Times Quick Cryptic No 1758 by Teazel

Author   rolytolyPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
A couple of tricky bits in this very neatly-worded puzzle from Teazel – at nine minutes it took a minute longer than Tuesday’s done just beforehand. Good, concise clues with smooth surfaces made for a lovely solve, notably in the anagrams at 1d, 6d and 12d. The SE held me up a bit, and I needed to think about 12d and 16d in order to reduce down to one the options for the forgotten 24ac. Good stuff – many thanks to Teazel!

Across
1 Calmer, therefore different (7)
SOOTHER – SO (therefore) OTHER (different)
5 Miserable sounding, what the wind did (4)
BLEW – sounds like BLUE = miserable/down
7 Friend regularly looking embarrassed (3)
RED – f R i E n D “regularly”
8 Records go — in weaving this? (8)
TAPESTRY – TAPES (records) TRY (go/attempt)
10 Body temperature, roughly (5)
TORSO – T(emperature) OR SO (roughly)
11 Fixed small issue finally: healthy again (7)
SECURED – S(mall) E (issuE “finally”) CURED (healthy again)
13 Have a holiday, and leave me alone (2,4)
GO AWAY – double definition
15 Crossing major road, eye problem is a frustration (6)
STYMIE – STYE (eye problem) crosses MI (M1/major road). I didn’t know stymie as a noun, but it predates the verb: originally from golf, where one’s putting angle is obstructed by the opponent’s ball.
17 Company splashing money around, not practising this (7)
ECONOMY – CO(mpany) has an anagram (splashing) of MONEY around. The definition refers back to the first half of the clue.
18 Allow a daughter to join US college (5)
ADMIT – A D(aughter) to join MIT (US college)
20 Fellow goes out with instructions (8)
MANDATES – MAN (fellow) DATES (goes out with)
22 Only half rate this beast (3)
ASS – “Only half” of ASSess (rate)
23 Marathon record broken by Briton at last (4)
LONG – LOG (record) broken by N (britoN “at last”)
24 Disgracefully dismiss money: that is, rupees (7)
CASHIER – CASH (money) I.E. (that is)  R(upees). I’d forgotten the existence of this military term (I’m fairly sure it’s cropped up as a double definition with the more usual sense of cashier), and was surprised this is what it means – I think I’d have said it was something like coerce/press-gang.

Down
1 Start siege, developing plans (10)
STRATEGIES – anagram (developing) of START SEIGE
2 Instruct British to avoid frontier (5)
ORDER -B(ritish) to avoid bORDER (frontier)
3 One cooking in jacket, tricky problem (3,6)
HOT POTATO – double definition
4 Engineers finished meal (6)
REPAST – RE (engineers) PAST (finished)
5 Vehicle endlessly crowded? (3)
BUS – “endlessly” BUSy (crowded)
6 Part of hearing involves a murder (7)
EARDRUM – anagram (involves) of A MURDER.
9 Man with a message tries out short part of speech first (10)
ADVERTISER –  anagram (out) of TRIES ; ADVERb (part of speech) goes first, short = dock the tail.
12 Purging of emotions has racist converted (9)
CATHARSIS – anagram (converted) of HAS RACIST.
14 A noisy short party offering fruit (7)
AVOCADO – A VOCAL (noisy, “short”) DO (party)
16 Spiritual seeker uses my wand no end (6)
MYSTIC – MY STICk (wand, “no end”)
19 One cripple over in US resort (5)
MIAMI – I (one) MAIM (cripple) over = reverse
21 Starts to delve into ground, doing this (3)
DIG – “Starts” to Delve Into Ground

47 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 1758 by Teazel”

  1. Plenty of easier clues, but also ones like CASHIER that had to be worked out carefully (because I didn’t know the intended meaning).
    1. Thanks, well spotted, will correct with pleasure – much easier dealt with than the next one!
  3. I wonder if Kevin will chime in, pointing out that ECONOMY doesn’t mean “not practising this”? Here is that same distinction again: the clue is “not practicing this”, while the answer is ‘this’.
    1. Ah, I was wondering what you meant – I missed the discussion about Wells Fargo when you blogged last week. Interesting, and there’s definitely something of a grey area when it comes to what bits to underline for indirect and back-reference definitions.

      For what it’s worth, I agree with the idea that clarity of explanation trumps (if that’s not a dirty word yet) strict definitional precision. As Eurcon notes below, there are three clues where the strict definition is “this”. The clearest example is 8ac, where it seems especially unsatisfactory to only underline “this”…

      Oh well, so the blogging system ain’t perfect (and mine especially so)!

