Quick Cryptic 3053 by Wurm

Author   BletchleyRejectPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

 

I found this QC from Wurm to be of above average difficulty. There were some less common senses of familiar words or expressions, eg 1a and 7d. A few words eg 19a, 11d and 14d which I can’t remember seeing in QC-land before added to the challenge.

I limped over the line in 12;56, finishing with the impression of MCC Members in the pavilion behaving badly, as conveyed by my LOI 16d.

Definitions underlined in bold, deletions and letters in wordplay not appearing in answer indicated by strikethrough.

Thanks to Wurm

Across
1 Be proud and resolute going outside (5,3)
STAND OUT – STOUT (‘resolute’) containing (‘going outside’) AND (‘and’)

I took ‘Be proud’ to be in the sense of projecting slightly above a surface, as in a nail which has not been fully hammered in. Not the first sense of ‘proud’ to occur, particularly when followed by the misleading ‘resolute’.
6 Play involving black fellow (4)
TOBY – TOY (‘Play’) containing (‘involving’) B (‘black’)
8 Leading character is somewhat lecherous (4)
HERO – Hidden (‘is somewhat’) in ‘lecHEROus‘
9 Drive away duck circling one small lake (8)
DISLODGE – DODGE (‘duck’) containing (‘circling’) I (‘one’) S (‘small’) L (‘lake’)
10 Welsh aim wrecked in London borough (8)
LEWISHAM – Anagram (‘wrecked’) of WELSH AIM
12 Too much love for German fellow (4)
OTTO – OTT (‘Too much’) O (‘love’)

OTT an initialism for “over the top”.
13 Organ swell that might hamper listener? (6)
EARWAX – EAR (‘Organ’) WAX (‘swell’)

Wax for ‘swell’, or getting bigger, as in the waxing of the moon.  The answer isn’t exactly music-related!
15 Shows disapproval about our heartless lecturers (6)
TUTORS –TUTS (‘Shows disapproval’) containing (‘about’) OUR (‘our heartless’)

The second QC appearance in two days for TUT which was clued yesterday by ‘rebuke’.
17 Addict from southeast in ancient city (4)
USER – SE (‘southeast’) contained in (‘in’) UR (‘ancient city’)
19 Wood in stacks sheltering a pig (8)
MAHOGANY – MANY (‘stacks’) containing (‘sheltering’) A HOG (‘a pig’)

No, Oink is not today’s setter. I see MAHOGANY has appeared in QC’s before; in 2016, 2020 and 2021.

For the sense of MANY, ‘stacks’ is usually followed by ‘of’.
21 Tyrant adroit manoeuvring around court (8)
DICTATOR – Anagram (‘manoeuvring’) of ADROIT containing (‘around’) CT (‘court’)
23 Turned on by Irish film genre (4)
NOIR – Reversal (‘turned’) of ON then IR (‘Irish’)

I like the Wikipedia description of “a style of Hollywood crime dramas that emphasises cynical attitudes and motivations”, although Hollywood wasn’t the only place to make films in this style.

I can already hear the zither.
24 Boss in educational activity mostly (4)
STUD – STUDY (‘educational activity mostly’)

A ‘boss’ is a STUD on eg the centre of a shield.
25 Force breaches defences (8)
RAMPARTS – RAM (‘Force’) PARTS (‘breaches’)

PARTS for ‘breaches’ as in “separates” as a verb. Again, this sense didn’t immediately come to mind.
Down
2 Perhaps May article on Salvation Army (7)
THERESA – THE (‘article’) RE (‘on’) SA (‘Salvation Army’)

The first name of the former PM.
3 Girl raised grouse on island (5)
NAOMI – Reversal (‘raised’) of MOAN (‘grouse’) above (in a down clue) (‘on’) I (‘island’)
4 No spring chicken daring to go topless (3)
OLD – BOLD (‘Daring to go topless’)

Amusing surface. Not always a good look.
5 Check striker fit for international? (4,5)
TEST MATCH – TEST (‘Check’) MATCH (‘striker’)

‘International’ in the sense of a sporting event between two countries. Our first cricketing reference.  I think ‘fit’ is here just for the surface.
6 Fish sandwiches to present without thought (4,3)
TROT OUT – TROUT (‘Fish’) contains (‘sandwiches’) TO (‘to’)
7 Intolerant sort to leave in short while (5)
BIGOT – GO (‘to leave’) contained in (‘in’) BIT (‘short while’)

Not the sense for BIT that immediately came to mind: “I’ll see you in a bit / in a short while”.
11 Six-footer encountered in verse? (9)
HEXAMETER – Cryptic definition

A HEXAMETER is a line of verse containing six metrical feet, hence the non-entomological ‘Six-footer’ (very good). I may be missing some wordplay here with MET for ‘encountered’, but if so I can’t see how the rest of the wordplay works.

