Thank you to Harpo. Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Across
1. Maybe a piece in the Guardian (7)
ARTICLE : Double defn: 1st: An example of which/maybe is “a”; and 2nd: … newspaper.
5. Big town mostly protected by historic royal account (7)
RECITAL : “city”(a big town) minus its last letter(mostly) contained in(protected by) REAL(the Spanish coin, whose name is derived from the Spanish for “royal”).
I also thought of “real”/”royal” as synonyms as in “a real/royal pain in the arse”, but one is not derived from the other.
Answer: An account/enumeration of connected items, like events.
9. Deplorably, a pro laughs at pinching Tramp’s memorabilia collections (9,6)
AUTOGRAPH ALBUMS : Anagram of(Deplorably) A PRO LAUGHS AT containing(pinching) BUM(a tramp/homeless person).
10. Partly cauterised organs (5)
UTERI : Hidden in(Partly) “cauterised”.
11. Specific tautological statement, nothing more to discuss (5,4)
THAT’S THAT : Contraction of “That is That”(literally, “a specific thing is a specific thing” – a tautology).
12. Cynthia liberally feeds borders of herbaceous plants (9)
HYACINTHS : Anagram of(… liberally) CYNTHIA contained in(feeds) 1st and last letters of(borders of) “herbaceous”.
14. Dance in two circles? (5)
DISCO : DISC(a flat and thin circular object) + O(letter shaped like a circle) – two circles.
15. Musical arrangement nowhere near interesting enough initially (5)
ANNIE : 1st letters, respectively, of(… initially) “arrangement nowhere near interesting enough”.
Answer: A stage and screen musical.
16. Spy hints for shifting 50 tiny things (9)
MOLECULES : MOLE(a spy planted in a country’s security agencies) + CLUES(hints for/tips on) with L(Roman numeral for 50) moved(shifting …).
18. What could be stuffing heroin, top-notch, inside empty holder (9)
HORSEHAIR : HORSE(slang for the drug, heroin) + [ AI(A1/top notch with the Roman numeral substitution) contained in(inside) 1st and last letters of(empty) “holder” ].
Answer: Material that could be used as stuffing/padding for furniture.
21. Black market consumes bachelor (5)
SABLE : SALE(an event for the sale of goods/a market) containing(consumes) B(abbrev. for “bachelor”).
22. Play both sides of early Corrs demo for a broadcast (1,6,2,6)
A COMEDY OF ERRORS : Anagram of(… broadcast) [1st and last letters of(both sides of) “early” + CORRS DEMO FOR A ].
Answer: A Shakespearean play.
23. Legislator in defence association cutting first half of speech (7)
SENATOR : NATO(abbrev. for the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, a defence association of member countries) contained in(cutting) 1st 3 of 6 letters of (first half of) “sermon”(a lecture/speech).
24. Crime from boy after beverage round back of bar (7)
TREASON : SON(informal term used to address a boy) placed after(after) [ TEA(a beverage) containing(round) last letter of(back of) “bar” ].
Down
1. With difficulty, cheers up, a hot drink having been knocked over (2,1,4)
AT A PUSH : Reversal of(… up, in a down clue) TA!(“Thank you!”/cheers!) + A + reversal of(… having been knocked over) [ H(abbrev. for “hot”) + SUP(sip/a small quantity of liquid drunk) ].
2. Awfully abhorrent men not naturally suited to something (2,3,6,4)
TO THE MANNER BORN : Anagram of(Awfully) ABHORRENT MEN NOT.
3. Clubs give in to spreading of knowledge acquisition (9)
COGNITIVE : C(abbrev. for the suit, “clubs” in a deck of playing cards) + anagram of(… spreading) GIVE IN TO.
4. Force through former law (5)
EXACT : EX-(prefix denoting “former”/once) ACT(a written law).
Answer: To demand and obtain/to compel.
5. Tries to block genuine practice run (9)
REHEARSAL : HEARS(tries a case in a court of law) contained in(to block) REAL(genuine/not fictional).
