Quick Cryptic Number 234 by Orpheus

Author   william_j_sPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
Nothing to trouble seasoned quickie solvers here, and a couple of cryptic definitions to get us novices thinking laterally. I thought many of the definition parts of clues were neat and well disguised, especially 16ac, 22ac, 6dn and 7dn.

Definitions underlined.

Across
1 Vigorously hearty team members having a drink (12)
BACKSLAPPING – BACKS (members of a rugby team) plus LAPPING (having a drink).
8 Part of circle about to retire in Ghanaian port (5)
ACCRA – ARC (part of circle) plus CA (circa, about) all reversed (retired).
9 Long-serving surgeon managed to save energy (7)
VETERAN – VET (surgeon) with RAN (managed) surrounding (to save) E (energy).
10 Tragic king cut down in grassy area (3)
LEA – LEAr is the tragic king, here missing his last letter (cut down).
11 Spiny rodent’s meat talked of up in Edinburgh originally (9)
PORCUPINE – homophone (indicated by talked of) of “pork”, with UP IN and E (Edinburgh originally).
13 Meal served by a number (about fifty?) (5)
FLOUR – FOUR (a number) about L (fifty).
14 Negotiate terms for an excursion, perhaps (5)
TREAT – double definition. I guessed the first from treaty, and I dimly remember the verb from a past crossword.
16 Anticipate gin flowing in the club (9)
EXPECTING – EXPECT (anticipate) with an anagram (indicated by flowing) of GIN. Or as a friend of mine says, “in the pudding club”, which I thought meant taking regular enjoyment of dessert. You can imagine my surprise when I discovered the true etymology of the phrase!
17 Young child going to and fro (3)
TOT – palindromic (to and fro) young child.
19 Discussion about foreign city displaying ancient vehicle (7)/td>
CHARIOT – CHAT (discussion) around RIO (foreign city).
21 Fiasco trying to accommodate race venue (5)
ASCOT – hidden in fiASCO Trying.
22 Miss? Nice one, perhaps (12)
MADEMOISELLE – a Miss from the French city of Nice. Nice.

Down
1 In outskirts of Bhopal, brutal altercation (5)
BRAWL – RAW (brutal) in outermost letters (outskirts) of BhopaL.
2 Bird with a ring, displaying elation (4-1-4)
COCK-A-HOOP – COCK (bird) with A HOOP (a ring).
3 Dishonest dealings rare in talented singers? (5,8)
SHARP PRACTICE – cryptic definition. Talented singers would not be sharp.
4 Part of speech of vicar brought up in bad development (6)
ADVERB – REV (vicar) reversed (brought up) inside an anagram (indicated by development) of BAD.
5 Peeved informer about to retire… (3,3,2,5)
PUT OUT TO GRASS – PUT OUT (peeved) and GRASS (informer) around TO.
6 …and not nervous of retirement at first (3)
NOR – first letters of Nervous Of Retirement. Cunning definition.
7 Small photo capturing start of county cricket, for example (6)
INSECT – INSET (small photo) surrounding (capturing) first letter of County.
12 Self-same dialect in new form (9)
IDENTICAL – anagram (indicated by new form) of DIALECT IN.
13 Painting Al’s left in the open air (6)
FRESCO – take al from al FRESCO (in the open air). I had to look twice at this because the sans serif font lead me to think first of artificial intelligence.
15 One way to get involved in brother’s restaurant (6)
BISTRO – I (one) and ST (street, way) involved in BRO (brother).
18 Article about Italian wine tax no longer levied (5)
TITHE – THE (article) around IT (Italian vermouth, wine). I only knew this as a sort of tax; still not sure of the connection with wine. Thanks to mohn for the correction.
20 A prosecuting officer’s girl (3)
ADA – A plus DA (district attorney, prosecuting officer).

14 comments on “Quick Cryptic Number 234 by Orpheus”

  1. IT is short for Italian vermouth, so the definition is just “tax no longer levied”. Perhaps most commonly found in the phrase “gin and it”.

    Edited at 2015-01-30 08:42 am (UTC)

  2. Mohn beat me to it (pun intended), though the clue would have worked equally as well without the word “wine”.
    I spent a while puzzling over the parsing of 22a – Nice indeed! Thanks William for reminding me of this particular crossword quirk. Because of that, it has to be my COD.
  3. Well, yet another word for the old todger. I am enlightened by William. 10 minutes of fun.
  4. 7D was my LOI – took a while to get ‘inset’ as had my mind fixed on ‘snap’ or ‘pic’. Was ready to insert the ‘c’ though!
  5. 12 minutes, once again losing most time at the beginning. I must have read about ten clues before solving one.
  6. Great puzzle with some excellent clues, for two of which, 3 and 16, I needed my customary blogger assistance to parse. I generally get the words in when I have spotted the definition but 7 was a total reversal of this. I parsed the word round the ‘c’ and then struggled to find the word/s that defined ‘insect’. I was so taken in by the association of County and cricket that the noisy ltittle creature remained unheard for ages.
  7. 16 minutes for the QC, 24 minutes for the 15×15 – so today may be a good time to try both.
    LOI 13dn in which I tried to insert an ‘L’ for left until I realised that Al departed. Thanks for the blog – especially 16ac.
  8. Nice to finish the week with a completion after the really tough (for me) start to the week. 7dn and 14ac took me a while to figure out, but got there in the end.
    I got 14ac from ‘number about 50’, but I’m confused as to how flour is a meal. Am I missing something?
    Many thanks

    1. You’re looking for the less common definition of meal, any grain that is ground up.

  10. A slow start had me thinking this was going to be another tricky one, but then the answers began to go in and I finished in just over the hour – quite respectable by my standards. LOIs were 1ac and 22ac, the reasoning behind the latter eluding me until I read the blog – thanks. And to think I call myself a Francophile! Invariant
  11. My experience was similar to jackkt, with very few of the across clues going in first time. But the down clues went in quite readily, providing enough checkers to wrap up in quite reasonable time.

    3dn went in without parsing (well spotted william!) and, while vaguely remembering IT as an Italian wine once mohn mentioned it, 18dn had to be TITHE with the checkers in place, so that also went in without full parsing. Enjoyed 8ac, 22ac but my COD goes to PUT OUT TO GRASS.

    Well blogged william and thanks to Orpheus for a fun puzzle.

  12. arrgh – spent ages re-reading the clue for 7dn and still didn’t get to see ‘cricket’ as it was meant to be read… inset became insert instead of insect, so a DNF! Thanks to the team effort in helping me to see how I should have got my right answers…

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