Quick Cryptic no. 92 by Orpheus

Author   ChrisPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
Ooh la la! A real tough one which I’m thinking won’t please everyone. In case you can’t find it here’s the link:
http://feeds.thetimes.co.uk/timescrossword/20140715/211/
I’m still working on why some of the answers are the answers but don’t have time as I’m away (en France) and need to get going. Hopefully the regulars will cover any errors/misses.
Definitions underlined.
Bonne chance!

Across
7 Tolerate bad-mannered fellow (4)
BEAR – First out of the hat and I’m not familiar with bad manners and a bear being linked except for ‘a bear with a sore head’ but that’s a bit of a step to bad-mannered fellow.
8 Enormous place where the Times is produced, it’s said (8)
WHOPPING – Homophone (it’s said) of Wapping.
9 Very little money to cover son’s climb (6)
ASCENT – Very little money (A CENT) around (to cover) son’s (S).
10 Period of prosperity embracing abstinent weaver (6)
BOTTOM – Period of prosperity (boom) around (embracing) abstinent (teetotal TT). I vaguely remember a character in a play/book being a weaver (Midsummer night’s dream?).
11 It has legal force, whichever way you look at it (4)
DEED – Reads both backwards and forwards – legal document.
12 Insect: one unknown in Hebe’s recollection (5,3)
HONEY BEE – One (ONE) and unknown (Y) in and anagram (recollection) of HEBE.
15 Irish island group served by neat vessel (8)
TRIMARAN – Irish Island group (ARAN) after neat (TRIM). I knew of ARRAN which is in the Firth of Clyde, this group is in Galway.
17 Ordered to be naughty, some say? (4)
BADE – really not sure about this one – can’t think offhand of a homophone (some say) of bade. Maybe it could be the opposite of obeyed i.e. Beyed in an archaic sense (?) or maybe it’s naughty (BAD) with the E from some of say (e.g. = E). If it is one of these it doesn’t belong anywhere near a Quickie so I am probably off the mark. Help!
18 Household attendant from the old sultanate (6)
YEOMAN – The old (YE) sultanate (OMAN). Couldn’t get off Batman for a while.
21 Cross about doctor being so gloomy? (6)
SOMBRE – Cross (SORE) about doctor (MB).
22 Unforgettable article going into country pursuit (8)
HAUNTING – Article (A) going into country pursuit (HUNTING).
23 Donkey loses head in whirlpool (4)
EDDY – Donkey (nEDDY) without the first letter. Well, I think neddy means donkey – maybe a childish use?

Down
1 Clothing valets vow to get together (8)
MENSWEAR – Valets (MEN) as in ‘my man’, vow (SWEAR) getting together.
2 Society member cooked outside rear of canteen (6)
FRIEND – Coooked (FRIED) outside last letter of canteeN. From friendly societies?
3 Nervous person in a hide, perhaps? (8)
TWITCHER – Cryptic definition I think – a nervous person may twitch so is therefore a twitcher and a bird watcher sits in a hide and is a twitcher.
4 Search for groom? (4)
COMB – Double definition – search for = comb the surrounding area, groom = comb the hair.
5 First of schoolboys, crazy and covered in zits (6)
SPOTTY – Frist of schoolboys (S), crazy (POTTY).
6 Ruin university don originally in Japanese drama (4)
UNDO – Hold onto your hats! University (U) and first letter of Don (D) in Japanese drama (NO). Had no idea and I guess many others won’t either so here you go:
Noh (能, Nō), or Nogaku (能楽, Nōgaku)—derived from the Sino-Japanese word for “skill” or “talent”—is a major form of classical Japanese musical dramas.
Just checking, this IS the Quickie isn’t it?
13 Failure to employ socially unacceptable pundit (3-5)
NONUSAGE – Socially unacceptable (NON-U) pundit (SAGE). Well, if you still think pundits are wise after the World Cup then good luck to you!
14 Odd lore circulating around a place of riches (2,6)
ELDORADO – Anagram (circulating) of ODD LORE around A.
16 Importance blokes recognised in vehicle test (6)
MOMENT – Blokes (MEN) recognised (this is just as in ‘seen in’) vehicle test (MOT).
17 Unusually large car part (6)
BUMPER – Double definition.
19 Made-up name for dairy product (4)
EDAM – Anagram (up) of MADE is a name for a dairy product – a bit tricksy but I quite liked this one.
20 Fixer we have at our fingertips? (4)
NAIL – We have nails at our fingertips – maybe not many German football fans do now though?

