Quick Cryptic No 324 by Joker

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
I have to admit that I wasn’t able to write in the answers to this puzzle as quickly as usual, I had to duck and weave around the grid and re-visit a few clues before seeing what was going on. I think it’s at the harder end of the spectrum where Quickies are concerned. Nevertheless it’s a fair puzzle and afterwards I can’t see why it took me nearly fifteen minutes.

Across
4 RACKET – Double definition, if you can overcome the reluctance to equate a racket (as in badminton, tennis, squash) with a bat, as in cricket. I used to hate it when plonkers said to me ‘is that a squash bat or a badminton bat?’
7 BARONAGE – BAR= ban, ON AGE, def. members of the nobility.
8 PERMIT – Do ladies still perm their hair? My Mum did, but I never saw the point. Def. allow.
9 DEADLINE – A DEAD LINE is an unresponsive phone connection, and a DEADLINE is a time limit.
10 ETON – NOTE = see, returned, def. famous public school. Is there a more famous one?
12 MOLESKIN – MOLES = undercover spies, KIN = related, def. material. I had some groovy trousers made of this once.
15 SOMERSET – (TREE MOST)*, anagrind ‘rampant’, def. part of the West Country.
18 MEND – M = first of May, END = finish, def. repair.
20 HOPELESS – If you depair more, you hope less; def. bad.
22 POTAGE – Reverse E.G. A TOP = say, a first-rate; def. soup.
23 RESONATE – (TONES ARE)*, anagrind ‘all around’, def. ring.
24 DECIDE – DID E, insert EC = European Community, def. make up their minds?

Down
1 RATE – CRATE = packing container, has top removed, def. assess.
2 CONDENSE – CONE = shape of volcanic mountain, insert DENS = studies, def. concentrate.
3 RADIUM – Take the ‘hearts’ of these words; gRADe, sIx, sUMs; get RAD I UM, def. an element. My kind of clue.
4 REPEAL – EP = record, old style, insert into REAL = concrete; def. annul.
5 CURE – CU = copper, RE = rhenium (a precious metal); def. make better.
6 EMISSION – E = European, MISSION = ambassadorial team, def. discharge.
11 TROLLOPE – ROLL = run, insert into TO, PE = exercises, T(ROLL)O,PE; def. prolific author.
13 ORE – ORE(GON) = NW US state, half gone, def. what’s mined.
14 SAMPLING – AMP = amplifier, insert into SLING = pitch, def. modifying bits of music.
16 SPHERE – S = small, P = piano, HERE = present, def. area of study.
17 TYPIST – T = time, (TIPSY)* anagrind ‘uncoordinated’, def. worker on keyboard.
19 TAXI – TAX I = make heavy demand on one, def. hire vehicle.
21 SETT – SETT(ER), dog loses ER = hesitation, def. badger den.

17 comments on “Quick Cryptic No 324 by Joker”

  1. Took me a while to get into this–I think I went through all the acrosses before getting 1d–but things fell into place soon enough. 3d worried me; thought there was an element I couldn’t think of, but finally twigged. COD for me. 5:45.
  2. iPad app on the fritz today – unless they have changed their model for crossword grids – this wasn’t the ST model, it was something completely new and horrible. It didn’t give me a time either – I know it was well less than half an hour but that’s it. Certainly more than 15 mins.
  3. Goodness me, that was hard work! At 24 minutes I was starting to wonder if I’d complete it without aids, but eventually something clicked and the last five answers fell into place at 3, 12, 14, 4dn and 4ac.
  4. Distinctly tricky but all correct. With 6 clues to go put it down for 10 minutes but when I returned they went in quite quickly,3d 9a 23a 20a 16d and finally 14d.

    Favourite RADIUM.

  5. A word of warning for solvers: there is a misprint in both the on-line and paper versions of this crossword with the clue for 15a. The length is actually 8 characters not 9 as printed, but the error is pretty obvious – just confusing if you are looking for a 9-letter anagram.
    A shade over 10 minutes with LOI being predictably 3d.
    I particularly liked 17d for its misdirection since “tipsy” would normally indicate an anagrind.
      1. My paper version shows 9 letters but it only held me up for a couple of seconds. Thanks for the blog Pip.
      2. That’s bizarre.
        After I noticed it in the paper version, I checked online (exactly the same address as you show) and the clue said (and still does using the link you give) 9 characters. I’m looking at it as I write this: “Tree moss rampant in part of the West Country (9)”.
        As I live in Somerset, perhaps they are giving me an extra handicap?
        1. From the same link, copy and paste ! (8) Bizarre, as they say in these parts.

          Extract from the XML (or whatever the code is) says
          class=”text-title”>15</strong> Tree moss rampant in part of the West Country (8)</div>

          Any IT experts around to explain it?

          1. “Curiouser and curiouser, said Alice”.

            Well, MY HTML says:
            < div class=”dmjsClue dmjsClue1 text-clue”>
            < strong class=”text-title”>15</strong>
            ” Tree moss rampant in part of the West Country “
            < span class=”clue-format-holder”>(9)< /span>
            < /div>
            I’ve put a space after all the < so this post doesn’t read the HTML as HTML.
            I’m a little out of my depth here…

            Edited at 2015-06-05 05:00 pm (UTC)

            1. my nerd man says must be to do with platforms and browsers

              I am on windows 7 and Chrome?

              Busy watching Murray trying to beat the incredible Serb.

              1. I think I now know the answer to this conundrum!
                I’m using Chrome as well, but I checked it under both Explorer and Firefox: this time it was “8”. So I cleared the cache in Chrome and…it became “8”.
                I suspect it originally was “9” but they’d corrected it by the time you looked at it again (probably because they noticed the “9” in the paper version). In the meantime, I was still getting the incorrect version as I was still reading the cached version in my PC rather than it being refreshed.
                Well that’s my theory anyway.
  6. A nice chewy one this. Finishing in 11:51, I blew my target time, but I enjoyed the challenge. I was misdirected by the “at heart of” in 3d for a while, thinking of things nuclear. I did get confused trying to find the 9th letter for the 15a anagram, (as deezzaa noted) but the answer was obvious enough. LOI was 14d – I didn’t spot “SLING” for “pitch” and I’m not convinced that sampling modifies the bits of music. Some say it is stealing… it is an interesting legal minefield.
  7. Took ages with this one, and was beginning to think my brain had gone AWOL, so I’m relieved to see that even experts ‘struggled’. Easily the hardest offering from Joker that I can recall. Like others, Radium (once seen) was my favourite. Invariant
  8. DNF for me. Didn’t get 11d, which seems obvious now, or 14d where I considered putting in sampling from the checkers but could not see what the hell it had to do with modifying.
    Overall a tough test and like others my COD was 3d
  9. An enjoyable and fair puzzle, a bit harder for me than others this week.
    I got the right half fairly quickly but stopped for a break with two unsolved -7a and 3d.
    I had “bar” plus “on” in 7d; and was convinced that six was VI so was looking for an element ending in “vium”.
    Anyway I got there eventually and had to check baronage which was new to me (despite visiting the British Library’s excellent Magna Carta exhibition). David
  10. Oooh i got 1 down as CASE ie Suitcase (packing container) with top off. Where you CASE the joint. I can see the proper answer is better than mine but I think mine still works!!

Comments are closed.