Another excellent Quiptic from Hectence today.
There’s a wide variety of clue constructions, including many old favourite tricks, but nothing too obscure; the surfaces are very good too. If you’re trying to introduce someone to the joy of cryptics, this puzzle would be a good place to start. My favourite is probably the lovely pun in 13a, but 19a, 27a and 15d should also get an honourable mention.
Compliments of the season to Hectence and everyone else who’s reading this, and I wish you much more crossword fun in 2020 and beyond.
Definitions are underlined; square brackets [ ] indicate omitted letters.
| ACROSS | ||
| 7 | MESSENGER | Courier has difficulty getting green transport (9) |
| MESS (difficulty, as in Laurel and Hardy “here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten me into”) + anagram (transport) of GREEN. This one held me up for far too long, because I initially thought difficulty = pass (as in “a pretty pass”) and was trying to make PASSENGER work. It doesn’t. |
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| 8 | SPADE | Picked up sterilised tool (5) |
| Homophone (picked up = heard) of SPAYED (sterilised, applied to a female animal). | ||
| 9 | CALLOUSLY | Everyone in company’s posh and devious with no sensitivity (9) |
| ALL (everyone) in CO (company), then U (posh) + SLY (devious). | ||
| 10 | WODGE | Wife’s naughty dog takes last of pie in one big chunk (5) |
| W (wife) + anagram (naughty) of DOG + last letter of [pi]E. Wodge = slang for “a large or roughly-cut portion”. Like a wedge but more greedy and/or untidy. |
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| 12 | GENTLE | Kind of information outlet (6) |
| GEN (slang for information, abbreviated from “general information”); then it’s the old lift-and-separate trick on “outlet”, which gives an anagram (out) of LET. | ||
| 13 | NOTEBOOK | Jotter only available in printed version? (8) |
| Groan-inducing pun of the day. A book that’s only available in printed form = NOT E-BOOK. | ||
| 16 | TIDDLER | Little fish in river’s following daughter’s line in current (7) |
| D (daughter) + L (line), in TIDE (current), with R (river) following it. That’s a lot of single-letter abbreviations for one clue, but they’re all well-established ones for crosswords. | ||
| 19 | ANXIETY | Tension of a new team yet to play (7) |
| A N (new) + XI (eleven = usually a cricket team, but can be applied to other sports) + anagram (to play) of YET. | ||
| 22 | ALMIGHTY | Gangster’s power with young is massive (8) |
| AL (Al Capone = gangster) + MIGHT (power) + Y (young). | ||
| 25 | SATNAV | Director of a vast production incorporating any number (6) |
| Anagram (production) of A VAST, with N (an unspecified number) inserted. Director as in a gadget that provides directions. |
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| 27 | BUTTY | Races in to purchase a sandwich (5) |
| TT (time trial races) inserted into BUY (purchase). Butty = dialect or slang for a sandwich: jam butty, chip butty, etc. |
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| 28 | MANIFESTO | Party’s policy statement has nothing obvious up front (9) |
| O (zero = nothing) with MANIFEST (obvious) up front. | ||
| 29 | SCAMP | Rogue president’s behind swindle (5) |
| SCAM (swindle) with P (president) behind it. No comment on which president the surface might refer to, though there are sadly too many possible candidates in the world – but I wasted some time trying to make RUMP (behind) fit somehow. |
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| 30 | FAVOURITE | Make a virtue of love (9) |
| Anagram (make) of A VIRTUE OF. Love (as a noun, as in “be my love”) = beloved = favourite. |
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| DOWN | ||
| 1 | BEHAVE | Live on own and stay out of trouble (6) |
| BE (live) on (above, in a down clue) HAVE (own, as a verb). Of course one can behave badly, but the word by itself generally means “behave well”. |
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| 2 | ISOLATED | Remote island, very behind, gets broadband at last (8) |
| I (island) + SO LATE (very behind) + last letter of [broadban]D. | ||
| 3 | INJURE | Blight that is overshadowing New Jersey’s old city (6) |
| IE (id est = that is), containing (overshadowing) NJ (New Jersey) + UR (ancient city, a favourite with crossword setters). Blight (as a verb) = injure = damage, as in a career blighted by scandal. |
