QC 1135 by Hurley

Author   astartedonPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

Short and sharp today. My new internet advertising campaign has been bringing me so many new clients that my feet are not really spending much time in contact with the ground at present, and the same goes for my fingertips and the blogging keyboard.

Felt like a lot of anagrams today and looking back I can see five (one with a small insertion). FOI was 1A, so all’s well with the world there. I was heading for another good time by my standards but ended up at just under 7 minutes after staring at 8A for about a minute so that was obviously my LOI. COD for me was 9A, taking me back as it did to my favourite state as a child, i.e. ‘nose stuck in a book’. Many thanks to Hurley for a largely easy ride but with a couple of craggy outcrops to negotiate.

Definitions are underlined in italics. For everything else I just describe it as I see it.

Across
1 Led army, moving to protect king — obviously (8)
MARKEDLY – K (king) in an anagram of LED ARMY (‘moving’).
5 Feature of faith, a lovely circle? (4)
HALO – hidden word: faitH A LOvely.
8 A lot of similar things? Exactly right in southeast (5)
SPATE – when you have something off PAT, you have it exectly right. Put it in SE (southeast) and there you are.
9 Rider’s careworn (7)
HAGGARD – double definition, HAGGARD as in careworn and also as in H. Rider HAGGARD, author of those staples of the prep school library, ‘King Solomon’s Mines’ and ‘She’.
11 Lace into rat involved in quarrel (11)
ALTERCATION – anagram (‘involved’) of LACE INTO RAT.
13 Oscar, ten, thanks the Italian for soup ingredient? (6)
OXTAIL – O (oscar, phonetic alphabet) + X (ten) + TA (thanks) + IL (‘the’ in Italian).
14 Kind offer (6)
TENDER – double definition.
17 Journey’s end, distant one, I recollected (11)
DESTINATION – anagram (‘recollected’ – as in ‘re-collected’ (thought I should explain that as I seem to remember someone raising a query on that anagrind before)) of DISTANT ONE I.
20 A non-drinker, one in Paris, with editor, acclimatized (7)
ATTUNED – A + TT (teetotaller) + UN (‘one’ in French) + our old friend ED the editor.
21 In search of a fine time at school — finishing early (5)
AFTER – A + F (fine) + TER (time at school finishing early: TERm).
22 Nothing about old floor covering (4)
LINO – NIL (nothing) reversed (‘about’) + O (old).
23 Amiable lady disheartened by Friday finish (8)
FRIENDLY – FRI (Friday) + END (finish) + LY (LadY ‘disheartened’)
Down
1 Medical Officer’s son’s plant (4)
MOSS – MO (medical officer) + S (son) + the possessive S on the end.
2 Make further changes in study, suitable (7)
READAPT – READ (study) + APT (suitable).
3 Nice article set off sparks (11)
ELECTRICIAN – another anagram: NICE ARTICLE ‘set off’, giving the tradesperson for whom ‘sparks’ is the colloquial moniker.
4 Folk tradition about a hot Asian city (6)
LAHORE – LORE (folk tradition) ‘about’ A + H (hot).
6 First of all ask maestro about the Italian violin (5)
AMATI – initial letters of Ask Maestro About The Italian give us this classic make of violin which is, I am told, preferred by many maestros (but by no means all) over the more famous Stradivarius. Interesting now I think about it how so many choices in life seem to be binary. Think Steinway or Blüthner, Fender or Les Paul, Mac or PC, VHS or Betamax, Virgin or BT, rock or hard place, Devil or deep blue sea, stay or go. But then again Bechsteins definitely get in there amongst the pianos as well as the other two and no doubt if I studied them hard enough the other pairings wouldn’t stand up to scrutiny either.
7 A dry iron — sadly commonplace (8)
ORDINARY – quite heavy on the anagrams today. A DRY IRON ‘sadly’ gives the answer.
10 Somewhat outstanding raven, I’m a general object of worship? (6,5)
GRAVEN IMAGE – hidden words: outstandinG RAVEN I’M A GEneral. The second time this week I have found myself contemplating the ten commandments. The first time was when I went to see a new client and we somehow got talking about his wife having left him. He was an atheist, but she had got involved with the Pentecostal Church and run off with the minister. I was scandalised. I said “But doesn’t it say “Thou shalt not commit adultery” in the ten commandments?”. He said “Yes, and it also says “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife.””. “Nor his ox, nor his ass…” I added, although I admit this was quite beside the point. Call me naïve, but I was just stunned by the hypocrisy of the situation. “Ah yes,” he said, “but there’s always a get-out clause. Such as “Yes we have sinned, but we are saved by the grace of God…””. He seemed like such a nice guy as well. I almost said to him “Come on let’s get out of here and go down the pub and have a few and set the world to rights…” but that would have been most unprofessional. In the event I just gave my sympathy, wished him well and left.
12 Attempt to sell client’s foremost old ring (4,4)
COLD CALL – C (Client’s foremost) + OLD + CALL (ring).
15 Gave to charity, old-fashioned, welcoming cricket side (7)
DONATED – DATED (old-fashioned) ‘welcoming’ ON (the side of the field in cricket otherwise know as ‘LEG’, and opposite, fairly logically, to the other side which is known as ‘OFF’ (but which, for those of you who just don’t do sport (like I don’t do birds, plants or geography), is completely different from OFFSIDE in Football.))
16 Conflict over the German prison officer (6)
WARDER – WAR (conflict) + DER (one of the forms of the definite article in German).
18 Smart, regularly visited in silk? (5)
SATIN – take the alternate letters of SmArT (‘regularly’) and add IN = SATIN.
19 Pressure over fish — appeal to higher power? (4)
PRAY – P (pressure) ‘over’ (above in this down clue) RAY (fish).

