Guardian Quiptic 992/Matilda

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Matilda usually produces a sound Quiptic for us, but I found this a bit clunky and overloaded with one particular clue type. I think beginners appreciate puzzles where there is more variety in the cluing options.

 

 

 

Abbreviations
cd cryptic definition
dd double definition
cad clue as definition
(xxxx)* anagram
anagrind = anagram indicator
[x] letter(s) removed

definitions are underlined

Across

8 Stopped and taken into 17
ARRESTED
The solution to 17ac is CUSTODY, so this is a dd.

9 Subject of article by author
THEME
A charade of THE and ME.

10 Avoid Peking, for example
DUCK
Another dd, referencing PEKING DUCK, the Chinese speciality. Since we started calling Peking Beijing, a whole generation has grown up not knowing the provenance of this dish (well, in our house anyway – ‘Really, Dad?’ was the response when I explained it, resulting in an immediate scramble to Google to confirm it wasn’t fake news).

11 Illegal hash not a possibility for Irish club
SHILLELAGH
Nice surface. (ILLEGAL H[A]SH)* A word you either know, don’t know, or know but can’t remember how to spell. I was in category three. It’s a cudgel, and the general advice would be not to argue with anyone in possession of one.

12 Brilliance leads to generating every new idea unusually speedily
GENIUS
The first letters of the last six words of the clue.

14 Farewell to an American featured in essay on a raconteur
SAYONARA
Hidden in esSAY ON A RAconteur. I was confused by the ‘American’ bit, because of course it’s Japanese; but some dictionaries mark it as US informal.

15 Bubbly MP’s date is minted
STAMPED
(MPS DATE)*

17 Keep like custard, it’s said
CUSTODY
A dd. If it was ‘like custard’, it would be CUSTARDY, wouldn’t it?

20 Spies holding writer disregarding Western standards
CRITERIA
An insertion of [W]RITER in CIA.

22 Mild bit of bonking in e-book backfires
BENIGN
Hidden reversed in bonkiNG IN E Book.

23 Bad oil? Bargain first
ABORIGINAL
(OIL BARGAIN)*

24 Kick back of car
BOOT
Another dd.

25 Delete periods of history before the end
ERASE
A charade of ERAS and E for the last letter of ‘the’.

26 Dealing with a beating
SEEING TO
Another dd.

Down

1 Turn game off causing row
ARGUMENT
(TURN GAME)*

2 Drink quickly and kiss
NECK
Yet another dd.

3 Somehow assist stoppage
STASIS
(ASSIST)*

4 Most innovative (and most nervous)
EDGIEST
And another dd.

5 Meticulously removing awful scum could give assurance
I TELL YOU
A bit contrived, particularly since there is a temptation to enter I TOLD YOU if you don’t understand what’s occurring. What’s occurring is that there are two anagrinds: ‘awful’ and ‘could give’. The former tells you to create (SCUM)*; the latter to make an anagram of ([M]ETI[C][U]LOU[S]LY)*  The removal indicator is, er, ‘removing’.

6 Duke with capital
WELLINGTON
Matilda is having a tidy-out of her dd drawers this morning.

7 Union Cameron angered heartily
MERGER
A charade of the middle letters (‘heartily’) of caMERon and anGERed. This may well be a reference to caring sharing Dave’s fateful decision to let the people decide, but I’m a bit Brexited out this morning so I am going to pretend that it’s not.

13 Compiler’s perhaps felt irrelevant
IMMATERIAL
A charade of I’M and MATERIAL

16 Work unit comes back in before time for tea
EARL GREY
An insertion of the scientific work unit ERG reversed in EARLY.

18 Check canines?
DOG-TOOTH
This is an opportunity for either: (a) a Grauniad mea culpa along the lines of ‘the clue to 18 down has been amended’, or (b) the circulation of the opinion along the lines of ‘that Pierre couldn’t even parse his own name’. I’m going with the former until someone tells me otherwise. It’s yet another dd: DOG-TOOTH is a checked pattern, and DOG-TOOTH is another word for the ‘canine’ tooth. But ‘canines’ leads to DOG-TEETH, doesn’t it? So I’m surmising that the clue should have been ‘Check canine?’

19 Misery afflicted Danes boarding ship
SADNESS
An insertion of (DANES)* in SS. For newer solvers, ‘boarding ship’ is an instruction to insert something into SS, an abbreviation for ‘steamship’.

