Quick Cryptic 2921 by Hurley – Openly single

Author   BletchleyRejectPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

You know you’re in for a rough time when 1a and 1d leave you completely at a loss.

Yes, appropriately enough I was 1d’ed in the NW by this not so easy offering from Hurley. Had to look elsewhere to get a toehold after staring at the first few clues with an ever-increasing sense of hopelessness for several minutes. Eventually worked my way back but still I took a while to get 1a and 1d, my last two in. Interesting that there were no double or cryptic defs on show.

A good QC with a win for the setter today. At least I avoided the SCC after finishing in 17:20.

Thanks to Hurley

Definitions underlined in bold, deletions or letters in the wordplay not appearing in the answer, shown by strikethrough.

Across
1 Bargain, much-liked — small piece (7)
SNIPPET – SNIP (‘Bargain’) PET (‘much-liked’)

Pet here as an adjective, as in a “pet project”.
5 Recalling some cognac, rice, not exactly (5)
CIRCA – Reverse hidden (‘Recalling some’) in cognAC RICe
8 Dictatorial writer from Italy changing sides (13)
AUTHORITARIAN – AUTHOR (‘writer’) ITALRIAN (‘from Italy’) with the L changed to R (‘changing sides’)
9 Serious merit is from France (7)
EARNEST – EARN (‘merit’) EST (‘is from France’)
10 Part of prefab beyond religious building (5)
ABBEY – Hidden (‘part of’) in prefAB BEYond
11 Motive to get fresh start in spring, say (6)
SEASON – RSEASON (‘Motive’) with first letter R replaced by S (‘to get fresh start’)
13 Brought up, prepared but never quiet (6)
REARED – pREpARED (‘prepared but never quiet’)

Two P’s deleted: P for “piano”, quiet or soft in musical terminology.
15 Tree, old as it happens (5)
OLIVE – O (‘old’) LIVE (‘as it happens’)

As in a live broadcast of a sporting event.
16 Very old, battered tin can pierced by end of knife (7)
ANCIENT – Anagram (‘battered’) of TIN CAN containing (‘pierced by’) knifE (‘end of knife’)
19 Language and impertinence encapsulates fashionable type of humour (6-2-5)
TONGUE-IN-CHEEK – TONGUE (‘Language’) CHEEK (‘impertinence’) contains (‘encapsulates’) IN (‘fashionable’)
20 Intensively research added levies on a regular basis (5)
DELVE – aDdEd LeViEs (‘added levies on a regular basis’)
21 Try pair of notes, cheer up (7)
HEARTEN – HEAR (‘Try’) TE and N (‘pair of notes’)
Down
1 Ultimately fails in plea about trap (5)
SNARE – failS iN pleA (‘Ultimately fails in plea’) RE (‘about’)

I just about did ‘Ultimately fail(s)’; my last by a long shot.
2 Relation at inn recollected sporting contest (13)
INTERNATIONAL – Anagram (‘recollected’) of RELATION AT INN

INTERNATIONAL here as a noun.
3 Favouring North East? That’s lying! (5)
PRONE – PRO (‘Favouring’) NE (‘North East’)

No lying today; I quite happily favoured the NE over the NW.
4 Number needing drink, not small (6)
THIRTY – THIRsTY (‘Needing drink’) with S deleted (‘not small’)

This took me far longer than it should have.
5 A card he played that’s absurd (7)
CHARADE – Anagram (‘played’) of A CARD HE

A CHARADE is “an absurd act; travesty” (Collins) but I can’t square CHARADE, a noun, with ‘absurd’, an adjective. For ‘absurd’ to be a noun, it should be preceded by ‘the’.
6 Remember units must be changed for refund (13)
REIMBURSEMENT – Anagram (‘must be changed’) of REMEMBER UNITS
7 Irritated by some journalist penning denial (7)
ANNOYED – ANY (‘some’) ED (‘journalist’) containing (‘penning’) NO (‘denial’)
11 Saw son had successful snooker shot (7)
SPOTTED – S (‘son’) POTTED (‘had successful snooker shot’)

A welcome change for crossword land – not a proverb in sight.
12 Too much employment of past American English (7)
OVERUSE – OVER (‘past’) US (‘American’) E (‘English’)
14 Extravagant place to go, to some extent? (6)
LAVISH – LAV (‘place to go’) ISH (‘to some extent?’)

