Quick Cryptic 1007 by Flamande

Author   william_j_sPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
I tripped myself up several times with this tricky little puzzle, what with some unfamiliar vocabulary and a smidgen of deviousness, ending up with one incorrect (I had O for A in 8dn). Quite satisfied to get as far as I did, though, since 11ac, 2dn, 15dn and 19dn were all hopeful entries for me. I’m a sucker for witty, sense-making surfaces; too many for me to choose a COD.

And further thanks to Flamande for forcing me to trust the cryptic!

Definitions underlined.

Across
1 Leave from French region (6)
DEPART – DE (from, in french) and PART (region).
4 Sudden change, with IT introduced into school (6)
SWITCH – W (with) and IT, all inside SCH (school).
9 Actually, one Old Testament book comes after New Testament (2,5)
IN TRUTH – I (one) then RUTH (old testament book) after NT (new testament).
10 Language assimilated by pupil in Gordonstoun (5)
LINGO – hidden in (assimilated by) pupiL IN GOrdonstoun.
11 Editor ultimately rejected a poetry collection (4)
EDDA – ED (editor), last letter of (ultimately) rejecteD, and A. The word can refer to an particular Old Norse poetry collection, according to wikipedia.
12 Part of Shakespeare play, perhaps, about to be presented in new theatre (3,5)
ACT THREE – C (circa, about) inside (to be presented in) an anagram of (new) THEATRE.
14 Group of shops acquired by quiet, less youthful property owner (11)
SMALLHOLDER – MALL (group of shops) inside (acquired by) SH (quiet), then OLDER (less youthful).
18 Blue van I repaired, not likely to work (8)
UNVIABLE – anagram of (repaired) BLUE VAN I.
20 Secure extra portion, do you say? (4)
MOOR – homophone of (do you say?) “more” (extra portion).
22 Primate is seen with nobleman, mostly (5)
LORIS – IS with most of LORd (nobleman).
23 Daily sympathy, giving away penny for a good cause (7)
CHARITY – CHAR (daily) and pITY (sympathy) without the ‘p’ (giving away penny).
24 Initially pleased about fantastic ready-made home (6)
PREFAB – first letter of (initially) Pleased, RE (about), and FAB (fantastic).
25 Uncontrolled anger about a former US president (6)
REAGAN – anagram of (uncontrolled) ANGER around A.
Down
1 Motorist finally crossed waterway (6)
DRIVER – last letter of (finally) crosseD, and RIVER.
2 Wild stay over in Brandenburg capital (7)
POTSDAM – MAD (wild) and STOP (stay) all reversed (over).
3 Regret, it’s said, producing sauce mix (4)
ROUX – homophone of (it’s said) “rue” (regret).
5 Feel proud, as gigantic hiker might? (4,4)
WALK TALL – cryptic definition.
6 Make-up item, one worn by teenager after vacation (5)
TONER – ONE inside TeenegeR without the innermost letters (after vacation). On writing the blog, I realise that ‘worn by’ more readily suggests ‘goes around the outside of’ not put inside, but I hadn’t picked up on this while solving.
7 Bent outlaw holding English king up (6)
HOOKED – HOOD (outlaw) surrounding (holding) a reversal of (up) E (english) and K (king).
8 Addicts disgraced a chic school (11)
CHOCAHOLICS – anagram of (disgraced) A CHIC SCHOOL. Should have double checked the vowels.
13 The entire navy is lost (3,2,3)
ALL AT SEA – another whimsical/straight definition pairing.
15 Wearing down French sculptor, say, all round (7)
ERODING – RODIN (french sculptor), with EG (say) around the outside (all round).
16 Stop driving — in two directions (4,2)
PULL UP – palindromic (in two directions).
17 Pencil case originally having smooth fabric (6)
CRAYON – first letter of (originally) Case, and RAYON (smooth fabric). My dictionary defines a crayon as “a pencil of coloured wax”, but I had to look it up to be sure they could be synonymous.
19 Volume with Irish poetry (5)
VERSE – V (volume) with ERSE (a Gaelic language, Irish).
21 Ordered brandies every now and then (4)
BADE – alternate letters of (every now and then) BrAnDiEs.

