QC 1685 by Hurley

Author   astartedonPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

Once again I don’t have much time for anything more than the usual stats.

Again I felt this was of medium QC difficulty similar to the last one I blogged and certainly a step up from the series that I met in earlier months which seemed to more or less solve themselves. So thank you Hurley for a slightly longer challenge than usual over the morning cup of tea.

FOI was 1A with a very obvious anagram. LOI was 7A because for some reason the key word MENIAL wouldn’t come at first although I could feel it lurking there at the edge of my consciousness. As always I have difficulty choosing a COD as they all seem to be of about the same level of difficulty so I go for the one with the neatest surface. This week the honour goes to 9A.

A special hello this week to invariant_tft. Thank you for your message and for following up. I haven’t managed to think too deeply about your little conundrum although I feel I should be able to get the answer. I did study Chemistry at University and took modules in Physics and since following several careers in other directions I have always maintained an interest in science so I feel it should not be beyond me. I’ll follow up the reference you suggest when I get a moment and I hope the penny will drop. I saw your SPOILER ALERT and didn’t read any further so I imagine if I decide to give up then the answer is disclosed in that message? Either way I will get back to you and tell you either that I got it finally or that I gave up!

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

Across
1 Get coat altered in rural building (7)
COTTAGE – straight anagram (‘altered’) of GET COAT.
5 Instant credit (4)
TICK – double definition.
7 Domestic servant getting new start is friendly (6)
GENIAL – mENIAL (domestic servant) getting a new start.
8 Grape is beset by wet weather (6)
RAISIN – IS ‘beset’ by RAIN (wet weather).
9 One hoping you buy second drinks for each child (11)
SALESPERSON – S (second) + ALES (drinks) + PER (for each) + SON (child).
10 Busy, cite changes in hours, constant (6)
HECTIC – ECTI (anagram of CITE (‘changes’)) ‘in’ H (hours) + C (constant).
12 This decorative item cheers? Not so much, on reflection (6)
TASSEL – TA (cheers) + SSEL (LESS (not so much) ‘on reflection’).
14 Poisonous reptile disconcerts nude no end (11)
RATTLESNAKE – RATTLES (disconcerts) + NAKEd (nude with no end).
17 Seethe as whiskey taken from bather? (6)
SIMMER – W (whiskey, phonetic alphabet) ‘taken from’ SwIMMER (bather).
18 Saying nothing about a temperature change (6)
MUTATE – MUTE (saying nothing) ‘about’ A + T (temperature).
20 Strong reaction in prison (4)
STIR – double definition.
21 Vehicle collecting editor on way back or one used in transaction? (5-2)
TRADE-IN – TRAIN (vehicle) ‘collecting’ DE (EDitor ‘on the way back’).
Down
1 Reminder of broadcast line (3)
CUE – sounds like (‘broadcast’) QUEUE (line).
2 Blunder allowed in one of three (7)
TRIPLET – TRIP (blunder) + LET (allowed).
3 Book finally shortened (5)
ATLAS – AT LASt (finally) ‘shortened’.
4 Serious listener, home later (7)
EARNEST – EAR (listener) + NEST (home). I think ‘later’ here just says that the NEST comes after the EAR and also improves the surface into the bargain, although it is strictly superfluous IMHO.
5 By the sound of it, yarns for formal wear (5)
TAILS – sounds like (‘by the sound of it’) TALES (yarns).
6 Tell niece, working, to see customers (9)
CLIENTELE – straight anagram (‘working’) of TELL NIECE.
9 Flavour of pantries, after refurbishment, captivating Mike (9)
SPEARMINT – SPEARINT (anagram of PANTRIES (‘after refurbishment’)) ‘captivating’ M (Mike, phonetic alphabet again).
11 No-good prig in cult — who’s to blame? (7)
CULPRIT – CULT with PRI (‘no-good’ PRIg) inside.
13 Begin extremely late causing alarm (7)
STARTLE – START (begin) + LE (‘extremely’ LatE).
15 Watch maybe as millions lodged in bank (5)
TIMER – TIER (bank) with M (millions) lodged in it. Watch ‘maybe’ as other forms of timer are available.
16 Boy with nothing on a Polynesian state (5)
SAMOA – SAM (boy) + O (nothing) ‘on’ (i.e. ‘above’ in this down clue) A.
19 Cask from Soviet Union (3)
TUN – hidden word: ‘from’ sovieT UNion.

