Times Quick Cryptic No 3115 by Dangle

Author   TemplarPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

Nice middle of the road puzzle from Dangle, taking me 07:02. A couple of ugly (IMO) words in the answers but more than compensated for by a lot of smooth, witty surfaces. Hope you all enjoyed it too.

This is the first blog I’ve done for a while which has been a stress-free experience, so huge thanks to John Interred (for slaying the Error 500 beast), Starstruck (for the new blogging IT), and indeed the whole “behind the scenes” team who keep this show on the electronic road.

Definitions underlined in bold.

Across
1 Nuts about large island’s birds (8)
PELICANS – PECANS [nuts] going round [about] L [large} + I [island]. “A wonderful bird is the Pelican/His beak can hold more than his belican/He puts in his beak/Enough food for a week/But I’m darned if I know how the helican.”
5 Corvid, rook, hidden by bovine (4)
CROW – R [rook, chess notation] inside [hidden by] COW [bovine].
9 Special offer from Japan in Japanese (5)
NINJA – hidden inside [from] “Japan in Japanese”. I’ve underlined the whole clue because I think this works as an &Lit. I scratched my head a bit over “special offer” but decided that it must be a play on words – to “off” someone is to kill them; therefore you could jocularly describe a killer/assassin as an “offer”; and if they were particularly good at their job they’d be a “special” offer. A NINJA (highly skilled assassin) is therefore a “special offer”; and they’re also “from Japan”; and the word being used to describe them (ninja) is a Japanese word and thus “in Japanese”. Therefore the whole clue is both the definition and the wordplay.

That lengthy explanation felt like breaking a butterfly upon a wheel, but I hope you see what I mean! COD from me.
10 Maybe Eminem picked up dust jacket? (7)
WRAPPER – Ye Olde Homophone. Mr Eminem is a popular singer, my Lord, whose genre is “rap music”; he is thus professionally known as a “rapper”.
11 Endanger girl waving around power tool (5,7)
ANGLE GRINDER – anagram [waving around] of “endanger girl”.
13 Most uninspiring test cases in the morning (6)
TAMEST – TEST [test] goes around [cases] AM [in the morning].
15 Piles of stones in Australian city (6)
CAIRNS – double definition. Disappointingly the Australian city turns out to be named not after rocks but after William Cairns (Governor of Queensland in 1876).
17 Unwilling to compromise about training nets (12)
INTRANSIGENT – anagram [about] of “training nets”.
20 Criticise wonderful American cure-all (7)
PANACEA – PAN [criticise] + ACE [wonderful] + A [American]. A is a perfectly legitimate abbreviation for American, get over it.
21 Expression of fool scratching backside with enthusiasm, ultimately (5)
IDIOM – an IDIOT is a “fool”. Remove the last letter [scratching backside – made me chuckle!] and add M [enthusiasm, ultimately] instead.
22 Edit changes for regime (4)
DIET – anagram [changes] of “edit”.
23 Chaps use foul language in section of department store (8)
MENSWEAR – MEN SWEAR, ho ho!
Down
1 Nasty smell starts to put off nice guests (4)
PONG – first letters [starts to] of “put off nice guests”.
2 Wrinkle on new flax cloth (5)
LINEN – LINE [wrinkle, as in lines on one’s face] + N [new].
3 Actor playing Chandler’s ace (7,5)
CHARLES DANCE – anagram [playing] of “Chandler’s ace”. I will always remember him as Mr Tulkinghorn in a BBC Bleak House, but he has since found a global audience as Tywin Lannister in Game of Thrones. No, me neither.
4 Spiritual movement reduced net salary (3,3)
NEW AGE – NE [reduced net, i.e. “net” without its last letter] + WAGE [salary].
6 More hasty invader punched by Penny (7)
RAPIDER – oh my goodness what a horrible word. Assuming it exists (it’s not actually listed in OED, Collins or Chambers, but then they don’t always list all derived forms, I think, so it’s probably legit) it’s ugly and awkward. Anyway, enough aesthetics. RAIDER [invader] contains [punched by] P [Penny – as in pence, not as in of this parish!].
7 What to wear when fighting female prison officer? (8)
WARDRESS – another ugly word. The female form of “warder”, once, and so possibly a “female prison officer”. If you were fighting you might wear WAR DRESS.
8 Perhaps Beijing increases profits (7,5)
CAPITAL GAINS – CAPITAL [perhaps Beijing] + GAINS [increases].
12 Son fell and took clothes off (8)
STRIPPED – S [son] + TRIPPED [fell].
14 Early showing from friend drinking at home with European (7)
MATINEE – MATE [friend] containing [drinking] IN [at home] + E [European].
16 All one’s possessions in large car (6)
ESTATE – double definition.
18 Sound of one cutting bouquet (5)
NOISE – I [one] goes inside [cutting] NOSE [bouquet, as in scent].
19 Muslim ruler, am I right? (4)
AMIR – a variant spelling of “Emir”. AM + I + R. Hope you didn’t do what I did, which was to see “Muslim” and “am I” and lazily bung in “imam” without bothering to read the clue.

