Quick Cryptic 1924 by Mara

Author   CuraristPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
Given the profusion of anagrams and double definitions, I’m guessing this will be straightforward for most. It felt a bit samey, though I did like 17ac and 2d. 5 minutes for me.

Across
1 Wicked piece of radish one’s tasted (9)
DISHONEST – hidden word: raDISH ONES Tasted
6 Hang onto pig (3)
HOG – double definition
8 Locate winds around opening to meadow, idyllic place (7)
CAMELOT – anagram (‘winds’) of LOCATE with M for meadow inserted
9 Cooker called “stove”, ultimately (5)
RANGE – RANG + E
10 Defined unit, I suspect, not recognised (12)
UNIDENTIFIED – anagram (‘suspect’) of DEFINED UNIT I
12 One requiring membership card (4)
CLUB – double definition
13 Wine in joint? (4)
HOCK – double definition
17 General movement in trial, very sad (5-7)
HEART-RENDING – TREND (general movement) inside HEARING (trial)
20 Go mad formulating principle (5)
DOGMA – anagram (‘formulating’) of GO MAD
21 Silly ape isn’t wise (7)
SAPIENT – anagram (‘silly’) of APE ISNT
23 Short fat girl (3)
SUE – Short for SUET
24 Dad goes in for jogging, determined (9)
DIAGNOSED – anagram (‘for jogging’) of DAD GOES IN

Down
1 Embellish pack of cards (4)
DECK – double definition
2 Important if knocked out of cup game (7)
SEMINAL – SEMI FINAL with IF removed. Neat
3 Primarily omniscient, wise learned bird (3)
OWL – initial letters of Omniscient Wise Learned
4 Eg consuming a tin? (6)
EATING – Don’t know what to call this. Self-explanatory? A TIN inside EG. Feels like I just wrote the clue out again.
5 Damaged, faulty train abandoned (9)
TARNISHED – anagram (‘faulty’) of TRAIN followed by SHED
6 Some Spanish in different language (5)
HINDI – hidden word: spanisH IN DIfferent
7 Good and thin — too hungry? (6)
GREEDY – G + REEDY
11 Credit bad, unfortunately — how might one pay? (5,4)
DEBIT CARD – anagram (‘unfortunately’) of CREDIT BAD
14 A cracking game for kids? (7)
CONKERS – self explanatory
15 Holiday island with drunken hordes (6)
RHODES – anagram (‘drunken’) of HORDES
16 Old country dance’s back in Paris, surprisingly (6)
PERSIA – E (the back of ‘dance’) inside an anagram (‘surprisingly’) of PARIS
18 Germanic Briton, crook (5)
ANGLE – double definition
19 Briefly scrutinise horse for breeding (4)
STUD – short for STUDY
22 Writer put in cage (3)
PEN – double definition

31 comments on “Quick Cryptic 1924 by Mara”

  1. I can’t remember what slowed me down, but I think I slowed down at the end. Liked 4d. 6:58.
  2. Rather struggled with this but at least no typos.

    Plenty of easy ones but I’m not the greatest on doing anagrams in my head and a number of these didn’t immediately jump out.

    Liked HEARTRENDING

    Thanks curarist and Mara for an enjoyable end to the week.

  3. OWL seems to be cropping up a lot recently, and was my FOI today. The top half went in steadily enough, but I slowed considerably in the bottom half, with LOI, PERSIA causing more trouble than it should’ve done. I was fixated on trying to shoehorn DOS into it. CONKERS and DIAGNOSED held me up too. Over my target at 12:45. Thanks Mara and Curarist.
  4. FOI: 6d. HINDI
    LOI: 16d. PERSIA
    Time to Complete: 50 minutes
    Clues Answered Correctly without aids: 26
    Clues Answered with Aids: Nil
    Clues Unanswered: Nil
    Wrong Answers: Nil
    Total Correctly Answered (incl. aids): 26/26
    Aids Used: Nil

    This was one of those puzzles that surprised me. On my first trip around the grid, I did not see an answer until I got to 6d. Others came in slowly after that, leaving me with the feeling that I would not be able to complete this. However, I slogged on and amazingly managed not only to finish, but also no aids needed today. 50 minutes, which is around my average. So, a nice finish to the week.

  5. A sluggish end to a sluggish week. I can’t remember the last time I missed my target 3 times out of 5. I’m going to take Invariant’s line and blame the heat and resulting lack of sleep. Absolutely nothing to do with my inadequacies!!
    I struggled with the anagrams today – both spotting them and then unravelling them – and then had a complete brain fade when I forgot how to spell CONKERS, which I quickly dismissed it as a possibility for having too many letters. Only after a painful alphabet trawl did I remember it didn’t have ‘qu’ in the middle. 😂
    Oh well it will be a fresh start on Monday.
    Finished in 14.23 with COD to SEMINAL and WOD to SAPIENT.
    Thanks to curarist
  6. Some lovely clues in there – particularly enjoyed EATING and HEART-RENDING (though since not all “hearings” are trials, I thought that should have been flagged as a DBE), as well as my COD.

    FOI DISHONEST, LOI HEART-RENDING, COD SEMINAL (very good!), time 09:27 for 1.4K and a Good Day.

    Many thanks Mara and curarist.

    Templar

    PS did anyone else try very hard to make CLUEDO work at 14dn?! I was convinced there must be an extra letter

    Edited at 2021-07-23 08:03 am (UTC)

  7. … and unlike our blogger thought it both quite varied and quite tough. It certainly kept me amused and entertained for nearly 15 minutes.

    Some very nice clues — a good PDM when 2D Seminal appeared, and I thought 4D Eating was quirky and fun once I realised it really was exactly as described (“a tin in EG”). Also took a time to remember that one meaning of Crook could be Angle for 18D — I spent some time trying to find a 4 letter word for crook to follow B (for Briton) and all meaning Germanic, so well led astray.

