Quick Cryptic No 3067 by Hurley

Author   TemplarPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

A neat puzzle from the ever-reliable Hurley, with a good mix of clues and a cracking Dad-joke. It took me 07:33 and I hope you enjoyed it too.

Definitions underlined in bold.

Across
1 Appeal of strange archaism (8)
CHARISMA – Get going with an anagram [strange] of “archaism”.
5 Crossword feature, everything ultimately clear? (4)
GRID – Onwards with G [everything ultimately] + RID [clear].
9 Learner at church door might have this (5)
LATCH -On again using L [learner] + AT [at] + CH [church].
10 Untimely disclosure in peril — so disorganised (7)
SPOILER -Discover another anagram [disorganised], here of “peril so”.
11 Climbing plant of creamy white colour, not gold (3)
IVY – Blinking IVY, the bane of gardeners. IVORY is the creamy white colour; remove “or”, which is the heraldic term for “gold” [not gold] to get the plant.
12 Refuge in Tuscany a builder finally revamped (9)
SANCTUARY – Yes, another anagram [revamped] – of “Tuscany a r” [r being “builder finally”].
13 One seen as different if making a comeback in film (6)
MISFIT – Even though I knew it didn’t parse, when I had the M and I checkers I decided it must be “Matrix” and wasted time trying to justify it. I should instead have focused on the wordplay: FI [if making a comeback] inside MIST [film]. My LOI.
15 Confused store with right list (6)
ROSTER – “Store” is made into an anagram [confused] with R [right].
17 Made to conceal weapon, article left something applied to soldier? (9)
MARMALADE – Crumpets were clued as breakfast items recently; now we have the equally heretical suggestion that “soldiers” (as in fingers of toast) are to be covered in marmalade instead of being dipped into a soft-boiled egg. Is nothing sacred at the Setters’ Breakfast?  MADE goes round [to conceal] ARM [weapon], A [article] and L [left].
19 Interest in British silver (3)
BAG – You need B [British] + AG [silver]. As in “Not my bag, man”.
20 Concession about name for shellfish (7)
SCALLOP – Lured away from the straight and narrow by my expectation that “name” would indicate N, this took me a moment. It’s SOP [concession, as in “give a sop to Cerberus”] contains [about] CALL [name].
21 Strike out and render a service to some extent (5)
ERASE – Oh, it’s a hidden [to some extent] – inside “render a service”.
22 Maybe rowers  boasted (4)
CREW – Very neat double definition, the second being the past tense of the verb to crow. That usage is flagged by most sources as British and archaic, but may be familiar from the King James Version of Peter’s denial of Jesus (eg “And immediately the cock crew” Matthew 26:74 KJV).
23 Wary, promises to pay after share-out, with first part of addition included (8)
CAUTIOUS – Ends with IOUS [promises to pay], coming after CUT [share-out] including A [with first part of addition included].
Down
1 Element serene as clique on regular basis is accommodated (7)
CALCIUM – LQE didn’t look likely for every other letter of clique so it was easy to see CIU [“clique”]. That goes inside CALM [serene].
2 With change of heart, put one’s name forward in suitable way (5)
APTLY – You “apply” for a position by putting your name forward; change the central letter [change of heart] of “apply” from a P to a T to get the answer. Tricky.
3 Unfriendly lip, one’s habit unfortunately (12)
INHOSPITABLE – Original surface. It’s an anagram [unfortunately] of “lip one’s habit”.
4 Stone worker’s two family members (5)
MASON – Lump together MA + SON.
6 Showing dependence, payment containing pounds I advanced (7)
RELIANT – Dredging up RENT for [payment] was my obstacle here. That contains L [pounds] + I + A [advanced, as in A Levels, for example].
7 Classic  hat (5)
DERBY – Double definition. There are five English horse races known as the “Classics”, the other four being the Oaks, the St Leger, and the One & Two Thousand Guineas.
8 Delay in mail, quiet — one intended, they say (12)
POSTPONEMENT – Ornate IKEA clue. POST [mail] + P [quiet] + ONE [one] + MENT [intended, they say – aural wordplay for “meant”/”intended”]. Phew.
14 Outside expert on navigating the web? (7)
SURFACE – Groan. If you “surf” the internet a lot you could be called a “surf ace” … well I laughed, COD from me!
16 Compensation as daughter becomes good — move back (7)
REGRESS – a letter swap clue, in which you have to think of a word meaning “compensation” in which D can be swapped for G [daughter becomes good] to make a new word meaning “move back”. So it’s REDRESS becoming REGRESS.
17 It’s nice to hear Manchester United survive in Cup initially (5)
MUSIC – first letters [initially] of “Manchester United survive in Cup”. Not all music is nice to hear – I give you Dissonant Death Metal, for example.
18 Clinical pharmacy shows character (5)
ALPHA – hidden [shows] inside “Clinical pharmacy”
19 It’s next after 18!  Well done! (5)
BRAVO – double definition. I’m not generally a fan of cross-referring clues but this one is rather good. Since 18 was ALPHA my immediate thought was “beta”, but of course that’s too short. What we need here is the next letter after alpha in the NATO alphabet, not the Greek alphabet.

