Thanks to Joker for an enjoyable puzzle. Not too tricky (definitely at the easier end of the QC spectrum) but with a wide variety of clue types.
No cricket and no birds – good news for some!
| Across |
| 1 |
ORBIT – Way for circulating is the definition. Answer also from OR (“gold”- heraldic term that crops up regularly in Crosswordland) and BIT (“piece”) |
| 4 |
ROSETTE – Ribbon is the definition. The answer is also an anagram (signalled by “development of”) of STREET including an O (“what looks like roundabout”). |
| ‘8 |
EARDRUM – membrane is the definition. Answer is also constructed from every other letter (“regularly”) of REPAIRED together with RUM (“unusual” – as in ‘he’s a bit of a rum cove’, my uncle’s preferred expression for a chap who was completely barking) |
| 9 |
BLIMP – Small airship is the definition. Answer also from B (“beginning to become” – i.e. first letter of Become) with LIMP (“soft”). Anyone remember Captain Beefheart? |
| 10 |
FIRST CLASS – Double definition, mildly cryptic. Nice soft entry point to the puzzle for me |
| 14 |
AMAZED – was astounding is our definition. Answer also from the wordplay A(MAZE)D – AD (“publicity material”) “about” (i.e. located around) MAZE (“labyrinth”) |
| 15 |
BAZAAR – market is the definition. Answer also derived from the first letters (“leaders of”) banking at Zurich are always rigging. Whatever happened to the Gnomes of Zurich? They used to crop up in news bulletins all the time, but seem to have disappeared off the map of late… |
| 17 |
LOTUS-EATER – lover of luxury is the definition. The answer is an anagram (signalled by “disturbed”) of AUSTERE LOT. Reminds me of an elderly colleague who gave me sage advice when I was working as a student in a cider-bottling plant in Somerset, who came out with the Malapropism “be careful of that Shirley in Accounts – she’s a bit of a locust eater…” The image was profoundly disturbing and put paid instantly to my lusty pursuit of the said Shirley |
| 20 |
BINGO – game with numbers is the definition. Answer also constructed from BIN (“throw away”) with GO (“turn” – as in ‘it’s your go…’) |
| 22 |
SPINACH – Green vegetable is the definition. Answer also from SPIN (“turn”) with ACHE (“a lot of pain” – i.e. ache being mostly there but incomplete). At this point I have to tell my spinach and rhubarb tale. When I was a kid, my grandmother told me solemnly (in the context of a “what’s for dinner” conversation) that you should never eat spinach and rhubarb in the same meal or you would die. I’m sure this was advice she had received from her grandmother (which puts us well back into the 19th century in rural Kent). Anyway, this seemed like pretty important info to me as a 7 year old and I absorbed it uncritically: I never had occasion to think about it for many years thereafter, as spinach was rarely served in the circles I moved in. 12 years later, I was attending the Freshman’s Dinner at my Cambridge college along with a bunch of blokes who all seemed much brighter than me. Spinach accompanied the meat course, then a rhubarb crumble arrived for pudding. Self preservation (and a budding sense of community) kicked in, and I warned my new found friends with profound earnestness that eating the dessert could be a fatal move. They scoffed and snorted derision, but I stood by my guns, waiting for them to keel over. Took me a while to live that one down… |
| 23 |
EASTERN – Oriental is the definition. Answer also from EASTER (“religious festival”) with N (“ending” – i.e. last letter – in “procession”) |
| 24 |
EATEN – Taken in is our definition (i.e. ingested). Answer also from BEATEN (“defeated, decapitated”) |
| Down |
| 1 |
OPEN – receptive to new ideas is our definition. Answer also from O (abbreviation of “Old”) with PEN (“writer” – the tool, rather than an exponent thereof…) |
| 2 |
BARN – farm building is the definition. Answer also from BAR (“prohibit”) with N (abbreviation of “new”) |
| 3 |
TARDINESS – unpunctuality is the definition. The answer is also an anagram (signalled by “Upset”) of STRAINED including (“over”) an additional S for “southern” |
| 4 |
REMISS – Negligent is our definition. Answer also from RE (“concerning”) with MISS (“young woman”). Nice, simple but elegant cluing |
| 5 |
SOB – Cry is the definition. Answer also from BOSS backwards (“gets a raise”) “endlessly” (minus the last letter) |
| 6 |
TRIMARAN – a craft used by sailors is the definition (which will no doubt appeal to chrisw91). Answer is also constructed from TRIM (“neat”) with ARAN (“Scottish style of knitwear” – very nice woolly jumpers) |
