Guardian Quiptic 1,319/Anto

The editor continues to give Anto the gig for producing Quiptics, and while he has his fan club, commenters here have often indicated that he might not be the best choice for the slot. I fear there will be some ammunition from this offering to give them reason to continue that line of reasoning.

There are, in my opinion, one or two clunky clues here, and a couple more where it took me a considerable time to work out the parsing. As a bonus, there is a grammatical howler of the worst order, which in a product which ultimately relies on preciseness of language, and is consumed by those who care about usage, is annoying.

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 Irishman joins church for spiritual event
SEANCE
A charade of SEAN, for a typical Irishman, and CE.

4 One charging conservative customer on account
ACCUSER
A charade of AC for ‘account’, C and USER.

9 Ship in colony worker – it’s vital
IMPORTANT
A charade of IMPORT and ANT.

10 It secures request for silence on field
LEASH
A charade of LEA and SH.

11 Vote in favour, blocking honour perhaps
MAYBE
An insertion of AY in MBE. The insertion indicator is ‘blocking’.

12 Seated her awkwardly where there’s a lot of water
THE RED SEA
(SEATED HER)* with ‘awkwardly’ as the anagrind.

13 Copper is more reticent and less demanding
CUSHIER
A charade of CU and SHIER, but the ‘is’ is unaccounted for in the surface reading, which is clunky.

15 King breaking cracked ice is taking a day off work!
SICKIE
An insertion of K in (ICE IS)* The anagrind is ‘cracked’ and the insertion indicator is ‘breaking’.

17 Grumbled when husband leaving only hurt slightly
WINGED
W[H]INGED

19 Hoity-toity food with drink outside
STUCK-UP
An insertion of TUCK in SUP. The insertion indicator is ‘with … outside’.

22 Setter can be silenced but will remain unchanged
IMMUTABLE
A charade of IM and MUTABLE.

24 Root of initial trouble up by East Riding
TUBER
The initial letters of the last five words of the clue.

26 Dog soldier joins military unit without further thought
CORGI
A charade of COR[PS] and GI. PS is for Post Scriptum, the additional ‘thought’ that you might add to the end of a note or letter.

27 Separated when tripping
SPACED OUT
A dd. The second reference is to drug taking. The colours, man, the colours …

28 My container for flower shows great skill
MASTERY
An insertion of ASTER in MY. The insertion indicator is ‘container for’.

29 Consignee’s sales hold back description of unwarranted items
AS SEEN
Hidden reversed in ConsigNEES SAles.

Down

1 Reported volume on speaking equipment is very shaky!
SEISMIC
A charade of SEIS, aural wordplay (‘reported’) for SIZE and MIC.

2 Play ground accommodates quiet exercise
APPLY
An insertion of P for the musically ‘quiet’ in (PLAY)* The anagrind is ‘ground’ and the insertion indicator is ‘accommodates’. Playground is one word in this house, and all the dictionaries that are kept in it; the clue would still work if it were written as such.

3 Kind to embrace darling getting reprimand
CARPETING
An insertion of PET in CARING. The insertion indicator is ‘to embrace’.

4 She has part in current version of Hair
ACTRESS
A charade of AC for Alternating Current and TRESS.

5 Break off to deliver source of veal
CALVE
A dd. The first reference is to icebergs, the second to a cow giving birth.

6 Attacks credit as a silly activity
SLAPSTICK
A charade of SLAPS and TICK.

7 Alternative theatre, first time out, to produce warmed up fare
REHEAT
([T]HEATRE)* with ‘alternative’ as the anagrind.

8 Prohibit short-term teasing
BANTER
A charade of BAN and TER[M].

14 Evidence of accident near waste disposal area
SKIDMARKS
A cd. SKIDMARKS are the long stains left on underwear as a consequence of not having wiped your arse properly after defecating.

16 Being so numerous won’t matter so much
COUNTLESS
A dd, with the need to separate the second element into COUNT LESS.

18 Composer badly used by son
DEBUSSY
(USED BY S)* with ‘badly’ as the anagrind.

19 Notice spotted showing what children can play with
SEE-SAW
A charade of SEE and SAW.

20 Joke about woman, strictly religious
PURITAN
An insertion of RITA in PUN. The insertion indicator is ‘about’.

21 Busier sketches becoming central for funny show
SITCOM
A charade of the central letters of buSIer, skeTChes and becOMing.

