Quick Cryptic Number 232 by Mara

Author   nick_the_novicePosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
An elegant puzzle, not too tricky but with some neat clues included. Particularly liked 7dn, with 22ac and 13 dn also deserving a mention in despatches.

If I was to carp, maybe a bit top heavy on the anagrams and double definitions, but overall most enjoyable. Thanks to Mara.

Across
1 TRAIPSE – To walk wearily is the definition. Answer is also an anagram (signalled by “out”) of PAIR SET. Nice gentle start to ease us in
5 U-BOAT – War vessel is the definition. Answer also constructed from TABU backwards (“not allowed to retreat”) with O inserted (“holed by torpedo, finally” – O being the final letter of torpedo)
8 FASHIONISTA – trend-setter is our definition. Answer is also an anagram (signalled by “Fraudulent”) of OF THIS ASIAN
10 ARIA – an operatic song is the definition. Answer also from MARIA (“Callas won’t start”). Easy so long as you have heard of Maria Callas. I was driving home this evening listening to an arts review segment on the radio, when a reference was made in the conversation to P D James. “Who? never heard of him” said one of the critics. Which made me think that it is probably dangerous to assume anything about whether someone is well known or not…
11 BUTCHERS – Here you’ll find some joints (of the meaty variety) is our definition. Answer is also (yet another) anagram – signalled by “composed”- of SCHUBERT
12 BUTTER – Spread is the definition. Answer also constructed from UTTER (“say”) prefaced by (“put on”) B (“bread firstly”)
14 REGIME – authoritarian government is the definition. Answer also constructed from R[EG][IM]E – EG (“say”), with I’M “among” R and E (“outsiders in “resistance“)
16 TERMINAL – Station is the definition. Yet another anagram (signalled by “gets diverted”) of TRAMLINE
18 NEON – a gas is the definition. Answer also from N (chemical symbol for “Nitrogen”) with EON (“time”)
20 EMOTIONLESS – cold is the definition. Answer built from E (“Ultimately, ice” – i.e. last letter of ICE) with MOTIONLESS (“still”). Obvious when the penny drops, but took me a while to see it
22 ASHEN – Grey is the definition. Answer also from AS (“like”) HEN (“bird”). Neat clue
23 INVERSE – Straightforward double definition, with the first very slightly cryptic due to its running together of In and verse

Down
2 REFER – Direct is the definition. Also a palindrome (“two different ways”)
3 INSTANT – a moment is the definition. Answer also constructed from IN_ST_ANT: “In” with ST (abbreviation of “street”) and ANT (our old friend the “soldier” ant)
4 SKI – Winter runner is the definition. Answer also found “in” “miniskirt”
6 BOSCH – artist is the definition. Answer also constructed from BOS[C]H – “nonsense written about” C (“leader in con”)
7 ANAGRAM – Not quite sure how to describe this one – but a great clue, I thought. It is kind of an overall cryptic clue, with the essence of the thing being “Turn of PHRASE” (i.e. anagram of phrase) giving (“for”) SERAPH, with “perhaps” indicating this is an example of the answer (viz. anagram). Sorry, that is a very clunky explanation of a very elegant clue! My COD.
9 NATURAL – Double definition. Natural = “genuine”, and (from distant memories as a primary school recorder player) musical notes that are neither sharps nor flats are “naturals”
11 BURUNDI – African country is our definition. Answer is also an anagram (signalled by “translation of”) URDU IN with B for “British” on the front
13 USELESS – Another double definition, with the second slightly cryptic (“be economical” = USE LESS). Neat clue with a bit of wit
15 GENOESE – Italian is the definition. Answer also constructed from GE[NO]ESE – i.e. GEESE (“fliers”) “carrying NO”
17 MOOSE – American ungulate is the definition (ungulate being a hoofed creature if, like me, you weren’t quite sure). Answer is also a homophone of MOUSSE (“sounding sweet”)
19 OASIS – place of refuge is the definition. Answer constructed from O AS IS – “heading for outpost” (giving us the O), “like” (giving us the AS), and “one’s” giving us the I’S
21 NUN – Double definition, with the second being a homophone (signalled by “listened to”) of “nobody”

12 comments on “Quick Cryptic Number 232 by Mara”

  1. 9 minutes, and very thankful for a return to form after missing my target for 9 puzzles in a row including two technical DNFs.

