Quick Cryptic 455 by Mara

Author   mohn2Posted on Categories Quick Cryptic
A puzzle that provided a couple of moments of amusement without proving overly taxing, which is generally how I like them. Perhaps only the card game is not in everyone’s vocabulary, but the wordplay for it is generous and it did appear in these parts back in April so of course everyone will have memorised it then, right??? Don’t disappoint me, people.

The crossword can be found here if the usual channels are unavailable: http://feeds.thetimes.co.uk/timescrossword/20151207/11391/

Definitions are underlined.

Across
1 Maybe no longer climbing past it (4-3-4)
OVER-THE-HILL – literal interpretation, as if you were no longer climbing then you might be “over the hill”
8 Country, capital in Lisbon, part of SW Europe (7)
LIBERIA – L (capital in Lisbon, which could be interpreted as either the first letter in “Lisbon” or the capital letter in “Lisbon”) + IBERIA (part of SW Europe). The kind of clue that confuses the heck out of anyone who’s never done a cryptic crossword, as it appears to be indicating Portugal.
9 Arabs rebuilt Iraqi city (5)
BASRA – anagram (rebuilt) of ARABS
10 Picked up, too difficult carrying baggage ultimately (9)
OVERHEARD – OVERHARD (too difficult) around (carrying) E (baggage, ultimately, i.e. the last letter of “baggage”). Oddly, Chambers doesn’t have OVERHARD though Collins does – if I was going to use a similar construction, I think I’d probably say “overly hard” rather than “overhard”.
12 Garland that is left wrong way round (3)
LEI – reversal (wrong way round) of IE (that is) + L (left)
13 Go to bed, having put vase in can (4,2)
TURN IN – URN (vase) in TIN (can)
15 Platform at sea sending back young woman I love (3,3)
OIL RIG – reversal (sending back) of GIRL (young woman) + I + O (love)
17 Wood in panel, maybe (3)
ELM – hidden (in) in panEL, Maybe
18 Biscuit good, a coarse one! (9)
GARIBALDI – G (good) + A + RIBALD (coarse) + I (one). More a Bourbon man, myself.
20 A snake – that computes? (5)
ADDER – take your pick as to whether you want to read this as a jocular extended definition or a double definition
22 Badly hurt, I’m carrying piano – a great achievement! (7)
TRIUMPH – anagram (Badly) of HURT I’M around (carrying) P (piano). I did laugh at the incongruous image conjured up by the surface.
23 Worker with responsibility over another male earning scraps (4,7)
LINE MANAGER – anagram (scraps) of MALE EARNING
Down
1 Old card game found in tomb recently (5)
OMBRE – hidden (found) in tOMB REcently. Collins says that this is from the 18th century, but it is still played periodically in modern times in Crosswordland.
2 Strangely thin, large human (9)
EARTHLING – anagram (Strangely) of THIN LARGE
3 A British leader entering fancy gate leaves here? (6)
TEABAG – A + B (British leader, i.e. the first letter of “British”), all inside (entering) an anagram (fancy) of GATE, with the definition referring to tea leaves
4 Energy brilliant, but starts to decline (3)
EBB – initial letters (starts) of Energy Brilliant But
5 Detached ulna is twisted over top of radius (7)
INSULAR – anagram (twisted) of ULNA IS over R (top of radius, i.e. the first letter of “radius”). Sounds painful.
6 Star of Bethlehem, for example, revealing an important person (7,5)
LEADING LIGHT – literal interpretation, referring to the story of the Star of Bethlehem leading the kings/wise men/foreigners to Jesus’ birthplace
7 Small buzzer in an envied position? (3,2,3,4)
FLY ON THE WALL – kind of a cryptic definition, though the surface reading (no pun intended) doesn’t really help with any misdirection that might otherwise have been present in the word “buzzer”
11 Drooling, seeing footballer’s skill? (9)
DRIBBLING – double definition
14 A cuckoo coming in dashed fast (7)
RAMADAN – A + MAD (cuckoo) in RAN (dashed). Another surface that made me smile, and a change of religion from the usual fast=Lent equivalence.
16 Bitter row, initially, over British school for Frenchman (6)
BRETON – first letters (initially) of Bitter Row, over ETON (British school)
19 Primate finding bird with left and right wings? (5)
LEMUR – EMU (bird) with outer letters (wings) of L (left) and R (right). From the Latin word for ghost.
21 Unusual alcoholic drink (3)
RUM – double definition

12 comments on “Quick Cryptic 455 by Mara”

  1. 40 mins, which is on the slow side for me. LEI and OMBRE unknown but clear from clue and checkers. 7d took a while to get, and SW section last to complete.

    Thanks for detailed blog though I didn’t need it today since everything parsed.

  3. Some nice clues, but nothing held me up. Neat misdirection fo the hiddne ELM at 17a and I liked TEA BAG too. I was definitely on the right wavelength today… a new PB by 20s.
  4. DNF with Ramadan, but otherwise an enjoyable 30 mins. Cuckoo = Mad was new to me but is perfectly reasonable – one more to add to my list!

    Brian

    1. You must have heard of ” One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest ” which is set in an asylum!
  5. I made heavy going of the SW corner, having failed to spot that 23ac was an anagram and trying to get bee/wasp/gnat into 7d. Otherwise not too bad for a Monday. Invariant
  6. Finished in 16 mins, my best, I think – though I am not much of a stopwatch person. I wrote in Ramadan without a clue as to the parsing, but convinced nothing else fits. Didn’t spot the fast pun and suspect that among QC readers who don’t attempt the full monty I won’t be alone…

    Thanks as ever to the bloggers for helping me to wonder how I didn’t instantly see what had been previously completely invisible.

  7. I was on a very different wave length to the setter today and this turned into a real slog. Taking an age to see the 1a and 7d didn’t help matters and nor did missing the anagram in 23a. On about my fourth sitting I was just left with 14d and I guessed the answer as it was the only word that I could think of that fitted the checkers – completely missed the other meaning of fast.
    Thought 3d was a very fine clue
    1. Be prepared to meet ‘fast’ clueing LENT – more often as part of wordplay than the answer in itself – as it turns up a lot.
    1. The surface is how the clue reads if you were considering it as purely a piece of writing, e.g. 9A reads quite naturally (in a newspaper headline kind of way) whereas 10A is rather forced (and you can’t imagine hearing/reading someone saying/writing such a thing). I liked the surface of 22A because it made me think of a person saving their piano from some disaster at the cost of an injury to themselves – a fairly ludicrous scenario. From a solving point of view, you can generally ignore the surface (though a minority of clue types rely on it), but for solvers such as myself a clue can’t be considered good unless it has a noteworthy surface.

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