6. Pronunciation of ‘betrays’ in Chambers (5)
CELLS : Homophone of(Pronunciation of) “sells”(betrays someone for one’s benefit/tell on).
7. Robust firm, American, made acceptable car components (5,2,3,5)
TOUGH AS OLD BOOTS : TOUGH(firm/robust) + A(abbrev. for “American”) + SOLD(persuaded someone of the merits of something/made something acceptable to someone) + BOOTS(car components, in particular, the enclosed space at the back).
8. African kingdom’s extremely large lush house (7)
LESOTHO : 1st and last letters of(extremely) “large” + SOT(a drunkard/a lush) + HO(abbrev. for “house”).
13. Out-of-line solicitor perhaps holding up Cats novel (3,6)
TOM SAWYER : “lawyer”(a member of the legal profession, an example of which/perhaps is a solicitor) minus(Out-of-) “l”(abbrev. for “line”) placed below(holding up, in a down clue) TOMS(male cats).
Answer: … or, in full, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain.
14. Do sad sucker, unfortunately (5,4)
DUCK’S ARSE : Anagram of(…, unfortunately) SAD SUCKER.
Answer: A hairdo.
15. Hindu retreats from animals under tree (7)
ASHRAMS : RAMS(animals, in this case, male sheep) placed below(under, in a down clue) ASH(a variety of trees).
17. Crushes young relative (7)
STEPSON : [STEPS ON](crushes/presses on with the foot).
19. Dismiss defective item with missing cap (5)
EJECT : “reject”(a defective item that is gotten rid of) minus(with missing) its 1st letter(cap, in a down clue).
20. Vacuous roommate qualifying for makeover (5)
REFIT : Inner letters deleted from(Vacuous) “roommate” + FIT(qualifying/of a suitable quality or standard).
The two solutions at 1 and 5a, then again at 23 and 24a, are anagrams of each other..
New for me: DUCK’S ARSE hairstyle.
Balfour@1 – thanks for pointing that out about the anagrams.
The hairstyle is more often seen as the abbreviation DA.
I liked THATS THAT, a somewhat unusual clue. Realise that I didn’t parse SENATOR; speech gives too many synonyms for me to spend the time working out which one needs to be cut in half. Thanks for the blog scchua and thanks for the puzzle Harpo.
RECITAL
I find in some dictionaries that ‘royal’ means ‘a coin of various kinds’.
‘Historic royal’ could mean ‘a coin not in use now’.
Not too easy, I thought. After a mild upper half I got somewhat stuck down below, even with some anagrams. NHO DUCKS ARSE, TOUGH AS OLD BOOTS or TO THE MANNER BORN (though the latter is easily derived from crossings). Live and learn…
Am I alone in thinking this is way too hard for a Quiptic?
I thought it was To The Manor Born based on the Penelope Keith sitcom, so that was a TILT. Trickier than the usual Quiptic, I thought there were some excellent clues including TOUGH AS OLD BOOTS and A COMEDY OF ERRORS.
Ta Harpo & scchua.
delaberi @7
No, you’re not.
Sorry. Didn’t enjoy it. Got there in the end but only because we’re doing it on an iPad and “check” leaves correct letters in when checking a wrong answer! A bit demotivating for me, I’m afraid.
I agree, trickier than the usual quiptic, maybe due to the number of long anagrams. But nicely clued and very enjoyable.
I liked TO THE MANNER BORN (nice surface) which is from Hamlet, making the sitcom’s title a clever adaption. Ticks also for COMEDY OF ERRORS, MOLECULES, LESOTHO and THAT’S THAT.
I didn’t parse SENATOR.
Thanks to Harpo and scchua.
Definitely more complex than the usual Quiptic fare for me. I think SENATOR in particular was slightly too many hoops to jump through for this particular type of puzzle (though it went in with the crossers, unparsed)
ASHRAMS also slightly obnoxious by the number of animals that can fit in _A_S when you don’t know the word itself, so very much a guess-and-check until it’s correct sort of situation, rather than an “a-ha!”
