A Quiptic that involved this solver in a bit of pencil-chewing in one or two places, but which fell out nicely in the end.
That pencil-chewing may have been caused by the nina: a hidden message, in this case in the top and bottom rows of the grid. From top right to bottom right, it reads MAKE BOTH ENDS MEET. Generally, this means that there is something else going on in the grid, but I can’t see it myself. I will leave it to others to seek it out, and to comment whether, given the restrictions it places upon the setter, you would necessarily want to have a nina in a crosswords aimed at beginning and improving solvers.
Abbreviations
cd cryptic definition
dd double definition
cad clue as definition
(xxxx)* anagram
anagrind = anagram indicator
[x] letter(s) removed
definitions are underlined
Across
9 Disorderly soldier pursues international resistance
IRREGULAR
A charade of I, R and REGULAR.
10 Additional paintings returned by former partner
EXTRA
A charade of EX and ART reversed. The most common entry in cryptic crosswords, I once read somewhere (here, probably). Probably because nowt else fits E?T?A, and with E, T and A being common letters, this must be a light that setters often have to fill.
11 Social conduct of married princess extremely rigorous
MANNERS
A charade of M, ANNE for Edward Windsor’s big sister and RS for the outside letters of ‘rigorous’.
12 Roped to abandoned wreck
TORPEDO
(ROPED TO)* with ‘abandoned’ as the anagrind.
13 Fake suntan primarily associated with awful actor
SHAM
A charade of S for the initial letter of ‘suntan’ and HAM.
14 Supreme commander in Nato almost back in Miami, a US city
CINCINNATI
A charade of CINC for Commander in Charge, IN, NAT[O] and I for the final letter of ‘Miami’.
15 Latter part of day still boring after halfway mark
EVENING
A charade of EVEN and [BOR]ING.
17 Critics ultimately coming in to sink amateur show
DISPLAY
A charade of S for the final letter of ‘critics’ inserted into DIP and LAY for ‘amateur’. The insertion indicator is ‘coming in to’.
19 Proudly exhibit damn budgie smugglers?
SPORTSWEAR
A charade of SPORT and SWEAR. ‘Budgie smugglers’ is Australian slang for speedos. I’m sure your imagination can do the rest.
22 Gong smothers old instrument
OBOE
An insertion of O in OBE. The insertion indicator is ‘smothers’.
23 Busy month egocentric nails
ON THE GO
Hidden in mONTH EGOcentric.
24 Electrician’s first dodgy tender came in
ENTERED
A charade of E for the initial letter of ‘Electrician’ and (TENDER)* The anagrind is ‘dodgy’.
26 Task husband to cut my coiffure, finally
CHORE
An insertion of H in COR and E for the final letter of ‘coiffure’.
27 Matter-of-fact drunken tramp with trimmed cigar
PRAGMATIC
(TRAMP CIGA[R])* with ‘drunken’ as the anagrind.
Down
1 So, Christmas Eve I prepared a label
HIS MASTERS VOICE
(SO CHRISTMAS EVE I)* with ‘prepared’ as the anagrind. Aka HMV, the label originally featuring the overcute dog.
2 Cut short elephantine part 8 in report
TRUNCATE
Aural wordplay (‘in report’) of TRUNK ATE EIGHT
3 Giant conger-eel regularly picked out
OGRE
The even letters of cOnGeR eEl.
4 Approving British novelist Doris
BLESSING
A charade of B and [Doris] LESSING, the Nobel Prize winning novelist who left school at 13 and was self-educated thereafter.
5 Amorous prof’s heart captured by upright quote
EROTIC
An insertion of RO for the middle letters of ‘prof’ in CITE reversed. The insertion indicator is ‘captured by’ and ‘upright’ works as the reversal indicator because it’s a down clue.
6 What may connect means of opening crucial calls
KEY RINGS
A charade of KEY and RINGS.
7 Goddess passing through Africa then Asia
ATHENA
Hidden in AfricA THEN Asia.
8 Stuff overturning tired victory changed decisive decision
MAJORITY VERDICT
A charade of JAM reversed and (TIRED VICTORY)* with ‘changed’ as the anagrind.
16 Broke entire shell of hard nuts
IN THE RED
(ENTIRE H[AR]D)* The anagrind is ‘nuts’.
17 Stupor consuming one top politician that’s swallowed a tranquillizer
DIAZEPAM
A charade of I inserted into DAZE and A inserted into PM. The two insertion indicators are ‘consuming’ and ‘that’s swallowed’. Tranquilliser is spelt with an S in British English, btw.
18 Free beer 50% of Italians brewed
LIBERATE
(BEER ITAL[IANS])* with ‘brewed’ as the anagrind.
20 Alternative point breaks hearts of spoilt baronets
OPTION
An insertion of PT in OI and ON, the central letters of the last two words in the clue.
21 Rings after start of weekend – my mistake
WHOOPS
A charade of W and HOOPS.
25 Remote partly turned up volume
TOME
Hidden reversed in rEMOTe.
Many thanks to Harpo for this week’s Quiptic.
Thank you Sharon and Pierre.
My favourites were 19A (SPORTSWEAR), 2D (TRUNCATE) and 6D (KEY RINGS).
Often I guessed the answer, with the help of the crossers, but had to think hard to explain why it was the answer.
Not Sharon – Harpo! Thank you, Harpo.
I blame auto-correct.
I have seen a similar R>L then L>R nina used before with this grid in the top and bottom rows. I cannot for the life of me pin it down, however – it must have been 4 years ago at least. There, as I think also here, it derived from the peculiar nature of the grid, where all the across lights begin or end with the two long verticals in columns 1 and 15 but none actually connects them. The nina therefore, I think, just does what it says – i.e. it binds together the ends of both the two long verticals.
