Quick Cryptic Number 587 by Hurley

Author   william_j_sPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
Some great anagrams, devilish hidden words, and several less common abbreviations all make for a Goldilocks-difficulty QC. I got 1ac from the wordplay alone, which is always nice, but enjoyed 20ac and 12dn even more.

Definitions underlined.

1 Capital prison reportedly so regressive India emptied (7)
NICOSIA – homophone of (reportedly) “nick” (prison), with SO backwards (regressive), and outermost letters of IndiA (emptied). Capital of Cyprus.
5 Normal English cut (4)
PARE – PAR (normal) and E (English).
7 Dogma choice in part exaggeratedly male (5)
MACHO – hidden inside (in part) dogMA CHOice.
8 Check a doctor is Polish (7)
CHAMOIS – CH (check), A, MO (medical officer, doctor) and IS.
10 Teacher’s sign of agreement on return (3)
DON – NOD backwards (on return).
11 Association’s nicest day out (9)
SYNDICATE – anagram of (out) NICEST DAY.
13 Be accepted — old boy thanks Home (6)
OBTAIN – OB (old boy), TA (thanks) and IN (home).
14 Sounds like fellow’s water heater (6)
GEYSER – homophone of (sounds like) “guy’s a” (fellow is, fellow’s) “geezer” (fellow). Hat tip to multiple contributors below!
17 Extremely polite expert broadcast about conflict-free period (9)
PEACETIME – extreme letters of PolitE, ACE (expert), and EMIT (broadcast) backwards (about).
19 Partner not finishing everything (3)
ALL – incomplete (not finishing) ALLy (partner).
20 Drink tips from Robespierre in style of the French? (4,3)
REAL ALE – Extreme letters of (tips from) RobespierrE, A LA (in style of), and LE (the in French).
22 In the morning I leave friend from Madrid (5)
AMIGO – AM (in the morning) I GO (leave).
23 Posh headgear making comeback here in US? (4)
UTAH – U (upper class, posh), and HAT (headgear) backwards (making comeback).
24 Gunners outline hectic competition (3,4)
RAT RACE – RA (Royal Artillery, gunners) and TRACE (outline).
1 He seeks to impress citing famous paper, modern, unusual (4-7)
NAME-DROPPER – anagram of (unusual) PAPER MODERN.
2 Fruit firm repeatedly over barrel needing upturn (7)
COCONUT – CO (company, firm) repeatedly on top of TUN (barrel) upturned.
3 Polished appearance of his: one he’s adapted (9)
SHOESHINE – anagram of (adapted) HIS ONE HES.
4 Rise when supported by money (6)
ASCENT – AS (when) above (supported by) CENT (money).
5 Vegetable regularly used prewar (3)
PEA – odd letters of (regularly used) PrEwAr.
6 At first reticent — is outgoing just after wine? (5)
RIOJA – first letters of Reticent Is Outgoing Just and After.
9 Country air — see loner transformed (6,5)
SIERRA LEONE – anagram of (transformed) AIR SEE LONER.
12 Caught by fine leg, Anthony, not very polished! (9)
INELEGANT – hidden in (caught by) fINE LEG ANThony.
15 It’s a man’s extraordinary staying power (7)
STAMINA – anagram of (extraordinary) ITS A MAN.
16 Describing straight path in drumlin earth (6)
LINEAR – hidden id drumLIN EARth.
18 Separate answer? Dad right! (5)
APART – A (answer), PA (dad), and RT (right).
21 Silvery grey tree (3)
ASH – double definition.

14 comments on “Quick Cryptic Number 587 by Hurley”

  1. I have been in deepest Norfolk for a few days, no WiFi and my phone just cycled back to the blog when I opened comments.
    Pretty quick today, held up by the wonderful anagram for 11a, LOI and COD.
    Needed the blog for the TIME bit of 17a and have a slight ? over 3d, is shoeshine anything other than the chappie doling out advice to Cagney or Borgart, does it mean “polished appearance”? Also this is the second time in a few days chamois is polish ( I may be thinking one of the 3 cryptics in the EDP, one of which is good, one OK and the third awful) isn’t chamois the leather used to polish? I await being pointed in the right direction. Nice blog and puzzle.
    1. Collins has SHOESHINE as the polished appearance of shiny shoes and also CHAMOIS as a verb meaning to polish with a chamois.
      1. Thanks Jack, I thought that would be the case, I only have a 40 year old Chambers. Sometimes I think that for the QC the word should appear in all dictionaries, but on the other hand should I expect a compiler to check them all, on balance, probably not. About time Mrs Tim bought me a Collins, but my birthday and Christmas are a bit away.
  2. I semi-biffed 1ac, having got the ‘India emptied’ part; I’m not sure if I would have thought of ‘nick’, although I do know the word. Not much trouble with this one. I also liked SYNDICATE. I was under the impression that the water heater is pronounced ‘geezer’ in the UK, and I took the clue as punning on ‘geezer/geyser’; it got me the right answer, anyway. 4:35.
  3. I agree this was another harder puzzle which was why I was surprised to find I had taken only a minute over my target 10. However despite making a conscious effort to check the anagrist at 9dn I still managed to write “Lione” instead of LEONE which doesn’t look right even for a moment. A case of taking extra care to do the right thing but then doing the opposite.

    Edited at 2016-06-08 08:26 am (UTC)

  4. Agree with Kevin about this, the homophone is ‘geyser’/’geezer’. 6′ then realised I hadn’t written in two answers! Think I will enjoy rather than be concerned about time.
  5. Thanks for explanation of 1d. I had the answer but unparsed. The temptation to look at today’s answers, which are published in the iPad edition in error, was great at certain points in the grid, but I resisted!
  6. I took longer than my 30 minutes, but was very pleased to finish a very tricky puzzle . I found the parsing d8fficult – ‘A LA’ was a new one, but logical.
    There were a few things I didn’t understand – could some kind member explain ‘Obtain’ = ‘Be Accepted’ (13A) and ‘As’ = ‘When’ in 4D?
    Brian
    1. I too though it was a stretch, but didn’t follow up before blogging.

      Google says ‘obtain’ = ‘be established’ or ‘be customary’, as in “the price of silver fell to that obtaining elsewhere in the ancient world”. This seems far less of a jump than the alternative meaning, to me at least.

  7. I agree, at the tricky end of the scale although seen worse. I took Geyser as a homophone of Geezer.
    I remain unsure about “obtain” as “be accepted”, although I can see that once something has been accepted it has been obtained.
    “as” = “when” is fairly common in crosswords. eg as appropriate = when appropriate
    PlayupPompey
  8. I am fighting on two fronts at the moment as I am still doing the really difficult Saturday puzzle. Got about three more clues today when I had thought it was all beyond me.
    So I turned to today’s QC for some light relief and found it tricky. I got it all done but not a quick time. As FOI I put Nod for 10a; careless and held me up for a while with 1d and 2d. Some good clues ;no problem with Geyser. LOI was 5a. David
  9. Quite tricky today so I was surprised to see that it had only taken me 20 minutes. I also had questions about the definitions in 8a and 13a, so thanks to the blog and contributors for clearing that up. The parsing of 20a (LOI) was also a mystery to me until checking on here. COD 12d
  10. Took just under half an hour to get all all but GEYSER, which I didn’t get.
  11. A really enjoyable puzzle. Glad to see RIOJA making its weekly appearance having been swapped for RIESLING last week. Some Super clues. Particularly liked INELEGANT which was as elegant a hidden word as you could wish for. I also appreciated NAME DROPPER for its crafting.

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