Orpheus’s fifth, I think, and in common with the previous four I would peg it as being at the easier end of the spectrum. There’s just one full anagram, plus one as part of the wordplay in another clue, which is an unusually low number for these Quick Cryptics (it would be considered a low number in the main cryptic too). I would guess that solvers of all levels of ability find that anagrams are one of the simplest clue types to identify and solve, so it may well be to beginning solvers’ advantage to NOT be fed a diet rich in such clues, so that more time is spent on the clue types that tend to cause the most trouble to new visitors to Crosswordland.
I’ll give my COD to 21A, both for its surface as well as its foreshadowing of the questionable animal food theme that crops up again in 5D.
Definitions are underlined.
Across | |
1 | Goofy type providing information (4) |
DOPE – double definition, both colloquial | |
3 | How Lancelot Brown landscaped his gardens? (7) |
CAPABLY – cryptic definition, a reference to the English landscape architect Lancelot “Capability” Brown, perhaps best known for designing the grounds of Blenheim Palace. His nickname apparently came from his habit of telling clients that their grounds had “great capability” for improvement. | |
8 | Like free tickets – reciprocal, by the sound of it (13) |
COMPLIMENTARY – homophone (by the sound of it) of complementary (reciprocal) | |
9 | Sailor leaves dessert unfinished (3) |
TAR – TAR |
|
10 | Small picture of trendy group (5) |
INSET – IN (trendy) + SET (group) | |
12 | Install a petty officer overcome by drink? (7) |
APPOINT – A then PO (petty officer) inside (overcome by) PINT (drink). I wouldn’t have quibbled if the question mark had been omitted, but it’s perhaps an indication that “overcome by drink” shouldn’t be interpreted in its usual sense of being drunk. | |
14 | Relative giving graduate £1,000 for a start (7) |
GRANDMA – MA (graduate) preceded by (for a start) GRAND (£1,000) | |
16 | Natural skill, say? Not by any means (5) |
NOHOW – homophone (say) of know-how (natural skill). If prior crosswording experience hadn’t taught me otherwise, I would have thought that NOHOW was either two words or hyphenated. Whichever way you slice it though, N_H_W is a set of checkers that has more than a whiff of the exotic but then disappoints with the denouement. | |
17 | Bag originally sold at chemist’s (3) |
SAC – initial letters (originally) of Sold At Chemist’s. This is a bag in the biological sense. | |
20 | Similarly affected, like the Owl and the Pussy-Cat (2,3,4,4) |
IN THE SAME BOAT – reference to Edward Lear’s nonsense poem “The Owl and the Pussycat”, in which the titular protagonists went to sea in a beautiful pea-green … oh, you know. The first of five animal-related clues in a row. | |
21 | Chewy sweet a king fed to beast of burden (7) |
CARAMEL – A + R (king, i.e. rex) inside (fed to) CAMEL (beast of burden) | |
22 | Youth holding end of poodle’s leash (4) |
LEAD – LAD (Youth) around (holding) E (end of, i.e. last letter of, poodlE) |
Down | |
1 | Avoid fish, for white meat (8) |
DUCKLING – DUCK (Avoid) + LING (fish). Possibly the average person’s fifth choice at best if asked to name a white meat. Ling is more popular in crosswords as another name for the shrub heather. | |
2 | Cat starts to prowl around without hesitation (4) |
PUMA – PA (initial letters of (starts to) Prowl Around) surrounding (without) UM (hesitation). Hesitation usually means either um or er. | |
3 | Church artist carrying a minute photographic device (6) |
CAMERA – CE (Church, i.e. Church of England) + RA (Royal Academy, the usual crosswordese for artist) around (carrying) A + M (minute). The definition is something of a giveaway. | |
4 | Tight-fisted type mischievously assaulting a named girl? (5-7) |
PENNY-PINCHER – if a pinch can be regarded as a mischievous assault, then someone mischievously assaulting a girl called Penny could be termed a Penny pincher | |
5 | Wave horse’s feeding-bowl? (8) |
BRANDISH – this seems to be based on the assumption that bran is commonly fed to horses, and hence the container in which it is served might be a BRAN DISH. However a bit of Googling seems to suggest that bran isn’t that great for horses because it depletes calcium. Regardless, as long as your brain associates bran with horse food then you needn’t trouble yourself over the possible deficiencies of a bran-based equine diet. | |
6 | Child’s toy bringing greetings from America (2-2) |
YO-YO – if one American greeting is yo, then greetings (plural) is at least YOYO | |
7 | Rich dairy product: Charlie somehow created first of many (7,5) |
CLOTTED CREAM – CLOT (Charlie, as in a fool) + anagram (somehow) of CREATED + M (first, i.e. initial letter, of Many) | |
11 | A tree was diseased: it comes and goes in waves (3,5) |
SEA WATER – anagram (diseased) of A TREE WAS, with the definition gently cryptic | |
13 | Most of the conflict Edward foiled (8) |
THWARTED – TH (Most of “the”) + WAR (conflict) + TED (one of several diminutives of Edward) | |
15 | A worry, containing extremely serious attack (6) |
ASSAIL – A + AIL (worry) around (containing) SS (extremely, i.e. the extremes of, SeriouS) | |
18 | Record one’s held in the Washington area (4) |
DISC – IS (one’s) inside (held in the) DC (Washington area, i.e. District of Columbia, the region containing the capital (and the Capitol) of the US). Washington DC should not be confused with Washington state on the other side of the country. Nor Columbia with Colombia. | |
19 | Breach that sounds complete (4) |
HOLE – homophone (sounds) of whole (complete) |
Duck as white meat is something of a grey area though I believe it can be justified by its inclusion on some official list or other. A tart, I’d have said, is more usually not a dessert but I suppose that it can be on occasion is sufficient for our purposes. I spent as long the other day contemplating whether ‘sweet’ was a valid definition of ‘choc ice’. I really must get out more!
Hope you have an equally good Bank Holiday folks.
Anyway, got it out in around the half hour mark.
COD & LOI BRANDISH but IN THE SAME BOAT and CAPABLY were close runners-up.
Nice blog mohn2 – like the caustic nuances.