Times Quick Cryptic No 998 by Howzat

Author   rolytolyPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
Well this was a tough one all right. There were a number of quite difficult clues cluing quite difficult words, a few of which crossed each other as well, just to compound matters. The top right and bottom left gave me cause to stumble, and I gave up as the 19 minute mark approached with a blank stare at our canine friend at 20ac. Well done if you finished this, I wouldn’t fret if you didn’t – happy new year either way, and of course thanks to Howzat for the challenge.

Across
1 Hanging back as arranged, partly (5)
ARRAS – aS ARRAnged backwards, partly.
8 Orchestra playing in one of the shires? (9)
CARTHORSE – anagram (playing) of ORCHESTRA, with a “shire” being short for a “shire horse”.
9 Rice that’s soft I praise endlessly (5)
PILAU – P (soft/piano) I LAUD (I praise, losing the end)
10 Women’s jumper is unusually large one (7)
WHOPPER – W(omen) has HOPPER (jumper). I was slow getting this, being too busy looking for a womAn called “Roososi”.
11 Ban Asti cocktail — don’t drink! (7)
ABSTAIN – anagram (cocktail) of BAN ASTI
12 One doesn’t appreciate where the ashes are left (7)
INGRATE – cryptic(ish) definition of ashes in a grate.
16 Developed new part for European city (7)
ANTWERP – anagram (developed) of NEW PART
17 Appearing in musical, perhaps men only in first number (2,5)
ON STAGE – STAG (men only) in ONE (first number)
20 Dog biting middle of leg — Iodine needed (4,3)
SHAR PEI – SHARP (biting), E (middle of leg), I(odine). I stuck rigidly to the “SEA__” idea of the “e” being bitten by some word for “dog”, which made me confused as to what the clue was doing. It’s a Chinese breed, btw, literally meaning “sand fur”.
22 Join military division close to home (5)
UNITE – UNIT (military division) close/end of homE.
23 Cross set in a church floor covering (9)
AXMINSTER – X (cross) in A MINSTER (a church). In my ignorance, I’d never heard of an Axminster carpet.
24 Tube in street next to hospital department (5)
STENT – ST(reet) next to ENT (hospital dept). Had this been a concise crossword, stent would not have been springing to mind.

Down
1 First-class letter from Athens (5)
ALPHA – double definition.
2 Big car not allowed in launches (5,3)
ROLLS OUT – ROLLS (big car) OUT (not allowed)
3 Diving gear coming from South Caribbean island (5)
SCUBA – S(outh) CUBA (Caribbean island)
4 Chocolate cake features getting good marks (7,6)
BROWNIE POINTS – BROWNIE (chocolate cake) POINTS (features)
5 Over an hour stuck in Channel (7)
THROUGH – H(our) stuck in TROUGH (channel).
6 Support for parking (4)
PROP – PRO (for) P(arking)
7 Student left one receiving a wage (7)
LEARNER -L(eft) EARNER (one receiving a wage)
13 Mobile airbase housing very rough (8)
ABRASIVE – anagram (mobile) of AIRBASE housing V(ery)
14 High-ranking officer damages Henry (7)
MARSHAL – MARS (damages) HAL (Henry)
15 Locum work is attractive? Not a second time (7)
TEMPING – TEMPTING (attractive), ditch the second T (time).
18 Soccer club incentives (5)
SPURS – double definition
19 European opening competition (5)
EVENT – E(uropean) VENT (opening)
21 Girl taken in by general manager (4)
ALMA – taken in by the letters of generAL MAnager.

24 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 998 by Howzat”

  1. That’s what it had to be, but I had to Google after finishing to figure out what that “shire” business was all about. AXMINSTER carpets is one thing I’ve learned about just by working these puzzles. I thought those two things were a little obscure to be in a Quickie, but maybe that’s just because I’m a Yank.

