Times Quick Cryptic 1676 by Tracy

Author   chrisw91Posted on Categories Quick Cryptic

Three clues put me in a nautical mood so I found this plain sailing with a following wind and fair tide. My voyage took only 7:05 so I’d hardly had time to break out the G&Ts.

ACROSS

1. Tries again at rear of mule train (8)
REHEARSE – tries again – REHEARS, MUL(E).
5. Animal in forest, a gazelle (4)
STAG – in foreST A Gazelle.
8. Be suspicious of party, but relaxed.
DOUBT – party – DO, anagram (relaxed) of BUT.
9. Briefly board ship prior to travel ban (7)
EMBARGO – briefly board ship – EMBAR(k), travel – GO.
11. Have a meal, warm, without husband (3)
EAT – warm without husband – (h)EAT.
12. Doctor and MA having part in complex procedure (9)
RIGMAROLE – doctor – RIG (fix), MA, part – ROLE.
13. Colas I ordered for party (6)
SOCIAL – anagram (ordered) of COLAS I. I needed checkers for this.
15. Drawing of small sailing vessel (6)
SKETCH – small – S, sailing vessel – KETCH.
18. Justify being very mean (6)
VINDICATE – very – V, mean – INDICATE. Looked this up as I wasn’t entirely happy about vindicate=justify. I thought that vindicate was more ‘prove right’. However Collins has justify as a synonym in the sense of support – the report vindicated his policy.
19. Cut fruit, then vegetable (3)
PEA – cut fruit – PEA(r).
20. Daily in circulation, originally thinner (7)
CLEANER – (C)irculation, thinner – LEANER.
21. Leading group capsized (5)
UPSET – leading – UP, group – SET.
22. Draw a circle round item of jewellery (4)
RING – double definition.
23. Make light of losing on stage show (4,4)
PLAY DOWN – losing – DOWN on/after stage show – PLAY.

DOWN

1. Set right about frock (7)
REDRESS – about – RE, frock – DRESS.
2. Search round a place frequently visited (5)
HAUNT – search – HUNT round a – A.
3. Conservative blocking amendment causes heated dispute (11)
ALTERCATION – conservative – C blocking/inside amendment – ALTERATION.
4. Toboggan beginning to slide over projecting shelf (6)
SLEDGE – (S)lide over projected ting shelf – LEDGE.
6. Come about act available (4,3)
TURN OUT – act – TURN, available – OUT – the latest film is out.
7. Good to wander in small wooded area (5)
GROVE – good (G), wander – ROVE.
10. A dark horse in the field of children’s literature (5,6)
BLACK BEAUTY – cryptic definition.
14. Business worry (7)
CONCERN – double definition.
16. Cheer that woman catching a number (7)
HEARTEN – that woman – HER catching a – A, number – TEN.
17. Save about a litre in cask (6)
BARREL – save – BAR – all bar one, about – RE, litre – L.
18. Member of the clergy visiting Civic Arena (5)
VICAR – in ciVIC ARena.
19. Bother with duck sauce (5)
PESTO – bother – PEST with duck – O.

50 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic 1676 by Tracy”

  2. I think I may have made heavy weather of this, getting quite stuck at the bottom. First run through of acrosses yielded five but with what I thought were two anagrams to add – turns out ‘daily in’ was not anagrist but ‘colas I’ was. Inserted then removed VICAR because I didn’t stop how it was hidden but having spotted it from VIsiting Civic ARena. VINDICATE, ALTERCATION and HEARTEN all took too long and I needed to hold my breath before submitting BARREL which I needed hints to make sense of. Thanks to Chris for reminding me pears exist, I had wondered why two letters had to be removed from peach. Seems I was lucky to be all green in 17.
  3. After 8 minutes I had a mental block with two answers outstanding at 8dn and 20ac and only just managed to scrape home before my 10 minute target expired. I was fixated on CHAR for ‘daily’ and had difficulty seeing past it.
  4. 10 mins, and then another 5 to clear my mental block of cleaner, altercation for about the fifth time, barrel, and last 2 rehearse and haunt. The extra AT in 1a threw me a little.

    COD cleaner.

