Quick Cryptic 328 by Orpheus

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
This one took me 12 minutes. I’m standing in at the very last minute for macavity who has been summoned for a hospital scan and  I wish him all the best. I’m sorry that time available did not allow me to include the clues today, but I’ve put the definitions in my comments. Also sorry that something’s gone wrong with LH alignment as a result of cutting corners.

{deletions} [indicators]

Across
1 FREE AND EASY – Anagram [misconstrued] of NEED A REF SAY. Def: casual
9 RIDGE – {part}RIDGE (bird). Def: narrow hilltop
10 TORNADO – TO, RN (sailors- Royal Navy), ADO (trouble). Def: storm
11 STRANGLER – L (left) inside [in grip of] STRANGER (alien). Def: murderous type
13 LOT – Definition: fate, and a cryptic reference to LOT, a character in Genesis whose wife was turned to a pillar of salt during the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah .
14 STROLL – S (son), TROLL (internet pest). Def: ramble
16 AVOWED – {h}AVO{c}, WED (married). Def: declared. ‘Endless’ on this occasion requires us to remove both first and last letters of ‘havoc’, more usually it just means the last letter has to go.
17 TOO – Sounds like “two” (couple). Def: as well
18 YARDSTICK – YARD (detectives, STICK (put up with). Def: standard of comparison
21 ESTUARY – Anagram [turbulence] of TAY SURE. Def: river mouth
23 TOAST – Double cryptic definition: (i) beans could be served on it, (ii) it may be proposed
24 OPEN VERDICT – O (old), PEN (writer), VERDI (composer), CT (court). Def: judgement

Down
2 RADAR – A straight definition: detection system. ‘That comes up just the same’ indicates the answer is a palindrome.
3 ETERNALLY – E (English), TERN (seabird), ALLY (friend). Def: for ever
4 NATAL – Two definitions: (i) connected with birth, (ii) former S African province
5 ERR – {renounc}E, RR (rights). Def: slip up
6 SWALLOW – SALLOW (yellowish) encloses [outside] W (with). Def: migrating bird
7 IRISH SETTER – IRISH (from Co Mayo, perhaps), SETTER (crossword compiler). Def: barker
8 NORTH DAKOTA – Anagram [quirky] of ART TO HAND OK. Biffers beware not to put ‘South’! Def: US state.
12 REVISITED – REV (padre), I (one), SITED (in position). Def: again called
15 ROOFTOP – F{ound} inside anagram of OPORTO. There’s no anagram indicator as such here, but ‘parts of’ tells us the letters of OPORTO are to be used in the answer. Def: building cover
19 RHYME – R{ecalling}, HY (Henry), ME (yours truly). Def: verse
20 ISAAC – ISA (savings scheme – Individual Savings Account), CA (accountant – Chartered Accountant) reversed [set up]. Def: Abraham’s son – more Old Testament stuff!
22 AWN – AN (article) encloses [about] W (wife]. Def: bristle – it’s the beardy bit on barley, oats and other grasses.

12 comments on “Quick Cryptic 328 by Orpheus”

  1. Found this one quite straightforward and completed it in one sitting. I’d not heard of Awn before and for 1a it took me a bit of time to figure out which word was the definition and which was the anagram indicator (casual or misconstrued), so it ended up being one of my LOIs.
    Thanks for stepping in jackkt.
  2. A nice QC from Orpheus, made a bit easier by the friendly perimeter clues. 9, 16 and 18ac were my favourites. Awn was unknown to me as well, but guessable from the clue. Invariant
  3. Even I have finished this one. No help from S and no peeping at the blog until afterwards to find out where the AC in 20 down came from (of course!). Hadn’t heard of awn before. What, please, does “invariant” refer to at the end of some comments?
  4. And I’ve been wondering myself what “invariant” meant! Now I know!
  5. PS 10 minutes 37 seconds tonight, a personal best! At last I’m getting the hang of this cryptic malarkey!
  6. Now I am doing the QC every day, I seem to be getting better. I did this in about 15 minutes – a personal best- finally putting in the unknown Awn because it couldn’t be anything else. David
  7. It seems to be a day for questions and I have one. What’s a biffer please?
    1. The acronym BIFD (Bunged In From Definition) was coined quite recently by one of our contributors and it really took off. Since then a number of words have been back-formed from it starting with the verb “to biff” from which it can be deduced that “a biffer” is a solver who bungs in an answer having spotted the definition and then moves on without checking the wordplay in the clue fits.

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