Quick Cryptic 2840 by Hurley

Author   CuraristPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

This is one of those puzzles that you make heavy weather of but can’t really see why. Some of the definitions are a bit left-field I suppose, e.g ‘payment’ for ‘punishment’, ‘way of communicating’ for ‘drawl’, but generally it all seems quite fair in hindsight. 8 minutes for me

Across
1 Ostentatiously perform maybe leading to boos — what? (8)
SHOWBOAT – anagram (‘maybe leading to’) of BOOS WHAT
5 Advantage garnered by landed gentry (4)
EDGE – hidden word
8 Encountered aluminium as example of this? (5)
METAL – MET + AL
9 Choice era for feathers (7)
PLUMAGE – PLUM + AGE
11 More than anything else, poet’s first plain lyric recollected (11)
PRINCIPALLY – anagram (‘recollected’) of P for poet + PLAIN LYRIC
13 Not getting deserved praise, a French paper, good (6)
UNSUNG – UN (‘A’ in French) + SUN (paper) + G
14 Great excitement in fairground game (6)
HOOPLA – double definition
17 Friendly reception from this lot? I pay unfortunately (11)
HOSPITALITY – anagram (‘unfortunately’) of THIS LOT I PAY
20 After musical work not completed, advanced money, being rich (7)
OPULENT – OPU[S] + LENT
21 Current agreement, perfect (5)
IDEAL – I + DEAL. Chestnut
22 Gosh! That’s not half a made-up story (4)
MYTH – MY (gosh!) + TH[AT]
23 Criminal in the end bringing worry, I hesitate to say (8)
GANGSTER – G (end of ‘bringing’) + ANGST + ER
Down
1 House in Home Counties, north of motorway (4)
SEMI – SE + MI
2 Powerful organisation’s wretched cop-outs (7)
OCTOPUS – anagram (‘wretched’) of COP OUTS. I wasn’t aware of this meaning of the word but it’s in Chambers
3 Invoice topping island anger — who could afford it? (11)
BILLIONAIRE – BILL (invoice) + IONA (island) + IRE
4 Look — take steps to include supper regularly (6)
ASPECT – ACT including SPE (alternate letters of ‘supper’)
6 Sketch — ultimately novel way of communicating (5)
DRAWL – DRAW + [NOVE]L
7 Routine all week long? (8)
EVERYDAY – double definition, though the second should be two words
10 Middle of June concert — I perform number with little hope of success (11)
UNPROMISING – [J]UN[E] + PROM (concert) + I SING
12 Greek character, quiet, with space to grow rapidly (8)
MUSHROOM – MU + SH + ROOM
15 Vote for men to enter physical training as punishment (7)
PAYMENT – AY (a vote for) + MEN inside PT
16 Part of Roman tradition that’s repeated often (6)
MANTRA – hidden word. Another chestnut
18 Encouragement over time to move faster (5)
SPURT – SPUR + T
19 Insulting remark, so low, upset rector initially (4)
SLUR – acronym

90 comments on “Quick Cryptic 2840 by Hurley”

  1. 12 mins…

    I can see where Curarist is coming from with regards to 15dn “Payment” and 6dn “Drawl”, but I didn’t think this was too difficult. 2dn “Octopus” has come up a number of times in relation to a shady organisation, but it’s one of those clues that a few years back I would have been stuck on if it wasn’t for it coming up previously.

    FOI – 1dn “Semi”
    LOI – 23ac “Gangster”
    COD – 10dn “Unpromising”

    Thanks as usual!

  2. 15:04 with no errors. Luckily for me, OCTOPUS rang the faintest of bells when I decided the anagram couldn’t be anything else. Unlike most, PAYMENT went in as soon as I realised that I could use AY instead of AYE. I find Hurley’s puzzles seem to vary from fairly straightforward to quite challenging, which is a good mix as one never knows what to expect at the outset.
    FOI – EDGE, LOI – SHOWBOAT (I missed the anagram as well), COD – PRINCIPALLY. Thanks Hurley and Curarist.

  3. I stopped timing my attempts a few weeks ago, but I’m sure I escaped the tentacles of the OCTOPUS that is the SCC today. A fast solve (for me) all of the way down to UNPROMISING and GANGSTER, both of which were biffed and then parsed. Overall, a genuine QC and a very enjoyable solve.

    I wonder if we have weathered the worst of the ‘almost impossibly difficult QC’ storm.

    Many thanks to Hurley and Curarist.

  5. 12.47 Heavy weather indeed. I was slow on the long ones (is BILLMANRAGE a thing?) and took a while to convince myself that LOI PAYMENT was correct. Thanks Curarist and Hurley.

  6. All correct. Easier than yesterday, but got stuck on the HOSPITALITY and SPURT intersection for quite a while.
    I wasn’t familiar with the OCTOPUS definition, but thought of the energy company instead!

  7. No doubt being stupid…..why is “I” current in 21 across. the answer was obvious but the parsing less so to me

    1. In equations in physics I is frequently used as the symbol for current like in V=IR, voltage = current × resistance.

      I just learned that this derives from the French intensité du courant.

  8. 14:18

    Over a third of that on LOI GANGSTER, but I was already pretty slow up to there.

    Thanks Hurley and Curarist.

