Quick Cryptic 974 by Oran

Author   CuraristPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
Six and a half minutes for a fairly straightforward one. The answers were sometimes more obvious than the parsing, and there are a couple I’m not entirely happy with. I will be interested to hear what others think. Overall though, an enjoyable solve with some nice surfaces and a couple of anagrams that are nothing short of heroic.

Across
1 Each one consuming steak and kidney? (6)
APIECE – ‘one’ is ACE, which ‘consumes’ PIE
4 Modify, once more, wind instrument with it (2-4)
RE-EDIT – REED is wind instrument + IT
9 Pass on, or give up, the water container (4,3,6)
KICK THE BUCKET – KICK (gIve up as in a habit) + THE BUCKET
10 Greek character flops in shows (3)
PSI – Hidden word floPS In
11 Greetings to Royal Marines in spell of bad weather (9)
HAILSTORM – HAILS (greetings) + TO + RM
12 Rule émigré out of order (6)
REGIME – anagram (‘out of order’) of EMIGRE
13 Rubbish to put in fancy hollow? (6)
GROTTO – Wasn’t sure this parsed correctly. Rubbish is GROT, + TO. I don’t know what ‘put in’ is doing here. Of course ‘rubbish’ is usually ROT so maybe I’m missing something?
16 Port and Irish ham cooked with nothing in (9)
HIROSHIMA – Anagram (‘cooked’) of IRISH + HAM + O (‘nothing’).
18 Wool supplier in Uzbekistan’s capital called out (3)
EWE – Homophone. U is Uzbekistan’s capital. So is Tashkent.
19 DVD insurer, say, makes for motorists occasionally (6,7)
SUNDAY DRIVERS – anagram (‘makes’) of DVD INSURER SAY
21 Strip in French appearing in Dandy? (6)
DENUDE – ‘in French’ is EN, ‘Dandy’ is DUDE
22 Small slander, for example, turning to smear (6)
SMUDGE – S (small) + MUD (slander) + GE (for example turning)
Down
1 Request Head should be removed from duty (3)
ASK – TASK (duty) with head removed.
2 Irritating Cockney’s after a lift? (7)
ITCHING – Now this doesn’t work either. It’s a familiar crossword device that cockneys, e.g. Parker from Thunderbirds, drop their aitches , hence ‘Hitching’ (after a lift) becomes ‘itching. BUT, all self-respecting Cockneys ALSO drop their Gs. So it would be ‘itchin’.
3 Do a “not so hot” dog please! (3,3,7)
CUT THE MUSTARD – jocular double definition.
5 Horse-riding in Times Square unusual (13)
EQUESTRIANISM – Anagram (‘unusual’) of IN TIMES SQUARE. Nice
6 Look proud, like stock folk hero, last of all (5)
DEKKO – last letters of prouD likE stocK folK herO. One of the many words the British brought back from India. ‘dekho’ in Hindi is the imperative of  ‘dekhna’, to look.
7 Allegretto tempo lends covers something symbolic? (5,4)
TOTEM POLE – Hidden word: allegretTO TEMPO LEnds. Nice
8 Highland peak in W African state (5)
BENIN – BEN (highland peak) + IN.
10 Nearly all clean gone after getting bought (9)
PURCHASED – Nearly all of clean is PUR(e), gone after is CHASED
14 Chuckled: “Peg needs attention” (3-4)
TEE-HEED –  ‘Peg’ is TEE, HEED is attention
15 Unrestrained in speech, getting Oscar? (5)
WILDE – Homophone of WILD (unrestrained). Thrown initially because ‘Oscar’ is red rag to the bull of the NATO Phonetic alphabet. Overthinking it again.
17 Quarrel leading to arrest? (3-2)
RUN-IN – Double definition. I wondered for a minute if it was a triple, but I can’t quite make it work.
20 Quiet English female (3)
SHE – SH (quiet!) + E

18 comments on “Quick Cryptic 974 by Oran”

  1. In 13ac. the “to” is in the clue and 2dn. is a double def. I put in Sue without thinking!
  2. This one presented me with a few problems but I completed eventually in 12 minutes, missing my 10-minute target for the fourth time this week. I was delayed by considering the parsing at 13ac and in the light of recent discussions about solving times I would remind anyone who pays attention to mine that for the QC I always include full parsing of each clue unless otherwise stated. I was also thrown by biffing ‘get the message’ at 3dn which, until corrected, prevented me solving 1ac and 21ac.

    I also wasn’t completely sure about how 13ac worked but settled on the definition being ‘fancy hollow’, GROT (rubbish) + TO with ‘put in’ as an instruction to the solver either to ‘put in’ TO or to ‘put in’ (a word meaning) ‘fancy hollow’. I’m not totally convinced by this but it was the best I could think of.

