QC 1755 by Breadman

Author   astartedonPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

I thought this was just a touch more difficult than the usual Monday morning fare and so I found myself jumping around a bit rather than following the largely sequential course of most recent weeks. Did anyone agree? Either way thank you very much to Breadman for some interesting clues that were a bit above the average for the Monday QC as far as I could tell.

FOI with hindsight certainly should have been 1A but sadly it wasn’t. The answer lurked there on the edge of my consciousness just a fraction of a second too long before I ticked over to 5A which went in straight away. LOI was 20A I think. For COD I liked both 13A and 15A which had a bit of a Carry On/On The Buses vibe which had me nudging and winking like Eric Idle. They both also had very natural surfaces but probably 15A wins it by a nipple.

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

Across
1 Slipping on hard fish (7)
HERRING – H (hard) + ERRING (slipping).
5 I’ve messed up zero operations (4)
OOPS – O (zero) + OPS (operations).
7 Junk that is ignored by husband (3)
TAT – ThAT ‘ignored’ by H (husband).
8 Fighter plane tilts over before burning (8)
SPITFIRE – TIPS (tilts) reversed (‘over’) gives SPIT. Add FIRE (burning) to give SPITFIRE.
10 Somewhat windy ahead, knocking back Austrian composer (5)
HAYDN – reversed hidden word: ‘somewhat’ wiNDY AHead ‘knocking back’.
11 Rated new company’s architectural style (3,4)
ART DECO – anagram of RATED (‘new’) + CO.
13 American Society occupying congress area in SE England (6)
SUSSEX – US (American) + S (society) ‘occupying’ SEX (congress).
15 Go away to live with a bird (4,2)
BEAT IT – BE (to live) + A TIT (a bird).
17 Companion with cake failing to open large country house (7)
CHATEAU – CH (Companion of Honour) + gATEAU (cake ‘failing to open’).
18 Crime Harry scorns regularly (5)
ARSON – take regular letters from hArRy ScOrNs.
20 Arm perhaps supporting priest with doctor (8)
FORELIMB – FOR (supporting) + ELI (a high priest in the Biblical Books of Samuel) + MB (doctor, Bachelor of Medicine).
22 Silver ring gone (3)
AGO – AG (silver, chemical symbol Ag) + O (ring).
23 Observed envoy on vacation with newsman (4)
EYED – EnvoY (‘on vacation’) + ED (editor, newsman).
24 Dog that is left on bridge (7)
SPANIEL – SPAN (bridge) + IE (id est, that is) + L (left).
Down
1 At work, Kath itches to retire (3,3,4)
HIT THE SACK – straight anagram (‘at work’) of KATH ITCHES.
2 Again hear about score at Twickenham? (5)
RETRY – RE (about) + TRY (score at Twickenham). RETRY in the sense of re-hearing a trial, thus ‘again hear’.
3 Lying, perhaps, in wrong church with religious class (9)
INSINCERE – IN (in) + SIN (wrong) + CE (church (of England)) + RE (religious class).
4 Instrument leaders of group used in the auditorium rarely (6)
GUITAR – take the ‘leaders of’ Group Used In The Auditorium Rarely.
5 Old female repeatedly absent (3)
OFF – O (old) + FF (female ‘repeatedly’).
6 Sign left on hospital department (7)
PORTENT – PORT (left (on board a ship)) + ENT (Ear, Nose and Throat department. Hospitals in Crossworld only ever seem to have this department so if you are ever visiting I suggest you make sure you have cast-iron comprehensive health insurance).
9 Stuffing own loot casually under child’s bed (6,4)
COTTON WOOL – TON WOOL (anagram of OWN LOOT (‘casually’)) ‘under’ (in this down clue) COT (child’s bed).
12 Article by magazine about graduate crossing one African country (3,6)
THE GAMBIA – THE (definite article) + GAM (MAGazine ‘about’) + BA (graduate) ‘crossing’ I (one). The Gambia is that long, thin finger of a country poking into Senegal along the Gambia river that is a result of one of those colonial carve-up thingies that resulted in straight lines all over Africa and other places. This combines two of my great general knowledge black holes, geography and history (I somehow managed effectively to avoid both at school), which I know will seem like impassable canyons to most of you, but which with the help of crosswords I am gradually managing to pave over. I did actually know this because I have been using various aids over the years to help me hold my head up in general knowledge quizzes and the countries of Africa (along with American States, countries of Europe, British Prime Ministers and American Presidents) have been one of my belated revision targets to try to make up for the proverbial misspent youth.
14 Mysterious flash around plug (7)
SHADOWY – SHOWY (flash) ‘around’ AD (advertisement or ‘plug’).
16 Nothing disturbs even throwing game (6)
QUOITS – O (nothing) ‘disturbing’ QUITS (even – as in let’s call it quits).
19 Hindu instructor moved through water against current (5)
SWAMI – SWAM (moved through water) ‘against’ I (physical symbol for electric current).
21 Finish part of bowls match (3)
END – double definition. Football and Rugby matches are divided into halves. Polo matches are divided into chukkas. Cricket matches are divided into inningses (although Baseball matches are divided into innings). Bowls matches are divided into ends.

