Quick Cryptic 126 by Rongo

Author   mohn2Posted on Categories Quick Cryptic
My apologies for what will be a rather sparse blog, as I have had guests since the puzzle became available on Friday. I thought this was straightforward, with a mix of nice clues (e.g. 3D and 17A) and some convoluted surfaces (e.g. 2D). No obscure words or particularly complex wordplay.

Please ask in the comments if you have any questions.

Definitions are underlined.

Across
1 Destructive insect found in silo, customarily (6)
LOCUST – hidden in siLO CUSTomarily. I used to have a dead locust that I kept in a box for several years as a child. The reason escapes me
4 Goods offloaded from planes in the morning (6)
JETSAM – JETS (planes) + AM (in the morning)
8 Evil emperor ruled and engaged socially with others (7)
MINGLED – MING (Evil emperor, i.e. Ming the Merciless from Flash Gordon) + LED (ruled)
10 Snappy Irish satirist (5)
SWIFT – double definition, the second referring to Jonathan Swift of Gulliver’s Travels fame
11 Partner to duck Elizabethan sailor (5)
DRAKE – double definition, the second referring to Sir Francis Drake of bowls/Spanish Armada fame
12 Everyone gawps endlessly, including only top performers (3-4)
ALL-STAR – ALL STARe (Everyone gawps endlessly, i.e. all stare without its last letter). I thought this was a little tricky to parse as I initially had Everyone=all and gawps=stares, which would mean that “gawps endlessly” would have to refer to the removal of 2 letters not 1
13 Generally at sea (2,3,4)
IN THE MAIN – double definition, the second using the sea=main equivalence that we saw in a puzzle last week
17 I keep everything: retaining nothing is more difficult (7)
HOARDER – HARDER (more difficult) around (retaining) O (nothing)
19 Tapered end of grass surrounding home (5)
POINT – POT (grass, i.e. marijuana) around (surrounding) IN (home)
20 Unable to see length in tie (5)
BLIND – L (length) in BIND (tie)
21 Had race fixed as a ridiculous pretence (7)
CHARADE – anagram (fixed) of HAD RACE
22 Shake one dry over there (6)
YONDER – anagram (Shake) of ONE DRY
23 Make good communist appear to lose head (6)
REDEEM – RED (communist) + sEEM (appear to lose head, i.e. seem without its first letter)
Down
1 Something written in Greek requirement for moussaka: nearly 24 hours (6)
LAMBDA – LAMB (requirement for moussaka) + DA (nearly 24 hours, i.e. most of day). Lamb seems to be a requirement for most dictionary moussakas but a bit of Googling suggests that aubergine is necessary and lamb merely optional. Lambda is the 11th letter of the Greek alphabet and familiar to mathematicians and physicists as a common symbol for wavelength
2 Trick beginning to trouble friend in French country introducing foreign matter (13)
CONTAMINATION – CON (Trick) + T (beginning to trouble, i.e. the first letter of trouble) + AMI (friend in French) + NATION (country). Not a surface that exactly rolls off the tongue
3 Conspicuous foreigner in street (7)
SALIENT – ALIEN (foreigner) in ST (street)
5 Facilitate Left’s support for arts? (5)
EASEL – EASE (Facilitate) + L (Left)
6 I’m just like another persona that rudely expresses hostility? (8,5)
SPITTING IMAGE – if we consider an IMAGE as a persona and SPITTING as meaning to rudely express hostility, then a SPITTING IMAGE is a persona that rudely expresses hostility
7 When texting, you are received by friend that’s grown-up (6)
MATURE – UR (When texting, you are, i.e. textspeak for you are) inside (received by) MATE (friend)
9 Aim direct shot in the opposite direction? (9)
DIAMETRIC – anagram (shot) of AIM DIRECT
14 Pacify a gorilla, say, eating small vegetables (7)
APPEASE – APE (gorilla, say) around (eating) PEAS (small vegetables). I’m not a fan of unnecessary articles in clues, and so the “a” in this is a little jarring to me. I don’t think the surface would be any the worse for omitting it and it’s not needed for the wordplay – it’s also the only example of an unnecessary article in the whole puzzle
15 Caught husband with excess flesh (6)
CHUBBY – C (Caught) + HUBBY (husband)
16 Run like water, run in vapour (6)
STREAM – R (run) in STEAM (vapour)
18 Avoid duke incarcerated by Venetian magistrate (5)
DODGE – D (duke) inside (incarcerated by) DOGE (Venetian magistrate). The Doge was the chief magistrate of Venice

10 comments on “Quick Cryptic 126 by Rongo”

  1. 4:50, with LAMBDA LOI; couldn’t remember what goes into moussaka (which I tend to confound with baklava). As often with these quickies, I found a number of solutions from just scanning the checkers (SPITTING IMAGE, CONTAMINATION, MATURE), without parsing the wordplay; MATURE might have taken some time, since I don’t text. Hadn’t noticed the A problem with APPEASE, but I agree with Mohn2. DODGE struck me as unnecessarily easy–how many Venetian magistrates can you think of? But I liked HOARDER.
  2. I also found this straightforward but whilst solving I thought there were a few answers that may cause newbies some problems. 9 minutes.
    1. I thought it was fine (and really pretty easy, practically all of them were write ins that I parsed afterwards) apart from 1D – lack of food knowledge stumping me again.

      Favourite clue was 8A because Sci Fi.

  4. 5 mins. I found the RHS trickier than the LHS and finished in the NE with the JETSAM/MATURE crossers. SWIFT took longer than it should have done because I was thinking of the wrong kind of “snappy”, and I had the same trouble parsing ALL-STAR as mohn2.
  5. Nice puzzle for a gentle start to the week.

    Put in SWIFT guessing he was Irish, but other than that very straightforward. No real standouts, but thought 16dn and 17ac were elegant.

    Thanks to blogger and setter.

  6. Less of the ‘easy’ comments please – this is the first one I have managed in weeks! I really liked 2d and 14d. I couldn’t parse 19a – but it’s obvious once you explained it. 6d and 9d were my last ones.
    thanks
    Hannah
  7. Indeed a gentle start. I liked a lot of these clues especially in the ‘downs’ – really all the downs from 6 onwards seemed slick and satisfying to me and, I thought, particularly good for newbies. 10 minutes with MINGLED last one in – I had never heard of Ming being a baddie – just a lover of vases.
  8. 6 min, with a steady rhythm from top to bottom. Held up a tad by some parsing I wasn’t entirely happy with; EASE = facilitate, SWIFT = snappy. In particular, struggled to justify 12 ac, but finally came to the same conclusion as mohn. Thanks for the blog – I feel I too rarely thank our excellent set of bloggers for the great work they do – well done one and all!
  9. Started this last night but I’d had too many shandies and gave up. Finished it in about 10 minutes this morning which is very quick for me so definitely an easier one. Stream was my favourite.

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