45 comments on “QC 1685 by Hurley”

  2. Some hold-ups along the way took me to 9 minutes.

    My first thought at 12ac was TINSEL and I wasted time trying to parse it.

    The other problem was at 5dn where my first thought for ‘formal wear’ starting with ‘T’ was ‘ties’ which wouldn’t fill the space available so I checked which way round the sound-alike needed to work – could it perhaps be ‘thais’? A closer look at the clue then set me wondering whether the sixth word was ‘yarNs’or ‘yaMs’, and could ‘thai’ be another name for the ‘yaM’? It didn’t take long for the correct answer to emerge as all this flashed through my mind within a few seconds, but it was enough to put me quite close to missing my 10-minute target. I really wish The Times would sort out this recurring problem with the type-face.

    Edited at 2020-08-24 05:39 am (UTC)

  3. Very similar to jackkt – came in at 9:30 with LOI 5dn. 17ac made me ponder the Scottish vs Irish whisky/ey spellings – NATO presumably being influenced by the US tendency to follow the Irish.
  4. … but still required a little thought and slightly to my surprise it took me 12 minutes. I don’t usually attack the crossword before my morning coffee but we are going out for the day so an early start and the grey cells may not all be awake yet!

    Rather liked the image of a Genial Salesperson Mutating into a Hectic Rattlesnake – I’ve met a few sales reps like that when they sense they might not be about to close the deal as they hoped.

    Many thanks Don for your blog – a rare day where my FOI, LOI and COD coincided exactly with the blogger’s! But you modestly didn’t give a time for us to measure ourselves against …

    Cedric

    1. Hi Cedric, thanks for your kind comments.

      Not posting a time is not out of modesty as I have explained before. My times are very ordinary although I’m sure I could go quicker if I tried. It’s just that things that are not really to do with crossword-solving often slow me down (bad reading eyesight being the most obvious one) so I generally regard the time as unreliable and just give an idea of whether I think it is an easy, average, or difficult crossword as it’s all relative anyway.

      And often when I find it easy I get people (usually newcomers) saying they don’t know what I’m talking about because they found it difficult, and when I think it’s a harder solve I see some of the speed guys claiming personal bests. So it’s really just a rough idea of how I see the thing and no more.

      All the best

      Don

  5. Ended up being quite fast but I had to pass over four clues before being coming to HECTIC but then added only another two on my first pass of the acrosses, although I knew there were a couple of anagrams I knew I could come back too. Missed COTTAGE on the first pass thinking of agricultural rather than rural buildings – the G made me fixate on ‘granary’ so I moved on. No major hold ups until MENIAL, itself held up a bit by ATLAS which I enjoyed (I also liked TRADE-IN). All green in 10m.
    1. SOED has:

      poisonous

      1 Containing or of the nature of poison; having the quality or properties of a poison; venomous. M16

        1. Unspammed. Point taken, but as the article admits, this is very much a technicality whereas dictionaries (and crossword puzzles) take more account of usage, and therefore all the usual source dictionaries equate ‘venomous’ with ‘poisonous’.
          1. I agree with both of you. Although I have seen many very technical discussions on this blog involving the preciseness of a definition, etc. and would would side with Anonymous.
            Plants are often poisonous, snakes usually aren’t.
            1. Off the top of my head I would say that poisonous generally goes with the idea of being ingested. So if you ingest deadly nightshade you will be poisoned. If you ingested a snake then it wouldn’t normally be poisonous in spite of containing venom as long as it was dead and incapable of biting you internally. However if you had a snake in your fridge for Sunday dinner and you let it go well past its sell-by date then you could get food poisoning from eating it in which case it would be poisonous I guess. But as with language generally, usage ends up being the main criterion of definition, and certainly in Crossland that is even more true than in the real world. When I first started blogging I used to draw distinctions like this but quickly realised that people got bored with them and nowadays I don’t bother too much. I just solve the clues, write my comments and leave the discussion to everyone else. So why am I writing this? I don’t know. I guess I’d better stop.
  7. 6:38, slightly held up by genial. FOI COTTAGE, LOI GENIAL. COD TICK as it’s pretty much a triple definition!

    H

  8. 20 mins for me – with the main hold up being 7ac. As usual went through all the varieties of domestic servant until it finally clicked. Only other query was Tier = Bank, but that’s down to me I guess.

    Enjoyed 9ac “Salesperson” and 12ac “Tassel”.

    FOI – 1ac “Cottage”
    LOI – 7ac “ Genial”
    COD – 21ac “Trade In”

    Thanks as usual.

