Guardian Quiptic 1,062/Anto

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Anto has produced a generally sound Quiptic for us this morning, which some newer solvers might have found a stretch in places. But if you’re doing the Quiptics to learn and improve then that’s sometimes no bad thing.

It is very nearly five years since Anto produced his first Quiptic (I blogged it). It’s fair to say that for a long period after that, the reception on this site was less than favourable. He has become much more consistent, I think, but for me he still lacks the sparkle of many of the other setters. He recently appeared in the main Guardian slot (which went down well), but please don’t congratulate him here on his ‘promotion’. The Quiptic is not the parish magazine: it takes as much if not more skill to set a puzzle for ‘beginners’ as it does a mainstream daily cryptic. ‘Setting with one hand tied behind your back’ was how one compiler once described it to me.

Abbreviations
cd cryptic definition
dd double definition
cad clue as definition
(xxxx)* anagram
anagrind = anagram indicator
[x] letter(s) removed

definitions are underlined

 

Across

1 Superficial type replaces wife during lottery
SKIN-DEEP
Anto is inviting you to replace the W in SWEEP for ‘lottery’ with KIND for ‘type’.

6 Congested excavation channel turned over
TURGID
A reversal of DIG RUT

9 Journalist perhaps gets server to pull article for recipe
WRITER
The invitation this time is to replace the A in WAITER with R for ‘recipe’. If you’re new to all this, then R is a (little used now) abbreviation for ‘recipe’. It comes from Latin verb recipere, ‘to take’ (imperative form, since you ask). Doctors wrote it on prescriptions for the apothecary, indicating they should ‘take’ a quantity of this, a quantity of that to produce the required formula. It comes up regularly in crosswords still.

10 Defence is behind in concrete case
REBUTTAL
An insertion of BUTT in REAL.

11 Intend storing heroin in craft for now
MEANWHILE
A charade of MEAN and H for ‘heroin’ inserted into WILE for’craft’.

13 It’s light and carried for love
TORCH
A dd. The second definition is referring to the expression ‘carrying the torch’. My sources (wiki, natch) tell me that the association of a torch with love may date to the Greek and Roman tradition of a wedding torch, lit in the bride’s hearth on her wedding night, then used to light the hearth in her new home.

15 Start filming battle
ACTION
Another dd.

17 Nice lady using first name to interrupt me
MADAME
An insertion of ADAM, the first person in the Christian creation story, in ME. Why ‘Nice lady’? Because Nice is in the south of France and ladies there are called MADAME. Beware also Nancy.

18 Brace before lift-off? To a degree, perhaps
TWO ONE
This wasn’t helped by the enumeration being shown as (3:3), leaving you to guess whether it was (3,3) or (3-3). It’s a cd cum dd: the first part is the ‘brace’ or pair of numbers that come in the countdown before the ‘lift-off’ instruction; the second is one option for a university degree.

19 What’s at stake restrains whistleblower; that’s very sad
BEREFT
An insertion of REF in BET. BEREFT is the past tense of BEREAVE, and I am unconvinced that it means ‘very sad’. You may be sad because you are bereft, but that’s not the same thing.

21 Small crowd get lost
SCRAM
A charade of S and CRAM.

22 Obliged to make tax limited
DUTY BOUND
A charade of DUTY and BOUND.

25 In truth, life is complicated — this makes it look better
FACE LIFT
An insertion of (LIFE)* in FACT. The insertion indicator is ‘in’; the anagrind is ‘complicated’.

26 Bureau sounding out new college after some time
AGENCY
I’m not madly in love with this. It relies on using the abbreviations N and C for ‘new’ and ‘college’ and then making homophones of them (‘sounding out’) to go after AGE for ‘time’.

28 Expert made errors with central pieces
ADROIT
A charade of the middle parts of mADe, erROrs and wITh.

29 Pet adder gone astray — it happened earlier
PREDATED
(PET ADDER)*

Down

2 Drink starts to kick in rapidly
KIR
The initial letters of the last three words of the clue give you the French apéritif made from crème de cassis and dry white wine.

