This was a write-in for me this morning. But probably not for the reason you think.
It appeared on Friday as the online Cryptic puzzle because of a Grauniad balls-up and I solved it then. A delightful Quiptic from a long-standing setter of the puzzle: her first Quiptic was number 4, published on 13th December 1999, and nearly 24 years later she is still regularly compiling Quiptics that invariably hit the spot. And these days, they are almost always pangrams. As here, all 26 letters of the alphabet appear at least once. Why does she do this? Because she can.
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 Go-between introducing groom initially to wife-to-be
BRIDGE
An insertion of G for the initial letter of ‘groom’ in BRIDE. The insertion indicator is ‘introducing’.
4 Most of team’s embarrassed for yielding
SQUASHY
A charade of SQUA[D] and SHY.
9 For example, a frog in Namibia mutated, acquiring pinkish extremities
AMPHIBIAN
An insertion of PH for the outside letters of ‘pinkish’ in (NAMIBIA)* The insertion indicator is ‘acquiring’ and the anagrind is ‘mutated’.
10 Political party’s infiltrated by ‘double 0’ spy
SNOOP
An insertion of OO in SNP for the currently somewhat beleaguered Scottish National Party. The insertion indicator is ‘infiltrated by’.
11 Own clothing line is cut by 50%
HALVE
An insertion of L in HAVE. The insertion indicator is ‘clothing’.
12 Unable to relax, has some vanilla tea served
ILL AT EASE
Hidden in vanILLA TEA SErved.
13 Struggle repeatedly parking large convertible
GRAPPLE
(PP LARGE)* with ‘convertible’ as the anagrind.
15 Classy headgear‘s better at accommodating head of hair
TOP HAT
An insertion of H for the first letter of ‘hair’ in TOP AT. The insertion indicator is ‘accommodating’.
17 Fail to recall counterfeit model
FORGET
A charade of FORGE and T. The second element is common crosswordspeak: T for the Model T Ford car from over a century ago.
19 Note Spurs playing without Kane finally look smarter
DRESS UP
A charade of D for the musical ‘note’ and an insertion of E for the final letter of ‘Kane’ in (SPURS)* The insertion indicator is ‘without’, in its use as an antonym of ‘within’. Art imitating life: Harry has just left Tottenham and is now playing in the Bundesliga.
22 Discharge is horribly near to blocking Devon river
EXONERATE
An insertion of (NEAR TO)* in the River EXE. The insertion indicator is ‘blocking’ and the anagrind is ‘horribly’.
24 Fellow captured by detachment is in bad shape
UNFIT
An insertion of F in UNIT. The insertion indicator is ‘captured by’.
26 Articulated lever for jackpot
PRIZE
Aural wordplay (‘articulated’) for PRISE.
27 Am with old Queen and I may ring for coffee
AMERICANO
A charade of AM, ER for the deceased Queen, I, CAN and O. CAN and ‘may’ have equivalence in the permission-seeking use of the two modal verbs: ‘Can/may I say that you’re looking particularly attractive this evening?’
28 The Stage has article on hosting panto regularly
THEATRE
An insertion of AT for the even letters of pAnTo in THE and RE for ‘on’. The insertion indicator is ‘hosting’.
29 Waste when teacher with education degree retired
DEBRIS
A reversal of SIR and BED for Bachelor of Education.
Down
1 Endure guy endlessly coming up to grab husband in big embrace
BEAR HUG
An insertion of H in BEAR and GU[Y] reversed. The insertion indicator is ‘to grab’.
2 Drive old Hillman and Tesla alternately
IMPEL
A charade of IMP and EL for the even letters of TEsLa. The Hillman Imp was a small economy car made in the 1960s and 70s which broke down a lot.
3 £1.05 gets good girl a pet
GUINEA PIG
A charade of GUINEA (which was 21 shillings, or £1.05 in today’s money), PI for ‘good’ (very common in crosswords if you haven’t come across it before) and G. Hectence is an enthusiastic keeper of guinea pigs and sets for the FT under the name Zamorca, which is Bosnian for ‘guinea pig’. She’s also a Man City fan, so there’s no accounting for taste.
