Guardian Quiptic 1,008/Anto

20 comments on “Guardian Quiptic 1,008/Anto”

1. This puzzle was a lot of fun. My favourites were MORNING PERSON, ANTWERP, TEN ACROSS.

   I got LUCIA but could only parse the LU bit and did not think of the middle letters of faCIng deAth for the CIA bit. I also could not parse 16a.

   New words for me were FLEA PIT and ASTILBE.

   Thanks Pierre and Anto.

2. I thought that this was a big improvement on previous Anto puzzles. I did not know British Queens as a variety of potato, but the crossers made the solution gettable.

3. Thanks Anto and Pierre

   I too didn’t know the potatoes, but it was guessable from the crossers. The rest was enjoyable, with MORNING PERSON and FLEA PIT favourites.

4. NICE!

5. I also did not know the British Queen potatoes – I looked them up via google.

6. Thanks Pierre. I couldn’t get or parse EPICUREAN – takes the p*s

   Also like michelle I could only parse the first two letters of LUCIA

7. Thanks for the blog.  I thought this was an elegant puzzle but despite a number of gifts was hard for a quiptic with quite a lot of misdirection. I spent a lot of time before clocking ANTWERP.

8. Thanks both. I liked this, though found it at least as hard as today’s Cryptic, which seems to be a common experience.

   Another here who didn’t know the potatoes, but the answer was obvious. My favourites were TEN ACROSS, ARE WE THERE YET and FLEA PIT. I was less keen on LUCIA (the indicator should be plural – ‘middles’ – though of course that would spoil the surface). Also all the answers would come up in everyday conversation (even ASTLIBE and EPICUREAN if the subject were gardening or philosophy respectively), except CANER; yes it’s a valid word but is it ever used in real life? I guess Anto had C_N_R and couldn’t find any other word to ft, and didn’t want to redo other answers to allow a real word there. But these are minor quibbles.

9. I agree with George Clements. This was my sixth experience with Anto and by far the most pleasant, with several clever clues. I do wonder why “politically” is part of the definition of 16a. Where I live, “right on” simply means “correct”, while “politically correct” is usually meant pejoratively.

   Thanks, Anto and Pierre.

10. @DaveinNCarolina – in the UK, RIGHT ON can simply mean ‘correct’, but depending on context, it also often means ‘plitically correct’, with a similar somewhat pejorative tone. For example, in my experience The Guardian is sometimes described as ‘right on’ by people who don’t much like it, even though they may broadly agree with its views.

11. Loved the puzzle, TEN ACROSS, LIE FALLOW, MEN AT WORK, MORNING PERSON were favourites. Didn’t know of Queen potatoes but it was solvable through the crossing letters. 26A seemed to be a pretty straight (and not cryptic) def to me.

    Thanks Anto and Pierre.

12. Often debatable re the Monday cryptic vis a vis the quiptic but today i feckon the latter is the dessert, tho by a slim margin, notwithstanding astilbe, a complete unknowm.

13. As a physicist, I was all set to complain about 15d: the unit of measure abbreviated F is called the “farad”, not the “Faraday”. But the dictionaries seem to support this, so I have to concede this one. I also wondered the same thing as DaveinNCarolina @9 about RIGHT ON; thanks for the explanation, beaulieu@10.

    A striking thing about this puzzle is the appearance of unnecessary THEs: I’d expect “terrorist group” to clue IRA,  “government’s financial plan” to define BUDGET, and “opera company” to clue MET, but in each case the THE is included. It’s true that, at least in two of the three cases, the word is generally preceded by the definite article, but surely that’s true for lots of English words, and we don’t usually expect the article to show up in the solutions to cryptic clues.

    I’m not saying it’s wrong, just that it’s unexpected, especially to show up three times in the same puzzle.

14. I haven’t done these for a while and when i saw Anto’s name I thought I would see what it was like.

    Well, a great improvement over the Anto ones I had tried previously – I loved TEN ACROSS and MORNING PERSON.

    Thanks Anto and Pierre.

15. British Queens are a variety of potato … unknown to me.  But I liked this and 9d raised a smile.

16. Thanks to Anto  and Pierre.

    I thought this was very good, apart from ARE WE THERE YET which was hardly cryptic, with some fine surfaces, misdirections and a nice range of devices. Anto has had more than his share of negatives in the past so it’s good to see some bouquets being proffered.

17. “Anto has had more than his share of negatives in the past …”

    Yes, indeed, and often rightly so – I was one of those criticasters.

    “… it’s good to see some bouquets being proffered”

    Hear hear!

    This crossword was quite nice.

    [thanks Pierre]

     

18. I found this quite hard but still doable, with the exception of astilbe, a word I’d never knowingly seen before! I dare not mention this to garden-aware family members in case they laugh at me. Also, assisted by my love of the Ian Dury song “Mash it up Harry” I went on a ludicrous lengthy journey round gay slang, being unaware – doh! – that British Queen potatoes are, in fact, potatoes. Thanks Ian.

    Thanks setter and blogger both for the excellent entertainment.

19. PS I also loved TEN ACROSS. Apparently my ANCESTORS would have too …

20. @Sil van den Hoek @17. I didn’t know that criticaster was also a word in English until you used it. Thanks for that.

    I know I’m a day behind with this; but, I hope you get the compliment, Sil.

    Thanks Anto and Pierre.

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