Times Quick Cryptic No 1109 by Hurley – Climb every mountain

Author   JohninterredPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
I don’t know if it is blogitis, or just doing the crossword online instead of on paper, but, somehow, my blogging QCs seem to take longer than they should. This was my slowest for over two months at nearly twice my average time, but, in retrospect, it doesn’t look that hard. Definitely harder than average, though, I think, with one or two sneaky clues that wouldn’t be amiss in the 15×15, so maybe others will find this a bit tricky too. There is plenty of instructional variety of types of clue and wordplay and some testing anagrams that I didn’t find easy to crack. Lots of lovely clues to choose from, but my favourite was the last but simple EBB at 20d for starting with “Finally…”. Thank-you Hurley for the neat and challenging puzzle. How did you all like it?

Definitions underlined in italics, (ABC)* indicating anagram of ABC, {} deletions and [] other indicators.

Across
1 He’s done wrong misrepresenting strangers? So right (12)
TRANSGRESSOR – (strangers)* + SO + R. Neat surface.
8 Out of date leading article I initially cut (7)
ARCHAIC – ARCH (leading – as in arch-heretic or arch-enemy, for example) + A (article) + I + C{ut}. I was a bit uncertain about this at first until I thought of archbishop as a leader.
9 Fabric salesman introduced to church (5)
CREPE – Talking of archbishops… Take the Church of England, CE and put the REP (salesman) in the cathedral congregation to get a wrinkly fabric. Not to be confused with a french pancake.
10 Leaders of strong parties, if necessary, exhibit backbone (5)
SPINE – Initial letters [leaders] of Strong Parties If Necessary Exhibit. Which party/parties did our setter have in mind, I wonder?
11 Manage port, given time to grow profusely (3,4)
RUN RIOT – RUN (Manage) + RIO (short for Rio de Janeiro) + T. Of all the bars ports in the world, Hurley chose this one.
12 Like two originally trying high jump, say (5)
EVENT – This is a bit tricky. Numbers like two are EVEN. Add T{rying} [originally] to get the generic name for a competition found at athletics meetings.
14 Sergeant major hears about outstanding person (7)
SMASHER – SM (Sergeant Major) + (hears)* [about]. A candidate for promotion to lance-corporal, perhaps?
15 Famous stage close by a railway (9)
LEGENDARY – LEG (stage) + END (close) + A RY (railway). Did anybody else get misled into thinking the definition was “Famous stage” and postulate… Famous Stage… Tour de France.. Alpe d’Huez… which is 9 letters. Voila! Job done! But see how you can go wrong? There’s no railway going up the mountain… this would have to be a flat stage. And the enumeration is wrong. Time for Plan ‘B’. Ah! That’s the definition!
17 Work with needles, thus, it’s reported (3)
SEW – Sounds like SO (thus) [it’s reported]. All together now… “Soh, a needle pulling thread.”.
19 Insult awfully pleasant chief (4,2,3,4)
SLAP IN THE FACE – A 12-letter anagram – (pleasant chief)*. Tip of the day. If the answer to a long anagram doesn’t hit you in the face immediately, leave it and wait until you have some checking letters. Well that’s what I do, anyway. And did here.
21 Group of soldiers in region changing direction at first (6)
LEGION – You take REGION and change the direction R (right) to an L (left). “Changing direction” – a wordplay device to remember.
22 I’d invested in wager — cleaned out here? (5)
BIDET – I’D [invested in] BET. No I wont make a joke. This is no place for lavatorial humour.

