This is the thirty-sixth Guardian Quick Cryptic, a series of 11 x 11 crosswords designed to support beginners learning cryptic crosswords. The whole point of these crosswords is support and encouragement of new solvers, so special rules for these crosswords apply – see here – those rules include not posting solving times. There is a summary of the tricks used in the first six months here. This puzzle can be found here.
Following a number of comments we are continuing to tweak the blog. The first suggestion was to to hide the answers and the last couple of weeks, following another request, we hid the wordplay descriptions too, to mixed reviews. To find that hidden information, click on “Details” and it will pop up. The definition is in bold and underlined, the indicator is in red. (And as of 3 January, I’m back adding an Expand All button to make sure it’s working before going live tomorrow.)
This week we have the return of Picaroon, who with Carpathian has set most of the Quick Cryptic crosswords and can be found dialing the difficulty up and down in Quiptic, Cryptic and Prize crosswords at the Guardian. He has introduced a new clue type, voice, but combined that with being more helpful than last week in that he’s used acrostics, anagrams and hidden clues all of which have letters in the clue to give a foothold. Voice reads to me like a hodge-podge of various crosswordland tricks and conventions.
A recent Guardian Crossword blog is called the ultimate beginner’s guide and has tips which may be useful for some solvers.
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
- indicators are in red.
- CAPITALS to indicate which bits are part of the answer, e.g. some haVE ALtered meat, Get A Good.
- anagram *(SENATOR) shows letters in clue being used, see clue below.
- anagrind the anagram indicator (arranged)
- voice – this is a collection of conventions in crosswordese – the clue below, I suspect is meant to be a coke (drink) as said by a Posho is a CAKE (gateau), but no, really no. Using posh, I’ve seen gel for girl and off to clue orfe, and I can make both of them work in my best yah yah accent, but not coke to cake. The other recent example was American waiter to wader (think Hello mudda, Hello fada, here I am on Camp Granada) clued recently in the Everyman.
- CAD or clue as definition– where the whole clue gives the definition, sometimes called an &lit.
- DBE or defintion by example – e.g. where a dog might be clued as a setter – often using a question mark, maybe, possibly or e.g. to show that this is an example rather than a definition.
- 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 crossword site – which can be found at www.theguardian.com/crosswords/quick-cryptic/36 – because the clues have moved on from the clue descriptions below, I am now adding more to the descriptions above.
Clues begin or end with a definition of the answer. The rest is one of these:
- Anagram An anagram of the answer and a hint that there’s an anagram
‘Senator arranged crime (7)’ gives TREASON - Hidden word Answer is hidden in the clue’s words
‘Some have altered meat (4)’ gives VEAL - Acrostic The first letters of the answer
‘Initially get a good joke (3)’ gives GAG - Voice Imagine answer being said in a particular voice
‘Posho’s drink and gateau (4)’ gives CAKE
| ACROSS |
Click on “details” to see the solutions | |
| 1 | As Sean Connery says, unmarried people getting viral disease (8) |
SHINGLES
|
|
Voice – (as Sean Connery says) in crosswordland and as portrayed by comedians, Sean Connery lisped, so instead of saying “singles” (unmarried people), he says SHINGLES (viral disease).
|
||
| 6 |
Rumour has year to get spread around (7)
|
HEARSAY
|
|
anagram of (HAS YEAR)* with anagrind of spread around.
|
||
| 7 |
Going through capitals of Vietnam, India and Afghanistan (3)
|
VIA
|
|
acrostic (capitals of) – Vietnam, India and Afghanistan – “and” is used here for the surface, to make sense of the clue, and can be ignored. There is no hard and fast rule for when things can be ignored as part of the clues, it’s what makes the clue work.
