A delightful set of concisely and precisely written clues from Carpathian make up today’s Quiptic. Brava.
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 Gloom of the Parisian couple
DESPAIR
A charade of DES for ‘of the’ in French and PAIR.
5 Special ceremonies for goblins?
SPRITES
A charade of SP and RITES.
9 Begin street painting?
START
A charade of ST and ART.
10 Steps into bunk under the influence
BLADDERED
An insertion of LADDER in BED. The insertion indicator is ‘into’ and the answer is one of about a zillion slang words in English for ‘drunk’.
11 Assured true agenda is different
GUARANTEED
(TRUE AGENDA)* with ‘is different’ as the anagrind.
12 Stop husband getting key
HALT
A charade of H and ALT for the ‘key’ on your keyboard.
14 Tribute, as inmates toil abroad
TESTIMONIAL
(INMATES TOIL)* with ‘abroad’ as the anagrind.
18 Chance of promotion within popular hospital department
INADVERTENT
An insertion of ADVERT in IN for ‘popular’ and ENT for the setters’ fave ‘hospital department’. Ear, Nose and Throat, known in the trade as otolaryngology, which is clearly a lot less useful for people like Vigo.
21 Enthusiastic about instant noodle teriyaki option, initially
INTO
The initial letters of the third, fourth, fifth and sixth words of the clue. ‘Sue is really into crosswords.’
22 Check prisoners learn with time
CONSTRAINT
A charade of CONS, TRAIN and T.
25 King’s instrument for fiddler?
CARD SHARP
A charade of CARDS and HARP. The ‘King’ is of the spades, hearts, diamonds or clubs variety.
26 Peaceful period badly interrupted by discontented donkey
IDYLL
An insertion of DY for D[ONKE]Y in ILL. The insertion indicator is ‘interrupted by’.
27 Take old Christmas film enthusiasts back
SNAFFLE
A reversal of ELF and FANS. The film is the 2003 offering of that name. Is that ‘old’? Depends on your point of view, I guess.
28 A rugby player’s embracing love that’s very suitable
APROPOS
A charade of A and O for ‘love’ inserted into PROPS. The insertion indicator is ’embracing’.
Down
1 Measure decline in deer
DOSAGE
An insertion of SAG in DOE. The insertion indicator is ‘in’.
2 Hush a male magician
SHAMAN
A charade of SH, A and MAN.
3 Pretty busy after a dry run
ATTRACTIVE
A charade of A, TT for teetotal or ‘dry’, R and ACTIVE.
4 Nonsense written about old British machine
ROBOT
An insertion of O and B in ROT. The insertion indicator is ‘written about’.
5 Creep and drop drug into drink
SNAKEBITE
A charade of SNAKE, BIT and E. ‘Do you want milk?’ ‘Just a bit/a drop.’ SNAKEBITE, traditionally, is a mixture of half a pint of lager and half a pint of cider. A dash of blackcurrant gives you snakebite and black, but doesn’t make it any more drinkable.
6 Puritan losing head becomes vulgar
RUDE
[P]RUDE
7 Reptile softly enters land
TERRAPIN
An insertion of P in TERRAIN. The insertion indicator is ‘enters’.
8 Calmly start to enfold escort in artful embrace
SEDATELY
An insertion of E for the initial letter of ‘enfold’ and DATE in SLY. The insertion indicator is ‘in … embrace’.
13 Dog mangled exterior in France
FOX TERRIER
An insertion of (EXTERIOR)* in FR. The insertion indicator is ‘in’ and the anagrind is ‘mangled’.
15 Substitute is right over upturned label inside safe
SURROGATE
An insertion of R, O and TAG reversed in SURE. The insertion indicator is ‘inside’.
16 Memsahib is customarily holding flower
HIBISCUS
Hidden in MemsaHIB IS CUStomarily.
