Times Quick Cryptic No 828 by Joker

Author   rolytolyPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
Quite a tricky one today, I thought. All done bar four after 12 minutes, with the stubborn ones taking me right up to the 20 minute mark. 10ac and 17ac gave way before too long – I’d give COD to 10ac because the pedant in me does notice a fairly frequent misuse of the word in question, to include abbreviations and all sorts. That left 2d and 18d. I do vaguely recall 18d holding me up before; I don’t recall hearing anyone use the definition and answer as interchangeably as the dictionary clearly has it. Anyway, 2d was my LOI, I suppose chiefly because you could fill a midsize dictionary with all the different words there are for “boat”. Oh, and I’d forgotten the barrel in 20ac while we’re roughly on the subject. So yes, these and a couple of other bits of potential obscurity pushed this towards the trickier end but it was all fairly clued, very nicely clued, and very enjoyable indeed – many thanks to Joker!

Across
1 I’m returning bet in error (7)
MISTAKE: MI (I’m, returning) STAKE (bet).
7 Small university protects rare mammal in area of Berlin (7)
SPANDAU: S(mall) U(niversity) protects PANDA (rare mammal)
9 Rapid flow in stream or in major river (7)
TORRENT: OR in TRENT (major river)
10 Type of word a close friend initially misused (7)
ACRONYM: A CRONY (close friend) M (initially misused)
11 Stray sheep has eaten nothing (4)
ROAM: RAM (sheep) has eaten O (nothing)
12 Looks at rail transport as a source of irritation to observers (9)
EYESTRAIN: EYES (Looks at) TRAIN (rail transport)
14 Boil a little carbohydrate before relative arrives (9)
CAUBUNCLE: CARB (a little carbohydrate) before UNCLE (relative)
16 Story that’s old and uninteresting, not starting (4)
TALE: sTALE = old and uninteresting, without the start.
17 Very successful act allowed for some poetry (7)
COUPLET: COUP (very successful act) LET (allowed)
20 Success splitting rotating barrel to make a washing machine (4-3)
TWIN-TUB: WIN (success) splitting TTUB (butt/barrel reversing/rotating)
21 Letter tiles thrown out after Scrabble championship finally? (7)
EPISTLE: anagram (thrown out) of TILES after EP (Scrabble championship finally)
22 Poster I upset making clever reply (7)
RIPOSTE: anagram (upset) of POSTER I.

Down
1 Tomboy circle’s running moped (12)
MOTORBICYCLE: anagram (running) of TOMBOY CIRCLE.
2 Flag displayed by queen on board ship (8)
STREAMER: R (queen) on board STEAMER (boat)
3 Top copy marked wrong? (4)
APEX: APE (copy) X (wrong)
4 European country house with land (6)
ESTATE: E(uropean) STATE (country)
5 Painter depicting courage and determination in friend (8)
MAGRITTE: GRIT (courage and determination) in MATE (friend)
6 The place of Creation accepted by Swedenborg (4)
EDEN: in the letters of SwEDENborg.
8 Legume hybridised with banana? That’s not viable (12)
UNMANAGEABLE: anagram (hybridised) of LEGUME with BANANA.
12 Fairness is English characteristic (8)
EQUALITY: E(nglish) QUALITY (characteristic).
13 Lost realm of New Testament, one shown in map book (8)
ATLANTIS: NT (New Testament) I (one) shown in ATLAS (map book)
15 Slasher of funding for coastal patrol boat (6)
CUTTER: double definition.
18 One not in good condition losing heart (4)
UNIT: UNFIT (not in good condition) losing heart/central letter. One definition of “unit” is literally “the number one”.
19 Non-rigid airship deficient in breadth (4)
LIMP: bLIMP (airship) deficient in B(readth).

20 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 828 by Joker”

  1. Very sluggish this morning. I can’t really remember (it’s been 5 hours), but very little seemed to come on first reading besides a few gimmes like EDEN. I only knew SPANDAU as the name of the prison where Hess was kept. 1d took a ridiculous amount of time, not knowing the word and not writing down the anagrist. And COUPLET, too; all I could come up with was ‘triolet’. 9:14.
  2. 9 minutes. Some rather dated references here which may be fine for me but less so for our younger readers: BLIMP, SPANDAU and TWIN-TUB.

    Like our blogger I knew SPANDAU from the prison where Rudolf Hess was eventually the sole inmate, though I’m not sure I knew it was in Berlin.

