Guardian 27,504 – Pasquale

52 comments on “Guardian 27,504 – Pasquale”

1. Nice to see a mix of science and literature.

   Thanks for the blog. You might want to fix a minor typo in 7d. COC -> COCO.

2. Blaise@1-didnt notice much literature but there’s a bit of Geography.

3. That it was a pangram helped in the NE corner, which filled last, because I was expecting a Q.

   LOI was OPT, which I couldn’t see for ages.

   Yes, Blaise @1, nice to see some science again.

   Thanks to the Don and Andrew.

4. Groaned to see Pasquale’s name, but his immaculate clueing makes the obscure words gettable, and this did seem to be as straightforward as he ever gets – though I could never have finished without recourse to the dictionary.

   I chuckled at MUST SEE, QUANTOCKS and COCONUT (although the use of NUT for teachers is going to have to go, as that union has now ceased to exist following a grand amalgamation into the National Education Union.

   Conversation with daughter: ‘What did you do on Saturday?’  

   ‘We took a train from London to Derby, walked three hundred yards to a pub, stayed there for four hours then walked back to the station for the train home.’

   PVB and I very much enjoyed meeting the Bloggers and Setters.  Great pub and the people were all right too.   Many thanks

    

    

5. Following on from Job, great pub, great people, great occasion.

   Back to the task in hand. Enjoyed CARCASE, QUANTOCKS and CHEDDAR. Last in were OCCAM and MUST-SEE with a little help from Job.

   Thanks Pasquale and Andrew.

6. MY favourite was CHEDDAR.

   New words for me were QUANTOCKS, PERCHLORATE, and I needed help to parse 6a.

   Thank you Pasquale and Andrew

7. Lots of use of the crossers was the only way I could solve this challenge from Pasquale, and for many of the guesses I had to double check with google and my electronic version of Chambers. However, I was pleased to recall 24a DITHYRAMB from some long-ago literature course. I appreciated the extra level of meaning in the clue for Samuel JOHNSON at 19a referencing his dictionary. I didn’t understand why 23a was ALI, but of course he is Crosswordland’s favourite boxer these days. Amazingly enough, I did see the pangram today!

   My favourites were 12a PHILIPPINES, 16a CUCKOLD, 22a EX POST FACTO, 28a TENNESSEE and 20d SHAMANS.

   Thanks to Pasquale and Andrew.

    

8. PS My learning today included the geographical references to the QUANTOCK Hills and the village of CHEDDAR, did not realise there was actually a place named after the cheese – or is it vice versa?

9. Hi Julie – the cheese is named after the place, as with Stilton, Gloucester, Red Leicester (and countless fromages).

   It’s also famous for the nearby limestone Cheddar Gorge (which is maybe a little unspectacular by Australian standards!)

10. Vice versa. It has natural caves for maturing cheese

11. I was convinced that the only spelling variant of one down was Carcass, so that was LOI…

12. Haven’t contributed for a while, not through lack of interest but because of other activities. I found this pretty hard but fair, as always with Pasquale, to whom many thanks, also to Andrew.

13. Well, you get what it says on the tin.

    I didn’t know the DITHYRAMB thingy, although I did know most of the other ‘obscurities.’ I thought of ALI immediately but couldn’t connect with alit.

    I quite liked the QUACKS but failed to spot the pangram.

    Thanks Pasquale and Andrew.

14. Thanks to Pasquale and Andrew. Some straightforward clues but otherwise I found this generally tough going. I had to do quite a bit of dictionary checking (e.g. 3d, 13d and 24a). Had come across Occam (often spelt as Ockham in many philosophy texts), because I often had to discuss parsimony with my students. Last two were Philippines and perchlorate probably because I convinced myself the the latter began with bar. I did like Johnson, Quantocks, must see and cheddar. Missed the pangram but thanks again to Pasquale and Andrew.

15. Thanks Pasquale and Andrew

    Very similar to Andrew’s experience – I was lucky in knowing all the “obscure” words, though I didn’t know DEF for “excellent”, and checked JOHNSON as I wasn’t convinced that SON = “disciple”.

    Favourites were (FOI) OCCAM, QUANTOCKS and CUCKOLD.

16. This was a weird one for me. The NW quadrant went in almost eerily fast, making me wonder who had kidnapped the Don, with the SW showing only a little more resistance. But then the right half of the puzzle took nearly an hour. New to me were the QUANTOCKS, but the clue was fair so it was gettable–eventually.

    I knew the rest of the obscurities. Pleasant to see a DITHYRAMB pop up.

