Comments on: Guardian Quiptic N° 681 by Nutmeg

By: Derek Lazenby

Derek Lazenby — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 23:02:43 +0000

OK, I guess I’m not a beginner, afterall I’ve finished many by Araucaria, even the occasional Saturday one of his. I couldn’t finish this one though. Add to that our dear blogger couldn’t parse one of the clues. This may well have been a good crossword, but a Quiptic? Do I need to spell it out?

By: PeterO

PeterO — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 19:26:27 +0000

Thank you, Nutmeg for clearing up 5D. I had had the horrible suspicion that the intention might have been ‘departed’ -> split -> cleft, a device I would not like to come upon unawares in any crossword, yet alone a Quiptic.

By: Stella

Stella — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 17:33:34 +0000

At least we all agree that to make 200% bigger is to treble, not to double as I so often hear expressed even by journalists, :-O

By: Nutmeg

Nutmeg — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 17:15:38 +0000

Thank you for comments, and I’m sorry about 5d. My original clue had ‘…parting shortly’, (parting=cleft), and I didn’t spot that the editing change invalidated the clue. And yes, of course it should have been (6,4)

By: Robi

Robi — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 14:01:17 +0000

Enjoyable crossword, but I think definitly more difficult than an average Quiptic. I had to resort to word searches to get some of the final answers. As Andrew said, EMPLOYEE was particularly tricky.

Thanks PeterO; I agree with K’s dad about the parsing of TREBLE CLEF, which I think should be two words, at least as seen in most dictionaries. I liked COMATOSE, SANDAL and the great anagram for SILHOUETTE.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 09:34:16 +0000

Thanks PeterO. I agree this was slightly above the usual Quiptic level, especially the rather involved 4d.

I don’t know if I’m a better musician that Kathryn’s Dad, but I’ve never seen TREBLE CLEF written as a single word.

By: Kathryn's Dad

Kathryn's Dad — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 09:19:07 +0000

Thanks, Peter.

Well done to Nutmeg for slipping a theme into a Quiptic. I don’t think it got in the way of a ‘beginner’s’ puzzle, but as you say, some beginners might tell us otherwise. I thought COMATOSE was a lovely clue – nice surface, but eminently gettable.

I fancy you’re right with your first interpretation of TREBLECLEF – TREBLE plus C plus LEF[T]. My quibble would be that I would always write this as two words – TREBLE CLEF. Dictionaries and musicians better than me might disagree.