Times Quick Cryptic No 2148 by Breadman

Author   rolytolyPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

A fun mix of clues today that took me just over the 10 minute mark, thanks to two minutes at the end spent trying to think of homophones of reptiles at 11d – there was some elusive (or perhaps illusive) caiman type creature that remained on the tip of my tongue. Good stuff – many thanks to Breadman!

Across
1 Hairless labrador knocked over daughter (4)
BALD – LAB(rador) “knocked over” ; D(aughter)
3 Grill family’s large vegetable (7)
PUMPKIN – PUMP (grill – as in pump for information) KIN (family)
8 Slow-moving creatures torment mottled cat (13)
TORTOISESHELL – TORTOISES (slow-moving creatures) HELL (torment). So now I know what those attractive coats are called.
9 Finally devour two chocolate eggs (3)
ROE – devouR twO chocolatE “finally”
10 Fanatical detective to stop revolutionary (5)
RABID – DI (Detective Inspector) to BAR (stop) “revolutionary”
12 Beaming artist departs with Tina excitedly (7)
RADIANT – RA (artist) D(eparts) with an anagram (excitedly) of TINA
14 Tender Christian missionary recruiting in force (7)
PAINFUL – PAUL (Christian missionary) recruiting IN F(orce)
16 Start carving stone (5)
ONSET – anagram (carving) of STONE
17 Youth without boundaries unacceptable (3)
OUT – yOUTh “without boundaries”
20 School’s shooting film in the 1990s (13)
TRAINSPOTTING – TRAIN (school) ‘S  POTTING (shooting, in snooker/pool). The puzzle would have been set and vetted quite some time before last week, so let’s not dwell on this clue too long.
21 Dog’s den free — a stroke of good luck (7)
GODSEND – anagram (free) of DOG’S DEN
22 Pairs in middle of slow lane advance (4)
LOAN – “Pairs in the middle of” s LO w  and  l AN e
Down
1 Flatter dairy product promoted (6,2)
BUTTER UP – BUTTER (dairy product) UP (promoted)
2 Fat, heartless Scottish landowner (4)
LARD – LAiRD (Scottish landowner) “heartless”
3 Drug dealer quietly meets doorkeeper (6)
PUSHER – P (quietly) meets USHER (doorkeeper)
4 Maybe part of Sunday’s dinner dance (6,6)
MASHED POTATO – double definition, the second being news to me.
5 Keep receiving new adverts for protective legwear (4-4)
KNEE-PADS – KEEP receives N(ew), ADS
6 Love European river (4)
NILE – NIL (love) E(uropean)
7 Fraudster once, losing last of medals, ruined cycling event (4,2,6)
TOUR DE FRANCE – anagram (ruined) of FRAUDsTER ONCE, after losing S “last of medalS“
11 British reptile heard weather feature (8)
BLIZZARD – B(ritish), LIZARD (reptile) “heard”
13 Theft occasionally leading to scrap on square perhaps (8)
TETRAGON – T h E f T “occasionally” leading to RAG (scrap) ON
15 See double parking? Edward’s cut off (6)
LOPPED – LO (see) PP (double Parking) ED(ward)
18 Male deer in mist again (4)
STAG – “in” miST AGain
19 Sort of pastry half filled with duck (4)
FILO – FIL = half of FILLED with O (duck)

80 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 2148 by Breadman”

  1. Biffed MASHED POTATO (I’m old enough to remember the dance; is there some reason for ‘Sunday’?), TORTOISESHELL, TOUR DE FRANCE. For some reason I biffed 14ac on the basis of PAUL, without checking; but for no reason I can think of, I typed in PITIFUL. This of course made 11d unsolvable, and I wasted heaps of time trying to think of a reptile that would fit. As Dan Quayle said, the mind is a terrible thing to lose. 7:48.

    1. Sunday dinner is traditionally supposed to be the main family meal of the week when roast meat and ‘all the trimmings’ are served. Again traditionally these would almost certainly include roast potatoes but it isn’t uncommon for mashed potato to be served up too, hence the ‘maybe’ I imagine.

      1. The Sunday roast I knew, but hadn’t thought that mashed potatoes were associated with it; wouldn’t just ‘dinner’ have sufficed here?

        1. But then you get into the lunch/dinner/tea debate which probably has just as many problems for when mashed potato is served.

          Generally agree though, never had mashed potato with roast.

          1. When younger I would have felt rather deprived if offered mashed not roast for Sunday lunch!

            1. Indeed, but I had in mind that mashed potato might be offered in addition to roast potatoes. I’ve experienced it at many a family roast (not just within my own family) and I’ve seen it at carveries etc where they like to offer a full range of options.

