Guardian Quiptic 782/Pan

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A Quiptic should have no bells and whistles, no unusual words, a friendly grid and be clearly clued.  Did this puzzle tick those boxes?  I think so.

Pan has eschewed cds and dds in this one, which is fine – even welcome – for a beginners’ puzzle.  So plenty of anagrams, insertions and charades.  And some good surface readings too.

 

Abbreviations

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

definitions are underlined

Across

1 Person taking sample from patient using his mop and bottle after spillage
PHLEBOTOMIST
(HIS MOP BOTTLE)*

8 Outside, wanting kiss to be everlasting
ETERNAL
E[X]TERNAL.  You need to read ‘wanting’ as ‘lacking’.

9 Plant first of rubiaceous herbs under blackberry and raspberry bushes
RHUBARB
First letters of Rubiaceous Herbs Under Blackberry And Raspberry Bushes

11 Pet zebra, without black bits, is central part of circus performers’ act
TRAPEZE
(PET ZE[B]RA)* with ‘bits’ as the only anagrind I can see.

12 On which to burn part of guy’s skeleton, wrapped around tree?
BONFIRE
An insertion of FIR in BONE.

13 Clear about time
OVERT
A charade of OVER and T.

14 Rebel ruins corrupt fellow
INSURGENT
A charade of (RUINS)* and GENT.

16 A grim, then terribly bad, dream
NIGHTMARE
(A GRIM THEN)*

19 Grid said to be fantastic
GREAT
A homophone of GRATE.

21 Friend, not English, provides explanation of text
ENDNOTE
Hidden in friEND NOT Engish.

23 Fight for bit of hair belonging to wizard
WARLOCK
A charade of WAR and LOCK.

24 End of metatarsal amongst multiple offspring is not so developed
LITTLER
An insertion of L for the last letter of ‘metatarsal’ in LITTER.

25 Setter fled with Iraqi’s last article from Tehran
IRANIAN
A charade of I RAN (‘setter fled’), I and AN.

26 Male suspect left rose in undertaker’s parlour
CHAPEL OF REST
A charade of CHAP and (LEFT ROSE)*

Down

1 Forecast by media ignoring second generation
PRESAGE
A charade of PRES[S] and AGE.

2 Let nine off, being merciful
LENIENT
(LET NINE)*

3 Get home in time, after very enjoyable experience with dancer
BALLERINA
IN inserted in ERA follows BALL for ‘very enjoyable experience’.  ‘We had a ball.’

4 Pound taken in Bath robbery
THROB
Hidden in BaTH ROBbery.

5 Repository for ashes found in Rome moved person attending funeral
MOURNER
An insertion of URN in (ROME)*

6 Disease breaking out in area popular with holidaymakers
SEASIDE
(DISEASE)*

7 Sank shaft for extracting oil and hit the right spot
WENT DOWN WELL
A charade of WENT DOWN for ‘sank shaft’ and WELL.

10 A banker with tight pants is awesome
BREATHTAKING
Interesting image that the surface conjures up.  (A BANKER TIGHT)* with ‘pants’ as the anagrind.

15 He’s standing to welcome two women into small boat that’s not on the level
SKEW WHIFF
Probably the most complicated construction.  Since it’s a down clue, Pan is inviting you to reverse (‘is standing’) HE, insert (‘to welcome’) WW for ‘two women’ into that, and insert all that (‘into’) SKIFF.

17 Share the cost of setter, say, turning up with nasty cut on top of head
GO DUTCH
This time the ‘setter’ is the canine variety.  Reverse DOG (‘turning up’ since it’s a down clue) and follow it with (CUT)* and H for the first letter of ‘head’.

18 Untidy woman setting ugly giant to work
TROLLOP
A charade of TROLL and OP for the abbreviation of musical OPUS, or ‘work’.

19 Relevant language for European?
GERMANE
A charade of GERMAN and E.

20 One test devised to rein in progress of conceited individual
EGOTIST
An insertion of GO for ‘progress’ in (I TEST)* with ‘devised’ as the anagrind.

22 Sign on to upset popular wisdom about Newton
ENROL
And a final insertion: of N for ‘Newton’ (think physics) in LORE reversed.

Excellent Quiptic – well done, Pan.

13 comments on “Guardian Quiptic 782/Pan”

  1. Thanks Pan and Pierre
    “no unusual words”, Pierre? PHLEBOTOMIST was a new word for me!
    Very enjoyable, especially the excellent, improbably-hidden, ENDNOTE.

