Guardian Quick Cryptic 2 by Picaroon

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This for the second Guardian Quick Cryptic Crossword published on Saturday 13 April, a new weekly 11 x 11 crossword aimed at helping beginners – blog explaining it here.

It can be found here: https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/quick-cryptic/2

Fifteen Squared uses several abbreviations and jargon tricks, there’s a full list here, of which I’ve used the following in this blog:

  • underlining the definition in the clue – this is either at the beginning or end of the clue
  • using brackets and an asterisk to show the anagram fodder (letters used in the anagram)
  • capitals to show the letters used in the solution.
  • anagrind = anagram indicator, the word(s) used to indicate an anagram
  • surface – the meaning from reading the clue – so often cryptic clues use an English that could only be found in a cryptic crossword, but a smooth surface is a clue that has a meaning in English, which can be pointed or misleading.

TODAY’S TRICKS (from the description of the crossword)

Clues begin or end with a definition of the answer. The rest is one of these:
1. An anagram of the answer and a hint that there’s an anagram
‘Senator arranged crime (7)’ gives TREASON
2. Charade A combination of synonyms
‘Qualify to get drink for ID (8)’ gives PASSPORT (pass + port)
3. Double definition Both halves of the clue are definitions!
‘Search scrub (5)’ gives SCOUR
4. Hidden word Answer is hidden in the clue’s words
‘Some have altered meat (4)’ gives VEAL

ACROSS
1 ACCOUNT Report where you might save money (7)  

double definition – both report and where you might save money could mean ACCOUNT – a savings account or an account of something that happens
5 CUT Copper getting time reduced (3)

charade and complicated by adding commonly used abbreviations – Cu + T

CU is the chemical symbol for copper – something to save in the toolbox
T is the scientific abbreviation for time – it’s in the dictionaries.
Something CUT is something reduced.
7 SWEDE European vegetable (5)

double definition a SWEDE is both a European (from Sweden) and a root vegetable (and this one is definitely worth remembering as it comes up all the time)
8 SALVO Oval’s wild series of shots (5)

anagram – [OVAL’S]* with the anagram indicator (wild)
a SALVO is a series of shots – and the surface here suggests a cricket match at the Oval where a series of shots could happen.
9 NOTE Pay attention to short written message. (4)

double definition both pay attention to and a short written message mean NOTE – a particularly neat clue with no extra words.
10 HUMBUG Sweet, insincere talk (6)

double definition HUMBUG can mean both a sweet and insincere talk
12 CLOTHE Dress silly person as well as that man (6)

charade adding CLOT and HE to make CLOTHE
CLOT = silly person
HE = that man
here as well as is a way of suggesting adding the two words together.
13 LAMB Meat eaten by principal ambassador (4)

hidden (eaten by) principaL AMBassador
16 TRIAL Legal procedure is an annoying experience (5)

double definition  a legal procedure is a TRIAL as is an annoying experience, as when something goes wrong that could be described as a TRIAL.
17 CHINA Cockney’s friend from Asian country  (5)

double definition  – Cockney’s friend and Asian country can mean CHINA

In this case the Cockney’s friend comes from CHINA plate, the Cockney rhyming slang (CRS) for mate.   CRS is something that is still common in Crosswordland, however rare it now is in the wild.  I used to work in some of the Cockney rhyming slang areas and CHINA I’ve heard used.

The from joining word often indicates a link between two definitions or parts of the clue.
18 HAM Poor actor, a bit of a pig? (3)

double definition –  HAM meaning an actor or poor actor is another regular in cryptic crosswords, and a HAM is a bit of a pig.  Because a HAM is an example of a bit of a pig there is a question mark here.  It is an often used device when the definition being used is a definition by example or DBE.
19 INTONED Recited some of complaint one disregarded (7)

hidden (some of)  complaINT ONE Disregarded
DOWN
1 ARSON Crime admitted by vicars once (5)

hidden (admitted by) in vicARS ONce
2 CREATIONISM Romanticise strange belief in the Book of Genesis (11)

anagram  (ROMANTICISE)* anagrind  (strange)
a long single word anagram here of ROMANTICISE with a great surface making sense.  I’d quibble about the definition whether CREATIONISM is found in the Book of Genesis, or read into it,  but in Crosswordland definitions are often quibbled over.
3 USER Addict devised ruse (4)

anagram (RUSE)*  anagrind (devised)
An addict is a USER, which is an anagram of RUSE, and the anagram indicator is devised
4 TISSUE What you may need when crying in fancy suites (6)

anagram (SUITES)* – anagrind (fancy)
Definitions are not always one word, here the definition of TISSUES is the phrase – What you may need when crying
5 CELEBRATION Famous person helping in festivity (11)

