Thank you to Harpo. Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Across
1. Boy with girlfriend is in French musical party (8)
SONGFEST : SON(an informal term to address a boy/young person) plus(with) GF(abbrev. for “girlfriend”) + EST(French for “is”).
5. Endlessly ask and ask for yoga positions (6)
ASANAS : Last letters, respectively, deleted from(Endlessly) “ask and ask”.
9. Intermittently, scout in Verdun shot straight (8)
UNCURVED : 2nd and 4th letters of(Intermittently) “scout” contained in(in) anagram of(… shot) VERDUN.
10. Has a king’s backing about British stronghold in North Africa (6)
KASBAH : Reversal of(…’s backing) [HAS A + K(abbrev. for “king”) ] containing(about) B(abbrev. for “British”).
Defn: Fortress/….
12. Deal with some theatre attendants (5)
TREAT : Hidden in(some) “theatre attendants”.
13. Active old criminal’s hedonistic life (5,4)
DOLCE VITA : Anagram of(… criminal) ACTIVE OLD .
Defn: …, from the Italian, “sweet life”, literally.
14. Of which a draw ahead of others constitutes a win? (6,6)
RAFFLE TICKET : Cryptic defn: In a lottery, that which is drawn/randomly picked before others wins something.
18. Annual study period in America mostly decays, unfortunately (8,4)
ACADEMIC YEAR : Anagram of(…, unfortunately) [ AMERICA + “decays” minus its last letter(mostly …) ].
21. Released single? (9)
UNHITCHED : Double defn: 1st: … from being tied to something; and 2nd: …/unmarried (or not being tied to someone in marriage).
23. Long thread about End of Empire (5)
YEARN : YARN(spun thread used for knitting, weaving or sewing) containing(about) last letter of(End of) “Empire”.
Defn: To …/ache for.
24. Infuriate a Green liberal (6)
ENRAGE : Anagram of(… liberal) A GREEN.
25. One wooing Macron upset former queen (8)
ROMANCER : Anagram of(… upset) MACRON + ER(abbrev. for “Elizabeth Regina”, former British queen).
26. Tracks onset of sudden change in USA (6)
SCENTS : 1st letter of(onset of) “sudden” + CENTS(change/coins in contrast to banknotes in the USA legal tender).
Defn: …/Trails left by a characteristic smell or smells.
27. * skater is all over the place (8)
ASTERISK : Anagram of(… all over the place) SKATER IS.
Defn: The mark, ….
Down
1. First pair of questions in National Curriculum assessment exercises (6)
SQUATS : 1st 2 letters of(First pair of) “questions” contained in(in) SATS(abbrev. for “standard assessment tasks”, popular name for the National Curriculum assessment given to English schoolchildren).
2. Fundamental parts in clue edited (6)
NUCLEI : Anagram of(… edited) IN CLUE.
3. Excellent start, performing in sack (5-4)
FIRST-RATE : Anagram of(…, performing) START contained in(in) FIRE(sack/dismiss employees).
4. A lot of sheepdogs flit about showing maximum pace? (5,2,5)
SPEED OF LIGHT : Anagram of(… about) [ “sheepdogs” minus its last letter(A lot of …) + FLIT].
6. Hackneyed opening in short story (5)
STALE : 1st letter of(opening in) “short” + TALE(story).
7. Beat interrupts writers in old clubs (8)
NIBLICKS : LICK(to beat/defeat decisively) contained in(interrupts) NIBS(the pointed ends of pens that you might call writers).
Defn: … resembling the modern No. 9 iron golf clubs.
8. Sentimentality of school head avoiding dance (8)
SCHMALTZ : SCH(abbrev. for “school”) + M(?) + 1st letter deleted from(head avoiding) “waltz”(a dance in triple time).
Explanations for “M”: a) error in the clue; b) abbrev. for “master”/a head of a group, with “head” doing some sort of double duty; or c) part of “SCHM”, abbrev. for something like “Shannon College of Hotel Management”.
Help anyone?
11. Bye-bye old Sue’s poorly pets? (4-4,4)
BLUE-EYED BOYS : Anagram of(…’s poorly) BYE-BYE OLD SUE.
Defn: …/ones treated with special favour.
15. Where vigilant Customs official might look, however (2,3,4)
IN ANY CASE : Double defn: 1st: …, in an unlimited number of pieces of luggage/cases; and 2nd: …/nevertheless.
16. Juliet’s lot permits supporting better university (8)
CAPULETS : LETS(permits/allows) placed below(supporting, in a down clue) [ CAP(to better/to surpass) + U(abbrev. for “university”) ].
Defn: …/kinfolk in Shakespeare’s play, “Romeo and Juliet”.
17. On which you’d log who arses about (8)
SAWHORSE : Anagram of(… about) WHO ARSES.
Defn: On which you would saw a log.
Not sure if, in the clue, the intention is to have “log” as a noun and “you’d” =”you had”, or “log” as a verb and “you’d”=”you would”. I’m not sure the latter case works, as “log” as a verb = “to saw a log from, say, a tree”.
