Times Quick Cryptic No 2118 by Hurley

Author   rolytolyPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
Towards the easier side of things today from Hurley, with a number of the clues pointing fairly unambiguously to the answer. A few seconds spent at the end on 9d and 17ac, but more because staring blankly for a bit at the last one or two clues seems to be the only way I can finish a crossword, rather than anything intrinsically difficult. All wrapped up in 6:20 for a very pleasant solve – many thanks to Hurley!

Across
1 In local speech, face English court (7)
DIALECT – DIAL (face, on watch, etc.) E(nglish) CT. (court)
5 Select tool (4)
PICK – double definition
7 Bring back the German wine (3)
RED – “bring back” DER (the, German)
8 Perhaps sign one’s name on fashionable cradle in southeast (8)
INSCRIBE – IN (fashionable) CRIB (cradle) in SE (southeast)
10 Initially growing up seemed time of great enjoyment (5)
GUSTO – “initially” Growing Up Seemed Time Of
11 In from France, temporary accommodation finally available, it’s agreed (7)
ENTENTE – EN (In, from France) TENT (temporary accommodation) E (“finally” availablE)
13 On return determined to hold pub game (6)
TENNIS – SET (determined) to hold INN (pub) “on return” = reverse
15 Feel disgust for foreign article about curse (6)
LOATHE – LE (foreign article) about OATH (curse)
17 Move around centre — see resistance develop gradually (7)
REVOLVE – R(esistance) EVOLVE (develop gradually)
18 Encourage team’s first burst of activity (5)
SPURT – SPUR (encourage) T (Team’s “first”)
20 Lag pipes faultily — failure to meet target (8)
SLIPPAGE – anagram (faultily) of LAG PIPES
22 Abolish some tax exemptions (3)
AXE – “some” of tAX Exemptions
23 Deal won oddly early in morning? (4)
DAWN – odd letters of D e A L  W o N
24 Showing good judgment in point about discourteous knight (7)
PRUDENT – PT. (point) about RUDE (discourteous) N (knight, in chess)


Down
1 Belittling edgy orator cruelly (10)
DEROGATORY – anagram (cruelly) of EDGY ORATOR
2 Mountain area — it’s essential to plan descent (5)
ANDES – is “essential” to plAN DEScent
3 Leader potentially real idiot (9)
EDITORIAL – anagram (potentially) of REAL IDIOT
4 Criminal steals decorative item (6)
TASSEL – anagram (criminal) of STEALS
5 Expected publicity people to include note (3)
PAR – PR (publicity people) to include A (musical note)
6 Taxi home extremely efficient for ministers (7)
CABINET – CAB (taxi) IN (home) ET (“extremely” EfficienT)
9 Posted a second time, intended to be heard, leading to bitterness (10)
RESENTMENT – RE-SENT (posted a second time) MENT is heard the same as MEANT (intended)
12 What bride brings — exactly right note, we hear (9)
TROUSSEAU – “we hear” the same as TRUE (exactly right) and SOH (note: do, re, mi, etc.)
14 One v all represented in creative work? (7)
NOVELLA – anagram (represented) of ONE V ALL
16 Final month supported by a politician — leave quickly (6)
DECAMP – DEC[ember] (final month) supported by A MP (a politician)
19 Practice in America over long time (5)
USAGE – US (America) over/above AGE (long time)
21 Play on words at the outset piquing global body (3)
PUN – “at the outset” Piquing UN (global body)

33 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 2118 by Hurley”

  2. I was surprised when subscribe turned out to have too many letters. It started with s and ended with e and had crib inside. And I thought you usually have to sign up to subscribe to something. When I finally said good-bye to that impossibility and accepted INSCRIBE the puzzle was straightforward from then on
  3. I managed to finish in 25 min! Ok not really, I did finish but I still used an anagram solver. I think next time I shall try not to, I’m getting better at spotting the anagram indicators now.

    It looks like I now have to learn.. Chess abbreviations because PRUDENT was my LOI and I was wracking my brain for round table fellows with no manners.

    Also I have to learn a number of German words because turns out SAD is not a wine, neither is EID

    Finally my years of reading period romances comes was of use, giving me TROUSSEAU.

    FOI: GUSTO
    LOI: PRUDENT
    COD: nothing made me smile particularly this time

    1. Okay I looked up Chess Abbreviations turns out Knight is the only one I actually had to learn 😅
    2. There’s a lot of common abbreviations. One I often forget is EC for city (as in city of London, which, apparently, is its postcode). A knowledge of the Greek alphabet comes in handy from time to time. I’ve been doing these for a few years but am still at the foothills of the cryptic mountain….
  4. Took more care today after yesterday’s unforced error in haste. The risk of going for a fast time.
    21 minutes from FOI: DIALECT to LOI: The double homophone TROUSSEAU.
  5. A fast start but held up in the SE. I don’t share Tina’s love of period romances so TROUSSEAU had to be dragged out of the cryptic. That finally fell once I’d corrected ‘tassle’ to TASSEL which made ENTENTE much easier. Oath for curse took a while too. All green in 13. My weekly trip to the office today, can’t miss out on empty school holiday roads.
  7. Ten minutes with two to go – husband suggested anagrist of one v all, and I wrote it out and subtracted the checkers, and out popped novella. The game I thought about ten-pin, but in pubs it’s nine. I wondered if it was tennis, but couldn’t see why – and then I did. COD, then. Five more minutes on these, grrrrr… Did not fully parse prudent, didn’t have to. In other words, I didn’t see the “point” in prudent. Thanks, Roly, and Hurley.

