I have solved and blogged enough Anto puzzles for regular readers to know that I am not a fan of his Quiptic offerings, so I will present you with the blog this morning and let you make of the puzzle what you will.
Abbreviations
cd cryptic definition
dd double definition
cad clue as definition
(xxxx)* anagram
anagrind = anagram indicator
[x] letter(s) removed
definitions are underlined
Across
1 Status of lager and porter perhaps in battle of the beers?
BITTER RIVALS
A cd.
8 On the way home by coach
IN TRAIN
A charade of IN for ‘home’ and COACH for ‘train’. ‘She coaches/trains the U-11 team.’
9 Criminal’s gun worn out
WRONG’UN
(GUN WORN)* with ‘out’ as the anagrind.
11 Drug causes his getting covered in mess
HASHISH
An insertion of HIS in HASH. The insertion indicator is ‘getting covered in’.
12 Pull legislation related to TV show?
DRAG ACT
A charade of DRAG and ACT. For the definition, you have to read TV as ‘transvestite’.
13 Puts order on military divisions?
RANKS
A dd.
14 Half-baked notion EU gave aid at random
VAGUE IDEA
(EU GAVE AID)* with ‘at random’ as the anagrind.
16 Health service asset pursued by unscrupulous law firms
AMBULANCE
A cd. No-win no-fee legal firms that advertise on the TV and elsewhere are often referred to as ‘ambulance chasers’.
19 Embrace son that’s been taken in hand
CLASP
An insertion of S in CLAP. The insertion indicator is ‘that’s been taken in’.
21 Urinals shut in the centre? Very loudly becomes annoyed
IN A HUFF
A charade of IN A and HU for the central letters of urINAls and sHUt, and FF for the musically ‘very loudly’.
23 Outing by meadow gets the best rating
TRIPLE A
A charade of TRIP and LEA.
24 Where art is largely represented
GALLERY
(LARGELY)* with ‘represented’ as the anagrind, and a cad.
25 Calm down gorilla by feeding it some vegetables?
APPEASE
An insertion of PEAS in APE, with the not entirely adequate ‘by feeding it’ as the insertion indicator.
26 Sex show lets people know what’s expected
GENDER REVEAL
A charade of GENDER and REVEAL for the name of the event where proud parents let the world know whether they’re having a little boy (blue theme) or little princess (pink theme).
Down
1 Interrupts victim over offence
BUTTS IN
A charade of BUTT and SIN.
2 Thomas occasionally stops working with these creeps
TOADIES
A charade of TOA for the odd letters of ‘Thomas’ and DIES.
3 In Devon, he set out for big city
EINDHOVEN
(IN DEVON HE)* with ‘set out’ as the anagrind.
4 Quarrelled when posting up some codewords
ROWED
Hidden reversed in coDEWORds.
5 Break instrument giving it hollow timbre
VIOLATE
A charade of VIOLA and TE for the outside letters of ‘timbre’.
6 A horse carrying fat is a slow one
LAGGARD
An insertion of A GG in LARD. The insertion indicator is ‘carrying’. GG is crosswordspeak for ‘horse’: a child might call a horse a GEE-GEE.
7 Undemanding book turned over makes it easier on the eye
LIGHT READING
If LIGHT READING were turned over it would result in READING LIGHT. But in an example of the way this setter plays fast and loose with definitions, ‘makes it easier on the eye’ is not a definition of READING LIGHT.
10 Charlie and Victor create personal history using it
NATO ALPHABET
Another very vague definition. Charlie and Victor represent C and V in the NATO ALPHABET.
15 Superior source of freshwater?
GREAT LAKE
A dd. Lake Superior is a GREAT LAKE.
17 Raised words due to awful libel about artist …
BRAILLE
An insertion of RA in (LIBEL)* The insertion indicator is ‘about’ and the anagrind is ‘awful’.
18 … a musician being noisy having inhaled half of reefer
LOU REED
An insertion of REE[FER] in LOUD. The insertion indicator is ‘having inhaled’.
19 Fast food outlet puts flake on pastry
CHIPPIE
A charade of CHIP and PIE.
20 Everyone’s welcoming singular type of precipitation
ALL HAIL
I can’t make sense of this. Everyone is welcoming could be ALL HAIL; if there was only one type of precipitation it would be ALL HAIL. But where is the definition?
22 Risk initiating fall lifting your elderly relative
FLYER
The initial letters of the last five words of the clue.
Many thanks to Anto for this week’s Quiptic.
One of Anto’s best with the perimeter clues particularly pleasing and I also liked VAGUE IDEA, AMBULANCE, IN A HUFF, EINDHOVEN, BRAILLE and LOU REED. Certainly a test as a quiptic but fairly clued throughout. CV is referring to curriculum vitae in NATO ALPHABET, therefore personal history.
Ta Anto & Pierre.
Thanks Anto and Pierre
I was baffled by ALL HAIL too. EINDHOVEN is a long way down a list of cities that spring to mind.
The insertion for LAGGARD seems the wrong way round. It could be read as “on top of”, but that would give LARDGG!
[WRONG ‘UN reminded me of cricket commentary – it can refer to a googly. Sub-continental commentators, whose English is better than most of the English ones, can’t bring themselves to say this, and always instead say “wrong one”.]
