Quick Cryptic No 257 by Orpheus

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
An elegant puzzle with a consistent level of difficulty, nothing controversial or unknown, ideal for a quickie, it took me 10 minutes to solve and parse.

Across
1 TO SAY THE LEAST – Def. with no exaggeration; Trappists are supposed to be a Silent Order.
8 MASCOT – MA SCOT would be a mother from Glasgow; def. charm.
9 ENTIRE – NT (books) inside EIRE (poetic name for Ireland); def. complete.
10 MINI – Def. a short dress, sounds like Minnie, as in Mouse or Ha-Ha.
11 OUTDATED – Def. old-fashioned; if others had more dates, you’d be out-dated.
12 CYNIC – Hidden in FAN(CY NIC)HE; def. pessimistic person. Well, not an exact definition, but close.
13 EXTOL – EX = former, TOL(L) = tax, one L (pound) off; def. acclaim.
15 MARCHERS – The MARCHES are the border areas between Wales and England; insert R (right); def. people demonstrating.
17 BENT – Double definition; bent can mean dishonest, and one’s ‘bent’ can be something one is inclined towards doing.
19 FERRET – FRET (agonise) about ER (Edward Rex); def. rabbit catcher.
20 ACTIVE – ACT IV = act four, late stage in a play; E = final letter of audible; def. voice, as in active, not passive, for a verb.
21 MUSICAL CHAIRS – The slowest one has no seat when the music stops.

Down
2 OMANI – O = old, MAN = fellow, I = one, Muscat is the capital of OMAN.
3 AUCTION – ACTION = legal process, insert U (university); def. sale.
4 TAT – palindromic word meaning rubbish.
5 ELECTRESS – EL = the, Spanish; (CRETE)*; SS = ship; def. German princess. E.g. Sophia, Electress of Hanover, 1692-98.
6 EXTRA – EX = former partner, TRA = ART (skill) reversed, def. run, as in cricket.
7 SURREAL – SURRE(Y) = most of county; AL(L) = not quite all; def. like Dali’s work.
11 ORCHESTRA – (HER ACTORS)*; def. band of players.
12 CHATEAU – CHA TEA = two beverages; U = top of Urquart; def. castle.
14 TABITHA – Hidden in NO(T A BIT HA)PPY; girl’s name.
16 CORGI – A CO-GI would be a fellow soldier, insert R (major, finally); def. dog.
18 NEVER – VEN. = abbr. title for an archdeacon; given rise = reversed to NEV; ER = hesitation; def. I don’t believe it! Never!
20 ARC – Alternate letters of g A r R i C k; def. part of circle.

20 comments on “Quick Cryptic No 257 by Orpheus”

  1. I was pleased to return to 8 minute form today after one bad and one disastrous solve to my name so far his week. I wondered if the borderlands and the grammatical term (at 20ac) might present problems for some.
    1. Yes they did! But at least I learnt something. Also Ven(erable) for Archdeacon was new to me.
  2. 6’20” so on the easy side, but the ELECTRESS/OUTDATED crossers were tricky. Together with OUTDATED, MASCOT (my last in) is the sort of tongue-in-cheek clue that one must be vigilant for. Indeed, as a rule of thumb, if you see something like Glasgow/Glaswegian (or indeed Verona/Veronese) you should be thinking Scotland/Scottish/Scot and Italy/Italian in general rather than Alex Ferguson (or Romeo)! Again, seeing Ireland and thinking Eire will often save a lot of time and make a potentially tricky clue much simpler.
    1. Yes, I meant to include this in my tricky suggestions. I only know Elector (and its female equivalent) because George I was Elector of Hanover before he ascended to the British throne.
  3. A quick quickie, although as usual some of the quickity came from helpful checkers, with parsing after the fact. Some nice surfaces, e.g. 9ac and 20ac. 4:45.
  4. I thought this one was much harder than yesterday’s. I didn’t have a problem with marchers or active but it took me ages to see 1A – my first instinct had been my lips are sealed which of course didn’t even fit the grid but once a wrong answer is in your mind it’s very difficult to see the right one…my last two were the chateau/musical chairs combo which again took me ages to ‘see’.
  5. Struggled with this and could not get started. Trappists monks say nothing not the least and I was trying to find something to fit. Still I console myself that I always find Orpheus difficult and his clues obscure.
  7. Several days of unfinished quickies but we got there today. My first efforts got as far as the Omani and Extra but my wife then filled in a few longer starters like Orchestra and Outdated and I finished it off. I could not parse Active and Corgi but no matter and my last one in was To Say The Least.
  8. Heard ‘char’ equals ‘tea’ but never ‘cha’ which would in any case indicate the same beverage twice. Another gap in my lexicon I guess.
    1. I’m afraid ‘cha’ occurs frequently in crosswordland, it is in the OED as an alternative spelling for char, the derivation is Chinese. Lexicon gap plugged.
      2. Is “chai” ever used in crosswordland, as that’s another alternative to cha? Can’t remember having seen it before…
        1. We see ‘chai’ often enough, both tea related and wine related – see the Wiki article on the word. The tea usage is more often Indian than Chinese I think.
          1. Hi Pip,

            I like a Chai latte, when it’s not overtly sweet. Had one in Ghent that was done in a cappuccino style with honey that was delicious. But most sites I checked out suggest Chai is a variant spelling (western I presume) of Cha. On the other hand, I think of Chai Wallah, so I understand the Indian connection.

            Never heard of Chai re.wine and a quick Google just demonstrates (again!) that one learns something new everyday 😀.

  9. The pedant in me drives me to correct a slight misconception about Trappist monks. Technically I think their vow is to speak when only necessary rather than being silent. They make other sorts of noises I guess and even have a basic form of sign language, or so I have been told.
  10. Cha for tea is certainly correct. I can unreservedly recommend the museum of tea in Hong Kong if you are passing through. As I recall from their explanation the western cha is an interpretation of a single character in written Chinese. Of course there are many spoken languages using written Chinese including mandarin and Cantonese (prevalent in HK). Some of these, I can remember which use a sound like our cha for this character. As it happens I am just drinking tea made in one of the highly ingenious Hong Kong museum teacups.
  11. I took ages over the last 3 to go in (5d, 11ac and 15ac), which were all obvious when solved. CoD was Chateau, recognised initially from the ‘u’ ending. Invariant
  12. My first complete since last Friday. Took a bit of a punt with 5d so I was happy to see i got it right. Other than that it was one of those that I felt I knew a lot of the answers but it took a while to figure out the parsing of them and 20a went in unparsed, so thanks for the clarification.
  13. A pleasant and steady solve, with the unknown ELECTRESS last in. Word play seemed correct for it, bt still relieved to find it was correct. Enjoyed MASCOT, OUTDATED and CORGI. amongst a consistent set of good quality clues.

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