|
||
| 9 |
Warrior seized by assassin in Japan (5)
|
NINJA
|
|
hidden (seized by) in assasiN IN JApan – I’m not certain we’ve met NINJA before, but it’s not uncommon in crosswords
|
||
| 10 |
Clovis ordered to hold a piece of armour (5)
|
VISOR
|
|
hidden (to hold) in cloVIS ORdered
|
||
| 11 |
False statement from Liberal, I expect (3)
|
LIE
|
|
hidden in (from) liberaL I Expect
|
||
| 12 |
After refurbishment, a deli is perfect (5)
|
IDEAL
|
|
anagram of (A DELI)* with anagrind of after refurbishment
|
||
| 14 |
Person travelling by boat from Jarrow, erroneously (5)
|
ROWER
|
|
hidden (from) jaROW ERroneously – the erroneously here is useful to mislead as it also suggests anagrams or other clue types
|
||
| 16 | Stomach starters of grim, undercooked tuna (3) |
GUT
|
|
acrostic (starters of) Grim, Undercooked Tuna.
|
||
| 17 |
Ape isn’t dancing around in underwear (7)
|
PANTIES
|
|
anagram of (APE ISN’T)* with anagrind of dancing around
|
||
| 18 |
As Spooner says, sentry arrived for e.g. rummy or whist (4,4)
|
CARD GAME
|
|
voice (as Spooner says) so this time the voice is a Spoonerism of “guard came” (sentry arrived) with a definition by example, so e.g. Spoonerisms as a clue type was covered in Quick Cryptic 16, but are named after the Reverend Spooner. Spoonerisms turn up regularly in crosswords (lots in Friday’s Cryptic by Omnibus if you love them, I don’t usually). This is a good Spoonerism as in both bits work.
|
||
|
DOWN
|
||
| 1 |
Exotic snail killed (5)
|
SLAIN
|
|
anagram of (SNAIL)* with an anagrind of exotic
|
||
| 2 | Set up Butlin’s? Tallinn welcomes it (7) |
INSTALL
|
|
hidden (welcomes it) of butlINS TALLinn
|
||
| 3 |
Introductions to graceful, uplifting young fellow (3)
|
GUY
|
|
acrostic of (introductions to) Graceful Uplifting Young
|
||
| 4 |
The King lives in a peculiar way (5)
|
ELVIS
|
|
anagram of (LIVES)* with anagrind of in a peculiar way. Another bit of crosswordese here – he may have been dead since 1977 but he’s still known as this in crosswords
|
||
| 5 |
Pondering going to the bottom of the sea, as someone lisping says (8)
|
THINKING
|
|
voice (as someone lisping says) – “sinking” (going to the bottom of the sea) as said by someone with a lisp. Lisping means changing “s” to “th” – as in the Sean Connery example above – or Violet Elizabeth Bott from the Just William stories is another name who comes up in crosswords to indicate lisping (she who “Thcreamed and thcreamed until she was thick”)
|
||
| 8 |
Alter the appearance of grooming implement, as Cockney says (8)
|
AIRBRUSH
|
|
voice (as Cockney says) – “hairbrush” (grooming implement) – all Cockneys in crosswordland drop their aitches (or speak in Cockney rhyming slang). It’s not the only dialect that doesn’t aspirate the aitch and Cockney as a dialect is endangered and disappearing, but in crosswords, this is a bit of shorthand you need to learn.
|
||
| 10 |
Somewhat clever and appealing porch (7)
|
VERANDA
|
|
hidden (somewhat) in cleVER AND Appealing
|
||
| 13 |
Minor actor using some index-trackers (5)
|
EXTRA
|
|
hidden (using some) in indEX-TRAckers
|
||
| 15 |
As Jonathan Ross says, German river generates complaint (5)
|
WHINE
|
|
voice (as Jonathan Ross says) “Rhine” (German river) – Jonathan Ross – Wossy – is known for pronouncing his r’s as w’s – to the extent that his Instagram and X (Twitter) handles are @wossy.
|
||
| 17 |
Group of whales heads for Plymouth or Devon (3)
|
POD
|
|
acrostic of (heads for) Plymouth Or Devon. This particular collective noun turns up as a way of cluing other versions such as school or gam.
|
I found this very approachable with several good surfaces
Thanks Picaroon and Shanne
Really enjoyed doing this. Sean Connery was the favourite and ‘Voice’ is a new concept to me. A relief after trying to tackle Picaroon’s Cryptic yesterday, with another new concept of ‘key’’.
