I found this a strange mixture: some very easy “beginner” clues (and a couple of rather vague/weak cryptic definitions), and others that I struggled over for ages, including one unknown word that even the Chambers Word Wizard had trouble with.
I would normally expect to find a theme in a Qaos puzzle, but couldn’t see anything. In desperation I checked his Twitter feed and saw that “you should find it child’s play”, but apart from the obvious RAINBOW and a couple of other vague possibilities I’m still at a loss. So, over to you, and a slightly bruised “thanks” to Qaos.
| Across | ||||||||
| 9. | CLOWNFISH | Funny swimmer? (9) Cryptic definition |
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| 10. | APPLE | Daughters leave mottled fruit (5) DAPPLED minus two Ds |
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| 11. | SPIKE | Turning over, she finally sleeps in lace (5) Reverse of [sh]E + KIPS – lace/spike as in adding drugs to a drink |
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| 12. | KNACKERED | Talent show from America — edited, soulless and tired (9) KNACK (talent) + ER (US TV show) + E[dite]D |
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| 13. | SPARKLE | Deer knocks back glitter (7) Reverse of ELK + RAPS |
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| 14. | FLUTTER | Bet pound on leading filly, say (7) |
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| 17. | NOT ON | Unacceptable to only score 99? (3,2) 99 is not quite 100, so NO TON |
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| 19. | SHY | Quiet? Yes, quiet (3) SH + Y[es] |
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| 20. | WIDEN | Make Broad an extra batsman at the end (5) WIDE (extra [run] in cricket) +[batsma]N |
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| 21. | SWINDLE | Before victory, South led amazing trick (7) S + WIN + LED* |
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| 22. | RAINBOW | Colourful old children’s TV show? (7) Vague hint + definition |
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| 24. | PHILANDER | To suggest making love handle, rip apart! (9) (HANDLE RIP)* – the definition seems a bit dubious, though Chambers does give “flirt”, which might cover it |
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| 26. | KNEAD | Reportedly want massage (5) Homophone of “need” |
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| 28. | EGHAM | Surrey town, for example, hot in the morning (5) E.G. + H + AM |
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| 29. | LOTTERIES | Stories about small mammal drawings (9) OTTER in LIES |
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| Down | ||||||||
| 1. | ICES | They’re cold inside, that is, on top of stick (4) C in I.E. + S[tick], &lit |
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| 2. | GODIVA | Bareback rider? (6) Cryptic definition |
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| 3. | UNRECKONED | Runabout conked out, requiring energy not taken into account (10) RUN* (i.e. “run about”) + E in CONKED* |
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| 4. | PINKIE | Finger food with black liquid centre (6) INK in PIE |
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| 5. | WHEAT FLY | Pest breaking the law in France — “why?”, they ask (5,3) F[rance] in (THE LAW)* + Y (homophone of “why”) – the “in” seems the wrong way round, but you can just about read it as “..(THE LAW)* [and] in [we have to put] F” |
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| 6. | JACK | Rowling receives a first Christmas card (4) A C[hristmas] in J K (Rowling, “Harry Potter” author) |
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| 7. | OPERATED | Ran over dear pet — tragic! (8) (O[ver] DEAR PET)* |
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| 8. | MEAD | Drink made at sea (4) MADE* – see 25d for a similiarly simple clue |
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| 13. | SINES | Not even science is above society functions (5) Odd (not even) letters of ScIeNcE + S[ociety] |
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| 15. | UNWRINKLED | Greek character’s upset with reading faulty Kindle — no lines? (10) Reverse NU (Greek letter) + W[ith] R[eading] + KINDLE* |
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| 16. | RENEW | Frenchman’s wife to start again (5) RENE + W[ife] |
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| 18. | TWILIGHT | Evening time on island, around 1:50 (8) T + I L (1, 50) in [Isle of] WIGHT |
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| 19. | STEADILY | It delays working in a controlled way (8) (IT DELAYS)* |
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| 22. | RARITY | It’s unusual for the Queen’s Trust to exclude the Church (6) R (Queen) + [CH]ARITY |
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| 23. | BEEDIE | Indian cigarette is close to the end (6) BE (= is, in dialect) + [th]E + DIE (end). New to me – a cheap Indian cigarette, also spelled “bidi” or “beedi” |
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| 24. | PIES | Dishes regularly spoiled with 25% salt (4) Alternate letters of sPoIlEd + S[alt] – a slight blemish that we’ve already had a pie in 4d |
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| 25. | ARMY | Mary served as host (4) MARY* |
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| 27. | DASH | Bolt had worried about start of sprint (4) S[print] in HAD*, with a misleading reference to the aptly-named sprinter Usain Bolt (whose name is famously an anagram of ABLUTIONS) |
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BEEDIE was a new word for me. Wouldn’t BREXIT have been a better choice for a word to fit the crossers? Could have had fun with that.