Kestrel @2 – autocorrect (I don’t use it) creates some very odd mutations. In an email from one of my sons the other day, his autocorrect had changed ‘Islay malt’ into ‘Islam malt’ …
A good puzzle but too smart for a quiptic I would say. I didn’t get the reverse part of the nina (I read it as TO BE SURE ENDS MEET). [begin rant] I didn’t like “decisive decision” (is it more decisive than, say, unanimous verdict?) or the smugglers, which I couldn’t make sense of. [end rant] There’s definitely a lot to enjoy: I liked IRREGULAR, DIAZEPAM, TRUNCATE, OPTION, BLESSING and of course the nina. Thanks Harpo and Pierre.
Lovely to see Doris Lessing referenced. For those that haven’t seen it, her reaction to winning the Nobel Prize for Literature is a gem: https://youtu.be/vuBODHFBZ8k?si=W0jGJ6OZ6XqWaorV
I found this quite difficult for a Quiptic puzzle and I did not see (or even look for) a nina. I agree that given the restrictions it places upon the setter, I do not expect or want to have a nina in a crossword aimed at beginning and improving solvers.
At first I couldn’t parse the CINC part of 14ac but I then discovered that it refers to a Commander in Chief. No big surprise as I am generally inept at all of the military references that many setters love to include in their puzzles.
New for me: DIAZEPAM = tranqulliser.
Like Layman @4 I also spotted TO BE SURE + ENDS MEET and wondered what on earth it meant.
I liked the surface of LIBERATE and thought the 1D anagram was especially satisfying (and will forever love Australians for the wit in “budgie smugglers”).
Thanks Harpo & Pierre – and also Redrodney for the reminder of the peerless Ms Lessing.
Haven’t finished yet but need to post before I forget. Where does the COR come from in 26A? The only available word left I can see is ‘my’ and I don’t see how that relates to cor.
(I’m still learning these, so sorry if it’s obvious!)
Good spot for the nina Pierre. I had enough trouble without that. The L and R perimeter columns should have been a gateway to the solve, with initial and final letters, but while they were clearly wholly or mostly anagrams, they came late, as there were too many letters to bother with early on, and neither of the defs was very transparent, to me anyway.
My grandfather had an HMV gramophone with the doggie. In later years, HMV was a familiar record label.
Briggykins @8. Just think of “My! What a big tomato” “Cor! What a big tomato!”
Briggykins@8. Depending on where you come from COR and MY may not be part of your vernacular. They’re not part of mine, but are familiar from old British TV etc, and they come up frequently in cryptics. They’re both originally minced oaths, or euphemisms, so as not to blaspheme.
@paddymelon and @crispy – thanks! I have heard of both but just didn’t put it together. At least I was on the right track with the fodder 🙂
A fun puzzle but I didn’t think it was suited for the Quiptic slot. Some of the clues required quite a lot of unpacking and there were one or two which still took time to sink in after having seen the parsing here.
I parsed 2d as a homophone of TRUNK (elephantine part) and EIGHT (the number 8)
That’s exactly how I parsed it, Lin. I just forgot to say that in the blog. Now amended, thank you.
Way too difficult for a quiptic,more suitable for a midweek cryptic slot in my opinion.
Agree with the general consensus.
A good Tuesday cryptic, not a quiptic. Beginners and improvers would be put off, not encouraged, by this.
However, I enjoyed it, thanks both.
A very enjoyable puzzle, and fairly clued, but quite a bit harder than the average Quiptic – CINCINNATI and DIAZEPAM were particularly twisty, and who expects a partially-reversed Nina in a Quiptic? I certainly didn’t.
That said, I liked HIS MASTERS VOICE and the budgie-smugglers. Thanks Harpo and Pierre.
PS: my=cor (and vice versa) are a fairly common trick, worth remembering for future reference.
Whilst I felt this remained in Quiptic territory, it was certainly at the difficult end of the scale. Partly because there was a bit of complexity to some of the clues, but mainly – as already commented – because the two long ones on each side were more of a hindrance than a help. I found the NW quadrant to be the chewiest, with TRUNCATE, MANNERS, BLESSING and EVENING all requiring a bit of thought. I particularly enjoyed the first and last of those though.
I didn’t feel that the nina got in the way; only the K produced an unusual starting/ending letter, albeit that it gave rise to one of the harder clues. And I think having the occasional harder puzzle in these series is a good thing – provided that it is indeed only occasionally. IMO the tightness of the clueing is more important for beginners/improvers than the overall difficulty. Here it was all pretty tight – which hasn’t always been the case in puzzles from other setters in this series.
Thanks Harpo and Pierre
BTW i approached this puzzle in the way that I approach all the puzzles: I started with the shortest solutions – the four- and five-letter ones – because they necessarily have fewer moving parts. Then I go for the multi-word solutions; they are more likely to be a phrase that comes readily to mind, especially the shorter ones. Then I try to make use of the checkers that those have given me, starting with the most promising ones: the 2+ point letters in Scrabble. I find it much easier to pinpoint words containing a B than those containing an I.
Another trick is to go for ones which are parallel to ones you’ve already got; that way, you’ll have two checkers for several solutions which cross them.
This approach worked so well for me when I was starting out that I continue to do it and probably always will! I recommend it to beginners and improvers.
Of course, those who relish a greater challenge will try to cold solve as much as possible, e.g. attempting all the across clues first. The danger there, though, is that then the down solutions have so many checkers that some of them become write-ins, I should think!
I agree with the general consensus that this was on the trickier end of the spectrum for Quiptics. I’m reiterating that opinion in hopes that those new or improving solvers will see that it’s not just them.
I hadn’t heard of DIAZEPAM, which I constructed using the instructions in the clue; it was my last in.
AP @20 has more or less described my approach to solving as well.