Guardian Quiptic 1,254/Carpathian

32 comments on “Guardian Quiptic 1,254/Carpathian”

1. I agree with Pierre’s assessment. Slightly surprised at the choice of anagrind in RATHOLE, as others would have suited the surface perfectly well!

   Liked the overdose in ODIOUS. I’ll also admit I half-expected this to be a re-run of last Wednesday’s puzzle upon seeing the setter’s name!

   Thanks Pierre & Carpathian.

2. Good fun. My only head scratch was commute/transform which doesn’t appear in the thesaruses I consulted.

3. Thesauruses

4. I thought TRANSFORM as in maths – although not all transformations are commutative.

   Nothing too tricky here, although I realised that I hadn’t gone back to look at SPOUSES to parse it fully – I saw the USE bit and forgot to check the rest – but it was one of my last few in.

   Thank you to Pierre and Carpathian.

5. Absolute rubbish for me. I find Quiptics are now harder than Cryptics recently. Perhaps having solvers who can just about do Quiptics commenting on the puzzle would give a more balanced assessment

6. I agree with Yoakam @5. This was fun, but way too hard for a Quiptic. I don’t think the crossword editor is checking these before putting them in.

7. Last week we had a Carpathian Cryptic that was widely thought to be more suitable for the Quiptic slot. Today’s Quiptic is … a bit harder. I also wonder if they got mixed up.

8. RATHOLE Watch the clip where Labour MP says Cleverly swore in Commons
   He denied calling Stockton North a “crappy” hole, but admitted instead to calling Alex Cunningham a “crappy” MP.
   Clever Clogs Cleverly, eh? Taking advantage of the fact that “MP” and “hole” sound almost exactly the same. Brilliant aural wordplay.

9. Everything went steadily until I got to the SE corner, where I couldn’t equate USURPS=assumes, and the fiddly parsing didn’t help. TRANSFORM=commute was another that had me scratching my head, though the wordplay was clear enough. Liked CASH REGISTER and the nice smooth surface for GORE.

10. Good crossword, maybe a bit tricky in parts for a Quiptic?

    I liked IRKS, CASH REGISTER, OSTRACISED, SPOUSES, PEAR-SHAPED and USURPS. @2/3/9 Chambers for commute: ‘To change or transform (into).

    Thanks Carpathian and Pierre.

11. Banged it in pretty quick, just after midnight, but I was disappointed in my quest to be first on here. Oh well.

12. Nice quiptic by Carpathian.
    “Pear shaped” the best for me.

13. Very nice indeed, slightly tough for a Quiptic but not overly so. I thought CASH REGISTER was super.

    Ta Carpathian & Pierre.

14. Hello, first timer here and I’m still struggling with cryptics. I found this easier than some, but still had to cheat a lot.
    I am beginning to learn some crossword shorthand such as IOU = promises, RA = artist (Royal Acamdemician), AB = Able Seaman / sailor. I find there’s a lot of esoteric knowledge required to really get into these. But I am learning very slowly and painfully!
    I think Carpathian comes closest to a setter I can get on with (with lots of cheating of course!)

15. Enjoyable Quiptic which I would recommend to beginners.

    Thanks, both and welcome to TheUrgentBaboon!

16. UrgentBaboon, if you’re still here: Today’s Cryptic is also pretty straightforward–it’s set by one of the usual Quiptic setters. Give that one a whirl too!

    Another interesting point for a beginner: In the clue for PEAR SHAPED, you get the phrase “After taking ecstasy.” Ecstasy is always E, but maddeningly, it’s written in such a way that it could either be an instruction to add an E (as in, the word is literally taking (ingesting) a tablet of E) or subtract one (you take an E away)! So how do you know which? It’s an anagram, so all you have to do is count the letters. I’d add as an aside that this is not an entry-level clue: adding or subtracting a letter before anagramming is decidedly material for the intermediate class in cryptic-solving, so do not kick yourself if you didn’t get there.

    While we’re on the subject of drugs, also be on the lookout for H = heroin and C=cocaine, plus the often-useful sequence of letters POT.

17. As any aspiring musician knows, you only get better by practicing music or exercises that stretch your abilities. Same for athletes – you need opponents who challenge you, if you want to improve. I thought this puzzle had that quality – stretching, challenging, but not so much as to discourage the beginner who wants to improve.

    I once ate at a restaurant called LIMONCELLO (13d). On display was a cello – obviously a cheap one – painted yellow. It put me off the liqueur forever. But I did like this clue.

    Thanks Carpathian and PeterO for the excellent Monday fun.

18. Pierre, in fact, Cellomaniac, but I’ve been called worse …

    And welcome to TheUrgentBaboon. Good to hear from you as someone who’s still mastering the Dark Art. Keep practising and let us know how you’re getting on.

