Times Quick Cryptic No 2059 by Alfie

Author   JohninterredPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

When I saw Alfie’s name at the top of today’s crossword I thought, “We could be in for some alphabetical fun here”… and I wasn’t disappointed. You shouldn’t have found it difficult to see the theme and I had spotted it after doing just 1A and 5A… but then was thrown when 10A didn’t start like I thought it might. As for the clues – largely great QC fare, but I didn’t know the word at 24A, had trouble remembering how to spell 10D and took a while to see 19D. No time recorded but it was certainly quite a bit more than my average. COD to the clever 12D. Thanks Alfie for the entertainment and impressively worked theme. How did everyone else get on? [Edit: A number of commenters have mistakenly referred to a Nina, but that is not what we have here, it’s a theme. A Nina is a hidden word or phrase in the grid, usually created by joining unchecked letters. A theme, on the other hand, is where there are a number of answers which have something in common].

Fortnightly Weekend Quick Cryptic. This time it is Sawbill’s turn to provide the extra weekend entertainment. You can find the latest crossword  here. Enjoy! If you are interested in having a go at our previous offerings you can find an index to them all here.

Definitions underlined in bold italics, (Abc)* indicating anagram of Abc, deletions and [] other indicators.

Across
1 Reduce length of a card game (7)
ABRIDGE – A BRIDGE (card game).
5 Arrive shortly to seize doctor’s computer drive (2,3)
CD ROM – COMe (arrive) [shortly] outside, [to seize] DR (doctor).
8 Erased last trace of coffee, with decaff sent back (7)
EFFACED – Final letter of, [last trace of] coffeE, DECAFF [sent back] -> FFACED.
9 Spirit provided by good entertainer (5)
GHOST – G (good) HOST (entertainer).
10 Swiss painter king sheltered (4)
KLEE – K (king) LEE (sheltered). Paul Klee. I do like his paintings. I got stuck here for a while trying to find a word starting with IJ, but how mainy painters names do you know starting with IJ… or any other 4 letter word for that matter?. As for our painter, I remember my Art teacher at school referring to him as “Foul Play”.
This is his “Around the Fish” from 1926.
11 More unwholesome food in front of funeral platform (8)
GRUBBIER – GRUB (food) BIER (funeral platform). Oh. Where did the theme go?
14 Stand round day after journey (6)
TRIPOD – O (circular letter; round) D (day) [after] TRIP (journey).
15 Bloomer, feeding caribou’s tail to dangerous reptiles (6)
CROCUS – Last letter of cariboU [‘s tail] in CROCS (dangerous reptiles)
17 It helps to remember conmen I’m messing around (8)
MNEMONIC – (conmen I’m)* [messing around]. Aha. We’re back on theme with a great word.
18 Work required in shop, usually (4)
OPUS – Hidden in, [in] shOP USually.
20 Back Rex, for example, in African country (5)
NIGER – Reverse [back] R (Rex) E.G. (for example) IN -> NIGER.
22 Bust by Laurens, initially awfully rough around the chin? (7)
STUBBLY – (bust by L)*, Laurens [initially], [awfully].
24 Suave UCL man periodically appearing in a flap (5)
UVULA – Alternate letters, [periodically] of sUaVe UcL mAn. I didn’t know this word. Did you? “The uvula is the teardrop-shaped piece of soft tissue that hangs down the back of your throat. It’s made from connective tissue, saliva-producing glands, and some muscle tissue. When you eat, your soft palate and uvula prevent foods and liquids from going up your nose.“
25 Yankee with no euro to change? I accept the terms! (5,2)
YOU’RE ON – Y (Yankee in the NATO phonetic alphabet), (no euro)* [to change]. Don’t get thrown by apostrophes, by convention they are not shown in the enumeration of the clue. You didn’t seriosly expect to see a word starting WX or YZ, did you?
Down
1 Expert, one in a suit (3)
ACE – Double definition and a neat surface.
2 Describing oneself maybe as fixer, lever mostly repaired (9)
REFLEXIVE – (fixer lever)* [mostly] [repaired]. Myself and Ourselves are both also reflexive pronouns.
3 Prune weed (4)
DOCK – Double definition. Of course a dock is only a weed if you are not growing it deliberately, e.g. for soothing nettle stings.
4 Stand shaking under bottom of gable (6)
ENDURE – (under)* [shaking], and last letter [bottom] of gablE.
5 Lifting some cracked rib, eg accounts for pet budgie, say (4-4)
CAGE-BIRD – Reverse hidden [lifting some] crakeD RIB EG ACcounts -> CAGE BIRD. A little tricky that one, I think.
6 City having foremost of roles in Olympics (3)
RIO – Initial letters, [foremost], of Roles In Olympics…. especially in 2016.
7 Riots most awkward for people in cars (9)
MOTORISTS – (riots most)* [awkward]. Riots caused by road rage, perhaps?
10 Girl and daughter in football team in Himalayan city (9)
KATHMANDU – I struggled to remember how this is spelt. It is KATH (girl), D (daughter) [in] MAN U (Manchester United; football team).
12 Not up to it — except when wearing headgear? (9)
INCAPABLE – But up to it when.. IN CAP is ABLE. Nice one.
13 Exotic agora: one place you can’t enter (2-2,4)
NO-GO AREA – (agora one)* [exotic].
16 Shame about Grammar School being such a dirty place! (6)
PIGSTY – PITY (shame) [about] GS (Grammar School). Another fun surface.
19 Minor carpeting upset university teacher (4)
GURU – This one had me foxed for a while. It’s RUG (minor carpeting) [upset] -> GUR, U (university).
21 Antelope never used to be picked up? (3)
GNU – Sounds like, [to be picked up] NEW (never used). It’s only recently, through a crossword of course, that I discovered I had been pronouncing the word wrong all these years, like Flanders and Swann (here). The G is actually silent!
23 Foreign money you no longer earn, finally (3)
YEN – YE (you no longer) earN [finally].

