This week’s Sunday Quiptic is found here and this week comes from Dice …
… who always has a theme or additional tricks even in the Quick Cryptic, and this week there is a theme of cards and cardgames, which I have highlighted. There are a couple more that I dithered about adding in, (like DESTROYER, which is a board game, using cards, and HEAD, as head cards), but decided not to. I did include BUSH and RAP as BUSH RUMMY and RAP RUMMY are variations on RUMMY. There’s almost a pangram too, just missing the X and Z.
And for anyone who hasn’t heard, one of the regular setters of the Quiptic puzzles, Hectence (Wendy Law), died last month, and there was an obituary in yesterday’s Guardian here
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | LAPLANDER |
Finn’s plot dividing the French and the German (9)
|
| charade of LA (the French) + PLAN (plot dividing) + DER (the German) – if you haven’t come across this before most of the definite (the) and indefinite (a/an) articles in French / German / Italian / Spanish get used. The options in French are le/LA/les or un (possibly une), in German der/die (possibly das/des/den/dem) or ein (there are others, but not so useful letter groups). | ||
| 6 | JOKER |
Comedian fine being embraced by Jeremy, half-cut (5)
|
| insertion (being embraced) of OK (fine) in JERemy (Jeremy, half-cut) | ||
| 9 | CHEAT |
Unconventionally teach fraud (5)
|
| anagram (unconventionally) of (TEACH)* | ||
| 10 | BUSHCRAFT |
Topiary techniques essential in rural Australia (9)
|
| double definition – -ish the topiary is a bit quirky | ||
| 11 | TRUMP CARDS |
President’s concealing scoundrel entertaining Royal (originally!) – they have an advantage (5,5)
|
| double insertion (concealing) – of TRUMPS (president’s) around CAD (scoundrel) which is around (entertaining) R (Royal originally) | ||
| 12 | DEAL |
Lay out banquet, perhaps, discounting a thousand – five hundred instead (4)
|
| letter swap – MEAL (banquet, perhaps) swapping M (discounting a thousand) for D (five hundred instead) – M and D are Roman numerals, and my crossword habit has meant my reading of Roman numerals has got much faster. | ||
| 14 | HAGGLED |
Posh Prada bag – cracking steal – one pound, finally negotiated bargain (7)
|
| final letters (finally) of posH pradA baG crackinG steaL onE pounD | ||
| 15 | SANGRIA |
Soprano, endlessly irate, starts to inevitably abuse drink (7)
|
| charade of S (soprano) + ANGRy (endlessly irate) + I A (starts to Inevitably Abuse) | ||
| 17 | AUDITED |
Gold passed time inside, did examinations (7)
|
| Lego clue of AU (gold) + DIED (passed) around T (time inside) to give AUDITED | ||
| 19 | SHUFFLE |
Lazy movement of son borders on lacklustre after sulk (7)
|
| charade of S (son) + HUFF (sulk) + LE (borders on LacklustE – after) – with ordering instructions (the LE comes after HUFF) | ||
| 20 | TURN |
Act tour Reno – what are the odds?! (4)
|
| alternate letters (what are the odds) of ToUr ReNo | ||
| 22 | WATCHSTRAP |
Might this keep you to time? (10)
|
| cryptic definition – the strap holds the timepiece to your body/clothes – so could be keeping you to time | ||
| 25 | NUMBER ONE |
Wee anaesthetist under the influence of drug (6,3)
|
| charade of NUMBER (anaesthetist) ON (under the influence) + E (drug) – a NUMBER ONE/wee both mean urination as against defecation (number two). An anaesthetist (or an anaesthetic) is a NUMBER because they numb someone – one of those regular crossword tricks | ||
| 26 | TRICK |
Evenly sliced turnip cake technique (5)
|
| alternate letters (evenly sliced) of TuRnIp CaKe | ||
| 27 | DRYAD |
Spirit without alcohol astonishingly delicious initially (5)
|
| charade of DRY (without alcohol) + A D (Astonishingly Delicious initially) – for this spirit | ||
