Quick Cryptic 143 by Hurley

Author   nick_the_novicePosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
Somewhat less taxing than the last couple of Quickies, but a few clues that held me up for a fair while. In particular the anagrams at 8 down and 18 across refused to yield for quite a time (even with most of the checkers), and 5 down was my LOI as I was thrown by the clue and was looking for a playwright in a vehicle…

Very nice puzzle covering many different clue types and little or no specialist GK required – ideal for the Quickie, I reckon – so thanks to Hurley.

Across
1 DANISH – Language is the definition. Answer also from the wordplay NI (“at home” – IN – “recalled” – backwards) “during” DASH (“run”)
4 BREACH – gap is the definition. Answer also from R (“river”) “in” BEACH (“sandy area”)
9 SURNAME – Smith perhaps? is the definition (or, more accurately, exemplar). Answer from wordplay SURE (“certain”) containing (“to accommodate”) MAN backwards (“backward guy”)
10 CUTER – More attractive is the definition. Answer also from CUT (“economy measure”) “put before” ER (“queen”)
11 SEAM – Join is the definition. Answer also from SUE (“missing university” – without the U) with AM (“in the morning”)
12 PRESERVE – Keep in good condition is the definition. Answer also derived from the composition of P (“page”) RE (“about”) SERVE (“tennis shot”)
14 RENAISSANCE – period of revival is the definition. The answer is an anagram (signalled by “potentially”) of “SCAN SEE RAIN”
18 ANTIHERO – Central character is the definition. The answer is an anagram (signalled by “somehow made into”) of A N OTHER I
20 FAIR – Double definition – not much more to say…
22 TRADE – Specialised job is the definition. Answer also constructed from TRAD (“jazz”) with E (abbreviation of “English”)
23 ARRAIGN – Charge in court is the definition. This is also a homophone (sounds like) clue signalled by “I’m told” with A REIGN (“a period in power”) being the homophone
24 MANGER – Trough is the definition. Answer also from the wordplay of reversing the order of the GER and the MAN of GERMAN (“switched halves”)
25 SEETHE – get angry is the definition. Answer also from SEE (“notice”) and THE (“article” – as in definite article)

Down
1 DESIST – Stop is the definition. Answer is also hidden “in” RHODES IS TIP–TOP
2 NARRATE – Tell the story is the definition. Answer also from RAN (“was candidate”) backwards (“upset”) “over” RATE (“price”)
3 SNAG – difficulty is the definition. Answer also from S (abbreviation of “Singular”) with NAG (“scold”)
5 RICKSHAW – vehicle is the definition. The answer also comes from RICK (“Pile of hay”) with SHAW (“playwright”). “carried in” also ties in with the vehicle in question, so nice elegant clueing
6 ASTIR – On the move is the definition. The wordplay is AS (“when”) with first letters (“initially”) of “time is right”
7 HORNET – wasp is the definition. Answer also from H (“last to catch” – i.e. last letter of catch) with OR and NET (“trap”)
8 TERRESTRIAL – like some television is the definition. Answer also derived from anagram (signalled by “New”) of TRAILER round (“enthralling”) REST (“those left”)
13 CASHMERE – wool is the definition. Answer is also a composite of CASH (“Ready money”) and MERE (“no more than specified”)
15 CHARIOT – carriage is the definition. Answer also from the wordplay CHA (“tea”) followed by (“after”) RIOT (“disturbance”)
16 BANTAM – flier (i.e. bird) is our definition. Answer also from BAN (“prohibition”) “on” TAME (“not quite domesticated”)
17 ORANGE – Colour is the definition. Answer also from O (abbreviation of “old”) and RANGE (“mountains”)
19 TWAIN – Double definition kind of clue, with author Mark Twain and also twain being archaic word for two (“old fashioned couple”)
21 TRUE – genuine is the definition. Answer also constructed from the beginning and end letters of TEACHER and UNCLE (“both extremely”)

14 comments on “Quick Cryptic 143 by Hurley”

  1. I wouldn’t normally think of a BANTAM as a flier, but they can, so… Samuel Clemens of course took his pen name from the call of the leadsman on a steamboat, where ‘twain’ in fact meant ‘two’ (fathoms, I suppose). I wondered why 18ac didn’t just read ‘Another I …’, and why 22ac didn’t read ‘jazz and English’; the surface readings would have been more natural. 7:10, with 8d my LOI; it took me a while to connect the word with TV.
  2. I agree this is pretty straightforward stuff so I am unable to account for having 20 minutes on the clock as I wrote in my last answer. Nice blog, Nick.

