Quick Cryptic 1104 by Felix

Author   CuraristPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
Well, what to say here? I expect all will find this straightforward for the most part, given the number of parsings that are just A+B+C. I suspect it is deliberately so after a recent series of more challenging puzzles. Most of the anagrams clearly telegraph themselves as such, but the surfaces suffer a bit as a result – compare the rather clunky 1ac, with the elegant 4dn . I was thrown momentarily by 20ac with its quite unnecessary E on the end, and despite the fact that I pretend to be fluent in French, I stared at 6dn for what seemed like an hour. I reckon that’s at the limit of what should be expected of crossworders’ french vocab, n’est-ce pas?

Across
1 Cuckoo flying sees L Ness (9)
SENSELESS – anagram (‘flying’) of SEES L NESS
6 Bath for one son, given by father (3)
SPA – S + PA
8 Parvenu’s good times with prostitute (7)
UPSTART – UPS (cf downs) + TART
9 Man after a kiss in principle (5)
AXIOM – A + X + IOM (Isle of Man)
10 Tanner’s knife fashioned a work of horror (12)
FRANKENSTEIN – anagram (‘fashioned’) of TANNER’S KNIFE
12 Disney: no flipping composer! (6)
WALTON – WALT + NO backwards
13 Lake some have negotiated coming west (6)
GENEVA – hidden word, reversed (‘coming west’):  hAVE NEGotiated
16 Admiral’s mistress and boy meeting YHA poet (4,8)
LADY HAMILTON –  LAD + YHA + MILTON
19 At home, prepared small picture? (5)
INSET – IN + SET
20 A very loud tune ending in fine fling (7)
AFFAIRE – A + FF + AIR + E
22 Conclusion of research, indeed, something cut and dried (3)
HAY – H (end of research) + AY
23 SMS menu, so confused, displaying calls (9)
SUMMONSES – anagram (‘confused’) of SMS MENU SO

Down
1 Self-satisfied son, gullible chap (4)
SMUG – S + MUG
2 Some flirt so naughtily lifting part of body (7)
NOSTRIL – another reversed hidden word: fLIRT SO Naughtily
3 In French article, presenting girl (3)
ENA – EN + A
4 Book three’s complicated (6)
ESTHER – anagram (‘complicated’) of THREE’S
5 American visiting country left large Cornish town (2,7)
ST AUSTELL – US inside STATE with LL (left and large)
6 Take sixteen to Paris (5)
SEIZE – French for 16
7 Song about chaps in a foreign land (7)
ARMENIA – ARIA outside MEN
11 Phone’s yet to be adapted for novices (9)
NEOPHYTES – Anagram (‘adapted’) of PHONES YET
12 Rapacious noise from cow upset sea creature (7)
WOLFISH – Noise from cow is LOW, upset is WOL, add FISH
14 Bees flying about on island’s trees (7)
EBONIES – anagram (‘flying’) of BEES arranged around ON I
15 Preserve of English doctor, endless charity (6)
EMBALM – E + MB + ALM (short for ALMS)
17 Good-looking girl, timid (5)
DISHY – DI + SHY
18 Caribbean islands: Skye is quite different (4)
KEYS – anagram of SKYE
21 Nightingale’s familiar form, fairly like owl initially (3)
FLO – first letters of Fairly Like Owl

35 comments on “Quick Cryptic 1104 by Felix”

  1. Of course if it didn’t end in E, there would have been an empty square to deal with, but. The one problem I recall was ST AUSTELL, which I’d never heard of, and was thinking of AM (plus no doubt influence of Dutch Amstel). 5:51.
  2. 4 Kevins today and I’m not sure why it took so long. It didn’t help that I jumped to Emma Hamilton which made the lower LH corner impossible.
    1. Same! Emma here too. Should’ve remembered Blackadder’s fancy dress costume…
      Mrs Miggins: “Ooh Mr Blackadder, it’s real cat!”
      Edmund: “Yes, I’m going as Lady Hamilton’s pussy.”
  3. Nothing difficult here, I thought, finishing in about 2/3 average time. I too had an MER (Minor Eyebrow Raise) at the extra E on 20a. COD to WOLFISH for the bizarre image evoked by the surface reading. ENA and FLO are girls names from a former era, I think, although I have come across 1 Florence.
  4. 8 minutes, but I thought whilst solving that the GK quotient seemed a bit high for a Quickie and perhaps that, along with a couple of less than familiar answers, was why the clue construction was kept mostly straightforward.
  5. Interesting puzzle with some words that always look odd to me (e.g. EBONIES, SUMMONSES). There’s also a Nina relating to one of the answers.
    1. So there is! Nice one. Thanks for drawing it to our attention – I, for one, missed it.
      1. I normally miss them but it just so happens that I’ll be publishing a blog next weekend for a Jumbo that had one, and a residual sweep of my Nina radar caught this one too.
  6. On a day when the 15×15 was about as straightforward as they come, I appreciated this QC with its smatterings of history, geography, literature, vocabulary and assorted GK! Very nice.
  7. For those of us with only half a brain what please is a Nina? The only one I keep thinking about is that girl from Argentina that so entranced Mr Coward!

