Quick Cryptic 1157 by Hawthorn

Author   william_j_sPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic


Highly enjoyable. I was quick off the mark but soon came across those clues that were not so generous in the wordplay, and one unknown word at 11dn. Also found that 1ac, 18ac and 3dn (my LOI) were not write-ins, and I was glad of the anagrams to give me some checkers. Lots of neat and funny clues.

Definitions underlined.

Across

1 Nursery rhyme from storytelling show cut by a third: presenter unwell (4,3,4)
JACK AND JILL – JACKANory (storrytelling show) missing the final three letters (cut by a third), then DJ (presenter, and ILL (unwell).
8 Leave the country, missing golf in Dubai? (7)
EMIRATE – EMIgRATE (leaving the country) missing the ‘g’ (golf, in phonetic alphabet).
9 Devil’s lair imprisoning little Maureen (5)
DEMON – DEN (lair) surrounding (imprisoning) MO (short or diminutive version of (little) Maureen).
10 We initial forms to prepare for attack (3,2,4)
LIE IN WAIT – anagram of (forms) WE INITIAL.
12 Free travel by horse without tail (3)
RID – RIDe (travel by horse) missing final letter (without tail).
13 Battles a western city (6)
WARSAW – WARS (battles), plus A and W (western).
15 Russian scientist who regularly produced a dog’s dinner? (6)
PAVLOV – cryptic definition. Pavlov repeatedly presented dogs with food whilst ringing a bell to condition their salivary response.
17 Curvature observed in turning aircraft (3)
ARC – hidden in (observed in) the reversal of (turning) airCRAft.
18 Bar supporters from the football ground? (9)
GOALPOSTS – double/cryptic defintion. One can set the minimum criteria (bar or goalposts), and the latter support the crossbar in the football ground.
20 Call for Tom to cut grass around one area (5)
MIAOW – MOW (to cut grass) surrounding I (one) and A (area).
22 Style of fancy red coat (3,4)
ART DECO – anagram of (fancy) RED COAT.
23 Suggestive short skirts with modern clothing (11)
REMINISCENT – MINIS (short skirts) with RECENT (modern) surrounding (clothing) it.

Down
1 Drink half of just frozen water (5)
JUICE – first two letters (half) of JUst then ICE (frozen water).
2 Changing a reformed group of prisoners (5,4)
CHAIN GANG – anagram of (reformed) CHANGING A.
3 Chopper with a cross on rotating handle (6)
AXEMAN – A and X (cross) next to reversal of (rotating) NAME (handle).
4 Useless Edmund ignoring odd characters (3)
DUD – even letters from (ignoring odd characters) eDmUnD.
5 One, then two marks added to spoken exam — that’s unethical! (7)
IMMORAL – I (one), M and M (two marks) and ORAL (spoken exam).
6 Method of calculating the Great Wall of China, say? (4,8)
LONG DIVISION – double/cryptic definition.
7 Chicken with batter — or a different bird (12)
YELLOWHAMMER – YELLOW (chicken) and HAMMER (batter).
11 Re-attempt shifting diminutive bouncer (9)
TRAMPETTE – anagram of (shifting) RE-ATTEMPT.
14 Worked miracle to recover (7)
RECLAIM – anagram of (worked) MIRACLE.
16 Badger has to eat tops of radishes and swedes (6)
HARASS – HAS surrounds (to eat) first letters (tops) of Radishes And Swedes.
19 Time church benches must be lifted and brushed (5)
SWEPT – T (time) and PEWS (church benches) all reversed (lifted).
21 Success with batting (3)
WIN – W (with) and IN (batting, cricket).

25 comments on “Quick Cryptic 1157 by Hawthorn”

  1. Got it, but never heard of it. Glad to confirm that it is not a sexist term (Ha ha).
  2. Never heard of TRAMPETTE, but wasn’t too worried about it. Never heard of ‘Jackanory’, either; but I biffed from enumeration and ILL, and it worked out. 5:31.
  3. Top half flew in but the lower half took easily twice as long. Also had HIT at 21d for a while which didn’t help. GOALPOSTS and WIN my LOIs but it took a long time to get to REMINISCENT and YELLOWHAMMER too. Ended up over 20mins having looked set to smash all records at first. Enjoyed it. Thanks for the blog, especially for explaining goalposts – I hadn’t pressed submit with total confidence.
  4. 16 minutes with a lot of time spent on the unknown TRAMPETTE for which I needed all the checkers before the answer became inevitible despite seeming unlikely.

    ‘Jackanory’ is surely unknown beyond the shores of the UK and old Commonwealth countries, and apart from a couple of short-lived attempts at reviving it around 2006/7 the last series was made in 1996.

    I liked the PAVLOV and GOALPOSTS clues.

    Another delay was from originally having HIT at 21dn which works perfectly well as far as I can see until ruled out by checkers.

  5. Fairly straight forward, loi 3D
    Know trampette but only seen it without the final TE (maybe that’s a brand name I have seen)
    They are used for kids a bit too young to get over an obstacle using a springboard
    I think Jackanory predates the tv series as rhyming slang for a story, but I don’t know the derivation

    Edited at 2018-08-15 07:07 am (UTC)

    1. I found this: BBC’s story telling programme, Jackanory, was was inspired by an old nursery rhyme. ” I’ll tell you a story, about Jack-a-nory; & now my story’s begun”.