              2. My mother used to do some kind of carrot and swede mashup for what that’s worth on the serving suggestions!

            2. Mashed potato > roast potato any day of the week including Sundays!

      2. Well it threw me, I’ve never associated mashed potato with Sunday dinner.

      3. Never understood why mashed would occasionally appear to accompany the roasties unless it was forward planning for Monday’s bubble and squeak.

  2. 13:09 Three COD’s- TORTOISESHELL, TETRAGON and MASHED POTATO. I remember the songs by Dee Dee Sharp popularizing The Mashed Potato dance but can’t recall the movements. ( Unlike the Watusi,The Pony or POPEYE the HItchhiker, whose moves I’m sure I could still approximate if joints permitted). Thanks especially for parsing of PAINFUL and rest of blog.

    1. For dance instructions on the mashed potato and the alligator, refer to The Full Monty. Horse gives a memorable performance to Wilson Pickett’s Land of 1000 dances.

  3. 5:06. Spent a very long time trying to get TORTOISESHELL up front when clearly I had no idea what was going on. Otherwise not much to say.

  4. Have we had Breadman recently because they are my new best friend.

    15:08 minutes 🤩

    I didn’t fully parse Lopped. I remembered d for daughter, p for quiet, duck = o, detective = di.

    Foi: Bald
    Loi: tetragon

    1. I also re-watched Trainspotting last week so that was lucky.

      Hard drugs, what an ad against.

      1. The great work that hard drugs perform in hospitals – what an ad for!

        1. Do they hand out heroin in hospitals? Lol

          That dead baby in that movie 🫥

          1. Hand out!? Somewhat OTT, Tina!
            Hospital Doctors proscribe diamorphine for incurable cases of TB and some cancers as found in the United Nations Drug Charter of 1953. Heroin based pain killers are only used when all other treatments fail.

            You will further find Heroin in cryptic crosswords abbreviated to ‘H’.

              1. Indeed, prescribed. Apologies!
                However, proscribed lab-made synthetic Fentanyl is now responsible for 60% of all opioid deaths in the USA, which is now heading for 120,000 p/a. In Britain that number is around 5,000 p/a – but we only have a fifth of the American population.

      1. Thanks L Plates!!! It’s funny the ones you get and the ones you don’t

  5. Loved TORTOISESHELL. All went surprisingly quickly, until I took ages to spot BLIZZARD. 9:09, very quick for me.

  6. I was on the 10:15 for the NILE Cruise taking in a bit of TRAINSPOTTING.

    FOI 1ac BALD
    LOI 19dn FILO the Greek Mr. Pastry
    COD 4dn Dee Dee Sharpe’s MASHED POTATO to go with the Turkey Trot followed by the Banana Split Sundae and a Peppermint Twist!
    WOD 8ac TORTOISESHELL

    7dn The TOUR DE FRANCE starts July 1. I much enjoyed this year’s Giro Italia .

    1. Giro was brilliantly close and entertaining throughout. Hard to see beyond Pogacar for the Tour.

  7. 11 minutes, so yet another 10-minute target missed!

    Most time was lost as a result of the misdirection at 10ac where every crossword-solving instinct told me the answer would be found by placing DI inside RED. Then when I overcame this and biffed RABID I took a while to spot the actual parsing.

    I also lost time on 13dn as where square = TETRAGON had to be assembled from wordplay.

  9. 15 minutes which is quick for me. All parsed other than TOUR DE FRANCE which I BIFD without checking the anagrist.
    FOI: BUTTER UP
    LOI: TETRAGON once I worked out the wordplay. Also my COD.

  10. 1848 (Marx and Engels publish The Communist Manifesto)

    18:48. LOI TETRAGON which is not a mathematical term, a four-sided shape is always called a ‘quadrilateral’. What next, ‘trigon’ for triangle?

    I also was desperate to get ‘redid’ in at 10a (RABID). Also tempted to bung in OVA for ‘eggs’ at 9a (ROE).

    COD BLIZZARD

    1. They are both correct terms for a four-sided polygon. One is derived from Latin the other from Greek.

  11. No dramas. FOI BALD, LOI MASHED POTATO. 8:56. Thanks Breadman and Roly.

  12. 7’30” – anything starting with 7 is rare for me so very happy and I liked all the clues which felt like a really good mix of methods although many were flying in unparsed – 8a 14a 7D. Took me a while to see GODSEND in the anagram to the extent I started looking elsewhere in the clue for an answer.

    Thanks Breadman and Roly

  13. My first solve under target of the week, so my thanks to Breadman. Minor hold ups over the parsing of BUTTER UP and finished with PAINFUL (must remember Paul/missionary) and BLIZZARD, where I spent time thinking of toads for some reason – which of course aren’t even reptiles!
    Finished in 8.43 with COD to BALD for the clues surface reading.
    Thanks to rolytoly

  14. A very doable, very biffable puzzle from Breadman, all completed in 10 minutes. 13D Tetragon carefully parsed but not much liked – I’m with Merlin and others on this and as a former mathematician, even geometrician, I have never used or even seen the word.

