Quick Cryptic 486 by Hurley

Author   ChrisPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
The anagram at 6dn caused me so much trouble that I discovered a ‘get the keyboard out of the way on the screen’ button on the iPad keyboard which enabled me, eventually, to see the answer. Highly enjoyable with the need to work on some clues, this didn’t seem an easy puzzle but wasn’t as hard as I made it at 18 minutes.

ACROSS

1. Repudiate – refuse to be involved with. We start with my COD – religious education (RE), course (PUD), I, took (ATE).
6. Angle – double definition.
8. Stringent – demanding. (STR)ong, elected (IN), guy (GENT).
9. Slice – portion. Small (S), left (L), diamonds (ICE).
10. Relay race – team contest. About (RE), put down (LAY), people (RACE).
12. Sniper – marksman. Home Counties (SE – the south east) with resistance (R) with drink (NIP) inside.
13. Hawser – ship’s rope. HeAd WaS hEaRd.
16. Aerospace – a high flying business. Resentful (SORE – backwards EROS) inside swiftly (APACE).
18. Litre – volume. Story (LIE) around (T)arta(R).
19. Lucrative – making money. Anagram (flexible) of CUTE RIVAL.
21. Sheer – very thin (tights). Female (SHE), queen (ER).
22. Submerges – dives. For too long I thought this was the disreputable type of dive and had pencilled in SPOTS at the end. The real answer is small (S) then an anagram (battered) of BEERS MUGS.

DOWN

1. Reserve – substitute. Again dish up food (RE-SERVE).
2. Parole – conditional release. Dad (PA) given part (ROLE).
3. Dingy – drab. (DING)h(Y).
4. Ave – welcome. (A)ll (V)isitors (E)agerly.
5. Entrepreneur – he takes risks for profit. In – in French (EN), anagram (new) of TREE PRUNER.
6. Aesop’s fables – animal stories. Anagram (involving) of BEES ASS A FLOP.
7. Grittier – more resilient. Greek (GR), Italian (IT), row (TIER).
11. Absinthe – liqueur. The answer is in the clue (stocking) – ar(ABS IN THE)re.
14. Ageless – long standing. The answer is in the clue (held) backwards/upwards (up) – impa(SSE LEGA)l.
15. Ealing – west London borough. Eastender’s healing = ‘EALING.
17. Stale – hackneyed. Second (S), piece of gossip (TALE).
29. Cub – he’s young. Copper (CU), British (B).

10 comments on “Quick Cryptic 486 by Hurley”

  1. I usually find Hurley quite tricky and today’s offering was no exception. Got there in the end, but then found I had made a pigs ear of 10ac, having stupidly convinced myself the second word was ‘game’. 1ac and 16ac were my joint favourites today. Invariant
  2. A very nice puzzle, done and dusted in 8 minutes, but had to think hard how to parse AEROSPACE,
  3. I started quickly with 1d and 2d and thought this would be a quick piece of work. I was wrong.
    I was left with a number of clues towards the end and I did not help myself by wanting to use Dhow as part of my answer for 3d -Dowdy. Of course it does not parse. 13a,16a and 11d all resisted but I got them eventually until last in was 17d which I had wanted to be Trite until it could no longer fit. So well done to the setter – a good test. David
  4. I know these things are very subjective, but I thought today’s 15×15 was surprisingly do-able, albeit slowly. Invariant
  5. I came to this later in the day than usual and so was distracted by non-crossword stuff. At least that’s my excuse for having more trouble than usual, plus I forgot to look at the time – apologies. I thought REPUDIATE and the fables were very nice indeed. The one I had the most trouble with was the race because my brain wanted a “rally” – why are our brains so recalcitrant! I agree with Invariant that today’s other cryptic is worth a shot if you’ve the time.
  6. 30 mins here approaching the puzzle later in the day than usual. Did not parse aerospace but assumed from the cross checkers. Thank you for the blog and explanation Chris W all is now clear.
  7. A good test to start the week. Struggled with 13a as I thought I was looking for a word that sounded like ‘head’ for a while and I couldn’t parse 11d, but assumed the answer as it’s one of those that appears quite regularly. Also failed to parse 16a but the checkers made it quite solvable once they were all in place.
    All in all I’m quite pleased to have completed this one.
  8. Found this one on the easier end, completing in 29 mins, but I was pen-and-papering it this time.

    LOI was RELAY RACE. Not helped by having 1d as REPLACE for some time, until SLICE came along to make that impossible. AGELESS also caused some problems since I didn’t spot the indication for a reversed-containment clue, so ended up biffing it after the checkers only left me with one letter to get. AESOPS FABLES was a write-in for me, perhaps because I had a book about them when I was young(er). AEROSPACE required a minute or so of post-completion parsing.

  9. a bit of a struggle here! had several stops and starts but it did take me some time…16a aerospace was the worst and I needed the blog to see how it worked. Thx for explaining this one.
  10. Good steady enjoyable solve for us – much happier with this week’s offerings so far after some less enjoyable ones last week. FOI was 6D, then proceeded to work round anticlockwise. Like plett11, we were looking for a homophone for head in 13A until the penny dropped. LOI was 11D (anisette proving wrong) – cheers! bandjo

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