90 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 3115 by Dangle”

  1. 10:10 I’ll see your lazily bunged in IMAM and raise you with my even lazier PAY CUT (reduced net salary). I can’t help being reminded of his Guy Perron in Jewel in the Crown when I see CHARLES DANCE in any of his other roles.

      1. Yes, that Ronald Merrick was quite an unpleasant fellow. For some reason I have a similar negative reaction too whenever I come across James Mason in a role.

        1. He was credible in the Boys from Brazil but I know what you mean about his most notorious role.

  3. Woke up so thought I would have a quick look at QC.
    Have done a couple of clues inc. 7d.
    I agree that this is an ugly – and offensive- word. How did it get through the xwd screening?
    If the clue had been on the lines of “Victorian female prison officer” then it would have been OK – although ugly.
    I can just picture a prison officer’s face if called WARDRESS today.
    Casual sexism?

    1. Especially as the term warder, for a male prison officer, was abolished in 1921, so, probably, same for the female ones.

  4. 11 minutes, but missed the niceties of NINJA.

    In addition to not being listed in any of the usual sources, RAPIDER also fails the Countdown test. This is that the only agent nouns permitted if are not actually listed in the ODE are those derived from one-syllable words. Using Farlex to search multiple dictionaries the only citations I found for RAPIDER were in a couple American dictionaries I’ve never heard of.

      2. x is faster than y

        x is more rapid than y

        x is rapider than y

        The only thing worst than that is golfers saying I hit the ball solid today…

  6. Thanks Dangle, a PB I think for us at 10.30 (I can’t remember a day when we were rapider!). As Mr T says lots of smooth amusing surfaces, and we were just on the wavelength, with only a few we didn’t get at first go.

    Needed to come here to find out why Ninja was a special offer, PDM.

    Thanks Templar for the usual fun, education and bonus limerick 😀

    1. A PB for us, too, at 10.28. Again, within a minute or so of your time, which is the case on about 80% of days. As you usually solve before us, our time echoes yours. We are hoping to soon enter the world of single digits. Could you please arrange? Thank you. 🙂

  7. 9 minutes. I agree that RAPIDER and WARDRESS are pretty ordinary words. More than made up for by the ‘Special offer…’ for NINJA – great clue. Saw the ‘Actor’ anagram at 3d and thought I’d save myself the trouble of going through the letters of the anagram fodder by just bunging in CHARLIE SHEEN; surprise, surprise it didn’t work.

    I liked the hidden-that-wasn’t-a-hidden AMIR, known as a variant spelling of EMIR thanks to “Abdul Abulbul Amir”, as sung by the legendary Frank Crumit.

    Thanks to Templar and Dangle

  8. I completely agree with the comments about RAPIDER and WARDRESS but other than that I thought this was an excellent puzzle. Like BR I initial chucked in Charlie Sheen for the actor until noticing that his name didn’t contain a ‘d’ (amongst other letters) and, with checkers in place, I managed to avoid biffing Emir at 19d.

    Started with PELCIANS and finished with IDIOM in 5.22 and COD to the special offer.

    Thanks to Templar (I particularly enjoyed the long forgotten Pelican rhyme) and Dangle

  9. 26 mins Apart from 7d I really enjoyed this.
    It was very parsable which only added to the satisfaction. IDIOM was LOI. I even got the nho actor.
    I assumed NINJA was referring to Special – they were regarded as a separate, elite group.
    I took “offer from” as the hidden word indicator.
    Several CODs but PELICANS takes the top slot. A lovely clue. I always try and see the pelicans when in St James’ Park.
    Be thankful I can’t post photos here or there would now follow several of the cutest puffed up Pelicans waiting for food one cold winter’s morning.

