Times Quick Cryptic No 1653 by Des

Author   therotterPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
One of Setter Des’s rare visits, which are invariably welcome.  He scores quite high on Jackkt’s League Table of Difficulty (fifth, and just ahead of Izetti), so I expected the worst when I saw his name, but I solved this one in 12 minutes, which was pretty good going.  I do admit though, that two answers were parsed after I stopped the clock post-solve (5d and 7d, where the answers were obvious, but some of the parsing tricky).

Strangely, this was the exact same grid that I blogged 14 days ago when it was set by Teazel, and which I found slightly harder.  I wonder if our Master Statistician Jackkt can tell us how many standard grids exist in the library, and where I can get a copy of them for setting practice.

FOI was FACE, LOI LEN, and lots to enjoy in between.  Thanks Des, and come back soon.

Across

1  Declares about English people getting their own back? (8)
AVENGERS – AVERS (declares) surrounding (about) ENG{lish}.
6  Loud expert features (4)
FACE – F (loud, forte in music notation) and ACE (expert)
8 See name for pet dog? (4)
SPOT – Double definition, the second referring to a popular name for a pet dog, as well as the eponymous hero of a series of children’s books written and illustrated by Eric Hill.
9  Happier somehow about start of Greek inscription (8)
EPIGRAPH – Anagram (somehow) of [HAPPIER] with G{reek} (start of).
10  Alcoholic drink put out near bowl (5,3)
BROWN ALE – Anagram (put out) of [NEAR BOWL].
12 Bill’s the judge (4)
BEAK – Double definition, the first referring to the bill of a bird, the second to an old slang term for a magistrate.
13  Posh school transforming it’s fourth famous actress (6)
HARLOW – A reference to Jean HARLOW, Hollywood actress.  The posh school is Harrow, which transforms it’s fourth letter from R{ight} to L{eft} to provide the answer.
16  Marks volunteers getting involved in crimes (6)
STAINS – TA (Territorial Army, the volunteers) inside (getting involved in) SINS (crimes).
17  Celebrate increment, finally, in pay (4)
FETE – FEE (pay) with {incremen}T (finally) inserted.
18  Correctional centre in Hampshire media lambasts (8)
REMEDIAL – Hidden answer (centre in) found in {hampshi}RE MEDIA L{ambasts}
21  One not serving polite Scotsman? (8)
CIVILIAN – CIVIL (polite) and IAN (Scotsman).  In Crosswordland, IAN is often accepted to be a Scottish given name, although I have known plenty of Ian’s that weren’t (Scottish).
22  Saint from this country embraced by the French (4)
LUKE – For those of us solving in the Times’ home country, this country means the UK.  Here UK is inside (embraced by) LE (French for the).
23  Shut up? About time! (4)
CAGE – C (C{irca} = about) and AGE (time).  CAGE as in to shut or lock something up, in a cage.
24  Need cart for transporting wine bottle? (8)
DECANTER – Anagram (for transporting) of [NEED CART]

Down

2  Celebrity royal: a snake! (5)
VIPER – VIP (celebrity) and ER (royal, Elizabeth Regina).
3  Clear goal (3)
NET – Double definition, the first as in net pay (clear of taxes) and the second as in ‘the ball is in the net / goal’.
4  Medical procedure possibly reduced lameness on reflection (5)
ENEMA – reverse hidden (reduced on reflection) inside {l}AMENE{ss}.
5  At heart, professional pride the making of these web designers (7)
SPIDERS – Anagram (the making of) [SS] (middle two letters of {profe}SS{ional} (at heart) and [PRIDE] with some good misdirection in the cryptic definition part.
6  Dismiss kind, wildly passionate individual (9)
FIREBRAND – FIRE (dismiss) and BRAND (kind).
7  Skipper can set about article after international award (7)
CAPTAIN – I found this parsing a bit chewy, until I stopped thinking about CAN clueing the first two and last letters of the answer.  It is CAP (international award) followed by TIN (can) around (about) A (article).
11  Wine lover, extraordinary voracious creature (9)
WOLVERINE – Anagram (extraordinary) of [WINE LOVER]
14  States “I have a girl’s name”? (7)
AMERICA – If I did, I might say I ‘AM ERICA’.  Unusual clueing!
15  Draw rib, shaped as old military plane (7)
WARBIRD – Anagram (shaped) of [DRAW RIB].  The definition of WARBIRD in my Chambers is ‘a vintage military aircraft’.
19  Crazy bloke in charge (5)
MANIC – MAN (bloke) IC (In Charge).
20  Porter maybe astride queen and king’s racehorse (5)
ARKLE – ALE (porter maybe) containing (astride) R (queen) and K{ing’s} to give the name of the famous Irish racehorse.
22  Boy’s fast time – when failing to finish (3)
LEN – The ‘fast time’ is LEN{t}, the 40 days of fasting prior to Easter, failing to finish = drop the last letter.