Thanks, Qaos and Andrew.
thanks Q and Angrew. I can’t see the theme either (and I follow Q on Twitter).
I think for FLUTTER, “bet” is the def, with the “f” of filly, “l” for pound(sterling) and “utter” for say
@Chris inFrance
Precisely; that’s why I assume BEEDIE is thematic
Thanks baerchen, you are of course right about FLUTTER. I’ll correct the blog.
You’d need some word wizard to trap 23d. Chambers has three defs but word play and available space lead to the answer here.
I was stubborn about getting this as TANGA beat me yesterday.
Usually a Qaos theme is spelt out in neon lights whereas Phi’s are sometimes so obscure that you wait for him to make an appearance here.
Thanks Andrew and Qaos. enjoyable as usual.
Thanks, Andrew.
I googled a few of the answers and came up with this: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/friendship-games-original-motion-picture-soundtrack/id1039063613
Well done Eileen – I almost think I should have spotted that, as my daughter was keen on My Little Pony, and the first one she had was Applejack. In my defence, that was (eek!) over 30 years ago…
Thanks Qaos and Andrew
Odd one for me. About half way through I was thinking “Is Qaos auditioning for a Quiptic slot?”. It was much harder to finish – in fact I didn’t, as I revealed BEEDIE and was none the wiser. No idea of a theme. TWILIGHT was favourite today.
Why “small” in 29a? It’s not required, and otters are fairly substantial mammals – about half way on the size scale of mammals, I would say.
We crossed, Eileen. I think I’m OK in not spotting that theme!
No idea there was a theme. I also missed 21d – thought of BREXIT as Charles in France@1 suggested, but except for the possibility of “end” meaning “exit” I couldn’t make it parse. So it was a DNF for me on this one.
I was unfamiliar with 22a RAINBOW (as a TV show), 28a EGHAM and 5d WHEAT FLY, but biffed them in from the word plays. Favourite was 11a SPIKE.
Thanks to Qaos and Andrew.
Ah, an echo at 25 of my nomination for First Ever Cryptic Clue …
How well her Name an Army doth present
In whom the Lord of Hosts did pitch his tent
… from George Herbert in 1633. Ok, it’s not quite Ximenean, and he rather gives the game away by titling it “{Mary/Army} Anag” but all the parts are there, including a smart cryptic definition, 300 years before Torquemada.
I had BY E FIN, with some of the words doing double duty; didn’t bother checking it.
I forgot to look for a theme, but would never have spotted it, anyway; well done, Eileen.
Thanks Qaos and Andrew.
Thanks Qaos; not as Qaotic as some. I doubt that many would have found the theme. My Little Pony is probably not used by many cryptic solvers.
Thanks Andrew; I also thought the wording for the WHEAT FLY clue was peculiar; I kept trying to use ‘en.’ In 2, I was trying to put a word for bare backwards, oh dear!
I still don’t understand the use of BEEDIE – is it thematic? Apart from BREXIT, OneLook gives these as ‘common’ alternatives: bletia, blewit, brevis, brewis; but not BEEDIE.
P.S. Duncan Beedie is an international cartoon and children’s book illustrator, if that’s of any relevance.
Nice Quiptic apart from the bizarre WHEAT FLY.
I concur with most of the grumbles here, especially re WHEATFLY and BEEDIE. Some clueing is very loose, eg 13d (“above society” contributes nothing to the clue).
poc@16 – it is a Down clue so the odd letters of science go ‘above’ or on top of the S for Society
Interesting typo at 14 across Andrew. A Freudian slip? I was quite futtered too until words just started to fit.
An enjoyable and smiley start to the weekend. Cheers Qaos and Andrew
Boatman @11 Ha-ha! Where on earth did you find that?
Splendid puzzle on the whole but failed on BEEDIE and missed the theme.
Many thanks Qaos, nice weekend, all.
I didn’t enjoy this as much a yesterday’s Paul. Not sure why. Maybe too many abbreviations?
That was fun but also odd. I agree with the general sentiments. I felt as if I had been allowed in to solve a puzzle meant for some private occasion and a particular individual. But as I say, I enjoyed it anyway. So thanks.
