Quick Cryptic 448 by Corelli

Author   jackktPosted on Categories Quick Cryptic
I’m not sure if our esteemed Thursday blogger is around to cover the puzzle today. He may be delayed at a hospital appointment. If nothing has appeared by 1:30 I shall put up an emergency blog. In the meantime I have disabled comments on this thread so as not to confuse the issue.

Okay, it’s now 1:40 so here goes. Comments now enabled. This one took me 9 minutes.

{deletions} [indicators]

Across
1 WELSHMAN – Anagram [distributed] of WHEN ALMS. Def: Briton
5 AREA – Hidden in {pol}AR EA{rth}. Def: region
9 SKINT – KIN (family) inside ST (street). Def: desperate for money
10 PRINTER – R (right) inside PINTER (playwright – Harold of gthat school). Def: computer accessory
11 HIGHLIGHTING – HIGH (school), LIGHTING (landing). Def: drawing attention to
13 ALCOCK – A, L (large), COCK (bird). Def: one famously flying the Atlantic – with Brown
15 SPRAIN – RA (artist) in SPIN (whirl). Def: injury
17 SINGLE-MINDED – Two definitions, one straight then continuing into cryptic one. Having one aim / but not marriage evidently
20 THISTLE – THIS (not that), T{all}, L{acking}, E{minence [initially]. Def: national emblem – of Scotland
21 RIGHT – Sounds [enunciated] like “rite” (procedure in church). Def: proper
22 OHMS – O (old), HMS (naval ship). Def: resistance units
23 HELSINKI – Anagram [contrivance] of SHIN-LIKE. Def: capital – of Finland

Down
1 WISH – W (woman), I (one), SH (quiet). Def: aspiration
2 LUIGI – {a}L{l}U{r}I{n}G {a}I{r} [oddly missing]. Def: Italian
3 HOT CHOCOLATE – Anagram [unfortunately] of THE CHA TO COOL Def: also this – with reference back to ‘cha’, another hot drink
4 AU PAIR – AU (gold), PAIR (couple). Def: help from abroad)
6 RETSINA – Anagram [drunk] of NASTIER. Def: wine. “Wine nastier when drunk” is a brilliant surface reading that perfectly sums up this disgusting drink.
7 ARROGANT – OG (own goal) inside ARRANT (downright). Def: supercilious
8 WITH OPEN ARMS – WITH (using), OPEN (free), ARMS (weaponry. Def: welcomingly
12 FALSETTO – FALSE (mock), OTT (over-the-top) reversed [rising]. Def: high-pitched voice
14 CONFIRM – CON (against), FIRM (company). Def: demonstrate
16 IMPEDE – Hidden in {l}IMPED E{rractically}. Def: hamper
18 EGG ON – A straight definition: encourage, and a cryptic one
19 ETUI – Anagram [bends] of TIE U. Def: case for sewer – as in a person who sews. This is one of those words I know only from years of solving.

12 comments on “Quick Cryptic 448 by Corelli”

  1. Thanks for stepping in Jackkt. I thought this was at the easier end of the scale. The only real hold ups I had were that I thought 16d was an anagram of limped for a while and in 19d spent a long time thinking about drains. It was my LOI and with the checkers in place there were only two options and fortunately I guessed right.
  2. Found this of middling difficulty. THISTLE went in unparsed and ETUI was dredged from the back of my memory although its meaning was not remembered. Last in HIGHLIGHTING which I stared at for a few minutes before the penny dropped.

    Favourite HOT CHOCOLATE.

  3. Couldn’t parse 20ac (and I can now see why), and like others guessed the correct unknown word for 19d. No favourites, as nothing really stood out. Invariant
  4. Like Plett, I was down to the two options for 19d; unlike Plett I went for the wrong one. Ah well, I’ll know next time!
  5. I finished on the train to Southend with the exception of 7D as arrant was a new word.
    I knew etui from my addiction to antique and auction programs on tv. I knew they would come in useful sometime.

    Brian

  6. Jackkt your nobleness in stepping in far outweighs the fact that in 20ac it’s tall not tale.
  7. Fast one for me – 23m. ETUI seems rather obscure. Not sure that crosswords need to include words that a well-read native speaker approaching middle-age has never even seen before! Still, the clue was obvious and the answer looked marginally more likely than UTEI (though only because of “I before E”).

    Edited at 2015-11-26 05:50 pm (UTC)

  9. Doing these crosswords daily and having the blog to refer to afterwards have helped me hugely over the last year or two (hearty thanks to all bloggers). I finished this in under 30 minutes -again. No real hold-ups and knew Etui. However,I still find the main crossword nigh-on impossible most days. David
    1. I’m the same David. I keep thinking I should be starting to improve at the main one but usually give up with only a couple of clues solved. But I’ll keep trying
  10. Thanks for stepping in Jackkt. I thought this was at the easier end of the scale. The only real hold ups I had were that I thought 16d was an anagram of limped for a while and in 19d spent a long time thinking about drains. It was my LOI and with the checkers in place there were only two options and fortunately I guessed right.

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