A thoughtfully constructed Quiptic from Hectence this morning. She’s good at this kind of stuff, you know.
There were one or two that took a bit of parsing, but then when you’re learning to do cryptics – and indeed when you get competent at them – a good many clues will be solved along the lines of ‘it must be that, but I can’t immediately see why’. And for me, that’s part of the enjoyment and learning process. The other thing of note is that it’s a pangram – Hectence has included all twenty-six letters of the alphabet. Just for fun.
Abbreviations
cd cryptic definition
dd double definition
cad clue as definition
(xxxx)* anagram
anagrind = anagram indicator
[x] letter(s) removed
definitions are underlined
Across
5 Charming 24 hours entertaining cool model
DAINTY
An insertion of IN for ‘cool’ and T for the famous ‘model’ Ford in DAY. The insertion indicator is ‘entertaining’.
6 Look old on mother’s ruin
DAMAGE
A charade of DAM and AGE.
9 Bit scared after agent oddly disappeared
GNAWED
A charade of GN for the even letters of ‘agent’ and AWED.
10 Tunnel in progress?
UNDER WAY
A cd cum dd.
11 Endlessly surprised by web
MAZE
[A]MAZE[D]
12 Two ends have to be played to be fair
EVEN-HANDED
(END END HAVE)* with ‘to be played’ as the anagrind.
13 Boy has to be fresh out of shower for spicy stuff!
BLACK PEPPER
A charade of B, LACK and PEPPER. ‘We’re fresh out of ideas/we lack ideas.’
18 Yoga bends hurt Mummy’s back in the past
DAYS GONE BY
A charade of (YOGA BENDS)* and Y for the last letter of ‘Mummy’. The anagrind is ‘hurt’.
21 Persuade one aboard to steer boat
COAX
An insertion of A in COX. The insertion indicator is ‘aboard’.
22 They make bouquets by hand, draping large gold heart in roses
FLORISTS
An insertion of L and OR for ‘gold’ in FIST, followed by S for the central letter, or ‘heart’ of ‘roses’. The insertion indicator is ‘draping’.
23 Get comfortable on a wooden bench
SETTLE
A dd.
24 Short cut for sailor returning to work
RAT RUN
A charade of TAR reversed and RUN. The reversal indicator is ‘returning’.
25 Strange design has not succeeded for this gemstone
GARNET
([S]TRANGE)* The removal indicator is ‘has not’; the anagrind is ‘design’. S for ‘succeeded’ is quite common, and comes from genealogy, or kings and queens stuff.
Down
1 American VIP has huge circle
BIG WHEEL
A charade of BIG and WHEEL. The ‘American’ bit is there just to indicate that this is AmEng rather than BrEng.
2 Say spots come up with starchy food
STODGE
A reversal of EG and DOTS. The reversal indicator, since it’s a down clue, is ‘come up’.
3 Strong drink put husband into poverty
HARDSHIP
An insertion of H in HARD SIP.
4 Sponsor new op art collection
PATRON
(N OP ART)* with ‘collection’ as the anagrind.
5 Study long, absorbing Time article about teeth
DENTAL
An insertion of T and A in DEN and L. The insertion indicator is ‘absorbing’.
7 Very happy upholding story by journalist
ELATED
A charade of TALE reversed and ED.
8 Hush as Queen let ‘one’s special pet’ inside
QUIET PLEASE
The parsing here is fair, but a bit chewy: it’s I and (PET)* inserted into QU and LEASE for ‘let’. The insertion indicator is ‘inside’ and the anagrind is ‘special’.
14 Delete our costs for repair
CROSS OUT
(OUR COSTS)*
15 Times alluding to England coming first is stirring
EXCITING
A charade of E, X for the mathematical ‘times’ and CITING.
16 Old priest’s upset in clash with prison officer
JAILER
An insertion of ELI reversed in JAR. The reversal indicator is ‘upset’ and the insertion indicator is ‘in’.
17 Village hospital has charm but not suitable for everyone
HAMLET
A charade of H and AM[U]LET. The U is the British Board of Film Classification for ‘universal’ – in other words, suitable for viewers of all ages.
19 Fizzy drink has marketing in place
SPRITE
An insertion of PR in SITE. I know, I know, PR isn’t marketing, just one element of it. But it is in crosswordland. Just be thankful that the Grauniad – unlike many other publications – allows trademarks.
20 One can’t say no when island supports agreement
YES-MAN
A charade of YES and the [Isle of] MAN. ‘Supports’ works here because it’s a down clue.