Oh, help! I’ve barely so much as heard of My Little Pony, much less knowing any actual names or other components. Would somebody enumerate the theme words? I found Rainbow and Pinkie Pie in Eileen’s link, and got Applejack from Andrew. My Little Pony’s Wikipedia entry was no further help. What else is there?
And Eileen, what on earth did you google to get to the My Little Pony song site?
Hi Valentine @22 – I just googled a random selection of answers from the grid. The page that the link takes you to gives Twilight Sparkle, Sunset Shimmer, Rainbow Dash, Apple Jack, Pinkie Pie, Rarity & Fluttershy. It was a complete revelation to me!
Bodycheetah@20 it is very hard to beat Paul when it comes to writing clues. Driven mad by 23D because I’ve known the word ever since a daughter went on a gap year trip to India and came back with a few smelly cigarettes – spelt as ‘bidi’ or beedi’.
@ 22d I looked up “Queen’s Trust” and saw that it was a specific charity. What I didn’t realize was that the word “trust” could stand alone as a synonym for charity, but Collins has that equivalence as def. #10.
Even though my granddaughter was ‘into’ My Little Pony until recently, I failed to spot the names in the grid, most of which were familiar to me.
I solved this crossword on a park bench, away from lots of things like technology and books, and I came to a stop without solving BEEDIE and the two weak clues in the top left: CLOWNFISH and GODIVA. I have never heard of either CLOWNFISH or BEEDIE, so I can’t be too hard on myself. Without complaining about BEEDIE at all, I too thought BREXIT in that space was an opportunity lost.
This was mostly an enjoyable experience for me, and I particularly liked 11a SPIKE, 14a FLUTTER, 20a WIDEN and 3d UNRECKONED.
Thanks Qaos and Andrew.
Afternoon all. Many thanks for the comments and to Andrew for the blog. Today’s ghost theme was suggested by my daughter and (hopefully) picked up by solvers with young children or grandchildren. The full list of characters is HERE.
For 23d, I did consider using BREXIT, but thought it was bound to clash with one of my more prolific colleagues (which has happened to me a few times before).
Best wishes,
Qaos.
Mostly straightforward but a little tricky to finish, all quite enjoyable. Needless to say the theme meant nothing to me.
Thanks to Qaos and Andrew
William @19 – Good, isn’t it! I was looking for early uses of anagrams [advert alert … for my excellent-value masterclasses – taking bookings for the next one, on Saturday 4 November in Brighton] and there it was. It’s not the earliest anagram by a long way – there are lots of examples by Latin scholars having fun in the Middle Ages – but it’s the first time I’ve seen an anagram being connected with a cryptic definition to form a coherent (and spookily fluent) clue.
Aha! looking again at your link and now knowing the names, I see that all the ponies are the “singers” on various songs. That should teach me to read the small print!(But it probably won’t.)
Thank you, Eileen.
And thanks to Qaos for starting all this.
Thanks to Qaos and Andrew. I failed on BEEDIE, did not know the “wide” in WIDEN, and had to check Google for EGHAM, RAINBOW, and WHEAT FLY. Still I enjoyed the puzzle.
Alan B @26
Nemo, of “Finding Nemo” was a clownfish, I think. (I was made to watch it by a young relation, and hated it!)
As usual there is more to this than I initially thought. Having a 4 year old granddaughter I have had the questionable pleasure of watching several episodes of MLP and know of the characters – but it didn’t help in spotting the theme or solving the puzzle.
Everything went in fairly easily until I was stuck on the last five clues (11 & 29a, 2, 5 & 23d. 11 eventually yielded and Mrs W came to the rescue with 29 and 2; we guessed WHEAT, and in the absence of anything connected with Brexit gave up on BEEDIE. I’m disappointed that my (misspent) student days passed by without me coming across the word.
Thanks to Qaos for the puzzle and contributions and to Andrew for the blog and diligently searching for the theme.
muffin @32
Thanks for that enlightenment – always appreciated. (I don’t mind crosswords being a place to learn. I’m just sorry you had to suffer learning about this one!)
By the way – what fun to have a ghost theme completely out of the world of most crossword solvers. I’m all for having my comfort zones disrupted.
What! No little pony going by the name if Knackered? Or Philander? How disappointing! Congratulations to Eileen for finding the theme which had completely eluded me, and thanks to Andrew and Qaos.
