Guardian 26,063 / Pasquale

40 comments on “Guardian 26,063 / Pasquale”

1. Hi Eileen

   Thanks for the blog.

   I thought this was a corker.

   I notice on The Guardian website that a number of people were unhappy with the more obscure words. I thought it made it more interesting personally and as you say they were all fairly clued.

   23a was my favourite.

2. I can’t see caustic=tart myself even if it is in Chambers. Nothing in the OED could justify them as synonyms.

3. Thanks for the blog, Eileen. I totally agree with your assessment: lots of uncommon words, but clearly clued.

   I think you should underline the whole clue in 8d, making it a genuine &lit. Not sure about FITS=outburst of rage: maybe a typo, or maybe as in being “in fits”, though those are usually of laughter.

   For 26a, I think sis=young girl is as in (old-fashioned) American slang.

4. sidey @2

   From my SOED: ‘tart: 4. fig. Of words, speech, a speaker: Sharp in tone or tendency, biting, cutting, acrimonious, caustic 1601’

   Thanks for the confirmation, Andrew – will do!

5. Struggled with this one and thought that I had eventually cracked it successfully, only to find that I had carelessly misspelt ‘schmooze’ as ‘schmoose’, so I have to count it a failed attempt. What a shame after I had worked out all the obscurities: such is life.

6. Wow congratulations Eileen for your selfless toil on our behalf through the dustier corners of Collins and Chambers. Vast numbers of new words for me here – even where the solution is familiar, as with THE WHO, to parse it you need an unfamilar word ie THEW.

   Nevertheless, not an especially lengthy solve owing, as Eileen says, to the fair (if sometimes complex) clueing.

   SCHMOOZE I’ve never used to mean gossip. These days, it’s more often used as meaning to ingratiate oneself with a view to acquiring favour. Perfectly legit to have the older sense, given its appearance in Chambers, but to me a misdirection.

7. What a good puzzle. The uncommon words were without exception gettable, and having got them, you’ve learnt something. What’s wrong with that?

   Sidey@2 – cannot a caustic comment also be acidic, or tart? I didn’t see a problem with this, I must confess.

8. Thanks, Eileen

   Great puzzle from Pasquale. I always expect an unusual word or two in this setter’s puzzles – helpful for expanding one’s vocab – but this provided a plethora. CAMISADE and CALASH were the new ones for me, but both so exactly clued that it was a simple matter just to check that the words existed (though, pace Eileen, I did first try hard to make the Irish rebel be Wolfe TONE…).

   I couldn’t parse SCOUR, so thanks for that.

   Favourites were the &lits at 2d and 8d, the reverse clue at 10d, and the clever 23a. I’m surprised I haven’t come across the BERING STRAIT idea before.

   Trailman@6: All my Jewish friends use SCHMOOZE to mean ‘social chat’ when the word is used as a verb, though it does have strong overtones of ‘networking’, but not necessarily in an ingratiating manner. The noun carries this connotation more firmly, I feel.

9. Thanks Pasquale and Eileen. I counted eight words new to me that I had to get on ‘internal evidence alone’! (I love ‘read the instructions on the tin’.) A really good workout, therefore, which I very much enjoyed.

   I’m in the camp where ‘caustic’ works and the plural ‘fits’ is puzzling.

10. Thanks, Eileen.

    CALASH seems to have last appeared in 25,074 (Gordius) blogged by… Eileen. It was a long time ago so I’m not surprised that it was only vaguely remembered.

    Isn’t the anagrind in BENEFITS “slashed”? I agree it’s &littish but not a true &lit surely? (Unlike the excellent MAMMON.)

    dunsscotus @9, FITS I’d say are more associated with laughter than rage so I see your point but that would ruin the sentiment of the clue!

11. Thanks Eileen and Pasquale

    A pretty tough puzzle and an extremely good blog from Eileen. I had to hunt out schmooze and stenosis and, although I should have got them without doing so, I am not totally happy with them.

    Notwithstanding Gervase’s defence and the given meaning in Chambers, I know schmooze well but only as meaning to ingratiate oneself with smooth talk as Trailman says. For me a ‘schmoozer’ does this rather than gossips. This is probably a bias in my own Jewish background – it was a word my mother and her friends especially often used. To be fair I seem to remember the issue has come up before, and the word play is clear enough. But this oddly reinforces my point since I never thought of the word as it is defined in the clue.

    With stenosis, it is the ‘sis’ = ‘young girl’ that tripped me up but I should have remembered the word.

