Quick Cryptic no 3141 by Breadman

EX (former) + C~E (Chief Executive, taking the initial letters as indicated by “originally”), containing (indicated by “adopted”) A VAT (a tax).  A complex construction clue to kick us off, and I needed most of the checkers to pin it down.

A (from the clue) + BET (risky venture).

T~IC (tick, a jerk or obnoxious person (as in “he’s a right tick”), with the deletion of the last letter given by “little”) with UN (a in French) inserted, the insertion indicator being “pinching”.

This was not too hard to biff once I had the checkers, and the -UN- is clearly signalled by the wordplay, but deriving the TIC part took me rather longer and I am still not really 100% confident I’ve unravelled it correctly.  An alternative might be tic as a facial twitch or little jerk; the first part of this is I think fair enough, but the link from that to little jerk is perhaps a bit more of a stretch.  Take your pick …

GIR (rig, ie doctor, reversed, given by “backed”) + A~E (ie A&E) including (“nursing”) FF (musical notation for very loud).

Breadman thoroughly misled me here into thinking of a medical doctor with the talk of A&E – for those outside the UK this is the British abbreviation for “Accident and Emergency”, more commonly known in the rest of the world as the “Emergency Room” part of a hospital.  So I tried to reverse DR, MO and various other standard crosswordland doctors before the penny dropped.

A DD, with a small amount of deception as ashes are not noticeably a silvery-grey colour – unlike silver birches for example.

A nice cryptic definition, as spectacles do indeed rest on one’s nose.

(drop it)*, the anagram indicator being “when shaky”.

S~ING (vocalise), with T (time) included, the inclusion indicator being “keeping”, + Y (melodY “ultimately”, ie last letter).

(St Helier)*, the anagram indicator being “drunk”, including (given by “in”) W (wife).

A hidden, in niCOSia, and the whole referring to a cos lettuce.  I have not seen “group” as a hidden indicator before; I presume it is group as in “a group of letters from”.

HARP O~N (repeatedly talk) including O (old), the inclusion indicator being the simple “about”.  One has to lift and separate old and seafaring weapon, as old is part of the wordplay not part of the definition, though in fact the heyday of harpoons was during the era of commercial whaling, so “old seafaring weapon” is quite apposite.

The phrase “harp on” has a surprisingly long history; it is a shortening of “harp on the same string”, meaning “to play the same note over and over again”, and was first recorded in the early 16th century.

IDIO (idiot, or nana, “reduced”, ie with the last letter deleted) + M (masculine).

Nana, a British slang term for someone who is crazy, is derived from the phrase “go bananas”, meaning go mad.  But where the phrase go bananas comes from is less clear; the internet suggests a number of possibilities, none of which sounds to me wholly convincing.

SPE (SuPpEd regularly, ie every other letter) + Y (unknown).  Another nice lift-and-separate, as the Spey is not an “unknown UK river” at all; in fact for anyone who likes whisky, it is probably the most famous river in Scotland.

PRO (expert) + G (good) + ROCK (solid support).

This was my LOI and took me an age, even with all the checkers.  Rock for solid support is not the most obvious of links, but I think the key here is the saying “He is my rock” for one’s most reliable supporter or the person one depends on most.

ENT (hospital department, standing for Ear, Nose and Throat) + RANT (harangue).

C (cold) + IN (from the clue) + CH (church).

WOOD (hazel, perhaps – a DBE) underneath or following (“supporting”, as this is a down clue) VICTORIA (queen once).

Victoria Wood (1953-2016) might perhaps be slightly obscure GK for those outside the UK.  She was an English actress, musician, screenwriter, and director who wrote and starred in dozens of sketches, plays, musicals, films and sitcoms over several decades, but it was her hugely successful live stand-up comedy act that won her the most fame and the largest following.  She died of cancer at the comparatively young age of 62.

TIG (chasing game for children) + HT (“outside in”, ie first and last letters of, HeaT).

Another clue which was easy enough to biff once I had some checkers (there are not many words that go T-G-T), but where I struggled at first to understand the wordplay.  In particular “Outside in” for outside of is perhaps a little tortuous, but the wording is I think chosen to make the surface run more smoothly.  I’m never sure how much leeway setters are allowed in the use of filler words to make the surfaces actually readable, but in this case it seems fair enough.

BUFF (polish) + O (round) + O (a second round) + N (new).

THE (article) + RE (about).

(entire region)*, with the anagram indicator being “involved”.

I think this must be a DD, as there is no other form of wordplay I can see, but it is another clue where I struggled to fully understand it.  Book is clearly a synonym of reserve, but the link from “delay delivery” to reserve seems to me less than obvious, and the best I can come up with is when you buy something and ask the shop to set it aside for you to collect or them to deliver later.

YA~K (chat) with SH (quiet) + MA (old lady) inserted into it, the insertion indicator being “involving”.  But a double MER from me, as to clue ma as “old lady” seems a bit odd, and a yashmak is not so much a head covering, which suggests a hat on top of the head to me, as a face covering, a type of veil worn by some Muslim women to cover their faces in public.

A hidden, in pET HOSpice.  “Significance of” is not the most obvious hidden indicator I’ve ever met.

WINNER (champion) with the first letter deleted (“heading off”).

CHINOOK (Native American, specifically a member of any one of the tribes of the Pacific Northwest of the USA who spoke the Chinookan language), with the OK deleted (“dropping off”).

Chino is the name of a cotton twill fabric, typically khaki-coloured.  The word is now far more often met in the plural as chinos, casual cotton trousers that get their name because they were originally made out of chino cloth.