Times Quick Cryptic No 618 by Izetti

Author   rolytolyPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
I enjoyed this puzzle – some novel clues and lots of nice surface readings. Within the bounds of average difficulty, I’d say, almost coming witin 2 minutes of my target 10 mins. I particularly liked the ‘match supporter’ definition in 13d, and the ‘two-thirds of the people’ cryptic in 14ac. One or two bits of obscurity, for me at least – notably 16ac, where I hadn’t heard of either the abbreviation or the answer. I’d vaguely heard of 4ac, but my guess as to what the architectural feature in question was got about as far as: is it something to do with a balustrade? Quite what I didn’t actually venture. Turns out it’s the decorative triangle bit above the entrance to a classical building (or part of the PVC moulding to the front door-frame in my last house, now that I think about it). But its secondary meaning is a base or pedestal for a statue or pillar. So, my guess, broadly speaking, was that a pediment is something to do with a row of pillars, and the answer is it can either be the crown or the base to a row of pillars – I’m chalking that up as a quite inspired guess (rather than a bad memory). Definitions underlined, and many thanks to Izetti.

Across
1 Old ruler introducing French friend to king
AMIR: AMI (French friend) is introduced to R (king)
4 Architectural feature an obstruction? I’m put off
PEDIMENT: impediment = an obstruction, remove (put off) I’m.
8 Hard outgrowth Ray found in wood
HORNBEAM: HORN (hard outgrowth), BEAM (ray). Hornbeam, rather than the lesser-seen “cornbeam”, which first popped into my head.
9 Nimble son to poke his nose in
SPRY: S (son) to PRY (poke his nose in).
10 Holy mother runs into another woman
MARY: R (runs) into MAY (another woman).
11 One female in music group is dismissed
BANISHED: I SHE (one female) in BAND (music group).
12 Sort of tea served in higher balcony
HERBAL: hidden in (served in) higHER BALcony. Technically a sort of tea; more accurately a nice smelling thing that tastes of hot water.
14 Two-thirds of the people in the old country
THRACE: TH = 2/3 of “the”; RACE = people.
16 Charles sure upset attendant
CHASSEUR: CHAS (Charles); anagram (upset) of SURE. “Chas.” is a shorthand abbreviation, apparently, used in the days of yore when writing records of people was time-consuming and ink was expensive, rather than a nickname a la Chaz. And a chasseur, according to the OED, can be a hunter, a soldier, an attendant, or a white wine sauce: sauce chasseur – also known as hunter’s sauce, presumably to avoid confusion with soldier’s tipple, or servant’s lip.
18 Quiet worker to show sign of exertion?
PANT: P (quiet), ANT (worker).
19 Proper flowering plant, but not rose
PRIM: primrose = flowering plant, remove the “rose”.
20 Takes hold of Greek fruit
GRAPPLES: Gr (Greek), APPLES (fruit).
22 Woman wants not so much about her — being not fat
LEANNESS: ANNE (woman) wants LESS (not so much) to go around her.
23 Sale items — they may be selected at random
LOTS: double definition, the first you bid for, the second you draw.

Down
2 Canal fee makes one utter beastly noise with anger
MOORAGE: MOO (utter beastly noise), RAGE (anger). “Makes one” used here means “gives you:”, with a similar device in the next clue.
3 Strong drink — with head going, one gets aroused
RANDY: brandy = strong drink, remove the head, and you get (one gets) the answer. I was initially looking for a noun for “one [who] gets aroused”. Two nice uses of flowing linkwords, with the answer/definition “making” the cryptic in 2d and vice versa in this clue.
4 Top of pastry that is used for this?
PIE: P = top of pastry, I.E. = that is.
5 Matron, I do fancy, is controlling type
DOMINATOR: anagram (fancy) of MATRON I DO.
6 Stingy person goes around America, one handling things badly
MISUSER: MISER (stingy person) goes around US (America).
7 Bottle among finer vessels
NERVE: hidden in fiNER VEssles.
11 Bad gale buffeted the French flier
BALD EAGLE: anagram (buffeted) of BAD GALE ; LE (the French)
13 Match supporter surprisingly absent, male staying in
BEST MAN: anagram (surprisingly) of ABSENT ; M(ale) goes inside. Cracking cryptic definition of a best man! COD.
15 Capacity to be happy
CONTENT: double definition.
17 Water ultimately coming in pipe for Arab?
HORSE: R (wateR, ultimately) goes in HOSE (pipe).
18 The old man and friend from top bishop’s office
PAPAL: Pa (the old man) and pal (friend).
21 Unhappy, leader dropping to the floor flyers
ADS: sad = unhappy, S (leader) dropping to the floor. And a nice little one to finish off.

22 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 618 by Izetti”

  1. Another very enjoyable offering from Izetti. I was delayed 2 minutes over my target (10) by not knowing the “attendant” meaning at 16ac, and 22ac for some reason. I saw CHASSEUR from wordplay and should have bunged it in immediately but instead I waited until all the checkers confirmed it had to be correct.
  2. I’m sure this will be swiftly shot down in flames as meaningless by the statisticians out there (and I’m not seriously suggesting otherwise), but following discussions about levels of difficulty of the various setters, just for a bit of fun I did a quick analysis of my solving times for Quick cryptics since they began.

    To keep things simple I have only included the major setters and levels of difficulty are judged solely on whether or not I achieved my personal target of 10 minutes. The figures are based on percentages of failure and are reduced to a scale 1-10 with 1 being the easiest and 10 the hardest.

