I had all bar 3 down in less than 20 minutes, but had to bail out, since I hadn’t memorised the spelling of the imaginary castle.
Despite that, I thought this was a fun little number. Possibly, a good one in terms of constructions for those contemplating a move to the main cryptic from the Quickie, but with some tricky vocab. So, don’t despair if you have a go, but can’t lick it! [edited in light of early comments]
| Across | |
| 1 | Composer with worry over French region (8) |
| BERGERAC – [Alban] BERG CARE reversed | |
| 6 | Ton added to gold in room a shock (6) |
| TRAUMA – T (ton) AU in RM A (from the clue) | |
| 9 | Bishop and religious fraternity row about stray dog (6,7) |
| BORDER TERRIER – B ORDER ERR in TIER | |
| 10 | Ship carrying blubber passes swiftly (6) |
| SWEEPS – WEEP (cry, blubber) in SS | |
| 11 | American descendant touring one foreign capital (8) |
| ASUNCION – A (American) UN (one foreign, here French) in SCION (descendant); Asunción is the capital of Paraguay | |
| 13 | Robbing criminal barged in to bag silver (10) |
| BRIGANDAGE – AG in anagram* of BARGED IN | |
| 15 | First couple expelled from country paradise (4) |
| EDEN – |
|
| 16 | Work always around for lauded artist (4) |
| GOYA – GO (work) AY (always) reversed; altogether now, ‘Let us, with a gladsome mind, praise the Lord, for he is kind: For his mercies ay endure, ever faithful, ever sure’ | |
| 18 | Substantial cardinal sin brought about court action (4,6) |
| REAL TENNIS – REAL (substantial) TEN (cardinal number) SIN reversed | |
| 21 | Reportedly deficient characteristic in vivid description (8) |
| PORTRAIT – POR (sounds like poor: to some people – calm down!) TRAIT | |
| 22 | Mental model found in Nietzsche, maybe (6) |
| SCHEMA – hidden; hopefully, everyone’s feeling better now | |
| 23 | Working to a Greek character always, who might do better? (13) |
| UNDERACHIEVER – UNDER (working to) A CHI EVER; Collins has ‘subject to the control, limitations, government, direction, instruction or influence of’ for under, as in ‘under orders’, and that’s the best I can do you for | |
| 25 | Commercial to air in time prior to Christmas (6) |
| ADVENT – AD VENT | |
| 26 |
Footballer put off allowing goal in (8)
|
| DEFENDER – END in DEFER | |
| Down | |
| 2 | Shelter soldiers from south capturing missile launcher (7) |
| EMBOWER – BOW in REME (Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers, which my Dad was in) | |
| 3 | Castle of the Groans — lead characters in magnificent gothic novel (11) |
| GORMENGHAST – THE GROANS M~ G~* (‘novel’ is the anagram indicator); I had the anagrist, but hadn’t memorised the word from the last time it came up (in the comments to a puzzle less than a month ago). Never read Peake, obvs. Gormenghast was the second novel in the series, Titus Groan being the first. So the anagram fodder is pretty clever. | |
| 4 | Athenians for example denied their capital stinks (5) |
| REEKS – |
|
| 5 | Ancient instrument — store it in cleaner area (7) |
| CITHARA – IT in CHAR (cleaner, AKA Mrs Mop) A (area); a lute-like thing played on Greek vases (also kithara) | |
| 6 | Swirling dry northerly heading for Urals fast (9) |
| TURBULENT – BRUT reversed U~ LENT | |
| 7 | Old Islamic leader calls in periodically (3) |
| ALI – |
|
| 8 | Kit the writer debased in unpleasant experience (7) |
| MARLOWE – LOW (debased) in MARE (unpleasant experience); Christopher (Kit) Marlowe was a contemporary of Shakespeare, whose work includes Tamburlaine the Great, which I had to sit through as a schoolboy. A high body-count, as I remember.. | |
| 12 | Scours harbour — having lost walrus? (5-6) |
| CLEAN-SHAVEN – CLEANS (scours) HAVEN (harbour); a walrus is a type of moustache, famously favoured by golfer Craig Stadler, who was eponymous with his facial hair | |
| 14 | Rodent warranty altered to protect duck (6,3) |
| NORWAY RAT – O in WARRANTY*; never heard of this, even though I’ve been to Norway. Beautiful place – will return. Reading the Wikipedia entry, very much a case of mistaken identity. However, the Norwegians need something to keep them humble after finding they were sitting on all that oil after being the butt of Swedish and Danish jokes for so long. Also known as the common rat, street rat and sewer rat – among other things. | |
| 17 | Old barrel brought into bar sounding full (7) |
| OROTUND – O TUN in ROD; the word means resonant of voice or pompous of writing, but I can never think of it as meaning anything but fat. I should be ashamed – or shamed? | |
| 19 | Stomach calmer in colonist, perhaps on powerful drug (7) |
| ANTACID – ANT ACID (LSD – those setters love their narcotics) | |
| 20 | Dip in northwestern river curtailed after one minute (7)) |
| IMMERSE – I (one) M (minute) MERSE |
|
| 22 | Glide across water with doubled force in boat (5) |
| SKIFF – SKI (glide across water – if the snow’s melted, I guess#) FF (fortissimo); # just joking | |
| 24 |
No power in bass for Flower of Scotland (3)
|
| DEE – DEE |
|
Well, I did finish correctly, despite not having heard of Mervyn Peake or any of his novels. The rest was not difficult; if you see Kit and think of Marlowe at once, you definitely have the knowledge. I have to admit that Bergerac was only vaguely familiar, and I nearly biffed Boston Terrier. Once I decided how to arrange the anagram letters to get the castle, the famous artist was obviously Goya.
