Times Quick Cryptic No 1743 by Tracy

Author   TheRotterPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
I found this quite tough for a Tracy, taking longer than my 15-minute target, at 16 minutes.  There is no really hard General Knowledge needed (maybe FORFAR is a bit UK-centric), countered by GRACELAND, which is probably better known on the other side of the pond, and everything is fairly clued.  Maybe I am just a bit off the wavelength this week, I have had a few over-target solves.

FOI FAN, LOI NURSE, COD 9d (AND SO FORTH).  Thanks Tracy for a decent challenge, I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did.

Across

1  Bad carrying on with a criminal (7)
ILLEGAL – ILL (bad) with LEG (on, as in cricket, leg / on side) and A (a) inserted (carrying).  Solving and parsing this clue requires lifting and separating A and CRIMINAL.  The definition is CRIMINAL not A CRIMINAL.
5  A route abroad (4)
AWAY – A (a) and WAY (route).
7  Article by female supporter (3)
FAN – AN (article, the indefinite article) alongside (by) F{emale}.  Maybe unusually, supporter clues FAN here, it is often used to clue BRA in Crosswordland.
8  Strange crest dividing a New York family (8)
ANCESTRY – Anagram (strange) of [CREST] inserted into (dividing) A (a) and N{ew} Y{ork}.
10  Look after harbour (5)
NURSE – Double definition (DD), the second as in to harbour or nurse a headache.
11 Training in it out at sea (7)
TUITION – Anagram (at sea) of [IN IT OUT].
13  Number picked up by remote Scottish town (6)
FORFAR – Part homophone (picked up / sounds like) FOR sounds like four (number), and FAR (remote).  FORFAR is the county town of Angus in Scotland, and always reminds me of Eric Morecambe’s tongue-twister football score announcement of “East Fife four, Forfar five”.
15  Group round bar suffering reversal in game (6)
TENNIS – SET (group) holding INN (bar) all reversed to give TENNIS.  Is TENNIS a sport or a game?  Chambers says a game, but I suspect some people will dispute that, although the differences are subtle.
17  Remainder live around university (7)
RESIDUE – RESIDE (live) around U{niversity}.
18  Man, crook (5)
STAFF – Another DD, this time obeying Rotter’s Law – two-word clues are invariably double definitions.  Here, the first definition refers to staffing / manning a department for instance, whilst the second refers to a staff like a shephard’s crook.
20  Horse: lad astride big one (8)
STALLION – SON (lad) containing (astride, i.e. on either side of) TALL (big) and I (one).
22  Standard cut reduced (3)
PAR – Both PARE and PART could mean cut, so take your pick and drop the last letter (reduced).  My vote is on PAR{e} as the better fit.
23  Joke made by judge is French (4)
JEST – J{udge} and EST (French for is).  ‘Made by’ here is a linking phrase, giving instructions on how to construct the answer.
24  Rot in heart of beech and another couple of trees (7)
EYEWASH – Heart of beech gives {be}E{ch} (the middle letter), and YEW and ASH are the other the other ‘two trees’.  EYEWASH is an informal  word meaning nonsense or rot!

Down

1  Performing very well at home, showing class after penalty (2,4,4)
IN FINE FORM – IN (at home) followed by FINE (penalty) and finally FORM (class).
2  Band on river vessel (5)
LINER – LINE (band, as in stripe) and R{iver}.
3  Adorn country mansion where the “King” lived (9)
GRACELAND – GRACE (adorn) and LAND (country).  The “King” referred to is Elvis Presley, who owned and lived in GRACELAND in Memphis, Tennessee.
4  Find the Parisian sheltering old domestic pet (6)
LOCATE – LE (‘the’ in French, as spoken in Paris, therefore Parisian) holding (sheltering) O{ld} and CAT (domestic pet).
5  Wally in the role of head of state (3)
ASS – AS (in the role of) and S (first letter, or head of) S{tate}.  The origin of WALLY meaning ASS is uncertain, but may be related to the short form of WALTER.
6  Call to account US soldier over in Scottish isle (7)
ARRAIGN – GI (US soldier) reversed (over) inside ARRAN (Scottish isle).  To ARRAIGN is to put on trial, or to call to account.
9  Also short of rum, et cetera (3,2,5)
AND SO FORTH – AND (also) followed by an anagram (rum) of [SHORT OF].
12  Popular extract, basically (2,7)
IN ESSENCE – IN (popular) and ESSENCE (extract).
14  Originally, over in New Street finds badge (7)
ROSETTE – Anagram (new) of [STREET] containing O{ver} (originally).  Rosettes are regularly worn as badges of affiliation, e.g. during the US Presidential Election – is it over yet?.
16  Extremely furtive row of cats (6)
FELINE – F{urtiv}E (extremely, first and last letters) and LINE (row).
19  Greek character in hotel in mountain area (5)
ALPHA – ALP (mountain) and A{rea} containing H{otel}.
21  Rent part of vaudeville theatre (3)
LET – Hidden answer in {vaudevil}LE T{heater}.

