Quiptic 1,296 by Pasquale

43 comments on “Quiptic 1,296 by Pasquale”

1. Began day with nice Quick Cryptic and ended with this nice Quiptic. Particularly liked 7a, 4d, 5d, and 13d.

   Got “MANNER” for 22a, but kludging with “ER” for the queen – that’s where Fifteensquared helps.

   I think that “Sultry” should be “Surly” for 22d.

   Thanks Pasquale and Shanne.

2. Finally,something to put a 😃 on a bruised pride.This has been long missing from Quiptics.I gave Cryptics a shot last week and realised that I still have a long way to go.Never knew that repair meant withdraw though i parsed it.Thanks Pasquale and Shanne.👍👍👍

3. Repair to the (with)drawing room.
   A true Quiptic for a change. Everyman is a lot harder this week in comparison.
   I’m with BRAUN@2 on surly/sultry. Seems. Looks like a typo to me.
   Thanks both.

4. Nice Quiptic. Thanks Pasquale.
   Very good blog. Thanks Shanne.

   Liked HANDMAID, HASTINGS and DRESSAGE (liked the surface).

   Two suggestions:
   BOOTED
   Def: kicked (gets—a link word)
   LAST
   def 1: Ultimate
   def 2: piece of cobbler’s equipment

5. Pretty much a perfect Quiptic I think. Thanks to P and S (super blog).
   Enjoy your Sunday.

6. 22d MOROSE – “Sultry” looks like a typo – sullen, sulky…

7. An enjoyable Quiptic that fits the description of a “cryptic puzzle for beginners and those in a hurry.”

   New for me: MO = Maureen (22d).

   10ac – I had no idea that SPAIN are the current European Football champions but guessed they might have been at one time. I have no interest in soccer or football, obviously 😉 I solved/guessed the answer to the clue first then tried my best to parse it afterwards but did not do a google search on European soccer champions – I’m not that interested!

   Favourite: HANDMAID.

   I hadn’t noticed the SULTRY typo but I agree with comments made above – it should be sulky or surly. It makes me wonder how these typos occur – is AI to blame?

   Thanks, both.

8. Another nicely-pitched Quiptic from Pasquale. Agreed that sultry must be a typo, and no, I didn’t remember what Spain were champions of either.

   I’m not convinced that repair=withdraw. It is old-fashioned usage, but just seems to mean “go”. It doesn’t mean “withdraw” in “Rule Britannia”, for instance:
   “The Muses, still with freedom found,
   Shall to thy happy coast repair…”

   Favourites HANDMAID, CORONATION.

9. I did change the blog, but I don’t think that sultry is wrong – I checked the definitions of MOROSE and sultry in Chambers this morning and they both have the meaning of sullen or dark and heavy, so putting that into a sentence:
   the sullen/morose/sultry clouds threatened on the horizon.

   Also, in my Chambers, under the first meaning of REPAIR, there are Shakespearean usages, followed by Spenserian uses, which includes REPAIR = withdraw as the second definition. It’s defined as a vt – transitive verb.

   I placed that use of REPAIR into Jane Austen’s writings.

   To respond to AlanC – as I’m still in the edit window – the solving is the quick bit. The blog takes at least 30 minutes, longer at 1am!

10. Another perfect challenge with ticks for ABRASIVE, HANDMAID, COME AROUND and HASTINGS. Another to query sultry, but Shanne has justified it above, so thanks for that. I also was misled by bras being scratchy items.
    michelle @7: for someone not interested in football, that’s quite a big paragraph 😉
    I was interested in your comment Shanne about when to solve in the UK. I have recently got into the dubious habit of solving after midnight and I must admit, my brain is definitely sharper (probably assisted by a couple of tipples). However, to then complete a full blog is very impressive. I also like the definitions highlighted in bold letters.

    Ta Pasquale @ Shanne.

11. @Alanc I avoid that dubious habit but cannot shake the only slightly less heinous of doing Independent the night before (it’s out an hour or so before midnight)

    Thanks Pasquale and Shanne

12. @9 Shanne. Sultry – that was my interpretation as well. Hence my earlier comment.

