Times Quick Cryptic No 1808 by Alfie

Author   rolytolyPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
A lovely puzzle today from Alfie with lots of inventive clues, pitched a bit towards the harder end: I was 9 minutes yesterday and 11 today, done straight after. So this is Alfie’s 11th puzzle (aka Noel), his previous being in September last year, and they’ve all had a devious alphabetical theme (thanks to jackkt and johninterred for their helpful info in that and earlier puzzles). And so there appears to be today, although I’m not sure I’ve fully worked it out. (See below for what I did manage, if you wish to pause and have a look yourself.) Many thanks to Alfie!

Across
1 Girl discovered in brothel, enamoured (6)
HELENA – “discovered in” brotHEL ENAmoured
4 What church often has to hope (6)
ASPIRE – and a church often has A SPIRE
8 Vehicle from CBI man I rent? (7)
MINICAB – anagram (rent = torn apart) of CBI MAN I
10 Fire close to club lounge (5)
BLAZE – B (“close to” cluB) LAZE (lounge)
11 At first, Sal’s pretty eyelashes cutely flutter (4)
SPEC – “at first” Sal’s Pretty Eyelashes Cutely
12 Hitting Clonmel on vacation before trip (8)
CLOUTING – CL (ClonmeL “on vacation”) OUTING (trip)
14 Midday air aroused farmworker (9)
DAIRYMAID – anagram (aroused) of MIDDAY AIR
18 Bury requirement not to finish off prisoner (8)
INTERNEE – INTER (bury) NEEd (requirement, not finishing off)
20 Different? Spain’s the same on the outside (4)
ELSE – EL (Spain’s “the”) SE (SamE “on the outside”). I suppose as in somewhere else/different.
22 One arrested by the force? (5)
THIEF – &lit (see glossary): I (one) arrested by THE F(orce). The entire clue is both wordplay and a definition.
23 An eye, maybe, for a newspaper story? (7)
FEATURE – double definition, a feature being any part of the face.
24 Eccentric little woman bringing spice (6)
NUTMEG – NUT (eccentric) MEG (little woman – as in short for Margaret)
25 King George I, the day before becoming upset (6)
GRIEVE – GR I (King George I) EVE (the day before)

Down
1 Scotsman possibly leaving note in mess (6)
HAMISH – MI (note – do, re, mi, etc., variously spelt for the setter’s convenience) in HASH (mess)
2 Oil producer’s lies end badly (7)
LINSEED – anagram (badly) of LIES END. For the surface reading, the  ‘s is possessive – the lies of the oil producer; for the cryptic, read it as “oil producer IS (i.e. equals) lies end badly”.
3 Appropriate police station form (4)
NICK – triple definition: steal; copshop; condition.
5 Bushman close to you, moving below us? (8)
SUBHUMAN – anagram (moving) of BUSHMAN and U (“close to” yoU)
6 Arab lipread quip, missing odd bits (5)
IRAQI – L I p R e A d  Q u I p, “missing odd bits”
7 Go when green has changed? Start off yes (6)
ENERGY – anagram (has changed) of GREEN, Y (“start off” Yes)
9 This is certainly cow meat (5-4)
BULLY-BEEF – to BULLY = to cow, BEEF (meat). Strange clue, that I think works best as a cryptic definition, with a pun on “cow” (being both bully and animal). I’m open to a better suggestion. The answer was also news to me, bully beef being another term for corned/boiled/pickled beef.
13 Weapon to reveal with search (3,5)
AIR RIFLE – AIR (reveal) with RIFLE (search). LOI, as I was slow seeing the reveal bit for some reason.
15 Perhaps stop scratching sole due for mending (7)
DELOUSE – anagram (for mending) of SOLE DUE
16 Outfit — number for a future queen (6)
KITTEN – KIT (outfit) TEN (number). A queen being an adult female cat.
17 Go back from park and garden, briefly (6)
RECEDE – REC[reation ground] (park) and EDEn (garden, “briefly”)
19 Idiot handling small, unexpected development (5)
TWIST – TWIT (idiot) handling S(mall)
21 Loud tune is not bad (4)
FAIR – F[orte] (loud) AIR (tune)


Ok, so we have the last and first letters of each row of the across answers in the grid being A-A, B-B, and so on down to G-G in the bottom row… and that’s about it, as far as I can see, apart from a similar double H in Hamish and double I in Iraqi. I look forward to sharper eyes enlightening me further!