Very similar to the definition for LAVISH in The Complete Uxbridge English Dictionary. Maybe not sophisticated humour, but still one of my favourites.
17 Firm repeated a drink (5)
COCOA – CO CO (‘Firm repeated’) A (‘a’)

Can you make COCOA with chestnuts? You can in crossword land.
18 X introducing sanction of no real value (5)
TOKEN – TEN (‘X’) containing (‘introducing’) OK (‘sanction’)

I imagine the surface refers to the app and is a comment on the influence of its owner. ‘Sanction’ is a contranym and for some reason I always think first of the “ban or penalty” meaning rather than this “approval or permission” one.

88 comments on “Quick Cryptic 2921 by Hurley – Openly single”

  1. I thought this was pitched at just the right level. Got 1 across quickly enough, but 1 down was my last in. One of those hidden in plain sight type of clues. Thanks to Bletchers and setter.

    8:20

  2. 12:12. LAVISH and TOKEN were great. Authorisation seemed to fit but didn’t work at all so I’m glad my brain was able to finally arrive at AUTHORITARIAN. I didn’t know SNIP meant bargain.

  3. I took ‘ultimately fails’ in 1d as just the letter ‘s’ and tried to put it inside another word for ‘plea’ reversed. Forgot the KISS principle. Everything else was pretty straightforward except for SPOTTED where I had ‘reason’ for 11a thinking it was ‘season’ that needed the fresh start, so had 11d beginning with ‘r’.
    Thanks BR.

    1. Agree on both. I was beginning with R(eason) too, but decided to solve 11d immediately in case I was wrong. I was.

  4. I mixed up season/reason as well, I usually do, making SPOTTED quite a challenge. A nice mix from Hurley, some gimmes and some tougher ones to keep everyone honest. HNI about SNARE until BR explained that ‘ultimately’ referred to more than one word, another device that regularly trips me up. 11.07 with the last 2+ spent on SNARE and SPOTTED.

  5. Thanks Hurley for a nice QC: 17:43 for me. There was a variety of clues, which made it interesting. Thanks BR, especially for parsing the TEN in HEARTEN. I thought at first the two notes might be two fivers, but that’s a bit wobbly. We’re back to how do we spell what Julie Andrews was singing. I’ve never mastered the definitive list.

  6. 40mins of graft and LAVISH, HEARTEN and EARNEST all proved too much for me! Also fell into the REASON/SEASON trap and spent ages trying to find an anagram of PLEA with an S inside. Fun though

  8. 13 minutes. I also thought there may be a problem with parts of speech in the definition at 5dn. Would defining CHARADE as ‘that which is absurd’ be placing too heavy a burden on the apostrophe s in the clue?

  9. Another fast start with seven on the first pass of acrosses but I knew there was still some hard work to do. Unlike yesterday the long one yielded fairly quickly so I had plenty of checkers but still took far too long to get LAVISH and HEARTEN at the end. Enjoyed SPOTTED for simplicity. Ended up all green in 12.55 – might have been faster but when I couldn’t parse THIRTY I just tried looking for numbers beginning with T but stopped at 13.

  10. Steady going but I’m another who got the wrong end of the clue for SEASON.
    Started with CIRCA and finished with SPOTTED IN 7.23.
    Thanks to BR and Hurley

  11. Slow slow quick-quick slow on this one, as I struggled to start, sprinted though the middle clues and then took an age over the last couple. All finally done in 12:08 and much enjoyed, though I never did parse either SNARE (same problem as LindsayO) or TOKEN; blog much needed for those two.

    A fine puzzle, and many thanks BR for the blog.

  13. A rare attack of competence for me, 1A wasn’t too elusive and a decent run through the Acrosses gave me the basis for working down through the grid. HEARTEN was LOI after TOKEN but didn’t fully parse either, keen as I was to avoid the SCC just for a change.
    Perfect level for me, and thanks for the blog to tidy up my parsing gaps.