Down
1 Unwanted strikers are put on this? (8,4)
TRANSFER LIST – Cryptic definition. Nothing to do with industrial action (or giving up smoking), of course. It took me a while to think of the footballing sort of striker. Maybe I should pay attention. Isn’t there some sort of World Cup thingy happening soon?
2 Contents of farm vegetable store (7)
ARCHIVE – This is another tricky one, I think. You take the outside letters off FARM to get the contents, AR. Add CHIVE (not the most obvious vegetable) to find where old records are kept. I don’t think I’d store my vegetables in one, though.
3 Digger’s card (5)
SPADE – Double definition. For use in harvesting your chives, perhaps?
4 Competitor — one in luxury car… (5)
RACER – If you had a luxury car it might be a Rolls Royce with its RR badge. Insert ACE (one). Vroom! Vroom!
5 …less important car? Nod “yes” sadly (9)
SECONDARY – Here is a nice example of the device of linking two clues with a related theme via the ellipsis at the end of one clue and the beginning of the next. And it’s almost always a cunning misdirection. As here. The answer is nothing to do with cars or racing, but (car Nod “yes”)* [sadly] getting something less important.
6 Gig — doing ten? Shan’t unfortunately (3-5,5)
ONE-NIGHT STAND – Another 12-letter anagram (doing ten? Shan’t)* [unfortunately]. I left this until I had some checkers again, which helped a lot.
7 Clergyman in park on hill (6)
RECTOR – REC, as in recreation area + TOR (hill). For the church’s summer picnic outing, perhaps?
13 Swimsuit container popular on island (7)
TANKINI – TANK (container) + IN (popular) + I (island). This held me up as I’d never heard of the word, so I had to trust to the wordplay. Of course you all know it, don’t you? I must get to the beach more often.
14 Old Greek box, brown (7)
SPARTAN – A simple, nay austere, charade… SPAR (box) + TAN (brown).
16 Become angry, stare, when nothing’s brought in (2,3)
GO APE – To stare is to GAPE. Do as your told and put O (for nothing) in it. You can do this at a local country park not far from me (and 32 other locations) if you are big enough, whizzing along zipwires and beating your chest and roaring (optional).. Rather you than me.
18 After tips from Welsh, devour farm product (5)
WHEAT – The tips from Welsh are its first and last letters, WH. Add EAT (devour) to get what you devour might be made from (if you are not gluten-intolerant, of course).
20 Finally lose black bishop, fall away (3)
EBB – Take the last letter of losE [Finally] and add B (black) and B (bishop) and watch the tide go out. I rather like that our last clue starts “Finally”, don’t you?

22 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 1109 by Hurley – Climb every mountain”

  1. Was my last one, EVENT was my penultimate

    Was worried it would turn out to be MANKINI for a bit

    Phew

    7 minutes here

    Edited at 2018-06-08 02:20 am (UTC)

  2. 11 minutes, missing my target by 1 minute yet again. This was entirely down to a slow start where I wasted time reading the clues to the long words at 1a/1dn, failed to solve them and then hopped wildly around the grid looking for easier pickings elsewhere. These did not materialise until I came across the 3-letter answers in the SE corner and was at last able to write something in and work from there.

    I hestitate to say anything about grids as I don’t really know the correct terminology when discussing them, but isn’t it unusual to have one, as today, that’s symmetrical only along the diagonal, top-left to bottom-right? I query this because there are two 3-letter answers in the SE quarter with no corresponding 3-letter answers in the top half and I have no recollection of seeing that before. But perhaps it’s a standard style of grid and I’m just unobservant most of the time.

    Edited at 2018-06-08 04:46 am (UTC)

