The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/27030.
The special instructions often pose a problem, but not here, for me. On seeing:
All across solutions are of a kind that is celebrated today and are not further defined.
my first thought was of All Saints Day, and 22A ANSELM quickly showed that it was a good thought. Then the trouble set in: many of the across clues were tricky, never mind the unnumbered host of Saints from which to choose, and the down clues were as much a problem. Ironically, one of the most obscure answers, 6D HETAERAE, was my first in; the last was 16D SHAP, which I knew only from Shap Fell – and the clue was not the most helpful. I leave it to you to research the Saints if you so wish; as for me, it’s past time to hit the sack.
| Across | ||
| 7 | VALENTINE | A period of denial at home in the midst of a famous victory (9) |
| An envelope (‘in the midst of’) of ‘a’ plus LENT (‘period of denial’) plus IN (‘at home’) in VE (Victory in Europe, celebrated on VE Day, 8 May 1945, ‘a famous victory’). | ||
| 8 | JAMES | Food for tea needed by two adjacent sitters at table (5) |
| A charade of JAM (‘food for tea’) plus E S (‘two adjacent sitters at table’, East and South at a bridge table). | ||
| 9 | WENCESLAS | From where hospital’s left to get short cut (9) |
| A charade of W[h}ENCE (‘from where’) minus the H (‘hospital’s left’) plus SLAS[h] (‘cut’) minus its last letter (‘short’). | ||
| 10 | ALBAN | US criminal and what he fought against (5) |
| A charade of AL (Capone, ‘US criminal’) plus BAN (prohibition, ‘what he fought against’. Did he?) | ||
| 12 | THOMAS | This old mum is taking the place of one (6) |
| ‘th[i]s’ with O MA (‘old mum’) replacing (‘is taking the place of’) I (‘one’). | ||
| 13 | POLYCARP | HE establishment no more? Grumble (8) |
| A charade of POLY (polytechnic, a term no longer used in the UK for an institute of higher education, ‘HE establishment no longer’ plus CARP (‘grumble’). | ||
| 14 | AMBROSE | Turned up to collar doctor (7) |
| An envelope (‘to collar’) of MB (‘doctor’) in AROSE (‘turned up’). | ||
| 17 | BRIDGET | Game that maybe Derby lost (7) |
| A charade of BRIDGE (‘game’) plus T, ‘t[hat]’ minus HAT (maybe Derby lost’). | ||
| 20 | BONIFACE | Backward-looking VIP I confront (8) |
| A charade of BON, a reversal (‘backward-looking’) of NOB (‘VIP’) plus ‘I’ plus FACE (‘confront’). | ||
| 22 | ANSELM | A tree through which sun can be seen (6) |
| An envelope (‘through which … can be seen’) of S (‘sun’) in AN ELM (‘a tree’). | ||
| 24 | AIDAN | Article about G&S character (5) |
| An envelope (‘about’) of IDA (the eponymous Princess, from one of the lesser-known Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas, ‘G&S character’) | ||
| 25 | CATHERINE | Jazz fan, the fellow crossing Ireland (9) |
| An envelope (‘crossing’) of ERIN (‘Ireland’) in CAT (‘jazz fan’) plus HE (‘the fellow’). | ||
| 26 | AGNES | Man’s group of seven including knight? (5) |
| An envelope (‘including’) of N (chess notation, ‘knight’) in AGES (‘man’s group of seven’, a reference to Jaques’ famous speech in As You Like It). | ||
| 27 | SEBASTIAN | Beans munched, fizzy drink swallowed (9) |
| An envelope (‘swallowed’) of ASTI (spumante, ‘fizzy drink’) in SEBAN, an anagram (‘munched’) of ‘beans’. | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | GARETH | Knight with good heart in battle (6) |
| A charade of G (‘good’) plus ARETH, an anagram (‘in battle’) of ‘heart’. Gareth was one of the Knights of the Round Table. | ||
| 2 | NEWCOMER | Novice offering nothing — crewmen worried about that (8) |
| An envelope (‘about that’) of O (‘nothing’) in NEWCMER, an anagram (‘worried’) of ‘crewmen’. | ||
| 3 | STASIS | Lack of action from saint the way things are (6) |