    Many thanks to Curarist for the blog and a good weekend to all
    Cedric

  8. Got off to a flier in the NW corner, but slowed down considerably in the lower half of the grid, especially the SE corner — Angle took forever. Just couldn’t see what was going on with loi 16d, so paused for a cold drink and a quick read of the paper. Came back and started working through the names of old countries that I knew. It’s a (very) short list, but fortunately it included Persia. Only then did I see how the clue worked. Must have been over 30mins in total. A week to forget. Invariant
  9. I made rapid progress until my final two, the ANGLE/HEARTRENDING crossing. Up to that point my only pause had been CONKERS which required some checkers. I incorrectly assumed the answer at 17 was going to be an unknown military general so there was a lovely PDM and sigh of relief when I crossed the line in 9:37. I know it is non PC but I rather liked SUE, the short fat girl. COD to SEMINAL.
  10. Liked hidden at 1ac. And 5d took a while as well. Two in a row all correct.
    BW
    Andrew
  11. Taken to 17 minutes today by the DIAGNOSED / PERSIA crossing. Everything else completed within target, so cracking these added at least 2-3 minutes. Thanks both.
  12. Another high quality QC which took me 13:24. I spent the final two minutes on DIAGNOSED (a very clever anagram) and LOI PERSIA where I was looking for dances for too long.
    Another vote for SEMINAL as COD.
    David
  13. Was unable to parse HEART RENDING at 17a so came here for that.
    Not convinced that Seminal = important at 2d so a MER.
    Andyf
  14. Started fast and faded with trouble in the bottom half. Held up by DIAGNOSED, PERSIA, CLUB (!), SAPIENT and SUE. On Persia, ‘Russia’ was almost reverse hidden in “Paris surprisingly” which distracted me wondering if current countries that have reappeared counted as ‘old’ even though I couldn’t explain the extra “r”. See you all next week!
    1. It did briefly cross my mind that dances could possibly mean drop a letter… I blame the heat!
  15. Just realised I didn’t post here earlier as I thought I had. Anyway I’ve nothing to say other than my solving time was 6 minutes.
  16. In the end I had to look up PERSIA as was trying to fit in something French and more complicated. Thus eventually I managed LOI DIAGNOSED.
    FOI DISHONEST, DECK.
    An enjoyable crossword. Liked RANGE, CLUB, SAPIENT. EATING was a strange one.
    Thanks vm, Curarist.
  17. Came in a few seconds over target.

    DIAGNOSED and then CONKERS were my last two.

    The surface for RHODES made me smile.

    6:15

  18. Started off fast but slowed appreciatively after a while and had to dodge all over the grid to get started again. Not that easy and some of the anagrams were well hidden. Never managed to parse HEART RENDING (thanks Curarist). Finally crossed the line in 19 mins, although it seemed longer.

    FOI – 1ac DISHONEST
    LOI – 4dn EATING – hardly a cryptic clue, so I was looking for something much more complicated!
    COD – 2dn SEMINAL

  19. Really enjoyed today’s QC — lots of clever clues. We didn’t seem to struggle anywhere in particular and came in at 8 minutes.

    FOI: HOG
    LOI: SEMINAL
    COD: SEMINAL

    We keep dipping our toes into the 15×15 — we manage to solve some clues but we have a long way to go….

    Thanks Mara and Curarist.

    1. We’ve just done the 15×15 and managed to complete most of it — might be a good day to try it.
      2. Well done — the SNITCH suggests it’s a similar rating to yesterday, so fairly tricky. I’m heading there next !
  20. 24 mins for me. Another puzzle where after some of the answers I thought it was one from Oink rather than Mara.

    Lots to like, including 5dn “Tarnished” and 17ac “Heart Rending” (got the heart bit fairly quickly but went through a ton of combinations until I could see what it meant by general movement). Never did parse “Sue” — was trying to fathom why “ue” related to fat. Now that I see it, it’s nearly on par with my COD.

    FOI — 1dn “Deck”
    LOI — 16dn “Persia”
    COD — 2dn “Seminal”

    Thanks as usual!

  21. Finished in just over 12 mins for this one, but with a similar story – think I had all bar 3 in in 7 or 8 minutes and then got stuck.

    Eventually remembered that drunken is an anagram indicator which spat out RHODES, the H of which allowed me to biff HEART-RENDING which (after a long alphabet trawl) enabled me to pop in PERSIA.

    Thanks Mara and Curarist!

  22. Another late start and a hurried solve. Liked HEART-RENDING, SEMINAL, EATING, ANGLE. Wasted time by entering NISHI for 6d (it is also hidden in the clue) because I had a memory of it being a Japanese dialect. In fact, according to Wikipedia, Nyishi (also known as Nishi, Nisi etc.) is a Sino-Tibetan language. So I wasn’t entirely crazy but I had to void it because nothing crossed. This is the first time I’ve had a plausible answer (to me) that the setter hadn’t seen.
    Thanks, both. John M.

    Edited at 2021-07-23 03:46 pm (UTC)

  23. Pleased with 18 minutes and all seemed within scope but some tricky ones too.
    I wasn’t aware that Camelot was an idyllic place even though the musical is known to me — or is it more to do with King Arthur.
    And I hadn’t come across Sapient as wise. But it had to be.
    Thanks all
    John George

    Edited at 2021-07-23 04:24 pm (UTC)

  24. ….was with a girl named SUE. She almost fitted the clue, as she was 5 feet 1 inch tall, but fat would have been unfair — she was definitely cuddly !

    I enjoyed this one.

    FOI DISHONEST
    LOI PERSIA
    COD CONKERS
    TIME 3:56

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