Guardian Quiptic 1,150/Carpathian

28 comments on “Guardian Quiptic 1,150/Carpathian”

1. Si ça va sans dire, pourquoi l’as-tu dit?
   Thanks to Carpathian for a very enjoyable puzzle, and to Pierre for sorting out the parsing of PLASTIC BAG, which I was to lazy to do!

2. Not sure about NOGGIN=mug, but otherwise a Goldilocks crossword: just right. In my case, knowing of the likely pangram helped with SINKING as I needed a K.

3. Thanks Carpathian and Pierre. Exemplary Quiptic and an exemplary blog to go with it. QUIXOTIC was also my LOI – might have got it sooner if I’d thought to look for a pangram. Loved the highly appropriate anagram for NECTARINES – at least, they never last long in my household.

   Sometimes we complain about Quiptics being too difficult, or too variable in difficulty level, but there’s a real art to doing them this well – in my amateur dabblings, I find it can sometimes be more difficult to write a simple, concise clue than one that is wordy with convoluted wordplay, especially for tricky words like QUIXOTIC. Top marks to Carpathian.

4. I remember, widdersbel, talking to one of the Indy setters not long after I started blogging the Quiptic (over ten years ago now). He compared compiling a Quiptic to ‘setting with one arm tied behind your back’, which I’ve always remembered. It absolutely is not a gig for setters who want to practise before getting ‘promoted’ to the main cryptic. It’s a real skill to set a puzzle like this one.

5. I am another who admires Carpathian’s skill in setting an accessible but very enjoyable puzzle. PACHYDERM and HOUSE-WARMING were my favourites. I suppose noggin is head and mug face, but I’ll excuse that.

6. I enjoyed this muchly, but am left with one (probably daft) query:
   How does study become con?

7. Mtega @6 I was wondering that too!

8. Con is an old word for ‘study’, used mainly back in Shakespeare’s time. It comes up quite often in crosswords, since as you can imagine, it’s a useful combination of letters.

   Mug and noggin are synonymous in the ‘container’ sense.

9. Here’s Quince in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, when he’s handing out the parts for the play within a play:

   But, masters, here are your parts: and
   I am to entreat you, request you and desire
   you, to con them by to-morrow night; and
   meet me in the palace wood, a mile without
   the town, by moonlight; there will we rehearse

10. I was also impressed by Carpathian’s skill in creating a pangram without resorting to obscurities.
    I remembered a contestant choosing a whiskey noggin on an ‘Antiques Road Trip’, so knew it is a small glass mug.
    Mtega@6: see con 3 in Chambers (other dictionaries are available)

11. Favourites: TRANSIENCE, PACHYDERM, HOUSE-WARMING, PLASTIC BAG, OBJECT (loi).

    Thanks, both.

12. Mtega @6, cf “conning tower” on a ship or submarine.

    A really good quiptic.

13. Pierre @4 – that’s a perfect description!

14. Like others above wondered why con = study

    will add it to my crossword list.

    Lovely puzzle.

    Thanks Carpathian and Pierre

15. This is my story:

    I am from India and English is not my first language. Other Indians do Cryptics very well and impressed me immensely in the hostels, but I could not get past 20% of any cryptic. They were from urban English medium schools, not a rural Tamil medium student like me. I discovered Quiptic in 2017 and found I could get well past 20% on many occasions. And the success rate is, as usual, S curve. Till you get a critical mass of clues done, it is a struggle. Once enough crossing letters are available rest of the puzzle gets cracked. Always there is the last 10% that is a struggle.

    So I decided to do ALL the Quiptics. Went through the archives, about 5 a week, and in four years, I had gone all the way to Quiptic #1 by Don Putnam 1999 Oct 22 on Aug 21, 2021. From there I did 10 a week and caught up to this week.

    I was wondering if this improved my regular cryptic skills. Found last week’s Imogen as difficult as it had ever been. Felt a lot discouraged. But found this Monday Cryptic by Pan surprisingly easy and got well past 90%

    I used to find Bonxie difficult in Quiptics. Anto is very loose in cluing. Carpathian is excellent, they should pay her/him extra for expanding the fan base. I think Anto, Bonxie etc are not getting the memo. In Quiptics, the job is to make it as funny, as whimsical and as beautiful as any Cryptic. But even a novice should be able to say, “yes I should have gotten it!” on missed clues. Otherwise no matter how correct and Xiemenesian the clue is, it aint fair. Not for Quiptics.

16. @pierre #4

    Agree 100% This is not a job for novice setters who want to be “promoted” to regular Cryptics. This is for master setters who can show the uninitiated how much fun a cryptic puzzle can be.

17. @pierre #4

    I think many setters imagine Quiptic setting to be akin to being a nursery school teacher and imagine themselves to be the top college professors. It ain’t so.

