One of the most positive things that Alan Connor has done since he took over as Guardian crossword editor is to recruit additional, established setters to join the team of those who compile puzzles specifically for the Quiptic slot. Picaroon is a regular setter of the Guardian daily cryptic as well as appearing as Buccaneer in the FT and as Rodriguez in the Independent. But here he is with a nicely pitched Quiptic offering for the target audience of ‘beginners and those in a hurry’. Bravo.
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 Prompt to follow Ken’s partner, missing one alfresco meal
BARBECUE
A charade of BARB[I]E and CUE. Don’t ever be tempted to spell it BARBEQUE, btw. It’s too upsetting to even think about.
6 Ornate style with gold around by Ms Chanel
ROCOCO
A charade of OR for ‘gold’ reversed and COCO.
9 I tell fibs, probing head of McGill University’s background
MILIEU
An insertion of I LIE in M for the initial letter of ‘McGill’ and U. The insertion indicator is ‘probing’.
10 Tory PM eats nothing in African country
CAMEROON
An insertion of O in caring, sharing, call me Dave CAMERON. The insertion indicator is ‘eats’.
11 Ginger Spice with battered car – it’s very old
GERIATRIC
A charade of GERI [Halliwell] and (CAR IT)* To make complete sense of the cryptic grammar, you have to read ‘it’s’ as ‘it is’.
13 US tennis champion’s cricket trophy
ASHES
A dd. The first definition is referring to Arthur Ashe, who was the only male black tennis player ever to win the singles titles at Wimbledon, the US Open, and the Australian Open.
15 Attempt to keep objective and up-to-date
TRENDY
An insertion of END in TRY. The insertion indicator is ‘to keep’.
17 Ships from abroad oddly carrying bananas
ARMADA
An insertion of MAD in ARA, the odd letters of AbRoAd. The insertion indicator is ‘carrying’.
18 Puzzled personnel in urban area
THROWN
An insertion of HR for Human Resources in TOWN. The insertion indicator is ‘in’.
19 Key Greek character in old Greek city
DELPHI
A charade of DEL for the key that will be in front of you if you are sitting at your computer and PHI.
21 Lusty woodland deity took a pew by youngster, gutted
SATYR
A charade of SAT and YR for the outside letters (‘gutted’) of ‘youngster’.
22 Monarch cutting high costs for hosiery items
STOCKINGS
An insertion of KING in (COSTS)* The insertion indicator is ‘cutting’ and the anagrind is ‘high’.
25 Moore and Travolta getting wine bottle?
DEMIJOHN
A charade of DEMI [Moore] and JOHN [Travolta].
26 Lovers excited you
SOLVER
(LOVERS)* with ‘excited’ as the anagrind.
28 A notorious London barber’s in conflict
AT ODDS
A charade of A and TODDS. The barber is of course Sweeney Todd. Meat pies, anyone?
29 Depicts primarily odious rogue like Kim Jong Un?
DESPOTIC
(DEPICTS O)* with ‘rogue’ as the anagrind.
Down
2 Fighter needing some adrenaline
ALI
Hidden in adrenALIne.
3 Starters from brasserie likely including nuts in pancake
BLINI
The initial letters of the third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh words of the clue.
4 Channel 4 game show about unknown part of Ireland
COUNTY DOWN
An insertion of Y for the mathematical ‘unknown’ in COUNTDOWN, whose claim to fame is that it opened Channel 4’s coverage on its debut night on 2nd November 1982.
5 Cryptic clue I had for mathematician
EUCLID
A charade of (CLUE)* and I’D. The anagrind is ‘cryptic’ and the Greek mathematician is the father of geometry.
6 Right measure of current inclination
RAMP
A charade of R and AMP.
7 Someone witty and clever, one with an ace up their sleeve?
CARD SHARP
A charade of CARD and SHARP.
8 Working together with Picaroon – get moving!
COOPERATING
(PICAROON GET)* with ‘moving’ as the anagrind. Nice spot.
