Goodness, it’s many a moon since we last saw a Quiptic from Beale. Perhaps the editor was tidying out his filing cabinet and found this one at the back. I found it hard.
Abbreviations
cd cryptic definition
dd double definition
(xxxx)* anagram
anagrind = anagram indicator
[x] letter(s) removed
definitions are underlined
Across
1 Results of the day woman takes off
DEVELOPS
A charade of D, EVE and LOPS.
5 Dressing, please, is senseless
ASLEEP
(PLEASE)* with ‘dressing’ as a rather unlikely anagrind. I suppose that if you ‘dress’ a salad then you ‘toss’ it.
9 Ways to spend a long time
PASSAGES
A charade of PASS and AGES.
10 Look up with hesitation, seeing goalie
KEEPER
A reversal of PEEK and ER for ‘hesitation’. But the clue is surely faulty, since this would only work with ‘up’ as a reversal indicator in a down clue?
11 Delivered flower quota to man
EXECUTED
A charade of EXE, the river, CUT and ED.
12 Appease detective inspector’s department
DISARM
A charade of DI’S and ARM.
14 Singled out when I refused to accept returned suit
IDENTIFIED
Here the reversal indicator is fine: it’s FIT reversed in I DENIED.
18 Always against man justly — not half!
CONSTANTLY
A charade of CON, STAN and TLY for [JUS]TLY.
22 Woman student proved to be average
NORMAL
A charade of NORMA and L for learner, or ‘student’.
23 Judge English church to be without organisation
RECORDER
I see the EC bit as ‘English church’; I see ORDER as ‘organisation’. But I can’t parse it. Can someone help?
24 Crew with maturity get by
MANAGE
A charade of MAN and AGE.
25 Fate of detectives taken in by a bit of money
ACCIDENT
An insertion of CID in A CENT. Not sure that ACCIDENT would by my first choice of synonym for ‘fate’.
26 Applause gives one comfort
CHEERS
A dd.
27 Invited 50 into foreign embassy for meeting
ASSEMBLY
An insertion of L for the Roman numeral in (EMBASSY)* Nice surface reading.
Down
1 Declined swim at sports day
DIPPED
A charade of DIP, PE and D for the second use of D for ‘day’ in the puzzle.
2 Behaves selfishly, keeping the bowl
VESSEL
Hidden in behaVES SELfishly.
3 Glue spilled outside each class
LEAGUE
An insertion of EA in (GLUE)*
4 Acting priest is missing from the finale
PRETENDING
Another good surface, but this is a Quiptic, remember. A charade of PR[I]E[S]T and ENDING. ‘is missing from’ is the removal indicator.
6 Mixed spice rejected, if head chef is particular
SPECIFIC
A charade of (SPICE)* a reversal of IF and C for the first letter of ‘chef’.
7 Stress caused by awkward impasse involving hospital
EMPHASIS
(IMPASSE H)*
8 Without a second thought, I’d followed girl back to the ancient tombs
PYRAMIDS
An insertion of MARY reversed and ID in PS for ‘second thought’. You can just about read ‘without’ as putting PS around the rest of the fodder.
13 Pressures of current illness lead to drunken scene
INFLUENCES
A charade of IN, FLU and (SCENE)*
15 English publication receives refusal, being financially viable
ECONOMIC
A charade of E and NO in COMIC.
16 Door, half-open with rapture
ENTRANCE
A bit of an old chestnut, relying on the fact that if you place the stress on the second syllable, it means ‘rapture’; if you place the stress on the first syllable, it means ‘door’. Not entirely sure what ‘half-open’ is doing other than to improve the surface.
17 More bizarre way to meet man in the park
STRANGER
A charade of ST and RANGER.
19 Sign that it’s above freezing
NOTICE
If there were puddles outside, it would mean that it’s above freezing, and it’s NOT ICE. A dd cum cd.
20 Raved afresh to bishop’s part of speech
ADVERB
A charade of (RAVED)* and B for the part of speech of which 18ac is an example.
21 Quite right to be taken in by little
PRETTY
An insertion of R in PETTY. ‘This crossword was quite/pretty good.’
