Times Quick Cryptic No 99 by Corelli

Author   macavity123Posted on Categories Quick Cryptic
Hi everyone

Apologies for the late posting. Trip to doctor’s just to check things ok for my holiday tomorrow held me up.

Quite a tricky puzzle from Corelli today, certainly at the harder end of the scale. But once I started solving , things tended to fall into place and overall a very satisfying solve.

Could I ask someone to cover for me next Thursday please as I will be away from internet and phone until a week on Saturday? I’ll reciprocate when needed.

Across
4 PIAZZA – Square = definition. A (article) inside PIZZA (flat dish)
7 GOLD MINE – Valuable source = definition. G (first letter of Greene) + OLD (used) + MINE (this writer’s).
8 TROJAN – A hardworker by reputation = definition. An anagram (strangely) of JANITOR minus I (one, no longer needed).
9 BELOW PAR – This is a double definiton clue, eith the two dfinitions cryptic. Something that a golfer wants to achieve with their score is a description of how they feel if they don’t achieve it, i.e. an expression that means sub standard.
10 SCOT – Possibly Glaswegian = definition. CO (firm) inside ST (small (i.e. an abreviation for) thoroughfare)
12 DELICATE – Fine = definition. Quite a complex clue for a quickie. Here you need a word that means pledge, and swap the second D (second daughter) in the word with an L (fifty) to get the word.
15 CORNWALL – English county = definition. COR(K) (Irish one, briefly, with last letter missing) + N and W (two points) + ALL (each).
18 PAYS – Coughs up = definition. Alternate letters of PEAR, YES.
20 JOYSTICK – Used to control = def. JOYS (delights) + TICK (instant)
22 CHEESE – What photographer wanted said = def. CH (church) + EESE (Homophone of EASE – facility as in facile).
23 CUFFLINK – Twisted this to undo man’s shirt = def. Here twisted needs to do double duty. An anagram of FF (couple of females) + IN LUCK.
24 ROCKET – Double definition. A type of salad ingredient and the name for a dressing-down or telling-off.

Down
1 POPE – A spiritual leader = definition. POP (Father) = E (heart of TED).
2 EDMONTON – Canadian city = def. An anagram (ornate) of DOME NOT on top of N (Northern)
3 ZIPPED – Double def clue with one half cryptic. A word meaning dashed or sped is the same as a slang way for how you would describe what Trappist monks don’t do, i.e they keep it ____!.
4 PETROL – That motorist requires = def. PET (favourite) + ROL(E) (short part).
5 ATOM – Double definition with one part cryptic. The first half of the alphabet is A TO M. Put togetehr, that means a very small part.
6 ZEALOTRY – Fanaticism = def. An anagram of Z (Zachary, initially) + TAYLOR goes around E (EAST).
11 CHOO-CHOO – Train = def. COO (Cook mostly) with HOOCH inside.
13 EEL – Fish = def. A reversal of a way of the direction against the win in sailing.
14 CAPITALS – Letters = def. Hidden in FOOLSCAP IT ALSO.
16 ABJECT – Base = def. AB (abbreviation for a sailor) + JET (aircraft) around C (top of commando)
17 LAY OFF – Temporarily dismiss = def. LAY (unqalified) + OFF (a side in cricket).
19 PERK – Benefit = def. P.E. (exercising) + RK (extremes, i.e. outer letters of RISK)
21 CONK – Hooter = def. CON (racket, swindle) + K (end of work)

12 comments on “Times Quick Cryptic No 99 by Corelli”

  1. Yes, tricky but got there in the end – albeit with DELICATE unparsed. Thanks for the explanation Macavity.

    ZIPPED took a while, as did ATOM which I thought was very neat.

    Currently on holidays so just sporadic postings at the moment. Am over in England so, for the first time I’m looking at the Quickie in the printed version of the newspaper itself – different experience!

  2. Enjoyable puzzle which took 25 minutes. I was not helped by initially putting in an unparsed silent for 3d but 9a showed my error and ZIPPED was my last one in. Cornwall took me a long time to parse.

    Joint favourites today, PIAZZA and ROCKET.

  3. I’ll cover next Thursday if you like.

    Struggled a bit with this one,particularly the NW corner.

    Edited at 2014-07-24 12:25 pm (UTC)

  4. I did not enjoy this one. I put in under par rather than below and hardly managed any after that!
  5. Had to work hard for this one. Completed in 1 hour and 40 minutes. On my first read through I could not find any write ins and had to work my way through slowly. First one in was SCOT last one in ZEALOTRY. Favourite was ATOM

    Thanks for all the blogs. I find them very helpful

  6. Mmm. Must have been on the setter’s wavelength because, unusually when others find it difficult, I found this straightforward today. I too liked ATOM. I did puzzle over the parsing for CORNWALL for quite a bit though.
  7. The blogs are very helpful. I only managed about 9 clues before I looked. I have come to the convulsion that crosswords are not for me. I can manipulate numbers in any way, but the logic of these puzzles, even when I see the answers, is just not there and a certain amount of guessing is required. I guess my brain is not wired for them, but I admire those who do them so quickly.
  9. 6 mins, although I agree that this probably won’t have been a straighforward puzzle for the QC’s target audience. CORNWALL went in from the definition, although I did parse it post-solve, and ZIPPED was my LOI. I was going to list a few clues which I thought were worthy of the main puzzle, but on reflection the majority of them were.
  10. I manage to improve each day although my times are not yet printable. I could not parse Cornwall here and think that we might have been given “two points all” The clue was hard enough anyway without each being all
  11. Found it very hard today. Got there, but over several sessions. Zipped LOI for me too. Couldn’t parse 15A, 12A.

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