| 28 | DESTROYER |
Warship does retry manoeuvring (9)
|
| anagram (manoeuvring) of (DOES RETRY)* | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | LICIT |
Mostly tongue it, that’s allowed (5)
|
| charade of LICk (mostly tongue) + IT (from the clue) | ||
| 2 | PREJUDGED |
Rude GP, Jed, erroneously made assumptions without facts (9)
|
| anagram (erroneously) of (RUDE GP JED)* | ||
| 3 | AUTOPILOTS |
Oil up toast, dished out for robot drivers? (10)
|
| anagram (dished out) of (OIL UP TOAST)* and a question mark as this is a definition by example (DBE) – also found on ships and planes | ||
| 4 | DAB HAND |
Expert soft touch with hot Australian knight on date (3,4)
|
| charade of DAB (soft touch) + H (hot) + A (australian) + N (knight in chess) + (on) D (date) | ||
| 5 | RESIDES |
Remains buried in structures I’d established (7)
|
| hidden word (buried in) structuRES ID EStablished | ||
| 6 | JACK |
Sailor’s a card! (4)
|
| double definition | ||
| 7 | KNAVE |
Church centre picked up rascal (5)
|
| soundalike – (picked up) the centre of a church is usually the “nave” | ||
| 8 | RETALIATE |
Get revenge when rump consumed by diner is thrown up (9)
|
| reverse insertion (consumed by … thrown up) – TAIL (rump) inside (consumed by EATER (diner) = ETAILATER < reversed (thrown up) | ||
| 13 | INQUISITOR |
One asking questions in RoI quits after collapsing (10)
|
| anagram (collapsing) of (IN ROI QUITS)* – RoI (Republic of Ireland) | ||
| 14 | HEARTENED |
Full of courage, he rented a ground (9)
|
| anagram (ground) of (HE RENTED A)* | ||
| 16 | REFORTIFY |
Engineers: 40 patrols provided to increase security again (9)
|
| charade of RE (engineers) + FORTY (40 from the clue) around (patrols) IF (provided) – RE for engineers is a regular, Royal Engineers, as is IF for provided (IF statements in coding or Excel). | ||
| 18 | DIAMOND |
Lady-in-waiting hauled up over case of nicked jewel (7)
|
| reversal (hauled up in a down clue) of MAID < (lady-in-waiting) to give DIAM + O (over) ND (case of NickeD) | ||
| 19 | SUCCESS |
Work out, including cardio circuit exercise, principally achieving the goal (7)
|
| insertion (including) of SUSS (work out) around (including) C C E (Cardio Circuit Exercise, principally) | ||
| 21 | RUMMY |
Run! Headless Egyptian corpse’s game (5)
|
| letter swap/charade/decapititation – R (run) + mUMMY (headless Egyptian corpse) | ||
| 23 | POKER |
One thrusting into stud? (5)
|
| double definition – the second has a question mark as it’s a definition by example – of the game | ||
| 24 | HEAD |
Got wind of missing Republican leader (4)
|
| deletion (missing Republican) – HEArD (got wind of) without the R (missing Republican) |
Fun puzzle. I liked NUMBER ONE, SANGRIA and LAPLANDER.
[I noticed that if we add a U to RESIDES for residues it’s still a synonym of REMAINS.] All parsed like Shanne except RETALIATE which I realised I hadn’t finished.
Thanks Dice and Shanne
Nice puzzle. Superb blog. Classification of each clue as letter swap, charade, deletion etc., must be
very useful to beginners.
Thanks Dice and Shanne.
KVa – it’s habit from the Quick Cryptic, and knowing that this is the next stepping stone up for many who started with the Quick Cryptic, to help them work out how to identify what they are looking at and move on.
Not super easy but quite enjoyable. I forgot to look for a theme as I never expect them in Quiptics.
Favourite: NUMBER ONE.
I thought that 22ac was not very cryptic and I agree that 10ac was a bit quirky (and not all that cryptic).
In my experience of cryptics, “the French” can clue le or la (or perhaps les), but “the German” is only ever der. Curious.
Good puzzle — missed the theme, as always.
My favourite was NUMBER ONE, with KNAVE as runner-up.
