Guardian 25,968 – Pasquale

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A fairly tough but fair and enjoyable puzzle from Pasquale, in which I enjoyed some nice anagrams, and learned a couple of new words and the original version of (what I thought was) a well-known phrase. Good stuff, thanks Pasquale.

 
 
 
 
 
Across
1. PUNISH NI (Northern Ireland, which is part of the UK) in PUSH (an offensive)
4. SCOWLING COW in SLING
9. LITTER T (time) in LITER (US spelling of litre, which could be an amount of wine)
10. TUBEROSE (TO BE SURE)*. The plant is so called from the tubers of its root system – nothing to do with roses.
11. RULING THE ROAST RU (game) + LING (heather) + HER in TOAST. This phrase, from the idea of being at the head of the lunch table, is, I learn, the original form of what is usually now written as “ruling the roost“. I think it’s one of those cases where to use the original form in normal conversation would be excessively pedantic.
13. APPALOOSAS APPAL (shock) + OO (ducks) + SAS. This is a new word for me – they are distinctively-patterned horses.
14. LYRE Homophone of “liar”
16. TOIL TOILE less its final letter
18. SIMON PETER (PROMISE [thric]E NT)*, &lit. A brilliant clue referring to St Peter’s denial of Jesus: “Verily I say unto thee, That this night, before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice” (Matt. 26:34)
21. SESQUIPEDALIAN (PASQUALE INSIDE)* – an easy clue for me, as I knew the word (meaning “using long words”), but a beautifully appropriate anagram.
23. RANCHERS RAN + CHE[E]RS
24. BOWLER Double definition – a bowler in cricket (one running up to [bats]man in helmet), and bowler hat
25. MURALIST RUM< + A-LIST
26. STOREY STORE + [harmon]Y
Down
1. POLL Double definition – a parrot or a register. e.g. of voters: the latter didn’t seem obvious to me so I was surprised to find it as the first definition in Chambers
2. NO-TRUMP If you prefer those other steaks then your choice is NOT RUMP, and no-trump is a type of bid in the game of Bridge
3. SPECIALS LAI[D]< in SPECS
5. CAUGHT A COLD Double definition – to catch a cold is to suffer a financial loss, but as this is clearly a metaphor from the illness-related meaning I thought this was rather a weak clue in this otherwise excellent puzzle
6. WHERRY HE + R in WRY
7. ISOGAMY O + G in IS AMY (character from “Little Women”) – “the conjugation of two gametes of similar size and form” says Chambers, and “a form of sexual reproduction” begins Wikipedia.
8. GUEST BEER Spoonerism of “best gear”, a guest beer being one that is not in a pub’s usual range
12. GOOD IN PARTS (PASTOR DOING)* – reference to the proverbial Curate’s Egg
13. ANTISERUM IT< in A NURSE* + M[aiden]
15. SPILL OUT ILL (bad) in SPOUT (talk)
17. INSANER (A SINNER)*
19. TRAILER Double definition – a trailer for a film etc is “only clips”; and a vehicle.
20. BUSHEL BUSHED (exhausted) with its final D (=500) reduced to L (=50, 10% of 500). Very clever.
22. PREY Homophone of “prey”

28 comments on “Guardian 25,968 – Pasquale”

  1. Thanks, Andrew, for the blog.

    Pasquale’s puzzles are always clever. My only reservation about them, usually, is a lack of humour. All is forgiven, today, however, with the wonderful 21ac! It’s perhaps just surprising that it has taken the Don fifty years to come up with it – perhaps he was just building up his reputation. [I’m rather chuffed that this clue could only have appeared in a Guardian puzzle.]

    And, although I’m by no means a fan of Spoonerisms, I rather liked this one, since both were recognisable phrases.

    I must also mention the superb 18ac – terrific stuff!

    I knew I’d met APPALOOSA in a crossword before but I was surprised to find three instances in the archives. It still didn’t instantly spring to mind!

    Many thanks, Pasquale, for an enjoyable start to a sunny day.

  2. Pasquale gave me a very good workout this morning. I learnt some new words such as ‘sesquipedalian’, ‘wherry’, ‘isogamy’, ‘appaloosa’ & POLL = ‘bird’, although I didn’t think of “parrot”. I found some references to common redpoll and blackpoll warblers so that was as far as I went towards the parsing of this clue. Like Andrew, I am more familiar with the phrase “ruling the roost” than “ruling the roast” but the wordplay made it possible for me to solve this clue.

    I liked 1a, 3d, 13a, 21a, 4a &6d and my favourites were TRAILER, BOWLER, MURALIST & NO-TRUMP.

    Thanks for the blog, Andrew. I needed your help to parse 20d, and while reading the blog I realised that I had forgotten to parse 15d.

  3. What a superb treat this has been. 18A should be shortlisted for COTY. The &lit is just perfect to the New Testament source and what can I say about 21 but echo Eileen … took you half a century to come up with that?

    Thank you, Don and Andrew.

  5. Strongly second Uncle Yap’s suggestion above. I usually struggle with Pasquale’s puzzles, but this was simply “wow!”
    Thanks Andrew for the helpful blog!

  6. Thanks, Andrew

    An excellent puzzle from the Don; a bit tougher than usual, I found (all this week’s crosswords seem to have been either easier or harder than their setters’ usual offerings).

    I didn’t know the ‘proper’ version of ‘rule the roost’, but the wordplay was impeccable (and ISOGAMY verified the crossing letter). APPALOOSAS was my last entry; it seemed vaguely familiar and, again, the wordplay led me straight there once I had all the crossers.

