The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/27403.
A quick blog, as Wednesday evenings conflict with choir rehearsal. An excellent offering from the Don.
| Across | ||
| 1 | SPEECH | School flooded by water — an event on a special day there? (6) |
| An envelope (‘flooded by’) of PEE (‘water’) in SCH (‘school’). | ||
| 4 | STEPPE | Plain course of action read out (6) |
| A homophone (‘read out’) of STEP (‘course of action’). | ||
| 9 | TEND | Care for less than a shilling in old money (4) |
| TEN D is ‘less than a shilling in old money’. If there is anyone out there too young to remember, a shilling was 12 D. | ||
| 10 | CAMOUFLAGE | Hide male in a foul cage after beating (10) |
| An envelope (‘in’) of M (‘male’) in CAOUFLAGE, an anagram (‘after beating’) of ‘a foul cage’. | ||
| 11 | CAREER | Calling someone concerned about recreational drug (6) |
| An envelope (‘about’) of E (‘recreational drug’) in CARER (‘someone concerned’). | ||
| 12 | EASEMENT | Legal right allowing oriental fellows to occupy their quarter (8) |
| An envelope (‘to occupy’) of E (‘oriental’) plus MEN (‘fellows’) in EAST (‘their quarter’). As I have done a bit of trail work (hiking and maintenance) in my time, I am familiar with easement, in the form of the granting of the right to lay a trail across private land. | ||
| 13 | HASTINESS | Speed with which wine goes to head after end of lunch (9) |
| A charade of H (‘end of luncH‘) plus ASTI (‘wine’; where would setters be without it?) plus NESS (‘head’). | ||
| 15 | OTIC | Ear’s twitching after second bit of gossip (4) |
| A charade of O (‘seond bit of gOssip’) plus TIC (‘twitching’). Note that the apostrophe s is part of the definition. | ||
| 16 | COUP | Firm doing better as result of masterstroke (4) |
| A charade of CO (‘firm’) plus UP (‘doing better’). | ||
| 17 | INTENSELY | How we count, see, showing passion (9) |
| A charade of IN TENS (‘how we count’ unless one is a computer) plus ELY (‘see’, another old favourite). | ||
| 21 | HEADHUNT | Try to recruit leader, one for Everest expedition (8) |
| A charade of HEAD (‘leader’) plus HUNT (John Hunt, as he then was, led the first successful climb of Mount Everest in 1953) | ||
| 22 | UNDINE | Spirit a Parisian gets before feast (6) |
| A charade of UN (‘a Parisian’) plus DINE (‘feast’). | ||
| 24 | PETROL BOMB | Crude weapon that could be nasty problem to British (6,4) |
| An anagram (‘could be’) of ‘problem to’ plus B (‘British’). | ||
| 25 | MOAS | Birds making sad noises, any number gone (4) |
| A subtraction: MOA[n]S (‘sad noises’) minus the N (‘any number gone’). The birds have gone, too. | ||
| 26 | THRONG | Host in minimal attire outside front of restaurant (6) |
| An envelope (‘outside’) of R (‘front of Restaurant’) in THONG (‘minimal attire’). | ||
| 27 | GRANGE | Farming complex needs good stretch of country (6) |
| A charade of G (‘good’) plus RANGE (‘stretch of country’). | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | SMETANA | Unusual sonata, nothing to be missed, this person’s penned? (7) |
| An envelope (‘penned’) of ME (‘this person’) in STANA, an anagram (‘unusual’) of ‘s[o]nata’ minus the O (‘nothing to be missed’), with an extended definition. | ||
| 2, 3 | EDDIE COCHRAN | US singer‘s CD reached No 1, surprisingly (5,7) |
| An anagram (‘surprisingly’) of ‘CD Reached No’ plus I (‘1’). | ||
| 3 | See 2 | |
| 5 | TRUISM | What’s obviously right is repressed by president endlessly (6) |
| An envelope (‘repressed by’) of ‘is’ in TRUM[p] (‘president endlessly’). That one would produce an angry tweet. | ||
| 6 | POLYMATHS | All-round experts in HE establishment no longer having single academic discipline (9) |
| A charade of POLY (polytechnic ‘HE establishment no longer’ – Higher Education, that is, not High Explosive) plus MATHS (‘single academic discipline’). I am not quite sure what ‘single’ is doing there, unless it is just to indicate the apparent plural of MATHS (in the US math is the common abbreviation). | ||
