Times Quick Cryptic No 1558 by Joker

On the gentle side from Joker, giving my first sub-6 minute blog in… quite some time. All but three of the acrosses went in on a first read through (1, 22 and 23 being the stubborn ones), which made for a lot of merry biffing come the downs. There were a number of nice clues and good surfaces that I didn’t get a chance to look at much during the solve, my favourite being the neatly put together 6d – many thanks to Joker!

Across
1 Survive like most football grounds? (9)
WITHSTANDI suppose if “with child” is pregnant, a ground could be “with stand”. (The vast majority of football grounds don’t have a stand, but the OED does cover Joker by saying a ground is “especially a football stadium”.) The earliest quote for football dates to 1409: “the games called foteball and cokthresshyng”. Ah, the venerable game of cock-threshing: get a cockerel, tie it to a post, throw sticks at it until it dies. That’s the type of thing we did before crosswords.
6 Father takes daughter home (3)
PAD – PA (father) D(aughter)
8 A Balkan national hugs British gymnast (7)
ACROBAT – A CROAT (a Balkan national) hugs B(ritish)
9 Little Sarah working in hairdressers (5)
SALON – SAL (diminuitive of Sarah) ON (working)
10 Dance club certain about politician and old disturbance (12)
DISCOMPOSURE – DISCO (dance club) SURE (certain) about MP (politician) and O(ld)
12 Cut up about wife being clever (6)
SHREWD – SHRED (cut up) about W(ife). I confidently entered SHRWED, wondered why it didn’t look right, and changed it to SHWRED. I’d have been some 15 seconds quicker were it not for that. Has a dunce lost his cap somewhere?
13 The French boy’s time at school (6)
LESSON – LES (“The”, French) SON (boy).
16 Occasional short insect breaks inside camping shelter (12)
INTERMITTENT TERMITe (“short” insect) breaks/breaches IN (inside) TENT (camping shelter)
19 Scholar to talk endlessly (5)
RABBI – RABBIt (talk, “endlessly”)
20 Mad about Queen and Wedgwood, perhaps (7)
POTTERY – POTTY (mad) about ER (queen)
22 Greek character wanting English dish (3)
PIE – PI (Greek character) wanting E(nglish)
23 Always envious, for constantly popular person (9)
EVERGREEN – EVER (always) GREEN (envious). I don’t think I’ve seen this as a figurative noun, but it makes sense. Nice clue.

Down
1 Spent seven days speaking (4)
WEAK – “spoken” the same as WEEK
2 Dog’s tons more fun, but not male (7)
TERRIER – T(ons) mERRIER (more fun, but not M(ale))
3 Very black blubber (3)
SOB – SO (very) B(lack)
4 Gold corporation down at last for three months of the year (6)
AUTUMN – AU (gold) TUM (corporation) N (dowN “at last”).  “Corporation”, via the sense of “body”, crops up occasionally for stomach, generally of the large variety: as Charlotte Brontë wrote in Shirley, “Looming large in full canonicals..with the dignity of an ample corporation.”
5 Crafty recipe — one has little time (9)
DISHONEST – DISH (recipe) ONE’S (one has) T (“little” Time)
6 Rice recipe: unlimited Apulian cooking (5)
PILAU – unlimited = no ends of aPULIAn, which is then “cooked”.
7 Waste material one’s thrown in underground cell (7)
DUNGEON – DUNG (waste material), and an anagram (is thrown) of ONE
11 Company conflict over gamble shows lack of courage (9)
COWARDICE – CO. (company) WAR (conflict) over/above DICE (gamble, verb as in to dice with death)
12 To incite’s about right: rider’s put his foot in it? (7)
STIRRUP – STIR UP (incite) about R(ight)
14 Heartfelt selection of words in ceremony (7)
SINCERE – “selection” of the letters of wordS IN CEREmony
15 Depression in gloomy place, on ecstasy (6)
DIMPLEDIM (gloomy) PL. (place – abbrev. as in a square on a map)
17 Firm losing small data chart (5)
TABLEsTABLE (firm, losing Small)
18 Church melody form — Christian, ultimately (4)
HYMN &lit, with the ultimate/final letters of churcH melodY forM christiaN
21 Label’s strange with odd letters missing (3)
TAG – s T r A n G e, with “odd letters missing”

28 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 1558 by Joker”

  1. A slower version of vinyl1: I needed only 5d after 13/14 minutes but finally crossed the line in 16:50. I did work it out from the clue in the end, but was still unsure about Crafty=Dishonest. Originally I thought Crafty might be an anagram indicator.
    Otherwise FOI was WEAK; held up a bit by Autumn and Discomposure.
    1a reminds me that officially you’re not allowed to stand in the stand in English football grounds.
    David
  2. 17 minutes, held up by having cutlery at 20a and then being unable to get dimple from _I_C_E. Unlike yesterday I remembered I had stuck cutlery in without much thought and sorted it out.

    Liked pie, withstand, and sincere. COD shrewd.

  3. Gosh, I came on here confidently expecting the blog to start “Well that was a mini 15×15 and no mistake”! I was clearly not tuned in today because I only got 5 of the acrosses on first pass. The downs were more compliant but 1ac, 12ac, 2dn and 5dn held out for a long time. I finally limped home in 3.3 Kevins for a Very Bad Day.