84 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 1808 by Alfie”

  1. FOI Helena, LOI clouting, needed all the checkers to see it. Twenty minutes or so for all but the NE corner, where I only had Iraqi, and was otherwise utterly stumped. Put it down for a couple of hours — this weird action seems to allow the brain to work on the clues without my involvement — devious. Went back to the puzzle and had an aha! moment with aspire, and a chuckle. The rest followed without further difficulty. COD — Aspire. Very much the sort of puzzle I enjoy — coming to a full stop, then going beyond — I find that most enjoyable. Saw minicab early on as it has been in a puzzle recently. I never see Ninas — don’t really know what they are, though I am sure I looked it up once. Following the blog, I guess I could start to look for them, they seem to add to the intrigue. The paper was late arriving today, which was just as well as I had my first Covid jab at 8.30 this morning. So this mindgame took my mind off my sore arm for a bit. Thanks Roly and Alfie. GW.
  2. ….KITTEN (Beatrix Potter) — Tom would, alas, never be queen, so 16D doesn’t work for me. The addition of “possible” before “future” would fix it. There were a couple of other minor issues already referred to, but they didn’t greatly alarm me.

    Did I spot the NINA ? Does this face look bovvered ?

    FOI HELENA
    LOI RECEDE
    COD DELOUSE
    TIME 3:45

  3. Batch baking macadamia and white chocolate cookies and QC solving do not go well together! After numerous interruptions I have no idea as to our time although I’m sure it was longer than usual because we found bits of this QC to be quite tough (unlike Mrs Peel’s cookies!). However, we enjoyed Alfie’s challenge – thank you.

    FOI: Helena
    LOI: recede
    COD: clouting

    Thanks for the blog Rolytoly.

  4. Posting a bit later today as I’ve been out for a lovely walk in the sunshine, enjoying the snowy views before it melts. New print cartridges arrived last night so back on paper – definitely my preferred format!

    As soon as I saw Alfie’s name, like others, I girded my loins for a challenge, so was surprised when the first half went in quickly. But inevitably I slowed down so was happy to finish just a bit below my average time. I looked for the nina and saw a mix of double letters here and there, but still didn’t see the whole thing – foiled again!

    FOI Helena
    LOI Else – even though I saw EL for some reason the SE part escaped me for too long
    COD Thief – a super &lit
    Time 14 minutes

    Thanks Alfie and Roly, especially for working out the nina

    1. There’s something about doing the crossword on paper. Maybe it’s the ability to muck about with anagrams or being able to stick a pen in your mouth when thinking about something, but it never feels the same doing it digitally.

      By the way, I put printer cartridges in with razor blades as consumables that are just unfathomably expensive and always run out at the most inconvenient time.

      1. There was a comment the other day that they contain the most expensive liquid known to man. I switched to a B&W laser a few years ago, and must have saved a small fortune by now.
        1. Must have missed that – but yes, I often wonder whether the ink is infused with gold leaf or something.
          1. I always buy non-original ink cartridges (at a fraction of the price of the ‘authentic’ inks from the manufacturers). I have never had a problem. I just search for the appropriate cartridges and go for a reputable provider.
              1. I do agree. Its just that I know people who only buy the ‘genuine’ cartridges.
                I find myself using a printer less and less. Reasons — cost and what to do with all the ruddy paper that builds up over the years…..
                1. I guess it’s like people who only buy branded products when a supermarket own label is often very similar (if not the same). But I suppose that’s another story.
            2. As a matter of fact, that’s exactly what we’ve done this time as the branded one seems to be completely unavailable 😕 So far, so good 👍
  5. Glad to see others found this tricky as it took me a full 20 minutes. Really enjoyable though and the time must have flown by as I was surprised to find it had taken 20 minutes when I looked at the clock. NHO an adult female cat being a queen, so kitten was only half parsed. I was also held up towards the end by having entered 22ac as theif, which clearly made 19dn impossible until I noticed the error.

