This is the thirty-seventh 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. This puzzle can be found here.
Following a number of comments we now hide the answers and the wordplay descriptions too. 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 3 January, there’s an Expand All button, that I’m back adding to try and break blogs before going live tomorrow.)
This week we have a new setter to the Quick Cryptic crosswords in Tramp, a regular setter in the Cryptic and Prize slots at the Guardian. He has brought his own particular style to types of clues encountered many times before: anagrams, hidden, soundalike and charades.
There is a summary of the tricks used in the first six months here and a recent Guardian Crossword blog called the ultimate beginner’s guide 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)
- charades – the description below only gives the example of words being added together, but charades can be more complicated, adding abbreviations or single letters to another word. Examples previously used in this series are: Son ridicules loose overgarments (6) S (son) + MOCKS (ridicules), Get rid of dead pine (5) D (dead) + ITCH (pine) – D ITCH, and early on DR (doctor) + IVE (I have) to give DRIVE
- soundalike / homophone is indicated by “Wilde” (Oscar, the playwright) for WILD, see below.
- 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/37 – 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 - Charade A combination of synonyms
‘Qualify to get drink for ID (8)’ gives PASSPORT (pass + port) - Soundalike Something that sounds like the answer
‘Excited as Oscar’s announced (4)’ gives WILD
| ACROSS |
Click on “details” to see the solutions | |
| 1 | Successful books from footballer and actor Peter (4,7) |
BEST SELLERS
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charade – of George BEST (footballer) and SELLERS (actor Peter)
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| 7 |
Foreign character seen in home game (5)
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OMEGA
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hidden in (seen in) hOME GAme
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| 8 |
Bears fancy sword (5)
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SABRE
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anagram of (BEARS)* with anagrind of fancy
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| 9 |
Driest ground to walk (6)
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STRIDE
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anagram of (DRIEST)* with anagrind of ground (as in ground up)
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| 10 |
Fool expert witness in part (4)
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TWIT
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hidden (in part) in experT WITness
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| 12 |
Extract from Nobel Laureate’s call (4)
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BELL
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hidden in (extract from) NoBEL Laureate’s
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| 13 |
Person that’s fetching is more naked, reportedly (6)
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BEARER
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soundalike of (reportedly) “barer” (more naked)
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| 16 |
Flier is part of squadron, essentially (5)
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DRONE
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hidden (is part of) squaDRON Essentially – the essentially here isn’t something that has come up in the Quick Cryptics yet, but is often used to indicate the middle letter(s) of a word for a charade or other clue
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| 17 |
Guides in northern city picked up (5)
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LEADS
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soundalike (picked up) of “Leeds” (northern city)
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| 18 |
Our greenest bananas: one might cut branches (4,7)
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TREE SURGEON
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anagram of (OUR GREENEST)* with anagrind of bananas
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DOWN
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| 1 |
Punches part of rib: low shot (5)
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BLOWS
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hidden in (part of) riB LOW Shot
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| 2 |
Earlier, one’s touring African country (6,5)
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SIERRA LEONE
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anagram of (EARLIER ONE’S)* with anagrind of touring
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| 3 |
Got sad going out for party (4,2)
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STAG DO
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anagram of (GOT SAD)* with anagrind of going out
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| 4 |
Record from composer on the radio (4)
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LIST
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soundalike (on the radio) of “Liszt” (composer)
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| 5 |
Band before musical: it’s hard work (5,6)
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ELBOW GREASE
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| 6 |
Cover that woman on film (5)
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SHEET
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charade of SHE (that woman) and E.T. (crosswordland’s favourite film)
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| 11 |
Supplier in basement for delivery (6)
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SELLER
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soundalike (for delivery) of “cellar” (basement)
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| 12 |
One cleans behind bed, it is messy (5)
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BIDET
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anagram of (BED IT) with anagrind of messy
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| 14 |
Rinse off sticky substance (5)
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RESIN
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anagram of (RINSE)* with anagrind of off
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| 15 |
Learner driver, say, with small limbs (4)
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LEGS
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charade of L (learner driver) + EG (say) + (with) S (small) – all common abbreviations in crosswords – the learner driver carries L plates, EG (exempli gratia, meaning for example) is often replaced with “see” and S comes from clothes sizing.
