Hectence is a long-established setter of the Quiptic, and I thought that this was up to her usual high standard. One or two that might give the beginner pause for thought, but all gettable with a bit of application. Only one niggle, and that might be me.
Abbreviations
cd cryptic definition
dd double definition
(xxxx)* anagram
anagrind = anagram indicator
[x] letter(s) missing
definitions are underlined
Across
1 Make merry love on river, within reason
CAROUSE
An insertion of R and O in CAUSE. The insertion indicator is ‘within’.
5 Sailor top design gets the big prize
JACKPOT
A charade of JACK and (TOP)*
9 Wife caught in nude frolic becomes single!
UNWED
As I’m sure she would in the circumstances. An insertion of W in (NUDE)*
10 Recalls dream-laden sleep by dying fire
REMEMBERS
A charade of REM and EMBERS. REM is short for Rapid Eye Movement, a stage of the sleep cycle characterised by the eyes moving quickly, and during which dreams are most likely to occur.
11 Royalist doctor decapitated revolutionary
MONARCHIST
A charade of MO for Medical Orderly and [A]NARCHIST.
12 Prison’s not a time to dump lover
JILT
A charade of J[A]IL and T.
14 Guideline when Tom’s in charge?
RULE OF THUMB
A cd, suggesting what would happen if Tom THUMB, the folkloric character dating from the 17th century, were in charge of things.
18 Papaya-laden salad proverbially keeps one healthy!
AN APPLE A DAY
(PAPAYA LADEN)* ‘An apple a day keeps the doctor away’ is the proverb. To big up our Welsh correspondents, it apparently originated in Pembrokeshire in the 1800s: ‘Eat an apple on going to bed, And you’ll keep the doctor from earning his bread’. And ‘apple’ in Old English just meant ‘fruit’, which is apparently why it was chosen for the later proverb.
21 Engraving seen in Dorset church
ETCH
Hidden in DorsET CHurch. I can’t quite make this work, since ETCH is a verb and ‘engraving’ is a noun. I can’t find any nounal sense of ETCH in Collins, and I don’t have the BRB.
22 Confused by intro, hence wandering off
INCOHERENT
(INTRO HENCE)*
25 Needs a pal going out for seaside walk
ESPLANADE
(NEEDS A PAL)*
26 Papers one has to return for dope
IDIOT
A charade of ID for ‘papers’, I and TO reversed.
27 Trace piece that’s part of little pony’s bridle?
TINY BIT
A cd cum dd. If the pony is small, then its BIT would be TINY.
28 Special forces capturing rebel ends in grief
SADNESS
An insertion of (ENDS)* in SAS. The anagrind is ‘rebel’.
Down
1 First crack at card game is useless
CRUMMY
A charade of C for the first letter of ‘crack’ and RUMMY.
2 Run outside arguing
ROWING
What some people call a ‘lift and separate’ clue. The setter is asking you to separate ‘outside’ into ‘out’ and ‘side’. Then you’ve got RO for ‘run out’ in cricket
followed by WING for ‘side’.
3 New ward nurse quietly kept secret
UNDER WRAPS
(WARD NURSE P)* The P is ‘piano’ or musically ‘quiet’.
4 What about painting with mud?
EARTH
An insertion of ART in EH? for ‘What?’ Don’t say what, say pardon.
5 Preserve agreement to support East’s spy
JAMES BOND
A charade of JAM, ES and BOND for ‘agreement’. ‘Support’ tells you to put the ES before the BOND because it’s a down clue.
6 Barracks a politician under Corbyn’s leadership
CAMP
The right-wing press would never dream of such a thing. Again, ‘under’ is used because it’s a down clue: C for the first letter of ‘Corbyn’ followed by A MP.
7 Valued cut-price house contents
PRECIOUS
A charade of (PRICE)* and OUS for the ‘contents’ of hOUSe. The anagrind is ‘cut’, a slang word for drunk.
8 River boat’s key scientific vessel
TEST TUBE
A charade of TEST for the Hampshire river, TUB and E for the key with a lot of sharps in it.
13 Don’t leave! Visit vacated boutique hotel in Germany
STAY BEHIND
A charade of STAY for ‘visit’, BE for ’boutique’ with the middle letters removed, H for the phonetic alphabet ‘hotel’, IN and D for Deutschland or ‘Germany’.
15 Prepare to attack fabrication regarding mass report
LIE IN WAIT
A charade of LIE, IN and WAIT for a homophone of ‘weight’ for ‘mass’. I know, I know … weight is not mass. But NI isn’t Ulster and IC isn’t really ninety-nine, so get over yourselves.
16 Criminal hiding, when I turned up, in cellar
BASEMENT
An insertion of AS for ‘when’ and ME reversed in BENT for ‘criminal’.
