Quick Cryptic No 456 by Izetti

Author   ChrisPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
At the recent anniversary do I highly enjoyed the company of a lot of 12acs and 13dns but must have missed out on the limerick session. To make up:

This blogger who quite likes a brew
Met up with others who do too
Last Saturday night
He became quite tight
At the TtfT ‘versary do

So, on to today’s Izetti – I found this one something of a challenge – managing to complete in about 20 minutes. Complicated wordplay and some unusual vocabulary plus an unheard of film made this an interesting and enjoyable challenge. Looking back, 23ac and LOI 6dn caused more trouble than maybe they should have done.

ACROSS

8. Bullish – optimistic. BUSH around ILL backwards.
9. Tally – agree. Time (T), ALLY.
10. Ocean – big sea. Anagram (adrift) of canoe.
11. Lecture – talk. LURE around ECT which (apparently) stands for elctroconvulsive therapy.
12. Miscreant – villain. Anagram (organised) of CRIMES followed by insect community worker (ANT).
14. Tab – Bill. Club (BAT) backwards. On the subject – beer is a great deal cheaper in Sheffield than Borough High Street, London.
16. Log – double definition.
18. Volunteer – person working for nothing. Learner (L) in an anagram (fantastic) of OUR EVENT.
21. Chaplin – funny man. CHAP in front of LINe.
22. Cadet – trainee. Anagram (foolishly) of ACTED.
23. Poise – calmness. One (I) inside POSE.
24. Colleen – girl from Ireland. Scottish isle (COLL), even – poetically (EEN).

DOWN

1. Abnormal – unusual. No (NO) plus jolly types – jolly Jack tars (RNM) inside an anagram (terribly) of A LAB.
2. Aliens – strangers. Half of answer (ANS) around LIE.
3. Finn – European. Female (F) in front of INN.
4. Thelma – Louise’s friend. Anagram (playing) of HAMLET. Guessed from checkers and wordplay as I’ve never seen the 1991 ‘buddy movie’ In which an Arkansas waitress and a housewife shoot a rapist and take off in a ’66 Thunderbird.
5. Stockton – northern town. Store (STOCK) in front of fashion (TON).
6. Flaunt – parade. Dull (FLAT) around the 13th letter of the Greek alphabet – NU – upwards.
7. Lyre – instrument. In sil(LY RE)cord.
13. Reveller – one out for a good time. Cleric (REV) in front of French female (ELLE), runs (R).
15. Bursting – breaking open. Anagram (various) of TINS and GRUB.
17. Gratis – free. RAT inside soldiers (GIS).
19. Lunacy – madness. LACY around UN.
20. Eddied – whirled. Anagram (reels) of DEE DID.
21. Cope – manage. Firm (CO), gym (PE).
22. Call – visit. Around – circa (C), ALL.

16 comments on “Quick Cryptic No 456 by Izetti”

  1. The ‘jolly types’ referenced in 1d are the Royal Marines , therefore giving RM rather than RN for Royal Navy.
  3. Fought through this pleasantly. Never heard of Greek nu – too much science and not enough classics, tho I now understand that nu is used for natural units, and maybe frequency.

    Couldn’t parse Stockton – how does ton = fashion? Was looking for IN at the end.

    Philip

    1. As well as the unit of weight, ton means style, fashion or distinction. If you’re not happy with it I think you can blame the French! 😄
      2. As in “tone”? I was puzzling over this.

        Quite a bit learned on this puzzle including “Jolly types” for sailors / marines.

  4. This one was much too tricky for me, with less than have the clues solved and nowhere near the ‘critical mass’ of checkers.
    I’ve no objection to the occasional difficult puzzle, as long as they are occasional!

    Brian

  5. I think we had TON for ‘fashion’ in the main crossword recently – I hadn’t heard it before then. I was tickled to see town of my family home when I was a boy mentioned. Not as easy as yeaterday, but I still breezed through in just under 5 minutes. Lots of nice surfaces – hard to pick a favourite, but I liked the two neat anagrams OCEAN and CADET.
  7. Wavelengths are strange things – I found yesterday’s QC a real struggle and yet I breezed through today’s in one sitting. To be fair I didn’t parse 24a and I wasn’t familiar with Ton for fashion, but other than that I thought this was one of Izetti’s gentler offerings. No doubt I’ll come a cropper tomorrow.
  8. 9 minutes. Very few clues were solved “cold”, so to speak, so I needed checkers to nudge my brain in the right direction.
  9. Experience doing these is helping: this must be about the fourth time I’ve seen Finn clued this way in recent times.Ton for fashion I’ve also seen recently.
    However there was plenty to chew on and I needed a couple of sessions finishing with 11a. As always with Izetti, precisely clued. I very much liked 22a. David
  10. Took about 55m to get down to the STOCKTON-LECTURE-FLAUNT triumvirate, though doing these lying in bed while simultaneously trying to go to sleep probably isn’t fully conducive to fast times. Another 5 mins or so this morning was plenty to finish it off. Just needed help from this blog as to why TON is clued as “fashion”.

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