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I thought this was very enjoyable, lots of anagrams and hidden words for beginners, plus the soundalikes which are a bit chewier, but a good category to learn about. Also worth mentioning 15D which was I thought the most complex clue, a three element charade in four letters. We have had a few one letter charade elements in recent QCs, so fair enough I thought. Thanks to Tramp and of course Shanne for another comprehensive blog.
Thanks Shanne. I hadn’t heard of a band called ELBOW.
Favourite was BIDET. The trick is to separate one cleans and one cleans behind. Very clever and funny.
I found this mostly approachable, with a couple of clues that required serious thought
There were several clues with great surfaces and my favourites were TREE SURGEON (I am a sucker for a good anagram), BLOWS, STAG DO, and BIDET.
I too was unaware of an elbow band, but the crossers made it an easy solve.
Thanks Tramp and Shanne
Fun start to the week, a little googling might have been required at one point, lots of fun and looking forward to moving onto the quiptic! Please do feel free to share in the comments any suggestions for the website, extension or videos themselves.
Thanks Tramp.
Live Solve: https://youtu.be/6sbiR0dwX4U
Crossword: https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/quick-cryptic/37
Cryptic Cruciverbalism: https://cryptic-cruciverbalism.github.io/
Crossword Companion Browser Extension: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/crossword-companion/olnojhhheedghnpnfaompfeombpcpbnk
Delightful puzzle from Tramp.
Best QC yet??
@5 Dr Menard – “for delivery” … think of delivering a speech
Enjoyable puzzle from Tramp and a childish snigger at BIDET !! Good to see a new name in the QC slot and there were some good thought provoking clues in there. I thought it was well balanced.
For anyone looking for tips and tactics on how to approach solving – my livesolve is available at https://youtu.be/74OBTj7VfU4 I go into specific detail on which version of soundalikes to use
Started very slowly on this one but got there in the end. Quite a few new anagrinds and soundalikes for me. All fair though. Thanks Tramp and Shanne
Does anyone knownwhy Picked Up is a Homophone indicator in 17. Is it like a microphone picking up sound?
@9
As in, “what did you say, I didn’t quite pick that up?”
Patrick @9, picked up is a common soundalike/homophone indicator, so common it was used twice in the first six months of these Quick Cryptics (in the post I linked in the blurb). I haven’t been noting frequency of indicators in my spreadsheet, just new ones.
The hardest Quick Cryptic yet for me. I did finish it but some of the clues were challenging. For 1a I was trying to think of both a footballer and an actor with first name Peter so got sidetracked for a while by Peter Crouch. I do know Elbow though (they’re very good). I’m still finding some of the ‘indicator’ words confusing. Isn’t ‘touring’ used as both an anagrind and an insertion indicator?
Fun puzzle.
I was unsure about 5d band=ELBOW. I never heard of this rock band before but the answer was obvious enough.
Amma @12 – yes, a lot of overlap with indicators, so part of the game is working out what clue you’re looking at. Even in the first 6 months of Quick Cryptics list it’s notable how many indicators worked for other clue types.
Admin @4 – I enjoyed it, but I wondered about Elbow (and they’re obviously not international), George Best and Peter Sellers. My father met both of these gentlemen through work, different jobs, 50 and 60 odd years ago respectively, but neither has been around for a while.
Loved this one. A few anagrinds that were new I thought, and similarly with soundalike indicators, but all fair. 15d was my LOI and is my ‘doh!’ moment for this week as I just failed to parse but guessed from crossers. But see from here the neatness of the charade. Thanks Shanne for the blogging and to Tramp for an excellent first QC.
@16 thecronester – when you’ve been doing cryptics for a few years, you will still be seeing “a few anagrinds that are new” ….
There is no definitive list and it seems like just about anything can be one. Only that some get more use than others
HG @17 👍Thanks
I think George Best and Peter Sellers are legends, so if younger generations don’t know who they are it is a good chance for education! Likewise Elbow to an extent. (I’m 46!) 12D made me laugh. An enjoyable quick cryptic for a relative beginner with an intro to new indicators.Thanks Tramp and Shanne.