Thanks to you both.
That was a lovely puzzle which highlights how the Anagrams, Hiddens and Acrostics are useful to the beginners.
My weekly livesolve showing how I approach a cryptic and hopefully giving some tips and tactics is available at … https://youtu.be/B3tYP5VGfvA
Please can someone explain the Voice example … “‘Posho’s drink and gateau (4)’ gives CAKE”. I simply don’t get it and was dreading this type of clue after seeing some terrible Voice accented clues in Everyman recently. Was relieved when today’s clues related to Cockneys, lispers, Spoonerisms, Sean Connery and Wossie.
The hardest part of this puzzle is trying to work out why poshos drink is cake
cb @6 and HG @5 – I tried to explain the Posho’s cake in my explanation above, but I’m unconvinced.
@7 Shanne – I didn’t spot your explanation there – I would respectfully suggest it might be better next to the Example clue – at least for this week.
Even affecting an upper class accent, I still don’t understand what the soundalike is.
Are we saying that Posh people would never use a common term like cake but instead would ask for a gateau? Or is it a soundalike of a drink?
HG @8 – I just quote those examples and explain them above on purpose, because I’ll confuse those not very good examples from the Guardian site. Very few of those examples are transparent, and giving longer explanations somewhere else is more helpful with a comment that this is from the site, see above for longer explanations, otherwise it becomes a confused mess. But I do spend time every week making sure that the list of what I’ve used tied into to this week’s puzzles and explaining the examples given.
I have absolutely no idea why it’s cake, although the Guardian comments suggest that saying “I’d like a coke” sounds like cake. As someone who can do a good yah yah accent (don’t ask), I can’t make that work. I’m just a blogger trying to explain the Guardian’s quirks.
About the cake business..
I think it might be a soft C (as in centre), giving you Sake.
Thanks for the blog Shanne!
Hello everyone!
I’m new here. I’ve been enjoying cryptics since summer, and have found these quick cryptics to be lovely stepping stones.
I’ve been working my way through the quiptic back catalogue, and have really valued all the work you do on the blog to explain and demystify them.
Fun puzzle.
The sample given:
Voice Imagine answer being said in a particular voice ‘Posho’s drink and gateau (4)’ gives CAKE
is very hard to understand and possibly wrong.
15d – Jonathan Ross is not well-known outside of the UK. I only managed to solve this clue because JR has been used in cryptics before but I had never heard of him. I realise this is a British newspaper but this is an online puzzle ie it has global access. It wouldn’t hurt if setters could keep that in my mind. Parochial vs international. I guess that during the BREXIT years, I heard Global Britain mentioned a lot! Sorry in advance if my comment causes offence, it is not intended that way.
michelle @12 – the examples given are down to the Guardian – all I can do is explain them as best I can, see above – in the blurb to the blog and in the discussion. FifteenSquared is not linked to the Guardian, we just solve and blog these crosswords as they come out, as volunteers.
Ditto setting policy on inclusion of names – if you want to complain about that, I suggest complaining to the Guardian, not FifteenSquared. The setter may or may not read the blogs here, ditto the Crossword editor, but I suspect it is less rather than more likely and complaints here won’t be heard.
As bloggers we have no power to suggest anything to the editors or crossword setters.
Enjoyed this one though along with everyone else, it seems, have no idea how to explain the posho’s cake. I found the ‘voice’ clues the hardest – don’t associate Sean Connery with a lisp. After yesterday’s cryptic, this was a pleasure to complete.
This one went in really quickly. Not a fan of the ‘voice’ clue type and have never seen it before. As others have mentioned the example on the puzzle page for that clue type was woeful. Thanks Picaroon and Shanne.
hi Shanne@13
thanks for your comments. I did realise that the Voice samples were provided by the Guardian, not by you. I also realise you tried your best to explain what was meant by that supposed hint and it’s not your fault that the hint is faulty.
I will post at the Guardian blog re setting policy on inclusion of names in future as you suggest. I posted that comment here because I was under the impression that some/many of the setters read the blogs here at fifteensquared. But you are probably right that the commenters at the Guardian blog are more my “target audience” than anyone here 😉
I think you do an excellent job as a blogger here at fifteensquared – I really appreciate your hard work always.
