Anto is one of a few compilers who set for both the Guardian Cryptic and Quiptic. I think we can give him credit for being in Quiptic mode here.
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 Scolding official over poor distribution
REPROOF
An insertion of (POOR)* in REF. The insertion indicator is ‘over’ and the anagrind is ‘distribution’.
5 Old queen put on underwear quietly – it’s comfortable to wear indoors
SLIPPER
A charade of SLIP, P for the musically ‘quiet’ and ER, the late Elizabeth Regina.
9 Authority rebuffing some cosy assumptions
SAY SO
Hidden reversed in cOSY ASsumptions.
10 Rubbish sounding combo that gets tighter with age?
WAIST BAND
A charade of WAIST, a soundalike for WASTE and BAND.
11 Exchange vessels needed for espionage
TRADECRAFT
A charade of TRADE and CRAFT. TRADECRAFT refers to the specialised techniques, skills, and methods used in espionage and clandestine operations. I didn’t know that, so a new learning for me today.
12 Scarf that may be constricting?
BOA
A cd cum dd. A BOA is a type of scarf, but also a snake, sometimes referred to as the BOA CONSTRICTOR. Don’t mess with it.
14 Contradictory description of irresponsible behaviour
FAST AND LOOSE
FAST, in its sense of ‘held fast’ and LOOSE are opposites, but also make a phrase meaning ‘irresponsible’, often used of behaviour. ‘He played fast and loose with the rules concerning the election of the chair.’
18 Nancy swooned deliriously as it’s about to happen
ANY SECOND NOW
(NANCY SWOONED)* with ‘deliriously’ as the anagrind.
21 Windbag regularly detains this woman
IDA
The odd letters of wInDbAg.
22 A packet he’s laid out? He’s too mean for that
CHEAPSKATE
(A PACKET HES)* with ‘laid out’ as the anagrind.
25 Settle dispute about last-resort dental treatment
HAVE IT OUT
A dd, with the second definition slightly whimsical.
26 Spirited board offers union independent jobs assessment at first
OUIJA
The initial letters of the third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh words of the clue.
27 Belittle facility creating complaint
DISEASE
A charade of DIS and EASE. ‘She’s always dissing her sister.’
28 Really regretted church intervening when born
HATCHED
An insertion of CH in HATED. The insertion indicator is ‘intervening’.
Down
1 Relaxes, absorbing information, then takes test again
RESITS
An insertion of I in RESTS. The insertion indicator is ‘absorbing’.
2 Money transaction platform reportedly belonging to the Vatican?
PAYPAL
A soundalike clue (‘reportedly’) for PAPAL.
3 Light weight cover sheltering individual provides protection from radiation
OZONE LAYER
An insertion of ONE in OZ for ounce or ‘light weight’ and LAYER. The insertion indicator is ‘sheltering’.
4 Fine pitcher – but there’s not so many
FEWER
A charade of F and EWER.
5 Row needs ground outside to be reinforced
STIFFENED
An insertion of TIFF in (NEEDS)* The insertion indicator is ‘outside’ and the anagrind is ‘ground’.
6 Fond of accompanying wife that’s leaving
INTO
IN TO[W]
7 Game strategy when given literary choices in Charades
PLAYBOOK
Proper, as opposed to crossword, charades involves categories that have to be signalled to those guessing; these include PLAY and BOOK.
8 Embarrassed having freed cad in error
RED-FACED
(FREED CAD)* with ‘in error’ as the anagrind.
13 Family’s left for hunt?
BLOOD SPORT
A charade of BLOODS and PORT.
15 Canine perhaps not everyone finds so delightful
TOOTHSOME
A charade of TOOTH and SOME.
16 Is ambassador part of group expelled?
BANISHED
An insertion of IS and HE in BAND. The insertion indicator is ‘part of’. HE for His Excellency or ‘ambassador’ is common in crosswords.
17 Bishop has levy overturned? Not how a good job’s done
BY HALVES
A charade of B and (HAS LEVY)* with’overturned’ as the anagrind. Referring to the expression ‘Never do things by halves.’
19 Decoration without heart is somewhat vulgar
GARISH
GAR[N]ISH
20 Messenger constrained by tougher aldermen
HERALD
Hidden in tougHER ALDermen.
