23517/Cheeky revolutionary

Author   ilancPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 1:20 (hours not minutes)

After a diet of Sunday Times, there’s no doubt that the Times is both more rigorous and more challenging. Lots to commend this puzzle – but I wonder if it can be done by mere mortals without a dictionary: e.g. 1A requires knowing that Jack CADE is an English revolutionary (thanks Peter!) and 4D, that MALAR is an anatomical term for cheeky! 20A, ALEATORY, new to me as well but solvable from the wordplay. A couple of outrageous puns as well. Cheeky indeed.

Across

1 A,CADE,MIA – CADE is not a “barrel” which is revolutionary but in fact Jack CADE (leader of 1450 English revolt) followed by rev(aim=”plan”)
6 LIQUOR=”licker” – lick in the sense of “beat”, trump, rout.
10 LIKE BLAZES – clever pun describing a pyromaniac and what he does very quickly!
11 JOLLY ROGER – charade (“very”=JOLLY, “very good”=ROGER as in “I got it”) and cryptic def for what you don’t want to see on the horizon on your next cruise.
11 TAN,G – “smack” as in taste. Effectively misleading surface.
14 PANG,LOSS – PANGLOSS was Candide’s teacher of metaphysico-theologo-cosmolo-nigology. The archetypical Pollyanna.
18 B(AND)IT – my last clue: not hard but “outside with” misled me. “X outside Y” simply indicates X contains Y.
20 ALE,A,TORY – solveable charade meaning “depends on chance”.
24 ICE-BREAKER – double/cryptic def of what’s needed to get a boring party going.
26 RAVISHMENT – (him servant)*. My first clue.
29 H,EIGHT – H is second of “Three”, followed by the number of men in an EIGHT-oared scull (or sweep boat or whatever the right term is). Great red-herring thinking of the second book: “Three Men on the Bummel”.
30 LAY, W,A,STE[p] – LAY is “song” followed by charade for “with one dance move that’s not quiet”.

Down

2 CARBON,A.R.A.
3 DEAD LEG – cryptic def for a British charley horse.
4 M,ALAR – literally cheeky! Alarm (“panic”) in which M[adame] moves to front.
5 A,UK – the diving bird
6 L(I,BERT[h])INE – &lit. I guess a LIBERTINE’s “policy” must be to have a LINE in order to get women in bed!
7 QUARTER[s] – subtraction indicated by “down south”. Which is valid in the sense of “What’s the score?”, “United are down 2” — i.e. “lack 2”.
12 GO, SPARE – found under SPARE in Chambers: to go beserk (“see red”). GO is the Japanese board game and SPARE is left “over” (thanks Peter again!).
15 OUT WITH IT – “unfashionable” and “fashionable”.
17 A,GREE(MEN)T: def is “in union” and “home” is used as the containment indicator.
18 TSARINA – (Sinatra)* – ref. “Catherine” the Great.
19 DASHING – two meanings: as in a DASHING “blade”.
23 ADA,GE=rev(eg) – ref ADA Lovelace who sort of invented with Charles Babbage modern computing machines and happened to be Lord Byron’s daughter.
25 RAT,TY – rev(tar=”salt”) followed by T[urke]Y (“wings”).

4 comments on “23517/Cheeky revolutionary”

  2. Had a decent start, but then had one of those times when the tricky ones for me were all in the same corner – of my 13:03, 9, 14, 2, 3 and 12 accounted for about 5 mins between them. I eventually noticed that 9A was a hidden word and cracked the rest.

    A couple of minor corrections:

    • cade is not a barrel here, but Jack Cade who led a rebellion in 1450. One for the beginner’s / overseas solver’s notebook – you’ll see him again. The barrel meaning is “Chambers-only” so shouldn’t be needed for the Times puzzle.
    • Spare = over: not cricket this time – over can mean the same as “left over”.
  3. A very enjoyable puzzle, made even better in retrospect by the fact that at 12:56 I was a few seconds faster than Peter B :-). Only real hang-up was 3d (DEAD LEG), which I thought of reasonably quickly, but agonised over for ages before I realised the significance of “number” in the clue. (Doh! How many times have I seen that before?)
  4. Quite a tricky one with my LOI – 22a BAGS – NOT Blogged. After far too much time staring at *A*S with no inspiration I looked at the solution on line to get a DOH! moment as the answer is obvious once you see it.

    Some “easies” left out for the bunnies:

    9a Characters involved in ShakespeAREAn plot (4)
    AREA. Hidden answer. My FOI was CAST until I realised that 2d and 3d did not play along with that.

    16a Offensive (radio)* broadcast about noon (6)
    I N ROAD

    22a Successfully secures a great deal (4)
    BAGS. An obvious “easy” DD if you can think of it. I did not. This is possibly as the giveaway consonants were unchecked and I am a bull of very little brain?

    28a Romantic couple’s bit of news (4)
    ITEM. Hurrah, a 4 letter DD I DID get.

    8d Duck is able to cross Eastern Pacific (5)
    O C E AN. Don’t we need a maybe or “?” here? The Pacific is an ocean but not all oceans are Pacific.

    21d A Catherine that had (Sinatra)* smitten (7)
    TSARINA

    27d Fish given in list (after horse) (3)
    (H) EEL. Where list = lean over = heel.

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