| A charade of ST (‘saint’) plus AS IS (‘the way things are’). | ||
| 4 | UNHAPPY | Puny chap burying head, awfully miserable (7) |
| An anagram (‘awfully’) of ‘puny’ plus ‘[c]hap’ minus its first letter (‘burying head’). | ||
| 5 | GALLIC | French annoyance over islands to the north (6) |
| A charade of GALL (‘annoyance’; a little loose perhaps, but maybe better in the sense of an oak gall) plus IC, a reversal (‘to the north’ in a down light) of CI (Channel ‘Islands’). | ||
| 6 | HETAERAE | Mistresses are had for meal, turning up to be hugged by ambassador (8) |
| An envelope (‘to be hugged by’) of ETAERA, a reversal (‘turning up’) of ‘are’ plus ATE (‘had for meal’) in HE (His Excellency, formal title for an ‘ambassador’). | ||
| 11 | BLUR | Obscure band beginning to blow old trumpet (4) |
| A charade of B (‘beginning to Blow’) plus LUR (‘old trumpet’). As pointed out by the man himself, this clue contains a double definition. |
||
| 15 | MOORINGS | Desolate area is no good for shelter — fix up here for the night? (8) |
| An envelope (‘for shelter’ – is that the wrong way round?) of NG (‘no good’) in MOOR (‘desolate area’) plus ‘is’. | ||
| 16 | SHAP | Cumbrian village square, say, sealed off at one end (4) |
| SHAP[e] (‘square, say’) minus its last letter (‘sealed off at one end’). | ||
| 18 | DISCRETE | Individual tactful in speech (8) |
| Sounds like (‘in speech’) DISCREET (‘tactful’). | ||
| 19 | DECAYED | In less than ten years you went to rack and ruin (7) |
| An envelope (‘in’) of YE (‘you’) in DECAD[e] (‘ten years’) cut short (‘less than’). | ||
| 21 | IMAGES | Impressions created by silver found in house turned upside down (6) |
| An envelope (‘found in’) of AG (chemical symbol, ‘silver’) in IMES, a reversal (‘turned upside down’ in a down light) of SEMI ( detached, ‘house’). | ||
| 22 | ASHRAM | Retreat from a male beast, keeping quiet (6) |
| An envelope (‘keeping’) of SH (‘quiet’) in ‘a’ plus RAM (‘male beast’). | ||
| 23 | LANDAU | Light gold carriage (6) |
| A charade of LAND (‘light’ in the sense of alight) plus AU (‘chemical symbol, ‘gold’). | ||
Defeated by this one, mainly the NE corner plus a few others including MOORINGS and AIDAN. Still, I learnt a few new saints, including POLYCARP, though I think I’d rather not have known about his grisly end.
Thanks to PeterO – well done for working it all out – and to Pasquale.
Immensely irritating. Plodding through obscure saints for no good reason apart from the date. Well done the blogger for the energy to trawl through this.
Thank you PeterO, this was far beyond my abilities. The All Saints theme was easy enough to guess but too many of the saints were unknown to me and there were quite a few obscure down answers too. Added to that was a lot of intricate wordplay and unhelpful crossers which meant that too many clues gave me nothing to build from. Looking at the comments on the guardian site it seems others enjoyed it, but this was just too clever for me.
I’d also like to raise a small protest to Pasquale: Blur is not an “obscure” band! Alternative, yes. Brilliant, yes! Signed, a devout fan of Damon, Graham, Alex and Dave.
matrixmania @4 I took ‘obscure band’ as a double definition.
In answer to 4: There are two definitions to BLUR in addition to the wordplay!
Ah, thank you, Pasquale – that is appreciated! I parsed it the same way as PeterO but I see now what you mean.
Quite a challenge, with rather a lot of looking up of references needed, but I enjoyed it. In general, the wordplay for the across clues made even the more obscure names accessible.
I liked “Polycarp” & “Boniface” particularly. 27ac took me longer than it should because I’d entered the wrong form of the word at 18d; 1d was my LOI.
Thanks to Pasquale & PeterO
Thanks for the blog, PeterO and Pasquale for the puzzle.