36 comments on “Quick Cryptic 1007 by Flamande”

  1. This went fairly slowly for me, can’t remember why, other than not knowing TONER as make-up, and trying to make ‘liner’ work. And MOOR for me is not a homophone of ‘more’. 8:18.
      1. Dialect or idiolect, I don’t know (I’m American, grew up in San Francisco, and rhotacize like anything). For me, anyway, ‘moor’ rhymes with ‘dour’ (a high vowel, [U]), while ‘more’ rhymes with ‘door’, ‘bore’, etc. (a mid vowel, the open [o], which I can’t type here).
        1. I see. I was thinking maybe in the north east you might hear moor to rhyme with doer, and more to rhyme with paw but in most of England at least you could not differentiate between moor and more unless there was context
          1. Yes. I had to ignore my accent of origin where I pronounce moor as rhyme of doer to get this homophone to work. All done pretty quickly, but, like our blogger, and several others here, I had CHOCOHOLICS. Grr. 9a my favourite.
    2. I guessed MOOR although in all Scottish accents it sounds very different from MORE!

      Found this one a bit easier than others lately. Technically a DNF as had never heard of EDDA but liked 14ac and also 9ac (once it dawned on me that 8dn wasn’t ALCOHOLICS – that’ll teach me to assume the anagram without working it out properly…)

  2. 15 mins but technically a DNF as I had a typo (roue) for 3 down. Getting faster but sloppier.

    Very enjoyable. Liked bade, toner, chocaholic and COD unviable.

  3. 9 minutes but with the same error as our blogger at 8dn. If the term is derived from ‘chocolate’ and ‘alcoholic’ why wouldn’t the second vowel be an ‘O’? Talk about a bear trap!

    Edited at 2018-01-17 07:02 am (UTC)

  5. Loved this, and finished it in 30 minutes. My first success for a couple of days! 9a was my COD. Also liked DEPART, CHARITY and ERODING. Thanks William and Flamande.
  6. Yet another tricky QC (come on ed, give the newbies a break!). Some complex constructions (9a, 14a), lots of GK in both clues and solutions (9a, 11a, 23a, 25a, 2d, 19d, 15d) and an alternative spelling at 8d, most sources spell it with an ‘o’.

    Many thanks to setter and blogger.
    7’15”

    Edited at 2018-01-17 11:07 am (UTC)

  7. Just over ten minutes, and having caught out before, remembered to check the anagram at 8dn very carefully !
  8. Fell into the bear trap at 8d, otherwise stormed through in 5:58. Like Jack I built it from ChocOlate and AlcOholic rather than the anagrist. Enjoyable puzzle. Thanks Flamande and William.

  9. One letter wrong, but for me was the last letter in the unknown EDDA. I read it as “ultimately rejected a” so was looking for a word meaning ultimately with the A missing. Plumped for DAY, hence EDDY.

    Great surfaces today, esp 9A.

  10. oddly, whilst I agree the last few QCs have been tricky, this learner is still managing to solve them … eventually!
    one item that threw me was the use of Shakespeare in 12. Is William relevant or is it any play could have an act three?
    1. Shakespeare’s irrelevant, tossed in by the wicked setter as a red herring. His ‘perhaps’ covers his proverbial.
    2. Shakespeare gets a mention to show that the connection is with play in the sense of drama, rather than game. The inclusion of ‘perhaps’ indicates that the answer is not unique to Shakespeare. That’s my take on it, anyway. Invariant
  11. … eluded me. Clue is fair but even with all the checkers I couldn’t see past in touch, not sure why! Good puzzle I thought.
  12. Loved this, and finished it in 30 minutes. My first success for a couple of days! 9a was my COD. Also liked DEPART, CHARITY and ERODING. Thanks William and Flamande.
  13. That’s 3 DNFs this week. Consistent I suppose. Never heard of EDDA and thought ‘ultimately’ applied to ‘editor’ rather than ‘rejected’ so was trying to fit in an r rather than a d. Only vaguely heard of LORIS and had no idea it is a primate. However the clue was quite straightforward once the checkers were in. Like others had to double check the letters to get CHOCAHOLICS. Never parsed TONER, not having seen ‘worn by’ used that way before.
    Otherwise enjoyed what was for me a challenging puzzle.
    PlayUpPompey
  14. I expect there will be a few more grumbles to come as the less experienced solvers have their turn, but for me this was ok as long as you followed (and trusted) the cryptic. A fairly average 33 mins, that could perhaps have been less than 30 except that, having followed the cryptic in 11ac, I didn’t trust it ! Edda as a poetry collection ? Is this another ‘only used in crosswords’ example to file away ? The parsing was also quite a challenge in places (4, 6, 9, 15. . .), but got there in the end. Invariant
    1. I hadn’t thought anything of this at the time, but you’re right, I think, that this is GK beyond the Quickie pale. But I don’t think there would be any complaint if it were in a 15×15 (“EDDA? This isn’t Mephisto, you know!-Outraged of Tunbridge Wells”).
  15. This seemed tricky but I actually finished in better than average time at 13:27.

