Guardian 27,087 / Pasquale

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A fairly typical offering from Pasquale today, perhaps a little less challenging than he can be but with the obligatory one or two less familiar words, meticulously clued.

I don’t always find a lot to smile at in Pasquale’s puzzles but today I liked the toy boy, something pink and “Vote to Leave”.

It was only as I was writing up the blog that I suspected that this was a pangram – I never usually think about them, let alone go looking – and indeed it is.

Thanks to Pasquale for the puzzle.

 

Across

1 Hunt held by rich one getting on? There’s no proper answer to that (6,8)
LOADED QUESTION
QUEST [hunt] in LOADED I [rich one] + ON
I’m not keen on the definition: Chambers has ‘a question designed to make an unwilling answerer commit himself or herself to some opinion, action or course’.

8 Important, not grand — little woman, superior, stylishly small (5)
BIJOU
BI[g] [important minus g – grand] + JO [one of Louisa M Alcott’s Little Women] + U [superior]

9 Familiar hint (8)
INTIMATE
Double definition

11 Wail from two university lecturers getting worried (7)
ULULATE
2 times U [university] L [lecturer] + ATE [worried]

12 Series of letters from a close companion, millions (7)
ACRONYM
A CRONY [a close companion] + M [millions]

13 Cook a pig, but not the whole beast (5)
OKAPI
Hidden in coOK A PIg

15 What’s available is getting better, but not quite fit for all kids? (2,3,4)
ON THE MENU
ON THE MEN[d] [getting better, not quite] + U [fit for all kids – film classification]

17 Herb on lamb chopped up after honey rejected (5,4)
LEMON BALM
A reversal [rejected] of MEL [honey] + ON + an anagram [chopped up] of LAMB

20 Sort of horse in gym no longer used (5)
PASSÉ
ASS [sort of horse] in PE [gym]

21 Old soldier, desperate man inside, needing a philosophy (7)
VEDANTA
DAN [desperate man in the Dandy] in VET [old soldier] + A

23 Is love lively in biological union? (7)
ISOGAMY
IS O [is love] GAMY [lively – I didn’t like this much [I’ve only ever heard it used of meat] but ‘it’s in Chambers’]

25 Most insipid drinks served in something pink (8)
FLATTEST
LATTES [drinks] in FT [Financial Times – something pink]

26 Pride of winners finally seen in Finn? (5)
BOAST
[winner]S in BOAT, of which Finn is an example

27 Unknown amir’s orations stirred up old type of religion (14)
ZOROASTRIANISM
Z [unknown] + an anagram [stirred up] of AMIR’S ORATIONS

Down

1 Work for nothing in party characterised by compassion (6,2,4)
LABOUR OF LOVE
LABOUR [party] OF LOVE [characterised by compassion]

2 A new day briefly in France in one of its old parts (5)
ANJOU
A N [a new] JOU[r] [day in France, briefly] – a former province of France

3 Mimicry of Greek character overwhelmed by joy (9)
EMULATION
MU [Greek character] in ELATION [joy]

4 French art may be seen in the capital, indeed (5,2)
QUITE SO
ES [French for are/art] in QUITO [capital of Ecuador]

5 What’s been removed from region (7)
EXTRACT
EX [from] + TRACT [region]

6 Grandfather may be an old one (5)
TIMER
Cryptic definition, referring to grandfather clocks

7 Frequency of number arriving on site, where many look in vain (9)
OFTENNESS
OF TEN [of number] + [Loch] NESS [where many look in vain for the monster]
I was quite surprised to find this was a word, by which I mean it’s in Chambers [but tagged as ‘rare’]

10 Preventer of disease in tummy seems to be working (6,6)
IMMUNE SYSTEM
Anagram [to be working] of IN TUMMY SEEMS – great clue

14 Mammal disturbed mallard, duck going round island (9)
ARMADILLO
Anagram [disturbed] of MALLARD O [duck] round I [island]

16 Plant fear of Europe to ensnare voter with “Vote to Leave” (9)
EUPHORBIA
E.U. PHOBIA [fear of Europe] round [vote]R

18 When hugging wife, a toy boy springs into life (7)
AWAKENS
AS [when] round W [wife] A KEN [Barbie’s boy friend, so toy boy]