89 comments on “QC 1755 by Breadman”

  1. I got off to a good start with FOI 1d but in the end I had to give up as I could not work out any of 13a, 14d and 23a. There were too many possibilities in each case so aids were useless though I did wonder about ‘shadowy’. I wouldn’t have thought of ad for plug. I must remember that meaning of congress for future reference but I’m still puzzled by 23a. Does ‘vacation’ mean ‘take out the middle’ or is it ‘take out ‘on’ and ‘v’ for vacation’?
    COD. My husband definitely doesn’t see junk (or this blog).
    Thank you both.
    Blue Stocking
  2. Marvellous stuff smut! But there are a few ‘Miss Jean Brodies’ around – so please snigger quietly!
  3. I really enjoyed this QC and found it in the tough but well worth persevering category. Complete in 41 mins so an excellent time for me (the current goal is to complete with minimal aides and preferably around the hour mark, despite having been solving these for the best part of a year already!)

    As ever, thank you for the blog, without which 17A and 23A would have remained forever unparsed. And thanks a highly rewarding puzzle.

    COD 16D Quoits for appearing only from the cryptic elements, nho it.
    FOI 5A Oops
    LOI 3D Insincere

    1. Quoits is a good game to play on the deck of a ship. Same principle as, say, bowls as far as I remember. The quoits don’t bounce – they are/were small leather or rope rings.

      Edited at 2020-11-30 05:57 pm (UTC)

  4. … and took me 14 minutes, above my average overall let alone for the “easy” end of the week. In fact I have the impression that our setters are in general tightening the screw and ratcheting up the difficulty a bit – several harder-than-usual ones recently.

    But all fair and all parsed, even though it took a while to see Congress = sex in 13A. Not one I’ve met before so another to store away. LOI 14D Shadowy, and COD 25A Beat it, very nice clue.

    Much discussion – indeed multiple discussions – above on how to parse “envoy on vacation” in 23A, which makes me wonder how many people read earlier posts before adding theirs.

    Many thanks to Don for the blog, concise and helpful as always
    Cedric

  5. Thank you all so much for taking the time to comment. I’m glad I’m not the only one who found it a bit more difficult than a lot of the recent Monday puzzles.

    Thank you also for your kind comments about finding the explanations helpful. That is the only reason I and the other bloggers are here and when you tell us we have helped that is the greatest reward we can have.

    I do try to comment back to people where a post catches my eye but sometimes I don’t get a chance until the end of the day. And by that time everybody has usually got bored and got on with the rest of their day and isn’t likely to look back here. So this is the tree falling in the forest or the sound of one hand clapping or the supernova explosion in the vacuum of space. Probably nobody will notice it.

    But thank you all nonetheless!

    Don

  6. No real problems today with GK or construction, but the real achievement has been to complete it ‘on the day’! Back to a helpful grid too. FOI 8a. LOI 23a (until I figured out the significance of ‘vacating’. COD 1d where I figured out 3+3+4 immediately bit needed a second look to make it work. Certainly a harder than I would expect start to the week and hope this doesn’t create distaster by Friday!
    Thx to Breadman for the workout, and our blogger for being so clear and helpful. usual interesting discussions.
  7. 11:15 today :(. Not helped by putting in HEED for 23a, which made SHADOWY a struggle! Was also fixating on LING as part of 1a, which again wasted too much time. Never mind, there’s always tomorrow.

    H

  8. Didn’t find this one too bad, so I was surprised that several of the people I measure myself against (I’m usually at least a few minutes slower than them, but just occasionally I come out on top) found it hard or even DNFed. I ended up with 33:32, but I would have been quite a bit faster had I not biffed INSINUATE for 3d which made SUSSEX more tricky than it needed to be. LOI 3d, COD 16d. Thanks all.
  9. Slowly progressed with a false sense of confidence until I ground to a halt with QUOITS, SHADOWY and FORE as in LIMB. No problem with THE GAMBIA despite, like Don, opting out of History and Geography at the age of 14. Brought to book when 2 sons read Geography at university (apparently not just colouring in maps) and became self sufficient with jobs in the City. Who could have guessed it.
    Thanks Don and Breadman
    1. As some others have said, if you ‘empty’ the word ENVOY you get rid of the contents, i.e. the letters in the middle, thus: ENVOY.

      Several others have had this difficulty and I wonder is it a problem with getting away from the ‘surface‘ reading of ‘on vacation’ as being ‘on holiday’? This is exactly the sort of misdirection that is commonplace in the 15×15 (as another contributor has said) so learning about this here should be a useful lesson for stepping up to that puzzle.

      Think of an alternative meaning of ‘vacation’ (= vacating as opposed to holiday) as ‘emptying’, so the ‘on vacation’ becomes ‘on emptying’. In grammatical terms the noun ‘vacation’ becomes the gerund ‘emptying’ (or so I remember from my grammar half a century ago!).

      As I said, I think this puzzle is a bit more challenging than the normal Monday fare and this treatment of ENVOY is certainly a case in point. Maybe you could say Breadman is being a bit harsh, but I think it is just tough love. He is gently trying to introduce a device that should get people stepping things up a gear towards 15×15 levels.

      Does that make sense?

      Don

  12. I did not finish but thought it a fair puzzle. I cannot understand eyed. Why does envoy on vacation get rid of the nvo. I am still learning but that made no sense to me.
    1. OK, but there is still a Sussex, there are just East and West bits of it. I mean, there may not be an official county any more, but somebody could still describe a place as being ‘in Sussex’. Just as there is a London. I live in London, and it just so happens in West London, and North of the river, but still in London nonetheless.

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