    Edited at 2022-04-21 08:31 am (UTC)

  8. As PER 5d I had one error. Drat! Also took me ages to sort out TASSLE and DETENTE! Covid brain still kicking in! 10:20 WOE. Thanks Hurley and Roly.
  9. with this one.

    I liked EDITORIAL, surface seemed topical. LOI was TASSEL, even with the crossers it took longer than it should have to realise it was an anagram.

    Missed the hidden for ANDES, just bunged it in.

    4:25

  10. I mislaid that pesky anagram hat again today so made harder work of this than I should have done. TROUSSEAU is one of those words I only know through crosswords and I couldn’t tell you what it is – I may google it one day – so had to be dragged from the depths.
    Finished over target in 10.56 with LOI REVOLVE.
    Thanks to Roly
  11. Still a bit slow at 14 minutes, but no real problems other than lifting and separating pub and game. LOI PUN simply because I looked at it last. FOI PICK. I biffed ANDES because it had to be right — never seeing the hidden until afterwards. Thanks Roly and Hurley.
  12. ….no typos ! Straightforward puzzle, so not much on which to comment.

    FOI DIALECT
    LOI PAR (only because I nearly missed it !)
    COD DEROGATORY
    TIME 3:50

  13. At the end of your armies.

    DNF after 40mins with TASSEL, TROUSSEAU (NHO), PRUDENT thought perfect (PERT for point!) left.

    Pleased to go back and find ANDES on my last pass checking for hidden words or unseen anagrams. If I hadn’t put deTENTE, I might also have seen TASSEL – school French lessons were almost 40 years ago so not a fan of setters using these. I thought “in” was “dans” but didn’t see how that fitted. On reflection, “de” is of but as I did German for CSE, there are confusions between the languages. I could manage RED/der.

    FOI DIALECT, FOO DIALECT, NOI PAR.
    COD TENNIS

    PICK – reminds me of the old joke we use to tell in the pre-PC days about “How do you confuse a {minority}? Show him a shovel, fork and rake and tell him to take his pick.”

    Edited at 2022-04-21 10:28 am (UTC)

    1. Ahaha I love that Andes joke

      Surely you can re-PC your pick joke by replacing Minority with New English Speaker or the like

  15. 7:18, just a few seconds off my PB. That’s about as fast as I can do on an iPad I think. LOI LOATHE. Even at speed I still built up INSCRIBE and PRUDENT from CRIB and RUDE respectively.

    Lack of “lift and separate” slowed my getting TENNIS as a cycled through dominoes, skittles, cribbage, darts etc looking for a six-letter pub game… Classic mis direction from Hurley.

    Not giving COD for TROUSSEAU as I don’t like those blasted names for notes, which can be spelt in multiple ways and have never been used in any choir practice that I have attended in the last 40 years.

  16. Just couldn’t see 12dn “Trousseau” no matter how hard I tried – which meant 15 mins staring at it with an unsuccessful alphabet trawl. NHO of it to be honest.

    The rest went in fairly ok – although I nearly put in Signature for 8ac until I realised it had too many letters. In addition, I always forget “curse” = “oath”.

    FOI – 1ac “Dialect”
    LOI – dnf
    COD – 7ac “Red” – just loved the surface and the implicit plea…

    Thanks as usual!

  17. Started with a bang with the across clues but slowed down considerably as I got further down the grid. Eventually finished in 15 minutes with all bar REVOLVE parsed (thanks for the explanation on that one Rolytoly).

    FOI – 1ac DIALECT
    LOI – 13ac TENNIS
    COD – 3dn EDITORIAL

    Thanks to Hurley for a pleasant xwd.

  18. There was an unrelated follow-up which went “Where does Hitler keep his armies?” … “Up his sleevies”.

    The other how-do-you-confuse-a-minority joke had the punchline “Put him in a round room and tell him to stand in the corner”. Which really doesn’t seem that funny standalone but I guess in the midst of beer and a flow of anti-someone jokes, it washes over as funny.

  19. … until the inevitable 10-minute brain-freeze with just four to go. Those pesky four were ENTENTE (couldn’t see TENT), TROUSSEAU (er … not really my field of expertise), LOATHE (completely stuck) and my LOI SPURT (couldn’t think of SPUR). However, when I did finally break through with ENTENTE the rest followed quickly. Completion time = 33 minutes, which is a relief after coming to grief earlier today on yesterday’s Mara – like several others, I biffed SPECTRE instead of SCEPTRE.

    N.B. Mrs Random is a few QCs behind at the moment, and is visiting her elderly parents today. I daresay she will catch up over the weekend and I be able again to report on her experiences next week.

    Many thanks to Hurley and rolytoly.

  20. A rare solve out of the scc, although solved in two halves due to a long call from nephew in Hong King. No real holdups for a change.
  22. A flying start then slowed right down. Glad I’ve seen the previously never heard of TROUSSEAU in a fairly recent crossword. Took far too long to work out SLIPPAGE even though I knew it was an anagram, and even longer to work out NOVELLA as I didn’t see the anagrind. LOI was REVOLVE as I was completely thrown by the ‘see’ in there. Final time was 28:50.
  25. Trousseau posed no problems as I’m of the age when I was expected to put one together. Almost 55 years ago!
  26. NHO TROUSSEAU and despite the checkers was nowhere near, going DEAU for the note. Disappointing.

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