Quick Cryptic 1257 by Wurm

Author   william_j_sPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
Previous puzzles by Wurm have averaged on the trickier side in my book, but this one posed no problems. There are plenty of anagrams and hiddens to help us on our way. COD to 2dn with no doubt: succinct, reads naturally, and requires a bit of thought even after you’ve figured out what the answer must be! Thanks Wurm.

Definitions underlined.

Across
1 Frenchman greatest boxer in country (4)
MALI – M (Monsieur, Frenchman) and ALI (Mohammed, greatest boxer).
4 Area, quiet river location, is suitable (8)
APPOSITE – A (area), P (quiet, music), PO (river), and SITE (location).
8 Snake bit, causing famous row (4,4)
BOAT RACE – BOA (snake) and TRACE (bit).
9 Revolutionary element to fight it out (4)
TITO – hidden in (element of) fighT IT Out. See here if you (only) see red.
10 Bond brings eastern men into court (6)
CEMENT – E (eastern) and MEN inside CT (court).
11 Dawn, in Ghana, holds sun shade (6)
AWNING – hidden in (holds) dAWN IN Ghana.
12 Valuable box sure to be in the crates at sea (8,5)
TREASURE CHEST – SURE inside (to be in) an anagram of (at sea) THE CRATES.
16 A paper sent out to be published (6)
APPEAR – anagram of (sent out) A PAPER.
17 Say no to rubbish (6)
REFUSE – double defintition.
19 Judge at posh party for sport (4)
JUDO – J (judge), U (upper class, posh) and DO (party).
20 Man’s man? (8)
ISLANDER – cryptic definition, i.e. a man from the Isle of Man.
21 One having brawn rather than brains? (8)
MEATHEAD – cryptic definition.
22 European lair is delightful place (4)
EDEN – E (european) and DEN (lair).

Down
2 Fuss about love (5)
ADORE – ADO (fuss) and RE (about).
3 Owl and pussycat were suffering equally (2,3,4,4)
IN THE SAME BOAT – cryptic/double definition. With reference to the famous Lear poem.
4 Initially alerted by Titanic, stop at sea (5)
AVAST – first letter of (initially) Alerted, then VAST (titanic).
5 Lords and ladies look to get on (7)
PEERAGE – PEER (look) and AGE (to get on).
6 Survey two gardens, but choose neither? (3,2,3,5)
SIT ON THE FENCE – cryptic definition.
7 Eat nuts, unfortunately getting lockjaw (7)
TETANUS – anagram of (unfortunately) EAT NUTS.
10 Hypochondriac finally up to bed (3)
COT – last letter of (finally) hypocondriaC, and a reversal of (up) TO.
13 Put bananas in unusual transport (7)
RAPTURE – anagram of (bananas) PUT, inside RARE (unusual).
14 British bad weather beginning to ease in country? (7)
UKRAINE – UK (british), RAIN (bad weather), and the first letter of (beginning to) Ease.
15 Member on foot in ghetto escapes (3)
TOE – hidden in ghetTO Escapes.
17 Idler can become agitated (5)
RILED – anagram of (can become) IDLER.
18 See GI shot in wartime event (5)
SIEGE – anagram of (shot) SEE GI.

28 comments on “Quick Cryptic 1257 by Wurm”

  2. Still sluggish, and I’m not sure why, aside from my usual slowness to spot hiddens. William, you’ve got an unwanted space between A and DO at 2d. 7:34.
  3. Smooth sailing until the end when there was a slight hiatus whilst I came up with the intersecting answers RILED, ISLANDER and MEATHEAD. 11 minutes.
  4. Around 40 mins, held up by initially putting seige which made islander harder to get.
    Loi mali, I hesitated thinking Bali.

    Dnk rapture for the heavenly transport.

    Cod ukraine.

  5. Just couldn’t connect. Slow start to year continues. Felt this was on the tricky side or maybe 21 is 4 for me. Liked 21 and 8. Missed both hidden words. 32.43.
  6. I wrote in my answers to the first few clues I read – 1a 2d and 3d – and thought I was on for a quick solve. Unusual for a Wurm puzzle.
    However I had severe delays in the NE and also struggled to get MEATHEAD and ISLANDER.
    My last three were the very clever BOAT RACE, PEERAGE and finally TITO where I completely missed the hidden.
    On reflection there is nothing unfair about this excellent puzzle but I do think it will cause a few problems.33:06 for me and now I have to dash. David
  7. I’m another who put in Seige instead of Siege and so was very held up with Islander at the end. Otherwise it was a steady solve but by no means straightforward. 26 mins
  8. I enjoyed this, which has not always been the case for me with Wurm casts. I felt this had the right mixture of the straightforward and the tricky, and clocked in at 2 and a whisker Kevins (a Decent Day). Some clever clues (hat tip to MEATHEAD in particular) but COD from me to the magnificently taut “Man’s man?”, my LOI.

