Quick Cryptic 532 by Hurley

Author   nick_the_novicePosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
An interesting puzzle from Hurley with several clues where, whilst the answer went in easily enough from definition and cross checkers, the parsing was somewhat trickier (at least as far as I was concerned) – 24a being the prime example but also 19d and 22a.

A very nicely constructed (and unusually long) reverse hidden at 12d gets my COTD.

Thanks to Hurley for a most enjoyable puzzle.

Definitions underlined: DD = double definition: anagrams indicated by *(–)

Across
1 Trade union gets backchat in plant (5)
TULIP – TU (Trade union) + LIP (backchat)
4 Arrive bringing in radical associate (7)
COMRADE – COME (arrive) surrounding (bringing in) RAD (abbrev. radical – a much used abbreviation in Crosswordland)
8 Groups of clerics out of order (7)
CIRCLES – *(CLERICS) with “out of order” as the anagrind
9 At home wearing shoddy stuff – a flaw (5)
TAINT – TAT (shoddy stuff) surrounding (wearing) IN (at home)
10 Politicians with role in renewed energy? (5,5)
GREEN PARTY – PART (role) goes into *(ENERGY)
14 British take it easy – initially relaxing in club wear maybe (6)
BLAZER – B (abbrev. British) + LAZE (take it easy) + R (initially – first letter of – Relaxing)
15 Artist – I’d backed American line (6)
RADIUS – RA (artist) + DI (I’D backed – i.e. reversed) + US (American)
17 New bike career – it relieves tension (10)
ICEBREAKER – *(BIKE CAREER) with “new” as the anagrind
20 Appropriately position almost all signs centrally (5)
ALIGN – AL (almost ALL) + middle letters of sIGNs (signs centrally)
22 Old king – just, we hear, and opposing harshness first of all (7)
PHARAOH – First part of the answer sounds like (we hear) Fair (just) + initial letters (first of all) of And Opposing Harshness
23 Give name to scent – it lessens, just a bit (7)
ENTITLE – Answer hidden (just a bit) in scENT IT LEssens
24 Song that’s amusing, wife turning to daughter (5)
DITTY – WITTY (that’s amusing) but with the W (wife) being replaced by D (daughter). Cunning – took me quite a while to see how this worked
Down
1 Thanks court for diplomacy (4)
TACT – TA (thanks) + CT (abbrev. court)
2 Fat fellow about right (4)
LARD – LAD (fellow) goes round (about) R (right)
3 One used to cold parole bar possibly (5,4)
POLAR BEAR – *(PAROLE BAR) with “possibly” as the anagrind
4 Pamper rising Society clique (6)
COSSET – SOC reversed (rising society) + SET (clique – as in the Bloomsbury set)
5 Encountered this writer over time (3)
MET – ME (this writer) + T (time)
6 Account I empty – nasty fall results (4,5)
ACID RAIN – AC (abbrev. account) + I DRAIN (I empty)
7 Infiltrator captured by sentry is tagged (8)
ENTRYIST – Hidden in (indicated by ‘captured by’) sENTRY IS Tagged
11 It indicates where to sit, cradle cap being treated (5,4)
PLACE CARD – *(CRADLE CAP) with “treated” as the anagrind
12 Some get a CID ban overturned and give up (8)
ABDICATE – A clever reversed hidden in gET A CID BAn, with ‘some’ signposting the hidden and ‘overturned’ indicating the reversal
13 Truth about file brought up for renovation (4-4)
FACE LIFT – FACT (truth) goes around (about) FILE reversed (brought up)
16 Mother with good pastry for flier (6)
MAGPIE – MA (mother) + G (good) + PIE (pastry)
18 Huge container filled with spades (4)
VAST – VAT (container) includes (filled with) S (abbrev. spades – as in bridge notation)
19 Barbara with no money finally making call at sea (4)
AHOY – Last letters of (finally) barbarA witH nO moneY. Answer was clear as soon as either of the cross checkers went in, but the parsing took me some time to spot
21 Invest regularly in sports equipment (3)
NET – Every other letter (regularly) of iNvEsT

18 comments on “Quick Cryptic 532 by Hurley”

  1. I thought this an excellent puzzle of the not-a-quickie-as-quickie-but-a-quickie-as-preparation-for-the-main-puzzle type. The clues Nick has identified are prime examples of this, especially the letter-substitution clue at 24a. Look out for the simple word ‘for’ in place of the phrase ‘turning to’ given here in the main puzzle – it has a habit of catching me out!