64 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 1653 by Des”

  1. I found this more difficult than most quick cryptics, but got held up for quite a while by CAGE of all things at the end. Didn’t know ARKLE, but wordplay left no other possibility (fortunately).
  2. I biffed END for 3dn, which I think fits the clue … perhaps not as well as NET, which emerged when I looked at 1ac.
  3. I put BARLOW and this puzzle can go to the hot place. (Well, actually, my ignorance of posh schools and famous actresses can go there first.)
    1. But in all seriousness, this was a good, solid challenge. The 15×15 felt very approachable afterwards.
  4. I think the underline should be extended to include ‘possibly’; enemas are certainly not always medical procedures. I can’t think of a clue instructing one to remove one letter from one end of the word and 2 letters from the other.
  5. 10 minutes, but it was touch and go whether I would finish within my target as there were a few slightly odd or unfamiliar things along the way such as WARBIRD, AM ERICA, CAP T{A)IN, ENEMA as hidden word within a single word, EPIGRAPH and ARKEL before the final checker forced me to change it to ARKLE. No problem with Harrow as I was born and lived in the Borough and was at a school also on the Hill where we shared many facilities.

    This is only Des’s 21st QC, very few considering it’s 6 years and 4 months since he set the very first one in 2014. Amongst these was the milestone QC #1000 in January 2018, and last time out- in March – he treated us to a NINA involving the months of the year. Because of that I looked hard for a theme today but was unable to find one unless FIREBRAND LEN, CAPTAIN ARKLE, CIVILIAN LUKE and ENEMA WARBIRD are characters in something unknown to me!

    Sorry I can’t help with your grids query, Rotter, as I tend not to notice them except when 1 Across is missing as that disrupts my basic solving strategy. The editor told us these were being phased out, but that was ages ago yet they still seem to turn up occasionally. I know we have contributors / bloggers who are experts on the 15×15 grids but I’m not sure whether their knowledge would extend to the Quickies.

    Edited at 2020-07-09 04:46 am (UTC)

  6. A second DNF in a row for me. I could not see NET, CIVILIAN and WOLVERINE however hard I tried.
    As for 17d FETE, I still cannot see how ‘fee‘ can equal ‘pay’ as in my mind they are not synonymous at all.
    Tricky and disappointing.

    Edited at 2020-07-09 05:42 am (UTC)

  7. I spent ages at the end faced with _A_E, quite a lot of it simply mystified. That was my LOI. All started OK with seven on the first pass, skewed to the right and then made rapid progress until stalling in the SW. Knew IAN was in CIVILIAN but still needed all the checkers to move away from things like ‘recipient’ and the checkers were slow to come because I just couldn’t pull AMERICA, which I’m sure I’ve solved 20 times before, out of the clue and that in turn didn’t come until FETE fell – I found it hard to get FEE from PAY but they felt similar enough when it came. Never occurred to me until the Rotter’s typically brill blog that I hadn’t parsed SPIDERS either. LENT came up in yesterday’s Telegraph, lucky as I’d have been in big trouble otherwise. Knew ARKLE!

