Times Quick Cryptic No 1718 by Teazel

Author   rolytolyPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
I found this a very different type of solve to yesterday’s QC, despite a fairly similar time: with that one I chugged along at an ok pace before grinding to a halt for the last couple of clues; with this one the grid was less than half complete by the 8 minute mark but was all wrapped up a bit over three minutes later. So a bit quicker than yesterday, but another tricky enough affair that had me stumped in a number of places while solving, all of which appear straightforward after the fact: definitely the mark of a fine puzzle (rather than any dimwittednesss from me), so many thanks to Teazel!

Across
1 Fail to make joke, say, for periodical (6)
DIGEST – Sounds like (“say”) DIE (fail) and JEST (make joke)
4 Prisoner’s popular with friend (6)
INMATE – IN (popular) with MATE (friend)
8 An approving gesture about girl (5)
DONNA – AN NOD (approving gesture) about = reverse.
9 Small snacks in romantic films (7)
WEEPIES – WEE (small) PIES (snacks)
10 One detained by senior teacher (3)
SIR – I (one) detained by SR. (senior)
11 Stairs to attic? Excellent (3-6)
TOP-FLIGHT – and the top flight of stairs would lead to the attic.
12 Rise of a pleasant aroma (6)
ASCENT – A SCENT (pleasant aroma)
13 Girl seen in vest here (6)
ESTHER – “Seen in”  vEST HERe
16 Instruction to make dirty photo? (9)
BLUEPRINT – BLUE (dirty) PRINT (photo)
18 It’s shortened notes (3)
TIS – double definition: the first as in ’tis; the second as in more than one TI (note: do, re, mi, etc.).
19 A long pace with one leg each side (7)
ASTRIDE – A STRIDE (long pace)
20 Am turning to leave dog? Tough (5)
STIFF – MA (am, “turning”) to leave maSTIFF (dog)
22 Artist’s prize returned (6)
DRAWER – REWARD (prize) returned/reversed.
23 Horrible story about European seafood (6)
OYSTER – anagram (horrible) of STORY about E(uropean)

Down
1 Druid regularly seen as useless (3)
DUD – D r U i D “regularly seen”
2 Non-specific information on Morecambe? (7)
GENERIC – GEN (info) on ERIC (Morecambe?)
3 But it is actually the bookies’ final offer (8,5)
STARTING PRICE – cryptic-ish definition: the last odds given at the very start of the race, not when the bet is initially offered.
5 Of course, seasoned style is flowing (8,2,3)
NEEDLESS TO SAY – anagram (is flowing) of SEASONED STYLE. Evidenced by a very stylish clue with a flowing surface.
6 Could you say flying is frightening? (5)
AWING – if one is a-wing, one is fluttering about or flying. Very nice again.
7 Credit cushy schooling? (4,5)
EASY TERMS – EASY (cushy) TERMS (schooling). Not a term I knew, and it’s not in Collins, Lexico or the OED, but is defined elsewhere as paying for something with a series of small payments. Sounds rather euphemistic.
9 We must keep one little coin clean (4)
WIPE – WE must keep IP (1p, one little coin)
10 Famous person to take lodgings right on the sea (9)
STARBOARD -STAR (famous person) to BOARD (take lodgings)
14 Top ten perhaps, the ones to be done away with? (3,4)
HIT LIST – double definition, the first whimsical.
15 Sensible questions read out (4)
WISE – sounds like (“read out”) WHYS (questions)
17 Some useful traditions for extremist (5)
ULTRA – “some” of usefUL TRAditions
21 In favour of class losing marks (3)
FOR – FORm (class) losing M(arks)

40 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 1718 by Teazel”

  1. DNK STARTING PRICE, but with some checkers and the clue, it seemed safe. With the N, S, and Y in, I biffed NEEDLESS TO SAY before reading the clue, and sure enough it was right. EASY TERMS & STARBOARD took some time. 7:11.
  2. Six on the first pass of acrosses, lots and lots of downs to be close to finishing with only seven minutes on the clock but then I came up against AWING, EASY TERMS and WISE. I was also held up by STIFF where I thought of Mastiff straight away but then took a while to parse and TIS, which is how I finally got EASY TERMS.
  3. 9 minutes for all but 15dn where a lengthy alphabet trawl on ?I?E took me to 15. Shame ‘W’ is so near the end of the alphabet!
  4. I finished slowly but got no pleasure from this one. Weird grid that had 3-letter words that were a mix of write-ins and surprisingly difficult ones (to me). Some very good clues but lost amongst the rest. Perhaps other posters will have the patience to give details of the clues that they appreciated or disliked but I have none left. Perhaps it is just me. John M.
    1. No.. A slog, didn’t enjoy it either for many of the reasons others have mentioned

      Edited at 2020-10-08 10:23 am (UTC)

    2. No it’s not! I didn’t enjoy this much either, I’m afraid. I actually find Teazel much harder than Izetti, and today was no exception. 23 mins 🙄 I thought AWING was awful – sorry
      1. Yes. Awing can mean impressive and is used this way, far more often than frightening.
  5. What a great puzzle – lots to get our teeth into. Some very clever and amusing clues which took us 16 minutes to solve. Thanks Teazel.