23 A desire to be leader of House
AITCH
A charade of A and ITCH gives you the sound out loud eighth letter of the alphabet.
24 Knocking back a small drink in Italian city
PISA
A reversal of A SIP.
Many thanks to Anto for this week’s Quiptic.
My favourites were AITCH, OZONE LAYER.
I rarely comment on homophones but I was not very keen on 2d papal/paypal even though they are very roughly soundalike.
Maybe slightly tougher for a Quiptic, but no less enjoyable. Ticks for WAIST BAND, CHEAPSKATE, FAST AND LOOSE, HAVE IT OUT, OZONE LAYER and PLAYBOOK. I spent much of my Police career employing TRADECRAFT, so that was my favourite. BLOOD SPORT has always struck me as being an oxymoron
Ta Anto & Pierre.
Took me as long as a regular cryptic, but that may be partly because my first attempt was in the middle of the night. But enjoyable. I liked AITCH, PAYPAL, BOA, INTO and FAST AND LOOSE. Thanks Anto and Pierre!
I didn’t understand “put on” in SLIPPER; also didn’t understand the wordplay in PLAYBOOK, – probably due to lack of familiarity with “proper” Charades…
Pleased to see it was Anto today. Very enjoyable. I liked WAISTBAND, HAVE IT OUT, PAYPAL (the stress is different in papal and Paypal but who cares, really). I couldn’t parse BANISHED fully because I never remember ‘he’ for ambassador.
This is Anto’s 100th Quiptic, well done sir.
About the right level I thought. However, needed Web search for tradecraft and not familiar with toothsome. Both gettable from the clues and crossers. Thanks Anto and Pierre.
If I can’t complete a Quiptic then I have no chance with the Cryptics. I found this too difficult. Won’t bother in the future.
Yoakam@7 Don’t give up – it does get easier. Reading these blogs and seeing how the parsing works is really helpful even if you haven’t worked out the answers.
Yoakam@7 – don’t give up! They really do get easier with practice.
Me@9 – and, as Amma@8 says, the blog and comments are so instructive.
Yoakam@7: I’ve been solving cryptics for a few years now and I often find quiptics among the hardest to solve! I find the structure tends to be less exact and there are often many double or cryptic definitions which I struggle with the most. Many people talk about a “wavelength thing” where you find yourself thinking the same way as a setter or not, and perhaps I am not on Anto’s wavelength which I why I often find the quiptics and Monday puzzles the toughest. So keep on trying with cryptics – you’ll find some you like, and some you hate perhaps. But the blog here will always teach you something new.
“Paypal” was a terrible soundalike. “Boa constrictor” is not just what the animal is sometimes called, it is its formal scientific name (genus Boa, species constrictor, varies subspecies) and a very accurate description of its method of killing its prey.
Thank you Anto and Pierre.
It definitely gets easier with practice. When I started I would often reveal the answer and try to work out how they got it from the clue. I rarely do that anymore, after doing about 30 Quiptics. Started with Quick Cryptics, and I’m rarely stuck on those now. Very pleased, thank you all setters. You’re very clever!
Funny, I found it to be at the easier end of Quiptics. That’s the subjective nature of these things; better solvers than me have said otherwise.
Don’t give up Yoakam @7. The others are right. It becomes easier.
I liked FAST AND LOOSE and ANY SECOND NOW.
Thanks and congrats Anto, thanks Pierre.
In contrast to most commentators, I thought that was one of the hardest Quiptics I’ve done for a while! Reading back over it, it’s all fairly clued and there’s a decent number of anagrams, acrostics etc to help one get started. It just took me ages!
Virtually a write-in, and that doesn’t happen often for me. I guess some setters and some solvers gel better than others – I’ve never struggled with Anto, but I always know I’m in for a tough time with Paul.
I generally consider myself a homophone libertarian: if the two things sound roughly alike in some reasonably widely spoken version of English, that’s good enough. But PayPal / Papal doesn’t clear even that low bar.
In 28ac, it seems to me that hate and regret are extremely different things. Also, “when” doesn’t seem to work in the cryptic reading.
And the tiniest of quibbles: I wish 9ac had been enumerated (3-2). I think the phrase SAY-SO is invariably hyphenated when used to mean “authority”.
Despite all that kvetching, this seemed to me like a quite solid Quiptic.
