Quick Cryptic 2900 by Hurley

Author   CuraristPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

Fairly plain sailing from Hurley today, but engaging nonetheless. Bang on par 6 minutes for me.

Across
7 Grass from Western Wales to some extent recalled (4)
LAWN – reverse hidden word
8 Car’s outside — newspaper boss — he’s owed money! (8)
CREDITOR – C + R (‘outside’ of CAR) + EDITOR
9 Like bear, sure, with no introduction coming across fault (6)
URSINE – [S]URE surrounding SIN
10 Angry speech in exchange including India (6)
TIRADE – TRADE with I for India inserted. Curarist’s top beginners’ tip: know your NATO alphabet.
11 Unusually large tank penetrated by tip of shell (4)
VAST – VAT with S for shell inside
12 Crude enemy slur finally ignored — not in good taste (8)
UNSEEMLY – anagram (‘crude’) of ENEMY SLU[R]
15 Framework of education graduate’s note leading to publicity (8)
BEDSTEAD – BED’S (BEd = Bachelor of Education) + TE + AD
17 Fooled about Romeo? Difficult to understand (4)
HARD – HAD (fooled) around R for Romeo. NATO again.
18 They work together heading away from political meetings (6)
ALLIES – [R]ALLIES
21 Setter fouled area where people walk (6)
STREET – anagram (‘fouled’) of SETTER
22 Graceful mover and worker run away (8)
ANTELOPE – ANT (worker) + ELOPE (run away)
23 We hear composer’s record, item-by-item (4)
LIST – sounds like LISZT. ‘Record’ is a verb being made to look like a noun. The archetype of crossword deception.
Down
1 After returning, for example, broadcast artist, male, in union (8)
MARRIAGE – EG + AIR + RA + M all backwards. (RA = Royal Academician, i.e. artist)
2 Home, sibling before time — make it a requirement (6)
INSIST – IN (home) + SIS + T
3 Plan to have “she” clued in new way (8)
SCHEDULE – anagram (‘in new way’) of SHE CLUED
4 Quit port (4)
LEFT – double definition
5 Newspaper article involving right bore (6)
PIERCE – PIECE with R inserted
6 Gangster’s headgear (4)
HOOD – double definition
13 Dodge succeeded despite going wrong (8)
SIDESTEP –  S (succeeded) + anagram (‘going wrong’) of DESPITE
14 Fancy lagers extremely suitable as gifts (8)
LARGESSE – anagram (‘fancy’) of LAGERS + S[uitabl]E
16 Symbol maybe in lighthearted email? Yes, primarily? (6)
SMILEY – acronym
17 Usher in the lady — lad excited (6)
HERALD – HER + anagram (‘excited’) of LAD
19 Feature of swimming pool seen in villa nearby (4)
LANE -hidden word
20 Ultimately suss the way to appear (4)
SHOW – [sus]S + HOW

82 comments on “Quick Cryptic 2900 by Hurley”

    1. BEDS = “education graduate’s” (a Bachelor of Education is a BEd).

      TE = “note” (do-re-mi-so-fa-la-te; many of these have alternative spellings!)

      AD = “publicity” (advertisement)

  3. First DNF for a long time. 🙁 Beaten by 15A… we’re with Andy R on that one.
    Hesitated a little with BORE= PIERCE
    22A – position of ‘and’ confused us +ANT ELOPE – didn’t read it as ANT+ELOPE
    Other than that, a mid speed meander without major problem.
    Thank you Hurley and Curarist!

  4. A sluggish 45 minutes today. Racing along then ground to a halt. Andy, I thought TE, a drink with jam and bread, for note, and ADvert for publicity. But now I look it up, TI seems to be the consensus for the note. Hmm.

    1. These notes can be spelt in dozens of way. Eg soh, sol, so. And as I have said before, I’ve been in choirs all my life and never once heard anyone use them. Occasionally they will appear as an extra line in a score for people “who can’t read music”, but I don’t think they have been taught for decades. When The Sound of Music came out in the 60s, I had no idea what they were on about.

