This one took me 8 minutes with no real hold-ups. Most of the vocabulary is straightforward although there is a two-word expression at 5dn that may not be familiar to all. It’s clearly an anagram though and both words are common enough in themselves, so with a few checkers in place I doubt it will be too hard to come up with the correct answer.
So here we are at Quick Cryptic 900 – or 901 actually as the puzzle published on-line on Christmas Day 2014 was not included in the numbering system for some reason. I can’t see that there’s anything special going on here to mark the occasion (other than having Izetti set one of his usual distinctive puzzles, of course) but perhaps we have to wait for QC 1000 for that, which by my reckoning will appear on Monday 7th January next year.
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 | Strange facts I discovered about insect — amazing! (9) |
| FANTASTIC – Anagram [strange] of FACTS I containing [discovered about] ANT (insect) | |
| 6 | Greek character in part of river (5) |
| DELTA – Two definitions | |
| 8 | Big celeb displays wonderful heavenly body (9) |
| SUPERSTAR – SUPER (wonderful), STAR (heavenly body) | |
| 9 | Drink after second game (5) |
| SPORT – S (second), PORT (drink) | |
| 10 | Plant running rampant in isles, weed (9) |
| EDELWEISS – Anagram (running rampant) of ISLES WEED | |
| 12 | At university groups creating disturbances (6) |
| UPSETS – UP (at university), SETS (groups) | |
| 13 | I am taken aback when rule is introduced in country (6) |
| MALAWI – I AM reversed [taken aback] with LAW inside it [introduced] | |
| 16 | A bishop, tainted, made Lenten observance? (9) |
| ABSTAINED – A, B (bishop – chess), STAINED (tainted). Lent being a period of fasting between Ash Wednesday and Easter. | |
| 18 | Chemical coming from Vietnam in explosive (5) |
| AMINE – Hidden in [coming from] {Vietn}AM IN E{xplosive}. A derivative of ammonia. | |
| 19 | Nun is involved with trio making encroachment (9) |
| INTRUSION – Anagram [involved] of NUN IS TRIO | |
| 21 | Silver not seen around kingdom (5) |
| TONGA – AG (silver) + NOT reversed [seen around]. Solvers of a certain vintage may remember Queen Salote of Tonga who attended HMQ’s coronation in 1953. | |
| 22 | Genial Reg mixed drink (6,3) |
| GINGER ALE – Anagram [mixed] of GENIAL REG | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Female when given exam is quicker than all the others (7) |
| FASTEST – F (female), AS (when), TEST (exam) | |
| 2 | Something that’s gripping for a youngster (6) |
| NIPPER – Two meanings | |
| 3 | School dismissing head — sign to show the way ahead? (5) |
| ARROW – {h}ARROW(school) [dismissing head]. “School’s head confiscating weapon” was a clue in the main puzzle as recently as 8th August, also blogged by me. I was at school on the same hill so saw quite a lot of it. | |
| 4 | Rubbish concealed by statistics (3) |
| TAT – Hidden in [concealed by] {s}TAT{istics} | |
| 5 | More modern times could make saint charier (9,3) |
| CHRISTIAN ERA – Anagram of [could make] SAINT CHARIER. Solvers who follow the main puzzle may remember discussions earlier this month of the term ‘Common Era’ also known as ‘Current Era’, both secular versions of the answer here. They all refer to the period from AD1 onwards which can be loosely interpreted as ‘modern times’ as opposed to what came before. | |
| 6 | Record our getting older: it’s depressing (12) |
| DISCOURAGING – DISC (record), OUR, AGING (getting older) | |
| 7 | One getting on is embraced by the French, giving praises (8) |
| LIONISES – I (one) + ON + IS contained [embraced] by LES (the, French) | |
| 11 | Being motionless I cannot … I must move! (8) |
| INACTION – Anagram [must move] of I CANNOT I | |
| 14 | Sort of movement created by a new Italian poet (7) |
| ANDANTE – A, N (new), DANTE (Italian poet). In music ANDANTE is a slowish walking pace and the term may be applied to a passage, a whole piece or a single movement of a piece. | |
| 15 | An alcoholic drink goes with a medical condition (6) |
| ANGINA – AN, GIN (alcoholic drink), A | |
| 17 | A darling becoming intense (5) |
| ACUTE – A, CUTE (darling). I think ‘cute’ and ‘darling’ have to be adjectives to be synonymous, as in ‘a cute or darling dress’. | |
| 20 | Container idiot knocked over (3) |
| TIN – NIT (idiot) reversed [knocked over] | |
I rather suspect that not everyone will find this easy.
Due to the number of anagrams I stopped trying to solve 19a and 11d, looking for nun synonyms etc and searched for an anagram, sure enough they went in easily.
Wasn’t sure about cute = darling and wanted to put amuse, although it doesn’t fit intense.
LOI acute.
COD intrusion
Edited at 2017-08-21 05:16 pm (UTC)
My LOI was also 7d which went in after 21 minutes.
COD 6ac DISCOURAGING
WOD 10ac EDELWEISS
Being grumpy is my bag, johndun!
grudgingly …. yes!
Mood Meldrew
LOI was 7d.
And I had Tun for 20d which seems fine to me- even with hindsight.
I looked at the 15×15 first today as my wife had the T2 so I shall go back to that now.
David