A fair enough Quiptic from Moley this morning, but I do wish the Guardian would stop using this grid. The large number of clues with less than 50% checking can be off-putting for beginners, I think.
Abbreviations
cd cryptic definition
dd double definition
(xxxx)* anagram
anagrind = anagram indicator
[x] letter(s) removed
definitions are underlined
Across
7 Organise a dance and enjoy a good time
HAVE A BALL
A cd cum dd
8 Byword for graduate, team’s top man
MAXIM
A charade of MA, XI for eleven or ‘team’ and M for the first letter of ‘man’.
9 Without a doubt, privately reveal name and model
CONFIDENT
A charade of CONFIDE, N and T for the ‘model’ T Ford. Any colour you like, as long as it’s black.
10 Single male representative
AGENT
A charade of A and GENT.
12 Wanders with good person, artist’s unknown son
STRAYS
A charade of ST for Saint or ‘good person’, RA for ‘artist’, Y for the mathematical ‘unknown’ and S for ‘son’.
13 English go on excursions for self-aggrandisement
EGO TRIPS
A charade of E, GO and TRIPS.
14 Heads up to see the other side of the coin
OBVERSE
OBVERSE is the technical name for ‘heads’ on a coin, so if it were ‘heads up’, then that’s what you’d see. I think.
17 Fancy Google having unknown earth science!
GEOLOGY
(GOOGLE)* plus Y for the mathematical ‘unknown’ twice in five clues, which is a bit inelegant.
20 Chief gets in breakfast foods for intellectuals
EGGHEADS
An insertion of HEAD in EGGS.
22 Corporal running by lido
BODILY
(BY LIDO)*
24 One section was isolated
APART
A simple charade of A and PART. Why Moley has written the clue in the past tense, I don’t know.
25 Gathered to make male’s beds
ASSEMBLED
(MALES BEDS)*
26 Scheme embraces one that’s patently obvious
PLAIN
An insertion of I in PLAN.
27 Same groom changed in recreation facility
GAMES ROOM
(SAME GROOM)*
Down
1 Party of excavators embarrassed after losing axes
CAVORT
The setter is asking you to remove ‘axes’ from ‘excavators’ and make an anagram, so it’s ([E][X]C[A]VATOR[S])* The anagrind is ’embarrassed’.
2 Baked item: first complaint to brawny men
BEEFCAKE
A charade of BEEF and CAKE, with the surface telling you which way round to put the two words.
3 Addresses with sailor’s poem enclosed
ABODES
An insertion of ODE in ABS. AB for ‘able-bodied’ seaman.
4 Nest lad disturbed and left at an angle
SLANTED
(NEST LAD)*
5 Harass a wild animal
BADGER
A dd.
6 Wing around pine construction in Canadian city
WINNIPEG
An insertion of (PINE)* in WING.
11 Area where last character’s alone, mostly
ZONE
A charade of Z for the last letter of the alphabet and [AL]ONE, since the three letters ONE constitute ‘mostly’. Hmm.
15 Large fruit in US city
BIG APPLE
Another simple charade gives you the nickname of New York.
16 Morning after Scotland reveals swindle
SCAM
A charade of SC and AM.
18 Beetle for female feathered friend
LADYBIRD
A charade of LADY and BIRD.
19 Arsenic’s not rare, in the normal course of events
AS USUAL
AS for the chemical symbol for ‘arsenic’ and USUAL.
21 He initially rushed over into conflagration, showing courage
HEROIC
A charade of HE and the first letters of the third, fourth, fifth and sixth words of the clue.
22 Each following insect’s calling system
BEEPER
A charade of BEE and PER. ‘£2.50 per item/£2.50 each item.’
23 To avoid detection, keep out of sight
LIE LOW
A rather weak double definition.
Many thanks to Moley for this morning’s Quiptic.
Thanks Moley and Pierre
MAXIM was last in and favourite. My Chambers lists “sc” as standing for a number of things, but “Scotland” isn’t one of them.
Although most of the puzzle was fine, I did have a few quibbles.
– BEEFCAKE should have been plural as indicated by “men”
– “mostly” to indicate [al]ONE is a little unfair for beginners.
– LIE LOW was more a straight crossword clue than a cryptic
But, those aside, I did enjoy the rest of the clues (especially MAXIM) for their gentle introduction to the cryptic week.
Thanks to Pierre and Moley.
Thanks to Pierre and Moley – second completion without cheating! Though I might have had to for obverse if I hadn’t accidentally tried an anagram of observe (well, an anagram of 27a’s complexity) – every day’s a school day.
What is the usual “mostly” etiquette? As a beginner I found 11d fine, though the crossers were very straightforward.