12 Sheltered by rogue state, a gentle property seller
ESTATE AGENT
Hidden in roguE STATE A GENTle.
14 Barristers accepting lawsuit – they hold documents
BRIEFCASES
An insertion of CASE in BRIEFS. The insertion indicator is ‘accepting’.
16 I err badly, fooling around for a lark?
EARLY BIRD
(I ERR BADLY)* with ‘fooling around’ as the anagrind. The ornithological reference is to the phrase ‘up with the lark’, since she is one of the first birds to sing at dawn, or often prior to it. Shakespeare’s Juliet loathed the bird, since it signalled Romeo to depart her bedroom window in the morning.
It is the lark that sings so out of tune,
Straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps.
Some say the lark makes sweet division.
This doth not so, for she divideth us.
20 Wasted, as cherries may be
STONED
A dd. ‘Wasted’ and STONED and both informal words for ‘drunk’.
23 White House perhaps has one good bathroom
IGLOO
A charade of I, G and LOO.
24 Outsize M&S skirts for British supermodel
MOSS
An insertion of OS in M and S. The insertion indicator is ‘skirts’ and the reference is to Kate Moss.
27 Regular servings of eclair for Biblical priest
ELI
The odd letters of EcLaIr.
Many thanks to Picaroon for this week’s Quiptic.
Enjoyable puzzle.
Favourites: IGLOO, DELPHI.
Thanks, both.
Held up today only by years of apparently mishearing card sharps as being finned. Favourites were IGLOO, COOPERATING and COUNTY DOWN.
Thanks Picaroon and Pierre!
Great puzzle – got and even parsed everything except for Delphi, which totally eluded me and had to be revealed. Loved 8. Thanks for the puzzle and blog.
RussellK@2 – card sharks is also correct apparently – I’ve used them interchangeably and Merriam-Webster confirms. There’s also a game called Card Sharks.
Are these your first comments, Greyhound? On my blog, perhaps. In which case, welcome. I have always thought it was CARD SHARPS and LOAN SHARKS, but evidently we can have card sharks as well. Kind of works, since they are going to gobble up your money if you’re not careful.
Just right I thought – lots of lovely clues.
BARBECUE and AT ODDS made me smile and I liked EUCLID, DELPHI and CARD SHARP
Thanks Picaroon and Pierre
Favourites were COUNTY DOWN, COOPERATING, IGLOO and EARLY BIRD. CAMEROON was reminiscent of a clue in Paul’s cryptic earlier in the week. Beautifully pitched for new SOLVERS.
One of my favourite sing along earworms
https://youtu.be/jXLnSkGmTdQ
Ta Picaroon & Pierre.
Good one. 17 threw me as I was sure the definition was ‘ships from abroad’. Also OR for gold was new to me. Thanks.
Thanks Pierre. Surely crossword setters can let Arthur Ashe have a well-earned rest by now? Our North American friends will know him well, but I wonder if they’ll know the ”cricket trophy”, The Ashes (except through cryptics ).
CO-OPERATING and SOLVER were a nice pair. EARLY BIRD a fun surface. ESTATE AGENT well hidden.
Disagree with the definition of GERIATRIC, although found it on line as informal, and/or offensive in the sense here.
Clever use of McGill University in MILIEU, and the lies being alluded to, I imagine, are the infamous “Montreal” experiments conducted at McGill, with the involvement of the CIA, on poor unwitting guinea pigs who had their memories altered.
Pierre@5 – I’ve been around for a while but was commenting under my real name until I decided that probably wasn’t a great idea these days. I’ve never had a welcome though, so thank you!
Card sharks is probably “adapted from” card sharps, says the OED nonjudgmentally – it doesn’t suggest it’s a mistake as such, since cheat is a commonly used meaning of shark, though some pedants will no doubt insist that card sharks is wrong.
Anyway, I concur with everyone else in finding this a breezily delightful example of a Quiptic. Thanks, P&P.