    🙂 I spent a little time trying to parse ‘chests’ for 18d!

    I particularly liked 10d when I eventually caught on to it.

12. Hi NeilW [I’m glad to see you back!]

    “CALASH seems to have last appeared in 25,074 (Gordius) blogged by… Eileen. It was a long time ago so I’m not surprised that it was only vaguely remembered.” Oh dear…

    Isn’t the anagrind in BENEFITS “slashed”? I agree it’s &littish but not a true &lit surely? (Unlike the excellent MAMMON.)

    I think you’re right. I’ll confess now that I wrote my reply to Andrew @4 without looking back, thinking that he was referring to MAMMON, because he mentioned & lit.

    [I have to go out now, so will respond to any more queries / suggestions later this afternoon.]

13. The man said: “It’s now my pleasure – I hope! – to introduce a new generation of Guardian solvers to new words.” Yep, does what it says on the tin!

    Thanks Eileen; I used word searches a lot as I knew that there would be many unfamiliar words. As you say, the cluing was fine but still difficult to arrive at the answer. Once it was there, the parsing fell into place.

    My favourite was SCOUR, which amazingly I did manage to parse. 🙂

14. Thanks Eileen. Got the long ones first, though not on purpose. For 1d caleche was familiar, but this version, like the other unknowns, had to be it. Favorite was RED CEDAR. Only aids was the o/l dictionary for after checking. Excellent, Pasquale.

15. It is a very good puzzle, but there are too many diffucult words. This is not IDEAL for a daily pizzle in my view.

16. Nice puzzle & blog.

    Which dictionary has ‘thew’ = moral quality?

    I only know its use in e.g. ‘mighty thews’ = heroically large muscles.

17. Thanks Eileen and Pasquale
    Most of my problems came in the SE corner, but got there eventually.

    Why is Jack Cade “Irish”? The information I can find indicates that he was born in Sussex and raised his rebellion from men of Kent (and Kentish men as well, presumably).

18. Thanks, Eileen.

    I’ll omit my customary comment about P’s puzzles.

    Eileen, you say: “You don’t have to have been doing cryptic crosswords for very long to know that ‘Irish rebel’ is very often [Jack] CADE…”. Curious definition of not very long: I’ve been doing the Guardian for 50 years now, and I learned it today!

    I am not sure I concur with comments such as it is easily and fairly gettable from the clue. I was contemplating CASEMENT for 1a, but it didn’t help with the down clues, and I couldn’t explain it. I found CAMISADE in a cheat book eventually and this then led to 4d, but as I couldn’t fully explain it (till I read your blog), I remained unconvinced. I though of MAMMON early on, but couldn’t explain that either. So once you have the answer and it is explained then it might be considered fair and gettable.

19. Oh, I forgot to add a comment about today’s Spoonerism; I like the spoonerism phrase to mean something, as in BUTTERFLIES FLUTTER BY, for example. Am I missing something – does BOAST REEF mean something? I didn’t know BOAST = TREASURE either.

20. Is there any reason for thinking Jack Cade was Irish (apart from Wikipedia)? I’ve always assumed he was from Kent or Essex, but I’ve no basis for that either

21. Thanks Eileen for the blog and Pasquale for some minority synonyms.

    SIS is what a BRO calls his female sibling.

    Perhaps THEW as a moral quality could be the converse of THEWLESS, the lack thereof.

    Have to disagree with benefits clue as entirely &lit: fits for rage is fine: “having a fit” is usually used figuratively.

22. Muffin @17; see here. The Oxford dictionaries also give him as an Irish rebel.

    Martin @16; Chambers has THEW=moral quality.

23. Thanks, robi (@22)
    A figure shrouded in mystery, obviously!

24. Rowland @#15.

    At last I have rumbled you – you are Officer Crabtree of ‘allo ‘allo fame and I claim my 5 Euros.

25. Thanks, Robi @22 – I’d stashed that very link away this morning in case there was a query.

    And Chambers is the only one of my dictionaries [the last I looked in] to have anything other than ‘muscular strength’ for THEW. I was all set to say that it must be used metaphorically, until I found it.

    Hi Dave Ellison

    I’m surprised you haven’t come across CADE before. I’m pretty sure I first heard of him through crosswords. I agree with you about the Spoonerism: they have to be very good indeed for me to admire them at all. Re ‘boast’: Collins has ‘a possession , attribute etc, that is, or may be bragged about’.

