Guardian Quiptic 1,317/Carpathian

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A solver-friendly grid with clear, solver-friendly clueing and no obscurities. Carpathian is in town.

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 One leaving railway’s delayed convert
TRANSLATE
A charade of TRA[I]NS and LATE.

6 Get rid of former private equity leaders initially
EXPEL
A charade of EX and PEL for the initial letters of ‘private’, ‘equity’ and ‘leaders’.

9 Motorhead fiddle playing is unexceptional
MIDDLE-OF-THE-ROAD
(MOTORHEAD FIDDLE)* with ‘playing’ as the anagrind. Motorhead is a rock band, m’lud. Not sure Lemmy and his mates ever had a fiddle player, though.

10 Condemnation of revolting disposition
DOOM
A reversal of MOOD.

11 Wild rhinoceros not greeting singers
CROONERS
(R[HI]INOCEROS)* with ‘wild’ as the anagrind.

14 Worker left bare mangled bicycle part
HANDLEBAR
A charade of HAND, L and (BARE)* with ‘mangled’ as the anagrind.

15 Regularly plant Pinot in courtyard
PATIO
The even letters of PlAnT pInOt.

16 Barrel I carried containing heirloom
RELIC
Hidden in BarREL I Carried.

18 Suggest annuities wrongly distributed
INSINUATE
(ANNUITIES)* with ‘wrongly distributed’ as the anagrind.

20 Caused X to follow live attempt by head of technology
BEGOTTEN
A charade of BE, GO, T for the initial letter of ‘technology’ and TEN, for which X is the Roman numeral. BEGET, like FORGET, forms its past participle with the -OTTEN ending; GET doesn’t, except if you live in the United States or Canada. But the past tenses are different: BEGET becomes BEGAT (especially in the Old Testament) but FORGET becomes FORGOT. English can be annoying.

21 Swindle turncoats
SCAM
You need to do a lift-and-separate job on ‘turncoats’ to give you turn coats; if the coats become MACS and you ‘turn’ that, SCAM results.

25 Indifference of adolescent herds on the move
COLDHEARTEDNESS
(ADOLESCENT HERDS)* with ‘on the move’ as the anagrind.

26 More devious killer taking out American
SLYER
SL[A]YER

27 Mysterious giant mice getting agitated
ENIGMATIC
(GIANT MICE)* with ‘getting agitated’ as the anagrind.

Down

1 Note: backward, dense and lacking courage
TIMID
A charade of TI for the seventh note of the sol-fa and DIM reversed.

2 With child, filled with love etc
AND SO ON
An insertion of O for ‘love’ in AND SON. The insertion indicator is ‘filled with’.

3 Auction is small beer
SALE
A charade of S and ALE.

4 A cat finds something very small
ATOM
A charade of A and TOM.

5 Go in and force open business
ENTERPRISE
A charade of ENTER and PRISE.

6 Look cracking and sensational
EYE-OPENING  EYE-POPPING
A charade of EYE and OPENING POPPING

7 Express dissent for examination
PROTEST
A charade of PRO and TEST.

8 Attractive object many announced with character
LODESTONE
A charade of LODES, aural wordplay (‘announced’) for LOADS, and TONE. ‘Attractive’ in the magnetic sense, of course.

12 Concealed disadvantage in promotional material for bird
FLYCATCHER
Oooh, a bird. V good, as Bridget would say. The Spotted Flycatcher, which is to be found in the Obligatory Pierre Bird Link, is a summer visitor to these shores. The RSPB site describes it as ‘beautiful in an understated way’, and I can’t disagree with that. On the decline, though: by 88% between 1970 and 2018, and now on the Red List. Before I forget, it’s an insertion of CATCH in FLYER, with ‘concealed’ as the insertion indicator.

13 Completely destroy old book, set on fire by European judge
OBLITERATE
A charade of O, B, LIT, E and RATE.

14 Books tough rugby players
HARDBACKS
A charade of HARD and BACKS.

17 Support associate according to the law
LEGALLY
A charade of LEG and ALLY.

19 Very old worker hiding one hundred from Spain
ANCIENT
An insertion of CIEN, the Spanish word for ‘one hundred’ in ANT. The insertion indicator is ‘hiding’. Gabriel García Márquez wrote Cien Años de Soledad, which translated as A Hundred Years of Solitude.

