QC 1465 by Hurley

Author   astartedonPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

There will be jubilation in certain quarters when I say that I honestly have no time to say anything this week except:

1. Medium difficulty
2. FOI: 5A
3. LOI: 13A
4. COD: 1A

Many thanks to Hurley for another entertaining cup of tea.

Definitions are underlined in italics. Everything else is explained just as I see it in the simplest language I can manage.

Across
1 Country girl’s examination (7)
PERUSAL – PERU (country) + SAL (girl).
5 Signify average (4)
MEAN – double definition.
7 Traitor oddly missed in port (3)
RIO – miss out the odd letters of tRaItOr.
8 Aware lad’s suffering unfair treatment (1,3,4)
A RAW DEAL – straight anagram (‘suffering’) of AWARE LAD.
10 Got the odour of fish (5)
SMELT – double definition. As in ‘I smelt the smelt’.
11 In natural movement edit books, English, on return (3,4)
EBB TIDE – EDIT + BB (books) + E (English) all reversed (‘on return’).
13 Doorman’s endless resilience (6)
BOUNCE – remove the end from BOUNCEr (doorman).
15 Genuine in path one’s taken (6)
HONEST – hidden word: patH ONES Taken.
17 Start to notice, we hear, area away from land (4,3)
OPEN SEA – OPEN (start) + SEA (sounds like SEE (notice)).
18 Excellent protest at noon (5)
DEMON – DEMO (protest) + N (noon). DEMON can be an adjective as in ‘a demon card player’ or ‘a demon driver’.
20 Tess welcoming European I’d at first engaged in regional area (8)
TEESSIDE – TESS ‘welcoming’ E (European) + ID (I’d) + E (at first Engaged).
22 Originally filed under national merriment? (3)
FUN – first letters (‘originally’) of Filed Under National.
23 Colour clash? Yes, in part (4)
ASHY – hidden word: clASH Yes.
24 Frantically lug a new section of boat (7)
GUNWALE – straight anagram of LUG A NEW.
Down
1 Abroad, broke, a shop providing help for translation? (6,4)
PHRASE BOOK – straight anagram (‘abroad’) of BROKE A SHOP.
2 With new start, shone in river (5)
RHONE – give SHONE a new start and you could get RHONE.
3 After fight, thanks copper and son, leader of revolt (9)
SPARTACUS – SPAR (fight) + TA (thanks) + CU (copper (chemical symbol)) + S (son).
4 Gloomy field retreat (6)
LEADEN – LEA (field) + DEN (retreat in the sense of study).
5 Foolish mother supported by daughter (3)
MAD – MA (mother) ‘supported by’ (i.e. ‘on top of’ in this down clue) D (daughter).
6 Greed, a bad habit, ensnaring artist on rise (7)
AVARICE – A VICE (bad habit) ‘ensnaring’ RA (artist) reversed (‘on rise’ in this down clue).
9 Relevance of net price uncertain around northeast (10)
PERTINENCE – anagram of NET PRICE (‘uncertain’) around NE (northeast).
12 Barn, abode, unusually for this vegetable? (5,4)
BROAD BEAN – straight anagram (‘unusually’) of BARN ABODE.
14 Stupid plea to economize? (7)
USELESS – a plea to economise might be USE LESS.
16 Darling, left out as reckless (6)
DARING – hardly needs explanation: take L (left) out of DARlING.
19 Criminal organisation’s aim to take in footballers all round? (5)
MAFIA – AIM ‘taking in’ FA (Football Association) ‘all round’, i.e. all reversed.
21 Catch sight of Bond perhaps (3)
SPY – double definition.

25 comments on “QC 1465 by Hurley”

  1. I wasted a good deal of time taking ‘country’ to be the definition in 1ac. Biffed 1d and 19d, never bothered to parse the latter. A sluggish 7:18.
  2. 19 mins but with over sea for 17a!
    Think I biffed it and forgot to go back and parse.
    Too much leffe last night watching the footy.

    Struggled with pertinence honest, leaden and perusal.

    Cod perusal.

  3. For me this was a mixture of write-ins and half a dozen head scratchers. FOI was MEAN,followed by a very quick run through several clues until the hold-ups. For me these were PHRASE BOOK,PERUSAL,RHONE and OPEN SEA. COD to 1a for the misdirection.
    Time was 15:28.
    David
  4. I found some of this quite tough with a number of clues (1ac and 20ac in particular) requiring several revisits before the answer came to me. 15 minutes, and amber solve only a few seconds short of tipping into the red.
  5. Masterdon’s normal intro is normally Yeatsian and 4dn.

    Today’s is equally uninspiring but brief. Sadly no jubilation hereabouts. I can’t wait for Wednesday!

    FOI 5dn MAD

    LOI 4dn LEADEN

    COD 14dn USELESS

    WOD 9dn PERTINENCE

    Do not attempt today’s 15×15 without a grown up present.

  6. The same experience as David – write-ins + head scratchers – except my head was scratched over different clues! The ones which chewed up the minutes for me were LEADEN, EBB TIDE (tried to make “books” either OT or NT) and LOI USELESS, which was how I was feeling by the time it fell. Total 2.2K for a Reasonable Enough Day.

    FOI MEAN and COD to HONEST for the lovely surface.

    Thanks Don and Hurley.

