Quick Cryptic Number 55 by Teazel

Posted on Categories Quick Cryptic
I almost completely forget my blogging duties today! A commentary will appear once I’ve had a chance to solve it…

…as quickly as possible! I was held up by 16dn (don’t know why), 18ac (as a result of my ignorance) and 20ac (due to being out-cryptic’d). Nowhere near as difficult as the last few Friday’s have been, which is a stroke of luck for me! Please ask if my brief explanations are unclear.

And enjoy the Bank Holiday.

Across
1 CORK – double definition. The Irish port and the type of bottle stopper that Mr. Codd tried to make obsolete.
3 SWINGING – SING (confess) about WING (part of prison) for hanging.
8 NEWMARKET – double definition, with the first as a cryptic definition. A new market could be a chance of extra sales, and the Suffolk town famous for horse racing.
10 PAN – another double definition. The Greek god is also a word for harshly criticise.
11 PURGE – softly (in music) is P + URGE (press) for clear.
12 CORDIAL – my = COR (as in, “oh my!”) with DIAL (face) gives a warm characteristic.
13 STIR-FRY – the Chinese dish is an anagram of FIRST (indicated by prepared) next to RY (railway).
18 NEHRU – NU (letter of the Greek alphabet) surrounds (holds) an anagram of HER (indicated by wrongly), for an Indian leader (Prime Minister, in fact).
19 SUSTAIN -STAIN (slur) on US reversed (backward American) gives a synonym for suffer.
20 CRICKETER – I guess this is a cryptic definition. The “third man” is a fielding position in cricket, and the “twelfth man” a substitute cricketer. As far as I’m aware, none of the numbers in-between (fourth, fifth, etc.) correspond to named positions.
22 GAS – G (good) + AS for fuel.
23 SEEPleak slowly is SEE (notice) and P (pressure).
24 APPENDIX – an addition to the end of a book, and what’s removed during an appendectomy operation.

Down
1 CANOPY – COPY (journalist’s work) includes AN (example of an article) for the forest treetops.
2 REWARD – reversal of DRAWER (till) for offered money.
4 WOK – W (wife) + OK (fine) is where one might make 13ac, stir-fry.
5 NATURE RESERVE – NATURE (mother, they say) has RESERVE (book) for animal sanctuary.
6 IMPAIRweaken is I (one) + M (married) + PAIR (couple).
7 GENTLE – the definition here is the adjectival moderate, from GEN (information) and an anagram of LET (indicated by out).
9 AWESTRUCK – anagram of WEAK CRUST (indicated by collapses) gives overwhelmed with dread.
12 CORPS – COPS (police) surrounding (suppressing) R (resistance) for body of soldiers.
14 SNACKS – new = N, put it in SACKS (big bags) for light bites.
15 SHRINE – SHINE (shed light) around the last letter of enteR for this venerated site.
16 RAGGED – double definition. To be teased is to be ragged, and poorly dressed.
17 UNISEX – this sort of hairdresser can been seen in tUNIS EXceptionally.
21 TIP – double definition. An untidy place and useful information.

14 comments on “Quick Cryptic Number 55 by Teazel”

  1. Sorry to comment before the blog has been published – no discourtesy intended – but getting towards lights out time here in Sydney!

    This was a relatively straightforward one for me – around 20 minutes. Trickiest for me was CORDIAL: took me a fair while to spot the connection between Cor! and My! But, neat clue and glad to have worked it out eventually.

    Agree with Jack that 20ac was a bit of an odd clue. Answer was pretty obvious (certainly after a couple of cross checkers): third man and 12th man naturally put you in cricketing country, but the “but nothing in between” put me into some doubt as to whether something far more complex was going on.

    Can only assume that the clue is based on the fact that there is no 4th, 5th, 6th etc. etc. man involved from a terminology perspective.

    Edited at 2014-05-23 01:23 pm (UTC)

    1. Can anyone help me with 12 down? Only one I can’t solve. Thank you!
      1. I don’t want to steal william’s thunder when he blogs but think Keystone
      2. Absent the blog, happy to help (hope that is not a breach of house etiquette).

        In deference to the blogger, I won’t display the answer but will try to give you a nudge.

        R can be an abbreviation of resistance (physics formulae). Insert this into a common slang word for the police and you will see a word that means a group of soldiers…

        Hope that helps.

        Edited at 2014-05-23 01:45 pm (UTC)

        1. Nick,

          Happy to be corrected but I don’t think that there is any problem with giving assistance, although as you say, as a courtesy to the blogger, he/she normally gets ‘first dibs’. We do not have the issue here of people commenting on Prize puzzles before the deadline closes but over in The Times Crossword Club, comments on Prize puzzles start immediately. However, any comments that give too much assistance tend to be zapped by someone pretty promptly.

          Edited at 2014-05-23 01:50 pm (UTC)

          1. Thanks for that clarification – appreciated. This is such a wonderfully well-mannered site that I would hate to inadvertently breach etiquette through ignorance of convention.
            1. Thank you so much… I had put abstain for sustain ( so obvious after you see the answer) so had 12 dn ending in ‘a’ which didn’t help! Thank you for your lovely hints and tips.
              1. You’re welcome. Do consider signing your anon postings with a name (made up or not) as it makes things that bit more friendly. Signing up for real is free, does not seem to have any knock-on consequences and is a simple process starting with the Create an Account button at the very top of the page. Anyway, welcome aboard.
        2. So sorry for being late today – and I would take no offence at being pipped to the post! Knowing all too well how frustrating it can be to not understand a clue, I’m very glad the nudges came to the aid of our anonymous solver.

  2. Took a while to get started on this one but completed the grid eventually in 14 minutes. I usually make it a rule to include all parsing in my Quickie solving times but 20ac would have added another 10 minutes so I have not done so on this occasion. I thought I had a nodding (off) acquaintanceship with all the positions in the cricketing field but the one required today has eluded until now.

    Edited at 2014-05-23 01:09 pm (UTC)

  3. This was an excellent puzzle for me. I finished all but the NE corner in an hour or so and then had to wait twice as long again before I could make sense of the rest. IMPAIR, PAN, GENTLE and CORDIAL held me up and I still didn’t understand why CORDIAL was right until I checked the blog.

    Some excellent clues for beginners today, especially 1a,1d,8a,14d,16d. Clues that made me tear out my hair: 12a. Had no problems with 20a – very obvious to a cricket fan!

    Thanks as ever to the bloggers and encouraging words to the hard-trying newbies.

    Edited at 2014-05-23 03:51 pm (UTC)

  4. 4 mins. I’m waiting for a difficult clue that I can pounce on and say that it has no place in a QC, but the setters continue to produce to their brief. Enjoyable again, and CRICKETER was my LOI after SNACKS.
  5. Last Friday, QC No 50 had (diagonal) Line Symmetry instead of the more usual Rotational Symmetry.
    Today we have (horizontal) Line Symmetry instead of Rotational Symmetry. A new Friday feature?

    Stronon

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