Times Quick Cryptic No 1762 by Mara

Author   plusjeremyPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

Introduction

6:37. I felt like I moved briskly, but there were several answers I couldn’t get until I had crossing letters, so my suspicion is there are some harder synonyms involved in this puzzle.

As always, I present the solutions very tersely. Solvers who don’t understand particular pieces of wordplay are encouraged to browse the glossary presented after the solutions.

Solutions

Across

1 Short of breath, bird tiring in the end (7)
PUFFING – PUFFIN + G
5 Break / that’s the same! (4)
SNAP – double definition
Lucky guess on my part. Chambers has: “A type of card game in which the first player to shout ‘snap’ on spotting a matching pair of cards wins all the cards on the table”.
7 Bird [in] the pecking order the last, last of all (5)
EGRET – E + G + R + E + T
8 Mix-up [in] letters for settler, say? (7)
ANAGRAM – double definition
The second definition is an example of an anagram: letters → settler.
10 Food and drink! (3)
TEA – double definition, & lit.
Or something like that!
11 Seeing problem certainly in damaged retina (9)
EYESTRAIN – YES in anagram of RETINA
13 Right deal I arranged [for] phone again (6)
REDIAL – R + DEAL I anagrammed
14 Order I’m to send back [for] cereal grass (6)
MILLET – TELL I’M reversed
17 Around cut of lamb ribs, stick crispy skin (9)
CRACKLING – CLING around RACK
19 Virtually broken vehicle (3)
BUS – BUST without the last letter
20 Garment: tailored thing, that is (7)
NIGHTIE – anagram of THING + I.E.
22 Son entering extra code name (5)
MORSE – S in MORE
23 In Marseille, a perfect spring (4)
LEAP – hidden in MARSEILLE A PERFECT
24 Bit of fun following the blue bird (7)
SKYLARK – LARK after SKY

Down

1 Caribbean actor in Peru, improvised (6,5)
PUERTO RICAN – ACTOR IN PERU anagrammed
2 Advance benefiting hospital room (7)
FORWARD – FOR + WARD
3 Not knowing / where torch required? (2,3,4)
IN THE DARK – anagram
4 Cow, for example, / one hurting knee? (6)
GRAZER – double definition
5 Main letter read out (3)
SEA – homophone of C
6 Vessel in China or Taiwan (5)
AORTA – hidden in CHINA OR TAIWAN
9 Little spike, we hear, [for] cut of meat (6,5)
MINUTE STEAK – MINUTE + homophone of STAKE
12 Skinny and without teeth, what’s-his-name? (9)
THINGUMMY – THIN + GUMMY
Didn’t know this one, though probably have seen it before.
15 Country lake on European peninsula (7)
LIBERIA – L + IBERIA
16 Those with stripes, good in lines (6)
TIGERS – G in TIERS
18 View / what could be acute? (5)
ANGLE – double definition
An acute angle is one strictly between 0º and 90º.
21 Best / spinner (3)
TOP – double definition

Glossary

Indicators

around = containment (also: C, CA)
arranged = anagram
entering = containment
following = next to (also: F)
for = linking word
improvised = anagram
in = containment, linking word, hidden answer
in the end = last letter
last of all = last letters of a group of words
on = next to
read out = homophone
send back = reversal
virtually = all but last letter
we hear = homophone

Little bits

certainly = YES
good = G
lake = L
right = R
son = S
that is = IE

the blue = SKY

65 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 1762 by Mara”

  1. SNAP took me a moment, but only a moment since I’ve seen it here: one says “Snap!” to mean “I did/thought the same!” Didn’t know it was a card game, so I never knew why one said it. Biffed CRACKLING. 5:32.
  2. Two whole minutes on TIGERS! Gave up on animals when zebras wouldn’t fit and moved on trying to get G for good in everything that might mean lines RY, LL, script and then it just dropped into my brain. Only five acrosses on first pass, mostly in the bottom but the downs were much friendlier and once I gave up on Costa Rican and remembered where PUERTO RICANs came from the grid filled up fast – until TIGERS. Would never have been able to name MILLET as a cereal grass but it was clued generously and didn’t appreciate all that was going on with ANAGRAM where the surface reading was the least misdirecting ever. I’ve played a lot of SNAP – both my Dad and daughters cheat, my Dad by shouting snap’ with confidence and doing a quick pick up while the girls are purists, favouring the looking at the card before playing it technique. All green in 12. Good one.

