Times Quick Cryptic No 1428 by Mara

Author   rolytolyPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
Tricky enough today from Mara. I only had five of the acrosses on a first read over (8,9,10,17,19), and would have been slower than the 11-and-a-half minutes it took me to DNF had it not been for a few helpful anagrams. I was left staring at 21ac at the end, but my patience for staring blankly at cryptic crossword clues was wearing rather thin after yesterday’s 15×15 puzzle, done (after a fashion) just before this. So not much hanging around before clicking on the answer. But a very well crafted puzzle with lots of variation and some lovely surfaces, my favourites being 11ac, 22ac, 2d, 3d and 4d. Good stuff – many thanks to Mara!

Across
1 Plant after day is OK (12)
SATISFACTORY – FACTORY (plant) goes after SAT (Saturday = day) IS
8 Companion welcoming secretary of a RC leader (5)
PAPAL – PAL (companion) welcomes PA (secretary). RC = Roman Catholic.
9 Roll filled with a fowl for the oven (7)
ROASTER – ROSTER (roll) filled with A
10 Grass over lovely Cambridge Backs (3)
RYE – the “back” letters of oveR lovelY cambridgE
11 Latest run for paper (9)
NEWSPRINT – NEW (latest) SPRINT (run). Can mean an actual newspaper, but now more often refers to the cheap newspaper-type paper itself.
13 Dog carried back by big rocket (5)
CORGI – “carried back” in the letters of bIG ROCket
14 Caught in trap, illicit profit made (5)
LUCRE – C(aught) inside LURE (trap) makes the answer – definitions don’t always come right at the start or end of clues.
16 Old article in complex meant to be shabby (4-5)
MOTH-EATEN – O(ld) THE (article) in an anagram (complex) of MEANT
17 Musical performance that may go either way? (3)
GIG – “going either way” is a cryptic description of a palindrome
19 Attempt to nail one record in series of three (7)
TRILOGY – TRY (attempt) to nail I (one) LOG (record)
21 Heard of charming apartment! (5)
SUITE – is heard the same as SWEET (charming). Yup, so it is.
22 Stirring espresso, don’t — use this? (12)
DESSERTSPOON – anagram (stirring) of ESPRESSO DONT. A semi-&lit clue (see glossary for &lit), with the definition here referring back to the cryptic. I don’t know that it’s especially gauche to use a dessertspoon to stir an espresso, but it would have to be a stirringly large espresso.

Down
1 Wonderful agent takes us up (5)
SUPER – REP has/takes US, up = reverse.
2 Very sensitive poets roaming over island, endlessly (3-6)
TOP-SECRET – anagram (roaming) of POETS over CRETe (island, “endlessly”)
3 Great Depression: ‘flu spreading? (13)
SPLENDIFEROUS – anagram (spreading) of DEPRESSION FLU. The OED calls the word’s current usage colloquial and humorous, which sounds about right, but its first citation dates from 1475 with a straight sense of resplendent.
4 Old weapons in unopened graves (6)
ARROWS – BARROWS = graves, unopened = dock the first letter. I remember the zombiesque barrow-wights from reading Lord of the Rings as a kid: a mount of earth or stones over early graves. More often seen in place names for hills – from Germanic, originally meaning mountain, from the same idea as “berg”, but “applied, as the date becomes later, to lower eminences.” Nicely put, OED.
5 Bouncers spit: mortal sin, unfortunately (13)
TRAMPOLINISTS – anagram (unfortunately) of SPIT MORTAL SIN. I needed most of the checkers for this particular anagram.
6 Rubbish peak to climb (3)
ROT – TOR (peak) climbing/reversing
7 Produce book, penning ultimate in ghoulish twist (6)
WRITHE – WRITE (produce book) penning/containing H (“ultimate” in ghoulisH)
12 Popular icon got dressed up in disguise (9)
INCOGNITO – IN (popular), anagram (dressed up) of ICON GOT
13 Something flashing across the sky, then nothing: regain consciousness (4,2)
COME TO – COMET (something flashing across the sky) then O (nothing)
15 Tenacious horse: famous name carrying you (6)
STAYER – STAR (famous horse) carrying/holding YE (you). News to me, but doesn’t require an excessive leap of logic. I’d want to clarify before betting on one, though – it might also mean a horse with a tenacious attachment to the starting gate.
18 Politician needing info about Religious Education (5)
GREEN – GEN (info) about RE
20 Something cold seen during Antarctic expedition (3)
ICE – “seen during” the letters of AntarctIC Expedition

