Guardian Quiptic 910/Moley

by

A sound Quiptic from Moley, with just one or two niggles on my part.

 

 

 

 

Abbreviations
cd  cryptic definition
dd double definition
(xxxx)*  anagram
anagrind = anagram indicator
[x]  letters removed

definitions are underlined

Across

7  Big bird‘s a hit, of course!
ALBATROSS
Of course it is, because it’s the chance for the obligatory Pierre bird link.  It’s a dd, the second part referring to the Fleetwood Mac hit from the 1970s and the first part referring to Big Bird from Sesame Street, perhaps.  And of course The Rime of the Ancient Mariner:

Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.

8  Tired, as usual
BANAL
A dd.

9  Ahead, accompanied straight away
FORTHWITH
A charade of FORTH and WITH.  Go forth and multiply.

10  Participant seems a bit breathless
PANTS
This is hidden in particiPANT Seems, but I’m not sure that it works, since ‘breathless’ and PANTS aren’t interchangeable.

12  Sorted out and put away
STORED
(SORTED)*

13  Sailor relies sadly on one fast going down
ABSEILER
A charade of AB for the ‘sailor’ and (RELIES)*

16  Preserve an icon cleric acquired initially in the Caribbean
JAMAICA
A charade of JAM for the ‘preserve’ and the first letters of ‘an icon cleric acquired’.

19  Pure wit deployed to do the paperwork
WRITE UP
(PURE WIT)*

22  One way to look at edge that’s extended
SIDELONG
A charade of SIDE and LONG.  You have to read ‘that’s’ as ‘that has’.

25  Short bra undone and perhaps put by
ABRUPT
A charade of (BRA)* and (PUT)*  The two anagrinds are ‘undone’ and ‘perhaps’.

27  It’s not on! Two thirds of all meats are for haggis
OFFAL
A charade of OFF and AL for ‘two thirds of all’.

28  Avert rail disaster? Find alternative transport!
AIR TRAVEL
(AVERT RAIL)*

29  Sing till Queen enters
TRILL
An insertion of R for ‘Regina’ in TILL.

30  So daunted, misused and flabbergasted
ASTOUNDED
(SO DAUNTED)*

Down

1  Louisa may be a successful author
ALCOTT
I wasn’t mad keen on this, but it’s a whimsical way of referring to LOUISA MAY ALCOTT, who wrote Little Women.

2  Care a bit about the cause of infection
BACTERIA
(CARE A BIT)*

3  Operated craft with a hundred that had married again
CREWED
A charade of C and REWED.

4  A trashy waste receptacle
ASHTRAY
(A TRASHY)*  It’s &littish, I guess.

5  Is back to cover distant journey
SAFARI
An insertion of AFAR in IS reversed.

6  Rook‘s fortress
CASTLE
A dd, with the first part referencing the chess piece.

11  Emperor‘s wandering star
TSAR
(STAR)*

14  Some settle easily downwind
LEE
Hidden in settLE Easily.

15  Mean to turn up for musical performance
RAP
A reversal of PAR, as in ‘par for the course’.

16  Almost just sauce
JUS
JUS[T] gives you the posh word for gravy.

17  Wild about mother!
MAD
I’m still not keen on this type of construction, where the reversal indicator is in the middle of the clue.  Could be either DAM or MAD.  But it turns out to be a reversal of DAM.

18  Medic rises to carry pupil, an oaf
CLOD
An insertion of L for learner or ‘pupil’ in DOC reversed.

20  Grounds to restrain criminal
TERRAINS
(RESTRAIN)*  The anagrind is ‘criminal’.

21  Once more, good guy is opposed
AGAINST
A charade of AGAIN and ST for Saint or ‘good guy’.

23  Deduces fern is cultivated
INFERS
(FERN IS)*

24  Help to be lean, maybe
ENABLE
(BE LEAN)*

25  Golden god for writer
AUTHOR
A charade of AU for ‘golden’ and THOR for the Norse god that gave us Thursday.  AU is the chemical symbol for gold, but I’m not sure that it could be interpreted as ‘golden’.

26  Looked, sounding annoyed
PEEKED
A homophone of PEAKED.  PIQUED in fact.  Thanks to muffin.  Must get up earlier so I don’t have to rush the blog (that’s the excuse for the moment, anyway).  A FIT OF PIQUE, of course.

Many thanks to Moley for this morning’s Quiptic.

22 comments on “Guardian Quiptic 910/Moley”

  1. Thanks Moley and Pierre

    Nice Quiptic, with ABRUPT and ALBATROSS my favourites. I’m pleased that you referenced the great Fleetwood Mac track, Pierre, but I took “hit, of course” to be a golf reference (3 under par on a hole – a hole-in-one on a par 4, or a 2 on a par five”) I suppose it could by a triple.

