Carpathian is a favourite among newer solvers because her Quiptics are generally approachable and clearly clued.
This was one of those, I thought. A solver-friendly grid, a good few clearly signposted anagrams to get you going, and then nothing too obscure elsewhere.
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 Football association secures revolutionary tie
FASTEN
A charade of FA and NETS reversed.
4 Dig dome out for Maui perhaps
DEMIGOD
(DIG DOME)* with ‘out’ as the anagrind. Maui is a Hawaiian island, named after a culture hero in Hawaiian mythology.
9 Big top a circus initially promises
CAPACIOUS
A charade of CAP, A, C for the initial letter of ‘circus’ and IOUS for ‘promises’ (I owe you …)
10 Box in clubs with speed
CRATE
A charade of C and RATE.
11 Knight accepting thanks for one in flight
STAIR
An insertion of TA in SIR. The insertion indicator is ‘accepting’.
12 Admiring programme with roaming
APPROVING
A charade of APP and ROVING.
13 Lessening recession
DECLINE
A dd.
15 Lay net out tidily
NEATLY
(LAY NET)* with ‘out’ as the anagrind.
17 Hard growth on head alien bug
HORNET
A charade of HORN and ET for the setters’ favourite ‘alien’.
19 Exercise before cat returns
PRESS-UP
A charade of PRE and PUSS reversed.
22 Six deliveries by doctor behind bank arrangement
OVERDRAFT
A charade of OVER, DR and AFT.
24 Clamour about V&A furniture item
DIVAN
An insertion of V and A in DIN. The insertion indicator is ‘about’.
26 Marshal leading section for will
SHALL
Hidden in MarSHAL Leading. The correspondence of ‘will’ and SHALL is fine for a crossword and the clue is sound, but some careful users of English would insist on a distinction between the two. Some authorities used to insist on using ‘shall’ with the first person singular and plural, but I don’t think that’s common usage any more; and ‘shall’ still has more of a sense of obligation. ‘Cinderella, you shall go to the ball!’
27 Husband annoys working dependants
HANGERS-ON
A charade of H, ANGERS and ON.
28 More attention-seeking wild reindeer losing head
NEEDIER
([R]EINDEER)* with ‘wild’ as the anagrind.
29 Narrow passage artist represented
STRAIT
(ARTIST)* with ‘represented’ as the anagrind.
Down
1 Joined around old college as directed
FOCUSED
An insertion of O and C in FUSED. The insertion indicator is ‘around’.
2 Brown pea is pulped
SEPIA
(PEA IS)* with ‘pulped’ as the anagrind.
3 Old dogs I directed towards Sally
EXCURSION
A charade of EX, CURS, I and ON. ‘The spotlight was on/directed towards her.’
4 Stand up unusual cleaning aid
DUSTPAN
(STAND UP)* with ‘unusual’ as the anagrind.
5 Masculine coat hung outside at first
MACHO
A charade of MAC and HO for the initial letters of ‘hung’ and ‘outside’.
6 Dug soil up around LA to produce bloom
GLADIOLUS
An insertion of LA in (DUG SOIL)* The anagrind is ‘up’ and the insertion indicator is ‘around’.
7 Machine for deepening harbour deserted by river side
DREDGE
A charade of D, R and EDGE. D for ‘deserted’ is in my Chambers (it’s an old army abbreviation, I think), as is DREDGE as a noun for the machinery.
8 Setter taking test showing degree of optimism
MORALE
An insertion of ORAL in ME. The insertion indicator is ‘taking’.
14 Barrel maker and wastrel regularly work together
COOPERATE
A charade of COOPER and ATE for the even letters of wAsTrEl.
16 Correction of last word on private message by hospital department
AMENDMENT
A charade of AMEN, DM for ‘direct message’ and ENT for Ear, Nose and Throat’.
18 Cheater upset rabbi?
TEACHER
(CHEATER)* with ‘upset’ as the anagrind.
19 Piano with a canvas covering is conspicuous
PATENT
A charade of P, A and TENT.
20 Melody to pinch revolting seed
PINE NUT
A reversal of TUNE NIP.
21 French fish with heart removed is toxic
POISON
POIS[S]ON. Should you be expected to know that poisson is the French word for ‘fish’? You’re asking the wrong person.
