A pleasing and tractable Quiptic from long-time setter Pan.
Abbreviations
cd cryptic definition
dd double definition
cad clue as definition
(xxxx)* anagram
anagrind = anagram indicator
[x] letter(s) removed
definitions are underlined
Across
7 Stone container with drug-free contents
PERIDOT
An insertion of E and RID in POT. A precious stone perhaps better known in crosswordland than in real life.
8 Vehicles crossing America in convoy
CARAVAN
An insertion of A in CAR and VAN for two ‘vehicles’. The insertion indicator is ‘crossing’.
9 Letter following complaint?
BEEF
A charade of BEE for a phonetic representation of the second letter of the alphabet and F.
10 I soon chat freely, as part of a conspiracy
IN CAHOOTS
(I SOON CHAT)* An odd-sounding phrase, of doubtful etymology but possibly from French and of Southern US origin.
12 Priest called to road accident
PRANG
A charade of P and RANG. I’ve always considered this a rather posh word for an accident, but I could have been labouring under a misapprehension all these years. I think it originally comes from an aircraft crash.
13 Bird near foot of mast on vessel
NIGHTJAR
Excellent. A bird. A charade of NIGH, T for the last letter of ‘mast’ and JAR. The obligatory Pierre bird link shows you a bird that is crepuscular or nocturnal and which has an eerie call. It is mythically reputed to be able to steal milk from goats. The legend goes back to the ancient Greeks and is responsible for the Linnaean name of their family, Caprimulgidae, and their common name of ‘goatsuckers’.
15 Female supporter rejected as vulgar
NAFF
A reversal (‘rejected’) of F and FAN.
16 Limits of taboo stopping pleasure in bed
FUTON
An insertion of TO for the outside letters of ‘taboo’ in FUN. The insertion indicator is ‘stopping’, as in ‘plugging’.
17 Ice originally put in china bucket
PAIL
An insertion of I for the initial letter of ‘ice’ in PAL, for which ‘china’ is cockney rhyming slang (although it’s actually slang for ‘mate’, as in ‘china plate’).
18 Hit cross back with handle
DOORKNOB
A reversal (‘back’) of BONK and ROOD.
20 Bamboo thatch covering market stall
BOOTH
Hidden in bamBOO THatch.
21 A male line broken in battle
EL ALAMEIN
(A MALE LINE)*
22 Retired thespian ignoring head of casting’s staffing schedule
ROTA
A reversal of A[C]TOR. The reversal indicator is ‘retired’ and the removal indicator is ‘ignoring’.
24 Journalist finally in digs broadcast news
TIDINGS
A charade of T for the final letter of ‘journalist’ and (IN DIGS)* with ‘broadcast’ as the anagrind. Tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy …
25 Composer crossing heart on island
ROSSINI
A charade of [C]ROSSIN[G] and I.
Down
1 Transport initially included in price of holiday
FÊTE
An insertion of T for the initial letter of ‘transport’ in FEE. The insertion indicator is ‘included in’.
2 Piece of music at service primarily for common people
RIFF-RAFF
A charade of RIFF, RAF for the ‘service’ and F for the initial letter of ‘for’.
3 Closure of zoo interrupting bear’s routine
BORING
An insertion of O for the final letter of ‘zoo’ in BRING. The insertion indicator is ‘interrupting’. ‘I bear/bring bad tidings.’
4 Setter ingesting ecstasy and heroin got nasty bug
PATHOGEN
A name check for our setter, PAN. You need to insert (E H GOT)* in that. The anagrind is ‘nasty’ and the insertion indicator is ‘ingesting’.
5 End up having sleepover away from home
PAN OUT
Another namecheck, although only coincidentally. A charade of NAP reversed and OUT. You need to lift and separate ‘sleepover’ to sleep over; then ‘over’ is the reversal indicator.
6 Covers for songs
LAYS
A dd, which took me forever to see. A tricky one for a Quiptic when you’re left with ?A?S.
11 Conservative bishop entertained by old artist
CONSTABLE
A charade of CON and B inserted into STALE. The insertion indicator is ‘entertained by’.