      But despite that the clue has to be referring to the programme as it says “storytelling show”.

      1. In ‘Our Mutual Friend’, Eugene Wrayburn quotes it:
        I’ll tell you a story
        Of Jack a Manory [sic],
        And now my story’s begun;
        I’ll tell you another
        Of Jack and his brother,
        And now my story is done.

        Edited at 2018-08-15 07:45 am (UTC)

  6. We had a trampette in my secondary school for PE lessons. It was placed in front of the horse and you ran up and jumped on it to get the upward spring to mount the horse. It was therefore wedge- chapped rather than being a mini trampoline.
    Some entertaining surfaces today I felt and I got there in 16 minutes which is a good time for me.
  7. I thought of trampette before I saw the anagram. Rather surprised to find that the word hasn’t found its way into my OED (3rd Edition 2010) I would have thought they have been around long enough??
  8. 15 minutes for me, including boarding time for the train, so probably about normal. 1a and 1d went straight in and helped get the top half started. I liked LONG DIVISION, but WoD to IMMORAL – it’ll be fun trying to fit that into my conversations. Count me as another new to TRAMPETTEs.
  9. I knew what a TRAMPETTE was from those miserable gym lessons at school in the 60s, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen it written down.
    I took 18a to be a straight cryptic: the (cross)bar is supported by goalposts in football.
    I thought this was an excellent puzzle with a lot of clever clues. 1a went straight in, but it took sometime for me to work out why. I especially liked 7d.
  10. TRAMPETTE unknown here too, but easily gettable. JACK AND JILL from enumeration and crossers. AXEMAN delayed me briefly, otherwise a flyer. 5:49. Thanks Hawthorn and William.
  11. At one point I thought this was going to be a new PB, but 3d and the unknown 11d pushed me out to 16mins, which is still very fast for me. I will however cherish matching Jackkt’s time. . . especially now this spell checker is under control. For some reason the four perimeter clues were all write-ins today, and that made a huge difference – I doubt that will happen again anytime soon. CoD for me was 23ac, just ahead of 16d. My thanks to William and Hawthorn, and also to Kevin. Invariant
  12. But so close! I had AXE-A- and could not see it was axeman …. About 45 mins. Frankyanne
    1. AXEMAN held me up: I think because chopper in the clue looks like it produces AXE and the rest of the clue has nowhere to go.
  13. Very enjoyable puzzle with several clues I really enjoyed. I set off at a cracking pace, blitzed the top half then came to a shuddering halt in the SW corner with 7dn and 23ac. I’d never heard of TRAMPETTE either. COD to GOALPOSTS, closely followed by 1 ac, 15ac. LOI YELLOWHAMMER.
    PlayUpPompey
  14. Very enjoyable sub 10 min solve which was approaching PB territory but for my ham fisted typing. Always a help when the FOI is a long 1a JACK AND JILL. LOI was 12a RID but for no particular reason. TRAMPETTE was a new one but I felt confident with the biff. The timer on online QC is still ticking so no congratulations message on completion.
  15. Had no issues with TRAMPETTE but it took me ages to see either YELLOWHAMMER or my LOI, GOALPOSTS (I was trying to break the clue into segments rather than seeing it as a whole). So 3.4 Kevins today, must try harder.

    A very enjoyable and well-constructed puzzle, I thought: thanks Hawthorn, and to William for the blog. (Nice OMF reference, Kevin!)

    Templar

  16. I struggled a bit with this one, but still finished just inside my 30 minute target, a sign of a really good crossword.
    ‘Trampette’ in in my Chambers app along with ‘Axeman’, my LOI was ‘Harass’ which was probably too obvious!

    Brian

  17. TRAMPETTE my addition to my vocabulary today. It didn’t really hold me up, though, as it’s what fits the checkers and sounds like a mini trampoline…. which indeed it is. 5:15. Nice crossword and blog. Thanks Hawthorn and William.

    Edited at 2018-08-15 11:56 am (UTC)

  18. I’m able to give my time as 10:57 as the bug which kept the time running on completion seems to have been fixed. Really enjoyable fare today with goalposts and long division my stand out favourites. LOIs were trampette and then Pavlov.
  19. Most enjoyable – thanks. Biffed trampette without it being familiar. I liked reminiscent. LOI axeman. Under 3 Kevins which is getting to be my norm (plus or minus a bit). John M
  20. Perhaps inspired by a trip to Barter Books in Alnwick, I was in a good frame of mind this morning. FOI was 8a followed by 1d. The J made 1a a write-in and then I barely paused, even for the unknown Trampette.
    LOI was 23a and I crossed the line in about 8 minutes, possibly a personal best. David
  21. Excellent puzzle which I made steady progress through until spending 5 minutes trying to think of synonyms for ‘handle’ – eventually resorted to an alphabet trawl and staggered over the line in 20.10. COD to 23a

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