Times Quick Cryptic No 1719 by Joker

Author   JohninterredPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

This was a good solid Quick Cryptic to finish the week. I didn’t find it as hard as the last two days and finished just a whisker under my target time of 5 minutes. I do sometimes struggle a little with longer words and, if they don’t leap out at me, I generally leave them until I’ve got some checkers. We have some testing long anagrams today, which are a case in point – is this a bit of 5D from our setter? 1A and 10A are not the easiest but I saw 1D straightaway. The appropriately numbered 8A was my FOI and 16D my last. COD to the cheeky 17A. Thank-you Joker! How did you all get on?

Fortnightly Weekend Quick Cryptic. This time it is Phil’s turn to provide the extra-curricular entertainment. You can find his crossword here. Enjoy! And if anyone is interested in our previous offerings you can find an index to them here.

Definitions underlined in bold italics, (Abc)* indicating anagram of Abc, deletions and [] other indicators.

Across
1 Considerateness is delicious roaming around Thailand’s capital (10)
SOLICITUDE – (delicious)* [roaming] [around] Thailand [‘s capital letter].
8 Rowing crew consumed food soundly (5)
EIGHT – Homophone [soundly] of ATE (consumed food).
9 Beware — fellow is a primitive (7)
CAVEMAN – CAVE (beware in Latin, as in “Cave canem” – beware of the dog), MAN (fellow).
10 Provincial caliph or a replacement? (9)
PAROCHIAL – (caliph or a)* [replacement].
12 What’s key in Old English poem (3)
ODE – D (musical key) [in] O.E. (Old English).
13 Small, delicate and mostly finely structured (5)
ELFIN –  Anagram [structured] of (finely)* [mostly]
15 Set of principles central to credo suiting the faith concept (5)
ETHIC – Middle letters of [central to] crEdo suiTing tHe faIth conCept.
17 Photographed topless — really attractive (3)
HOT – sHOT (photographed) without the first letter [topless].
18 Caught one at tea party with Queen that’s a fast talker (9)
CHATTERER – C (caught) HATTER (mad hatter; one at tea party) ER (queen).
20 Recognise Chinese porcelain appearing (7)
SEEMING – SEE (recognise) MING (Chinese porcelain).
21 Line left in Scrabble regularly (5)
CABLE – L (left) [in] alternate letters of sCrAbBlE [regularly].
22 View of street with train (10)
STANDPOINT – ST (street) AND (with) POINT (train; aim a gun).
Down
1 Race to order cheapest eels (12)
STEEPLECHASE – [order] (cheapest eels)*.
2 Drink royal’s taken up (5)
LAGER – REGAL (royal) reversed [taken up – it’s a down clue] -> LAGER.
3 Trimmed odd bits of crust (3)
CUT – Alternate letters [odd bits] of CrUsT.
4 Thanks court in charge of scheme (6)
TACTIC – TA (thanks) CT (court) IC (in charge).
5 Wild spirits unfortunately evident involving large male (9)
DEVILMENT – (evident)* [unfortunately] outside [involving] L (large) M (male).
6 School filled with sound of cow pet (6)
SMOOCH – SCH (school) outside [filled with] MOO (sound of cow).
7 Unconscious present influence that’s hidden (12)
UNDERCURRENT – UNDER (unconscious; as in under an anaesthetic) CURRENT (present).
11 One who’s drafted Conservative text for speech (9)
CONSCRIPT – CON (Conservative) SCRIPT (text for speech).
14 Left avoiding smooth build up (6)
FATTEN – FlATTEN (smooth) without [avoiding] the L (left)
16 Technical talk is initially just gas (6)
JARGON – First letter [initially] of Just, ARGON (gas).
19 Scholar of Burns, mostly (5)
RABBI – RABBIe (Robert Burns, aka Rabbie Burns) without the last letter [mostly].
21 Cloak cut down to make a top (3)
CAP – CAPe (cloak) without the last letter [cut down].

39 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 1719 by Joker”

  1. I was puzzled by RABBI, as I didn’t know Rabbie (I would have thought Robbie, if I thought anything). I was slowed down by a senior moment, where I just couldn’t summon up the word CONSCRIPT, which was my LOI. Also slowed down by taking Small at 12ac to be S. Biffed CHATTERER (thinking of CHA=tea, didn’t see the HATTER until after submitting). 6:30.
  2. Another hard one, about 18 mins.
    Held up by the long anagrams. LOI undercurrent.
    COD HOT.

    John, for 1a, the anagrist is just: delicious, and T.

  3. Nothing too tricky here, but several long (and not easy!) anagrams made this one take longer than usual. Thanks, John, for helping with Rabbie Burns. I put RABBI in without a moment’s thought. (And for the explanation of ELFIN!)

