Quick Cryptic Number 224 by Mara

Author   william_j_sPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
Sorry for the delay in posting – I completely forgot to blog this last night and have had a heck of a morning. Roll on the weekend.

This was a pleasant and straightforward puzzle with only the more gentle crossword GK required. If yesterday’s was a drill for container clues, this is certainly one for double definitions! Plenty of anagrams as well , with lots of common indicators.

COD to 9ac, which I think is rather clever!

Across
7    Story-teller finds a means of travelling back (4)
      LIAR – RAIL (a means of travelling) backwards.
8    An indication required by the way, as no grid to work with (4,4)
      ROAD SIGN – anagram of (indicated by ‘to work with’) AS NO GRID.
9    Biblical character having joke with Judah, oddly ignored (6)
     JOSHUA – JOSH (joke) with even letters (oddly ignored) from jUdAh.
10  Something for children to observe, now and then (6)
     SEESAW – SEE (to observe now) and SAW (to observe then).
11  Just a bazaar (4)
     FAIR – double definition.
12  Big is beautiful! (8)
      HANDSOME – double definition.
15  Correct to repair an African city (8)
      PRETORIA – anagram of (indicated by ‘correct’) TO REPAIR.
17  Fire container (4)
      SACK – double definition, to sack from work and a container for potatoes, say.
18  Train some swimmers (6)
     SCHOOL – double definition, to train in a skill/subject and a collective noun for fish.
21  Conventional figure (6)
      SQUARE – double definition, straight-laced and a shape.
22  Tree requiring steady treatment (5,3)
      FIRST AID – FIR (tree) plus STAID (steady).
23  Group prohibited, we hear? (4)
      BAND – homophone (we hear) of “banned” (prohibited).

Down
1    Monster ran out, I’m shaking! (8)
      MINOTAUR – anagram of (indicated by ‘shaking’) RAN OUT I’M.
2    Old king, a king over a day (6)
      ARTHUR – A + R (rex, king) on top of THURsday.
3    First of Pagans, one getting to clergyman (8)
      PREACHER – first letter of Pagans plus REACHER (one getting to).
4    Considerable number in religious service (4)
      MASS – double definition.
5    Judge the female fool? (6)
     ASSESS – an ASS is a fool, so a female one could be an ASS-ESS.
6    Part of Calcutta, grand Indian city (4)
      AGRA – hidden in (part of) calcuttA GRAnd.
13  Car’s left in Britain, dense air circulating (8)
      NEARSIDE – anagram of (indicated by ‘circulating’) DENSE AIR. A car’s left only the nearside if you drive on the left.
14  Rocky Marciano, an Italian dish! (8)
      MACARONI – anagram of (indicated by ‘rocky’) MARCIANO.
16  Eastern philosophy moved to Siam (6)
      TAOISM – anagram of (indicated by ‘moved’) TO SIAM.
17  Squat, small and round! (6)
      STUBBY – S (small) and TUBBY (round).
19  Bit of potato, one produced with a wedge? (4)
      CHIP – double definition, I think. Something you might have with your fish, and a golfing manoeuvre that would
      require a wedge?
20  Clue for metal (4)
      LEAD – double definition, the sort of lead you can follow and elemental lead.

13 comments on “Quick Cryptic Number 224 by Mara”

  1. 9 minutes for all but two but then had a senior moment at 20dn/22ac and lost 6 minutes trying to come up with the answers.

    I wonder if Rocky Marciano has come up before. If not, it was brilliant!

    Edited at 2015-01-16 11:52 am (UTC)

  2. 11:57 so for me at the more difficult end of the spectrum. Agree with Jackkt on Rocky – I cannot recall seeing it before but being senior I may have seen it last week!
  3. Very enjoyable. Think it’s the first time I’ve completed one and understood the reasons for all the answers. Bottom left was the trickiest bit.
    9ac, 14dn and 22ac were my CODs.
  4. Took some time to get going with just BAND spotted on first read of the across clues. I assumed 14d was not original but many apologies to Mara if it is. Last in was STUBBY. Favourite SEESAW.
  5. Excellent blog and nice steady puzzle. My only query is how to tell which way round 7ac is and would appreciate help on this. I originally wrote in Rail but had to reverse it to Liar once Minotaur became obvious.
    1. Leaving checkers out of things, I think it’s rather down to identifying the purpose of each word in the clue and “finds” is the extraneous one that’s only there as a link. So having removed that from the equation, one is then left with “story-teller” and “a means of travelling back” which surely leaves no doubt as to what the reversal indicator refers to.

      Er, not sure this helps, but I hope so.

  6. Fairly straightforward I thought. It took about 25 minutes which is quick for me. ‘NEARSIDE’ was my favourite.
  7. Two gentle puzzles in a row and solving was pretty much the same as yesterday. The across clues seemed more straightforward this time and any unsolved ones went in quickly while working through the downs, giving me probably the fastest solve of a Quickie so far. The only slight hold up was 18dn where I needed the 21ac checker to see STUBBY.

    Thanks for the blog william_j_s (better late than never 🙂 ) and to Mara for the puzzle.

  8. Under the psychological 10 minute barrier again. Definitely at the easiest end of the spectrum for me. But I really enjoyed it nonetheless. Thanks for a nice clear blog.
  9. A depressingly familiar ‘sprint’ (or slow trot) through most of the clues, followed by agonising over the short ones. I can’t believe that chip and lead were not write-ins given that I had first aid! Beginning to think I have some sort of genetic blindness when it comes to small words. 10ac and 14d were my favourites today. Invariant
  11. I won the discussion here because I claimed that the definition should be at the beginning or the end of the clue
  12. Just got round to doing this, and had to say what a truly brilliant clue “rocky marciano” was!

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