This offering from Anto did not appear on the Grauniad website till mid morning, so I am afraid because of work commitments I have not been able to write and post a blog until now.
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 It can raise a smile — even when blue?
CHEESE
A kind of cd, referring to the fact that ‘Cheese!’ is the prompt for those having their photo taken to break into a smile. ‘Sausages!’ works much better.
4 Get that woman sounding like an emperor
CAESAR
A homophone of SEIZE HER, and suffering from the fact that the homophone indicator is between the two elements, so you don’t know which way round it works to start with.
9 Writer providing life story about queen
BIRO
An insertion of R for Regina in BIO.
10 Happy coral is damaged? That may not be true
APOCRYPHAL
(HAPPY CORAL)* with ‘is damaged’ as the anagrind.
11 In need of time out when on the decline
WANING
WAN[T]ING with ‘time out’ as the removal indicator.
12 Check pressure again
RESTRAIN
A dd, with the second element needing a stretch to render it as ‘strain again’.
13 Fantastic shot taker has very successful run
HOT STREAK
(SHOT TAKER)* with ‘fantastic’ as the anagrind.
15 Sly return of axes
FOXY
A reversal (‘return’) of OF and the two mathematical ‘axes’.
16 Explode without full force? That’s a mistake
GOOF
GO OF[F] The instruction to remove the second F is ‘without full force’, which since there are two Fs in the word just about works.
17 Criminal stole a car — it gets things moving
ESCALATOR
(STOLE A CAR)*
21 God is into prayer a lot
PLETHORA
The setter is inviting you to insert THOR into PLEA.
22 Paper cut section showing brief sharp comment
APERÇU
Hidden in pAPER CUt.
24 Schrödinger’s cat, perhaps, reduced to a zombie?
LIVING DEAD
A cd cum dd. The second element is a straightforward definition. The first refers to the famous thought experiment proposed by Edwin Schrödinger, which is based on a paradox in quantum mechanics. It posits that the cat in the experiment can be both alive and dead at the same time (until you look to check if it’s still well). No animals were ever harmed during the course of these experiments.
25 Home rule decentralised in this place
HERE
The first two words of the clue with the inner letters removed (‘decentralised’). So H[OM]E R[UL]E.
26 Convict returns with mineral — and plenty of it
GALORE
A charade of LAG reversed and ORE.
27 Seasoned judge leaving hurt
INURED
IN[J]URED
Down
1 City provides stylish area with work
CHICAGO
A charade of CHIC, A for ‘area’ and GO for ‘work’.
2 Foremost of experts consulted on lingering infection source
E COLI
The initial letters of the third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh words of the clue. You have to make ‘infection’ do double duty, since I can’t believe anyone would accept ‘source’ as a definition of E Coli. Most strains of the bacterium are harmless, or indeed beneficial, but certain strains can be harmful to human health.
3 Climbing rodents fed with form of protein shake
STAGGER
An insertion of EGG in RATS, all reversed. The reversal indicator, since it’s a down clue, is ‘climbing’. EGG is certainly rich in protein; whether it is a ‘form’ of protein is more debatable.
5 Essential fact jurors missed from one side to the other
ACROSS
This is a removal clue, I presume, with a word meaning ‘jurors’ subtracted from a longer word which leaves you with ACROSS. I can’t see it, and in order not to delay the blog any longer, I will hand this one over to you.
Edit: as Larry points out, it’s just the middle letters (‘essential’) of fACt, juROrs and miSSed.
6 Prove a sun exploded like this
SUPERNOVA
(PROVE A SUN)* A SUPERNOVA is the result of a star (of which our sun is one) exploding in the last stages of its life cycle, but I don’t really see where the definition is in this clue, so would judge it not ideal for a puzzle for beginners.
7 Truth illuminated in rough year
REALITY
An insertion of LIT in (YEAR)* with ‘rough’ as the anagrind.
8 Unimpressive report of minor earthquake
NO GREAT SHAKES
Another cd cum dd.
14 Demonstrate test that guarantees conviction
SHOW TRIAL
A simple charade of SHOW and TRIAL.
16 Lined out to break horse, lacking cojones!
GELDING
An insertion of (LINED)* in GG for a child’s word for ‘horse’, but once again, the only way you can make this work is for ‘horse’ to do double duty. A GELDING is a horse which has been castrated, and cojones is the Spanish word for ‘bollocks’, hence ‘lacking cojones’.
18 A group performing ‘Surrender‘
ABANDON
A charade of A, BAND and ON. This one’s been round the block a bit.
19 Happened to find relief in distressing mental condition
OCCURED
An insertion of CURE in OCD, short for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.
Except, of course, as muffin points out, it’s OCCURRED. I knew that. Blame my oversight on a rushed blog.
20 One can be taken in with room to spare
LODGER
A cd.
23 Lacking information, one or the other might knock you out
ETHER
E[I]THER
Many thanks to Anto for this morning’s Quiptic.
5d: ‘essential’ take the middle letters from the three words – fACt juROrs miSSed
Thanks Anto and Pierre
OCCURED is mis-spelt – it should be OCCURRED. The definition for ESCALATOR is rather odd, as it moves continuously, and people stand still on it (or should do!)
I took SUPERNOVA as an extended definition, and it was my favoruite.
Thanks, Larry. Blog amended.
I solved this puzzle a couple of days ago, believe me!
I got a PDF of this puzzle from a friend in my country.
As others have reported elsewhere, the Guardian site at times must have had some technical problems. This puzzle briefly appeared online and some contacts of mine in the IST zone caught it.
