Guardian Quiptic 1.333/Pasquale

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Pasquale always offers us a carefully constructed and tractable crossword when he is in the Quiptic slot.

Abbreviations
cd cryptic definition
dd double definition
cad clue as definition
(xxxx)* anagram
anagrind = anagram indicator
[x] letter(s) removed

definitions are underlined

Across

8 Sleepy mum in bed – very big, with little energy
COMATOSE
A charade of MA inserted into COT, OS for outsize or ‘big’ and E for the abbreviation for ‘energy’. The insertion indicator is ‘in’.

9 Outdoor official showing wrath by river
RANGER
A charade of R and ANGER.

10, 24 Polluted water in sort of current coming to one ditch
ACID RAIN
A charade of AC, I and DRAIN.

11 Fantastic speed, fantastic train? One only moves at a few mph
PEDESTRIAN
A double anagram: of (SPEED)* and (TRAIN)* The anagrinds are the two ‘fantastics’.

12 Problem with shifting Easter
TEASER
(EASTER)* with ‘shifting’ as the anagrind.

14 Number in course of day becoming burdened
WEIGHTED
An insertion of EIGHT in WED. The insertion indicator is ‘in course of’.

15 False debater taken to task
BERATED
(DEBATER)* with ‘false’ as the anagrind.

17 Bird gets something to eat by pile of hay?
PEACOCK
A charade of PEA and COCK. And an opportunity for the Obligatory Pierre Bird Link. Peacocks are built for showing off to peahens, so my choice of picture reflects that.

20 Old car of a certain hue with lots of indentations?
CRATERED
A charade of CRATE and RED.

22 Some bunting always on display in Irish county
GALWAY
Hidden in huntinG ALWAYs.

23 Depot others use, otherwise containing nothing
STOREHOUSE
An insertion of O in (OTHERS USE)* The insertion indicator is ‘containing’ and the anagrind is ‘otherwise’.

25 Enthusiast hugging one by church, fellow anticipating ceremony there?
FIANCÉ
An insertion of I in FAN followed by CE. The insertion indicator is ‘hugging’.

26 Number coming to a place like Oxford must show perseverance
TENACITY
A charade of TEN, A and CITY.

Down

1 Not abstract material
CONCRETE
A dd.

3 Cleaner, someone despondent keeping quiet
MOPPER
An insertion of P for the musically ‘quiet’ in MOPER.

4 Disappointment making one deflated
LET DOWN
A dd.

5 Status of e.g. priest in trouble
PRESTIGE
(EG PRIEST)* with ‘in trouble’ as the anagrind.

6 A clan out to catch cunning one disregarding convention?
ANARCHICAL
A charade of A and an insertion of ARCH I in (CLAN)* The insertion indicator is ‘to catch’ and the anagrind is ‘out’.

7 Soldiers, excellent, in danger
MENACE
A charade of MEN and ACE.

13 Smashing person at crazy party to perform as vocalist outside
SHATTERING
An insertion of HATTER in SING. The insertion indicator is ‘outside’. The HATTER is the mad one, from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

16 Dirtier air there blown around
EARTHIER
(AIR THERE)* with ‘blown around’ as the anagrind.

18 Vehicles I love appearing in hit lists
CHARIOTS
An insertion of I and O in CHARTS. The insertion indicator is ‘appearing in’.

19 Changes in advertisements – only recently being introduced
ADJUSTS
An insertion of JUST in ADS. The insertion indicator is ‘being introduced’. ‘She has just/only recently had her first puzzle published in a national daily.’

21 Keep control, receiving thanks
RETAIN
An insertion of TA in REIN. The insertion indicator is ‘receiving’.

22 Author supporting ecological reform, from what we hear
GREENE
Aural wordplay (‘from what we hear’) of GREEN. Graham GREENE, author of Brighton Rock, The Third Man, and much else.

24, 2 Super vehicle blocking road – feature of Newmarket event?
RACE CARD
An insertion of ACE and CAR in RD. The insertion indicator is ‘blocking’.

Many thanks to the Don for this week’s Quiptic.

31 comments on “Guardian Quiptic 1.333/Pasquale”

  1. Thanks Pasquale and Pierre. Very nice overall for my level, although I felt that the two four-letter word pairs, crossing each other twice, have too few crossings as a result.

    For a long time I had “unorthodox” for 6d (from the first three crossings and as it fit the definition well) despite the fact that it apparently didn’t fit the clue. Other crossings destroyed that.