17 Perhaps Daddy’s getting roast for cooking pot
SAUCEPAN
One to confuse our overseas solvers, perhaps. A charade of SAUCE for ‘Daddy’s’ and PAN for ‘roast’ in the sense of ‘criticise’. Confused by the SAUCE bit? Look here. Good surface. Only trouble is, it’s spelt ‘Daddies’.
19 Country girl’s bitten by insect
BELIZE
An insertion of LIZ in BEE.
20 Affirm losing English and American prestige
STATUS
Hectence is asking you to remove the E from STAT[E] and add US.
23 Even you’ve space to have small cookers
OVENS
A charade of OV for the even letters of yOuVe, EN for the printers’ ‘space’ and S.
24 A bud’s botched in bad painting
DAUB
(A BUD)*
Many thanks to Hectence for this morning’s Quiptic.
Thanks Hectence and Pierre
I found this difficult, and rather a mixed bag. I liked REMEMBERS, RULE OF THUMB, SADNESS and TEST TUBE. I didn’t parse BASEMENT as I took “criminal” to be the “base” part.
“Engraving” could be a verb, but whether a verb or noun, its equivalent is ETCHING. “Daddy’s sauce” is obviously misremembered and unchecked (it took me 5 seconds on Google to confirm that it’s “Daddies”). I didn’t like “cut” as the anagram indicator in PRECIOUS – it seems increasingly that any word will do!
I’m probably a decent sample of a beginner. I failed to solve 27a and I solved but could not parse 5d, 8d, 15d, 16d, 17d, 1a, 2d. Obviously, the puzzle was easier for me to solve than parse. There was a lot of inspired guesswork or sheer dumb luck involved.
I agree that 21a is strange.
Thanks Pierre and Hectence.
Indeed Pierre, the weight of a mass depends on whether you’re on earth or the moon for instance and has to be multiplied by the acceleration due to gravity (9.81 m/s2 on earth) as far as I recall.
Pierre, I think you made more of 3 down than there is. To me it was simply r = river plus owing = extra mural (outside). Who knows what the setter had in mind?
Oops! That is extramural.
Not sure how owing = extramural, Tyson. Can you explain?
Hi Pierre,
Please see the following dictionary page..
Extramural
—adjective
outside the walls or boundaries, as of a city or town or a university: extramural teaching; an extramural church. Compare intramural (defs 1, 2).
Hope that helps.
—Related forms
ex·tra·mu·ral·ly, adverb
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I’ve more quibbles about this than I expect from Hectence’s puzzles even though I missed “Daddies” (I’ve heard of it but never looked at the bottle to see the spelling). I agree that ETCH was the most glaring problem and that “cut” does not work well as an anagrind, but also how does “bitten by” tell us to put LIZ in BEE? To me, “bitten by X” in a clue suggests X biting into something, so the BEE would be inside LIZ, not the other way around. I don’t think the “by” in 22a should be there. The surface makes sense without it and it doesn’t play any part in either the definition or the construction.
Having said all that, I enjoyed this as the start of my puzzling week, and particularly liked REMEMBERS and UNWED.
Thanks, Hectence and Pierre.
jennyk @6: I’m glad you’ve pointed out the ‘bitten by’ in 19d. I was bemoaning that myself and trying to explain to my partner why it wasn’t right. She wasn’t having any so I shall take delight in showing her your comment.
Thank you Hectence and Pierre.
I enjoyed this puzzle but needed help with some of the parsing – SAUCEPAN, never heard of the sauce, PRECIOUS, ‘cut’ for ‘drunk’ new or forgotten, and ROWING, still thinking about that one!
ETCH, on the other hand, did not bother me – the COED gives for etch “n. the act or process of etching.” and for engraving “n. the process or art of cutting a design etc. on a hard surface.”
PS, I get OUTSIDE now, thanks to Pierre’s parsing, but not sure it is cricket in a QUIPTIC…
I thought there were some really nice clues here. I particularly liked UNWED and EARTH which were clever and witty.
jennyk @8: if chocolate is bitten by me, the chocolate is inside me. Seems fine to me.
Overall I liked this puzzle although I couldn’t parse ROWING or BASEMENT. And while the weight/mass equivalency doesn’t bother me a jot, to me the wordplay suggests LIE ON WAIT.
And Pierre is indeed correct that Daddy’s sauce was a total puzzle for at least this overseas solver. I confess my mind went in a somewhat prurient direction.
Apologies for ‘Daddy’s/Daddies’. As many rightly guessed, I thought I knew and so never thought to check!
Thanks for dropping in to clarify, Hectence.
Hi,
I’m quite new to cryptics, but I’m planning on working through this series. I’m wondering though: if I ask questions in older posts like this, about how the clues work when I still haven’t understood, is anybody likely to notice and reply? Do I need to stick to more recent ones instead?
Thanks.
Welcome, tsoapm. I think you are better asking questions on the most recent blogs of the Quiptics. These threads go cold pretty quickly because everyone’s got more excited about the next one. If you read this, join us on next week’s Quiptic blog.
Pierre