Many thanks to Hectence for this morning’s Quiptic.
I think if the Check button had been there, I would have been tempted to use it for the harder to parse clues. Foolishly wondered how fists could be roses for florists, and tried to turn STODGE into a homonym.
I found this difficult for a “puzzle for beginners and those in a hurry” and was tempted to give up after solving 10 clues. The grid was not very friendly, making it like solving 4 mini-puzzles. Is this the sort of puzzle that attracts newbies? I don’t really agree with the way the editor chooses puzzles for the Quiptic slot. Or perhaps there is no editor for the Quiptic? I suggest that they drop the name and description of “Quiptic” and just call it Cryptic #2 on Mondays which is not a “puzzle for beginners and those in a hurry”.
Did not parse 8d, 12ac.
Thanks, both.
Excellent Quiptic – agree with Pierre’s intro and many thanks to Hectence.
The disappearance of the Check button is infuriating. I automatically click it on entering an answer, since my typing is so erratic. I kept wondering how on earth I could be getting ALL my answers wrong.
Glad I didn’t just go off in a huff…
The check button is available on the Quiptic in the Guardian app.
This took me a little longer than the Cryptic, as occasionally happens, but think of it this way. I just think there are two different pipelines with similar but slightly different criteria (in the editor’s mind) and it’s just random which pair happen to emerge together on a given Monday.
More puzzled, though, about the missing check button. I wasn’t really paying attention and pressed “clear” a couple of times only to see my correct entry disappear.
Thanks Hectence, well up to the usual high standard. And thanks Pierre – I entirely agree with your opening comments, and found this very enjoyable. I don’t care whether the Quiptic is easier or harder than the Cryptic. I judge it on its own merits and I found this one hit the spot very nicely. LOI for me were COAX and MAZE – both took a bit of head scratching (“steer boat” took some digging, and it was only when I realised “endlessly” meant remove both ends, not just the final letter, that I twigged MAZE). Maybe I’d have got both sooner if I’d twigged it was going to be a pangram!
Very nice Hectence – didn’t know DAM, so was groping around various MA_A_ words for rather a long time.
michelle @2 – the Guardian’s crossword editor seems not to care about the relative difficulty of the Quiptic. It’s been a longstanding issue with clues, answers, wordplay, and grids, regularly raised, and so far as I can see, with no acknowledgement or response (or argument/justification) whatsoever. Very disappointing, and really does put off potential new solvers when a ‘beginners’ puzzle feels impossible.
If the Guardian won’t sort its actual puzzles out, one option would be for it to have annotated solutions with commentary on the Guardian site (for the Quiptic only – no new solver’s going to know about/come here for their explanations). But I’m more inclined to think they just don’t care.
Thanks Hectence and Pierre.
Needed to come here to parse a couple of the clues, and another that found this chewier than the cryptic, but fair enough.
As I did this on the app, there was a certain surprise that various people suggested the check button wasn’t working.
Good puzzle, but I agree with michelle @2 that this is not a Quiptic if the ‘for beginners and those in a hurry’ label means anything at all. GNAWED, BLACK PEPPER and QUIET PLEASE would have been considered tricky clues in any normal weekday cryptic or Prize puzzle, and there were only four – DENTAL, ELATED, CROSS OUT and HAMLET – that I thought were genuinely Quiptic-level.
It’s usually poor Anto who gets it in the neck (from me among others) for producing non-Quiptic Quiptics, but today shows that he is not the only culprit by a long way.
Widdersbel @6: you may not care, but you are an experienced solver (and not a bad amateur setter either). I suspect that those who are genuine beginners (for whom Quiptics are allegedly intended), who rely on this slot for something they actually have a chance of making some headway with, do care.
Thanks Hectence & Pierre.
After getting QUIET PLEASE (which was a favourite), I wondered if it might be a pangram. Once I got to my last two and without having a Z I decided that the fizzy drink must be SPRITZ without bothering to parse it properly and that helped me get RAT RUN (my LOI).
Then I came here and realised that it was SPRITE and that I had got 11ac wrong.
Enjoyed it anyway.
Other favourites were COAX, SETTLE, GNAWED
Thanks Hectence and Pierre
essexboy @9 – I may not have expressed myself clearly. What I meant was it doesn’t matter if the Quiptic is harder than the Cryptic as long as it still fills the stated brief. If the Cryptic happens to be very easy, that doesn’t mean the Quiptic has failed if it is a little harder.
