Apologies for the slightly later than usual blog, down mainly to the fact that it took me a longer than usual time to solve this Quiptic from Anto. Which might be an indication that its difficulty level is not quite appropriate for the slot. Those on the early steps of their cryptic crossword journey will no doubt be best placed to tell us below.
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 Drug supplier quick to hide damage
PHARMACY
An insertion of HARM in PACY. The insertion indicator is ‘to hide’.
5 Boozers: quite attractive, some say
LUSHES
An aural wordplay/soundalike (‘some say’) for LUSCIOUS.
9 Registers offence after attack on king?
CHECKS IN
A charade of CHECK and SIN. The ‘king’ is of the chess variety.
10 Fight about church – it will create division
SPACER
An insertion of CE in SPAR. The insertion indicator is ‘about’.
12 Finishes down a hundred and suffers defeat
LOSES
[C]LOSES. The C is the Roman numeral.
13 Something that might cut amber seal apart
LASER BEAM
(AMBER SEAL)* with ‘apart’ as the anagrind.
14 Excited if data field’s in excellent condition
FIT AS A FIDDLE
(IF DATA FIELDS)* with ‘excited’ as the anagrind.
18 They hope to conquer extremely attritional places for example
MOUNTAINEERS
The outside letters (‘extremely’) of ‘attritional’ and ‘places’ gives you ALPS, which MOUNTAINEERS hope to conquer. At a push, this is an extended definition clue, but I don’t really see how it’s truly cryptic, and the ‘for example’ isn’t really doing anything to add to its crypticness.
21 Tourist puts forecaster on spot
SIGHTSEER
A charade of SIGHT(‘spot’) and SEER (‘forecaster’).
23 Institution displaying objects from both ends of Venezuela
V AND A
The outside letters of the country.
24 Confess to creating two sets of papers with information technology
I DID IT
A charade of ID, ID and IT.
25 Cook our veg in French wine
VIN ROUGE
(OUR VEG IN)* with ‘cook’ as the anagrind.
26 Speculate about time invitees turn up
GUESTS
An insertion of T in GUESS. The insertion indicator is ‘about’ and unusually the definition is not at the beginning or the end of the clue. Probably not one to include in a beginners’ puzzle.
27 Early telegraph cables initially offering short version of this
ET CETERA
The initial letters of of the first three words of the clue give you ETC, but again, I don’t really see how this is cryptic.
Down
1 Papa goes over child’s little difficulty
PICKLE
A charade of P for the NATO/phonetic alphabet ‘Papa’ and ICKLE, a child’s version of ‘little’.
2 Some language is magnificent, showing discrimination
AGEISM
Hidden in languAGE IS Magnificent.
3 Force to move- it’s only temporary
MAKESHIFT
A charade of MAKE and SHIFT.
4 Relaxed government unit will keep things fresh
CHILL CABINET
A charade of CHILL and CABINET. I am struggling to equate CHILL and ‘relaxed’. CHILLED, for sure. And CHILL is an adjective in ‘a chill wind’; but the wind isn’t relaxed. Is ‘government’ equivalent to CABINET, or do we need ‘government unit’, in which case ‘unit’ is doing double duty.
6 Superior but essentially stupid experts
UPPER
The central letters of stUPid exPERts.
7 Criminal had a nice big property in Mexico
HACIENDA
(HAD A NICE)* with ‘criminal’ as the anagrind.
8 Son, in better shape, that’s useful around the garden
STRIMMER
A charade of S and TRIMMER.
11 One struggling to become free professionally?
ESCAPE ARTIST
A cd.
15 Home defeat means we’re going backwards
IN REVERSE
A charade of IN and REVERSE.
16 Tremendous destruction
SMASHING
A dd.
17 Swamp with lots of paper about company meeting
QUAGMIRE
An insertion of AGM in QUIRE. The insertion indicator is ‘about’ for the third time in one puzzle.
19 Stick, broken, reunited without it
ENDURE
(REUN[IT]ED)* with ‘broken’ as the anagrind.
