As it happens I drew Hurley as the setter last week too. This is a well composed puzzle with some good surfaces and concise clueing. Nothing tricky or unfair. I recycled the Whister’s Mother userpic this week because I’ve got a late winter cold, so all the portrait needs is a pot of Vick, a box of kleenex and a hot water bottle to be complete. At the end of this blog I’m going to add a useful, though certainly not exhaustive, primer by Vinyl (who blogs the Monday 15×15) taken and edited from his comments on the cryptic for Saturday February 20th. That puzzle had some difficult words – “diazo” and “myosotis” for example! Definitions in italics underlined. Answers in bold caps.
Across
1. Exclusively controlled pool – one’s dim to get involved (11)
MONOPOLISED. Anagram (involved) of POOL ONE’S DIM. Ignore the dash.
8. Note issues upset Ashes contestants (7)
AUSSIES. The note is A from the musical scale of A to G with an anagram (upset) of ISSUES. The only hold-up was deciding which note was intended, but even I know about Australians and cricket so it wasn’t too hard to extrapolate from the definition.
9. Greek primate supplying fruit (5)
GRAPE. GR=Greek with APE=primate. GR often turns up denoting Greek, as does FR for French and BR for British.
10. She’s wizard! (9)
SORCERESS. A she-wizard. I’m not quite sure what to call this – a self-solving clue?
12. Shade recalling some Paisley design (3)
DYE. A containment clue [Paisl]EY D[esign] read backwards (recalled).
13. Bat clamour (6)
RACKET. Double definition. When is a racket not a racquet? When it’s a bat. Or something.
15. Study programme associated with us in Anglican Church (6)
COURSE. OURS=associated with us, contained in CE=Church of England.
17. Wise not beginning period of history (3)
AGE. [s]AGE. Drop the first letter of “sage” (not beginning).
18. Milky drink and beer grand! Hurry! (5,1,3)
SHAKE A LEG. SHAKE=milky drink. ALE=beer. G=grand.
20. Leaders in astrology recognise its equivalent sign: the Ram (5)
ARIES. The first letters (leaders) of the 3rd through the 7th words in the clue. When the moon is in the 7th house etc. Nice one.
22. A Doctor of Divinity in valley to become happy (7)
GLADDEN. A DD (doctor of divinity) contained in GLEN= valley. DD is a very common convention used by setters so it just needs to be stored somewhere handy. I would have said “glen” was Scottish but my shorter OED says its origin is Welsh. I also would have quibbled and said that “gladden” means to make happy not become so, but the same authority begs to differ, at least in the first definition given. I stand corrected – twice.
23. Agree CI2I should be read out (3.3.2.3)
SEE EYE TO EYE. If you say CI2I out loud (read out) that’s what it sounds like. Of course, it’s the letter I, not the number one. The sort of clue that can give you fits at first glance but it’s not that unfriendly.
Down
1. No spendthrift from Belgium I served (5)
MISER. Containment clue [Belgiu]M I SER[ved].
2. Silent lionesses, wild (9)
NOISELESS. Anagram (wild) of LIONESSES.
3. Annoy nobleman crossing street (6)
PESTER. PEER=nobleman containing (crossing) ST[reet].
4. Convict to fall behind (3)
LAG. Double definition.
5. Learner breaks smoothing tool? Calumny (7)
SLANDER. L contained in (breaks) SANDER=smoothing tool.
6. Machine in Liege needs to be altered (6,6)
DIESEL ENGINE. Anagram (to be altered) of IN LIEGE NEEDS.
7. After a scare possibly, South African boys getting menu items (6,6)
CAESAR SALADS. Anagram (possibly) of A SCARE with S[outh] A[frican] LADS=boys. Rather neat.
11. Colour conflict in southeastern pottery (9)
STONEWARE. TONE=colour. WAR=conflict. Contained in S[outh]E[astern].
14. Crack, cold, about weakness (7)
CREVICE. C=cold. RE=about. VICE=weakness. I get confused between a crevice and a crevasse though I believe they are much the same. Fortunately they don’t have the same number of letters.
16. Following good commercial acquire smartphone? (6)
GADGET. G[ood]. AD=commercial. GET=acquire. A smartphone being an exampe of one, hence the ?
19. House ultimately useful to aid hunting maybe (5)
LODGE. Final letters (ultimately) of the final 5 words of the clue. I had the answer but didn’t parse it right away.
21. It’s overhead, so key, every second (3)
SKY. Every other letter in S[o] K[e]Y.
‘Vehicle’, short answer, think ‘car’, ‘bus’, ‘sub’, ‘van’. For a long answer, something starting with ‘auto-‘.
‘Indian’ is usually ‘Ute’, ‘Cree’, or ‘Sioux’ in a homophone. Islands in cryptics? ‘I’, ‘ait’, ‘Cos’, ‘Elba’, ‘Crete’ come up often. Bingo!’
Battle sites are often ‘Mons’ or ‘Somme’.
French writers are usually ‘Gide’ or ‘Camus’, who is ‘sumac’ backwards.
Army officer at the beginning is either CO, Col, or possibly CIC. ‘Fellow-fighter’ screams out for ‘ally’ a common word ending.
‘Chinese period’ is almost always ‘Ming’ at the end of a word.
‘was first’ is almost always ‘led’ at the end of word.
Edited at 2016-03-03 06:05 am (UTC)
The DBE is one of those things (like semiotics) that my brain refuses to make room for unless it’s a dame. I agree with Jack that the latest QCs have been much of a muchness. Perhaps we’re due for a stinker.
PS thanks for attaching Vinyl’s primer – all help gratefully received.
Im afraid that the DBE debate is beyond me and I wouldn’t complain if all QCs at this level, but I expect Olivia is correct and I’ll be staring at blank squares for an hour tomorrow.
Brian
Agree with Olivia re gladden and glen. I have never come across that usage of gladden, although gladdened is common enough, and have never come across a glen in Wales. Plenty of valleys and vales but not a single glen that I can remember.
Playuppompey
This was a slightly stuttering solve but quite quick in the end i.e.under 30 minutes.My LOI was 8a despite knowing cricket. I didn’t quite see how the clue worked at first. I thought Racket must be right for 13a but I am trying to work out exactly why. Which racquet can be called a bat? Incidentally golfers sometimes refer to their clubs as bats but I don’t know whether the dictionary recognises this. David
Yes, the club/bat/stick thing has come up before (puzzles 198 and 209) and caused some controversy when it was pointed out that the dictionaries support it.
Edited at 2016-03-03 10:03 pm (UTC)
One off my best ever times today – less than 30 minutes.
I got course unparsed for 15a, seems obvious now, thanks Olivia.
The SW corner held me up slightly as I’d interpreted crack in 14d as cocaine!
CoD was 5d for me.