Times Quick Cryptic No 1789 by Izetti

Author   JohninterredPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

Once again I have the pleasure of blogging a Friday QC from Izetti. A relatively gentle crossword today with plenty of starter clues and nothing too tricky, I think – it took me just a few seconds under my target time of 5 minutes. My FOI was 1A and LOI 23A. We get a good smattering of references today to the NATO phonetic alphabet, a favourite of setters for use in wordplay. We are also treated to the usual Izetti smooth surfaces and wordplay – 14A was my COD. Thanks Izetti! How did everyone else get on?

[Update: I see from the comments so far that I have underestimated the difficulty of this with there being a few things I knew from experience that may not be familiar to many. Don’t worry if you found it tricky – you are in good company!].

Fortnightly Weekend Quick Cryptic. This time it is my turn to provide the extra weekend entertainment. You can find the latest crossword, which again has a bit of a seasonal theme, 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 Goods initially inferior — look angry (6)
GLOWER – Goods [initially]  LOWER (inferior). A nice friendly one to start and my First One In.
5 King, say, starts to exhibit neurotic tendencies? I may act for him (6)
REGENT – R (Rex; King) E.G. (say; for example) and intial letters of [starts to] Exhibit Neurotic Tendencies. That made me think of the 25th amendment…. I’d better say no more.
8 Like a table in the chemistry lab? (8)
PERIODIC – Cryptic Definition. Many a chemistry lab has the Periodic Table displayed on the wall.

Image from Sandbh, via Wikimedia Commons
9 Male getting personal is cut down (4)
MOWN – M (male) OWN (personal).
10 Attempt to get a small whisky? (4)
SHOT – Double definition.
11 Daughter feeling a loss of status (8)
DEMOTION – D (daughter) EMOTION (feeling).
12 Wife leans over in car (6)
WHEELS – W (wife) HEELS (leans over).
14 Man maybe is joined by boy around November (6)
ISLAND – IS and LAD (boy) [around] N (November in the NATO phonetic alphabet). Man = island, as in Isle of Man, comes up quite frequently
16 Barely adequate sailor in lapses at sea (8)
PASSABLE – AB (Able Bodied seaman; sailor) [in] (lapses)* [at sea].
18 Bill, the fellow being a pain (4)
ACHE – AC (account; bill) HE (the fellow).
20 Flimsy metal cladding for hotel (4)
THIN – TIN (metal) outside [cladding for] H (hotel in the NATO phonetic alphabet).
21 Relative across the Atlantic (5,3)
UNCLE SAM – Cryptic Definition. Name for the USA. “The origin of the term Uncle Sam, though disputed, is usually associated with a businessman from Troy, New York, Samuel Wilson, known affectionately as “Uncle Sam” Wilson. The barrels of beef that he supplied the army during the War of 1812 were stamped “U.S.” to indicate government property. That identification is said to have led to the widespread use of the nickname Uncle Sam for the United States.”
23 Ragged female begged to be spared penny (6)
FRAYED – F (female) pRAYED (begged) without the P (penny) [to be spared]
24 Pose to be hugged by one at the scene (2-4)
ON-SITE – SIT (pose) inside [to be hugged by] ONE.
Down
2 Parasite finds shelter on top of church (5)
LEECH – LEE (shelter) [on top of] (this is a down clue) CH (church).
3 American artist’s short pipe (7)
WHISTLE – WHISTLEr (American artist) without the last letter [short]. “James Whistler, July 11, 1834 – July 17, 1903 was an American artist active during the American Gilded Age and based primarily in the United Kingdom.”
4 Cruel king — he dismissed staff (3)
ROD – HeROD (cruel king) without the HE [he dismissed].
5 Join again and be nicer, prepared to accept revolutionary MO (9)
RECOMBINE – (be nicer)* [prepared] outside [to accept] MO [revolutionary] -> OM.
6 Range offered by school and university over time (5)
GAMUT – GAM (school of whales) U (university) [over] T (time). GAM for school is one to remember as it comes up quite often.
7 Scientist drinking whiskey in Harlow? (3,4)
NEW TOWN – NEWTON (Sir Isaac; scientist) outside [drinking] W (whiskey – our 3rd NATO phonetic alphabet reference). As described here, Harlow celebrated its 70th anniversary as a New Town in 2017.
11 Working in office of the French king, jump to it! (9)
DESKBOUND – DES (of the, in french) K (king) BOUND (jump).
13 Woman showing passion — the fellow runs! (7)
HEATHER – HEAT (passion) HE (the fellow (again)) R (runs).
15 Bosses as dodgy dealers (7)
LEADERS – (dealers)* [dodgy].
17 Gritty characters in boats and yachts (5)
SANDY – Hidden in [characters in] boatS AND Yachts.
19 Card offering sympathy? (5)
HEART – Double definition.
22 That’s surprising bird sound (3)
COO – Double definition.