Like others, I guessed the theme, which was immediately confirmed by the clearly clued VALENTINE and really enjoyed tracking the rest down and was glad to see that POLYCARP and BONIFACE had made it. I didn’t find it a slog at all [admittedly, not always the case with Pasquale puzzles 😉 ]. I was familiar with all the saints and they were gettable from different directions – geography, literature, philosophy, Christmas carols, Bonfire Night … as well as the Bible!
I was also lucky to be familiar with HETAERAE – I liked the surface! – but I was a bit disappointed that the first four-letter Cumbrian village that sprang to mind [the idyllic Dent [in the Yorkshire Dales National Park] wasn’t the answer to 16dn.
Thanks Pasquale and PeterO
Well, I finished it, but I can’t say I enjoyed it – too much “guess the answer, then see if I can parse”. (An exception was POLYCARP, of whom I had never heard, that I got from the wordplay.) I’m not good on saints – I probably knew more of these from the names of Catholic schools well-known for their rugby prowess.
I didn’t know HETAERAE and needed electronic help; I also didn’t know LUR for trumpet.
I did like the clues for AGNES and SEBASTIAN very much, though!
Defeated. Agree with others too many obscure saints and (for me) impenetrable clues. Note to self – avoid this setter in future!
Thanks Peter O, no thanks Pasquale
Ah well! Would it surprise you that I love Marmite?
I meant to say that it was good to see the difference betwen DISCRETE and DISCREET highlighted; too often they are mistakenly used interchangeably.
Thanks to Pasquale and PeterO.
Again, different strokes for different folks.
I really enjoyed the saints theme, which was obvious for me due to the fact that I began my Study of Religion lesson this morning discussing the Christian feasts and beliefs around Halloween.
In the end, I solved all the acrosses, but they took me a very long time! I was stretched to the max in my recall of saints’ names.
I was more frustrated with the down clues, missing 6d HETAERAE and 16d SHAP, as well as biffing in (bunging in?) a sheer guess for 11d BLUR, as I could not parse the LUR part. So a bit like your experience, muffin@10.
Thanks for the forum discussion, fellow punters (Melbourne Cup Day today in Oz).
Again, too hard for us, got fed up and started cheating on many across solutions. However I would say that there were enough great clues to make it an overall enjoyable xword.
Well done to Peter O and well, thanks to Pasquale for the topical theme
Well, I couldnt quite finish it, but I got the theme, I got HETAERAE, and the blog was a good read, so thanks to Pasquale and Peter O.
Thank you Pasquale and PeterO.
The saints went in in order until I reached 13a, where I wondered what a botanical term could be doing there, so googled. While about it thought I would see if there was a Saint Pasquale, sure enough there was, Saint Paschal Baylon in Spain, one who lived and died peacefully.
Thanks Pasquale and PeterO.
Good setting to force in all these saints with little obscurities in the Down clues. I just used a list of saints to help me. POLYCARP sounds like a synthetic floor covering to me.
I thought this was very enjoyable with precise cluing, as one would expect from the Don.
It’s so frustrating that the Android app makes no mention at all of the special instructions. So, unsurprisingly, I drew a blank on my first pass at the across clues. It was only after getting WENCESLAS from the wordplay and the crossers and seeing that there was no hint of a definition that I had any idea that something was up. (I then came here to check while trying not to spoiler myself, so thanks for calling out the relevant info clearly, PeterO.)
I’m with Julie in Oz – chacun à son goût. I rather enjoyed trawling through the saints to find one that fitted, although I’m not sure if I’d have got there without the excellent Chambers Crossword Dictionary (to which our esteemed setter was a consultant, I think).
Failed to parse the missing ‘hat’ in BRIDGET but other than that, all went in trouble free.
Enjoyed working out HETAERAE from the clue without knowing it, and also ticked GALLIC, & BLUR. (Nice double).
Always a challenge, Mr Manley, but enjoyed this one very much.
Many thanks to PeterO for the blog.
Nice week, all.
