Quick Cryptic 2757 by Joker

Author   galsprayPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic

ParkSolve time = 36:30 (Tried a new Parkrun at Pyrmont in Sydney.  Not a bad course but I always go slower at a new venue for some reason).

Our gratitude goes to Joker for our daily dose today.  I note that it’s almost an anagram-free zone, with only one full and two partial anagrams.  A situation that doesn’t play to my strengths but your mileage may vary on that point.  We also have the lesser-spotted triple def at 19dn.

Please share your experience of today’s challenge in the comments, particularly if you’ve noticed a theme or a Nina.  I haven’t but then I never do.  Here’s my attempt at deconstructing the clues…

(In the clues, definitions are underlined and anagram indicators are in bold italics.

In the explanations (ABC)* indicates an anagram of abc.  Deletions and other devices are indicated accordingly, I hope).

Across
8 Said person wanting coat for protection (7)
LACQUER – Homophone (said) of LACKER (person wanting)

Not sure I’ve ever heard a person described as a lacker but you get the drift.
9 Level pegging in the qualifiers (5)
EQUAL – Hidden in thE QUALifiers
10 Declare Oscar is surrounded by immorality (5)
VOICE – O (Oscar in the NATO alphabet) surrounded by VICE (immorality)
11 Concern that’s highly valued varsity material in rag mag? (7)
UNICORN – UNI (varsity) + CORN (material in rag mag)

A Unicorn company is defined as “a start-up that reaches a valuation of $1 billion and is not listed on the stock market” hence a “concern that’s highly valued”.

And apparently there’s another modern slang meaning of unicorn which only serves to remind me of the sheltered life I’ve led.  Do your own research.

On edit: And rag mag is a term for one of those junk tabloid magazines whose content could be described as corny in the “trite or banal” sense.
12 Friend from Prague maybe reported end of game (9)
CHECKMATE – Homophone (reported) of CZECH MATE (Friend from Prague, maybe)
14 Card in centre of pack, note (3)
ACE – AC (centre of pACk) + E (note)
16 Exist going backwards in time (3)
ERA – ARE (exist) reversed (going backwards)

Are and exist can be synonymous of course, but using them interchangably would sound a bit Yoda-ish I think.
18 Strange daydream about ecstasy being immediately available (5-4)
READY-MADE – (DAYDREAM)* “about” E (ecstasy)
21 Relative move in dance numbers given backing (7)
STEPSON – STEP (move in dance) + SON [NOS (numbers) reversed (given backing)]
22 Sacred composition encountered outside Old Testament (5)
MOTET – MET (encountered) “outside” OT (Old Testament)

A polyphonic choral composition on a sacred text usually without instrumental accompaniment, as any fule kno.
23 Untruth in article relating to extraterrestrials? (5)
ALIEN – LIE (untruth) in AN (article)

The question mark is required as other types of alien are available.
24 Eggs over cold and hollowed out round fruit (7)
AVOCADO – AVO [OVA (eggs) reversed (over)] + C (cold) + AnD (AND “hollowed out”) + O (round)

Ova “over” reminded me of a great scene from Family Guy where Stewie schools Brian on radio protocol.  Over.
Down
1 Charlie gets call I’ve broken collarbone (8)
CLAVICLE – C (Charlie in the NATO alphabet) + (CALL I’VE)*
2 Musical mounted, keeping 100 busy (6)
ACTIVE – ATIVE [EVITA (musical) reversed (mounted)] “keeping” C (100)
3 Charming counties regularly visited (4)
CUTE – Alternate letters (regularly visited) of CoUnTiEs
4 Injury from electric vehicle around university area (6)
TRAUMA – TRAM (electric vehicle) around U (university) + A (area)
5 Food shop remarkably makes up consignment (8)
DELIVERY – DELI (food shop) + VERY (remarkably)
6 Dawn is gold and yellow when captured by artist (6)
AURORA – AU (gold) + OR (yellow) “captured by” RA (artist)

Aurora is Latin for dawn.  AU is the chemical symbol for gold and OR is the heraldic term for gold or yellow, as well as the French word for gold, all derived from the Latin “aurum”.

