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Hectence is one of our long-standing Quiptic setters and brings us this Sunday’s offering.
First off, it’s a pangram: all 26 letters feature, and this is itself a feature of all Hectence’s Quiptic offerings. I had one or two niggles with this crossword, outlined below, but generally I think it’s a good one for less experienced solvers to get their teeth into.
Across
8 Firstly find uniform then give it repair for runaway
FUGITIVE
A charade of F for the initial letter of ‘find’, U for the phonetic alphabet ‘uniform’ and (GIVE IT)* with ‘repair’ as the anagrind.
9 Pawn taken by you earlier turned game
HOCKEY
A charade of HOCK and YE reversed. ‘Earlier’ is an indication that the usage is archaic. O ye of little faith …
10 Old Impressionist’s not succeeded making a comeback
AGED
A reversal of DEGA[S].
11 International organisation has long year tackling China being hostile
UNFRIENDLY
An insertion of FRIEND in UN and LY. The insertion indicator is ‘tackling’ and China for FRIEND is Cockney rhyming slang – China Plate/Mate.
12 About to be contracted with American travelling show
CIRCUS
A charade of CIRC[A] and US.
14 Injured person relaxed with telly, drained
CASUALTY
A charade of CASUAL and T[ELL]Y.
15 Regret right nipple’s last extra special piercing
REMORSE
A charade of R, E for the final letter of ‘nipple’ and an insertion of S in MORE. The insertion indicator is ‘piercing’.
17 Passed out studies about women’s eggs
SWOONED
An insertion of W and OO for ‘eggs’ in DENS reversed. ‘About’ is the reversal indicator but is also doing double duty as the insertion indicator, which is not ideal.
20 Enjoys tickling component of game controller
JOYSTICK
Hidden in EnJOYS TICKling.
22 Writer isn’t regularly in cheap restaurant
BISTRO
An insertion of ST for the even letters of iSnT in BIRO. The insertion indicator is ‘in’.
23 Split most of money by family couple
BREAK IN TWO
A charade of BREA[D], KIN and TWO.
24 Performance requires soprano with range
SAGA
A charade of S and AGA. The ‘range’ most often to be found in Aga Sagas.
25 Take audible deep breath, essential to find the inner self
PSYCHE
Aural wordplay (‘Take audible’) of SIGH and KEY.
26 Promoted first four in team by date applied
ELEVATED
A charade of ELEV[EN], V and (DATE)* with ‘applied’ as the anagrind.
Down
1 Queen has a good rage over misguided leader in a pickle
QUAGMIRE
An insertion of M for the initial letter of ‘misguided’ in QU, A, G and IRE. The insertion indicator is ‘over’.
2 Victory by Germany’s a breeze
WIND
A charade of WIN and D.
3 Heard Jagger drinks cocktails?
MIX-UPS
Aural wordplay (‘heard’) of MICK SUPS.
4 Crepe tailored around female model is superb
PERFECT
An insertion of F in (CREPE)* followed by T. The insertion indicator is ‘around’ and the anagrind is ‘tailored’.
5 Was brought up having a tether on power tool
CHAINSAW
A charade of CHAIN and WAS reversed (‘brought up’, since it’s a down clue).
6 Demonstrate heartily, loud as possible outside prison: outrage
SCANDALOUS
An insertion of CAN for ‘prison’ in S for the central letter of demonStrate and (LOUD AS)* The insertion indicator is ‘outside’ and the anagrind is ‘possible’. But I can’t equate ‘outrage’ and SCANDALOUS, since they are different parts of speech.
7 Shot French girl during training session
PELLET
An insertion of ELLE in PT. The insertion indicator is ‘during’.
13 Angry person has course stopped by college following sign something’s wrong
CROSSPATCH
A charade of CROSS and C inserted into PATH. The insertion indicator is ‘stopped by’.
16 Religious practice in South Dakota is zealous
SPIRITED
An insertion of PI and RITE in SD. The insertion indicator is ‘in’.
18 Tea’s dull after real bubbly
EARL GREY
A charade of (REAL)* and GREY. The anagrind is ‘bubbly’.
19 Glide quickly has winter sportsperson securing race
SKITTER
An insertion of TT for the Isle of Man ‘race’ in SKIER. The insertion indicator is ‘securing’. Not sure I’ve ever come across this word before, but it’s clearly clued.
