This week’s Quiptic offering is found here
The usual quirky cluing from Anto which I find entertaining, but is not necessarily that straightforward for beginners or those in a hurry – which is the strapline for the Quiptic puzzles. A couple of usages felt a bit dated to me.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | SUBTRACT |
Delete replacement document (8)
|
| charade of SUB (replacement) + TRACT (document) | ||
| 5 | ADRIFT |
Commercial division is off course (6)
|
| charade of AD (commercial – short of advertisment) + RIFT (division) | ||
| 9 | RIGHT ARM |
Suitable branch for leader’s most important assistant (5,3)
|
| literal and metaphorical definitions – RIGHT (suitable) + ARM (branch) | ||
| 10 | BIGAMY |
Significant woman causing marital irregularity (6)
|
| charade of BIG (significant) + AMY (woman – woman’s name) | ||
| 12 | PORTRAITURE |
Golden quality in perfect works of art (11)
|
| insertion (in) of OR (golden) + TRAIT (quality) inserted into PURE (perfect) to give P OR TRAIT URE | ||
| 15 | GET ON |
Board work well together (3,2)
|
| double definition – to board a train is to GET ON as is to work well together (think trying to pair up teenagers to work on a project) | ||
| 17 | GO CAMPING |
Leaving party inside to spend some time outdoors (2,7)
|
| insertion (inside) GOING (leaving) with CAMP (party) inside – so GO CAMP ING | ||
| 18 | AVERSIONS |
Dislikes top class interpretations (9)
|
| charade of A (top class) + VERSIONS (interpretations | ||
| 19 | DUPER |
Con artist, half repudiated, making comeback (5)
|
| reverse hidden (half … making a comeback) of REPUDiated < | ||
| 20 | ANGST-RIDDEN |
Greatly stressed when trading ends badly (5-6)
|
| anagram (badly) of (TRADING ENDS)* with an anagrind of “badly” to give ANGST–RIDDEN | ||
| 24 | CHANGE |
Linger in church – it can be transformative (6)
|
| insertion (in) of HANG (linger – as in teenagers hanging around the mall/shopping centre) inside CE (church – the Church of England, but often used in crosswordese to mean church) | ||
| 25 | RIGATONI |
Fix a little pick-me-up and some Italian food (8)
|
| charade of RIG (fix) + A (from the clue) + TONIc (tonic = pick-me-up – a little says to reduce the letters) | ||
| 26 | SNATCH |
Nick is small – of course (6)
|
| charade of S (small – as in clothing sizes) + NATCH (of course) – and to nick as in steal. Natch was first recorded in the 1960s. I’m not sure how much it’s in use now. | ||
| 27 | IGNORE ME |
Don’t pay attention to my views on regime changes (6,2)
|
| anagram (changes) of (ON REGIME)* | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | STRIPAGRAM |
Bare message delivered – take off a little weight (10)
|
| charade of STRIP (take off) + A (from the clue) + GRAM (little weight) – for the sort of embarassing message delivered at hen and stag parties 40 or 50 years ago. I did google to see if I could find a definition, and mostly found stories of them being banned in venues over the last decade, and not safe for work images. | ||
| 2 | BIG BROTHER |
Autocrat runs into serious difficulty (3,7)
|
| Insertion of R (runs) into BIG BOTHER (serious difficulty) for the Orwellian concept described in the novel 1984 | ||
| 3 | RATER |
One evaluating evidence of old volcano having blown its top (5)
|
| deletion of first letter (blown its top) from cRATER (evidence of old volcano) | ||
| 4 | CURLING TONGS |
Exceptionally strong cluing for grooming apparatus (7,5)
|
| anagram (exceptionally) of (STRONG CLUING)* | ||
| 6 | DRIVEN MAD |
Daughter torn apart over mother returning has gone insane (6,3)
|
| charade of D (daughter, from genealogy) + RIVEN (torn apart) over DAM< (mother = DAM – returning means to reverse it) | ||
| 7 | IPAD |
Electronic device lets assistant fill in papers (4)
|
| insertion of (fill in) PA (assistant) fills in ID (papers – identity documents) | ||
| 8 | TOYS |
Trifles raise some jealousy Othello harbours (4)
|
| reverse hidden (raise some … harbours – in a down clue raise is a reverse indicator) in jealouSY OThello < | ||
| 11 | QUICK-SETTING |
Hardening quality shown by compiler doing fast job (5-7)