But not for the first time, I seem to be swimming against the tide in thinking this was spot on for its slot. Good straightforward wordplay, clear indicators, literal definitions. Only a couple of really complex clues, but as Pierre says in his intro, part of the fun of learning is sometimes guessing the solution from the crossing letters then unravelling the wordplay.
I found this harder than today’s cryptic by Vulcan, and if they had been swapped around I don’t think there would have been any complaints. Still, an entertaining puzzle. My one quibble is with 13a: B is not a standard abbreviation for “boy”, despite what crossword setters seem to think.
It was nice to see that old favourite ELI in 16d.
Thanks Hectence and Pierre.
Thanks Hectence and Pierre
My view of this crossword was somewhat affected by finding two jarring notes in the first three clues I solved. In 6a, AGE is “look older”, not “look old”. In 9a AWED is “impressed”, not “scared”.
I’m no longer a beginner, so it is hard to judge for sure, but I would have thought this contained a number of clues that would flummox a genuine beginner – those eb @6 identifies, for a start. FWIW, I found this quite a bit tougher than the Cryptic. And I had the same quibbles that muffin mentions @13. When I noticed that the check button was missing, I looked to make sure that the Grauniad hadn’t turned the Quiptic into another prize puzzle! Thanks, Hectence and Pierre.
I must be getting better at this. Gave up with 3 left, and kicking myself over PATRON because I just couldn’t see the word despite having the right anagram.
Never heard of BIG WHEEL, and even though I thought it might be that, I Googled the phrase and got no results. I feel like if Googling a phrase does not come up with the intended meaning, then that is not a meaning I should be expected to know!
Also never heard of DAM = mother, but that seems like a common enough word. Now that I know it, I think the misdirection of “mother’s ruin” was quite clever indeed!
I agree with Widdersbel @6 and @11 about the relative level of difficulty on any given day. I also feel that, just as with the cryptic, it’s fine for the quiptic to vary – sometimes harder / sometimes easier. That’s how beginners can improve. I thought this was a perfect quiptic. Thanks Hectence and Pierre.
I don’t usually engage in ‘too hard’ debates, since so much is subjective, but I’d disagree that GNAWED, BLACK PEPPER and QUIET PLEASE make Hectence a ‘culprit’. Firstly, the definitions are all clear and literal: ‘bit’, ‘spicy stuff’ and ‘hush’ will all point a solver to the answer. And with a few crossing letters, the answers can be derived from the definitions. If you’ve got ?N?W?D, then intuitively, I would say, you’re going to put an E between the W and the D as Plan A; then it can’t be much else. And as I said, if you have to parse afterwards, then so be it – you’ve still had the satisfaction of solving the puzzle, gaining confidence and learning something for the next one.
There are some Quiptics which are overcomplicated and intractable in places (yes, Anto, I’m looking at you); but this wasn’t one of them. In my subjective opinion.
A bit chewy for a Quiptic but not ridiculously so. Very enjoyable too & being on early pangram alert certainly helped.
Thanks to Hectence & Pierre.
This was an odd one. First go round I only had 3, and after half an hour I gave up. Then on my second attempt I got FLORISTS and suddenly everything clicked.
One quibble: isn’t the accepted abbreviation for queen Q rather than QU?
The perceived difficulty of this one might have something to do with the (hopefully temporary) disappearance of the check button. I’m with widdersbel in thinking that as long as the Quiptic is easy enough, it doesn’t matter whether the Cryptic happens to be easier – but I didn’t find this one easy in places, and never did get QUIET PLEASE.
I didn’t think this was too bad for a Quiptic personally. Took me a while to get GNAWED and DAMAGE, and I probably wouldn’t have gotten JAILER if I hadn’t spotted the pangram, but I didn’t struggle too much despite the unfriendly grid.
I had SPRITS at 19 thinking of that as a variant spelling of spritz that could just about parse. With no check function I had to come here to be corrected. Maybe it will be turned on tomorrow: they sometimes do that when they are Grauniad.
altreus @15
When I googled Big Wheel, the required meaning came up in the ‘People also ask:’ section ‘What does Big Wheel mean slang?’
It’s not a phrase I’ve ever used, but I wonder if it has a connection with the idiom Big Cheese since whole, uncut cheeses called wheels. Or perhaps that’s a total coincidence and there is no connection.
I also initially missed the check button – glad to hear I’m not the only one who uses it! However, like the Prize, I find it does my solving muscles good not to have it available. It did mean I hesitated to put in FLORISTS – the answer seemed to fit the wordplay beautifully, except for those pesky roses. It might have helped if I was relying on two FISTS, not a single hand.