Many thanks to Beale for this morning’s Quiptic.
Thanks Pierre and Beale
I also found this Quiptic a little on the tricky side but I slowly warmed to it and was pleased to complete it.
My favourites were 8d, 15d, 13d, 6d, 14a, 4d, 9a.
I parsed 23a as R C (Roman Catholic) around/”without” E (English) + ORDER
Thanks for the great blog Pierre. I agree – while I thought it was a nice puzzle,it seemed quite hard for a Quiptic.
I parsed 13 across as follows.
E for English.
RC for (the) Roman Catholic (church).
The phrase “church to be without” means that the “E” is inside the church “RC”.
We then have “ORDER” for the organization.
A little convoluted, perhaps, and there may well be a better explanation.
Whoops, sorry michelle, I was busy typing/submitting and I only saw your post after I’d submitted mine. At least we agree on the explanation for 23 across (which, for some inexplicable reason, I called 13 across!).
Thanks both. A bit hard for a Quiptic
16d possibly half open =”en” and then trance for rapture?
10a could have been easily fixed with” Look BACK with hesitation”
Please, can someone give a sentence where results = develops. I’m still struggling – back later…
I meant to add thanks to Michelle and Rick for parsing recorder
Bonjour, Cookie.
‘When the England and Wales Cricket Board commits resources to the game, what results/develops is a team that is capable of beating Australia 5-0 in the upcoming Ashes series.’ That’s just an example sentence, of course. But we live in hope.
A plus tard.
And so did I, Shirl.
Rick@3 – no problem – I do that all the time, and even imagined it might happen today when I posted my comment!
Shirl @ 4 – I also parsed 16d in the way that you mention (EN = 1/2 of opEN)
Thanks Beale for the puzzle and Pierre for the blog and post @7.
This seemed harder than today’s Cryptic (Rufus). I was stuck on DEVELOPS for quite a while, seeing ‘takes off’ as the better definition, but Pierre @7 kindly gave me a sentence to justify ‘results’ as the correct one.
Thanks also to michelle, Rick and Shirl for further explanations.
I did like ASSEMBLY, DIPPED, PYRAMIDS, PASSAGES and IDENTIFIED among others.
This is certainly not a bad crossword but, as others said, hard for a Quiptic.
There is not even one full anagram in it!
It seems that Beale loves his ‘man’ (Ed, Stan, and one in the park) and ‘woman’ (Eve, Norma, and one girl (Mary)).
There are more repetitions in this puzzle.
Twice we have ‘without’ in the sense of ‘going around something’ (23ac, 8d).
Thanks to Michelle & Rick for explaining RECORDER, I couldn’t.
And in 8d, PS around the rest? Mmm, perhaps just about as Pierre says.
It’s more logical to read it as something going around PS.
Anyway, a bit too convoluted for a Quiptic, in my opinion.
Also twice we had something being ‘taken in’ (25ac, 21d).
And twice ‘(not) half’ (18ac,16d [I agree with Shirl]).
Oh, and, as Pierre said, two ‘days’ (1ac, 1d).
In the across one I didn’t like ‘the day’ (with article) for D very much.
Last week Bonxie had ‘head teacher’ for T, Beale uses ‘head chef’ for C.
Not my cup of tea.
All in all though a good and challenging solve – but a Quiptic?
Just back in from work. Suggestions above for the parsing of ENTRANCE are much better than my effort. And thanks for explaining RECORDER. Bit convoluted, imho.
I too failed to fully parse RECORDER, also being misdirected by taking English church as EC and not thinking of RC. Having seen the suggested parsing above (thanks, Michelle and Rick), I think it is a good clue, but more complicated than I’d expect in a Quiptic. My favourites are SPECIFIC and PYRAMIDS.
Thanks to Beale and Pierre.
For what (little) it’s worth, I’m a firm “no” on 8d. “Without” can mean “outside of”, but in that case “Without XX, YY” means YXXY, not XYYX. That and the flaw in 10a are things that should have been caught by the editor.
Overall, my impression matches the apparent consensus: some good clues, but surprisingly hard for a quiptic.