ST 4306 (Sun 7 Dec) – Harridan floored

Author   talbinhoPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: 8:13 (one mistake: 13ac)

I got a bit bogged down on the left half of this, struggling on SHEEPISH/SINK at the top and TOURACOS, TISANE and CHITON at the bottom, and also misspelt HARRIDAN at 13ac.

* = anagram, “X” = sounds like ‘X’.

Across
1 SHEEP + IS + H – good clue, I thought this must be a Biblical reference but in fact ‘Jacob’ is a type of sheep. (Actually, according to Chambers, the sheep was named after the Biblical character – see Genesis 30, v 40.)
5 FORINT; IN (= ‘popular’) in FORT (= ‘keep’) – the currency of Hungary.
9 I’M PALING – ‘Spit’ as in a roasting spit: clever.
10 CORVID; (DIVORC[e])* – I’ve never been totally happy with ‘X out East’ to mean ‘X with an ‘E’ removed’. ‘Corvid’ has the same Latin root (‘corvus’, a crow) as the Scottish word ‘corbie’.
12 HOOP + O + E (= ‘initially each’) – difficult if you don’t know the word. The hoopoe is apparently occasionally seen in England.
13 HARRIDAN; “HARRY” + DAN – one of those words I can never spell: I wrote in ‘harridon’ (which also fits the wordplay). For some examples, try watching this ‘Public Improvement’ film (they appear around 1:34).
15 RE-PAIRS
16 EROS; rev. of SORE – ‘Circus boy’ because of the statue of Eros at Piccadilly Circus.
20 ANON; NO in AN – ‘no’, or ‘noh’, is a type of Japanese drama.
21 CO(HE)RES
25 KERCHIEF; (RICH KEEF)* – there’s no real anagram indicator here: the question mark is a bit of a cop-out. ‘Keef’ is the same as ‘kef’, meaning cannabis resin.
26 DEFILE (2 defs)
28 HE-CAT + E – ‘Tom’ to ‘he-cat’ is quite a difficult jump.
29 CADENCES; (DANCES)* around C.E.
30 TISANE; SANE after rev. of IT – an attempted &lit (i.e. the whole clue is both the definition and the wordplay; tisane is a herbal tea) which would perhaps have benefited from a question mark.
31 LEATHERY – an attempted pun on ‘hide’, but the answer doesn’t really fit the required part of speech.

Down
1 SLIGHT (2 defs) – good clue, but not sure why a question mark is needed.
2 EMPLOY; rev. of ME, + PLOY
3 P(U,L)LOVER
4 SINK (2 defs)
6 O + DOUR + S (= ‘first sniff’) – another ‘part of speech’ crime.
7 INVADERS; (RED VAN IS)*
8 TIDINESS; (INSISTED)* – good anagram, which I couldn’t solve straight away.
11 LAERTES; (LEAR)* + rev. of SET – a character from Hamlet.
14 B(ALONE)Y
17 BACK (= ‘second’) + CHAT (= ‘bird’)
18 TOUR + A + COS – well done if you knew what ‘peregrinate’ meant!
19 R(EVER)ENT – this requires splitting of ‘tearaway’ into ‘tear away’.
22 CHITON; (ITCH)* + ON – no idea what ‘donning’ is doing in this clue. This was my last entry.
23 FIACRE; rev. of IF, + ACRE – a hackney carriage.
24 JERSEY (2 defs) – the intention is fairly clear but this doesn’t make a lot of sense.
27 RACE (2 defs: ‘Stock’ and ‘speed trial’) – good double definition.

3 comments on “ST 4306 (Sun 7 Dec) – Harridan floored”

  1. …(or perhaps deliberately) this was a Sunday puzzle. I would certainly have struggled to finish this without the aid of a dictionary during the morning commute.

    55 minutes – by far my slowest time for months. So much for the ST being usually slightly less demanding!

    Neil

  2. I managed to get this all correct but did have 4 answers with arrows and comments with multiple ?s.

    26a Foul = pass = DEFILE had DD with ????

    6d SOUR = DOUR to get O (ld) DOUR S(niff) had SOUR = DOUR ?

    19d R EVER ENT had an arrow and a single ?

    23d FI ACRE had ?????? because I did not know the word but it was fairly clued and I got it correct. Hurrah.

    I can spell HARRIDAN but I’m fortunate enough to have never met one.

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