    Edited at 2020-08-11 06:25 am (UTC)

  5. 12 minutes today, so comfortably back in target range. COD VINDICATE, FOI REDRESS. Nice puzzle from Tracy, and succinct blog from Chris. My thanks for both.
  6. Like rotter, I was back closer to expectation at 12 mins. I shared Kevin’s biffs (but parsed them before completion) and VINDICATE was my COD without question. Some neat clues and smooth misdirection. Thanks to Tracy and Chris. John M.
  7. A sub 9 minutes solve with LOI the elusive 1a REHEARSE. I had similar hold ups to others needing the checkers first for CLEANER and then BARREL. After recently having a pin clued as cask I was expecting a firkin. Thanks all for your input.
  8. Would have been quicker if I had not idiotically put address rather than Redress which made 1ac difficult to guess until I saw the light.
    Biffed lots today. Couldn’t parse RIGMAROLE among others, e.g.BARREL, ALTERCATION, and REHEARSE. I always forget Try can mean Hear.
    Thanks for helpful blog.
  9. 10 minutes for all of this except 2d and 1a.
    I was quick to put ADDRESS at 1d thinking that AD can mean on the subject of or about.
    This was a nearly fatal error. It took me a long time to get HAUNT without the first letter to help. Then I was (like yesterday) looking for mistakes as 1a seemed impossible starting with A.
    Finally with 23:15 on the clock, I cracked it. Glad I didn’t give up – a good puzzle. David
  10. My FOI was HAUNT and my LOI was RIGMAROLE, for which I needed all the checkers, despite having seen it before. 9:37. Thanks Tracy and Chris.
  11. Another slowish solve (28mins) but a very enjoyable one all the same. After a good start in the NE, I tried to work clockwise around the grid, but the Vicar (well hidden, Tracy) Vindicate combination put an end to that. With the chance of a decent time gone, I settled down to a more leisurely approach and enjoyed some excellent clues: Rigmarole (chestnuts are always good first time round) and CoD Doubt stood out, but Cleaner was pretty good. Altercation (where I spent too long trying to insert Tory) and Rehearse were my last two by a long way, in fact almost the next race. Invariant
    1. Ha – I promise that your enjoyment of RIGMAROLE wasn’t there when I started typing my dislike of it!!
      1. Must try and remember Uxorial – it’s bound to come up one of these days.
    2. Likewise with the Tory – but then I went into Cons and made it even worse.
  12. Multiple uxorial interruptions so no time but it felt quite slow, minimum 2K. Enjoyed EMBARGO and VINDICATE. Didn’t enjoy RIGMAROLE, which doesn’t deserve to have become a chestnut if such it be.

    FOI STAG, LOI REHEARSE, COD CLEANER.

    Thanks Tracy and Chris.

    Templar

  13. ….DOUBT and RIGMAROLE, I shared Invariant’s conviction of a lurking Tory in 3D, but only briefly. A lovely puzzle from Tracy.

    FOI STAG
    LOI BARREL
    COD VINDICATE
    TIME 3:41

  14. A slow 53 mins for me today, well beyond my usual average. I found this quite hard but I didn’t sleep too good, so either I was a little sluggish or Tracy was sneakier than I thought.

    Didn’t help I biffed “Glade” for 7dn without properly parsing it. I also thought of “Address” for 1dn and got stuck on 2dn, 3dn and 12ac for an age. Whilst I have heard of daily as a cleaner (and it’s come up here before) it didn’t immediately register.

    FOI – 5ac “Stag”
    LOI – 12ac “Rigmarole”
    COD – 1ac “Rehearse” – very deceptive

    Thanks as usual.

  15. I really enjoyed this puzzle and, at 10:39, was only 16 seconds over my fastest time in July.
    REHEARSE puzzled me as I was expecting the solution to end in an ‘s’ to match ‘tries’ and, like Countrywoman, I hadn’t thought of the ‘hears’ meaning.
    I biffed RIGMAROLE after unsuccessfully going through all the abbreviations for a doctor. I must add ‘rig’ to my list of hints.
    My favourites were SOCIAL, UPSET and VINDICATE.
    Thanks to Tracy and Chris.

    Edited at 2020-08-11 12:26 pm (UTC)

    1. Whenever I see “doctor” my mind whirrs through MB, MD, MO, DR, DOC, RIG and finally WHO. Then half the time it turns out to be an anagram indicator!
      1. Yes, indeed. So annoying but I suppose cryptics wouldn’t be a challenge if everything went to plan! It would be nice sometimes though…
  16. 23a. I find it hard to understand why “on” can also mean “after”. Surely it means either “on top of” or “before “?

    It catches me out every time.

    Diana

    1. For crossword purposes you only have to remember to check whether the clue is Across or Down. If Down, ‘on’ means ‘on top of’, if Across, A on B = BA.

      Edited at 2020-08-11 12:54 pm (UTC)

      1. I’m being really stupid here. Why does A on B mean that A comes after B? I’d’ve thought it would be the other way around.