I really enjoyed this. Many thanks to Picaroon and Pierre. My favourite was COOPERATING, just brilliant. Also thanks to AlanC, one of my favourites too…
I had CARD SHARK; I have never seen or heard of CARD SHARP.
9a, 19a, 21a, 22a all beat me.
5d beat me all ends up: CLUE I HAD = 8 letters, yet the answer has 6 letters. Is there any hint in the clue to ignore ‘h’ & ‘a’?
What a lovely quiptic today, with very clear explanations.
My favourite, COOPERATING, was a clever misdirection and such a great anagram. ARMADA was also a nice misdirection, EARLY BIRD another lovely anagram and IGLOO was amusing. I also liked the clever MILIEU.
STONED was amusing. I think STONED refers to being high on drugs especially marijuana, rather than being drunk, but both WASTED and STONED mean being intoxicated in some way. I admit I could be out of date.
Thanks to both Picaroon and Pierre
In explanation for 13A, the word “male” has been omitted. Black women players have won these titles, and the French too, which Ashe never won.
STONED
Wasted and STONED, I think, are synonymous in both contexts (drunk as well as high on drugs). Someone may correct me if I am wrong.
EUCLID
(attn Steffen)
I haD=I’D (as a rule no specific indicator is given to shorten ‘I had’ to ‘I’d’ or ‘I have’ to ‘I’ve’). Also, note that ID is not part of the anagram fodder (It’s explained in the blog as A charade of (CLUE)* and I’D ).
Absolutely splendid puzzle for this slot! – how generous of Picaroon to have used the brilliant spot COOPERATING for this puzzle, where it will have a smaller audience.
Some really great clues – my ticks were for 1ac BARBECUE (I share Pierre’s revulsion for the ubiquitous alternative spelling – and its abbreviation BBQ), 19ac DELPHI (happy memories of one of the most awe-inspiring places I’ve ever visited), 21ac SATYR, which made me laugh, 29ac DESPOTIC, 5dn EUCLID and the very cleverly hidden ESTATE AGENT at 12dn.
Many thanks to Picaroon for the fun and to Pierre for the blog – and thanks to AlanC for the happy reminder of the years I lived in 4dn, decades ago.
Lovely puzzle. Especially liked a number of clues that JackOfAllTrades described the other day as cutting across the etymology with the wordplay, like A[Todd]s, the clever hidden in 12ac with the deceptive “rogue,” and the setter’s name for once being used for its letters rather than just the first-person pronoun!
I at first thought “It’s strange that channel 4 had a game show called Count Cork,” which is particularly bad because we were visiting my wife’s family in Co. Down last month. For the other UK-ish references, I think I’ve heard of the Ashes outside puzzles, it’s definitely better known than some of the events that pop up. Mses. Moss and Halliwell are of course internationally famous, or were.
About sharp/shark, it seems that “card sharp” is a little older; OED has it from 1840 and “shark” form 1877. I thought “card shark” might have been influenced “pool shark” but OED doesn’t have that until the 1880s.
Our friends across the pond may get conned by a pool shark: pool has sharks, and cards have sharps.
Nicely hidden ESTATE AGENT. The ones that took me longest were MILIEU, ARMADA, DELPHI and GERIATRIC, where I wasted geological ages trying to make it be one: mesozoic or triassic or something of the sort.
Trying to think where else I have seen IGLOO very recently: I like Picaroon’s clue.
Lovely puzzle not a duff clue in sight. Perfectly pitched too. I think in an odd way I almost prefer Picaroon’s quiptics to his cryptics.
Thanks both.
“Card shark” is slightly more common than “card sharp” in Google NGram’s main corpus, but “sharp” wins out in the British English corpus. Both are common enough in all of the English corpora that it’d be fine to clue either one.
“Sharp” definitely came first, in the late 19th century; “shark” is rare until the 1920s. I would be tempted to speculate that “Mack the Knife” put the idea in people’s heads, but the timing isn’t quite right.
