Times Quick Cryptic No 2526 by Joker

Author   DoofenschmirtzPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

 

Hello everyone, Doofenschmirtz here filling in for Merlin who is away this week.

This was a fun one from Joker, with a twist that I – for once – spotted while solving, and then totally failed to use to my advantage. I finished in 12:44, so inside my target time.

In case you didn’t spot the twist:

Every letter in the alphabet occurs in the grid: this is called a pangram. Having spotted that a pangram was likely *AND* that the Z hadn’t turned up yet, I still did a painstaking alphabet trawl to obtain ZONKED, my LOI. D’oh!

Definitions underlined, synonyms in round brackets, wordplay in square brackets and deletions in strikethough.

Across
7 Concerned with seeing us reflected in glass bottle (6)
VISUAL – US reversed [reflected] inside VIAL (glass bottle).
8 I cry a river, which indicates constant pressure (6)
ISOBAR – I SOB (cry) A R (standard abbreviation for river).

An isobar is a line on a weather map that joins points of equal atmospheric pressure, just as a contour line joins points of equal elevation on a land map.
9 Confine naughty child reportedly out of bed (8)
IMPRISON – IMP (naughty child) + a homophone [reportedly] of “risen” (out of bed).
10 Retained most of key part (4)
KEPT – KEy [most of “key”] + PT for part, as in “Henry IV Pt 1”.

I had to study Henry IV Pt 1 for O Level English. I’ve never managed to love Shakespeare’s history plays after that experience.
11 Beginning of summer affected island’s seafood (6)
SCAMPI – Summer [beginning of..] + CAMP (affected) + I for island.
13 Pay for what bow and arrow do (5)
ENDOW – The words “bow” and “arrow” both “end OW”.

Oof.
14 Specify five — just half ten (3)
FIX – FIve [five – just half] + X (Roman ten).
15 Jack in the morning: my, that’s lucky! (5)
JAMMY – J for Jack (as in playing cards) + AM (in the morning) + MY.

This may be a stretch for non-UK based solvers: I’m pretty confident I’ve never heard “jammy” used to mean “lucky” here in the US.
17 Joker, perhaps, holds old whiskey and chicken (6)
COWARD – CARD (Joker, perhaps), including O for old and W for whiskey (NATO phonetic alphabet).
19 Staff’s first sign of split with tons leaving (4)
CLEF – CLEFt (split) with T for tons removed [leaving].

At the risk of appalling the musicians in the readership, the “staff” is the set of horizontal lines that music is written on, and the first symbol written is normally (always?) the clef, most commonly the treble clef 𝄞 or the bass clef 𝄢.
20 Woodwind instrument recital arranged around noon (8)
CLARINET – anagram [arranged] of RECITAL + N for noon.
22 Strong resentment about lake fisherman (6)
ANGLER – ANGER (strong resentment) around [about] L for lake.
23 Lubricant’s good — runs with lack of effort (6)
GREASE – G for good, + R for runs (cricket) + EASE (lack of effort).
Down
1 Tree on top of mountain is unshakeable (4)
FIRM – FIR (tree) on Mountain (top of mountain).
2 Follower often of status with odd requirement for meeting (6)
QUORUM – QUO (follower often of “status”) + RUM (odd).
3 Catalogue biological grouping if unknown (8)
CLASSIFY – CLASS (biological grouping) + IF + Y (unknown, as in algebra).
4 Family installing large oven (4)
KILN – KIN (family) including L (large)
5 Exhausted area with duke interring king (6)
ZONKED – ZONE (area) + D for duke including K for king.

This was my LOI. I spent fully 3 minutes looking at _O_K_D, even though I was certain the puzzle needed a Z. I’m blaming the time change.
6 Personnel weapon exploded in mortar’s casing (8)
MANPOWER – Anagram [exploded] of WEAPON in MortaR [mortar’s casing].
I liked this clue a lot, probably my favorite of the day. Trickier than we often see in the quickie, but fairly clued.
12 I con gal excitedly to embrace Joker, using flattery to get results (8)
CAJOLING – Angram [excitedly] of I CON GAL with a J for Joker included.

Joker’s second self-reference of the puzzle?
13 Swap  farthings and threepenny bits? (8)
EXCHANGE – Double definition. Since farthings and threepenny bits are no longer legal tender, they are now ex-change.
16 Quieten beast of burden, very loud inside (6)
MUFFLE – MULE (beast of burden) including FF (very loud, from music).
18 Grow pale when accepting it (6)
WHITEN – well, what to say? It’s literally WHEN accepting IT.
20 Fish, grouse or beef (4)
CARP – I think this is a double definition. I tried to convince myself that ‘grouse’ and ‘beef’ make this a triple, but they are basically the same meaning of ‘carp’, to complain.
21 A little variable as to direction (4)
EAST – Hidden in [a little] “variablE AS To“

 

92 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 2526 by Joker”

  1. DNF because of ZONKED (no I didn’t see the pangram). Enjoyed this (not easy) QC with a fun mix of of clues. Gave a good groan with END-OW 😀

  3. Working late so solved in the office.

    Began horrifically and resorted to starting with down clues first. Went in smoothly thereafter.

  4. I was surprised to see this is graded Moderate in the Snitch (so far) because I found it on the easy/very easy border, and easier than yesterday’s. Perhaps there are a lot of non-British reference solvers who struggled with the slang? I didn’t spot the pangram until after my LOI, Quorum. It was an exceptionally enjoyable crossword, with no fewer than four clues that made me smile: Isobar, Exchange, Endow and Clef. Thanks Joker and Doof.

  5. It’s late but FWIW….I tried starting this on a short lunchtime coffee stop and managed a few before conceding that Joker was at his best and that it would take me ages to get through. This evening, feeling properly ZONKED from a tough drive and a lot of bad news along the way, I was surprised that the answers just flew in. Maybe I was too tired to over-worry the solutions. I usually spot a pangram but was too tired to see it tonight. It would have helped, but in the event didn’t slow me down. Sometimes I think that with a trickier setter (‘tho Joker is always precise) being only half conscious actually helps!
    FOI 10 Kept
    LOI 5d Zonked ( alphabet crawl to the bitter bar delightful end)
    COD 13d Exchange

  6. Why Jammy? I mean J_M_Y has many better alternatives that do not depend on some British slang. And the surface not superlative and the wordplay is downright crude.

    Jumpy or even Jimmy would be more palatable if you want to draw international audience. I, for one, grew up in rural South India, settled in South Western PA, am put off seriously by such UK trivia, British slang, homonyms in Yorkshire accent, … come on….

    For non native English speakers who did not grow in US the toughest things are: (In descending order of difficulty)

    Rhyming Slang.

    Spoonerism

    Homonyms that depend on local accent

    UK General Knowledge and trivia

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