A Quiptic from Hectence that took me a while to get into, but which fell out nicely in the end.
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 Like fruit to be very nice?
PEACHY
A whimsical dd.
4 Fixed goods in dire condition
RIGGED
An insertion of two Gs for ‘goods’ in (DIRE)* The insertion indicator is ‘in’ and the anagrind is ‘condition’.
9 Very clear Dad’s temporary home left retired son Victor with debts
PATENTLY OBVIOUS
A long charade: of PA, TENT, L, BOY reversed, V for the phonetic alphabet ‘Victor’ and IOUS. Phew.
10 Upheaval with CERN forced to remove IT
WRENCH
(W[IT]HCREN)* with ‘forced’ as the anagrind.
11 Pocket tablets doctor’s brought in and sleep late exhausted
EMBEZZLE
An insertion of MB for ‘doctor’ in EE for two ‘tablets’, ZZ for’sleep’ and L[AT]E.
12 Calm down as gate undone with hairpin
GET A GRIP
A charade of (GATE)* and GRIP. The anagrind is ‘undone’.
14 Strain admitting husband’s variable and untrustworthy
SHIFTY
An insertion of H in SIFT followed by Y for the mathematical ‘variable’. The insertion indicator is ‘admitting’.
15 Happy mojo you seek’s within
JOYOUS
Hidden in moJO YOU Seek.
18 Mostly ignore false prophet’s dividing faith
RELIGION
An insertion of ELI in (IGNOR[E])* The insertion indicator is ‘[i]s dividing’ and the anagrind is ‘false’.
21 American drift-raced with special old vehicles
USED CARS
A charade of US, (RACED)* and S. The anagrind is ‘drift’.
22 Jobs creation finally bears fruit
APPLES
A charade of APPLE and S for the final letter of ‘bears’. Steve Jobs was the co-founder of Apple Inc.
24 One of four in the pack – she-cat with main food gone – drops, disheartened
QUEEN OF DIAMONDS
A charade of QUEEN, (MAIN FOOD)* and D[ROP]S. The anagrind is ‘gone’. Not one of Hectence’s finest surfaces, you might say.
25 Join line travelling with holy woman
ENLIST
A charade of (LINE)* and ST. The anagrind is ‘travelling’.
26 Again, key‘s required to start old Jaguar
RE-TYPE
A charade of R for the initial letter of ‘required’ and E-TYPE. An excellent surface.
Down
1 Marketing look that is plain
PRAIRIE
A charade of PR, AIR and IE for id est or ‘that is’. PR and ‘marketing’ are not the same thing, but that ship sailed in crosswordland a long time ago.
2 Had meal at home with ultimate casserole in a can
ATE IN
An insertion of E for the last letter of ‘casserole’ in A TIN. The insertion indicator is ‘in’.
3 Someone getting married who needs a lift?
HITCHER
A dd cum cd.
5 Drinks over half, holding cloth to protect clothes
IMBIBES
An insertion of BIB in SEMI reversed. The insertion indicator is ‘holding’ and the reversal indicator is ‘over’.
6 Briefly bear with popular girl’s moaning
GRIZZLING
A charade of GRIZZ[Y], IN and G.
7 Copy model’s vintage jacket
DOUBLET
A charade of DOUBLE and T for the model T-Ford, a crossword staple if you are new to this kind of stuff.
8 Build enthusiasm for great little dog on the radio
HYPE UP
Aural wordplay (‘on the radio’) of HIGH PUP.
13 Often in the past make up used lead
A GOOD DEAL
A charade of AGO, DO reversed (‘up’, since it’s a down clue) and (LEAD)* with ‘used’ as the anagrind.
16 Cover rampant body odour with brand of deodorant Charlie’s wearing
OBSCURE
A charade of BO reversed (‘rampant’) and an insertion of C for the phonetic alphabet ‘Charlie’ in SURE. ‘Rampant’ works as a reversal indicator in a down clue because of its heraldic meaning of ‘upright’, ‘standing’ or ‘rearing’.
17 Old sailors each taking pet aboard ship
SEADOGS
An insertion of EA and DOG in SS. ‘Aboard ship’ is crosswordspeak for ‘insert into SS’.
18 Occasionally urged on team live
RESIDE
A charade of RE for the even letters of uRgEd and SIDE.
19 Spill a keg ale that’s lively
LEAKAGE
(A KEG ALE)* with ‘that’s lively’ as the anagrind.
