Times Quick Cryptic No 588 by Orpheus

A tough but rewarding puzzle, with the left hand side taking a bit of work. I don’t recall seeing the grid layout before – 11ac and 18ac could both be completed without so much as a look at the clue. I’d bunged in 18ac before realising that opportunity, but I did spend a bit of extra effort making sure I didn’t have to answer 11ac. In fairness, I doubt I’d have had the resolve not to take a sneaky look at 18ac to help with the pathetically blank left hand side. I’ve never heard of the plant; I couldn’t divine a three letter word for doctor in 13ac; 1d was difficult without the W in 13ac; 14d required checkers as well; 20ac remained unanswered; and on the right hand side I had a small question mark beside 8ac and 22ac. Add to that a load of lovely clues – like 13ac, 6d, 15d, 17d – and you have a tough and very rewarding puzzle. COD to 20ac, after I found out the answer, and the reason why. Many thanks to Orpheus.

Across
1	The maps I prepared for a fellow sailor SHIPMATE: anagram (prepared) of THE MAPS I
5	Instrument unassuming bandsmen initially used in army TUBA: Initials of U[nassuming] B[andsmen] go in T.A.
7	Cultured actor reading to youngsters at first ARTY: Initials (at first) of A[ctor] R[eading] T[o] Y[oungsters]
8	Glasses for acrobats TUMBLERS: double definition. I hadn’t heard of tumbler for acrobat, and thought it was a playful semi-cryptic definition for a bad acrobat, but it’s in fact the primary meaning of tumbler in the OED online, deriving from the obsolete use of the verb meaning “to dance with posturing, balancing, contortions, and the like”.
9	Small birds turned up by river plant LARKSPUR: Small birds are LARKS, reverse (turn) UP, river is R. New one on me: so called because the flower is shaped a bit like a spur, and because a flower so shaped is a play version of a real spur – it’s a frolic, it’s a lark. Which kind of makes you wonder why loads of flowers aren’t called lark-something.
11	Droop — though anaesthetic is rejected Sorry, I didn’t need to answer this clue – it’s the penultimate letters of 5d and 6d, and the first letter of 12d.
13	Worrying cry from doctor before surgical procedures! WHOOPS: [Doctor] Who, goes before ops (operations). Great surface reading, although I was trying to work out how the World Health Organisation could be clued as ‘doctor’.
16	Be of importance as physical substance MATTER: double definition.
18	Unwell in Midwest state, briefly ILL: Another double definition, if, like me, you bothered doing it.
19	Trinket, or designation by Biblical books? ORNAMENT: OR, NAME (designation), N[ew] T[estament].
20	No use being unshod BOOTLESS: double definition, the dictionary informs me. I didn’t get this, although it would have been gettable if I’d known/remembered that unshod means unshoed. i couldn’t get footless and coatless out of my head. In hindsight I’m claiming to myself that I did know it – of course unshod means barefooted, you idiot! With regards the other definition, that I didn’t know at all, ‘boot’ means ‘good, advantage, profit, use, etc’. Think ‘booty’, or ‘to boot’. Better yet, think ‘better’: better and best come from the same Old English/Germanic base as boot: boot, bet, best.
22	Team displaying pretentious air SIDE: another nice, unusual double definition, the second of which I was at best vaguely aware.
23	Emperor’s son welcomed by sailor TSAR: Tar is one of the stock words for sailor, in goes S for son.
24	Fruit seaside freak talked of? BEECHNUT: A seaside freak could be a beach nut, and ‘talked of’ means the answer sounds the same. I sometimes ate beechnuts as a kid – they would make a great ingredient in an ascetic’s fruit salad.

