Times Quick Cryptic No 1218 by Hurley

Author   rolytolyPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
With about nine-and-a-half minutes on the clock and just 12d left to get, I’d say this was about bang on average difficulty, but a carelessly bunged in wrong ending at 17ac saw fit to my finishing on target and it took the guts of another four minutes to resolve the mess. Good puzzle, I thought, with three long anagrams opening things up to provide a steady solve, and lots of imaginative cluing along the way, my favourite probably being that pesky 12d. Many thanks to Hurley!

Across
1 Pastry served in Mostar, tasty (4)
TART – “Served in” the letters of mosTAR Tasty. A beautiful town in Bosnia with a World Heritage Site for a bridge. I was in Sarajevo recently (it’s a wonderful place) but was too hungover the only day we had to visit Mostar, and instead spent the day in bed listening to the cricket. Shame on me!
3 Clown getting a pet for pounds in capital (4,4)
CAPE TOWN – CLOWN having A PET instead of L (pounds)
8 Linette’s new name (7)
ENTITLE – anagram (new) of LINETTE
10 Clever securing English tree (5)
ABELE – ABLE (clever) securing E(nglish). Rang a very distant bell, I suppose, but if I saw the word by itself I’d have been guessing it was a Mongolian instrument or something. Also known as the white/silver poplar, “abele” derives from the Latin for white (as in albumen). Similarly, the white poplar was called “leuka” in Greek (as in leukocyte). Leuka was the most beautiful of the nymphs and an Oceanid – a daughter of Oceanus – which Hurley with his deep setterly wisdom might have been daydreaming of when crossing this with 6d!
11 Feature of writing unit act upon at work (11)
PUNCTUATION – anagram (at work) of UNIT ACT UPON
13 Person displaying bathroom fixture (6)
SHOWER – double definition
15 Residence of royal friend, superb (6)
PALACE – PAL (friend) ACE (superb)
17 After training, pointer made to prevail (11)
PREDOMINATE – anagram (after training) of POINTER MADE. I bunged in predominANT, possibly because of the “NT” together in “pointer”, but ultimately because I’m a careless idiot.
20 Manifest finished before time (5)
OVERT – OVER (finished) before T(ime)
21 New order to bang out for patrol vessel (7)
GUNBOAT – anagram (new order to) BANG OUT
22 Booked, saying little (8)
RESERVED – double definition
23 Be informed boss has right to replace daughter (4)
HEAR – HEAD (boss) has R(ight) to replace D(aughter)

Down
1 Wrong lock of hair Dad’s cut (8)
TRESPASS – TRESS (lock of hair) cut/intersected with PA’S (Dad’s). Well really, if you get your dad to cut your hair.
2 Divulge private information about ration one spurned (3,2)
RAT ON – RATION with I (one) spurned/rejected.
4 Primate trapped in escape manoeuvre (6)
APEMAN – “trapped” in the letters of escAPE MANoeuvre. I thought there might be some outsize bush-baby type thing called an apeman, but no. Simply an old word for the “missing link”, before we started finding lots and lots of missing links and giving them rather more scientific names, but it’s a vivid enough term to remain in popular use.
5 Opponent of privilege revising inter alia a guidebook at the start (11)
EGALITARIAN – anagram (revising) INTER ALIA A G (Guidebook at the start)
6 Part of world Eco’s written about with enthusiasm at first ignored (7)
OCEANIA – OCE (Eco written about/reversed) with MANIA (enthusiasm, first letter ignored)
7 Require massage, we hear (4)
NEED – sounds the same (we hear) as KNEAD (massage)
9 How rent under lease is paid, exact in every way (2,3,6)
TO THE LETTER – double definition
12 One going over shortcoming, bore at heart (8)
DEFECTOR – DEFECT (shortcoming) OR (bORe, “at heart”). Nice definition.
14 Torment journalists after work (7)
OPPRESS – PRESS (journalists) after OP (work)
16 Show disapproval of US soldier over Eastern dance (6)
BOOGIE – To BOO a GI is to show disapproval of US soldier, over/above E(astern)
18 A British poem — “Home” (5)
ABODE – A B(ritish) ODE (poem)
19 Rise initially spoken of as ridiculous (4)
SOAR – “initially” Spoken Of As Ridiculous

27 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 1218 by Hurley”

  1. At 12 minutes this one was in amber territory after yesterday’s rare excursion into the green. I was well on target intil the end when I was left with 6, 10 & 23 outstanding. OCEANIA was the first to fall, then I dredged up ABELE from somewhere and finally I needed an alphabet trawl to find a suitable fit for ?E?R. Chambers now advises there are only 35 possibilities for this, which rather surpises me.
  2. I didn’t find this difficult, but I did find myself stupid: where Vinyl sensibly thought twice about ‘repeater’, I didn’t really think: I saw the checkers (it was my LOI), saw ‘one going over’, couldn’t go beyond that in parsing, which should have made me reconsider, but there’s a kind of Gresham’s Law in cryptics, where a bad solution drives out the good one. 4:54, but. On edit: forgot to mention that ABELE is a NY Times chestnut (they’ve got bags of them).

    Edited at 2018-11-08 05:59 am (UTC)

  3. Nice puzzle and a steady solve. LOIs 17a and 12d even with all the checkers didn’t spot the anagram at 17a for an age – expecting “after training” to mean the answer began PE and even the E to follow didn’t make me go back to the clue. Once that was in I still found 12d a struggle but the puzzle ended with a satisfying groan as the definition’s meaning was revealed. Breakfast solves continue to faster than lunchtime solves and so online faster than on paper too.
  4. A good puzzle which I made hard work of by not recognising 2 of the 3 long anagrams (11 & 17a, where I had a similar thought process to mendesest). My LOI was the unknown tree which required an alphabet trawl or two and then crossed fingers. Thought 23a was particularly good, completed in 24.47.
  5. Limped to the finish line on that one. Mostly reasonably plain sailing but then took some while to get CAPE TOWN (I always forget that “pounds” means just L – I always want to make it LL), OCEANIA and LOI DEFECTOR
    1. Drat, hit a premature submission somehow.

