A lively and entertaining solve from Matilda this morning, with some inventive clueing to stretch those that fall into the ‘beginner’ rather than the ‘those in a hurry’ category. I have tried to give full explanations for those in the former category, and – as always – comments from newer solvers are particularly welcome.
Abbreviations
cd cryptic definition
dd double definition
cad clue as definition
(xxxx)* anagram
anagrind = anagram indicator
[x] letter(s) removed
definitions are underlined
Across
1 Explodes sculptures, including the head of Rodin
BURSTS
An insertion of R for the first letter of ‘Rodin’ in BUSTS.
9 Process musical work with rocky intro — not right!
OPERATION
A charade of OPERA, the ‘musical work’ and (INT[R]O)* The anagrind is ‘rocky’ and the removal indicator is ‘not’.
10 Leads in amateur drama may insist theatregoers come clean
ADMIT
The first letters of the third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh words of the clue.
11 Writer sues miserable publication
ISSUE
A charade of I for ‘the writer’ and (SUES)* The anagrind is ‘miserable’.
12 Studios for all
UNIVERSAL
A dd, the first bit referencing Universal Studios, the film company.
13 Expressed anger as wanton lodger embraced wife
GROWLED
An insertion of W in (LODGER)* The anagrind is ‘wanton’ and the insertion indicator is ’embraced’.
15 Drunk labourites not able, unfortunately for lover
SUITOR
([L][A][B]OURIT[E]S)* The anagrind is ‘unfortunately’ and the removal indicator is ‘not’.
17 Extremely literate and eager editorial
LEADER
Matilda is inviting you to take the outside letters (‘extremely’) of the second, third and fourth words of the clue to arrive at your answer.
19 Corrupts sweetheart in rolling fields
DEFILES
An insertion of E in (FIELDS)* The insertion indicator is ‘in’ and the anagrind is ‘rolling’. Where does the E come from? From the middle of ‘swEet’, in other words, ‘sweet heart’. An increasingly small number of people object to this device, but if you are new to all this, you can safely ignore them and let them get equally apoplectic about ‘midnight’ and ‘Gateshead’ clueing the letter G, and about 18dn in this puzzle.
22 Rattle copper, as an example
CONDUCTOR
A dd. The first part requires a bit of GK, but you can’t say that Sir Simon Rattle isn’t world-renowned.
24 Played losing sides for loot
RIFLE
[T]RIFLE[D]
26 Correct pen by the sound of it
RIGHT
A homophone of WRITE. The homophone indicator is ‘by the sound of it’.
27 Got better and renewed insurance
RECOVERED
A dd (cum cd, maybe).
28 Uterus repaired with small stitches
SUTURES
Great surface. (UTERUS S)* with ‘repaired’ as the anagrind.
29 Plea for each to let in some light
PRAYER
An insertion of RAY in PER.
Down
2 Recites aloud instrumental parts?
REEDS
A homophone of READS. The homophone indicator is ‘aloud’. For those who’ve come here to learn, I’ll explain why I think that 26ac is fine, but that this clue is less fine. In 26ac, the homophone indicator, because of its position in the clue, can only be referring to ‘pen’, so it has to be a homophone of its synonym, ‘write’. Here, the homophone indicator ‘aloud’ is in the middle, so it could be read as referring to either the first or the last parts of the clue. It fits more comfortably with the first from the surface reading, for sure; but following the cryptic grammar it could equally be indicating a homophone of REEDS. So you don’t know until you’ve got some crossing letters which the answer is (and fair dinkum to Matilda, the ambiguity is indeed resolved by the crosser). There endeth the lesson. Other views on the use of this device are available.
3 First to tie knot, went ahead and saw the world
TRAVELLED
A charade of T for the first letter of ‘tie’, RAVEL and LED.
4 Awful mess leaves businessmen scrabbling for some bucks?
BUNNIES
Another subtraction plus anagram clue; Matilda is keen on them this morning. She (I think it’s she) is asking you to make an anagram (‘awful’) of MESS and subtract it (‘leaves’) from ‘businessmen’ and then make an anagram (‘scrabbling’). So it’s (BUSIN[ESSM]EN)* The question mark is there because ‘bucks’ can refer to animals other than male bunnies.
5 Underwear with visible edges — that’s audacious
BRAVE
A charade of BRA and VE for the outside letters of ‘visible’.
6 Mob allows production of natural fibre
LAMBSWOOL
(MOB ALLOWS)*
7 Felt testicle, a bit round and complete
SETTLE
That’s good news. Hidden reversed in fELT TESticle.
8 Fifty-one pounds held in cash
LIQUID
A charade of LI for ‘fifty-one’ in Roman numerals and QUID.
14 Voting her out within a very short time
OVERNIGHT
(VOTING HER)*
16, 1 down Compiler’s always spending recklessly on champagne hit!
I’M FOREVER BLOWING BUBBLES
A charade of I’M (‘compiler is’) FOREVER, BLOWING and BUBBLES. It was indeed a hit: almost exactly a hundred years ago on Broadway. Better known these days as an anthem of West Ham United, but given their spineless loss to lower league AFC Wimbledon at the weekend we’d better move on and not upset Hammers fans any further.
18 Goes back for ringleader fomenting unrest
RETURNS
Another one to raise the blood pressure of the ‘purists’. R for the first letter of ‘ringleader’ (you have to read it as ‘leader of ring’) and (UNREST)* The anagrind is ‘fomenting’.
19 Frank, call the shots!
DIRECT
A dd, with the second definition slightly whimsical, referring to a film director.