    EDIT: Thanks for the blog, Jeremy. I felt nostalgic at the reference to usual terseness as I fondly remember the blow by blow blogs of old.

    Edited at 2020-12-09 07:29 am (UTC)

  4. This seemed easier today, but got stuck in NE corner after 13 minutes with the clues for SNAP and SEA. So easy when you read the blog.17.33 today.
  5. Whizzed through most of this and then made hard work of finishing it off, with the SW proving annoyingly stubborn. I got 20a all back to front and tried to use ‘garment’ as the anagram fodder, TIGERS was the obvious answer but it took a while to work out the parsing and I needed all the checkers for LOI ANGLE.
    Despite that I thoroughly enjoyed this one with the highlights being SKYLARK and THINGUMMY. Finished in 9.21.
    Thanks to Jeremy
  6. I don’t understand how ‘main’ is synonymous with ‘sea’, could someone please explain 5D in a little more detail for me?
    1. It’s quite a well known synonym in crosswordland, even if not used very much outside it. The only remaining use in real life is “the Spanish Main”, which is a phrase redolent of galleons and pirates in the 17th and 18th century, and refers to the Caribbean and North Atlantic, particularly the route from Spanish America back to Spain itself. But as for its etymology, different sources give different answers, with the most common being that it is the sea route “from the Spanish mainland”, the Spanish main land being Central and South America (much bigger than Spain itself and so the “main land” of the Spanish king).

      Cedric

      Edited at 2020-12-09 08:41 am (UTC)

  7. Oh dear. Didn’t think twice about SEAM for 5ac. The rest was fine. A bit sticky in places – EGRET and MINUTE STEAK – so I’m surprised i wasn’t quicker than my 18:04. kap
  8. I whipped through most of this and thought I was back in my old groove but my hopes were cruelly shattered by spending ages on EYESTRAIN, ANAGRAM, and GRAZER (and I biffed CRACKLING – I needed Jeremy to untangle the clever construction). I finished with 19.48 on the clock. Disappointment offset by chuckles at SKYLARK and COD THINGUMMY. Not an easy QC for most solvers, I’ll wager, but thanks to Mara and Jeremy. John M.

    Edited at 2020-12-09 08:59 am (UTC)

  9. Thank you – I suspected it was one of the many semi-obscure pairings that occur almost exclusively in crossword clues! I’ll add it to the list…
    1. And then there is the azure Main in Rule Britannia

      When Britain first, at Heaven’s command,
      Arose from out the azure main,
      This was the charter…

      Edited at 2020-12-09 10:31 am (UTC)

  10. … as I entered SEAM for 5A not Snap. Thinking was that this was an anagram of Same, with break both the definition (a seam can be a break?) and the anagram indicator (doing double duty?) Should have spotted it was a bit of a stretch on both counts but when it fitted with 6D Aorta my confidence was boosted and the error stayed in. Oh well.

    Question for more experienced solvers: the use of “virtually” to indicate “almost all of” or “all but the last letter of” in 19A Bus: is this a common convention? Not sure I have met it before.

    Also took a while to work out that the “we hear” in 9D referred just to the spike, not the word little as well – was all set to wonder if Mara thought minute steak was not a minnit steak but a my-newt one.

    All in all a nice puzzle, and a second day in a row where I felt the difficulty rating was more in line with expectations/hopes! 12 minutes to complete, with as I say the one error. Liked the misdirection in 17A crackling: crackling resonates with roast pork for me, not roast lamb!