12 Philosopher climbing old mountain outside Turkish capital
PLATO
An insertion of T for the initial letter of ‘Turkish’ in O ALP reversed. The reversal indicator, since it’s a down clue, is ‘climbing’ and the insertion indicator is ‘outside’.
14 Note found amongst burnt remains of US sect
AMISH
An insertion of MI for the third note of the tonic sol-fa in ASH.
16 Admirer and crook go to a dance
FANDANGO
A charade of FAN (again), (AND)* and GO. The anagrind is ‘crook’.
17 River stopping quiet monster’s advance
PROGRESS
An insertion of R in P for the musically ‘quiet’ and OGRESS. The insertion indicator is again ‘stopping’.
19 Radio broadcast by Elvis’ first crew member?
ROADIE
A charade of (RADIO)* and E for the initial letter of ‘Elvis’.
20 Perfect hit to leg
BANG ON
A charade of BANG and ON for the ‘leg’ side in cricket.
21 Censor woman with no husband
EDIT
EDIT[H]
23 Net found twisted round foot of body in river
TYNE
An insertion of Y for the last letter of ‘body’ in (NET)* The anagrind is ‘twisted’; the insertion indicator is ‘in’; my Dad built ships on the river. In the days when we used to do that sort of thing.
Many thanks to Pan for this morning’s Quiptic.
I only recently started doing Quiptics, having erroneously thought they were “too easy”. This one certainly wasn’t, imo, just a pleasant way to finish off the weekend.
I first thought 5d PAN OUT was wrong, but then realised it is ok, just that the definition given is not the one I generally use. If I say “This did not pan out”, I mean it did not end well, not that it didn’t end – in fact it did end, that’s why I made the remark in the first place!
Very nice Quiptic, neither too easy nor too hard.
Favourites: RIFF-RAFF and I also liked FUTON, NIGHTJAR, PATHOGEN, PERIDOT.
Thanks, Pan and Pierre.
Re 7-Stone dope with drug free contents?
As POT is de ‘erb. Just a thought
Thanks Pierre and Pan. Although even with the explanation for 6dn, I’m still none the wiser. Lays = songs? Never heard that before, and can’t see a matching definition in Chambers or Collins. What am I missing? I’m sure it’s something blindingly obvious….
Thanks Pan and Pierre
I thought that this was difficult, especially for a Quiptic. I’m pleased that you had trouble with LAYS too – I knew LAY as a song, but am struggling to equate lays with covers. “Routine” was rather loose for BORING too.
ROTA ws very nice.
Oops, reading failure on my part, sorry – on second look, I’ve found the lay=song definition in Collins. Must make a mental note of that one…
Muffin @5 – I think lay=cover is ok in the sense of “lay a table”.
widdersbel @6, ‘lay a table’ was the best I could come up with too, but I could not for the life of me think of a sentence in which ‘lay’ and ‘cover’ could be interchangeable. But meanwhile, from the song ‘Spring, the sweet spring’ by Thomas Nashe from his play, Summer’s Last Will and Testament, published in 1600 but probably written a few years earlier:
The palm and may make country houses gay,
Lambs frisk and play, the shepherds pipe all day,
And we hear aye birds tune this merry lay:
Cuckoo, jug-jug, pu-we, to-witta-woo!
(I wondered when, if ever again, my knowledge of Nashe might be of any use; this may be it …)
Fun Quiptic which took quite a while to solve needing a little help to-boot.
Anyone with a copy of ‘Fantabulosa – A Dictionary of Polari and Gay Slang’ should read-up on the origins of NAFF!
Thanks Pan and Pierre!
Very neat, PERIDOT was a nho but gettable. V interesting gen on NIGHTJAR, so ta Pierre & Pan
Spooner’s catalpa @7 – thanks for that reference, good knowledge!
[catalpa? damn autocorrect]
Didn’t feel Quiptic at the time, but afterwards hard to say why – it was ever thus! Found it hard to break into the NW corner though.
Slightly disappointed that “Covers for songs” wasn’t (W)RAPS – I’d convinced myself a cheeky ? might have gone awol…
Thanks for the fun Pan. And the explanations Pierre.