    Setter/Difficulty (1-10)
    Izetti 7.0
    Joker 6.9
    Mara }
    Rongo } 6.5
    Teazel}
    Hurley 6.3
    Felix 6.2
    Grumpy 5.7
    Orpheus 4.5
    Pedro 4.0
    Tracy 3.7
    Flamande 3.6

    Edited at 2016-07-21 06:47 am (UTC)

    1. I really like this, and the below subjectivity on the matter – I’m going to pay this more attention!
  3. Held up in the SE corner, but apart from that found the rest reasonably easy with some great surfaces 5a being my COD, with 3a a close second. Thanks Izetti and blogger.
  4. So Izetti is the hardest setter on Jack’s ‘Moh’ test. Jack, you are probably correct.

    This is why the Times 15×15 would be improved with the loss of anonimity! The Guardian has always enjoyed it’s ‘Aurarcaria’s et al.

    In the name of science name pseudonyms!

    Back to hard-case Izetti – he was defeated in 9:14 this morning.

    8ac HORNBEAM held me up as did 3dn RANDY COD

    WOD CHASSEUR

    horryd Shanghai

    1. It’s an interesting debate, but I’m very much against naming setters and/or the use of pseudonyms. For various reasons, one of which is that it seems to me that some solvers are immediately on their guard when they see a particular name at the top, prejudging that it will be difficult or easy, both of which assumptions can affect their solving times adversely.

      I like to come to a puzzle with no preconceived ideas about the level of difficulty to expect and arrive at my own conclusions as I solve.

      There’s lots of other stuff too, but I’ll save it for another time unless somebody else mentions it.

  5. I have no view on the pseudonym discussion, both positions have their merits. There’s a grammatical mismatch in 22ac. ‘not fat’ is ‘lean’, not ‘leanness’. 6’20” today thanks Izetti and roly.
    1. I think one might argue that the state of “being not fat” = “leanness”, but I’m still not sure it quite works.
  6. If you are not for it then I am not quite sure you went through this interesting exercise.

    To further avoid your problem the name or ‘nomme de guerre’ of the setter could be printed with the solution thus, avoiding the fear and prejudice factor!

    A sort of whodunnit!?

    horryd Shanghai

  7. Started quickly enough, and even got the unknown Thrace from the wordplay, but the SE corner took ages. Sneaked home in 50 odd minutes. I’m with you Roly in having 13d as CoD by a country mile. Invariant
    Re Jack’s table, I would give this a lot more credence if Tracy wasn’t so near the bottom ! It just goes to show how subjective solving times can be.
  8. Around the 30 minute mark today, so a little over average difficulty for me. I spent a bit of time trying to fit a new form of raspberry into 20a, without much success. Particularly enjoyed 4a, 13d and 21d. LOI 22a.

    With regards to jack’s table I’d move Tracy nearer the top and Teazel nearer the bottom but other than that broadly agree with his difficulty ratings.

    1. Yes, Tracy’s was the rating that stood out as anomalous in view of the comments so frequently expressed here. Although I said in my intro that the figures are probably meaningless, that’s only so in respect of other people, and they do in fact apply directly to me. Perhaps I have some sort of affinity with Tracy as a setter and I find his puzzles easier as a result.
  9. It must be the heat. It is sometime since we recorded a DNF. Threw the towel in at 8ac and 16ac.
  10. I was held up for some while by believing that with the word stingy I was looking for something which stung. I would have expected that stingy with the miserly meaning would have been spelt stingey. That’s the English language for you!
  11. Rather like yesterday I ended up with one left after about 45 minutes -17d. I had just managed to get 22a before I stopped; not 100% sure of the definition but I had managed to parse it and was sure it must be right. So I went away to think of synonyms for PIPE. It’s a word with many meanings and the best I could come up with for a while was Hole. I was looking for an Arab person as the answer. I finally saw Hose and Horse. Another good challenge. Favourite 13d. David
  12. DNF again, LEANNESS did for me. I never even look at the setters name, but thanks for the table. If I posted my DNFs then my numbers would range from 20 to 40%, and that’s with a 30 minute cut-off. So still a lot to go.
  13. I thought that this was going to be a record time for me as I smugly put in 20 answers on the first read through within 5 minutes. Then I got my comeuppance when the rest took another seven or eight minutes. I was annoyed with how long I took to see 13 down but thought it was a great clue. I also enjoyed 19 across. I think CHAS as a shortened version of Charles is still used as in Chas & Dave the ‘Rockney’ group and also one of my friends – although as we are all 70+ now I suppose that could be regarded as ancient usage.

  14. It didn’t flow very easily for me today, perhaps down to  it being the first day of the summer holidays. Childcare & concentration don’t mix. So a time estimate about 50 mins, with the last few going in more easily than the first. I liked the reminder of long ago Latin classes with Thrace. I had supper for 12 ac for a while before i realised 2 dn. Thanks to setter and blogger.

  15. Another very tricky one for me – over an hour and only finished with help from aids. Needed help with THRACE, HORNBEAM, PEDIMENT and CHASSEUR (for meaning other than a food sauce!). So four new words/meanings learnt today!
  16. another DNF again this week…found it tricky to get started and finally came to grief with 17d horse having become fixated on nationalities and hookah/shisha as pipes, as Izetti probably intended I should, and 22a leanness (which in fairness, I ought to have got). A puzzle of fits and starts but eventually Izetti won out. Many thanks too the blog for helping me see the errors of my ways. COD 11a banished or 13d best man.

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