17. Having got QUANTOCKS/REQUITE in position, and also JACOBIN/JOHNSON, YEW and AMAZE – hence getting all the Scrabble ‘biggies’ out of the way, I guessed we are in for a pangram today!  And a quick check confirmed it.  Having said that, I don’t really get a buzz from spotting that there is a pangram.  It’s just a rather artificial device: could equally be achieved by filling the grid with THE QUICK BROWN FOX JUMPS OVER A LAZY DOG couldn’t it (I believe that’s been done somewhere?).

    Ghost themes are, for me, the thing that gets me with an ‘aha!’ moment.  None here, though.

    Only complete unknown here was DITHYRAMB, but easy to write in once I had all the crossers followed by a look-up.

    My only query here: is SHAMAN a type of “spiritualist”?  I’d equate it more with chieftain or witch-doctor – not quite the same thing.

    Being of a science background (many many moons ago), I had to chuckle over both the long ones ANTIPROTONS and PERCHLORATE.  Must have been a devil of a job to clue those up!  I think PERCHLORATE is the better of the two, but not to belittle that superb anagram for our little antimatter friends!

    The other plus I’d give is for COCONUT – for the sheer cheek of the definition!  I can still remember going to see Coco the Clown (aka Nikolai Poliakov) at the circus, when I was a small kid.  I also remember being taken to the fairground, although I don’t recall ever winning a coconut (my aim was hopeless…)

    Altogether a satisfying one from the Don – not his hardest but quite a trek.

    Thanks to the Don (of many names) and Andrew.

18. Thank you, Andrew, needed your blog to parse DEFIANT.

    Not keen on The Don putting The Quantocks on the map…it’s a truly beautiful part of our island and the fewer people that know about it the better, for me.

    Charged through this at a decent lick but ran into the sand in NE with MUST SEE, OCCAM & OPT taking about the same time as the rest.

    Missed the pangram, but then I don’t generally look for one.

    Fine puzzle from a great setter.

    Nice week, all.

19. A pleasant enough challenge – not Pasquale at his most fiendish but challenging enough.

    Thanks to Pasquale and Andrew

20. Thanks to Pasquale and Andrew. I knew CHEDDAR (from previous puzzles) but not QUANTOCKS and new to me were the DEF in DEFIANT, JAIN in JACOBIN, and PERCHLORATE – and I too took a while before spotting OPT.

21. Thank you to Pasquale and Andrew.

    I enjoyed this very much. Pasquale’s clues never seem to have a wasted word in them – you might say that 6ac’s razor applies to them.

22. A DNF for me, I’m afraid, as I got bored with 2 to go and anyway Mrs Trismegistus was pestering me for access to the computer…

    The pangram helpedto get SEARING, but didn’t help with GAROTTE – possibly because I was unsure of the spelling. Regarding 5d, I did wonder how “sea” could be “submarine”, but when I realised that in a down clue it was “Ring under sea”, I thought that was quite clever.

    Thanks to the Don, and to Andrew – I didn’t know Araucaria was fluent in hip-hop (nor did I know that meaning of DEF), but then, Araucaria was amazingly erudite.

23. I’ve just remembered that not only did I learn def=brilliant from an Araucaria puzzle, but it was a comment from Pasquale that pointed it out to me. Scarily, I also see that this happened nearly ten years ago.

     

    The clue in question (a down) was: Brilliant clue to the back teeth (3,2)

24. Since I failed on STOCKINET yesterday, I was a bit afeared of Pasquale obscurities today, but I found nothing to scare the horses other than I thought OCCAM was Ockham.

    I normally go on a pangram hunt when I enter a J and Q in quick succession but my alert button wasn’t properly set today.

25. I found the NW rather easy – thought I was improving, but no – wham, missed the parsing on at least 50% of the rest. Many thanks for Andrew. However, I thought the river in 25d was the WEY – seemed to make more sense. Thanks to Pasquale (I think)…maybe…

26. A very satisfying puzzle, with a variety of well-crafted clues as I always expect from this setter.

    DEF for ‘excellent’ was new to me (but I now see it has an ‘excellent’ pedigree).  YEW was a strange clue, with the word ‘weak’ possibly being unnecessary.  With ‘top to bottom’ WYE must be the river, but if the clue had said ‘upside down’ it would be the WEY (a smaller river – a tributary of the Thames).

    I thought the setter was cheeky to clue CHEDDAR as ‘Somerset village’, thus making it harder for non-Brits.  The cheese is the most familiar use of the name, followed by Cheddar Gorge followed by Cheddar the village, I would say.

    Thanks Pasquale and Andrew.

27. Alan B @26:  for a data point, generally as soon as I realize that I’m expected to know any place name in Britain beyond the thirty-or-so largest cities, my first step is to go online and scour the map of the county indicated.  I don’t regard this as cheating; it’s merely correcting my “foreigner” handicap.

