Guardian Quiptic 1,297/Picaroon

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Picaroon on fine form with this week’s Quiptic. A pleasing and tractable puzzle with some delightful surface readings. 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 Some overhear trend in government is causing distress
HEART-RENDING
One of the longest hidden clues I have seen for a while: it’s in overHEAR TREND IN Government.

9 That man with styling product is a famous thinker
HEGEL
A charade of HE and GEL. The German philosopher.

10 Absurd notions of processions including farm animal
PARADOXES
An insertion of OX in PARADES. The insertion indicator is ‘including’.

11 Turn over headgear – small, medium or large?
CAPSIZE
A dd cum cd. Your CAP SIZE would determine whether you’d need S, M or L when it came to choosing your flat cap.

12 European gets regular servings of not bad Italian dish
POLENTA
A charade of POLE and NTA for the even letters of NoT bAd.

13 Time chart I arranged to show activity for summer?
ARITHMETIC
(TIME CHART I)* with ‘arranged’ as the anagrind.  The question mark at the end hints at the alternative definition of ‘summer’ as someone who adds up.

15 Present wrapped by mother eagerly
HERE
Hidden in motHER Eagerly.

18 What American sits on, nevertheless needing time
BUTT
A charade of BUT and T.

19 Loathed touring one Swiss city, and slept a long time
HIBERNATED
An insertion of I and BERN in HATED. The insertion indicator is ‘touring’.

22 Hotel is dilapidated and unfriendly
HOSTILE
(HOTEL IS)* with ‘dilapidated’ as the anagrind.

24 Chanel fan’s tropical tree
COCONUT
A charade of COCO [Chanel] and NUT.

25 Make standard mineral so malleable
NORMALISE
(MINERAL SO)* with ‘malleable’ as the anagrind.

26 Many London stores stocking material, perhaps
NYLON
Another hidden: in maNY LONdon. An enduring urban myth is that it was called NYLON because the inventors of it were working in New York and London. In fact it was named by a Du Pont committee because it sounded good. George Eastman chose KODAK as a trade name for the same reason.

27 Ronaldo fares badly in a wild-goose chase
A FOOL’S ERRAND
(RONALDO FARES)* with ‘badly’ as the anagrind.

Down

1 Drunk, Oscar tucked into beer – it’s the best part
HIGH POINT
A charade of HIGH and O for the phonetic alphabet ‘Oscar’ inserted into PINT. The insertion indicator is ‘tucked into’.

2 Fine everybody on the side of the Tories
ALL RIGHT
A charade of ALL and RIGHT. ALL RIGHT has has traditionally been regarded as right, and alright as not all right; but most modern style guides are relaxed about the alternative, since there is no reason not to prefer it if you follow the model of ALTOGETHER or ALWAYS.

3 In North America, the home of the brave?
TEPEE
A cd.

4 Remainer and I hope rule must get changed
EUROPHILE
(I HOPE RULE)* with ‘must get changed’ as the anagrind.

5 Empty duke swallowing rum and large piece of cake
DODDLE
An insertion of ODD and L in DE for the outside letters of ‘duke’. The insertion indicator is ‘swallowing’.

6 Macron’s refusal to receive one cross old president
NIXON
An insertion of I and X in NON. The insertion indicator is ‘to receive’.

7 Repeatedly drink and dance
CHA-CHA
A charade of CHA twice. CHA is slang for tea, a drink with jam and bread.

8 Kind of car in ultimately dire condition
ESTATE
A charade of E for the final letter of ‘dire’ and STATE.

14 Record by medic is altered for medical problems
EPIDEMICS
A charade of EP and (MEDIC IS)* with ‘altered’ as the anagrind.

16 Caught in net at sea, did some fishing
ENTANGLED
A charade of (NET)* and ANGLED. The anagrind is ‘at sea’.

17 Cold-blooded killer working in Canada, surprisingly
ANACONDA
An insertion of ON for ‘working’ in (CANADA)* The insertion indicator is ‘in’ and the anagrind is ‘surprisingly’. All snakes are cold-blooded, of course.