    Children learn naturally, and they learn constantly 24/7. Nursery school teachers just guide the natural learning process of every child. Cryptic crossword puzzles, on the other hand, are not natural. They are not learned naturally. It is not even like an obscure sports where the interest is already developed in the participant and the local coach of weekend sports club coach is on the lowest rung of the ladder. One has to actively promote it as a fun filled activity to a skeptical general public. You need to be a master setter to be a good Quiptic setter. Setters who do not agree with this view should not take up this gig.

    Yes, I am looking at you Anto. Eric and Ernie #1129 ? seriously? It is not even the official title of the show. You are not going to develop any international fan base.

18. All well said Ravilyn Sanders@, and given your application and the experience it gained you I think you’re well entitled to your speak. Anto got a lot of flak when he/she(?) first appeared, but I think the consensus is that there has been a considerable improvement. (For my own part I never felt the criticism was well-founded but to each their own.)

    On Quiptics in general, it is rare enough for an offering to gain universal approval as appears to be the case today (but it’s early yet). Like you I often find them to be pitched at the wrong level, incorporating devices and vocabulary which are out of place in a puzzle aimed at the beginner/those with little time to commit. But it’s a worthy attempt in broad terms and it’s perhaps a bit unfair to single out individual setters – there is an editorial function in play.

    In case you don’t know: Monday’s Guardian cryptic is, at least notionally, easier than the rest of the week. (Also there is a “General Discussion” page on this site which might be more suited to this type of exchange – but it was this puzzle that caused you to break your silence so fair enough.)

    I enjoyed the puzzle, with the surface for LAX giving me a chuckle so thanks both.

19. Welcome, Ravilyn, and thank you for your thoughtful and interesting comments. I’d put you forward as an example of the type of solver that setters should have in mind when they’re compiling Quiptics. You are certainly the type of solver who I – and I’m sure my fellow Quiptic bloggers – have in mind when writing up the blogs for the online Monday puzzles. It’s all done to encourage new recruits to the delights of the dark arts (and to the equally dark art of commenting on Fifteensquared).

20. Yes, good that the pangram didn’t end up with a lot of obscure words. I would agree that this is a good Quiptic, pitched at just the right level, I thought.

    I liked PLASTIC BAG and PACHYDERM among others.

    Thanks Carpathian and Pierre.

21. The last time ‘con = ‘study’ was queried, which was not that long ago, I offered this passage from the second episode in James Joyce’s Ulysses, to prove that it is not just Shakespearean. Here Stephen Dedalus, teaching a literature class in Mr Deasy’s School, allows his mind to wander back to evenings spent reading in a Paris library as a student clumsily recites a passage from Milton’s ‘Lycidas’:

    “Aristotle’s phrase formed itself within the gabbled verses and floated out into the studious silence of the library of Saint Genevieve where he had read, sheltered from the sin of Paris, night by night. By his elbow a delicate Siamese CONNED a handbook of strategy. Fed and feeding brains about me: under glowlamps, impaled, with faintly beating feelers: and in my mind’s darkness a sloth of the underworld, reluctant, shy of brightness, shifting her dragon scaly folds. Thought is the thought of thought. Tranquil brightness.”

22. Sc@21 That’s wonderful, thanks. You find the best citations.

23. [Petert @22 – you are too kind. My mind is ridiculously packed with literary texts and quotations from them. My ex-wife, who teaches English Lit, although for most purposes she now functions as Senior Management, used to say she wanted a mind-meld so that she could just somehow absorb what I know, but as neither of us is a Vulcan and no Vulcans were on hand to enable this procedure, it did not happen. Now that I am retired, 15-squared is really my only means of sharing this excess of knowledge I am happy when someone enjoys it.]

24. Ravilyn @15 – thanks for sharing your story, very interesting. I know exactly what you mean about the ‘critical mass’ – I sometimes struggle to get to >50% filled, but then the crossing letters mean the rest falls very quickly.

    Anto talks about his approach in his ‘Meet the setters’ interview – I believe he has the right intentions, but the fact that he may not always get it exactly right perhaps shows just how difficult it is to do well.

    As well as Carpathian, I would also mention Pasquale (Don Manley) as a good setter to follow – he can wrangle an advanced crossword with the best of them, but can also turn out an excellent Quiptic. To be able to adjust your register for difference audiences like that takes a combination of great skill and many years of experience.

25. widdersbel@24: I would say Pasquale is the perfect example of Ravilyn’s comment@16 – a master setter who can show newbies how much fun it can be. Pasquale’s Quiptics nearly always resist the temptation to introduce us to three or four hitherto unknown words, which can sometimes make his full strength offerings rather exasperating.

26. But Pierre, how does one properly dispose of a plastic bag so as not to cause environmental damage?

27. [sc @23 – I’d like to add to Petert’s compliment and say that I very much enjoy your contributions from literature and elsewhere, most of which, for me, were never known or remembered let alone forgotten.

    Rs @15 what a great story; I admire your thoroughness in exhausting all the Quiptics. Thanks for sharing it.]

28. Here in Sydney we have an institution called The Conservatory of Music, where students go to study music. Naturally its name is shortened to “The Con”. That was my excuse for reading study as con first time I saw it in a crossword. Iffy I know, but it’s served me well since.

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