It was only after noticing that the latter crossed with JOKER that the theme leapt out at me, but by then I’d nearly finished anyway.
Topiary as BUSH seems ok to me.
I needed the help of the blog to complete the parsing to INQUISITOR: the answer was pretty obvious, but I’d misread the clue as ROL, not ROI, (little l and capital I being identical in the font the newspaper uses), hadn’t a clue about ROL (some unknown city, I presumed) and therefore had this pesky rogue L to explain away…
Thanks Dice and Shanne
One of the few times I’ve managed to complete on the Sunday! Bit of guess work, leap of faith and googling needed for LOI 27A DRYAD, in particular.
16D REFORTIFY favourite, as was 10A BUSHCRAFT.
Thanks Shanne & Dice.
A fun, easy solve, with NUMBER ONE eliciting a chuckle as I am a child. Thanks both.
This seems perfectly pitched for the Quiptic slot, with all the major clueing techniques covered. I naturally failed to spot the theme.
Thanks Dice, very satisfying. And thanks Shanne – excellent blog. Mainly in the Quiptic sweet spot, with some parts edging into weekday cryptic territory, IMO. Didn’t think 22a really works as worded (I thought ‘on’ might be better, but not sure), but I can see where it’s coming from. I couldn’t see how HAGGLED worked but I got it from crossers and definition, and came here and see it was obvious and clearly signalled; so this was my Doh! for today LOL. I’d also forgotten about RE and Engineers. And I didn’t spot the theme 🙂
Nice Quiptic from Dice and I actually spotted the theme, for once. Thanks for the excellent blog Shanne.
Shanne: I’d say that the dative, accusative, and genitive forms of “der” (des, dem, etc) would be translated as “of the”, “to the”, etc., as the case (literally) may be, not just “the.” So the only three options for “the German” are der, die, and das.
I like the term “Lego clue”, which I don’t think I’ve seen before.
@ 2 & 3: and it is very much appreciated.
@ 6: same here; I bunged it in, but couldn’t explain away the L or find the third I.
Thanks Dice and Shanne.
That was fun! Very nicely pitched!
I had RoI in 13 down as “Region of Interest” but that made no difference to the clue and the surface still worked.
I didn’t spot the theme and the fact that it was almost but not quite a pangram confused me a bit, particularly because one of the ones I was stuck on was REFORTIFY and I thought I might get closer to finishing the pangram by substituting XL for 40.
Thanks for the blog, Shanne – sorted out the few that I was struggling to parse, particularly RETALIATE.
AUDITED bugs me. Unless Im missing something the definition is exactly wrong – if you audit a course you do the lectures, seminars, readings etc but the one thing you don’t do is the exams/assessments. Is there another meaning?
Andrew @15
If the auditors go in to inspect a company’s finances, they are doing an examination?
Thanks! Never thought of that meaning!
Sad to hear about Wendy, her Quiptics were always first class.
Pleasant to see a theme, which was nicely done, as was KNAVE following JACK. Didn’t know turnip cake was a thing either.
Ta Dice & Shanne for a lovely blog as usual.
Thanks for a brilliant blog. Enjoyed this, complete with themes – thought there were a few tricky ones! A double insertion (TRUMP CARDS) in a Quiptic is pretty challenging, and I’d have never parsed RETALIATE without the blog.
Agree with many above re: NUMBER ONE – just a sublime clue, made all the better by a grand total of three letters representing the definition.
Query re: POKER as a double definition – I don’t think “into” can just be a link word (normally it’s a container indicator). Could it be that “one thrusting into” and “stud?” are both meant to clue POKER?
For 10a: I guess there are not enough features to have a Bush Chart but it seemed one would be essential if lost in the outback and otherwise might include topiary techniques. On second try I got Bush Craft but was not all that much happier with it.
Lovely Quiptic and blog, thanks Dice and Shanne! I found this one at just the right level with some very witty clues.
I too was sad to hear about Hectence. I always looked forward to her Quiptics.
I got 25 through the crossers, but I eventually read it as “the anaesthetist under the influence is the numbER of the lot” (i.e. the number one).