Times Quick Cryptic No 1332 by Tracy

I read ‘abroad’ and hence skipped this one the first go-around. Not solved.

Wrote in G from ‘good’, then thought maybe ‘evening’ would be EVE. Is GEVE a thing? Certainly not a dress! But GOWN makes sense, and so does OWN for ‘have’. Solved.

‘Somewhat’ suggested a hidden word, but I don’t know my prime ministers well. DOXFO? OXFOR? Or does ‘former’ mean EX and I’m looking for EX??? meaning ‘somewhat unorthodox’? I’m sure this one was a sitter for UK solvers (and probably most US solvers as well), but I moved on. Not solved.

I started this clue from the end: I was pretty confident ‘certain’ meant SURE, so I wrote ERUS into the grid and then thought about bones. HUMERUS came to mind almost immediately and then I saw the meaning of (C)HUM. Solved.

I’d barely glanced at the clue and the enumeration when LET sprang to mind. I checked it against the wordplay and moved on. Solved.

‘Former’ again, and I’m wondering about EX. But ‘Former Soviet official’ is also a likely definition, so I look later in the clue and see “…in automobile”. Of course it could be VAN or CAB but it’s usually CAR, so I write C…R into the grid and go back to the wordplay. What am I supposed to be putting in CAR? I see ‘order’, which is often OM, so now I have COM…AR, and COMMISSAR comes to mind, and of course the MISS is the young woman. Solved.

“Her, heading off” almost certainly means the answer ends with ER, which also makes sense for a food item. Now I need a reversal of a four-letter word meaning ‘food’, and it just so happens on last Friday’s main puzzle we had GRUB = ‘food’, so it was fresh in my mind. I continued on my solving streak. Solved.

It’s very clear that this is going to be either MA + an anagram of HATS or the reverse. For the life of me, I can’t figure it out! The reason is I keep forgetting that ‘complaint’ is a UK term for ‘illness’. Finally I settle on my trick of writing out the letters in HATS backwards, and seeing them on the page helps me come up with ASTHMA (after considering nearly every other combination!). Solved.

“After fifty” is a dead giveaway that the first letter is L, so I write that into the grid. In retrospect I could have also banked on the answer ending with ED, etc, but I stopped there and moved on, not understanding how the clue was supposed to end with I. Not solved.

I was drinking a glass of rye whiskey while solving the puzzle, so this one was a cinch! Solved.

I didn’t think I’d get this one on the first pass. Synonyms for ‘conspicuous’ were on the tip of my tongue. But then I wrote in S…T and all of a sudden ALIEN and SALIENT came to mind at about the same time. Moral of the story? Write things down. That’s why writing was invented! Solved.

What could this be, I wondered? Triple definitions can often be confusing when they’re not dead obvious. Not solved.

As soon as I saw the first words I thought WEAK. Then I just took my time to make sure which of WEAK/WEEK was the answer! I’m sure someone’s gonna slip up! Solved.

I hazard a guess at SUBJECT from ‘topic’, and it seems sort of right for a monarchy to have ‘national’ (as a noun) = SUBJECT as well. I put it in with a question mark in the margin. Solved, I hope.

My brain wasn’t working well. I had _ _ _ _ L _ / B _ L _ S, and from ‘carol’ I knew that the second word had to be BELLS, but for the life of me I couldn’t think of the first word. (D’oh!) I also couldn’t think of a word for ‘beautiful girl’ and honestly felt no great pressure to try to think overmuch about the clue since I’d undoubtedly get it on a later pass. Not solved.

I had _ _ _ _ T _ R, and I knew from ‘artist’ that we’d probably see RA in the answer, but where? And ‘court upset’ made me think of reversal of a five-letter word for ‘court’, which I couldn’t think of. But once I saw ‘museum administrator’ it all just clicked into place, and then I realized the true significance of ‘upset’. Solved.

I had _ / _ _ _ C _ / E _ _ , and all I could think of is A BLACK EYE, with no idea how that could be right, except maybe LACKEY could pass for ‘bumpkin’. Put it in with a question mark. Solved incorrectly!

I had _ _ H _ M _ , and just started following the wordplay. Put in S as the first letter from ‘beginning to scare’, then ME at the end from ‘me’, and CHE and SCHEME both popped to mind at about the same time. Solved.

I had G _ M, so this was practically a write-in. Solved.

I had W _ R _ S, so again a write-in. Solved.

Even though I had S _ R _ A _ S _ _ _ T, the first words of the clue weren’t helping. (In retrospect, I see that the synonyms were quite tricky.) But once I glanced at ‘computer program’ the answer was clear. I didn’t bother with the wordplay until writing up the blog. Solved.

From ‘crime’ and I _ S _ _ _ / _ _ B, the answer was clear immediately. I only considered the wordplay while writing up the blog. Solved.

I had H _ Y _ _ _ E, and the anagram letters gave it to me. Solved.

I had _ _ _ T _ S, and all I could think was FACTUS, which didn’t seem right. Not solved.

I had _ _ L _ E, and then looked for a synonym for ‘large’ and came to BILGE, which certainly sounds like a synonym of ‘rubbish’ I’ve heard in movies or some such. Solved.

I had E _ K, so there wasn’t much to think about. Solved.