17 Fabricate without force unusual micro-organisms
BACTERIA
([F]ABRICATE)* The anagrind is ‘unusual’ and I want to personally thank Vigo for correctly using BACTERIA as a plural noun, because the next time someone who should know better – like a BBC science correspondent, for example – says ‘a bacteria is thought to be responsible for the outbreak’ I swear on my life you will hear me shouting at the telly from where you live. One bacterium, two bacteria. It’s not hard.
19 Make orderly finally, finally happy following time with papers
TIDY UP
A charade of T, ID, Y and UP.
20 Follows society’s discussions
STALKS
A charade of S and TALKS.
23 One taken in by copies turning up in colour
SEPIA
An insertion of I in APES reversed. The reversal indicator, since it’s a down clue, is ‘turning up’; The insertion indicator is ‘taken in by’.
24 A second condition produces expression of incredulity
AS IF
A charade of A, S and IF.
Many thanks to Carpathian for this morning’s Quiptic. She’ll be off to the shops later because she’ll have two fat fees to spend – she has also compiled the Indy Monday crossword today as Vigo.
Thanks Carpathian and Pierre
Lovely puzzle. Particular favourites were INADVERTENT, IDYLL, and SEDATELY.
[17d Pierre, I think this may be a losing battle, together with criterion/criteria. I’m saving my strength for unnecessary apostrophes. 🙁 ]
Thanks both.
Enjoyed this much more than today’s cryptic. Re. ‘bacterium/bacteria’: themost recent misuse I encountered was this week in a television programme with Lucy Worsley about The Black Death: while Ms Worsley correctly used the singular, the expert she was interviewing persistently used the plural. I am still shouting at the television.
Enjoyable puzzle, very good for beginners.
Liked CONSTRAINT, IDYLL, ATTRACTIVE, CARD SHARP
New: SNAKEBITE (drink).
Thanks, both.
I agree with crossbar@2 re unnecessary apostrophes 😕
Thanks Carpathian: a nice Quiptic. I learned BLADDERED = drunk from crosswords, never having met it in real life, and it took a while to spot it here. SHAMAN was so nearly a hidden word that the real parsing wasn’t as obvious as it should have been. I also raised an eyebrow at ELF being an old Christmas film – but I guess Carpathian is younger than me.
Thanks Carpathian and Pierre. I was beaten by snakebite.
[On the subject of poor reporting, I read an article on the BBC news website about the world’s oldest dog. According to the report, the new record holder beat the record that had stood for a century. It then says that the previous record holder died in 1939. Did I miss something that says a century is now 84 years?]
We found this a very pleasant solve, with some lovely PDMs – too many to mention them all, but there were some cracking anagrams and nice Lego constructions. I do wonder whether a goblin is equivalent to a sprite, though. Snap on BLADDERED, gladys @5. Thanks, Carpathian (why do setters use different noms de plume in different papers?) and Pierre.
[Re the unnecessary apostrophes: my phone persists in trying to “correct” every its to it’s, and has to be watched like a hawk. I am therefore fairly tolerant of that fault in other people’s posts, as I’m probably not the only one with a mutinous autocorrect.]
Simply delightful.
Ta Carpathian & Pierre.
Perfectly pitched quiptic.
Thanks both.
Very nice as usual.
I initially eyebrowed des in despair taking it as the plural indefinite article and ‘of’ as a link. I’d forgotten the contraction of de les to des. I of course should have known better no such nonsense would creep into Carpathian’s work.
Trademark tight and accurate cluing that always satisfies. Off to Indy for Vigo now.
Thanks both.
[Gladys@8 I’ve taken to calling my phone’s somewhat idiotic spell check ‘autocorrupt’]
Great Quiptic and blog. Thanks
Still don’t get SNAKEBITE. The blog says it’s a charade but the clue seems to have an instruction to insert. Am I missing something?
Thank you
Hi Pork Scotch. SNAKEBITE is a charade: SNAKE means ‘creep’, BIT means ‘drop’ as in my example, and E is the ‘drug’ (short for ‘Ecstasy’). There isn’t an insertion: the ‘into’ bit just needs to be read as ‘[turns] into’.