21 Love national sport having quiet surge
ONRUSH
A charade of O, N, RU and SH.
22 Awful bore traps Australian in pub
BOOZER
An insertion of OZ in (BORE)* The insertion indicator is ‘traps’ and the anagrind is ‘awful’.
24 Bar put small work area inside
SOAP
An insertion of A in S and OP. The insertion indicator is ‘inside’.
Many thanks to Hectence for this week’s Quiptic.
Rather difficult for a Quiptic, with an unfriendly grid.
I agree that SCANDALOUS doesn’t really work from the definition, and the clue is very convoluted for a Quiptic.
There were some good clues, such as the one for EARL GREY. A nice Cryptic in my opinion.
9a – could you explain where HOCK and YE come from please?
10a – where does it tell us to lose ‘S’?
20a – is there something to suggest it’s a hidden clue?
16d – where do PI and RITE come from?
I have so many other questions.
I have spent so long looking at this through the night and I solved 2 clues!🤬
Would proper solvers regard this as a Quiptic?
Beginners beware! Definitely not a Quiptic. This was very difficult. I think that the Guardian should drop the Quiptic slot altogether, or rename it as a Cryptic.
New for me: SKITTER, CROSSPATCH.
I did not parse 6d, 16d apart from SD = south dakota.
Thanks, both – although I disagree with Pierre’s comments that “it’s a good one for less experienced solvers to get their teeth into.”
HOCK = pawn
EY is reverse of ye (archaic you)
I found this tougher than recent Everyman crosswords, with some quite complicated cluing, but soluble and parsed.
I wondered about SCANDALOUS too and L for long in UNFRIENDLY – L is in Chambers for length, but I couldn’t see it for long. Y is in for year.
Mice or insects such as cockroaches SKITTER across floors in my mind. It’s an onomatopoeic word to join the expressive QUAGMIRE, FUGITIVE and CROSSPATCH.
Thank you to Pierre and Hectence.
Steffen @3
10a – where does it tell us to lose ‘S’? Not succeeded = s in genealogy
20a – is there something to suggest it’s a hidden clue? Component of
16d – where do PI and RITE come from? Pi = religious, rite = ceremony.
I wouldn’t have got ‘mix-ups’ if I hadn’t realised it was a pangram. Last one in was 24d as I went through all the possible meanings of ‘bar’.
Favourites were MIX-UPS, PSYCHE and BOOZER. Tough workout.
Ta Hectence & Pierre.
Thanks to Hectence, and to Pierre for the excellent analysis. I enjoy Hectence’s work very much, but I was not happy with the use of the adjective ‘scandalous’ for the noun ‘outrage’.
Please, Guardian, don’t scrap the quiptic category!
I felt there were some nice Quiptic type clues like BOOZER and others like SCANDALOUS and SPIRITED that were a bit too convoluted.
I’m sure they look cool, but the mere thought of nipple piercing makes me wince. Nothing else too painful here, tho agree, Pierre, about scandalous outrage. There are adjectives that can be nouns and vv (can’t think of egs offhand) but I don’t think these are they. I like Hectence anyway, so thanks both.
It’s sadly become a regular thing where what’s billed as ‘quiptic’ really isn’t. I have to respectfully disagree with Pierre on that (with thanks for the blog).
Decent puzzle (with my eyebrow joining those already raised about SCANDALOUS), but again miscategorised.
Three weeks in a row now when the “Quiptic” is tougher than some of the weekday cryptics. There was I thinking that the category was set up to encourage people.
To be picky regarding 22d: here in the Antipodes, Oz refers to Australia while an Australian is an Aussie (maybe Ozzie at a stretch). Maybe this loose association in a clue is OK? I’m a relative beginner so not sure. Would be interested in what others think.
I tried to look at REMORSE from a setter’s perspective, a word thrown up in the gridfill, rather than one they’d deliberately chosen to include. I wondered how they saw nipple-piercing associated with remorse. But then the light dawned.
Loved the homophones MIX-UPS and PSYCHE. (You’re allowed to call them homophones if you like them, aren’t you? 🙂 )
I found this very tough as an inexperienced but hopefully improving solver. Even with the help from Shanne @7 I’m struggling to parse Pi = Religious. Maybe I need to commit to the hobby and buy a copy of Chambers!