Thoroughly enjoyed this, but I can’t quite see how moorings in 15d works. To me it reads as though “no good” should contain (shelter) “is” rather than the other way round. I liked digging up my knowledge of saints’ names with Polycarp being the only one new to me – but it was clear from the wordplay that it had to be that. Thank you Pasquale and PeterO.
The iPhone APP also did not provide the special instructions which meant my first go round ended with no clues filled in. By luck I figured out 9ac and then went to the Guardian website where the instructions where present, thankfully.
I needed the prompt from Pasquale @6 to see that 11D BLUR contained two definitions; I have amended the blog accordingly.
Thanks to Pasquale for the correction, and for the puzzle as a whole. It was just unfortunate for me that the puzzle arrived after the UK has left daylight savings time, but before here, so that it arrived an hour later than usual.
Too tough for me. My subscriber iPad ap didn’t give the special instructions so I couldn’t make sense of it at all – and cookies won’t let me open the crossword without opening the app. I can see now how clever it was though. Thanks Pasquale and PeterO.
Unusually for me I gave up at lunchtime with seven left unsolved. Lost the will to live I’m afraid. Too much unnecessary obscurantism for my taste. Well done Peter O
This was a great romp!
Hagiography is so entertaining if you don’t take it too seriously.
Hetaerae LOI because I forgot to consider non-English plurals.
Thanks to PeterO and well done Pasquale!
LURs are pictured in the logo on Lurpack butter wrappings – I know we are not meant to mention brand names, but Pasquale has all ready mentioned Marmite…
hmm, spelt it wrong anyway, that should be Lurpak, apologies.
I enjoyed this but did not finish, as I got hopelessly stuck in the northeast. Is the abbreviation HE in 13 intended to signal the abbreviated POLY instead of polytechnic? It floored me, as all I could think of was “high explosive” or “ambassador”. I also failed to see ANSELM as I was looking for SOL in the answer and racking my brains for a 3-letter tree besides “ash”. HETAERAE was new to me but I should have got it from the wordplay. Strange to see that spelling. Isn’t AE a Latin plural while the word itself is Greek?
Thanks, Pasquale and PeterO. Dare I say it, this should have been a prize. The special instructions were too much of a giveaway today.
PS PeterO is surely right about Al Capone and Prohibition. Didn’t mobsters need it for their business?
Like PeterO I guessed the theme from the instructions and for me AMBROSE was the confirmation. Took me a little longer to find my own name! I had at least vaguely heard of all the saints, but missed the parsing of many. I really tried to work FAROES in as the northern islands!
Al Capone, that crossword favorite, didn’t fight against prohibition — he probably welcomed it, since he made his money running illegal alcohol.
I’d never heard of BLUR the band or LUR the instrument, so that one was a biffer. (I’m useless on bands, but usually do okay with old instruments. That one was too old, I guess.) Never heard of SHAP the village either.
I too liked the clue for AGNES.
Eileen, how does Bonfire Night come into it?
Guessed the theme as soon as I read the instruction, but I still found this pretty tricky to finish, particularly the NE corner – JAMES didn’t occur to me until I had both crossers so that was last in after HETAERAE. Lur was new to me and I don’t think I’d ever come across POLYCARP either – I would surely have remembered such a name.
Thanks to Pasquale and PeterO
No chance. As an agnostic anti-catholic I gave up. Most unenjoyable.
Thanks to Pasquale and PeterO. I’m certainly not well informed about saints, especially POLYCARP, and place names (SHAP) and had some trouble with the spelling of WENCESLAS and HETAERAE, but the clues were sufficient, though AIDAN, AGNES, and BLUR took a long time. Much fun.
I didn’t manage to finish this, and thought it was a bit hard for a Tuesday. I agree with phitonelly @29 that it might have been better as a prize, though I suppose it would have had to wait until 1 November fell on a Saturday, a few years hence!
Valentine @30: re Bonfire Night, I think Eileen might have been thinking of CATHERINE wheels.
Many thanks Pasquale and Peter O. I enjoyed this even though it took me a while.Have never heard of hetaerae thought it might be latin but unfortunately can’t remember much from my o level days. I love marmite too !!!