    Edited at 2020-07-09 06:28 am (UTC)

  8. Was doing fine until the last 3: fete, America and cage. 10 became 20.

    Like Mendesest, I was not totally convinced about fee for pay.
    Also I have seen America clued similarly, but the “I have” screamed ive at the end. I think it was clued previously as states I’m a girl.

    Dnk arkle.
    COD Len

    1. Yes, I had a problem reconciling fee = pay but I think it works as a verb. Chambers has: fee, verb (fees, feed, feeing) to pay a fee to someone.

      One might say ‘he’s feed/payed by the taxpayer’ i.e. the taxpayer fees him.

      Edited at 2020-07-09 07:00 am (UTC)

      1. One might. But I rather hope anyone with any sensitivity for the English language wouldn’t! A very unnatural and ugly construction to my mind, even if strictly speaking legit.

        Cedric

  9. Please tell me the inability to spot the theme is a joke…!
    1. I haven’t seen the Avengers but recognise wolverine and captain america.
    1. Unlike me! Completely passed me by, which, in my defence, is unusual. And that despite my knowing WOLVERINE, CAPTAIN AMERICA, etc.
      1. Perhaps a little too esoteric for some. I have a 21 year old son who allowed me (I was paying) to accompany him to the many movies.
  11. I solved this QC in pretty much the same way as yesterday with most of the clues yielding easily and then I got stuck on just a few at the end. ARKLE had to be constructed from wordplay but it rang a bell and once I had the K LUKE was obvious. WOLVERINE required all the checkers (I only spotted the NINA on submission) and my LOI CAGE took an age! I smiled at SPOT but CAGE gets my COD. Just under 11 minutes again. Janet (not Des) Thanks all
  12. I found this slow going in places and had problems with CAGE, ENEMA (LOI), HARLOW and AMERICA – where I was looking for something beginning IM, despite having seen variations of this clue before. I never did parse CAPTAIN as I got stuck on CAN being on the outside of the award etc. An enjoyable challenge with ARKLE and CAGE being the standout clues for me. Finished in 14.16, so just inside my target and as usual I missed the nina, despite being familiar with the films.
    Thanks to Rotter

    Edited at 2020-07-09 08:37 am (UTC)

  13. An excellent and testing QC from Des. I had no idea about any nina. FOI VIPER, very similar to a clue seen recently.
    Solid progress but quite a few hold ups. I expected the school to be Eton. Did not expect the name of an actual racehorse. Arkle well known to me at least. Will Serpentine achieve such fame?
    About 13 minutes to get to my last two pesky four letter words. Finally saw BEAK and then to LOI 23a; very hard without the first letter. 15:40 on the clock when I finally submitted.
    Joint CsOD: CAGE and CIVILIAN. David
  14. Captain America
    Wolverine
    Warbird (Captain Marvel)
    Beak (X men character)
    Avengers
    Viper (Villain)

    I’m sure there are more!

    1. I take it these particular Avengers aren’t anything to do with The Mayfield Two ? Des could have made every answer a Marvel character without me ever noticing.
      1. Des may well have done. Apparently Luke Cage is a Marvel character too….Power Man.
    3. Luke Cage also a marvel character and of course Spider-Man
  15. Ah well, my slowest in a while. I stopped counting when I went over 20 and made a cup of coffee. The top half went in fairly well and I did finish but I took for ever to see HARLOW (I must be too young!?) and only when she clicked did I get AMERICA (clever), FETE, and CAGE (why did they take so long?). I was disappointed not to have a time from Kevin as a yardstick. I always feel a bit less thick if he takes a slightly longer than his usual low single-figure times.
    There were some great clues here and I will now go over rotter’s blog to get more pleasure from the ingenuity. Sadly, I would never have been able to recognise Captain America or Captain Marvel references and dnk WARBIRD. Thanks both and I look forward to my next crawl through a ‘Q’C from Des. John M.

    Edited at 2020-07-09 09:00 am (UTC)

  16. Too tricky for a quickie in my view. Fee works for me for pay, but the verb to fete meaning to honour and hence to celebrate is a bit of a stretch for this puzzle. Harlow and Arkle are obvious answers but only if you are of a certain generation (especially the former). Thanks blogger anyway!
  17. If I’d been an Avengers fan it might have been a bit easier.