23 People find bone in empty temple
TRIBE
An insertion of RIB in TE for the outside letters of ‘temple’.

25 Life with me is it’s own little world
BIOME
A charade of BIO and ME. ‘It’s’ should of course be ‘its’ and is the sort of error you would make when you’re in Year 5, not when you’re a crossword compiler. Yes, editors and all that, but it’s the setter who’s written it in the first place.

Many thanks to Anto for this week’s Quiptic challenge.

53 comments on “Guardian Quiptic 1,319/Anto”

  1. Thanks Pierre, and for telling it like it is, especially the blunders and the wordplay for SKIDMARKS.
    SKIDMARKS I saw as a double def, one straight, evidence of accident and the other the whole clue.
    The grid could contribute to difficulty if you get stuck in one of the quadrants.

    My pick was IMMUTABLE, and I liked that perhaps defined MAYBE for once. Nice bit of misdirection initially looking for all the usual tricks that perhaps gets up to.

  2. A good challenge, quite tricky in parts. Perhaps more like a Cryptic than a Quiptic. Isn’t it the Editor’s job to determine which puzzles are appropriate for the Quiptic slot? Does the Editor sort puzzles into categories or does he just let setters do whatever they want, errors and all?

    I could not parse the ‘near waste disposal area’ bit of 14d. I never heard of that usage and was that necessary?

    Favourite: CORGI.

    New for me: CALVE – break off; WINGED = wounded (someone) superficially.

  3. I agree with Pierre’s preamble and, however much I enjoy Anto as a setter, remain unconvinced that he’s the best fit for the Quiptic slot. I must admit, seeing it was Anto’s name this morning, my first thought was: good, I don’t have to blog him next week.

    I thought the description of SKIDMARKS in the blog was a tad brutal, getting caught short can also be a cause (IBS).

    Bottom left, SW corner, was slowest in for me, and although all in and parsed, I’m solving some of the weekday Cryptics in this sort of time (Brockwell, Brendan and Vulcan last week).

    Thank you to Pierre and Anto.

  4. Anto’s standard mix of passable clues and rubbish. The word ‘central’, for example, does not provide the solver with any instruction to take the middle letters, unless we’re going to reduce wordplay to adjacency rather than logic. Unfortunately the Guardian’s ‘editor’ seems to approve of this approach. Not a good Quiptic to engage newer solvers or demonstrate the art, and wouldn’t have been a good cryptic. How sad that this is where the Guardian’s fallen to.

    Thank you to Pierre for getting through this.

    PS. I am no prude but SKIDMARKS was a particularly disgusting image on a Sunday morning.

  5. I knew this was an Anto without looking, as I felt mildly irritated throughout. I can’t quite put my finger on why, other than it feeling loose and somewhat contrived.

  6. I disagree with Pierre and thought this was a very straightforward Quiptic with SITCOM and SKIDMARKS being my favourite. BIOME was the only clue which caused me an issue.

    Ta Anto and Pierre.

  7. Michelle@2 , Shanne@4 and Crickets@5. I don’t really want to give Anto’s clue SKIDMARKS much more air time, but I do believe it is a ”bloke thing” mainly. I haven’t heard women say it, although they may do in a family situation.

    In defence of Pierre’s blog, I think that is the meaning that Anto intended, and how I’ve heard boys or young men use the word, usually about themselves, perhaps with a little embarrassed humour. Maybe they do rib other boys in the schoolyard, I don’t know. I doubt that anyone connected with a person who suffers IBS or anything similar, either family or professional, would use the word. There are a lot of words that are offensive to me to me in crosswords, especially as a female solver. This one may be coarse, and I didn’t like it in my crossword zone, but I don’t think it’s denigrating anyone.

  8. I liked CORGI, WINGED, COUNTLESS and SLAPSTICK. I agree with Pierre that ‘playground’ as one word would have worked better in the clue for APPLY, but perhaps that would be more Cryptic than Quiptic? The error in the clue for BIOME was unfortunate.

    Thanks to Pierre and Anto.

  9. I surprised myself by finishing this, albeit by my guess and check method, though I did see much of the parsing. I read SKIDMARKS as referring to tyre marks on roads but the other meaning has to be there to justify ‘waste disposal area’. I have severe IBS but wasn’t bothered by it at all. I’m always so pleased to have the right answer that I don’t take offence at anything much!

  10. bibs@11. There have been comments on the Guardian site this week regarding numerous problems, including with printing. I don’t have those problems, as I’ve never uploaded any of the apps and I still use the old format by going through the Guardian main site to get to the crosswords.

