Following Rob’s departure from his alternate Friday slot I am covering for one week until Galspray takes on all Friday QCs on his return from Japan. We have a rather unusual grid today in which the left side is symmetrical with the right only along the diagonal. Much of this is straightforward I think, but there’s a cryptic that may be unfamiliar to many, and a musical technicality that I suspect will be unknown to most. 11 minutes for this one making it my slowest solve of the week and the first to miss my target 10.
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 | Very successful but cheesy play? (3,9) |
| THE MOUSETRAP – Cryptic definition with reference to the play by Agatha Christie which has been running continuously in London’s West End since October 1952. I don’t know if it still happens, but at one time it was common practice to bait mousetraps with cheese and as a result “mousetrap” came into the language as a colloquial name for cheddar cheese or a similar everyday variety. The title of the play comes from a line in Hamlet in which the murder of the king is referred to as “The Mousetrap”. | |
| 8 | Pull girl over who is dawdling (7) |
| LAGGARD – DRAG (pull) + GAL (girl) reversed [over] | |
| 9 | Almost grieve after a love affair (5) |
| AMOUR – A, MOUR{n} (grieve) [almost] | |
| 10 | Land in hospital — yuk! (5) |
| ITALY – Hidden in {hosp}ITAL Y{uk} | |
| 11 | Awful vanity punctured by English simplicity (7) |
| NAIVETY – Anagram [awful] of VANITY containing [punctured by] E (English) | |
| 12 | Shine, putting energy into a sort of rock (5) |
| GLEAM – E (energy) in GLAM (a sort of rock – music) | |
| 14 | Less powerful, the river surrounds pub (7) |
| THINNER – THE + R (river) contains [surrounds] INN (pub) | |
| 15 | Once strain, creating annexe? (9) |
| EXTENSION – EX (once), TENSION (strain) | |
| 17 | Small bill is miserable (3) |
| SAD – S (small), AD (bill = advertisement). “Bill Posters Will Be Prosecuted”. | |
| 19 | Flier old man’s given to fielders (5-4-4) |
| DADDY-LONG-LEGS – DADDY (old man), LONG LEGS (fielders – cricket) | |
| 21 | Game Irish saint can’t finish (6) |
| BRIDGE – BRIDGE(t) Irish saint [can’t finish] | |
| 22 | Prosecutor breaks plaything now (5) |
| TODAY – DA (prosecutor – District Attorney in the USA) is inside [breaks] TOY (plaything) | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Schoolmasters’ discussion? Not action-packed programmes? (7,5) |
| TALKING HEADS – TALKING (discussion), HEADS (schoolmasters). Alan Bennett had great success with two series of one-handed plays under this title on both radio and TV. | |
| 2 | Deeply impress rampaging avenger (7) |
| ENGRAVE – Anagram [rampaging] of AVENGER | |
| 3 | No change in gland (5) |
| OVARY – 0 (no – zero), VARY (change) | |
| 4 | Extremely sore martial artist finds chair (5) |
| SEDAN – S{or}E [extremely], DAN (martial artist). It’s a system of grades of proficiency in various martial arts and is also used for a person who has achieved such a grade. | |
| 5 | I’d train to change long-established belief (9) |
| TRADITION – Anagram [change] of I’D TRAIN TO | |
| 6 | Cap may be / impossible to understand (5,4,4) |
| ABOVE ONES HEAD – Two definitions of sorts | |
| 7 | Humble request: the hopeless don’t have one (6) |
| PRAYER – Two more definitions, one straight and one cryptic with reference to the phrase “not having a prayer” which means something is hopeless. | |
| 13 | One day, looked at becoming rich (7) |
| MONEYED – MON (one day), EYED (looked at) | |
| 14 | Musical interval: tenor struggles with it (7) |
| TRITONE – Anagram [struggles] of TENOR IT. A hard one I suspect for those not familiar with the rudiments of musical notation and terminology. It’s an interval or distance of three whole tones. On the white notes of a keyboard it would be F (through G and A) to B. It can also be called an augmented fourth or a diminished fifth depending on its context, although for the latter in the example I’ve given it would be notated as F to C flat. There’s an other difficulty here in that the answer is fairly obviously an anagram of TENOR IT, but even with all the checkers in place and only one candidate amongst the remaining letters (R, T and N) to fill the first gap at T?I, the solver still has to choose between TONE and NOTE as the second part of the answer, and with “musical” as part of the definition, if one doesn’t happen to know the word it could quite reasonably be either. | |
| 16 | In France, you stick up for royal house (5) |
| TUDOR – TU (you, in France), then ROD (stick) reversed [up]. The crowned Tudors were Henrys VII and VIII, Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I. | |
| 18 | Girl, nervous but attractive (5) |
| DISHY – DI (girl), SHY (nervous) | |
| 20 | Obtained travel ticket at last (3) |
| GOT – GO (travel), {ticke}T [at last] | |
Richard Attenborough was in the original cast of the play and because he was already building a career in films the producers couldn’t afford to pay him what he saw as the going-rate for an actor of his calibre so it was agreed that to make up for this he would be paid 10% of the play’s profits. This turned into a fantastic investment for him which he finally disposed of to help finance GHANDI when it was running out of money.
If you are an aspiring Quickie learner, do not attempt today’s regular puzzle. I suspect even some of the regulars wil record a DNF because of a DNK.
The nice thing about the Quicky (which I do on the Times site) as opposed to the 15×15 (on the club site) is that you get to rectify the error immediately and pretend it never happened.
Count me as another for whom a daddy-long-legs is a spider. Thanks Teazel and Jack.
Thus I suffered a PW of 14.14 after yesterday’s PB almost ten minutes faster!
But then this was a DNF as I bunged in TRINOTE! Aaaagh! I was very impressed by Jack Bloggs eight long lines on the subject!
COD to 1ac THE MOUSETRAP and WOD 19ac DADDY LONG LEGS which I assure you is not a spider as it only has six legs and is winged – how’s the cricket chirping – G?
Today’s 15×15 is fine for a Friday with only one tricky word which I forunately knew – thanks to my knowledge of Japanese football (soccer).
Edited at 2017-02-24 05:41 am (UTC)
Sigh, I feel like that little red train some days… “I think I can….”
And have yet to get over the hill.
22:43 a solid time, ends a week of five good times for me.
Was struggling for OVARY as 10a was still open, then I remembered that we hadn’t yet had a “hidden” clue, and there it was. Was put off by the common H for hospital and any number of short, yuk words (bah? Uh? Ugh? Etc)
21a was LOI as I had Patrick and Brendan in mind, along with IR for Irish.
So, plenty of red herrings today. Completed by New Malden.
Nevertheless, overall an enjoyable challenge which is the point after all.
PlayupPompey
*a name or nickname would be nice rather than remaining completely anon.
After engaging a higher gear I got into the puzzle finishing after 30 minutes of hard work . A good test I thought. LOI was 3d having failed for a long time to see the hidden Italy. An uncertain Talking Shops for 1d also delayed me. David
Guessed bridget was a saint, had trinote, and 10a was hidden very well.
LOI 3d.
COD 1a, good clue and also an enjoyable play.