I rather enjoyed this once I’d sussed the theme- which took me longer than most of you. POLYCARP was new to me and AIDEN took me a while,but I thought the saints were well clued as was the rest of the puzzle. I particularly enjoyed BLUR and MOORINGS (LOI).
Nice puzzle!
Thanks Picaroon.
For those with memories that go back as far as 2008, POLYCARP has appeared once before:
Gordius 24537: Saintly bishop provides vehicle parking at college (8)
[bh @37: When I was still teaching, we always did the Times at lunchtime; it’s only since retirement that I have reverted to the Guardian (except for attempting, though rarely finishing, the Prizes). Despite my occasional moans, I find them much more satisfying than I remember the Times ones being. I can’t go back as far as 2008, then!]
Hi JimS @34
Thanks – I did mean St CATHERINE, who was tortured on a wheel.
And Phitonelly @29 – yes, HETAERAE is the Latinised version of the Greek plural ‘hetairai’.
I really enjoy taxing puzzles, but this was too much for me. I got the SE corner and a few in the NW, but that was about it. With a total of 15 answers it’s my worst effort since – forever! Never mind, I still (rather perversely) enjoyed the challenge. I find the Don quite difficult at the best of times.
phitonelly @29 – The HE just stands for Higher Education. I couldn’t imagine what it stood for either. My brain kept wanting to fit helium in there somehow.
I’d never heard of Sir Gareth and googling Gareth Knight does not take you to the Round Table! I was rather surprised that “a British esotericist and occult author” was famous enough to merit a crossword entry!
Golly, that was a tough one! Tougher than most Guardian Prize xwords, I’d say, so really quite demanding for a weekday. I was held up for the longest time by SHAP and by HETAERAE — it took me forever to dredge up the Latin spelling from the depths of my memory.
After wondering at first whether I would enjoy a puzzle with an unknown theme covering half the grid, I decided to have a go and was delighted that I did. The theme was easy to guess, and as well as enjoying the excellent craftmanship (and craftiness) in the clues I also liked the mental exercise of thinking of saints’ names that could fit. Overall, it was quite tough.
6d HETAERAE was new to me, and so was LUR in 11d BLUR, so I’ve come away knowing a bit more.
I must thank Cookie (@27) for pointing out the significance of the ‘lurs’ design on the wrappers of a brand of butter – something else I’ve now learned.
16d SHAP was a potential obstacle (an actual obstacle to some), but luckily for me it was my first answer in the grid as I know of this village and Shap Fell. I thought Pasquale was a bit devilish putting something obscure here where he had S–A– to fill in!
Many thanks to Pasquale and to PeterO for the blog.
Shap’s fell (“Shap Fell”, of course) might be better known than a typical Cumbrian village – it’s the highest point on the M6.
Musical interlude. To say Blur is “brilliant” is a bit like saying Phil Collins has talent. The answer starts with N.
Sorry, I’m with the “unnecessary obscurantism” communion, not much pleasure in this
Blue Dot @41 You’ve probably heard of Sir Gawain. He had three brothers: Agravain, Gaheris and Gareth. Agravain was apparently as nasty as his name would lead you to think.
I’m afraid I agree. I have absolutely no interest in saints, so found this a bit tedious, and didn’t finish it.
I have just realised how stupid my post @27 about the LUR in relation to butter must seem to many people, although Alan B @43 has cottoned on. Having called the cows in to the milking shed in my school holidays as a teenager, and now living on a farm that had a dairy herd until the elderly farmer was killed by a bull, I assumed everyone would realise that the LUR was/is used to call the cows in for milking.
Further thoughts, much more sensible to worship cows and trees and take care of this paradise of a planet…
Pasquale at his worst. Lazy setting. No fun whatsoever. IMHO of course.
Struggled with the NE corner. Nice to see one of the villages near to the Westmerian home of my youth given a name check. Thanks to P and P.
Thank you all for comments. I failed in NW corner. Thought I was very clever getting 12a MAMMIS- a name for St Gregory! Fits the clue well so thought it worth posting so late.
Although I have given my views on this puzzle already, I realise now that I forgot to comment on the setter’s achievement in making all across solutions themewords. I thought this was brilliantly done, the only obscure word crossing the saints’ names being 6d HETAERAE (although to some of you it wasn’t obscure!).
