Quick Cryptic No 226 by Joker

Author   ChrisPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
A very enjoyable puzzle which seemed, at first glance, quite hard but a few long ones went in and the grid was nearly complete. There’s a lot of humour and, like a good (well, any) Agatha Christie novel, a couple of clues have a twist in tail.

Thankfully, this week, the technology gremlins kept away.

Definitions are underlined.

Across
1 Young dog sounded unwell — something in the eye (5)
&nbsp &nbspPUPIL – Young dog (PUP), Homophone (sounded) of unwell – ill (IL).
4 Highly favoured? Not so much, when retired? (7)
&nbsp &nbspBLESSED – An enjoyable clue – when retired = in bed. Not so much is LESS. Put LESS into BED and you get blessed – favoured from upon high.
8 In shape, run home almost before public transport (7)
&nbsp &nbspRHOMBUS – Run (R), home (HOMe) without the kast letter (almost), all before public transport (BUS).
9 Girl with ill will never married (5)
&nbsp &nbspALICE – one of my LOI due to the good deception. Ill will (mALICE) without the ‘m’ (never married).
10 Supply translation of Latin that’s most fortunate (12)
&nbsp &nbspPROVIDENTIAL – With a few checkers, I got our twist in the tail. Supply (PROVIDE), anagram (translation) of LATIN.
12 Big weight gain is avoided by one Pacific islander (6)
&nbsp &nbspTONGAN – Big weight (TON). So that’s the easy bit and gives the answer. To complete the parsing – GAiN has the ‘i’ removed (avoided by one).
13 Food stolen by pet, perhaps (3,3)
&nbsp &nbspHOT DOG – I’d hesitate to describe some hot dogs I’ve seen served out of tins at school barbecues as ‘food’ but technically I have no issue. Stolen (HOT), pet, perhaps (DOG).
16 Senior officers quickly moved where supplies may be had (7,5)
&nbsp &nbspGENERAL STORE – Senior officers (GENERALS), quickly moved or moved quickly (TORE).
18 Bleed internally, and ache also? You’ll get old medical application (5)
&nbsp &nbspLEECH – take the middle parts (internally) of bLEEd and aCHe, put them together and you get leech which used to be applied by a doctor as it was thought that they would drain “impure blood” from the body, thereby curing illness. Having fallen out of medical fashion they seem to be making a comeback as a way to improve skin grafts.
20 Look forward to old Scotsman sheltering communist (7)
&nbsp &nbspPREDICT – Old Scotsman (PICT) inside which (sheltering) is communist (RED).
21 Design professional jargon, new (7)
&nbsp &nbspPATTERN – Professional jargon (PATTER), new (N).
22 Court official wants drug dealer beheaded (5)
&nbsp &nbspUSHER – Drug dealer (pUSHER) without the first letter (beheaded).

Down
1 Soldier going over favourite low wall (7)
&nbsp &nbspPARAPET – Soldier (PARA), on top of (going over) favourite (PET).
2 I, perhaps, fix official declaration (13)
&nbsp &nbspPRONOUNCEMENT – Another favourite out of today’s clues. I, perhaps (PRONOUN), fix (CEMENT).
3 When smashed, a bit cruel to ply with alcohol (9)
&nbsp &nbspLUBRICATE – Great surface. Anagram (when smashed) of A BIT CRUEL.
4 Hamper wager about quiz (6)
&nbsp &nbspBASKET – Couldn’t get away from hamper as in to get in the way but no, it’s a container. Wager (BET) around quiz (ASK).
5 Part of longer age? (3)
&nbsp &nbspERA – The answer is in the clue (part of) longER Age. Age is doing double duty here as part of the word play and being the definition.
6 Thorough cleaning badly spoilt dish and pan (4,3,6)
&nbsp &nbspSPIT AND POLISH – Amagram (badly) of SPOILT DISH and PAN.
7 Council regime leading to slimming down (4)
&nbsp &nbspDIET – Double definition, one being a legislative assembly in various countries, such as Japan. The other is a painful and usually pointless attempt at weight loss – here’s a quote from a local cafe/bistro ‘I went on a diet, swore off heavy drinking and eating and in two weeks I lost fourteen days’.
11 Bride’s attire arouses, unfortunately in middle of ritual (9)
&nbsp &nbspTROUSSEAU – Another amusing surface – Joker’s on good form. Anagram (unfortunately) of AROUSES with the middle letters of riTUal outside.
14 Larger kitchen tool as mentioned on the radio (7)
&nbsp &nbspGREATER – Homophone (as mentioned on the radio) of kitchen tool (grater).
15 Very angry over writing implement that’s wet (6)
&nbsp &nbspDAMPEN – This really was my LOI – twist at the beginning – very angry (MAD) reversed (over), writing implement (PEN).
17 Strike has friends turning up (4)
&nbsp &nbspSLAP – a full word twist – friends (PALS) backwards (turning up).
19 Cast is enormous, but not good (3)
&nbsp &nbspHUE – Enormous (HUgE) wothout the ‘g’ (not good).