    Edited at 2020-10-09 04:16 am (UTC)

  4. My dodgy run of solves continued with this one. I haven’t hit my target since Monday, however things aren’t quite as bad as that may appear because, as yesterday, there was only one clue outstanding as I passed the 10-minute mark. On this occasion it was 7d where I had a mental block and needed a further 7 minutes to come up with UNDERCURRENT.

    No problem with 19dn as Scottish comedians have been making jokes about ‘Rabbi Burns’ for years, although probably not so much these days.

    I remember ‘keeping CAVE’ at school (pronounced ‘cavey’) which meant keeping lookout to give warning of the approach of a teacher.

    Edited at 2020-10-09 08:17 am (UTC)

  5. All green in 16, so reasonable after a slow start, with only four going in on the first pass. Held up by the crossing ELFIN and FLATTEN having previously taken a while to convince myself HOT could be right. Even with all the checkers (six of them) it took a long time to get UNDERCURRENT as the clock ticked on. I’ve never thought about how to spell Rabbie before but it seemed reasonable and 1d went in fast as I’ve run more than a few of them. Enjoyed POINT for train, took a second for the cogs to whirr and see what was going on. Good end to a good week.
  6. I felt as if I made hard work of this, with the anagrams proving particularly sticky. None of the 4 long perimeter clues came easily and 22a was my last one in, as I needed all the checkers before the penny dropped. In hindsight there was nothing too tricky here and it was all fairly clued.
    Finished in 13.26 with CAVEMAN just beating HOT to my COD
  7. Not great from me, coming in at 16:45. The anagram part of my brain appears to still be asleep as I sailed past pretty much all of them with no ideas at all. CONSCRIPT also eluded me for much too long. Enjoyed the few good words in here that don’t usually come in a quick cryptic: SOLICITUDE, PAROCHIAL, ELFIN.

    FOI: eight
    LOI: standpoint

  8. …and for once found the longer clues fell into place without too trouble and faster than some of the shorter ones. 1A and 1D were my FOIs (once I had re-read 1A and noticed the D in the anagrist – saved me from carelessly entering Solicitous); this gave lots of starter letters for other clues and led to a fast time, 10 minutes (well, that’s fast for me).

    It is interesting to see how often some words come up. This is the third or fourth time a Rabbi has joined us this year I think – I wonder what the collective noun for a congregation of rabbis is.

    COD for me 15A Ethic – a very smooth surface and it took me a while to see how the clue worked. But I agree with John that 17A Hot was also very nice.

    Thank you to John for the blog and (in anticipation) to Phil for the Saturday Special.

    A good weekend to all.
    Cedric

  9. A much more enjoyable end to the week. Not easy (I dragged it out to over 17 mins) but satisfying. I had to write out the anagrist for 1a and I stupidly biffed ETHOS instead of ETHIC (nice clue) which made UNDERCURRENT impossible. I spent too long working out my mistake before the right answer screamed at me. I took too long over FLATTEN and STANDPOINT, my LOsI. Now I’ll go back and enjoy the clues again with the help of John’s blog (and will double-check my parsing). Thanks to both. John M.

    Edited at 2020-10-09 08:45 am (UTC)

  10. 12 minutes here – so over target for my first QC since Tuesday. Wasn’t sure what was going on with cap but it had to be. LOI was flatten as I got caught up with flatter for smooth talk. Thanks all.
  11. I had my anagram hat on today and they all went in very quickly, which certainly helped on this puzzle. Given the grid I solved from left to right and top to bottom, which was a great help when I finally arrived at UNDERCURRENT because I had all the checkers for what I thought was a tricky clue.

    Nice to see the Mad Hatter making an appearance and thanks, John, for pointing out the clever placing of EIGHT! Very neat.

    FOI SOLICITUDE, LOI UNDERCURRENT, COD SMOOCH, time 1.5K for a Very Good Day.

    Many thanks Joker and John.

    Templar

  12. Because of my own thickery, this took me ages. I carelessly biffed solicitous and ethos instead of SOLICITUDE and ETHIC and that just about stuffed me for the longest time because it made 9 across and 7 down impossible. Once I’d corrected those two, I was ok. I certainly needed the blog today though to see how STANDPOINT, 22 across, worked. Very much liked CAVEMAN and SEEMING. Thanks, John, for the blog and thanks too to Joker.
  13. FOI TACTIC then fairly quick progress although struggling to parse everything. I decided to gamble today. It worked with Elfin but I put ETHOS at 15a before getting to LOI 7d. Fortunately UNDERCURRENT came to me quite quickly so I made the obvious correction.
    10:52 in the end. Lots of good clues. COD to CONSCRIPT.
    David
  14. Some great clues today, particularly ETHIC which I thought was very clever.
    CHATTERER and SMOOCH made me smile and the only two I didn’t parse were FATTEN and STANDPOINT.
    Thanks to Joker for the 16-minute workout and to John for the helpful blog.
  15. Only hesitated about Smooch and Fatten. In my, of course, limited experience in days of yore smooch is not the same as pet.
    Rabbi seems very popular in crosswords because there can’t be many suitable words ending in ‘i’, so easy to guess.
    Cd not parse Standpoint but biffed.
    Thanks all, as ever.