20 Motor includes compiler and a recording device
CAMERA
An insertion of ME (‘compiler’) in CAR, followed by A. The insertion indicator is ‘includes’.
22 Disgrace adding AI to explosive material
TAINT
An insertion of AI in TNT. The unconvincing insertion indicator is ‘adding … to’.
Many thanks to Anto for this week’s Quiptic.
Thanks Anto and Pierre
I too thought this too hard for a Quiptic – I found it harder than yesterday’s Prize.
A couple of odd clues, as you say Pierre.
Re 4d, “He’s pretty chill about this” is reasonably normal, I think. I think ‘cabinet’ is government unit, and the definition is just ‘will keep things fresh’.
Thanks to Anto and Pierre
Thanks, Anto and Pierre. For 26a I wonder if the definition is “invitees [who] turn up” (i.e. you’re not a guest if you don’t come) but still feels a little awkward.
Russthree, your example of ‘chill’ is one that is used colloquially, so fair enough. But that was my point about CHILL CABINET: going with your interpretation, ‘will keep things fresh’ is the definition. That’s what a CHILL CABINET does, but it’s not a definition of one. Which is how a cryptic clue is meant to work – definition and subsidiary indicator.
As a beginner/improver/whatever, I found it doable as a Quiptic though I couldn’t parse ENDURE and don’t see how ET CETERA works ( the ‘etera’ bit anyway). I’m always pleased to see Anto, especially today after struggling with Friday’s cryptic. Thanks Anto and Pierre.
Also a beginner/improver/whatever, I loved this. So many favourites, I can’t pick one. Nice misdirection, and a wee bit of guess work to get there in the end.
‘Chill’ is often used as an adjective as in ‘chill time’, so 4d made sense for me. I think ‘unit’ worked too as in government ‘department’.
The ‘turn up’ in 26a, I felt was a bit of misdirection?
Thanks Anto for chilled Sunday morning and Pierre for the parsing.
CHILL is an slangy adjective e.g. “he’s a chill dude”. My issue is that I’ve always heard it called a “chiller cabinet”
Thanks for the explanations!! I managed to finish it, but I couldn’t parse a lot of the definitions.
Pierre #4, I see where you’re coming from.
LobsterDarts #7, I’ve heard ‘chiller’ used, but not with the word ‘cabinet’.
I, too, found parts of it difficult; LOI LUSHES. On GUESTS, I agree with Silent Knight @3; on MOUNTAINEERS, I guess the wordplay is between mountains as “extremely attritional places” (which is true but rather vague, in my view) and “Alps, for example”. I share the blogger’s quibbles for TAINT and maybe ET CETERA though I feel that I liked the latter nevertheless. I was pleased with myself after solving QUAGMIRE, and I think it’s a great clue. Thanks Anto and Pierre!
Even after seeing references to the homophone re 5a Ion the Guardian site i failed to get the attractive connection.
Not complaining about the homophone- I am pretty tolerant of these, just failed to see it myself.
As always I greatly appreciate the bloggers – in this case Pierre – who do the understanding for me
In 27 I took the definition to be the long version of the short version ETC given in the wordplay
Loved the escape artist however, once the penny finally dropped, so many thanks for that (and the rest) Anto
Muffin at #1…I finished this in 30 mins but still only have 3 filled in the prize!
I really like Anto’s puzzles and I think he regularly comes up with brilliant clues. Though I recognise that he sometimes pushes the boundaries of what is normally expected. For example, I wouldn’t exactly agree that ET CETERA is not cryptic, Pierre — the problem (if there is one) is that it just consists of wordplay, with no definition. If it had had “and others” or similar at the end it would have been more conventional.
But on the plus side, my favourites were HACIENDA (Criminal had a nice big property in Mexico) and QUAGMIRE (Swamp with lots of paper about company meeting) for their great misleading surfaces.
In 26a, I think the idea is that “invitees turn up” means that GUESTS appear (turn up) as the answer.
Many thanks both.