| 7 | EUGENIC | “Brussels” officer in charge of a controversial selection procedure (7) |
| A charade of EU (‘ “Brussels” ‘) plus GEN (general, ‘officer’) plus IC (‘in charge’) | ||
| 8 | IMPERSONATION | What may come from inane impostor? (13) |
| An anagram (‘what may come from’) of ‘inane impostor’. | ||
| 14 | THUNDERER | The reporter initially has to keep working for the Times (9) |
| An envelope (‘has to keep’) of UNDER (‘working for’) in ‘the’ plus R (‘Reporter initially’), for the old nickname for the London newspaper. | ||
| 16 | CLEMENT | Cold time of austerity with me put in as PM (7) |
| An envelope (‘with … put in’) of ‘me’ in C (‘cold’) plus LENT (‘time of austerity’). We are evidently on first-name terms with Clement Attlee, but it is worth it for the apposite surface. | ||
| 18 | E-NUMBER | Sign up to introduce honoured member producing a European code (1-6) |
| An envelope MBE (Member of the British Empire, ‘honoured member’) in ENUR, a reversal (‘up’ in a down light) of RUNE (‘sign’). | ||
| 19 | LINEAGE | Row, given time, leads to blood (7) |
| A charade of LINE (‘row’) plus AGE (‘time’) | ||
| 20 | SULLEN | Dark, ’orrible place to the north hiding bright light — quite the opposite (6) |
| An envelope (‘hiding’) of LLE, a reversal (‘to the north’ in a down light) of ‘ELL (‘ ‘orrible place’) in SUN (‘bright light’), with ‘quite the opposite’ to account for the particles being presented in the reverse order. | ||
| 23 | DEMON | Baddie having a brief time in wicked place? (5) |
| An envelope (‘having … in’) of MO (‘a brief time’) in DEN (‘wicked place’). | ||
A very likeable puzzle, so thanks to Pasquale. I also appreciated the blog, PeterO.
Could only remember Hillary and Tenzing in relation to Everest, so 21a HEADHUNT was a guess. Missed the Brussels EU reference in 7d EUGENIC, though I do know that is where the HQ is. I think the definition needs to be “OF a controversial selection procedure” to make the grammar work for the latter. I had never heard of The Times being called The THUNDERER 14d, but that was all it could be from crossers and what I could see in the wordplay. However, it was my LOI.
Favourites were 26a THRONG and 19d LINEAGE.
I enjoyed this rather more than I usually do Pasquale’s puzzles, thanks to the absence of obscurities that leave me floundering without recourse to aids. I think that the use of Attlee’s forename is a bit cheeky, and other clues would not have been too difficult to devise, but that’s a minor niggle, and a personal view. At 23d, I was tempted by ‘Simon’ until I solved 22a, and I wondered what the poor chap had done to be described as a ‘baddie.’
This seemed easier than usual for Pasquale, but I still failed to solve 20d and 21a and had trouble parsing 14d and 9a (totally forgot or never knew that 10 pence can be written as 10d).
Thank you to blogger and setter
16d was a neat misdirection, since ‘Cameron’ at first seemed so obvious, especially with the initial C in place, and ME to be fitted in. I don’t have a problem with using Attlee’s familiar first name (cf the latest, excellent, biograohy, ‘Citizen Clem’ by John Bew.)
Incidentally, reverting to Monday, there is a letter in today’s paper (not by me) asking about ???/Amanuensis. Maybe this will flush out a response from setter or editor, or has one already appeared somewhere??? Not among the heavy continued traffic on that Monday page (99 Comments).
Tricky in places but enjoyed some clever clues. Julie @1 makes a good point about 7dn. The selection procedure is eugenics. Being pedantic (aren’t we all) I’d argue that a step isn’t a course if action in itself. A course of action would be a series of steps (4 ac).
Thanks Pasquale, PeterO
Very good, plenty of thought required. I liked that ‘for’ in ‘working for the Times’ was required for UNDER, the ‘of’ for EUGENIC, and the ‘s for OTIC. I fell for the CAMERON trap, obv, but liked CLEMENT a lot. I knew ‘orrible place to the north was unlikely to be ‘ULL, but still had trouble seeing past it.