19 Mist o’er ground — it’s becoming more humid (7)
MOISTER
Anagram [ground] of MIST O’ER

22 Explosive emperor has it in for leader of enemy (5)
NITRO
N[e]RO [emperor] with the e [first letter – leader – of enemy] replaced by IT

24 Italian, a master for stringing up (5)
AMATI
A reversal [up] of IT [Italian] + A MA [a master] – &littish definition for the family of violin makers

50 comments on “Guardian 27,087 / Pasquale”

  1. Thanks Pasquale and Eileen.

    The ‘ES’ for ‘French art’ seems a bit contrived, but no real complaints. Favourite was NITRO.

  2. Thanks Pasquale and Eileen

    For what it’s worth MEL = honey is in my eChambers from a couple of years ago.

    In 6, I think it may also refer to one’s grandfather being de facto an OLD-TIMER.

  3. Jenny and Charles @ 1

    ES = ART was used, also in the graun I think, by another setter, I can’t remember who. It earned plaudits for ingenuity then.

  5. Very much at the easier end of Pasquale’s rnage but none the worse for that. VEDANTA was new to me but easy enough to deduce. PASSE last in.

    Thanks to Eileen and Pasquale

  6. Oops – MEL is in my Chambers. I don’t know how I missed it but I am due for new glasses soon. 😉 I’ll amend the blog.

  8. Jenny and Charles @ 1-tu es in French means thou art, not in the sense of art as pictures. I think it’s quite a good misdirection

  9. there have been a few mel clues too:

    Araucaria 23261: Grumpy Victor was an artist after honey (7)
    Araucaria 22893: A honey flower (7)
    Enigmatist 26450: Honey and lemon’s first sipped by loathsome author (8)
    Bunthorne 23339: Fruit gone rotten with honey topping (4,5)
    Araucaria 23062: Tinker eating honey going up one’s nose? (6)
    Enigmatist 24734: Fragrant stuff – that’s honey stored up the hill (5)

  10. Thanks both,

    Must have been at the easier end since I often struggle with Pasquale. The crossers were quite helpful. LOI was isogamy where I took some convincing ‘gamy’ was a word. OED online only has ‘gamey’ as a headword but does have a couple of examples of ‘gamy’ in the quotations.

    I, hadn’t come across ‘oftenness’ before. OED has an example from 1977 where it is used by an author talking about noise where ‘frequency’ might have been misinterpreted as pitch, so I guess it has a use.

  11. Hi beery @7
    That’s six years ago! – and even then Andrew said in his blog, ‘A sneaky trick that pops up from time to time: “French art” is French for ‘[thou] art’. It has popped up several times in the last few months.

  12. Funny how the mind works: first one in was ANJOU and I wondered if this was going to be a pangram! It was highly likely that the second part of 1a was QUESTION which gave EXTRACT and then I got LABOUR OF LOVE. J, Q, X, V… the hunt was on.

    Last one in was ISOGAMY and I knew I needed a G to complete the pangram. It’s not a word I’ve encountered before.

    Favourites – IMMUNE SYSTEM and the delightful AWAKENS.

    Only one minor niggle: am I alone in disliking the cluing for ‘ness” in 7d (in itself, a rather ugly word). It certainly makes sense when parsing the solution but extremely difficult to get to ‘ness’ from the clue. ‘site where many look in vain’ had me thinking mirrors/reflection, auguries, horoscopes, ends of rainbows…..

    Thanks to Pasquale and Eileen for the review

  13. That was the only example I could find that included the words “French art”. There are 717 Guardian clues that include “ES” in the solution and have “art” in the clues, which is too many to analyse quickly…

  14. French art = ES has been used in The Times for 30+ years. I spent the first 25 years thinking there must be a particular style of French art called something along the lines of Ecole Symbolique/Sophistique.

    Oh well.

  15. So dear bloggers, what is this Mcguffin being alluded to on the Graun’s own blog? I’ve googled the expression but am none the wiser in this context.

    A couple held me up for some time, couldn’t see 7 for ages – not all that surprising when faced with the solution!

    Thanks to Pasquale and Eileen.

  16. Louise @14: Brilliant! I was defeated by the parsing, though I solved the clue. I, too, was wondering if it was an obscure abbreviation – until reading the comments above. Looks as if I’ve been saved from a further 25 years of incomprehension.

