Harpo is on the oche throwing some gentle Quiptic darts at us this morning. This one went in steadily for me: some well-positioned anagrams to give me a foothold in the grid, then some cryptic definitions to wrestle with to get me over the line.
There is a nina in the puzzle. For newbies, a nina is a hidden message, and today it’s along the top and right-hand side of the grid, spelling OUTSIDE THE BOX. Whether this is to do with having to think outside the box to get the cryptic definitions, I know not.
Abbreviations
cd cryptic definition
dd double definition
cad clue as definition
(xxxx)* anagram
anagrind = anagram indicator
[x] letter(s) removed
definitions are underlined
Across
8 Wild goat seen in prehistoric period
STONE AGE
Great surface reading and an easy anagram to start us off. (GOAT SEEN)* with ‘wild’ as the anagram.
9 Sweet nothing when alpha ousts husband
NOUGAT
Harpo is inviting you to replace the H in NOUGHT with A for ‘alpha’ in the NATO/phonetic alphabet. Strictly, it’s ALFA, since not all languages have the PH to F correspondence. It’s also JULIETT, but setters ignore that too and everybody gets on with their life.
10 Poor stooge and journalist decline through neglect
GO TO SEED
A charade of (STOOGE)* and ED. The anagrind is ‘poor’.
11 Mentioned rugby forward’s pipe
HOOKAH
A soundalike clue (‘mentioned’) for HOOKER.
12 Locksmith that’s scored?
BARBER OF SEVILLE
A cd. There are two bits of cryptic whimsy: you have to think of a BARBER as someone who looks after your ‘locks’; and it’s ‘scored’ because it’s an opera buffa by Rossini.
15 Ally ousts Republican devil
FIEND
F[R]IEND
16 Clergyman cut grass border
VERGE
VERGE[R]
20 Capacity to talk big: ‘get off that,’ he exploded
THE GIFT OF THE GAB
(BIG GET OFF THAT HE)* with ‘exploded’ as the anagrind.
21 Sick owners deteriorate
WORSEN
(OWNERS)* with ‘sick’ as the anagrind.
23 Passionate love for bird
FLAMINGO
A charade of FLAMING and O and an opportunity for the Obligatory Pierre Bird Link. What the pair shown here are doing, I’m not quite sure.
25 Cancel permit to enter river
DELETE
An insertion of LET in DEE. The insertion indicator is ‘to enter’.
26 Clever clogs needing support with primary email folder?
BRAINBOX
A charade of BRA and INBOX.
Down
1 Old male cat occupying bronze padded seat
OTTOMAN
A charade of O and TOM inserted into TAN. The insertion indicator is ‘occupying’.
2 Definite nasty bug in donut
UNDOUBTING
(BUG IN DONUT)* with ‘nasty’ as the anagrind.
3 Nick cheers on vacuous karaoke
TAKE
A charade of TA and K[ARAOK]E.
4 Dismiss son, nothing to add over fine
SEND OFF
A charade of S, END OF and F. The reference is to the beautiful game (and a few others). The usage is colloquial. ‘We are not going on holiday with your mother. End of.’
5 As things transpired, where athletes would compete
IN THE EVENT
A cd cum dd.
6 Spanish American silver peso found in corduroys
DURO
Hidden in corDUROys.
7 Shell of areca (betel) nuts fit for consumption
EATABLE
(A[REC]A BETEL)* with ‘nuts’ as the anagrind.
13 On which being in a union is often indicated
RING FINGER
A cd.
14 Component of engine dirt ruined
INGREDIENT
(ENGINE DIRT)* with ‘ruined’ as the anagrind.
17 Article more dodgy – it requires proof
THEOREM
A charade of THE and (MORE)* with ‘dodgy’ as the anagrind.
18 Votes against suppressing super chats
CONFABS
An insertion of FAB in CONS. The insertion indicator is ‘suppressing’.
19 Overseas capital gains initially put into Barclays? All right
BANGKOK
An insertion of G for the initial letter of ‘gains’ in BANK and OK. The insertion indicator is ‘put into’.
22 For some, Jupiter rises in Middle Eastern port
SUEZ
This was my last one in, but it shouldn’t have been, really. SUEZ isn’t an obscure port. The Jupiter bit was the deception I couldn’t initially see: ZEUS is the equivalent god and you need to reverse that (‘rises’ since it’s a down clue) to get your solution.
24 Sadly, dish of cold vegetables mostly thrown up
ALAS
SALA[D] reversed. Again, ‘thrown up’ works as a reversal indicator because it’s a down clue.
