Times Quick Cryptic No 1733 by Wurm

Author   therotterPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
An interesting challenge from Wurm that took nearly all of my 15-minute target to complete.  I came across a full mix of clue types, with some novel devices and anagram indicators.  My Clue of the Day (COD) goes to 9d, UNDERWENT for the excellent misdirection and succinct cluing.

Please note experienced solvers – having had some time on my hands, I have been rather more verbose in the blog than is usual.  I hope that you don’t find this patronising, but I wanted to explain the answers as fully as possible for our newer solvers.  I have also included a few bits of GK (general knowledge) where I thought appropriate.  Let me know if this approach offends you.

Thanks to Wurm for the fun and novelty.

Across

1  Rat in river for some years (6)
DECADE – The rat is a CAD, swimming in the River DEE.  As a Rotter, I know many synonyms for a rat or a cad, but CAD is one of those that I rather like, and associate with!
4  Court stops A4e having effect (6)
ACTIVE – I hadn’t seen this device before and initially wondered how to handle it.  As soon as I got a couple of the checkers, the secret revealed itself to me.  CT (abbreviation for court) stops, or is inserted into A (the A from A4e) IV (four or 4 in Roman numerals) and E (the e at the end of the device, A4e).  Simples!
8  Funny man in comic duo beyond contact (13)
INCOMMUNICADO – Anagram (funny) of [MAN IN COMIC DUO].  This is originally Spanish (not Latin as my non-classicist brain imagined) and means both ‘without means of communication’ and ‘in solitary confinement’.
10 Two tons taken by old farm wagon (5)
TWAIN – T{ons} and WAIN (farm wagon, as in The Hay Wain – painting by John Constable).  Samuel Langhorne Clemens (better known as American author Mark Twain) is said to have taken his pen name from hearing steamboat-men calling out the depth of water as they ‘sounded’ the channel with the sounding line.  A call of ‘Mark Twain’ signified the river was at the second knot in the rope, meaning a depth of 2 fathoms or 12 feet – safe for the steamboat.
11  Trying to get round figure reduced? (7)
DIETING – A nice, simple cryptic clue.
13  Even a dory somehow can be prepared for roasting (4-5)
OVEN-READY – Anagram (somehow) of [EVEN A DORY].
17  Little rascal learning to beg (7)
IMPLORE – IMP (little rascal) and LORE (learning).
18  Poor holding on for money (5)
BREAD – BAD (poor) holding or containing RE (on, as in ‘re / on the subject of the US election’).  BREAD is a slang term for money.
19  Students have trouble in Marxist concept (5,8)
CLASS STRUGGLE – CLASS (students) and STRUGGLE (have trouble).  CLASS STRUGGLE is defined in Chambers as follows: ‘(esp in Marxist theory) hostility or conflict that arises between different social ranks or classes, esp between the proletariat and the combined middle and upper classes in a capitalist society’.
21  Trumpet has place in window (6)
SPLASH – I put a question mark next to this when solving, meaning ‘come back to parse later as it is unclear’.  I was happy with the answer I entered, equating ‘to trumpet’ with ‘making a splash’, and Chambers bears that out, with one definition of SPLASH being to display or print very prominently.  It was the wordplay that I didn’t see initially, which is simply PL (place, abbreviation, as in street names) inside SASH (window).
22  Setter barking shows the way (6)
STREET – Anagram (barking, as in mad) of [SETTER].

