Quick Cryptic No 78, by Hurley – not that quick I’m afraid.

Posted on Categories Quick Cryptic
This took me eleven minutes with a fuzzy head from last evening’s festivities. It seems to me that the Quickies are approaching the easier main puzzles in degree of difficulty, with fewer really obvious clues than when I started this malarkey. But maybe that’s just because I’m half asleep.

Across
1 ABYSMAL – Hidden word, B(ABY SMAL)L, def. ‘very poor’.
5 SLICK – S=second, LICK=blow, def. ‘adroit’. I’m still trying to satisfy myself that lick and blow can be syonymous; presumably to do with landing punches?
8 ROLLER_SKATE – (ROLE STALKER)*, indicated by ‘criminal’, def. ‘move swiftly’. A loose definition, but a straightforward anagram.
10 SHOO – SHOO(T) cut short. Shoo! = go away.
11 SERGEANT – SET (firm), with (ANGER)* inserted, SE(RGEAN)T, def. ‘army guy’.
12 GOLDEN – Out of date = OLD, circulated by GEN (information), G(OLD)EN, presumably for the 50th anniversary of WW1, 1914, or celebrating in 2014 a wedding anniversary if you married in 1964?
14 LAPSES – Remove H from hapless, (APLESS)*, def. ‘failings’.
16 MATTRESS – MA (mum) T (time) TRESS (lock), for what you relax on at night.
18 TAPE – TAP (exploit) E (European), def. ‘measure’. I spent a minute looking for a word meaning exploit, beginning with E.
20 OLIVER TWIST – (WORST EVIL ITS)*, indicator ‘reformable, answer the Dickens novel.
22 CYCLE – First letters of C(hapters) Y(ou) C(orrelated), followed by LE (the French), def. ‘series’. As in song cycle.
23 LEOTARD – LEO (stars) TARD(Y) (almost late), def. ‘tight costume’.

Down
2 BERTH – BERTHA is lacking A, def. ‘bed on board’.
3 SALFORD – SAL (girl) FOR (supporting) D (Democrat), Salford is a city adjoining Manchester, up north.
4 ACE – AC (bill, account), E, (end of ‘the’), def. ‘expert’.
6 LEAVE – Double def., you give someone leave to do something; to leave, for example.
7 CLEANSE – LEANS (lists, in the sense of leans over), held by CE (church), def. ‘purge’.
9 SURPLUS – SUR(E) (nearly certain) PL (place) US (American), def. ‘more than adequate’.
11 SINCERE – SINCE = during period after, RE = Religious Education, def. ‘Open’. Not quite a synonym, IMO.
13 ORATORY – O (old) RA (artist) TORY, def. ‘prayer room’.
15 PATRIOT – PT = training, A TRIO = threesome, P(A TRIO)T, def. ‘country lover’.
17 TRIAL – L (learner), AIR (attitude), T (truculent at first), all reversed (rising), def. ‘test’.
19 PETER – PET = favourite, ER = royal (Her Majesty), for the name of a Saint. Not the best clue around, as there are over 10,000 to choose from.
21 TIE – Odd letters of twice, T(W)I(C)E, def. ‘draw’.

17 comments on “Quick Cryptic No 78, by Hurley – not that quick I’m afraid.”

  1. 8:50, with a fuzzy head on general principles. Does anyone (besides setters, of course) use ‘gen’, he asked. I never did parse LEOTARD (or try to), given ‘tight costume’. Rather liked GOLDEN and SALFORD.
    1. My father uses “gen up” in the sense of to learn, but he’s 87 (and an old 87 at that) so it could be a generational thing. Apart from that usage I don’t think I’ve seen it except in crosswords.
      1. Hmm – interesting one. I certainly use Gen quite a lot in day to day discussions in office – as do my colleagues. (Open question – did they pick it up from me, or is it a shared peculiarity – dunno!)

        “Talk to Phil – he’ll give you all the gen” is often heard in my work environment. In terms of demographics, I am by a long chalk the oldest (at a youthful 58) but many of the gen utterers are in late 20’s / early 30’s. Maybe it’s an Australian thing?

