Times Quick Cryptic No 1683 by Tracy

Author   TheRotterPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
This is one of the most efficiently and succinctly clued crosswords I have seen for a goodly while.  Excellent craftsmanship from Tracy, with barely a wasted syllable.  It took me just 11 minutes to crack, with much to enjoy along the way.  No COD, I liked them all.

Across

7  Soil shortage initially ignored (5)
EARTH – {d}EARTH (shortage, initially ignored = drop the first letter).
8  Mongrel dog – what it wags cut short (7)
CURTAIL – CUR (mongrel dog) and TAIL (what it might wag).
10 Coach beginning to toil, damaged in rear (7)
TRAINER – T{oil} (beginning to) followed by an anagram (damaged) of [IN REAR].
11 Show lack of interest in Irish rugby (5)
SHRUG – Hidden word in (in) [Iri}SH RUG{by}.
12  Cromwellian’s plump leader(9)
ROUNDHEAD – ROUND (plump) and HEAD (leader).  Cromwell’s supporters in the English Civil War were Puritans, called ROUNDHEADs from their closely cropped hair, as opposed to the other side, the Royalists or Cavaliers.
14 My heart listened to (3)
COR – As in COR blimey / My!.  Homophone (listened to), sounds like CORE (heart).  If you haven’t seen COR clued by MY before (or vice versa), remember it well, it comes up surprisingly often.
15  Join band briefly (3)
TIE – TIE{r} (band briefly (drop last letter)).
16  Find out when positive (9)
ASCERTAIN – AS (when) and CERTAIN (positive).  Clues don’t come more efficient than this!
18  Come in to register (5)
ENTER – Double definition.  The second as in to register or enter a horse into a race, for example.
20  Revolutionary spoke about Conservative (7)
RADICAL – RADIAL (a spoke, as in a wheel) about (containing) C{onservative).
22  Credible number left in Lincoln (7)
TENABLE – TEN (number) and L{eft} inside ABE (Lincoln)
23  Good scope for one working in stable (5)
GROOM – G{ood} and ROOM (scope).

Down

1  Attend a sanctuary, and withdraw (4,1,7)
BEAT A RETREAT – or BE AT A RETREAT – lovely!
2  Endless delight, of course, producing riches (8)
TREASURE – TREA{t} (endless delight) and SURE (of course).
3  Flimsy article, short (4)
THIN – THIN{g} (article, short)
4  Few panic catching cold (6)
SCARCE – SCARE (panic) catching (containing) C{old}.
5  Campaigner, more coarse, when held up (8)
CRUSADER – CRUDER (more coarse) containing AS (when) reversed (up).
6  Pretty fine tune (4)
FAIR – F{ine} and AIR (tune).
9  Drink can make me ill, a danger when mixed (5,3,4)
LAGER AND LIME – Anagram (when mixed) of [ME ILL, A DANGER].
13  Bitter speech from US prosecutor about island breed (8)
DIATRIBE – DA (District Attorney, US prosecutor) around (about) I{sland} and TRIBE (breed).
14  Unexpectedly find gamble working (6,2)
CHANCE ON – CHANCE (gamble) and ON (working).
17  Tooth decay – one probing is concerned (6)
CARIES – CARES (is concerned) containing I (one, probing).
19  Pitch in the direction of Geordieland? (4)
TONE – If one was facing in the direction of Geordieland, one would be facing TO N{orth} E{ast}, unless, of course, one wasn’t in the South West.  However, wherever one was in the British Isles, one would still be facing towards the area we call the NE, if one sees what I mean.
21  Some homeless GI driving over to find accommodation (4)
DIGS – Reverse hidden (some and over) in {homeless}S GI D{riving}.

39 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 1683 by Tracy”

  1. As usual, the hiddens were opaque to me, and it was only when I had the checkers and hence the words that I saw them. DNK LAGER AND LIME (sounds awful, but then I don’t drink beer). Biffed BEAT A RETREAT, only parsed post-submission; lovely clue, too. 6:35.
  2. I was a few seconds over my 20 minute target for what I thought was another perfect QC from Tracey, although a few went in un-parsed. I needed The Rotter’s excellent blog to understand CRUSADER and BEAT A RETREAT. To me ‘cor’ doesn’t really sound like ‘core’, but that could just be my Irish accent, and I thought LAGER AND LIME could almost be a DD for ‘make me ill’.
    Thanks as usual to blogger and setter.
    Brian P
  3. 15 mins, held up by radical, chance on, and the unknown caries.

    3d, took me a while to get past thon/thong, but I persevered until I saw thin.

    COD curtail.

  4. Agree about the sickly cordial, but a slice of lime with a bottle of corona is popular.
    1. Yes, but that’s not lager and lime, just another ‘trendy’ marketing ploy. People who drink that have to swig out the bottle for full effect, a disgusting practice in my view.
  5. 8 minutes with no problems.