4 Record time making garment
SINGLET
A charade of SINGLE and T.
5 Ruffled the in-crowd?
UPSET
The ‘in crowd’ could cryptically be referred to as the UP SET.
6 Fare dodgers pull off hiding in ship
STOWAWAYS
An insertion of TOW and AWAY in SS for ‘ship’. The insertion indicator is ‘hiding in’.
7 Great in the old days: you lit pipe inside
YIPPEE
An insertion of (PIPE)* in YE. The insertion indicator is ‘inside’ and the anagrind is ‘lit’ in its sense of ‘drunk’. YE is an archaic form of ‘you’, used as a nominative second person plural pronoun, hence ‘in the old days’.
And he saith unto them, Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? (Matthew 8:26, King James Version)
8 Limited sex during punishment
FINITE
An insertion of IT for ‘sex’ in FINE. The insertion indicator is ‘during’.
14 Say ‘Sorry I go so pale at sea’
APOLOGISE
(I GO SO PALE)* with ‘at sea’ as the anagrind.
16 Judge engaged in pure finesse to cut bigotry
PREJUDICE
An insertion of J in (PURE)* followed by DICE. The insertion indicator iis ‘engaged in’ and the anagrind is ‘finesse’.
18 Tutor taking hour off with first kid in A&E gets something nice to eat
TEA CAKE
A charade of TEAC[H] and K for the initial letter of ‘kid’ in A and E. The insertion indicator is ‘in’.
19 Thought of French journalist capturing space in print
DEEMED
An insertion of EM for the printers’ ‘space’ in DE for one of the French words for ‘of’ and ED. The insertion indicator is ‘capturing’.
20 Sick postie keeping uniform is poignant
PITEOUS
An insertion of U for the phonetic alphabet ‘uniform’ in (POSTIE)* The insertion indicator is ‘keeping’ and the anagrind is ‘sick’.
21 Stopped heartless revolutionary dictator
DESPOT
(STO[P]PED)* with ‘revolutionary’ as the anagrind.
23 Vote for point supported by half of speeches
ELECT
Since it’s a down clue, it’s E for the ‘point’ of the compass over LECT[URES].
25 Both sides in final broadcast show panache
FLAIR
A charade of FL for the outside letters of ‘final’ and AIR.
Many thanks as always to Hectence for this week’s Quiptic.
[Bad memories triggered by the mention of the car mentioned in 2d – terrible car. But it had a useful “hatchback”!]
Thanks Hectence and Pierre
I too accidentally did this on Friday, and can’t remember much about it now. I do remember having SPOOK instead of SNOOP for “spy! until it didn’t work – well, the SPK might have been a party somewhere!
Thank you Pierre. Needed your help with the parsing of DRESSED UP, even though no knowledge of football was required.
And thanks for the info on Hectence’s other pseudonym, favourite pet and sports.
I really enjoy Hectence’s surfaces. So many good clues here.
Moaljodad has said this is Hectence’s 200th. Celebrations, and commiserations, that the G kind of mucked this up and didn’t give you a day all to yourself.
Another who solved this on Friday and redid it this morning, reassuringly much faster. Several great clues.
Thank you to Hectence and Pierre.
pdm@3: She would have had to share today with Brummie and instead got a Girls’Day Out ( well only one of the girls’ days was out, but you know…) with Arachne. They could have worn Classy Headgear and tails in the manner of Greta Garbo
Thankyou Hetence and Pierre; are you a Mandolin Stoner?
Ha ha, I only discovered the Grauniad error when I came to fifteen squared to read the complaints about how un-Fridayish the Cryptic crossword was.
As you rightly say though, Pierre, this was a delightfully crafted Quiptic that I would recommend to all solvers, especially its target audience of those learning “the game”: many examples of useful devices liberally spread through the crossword: inserts, evacuations etc. etc. And a pangram as usual.
Bravo Hectence and well blogged Pierre.
I too did this on Friday. I dug through my pile of recently expired puzzles and couldn’t find it, so I’m lost for words. (It’s why I never comment on Prize or Everyman puzzles whose blogs appear after a week. By then they’re just a distant memory.)
Thanks to Hectence and Pierre!