19. I thought this was a perfectly pitched Quiptic, but maybe I’m just getting a bit better after slogging away for a couple of years! I do find I’m usually on Carpathian’s wavelength. Lovely surface for PEAR-SHAPED.

20. Geoff Down Under – alchemists have often been described as striving to commute (i.e. transform) base metals into gold.

21. While I was ?oing this I thought it rather hard for a Quiptic. Àfter I finished, I ran through the clues again and couldn’t see why.
    Thankyou both.
    P.S. I have been doing cryptic crosswords for years, off and on, and am still mastering the art.

22. As someone one who trembles at puzzles by Vlad, I really enjoyed this Quiptic, even though I had to come back to it after the first try but then it all fell into place and I could parse all of it.
    Thanks setter and Pierre.

23. Carpathian is one of my favourite setters, always reliable and sound.
    But (as, I think, a fairly experienced solver) I entirely agree with those who have suggested this one was rather too tough for a Quiptic; thus OSTRACISED requiring the knowledge of East = Ost; PEARSHAPED where not all the E’s are taken out before doing the anagram; OSLO where you need to know the convention “London players” = “LSO”. I also found USURPS a bit difficult, though like nicback @21 I’m not sure why.
    Thanks to Carpathian and to Pierre for an excellently pitched blog, with the clearest explanations one could wish.

24. Having made the transition from absolute beginner to improver (can do the easier cryptics, no chance with Paul, Vlad etc), I found this easy but would have found it impossible not long ago, which makes me feel that it’s hard for experienced setters/ editors to gauge what’s quiptic-level, because you start to take some quite esoteric crossword knowledge for granted. Beginners: don’t despair. If you can be bothered to pick up the lore, you’ll get there.

25. Noticeably harder than the cryptic. I still don’t understand 12 (why does RUN = SKI?), 25 (why does COMMUTE = TRANSFORM?), or 28 (no idea what SOPS means, apparently “concessions”? Googling hasn’t helped). Also new for me was “jerk” as a synonym for “idiot”.

    Having to know the German word for “east” seemed a bit unfair to me for a beginners puzzle, but even if I had it wouldn’t have made a difference since I couldn’t parse the clue correctly to begin with.

26. Interesting comments about the degree of difficulty. I have solved every one of the 1,254 Quiptics and blogged every other one for the past ten years, so I’d like to think I that although I’m clearly not a beginner, I once was and I can reasonably gauge what is about right for a puzzle in this slot. Here all the clues are charades, anagrams, insertions or hidden, with the addition of one initial letter clue and one sounds-like clue, which are familiar enough devices; there are no really obscure words (‘sop’ for ‘concession’ is a reasonable ask, I think, and a dictionary will help if Mrs Google doesn’t); and the clueing is precise.

    There are certain crossword conventions that you have to get familiar with – East German for OST, for example, or AB for sailor, or RA for artist – but as AlexF explains, they come with practice and what is esoteric first time round gets stored away for future use.

    And whether beginner or expert, you are not going to solve every clue straight from the wordplay, or in isolation. You’ve got some crossing letters, you get the clue from the definition (which is almost always at the beginning or end of the clue) and then you reverse engineer the parsing. Or sometimes you don’t, which is why there will always be a blogger here on this site to help you out. And then on to tomorrow’s puzzle (or next week’s, if you are still at Quiptic level).

    But most of all, have fun – it’s not an exam.

27. Didn’t try this until today – Wednesday because I’ve been losing the will to care about Quiptic / Everyman in recent weeks.

    Ended up 55mins which was bit disappointing given I banged in answers for the first 15mins and had only the SE to do. To that point it was feeling like an enjoyable well-pitched Quiptic.

    Thought that area was a bit off really as LIMONCELLO (barely if ever heard of) / LARGO (not musical but have seen but thought it was lento) / sops and OST=east German just derailed it.

28. Much harder than most quiptics. Some clues u thought were very opaque.

29. I thought this was one was okay for a quiptic. At least, I completed this one and only have about a 50% success rate in general.

    Don’t know why runner = ski though. Trying to google it turned up a kind of exercise machine called a ski runner, but that doesn’t seem quite right.

    Anyone know?

    Sorry to be late to the party. Also thanks to setter and blogger, of course.

30. Horexlo – ski=runner … if you think of a dog sled it slides along on runners which are like skis.

    One to remember as it comes up relatively frequently.

31. For anyone who has a better knowledge of words – “SOP” = “concession” due to this definition is that right?

    sop: transferred and figurative. Something given to appease or pacify the recipient; a bribe.

    Just wondering, I don’t think I’ve ever heard the term, is this how the clue works or is it an acronym I don’t know?

    Found this quite hard for a quiptip, but lots of fun.

32. dwmkerr – yes, a sop is a concession. With the implication that it’s a concession that one doesn’t approve of, an attempt at appeasement (that is likely easy to see through, flimsy, or otherwise inadequate).

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