Quick Cryptic 2852 by Trelawney

Author   CuraristPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

I enjoyed this. Lots of nice surfaces and pretty straightforward for the most part. I couldn’t parse SPORRAN initially, even though it was the obvious answer, and didn’t twig with SONG until afterwards. End result a tad over-par 7 minutes.

Across
1 New-look squad a mere pretence (10)
MASQUERADE – anagram (‘new-look’) of SQUAD A MERE
8 Carry around air conditioning? That’s refreshing (7)
BRACING – BRING around AC
9 One with informal business by a Spanish island (5)
IBIZA – I + BIZ (business, informally) + A
10 More than six balls? (4)
OVER – double definition, the second a cricket reference
11 Lack of stuff? Don’t worry about it (2,6)
NO MATTER – double definition
13 Swamp-like planet extremely heavy (6)
MARSHY – MARS (planet) + H[EAV]Y
14 Oxford inspector left small piece of food (6)
MORSEL – MORSE + L. Inspector Morse, fictional detective who had to investigate Mexico City levels of violent homicide in 1990’s Oxford colleges.
17 After popular pet returns, I go quiet (8)
TACITURN – CAT backwards + I TURN. ‘Popular’ is redundant
19 Reverse middle part of Kiss tune (4)
SONG – SNOG (kiss) with the middle letters switched
21 Show up uninvited to stock market event (5)
CRASH – Double definition. The first an abbreviation of ‘gatecrash’
22 Bear and cat dancing for show (7)
CABARET – anagram (‘dancing’) of BEAR CAT
23 Ensnare owl flitting around US city (3,7)
NEW ORLEANS – anagram (‘flitting around’) of ENSNARE OWL
Down
2 Non-professional seen in team at Euros (7)
AMATEUR – hidden word
3 Seafood with no starter for pound (4)
QUID – [S]QUID
4 Christmas drink, for example, picked up award (6)
EGGNOG – EG + GONG backwards
5 Airman to upset cartoonist (8)
ANIMATOR – anagram (‘upset’) of AIRMAN TO
6 Kick out some of the Victorians (5)
EVICT – hidden word
7 Not too heavy without first large decoration (5,5)
FAIRY LIGHT – FAIRLY LIGHT with the first L removed
8 Top of bookshelf — space to put quidditch gear (10)
BROOMSTICK – B[ookshelf] + ROOM (space) + STICK (put). The mode of transport used in the fictional game of Quidditch from Harry Potter.
12 TV programme’s food includes pork pies, say? (4,4)
CHAT SHOW – CHOW (food) with HATS inside. Pork pie being a type of hat, and not for once cockney rhyming slang for ‘lie’
15 Following short game, took off tartan accessory (7)
SPORRAN – SPOR[T] + RAN. Pouch worn with a kilt.
16 Shopkeeper is even more repulsive when talking (6)
GROCER – sounds like ‘grosser’
18 Series featuring murderer outside hotel (5)
CHAIN – CAIN with H inside. Cain is the biblical murderer who killed a quarter of the world’s population, i.e. his brother.
20 Leader of orchestra regularly broke instrument (4)
OBOE – O for orchestra + BrOkE

85 comments on “Quick Cryptic 2852 by Trelawney”

  1. 08:59. MASQUERADE held me up at the start and EGGNOG at the end but in between it was steady, if not speedy, progress.

    It mightn’t look very exciting but my favourite was OVER. When I was a young ‘un, in Australia at least, an OVER was indeed ‘More than six balls?’.

    Thanks to Trelawney and Curarist

  2. Many thanks to Trelawney for offering us a clever puzzle which is actually a QC.
    I have done all the QCs since #1 (with most times around 7-12 mins) until I stopped posting when I felt pushed to the periphery by the, let’s say, ‘quirkyness’ of many setters and the increasing proportion of ’15×15-standard’ clues. At least I managed to complete this one within my former time range!

    I acknowledge that my times for my regular Crosswords elsewhere have increased marginally over the last year or more (age? brain rot?) but my QC times have often doubled (at least!).