Down

1  Sweet daughter is not with Yankee (6)
DAINTY – D{aughter} and AIN’T (is not) and Y{ankee} (phonetic alphabet).
2  Turn up with a band in high spirits (4-1-4)
COCK-A-HOOP – COCK (turn up, as in to cock one’s head) with A (a) and HOOP (band).
3  Spirit shown in March and November (5)
DEMON – DEMO (march) and N{ovember} (phonetic alphabet again).
5  Monster to agree with artist (7)
CHIMERA – CHIME (to agree with) and RA (Royal Academician, artist).  In Greek mythology, a CHIMERA is a fabled fire-sprouting monster with a lion’s head, serpent’s tail and goat’s body.  By extension, it also generically refers to a picture or representation of an animal having its parts made up of various animals.
6  Princess visiting Trinidad (3)
IDA – Hidden answer (visiting) in {trin}IDA{d}.  Princess IDA is an operetta written by Gilbert and Sullivan, based on the narrative poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.  IDA is a frequent visitor to Crosswordland.
7  One hug could be sufficient (6)
ENOUGH – Anagram (could be) of [ONE HUG].
9  Bore in a French river (9)
UNDERWENT – UN (French for one or a) and DERWENT (river, not French).  To undergo something is to bear it – in the past tense substitute underwent and bore.
12  College group some distance beneath climber (3,6)
IVY LEAGUE – LEAGUE (a measure of distance, i.e. some distance) beneath IVY (climbing plant).  IVY LEAGUE refers to  group of 8 elite colleges in the USA.  In the UK we have OXBRIDGE as a near equivalent, followed by RED BRICK, and as we saw last week, PLATE GLASS for more modern institutions.
14  Narcissists say it’s so messed up (6)
EGOISTS – EG (say) followed by an anagram (messed up) of [ITS SO].
15  Almost have chat about flying saucer (6)
DISCUS – DISCUS{s} (almost have chat means drop the last letter of discuss) with a cryptic definition for the athletic apparatus.
16  Commercial opening is coming (6)
ADVENT – AD{vertisement} (commercial) and VENT (opening).  An ADVENT is a coming or arrival.
18  Dull Soviet spy (5)
BLUNT – double definition, the second referring to Sir Anthony Blunt, leading British art historian who confessed to being a spy for the Soviet Union.
20  Beer reportedly makes you sicken (3)
AIL – Homophone (reportedly) sounds like ale (beer).

47 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 1733 by Wurm”

  1. Fortunately, another spy showed up in a recent cryptic, which brought BLUNT to mind at the time; it still took me a moment to recall the name. Your description of the CHIMERA reminded me of Woody Allen’s mythical Great Roe, which had the head of a lion and the body of a lion, but not the same lion. 5:35.
  2. This was a tough one for me, which was strange, because most of it was very easy. UNDERWENT was my last in and took me forever, possibly not knowing the river was a problem. I also spent quite some time trying to make sure DEMON was right. In the end, I had no idea how to decide between COCK-A-LOOP and COCK-A-HOOP (as I write this, I no longer remember which was correct), so I looked it up, hence the DNF. Also didn’t know BLUNT and SASH window.
  3. 12 minutes. Not keen on the device at 4ac unless A4e has an everyday meaning I am unaware of. I really liked 11ac!

    I doubt anyone would object to the extended style of your blog, Rotter, nor find it remotely patronising.

    1. Agree completely with your comments on the Rotter-style. Pretty much tallied on your time too. COD underwent.
      A4e (Action for Employment) was a for-profit, welfare-to-work company based in the United Kingdom. The company began in Sheffield in 1991[2][3] with the objective to provide redundant steelworkers with the training required to obtain new jobs.[4]
      They operated in five countries, but retained a significant presence in the UK where they worked with organisations in the public sector such as the Department for Work and Pensions.
  4. Six on the first pass of acrosses which is about par and rather better on the downs but the remaining gaps took a bit of work. Getting to CLASS STRUGGLE was tough and only possible after I slowed down and really thought about Soviet spies. US spies often leads to CIA but KGB didn’t seem like it was going to be much help so I concentrated on the other end to get BLUNT, which opened up BREAD which I needed to blog to parse (thanks Rotter!). TWAIN was last one in and I couldn’t make sense of it for ages, first looking for two T’s and then being keen to biff ‘train’ – thankfully held off doing that to semi-biff TWAIN instead but still didn’t really know what was going on. All green in 12 with a good slice of luck on the biffs.
  5. Too cryptic for me today. Didn’t understand the clues but grateful for the answers. Too much head scratching and biffing which I don’t like to do. Thanks Rotter and a nod to Wurms.
  6. Nice one from Wurm today. FOI INCOMMUNICADO, LOI 4A where I thought I’d vaguely heard of A4e before… read about it here. COD to ENOUGH. 5:16. P.S. Nice blog – I enjoyed the extra detail. Thanks.

    Edited at 2020-10-29 08:56 am (UTC)

  7. … but probably 15 minutes, so much the same as our blogger. Quite a tough one in places, I thought. I had not met the cluing style in 4A Active, and that took some time – having solved it, I can’t decide whether it is very clever or one to hope is never repeated!

