Quick Cryptic 1514 by Corelli

Author   CuraristPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
Pretty straightforward today, but we have a Nina all about Little Dorrit: AMY, MARSHALSEA, french dungeon, FLINTWICHES, BLEEDING HEART, Creditor, ANTWERP, TIP, SPARKLER, stir – any more?

Across

1 Girl starts off at Marshalsea yard (3)
AMY – first letters of At Marshalsea Yard
3 Fools, I see, climb all over the place (9)
IMBECILES – anagram (‘all over the place’) of I SEE CLIMB
8 Small craft with a carbon line in the centre (7)
CORACLE – CORE (centre) with A C L inside
9 Show half of cumulative returns (5)
EVITA – half of cumulATIVE backwards. Nice.
10 Object, being in French dungeon at the beginning (3)
END – french for ‘in’ is EN + D for dungeon
11 Pole in street, one meeting lieutenant (5)
STILT – ST (street) + I + LT
13 Altogether keen on endless story (2,5)
IN TOTAL – IN TO (keen on) + TAL(e)
15 Putting on about fifty? That’s confusing (7)
ADDLING – ADDING with L inside
16 Recreation managed by doctor (1,3,1)
R AND R – RAN + DR
18 You and I possessing nothing, in such a state? (3)
WOE – WE with O inside
21 An Arab: his quatrain regularly recalled (5)
IRAQI – backwards alternate letters: hIs QuAtRaIn
22 Belgian city’s exotic new part (7)
ANTWERP – anagram (‘exotic’) of NEW PART
23 Stove that’s good one consuming wood? (3,6)
GAS HEATER – G (good) + HEATER with ASH inside
24 Advice of mine sent back (3)
TIP – PIT backwards

Down
1 Support for bridge expert (4)
ARCH – double defiition
2 Rookie three feet ahead of girl (8)
YARDBIRD – YARD (3 ft) + BIRD
3 Move gradually from Flintwinches (4)
INCH – hidden word flintwINCHes
4 Drawing off card shows do-gooder (8,5)
BLEEDING HEART – self-explanatory
5 Person owed money upset Dorrit etc, heartlessly (8)
CREDITOR – anagram (‘upset’) of DORRIT + EC (‘etc’ without its heart)
6 Scottish landowner’s unfinished retreat (4)
LAIR – LAIR(d)
7 Rep larks around, displaying firework (8)
SPARKLER – anagram (‘around’) of REPLARKS
11 Stealthily pursuing son holding conversation (8)
STALKING – S + TALKING
12 Stumble, with anger — over this? (8)
TRIPWIRE – TRIP + W (with) + IRE
14 Building a number meet collapsed, trapping Frenchman, finally (8)
TENEMENT – TEN + anagram (‘collapsed’) of MEET with N inside
17 Dutch painter escaped from Marshalsea (4)
HALS – hidden word: marsHALSea. Either one of two brothers from the Dutch Golden Age. Never heard of them myself.
19 Prison commotion (4)
STIR – double definition
20 Each initially answers dad (1,3)
A POP – A + POP

41 comments on “Quick Cryptic 1514 by Corelli”

  1. Yes, easy today .. not keen on Dickens so will leave elucidating the Nina to others.
    however “Yardbird” is listed as US military slang in Collins and in my view Americanisms should be marked as such, in an English crossword ..
  2. I was hoping to see QC 1513 in the Times app today after doing Corelli’s number 1514 on my ipad yesterday. The latter must have been a simpler puzzle because I managed it in around 10 mins with interruptions. I’m surprised someone from the crossword team hasn’t offered any comment on/explanation of the app foul-up. My brain just kicked in and I found 1513 online so I can keep my complete QC record. John M.
  3. Best time ever today!!! Then I realised it was the same puzzle I completed yesterday, easy when you know how!
  4. This was an Americanism this American had never heard of; I thought a yardbird was a convict.
  5. Yes, inside 10 minutes for me when I completed this yesterday, after the mess up with the Times app was pointed out by the florentine in a comment on my blog for 1513. For those of you that didn’t see yesterday’s faux pas, whilst the club site, paper version and the iPhone version all showed the correct Thursday puzzle (1513), for some as yet unexplained reason, the iPad version showed today’s puzzle one day early.

    This one was by far the easier of the two, although I failed to twig to the Little Dorrit theme when I completed it yesterday.

    1. I solved Orpheus’s puzzle on my iPad yesterday (and read Rotter’s excellent blog) and Corelli’s puzzle this morning. So it seems random which puzzle you saw yesterday.
  6. Straightforward and enjoyable in the main. I can’t find any reference to ‘a pop’ in my OED or Chambers. I agree that a yardbird is nearly always used as a criminal or similar. The clue itself is a little dodgy for 2019 in my view. As an Englishman I was chatting to an American about a woman from Norwich and I joked about her being a Norfolk Broad. My American friend was greatly offended as, she explained, enlightened Americans would never refer to a woman as a broad anymore than we on this side of the pond would call a woman a bird!
  7. 8 minutes. I failed to spot the Nina although I had made a point of looking for one as Corelli has treated us to at least 3 previously (Hamlet, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin and the special D puzzle to mark QC#500) whilst setting us only 19 over the past 6 years.
  8. FOI, AMY, LOI ADDLING. Not having read Little Dorrit, the nina passed me by, although Marshalsea did trigger a faint indicator in my brain for some reason. Not come across YARDBIRD in that sense, only the 60s Pop Group. 8:57. Thanks Corelli and Curarist.
  9. ….but the YARDBIRDS never mentioned Across. Poor clue, as was A POP, which, while it may feature in the phrases “take A POP at” and “a pound A POP”, doesn’t work as a stand-alone “word”.

