Quick Cryptic 877 by Orpheus

Author   william_j_sPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
Mostly smooth sailing, but I suspect one’s general interests / willingness to trust the wordplay, will play a large part in the ease of solving. Embarrassingly (for someone keen on biology), it was the butterfly, the grass, and the seabird that held me up. Struggled to get the reference in 16dn, too, until I thought of the closely related adjective!

Definitions underlined.

Across
1 Unattractive leaders of union given little say, ultimately (4)
UGLY – first letters (leaders) of Union Given Little, and last letter of (ultimately) saY.
3 Find CD finished? (8)
DISCOVER – DISC (CD) and OVER (finished).
8 Eg Earl Grey’s dance where refreshments are served (7)
TEASHOP – TEA’S (e.g. Earl Grey’s) and HOP (dance).
10 Lose one’s bottle, being a grass! (5)
PANIC – double definition.
11 Flawed condition of a French strait and headland (11)
UNSOUNDNESS – UN (‘a’ in French), SOUND (strait) and NESS (headland).
13 Monkey’s glaring mistake? (6)
HOWLER – double definition.
15 Posh part of hospital, quietly carried to a higher level (6)
UPWARD – U (upper-class, posh (cf. ‘non-U’) and WARD (part of hospital), with P (piano, quietly) carried inside.
17 Revised assessment liars appear to develop (11)
REAPPRAISAL – anagram of (to develop) LIARS APPEAR.
20 One of two writers getting material rejected? (5)
ELIOT – either George Eliot (pen name of Mary Ann Evans) or T.S. Eliot. Reversal of (rejected) TOILE (a material).
21 Again choose City trader’s opening after dance (2-5)
RE-ELECT – EC (City (of London)) and first letter (opening) of Trader, all after REEL (dance)
22 Raining horribly, keeping in East African (8)
NIGERIAN – anagram of (horribly) RAINING surrounding E (east).
23 Stimulus almost certain to overcome pressure (4)
SPUR – all but the last letter of (almost) SURe (certain), surrounding (to overcome) P (pressure).
Down
1 Lacking education, poor aunt meets violent thug (8)
UNTAUGHT – anagram of (poor) AUNT, followed by an anagram of (violent) THUG.
2 Governs northern city mentioned in speech (5)
LEADS – homophone of (mentioned in speech) “Leeds” (northern city).
4 Hinder troublemaker editor initially employed (6)
IMPEDE – IMP (troublemaker), ED (editor) and first letter of (initially) Employed.
5 Handwriting police officer found on shallow dish (11)
COPPERPLATE – COPPER (police officer) and PLATE (shallow dish).
6 Butterfly Virginia observed circling a loch (7)
VANESSA – VA (state abbreviation for Virginia) surrounding (circling) A NESS (a loch).
7 People in Derby, for example? (4)
RACE – double definition.
9 The same, sour, disorganised boarding school teacher (11)
HOUSEMASTER – anagram of (disorganised) THE SAME SOUR.
12 Worshipper I swindle? Not yet (8)
IDOLATER – I, DO (swindle), and LATER (not yet).
14 Active leader of revolt in Surrey town (7)
WORKING – first letter (leader) of Revolt inside WOKING (Surrey town).
16 Austere city’s role in South Africa… (6)
SPARTA – PART (role) in SA (South Africa).
18 … upset old British PM’s slumber (5)
SLEEP – reversal of (upset) PEEL’S (old British PM’s)
19 Seabird — or wader with bit missing? (4)
TERN – bitTERN (wader) with bit missing.

23 comments on “Quick Cryptic 877 by Orpheus”

  1. DNK the butterfly; I had to wait for the checkers to solve. But I was really slowed down by TERN and ELIOT. I threw in TERN only because I had the N, then deleted it, making ELIOT a lot harder to come up with. For some reason, I didn’t think of ‘one of two writers’ meaning ‘with the same name’. But the penny finally dropped. 6:22.
  2. Missed my target 10 by 2 minutes for this one, my LOI – ELIOT – accounting for the overrun. PANIC / grass (which I’d heard of) is perhaps a bit obscure as is VANESSA / butterfly (which I hadn’t). No complaints though.
  3. Lots of work interruptions but about 45 mins.
    Two nesses today!

    LOI Eliot via alphabet trawl.

    Dnk toile, panic for grass, bittern or Vanessa butterfly. Do for swindle didn’t immediately come to mind.

