For anyone wanting a quick fix, struggling with a tough Guardian daily crossword, or for newbies wanting to learn the ropes of cryptic solving, don’t forget that the Guardian has an archive of hundreds of previous Quiptic crosswords available for free, and I know of three really easy ways of finding them, which might help some of you (because they weren’t all obvious to me at first):

1. Use Next and Previous links.
On the Standard (interactive) version of any Quiptic, scroll to the very bottom of the page (where you usually wouldn’t look!) to find links to Latest, Next and Previous (when they exist). For example, you could start with Number 1:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/crosswords/quiptic/1
then use Next to find Number 2.

The beauty of the Quiptic is that they look very solvable without any need for a memory of 1999′s then-current affairs or any obscure knowledge or vocabulary, so I think they’re a great way to learn to solve. And the Check and Cheat buttons all work, even that far back in history, so you can see the answers if you get stuck and try to work out why they’re correct, and you’ll soon build up a basic feel for clue types, common abbreviations and tricks used in down clues only, for example, and probably get faster at solving and better at solving from the cryptic wordplay, which gets important when obscure words appear. I’m not a fast or particularly instinctive solver, so I might do this myself. (It could also be somewhat useful to Newbies to blog the Quiptics 1 to 10 or so, I guess (with links to the crosswords themselve on the Guardian website), so they can get to learn the cluing types and reinforce their learning experience.

2. Use Search on the Guardian crosswords homepage http://www.guardian.co.uk/crosswords and use their search to find Quiptics by setter, by date/month or by serial number.

3. Edit the address line (URL) in your web browser.
This is so easy in Firefox (just start to type quiptic and it’ll show some recent Quiptics you’ve visited) and many other popular web browsers are similar.

If you have the address of any Quiptic, you can edit the serial number in the address to find the previous Quiptic or any random number.
For example the current Quiptic, No 561 is at http://www.guardian.co.uk/crosswords/quiptic/561
Edit that to 560 and http://www.guardian.co.uk/crosswords/quiptic/560 works just fine.
Randomly pick No 143, and http://www.guardian.co.uk/crosswords/quiptic/143 also works.
If you want the Print version directly, add /print, thus:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/crosswords/quiptic/143/print
If you want the Blind/Partially Sighted version add /blind to the end, thus:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/crosswords/quiptic/143/blind

When editing the address, most browsers show you pages you’ve visited in your browsing history that are close to what you’re typing in, narrowing down the list as you type more or as you scroll to a specific one, so as you delete 561 and leave 56, it’ll show you you’ve been to 560 and 561 before, if you have done so (but won’t show 559 until you change to 55). That should save fruitless searching to find one you haven’t solved already.

Hope this helps someone.

I took the ‘x’ as coming from ‘extra’. as in XL, XS, etc.

Regarding 6d, I think if you say to someone ‘I don’t like your tone’ you’re actually objecting to the attitude they are expressing, rather than the pitch of their voice

I gave up my Saturday pleasure and just did this week’s Quiptic as a bit of research for the benefit of you lot in this thread. I was investigating…

a) could I blog it
b) were there any I didn’t get, despite the alledged easiness.

Well, first of all I finished it, unlike last week. That’s a good start for both a and b. But, despite that, there were still queries.

So a) was strictly speaking no, but then other bloggers have put “I don’t get it” comments in their blogs, so I think I was near enough.

And b) is a no, I solved them all, unlike last week

Specifically for a)…

9ac, I have London = capital and (against)*, but where does the AX come from? I tried http://www.acronymfinder.com and http://www.abbreviations.com ; no joy on either

6dn, tones = attitudes ? really?

There was another, but I just spotted it!

There you go. A regular solver, at the bottom end of the regular solvers pile needs answers. According to the FAQs there are a few thousand daily visitors here, presumably many of whom are not posting because they think that even the likes of me are too good at this game! Yeah, frightening thought, but probably true. You have to guess they would want more than just those two explained. So the sooner we start this the better!

If you don’t want to bother, or think they’re too easy, that’s your choice, but those of us who do them and enjoy them might sometimes want an explanation, or just to make a comment, and the blog might help some people to get into this fascinating world.

Fifteensquared has certainly helped me to improve my solving skills, and I’m sure people who are just starting, and are therefore unfamiliar with certain tricks and conventions, would appreciate the explanations. No doubt they can work them out for themselves, but a little push in the right direction can’t do any harm, and may even help.

Given that many regard the Quiptic as a training ground before moving to tougher puzzles, I wondered if this blog format allows you to emulate what’s done on Big Dave’s Telegraph blog; that is, the answers (in brackets) are formatted in white text and thus only visible if you click/drag over them. The blogger can thus give additional hints to the clue make-up and the struggling solver can use these as assistance, only choosing to reveal the answers as a last resort?

When the blog will be published on the same Monday the Quiptic appears, it will be a different story, indeed.
It is then up to the solver to look at the blog whenever he/she wants. We’ll get a blog that is kind of valid for a week.

BTW, I volunteered for blogging – but if it should be done on the day itself, I fear I have to withdraw [my job making it impossible].