    I still derive great pleasure from many QCs. I marvel at the imagination and ingenuity of all setters and I truly appreciate what they achieve but my concern over the balance of difficulty and consistency in the QC came to a head on Mon-Weds of this week which, simply, put the tin hat on it. The comments from many esteemed solvers on this blog were very significant, I thought. When I see established, respected solvers posting times in the teens, twenties, and even DNFs (plus significant absences from the blog comments), I question whether the setters (and the Crossword Editor) have lost their bearings just a little too often, especially for overseas solvers and the ‘newbies’ the QC was supposed to encourage.

    Trelawney has offered me encouragement that, perhaps, the QC is not yet dead. Sincere thanks.

      1. Thank you.

        The mutual support, banter, and humour on this blog from posters world-wide still give me enormous pleasure.

        I think it will be a huge challenge to recover the impressive balance of the first couple of thousand QCs but I still hope it may be possible.

        1. Good to hear from you, OB.
          Let’s hope Asp can turn things around, though RR is a pretty hard act to follow

    2. Good day to you, Blighter! It’s great to hear from you again and to know that you’re lurking out there somewhere.
      I eventually took the same approach as you, for the same reasons, but didn’t disappear for long. When I returned I deleted my records and stopped timing my attempts. It’s more enjoyable now.
      Do please continue to share your thoughts with us from time to time.

    3. Great to hear from you OB – come back soon 😊
      I think we’re all hopeful that there might be a bit more consistency among some of the newer QC setters from now on.

  4. Very quick at the top but slower towards the bottom of the grid. I started with MASQUERADE and finished with FAIRY in 7:17. Thanks to all.

  5. 6:29 so definitely on the easier side for me. I chortled at GROCER as the grossest grocer ever (allegedly) has been splashed all over the UK front pages for a week and I, so far, only see one mention of it in the blog. I presume the puzzles are composed well in advance so perhaps Trelawney has contacts at the BBC. My LOI was FAIRY LIGHT.

  6. Fairly gentle stuff from Trelawney, but Taciturn (no room for an In(n) then) and the parsing of Chat Show more or less guaranteed a place on the SCC, albeit a decent enough window seat. For some reason, now unclear, I had ‘picked up’ as an obvious homophone indicator for the first half of Eggnog, and was left wondering why Nog was an award. . . possibly a Norse one in honour of King Noggin? Anyway, CoD to Chat Show for the parsing. Invariant

    1. Noggin the Nog – oh happy days ☺️ I think I might have to do a little You Tube trawl now!
      Last year MrB and I went to the museum in Canterbury where they hold the Smallfilms archive – we spent a very happy time with Bagpuss, Ivor the Engine and, of course, all the Clangers 🍲🐲

  7. Embarrassed to admit that, before rushing out this morning, I carelessly bunged in Los Angeles instead of NEW ORLEANS, so had to spend lunchtime correcting my errors in the bottom half.
    LOI GROCER because I couldn’t read my own writing. More haste, less speed.
    Belated PDM with BROOMSTICK helped too. Liked CHAIN, MARSHY, IBIZA, QUID, among others.
    Could not parse CHAT SHOW, SPORRAN, or SONG/snog!
    Thanks vm, Curarist.

  8. Trelawney knows how to set a QC and I breezed along happily until, coming off the final bend into the finishing straight, I ran into an unwelcome patch of quicksand. CHAIN, TACITURN, CHAT SOW, GROCER and NEW ORLEANS all conspired to make my performance much more ordinary than it would otherwise have been.

    Many thanks to Trelawney and Curarist.

  9. 9.12 A nice puzzle. BROOMSTICK, NEW ORLEANS, SPORRAN and LOI SONG took some work. Thanks Curarist and Trelawney.

    P.S. The Quitch picked up this time so I did the neutrino thing on the other copy of the puzzle and took 1.39. My PB on the concise crossword is 1.30. So I can do that faster than a cryptic I’ve literally just finished!

  10. 14:38 to solve this smooth and amusing puzzle.