    A simple puzzle despite those two shortcomings. Little Dorrit ? Errrm…..no !

    FOI AMY (was she a bird too ?)
    LOI GAS HEATER (a gash eater is quite another matter)
    COD TRIPWIRE (belonged in a better puzzle)

    1. A POP may be an Americanism, but it means ‘each’. It’s two words, as the clue indicates.
      1. So it’s a “Cole Porter-ism” like so much American slang – or a case of “Anything Goes”.
          1. I’m at work – had I not been, I’d have checked my Chambers ! Apologies and thank you sir !
  10. A couple of Marshalseas and Dorritt and I didn’t notice a thing; well spotted, Curarist! I can no longer remember why it took me so long, but it did. 8:46.
  11. Took me 7 seconds longer than yesterday, so 8:28. Par for me. The Dickens thing passed me by, though I did enjoy the TV adaptation over Christmas. All parsed, but thanks to blogger and setter.
  12. 22 minutes, so about average for a rather strange puzzle, as I find ones with ninas often are.
    DKN YARDBIRD, A POP or HALS, but my Chambers app has ‘recruit’ for the first, ‘each’ for the second and Google sorted out the painter.
    I had a few still un-parsed, so thanks to Curarist for sorting them out.

    Brian

  14. About 25 mins for the puzzle itself, and then another 5 trying to work out why 8ac had to be Coracle – I had the acl bit, but of course those letters are not in the middle of Coracle… Those whom etc. I should probably have just gone straight to the blog, but I was very dubious about Yardbird, having never come across it in the context of a rookie. Also, am I missing some sort of anniversary for Evita? It seems to be in every crossword I look at these days. Invariant
  15. NHO YARDBIRD or CORALE or ARCH for expert (expert enemy perhaps). Guessed YARDBIRD but couldn’t quite believe the BIRD part. Good wavelength to be off I reckon.
  16. Fairly straightforward I thought – completing in about 30 mins. Didn’t spot the Nina, but rarely look for them if I’m being honest.

    Biffed “Gas Burner” for 23ac at first until I couldn’t parse it. Hadn’t heard of “Yardbird”, but couldn’t see what else it could be. (Slightly surprised with the “bird” = “girl” bit in todays more enlightened times.)

    Took a while to get “Bleeding Time” out of my head for 4dn and visions of James Robertson Justice’s unique delivery.

    FOI = 1ac “Amy”
    LOI = 2dn “Yardbird”
    COD = 23ac “Gas Heater”

    Thanks as usual.

    (As a side point, I am now tackling the big puzzle and finding that I am getting nearly 75% of it correct. Not sure if it is getting easier or I’m getting better.)

  17. Found this fairly straightforward except 2d and 15a, words we did not know although the wordplay was helpful. Knew ‘a pop’ from an american lady comment $50 a pop! for a bungee jump in New Zealand. A pleasant solve otherwise.
  18. I couldn’t agree more! I fail to see why there should be any Americanisms in the first place. Jeffrey
  19. No issues today, although YARDBIRD was new to me (outside of the group) so it was my LOI. Finished in 9.40.
    Thanks for the blog
  21. … despite spotting the Little Dorrit theme fairly quickly from the (perhaps slightly inelegant) double mention of Marshalsea in two of the clues. But it did help me get 1A AMY as my FOI.

    Also NHO Yardbird, but it was the only possible answer from the clue. It would have been so easy for Corelli to clue it “American rookie three feet ahead of girl”. (The irony is that my American friends tell me they very seldom refer to 3 feet as a yard – where we quote something as say “100 yards ahead” on a road sign they prefer “300 feet”).

    Not convinced by 23A either. I parsed this as G EATER with ASH in it and could not really make EATER from the clue – the word “consuming” seems to be working too hard if it means EATER as well as “in the middle of the clue”.

    LOI was 11A STILT. Having got SxIxT from the down clues I spent a long time trying to think of a three letter pole that would go “in street”, ie between the first letter S and the last letter T. A nice misleading clue a… which I was duly misled by.

    Edited at 2019-12-27 06:04 pm (UTC)

  22. Came to this late today but it must have been fairly straightforward as I completed it in about 25 mins with no aids. Like others, NHO yardbird with that meaning, nor arch as expert – addling, come to think of it, is also odd. Means getting bad ( as in ‘addled’ in my book).

    Also can’t see why 4d is self explanatory. Is drawing off a card referred to as ‘bleeding’ in some card game?

    Nevertheless, nice to get a qc that fitted the definition.

    1. I think it’s just the fact that Hearts are a red suit, so you have an image/drawing of a red/bleeding heart on 13 cards
  23. Sorry but there’s no glossary at the top of my page, using an android Samsung phone so I can’t look up Nina. I don’t see any links either.
    1. There is a light green panel down the right hand side of the blog post. This starts with “Latest Month” and is followed by “Links”, which includes a link to the glossary. You might need to scroll to the right to see it.

Comments are closed.