Many thanks to Harpo for this week’s Quiptic.
Perfect Quiptic
Thanks Harpo and Pierre
I’m wondering if OUTSIDE THE BOX is simply describing the position of the nina’s letters relative to the crossword?
Breezy stuff and good fun. No issues. BARBER OF SÉVILLE was my last one in. I didn’t see the nina. I find them a bit irrelevant but it’s nice to hear about them afterwards.
Thanks Harpo and Pierre.
I thought this was fun, and fitted the brief, but … having spent too much of my past life in churches, a verger isn’t a member of the clergy, any layperson can cover what’s needed. I’ve covered the necessary a few times.
Thank you to Pierre and Harpo.
Fred Gruff @2, yes, that might well have something to do with it.
As Martin @3 put it: breezy stuff and good fun.
SUEZ was my last one in too, and I grinned when I finally twigged it.
I also enjoyed HOOKAH and ALAS.
CONFABS threw me for a bit, as I’ve always said conflabs – so I must have got it wrong, all these years.
I did spot the nina, but only towards the end and wondered whether it applied to any particular clue…
Thanks Harpo for the relaxing Sunday morning coffee-in-bed entertainment – and Pierre for yet another blog that makes me chuckle. (Great flam-pic!)
Yes, I’ve always said conflabs – I suppose confabs is short for something, but I can’t think what. The DURO was new but very easy, and the BARBER OF SEVILLE was my last in as well.
All good, apart from SUEZ, which I knew is a canal but not a port. I also failed to parse NOUGAT. Didn’t see the nina.
Good fun.
Gladys @7 – Confabulations
Nice Quiptic with good clues. 22S SUEZ was my LOI – despite it being the same as a clue in Friday’s Cryptic by Yank!
Thanks to Pierre & Harpo
Suez was my kast one in as well, though I an sure I have seen a very similar clue recently in a Guardian puzzle. I had not heard on confabs and am not familiar with rugby terms or pipes, so had to guess hookah (I vaguely remembered having seen get the word before). Flamingo and brainbox were good. Thanks, Harpo and Pierre
Thanks Harpo and Pierre. Very enjoyable Quiptic. Big smile for 12a when the penny dropped. Not my last in but I had a lot of crossers and the ‘locksmith’ part suddenly jumped out at me LOL. 22d SUEZ made an appearance in Friday’s cryptic albeit with different but similar wordplay. Loved the construction and surface of 7d EATABLE and for me at least there was lots to like in this puzzle. I never knew a verger was a layperson; I just remember the verger in Dad’s Army and he always looked like he had some kind of priestly garb on 😄
Still struggling with TAKE. The clue doesn’t make sense to me.
@13 – Ta – for cheers, or thanks followed by the outer letters of karaoke indicated by vacuous for empty.
Wellbeck and Gladys – yes, I’ve always said conflab too, but thinking about it, confab is presumably short for confabulation so must be correct.
Did what it said on the tin. Enjoyably.
I had to do a search on “rugby forward” cause I had no klew, didn’t know duro but figured it out penultimately, then, finally “Barber of Seville” clicked. Sometimes “easy” puzzles rely on cleverness, while “hard” puzzles roll out with rules and process so difficulty is in they eye of the solver.
Very enjoyable! Loved locksmith. Many were easy. Nougat and hookah were LOsI. Didn’t know hooker.
Thanks much for a great set and fine blog!
Thanks Harpo and Pierre
Very good Quiptic. “Conflab” for “confab” is so common that I wouldn’t be surprised if it turns up in Chambers soon!
HOOKAH reminded me of the caterpillar in Alice (can’t remember which book).
I wonder if Harpo would have included “overseas” in 19d if it wasn’t a Quiptic? I was half expecting a currency.
A vaguely similar clue for SUEZ was in Friday’s Yank puzzle – shouldn’t the editor try to avoid this?
Not sure HOOKAH/hooker are homophones, but it couldn’t be anything else.
WhiteDevil @20
I agree, but the rhotic/non-rhotic argument has been overdone recently.
I mostly enjoyed that but some clues took me ages. BARBER OF SEVILLE struck me as having too many layers of crypticness to be ideal Quiptic fodder. SUEZ and ALAS also slowed me down.
OED says “conflab” has been around since the 19th century, but it seems to have originated from “confab”. I had never heard of the latter version.
I’ve never heard of DURO but I worked it out once I had the crossers. My favourite was probably THEOREM.