This has appeared once before in a QC in 2022.
14 Material from most evil news boss (7)
WORSTED – WORST (‘most evil’) ED (‘news boss’)

“A fine smooth yarn spun from combed long-staple wool” according to Oxford Dictionaries.

Are we meant to be thinking of someone specific here? No comment.

Like the previous answer, has appeared once before in a QC in 2016.
16 Go berserk in high-scoring Lord’s game? (3,4)
RUN RIOT – Double definition, the second a somewhat cryptic cricket-related one, referring to a game in which many runs are scored.
18 Sell battered fish over time (5)
SHIFT – Anagram (‘battered’) of FISH above (‘over’) T (‘time’)

Sounds like Arthur Daley-speak; “Terry, we need to shift these motors”.
20 Italian city an ego destroyed (5)
GENOA – Anagram (‘destroyed’) of AN EGO

I’m not sure if there is any significance to the surface. Looking it up, there was a siege of Genoa, occupied by a French garrison at the time, in 1800 during which 30,000 people died. Napoleon’s name (?’ego’) comes up when reading about it, but I’m not sure he was directly involved.
22 Strange Caribbean spirit (3)
RUM – Double definition

73 comments on “Quick Cryptic 3053 by Wurm”

  1. 17:05
    Found this hard, particularly the last bit of RUN RIOT and TOBY. EAR WAX was tough, the X with the A made me guess LARYNX=organ. Also wax=swell is tough, and “for the listener” usually indicates a homophone.

    HEXAMETER went in without total confidence about the unchecked vowels.

    COD BIGOT

  2. I’ve really got to stop biffing answers and not returning to check them quickly enough. I biffed RUN AMOK for 16dn which caused me quite a delay getting NOIR and RAMPARTS. Eventually I revisited it and RUN RIOT then made the others pretty much instantly solvable.
    A similar degree of difficulty to yesterday’s, at least for me, and my time of 11.45 reflects that it was tougher than average. Certainly enjoyable though.

  3. Thought this was going to be a struggle but we did come in a little under par at 11:36. Too many random names for it to be really enjoyable though. HEXAMETER went in without any other thought than it was a cryptic definition. Only parsed DISLODGE and STANDOUT retrospectively. Thanks to Wurm and BR.

  4. 8 minutes for me; LOI DISLODGE. No real problems.
    COD to TROT OUT.
    Maybe it was easy for me because I shall be travelling through Lewisham tomorrow en route to the test match. Hoping for a run riot if England bat. Otherwise our hero bowlers can put in a shift and dislodge the Indians for a stand out result.
    Weather forecast is noir however.
    David

  5. A bit tricky, yes. 1a Stand Out, I was a bit put off by seeing OUTside in the clue.
    13a Earwax was ear something but took a while to think of wax. I too was tempted by wig.
    11d COD Hexameter.
    16d LOI Run Riot. The run was clear but there are lots of (3,4) run somethings, such as wild, amok, outs, over to mention but a few.
    Thanks to Wurm and BletchleyReject

  6. 7.19 Quicker than average. EARWAX and HEXAMETER needed some checkers but only LOI MAHOGANY held me up. Thanks BR and Wurm.

  7. Only five clues remained as the doors of the SCC opened for me, but I would not be allowed to enter for another 20 minutes or more. Those five stubborn clues (6a, 9a, 12a, 6d, 7d) were all in the NE corner, so I had precious few checkers to work with.

    9-10 minutes passed before TROT OUT popped into my head and this was immediately followed by TOBY. Another frustrating 9-10 minutes passed before BIGOT revealed itself, and DOSLODGE and OTTO followed fairly soon after. Phew!

    Total time: 40-41 minutes

    Many thanks to BR and Wurm.

  8. Finished correctly in just over 60 minutes.
    That is the hardest cryptic that I have managed to finish.
    And it is an hour of my life that I will not get back.

    I am not going to say what I thought of the clues as I would not like to upset the setter. Except to say that I have never liked the use of random names of men or women in crosswords. There were three in this puzzle.

    1. I take your point as to random names, but you could also look at today’s effort as an hour well spent in expanding your ability to tackle difficult clues, no?