    Thanks to Wurm and William. For those puzzling over why their times are not as fast as usual, remember the date and be easy on yourself!

    Templar

    Edited at 2019-01-02 10:10 am (UTC)

  9. Perhaps it’s because I didn’t sleep well last night but this one defeated me.
    Diana
    1. Me too. Lots of tricky stuff. DNK bananas as an anagrind. Also DNK meathead. Struggled with 8ac and quite a few others.
  10. Another sub 10 mins solve at 9:36. My LOI was 8a BOAT RACE and I guessed both 4d AVAST and 9a TITO spotting the hidden only after submitting. Like flashman and ant I too had Seige for SIEGE forgetting the I before E except after C rule. I then initially wrote in ISLANDic for 20a which just didn’t make any sense. I enjoyed both the simple cryptic long downs 3 and 6. Thank you William for the blog.

    Edited at 2019-01-02 11:49 am (UTC)

  11. I also slept badly last night and it showed in my time of 14:42, with COT being my FOI and a struggle to make progress. I got there eventually, but missed the the hidden for TITO and spent ages poring over my LOI, ISLANDER. Thanks Wurm and William.
  12. Seeing the odd earlier comment lamenting a very decent time I am, once again, quite happy to be in the SCC. I thought this was a brilliant puzzle, very testing for a QC but full of thought-provoking clues that gave satisfaction when the pennies dropped. Many of the answers seemed pretty obvious when they finally emerged (like the ‘hiddens’, especially AWNING) but that is a mark of a good puzzle in my book. I managed 27.15 and am content with that considering the challenge. Thank you Wurm and William. I will only list one favourite clue – too many really – but ISLANDER is a treasure. John M.

    Edited at 2019-01-02 12:45 pm (UTC)

  13. ….shame about the BOAT RACE, as a very non-PC Ian Dury put it. Perhaps as well he was incognito as “The Monks”.

    No problems with this nicely constructed puzzle, though I had to look twice at MEATHEAD.

    FOI MALI
    LOI TITO
    COD ISLANDER
    TIME 3:41

    1. Jogged my memory – but I think you’ll find it was actually The Monks (needed Google to check!).
      2. I am indeed wrong. The Monks were an offshoot of the Strawbs (or more correctly Hudson Ford) and Ian Dury wasn’t there. I’m probably thinking about the execrable version of “Hokey Cokey” by the Snowmen, which WAS him. I shall go away and hit myself with my rhythm stick….
  14. No real hold-ups, although I was little slow spotting UKRAINE. BOAT RACE my COD. 5:43
  15. To me this was quite a hard puzzle. I am often surprised by the words and phrases that are unfamiliar to others and today there were two that were new to me. Meathead was easy enough to guess, though not in my Oxford Compact Dictionary, but avast was off my radar even with a-a-t to help me. DM
  16. Element – Titanium – symbol ti + ‘to’ gives Tito, communist leader and sort of revolutionary, therefore. That was my parsing …
  17. I don’t know what was wrong today, but I found this a real struggle in places and pulled stumps as the hour approached. If the first two days are anything to go by, this could turn out to be a long year. . . Invariant
  18. Nice misdirection in the use of ‘element’ in the wordplay, as Ti is the symbol for titanium, and it is followed in the text by ‘to’.
  19. Fairly quick for most of the clues, but held up inparticular by 13d. Slow to see bananas as an anagrind, and did not associate rapture with transport. Thanks to setter and bloggers. E & I.
  20. When I saw that Wurm was the setter I thought I was in for a long evening but I polished this off 2 seconds under my target time of 15 minutes. There was some tricky stuff mixed in with a few write ins to give some checkers. The river Po took me a while to remember and I was scratching my head over 4d and 8a (my last two in). Lots of excellent clues today, including the 2 long down clues and 21a but they were pipped to CoD by the beautifully succinct ISLANDER.
    Thanks for the blog
  21. A DNF as convinced 8a was some anagram and maybe knit base….eventually had to abandon that for 2d adore. Lots of pencil today but they proved correct. FOI 17a indicates a poor start. LOI 1a. COD 14d or 20a. Always surprise how an appearance of different setter upsets my flow. Dredged 4d from childhood Treasure Island or similar! Good job we have the blog… thx for a testing puzzle and a very helpful explanation.
  22. Glad you found it easy – took me all day and I didn’t manage boat race or adore
    I’d say about 4 hours!
    Nick

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