20 Late with extra owing
OVERDUE
A charade of OVER and DUE.
23 Beginning to rein in worthless agent
PROXY
An insertion of R for the initial letter of ‘rein’ in POXY. The insertion indicator is ‘in’.
Many thanks to Hectence as always for this week’s Quiptic.
Fairly chewy for a Quiptic I thought, solving it and glad I wasn’t blogging it.
GRIZZLING and EMBEZZLE were my last in and I got them from knowing Hectence tends to set pangrams and realising I hadn’t seen a z yet.
Thank you to Pierre and Hectence.
Honestly this one was dreadful.I have memorable experiences with Quiptics but not for this.Only suitable for advanced players or those who aspire to be cruverbalists,IMHO.
Some really challenging clues to parse in there, I got quite a few from the crossers and definitions but was still staring at the clue befuddled what most of it meant. RELIGION, QUEEN OF DIAMONDS and EMBEZZLE in particular had me stumped.
JOYOUS however, was in fact joyous, lovely surface!
@2 I tend to agree with you. Far too complex for me, as someone who looks forward to completing the Quiptic as light relief. When I want to be challenged I attempt the main one with no expectations of a finish and put on my Frustration Hat and Perserverance Jumper before starting.
Just a quick readthrough of the blog reminds me of my disbelief when I saw anagram indicators of “false” and “drift”; being asked to reverse BO with rampant plus GGs for goods, ZZs for sleep among other things. Too much I haven’t encountered
Quite tough for a Quiptic. There were a few that I guessed from crossers and then parsed later but I couldn’t parse 24ac apart from queen=she cat and the rest of it looked like an anagram.
10ac – I only got as far as W *cern + H and was unsure why the H was there.
New for me: SURE deodorant brand.
Thanks, both.
“The world’s bestselling deodorant, Rexona, is also sold as Sure, Shield and Degree around the world – but whatever the name, it always carries the iconic ‘tick’ logo.” [Rexona is also known as: Sure (UK), Shield (SA), Degree (US).] We could only be Sure of the answer in the UK. Overseas solvers would find it a tad OBSCURE.
This was a tough challenge with the top half holding out longest. I twigged that it was probably a pangram, which gave me EMBEZZLE. I liked GET A GRIP, USED CARS, RE-TYPE and PROXY.
Ta Hectence & Pierre.
Ouch. That is all.
Thank you for the blog, explanations and answers.
I really wouldn’t have called this Quiptic. Over on the site, after struggling to get going, I looked at the comments and that turned out to be a good call. It led me to adjusting my expectations and tackling it as a Cryptic, and in that context it was an enjoyable solve (though I did find PATENTLY OBVIOUS and a couple of others somewhat overwrought).
It’s frustrating though, in the sense that – from the comments I’ve seen – it’s off-putting to newer solvers who are finding their way into cryptic crosswords via the Quiptic/Quick Cryptic puzzles. This would have sat better amongst the weekday grids.
I can get through a good deal of quiptics without issue but a dnf today as A GOOD DEAL ironically eluded me. Overall though I enjoyed the puzzle once I tuned in to the style of cluing and spotting the pangram helped. My favourite probably PATENTLY OBVIOUS!
Thanks Hectence and Pierre
I found this quite hard but doable and I thought QUEEN OF DIAMONDS was patently obvious from the definition and the number of letters. Thanks Hectence and Pierre.
Thanks, but, blimey, my head hurts.
Use of retired, dividing, gone and rampant as indicators all foxed me.
This was a lot harder than I expected.
I was SURE I had seen Sure on sale here in the US, but I iust went online to the local drug store chain and they don’t. Must be my memory playing tricks on me again.
Of course the QUEEN OF DIAMONDS is one of 4 in a pack, but (out of context) it is also one of 13 and it’s also the only one. Funny, that!
Hard work for a quiptic. Phew indeed for PATENTLY OBVIOUS (which wasn’t) and QUEEN OF DIAMONDS (which was: easy to guess and tricky to parse). EMBEZZLE wasn’t much easier. Eli is usually clued as a priest rather than a prophet – I’ll have to go and reread the Book of Samuel.
The one I solved because I knew there was a pangram was JOYOUS. Liked APPLES, SEADOGS, DOUBLET and RETYPE, and GRIZZLING brought back childhood memories of my mum telling me not to do so much of it!
Michael@12: condition isn’t much of an indicator either.