    Had to google Galway and Newmarket; I wonder: are these GK or did the setter mean for some solvers to need to google some of the clues?

  2. Thanks Pierre for your blog and the brilliant peacock. NHO pile of hay for cock, the 31st of 35 entries for ”cock” on Onelook. I was going for ”rick”.

    PRESTIGE is counter-intuitive. Hardly a word to describe the status of a priest in trouble, but parses well. I can’t get the grammar to work in GREENE. Regardless of the grammar, is the aural wordplay Greenie?

    PEDESTRIAN and STOREHOUSE my picks.

  3. Thanks Pasquale and Pierre. Goes without saying Pasquale knows what he’s doing in the quiptic slot. Both usages of cock and crate new to me.

    Slight style quibbles that ‘ace’ was used twice in the same sense; and I guess it checks out but I’ve no idea why you would say ‘anarchical’ instead of ‘anarchic’.

    @2 Paddymelon – I think it’s that a member of the Green Party might just be called a Green; needs to have ‘we hear’ because of the extra E.

  4. Apart from looking up a mythical River Ump for RANGER, this went in as smoothly as a Quiptic should. SHATTERING my favourite.

  5. Much more in the spirit of a Quiptic than it has been lately, or maybe I’m just improving. Needed some dictionary and thesaurus help for the one or two references I didn’t get, but got there in the end with full parsing.

    Was distracted by the anagram misdirection in 13d for a long time and I think I actually skipped over the solution in my head until I returned to it with the checking letters. Overall I quite enjoyed it.

    @paddymelon, for GREENE the homophone/synonym is more present participle and adjective than noun so “green” fits better as both the synonym and homophone than “greenie” does, for me at least. However, Green could also work as a noun as a supporter or member of the various parties under the name Green.

  6. @Petert, yes, I too was trying to add the River Ump to the standard three-letter rivers Ure, Dee, Tay, Fal …

  7. I was sure that “Old car of a certain hue” was a reference to the Model T Ford, so that one went in very late.

    I also struggled with 24, 2 as I forgot it was the bottom word first.

    A nice quiptic, nothing unfair (although I’d NHO cock in that sense either) but I needed to steadily work my way through getting the crossers in to progress.

  8. Enjoyed this one – I’m definitely getting better at this, even finished a full Guardian Cryptic last week. I’m also starting to understand the shorthand used in the comments here, but what does NHO mean, please?

  9. Samiam70 – Never Heard Of = NHO

    Fun Quiptic from Pasquale as always

    Thank you to Pierre and Pasquale.

  11. I too forgot that 24, 2 was in that word order and tried parsing lane as the road. I knew that Newmarket was connected to horse racing but I don’t know what RACE CARD is. NHO crate for an old car or a haycock but gettable from the crossers. Started with great difficulty but just about got there. Thanks Pierre

  12. Also does anyone else see a clue like 13 and their heart immediately sinks because it looks impossible to solve? It’s really long and you have no idea which part is the definition. You’ve got smashing, crazy and to perform, all of which could be anagrids. I was really surprised when it turned out to be just a simple insertion.

  13. Is there any logic for ‘blocking’ as an insertion indicator? I don’t get it…

    SHATTERING, got it in but didn’t understand why till I got here.

    COCK for pile of hay? Like others NHO..

    I should have been able to parse ACID RAIN properly but didn’t and just got it from the crossers.

    Otherwise a fun quiptic, thanks Pasquale and thanks Pierre

  14. @12 Tidy, I think that was exactly the setter’s point trying to mislead us; we get used to these words as anagrinds, but they also have their normal meanings. I tried for a while to think of anagrams to “party” before seeing that Hatter fits nicely. I rather prefer this kind of clues to those charades where each letter is coded by a separate word, which are not as fun (except acrostic which is ok)

  15. Tidy @11, I believe a Race Card is the run down of what race will happen at what time.
    A lovely Quiptic – same NHOs as most: cock and crate. Thanks to Pasquale and Pierre!

  16. Overall a very nice quiptic, although one or two proper puzzlers. Without the crossers I would never have got PEACOCK all day long. Thanks for the explanation(s) Pierre.

  17. Layman @1: general knowledge is very much in the eye of the beholder. Galway is a not-particularly-obscure Irish county that also happens to be the name of one of the country’s more prominent cities, so that one seems fair in a Quiptic. On the other hand, British horse racing isn’t followed much if at all outside of Britain, so Newmarket is one I had to learn when I started doing British crosswords. (I didn’t need to Google it this time, but I did the first couple times it came up.) But if you’re British, it probably is something you’d know.

