Quick Cryptic No 291 by Mara

Author   ChrisPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

At first sight there seem to be a lot of clues at the easier end of the spectrum. I ended up in my medium bracket (12 minutes) – longer than yesterday’s which seemed harder. If you like anagrams you’re in for a treat.

Definitions underlined, dd=double definition.

Across
1 Work confined to terribly precise submarine equipment (9)
PERISCOPE – Probably the most obvious part of a submarine made up from Work (OP) inside (confined to) anagram 1 (terribly) of PRECISE.
6 Part of a curve, and rather circular for starters (3)
ARC – (A)nd (R)ather (Ci)rcular.
8 Reversal of some elementary knowledge, askew (5)
WONKY – Elementar(Y KNOW)ledge.
9 Respect reforms as royal staff (7)
SCEPTRE – Anagram 2 (reforms) or RESPECT.
10 Shrub found in hole, and eroding (8)
OLEANDER – In h(OLE AND ER)oding.
11 Good listener finding equipment (4)
GEAR – G, EAR.
13 Injured Briton came to collect old skin lotion (11)
EMBROCATION – Anagram 3 (injured) of BRITON CAME and old (O). I nearly put ambrocation but that would have been something to do with The Archers?
17 Gaseous element — one confused with nitrogen (4)
NEON – Anagram 4 (confused) of ONE with N.
18 Celebrity’s cool rocket (8)
STARSHIP – STAR’S HIP.
21 Giant pig holding his curly appendage back (7)
GOLIATH – HOG holding TAIL all backwards.
22 Private pub, ‘The Queen’ (5)
INNER – INN, ER.
23 Dram — little one (3)
TOT – dd.
24 Record when WWII ended (5-4)
FORTY FIVE – dd. The old vinyls used to come in 33 and 45 revs per minutes. Seems I’m showing my age.

 

Down
1 Meeting prisoner of war — how amazing! (6)
POWWOW – POW, WOW!
2 Get up around noon, initially to clean (5)
RINSE – RISE around N.
3 For example, cricket side gets a run with a bye (8)
SAYONARA – I paused for a while to consider whether the cricket side was ‘in – the batting team’ or ‘on – on-side vs leg-side’. Only after a few readings of each did I convince myself of the correct spelling. For example (SAY), cricket side (ON), a (A), run (R), a (A).
4 Cuckoo say, the correct bird (13)
OYSTERCATCHER – These birds are always flying around the Scottish Lochs and convince me that it’s good to be alive. Anagram 5 (cuckoo) of SAY THE CORRECT.
5 Eve’s first lair, Biblical garden (4)
EDEN – (E)ve, DEN.
6 After refurbishment, do cater for design style (3,4)
ART DECO – Anagram 6 (after refurbishment) of DO CATER.
7 Shout about that woman’s fruit (6)
CHERRY – CRY around HER. The cherry is the fruit of many plants of the genus Prunus, and is a fleshy drupe (stone fruit) – in case it ever comes up on QI.
12 Entirety destroyed for ever (8)
ETERNITY – Anagram 7 (destroyed) of ENTIRETY.
14 Milton tormented about love illuminated at night (7)
MOONLIT – Anagram 8 (tormented) of MILTON around love (O).
15 Chess piece — king wrong thing! (6)
KNIGHT – King (K), anagram 9 (wrong) of THING.
16 Scattered boxes on top of everything (6)
SPARSE – Boxes (SPARS) on (E)verything.
19 Tongue behind top of incisors (5)
HINDI – HIND, (I)ncisors.
20 Bit of leg — potential beef? (4)
CALF – dd.

14 comments on “Quick Cryptic No 291 by Mara”

  1. I felt quite chuffed at spotting a reverse hidden right off at 8ac, although I wondered what ‘melee’ had to do with ‘askew’. That, and a couple of other rash flingings-in of a very wrong word, slowed me down in what was otherwise a fairly straightforward puzzle. 7:10.
  2. Another enjoyable offering of medium difficulty for me. Needed all the checkers to work out 4d which was my penultimate entry. Last in was SPARSE after I finally saw the definition. Joint favourites today, GOLIATH & FORTY FIVE.
  4. It took a while to associate ‘bye’ with the answer, probably because the abbreviation has long ago lost its link to the parent word. One is solemn and probably permanent (time to say good bye in the words of the song) and exactly what ‘sayonara’ conveys, whilst ‘bye’ (bye for now) is just ‘see you later’. If I ever learn to cope with abbreviations I could become quite good at these puzzles. And I agree that this was a very enjoyable one.
    1. As to what ‘sayonara’ (literally ‘so, then’) conveys: in Japan too, it’s more final, or long-term. For short-term partings, you might say: “mata-ne” (again-eh?).

      Edited at 2015-04-21 05:24 pm (UTC)


  5. This was my LOI – I was surprised to have ‘behind’ in the clue and ‘hind’ in the answer! I kept looking for an alternative……
  6. Tougher than yesterday’s and nearly gave up on 3d (my LOI) until I twigged that I needed a word for ‘bye’ – still went in unparsed though. I was very dubious about 1d until I had all the checkers as I thought it should be hyphenated, something about a double w looks very wrong to me.
    I enjoy a good anagram, but felt Mara overdid it a bit here.
    COD was 10a, as I actually spotted a hidden word.
  7. I found this slightly harder than average – not helped by not recognising that 4d was an anagram. That, and 3d, pushed me over the hour benchmark. Invariant
  8. Enjoyed a challenge that could be met with some work and all the lessons learned here. Just what these excellent quickies should be.
  9. A spar isn’t a box, it’s a pole (on a boat). No wonder I couldn’t get that one. a good puzzle, though, I got more than usual right, and I’ve only been trying for ten days!
  11. I’m quite fond of the clue for SAYONARA, mainly because I would have to think twice about how to spell the word without the wordplay!

    This was my first DNF for a while: I grappled with EMBROCATION all day, without ever actually getting there, despite seeing how the clue worked.

    Great crossword, thanks for the answers!

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