I didn’t think much of LUSHES/luscious.
I thought this was fine as a Quiptic – I still think I’m in the improver bracket two years into my cryptic crossword journey and I didn’t race through this. Some tricky bits, some not so. The balance was just about right. No issue with CHILL or CABINET in 4d; agree ‘chill’ in this context is colloquial but that’s OK, and ‘government unit’ works for me, as does the definition and that a ‘chill cabinet’ is something that keeps things fresh. I also thought ET CETERA was fine. I didn’t spot the Alps part in the MOUNTAINEER clue, which I think is clever, and thought the clue was just a cryptic def. (by then I had all the crossers). Thanks Anto, a good workout, and thanks Pierre.
Some say LUSHES sounds like luscious, but I’m not one of them. However, full marks to Anto for acknowledging the not-quite match.
MOUNTAINEERS didn’t really work for me either, but I liked ETCETERA.
Half of it went in easy and then I hit a wall. I thought I wasn’t going to finish it so I’m happy to have solved it in a single sitting even though I couldn’t parse a few. I agree it was a mixed bag. A few excellent clues but spoiled by some really awkward clues. Not the worst quiptic but not the best. Thanks Pierre
I thought MOUNTAINEERS was really hard for a Quiptic and some of the other clues were a bit odd and difficult to parse. I’m still pondering whether the clue for ET CETERA hangs together after reading the blog and everyone’s comments. I didn’t know a QUIRE was an amount of paper which made QUAGMIRE very hard!
So, that certainly pushed this beginner/improver, although I mostly enjoyed it!
I have no problem with this. Yes some of the clues were unusual and it was above the usual difficulty level for a quiptic, but as an improver I don’t mind the workout. I always learn a lot which better prepares me for the full fat cryptics.
So all I can say is chill people 😉and enjoy, and of course thanks to Anto and Pierre.
Amma @5 ETC is a short version of ET CETERA.
Muffin @1 you must have been on fire yesterday, burnt out today, or both!
This felt like a standard Quiptic to me; accessible and fair. I liked MOUNTAINEERS, I DID IT and clue of the day QUAGMIRE.
I like reading posts from people who solved it on a wing and a prayer. You still solved it and it will soon feel easier. These blogs help so much.
Thanks all.
Thanks Anto and Pierre. I think this was pitched well enough as a Quiptic.
I feel 18, 26, and 27, MOUNTAINEERS, GUESTS, and ET CETERA, are exercises in spotting definitions that are perhaps longer than traditional. As others have pointed out, if the definition is “invitees turn up,” then the definition is properly at the end and the solution involves avoiding a bit of misdirection. I’m a fan of the semantic inference needed to get from the Alps “they hope to conquer” to MOUNTAINEERS. ET CETERA is frustrating if you’re looking for the letter-play for ETERA, but semantically satisfying if the full definition is “offering a short version of this,” i.e., the solution has a short version that is “etc.”
I gave up as I was in a hurry today.A bit too advanced for a beginner I feel, depending on what “beginner ” means?
Muffin @1 – I’m staggered. I could not solve one clue in Vlad’s prize yesterday, yet raced through this.
HIYD et al
I must have been on Vlad’s wavelength yesterday. I don’t think I’m burnt out, Martin, as my Everyman solving time (it let me back in today) was just over 9 minutes.
New for me: CHILL CABINET.
Favourites: ESCAPE ARTIST, I DID IT, ET CETERA.
I solved but could not parse 18ac.
Pleasant Sunday Fare: perhaps a bit stiffer than yer average quiptic.
I couldn’t work out the parsing of MOUNTAINEER at all – so thanks, Pierre for that and a nice clear blog.
QUAGMIRE was neat and non-obvious insertion.
And now I will go and CHILL.
Thanks Anto!
As an occasional tackler of Quiptics, I enjoy Anto’s puzzles and didn’t find this too hard. Perhaps they weren’t all strictly following the “rules”. Mountaineers was one of my first in, so maybe I was on the same wavelength. Also I think lushes sounds very similar; must be my accent.