Time: 27:32
So happy to hear that about Kit Marlowe! ( I’m a long-time lurker in Oz, and my preference is for these slightly literary based clues, so you’ve heartened me enormously to say that I must have the required knowledge !)
25:28
I needed to carefully check the anagrist to convince myself that I had spelled GORMENGHAST correctly. LOI was GOYA; I took a while to see that “two letters meaning work” can something be something other than OP.
COD REAL TENNIS.
Thanks Ulaca and setter
At one point I thought I wasn’t going to finish, but after looking up REAL TENNIS (so actually I guess I didn’t finish), I managed to get through, ending with the corker ASUNCION. Lots of fun. Kicked myself for not pursuing my vague thought of GORMENGHAST from the first. What a swell clue!
I’ve actually never read the Gormenghast books, can anyone tell me if they are as fabulous as the title?
Thanks setter for the many amusing clues, and ulaca for the very helpful blogging.
Well of course it’s all subjective, but yes, yes they are. Certainly in my top 5 of all the books(/series) I’ve ever read.
While I’m here: DNF after 20:59 cos I just couldn’t see ASUNCION (even though it’s not a NHO, and the clueing is fair) and then I had things to do so that was that. Ho hum. Very nice crossword, thanks setter and ulaca.
Probably said above? Seems like some Friday words in a Monday crossword. Gormenghast trilogy contains two of my favourite novels. Never understood Titus Alone.
It just happened I had useful GK for this one. Cyrano de BERGERAC is a character with a huge nose well-known in French literature, apparently based on a real person. The play by Rostand has been adapted into a movie more than once, including the 1980s Roxanne with Steve Martin. NORWAY RATs were at one time thought to be carriers of the plague that cause the Black Death and then the Great Plague of London in the 1660s but it was more complicated than that.
21 mins. Inc about 5 on MARLOWE, a clue which didn’t fit the easiness of the rest of the puzzle. Even NHO CITHARA was easily clued.
The Gormenghast books are among my favourites, nice to see them getting a mench.
Tennyson wrote: “And the silent isle imbowers/ The Lady of Shalott” I think embowers is better.
There was a lot about Kit Marlowe in the weekend papers. Whodunnit?
Nice 15-minute Monday job. Why was it necessary to describe Goya as “lauded”? We all know he’s one of the all-time greats.
30:15 I had all but 2 in under 25 minutes but then Marlowe took me a couple of minutes and LOI Asuncion took ages since I have never heard of it
Never heard of Alban Berg. Apart from that, everything straightforward.
I think those unused to the Cryptic might be discouraged if this is their first attempt!
A rare attempt at the cryptic (slow as opposed to quick) for me. Achieved some success in the south but needed the blog to provide answers and helpful checkers to complete. A long way to go to understand the word plays and alas not sure my GK be upgraded sufficiently. Thanks all
Perhaps Vocab rather than GK
Finished in 27:37. A fairly standard Monday puzzle, if not a bit trickier than uzh. ASUNCION was my LOI.
I should rank the cithara as closer to a lyre than a lute, but it’s a moot point.
Since when has Bergerac been a region?
I found this easy…until my last clue. Having lived in France, BERGERAC went straight in. Having read the Peake novels, GORMENGHAST was a write-in without bothering to work out the details of what was clearly an anagram. But I’ve never heard of ASUNCION, and even guessing it might contain UN I still could not see it. So DNF.
Slow to finish, but all in in the end, with NHO CITHARA, EMBOWER worked out from wordplay and LOsI ASUNCION and MARLOWE. Would not recommend for Quick solvers; definitely not an easy Monday, but fun.
Hadn’t heard of the CITHARA, but it transpires that I have one! But that and the second word of REAL ~???. escaped me in what was my best attempt for a year. CODs to PORTRAIT, ASUNCION and CLEAN SHAVEN.
I got Marlowe, but had never heard of “mare” meaning “unpleasant experience”, except as a component of “nightmare”. Am I the only one?