Times Quick Cryptic No 1542 by Joker

Author   plusjeremyPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

Introduction

I spent a long time thinking about 1 Down. Of course, with a really hard one, it’s not unusual for me to struggle. After trying in vain for several minutes to get a good grip on it, I put in a very flimsy attempt, resulting in a DNF for me. Knowing I’d need to rise to the occasion, I redoubled my efforts, and with a little focus and thought, I was finally able to put it in.

Much of the puzzle was straightforward, which was rather misleading, as there were several clues with quite tricky wordplay I wasn’t expecting. Nice puzzle.

Solutions

Across

1 Search me, roughly, [for] woollen material (8)
CASHMERE – SEARCH ME anagrammed
5 Overturned cooking vessels break (4)
SNAP – reverse of PANS
8 Salad plant is stuffed with it [for] speed (8)
CELERITY – CELERY around IT
I knew this word but I couldn’t see past VELOCITY, which I knew was wrong. Excellent clue.
9 French cheese that is taken by British (4)
BRIE – IE (that is) next to BR
11 Be in favour of energy worker coming early (10)
BEFOREHAND – BE + FOR + E (energy) + HAND (worker)
14 Not kingly, not good, not genuine (6)
UNREAL – UNREGAL without G
Great clue and great surface. I was expecting NG in there somewhere.
15 Fiddle mixing oil into French wine (6)
VIOLIN – anagram of OIL in VIN (French word for wine)
17 Hang around after pub room’s backed Wild West fighter (10)
GUNSLINGER – LINGER after SNUG (pub room) reversed
I didn’t know SNUG, a screened off room where, traditionally, women could drink in secret. I spent many an hour in one of these in my local Irish pub here in NYC, back in the day.
20 Vegetable regularly alleged to have potassium (4)
LEEK – every other letter of ALLEGED + K (potassium)
21 Rubbish a politician[’s] spinning (8)
ROTATORY – ROT + A + TORY
22 Guardian’s charge raised finally after conflict (4)
WARD – last letter of RAISED after WAR
23 Whip up green tea in the mixer? (8)
GENERATE – GREEN TEA anagrammed

Down

1 Male bird [is] half Australian parrot (4)
COCK – half of COCKATOO
I guessed CUCU.
2 Small beer [in] exchange for money (4)
SALE – S + ALE
3 Label English item of furniture [as] attractive to buyers (10)
MARKETABLE – MARK + E + TABLE
4 Rodent, one being supported by allotment (6)
RATION – RAT + I + ON (being supported by)
6 No Royal Marine has to join forces as a rule (8)
NORMALLY – NO + R.M. + ALLY (join forces)
7 Appealing page out ahead (8)
PLEADING – P + LEADING
Went for PLEASANT/PLEASING early on and knew it didn’t seem right.
10 Consider late bride running before end of service (10)
DELIBERATE – LATE BRIDE anagrammed + last letter of SERVICE
12 Financial inducement on a small house (8)
BUNGALOW – BUNG (financial inducement) + A + LOW (small)
Tricky stuff. Didn’t know this meaning of BUNG.
13 Europe’s after good currency [for] impressiveness (8)
GRANDEUR – EUR after G + RAND (South African currency)
16 Revenue in company made without publicity (6)
INCOME – IN + CO + MADE without AD (publicity)
18 Deep state starts to control our major authorities (4)
COMA – first letters of CONTROL OUR MAJOR AUTHORITIES
19 Some badly retuned instrument (4)
LYRE – letters in BADLY RETUNED

28 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 1542 by Joker”

  1. Biffed 17ac and 12d, but spotted BUNG & SNUG immediately, two words I sort of knew, although I couldn’t have told you what BUNG meant. (Of course I knew ‘bung’ from BIFD, although that ‘bung’ I also learned here; ODE puts both meanings in the same entry, BUNG3.) Liked UNREAL and CELERITY. 5:08.
  2. Zoomed through this – only pausing at loi 21ac and ended up at 6:20 – very quick for me. All the clues seemed to piece together from front to back – if you see what I mean. I suspect the wine in the departure lounge here in SFO lubricated the little grey cells – maybe I should try this more often?
  3. Less than 6 minutes for me, so pretty easy. Like vinyl1 I bunged (see what I did there) several in from the definition without bothering to think about the wordplay, or sometimes just from the first bit of the wordplay (like BUNG—- for a building).
  4. 13 minutes. Gave myself a hard time by failing to unravel the anagram at 1ac until I had some checkers in place (it should have been a write-in), and then putting STOP* at 5ac which left 6dn impossible to solve as my LOI until I had realised and corrected my error.

    *STOP = break. POTS (cooking vessels) reversed [overturned].

    Edited at 2020-02-05 06:02 am (UTC)

  5. I also had stop, so that and normally pushed me to 18 mins.

    Dnk celerity , and don’t remember it from latin.
    Liked normally, unreal, and beforehand.
    COD ration.

  6. I felt I was going quickly today. FOI SNAP,the first thing that occurred to me, then few real hold-ups. But I kept coming back to 11a, just couldn’t see it and it became my LOI; I stared at it for ages with all the checkers;surely it had to contain PRO and ANT. Anyway I finished all correct in 13:30 so I rate this as a puzzle with hidden depths. COD to ROTATORY or BEFOREHAND.
    In an earlier era there were various English football managers who allegedly “liked a bung” when transfers were being negotiated.
    David
  7. I thought parts of this were difficult for a QC, and I was pleased to finish at 27 minutes. After the first pass I had only six four-letter answers, but pennies slowly dropped and eventually I was left with most of the NW corner. DKN CELERITY, but I thought it may have something to do with ‘accelerate’, which gave me my LOI ‘marketable’.
    Thanks to Jeremy for helping me parse UNREAL and to Joker for the puzzle.