    Edited at 2018-01-04 05:28 am (UTC)

  2. A rare technical DNF on a QC for me today, thrown by the intersecting words at 15dn and 20ac. As the 20-minute mark was passed I reached for a thesaurus to look up synonyms for ‘attractive’ and came up with ‘tempting’ from which I was able to deduce TEMPING for ‘locum’, and the P checker helped me to work out the unknown breed of dog from wordplay. Everything else had been solved after 12 minutes so I’d failed to achieve my target anyway.

    Once again I have a slight issue with a clue as to my mind ‘temping’ and ‘locum work’ are not the same thing, and as all three of the usual (printed) sources make the same distinction it’s enough to convince me that my understanding is correct even if somewhere on-line there is another source that blurs the issue. ‘Temping’ is office work, most usually secretarial, keyboarding and that sort of thing, whereas a locum is somebody who stands in, albeit temporarily, in a professional capacity, most usually a doctor or a clergyman. In wordplay I’d buy it as a cryptic hint or a contrived secondary definition, but not as the main definition.

    SHAR PEI has come up only 4 times before since TftT started more than 10 years ago. Never in a QC or daily 15×15, once in a Sunday Times puzzle in June 2015 (Dog that is rejected after biting) and twice in Jumbos. It also turned up in a TLS puzzle set by our breakfast correspondent Myrtilus and defined as ‘wrinkly dog’. There’s no actual evidence to prove that I’ve ever met it before although it would be rare for me to have missed a Sunday puzzle.

    Edited at 2018-01-04 06:29 am (UTC)

  3. DNF here, too, thanks to TEMPING. I actually thought of temping–well, it came up in an alphabet run–but couldn’t see it as a candidate. I’d second Jack’s critique, word for word. The dog I knew; I’ve even seen pictures of it [shudder].

  4. Still not completed a QC this year inside my 30 min target.

    I had a dog ending in PEI, but had never heard of it. With 14d and 21d absent, I was doomed. Annoyed about 14d, but 21d was a pretty obscure name.

    I liked BROWNIE POINTS, and orchestra/carthorse was the first anagram I ever learnt, and is still my go to canonical example. ARRAS and AXMINSTER were both tough words as well.

  5. Much relieved to see that even the maestros found this difficult. I was completely stumped by the south west corner and retired to the pavilion muttering darkly about “quick” cryptics. But thank you nonetheless Howzat for a strenuous if humbling workout and the blogger too for the explanations.
  6. I was ok with all for corners but was totally stumped by the bottom left apart from Antwerp. I should have got Marshal because I had thought of Hal for Henry, and Alma and Axminster are fair enough. However I could never have finished this without cheating because I’ve never heard of a Shar Pei and in my view it’s a really tough clue for an obscure answer – breaks all the rules for a qc. Agree with the above re Temping
  7. I found this a bit tougher than usual, but having recently come across SHAR PEI in another crossword(I think Jack’s right about it being in a weekend puzzle), and my Dad having sold AXMINSTER carpets in my youth(I’ve also driven past a village called Axminster near my daughter’s home in Cheddar many times), I was only held up by TEMPING and ARRASS(which also cropped up elsewhere fairly recently), and some clever clueing(CARTHORSE took a while), taking me to 12:58. A good workout. Thanks Howzat and Roly.

    Edited at 2018-01-04 11:19 am (UTC)

    1. The Axminster of carpet renown is a bit further south in Devon, not far from Lyme Regis. This was a stiff challenge by QC standards and newbies should not be in the least disheartened if they struggled with some of the obscurities.

      I came to this on the back of a late completing yesterday’s 15×15 (now THAT was a bruiser!) so had brain well in gear. LOI was ‘temping’ – defined as locum work? Really? What the heck, in it went.

      Many thanks to setter and blogger as usual.