A fairer Pasquale than I’m used too with no unknown (to me) words, though I’m not sure where my memory dragged UNDINE from. Agree with Julie@1 re 7D, and for a while I didn’t like 15A until PeterO noted the apostrophe was part of the definition – hats off to the Don and PeterO. Most enjoyable.
Am I missing something or “oriental fellows” is actually e-men ?
Yes you’re right mynollo @8
Thanks PeterO and Pasquale.
I didn’t achieve a single answer first time through, so anticipated a stinker. However, the second and third attempts yielded fairly easily.
Gareth @ 9 I felt the same about UNDINE, but maybe it lingered in memory because Arachne (15 April 2016) and Gordius (2 Jan 2014) had used it.
Sorry: Gareth @ 7. How did that happen?
No problems with any of the GK elements today – I have read John Hunt’s “The Ascent of Everest” and undine was familiar thanks to the “undinal songs” in Firth of Fifth (misspent youth!). Probably at the gentler end of Pasquale’s scale, with some entertaining anagrams.
Thanks to Pasquale and PeterO
When the first one I solved was 23d and that on the second time through, I thought I was really going to struggle; but it steadily came together.
Some neat clues – 16d was a brilliant misdirection, 8d was impressive for its conciseness. When you see it, 1ac is easy, but it made me chuckle. I had the vaguest of recollections of UNDINE but the wordplay was clear enough to point to it and I don’t mind having to check in Chambers to see whether I have followed the wordplay correctly.
I don’t have a problem with 7d. The definition is surely “of a controversial selection procedure” – otherwise the “of” is redundant.
I guess I am showing my age – “leader” and “Everest expedition” immediately called to mind John Hunt, who got a K for leading the 1953 expedition. (Hillary got a K for being the first pink-skinned man to get to the top).
It is with some trepidation that I venture to make my second ever post on this site. My first was two days ago relating to Philistine’s crossword 27401 in which I posed a genuine question to which I got a very dismissive put down but no reply from Derek Lazenby (is he Philistine?)
My, I thought innocent enough, question was when did compilers stop using the latest edition of Chambers dictionary as the reference for solutions (other than proper nouns). Mephisto still quotes this as the reference but perhaps I am mistaken in thinking other crosswords did the same. I have to say that until recent years I have always found Chambers as a reliable reference for all the crosswords I have done, but clearly this is no longer the case as I have come across a few exceptions to this rule in more recent times.
So my question was – when did this change (or was it never the case for all crosswords)? And, of course, the implicit question was what are now the accepted parameters for solutions?
Apologies if this is a topic that has been a source of earlier contention, but if it was it was before I became a regular visitor to the site.
claret@14: Derek L is not Philistine. Philistine is a consultant surgeon with an Indian name.
The more serious the crossword, the more rigorous the use of dictionaries. Mephisto, as you said, specifies Chambers, as does Azed, who indicates any word not in C and advises which dictionary the answer can be found in or whether to search on-line. The Listener (now in the Times) is (or was) similar. Some daily puzzles allow Collins as an alternative. Back in the 1970s I offered some puzzles to the Guardian, but the then crossword editor, John Perkin, replied that though he liked some of the puzzles he thought thta a dialy puzzle should be solvable by someone with a reasonably educated vocabulary without the need for a dictionary, as most solvers on weekdays do not have reference works to hand. Things have changed rather a lot in the interim. Very few of Pasquale’s puzzles would have got past John Perkin.
BANANAQUIT looks to me to be an autofill by Crossword Comiper software. I’m surprised that made it through even thee days.
claret @14 – Welcome, and please ignore Mr Lazenby – he has a thing about dictionaries and particularly definitions he disagrees with, and is definitely not Philistine! Chambers tends to be preferred because it is very comprehensive and has a lot of Scottish words which help the compiler out of tricky corners, but the Guardian has never had a policy that every solution has to be in there – there are often proper nouns, neologisms and obscure flora and fauna. When Chambers fails, Google usually finds something, but even that is not 100% reliable!
