Quiptic 1,073 by Matilda

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Matilda is always a good name to see in the Quiptic slot. This puzzle had its tricky moments but was a lot of fun.

There are a couple of slightly awkward clues such as 9a and 16d, with a bit of a jump to get to the answer – I suspect that clarity was sacrificed for the sake of a good surface. But also a lot of good beginner-level clues, or at least examples that beginners can learn from for future reference. My favourite was probably 1a, with honourable mentions to the delightfully simple 10a and 1d. Thanks Matilda for another enjoyable puzzle.

Definitions are underlined; BOLD UPPERCASE indicates letters used in the wordplay; square brackets [ ] indicate omitted letters.

ACROSS
1 HISPANIC Argentinian perhaps showing her composure? Quite the opposite! (8)
A delightful clue to start: initially quite incomprehensible, but obvious when you see it. The opposite of “her composure” is HIS PANIC.
Spanish-speaking or from a Spanish-influenced culture, for example Argentinian.
5 SCRAWL Write illegibly as a result of s-stroke (6)
Crawl (or front crawl) is a swimming stroke; despite the name it’s pretty fast. So S-CRAWL = s-stroke.
9 IRON LADY Strong-willed woman caused royal din (4,4)
Anagram of ROYAL DIN, though I’m not sure “caused” is an effective anagram indicator.
Nickname for former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, though it’s been applied to a number of other strong women over the years.
10 CANCAN Tintin’s dance (6)
Tin = can = sealed metal container for preserving food; so Tintin = CANCAN.
French dance (think high kicks and petticoats); the music most often associated with it is the Infernal Galop from Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld, but the dance pre-dates that.
11 HEDONIST Fellow involved in robbery is a pleasure-seeker (8)
DON (fellow = university academic staff member) inserted into HEIST (robbery).
12 PIERCE Enter feature in Brighton church (6)
PIER (for example the Brighton Palace Pier, a feature in the city of Brighton and Hove) + CE (Church of England).
14 ARITHMETIC School working at hit crime novel (10)
Anagram (novel = new) of AT HIT CRIME. Nice misdirection: nothing to do with detective fiction.
18 IN BAD TASTE Home clue for state is offensive (2,3,5)
IN (at home); then “state” is an anagram of TASTE, so might appear in a cryptic clue as BAD TASTE. This type of reverse-definition clue may be new to some beginner solvers; it’s not very common, but it’s a trick worth remembering.
22 SUDDEN Not expected to be thrown back in abandoned dustbin (6)
Hidden answer, reversed (thrown back) in [abando[NED DUS[tbin].
23 BOAT RACE Scarf suggestion for competitive event (4,4)
BOA (scarf, as in feather boa) + TRACE (suggestion = a barely detectable amount). This was my last one in; I puzzled over “scarf” for ages and tried to make FOOT RACE fit, before the penny dropped eventually.
24 ITALIC Like this list of letters? (6)
Cryptic definition. The clue is indeed written in italic type, but the point is “list” = slope, which is the main feature of italics.
25 TEN YEARS Yankee into nearest lost decade (3,5)
Y (Yankee in the radio alphabet) inserted into an anagram (lost) of NEAREST.
26 KNIVES Kevin’s juggling daggers! (6)
Anagram (juggling) of KEVIN’S.
27 SYMPHONY Extremely silly Mozart’s first fake composition (8)
First and last letters (extremes) of S[ill]Y + first letter of M[ozart] + PHONY (fake).
DOWN
1 HEIGHT H8 peak (6)
H + EIGHT. Simple enough if you just say what you see, and don’t get led astray by the surface which might suggest spectroscopic analysis of some rare form of hydrogen.
2 SHODDY Unusual, externally coy, cheap and nasty (6)
ODD (unusual), with SHY (coy) around it (externally). The answer was obvious with a couple of crossers, but it took a while to work out the construction to explain why.
3 AILING Indisposed at sea, when heading out (6)
[s]AILING (at sea), with the first letter (heading) taken out.
Indisposed = ailing = unwell. “Indisposed” can also be used as a catch-all term for a performer who is unwilling to appear, to avoid giving a specific reason.
4 INDUSTRIAL Commercial for Asian flower contest (10)
INDUS (a river that flows through Asia, hence “Asian flower”) + TRIAL (contest).
As in something produced by commercial / industrial processes, rather than artisan or home-made.
6 CHARISMA Personal appeal — playing harmonicas not on! (8)
Anagram (playing) of HARM[on]ICAS, without the ON.
7 ACCURATE Spot on about caricatures? No sir! (8)
Anagram (about) of CA[ri]CATURE[s], without the letters of SIR. A slightly harder version of the construction in the previous clue 7d, because the removed letters aren’t consecutive.
8 LENIENCY Mercy from Lenin admitting end of regime on country borders (8)
LENIN, containing (admitting) the end letter of [regim]E, then the outer letters (borders) of C[ountr]Y.
13 STATIONERY Perhaps Victoria, Elizabeth and Mary finally get writing materials (10)
STATION (perhaps Victoria Station in London) + ER (Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II) + final letter of [mar]Y.
15 LIPSTICK Cosmetic for small mark under cheek (8)
S (small) + TICK (mark), after LIP (cheek = slang for impudent or rude talk). “Under” in a down clue means that S + TICK goes after LIP when reading downwards.
16 ABU DHABI Hot and bothered at first in Dubai — moving, but not far! (3,5)
Initial letters (at first) of Hot And Bothered, in an anagram (moving) of DUBAI.
Extended definition: Dubai and Abu Dhabi are two major cities in the United Arab Emirates, so in global terms 85 miles apart is not very far.
17 ADHESIVE The man’s in a joint that’s sticky (8)
HE’S (the man is) in A DIVE (dive = joint = bar or similar meeting place, though I think “dive” suggests a slightly more disreputable one).
19 STAY UP Don’t go to bed — party wildly with us right away! (4,2)
Anagram (wildly) of PA[r]TY with US, taking away R (right).
20 HAS A GO Tries to present a bit of thrush as agony (3,1,2)
Hidden answer in (a bit of) [thrus]H AS AGO[ny].
21 FEISTY Spirited and fit? Yes, possibly (6)
Anagram (possibly) of FIT YES.
When solving this I wondered whether there was a word “feist” as the origin of this term. It turns out there is, and it’s US dialect for a small excitable dog. I always enjoy learning from crosswords.