    FOI ACROBAT, LOI SHREWD, COD POTTERY

    Thanks Joker and roly.

    Templar

    1. I realised only yesterday that you like to try all the Across clues and then all the Downs in order which is an admirable goal to aim for, but I think it adds an extra layer of difficulty so that comparison with other contributors’ solving experiences may be hard to evaluate. Perhaps most days it doesn’t have much effect but the marked difference you noticed today may well be down your alternative approach. There could be more doing it than I realise of course, but the only other regular I’m aware of is Jeremy as demonstrated in the videos he made of his solving sessions last year.
      1. It certainly didn’t work today! I only started trying this a few months ago, following a discussion on here about whether people did that or did what was called the “cluster” method. My memory is that there were quite few solvers who use “all the acrosses then all the downs” as their normal approach and I thought I’d give it a go. It has definitely slowed me up a little but I do find it fun to approach each across clue (though sometimes I start with the downs by way of variation) as a self-contained unit.
  4. Largely straightforward but my LOI DISHONEST kept me going for quite a while. Some very nice clues including DIMPLE, AUTUMN, DUNGEON, COWARDICE. I biffed INTERMITTENT and parsed it later. My concentration was interrupted by a (welcome) few minutes with a lively granddaughter but I managed this in just over 2K actual solving time. Thanks to Joker and Roly. John M.

    Edited at 2020-02-27 09:11 am (UTC)

  5. I completed it, fully parsed in 37mins. Usually I spend a happy hour not finishing the QC before using the blog to elucidate the last few clues.

    Edited at 2020-02-27 09:30 am (UTC)

  6. I didn’t find this as straightforward as some seem to have done, but there was nothing too frightening. Nailing down the definitions seemed to be my biggest issue, especially at 1d, 10 & 23a and with LOI DISHONEST. In hindsight all were perfectly fair it just took me a little time to tune in. An entertaining solve completed in 11.30 with my favourite being 6d.
    Thanks for the blog
  7. A nice puzzle from Joker which I managed in 20 mins. Similar to yesterday, my main hold up was 1ac “Withstand” which ended up being my LOI.

    Only queries were “Tum” for corporation which I’ve never seen before and “Evergreen” for popular person – all of which were explained in the blog above.

    FOI – 8ac “Acrobat”
    LOI – 1ac “Withstand”
    COD – 15dn “Dimple” – nice surface and not your usual “depression”

    Thanks as usual…

  8. ….DISCOMPOSURE, and was comfortably within target.

    FOI PAD
    LOI DIMPLE
    COD SINCERE (which was only parsed afterwards)

  9. A good run through with a slight hiccup at 20ac where batty ‘had’ to be mad. I took some time trying to convince myself that Wedgewood did a design called battery but eventually had to give that up and think along different lines. 1.5K.
  10. Put discomfiture for 10a so failed on 5d, but otherwise good. Thanks all round. Am improving slowly all the same.
  11. time in the 7’s in three days. 44 seconds into the minute.
    SINCERE was very well hidden, and was SLOI. LOI was DISHONEST.

  12. Not too bad – a quick start but slowed down in the NW to finish at 2.3K. I thought 6a was an unusual bit of cluing, but finally twigged what was going on. Hmm – could be curry for supper tonight. I wonder if I’ll find a crafty recipe for a balti 😊

    As always with Joker, there are lots of nice clues – some quite easy it’s true (6a, 8a, 13a and21d for example) but still really enjoyable surfaces.

    FOI Pad
    LOI Dishonest
    COD Salon
    Time 12 m

    Thanks Joker and Roly.

    Re the biggie: if you’re prone to crossword anxiety dreams, don’t look!

  13. Really enjoyed this but took longer than we should have to get dishonest!
  14. Join others in finding this fairly straightforward and completed within our target. Biffed in Pilau for 6d, without parsing, thought it was cleverly constructed. Thanks Joker.
  15. Thought this a stinker at first sight but plodded through and got there in the end, except for DISHONEST: can’t see how this is ‘crafty’.
    1. I agree, although the setter can probably produce an old Thesaurus with 37 synonyms for crafty among which will be dishonest. My main quibble is dish for recipe: two completely different things IMO. Stephen
  16. I didn’t think this was that easy, and my 26min solve suggests something more like average difficulty. Held up a bit at the end by the 5d/16ac combination and subsequent parsing of Intermittent. My favourite today was the craftily (rather than dishonestly) hidden 14d Sincere. Invariant
  17. Does anyone know a Sarah known as Sal? Or is this something from Chaucer? I know a Sally and a Salvatore but that’s it.
    That said this abbreviation has cropped up many times so I should know better.
    A real mix today so perfect for a QC. Thx Joker and Roly. Johnny
    1. From the song “My Old Dutch”, memorably sung by Peter Sellers:

      I calls her “Sal”; her proper name is Sarah.
      And you may find a gal as you consider fairer.

      Kevin S

  18. I very much enjoyed this one although it took me a long time in comparison to most of you! I agree with comments regarding dishonest – that took me ages to get. Also while ‘always envious’ was a straight forward clue I have never heard it used to refer to a person. Thanks to all.

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