    Thanks Dangle and Templar

    1. After me moaning about not being able to log into Crossword Club for several weeks, it seems IT have solved it. 😀

      1. Not quite true the IT problem is solved as I got an ugly message yesterday saying something like “Too many requests ….” When attempting to get in to the site.
        Seems ok today though.

        2. Sorry I was referring to The Times Crossword Club. This is separate from this site tftt

  10. 13:56 Cairns ninja in tamest menswear wardress got me scratching my head. Thanks for explaining offer
    Ta TAD

  11. Birthday activities for eldest his morning so my usual crossword routine was wrecked. Solved this on my phone on the top deck of the 400. Fast enough but not accurate enough – 5.59 but with NEW AGr – so about 2mm away from a very rare sub 6!

  12. 22:29 (average: 35, target: 28)

    Thought I was going to make it under 20 mins today but the last two in took me a while. I hadn’t heard of CAIRNS the port and kept trying to squeeze WARDROBE in. It was only when I thought to try the crossing S from the piles of stones I had instead of trying to force the B into the city that everything fell into place.

    I shrugged a bit on RAPIDER but felt that setters have to push the boundaries a bit on usage and frequently use words in a way that I’m not familiar with but make sense with a bit of thought.

    A feel good puzzle I thought.

    Thanks Templar and Dangle and of course John (I’m still doing the CTRL-A and CTRL-C, but never having to follow it up with a CTRL-V any more)

  13. PB 10.28 Very happy with life today. NHO rapider, wardress, Charles Dance. Enjoyed IDIOM. Needed blog to understand clever NINJA.
    Could my Learned Friend please explain why Penny may be in the Parish ?

  14. 4:20. Neat and fun crossword. I liked NINJA (special offer, indeed), IDIOM and PONG. Thank-you Dangle and Templar.

  15. An enjoyable puzzle, done in 7:19, and a sparkling blog make for an excellent start to the day. Many thanks Templar, especially for the parsing of NINJA which was all that escaped me. And of course for the PELICAN song.

  17. I was part of the collective MER. at RAPIDER (is there a collective noun for eyebrow raisers – a wrinkle maybe?) but I thought WARDRESS was perfectly acceptable – one of the best clues in the puzzle in fact.

    After succumbing to yet another typo yesterday I was glad to fly through this one unscathed.

    Thanks Templar, especially for the long-forgotten PELICAN limerick, and to Dangle for an enjoyable puzzle.

    FOI CROW
    LOI ANGLE GRINDER
    COD NINJA
    TIME 3:37

  18. An enjoyable crossword, finished in 7:26. A slight hesitation in entering RAPIDER, since in common with nearly everyone else I had my doubts whether it was a real word.

    Thanks Templar and Dangle

  19. All doable, thanks Dangle. Wonderful blog, thank you, Templar, you took all the words out of my mouth. Oh, except surprised by test = TEST. NHO CHARLES DANCE but Mrs M had.

  20. One of those days when my mind kept wandering so mightily surprised to finish well under 8 minutes. Disliked RAPIDER as a very clunky word and grimaced at WARDRESS but loved PELICANS, my COD. Needed the blog to explain NINJA. Thanks to all.

  21. With a busy day ahead, I started early, fully expecting to have to pause and come back later. To my surprise and delight, however, I raced through and crossed the line in just 15 minutes, which very fast for me.

    I saw NINJA, but didn’t understand the clue and I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of CHARLES DANCE.

    My COD was ANGLE GRINDER, because I could hear my builders using one (it was impossible not to) as I solved the clue.

    Many thanks to Templar and Dangle.

  22. I enjoyed a steady solve. I parsed them all to be on the safe side (and avoided hurried typos today). I finished in 15.20.
    I think Dangle backed himself into a corner and put in 6d and 7d in desperation – RAPIDER is a horrible made up (?) word and WARDRESS perhaps betrays the age of the setter?? It is not a term that has been used for ages – even before the word warder was dropped in prison establishments in favour of prison officer (many decades ago).
    That aside, there were some very good clues. A special groan for special offer!
    Thanks to both.

  24. Some really great clues today but needed blog to explain NINJA. Initially thought of IMAM and not aware of AMIR as alternative spelling for EMIR, but clueing was clear. Inward shudder at RAPIDER. COD PELICANS – reminder of the ditty my father used to declaim. Thanks Templar for great blog.

  25. Mostly straightforward although I spent 3 minutes of my total 18 minutes on my LOI (no idea why with hindsight). Just pleased to solve a puzzle in something like my normal time after a difficult week so far, cruciverbally speaking.

