After the devious delights of QC 1000, the subject of my last QC blog, this is a more straightforward offering from Hurley but nonetheless enjoyable for that. I needed 8 minutes to complete it with parsings.
As usual definitions are underlined in bold italics, {deletions are in curly brackets} and [anagrinds, containment, reversal and other indicators in square ones]
| Across | |
| 1 | He might buy copper’s big book, dear in end (8) |
| CUSTOMER – CU’S (copper’s), TOME (big book), {dea}R [end]. “Tome” seems to be another of those words that only survives in crossword puzzles. | |
| 5 | Pig having short time inside pack (4) |
| STOW – SOW (pig) containing [having…inside] T (short time) | |
| 8 | A job so ungodly ultimately leading to giving up religion (8) |
| APOSTASY – A, POST (job), AS (so), {ungodl}Y [ultimately] | |
| 9 | Enthusiasm of Zoe, early regularly (4) |
| ZEAL – Z{o}E{e}A{r}L{y} [regularly] | |
| 11 | Ignoring resistance, made great effort to provide heater (5) |
| STOVE – ST{r}OVE (made great effort) [ignoring resistance] | |
| 12 | Tetchy, I abandoned financial centre (3,4) |
| THE CITY – Anagram [abandoned] of TETCHY I. I don’t know whether it applies anywhere else, but historically in London ‘the City’ is used to refer to the financial centre. | |
| 13 | Long to be in environment of court prestige (6) |
| CACHET – ACHE (long) contained by [in environment of] CT (court) | |
| 15 | Scarcity of daughters where we live? (6) |
| DEARTH – D (daughters), EARTH (where we live). I’ve looked in all the usual printed sources and several others on-line but have not found ‘d = daughters’ as opposed to the singular. Most of them have ‘d = day(s)’ which suggests that if an abbreviation includes the plural it would be specified. | |
| 18 | In favour of note for example backing person aided by patronage (7) |
| PROTEGE – PRO [in favour of], TE (note), EG (for example) reversed [backing] | |
| 19 | Not half unearthing obsession? (5) |
| THING – {unear}THING [not half]. Not my thing. | |
| 21 | Very rich, he drinks too much (4) |
| LUSH – Two definitions | |
| 22 | Initially losing it, then irritated, spectators take legal action (8) |
| LITIGATE – L{osing} +I{t} + T{hen} + I{rritated} [initially], GATE (spectators, e.g the paying public at a sporting event) | |
| 23 | Never an artist, this girl? (4) |
| NORA – NO (never), RA (artist) | |
| 24 | Terribly vile leer — wake-up call (8) |
| REVEILLE – Anagram [terribly] of VILE LEER. It’s a bugle call. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Conservative girl in charge — top quality! (7) |
| CLASSIC – C (Conservative), LASS (girl), IC (in charge) | |
| 2 | Reduced pace in Oslo monastery (3-2) |
| SLO-MO – Hidden in {o)SLO MO{nastery} | |
| 3 | Event Hello! arranged? True (2,3,5) |
| ON THE LEVEL – Anagram [arranged] of EVENT HELLO | |
| 4 | Substitute some tigers at zoo (6) |
| ERSATZ – Hidden in [some] {tig}ERS AT Z{oo} | |
| 6 | By comparison, small adolescent, say? That is right (7) |
| TEENIER – TEEN (adolescent, say), IE (that is), R (right) | |
| 7 | Charlie — old Berlin feature? Primarily yes (5) |
| WALLY – WALL (old Berlin feature), Y{es} [primarily]. Two slang terms for a fool. | |
| 10 | Retiree, pro, recollected standard works (10) |
| REPERTOIRE – Anagram [recollected] of RETIREE PRO | |
| 14 | More annoyed seeing burden on monarch (7) |
| CROSSER – CROSS (burden), ER (monarch). ‘Cross’ in the sense of ‘a cross to bear’. | |
| 16 | In speech greeting girl’s method of promoting cleanliness (7) |
| HYGIENE – Sounds like [in speech] “Hi” (greeting), “Jean” (girl) | |
| 17 | Acceptable to house the Spanish cat (6) |
| FELINE – FINE (acceptable) contains [to house] EL (the, Spanish) | |
| 18 | Extremely prickly academic put out by London steel structure (5) |
| PYLON – P{rickl}Y [extremely], LON{don} [academic – don – put out] | |
| 20 | Counting everyone home — a long list, just starting (2,3) |
| IN ALL – IN (home), A, L{ong} + L{ist} [just starting] | |
In UK slang, a ‘charlie’ and a ‘wally’ are similar but not completely identical. That’s why there are two different words!
The on-line ‘Urban Dictionary’ states that “A wally is in fact someone who is very intelligent in some areas but very stupid (almost unbelievably) in others, eg such as clumsiness” but I can’t find any support for this in the usual sources and I don’t believe that meaning is what people have in mind when they deploy ‘wally’ as a general term of abuse.
It’s mildly interesting that although both words are derived from names (Charles and Walter) one name has retained it’s capital letter in slang whilst the other hasn’t.
Edited at 2018-01-22 07:48 am (UTC)
I parsed 8a as A POST OS Y, from the word play but knew the spelling was wrong. Didn’t see as = so.
COD wally.
Thanks Jack and setter.
WOD: Lush – memories of the delightful Stacie, eponymous heroine of the much missed Gavin and … .
5’10”
Held up by Apostasy and fortunately I paused to parse. LOI was 17d where initially I was looking for a tiger etc. About 17 minutes. David
Mighty