Guardian Quiptic 1159 Pasquale

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Thank you to Pasquale. Definitions are underlined in the clues.

Across

1. Soldiers to yield or retreat (6)

RECEDE : RE(abbrev. for the Royal Engineers, soldiers in the British Army) + CEDE(to yield/to surrender to).

4. Danger with mist almost coming to a road (6)

HAZARD : “haze”(obscuration of the lower atmosphere/mist) minus its last letter(almost) plus(coming to) A + RD(abbrev. for “road”).

9. Soon minister in cathedral will get caught out (4)

ANON : “canon”(a minister in a cathedral) minus(will get … out) “c”(abbrev. for “caught” in cricket scores).

10. Branch of learning — I have to be expressing personal ideas (10)

SUBJECTIVE : SUBJECT(a branch of learning/knowledge studied or taught) + I’VE(contraction of “I have”).

11. Religious writings featured in Dave’s talks (6)

AVESTA : Hidden in(featured in) “Dave’s talks“.

Defn: … of Zoroastrianism.

12. Finish with this writer in editing (8)

EMENDING : ENDING(the finish/conclusion) containing(with … in) ME(the writer of this piece, using the self-referential pronoun).

13. Process apt to go wrong, ignoring ace candidates (9)

PROSPECTS : Anagram of(… to go wrong) “Process apt” minus(ignoring) “a”(abbrev. for the “ace” in a deck of playing cards).

15. Celebrity making one gawp endlessly (4)

STAR : “stare”(to gawp/to look fixedly with wide-open eyes) minus its last letter(endlessly).

Defn: One might even gawp endlessly, in awe or admiration, at this person.

16. Nasty smell from river — no good (4)

PONG : PO(the river in Italy) + NG(abbrev. for “no good”).

17. Getting tough, wanting drug reduced (9)

CRACKDOWN : CRACK(drug, specifically a crystalline form of cocaine) + DOWN(at a lower level/reduced).

21. Crazy male’s out to become close buddy (4,4)

SOUL MATE : Anagram of(Crazy) MALE’S OUT.

22. Greatly appreciating French wine, as recorded in diary (6)

LOVING : VIN(French for “wine”) contained in(as recorded in) LOG(a record of events or observations/a diary).

24. Inconclusive result, game being one that goes up and down (10)

DRAWBRIDGE : DRAW(an inconclusive result in a competitive match between two teams) + BRIDGE(a card game).

25. Racing at Epsom — number of spectators squeezed in (4)

GATE : Hidden in(… squeezed) “Racing at Epsom“.

Defn: …, maybe also squeezed into the venue.

26. Glum little Maureen got out of bed (6)

MOROSE : MO(short for the name, Maureen) + ROSE(got out of bed/woke up from sleep).

27. Entered cinema, excitedly (4,2)

CAME IN : Anagram of(…, excitedly) CINEMA.

Down

1. Summarise journey with six deliveries? (3,4)

RUN OVER : RUN(a journey by vehicle, especially one done regularly) + OVER(in cricket, a sequence of six deliveries by a bowler from one end of the pitch).

2. Sticks containers outside back of house (5)

CANES : CANS(cylindrical metallic containers) containing(outside) last letter of(back of) “house“.

3. Flu? Daughter is calm (7)

DISEASE : D(abbrev. for “daughter”) + IS + EASE(absence of discomfort or tenseness/calm).

Defn: … is an example/?.

5. Everyone embraces first female to get academic qualification (1,5)

A LEVEL : ALL(everyone) containing(embraces) EVE(the first female, per the Bible).

Defn: … in a specific subject, in the UK, except Scotland.

6. An old rocker and a similar rocker placed in an earlier time (9)

ANTEDATED : AN + TED(short for “teddy boy”, a young rocker/one of a certain subculture, in the 1950s) plus(and) A + TED(a similar/one more rocker).

7. Wonderful king who wanders around with a rod? (7)

DIVINER : DIVINE(wonderful/delightful, as in “The Divine Miss M”) + R(abbrev. for “Rex”/a king).

Defn: One …, viz. a divining rod that can locate the presence of water or minerals, or so it is claimed.

8. We’ll drink to these, showing absurdly fab trendiness (6,7)

ABSENT FRIENDS : Anagram of(absurdly) FAB TRENDINESS.

Defn: … as in the traditional toast “To absent friends”.

14. It’s blooming newspaper floating on river? (9)

SUNFLOWER : SUN(The …, British newspaper) placed above(floating on, in a down clue) FLOWER(that which flows, say, a river)

16. Set of instructions for US TV show? (7)

PROGRAM : Double defn. 1st:  (In US spelling, too?) … controlling the operation of a computer; and 2nd: The US spelling for a show on TV.