26. I thought this was a cracking puzzle.

    There were a few words that I had either forgotten or were new to me, such as CALASH, ACHAR, CAMISADE, HEMISTICH and STENOSIS, but they were all gettable from the wordplay and I never have a problem with such cluing. APERCUS was my LOI.

27. First met camisade as the alternative camisado, so sspent a while wondering who Cado the Irish rebel was. Apparently Camisado is also the title of a song by Panic! At The Disco. No to find it and have a listen.

28. Thanks, Pasquale for the work-out and Eileen for a tour-de-force!

    I found this challenging but fair after a long day of meetings.

    A favourite was BERING STRAIT and I got the Spoonerism without too much of a groan today!

    Giovanna xx

29. CAMISADE – not in SOED Camisado is there
    BOAST = TREASURE ???????????
    HEMISTICH via anagram !!!!!!!!
    ACHAR ????????
    STENOSIS ??????????????
    Superfluous student
    CACHEPOT ???
    MAMMON Eileen THINKS this is &lit (I don’t)
    THEW ??!!!!!
    etc
    etc

    I finished this without fun!

    As I’ve said before it’s easy to make puzzles hard with obscure words and questionable cluing.

    Lazy setting in my opinion.

    Pasquale at his worst. In fact the worst I’ve ever seen from him.

    Terrible week up to now and only one day to go!

    Thanks to Eileen.

30. I don’t understand “hairy things” = “shocks.”

    Forgive me, for I am an American.

31. B(nto): I agree with Eileen about MAMMON. I would even assert that it is &lit.
    I think none of the clueing is questionable. That’s why I could cheerfully enter the words I didn’t know.
    The only thing that makes the setter’s job easier is the solver-unfriendly grid.
    The deliberate use of obscure words makes the setter’s job a little harder.

    I don’t think the Don is ever lazy. And even if I did I wouldn’t say so. Bad form, don’t y’know.

32. slipstream @ 30
    We have an expression “a shock of hair” to describe an unruly haircut.

33. Great puzzle – and that is le mot juste, puzzle. Nothing wrong with obscure words IMHO, as long as the clues are fair – and these were.

    I also had camisado – blooomin’ online dictionary! I think confusion re Irish is because “a cade” is a C16/17th usage for Irish rebel.

34. Rho @31
    
    I don’t think the Don is ever lazy. And even if I did I wouldn’t say so. Bad form, don’t y’know.
    

    How very British of you 😉

    However I feel it is our duty to feedback to the setters although I realise our comments will be treated with disdain by many.

    I don’t see how the use of obscure words makes the setter’s job harder. They often fill an awkward set of crossers for them. Rather than reorganising they leave them in place. Thus the clue is harder to solve if not very explicitly clued. (expecially hard if it is an anagram!).

    Didn’t Ximenes refer to this an unfair?

35. Pasquale about as bad as he gets – and he gets. I complete them through sheer bloody-mindedness.

    Usual style – guess the solution from what you hope is the definition then perform several synchronised swimming manoeuvres around the debris of the clue to justify your guess. Not what I call fun.

    I was, however, particularly impressed with the reference to that well-known Irishman O’Cade, known to his friends as Cado. A camisado is a surprise attack. According to my Spanish mates anyway.

36. muffin @ 32

    Thanks, muffin.

37. Fallowfield @35

    I don’t remember seeing your name before and so, as blogger for the day, I’d like to welcome you to the site. [Please forgive me if I’ve missed previous comments of yours.]

    I look forward to reading your comments on puzzles that you complete for pleasure. 😉

38. Think I might have moaned already about unknown words, but here’s ‘another chance to see’ if ever there was. What’s the setter up to? Can’t dig that sort of behaviour at all, elitist and pedagogical, we don’t need it maaaan! Just get on and DO a proper puzzle for the daily audience.

39. I normally only tackle the crossword in the weekly, and so come to any discussion late, if at all. This time I picked this Pasquale up on line, and am coming in late because it took me this long to finish it, returning only out of a determination not to be beaten! I did enjoy the challenge, but the level of obscurity was a bit daunting – I now know what ‘thew’ means, but only by back-tracking from the answer. So, thanks, Pasquale for improving my vocabulary and knowledge of Irish rebels, and thanks Eileen (and others) for explaining some of the parsing that I’d missed (scour, aperçus, benefits). I thought the ‘student’ in 6d drew me to thinking of a flat rather than other accommodation, so I thought that was fair, by the way.

40. Bootsie: Pedagogical, eh? Cool. Yeah, we don’t need no education.

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