90 comments on “Quick Cryptic No 3067 by Hurley”

  1. 9.02. I thought this an enjoyable and nicely balanced QC requiring a few pauses for thought but nothing too difficult. LOI MARMALADE, I was thrown by the soldiers ref. The two long down clues came very quickly which made life easier than it otherwise might have been. Thanks to Hurley and Templar.

  2. 17 minutes. My solving times have been very mixed recently and this was my fourth excursion into the red (15+ minutes on my spreadsheet) since Monday of last week. Today I solved all but 4 clues in 8 minutes then spent 9 minutes on the remainder.

    I agree with the adverse comments about marmalade on soldiers.

  3. Really held up in the NE – totally misdirected with GRID trying to find a word ending in R (‘finally clear’) and that only fell when I finally saw that I had to combine two of my many areas of weakness: horseracing and US names for types of hat. Once I got DERBY -R-D for a crossword feature seemed terribly easy – well played Hurley. MARMALADE with egg, no thanks – I’m on porridge with frozen raspberries at the moment. Quite healthy but leaves me needing lunch at about eleven. All green in 15.39. Good one, thanks Hurley – and Templar for the reminder of breakfast crumpets.

  4. 4:58, but enjoyed it mostly for the relief after two failed 15*15s in a row. Had to look thrice at APTLY, agree was a bit tricky especially since I briefly had LAPSE (Catholic lapsing at church door?) which would have worked with APPLY. Of course I can’t agree on the death metal.

    Thank you Templar and Hurley.

  5. I enjoyed this so thanks Hurley and Templar. It’s a shame about about the marmalade clue – it’s irritating, not just because it’s controversial but because it’s unnecessary.

  6. I enjoyed putting in Marmalade and thinking, of this site, ‘they’re not going to like this one’. Similarly, I don’t read the Times articles on Meghan n Harry but scroll straight to the comments, which are always (justifiably) vituperative.

  7. Oh dear, another DPS to continue my awful solving this week (not a single puzzle completed under average). Today I had a genuine typo which I missed during my ‘proof read’ leaving me with SPOILiR.

    As someone who avoids marmalade at all costs even my eyebrows started breakdancing at the thought of applying the vile stuff to soldiers! Other than that I thought this was an excellent puzzle with COD to SURFACE.

    Thanks to Templar and Hurley

      1. Marmalade on bread = abomination. Marmalade on white soughdough toasted to perfection so still chewy with very cold thick butter and a coating of bitter but finely shred orange marmalade – perfection (imho!)

        1. Marmalade on toast, in sandwiches, even in home made sponge cakes and puddings – yum yum 😋😋 But maybe not on soldiers – too flimsy!

        2. Agree to all this except finely shred.. marmalade must be home made and chunky

  9. Add me to the list of those appalled and horrified at the thought of MARMALADE on soldiers! But otherwise a pleasantly straightforward puzzle, all done in 9:47. Though I needed the blog to unravel the parsing of SURFACE – I got the surf and ace components and the answer was clear, but I could not see how “expert” on “navigating the web” didn’t produce ace on top of surf – or even surfing to fit the verb form in the wordplay.

    Many thanks Templar for the blog and the new conversational style!

  10. Like Dr.Shred I originally had “lapse” at 9A, and realized quickly that “apply” just didn’t work for 2D. Changed P to T and the PDM for LATCH was almost immediate.

    Soldiers have always struck me as a strange concept – as, indeed, have boiled eggs for breakfast. MARMALADE should simply be spread on a slice of toast, and as a “dessert” to follow poached eggs, preferably served Benedict.

    FOI CHARISMA
    LOI GRID
    COD SPOILER
    TIME 4:59

  11. 10:48 for the solve. Over a minute on the LOI SURFACE. Good puzzle from Hurley which I can’t decide whether it’s hard or easy. Almost bunged in a desperation BeAnO thinking there was some kind of Be A Number thing going on but refrained long enough to spot the cross reference.

    COD to MUSIC – while I’m not particularly interested by football this was great for the surface and the dig at the fallen.

    Thanks to Templar and Hurley for the enjoyable blog and QC. Good luck to those receiving their ‘A’ level results today – if you come on here please let us know how you did!!