Still, got there in the end. Thanks Harpo and scchua
What. A. Mess.
This is meant to be a quiptic. There isn’t a prize for unseating the beginners and making the more experienced solvers take more time.
-Overcomplicated syntax at times in TREASON, A COMEDY OF ERRORS, TOM SAWYER, AT A PUSH.
-Vague and stretchy definitions aplenty. ‘Novel’ in 13d, ‘Do’ in 14d. SOLD in 7d, AUTOGRAPH ALBUMS, DISCO, SALE and half of SERMON are all not particularly accurate.
-Relatively esoteric terms like lush for SOT, TOUGH AS OLD BOOTS, ASHRAMS, DUCKS ARSE (I incredulously fluked this as a joke), REAL to mean old royal (I thought royal as in Real Madrid? Another fluke).
Nothing wrong with some of these constructions per se, but the intersection of these difficulties meant this was the worst-pitched quiptic in a while. Thanks to scchua for elucidating.
Agree very much that this was way too complex for a Quiptic. This category used to be fairly reliable but over the last couple of months or so they’ve been all over the place. Thank you for the today much needed explanations scchua.
Here in the ’50s, a “duck’s bum” was a (chav-ish) blokes’ do with combed-back sides meeting at the back.
There is nothing historic about “real” in Spanish as it is simply the translation of “royal.” To bring the name of a coin for the justification of the clue only indicates how convoluted the clue was. In a quiptic the clue should have ended with “Spanish royal account”, not “historic royal account.”
The crossword was a mixed bag imho. However, I still enjoyed it.
The hairdo was very popular back in the early Sixties, if not before. It was referred to as a DA.
Thanks to Harpo and scchua.
Least enjoyable Quiptic for a long time! Far too many reveals needed to get through this one and too often needed scchua’s help to understand the clue even after seeing the answer. If this is what ‘real’ cryptic puzzles are like, I’m not sure I want to go there!
I’d spotted the anagrams that Balfour @1 mentioned. I was flying along on this until I wasn’t. Overall, it seemed quite tricky. Didn’t we have a LESOTHO reference very recently? Neo had one in the FT last month but I thought there was one in the last week. Anyway, I quite enjoyed this and it was easy enough to get a foothold. I’ll leave debates about appropriateness to others.
Thanks Harpo and scchua
“Old royal” as in Real Tennis? I did get that, but it’s rather difficult for a Quiptic. I’m another one who thought this would have been better as a Cryptic (though having seen Harpo’s Cryptics I am willing to believe that he has reduced the difficulty from his usual level).
This was an enjoyable enough puzzle in itself, but I too felt it was more Monday fare than Quiptic; I can’t find much to argue with in what Tachi@13 says (and I too bunged in DUCKS ARSE as a joke… I’ve seen the Do trick before but alas it didn’t register).
Tx to SueM48@11 for elucidating the origin of TO THE MANNER BORN. I’m another who didn’t realise that the sitcom’s title was a nice pun on an existing set phrase.
If REAL really is coin via royal then that is pretty obscure; is there any reason why the real has to be appropriate choice, or might any coin of any country at any point in history have done? I got it from the R and L checkers and the knowledge that the real is both the Spanish translation of royal and the currency of Brasil, rather than knowing that it’s a historical Spanish coin, and I suspect many others did the same…. not very satisfying really.
That’s not to say it wasn’t pleasant though. A COMEDY OF ERRORS, in particular, was excellent. And congrats ti those who spotted the anagrams in the top and bottom rows.
Thanks both
Another Sunday, another set of disappointed ‘beginners and people in a hurry’. As I’m neither, I enjoyed this but the Editor really has had long enough to get a grip on these Quiptics. The Quick cryptic is a good idea but then, according to the crossword the editor selects, it can be a massive leap for new solvers to move onto Quiptics. In all honesty, the standards are all over the place in the week as well.