    ARKLE was the only one that stood out, happy memories of watching him race in the’60’s.

    NHO WARBIRD, and took far too long to crack AMERICA.
    Also stumped by LEN.

    Oh well, I look forward to tomorrow.
    Thank you, everyone.
    Diana

    Edited at 2020-07-09 08:56 am (UTC)

  18. Couldn’t seem to get started with this one. Eventually started with the anagrams, then stuck again. Left it for a few hours then discovered I’d left the timer on. 71:46 another record, but would estimate over at least 30 mins anyway as I got stuck sgain in SW corner. Oh well ,live to fight another day. Seems so easy after reading the blog. Thanks
  19. Looked hardish at first, but I got through it without too much trouble, apart from CAGE which I just could not see, thinking there must be a T for time as third letter. Thanks for explanation!
  20. Well, this blew my streak of 3 under 10 minutes this week. 14 minutes finished with trying to plug the holes in the top half. Each one fell eventually but with an effort. LOI 7dn. An enjoyable struggle.

  21. Thanks Des for a crossword that exposed many holes in my knowledge! HARLOW, ARKLE, BEAK, WARBIRD all constructed from wordplay and checkers. Also biffed CAPTAIN, so thanks Rotter for the explanation (was stuck on ‘can’ too).

    Another for whom the Nina was wasted, sorry! COD to CAGE for the misdirection of about=containment and time=t.

  22. Well if I thought yesterday’s offering from Joker was quite tricky, this was another couple of notches up the difficulty scale again. Very few answers went in without at least a few moments thought and some took a lot more. NHO BEAK meaning judge, so I took an extra three minutes after I put my LOI CAGE, doing an alphabet trawl just to check there weren’t any other more promising solutions to 12a. This gave me a final time of 46:37. Didn’t see the NINA at all until “Anonymous” insinuated that it was obvious, and even then I wasn’t sure exactly what the theme was; Marvel? Avengers? Superheroes in general?, but it seems I am far from alone in not being as interested in superheroes as Hollywood seems to want us to be. I hope Des isn’t too disappointed at many people missing it as I realise how hard it must be to shoehorn so many related words into a fairly small grid. Anyway, a satisfying solve, so thanks Des and Rotter
  23. Another who failed to spot the nina, although now it’s pointed out I recognise some of the characters. I struggled in the SW with AMERICA taking an age, so missed my target again, coming in at 13:49. AVENGERS was my FOI and AMERICA my last. Thanks Des and Rotter.
  24. It’s easier than blaming myself. But seriously I think I feel more tired when it’s cloudy and rainy (as it has been the last couple of days) and I think it affects my general mental performance, including the crossword time. Perhaps I should map the weather against my crossword times and see if there’s any correlation over a long period of time. Anyway… lots of stuff I didn’t see quickly which I should have done in here – particularly on the W side. Hobbled over the line in 33:29, way outside my target range.

    FOI: epigraph
    LOI: civilian
    COD: america

  25. I feel more like “The Brown Dirt Cowboy”. My heart sinks when I see Des’s name on a QC. I know there’ll be a theme that’ll be too obscure for me to spot, and I equally know the standard of clueing will suffer while he shoehorns in his chosen vocabulary. My slowest solve for about 3 months, but then I more or less knew it would be. Next time I just won’t bother.

    FOI FACE
    LOI CAGE
    COD HARLOW
    TIME 6:23

  26. I was going to use the “not on the right wavelength” excuse today, but I see quite a lot of people found this fairly hard.

    Saying that, I did complete it, albeit in 48 mins which was well outside my 30 mins target. Probably 10 mins of that was doing an alphabet trawl for 12ac and 23ac which stubbornly refused to come. Didn’t spot the Marvel Nina, although it should have twigged when I saw Wolverine.

    Like Rotter, I just couldn’t see the parsing for 5dn and 7dn at first and had to revert to the blog for the latter. Looks like I also went down the “Can” route.

