Quick Cryptic 1444 by Hurley

Author   CuraristPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
A gentle workout today, though I overthought 4 down because of a common 15×15 trigger word. 6 minutes for me.

Across

1 Finally wheel in lots of compost (5)
MULCH – L (last letter of wheel) inside MUCH
4 Improve cutting edge of small instrument in from France (7)
SHARPEN – S (small) + HARP + EN (French for in)
8 Fans in a train embracing singer (7)
SINATRA – hidden word: fanS IN A TRAin
9 John’s English, imprecise (5)
LOOSE – LOO (John) + S + E
10 Go-between, tidy earner, I’m excited (12)
INTERMEDIARY – anagram (‘excited’) of TIDY EARNER IM
12 You heard about top Greek mathematician (6)
EUCLID – EU (you, ‘heard’) + C + LID
13 Boy following college agreement (6)
UNISON – UNI (college) + SON (boy)
16 Rishi trained reservist’s dog (5,7)
IRISH TERRIER – anagram (‘trained’) of RISHI, then TERRIER (reservist). Terrier is an informal name for a member of the British Territorial Army.
18 Trade union recalled offence, capital (5)
TUNIS – TU (trade union) + SIN backwards
20 Island very behind time cut off (7)
ISOLATE – I + SO + LATE
21 Look to mature nobles (7)
PEERAGE – PEER + AGE. Nobles collectively are the peerage.
22 Very small golfers’ support provided by New York (5)
TEENY – TEE + NY

Down
1 Devious smile is weapon (7)
MISSILE – anagram (‘devious’) of SMILE IS
2 Eccentric minority’s bizarre fencing ritual (7,6)
LUNATIC FRINGE – anagram (‘bizarre’) of FENCING RITUAL
3 Greeting hill girl with no guarantee of result (3,2,4)
HIT OR MISS – HI + TOR + MISS
4 Flower section found in forest amenity (6)
STAMEN – hidden word: foreST AMENity, In the 15 x 15, ‘flower’ nearly always means river (something that flows)
5 By the sound of it, everyone’s hand tool (3)
AWL – sounds like ALL
6 Spectator upset with rain delay (13)
PROCRASTINATE – anagram (‘upset’) of SPECTATOR RAIN
7 Ultimately drawn to the traditional Christmas (4)
NOEL – Last letters of drawN tO thE traditionaL. Arrgh, Christmas clues already! It’s not even October!
11 Private hotel on lively Rome street (9)
INNERMOST – INN + (anagram (‘lively’) of ROME) + ST
14 Run over on regular basis, see army’s place for young (7)
NURSERY – NUR (run backwards) + alternate letters of SeE aRmY.
15 Spat, extremely prevalent conflict (6)
STRIFE – ST (extremes of ‘spat’) + RIFE
17 Short distance seeing favourites upset (4)
STEP – PETS backwards
19 When speaking, catch sight of the drink (3)
SEA – sounds like ‘see’

13 comments on “Quick Cryptic 1444 by Hurley”

  1. Since there’s no Territorial Army so called, are the soldiers still called Terriers? Would ‘upset’ in 17d have worked to reverse PETS in an across clue? He asked. Anyway, pretty straightforward, although I quasi-biffed the two long downs, feeling fairly sure I had the anagrist. 5:12.
  2. Steady but slow for me, though I managed to remember not to spend the first 5 minutes staring forlornly at 1ac today. Basically went top to bottom, FOI MISSILE, LOI STRIFE. Slowest in SE corner. All done and parsed in 2.75 Kevins for an OK Day.

    My COD was the fairly simple NOEL, because it was such a lovely surface!

    Thanks Hurley and curarist.

    Templar

  3. A fairly average solve for me. I didn’t know TERRIER for reservist and confused myself by remembering only IRISH SETTER as the dog breed, but eventually got it and my LOI, STRIFE, just as the trouble-and was leaving for work. I liked the hidden SINATRA and the surface for PROCRASTINATE. 5:48
  4. An accessible offering after a slow start (and with a few head scratchers). I liked ISOLATE, EUCLID, INNERMOST. I jumped around a bit and ended up just outside 3 Kevins, continuing along my current rut. Thanks to Hurley for a good end to the week and to curarist. John M.

    Edited at 2019-09-20 08:35 am (UTC)

  5. Mostly fairly straightforward, though I didn’t get the first three across until I had some checkers, until I was left with the an almost entirely blank SE corner. I had teeny and had biffed terrier but wasn’t sure if there was such a thing as an Irish terrier and couldn’t parse it. Then I worked out what was going on with innermost and started to make progress again. LOI was 14d for 35:37.
  6. 9 minutes. I have no problem with TERRIER as ‘reservist’. Even if the term is currently redundant (and I’ve no idea whether this is so) it’s still valid in its historical sense and no doubt thousands of former TA members are still alive and refer to themselves as such.
  7. I thought Hurley’s clues were fairly straightforward, but that didn’t stop me spending ages on the anagrams at 2 and 6d. I really must learn to resist tackling them too soon – the lure of filling in all those blanks is very tempting but I lose too much time. Hence 27mins today, with 20ac Isolate my favourite. Invariant
  8. MULCH was my FOI, and I made rapid progress through the grid. Took longer to see IRISH than TERRIER! INNERMOST was my LOI. Nice puzzle. 7:02. Thanks Hurley and Curarist.
  9. 21 minutes today. First solve on a phone – missed having pen and paper for anagrams and a better look at downs. First pass yielded less than I would have liked but steady from then. Dnk terrier but all the rest was fairly and very nicely clued. DT prize puzzle tomorrow (and so big dave’s blog) see you Monday! mendesest.
  10. ….ISOLATE to do the puzzle today ! Luckily, it fell into place quite readily.

    FOI SHARPEN
    LOI/COD PROCRASTINATE
    TIME 4:13

  11. FOI was MISSILE and then progress was steady. Hold-ups at the end were ISOLATE and LOI INNERMOST where I was looking to insert VIA. And it took me far too long to spot the dog.
    13:28. David
  12. Reasonably quick today although the SE was chewy in places, where it took me far too long to come up with a 3 letter word for college. Finished in 9.52 with COD to ISOLATE.
    Thanks for the blog
  13. I’ve caught up after a backlog of QC’s while my office has been stripped for a new version. Found this quite straightforward at about 30 minutes fully parsed on paper. A very good time for me and could have been quicker if I hadn’t been relaxed about time and enjoying a quiet sit down… pretty well top to bottom with FOI 1a, LOI 14d. COD 3D for the split words in the addition. Got to find something else to do now…

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