STOWAWAYS
A nice extended def.
I did this puzzle last Friday but it was fun to do it again.
Moaljodad has commented on the Guardian blog that:
“Congratulations to Hectence on becoming the first setter to reach 200 Quiptic crosswords – her first was Quiptic #4 way back on 13th December 1999 and she is the only setter to have contributed to the series every year since its inception.”
Congrats to Hectence on 200 Quiptics!
Michelle @ 9, they say that one of the very few advantages of getting dementia is that you can do puzzles more than once. 🙂
19 across becomes an even better clue given the letter count (5,2) happened to be the Kane-less Tottenham’s scoreline at the weekend.
I saw this appear on friday but assumed, from the numbering, that it must be a quiptic and so left it till today.
Dear ol’ Grauniad!
I tried CEASED at first, for 21D, on the basis that “revolutionary” is generally Che and heartless would make it CE, but got nowhere trying to make a dictator out of the rest. I should have remembered that Hectence is far too classy for such a hackneyed device…
Also, like Muffin, I also originally thought 10A was SPOOK, figuring SPK may very well be a party somewhere. Then YIPPEE put me straight – and what a fun clue it is.
As was DEBRIS, GRAPPLE, FINITE, ILL AT EASE…
I really enjoy Hectence’s crosswords.
And Pierre’s blogs too. Thanks both!
Fun puzzle, though as a solver born in the 90s a few too many cultural references from my parents’ time and before that I either have never heard of or are far from the first definition to spring to mind, which seems to be a recurring issue for me with Guardian puzzles.
Unfortunately never heard of the Hillman Imp, and pre-decimal currencies have never been a part of my life. Model = T for the Ford Model T is also far from the first thing I’d consider as a definition for “model”.
Still able to solve these clues from fhe other letters I’d filled in, but parsing them from scratch would be difficult. Overall a great puzzle though, great way to start a day.
A lovely puzzle. Thanks Hectence and Pierre.
Didn’t see this on Friday so came at it fresh as a daisy. Great fun! Love the will it/won’t it be a pangram as some less common letters start to pop up. As mentioned by others, spook went in before realizing the error of my ways.
For various reasons I’ve got a bit behind with Guardian crosswords, so hadn’t met this before. Found it trickier than usual for a quiptic, but got there in the end. Thanks, Hectence.
What’s the reason for PI meaning good?
Nuthatch @17
Short for PIOUS.
btw a juvenile nuthatch has been visiting our feeder regularly for the last few weeks- we’ve only ever seen one in our garden once in the previous 40 years!
13a – where does PP come from?
P is short for PARKING, so repeatedly parking is PP.
28a – where does THE come from?
Steffen @21
THE is the “definite article”.
Steffen @17:
P is a sign for parking, so repeatedly parking is PP (‘Double parking’ might be neater, but wouldn’t fit the surface quite as well)
19d – EM? Way over my head. Like half this crossword.
23d – why ‘E’ as opposed to N, S or W?
Steffen @24
In printers’ terminology, an “em” space is a space the width of an “m” character”; an “en” space is the width of an “n”.
@25
It could be any of the directions, but only E works.
Many thanks for the help.
Very enjoyable. Actually completed it, so no vocabulary I’d consider obscure – except that I had to make some assumptions, like that IMP was somehow related to Hillman. Couldn’t parse STOWAWAY or FINAL, but as soon as I read the explanations here it seemed obvious and I retrospectively kicked myself.
I found this harder than most Quiptics, but everything was perfectly fair. Maybe I was just having a slow day.
PITEOUS and POIGNANT seem pretty different to me, but that’s OK.
I had no idea about the Hillman Imp, but the clue was very solvable anyway.
I did wonder whether I’d find a new flareup of the LATTE controversy at this site, but no such luck. (There was a period of time when people on this site would complain when the word LATTE was defined as “coffee”, on the grounds that the Italian word means “milk”. Naturally, that’s true, but the word “latte” as used in English refers to a form of coffee, so I always thought the objection was silly. Presumably the same logic should apply to AMERICANO.)
muffin @18 Thank you. We seem to nuthatch’s on our feeders daily once they grew in confidence