Quick Cryptic No 3090 by Bjorn

Author   DoofenschmirtzPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

 

I liked this one from Bjorn a lot: it took me 13:23, a little under my average time. There are a couple of unusual words, but I found there to be enough gettable clues that the crossers helped. My COD goes to DIVER, for the surface reading.

I noticed after completing the puzzle that two of the rows and two of the columns form common phrases: PEARL DIVER, ELGIN MARBLES, GREEN PEPPER, and PINK FLAMINGO. But I don’t see more of a theme than that, I think that’s just Bjorn enjoying himself when laying out the grid.

Definitions underlined, synonyms in round brackets, wordplay in square brackets and deletions in strikethrough. Anagram indicators italicised in the clue, anagram fodder indicated like (this)*.

Across
1 Like surefire investments good pal told Ed about (4-6)
GOLD-PLATED – (G [good] PAL TOLD ED)*.
8 Denver uncovered French name for poison (7)
ENVENOM – dENVEr [uncovered – without its first and last letters] + NOM (French for ‘name’).

I don’t think I’ve seen this word before, but once I realized that I wanted the middle of DENVER and not the edges, it became clear.
9 Court status where both parties seek to gain advantage (5)
DEUCE – Double definition? Definition plus cryptic hint? Doesn’t really matter: both are tennis-related.

The ‘deuce court’ is the right-hand side of a tennis court, so called because that is where the serve comes from when the score is deuce. And the score after deuce is “advantage X”, so both parties are seeking to gain advantage.

It took me a long time to realise that I needed to separate “court” and “status”.
10 Geeky dude involved in dinner date (4)
NERD – Hidden in [involved in] dinNER Date.
11 I hear you are in bistro cooking Mexican food (8)
BURRITOS – U and R [phonetically indicated by ‘I hear you are’] inside (BISTRO)*.
13 Nobleman pursuing pony, initially one in valuable string (5)
PEARL – EARL (nobleman) after [pursuing] Pony [initially].
14 One getting tanked up before going to work? (5)
DIVER – cryptic definition.

Fair enough: ‘suited up’ means putting on a suit, so ‘tanked up’ can mean putting on a tank.  Once I stopped thinking about Chieftain tanks, this became a lot easier.
16 Letter might carry this page once ready in East Germany (8)
POSTMARK – P for page, then OSTMARK, the currency [ready] of East Germany.

I think the ‘once’ is there mostly for the surface reading: it’s a bit redundant to say the ‘previous’ currency of a country that no longer exists.
17 Doll that is leaving Sting? (4)
BARB – BARBie (doll) minus i.e. (that is).

My LOI: I had it all backwards and was trying to think of a word for ‘sting’ from which I could remove ‘ie’. Then the manhole cover dropped with a clang.
20 Scottish nobleman’s broken leg at home (5)
ELGIN – (LEG)* + IN (at home)

I didn’t know that Elgin was a Scottish nobleman, but I’ve been to the town of Elgin and the wordplay was clear.
21 Rolling Stones — blokes embodying R&B? (7)
MARBLES – MALES (blokes) containing [embodying] R and B.

My marbles were mostly made of glass, if I recall correctly. But I suppose they must have been made of marble at some point to get the name.
22 Carl and Del Boy organised game against neighbours (5,5)
LOCAL DERBY – (CARL DEL BOY)*
Down
1 Place for putting  eco politician (5)
GREEN – a double definition. The first as in golf.
2 Veg, as a rule, is ground up in meat product (5,7)
LIVER SAUSAGE – (VEG AS A RULE IS)*

One of the few solving ‘rules’ that rarely lets me down: if a word is truncated like ‘veg’ is here, it is often a sign that the clue is an anagram.
3 Somewhat socialist  US singer (4)
PINK – Another double definition.

The first is, I think, a reference to “pinkos”, which I associate with Private Eye. The second is, as the clue says, an American singer.
4 Mail exposes “Barmy court” (6)
ARMOUR – Remove the first and last letters from [expose] bARMy cOURt.
5 The Spanish explorer first to discover old legendary city (2,6)
EL DORADO – EL (‘the’ in Spanish), DORA (explorer), first letter of Discover, O for old.

Dora the Explorer is a children’s television series. I’ll confess that she wasn’t the first explorer to come to my mind.
6 Elgar must have briefly upset composer (6,6)
GUSTAV MAHLER – (ELGAR MUST HAVe [briefly])*.

I was grateful that I had the V from DIVER by the time I came to this: there aren’t that many six-letter words that end with a V.
7 Spring, when Sergey goes cycling (6)
GEYSER – The last three letters of SERGEY ‘cycle’ to the front.
12 Brightly coloured tail of indigo bird (8)
FLAMINGO – FLAMING (brightly coloured) + last letter [tail] of indigO.
13 Season  to pelt with shot? (6)
PEPPER – another double definition
15 Frost seen in California peninsula (6)
CRIMEA – RIME (frost) inside CA (California).
18 Coach regularly buys headgear for men (5)
BUSBY – BUS (coach) + alternate letters of BuYs.

I wondered for a bit whether we were going to have intersecting DERBYs in the bottom-right hand corner, but I couldn’t make ‘coach’ give DER no matter what I tried, and eventually the crossers ruled it out.

A busby is a type of military head-dress. But it isn’t the tall one worn by the guards at Buckingham Palace: that’s a bearskin. I have learned something today.
19 I’m responsible for this flipping endless dirge (4)
GRID – take the end off DIRGe and flip it. This is Bjorn being self-referential.

78 comments on “Quick Cryptic No 3090 by Bjorn”

  1. Familiar with “envenom” from Hamlet -Act 5 Scene 2: “The point envenomed too? then, venom, to thy work”, said just before he stabs Claudius, having himself, along with Laertes, been poisoned by the same sword – so the venom got through quite a lot of work.

    I wondered if it was a Shakespearean coinage, but apparently not.

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