But still quite solvable without being fluent in French, Latin, chemistry or heraldry!
7 Enthusiast eating large tart (4)
FLAN – FAN (enthusiast) “eating” L (large)
13 One reeks when upsetting paraffin oil (8)
KEROSENE – (ONE REEKS)*

I’m sure we had this in a Quickie I blogged quite recently.
15 Political event with left replacing right in House, perhaps (8)
ELECTION – ERECTION (house, perhaps) with L (left) replacing R (right)

There’ll be one later this year in America, not that you hear much about it.
17 Type of acid cracking tops of the insulating containers (6)
ACETIC – ACE (cracking) + TIC [first letters (tops) of The Insulating Containers]

Does anybody say “ace” any more?  Not that it matters.
19 Plant for periodical and book (6)
ANNUAL – Triple definition

Nice use of periodical in the surface.
20 A small carrier off course (6)
ASTRAY – A + S (small) + TRAY (carrier)
21 Examination is scarcely sufficient, having no time (4)
SCAN – SCANT (scarcely sufficient) with no T (time)
22 Tie up boat in low river (4)
MOOR – MOO (low) + R (river)

As in the lowing of cattle, one of those crossword tricks that you spot quite easily after many years of, well, not spotting it.

54 comments on “Quick Cryptic 2757 by Joker”

  1. DNF
    The checkers were screaming “UNICORN!” but I couldn’t make any sense of the clue.

    1. Same here really, but eventually took the plunge. Maybe there was the faint tinkling of a bell but that could be something I convinced myself of in hindsight.

  3. I DNF’ed this, found it quite hard, and couldn’t get LACQUER, UNICORN (I wondered about it but saw no validation from the clue), TRAUMA, or ACTIVE.
    There was a lot in this puzzle that I had NHO, which took away from the enjoyment. I don’t think I’d ever get LACQUER, requiring us to come up with LACKER is a big reach IMO, and if we are going to biff then there’s no point in the cryptic part of the clue.
    Definitely some nice clues in this, like ACETIC, AURORA, AVOCADO, CLAVICLE, etc. but the concentration of tricky ones in the NW corner specifically was too much for me.

  4. I too got UNICORN on a wing and a prayer and took ages to figure out LACQUER even after I had it. In the end I found it pretty tough and finished in 14.27. I never get Ninas either, all I noticed this time was the intersection of ACTIVE and VOICE. Does that mean anything? No idea. Some really nice clues here, thanks Galspray and Joker.

  5. I once wrote in a music exam that a clavicle was a small clavichord. I soon learned otherwise.

  6. Couldn’t decide between uniform and unicorn. Let’s just say it’s a tricky one for a Quickie.

    Thanks to setter and Gallers.

  7. I say things are ace!

    I know of the valuation meaning of the word unicorn, my baby bro works for a company that was the fastest unicorn in Australia or something… 9 months to the billion dollar!

    I also know of the other more modern use of the word 👀 however I have absolute no idea about a corn having anything to do with a rag mag and so I was completely lost.

    I got LACQUER from the checkers. I nho MOTET but I thought everything else was quite gettable. Trauma was tricky.

    1. Personally, I think at this level the setter could have clued CORN as something other than ‘material in rag bag.’

  8. 14:17
    No problem with UNICORN, but didn’t know what was going on with CORN, it has loads of meanings in the dictionary and the setter came up with “material in rag bag?” LACKER was weak as well.

    Shame as there was lots of good stuff like READY MADe and CLAVICLE

    Potential snickering for the ELECTION clue was missed.

  9. LACQUER took a bit of pondering, and I passed on UNICORN first time round but saw it fairly easily once I had the U, and knew the business def. Everything else seemed to come together steadily, albeit in somewhat meandering fashion, for a pleasant near to the SCC solve.
    The LACQUER EQUAL pair felt like it signalled something going on, but I couldn’t see anything obvious if so.