  3. Too hard for a quick cryptic, they may as well rename it smaller cryptic.

    About an hour, gave up for the unknown Magritte.
    About the same time as the main 15×15.

    COD 3d.

    1. Unknown Magritte? You youngsters spend too much time watching football!

      I agree though that this was a small version of a normal 15×15. Though it fell into place rather better after I’d un-biffed UNIMAGINABLE.

      I’ve been to Spandau – worth a trip if you’re ever in Berlin.

  4. A bit tricky, but not the hardest I’ve ever done. My time of 30 minutes would suggest it wasn’t too bad. My LOI was 18dn. I actually didn’t spot the “unfit” part. I just couldn’t think of anything other than UNIT. 7ac held me up until I remembered the band link. Luckily I spotted quite early that I was after a mo-ped and not a word for moped, otherwise I could have been at 1dn all day. Gribb.
  5. After yesterday’s rather dreary puzzle I loved this one – full of wit and sparkle. Too many good clues to lost but I particularly enjoyed 14ac and 18dn. LOI 3dn, had to run through the alphabet in my head!

    I am definitely not one of the speedsters on here but didn’t find that one hard at all, started at Sevenoaks and finished just after Orpington

    Templar

  6. Started with APEX and finished with MAGRITTE. Some tricky stuff here which kept me busy for 10:38. STREAMER seems to have appeared a few times recently in various locations, so that was a write in. Thanks Joker and Roly.
  7. Having convinced myself that ‘antony’ was a close friend, 5d remained a time-consuming mystery until I realised my error. Definitely on the tricky side but all very fair and gettable. 9’30”
    GeoffH
  8. I found this the easiest for quite a while, although as another blogger pointed out some of the answers belong to a former age. Oddly enough the only one to hold me up was APEX, I came across MAGRITTE in another crossword recently with the same cluing.
    BTW blogger you have mistyped “CAUBUNCLE” in 14ac.
    PlayUpPompey
  9. FOI 1a LOI 3d COD 8d or 3d both got a ! on my copy of the newspaper. All fair clues but needing careful reading by me not to get something not quite right e.g. 1d 10a. Nonetheless, still took a steady 55 minutes. Thx to all.
  10. This enjoyable puzzle took me 14 minutes. That included putting Antonym at 10a without properly parsing it. Fortunately 5d was clearly clued and Magritte is well known to me.
    LOI was Streamer. It’s interesting how many of us follow similar paths. David
  11. A tough one for me, but I finished it in 45 minutes. This is over my usual 30 minutes target, but I’m happy with it. LOI was COUPLET. I’m not sure if I count as young (41?), but I got MAGRITTE early on as I muttered “grit” to myself as I read determination, and immediately thought of the surrealist – “Ceci n’est pas une pipe!”.

    Edited at 2017-05-11 02:08 pm (UTC)

  12. Well I did and only saw the back of my head! A few old terms today which may suit the, ahem, older solver. COD Epistle which made me laugh. Lost a couple of minutes by biffing Antonym until I read the clue properly. About 15 minutes which seems to be my average time. Great stage on the Giro d’Italia today with a beautiful dcent near the end. Thanks all
  13. One of the easier ones for me getting therein less than 25 minutes which i think is good. I thought that I knew no district in Berlin but Spandau fell in when I had the checkers. I did not parse limp as I did not recognise the meaning of blimp. Otherwise with my anagrams solver and word finder everything fell into place. My COD was Eyestrain which I will remember as I try to type outside.on an IPad.
    1. Unspammed (LiveJournal puts any comments containing URLs in the spam bin, and unfortunately the full stop between outside and on in your last sentence looks like a potential URL).
  14. Most of this went in without too much difficulty, until I was left with 10a, where I really wanted to put antonym in but just couldn’t make it work. Took me a further 10 minutes going through various words for friend before the penny dropped.
    A very enjoyable puzzle with particular mention to 14a, 17a and 1d, finally completed in 25 minutes.
  15. Well, I can laugh about it now, but there was a time when I considered Joker to be the easiest QC setter – not any more! I found this tricky, and needed a full 45 minutes to stagger across the line, with 17 and 21ac my last pair. Some nice clues, but I suspect this would have been impossible/very hard for those new to crosswords. Invariant
  16. had all but 12a after about 8 mins (Streamer was 2nd one in), sadly I also thought antony must be a close friend and the the painter was mat(T)isse (yes I know its only got one T now). Eventually got eyestrain but also have never heard of magritte

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