      1. I think all three of today’s “this” clues could be defined as semi-&lit, meaning the whole clues could be underlined. 21dn certainly is and 8ac is close enough since some tapestries – like the Bayeux, which as fellow QI nerds will know is not actually a tapestry at all, but an embroidery – are considered historical ‘records’. Of course ‘company’ in 17ac isn’t strictly needed for an &lit definition, but I think taking it as an example of a potentially profligate subject makes it fair enough.
  4. I was in a hurry, as I had to catch a train–just did the main cryptic now–and made no notes; I do remember surprise at STYMIE being a noun. CASHIER dates back a while–Othello cashiers Cassio. What Jeremy said about ECONOMY: the answer is ‘this’. 4:47.
  5. 11 minutes. My missed target (10 minutes) was possibly down to my early decision to write down the anagrist for the clue at 1dn because cracking it would give me lots of first letters for Across clues, most importantly to 1ac which I had failed to solve at first glance. I had thought ‘smoother’ as in ‘smoother / calmer sea’ and was somewhat thrown when I found it wouldn’t fit the grid.
  6. I thought this was excellent. Ended up with a pink square for a careless AVOVADO but I’d never have done that on paper so I’ll let me off. Only five on the first pass of acrosses but the downs were more forgiving – except ADVERTISER which hung on until the end dangling just out of reach until the end, just ahead of CASHIER which fitted the cryptic perfectly and rang a vague bell about being ‘cashiered out’ – not that I knew what it meant. Held up in places I expect others sailed threw – ADVERTISER as mentioned – but also EARDRUM, MYSTIC (where I’m sure ‘spiritual’ would have got me there faster than ‘spiritual seeker’) and ASS where I wanted to bung in ‘ant. Passed over TORSO on the first pass but brought a big grin when I came back to it.
  7. I had strategise for developing plans instead of strategies for plans . Took some time to sort it out
  8. This morning I was on the 12.45 slow stopper.

    FOI 13ac GO AWAY

    LOI 20ac MANDATES

    COD 18dn MIAMI

    WOD 12dn CATHARSIS

  9. A good puzzle with enough easy clues to suck in a solver and enough harder clues to test and frustrate. A typical tease from Teazel, I thought. I was on route to an on-target solve but hit bumps with ASS (I wasted time with ape and ant), MYSTIC, CASHIER, and ADVERTISER (LOI).
    In the end, I was just 3 mins over target at 17.58. Thanks to Teazel and Roly. I wonder what/who tomorrow will bring? John M.

    Edited at 2020-12-03 09:47 am (UTC)

  10. The usual enjoyable puzzle from Teazel. The left hand side went in quickly thanks to the helpful STRATEGIES that went straight in. However it took me ages to realise that EARDRUM was an anagram and I spent time thinking that murder was the definition and wondering how that related to EARWORM. They’re annoying but equating them to murder was a bit of a stretch. Misspelling CAHSIER caused me problems with CATHARSIS and I finished in 9.12 with LOI ASS. COD goes to TORSO and WOD to STYMIE.
    Thanks to Roly
  11. FOI: 7a RED
    LOI: 12d CATHARSIS

    30 Minute Mark: 7 answered
    60 Minute Mark: 19 answered

    Total Answered: 19 of 26

    Started off fairly well, but did not, overall, do as well as I had earlier this week.

    My LOI, CATHARSIS, I was not too familiar with. I guessed it was an anagram of HAS RASCIST, and so I got my Scrabble tiles out. I had the 5th and 7th letters already (A_S) present, and so moved my remining Scrabble tiles around these. After a couple of minutes, the word CATHARSIS popped up in my mind. I had heard of the word but did not know what it meant. I check in the dictionary and on reading the definition I realised this was the word I was looking for.

    I did guess 19d if I am honest and was only able to reverse engineer it once I came here.

    I am annoyed that I did not spot the anagram indicator in 6d.

    I found this one to be enjoyable again. More so, because I am starting to get the hang of recognising the indicators, and I am learning to avoid surface readings of clues.

    1. Very good to see your comments. We usually manage to finish now but never very quickly.
  12. … as Teazel has fully removed my minor frustrations from yesterday. Nothing unfair, and quite enough to get one’s teeth into – and at 13 minutes, right on my sweet spot.

    I initially read “Calmer” in 1A as “more calm” not “one who calms” and was looking for an adjective not a noun, and of course the well-signposted -er at the end of the word merely reinforced Teazel’s misdirection.