    The print option for Anto’s puzzle is https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/quiptic/1319/print

  11. I found this quite a struggle for a quiptic, I expect some chewier clues in this category but also a sprinkle of quick gets to get established on the grid, and this one seemed to lack the latter for me. Thanks for the blog Pierre.

  12. I have tried a few different devices and browsers and the Printable version link is definitely missing. The Everyman and some crosswords have the PDF option but not the Quiptic as I guess it’s digital only.
    Thank you Dave@13 and Paddy@15 for your responses with the URL workaround.

  13. [Re 14d: unfortunately, at present there is a film on telly starring Richard Widmark, and I’m finding it hard to watch without unpleasant associations.]

  14. I don’t get the explanation
    for 17d. “Grumbled when husband left” WHINGED to WINGED makes sense, and I got that, but “winged” IMO is not same as “only hurt slightly”. To me, “winged” is possessing wings or muddled through.

    I found this a tad difficult for quiptic overall.

    Thanks Pierre and Anto.

  15. AR@19. From Onelook. WING verb: (transitive) To injure slightly (as with a gunshot), especially in the wing or arm.

  16. Still classing myself as a beginner having taken the plunge since quick cryptic #1.
    I guess that means i’m too new to have much of an opinion on setters.
    I enjoyed this puzzle set by Anton, took me two Latte machiato’s (i’m a sipper) and was pleased to have solved all without too much staining.
    I thouroughly enjoyed a number of clues, Sitcom, Biome, Apply, countless and yes, also Skidmark – as a long time chronic sufferer of UC i have to say this didn’t bother me in the least. Evidence of accidents was without thinking, skidmarks. I only cottoned onto the full cleverness of the clue when going back over the answers after solving – personally thought it to be rather amusing.
    Having been many years away from England the inclusion of Sickie as a now dictionary defined word shows how old fashioned and out of date my own language use has become – still, caused a chuckle.
    Thanks Anton for a great Quiptic, thouroughly enjoyable. Thanks all for the insights.

  17. For me this sat within the cryptic rather than quiptic category. That was my main quibble really, as it was another one of those which I found fairly enjoyable once I approached it as a cryptic. Regarding the already-notorious SKIDMARKS, I was perhaps being overly generous in seeing some ambiguity between the parsing given, and that of a car having skidded (as per Amma@12).

  18. Like a few others here, I actually thought this was relatively straightforward, which is odd because I usually struggle with Anto’s crosswords. Everything went in easily and only the “without further thought” part of COR[PS] went unparsed for me. Maybe going a run this morning sharpened me up. I don’t fancy having to do that for every crossword!

  19. Hi. I’m new to crosswords and this one was harder than most. Being peeved about the apostrophe held me back a bit. For 13a I had ‘cushion’ but can see cushier is better. Only, for me, the comparative of ‘shy’ is ‘shyer’ with a ‘y’. Maybe it’s US En. Thank you Anto and Pierre.

  20. Concerning possibly not having the print option for Quiptics appearing on the website, as some have noted above, it seems that in the last two weeks, there are now two displays possible for the Guardian puzzles, a new format that may appear immediately on being posted at 00:00 GMT, with the usual one with which we are more familiar appearing relatively soon after. In the new display, the ability to print option, from a .pdf, is offered for all the puzzles except for the Quiptic. In the more usual one, the print option is clearly shown as it has been in the past.

    Does anyone know why this is occurring? Is it perhaps a test by the Guardian to change the display format? If so, why does only the Quiptic not offer the .pdf option from which the puzzle can be printed?

  21. I could have done without that meaning of SKIDMARKS (which I agree does seem to be a bloke-y thing). On the other hand, I didn’t even notice the issues with BIOME and APPLY that have produced such howls of disapproval : I do wonder whether writing Play ground as two words was done in order to avoid a “too difficult” lift-and-separate of a single word. I also notice that for MASTERY Anto has used a literal “my” as the container, rather than disguising it as “setter’s” or “wow” as a cryptic setter might. Some of the anagrams (REHEAT and THE RED SEA) were ridiculously simple. But I don’t think the attempt to dial down the difficulty works: Anto doesn’t really suit the Quiptic level (especially since they have been getting easier) and I wish they wouldn’t keep putting him there.