    DNK 13ac “Harlow”, although if it wasn’t Eton it was pretty easy to work out once you had 11dn.

    FOI – 9ac “Epigraph”
    LOI – 23ac “Cage”
    COD – 22dn “Len” – could have been quite a few though.

    Thanks as usual.

  27. Harlow! I suppose one could have guessed from the clueing but no one under 70 would have heard of her. Civilian quite amusing, but missed it along w most of SW corner and most of NE corner for that matter. Yes, Arkle was a comfort, as was all that corner. Rather discouraging all round.
    1. I agree – if you are much less than 65 you may as well forget some of these puzzles.
    2. I’m only 44 and I’ve heard of her. Couldn’t name a single film she’s been in mind.
    3. The reason I always remember her is the famous exchange with Margot Asquith, when Jean Harlow mispronounced her name. She corrected her with “the ‘T’ is silent, as in Harlow”. Apparently considered so risqué at the time the papers couldn’t publish it.
    4. Don’t tell me you weren’t vogueing thirty years ago:

      “Greta Garbo and Monroe
      Dietrich and DiMaggio
      Marlon Brando; Jimmy Dean
      On the cover of a magazine
      Grace Kelly; Harlow, Jean
      Picture of a beauty queen”

      (Madonna, “Vogue”, 1990)

  28. I can’t remember the last time I couldn’t actually finish a QC. And it was that really small word, CAGE, what did for me. Of course, once I’d seen the blog, it was très obvious. I think this is the third for me) hard puzzle of the week but all is fair – it’s just that I couldn’t see the answers as quickly as I’d like. My FOI was EPIGRAPH and, after that, I worked quite slowly and methodically around the grid until that pesky 23 across utterly stumped me. I could have alphabet trawled, I suppose, but, by then, I’d lost heart. I really do hope we have a crossword from the other end of the spectrum soon!
    I was held up for longer than I should have been by putting in “rate” instead of FETE for 17 across, even though the parsing of my answer didn’t really work. Once I’d realised my error, AMERICA fell, as it were. I like this clue very much. In fact, there were several excellent clues today – eg HARLOW, FIREBRAND and the sweet and simple SPOT. I couldn’t parse CAPTAIN until I read the, as always, excellent blog by Rotter. I, too, thought it must have something to do with the 1st, 2nd and last letters spelling CAN. I’ve never heard of the international award, CAP, so I was never going to be able to work it out on my own. Thanks, Rotter, for the blog and thanks, too, to Des
  29. CAGE, AMERICA and FETE all took a while. Missed the NINA…I’m 46 and am much more aware of Jean Harlow than I am of the Marvel comics/films.

    10:25 for me.

  30. We may be Avengers but we were defeated by the SW corner. Perhaps if we had been Iron Man and Phoenix (hard to think of a famous Marvel female superhero) things might have been different. Perhaps it was fatigue due to the number of trees we felled this morning. Excuses aside – a disappointing day and our first DNF in quite a while (we did finish it but only after getting the wrong answers to 3 clues).

    FOI: viper
    LOI: civilian
    COD: Avengers (we couldn’t choose any other, could we? 😂)

    Thanks to Rotter and Des.

    Onwards and upwards!

    Edited at 2020-07-09 01:22 pm (UTC)

  31. The third tricky one this week, but I felt this was at least full of “oh that is very obvious and quite clever” moments which was somehow less frustrating than the other two. 22A Luke was the best/worst of these, where I spent far too long trying to workout if “Lena” or “Lene” was a saint before the penny finally dropped that the country was in fact UK! COD has to be 15D Warbird for the answer fitting the clue so neatly even though I’ve never heard of the plane or the character. Total time 1hr20 though I needed aides to finish several. Perhaps Friday’s QC will feel easy after this week’s puzzles?

    As always, thanks for the blog and the puzzle!