  10. Some chewy stuff in here.
    LACQUER went in from protective coating as I couldn’t make sense of the rest of the clue and UNICORN was vaguely known but had to be dredged from the depths.
    I made VOICE more difficult for myself by misreading the clue and wondering how ‘immortality’ fitted into things and got my CLAVICLEs and scapulas mixed up at 1d despite seeing how the wordplay worked.
    Started with CHECK MATE and finished with SCAN in 9.49.
    Thanks to galspray

    1. I did exactly the same thing with “immortality”! Time for some new glasses.

  11. Was pleased to see Joker as the setter as we always enjoy his/her puzzles. Who knows why, but today I was right on his wavelength and we came in at 16.24, probably in our top 10 times. Pretty much worked our way down from clavicle and lacquer, very satisfying. LOI Astray needed all the checkers as couldn’t let go of askew which didn’t parse or fit!

    Unicorn took a moment to remember but corn was the reason I bought the old rag mags sold by uni students during rag week.

    Thanks Joker, and Galspray for the heraldic tuition and thus parsing of aurora.
    We don’t do PR, but time for our walk in some sunshine for a change.

  12. DNF. I was on this for 20 minutes and then resorted to aids as I had run out of ideas on the intersecting answers TRAUMA and UNICORN.

    A single look-up found me TRAUMA and I kicked myself because I had been fixated on the electric vehicle being some modern abbreviation relating to a subject I know nothing about. Then I kicked myself again as I remembered a similar clue to TRAUMA had appeared here only a couple of weeks ago. 1st August, as it turns out: Streetcar crossing close to you a shock (6).

    Like Ulaca I was torn between ‘uniform’ and ‘unicorn’ for the remaining answer but could see nothing in the clue to support either so I gave up. I had no idea what a rag mag was or I might have persevered.

    1. I had vague recollections of rag mags from university days, but it didn’t help at all.

    2. I see the edit in the blog reflects my thoughts on Unicorn which are…’uni corn’ is exactly what you would expect from the rag mags that were produced at the medical school I attended. In his defence, Joker puts a question mark to support the whimsical view that uni corn is what you get in said rag mag and adds a somewhat redundant varsity to give the QC direction toward Uni. Thought it was with sharing.

  13. 14 mins…

    Whilst I’d heard of the term “Unicorn” in the context of a highly valued start-up, I wasn’t sure what was going on with the “corn” element of the parsing.

    Other than that, I thought it was a good puzzle, even more because it is Saturday and I managed to complete it.

    FOI – 3dn “Cute”
    LOI – 2dn “Active”
    COD – 17dn “Acetic”

    Thanks as usual!

  14. 5:12. LOI UNICORN. No problem with the definition, but I’m another who doesn’t see the relationship between a rag mag and CORN. I thought a rag mag was just a student magazine produced during rag week to raise money for charity. It may contain studenty material and maybe schoolboy humour, but I don’t see why that would be classified as CORN. Would you say Private Eye is corny? Whatevs. Anyone else with ARE instead or ERA to start with? Fixed by CLAVICLE which I remembered because I broke one of mine playing rugby at school. Thanks Joker and Galspray.

  15. 14:18. DNK UNICORN (in this sense) and that’s fair enough, but sign me up with everyone else who is unhappy with the CORN part of it. Some good stuff too. I even enjoyed LACQUER with the groan-worthy LACKER.

  16. 5:58

    Gentle Saturday morning – no dodgy words, no dodgy clues, I even knew what a UNICORN is though I might too have a twitchy eyebrow over the content of a rag mag being CORN. Off now to pick some blackberries for my porridge.

    Thanks Joker and Galspray

  18. I must be an anagram-averse solver, being much higher up the leaderboard than I normally am. Or maybe folk rise later on Saturday.