Still have no idea how a posh drink is cake! Agree, some of the ‘Voice’ clues in recent Everymans have been awful so I too shuddered when I saw the (impenetrable) example. They weren’t too bad though although I needed to cheat for 8D.
That was fun – had me laughing out loud several times with the ‘voices’ clues. Maybe a bit easier than most but very good.
Thanks Shanne and Picaroon. The “voice” clues set in this QC were far better than the example given by the Guardian, which I think must be a very poor soundalike of coke…
Rolo@11, welcome 😎!
Amma @14, SHINGLES is not an example of lisping, but of Sean Connery’s distinctive pronunciation of “s”. I can’t think of anyone else who does this when sober!
I agree the Voice description is very problematic on the Guardian site, and surprised to find a Spoonerism here in that category, as I don’t see that as a voice but a brain thing. I also don’t like lisps, and stutters, and rhotacism (in the sense of wogger wabbit) being a source of amusement.
Having said that, I have a friend born in South Australia, which has a bit more of the accent described, who said pronounced coke like ceck.
Monkey@20 – thanks for this. I haven’t seen or heard Sean Connery, or an impression of him, for years. I got SHINGLES just from ‘unmarried people’ = ‘singles’ and ‘viral disease’ so the voice thing was actually a distraction not a help.
A fun one but I thought the new “trick” of “voice” was a little unnecessary as clues like this are rare in cryptics and cause various problems as seen above. Mind you, the cockney trick is not uncommon I suppose.
A lot of overthinking the cake=coke issue. It’s not good but I thought of the late queen and how she would say something that sounded like “Mai hasbanned end Aye” for “My husband and I” and could easily see “I don’t like coke” becoming “Aye don’t lake cake”. worked for me at least…
I have to admit to being ever so slightly disappointed with this week’s puzzle. Once you accept the voice clues are all answered by lisping there was little else to solve. And, no, the cake business left me completely stumped.
Thanks as always for the blog.
I’m not sure it’s really overthinking, even with people mentioning it in here I can’t come close to an accent that makes cake pass as coke (or sake, or anything else mentioned). The examples in the puzzle itself were fine, elsewhere they can get ridiculously strained (like in Shannes examples), so I guess, although a bad example for the target audience, it is an accurate representation of why it’s not a clue type I enjoy often!
It’s no criticism of this site though, which has been invaluable in helping get into something that felt impenetrable.
Honestly, when I first commented I just assumed I was coming here to find the name of the wine I’d never heard of that poshos pronounce cake!
I found this a lot easier than in recent weeks. There was only one clue that I had to leave and come back to once I had more crossers (THINKING, which was my LOI).
Really like 1a 🙂
Thanks Shanne and Picaroon.
This might be the shortest some I’ve had yet. 🙂
I was daunted by the bizarre cake example, but encouraged to see that none else could understand it either!
As for the actual cryptic, the voice clues felt like a gentle and intuitive easing in, very appropriate for our first introduction to them, and while a few terms were parochial, none were insurmountably obscure or archaic.
I think the setter nailed this one.
Thank you as always for the blog – although I’m proud to say I didn’t need any explanations this time around, other than your invaluable help understanding what a voice clue was!
For anyone interested, here’s a bit of entertaining research on Sean Connery’s pronunciation of /s/
When does Sean Connery arrive at Wimbledon? Tennish!
Fun puzzle. I remember from a couple of weeks ago Picaroon had some wordplay in the QC that reappeared in the Quiptic the next day – so I’m going to bet there’s a voice clue or two in their next Quiptic.
Another one here who doesn’t much care for the soundalike clues.
I thought this was at the easier end of the spectrum for the Quick Cryptic instances. I still enjoyed doing it.
Thanks to Picaroon and Shanne.
The puzzle itself was a rather a breeze. Have learned to biff in the obvious and let the others hang until the crossers got me to one of several options I thought of. A well crafted effort given the clue variants allowed. Doesn’t hurt to have an easier one of these once in a while as that happens in the Cryptic world too. Helps to reinforce your quizzing self esteem.
