QC 1475 by Breadman

Author   astartedonPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

Too busy to write much again I’m afraid this week, plus I am also suffering from the inevitable cloud of depression that sets over me whenever I yet again see an England team fall short of sporting glory. What does it matter? Who cares? It’s only a game. All these are very rational arguments but somehow they just never work. Only time heals. Or at least develops scar tissue.

So I went through this in a daze, noticing only that it was a comparatievely easy offering and that it was set by Breadman, whom I think I may have met once or twice before but can’t quite remember. I’m terrible with names. But thanks anyway for a highly therapeutic puzzle, gradually waking my brain up again as it did and providing a valuable step back on the road to recovery and normal daily life.

FOI was 1A as God intended and things followed pretty smoothly after that. LOI was 22A I think, but not for reasons of difficulty. I found this was one of those puzzles that are so straightforward that you don’t even get into the straight rhythm of following the clues in sequence. You start filling the grid and then you notice clues out of the corner of your eye that are obviously correct and you also notice spaces in the grid that are obvious write-ins without even looking at the clue so you fill those in out of order and before long you’re doing a pretty random knight’s tour around the grid.

Hard to find a COD as they were all fairly uniformly easy. In the end I’ll probably go for the wit of 13A.

Definitions are underlined and everything else is explained just as I see it as simply as I can manage.

Across
1 Cleaning item rusted badly (6)
DUSTER – Straight anagram (‘badly’) of RUSTED.
4 Play on words to dig somewhere in India (6)
PUNJAB – PUN (play on words) + JAB (dig).
8 Suffer in part of aircraft, crying loudly (7)
WAILING – AIL (suffer) in WING (part of aircraft).
10 Brownish-yellow section of brooch revealed (5)
OCHRE – hidden word: broOCH REvealed.
11 Hanger-on, a slippery creature, rejected companion (5)
LEECH – LEE (EEL, a slippery creature, reversed) + CH (Companion of Honour).
12 Observes twitching inside damaged nose (7)
NOTICES – TIC (twitching) inside NOES (anagram (‘damaged’) of NOSE).
13 Location of travelling ocean liner, generally (2,3,4)
IN THE MAIN – cryptic definition (MAIN as in SEA).
17 Mostly hairless oddball inflated plaything (7)
BALLOON – BAL (‘mostly’ BALd, hairless) + LOON (oddball).
19 Modify church table, one says (5)
ALTER – sounds like (‘one says’) ALTAR (church table).
20 A golfer may register this bird of prey (5)
EAGLE – in golf a BIRDIE is one under par. A reasonably common variety of avian life on the golf course. A rarer bird is the EAGLE, which is a score of 2 under par for a hole. So for those of you able to keep up with the arithmetic the fabled ‘hole in one’ is effectively an EAGLE, being a tee shot that pops straight into the hole on a par-3 hole. For the record an ALBATROSS is a very rare bird indeed at 3 under par, and I have been fortunate enough to witness the flight of one of these extremely elusive birds while playing once with my son, a talented (well actually I think he would style it more as ‘hard work’ than ‘talent’) scratch golfer. At the par-5 17th on his home course he hit his drive something over 300 yards and then holed out from the remaining 250-odd yards with his 3-wood. Just as he finished the stroke he breathed “that’s going to be close”. I think it is the most self-congratulatory thing I have ever heard him say as he is usually a merceiless self-critic. It was one of those perfect moments that just come together sometimes. Like England winning the World Cup. Amazing to behold.
21 Doctor in Leith arranged protective cover for finger (7)
THIMBLE – the particular Crossworld incarnation of the medical professional here is the MB (Bachelor of Medicine). Here he or she is placed inside an anagram of LEITH (‘arranged’).
22 Combatant’s helmet that restricts batting (3,3)
TIN HAT – when you are batting at cricket you are ‘IN’. Place IN inside THAT and there you have it.
23 Member to conclude traditional story (6)
LEGEND – LEG (member) + END (conclude).
Down
1 Prosper initially over in lodge (2,4)
DO WELL – O (over) in DWELL (lodge).
2 Old comedian‘s second fish factory Gina organised (5,8)
SPIKE MILLIGAN – S (second) + PIKE (fish) + MILL (factory) + anagram of GINA (‘organised’).
3 English mine with the odd descriptive term (7)
EPITHET – E (English) + PIT (mine) + anagram of THE (‘odd’).
5 Vessel that was submersible but buoyant at regular intervals (1-4)
U-BOAT – bUt BuOyAnT ‘at regular intervals’.
6 Landscape painter‘s private room with PC (4,9)
JOHN CONSTABLE – JOHN (slang for toilet or ‘private room’) + CONSTABLE (PC).
7 Creature consumes right cut of meat (6)
BREAST – BEAST (creature) ‘consumes’ R (right).
9 Biscuit barrel upside-down below item on spice rack? (6,3)
GINGER NUT – TUN (barrel) reversed (i.e. ‘upside-down’ in this down clue) gives NUT, and this is placed below (again in this down clue) GINGER (item on spice rack).
14 Desire for wealth pilot’s seen around two eastern US states (7)
AVARICE – two eastern US states are VA (Virginia) and RI (Rhode Island), and here an ACE (pilot, as in Snoopy and the Red Baron) is ‘seen around’ them.
15 Worker, carrying infectious disease, not present (6)
ABSENT – the poor old overworked Crossworld worker, the ANT, is here made to ‘carry’ BSE (bovine spongiform encephalitis, the infectious disease known as ‘mad cow disease’ in cattle and which manifests in humans as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease). 
16 Female diner excited partner (6)
FRIEND – F (female) + anagram of DINER (‘excited’).
18 Greek character old and huge (5)
OMEGA – O (old) + MEGA (huge).

