Quick Cryptic No 237 by Des – très français aujourd’hui

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
Mostly straightforward, an elegant puzzle, but with three or four clues worthy of higher level cryptics I thought, with a French writer, a French region, and a French domestic feature to discover.

Across
1 LUCINDA – (IN DUAL C)*, the C from ‘control initially’; def. girl.
7 SHOW OFF – Crufts is a famous dog show; it’s cancelled = off; def. poser.
9 DOUBLET – (BLUE DOT)*; def. old jacket.
10 ENDGAME – END = objective, is followed by GAME = willing; def. when mate approaches, in chess.
11 JUTE – JUT = project (verb); E = envisaged at the outset; def. Old German. According to Bede, the Jutes were one of three powerful Germanic tribes (along with Saxons and Angles), and unsurprisingly they originated in JUTLAND.
12 LANGUEDOC – (GLAD U ONCE)*, the U = posh; def. old French province. Nowadays Languedoc-Roussillon is the relevant administrative region. “Langue d’oc”, or Occitan, was the original spoken tongue in the area.
14 EXTENSION – I saw this a cryptic double definition; extension = later closing time in the pub, and extension = state of a muscle when relaxed. Now, because it’s relaxed, it’s “ex-tension.”
16 GOBI – I BOG (very wet area) reversed; the Gobi desert is an arid region in Mongolia and China.
17 REFUSED – FUSED = united, so REFUSED = united again; def. denied.
20 ICELAND – ALEC, I (smart fellow, one) reversed, then ND (North Dakota); def. state. No marks if you put Ireland. Allegedly, the original smart Alec was one Alec Hoag, a con-man in New York in the 1840s.
21 YEARNED – Y (money, ultimately), EARNED (deserved); def. craved.
22 EYEBROW – You may raise an eyebrow when you’re surprised; and it sounds like ‘IGHBROW’, cockney for intellectual.

Down
1 LADY JANE GREY – (ANGRY DEEJAY L)*; def. queen briefly – nine days in fact.
2 COUNT OUT – Double definition.
3 NILE – name for river, found reversed in Isra(ELI N)ame.
4 ASTERN – EASTERN = from the Orient, loses heading E, def. to the back.
5 GOOD TURN – GOOD = welfare, TURN = revolution; def. favour.
6 ZOLA – Z = last letter, O = old, LA = French article; Emile Zola, author of the article ‘J’accuse’ and several notable works.
8 FRENCH WINDOW – FRENCH WIDOW = Madame dressed in black perhaps; around N; def. entrance to garden?
12 LANDS END – LAND = come down; SEND = dispatch; def. English promontory.
13 DINOSAUR – (IS AROUND)*; def. old survivor. Or non-survivor, in another way.
15 IODIDE – Hidden in Oh(IO DID E)xplode; a salt of the iodide ion, an iodine atom plus an electron; e.g. sodium iodide.
18 FLAX – F = fine, LAX = loose; def. plant producing fibre.
19 HERE – Double definition; ‘here!’ = take this; here = present.

23 comments on “Quick Cryptic No 237 by Des – très français aujourd’hui”

  1. This was a toughie, but quite enjoyable. Part of the problem was simply memory: couldn’t remember the Jutes or Languedoc for the longest time (took me a while to register ‘project’). 7d took time, too, both because I didn’t know Crufts (in retrospect, I believe I’ve come across it once in a regular cryptic), and because I didn’t see poser=show-off; a poser (I’d have said poseur) is making a pretense of having some ability or knowledge where a show-off is vulgarly displaying one. 1d especially nice, I thought; I needed the J to figure out what was going on. 13:40.

    Edited at 2015-02-04 07:11 am (UTC)

  2. Somewhat harder than usual, I thought, but I got there eventually in 13 minutes. Des was our very first setter and this is only his second outing since then, puzzle #130 being the other.
  3. Way way way to difficult for a quick cryptic. I am pretty certain those who are trying to learn ( not those who always do the puzzles in under 10 minutes) will regard this as not quick cryptic. I hope I never see a des puzzle again.
    1. You have my sympathies, anon, but it’s one of the stated objectives of the Quickie to encourage people to progress to the main puzzle so there has to be a range of difficulty and occasionally, like today, there will be one that really stretches some newer solvers. But on past form you can rest assured that QCs won’t be at this level every day or even every week.