    FOI – 5ac CROW
    LOI – 18dn NOISE
    CODs – lots of things to enjoy here. I particularly liked WRAPPER, IDIOM, CHARLES DANCE and WARDRESS

    Thanks to Dangle and Templar.

  26. Unusually, I sped through this in 11.59. As I did it on my phone, I couldn’t see the setter’s name but was convinced it was Trelawney, so was surprised when I came here.

    Pi ❤️

  27. 6:54

    ‘phone solve at stupid o’clock this morning – when I can’t get to sleep, I have a cup of tea which seems to help – long enough to have a bash at the QC. No real issues – had the ‘Is CHARLES DANCE still alive?’ thought; took several checkers to see ANGLE GRINDER; no MER for WARDRESS (too tired?) but RAPIDER wasn’t easily swallowed. IMAM? EMIR? AMIR – not sure I knew it could be spelt that way.

    Thanks Templar and Dangle

  28. Nice puzzle, no hold-ups once I’d corrected 19d’s sloppy entry of IMAM to get MENSWEAR.

  29. Nice. I didn’t fully appreciate ninja when solving, so thanks for the explanation for what is my COD.
    Love the pelican rhyme by the way.

  30. From PONG to AMIR in 7,31 but with a typo. ANGLE GRINDEE. Drat! Thanks Dangle and Templar.

  31. About 10 mins. Very fast for me. On the wavelength, I filled in all the clues without stopping. Apart from wanting to put Emir at first, and CNP NINJA, and Mer RAPIDER. And guessing Intractable which turned out to be too short.
    Enjoyable, encouraging puzzle. I liked PANACEA, MATINEE, WRAPPER, among others.
    CHARLES DANCE is well-known here, I would say. From Jewel in the Crown, to Lord Mountbatten in The Crown, plus various villains.
    Many thanks, Templar.

  32. 7:39

    A very brisk (by my standards) solve. No real problems, saw the hidden but didn’t understand NINJA. Don’t really like RAPIDER as a word but easy enough. LOI WARDRESS.

  33. It’s not very often that I break the five minute barrier, but I was totally tuned in to Dangle today finishing in 4.55. I started with the down clues today so maybe that helped. I did hesitate at RAPIDER as others have mentioned, but nothing delayed me unduly until the checkers confirmed my LOI was NOISE.

  34. I found this very straightforward, only TAMEST didn’t go in first time. I got it done in 4:31, my second fastest ever.

    I had a bit of a laugh at 23ac because I make that joke every time we go in Next in our home town. It goes something like (talking to my partner), “I can use bad language on the first floor, you are only allowed to use bad language on the ground floor”. It also works in M&S and, I’m sure, several other retail outlets.

  35. Quick solve for me. Cuppa still hot when I entered my LOI TAMEST.
    No beef with WARDRESS but dislike RAPIDER. Just not a nice word – nothing wrong with the clue.

    Thanks Dangle and Templar

  36. Nice steady solve for me, couldn’t parse ninja or idiom but otherwise no problems. Thanks Dangle and Templar.
    Capital gains and profits are completely different things, but I suppose to the layman they are similar enough for crosswordland.

    1. Colloquially one sells a stock at a profit and one makes a capital gain. I still didn’t get it.

      1. The capital gain is not dependent on you selling it.
        If you hold gold you would have seen that it has just gone through $4,000 – nice capital gain. If you were asked how much capital you had you would include your stash of gold bars, and the value of that has increased. No profit because you haven’t sold it. Should it go down to $3,500 you might get cold feet and sell it; $500 capital loss – however you bought it at $3,000 so you have a $500 profit.

        Colloquially when you sell something you have realised the capital gain (i.e. turned it into cash.) That is the point that the capital gain gets taxed

        I did say in the first place that they were similar enough to get away with in crossword land.
        Completely different in accounting though, and they are both accounting terms.

            1. Capital gains are part of the profit. Profit is the total return so is the capital gain plus any other things like dividends etc.

            2. The difference is in the way they are taxed. Some “profits” from capital investments such as the “carried interest” that venture capitalist fund managers benefit from is taxed at a preferential capital gains rate rather than taxed as income. I think HMRC are attempting to get that changed so that the fund managers pay income tax and some National Insurance.

              1. GAAP and OED both have capital defined as cash OR OTHER ASSETS. If your gold goes up your capital has increased and you have made a capital gain even if you don’t sell it. Things like shares, bonds, gold, crude oil, housing etc are all part of your personal capital.