I did parse 8 : ) but not 13 or 12.
@23 It might have helped if I had realised I was relying on two FISTS, not a single hand.
Well, I always find it difficult to solve cryptics in the afternoon, but I struggled with this one.
I don’t think it really fulfilled the brief to be suitable for a beginner. It was good that the pangram didn’t result in many obscurities, although I didn’t particularly like ‘fizzy drink’ for SPRITE. In 22, I think ‘draping’ is the containment, not the insertion, indicator.
Thanks Hectence and Pierre.
muffin @13 – please! In the commonly used phrase ‘awed into submission’, ‘awed’ means ‘impressed’? I don’t think so.
SC @26
That expression has entirely passed me by. How about “awesome!”? “I was awed by his performance”? All the uses I’ve come across express an extreme degree of “being impressed”.
I’ve heard “bored into submission”. Are you sure you aren’t confusing the two? 🙂
Having finally got round to doing today’s Cryptic, all I can say is I’m rather glad the Quiptic wasn’t that easy.
muffin – from the OED:
awe, v.
To fill (a person) with awe; (originally) to strike fear into, terrify; (later usually) to arouse or inspire in (someone) a feeling of reverential respect mixed with fear or wonder; to impress or affect deeply.
For me, awe still has a vestigial sense of being afraid – it’s certainly more than just making a favourable impression.
I’m awed by the fact that nobody noticed the absence of the ‘reveal’ button which is what I use all the time. Why enter and check? – just reveal (sometimes I reveal the unexpected). Interesting experience to have to enter each and every letter (no thanks).
MAZE=’web’ is, imho, a bit of a stretch but I am persuaded.
EXCITING was the peak of it for me but in fairness I only ever do the Quiptic as a light dessert. And I had an entertaining experience so thanks to Hectence and to Pierre.
I liked 12a and 20d
STODGE and RAT RUN were new to me.
I found the “into” of 3d confusing — it seems to imply the H goes into a word meaning poverty to make a strong drink, but liked HARD SIP.
Muffin and widdersbel. The discussion of awe reminds me of the dreadful “shock and awe” of the Iraq war
I’m a beginner and always come here to have parsing explained and to enjoy the conversation. I’m slowly finding my Quiptic feet but found this hard. One question – is it best to ignore prepositions (or at least take them with a grain of salt)? Thinking of the ‘into’ in 3D – as Calgal has noted. It was definitely confusing. Thanks for all the help!
Morning Ginny, and if this is your first comment, welcome. I don’t think you can ignore the preposition in a clue like 3dn, but I agree with you and Calgal that the word order is a bit ambiguous, since the setter is asking you to put H into HARD SIP. Does the clue work? Just about. But a clue like this will always elicit some comment on this thread, so that’s a good way to see if others found it difficult as well.
If you found this a bit hard, then don’t despair – as others have said, there is a range of levels in the Quiptics, but they should all be within the grasp of newer solvers. And it took me ages when I was first getting interested in cryptics to finish one without help, so a partly finished crossword is still an achievement.
Ginny@33: As a general principle all words are relevant and serve some purpose so ignore nothing. Even the most inconsiderable component may be significant (I’m thinking here of a word such as ‘As’ which might be the definition – Arsenic – or might tell you to include a couple of ‘a’s. A recent enough offering had the ‘?’ at the end of the clue as the definition – Question Mark.)
In the clue for HARDSHIP which you cite the only way to get the second ‘H’ to be a component is to put the ‘husband’ (H) ‘into’ HARD SIP. In this case the grammar is a bit (what is called) yoda-ish ( HARD SIP – put an ‘H’ into that).
Just got around to this today – nifty little Quiptic I thought.
Where’s the check button gone?
Steve69: Seems that the Quiptic got confused with the Prize.
@Alphalpha
Ah, I see!
Enjoyable but not a quiptic.
Friends ask me about getting into cryptic crosswords, I tell them to avoid the quiptic and do the telegraph on a Monday with Big Dave’s site for explanations.
I found it to be hard. But persevered for three days and got it done.
I have been training myself to avoid using the check button. Both here and in times quick cryptic.
I’m a genuine beginner – this is the third Quiptic I’ve attempted – and tend to agree about the difficulty. I solved my first couple (eventually!) but didn’t complete this.
For a total beginner the tricky clues are those that involve multiple steps – e.g. where there’s work to to find the letters to rearrange.