    Same with UNICORN as everyone else. Tried to get EV into my LOI TRAUMA for longer than necessary. Schoolboy smirk at the potential in ELECTION.

    6:17

  19. I was a regular purchaser of Manchester University’s ANNUAL “Rag Rag” and believe you me there was usually sufficient “corn” in it to bring an end to famine – it was the definition that I didn’t understand.

    Is Prague the only city in the Czech Republic? Just asking for a friend….

    Thanks Joker and Galspray.

    FOI/COD LACQUER
    LOI UNICORN
    TIME 5:05*

    *”So I just phoned the airline girl and said get me on flight number 505″ (The Rolling Stones, “Flight 505” from their album “Aftermath”.

    Had Mick Jagger tried that today, he’d probably have had a conversation with a bot – if you haven’t already done so, make sure you read Giles Coren on ” being busy” in today’s Times. Sheer brilliance.

    1. An excellent rant from Giles 🤣
      He would be very supportive of Joe Biden’s recently proposed ‘click to cancel’ regulations. I certainly am!
      Thanks Joker, Gal and Phil

  20. CUTE and CLAVICLE were first 2 in and LACQUER followed hot on their heels. UNICORN was a latish entry, where I had a vague idea of the definition, and had no trouble thinking that rag mags might have corny jokes in them. SCAN, ANNUAL and STEPSON held me up briefly at the end. 9:07. Thanks Joker and Galspray.

  21. This one required a few visits but got there in the end.
    Some nicely misleading clues which had me looking at one end while the required answer was at the other which is one of the joys of these crosswords.
    Many thanks Joker and Galspray for the amusing blog and explaining how AVOCADO was constructed.

  22. Solved with a couple of guesses: UNICORN – had to be this after UNI (varsity) and CORN as in corny material (never thought of a Unicorn company); TRAUMA – spent a while trying to think of something with EV (electic vehicle) in the answer; LACQUER (L-C-U -R): what else? A bit of an odd puzzle, really.

  23. Got UNICORN from wordplay but wasn’t sure about definition. Another to try EV in TRAUMA. Couldn’t parse ACETIC – thanks for explaining what ‘cracking’ was doing in there galspray. Felt around average difficulty to me. Quite liked LOI LACQUER which caused me the most difficulty but contained my favourite device. Thanks all.

  24. Snap to all comments above about LOI UNICORN. At least I knew the definition.

    I enjoyed this a lot, COD to STEPSON. 08:51, much of it on UNICORN.

    Many thanks Joker and gallers.

  25. 15.14 TRAUMA, LACQUER and UNICORN held me up at the end. A slow week but all solved. Thanks galspray and Joker.

  26. My 11-year-old granddaughter has just finished this with a bit of help from her father.
    I finished slowly and agree with fellow bloggers’ comments.

  27. This is the second Saturday running where I’ve struggled to print off a copy of the puzzle, and had to restort on-line solving, which continues to be an absolute nightmare of misplaced letters and deletions for this paper solver. Like others, my last two were the Trauma/Lacquer intersection, which proved every bit as stubborn as the nho Unicorn for Concern. Invariant

    1. If I log into the wrong version of the Times, I can’t print off the QC. But these days I have no problem.

  28. DNF. Couldn’t make anything of UNICORN and missed SCAN too as I couldn’t get past ORAL. I also started with EVENS for EQUAL. Oh well, I’m sure a day off will help recalibrate my brain.

  29. Coming late to this I find most of my comments have been made. Count me in the large multitude who did not see “material in rag mag” and immediately realise Joker meant corn – very odd linkage IMO, even if I understand it now it has been explained. I have also never – as in never ever – met the term “lacker”; again, obvious once explained but QC material? Finally, cluing tram as electric vehicle was tricky – not all trams are electric and not all EVs are trams, so I’d have expected a qualifier in there to indicate the setter was playing a bit loose.

    Still, all done in just over 14 minutes, but a stiff one in my book, with a few liberties taken.

    Many thanks Galspray for the blog
    Cedric

Comments are closed.