35 comments on “QC 1475 by Breadman”

  1. 9 minutes for this mostly straightforward puzzle set my Mr Warburton / Breadman (geddit?). My only slight holdup was considering ‘whining’ at 8ac.
  2. I thought this was PB material but then the desire to get a PB meant I missed some obvious things on first pass and finished up at 6.09. Nice start to a Monday

    NeilC

  3. 16 minutes for me which is excellent! Guess that makes it really simple for others.
  4. Under 9 mins or about 5 verlaines

    Last 3 were breast, avarice, and tin hat.

    Cod balloon.

  5. A fun Monday finish. Took a while to see what was going on with the former Goon, but amusing once it clicked.
    Plymouthian
  6. A nice accessible start to the week. Thanks, Breadman. Well under 10 mins which makes a change. Thanks to the don – I shared his experience of seeing enticing bits of the grid out of the corner of my eye and writing in an obvious answer (e.g. AVARICE) but my rhythm is often disturbed for quite different reasons, such as ignorance. John M.
  7. My first sub 6 minute solve, coming in at 5.58. Although I had to forgo my usual proofread to achieve it. Having said that a lot of the enjoyment I get out of cryptic crosswords comes from the pleasure of working out a tricky clue and the penny drop moment, so this one felt a little unsatisfactory despite the time.
    Thanks for the blog
  8. Very straightforward though I failed to get a “clean sweep” since two clues required a second visit (22and 23ac). Otherwise a write-in, very welcome on a Monday, for 6:05 estimated at 1.75K and a Very Good Day. FOI DUSTER, LOI LEGEND, COD JOHN CONSTABLE for the smooth surface. Thanks Breadman and Don.

    Templar

  9. An easy start to the week and there were plenty of clues that I biffed without completely reading the clue including both the artist(e)s, BALLOON, U-BOAT and AVARICE. I parsed all but AVARICE after submitting. I saw VA for Virginia but missed RI for Rhode Island. I query how JAB = dig (on edit: it does come up as a synonym) but hey-ho it didn’t stop me submitting in just over 8 minutes. A good day. Thanks all.

    Edited at 2019-11-04 09:42 am (UTC)

  10. The same answer appears today in both the QC and 15×15!

    This is blogger Lord Vinyl’s one liner.

    ‘The EAGLE – A GLEE with the last letter moved to the front.’

    Hereabouts we had an eight line dissertation which took a good few minutes to read. ‘The Ancient Mariner’ was fortunately not referred to.

    My time for this puzzle 5 minutes and 45 seconds.

    FOI 1ac DUSTER

    LOI 14dn AVARICE

    COD Agree none!

    WOD 2dn Spike ‘Milligoon’ who wore a TIN HAT in Hitler’s downfall.

    It’s good to pop one in without even looking at the clue as per 5dn U-BOAT. Thank-you PUNJAB!

    Edited at 2019-11-04 09:45 am (UTC)

    1. Give it a rest, Horryd. It’s far more tedious having you snipe endlessly at Don than it is having Don write a longer blog than you would like to read.
  11. Just inside 9 minutes for me, which is quick. In answer to desdeeloeste above, think of a jab or a dig in the ribs!
  12. This was a bit of a biff-fest for me but no less enjoyable for that. Like plett, I do enjoy having to work for the result and I did find this particularly easy – in fact my best time ever!