                You can also make a capital loss and a profit at the same time as I mentioned in my previous comment.

                Shares are a prime example, if a company makes a good profit, but not as good as forecast then the shares go down. Profit for the shareholders but a capital loss.
                If the company makes a loss, but not as big a loss as forecast then the shares will go up. Negative profit but positive capital gain from the shareholders perspective.

  37. I failed only on capital gains which is disappointing me being a “bread head”. 35 minutes online time although it spanned three hours. 11, 17 and 20 on first pass across. 3, 16, 18 first pass down.

    Thanks Dangle and Templar

  38. DNF with CAIRNS stopping me at the end. Enjoyed the rest of the puzzle, with PANACEA as my COD. Thank you for the blog 😁

  39. I’m solving later in the day at the moment so don’t always comment.
    This took me 10 minutes after a slowish start. LOI AMIR. I was about to write Emir but read the clue carefully first -a good rule.
    Some nice clues including MENSWEAR and WARDRESS.
    Great blog.
    And more thanks to the IT experts who have worked so hard for our benefit.
    David

  40. 8:40 here, which is very welcome after recent struggles. I’ve no doubt that Charles Dance was great in Bleak House, but I’m sure we can all agree that his career-defining performance came in Last Action Hero, where he played the baddie opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger. And more recently, who can forget his understated but no less commanding portrayal of Colonel Jonah in Godzilla: King of the Monsters?

    Thank you for the blog!

  41. 6.39 I failed to parse NINJA and I worked through IMAM and EMIR on the way to AMIR. Straightforward otherwise. Thanks Templar and Dangle.

  43. 6.45 ish

    “Ish” because I managed to find the only pub in central London which (a) has no mobile reception and (b) suffered from dodgy internal wifi. The Ship Tavern – not miles from our illustrious blogger. This resulted in me walking to Lincoln’s Inn Fields to download the puzzle then hastening back to my abandoned pint. More than enough info…

    Also groaned at RAPIDER. Loved NINJA.

    Thanks for the great blog as per normal Templar and Dangle for the puzzle.

  44. 12 mins…

    Have to agree about 6dn “Rapider” – I think I actually winced when I realised what it was. Never did parse 9ac “Ninja” properly, but now that I’ve seen it, I think it’s a great clue. Surprised so many people haven’t heard of Charles Dance – one of the best characters in Game of Thrones and when (spoiler alert) he left the show whilst literally sitting on the throne, it started to decline in my opinion.

    FOI – 1dn “Pong”
    LOI – 7dn “Wardress”
    COD – 9ac “Ninja”

    Thanks as usual!

  45. Quick but didn’t submit because while I could believe AMIR as an alt. spelling I thought it can’t because it’s in the clue. I am often flummoxed by literals like this. Test = TEST was another.
    Top blogging esp re. NINJA, thanks.

  46. DNF because I didn’t know CAIRNS, but got everything else in under 15, which would have been my second fastest ever. NHO ANGLE GRINDER, didn’t know that meaning of PONG, and didn’t figure out the excellent offer/NINJA, but they all werre easy enough from word play.

    I had parsed 7D the other way around, which made it seem quite clever. I agree it would have to be two words, but if you left the clue unchanged but wrote it as (3,5) wouldn’t everyone’s objections go out the window?

    Big thanks to whoever here explained that ESTATE is British for station wagon, and that I’d need to know it again.

    1. Yes except that we would all say “Green paint!” It is battle dress, or similar, war dress isn’t a phrase.

      1. ah, yes I guess I was thinking of ‘battle dress’. It sounded familiar, but I see on searching that it isn’t a phrase at all

  47. We started off rather slowly but our final 7:38 is certainly at the faster end for us. I don’t know why RAPIDER sound so much worse than faster but it does and WARDRESS shouldn’t even exist IMO but I expect there has to be a balance for the setter between settling for obscure or ugly words and backtracking to find a grid that works more harmoniously. Thanks, Templar and Dangle.

  49. 19 minutes and counting as MATINEE went in – phew. WAR DRESS is fine but as a single word? Not nowadays, chair. Agree that capital gains and profits are not synonymous but Beijing is a capital and profits are gains, so it works. And lots of fun wordplay inc. NEW AGE and the son who fell. The shocker was RAPIDER but if she moved quickly enough, Penny would be rapid ‘er… (Sorry). Thanks Dangle and Templar – excellent blog!

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