    Anyway, I enjoyed most of this (nice to see the politically incorrect ACTRESS) and I’m very glad to be spared all the issues with the new crossword format at the Guardian (now there is a cause for howls of disapproval). Like paddymelon@15, I do my crosswords on the main Guardian website and have had no problems – so far, fingers crossed.

  22. That took me quite a bit longer than the Everyman, but I think it was fairly clued.
    Despite the twitching the errant apostrophe in 25d caused me, in slight defence of Anto I’m sure I’m not the only person who has found my iDevice has chosen to “autocorrect” a perfectly correct its (I typed that without the apostrophe and had to remove the one my tablet added just to prove it was still doing it) to it’s.
    When I finally got 14d I did quickly check that Paul hadn’t set this.

  23. Hello HS @26. Is this your first comment? If so, welcome. I too looked twice at SHIER, and would always, like you, write SHYER. But dictionaries support both spellings and none of mine marked the second one as AmEng. So just an alternative spelling to give the setter something to work with.

  24. Eoink@29: I too wondered if Autocockup had got it’s (sic) annoying paws on that clue, it seems to be fond of apostrophes and constantly “corrects” valid words without them (were to we’re is my particular bugbear).

  25. Thanks to Pierre and Anto for today’s quiptic. I would say that as far as quiptics go I was happy enough with this offering. Anto has definitely left me feeling much more confused in previous instances so I may be grading on a curve but overall I found it enjoyable.

    My favourite was probably Stuck-up, just for the fun combination of food and drink.

    For my own learning, I know the clue was discernible from the number of letters available in the answer, but when reading 17A is there anything to indicate that only hurt slightly was the definition rather than grumbled?

  26. This was perhaps a notch above quiptic level, as others have noted. Took me a while to get a foothold but then answers fell into place fairly quickly. Slightly hurt that I didn’t get “WINGED” (whinge is not a common word for this yankee). All I could come up with was ”dinged”, which of course did not parse. Missed the typo in 25D, so was not put off by “it’s” presence. 🙂

  27. I don’t think the cryptic grammar of 16dn works, particularly the word “won’t”. The phrase “won’t matter so much” is equivalent to “will count less” but not to “count less”. Unfortunately, the ways to fix the cryptic reading (e.g., replacing “won’t” with “don’t”) ruin the grammar of the surface.

  28. As a somewhat new solver, I enjoyed this puzzle and thought it fair for a Quiptic — had to take a break and return to the SW corner before finishing. While I agree with the solver’s quibbles (particularly play/ground!) I do feel we can also be overly harsh on the setters who seem to me to have a tough job and audience!

  29. Bit harsh, Pierre.
    I consider myself pretty awful at these things, but it wasn’t so bad.
    Can’t understand the problem with play ground . Surely ground is the anagrind and it accommodates and extra P giving you – apply

  30. My problem with play ground in the surface of 2dn, Getting there, is that to make sense of it, it must refer to the children’s recreation area, which is a playground, not a play ground. The clue would work perfectly well if it were written correctly, since the solver can perform what some people call a ‘lift and separate’ operation on the word, resulting in ‘play, ground’, which gives you the anagram fodder and anagrind. The surface as it appears makes no sense.

    Harsh? I have been harsher about Anto’s puzzles.

  31. I enjoyed this puzzle, which I found to be of a similar level of difficulty to today’s Everyman.
    I wasn’t bothered by the typo, let he who is without sin…

  32. I have never struggled so much with a crossword and yet managed to complete it. So, it was very satisfying. All clues are clever and fair if I’m able to solve them. I’m very pleased that several people consider it more of a cryptic.
    When I saw Skidmarks I thought “Oh dear, that’s going to provoke conniptions and the vapours.” I’m a 61 year-old, non-blokey male, and the term has been in common parlance, (in my opinion) for as long as I can remember. It’s clearly vulgar, but offensive?
    To continue the upset, Skidmarks refers to the marks left on the toilet bowl, as well as to the product of inadequate wiping.

  33. I actually thought it was a really good puzzle (a few clunky clues aside). Not a Quiptic in my book, with tricky definitions and some complex wordplay, but would have been a good Monday puzzle. For what it’s worth I solved the Sunday Times prize quicker than this today.

    I assumed play ground had been seperated to make it easier for newer solvers but it did ruin the surface. However, short-term appears elsewhere (do you call it a ‘lift and seperate’ when you need to split the word?) so maybe it is an error. It is the Gruaniad though.

    Liked SKIDMARKS (although would prefer I wasn’t having my tea), ACTRESS, REHEAT, SEE-SAW and a fair few others.