|
| double definition – the compiler is a setter, so if they are doing a fast job they are quick setting | ||
| 13 | HIPPODROME |
African native died next to capital theatre (10)
|
| charade of HIPPO (African native – an animal that lives in Africa – short of hippopotamus) + D (died – another genealogy abbreviation) + ROME (capital – of Italy) | ||
| 14 | AGGRANDISE |
Rough ganger said make it bigger (10)
|
| anagram (rough) of (GANGER SAID)* | ||
| 16 | NOSTALGIC |
Doctor clings to a longing for the past (9)
|
| anagram of (doctor) (CLINGS TO A)* – and if someone is longing for the past they are NOSTALGIC. The clue surface suggests the answer should be a noun, not an adjective, but the parts of speech do match by ignoring the clue surface. | ||
| 21 | IMAGO |
Insect found in central Crimea, Ghana and Angola (5)
|
| word is found by taking the central letters (so found in central) of crIMea ghAna anGOla – and an IMAGO is usually final stage in an insect’s life cycle – so not the nymph/caterpillar or pupa/chrysalid but the dragonfly or butterfly. | ||
| 22 | ACES |
Watchers regularly become experts (4)
|
| alternate letters – (regularly) of wAtChErS | ||
| 23 | LAVA |
Bog has a very hot flow (4)
|
| charade of LAV (bog – both slang words for a toilet) + A (from the clue) |
Very difficult!Found the right half easier to tackle.Eventually gave up after solving 50% of puzzle.Thank you very much for the wonderful explanations Shanne.
Did they mix this up with a full cryptic? I also thought the LHS was quite difficult
I ticked IPAD and ADRIFT.
All parsed in the end, with several answers coming well before the parsing. Thanks for clearing up the mystery of “natch” = of course. Not in my dictionary. RIGHT ARM is not a term I would use for “leader’s most important assistant”. Would someone please explain what “leader” has to do with it? And, how is “exceptionally” in 4 an anagram indicator? It does not imply movement to me.
Thanks Anto for a quirky puzzle and thanks Shanne for an excellent blog
Yes, a bit on the difficult side for a purported quiptic, but I arrived unscathed and enjoyed the experience. Camp/party had me scratching my head, but I think I see the connection.
I’m a little stunned by the comments above but I guess people can see the same thing differently. I have no issue with any of the vocabulary and I disagree with the adjective ‘quirky’. I enjoyed the puzzle and thought the clueing was excellent. For a Quiptic, there were lots of accessible entry points, some nicely disguised anagrams, clever charades and surfaces and lots of humour. More please.
This was a Quiptic = cryptic puzzle for beginners and those in a hurry???
New for me: BIG BROTHER = autocrat
I found it pretty straightforward but don’t like to discuss appropriateness of Quiptics.
Tiramisu can be translated from Italian as “pick me up”. Clearly not the answer but I imagine Anto was well aware.
Thanks Anto and Shanne
PORTAITURE and NOSTALGIC: my top picks.
RIGHT ARM
Seems fine to me, though it could be a leader’s assistant or anyone else’s.
RIGATONI
little TONIc=TONI….interesting cluing. Can’t say it’s wrong.
TOYS
‘some’ and ‘harbours’: one of them is redundant. Removing ‘some’
wouldn’t hurt the surface, I guess.
QUICK-SETTING
The solution is adjectival, but the def is nounal?
Enjoyable solve overall. The blog is great as usual (detailed and neat).
Thanks Anto and Shanne.
I think I remember asking about DAM = MOTHER (re DRIVEN MAD) when it came up some time ago, so maybe it’ll come to mind more easily if there’s a next time.
Thank you Anto and Shanne.
I found this twice as difficult as other quiptics.
13D HIPPODROME (from, African native died next to capital theatre) illustrates the challenge I found: there are so many possibilities for African native, capital and theatre that I couldn’t get the answer just from the clue, I needed crossers.
I especially liked 10A BIGAMY and 11D QUICK SETTING.
Thank you for the blog. It makes it all look so straightforward.
For me – and I appreciate I am maybe not the best barometer – this was very difficult; 4 clues solved.