  17. Thanks for the info about es = art. To be fair Jenny was happy with it, but Charles was being a bit curmudgeonly and trying to get the first comment in.

    Charles is surprised he can’t remember having seen it before. But that is probably something to do with his memory.

  18. Doofs @15: I wondered the same. I can only assume it’s referring to the pangram. There was considerable frustration on that site and here as a result of a ‘spoiler’ first comment that appeared and was later redacted. I don’t really know the rules of conduct for the Grauniad site but I suspect posters are trying to avoid saying outright it’s a pangram.

    I saw some commenters on that site refer to 225 which is clearly this one and here we generally refer to the Grauniad. Are there unwritten rules somewhere that prevent mention of the actual sites by name??

  19. Thanks Pasquale and Eileen.

    PASSE was also my LOI.

    I’m not sure why Eileen dislikes ISOGAMY – the Collins definition is: (in some algae and fungi) sexual fusion of gametes of similar size and form. I mis-parsed ON THE MENU thinking it was some convoluted ‘U’ ‘ON THE MEN,’ ‘not quite fit for all kids?’ doh!

    I liked VEDANTA, although I didn’t know the word.

  21. Mark @18 – as someone who regularly posts on both sides I don’t believe there are any such rules, but you are right that spoilers are strongly discouraged on the Guardian site, mostly because the first few comments are automatically displayed to anyone who is trying to solve the crossword online, but also because some of us like to follow the social comments before we have finished the puzzles. “225” is popular shorthand because it is quicker to type than fifteensquared…

  23. Thank you Pasquale and Eileen.

    I got tied up in places. I guessed the second word in 1a was QUESTION, then tried to fit the Quorn hunt in, but, to my relief, it did not work, and I finally arrived at the correct parsing. As regards MEL in 17a, all I could think of when parsing was “melliferous” and “mellifluous”. Incidentally, GAMY is in Collins on-line as “plucky; game.”

  27. I cannot easily follow the link I posted, here is what Google says

    noun: McGuffin; plural noun: McGuffins; noun: MacGuffin; plural noun: MacGuffins

    an object or device in a film or a book which serves merely as a trigger for the plot.
    “the McGuffin in this intriguing comedy is an unpublished novel by a young writer killed in the war”

    Origin
    1930s: a Scottish surname, coined in this sense by the English film director Alfred Hitchcock, allegedly from a humorous story involving such a pivotal factor.

  28. Thanks, Eileen. Definitely much more accessible than in his heyday. A fleeting misread of the end of your first sentence led me to think that in the past, when you needed to solve Pasquale with Chambers much closer to hand, you might well have written “one or two fewer familiar words”.

  30. Norman in France @28

    I realise now that that wasn’t very well expressed – but I’m glad you realise that I know the difference between ‘less’ and ‘fewer’ [one of my bugbears 😉 ].

  31. At 1ac, I got RHETORICAL QUESTION straightaway – with ‘rich’ part of an anagram – but as it doesn’t fit, I needed checkers before I could get the first word, as the definition isn’t very satisfactory.
    I agree that ES = French art has become something of a cliché, but what else can a setter do to avoid Es = tablets ?

  33. PS Copmus, on the grauniad site, suggests “Collins” as name for puzzles which contain today’s McGuff, so I guess that confirms “pangram” since they provide many “thank you letters.”

  34. PPS, I could have mistaken Copmus, he may have just been referring to the dictionary! All the same “a Collins” would be a good name for a pangram crossword.

  35. Thanks to setter and blogger.

    LOI was PASSE due to a synaptic refusal to connect “Sort of horse” with “ass”, but I see no one else objecting and therefore take it to be acceptable in crossworld…

  37. Thanks Pasquale and Eileen.

    An enjoyable puzzle overall. My only quibble was with 26a; I am not sure PRIDE is really a valid definition for BOAST. I’m struggling to think of a sentence where the two words can be interchanged.

    That said, we guessed BOAST but without confidence since the Finn = boat element was lost on us until we saw Eileen’s explanation.