charade – CELEB (famous person) + RATION (helping) = CELEBRATION (festivity)
6 THONG What’s held by Edith, on getting skimpy knickers (5)

hidden – (what’s held by) EdiTH ON Getting
another thing with cryptic crosswords – ignore all punctuation, it’s there to make the surface make sense and mislead.
11 CHILLI Cool down one spicy food (6)

charade  – to cool down is to CHILL and one is I in Roman numerals
so CHILL + I = CHILLI
Roman numerals are also regular features of cryptic crosswords
13 CATCH Get hold of feline by church (5)

charade of CAT (feline) + CH (abbreviation for church) = CATCH
Church in crosswords can mean lots of things, but most commonly it’s CH as in maps or CE for the Church of England, as they are useful groups of letters to clue.
14 BOARD Get on supervisory committee (5)

double meaning to get on (a ship or train) is to BOARD, and a supervisory committee is the BOARD of an organisation.
15 SCOT Small bed for Andy Murray, say (4)

charade  S from small (another regular abbreviation, this one is from clothing sizing, so you also see M, L and XL, etc) and COT meaning bed
S + COT = SCOT
Here we have another definition by example, Andy Murray is a Scot, this time indicated by say.

 

30 comments on “Guardian Quick Cryptic 2 by Picaroon”

  1. Great blog, Shanne. More thought required than last week, and I hope the Guardian does not fall into the trap of making it more difficult week by week

    Anyway, nice puzzle

    thanks Picaroon and Shanne

  2. Did not attempt this puzzle but read the blog. Very detailed and neat. Beginners reading this blog will need no further explanation in my opinion. Thanks Shanne!

  3. What Martyn and KVa said. Well done Shanne! And you’ve introduced cryptic crossword terms, and abbreviations to look out for. Good to have the explanation of from as the link word in CHINA, as otherwise that would seem grammatically incorrect, from China being Chinese.

    The only thing I’d add is that anagrind is a made-up word for cryptic crosswords that means anagram indicator, and that the word for the letters to be anagrammed is ”fodder”, the thing that you grind, grind or words like it, used to indicate an anagram.

    And thank you Picaroon. I enjoyed it. The surface reading of ARSON and THONG made me chuckle. CUT, USER, BOARD, HUMBUG and CREATIONISM my favs.

  4. [Shanne: you might want to revisit a few underlines.]
    Has Steffen been told about these puzzles?
    Thanks P&S

  5. [Haven’t done this puzzle either Shanne but came here for a read of your blog. So great to see one of my favourite posters on the Guardian puzzles moving into the blogging role! Well done!]

  6. True FrankieG. I missed those underlinings. But in others the breakdown is hard to see where they’re interrupted by low-hanging letters, ”descenders” in the jargon, like g and y and p. Would a different font help?
    It’s a work in progress Shanne. Good on you for putting your hand up.

  7. Thank you FrankieG @4 and paddymelon @6 – I spotted the underlining when I checked on my phone, after I’d turned the laptop off in the wee small hours, swore and noted I’d have to come back to this, hopefully corrected now.

    paddymelon @3, I’ve added the definition of anagrind in my preamble – fodder was already there, but I’ve tried to make it clearer.

    FrankieG @4, I’ve tried pointing these out to Steffen, last night, the first time I’ve seen him for a few days.

    Thank you for the encouragement JulieinAustralia.

  8. Woops, sorry Shanne. I was commenting on your explanation of the solutions and hadn’t registered your preamble.
    Your links there are helpful.

    I think it’s hard ”jumping into the deep end” of Guardian cryptics, especially, with the ”rule-breaking”, if you haven’t first learned the rules to break. I started with more regular cryptics, and learned by looking at the solution the next day, reading a couple of books, and looking up lots of online sites on clue types, abbreviations etc, before finding the Guardian cryptics and wonderful people such as yourself on 15 squared.

    We could link other sites here, but I would encourage solvers to ask the interweb the questions, and consult dictionaries, lists of abbreviations, clue types etc available online. The discovery is so much fun.

    So far this innovation is being very well received. Really good to see.

  9. Lovely puzzle, perfect for beginners. I love reading the comments at the Guardian blog – it seems that many solvers new to cryptics are enjoying the Quick Cryptic.

    I had sort of struggled with cryptics for years and then I discovered fifteensquared which helped me a lot to improve. I used to go back through the Guardian archives and do old Everyman and Quiptic puzzles as well as (in those days) Rufus Monday cryptics. I would then look them up here at fifteensquared to read the parsing, especially of the ones I had not solved or understood how to parse.

    For any beginners now, apart from the Quick Cryptic, I would recommend they go back over old Everyman puzzles (which I am also doing now), say from #3600 backwards, then refer to the relevant fifteensquared blog. For the Guardian link it is easy to do, just use the current link and change the last 4 digits to 3600, eg https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/everyman/4042 becomes
    https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/everyman/3600

    The reason I recommend them is because I think they were easier back then.

