The Quiptic is branded as being for ‘beginners and those in a hurry’, and a fine institution it is. I will not, however, be recommending this one to those in the ‘beginners’ category.
If you’re one of those who cares about the quality and tractability of the Quiptic, then compare this puzzle with last week’s Quiptic by Pasquale. Last week was a thoughtfully constructed puzzle, with clear cluing and a good variety of clue types, where the setter had taken seriously the idea of compiling a cryptic with newish solvers in mind – the perfect example of ‘losing gracefully’. This week we have an offering with a number of straightforward clues, for sure, but also with enough convoluted and frankly difficult clues to seriously discourage a less experienced solver. And today, an experienced solver too, since there is one clue I can’t parse and am uncertain about another. Add to that a grid which has a high percentage of solutions with less than 50% checking and you have a not very pleasing start to your crosswording week. And if you do both the Quiptic and the main Grauniad puzzle, no choice of setter …
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 They are often lit up outside pubs
SMOKERS
A cd.
5 ‘Howl!’ — poem recited as a series of lines
BAR CODE
A homophone (‘recited’) of BARK ODE.
10 Doctrine kids read endlessly
IDEA
[K]ID[S] [R]EA[D]
11 Enrich soul performing a stage routine
CHORUS LINE
(ENRICH SOUL)* with ‘performing’ as the anagrind.
12 Fly home with religious group?
INSECT
A charade of IN and SECT.
13 Common man takes on popular politician
MINISTER
An insertion of IN for ‘popular’ (‘flares are really in at the moment’) in MISTER. The insertion indicator is ‘takes on’.
14 Risk of obesity is low apparently
FAT CHANCE
A cd cum dd.
16 Process essential to commence expansion
MEANS
A charade of the central letters of comMEence expANSion.
17 Conduct from addict injecting heroin
USHER
An insertion of H in USER.
19 Sweet picture, perhaps added by discrete software module
APPLE TART
A charade of APPLET and ART.
23 Repay debt in full and move on
CLEAR OFF
A dd.
24 Plant found in back parts of Thanet Castle
NETTLE
[THA]NET [CAS]TLE
26 Way to earn money spent moving bodies
LIVING DEAD
A charade of LIVING and DEAD.
27 Bias shown by some key economic world leaders
SKEW
The initial letters of the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh words of the clue.
28 Places to go that are wildly insular
URINALS
(INSULAR)*
29 Most economical spring break
SPAREST
A charade of SPA and REST. As a superlative adjective, it obviously exists, but I can’t imagine ever using it.
Down
2 Superstar provides heavenly bread stuffed with delicious olive tips
MADONNA
An insertion of D and O for the initial letters of ‘delicious’ and ‘olive’ in MANNA.
3 Jack, who doffs his cap in church space
KNAVE
I think this is a charade of K and NAVE, with the K coming from [JAC]K and the removal instruction being ‘doffs his cap’. I am happy to be corrected, because if it is this, I don’t think it’s a very clear or fair clue.
Edit: there is a better explanation of the parsing in the first few comments on the thread.
4 Cheers after Charlie’s appearance in extravagant production by Italians
RICOTTA
A charade of C inserted into RIOT and TA. The insertion indicator is ‘appearance in’.
6 Occasionally call out men, big old boys
ALUMNI
The alternate letters of cAlL oUt MeN bIg.
7 We sold cat spraying fluid produced when frightened
COLD SWEAT
(WE SOLD CAT)* with ‘spraying’ as the anagrind.
8 Waste long time in prison
DUNGEON
A charade of DUNG and EON.
9 Come upon fatty spread — something I don’t fancy
NOT MY CUP OF TEA
(COME UPON FATTY)* with ‘spread’ as the anagrind.
15 Burning everything around motorway
CREMATION
An insertion of M in CREATION. The insertion indicator is ‘around’.
18 Fighter disposing of both sides creates classic record
SOLDIER
I’m afraid I have no idea how to parse this.
Edit: it’s [S]OLDIE[R] Thanks to Sayer for explaining at comment no. 1
20 Arranged denial without asking first
LINED UP
A reverse anagram. The setter is asking you to read ‘asking first’ as producing the letter A; then you need to remove that from ‘denial’ to give you DENIL; the next step is the reverse anagram, where LINED UP is a clue for DENIL. The surface reading anagrind is ‘arranged’, the reverse anagrind is UP, the removal indicator is ‘without’, and ‘arranged’ is doing double duty as one of the anagrinds and the definition. All very clever, but completely inappropriate for a puzzle intended for beginners and demonstrating a degree of thoughtlessness on the part of the setter and editor.
21 Waves used to make other waves
ROLLERS
A dd. The second definition is to do with hairdressing.
22 Try uplifting sign given by an enormous number
GOOGOL
A charade of GO and LOGO reversed. A GOOGOL is ten raised to the power of a hundred, which is certainly enormous.