      1. Extrapolating from one’s own experience is not a reliable guide. I too have sung in choirs all my life and have heard the tonic sol-fa used regularly throughout.

  5. Only five today. I’m not getting the anagrams constructed from bits and pieces, and my GK is lacking when it comes to the characteristics of bears. Where does the SIN come from?

  6. 19:56
    Evaded the SCC by 4 seconds. Found quite a few clues tough, such as PIERCE and ANTELOPE. The anagram SIDESTEP was tricky as well.

    URSINE made me smile as it was one of the times as a lad I was able to help my father with a clue, having recently learnt “Ursus” at school.

    COD BEDSTEAD

  7. Deeply unconvinced by the definition of ‘antelope’ being ‘graceful mover’ TBH. And ‘succeeded’ being reduced to ‘S’. Is that a common abbreviation?

    Otherwise quite enjoyable though. Thanks to Hurley and Curarist

    1. 24 mins which is fast for me. Much of which was spent on the last 4 clues. All of which seemed straightforward afterwards.
      LOI Pierce. COD antelope
      Thanks to Hurley for an enjoyable QC, and to Curarist for blog.

    2. Count me in on your demo: in what context, please, does “succeeded” become S ? One might think, kings and queens, where r = reigned, but no, surely S = son even there.

      1. I’m with you on this. Perhaps put this kind of thing in the same box as random names.

    3. Sprainedmind, it may help to bear in mind that setters use definitions from dictionaries, or check them there if in doubt. The Collins entry for antelope mentions that it is ‘typically graceful’. That’s not to say that every breed of antelope is so, but it’s enough for the definition to be valid for crossword purposes.

      1. No, I accept that antelope may be graceful. It’s just that the class of graceful things is so large as to render ‘graceful mover’ entirely useless as a clue.

        2. Ah, I take your point. And in a Times 2 puzzle I’d agree, but in cryptics there’s nearly always another way in. Wordplay, as Fabian has said, and checkers can play their part too.

  8. Hardly plain sailing, but then some of us don’t expect to be in that league. Battled with this one – not as friendly as many Hurleys of the past – but in the end got all except bore = PIERCE, must learn both that and article = PIECE. MER at succeeded = S; CN(quite)P URSINE, thank you, Curarist.

  9. DNF. I thought this was the easiest QC of the week until giving up on 5d after numerous alphabet trawls. Piece for a newspaper article is quite vague but fair enough.
    I always assumed BEDSTEAD was just another word for BED so that’s something new I’ve learned today. It was well clued though and with BEDS and AD in place it couldn’t be any thing else.
    COD: LIST
    Thanks Hurley and Curarist.

    1. Bedstead – think of those old iron framed beds which you would then put a mattress on to make it a bed.

      As I said below, same issue with PIERCE. My alphatrawl succeeded relatively quickly once I focused on trying to identify what could go between the I & R. Trying to get the first letter was uninspiring.

  10. Not very plain sailing today. I spent a long time on my LOI, PIERCE, finishing in 16:34. I was also quite slow in untangling UNSEEMLY.

    thanks Curarist and Hurley

  12. I’m with others querying if S is a common abbreviation for succeeded – in which context? Raced through this fairly quickly until my LOI SMILEY, which did make me smile. Thanks Curarist and Hurley

    1. Seem to recall someone previously saying S=succeeded is used in formal documents about the Royal family, org charts, family trees or something like that.

  13. Not entirely plain sailing for me – choppy waters encountered around the Cape of South West Corner, with BEDSTEAD, SMILEY and LOI SHOW causing particular mal de mer. COD to MARRIAGE, simply because I started writing letters in from the bottom up without any idea what the end product was going to be and the PDM was very satisfying!

    Limped home to port after a long trawl in 09:17 for an Undistinguished Day. Many thanks Hurley and curarist.

