QC 2603 by Jalna

Author   MerlinPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

I’m in the US this week (Chicago), so a chance to do the crossword just after midnight. But not a roaring success. Definitely on the trickier end of the Spectrum, I squeezed through in 19:02.

A couple of the clues seem clumsy and one outright error/typo. The reversal indicator at 4D looks ambiguous at best, and this caused me real trouble in the top half.

Definitions underlined in bold , synonyms in (parentheses) (Abc)* indicating anagram of Abc, other wordplay in [square brackets] and deletions in {curly} brackets.

Across
1 False part of expert’s research paper (10)
PROSTHESIS – PROS (expert’s) + THESIS (research paper)
8 Advanced nursing staff may be found here (6)
ONWARD – Nurses may be found “on ward”

This is “onward” as an adjective, such as an “onward progression”, not such a common usage. I struggled to find examples where it meant advanced rather than “forward”.

Or maybe those Christian Soldiers  were particularly ADVANCED for their time?
9 Irregular stuff inspires core of nationalist party (6)
RANDOM – RAM (stuff) with {natio}N{alist} (middle letter) + DO (party) inside [inspires]

“core of” for the 5th letter of a nine-letter word took some finding.
10 Quickly look around tower in a castle (4)
KEEP – PEEK (look) reversed [around]
11 Flawed protagonist — one featuring in another novel (8)
ANTIHERO – (ANOTHER)* [novel] contains I(one)

Only Appears hyphenated in the OED (which has as an example usage, Walter White from Breaking Bad). Collins likes hyphens, but the OED is anti-hyphen.
12 Literary princess lied so deviously (6)
ISOLDE – (LIED SO)*

Always linked with Tristan, who is another ANTI-HERO.
14 Retail customer ignoring the first jumper (6)
HOPPER – {s}HOPPER (Retail customer)
16 Country pub, unpleasant and noisy from time to time (8)
BARBADOS – BAR (pub) + BAD (unpleasant) + {n}O{i}S{y}

I am sure if Jalna had said “Island pub” I would have got it much faster. Of course Barbados is a country, but I always think of it as an island first.
18 Try to contact   young attendant (4)
PAGE – Double Def

Although page is now pretty much obsolete. When was the last time you saw a pager, or heard someone being paged on a PA system?
20 Court welcoming return of live discussion (6)
DEBATE – DATE (court) contains BE(live) reversed

CT=court gives plenty of scope for misdirection here.
21 Kid given lead part for the afternoon service? (3,3)
TEA SET – TEASE (kid) + T [lead part of T{HE}]

Very nice surface, my COD.
22 Different things OKed for flexible work set-up (3-7)
HOT-DESKING -(THINGS OKED)*

First usage is 1991, which is surprisingly early, as it predates the office PC and Email.
Down
2 Managed, say, to climb several mountains? (5)
RANGE – RAN (managed) + EG (say) [climbed=reversed]
3 Section of head exposed at the front with large surgical tool (7)
SCALPEL – SCALPEL (section of head) + E{xposed} + L{arge}
4 How silly of me to overturn this carrying trough (3)
HOD – DOH (How silly of me) reversed

How silly of me, I put DOH into the grid. But it’s pretty hard to make the case that “to overturn this carrying trough” is not the cryptic instruction. This caused no end of trouble. Black mark for Jalna.

DOH™ came up last time I blogged (QC 2579), so it went in quickly today, but it still looks right to me.
5 Times spent inside for physio exercises? (9)
STRETCHES – Double def.

I’m not happy with this one either. “Time spent inside”, is prison, and a prison term is a “stretch”. I’m fine with that, but the plural is extremely clumsy.

And STRETCHES are physical exercises, not physio exercises. Physio is not an adjective.

It seems that physio was chosen to make us look for the (FOR PHYSIO)* anagram. Which I did.
6 Harmonise initial elements of sound, yet nothing’s clearly heard (5)
SYNCH – initial letters of s{ound} y{et} n{othings} c{learly} h{eard}

Was recently clued as SYNC.
7 Training programme is rough, we’re told (6)
COURSE – Homophone [we’re told] of COARSE (rough)
11 Guys in a fix ultimately sought change (9)
AMENDMENT – A + MEND (fix) + {sough}T contains MEN (guys)

Tricky. It was hard to assemble this in the right order, especially with MEN appearing twice.
13 Bogus journalist discredited (6)
SHAMED – SHAM (Bogus) + ED (journalist)

Sometimes these short ones are the hardest. This was my LOI, I knew exactly what was going on, but plenty of words were close, with those unhelpful checkers.
15 Lively pal kept providing moral-boosting words (3,4)
PEP TALK – (PAL KEPT)*

Surely this should be morale-boosting? That’s either a flat-out error or a typo.

Although maybe the Sermon on the Mount could be called “moral boosting”
17 Composer touring European holiday destination? (5)
BEACH – BACH (composer) contains E{uropean}
19 Inexperienced soldiers overwhelmed by information (5)
GREEN – GEN (information) contains RE (Royal Engineers=soldiers)
21 Fastening made from odd bits of twine (3)
TIE – T{w}I{n}E

77 comments on “QC 2603 by Jalna”

  1. DNF with 6 clues unsolved, despite 3 sessions at it. Just not on Jalna’s wavelength at all. A bad day.

  2. 20:39

    Just over target. Slowed down by taking ages to see STRETCHES after which the top right fell in quickly enough. LOI RANDOM.

  4. Keep is “tower in a castle”
    Chambers Thesaurus gives “advancing” as “onward” so fits “Advancing Christian soldiers, marching…”
    Advanced as adjective means you have already moved. Onward means you are moving to where you are going. Advanced as a verb gives moving but makes nonsense of the clue as is.

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