    I’m not sure anyone drinks LAGER AND LIME these days. My recollection is that it was thought up by the brewing trade as a means of selling lager to inexperienced and perhaps undiscerning drinkers. For those who don’t know, it was pretty much a full measure of lager (pint or half-pint) with just a dash of lime cordial added, not to be confused with a lager shandy which would usually be a half measure of lager topped up with an equal measure of lemonade or ginger beer.

      1. Drink lager and lime I mean – not swig out of a bottle. I don’t do that. Very unladylike.
        1. I think lager and lime was invented for ladies to try lager which was new in this country then and to make it sweeter and so more palatable. I like it.
  6. Struggled mightily today and was shocked to see how low I was on the leaderboard and how fast others on here were. Only three (!) on the first pass of acrosses and although the downs were more forgiving most needed more parsing that usual. Even so I got to within five of the finish before the slow trudge began. ROUNDHEAD should have been faster, very cross with myself when that went in. I don’t think I’ve heard CHANCE ON and it’s definitely not a phrase I use but was gettable rather faster than I did but it only came once I got COR, which I wanted to be EAR and I almost convinced myself as the heart of heart indicated by ‘my’ it was justifiable – I ended up there because I have learned ‘my’ often means ‘oh’ or ‘gosh’ but COR eluded me until about the eighth revisit. That left the unknown CARIES. All green in 24. I liked hidden SHRUG at 11a very much but was surprised at the high praise this received from Rotter and Brian.

    Edited at 2020-08-20 06:43 am (UTC)

    1. Your comment reminded me it’s not something I would say either; I’d say ‘chance upon’.
  7. Steady going today with one clue leading onto another in a very pleasing way. My only hold up was the unknown CARIES, which I left to the end. I thought the two long down clues were particularly good, although it took me a little too long to work out how attend could mean BEAT. Finished in 10.00.
    Thanks to Rotter for the excellent blog.
  8. An excellent puzzle from Tracy. I started slowly and had more success in the south at first so it was a jumpy route around the grid for me. I must say it seemed to go by a lot quicker than my 19mins. My brain hesitated over TONE (having persistently thought Tyne and tine) before the penny dropped. Some very fine misdirection and too many good clues to list so I’ll just go to rotter’s blog and enjoy them all again. Thanks to both. John M.

    Edited at 2020-08-20 07:59 am (UTC)

  9. FOI FAIR;LOI THIN. Nothing unfair in this puzzle.
    I was another with fingers crossed over BEAT;now I’ve seen the parsing that must be COD. Time 12:12.
    Excellent puzzle and thanks Rotter for the history lesson on Cromwell; I was frantically trying to remember the names of the various sides.
    David
  10. FOI, EARTH, LOI CRUSADER. Loved BE AT A RETREAT. As a student, I graduated from Lager and Lime, to Lager and then to proper beer. Mind you I’d started on Vaux Silver and Gold Tankard as a 16 year old. Lager and Lime seemed to be a rite of passage at college. Dreadful drink! Nice puzzle though. 7:17. Thanks Tracy and Rotter.
  11. I also enjoyed Tracy’s crisp and helpful cluing and I particularly liked ROUNDHEAD, TONE and LAGER AND LIME which was my favourite pub drink many years ago!
    CARIES was familiar to me from the French for ‘cavity’ but I didn’t know that it existed in English.
    COR, BEAT A RETREAT and CRUSADER all went in unparsed so thanks to Rotter for the helpful blog.
    As davidivad1 has said, now that BEAT/BE AT has been explained, 1D has to be my COD.
    Thanks to Tracy for a delightful 15 minutes.

    Edited at 2020-08-20 09:58 am (UTC)

  12. I’ve struggled with some Tracy puzzles lately, but I tried to put that out of my mind in case it became a self-fulfilling prophecy and this mostly went in quite nicely. Couldn’t see how BEAT meant “attend” at first and I never parsed CRUSADER, but it was 19d that almost did for me. I’d put in “tent” and knew it didn’t really work, but I’d stupidly left it to come back to later. Usually, if I’m unsure about something I’ll write it in very lightly so it’s easy to see, but this time I just wrote it in and thus forgot about it. Thankfully I did something else unusual for me which was to look over the couple of clues I hadn’t parsed after stopping my watch. Thus I corrected 19d and I’ll add a couple of minutes on to my original 24:49. I saw TONE pretty much immediately when I went back to it, but I didn’t notice it needed correcting quite as quickly. CsOD to 16a and 22a. Thanks Tracy and Rotter
  13. ….CHANCE ON chanson d’amour (sorry !)

    Nice puzzle, no quibbles. Only very slightly held up on my first look at 4D, as I had the C of CURTAIL, and wondered if “sarce” was an old word for panic !