    FOI: dud
    LOI: awing
    COD: generic but we thought blueprint was hilarious

    Thanks to Rolytoly for the blog. We thought your comments on the puzzle were spot on

  6. I though I’d be on for another sub 20, but not quite. Several 6 letter words with three checkers would not drop, so Last Two In were ASCENT and DRAWER.

    WEEPIES may have been a chestnut, but new for me, and I didn’t parse until the blog, so thanks, Roly. I had WOTSITS as a small snack which fitted for a time.

    Also liked the Double defs of HIT LIST and STARBOARD.

    COD STARTING PRICE, as I hadn’t thought of it that way, for the bookie it’s the finishing price.

    1. Unless you bet during the race, which these days you can … but I agree, super clue!
      1. “Give us the full SP Tel” as Arthur Daley was wont to remark to Terry in “Minder” when he needed an update.
  7. Unlike John I enjoyed that very much, with two quibbles – (a) how can TIS possibly be described as a *shortened* version of IT’S?! It’s the same three letters! Terrible clue; and (b) I thought DIGEST was one of the dodgiest homophones conceivable [on edit – that isn’t quite what I meant – I don’t mean that it doesn’t “sound right” because DI does sound like die and GEST does sound like jest. I’m struggling to put my moaning into accurate words. I think that it’s because there were TWO homophones which are in fact completely separate, in that “die jest” is not a known phrase, but there is no indication of that in the clue.]

    Otherwise lots of wit on display with clever clues all over the grid.

    FOI INMATE, LOI DIGEST (I hate it when 1ac is my LOI), COD STARBOARD, time 1.15K for an Excellent Day.

    Many thanks Teazel and roly.

    Templar

    Edited at 2020-10-08 08:52 am (UTC)

    1. With you entirely on this, with the added point that we have only ever seen the note written as “te”. Briefly considered tes as the answer but couldn’t believe (or parse) it. Got digest straight away but with the caveat that if we had parsed it right it was a terrible clue! Further mer over awing meaning frightening- I struggle to think of an example.

      Edited at 2020-10-08 03:17 pm (UTC)

  8. Oh dear. I biffed quite a few starting with 1a DIGEST but including AWING (from flying) and STIFF. I did parse them after submitting. I also initially bunged in GENERal at 2d without fully reading the clue. My last two in were HIT LIST which I mistyped as HoT LIST and the elusive TIS. It has been a while since I had a pink square. Submitted with 1 error in 10:28. Thanks Roly and Teazel
  9. A top puzzle from Teazel with lots to enjoy and some thinking to do. Like Merlin it was the first time I’d seen WEEPIES and thought it was very clever. BLUEPRINT, STARBOARD and DRAWER also made me smile. I got completely stumped on LOI WISE but on a whim decided to start my alphabet trawl on M today, which made it slightly less onerous. I’d not heard of EASY TERMS before but made sense with a couple of checkers in place.
    Finished in 9.25 with my favourite being OYSTER, for the surface reading.
    Thanks to Roly
  10. 13 mins, last few tricky ones held me up: drawer, starboard, awing, and LOI astride.

    Not keen on awing or tis.
    COD starboard, drawer also good.

  11. I ground to a halt but for completely different reasons. Thanks Teazel and rolytoly but I want to cry foul on 9a.
    In what diet is a pie a snack? – are they recommended in keep fit classes or keep fat???
      1. Yes I am wrong in essence because I’m assuming that a snack is not supposed to be substantial. I think any pie is substantial but however fattening it might be, it still not be a full meal.
        1. A wee pie suggests a miniature, barely two mouthfuls. That’s a snack, in my eyes.
  12. Got blueprint on first pass but DNF with easy terms had the easy but couldn’t see past that, thanks all
  13. FOI DUD
    LOI DRAWER.
    CsOD Starboard, Blueprint, Top Flight, Astride, Weepies, Starting Price, Generic

    In fact, a witty QC. Thanks all. Don’t know if I’ve ever heard anyone say Awing but biffed that one.

    ‘Tis’ is the title of a book by the chap who wrote Angela’s Ashes, by the way.