  14. 24:11 for the solve. Was beginning to panic about whether to go for the clean sweep or time when the first 5 Across clues went straight in. That soon evaporated and my anagramming hat let me down badly so resorted to the old analogue Pen&Paper

    Yet still I reached my last three of ANTELOPE, BEDSTEAD, PIERCE at 11mins but then had little-to-no idea what to do with them. Had identified the portcullis grid as liable to difficulty and so it was, as the lack of starters for these three clues made them much harder. Just ran out of synonyms for the “newspaper article” and “graduate”. Knew worker=ant but just never thought to put it at the beginning. PIERCE (LOI) after some alphatrawling – helped once I realised I’d be better off focusing on the missing 3rd letter.

    I may have enjoyed some of the earlier clues but don’t recall after that extra 12-13mins of mental frustration. Anyway first clean sweep of the weekdays for 2025 in 1hr32.

  15. Beaten all ends up today, I really struggled with the definitions for some reason.

    My solve was summed up by staring blankly at BED _ _ EAD for an age and not being able to work out what the hell was going on.

    Started with CREDITOR and finished with SHOW in a dispirited 13.37.
    Thanks to Curarist

    1. Yes, clearly spam. Nigerian phone number. What a tragedy for that country that one nowadays mostly associates the place with sad spammers and hackers.

  17. Did we all see how newspaper boss, which has forever been ‘ed’, suddenly became ‘editor’? Boy, I didn’t see that coming! One of several clues that looked, at first glance, harder than they actually were. Some hesitation over BEDSTEAD but otherwise no problems, all clear in 6.53, thanks H and C.

  18. Finished this in what I thought was a sprightly 9:49 – and then noted Templar’s comment that he “limped home” in a time over 40 seconds faster. Ah well, each to his own standards. A fun puzzle, though I was held up at the end by BEDSTEAD and my LOI MARRIAGE – a lot of moving parts in both of those and great satisfaction when the parsing emerged. Was all concerned in 21A that the reference to “setter” was going to undo me again, not being able to see the setter’s identity on my phone, until the penny dropped and I realised it was an anagram instead.

    Many thanks Curarist for the blog.

  19. DNF

    Defeated by LOI LEFT. Oh, that sort of port! Tried REST on the basis there might be an obscure port I was unaware of. I mean, I knew it was going to be wrong but couldn’t think of another word meaning quit which fit the checkers. Kicking myself now, obviously.

    In fact the last 3 were those downs in the NE corner with HOOD and PIERCE also causing problems.

  20. Another who struggled with this. A laboured 40 minutes to finish because of MARRIAGE, BEDSTEAD, SHOW, ANTELOPE and UNSEEMLY. Phew.

  21. I’m heartened others found this tricky, as I definitely struggled. Even URSINE (NHO) was more difficult than necessary because I never considered shortening SURE, I was trying to think of synonyms of sure (there are a lot!).

  22. The wheels well and truly came off with this one as I almost failed to finish. I had all but one in a little over target time of ten minutes, then became utterly flummoxed by 5dn. It took me almost as long to get this answer as it did for all the rest combined. Was PIERCE that difficult? not really. I think it was a case of brain fog. I eventually staggered across the line in 19.48.
    Todays time rather ruined a reasonable week with a total of 54.31, giving me a daily average of 10.54.

  23. Gave up on this after around 25 minutes with 16dn outstanding. Also struggled with 1dn, 5dn and15ac (marriage, pierce and bedstead). I was also delayed by misspelling schedule as I entered it which made creditor impossible until I spotted the error. Biffed sidestep without bothering to parse it. All in all a very poor day.

    FOI – 7ac LAWN
    LOI – DNF
    COD – 14dn LARGESSE

    Thanks to Hurley and Curarist

  24. For those unfamiliar with the development of VTOL aircraft, the Wikipedia article on “The Flying BEDSTEAD” is a very interesting read.