61 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 1789 by Izetti”

        1. Aha. I see I missed reading the blog for Wednesday’s. As I solve on paper I had no idea the online version had the wrong answer.

          Edited at 2021-01-15 09:05 am (UTC)

    3. I was going to answer saying “No, it is MOWN”, but then I realised that you were referring to Joker’s little mishap the other day. (I think) >.
  2. 8.30

    Thought this was a bit trickier than normal. Gam familiar to experienced main fare solvers maybe but not a gimme for the quickie methinks?

    Great puzzle of course. Thanks Izetti and Johninterred

  4. Got my LEE’s confused today and having had more meadows than shelters lately I wrote in ‘leach’ for LEECH and so mucked up PERIODIC to leave me with two pink squares – probably a fitting end to a crosswording week I’ve made heavy weather of. Only four on the first pass – which is better than recent days but still left a lot to do. I had my abilities tested in a few places: HEATHER, particularly ‘heat’ for passion, took a while to emerge, as did WHEELS, without the checker from HEATHER I don’t think I would ever have got to ‘heels’ from ‘leans over’ and I also lacked the GK to get WHISTLE at first but once the grid filled in it turned out I had heard of him but then still needed to engage the brain to get ‘whistle’ from ‘pipe’ – I’d been smoking or ducting until then.

    Bunged in GAMUT with no idea how the school bit worked – actually genuinely quite thrilled to learn a new collective noun – thanks John (and Izetti) and missed what ‘Man’ was doing so had a tremendous PDM as I put the bits of the clue together for ISLAND – also liked DESKBOUND with the well hidden instruction in ‘and jump to it’.

    Great stuff!

    Edited at 2021-01-15 06:57 am (UTC)

  5. 8 minutes. An easier puzzle than perhaps we are accustomed to from Izetti. There are still some clues that may give newer solvers pause for thought, but hopefully these will prove useful as they seek to learn more about the mysteries of cryptic crossword solving. I look forward to reading their contributions as they arrive throughout the day, but those who don’t want to read them are not obliged to.

    All constructive comments about puzzles are welcome here including from anon posters (many of our regulars, including myself, started out as anons), but it would be appreciated if those without a user id would add a name or pseudonym to their posts so that we can get to know them.

    Edited at 2021-01-15 07:44 am (UTC)

    1. Jackkt, I’m trying to get a user ID but the system won’t validate my email address, and posting Help requests hasn’t yet solved the problem. How can I find out how to enter solutions online and earn my first pink squares? Is there a Help file available about how all this works? Anon-for-now
      1. Welcome, Anon-for-now. You mention pink squares which are a feature of solving puzzles on-line at The Times site, whereas an id for posting here is a Live Journal issue. Perhaps you are having problems with both? If you would clarify the situation I will try to help you. I would add that I am not an expert on solving on-line as I prefer paper, so others may need to assist you with that.
        1. Reckon you have to be subscriber to The Times to solve on line (pay per month). Am sure an internet search would tell you how. You look at the on-line Times each day and scroll across the top until you get to Puzzles.
          I have chosen a sub that includes the print version, as I said.
      2. To sign up for LiveJournal go to this link choose a username and fill in your details. You don’t actually have to post anything on your blog. If you log in you can post comments here and they will be tagged with your username.
  6. FOI GLOWER and LOI FRAYED. No particular holdups. Liked DESKBOUND which appeared as I assembled it from the instructions. GAM familiar from doing 15×15 puzzles. 7:53. Thanks Izetti and John.
  7. I found this quite tough in places and never did parse GAMUT- I’ve probably seen the GAM/SCHOOL thing before, it’s not yet lodged in the memory banks. There were no major hold ups, just a number of clues that needed some thought before untangling i.e PASSABLE, DESKBOUND and RECOMBINE. Finished in 13.24 with LOI WHISTLE with my favourite being REGENT.
    Thanks to John for the blog and in advance for the weekend QC and to Izetti for the enjoyable workout.
  8. Well, I found this hard today. Throwing in the towel with a few missing in the SW corner. I had MEDIOCRE biffed for PASSBALE, thinking MED=sea and rest of the clue must be there somewhere.