39 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 1743 by Tracy”

  1. DNF; NHO FORFAR. DNK ‘Wally’ either, but it wasn’t hard to infer. ‘Supporter’ is all too often BRA, but also TEE as well as FAN.
  2. Like Kevin, I’d never heard of FORFAR. For me, it was between FORFAR and FARLAY, but the latter didn’t have a homophone. Otherwise mostly straightforward, though EYEWASH was not quite known to me. ‘Wally’ sounded familiar. I’m sure I’ve heard someone say, “He’s a right wally.”.

    I’d be interested to know if people found this easier or harder than yesterday’s outing. I found it more difficult — yet my time is a smidge faster.

  3. I knew FORFAR having lived in Scotland for years. But I also took longer than usual to get there. A piece of trivia: the books sold as “Where’s Waldo?” in the US are called “Where’s Wally?” in UK.
  4. I’m another who found this more difficult than usual. At 16 minutes it took me into my red zone, quite a rare occurrence. And it wasn’t just one or two clues that held me up (although my LOI EYEWASH took a long time), I was very slow throughout and had to keep hopping around the grid to make any sort of progress. I never got into a steady solving rhythm.

    Tennis is undoubtedly a sport and technically a ‘game’ is just a component part of a set or match, but I think informally ‘game’ is fine. The sort of person who would utter the old cliche ‘Anyone for tennis?’ might just as easily say ‘Anyone fancy a game of tennis?’ Or ‘cricket’ or ‘football’ for that matter. I can just imagine T-T himself saying it! In fact he may well have done so in the film ‘School for Scoundrels’ in which he played a memorable game against Ian Carmichael.

  5. I’ve been to FORFAR many times so no bother for me and it will also be know to Morecambe and Wise fans from the famous football score: East Fife 4 Forfar 5. It’s very close to Glamis Castle for Shakespeare fans. I found this to be pretty accessible apart from the SE where I really struggled. I can’t explain how I couldn’t get STAFF but that lack of a checker made AND SO FORTH very tough as I couldn’t get ‘and’ from ‘also’ although I did try ‘too’ so although I knew what ‘rum’ must be up to I couldn’t work out what to apply it to. Similarly for EYEWASH I knew what was expected I just couldn’t think of three letter trees to make a word I knew. On Alpha I was at the wrong end for the definition, totally fooled by the checking P into thinking I was looking for PI in a hotel, biggest smile of the puzzle when I saw what I done. Finally ARRAIGN, despite having been to FORFAR, Arran never came to mind so I had nothing to put around my inverted GI and ARRAIGN was a tough definition for me. The alphabet got a lot of trawling today.
  6. A steady solve with nothing too tricky, but another appearance for my least favourite ‘crossword word’ at 24a! My knowledge of FORFAR comes purely from listening to the classified football results on Grandstand as a child.
    Finished in 10.39 with the word that shall not be named.
    Thanks to Rotter, especially for explaining the second meaning of NURSE
  7. Just crept in under my target time of 20:20. (which will move out to 20:21 next year)

    LOI EYEWASH took too long, even though I had jotted down Eyelash, Hogwash, Balderdash as near misses.

    NW corner, including the 1A/1D pair were the hold-ups. I fear “vessel” as a clue, and it is popular with setters, as can be parts of body ‘(vein’), utensils (‘ewer’ seems common) then all of those ships such as schooner, ketch, lighter… Also the clue works with O + a four letter river, so needed to discount those as well.

    We used to always listen to football results on the radio, so places such as Forfar, Montrose and Cowdenbeath have familiarity. There never was a West Fife, and in my mind that was what the famous “West Lothian question” refers to.

    COD : RESIDUE

  8. … as I stopped the clock on 13 minutes for this one with the grid all correctly filled in but for several clues little idea of how or why – the answers were clear but I needed Rotter’s excellent blog to explain the reasoning.

    Not sure, Jeremy, if that makes me a vote for today’s being easier or tougher than yesterday. It took much the same time.

    5A – Rotter, you suggest nursing or harbouring a headache. Don’t think I’ve ever harboured a headache – grudge was what came to mind for me.

    As for sports vs games, there used to be the rule that if you played it sitting down it was a game. Always something of a generalisation, and looking at Britain’s recent Olympic successes (mostly in sports such as cycling, rowing and equestrian events), probably no longer even a remotely helpful criterion!