    It certainly wasn’t plain sailing (I expect to barely break 3 minutes when it is!) but I didn’t run into any insurmountable difficulties.

    FOI LAWN
    LOI BEDSTEAD
    COD SIDESTEP*
    TIME 4:13
    *Despite the absence of validation for “s = succeeded”, I know I’ve encountered it previously.

    1. There’s no doubt about the validity of “s = succeeded” as it’s in all the dictionaries, but no-one has come up with a context as requested by some early posters, so I’ll do so now. It’s to be found in genealogy and historical records. The fact that ‘s’ might also stand for ‘son’ or ‘sons’ doesn’t invalidate it, as the meaning may be clear from the context or compilers may provide a key to their work explaining their use of abbreviations.

  25. Usual sort of one-coffee time for me. I’ve come across piece for newspaper article recently so PIERCE went in fairly easily (with all the checkers!). Liked MARRIAGE for reasons mentioned above. Had to write out many of the anagrams but this isn’t particularly unusual for me. BEDSTEAD was another unexpected answer (like MARRIAGE) after slavishly following the wordplay. These two clues were my favourites. Wasn’t sure about the ‘to understand’ part of HARD but seemed to fit wordplay so bunged it in and moved on. Many thanks for the blog C. Nice one Hurley.

  27. 11.49. I don’t know why, but I found this difficult to get my teeth into.
    I know that ‘port’ is often equated to ‘left’ in crosswords, but it always niggles me because the port side of a ship of a ship can be either right or left depending on whether one is viewing it from the bow or stern.

  28. (Mrs Wade) I was sailing along until I became completely stuck in the SW corner, so had to admit defeat: didn’t think of BEd for graduate and couldn’t see antelope or smiley. Very frustrating.

  29. 25.07, I too struggled with PIERCE even though it now seems fairly obvious. That clue alone added over 5 minutes to my time. FOI – URSINE, LOI – PIERCE, COD – SIDESTEP with PIERCE a close second. Thanks Hurley and Curarist

  30. I’ll draw a veil over this performance. Let’s just say I went down every blind alley, followed every misdirection and landed on the steps of the SCC. From LAWN to PIERCE in 18:57. Thanks Hurley and Curarist.

  31. Goldilocks timing today at 14:27 not too fast and not too slow. Held up by Antelope Pierce Bedstead (which would be a terrific what 3 words)
    Thanks Hurley and Curarist.
    But more importantly Curarist, if you’re not a…
    cardiologist (avatar is H(e)artman(
    hand orthopod (cure a (w)rist)
    I can’t see that you are a rheumatologist (C U R A Rheumatolog-ist
    So… You’re probably someone who knows how to poison someone with curare and hence a Gas man?

    1. You deduce correctly, sir. When I retired I became Excurarist, but it was a bit of a mouthful so I changed it back.

  32. 7:50

    I consider a Snitch of 100 to equate to about 8:50 for me, so was pleased to come in a minute under that. I nearly got caught out in the SW corner, but bunged in SMILEY without understanding it, assuming it ended with the checked E and then Y, which gave just enough to see both BEDSTEAD and finally ALLIES.

    Thanks Hurley and Curarist

  33. With just three in the SW corner to go, I was still in with a shot of a sub-20, having dispatched Pierce and Bedstead when they popped up earlier. However, I got into all sorts of difficulties with Allies after messing around with Caucus for the meeting, and then completly missed the point(s) of 16d, Smiley, until I read Curarist’s blog. To cap it all, I then spent an age over loi Show. I mean just how many words are there with S*o* (spoiler, nearly 50).
    Having read the other comments, 23mins now doesn’t seem too bad. . . until I think about what I struggled over. CoD to 1d, Marriage, a wonderful AEKI clue. Invariant

  35. 17:32. I should have done a bit better on this but the SMILEY eluded me for ages. good puzzle, thank you both

  36. Not plain sailing here held up in the SW.
    LOI after 23 minutes was ANTELOPE; “worker run away” was D/R/ONE until I biffed the answer.
    ALLIES came slowly. Failed to parse SMILEY so it took ages before I biffed that too.
    CsOD to STREET and CREDITOR.
    A very good puzzle.
    David

  37. 6.29

    Decent effort here without too many hold ups though like Mike couldn’t quite see how SMILEY worked, but it fitted the definition and checkers and as my LOI it was quickly in bunged.