  12. This had a tough start – GRID was my LOI and CALCIUM was also not immediately gettable, but in the end it took 6.45.

  13. 25:15

    Mostly ok although the NE required a bit of biffing with GRID and RELIANT but then became completely stuck on MISFIT and LOI SURFACE which took 7 minutes between them.

  14. Unusually difficult for a Hurley. Stumped by three in the SW corner (the two Ms and SURFACE); got CREW but suggest that version of the past tense has *never* meant “boasted”. The archaic “crew” is for the cock crowing; the other meaning is (I suggest) more modern, and has always been crowed. Please correct me!
    P.S. (on later edit): 1. Liked GRID. 2. Thank you, Templar!

    1. Wiktionary has:
      “Usage notes
      The past tense crew in modern usage is confined to literary and metaphorical uses, usually with reference to the story of Peter in Luke 22.60. The past participle crown is similarly poetical.”

      1. Precisely – thank you! Don’t think any of those “literary and metaphorical uses” have anything to do with boasting?

  15. DNF. Gave up after 20 minutes having got just 6 answers. Just too hard for me.
    Not much fun recently.

    17 Across : ‘A “marmalade soldier” refers to a bread or toast soldier (a strip of bread) spread with marmalade, often paired with baked cheese, like a camembert, to be dipped into the cheese.’
    Apparently some people find this delicious !
    As we say up north – there’s nowt as queer as folk .

  16. 11:45. Slowish for no good reason except I had trouble in the NE with the crossing GRID and RELIANT. For once I didn’t mind the cross-referring clue as getting BRAVO enabled me to “back solve” 18d straight away. I’ve seen it somewhere before but the SURF ACE still raised a smile.

    Thanks to Templar and Hurley

  17. I agree with Martinu about CREW (despite the archaic biblical usage).
    I was slow to develop any momentum and only got some traction when crossers were available – they were more necessary than usual in many cases. I finished, but just slid into the SCC. Disappointing after a number of decent times recently.
    I didn’t enjoy the puzzle. Just a bit too clever-clever for a QC, in my opinion.
    I have mixed reactions to Hurley – I sometimes seem to complete his puzzles quickly but, more often, am tipped into the SCC. Looking at my recent records, I actually failed to finish one and added the word ‘bored’ to my note. I simply don’t get on with Hurley.
    Sorry!
    Thanks to Templar for a good blog. He (almost) convinced me about BAG. Easy, but a poor clue.

    1. Thank you, Blighter! I suppose it’s not surprising we all have different perceptions; for me Hurley has always been one of the most enjoyable (together with Trelawney), today’s unusual.

  18. 3:36 for an enjoyable solve.

    The cross-reference clue provided the rare experience of solving 18dn without looking at the clue, having solved BRAVO first.

    COD to MARMALADE mainly for the sentiments expressed above by brickthick.

    Neat puzzle, excellent blog. Thanks Hurley and Templar.

  19. 27 minutes, so a good day for me, although I couldn’t fully parse APTLY and SURFACE, I DNK that DERBY was a type of hat and I was very unsure about CREW.

    I started with CHARISMA, finished with ROSTER and my COD was POSTPONEMENT.

    Many thanks to Templar and Hurley.

  20. 15 half bifd.

    Soldiers / marmalade – just no.

    I took after 18 as a golfing reference.

    I know it’s surfing as in surfing the (radio) waves but it should be cerfing in honour of Vint Cerf.

    Thanks H and T

  21. 17:16. Slow today. I struggled with lots, including CHARISMA. CALCIUM, CAUTIOUS, MISFIT….

    19dn – BRAVO – was not “Well done!” to my mind. Here is a fact. In the NATO alphabet the letter A is represented by the word Alfa. Not Alpha. It goes Alfa Bravo Charlie Delta etc. I have said this before and no-one listens. Oh for heavens sake kapietro stop nit-picking…

    It is of course possible that some other phonetic alphabet exists that features Alpha, in which case my point is addressed to you Templar, for attributing it to NATO, and not our revered Hurley.

    Whatever, thanks to you both for the puzzle and blog

    1. ALFA and JULIETT are spelled that way to avoid mispronunciation by people unfamiliar with English orthography. Otherwise French speakers might say JULIE-AY, and Turks would say ALP- Ha.

    2. Kapietro, we have discussed this before here, in which my comment (posted at 11:10) also contains a link back to a posting by Peter B. I thought we had agreed that variations can apply e.g. Juliet, which some authoritative sources have as ‘Juliett’. The whole point of the alphabet is clarity in spoken communication rather than minor differences in spelling which have become accepted over the years.

      The usual dictionaries, insofar as they list radiocommunication words, support Alpha for A and Juliet for J. None of them has Alfa or Juliette. Also confirmed is that the proper name code-words s don’t have to be spelt with capital letters.

