Quick Cryptic 434 by Joker

Author   emu66Posted on Categories Quick Cryptic
Another Friday quickie which left me going through the alphabet to get the last one after everything else had gone in fairly easily. Even after deciding that it had to be ATOM, it took a while for the wordplay to make sense; perfectly clear now, of course. The award for the word which seems to appear more in crosswords than it ever does in real life goes, today, to TOTE.

Across
1 FIRM – company; producer of cones = FIR beside motorway = M
4 RECORDER – instrument; note = C inside again request = REORDER
8 PASSOVER – double definition
9 ATOM – not much material; an encyclopaedia split into two volumes would be A to M and N to Z, the contents of the first being A TO M
10 TENNER – note; homophone (vocally produced) of male singer = TENOR
11 LARKIN – English poet; mostly fooling = LARKIN(G)
12 GENERATION GAP – problem for the family unit; double definition, one cryptic
16 TISSUE – paper; time = T, to give out = ISSUE
17 TWENTY – a score; melted away = WENT in second half for city = TY
19 FETA – cheese; hidden in bufFET Always
20 INTREPID – brave; anagram (messed about with) of DINER and TIP
21 STUD FARM – horse-breeding establishment; boss = STUD, distant = FAR, male = M
22 TIED – bound; initial letters (only just starting) of To Irritate Experienced Deliverymen

Down
2 IMAGE – portrait; I am = IM, mature = AGE
3 MISUNDERSTAND – read wrongly; anagram (rewriting) of MISS REDUNDANT
4 ROVER – someone wandering about; run = R, across = OVER
5 CORELLI – Italian composer; centre = CORE, badly set up = LLI ( ill backwards )
6 REARRANGEMENT – change of plan; anagram (working) of ENTER MANAGER, following right = R
7 EROTICA – dirty pictures; ripped up = EROT, (tore backwards) by Institute of Contemporary Arts = ICA
10 TAG – chasing game; heading off male deer = (S)TAG
13 EVIDENT – obvious; I had = ID, in incident = EVENT
14 AMERICA – the States; a = A, married = M, girl = ERICA
15 PLY – work steadily; college once, not wanting second = P(O)LY
17 TOTEM – tribal symbol; to carry = TOTE over head of monarch = M
18 TWINE – wind; turbine’s first = T on Madeira, say = WINE

8 comments on “Quick Cryptic 434 by Joker”

  1. I lost time at the end with the intersecting instrument and composer but eventually completed in 13 minutes. I imagine CORELLI is not as widely known as many “classical” composers though his Concerti Grossi, notably his Christmas Concerto, are right up there with Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and Handel’s very best too.
  2. I got more answers than usual in this one from the straight definition rather than the cryptic element. Don’t know whether that’s good or bad.
  3. I took a while to get started with this, not getting many acrosses on first read through, but the long down clues helped, and everything followed fairly easily. COD to 9a, worthy of the main crossword. 6:18
  4. This seemed easy at first as the long answers were very gettable.
    I was left with the GK clues, a poet and a composer, and 9a. Once I gave up trying to fit Verdi into 5d, I got the composer and the poet. I was however defeated by 9d,inventing a word Avol which happened to be in the clue. Once you see the answer, you realise it’s a very good clue. David
  5. I think the crossword is 434, not 424 per the blog

    needed the blog for 9A, for which Thanks !

  6. I thought this was quite tricky, especially the NE corner where I was defeated by 9a, which was a bit above my level of competence. My ignorance of composers didn’t help much either and eventually stumbled across the answer due to a certain mandolin player whose name seemed to fit the cryptic part of the clue. 15d was unparsed. COD, now I’ve seen the answer, was 9a.

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