3 Idea lacking information? Either way it’s unacceptable
NOT ON
NOT[I]ON. The setter has included ‘either way’ because the solution is a palindrome.

4 Coming to this planet and unable to leave it
EARTHBOUND
A rather clever dd.

5 Function without latitude to some extent
PARTLY
An insertion of L in PARTY. L for ‘latitude’ in is Chambers, so stop moaning.

6 Do spies keep them behind bars for drinking?
TABS
A dd. Spies keeps tabs on you and you keep a tab at the bar to settle up at the end of the evening (or not, at the moment).

7 Reason for relationship having spirit returned
RATIONALE
A charade of RATIO and ELAN reversed.

8 Surprisingly, Nato win case to get scientist
ISAAC NEWTON
(NATO WIN CASE)*

12 Blade cast in fragments can be a flexible thing
ELASTIC BAND
(BLADE CAST IN)*

14 Checkout times suit individual circumstances
CASE BY CASE
I think this must be a dd, but I can’t really see where the setter is going with the ‘checkout times’ bit.

Edit: George C and Shirl have explained it in the comments below.  You need to lift and separate ‘checkout’ to get ‘check out’, which is one definition of ‘case’ (the joint).  ‘Times’ is BY.  A ‘suit’ is a legal ‘case’.  The definition is ‘individual circumstances’.

16 Fancy art deco from middle area of Paris
TROCADERO
A charade of (ART DECO)* and RO for the middle letters of ‘from’.

20 Locate stand-in turning up in row
BUST-UP
A reversal (‘turning up’, since it’s a down clue) of PUT SUB.

23 Prepare popular backing section for classical music
OPERA
Hidden reversed in prepARE POpular.

24 Lost without commercial break
RIFT
[AD]RIFT

27 Hint — what you’re reading is missing line
CUE
C[L]UE

Many thanks to Anto for this morning’s Quiptic.

32 comments on “Guardian Quiptic 1,062/Anto”

  1. Despite trying very hard, I still fail to warm to Anto’s style. Some loose definitions and odd surfaces. Regarding 14d, I can only surmise that Anto is referring to checking out of an hotel with the luggage arriving case by case, with a nod to a case also being an individual circumstance, but I am not convinced.

  2. On reflection, there could be an element of ‘lift and separate’ with check-out representing ‘case’ – as in ‘case the joint’, but I’m afraid it doesn’t get me much further.

  4. Thanks both. I think CASE is check out, as in case the joint. And times is BY. Um, that’s as far as I can go

  7. I think I’m finally there. As above, ‘checkout’ needs to be lifted and separated; ‘times’ = ‘by’; ‘suit’ is a legal ‘case’ and the definition is ‘individual circumstances’. A clever clue, but is it Quiptic ?

  12. You can be just sad, but I don’t think you can be just bereft, you have to be bereft of something, and something that’s important to you.

  13. Thanks Anto and Pierre

    A DNF for me – I had no idea on BUST UP or CASE BY CASE. The clue for the former is unfortunate as it includes “up”. Favourites were ADROIT and NOT ON.

  14. 14 down – CASE as in CASE A JOINT, ie checkout a place;  BY as in multiply (two BY four), or TIMES; CASE as in a legal case, or law SUIT?

  15. I loved parts of this – “Isaac Newton” was very cleverly done, and many of the clues were extremely well crafted for the remit of introducing beginners to crosswords. But there’s a but (as well as a “butt”!) and clearly bits of this were too hard or too vague. Still and all, a good challenge and thank you Anto, and Pierre for the blog.

  16. I agree with TheZed’s assessment. The positives outweigh the negatives for this, and unlike Pierre, I thought that the slightly nonstandard wordplay made AGENCY one of the better clues once I figured it out.

    Thanks to Anto and Pierre.