Down
1	Trivial broadcast about country house SHALLOW: SOW (broadcast) goes round (about) HALL. I needed the W to get this.
2	Bury short European? They’ll be after you! INTERPOL: A nice semi-all-in-one clue, this: if you INTER a POL[e] (i.e. a European cut short), Interpol might be after you.
3	Those opposed to hiding Dad’s hors-d’oeuvre ANTIPASTO: Those opposed are ANTI, to is TO, inside is hidden PA’S.
4	Tree found in Arundel mainly ELM: hidden in ArundEL Mainly.
5	Most lofty of everyone entering exam TALLEST: ALL enters TEST.
6	Assault arising from anger in pub? BARRAGE: Anger in pub could be BAR RAGE (hopefully not followed by road rage… actually, hopefully it doesn’t happen in the first place). Great surface reading.
10	Indulge in recollections about ICI men’s broadcast REMINISCE: RE = about; anagram (broadcast) of ICI MEN’S.
12	Greek articles beginning to nark a Scotsman, perhaps ATHENIAN: A and THE are articles, beginning to N[ark], a Scotsman is often called IAN, in crosswordland at least.
14	Ghastly den mostly used by schoolboys originally HIDEOUS: a den is a HIDEOUT, most of the letters are used in the answer, but the last one isn’t, Schoolboys originally is S.
15	Senior citizen resold steroid in the centre OLDSTER: Hidden in the centre of resOLD STERoid. I love this image!
17	Provide further enjoyment for shelter RETREAT: I’m tempted to call this a double definition – to re-treat is assuredly to provide further enjoyment. Another nice clue.
21	Decline of English bishops? EBB: E is English, (a single) bishop is B. Not too tricky, but yet another nice clue.

11 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 588 by Orpheus”

For the record, SAG is ‘gas’ reversed; I hadn’t got to the downs yet, and in fact never noticed the oddness of the grid. I knew LARKSPUR long before I knew that it was a flower; Larkspur is a suburb of San Francisco, where I grew up. (SF, not Larkspur.) Liked HIDEOUT. 3:53.

I found this the hardest for a while but I was very tired when tackling it after a bad experience with the main puzzle.I don’t recall seeing answers made up entirely of checkers before in The Times and rather hope it’s not the start of a new trend.

Edited at 2016-06-09 05:38 am (UTC)

robjessel says:

9 June 2016 at 8:13 AM

I enjoyed today’s puzzle, DNf though because couldn’t understand why “Bootless” should mean useless.

Interpol was in the Evening Standard cryptic yesterday evening – another puzzle where you get several clues made entirely of checkers (let’s have no more of these in the QC).

Slowed down by biffing ANTIPASTA, then decided to parse the clue. Biffed BOOTLESS, couldn’t be anything else really, my parsing afterwards involved a PC with no boot so it is useless i.e. won’t start. Thought 13a was sublime.

dnk BOOTLESS, but wrote it in. Liked ‘broadcast’ for ‘sow’. COD HIDEOUS. Thanks Orpheus and Roly. 6’18”

I finished in 45 minutes, but spent 40 of them convinced I would never do it. Bootless has only one meaning in my Chambers, but it sounds as if it could mean ‘useless’, and quite a few other clues were un-, part-, or incorrectly parsed.
LOI was 1D but I took ‘Show’ for Broadcast and passed on ‘All’.
Brian

To be honest I found this fairly straightforward, apart from “bootless” = “useless”. It was just a guess in the end. I was stuck on “shoeless”, since I associate unshod more with horses than humans. Can be either of course.
I didn’t even notice the clues made up of checkers. Depends on when you happened to come to the clues I guess.
PlayupPompey

I battled with this for over an hour before finally thinking I’d finished it. Was held up for a long time having stuck shoeless into 20a, having finally worked out that it was incorrect I left it to last and wavered between rootless and footless before plumping for the former. So a DNF today, but for a long time I thought I’d end up with a half filled grid. So not a bad result. Couldn’t parse 14d either and thought the WHO in 13a stood for the World Health Organisation. COD 1d
Overall an enjoyable challenge.

Another difficult puzzle which took me well over 30 minutes.
In order to finish I put in Shallow and Bootless without understanding the parsing; and I struggled to get Beechnut (24a and 1d were LOI). I had Antipasti for 3d from early on which made the relatively easy 19a impossible.
Some excellent clues -favourite Whoops.
And may I also mention the Evening Standard cryptic which is often of high quality and is a good introduction to cryptics generally. It’s easier because some answers are entirely formed from other answers. I did yesterday’s and have one clue remaining. David

DNF by one letter, had FOOTLESS. Also carelessly had ANTIPASTA, which rendered ORNAMENT impossible until I back-tracked. I really don’t see the second definition of SIDE. Was also aided by the LARKSPUR in California.

Got there in the end but only after both Antipasti and Antipasta had held me up as had several other things. Hideous went in completely unparsed. I thought 12d was a great clue though.

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