    It’s strange how words one doesn’t meet every day come up in two puzzles within a day or two of each other, and we have that here with MANGER which appeared, albeit inadvertently, in a clue in Monday’s main cryptic.

    Edited at 2014-09-24 05:03 am (UTC)

  3. 6’20” finishing in the NW with DESIST – a nice hidden. What made this particularly straightforward were the large number of charades (A+B), which is probably why, unlike Nick, I had little trouble with the GBS clue, even though my first instinct was towards an enevlope (A inside B).

    Re Kevin’s points, I think the setter has British culture / language on his side, as AN Other is common for an unidentified person and the the clue for 22a is written in the style of a job ad. I think! [Not meant to sound condescending, Kevin.:)]

    1. Had no idea about AN; and I’m happy to say that I haven’t seen a job ad in English in the last 35 or so years. Benkyoo ni narimasita, as we say in these parts; one’s always learning from these cryptics (and bloggers). I might mention that I’m reading a big fat book on English culture (“Watching the English” by Kate Fox), so no doubt I’ll be on top of things by next week.

      Edited at 2014-09-24 08:17 am (UTC)

      1. A N Other is a frequently occurring character on sports club team sheets in England, when you need to stick the team up on the noticeboard midweek whilst frantically scrabbling around to find the last couple of people available to play on Saturday.

        I’m also currently ploughing my way through Ms Fox’s tome. Speaking as an Englishman (albeit currently in exile in Australia), I’m not convinced (on reading so far) that it will offer much enlightenment. The behaviour described may be prevalent amongst certain groups (home counties types), but is not readily recognisable as representative of the community of pheasant pluckers in the rural south west where I grew up – but then it would take a particularly bold anthropologist to delve into that space (and the resultant book would almost certainly be re-classified by the publisher as Fiction!)

  4. Much the easiest Quickie for me so far as I had a sleepless half hour about 3am. But then I did use my Anagram App to find Antihero, Terrestrial and Renaissance and I am not sure whether this is fair.
      1. Not really. This isn’t a competition with hard and fast rules so it’s up to individuals to determine what suits them and makes their solving experience enjoyable.

        Edited at 2014-09-24 03:43 pm (UTC)

    2. Me too. I see no harm in using an anagram app. It still gives us the satisfaction of having parsed correctly but stops us from giving up entirely.
  5. Thanks Jack. It’s also strange how new words you come across in Crosswordland then crop up in real life shortly afterwards – a life imitating art type thing, I guess.

    Classic example occurred today. Execs of a customer I was meeting told us they were embarking on a major corporate reorganisation, which they referred to as going under the internal codename of PROJECT TABULA RASA. Thanks to one of the cryptics of a couple of weekends ago, I was able to nod sagely and say “ah yes, the clean slate…” They were stunned and impressed, as Latin is not widely deployed in the industrial wastelands of Western Sydney. I was not obliged to reveal the fact that, had the meeting occurred three weeks ago, I would have looked blankly and asked how they spelt that…

  6. 7 mins. After yesterday’s “slip” I was a little more careful today and it took me a while at the end to get SNAG because I wasn’t sure if the “scold” in the clue was a noun or a verb.
  7. Like Andy I had some difficulty with snag. Unlike him I took 30 minutes but that’s ok for me. Hurley is probably my favourite setter.
  8. I also used an anagram ap, but I knew renaissance was the answer but was unsure how to spell it. Is this a mitigating circumstance?
  9. 5 min today. It took me a minute or so to get SNAG, my LOI. I have a dread of those short answer clues where the checkers leave so many possibilities and this was one of those.

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