    DESKBOUND was well out of reach, DES=”Of the” is pretty obscure, I was sticking with LE (“The french”), ON (“working”) and was sure “jump to it” was the definition.

    GAM for whales, not “pod”? I hope its not one of those bogus collective nouns which are never actually used by naturalists like “Parliament of owls”.

    COD: HEROD, needed both checkers but made me smile when I saw it.

    1. Why bogus Master Merlin!? Collective nouns are delightfully invented by poets and writers over many years. They are to be cherished. Lewis Carroll, Gyles Brandreth, Stephen Fry et al, are our National Treasures.

      A collective noun for Merlins, is ‘an illusion’.

      Edited at 2021-01-15 09:04 am (UTC)

    2. “Of the French” (or similar) for DES is not obscure in the slightest. A quick Google search of this site shows it was used in #1264 by Felix, #1034 by Wurm, #687 by Marty, and I’m sure many others. It’s also quite commonplace in the main and other publications.

      –AntsInPants

    3. Agree with you about the bogus collective nouns Merlin. As a biologist myself (well, a biology teacher) I have always been a bit irritated by collective nouns which seem entirely arbitrary and often for animals which don’t naturally group together anyway. I suppose it’s okay for poets but some people seem to think they are scientific words.
  9. FOI 2dn LEECH

    LOI 11dn DESKBOUND

    COD 12ac WHEELS

    WOD GAMUT – this is the list of the known collective nouns for whales – there may be others:-

    A gam of whales
    A grind of bottle nosed whales
    A herd of whales
    A mob of whales
    A pod of whales
    A run of whales
    A school of whales
    A troup of whales
    A float of whales
    A plump of whales

    That’s whole gamut – as far as I know!​

    Edited at 2021-01-15 02:40 pm (UTC)

  10. Very enjoyable. Crept in under 50 minutes with several aha’s as the penny dropped but no stoppers. Had forgotten about gam and had to look twice to spot SANDY. No problem with PERIODIC having learnt the first 53 by heart some time ago, why I can’t remember.
    COD Uncle Sam. Top half was easier than bottom. Thanks John and Izetti
  11. FOI 1A: GLOWERS
    LOI 6D: GAMUT (NHO of GAM)

    Slight delay (IN-SITU corrected to ON-SITE, and WHEELS held me up) but otherwise gentle.

    Thank you, johninterred and Izetti

  12. Tough again for me at 19 minutes, with GAM either misremembered or NHO. LOI turned out to be ROD for the simple reason that I never saw it hiding there lost in that corner. When I put GAMUT in, thinking I had finished, I wondered why my iPad wasn’t giving me a time. I’ve been having some technology issues recently, and thought this was another one. FOI GLOWER, COD PERIODIC, LOI ROD. Thanks both!
  13. I agree with Merlin and disagree profoundly with those who found this ‘easier than usual’. I got nowhere on my first pass until I hit ACHE. I then moved slowly towards the N and W with the NW corner the last to be filled. I have just spent 2 hours totally immersed in detailed and complex email correspondence so my mind is presumably temporarily stuffed.
    Once I got over my initial frustration, I found some very good clues but this will not be a puzzle for the novice, I fear. I confess to taking almost 5 minutes over my 20 min SCC threshold but I got it all right and parsed (apart from biffing GAMUT – what the hell!). I was left with a modest sense of achievement at having successfully negotiated some of Izetti’s more testing clues. Thanks to both. Now for a coffee and the rest of the (increasingly depressing) Times. It will be interesting to see if the more mainstream solvers like me found it as easy as the early posters. John M.
  14. Date: Fri, 15 Jan 21