13. I found it to be slightly towards the more difficult end of the Quiptic scale, but it’s a relief to be able to say that rather than it being another miscategorised Cryptic. Excellent and enjoyable puzzle anyway.

14. The discussion about the European champions is interesting. There is an element of current culture, sport (football, cricket, tennis), British history.

    Before trying cryptics I was unaware of terms such as “Jack”, “tar”, “ab” for sailors.

    Aden was run by UK well into the 60’s and became South Yemen – the only Communist state in the Middle East. I’ve been going through the old quiptics and there was a nice clue “Norman Stanley, arrow maker.” for people familiar TV in 1970’s and 80’s.

15. After my (hopefully) uncharacteristic moaning last week, I thought this was perfect for the Quiptic spot. I also thought sultry was a typo, so thanks for clearing that up Shanne, and for your blog. Lots of lovely clues which have already been identified. My favourites were ABRASIVE and COME AROUND. Many thanks Pasquale and Shanne.

16. This went in relatively smoothly for me. Enough of the clues were quiptic level that the few that were a tad harder had crossers to help. I agree with those who were thrown off by sultry/sulky — even if the definition is correct, the usage seems obscure enough that “sullen” would have made for a better Quiptic clue.

17. Thank you Shanne for filling in the parsing gaps I needed. What a lovely quiptic, pitch perfect I thought. After a few bumpy weekends the P team Picaroon and Pasquale have delivered a couple of excellent puzzles in the last two days.

18. I’m not a football fan but it was all over the news for weeks that England had reached a major final and it was against Spain. Of course they lost. And not even on penalties.

    That said, there was a General Election going on at the same time – the Labour Party led by Keir Starmer won that match with a huge majority for anyone who missed that too 😉

19. excellent blog…and quiptic of course

20. Fun quiptic. I agree that sultry is an odd synonym for morose–even if there is some overlap in words to define them, the connotations are completely different. Didn’t help that I had never heard Mo as a nickname for Maureen. I thought it must be making some cultural refence I didn’t know. And also got stuck for a minute trying to shove “er” into manner.

    Thanks for blogging the puzzle!

21. I agree with the queries about sultry/morose. ‘A morose thundercloud’? Really? Where did Chambers find that?

22. Thanks for clearing up per/a. That feels like another bit of crosswordese I need to store away.

23. Pam Lunn @21 – Chambers did not find a morose cloud. If you read the blog, Chambers gives definitions of both morose and sultry as meaning sullen / dark and heavy. However, if you google, quite a few poems describe morose clouds.

24. Nicely pitched at the correct level for a quiptic. Mind you, we did puzzle for a few moments over the NW corner. We liked 20 for the journalisys not being ‘eds’; favourite, though, was PERJURY.
    Thanks, Pasquale and Shanne.

25. Thanks for the explanations.

    A humbling puzzle for me; I solved 6 clues before admitting defeat after too many hours.

26. Hooray! A certified Quiptic at last. Even if at the upper end of the scale of difficulty, definitely a Q.
    Some very ingenious clueing and wonderful surfaces, a good selection of devices too.
    For the newcomers to puzzles, I give you morose/surly/sullen/sultry. This kind of conversation frequently occurs and obviously not all can be right so there needs to be a rulebook – Chambers. It’s in Chambers therefore it stands is the common refrain as Shanne has put forward here. No amount of arguing against can take away from the fact that if it’s there in that format, then the setter can 100% use a certain if obscure meaning. Thought 1D was a bit casually careless as I’m married to one and she’s often been called the second word, though I’m sure zero offence was intended.

    Thanks Pasquale and Shanne.

27. Hurrah! Confidence restored. A few struggles but both quiptic and Everyman done today ( rain kept me indoors so I plodded through both ). And quick cryptic yesterday so a full house for me.
    Much thanks to fine setters Pasquale and picaroon and of course the help from Shanne on this blog.
    Feeling more like I can do these crosswords after a couple of bad weeks !

28. Like several others above I found this to be a good level, challenging but solvable. Not that I managed it all, so thanks once again to 15^2 and Shanne today, for the explanations.