| 7 |
EXPOSURE – coverage is the definition. Answer also built from EXPO (“international show”) with SURE (“certain”) |
| 11 |
CEASEFIRE – truce is the definition. Answer is also an anagram (signalled by “uneasy”) of EIRE FACES |
| 12 |
FALLIBLE – Potentially wrong is the definition. Answer also constructed from FA(LLI)BLE (LLI being abbreviation of “lines I”) “found” in FABLE (“story by Aesop”) |
| 13 |
HASTINGS – Historic battle is the definition. Answer also from the wordplay HA(STING)S (i.e. “HAS to include” STING – “operation meant to deceive”) |
| 16 |
RAISIN – dried fruit is the definition. Answer also from truncated RAISING (“mostly increasing the amount”) |
| 18 |
FACT – is not fiction is the definition. Answer also from F (being a musical “note” – “hit that top F!”) with ACT (“part of play”) |
| 19 |
CHIN – feature is our definition. Answer also derived from CHINA (“country without a”). Elegant, economical and droll clue |
| 21 |
ODE – Classical poem is the definition. Answer is hidden in (“accepted by”) modernists |
Thanks to Nick for a clear blog with some amusing detours.
Enjoyed your story. Commenting on the cultivated air of detachment practised by Oxford undergraduates in the 1920s, CS Lewis defines flippancy as the state when a joke has not actually been made but has been assumed to have been made. Snorts from the insiders; bafflement on the part of those kept on the outside.
Cannot assist with spinach and rhubarb but know cashew nut shells are toxic.
I wonder if the rhubarb/spinach story could have some connection with the fact that rhubarb leaves are poisonous. Not sure quite how, but perhaps a cook preparing rhubarb and spinach for the same meal might muddle the leaves up during preparation?
BTW, Nick the Gnomes of Zurich get a mention in The Times today courtesy of the prosecuting barrister in the article “Mother ‘cheated benefits to pay school fees'”
I liked Nick’s spinach/rhubarb story and Jack’s theory as to how it may have originated.
The islands of ARAN are off the west coast of Ireland and even featured in one of my blogs recently. It is after these islands and not ARRAN that the wooly jumpers are named.
Caused me some surprise as I’d been looking out for wild woollies when sailing past Arran.
Here’s the first bit from wikipedia – The Aran jumper (Irish Gaelic: Geansaí Árann) is a style of jumper[1] that takes its name from the Aran Islands off the west coast of Ireland.
So to sum up – should the clue read ‘Neat Irish style of knitwear’?
Edited at 2014-10-22 11:51 am (UTC)
Otherwise I managed OK in spite of the lack of opportunities to use my knowledge of Cricket and Birds.
I appreciated Nick’s comments as well as his story. My problem is that Nick appears to have created a Bot on my IPad and I do not how to get rid of his interference. Do I have to unfriend him or what?
It’s a source of great annoyance, but there’s no print facility on the Quickie. The only workaround I know is a cut-and-paste job into Word or similar application. My process is to display the grid and as many of the clues as possible, then use the Windows Snipping Tool to select the grid and clues (it copies automatically to a clipboard), switch to a blank Word document and paste. Then go back to the puzzle, scroll to reveal the remaining clues, select them using Snipping Tool and paste them into the Word document. Resize and position the pasted images to fit the page and print from there. It sounds a palaver but in fact takes hardly a minute once you’ve got used to doing it. Hope this helps.
Thank you. That is surprising, I must say. I’ll give your process a go, as it’s only an occasional need for me, but it sounds like very hard work for regulars who prefer to print.
Your explanation much appreciated.
I should have mentioned above that there is a proper print facility if one has a subscription that includes the facsimile newspaper. I can access this but it means waiting for it to become available around 6 on the morning of publication, and that’s generally too late for my solving routine.
Edited at 2014-10-22 10:18 pm (UTC)
Edited at 2014-10-23 06:51 am (UTC)
I adapted your various techniques, since I use a Mac desktop. For benefit of other Mac users searching for a method, the one I followed was:
CMD + SHIFT + 4 … to get the screenshot outline tool.
Drag a rectangle around grid and clues.
Open the resulting screenshot in Preview and print (should automatically print in landscape mode).
Worked pretty well.