23 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 1428 by Mara”

  1. I was feeling rather chuffed about my time until I submitted, and realized that I’d been doing the Quickie not the main cryptic. Aside from writing down the anagrist in each case, which I don’t do with the QCs, I think my pace must be faster with QCs, since I’m aiming mainly for speed. So 11:47.
  2. 10 minutes. I took one look at 1ac and decided not to spend time on it but search elsewhere for easier pickings, and that decision made the difference between attaining my 10 minute target and missing it. The other three long answers leapt out at me.

    I wondered why there is a dash in the clue to 22ac as the reading “don’t use this” would surely make more sense as definition. “Don’t” would then be doing double-duty (as part of the anagrist and part of the definition) but that’s not unusual so I wouldn’t have seen it as a problem. I also wondered about “Stirring espresso? Don’t use this” with punctuation interrupting the anagrist, but at this early hour of the day I can’t recall whether that would be permissable or not.

    Edited at 2019-08-29 05:12 am (UTC)

    1. Yes now you mention it, and given my comment in the blog, I clearly read it as “don’t use this”. After a closer look I think the dash is just there to make the definition element a bit clearer for a QC clue. The “don’t” could be read in the surface as part of an extended definition, but it isn’t required for the cryptic as the “use this?” definition surely has to work by itself (as in, it’s possibly a perfectly passable implement to stir an espresso). At least, I don’t remember seeing a clue in any Times cryptic ever doing double-duty (outside of a full &lit, which this is not) of overlapped anagrist and definition, and didn’t think it was done.

      I can’t see any problem with punctuation interrupting the anagrist – aren’t we meant to roundly ignore punctuation? And if we have commas, apostrophes and dashes interrupting anagrists all the time, then it’s not much of a leap to full stops and the like.

      1. Thanks for your thoughtful reponse, Roly. On reflection, I think you’re right about the Times and double-duty although I wouldn’t swear it has never happened.
  3. About 25 mins struggling with writhe, lucre and loi roaster.
    Wanted CH for companion in 8a.

    Arrows and roaster unparsed.

    Liked top secret and come to.

  4. I had to work hard on this one and found myself approaching 15 minutes with a couple still to go. TRAMPOLINISTS, NEWSPRINT and LUCRE my last 3 in. RYE was FOI. A bit of a workout. I also tried to fit CH in 8a. Thanks Mara and Roly.
  5. I found this one quite straightforward with nothing which really held me up, probably because I got the four long clues quickly. Ended on 12:16 which is amazing for me in comparison to times already mentioned!
  6. ….SPLENDIFEROUS (LOI/COD) it was most enjoyable, and made me stretch the old grey matter more than usual.

    I was eight clues in before FOI MOTH-EATEN fell, and knew by then that I wouldn’t beat my five minute target.

    I also thought the hyphen in 22A would have been better before “don’t”, but nothing else not to like. Thanks Mara and Roly.

    TIME 6:22

  7. Tricky today, which I wasn’t expecting after 1a went straight in. I didn’t really get a foothold anywhere so had to hop around the grid for a while. I was also slow to solve the 2 long down anagrams and spent the last few minutes on LOI 21a, which required a couple of alphabet trawls I’m sure SUITE/APARTMENT is in the all the usual sources but it wasn’t a link I’d ever made before.
    A good work out that I finished in 17.04 with my WOD going to SPLENDIFEROUS.
    Thanks for the blog
  8. Too many unexpected phone calls to even guess a time but I was very slow. I only got the four 3-letter words in the first couple of minutes but then slowly progressed. SPLENDIFEROUS needed a few crossers and TRAMPOLINISTS even more but these were great anagrams and the last few fell into place when these were in. LOI SUITE. Very tough for a QC, I thought, but engaging. It was worth going it over it all again with the help of roly’s blog. Thanks, both. John M.

