A fairly typical Pasquale puzzle, perhaps less tough than he can be, meticulously clued, as always, which helped with the customary couple of unfamiliar words – and fine surfaces throughout.
Thank you, Pasquale.
Definitions are underlined in the clue.
Across
8 Boy and I in children’s game knocked over champions (8)
PALADINS
LAD [boy] and I in a reversal [knocked over] of SNAP [children’s game] – the Paladins were the foremost warriors of Charlemagne’s court
9 Stunned in the morning by Observer crossword (6)
AMAZED
AM [in the morning] + AZED [Observer crossword]
10,24 Oatmeal exceptionally fine in dish (4,4)
MEAT LOAF
Anagram [exceptionally] of OATMEAL + F [fine]
11 Rider in crusade flanked by monarch and Scotsman (10)
EQUESTRIAN
QUEST [crusade] between ER [monarch] and IAN [the crossword Scotsman – although most of the Scottish ones I know spell it IAIN]
12 Finisher, not starter? That’s very good! (6)
TOPPER
[s]TOPPER [finisher]
14 It’s destructive, showing anger about traditional Bible (8)
RAVAGING
RAGING [showing anger] round AV [Authorised Version – traditional Bible]
15 Grow weak, left out in pain (7)
ANGUISH
[l]ANGUISH [grow weak minus l – left]
17 There’s little right in fiddle creating dispute (7)
WRANGLE
R [little right] in WANGLE [fiddle]
20 Laissez-faire type? Not sailor from African country (8)
LIBERIAN
LIBER[tar]IAN [laissez-faire type] minus tar [sailor]
22) Activity on rugby field trapping a bone (6)
SACRUM
SCRUM [activity on rugby field] round A
23 Sausage roll made at Barking (10)
MORTADELLA
Anagram [Barking] of ROLL MADE AT
25 Troublesome kid eating egg with a little bit of extra salt (6)
BORATE
BRAT [troublesome kid] round O [egg] + E[xtra]
26 Breeding of man covered in grass (8)
SPAWNING
PAWN [chessman] in SING [grass]
Down
1 Ex-PM keeps appealing to the top people in the country (8)
CAMEROUN
[David] CAMERON [ex PM] round U [appealing to the top people] I wasn’t aware of this spelling but find that it’s the French name, which seems rather perverse, since the U is not a crossing letter, but it allows Pasquale a witty surface
2,24 Travelling fans late — coaches not moving here? (4,4)
FAST LANE
Anagram [travelling] of FANS LATE
3 In a row nothing upset listener (6)
LINEAR
Reversal [upset] of NIL [nothing] + EAR [listener]
4,19 Hearing US style, unpleasant modern form of our language (7,7)
ESTUARY ENGLISH
Anagram [unpleasant??] of HEARING US STYLE
5 Cleric, very big fool, set up religious festival (8)
PASSOVER
Reversal [set up] of REV[erend] – cleric] + OS [very big] + SAP [fool]
6 I tire and can go funny — caused by medical treatment? (10)
IATROGENIC
Anagram [funny] of I TIRE and CAN GO – a new word for me but crossing letters made it possible to work out – derived from the Greek iatros, physician
7 Abandon rail transport, losing heart with delay (6)
DETAIN
DET[r]AIN [abandon rail transport] minus its middle letter
13 Moving up in trade gaining pounds, showing business sense? (10)
PRUDENTIAL
Anagram [moving] of UP IN TRADE + L [pounds]
16 Cheats in society, endlessly calm (8)
SWINDLES
S [society] + WINDLES[s] [endlessly calm]
18 City road goes round country to the north (8)
LAUSANNE
LANE [road] round USA [country] + N [north]
21 One unpleasant person outside work, one with fourteen members (6)
ISOPOD
I SOD [one unpleasant person] round OP [work] – Wikipedia tells me that isopods have seven pairs of jointed limbs on the thorax – fourteen members
22 Channel links Home Counties to “abroad” (6)
SEAWAY
SE [South East – Home Counties] + AWAY [abroad]
Thanks Pasquale and Eileen
I enjoyed this rather more than typical with a Pasquale, though I was lucky that I was familiar with IATROGENIC, BORATE and ISOPOD. I loved MORTADELLA and SWINDLES.