    Missed the issue of the “this” definitions completely while doing the puzzle, but reading the comments here and especially eurcon’s enumeration of three of them, it does seem a slight weakness in an otherwise very enjoyable puzzle.

    Many thanks to Roly for the blog
    Cedric

  13. Ha – last time Teazel’s use of “wide road” for MI pushed me miles into the red zone so as soon as I saw “major road” in 15ac STYMIE flew in! Take that, setter!

    Great fun puzzle which felt tougher than my 9:54. I thought that ASS, the ADVER part of ADVERTISER and R for “rupees” were particularly elliptical.

    FOI BLEW (at the risk of igniting Jeremy, did anyone else hesitate between that and “blue”? If you ignore the comma, as we are taught to do, then the homophone indicator is central and thus rather ambiguous – “Miserable sounding what the wind did”); LOI ADVERTISER; COD TAPESTRY; time 2.1K but it was sub-10 and I’m still calling this a Good Day so nerr.

    Many thanks to Teazel and roly.

    Templar

    Edited at 2020-12-03 10:14 am (UTC)

  14. Knotty fun. Like jackkt, my first thought for 1 across was “smoother ” and I was thrown a moment by having too many letters. I didn’t see, until I read the blog, that 17, ECONOMY, was an anagram – duh! – but I didn’t wrestle with it because I just read it as a slightly boring whole clue – ‘companies who splash money around aren’t practising proper economy (this) ‘. This is yet another lucky instance where I’m grateful for my being a bit thick. I liked MYSTIC but like others here, “seeker ” confused me. I always like clues where the word class or grammatical group ends up being different to my first assumption eg the apparent adjective “calmer ” in 1 across which turns out to be a noun and what appears to be a phrasal verb “wound up” in 19 down, is actually just “wound” in reverse. BTW, rolytoly, in your excellent blog, you cite the verb in this clue as being “cripple”, not “wound”. I certainly needed your help today to parse EARDRUM, 6 down. I was confused because EAR is in “hearing” and DRUM is in “murder” so I thought I was missing some coded instruction to take part of each word. Uh, no….
    All in all, this was good fun. It took me 20 minutes with MANDATES, 20 across, my last one in where I struggled fruitlessly to put CH in for “companion”. Thanks, rolytoly, and thanks, too, to Teazel.
    1. Gosh good spot Louisa – roly has 19dn as “One cripple over in US resort”, but you and I are obviously looking at something different, which is “One wound up in US resort”. I wonder if there’s a difference between the print and online clues? Given that “cripple” as a noun is not well-regarded these days (sorry Horryd), maybe there was an editorial change?
        1. They both work but I think “wound up” is somewhat harder because it’s an expression in itself and so more misleading. It confused me anyway and I biffed miami.

          /c

          1. Cheers Captain Obvious. The issue is – how come roly seems to have been looking at a different clue?
      3. Yes well spotted Louisa, and well deduced templar – a last-minute editorial change must indeed have been what happened. It happens occasionally – for the better this time, I’d say. I solved mine on the Times website rather than the Crossword Club, but I see it’s changed to the new clue now.
  15. I solve on the newspaper website and it has been very jumpy the last couple of days. You think you’ve typed something and the cursor has apparently gone mad. It seems I mistyped EARDRUM today which caused me a big delay.
    I could not parse MIAMI -the clue I read online was: “One wound up in US resort”. I get that now; interesting alternative clue above.
    This took me 16:04 after correcting error. LOI was ADVERTISER. COD to HOT POTATO.
    David
  16. 16:45. I could have been quicker, but wouldn’t have enjoyed it as much. That’s what I tell myself. I am sometimes surprised by the words that cause problems for you guys. CASHIER – surely a word that everyone knows? I guess we all know different things. I had to get EARDRUM before writing in BLEW. COD to TORSO. kap
    1. Yes, I knew the military meaning of Cashier too. e.g. Drefus was cashiered. I suppose it is not much used these days but that applies to many words in Crosswordland.
  17. My FOI was ORDER. Took a moment or 2 to realise 6d was an anagram. Then a cruise to LOI, CATHARSIS, which I needed all the crossers for. 7:06. Thanks Teasel and Roly.
  19. I too noticed the that I had ‘wound’ in 19D instead of ‘cripple’. I wrote in Miami without parsing, and I think I would have anyway whichever word was used! An enjoyable Teazel challege today – thank-you.
  20. More on the wavelength today than I was yesterday. No accurate time due to multiple interruptions but somewhere around the 12-13 minute mark. Slowed by not realising for a while that 6dn was an anagram. Biffed 22ac and 19dn, my last 2.