Ironically, I was prompted to add this late comment after reading BNTO’s brief comment @51, in which he refers to ‘lazy setting’ (IHHO of course). The whole construction of this puzzle, with particular reference to the incorporation of all the saints’ names and what I perceive to be the care taken in the clueing, was anything but lazy (IMHO of course).
Alan B @ 52
I’m with you! It cannot possibly be lazy to set a complete run of themed clues in one direction only. Such comments reflect more on the commenter than the setter.
Sorry, Alan B @ 54
I must have been being lazy
Eileen @ 9
I don’t know if you and the other teachers have come across your patron saint, St Cassian, who was hacked to death by his students in the 4th century? Perhaps you would rather not know.
alan b @54 – 2nd para: hear hear! (though I do appreciate, and enjoy, some of BNTO’s comments.)
[cookie – thanks for bloomin’ brilliant bit about the butter. Best bit of non-trivial trivia since I learnt that Charlie Chaplin wrote ‘Smile’ (the wonderful song first made famous by Nat King Cole in the ’50s – and currently becoming hackneyed here in UK as the soundtrack to a television advertisement). And I discovered that more than twenty years ago! I shall be importuning everyone I know ’til they too are suitably educated about the lur ……!]
I very much enjoyed this puzzle. I thought we were treated to fewer obscure words than is sometimes the case with the crafty Don.
Many thanks and respect to each one of the Ps.
I simply don’t understand the negative comments here. As an atheistic anti-catholic socialist I really enjoyed this puzzle! Very clever, very satisfying. This stuff is the foundation of our European civilisation, and it surely behoves those who don’t know it to be a little humble. And – maybe – learn something?
I feel for him!
Simon S @55
I thought I’d comment on your self-evident, smug and rather patronising comment.
Of course my comments reflect on me. I wrote them and they’re what I believe.
Just for the record this is why I thought this puzzle was lazy.
P very often resorts to the use of the more esoteric/high vocabulary words to make his puzzles more challenging. He was guilty of this again by using some rather esoteric saints and words such as HETAERAE!! Anybody can use a dictionary/encyclopaedia to do this.
He took a very simple grid with little interaction between the four quarters. He then took a huge list of words (saints) and filled in all the across lights with suitable names from said list. No crossing there and plenty of opportunity to choose “easier” crossers for the down lights.
No need for definitions for any of the across lights just rudimentary word play.
Filling in the down clues couldn’t have been onerous for the down clues with this grid.
Very much a workaday puzzle as has been expressed by many of the posters.
P.S. As I am writing this it does reflect on me and does represent my opinion. I am more and more disappointed at our editor’s apparent haphazard choice of puzzles but unfortunately there are no other alternatives for a decent daily cryptic puzzle that I know of. (bar the Ximenean Times and the unreliable Indy!)
As usual I am a day late doing the crosswords, but wanted to say how much I enjoyed this one. Didn’t solve HETAERAE, but got the rest in the end. I liked the saints theme, and having filled in CATHERINE at 25ac I rather hoped that they were all going to be saints with individual feast days in November, and in the appropriately numbered slot. St Catherine of Alexandria’s feast day is Nov 25th. Sadly not the case, just a bunch of random saints, but fun all the same.
BNTO @61 – For the record, I think Alan, Simon et al are absolutely right. I would love to see you try to set a crossword – I am sure you would be inundated with constructive comments. If you don’t like the Guardian puzzles, nobody is forcing you to do them.
We had to do this a day late too. Hard work but we used a list of saints which helped a bit We have really enjoyed it . Failed to parse the T of Bridget which is our local church and school. Thanks Pasquale and PeterO
Yes of course. Where are my manners? Thanks to Pasquale and PeterO. Great job, both.
BH @63
Of course you are entitled to your opinion which I of course disagree with.
How strange that you would “love to see me try to set a crossword”. There must be a name for that 😉
I can only assume that the aversion of some on here to make any kind of negative comments is a fear that they may one day meet the setter at a blessed S&B do!
I for one will continue to call a spade a spade. I am sure that none of the setters give a flying one what I think or say and I reciprocate this feeling towards them.