    Took quite a while, did this: 19 minutes, in fact (or should that be ‘truth’?).

  2. I found this a bit easier than some QCs of late but still failed to achieve my 10-minute target by a minute.

    I agree AHOY was obvious, in my case just from the definition ‘exchange at sea’, but I lost time trying to parse it.

    I don’t recall meeting RAD before 27 February this year (ST 26346) since when it has turned up 4 times including today. On one of these occasions it was clued as ‘excellent’ which I gather is US slang derived from ‘radical’ and equivalent to ‘cool’ in the youth-speak of my generation. On checking these appearances just now I found it had previously turned up in another ST puzzle in June 2013, so I had come across it and forgotten it.

    1. I don’t have the references to hand, but it certainly came up autumn 2015 in QC or 15×15 as it was new to me then and I checked with my son as to whether it was a Gen Y word, prompting a broader set of exchanges which rapidly veered into vocabulary of my generation versus that of his, with “brothel creeper” scoring high marks from him and his chums. Anyway, I digress,,, Since then, RAD seems to crop up all the time (or maybe it just feels that way!)

      Edited at 2016-03-23 08:56 am (UTC)

        1. Very nicely put, U… although – perhaps somewhat unexpectedly – ‘clothes horse’ (as in a person rather than a contraption) also scored very high marks with the Gen Y lads as an old-timer’s term they felt should be reintroduced to the linguistic mainstream
  3. Tough for me today. Gave up with about 10 unsolved clues, all easy once you have the answer. BD
  4. I did a double-take at this, never having come across it before even, so far as I can remember, in crosswordland. But I see it’s in the OED – you do learn stuff from these puzzles. 7.09
    1. Yes, caused considerable eyebrow action for me too until I vaguely remembered hearing about “entryism” as an underhand political tactic a few years ago (probably in Australia), and guessed that where there is an activity, there is an actor… but both are ugly in my book!
      1. Has been around since at least Trotsky, and most famous in this country for the Militant faction’s tactics during the 1980s – and, some might say, of Momentum at the moment!

        (But let’s keep TftT a politics-free zone as far as we can…)

        Edited at 2016-03-23 12:17 pm (UTC)

  5. Entryist was a new one on me too. One of the uglier words I have been introduced to in the QC. Otherwise this proved to be much like yesterday, 90% no problem then a couple of re-visits to finish it off. Never did work out the parsing of 24ac. Neat though.
    PlayupPompey
  6. 24ac is an example of what I call physical clues, that is, clues where you have to actually do something mechanical with the word you are looking for, not all in the mind, or the meanings.. and they are becoming steadily more common in recent years, methinks.
    Good crossword
    1. Thanks for the interesting insight Jerry – would the “lift and separate” style clue be of the ‘physical’ genre, or have I missed the point?
  7. I picked this up a bit later than usual, and made a slow start before getting in the right frame of mind for Hurley. Some excellent clues, with 10ac and 13d my favourites. Thanks Nick for parsing 24ac – I had no idea what was going on even though the answer was easy enough to bif. Invariant
  8. This was a real struggle and ended up with my first DNF for a while. Defeated by 7d and 16a where I was looking for the name of an artist (forgot about the RA = artist thing).
    CODs 6d and 24a (which I’m pretty chuffed I parsed, having read the comments on here)
  9. I think I was on the right wavelength again today. No problems with 7d or 24a etc.
    I ended up in the SW corner needing 13d,23a and 21d. At first I thought 23a had to be Essence and wrote it in which caused a bit of consternation. However I saw Entitled fairly quickly and all done in 20 minutes. LOI was 13d. Good puzzle. David
  10. Great start and steady progress, but two short of a 20 min solve, ended up at 60 mins. The two last in were FACE LIFT and ENTITLED. Never heard of the word ENTRYIST under the Labour Party woes this year. But three for three this week.

    Edited at 2016-03-23 09:21 pm (UTC)

  11. I enjoyed this one – 45 minutes but slow and steady rather than 90% done very quickly and then half an hour on the last two or three.

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