    FOI: 21a UNCLE SAM
    LOI: 5d RECOMBINE

    Time to Complete: DNF

    Clues Answered without aids: 19

    Clues Answered with Aids (3 lives): 23a, 6d

    Clues Unanswered: 5 (10a, 12a, 3d, 11d, 13d)

    Aids Used: Chambers Crossword Dictionary

    Total Answered: 21/26

    As with yesterday I started off well, completing the SE corner very quickly. After that my answers slowed considerably, but perseverance paid off with some clues that I was tempted to miss.

    I noticed that clues relating to the Isle of Man crop up quite often in cryptic crosswords. I have a friend who lives there, so whenever I see a clue/answer relating to the IoM, I send it to him to see if he can answer it.

    23a FRAYED was one of the two clues I had to use Chambers to answer. However, I did not entirely understand the answer, especially relating to the penny until I came here.

    It took me a long time to get 11a, but when the answer came to me, it was a light bulb moment.

    So this week ends with no completed puzzles for me. I found the puzzles at the start of the week a lot trickier than those toward the end. DNF today, but as with yesterday I did enjoy this one.

    1. I sympathize. A whole week of DNFs for me too. The experienced solvers cope well of course, and this blog is brilliant, but for some us these QCs are just getting harder with time.
  15. My FOI was ROD and LOI LEADERS. Time was 13:08.
    As our blogger says there were some easy clues to get going but quite a few which required some thought and crossword knowledge.
    COD to PERIODIC which tricked me for a while. An excellent puzzle to learn from.
    David
  16. “a bit tricky” camp.

    I had the R and the ENT, and realised it was REGENT, but hadn’t heard of a King Reg, so held off, before the penny finally dropped. D’oh.

    That then gave me GAMUT, though I had NHO GAM. I had an idea that REMIT could be “range”, with MIT being the university, but again, couldn’t make it work well enough, so thankfully hadn’t written it in.

    Anyway, got there in the end.

    8:50.

  17. Too difficult for me. Only had 5 on first go through and then too few cross letters to help with the rest. By my reckoning that’s only 4 QCs this week, but perhaps i’ll try weekend QC mentioned by john above to make up for it. Thanks. Davids
  18. I started off well with this. In fact, I actually thought to myself, “why do I always think of izetti as being difficult” …
    And then I ground to a complete halt in the south west corner.

    WHEELS went in fairly early but I got stuck on PASSABLE, thinking the answer was pitiable (as it were). I took forever to see FRAYED and THIN, too. I never enjoy answers that are girls names and HEATHER was no exception today. No complaints, obvs, it was just me being dozy.

    Never heard of gam in GAMUT, but it couldn’t be anything else. The clue of course had me searching for Eton.

    Thanks, John and thanks izetti.

  19. I’m in the hard camp as well – not because the clues themselves were particularly difficult – but because it was tricky to get a good start on the grid. Lots of the clues could be anything at first read and it felt like there were not many “gimmes” to get you going – but once you did have some they all seemed to slot into place.

    Overall it took me an enjoyable 27 mins.

    Liked 11dn “Deskbound”, 5dn “Recombine” and 7dn “Newtown”. Spent a lot of time trying to fit “Sc” or “Sch” into 6dn until I realised it meant “Gamut” – NHO of that for a “school of whales”.

    FOI – 8ac “Periodic”
    LOI – 13dn “Heather”
    COD – 14ac “Island” – it gets me nearly every time!

    Thanks as usual

  20. So no one else was daft enough to write in UNCLE TOM, thus rendering the SE corner undoable? I sorted it out in the end, but it took my time over 20 mins. Thanks for a good puzzle, Izetti.
  21. .. as I too DK Gam. But it was the obvious answer, and with that one guess I came home in 15 minutes for a most enjoyable puzzle. As Izetti´s nearly always are.