    I’m still a novice, evidently, since I’m scratching my head over the question mark in the clue for OVER. It’s a straight double definition, neither of them cryptic, and it’s not needed for the surface. Why is it there? (So different from its jokey neighbor NO MATTER, my favorite clue today along with NEW ORLEANS.)

    I took a long time for FAIRY LIGHT (cute!) since I’ve probably seen the phrase but was never sure what it meant. Never watched Inspector MORSE so wasted some time thinking about shoes and shirts. Biffed BROOMSTICK and CHAT SHOW and went back to parse after finishing. I feel poor old OBOE has earned its retirement.

    Thanks to Trelawney and Curarist!

  11. Good QC.
    I misread 19a and entered SNOG which caused a shock when I was about to enter 15d Sporran, and it didn’t fit. I can’t think of any words fitting s?n?r?n, and nor can the Cheating Machine.

  13. A Jimmy and a Trelawney back-to-back! What a nice way to end the week. Probably should have been under ten minutes but I’m happy enough with 10:56. My COD is FAIRY LIGHT, which made me smile.

    Thank you for the blog!

  14. 7:56 here, very speedy and enjoyable for me. The only minor holdup was thinking that 19a was the hidden STUN, despite not being happy about the definition. But SPORRAN showed that that couldn’t be right. LOI FAIRY LIGHT, can’t pick a COD today, too many good ones.

    Thanks to Trelawney and Curarist.

  17. The end of the week has been much happier than the start: started on Monday with a DNF, then about 16, 12:42, 7:50 and today – 7:24! Less than 1K – by the skin of my teeth, and again the first for a very long time. Another fun puzzle with quite a few giggles along the way – FAIRY LIGHTS made me feel all festive, and I liked CHAT SHOW and CABARET. Obviously the gross GROCER made me think of the latest TV scandal.
    FOI Masquerade LOI and COD Song – a real PDM combined with a LOL when I twigged that one 😅😘
    Thanks Trelawney and Curarist

  18. Late in the day to this (after a grandson’s Christmas concert) so settled down and raced away until a fatal 12d GAME SHOW, which stymied me for MARSHY and for TACITURN. Took an age to rethink and correct, so back in the SCC once again. Liked OVER, enjoyed the hiddens and found the anagrams solver-friendly for once! Thanks to Trelawney and to our excellent blogger

  19. 10:32 but one typo (no excuse for the careless mis-spelling of CABERET) so technically a DNF. I commented yesterday that I always enjoy Jimmy’s puzzles and that also applies to Trelawney. I consider them to be my favourite compilers. FOI – IBIZA, LOI – CHAT SHOW, COD – SONG with honourable mention to GROCER. Thanks Trelawney and Curarist.

  20. Enjoyable puzzle. I couldn’t get very far with the 15×15 today, but this was a very pleasant solve.

  22. 13 mins…

    A fairly straightforward QC I thought. Main hold up was my LOI – 7dn “Fairy Light” which took a bit of unravelling.

    FOI – 1ac “Masquerade”
    LOI – 7dn “Fairy Light”
    COD – 12dn “Chat Show”

    Thanks as usual!

  23. 20ish min finish. Slowed down by wife talking to me and Chat Show, which was easy after I spelt Taciturn correctly. Great puzzle. Thanks Trelawney and Cuarist (much needed the parsing of Chat Show and Sporran).

  24. 11 minutes

    149 minutes for the week:
    M – 46
    T – 23
    W – 47 (DNF)
    Th – 12
    F – 11

    Got about 60% of big crossword in 90 minutes. Some clues were way out of my league.

    Thanks for the blog.

  25. 4:37. I see I neglected earlier after solving before going out for the day. Nice puzzle. I enjoyed the posh pork pies most. Thanks Trelawney and Curarist.

  26. Another enjoyable QC following on from yesterday’s. The US city took some thought – SAN something – No; LOS something – No; ah NEW something! Good one. FAIRY LIGHT held us up at the end, and had to see the blog for the parsing. Was on the look-out for a pangram but it wasn’t to be.
    FOI MASQUERADE
    LOI CHAIN
    COD GROCER
    Thanks very much Trelawney for an enjoyable QC, and Curarist for the blog.

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