I agree with what appears to be the consensus: a very satisfactory Quiptic, with the only flaw being that it was over too soon (although that can be taken as meaning that it fills the Quiptic brief, of course). The high point for me was the definition in 23dn (IGLOO), but there were certainly plenty of other things to like.
Glad you enjoyed the wee tune Pauline & Eileen.
Remembered where the other IGLOO was but won’t say as it is one whose blog won’t appear till next weekend.
Thanks for the write up. I got DELPHI but couldn’t parse the DEL part.
IGLOO made me chuckle. And liked MILIEU as it reminded me of a great trip to Montreal.
Lovely romp this morning through the Quiptic. Loved the spot for COOPERATING.
Thank you Pierre and Picaroon.
(Sorry, Town Show meant I’ve been out most of the day on a stall.)
11a GERIATRIC falls foul of The Guardian and Observer style guide:
‘geriatrics – branch of medicine dealing with elderly people, not an amusing way to describe them in an attempt to make yourself sound cool’.
(It also misses out the medical part of the definition.)
I really like the way that the Quiptic is now on a Sunday (and after my warm up session with the saturday quick cryptic). Then I can spend the rest of the week chewing over a heavy weight Cryptic. I really liked IGLOO. Thanks to Picaroon and Pierre for another enjoyable time spent puzzling.
Re 11a GERIATRIC, one of my string quartets, all of whom are retirees, plays the fast movements in keeping with the Italian tempo indication “Allegro geriatrico”. We don’t find it insulting at all.
Eileen@17, I always thought that BBQ was a charade of BB for BarBe and Q as a homophone of cue, and that the cringeworthy misspelling of barbecue derived from the short form, not the other way around. Somehow I wouldn’t think of grilling hamburgers at the BBC.
I agree with Pierre about the use of regular cryptic setters for the Quiptics, and Picaroon is a fine example. This puzzle fit the Quiptic mandate while being full of excellent and witty clues. Picaroon did not compromise on quality, only on difficulty.
Thanks Picaroon and Pierre for the peerless puzzle and precise parsing.
What Eileen wrote @17, except the COUNTY DOWN bit of course
It was a Picaroon weekend – he also appeared in the FT this weeked
Thanks Picaroon and Pierre
It’s Picaroon; it’s excellent. Of course it is. I saved this one until today so I had a double helping with today’s cryptic.
as a grateful disciple of the quick cryptic series I was delighted to test my skills on this Quiptic; perfect next level , a real joy
Fantastic puzzle. My favourites were COUNTY DOWN, COOPERATING, and AT ODDS — all made me chuckle or make audible noises of appreciation.
My only problem is that I don’t see how “barrister” means “brief”. Any pointers on that one?
Thanks S&B.
@32. – brief = colloq for a barrister
A rare finish for me, AND I understood all of them. Lovely stuff. And IGLOO was great.
As someone who has been struggling with quiptics for years now I’ve found the ones in the last few weeks much more approachable.
Thanks Picaroon and Pierre.
Late to this party.
Funny about BARBECUE–it derives from the Spanish barbacoa, which in turn was borrowed from Taino, for the wooden frame used to roast meat over a fire. Barbacoa, in modern Mexican Spanish, is a specific food–namely, beef that’s slow-roasted (and smoked) in a pit oven. (It’s yummy in a taco.) Barbecue in American English is often but not always used to refer to slow-roasted smoked meat more generally (with regional styles in Texas, Kansas City, and the Carolinas each considered by their adherents as a cut above the others). As a verb, though, it’s often used here to mean outdoor grilling instead (or, as a noun, a social gathering involving a cookout) like it is in the rest of the world. But there are barbecue snobs who insist that the word be restricted to the former category, while the latter is to strictly be called grilling. Like so many other bits of pedantry, that one is misplaced. Anyway, barbecue to mean an outdoor meal as it’s defined here sets some teeth on edge in the South.
I always thought that card shark was American and card sharp was British, but the posters above seem to indicate that it’s more complicated than that.