22 Melodic sounds upset number in charge
MUSIC
A charade of SUM reversed and IC.

23 Alien getting unwrapped suit into case
ETUI
A charade of ET for the setters’ favourite, if not only, ‘alien’ and [S]UI[T]. A word that crops up in crossies much more than in real life.

24 Flipping crazy to follow a man
ADAM
A charade of A and MAD reversed.

And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth (Genesis, 5:3, KJV)

As always, thank you to Carpathian for a well-crafted puzzle.

38 comments on “Guardian Quiptic 1,317/Carpathian”

  3. I suspect the newer solvers are going to find this more approachable than yesterday’s Quick Cryptic, also by Carpathian.

    Love spotted FLYCATCHERs, my parents used to have them in their garden, where I grew up.

    Thank you to Pierre and Carpathian.

  4. I think I did quite well, only revealing one , and then see on here just how many little details and clues I missed, or have had my own rather odd logic for the answers !
    Thanks for the tips ( and making me laugh at my incompetence )
    Great crossword and blog.

  5. Gladys@2. Yep – EYE-POPPING.

    Again disappointed by a setter resorting to using a foreign language for part of an answer.

  6. Very enjoyable. I liked yesterday’s Quiptic too but the answers went in more smoothly with this one. Does anyone ever use the word ETUI outside of crosswords?

  7. Thanks Pierre and Carpathian.
    Found this on a similar level to yesterday’s quick cryptic, and yesterday’s seasonal beers helped with 3d.

  8. Thanks, gladys@2. It is indeed EYE-POPPING (as shown in the grid, which I entered correctly). Then EYE-OPENING made its way into the blog because of muppetry on my part (and because I incorrectly entered that answer on first pass).

    Crispy@5, I think foreign words are fair game for a setter, as long as they are not too obscure. Do you get disappointed when ‘the French’ clues LE or when ‘one German’ clues EIN? Not everyone will know that CIEN is ‘a hundred’ in Spanish, but ANCIENT is pretty clearly the answer when you’ve got the crossers, and it’s cognate with CENTURY, CENTURION, CENTENARY, or even CENT (and actually, most of the time is CIENTO instead of CIEN, but that’s by the by).

  9. Stumped by flycatcher – I was sure promotional must be PR so it must be a bird starting with P. A good lesson in not getting stuck on one idea when it clearly isn’t working! Happily the rest went in okay. Some fun (long!) anagrams. Thanks Carpathian and Pierre.

  10. Amma @6 I have a very small collection of ETUIs, mostly from my grandmother – and it’s a much nicer word than hussif (also housewife), albeit slightly different, but for the same purpose. I’ve got to teach girls to make hussifs in a few weeks.

  11. Many thanks to Pierre and Carpathian.

    I agree with the consensus that this was more friendly than the QC yesterday. I too had EYE-OPENING rather than POPPING to begin with but soon realised.

    AND SO ON is very well constructed and I liked ENIGMATIC for the image it conjured up.

    Amna @6, I’ve never seen ETUI outside crosswordland where it. does seem to feature fairly often…

  16. The Elision of the space in “turn coats” (aka Playtex) in 21a SCAMS is advanced for a Quiptic.
    They can be harder to spot than this one, and some solvers regard them as unfair. — [9a “Motörhead” missing their umlaut.]

  17. Steffen @ 15 – 20A Caused X to follow live attempt by head of technology

    Caused = definition = BE GO T TEN

    X = TEN in Roman numerals
    to follow – says that is the last part of the answer
    live = BE – to live, to be – that verb of to be often gets clued as live as in am/is/are too
    attempt = GO – a try, a go, an attempt
    by head of technology = T

  18. As always with Carpathian, some brilliant anagrams and evocative surfaces. My faves were Lemmy with a violin, crooners faced with a wild rhino, adolescent herds’ coldheartedness (was I the only one thinking of Musk’s minions laying waste to US admin?) – plus the succinct SCAM, ADAM & ETUI.
    Many thanks to Carpathian for her usual classiness, and to Pierre for the blog and the flycatcher.