16 comments on “Quick Cryptic no. 92 by Orpheus”

  1. I think I may have nodded off momentarily towards the end but I stopped the clock at 43 minutes which makes this my longest Quickie solve bar none. I’ve usually had to except Quickie #1 which included multi-word answers without indicating this in the enumeration, but from now on and until further notice #92 is my new record low-point in this adventure.

    Your first explanation re 17ac (BADE) is the correct one, Chris. It was my LOI and I would agree it doesn’t belong in a Quickie, and probably nowhere else either.

    It was that corner of the puzzle that did for me as I had solved the rest of it in about 15 minutes but I got completely stuck with BADE, BUMPER, SOMBRE, TRIMARAN and NON-USAGE missing and simply couldn’t move on for ages.

    The ‘made-up cheese’ concept demonstrated at 19dn is one of the oldest chestnuts in cryptic puzzles so those who have not met it before need to remember it for future use.

    Edited at 2014-07-15 06:06 am (UTC)

    1. I’m not sure which explanation you are referring to, but one of the two ways of pronouncing BADE is a homophone for ‘bad’.
      I tend to agree this is a bit much for a quickie though. I’m not sure about some of the rest of it: No, for instance, is in one sense much too obscure but on the other hand it appears so regularly in crosswords that you’ve got to learn it at some point!
      1. I have no idea how I completely forgot about the alternative pronunciation of BADE, but you are obviously correct and my Chambers gives the homophone of “bad” as the main one.
    2. If you happen to see this Jack, did you get any sort of response to your most recent and entirely justified post on the General Club Forum? I disregard the blowhards who dislike this or that Sunday puzzle and whine about it, but your complaint was another matter. Can it really be true that at some point they will combine all the puzzles on the Quickie software?? They’ll need a whole new IT team, and not a minute too soon.

      Yes, this was tricky. Nice blog. Somewhere between 8 and 9 minutes.

      1. Hi, Olivia. No, not a word. The editor was around later posting on a prize clue thread and shortly afterwards (c 16:30) the link on the button was amended, so I think he must have seen my message and acted upon it but didn’t want to engage in conversation. There’s not really much he could say I suppose without slagging off the incompetent bunch of techies he has to work with.
      2. Olivia, There have now been further postings on that thread in the General Forum including a direct response from PB and another from the editor posting as Bannman.
  2. About 35 minutes and surprised all correct as 10a 17a and 6d went in without knowing how they worked. Certainly 6d does not belong in a quickie. 15a was a tough clue but I liked it.

    Last one in BUMPER.

    Chris you have a typo with Groom and not comb as the answer to 4d.

  3. A few seconds under 6 mins, but I agree that this was on the tricky side. It certainly helped that I knew BOTTOM from MND, the Quaker Society of Friends and the Aran islands. However, I confess that BADE went in from the “ordered” definition without understanding how the presumed homophone worked. MENSWEAR was my LOI after TRIMARAN.
  5. Yes, a toughie it was. 20mins for me with some head scratching. Also several regulars from the big Cryptic: Bottom, the weaver, Cent and Edam for three. I found TRIMARAN the trickiest of them all. Before she met me, my wife, Sue, was on a post-doctoral fellowship in Ireland. One weekend she decided to take her two, then teenage, children to the Aran Islands. The small vessel that took them there got caught in a storm to the extent that Sue thought they were all going to drown. Fortunately they didn’t. A NEDDY is also a Seagoon as in: “Neddy, I believe when you came aboard you deposited all the gold in the care of Moriarty”. “Isn’t it safe with him?” “Oh, it’s perfectly safe…wherever he and his rowing boat are!”

    Edited at 2014-07-15 12:03 pm (UTC)

  6. My first DNF of the quickies, and very glad for the explanations in the blog – thank you Chris.

    I was a long way off…

  7. I didn’t finish but kicked myself over HAUNTING, EDDY & BUMPER. Would never have got SOMBRE, but was quite happy with all the rest including BLADE. Funny isn’t it!
  8. Being ignorant of Japanese drama I assumed that this was simply an anagram of U (university) plus don with ‘originally’ being the anagram indicator. I ignored the Japanese bit. Made it much easier!

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