    Edited at 2019-08-29 09:34 am (UTC)

  9. If you are good with long anagrams then this was relatively straight forward – I’m not, so I found it quite difficult. After 30 mins I was down to my last pair (3 and 15d), and eventually realised that 15d was just simply Stayer. At that point I had all the crossers for loi 3d, but even then it took a while to get Splendiferous. A typical Mara puzzle. Invariant
  10. Just inside my 40 minute target with 38:54 today, which I am pleased with, given that I was despairing of getting into it at all as I was going through the across clues and nothing was going in except rye. This wouldn’t have worried me unduly ordinarily, because usually, even if I can’t get the words, I can at least see what I need to do with the clues. This time most of them made no sense at all. Thankfully I was able to get trilogy and then I got to the long anagrams and stuff started falling into place.
    Never managed to parse arrows. Surely taking the top off something means it is opened, so the graves should be opened ones. Also, I’ve always thought of dessert spoon as being two words, although I suppose I do think of teaspoon as one word, so I guess I’m wrong on that one. Still looks odd though.
    Thought my last one in was writhe and then saw I hadn’t got 21a. Went in quite quickly though. COD the hidden canine in 13a.
    And finally, as John Craven used to say, 8a made me wonder if any crossword has made use of the homophones of Paypal and papal.
    1. Hi, it’s unopened as in don’t include the opening letter: (B)arrows
    2. Yes, as Invariant says unopened here means without open. But I do like the opened = take off the top idea, and can’t see any problem with it as a device, other than being a bit more Mephisto than QC!
  11. A real struggle today in 20:38 after a very fast and SATISFACTORY start. Things fell into place once the long down anagrams revealed themselves. COD DESSERTSPOON – even with the dash, the double duty “don’t” made me smile.
  12. I enjoyed this one, thanks to the setter. But I thought that one of the rules of the QC was that the definition always pointed to either the beginning or the end of the answer- which is one of the things that makes it a QC. And why I couldn’t work out 14a.
    Diana
    1. It’s not a rule, either of the QC or of other cryptics; it just almost always happens to work out that way.
    2. What Kevin said, and here’s an example that appeared in the main puzzle blogged by me on Tuesday:

      Were pound to plummet, this contract could provide support (5)
      LEASE : LEASE (contract) becomes EASEL (support) if the L (pound) were to move to the end of the word (plummet – in a Down clue). A rare example of the definition (contract) in the middle of a clue.

      But reverting to today’s QC at 14ac I think it’s arguable that the definition is actually ‘illicit profit made’, in which case the exception wouldn’t apply.

      Edited at 2019-08-29 03:11 pm (UTC)

  13. After several weeks away from Crosswordland (extensive work commitments and a fabulous holiday in Newfoundland – it repays the convoluted journey many times over), I found myself floundering with this one. The mojo appeared to have left me with an 11 minute finish. I was grateful to come here and find others also found this tricky.
    Hats off to Mara and Rolytoly.
  14. Slow with three of the long anagrams, we made heavy weather of this. 19 a last one in. Belated thanks to Jack for replying to our query yesterday.
  15. Kevin needs to set his QC pace to 15×15 more often, since the result was that I finished one second inside his time – an incredibly rare event and thus a Red Letter Day. Very enjoyable, thanks Mara, and what a good blog Roly – I especially enjoyed learning about the antiquity of SPLENDIFEROUS, which I’d always assumed was a C20 creation. Thank you.

    Templar

    Edited at 2019-08-29 06:08 pm (UTC)

    1. Thank you – and good effort on the sub-K! Yes I’d have said the same about splendiferous – by the way, the last “straight” citation it gives is from 1678 by someone called T. Duffett in the interestingly titled “Psyche Debauch’d” and simply says “Ladies most splendiferous.” But it’s a bawdy comedy play – I think for a word that’s meant to describe something full of wondrous splendour it always sounded a bit too much like the splutterings of a giddy six year old.

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