  19. Ah thank you Shanne @17, like Steffen @15 I found that hard to fully parse. Makes sense now. Charades with more than two elements seem to defeat me.

    Overall a lovely quiptic. Thanks Carpathian and Pierre for the blog.

  20. Really enjoyable Quiptic. Made solid but scattered progress across the grid and then bottom to top. Too many things I liked but 21a was a particular favourite as I, for once, spotted the lift and separate of ‘turncoats’ 😄. Never heard of ETUI and don’t think it’s turned up in the QCs or other Quiptics I’ve done but very clearly clued.
    Thanks Carpathian and Pierre.

  22. I found this for the most part very easy but there were a few that were slightly trickier, which I enjoyed overall. LOI was DOOM but only cos I found TIMID and TRANSLATE both a bit tricky. I think they were both harder in construction. TRANSLATE needs the s from railway’s so it should be TRA[I]NS. And with TIMID it’s not obvious what backwards refers to or that lacking is part of the definition. So perfectly fair but tricker. It occurs to me that 10a could clue mood also but perhaps not.
    Not much to grumble about apart from maybe a little bit of repeating yesterdays QC; ADAM used ‘flipping crazy’ and SALE/SALES both using beer. Very nice puzzle.

  24. Forgive me if someone has mentioned this aready; I did look through the previous comments but I might have missed something.

    In 19d, inserting CIEN into ANT would surely give ANCIENNT, no? What am I missing?

    I was thinking C for 100 (Roman numerals) and E for Spain, but couln’t fifure out where the I came from. Now if it were “one hundred and one from Spain”….?

  27. A couple of beautiful long anagrams at COLDHEARTEDNESS and MIDDLE OF THE ROAD – but my favourite today was AND SO ON.

  31. Kicked myself multiple times for not being able to parse so many clues. A really enjoyable quiptic for this beginner. As ever, help with the parsing was greatly appreciated. Thank you both.

  32. Very approachable. Like AlanC@12 and Gladys @27 I particularly enjoyed the long anagrams. Some nice surfaces too

    Nice to see a bird reference for Pierre too

    Thanks Carpathian and Pierre.

  33. Shane @ 16 so MIDDLE OF THE RÖAD? 🙂 (I actually liked this clue so much that I may start using the diaresis when writing “middle of the road” in future, so I can inform anyone who spots it of the anagram).

    Fastest Quiptic solve I’ve had in the few weeks I’ve been doing them; last one in for me was CROONERS which popped into my head just as I fell asleep for a nap thinking about it. Only got there from the crossers and “singers”, then couldn’t figure out why it was so when I woke up despite the, er, rhinoceros staring me in the face. Just goes to show how non-functional I am after waking and prior to caffeine ingestion.

    Second ETUI I’ve encountered now and I’m sure it’s the second of many; suspect like Amma @ 6 I’m not going to cross paths with it outside of crossword grids.

    Regarding got/gotten — I’ve been saying “gotten” ever since a polylingual friend pointed out the get/forget inconsistency to me. Both of us are from the UK; I’d assume there are more of us out there.

  34. FrankieG @ 23 I’d never come across “lift and separate” used in that sense, and it doesn’t seem to be very useful, to be honest. I’d always seen it used to describe words that have the fodder and instruction combined, e.g. hardback = D, sweetheart = E/WEE.

    Wikitionary has both senses in (yours as #1), with a usage note that states “The first sense is primarily used by Ximenean commentators, who consider the second type of device illegitimate. The second sense is primarily used by Araucarian commentators.”

    I would use “elision” to describe the streamline clue from your link, as my version of L&S wouldn’t apply here (and I wouldn’t consider that clue fair or fun, unlike my earlier examples).

  35. I’m not on the same wavelength. Struggled all the way through and hate BEGOTTEN and OBLITERATE. And I was doing so well with the setter who shall not be named having gone to the opposition.
    Struggled with the Quick Cryptic, too, which I used to breeze through.
    Carpathian, I think, works best for experienced solvers who are familiar with all the abbreviations and tricks of the trade.
    Oh well. I did get there eventually so I suppose one day I too shall learn the tricks. If I live long enough.

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