I took the definition for TOPPER as “finisher” e.g someone who always has the last word, as I thought “very good” would be “topping”. It doesn’t quite work either way for me, though.
thanks Eileen, Pasquale
I particularly liked the two (4,4) anagrams, the sausage roll, amazed and the geography. The unfamiliar ones could all be got from wordplay and crossers – an enjoyable lesson.
5D In the parsing P is missing REV + OS + ASS.
VDS Prasad @3
Yes, the fool is a SAP – misprint by Eileen, I expect!
Apologies and thanks – that was careless. Put it down to the gap between solving and writing up the blog: I’m so used to fool = ass! Blog amended now.
muffin, I thought 12ac was rather weak: Collins has ‘TOPPER: a person or thing that tops or excels
I also thought this was easier than most by Pasquale, but got stuck towards the end: had CAMEROON but couldn’t parse. I liked LIBERIAN, SWINDLES and the ESTUARY ENGLISH anagram. Thanks to P and E.
muffin@1 You need to include the “that’s” for the topper – it’s not ‘very good’ but something that’s very good. On the other hand, the “It’s” in 14a is not part of the definition.
Quite right, James: I have to go out now until late afternoon, so I hope there are not too many more slips.
James @7
I’m still not seeing how “that’s very good” is equivalent to TOPPER. I suppose “a topper” could be regarded as being very good, but how TOPPER by itself?
Someone has to be first to say “I put CAMEROON and didn’t go back to think it through”. Today, that someone is me.
One of the perils of being a solve-on-paper traditionalist, I guess.
Thanks, Pasquale and Eileen.
ChrisinFrance@10-thats exactly what I did-I thought”how does this parse,?” being locked into Estuary English and home counties. So on checking….ah it does now! C’est la vie!
copmus@11 Phew! Not just me. But, given my location (as my Name explains), I suppose I really should have known better.
Never come across CameroUn before. Parsed the clue as O=”appeal to the top people”.
Thank you Pasquale and Eileen.
A pleasant crossword, the only problem I had was with the clue for TOPPER, I even tried parsing it the other way
Finisher, not starter? That’s very good! (I cannot underline, so put the definition in bold).
[a TOPPER can be a ‘finisher’, a killer, as well as a hat], [T]hat’s very good [not starter]
I like it, Cookie!
An enjoyable solve for the main part. Like a few others, I was unfamiliar with this meaning of TOPPER. I’m not a fan of obscure words being clued via anagrams, since it often leads to too many possibilities and the need to ‘cheat’. On the other hand, the anagrams in 6d and 23a, particularly the latter, are cool. I also guessed that CAMEROUN’ must be an alternative spelling but feel that a French spelling should be clued as such.
Unfortunately, 6d was an early one in. I didn’t even bother checking the anagram fodder, it was so obvious to me. I say “unfortunately” because those who learned this word today, rather than through experience, are very lucky!
Like many, I entered “CAMEROON” for 1d, hoping to parse it fully later. Only when I pressed the “Check” button at the end did I realise it was using the alternative spelling.
The solve progressed in fits and starts, but there were some very satisfying clues to keep me coming back for more. Thanks to setter and blogger.
muffin@9
If ‘a topper’, why not ‘topper’? If the clue said ‘It’s very good’, would that be OK, with the topper being the ‘it’? ‘That’s very good’ is equivalent, but emphatic.
Just in case some solvers do not know, TOPPER is colloquial for “top hat”, “very good” – Eileen’s parsing is fine.
James @18
Because “topper”, used by itself in that context, would be an adjective rather than a noun? It just doesn’t sound right.
I think that it’s the one weak clue in a good crossword; also that Cookie’s take @14 has more going for it!
Thanks Pasquale; luckily I knew IATROGENIC.
Thanks Eileen; my ODE gives for TOPPER: ‘Brit. informal, dated, an exceptionally good person or thing,’ so I guess that’s OK then. I thought CAMEROUN was a bit silly, being the French form. I’m sure a decent clue could have been written with CAMEROON.
I liked SWINDLES among others.