    Not sure why sound = strait in 11a.

    CsOD two anagrams 17a and 9d.

    1. A narrow channel or stretch of water, esp. one between the mainland and an island, or connecting two large bodies of water; a strait.
  4. Can someone educate me about the suggested link between 16 and 18d ….. I managed to solve them independently but am struggling to see a link.
    I’d be interested to know if anyone managed to get the two authors starting from etoil 🙂
    2. This is a bit of a bugbear of mine – apparently connected clues where there is no real connection, other than, arguably, to help with the surface reading. In this case, either 16 or 18 down work perfectly well without the ellipses, which IMHO add absolutely nothing to the cluing other than perhaps misdirecting the solver by suggesting that they should look for a connection which doesn’t exist. Perhaps that is their point – misdirection. I challenge the Setter or anyone else to justify their inclusion in this case.

      I have rarely seen this device used successfully. If one clue were to help with the definition of the other, or if there were some connection between the answers, then I can see it working, but my own advice is to ignore these redundant and bothersome ellipses.

      Edited at 2017-07-19 09:27 am (UTC)

      1. Thanks – must admit it’s a bit annoying
        I hope compilers can take our irritation on board
      2. Here, the suspension dots make 18 look like the predicate of a sentence, where ‘Upset old British PM’s slumber’ on its own would be a pretty ugly surface. That’s a success, of a sort. But your advice is spot on: ignore the dots, read each clue independently of the other.
      3. I asked this fery question in the 15×15 blog. The answers were ‘they link the clues’. Nothing about surface readings. So I think we QCers have it right. I found this tough, not knowing Panic (although it couldn’t really be anything else). Struggled with Eliot also. About 20 mins. Thanks all
  5. Is the Red Admiral and the Painted Lady – the latter of which my grandfather always referred to using the V-word. Check out the Latin names.

    COD 10ac PANIC has been in a few times, methink? Jack?

    WOD COPPERPLATE

    Time 7.41 mins

    Edited at 2017-07-19 09:11 am (UTC)

    1. ‘Panic’ comes up as grass occasionally but a quick google (by no means 100% reliable) suggests this may be its first appearance in a QC. ‘Bent’ is another grass worth remembering and it turned up somewhere within the past week.
  6. Just made my 15 minutes despite having to solve on an iphone as my paper wouldn’t download to my i-pad before I left the house this morning. 1A and 3A went straight in, quickly followed by all of the connecting down clues, so it was a good start.

    Like others, I struggled with ELIOT despite knowing TOILE and consequently this was my LOI, after getting TERN.

  7. DNF for me, failed on ELIOT. Just didn’t think about the possibility of it meaning two writers with the same name and so just banged my head on the wordplay. Hey ho.

    DNK that VANESSA was a butterfly but the cluing was generous enough to enable me to see the answer quickly and then Mr Google told me about the Painted Lady.

    Thanks for the blog.

    Templar

  8. This one took me 12:30, with ELIOT holding me up for a couple of minutes at the end. I just couldn’t see what the clue was getting at. Eventually the penny dropped though. FOI was UGLY. Knew the monkey and vaguely knew the grass, but the butterfly was deduced from wordplay. Thanks setter and William.
  9. About 15 mins, almost half of which was getting eliot. Didn’t know Vanessa was a butterfly, but obvious from parsing and crossers.
  10. This was a quick solve for me, apart from ELIOT which totally defeated me. Never heard of PANIC grass or VANESSA butterflies, but easy enough to deduce/biff. TERN took me a while to work out. So, overall enjoyable challenge.
    PlayUpPompey
  11. 13 minutes finishing with Eliot. I shared the same 3 hold up clues as our blogger – each one went in without full confidence. Thanks for clearing them up.
  12. DNF AS I was defeated by Eliot, even though I knew I was looking for an author – seems so obvious now. The rest of it went in quickly despite a couple of unknowns.
    Thanks for putting me out of my misery with the blog!
  13. I’m usually several days behind with the QC, unusually doing today’s today, so am able to say thank you to all of you for the blog. It always answers several queries, particularly when I’ve biffed …

    COD 19 d.

    Diana.

  14. Though I could see the answer in 19d, I just couldn’t parse it, despite being a birder! I kept looking for a wader with an additional letter at one end. Really neat clue.

    20a my LOI, like so many others,

Comments are closed.