 

23 comments on “Quiptic 1,073 by Matilda”

  1. Thanks both. Maybe “created” or “fermented “ would have been better in 9a than “caused”

  2. I really enjoyed this. Thanks Matilda and Quirister.

    Favourites were the queens and Abu Dhabi.

    Slightly delayed finish by the Guardian App not showing up the Italic formatting on 24a. But with the crossers in place it didn’t take long to work out what should have been there.

  5. Was hoping for a Hectence so I could have my two favourite setters this morning. But Matilda is a perfectly adequate substitute.

    Bit of a zany Quiptic, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I had HYSTERIA written in 1a for a while which slowed me down. CANCAN and IN BAD TASTE were fun. I also liked the back-to-back subtractive anagrams. I’m not really convinced that INDUSTRIAL=commercial, though.

     

     

  6. Just filled this in. Either I am having Covid dreams or this is a repeat of a very recent puzzle?

  7. Thanks Matilda and Quirister

    The crossers HISPANIC and INDUSTRIAL took as long as the rest of the puzzle, though after solving it, I thought I remembered a similar clue for the latter previously.Favourite was the Queens too. I though “Enter” a bit loose for PIERCE.

    Dutchman @6

    This puzzle was accidentally listed as a cryptic last Thursday or Friday.

  8. Dutchman @6, I hear that this puzzle was accidentally posted a few days ago, although I didn’t get to it at the time. It went smoothly enough, with most answers filled in on the first pass, not necessarily a bad thing in a Quiptic. I thought it was entertaining and well clued apart from the questionable ’caused.’ I had the same favorites as Boffo @5.