25 Took the test again after returning a shocker
TASER
A reversal of RESAT.
Many thanks to Anto for this morning’s Quiptic.
18.d (s)OLDIE(r)
3 KNAVE
Jack (in cards); Knave doffs his cap to become NAVE.
Does it work?
I don’t think you have got 3D quite right. A jack is a knave and if you take the cap or first letter off you get nave, which is part of a church.
For 18D if you take the outside letters away from soldier, you get oldie, which is a classic record (as in “golden oldie”).
In Church space (NAVE), KNAVE doffs K (better way of saying it, maybe)
Cat’s Whiskers!
Crossed.
When I saw that Anto had set the Cryptic I decided to do the Quiptic first today and it was… Anto! First time I have seen both the the Monday Cryptic and the Quiptic being the same setter. Monday is the only day when I do two puzzles, and I realise now that I prefer to have the variety of two different setters on a Monday.
Good puzzle, tricky in parts but I was surprised that I managed to solve it quickly (23 minutes is quick for me). I think it was fine as a Quiptic level puzzle.
Favourite: SOLDIER.
New for me: GOOGOL.
Thanks, both.
I agree with Sayer@1 and Kurukveeera@2 re parsing of 18d and 3d.
Pierre, I am guessing your comments are directed at the editor rather than the setter?
Entirely agree with Pierre. Even when Anto is setting both puzzles on the same day he still manages to make the Quiptic harder!
I thought the same as Sayer, Kurukveera et al re SOLDIER and KNAVE. In fact both clues have the same problem – ‘doff’ and ‘dispose of’ lead the solver to expect a subtraction, whereas you actually have to add something, to get a word from which you would have to subtract something to get what you thought was the solution but isn’t. It’s a legit device but not in a Quiptic.
Thanks Anto and Pierre.
P.S. I saw LINED UP as a ‘reverse reversal’ rather than a reverse anagram. DENIAL without an A, in a down clue, is LINED, up. Still way beyond Quiptic territory.
That is a better explanation of LINED UP, essexboy. And you are right about it still being outside Quiptic territory.
Glad to see all above opinions as I was thinking along the same lines with KNAVE and LINED-UP, initially I was thinking double duty but decided I must be missing something, so stared at them for a while, with another coffee, got them parsed pretty much as above but that’s way too complex for the quiptic IMO.
Still much to enjoy, I don’t mind the harder clues myself but I hope nobody was put off by this, which should have had a cryptic spot and probably not a Monday.
Thanks Anto and Pierre.
I was beginning to think I was losing whatever touch I had, so I am relieved others found it not a quiptic. As well as the problems already mentioned, there’s the TASER/RESAT clue which could lead to either and SOLDIER reads more like a clue for OLDIE than SOLDIER to me. I thing would create rather than create would have been fairer. Can you describe a SMOKER as being “lit up”? “They often light up outside pubs” maybe.
Thanks essexboy@7 for defining how both KNAVE and SOLDIER work: those clues, differently enumerated, would be equally valid for NAVE and OLDIE respectively, and it’s an unusual device to find twice in the same crossword.
I had CURLERS instead of ROLLERS for quite a while – I suppose I belong to an older generation. I also question BARK=howl, though I like the passing reference to the Allen Ginsberg poem.
PeterT@11
It wouldn’t be Monday without at least one dodgy cryptic def!
Quite agree Pierre, people occasionally ask me to recommend a suitable crossword to ease them gently into the delights of solving cryptic crosswords, I usually suggest they try The Guardian on Monday, I sincerely hope they haven’t followed that advice today, it could put them off for life.
I enjoyed this (and the ‘regular’ cryptic too) but agree it wasn’t ‘Quiptic’. Both very enjoyable puzzles, thanks Anto. In 20d, as well as being a bit too tricky for Quiptic, does “asking first” really indicate first letter of asking … “asking initially” would work, but “first” would need to be “asking’s first” (or “first of asking”)? And does 20a need to be “Perhaps fly” (ie definition by example)? But depite the quibbles (and possibly inappropriate difficulty level), lots of fun – 26a takes top spot for me.
Both of Anto’s puzzles were of the same level of difficulty today, so I wholeheartedly agree with Pierre’s take on this one. Still, I have always enjoyed this setter, even when he used to have his detractors. I thought NOT MY CUP OF TEA was neat and this was the opposite for me, despite its tricky clues in places
Ta Anto (again) & Pierre for your measured opinion.
This not-quite-complete-beginner feeling a bit battered by this. I ended up revealing 18D after spending a long time trying to add letters to ‘fighter’ synonyms. Parsing of LINED UP also defeated me. Felt like a fail.
Not quite sure why this should be, but I regularly find the quiptic more difficult than the cryptic, and not just the Monday cryptics. To me, BARK and HOWL are not the same. And are IDEA and DOCTRINE the same? There are some specific meanings for idea listed in my Chambers as used by Kant and Plato, but even so.