    What a splendid list of collective nouns for a gathering of whales Horryd has given us. Most of the words make sense, but I am interested to see a grind of whales, which sticks out as difficult to explain. There is the modern Icelandic word grindhvalur, which means pilot whale, and some may have heard of the (rather unpleasant) Faroese whaling custom grindadráp, but it does seem rather obscure even for a Times crossword! I shall store it away in case any setter takes this as a challenge and tries to fit it in …

    COD to 14A Island – I always forget that Man can mean the Isle of Man, and I always kick myself when the penny finally (re-) drops.

    Many thanks to John for the blog, and in anticipation of the Saturday Special
    Cedric

    Edited at 2021-01-15 12:30 pm (UTC)

  22. The first time I posted my comment above it got marked as Spam, I suspect because it has a hyperlink in it. Reposting it having deleted the hyperlink seemed to make it fully OK. Are we not allowed to give links in our posts? I seem to recall others doing so in the past – and today our esteemed blogger has three, for example.

    Many thanks
    Cedric

    1. Cedric. You are right. Ordinary users can’t include links in their comments, but bloggers can. It’s a permissions thing. If I see the system has spammed a comment because of it I will “unspam” it.
      1. Thank you John. Not a problem at all and I simply rewrote the post. Good to know for future reference though!

        Cedric

        1. I think all (certainly most) of our bloggers can unspam so you may not have to wait very long. An alternative is change to the link in some way to make it unclickable, but obvious to others what needs to be done to restore it, e.g. write dotcom instead of .com

          Permission to post links is available to trusted contributors at vinyl1’s discretion.

          Edited at 2021-01-15 02:23 pm (UTC)

  23. Several interruptions including dog walk but won through in the end. A lot of lucky guesses but a sense of achievement all the same. ( I only realised belatedly that I had made an error.)

    Harder ones included NEW TOWN until the penny dropped. Ditto ISLAND. Luckily biffing DESKBOUND helped a lot. LOI GAMUT tho couldn’t parse.

    FOsI GLOWER, PERIODIC, UNCLE SAM, WHISTLE

    Too hasty in biffing Rid instead of ROD

    Thanks vm, John and everyone.

    Edited at 2021-01-15 04:07 pm (UTC)

  24. Much relieved to finish all correct in 59 minutes, the last 20 minutes of which being spent on 3d: WHISTLE (NHO the American artist) and 10a: SHOT (a massive alphabet trawl).

    Took a risk on 6d: GAMUT (NHO the collective noun) and 23a: FRAYED (never saw prayed). Also never fully parsed a few other clues (e.g. 11d: DESKBOUND and 14a: ISLAND).

    I think some of the clues required superior levels of general knowledge (e.g. 3d, 7d), rare vocabulary (e.g. 6d) or parsing ability (e.g. 11d) – certainly beyond QC level in my opinion. Even Mrs Random (average time <30 minutes, but 49 minutes today) agrees. And, as she’s always right, the difficulty of today’s puzzle definitely was a little beyond QC level.

    Many thanks to johninterred and Izetti.

    1. If you live anywhere near Hampshire, once the plague is over you and Mrs Random could visit Mottisfont and see some of Whistler’s work.
      1. Thankyou for the tip. We’re in West Sussex, so it would make a nice day out (if I can remember what one of those is). Also, Mrs Random says the gardens look nice, so we will definitely follow your advice.
  25. In no way was this a gentle puzzle. Izetti in my view should not be setting QC as they are rarely solvable by any one other than very experienced puzzlers. I suppose it depends on the purpose of the QC,s if it is aimed to be for those who are newish, Izetti fails miserably.

    I don’t mind tough puzzles, yesterday’s was hard but clued fairly for newbies. Izetti in my opinion is never a fair puzzle for a QC.