29. Thanks Shanne for clearing up the wordplay for me on some of the clues. And thanks Pasquale for the right level of puzzle for the Quiptic. MOROSE was last one in and I agree with others re: sultry = morose. It really does feel wrong despite what Chambers has to say.

30. Was I the only person to have DOCK for 2dn? Of course I saw the folly of that answer when the crossers did not work

    Aside from that, nothing to add to the comments above.

    Thanks Pasquale and Shanne

31. Martyn @30, having got handmaid before getting to 2D, DOCK wasn’t an option but you are correct, that does work very well…until it doesn’t. Many tales of woe like this in the forums, all part of the fun. Obvious solutions leaping out at you until nothing going through them work.

32. My Chambers (2003) doesn’t suggest any link between ‘sultry’ and ‘morose’ by my reading. If there is one, I suspect that it’s the result of ‘sultry’ being muddled with ‘sullen’ and ‘sulky’, to which I say “Yar boo sucks!”

33. Lovely. Thank you, Pasquale. I’d move on to Cryptics if they had a check facility – as a near-beginner I find it useful to be able to check whether or not I am on the right track – also otherwise the puzzles would take far too long for a person with not a lot of spare time. I do understand why most proper cryptic solvers wouldn’t want a check facility, though.

34. RabtheCat @33 – there is a check facility on the usual cryptics, not on the Everyman or Prize until after the week while they can be submitted for the prizes on offer, but then – so you could complete the Everyman from Sunday 15 September with a check button now, but not the one from 22 September.

35. Late to the blog (quiptics are still Monday fare for me) but had to say thanks to Pasquale, as ever, for the perfect quiptic. And thanks of course to Shanne for the hard work.

36. Martyn @30 I also had dock in there for way too long. I also had ABLATIVE, rather than ABRASIVE in all the way through, and for a good while had RETIRE (with the added joy of making me think that LANCRE must be a legitimate spelling). Wasn’t able to justify those, although tbh they felt like less of a stretch than PERJURY and ADEN, and those turned out to be right.

    New to me: Quin as a shortening of quintuplet – I’ve always heard quint instead. Otherwise a nice and enjoyable quiptic, especially MANNER

37. Ideal Quiptic fare, Pasquale is consistently excellent in this slot. PAIN is an excellent surface.

38. Chambers says it’s OK, and poets have used it, but I’ve never heard of it so it’s wrong, the setter is wrong, Chambers is wrong and the poets are all wrong. Somehow the notion that I might learn something from this puzzle and blog never occurred to me. 😉

    Thanks Pasquale and Shane for the excellent Quiptic and delightful blog.

39. It annoys me that auto”correct” changes Shanne to Shane. It did it again just now, but this time I spotted it. Sorry, Shanne.

40. Much more approachable than the previous couple of weeks’ quiptics! I was doing really well with this, however 4 clues in the south-east defeated me and I had to reveal. Quite chuffed that I remembered about a cobbler’s last from a previous crossword. For 20, I thought the answer might be PRESSMEN from the wordplay, but not having heard the word before I searched [online] Chambers and it didn’t come up with anything, so I thought “that can’t be right” and moved on. Got it in the end though.

    Quite a lot of this was new for me: REPAIR=WITHDRAW, “possibly” as an anagrind, QUIN as an abbreviation for quintuplet, LEAN-TO=SHED, Maureen being able to be shorted to MO (checked wikipedia but nothing there), and sultry apparently meaning MOROSE.

    I don’t know if I’m being thick but I don’t understand how “happen regularly” = COME AROUND (though it didn’t stop me from getting it).

    Thanks Pasquale and Shanne.

41. oh no computer @40 – Christmas and Easter come around every year / it took her ages to come around to my point of view

    Mo can be a nickname for a lot of other names, but there were famously a couple of characters on EastEnders called Big Mo and Little Mo, both called Maureen Slater, grandmother and granddaughter. Big Mo is acted by Laila Morse (Gary Oldman’s sister). (Jessie Wallace / Kat Slater lived locally for a while – enough to bump into her in the supermarket, literally, a few times.)

42. Shanne @34 thank you!

43. … and Laila Morse is her stage name because brother Gary’s girlfriend Isabella Rossellini suggested an anagram of mia sorella – my sister in Italian.

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