  9. Like our blogger found too many unusual usages of common terms which made this non-QC by Wurm hard for me which took away the pleasure of solving. Ramparts, Hexameter, Run Riot were the hardest.

  10. A very hard puzzle and left many unsolved. Not fun for me and too hard for a QC in my opinion

  11. I found this more challenging than previous commenters and needed an extra coffee to get over the finish line. Lots to like along the way though, including the NHO HEXAMETER and EARWAX. Didn’t really understand second definition of RUN RIOT (cricket, of course, thanks BR) . LOI DISLODGE was biffed then parsed. Liked surface for BIGOT. Many thanks Wurm.

  12. 26 mins…

    I bought this was definitely above average and for a good 10 mins I hardly had anything on the grid, especially in the top half. Some good clues though.

    FOI – 4dn “Old”
    LOI – 9ac “Dislodge”
    COD – 2dn “Theresa”

    Thanks as usual!

  13. 23.10 (after removing time for collecting second coffee). In the SCC.
    MER re BIGOT> intolerant.
    RAMPARTS took a long time. TOBY likewise.
    STUD /boss centre of shield new to me. : )
    COD MAHOGANY
    Thank you Wurm and BletchleyReject.

    1. DNF – Not possible to finish as hadn’t heard of HEXAMETER and put EARWIG instead of EARWAX so was never going to get it. Apart from that an enjoyable solve in 30 minutes. Thank you Wurm for a challenging puzzle and for introducing a new word and BR for the explanations.

    2. bigot (plural bigots)

      One who is narrow-mindedly devoted to their own ideas and groups, and intolerant of (people of) differing ideas, races, genders, religions, politics, etc.

      1. Thank you! … clarification appreciated (and I should know better than to doubt the wisdom of Wurm). : )

  14. 26.54. STAND OUT, RUN RIOT, SHIFT, and DISLODGE were very hard- relieved to finally get through. Didn’t like the definition of DISLODGE.

  15. 4:23 but another EARWIG, leaving me with 2 errors. Not unusually for a QC, I feel hard done-by. If not for the unnecessary HEXAMETER, the puzzle would have been fine. Is this how we want QCs to be?

  16. A struggle. Had RUN AMOK and RUN WILD before (eventually) getting to the right answer. Also very slow to get TROT OUT, TOBY and RAMPARTS. 20:55.

  17. 8:51

    Quite a bit spent on LOI RUN RIOT. Not surprised previous contributors have not heard the cricketing term as nobody has ever said it in that sense. A high scoring match is referred to as a ‘run fest’, but NOIR put paid to that.

    Thanks all.

  18. Too much for me, giving up after 25 minutes with EARWAX, HEXAMETER, RAMPARTS and RUN RIOT all eluding me. Must be my worst performance in quite a while.

    Thank you for the blog!

  19. I nearly came a cropper with my inability to spell relatively simple words. I nearly put in RAMPAnTS. I was thinking of breeches as opposed to breaches but RAMPARTS was clearly the answer. I had no idea what was going on with the Lords definition of RUN RIOT but it fitted the checkers. EARWAX and HEXAMETER were my LOsI. 7:40 Thanks BR

  20. 9:54. No real problems today. HEXAMETER jumped out at me with just the leading H in place, which helped a lot and earns my COD vote.

    Thanks to BR and Wurm.

  21. Some tricky ones today. Difficult to get started and unable to develop any rhythm. Both 6a Toby and 8a Dislodge brought MERs from me. OTOH I liked 13a Earwax! Not a cricketing fan but doubted 16d Run Riot would be used as such. 12a seems a desperate use of another name to get a word that fits O-T- when there are alternatives to clue eg OATH
    FOI 8a Hero
    LOI 12a Otto
    COD 16a Ramparts.

  22. I finished this in a reasonable time (for me, which I won’t share because it is so much longer than all of you clever clogses). COD EARWAX. Thanks all!

  23. DNF, found it hard, but made the ones I did figure out that much better. Very clever clues. Thank you for the blog 😁

  26. Six (SIX) acrosses blank after first pass but the downs all went in and mopping up followed. LOI MAHOGANY, COD EARWAX. All done in 07:56 for a Decent Day. Many thanks Bletchers and His Wiggles.

  27. I got just 8 on 15 x 15. An utter humiliation.

    Why do I bother when I am this bad? I have learnt nothing in my time here if this is the sum total of my efforts. Dreadful.

  28. Late to this but found it straightforward finishing in 20:57.
    Initially had RUN AMOK for 16d but settled for the unparsed RUN RIOT.
    COD NOIR
    Thanks both.

Comments are closed.