Quick Cryptic 81 by Flamande

Posted on Categories Quick Cryptic
Here’s the link to today’s puzzle currently missing from the Times button: http://feeds.thetimes.co.uk/timescrossword/20140630/195/

This is Flamande’s 8th puzzle and after his (?) first three I had him down as one of the more demanding setters. However, either I have got used to him or he’s reined things in a bit without becoming too easy,  and this very enjoyable offering took me 11 minutes

Across

1 Boat Race competitorargumentative sort (5)
ROWER – Two definitions, two pronunciations
4 Think bishop and priest should accompany first lady (7)
BELIEVE – B (bishop), ELI (priest), EVE (first lady, allegedly created from Adam’s rib). Eli, the priest who teaches Samuel in the Book of Samuel, is worth remembering as he crops up quite a lot in cryptic puzzles.
8 Old man swallows an excellent type of medicine? (7)
PANACEA – PA (old man) encloses [swallows] AN + ACE (excellent)
9 Outstanding victory secured by own goal (5)
OWING – WIN (victory) is enclosed [secured] by OG (own goal)
10 Lots of people know that present CEO has become corrupt (4,6)
OPEN SECRET – PRESENT CEO is given the anagram treatment [has become corrupt]
14 Healthy drink team in anger knocked back (6)
ELIXIR – XI (team) in RILE (anger) reversed [knocked back]. This is interesting and a little unusual as depending on which ‘I’ is taken to belong to ‘XI’ the reversal can be applied just to RILE or to the whole thing, thus: ELI (XI) R or EL (IX) IR.  A recent clue in the main puzzle actually incorporated a similar alternative parsing into its wording; something I had never seen before. I note we could have had that priest again here!
15 Fruity part in A Midsummer Night’s Dream? (6)
QUINCE –  references to the fruit and to Peter Quince, the carpenter in Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’
17 Foreign currency I obtained in French airport normally (10)
ORDINARILY – DINAR (foreign currency, used in several North African and ME countries) + I inside ORLY (French airport)
20 Skimpy garment sported in marathon generally (5)
THONG – Hidden inside maraTHON Generally
22 Serve first part of dinner, I yell (4,3)
DISH OUT – Dinner, I, SHOUT (yell)
23 Irish county visited by girl (7)
DONEGAL – DONE (visited, as a tourist may ‘do’ somewhere), GAL (girl)
24 Recalled US university runs a sort of race (5)
RELAY – YALE (US university), R (runs, in cricket) all reversed [recalled]

Down

1 Rhubarb not initially ready for eating (4)
RIPEtRIPE (rhubarb, both slang words for rubbish or nonsense) with its first letter removed [not initially]
2 We hear farm wagon lose power (4)
WANE – Sounds like [we hear] ‘wain’ (farm wagon). ‘Wain’ is not a word used much these days but it’s still known with reference to the John Constable’s famous painting ‘The Hay Wain’
3 First class wedding meal? (9)
RECEPTION – Two definitions, the infant school class and the wedding do
4 Bright start to break? Drizzly afterwards (6)
BRAINY – Break, RAINY (drizzly)
5 Fellow the French love (3)
LEO – LE (the, French), 0 (love, zero in tennis)
6 One settling elsewhere – German, it turned out (8)
EMIGRANT – Anagram [turned out] of GERMAN IT
7 A round number? (8)
EIGHTEEN – Cryptic definition, the number of holes in a round of golf
11 Egalitarian’s goal, maybe, removing crown from real squire in revolution (9)
EQUALISER – Anagram [in revolution] of rEAL SQUIRE. ‘Removing crown’ indicates the first letter is not part of the ‘anagrist’ – crossword jargon for the letters used in an anagram. The corresponding jargon for anagram indicator is ‘anagrind’. It’s not necessary to know this, but those wishing to graduate to the 15×15 puzzle and follow the TftT blogs may find it useful.
12 Passed on the left in grass (8)
REPORTED – PORT (left, in naval jargon) inside REED (grass)
13 Gale subsided – relax (4,4)
WIND DOWN – WIND (gale, but pronounced ‘wined’), DOWN (subsided)
16 Newly-wed’s free to take part in brief dance (6)
BRIDAL – RID (free) inside BALl (dance) with its last letter removed [brief]
18 Excessively large implement (4)
TOOL – TOO (excessively), L (large)
19 Don’t move, guy (4)
STAY – Two definitions, the second referring to a ‘guy rope’ or ‘stay’ which supports a vertical structure such as a flagpole or a tent
21 Ultimately I’ll leave musical concert (3)
GIG – GIGi (musical, film famously starring Leslie Caron, Maurice Chevalier amongst others) with its final ‘I’ removed [ultimately I’ll leave]

12 comments on “Quick Cryptic 81 by Flamande”

  1. Took a bit of time to get going but completed in about 25 minutes. Still takes longer than it should to substitute port for left. Did not parse RIPE. Last one in WIND DOWN as initially entered died down which did not look right.

    Favourite today DISH OUT.

  2. 28 minutes for me. Did it all but missed a couple of parsings (Quince MSND reference lost on me as was Gigi – obviously a cultural philistine!)
  3. A few seconds under 5 mins. I thought this was an excellent QC, and I particularly liked the clue for EIGHTEEN. ORDINARILY was my LOI.
  4. Life would have been easier had I not written CALM DOWN. Thanks, as ever, Jack, for a good blog. 19mins so not one of my quickest
  5. I find even with the blog, which is very good and helpful, the clues are just too difficult. For me flamande is more like the normal times puzzle. Just to difficult for me with no apparent logic so probably won’t bother with his anymore.
    1. Personally I always like flamande’s offerings and find them very accessible. There are others I just don’t get, I guess you can feel a stronger affinity with some and not others
  6. Play a lot of golf. Only today my team reached the dizzy heights of 3rd in the pro-am at Bedford GC. Yet the explanation of 7dn utterly defeated me (it had to be either this or ‘eighties’, not so likely). And if the clue had been a proper one and contained some word play, with this as the (excellent) definition, it would still have done so.
  7. Got the answer to 5ac but could not understand the ref to “priest”. I’m not good on biblical refs. I thought the round number was to do with the roundness of the 8, never thought of golf. I’m not very good at golf refs. Lucky we have the helpful blog!
  8. I must be getting better. Previously I could only do a couple of clues set by Flamande but today I managed all but two. Some I didn’t quite parse correctly but happy to be making progress
    Susie
  9. I managed all but WANE/PANACEA and ELIXIR today. Although I felt it was a hard puzzle, there were enough accessible clues to get me started and I will own up to using the solution button (solving online) a couple of times to check I was on the right lines.

    Thanks jacket, today’s blog was particularly informative. It helps me understand the answers better when the blogger includes the whole clue in the explanation. Also, I particularly relished the fuller explanations as I often need them to understand where the answers come from!

    Well done fellow novices who are making progress and condolences to the anonymous person who says they won’t bother any more. Speaking from experience, it does get better if you can afford the time.

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