Sorry Goujeers @15 – we crossed. I was thinking of BANANAQUIT in my comment about obscure fauna, but it seems far more likely that Philistine came across the bird somewhere and found its name amusing, and that might even have been what started the theme…
Thanks Pasquale and PeterO.
Enjoyable crossword, although I got a bit stuck in the NE corner.
I missed the ‘working for’ definition of under in the parsing of the THUNDERER. I particularly liked SPEECH, HASTINESS, TRUISM and CLEMENT.
claret @14; welcome, I hope you persevere with your comments. As others above have pointed out, I don’t think a word has to appear in Chambers for the Guardian crosswords. BANANAQUIT is in the Oxford dictionaries (including the ODE, which is a good source for current usage that the Guardian editor quite often uses), and has been submitted to Collins as a ‘new’ word. As such, although rather obscure, it is allowable for the Guardian. The onelook site is a good place to look for words (it doesn’t include Chambers, but does include Collins, Oxford etc.)
claret @14 – beery hiker took the words out of my mouth. Don’t, ever, be trepidant (Chambers, 7th edition, p 1564). If a response feels like a put-down, either the perpetrator is being ill-mannered or (commonly) the response was written in haste. Either way, don’t be put off by it.
As Goujeers observes, Azed makes a point of flagging up any answers which aren’t in Chambers, and no doubt Azed and his coterie of admirers would insist that this is the only truly permissible approach; but a few obscure place names or (as in this case) animal names tend to need to be looked up on Google, and so long as it isn’t overdone that seems acceptable. Once you have got the theme of the Philistine crossword (which I didn’t enjoy very much, but that’s purely a matter of personal taste), googling “Banana Bird” actually throws up BANANAQUIT as the first hit.
The difficulty is that new words keep appearing, and even with the 7th and 12th editions of Chambers around the house I know that not everything is going to be in them.
There’s an E missing in the blog of EASEMENT — it’s E MEN, oriental fellows, who live in the East.
Thanks to all for today’s helpful responses to my question. I would hope most words could be found without having to resort to Google as many solvers still prefer paper and pen and are not always at the end of an internet connection.
Hello claret @14. I may be wrong, but I seem to recall that at some time in the dim and distant past Chambers was recommended as the dictionary to use. Wasn’t there some sort of Chambers sponsorship for the cryptic spot?
Thanks to Pasquale and PeterO. Missed the parsing of speech, thunderer and E number, However got there in the end. Started off slowly but it gradually unpacked and was an enjoyable challenge and liked sullen which I thought was a clever clue. My second Pasquale completion so must be getting somewhere.
re claret @ 21, you might find this article by the present Guardian crossword editor useful.
@all,
There’s now an edit to Pan’s puzzle with the missing clue revealed!! Ever so slightly tardy, I’d say.
Good puzzle from the Don. I liked the rather poignant MOAS and the nice EDDIE COCHRAN anagram. Re “single” in 6: I think it’s there for the extended definition. Defining MATHS as a single academic discipline seems fine, especially, as PeterO says, on the UK side of the pond.
Thanks, Pasquale and PeterO.
Omissions noted and corrected, now that I have time for a more thorough proof-read.
The missing clue in Monday’s Pan crossword, by the way, reads:
Scribe has last word about a new university attended by relative (10)
I’m sure everyone knows the answer by now, but I’ll keep to Site Policy and not reveal it.
Thanks phitonelly @ 25. The preamble says: Special instructions: 11 January 2018: the clue for 6 down was originally left out by mistake
and the clue for AMANUENSIS is:
Scribe has last word about a new university attended by relative
see @4 above and @25 phitonelly: and now see the 8th Jan site via Bayleaf. So now a rare century of comments for that day (going beyond Joe Root’s record of non-conversion in the Ashes series).
Claret @21
My preferred solving style is with pen and paper, using the print edition of the newspaper, and even without reference aids, whether print or online. I solve at least half of all puzzles (like today’s) in this way. That is how I get the most fun out of crosswords. Sometimes I need a (print) dictionary or online sources, often via Google, and that’s absolutely fine, for as long as I am still enjoying the puzzle.
I had just minor niggles (like others) with 4a STEPPE (‘step’ = course of action?) and 16d (the forename of a PM). I made 1a SPEECH difficult for myself because I imagined a school being flooded as being covered by the water, but of course the intended imagery more realistically has the water entering the school (PEE inside SCH).