I suppose this is the point at which it’s sensible to agree to disagree. Never been very good at that. I can’t buy topper = top hat = very good, as per Cookie@19. Topper itself is a noun, and getting to an adjective via top hat is a double jump. Nor, inventive though it is, is Cookie@14’s reversal, which leaves you with the very awkward ‘hat’s very good’.
Topper is an ‘exceptionally good person or thing’ (SOED), for which ‘that’s very good’, meaning either ‘that thing is very good’ or ‘[a thing] that is very good’ is a perfectly adequate definition.
failed to solve BORATE
new word – IATROGENIC
favourite – MORTADELLA
Thanks Eileen for the blog and Pasquale for a good puzzle
CAMEROUN is how it is spelled locally.
See their national football team’s badge for an example: here
James @22, One hears TOPPER very little now being applied to a person, “He was a TOPPER”, or thing, it seems to have gone out of use like the expressions “That’s topping” or “That’s top hat”.
I have never heard TOPPER being used as an adjective, whereas “top hat” can be.
Cookie@25
Oh good, I can agree now. Yes, topper sounds pretty old-fashioned. Yes, it’s not an adjective. Yes, top-hat can be an adjective. What I meant was that it is a double jump to say ‘very good’ gives ‘topper’, relying on topper = top hat and top hat sometimes being an adjective. Topper is only a noun (also rarely a verb), so ‘very good’ is insufficient, and the “that’s” in the clue must be part of the definition.
Thanks to Pasquale and Eileen. I had great trouble getting started with this puzzle, partly because I was unfamiliar with MORTADELLA, BORATE, ESTUARY ENGLISH, IATROGENIC, and ISOPOD (though eventually the cluing did make sense for most of them), and I took a while before catching on to DET(R)AIN. I did not have any issues with TOPPER. Great fun once I finally got started.
I took a long time to enter CAMEROUN because (a) I had already forgotten Cameron (alas, history will not) (b) only belatedly did I swap the second O for a U. It did though lead me to my last in, ANGUISH.
Tuesday’s Imogen had me fuming because of its odd words and usages, but despite CAMEROUN, IATROGENIC and ISOPOD I didn’t have anything like the same antipathy to Pasquale. I wonder why this might be so?
Not relevant to the debate, but you’ve all brought back happy memories of comic-reading in my youth: The Topper
Not at the toughest end of Pasquale’s scale but I still found this hard work, mostly because some of the easier ones didn’t occur to me because I didn’t think of the right words. IATROGENIC was new to me too.
Thanks to Eileen and Pasquale
This one seems relevant!
Pasquale 24772: Posh Tory’s gone over old French colony (8)
Two comments on 11a.
Most of Eileen’s Scots friends must be Gaelic speakers, as that is the correct spelling of Iain; this may explain why I find her a kindred spirit.
I had expected a comment from Beery Hiker, as I seem to recall EQUESTRIAN appearing fairly recently?
Very enjoyable head-scratcher which yielded under the incredible weight of our combined intellects. Never heard of the esteemed Greek physician but perhaps he wasn’t as popular in his day either,judging by the definition!
MacRuaraidhGhais @32 – it was almost a month ago, so not that surprising given that EASTERN has 4 appearances already this year and ITERATION has appeared twice this month…
Tramp 27175: Queen at start of race is changing jockey? (10)
I suppose CAMEROUN was tricky because of the unusual way U was clued.
Trailman @28
You make a very interesting point about one’s solving experience with different setters in the face of a challenge like unfamiliar words. I would say it’s down to the ‘quality’ of the clues, and by that I don’t mean some absolute quality against which you can assess them but how compatible they are to one’s particular solving skills and strengths.
Today’s crossword went very well for me, and there are only four clues that (in retrospect) I might write differently to make it a ‘perfect’ experience, but there were as many as 10 clues in Imogen’s recent puzzle about which I commented at the time:
“I had to try and think of what the setter meant to say rather than what he actually said.”
I put that down to that setter’s individual clueing style, which is incompatible, to a degree, with my knowledge and solving ability, as I have had the same experience with that setter before. I think others had a similar experience to ours on Tuesday, but certainly not everyone.