    Two clues not parsed until Roly’s helpful blog: 10A Rabid put in from checkers because it was the only word that fitted (not sure why I didn’t see the wordplay), and my LOI 4D Mashed Potato – NHO the dance and MER at mashed potato for Sunday lunch (any other lunch it’s fine and a favourite but …). I see later from an internet search that the dance was briefly popular some 60 years ago, which is perhaps just a little obscure.

    Many thanks to Roly for the blog
    Cedric

  15. 24-mins DNF to fail on LOAN. I need to remember “advance” is a synonym along with school=train.

    MASHED POTATO – a dance before my time but … there was a song in the late 80s (my time) which listed some dances of the past as part of its lyrics. If anyone remembers ? Otherwise I will spend my day trying to place it.

    Biffed my way through stuff like the PUMPKIN, PUSHER, TORTOISESHELL, ROE, RABID, ONSET – although I usually can half solve enough to be sure. The downside is I kept wanting to BIF KNEE-CAPS even though I knew it didn’t parse.

    Thanks to Roly and Breadman.

    Edit: it appears “We’ll do the twist and stomp and mashed potato too” are lyrics from a track called “Let’s Dance” by Chris Montez which have been covered and reused by various acts … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNLXxDMxe18

    1. I too knew the Mashed Potato only from the 80s – but in my case it was a 1963 song being sung by Ray Charles in the 1980 film The Blues Brothers, where (as the YouTube description puts it) Ray “calls for various 1960s dances, including the Twist, the Monkey, The Frug and the Mashed Potato, to be performed by a crowd gathered outside” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuiXIAs7prI

      1. Ooh … it could well have been that. I first watched The Blues Brothers in 1989 and got a bit obsessive about John Landis / Dan Aykroyd films. See You Next Wednesday and all that.

          1. Ha ha … no.

            “See You Next Wednesday” is the John Landis equivalent of Hitchcock appearing in his films. It’s a phrase that appears in his films usually as movie poster – in The Blues Brothers, it’s written on a billboard advertising a King Kong type film.

            It’s originally a line spoken in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.

    2. Yes, I stumble so badly on words that can be both nouns and verbs that mean different things!

      I only know of the mashed potato dance from the Shake Your Tail Feather song. I’m young enough (but not young) that I first heard Shake You Tail Feather not from blues brothers even but a cover by 90s pop band Hanson. I’m more acquainted with the ‘hot potato’ dance by the legendary band The Wiggles.

  16. 5.49

    Sub-Kevin a rare event

    No idea what was going on with RABID but it had to be after British at the beginning of BLIZZARD.

    Equally no idea about MASHED POTATO but what else?

    And got the wrong end of the stick with the cat but once a few checkers hove into view…

    Seems that having no idea about a couple of clues helps the solving time 🤔

    Thanks Rolytoly and Breadman

  17. My good run came to an end with this one. Swift start but then I spent ages on LOAN, BLIZZARD (why?) and TETRAGON. Roll on tomorrow.
    Thanks to both. John M.

  18. ONSET was an anagram! Thanks Roly, ‘set’ for ‘stone’ seemed OK but ‘on’ for ‘carving’ had me wondering. All green but clearly not all parsed in 14m. Held up by TORTOISESHELL where I lazily missed the plural and couldn’t get to ‘shell’ for torment. 1962’s dance craze held me up particualarly combined with the nonsense about mash with Sunday dinner – although I have heard it in the lyrics of Do You Love Me?

  19. 15:40

    Quite a bit of biffing here with the parsing coming afterwards. Wasn’t sure about TETRAGON but it gave me LOI LOAN.

  20. Finished and enjoyed. Slow on BLIZZARD (COD), FILO, LOAN. Fairly quick on most of the rest. Always encouraging to solve 1a and 1d straight away. Thanks for help in parsing PAINFUL, RABID, etc, Roly.
    Happy Jubliee!

  21. Got stuck on RABID for the same reasons as Jack, and on TETRAGON/LOAN for reasons of my own stupidity.

    I like Breadman’s style, good mixture of devices.

    FOI BALD, LOI TETRAGON, COD FILO, time 10:18 for 1.4K and a Decent Day.

    Many thanks Breaders and Roly.

    Templar

  22. 18 mins…

    An enjoyable puzzle from Breadman. NHO of the “Mashed Potato” dance for 4dn, but the other definition was fairly obvious. After watching the Giro d’Italia last week, 7dn was fairly straightforward (personally I thought the Giro was a little dull this year – perhaps too many contenders dropping out too soon)

    FOI – 1ac “Bald”
    LOI – 22ac “Loan”
    COD – 13dn “Tetragon”

    Thanks as usual!