Lots to like or even love in this Quiptic! STONE AGE, NOUGAT, BRAINBOX, BANGKOK, ALAS and SUEZ are why cryptic crosswords exist at all. I confess I only got the latter because it was clued similarly just the other day; I too tend to overlook the fact that the canal is, naturally, named after a nearby settlement of importance.
FIEND, FLAMINGO and INGREDIENT were also silky-smooth bread-and-butter clues.
A special mention for the genius and mischievously un-Quiptic “locksmith” in BARBER OF SEVILLE which I confess passed me by, me assuming that that was said coiffeur’s side hustle or something! And also for SEND OFF for the wonderful “End of.”.
The glyph for uppercase alpha in the Greek alphabet is A, so no recourse to Nato needed. And conflab is a dialectal variant of confab according to some dictionaries – and that makes 100% of us so far who seem to use the former.
Thanks both
WhiteDevil and muffin @ 20&21, the homophone argument may seem to have been overdone here of late, and yet some people are still making the same mistake. They impose their own definition (homophone) onto the clue and then complain when the setter’s wordplay (pun or aural wordplay) doesn’t conform to their superimposed definition.
As long as some people continue to make that mistake, I don’t think it is overkill to continue to point that out.
( I was going to use the phrase “rhetorical error” in my comment, but I couldn’t figure it out how a non-rhotic speaker would pronounce it.😉)
Thanks Harpo for the excellent Quiptic – not too difficult, but with enough cleverness to make it fun for everyone. I especially liked the athletic locksmith at 12a BARBER OF SEVILLE. ( Query: is a resident of Seville an Orangeman? )
And thanks Pierre for the flamingly good blog.
Well this is the first quiptic I’ve (more or less) completed after about a year of quick cryptics. Had to reveal 3, 22 and 25. But I wouldn’t have got anywhere at all without the background knowledge from the qc’s. (Thanks Shanne!) Thanks Harpo and Pierre.
Cellomaniac @24
Yes, but as someone pointed out recently, these “aural wordplays” consistently ignore the rhotic pronounciation (which is arguably the correct one, or why else is the R there?).
#20 “Not sure HOOKAH/hooker are homophones”. It depends on where you live. I would think that they are homophones for most English speakers with local accents to the north of Stratford on Avon.
Tramor @27
Surely you mean south…?
muffin @28 – Rhoticity in English – in my idiolect is enough West Country and enough Scots to have some rhoticity, depending on whom I’m talking to. Tramor does mean to the north of Stratford on Avon.
muffin@26, have you considered the possibility that setters like to make fun of non-rhotic speakers, but they know better than to make fun of us rhoticians?
Shanne @29
Surely (as even your link implies) the centre of non-rhoticity is in the south-east of England. I was brought up with a rhotic accent in Devon, and I still hear it where I now live on the Lancashire/Yorkshie border. Further norh even more so?
Cellomaniac 🙂
Great stuff and a rare occasion where I not only spotted the Nina but it helped with BARBER OF SEVILLE. I got to say that’s a toughie for a Quiptic. Not only do you need to know two bits of ‘crosswordese’ but even after that you need the general knowledge or you have virtually no chance.
Liked SUEZ and THEOREM
Thanks Harpo and Pierre
AP @23: Figaro, the BARBER OF SEVILLE, is (as his famous aria makes clear) a factotum, so it would not be at all surprising if locksmithing were among his talents!
I didn’t understand “end of” in 4dn, but now that it’s explained I like it.
Although I’m not a churchgoer myself, I have known some vergers in my day, and I can confirm that they were all laypeople, so I do think Harpo is guilty of a minor error there. Oh, well. As I tell my students when they feel bad about making a small mistake, “If that’s the worst thing you do today, then today was a good day.”
Enjoyable puzzle.
I didn’t manage to fully parse 4d although I have heard of the saying ‘End of.’
New for me: DURO.
Great, thanks Harpo and Pierre.
I loved the locksmith clue. I spent several weeks playing in the orchestra for a touring Barber so I should’ve got it faster!
Not only VERGER, but Harpo’s definition is for EDIBLE not EATABLE. The former is fit for consumption, the latter is tasty to eat.
Could someone please enlighten me what the purpose of the words „For some“ is in in 22d? The Cluue seems to work without those words.
Struether@38
I think it’s that “for some” people (e.g Ancient Greeks) Jupiter is referred to as Zeus.
DURO was new for me and a bit obscure I thought.
Thanks @bibs. Fair enough, it’s not really a synonym but the word in another language. For me it was extra Obfuscation…was looking for hidden word or similar.