Quiptic 813 by Provis

10 comments on “Quiptic 813 by Provis”

1. Thanks, nms, I hope your preamble is meant to be tongue-in-cheek.
   In my perception, this was perhaps one of the easiest puzzles Provis (aka Magwitch) has given us so far.
   The solutions kept on coming, many of them on the first pass.

   The result? An almost perfect Quiptic, in my opinion.

   Only on a couple of occasions, Provis did something that is not really up my street (but not wrong).
   “The end” for E, and “sister doesn’t hesitate” for deleting ER from SISTER.
   Although in the latter it is perfectly clear what Provis wants us to do, it doesn’t fully work for me.
   Perhaps, I would have gone for “sister doesn’t show hesitation” or the like.

   But altogether an enjoyable trip, for which thanks to Provis.

2. I’m not sure that I would classify this as a Quiptic. I failed to solve 5a, 14a and 7d. In contrast, I had better success with Paul’s Prize puzzle last Saturday – there is only one clue left to solve in that puzzle, and all solutions have been parsed. For Quiptics, I prefer them to be a bit easier than this one, and I also could not fully parse 19d, 25a, 17d, 13d. I suspect that a beginner would be quite baffled by this puzzle being described as being for “those in a hurry”.

   I liked 16d and 23a.

   Thanks Provis and nms

3. Thanks Provis and nms;

   This was easier for me than today’s Rufus. I liked CREATION, BURDEN, ORIGINAL, DELINQUENT, AGITATED, SUNDERED and ALPHABET among others.

4. Absolutely tongue in cheek, Sil @ 1.

   It was a (decidedly clumsy, now I look at it again) attempt at a play on the horrible appearance of the Magwitch/Provis character in Great Expectations, and how by the end we are quite won over by the character’s innate qualities.

   For the record, Provis is one of the Quiptic heroes.

5. I couldn’t decide whether “does’t” in 19d was deliberate or a misprint. Was it just a misprint?

6. I assume just a misprint, crosser.

7. Thanks, nms.

   Towards the harder end of the spectrum, I’d say, with some tricky multi-part answers. I had ‘phew’ where you did. ALPHABET was very good.

   And thanks for pointing out the relevance of the setter’s name. I’d never twigged that he was also Magwitch, and never realised the origin of the handles. You learn stuff …

8. He’s a she, K’s D.

   Information on the origin of her pseudonyms on the Who’s Who bit of Orlando’s site at:

   http://bestforpuzzles.com/index.html

   Sorry, not sure how to do the clever blue ‘here’ link thing.

9. Whoops, sorry to the setter. It was the two Dickensian names that led me astray. On doing a bit of online searching, I find that Magwitch’s earliest memory is of stealing TURNIPS (3dn). I claim a Nina spot.

   And on rereading your blog, I see that you have referred to her as a ‘she’ in the preamble. When in doubt, read the blog before submitting a comment.

10. A late comment as I only tackled this puzzle today and it was most enjoyable. I was wondering where the name Provis came from despite having seen Great Expectations many times. Most people would remember Magwitch but I don’t remember him taking the name Provis.

    I got stuck in the NE of this puzzle for quite a while mainly due to having entered a wrong answer. I put BEDECK for 10a which I had convinced myself was correct ie DE within BECK which is a small stream. Hey ho !. Got there in the end though but didn’t find this puzzle particularly easy. Thanks to nms and Provis.

    I wonder why the Quiptic setters are all female apart from Orlando who doesn’t appear very often ?.

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