  38. Benpointer @37, perhaps “pride” could be substituted in this sentence from yourdictionary.com

    A zealous Calvinist, whose boast it was that he had read the Bible twenty-five times…

  39. I really enjoyed that. A very stylish offering from Pasquale. Many thanks. And as always thanks to Eileen for her elegant blogging.

  40. QI tweeted today (the Epiphany) that the Magi may have been Zoroastrians. That made me wonder if today’s puzzle had a subtle theme – and it does! Their journey must have been a LABOUR OF LOVE, and required impressive IMMUNE SYSTEMs, and of course one of the gifts must have been the FLATTEST of the three.

  41. I found this fairly straightforward too, though quite nicely clued (not something one always says about Pasquale). Missed the pangram which is a shame for I mulled it over as a solution to 12ac.

  42. Not much to say about this. 4down is a much better clue than I first thought now I know that es = art. PASSE was my LOI. I had POSSE initially( oss for horse) but—-
    Thanks Pasquale

  43. This was the fastest I’ve ever done one of the Don’s offerings. 20 minutes-ish. It helped that the clues for the rarities here were pretty unambiguous.

    Or maybe I’m just getting better at this. (Or maybe not; I had quite a rough go on several earlier in the week.)

    The “toy boy” got an out-loud laugh from me.

  44. I was curious if there was some undetected theme with respect to all the solutions that ended in a non-e vowel. Just coincidence, I suppose?

    I was proud of myself for doing so well with a Pasquale puzzle, although I couldn’t get 21ac having never heard of Vedanta or Desperate Dan.

  45. Thanks to Pasquale and Eileen. I rarely spot pangrams but did catch this one when I got ZORASTRIANISM. I took a while to get VEDANTA, TIMER, and EUPHORBIA, but much enjoyed the process.

  46. I’m accustomed to finding unfamiliar words and meanings among answers to Pasquale’s clues. Today there were two (‘oftenness’ and ‘euphorbia’), but there were more in the wordplay: ‘worried’ = ‘ate’, ‘honey’ = ‘mel’ and ‘toy boy’ = ‘ken’. I didn’t get ‘French art’ = ‘es’ either, but now that I’ve seen it I’ll remember it.

    Thanks to the excellent spot-on clues, I still managed to solve this quite readily, and it was an enjoyable and at times entertaining experience. I just have two minor quibbles: the definition in 1a LOADED QUESTION and the NESS part of 7d OFTENNESS (indicated by ‘where many look in vain’), but these have been noted already.

    My favourite clue was 27a ZOROASTRIANISM, just because I enjoyed solving it and it was my first entry. I tried X then Y and then Z with the anagram fodder, and the answer hit me with the ‘Z’.

    Many thanks to both Pasquale and Eileen.

  47. Thanks, PeterM @31 and now AlanB @ 46 for endorsing my doubts about 1ac. I was thinking it was just me who couldn’t make the connection.

  48. An easier Pasquale with some enjoyable surfaces eg 10d. I too didn’t like the definition at 1ac but on reflection it seems fair enough. The example that came to mind was “Have you stopped beating your wife?” to which there is no proper ( one word ) answer unless you really have been beating your wife.
    Thanks to Pasquale and Eileen, who can’t be beaten.

  49. This took a few lunchtimes to solve, and even then I had to give up on 18: AWAKENS. Strangely I managed almost the entire left half of the puzzle almost without a break, but then started to struggle. “Euphorbia” & “Isogamy” were both guesses (what do you call a word whose existence you deduce from the clue?) and I had to Google “Famous Violin Makers” in desperation for 24.

    PRIDE=BOAST I think in the “He was the pride of the town” sense.

  50. Hi Ogion @49

    From my blog of a Puck alphabetical puzzle, about eighteen months ago:

    “Endless task, getting drink for punchbowl? (5)
    JORUM
    JO[b] [task] + RUM [drink] – isn’t it satisfying to construct an unlikely-sounding word from the wordplay and then look it up and find out that it does exist? [Collins: ‘prob. after Jorum, who brought vessels of silver, gold and brass to King David [II Samuel 8:10]’”

    Marienkaefer later commented: “Eileen – your comment on Jorum reminded me of my late mother who loved clues where you put together a word you had never heard of, and then looked it up to find it does indeed exist. I shall think of them as “Jorums” from now on.”

    And so have I, since then. 😉

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