18 Following Harris’s lead, Biden gets confused
BEHIND
(H BIDEN)* with ‘gets confused’ as the anagrind. Great clue.

20 Dang it! Strangely, this is why people use Tinder
DATING
(DANG IT)* with ‘strangely’ as the anagrind.

21 Michael’s brief fuss in Gilbert and Sullivan role
MIKADO
A charade of MIK[E] and ADO.

23 Dismisses revolutionary, a bit of a character
SERIF
A reversal of FIRES. A serif is a short line stemming from the upper or lower ends of the strokes of a letter. Typefaces are generally classified as being SERIF or SANS SERIF (like the one you are reading now).

24 Approving cry from Fidel’s ex-comrade and queen
CHEER
A charade of CHE [Guevara] and ER, Elizabeth Regina, who strictly speaking is now an ex-queen. She is no more.

Many thanks to Picaroon, who has also been working hard to tempt beginners into the dark arts with puzzles in the Quick Cryptic series which my colleague Shanne – to whom also thanks – has been blogging for the last six months.

32 comments on “Guardian Quiptic 1,297/Picaroon”

  3. Thanks Picaroon for a great Quiptic and Pierre for the blog. Not only nicely pitched for difficulty, but with some amusing surfaces too. Hard to pick favourites, but I liked BEHIND for the surface, TEPEE, BUTT and ARITHMETIC for definitions and CAP SIZE just because it made me smile.

  4. Thanks Pierre. Totally agree with your intro. Your comments about NYLON and KODAK are spot on, and still relevant these days. Pharmaceutical companies use lots of Zs and Ys, and unusual combinations of letters, to bamboozle and impress.
    BEHIND a favourite. Some may say not a fair anagram, with a single letter thrown into the anagrist, but eh? Loved it.

    I liked SERIF, because I like serif fonts. Shame that both the Guardian and 15sq don’t. They’re so much easier to read. I’ve messed up solving so many clues for misreading AI and Al. (Motorway or artificial intelligence and aluminium.)

    Nice variation on the tried and true revolutionary, CHE, Fidel’s ex comrade. But have younger solvers ever heard of either?

    I really enjoyed this. Made my day. Every clue’s a gem. I felt lifted and in admiration of Picaroon’s cluing. He makes it seem so easy, doesn’t he? What an art.

  6. I felt it was harder than last week.The upper quadrants took awhile to parse,had to reveal a few to get the answers.Overall it was good and i think improving(???)solvers like myself will enjoy doing.Thanks Picaroon & Pierre.

  8. Just lovely.

    As I said over at the other place, I do hope that those who were recently calling for the Quiptic slot to be retired – due to a frustrating run of very un-Quiptic puzzles – are heartened by ones like this.

    I hope that doesn’t sound snarky either: I shared the frustration of those commenters and it’s a relief that we’re getting puzzles which properly fit the bill again.

  9. The Quick Cryptic Crosswords in the Guardian have encouraged me to try more of the Cryptics as well as these Quiptics. I had a couple of passes of this and seemed to be getting nowhere. With a bit of persistence a few things fell into place and eventually I completed it with only one reveal. My best effort ever.

    The explanations on here are invaluable for clearing up my solutions and giving me more tools for the next time.

    Many thanks

  10. I thought this was a great Quiptic – and the Quick Cryptic crosswords have covered Che – it’s on the crib sheet blog I put together and posted yesterday.

    With my special needs hat on, the problem with serif fonts is that they are much harder for people with dyslexia or reading difficulties to read, which is why the trend for using sans serif – to make their sites/publications more accessible. Actually comparing i/I/1/l/L – of those the only confusion is capital I and lower case L, so A1 and AI are distinguishable on this font, but Al as in Capone and AI as in Artificial Intelligence aren’t.

    Thank you to Pierre and PIcaroon.

  11. I found this to be a relatively straightforward crossword but still really, really fun.

    Slowed myself down a little because I’ve never seen tepee without two initial e’s (or as tipi). It being a cd didn’t give me another way past my ignorance. Tried to make “tribe” work. Once I let that go, the last few fell into place fast.

    Thanks for the puzzle and the blog!

  12. That was a perfectly pitched Quiptic, every surface felt well constructed.

    Shanne@10, agreed – we recently switched all of our online learning material to use Atkinson Hyperlegible instead of a standard sans serif font. It has stroke extensions to disambiguate potentially confusing characters.

    Thanks P&P.

