A pleasing Quick Cryptic from Breadman today. There are a few tricky bits of wordplay to unravel here but I wasn’t delayed unduly finishing in 6:05. My LOI was 6D and I liked 9A and 10A in particular. Thank-you Breadman! How did you all get on?
Fortnightly Weekend Quick Cryptic. This time it is Sawbill’s turn to provide the extra weekend entertainment. You can find the crossword here. If you are interested in trying our previous offerings you can find an index to all 129 here.
Definitions underlined in bold italics, (Abc)* indicating anagram of Abc, {deletions} and [] other indicators.
| Across | |
| 1 | Son tucked into much loved duck and Italian sauce (5) |
| PESTO – S (son) in PET (much loved), O (0 runs scored; duck in cricket). | |
| 7 | French one meets American university supporter rarely (9) |
| UNUSUALLY – UN (one in French) US (American) U (university) ALLY (supporter). A 4-part charade. | |
| 9 | Jumped as plate smashed (5) |
| LEAPT – (plate)* [smashed]. | |
| 10 | Fantastic winger’s big match in US (5,4) |
| SUPER BOWL – SUPERB (fantastic) OWL (bird; “winger”). “Winger” for “bird” is a bit of a crossword cliche indicating “something with a wing”. “Winger” is not a position in American Football, the sport that has a Superbowl – the analogous position to winger in other sports is the wide receiver. Nice surface, though. | |
| 11 | Outstanding musical performance of couple shortened (3) |
| DUE – DUE{t} (musical performance of a couple) without the last letter [shortened]. Neat surface. | |
| 12 | Panel of vehicle mum found in terribly bad road (9) |
| DASHBOARD – Did you get led up the garden path as I was using “ma” for “mum”? But no, it’s SH (be quiet; mum), in [terribly] (bad road)*. I had a MER at this until I read in Chambers that “mum” can be an interjection meaning “Not a word”. A reminder that if you think a setter has got something wrong, it is probably you who’s wrong! | |
| 14 | Do a makeover on hair and blunder (9) |
| REFURBISH – RE (on) FUR (hair) BISH (blunder). | |
| 16 | Hideout finally had more protection (3) |
| DEN – Last letters [finally] of haD morE protectioN. | |
| 18 | Beware of dog with stick originally muzzled behind hole in rock (4,5) |
| CAVE CANEM – CAVE (hole in rock) CANE (stick) and first letter of Muzzled. A (somewhat pretentious, IMO) Latin phrase to be seen on some garden gates. | |
| 20 | Brownish-yellow brooch restored somewhat (5) |
| OCHRE – Hidden in, [somewhat], broOCH REstored. | |
| 21 | Motor car crashed trapping northern seabird (9) |
| CORMORANT – N (northern) in (motor car)* [crashed]. Oo I’m being picky this morning… Cormorants are coastal rather than oceanic birds and can also often be found inland on waters. We see plenty of them inland in Suffolk where I live. | |
| 22 | Harry’s outside hugging somebody dear (5) |
| HONEY – ONE (somebody) in the outside letters of HarrY. | |
| Down | |
| 1 | Country’s body of water containing algae regularly avoided (6) |
| POLAND – Alternate letters [regularly avoided] of aLgAe in POND (body of water). | |
| 2 | Disease’s evidence of harm felt wrong always (7,5) |
| SCARLET FEVER – SCAR (evidence of harm), (felt)* [wrong], EVER (always). An anagram in the middle of a charade is rather unusual, I think. | |
| 3 | In public view, Dicky rides unfancied racehorse (8) |
| OUTSIDER – OUT (in public view) [dicky] (rides)*. I hope you weren’t misled into thinking “in” is an inclusion indicator here. | |
| 4 | Peculiar drink raised commotion (6) |
| RUMPUS – RUM (peculiar), SUP (drink) [raised] -> PUS. | |
| 5 | Initially, Ben uncovers Rolls Royce’s humming sound (4) |
| BURR – Initial letters of Ben Uncovers Rolls Royce. | |
| 6 | Picked up this writer covering part of Observer? (6) |
| EYELID – EYE sounds like I (this writer), LID (covering) with a whimsical definition. | |
| 8 | Canadian singer-songwriter played chord alone, half seen (7,5) |
| LEONARD COHEN – [Played] (chord alone)*, and second half of seEN. I didn’t know he was Canadian, but at least I’d heard of him. | |
| 13 | Giant winged insect under hebe fluttered (8) |
| BEHEMOTH – MOTH (winged insect) under (hebe)* [fluttered]. A bit of a Yodaesque surface, I think. Speak like Yoda, you too can, using this translator. | |
| 14 | Florid Australian native going round business clubs (6) |
| ROCOCO – CO (company) C (clubs), in ROO (Australian native). | |
| 15 | Single working Scotsman related to Ancient Greeks (6) |
| IONIAN – I (one; single) ON (working) IAN (Scottish forename). | |
| 17 | Knight in charge, see, in a pleasant way (6) |
| NICELY – N (symbol for knight in chess notation) I/C (in charge) ELY (a diocese or see). | |
| 19 | Imbecile Conservative group (4) |
| CLOT – C (Conservative) LOT (group). | |
Lovely puzzle. Found my last two in (RUMPUS then SUPER BOWL) a bit tricky for some reason. Would have put CANuM but luckily checked the parsing. Didn’t know ROCOCO also meant florid. COD RUMPUS but also liked the surface for HONEY. Thanks John and Breadman.
No complaints here. From PESTO to CAVE CANEM in 6:35 Thanks John
Finished today’s puzzle in just over an hour. Really satisfying one, left CAVE CANEM until the end just in case, but the word play helped to figure out the word. Thank you for the blog 😄
15 minutes.
Thought I’d done well until I came here and saw the times of others. Those I was once on a par with have left me in the dust.
2 hours on 15 x 15 and got 16. How bad is that?
98 minutes on the week for QC. Very poor given the difficulty levels this week.
Improvement and enjoyment remain unattainable.
☹️☹️☹️
7.59.
I’m supposed to do cryptic crosswords in Latin now 😆