Dave F @22
Speaking as a novice solver you have nailed my feelings on the general standard of difficulty re: the Quiptics. I am one of those who started out with Quick Cryptic and find those pretty easy most of the time (I did get caught out on a couple of clues yesterday) but the step up required to even get half way through a ‘regular’ Quiptic is just ridiculous. Barring last week where I managed to complete over half the grid and successfully parsed most of clues to boot they are just a source of unrelenting frustration for me. This week I managed two answers before just giving up and looking through the explanations above I am glad I did since it just reinforces my thought of sacking off the Quiptic just stop it ruining my Sunday.
As for the Editor – the less said the better…
Most of my comments have already been covered. Let me add I too was slowed by several unfamiliar words and expressions. I ticked TO THE MANNER BORN and DISCO. I would have ticked STEPSON but for “younger”, a superfluous and incorrect word. Older people are still stepsons.
Thanks Harpo and scchua
As experienced solvers we struggled with this, so whatever did beginners/improvers make of it? Not much, judging by some of the comments above!
Martyn @24: I think the setter was thinking that a stepson is necessarily younger than the person in question to whom the relation refers. But unfortunately it is possible to have a STEPSON who is older than you. (If, for example, you are a trophy wife.)
I agree with the general tenor of the comments that this was too hard for its slot, but I found it a good puzzle all the same. I did appreciate the top and bottom anagram pairs; when I saw TREASON clued without any reference to a SENATOR for a change, I was clued in to what was going on.
I also think Felipe VI would resent “historic royal.”
That’s right mrpenny@24. I did not wrote it, but a STEPSON can also be younger than the step father/mother.
I’ve given up expecting the Quiptic to be approachable for beginners – it varies in difficulty so much. I’ve had more luck with the Everyman on Sundays.
Amma @28
I do enjoy the Everyman and I usually do OK on it (didn’t solve last weeks but the two or three prior to that I completed) so it makes me think I can actually be reasonably proficient at solving cryptic crosswords given time. My reasons for thinking that:
1. It has the same setter every week so the cluing tends to be consistent.
2. It has its features such as a pair of rhyming answers, something geography based etc. That doesn’t sound like much but it can be of huge assistance at times and can keep you going forward when all else fails.
3. You don’t have the option to Reveal All etc or have the comments underneath so you are on your own and I think you grind away that bit more as a result (I know I do)*. Again it’s not much but the comments tend to be along the lines of “well that was a write-in” or “this is way too difficult” which don’t really help if you are struggling**.
4. Not sure about this (it could be a combination of the above) but you just seems to get a few easier clues that are easier to solve and that gives you that little more of an ‘in’ to try and solve the rest of the clues.
All little things but they add up
*Yes I should ignore the comments but it’s not easy.
**Yes I am aware of the huge amount of irony in posting about comments in a comment…
OK, that was a complete stinker and way beyond me. With Quiptics I expect, so to speak, one or possibly two layers of cryptic, but the real cryptics (like this one) rely on being able to solve three layers, or three puzzles, in one clue / answer. I can’t do that yet which is why I don’t try the cryptics. This shouldn’t have been in this slot.
VLazarus C @29. I like your comments 😀 and they make a lot of sense.
LazarusChurchyard@29 – I also quite like going it alone now and then without check and reveal buttons. It does make me persevere. However, when I’ve exhausted all possibiliites of finding an answer, I just Google the clue. Dan’s Word seems to have solutions for any crossword clue! With a bit of help, I can usually complete the Everyman, well for the month or so I’ve been doing it.
Having not been able to get to this yesterday I thought to myself “I’ll just quickly knock off yesterday’s Quiptic before starting on the Monday puzzle”. How wrong I was! I agree with those saying “too hard for Quiptic”, I’ve seen plenty of easier midweek cryptics.
Having said that, in itself this was a most enjoyable puzzle with some great long anagrams. I suspect we can, as so often, blame the Graun editors for its apparent misplacement.