  14. Tough, or maybe I’m still jet lagged. LOI SNARE was very hard to winkle out; tried for too long to make “ladies” work instead of LAVISH; took an age to break down AUTHORITARIAN; and so on. After all that left me feeling very thick I was amazed to clock in at 07:34 for a Good Day. Like England in the Calcutta Cup, a result not justified by the performance.

    Many thanks Hurley and Bletchers for excellent explanations.

  15. Unlike yesterday I was completely tuned into Hurley today, finishing in a swiftish time for me at 7.44. Early times posted would suggest it was on the harder side of average, so I’m pleased with that time. I particularly liked the clue to 13ac REARED with its disguised instruction to omit the letters P. LOI was AUTHORITARIAN which became straightforward once all the checkers were in place.

  16. I ignored the NW corner and moved around the grid to get footholds. The longer answers yielded quickly and I thought it was going well but I was slowed, finally, by SNIPPET, SNARE, and then SPOTTED, DELVE, LAVISH HEARTEN. Limped over the SCC line by a minute. A game of two halves – most was straightforward but clever but the tail was devilish.
    Not a good start to the week but thanks both.

  17. Nice to have some sympathy – thank you, BR! Hurley is usually a friendly setter and it was disappointing to be stumped by just those two very difficult ones 1d and 8. “Changing sides”, indeed!

  18. 9:04 for the solve! After a PB yesterday, it was always likely to be worse next day but still much quicker than my average of around 15mins. Perhaps Penny’s Law has been broken 🤷‍♂️

    Held up for last minute by LAVISH and the NW corner were among the last in. Had to get the pen&paper out to see what the first few letters of INTERNATIONAL needed to be.

    People asking yesterday about methods for solving. I went through Acrosses today and spent less than ten seconds looking at the clue for 19A before leaving it blank and moving on. By the time, my look at the Downs had reached TOKEN in the SE I had most of the checkers for TONGUE-IN-CHEEK and was able to bif it straight in without even needing a second look at the clue. I usually parse every clue but it’s unlikely with the “type of humour” definition which I remembered and the length of phrase that there could be two possibilities. On the other hand, I pencilled in REARED and when the Downs confirmed the checkers, I took another look at the wordplay to be sure.

    Anyway, enough waffle, pleased to get through that one in another decent time.

  19. Did a long post then something crashed. Anyway I enjoyed this one. Quite quick. LOI LAVISH! Thanks , BR.

  20. 17:45 (Jacobites take Edinburgh, then win battle of Prestonpans).

    Very sluggish today, but enjoyed the solve anyway. LOI was HEARTEN.

    Thanks BR and Hurley

  21. 9.56 – a perfectly pitched QC for second day running – nice work Hurley.

    I was held up by spending a good couple of minutes over my last two in – HEARTEN and LAVISH.

    On the former I parsed it, but could someone enlighten me in what context is “N” an abbreviation for NOTE?

    Cheers

    Horners

    1. Chambers gives this rather intimidating list for N:

      “N2 abbreviation 1 National. 2 Nationalist. 3 New. 4 physics newton. 5 chem nitrogen. 6 North. 7 Northern. 8 IVR Norway.

      N3 symbol, chess knight.

      N- combining form, denoting nuclear.

      n1 noun 1 math an indefinite number. 2 colloq a large number. adj of an indefinite or large number.

      n2 abbreviation 1 nano-. 2 neuter. 3 neutron. 4 new. 5 grammar nominative. 6 noon. 7 note. 8 grammar noun.

      ‘n’ or ‘n’ abbreviation, colloq, in compounds and • chicken ‘n’ chips.”

      1. And this is why I prefer the OED over Chambers. Chambers doesn’t feel the need to give any examples. Horners question still stands. Who has a reference for n=note? And it has to stand by itself, not part of an acronym.

          2. Thanks very much. See my response below, but new to me.

            [Er…, reply strictly optional, but any chance you’re related to the main contributor in the discussion thread on the page to which you’ve given the link?]

    3. I admit to having put in N for ‘note’ many times without too much thought about where it comes from. If someone hasn’t beaten me to it, the ODE / Oxford Dictionaries Premium (online) give the following sense: “n (abbreviation for) Note (used in a book’s index to refer to a footnote)” and as an example “450n”. CD’s link above gives a more detailed explanation but confirms it’s used when citing a footnote in a reference.

