Quick Cryptic 1424 by Joker

Author   curaristPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
Nothing too scary today, though 21dn might be a trap for the unwary. I was held up for ages by my inability to spell 14dn, which doubled my time, and I kept getting the “UNLUCKY!” alert which of course gives you no idea where the error is.

Unlucky? As Geoffrey Boycott famously said, it’s not luck.

Across

1 Dense nature of formal agreement leads to new extremely simple style (11)
COMPACTNESS – COMPACT + first letters of New Extremely Simple Style
8 Pungent gas shells etc in back area (7)
AMMONIA – Shells etc is AMMO, add NI (in backwards) + A
9 Turn with part of the foot (5)
WHEEL – W + HEEL
10 Food colouring company feature retails regularly (9)
COCHINEAL – CO + CHIN + alternate letters of rEtAiL
12 Draw connection (3)
TIE – double definition
13 More than one stole from playwright — like Shakespeare at first (6)
SHAWLS – (George Bernard) SHAW is the playwright, add L and S
15 Artist painting restorer reveals (6)
INGRES – hidden word: paintING REStorer
17 Perhaps hail one Conservative European (3)
ICE – I + C + E
18 Cooked patties to eat good, hot pasta (9)
SPAGHETTI – anagram (‘cooked’) of PATTIES with G and H inside
20 Venerated symbol to note, followed by millions (5)
TOTEM – TO + TE (note – DO RE ME etc) + M
22 Cast, we hear, is finished (7)
THROUGH – Sounds like THREW
23 People like Disney sort actions that must move (11)
CARTOONISTS – anagram (‘that must move’) of SORT ACTIONS
Down
1 Pear with no end is highly amusing (5)
COMIC – Short for COMICE, a kind of pear
2 Chap makes holes in soil, we hear, finding jawbones (9)
MANDIBLES – MAN + DIBLES which sounds like DIBBLES. A dibble is a gardening tool for making seed holes.
3 Rouse a weak, disturbed Pole (6)
AWAKEN – anagram (‘disturbed’) of A WEAK plus N for North (pole)
4 Pull of urban area that’s never ending (3)
TOW – short for TOWN
5 German prince is English reader (7)
ELECTOR – E + LECTOR. So called because they were entitled to take part in the election of the Holy Roman Emperor
6 Craftsmen making runners-up medals? (12)
SILVERSMITHS – don’t know how to describe this but it’s pretty self explanatory
7 Crisis antics are anyhow in vain (12)
NARCISSISTIC – anagram (‘are anyhow’) of CRISIS ANTICS
11 Yearn to get unusual shorn cattle (9)
LONGHORNS – LONG (yearn) + anagram (‘unusual’) of SHORN
14 One helping criminal sounding like a chancer (7)
ABETTOR – sounds like A BETTER
16 Bird to spoil metal container (6)
MARTIN – MAR (spoil) + TIN
19 Has confidence in removing last ton for supporting framework (5)
TRUSS – TRUSTS removing the last T for Ton
21 Low satellite terminated prematurely (3)
MOO – Short for MOON. Low is a classic crossword staple  – a common word with an obscure alternative meaning. It means moo, as in ‘The cattle are lowing..’ You either know it or you don’t. See also LAST (metal stand used by cobblers) NEAT (type of cattle)

25 comments on “Quick Cryptic 1424 by Joker”

  1. 13 minutes with SHAWLS as my LOI having lost my way picking through the 10 words of the clue – somewhat excessive for QC-land, perhaps? Time also lost early on at 9ac where I wrote WINCH with some confidence – W (with), INCH (part of the foot) – SILVERSMITHS at 8dn necessitated a rethink on that one. I had to write out the unused anagrist to unravel 7dn. It all took time.

    Edited at 2019-08-23 07:03 am (UTC)

    1. I now see I got one wrong because of a rotten clue at 14dn Shouldn’t happen in a QC. The editor should have spotted it and insisted on a change.

      On the presence of the homophone indicator (as discussed below) I’d argue it’s still needed with the -ER spelling to make A BETTER sound like ABETTER, at least at QC level.

      Edited at 2019-08-23 09:41 am (UTC)

  2. Nothing too scary, but something too slipshod on the settor’s or editer’s part: If you look at the leaderboard, about half the scores show one errer, including eg Verlaine and Neilr, which should tell you something. ‘abettor’ and ‘abetter’ sound exactly the same, of course, and they both sound like ‘a better’; the word that fits the definition can be spelled either way (see eg ODE), so there’s no reason to prefer the ‘correct’ answer to the ‘wrong’ one.
    Remember ‘low’; it will be here again. 6:17.
    1. Well technically no. If it was a better there would be no need for the homophone indicator imho
      1. Except that a person who gambles can just as well be spelled “bettor” as “better”, according to some sources, so both homophones are possible, which is what Kevin’s saying, I believe. Though “bettor” is down as “chiefly US” in ODE.

        As it turned out I went for ABETTOR, but only because I came here after a passing reference to this controversy in the 15×15 blog, so I was somewhat forewarned!