  2. I take your point, muffin, but I’m of an age where I have to offer my arm up at the surgery pretty regularly, so for me it wasn’t that unusual. I agree with you about ENDNOTE.

  3. I have a question about 19a: Grid said to be fantastic.

    I put ‘grate’ in because the clue, it seems to me, is ‘Grid’ which, if said, could mean fantastic.

    This isn’t the first time I’ve faced this sort of clue and had no idea which of the two homophones is the right one. Sometimes even the crossing clues don’t narrow it down.

    Are there any general guidelines for how to sort them out?

    Thanks.

  4. Good morning, Alistair.

    Your experience of deciding which of the homophones to choose is not unusual. I agree with you: this clue could be read both ways, because the homophone indicator is in the middle. Some people will say this is unfair; others (setters particularly) will say that because it’s a CROSSword, get some crossing letters before you decide which way to jump.

    This argument comes up often. So to answer your question about ‘general guidelines’ … no, not really.

    Other solvers may have different views.

  6. Thanks Pan and Pierre.

    I had a few minor grumbles with this, in addition to the badly positioned homophone: 15d SKEW-WHIFF is hyphenated so the enumeration should have been (4-5). 11a (TRAPEZE): ‘bits’ on its own is a very poor anagrind. 19d (GERMANE): ‘for’ seemed rather loose in the wordplay; ‘to’ would have worked better.

    BREATHTAKING was excellent – ‘tight pants’ adding beautifully to the definition – and INSURGENT was rather good too.

  8. Thanks Pan & Pierre.

    Some slightly difficult constructions for a Quiptic, but I suppose it is meant to teach some of these while using fairly well-known words. SKEW-WHIFF is hyphenated most places, except Collins where it is a single word.

    In 7, I parsed it as sank=WENT DOWN, and ‘shaft for extracting oil’=WELL. Surely, in 15, this should be ‘standing UP’ for the reversal, which also makes more sense in the surface.

  9. Thanks Pierre,

    An excellent puzzle from Pan who proves once again that she is a master of this medium.
    I thought that this was mainly straightforward as it should be but there were some lovely
    surfaces especially for BONFIRE, INSURGENT, CHAPEL OF REST and of course BREATHTAKING.
    Great stuff Pan. Thanks.

  10. Davy, “An excellent puzzle from Pan who proves once again that she is a master of this medium”.

    While I do agree, I would also like to make clear that it wasn’t always like that.
    Just re-read the blog of Pan’s previous Quiptic to see what I mean.

    I liked this puzzle but I cannot say I found everything very, very straightforward.
    Like poc (@7) I really had to think about SKEW WHIFF.
    And the “obscure” one at 1ac was only guessible after having found all the crossing letters.
    Some unusual indicators like ‘bits’ in 11ac [which had a great surface] and ‘devised’ in 20d [where we had to change One into I before applying the anagram].
    EGOTIST (20d) was, for me, one that took a while to parse [the solution was clear enough].
    I agree with Robi on the use of ‘for’ in 19ac. The same word was also a bit out of place in 23ac, in my opinion (unless one thinks that “to war” = “to fight for”).
    ENDNOTE was very well hidden as there were other ways to look at the clue e.g. removing an E for a word for “Friend”.
    Ambiguous clues like 19ac (with the indicator in the middle) should ideally be avoided but with the T at the end, it could only be one thing.

    All in all, indeed a nice puzzle.
    However, not sure whether it was really significantly easier than her previous Quiptic (Oct 13) which caused such a storm.
    But looking at the posts above and Pierre’s opinion, it apparently was.

  11. Hi Sil,

    I’m normally not very good at crosswords but for some reason I did see 1ac almost immmediately which gave me six starting letters.
    As is often the case, you either know a word or you don’t and we all know different stuff.
    I’m also very familiar with the expression SKEW WHIFF which is maybe a northern thing but like ‘out of kilter’, it will be known to some
    people and not to others. I just gave my perception of this puzzle and I obviously cannot legislate for how others found it. These days,
    I only seem able to complete Everyman and the Quiptic, so there was no conceit when I said that it was mainly straightforward.

  13. Thanks Pan and Pierre.

    New words for me were PHLEBOTOMIST and CHAPEL OF REST.

    I failed to solve 6d (!) and needed help to parse 10d. I also made the same mistake as Alistair with grate/great.

    My favourite was 15d.

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