Got off to a bad start by confidently filling “plummy” into 1a, which definitely didn’t help. DNF due to the SE quadrant – not very good at car brands and massively overthinking 22A (“it can’t possibly just be apple+s=apples, that’s not really a clue. Plus then it’d be ‘fruits’, not fruit'” 🙃)
Liked PATENTLY OBVIOUS when I finally figured it out (plus enjoyed the irony of it being one of the harder ones for me) and SEADOGS. New to me: Eli as a false prophet and MB for Dr.
Also found it weird that St was specifically holy woman, does anyone know why its been gendered here?
Managed the quick cryptic ( just !) yesterday but had to reveal some of these today in order to complete other clues. Even then it was often guesswork from the most likely definition. Thank you all for this blog as I was able to see the parsing.
Hoping that Everyman will prove easier ( although it often takes me a week to complete ).
Phew! That was a chewy Quiptic. Some clues were solve-first-parse-later. Gladys@14, Eli is indeed a priest who (according to the book of First Samuel) utters no prophecies. The Talmud, however, lists him as a prophet.
The Everyman fell into place much quicker for me this week, but I was happy to solve this.
Thanks Hectence & Pierre.
TMG@15: Hectence is a woman and as st has often been clued as holy man, she is making a tongue in cheek point. She is also I believe C of E.
Apples are fruit not fruits, apples and pairs are ( different) fruits.
I thought this WAS PEACHY. Perhaps on the hard side for a Quiptic, but still n the field, if hiding in the far corner. PROXY made me laugh . I solved PATENTLY OBVIOUS back to front as I had the I for IOUS. Loved it.
Ta both.
Thanks Hectence and Pierre
Easily the hardest “Quiptic” I’ve ever done.
You are missing an L in your parsing of GRIZZLING, Pierre.
Tricky for a Quiptic (Triptych?) indeed, but well clued. Too focused on trying to solve it to notice the pangram.
Thanks to S&B
I though last week was a bad day for me solving the Quiptic but then I ran into this monstrosity. Got one answer (22A), should have written in a second (24A) but had no idea how to get the answer from the ‘clue’ and then just gave up.
Someone needs to get their act together at the Guardian and introduce some sort of consistency in the various crosswords as it seems to have gone missing of late with this probably being the best example of it.
I agree with the general opinion that this was far too hard to be a Quiptic. But I did get there in the end.
FrankieG @6 and DrWhatsOn @12. There was a US brand of deodorant called Sure, now defunct, but it was a different deodorant than the UK Sure. They ran ads with the jingle “Raise your hand if you’re Sure,” with many armpits involved. And wouldn’t you know it, you can find them on YouTube. Here’s one. I believe the US Sure was discontinued because of a consolidation in the personal-care industry, after which the surviving company dropped the resulting superfluous brands.
We also thought this was rather above beginners’/improvers’ standard, with some odd anagrinds (condition, drift) and a very clunky clue for 24ac. Some easy ones, though, to leaven the lump, such as ATE IN and ENLIST.
Thanks, though, to Hectence and to Pierre for the blog, including some parsings we couldn’t see.
Hurrah! Just completed Everyman – as others said, I found it easier than the Quiptic today
I’m amazed. I often struggle with a weekday Cryptic, then come here to find everyone banging on about how easy it was. Now this one may not be the ideal Quiptic, but I found it went in very straightforwardly and everyone’s saying the opposite.
Admittedly I bunged in APPLES and didn’t twig “Jobs creation” (and me a retired IT professional).
Thanks to Hectence and Pierre.
Arachne/Rosa Klebb is also in the habit of occasionally pointing out that drivers, doctors, saints etc. etc. may quite legitimately happen to be female.
As did (much missed) Nutmeg.
Jobs’ creation vs. Jobs creation. I understand the grammar works for either (and “Jobs” makes the clue trickier), but, to me, “Jobs creation” is…awkward or just unnecessarily weird.
I didn’t know the word “grizzling” before. It’s a good one.
Trying. I am. It was. Not a good deal more solves than reveals. Encouraged by others’ comments. Believe it’s courtesy to thank Hectence and Pierre, so I will – forgive the grizzling.
A lot of this went in fairly easily for me (as an “improver” solver), but looking back maybe quite a few of those were down to getting the correct word and then back-parsing. Not uncommon usually, but maybe more than a few here I wouldn’t have been able to get without crossers. NE held out a lot longer than the rest
That was a game of two halves. Top half cryptic, lower half more quiptic for me. Just saying.
Thanks Hectence and Pierre.