19. Chinese system, one-third Taoism and two-thirds I Ching (3,3)
TAI CHI : 1st 2 letters of out of 6 of(one-third) “Taoism” plus(and) 1st 4 letters out of6 of(two-thirds) “I Ching”.
Defn: … of exercises consisting of slow and graceful movements.
20. One’s boring coat (6)
ANORAK : Double defn: 1st: One who has an obsessive interest in a hobby and who is considered boring my most people; 2nd: …/a warm waterproof hip-length jacket, giving its name to the 1st definition.
22. Mean to investigate Guy’s Hospital Trust, initially (5)
TIGHT : 1st letters, respectively, of(…, initially) “to investigate Guy’s Hospital Trust”.
Defn: …/stingy.
Thank you for you great blog scchua. I have the same queries re SCHMALZ and SAWHORSE.
I liked ROMANCER and FIRST-RATE for the surfaces.
I found this a bit slow getting into. The 1s just didn’t come to me. Bottom half went in first. But later on I saw the nina in row 2, QUIPTIC, which helped me finish it off.
DOLCE VITA fav for surface, anagrist (active old) and anagrind.(criminal). Great find.
Thanks Harpo and scchua
A DNF. NHO ASANAS. I saw that it might be that, but didn’t believe it could be a word!
Overall trickier than usual.
A good challenge that in my opinion is not a Quiptic / cryptic puzzle for beginners and those in a hurry.
To solve 8D (SCHMALTZ) I had to look up synonyms of “sentimentality”. My best guess at justifying the M in place of the W in “waltz” is that M is W (the first letter, or head, of “waltz”) upside down (perhaps using “avoid” in the sense of “get around”). That feels like a bit of a stretch, though.
Another puzzle that blurred the lines between Cryptic and Quiptic. Personally, I found this harder than today’s Everyman (although, to be fair, it wasn’t a particularly tricky Everyman.) Held up a bit by the clever but esoteric ASANAS, the unexplained M in SCHMALTZ and the less familiar (to me, at least) spelling of CASBAH/QASBAH with a K. But overall quite good fun
More difficult than usual, not helped by not knowing the intersecting ASANAS or NIBLICKS in the NE corner.
I tried to reason as per @5 that the missing M in SCHMALTZ was the upside down W but it is a stretch. If they really meant that then they would surely have clued it as head turning dance or head spinning dance, which also make better surfaces I think.
Thank you scchua.
I was reassured by your bafflement over SCHMALTZ.
I read the SAWHORSE clue with “log” as a verb, but I see it isn’t in OED and I suspect it is one of those verbs that you can imagine exists even though there is no evidence for its use. This places it outside Quiptic territory, and in any case isn’t “saw horse” two words? OED only has it as hyphenated; we don’t like hyphenated words these days, and the similarly-hyphenated “clothes-horse” in historical quotes has become “clothes horse” today.
SCHMALTZ was unparsed for me, along with a couple of others which I got via definition and crossers.
Agreed with others that this was a good, but not very quiptic, puzzle.
Same issue as others with SCHMALTZ and SAWHORSE and I would suggest this was at the very limit of a what a QUIPTIC should be (what a delightful Nina). Lots of ticks including ASANAS, DOLCE VITA, RAFFLE TICKET, SCENTS (how apt) IN ANY CASE and CAPULETS.
Ta Harpo & scchua.
I’m glad I’m not the only one wanting to spell CASBAH, not KASBAH. I share the mystification over SAWHORSE and SCHMALTZ, my last two in. But I wrote ASANAS in, knew from the definition that’s what it was, ditto NIBLICKS.
Thank you to scchua and Harpo.
I hadn’t noticed the Nina – I rarely do. Thanks AlanC @10
Another Nina going down Is ‘Guardian’
Thank you scchua, I needed this blog more than usual this week. Found this one a real struggle, especially the top end.
Enjoyable and trickier than expected. I just want to say scchua how much I appreciate the time you take with your blogs to add pictures and detail. Incidentally I (dubiously) took the M in SCHMALTZ to be “master” with head doing double duty.
Quite tough for a quiptic, I thought.
For 8d I took ‘M’ to refer to the character in James Bond films, head of the secret service, but felt very unsure about it..
Thanks Harpo and scchua.
I wonder if SC for school and HM for headmaster/ headmistress in Scmaltz
Quiptics have become easier lately – this one takes us back to the days when complaints that the Quiptic was much harder than the Monday cryptic were a regular feature of comment threads.
This took a while, and I ended up revealing the nho ASANAS. I also got diverted by the fact that Macron is an anagram of MONARC… as well as ROMANC… and tempted by the reference to the Queen, spent ages trying to make 25a be MONARCHY. But I enjoyed it, and liked spotting the GUARDIAN QUIPTIC ninas.
Hawa @13: thanks for that, I didn’t think to look for another.
Very enjoyable but not especially Quiptic. Felt a little forced in areas, but I did enjoy the challenge of the long and slightly cryptic definitions.