67 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 2059 by Alfie”

  1. I think I’d call that a Nina to be honest 🙂

    Plainly when you have an idea like that you realise instantly that it’s not going to work all the way through so it was just a question of doing the ones that work ..

  2. The Uvula, The Gnu, and no P in queue (or Y in Japanese currency). By the way from early schooldays I remember P G Wodehouse’s comic poem about the Gnu, maybe it was satire at the time, not quite PC now … Good Gnu, which is no help with our pronunciation! My Guru came in at the end, all parsed and solved, 25 min and back to a GN5. Thanks to Alfie and today’s encyclopaedic blogs for a bonus.
  3. This little piggy took me 8:23 mins. COD CD-ROM. WOD KLEE.
    Is Dandelion and Burdock the drink for weeds?
  4. All correct bar Kattmandu- and I didn’t spot the theme. Ah well.
    Another week beckons!
    BW
    Andrew
  5. Back home so on paper again – definitely my preferred medium, but less exact on the times! So 11 minutes approx for this one. As soon as I saw Alfie’s name, I knew we were in for a theme, but I’d forgotten what it might be – of course, it’s always alphabetical with this setter! I didn’t bother to look until afterwards though.
    No problem with KLEE’s name although I’m not very familiar with his work – as a new member of a U3A art appreciation group, perhaps I’d better get learning 😅
    I liked REFLEXIVE and INCAPABLE, and PIGSTY really made me chuckle. Despite getting INCAPABLE here, I struggled with a similar word when tackling the biggie today!
    FOI Ace – just saw it as it came out of the printer!
    LOI – Endure – I tried for ages to find something meaning shaking to pop under the E
    COD Rio – for its super surface
    Thanks Alfie and John
  6. Oh so easy, apart from STUBBLY, couldn’t see why it wasn’t STUBBLE until I had YEN. Alas, a DNF due to a spelling error, put KLEE.
  7. I would like to think my knowledge of natural history is better than most, but I confess I have always pronounced the G of GNU. I am therefore very thankful to Alfie for putting an end to this particular ignorance. As for the rest, trickier than usual, but not as tough for me as yesterday’s DNF. Final time:30:41. LOI ENDURE, COD to PIGSTY. Thanks again Alfie and John.
  8. A pig of a puzzle. For me not enjoyable. But you need some hard ones and this was certainly right at the top end of difficulty.
  9. Proud of myself for working out Klee (never heard of him) but misspelt Kathmandu and put stubble rather than stubbly. Still v enjoyable.

    Gary A

  10. Finished correctly.
    Worked on this all day on and off (total time 55 mins.)
    Very tough I thought.
    I liked the ‘KLEE’ clue – but I had not known that Paul Klee was born on Switzerland. His work is unique – influenced by Expressionism, Cubism and Surrealism. Very enigmatic.

    Perhaps Orson Welles’ quote about the dullness of the Swiss is wrong :
    “In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace – and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock. “

    Have a good weekend, all.

  11. Would have been a vg time but turns out I cant spell that one that’s got lots of ms and ns.

    Incredibly — but also typically — the theme completely passed me by

    Mrs D is a great fan of Klee (there’s a picture in the Tate Modern of ships she did an essay on once) so that helped

    The reversed rug was a moment of inspiration but I had had caffeine so a double helping of help this morning 🙂

    Thanks all

  12. Thoroughly enjoyed this QC which I managed in 14:18 which means that from my point of view it is set just right. Thank you for providing it, Sawbill! MM
  13. 10D reminds me of Mad Carew, who famously and very unwisely stole a green eye from the little yellow God, to the North of Kathmandu (ie Nepal), to give to his lady love, the Colonel’s daughter, in the 1911 music hall monologue. My father, b. 1897, could, and often did, recite the whole poem. Carew came to a sticky end.

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