I daresay, relatively speaking, I spent more time on this than most Cryptics. Thanks to Anto. I recall that commenters (mostly) rounded on this setter in his/her previous outings. Déjà vu! Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Across
7 Simple decision to redesign bar in Reno (2,7)
NO BRAINER : Anagram of(redesign) BAR IN RENO.
8 Bishop breaking rank goes through Rome (5)
TIBER : B(abbrev. for “bishop” in chess notation) contained in(breaking) TIER(one of a series of rows or ranks).
Defn: That which flows through Rome.
9 Fool’s family can make you insensitive (5,4)
THICK SKIN : THICK(a fool? That would instead be a “thicko”; thick=foolish, an adjective)‘S KIN(family;relatives in general).
10 More than one psychic making the papers? (5)
MEDIA : the alternative plural of other meanings of “medium”, whimsically used as a synonym for the plural “mediums”(more than one medium;psychic).
12 Declare Rodin a lunatic (6)
ORDAIN : Anagram of(… lunatic) RODIN A.
Defn: To issue an order or decree.
13 It destroys silent order that’s more socialist (8)
SHREDDER : SH!(an interjection demanding silence;an order to be silent) + REDDER(more socialist, traditionally represented by the colour, red).
14 Unusual dream is wrongly interpreted (7)
MISREAD : Anagram of(Unusual) DREAM IS.
17 Bottle company with branches throughout Wales (7)
COJONES : CO(abbrev. for “company”, a commercial concern) + JONES(surname that is common;has many family tree branches, in Wales).
Defn: Manly courage;ballsiness, from the Spanish for, well, balls.
20 Treatment pronounced, as if I wasn’t there (8)
MEDICINE : Pronounced as “med-sen” ie. as if the first letter “I” wasn’t there.
22 Instinct makes law in Rome go after whistle-blower (6)
REFLEX : LEX(“law” in Latin, as was spoken in Rome) placed after(go after) REF(short for “referee”, the whistle-blower in the playing field.
24 Starts to face it — for the young this is ancient (5)
FIFTY : The 1st letters, respectively, of(Starts to) “face it — for the young “.
Defn: An age that the young might consider ancient.
25 It measures speed, when shaken repeatedly (5,4)
LAMB’S TAIL : Actually, it stands for a very short time, from the phrase, “two shakes of a lamb’s tail”, as in “I can do it in ….” (but not this crossword though).
26 Demoralise and ruin Emma in seconds (5)
UNMAN : The 2nd letters, respectively, of(… seconds) “ruin Emma in“.
Defn: To take away one’s 17 across, figuratively.
27 Another question that’s never asked in the first round (4,5)
SAME AGAIN : Question asked of one, when subsequent rounds of drinks, after the first, are being ordered.
Down
1 What’s acceptable floors that woman (6)
KOSHER : K.O.S(short for “knocks out”;floors) + HER(3rd person feminine pronoun).
2 Comfortable place for dispensing impractical advice (8)
ARMCHAIR : Cryptic defn: Refering to commentators or advisors who are more theoretical than practical, as in “armchair pundits” and that comfortable piece of furniture.
3 Tries to pick up popular tune that hasn’t finished (4,2)
HITS ON : “hit song”(a popular tune) minus its last letter(that hasn’t finished)
Defn: … another person for purposes romantic or more.
4 Most provocative bigot absorbs English (7)
SEXIEST : SEXIST(a bigot who discriminates on the basis of sex) containing(absorbs) E(abbrev. for “English”).
5 Irish girl provides sound leg support (6)
SINEAD : Homophone of(provides sound) [ “shin”(part of a leg) + “aid”(support;assistance) ].
6 Dog pee ruined Nike’s inside (8)
PEKINESE : PEE containing(… inside) anagram of(ruined) NIKE’S.
11 It follows US hospital programme advance (4)
ERGO : E.R.(the US TV series centred on a hospital’s emergency room) + GO(to advance).
Defn: From Latin, “therefore”.
15 Peninsular types are extremely cold with top down (8)
IBERIANS : “Siberian”(extremely cold, like the weather in Siberia) with its 1st letter moved to its end(with top down, in a down clue).
Answer: Those from the Iberian peninsula, comprising the Portuguese and Spanish.
16 Travel guides at heart are enthusiastic (4)
AVID : The central 2 letters, respectively, of(… at heart) “Travel guides “.
18 Engineer not working behind the scenes (8)
OFFSTAGE : OFF(not working;not on) STAGE(to engineer;to cause to happen).
19 Go on holiday? I don’t believe you! (7)
GETAWAY : Double defn: 2nd: An exclamation of disbelief.
Surely this should be enumerated as (3,4).
21 How Tracy keeps constant work to be done here? (2,4)
IN TRAY : A reverse clue: The way “Tracy” keeps “c”(symbol for a constant in mathematics) is IN “TRAY”.
