Quick Cryptic 1344 by Alconiere

Author   CuraristPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
I have not come across Alconiere before, but this was excellent. Engaging and elegant without being too difficult. 8 min for me.

Across

1 Regret turning back on footwear vandal (8)
SABOTEUR – Regret is RUE, backwards on the end of SABOT, a kind of wooden shoe.
5 Send out Estonian initially, with German (4)
EMIT – E (beginning of Estonian) + MIT (‘with’ in German)
8 Legally killed in lethal altercation (5)
HALAL – hidden word: letHAL ALtercation. Great surface,
9 During school time, engaging one as a temp? (7)
INTERIM – during school time is IN TERM, with I inserted.
11 One who uses some simple men terribly (11)
IMPLEMENTER – so I saw the word ‘terribly’ and assumed it was an anagram, but it’s actually a hidden word: sIMPLE MEN TERribly, flagged up by the universal giveaway ‘some’.
13 Tory’s inside twice grabbing at the Speaker (6)
ORATOR – Tory’s inside is OR, twice is OROR, insert AT.
14 Motors repaired in Norwegian port (6)
TROMSO – Anagram (‘repaired’) of MOTORS
17 In time, right filling of teeth can be damaging (11)
DETRIMENTAL – ok, a bit of a Russian doll here. R for right is inside TIME, all of which is ‘filling’ DENTAL (of teeth). Another great surface
20 Red tuna, somehow, is not fancied? (7)
UNRATED – Anagram (‘somehow’) of RED TUNA
21 Long and yellow, with no tail (5)
CRAVE – CRAVEN is yellow, minus the last letter
22 Cry “willing”! (4)
KEEN – double definition
23 Intros from Spanish article adopted by the priggish? (8)
PRELUDES – Spanish article is EL, the priggish are PRUDES

Down
1 London area of note with nothing (4)
SOHO – SOH is a note (doh re mi etc) + O
2 Dance in a Co Mayo town (7)
BALLINA -BALL + IN + A. I was not familiar with the place but the clue is very straightforward.
3 Sacked hotel’s inept switchboard worker (11)
TELEPHONIST – Anagram (‘sacked’) of HOTEL’S INEPT. Yet another great surface
4 As one college boy (6)
UNITED – UNI is college, TED is boy. Anyone else put UNISON? That also works until you get stuck with 11ac
6 Goodness! Monsieur has raised flag! (5)
MERIT – M for monseiur, flag is TIRE, backwards. Curarist’s Other Law (COL) is always look out for part of speech shenanigans. Here the word ‘flag’ is clearly set up to make you think it’s noun, but it’s actually a verb. This is a very common device, and COL can be miraculously helpful when you’re stuck
7 Old queen involved in cat fight the next day (8)
TOMORROW – O (old) R (queen) inside TOM ROW
10 Novel title Horace thought up? (11)
THEORETICAL – Anagram (‘novel’) of TITLE HORACE
12 Curious (but appropriate!) duck logo as encouraging message (4,4)
GOOD LUCK – Anagram (‘curious’) of DUCK LOGO. I genuinely don’t know what ‘but appropriate!’ is doing there. Maybe someone can enlighten.
15 Mother with large, fat duck (7)
MALLARD – MA + L + LARD
16 Worker who joins wife on top of tree (6)
WELDER – W for wife, ELDER is a tree.
18 Royal Engineers appearing in the crowd? (5)
THREE – RE (engineers) inside THE
19 A serviceman’s — or a dog’s — dinner (4)
MESS – double definition.

27 comments on “Quick Cryptic 1344 by Alconiere”

  1. Slowest for a while at 24m. SE caused me the most problems where PRELUDES, WELDER and MESS all held me up – though all seem fine now (in fact “worker who joins” is a great definition). Before that all had been going well, not quite sure now where the time went. COD to 13a for surface and method – great stuff, not usual for me to smile that much at this of day. Bravo Alconiere – come again soon!
  2. A bit of a MER at 1ac, since SABOTEUR derives from SABOT; in the early days of the Industrial Revolution, a worker might toss his sabot into the machinery in protest, or so they say. I started to raise the eyebrow again at ORATOR, thinking, ‘But the Speaker isn’t an orator; he hardly speaks’. But of course the S is deliberate; as Jack has noted, it’s OK to capitalize a word that doesn’t normally need it, while it’s not allowed to use lower case when normal usage requires a capital. NHO BALLINA, no idea about ‘but appropriate!’. UNISON wouldn’t work, since it doesn’t mean ‘as one’. HALAL very nice indeed. 7:02.
  3. Aided by the fact that No 1 son and his family live there, I can advise that the duck logo (not as nice as the Nursery School duck badge) belongs to a certain football team. Our setter provides a Nina in which he wishes them well for their first Irish Cup Final appearance tomorrow. I’d better keep my son’s father-in-law happy by adding my good wishes to the team too
    1. I spotted the Nina in the 15 x 15 today but not the one here. I did wonder while solving why the setter picked an obscure (to me) Irish town. All now explained. Thanks.
  4. I managed to finish this in 11:59;FOI EMIT and LOI THREE.
    I enjoyed this puzzle,some excellent original clues.
    I may be the only solver sufficiently interested in football to know that the Irish Cup Final takes place tomorrow involving a tiny club, Ballinamallard United, who have defied all odds to get to the final. Good luck to them. The match is not being played in Tromso. David
    PS I was typing this when Crypticsue was posting.

    Edited at 2019-05-03 07:10 am (UTC)

  5. 11 minutes, so another missed target for me today. I went down far too many blind alleys and took far too long to get any sort of rhythm or flow into my solving. DK the Irish town and took ages to bring TROMSO to mind although I knew its name from several detective stories read in the past.

