Quick Cryptic No 160 by Flamande

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
Nothing too obscure, but a bit of general knowledge (literature, movies) needed and a few worthwhile anagrams, making this at the harder end of Quick Cryptic offerings in my view; it took me about 12 minutes.

Across
1 WAFFLES – FF (more than one female) inside WALES (part of UK); def. speaks vaguely.
7 ADAMANT – ADAM (chap in Eden) ANT (worker); def. determined. Nothing to do with the 80s pop star who is still touring.
9 TERRAIN – (TRAINER)*, def. ground.
10 DERANGE – (GRANDEE)*, def. confuse.
11 ROWS – Def. argues; first letters of (kicking off) Regularly Often With Spouse.
12 SPLASH OUT – Def. pay a lot; to splash could mean to go swimming, and here ‘out’ means abroad, as in out and about.
14 GOLDENEYE – GEN (information) around OLD, then EYE sounds like I; the 17th Bond movie, released 1995, the first with Pierce Brosnan, Judy Dench as M, and IMO one of the best.
16 BREW – Barmen regularly seen = BaRmEn, or BRE, then W = with; def. drink.
17 ON PAPER – Cryptic def.
20 ITALIAN – I (island) TA (soldiers) LIAN = NAIL (secure) reversed; def. European.
21 EMERSON – EN (in, French) with (MORSE)* inside, E(MERSO)N; def. American who wrote. Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803-1882, the chap who formulated the philosophy of Transcendentalism, whatever that may be. Cool middle name, though.
22 GRAVELY – GRAVEL (small stones), Y (last letter (‘close’) of rockerY); def. seriously, as in ‘gravely ill’.

Down
1 WATERING HOLE – Clever anagram time. (THE WRONG ALE I)* ordered, def. pub.
2 FAREWELL – FARE (food), WE’LL (we shall); def. see you around.
3 LEAN – Jack Sprat ate no fat and Mrs S ate no lean. Sir David Lean, voted 9th best film director of all time in a 2002 BFI poll; IMO better than that.
4 SANDAL – LADS (boys) upset about AN, S(AN)DAL, def. item of footwear.
5 LACROSSE – sport, hidden in al(L ACROSS E)urope.
6 PAIN – PA (personal assistant), IN, def. bother.
8 TWENTY-TWENTY – A score is twenty; 20/20 vision is ‘normal’ acuity although many people have better than that and mine is worse.
12 SHEEPISH – Witty double def’; rather embarrassed, and like a sheep.
13 OVERTIME – OVERT (evident), I’M, E(energy); def. extra working hours.
15 ERRING – HERRING loses its H, def. going astray.
18 PEEP – To peep means to look, and is a palindrome, it goes up and down.
19 LAMA – A Buddist priest, hidden in Is(LAM A)pparently.

14 comments on “Quick Cryptic No 160 by Flamande”

  1. At 9:44, a week of sub-10 minute Quickies. I would have been faster if it hadn’t been for me trying to shoe-horn Goldfinger into 14a and unbelievably stumbling over my LOI 20a.
    COD for 5d – a neat hidden word.
    IMO I would go for an early Bond: From Russia with Love as the best – it’s got a tension that is unique in the Bond canon (as well as Robert Shaw – one of may favourite actors.)
  2. This one had a number of nice clues, I thought, e.g. 20 and 21ac, 1 and 13d. LACROSSE was my LOI; I’m often quite dim when it comes to hiddens. DNK 12ac. I was slowed down by 16ac, as I’m used to this type of clue deleting rather than preserving the odd letters. I believe it was the Transcendentalist Margaret Fuller (who deserves better than my only remembering her for this) who exclaimed, ‘I accept the Universe!’. To which Carlyle replied, ‘Gad, she’d better!’ 6:30.

    Edited at 2014-10-17 07:56 am (UTC)

  3. Just scraped home in 10 minutes having become stuck on the Bond film. I note another crossover with an answer in the main puzzle today though it’s not quite as blatant as some of late.
  4. Entertaining puzzle which I found to be of middling difficulty. LOI LEAN after I had initially put in an unparsed Lear which I finally corrected. Also made things difficult by putting in Aintree as an anagram of trainer! 1d was a very clever anagram but COD to GRAVELY which made me smile.
  5. 5 mins. With the G?L checkers at the beginning of 14ac I also started to write in Goldfinger without looking at the clue properly or counting the letters. After writing GOLD I realised I was a letter short and decided to come back to it later, and GOLDENEYE was my next-to-last answer before LACROSSE. LEAN had an unusual clue for a QC inasmuch as the solver was required to know at least one of two pieces of GK for the answer.
  6. Would have been sub ten minutes if it weren’t for Lacrosse. I might just start scanning every clue for hidden words first thing if they continue to elude me like this!
    1. I think that’s a good plan. I started doing the same, as I found these “hiddens” hard to spot and it never occurred to me to look for them until I’d spent ages trying to unravel the clue through other wordplay etc.

      And there’s a lot of them about…

  7. It was light-hearted, amusing, really fun to solve. I still took 23 mins with a little Z8ery.

    Huge congrats to Flamande & Pip.

    My COD was SHEEPISH – lovely wordplay & LOI was GOLDENEYE.
    I’m afraid I only like Sean Connery & Daniel Craig as Bond – even dear Roger was far more the Saint.

    I’ll be looking out for people at the Guofan Tower tomorrow – Z8’s competing in the 2nd stage & I’m along for the (wheelchair) ride!

  8. Completed under the half hour, which is a decent effort for me. Nothing too hard but I struggled to spot lacrosse and wrote in Goldeneye without understanding why it was correct.
  9. A pleasant crossword, but for me it felt on the easier side. Had LACROSSE in quite early with the across checkers in place, but hadn’t realised it was a hidden until later when I went through some checks. I enjoyed BREW and ROWS and couldn’t get GRAVELLY out of my mind as the definition for GRAVELY 🙁

    I’m never happy with the ON PAPER definition for theory, although it’s common parlance. Theory is usually a mental/logical process and only put down on paper to explain the theory to others…. But that’s the scientist in me I guess.

  10. On another track, I really don’t like a grid where answers are almost completely provided by crossing clues, i.e.4 and 15dn. I’ve never seen this in the larger grid, so I presume it’s a constraint placed on the setter by the smaller grid. But it doesn’t feel quite right when clues are essentially a gimme if you get the checkers from other clues.

    Edited at 2014-10-17 05:43 pm (UTC)

  11. 13 minutes – not helped by bunging in mumbles for 1ac. I share Andy Burrows’ last two in – and in the same order – so maybe I’m doing something right! I had r_w_ for 11ac so put in rows not having worked the word play – thanks Pip!
  12. Not much to add – very enjoyable offering. DNK David Lean (not well up on the film world, but knew Jack Sprat so guessed that had to be right.

    Rest was pretty straightforward, but elegantly clued in many cases. Particularly liked the WATERING HOLE anagram (well I would, wouldn’t I…?)

    Thanks for nice blog Pip

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