I too am scratching my head at the execrable Coke/Cake offering in the Guardian preamble. Cowk would be my nearest ‘Posho’ guess. Off to study the received pronounciation site to see if Cake might be a thing.
Many thanks to Picaroon and yet again top ticks for the excellent Shanne.
After a long and rather tedious drift through the Wiki page about RP, the ‘posh’ Received Pronounciation, I found that the OED uses RP as their preferred version of how to say words. For Coke there is one entry, British and American being identical. “kohk”… which my cowk closely matches but neither come close to Cake. Good enough for me, the example used was simply…Naff.
I was worried about the voice clues but in the end I got them all due to the helpful clues. I was perplexed at first but then got going with ‘gut’ and all the clues worked from there. Thanks for a good crossword, helpful explanations and a new trick!
Maybe the people who don’t get the coke cake are posh and that’s the way they say it too and don’t realise its wrong.
Chris @35 – I chameleon accents and unconsciously code switch between them. I come from a posh-accented background and attended the local state schools. Home didn’t like me sounding like a local yokel, correcting me if I did and I got bullied at school if I sounded posh, so self-protection taught me this trick very young. (It’s a little disconcerting when I pick up a phone or switch between talking to different people in the same group.)
I currently mostly speak MLE, but can and do code switch into RP, very yah-yah RP, Northants, Dorset and Maccam. I really can’t make coke/cake work.
(We, my daughter and I, had an entertaining time at Hartlepool folk festival a couple of months back explaining how we sounded like locals, having switched back to Maccam.)
I’m new here and have been enjoying the puzzles and the blogs.
I took the VOICE example to mean in the voice of, rather than a soundalike. As an adult novelist might write in the voice of a child, might the answer, CAKE, in the voice of a posho, not be gateau?
@ND50846 – that’s not how the grammar of the clues work – that example, from discussion on the Guardian thread, we reckoned is supposed to work as:
Voice Imagine answer being said in a particular voice
‘Posho’s drink and gateau (4)’ gives CAKE
1. Posho’s drink = drink said in a posh manner = COKE (drink) supposedly sounds like CAKE
2. synonym for gateau = CAKE
That’s how cryptic clues work in two parts, one as a wordplay giving a way to get to the answer and secondly a definition / synonym / phrase suggesting the answer.
It is perhaps not very convincing but I am sure the posho clue is supposed to give ‘coke’. Posh people are also supposed to say ‘h ice’ instead of ‘house’ but I imagine few really do. (The space in ‘h ice’ there is because it was the only way I could stop autocorrect turning it into ‘nice’!).
As said by many, this was a much easier one this week, I think helped massively by the initials and hidden word clues. Not too much thinking involved with these, if like me, you don’t recognise the wordplay definitions and just scan through looking for hidden words using some of the letters you’ve already found. I find myself running through the board filling in initials, then hidden words, then trying some of the voice clues and finally anagrams.
I find synonymy or double definition clues much harder to spot and solve than these.
Agreed re: the cake post. It left myself and a few colleagues baffled and the best we could come up with was a very poor pronunciation of the work coke. The actual voice clues were much more entertaining and easier to work out. Not thrilled to see a spoonerism in there though as that’s not really a “voice” – not that it was difficult.
Shanne@38 – thanks, that helps with the grammar, and I’ll now look out for AND as a possible indicator of synonyms.
Wherever I am on the L curve, I managed this one in about {deleted} – without reveals, but with a check or two. Inconsistent setting of these definitely enhances the process (progression) for me.
Thanks S, P and G.
(sorry – time deleted because I try to discourage times because it’s so depressing to the person who solved it for the first time but took an hour or two hours – and it makes people who are struggling think they too should be solving these fast. I took hours solving so many of the Guardian puzzles when I got back into crossword solving around the beginning of lockdown – and the only way I got quicker was practice – Shanne)
Feeling extremely chuffed with myself having got them all on a single attempt….only to find you all found it super easy! Loved 1A and 8D
Sara @42 – not necessarily super easy – but accessible and solveable. Well done on solving this.