    11A Dieting also held me up, for perhaps the opposite reason – I was wondering if I had missed something or whether it really was as one-dimensional a clue as it seemed. 21A Splash also took time: Trumpet = Splash did not come to mind very readily.

    Rotter, you over-honour Anthony Blunt in the blog. He is just Mr, as his knighthood was removed and rescinded when his activities as a spy became known.

    COD 9D Underwent – multiple layers of cleverness and misdirection here!

    Thank you Rotter for the extended blog, which I for one welcomed.

    Cedric

  8. Another puzzle that seemed as though it would be a doddle at first but gradually showed its muscle. My last in were BLUNT, UNDERWENT, and TWAIN (my LOI – clever but tough, I thought). My early hopes were dashed and I took nearly 24 mins in the end but found it a thoroughly enjoyable and immersive solve. I liked DIETING, SPLASH, CHIMERA, ACTIVE, and EGOISTS. Thanks to Wurm.
    Thanks also to rotter for an excellent blog. Much appreciated. John M.

    Edited at 2020-10-29 09:03 am (UTC)

  9. It was probably just me and the state of my brain this morning but I got absolutely nowhere with this one, and gave up after three answers in ten minutes.

    Brian

  10. Too hard for me this morning, but your blog, Rotter, was interesting and informative and much appreciated.
    So I enjoyed working through it with your help.
    My only grouse is 4a which I really think is too much for a QC. I don’t really see why “stops” means “inserted”, but I suspect I’ve come across it before without noticing.

    Diana

    1. Diana – it isn’t “inserted” but “is inserted in”. It’s “stop” in the sense of to plug or fill a hole, as in stop-gap.

      Jim R

  11. I found this hard going in places but everything was fairly clued and workoutable. I was slow to get going, OVEN READY being my FOI. This led to CHIMERA which in turn opened up the top half and seemed to kick start the brain cell. Some enjoyable clues left me just needing the tricky TWAIN, BREAD and BLUNT to finish in 12.56.
    COD to UNDERWENT, which made me realise how shallow my knowledge of French rivers is!
    Thanks to Rotter, I enjoyed the extra detail
  12. Well over my target of 15 mins at 27. The first half went in quickly then had to winkle them out, some were entered with a bit of a “well if you say so” and some with an “ooooh that’s nice”; so parts of it were excellent. Thanks Wurm and Rotter, I always look forward to your blogs.
  13. 3 short after 25 minutes.

    The A4E construct stumped me. I thought it might be a misprint so looked at the on-line version, but there it was. I thought my answer of AFFECT was pretty solid. I had two possible clueings: “ff” must be some abbreviation for four in heraldry, metallurgy, typesetting or some other discipline I no nothing about. Hence A-FF-E + CT. Or the fact that affect/effect are practically synonyms, with the A replacing the E, hence A4e.

    Also failed with DISCUS, having only guessed E for the fifth letter.

    COD: STREET

    1. That sort of construction is used in IT. ‘L10n’ is short for ‘localisation’, forr example. IE, L followed by 10 letters then N, so I wondered about this. I eventually biffed from the crossers and expecting ’ct’ to be in the middle from ‘court’. Had no idea what was really going on, though.

      Ditto for 18a and couldn’t get to 18d either. Also struggled with 21a and only think of ‘chimera’ in its ‘hybrid’ meaning. Definitely a curate’s egg, IMHO.

      Liked the fuller blog, thanks , Rotter.

  14. Duh! I made so many daft mistakes today…. Must be the weather. Or not. I put ALE instead of AIL in 20 down, because I didn’t read the clue properly. I made the grid hard to read because I put ADVENT, 16’s answer, in the squares reserved for 15 down, then realised, scribbled it out, and made it an illegible mess. I put EGOTIST, not EGOISTS in 14 down…. more crossings out when I realised the answer to 19 across. And, finally, I put in an unparsable TRAIN, not TWAIN, in 10 across. OMG… bottom of the class for me. I find it so much harder to work things out when I’ve got a messy grid. Anyway, my own failings aside, I thought this was a great puzzle and I loved the informative and detailed blog so, thank you !
    1. I did similar! EGOTIST instead of EGOISTS and, blush, STEERS instead of STREET, which as you can imagine rather messed things up. I blame a lack of sleep last night :). Eventually spotted my mistakes and limped home in 20 minutes. But, some fine clues, out of which I think I pick ENOUGH as COD, though DISCUS (my LOI) ran it close.
  15. Tricky Wurm returned today with what I thought was a brilliant puzzle. Lots of original ideas and, as I solved, I kept saying to myself, that’s clue of the day. Candidates include: SPLASH, DISCUS, UNDERWENT; perhaps the latter gets the nod.
    FOI DAINTY after over a minute; LOI BLUNT, needed several looks. Time 15:05 with only ACTIVE unparsed.
    Not easy for beginners, I imagine.
    David
  16. As David said, this was Tricky Wurm. The fact that I finished this in a relatively normal time is tribute to the coaching I have received through this blog, because a couple of years ago I doubt I’d have got half! Thanks, all you wise heads.