      Edited at 2015-02-04 08:37 am (UTC)

  4. I thought this was really hard. I finished in the end but it took ages, and I had to do the going through the letters of the alphabet thing for gobi, and the window bit of french window. Luckily I started hunting the final letter and when I got close to w and started thinking I just have made a mistake somewhere else, given the letters that were left (and th fact that my scrap of paper was almost full!) I realised what it must be – and that gave me eyebrow too. Took me nearly an hour though. I think I’m getting worse at this by the day. 🙁
  5. I agree that this was far to difficult for beginners. Puts you off rather than encourages.
  6. I agree that this was a tough nut – it took me almost three times as long as Monday’s and was twice as difficult as yesterday’s by my reckoning.
    Still, it’s good to have a variety of hardness – win some, lose some. However it is highly subjective – puzzles which appear easy to some prove problematic for others and vice versa, it’s a matter of getting into the mind of the setter.
    COD to 8d. As Gerard Hoffnung said “There is a French Widow in every bedroom”.
  8. Certainly a toughie. Put it down several times and eventually gave up with just one to go, 22a.

    I have no problem with an occasional toughie provided it is only a rarity.

    First in DOUBLET and favourite LADY JANE GREY.

  9. Found this very hard. Only got 1a from the checkers. Don’t understand what indicates the anagram in the clue?
  11. I am pleased to see that others found this difficult as I was starting to wonder if it was me. Both 1ac and 1 dn stumped me so thanks to the blogger for explaining the anagrams. Consequently I didn’t have the starting letters for 9,11,14,17 and 21 across. Long answers are fine if you get them but if not it makes everything else harder. Maybe tomorrow’s will be a bit easier.
  12. Wow, that was a hard one. Got French Window and Languedoc quite early on, but my total inability to spot several anagrams until very late in the day made this, at over 3hrs, my longest solve for quite some time. 20ac was my favourite today.
    Can we please have an easy one sometime soon? Invariant
  13. I am new to cryptic crosswords as a recent retiree and am delighted to find that I have almost completed one that some considered difficult. I only failed to answer two, 19D and 22A and got Ireland not Iceland. This is the closest I have ever got to finishing the crossword. Will keep trying. Thanks for the blog. Very helpful.
    1. Welcome. You will find that this blog is an enormous help in understanding what is going on. If you managed to nearly complete today’s offering from Des, you should find other setters quite a bit easier. Invariant
  14. I enjoyed this even though it was a DNF. I think the hardest bit, apart from my lack of knowledge about old Germans, were the unfamiliar anagram indicators. My COD was 22ac, which I was very chuffed to get.
    Thanks for the blog.
  15. I’m new to this too – just started these in the last couple of months. I couldn’t have got anywhere without this invaluable – and entertaining – blog. Extremely useful and nice to be able to read about others’ brilliant solutions (and occasional mishaps).

    Strangely enough, this was a puzzle that I found much easier than the previous ones I’d tried, and completed it for once, and in less than half an hour, which is a record for me by some distance. Must just be a similar thought process. Shame to read therefore that this setter doesn’t do many!

    All the best and thanks again for all your efforts.

    Tom

  16. Funny that others found this hard. I got all but Iceland. Smart fellow being alec is a bit of convention i will try to remember! Thanks for the puzzle and blog. Id be happy to see a Des puzzle again soon!
  17. I found this rather hard and it took significantly longer than usual. But reviewing the answers, there wasn’t anything that obscure or particularly devious about the puzzle. Looking at the comments and how quite a few found it pretty tough, while others found it at the middle to easier end, I guess it may be a bit of a wavelength thing today. If you were on it, all well and good. But otherwise, much more difficult.

    Thanks for the blog pip and I’d be quite happy if Des contributed more regularly to the quick cryptics.

  18. Stormed through the LHS and thought I was on for a personal best but slowed to a halt on the right, and eventually gave up on 20ac and 19d.

    I thought it was an enjoyable puzzle though and would like to see more from Des. My COD was ENDGAME.

  19. Started tackling these quick cryptics 3 weeks ago and gradually got more in tune with how to do them. This blog has been a great help. Thanks. This is the first one I’ve completed fully. Took me 65 mins but enjoyed it. Next target to halve solve time.

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