  32. I was very slow to start and things didn’t really improve. I thought today was going to be a DNF but I struggled on until just under the half hour mark.
    The Rotter clarified a list of words for me – HARLOW, CAPTAIN, WOLVERINE, AMERICA and ARKLE – so many thanks for the blog.
    There were some lovely touches – SPOT, STAINS and SPIDERS spring to mind – and I think CIVILIAN is my choice for COD.
    I didn’t spot the NINA but thanks to Des for the challenge – I’ll be prepared next time…
  33. I didn’t think it was too bad, at least until the SW corner which pushed me out to 1.9 Phils. But anything under 2 Phils is a Very Good Day!

    can’t believe I missed the Nina, given that I recognised WOLVERINE as a comic book character. Having now been through a list of Marvel characters I think the complete list is:

    AVENGERS
    SPOT (sworn enemy of Spiderman, apparently)
    BEAK
    LUKE CAGE
    VIPER
    CAPTAIN AMERICA
    WOLVERINE (who was created by LEN Wein)
    WARBIRD (aka Captain Marvel, and apparently “the most notable female superhero”)
    SPIDERsMANic (if you read 5dn and 19dn together)
    FIREBRAND (“a former radical activist saboteur who turns to violence after believing peaceful protest produced no results” … plus ca change …)

    I thought it was great fun and unlike Phil I don’t think that the quality of the cluing suffered at all – bravo Des!

    FOI AVENGERS, LOI CAGE, COD CIVIL-IAN. (All the Scottish Ians I know are actually “Iain” and very insistent on the extra “i”.)

    Many thanks Des and Rotter.

    Templar

    1. Thanks for researching that TR, I haven’t had time since having the theme pointed out to me, so you have saved me the trouble. I’ll spend half my night looking for (potentially) non-existent NINAS next time I’m due to blog, to avoid being caught out again.
  34. In and out of the crossword all day, definitely, Captain Slow. Enjoyed the masochism. Joint CODs for me were CAGE and AMERICA which I enjoyed. Never spotted the NINA although I suspected something was going on in that vein.
  35. … as I gave up on 25 minutes, nearly twice as long as I usually take to finish a QC. Full of admiration for those who battle on and on, but not really my style, and anyway I think I could have stared at this all night to no better effect.

    Downfall was 22A Luke and 20D Arkle. NHO Arkle, though no excuse for the saint, and I shall store away that “this country” can mean UK.

    The other reason for giving up is that even many of the clues I did solve I wasn’t on wavelength for. Fee = pay has already been commented on, and Brand = kind also seems a bit of a stretch. Not knowing the Marvel comics also didn’t help; 15D Warbird in particular not the most obvious word if one doesn’t know the connection. And as for Actress Harlow – completely passed me by.

    One cannot expect to win every time, and this time Des defeated me. At least I was not alone in thinking it decidedly chewy.

    Thanks to Rotter for the excellent blog.

    Cedric

  36. A DNF with a guess at PACE for 23a CAGE (so simple once Rotter explains!). No idea on the Nina. No problem with 13a Harlow but needed Rotter to explain the logic. No problem with crossword-land wage=fee. Some lovely clues and novelties today so happy to try this, but sad to fall at the last fence. Took me simply ages dipping in and out hoping every fresh start would lead to a wavelength breakthrough – alas not forthcoming. FOI 9a Epigraph. LOI my guess at 23a Cage/Pace. COD’s 14d America & 21a Civilian. Don’t know how our bloggers manage it but so grateful to Rotter et al for showing the proper way to solve! Well done Des for coaxing out another Nina, even if I missed it completely.
  37. A bit of perspective on the difficulty of this QC – today’s 15×15 only took me 15 mins longer. John M.
  38. Well that was really hard. Managed about 2/3rds over 30 mins before having to stop (mentally exhausted) for dinner. Came back to it after a refreshing glass or three of red, and polished off the last third in about 7 minutes (OK, Mrs Invariant chipped in with loi 23ac Cage, but I parsed it). Go figure. Not sure an early morning glass of wine is my style, but if I ever get really stuck I might be tempted. Nina completely lost on me, and wouldn’t have helped anyway. I don’t think I’d loose any sleep if Des remained an infrequent setter. Invariant
  39. A bit of perspective on the difficulty of this QC – today’s 15×15 only took me 15 mins longer. John M.
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