    Many thanks to Rotter for the blog
    Cedric

  9. I didn’t enjoy this, I’m afraid. I found it strangely ‘niggly’ as if the setter was trying just a little too hard to trip the solver up. This was set as a QC after all. Some definitions (like NURSE as ‘harbour’) were on the edge of my experience. I always seem to waste time going through Scottish islands before finding the right one. My time was about the same as yesterday so definitely in the SCC. I did like EYEWASH, though. Like Rotter, I feel I am off the wavelength this week but I appreciated his blog. John M.
  10. This was going OK until I got stuck in the SE. FOI FAN; no problems with Forfar after years of listening to football results; everybody wants them to score four (and see Mendesest above).
    But the SE was blank. I thought THIEF might work at 18a;and thought BAN was contained in 15a. Fortunately I ditched those ideas quickly; got the tricky EYEWASH and parsed it.
    LOI was IN ESSENCE, another I had trouble getting to.
    13:30 on the clock, so not too bad. Harder than yesterday. A good test from Tracy.
    David
  11. East Fife 4 Forfar 5 finally came true in July 2018 – after a 1-1 draw in a cup tie, the resulting penalty shoot-out ended 4-5. Before that, in 1964, they’d had Forfar 5 East Fife 4. Why on earth do I remember these things?

    I thought that that was harder then yesterday’s with several tricky clues, especially ILLEGAL and ARRAIGN.

    FOI IN FINE FORM, LOI ROSETTE (for some reason I kept reading this as “in New York Street” so was trying to fit NY ST in there), COD FORFAR, time 11:55 for an OK Day.

    Many thanks Tracy and Rotter.

    Templar

  12. Another with FORFAR a write in from the football results here. No problems with the rest of the puzzle either. FOI, LINER, LOI, STALLION. 7:25. Thanks Tracy and Rotter.
  13. I think this was far too tricky for a quickie. From the outset at 1a there were clues which would have been difficult in the main puzzle. Thanks therotter, even though i filled it in I needed your explanations to make sense of quite a few.
  14. I’m still not sure whether dabbling with the 15×15 is helping or hindering, but this was a few seconds north of a sub-20, which I will take any day for a Tracy QC. Started with 1d, but then had to hop around the grid to make progress. Helped by Graceland, In Essence and Stallion being write-ins, but held up by Eyewash and the parsing of loi Illegal. CoD to the small, but perfectly formed 5ac, Away. An enjoyable solve. Invariant
  15. 24 mins for me, but like yesterday got one wrong. Annoyingly 24ac “eyewash” has come up before, but this time it escaped me and I ended up inventing a new word “Eredash” thinking it might be some variant of balderdash. Again, I didn’t stick to my own rule that if it doesn’t look right, it’s probably wrong.

    Luckily got 1dn “In Fine Form” quite quickly, although I nearly biffed “For” for 7ac. Similarly I didn’t have too many problems with 9dn “And So Forth” although got nicely misdirected for 3dn “Graceland” until it twigged.

    FOI – 1dn “In Fine Form”
    LOI – 24ac dnf
    COD – 1ac “Illegal” – lovely surface, although I enjoyed “Forfar” as well.

    Thanks as usual.

    Edited at 2020-11-12 11:01 am (UTC)

  16. I submitted in just under 10 mins but with an error at 13a. I’m from the UK but FORFAR is unknown to me. I plumped incorrectly for the non existent town of FORTAY thinking it perhaps sounded like forty. I enjoyed GRACELAND, ASS and EYEWASH. Thanks Rotter and Tracy.
    1. Yes, I blithely created Fortay too and with exactly the same reasoning. (I also thought it might have had something to do with the shipping forecast!) MM
  17. Did finish but stuck on Tennis, LOI.

    FOI Ancestry. Managed Eyewash as we have had it before, though archaic, as many answers are.
    Forfar dawned eventually. Graceland easy.

    Oh, I see ‘rum’ was the anagrist. I did biff And So Forth but was worried where rum fitted in.

    Thanks all, as ever.

  18. Found this one hard at first but got into it and worked through steadily. LOI ARRAIGN. An enjoyable challenge.
  19. About a minute faster than yesterday at 21 mins, but it seemed faster while I was solving it. No real hold-ups (Forfar and Graceland went straight in) but didn’t parse 1ac or 9dn. Thanks to The Rotter for the explanations on those.