Other than that I thought this was an excellent crossword, one of the best this month (so far!). Whenever I got temporarily stuck I relied on the clue getting me there and I was never let down. I find that Pasquale’s puzzles have that quality.
Now that ‘of’ has been highlighted in the blog as part of the definition 7d EUGENIC is fine. I have too many favourite clues to list.
Thanks to Pasquale and PeterO.
Claret et al on the subject of Dictionaries:
The Listener had a relationship with Chambers which led to a Catch 22 situation for me. I spent an awfully long time sending solutions in a vain attempt to win the dictionary I needed to help me find the solutions.
Thanks Pasquale and PeterO
I enjoyed this – as some others have remarked, more than I generally do with the Don. EUGENICS and IMPERSONATION were favourites.
I don’t like it when a setter resorts to constructions like ‘orrible – I always think of it as lazy.
Odd that he was generous enough to give “US singer” for EDDIE COCHRAN, but omitted “extinct” in 25a! I also thought that some indication of first name for CLEMENT (or another definition entirely) would have fairer, though the answer was straightforward to construct.
This was more like a Quixote of old than the Don’s Pasquale personality. Very enjoyable and a pleasant surprise. Thanks Don and Peter.
Why are people people here so hell bent on misunderstanding my words?
1. claret, it never occurred to me to try to put anybody down, I was merely expressing amusement that things here hadn’t changed much since my last visit ages ago with respect to the presence of discussions about dictionaries and their accuracy. I was not commenting on your post or anybody else’s post, just that the nature of posts in general doesn’t change.
2. Everybody else, I do not have a thing about dictionaries, but I do have a thing about people who relate to them as being error free when they are plainly not, particularly on technical issues. I wouldn’t want to fly in a plane designed by someone who only used dictionaries to determine the meaning of technical terms!
3. Part of the problem lies with “common usage” of technical terms which is often wrong, or at best inaccurate. One can’t blame dictionaries for reporting common usage, though perhaps they could make more of an effort to indicate such usage so that readers know to take those definitions with a pinch of salt. Is that having a thing about dictionaries? Oh well please yourselves, you.
Derek @34
Your point 3 exactly chimes with my opinion. I thought of an example last week. I expect that it wouldn’t be difficult to come up with lots of printed instances that refer to whales as fish; yet having a dictionary list as a definition of whale “fish” without comment wouldn’t be acceptable, would it?
One wrong here – I put in STAPLE at 4a – for some reason I was trying to equate “stay, pull” as a sort of ‘course of action’. Another case where I wrote in an answer without thinking long enough!
Otherwise fine stuff from the Don. EDDIE COCHRAN was, surprisingly, a name to me (I thought it had an E at the end, but I looked it up). I say “surprisingly” because pop culture is not my métier and he was well before my time (he died in a car crash in 1960 aged 21). And UNDINE was an unfamiliar spelling for me, but the clue strongly hinted at ONDINE – title of two piano works, one by Debussy and the other by Ravel (both of whom lived much of their lives in Paris). And with SMETANA as well (probably one of the best clues), there appears to be a mini-musical theme here.
My only gripe is, I do wish that awful person (who unfortunately shares a first name with Pasquale) wouldn’t crop up so often in the wordplay (viz. 5d)! 🙂
Thanks to Don and Peter.
Derek @34
Sorry if my comment was phrased tactlessly – I was really just trying to reassure claret that it was safe to continue commenting!
Laccaria @36. I kept trying to shoehorn STAPLE into 4a too. 🙂
Couldn’t understand why I couldn’t make it into a homophone for “course of action” .
Muffin : quite!
beery hiker : ok, ta
BTW, my final “, you” was supposed to be deleted as I had started to say something totally spurious but had changed my mind.
Think I’ll take a pass today.
Heads-up everyone, it appears that the mysterious “???” in Monday’s Pan has now been corrected in the Grauniad online. A bit of “too little, too late” perhaps?
Laccaria @36 in this instance, for me at least, 5d works with Truman so I was surprised to find something different here.
Laccaria @41 – what is “too little” about it? A clue was missing from a crossword and now it is not. A straightforward resolution of a trivial issue.