21 Tropical tree in the shrubbery
RUBBER
Hidden in shRUBBERy.

22 Japanese train is shot
BULLET
And another dd.

24 Group not allowed to broadcast
BAND
A homophone (‘broadcast’) of BANNED.

Many thanks to Matilda (and the crossword editor, not) for this morning’s Quiptic.

30 comments on “Guardian Quiptic 992/Matilda”

  1. Thanks Matilda and Pierre

    In contrast I thought that this was particularly good, Pierre, with CRITERIA and BENIGN standouts.

    My first thought on DOG-TOOTH was exactly the same as yours, but I decided that DOG and TOOTH were both “canines”, justifying the plural.

    I had no idea what was going on in I TELL YOU. and got it by guessing and checking.

  3. It occurred to me that she could have clued 6d as

    Duke with bandleader – capital!

    Then the “with” is a component rather than just an awkward link-word

  6. Thanks Matilda and Pierre.

    Largely OK as a Quiptic. In 6, the duke could also be ELLINGTON and the with ‘W,’ although that is a bit of an ugly construction, if that was what was intended – see muffin @3’s rewrite.

    I couldn’t quite remember how to spell SHILLELAGH but with most of the crossers it seemed to go in correctly.

  7. Thanks Pierre and Matilda.
    Pierre, I agree with your comments, and also I don’t see how CUSTODY=keep – for one thing the former is a noun, the latter a verb (unless I’m missing something).
    SHILLELAGH (once I’d worked out the spelling from the crossers) and BENIGN were my favourites.

  8. beaulieu, I did have a question over CUSTODY = keep as well.  My thesaurus gives it, but I’m not convinced: I’d use ‘keeping’ myself.

  9. Pierre, thanks for your blog and sorry you weren’t so keen this time. Would you mind having another look at 9 across? ?

  11. I rather enjoyed this, and whipped through it at a rate of knots – for me, which I appreciate isn’t saying much. But it left me happy, anyhow, which is always good on a cold Monday morning. SHILLELAGH was one of the first i got – but I’m in Pierre’s category 3 group and, not knowing how to spell it, I spent a while fiddling around with the available letters before feeling confident enough to put them in place. I interpreted DOG TOOTH in the same way as Muffin, so wasn’t bothered by it. My favourites were BENIGN and ABORIGINAL, and CUSTODY made me smile, as did DUCK – though I agree it probably won’t last very long as a meaningful clue…

  13. Matilda, not sure what you mean about 9 across – is the THE + ME parsing not what you intended?  Or is there a 9 across?  If so, I can’t see one.

  15. Matilda has me baffled too, Pierre. If there is more to the THEME clue than you have given, it would be unsuitable for a Quiptic!

  19. Does Matilda mean there is a theme, i.e. Rubber neck, rubber band, rubber wellington, rubber stamp, rubber = eraser?

  23. Unusual to have a theme in a Quiptic (but it’s not outlawed), and here it’s RUBBER: RUBBER DUCK, RUBBERNECK, RUBBER BAND, RUBBER BULLET, RUBBERSTAMPED, RUBBER BOOT, and WELLINGTON/ERASER to add to that (I guess).

    For those who’ve not come across this before, some papers will let setters include themes.  Here is what some people call a ‘ghost theme’: you can solve the puzzle without knowing what’s going on, and spot something when you’ve finished (or not, in my case).  More overt themes will have what’s called a ‘gateway clue’, which is referenced in other clues, and generally you need to solve before you can easily progress with the remainder of the puzzle.  Usually you’ll only find the former type in the Quiptic (and then rarely).

    Just a bit of added fun, really.  Well done Matilda with this one.

  27. Pierre@26

    It is a rubber truncheon wielded in areas where Irish-American police predominated.

    Thank you for blog

  28. First one I managed to solve before the fifteensquared post came out, though a couple of parsings confused me. I also thought “Duke with” was W/Ellington, but couldn’t work out why it was backwards.

    Still, as a newbie, I was very please to have filled the grid. Thanks for all your help, bloggers and commenters.

  29. 5d is really quite clever IMO, albeit not exactly appropriate for a quiptic. So, once again, you have to wonder: when, oh when, is the Guardian going to employ a crossword editor who actually understands crosswords?

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