23 Headed back to hot island somewhere in India
DELHI
A charade of LED reversed, H and I.
25 View six tailless deer
VISTA
A charade of VI and STA[G].
Many thanks to Carpathian for this week’s Quiptic.
Thanks Carpathian and Pierre
Very nice, apart from the definition for HORNET!
SHALL reminded me of the story of the Frenchman who fell into the Serpentine. He cried out
“I will drown, and no-one shall save me!”
So no-one did.
For what it’s worth “Poisson” is in Chambers. “Half-hearted distribution” would have been much harder.
The French expression for April fool is “poisson d’Avril”.
I’d have numerated 14d as 2-7.
New for me: 7d D = deserted.
Thanks Carpathian & Pierre – found this much more doable than last week’s, as a relative newbie.
Particularly enjoyed 19a.
A much better fit for the category than many in recent weeks, I found. As such it was enjoyable and the parts I thought were a bit more on the chewy side added balance rather than making it more of a cryptic puzzle. Nicely done.
I couldn’t parse DREDGE and while the answer is guessable, I don’t much like its presence in the Quiptic! I would have said the machine is a DREDGER and therefore losing R (side of River) makes it dredge but that then leaves SIDE=dredge which it doesn’t. On the other hand, never seen D=deserted but agree D-R-EDGE makes sense.
A decent Quiptic from my perspective. I suspect it is a bit too much of a step up for anyone coming from the QC but there are certainly some write-ins there. Thanks to Carpathian and Pierre
Agree it’s very nice for a newer solver like me. Ta! Can you please help me understand why in 22a “Six deliveries” stand for “OVER”?
Layman @9
In cricket, an OVER is six deliveries.
@9 Layman -> it’s a cricket term. I believe there are six deliveries (balls bowled) in an over.
muffin @10, Sallie @11
Thanks a lot! I’m completely ignorant about cricket, alas.
muffin@1 Nice one :-). I shall and will remember it.
HG@8 DREDGE is the machine, DREDGER is the boat so Carpathian clearly took proper care to be unambiguous. Excellent Quiptic, I struggled with the NW corner so started NE and worked my way round clockwise. Thanks Carpathian and Pierre.
Aren’t the two definitions of DECLINE essentially the same? A little too close to each other for my liking, at least.
No issues with POISSON here, since this was part of my childhood (well, my adolescence).
Hmm, yes, very quiptic.
I’m no Francophone, but from the rest of the clue I was able to backwards engineer it to infer poisson. Can’t say I’ve heard anyone call an excursion a ‘sally’ or I know anything about a gladiolus other than it’s the name of a flower, but there’s not really an issue when you’re as clear and concise as Carpathian with the clueing. Especially in the Sunday Quiptic slot. Roll on the next one!
Thanks Carpathian and Pierre. I didn’t get a few. I needed help with 9a Capacious and 8d Morale especially but liked them when I understood them.
On the easy side for us experienced solvers so we guess it’s just right for a quiptic.
Thanks, Carpathian and Pierre.
Nice smooth surfaces and clear cluing. A pleasure.
Liked many clues, and favourites were PRESS UP, OVERDRAFT, ARTIST, COOPERATE (great clue) EXCURSION, CAPACIOUS, PATENT
Only quibble is I thought Directed = FOCUSED was a stretch
Thanks Carpathian and Pierre
No-one share my dislike of HORNET = bug? A hornet isn’t a bug, either biologically or colloquially!
Changed my name on here cause I spotted another Bev around.
‘Poisson’ is a lot more acceptable at the moment due to the popularity of Poisson Steve (ha-a-a-aaaa) 😛 Very much enjoyed that clue as poisson is a fun word to say.
Either I’m getting better or Carpathian is being very nice today. Certainly the cricket term and lesser known abbreviations were guessable.
I had 22a as OVERDEALT for “six deliveries” of poker cards (there usually being 5). Obvious once I pressed the check button though.
Tachi@16 – I have seen “sally out” in old children’s books and my brain is telling me it is a nautical term (perhaps from Swallows and Amazons?), but it’s not common and I have to admit I was trying to make PORT work in the wordplay for a decent chunk of time.
