Took too long figuring out HANGMAN and some of the little words in the lower-right corner.

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