Quick Cryptic 3080 by Cheeko

Author   CuraristPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

This was a slightly above par time for me, but an enjoyable solve nonetheless. It contains one wordplay trick that I don’t think I’ve come across before, and I will be interested to see if it causes any problems.

Across
1 Evil sort of long-term prisoner holding copper back (7)
LUCIFER – LIFER with CU backwards inserted
5 Nine divine sisters, married, with needs (5)
MUSES – M + USES
8 Combatant’s violent alarmist trait (7,6)
MARTIAL ARTIST – anagram (‘violent’) of ALARMIST TRAIT
9 Very strict role in Sid and Nancy to begin with (7)
SPARTAN – PART inside S[id] & N[ancy]
10 Grand young woman, one that can hold a drink (5)
GLASS – G + LASS
11 Scandinavian article about depression? On the contrary (6)
DANISH – DISH outside AN. Slightly obscure definition of dish, but acceptable.
13 Heavy old dog disheartened in pen (6)
STODGY – O + D[o]G inside STY
15 Gain knowledge from, off and on, illegal service (5)
LEARN – alternate letters of iLlEgAl + RN (Royal Navy, a service)
16 Spend a lot on French version of The Scream (4,3)
LASH OUT – LA SHOUT. ‘Splash out’ surely? ‘Lash out’ means attack unexpectedly, doesn’t it?
19 Inert sort unexpectedly bitten by Dutch South African dog (6,7)
BOSTON TERRIER – anagram (‘unexpectedly’) of INERT SORT inside BOER
20 Starts to spray crowd with drink, causing disorderly struggle (5)
SCRUM – S + C + RUM
21 Mild rebuke, not when partly backtracking (3,4)
NOW THEN – Now then, now then: this is the new device that I don’t think I’ve seen before: NOT WHEN only partly (i.e just the TW) reversed. Not the hardest clue to biff, but may trip up some.
Down
1 Large doctor breaking one’s legs? (5)
LIMBS – L + MB (doctor) inside (‘breaking’) IS (one’s)
2 Arian is cast in more concise preliminary dramatic piece (7-6)
CURTAIN-RAISER – anagram (‘is cast’) of ARIAN put inside CURTER (more concise)
3 Female is not commonly dim (5)
FAINT – F + AIN’T (how you say ‘is not’ if you’re common)
4 Concerning fast, give in (6)
RELENT – RE + LENT. Curarist’s top tip: FAST always = LENT
5 Ideal man’s power to accommodate bishop (2,5)
MR RIGHT – MIGHT (power) taking in RR, for Right Reverend, the title of a bishop. Compare with VEN (venerable) which is what you call an archdeacon.
6 Slipshod head of programming ain’t developing attention to neatness (4,3,6)
SPIT AND POLISH – anagram (‘developing’) of SLIPSHOD + P + AINT
7 Convince Express about The Independent’s sports features, primarily (7)
SATISFY – SAY (express) around T[he] I[ndependent’s] S[ports] F[eatures]
11 British dame hosting priest and southern composer (7)
DELIBES – DBE is Dame of the British Empire with ELI (priest from the Bible) inserted, + S. Curarist’s top tip: PRIEST always = ELI.
12 Tabloid space that could offer a bright perspective (7)
SUNROOM – SUN (tabloid newspaper) + ROOM (space). ‘Space’ arguably doing double duty
14 Adhesive containing trace of this new protein (6)
GLUTEN – GLUE containing T for trace + N
17 Small mammal, quiet, on top of woodpile (5)
SHREW – SH (quiet!) + RE (on) + W (top of ‘woodpile’)
18 Mathematician almost finds Italian city (5)
TURIN – Short for (Alan) TURING. Bletchley Park mathematician, who famously committed suicide by eating an apple laced with cyanide. Someone once told me that this was the inspiration for the Apple Computer logo, but like all the best stories it isn’t true.

99 comments on “Quick Cryptic 3080 by Cheeko”

  1. 19:31, and I had to look up “types of terrier” to get my LOI. So that’s something I’ve learned today. COD to NOW THEN, by a nose from DANISH.

    Thanks to Cheeko and Curarist.

  2. I made life difficult for myself by biffing BORDER TERRIER! I saw ‘sort’, thought it might be the anagrind, didn’t investigate any further, and bingo – a dog’s dinner in the SW corner 😅
    When I suddenly realised that 2d was CURTAIN RAISER, it made all the difference.
    Despite that, I think I can safely say that this was the most enjoyable CHEEKO puzzle to date.
    About 15 minutes FOI Lucifer LOI Danish COD Mr Right
    Thanks Cheeko and Curarist

  3. Late in the day – I am babysitting a very energetic 2-year-old grandson so my time is not exactly my own – and I’m not sure it was worth snatching the 17 minutes or so that this took to solve. Rather too many MERs for this to be enjoyable – is MARTIAL ARTIST a real term? LASH OUT for Splash out? NHO BOSTON TERRIER (OK my failing), DANISH biffed (I mean, there aren’t that many Scandinavians to choose from) but Dish for depression too complex for me to parse. I did know Delibes, worked out how NOW THEN worked after biffing it, and eventually thought of Turing, but the puzzle as a whole was I suspect aimed at the upper echelons of the QC world. Which I am not!

    Many thanks Curarist for the blog, much needed today.

  4. Lovely puzzle from Cheeko, which I did more quickly than usual first thing this morning, with the top left corner going straight in. Clearly toned down in difficulty, but I didn’t mind as the clues were of the usual high standard. No problem with any of the vocabulary, but a bit of a mer at needs = USES. Worked my way down ending with NOW THEN, so with crossers in I have no idea whether it would have held me up otherwise. LASH OUT/SPLASH OUT are synonyms – nothing wrong with the term.

  5. Not easy for me today too many to look up to keep me going though except for BOSTON TERRIER I did know all the words, nearly. Our landscaper does martial arts and I’ll see if he says he’s an artist, he reckons his sparring partner is usually out to kill him! Let’s see how the Jumbo will be tomorrow.

  6. Spent well over 2 hours on 15 x 15 and got just over half. Glad the week is at an end!

  7. Dnf…

    After 20 mins I had everything apart from 10dn “Delibes” and 15ac “Learn”. Stupidly, I actually put both of them down but couldn’t parse them, so scratched them off. Excusable perhaps for “Delibes” which I had vaguely heard of, but not for “Learn”.

    Overall, this was a tricky puzzle – lots of answers I thought were write-ins, but the parsing proved much more difficult. 10ac “Danish” and 21ac “Now then” come to mind. Like Curarist, wasn’t keen on “Lash Out” for 16ac, which I’ve never heard of in that context.

    FOI – 3dn “Faint”
    LOI – dnf
    COD – 1dn “Limbs”

    Thanks as usual!

  8. Held up putting in stardom for 12d. Star for the tabloid and dom (domain, space?) meaning a bright perspective with the S and M already in.But alas no. Not sure also if the Star is to be mentioned here.

  10. Another relative toughie though, at 14:38, we fared rather better than yesterday. We were others who wondered about needs = uses though it seemed clear what the answer needed to BE. We didn’t stop to parse NOW THEN properly. COD LASH OUT. Thanks, all.

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