  17. AGENCY could be AG (some time) + ENCY the homophone of NC. Chapeau to Pierre for a wonderful blog that brightened up the day and Anto who personally, I really enjoy although I think this was more like a Tue/Wed puzzle than a Quiptic

  18. Thanks, Pierre. And thanks to George C and Shirl for unpacking the cases.

    I enjoyed the puzzle, but had a slight quibble with 15a: “Action” is an instruction to the performer(s), given after the camera is running at speed and the clapperboard has been recorded. It means “start acting” rather than “start filming.” A small point.

  19. I did pretty well with this puzzle but definitely did not consider it a quiptic – as expected.

    I’ve heard of DUST-UP, not BUST-UP but couldn’t get the wordplay to work. I’ve never heard of TWO-ONE degree and really can’t imagine what it could mean. My only other problem was the parsing of SKIN-DEEP which didn’t even come close to accomplishing.

  20. Bleudot @19

    Universities award First, Second and Third class degrees (amongst others). Second is divided into “Upper Second” or 2.1 and “Lower Second” or 2.2.

  22. Alongside the other very justified quibbles, I’m surprised there’s not more dislike for 25A – ‘this makes it look better’ is a poor definition of FACELIFT, and on the surface the ‘it’ refers to ‘life’, which gets you no further.

    Thanks to Pierre.

  23. I found this very difficult for a Quiptic, but that might be because real life is very stressful at the moment, and I have gone partially brain-dead.

    I failed to solve CASE BY CASE, DUTY BOUND, BUST UP.

    I could not parse 1a, 7d, 26a – and still do not see how to parse the Y in AGENCY.

    My favourite was SCRAM.

    Thanks, Pierre and Anto

  24. My alma mater didn’t split its seconds back in my day, but the teaching staff knew exactly how each student had performed in the final exams.  Students whose results weren’t in line with expectations received letters telling them so, and under-achievers knew that they were unlikely to get glowing references when they started to apply for jobs.

  25. Did this yesterday but only getting to the blog now. I read the definition of BEREFT as ‘that’s very sad’ which seemed to make sense. Quite enjoyed this in these difficult times. Thank you both!

  26. I think one has to remember what the brief is for the Quiptic: ‘A web-only, cryptic puzzle for beginners and those in a hurry.’While this wasn’t a bad crossword, it certainly didn’t fulfil the brief, IMHO.

  28. Having been re-connected to the internet after my house move, I did this puzzle only today.
    There was quite a lot to like here but, as others said, not on a Quiptic level.

    It was a DNF for me as I couldn’t see 6d and 14d – rather a bad thing for a Quiptic.
    Having twice ‘bound’ wasn’t great either.
    When writing a puzzle in Crossword Compiler (as most setters do) the software will say ‘no’.
    Unless the setter says ‘yes’ (which, apparently, Anto did).

    My main ‘objection’ was the definition in 29ac: ‘predated’ = ‘it happened earlier’? Not for me.
    In 26ac, Anto tells us that we should take homophones of both N and C, so also of N.
    It leaves us with, as bodycheetah @ 17 says, AG for ‘some time’ which is pretty bad.

    On the whole the crossword wasn’t bad, though.
    Many thanks to Pierre & Anto.

  29. Thank you, Pierre. I’m new to cryptics and have been working on quiptics while dabbling in the cryptics. After abandoning this one, I eventually finished it two days later, but there were a number of solutions I couldn’t parse. Your explanations, and those of other solvers, helped me greatly.

  30. This was the first Quiptic I’ve actually attempted (and solved) without cheating (as a consequence of the current extraordinary situation). I really rather liked 14d, and have no complaints about definitions. I couldn’t see the how the wordplay for 7d worked without looking here though.

  31. Morning Biddy.  I’m glad the site is helping you to improve and enjoy our harmless pastime.  Keep posting to tell us how you’re getting on.

  32. I’ve skipped Anto efforts for years. Thought I’d try one for a change, but still find them unenjoyable. It’s a pity there are so many of them.

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