  14. Very happy with today’s quiptic! I have been delving into the archives on the quiptics and rarely remember to pop up in the modern day for the current puzzle (my browser has a quiptic from November 2021 open as I type).

    I think this was the first time I have been able to parse and solve the entire quiptic myself (although I did have to look up the works of Gilbert and Sullivan), thanks to Picaroon for an a. enjoyable Sunday morning and to Pierre for the blog. I think Hibernated was my favourite, spent ages assuming the clue was loathed so that was a nice twist!

    Back to the depths for me now, hope you all have a lovely Sunday!

  16. I completely agree with pm@5, this was brilliant. My favourites were BEHIND and EUROPHILE. I thought the former had a lovely surface. The latter was poignant but sadly that ship has sailed…
    Many thanks to Picaroon and Pierre, and to FrankieG for the clip. HEARTfelt congratulations to Levenite@9 and GrumpyBear@14.

  17. Like Levenite@9 I couldn’t agree more. Thank you Picaroon for a great quiptic today which has restored my confidence. And thanks to all contributors here for all the comments and support. Quick cryptic yesterday was great too. Now for Everyman.

  19. Dare we say it’s a perfect example of a quiptic – suitable for beginners, great for improvers and a pleasant relaxation for experienced solvers. Thanks, Picaroon and Pierre.

  20. I agree with the positive comments. Approachable and well-constructed clues with plenty of smiles.

    I liked HEART RENDING, DODDLE, BEHIND, A FOOLS ERRAND best.

    Thanks Picaroon and Pierre

  22. I really enjoyed this, thank you Picaroon. Thought it was going to be another that over challenged at first scan but the clues all worked out quite steadily. I liked ARITHMETIC for the doh moment when I realised that summer wasn’t the season that comes between spring and autumn. Thanks for the blog Pierre it helped me to clarify a few of the parsings.

  23. After struggling quite a bit with last week’s cryptics, this was refreshing indeed, with some terrific clues, esp. 18D “BEHIND”. DODDLE was new to me (so NOT a piece of cake in my case) but it was clearly the correct answer.

  24. I’ll join the chorus: What a delightful puzzle, full of cleverly constructed clues with excellent surfaces, while still filling the Quiptic brief.

  25. Thanks FrankieG@13 for the CAPSIZE link. Abbott and Costello still crack me up.

    Re 23d, I’m surprised that neither Pierre nor any commenters mentioned the island of San Seriffe. After the original Guardian article, it became the subject of a Guardian cryptic crossword by Puck – #24,662, April 1, 2009, and worth looking up. (Sorry, I don’t do links.)

    Thanks Picaroon for the great quiptic, and Pierre for the excellent blog.

  26. Thanks Picaroon and Pierre
    FOI was CAN CAN @7d. Once this was corrected it went quickly enough, until I spent ages trying to make an anagram of “in Canada” for 17d.

  27. Cellomaniac – that Sans Seriffe supplement was a very long time ago – 1978-1980? I didn’t think anyone would still remember it. (Wikipedia says 1977, but I’m not sure that’s right.)

  28. Thoroughly enjoyed this. Took me all morning but finished it in the end, and the only “cheat” was I had to Google the Gilbert & Sullivan character after I’d basically got it from the wordplay (had it incorrectly spelt as MICADO). LOI was 16d which I couldn’t see for ages for some reason.

    Favourite was ARITHMETIC.

    Thanks Pierre and Picaroon.

  29. As a beginner, yes ultimately doable…. Just. Got hung up on 6 and 23 down. Managed to find the answers without fully understanding the clues, one cross giving ix and the reversal of fires. Very enjoyable although I think I clocked about 97 minutes in total Thanks to all.

  30. Great Quiptic. Had to do it in a few sittings due to other commitments but enjoyed puzzling through it; lovely clues. Thought it was going to be a difficult one when not finding much at first in the top half but got traction on the lower half and then made steady if interrupted progress. Worked out ARITHMETIC but couldn’t see why it was an ‘activity for summer’ until reading through here, now feel like a lemon – doh!
    Thanks Picaroon for a perfectly pitched Quiptic for this improving beginner, and thinks Pierre for the explanations.

  31. Don’t wish to nitpick, Pierre, but just wanted to point out in 12a N-T-A are the odd letters of ‘not bad’, not the even ones (or has somebody already pointed that out?)

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