Regarding the categorisation of Quiptic vs Cryptic, I would have given up on this as “too hard for me” if it was published in the weekday cryptic slot – to help inexperienced solvers (like me!) I do think this slot needs to be simpler than this.
Thanks to Pierre and Hectence
Thank you Pierre. Agree about “about” doing double duty in SWOONED. I don’t mind double duty, probably when it’s a combination of definition and wordplay. But I think this was just plain wrong. Needed separate indicators for the reversal and the embed.
PI is an interesting one – it turns up in Cryptic crosswords regularly, either as meaning sanctimonious or as the shortened form of PIOUS, religious, as here. It also appears as the Greek letter or the constant for calculations using a circle or rotation – however it is clued, but PI as constant is worth looking out for.
PI as sanctimonious comes from schoolgirl/boy slang – he’s too PIOUS/PI and in that form was part of my mother’s idiolect, which I was cheerfully labelling as current until earlier this year as it was something she’d say about priggish people, but as she’s not around any more I can’t say it’s current any longer.
This was a little tough for me, with quite a few bung-and-parse entries. Whiffed on SOAP — I had SLAB, which kinda works: S(mall) + LAB (Work Area). Oh well.
Thank you Shanne @20, that’s very interesting and useful. With a maths/science background I’d naturally jump to understanding Pi as the constant, and had never considered it could be short for pious. That’s today’s learning done for me then!
I agree with those who think this the third ‘too hard for a Quiptic’ in a row. Nakamova@21: seems to me that SLAB is a superior answer than the intended SOAP. While clearly we do talk about a bar of soap, do we ever use ‘bar’ on its own to mean soap? Not that I can think of. And JFH@15 is correct in saying Oz does not mean Australian. Otherwise, a decent cryptic, but not a Quiptic. Thanks, Hectence and Pierre.
6d) Surely last word should have been outrageous. Outrage is not scandalous.
I agree with Michelle at 4. The Quiptics are becoming more difficult than some of the cryptics.
The only way I can go close to equating outrage and SCANDALOUS is: It’s an outrage. It’s scandalous.
I enjoyed this as a regular cryptic, but I have to also disagree with Pierre. I did not think this was a Quiptic. I’m afraid that, despite the reassurances last week, this will not bring DR.MENARD ZOMBI 2 back. The Everyman was much more approachable.
I agree with SCANDALOUS / outrage – it puzzled me because it felt like it should have been “an outrage” or “outrageous”. Otherwise, though, I approached it as a regular weekly cryptic and, therefore, enjoyed it. A nice pangram too 🙂
Thanks Hectence and Pierre.
The leitmotif of Quiptics:for beginners and those in a hurry is certainly far from the truth!
I strongly recommend beginners or improving beginners to stick with Quick cryptics if you don’t want to pull your hair.
I can finish the Quick Cryptic every Saturday now and really enjoy it. This Quiptic made me despair. I managed 15a, 3d and 18d but just couldn’t find a way into the other clues. I was looking for anagrams, acrostics, double definitions etc in vain. I hoped the Quiptics would help me improve.
I’m glad it wasn’t just me who found this tougher than the average Quiptic. Lots of fiddly parsing and many crossword clichés like PI=religious, China=friend and so on, though it’s my own fault that I didn’t find the right kind of range or that meaning of pawn.
SKITTER to me suggests something running at speed on tiny feet (a crab, perhaps?) rather than any sort of glide, and bar does not =soap (perhaps the famous Bar of Soap clue is having an influence?). It’s a long time since I’ve heard anyone described as a CROSSPATCH, though I think I may be one…
Amma @28 – the last few Everyman crosswords have been more accessible – you don’t get the blog for this week’s until next week, but you can try last week’s and look at the current blog. There’s also a discussion of good crosswords to move on to in General Discussion.
Thanks to Hectence and to Pierre for the comprehensive analysis.
I enjoyed this but had the same quibbles as others plus a few more. This was a Cryptic rather than a Quiptic in my view. I did enjoy QUAGMIRE and JOYSTICK made me smile.
I had SCANDALISE for a while because it actually means outrage, so I do agree with many of the above comments. In fact outrageous would have worked in the clue, so perhaps that’s a typo? I spotted the pangram, which I rarely do, and it helped with BOOZER although I was perplexed by Oz for the reasons already stated. I don’t think that can be a typo as Australia wouldn’t work in the clue.