  22. A slow start, but gradually got going and solving the long words helped. Biffed a couple (SNARE, TOKEN) and wondered about CHARADE clue, but it had to be. 24:15 to finish.

  23. From CIRCA to THIRTY in 7:06. Like BR I was stymied in the NW corner and it still put up quite a lot of resistance at the end of the solve even with the S in play for the 1s. I liked LAVISH but my COD is TOKEN.

  24. Clearly in good company with LOI SNARE. Hidden in plain sight so it shouldn’t have been a problem. Otherwise quite a swift solve of an enjoyable QC. Thanks BR and Hurley.

  26. CIRCA was FOI. The NW corner was slow to arrive. Eventually saw how SNARE worked. SPOTTED was LOI, held up by a biffed REASON at 11a. Didn’t parse TOKEN. 9:26. Thanks Hurley and BR.

  27. 2 errors, and on seeing pinks thought they must be typos. But no, flat out errors: OPINE( for OLIVE) and GARISH for LAVISH.

    1. Hard luck, Merlin! I also had gArISHfor a while, but couldn’t parse it and kept looking.

  28. I got 1a quickly but 1d was my LOI. I stared at SNARE for a long time after stopping the clock at 13 minutes; and was pretty sure it would be wrong as the parsing never occurred to me -thanks for that. SPALE would have been my guess from the parsing.
    Otherwise no real problems.
    David

  29. 20:31
    Back in the SCC with LOI SEASON taking 4mins for the penny to drop.
    As with BR, started to panic when the first pass of the across clues only revealed ANCIENT and DELVE with answers arriving slowly with every tour of the grid.
    Biffed ANNOYED and plain guessed at HEARTEN – as with Horners1974, I still don’t understand why “N” is a note and would appreciate being educated.
    Very happy to finish though and loved many of the clues including LAVISH which raised a smile.

    Thank to BR & Hurley

  30. 6:45

    FOI C. being for once an answer, not a clue. LOI LAVISH after HEARTEN.

    Nice puzzle, thanks BR and Hurley.

  31. 6:21

    Not too much to scare the horses – with three left, I was momentarily breeze-blocked, but managed to see what was going on in 8a without too much ado. Solved EARNEST which gave enough checkers i.e. all of them to complete 1d

    Thanks Bletch and Hurley

  32. 40 mins but one error (Earnest).
    Not helped by believing OLIVE was either elder or ( at a pinch) alder, with as it happens indicating aural word play.
    I enjoyed this but found the last few clues tough. COD: spotted
    Thanks to Hurley and BR

  33. I was flying through this, on for a PB at 10 minutes. – although several went in without being fully parsed (AUTHORITARIAN, REARED, LAVISH, TOKEN). However, came unstuck by also getting wrong end of 11A, (REASON instead of SEASON). Which left me truly snookered at 11D.
    Nevertheless, an enjoyable 13 minutes.

  34. 5.10. Great puzzle I thought, but a bit of a mixed bag in terms of my performance. International, authoritarian, reimbursement, and tongue in cheek all took longer to write in than to parse, but like some others I was held up at the end knowing 1D must be snare, but struggling to see why. Got there eventually though.
    COD to lavish as it made me smile. Thanks Bletchers and Hurley.

  35. Yet again the 30min post was in plain sight, though at least a third of that time was spent on just four clues: Snare/Snippet and Lavish/Hearten. Why do setters have to pair up their hard clues in this 19ac fashion?
    Despite my struggles, this was still a very enjoyable solve. CoD was going to be the irritated journalist but, having read BR’s blog, I think 18d, Token, is more apt. Invariant

  36. Very nice puzzle pitched at the right level for a QC. Cuppa still warm when LOI SNARE went in. AUTHORITARIAN raised a grin. Thanks Hurley and blogger.

  37. Mostly straightforward but with a handful of more difficult clues which led me to a time of 25 minutes. Even then I had to use an aid to crack my LOI. Held up by initially having reason instead of season and by the 1ac/1dn and21ac/14dn crossings.