I also found this surprisingly hard for a Quiptic. Some things that held me up included not knowing the meaning of GRIZZLING or that a GRIP could be a hairpin.
I don’t really like the definition in 24ac, which seems to me to imply that a pack of cards has four queens of diamonds. The phrase “one of four in a pack” seems to me to clue just QUEEN. Also, the grammar in 12ac seems the wrong way around: for the cryptic reading to make sense, it should be “within mojo you seek”, although of course that would ruin the surface.
Fortunately I came to this one after seeing people talking about the difficult Quiptic in the blog for Anto’s puzzle, so I was forewarned! A nice puzzle even given the reservations about the intended difficulty level–LOI APPLES and got a grin from “Jobs creation.” PROXY was the one I needed the pangram for, and my way of messing up 1ac was with PEARLY which wasn’t really a good effort on my part.
mrpenney@22 (and the others talking about the deodorant): I remembered that very ad and had the jingle going through my head even before you mentioned it! Had not noticed that it stopped existing. So a reference that was not quite as OBSCURE trans-Atlantically to those of us who are old enough.
This was definitely a tough one for me. Had to do a couple of reveals, and guessed some words to work back. Thanks for the blog to clear up some of the parses. Still not sure with MB being doctor, only know MD 🤷♂️
Concur with most that this was definitely misallocated given the very obscure anagrids, the convoluted Lego needed to sort out Patently Obvious and other quibbles aforementioned. JOYOUS was a delight. Yet again I feel this was put in absolutely the wrong slot, evidenced by the newcomers who these are supposedly aimed at giving up in despair. Such a shame for Hectence and the newbies…lose-lose.
Thanks for the enlightening blog Pierre and thanks also to Hectence for a mighty fine pangram puzzle that was inexplicably rated as Quiptic which it most certainly wasn’t.
This was a tough one. @thecronester, I know why MB is doctor – in many Commonwealth nations, it’s a Bachelor of Medicine, often combined with a Bachelor of Surgery to make an MBBS or MB BChir (Medicinae Baccalaureus, Baccalaureus Chirurgiae). What I really don’t get is why “EE” is two tablets. Thoughts?
I got to HYPE UP by reading the “radio” as meaning (unusually) that the clue rather than the answer was a (near-)homophone: to greet little dog, “hi pup”.
Took me over twice as long to solve as most Quiptics, and even then got some of the answers through the crossers and only semi-parsing. Pierre’s blog v useful in explaining crosswordspeak I need to look out for in future. A useful jolt to my Quiptic complacency, but maybe the Guardian ought to introduce a 5 star difficulty rating system so newbies are not too discouraged by the occasional wannabe Cryptic?
Well, having read the comments, I am totally chuffed. I have only ever done the Quick Cryptic but thought I would have a go at this one. It’s taken me a three day spread to get it, all but one, which I assumed was pretty pathetic, but now it seems not bad at all. Mind, I needed fifteen squared to explain quite a few. Devious, definitely devious.
I am glad more experienced solvers found this difficult. I have been managing the quick cryptics and thought I would try a step up. Only managed about 6 and had to call it a day. I will keep trying as that is the only way to learn. Thanks Pierre for the explanations.
Is Hectence getting bored of setting Quiptics? This actually took me longer than today’s Vlad! A wavelength thing maybe?
gingerest @36: EE can be considered as two E tablets. E is street slang for the drug Ecstasy.
Harder than most cryptics.
Completed it after quite a struggle, with a few words added because they fitted without understanding how they matched the clues. On which note…
1D. I understand PR=marketing and IE=that is, but how/why does AIR=look?
Chris @43 from Chambers; AIR: “bearing, outward appearance, look” eg “the woman in black had an air of mystery”
@44 Oh yeah, hadn’t thought of that meaning:
As I walk along the Bois de Boulogne
With an independent air
You can hear the girls declare
“He must be a Millionaire.”
You can hear them sigh and wish to die,
You can see them wink the other eye
At the man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo.
For what it’s worth, I — an American who struggles mightily with the daily cryptics — solved this one in a couple of hours.
I haven’t found a source for “poxy.”
I solved this with some checks, but there were far too many answers that I filled in “because it couldn’t be anything else” without really understanding why. Looking at the blog, I get the feeling that I often get when someone explains a clue from a real Cryptic: “I see that the setter’s mind went in that direction, but I don’t see why mine should” in other words, not enough clear signposting for me. Normally I enjoy the Quiptics and Quick Cryptics, but not this one.