    Edited at 2017-12-01 09:27 am (UTC)

  3. I only realized when I came here that I’d biffed GROTTO, I can’t now remember on what basis; I didn’t know GROT (although I remember George calling the shirts grotty in ‘Hard Day’s Night’). I never would have thought of calling a ‘tee-hee’ a chuckle; a giggle, yes, but a chuckle? Embarrassingly enough, my LOI was HIROSHIMA, which cost me at least a minute of my 8:33.
    1. Interesting. I never thought twice about GROT for rubbish as I’m a fan of Reggie Perrin who in the second book/series set up shop called GROT which sold nothing but rubbish. I didn’t find it with that meaning in the SOED but Collins has it as “rubbish; dirt”.
      1. My brain, for the last half of the puzzle: “Grot has a lot of things that are not any use! Some of them are red, some of them are green, and some of them are puce!”
  4. I went with GROT + TO for 13a but wondered about the “put in” bit of the clue. Strangely, my desktop has started working with the Club Site again. I wonder if the Site occasionally “blacklists” certain computers as suspect. Several clues went straight in from definition and enumeration in the top half, but I was greatly slowed in the bottom half, just scraping in under 10 minutes at 9:51. Liked CUT THE MUSTARD. Thanks Oran and Curarist.
  5. Thanks for the blog.

    I found this quite straightforward at 17:18 but I missed a bit in the parsing so by Jack’s rules I’m some way over that.

    I read 13a as “rubbish”, “to” written in “fancy hollow”. Not sure if that works any better? I also wondered about ROT and I suppose a GTO is quite a fancy car. Maybe not.

    I missed the double def on 3d, so thanks for pointing it out, and thanks also for a comprehensive explanation of the origins of DEKKO. Having only heard the word and not seen it written before, I’d always assumed it to be decko, so I would have gone wrong if the clue hadn’t spelled it out.

    I was also initially fooled by Oscar, so overall a slightly tricky but pleasant puzzle which I think newcomers might have found quite tough (check out Mr Chumley, talking like a pro!).

  7. just finished this and much earlier than normal.
    quite straightforward, but enough for a learner to be challenged throughout.
    DEKKO was obscure, but simple from wordplay.
    I had GROT + TO for 13a.
    COD 22a (a nice challenge for a learner).
    LOI 14d (must learn to ingnore punctuation!).
    thanks Curarist & Oran.
  8. I started quickly getting 5d immediately but was held up later by Grotto and Dekko. After 20 minutes -my average completion time- I had one left 15d.
    This too me a few minutes to unravel as I was convinced it ended in O and I had considered Wildo but did reject Dildo. Anyway I eventually rethought and saw Wilde. Must remember to ban cider before doing any more of Oran’s puzzles. COD to 1a followed by 11a. David
  9. Interesting that people found it straightforward. I really struggled, ending up with at time of 45 minutes even with aids. I often complete in about 10-15. Loved ‘tee heed’!
  10. Hardest of the week for me today. I was completely baffled by my LOI 14d and took an embarrassingly long time to solve 8d, considering I have been to there – I needed a third sitting before finally getting those two.
    Other than that it just felt like hard work despite the quality of the clues.
    No time today but I would estimate somewhere in the 35 – 40 minute range.
    1. Me too – I thought this was quite hard in places and ended up with a similar time. 8d and 14d similarly held me up as did 1a.
  11. Needed a second sitting for loi 14d, and might have still been there had Mrs I not helpfully asked whether I was sure it began with ‘The’. . A good challenge today, with the long anagrams (for once) helping. Invariant
  12. It helped that Mark-wot-I-sit-next-to-at-work spent yesterday evening putting a GROTTO together for his son’s school. At least it’s a nice seasonal word.

    Also, I think DEKKO was familiar from childhood, though whether that’s because I grew up on the suburban fringes of north east London, or whether I read a few children’s books that were set during the war at the time, I couldn’t say.

    Frankly, I was just glad to finish this one after the trauma that was today’s 15×15… Thanks for the explanations for those I biffed.

  13. Slowest of the week for me and I never managed to parse 10d, so thanks curarist for that. I liked 1a, when I eventually got it, 3d and the neat hidden answer at 6d. I see I’m not the only one who puzzled over 13a, having exactly the same thought as our blogger. I don’t know if this helps.., GTO. “Gran Turismo Omologato” could mean “fancy” I suppose. I wonder if that is what our setter had in mind?
  15. Dnf for me – Wilde grotto and tee heed all eluding me. All fair enough with hindsight. Blame an early start.

    Mighty

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