    Brian

  8. An enjoyable romp which seemed to go by more quickly than my actual time – under 3K (but all parsed – no biffing). FOI SALE & LOI PLEADING. COD GUNSLINGER. Thanks to both. John M.
  9. Again nothing really awkward, but I seemed to be slow seeing the right end of the clues, and finished up just missing my target, even though I skipped the proof reading. 10:02. Thanks Joker and Jeremy.
  10. ….so “BUNGALOW Bill” was fresh in my mind. Like Jack, I didn’t unravel my CASHMERE straight away. Despite losing time through that, I was still home and hosed comfortably within my target.

    FOI SNAP (didn’t spot pots)
    LOI RATION
    COD UNREAL

  11. Inside my 15m target, but only just, having made the same mistake as Jackkt and others above. It never occurred to me until late that STOP might be wrong, so I continued to try to make T-R-A-L- work for 6d, and all I could think of to fit was TARNALLY which wasn’t going to work. All this after a very quick start was disappointing.
  12. Jeremy, I’m not going to let you get away unscathed for your risqué but amusing intro! Others appear to be either too polite or too abashed to mention it, but not me. Full marks for your chutzpah.

    As for the puzzle? Steady solve held up by CELERITY which is a very fine clue.

    My thanks to Joker and the naughty boy.
    4’45”

  13. Jeremy channelling Carry On! Excellent! 26:10 held up for a long time on 11a and 21a – not sure I know ROTATORY, but I’ve WS Gilbert to thank for the second day in a row as I’ve only heard CELERITY used by him, same for WHIT yesterday.
  14. Gosh, I finished it today in about half an hour or even less, so pleased. Ditto yesterday, but two mistakes. I often guess the clue without being able to ‘parse’. Heard of pub snugs but didn’t know they were for ladies!
    1. “I often guess the clue without being able to ‘parse’.”

      It is known as ‘biffing’. See Glossary

      FOI 1dn COCK

      LOI 11ac BEFOREHAND

      COD 17ac GUNSLINGER

      WOD 12dn BUNGALOW

      Time 9.45 minutes

      Nice puzzle Mr.Joker.

  15. About 30 mins today, but I found this much more difficult than yesterday. Started in the NW but got absolutely nowhere and thought it was going to be a long struggle. Thankfully the SW corner was much easier.

    Lots of nice clues and surfaces I thought. DNK 8ac “Celerity” but couldn’t see what else it could be. Nearly put “Ratios” for 4dn but couldn’t see how it would parse so it was lucky that I ended up with “Ration”.

    FOI – 12dn “Bungalow”
    LOI – 1dn “Cock”
    COD – 15ac “Violin” – but could have been a number today.

    Thanks as usual.

  16. Unlike most of you I found this really difficult. I don’t think the grid helped as the four corners were relatively detached, linked by the long words 3d, 10d, 11d and 17d, all four of which I struggled with though I biffed gunslinger. I resorted to aids but still DNF.
    FOI 1a
    COD 14a
    Thank you to Joker and to Jeremy for his explanations. Blue Stocking
  17. I always parse as I go so held up by unre(g)al. Also had stop. I am never particularly impressed by Crosswordland-only words like celerity how ever easy they are to parse. They always give the impression that the setter has painted themselves into a corner.
  18. Very much on wavelength today. Some clever cluing held me up at 14a UNREAL which I biffed but couldn’t parse for some time and 1d COCK which was a PDM. LOI just before the 8 mins mark was a new word for me at 8a CELERITY. Thanks for the blog.
  19. … though once I had finished I really could not see why. At least one place I was held up was on 13D – not familiar with EUR for Europe (and doubly puzzled because I was vaguely aware that EUR is sometimes used for the Euro, and all the talk of currencies in the clue confused me).

    COD 14A, Unreal, a lovely clue on a number of levels. I vaguely toyed with the answer Normal (“no R” and mal for bad) but even in the modern world I don’t think the not genuine is normal.

    Thanks to Jeremy for the blog.

    Cedric

  20. Another Pretty Good Day at a tad under 2K.

    A mostly straightforward solve with a few moments extra spent on Unreal (which I didn’t parse) and Beforehand. Like others, I was sure pre and ant had to fit in somewhere! Lots of Joker’s usual humour and great surfaces. Also lots of food and drink references today (salad, cheese, oil, wine, vegetables, green tea and beer – sounds like quite a nice selection) and that’s not forgetting the pans and the pub.

    FOI Cock – being naive, I completely missed the point of Jeremy’s intro, but did vaguely wonder what was he was banging on about! Naughty boy
    LOI Beforehand
    COD Generate
    Time approx 9 m

  21. I got through most of this at a fair rate of knots pausing only for a brief flirtation with STOP. I came to a grinding halt with my last 2 DELIBERATE and BEFOREHAND for the reasons others have already outlined. Spotting the anagram at 10d unclogged the system and I scraped in just under under the 10 minute mark again. I thought UNREAL was the highlight of an entertaining solve.
    Thanks to Jeremy
  22. I thought I might be on for a PB as the words just flowed in at first. As it turned out, I squeaked in just under my 20 minute target. A really enjoyable puzzle in which I completely parsed everything which was just as well as celerity was new to me.
    Thanks Joker and Jeremy. MM

    FOI: 2d
    LOI: 3d
    COD: 14a UNREAL

  23. Ooh er Jeremy – I down wasn’t that hard and was my first one in!!
    Pretty straightforward and all done in 20 minutes with LOI Gunslinger. Thank you J&J

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