Matrixmania @2: beefcake does not need an ‘s’ on the end to refer to men plural.
Well done, greenandblack. Keep doing the homework.
I did have thoughts about BEEFCAKE, but could imagine the swooning ladies saying: ‘there’s a lot of beefcake up there on stage tonight.’ And there wouldn’t be just one male stripper.
Thank you Moley and Pierre.
A good Quiptic, although I found two clues rather confusing, that for OBVERSE, due to the wording, and that for MAXIM, MA for ‘graduate’ is an American usage.
I liked the clues for EGO TRIPS, EGGHEADS and SLANTED, but CAVORT was my favourite!
Cookie
Not really American – I’m an MA, as it happens. My university awards an MA automatically to BA holders after 10 terms, as long as they haven’t got into trouble with the law in the intervening period. A contemporary was refused his MA after being arrested for being Drunk and Incapable after an England rugby match. It is to his eternal shame that he couldn’t even rise to “Drunk and disorderly”!
Er? where’s that muffin? Was it in prison?
Cambridge, Cookie. I believe that Oxford has a similar arrangement.
Good heavens muffin, you put me in mind of MAXIM Gorky @7. Well, it is not in the COED, but I find on googling that Oxford and Dublin also do this – what is more, I see that Scottish universities give MA degrees after three years undergraduate study, no BAs, perhaps Moley is a Scot?
Muffin @7
I think ‘automatically’ is a bit misleading, because MAs are only awarded to eligible graduates who actively apply for them. Rather like bus passes, but of less practical value…
Ah. I haven’t yet applied for my MA from Oxford, yet I was fined a few years ago for the same reason. Though in contrast to your friend, muffin, I was quite pleased with myself tending to the incapable rather than disorderly end of the charge sheet!
I thought Scottish uni’s were generally 4 year courses, hence the MA?
John E @11
I don’t recall applying for mine. It was a long time ago, though. The principal benefit was when I needed an academic hood (for formal occasions when teaching) the MA one, lacking “bunny fur”, was much cheaper!
Ah, Moley lives in Largs in Ayrshire, that explains it.
All this talk of degrees, makes one yawn
Muffin @13
I thought my sister had to apply to Cambridge, but I may be mistaken (I’ll ask her sometime). The term ‘on application’ is certainly present in this opening paragraph from the pertinent Wikipedia article:
‘In the universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Dublin, Bachelors of Arts with Honours of these universities are promoted to the title of Master of Arts or Master in Arts (MA) on application after six or seven years’ seniority as members of the university (including years as an undergraduate). As such, it is an academic rank, and not a postgraduate qualification. No further examination or study is required for this promotion.’
At Oxford you have to ‘supplicate’ for admission to the degree of MA and pay a fee of £10 for the privilege.
Are you asleep yet, David @15?
Pretty easy, even for a Quiptic, but that’s OK. There were lot of clues in which the parts that make up the wordplay were essentially the same as the parts of the answer — EGGHEADS from EGGS + HEAD, APART from A + PART, BEEFCAKE from BEEF + CAKE, etc. A certain amount of that is reasonable, especially for a Quiptic, but when there’s too much it makes the puzzle less interesting, in my opinion.
I can’t manage to get OBVERSE to work, mostly because of the word “other”.
I was wondering about 27a which is, in a sense, a “minimal” anagram (you only need to swap the ‘S’ and the ‘G’. What is the minimum acceptable difference between the anagram and the solution? An extreme example might be CALM and CLAM. E.g., “Clam disturbed? No!” (not sure if this an acceptable clue, but you get the idea, I hope).
I’ve wondered the same thing as Bear of little brain @18. Anagrams that involve minimal rearrangement certainly seem inelegant. I think we’d also be displeased if a clue involved an anagram that was an exact reversal of the original word, even though, strictly speaking, that is an anagram.
Anagrams are pretty much the same as what mathematicians call “permutations”. In mathematics, a permutation that leaves the word exactly the same is still a permutation. But presumably we’d balk at saying that CLAM is an anagram of CLAM.
There are good reasons the mathematicians define things the way they do. They want to be able to say things like “a permutation of a permutation is a permutation”, but that’s only true if you include the “identity permutation” (with no rearrangement at all).
When I proceeded from BA to MA Cambridge required the payment of a fee for Parliamentary registration, as there used to be University seats, elected by graduates. Unfortunately, for the 1945 election the minimum voting age was 21, and those seats were abolished by the incoming Government, so I didn’t get an opportunity to exercise my vote till the Chancellor’s election in 2010.
Peter @20. Oxford MAs are able to vote for their university’s Poetry Professor in elections that used to require a trip to Oxford to cast a ballot but now include online voting.