Times Quick Cryptic No 2392 by Trelawney

Author   DoofenschmirtzPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

 

Lots to like here, although I found this trickier than normal from Trelawney. I solved on paper (unusually) & finished with all bar one parsed in 16:09. The three down clues in the NW corner all held out to the very end, as did the storyteller.

I particularly liked MISER (my COD by a mile, once I spotted what was going on), HOGWASH (how have I not seen this before?) and GAZEBO.

How did you all get on?

Definitions underlined in italics, wordplay indicators in square brackets, synonyms in round brackets, omissions in squiggly brackets.

Across
1 Arrived with reckless Yankee unwilling to be photographed (6-3)
CAMERA-SHY – CAME (arrived) + RASH (reckless) + Y (Yankee in the NATO phonetic alphabet).
6 Average kind of music rewound (3)
PAR – RAP (kind of music), reversed [rewound].
8 Storyteller with a model from the east (5)
AESOP – A + POSE (model, reversed [from the east]).

I was convinced the A was going to be at the other end, and it wasn’t until I actually wrote out “POSE” backwards that the penny dropped.

Aesop, storyteller from Ancient Greece, known for fables featuring animals. I’m pretty sure I had a Ladybird book of Aesop’s fables as a child.
9 Livestock initially lost by friendly agricultural worker (7)
PEASANT – P{L}EASANT (friendly), losing L [Livestock initially].
10 Grotesque sculpture of a gory leg destroyed (8)
GARGOYLE – Anagram [destroyed] of A GORY LEG.
11 By the sound of it, female animals sleep (4)
DOZE – Homophone [by the sound of it], of ‘does’ (female animals).
13 Hot candle jumping is an Olympic event? (9)
DECATHLON – Anagram [jumping] of HOT CANDLE.

I would pay money to see Olympic hot candle jumping.
16 Some seafarers a long way off (4)
AFAR – Hidden in [some] seAFARers.
17 View alternatively found in place with a canal (8)
PANORAMA – OR (alternatively) in PANAMA (place with a canal).
20 Pig getting clean? That’s nonsense! (7)
HOGWASH – HOG (pig) + WASH (getting clean).
21 A thumbs-up online for uniform (5)
ALIKE – A + LIKE (thumbs-up online, as in Facebook etc).
22 Briefly accompanying comedian (3)
WIT – Truncation [briefly] of WIT{h} (accompanying).
23 Old Venetian mother with chocolate hugs police officer (5,4)
MARCO POLO – MA (mother) + ROLO (a brand of chocolate), encloses [hugs] COP (police officer).
Down
1 Put some power into  attack (6)
CHARGE – A double definition.

I was trying to find a way to add a “P” to a word for “attack” and get a word for “put”, no doubt exactly as Trelawney intended.
2 Time to abandon Mr Scrooge? (5)
MISER – MIS{T}ER: the full word of “Mr” without the T for time.

Not parsed until I came to write this up. Very clever indeed.
3 Scold person selling fish (8)
REPROACH – REP (person selling) + ROACH (a fish).
4 Happy with lectures rejigged for classroom stand-in (6,7)
SUPPLY TEACHER – Anagram [rejigged] of HAPPY LECTURES.

“Teacher” went in quickly, but then I could not bring the British term to mind. My children always had “substitute” teachers here in the US.
5 Finally play organ for a period of time (4)
YEAR – Last letter [finally] of {pla}Y + EAR (organ).
6 Group of soldiers also involved in scheme (7)
PLATOON – TOO (also) inside [involved in] PLAN (scheme).
7 Scoundrel beginning to rescue aquatic creature (6)
ROTTER – First letter of [beginning to] R{escue} + OTTER (aquatic creature).

Could this be a reference to our esteemed blogger, TheRotter?
12 A doodler recreated mythical city (2,6)
EL DORADO – Anagram [recreated] of A DOODLER.
13 Reportedly sketch board game piece (7)
DRAUGHT – Sounds like (reportedly) ‘draft’ (sketch).
14 Nut bread we brought up (6)
CASHEW – CASH (bread) + EW [we, reversed].
15 Look over most of Bob’s summerhouse (6)
GAZEBO – GAZE (look) above [over] most of BO{b}.

This is a tricksy apostrophe. It looks like it is a possessive (“the summerhouse belonging to Bob”), but in fact it is a contraction (“a word for ‘look’ over most of ‘Bob’ is {a} summerhouse”).
18 Friend in a fighter jet above capital of Oman (5)
AMIGO – A + MIG (fighter jet) above the first letter [capital] of Oman.

Now I come to write that explanation, I realize that “capital of Oman” could also be read to just mean “the only capital letter in Oman”.
19 Tree in Spanish resort cut down (4)
PALM – PALM{a} (a Spanish resort), truncated [cut down].