I was another STAPLE even though I didn’t like it much and I failed on OTIC. Not a very good day for me all told. I didn’t dislike the puzzle even though the Don is not one of my favourite setter’s. EDDIE COCHRAN was FOI and a fine rocker he was,although his ballads were excruciating. Saw him on a number of occasions before his sad demise.
Thanks Pasquale.
Van Winkle – I suppose it provides ‘closure’, but it’s a shame that we finally get the ‘official’ clue long after everyone’s actually written in the answer (and several alternative clues!). But it can’t be helped.
Everyone here is much more clever than I! I was only able to figure out about a third of the puzzle. In three quarters, I couldn’t get enough crossers to help with the simpler clues. I’ve never heard of Hunt, e-numbers or Eddie Cochran. I dismissed Clement as a possibility too quickly it seems. And I’ve seen the HE/poly thing once before but it occurs to rarely for me to remember. Oh well – I’ll try again tomorrow.
No BlueDot they’re not.
Definitely not.
Thanks to Pasquale and PeterO. Very late to the party today with nothing much to add other than surprise at the stand-alone CLEMENT and the “extended definition” of SMETANA (both of which I did parse).
Bluedot @46 – please don’t lose heart! I don’t know whether you’re relatively new to solving, but it all comes together with practice. My advice, for what it’s worth: don’t come to 225 too early! If you can’t get more than part way into a puzzle at the first attempt, put it aside for a few hours and then try again later – or next day.
It’s not so much about being ‘clever’, as understanding the tricks and dodges that setters use, and learning how to spot them.
Best of luck tomorrow – or whenever you decide to have another go!
VW @43
I personally find your post a little brusque. It it also not factual. Just how is this “a straightforward resolution”?
The matter in question was that the puzzle was published in an incomplete form which made finding the solution a matter of guesswork based on the crossers. (Even then there were two possible answers). Solvers who took the printed clue “in good faith” wasted time trying to interpret the “???” and although this may have been a pleasant diversion for some I am sure it was annoying for others to discover that the clue was in error. (Even more so when it was surely a simple matter to check for such glaring mistakes before publishing)
There was also the “matter” that it has taken the Guardian so long to even acknowledge their error. The publishing of the correct clue provides no “resolution” as surely a timely apology would have been more appropriate.
Your statement that the “clue” wasn’t there and now is is over simplistic and somewhat “facile”.
If you are so laid-back about the quaility of the Guardian puzzles why are you not similarly laid-back about people’s honest comments. (i.e. Why did you bother posting?)
It’s not big and it’s not clever! 😉
I am very late to post – just got home after a pretty ‘orrible day at work. Perhaps it’s just me and the crickets in here at this point, but here goes:
I believe this was by far the most enjoyable Pasquale puzzle that I have ever solved. Smooth surfaces, clever wordplay, a few chuckles. Bravo to the Don.
. . . and thanks also to PeterO and the other commenters!
lurkio @51 You are correct that I am laid-back about the quality of the Guardian crossword. I would much rather the Guardian spent what little money it has on quality journalism rather than chasing perfection in its crossword and its relationship with solvers. My comment was a counter to the huff and puff of those who think they need to be apologised to. If anyone thinks this is a matter worthy of apology, then I say the problem is with their sense of what is really important rather than with the Guardian’s various editors.
VW
I think that the importance of a subject is relative to tha arena in which it is discussed, This is a crossword and specifically the Guardian cryptic section. It is for aficionados/would be aficionados of the said puzzle.
No more needs to be said!
P.S. I assume your use of quality journalism and the Guardian in the same paragraph was ironic. The actual quality of “journalism” in this rag is laughable and pure clickbait!
In music, UNDINE (as opposed to its French equivalent ONDINE) is remembered for a fantastical opera by E. T. A. Hoffmann, the writer of tales, composer, and critic. Music historians remember it fondly for its anticipations of Weber and Wagner. Whether this was in the setter’s mind I couldn’t say. The Wikipedia entry on Undine doesn’t mention Hoffmann, though you can find it by following the link to Undine by de la Motte Fouqué.
I don’t think this is the place to slang off the journalistic standard of the Guardian, nor indeed of any newspaper. Other social media exist for that sort of thing.