    Thanks to Matilda and to Quirister for a detailed blog that should be helpful to any beginners who read it.

  11. Good Quiptic; I particularly liked HISPANIC and (LOI) BOAT RACE.

    The capitalisation of Scarf was neat; I was thinking of Gerald, but he is spelled with an ‘e’ at the end. If anyone’s interested, here is a link to the Scarf last name.

    Thanks Matilda and Quirister.

  12. I loved this last Thursday and whipped through it again this morning just for fun. My only quibble was that the clue for ITALIC was not in italics on the phone app, but list and the crossers made the answer clear and I suspected a formatting issue. Many thanks, Matilda and Quirister.

  13. Have not finished soon enough to warrant posting in a while.  As often with Matilda, I really enjoyed this one.  The grid divides into four almost disjoint puzzles which would have been a problem if not for the relatively gentle cluing.  I particularly liked the surface of 27a — reminded me of the giggling Mozart in Amadeus.

  14. I’d already done this last week and thought it very easy for a cryptic but I suppose it’s about right for this slot.
    Thanks Matilda.

  15. Not surprising I remembered a similar clue for INDUSTRIAL – this was in the Picaroon Prize just a fortnight ago!

    River Test developed commercially (10)

  17. Skip @16

    Very good point, but I think it’s always referred to as “Manchester Victoria” (as you say, in fact). “Victoria Station” would have to be the London one, I think.

  18. I was hopelessly lost with 1 across. I took ‘Argentinian’, ‘her’ and ‘opposite’ to be EVITA backwards and tried to find a word ending —ATIVE. Then I got 1 down and realised the error of my ways but the clue still beat me.

  19. Like Wookie @18 I got stuck assuming 1a must’ve had something to do with EVITA. In all, I breezed through about half of the answers before getting stuck. 10a shouldn’t’ve been as hard as it was – kept thinking it had to be a riff off Tintin’s first name (which, being American, I wouldn’t be as familiar with). After I gave up, googled it, and subsequently realized Tintin doesn’t have a first name, the answer clicked. 1d was another that made me do a mental facepalm when I figured it out – I tried working from HATE and 8d’s answer (LENIENCY) before I cottoned on.

    9a – ’caused’ as anagram indicator… I’ll leave that to the cryptic veterans. I will say while I figured the answer was probably an anagram, I thought ‘din’ was the indicator (which, of course, sent me on the wrong path for a while).

    Figured out 5a, 11a, 19d before parsing the clue. 19d I could suss out, but I couldn’t parse 5a and 11a until I came here. Gotta get these swimming and academia terms in my vocabulary! (I bet having ‘HE’ in 11a’s answer sent me down the wrong rabbit hole.) Relatedly, for 23d, I just assumed BOAT was some type of scarf I’d never heard of and rolled with it. Maybe I was conflating it with BOATER hats.

    Question: can someone help me figure out how arithmetic is ‘school working’? I can see arithmetic = ‘schoolwork’ (with a space to facilitate the surface reading). Is it a British thing or have I just forgotten some verb tense exists?

    Words:
    Characters:

  20. Khitty Hawk @19: to be honest, “school working” for arithmetic just seemed to be more or less right, but I can’t quite explain it grammatically. Perhaps working in the sense of “working out” the answer to an arithmetical problem, so “the sort of working out you’d do in school”?

  21. A very enjoyable Quiptic. As a newbie, there is great joy and satisfaction in a puzzle that I can complete without any reveals. Thank you, Matilda and Quirister.

  23. Got stuck on the last few clues with this yesterday, so it was satisfying to finish it off without too much difficulty this morning. Nice “ah yes!” moment with HISPANIC. Thanks Matilda, for a good start to the week, and Quirister for the blog, especially some parsings I couldn’t see, which were obvious when explained (SUDDEN for one).

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