85 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 2392 by Trelawney”

  1. A well-constructed puzzle from Trelawney which I felt I should have completed more quickly than the 16 minutes I actually took. I wasn’t helped by initially putting ‘rap’ and ‘does’ in at 6ac and 11ac respectively, which meant I had to leave the NE corner for a while pending further inspiration. Eventually cracked it by seeing PLATOON at 6dn.

    FOI – 1ac CAMERA SHY
    LOI – 3dn REPROACH
    COD – 2dn MISER which I couldn’t parse at all until seeing the blog (thanks Doofers)

  2. A pleasant stroll from CAMERA SHY to PANORAMA with no particular hold ups. I missed the ROLO reference as I had enough checkers to biff old Venetian. 7:16. Thanks Trelawney and Doofers.

  3. A super fast solve with just two biffs parsed post submission i.e MISER and MARCO POLO. LOI ALIKE in 5:59.

  4. 15 mins…

    I really enjoyed this, but I couldn’t shake the feeling I’d done it before. Certain clues obviously come up quite a bit, and maybe it’s just pure coincidence, but I had a weird deja-vu throughout the whole thing.

    Anyway, I liked 1ac “Camera Shy” and the rolo referencing Marco Polo for 23ac.

    FOI – 6ac “Par”
    LOI – 19dn “Palm”
    COD – 2dn “Miser”…no contest here

    Thanks as usual!

  5. A treat from Trelawney. I loved this QC, which was very doable but also made me think. I did a lot of biffing (beginning with CAMERA SHY) and had a good day with the anagrams.

    COD to the brilliant MISER. Like others, wanted to insert rat for the start of 7dn, but had PDM moment for ROTTER ( a nod, I hope, to our excellent blogger). My LOI was PEASANT. This took some brain power to see. Also struggled for a while with 17ac, thinking that the reference to canal meant Venice (silly mistake because Venice has many canals and not just the one – d’oh).

    Very pleased with my time of 15 mins.

    Thanks for the blog Doofers, excellent as always.

  6. 5.53

    No problems

    Thought SUPPLY TEACHER was v good

    Thanks Doofers and Trelawney

  7. 10.21 DNF. I put DOES for female animals, realised the other meaning meaning was wanted and quickly “corrected” it to DOSE rather than DOZE. PEASANT and ROTTER took three minutes at the end. An enjoyable puzzle.

    1. Ah! I rest my case. I used the method I was “taught” (pace Kevin Gregg on Monday?): that sleep, not female animals, is at the end (and neither at the beginning), so the definition had to be sleep. Comments, anyone?

      1. It’s certainly normally the case that the definition is either at the start or the end of the clue. But cluing conventions like this aren’t iron laws of the universe, so don’t be outraged if a setter occasionally violates one, particularly if it helps form a very smooth surface reading.

        2. Sorry – I replied to Martinu above before seeing your much more succinct explanation!

      2. I would assume with homophone clues that the required answer is either at the start or end of the word; and the cluing homophone is somewhere in the middle. Then come on here and rant if it isn’t!!

        PS Have seen it once where both ends of the clue had one of the words. It caused no end of confusion and required very careful reading of the grammar and even then, that was slightly ambiguous.

        1. Thank you – this has all been most interesting and instructive. I wonder if the setters will try to be more careful in the future – or not, perhaps? It would (after all) be a pity if we were seen as being unduly proscriptive.

  8. A perfect QC IMHO. First finish this week. The gloss was only taken off by Supply Teacher and the shame I feel about what we used to do them in the 70s. J

  10. Late to this today. Speedy but could have been speedier. But if Rotter himself was slow on ROTTER I’ll let me off. All green in 8 for a rare sub 10. Good one!

    1. Well done – I didn’t want to be the first to rub his nose in it, but I too was amused that “Rotter himself was slow on ROTTER”. Well – we had SMETANA not so long ago; perhaps MARTINU will be set one day and then I’ll be on the line myself…………

  11. 7:36 (Óengus, King of the Picts, defeats Dal Riata).

    My last two in were WIT and DRAUGHT. I originally had WAG for 23a, on the basis that WAG could be a brief way of referring to an accompanying person, but spotted my error on seeing that a T was needed for DRAUGHT.

    Thanks

  13. A good challenge much enjoyed after a busy day on holiday in Cumbria, average time.
    FOI CAMERA-SHY, LOI PEASANT, COD MISER, biffed quickly, but took ages to parse. Thanks Trelawny and Doofs.

  14. Busy day but finally got to the puzzle this evening and all finished in 43 minutes.
    I tried it parse 9a as Pheasant for the livestock animal with the h somehow being removed. Thanks Rotter for a much better explanation. Also for explaining Miser.
    COD to ALIKE which was also LOI after a lot of alphabet trawling before the PDM.
    Thanks Trelawney.

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