  18. mrpenney @17: thanks a lot! I’m not – and, just to be clear, I didn’t mean any criticism; it makes perfect sense that the setter has British GK in mind. But now I feel better about having had to google these 🙂

  19. Tidy @12 it’s me! I made many failing attempts trying to understand which part is a definition, where are indicators etc.
    And the same was with some other clues. But maybe it is part of fun with Cryptics.

  20. A very enjoyable Quiptic!
    I think I made every possible mistake before I got to the end, but that’s part of fun. My LOI were two four-letter word pairs and PEACOCK.
    NHO of crate for an old car and cock for a pile of hay (which is not a wonder).
    Liked the reference to HATTER and his dramatic experience as a SINGER in rather a tricky clue.
    I learned some new indicators from this puzzle, e.g. “otherwise” or “false” as an anagrind.

    And I really appreciate this blog for explanations and links.

    Thanks Pierre and Pasquale!

  22. Thank you Pasquale and Pierre. Great Quiptic: it did take me a while to get onto Pasquale‘s wavelength but more or less ok after that. I very much liked 11A, Pedestrian.

  23. I was a little underwhelmed by this one, but I can’t really put my finger on why. Maybe it was that there were several surfaces which promised more but turned out to be anagrams. My favourite was PEDESTRIAN, I enjoyed finally discarding “UMP”, and I needed all the checkers for PEACOCK, smiling when the a-ha moment came. But I also needed all the checkers for the intersecting CRATERED and SHATTERING and shrugged at both of them. (Is “crate” common for old car? Rust bucket, banger etc yes.)

    I don’t think cratered is necessarily lots of indentations… I think I’d call a heavenly object cratered even if it only had two or three large ones for example. So that word didn’t come easily to mind. And I would say that the Mad Hatter is a crazy person at a party rather than a person at a crazy party, but maybe that’s just splitting hairs.

    I also shrugged at GREENE; being a greenie isn’t necessarily political at all and so “supporting environmental reform” would be a leap; and if the soundalike is just “green” then I can only find a valid substitution in something like “I’m Labour through-and-through, he’s Green through-and-through” but even that doesn’t strictly substitute. Perhaps someone else has a more solid example.

    Maybe I was just not in the mood. Can happen!

    Thanks Pasquale and Pierre

  24. I didn’t give GREEN/GREENE a second thought. I don’t think we need ‘greenie’ at all: GREEN is ‘supporting ecological reform’ and GREENE is the author. Not the widest apart soundalike ever, but l don’t think we need to overthink it.

  26. It took me a lot of visits to get through it but that was more reflective of a distracted Sunday than anything else. Usual clueing elegance from the Don although I thought the ‘green’ homophone for GREENE was not that sparkling. Thanks Pasquale and Pierre.

  27. Little Boy Blue come blow up your horn
    The sheep’s in the meadow the cows in the corn
    Where is the boy who looks after the sheep ?
    He’s under the haycock fast asleep
    Will you wake him, no not I
    For if I do he will surely cry!
    English nursery rhyme
    ( although in some versions it’s haystack not haycock )
    Enjoyed this quiptic. Although still couldn’t parse all. Thank you

  28. This kept me occupied on Sunday and Monday. As ever I got through with some outrageous cheating. I will definitely stop reading the comments under the crossword before finishing as I find them for the most part demoralising.

  29. Enjoyed this one. Found lots quite tricky at first, but then obvious once a few crossers were in — just how I like it:)

    I’m from Galway city, so was delighted that GALWAY was to be found in this puzzle. Would have preferred it if it were “Some bunting always on display in Irish *city*”, but that might have made it too easy, as there are only 5 Irish cities and (as is well known) 32 counties.

    Galway is a very festival heavy, tourist friendly spot, so there really is bunting up all the time!

  30. Late to the party but I found this very tricky. Only managed about half of it. Understood all but two of the ones I revealed and had to come here for explanations for the rest (both were due to words I hadn’t heard before).

    Thanks Pierre and Pasquale.

  31. NHO ‘arch’ for ‘crafty’. That’s my bad!

    Also NHO ‘crate’ for ‘car’. Internet doesn’t really think so either. A crate is an aeroplane (WW1 slang).

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