20 Shylock’s first: his job is meagre
SLENDER
This will reduce the incidence of purist hypertension: S for the first letter of ‘Shylock’ followed by LENDER, which was indeed his ‘job’ in The Merchant of Venice.
21 Twenties sheet music
SCORES
A dd.
23 Say goat lost head
UTTER
[B]UTTER. ‘Goat’ for BUTTER is well-established in crosswordland.
25 Transport for Bryan?
FERRY
More GK, but with the definition clearly as ‘transport’ and F?R?Y, we musn’t grumble. The unusual spelling of ‘Bryan’ should have helped too: it’s referring to Bryan FERRY of Roxy Music fame. A dd.
Many thanks to Matilda for this morning’s Quiptic.
Yes I thought it was a good quiptic with lovely surfaces. Thanks for the blog.
Thanks Matilda and Pierre
I enjoyed this – not as easy as some Quiptics. RETURNS was my favourite!
I also liked BUNNIES, but I don’t think it was a good idea to use the same trick again in the same puzzle.
As you mentioned, a lot of GK – UNIVERSAL, Rattle, Shylock, FERRY. I knew all the references, but Ferry might floor a lot of people.
BUNNIES drove me spare – but the rest was delightful. DEFILES, PRAYER, BRAVE, LEADER and BURSTS were amongst my early successes, and for a while I thought there might be some current-mess-in-Westminster theme – which meant I spent an eternity up a blind alley with 4 Down….
I particularly liked the economy of SHYLOCK and SUTURES. Many thanks to Matilda, and a tsunami of gratitude to Pierre for clarifying 4 Down and for all the useful extra information in the blog!
All done in record time this morning. Either that was an easy one, or I’m getting better at this. Either way, a lovely puzzle.
I’d go for the latter, mtega …
Excellent crossword – this is how I like a Quiptic.
And one that helped me to get rid of the bad taste in my mouth caused by yesterday’s Everyman.
Many thanks to Pierre & Matilda.
Great fun! Thanks Pierre for explaining everything so clearly. It really helps a beginner like me!
A quick note on the parsing of 15a: There are actually two anagrinds, namely “drunk” and “unfortunately”. The reason is similar to 4d: The instructions are to remove an anagram of ABLE from an anagram of LABOURITES.
It’s always seemed to me that the second anagrind is unnecessary in clues like this. The recipe for the wordplay is to take an anagram of LABOURITES — namely SUITOR ABLE or ABLE SUITOR — and then remove ABLE from it. As long as we do the anagram before the subtraction, there’s no need to anagram again. So I claim that “unfortunately” could be omitted from the clue.
To be clear, I’m not claiming that the second anagrind is wrong, but merely that it’s unnecessary.
Wholly agree with you, Ted.
[In 4d, however, for the reason you give, we’ll need both anagram indicators]
Thanks for the very clear explanation Pierre. Muffin, I had no trouble with Bryan Ferry but had never heard of Mr Rattle
Lovely Quiptic and blog, thanks both. My personal favourite was the Rattle/copper one which kept me going for far far longer than it should have, trying to get Cu in somehow. Doh!
Didn’t get CONDUCTOR, I’d never heard of him. FERRY I got with all the crossers, but I still didn’t know who he was. I had OPERATION unparsed because I got stuck at OP_RTION by not noticing the subtraction. Didn’t fully parse I’M FOREVER BLOWING BUBBLES (it was a hit?) but it couldn’t’ve been anything else.
Liked UNIVERSAL and BRAVE, and the way the whole puzzle acted as a drill for subtractions, which I often don’t spot.
Thanks, Ted. That’s a good point about the double anagrind in 15ac, which I didn’t spot. Alternatively, you could leave out ‘drunk’ and keep ‘unfortunately’, couldn’t you? It would still work, I think, and the surface would be better.
You could, Pierre.
However, then the deletion comes first – in which the letters A,B,L,E will be deleted in a different (not indicated) order.
Some don’t mind (seeing each letter as a ‘single element’), others do (for the reason Ted gives).
A matter of taste? Perhaps.
Sil van den Hoek @9 —
In 4d, I think you could leave off “Awful”. The cryptic reading would be “Mess leaves (businessman scrambling)”. The latter part in parentheses gives BUNNIES MESS, and then you take MESS away.
This requires grouping terms together in an unexpected way, as indicated by my parentheses. But I think that that sort of trick is common in cryptic clues. For instance, in a clue whose wordplay is of the form
A B C <reversal indicator>
the reversal indicator might apply to just C, or to B C, or to A B C.
Ted, agree.
[this doesn’t apply to what Pierre said about 15ac, I think]
I don’t agree with Pierre @13: Leaving out “Drunk” doesn’t seem to work. In that case, the anagrind (“unfortunately”) would have to apply to the unit “labourites not able”.The problem is that there’s no indication that the letters of “able” are out of order in “labourites”. (Alternatively, you could imagine that the anagrind applied only to “able”, but that’s worse.)
Since “unfortunately” is necessary for the surface, and since it’s permitted if not required to have an anagrind there, I guess Matilda was right to leave it in.
All sorted, then.
I also mentioned 15 and 4d in a comment under the puzzle itself before Pierre’s published article (for which so many thanks, as always). It’s still my opinion that there need not be some indictator that the letters to be removed are not in the same order in the clue word containing them. That’s just too much handholding, even in a quiptic.
I enjoyed this a lot. I did it today instead of the Picaroon.
My favourites were BUNNIES, SCORES, SLENDER.
Thank you Matilda and Pierre
I had REELS for 4D, and I think it works better. Reels off = recites aloud (to me, reciting is from memory, not from reading). Reels (and jigs) are instrumental parts of Irish music, but reeds are instruments, not instrumental parts