Hello, and welcome to Christmas Eve Eve. I hope you all have a lovely festive season and I’ll see you again on the other side.
EDIT: following comments, I can reassure you that today’s puzzle was clearly on the tough side for a Quick Cryptic. I must have been in the zone as nothing held me up unduly and I found plenty to like, my favourite clue being 16d. Thanks Pedro!
Definitions are underlined in the clues below. In the explanations, most quoted indicators are in italics, specified [deletions] are in square brackets, and I’ve capitalised and emboldened letters which appear in the ANSWER. For clarity, I omit most link words and some juxtaposition indicators.
| Across | |
| 7a | French food that is to the rear of British (4) |
| BRIE — IE (that is) after (to the rear of) BR. (British) | |
| 8a | Popular group, with leader away, failing to perform (8) |
| INACTION — IN (popular) + fACTION (group) without the first letter (with leader away) | |
| 9a | Oppose wild jumping Jack abandons (6) |
| IMPUGN — An anagram of (wild) [j]UMPING which J (jack) leaves (abandons) | |
| 10a | Former lover abandoned bottle, almost free (6) |
| EXEMPT — EX (former lover) + EMPTy (abandoned bottle) stopping short of its last letter (almost) | |
| 11a | Group of hunters satisfied bagging tail of grouse (4) |
| MEET — MET (satisfied) taking in (bagging) the last letter of (tail of) grousE | |
| 12a | Road marker from motorway with large English letters (8) |
| MILEPOST — MI (M1, motorway) + L (large) + E (English) + POST (letters) | |
| 15a | Bored concealing power provided by working munitions (8) |
| WEAPONRY — WEARY (bored) around (concealing) P (power) and ON (working) | |
| 17a | Web program beginning to harm two things (4) |
| BOTH — BOT (web program) + the first letter of (beginning to) Harm | |
| 18a | Church expert accepting new risk (6) |
| CHANCE — CH. (church) + ACE (expert) taking in (accepting) N (new) | |
| 21a | Liberal American backed attempt with passion (6) |
| SULTRY — L (Liberal) and US (American) reversed (backed) + TRY (attempt) | |
| 22a | Ran round Sidney, off-balance (8) |
| LOPSIDED — LOPED (ran) round SID (Sidney) | |
| 23a | Right to deploy plan (4) |
| RUSE — R (right) + USE (to deploy) | |
| Down | |
| 1d | Top politician going to European film debut (8) |
| PREMIERE — PREMIER (top politician) + E (European) | |
| 2d | Lustre going off in sequel (6) |
| RESULT — LUSTRE anagrammed (going off) | |
| 3d | Oral statement of offender on Monday is spicy stuff (8) |
| CINNAMON — CINNA here is a soundalike of (oral statement of) SINNER (offender) on MON (Monday) | |
| 4d | Create market that’s failing regularly? (4) |
| MAKE — MArKEt having regular letters deleted (that’s failing regularly?) | |
| 5d | Looks up to take in introduction of theatrical Hollywood star (6) |
| STREEP — PEERS (looks) reversed (up) to take in the first letter (introduction) of Theatrical | |
| 6d | Concession securing a TV series? (4) |
| SOAP — SOP (concession) around (securing) A | |
| 13d | Bet political advisor will keep source of scandal in reserve (3,5) |
| LAY ASIDE — LAY (bet) + AIDE (political advisor) will contain (keep) the initial letter (source) of Scandal | |
| 14d | Sort of comic artist is funny (8) |
| SATIRIST — ARTIST IS anagrammed (funny) | |
| 16d | Wordplay is hard to beat? (6) |
| PUNISH — PUN (wordplay) + IS + H (hard) | |
| 17d | Negative comment involving the French debut for Ravel — this piece? (6) |
| BOLERO — BOO (negative comment) containing (involving) LE (the, French) and the first letter of (debut for) Ravel | |
| 19d | Ring Houses of Parliament initially about nothing (4) |
| HOOP — First letters of (… initially) Houses Of Parliament around (about) O (nothing) | |
| 20d | Limits or borders of European domains (4) |
| ENDS — Outer letters of (borders of) EuropeaN DomainS | |
Slow and steady won the race. I seemed to be on the wavelength for this, certainly found it easier than one or two last week. Maybe cracking the 15×15 today got my brain warmed up.
Thanks to blogger and setter.
Chewy but tasty.
I get to the QC only on occasion; since I had extra time to fill, I’m glad I did today. Nice blog, kitty. Nicer time, kitty.
No time, since I did this in at least three parts on my phone & left the timer running between them, but definitely on the slow side. I found this one tough but enjoyable, with enough PDMs to justify the difficulty.
Thanks to Pedro and Kitty.
So many issues with this one: 1) inaction does not mean failing to perform. Failure to perform, maybe, but still. 2) Impugn does not mean oppose. 3) for “Make” deleting regular letters can’t mean 3 and 6? That’s absurd- it has to be 1,3 5 or 2,4,6.
The answers were much easier than the questions😉