  23. Biffed a few to reach my seat in 21:21. Thanks Roly and Breadman.
    Bike ride, driving range, swim or gardening. Hmm. Think I’ll read the paper. Not much of cheer to find I suspect. May opt for a walk.

  24. Just inside my 20 min target.
    FOI – 1A… my COD… my ‘just-turned-3’ grand-daughter takes great delight in telling me that “Grandad got no hair!” much to the amusement of grandma!
    LOI – 16A. Biffed as I did not see CARVING as an anagrind.
    Thanks Roly and Breadman

  25. I found this quite straightforward, apart from a couple of clues that I insisted on complicating: 8ac briefly became a hunt for some sort of dinosaur (no idea) and 13d surely involved a masonic connection. . . Once I sorted those fantasies out, only a pause at the Rabid/Blizzard crossing prevented a sub-15 finish, so a good time for me these days. CoD to 14ac, Painful, which thankfully it wasn’t. Invariant

  26. “Goddam, goddam the PUSHER man” (Steppenwolf – from the soundtrack of ‘Easy Rider’).

    I pushed through this so quickly that I’m equal 2nd on the leaderboard with Verlaine – practically a Jubilee honour – although I have to confess to biffing TOUR DE FRANCE and MASHED POTATO (I once had a cover version of the latter on an EP by Bern Elliott and the Fenmen).

    FOI BALD
    LOI TETRAGON
    COD TORTOISESHELL
    TIME 3:49

  27. Missed target today at 12.44. Just seemed to struggle everywhere, and staring blankly at MASHED POTATO before the penny dropped. I began to think I’d logged onto Masterchef when I read the first dozen or so comments! Have to agree with everyone however, no mash on Sundays under any circumstances. Never witnessed anyone doing the mashed potato dance, only really heard it in the lyrics of 60’s songs.

  28. I thought the top half was gentle enough and was slightly surprised when the bottom half proved more testing. Sadly, I lacked yesterday’s instant inspiration. FOI 1d butter up. LOI 18d Stag – I just couldn’t see it until I had a brainwave on Trainspotting. No contenders for COD. A good puzzle where having one of those energy dips didn’t help! Thanks to Breadman and Roly.

  29. Just been indulging myself in a late 60s wallow with On the Threshold of a Dream – may have to change the Mood (y Blues) with the Easy Rider soundtrack! Thanks Phil 😊
    Mr B is a huge cycling fan so 7d was a gimme, but also a great clue – a reminder of a certain Lance Armstrong?
    FOI Bald
    LOI Blizzard (here in the East Midlands we have a weather reporter who glories in the name of Sara Blizzard!)
    COD Tour de France
    Thanks Breadman and Roly
    Oh I forgot – 9 minutes.

    Just remembered another wonderful example of nominative determinism: on the Chelsea Flower Show coverage last week there was a florist called Hazel Gardiner 💐

    2. You reminded me of a psych prof I once had named Diamond, who had a sister Ruby, who married a man named Silverstone. And there were the animal behavior scholars and frequent co-authors, Robin Fox and Lionel Tiger.

      1. Wonderful! Not forgetting the famous example of the urologists Splatt and Weedon 🤣

  30. I was able to give Mr SR a spirited performance of the Mashed Potato (to the tune of “Do You Love Me?”.
    He threatened to show me his version of “The Running Man”…
    When I was a child, we always had mashed potato with Sunday lunch so that we could have bubble and sqeak on Monday. Also, mashed potato absorbs more gravy which was my favourite bit.
    Now I’ve graduated to producing roasts (including Christmas dinner) myself, I make both roast and mashed (“Potatoes Two Ways”, for Masterchef devotees) but it sounds like even that may not be the Done Thing.

    Thank you for the lovely crossword, Breadman and the erudite and sensible blog, rolytoly.

    1. Two lovely images – funny and tasty. Couldn’t really ask for much more than that!

  31. Blinking flip. We are back up to large amounts of comments.

    BLIZZARD took an age. PUMPKIN my favourite.

    First go on an iPad, wot I bought for my recent trip to Tokyo. I might have to get one of the keyboards.

    8:03

    1. So nice to see the old gang back – even better to welcome so many newcomers 😊

          1. Potato potahto, mashed or even non-mashed… either way, yes very nice indeed!

  33. On a walk around the Beningbrough estate in beautiful North Yorkshire yesterday evening (only time I usually get to do the QC), so did Corelli’s and Breadman’s today. Corelli was tough and I was just glad to finish. Bread man was reasonably straightforward, even for me. Never done two in one day before – another first.

  34. dnf for me today – the crossing of PAINFUL & LOPPED my downfall. Bit of a struggle with a few others too.

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