    FOI – 1ac HELENA
    LOI – 19dn TWIST
    COD – 10ac BLAZE

    Thanks to Alfie and Rolytoly

  6. Over 30 minutes today, as I was held up with nutmeg, grieve and kitten. Nutmeg and grieve shouldn’t have caused so much bother, but I didn’t know about kittens and queens ( as opposed to cats and kings of course).
  8. On the tougher side today I thought, especially the bottom half. Indeed, I did wonder at points if I was going to be able to finish at all, but thankfully the missing pieces came to me eventually. Ended with RECEDE on 43:54. COD to THIEF. Thanks Alfie and Rolytoly.
  9. It took me ages to get on the right wavelength and coming back to it at different times got me there in the end. I needed my Crossword-Genie app to solve nutmeg and kitten as Meg was the one little woman I had forgotten and DNK Queen cat.
    FOI Helena
    LOI kitten
    COD thief and I really liked aspire.
    Thank you Alfie for a satisfying challenge and Roly for the explanations.
    Blue Stocking
  10. I must have been on the right wavelength today. A full 10 minutes faster than yesterday. 13 minutes for a very enjoyable solve, made even more enjoyable when I came here and found the general view that it had been a tricky one. Lots of the same issues as everyone else but I must have just trusted the wordplay or biffed on through. I liked ASPIRE BLAZE and NUTMEG
  11. I nearly always multitask (tv cricket, food etc) so delighted with 20 mins which I have achieved the last 2 days. Today was different. For once I didn’t give up after 30 as not much else to do so got there in about 90 Absolutely delighted as I thought this was horrendous in places and fully expected loads of negative comments. I do hope newbies will plough on.
    The problem with crosswords is that you never know what you will get unlike golf where you can look at the scorecard before you start. Today was like Royal Lytham with a gentle par 3 to start and then big problems. Indebted to you all. Johnny

  12. I struggled today, definitely over 30 mins after the relative success of previous days. I didn’t have a problem with kitten or aspire, but found recede, bully beef, subhuman and clouting all a challenge.

    Must remember on vacation as just couldn’t see how the clue was put together.

  14. Some years ago we bought a “spec” house in America. I learned at the time that the US “spec” term referred to the builder speculating that he would build and sell it to his design rather than my expectation that we could define or influence the specification.
  15. After a groan to see Alfie was the setter (I always find his puzzles a little obtuse) got stuck in and found a diagonal from NW to SE and completed pretty well most of the W of that except for 16d Kitten (NHO adult F cat, but wordplay was clear) and 24a Nutmeg (not familiar with Little Women, but again the wordplay was clear). That left me to struggle with the rest…eventually found 4a Aspire (a bit of a Christmas cracker clue I thought), and 25a Grieve, and just forced my way through. Pleased to have finished! The AA – GG went over my head. It was a bit late to look for a panagram when 10a Blaze appeared. On re-examination this wasn’t as obtuse as I anticipated but still hard-going.. Thanks to RolyToly for a very helpful blog tidying things up for me.
  16. Steady rather than fast, but no serious problems. ELSE kept me thinking for a while as did GRIEVE, and all enjoyed. I thought SPEC was a common word /expression so surprised it caused some issues, just shows how vocabulary varies. Thanks Alfie for a nicely balanced puzzle.
  17. So dnf just recede to get…
    Lots to enjoy but tricky stuff. I had five left after 18 minutes and just the one left when I stopped at 25 minutes.
    Thanks all
    John George
  19. I remember Carmela Soprano was building a spec house. It was a new use of “spec” to me but the meaning was clear after a little thought.
  20. Enjoyed this but definitely on the tougher side. Maybe just my slow brain today.
    Loved 4A – my COD. I’ve got a feeling this has come up before in a similar form.
    Cheers,
    Wood

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