    1. Dear anon:

      I agree that this was not “a gentle puzzle” but, as a relative newbie myself (7+ months of QCs), I have found Izetti to be one of my more approachable setters. Hurley, Trelawney and Oink are my favourites, whereas Teazel, Orpheus, Joker and Wurm are my nemeses (am I correct to pluralise nemesis?).

      I wonder if each of us tunes in better to some setters than others, and if the bunch of setters we get on better with is differentfor different solvers.
      I am finding that, by keeping on plugging away, things are improving for me – although it is a slow process.

  26. I did not find this easy at all, but got there with a bit of help after 3 attempts. LOI was WHEELS – the only 6 letter word with a W to fit!
  27. A tricky but thoroughly enjoyable 30mins, with the last 5 of those spent on my final pair, Shot (I had Whit for ages, but hit for try was always a stretch) and CoD Deskbound (wrong end of clue issues). Lots of really good clues, but I can see newbies would find many of today’s difficult/impossible – it’s mostly a question of experience, though of course a bit of luck helps as well. I don’t know why Whistle(r) readily came to mind for 3d, but it certainly helped me avoid a large pipe/duct rabbit hole. Invariant
  28. Well, we struggled with this one. Half of the answers flew into the grid but the remaining clues really challenged us. Took us 27 minutes to complete this clever puzzle. Thanks Izetti.

    FOI: glower
    LOI: recombine
    COD: periodic table

    Thanks to John for the blog and for setting the weekend QC.

  29. I adore Izetti’s crosswords. How many times does one kick oneself for taking so long before the penny drops. Totally fair but much harder imho than Mara’s yesterday which most labelled tricky.
  30. Found this very slow, worked from corner to corner e nding up in sw, where we were stuck for some time. As usual all the clues were fair, and we end up wondering why we were s o slow. Thanks to Izetti for the workout and for the blog.
  31. Definitely on the tricky side, although at 22 mins I had a faster time than yesterday. Took a very long time to see Uncle Sam (no idea why) and also spent some time trying in vain to parse IN SITU at 24ac. NHO gam, so I could not parse 6dn although the answer was clear.

    FOI – 1ac GLOWER
    LOI – 22dn COO
    COD – a number of contenders today but I particularly liked 2dn LEECH

  32. ….provided you were an experienced 15×15 solver (I’m looking at you John !) but it certainly wasn’t designed for those with less experience. Izetti’s clueing is always perfectly fair, and the problems here were caused (slightly obscure terms like GAM excepted) by the GK requirements. Do you know your American artists ? Can you relate to Harlow as a NEW TOWN (I was there in 2019 – soulless and depressing) rather than as a platinum blonde (Jean of that ilk many years ago) ? And 11D is definitely a refugee from 15×15 land.

    If you found this a struggle, take time out to consider how Izetti’s clues work – John’s blog is, as ever, a fine piece of deconstruction !

    FOI GLOWER
    LOI DESKBOUND
    COD ROD (I thought it was brilliantly succinct)
    TIMR 3:57

  33. Like others I found the SW corner a bit if a challenge, particularly Wheels, Heather & Deskbound. I finally got the latter with the across clues but Wheels evaded me. Also had no idea how to parse Gamut so thanks John for the explanation of the rather lovely collective noun. No time for me as I print out and do it on the hoof in between home schooling and other tasks.

  34. Another DNF today by a margin. I reckon I had 30 unsolved clues this week which must be my worst for years. Thanks all. Johnny
  35. A very late post but all week these have ended up being finished before ‘lights out’. However, have followed the blogs throughout. FOI 1a glower. LOI 12a after staring at it for so long I needed a break and watched the snooker. 5 centuries in 5 matches – gripping stuff certainly took my mind off this potential DNF. Then of course one glance said Wheels and I was done! COD 11d deskbound once I accepted des over de. Tough but typically Izetti fare/fair. Biffed 6d gamut (NHO) and 18a ache so thanks for the explanations here! Now looking forward to Saturday’s extra.
    1. Looked to me as if Ronnie lost the mental game. Certainly his slip of the cue cost him dearly. I agree, gripping snooker, some fine long pots and great form from Higgins. Looking forward to the semis.

Comments are closed.