Quick Cryptic No 180 by Hurley

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
A pleasant, well balanced puzzle, a little harder than Wednesday’s, mainly because of some long anagrams at 1a, 5d, and 23a; once these are done you have plenty of checkers. Nothing too tricky, if you have at least a slight knowledge of French and German.

Across
1 PREPOSTEROUS – (REPORT SOURCE)*, indicated by ‘shattered’, def. absurd.
9 OTTER – JOTTER (notebook) has the J (Jack) removed; def. mammal.
10 REPLICA – Def. copy; REP (agent) then FACILE reversed with the ends removed, (E)LICA(F).
11 DUNGEON – DUNG (something filthy), EON (a long time), def. cell.
12 DIGIT – DI (501 in Roman numerals), G(rand), IT (computers etc.); def. figure.
13 SIESTA – Hidden word, Gyp(SIES TA)king, def. a rest.
14 STUPOR – STUP (puts back), OR (gold, in French or heraldry); def. trance.
17 AGGRO – Initial letters (heads) of Active Ginger Group Resign Over; def. difficulties.
19 COOL OFF – Def. calm down; COOL is LOCO ‘off’ i.e. rearranged.
21 TOURISM – T (trade originally) OUR (belonging to us), IS M (millions); def. an industry.
22 ALERT – LE (the French) inside ART, def. watchful.
23 ELECTRIFYING – (CITING FREELY)*, def. giving quite a thrill? Nice anagram.

Down
2 RETINUE – RUE (French street) has E TIN (European money) inserted; def. accompanying group.
3 PERFECTIONIST – PERFECT (a tense), I(C)ON (about = C leaves icon), IST (first); def. he’s very demanding.
4 SPRING – Double definition; you spring someone from prison, and Spring is an early season; not sure why ‘in England’. There again, I suppose Spring comes later in the year in the Southern hemisphere.
5 EXPEDITIONARY – (ANXIETY PERIOD)*; def. of organised trip.
6 OWING – O (old), WING (section of party); def. in debt.
7 SCATTER – (CAR TEST)*; def. broadcast.
8 HOOD – Double definition. Hood is apparently a short form of Hoodlum.
13 STARTLE – STALE (old) has RT (right) inserted; def. alarm.
15 PROTEIN – PRO (expert), T (time) EIN (German for ‘a’); def. diet component.
16 SCAMPI – SCAMP (rogue) with I(talian); def. prawns. Technically langoustine tails, not quite the same as prawns. According to the British company Young’s Seafood, the name ‘scampi’ was introduced to Britain in 1946 when they offered Nephrops norvegicus to an Italian restaurant in London as a substitute for lobster.
18 GAUGE – G AGE (good time) includes U(niversal); def. standard measurement, e.g. of railway lines.
20 FATE – FAT (rich), E (magnate, ultimately); def. destiny.

11 comments on “Quick Cryptic No 180 by Hurley”

  1. Probably the most straightforward puzzle this week, for me. Nice puzzle, good blog. Thanks.
  2. Good QC I thought – some fairly straightforward, some quite tricky.
    Particularly liked COOL OFF for its wit and REPLICA for its wordplay.

    Could not fathom the “about to leave” device in PERFECTIONIST – penny has just finally dropped! (Bit slow today – tough day at the factory…)

    Pip, your observation re. southern / northern hemisphere spring brought to mind an episode when I was living in London and went to the (sadly now defunct) Church Street meat market off the Edgware Road – authentic butchers with sawdust etc. It was March, and one of the old blokes behind the counter was yelling out “lovely spring lamb! Best spring lamb from New Zealand!” The contrarian in me could not resist pointing out to the old boy that it was now autumn in NZ. He gave me an old fashioned look, and snarled “But it’s spring ‘ere, innit? What’s your problem, son?”

    Edited at 2014-11-14 09:01 am (UTC)

  3. Nothing wrong with calling scampi prawns – try ordering prawns in any seafood restaurant on the west coast of Scotland! Nephrops norvegicus has a host of names, including langoustine, scampi, Norwegian lobster and Dublin Bay Prawn. They’re all the same thing. The best thing is that the “nephrops” comes from the fact that its eye is kidney shaped (if you squint a bit).
  4. 11 minutes. Not entirely straightforward as I wasn’t going to tackle the long anagrams without a checker or two in place so I jumped around the grid and then went back to fill in the blanks. I wish I could remember once and for all how to spell GAUGE, but every time it crops up I have to stop and think about it again.
  5. My inability to spell ‘gauge’ totally messed up that corner and eventually forced me to give up. This is a double embarrassment because for a time part of my job was ‘gauging’ (calculating the capacity of) spirit casks. My visiting boss invariably would seize on the ‘u’ before the ‘a’ to mispronounce the word and ask me very kindly how the ‘gwagging’ was coming along.
  6. Another ‘guager’ and similar to Jack again another who finished with three of the longies. Expeditionary was quite tricky being so rare. At the other end of the scale, the use of the same word in clue and solution at 14a rather threw me, it being more common to find such a device in the Guardian than the Times.
  7. A quick time seemed to be on the cards as I got all the long answers rapidly but hit the buffers with 2 to go,13d and 21a. After what seemed an age 21a was solved but I just could not get 13d. After using aids to get the answer it seems so obvious. Did not parse COOL OFF. Favourite PROTEIN.

  8. A very strange solve for me. It felt quite tricky early on, but with only one or two checkers in place all but 23ac of the long anagrams went in and the rest of the crossword went in very fast. I don’t track times, but it felt close to a PB, which came as quite a surprise after my initial worries. Enjoyed COOL OFF, SPRING and DUNGEON, with the LOI being STARTLE.

    I’m not sure I’d call dung filthy, plenty of other things for sure. But I’m certain our dog doesn’t think so ,as he can sometimes decide it’s just perfect to roll in! For obscurity’s sake, funky comes to mind as an adjective after the track from Atom Heart Mother by Pink Floyd.

  9. I thought this one was rather difficult, on account of the very long clues, not one of which I properly parsed.. I put the rest in and solved them from the checkers. Quite surprised the other commenters seem to have galloped through so easily…

  10. Somehow saw the anagrams pretty much immediately which helped a lot. Put me down for guage too; I hesitated on entering it, but then forgot to be so sceptical whilst trying to work out the crosser.

    Really liked the device for COOL OFF.

    Last in were STARTLE/TOURISM.

    Very nice week for quickies, I think. plenty of fun and a bit of challenge here and there.

    Edited at 2014-11-14 06:22 pm (UTC)

  11. 28 mins with a slight kick start from Z8. It still takes me time to put my crossword-reading lenses in!

    Very nice puzzle I liked the long anagrams, thanks, Hurley. Beautifully clear blog from Pip 🙂

    My COD was HOOD – I like double meanings & I thought COOL OFF was very clever.

    LOI was STARTLE I was thinking of alarm in terms of a bell or siren not as a verb.

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