18. Deep depression around area — tree sinks into it (7)

CALDERA : [ C(abbrev. for “circa”/about/around when refering to dates) + A(abbrev. for “area”) ] containing(… sinks into it) ALDER(tree of the birch family).

19. Churchill is victorious — then not, after upset (7)

WINSTON : WINS(is victorious/betas opponents) plus(then) reversal of(…, after upset) NOT.

Defn: First name of …, the British statesman.

20. Ministers spared criminal (6)

PADRES : Anagram of(… criminal) SPARED.

Defn: … in the Church.

23. Very fit — also dim (5)

VAGUE : V(abbrev. for “very”) + AGUE(a shivering fit/attack).

Defn: …/hazy.

21 comments on “Guardian Quiptic 1159 Pasquale”

  1. Pasquale Is known for obscure words in his standard cryptics, happily only AVESTA and CALDERA were tricky for me.

  2. Not an obscurity in sight. I liked CALDERA for the less common tree, CAME IN for the pithiness and DIVINER for the definition.

  3. Thanks for the blog, scchua. Lovely stuff from Pasquale – always impressed that he can come up with a real toughie like last Thursday’s Cryptic but also turn out an exemplary Quiptic like this. Agree with Petert on CAME IN – very neat. AVESTA is new to me but the clue leads you to it nicely.

    GATE is an interesting one – breaking the convention of having the definition at the beginning or end, but again clued clearly enough that you can’t say it isn’t fair, even for a Quiptic level.

  5. I thought 11a was an exemplary quiptic clue – very simple wordplay for a very obscure (to me, at least) word, a principle that some setters sometimes ignore.

  6. Thank you scchua as I couldn’t parse ANTEDATED having fixated on (Adam) Ant as the first rocker – i should have gone back further in time.
    muffin@11 luckily i already had DISEASE so did not consider Vestal, a very plausible answer being a more common word and of course with religious connotations. I did manage to confidently enter TINES instead of CANES which delayed me a while.
    All well summed up above, thanks Pasquale for a manageable challenge this time!

  9. muffin @4 – snap! When we got to the downs and I saw the obvious OVER, we looked again to see if the V could be fitted, and there was the answer. I am finding out how much fun it can be solving in a team. I agree that this was a masterclass in Quiptics – all the parsing was there. What a delight the two TEDs were! As a one time volcanologist, CALDERA was lovely (we used to live inside the Rabaul caldera). Thanks, Pasquale and scchua.

  10. Perfect, no false starts, and only Avesta was new to me, but as already mentioned, clearly clued.
    Thanks P and S

  11. muffin @4 – I considered VESTAL briefly but thought it didn’t quite fit the definition so didn’t enter it.

  12. AVESTA, ANTEDATED and CALDERA were all new to me – AVESTA was beautifully clued, but the combination of the unusual word and the less common tree stumped (arf!) me.

    Thanks both.

  13. Muffin@4 I probably would have, but I had a crosser or two already.

    The only thing I didn’t like so much in this puzzle was the “wanting” in 17a. It’s not part of either the definition or wordplay, and makes a lousy linking word (unlike, say, “is” or “produces”).

  14. Good entertaining crossword. However, although clearly clued, I don’t think obscure words like AVESTA have a place in a Quiptic puzzle. I would have thought that the NW corner could have been re-engineered to remove it. I also agree with Dr WhatsOn @13 that ‘wanting’ seemed to be an uncharacteristic approach by Pasquale unless there is something else there that we do not understand.

    My picks were DIVINER and SUNFLOWER.

    Thanks Pasquale and scchua.

  15. Perhaps worth acknowledging the “?” in 1d, as an over may consist of more than six deliveries in cases of no-balls and wides.

  17. Had no idea about EMENDED, but great to have another word that people think should be spelled with an A when I use it! I will effect this immediately.

    Couple of dodgy definitions in my opinion. “Close buddy” somewhat undersells SOUL MATE and “newspaper” somewhat oversells The Sun

  18. Great crossie. Thanks Pasquale and scchua.
    17a. I don’t have so much of a problem with ‘wanting’. I think I’ve seen that before, usually ‘needing’, although for part of the wordplay , not the whole lot.

    But I don’t get the ‘getting’ . I can’t come up with a sentence where ‘getting tough’ is interchangeable with CRACKDOWN as a verb.
    He’s getting tough. He’s cracking down.

    Maybe a noun? There’s a crackdown on parties at No 10. There’s a getting tough on ………. Possibly.
    An adjective? They’re using a crackdown approach to ….. or but that would be a ‘get tough’ approach….

    Originally I thought ‘getting’ was a kind of signpost, like ‘wanting’, and not part of the definition, but that doesn’t work either.

  19. paddymelon: think of it as a gerund – “The government’s getting tough hasn’t worked” / “The government’s crackdown hasn’t worked”.

    An excellent Quiptic. I really liked the two Teds in ANTEDATED.

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