Quick Cryptic no 52 by Mara

Author   ChrisPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
Seems like a toughie today to follow yesterday’s rather more simple offering. Never the less there is lots to enjoy here. I got badly held up in the NW and got interrupted so not sure my 24 minutes is truly indicative but I enjoyed all 24 of them!

Across
1 Cocktail – doctor and girl consuming it (6)
Mojito – Doctor (MO – medical officer) and Girl (JO) with IT inside. A  glass of white rum, sugar (traditionally sugar cane juice), lime juice, sparkling water, and mint would have gone down well after yesterday’s gardening.
4 Ignoramus retaining job, leader dismissed as cheap (3-3)
Two-bit – Ignoramus (TWIT) with jOB inside minus the first letter.
9 Book a replacement player (7)
Reserve – Double definition.
10 Prepared to study theology in the end (5)
Ready – To study (READ) with the last letter of theologY.
11 Keen to send high-maintenance woman back (4)
Avid – DIVA backwards – not quite sure why female singers are singled out when there are plenty of other prima donna types in other professions.
12 Fool appearing twice in Killer (8)
Assassin – Fool (ASS – as in Bertie Wooster) twice with IN at the end.
14 One awaiting cuts at reception? (7,4)
Wedding Cake – Cryptic definition.
18 House no great thing for island capital (8)
Honolulu – House (HO) no (NO) great thing (LULU). The term lulu means a person or thing considered outstanding. Cryptic crosswords are great as a) I get to check my spelling with the word play and b) I learn things – I’d never connected the singer’s name Lulu with any definition but it works.
20 Show contempt as clues recalled! (4)
Spit – Clues (TIPS) recalled (backwards). Voted (by me) the least pleasant COD.
22 University interrupting consistently contrary show (5)
Revue – University (U) inside consistently (EVER) contrary (backwards).
23 Sinatra out for leading lady (7)
Tsarina – Anagram (out) of SINATRA.
24 Noble oddly accepting royalty ultimately in Queen Anne (6)
Boleyn – Anagram (oddly) of NOBLE with the last letter of royatlY inside.
25 Limit alcoholic drink given to wreck (6)
Margin – To wreck (MAR) with alcoholic drink (GIN).

Down
1 Grass unaltered when pulled up? (6)
Marram – The same if spelt downwards as upwards (which works as this is a down clue). I knew it had to be a mirror image but I just couldn’t get Pampas out of my head.
2 Only diamonds, fair quality (7)
Justice – Only (JUST) diamonds (ICE). Took a little time to make fairness=the quality of being fair but I think it works.
3 Cutting pie (4)
Tart – Double definition – acidic/cutting/tart and the more obvious pie. Or maybe there’s an expert out there that will let me know that the thing I know (and love) as steak and kidney pie could never be a tart if it has a pastry top?
5 Rwanda rebuilt church, as steps taken before battle (3,5)
War Dance – Anagram (rebuilt) of RWANDA with church (CE). I love New Zealand and it’s people – maybe everyone does which is why they can do their Haka before Rugby games.
6 Silver alloy (5)
Brass – Cryptic definition with the nice touch that On edit (thanks mohn2) this is a double definition – silver could mean money (BRASS) and brass is an alloy.
7 Difficult court process? (6)
Trying – Double definition.
8 Star – is one partly twinkling? (11)
Personality – Star as in personality of the year, I suppose. Anagram (twinkling which is nice) of IS ONE PARTLY.
13 Lady, true to form, in act of betrayal (8)
Adultery – Anagram (to form) of LADY TRUE which is pretty sarcastic when you think about it.
15 Ruler about India provided lovely introductions for author (7)
Kipling – Ruler (KING) around first letters (introductions) of India Provided Lovely.
16 Young animal cradling her beautiful infant (6)
Cherub – Young animal (CUB) holding (cradling) HER. How nice – enough to make up for 20 across.
17 Beginning to sweat, retinue showing evidence of stress (6)
Strain – First letter of Sweat retinue (TRAIN).
19 New book (5)
Novel – Double definition.
21 Drop a long story (4)
Saga – Drop (SAG) A.