  14. I was all over the place to begin with but plodded on, finally finishing in just under 20 minutes.
    Pleased to be able to parse everything though other than DIGEST as I didn’t think of the connection between ‘fail’ and ‘die’.
    Smiles along the way included WEEPIES (although I agree that a pie is hardly a snack), BLUEPRINT and GENERIC. My COD goes to the wonderful NEEDLESS TO SAY anagram.
    Thanks to Teazel for the challenge and to Roly for the blog.
  15. Back to target with 12 minutes on the clock when I finished this one. FOI DUD, LOI DRAWER, COD STARBOARD or TOP FLIGHT. I found AWING a bit clumsy – and a horrible word. EASY TERMS took me back to the 60s when all things were available on easy terms. A good puzzle as usual from Teazel, and thanks Roly for the blog.
  16. Finished on TIS, which doesn’t seem shorter than IT’S… I suppose if you include the punctuation mark in the latter? Not a great clue.

    I like the idea of a pie being a snack, and will be tucking in mid-morning from now on.

  17. Some chewy clues here. Started with DUD and finished with WISE, which detained me for a while. 9:09. Thanks Teazel and Roly.
  18. 45 mins to complete this (I found it a bit of a slog, with a lot alphabet trawls) and even then I got 6dn wrong. Just didn’t equate “awing” with frightening.

    Saying that, it was enjoyable in places with some good, chewy clues. Enjoyed 3dn “Starting Price”, 14dn “Hit List”, 7dn “Easy Terms” and 16ac “Blueprint”.

    FOI – 1dn “Dud”
    LOI – 6dn (although wrong)
    COD – 10dn “Starboard”

    Thanks as usual.

  19. … with some lovely clues and a couple to forget about. Not at all a fan of 6D Awing; ugly word and ugly clue. Even if you allow a-wing as a construction along the lines of afoot, it is pretty unusual, if not artificial, and what is “Could you say” doing here? Nor does to be awed mean the same as to be frightened. A GR from me.

    Not much more of a fan of 18A Tis either. As others have said, it isn’t really shortened, is it? The clue could perhaps have been “It’s muddled notes”.

    A shame as some of the other clues were first rate, and whether 9A Weepies is a chestnut or not, it was new to me and made me smile, and Drawer/Reward in 22A is neat too. Biffed 1A Digest for my LOI for a 14 minute finish.

    Many thanks to Roly for the blog
    Cedric

    1. I agree with your views on AWING, except that on the definition issue Lexico has “A feeling of reverential respect mixed with fear or wonder” for “awe”, and I think that that gets Teazel off the hook!
  20. I did not finish and like some others thought some of the clues poor. I think it was another very tough puzzle. Speaking purely as a beginner it would be nice to have at least 2 puzzles a week on the easier end of things, if only just to give beginners some hope. Day after day with really tough puzzles is a real discouragement.
  21. Another curate’s egg here.

    I did not like 1ac but that may be in part because I failed to solve it. After I used aids to get the answer I immediately got 2dn which was a great clue but my COD goes to 10dn with its cleverly disguised definition.

    When coming to the blog I realised that I also had not solved 15dn.

    Not a good day for me.

    Edited at 2020-10-08 01:41 pm (UTC)

  22. ….but I didn’t find it particularly difficult. It took a while to see DIGEST, and my LOI, but everything else fell into place fairly effortlessly.

    EASY TERMS was one of the great misdirections of all time. When my first wife and I married 50 years ago, we bought a dining table and chairs. The cash price was £149.99 but we put £60 down, and paid the rest over 18 months. A fiver a month I hear you say ? Nope. £6.99 a month (or almost 40% over the mark). As far as the furniture shop were concerned, it was more accurately “easy money”.

    FOI INMATE
    LOI WISE
    COD HIT LIST
    TIME 4:20

    Edited at 2020-10-08 02:13 pm (UTC)

  23. Drool. Etc.

    Moderate level QC at 7:16 for me.

    The mucky photo went in last with a little smirk.

  24. I really enjoyed this as is usual for a Teazel puzzle – thanks. It was hard to get going but easier to complete. AWING wa s my LOI – I got the answer early on but didn’t think AWING – as in frightening – was a word.
  25. Like some others, mixed feelings about this puzzle with the same misgivings about certain clues. Finished in an interrupted 26 mins which would have been quicker if I had not persuaded myself to wait until I had parsed 20ac before putting it in – must have spent 3 mins or so staring at the clue before the penny finally dropped on the parsing.

    FOI – 4ac INMATE
    LOI – 20ac STIFF
    COD – 16ac BLUEPRINT

  26. Just caught up after another massive backlog of puzzles…18a TIS went in as a ‘had to be’ but not really impressed; 11a TOP FLIGHT we’ve seen before so that was a write-in; rather liked amusing 16a BLUEPRINT. A DNF on 15d WISE – was there some connection with 2d I have missed? No issues with 7d EASY TERMS – surely a familiar enough term…? FOI 1a DIGEST. LOI 22a DRAWER. COD 9a WEEPIES which was a new one for me, I was trying so hard to make something of sweeties.
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