    I couldn’t remember what ‘ungulate’ meant but was able to deduce the answer at 17dn from wordplay and checkers. I thought the Callas clue was rather neat.

  2. A pb–3:25–which I’m not likely ever to beat. It seemed as I was doing it that everything was an anagram, which led me to trying to construct something out of ‘seraph’ before I noticed there were only 6 letters. (And of course I did construct something out of it when I solved.) The clue for 5ac is neat, but rendered rather otiose by the enumeration + definition.
  3. I found this rather a curate’s egg, but in terms of difficulty not quality. Many went in quickly, but quite a few proved resistant, not least my penultimate (1a) where I failed to pick the anagram and my last in EMOTIONLESS, where I was floundering. Special nods to 2d and 15d. 13 minutes, or nearly 4 KGs.

    And as Kevin says, I must go back and parse U-BOAT some time!

  4. Very similar experience to Ulaca: 13 minutes and almost twice as long as yesterday’s.
    I had a mental wobbly over 11a which took me far longer than it should have done.
    LOI and definite COD 7d which had me running through the alphabet a couple of times, though I liked the anagram at 16a and the pun at 13d.
  5. 15D took me ages because a person from Genoa is GenoVese not Genoese. Genoese is the dialect spoken there and I got it eventually but it took a while since I was hung up on ‘Italian’ being a person not a dialect. 🙁
    1. That was my first thought, but according to Wikipedia, presumably relying on reasonable sources, Genoese can refer to both language and person, which is the norm.
  6. Well, I quite like anagrams – so 10 minutes for me. I thought the puzzle did very well in introducing some possibly unknown items – ungulate, Callas, Bosch and Burundi but none of these required the GK to solve as they were clued reasonably easily. The mark of a good QC perhaps? Then there was 7dn which was my COD. I think this may be one of the fabled &lit clues which I’ve never been too sure of – here’s a definition: The term & lit. is a contraction of “and literally so”. It refers to a special type of cryptic clue – one which consists of a cryptic indication of the solution but which contains no definition part. For example ‘terribly evil (4) = vile’. As these clues are part of the main 15×15, one needs to be aware of them and this was, I think, a gentle version of the breed. Not only that – the cleverness. I feel Mara was aware of the number of anagram clues so the answer to the &lit was anagram. Well, I think it’s clever anyway! So thanks to Mara who I think has hit an optimum QC level – and of course to Nick.

    Edited at 2015-01-28 09:35 am (UTC)

    1. Thanks Chris. Yes, I’ve always been afeared to tread in the & Lit. zone after some (gentle!) clips round the earhole from some of the senior pros when I got it wrong…

      Not sure about this one. I’m sure Jack or Ulaca might come to the rescue…

      Agree with you re. Mara’s sense of irony – excellent!

      1. I’d say chris is correct but it’s an area I’m afeared to tread too as sometimes it’s not clear (to me at any rate) whether certain clues are &lit or cryptic. And let’s not get into ‘semi &lit’ which crops up from time to time!
      2. There are those far better versed in these things than I, but I reckon it does function, as Chris says, as an &lit (or “all-in-one”) – a clue where the definition and the wordplay are the same – with the added bonus that an anagram is a ‘turn of phrase’ and ‘seraph’ an anagram of ‘phrase’.

        An extended &lit?? Clever, anyway.

  7. Struggled to cross the line with EMOTIONLESS, but the rest was fine.

    Thanks all – I hadn’t got the turn of phrase gag, clever indeed!

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