Hi everybody. We are always in safe hands with Trelawney, who is JUST THE TICKET (8a) for a pleasant start to the week. That made me smile, as did UTTER (3d) which is my clue of the day. Thanks Trelawney!
Definitions are underlined in the clues below. In the explanations, I generally italicise indicators unless it seems clearer not to. Where the removed letter is specified, [deletions] are in square brackets, and I’ve capitalised and emboldened letters which appear in the ANSWER. I sometimes omit link words and juxtaposition indicators if it doesn’t feel necessary to explain them. If you have any questions, please ask in the comments section.
| Across | |
| 1a | Decline to participate in operation with seller (3,3) |
| OPT OUT — OP (operation) + TOUT (seller) | |
| 4a | Level part of cricket pitch (6) |
| SQUARE — A double definition | |
| 8a | Perfect packing list for one travelling light? (4,3,6) |
| JUST THE TICKET — A fun secondary indication: you would have to be travelling very light to take JUST THE TICKET with you! | |
| 10a | Escapade with cloak ending in disaster (5) |
| CAPER — CAPE (cloak) + the last letter of (ending in) disasteR | |
| 11a | Investigation admitting large and medium difficulty (7) |
| PROBLEM — PROBE (investigation) taking in (admitting) L (large) + M (medium) | |
| 13a | Source of light amber ales going bust (5,4) |
| LASER BEAM — AMBER ALES anagrammed (going bust) | |
| 17a | Company returning to add shape (7) |
| OCTAGON — CO (company) going backwards (returning) + TAG ON (to add) | |
| 18a | Disney character’s heavenly body (5) |
| PLUTO — Two definitions | |
| 19a | Nato enquiries upended survey (13) |
| QUESTIONNAIRE — NATO ENQUIRIES anagrammed (upended) | |
| 21a | Personify the setter’s backing group (6) |
| EMBODY — ME (the setter) is reversed (backing) followed by BODY (group) | |
| 22a | River cut off by mouth of Nile (6) |
| SEVERN — SEVER (cut off) by the opening letter of (mouth of) Nile | |
| Down | |
| 1d | Protest’s goal (6) |
| OBJECT — Two definitions | |
| 2d | Aviator to cheek head of tank group moving north (4,5) |
| TEST PILOT — TO, LIP (cheek), the initial of (head of) Tank and SET (group) all reversed (moving north, in a down entry) | |
| 3d | Complete roof drainage system without roof! (5) |
| UTTER — gUTTER (roof drainage system) missing its top letter (without roof) | |
| 5d | Literary don completely repressing unknown love (7) |
| QUIXOTE — QUITE (completely) containing (repressing) X (unknown) and O (love) | |
| 6d | Rescue vessel finishes off undersea repair work (3) |
| ARK — The lasts letters of (finishes off) underseA repaiR worK | |
| 7d | Bury screen Tom broke partially (6) |
| ENTOMB — ScreEN TOM Broke partially | |
| 9d | See patron changing artificial language (9) |
| ESPERANTO — SEE PATRON anagrammed (changing) | |
| 12d | Vehicle oil US mine developed (9) |
| LIMOUSINE — OIL US MINE anagrammed (developed) | |
| 14d | Saw dish get broken (7) |
| SIGHTED — An anagram of (… broken) DISH GET | |
| 15d | Rotational force lecture on radio (6) |
| TORQUE — Sounds like (… on radio) TALK (lecture) | |
| 16d | Holy book contains introduction from erudite Asian (6) |
| KOREAN — KORAN (holy book) contains the first letter of (introduction from) Erudite | |
| 18d | Writer with extremely nice pasta (5) |
| PENNE — PEN (writer) + outer letters of (extremely) NicE | |
| 20d | Some webbing to recede (3) |
| EBB — Some wEBBing | |
10 mins.
Depressing performance on 15 x 15. Several short on a puzzle that was doubtless very easy. Spent almost an hour on this and got completely stuck.
Very low on confidence with these puzzles at present. I should be able to do well on the big cryptic by now.
The only place in the world where talk sounds like torque is right here in Neeyock.
17:07 humph. It should have been easy, it was easy until cricket (I knew just enough to throw in “crease”, sigh) and my phobia about “quite” in British English undid me in the NE. Took a break, got busy with other things, went back to it and saw QUIXOTE immediately, which gave me SQUARE (I know nothing). UTTER and JUST THE TICKET, very cute.
Thanks Trelawney and Kitty.