    DNK EDDA but the word play was easy enough. Also hadn’t come across this spelling of CHOCAHOLICS but again the anagram was plain enough.

    My only surprise is that no-one has commented on POTSDAM. I know it’s the capital of Brandenburg because I’ve been there but I would have thought it was quite a difficult clue otherwise.

    Thanks William and Flamande.

  16. DNF in about 10m as also entered Roue for 3d which was careless. Avoided the trap at 8d by simply checking all letters in the anagram. Newcomers will benefit greatly from this if they study the cryptics a bit. For example the simple use of “with” in the clue – I often used to miss this. Sometimes you also have to trust the checkers as in Edda (although I think this is fair Gk). And there’s nothing like an ambiguous homophone to get people chatting! Lovely puzzle and thanks blogger.
  17. My only real hold up was with the unknown Edda (LOI) and I eventually just had to trust the wordplay and hope for the best. My vote for COD goes to 12a, although it wasn’t a simple choice today. Completed in 16 minutes
    Thanks for the blog
  18. I tried to rush through this before going off to play golf. But it was a puzzle which posed some difficult questions and had some traps. I immediately went for Alcoholics at 8d. I did not know 11a but guessed at Edda as LOI. 2d was quite difficult particularly when you have Shareholder and then Stallholder as answers. I did not know Toner as make-up; my printer uses it however. And I had More at 20a to begin with.
    Part of the problem was rushing. In the end I corrected everything and finished in 20 minutes with fingers crossed for Edda and Toner. David
  19. A late post, but I had to finish this in boring moments during an evening meeting…. A very enjoyable puzzle with some easier clues (10a..), some elegant (9a…), and some stinkers where I had to use aids to verify my deductions (11a, 22a). A DNF as I had 7d as hooker – Capt Hook + E + Rex – a DOH moment when reading the blog… So thanks as usual to our blogger for unwrapping some of the clues more elegantly than I did, and to our setter for bowling some lovely googlies today. FOI 1a LOI7d COD 9a.

  20. Must’ve been on the wavelength today, as for the first time ever I did all the acrosses in order followed by all the downs! I think this is what the more experienced call a “clean sweep…”

    Helped by knowing LORIS, EDDA and Erse from the 15×15.

    Nearly did as Flashman with 3D—“roué” has come up elsewhere recently—but managed to avoid it. Also knew I have a weakness for (the spelling of) CHOCAHOLIC, so checked the anagram carefully!

    Good fun, I think. Thanks to setter and blogger. WOD LINGO.

  21. It just goes to show the differing aptitudes of the solvers. This was a four minute walk through the park except for Loris which no-one else seemed to be troubled by!
  22. Also with regard to Loris and other obscure flora and fauna, why does the editor allow it. The fun of a crossword should not depend on this!
  23. I’m a non 15×15-er but managed to finish this one in about an hour or so. Very fair and enjoyable- seemed to be on the composer’s wavelength for once. Many thanks – to setter and blogger
    Ps guessed toner – vacation? Very clever word play for vacates – too much for me!
  24. A beginner who found this one quite accessible, finished in c30 mins which for me is good.

    Several unknowns and a couple unparsed, but learning to trust the wordplay. Thanks setter and blogger.

    Mighty

  25. Goodness I found that hard work.The words loris, edda, roux, and erse are all new to me. I eventually managed about three quarters of the answers but we’re talking hours not minutes. Lots of returns to fight with particular clues.
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