FOI was 1ac. From then on it was a steady solve. I finished the top half first; then bottom right and finally bottom left.
Surface reading or wordplay or both of many clues is nice.
22ac APERÇU was new to me but as it was telescopic and as I have some awareness of words in other languages I got it. (I will never say I know these languages.)
In Tamil Nadu, on the occasion of Pongal festival earlier this month, we had the sport jallikattu in which young men displayed their cojones.
At 19dn “OCCURED” I hesitated. I did not fill it in. A spelling mistake in the grid! What does the crossword editor do? What does the staffer in charge do?
Re 3d, the German for protein is Eiweiss, literally “egg white “. Not the whole egg, indeed. I see others have already pointed out the misspelled “occured”. Quite an enjoyable puzzle despite a few examples of looseness.
Rishi @4, I too did this puzzle early, as the Guardian newspaper app has it as “Cryptic crossword No 1,106 Setter: Anto” on Friday. It now also shows for today as the Quiptic, but still can’t be accessed that way.
I saw this when it appeared at the weekend, started it and then it disappeared. When it reappeared my answers were gone but I remembered LIVING DEAD (loved it) and NO GREAT SHAKES immediately. Then worked through the rest but did not get ACROSS and didn’t parse GOOF.
Also liked: APERCU (new word for me), FOXY, PLETHORA.
Thanks to Anto and Pierre
Favourites: LIVING DEAD, PLETHORA
Failed APERCU
Did not parse ETHER
19d gives new spelling of OCCURRED? I never saw it spelled like that before.
Thanks, Anto + Pierre
This was well worth the wait, although I had the same raised-eyebrow over EGG as Pierre. OCCURRED did flag briefly, but I assumed it was an alternate spelling.
CAESAR, FOXY, CHEESE, LIVING DEAD and NO GREAT SHAKES were all thoroughly enjoyable, though.
Monkey @ 5 I can remember being puzzled, when learning Polish, reading articles which encouraged me to make sure I was eating enough white (bia?ko), until I realised it meant protein. I enjoyed this, but I am not sure I would have done last year when all I could do was Quiptics.
I see even Crossword Compiler, which has some strange words, only gives ‘occurs to’ for occur?? Anyway, I expect we all guessed the non-word.
I thought this was harder than Vulcan’s cryptic today. I liked NO GREAT SHAKES.
Thanks Anto and Pierre.
… or even ‘occur to’
I thought that this was an excellent Quiptic, marred only by the unfortunate error in 19dn. Having complained about Anto in the past, I want to be sure to give him credit when due.
Thanks both. Didn’t notice the spelling mistake in 19d (doh!).
[I would hope that Schrödinger‘s cat found itself new accommodation when it discovered Edwin‘s dodgy idea]
Anto on top form here. Liked APERCU, NO GREAT SHAKES and the excellent SUPERNOVA. Thanks for explaining the first part of LIVING DEAD, Pierre.
Just chipping in to say I started this crossword a few days ago, paused for an errand, and was baffled at its disappearance while I was away.
Odd déja vu. But I was relieved to find other victims on board – another reason to be grateful for this very interesting resource.
Thanks everyone.
[Faiprort @15
Are you a misprint (of one of my favourite bands)?]
22a and 19d have been changed online to get rid of the spelling error. The answers are now AGENDA and ORDERED, for fairly obvious reasons
Thanks Diana – I would like to know how the error got through though – what is the checking process?
When this finally appeared, I found it reasonably straightforward. FOXY was lovely. There are delightful surfaces for some of the anagrams too – especially SUPERNOVA and HOT STREAK. LIVING DEAD and PLETHORA also have great clues. Thanks, Anto and Pierre.
Thanks Pierre. Some clever amusing clues. Favs SUPERNOVA, FOXY. A dnf as had fading not WANING as a dd -if I am fading, ie tired and losing focus, I am in need of a rest/sleep. I ca see that WANING parses more tightly and is better. Ouch, defeated by a quiptic. Thanks to Anto
Diana Jeater @ 17
But sadly that means we lose APERCU which I really liked
Yes Fiona Anne@21, I too really liked that
@Rishi, mistakes happen. I think it is commendable that Guardian is able to offer so much – and free of charge, when media organisations around the world are in deep trouble.
Thanks to Anto, Pierre and the bloggers here. Finally I am getting to grips with cryptic crosswords.
Lovely puzzle and blog – thank you Anto and Pierre. By the time I got to it, on the Guardian app, 19 and 22 were already history so I missed all the fun! Chiz sa Molesworth. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a Hot Streak – I’m supposed to be a native speaker of the local language here but perhaps I missed the memo: ho hum.
I do seriously think that Anto’s getting better and better.
vogel421 @21
Would that be “Anto’s getting beter and beter”?
As usual I give up around Thursday and look here for answers.
1a was such an obvious answer I put it in straight away. Unfortunately, HUMOUR was wrong. I thought the point of a cryptic clue was that it was very obvious when you had it? HUMOUR fits so well in my mind that CHEESE would leave me hesitating for a better answer.
Many of these I’d simply never heard of. APERÇU seems a bit continental for this side of 2021, don’t you think? And I thought a SHOW TRIAL was something to do with dressage.
I’m happy to admit to myself when I should have got them and didn’t, of which this puzzle offers several, but a significant number of them just left me sour.
I wasn’t going to comment as I solved this quite late and had the same thoughts as many of you above but as well as thanking Pierre for the helpful blog, in the light of some other posts this week i would like to thank Anto for sensitive clueing of the OCD part of the sadly erroneous 19D as well as my favourite ETHER.