    Lots of great clues: I especially liked 18a (clever &lit), the ingenuity of 2d and 20d, the allusive 12d (curate’s egg), and of course 21a – a write-in, but a very splendid one. (SESQUIPEDALIAN literally means ‘a foot and a half long’; the idiom is taken from one of Horace’s sarkier passages).

  7. Some nice, neat clues but a bit too 21 for my taste – especially as I didn’t know the word. 🙁 Good though that the Don doesn’t take himself too seriously.

    Thanks Andrew; particularly for the parsing of BUSHEL, which had me scratching my head for a long time. I confidently put in RULING THE ROoST, although I couldn’t see where the tribute had gone!

    I particularly liked NO-TRUMP, BOWLER and BUSHED, after Andrew’s explanation. If this had been Paul I’m fairly certain there would have been some toilet humour in 13a. 😉

  8. I assumed that 15 down was a double definition – a flood is a “spill out”, and to talk about something (especially a secret) is to “spill it out”. The wordplay idea makes perfect sense too, of course.

    Agree that 18a was the best clue (though I’d never heard of the title “Simon Peter”, so I spent a while trying to make the clue work for “Saint Peter” before I saw how the anagram worked).

  10. Preety goo d, isn’t it?Just shows the posibility of true craftsmanshpi, careful writnig.

    M y fave the ecxllent annd selfr-eferntial 21.

    Cheersa & good weekend to as;ll
    Rowly.

  11. Further reflection on SESQUIPEDALIAN: like ‘anapaest’, ‘pentasyllabic’ and ‘unhyphenated’, the word is autologous – it describes itself.

  12. Thanks for the blog, Andrew.

    This was a slow solve for me and I nearly gave up a couple of times — so I didn’t enjoy it as much as I could have done! I didn’t feel on the right wavelength — but I could appreciate the cleverness of the clues.

    APPALOOSAS wasn’t a problem, though, thanks to my US childhood.

  13. In 13 ac I wonder why the aggressive group is “going in”.
    Could the parsing be APPAL (shock), plus SA (Sturmabteilung, a paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany) inserted in OOS (ducks)?

  14. Tough going this one.

    Ya know, you lot continue to make me think you need to get out of your ivory towers more! I think that if you tried the “ask in your local pub” (especially if it’s a country pub!)test you’d find that the answer to 13 is moderately well known, but 21 hardly at all, which seems to be the opposite way round from here. Personally, I once rode an appaloosa, but have never once felt the need to have a name for a user of obscurities (well apart from not polite words for a show off!).

  15. Derek @14: When I’m in a country pub I spend my time with the 8 downs rather than discussing 13 acrosses with the locals…

  16. Hello everyone.

    Simply brilliant crossword. Many thanks to His Excellency.

    Heartily endorse Uncle Yap’s suggestion for COTY – SIMON PETER.

    I’ll really want to remember SESQUIPEDALIAN!!

    Thank you, Andrew.

  17. Thanks Pasquale and Andrew.

    I too found this pretty tough. Got into a bit of a pickle over what exactly was being ruled @11 (I had ISOGAMY in place and the ‘A’ was bothersome) and for some reason the NW was a bit of a desert for a long time – not really sure why, except that current events at Roland Garros are proving to be rather distracting.

    SIMON PETER was a marvellous lesson in how to construct an &lit. And as for SESQUIPEDALIAN – well, the Don has been accused of a lack of humour from time to time, so I hope that gave others a chuckle as well as me.

    Gervase @17 – hear, hear!

  18. Folks have been very kind to me today (here and on GU, and a few on Big Dave). Many thanks all. Sometimes the clues drop out nicely and the humour comes unforced!

  19. There’s a John Wayne film (I’m pretty sure it’s The Fighting Seabees) in which Susan Hayward and William Frawley have an extended ‘character scene’ which revolves around the word sesquipedalian. “What does it mean?” “Say it again…” “How do you spell that?” etc. — so it was my first in. They’re only obscure if you’ve never met them before – the Hollywood writers of the 40s used all manner of exotic words in their scripts. In Rooster Cogburn John Wayne spends extended time explaining what a lustrum is.

    Thanks for the blog. Terrific puzzle.

  20. It was indeed a very good puzzle, which took some time to finish but was satisfying in the end. SIMON PETER is brilliant, and I knew SESQUIPEDALIAN, so didn’t get too misled by the Pasquale reference. Was pleased to get APPALOOSAS from the wordplay – it’s always nice when that happens.

    Thank you to Don and Andrew.

  21. SIMON PETER (first names of my cousin over there in Norwich, whom now I won’t ever trust) is absolutely rockin’. Nice one Don.

    But those Grauniad grids – oh Jesus.

  24. Thanks Pasquale and Andrew

    Funny how we’re all different – could only fit this one into three short breaks yesterday and was able to make good progress in each of them – found this quite a bit easier than the previous day’s Arachne.

    My watching westerns as a kid helped with the APPALOOSAS – the Indians always seemed to ride them! Knew that 21a started with SESQUI … but needed the eponymous anagram fodder to work out the rest.

    Numerous other clues that brought a nod of appreciation and more often than not a wry smile of which BOWLER was one and my last in – in what was a very enjoyable solve.

  25. Failed on just one which was, of course, 21ac.
    Not knowing this word, finding a place for E, E, A and I was a rather mathematical expedition (12 options).
    But, by Jove, what a great response from Pasquale to silence his criticasters.
    Perhaps my Clue of the Year.

  26. A reasonable crossword from the don.

    I think Sil that the silence from critics is not due to the brilliance of the crossword but more a reaction to this response to objective criticism.

    SESQUIPEDALIAN ! Naturally I got the anagram, but not without a dictionary as of course it’s not possible if you haven’t met the word. (and how likely is that?!)

    Perhaps a word to be clued in Don’s next crossword could be “HUBRIS” 🙂

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