I don’t see how “confess”, rather than, say, “confession” can define I DID IT. I share some of the other quibbles that have been noted but didn’t find this harder overall than the usual Quiptic
Brilliant puzzle, Anto still one of my favourites. QUAGMIRE and MOUNTAINEERS were outstanding. Ta both.
Anto’s puzzles tend to be a bit unconventional, which for some of us makes them questionable Quiptic fare. But the majority of comments from beginners/improvers tend to be positive, so who am I to judge.
Personally I would have graded this as a Monday puzzle. It had a few chewy moments wher checkers certainly helped; most of all for the unconventional clues already mentioned. Certainly I enjoyed it, particularly ESCAPE ARTIST, HACIENDA, QUAGMIRE and MAKESHIFT.
I think the “turn up” in the GUESTS clue is a “wink” to solvers, for want of a better term. It goes one step further than a standard “production” link word/phrase (such as “for”, “give(s)” and “to produce”), instead referring to the actual appearance of the solution in the grid. It’s akin to things like “in here” which we see from time to time. Nothing wrong with it, but it’s certainly unusual and I personally wouldn’t class it as a Quiptic-level device.
MOUNTAINEERS is a sound enough semi-&lit but I think the “for example” (necessary to translate the wordplay to the solution because the Alps are just one example of places mountaineers might go) hinders rather than helps in the definitional reading of the surface because it doesn’t apply to the actual solution (which is not a DBE) but rather to the wordplay. Which is also rather unusual. Indeed I think this is what Pierre was saying.
The problem with ET CETERA is not that it isn’t cryptic; it does have a cryptic reading. Rather – and just like ACROSTIC in Arachne’s 30,000 puzzle the other day – it’s that the clue falls flat when there’s no definition. My reaction to both was “And so what?” One could put together any phrase one likes with the appropriate initial letters for ETC or ACROSTIC, but it’s a rather pointless exercise unless it describes or hints at the solution.
Re VinnyD#29, I took “confess” to be an imperative to the solver and then the solver actually has to perform that, i.e. utter “I DID IT”. Quite fun, I thought. And again, unusual.
Thanks both.
As an advanced beginner, I found this relatively straightforward, the more tricky ones I could solve through the crossers from the easier ones. I like Anto’s puzzles, I don’t find them so unconventional. Thank you, Anto and Pierre.
Always pleased to see Anto as the setter – even though it’s taken me till Monday morning to finish this one. Perhaps I’ve not been exposed to enough ‘proper’ cryptic puzzles find Anto’s style irritating, so thanks to Pierre for pointing-out where he’s playing fast and loose with the conventions.
Thanks Anto and Pierre for this excellent, witty Quiptic and fantastic blog. I rather liked ET CETERA but I’m not sure I understand the definition of a true cryptic here.
I rather like Et Cetera too, Vogel421 @34. I took “this” to be a sort of definition, and “Early telegraph cables initially” is a cryptic wordplay construct I think. Mind you I am a beginner, so I could be wrong. Anyway, I usually struggle with Anto’s puzzles; so I was chuffed to do this one with only 1 reveal.
Beginner here – don’t see any issue with ET CETERA, seemed like a ‘cryptic definition’ type that occasionally comes up in the QCs. MOUNTAINEERS was only doable from the definition. I didn’t like GUESTS – the turn up at the end suggested another wordplay, so was looking for speculation based answers and revealed. LUSHES – come on, that’s totally easy enough to get from LUSCIOUS, things don’t need to soundalike perfectly in your dialect to pass.
Thanks Anto & Pierre!
I’m a beginner as well and didn’t think this was harder than usual. The tougher ones, I kind of guessed from the crossers and used the check button to confirm. Perhaps mountaineer and etcetera were unusual, but as a beginner I just classed these as a kind of clue I hadn’t encountered before. I did enjoy them though.
The only ones I revealed were Pickle and Endure – which, in retrospect, were gettable if I had been more patient.
Thanks Pierre and Anto!