      7’30”

      Edited at 2018-01-04 12:41 pm (UTC)

  8. Although I did finish inside ten minutes, I agree that 20ac was rather too obscure for the Quickie – I guess that Howzat had written himself into a corner, but trusting the wordplay should work.
  9. A testing workout today, especially my tentative last 2 in -5d and 20a (which I had vaguely heard of before). It sounds like 15d is on of those rare occasions where less knowledge is beneficial. I knew that locums work on a temporary basis therefore, in my mind, temping made sense. Completed in 26 minutes, COD 12a
  10. After 30 mins or so, I was reasonably well placed with just a few in the NE and SW corners left. Another 10 mins and I finally cracked the 8ac/5d combination, and turned my attention to the SW. I already had Axminster, and took my own advice for 21d, Alma, when nothing else would work. That ‘just’ left the dog and locum, but as the hour approached, I gave in and resorted to aids. I should have seen Temping as a possibility, even with its poor definition, but the dog joins several dozen other breeds completely unknown to me. Frustrating, to say the least. Invariant
  11. After reading the comments on the other side I approached this with some trepidation but actually found it very straightforward. To me temping and locum work are close enough for crossword land and I am well up on dogs, so SHAR PEI was a write-in with the final I in place. As has been said many times, they are only obscure words if you don’t know them! 5.16
    1. Yes and no. I know I’m going to come across unknown words from time to time when I do a crossword. That’s ok so long as the cryptic is helpful enough, which was not the case here. Dog chews up Harpies (4,3), or something along those lines, would have done the trick. Invariant
  12. I’m never sure whether to do the QC as a warm-up for the main event or to wind down afterwards. Today I finished the Cryptic in 8.56 but. like vinyl1, took longer for this, finishing in 9.26 of which 4 minutes were spent staring at -E-P-N- at 15dn.

    Part of the problem was that I became fixated on DEPPING, which at least has a professional connotation and I would regard as a better answer than TEMPING except that the cryptic doesn’t work and it’s not in my dictionary.

  13. Too tricky for me today. Did not get 20a and biffed 15d so many thanks for the explanatory blog.
  15. DNF – not heard of ARRAS and missed the part def, got the PEI but couldn’t get SHARP
    Tough but quite fair
    Nick
  16. Glad to find myself struggling in good company today, including finding the 15d and 20a crossers very hard. No time, as I did this in three sessions, but I’d be very surprised if it didn’t take me longer than today’s 15×15.

    Never heard of a SHAR PEI and the ambiguous wordplay had me chasing my tail for ages. I also don’t generally think of temping as locum work, it seems…

  17. Shame really as some beautiful clues (8a, 5d and 23a) were let down by the really poor ones. (1a, 1d, 15d and 20a)

    Edited at 2018-01-04 07:56 pm (UTC)

  18. Back late and did this on a train earlier.
    Quite tough in places. I have met a few shar peis on dog walks so no problem there.
    Guessed at Arras ,vaguely remembered. LOI was Temping-quite tough for the QC. 25-30 minutes. David

  19. Thought I was heading for a record but held up by AXMINSTER for at least a minute

    TEMPING was a great clue and The Usual Sources all say a temp is *especially* an office worker and a locum is *especially* a doctor/cleric…perhaps our local pedants need to look up the word “especially”

    Agree SHAR PEI was pretty terrible and I only got it because I’ve heard of them before

  20. I know this will never be read, but thought I would write something as my views seem at odds with some others on here. Yes, it took me 67 minutes, but I did complete it and that’s not that bad a time for me, given that I found very few easy. However, I thought that Shar pei was a reasonably well-known breed (I’m in no way a dog person) and it didn’t occur to me that there was a distinction between locum work and temping (I’m a supply teacher, so I suppose I fall somewhere between the two). The two words I thought were most obscure have not been explained by anyone fully. Why does ‘arras’ mean ‘hanging’ and why does ‘ingrate’ mean ‘one doesn’t appreciate’? Has the latter something to do with not being grateful? That’s just occurred to me. Anyway, thanks Howzat and everyone else.

    Crispian

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