Odd one this! The Eastern side went in rather quickly but I got stuck on the Western. I finally got ISOPOD but I was expecting the “unpleasant person” to be SOB rather than SOD which made 25 ac almost impossible. I thought TOPPER, when I finally got it, quite Ok. I did like LIBERIAN though.
Thanks Pasquale.
I’m reluctant to start this up again now I’m back but I’m sorry, cookie @19, although I know topper = top hat, I’ve never heard of, nor can find top hat = very good. [Chambers gives, as an adjectival use, ‘designed to benefit high executives, or the rich’, which is not the same thing: I wonder if you’re thinking of ‘top hole’.] Top hats didn’t come into my parsing. As I said @5, I was taking Collins’ [second – the first one is the hat] definition of topper: ‘a person or thing that tops or excels’ [even though I’ve never heard it used in that way].
I’m sticking to my parsing but, as I said above, I think it’s a weak clue all round: Chambers does have, for ‘stopper’, ‘a person who stops’ [which is, actually, not quite the same as one who finishes] but, for me, it’s something you put in a bottle, so, for me, both agent nouns are unconvincing.
MacRuaraidhGhais @32 – my late husband was Scottish and one of my stepsons is named Iain.
Quite a tough one, but enjoyable. I enjoyed learning IATROGENIC after getting it via the anagram. I assumed TOPPER was adjectival and similar to top-hole (but I can’t find any evidence for this after the fact).
I also had CAMEROON and rationalised the O as being the exclamation when addressing higher powers, e.g. “O Great Pumpkin, where are you?” Could be “appealing to the top people”, if you squint a bit.
Favourites MORTADELLA (which I had to look up) and MEAT LOAF (with its &littish quality).
Thanks, Pasquale and Eileen.
Re my comment @38 – I forgot to say that my parsing of TOPPER needs to include the relative ‘that’s’ in the definition, as James @7 pointed out. I didn’t have time to amend the blog before I went out but I’ll do it now.
Trailman@28
Nice point about Tuesday’s Imogen, with which I totally agree. Today’s rarities were all generously and very clearly clued, whereas there was hint of misanthropy in some of Tuesday’s puzzle.
TOPPER is rather archaic, don’t you think? Sort of thing you might have expected Billy Bunter to have said. But a good clue.
Eileen @38, agreed about ‘top hat’, it tends to be used in such phrases as “top hat pension schemes”, but it is also used by some companies e.g. Top Hat Movers, Top Hat Delicatessen, implying that they are ‘very good’ – my ‘parsing’ was just for fun.
There has been so much discussion of TOPPER and we still don’t seem to have reached agreement.
Pasquale used to drop in to comment but I don’t think he has done so lately. It would be good to hear just what his intention was.
Hi Tenerife Miller @33 – I enjoyed your comment but I should have made it clearer that ‘iatros’ is Greek for ‘a physician’ – there are dozens of them. 😉 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Ancient_Greek_physicians
[Sorry you couldn’t make it to Nottingham this time.]
Since you ask — I am totally bemused by all the argument. TOPPER is clearly something or someone that is top and therefore very good, and nothing to do with a top-hat. My definition )starting at ‘that’) is for a noun. Why would I define a noun as an adjective? You should all know me better than that by now! Sleep tight!
It might work in India…
I too was bemused by all the argument over TOPPER, which I thought all along didn’t quite work. It’s a relief that the setter has entered the fray to explain it, and in particular to point to his definition.
If we are guided by the dictionaries, however, and define ‘topper’ as something or someone that tops [not ‘is top’, note], it doesn’t follow that it is very good. It just means that it exceeds or surpasses something or someone else. An assumption is made that we have to accept – or not.
Thank you, Pasquale @46. I trust that you agree that that justifies my original parsing and my later comments.
Alan B @48, the most common use of TOPPER in India is for the student who is top of the class or school, I think the word TOPPER has dropped out of use in the British Isles in this context, as has the word dux.
Cookie @50
Thank you very much for your latest comment. I saw your very brief comment above just before I posted mine, but I didn’t understand it. The meaning you have just given is not in my dictionaries. Now the clue doesn’t bug me any more!
12A straightforward.
Enjoyed Pasquale’s opinion (tell me that it isn’t one) about ESTUARY ENGLISH.