I wondered about LAYS too – the nearest I could come to equating it with covers was to think of laying a cloth on something to cover it but it seemed I was missing something. Still not sure what.
After the cryptic, this felt like a pair of old slippers and was all the better for it.
Not the easiest Quiptic, but fair. I know PERIDOT because it’s my birthstone, but it still took a while to get, and I revealed LAYS in the end: unhelpful crossers and neither half of the DD easy. It also took a while to realise how much of cROSSINg was the “heart”. Thanks pierre for parsing PATHOGEN: a nasty one indeed.
The ‘first/last letter of xxxx’ device got used a lot in this one!
I too found this – or at least the top half – harder than the usual Quiptic. I kicked myself when I finally saw PERIDOT, as I have a Geology degree. But words with only vowel crossers are always hard to see. Nor could I find a way to make LAY = cover. To lay a table is to put stuff on it – plates, cutlery, glasses etc – but you don’t cover it. Can you imagine a mother saying to her teenage son “Can you cover the table, please – dinner’s nearly ready”? Not me. ‘Lay [x] on’, or ‘lay [x] over’ can equal ‘cover’, but I’d say you need the preposition. Still, I shrugged and entered it, in the absence of anything better. Thanks, Pan and Pierre.
Great stuff, with the exception of PATHOGEN, which surely doesn’t parse as per the reading, and LAYS with the unhelpful crossers.
FANDANGO and PERIDOT were a delight, though.
Apologies, Boffo, for the bit of rogue underlining which crept into the parsing of PATHOGEN. Now corrected.
Not sure if this was Pan’s intention, but I had a more Paulian interpretation of lay = cover, as in a mare being covered by a stallion.
A nice easy Quiptic with some odd bits.
IN CAHOOTS is a common colloquial phrase in the US, not particularly Southern, coming from a French Canadian word, “cahute,” for “cabin.”
I think PRANG started out not so much posh as as RAF slang for, as you say, Pierre, an air crash.
Pierre, in 2a do you spell “for” beginning with an S?
Thanks, Pierre and Pan.
LAY 3 Chambers, to cover.
No picture of the Nightjar ? I only came to this blog for the bird pictures.
Lay = put down a covering, as in “he laid a new carpet in the front room”.
Valentine@20: I only know the word through the Monty Python sketch where the squadron leader keeps saying “”Bally Jerry, pranged his kite right in the how’s-your-father” and the other aviators have no idea what he’s talking about.
Ben+T@12: I tried that one too!
Very nice quiptic, thanks Pan and Pierre!
Roz, the obligatory Pierre bird link is there in the explanation of 13ac. It does require you to click on it, if that’s not too technical.
Thank you Pierre, bit too technical for me. I have never seen a nightjar but have heard them frequently. They churr .
Lovely Quiptic and excellent blog. Thanks, both. I wasted a lot of time trying to end PERIDOT with BOX. But hey. 🙂
Always pleased to see an OPBL!
We gave up on LAYS, still no idea – unhelpful crossers. Otherwise a fun quiptic although we think BEEF needs a homophone indicator?
I solved this on the day of publication but forgot to make my question here until now. Probably too late!
1D: I really dislike ‘of’. Yes, it makes the surface work, but as an indicator it’s meaningless. It needed to be ‘to’ or ‘into’ or ‘as’ or similar (and the surface would have to be reworked, I know).
A small quibble over a good quiptic which was a tad cryptic in the NW. Pan always pleases.
@ianf1 among many other things a lay is a short song or story. To me it conjures up folk songs or stories in old tales, set to music. Not in itself archaic, but referring to old songs.
Late to the party on this one for my first comment on this excellent community. I took lay in a betting sense, as in a bookie lays off a big bet to cover potential losses.
‘Cover’ is used in restaurants to indicate a place set or laid out, as in a number of covers. I wonder if this meaning could work.
Lays are religious songs are they not? A stallion can cover a mare and a man lay a woman? I am so late with this comment that I doubt anyone will read it.