22 Took stick about fallback going the wrong way (6)
ROBBED : ROD(a stick) containing(about) reversal of(… going the wrong way) EBB(a fallback;a reteat).
23 Draw out resident in Israeli city (6)
ELICIT : Hidden in(resident in) “Israeli city “.
Thanks anto and scchua. Some good stuff but too hard for a Quiptic in my opinion
Thanks, scchua.
I agree about the enumeration of GET AWAY. Getaway is a noun.
I don’t object to THICK as a noun, though. I’ve heard it used often enough: “He’s nice, but he’s a bit of a thick.” Maybe it’s more common in Hiberno-English than in GB. But Chambers has it.
Thanks both.
I really don’t think that this grid is suitable for a Quiptic as it has a dozen or so clues with more unchecked letters than checked.
Thank you Anto and scchua. This was too hard for me in the time available, and the grid did not help. The crossword is a good one, but not a Quiptic. I managed to solve about two-thirds of the clues and then cheated. It took me a while to get SHREDDER, ‘Trappist’ kept coming to mind.
Thanks Anto & scchua.
I agree with Bracoman about the grid; it’s certainly not ‘one for beginners and those in a hurry.’ This type of grid is usually used for NINAs or alphabeticals. I gave up on the few last ones out of frustration with the lack of starting crossers.
Some nice ideas but words like ‘cojones’ are not normally part of the beginner’s repertoire, I think, although it did make me smile when I revealed it.
P.S. For 23, I thought the Israeli city was EILAT; nicely misleading!
My biggest problem with this is that 4d is ambiguous. SEXIEST works, but so does RACIEST (RACIST + E). That would be bad form anywhere, but especially in a Quiptic. Very surprised that didn’t get picked up on.
That said, I don’t want to be totally negative here – there are some wonderful clues, and I think Anto is definitely getting better (I wish the Guardian didn’t use the Quiptic column to test new solvers – you have to be really experienced to make a fun easy crossword). Cluing GETAWAY with one word is fine as long as the holiday definition is the primary one.
(Oops, misread the GETAWAY clue. Probably should be GET AWAY)
Thank you, scchua, for blogging, and commiserations.
I’m only commenting today because the Quiptic is dear to my heart. I think it’s a great concept and it certainly helped me to get better at ‘proper’ cryptics. But this is no help to anyone – neither to ‘beginners’ nor to ‘those in a hurry’.
THICKSKIN simply doesn’t work; neither does MEDIA; COJONES and UNMAN are way too difficult for a Quiptic; SHIN does not equal ‘leg’; and GET AWAY should indeed be (3,4). I could go on, but I won’t.
This forum is in no way the arbiter of what should and shouldn’t be published. But it gives a clue: if the vast majority of the comments here have been negative about this setter’s offerings so far, then maybe it’s time to draw a line. But the editor is not known for his decisive actions, so here’s to the next Anto Quiptic, which will no doubt get slated again by those who can be arsed to comment.
I agree with ear;ier comments (and with scchua). This is not a bad crossword, but not suitable for the Quiptic slot. It took me most of the morning, on and off, to finish it. I think it would be very discouraging for newcomers to cryptics, and it’s annoying to more experienced solvers who come to these puzzles expecting that they will nicely occupy a short break. If Anto really can’t adjust to the expected difficulty level, the crossword editor should stop giving him/her this slot but consider giving him/her a chance at the ‘regular’ puzzles.
I doubted THICK for “fool” too, but I suppose if it is used in that way in some areas, as Miche wrote @2, then it is acceptable. I don’t pronounce MEDICINE as “med-sen”, more like “medi-suhn”, where the “uh” represents the unstressed vowel known as a schwa, written “?”. I’ve often heard scchua’s version, though, and mine could also be regarded as having a missing “i”, but the second one in my case.
As scchua said, LAMB’S TAIL indicates speed rather than measures it. UNMAN is not the “seconds” of “ruin Emma in”. It is “every second letter of”, which I don’t think is quite the same. I don’t think GETAWAY works as a single word. Yes, a “holiday” is a GETAWAY, but the first definition is “go on holiday”, which requires the split.
There are some very nice clues, though, including FIFTY, SAME AGAIN, PEKINESE (amusing), AVID, IN TRAY (clever) and ELICIT (well-hidden).
Thanks to Anto and scchua.
jennyk @11
Drat … that schwa symbol got replaced by a “?”, which I didn’t notice in the preview. It is basically a “e” rotated through 180°.
The clue for “medicine” doesn’t work if, like me, you pronounce the “i” in the word (I got it from the crossers), and obviously “get away” should be two words when used verbally. Otherwise, though, I thought this was a great little crossword, and an especial joy after having having spent the usual five or six minutes doing Rufus.