        Edited at 2019-08-23 09:11 am (UTC)

        1. What I’m saying is–what I said is–‘one helping criminal’ defines ABETTOR. Or ABETTER. It doesn’t matter whether ‘better’ can be spelled ‘bettor’–in fact, I wouldn’t have thought it could be. I don’t see what Anon is getting at. The definition is, we all agree, ‘one helping criminal’. The answer sounds like ‘a chancer’; that is–since there’s no word that sounds like ‘achancer’–it sounds like, is homophonous to–‘a better’. The word that actually sounds like ‘a better’ is spelled in either of two ways, that sound exactly the same. So there’s no reason–none–to prefer ABETTER over ABETTOR, or vice versa.
            1. I have now delved into the thesaurus and realise I wasn’t aware that a bettor was a better. I’m sorry Joker but I think I am going to have to award a GR (golden raspberry) for that clue. I thank you for the rest of the grid even if you caught me off guard with ELECTOR which is now committed to memory.
  3. A steady solve today, finishing in 13.54. Struggled at the end with SHAWLS and ELECTOR. I’d not heard of the pear before and I always struggle with ‘notes’ so 20a wasn’t fully parsed. Fortunately it didn’t occur to me to think of the alternate spelling of 14d.
    Thanks for the blog
  4. FOI was AWAKEN and then proceeded smoothly until my last two, 7d and 13a. I was under 15 minutes to that point and
    needed another seven to get NARCISSISTIC and finally SHAWLS ( difficult for a QC but my COD).
    On submitting I had an error. I was another ABETTER and can’t see anything wrong with it.
    David
  5. Held up by 7D thinking the definition was “in vain”. That was my SLOI – I needed the S to come up with SHAWLS (LOI). No problem with ABETTOR as the homophone indicator was, to me, a clear steer to the correct version of the word with alternative spellings. COD to MANDIBLES. 6:33

    Edited at 2019-08-23 08:26 am (UTC)

  6. Just the wrong side of 20 minutes for me, held up by ELECTOR and SHAWLS, but at least I avoided the abettor trap (interesting that the spell-checker here won’t let me spell it with an E instead of the O).
  7. Well, I apparently got 14d correct, but having done some research into the spellings of BETTER and BETTOR, and ABETTER AND ABETTOR, the clue looks dodgier and dodgier, and I think it was a matter of luck. I spent some time dithering over it. The rest of the puzzle was more straight forward, but still took me over my target. 11:21. Thanks Joker and Curarist.
  8. I guess I was lucky today as I chose ABETTOR rather than ABETTER (live journal spell check doesn’t recognise this alternative). I did however misspell NARCISSISTIC at first with only one S in the middle so it came up short. SHAWLS didn’t hold me up. I’d never heard of the French painter INGRES but he was clearly signposted as a hidden word. DNK my LOI ELECTOR as a German prince. 12 mins
  9. ….and never remotely considering that when I go to the races I could be a “bettor”, regardless of what Chambers tells me, I happily entered ABETTOR without even considering a problem.

    There was little else worthy of comment.

    FOI WHEEL
    LOI AMMONIA
    COD THROUGH
    TIME 4:04

  10. Except for struggling with the anagram at 7d, I thought I had been fairly quick today, so I was surprised to see that I was well north of 30mins at the end. I can only think that indicates an engrossing puzzle – thank you Joker. Elector was a half remembered answer that seemed to fit, Ingres an unknown artist from a friendly cryptic, and Abettor benefitted from a recent run-out in the big puzzle. My favourite however was 13ac, Shawls, a real penny drop moment. Invariant
    1. It was ABETTER last time we saw it in the big puzzle, or have I been misremembering? If it was, this is my main beef with the clue, as it is certainly the reason I chose ER over OR.
        1. You are doubly right. Looking back it was a) the QC (1414), and b) Abetter. With a memory as bad as that, I don’t know how on earth I managed to choose the the right answer both times.
  11. Not an easy end to the week. I was another ABETTER and join others in thinking it is a better solution. I liked MANDIBLES, ELECTOR, and SHAWLS. Had more trouble than I should have with LONGHORNS and COMPACTNESS but my COD is AMMONIA. SCC again – actually nearly 4K but it felt a lot quicker so I was clearly engrossed….. Thanks to Joker and Curarist. John M.

    Edited at 2019-08-23 02:04 pm (UTC)

  12. Ah, the old ‘better’ v ‘bettor’ unpleasantness again. It does make me laugh today though, just as many on here laughed a few months ago, when I was the subject of much condescending hilarity (twice), for daring to suggest that the correct term in the business is ‘bettor’. (Did I mention twice?). I mean, I even conceded, in the spirit of tolerance, that ‘better’ was valid for crossword purposes too, but all to no avail. The joke ran at my expense for a couple of days, but I took my medicine in good part though. So come on on now! Those of you that joined in the fun, just admit that none of you countenanced even the slightest possibility that ‘bettor’ just might, just might, possibly be an alternative? That the issue has now apparently exploded into ‘abetter-gate’, well you couldn’t make it up. (Mr not-so-Grumpy-more-philosophical today)
    1. Of course we all countenanced both. It’s the fact that we had the same clue only ten QC’s ago:

      Criminal assistant one to have flutter? (7)
      ABETTER – double definition of sorts

      One would assume that, even if the Times puzzle doesn’t have enough sub-editors, it might at least have consistency between effectively the same clue twice 😛

      1. The only semi-reasonable conclusion is that they don’t accept BETTOR as a valid word meaning “gambler”, but I’d like to know why if not.
  13. A DNF for me today, though thankfully it is a rarer occurrence than it used to be. The offending clue was 5d. I tried alphabet trawling with the second and fourth letters and did think about elector, but since I had never heard of either elector as a German prince, nor of a lector being a reader, I passed over it. I suppose if I’d had to put something in I might have gone for it, but equally, I might have tried ementor. I suppose the reader part of the word has the same root as lectern?
    Other than that, and never having heard of Ingres, an excellent puzzle as usual from Joker.
  14. After a fairly tough week with the QC I thought I would try today’s 15×15 and found it not that much harder. It took me around twice the time of a couple of this week’s QCs. I’m not sure what is going on in terms of relative difficulty these days. John M.

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