  2. 6 mins, but I agree that this didn’t feel like an easy one and I struggled to get on the setter’s wavelength, which is the kind of comment I usually reserve for the main puzzle. The GOLDEN/SINCERE crossers were my last in and I saw the parsing of GOLDEN as a 1964 wedding anniversary reference.
  3. Definitely a tough one. Many of the clues – I thought – were main puzzle degree of difficulty (at least when the main puzzle is of a level that Dorset_Jimbo pronounces “boring”).

    That, of itself, is not necessarily a bad thing – unless the intent of the Quickie is to deliver a “training ground” for newcomers who aspire to reach the giddy heights of the main one day.

    Interventions on this site from the Editor in the past seem to have indicated that is not necessarily the objective, and that there will be times when the Quickie is of comparable degree of difficulty with the main offering. So be it, then.

    This was a fair offering (no arcane GK – unlike yesterday) as far as I was concerned, but just seemed hard: that said, not on best form tonight (in Sydney – 9 hours ahead of UK) as been a bitch of a day at work!

  4. In the past I have found some of Hurley’s offerings tough and this was no exception. GOLDEN was my last one in but the 1964 reference escaped me. MATTRESS with its time lock made me smile.
  5. 19mins so I’m thinking along Pip’s lines that these are getting more difficult. Can’t blame fuzziness. I was going to query the meaning of ‘support in 3d as I thought it was a girl’s underneath D but Pip’s blog put me right. Yes, blow = lick, is that right?
  6. 14 minutes, so on a par with Hurley’s last offering judging by my solving time. I had no hold-ups so I’m unable to account for it taking as long as it did.

    Re the blog, can one speak of Golden Anniversaries with regard to an outbreak of war or some other unhappy event? I really only associate the terminology with pleasant things like weddings celebrations and jubilees etc. I’m not saying it’s wrong, just wondering.

    Edited at 2014-06-25 01:31 pm (UTC)

    1. I thought of the 1914 reference on topicality grounds because of all the (IMO unwarranted) hype presently about 100 years since 1914 – then I thought no, it’s probably about weddings in 1964; either way, it’s a funny way to clue the answer.
      1. Hi I thought the 1964 reference might have been to do with the fact that that was an olympic year,although on reflection it probably means that events which occured in 1964 are now having their golden anniversary.
  7. I found this one to be pretty tough and struggled to make much headway but had a bit of a breakthrough after filling in 1ac. Managed to complete in about 3 hours. Hoping for a bit easier tomorrow. I still enjoy the Quick Cryptics and feel I am making progress. This page is a great help. So thanks for all the input.
  8. Might as well not bother with the quick as this was no different from the hard. It would love to hear from others not just the few who always do the quick in 6-10 minutes. The times really need to find compilers who will encourage those new to crossword who take 1-2 hours when there is a reasonable one and never get anywhere when it is as hard as today’s. Not asking for simple just a reasonable chance to learn how to get to the hard ones. That does not mean a couple of weeks but probably a couple of years.
  9. Just a real struggle for me today. I managed six (CLEANSE, SLICK, LAPSES, SURPLUS, LEAVE, and SHOO), and then sat there for an hour without making any further headway at all.

    I did have half an eye on Wimbledon which probably didn’t help my focus, but having read the blog I can safely say there wasn’t much chance of me fully parsing most of the others. Bad show by me. Tomorrow’s a new day.

  10. I managed 10 today quite quickly but couldn’t do any more. Far too hard for me – again!
  11. Agree with anonymous – just demoralising if this hard, whereas hoped the ‘quick’ would encourage those of us new to the art. Why have 2 puzzles of equal difficulty?
  12. After yesterday’s triumph, I only solved 6 clues in this one. I agree with the general consensus that this wasn’t aimed at us beginners.
  13. ODO has: ‘(informal) A smart blow: “his mother gave him several licks for daring to blaspheme”.’

    Not sure anyone would write that but…

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