Quiptic 1,015 by Hectence

12 comments on “Quiptic 1,015 by Hectence”

1. Thanks both. I found this very tricky in parts, esp 16d

2. Thanks to the setter and to the explainer. Enjoyed this a lot. For 24, I assumed it was L for side and EDGE for rim.

3. Thanks Kevin. That makes sense. Blog amended.

4. {I’m sure someone has said this before, but I’m not a bookface user so was struck by how UNFRIEND is straight out of 1984 (like “ungood” etc)}

5. I agree that this was a bit tougher than most Quiptics. I got 18a only after much DIFFICULTY, not knowing “ic” as an abbreviation for “in charge” or “ult” for “last month” (and my Collins doesn’t support either). I also missed the parsing of 24a, so thanks, newmarketsausage, for the blog, and thanks to Hectence for the workout.

6. Thanks to newmarketsausage and Hectence

   Yes, quite tough for a Quiptic but very good. I was a little surprised to see FARROW used without a capital F in 16d – a break with convention I think.

   I struggled a bit to equate BE with IS in 20d, but eventually settled on the colloquial HE BE RIGHT.

   @5 My Collins doesn’t list the def in the entry for ULT.  but it does give it as an abbreviation for ULTIMO.

7. I enjoyed this puzzle.

   Dansar@6 – I think that if they had written Farrow it would have been too easy. When I finally parsed it, I enjoyed the AHA moment!

   Thanks Hectence and nms.

8. Fairly smooth sailing. Didn’t know that Wear was a river. And had the same doubt that Farrow should have been capitalized (but that would have been a giveaway).

   Thanks Hectence and nms.

9. I failed to parse 22a, because I missed the lift-and-separate. I have no problem with that, but I did wonder whether it’s OK to use “top” to mean “first letter” in an across clue. There are certainly some circumstances in which people say that vertical placement instructions make sense “because it’s a down clue”. Is this not one of those times?

   Maybe it’s all right because “top” sometimes means “beginning”, as when a band leader says, “Let’s take it from the top.”

   I also wondered about equating “is” with “be” and thought of the colloquial usage that Dansar @6 mentions. Cryptics are more fun if the setter has a bit of latitude, so I decided this was OK with me in the end (not that anyone asked my opinion!).

10. Thanks for this! On 8d – why does LL refer to students?

11. @Jana

    L = learner, two Ls = learners

    @Ted

    ‘Top’ meaning beginning is now well established. It’s quite commonly used to mean ‘first letter’ in across clues.

12. Lovely Quiptic (though I found it hard, but hey, I’m rubbish at this!) and a terrific blogxplication. Thanks to both!

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