    Many thanks to Mara for the work-out and Jeremy for the blog.
    Cedric

    Edited at 2020-12-09 08:54 am (UTC)

    1. I’m not sure how regularly we see ‘virtually’ as an end deletion indicator but in the sense of ‘almost’ or ‘nearly’ it seems reasonably sound.

      It’s funny you should mention MINUTE STEAK as I wondered myself about ‘my-newt’ rather than ‘minnit’ and very nearly mentioned it in my earlier comment as a learning point for others. As a seasoned solver (and blogger) it really shouldn’t have delayed me as it’s a basic rule of solving to be prepared to ‘lift and separate’ words in a clue (e.g. little spike).

      So, ‘little’ = MINUTE, then quite separately ‘spike’ = ‘stake’ which sounds like [we hear] STEAK.

      Just to keep solvers on their toes there could be occasions when an indicator refers to more than one word, but that wasn’t the case today. There’s no hard and fast rule so you have to use your own judgement.

  11. Several ridiculously difficult clues.
    7 Across – how do you get the answer
    EGRET from :
    Bird in the pecking order the last, last of all ?

    Makes no sense to me.

    1. Last of all tells you to take the final letter of the preceding words to give a bird.
      ThE
      PeckinG
      OrdeR
      ThE
      LasT

      First of all / firstly quite common too – you’ll meet them again and again!

    2. A careful reading of Jeremy’s blog glossary would reveal that ‘last of all’ is an instruction to take the last letters from a group of words, in this case thE peckinG ordeR thE lasT, giving EGRET, which is a bird, and therefore fits the definition, which has been helpfully underlined in the main part of Jeremy’s blog. Maybe we need a blog for how to read the blog?
      1. Oh bottoms! Although I managed to answer that clue because the word came to me, I actually missed that last letter indicator!
  12. Wed, 9 Dec 20
    FOI: 3d IN THE DARK
    LOI: 16d TIGERS

    30 Minute Mark: 12 answered
    60 Minute Mark: 25 answered
    Time before use of aids: 42 minutes.

    Total Answered: 25 of 26

    So close I could cry! I did really well yesterday, with only two I couldn’t answer before my 60-minute allowance. Today I had only one clue remaining. It was ironic that the clue consisted of the words “Seeing problem”, when I just couldn’t see it, despite having so many letters in there. EYESTRAIN. I could kick myself!

    I did not get off to quite a speedy start as I did yesterday, but not far off it. Again, I find myself reading less of the surface meaning, and more into the cryptic realm.

    Maybe tomorrow will be the day!

    Edited at 2020-12-09 10:03 am (UTC)

    1. Well done PW, you’ll soon complete one and take your rightful place as a QC solver. It may be tomorrow – when I am blogging, so good luck in the morning.
    3. I think you’ll begin to recognise which setters produce puzzles where you can shine and which where you will be teased until midnight. For me, Mara is one of the harder setters. Evidently not everyone agrees, but it is generally true for me. So bide your time and just enjoy the ride.
  14. I thoroughly enjoyed this one today. Not too easy and very satisfying.

    It’s a bonus to have 1a as COD, gives a kick start to a pleasant ad entertaining half hour, thank you very much, Mara and Jeremy.

    Diana.

  15. 12 minutes for me, but with the same error as Cedric for 5a, SEAM instead of SNAP. I also played with the idea of STAY for the same clue, a stay at a hotel being a break, and stay / remain / the same. A poor clue IMHO with at least 3 plausible answers, although I agree in retrospect that SNAP is the best fit of those I have considered so far.
  16. but then, ironically, stuck on Anagram, LOI. Had to say the checkers out loud until the penny dropped.

    Had to think about how to spell Thingummy, but the clue was clear.

    Egret is popular in crosswords so I wrote it in without thinking. That happens fairly often.

