Quick Cryptic Number 125 by Mara

Another eminently solvable puzzle for learners like me, in which most of the word play is straightforward. A couple of answers (17dn & 19ac) required a bit more thought on my part, but there is no obscure or devious vocabularly to worry about. I might even take a peek at the main crossword later…

Roughly imitating jackkt’s method:
Definitions are underlined
Square brackets contain indicators of anagram/enclosure/reversal etc.

Across
1 BEDROOMwhere yawners may be found, an angram of BOREDOM [unfortunately].
5 BIDET – BIDE (stay) with first letter of Taps [initially] for bathroom fitting.
8 INFINITESIMAL – an anagram of LIMITS TIME IN A [rough] gives minute (as in, tiny).
9 PRECEDE – P (elemental phosphorous) then RECEDE (withdraw) for lead.
10 TENET – a palindromic opinion [unchanging from left of right].
11 FLEECE – double definition, rip off and coat.
13 SPOTTY – S (small) and POTTY (crazy), perhaps like a teenager.
15 OUTDO – to better is OUT (away from home) and DO (party).
16 EXPLAIN – EX (old) with PLAIN (patent) gives interpret.
19 SWASHBUCKLINGadventurous from SLING (throw), surrounding WASH (clean) + BUCK (jump like a horse) [getting caught].
20 EVENT – EVEN (regular) plus T (time) for incident.
21 TRAINER – double definition, coach and type of shoe.

Down
1 BLIMP – B [first to burst] with LIMP (flaccid) gives this airship.
2 DIFFERENTIATE – anagram of IN FAT FREE DIET [hopeless] for change.
3 OUNCE – ONCE (days gone by) surrounding [around] middle letter of tUm for little weight.
4 MUTTERspeak indistinctly from M (a thousand) plus UTTER (say).
5 BUS STOP – the oblique definition is place for waiters, from US (American) inside [during] BST (British Summer Time) plus OP (opus, a musical work).
6 DEMONSTRATIONexhibition is DEMON (wicked) plus STATION (place) surrounding [host to] R [rookie’s first].
7 TOLSTOY – it helps if you only know one Russian author! Anagram of LOTS [rewrite] before TOY (play).
11 FOOTSIE – a form of flirting from an anagra of OFT SO [frisky] plue IE (that is).
12 CROCHETneedlework from an anagram of chore [difficult] within [getting through] first and last letters of CarpeT [fringes].
14 RESULT – this is the outcome of an anagram of LUSTRE [tarnished].
17 PUKKA – homophone [did you say?] of “pucker” (crease) for genuine.
18 NIGER – a country hidden in PakistaNI/GERman.

11 comments on “Quick Cryptic Number 125 by Mara”

  1. At 10 minutes a nice straightforward end to a week that has been very taxing on the 15×15 front.
  2. 5 mins. I found this a welcome change of pace after another struggle with the main puzzle. If I hadn’t had the 13-letter limitation and the anagram fodder I would have misspelt 8ac as “infinitessimal”. The FLEECE/FOOTSIE crossers were my last ones in.
  3. 6 min for me, so a bit harder than the norm, perhaps. An enjoyable puzzle, with a somewhat racy theme, with FOOTSIE and BOREDOM in the bedroom. Makes a change!
  4. Took 2 hours but got all but three. I got hung up on 11a. As I put trench thinking of wrench to rip off. Still improving. I pretty much guessed swashbuckling, and still do not see the getting caught bit. Again great blog. Would love any tips on crossword usuals as that really helps us beginners.

    Forgot to sign in but my handle is dobree49

    1. Getting caught indicates that the WASH BUCK part needs to go inside SLING.

      So the clue should be read: To make “adventurous”, write “throw”, with “clean + jump” getting caught inside it.

      Hope this helps and doesn’t just cause further confusion!

  5. Glad to ease myself back in after best part of a week away sorting my daughter’s house so she can rent out a room while she is away doing a Masters. I got swashbuckling from the definition and checkers and had to reverse parse.
  6. Looked at this with some trepidation. I have found Mara’s puzzles quite tricky and did not like seeing all the 13 letter clues. Started with the across clues and got to the last one before I could solve any.

    However it turned into a very enjoyable puzzle. I liked 1d, 5d and 13a which was my LOI.

  7. An interesting puzzle that seemed of medium difficulty for a quickie, and I suspect the setter enjoyed providing all of the full width/length clues with single words as the solution.

    After yesterday’s wonderful main puzzle, where you could only congratulate the setter on his artistry, you realise what skill a good setter has. I was only able to complete just under half of the clues without aids, but when I saw the answers to my unknowns either through cheats or in the blog, everything seemed so clear. But I just couldn’t see the answer at the time no matter how long I stared at it!

    On the other hand, while the quickies use the same methods, the answers are rarely so well hidden. Perhaps that the art of setting a good quickie or a good main puzzle lies in being able to gauge the difficulty of “concealement” within a clue….

    Decided to use my account to post this time even after the not so great experience of creating the account in Live Journal.

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