    FOI – 5ac CIRCA
    LOI – 14dn LAVISH
    COD – 19ac TONGUE IN CHEEK

  38. My second completion in the 30-40 minute bracket so I’m happy enough. Have been been doing some old ones in books so still getting used to doing online and just completing them is still a win for me. My LOI was EARNEST. I see France and know to go through what little I know of French but didn’t quite realise it was actual spelling it out with IS From France.

    1. Watch out for French is = est; the French or French article = le / la / les; in France = en; from France = de, and so on! Just to make it more tricky, the setters will sometimes use the name of a French place – Nice is particularly popular as we’re more likely to read it to rhyme with rice rather than niece. Also similar clues in German and Spanish. It sounds like you’re doing very well!

  39. I was clearly on the wavelength today, coming home at 6:49, even with significant dithering over LOI SNARE. Nice puzzle!

  40. With barely 3 minutes on the clock I was left with 1D. I biffed SNARE, but couldn’t parse it. It didn’t help that I’d convinced myself that “plea about” was pointing at an anagram, and that “ultimately fails” was offering me an S. So…..an anagram of “pleas” apparently, so I backed out the N and the R and was left to contemplate either “slape” or “spale”. Neither convinced me, so I reinstated the letters I’d removed and pressed submit, fully expecting to see pink squares….then came here to read what Bletchers had to say on the matter – many thanks for the parsing!

    FOI CIRCA
    LOI SNARE
    COD TONGUE-IN-CHEEK
    TIME 4:39 (about a third of it on LOI)

  41. Never have I felt my intuition to be so wrong. My brain seemed to be fixating on 15ac as Elder and 4dn with Lager/Large or Gin/Giant combinations. Cap doffed, Hurley, thanks for a great puzzle.

  42. Never did parse SNARE or TOKEN – many thanks BR. HEARTEN took an age (forgot about hear=try) but once solved LOI LAVISH was then a write in and is COD, although I do also like TOKEN now that I know how it works 😆 Appreciated the devices in AUTHORITARIAN and REARED. A lovely puzzle. Interesting to read why note=N. Many thanks all.

  43. 7.14

    Happy with that. SNARE also one of the last ones in. Tricky parsing but absolutely fair. Liked AUTHORITARIAN.

    Thanks Hurley/BR

  44. Very hard. 8a Authoritarian took a long time to parse, oddly, although it was a shoo-in from the crossers and really is not complicated. I am going to say “Italian” with a cod Japanese accent….
    13a Reared, took an age, then DOH. COD.
    1d LOI Snare, DOH.
    5d Charade, never noticed noun/adjective problem.
    14d Lavish, ho ho ho, I love Uxbridge.
    18d Token, took an age to parse, totally foxed, then DOH again. DNK (actually had forgot) the word contranym, but I’ll use it now.

  45. 85 minutes to get it done today, many of them I only put in due to the checking letter so many thanks for explaining the clues. I fell into the same trap of REASON and spent far too long trying to make sense of RPOTTED 😀

    1. Congratulations on your perseverance – it certainly paid off! Like many of us, I had the same issue with Reason instead of Season for some time.

  46. Dnf…

    Overall, this took 25 mins, of which a fair amount of time was spent on 11dn “Spotted” (primarily because I got 11ac “Season” the wrong way round). However, even though I couldn’t parse it properly, I put “Garish” for 14dn – rendering the whole thing an utter failure.

    A good challenging puzzle from Hurley though.

    FOI – 10ac “Abbey”
    LOI – 11dn “Spotted”
    COD – 3dn “Prone”

    Thanks as usual!

  47. Hurrah! Best time ever: thank you for all the tuition!
    14.25. Mostly parsed as I went as often don’t even finish so some gentle parsing en route is educational.
    Could not have done it without all I have learnt here 🙂
    Thanks to all bloggers and setters

  49. 18.32 With half the time spent on THIRTY, AUTHORITARIAN, SNARE and SNIPPET. Entertaining though. Thanks BR and Hurley.

  50. Seemed so far off getting LOI LAVISH and POI HEARTEN that I was on the verge of revealing them until Mrs T saved the day by spotting the latter as a possibility. Even then, with the additional H, LAVISH was a long time coming. SNARE was a lucky guess really since we couldn’t parse it. A rather below par 18:29. Thanks all.

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