    Thanks for the helpful blog. FOsI Snap, Sea, Aorta.

  18. SEAGULL held me up briefly at 24a until THINGUMMY put me right, but my main holdup was in the NE with ANAGRAM and LOI GRAZER holding me up for a couple of minutes. 11:57. Thanks Mara and Jeremy.
  19. Completed in 20 mins, but may have been quicker if I hadn’t gone clockwise and got bogged down on a few clues in the SE corner.

    Overall, I enjoyed this. Resisted the temptation to biff “Gasping” for 1ac, but luckily saw 5ac “Snap” straight away (wish I could say the same for 10ac “Tea”). Chuckled at the potential for “arse” in 23ac and recalled childhood days of scraping knees in the playground and subsequent scabs for 4dn.

    I always equate 12dn with “thingummyjig” – never used it on its own – but I’ll bet it’s used in all kinds of different ways.

    FOI – 5ac “Snap”
    LOI – 14ac “Millet”
    COD – 12dn “Thingummy” (although I did like 8ac as well)

    Thanks as usual.

    1. I always thought it was thingumajig for an object and thingumabob for a person, but Chambers has them all meaning the same thing, for a person.
  20. Pink square for THINGAMMY as I would have spelt it. Gammy mouth, is an expression that’s used in my neck of the woods for someone with bad teeth.
  21. A very enjoyable work out, with a good mix of easy ones and head scratchers. Was anyone else tempted to biff LEBANON at 15dn once the L and B emerged?

    FOI PUFFING, LOI EYESTRAIN, COD SNAP, time 2K for a Decent Day.

    Thanks Mara and Jeremy.

    Templar

    1. I went through a whole atlas of countries for this one – including Siberia which, of course, isn’t one.
  22. Was zooming alone nicely, just three left with 6 minutes on the clock. Then…

    8a ANAGRAM eventually went in unparsed (thinking the definition was “mix-up in letters” – well played Mara)

    1d PUERTO RICAN needed me to try all the vowels from the anagrind after the P before the penny dropped that Carribbean was a noun not an adjective, and

    11a gave me EYESTRAIN for several minutes staring at E___STRAIN before YES arrived with a groan.

    FOI: 5a SNAP
    LOI: 11a EYESTRAIN
    COD: 8a ANAGRAM

    12:03 for 2.2K and a Less Good Day

    But a very enjoyable puzzle so thanks to Mara and Jeremy.

  23. A good quickish (for me) solve – 10 min or so – with no unfamiliar words. I need these confidence builders!
  24. Cannot explain why I posted a DNF after not being able to see FORWARD. Went through ER, OR, ICU, TRIAGE etc. Sigh. Nuff said..
  25. This was a steady solve, starting in the NE with Snap, Sea and Aorta as write-ins, but somewhat slower thereafter. Hopes of a sub-20 were dashed by Puerto Rican, where I needed most of the crossers, and my last pair Grazer/Anagram. I had thought that 4d would end -eg and 8ac was a bit too subtle for me, so I ended up just north of 25 mins. CoD to 17ac, Crackling, arrived at via a Crown diversion. Invariant
  26. I did not finish but that is due to my inexperience. I thought the puzzle a good level. Even after the explanation I cannot understand how the clue gave an answer crackling. Also sea was a little obscure from main.
    1. Which bit of the CRACKLING clue is puzzling you? RACK is a cut of lamb, yes? Surround this (around) with CLING (stick) and, ta-da! Keep at it and these things jump out at you and the answer goes straight in.

      H

    2. Merriam-Webster on “crackling”: the crisp residue left after the rendering of lard from fat or the frying or roasting of the skin (as of pork) —usually used in plural
  27. 5:40. Not that much to say about this one. Liked ANAGRAM. I’m sure snap was the first card game I learnt to play, the strategy, the tactics, makes bridge look a doddle 🙂

    H

  28. On the 7.15 this morning, my best time for a while.

    FOI 5dn SEA

    COD 1dn PUERTO RICAN – lovely island in the Spanish Main

    WOD 12dn THINGUMMY – Bob is his real name; he is also your uncle.