15 comments on “Quick Cryptic no 52 by Mara”

  1. I struggled to get started (12ac was my first one in) and struggled to finish (I had a mental block with ?A?GIN outstanding at 25ac) and came home eventually in 19 minutes.

    On edit: The setter is Mara today who only set two previously and I found both of them tough.

    Edited at 2014-05-20 07:00 am (UTC)

  2. DNF. Things went fairly smoothly, although it took me a while, and some checkers, before I could rearrange ‘Sinatra’, and it took me another while to realize that 24ac was an anagram. But I’d never heard of MARRAM. Oh, well, as the poet says.
  3. A DNF for me too. I didn’t know MARRAM either. Normally I get a smile from a solution when I knew the word but didn’t get it. Not with BRASS though. I thought it a bit tenuous.

    I think this one is the hardest QC so far. Is Tuesday becoming the hard day of the week on both puzzles? The main cryptic today was ridiculously difficult for me. I even struggled to understand some of the blog on it today.

  4. 7 mins. Definitely the toughest QC for a while, if not the hardest of all. I’m not sure if my brain was fried because I came to this puzzle after the main cryptic, or whether the hardness of the main cryptic meant I was attuned to harder clues and it helped. WEDDING CAKE was my LOI after KIPLING.
  5. Indeed it was a tough one. And the NW corner particularly so. Was stumped by MOJITO and MARRAM and JUSTICE – and their proximity made it hard to deduce any of them as there were less checkers available than there would have been if I’d got the surrounding clues.

    No complaints – just feeling a bit “tail between legs” as beaten by the Quickie.

  6. Kind of surprised to see MARRAM in here – according to Google, it doesn’t seem to have even appeared in the main cryptic before. I suppose if you see that the wordplay implies a palindrome then once you have all the checkers it’s a write-in, but it seems a bit of a harsh clue for beginners.

    I had BRASS as being a double definition (one for money, one for alloy) rather than a cryptic one.

    COD to 13D for its good (albeit embittered) surface.

  7. Another struggler here. I finished in two sittings, total of about an hour. Although not usually a big fan of cryptic definitions, WEDDING CAKE made me smile. I also liked MOJITO (despite thinking it had an h in it), TWO-BIT, and KIPLING. Worth the effort.
  8. 21 minutes, and reasonably straightforward. MARRAM new to me but gettable from the clue. Quite enjoyed this one. Now for the main cryptic which given the comments above I approach with dread…..
  9. Yes, a medium-to-tough one for me to. 16mins. Thanks, again, Chris for a very clear blog. I did like 4ac and 14ac. No problem with marram. In yesterday’s Cryptic I got caught out by MISPRISION. What I failed to see was the I in PRISON (“one evidently jailed”) I thought I had got better at spotting that type of clue but obviously not. I don’t come to the Quickie everyday. Has that sort of device been seen here? Perhaps it’s deemed a little difficult for beginners.
    1. I can’t say that I’ve seen that precise device before (although jackkt seems to be better at recalling what’s happened where). All I can say is that the Quickie is very variable and I do remember comments like ‘those clues belong to a 15×15’.
  10. 25 mins with some Z8ery – I am getting better but this was a swine (apologies to pigs).

    I was able to dredge up MARRAM from the depths of somewhere and remember drinking MOJITO s in Moscow in 2007 but overall I thought the clues were imprecise in places. I don’t like personality as a synonym for star. TSARINA was cute as was WEDDING CAKE. My COD was ASSASSIN.

  11. …though slightly less so, having read everyone else’s comments and seen I’m not the only one who struggled.

    For me, the ultimate newbie, this was really difficult. And frustrating. And a shock to the system after yesterday’s tamer version.

    Oh well, there’s always tomorrow.

  12. Just tried after a long day at work and simply couldn’t get started – far too hard for me! Thanks for the blog.
  13. Managed 12/25 clues today which was a comeuppance after yesterday’s triumph. If I’d solved either of the long words through the centre of the grid I might have got further…

    Don’t despair fellow beginners – I realise that a few weeks ago I’d certainly not have been able to do almost 50% of this puzzle.

    Edited at 2014-05-21 08:25 am (UTC)

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