    FOI CURTAIL
    LOI TREASURE
    COD SHRUG
    TIME 4:18

  14. This was another ‘if only’ day – if only I had been confident enough to write in Beat a Retreat straight off, this could have been a sub 20 Tracy, but I couldn’t parse Beat and so left the NW corner to the end. My other hold up was in trying to be too clever with 14ac and entering Ear (relieved to see I bumped into others down that particular rabbit hole). Eventually stopped the clock at just over 22mins, when I finally saw how BeAt worked. Tip of the hat to Tracy for that one, and to Rotter for his customarily civilised blog. Invariant

    Edited at 2020-08-20 10:27 am (UTC)

  15. I found this to be quite tricky in places, which is my excuse for being a minute over my target range of 15-20 mins. Also I carelessly put in CAR instead of COR at 14ac. Never parsed 1dn 3dn or 5dn but they became obvious once a few checkers were in. Some very fine clues especially to the longer answers but I didn’t really like 14ac as the link between COR and MY seems tenuous to me.

    FOI – 7ac EARTH
    LOI – 3dn THIN
    COD – as yesterday, almost too many to mention but I think it’s got to be 1dn BEAT A RETREAT

  16. 20+ mins, another slow start followed by steady progress after FOI (CURTAIL). Some great clues in here, I liked ROUNDHEAD and DIATRIBE particularly.

    COR(= “my”) was LOI. As I see it “Cor Blimey” = “May God Blind Me”, and “my” seems to be short for “My Word” or “My Goodness”. So equating them seems a little odd, thanks Rotter for reminding me that it is an old “convention” to be added to the list along with tum=corporation and IT for SA (sex appeal, as the kids don’t say)

    Using the word “crusader” (5d) for campaigner is somewhat insensitive in these sensitive times. I note that the Crusaders Christian group of my youth is now called Urban Saints.

    CARIES is a rather obscure word, I had to look that one up, as I get it confused with the equally obscure “cavies” for guinea pigs,

  17. A very enjoyable puzzle, which I thought I’d completed in 29 mins (my main hold up being 17dn “Caries”). However, I then found my answer for 1dn was incorrect, putting down “Meet A Retreat”. At the time I thought it was a little clunky – now I know why 😀

    As Rotter said, some lovely efficient clues. Enjoyed 8ac “Curtail”, 13dn “Diatribe” and 9dn “Lager and Lime”. Whilst I didn’t have an issue with 14dn “Chance On”, I would also normally use “upon” as the second word.

    FOI – 10ac “Trainer”
    LOI – 17dn “Caries”
    COD – 16ac “Ascertain” – beautifully simple

    Thanks as usual.

  18. I enjoyed this Tracy QC. FOI was EARTH and then I had a quick look at 1d but decided I needed more checkers. I biffed a couple today including CRUSADER and LAGER AND LIME. My last three in were COR, RADICAL and CHANCE ON (I am also more familiar with ‘chance upon’). Sub 9 mins and 1.3K qualifies as a very good day.

    Edited at 2020-08-20 11:02 am (UTC)

  19. A really satisfying crossword. 11 minutes. Thanks for the help with Beat – I wrote it in without understanding. Goodness knows why.
  20. I got CARIES quite quickly, where others seem to have struggles. But had to come here to parse COR. Not a homophone in my scottish accent…
        1. Could you try to indicate phonetically the difference in the way you pronounce COR and CORE please, as I’m struggling to understand it?
  21. Hang out the bunting – at 6:21 it’s a sub-K and a Red Letter Day. Huzzah. I attribute this to the fact that I am having to work today despite being on holiday (boo) and so am properly caffeinated. I also did it by the “cluster” method after getting BEAT A RETREAT as my FOI, which I suspect is faster than trying all the acrosses first.

    Great puzzle and happily devoid of blog-rage-creating clues. FOI & COD BEAT A RETREAT, LOI DIATRIBE. Thanks Rotter and Tracy.

    Templar

    1. Has blog-rage made it to the dictionaries yet, I wonder? It surely can’t be long until it does as there’s a lot of it about!
  22. ……in 22 minutes due to a major mental block in the SE corner – where it took us ages to see “chance on”, “cor” and “radical”. That said, it was a really fun puzzle – thanks Tracy.

    FOI: earth
    LOI: chance on
    COD: radical

    Thanks to Rotter for the blog.

  23. We seemed to make heavy weather of this. Seemed a steady plod after a slow start. Enjoyed the answers when we eventually got them, particularly 1d. 9d brought back memories from long ago. Thanks Tracy.
  24. … that this was a real gem of a puzzle. It kept me well entertained for 16 minutes; at one point I thought it might defeat me, with just 8 clues filled in at the 10 minute mark, but the rest came at something of a canter.

    Did not parse 1D but now I understand Beat = Be at, it has to be the COD.

    At first I wondered a bit at Few = Scarce in 4D – not sure I could find a sentence where the two are easily interchangeable – but I see it gains general acceptance.

    Thanks to Rotter for the enjoyable blog; such a good puzzle deserved a good blog and got one!

    Cedric

    1. Few = scarce

      I must admit I have some doubts about this too.

      Edited at 2020-08-20 10:18 pm (UTC)

  25. Didn’t get to this until late afternoon when my brain was befuddled, so just two seconds under the ten minute mark. A good sixty seconds of that was trying to parse BEAT! Nice clue that.

    H

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