I find it hard to equate SKITTER to glide; it makes me think of quick jerky movements see Shanne@6. I would not equate SPIRITED and zealous either.
I regard myself as an improving solver rather than an experienced solver. I doubt I’ll ever think of myself as the latter! I don’t usually comment at length about quibbles, because I am mindful of the effort required to set these. Fwiw I think the Quiptics are valuable, but it would seem that more thought needs to be given to the level. Hopefully someone somewhere will take note of this thread.
[Steffen @3, I truly admire your perseverance and your honesty.]
I failed in the SW with PSYCHE and CROSSPATCH.
For PSYCHE, I wouldn’t equate a sigh with “take audible deep breath” – surely a sigh is exhaling while the Clue suggests inhaling?
And I’d nho CROSSPATCH – the CROSS was obvious from the crossers, but I was working on the assumption that it related to ‘Angry’ in the clue.
I liked JOYSTICK and BREAK IN TWO.
Thanks Hectence and Pierre (and also to Shanne for the explanation of PI for PIOUS).
Another struggle this week. Had to reveal several and even after seeing the answer I couldn’t parse without this blog. So although Im disheartened again at least I’m being helped by the detailed breakdowns and honest comments here. I’ll now try Everyman which I’ve been able to manage most weeks.
Thank you all
On the more difficult side for a quiptic – for improvers rather than beginners – but a big improvement on last week’s offering. We agree with comments about SCANDALOUS; in fact we had ‘scandalise’ at first. thinking of ‘outrage’ as a verb until it was obviously wrong from the wordplay and crossing with SWOONED. And we agree about ‘about’ doing double duty there, not that’s necessarily wrong but it needs indicating in some way, possibly by a question mark.
Apart from those grumbles we found this an enjoyable solve. We liked FUGITIVE and CROSSPATCH.
Thanks, Hectence and Pierre.
What TassieTim@23 wrote
Thank you Shanne@30. I’ll have a look at the Everyman crossword. I’ve found this blog and comments invaluable when I can’t figure out the ‘parsing’ (which is still for me what I did with sentences at school). I read it every day after I’ve done what I can with the cryptic.
I suspect that Hectence wanted to avoid using OUS in both the clue and answer for 6d SCANDALOUS, but she could have said “an outrage” (as paddymelon and Lechien have suggested @25&26) to avoid the part of speech dissonance.
pm@17, those were homophones for you but not necessarily for all members of the homophone police, so maybe you could call them “personal homophones” 🙂
And pm@19, I too like double-duty words as they often enhance the concision of a clue. In the case of 17a SWOONED, “out” is doing triple duty, as part of the definition and as both reversal and inclusion indicators, so perhaps it is going one step too far – but I still liked it.
Thanks, Hectence for the brisk challenge, and Pierre for the excellent blog.
I thought that today’s Everyman was very much easier. I know that the the Everyman isn’t supposed to be all that challenging, but harder than the Quiptic?
19A – glide really isn’t appropriate as a near-synonym for skitter
I’m a beginner, following the quick cryptics since the first one. I finished this with one reveal, but only because I guessed well. And now I’ve had them explained I am astounded anyone could think this (and the last two Quiptics) are suitable for beginners, many are so convoluted. It took me quite a while just to understand the explanations!
Oh, and yes, last week’s Everyman was much easier than the Quiptic. Sorry – not last week’s, the week before – I took someone’s kind advice to leave it a week so as to get the auto confirm.
This was tough but managed a lot of the wordplay and then some guessing and reverse engineering the wordplay for others.
Still don’t understand PI as ‘religious’ despite Shanne’s explanation of it as an abbreviation from ‘pious’, it’s not something I’ve heard/seen. Likewise OO for ‘eggs’.
Thanks Hectence for the challenge and Pierre for the explanations. Also agree with others re: ‘scandalous’ = ‘outrage’.
This is by far the hardest quiptic I’ve seen in a while. I’m trying to practise by working backwards through the quiptics (reached 1241). I can mostly complete them but often need help of cross clues, and plain guessing and checking.
There is a free Australian site, Lovatts Crosswords & Puzzles (lovattspuzzles.com) that has a daily cryptic crossword that is far closer to the description of “for beginners or those in a hurry”. It has nice features like answer changing colour if correct, and more checking / revealing options. It’s a standard grid.
A nugget to cryptic crosswords solver s:YMMV(Your mileage may vary).
