Quick Cryptic No 249 by Orpheus – a few tricky bits

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
A shade harder than my Wednesday challenge, I thought, and a couple (22a, 5d) I am still rather uncomfortable with (q.v.). Nevertheless an enjoyable puzzle with some smart clueing.

Across
1 LATEST – LA = the French, TEST = exam; def. most recent.
4 SKIING – S = second, KING, insert I = one, def. winter sport. A gift clue.
9 LUCERNE – Sounds like “loose erne”; an erne is an eagle; Swiss resort on a lake.
10 LODGE – LO = see, D = duke, EG = for example; def. gatehouse.
11 OMIT – OT = books, Old Testament, around MI = military intelligence; def. leave out.
12 SKEWBALD – SKEW = lacking symmetry, BALD = lacking hair; def. horse, Mrs K tells me it is a brown and white variety.
14 RESIGNATION – Double definition.
18 SMOCKING – S = son, MOCKING = making fun of; def. dressmaker’s work. Sewing into ornamental pleats, apparently.
20 STOA – Hidden in profes(S TO A)dmire; a roofed colonnade, of Greek origin. One of those crossword words you need to know.
22 EDITH – Well I can see no other solution to E_I_H; Def. is woman; H is husband and EDIT is TIDE reversed, not TIME reversed, so perhaps Orpheus is equating time with tide; as in “wait for no man”? Other theories welcome. EDIT Deezzaa suggests ‘tide’ as in ‘Eastertide’ and so on… not a bad shout, although I’ve never seen it as a stand-alone not part of the compound word. Chambers has “4 in compounds a time or season, especially of some festival”
23 CURLING – Amusing cryptic double definition.
24 SHREWD – SHRED = scrap, has W = wife inserted; def. astute.
25 METHOD – MET = satisfied, HOD = brick carrier; def. modus operandi, Latin for method, way of working.

Down
1 LOLLOP – LOLLIPOP = sweet, is reduced by I and P, LOLL(IP)OP; def. move awkwardly.
2 TACTILE – TAC = CAT (Tom, say) reversed; TILE = part of roof covering; def. tangible.
3 SARK – S = small, ARK = vessel, SARK is one of the Channel Islands, not the smallest but smaller than the three largest ones.
5 KILOWATT – (TALK TO WI)*; def. “current unit”. I take issue with our setter here; a kilowatt is a unit of power, not of current, which would be an amp or ampère. Watts = amps x volts.
6 INDIA – IN = home, DIA = AID reversed, = relief raised; def. country.
7 GREEDY – GREY = drab colour, has ED inserted; def. out for all he can get.
8 NECK AND NECK – Necking is canoodling, so if you neck and neck (and neck…) endlessly; def. being dead level.
13 RICKSHAW – RICKS = stacks, HAW = fruit; def. two-wheeled vehicle. Were you thinking some fruit inside BIKE? I did, briefly.
15 OSTRICH – (CH RIOTS)*, chariots without A; def. flightless bird.
16 ASSESS – A SS SS (a couple of ships) around E = centre of ocean; def. value.
17 RAGGED – Double definition.
19 OSIER – Def. basket maker; your East Ender is presumed to say “‘osier” instead of hosier = stocking dealer.
21 BRIE – BRIEFLY = shortly, remove FLY; def. cheese.

23 comments on “Quick Cryptic No 249 by Orpheus – a few tricky bits”

  1. Funny, I thought this was the easiest puzzle of the week! Just goes to show.
    Some nice clues: 9a and 8d to name but two.
    However I thoroughly agree about 5d: a KW is a measure of power – and not just electricity either. If push comes to shove I suppose it could be argued that it is a measure associated with electrical “current” meaning something to do with electricity – but it’s pretty tenuous.
    With 22a, think of TIDE in the sense of “Yuletide” or “Wintertide”, meaning “time”.
  2. Woman takes time backing husband (5)
    – the answer is obviously EDIT H (time = TIDE (reversed) + H
    One definition of ‘tide’ in Chambers is ‘a time or season’
  3. ‘Unit’ is the key word here so it is doubly confusing that whilst amp(ere) is the unit of current, kilowatt is not a unit of anything.
    1. A Kilowatt (1000 Watts) is a derived SI unit, measuring generation or usage of energy over time; see Wiki article on Watt.
      1. I read the paper as well as doing the crosswords, so I’m used to this – I expect a howler in each science, engineering or maths story.
  4. Gave up on 22ac and 13d but fun until then. Stoa and erne were new to me but managed to work them out.

