Quick Cryptic No 409 by Hurley

Author   piquetPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
A steady write-in working clockwise, 8 minutes or so, very pleasant.

If anybody – an existing blogger or an aspirant – would like to take on the Friday Quickies instead of me, please post here and contact Andy / linxit for his agreement and to alter the schedule.

Across
1 PLAYMATE – P E is gym, LAY MAT = set floor covering, in; D child’s companion.
5 PIER – Delete ONE from PIONEER; D jetty.
8 ESTONIAN – (SAINT ONE)*; D national.
9 ASIA – Hidden reversed in APPR(AISA)L; D Eastern lands.
11 SURER – A SURFER is a web user (not an expression you hear so much nowadays). Delete the F (finesse, originally); D more confident.
12 ELEGANT – EL (the in Spanish), (AGENT)*; D tasteful.
13 PATCHY – PATCH = repair, Y = you’re, initially; D of indifferent quality.
15 BOW TIE – BOW (front section, of ship), TI (musical note), E(nglish); D neckwear.
18 SWANSEA – SWANS (birds), EA (each); D port city.
19 STAKE – DD.
21 LOTH – LOT = group, H = hesitates, at first; D reluctant. One of those words which looks odd to me, whether spelt LOTH or LOATH, although both are valid. It crops up in that poem about tricky English pronunciations; found for example, here: http://www.tickld.com/x/90-of-people-cant-pronounce-this-whole-poem
22 IRRIGATE – Insert RIG (equipment) into IRATE (furious); D supply with water.
23 NORM – NO (refusal), RM (Royal Marines); D standard.
24 SWEETEST – S (intro to skipper), WEE (minute, tiny), TEST (match); D most pleasing.

Down
1 PRESS-UP – PRE (before) S (second) SUP (drink); D exercise.
2 ALTER – FALTER (waver) has the F dropped; D change.
3 MONARCHIST – (ROMANTICS H)*; D no republican.
4 TRACES – T (time) RACES (moves fast); D finds.
6 INSTANT – (TINS)*, ANT = worker, in crosswords; D like some coffee.
7 ROAST – R, OAST = kiln; D criticise.
10 DEVONSHIRE – (SHE DROVE IN)*; D county.
14 TOASTER – Well, you propose a toast, to a toaster raises a glass, and TO ASTER would be to daisy.
16 ELEMENT – Hidden in CLIENT(ELE MEN T)REASURE; D gold, perhaps.
17 HARROW – DD.
18 SALON – Insert A, L (answer, left) in SON (child); D hall.
20 AGATE – A GATE (means of access); D a gem. Well, a decorative mineral used in jewellery and for many other things.

12 comments on “Quick Cryptic No 409 by Hurley”

  1. Being a little slow to start and finish took me a minute over my 10 minute target, but in between that things flowed along nicely. I had a complete blind spot towards the end re SWANSEA and TOASTER though in the latter case I had spotted the answer but couldn’t think for a moment what “Daisy” had to do with it.

    Are you looking to lose both your Friday slots, Pip? If so, maybe a newbie might find that a bit of a commitment to take on straight away. If somebody new wants to dip a toe in the water, so to speak, by blogging alternate Fridays I’d be happy to cover the gaps until they’ve gained confidence to tackle both slots, or until a second volunteer comes along to take the remainder on. Just hoping to expand the available options in case people are reluctant to come forward.

    Edited at 2015-10-02 05:55 am (UTC)

  2. Like jackkt, I couldn’t think of what ‘Daisy’ had to do with TOASTER; unlike him, I never did come up with the explanation until coming here, just biffing. LOTH took a while, as I couldn’t think of what to put with H. 5:30.
  4. Some tricky clues today, I thought, but maybe I was just on the wrong wavelength… I was slow to see that ‘single’ was ‘one’ not ‘s’ in 5a, and that waver was ‘falter’ for 2d, for example. I too thought LOTH looked odd without the a in the middle. 24a my favourite. 9:10.
  5. RHS went in quite quickly but then came to a complete halt down the left. My worst performance for several months. Invariant
  7. Full house this week but for some time thought I would fall at the last 2 hurdles 21a and 22a. For the latter I could not get an obviously wrong DRAINAGE out of my mind. Finally they both came to me.

    Favourite TOASTER.

  8. After a fast start I got held up by what I thought were some tricky clues. For 1a, I thought that “floor covering in gym” was mat,which left me searching for other fodder.Eventually I saw Playmate but couldn’t parse it until reading this blog (same with 24a).But thanks to recent practice and reading this blog I kept going with TOASTER AND SWANSEA finally falling, and lastly SALON.I was put off by Devon having Shire at the end but concluded it had to be right(is it a valid county today?). In all about 30 minutes including a quick go at The Times Daily Quiz which adjoins in the newspaper. David
  9. Sped through most of this before taking a while to figure that 8a was an anagram, which then gave me my LOI 4d. Like others I couldn’t parse 14d and also couldn’t figure out the parsing of the second part of 15a. One of these days I’ll remember that ‘note’ often refers to that song from The Sound of Music
  10. Slow today, but persevered and finished in about an hour – SW corner took forever; not seen ‘loth’ with that spelling before but will defer to those who have. Thank you Hurley, lots of enjoyable clues. Nomis.
  11. I don’t pass by this way very often these days which is a testament to how much my cryptic crossword skills have improved, aided not in the least by all the help I got from this blog when I started. This was a great crossword for me, finished in one sitting (an hour or so) and all but a couple suitably parsed. I made a couple of mistakes by guessing — Loth and Traces. Shame there’s not a Quick Cryptic on a Saturday…

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