I’m surprised people haven’t heard of Elbow. They’ve been around for 30-odd years and been very successful in the UK. They wrote the theme song for the 2012 London Olympics and performed at the closing ceremony. Maybe less well-known outside the UK but they have toured the US.
Stumped by the LEGS but everything else shimmied into place. Cheers all.
Due to misspelling SABRE (saber) couldn’t get SHEET. Otherwise perfect. Love the quick cryptic. It’s helping me with weekday cryptics.
I felt some of the references in this one were a little awkward or obscure. I’ve never heard of George Best, Elbow or Liszt, and while I know of him, Peter Sellers died a decade before I was born, so he would never have come to mind without some indicator that this was a very old actor. Likewise, I struggled to come up with the specific name of a movie from 40 years ago without some prompting to direct me to the classics of 80s Hollywood.
It was also hard for me to spot some of the sound alike indicators, such as ‘picked up’, which for me evokes something more like the physical act, radar detection, or WiFi signal, and ‘for delivery’ (thanks to HG for explaining that one).
But overall an enjoyable exercise, despite my hopefully constructive critique, and one that went pretty smoothly thanks to the crossers! 🙂
I was particularly impressed with 12d and 15d.
Thank you again.
Ral@23 I don’t think there’s much mileage in the ‘it happened before I was born’ argument. None of us was around for centuries of human history! Lizst died in 1886. I’ve never seen ET but it is such a part of our culture now and seems to be frequently used in these crosswords. We all have gaps in our knowledge; I don’t know a single Taylor Swift song!
I just looked, and Elbow has never had a single hit the US singles chart, and their highest-charting album here peaked at 80-something. So yeah, not big in America.
There are many indicators that can be used to indicate more than one clue type. In fact, part of the cleverness here is the misdirection involved: the setter tries to disguise one clue type as another. One that tripped me up badly the first time I saw it was “without,” which is usually a deletion indicator, but is sometimes used to indicate insertion–for that, think of it as the opposite of “within”.
Amma, I’m not quite sure I follow you. I’ll be the first to own my spotty general knowledge, but some references are inherently more obscure (like Elbow) or have grown dated (like the late Mr Sellers). I think that’s only natural, as while some few endure through centuries, events and people naturally rise to prominence and recede into obscurity with time. Those Taylor Swift songs will probably not be half so widely or readily remembered in 50 years. Likewise, if you ask me to think of famous actors in 2024, I don’t naturally cast my mind back to an actor who died in 1980, and was even then less famous than many contemporaries, living and dead.
The thing with Peter Sellers is that many of his movies are indelible classics. He didn’t die before I was born, but he did make his last movie before I started going to movies. And I’ve still seen five or six of his films. In particular, if you haven’t seen Dr. Strangelove, you owe yourself that pleasure. It’s a dark comedy about World War 3–both very Stanley Kubrick and very Peter Sellers, and it still holds up today.
As for ET, it’s a very useful pair of letters, even if the popularity of the film is now a fading memory. File it away: “film” in these things is always ET (except when it’s not). (And yeah, you should probably see that one too.)
Found this gentle and enjoyable. Lots of clues to like, agree with paddymelon@2 about BIDET, it took me a while to spot the definition, but gave me a good chuckle when I did. Also liked 13a, nice bit of misdirection with “person that’s fetching”.
Elbow are one of these bands where I’ve heard *of* them, but haven’t (as far as I know) heard any of their music.
Thanks Shanne and Tramp.
Ral@26 we could discuss endlessly what is fair in a cryptic crossword and from my brief experience of attempting them and reading this blog, I gather that many people do. I’m afraid the ‘before I was born’ thing is a trigger for me, having spent 30 years teaching English Literature to students who (increasingly) used it as a justification for not knowing stuff! So a touchy subject. (Gave up teaching – crosswords are more fun.)
Thought I had aced this one but came here to see why 11dn was Dealer as I couldn’t parse it. Now I know why!