Thanks Harpo and scchua.
This was horrendous. I got one clue and six sundry letters. Some weeks I finish this crossword! Even after revealing some of the answers I still didn’t get the clues…
Even after this blog I’m not convinced!
What’s that ‘blocks’ in 5D about?
And a boot is not a component of a car. It’s empty space. (Yes, I know…)
I thought this was quite a good Quiptic, but only once I’d struggled through it! I had grave difficulty getting onto the setter’s wavelength and nearly gave up once or twice. Worth persevering, though. MOLECULES was especially devious/clever, I thought. Thanks Harpo and scchua.
James @35: I read boots as slang for tyres. Maybe it’s a generational thing?
Did anyone else notice the pun on Pinched tramps referring to the pinched bum in 9a?
Finished! Didn’t think I was going to, but suddenly the last two hit me. I found this very difficult, and really didn’t understand a few until I read this blog. So thank you!
I did not know “duck’s arse” was a real thing – I put it in and pressed the “check” button and was stunned to find it was correct.
I read through the clues and then did not even try to do the crossword.
Took a number of visits over the last 3 days and although it was really hard there was a lot to like. It definitely was not a Quiptic though. Thanks Harpo and Scchua for the explanations.
I’ve been doing the Quiptic and the Everyman for a while now and this was definitely one of the hardest I’ve encountered. There were quite a few archaic terms I’d never heard of before – it’s always enjoyable picking up one or two over the course of a Quiptic, but this felt excessive. Also, I know a lot of people enjoyed the clue, but isn’t the play called “*THE* COMEDY OF ERRORS”? I misremembered it as well but double checked it afterwards and I can’t find a reference to “A COMEDY OF ERRORS” anywhere – bit of a Mandela effect perhaps?
James @34
Do you mean that the puzzle is horrendous or were you referring to your abilities?
I felt very disapointed and dejected by this puzzle for all of the reasons others have mentioned, vague synonyms, real = royal = coin, complicated anagrams, niche hairstyles. As an improver (I can do the Quicks pretty quickly most weeks) I’ve been enjoying using the Quiptics to practice against different setter’s styles and look forward to each Sunday. I can see that having a few of theses sorts of clues is a helpful bridge to the full cryptics and I really welcome that, but (with the exception of Annie) this felt like nothing but complex clues.
I just came to this site to get the solutions to 30% of the puzzle! Like AliciaF I look forward to the Quiptic and it’s range of styles. Usually 3 sessions and I finish by Tuesday. I’m going on to Vulcans Monday with a sense of relief….(most other Cryptic setters are beyond my present skill or not on my wavelength). Could not the Editor have made some of the clues less cryptic here? Anyway onward & upward….
I just came to this site to get the solutions to 30% of the puzzle! Like AliciaF I look forward to the Quiptic and it’s range of styles. Usually 3 sessions and I finish by Tuesday. I’m going on to Vulcans Monday with a sense of relief….(most other Cryptic setters are beyond my present skill or not on my wavelength). Could not the Editor have made some of the clues less cryptic here? Anyway onward & upward….
I agree that this was hard for a Quiptic.
I’m late coming here, but as far as I can tell (unless I’ve missed something in the comments), people are overcomplicating REAL in 5ac. The English word REAL meant “royal” in the past but no longer does so. Hence, “historic royal”. It’s in the OED. Gladys @20 refers to “real tennis”, which is an example of this usage, and the various coins called “reals” are certainly related in origin (most obviously through Spanish), but there’s no need to drag them in.
Had to parse out the anagram for DA (after much fretting and filling in all the crosses) because in the U.S. the. D.A. hairstyle (following American spelling and pronunciation) stands for “Duck’s Ass”.
As for difficulty, I could make out no more than a couple of clues on the first several views, and slowly most of the rest came to light, with maybe three or four nearly (but not in the end) inscrutable.
I think I must have used a couple of uncorrected cross letters from incorrect guesses when using the Check Clue function.