Unlike most of us here, I tend to let out a little cry of “yippee!” when I see that Anto is the Quiptic setter. A lot of the clues make me grin (and “cojones” had me laughing aloud when I finally got it), and overall it’s a nice mental tussle.
jennyk @11, the COED gives the pronunciation of medicine without the first ‘i’ (cannot print it phonetically). Collins gives this pronunciation as a second choice.
realthog @13
I wonder whether you are the main target audience for Quiptics, though. Wouldn’t you prefer to have Anto doing some of the daily puzzles, rather than limited by the restrictions of this slot?
First the positives. This was another improvement by Anto – he is getting closer to the quiptic mark, there were a few gimmies to get underway, and COJONES and SINEAD both made me smile.
But unfortunately the harder clues were still too difficult for the quiptic slot. And that forced me into quite a few cheats.
MEDICINE has already had a lot of discussion. From New Zealand, we pronounce both the ‘i’s. Another cheat for me was IN TRAY. I can see c is meant to be removed from Tracy but still don’t know where in appears from?
As said, Anto is getting better – but is not quite on the mark yet – I hope he keeps improving if we are too see more of him.
matrixmania @16
c, the speed of light, is possibly the most famous “constant” in physics.
matrixmania@16, re “c”. As stated in the blog, it is the symbol for a constant quantity in mathematics, just as “x”, “y”, “z” are symbols for variable/unknown quantities. Eg. the equation for a straight-line xy graph is “y=mx + c”. And, specifically, C is the symbol for that constant, the speed of light.
It’s as if the Quiptic is a nursery for fledgling compilers, not a helpful introduction for fledgling solvers. That can’t be right, I hope. I spoke to a compiler at a meet a while back, who said it’s ‘hard to write easy’, and Anto sure proves that!
Metatron, does Anto wants to write easy? That’s perhaps the question.
I heavily criticised this setter on previous occasions, not just because the puzzles didn’t suit the Quiptic slot, also because too many of the clues were badly written (in my opinion, that is).
There are still quite a few iffy things here but altogether this was by far the best Anto that we had.
But yes, not a Quiptic.
I particularly like the inventive IN TRAY (21d).
Metatron, I am not sure that it’s hard to write easy.
It’s just a matter of adjusting one’s mindset.
Some setters can do that (Orlando!), some cannot.
One more thing.
A big Thank You to the the boys and girls at the Guardian.
I always solve puzzles on a print-out.
The print version has returned to its old format.
Bigger grid, clues more compact.
Apparently, they listened to unhappy solvers, something that really deserves praise.
Thanks scchua and Anto.
Agree it was hard but there are some very good clues. Liked COJONES and thought SAME AGAIN was superb.
Finally finished the puzzle this morning, my last two in being SINEAD and COJONES.
Some terrific clues here, clever and funny, and some great invention. I really enjoyed it. But, as others have said, much too hard for a Quiptic.
I feel a bit sorry for Anto: the slating, if there is to be any, should be mainly for the editor, who is putting the setter in the wrong slot.
I forgot to say: for those interested in such matters, overall checking in the grid Anto has used is 47%. This is very low. More usual would be overall checking at around the 54% mark.
The grid has 12 ‘overunched’ lights (more unchecked cells than checked ones), which is very high.
All in all, a very solver unfriendly grid indeed.
I’m a bit late getting to this, but I have an even more negative reaction to this puzzle than most other commenters. I know of course that Guardian puzzles are less strict in following the “Ximenean” rules than some, but the cluing here seems awfully inaccurate even by the usual Guardian standards.
13A: “silent order” doesn’t mean “an order for silence”
20A: Even if you do pronounce “medicine” with a silent I, the wordplay is awfully vague, especially for a quiptic. Surely the wordplay should specify the answer more precisely than merely “a word with a silent I”.
26A: “unman” is completely wrong, for the reason jennyk (@11) gives.
18D: The wordplay leads to “stageoff”, not “offstage”.
19D: The enumeration is wrong, as everyone has pointed out.
These are not just matters of the puzzle being “too hard for a quiptic”.
Not much to add. I was improving doing Anto’s offerings but this left me shell-shocked. Funnily, I got 17 and 10 but failed on many others. Was interested to read comments about the grid. I hadn’t really thought how this could help /hinder. I will thank both scchua and Anto but please, a lighter beating next time.
I agree with matrix mania in that I too so not understand where “in” comes from in this answer. I think the help given has missed the question posed. I understand how “tray” is achieved but can someone please help with how “in” is indicated? scchua, thank you for the additional definitions that you provide. I find these often explain where I would have still had questions about the clue.
Hi PaulinOz, I believe you submitted a followup comment, but it doesn’t appear here, as you used the reply button on your mobile (cf. Admin’s posting in the Announcements category).
In answer to your post: Basically you had a question about IN in the answer to 21 down. IN comes from the answer to the question “Where (or how) does (the word) “TRAcY” keep the letter “c”. Answer: IN (the word) TRAY.