Also needed to know why Elbow was Band – hadn’t heard of them. My ignorance.
The last two week’s quick cryptics have been really good. Love the fact The Guardian put proper compilers on them rather than just throw a few “easier” clues together.
Three cryptics today and three appearances from our favourite diminutive alien.
Enjoyed this one – particularly liked 1A .. and 12D which amused me when i worked it out! 🙂 Was stuck on 15D though and had to get help here to see how to solve it.
Amma, I wouldn’t call any of the references unfair – I don’t think that there would be anything unfair about using a reference to even the most obscure trivia in a clue – I’m commenting rather on how I believe seekers could improve accessibility to the wider audience of learners. We tend to be younger, just starting out with these puzzles, and don’t have the same knowledge base. By eschewing certain terms/references that people my age will be unlikely to know or recall, a cryptic can be more approachable, and feel less like a test of general knowledge from yesteryear.
I’ve seen Dr Strangelove and E.T, for example, but to me they are not contemporary or forward in my mind. Most people in my circles haven’t seen them to begin with.
Similarly, I wouldn’t expect a general audience to think of the pop cultural references my personal friend circle use, even if they had heard of the subjects.
I suppose my input can be rephrased as a suggestion that future generations of cryptic enthusiasts are less likely to enjoy clues about the pop culture of previous generations, without that in any way being meant as a disparagement of older setters, or these older subjects.
I hope that’s clearer, and more helpful!
Ral @34 – to answer your comments (not that we can do anything about how crosswords are set as we don’t set them or edit them at Fifteensquared, we just blog them from the newspapers who publish them), there was a discussion a while back on the General Discussion 19 thread starting at comment 39 from michelle about this article. But as a regular solver here, I’d say I’ve seen Taylor Swift far more often than Elvis over the last few years, Cher however, still appears (and on Desert Island Discs this morning). I’d also quibble about the comments about A.B. for sailor, having looked it up for a Quick Cryptic blog recently – it’s a role on merchant ships.
Specifically going to your list: Franz Liszt is a famous classical composer, also comes up in crosswords in the Cockney Rhyming Slang of Brahms and Liszt, meaning drunk, which also appears as an anagram indicator. It’s a bit like saying Beethoven is old hat, let’s ignore him?
Peter Sellers was the first Inspector Clouseau in the Pink Panther films, and I’ve checked with my daughter that she knows them (“of course, they’re a classic”).
I did actually know Elbow’s most popular song when I looked them up, knew without looking that they were an English band and still releasing records.
George Best is remembered in Belfast Airport, now George Best Airport, and there are statues of him in Belfast and outside Old Trafford (with Bobby Charlton and Denis Wise).
E.T. hasn’t appeared in the Quick Cryptics before, but it was only a matter of time – crosswordland’s favourite film was inevitably going to turn up. It may be over 40 years old, but there was an Xfinity advertisement reuniting E.T. with Henry Thomas in 2019, and many, many cultural references in between, we see that image of the bike against the moon in different forms regularly, so it’s still a film in the public consciousness.
Some of the joy of cryptic crosswords is learning things – I don’t just use my general knowledge, I look things up and learn about them in passing. Sometimes I even remember or go and find out more as that topic was interesting.
As this is a Grauniad crossword, I just assumed that “band” was a typo for “bend” so elbow made perfect sense.
Loads of fun. SIERRA LEONE is one of those countries that you hear a lot about on the news so that was fairly easy to get, had to check the spelling though. Hadn’t heard of Lyst but just knew it had to be LIST, so a quick search on the net was all it took to find the composer. Massive fan of ELBOW and the lead singer hails from my hometown, so nice to see them appear. Their current single, Adriana Again is a really good rock song to drive to. My favourite: BIDET- one clean behinds? genius
Thanks so much Shanne and Tramp
Thoroughly enjoyed this one. As with several others on this thread i was not familiar with the band Elbow, but it had to be that from the rest of the clue and it doesn’t take long on the www to find out a bit about them. This blog helps beginners learn to recognise the various tricks used by setters but another tip that worked for me was taking a break and going to walk the dog when i was struggling to make sense of a couple of clues!