  16. Seemed to have made the same errors as others ethos solicitous but growing up in Ayrshire got Rabbi straight away, a lovely puzzle with my favourite type of clue at TACTIC, thanks both looking forward to my weekend extra crossword
  17. I didn’t see 1a for a while, but the rest of the top half went in quickly enough. After that I seemed to be bogged down in treacle. I eventually emerged, with UNDERCURRENT holding me up at the end, but 14:19 had elapsed. Thanks Joker and John.
  18. My recent run of success with long anagrams was more mixed (😉) today, with Steeplechase a write-in while Solicitude needed all the crosser and some careful thought. Mind you, it helps if you start the search with the right number of letters, rather than include a stray pair (is). Anyone who has ever been involved with a PCC will have the word Parochial seared into their brain, and I also thought Standpoint was generously clued. Put all that together, and a sub-20 should have been possible. Unfortunately, I just couldn’t see loi and CoD 7d, Undercurrent for ages, so ended up limping over the line after 25mins. Invariant
  19. Just inside target by a few seconds (14:50), and pleased with that to end the week. Lots of good stuff here, with STEEPLECHASE FOI (I usually look at 1a and 1d in that order). Having spotted an anagram at 1a but not solved it in my head, I immediately looked at 1d to get help with the first letter, and so it proved. I liked HOT and ETHIC (haven’t seen the middle letter device for a while), and my LOI was FATTEN. Thanks Joker and John.
  20. 25 mins for me, but 5 mins of that was staring at 7dn “Undercurrent”. Thankfully, just as I was about to admit defeat it came to me.

    I enjoyed today’s puzzle – some long clues, but nothing too tricky, and luckily I saw most of them straight away eg. 1dn “Steeplechase” and 5dn “Devilment”. 1ac proved a little more taxing, especially around the spelling and whilst I eventually biffed 22ac “Standpoint” I needed the blog to remind me of train = point (been caught out with that before).

    Thought 19dn was “Rober” at first, a made up scholar from my imagination that could have been a legitimate shortening of Robert, but 22ac could only point to Rabbi.

    FOI – 8ac “Eight”
    LOI – 7dn Undercurrent
    COD – 16dn “Jargon”

    Thanks as usual.

  21. Church PCC mtgs were the highlight of the month for some: substantially less so if you had to write up the minutes afterwards.
    1. I immediately thought of Parochial Church Council too, having sat on at least 4 in my life. But the fact that it comes so low down the list is I suspect a commentary more on the marginalisation of religion in current day society than anything else.

      Cedric

  22. Good end to the week, with 13a ELFIN as LOI. With FOI STEEPLECHASE the left side went in quickly. UNDERCURRENT was a toughh word to chase down even with a full set of checkers.

    1A SOLICITUDE sure is an obscure word, never really knew what it meant.

    COD 16D JARGON, nice surface.

  23. Slipped up like one or two others with ETHOS instead of ETHIC, which of course made UNDERCURRENT ungettable. After staring at the latter for a minute or so I remembered the golden rule – if a clue’s not yielding check the checkers! ETHIC was then obvious and UNDERCURRENT fell swiftly into place. That’ll teach me to biff 🙂

    Does anybody actually save CAVE to warn people?

    Thought it was pretty easy for a Friday and there was no real standout clue for me. Felt like too many anagrams as well …

    H

  24. We started off at a pace today and, instead of improving our PB (which seemed on the cards), we took 30 minutes. We spent absolutely ages trying to get undercurrent because we’d written in ethos for 15A which was incorrect. Even worse for 14D we had added a rogue “d” as the last letter – and spent ages trying to solve it before we realised our mistake. Aargh, we need to be more careful. That said, it was a great puzzle – thanks Joker.

    FOI: eight
    LOI: fatten
    COD: devilment

    Thanks to John for the blog.

    Looking forward to Phil’s WEQC 😀

    1. Enjoyed your weekend QC Phil, thank you. Some really creative and clever clues. I think we finished it in about 11 mins but I somehow cleared the grid accidentally when I tried to submit it so I’m not certain.

  26. Having struggled all week, we found this much easier without any large holdups. Took time to parse 14d, but the answer seemed obvious. Thanks Joker and for the blog.
  27. I just could not see FATTEN! Must have looked at it for 3 minutes or more.

    Lots of other clues to like especially UNDERCURRENT.

    10:34 fwiw.

    1. I’m sorry you found it difficult. I hope the blog helps with those clues you had a problem with,

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