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| 4 | FENLAND | Primarily, flat earth’s associated with the Netherlands and part of East Anglia (7) |
| First letters (primarily) of Flat Earth, then NL (Netherlands) + AND. A nice extended definition here. Fenland = flat coastal plain in East Anglia; like similar areas in the Netherlands, much of it is reclaimed land from draining wetlands close to sea level. |
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| 5 | APLOMB | One quiet look by doctor gives confidence (6) |
| A P (p = piano = quiet in musical notation) + LO (lo! = look!) + MB (Bachelor of Medicine = doctor). | ||
| 6 | ADAGIO | American soldier’s in trouble for slow movement (6) |
| A (American) + GI (soldier) in ADO (trouble). Adagio = musical term for slow, or for a movement (section of a larger musical work) that is to be played slowly. |
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| 11 | STUN | Astonish with crazy climbing (4) |
| NUTS (crazy), reversed (climbing = upwards in a down clue). | ||
| 14 | ODE | Ignoring odd bits of wordier poem (3) |
| Even-numbered letters (ignoring odd bits) of [w]O[r]D[i]E[r]. | ||
| 15 | KEY | Legend from space, perhaps (3) |
| Double definition: the first is legend = key = explanation of symbols/colours in a map or chart, and the second is a key on a keyboard (for example the space bar). | ||
| 16 | TEA | Thanks housemaid heartily coming in with drink (3) |
| TA (thanks), with the heart (middle letter) of [hous]E[maid] coming into it. | ||
| 17 | DAM | Mother‘s Day morning (3) |
| D (day) + AM (morning). Dam = mother animal. |
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| 18 | ECHO | Ring section from multiple choice (4) |
| Hidden answer (section from) in [multipl]E CHO[ice]. Ring = echo = sound that persists beyond the original action that created it. |
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| 20 | IN THEORY | On paper the irony’s wasted (2,6) |
| Anagram (wasted) of THE IRONY. On paper = in theory = perhaps not in reality. |
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| 21 | PYJAMAS | Dress for retirement party outside with jacket top when worn by old lady (7) |
| Outside letters of P[art]Y + top letter of J[acket] + AS (when), all containing (worn by) MA (old lady = slang for mother). An old crossword trick: retire = go to bed, so “dress for retirement” = sleepwear. |
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| 23 | LAUNCH | Left relative briefly with companion in a boat (6) |
| L (left) + AUN[t] (relative; briefly = last letter dropped) + CH (Companion of Honour). Launch = a motor boat, typically an auxiliary to a larger vessel. |
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| 24 | IN TIME | Eventually popular issue comes up (2,4) |
| IN (popular), then EMIT (issue, as a verb) reversed (comes up, in a down clue). | ||
| 25 | SUITOR | Admirer has diamonds, maybe, and gold! (6) |
| SUIT (as in playing cards; diamonds is one of the four suits, so “diamonds maybe”) + OR (heraldic name for gold). | ||
| 26 | ASTUTE | Knowing when to express disapproval on a point (6) |
| AS (when) + TUT (to express disapproval) + E (East = a point of the compass). | ||
Thanks Hectence and Quirister
Not a good performance from me today – I didn’t see the anagram for FAVOURITE, and I gave up and revealed GENTLE (a nice clue, in fact, but hardly Quiptic standard).
Thanks, Quirister (and Hectence). Your comment on 16a is apt, but the excessive reliance on single letters throughout the puzzle spoiled it a little for me.
A few of the answers (WODGE, BUTTY, SATNAV, TIDDLER) were unfamiliar, at least to me, but easy enough to get from the wordplay. I agree with Muffin regarding GENTLE, which I eventually got, but I confess to turning the tiddler into an unparsed toddler.
Thanks to Hectence for her typically fine Quiptic and to Quirister for the blog and especially for the comment about 29a.
I had a very difficult time with this one, failing to complete the SE, but in hindsight the clues I failed to solve are all perfectly reasonable. I guess I just had a bad day.
Your comment on “behave” reminds me of Lady Bracknell, from The Importance of Being Earnest:
LADY BRACKNELL. Good afternoon, dear Algernon, I hope you are behaving very well.
ALGERNON. I’m feeling very well, Aunt Augusta.
LADY BRACKNELL. That’s not quite the same thing. In fact the two things rarely go together.