19 comments on “QC 1135 by Hurley”

  1. ‘the Italian’, ‘one in Paris’, and ‘the German’ in one puzzle; rather a lot. But it’s worth remembering this trick, because it shows up a lot in the 15x15s. (‘French art’=ES [as in ‘tu es’=thou art] also, from time to time.) Here, the SE of SPATE was straightforwardly clued by ‘southeast’; in the biggies, one would expect something like ‘Home Counties’ or ‘Kent, say’. It took me a while to remember ‘sparks’; and, as I’d always taken it to be a nickname rather than a common noun, I wondered if there wasn’t a capitalisation problem in the clue. Hiding GRAVEN IMAGE was rather an accomplishment, but the oddity of the surface reading signalled ‘hidden clue!’ 5:27.
  2. 7 minutes marks a return to normality after my problems with solving the previous two QCs.

    Anyone with ambitions to tackle the 15×15 needs to know of Rider Haggard and that he wrote ‘She’ (who must be obeyed) so the setter is performing a necessary duty by including him.

    I thought the SPATE clue a bit on the hard side but fair and perfectly gettable with a little thought, and good practice for an alphabet trawl if the answer doesn’t come readily to mind.

    It may be worth noting that ‘sparks’ (no capital letter required) can also be a radio officer, especially on a ship.

    Edited at 2018-07-16 05:13 am (UTC)

  3. Good fun. Got obsessed with FOOD HALL for 12d for no reason other than it fitted and things are sold there. Stared at it for ages. Knew it must really begin with a C but for couldn’t think a word to CO*D – silly! So that was LOI, a long way behind the joined MOSS and SPATE.
  4. Having biffed ELECTRICITY at 3d, I found myself changing the last letter to N as ATTUNED reared its head, after which I changed the ending of 3d to TION to fit without checking the clue again. Eejit! Otherwise all done in 8:49. MOSS was FOI and SPATE, rather trickily, brought up the rear. Thanks Hurley and Don.
  5. Very nearly achieved my aim of going straight through the across clues: missed HAGGARD and thought 23 was FRIENDLY but couldn’t see the parsing.
    Your atheist client has my sympathy: clergy are, if anything, more vulnerable to such shenanigans than most by virtue (wrong word, sorry) of their pastoral care responsibilities. Commandments and common sense often evaporate in such contexts, but I’ll bet he’s no longer pastor if that’s any consolation. You might want to revisit that idea of a few friendly pints: it might not be professional, but it would be kind.

    Edited at 2018-07-16 07:58 am (UTC)

  6. A mostly gentle start to the week apart from my LOI 8a which I stuck in SPARE, thinking that par could mean both right and if you’ve got a lot of similar things you might have some spare. However I wasn’t particularly confident and pressed submit with fingers crossed. Particularly enjoyed 10d.
    Thanks for the blog
    1. Me as well, and personally I think that is no worse than the “right” answer, since to me “off pat” means answering fluently without reference to to notes, not necessarily correctly. Not a good clue to me if there are viable alternatives not excluded by checkers, but I can see it would be hard for the setter to spot.
  7. Thought I was going well after some easy clues and plenty of anagrams. Then the deceleration set in…. Cold call took a while to click but Spate was my LOI and took me to 3 kevins. Oh dear. John
  8. My LOI was also 8a SPATE with a trawl through the alphabet to finish in just under 14 mins. DNK 9a Rider HAGGARD, the author, so relied on one definition to solve and penultimate solve was 6d AMATI where I went with the wordplay. Enjoyed the long hidden GRAVEN IMAGE which is my COD.
  9. I can’t see how the word “similar” is doing any work and earning its keep.
    (kpc)
    1. SOED: A sudden or violent outburst of some quality, feeling, etc.

      In this sense, a run of disconnected events do not constitute a spate, there has to be some connection hence ‘similar things’.

  10. Went fine apart from SPATE. Took an age and several letter trawls to spot that one. Never heard of AMATI, so just went with the obvious. COD GRAVEN IMAGE. Don’t often see such a long hidden.
    Good run-out to start the week.
    PlayUpPompey
  11. Fast through most of it but then hit the buffers with READAPT and SPATE (LOI and pretty iffy in my book, despite jackkt’s valiant efforts – if you have eg a “spate of enquiries” it doesn’t mean that they are similar, other than that they are all enquiries which doesn’t seem enough to me). Finished in 3 Kevins after much trawling for those two.

    I knew Rider Haggard but have never read “She” (and didn’t know that it was the origin of Rumploe’s SWAMBO). Having read the Wiki precise I’m not sure I’m going to add it to my list!

    Thanks to Don and Hurley.

    Templar

    1. Okay, and having re-read what I wrote earlier I must admit it’s not entirely convincing, however I can now add this from the COED and Oxford Dictionary Online to exonerate the setter: A large number of similar things coming in quick succession.
  12. A very quick solve in a pub in Knightsbridge prior to a posh lunch. I bashed in my LOI after 13 minutes -8a.
    I put SHARE. The parsing being Ha!=Exactly and R = Right.
    I was wrong it seems. David
  13. Thought I was going well after some easy clues and plenty of anagrams. Then the deceleration set in…. Cold call took a while to click but Spate was my LOI and took me to 3 kevins. Oh dear. John
  14. Agree with all comments, thanks. I changed SHARE to SPARE for similar parsing but never got SPATE.
    CoD Haggard. I read all his adventure books at school, I doubt they get much attention these days.

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