Guardian Quiptic 798/Provis

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Late on parade; apologies.  Laptop meltdown when I was about to post.  Has anyone else screamed abuse at an inanimate object?

 

 

 

 

Enjoyed it, but a bit hard for a Quiptic, I thought.  How many times have we heard that?  Sorry – especially to Provis – for a terse blog, but I had to redo the whole thing.  And I’ve probably misunderstood some stuff in my hurry to get something online.

Abbreviations

cd  cryptic definition
dd  double definition
(xxxx)*  anagram
anagrind = anagram indicator
[x]  letter(s) removed

definitions are underlined

Across

1 A group on leave
ABANDON
A charade of A, BAND and ON.

5 Cried during infected pus being cleaned
SWEPT UP
Lovely surface reading, thank you, Provis.  An insertion of WEPT in (PUS)*

9 Gather in front section of harlequin garment
HARVEST
It’s a charade of HAR for the ‘front section of harlequin’ and VEST for ‘garment’.  Cue complaints from folk who don’t like ‘front section’ indicating the first three (how many, exactly?) letters of a word.  I am undecided about this technique, although I did get the solution reasonably quickly, so can’t complain too much.

10 Report of a hundred in number
ACCOUNT
An insertion of C in A COUNT.

11 Opt for spoken language test for those entitled to vote
ELECTORAL
A charade of ELECT and ORAL.

12 Employment in America takes a long time
USAGE
A charade of US and AGE.

13 Some men do well to provide financial support
ENDOW
Hidden in mEN DO Well.

15 Due to ANC, I abandoned schooling
EDUCATION
(DUE TO ANC I)* although those interested in South African politics would no doubt disagree with the surface.

17 Sacked second ancient city captured in heroic exploit
DESTROYED
An insertion of  S TROY in DEED.

19 Die in agony by court order
EDICT
(DIE)* plus CT.

22 Demonstration starting from Marble Arch
MARCH
Well, it’s a Quiptic, and it should be simple: it’s M plus ARCH.

23 Ice mostly goes with drink containing gin, say
ALCOHOLIC
A charade of ALCOHOL and IC[E].  Nice surface.

25 Most difficult of everything in the exam
TALLEST
An insertion of ALL in TEST.  ‘That’s a tall order.’

26 Please remove the illuminations!
DELIGHT
A whimsical way of saying that if you ‘removed the illuminations’ you would DE-LIGHT.

27 Detective almost half suspects journalist is no longer working
DISUSED
Here we go again with ‘how many letters do you want me to remove?’  It’s DI, SUS[PECTS] plus ED.

28 Exhibition to show contempt for freedom of movement
DISPLAY
It’s a charade of DIS and PLAY, but I would write ‘show contempt for’ as DISS.  ‘Don’t diss me.’  But I’m not of that generation, so I could be wrong.

Down

1 A child that is initially very eager to win
ACHIEVE
A charade of A, CH, IE and VE for the first letters of ‘very eager’.

2 Idiot in charge of the RAF?
AIRHEAD
A cd, suggesting that the person that is ‘in charge of the RAF’ would be an AIR HEAD.

3 Remained blue over ending of employment
DWELT
A reversal of LEWD followed by T for the last letter of ’employment’.

4 Bad reputation for opposition to disturbance announced by Yemeni leader
NOTORIETY
A charade of NO, TO, RIET (a homophone of RIOT) and Y for the first letter of ‘Yemeni’.

5 Cut out delay
STALL
A dd.  Referring to aeroplanes (the consequences are not good) and putting back (which sometimes can be good).

6 Urge limits to exaggeration about how old we are
ENCOURAGE
The outside letters of ‘exaggeration’ followed by C for circa or ‘about’ followed by OUR AGE.  Which in my case, is seriously old.

7 Wave in Thailand capsized one man beside you and me
TSUNAMI
A good surface reading, which it took me some time to decipher.  It’s T for ‘Thailand’ followed by a reversal of I, MAN and US.

8 Order to touch bird gently
PATTERN
If you touched a tern gently, then you’d PAT TERN.

14 It’s of no use to throw out a smaller quantity
WORTHLESS
(THROW)* plus LESS.

16 Dundee CID could be in two minds
UNDECIDED
(DUNDEE CID)*

17 Downgraded duke let his feelings show
DEMOTED
A charade of D and EMOTED.

18 Surfboarder’s opening advantage is more than needed
SURPLUS
Here we go again. I think it’s SUR plus PLUS.

20 I will say nearly everything wrong
ILLEGAL
A charade of I’LL, EG and AL[L].

21 Old soldiers voluntarily left in the centre of London without specific agreement
TACITLY
A charade of TA and L in CITY.  It’s ‘old’ because the TA are now called something else, which I can’t at the minute remember.

23 Bill and Edward played their part
ACTED
A charade of ACT and ED

24 That man’s holding a record for domestics
HELPS
An insertion of LP in HE’S.

Thanks to Provis; apologies again for the terse account of his/her puzzle.