For what it’s worth, Wikipedia gives the spellings “beedi,” “bidi” and even “biri,” but has never heard of “beedie.”
In learning to do these cryptic crosswords, I’ve been astounded at how many terms there are in British English related to betting and wagers. I don’t think there are any parallels for that in American English. Perhaps it’s because the Brits were smart enough to ship their more uptight religious loons across the Atlantic. Thanks for that – they’ve been a big help, he said, dripping with sarcasm.
Thanks Qaos and Andrew, for crossword, blog and dropping by. My daughters – quarter of a century ago – adored My Little Pony but mercifully my role was limited to buying the things, not learning the names. No problem with beedie – I smoked them in India on my one trip there before the girls were born
The “good”, for me, was great: To my amazement, my “wished-for” setters manifested themselves in wished-for order, Wednesday through Friday. On Tuesday, after Vlad’s great puzzle, I hoped for Brendan on Wednesday — and there he was. On Wednesday, after Brendan’s great puzzle, I thought, Paul on Thursday and Qaos on Friday would be my most hoped-for sequence — and sure enough, that’s what happened, and happened again. [I have never had much success at 29a, but in retrospect, I think I may have missed a good week to try my luck!]
The “less good” for me was that, despite my delight at seeing that Qaos was the setter, today’s puzzle was, in my final completed entries, a real struggle. BEEDIE stumped me completely (I see from reading above that many others also experienced this), and I had to resort to the online check function to finally work out the correct letters by trial-and-error, and then back-fill the parsing from there.
Knowing that a ghost theme was almost certain to be present (which is my favorite thing about Qaos as a setter), I actually correctly guessed the theme, based on what turned out to be fragments of the character names (e.g., RAINBOW, SPARKLE, PINKIE, FLUTTER, APPLE), but I did not know any of the full character names, and my guess was tentative at best. I thought the theme was likely to be either My Little Pony or Care Bears, and “flutter” and “sparkle” sounded more little girl horsey/unicorn-y to me than teddy bear-y, so I settled on the former as my best guess.
Thanks to Qaos and Andrew, and to other commenters. Bayleaf @36, thanks for the good laugh about a cartoon or toy pony named KNACKERED! Have a good weekend all.
23dn: Went through all the curries and side dishes I’ve had in my life and none of those fitted the check letters (now there is a possible future theme).
Juggled with various cryptically derived possibilities such as by(e)tip.
Eventually, I wrote in blew(it) – a mushroom.
I didn’t get BEEDIE. I could have by googling “indian cigarettes” but that spoils the enjoyment for me, though I might have given in if I had needed it for the crossers.
On the subject of unusual words I once attempted a crossword without special instructions in which the only answer I got was ETRE, which I didn’t know counted as an English word until I checked in Chambers. What’s more, when the solution was published this was still the only word that I recognised. Something of a tour de force on the part of the setter though not to be repeated.
Having only sons and grandsons I missed the theme though, thanks to “Finding Nemo” through a grandson, I had, like Muffin, had heard of a clownfish.
Thanks to Qaos and Andrew.
Hm! No idea about the theme, and failed to get BEEDIE – and not terribly impressed now I know the answer (the best I could come up with was BYEXIT, which didn’t seem very likely, particularly as the answer could so easily have been BREXIT).
Boatman@11
My nomination for First Ever Cryptic Clue is W. Shakespeare’s clue for NIMBUS: “The uncertain glory of an April day” (from Two Gentlemen of Verona so c.1590), for which he is clearly relying on the Chambers definition of “glory”.
Tony @44
What an amazing find! I see that it predates Boatman’s example @11, but both are well worth remembering. (That meaning of ‘glory’ is new to me – I had to look it up.)
Have been doing cryptic crosswords on and off for almost 50 years – though mostly off (but almost inevitably an Araucaria when one was spotted) so nowhere near the expertise of most of you here.
Recently introduced a 19 year old Oxford student to the delights of cryptic crosswords – starting in the kindergarten of the Telegraph and then moving on to 27,306 (Vlad) and then this Qaos. Pleased to say he was hooked.
Surprised by Vlads MUSTNT GRUMBLE as (6,7) and felt cheated when revealed. Don’t recall encountering an answer with an apostrophe before. Likewise in this puzzle @13 and @24 with the alternate letters. Are these “new” concepts? Are there any others I should know about? @23 BEEDIE was a baddie!
PS Amazed the Captcha is a sum and not a cryptic!!
Isn’t the ‘s’ the first letter of ‘society’?