Ok, I can see quiptic and guardian which is quite fun. But why Nina? Is there a good story?
Is it an acronym?
I found this weeks Quiptic to be challenging and a few months ago it would probably have turned me off the whole experience. If that’s how any new folks are feeling today I would urge you to come back again next time and see how you find it.
For me the difficulty comes from a distinct lack of vocab, specifically Niblicks, Schmaltz, Asanas and Songfest. Normally I’m thrilled to learn new words but I could only parse Asanas and Songfest so it left me a little disappointed.
Also, can someone explain what a nina is?
Thanks to Scchua and Harpo for today’s endeavour!
In this quiptic the ninas are Quiptic and Guardian, hidden in the completed grid.
Some details on where the term comes from are here:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Hirschfeld#Nina
I found this difficult and didn’t complete it.
Niblicks was a new one one me! Had to use aids for that one.
Glad I wasn’t only one puzzled by the m in schmaltz.
I parsed “beat”/”lick” as a drumming lick in music….
Nice puzzle and nice blog.
I wonder if the ninas got in the way of the puzzle? As well as guardian and quiptic there’s also dolce running down column 8, intersecting with 13a dolce vita. Seems too much of a coincidence.
Thank you Erik @24
That is a really cool story, and I’m going to need to find more hirschfeld cartoons to look at.
Definitely felt this was a step up from most of the Quiptics although some of the archive Quiptics I’ve trying have been of a similar level. Like everyone the M in SCHMALTZ was a mystery although my wife and I rationalised it as being from ‘head’ as ‘master’ so ‘head’ was doing double duty. I’m liking the other theory put in these comments that really it’s meant to be a rotated W and the clue should have been written as ‘head turning dance’. I googled MALTZ to see if that shed any light. It didn’t, but did turn up that Maltz is the surname of a psychologist who came up with a theory of self-awareness called psycho-cybernetics. Not relevant in any way but an amusing piece of trivia I thought 😄
My favourite was probably CAPULETS for the cheekiness of “Juliet’s lot”. Liked the Ninas too.
Thanks Harpo and Scchua.
amazing…. 10 mins ago I was reading in an old Guardian blog abt Ninas and hadnt a clue what he meant. Then I come on here to check a couple of guesses and find I’ve missed three in the puzzle I’d just finished!
Thanks everyone!
Really fascinated to read about Ninas, which I’d never heard of, and then to look through Hirschfield’s cartoons.
So people who do crosswords don’t do yoga then?
Thanks Scchua and Harpo for continuously stretching my mind though.
Really struggled with the NE corner. Spent more time on that than the rest of the puzzle. Got there eventually but hadn’t heard of NIBLICKS (assumed it had to end with -sticks for a long time) or ASANAS neither activity I have spent much time doing. Also confused by the M in SCHMALTZ. It’s the first clue I looked up when visiting the blog.
The rest of the grid was great though. Like SONGFEST. I thought IN ANY CASE was going to be a dirty innuendo but was actually a PG clue. Thanks scchua and Harpo.
Thank you for you great blog, Scchua!
I enjoyed the story about Nina.
Thank you for the explanations! I got 1d and 20d from crosses, but didn’t parse the clues. It was a new information for me.
11d I also worked out from crosses, but still bewildered. Is there is a story about special favour for blue-eyed boys?
As for SCHMALTZ, I looked up synonyms of “sentimentality” and thought, here it is: “sc” is beginning of the “school”, “hm” is a headmaster, “altz” is dance avoiding “head”… Now I see that I was hasty, “head” must refer to only one thing. 🙁
Thank you Erik @24
А fascinating story!
Sue @31
Well, I really never did youga or tai-chi, but I’ve read about it. Same with niblicks: I came across this word ages ago in a story by Agatha Christie.
It was luck, usually I don’t know the terms from golf, cricket etc. So I understand those who are confused by this.
Just to verify, as a beginner…. this was difficult 🙂
Struggled with the top. 1d. 5a – 9a – 10a
Needed a third latte to finnish this one.
I take SCHMALTZ to be SCH (school) + M (head = master) +[w]ALTZ. To avoid double duty, I have to assume that neither of the two abbreviations are indicated as such. I don’t think very highly of this clue. I also have the same doubts as others about SAWHORSE.
Other than that, there were plenty of enjoyable clues in this puzzle, but I agree with the opinion that it was too hard for a Quiptic.
Oh, and I don’t think I know the expression BLUE-EYED BOYS, although I am familiar with “fair-haired boys”, which I take to have roughly the same meaning.
Thanks scchua and Harpo. A juicy QC.
Asanas was one of my favourite clues, in terms of the word play. Practicing yoga probably helped me out too 🙂
‘Criminal’ is a new anagrind for the memory banks.
Thanks Erik @24 for the link about Ninas, which I hadn’t heard of until now.
Thanks Erik @24 for answering my question, I finally got a chance to look at it and I really appreciate your link and the interesting story 🙂