    Looking at other people’s times and comments though, it does prove the point about wavelength – today I was clearly on Breadman’s – but it’s obvious that he gave everyone enough meat to make a tasty snack 😊

    In any case, as I remember from my early days, I used to get so cross with experienced solvers complaining if they found a puzzle too easy – there have to be days when everyone is a winner!

    FOI Duster
    LOI Friend
    COD Thimble – lovely surface
    Time Just over 5 minutes – as long as it took to eat a Belgian bun (not the healthiest breakfast but delicious)

  13. 7.16 today. Good start to the week.

    Nice straightforward puzzle to kick off Monday morning.

    Nothing much more to be said.

    Thanks for the blog

    RC

  14. I haven’t done the 15×15 yet, so could have done without the spoiler ! Consider your legs smacked.
  15. ….after the tribulations of using a smartphone while suffering from fat-finger. COD parsed and enjoyed later. A quick solve, thanks Don and Breadman.

    FOI DUSTER
    LOI LEGEND
    COD SPIKE MILLIGAN

  18. Raced through this and achieved a PB – about 7 or 8 minutes. It was still fun, though, and I enjoyed the ride.Some very nice clues here – I especially liked 4 across (I, too, thought of a “dig in the ribs”) and 13 across. Like others here, I answered some almost without reading the clue and that meant that some answers were put in without parsing – some I couldn’t parse e.g.22 across until I read Don’s excellent explanation.Everything very smooth and no bumps on the road. Thanks so much, Don, for your interesting and comprehensive blog, and thanks, too, to Breadman for a super start to a Tuesday
  20. A pleasant start to the week which didn’t cause me any problems. FOI, DUSTER, LOI TIN HAT. 6:57. Thanks Breadman and Don.
  21. This is probably my first sub-15 min solve! And on a day when I can’t work out how many Ks it is – oh well. Admittedly, I couldn’t parse a couple (1d an 14d) so thanks to ‘Don for a helpful and entertaining blog. You’ll get no grumbles from me about digressions, that’s part of the joy of these blogs.

    Thanks to Breadman for an ego boost…

  22. Thought this was the most straightforward QC for quite a while. The fact that I did it in 25mins was nearly enough a PB for myself.

    My only hang up was that I nearly biffed “Cookie Jar” for 9dn and almost put something rude in for 17ac until I realised it didn’t fit.

    COD 2dn.

  23. 3:41 for what I think is a PB. I think I have snuck under 4 mins before a few times, but never by this much.

    Solved the clues in numerical order. I think that’s as quick as I get jabbing at a smart phone. Would have been quicker on paper.

    Seems to have been an good confidence booster for people, after what seems a longish run of trickier QC’s.

  25. 15:15 – big PB, previous best around 20 mins, but more usually half-an-hour or DNF. No doubt some people’s PB’s today were limited by how fast they could write or type.
    Thank you, Breadman, for something straightforward for a change, to temporarily boost the confidence of a perennial struggler and for giving some substance to the myth of an easy QC on Mondays.
  26. An enjoyable, though leisurely, stroll today, finishing a few seconds north of 20 mins. I had to write out my loi 3d before I spotted what should have been an obvious name – all the more galling because I actually met Spike once. I liked 15d Absent, but my CoD vote goes to 22ac Tin Hat, which was a delight to parse. Invariant
  27. All solved in order, although I nearly stumbled at 13a, trying to think of something starting “on the”. Not a PB though at 7:19.

    Possibly not the most satisfying challenge, but a nice gentle start to the week.

    Thanks Breadman and Don.

  28. Nearly pb, but put “in the main” for 13ac , so lost a little time getting Spike Milligan. A pleasant solve.
  29. I had to leave early for golf today so have only just looked at this.
    Another PB here, done in 05:41. LOI was TIN HAT which I had forgotten in my rush, thinking BREAST was LOI.
    My only worry was ALTER. I was pretty sure I’d got it the right way round.
    Thanks Breadman for an enjoyable romp and thanks for the blog.
    David
  30. Aargh! First ever sub ten minute, at 6.39, but then rushing to submit, I didn’t proof read, and had two typos. John Condtable,anyone?
  31. It always feels great when the FOI is 1A and from there it just went from strength to strength, lovely puzzle made me feel competent! Thanks Breadman, and astartedon for blog.

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