Buddy@17. This long-in-the-tooth solver also felt battered after today’s offerings – probably because I approached them expecting not to have to work too hard as it is Monday, after all. So, Biddy, don’t feel that you have failed!
Having said that, I enjoyed both puzzles.
Thanks Pierre as I didn’t know about APPLETs and couldn’t see how “(perhaps) added by” gave LET in the middle of that one, and Kurukveera for making full sense of KNAVE, agree with essexboy’s comments on the awkwardness of those “virtual subtraction” clues, also with his parsing of LINED UP although it still lacks the inversion/crypticise indicator. I have seen enough of Anto to expect some shenanigans and enjoyed the double dose today but agree the selection of this one as a Quiptic probably wasn’t the smartest choice. Great to see GOOGOL in there, thanks Anto.
I suppose SMOKERS in this case are preceding the BAR CODE rather than following it. I’ll get my coat 🙂
Thanks, Pierre, for such an honest appraisal, with which I totally agree.
Can’t tell if it’s a theme or a pious reaction to the season, but there was so much Christian stuff in this that I just gave up from a complete lack of knowledge.
I don’t think anyone’s said APPLET since Java stopped being the dominant force for making websites do funky stuff, which was about 15 years ago – and I don’t really see it defined as a “discrete software module”. As a software developer all I could think of was “library”.
Glad I gave up early, based on the professional opinion on this one!
I wondered whether Anto intended this to be the Cryptic entry (and Wicce Worser), and the editor made a mistake in assigning them to the wrong places. Like others, I struggled with this one, while the Cryptic went in quite easily. Still, there were some nice clues. I liked 11a CHORUS LINE, and 9d NOT MY CUP OF TEA for their excellent anagrams and good surfaces, and 5a BAR CODE for the excellent surface and the good device-that-I-don’t-know-the-name-of (surface 4,3, solution 3,4).
michelle@6, I usually do two puzzles each day, the Guardian and the FT, and it is surprising how often the same setter appears on the same day (Pasquale/Bradman, Philistine/Goliath, Picaroon/Buccaneer, etc.) I enjoy it when that happens, perhaps because they happen to be among my favourite setters.
Thanks, Anto, for the double dose today, and Pierre for the excellent blog.
When I see Anto’s name on the Quiptic, I know I’m in for a slog so no surprises there. Perhaps Chambers disagrees, but CLEAR OFF doesn’t work for me wrt debts. I may clear off the table perhaps (although I doubt I would use “off” in that case either) but I would clear my debts.
With the harder than usual cryptic today and now this, which was harder than the cryptic for me, I thought I was having an off day. I’m glad to hear it wasn’t straightforward for others too.
The crossword editor (assuming one exists) should really be able to gauge the appropriateness of puzzles for beginners and ensure none like this slip through the net. It may be harder for the setter but interesting that they thought this easier than their cryptic!
I don’t quite understand 4dn. Is RIOT clued by EXTRAVAGANT? I’m not aware that the former can be an adjective, or that the latter can be anything else.
I agree with the consensus that this was too hard for a quiptic, but I still enjoyed parts of it. 9dn (NOT MY CUP OF TEA) was particularly nice. Although I agree that barking and howling are different, I had to forgive Anto this one because 5ac was so cleverly constructed.
Excuse the way my mind saw 26a: swap the L for a G, and the first D for an H. Certainly can be a way to earn a living, and arguably involves moving bodies.
Spot on appraisal Pierre. I had thought they were getting their act together in this slot. Recent weeks have fulfilled the criteria very well but today was back to you’ve gotta be joking if this is for newbies.
Of course, it is different for everyone but I finished the Quiptic today in 23 minutes, and the cryptic in 36 minutes. That is why I thought that this puzzle was well-placed as a Quiptic, because for me it was easier than the Cryptic.
cellomaniac@24
I can imagine that happening with two different newspapers (and I am glad that it suits you) but I found it strange in the same newspaper.
Ted @27 yes I think you have a point which I mentally ignored as it was my last one in. We can have a riot of colour in eg an extravagant dress but I can’t think of a direct replacement example using just the four letter word.
Anominous@28 I think we can forgive the editor for not spotting that as a plausible alternative solution, in Private Eye it would probably be the front runner.
Agree, Pierre. A DNF for me, as I ran out of time (and patience). I know some solvers like Anto, but too often I don’t seem to be able to get on his wavelength (true for the Cryptic too, today). A real pity, as just to other day I recommended to a beginner to try the Monday Guardian offerings…
Really tough.
APPLET is a technical term. Not often used, much less common than APP.
Thanks Pierre.
I struggled with this too, got a couple in that I couldn’t parse because I didn’t see the backwards-logic of the cluing, but enjoyed it in the end. The blog and comments have been helpful and interesting too. Thanks, Anto, Pierre and all.
I wonder if some Guardian sub-editor got the cryptic and quiptic crosswords swapped.
Agree with the intro. I always find Anto difficult.