A really witty puzzle from Myles, full of clever devices and definitely on the tricky side. I enjoyed it very much, although it pushed me well over target at 10:59. If you aspire to graduate to Big Puzzle (I still haven’t), then this is a good stepping stone because it’s full of the sort of chicanery you encounter over there.
Definitions underlined in bold.
| Across | |
| 1 | Incitement to riot, say, in second issue (8) |
| SEDITION – S for “second”, EDITION for “issue”. I questioned the definition but it’s in the dictionaries (eg Collins sense 3 – “an incitement to public disorder”) so fair enough. | |
| 5 | One part of skirt that’s meant to attract attention (4) |
| AHEM – one part of a skirt (or any garment) is A HEM; it’s also “a clearing of the throat to attract attention” (Collins). Nice surface. | |
| 8 | 1000 in America — or less (5) |
| MINUS – M for “1000” + IN + US. | |
| 9 | Faked feeding frenzy? (7) |
| FEIGNED – anagram (“frenzy”) of “feeding”. Such a neat, tight surface, bravo. | |
| 11 | Fish that’s set before me in scales, so to speak (3) |
| RAY – three letter fish starting with R. Has to be RAY. Can’t understand why. Give up and move on. Solve 2d; now it’s a three letter fish starting with R and ending with Y. It really has to be RAY. But why? Head scratch, stare out of window. Aha! A musical scale could be DO-RE-ME (etc). In that context the “re” sounds like (“so to speak”) RAY. A three letter clue and it did me all ends up. | |
| 12 | Turmoil minutes after master interrupted by learner (9) |
| MAELSTROM – the final M is for “minutes” (nautical positioning), which comes “after” MAESTRO (“master”) with an L inside (“interrupted by learner”). | |
| 13 | How board game ends decisively for patient, perhaps (6) |
| INMATE – you “decisively” win a game of chess through checkmate; it thus “ends” IN MATE. Patients are INMATEs but so are others (eg convicts) and so this is clued as a definition by example (“perhaps”). | |
| 15 | Unusually, direct something seen at end of film (6) |
| CREDIT – anagram (“unusually”) of “direct”. | |
| 18 | Parade statement that becomes true on April Fool’s day (5,4) |
| MARCH PAST – sometimes hyphenated but sometimes not, a MARCH PAST is a “parade”. And on the first of April, March is past. Badoomtish! | |
| 19 | Local piece of music (3) |
| BAR – double definition. | |
| 20 | Like days in June around South, affected by dryness (7) |
| THIRSTY -THIRTY days hath September, April, June … that goes around S for our answer. | |
| 21 | Useful kind of cheque left in financial institution (5) |
| BLANK – L in BANK. | |
| 22 | Sound from pen and old writing material (4) |
| OINK – scene in the Setters’ Common Room a few weeks ago: “I say chaps, wouldn’t it be a lark if Oink stopped doing piggy clues and we all started? What a hoot! Who’s in?” Myles obviously raised his hand. O for “old”, INK for “writing material”. The pen here is the pigpen, of course. Top notch clue. | |
| 23 | You are heard with kindness and with quick response (8) |
| URGENTLY – U R is a homophone (“heard”) for “you are”; GENTLY is “with kindness”. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Eastern fighters raised spirit in disordered parts of Asia (7) |
| SAMURAI – spirit is always “gin” – except today it wasn’t, it was “rum” which is reversed (“raised” in a down clue) inside an anagram (“disordered parts of”) of ASIA. Took me a while to work out which end was the definition. | |
| 2 | Both extremes of democracy fine for Americans (5) |
| DANDY – the first and last letters of “democracy” are D AND Y. Very neat. | |
| 3 | Experiment with strikes in international meetings (4,7) |
| TEST MATCHES – you “strike” matches, so if you are trying out matches to see if they work, then you “experiment with strikes” and thus TEST MATCHES. Ho ho! | |
| 4 | Compensate for not shooting film? (6) |
| OFFSET – if a film crew is “off” the “set”, they probably aren’t shooting the film. To OFFSET means to counterbalance or compensate for. | |
| 6 | Cricketing feat replicated a dozen times for MCC (7) |
| HUNDRED – please don’t tell me this is a chestnut because I’ve never seen it before and I want it to be original. Scoring a HUNDRED is a “cricketing feat”, so that’s the straight bit. As for the cryptic, MCC stands for Marylebone Cricket Club, founded in 1787 and based at Lord’s. But it is also the Roman numerals for 1,200 … so replicate a HUNDRED a dozen times and you get MCC (if you’re a Roman, anyway). Brilliant and my COD. | |
| 7 | Mark first man’s address to female (5) |
| MADAM – M for “mark” (currency) + ADAM for the traditional “first man”. | |
| 10 | Enigmatic, as unclear bits might be (11) |
| INSCRUTABLE – anagram (“might be”) of “unclear bits”. | |
| 14 | Chap screening pictures — one is ET (7) |
| MARTIAN – a MARTIAN would be an extraterrestrial being or generic “ET”, so I suppose the definition is fair enough. However, *the* ET (in the Spielberg film) was not a Martian: if you dig around enough in associated sci-fi nerdery you discover that he came from Brodo Asogi. Me neither. MAN (“chap”) has inside it (“screening”) ART + I (“pictures – one”). | |
| 16 | Name in part of Eurasia for old-fashioned jailer (7) |
| TURNKEY – N for “name” in TURKEY. | |
| 17 | Professional who can work on either half of suitcase (6) |
| LAWYER – talking of nerdery, last time I described a clue as &Lit I had the Clue Nerd Police all over me. So I’m not doing it again, but strictly just for your eyes gentle reader, and please don’t tell anyone I said so, I think that this is at least the kissing cousin of an &Lit. If you’re a litigation LAWYER, like me, then you work on SUITs which could also be called CASEs. That means you could “work on” “either half” of the word “suitcase”. Very, very neat and I needed the checkers. | |
| 18 | Saying “bottoms up” endlessly (5) |
| MOTTO – if you remove the first and last letters of “bottoms” you get “ottom”; if you reverse it (“up” in a down clue) then you get MOTTO, which is a “saying”. Another really top rate clue. | |
| 19 | Be said to survive explosion (5) |
| BLAST – B is a homophone (“said”) for “B”; add LAST for “to survive” and that’s it, you’re done. | |
Wow – that was a great Quick Cryptic today and what a great clue Hundred/MCC was. I admit I didn’t spot the Roman numeral reference until I came here (to be honest, that’s why I came here).
Thank you Myles – that was my favourite QC ever and it took me about an hour and a half in three sittings to complete it. My first read through had me totally stumped (I liked the cricket clues) until I saw CREDIT and then it all very slowly came to life. Last one in was LAWYER. Thanks Templar for confirmation.
Being a cricket fan, I immediately entered Century as my FOI. It took me a while to see that HUNDRED was the correct answer. However, I do feel cricket fans use the term Century more than Hundred. Furthermore, batters always score a half-century and never a half-hundred.
Or they score a 50 … which as your Lordship will appreciate is, er, half a hundred …
33:33 and I’m surprised I was able to finish given that I’m so ill with a cold that I can hardly sit up! Too bad such an excellent puzzle came to me at such a time, but I can dimly appreciate it. So many good, good clues!
Thanks to Templar for the outstanding blog and to Myles for the exciting puzzle!
What do you mean by &Lit please?