I agree it’s a stretch, but outrage CAN just about equate to scandalous, if you think of it as an exclamation: “He left her for a zookeeper. Outrage!”
I’ve just tried the Lovatts page, linked by AR @43. Nice, straightforward puzzles, maybe slightly above Quick Cryptic level. I’d recommend them as the next step after that.
Thank you for the info@46.I checked out the Lovatts Cryptic and was indeed delighted with it.
[Today’s (Monday’s) Independent is a gentle solve; much more along the lines of what I imagine a quiptic should look like. Mainly straightforward single- or double-device clueing at most, mainly smooth, non-convoluted surfaces, and a couple of thinking-out-of-the-box ones to stretch us.]
brian-with-an-eye @46 BRAUN @47 Glad you liked it!
The lovatts site also has a separate area Lovatts Crypto Quiz which tests cryptic clues and gives the breakdown afterwards. I find the Lovatts site a helpful reset when struggling to make progress with a quiptic (e.g. I only managed half of this one). For me Lovatts the most straightforward cryptic, but I need to be able to make progress hence doing quiptics.
Anyway, thanks to Hectence and Pierre.
paddymelon @25
“It’s an outrage. It’s scandalous”. This highlights the problem – the first is a noun, the second an adjective.
Today’s cryptic is a lovely puzzle, but would have been a better fit for the Quiptic spot than this one.
I’d also recommend today’s Cryptic as a good step up from the Quick Cryptic Crosswords.
I struggled through this with several checks & agree with many others that it was hard for a Quiptic – I’ll try the Cryptic next! The only way I can equate “outrage” and “scandalous” is to imagine someone shouting out the words, but as muffin says, that just highlights the problem. Can someone explain where the V in 26a comes from please?
That V isn’t necessary – it’s first four letters of team (eleven) = ELEV + anagram of (DATE)* to give ELEV ATED.
@51 Checked out today’s cryptic out of curiosity and I was pleasantly surprised that it was much easier than yesterday’s quiptic.This would’ve fit the bill for a quiptic.What is going on here??Isn’t anyone screening the puzzles?
Apart from the fact that you cannot call this a Quiptic, this setter has a rather odd – and perhaps old fashioned – way of thinking. Less of this setter please.
Shanne @51 Wow, what a difference! Thanks for the recommendation.
…giveth (QC) and taketh away (Q). Never heard of that flavour of PI, it’s in my Chambers Crossword Dictionary so can’t complain, apart from not welcome in a Quiptic.
Missed the Pangram. SLAB seemed a much stronger fit than SOAP. I’m unsure as to whether these Quiptics are now randomly chosen from the cryptics submitted or if they come from a subset. At least last week’s setter admitted they had asked if they could try their hand at one, but conceded that it was too tough for the intended audience, in a hurry or beginner.
I really hope that this puzzle does not fizzle out as there have been many, many excellent examples of how to get these just right since I started doing them during Covid.
Recently while I was travelling about on the train I bought the Observer to do the various puzzles and was rather surprised to see that Everyman has a prize, probably why the solution is given a week later. Yet beginners are being advised to try that rather than the Quiptic which shows how upside-down the world has become.
Thanks to Hectence and also to Pierre.
I got four or five. Way too hard for a quiptic. The Monday cryptic is a proper quiptic. I could do that one.
I agree with much of the above. I don’t want to see the Guardian Cryptics dumbed down but did enjoy Quiptic and Monday mornings. It seems a shame they now seem like ordinary Cryptics
Way beyond me. I slogged through it with a few inspired guesses, and very few that I could fully parse. And I don’t think there was a single example of the “aha! of course!” plus big grin that I look forward to with the QCs and less challenging Qs. I finished it just because, rather than out of curiosity or enjoyment.
Hectence should spend less time on pangrams and more on making the puzzle accessible in this slot.
Too many conventions I’m unaccustomed to as a non-Brit in this one. The RU “sport” in ONRUSH I assume = Rugby Union? China for FRIEND had me completely stymied, though I blindly solved it. TT=Tourist Trophy motorcycle race in the Isle of Man was lightyears beyond obscure, and I’ll never accept that SKITTER = glide quickly. CROSSPATCH is new to me. S for Special? PI for religious – short for pious? I got all but eight clues which I guess isn’t bad but for a Quiptic it’s a low for me, even though my misses are largely due to inexperience/ignorance.