  2. Forgot to say that it was a bit deja vu, with ASHTRAY, SAFARI and TSAR all featuring in Guardian crosswords very recently.

    I did like ALCOTT, in fact!

  3. Thanks for the blog, Pierre. I agree with Muffin that ALBATROSS looks like a triple definition.

    This was a pretty easy solve except for ALCOTT. I’ve never read Little Women so had to google “authors named Louise”. Is it just me, or was this a bit obscure for a cryptic definition in a Quiptic?

  4. I’ve no doubt that you’re both right about ALBATROSS, but if you’re looking for a blogger who can get golf references, then look elsewhere …

    I wasn’t too keen either on ALCOTT in a Quiptic, maxtrixmania. But overall, a good puzzle. Setters must get frustrated that somebody, somewhere, will have a niggle about this or that. You can please some of the people all of the time, etc.

  5. Thanks both. Good Quiptic.
    You may have been a bit hard on 10a, Pierre – I read the definition as “seems a bit breathless” which means a bit of double duty but is a better match for PANTS

  6. Thank you Moley and Pierre.

    A good Quiptic for beginners. I failed to get BANAL but remembered ALBATROSS having something to do with golf, probably from a Paul Cryptic in 2014, “Burden of success for Tiger Woods”.

  9. copmus @7, I was going to, but thought I would be in for flak – she is always referred to as “Louisa May Alcott”, and ALCOTT immediately came to my mind, as would Oates if I saw Joyce Carol, or POE if I saw Edgar Allan…

  12. Matt@10 – well I agree, LOI, but a tired cliche, a banal cllche maybe? Not one of the better clues.

  13. Cookie@9 Yeah I know of Little Women, never read it let alone knew who wrote it so it comes down to GK and there’s no proper wordplay-its halfway between a Quick and a Cryptic which is inexcusable in a Quiptic. Btw I’m a fan of JD Salinger but cant remember what the D stands for-or even if the J stands for John. But I do no that Buddy Glass is the narrator in at least one of his stories.

    There is a certain amount that is essential to the cryptic vocab like Damien =Hirst or “artist” can be Emin etc etc but….

  14. Joyce was on her own lunchtime so decided to tackle the Quiptic.

    An enjoyable solve but I failed at the last hurdle with 8ac. I guessed it could be a dd but Chambers did not list BANAL as one of the synonyms for tired. Trying to think of a 3-letter word for ‘tired’ followed by AS did not help either if it was a synonym for ‘usual’.

    In the end I came here for some help.

    Thanks Pierre. Despite being a keen Fleetwood Mac fan and knowing very little about golf I still parsed it the same way as matrixmania and others.

    Thanks Moley.

  15. I’m not totally convinced 1a is meant to invoke Fleetwood Mac at all – how many words could be clued as “a hit” in that case? More likely to be a double definition, Big bird / a hit of course.

    Pedant corner: Albatross actually went into the charts in December 1968, and was Number 1 in Jan ’69 (it was re-released in the 1970s).

  16. I really don’t want to prolong the discussion about ALBATROSS, but a flirt online suggests that it is a term used in golf for a three under par SCORE. How can that be a ‘hit’? You hit the small white thing, but when it takes you three more goes than it should to get 15dn reversed, how does that work clue-wise?

  17. Pierre @16
    If you are playing a “par 4” hole, the expected score is 4. If however your first hit goes into the hole, you have done it in three better than par. That “hit” was the “albatross” – a very rare bird indeed!

  18. Thanks Moley and Pierre.

    Largely fine for a Quiptic.

    It seems to me that 1D is a quick crossword clue. There doesn’t seem to be any real wordplay, despite the ‘may,’ and it’s not cryptic either.

    The ALBATROSS has, of course, a reference to golf. I think as others have said it is an attempt at a triple definition. I don’t buy muffin @17’s defence of ‘hit’ as part of the golf score.

  19. Robi @18
    If it’s a triple, then it’s “big bird”, “hit” and “of course”. The last bit doesn’t work as a definition, though there seems to be a bit of &lit about it.

  20. For an American like me, “Louisa may” was a no-brainer. If you haven’t read it, it’s not too late. I love the way she reveals the characters of the four sisters in the first four sentence of the book.

  22. I understood 1a to refer to the golf shot. I never heard of that song by Fleetwood Mac!

    Thanks Pierre and Moley – I think this was a perfect Quiptic.

Comments are closed.