For me, a write-in on most of the LHS, a bit more thought needed on the RHS.
Some very nice, smooth, surfaces here: ” Settle dispute about last-resort dental treatment”= HAVE IT OUT; and ” Nancy swooned deliriously as it’s about to happen” = ANY SECOND NOW, for example.
I especially also liked CHEAPSKATE and TOOTHSOME (good surfaces there, too).
I’d also join those encouraging Yoakam to keep at it. Since they’re coming here, they’re in good hands, with the bloggers and commenters, to get more into it. On the other hand, “it’s not military service, you don’t have to carry on”, as someone wisely said to me once when I made the decision to stop gliding after a rather nasty crash. It’s just for fun. If it’s not fun…
Thanks Anto and Pierre
Thanks Anto and Pierre. AITCH was my favorite. I felt PAYPAL/papal was fair, but I’m generally rubbish at the sound-alikes.
As a Scot, I often struggle with ‘sounds like’ as often consonants are dropped but I liked PayPal – got it more or less at once.
Thanks. I wish you would construct this like you do the weekend quick crossword where I can see your underline of the description etc before clicking to reveal the answer.
David Brooks @20 – as the person who constructs the Quick Cryptic blog, that special coding to hide everything takes me two hours to write for every blog, because WordPress doesn’t like the coding, so I can’t use any WordPress wysiwyg shortcuts, It has to be typed in code on the code version of the page. Swapping to the visual version means that WordPress rewrites much of my carefully written code and slows the whole process down. I am capable of writing blogs in code from other experience elsewhere. I am not sure which other bloggers have the experience to write blogs in code (I’m sure some can, from the appearance of their blogs).
I also blog the Quiptic on a four weekly rota and this blog, with software shortcuts and a utility that makes it quicker means the blog takes me half an hour to write.
Because it’s such an onerous task writing the Quick Cryptic blog, we’re not wishing it on anyone else: we’re all volunteers giving up time to solve these puzzles and blog them. Adding to that task is likely to be a quick way of losing volunteers.
No one who has read John Le Carré would not know about tradecraft.
[Shanne@21: I took on maintaining a local organisation’s website. It’s in WordPress, which I’d not previously had to grapple with. What a dire, dreadful, awful crock of ***** WordPress is. The work I have to do on it is not quite big enough or often enough for me to just start again from scratch, but I am sorely tempted. Actually, I’m more sorely tempted to find some other mug to take it on; a bit like Night of the Demon. ]
Someone in the Guardian comments mentioned this is Anto’s 100th Quiptic. It’s a shame it’s taken so long for him to finally set one that fits the brief.
I found this pretty straightforward for a quiptic, with a couple just a little chewier to make it more fun.
Yoakam @7 – They do get easier! And don’t be afraid to “cheat” by using the check word button and anagram solvers, wordfinders etc as you get going. If I solve a clue just from the definition, I’ll sit with a pen and paper to try and figure out the parsing myself first, then come here to check/get the real parsing.
Layman @3 – I think the “put on” in SLIPPER is telling you the part order. Put the ER on (after) the SLIP and the P.
I’m not familiar with the word TOOTHSOME for “so delightful”, but it had to be that from the clear cluing (and most of the crossers). Took me forever to get my LOI, GARISH, after going through every possible type of decoration I could think of.
Re the complaints that 2d PAYPAL is a bad homophone. Consider this possibility – it’s not a homophone (who said it was?), it’s a pun, or more generically it’s aural wordplay, with the emphasis on “play”.
It’s a common problem in logic – take something that someone has written, apply your own interpretation (not the writer’s), and then complain that the
original is at fault because it doesn’t conform to your interpretation.
To take a classic example, “Lady Mondegreen” is not a homophone of “laid him on the green”. In what way is it faulty aural wordplay?
I thought PAYPAL was an excellent pun (but then, that’s just my interpretation 😊).
Agreed, cellomaniac.
Jolly good puzzle.
I struggled with FAST AND LOOSE, TOOTHSOME and BLOOD SPORT. I always forget that left = port = left…
Thank you Pierre, and Anto!
Very late to working through this and completing it as real life distractions intruded LOL. I felt this Anto Quiptic did what it says on the tin. A few easy bits, a few more chewier elements. Agree with some other comments that ‘regret’ and ‘hate’ don’t feel particularly equivalent. Re: TRADECRAFT I’m convinced it’s only in wider use due to LeCarré’s novels, I may be wrong on that but I don’t recall ever hearing it until I’d read and seen Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.