I didn’t realise this was Anto until I came here. I really enjoyed the range of clue types used (not just charades, anagrams and insertions) and don’t mind a bit of looseness in definitions. It all made sense though I couldn’t see how a DRAG ACT was a TV show – I get it now.
Quite tough and I don’t think this puzzle belongs in the Quiptic slot.
Favourite: LIGHT READING.
I could not parse 12ac (forgot that TV=transvestite); 16ac, 22d ( did not know that FLYER=risk).
Hi muffin@2 – as a non-Brit, Eindhoven sprang to my mind more quickly than many small British cities (as well as towns and villages) that often appear in the puzzles here! With a population of approx. 250,000 Eindhoven is bigger than all but about 30 out of 1045 cities in the UK. And there are MANY on the list of 1045 UK cities that I have never heard of.
See https://worldpopulationreview.com/cities/united-kingdom
Of course, it is all relative – many/most UK cities would barely class as a village in many countries of Asia or Africa 😉
This time I was simultaneously pleased that Anto tries to stretch what kind of wordplay is allowed–it’s truly wordplay, where most setters rely principally on letterplay–and annoyed at all of the things that were annoying. These include some not-so-cryptic cryptic definitions, some very vague indications that pass as definitions, and that general looseness that makes Anto a poor fit for this slot. This should have run on a Tuesday, is what I’m saying.
GREAT LAKE I took to be a single, cryptic definition, and not so cryptic at that. For ALL HAIL, the phrase means “everyone welcome,” so there’s almost a definition.
I agree with Muffin that the clue for LAGGARD is ass-backward.
I am surprised that both ambulance chasers and gender-reveal parties have found their way to your shores. Both of those annoyances seem so uniquely American.
Thanks, Pierre, for the useful, if reluctant, blog, and Anto for the puzzle.
I found this a decent enough Quiptic. I didn’t think NATO ALPHABET was “vaguely clued” – it seemed direct enough to me. Agreed that EINDHOVEN is more than a bit obscure to be clued just as “big city”: wiki gives its population as a touch under 250k, which hardly puts it into the Beijing league. ALL HAIL – yes, a touch woolly.
But I liked WRONG’UN, IN A HUFF and several others, not least BRAILLE for its smooth surface and devious definition.
Swings and roundabouts, then!
Thank you for the blog.
In 1d, where does BUTT come from?
Hi Steffen
A “butt” of a practical joke, for instance, would be a victim. Google “butt of the joke” for examples.
Michelle, you posted while I was drafting. The clue defines Eindhoven as a “big” city. The USA has approximately 90 cities larger than Eindhoven, including several that a UK crossword editor would ding as too obscure. (The one that sprang to my mind, being an Indiana boy, was “that’s about the size of Fort Wayne”. Fort Wayne, it turns out, is slightly larger.) So, how big is “big”?
To be sure, yes, we are too often expected to know obscure villages in Shropshire and so on. That part really annoys me too.
Still, the bottom line is that Eindhoven has its famous football team, which enhances its prominence, making it fair game.
I am more absorbed than perhaps I should be in the dynamics of certain grids. This is the same one that Vulcan used last Monday, and as I remarked then, it is notable for the number of seven-letter lights – 16 out of 28. The grid thus breaks down into 16×7, 4×10, 4×9 and 4×5. Ok – I’ll get my anorak …
[mrpenney@9
I agree with you that Eindhoven is not a “big” city but it is all relative. In this case, I guess the setter with their Brit-centric POV considers Eindhoven a big city as it would be #30 or so on a list of 1,045 British cities so that makes it “big” ?
Btw, in the past I lived in Jakarta, Indonesia which is now the world’s most populous city, with nearly 42 million residents.
https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2025/11/press-release-wup2025/
That’s my idea of a big city! ]
Michelle@11 what makes you think there are 1045 cities in the UK? There are 76!
mrpenney@9 et al. : re EINDHOVEN. I would have had no quibble had it been clued as “Dutch city” or similar, but “large city” with the whole wide world to go at…? Though, to be fair, there aren’t that many anagrams of “In Devon he”.
I think the most recent small British town to appear was Shepton Mallet, which AFAIR was specified as being English and was clued as an anagram, so I thought it was OK. But then it’s a place I know fairly well.
I look forward to the day when NEMPNETT THRUBWELL is clued just as “village”!
> I can’t make sense of this. Everyone is welcoming could be ALL HAIL; if there was only one type of precipitation it would be ALL HAIL. But where is the definition?
Is this like some kind of vague double cryptic definition?
Also, I felt the same way as others about the horse carrying lard being the wrong way round, but then thought more about how horses carry loads, and it is often in saddle bags, or similar, that hang either side of the horse.
And I read GREAT LAKE as a charade – superior = great, source of freshwater = lake, where the clue was also a vague definition.
[Me@13: I find that ” Maniac Trump went hellbent for Somerset village (8,9)” would work…]
But DerekTheSheep @15 – but that would be like me reckoning a clue for MELCOMBE BINGHAM, BINGHAM’S MELCOMBE, PIDDLETRENTHIDE or RYME INTRINSECA are fair game (all found in Dorset).
I am usually relieved not to be blogging Anto in the Quiptic spot, because explaining how some of the vaguer clues work is a challenge – but solving for myself I find him entertaining, even as I shrug at some of the cryptic definitions. But I do continue to wonder why he is so regularly in this spot
Thank you to Pierre and Anto.
Clues too annoying – didn’t bother finishing it.