Quiptic 1,093 by Pan

20 comments on “Quiptic 1,093 by Pan”

1. Thanks Pan and Quirister

   Perfect Quiptic. I loved the &lit (or not?) 29a!

2. Plenty of clues to like here – INFERTILE, BELLICOSE, CANALETTO, SYNAPSE, SPHINX, FLEUR-DE-LIS among them. I couldn’t parse RANSOM, so thanks, Quirister and to Pan for the crossie.

3. As muffin says @1, a perfect Quiptic.

   Great cluing and super surfaces throughout. My favourites were HALIBUT, SOVIETS, CANALETTO, HEAD FOR, SPHINX and RANSOM. My initial reaction to RANSOM was that it was perhaps a bit hard for a Quiptic but they’re intended to introduce beginners to a variety of crossword devices and, as Quirister says, there are two involved here – with a particularly fine surface.

   Many thanks to Pan for the fun and Quirister for the blog.

4. Another good Quiptic for beginners, I think, not least as quite a few of the tricks are used twice (eg Luxor’s third, Bible’s fourth). Means if you have to reveal one you might at least get clued into the second and feel like you’re making progress.

   Hadn’t come across the R in 15a so will tuck that away, but the crossers made it perfectly gettable.

   I enjoyed that start to the week – thanks both.

5. I too failed to parse 15ac. I could see there was an anagram of MASON. I thought it was removing FEE (money) from FREEMASON, giving RMASON as the anagrist. But, overall a lovely Quiptic, and I agree with TassieTim about the many good clues.

6. Thanks to Pan for a lovely puzzle and to Quirister for a clear and helpful blog. In particular for explaining RANSOM – we’d both forgotten that R prescription thingy. Q’s Q’s explanation of PANATELLA brought to mind an awful old misogynist ear worm ending ‘but a good cigar is a smoke’. Autre temps . .

7. Petert @5: yes, I thought the same about 15a for a while, but couldn’t find an anagram indicator to make it work. It took me ages to remember R for “take” – that one has never quite made it through the 18ds.

8. Liked SPHINX, PANATELLA

   Did not parse the R in RANSOM

   Thanks B+S

9. Quirister@7 “in exchange”?? as the anagram indicator?

10. Thanks for the explanation of 15a. Couldn’t parse that but it was a clear clue. But best of all my first unchecked finish – BOOM! I must be improving?

11. Thanks for that – I solved RANSOM and worked out that I had to have an anagram of mason but couldn’t for the life of me see how R meant take. (Wonder if I will remember it) Also had not come across EN for space and couldn’t see how ANGLE meant fork.

    Was a good crossword with as you say a variety of clue types and a very helpful blog

    Thanks to Pan and Quirister

12. I’ve grown so used to Quiptics being harder than that day’s Cryptic that I now tackle the latter first, to “warm up” the grey cells for the tougher challenge. However, today’s Quiptic went in like a dream, with lots of write-ins (although a few of them were guess-first, parse-later). I’m perfectly aware that this has nothing to do with intelligence on my part and is simply a case of my being on the setter’s wavelength for once – but hoo boy, it was fun while it lasted!
    The downside, of course, was that the pleasure was over far too soon. Hey ho.
    RANSOM and SOVIETS were particularly enjoyable, and the neatness of NESSIE made me grin.
    Thanks to Pan and Quirister

13. Most of the comments above reflect my own experience, including not remembering R = take. Nothing else to add except my thanks to Pan and Quirister.

14. An odd solve for me. On first pass I drew a blank at nearly all the across clues and filled in nearly all the downs. The crossers then made the rest of it easy.

    All this is by the by for a nicely-constructed quiptic. I thought ARCHANGEL was particularly nicely put together.

15. Lots to like. Perfect indeed. Thanks to Pan and Quirister

16. Loved this, though r = take was also new to me.  I parsed everything else though, even with a sleep-lacking-night brain. Thank you to Pan and Quirister.

17. I loved this too. Didn’t know R for “take” and had forgotton EN and EM for spaces. A lovely puzzle – thank you Pan, and thanks to Quirister for your really clear explanations.

    [Soua@10 – many congratulations – you can smile all week now…]

18. I had exactly the same experience as Boffo @14: I went through all the across clues with embarrassingly little success, but the down clues broke it wide open for me. I agree with the consensus that this was a very well-constructed and enjoyable Quiptic.

     

19. Never heard of CANALETTO or PANATELLA. Was wondering if the latter was punning off “Penn and Teller”, because I know absolutely zilch about what Penn and Teller get up to.

    13a – Heard of TOASTIEs from an Australian youtuber who debunks fake cooking videos! (Wow that’s… certainly a sentence). Over here, we call them by the boring name ‘grilled cheese’. (Unless grilled cheese is only one kind of toastie, in which case, I can’t help you. Man, now I want grilled cheese.)

    For ‘solved but didn’t know how to parse’, I have 15a, ANGLE=’fork’ for 26a, 27a (natch), 7d (kept thinking of “present” as a noun – either ‘gift’ or ‘now’), and 14d (interesting that I got “Luxor’s third”, but not “Bible’s fourth”; guess I figured it was a religious thing I didn’t know about and threw my hands up).

20. I loved this. V slow in the NE corner, can’t really see why – just stuck. I thought TOASTIE was especially good. Thanks Quirister for a great blog and Pan for a great puzzle!

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