    LOI 4dn GRAZER –

    Edited at 2020-12-09 01:31 pm (UTC)

  29. for ANAGRAM, always, but always, holds me up.

    Still, a reasonable 7:01.

    THanks for parsing of CRACKLING, which I did biff.

  30. Completed in 20 mins but seemed faster. Didn’t stop to parse CRACKLING (thanks Jeremy) but otherwise everything parsed. I was also trying to make an anagram of garment at 20ac and wasted a couple of minutes on it before I realised that there weren’t enough vowels.

    FOI – 13ac REDIAL
    LOI – 8ac ANAGRAM
    COD – 12dn THINGUMMY (liked 8ac too)

  31. ….I have become a Neutrino, as my partner distracted me just as I was finishing the online entry, and I inadvertently submitted without waiting for the clock to run down ! So I didn’t REALLY finish in 2:03, and I apologise to all concerned.

    My real time was mildly affected by trying to insert LIBERIA at 16D instead of 15D. I must also apologise for the ensuing foul and abusive language – good job we’re not on Zoom.

    FOI PUFFING
    LOI GRAZER
    COD ANAGRAM
    TIME 3:38

    1. Phil. You know these things…
      8ac. Would for SETTER be a valid clue? Because QC setters mix up letters. I just couldn’t see the example anagram. Doh. My LOI when I finally twigged Grazer and remembered Sea for Main which must date from Noah. About 35 mins so 10 over target which I’ll take. Johnny
      1. No, it wouldn’t work without the “L” being present, because it would not then be an anagram.
  32. Nice middle of the road puzzle. Like others failed to parse crackling and we were slow in sorting out the stripes at 16d. Stuck on zebras. Following the ageism discussion yesterday we were delighted to read phmfantoms note saying he is 94 and counting. Gives hope for us 10 years on that we will be here and compos mentis!
    1. I don’t mind the chappish vocab as husband was a sportsman. Anyway, I’ve travelled a lot and read a lot. And I do just about remember Clark Gable. However I agree that my highly educated sons would struggle with this QC. ( I hope, too, that I am able to follow the blog aged 94 ! )
      1. Does that make you first among us ancients! The lady who got the first vaccine was well over 90 too! New Years Honours await!?
            1. Sorry, am the same sort of era as the Beatles. I didn’t mean to claim I was 94. Have a long while to go yet, I hope.
              Thanks for kind words.
  33. Still don’t understand the « egret » solution ! Many of the explanations far too brief!
  34. I consider Mara one of my more challenging setters. It seems others here considered this ‘middle of the road’ so maybe it’s that wavelength thing. Anyway, completed in fits and starts between chores and cooking supper so no idea on time. FOI 5a Snap; LOI 4d Grazer which I feel is one of those made-up words, but there; COD 2d Forward – simple but ingenious. Lots of nice constructions here – skylark, tea, morse etc. So another Mara solved (thanks due there) and for the blog too from Jeremy.
  35. Another struggle to see the word beyond the misdirection but the day brought its own challenges that took precedence over the puzzle causing me to attack it at both ends of the day. Couldn’t parse ANAGRAM or SEA despite being fully familiar with Spanish Main, so thank you Jeremy. COD EYESORE and CRACKLING.
  36. Yes, well we are 2 days late. But for the record we took 16 minutes to complete a very enjoyable puzzle – thanks Mara.

    FOI: Puerto Rican
    LOI: anagram
    COD: thingummy

    Thanks Jeremy.

  37. 25 minutes!

    Every now and again a setter gives you that hurrah moment and today was the day. I have never flown through a QC so fast. Loved Puffing and Eyestrain, but COD to Thingummy for actually being a word!

    Thanks Mara for the boost I have sorely needed lately!
    And thanks for the blog Jeremy!

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