  9. After a few disappointing time, good be back in ths Sub 20 minute zone, at 15:05. Thanks Hurley for a solid QC which seems to be bang on what QC-ers expect.

    COD is the “build it and see” SALESPERSON which had the nice misdirection of “EA” for each, leaving a tempting “EASON” at the end, hence my last one in. And I’m a Sales Person myself, too.

    Also was tempted by TINSEL, and was on the look out for that classic crossword word of TUN. As for STIR as slang for prison, it seems very 1950s along with JUG, BIRD. I’m sure Urban slang has moved on since then, I can’t imagine them using such words on ‘The Wire’.

  10. Gentle going today with nothing to strain the brain cell too much. Finished in 7.56 with HECTIC and CULPRIT with my favourite being MUTATE.
    Thanks for the blog
  11. Apart from COTTAGE, I was slow to start today and I only began to speed up a little when I started again from the bottom. I found more to ponder than most of the solvers above. Like others, I found GENIAL a hurdle but I only finished when I finally saw EARNEST which gave me the T to complete my LOI **SSEL. A good puzzle although I found HectiC a bit weak. I enjoyed SALESPERSON, SIMMER, MUTATE, and CULPRIT. 17mins so over target again. Thanks to Hurley and Don (good to see you blogging again). John M.
  12. Only got cottage on my first pass and laboured my way through- I liked culprit and trade in thanks both
  13. Started with COTTAGE and finished with SPEARMINT. Took a few seconds to dispose of TINSEL.No dramas. 8:14. Thanks Hurley and Don.
  14. 13 minutes, although it felt longer. Working from top to bottom and left to right as is my usual method, and making no sense of the GENIAL ATLAS pair initially, I had a nagging concern that they were going to be problematic as I worked through the rest of the grid. And so it proved, with everything else completed inside 10 minutes, it took me another 3 to get those last two in, with ATLAS falling first of the two. Thanks Hurley and Astartedon (sorry, I struggle to use your diminutive Don as it sometimes feels disrespectful to the real crossword Don Izetti).
    1. Hi, thanks for your comments but just call me whatever you like to differentiate me from the real Don. I suppose you could call me Donald but that might be disrespectful to the real Donald (Trump). Difficult to see how that might work from where I am sitting but someone like Newt Gingrich might hold a different view.

      Or just think of me as Don Corleone (after all my surname is Lyon). Maybe if you change the image in your head the name itself might not seem so incongruous.

      Or you could just call me Astarte as that was my original choice (see exchanges a few weeks ago) before LJ forced me to register as Astartedon!

      But whatever you want to call me your comments are always welcome.

      Don

  15. Only got four by the time I had gone through all the across clues, but thankfully the downs were a different story and I managed to get all of them in order with only an occasional peek at the checkers. Don’t think I’ve ever done that before. I was then able to complete without any major holdups, but just enough to think about to take me to nearly 20 minutes (19:42). Wouldn’t usually think of STIR meaning a strong reaction, but I’m sure the usual sources will validate the setter. LOI 7a, COD 3d. Thanks Hurley.
  16. Brisk business here at 1.6K and a Very Good Day though I needed the blog to understand GENIAL (thanks Don) – I was fixated on “new start” meaning N and was trying to find a 5 letter servant to fit round it. I also struggled with SPEARMINT because I was looking for a word meaning “flavour” rather than a type of flavour.

    FOI COTTAGE, LOI SALESPERSON, COD TASSEL. Thanks Don and Hurley.

    Templar

  17. 10:42, got stuck at the end on hectic, culprit, and LOI genial.

    COD simmer.

  18. Struggled with this more than some have done and completed in around 20 mins which is at the further end of my target range. Spent far too long on 11dn CULPRIT which I was overthinking and also struggled with 17ac SIMMER, for no good reason. I was also dubious about STIR for strong reaction so the SW corner was problematic.

    FOI – 1ac COTTAGE
    LOI – 12ac TASSEL
    COD – 9ac SALESPERSON

  19. I only solved two Across clues on my first pass but, once the Downs started to go in, everything fell into place fairly easily.
    TRADE-IN held me up for a while as I thought the whole word would be the vehicle.
    CUE, ATLAS and SALESPERSON were all good clues and RATTLESNAKE is my COD.
    Thanks to Hurley for just over 13 minutes of enjoyment and to Don for the clear blog.