Enjoyed OUIJA and PLAYBOOK a lot.
I’m not sure on DISEASE – I would have said that “diss” as a verb requires double S, as is given in Pierre’s example. I can find “dis” as an alternative spelling but I’d never seen that before today. Though it must be said most of my difficulty from that clue stemmed from my having forgotten the “ease” meaning of “facility”.
Tedrick @24: that seems a little unfair. I’ve enjoyed many of Anto’s puzzles.
Found this one quite difficult, but got there eventually. Never heard of ‘toothsome’
@Yoakam keep going, I’ve taken it up in the last 4 – 5 months and only just started getting ‘comfortable’ with the Quiptics and Quicks. Managed a Cryptic for the first time only last week. Just keep coming on here and ‘cheating’ the answers and how it works. Things start to make a little sense. The second time EWER came up for me in that period of time and I’d never heard of it before then. Same as HE for ambassador.
Just to let you know, this one has taken me well over half a day of putting it down and coming back, and I’m constantly checking the words as I go along so I don’t go down any blind alleys. Thesaurus, Anagram Solvers! got them all going on. Next big goal is to do one without any ‘help’ and just press check at the end. hahaha
I have noticed though that on the odd occasion I’ve done the crossword on my laptop if you ‘ check word’ it leaves the correct letters in, so I try not to do it. Tablet just says the whole word is wrong which is more preferable. though I do like the Anagram Solver on the website page which leaves cross letters in the correct spot ( which isn’t on the mobile version ).
wrows @ 30: Maybe a little unfair but if you go back over the previous 99 blogs for his Quiptic the common theme is how unquiptic these crosswords have been. Pierre is to be commended for how polite he has been in the past despite his obvious frustration at times
This one was significantly harder than the last quiptic I tried. I’m sure I’ve heard the word toothsome (there are quote a few words like this fulsome, winsome that are all good things) but tradecraft ive never heard of before.
That version of Charades is way too high brow. I only recall signalling book, movie or song. I am not even sure how you act out play. But still a good clue.
I actually like this difficulty level more because its more interesting but I do agree its a bit insulting to say “for beginners or people who are short on time”
Tedrick @ 33: fair enough – is the general feel that his puzzles are too hard to properly be called Quiptics?
Matthew @ 34: I’m glad it’s not just me that “for beginners or people who are short on time” irks. It’s so very condescending. All that being said there are many improbably stuffy/highbrow references in crosswords, so perhaps it should read “for plebs and the hoi polloi”
My own perception – which is all I have! – is that Anto’s quiptics are generally on the harder side. Certainly I found this one trickier than recent weeks, although I do think there must be a variance and I didn’t find anything unfair, I just found some of the clues harder to get stuck into.
I’ve seen today’s cryptic is Paul which will no doubt bring out many naysayers, but I’ve always liked his puzzles because his clue style seems to suit me despite me being very much on the junior side of the solving cohort! All subjective, in the end…
Wrows @35, ‘hoi’ in Greek means ‘the’. Hence it is tautologous to write ‘the hoi polloi’. Might help you out in a crossword one day else I wouldn’t mention it.
@Shanne, all you do is much appreciated. I wonder whether you’ve considered taking a break from it, it often sounds as though you feel you are required to do it and so you resent it; you’re not compelled to!
Thanks Anto and Pierre for a great Quiptic and excellent blog. Some brilliant surfaces here, most enjoyable. I won’t join a pile-on against Anto but I do agree that the sinking feeling that I sometimes used to get is in abeyance now.
I do, however, agree with the pile-on about WordPress. It is indeed a crock of whatever, built up so far past its initial competencies that it’s now a wobbling pile of add-ons and strange conventions. Yuk.
I also am not sure that Paypal/papal is a problem. They might not be exact homophones but the similarity is so obvious that there’s no hindrance to getting the clue right, surely.
Giving-up person earlier: please don’t give up (thank you Peter and Kate). It does get better despite the ups and downs!
Jamesnkr @ 37 – irritatingly, I knew this (having done a small amount of Ancient Greek at school) – clearly I have joined the ranks of said hoi polloi…