Moley produces a Quiptic for us only once every couple of months, but her puzzles often turn up on my watch. Which is no hardship at all. She’s good, you know.
I thought this was a delightful offering. Concise and (mostly) precise cluing which would be a help to the ‘beginner’ and a pleasure for ‘those in a hurry’.
Abbreviations
cd cryptic definition
dd double definition
(xxxx)* anagram
anagrind = anagram indicator
[x] letter(s) removed
definitions are underlined
Across
7 Criminal stole cab but met a problem
OBSTACLE
(STOLE CAB)* with ‘criminal’ as the anagrind.
9 Bid for a boat
TENDER
A dd.
10 Flickering lamp on hand
PALM
(LAMP)*
11 Stubborn, will give way comparatively little
RELENTLESS
A charade of RELENT and LESS.
12 At noon on motorway coming back, vehicle was in cloud
NIMBUS
A charade of N, MI reversed for the M1 motorway, and BUS. A cloud, as well as Harry Potter’s broomstick.
14 Keeping a car off the street makes Georgia extremely angry
GARAGING
A charade of GA and RAGING.
15 Sailor from Tyneside’s little boy
NELSON
This is a charade – I think – of NE, L and SON, but I’m not mad about L for ‘little’.
17 Reported sign of musical instrument
SYMBOL
A homophone (‘reported’) of CYMBAL. But I’m not sure that the homophone indicator tells us which way round this should be. The check button tells me that this is the right answer, but I fancy that this is another Grauniad cock-up and that the answer should be CYMBAL.
20 Wears kit designed to enjoy sport on a lake
WATERSKI
(WEARS KIT)*
22 Getting old silver quarter for a mixed gin
AGEING
A charade of AG for the chemical 17ac for ‘silver’, E for one of the four quarters of the compass, and (GIN)* Those who write CLUING should tell me why they don’t write AGING.
23 More primitive Scottish loch in uncultivated region
WILDERNESS
A charade of WILDER and (Loch) NESS.
24 Members’ arsenal
ARMS
A dd.
25 Persevere to make us pure, perhaps
PURSUE
(US PURE)*
26 One living in the altogether simple style
NATURIST
Another dd.
Down
1 Chafing from one undergarment is no trouble
ABRASION
A charade of A, BRA and (IS NO)* Do bras chafe? I couldn’t possibly comment.
2 A detail in the English module, originally
ITEM
The initial letters of In The English Module
3 A mode of transport America provided for a mythical flyer
ICARUS
A charade of I, CAR and US. He should have listened to his Dad.
4 Smart illumination for swimmer
STINGRAY
A charade of STING and RAY. I like to believe that Troy Tempest and Marina finally got it on. In a puppety kind of way.
5 At home, fit but not qualified
INELIGIBLE
A charade of IN and ELIGIBLE.
6 Noel got up, going round the vessel for punishment
LESSON
An insertion of SS in NOEL reversed.
8 Tribute to you, it’s said, over record year
EULOGY
A charade of EU (sounds like ‘you’), LOG and Y.
13 It’s nonsense to bash ladder at random
BALDERDASH
(BASH LADDER)* The etymology of this word is apparently unknown.
16 Newspaper reporter
OBSERVER
A dd, referring to The Guardian‘s sister paper, which includes the Everyman crossword. If you are improving your solving with the Quiptic, then the Everyman is the next puzzle to try.
18 Student with service on continent
LANDMASS
A charade of L, AND and MASS.
19 Bird and animal’s age
PIGEON
A bird, and the chance for the obligatory Pierre bird link. Except a pigeon – of the feral variety – is essentially a rat with wings. So I’ve given you the wood pigeon because a pair have raised two young in the greenery opposite my house, who have just fledged; and Dad is doing that coo-coo stuff as I write this blog. I have not made that up. Oh, and it’s PIG and EON.
21 Goodbyes ending with a kiss
ADIEUX
Not really sure, except that ADIEUX is the plural of ADIEU and it ends with an X, which is a kiss.
22 The way that groups reveal reserves
ASSETS
Groups would reveal AS SETS, I guess.
24 Wary, perhaps, when things go wrong
AWRY
(WARY)*
Many thanks to Moley for this morning’s Quiptic
thanks Moley and Pierre
I failed to solve 19d PIGEON, and new for me was TENDER = boat/dinghy
I agree with Pierre about 17a. I entered CYMBAL and was surprised to see that it was incorrect.
I also was not keen on L = little in 15a
For 21d, I guessed that it was ADIEU (ending) + X (kiss) = ‘goodbyes’
Similarly irritated by 17A, which they seem to gave got the wrong way round.
I have to respectfully disagree about the concision of the cluing. Many of the little words just don’t work particularly nicely as link words. For example: “but met” in 7a, “will” in 11a, one of “at” or “on” in 12a, “for” in 22a. They’re minor niggles of a type which we almost never see in the main crossword.
So, my thanks to Moley and Pierre, but a big “bah humbug” to the editor who keeps hanging Quiptic setters out to dry.
I thought this was a nice Quiptic, but I too feel the clue to 17a suggests “cymbal” rather than SYMBOL. I parsed ADIEUX in the same way as michelle @1. Re. 1d, some do, some don’t – it’s all about the fit. 🙂
Thanks to Moley and Pierre.
Thanks Moley & Pierre.
CYMBAL seems to me to be the correct answer whatever the Check button says. Could have used L=large in NELSON without spoiling the surface (probably reads better that way.) I assume a=1 in ICARUS, which is a bit dodgy for a beginner’s puzzle.
I liked Georgia’s car.
Thanks Moley and Pierre for a fun puzzle and blog.
Great being able to solve a crossword without struggling, the Everyman still takes me several hours!
I also entered CYMBAL; pretty certain this is correct because otherwise the definition, ‘sign’, comes in the middle of the clue.
STINGRAY was super, definitely my favourite.
Robi @5
If one aim of Quiptics is to prepare new solvers for tackling the main Cryptics, they do need to learn at some point that often a, i and 1 are used to clue each other. I think the definition for ICARUS leads readily to the answer, so it might be a good introduction to that trick.
I don’t care what the given answer is, the correct answer to 17A is CYMBAL.
Another vote for ‘cymbal’ here. Though I’d say that there ought not to be the possibility of ambiguity in a clue – the crossing answers ought to make it definite one way or the other.
Don’t know about Troy Tempest and Marina, but I’m pretty sure that Windy Miller and Mrs Hineyman were at it like knives. Where was Mr Honeyman, anyway?
Don’t know about Troy Tempest and Marina, but I’m pretty sure that Windy Miller and Mrs Honeyman were at it like knives. Where was Mr Honeyman, anyway?
AdamH, your imagination is running away with you. That kind of stuff would never have gone on in Camberwick Green. Far too middle-class …
SYMBOL is just a Guardian cock-up, plain and simple, because there is no ambiguity in the clue.