Quick Cryptic 1127 by Hurley

Author   william_j_sPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
The second from Hurley in a row for my blogging day, and another well-pitched crossword – streching but not demoralising (I’m keeping my finger’s crossed you agree!). Plenty of anagrams and biffables to get some letters in the grid, then a couple of opportunities to be brave and put an answer in on wordplay alone. All the trickiest ones seem quite spread out, too. Lots of French today.

COD to the very neat and simple 10ac.

Definitions underlined.

Across
7 Interact regularly — that’s efficient (4)
NEAT – every other letter from (regularly) iNtErAcT.
8 Circular graph showing each trip at work (3,5)
PIE CHART – anagram of (at work) EACH TRIP.
9 Foul pass (6)
DEFILE – tricky double definition. Foul = defile was not quick to spring to mind, although hardly a obscure synonym. Pass = defile, on the other hand, was dredged up from some distant orienteering lesson, and only in hindsight. In full: “A long narrow pass or way, in which tropps can march only in file”.
10 Stay in Berlin, Germany (6)
LINGER – hiddin in (in) berLIN, GERmany. With the indicator hidden in plain sight, and the congruous fodder, I thought this was elegant.
11 Initially erupting, this naturally active volcano (4)
ETNA – first letters from (initially) Erupting, This Naturally Active.
12 Strange mystery involving minute, pleasing form? (8)
SYMMETRY – anagram of (strnage) MYSTERY surrounding (involving) M (minute).
15 It might be proper, right to infiltrate political group (8)
FRACTION – R (right) inside (to infiltrate) FACTION (political group). A proper fraction is one that represents a number less than 1.
17 Disguise Mike as King (4)
MASK – M (mike, phonetic alphabet), AS, and K (king, chess).
18 Tot I associated with court user (6)
ADDICT – ADD (tot, as in, add up/tot up), I and CT (court).
21 Rigorous Detective Inspector leaving area (6)
STRICT – the letters D.I. (detective inspector) removed from (leaving) diSTRICT (area).
22 Seek a man out. One with familiar calling? (8)
NAMESAKE – anagram of (out) SEEK A MAN.
23 Choice of adjacent letters seen as benchmark (4)
NORM – the alphabetically adjacent letters you may take your choice of are ‘N’ OR ‘M’.

Down
1 He abandons Sahara maybe with little hesitation (8)
DESERTER – DESERT (Sahara, maybe) and ER (little hesitiation).
2 Old King‘s attic lad left incomplete (6)
ATTILA – remove the last letters from (left incomplete) ATTIc and LAd.
3 Social activity after going downhill fast? (5-3)
APRES-SKI – cryptic definition.
4 Meat, very European, the French brought up (4)
VEAL – V (very), E (European), then reversal of (brought up) LA (‘the’ in French).
5 Alter price, getting name for resistance (6)
CHANGE – CHArGE (price) substituting N (name) for ‘r’ (resistance).
6 Correct time on Paris street (4)
TRUE – T (time) and RUE (‘road’ in French, Paris street).
13 Way of addressing man about Northern Ireland politician (8)
MINISTER – MISTER (way of addressing man) around NI (Northern Ireland).
14 Those remaining with French priest for relaxing programme (4-4)
REST-CURE – REST (those remaining) and CURE (parish priest in French/France). Lots to (not) know in this one.
16 Chile’s flexible tool (6)
CHISEL – anagram of (flexible) CHILE’S.
17 Myanmar, in Asia, houses leisure facility (6)
MARINA – hidden in (houses) myanMAR IN Asia.
19 Raffle that has no winner? (4)
DRAW – double definition.
20 Group‘s style of bowling needing change at start (4)
TEAM – sEAM (type of bowling, cricket) needing a different first letter (change at start).

17 comments on “Quick Cryptic 1127 by Hurley”

  1. Fortunately ‘regularly’ made the wordplay in 7ac clear, as ‘efficient’ didn’t call up NEAT in my mind. Didn’t think of M for ‘Mike’ until I was forced to. And I had a brief senior moment trying to remember DEFILE. 5:19.
  2. 10 minutes. I suspect 9ac will be the sticking point for many today as it was for me, although I did manage to dredge it up eventually. Neither definition is easy and its 3 checkers all being vowels takes it to another level of difficulty.