    NB

    1. A Nina is an “easter egg” hidden in a crossword puzzle: you don’t have to have spotted it in order to have solved the puzzle, but it’s fun if you do. Look at the rows “between the rows” of the finished grid!

      Edited at 2018-06-01 10:31 am (UTC)

    2. Thank you very much. That’s seriously clever! How on earth do the setters do that!?
  8. Too much old-person genre knowledge for me today. Guessing women’s names that haven’t been used in 90 years. *yawn*
        1. Well I still remember it like yesterday! Even though I was 5 and didn’t watch it back then.
    2. But here we’re talking about Florence Nightingale. No-one has mentioned that.
      I must admit, I got stuck wondering about other names for the bird, no doubt it has many, and didn’t think of the nurse until I had the outside letters.
  9. Lovely puzzle with two nice nina surprises too. Completed very quickly in just over 5 mins with only Ebonies causing slight delay. COD 10a for a great anagram with grizly overtones and a hint to the aforementioned ninas. Thanks setter and blogger
  10. I struggled a bit with this and found yesterday’s much easier. I got 15down through parsing but still don’t understand why “embalm” is the answer. Where does the “mb” come from?
  11. Managed to finish in one go, albeit 35mins – Ebonies took ages even though I knew there was an anagram of Bees in there somewhere. 9ac gets my CoD vote, but there wasn’t that much competition. Re Lake Geneva/Lac Leman, when my son was about 10 or 12 he pointed out that it was blue and so wondered why it was called Lemon. . . Invariant
  12. I found today quite tough (see my problem above with 16A) but hugely entertaining. Liked FRANKENSTEIN and NEOPHYTES, but had real trouble with EBONIES and SEIZE — a real aha moment when I got that one! Thanks Curatist and Felix.
    1. I didn’t like ‘ebonies’ as I think of that as referring to the wood and not the tree it comes from – I believe it can come from a number of different (but related) trees

      I had no problem with ‘seize’. Overall, a QC I enjoyed as very much still on the nursery slopes of cryptic land.

      Thanks to Felix and Curarist.

  13. 25 minutes today – not quick, but steady! I thought it was a really good challenge, set at just the right level. I too think that it is amazing that a setter can manage to organise Ninas into the grid, especially when they relate to one of the answers. Thanks, Felix.
    I must be old, as I had no problem accepting the apparently outdated names (although I have to say that FLO was my LOI). Any way they’ll soon be back – that’s what happens with names! MM
    COD 10a.
  14. I found this a bit tougher than average, completing it in 19.03, with a few clues that needed a fair amount of head scratching – although looking back now it seems to be the anagrams I struggled with. 9a was helped something very similar coming up recently.
    LOI 14d
  15. Following on from Izetti’s offering on Monday this is the second QC Nina this week!
  16. I’m late to this as I’ve been out golfing in glorious sunshine in Bedale North Yorks. What made it better was that the forecast was for cloud and rain, ha!, and I chipped in from off the green at the 12th for a par 3! Anyway the puzzle was straightforward, taking 9:06, although WOLFISH held me up for a while. Liked SEIZE. Thanks Felix and Curarist.
  17. Found this difficult but then I always do find this setter a challenge. Still not sure what a “Nina ” is apart from a seasonal wind.
      1. And WALTON and GENEVA too, the former being one of the narrators in Shelley’s work, the latter being the scene for much of it
  18. I know I’m being thick but can anyone clarify why ‘very loud’ in 20ac is FF?
    1. ff is the musical notation for fortissimo, which means very loud (see also: p for piano (soft), pp for pianissimo (very soft), f for forte (loud), mf for mezzo-forte (moderately loud), etc).
  19. I am fairly new to these crosswords, and I have to confess, I found this one tricky. Hats off to all of you who found it easy….I am still pondering some of the clue tricks…..will try harder!!!

Comments are closed.