    1. Funnily enough, I noticed this too. According to this article, grids are conventionally rotationally symmetric by 180 or 90 degrees. I’m going to have to look out for more that are reflected about a diagonal now.
  3. This puzzle took me way over my target at 15:22. Looking back I can’t see anything particularly obscure, so I suppose the clues are well disguised. I had MANKINI at 13d but as it didn’t parse I dredged up TANKINI fro somewhere. I stsrted with SPADE and finished with TRANSFER LIST and TRANSGRESSOR. Thanks Hurley and John.
  4. Yes, this grid is symmetric around the diagonal rather than the more usual rotational symmetry. Just like the latter though, each answer has its symmetric counterpart.
  5. Tough one, coming in at almost half an hour here. Great blog, John, you always make me laugh; thanks, too, for explaining ARCHIVE…was thinking it was something to do with beehives?! RUN RIOT was LOI, only because I kept saying Rio in my head, couldn’t think that REEOT (as pronounced) was a word. IDEEOT. Thanks Hurley for a good end to my week off work 🙂
  6. Excellent, diverting and amusing blog – many thanks. My 9.32 was governed by a slow start – neither long tops went straight in and SECONDARY was – um – first.
    Is a CHIVE a vegetable? In my garden (and kitchen) (and, come to that, Chambers) it’s a herb and a vital ingredient of my potato salad.
    I *thought* there was something odd about the grid…
    1. Thanks, Z, and welcome to QC land. I tend to agree with you about CHIVE, but I suppose we ought to cencede that it is neither an animal nor a mineral.
  7. Never heard of TANKINI, although to be honest the clue was generous enough. and failed to parse RACER. Not a good day, although I enjoyed much of the rest of the puzzle. Would never have considered CHIVE a vegetable, a herb maybe? Enjoyed 1dn, needed all the checkers for that one, and some smashing anagrams.
    PlayUpPompey
  8. My FOI was 1a so I had plenty of letters to work with. This was a big help although 1d resisted till near the end. I recognised where the anagrams were but they were still quite hard to solve. And some of the clues required a pause for parsing.I was held up a bit at the end by my LOI 13d. I had Bikini at first and even wondered about alternative spellings. Once I got 12a I was able to dismiss Man (island)… kini and then relied on the cryptic for the completely unknown answer.
    Agree with our blogger,quite a tough one. Around 20 minutes for me today. David
  9. 14:43 so a little slower than usual. MY LOI was the reasonably straight forward 21ac LEGION. I read and dismissed 1ac and 1dn pretty quickly spending quite a bit of time hopping around the grid.
  10. I should really have finished this in about 30 mins, but at that point I still had 1d and 21ac (21ac for goodness sake) outstanding. Talk about hiding in plain sight. I was convinced that 1d, wouldn’t be anything as easy as a football reference, so I was desperate to involve matches or unions. . . Not my best day. Invariant
  11. 1d reads to me as a straightforward definition lacking any cryptic element. ‘Strikers’ has several meanings of course but is this enough to make it a cryptic clue?
  12. Yup a chewy end to the week and not getting either of the long 1s didn’t help. I also did a double take at the chive/vegetable link, but it couldn’t be anything else. LOI was the unparsed 4d where I was trying to get an I into a brand of car – Rolls Royce did go through my mind but not RR. Finished in 21.16
    Great blog, thanks
  13. Loved all the anagrams which, as a new-comer, are my favourite style of clue as they are not too difficult to spot. Finished in just under an hour but am really grateful to the blogger as the were some solutions I really didn’t understand. And I have a couple of tankinis so 13d went in like a dream. Thanks for all the blogging help – I wouldn’t have made so much progress without it. Katini
    2. Thank-you Katini. Good to see you here. And the note of appreciation makes the effort of blogging all the more worthwhile. Good luck with developing your skills!
  14. Like many others I found the grid pattern very confusing, though I don’t know why I was so affected by it. I couldn’t get my teeth into this one and after 32 minutes I was still left with 8a, 4d and 2d – my LOI – which I struggled to parse. Thanks for the explanation, John.
    In total I took 39 minutes, almost double my target time, so I was relieved to find that most of you had found it tough. I have to say that I love to get the occasional really quick (for me) time, but the satisfaction of completing one like this is also a very good feeling!
    Enjoyed all the long anagrams, so I shan’t nominate an individual COD, but my WOD has to be ARCHAIC, even though we can’t have “archaic” and eat it. I apologise for that, perhaps the old jokes really aren’t the best!! MM
  15. 27 mins.

    Tried to get bikini to work. Dnk tankini
    Couldn’t parse rider.

    Last three: racer, tankini and crepe.

    COD crepe or smasher.

    Edited at 2018-06-10 07:41 am (UTC)

  16. Found this extremely difficult but got there eventually. Chives are herbs not vegetables though. Never heard of Tankini but that’s not the setter’s fault!
    Excellent blog, by the way. Gave a good workout for those of us trying to improve our skills

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