    FOI DECADE, LOI UNDERWENT, COD (and POI) DIETING, time 2.5K but at 13:59 for a Wurm I’m giving this a Decent Day ranking so there!

    Thanks Wurm and Rotter. (It’s not about how long or short the blog is, Rotter, it’s about how good it is, and I thought yours was excellent. Particularly enjoyed the Mark Twain story!)

    Templar

  17. Found this hard today and did not get SPLASH. Guessed BREAD and TWAIN. Nevertheless I enjoyed the struggle – and the extended blog.
  18. I enjoyed the challenge today…some difficult wordplay but all good fun. My FOI was DECADE from which I used the first letter checkers to build on. There were a few gaps that required revisits. IDA for the princess was wholly reliant on the wordplay. I needed all the checkers and several revisits before DIETING came to mind. TWAIN was also a late solve but the clues that pushed me over my target were SPLASH and DISCUS. 10:21 Thanks Rotter and I agree with your COD 9d UNDERWENT.
  19. Couldn’t solve 4a or 21a but when I read here that it was Splash I then got Discus.

    Liked Incommunicado when I eventually solved it.

    First ones in were eg IDA, Oven ready, Implore, and Class Struggle and Cock-a-Hoop. Pleased to get Advent and Underwent.

    Thanks for blog much needed today!

  20. Believe Chimera is also a scientific term for an animal with 2 sets of DNA. Apparently it happens e.g. when a twin is absorbed in the womb.
  21. I enjoyed the mix of straightforward and more complex clues and finished a whisker under 15 minutes.
    DIETING seemed rather too good to be true but I struggled with TWAIN (thought it would have two ‘t’s), BREAD (didn’t think of ‘re’ for ‘for’), SPLASH (totally baffled) and DEMON (didn’t think of ‘demo’ for ‘March’).
    Amongst my favourites were OVEN-READY, DAINTY and ENOUGH – and COD goes to UNDERWENT for fooling me into racking my brains for names of French rivers.
    Thanks to Wurm and to Rotter for the excellent blog.
    1. The ‘re’ in bread represents ‘on’ rather than ‘for’. For in the clue is just a link word pointing to the definition. Thanks for the comment.
      1. Oh yes. I’ve just re-read your blog entry.
        Thanks for clarifying, Rotter. Hope all is well with Mrs R.
  22. As a relative novice to Cryptics I always appreciate the explanations, so keep them coming, Rotter!
    There’s no other way I will improve otherwise!
  24. ….a definite undertone of espionage in a few of these answers. I found it a STRUGGLE (CLASS or otherwise !) and was way over target.

    BLUNT appears in question 4 of today’s Daily Quiz (but not in the answer, so no spoiler)

    FOI INCOMMUNICADO
    LOI BREAD
    COD COCK-A-HOOP
    TIME 7:07

  25. I realised pretty much straight away that this wasn’t going to be an easy solve, but I plugged away, picking up the occasional answer. Getting the two long across answers opened up the grid a bit more, so that after 25 mins I was reasonably happy to be down to two pairs: 18ac/d and 15d/21ac. Blunt/Bread came once I realised that a name was required, but Discus/Splash seemed to take forever, and pushed me well north of 30mins. My stand out CoD, which I’m slightly surprised no one has already mentioned, is 12d Ivy League. Probably a chestnut, but enjoyable all the same. My thanks to Wrum for the work out, and Rotter for his informative blog. Invariant
  26. Another toughie which stretched my time to 40 mins, a few of which I couldn’t immediately parse However, it seems I’m lucky in at least finishing it and I did enjoy it in the end.