I do wish that pedantry corner (ETA: not you Tachi! the people being headed off by the comment about shall and will) would accept that slightly stretched synonyms and antiquated terms are fine. We must allow some leeway or we can’t have crosswords at all, true synonyms being rare in any language.
Thx to Carpathian and Pierre.
A nice Quiptic. I rather loved 3D. Thanks Carpathian and Pierre!
A couple of these seemed to me a bit outside the Quiptic zone. D=deserted may appear in Chambers but it seems a bit unnecessary to use such an obscure single-letter abbreviation. And in 8d, which has a rather oblique definition, ‘taking’ would usually indicate followed by rather than an insertion and could have been replaced with ‘embracing’ without spoiling the surface. I also agree with MeP@15 that the dd for DECLINE doesn’t really cut it. Sorry that all sounds grumpy as I really enjoyed the rest of the puzzle.
Tachi@16 “to sally forth” is antiquated, but at least known enough that there’s a newspaper comic strip with that name.
muffin@20 Yes it is. All insects are colloquially “bugs”, at least where I’m from.
21D = POISSON being french for “fish” is in a Disney movie and a Discworld book, so I consider it kosher. 13A, however, are the same definition to me?
(Forgive me for any spelling or grammar mistakes. It’s 1am here.)
HG@8 Having served an apprenticeship on the QC (Quick Cryptic) it’s still a puzzle how in 1D, for example, the initial letters OC are to be taken from “old college” when this isn’t a recognised acronym – as far as I know – or signalled in the clue.
AlanJ, the pushing of obscure single letter abbreviations is very annoying, but I think the answer is that if it is in Chambers, it’s fair game. ‘Old’ commonly denotes ‘o’ or ‘ex’ or something that is not used anymore (e.g. ‘old coin’-‘groat’).
Thanks Carpathian and Pierre. After the last couple of weeks I was considering abandoning crosswords for sudoku but this was one I could do! Done with my own dear old cur lying next to me so I appreciated 3d.
AlanJ@25, the “old” and the “college” need to be interpreted as two unrelated parts, giving ‘o’ and ‘c’ separately. Of course, the setter has juxtaposed them precisely to make the surface more plausible and hence harder to decipher!
Actually found this to be a bit harder than usual for a Carpathian but I think for some reason I just wasn’t on C’s wavelength this time around. Once I was through I will admit all the clueing and wordplay was very fair. Thanks Carpathian and Pierre.
muffin @20 — Although I know that there is in principle a distinction between bugs and insects, I’m afraid that I use the former informally to mean the same thing as the latter. This usage is quite common in my experience.
Chambers acknowledges this usage but notes it as “(N American)”. I fall into that category, so I guess it’s not surprising that I (and many of the people I talk to) use the word in this way.
I wonder whether this usage is indeed predominantly North American. If so, then there should have been an appropriate indicator in the clue. What do the residents of the British Isles here think? Would you (like me) call a hornet a bug without hesitation?
Ted @30
True bugs are insects too, but a different order from hornets. (Bugs are Hemiptera, hornets, wasps, bees etc. are Hymenoptera.) This is what a bug looks like.
In a colloquial sense I would expect a bug to be small, but hornets can be 5cm long.
Of course, you Americans call ladybirds “ladybugs”!
We do indeed. I find it hard to imagine objecting to calling those creatures bugs but being OK with calling them birds!
Ted – valid point
You may remember a poster here who used the handle Marienkaefer? That’s German for “ladybird”!
[I do seem to recall that name. Literally “Mary beetle”, if I understand what Google Translate is telling me. (My knowledge of German is nearly nil.) More entomologically accurate than either “bug” or “bird”!]
muffin@31 I’d say the colloquial definition is something like, hmm, a terrestrial invertebrate with an exoskeleton. So I’d look at you askance if you called an earthworm or a crayfish a “bug”, but not blink twice if you used “bug” to refer to a tarantula.
Nice moderately challenging puzzle. But I agree with mrpenney, 13 wasn’t a double definition, it was a third synonym for two words that were already closely linked. Would be a better fit for a quick crossword.
Carpathian is my favourite setter – probably for the reason Pierre outlined at the top of the post. Accessible and clean surfaces. And I can get all of ’em, which helps. This was perfect for me. Doable in a single sitting, but tested the brain cells enough to feel satisfied. Thanks both!