    FOI – 7ac FAN
    LOI – 24ac EYEWASH
    COD – 16dn FELINE for the mental image conjured up by the clue

  20. But once it was finished, I couldn’t see why I found it such a grind. It took me right up to the moment at which I always stop, finished or not – half an hour. Some dropped in straight away, eg AWAY, FAN, ASS, etc (or should I say AND SO FORTH? ). But others here were like pulling teeth. I spent ages mulling over Erewash, wondering how that might fit. Mad, really, because we’ve had EYEWASH to mean rubbish, or rot, lots of times. Similarly, I struggled unnecessarily with ANCESTRY, sure that I was looking for a synonym for strange. Why I would do that, considering that strange is a completely unexceptional anagrind, I can’t imagine. So I was just dozy today, I must conclude. Thanks, Rotter, for a great blog and thanks too to Tracy.
  21. and thought I would today, as the acrosses didn’t yield too much joy. I found the downs easier, though, and then with the additional letters, I polished it off.

    I liked ARRAIGN and EYEWASH was my COD.

    6:20.

  22. I found this really hard and did not come close to finishing. I cannot understand 1a I get the ill for bad but the leg for on? I thought in cricket the leg side was the off side. I would love an explanation for this. Also nurse was in my view a poor clue way to obscure for a quick cryptic.

    As I said this was by far the hardest puzzle this week for me being a beginner.

    1. In cricket, the leg side can also be the on side. Off side is always off side though.

      I thought Rotter explained it well in the blog, but it’s

      IL(LEG A)L.

      I bunged it in from crossers and definition, but looking back afterwards, I realised that it’s actually quite a tricky clue.

      With N?R?E, and one definition being “look after”, I don’t think you needed to think too hard about bunging in NURSE. To nurse a grudge/harbour a grudge is how I read it, as I see templarredux and cedricstatherby did above.

      Tracy is always one of the trickier QC setters in my opinion, so don’t lose heart as a beginner! There were some easier ones early in the week.

  23. Another good workout from Tracy which really stretched our little grey cells. We came in at 19 minutes so well over our target but we enjoyed the challenge.

    FOI: Forfar (wasn’t this the subject of a Two Ronnies’ sketch? Stranraer 3 Forfar so far 2. Or something like that – ‘‘twas a long time ago)
    LOI: arraign
    COD: in fine form

    Thanks to Rotter for the blog

  24. Only two of the across clues went in on my first pass but thankfully the downs started to drop in much more easily and I eventually finished in just over 16 minutes.
    I had to biff ILLEGAL as I didn’t know the cricket term and I didn’t think of the ‘harbour’ meaning of NURSE but it couldn’t really have been anything else.
    PDMs included TENNIS, STALLION and EYEWASH – and my COD is AND SO FORTH for its misdirection.
    Thanks to Tracy for an enjoyable puzzle and to Rotter for the excellent blog.
  25. Found this tricky, the clues often neeing careful unwinding. Did not help by bunging in – 1a in good form, which caused problems for the western side. A good workout, thanks Tracy and for the blog.
  26. Yup, harder than Tuesday! I was making reasonable, if not fast progress, until I got to FORFAR. Wasted a good bit of time trying to dredge up a Scottish town called FORTAY, until the penny finally dropped 🙂 Finally came in in 10:32, which I’d consider slow.

    COD EYEWASH, especially as my initial reaction, as I ran through three-letter trees, was “well, he won’t get yew in there”!

    H

  27. ….but negotiated easily enough.

    FOI AWAY
    LOI ASS (an odd pairing of 5A/D !)
    COD STAFF
    TIME 3:49

  28. Not so much a DNF as a “Never Really Got Started.” Managed less than half in the hour or so. I had available. Even some of those were biffed and I have no idea of the parsing. Thought I must have been on the 15×15 by mistake. Haven’t had time to read the blog or comments yet, but I’m sure that will make all clear…

    I can usually finish, even if I do have to resort to aids. Very tough,

  29. Slow but steady for me. Wasn’t entirely sure about FORFAR but I thought it rang a bell somewhere so I went with it. For some reason I always have trouble with coming up with EYEWASH. Must be the third or fourth time I’ve wrestled with a clue where that’s been the answer. Great word though. Last one in was ROSETTE on 36:49 although I confess I did have an E in 6d. I don’t think I’ve come across ARRAIGN so although I was pretty sure the island was spelt Arran, I was swayed to think it might be ARREN because of the spelling of rein and reign. I think on this occasion I might just ignore the error on the condition I remember for next time. Mum’s the word, okay. Thanks Rotter and Tracy
  30. I am sure there has been at least one 2 word QC clue that wasn’t a dd but I can’t remember what it was. Can anyone jog my memory
    1. I’m sure there must have been some 2-letter clues that weren’t DDs, but looking for a DD is a good place to start. Perhaps ‘invariably’ is putting it a bit strongly in Rotter’s Law, but then there are exceptions to every rule.

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