    Lots of potential pitfalls here. 8ac was luckily biffed whilst 5dn “Chimera” was aided by a book I read years ago by Steve Gallagher, but I also nearly fell into the “Egotist” solution for 14dn. After finally giving up on trying to slot UFO into 15dn, “Discus” eventually clicked and I could move on.

    Guessed 18dn “Blunt” and should have got 10ac “Twain” and 3dn “Demon” a lot earlier.

    FOI – 1dn “Dainty”
    LOI – 10ac “Twain”
    COD – 9dn “Underwent” (always think of Derwent being a water in the Lakes which threw me at first)

    Thanks as usual.

  27. Made even harder when answering “ale” instead of “ail” for 20D and spending an age trying to solve 21A. Eventually, we realised our error and completed the puzzle in 23 minutes. Thanks Wurm – we need the tricky ones to keep us on our toes!

    FOI: decade
    LOI: splash
    COD: oven ready

    Thanks to Rotter for a great blog, really appreciate you taking the time to do it.

  28. Found this really hard, especially to get started. I only got one of the across clues despite taking a bit of time to think about them once I had realised this wasn’t anything like a pb day. I wondered at that point if I was ever going to be able to finish as I didn’t have much of a clue about quite a few of them, but fortunately the downs were a little more forgiving and slowly I eked out the answers. I was quite proud of myself when, after about 42 minutes I had just 21a to do, but try as I might I couldn’t work out what those last three letters could be. After another 20 minutes or so I was just about ready to throw in the towel, and then the existence of sash windows flitted through my mind and the penny dropped. Final time was 66:29. FOI 13a, LOI 21a, CsOD 10a and 18a Thanks Wurm and Rotter.
  29. This was full of clever clues, eg 15d, but some were too clever for us, so dnf, enjoyed reading the blog which explained what we could not get. Thanks to Rotter and Worm.
  30. I don’t do these every day, more like once a week (if that) and marvel at the speed of experienced solvers. Still good fun though, even if they take an age to complete (not saying!).
  31. I knew this would be problematic when I didn’t get a single across on first pass but I struggled on with help from aids. Eventually completely stuck with 21a and 15d. Couldn’t see SPLASH meaning trumpet and kept thinking that UFO ought to be in there somewhere. WURM is a setter I always find difficult. Not on the same wavelength at all.
  32. I found this a real toughie and it took me all of 39 minutes to complete. Some wonderful misdirection in the clues, most of which I fell for. Couldn’t parse 4ac, so thanks Rotter. Not sure that I particularly liked the device but maybe that’s just a bit of sour grapes because I had no idea what was going on! I also refrained for some time from putting in the answer to 11ac because I thought it was a little bit straightforward and should be more complicated!

    FOI – 17ac IMPLORE
    LOI – 21ac SPLASH
    COD – 19ac CLASS STRUGGLE

  33. Rotter, I always enjoy your blogs and the humour in your comments. I would never be bored by anything you wrote; I have learnt so much from you and your colleagues since finding this website. I hope your wife stays asymptomatic and that you don’t succumb to the wretched COVID.
    I thought this to be a thoroughly enjoyable puzzle even though it stretched me to 8 minutes over my target 20. MM
    FOI: Dieting… though I wondered if it could be that easy!
    LOI: Demon
    COD: Enough…. though one hug is never enough!!!
  34. Too hard for me. Managed about half then gave up.
    Not sure how this is a Quick Cryptic. The A4e clue was ludicrous. Mixing Roman numerals is just daft.
    Might just go back to super fiendish Sudokus if this is the level of clue to expect at this level.
    Nick
    1. Keep at it Nick – as someone wrote on here a few weeks back, it’s like learning a foreign language..
      After a while things will click into place.
  35. I like the new challenge of a strange concept. ( e.g 4a) The only problem was that I got fixated with CATIVE and never saw ACTIVE! Doh! So DNF as I couldn’t see Chimera, Discus, Splash, Implore or Twain.
    But an enjoyable 30 minutes before conceding.
    Lovely blog.
    Thanks all
    John George
  36. Some intriguing clues….
    liked 2D COCK A HOOP….
    also liked Rotter’s note for TWAIN.

    Edited at 2020-10-29 10:00 pm (UTC)

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