20 comments on “Quick Cryptic No 226 by Joker”

  1. A nice, meaty puzzle. I especially liked LEECH and TROUSSEAU, although the latter was a little too easy to guess at (as I did, missing the wordplay until afterwards). At 4ac, I made the mistake of taking ‘retired’ as a reversal indicator at first, and like Chris, went for the wrong meaning of ‘hamper’. I don’t know who was responsible for starting the use of ‘diet’ to refer to the Japanese parliament; the Japanese word 国会’kokkai’ is the word used for any national legislative body: Parliament, Congress, Assemblée nationale, what have you. Given the Japanese habit of using different terms to refer to ‘our’ X vs. ‘everyone else’s’ X, ‘Diet’ has always got up my nose (hence the current rant). 6:45.
        2. Odd how one can get the wrong end of the stick. On first glance I thought you were suggesting that schoolboys of a certain (or any) era were interested in both Diet of Worms and schoolgirls but I see, now, that you were simply suggesting a gender-neutral interest in said assembly. 🙂
  2. This was another of those puzzles on target for sub-10 minutes but ended up way over that (16) because of a blind spot over a couple of clues, in this case 27ac and 2dn.
  3. Must have been on the wavelength here, as I managed to romp through this unusually quickly for me.

    Lots of entertainment – 11dn being particularly amusing.

    Thanks to Joker and Chris for a very neat blog.

  4. Back to a finish after a few DNFs. A good, for me, 35 mins.
    COD was 2d LOI was 7d – got meaning but had not come across Japanese usage before. One to file away!
  5. For me this was a lot easier than yesterday. 24 minutes including a smoke break, after which the ones I was stuck on just seemed to click – including 2dn which made me smile. 9ac was my LOI and COD.
  6. Had just enough crossers to convince me that 2d was an anagram of I and proclamation, so wasted far too much time trying to get something to fit. Once the penny dropped, it was my COD, just pipping 10ac. Another nice puzzle from Joker by the way. He/she seems to have a good feel for beginner level clues. Invariant
  7. I’ve invariably found Joker’s puzzles great fun to solve and they also have a bit of depth to them as well. So thanks again for today’s puzzle Joker 😄.

    Managed to work through at a good rate with LOI BLESSED. A bit annoyed with myself as I kept thinking blessed was right, but misread the definition as highly flavoured 😳. Didn’t know TROUSSEAU, but managed to correctly work out the anagram inside TU once all the checkers were in place 😊.

    Thanks for the blog Chrisw91 😺.

    PS. Worked out how how to get emoticons, so just playing around with them today 😈. Surprisingly easy if anyone’s interested 😉.

  8. LOI DIET, despite guessing that would be the word, as I didn’t know the Japanese connection, and thought “slimming down” should read “dieting”.

    The GENERAL STORE was undoubtably made easier for me by yesterday’s appearance of his tricycle. It’s the sort of clue (one of them) that would have me stumped for a bit.

    Thanks for the blog!

  9. Two on the trot!! and not so long a time (for me) either. Come-uppence tomorrow? CODs rhombus & pronouncement
  10. Did you use HTML? I thought that might be possible after seeing the preview page, but ended up using Unicode instead.
      1. The wonders of “lower end” technology 😼. You don’t get such an option on a Macbook so have to resort to a much more old fashioned method.

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