    My dictionary says that a skewbald is white and any colour other than black (which would be a piebald). However not sure what that colour can be other than brown.

  5. I would never have got smocking, rickshaw or osier. It would have taken a long time for me to think of scrap=shred. I tried to put a fruit in a bike or cycle.
    Staggered by Deezzaa thinking it was the easiest of the week -I thought it was the hardest of 2015.
  6. I also found this easy (8 minutes) though I did think the inclusion of SKEWBALD a bit strange for a Quickie, and I thought twice about “time = tide” before deciding it was fine.
    1. The modern petrol driven ones are three wheels, but originally it had two wheels and a human pulling at the front.
  8. A tale of a corner today. Felt as though I was breezing along but, after finishing the last down clue on first run through with most of the grid complete, noticed a distinct lack of entries in the SW corner. Looked at the clues again for a good 5-10 minutes, before deciding a break was needed, so made a cup of tea. On my return, quickly saw SHREWD and subsequently tidied up within a few minutes, but still wondering about EDITH. My thoughts echo pipkirby’s.

    Had no problems with KILOWATT as it is measures current usage and it’s certainly a unit. Had not heard of SKEWBALD before, but the cryptic and checkers clearly indicated the answer, so not too bad for a QC I thought. All in all a pleasant diversion for the early afternoon.

    Edited at 2015-02-20 03:23 pm (UTC)

    1. Respectfully Nigel, whether you have a problem with it or not, Watts (Joules per second) are a measure of power, not current. You can derive the current, but only if you know the voltage. 5d is just what Joecasey suggests – nonsense. Invariant
      1. Hi Invariant, I think we’ll need to agree to disagree.

        A Watt is also used as an electrical unit defined as 1W = 1V × 1A. So yes, you need the voltage to get the amps, but I think it would be a bit pedantic to deny it is a current unit. If the clue was defined as the unit of electrical current then, yes I’d agree it would be incorrect. But it is not, it is defined more generally as “current unit”, so leeway should be granted 😊.

        Edited at 2015-02-20 07:15 pm (UTC)

        1. In a crossword, yes, we should be indulgent: as I’ve argued before, they are clues, not algorithms, definitions or exam questions. But we of a scientific education are entitled to our goosepimples.
  9. Well that was a struggle, took me several sittings to ‘complete’. Got 22a wrong as I mispelt rickshaw but it would have been a complete guess anyway.
    Part of my problem today was not having the confidence to write in what I thought were the answers e.g 14a, 24a and 2d, which made the rest of the grid harder due to lack of checkers.
  10. Managed to get there in the end. Particularly liked 23a ‘curling’ and 19d ‘osier’. 22a had to be ‘edith’ but a struggle to understand just why! Ditto 9a ‘lucerne’, but happy to be right. Happy to complete but now a bit stuck for filling in odd moments over the weekend! Thanks to all for the insights from the blog.
    1. Andrew (& anyone else who might be reading this late submission)

      You might want to take a look at this Saturday’s 15×15 cryptic – it’s very much at the more attainable end of the spectrum (I thought anyway).

      Couple of answers that are pretty obscure (even by 15×15 standards) but don’t let those put you off – most of it is pretty friendly.

      2. Nick – thx for the pointer. I have retrieved this from the recycling box and will give it a go. – Andrew
  11. Another bad one, several obscure words and very obscure meanings plus one factual error (kilowatt). This is supposed to be a QUICK cryptic, not a ‘tricky and obscure’ cryptic. Let’s hope for better next week.
  12. Another bad one, several obscure words and very obscure meanings plus one factual error (kilowatt). This is supposed to be a QUICK cryptic, not a ‘tricky and obscure’ cryptic. Let’s hope for better next week.
    1. You have my sympathy when it cones to obscure words (I still haven’t got over ‘incubi’ from the other week) but one of the reasons for the QC is to build up experience and techniques to facilitate a move to the 15×15. Hence some hard clues are to be expected, but I agree this could be achieved without the use of obscure language. Invariant

Comments are closed.