    Edited at 2018-07-04 04:14 am (UTC)

  3. I managed to make 9a even harder by my customary misspelling of the Hun King. I mean, I know its two of one and one of the other, and the wordplay gave it away, but I still ended up with WELLIE as the only plausible answer. Finally untangling it blinded me to two mistypings. Bleh.
  4. I managed to screw this up in 16:15, with a long time spent on DEFILE as I only knew the foul meaning and couldn’t think of any other way to define it. However it was all in vain as I managed to put the mocking bird kings ATTICA at 2d. Bah! Thanks Hurley and William.
  5. DEFILE – the sort of clue I hate. No indicators, nothing to hook onto, either you think of the word or you don’t. I did – eventually (my LOI). Never really thought of ATTILA as a King, or seen him described as one. More a war-leader. But maybe I am being picky. I thought 20d might be tricky for anyone who knows nothing about cricket and is unlikely to have ever heard of a seam bowler. NORM is a clever clue so my COD.
    Despite all that, I found it at the easier end of the scale.
    PlayUpPompey
  6. DEFILE was my LOI too; I knew the “foul” bit, but couldn’t see why it meant “pass” too. Thanks William for confirming this for me. Liked SYMMETRY, NAMESAKE and REST CURE. I’m better at French than I am at cricket, so Seam bowling was a guess — learning a lot from these cryptics! Thanks Hurley for a fun solve.
  7. A tough one for me. I’m stuck in the bottom left corner. Also 9ac. I’m resisting reading the blog until I’m sure I can’t get any further…
  8. Definitely not at my brightest and best this morning!

    Still no excuse for a time of at least 4.5 Kevins and even then getting one wrong (I had NORS at 23ac, on the basis that (a) it contained two pairs of consecutive letters and (b) I knew it was a Boolean operator and hoped that it might have an obscure definition as a benchmark … ho hum!). I loathed DEFILE for the same reasons as PlayUpPompey, took a long trawl to get there. Heavy going for me!

    Lots of neat clues, COD TEAM for me, thanks to Hurley and William

    Templar

  9. Started quickly enough, but held up at the end with Defile and Fraction – no excuse with the latter, but Defile was tricky. Just north of 30 mins today, but a good 5 of those were down to the last two, so probably about average difficulty overall. Invariant
  10. I decided to solve this online again. I had most of it done in 16 minutes but then paused at 9a and 2d.
    I got Defile eventually but had Attica when I submitted. The system gave me another chance and I immediately saw Attila.
    About 26 minutes in total,but strictly a DNF.
    This felt straightforward apart from those two clues. David
  11. 13 minutes this morning, with the galloping gout causing less of a distraction.

    For PlayUpPompey, the only indicator you needed for 9a was there – two word clues are invariably double definitions! I admit it still wasn’t easy, even knowing what I was looking for, and I had to do an alphabet trawl to get there, but fortunately D is near the start of the alphabet, and I started at the right end!

    I’m going with 21a as CoD and WoD.

    1. Two word clues are *almost* always double definitions. I’m sure there was one that was cryptic a few weeks ago.

      In any event, I had never ever come across defile meaning a pass. Even with a list of all the possible words, I couldn’t see what the answer was. 🙁

    2. OK, I should probably have been clearer in my post. I tend not to like double definitions. Like you I almost invariably end up doing an alphabet trawl, as I did here, and I tend to regard clues where I have to do that as lazy. And I have come across two word clues that were not double definitions. It doesn’t always follow. Indeed this one could be a word meaning a very poor pass.
  12. There I was thinking that this was a breeze (despite the hardest of grids – six unchecked across and the same down) and then returned the one clue I’d glossed over – 9a. Alphabet trawl, reverse alphabet trawl, start in the middle alphabet trawl – you name it, I tried it. Eventually the lightbulb that passes for my brain flickered into life with DEFILE. Both definitions were known to me so I can’t for the life of me understand the delay. No exact time as I was interrupted by the process of climbing outside a very juicy steak in a 14C inn just south of Bath. Probably topside of 10m if the truth be told.
    Thanks as always to setter and blogger.
  13. I think the heat is getting to me as this was my second 30+ minute solve in a row and today I threw in a DNF for good measure – I drew a blank at 3d and eventually chucked in speed ski out of desperation.
    A strange solve all told as most of the top half was very straightforward. Like others though 9 & 15a proved tricky as did the second part of 14d.
    Better luck tomorrow hopefully

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