I note that nobody has tried to refute any of my concrete criticisms of this puzzle. Make what you will of that.
I too enjoyed this. With my convent upbringing was familiar with all the saints and found it an enjoyable challenge. Only stumped by hetaerae.
Our expression of Christianity doesn’t make much reference to saints, so we were dependent on general knowledge, but we found it a gripping challenge. From “this is impossible” through to “we made it” over a couple of late night half hour stints. Setting at its best (although we’re glad they’re not all this hard).
Did this on the iPad edition on a coach in Morocco, so I wasn’t given the special instructions and had no access to online assistance. All the more satisfying to complete for those reasons (I hope that doesn’t sound too smug).
BNTO @66
You said
“I note that nobody has tried to refute any of my concrete criticisms of this puzzle.”
no doubt referring to your earlier comment @61.
Actually I had thought of doing exactly that soon after you posted your earlier comment but decided not to as I felt I needed to check up on a few things first and not just rely on my memory.
Going through your critical comments one by one (italics), my responses follow (plain text with a bit of bold here and there).
Just for the record this is why I thought this puzzle was lazy.
P very often resorts to the use of the more esoteric/high vocabulary words to make his puzzles more challenging. He was guilty of this again by using some rather esoteric saints and words such as HETAERAE!! Anybody can use a dictionary/encyclopaedia to do this.
The setter had to use HETAERAE as it was the only word that would fit in that space after he had fitted the selected saints’ names into their grid places. This is arguably the only ‘esoteric’ or obscure word in the whole puzzle apart from SHAP (which incidentally was an interesting choice by the setter because he had the easy S–A– space to fill). As for ‘esoteric saints’, see my next response.
He took a very simple grid with little interaction between the four quarters. He then took a huge list of words (saints) and filled in all the across lights with suitllowable names from said list. No crossing there and plenty of opportunity to choose “easier” crossers for the down lights.
There are only about 100 saints’ names of 5 to 9 letters long if we avoid all the obscure or ‘esoteric’ ones. (This is a subjective criterion: I counted 104 names that I would have allowed myself to select from if it was my puzzle.) It is a significant task for the setter to both select names from this pretty short list and to place them in the grid such that you can find proper answer-words crossing those names going down. It is not feasible to accomplish this by being lazy.
No need for definitions for any of the across lights just rudimentary word play.
This is just a statement of fact (due to the special nature of the puzzle) plus a blanket put-down, without any concrete criticism, of the quality of all the across clues. (I’m sure ‘rudimentary’ is meant to imply a low level of setting skill to formulate the clues.)
Filling in the down clues couldn’t have been onerous for the down clues with this grid.
This is just a dismissive comment on how much or how little skill and effort were required to complete the down clues, without any basis and without any concrete criticism. I maintain that the grid the setter chose for this special puzzle made it possible, not easy, to accomplish the design that he attempted for his chosen theme. I repeat that forcing words from a limited list into the acrosses while having sensible words going down would have been a non-trivial task.
Very much a workaday puzzle as has been expressed by many of the posters.
Actually there was a very wide range of general comments about this puzzle, so this comment is more or less bound to match some of them.
Wise words as always Alan, but I fear you’re wasting your time. Some people think it’s clever to trash people better than themselves – it’s pretty common with (classical) music critics for example – and there’s not a lot one can do except ignore them.
Almost makes you yearn for HedgeHoggy – he might have been a troll but at least you got the impression he sort of knew what he was talking about. And even he wasn’t quite as obnoxious as Boring Nasty Tiresome Oaf!
Kaja
Of course you’re right about wasting my time with a comment posted 3 or 4 days late (a friend of mine told me the same thing!), but I wanted to write it anyway and decided to ‘file’ it in the most appropriate place, despite the small audience. It might even come in useful in some unexpected way.
Thanks for taking the trouble to comment.
A belated tip of the hat to The Donald (is Trump to be the next nom de plume?) from another Marmite lover. Got lucky with a couple of the clues (HETERAE dredged up from Classical past and the hotel at SHAP visited twice while a student at Lancaster), and I know my saints better than, say, my chemical compounds or my astronauts.