    For those who like to know these things, Alconiere has now set 10 QCs for us, 2 in 2014, 1 in 2015, 2 each in 2016/17, 1 in 2018 and 2 this year to date.

    Edited at 2019-05-03 06:26 am (UTC)

        1. Oops. I missed “each”. I said I wasn’t much good with words!

          Sorry Jack and thankyou flashman.

  6. 27 minutes for an excellent and devious puzzle. Long anagrams are always difficult on the phone, although ‘Telephonist’ went in on the first pass. I got 11A by thinking it was another (easy) one before realising it was a lurker. LOIs were PRELUDES and MESS. MERIT was un-parsed, so thanks to the blogger for pointing out the tricky but fair wordplay.
    To my shame I missed the Nina – I grew up in the area and attended several Irish Cup Finals in the 50s and 60s, usually played in 12 inches of mud at Windsor Park. 12D to 2D+15D 4D 7D – growing up Crusaders were always one of my pet hates☺

    Brian

    Edited at 2019-05-03 07:53 am (UTC)

  7. Slow going for me today as I got bogged down in the SE corner with 10d, 16d and 23a proving particularly chewy. But a very enjoyable end to the QC week, with plenty of contenders for CoD, including; 16d, 13a and 8a. Finished in 19.38.
    Thanks for the blog

    Edited at 2019-05-03 08:08 am (UTC)

  8. I haven’t managed to get to the crossword this week until today so I am especially glad that I was able to finish it. That being said, it took me a full half an hour of solid brain pummelling to get to the end with 18 down my LOI. No laugh out loud moments today but still an enjoyable exercise. I, too, thought that “terribly ” in 11 across was an anagram instruction and so it took me a while to get that one. I also thought, at first, that “inept” in 3 down was an anagrind so that provoked some head scratching. I thought that 16 down was particularly clever. Thanks so much, setter and blogger.
  9. So we get GOOD LUCK TOMORROW BALLINAMALLARD UNITED. Brilliant! Thanks to those who spotted it.

    Lovely puzzle, done and dusted in 2 Kevins for a Good Day. I particularly liked THREE as the answer for “crowd” so that’s my COD but lots of super clues. Thanks Alconiere, and Curarist for a model blog.

    Templar

  10. 13m here, so nicely inside my target time for what felt like a slightly difficult QC. I blogged a QC last year which was very heavily nina’d on an Irish football theme, but I can’t remember if it was this setter. I enjoyed this puzzle though, but then again, I usually do – it’s why I do them! Thanks Setter and Blogger.
  11. I am happy with my sub 12 minutes solve as I had to biff 1a SABOTEUR and guessed at 14a TROMSO (although the checkers meant it couldn’t really be anything else) and LOI 2d BALLINA which I recall being close to Byron Bay in Australia and not Co Mayo. I hesitated over 6d MERIT as initially I couldn’t parse it with time wasted obsessing over the wrong meaning of flag. I really enjoyed the simplicity of 18d THREE. Thank you Alconiere and curarist.
  12. ….but echo Alconiere’s sentiments. We all love an underdog !

    What a superb puzzle ! So much to enjoy along the way.

    FOI SABOTEUR
    LOI WELDER (almost COD)
    COD MERIT
    TIME 3:38 (and back to my normal spot in Verlaine’s wake)

      1. I sincerely hope (for your sake !) that at my age your wake is something I don’t need to consider.
  13. 22 mins. Very enjoyable, but didn’t spot the theme.
    I bet alconiere was trying to fit crusaders in.

    Last ones in mess and preludes.
    Also didn’t parse merit. Dnk sabot.

    Some nice clues: three, emit, orator tomorrow and cod the fab welder.

    Thanks

  14. An enjoyable 30 mins, with excursions into most of Alconier’s traps along the way. DNK keen could mean cry, and had to trust the cryptic for the Irish town, but got there in the end. Lots of good clues with 13ac Orator and 16d Welder my favourites. Invariant
    1. I’m not sure if this meaning of ‘keen’ derives from Scotland but John Buchan uses it a lot in his Dickson McCunn novels featuring the Diehards. Sadly I DNF as I was equally sure of Implementer and Unison…..
  15. I really enjoyed this, but even more so now the Nina has been pointed out – thanks to all concerned.
  16. A siesta provided an opportunity to turn to today’s QC, which I found quite high on the Mohs scale. 25.47 of which I spent a good 8 minutes on BALLINA (NHO but as pointed out above, should have been obvious) and LOI ORATOR (neat).
  17. Nice puzzle with some interesting twists. I was well inside 20mins (one of my quicker efforts this week) but can’t post a precise time because my iPad kept freezing and it took time to unfreeze each time. Don’t know whether this is a bug in the app or a little local difficulty. LI were CRAVE and MESS. I liked SABOTEUR, TOMORROW, UNITED, WELDER, THREE, and my COD ORATOR (which I biffed). Many thanks to setter and blogger. John M.

    Edited at 2019-05-03 04:08 pm (UTC)

  19. No trouble with Ballina as my Great Uncle Paddy used to be a Garda there, and his family including my Grandad, came from Swinford Co Mayo. I didn’t spot the Nina though. The rest of the puzzle kept me busy though. 10:58. Thanks Alconiere and Curarist.
  20. An excellent QC even if it did push me a few seconds over my 20 minute target. How clever of Alconiere to create and so many of you to spot the nina. Most impressive! Thanks for the blog, Curarist. MM

    FOI EMIT
    L3I PRELUDES WELDER + MESS
    COD THREE

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