    FOI – 5ac BLEW
    LOI – 19dn MIAMI
    COD – 10ac TORSO with other contenders being 18ac and 12dn

    Thanks to Teazel for a fine puzzle and to Rolytoly for the blog.

  21. A tad over 6 minutes, with many seconds wasted trying to type the letters of SOOTHER in the correct order! I need a plug-in proper keyboard for my iPad 🙂 Or some speech recognition software, but I guess we know what would happen there …

    COD TORSO

    H

  22. After 30 mins I only had 4dn to get, but it just wouldn’t come and I’ll admit it probably never would. Just one of those words I should know but don’t, so a dnf for me.

    The rest I enjoyed quite a lot, in particular 1ac “Soother”, 12dn “Catharsis” and 9dn “Advertiser”. I vaguely remember 24ac “Cashier” as one of those military terms that appear every now and then, but the word play was easy enough to get.

    FOI – 7ac “Red”
    LOI – dnf
    COD – 8ac “Tapestry” – took a few looks until the penny dropped.

    Thanks as usual.

    Edited at 2020-12-03 12:16 pm (UTC)

  23. After yesterday’s DNF it is good to complete a QC by Teazel under target. My FOI was BLEW, with 1a being a late solve. I solved the grid in roughly a clockwise direction from the NE corner although ADVERTISER held out to the end with my LOI being ASS (thought of ape but couldn’t parse it). Only 1 biff today with MIAMI. Fortunately I remembered CASHIER from a previous cryptic. COD to Torso. 7:53 Thanks Roly.

    Edited at 2020-12-03 12:32 pm (UTC)

  24. Much more approachable than yesterdays. Steadily worked through and gradually everything fell into place. LOI CASHIER.
  25. 21:13 so just a little off the target. But with a successful solve of the 15×15 today, I’m happy with that.

    Records=TAPES, that is pretty old-fashioned these days, although in the TV world they still say “run the tape”, even though its all digital.

    Also put BLUE in at 5A (I figure these homonym clues are just 50/50). Luckily EARDRUM popped in next so was easy to correct.

    WOD CATHARSIS. I’m reading a book about stories & myths at the moment and this concept features a lot.

    COD HOT POTATO as I was misdirected by “cooking” into hunting down an anagram, of “ONE JACKET”

    1. Congrats on the 15×15, that was not easy today >100 on the snitch. Yesterday much easier.
  26. 6:09 for this Teazel puzzle.

    Lots of nice, economical clues, SOOTHER, TAPESTRY and REPAST being good examples.

    My LOI was MIAMI, which I biffed, reading “wound” as rhyming with “sound” in my head, which maid MAIM make no sense, but it couldn’t be anything else I thought. Face palm followed post submission!

  27. Torso made me smile. Liked Order, Mandates, Go Away, Mystic (LOI), Hot Potato

    Slow on SE as I put RAT instead of Ass, which made MIAMI difficult. Also slow on ADMIT because failed to remember MIT. I Admit I looked up CATHARSIS.

    Biffed Tapestry. Struggled with Advertiser.
    FOIs short ones and REPAST, AVOCADO

    Thanks for helpful blog.

  28. After yesterdays most enjoyable set of teasers, this was not so much fun for me. Despite being more straightforward in many respects I only had 2a’s and a few D’s after my first pass. A DNF as I uncertainly fouled up 9d which stymied me on 22a. FOI 7a; LOI correctly 23; COD an amusing 10a. Happily, our Blogger showed me the error of my ways. A leisurely attempt as it has been a bread baking day and although this interrupted the solve I had the time available. Probably an hour overall… I hope that encourages some others!
  29. I did this in the newspaper – the clue for 19 across was ‘One wound up in US resort’ , had to guess Miami but it made no sense. Now I see why!
  30. ….and a relief after yesterday’s nonsense.

    FOI BLEW
    LOI AVOCADO
    COD TORSO
    TIME 3:45

  31. I found this very tough and had to resort to carefully looking up in the blog which part was the definition for 1A, 8A and 22A, and even then I couldn’t get 19D. Unlike a lot of others it seems, I didn’t see Miami at all, and still don’t think it works. Miami is a city, not a holiday resort!

    Thanks for the much needed blog roly, wouldn’t have got there without it! Next time Teazel I shall hopefully do better!

  33. We enjoyed this, shame we didn’t have 12 minutes available on Thursday to do it then (😳). Things will calm down soon….

    FOI: red
    LOI: long
    COD: mandates

    Thanks Teazel and Rolytoly.

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