      2. Thank you Jackkt. As expected. I know my place. I will still never stop feeling uncomfortable with the misspelling of NATO words. You yourself would not feel comfortable with misspellings of words in dictionaries or any other authoritative sources on the grounds that “they sound the same”.

        It would really help if we could just leave NATO out of it. With all our variations and flexibilities, the alphabet we are using is not the NATO alphabet any more. The bunch of words we have and all your “minor differences in spelling which have become accepted over the years” give us Crosswordland’s own generic phonetic alphabet. Problem solved

        1. Many thanks, kapietro, and apologies are due if my response came across in any way as dismissive, which was not my intention. If the objection is to describing the usage as coming from the NATO alphabet, then I have to hold my hand up on that one as I have done this in my blogs many a time and I shall try to avoid doing so in future, at least for the controversial items. Would ‘phonetic alphabet’ suit better?

          As for the flexibilities, I think the Wiki article has these covered in the ‘International Adoption’ section as variations that are or have been used by other agencies. Also they are all covered by one or more of the source dictionaries used for Times crosswords so they are not a Crosswordland invention.

      1. During WW II, the Americans used a different system: Able, Baker, Charlie etc. I sometimes wonder how we managed to win. . .

    4. I’m not entering into the debate as to the rights and wrongs, but thank you K for creating the entertaining and interesting discussion – worth doing the puzzle just to come here and read the commentaries 😊

  22. Stopped after 25 minutes with half done.
    I couldn’t get into this at all. The ones I did get I did not find satisfying. Sorry, Hurley. At least others appreciated it.

    I looked up marmalade soldier to find one reference – a recipe made up by a marmalade producer.
    Is this really a thing?? I found this a bit esoteric for a QC. As far as I am concerned the only thing that is legally allowed to go on soldiers of the bread variety- other than butter/margarine – is marmite.

    Thanks for the much needed blog Templar.

  23. 13:01 (the future Edward II is the first heir to the throne to be given the titles Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester)

    I share the general horror about spreading MARMALADE on soldiers of toast.
    I took a surprisingly long time to see GRID.
    SURFACE was my LOI.

    Thanks Templar and Hurley

  24. 8:15

    As with others, my eyebrow was twitching at the thought of MARMALADE on soldiers. Don’t get me wrong, I love MARMALADE but it surely deserves its own full slice of toast.

    A trifle slow around the course today, I felt, but then noted the Quitch is at 100 which would normally equate to 9 minutes or so for me, so perhaps not so bad after all. Didn’t parse APTLY, went in from checkers. LOI CREW.

    Thanks Templar and Hurley

  25. Enjoyed today’s QC in spite of a couple of minor quibbles. Needed blog to parse GRID. Had always thought it was ALPHA in the NATO alphabet – learn something new every day. COD SURFACE. Thanks Templar for your usual interesting blog.

  26. 18 mins…

    An enjoyable puzzle with a good mix of clues. Main hold ups were 2dn “Aptly”, 23ac “Cautious” and 17ac “Marmalade”, where I nearly put Margarine until I realised it wouldn’t work with 18dn “Alpha”.

    Not a massive fan of those letter swap clues (we got two here I think), as I don’t always find them obviously signposted.

    FOI – 1ac “Charisma”
    LOI – 17ac “Marmalade”
    COD – 14dn “Surface” – a win for the dad joke.

    Thanks as usual!

  27. Another LAPSE here, though INHOSPITABLE eventually put paid to that, as well as being tough to reconcile APSE with church door.

    MARMALADE soldiers? I’m with the appalled majority on this. Court martial for Hurley!

    A slow 20.50 in the end, due to LAPSE.

    Pi ❤️

  28. 11:35, goodish time.

    SURF for using the internet is already archaic. It goes back to old dialup days when the user was the agent and could bounce around at will, without being pushed around by billionaires and their algorithms. Modern usage is “on one’s phone” (which never means actually making a telephone call).

    Saw BRAVO first, so went back and put ALPHA in on seeing it was a cross reference.

    I make soldiers for soup. Much more surface area for dipping than a simple slice.

  29. I cannot remember the last time I had MARMALADE in the house but the clue did get me thinking about the origin of SOLDIERS in this context. It is a classic British thing seemingly dating from the 60s and also used by the Egg Marketing Board in commercials. I certainly remember the “Go to work on an egg” slogan. As for IVY I have a lot of that in my garden. FOI CHARISMA and LOI SURFACE in 7:00. Thanks Templar

  30. 15.09 Mostly quick but DERBY, GRID, REGRESS and especially ERASE held me up at the end. Thanks Templar and Hurley.

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