Guardian Quiptic 1,154/Pasquale

32 comments on “Guardian Quiptic 1,154/Pasquale”

1. 12a – where does the other E come from? Leatherette minus heart leaves LE-ETTE

2. Went through this quite quickly – but like Lin @ 1 can’t see where the other E comes from.

   Thanks Pasquale and Pierre

3. Thanks Pasquale and Pierre
   Yes, very good. Favourite LORDS PRAYER.
   I was puzzled by 17 – why “ash”?
   Good spot, Lin @1.

4. Am another with a missing ‘e’ in 12a.
   muffin@3 I don’t quite get 17 either. Ash is a ‘wood, but why would that be found on (position in the clue) the ‘beach’ . drift/ adrift? Unless there’s something I’m missing, I don’t think it quite works.
   But grateful for a Pasquale today to pass the time away.
   And thank you Pierre. HNY

5. Thanks Pasquale and Pierre – nice summary of an excellent Quiptic.

   I didn’t notice the missing letter in 12 – ‘saw’ the solution and didn’t check the off the letters. Funny how the brain plays these tricks on you.

   I think ‘ash’ is just meant to be gently misleading as it has more than one meaning, nothing more to it than that.

6. Did this in less time than it takes for England to lose four top order wickets. I didn’t count the ‘E’s either. I thought DRIFTWOOD on the first run through and dismissed it as unlikely, only to see the crossers drop in as I did the downs. Those couple apart, I thought this an excellent Quiptic. Thanks, Pasquale and Pierre.

7. I thought this was ideal for introducing a beginner to cryptic crosswords.

   Agree with widdersbel re ‘ash’ – the surface makes you think of the remnants of a fire, a beach barbecue perhaps, while the solution requires ‘ash’ to be a definition-by-example (hence the question mark) of ‘wood’. The ‘drift’ is a nice touch, since sand drifts are often found on the coast, so ‘drift wood’ could, whimsically, be ‘wood found in a (sand) drift’. But ‘driftwood’ taken as a whole could also be ‘ash(wood) found on the beach’ – perhaps the battered and storm-tossed remains of Bruce Springsteen’s Telecaster, thrown overboard in the midst of some superyacht-based debauchery?

   Many thanks to Pasquale and Pierre (and to the crossword editor for a genuine Quiptic!)

8. Good spot on the missing E. I went through the same mental process as widdersbel, and with a Don Manley puzzle you never really bother to check.

9. A nice but uneventful puzzle. I particularly liked EDITORIAL.

10. Very good Quiptic.

    Liked BEGGAR.

    I agree with the others re 12ac having an extra E.

    Thanks, both.

11. A proper Quiptic, as others have said, and still fun. Slight spoiler for COMANCHE on the Philistine blog.

12. Came here to find out where the E went, but it seems it’s still AWOL.

13. Very enjoyable and our fastest solve so far. A lovely experience of everything just clicking into place. As relative newbies to the cryptic world, this is a rare occurrence and the odd time when it does always leaves us eagerly awaiting the next Quiptic!

14. Same as the others, I didn’t even bother to check if 12 was correct!

    Maybe 12. Material in short letter – euphoria at first then broken heart revealed in it?

15. I agree — an excellent Quiptic, marred only by the error in 12ac, which, like others, I failed to notice. I generally find Pasquale’s regular cryptics to be quite difficult, so it’s impressive that he can dial the difficulty down and still produce such engaging puzzles.

    I was puzzled by 25ac: I thought “associated with sultanate” had to be the adjective OMANI and then couldn’t figure out how to get the A from the rest. But of course it all makes sense now. My only criticism is that “put in to join” seems like an awkward indicator in 19ac, but that’s an extremely tiny quibble.

16. Unlike essexboy@7, I can’t thank the editor who should have noticed the error in 12 across. Surely that’s one of the things an editor is supposed to check. But certainly thanks to setter and blogger.

17. 12A Mea culpa ( even after ‘checking’}

    I suggest ‘broken heart initially exposed’. Blame me not the editor!

18. Thanks Pasquale, as others have said, as a quiptic should be.
    Thanks for the blog, I didn’t notice the missing ‘e’, proof that an easy puzzle can be fun.

19. Thanks Pasquale and pierre.

    Very happy with my own performance. Was able to get it all, even able to guess some old BBC guy’s name from wordplay and crossers.

20. These were going in so fast I didn’t notice the extra E either, though the sneaky definition in 14d made me pause. Couldn’t parse BYE-BYE. The image evoked by 20ac made me laugh out loud.

21. Ok, so if this is a charade then I need help understanding how “PEER AT” is Lord please.

    Hope someone can help me understand this. Thanks in advance.

22. Sorry that’s for 20 across.

23. Amanda
    The “peer” (of the realm) is the “lord”, then “at” (joined to) “spayer”.

24. ..”sprayer”, of course

25. I don’t see why so many people have a problem with ash on the beach being driftwood, it’s wood thats washed up on the beach whats the problem?

26. Tony @25 – same reason people often dislike cryptic definitions – if you don’t get it then there’s often no other wordplay to lead you to the answer. My impression is that you see far more criticism of CDs than praise, mostly because it’s frustrating as heck to not see the answer (especially if you still don’t understand it once it’s been explained!).

27. @Muffin Aaaahhh, I’ve never heard this before but it makes sense! Thank you so, so much for explaining. I had gotten the SPRAYER part but just couldn’t parse that bit.

28. Re 12a, they’ve corrected the clue now – added ‘initially exposed’ for the missing E.

29. I am an American solver, who is addicted to the Quiptics, which I have now become pretty good at. Would you kind people point me to Cryptic setters who pose more of a challenge but are not too hard? I have plundered the archives for Everyman. And, do the Cryptics become harder as the week progresses? Happy New Year to all.

30. Hello Julie, and welcome to the blog if this is your first comment.

    Generally, the Monday Guardian cryptic is ‘easier’ than the rest of the week, but one woman’s easy is another one’s not so easy, of course. If you search back through the Guardian archives by setter, then I would recommend looking out puzzles by Arachne, Pan and Pasquale, which will all have clear cluing and generally not too fiendish wordplay and vocabulary.

    You might also try the Monday puzzle in the Independent, which is available online and is linked to each week on this site. I blog that one too, and there are a number of setters who generally provide a tractable puzzle for less experienced solvers on that day.

    Have fun and keep commenting.

    Pierre

31. Thank you, Pierre!

32. I didn’t much like Driftwood either. Sounded more like an ordinary crossword clue. The rest was great though – some very neat clues.

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