Hope that helps.
Thanks Carpathian and Pierre!
@Pierre, I think the source of the R (presumably, “run”) is missing from the explanation of 3d
Thanks, Pierre. That makes sense now.
Thanks, Carpathian and Pierre. Delightful as always from one of my favourites, although residual tiredness from a late night meant it took me as long as Friday’s Picaroon to finish.
LOI was SNAKEBITE – not keen on that “into” which led me up the garden path a bit and feels uncharacteristically loose for Carpathian. But never mind, I got there in the end. Snakebite and black, aka Diesel, was the favoured drink of goths back when I was a student in Leeds in the early 90s.
TassieTim @7 – I think it was originally to do with maintaining a pretence of exclusivity. Now it’s just tradition.
Or even Friday’s Vlad (told you I was tired).
A bit chewy for a Q, at least to me, but got there in the end. I was thinking ‘en’ for ‘in France’ before I realised it had to be FR.
Did this a day late. The drink SNAKEBITE was new to me, and I had to cheat on that one. In general I found the puzzle chewier than the average Quiptic, but it was too much fun to complain too loudly.
Is Carpathian female? (Querying because of the brava rather than bravo in the intro.)
[Oh wait–not a full day late. It’s still Monday here, and not all that late either. What the heck is wrong with me? I’ve been thinking it’s Tuesday all day. Clearly I am in for a lousy week.]
I thought “bacteria” was something to do with camels. Oh well … . “Bacterium” is going the way of “medium” (in the mass media context – sorry, space) and “datum”.
I sometimes feel that almost any English language word is also the name of a drink. “Snakebite” was new to me.
In 20d STALKS I thought it a bit loose for “Society’s” to stand for just one “S” (but not so lose as to prevent solution).
A pleasing diversion. Thanks Carpathian, Pierre and other commenters.
I was held up in the top left corner by entering DENIER at 1a. 11a GUARANTEED put me straight, but I still think that my first attempt was as good as the correct answer – IN declined in DEER, for the measure of thickness of a fabric.
Carpathian sets a standard for enjoyable, witty and well-constructed puzzles on the easier end of the spectrum. When I see her name at the top I know I’m in for a fun solve. And thanks Pierre for the excellent blog, with the much-needed help with the revolting-sounding drink at 5d. [ On that subject, I had an uncle who liked to stump bartenders by asking for a scotch and freshie. To his dismay one actually served one up. To his credit he girded his loins and drank the whole thing. He never tried it on again. ]
Am I the only one who thinks 22d that “train” would have been better indicated by “taught” rather than “learn”?
Bonangman @22, re the S it does seem to me, as a rather poor solver, that the use of almost any word’s initial letter has got a bit out of hand these days, but maybe it’s just me.
The camel comment made me laugh!
Thanks to all of you who contribute here, it’s hugely helpful to crossword duffers like me.
22a I meant. Oops.
I was beaten by bladdered and snakebite, neither of which I had heard of before. Gave in and revealed them in the end.
One is a slang word and the other is a drink that had its heyday in the 1980s, Vireya, so I wouldn’t beat yourself up too much about it …
Slingshot@24 if we had needed “trained” I might agree but can’t see it, sorry. I am generally aligned with you on the initial letters but a while back decided that my ‘golden rule’ would be just to pick the first letter of a word if I couldn’t see what else it was doing in the clue, and it has been fairly helpful.
Bonangman@22 – whether possessive or not (and in the cryptic grammar it must be Society has… surely?) the apostrophe means there is only one Society= S, or am I missing your point?
Vireya@26 – commiserations, one way to remember new words is to somehow incorporate them in everyday life but getting regularly 10a on 5d is unlikely to help. 5d was my last in, know the drink well enough, it was that “into” as noted by Widdersbel that held me up.
Thanks Pierre and thanks Carpathian, as a former denizen of the front row I have to vote 26a as my favourite but there were plenty of really good clues to choose from.
I am struggling with INADVERTENT.
Where does ADVERT come from?
Thank you