Quick Cryptic No 369 by Dazzler – two kinds of turtle, so neat.

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
A tricky little puzzle for those wishing to graduate to red runs from the cryptic nursery slopes; nothing unfair or obscure but some grown-up wordplay and a big anagram. 19d led me to a long Wiki read about bovines and the effect of methane on climate change, so I’m enlightened as well as entertained.

Across
7 BLOTTO – B = start of board, LOTTO = game; def. tight, as in much the worse for drink.
8 PROFIT – Def. financial gain; sounds like PROPHET = expert at forecasting.
9 TYRO – Hidden word in almighTY ROw; def. inexperienced person, from the Latin word tiro meaning a trainee.
10 AGNOSTIC – (ACTING SO)*, anagrind ‘doctor’, def. sceptic? I think the ? is to excuse the questionable definition.
11 GANGSTER – G= good, ANGER = fury, insert ST = way; def. hoodlum.
13 MOCK – Initial letters of Melon Or Cold Kedgeree; def. scoff; and incidentally Alice’s sort of Turtle.
15 SLUR – Double definition.
16 RESERVED – Def. shy; if you re-served, in tennis, you’d start the rally again.
18 ANCESTOR – (TSAR ONCE)*, anagrind ‘recollected’, def. past family member.
20 AGUE – VAGUE = ill-defined, withhold the V = very; def. fever.
21 GANDHI – G and H I = three letters in a row round AND = with, def. Indian leader.
22 ABOARD – A BOARD is a piece of wood, and ABOARD is on a vessel.

Down
1 PLAY BALL – P = initially pre-empting, LAY = song, BALL = dance; def. co-operate.
2 AT LOGGERHEADS – (DARES TO HAGGLE)*, def. quarrelling. Curiosity led me to seek the origin of this phrase, it seems a LOGGER HEAD was a chunk of wood attached to a horse’s leg to stop it running away; a LOGGERHEAD originally meant a stupid person or blockhead, but the phrase AT … became used to mean ‘in opposition’. It’s also a kind of turtle.
3 MOZART – TRAM = vehicle, turns up = reversed M ART, insert O = old, Z = unknown; def. composer.
4 OPENER – OPEN = candid, E R = extreme letters of EageR, def. batsman, your mandatory daily cricketing clue.
5 FOR SOME REASON – (MORE FEARS SOON)*, anagrind ‘developing’, def. we don’t know why.
6 FIJI – I, J = judge, IF = poem by Kipling often found in crosswords; about = all reversed; def. lots of islands. Fiji’s Yasawa Islands, the nicest place in the world I’ve been to, so far. Or maybe it’s Noumea, the food is better, or maybe it’s Tenby.
12 EXE – Devon river found in EssEX Easily.
14 CHEQUERS – Def. game, usually Chinese …; sounds like CHECKERS = people vetting.
16 RETAIN – REIN = control, insert TA = volunteers; def. keep.
17 STREAM – Anagram (‘upset’) of MASTER, def. school class.
19 NEAT – Double definition, of a sort; neat = in order, and neat is an old word for a bovine beast; it’s dodgy because CATTLE can only be plural. Methane is 20 times more effective as a greenhouse gas in causing global warming than CO2, ton for ton; one cow produces (farts) 70 to 120 kg a year; there are 1.4 billion cattle in the world… something should be done! [That’s enough – Ed.]
EDIT: Apparently NEAT can be plural too, so I rescind the dodgy and apologise to Mr Dazzler.

9 comments on “Quick Cryptic No 369 by Dazzler – two kinds of turtle, so neat.”

  1. Yes, a tricky little number that took me 12 minutes but it seemed longer than that as I had to revisit so many clues for a second or third attempt as I added checkers along the way.

    I was particularly held up in the SW where following the wordplay at 21ac I made an error in a name I knew only too well how to spell, writing GH+AND+I instead of G+AND+HI.

    SOED has NEAT: 2 collect. Cattle. OE. So not a dodgy def.

  2. This is very nearly a pangram. But there is no ‘w’. Any hidden meaning like the neat one by Noel recently?

    Dan

  3. NEAT I got without understanding the “cattle” part, but it’s a poor clue (IMHO) when you have to use a dictionary to confirm it.
    Slipped up by putting CHECKERS into 14d (the US/Canada spelling), which left me stuck on 20a A_K_. Haven’t heard of AGUE so prob wouldn’t have got it anyway.
    1. I disagree about using a dictionary to understand the accuracy of a definition. The answer to 19dn was easily solvable by other means, particularly with the two checkers in place, so the lesser known meaning should not have affected the completion of the grid. And it’s unreasonable to expect a setter never occasionally to stretch solvers’ vocabulary a little. For the record I knew the required meaning and only quoted the dictionary because the blogger had queried the point.
  4. Another slow solve, like yesterday’s, though I would plead on-screen distractions 😊 21ac was my favourite today. Invariant
  6. Too tough for me today. Failed to get 7a (missed the drunk def of tight, 3d, 6d and 22a (should have got this one). Must remember to remember ‘If’ as a poetry reference, as I’ve stumbled over it before.
  7. Have been on holiday and doing the QCs daily on paper.
    This one gave me the most difficulty this week having completed all the others correctly.
    I guessed Neat without knowing the cattle meaning. MY LOI today was Fiji. It took me ages to get it, even having guessed If -Fifi did not seem to parse.David

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