    Thanks Hurley and Curarist

  38. 9.15 The top half was very quick again but I was held up by most of the SW. LOI BEDSTEAD. Thanks Curarist and Hurley.

  39. 18:55 here, doing my bit to raise the average time taken. You’re all welcome. SCHEDULE took an age to come, despite spotting the anagram and having all the crossing letters. Just couldn’t see what could go before the C. Sigh.

    Thanks to Hurley and Curarist.

  40. Well at least we finished today (DNF yesterday) though in a somewhat slow for us 14:04, so not plain sailing. LOI PIERCE where the newspaper article eluded us for a good while. All fair stuff and nothing stand out hard, I might have thought it was just us having a bad day if I hadn’t read above that we were not alone in our experience. Thanks to all.

  41. 27 mins…

    Another one where I may have been sub-20 but got held up by 15ac “Bedstead” and 13dn “Sidestep” – the latter mainly down to not seeing “s” = succeeded, which left me with an Alan Partridge style shrug.

    The rest went in fairly steadily.

    FOI – 7ac “Lawn”
    LOI – 13dn “Sidestep”
    COD – 1dn “Marriage”

    Thanks as usual!

  42. Did well until I didn’t. After exhaustedly tumbling to ANTELOPE, I simply ran out of patience for the should-have-been obvious SHOW, so DNF. It’s true that I couldn’t *quite* parse BEDSTEAD but that’s what the blogger is for, haha.

    Funny how much success at these things is a matter of mental and moral stamina. Much respect to chess players!

    Thanks to Hurley and Curarist.

    1. As I just asked Penny W – did you get the PENELOPE / ANTELOPE ‘joke’ a lot as a child?
      I’m sure they all thought they were being highly original 😅😅😅 Over here, you also get all the money jokes – halfpenny, threepence etc, plus Bad Penny, Penny Dreadful etc etc

      1. Gah, no, because my name is not actually Penelope, but Pendleton. But I got all the money ones (we call our one-cent coins pennies though not pence). A penny for your thoughts?

        1. My mistake! I wasn’t being penny wise then. Quite hard to rhyme Pendleton with antelope too 😂😂

  43. I thought this was quite easy, if you disregard all the difficult bits. Struggled particularly with BEDSTEAD, UNSEEMLY and (LOI) SIDESTEP, finally finishing in 15:21. Felt a bit weird, with some clues leaping off the screen and others requiring much pondering.

    Thank you for the blog!

  44. I did this hours ago and planned to post hours ago as well, but life – and password resetting – got in the way! A quickish start, then a gradual slowing-down to finish in 13:21. I’ve just realised that I never did parse SMILEY!
    FOI Lawn LOI Street Joint CODs – Street and Sidestep
    Thanks Hurley and Curarist

  45. 26 minutes of suffering. If it was plain sailing, then I really am nowhere with this.

    Another dire performance to end a poor week. 104 minutes and only 2 SCC escapes.

    Missed my new target by 5 minutes. Not good enough given the puzzles this week.

    I don’t improve so I don’t get anywhere in this competition. 74 minutes for last three days alone.

    The worst thing of all is that I just knew after yesterday that I would miss my target.

  46. 16m
    Struggled in the middle. Had to come back to it later on and it seemed much easier.
    CoD smiley 😁

  47. 8 short on 15 x 15 after 90 minutes. Most of the missing answers were gettable. ☹️

    A weekend of introspection awaits.

    1. Remember it’s just a crossword Gary – nothing at all to do with what really matters in life 😃

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