      Like Kevin I wanted to write “repeater” but I could see that it had to end in OR so then I tried to convince myself that REPEATOR could be a word, or REVERTOR or REPENTOR etc etc … eventually I realised that I had to abandon RE, trawled the alphabet and there we were. So a long process ending in 4 Kevins but no but, so I’m not sure how to score that. Given the times of the other aces, I think it has to be a Bad Day.

      Thank you Hurley and thank you Roly, especially for your marvellous entry about ABELE (I knew it was a tree but if pressed I’d have said it was small and evergreen and yellow-flowering, so no GQT bonus for me).

      Templar

  6. Very good puzzle that turned out to be more challenging than I first thought. The longer anagrams didn’t hold me up, given a few checkers but I slowed to a crawl with Capetown, Gunboat, Hear and Abele and was held up for ages by Defector (my LOI and COD). 28 mins. Thanks to Hurley for a tough but fair QC. John M.

    Edited at 2018-11-08 09:44 am (UTC)

  7. A mostly easy puzzle with some hard bits. I guessed ABELE but came to a halt at 12d.
    Lots of possibles which didn’t quite work – SELECTOR DETECTOR and the one I chose REPENTER.
    So one wrong today. About 13 minutes for most of this and plenty more for the last few. David
  8. 3a, 19d and 23a all held me up, so I finished over my target at 11:41. A nice puzzle though. Knew the tree from 15×15 experience, but had about 5 attempts at getting the Es in the right place when my fingers seemed to develop a life of their own and the grid fought back. Does anyone else get a bit cross when you select a square and it goes off in the wrong direction? Mind you the Indy engine is far worse for that! I was fortunate that DEFECTOR came to mind very quickly. Thanks Hurley and Roly.
  9. I gave up at 30 minutes with 3 to go, 10a ABELE, a DNK, 11a PUNCTUATION where I missed the anagram indicator and 16d BOOGIE where I hadn’t corrected the incorrect t checker from bunging in tugboat at 21a. Perhaps it is just one of those days since I did put in ‘anti regalia’ for 5d and then tried to make all the solves on the RHS of the grid fit around it!
  10. Well I must be out of sorts or off the wavelength or something, because I don’t mind admitting that this took me far too long at the wrong side of 20 minutes. In retrospect, the anagrams were very cleverly hidden behind unusual anagrinds (at work, after training, new order to), which caught me out because they fitted such good surfaces. Normally, I can spot an anagram from 30 paces, so well done Hurley for catching me out. Good blog as always Roly.
  11. Another toughish one I thought and I didnt help myself putting in tugboat for 21a which made boogie harder.

    Also struggled with defector, predominate, and the unknown abele.

    cod shower.

  12. It did seem quite chewy. Who’d be a QC setter.

    Even so, I’m prepared to opine that a word like ABELE shouldn’t really be in a beginners’ crossword. Not a tree I’ve ever met, I’m afraid.

    1. Yup. New word to me, and i would guess the overwhelming majority of solvers. Tut tut.
  13. I decided 12dn was REPEATER by getting RE from ‘over’ EAT was ‘bore at the centre’ and PER was going to be a word meaning ‘coming’ (don’t recall which) cut short. 10ac was only known from other crosswords, so perhaps not entirely fair at QC level.
  14. I made a complete hash of this. Putting ‘Tresspas’ in for 1d caused all sorts of problems on the left until I spotted my mistake. Even then I needed a second sitting to sort out the NE corner, where I spent ages looking at the wrong end of the clue for 3ac. Defector took some time to see and Abele was a guess. Not a good day. Invariant
  15. I was working my way steadily through this until I came to halt at, of all things, 20ac, 23ac and 19dn. In the end it felt like a longish solve. Having had a joiner for a Dad I had heard of ABELE, but I needed the checkers to spot it. In fairness, the clue was generous enough. FOI TART, LOI OVERT, COD 9dn – enjoyed that.
    PlayUpPompey
  16. Sadly, a DNF because I just couldn’t see what 10 across “a-e-e” could be. I’ve never come across it and don’t even know how to say it! Ah, well, from what I read here, it’s likely to come up again in a crossword so it won’t be wasted knowledge! I got the rest so I don’t feel too bad. Particular favourites today are 13 and 22 across and 7 and 16 down. Thanks so much, blogger and setter
  17. After a great day yesterday this took about 30 minutes without 12d which I had to come back to later. I also spent ages considering re words. Did not think I knew the tree but after putting it in from wordplay it seemed vaguely familiar
    Apricorn
  18. 11:35 loi abele with something of a held breath. As with others had to re(x3)consider 12dn. Good stuff.
  19. Note to Newbies. If it’s a 4,4 capital then it’s Cape Town always. Even though it’s about as much a capital as Winchester. If you can think of a clue for Bloemfontein then you should be setting the 15×15 not doing the QC. Johnny
  20. 11:35 loi abele with something of a held breath. As with others had to re(x3)consider 12dn. Good stuff.
  22. I’m amazed only 2 other people know that Cape Town isn’t the capital of SA. Have i missed something? Seems a ludicrous clue.
    1. Cape Town is one of the three capitals of South Africa (the seat of Parliament), Pretoria and Bloemfontein being the other two, the executive and judicial capitals respectively. A perfectly respectable clue.

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