    Templar

    Edited at 2019-10-21 07:45 am (UTC)

  7. 12.51 with all bar the SW done inside about 8 of those but took ages to see TEESSIDE which then unlocked the rest finishing with BOUNCE. I don’t think it was as hard as I made it though…

    NeilC

  8. A steady solve today with 27:29. The only two which really held me up were ‘leaden’ and LOI ‘perusal’. COD to 14d which raised a smile. Today I learnt that Teesside has a double S. Makes sense I suppose.
  9. Nothing too chewy for me today as I made steady progress around the grid with a short pause at the end for PERUSAL, LEADEN, EBB TIDE and HONEST. I felt that USELESS might be a chestnut but I don’t recall seeing it before so it gets my COD for putting a smile on my face. Happy to start the week with a sub ten minute solve, finishing in 9.39.
    Thanks for the blog
  10. No problems for me as I sit here in 20a giving TftT a 1a. I found this quite straightforward and finished in 7:52. Thanks Hurley and Don.
  11. I had a similar experience to horryd. I wasn’t over-impressed by ASHY or DEMON. 3K. Thanks to both. John M.
  12. A nice crossword from Hurley, with a good mix of difficulties and some very good surfaces. It would have been inside my target of 15m but for the 1a and 4d crossers which took me an extra 2m to see and were my last ones in. Thanks to both setter and blogger.
  13. About average for me. ASHY = ‘colour’. Really? Seems a bit of a stretch to me.
    PlayUpPompey
  14. Not a bad day. No time as I did it in bits but probably around 4k. Nothing I had to resort to aids for, so it must be comparatively easy. Took ages to see the hidden in 15a and really struggled with 4d and 14d.
    A mer to 18a as that definition of demon never occurred to me.
    FOI 5a
  15. I was hoping for a slightly easier return after a few days away, or perhaps I was just a bit rusty (it did rain a lot where I was 🙂). Either way, 25 mins for a pleasant mix of straightforward and tricky clues. For me, a good example of the latter was 4d, Leaden, which I am now happy to give my CoD vote to, having been well and truly bamboozled for several minutes before seeing what was going on. I agree with others that ‘Ashy’ as a colour is ‘iffy’. Invariant
  16. Today’s was a good example of why I often fail to finish. EG: useless = stupid? I’m useless at snooker but that doesn’t make me stupid. Why not clue it ‘unable to economize?’I’ve heard of ashen but not ashy.
  17. ….at DEMON, my eyebrows vanished into my hairline on finding ASHY. I thought DARLING was, to say the least, weak. Not Hurley’s finest hour I’m afraid, but completed within target.

    FOI MEAN
    LOI SPY
    COD BOUNCE

  18. Anyone else have “over sea” for 17a? Sounds like oversee which could with not much more of a stretch than some other clues fit start to notice. Never heard of ashy as a colour, and had a MER at useless for stupid – you can be stupid and useful (wasn’t this staple of USSR overseas policy?) and useless without being stupid.
    Paan
    1. I’m sure lots of solvers (me included) considered Over Sea as a possible answer, but ‘Open’ is much closer to start in meaning than ‘Over’. Hence the importance of always trying to parse answers.
  19. I note that horryd felt the need to have an adult present for the 15 x 15 today.

    For my part I felt a child’s perspective would have been more useful. Some of the apparently more ‘difficult’ clues could be resolved by following one’s nose with basic Crossworld building blocks. 11D was a good example.

    I really enjoyed the puzzle and thought it was very elegant largely for that reason: that it managed to build difficulty from elementary blocks. Every clue was thoughtfully built up from first principles with any vocabulary deficits adequately compensated by unambiguous cryptic signposts. But ultimately it was a Monday puzzle, albeit at the more difficult end of that spectrum.

    Which brings me back to horryd.

    If he found difficulty in the puzzle necessitating the reassuring guidance of an adult, then perhaps he needs to grow up. And if I may give some advice which I sincerely hope will be taken (although almost certainly not acknowledged), part of that process will involve identifying the things that he cannot change (the length and content of other people’s blogs for example) and those that he can (deficiency in vocabulary, particularly in the realm of classically derived terminology).

    I am guessing with that last bit. I may be wrong. But wherever the difficulty lay, I would suggest that that is where his efforts should be directed in the future.

  21. late i’m afraid – always up to a week late – and remaining as one of the many unconfident unidentifed amateurs who benefit so much from the free and generous input of the more experienced – may I add a late support for don and gratitude for the time he gives to accurate blogs – and I enjoy the digressions – and ask other users of this site who clearly benefit from it to refrain from indulging in the urge to self-aggrandise at the expense of what makes the site so worthwhile – or go elsewhere?thanks all bloggers – nick
    1. Very well said, Nick, and thanks for your kind and supportive comments about TftT in general and today’s blogger in particular. I don’t know exactly what an ‘inspiring’ blog would consist of but if I’d been told 12 years ago that it would be my role to provide one such each week I’d have run a mile!
  22. I note that nick is not in favour of free speech.
    He appears to be elsewhere most of the time, and I do not wish to join him.

    All bloggers do an equally good job. But some are more equal than others. They are consistently praised with the most common phrase hereabouts, ‘Thanks to setter and blogger.’

    Setters get hammered most days on small points of order such as homophones etc. Bloggers rarely come under scrutiny.

    If one dislikes or disagrees with a Blogger’s intro then one is perfectly entitled to state ‘Thanks to setter’ or even ‘Thanks to setter and Yah Boo Sucks to the Blogger!

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