19 comments on “Guardian Quiptic 798/Provis”

  2. Thanks Provis and Pierre
    Both Provis and Rufus (main puzzle) have “use”, or similar, in more than once, in part of a solution.

    Love AIRHEAD.

  3. Thanks Provis and Pierre.

    Has anyone else screamed abuse at an inanimate object? I’ve just been doing it!

    I was fuming about T = Thailand, but I saw that it is in the BRB, so I suppose it’s allowable although I’m not keen on using all the single letter IVR codes. The usual country code is TH or THA.

  4. In 5d, nothing actually cuts out when an aeroplane stalls – it’s a situation where the wing is no longer generating lift (because of too low a speed or too high an angle of attack, or a combination of both). The consequences can be scary and often aren’t good, but with enough room to recover needn’t be fatal.

  5. Thanks Provis and Pierre.

    The Cryptic and the Quiptic seemed about equal to me in difficulty today. I did like SWEPT UP.

    8d, could it also be Order = PATTERN, a charade?

  6. Abusing inanimate objects Pierre? In Peter De Vries’s wonderful novel ‘Madder Music’ in the climax to a hilarious scene (details on request) one of the characters rails at ‘the total depravity of inanimate objects’.

    Amen to that.

    PS the innate depravity explains why, amongst other things, your toast hits the floor butter side down.

  7. Thanks, Alastair. You are right of course about aircraft stalls, but on a second, more leisurely reading of the clue, it could equally be a car stall, so I think Provis is on secure ground and it’s just my parsing that has led folk astray.

  9. Thanks Pierre.

    Re “stall” I don’t think that is necessarily a word related uniquely to aeroplanes – you can “stall” e.g. a car engine.

    Re 11, I think that “those entitled to vote” are the electorate, not the electoral, but I’m not that bothered.

    Neat Quiptic and rather tougher than par. Thanks Provis.

  10. I didn’t mean to suggest that “stall” wasn’t correct, or that the explanation wasn’t more or less correct too. But I’d suggest that a car stall is better – there the engine has cut out. When an aircraft stalls, the engine(s) may well still be running.

  11. I think this was a very good puzzle with (especially) enough charades to call this a Quiptic.
    Provis is a fine setter who cares about her surfaces – today it wasn’t different.

    That said, in the past I was soften critical about elements of her style, especially when she uses unspecified parts of words.
    In that respect, Pierre (and thanks for the blog), you mentioned 9ac, 27ac and 18d.

    But actually in two of these situations I was completely fine with it.
    I do mind a setter using ‘front of harlequin’ for more than just the H, but ‘front section of’ is OK (even if it is still unspecified).
    ‘Nearly half suspects’ surely means ‘take 3 letters’. Half would be 4, you know.
    Only in 18d Provis falls back into an old habit.
    For me, ‘Surfboarder’s opening’ means S (because in my perception a word has only one beginning), and therefore certainly not SUR.

    But altogether, generally lovely stuff.

  12. [Conrad Cork @6

    I remember the story of a statistician who noticed that, when his children dropped toast, it always landed butter-side up. Intrigued, he investigated further, to discover that they were buttering the toast on both sides.

    There is also the “hovering machine”. Cats always land on their feet, toast lands butter side down. Just tie a piece of buttered toast, butter side up, to a cat’s back……………….]

  13. Glad of a reminder from over the road – I enjoyed this. The surfaces – 26a,6 & 20d brought a smile. NOTORIETY and DESTROYED were fun to unravel, ELECTORAL does seem `iffy`… I think 3d’s my favourite, because it was my last, perhaps.

    Thanks for explaining `most difficult` and thanks, muffin @12 for making me laugh.
    I look forward to more from Provis.

  14. Conrad Cork @6

    I do not think the idea originated with Peter de Vries. In 1948 Paul Jennings introduced Resistentialism, the Implacable Hostility of Things, summed up in the Great Law of Resistentialism, that if slices of toast and marmalade are dropped at random onto a carpet, the marmalade-downward-incidence (µ?I, if the special characters come through) is proportional to the value of the carpet.

    My capcha asks me how to get the answer forty-two.

  16. Good grief, as Charlie Brown would have said. This blog is turning into a bit of existentialism, so Jean-Paul will be contributing next. Forty-two is the answer to everything, of course. And the answer to the problem is not to drop the toast on the floor in the first place. But mostly, thank you again to Provis for an entertaining puzzle, since it is her gig after all and not just a forum for the rest of us to go off on one …

  17. Sorry, Pierre – and Provis. I couldn’t resist that one. As for the crossword, I enjoyed it. Chambers and the Urban Dictionary both give DIS and DISS as alternatives.

  18. I’m new to this so I’m still working out how things work. Can someone help me with 23d? I thought the AC might be for ‘account’ (bill) and TED for Edward. I don’t understand how ACT relates to Bill.

    Thanks – great website and comments here.

  19. Hi Becky
    I think your parsing (AC+TED) is more accurate because a ‘bill’ only becomes an ‘act’ after it has successfully passed through parliament so I don’t think the two are synonymous.

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