  10. Seemed like about thirty seconds to do this. A good warm-up before some of the more fiendish “serious” offerings. Perhaps a new website — ElevenSquared — is called for?

  12. Lovely clear blog Shanne thanks! When I was starting last year would have really appreciated the “look out for this” stuff – I made gradually increasing notes from this blog and now have a little list of them!

  13. Fantastic bit of explaining Shanne – I’m fairly certain that took you much longer to do than the solve itself! With this QC aimed at beginners, it will really help them

    As for the crossword, I thought CREATIONISM was a super clue.

  14. This Quick Cryptic is a really excellent innovation by the Graun.
    It shows clues do not have to be horribly difficult to be fun and good. Like HG at comment 13 I thought 2 down’s surface was excellent. I’d also nominate 6 down!

    Picaroon has done a super job toning down the difficulty. It must be hard to test the trickiness of a clue.
    On my attempt, whereas the rest of the puzzle went in quickly I got stuck on 1 Across for a couple of minutes even with all the crossing letters at the end.

    Also special thanks to Shanne: You have produced a brilliantly detailed, readable blog that enhances the very reason for these QC puzzles’ existence.

  16. GDU@10: ElevenSquared – aka 121 – affectionately known as “one-to-one” – ‘…2 (chiefly UK) Involving direct communication between two people.’

  17. Splendid blog, Shanne! – so much helpful information packed in, in an unpatronising way. I echo JinA’s comment @5.

    Steffen @15 – really good to see that you found it helpful. (Keep an eye out for ‘helping’ = RATION, as in 5dn – it’s quite a favourite of mine.)

  18. Steffen @15 – I’d agree this was harder than last week – it took me a lot longer to explain all the bits.

    There is a blog for last week, which you can still comment on and/or ask for help. We didn’t get it together until Sunday – spotting the new crossword, me volunteering to blog it and getting me set up on the site wasn’t instantaneous.

  19. Well done Shanne , newer solvers should find your blog so helpful.
    I hope these puzzles encourage new solvers to have a go. There are a few letters in the paper today praising the puzzle from last week.
    I think the grid for this one is very helpful and that can be a big factor when you are learning, I sometimes think the Monday puzzle should use the more helpful grids.

  21. Steffen @20 – I find a grid more helpful if it has a lot of first letters to help work out words, as lots of second letters, especially if they are vowels, aren’t so helpful. Useful crossing letters like Q or X also help make the puzzle more accessible.

    There’s a Guardian grid that has single letters at the outside edges – it gets used to write Ninas sometimes, but that can be difficult to get started on it.

  22. Anyone else have missing letters in the clue for 2d in the paper copy: “… Book of esis”?

  23. I’d say those explanations are perfectly pitched.

    I like the explanation of common abbreviations, not just saying “use S for small” (which teaches one substitution) but also giving the rationale which now gives beginners access to M, L, and XL also.

    Thanks @Shanne

  25. GDU @10 and WhiteDevil@24 – knowing how often I’ve seen you both posting on blogs, you are not the beginners that this crossword is aimed at helping. When you were beginners, how helpful was it to your self-esteem when experienced solvers posted how easy they found a puzzle?

    I offered to blog this puzzle because I wanted to support new solvers into a hobby I enjoy and have really welcomed the support from the community on Fifteen Squared.

    You are not the target audience here, helpful suggestions are welcome, boasting about how easy you find it, not so much.

  26. Thank you DaveKeene @23 – I found your suggestions on last week’s really helpful and tried to put them into practice.

  27. Bear of@22. Yes, my paper copy did have bits missing. I just assumed it was Genesis. The on-line which I usually do is correct. Shanne, I know I said it last week, I’ll repeat it now. You’re doing a great job and I noted with pleasure the rave reviews on the letters page. My friend who is trying to learn is finding it really useful. Stefan – I am so pleased you are doing both. Thank you very much. Picaroon and Shanne .

  28. ACCOUNT – I had to stare long and hard at this for some reason, which is a bit embarrassing to admit now that I have re-read the clue since.
    CELEBRATION – I am still getting caught out by “helping” (as a noun) = ration.
    CREATIONISM – Favourite clue. Everymanesque.
    Overall – So far, two out of two 100% completed, no Reveal needed (unlike my attempts at Quiptic, Cryptic (Monday only) and Everyman). Also: just to add to what has already been said about Shanne’s blog and to add my appreciation.

  29. You can’t often claim you finished a “Picaroon” in 5 minutes 😉 I’ll take it even though it is a quickie.

  30. CREATIONISM looks good to me, as it is the literal belief in the book of Genesis, not a belief found in the book.

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