ST 4355 (Sun 15 Nov) – Desert storm

Author   talbinhoPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time: about 7 mins I think, with one silly mistake (21dn).

Mostly concisely clued with a few decent cryptic definitions. Double definition clues often seem to be my downfall (as in the recent Times Championship) and another one got me here, where I had the obviously wrong ‘defect’ for DESERT.

Sorry for the lateness – I had a technical faff involving a dongle and a USB stick (among other things).

* = anagram, “X” = sounds like ‘X’.

Across
1 COLD CUTS; (COD + CUTS) around L
5 QUEBEC – because “Q” in the phonetic alphabet used by pilots (amongst others) is ‘Quebec’.
10 MARGARITA; (T[i]A MARIA + G + R)*
11 CAR (= ‘vehicle’) + GO (= ‘board game’)
12 OMEGA; (GAME)* after O
13 DONOR CARD (cryptic definition) – quite good, I thought.
14 WHITE WHALE; (WITH)* + rev. of WE + HALE
17 GURU; rev. of RUG + U
19 APSE (hidden backwards) – ‘part of church’ and (4) rarely needs any further thought.
20 SAFARI PARK (cryptic definition) – Longleat is a safari park in Wiltshire. I think this was probably the last English county whose whereabouts I learnt, so perhaps this might have caused overseas solvers problems.
22 TEMPERATE; (EMPEROR – OR (= ‘gold’)) in TATE
24 GECKO; rev. of OK (= ‘approval’) + C (= ‘about’) + E.G. (= ‘say’)
26 DRIVE (2 defs)
27 HARMONICA; (O CHAIRMAN)* – good anagram.
28 YACHTS; C.H. in rev. of STAY
29 SHEDLOAD; (HAS DOLED)*

Down
1 COMMON + WEALTH + DAY (= ‘Doris’)
2 LARGE; [periodica]L + [m]ARGE
3 CHARADES; (CARDS HE + A)*
4 TRIED (2 defs)
6 UNCORK (cryptic definition) – ‘tent’ is a kind of wine.
7 BARRACUDA; BAR + R.A. + CUD + A – ‘artist’ was misspelt as ‘aetist’ in the online version, which held me up a little because I initially read it as ‘aetheist’.
8 CLOUD-CUCKOO-LAND; D after (LOUD + CUCKOO) in CLOUD – ‘bats’ gives CUCKOO, both of which can mean ‘mad’.
9 MAGNOLIA; rev. of AIM around (A + rev. of LONG)
15 INSOMNIAC (cryptic definition)
16 HIAWATHA; “HIGHER” + (WHAT A)*
18 RING + rev. of DR around O,A
21 DESERT (2 defs) – I saw ‘leave’ = ‘defect’ here and bunged it in, knowing it was probably wrong. I did spend a little while looking for a better answer but for some reason couldn’t see ‘desert’.
23 [h]EARTH
25 CAIRO; CRO[w] around A1

5 comments on “ST 4355 (Sun 15 Nov) – Desert storm”

  1. I normally don’t time myself–I’m happy enough to get it complete–but this time things seemed to be going so swimmingly I did, and managed to do it in 21 minutes; lightning speed for such as I.
    I was just about to inquire about Quebec when the penny dropped. (Can anyone out there remember inserting a penny into a machine?)
    I got ‘shedload’ because it had to be ‘shedload’, but had never heard the word before, and the electronic English-Japanese/J-E dictionary I use when desperate doesn’t list it (nor does my Shorter OED); is it dialect, or general UK?
    1. I had meant to ask for an explanation of QUEBEC, which I didn’t understand. The penny has now dropped for me too!

      SHEDLOAD was familiar but may well be English dialect, as you suggest.

  2. My only comment on this crossword when I did it was that at 14ac it seemed a bit of a shame for the mighty leviathan, hero of Moby Dick, one of the greatest novels ever written, to be clued with just the simple definition “swimmer!”

    Re shedload, my Chambers has it, under “shed.” I would have said it was in common and widespread use, but of fairly recent origin.. time for a nice new Chambers, perhaps 😉

  3. CLOUD-CUCKOO-LAND; D after (LOUD + CUCKOO) in CLOUD – ‘bats’ gives CUCKOO, both of which can mean ‘mad’.

    Shoud this not be

    CLOUD-CUCKOO-LAND;

    (LOUD + CUCKOO) in CLAN – D
    ‘bats’ gives CUCKOO,
    ‘tribe’ gives CLAN

  4. re 7d In the Vancouver Sun version of the puzzle, published on December 26, the clue read “Prohibit motorists …etc. I got barracuda but the ra in reference to motorists made no sense.

Comments are closed.