        Oh well, that’s crossword vocab I suppose.

        Thanks anyway! I’ll
        try to remember in future.

        Diana

        1. Maybe try and remember it as “on the end of”.

          If you put a T on GOA you get GOAT.

          As jackkt says, only do this for across clues!

  17. Made heavier weather of this than I should have, doing such things as putting in ‘taga’ instead of STAG at first, thinking it was an antelope (With a bit more thought I now realise I was thinking of the saiga antelope, which is a bit like taiga which is almost taga). I also put ‘address’ at first, though quickly corrected that as I realised 1a probably started with RE. I had DOWNPLAY for 23a for a while too. Never heard of a “ketch” and not sure I’ve come across “daily” meaning some kind of home help either, but maybe I have because it made perfect sense when I thought of it. Anyway, all done in 37:54 with LOI 7d COD to 19d because I got the answer having read the clue as “Brother with duck sauce”.
  18. Home in 20 with LOI 1ac which I still don’t understand. I can link arse to rear but I doubt that’s right!
    Is anyone else humming the Black Beauty TV theme tune?
    Johnny
    1. It’s just rehears (present tense, tries again) plus the last letter (rear) of mule = rehearse = train
  19. About 12 mins. Would have been quicker but I had downplay at 23a for 2 or 3 mins
  20. Not in the groove at all today and struggled all round the grid. Didn’t parse RIGMAROLE and REHEARSE and took a distressingly long time to solve the 6 letter anagram at 13ac. Took around 25 minutes in two sessions.

    FOI – 5ac STAG
    LOI – 1ac REHEARSE
    COD – 20ac CLEANER

  21. but not today.

    SOCIAL was my LOI, no particular reason, other than I just couldn’t see the anagram!

    6:15. I suppose a few semi-biffs – RIGMAROLE and CLEANER, but soon fully parsed post-solve.

  22. Well within our target again although not as quick yesterday. Took time to parse 17d until the penny dropped about bar. Enjoyable puzzle and glad to be back on some kind of form after a terrible time last week, when we missed our target every day.
  23. … does the trick, all done in 12 minutes with no serious holdups once I had decided 7D could not be Glade. I had not met the old chestnut Rigmarole and enjoyed unscrambling it, and 18A Vndicate led me astray briefly thinking mean = unkind.

    COD 20A Cleaner; did anyone else think that as well as “thinner” giving leaner, it also gives the whole clue: thinner is used to clean paint brushes.

    Thanks to Chris for the blog
    Cedric

  24. Didn’t enjoy this, some answers seemed so obvious we were searching for alternatives, and a number of clues left my eyebrows firmly on top of my head. Train = rehearse? Doctor = rig? Leading = up and losing = down? Save = bar and out = available might have got through with a tut on their own, but in combination made the whole puzzle unsatisfactory to us, even though it was a fairly quick solve.
    1. Rig the results, train for a play. Up or down in a game of football, all bar/save one item, the latest film is out/available. They’re all decent synonyms. I had my own similar thing today with vindicate – but the dictionaries proved the setter to be correct.
    2. …that’s how they work
      and, being The Quickie, it’s supposed to be easy!
  25. My biggest issue today was trying to parse BLACK BEAUTY as I figured there must be more going on than a (barely) cryptic definition. Other than that I paused briefly over VINDICATE, wanting it to be VINDICTIVE even though it didn’t fit (or parse) but the rest went in steadily.
    I enjoyed my LOI RIGMAROLE, not having seen it before, but my favourite was VINDICATE. Finished in 8.27.
    Thanks to Chris
  26. …for our slowish time of 23 minutes. Thanks to Tracy for a really enjoyable puzzle – nicely balanced and fun to do.

    FOI: stag
    LOI: haunt
    COD: rigmarole

    Thanks to Chris for the blog.

  27. Nearly hit my computer with a SLEIGHHAMMER after making that mistake. I hadn’t understood SLEIGH and made a mental note to go back and look again, but totally forgot and was rewarded with two pink squares. (We don’t call it SLEDGE here, I think.)
      1. Sorry about that. Here in Blighty we sledge down a hill when it snows – a sleigh is a great big Santa thing with reindeer pulling it. Those dashed Ozzie chaps often sledge when playing cricket as well – but that’s in the summer.
        1. Yes I gather it’s more synonymous with ‘sled’ rather than ‘sleigh’.
    1. Back in the day, cleaners would come in to clean daily so were called a ‘daily’.

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