Quick Cryptic 1884 by Mara

Author   CuraristPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
Quite the anagram fest today, which usually indicates the easier end of the spectrum, though I took 8 minutes which is mid-range for me. CoD probably 16ac.

Across
1 Thought of French being set free (12)
DELIBERATION – DE + LIBERATION
8 Reddish-brown colour one’s seen in mushy peas (5)
SEPIA – I inside anagram (‘mushy’) of PEAS. Curarist’s third law is that a nice familiar two-word phrase (e.g. ‘mushy peas’) should always be split up to solve the clue
9 Imagine extraordinary red feline returning (5,2)
DREAM UP – anagram (‘extraordinary’) of RED plus PUMA backwards
10 Money trimmed, small figure (3)
ONE – mONEy
11 Gives up prostitute, getting shot in the arm (4-5)
KICK-START – KICKS TART
13 Short day in warmer African country (5)
SUDAN – DA inside SUN
14 Fruit gobbled up by little mongrel (5)
LEMON – hidden word: littLE MONgrel
16 Extraordinary row with Samoan rower (9)
OARSWOMAN – anagram (‘extraordinary’) of ROW + SAMOAN
17 Days in March initially quite dark (3)
DIM – Days In March
19 Before noble, one queen (7)
EARLIER – EARL + I + ER
21 In need of opening, kitchen passage (5)
ALLEY – GALLEY minus the first letter
22 Shop offering drunk ale, no regrets! (7,5)
GENERAL STORE – anagram (‘drunk’) of  ALE NO REGRETS

Down
1 Club is in district of Washington and capital of Ohio (5)
DISCO – IS inside DC, plus O for Ohio
2 I see what you’re saying! (3,6)
LIP READER – cryptic definition
3 Both chess players going to extremes (5,3,5)
BLACK AND WHITE – self-explanatory. Though I’m not sure whether ‘going to’ should be part of the definition.
4 Drop awful crude joke, finally (6)
REDUCE – anagram (‘awful’) of CRUDE + E
5 People in the Bible destroying Satan with holiness (13)
THESSALONIANS – anagram (‘destroying’) of SATAN HOLINESS. St Paul wrote to them a couple of times
6 Unit giving nothing to Her Majesty (3)
OHM – O + HM. SI Unit of electrical resistance
7 Notice working? Exactly! (4,2)
SPOT ON – SPOT + ON
12 Burrowing animal, or llama I’d cooked! (9)
ARMADILLO – anagram (‘cooked’) of OR LLAMA ID
13 Pelt despicable group (6)
SHOWER – double definition
15 Barium processed in Italian region (6)
UMBRIA – anagram (‘processed’) of BARIUM
18 Some mistake by ambassador reversed, perhaps (5)
MAYBE – reverse hidden word: mistakE BY AMbassador
20 Eggs for two people, ultimately (3)
ROE – last letters of foR twO peoplE

60 comments on “Quick Cryptic 1884 by Mara”

  1. I’m with Merlin re 11a — I felt that it should have been 4d-ed, so to speak. Plenty of preferable options. Shame, because I really rather enjoy those types of clue when you just shift the gap to make something completely different.
    There is — unfortunately — a rather more unsavoury phrase describing a despicable group as a shower. I think I prefer Plett’s more genteel version 😊
    So glad to see DISCO clued as a club rather than a party — that really irritates me! Also liked LIP READER a lot.
    I seem to have been fairly consistent this week, despite all our travails, mostly coming in a bit below average and with one DNF. Today was 11 minutes GoT — (give or take!)
    FOI Sepia
    LOI Shower
    CsOD Thessalonians and Maybe — top surfaces
    Thanks Mara for a more relaxed end to the week and Curarist for the clear blog
  2. My first sub-20 minute solve of the week at 16 mins. Much to enjoy in this offering from Mara, although I have “sort of” enjoyed the mental challenges posed earlier in the week. My mother used to use shower in a distinctly perjorative sense when referring to a group of people of whom she disapproved, so it raised no eyebrows here.

    FOI – 8ac SEPIA
    LOI – in common with a lot of others 13dn SHOWER
    COD – 2dn LIP READER

    Thanks to Mara and Curarist

  3. Most enjoyable. A PB for me — under 15 minutes though at least the last 2 minutes were taken up by 13d. Lots of lovely clues. Well done, Mara, for discovering that Thessalonians is an anagram of Satan and holiness!
    FOI sepia
    LOI shower ( I would describe a generally disorganised and incompetent group as ‘a right shower’ — hardly despicable)
    COD so many to choose from but Ill go for lip reader.
    Thank you Mara and Curarist.
  4. A good end to a challenging week for me.

    Except for 13A ‘sun’ being answer for ‘warmer’, which seemed a bit vague to me, I enjoyed the clues.

    May the sun shine warmly this bank holiday weekend, though!

    Thanks to the curarist and Mara.

  5. ….before the reverse hidden jumped out and kicked me.

    FOI DELIBERATION
    LOI MAYBE
    COD DREAM UP
    TIME 4:33

  7. No dramas — wanted DREAM ON but saw the light

    Thought this might gave been an Izetti puzzle with the biblical reference (solve on phone so can’t see the setter’s name)

    Thanks curarist and Mara

  8. After a very bad week with a couple of major DNF I thankfully flew through this crossword until I came to 13d. My first thought was STONED which fitted the checkers but not the clue. Thankfully I soon got SHOWER.

    FOI deliberation
    COD thessalonians

  9. Mr and Mrs Random are among the stars of this blog! We love hearing how Mrs R solved the QC while making three quiches and a cake.
    1. Thankyou! Mrs R made a handpainted birthday card, wrapped some presents and made some rhubarb and ginger jam today — mostly while I struggled away.
  10. 23:15 for me, so by far the quickest of the week. It should have been a bit less still, but I was distracted by an unwanted phone call after just under 15 minutes and though I tried to keep up a conversation and solve at the same time, I was not too successful. Once I’d hung up (is that still what one does in these days of mobiles?) LIP READER, SUDAN, ONE, SHOWER and LOI DISCO went in in fairly short order. Quite a relief after one of the toughest weeks I can remember. Thanks Mara and Curarist.
  11. Just wondering …
    … when does the Editor choose which puzzle to run? Is it set in stone weeks in advance or can he/she tweak the order?

    I ask, because this was almost the perfect soother at the end of a long and hard week for most of us, almost as if the Editor had read all the cries of dismay of the last four days and taken pity on the struggling masses!

    Cedric

    1. The puzzles are certainly not selected during the week of publication. I also doubt very much the editors are hanging on our every word or even if they read us at all except perhaps when they have set one of the puzzles themselves.
  12. For some time I thought it was going to be a clean sweep of DNFs for me but I managed to finish today’s one albeit taking 27 mins to do so. Like many other posters, it was SHOWER that caused the major holdup. This was my worst week for a very long time, but thanks to all you helpful bloggers I am now a lot better informed (and possibly even wiser).
  13. Much more approachable today, but stuck on 13d SHOWER – never saw it! COD 11a.
  14. I hesitate to say this was easy because it’s not if you don’t find the groove. But I did and it’s done in a tidy ten minutes, with the clues done roughly as they came. Thank you.

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