    I really enjoyed that, not sure if newer solvers would concur though. I agree with Pierre’s points even if they didn’t dampen my enjoyment.

    Thanks, Pierre and Anto

  34. I’m still fairly new to all this. I found the puzzle a challenge and – sadly – found many of the explanations here a similar challenge. I prefer the more detailed explanations of the solutions provided by others, as I find the spoonfeeding helpful.

  35. Have never understood all the complaints about Anto. Personally I would rather do ten of his than one of those that are forensically clued but which are also humourless, wilfully arcane or tediously wordy. Some setters manage to be all three! That said, this might not have been his finest work (although I doubt the apostrophe which garnered such approbrium was his) but I think the quiptic is quite a tough gig and this mostly hit the spot.

  36. Difficult but occasionally enjoyable. SKIDMARKS last one in and its wordplay felt unnecessarily scatalogical for a Sunday morning puzzle although it was almost Monday morning before I finished it LOL. Thanks both.

  37. Perhaps it’s slightly too hard but I found it an enjoyable challenge and not requiring of quite so much criticism.

  38. JT@17. I entirely agree with your point about Setters providing enough none-too-difficult clues to be able to get a start into the puzzle. Applies to Cryptics too but even more necessary for Quiptics.

  39. Pete @42 — Anto’s first couple of outings were quite dreadful, full of clues that just didn’t work. Some of us have highly retentive memories, and I suspect that that explains a large part of the anti-Anto sentiment. Personally, I find that he’s less to my taste than some other setters, but I agree that he gets more negative comments than he deserves these days.

  40. M@47 AI says: In the UK, “tick” means credit because it’s a shortened version of “ticket,” and historically, when someone bought something “on tick,” it meant they were essentially buying it on a temporary “ticket” with the understanding that they would pay for it later, essentially buying on credit; this usage is considered old-fashioned but still understood in British English

    Ted@46 I’m not sure the clues didn’t work – I think maybe solvers just didn’t understand, or like, how they did work. Anto’s a setter who can’t see an envelope without wanting to push it 🙂

    Good cryptic but took me twice as long as usual for a Quiptic

    Cheers P&A

  41. I am a relatively new solver – I can generally get all the answers but I can’t always parse them. I judge a setter by whether the parsing, once I am given it here, elicits a “meh” or an “ah, clever”. With this one there was a lot of “meh”.

  42. Well it took me three evenings but I got there in the end (didn’t start till Monday night). Found it a bit of a struggle but just kept plodding away at it and it slowly fell into place. Must say I rather enjoyed it with a lot of ah ha moments over the course of the three nights as clues fell into place one by one but a bit of that is probably down to solving it even at my sloth like pace.
    Last ones in were 11A and 2D neither of which I could parse so both were ‘educated guesses’ and got away with both. Was on the right lines with 11A but 2D I couldn’t figure out at all so thanks for the explanations for those and also for 14D which I couldn’t get the second half of.

  43. Took me until this morning to get there, hence v late comment. Violently difficult for the premise – but I didn’t find much to complain about clue wise (apart from the apostrophe). I find the expressed disgust at SKIDMARKS in these comments a bit overblown and prudish… Actually a decent clue, whether cryptic or double def!

    Ta Pierre!

  44. If it’s not too late to comment, I just finished this one today, albeit with quite a bit of dictionary searching. Pleased to complete it but quite the challenge, as expected from Anto. Started off at a nice pace with SEANCE, but got bogged down in the top right corner. That misdirection with perhaps for MAYBE was pretty sneaky, but I always wondered whether setters ever use it as the definition rather than the device, so was on the lookout. Favourite ones were IMMUTABLE, SPACED OUT, and SLAPSTICK. Thanks Anto and Pierre!

  45. Sakenotabibito @52 I only finished this today, having discovered yesterday that I’d barely started it on the 2nd.

    @Pierre I’m glad that playground was two words, as I find Anto to be the only Quiptic setter I still sometimes DNF and therefore welcome a bone. However, this time round I didn’t find the going too tough, despite the sentiment in the comments here.

    IMMUTABLE was my favourite, whereas my last one in I only got by seeing all the sniggering/tutting about the scatologicalness in the Grauniad comments.

  46. We quite like Anto now that we’ve got used to them. Someone commented that the clues were contrived – to me, they are much more fluent than some others, which sometimes look like a string of ideas forced together to give the desired answer, without having what looks like an overall plausible interpretation.

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