I solved all but two clues in 8 minutes but it occurred to me that some of the answers are not easy if one doesn’t have all the necessary general knowledge. Eventually I ground to a halt and needed a further 7 minutes to work out 8ac and 9dn and finish just as the quarter-hour approached. I should have spotted SURVEY immediately but I had distracted myself working out the non-existent “sureep” from wordplay and found it difficult to backtrack from that misleading thought. 9dn I think is genuinely hard.
As usual, definitions are underlined, deletions are in {curly brackets} and indicators are in [square ones]
|
Across |
|
|---|---|
| 1 | Conservative girl in charge is Turin’s foremost expert in Latin? (10) |
| CLASSICIST – C (Conservative), LASS (girl), IC (in charge), IS T{urin} [foremost] | |
| 7 | Riddle perhaps is recalled by woman (5) |
| SIEVE – IS reversed [recalled], EVE (woman) | |
| 8 | Look carefully at us returning very unexpectedly (6) |
| SURVEY – US reversed [returning], anagram [unexpectedly] of VERY | |
| 10 | Book publicity not good (3) |
| BAD – B (book), AD (publicity) | |
| 12 | Drama about calm Herts town (9) |
| STEVENAGE – STAGE (drama) contains [about] EVEN (calm). Stevenage in Hertfordshire was designated a New Town after WWII and expanded considerably as a result. I looked twice at “drama” = “stage” but then thought “drama/stage school” which seems an acceptable example of the words being interchangeable. | |
| 13 | At heart back company road agreement (6) |
| ACCORD – {b}AC{k} [at heart], CO (company), RD (road) | |
| 14 | Care with money leads to terribly hurtful split (6) |
| THRIFT – T{erribly} H{urtful} [leads to], RIFT (split) | |
| 17 | Oblige prisoners to join procession (9) |
| CONSTRAIN – CONS (prisoners), TRAIN (procession) | |
| 19 | Notice something Holy in Rome? (3) |
| SEE – Two definitions. As I understand it, the Holy See of Rome is the jurisdiction of the Vatican. | |
| 20 | After month draw back trickery (6) |
| DECEIT – DEC (month), TIE (draw) reversed [back] | |
| 21 | Ass indulges regularly – make oblique movement (5) |
| SIDLE – Alternate letters [regularly] of {a}S{s} I{n}D{u}L{g}E{s} | |
| 23 | Centre pane broken – contrition needed (10) |
| REPENTANCE – Anagram [broken] of CENTRE PANE. ‘Needed’ is superfluous but helps the surface reading and I suppose is telling us we are looking for a word meaning “contrition”. | |
|
Down |
|
| 1 | Cabals can corrupt a port (10) |
| CASABLANCA – Anagram [corrupt] of CABALS CAN + A | |
| 2 | Guitar maybe turning up in Texas (3) |
| AXE – Hidden and reversed [turning up] in {T}EXA{s}. This term for an electric guitar may not be familiar to some solvers, but it often appears in cryptics so is worth getting to know. It can also refer to saxophones and trumpets amongst other musical instruments hence “maybe” in the clue, as “guitar” is only an example. | |
| 3 | Poet, Southern, writes with hesitation (7) |
| SPENSER – S (southern), PENS (writes), ER (hesitation). I biffed “Spender” as soon as I saw “poet” and S-E- – – -, but had to do a quick rethink. He was on my mind as he turned up last week in the main puzzle. This is Edmund Spenser the 16th century poet who is possibly not very widely known these days. | |
| 4 | Obstinate copper’s initially so extremely daring (6) |
| CUSSED – CU’S (copper’s), S{o} E{xtremely} D{aring} [initially] | |
| 5 | Certain to welcome good increase (5) |
| SURGE – SURE (certain) contains [to welcome] G (good) | |
| 6 | Old coin Iran used replaced (8) |
| DENARIUS – Anagram [replaced] of IRAN USED | |
| 9 | Watchful gaze of sheep – indeed, they say (7,3) |
| WEATHER EYE – Sounds like [they say] “wether” (sheep) “aye” (indeed). This is most commonly used in the expression “to keep a weather eye on”, meaning to watch something carefully, especially for changes in a situation. | |
| 11 | Some divide can, terrific source of drink (8) |
| DECANTER – Hidden [some] in {divi}DE CAN TER{rific} | |
| 15 | Husband with prescribed part of phone (7) |
| HANDSET – H (husband), AND (with), SET (prescribed) | |
| 16 | Somewhat pert rascal upset philosopher (6) |
| SARTRE – Hidden and reversed [somewhat…upset] in {p}ERT RAS{cal}. The French polymath, Jean-Paul, 1905-1980. | |
| 18 | Article on Religious Education in that place (5) |
| THERE – THE (article), RE (religious education) | |
| 22 | Retreat of French knight (3) |
| DEN – DE (of, French), N (knight – chess) | |
Brian
Favourite SARTRE.
Overall though an enjoyable puzzle
The button is supposed to refresh to a different puzzle on each weekday, officially at midnight UK time but it’s more like around 01:00 which suggests to me that it’s tied in some way to GMT rather than BST. Unlike the buttons to other puzzles here you have to wait for the page to finish loading completely before clicking the one to the Quickie, or it won’t open. This can take anything up to a minute in my experience.
There’s no means to print the puzzle from here other than by copy and paste.
If you are lucky enough to have Times on Line, the facsimile e-newspaper included in your sub you can go to the puzzles page as you would in the treeware edition and print it from there: http://epaper.thetimes.co.uk/epaper/viewer.aspx
Edited at 2015-08-24 07:23 pm (UTC)