Quick Cryptic 518 by Hurley

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.

vinyl1

Feb. 27th, 2016 07:09 pm (UTC)
Well, how do we do it? Experienced solvers react automatically to certain elements of clues, things they have seen many times before. This enables us to get the ‘easy’ answers, and provides crossing letters for the elusive ones.

‘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.

13 comments on “Quick Cryptic 518 by Hurley”

  1. Sorry to hear you’re ill, Olivia. (I don’t suppose I can interest you in my brother’s cure for a cold: Take a bottle of Scotch and a top hat; get into bed with the bottle; put the hat on the foot of the bad; drink the Scotch until you can no longer see the hat. I thought as much.) I didn’t care that much for this one, I think mainly because of some of the surfaces, eg 7d or 21d. I’m not sure if this has been discussed here, but Olivia mentions the ? in 16d. There is — not a ban on, but a general objection to Definition by Example (the dreaded DBE); that is, one can clue LION by ‘cat’, but not CAT by ‘lion’. A setter can avoid censure by adding, ‘perhaps?’ or ‘say’, or ‘?’ So, since a smartphone is an example of a gadget, … Looking at vinyl’s example of ‘Indian’, it occurred to me to add that ‘[Australian/American/etc.] native’ (almost?) always indicates an animal not a human. 5:25.
  2. A straightforward 9 minute solve for me. My experience suggests the level of difficulty has been more consistent over the past 10 or so puzzles.

    Edited at 2016-03-03 06:05 am (UTC)

  3. Not too many customers this morning. They must have been put off by my cold and who can blame them. I’m not sure about your brother’s cure Kevin – my husband spiked my consomme with bourbon last night and so managed to spoil both drinks!

    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.

  4. I thought this was going to be difficult at first, but then things started to drop into place resulting in a full house after 32mins. That’s quicker than average for me, and probably my quickest Hurley finish. 23ac was my favourite, just from a novelty point of view. Invariant
    PS thanks for attaching Vinyl’s primer – all help gratefully received.
  5. I could just copy and paste Invariant’s comment as we seem to have had a broadly similar solving experience. The one difference was that I wasn’t sure of the parsing of 15a which seems obvious now. I was trying to fit both us and OU into the middle of course – without much success -so thanks for the clarification Olivia. 23a made me smile once I’d got my head round it.
  6. Another enjoyable 30 minutes or so. This time on the train to Southend-on-Sea, I did most of it on my phone and finished the anagrams on paper in the ‘big’ train.
    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
  7. I really struggled with this, and am fast coming to the conclusion that it has far more to do with my frame of mind than the intrinsic difficulty of the offering. The result was my first DNF for a long time after a run of ever improving times, at least I think they have been improving but I never time myself so it is purely a subjective view. i did enjoy 23ac though. That was something different.
    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
  8. Solved this after a day’s golf -lovely weather in SE today.
    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
    1. Unspammed. It’s been a while, David, but the full-stop no space did for you again!

      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)

  9. Back in the 20 minute groove, my times have improved over the last fortnight. I don’t see GLADDEN as ‘become happy’ although the DD gave it away. COD 18a and LOI 11d, not sure I have heard if of Stoneware, earthenware maybe. Also a bit confused about 19d, if it means House, and Aid to hunting, then it’s a double def, so why ‘ultimately’? But I liked today’s puzzle, good mixture of clues.
  10. ‘Ultimately’ is to signify the last letters of ‘useful to aid hunting maybe’, but as that phrase can also act as another definition, would that make it an &lit?

    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.

  11. Nothing to add but thanks to all for the comments as always. The queries seem to have been answered so I’ll have my soup in a bowl and my bourbon in an old-fashioned with ice, bitters and the trimmings. Should buy me a night’s sleep.

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