  9. I was on Hurley’s wavelength today and almost complete in 9 minutes: but 11a held me up while I fussed with primarily and primordially until PRINCIPALLY (obvious) went in and that gave me ASPECT and loi DRAWL. I suppose a drawl is a way of communicating, and the clueing was very clear – sketch = draw and ultimately novel. I liked HOOPLA! And BILL plus IONA plus IRE was inspired! About 12 minutes, ideal Friday fare, thanks setter and blogger

  10. With all those long words, I thought I would struggle but I completed this in under half an hour, good for me. Very enjoyable, particularly the way billionaire, gangster, unpromising and mushroom were built up. Thank you Hurley and blogger. (And thank you to the person who has just explained the I in ideal which I hadn’t understood. )

  11. No big hold-ups and done in my average time.
    LOI GANGSTER and took a moment to parse PAYMENT- I thought it worked.
    COD to GANGSTER.
    David

  12. 14:35, with the two long anagrams holding me up for a while. COD to BILLIONAIRE.

    Thanks to Hurley and Curarist.

  13. 18ish min Finish. I’m getting better at this and spotted quickly what evil device the word play was. V enjoyable. Thanks Hurley and Cuarist.

  14. Held up by GANGSTER and LOI SHOWBOAT, otherwise it would have been a pretty quick time for me. As it was, an average 17:43. Thanks Hurley and Curarist.

  15. Heavy weather sums it up for us even if we did come in a little faster than par at 11:45. LOI GANGSTER took us a while to see. We also join others in a MER at PAYMENT / punishment though concluded that it was within bounds + the wordplay was clear. Thanks Hurley and Curarist.

  16. Odd definitions for OCTOPUS and HOOPLA , but solved in 24 minutes, which seemed very unlikely at one stage. A few biffed and then parsed. A pleasant end to the week. Hopefully the storm is not too bad tomorrow!

  17. Yes, made heavy weather of this and took ages. All correct….. eventually.
    LOI SHOWBOAT – NHO in this sense, and too dim at first to recognise it was an anagram. Equally, NHO OCTOPUS in this sense.
    Also slow on GANGSTER (COD), PAYMENT (doubts about meaning again) and numerous others. DNK why HOOPLA is great excitement.
    Liked MUSHROOM, BILLIONAIRE.
    Thanks for much needed blog, Curarist.

  18. 13:05 for an unaccountably chewy solve, as our blogger says. I had trouble seeing “leading to” as an anagrind. As a singer myself, I greatly enjoyed UNPROMISING, such a good surface. A SEMI in Americanese is a truck/lorry, not a house, so PLUMing myself on seeing it.

    Thanks to Hurley and curarist!

    1. Semi is short for semi-detached which is a marketer’s way of saying it’s semi-attached!

      A quick look at Wikipedia suggests you would call it a “duplex” in the States.

      1. Yes, or possibly a row house. I’ve managed to establish a tenuous hold on the British sense of SEMI over years of reading novels and newspapers.

        1. Wasn’t sure if you knew. FWIW we would call a “row house” a terrace and distinguish it as either being “mid-terrace” or “end of terrace”.

  19. Thankfully I managed to get my SEMI in straight away, but it got quite a lot harder after that and I had to keep going for an hour before I was finished.

  20. Yes I struggled with some of the definitions but I finished in 13:18 and parsed everything. The biggie didn’t take much longer – just over 7 minutes more!
    I’ve only come across OCTOPUS as a powerful organisation in the last couple of years – here, of course. Now when I see it, that’s my first thought. Same with number, flower and banker – the original meanings have long gone 😅
    FOI Edge LOI Showboat
    Thanks Hurley and Curarist

  21. Top half whizzed along but much slower below the belt. FOI SHOWBOAT (why else was a peculiar word like boos there but for the anagram?) but HOOPLA and MUSHROOM very slow and L2I. COD PRINCIPALLY. Thanks all.

  22. I ran into several breezeblocks here, finally finishing in 18:23. Along the way I had the following internal monologue:

    “Oh come on, there must be a gentler definition of OCTOPUS that doesn’t give it away immediately. I’ll say as much in my TftT comment.”

    “If you do that, some awkward sod is going to invite you to come up with one. Can you?”

    “No.”

    So there we are. Thank you for the blog!

  23. Awful performance (judging by the solvers I usually compare myself to) capping a horrendous week:

    M – 16 mins
    T – 14 mins DNF
    W – 12 mins DNF
    Th – 10 mins
    F – 25 mins

    Not once this year have I achieved my weekly target, due largely to an embarrassing number of DNFs.

    Did ok on big crossword, although I suspect it was ‘easy’ on the Snitch.

    PS The symbol for SPECTRE in the Bond films was an octopus.

  24. DNF and very slow so not admitted to the SCC today. NHO the first definition of HOOPLA, nor PAYMENT = PUNISHMENT so completely failed on those two. Never mind, there’s always next week.

  25. I seem to have set my bio-clock out of kilter at the moment, but nevertheless, apu, I enjoyed this Hurley teaser. As a perennially slow solver I tend to make a meal out of every clue, chewing and sniffing out each wrinkle until, with an ‘Ah’ of satisfaction I commit pen to paper, or, rather, dab finger to phone.
    Dwelled on Octopus, sensing it was an all encompassing organisation (rather than Energy Co), but liked MYTH, GANGSTER and much more, as said by others.
    Thanks Curarist and Hurley.

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