    Edited at 2020-08-24 11:25 am (UTC)

  20. At 24 mins, I was quite a bit slower than others with this quality QC from Hurley. As well as the Tinsel and – eason traps mentioned already, I also managed a brief trip to the well known Sonoa Island, on the basis that it was more likely than Ladoa. It did at least help prompt Rattlesnake and Trade In, but made Mutate decidedly tricky… Although I can see the quality in 9ac, my CoD goes to its next door neighbour 8ac, Raisin for its surface. My thanks to Hurley, and best wishes to Astartedon – good hunting. Invariant
  21. A bit below par today, courtesy of 7a. But at least I finished, which was a blessing after my very poor showings in all types of crossword since the middle of last week! I don’t know what was going on, but my brain was full of glue 😉 Like jamesed46, I had the same experience re GENIAL, looking for many types of servant, until the proverbial penny dropped. At least a couple of minutes spent on that. Otherwise a steady solve. I’ve seen variations of 3d before, but it was still my POI – a good clue though.

    FOI Cottage
    LOI Genial
    COD Genial, closely followed by Atlas
    Time 14m

    Thanks Hurley and Don

  23. What a very nice puzzle from Hurley today – thank you. Like some of the others we took a while to get 7A (mainly because we were thinking of job titles) and ended up coming in at 13 minutes.

    FOI: cottage
    LOI: menial
    COD: salesperson

    Thanks to Astartedon for the blog

  24. ….but had a little difficulty opening up the SW corner. No real problems though.

    FOI COTTAGE
    LOI/COD RATTLESNAKE
    TIME 4:09

  25. Solved this after early golf and felt very tired. It took me ages to get going;FOI was TUN.
    Reasonable progress after that and then a rush at the end to finish with RATTLESNAKE (like Phil I see) in 14:06 (just a bit slower than him).
    A good QC I thought.
    David
  26. Agree with Jack about the typeface, confusing yarns with yams. R and N together have given us problems on a number of occasions. While we were within our target we seemed to be slower than necessary. Thanks Hurley and blog.
    1. May I add my voice to yours and jack’s. I complained about the m versus rn issue (with some fonts) years ago and nobody else ever thought it worth bothering about. I’m glad it isn’t just me. John
    2. May I add my voice to yours and jack’s. I complained about the m versus rn issue (with some fonts) years ago and nobody else ever thought it worth bothering about. I’m glad it isn’t just me. John
  28. Thanks all, I enjoyed this.

    COD TRIPLET

    But as usual I dislike proper names (Sam in 16d, luckily not too difficult).

    Diana

  29. I’ve been attempting the QC for a couple of months and found this one to be rather tricky. Both 9A and 9D held me up for quite a while, so I was surprised that most contributors found it a gentle start to the week. Anagrams are a type of clue that can really slow me down as my brain can never see the possible combinations.
  30. An interesting start to the week. Ambled through this in about 45 minutes after supper. Began well with 1a and 1d then had to start working. A bit hit and miss on the across clues but agree with others that the down clues were easier to resolve and gave plenty of crossers to help the second run. Held up with 12a tinsel v tassel despite the problem with parsing. Again with 20a as S + TIR didn’t work…but obviously it was STIR. FOI 1a cottage LOI 3d atlas (was fixated on album for too long). COD 14a for the surface. So thx to Hurley and our blogger by whatever name he prefers or is given!

    BTW anyone know how to clear out user names and passwords to start over with new? Been banned for an hour, again.

  31. Me too. The only advice I can give is shuffle the letters and look for typical combinations: ing, ion, st, ph, est etc. It does get (slightly) easier with practice.

    Edited at 2020-08-24 08:24 pm (UTC)

  32. Can’t get my head around STIR = strong reaction. It’s an action if anything not a reaction. I checked with Chambers at it says ‘If something stirs you, it makes you react with a strong emotion.’ which I suppose makes sense, but I wouldn’t immediately think something stirring was necessarily STRONG.

    LOI 3d after using an aid to get 9a which my mind went blank on.

    COD for me was 5d.

    Thanks Hurley and Don (?)

    1. I didn’t look it up but I felt it was OK from my own personal experience. I once had an Irish girlfriend and also hung out with her brother and sisters quite a lot, and if for example one of them had a new dress or suit and wore it to party where it was much admired they would talk about it ‘creating a bit of a stir’. Or similarly if they were in a conversation and thought someone was being a bit of an idiot they might have made a controversial remark as we might say, just to get a rise out of them or take the micky, but as they would say “Oh I just said it to cause a bit of a stir”.

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