    I certainly was aware Cheddar was a place in Britain (since almost all cheeses are named after their place of origin), but until today I couldn’t have told you specifically where.

28. This was quite tough for me.  Last in was PERCHLORATE (embarrassingly, as I’m a chemist).  I had a couple of queries after solving – why “submarine” in 5, now nicely explained by Trismegistus (thanks!) and why “of celebration” in 14.  Collins online put me right on that one: ode  – “a poem, especially one that is written in praise”.

    Quite a few learnings, as usual – DITHYRAMB, William of OCCAM, JACOBINS.  Liked YEW.  ADO was a bit too chestnutty.

    Nice puzzle.  Thanks, Pasquale and Andrew.

29. mrpenney @27
    I know you would not cry foul over the name of an English village, but while savouring the clue as written (the village being more interesting and less obvious than the cheese) I was only too well aware that this was more of a challenge for you than for me!

30. I am surprised to NOT see a large number of comments here already to suggest that this was surprisingly easy for a puzzle by this setter.
    Why?
    Because, in my twenty-five or so on-off-on-off-on years of attempting cryptics in various newspapers, today’s is the very first grid by him that I can remember managing to complete!

    I ‘achieved’ this feat by:
    benefitting from the pure chance of only attempting 1d AFTER having already solved 1a, 11a, and 14a (& therefore having already been warned that the less-common/older spelling of the word was required);
    by having encountered ‘dithyramb’ so many times in crosswords now that I am at last able to spot slots that it might fill, and;
    by my deliberate strategy of leaving 13d to the last, so that I had ALL of its crossers available to me before trying to work out the identity of the chemical required as the solution 🙂

    Did I spot the pangram?
    Did I ‘eck as like!?! 😀

    Bon; having completed my first grid by this setter, I feel that a celebratory slap-up meal at Mrs. Miggins’ Pie Shoppe might very well be in order 🙂
    To horse!

    Slàinte,
    Gem.

31. Good fun today.  Enjoyed the variety of clues and also the pangram (although I only spotted it after the grid was complete, so it was not an aid in solving).  I worked out QUANTOCKS and DITHYRAMB (my LOI) from the wordplay and the crossers, but I had to Google both to confirm I guessed correctly.

    I found YEW, with wordplay deriving the answer from Wye, to be one of my favorites today.  I was wondering if there might have been additional opportunity for wordplay arising out of the fact that both words are homophones for letters of the alphabet, as well as for the words why and you.  For those who are culturally sophisticated, here is an impressive scholarly video all about “why you”.  Incidentally, we have a Wye River here in Maryland, undoubtedly named after the River Wye in the UK.

    Back to work for me.  Many thanks to Pasquale and Andrew and the other commenters.

32. @ 26 Alan B – 25d YEW worked for me because W is the “top” of WEAK (in a down clue) and it goes to the bottom…. Possibly a little more convoluted than it need be, but some people like that!

33. Trismegistus @32
    I see what you mean. That would explain why ‘weak’ is there. (But on looking at the clue again I still think it would work without ‘weak’.)

34. Pasquale with his usual annoying choice of unusual words.

    Why not fill the grid with common words and make the cluing interesting/challenging rather than pick esoteric answers and make the cluing simple? I find this perverse and and even a little lazy.

    Not much fun as ever for this setter!

    I did however enjoy the usual comments that the “pangram helped”. Did it really? How about the previous 50 that you wasted time looking for a Q/J/Z etc when the puzzle was (as is most likely) not a pangram. 😉

     

35. @33 Alan B – yup, more convoluted than it need be! But as I said, some people like that (I didn’t say I was one of them…!)

36. Well-clued indeed in the tidy way that marks out this and other excellent compilers. The only things that irk me slightly about Don are his conservatism — as in he could possibly have a bit more fun, even as a staunch Ximenean — and his penchant for including arcane words. Today he seems to have been quite restrained, which made it the more enjoyable for me.

    Many thanks setter and blogger.

37. lurkio @ 34

    In answer to your question, possibly because Pasquale’s way will lead to an expansion of your vocabulary, which can’t be A Bad Thing, surely?

    I don’t even think it’s remotely lazy. It must be quite a challenge to fill the grid with such supposed obscurities as DITHYRAMB or QUANTOCKS, to name but two, and then clue them in such a way that the wordplay can enable those who don’t know them to construct the solutions.

38. lurkio @34,

    Just out of interest, have you compiled any crosswords yourself?

    Grid-filling, especially around a theme or a Nina (or – indeed – a pangram if that’s what the setter wants) is no picnic!

39. lurkio @34 –

    Ha ha – how do you *really* feel about Pasquale’s puzzles??  Don’t hold back!

    While you are certainly entitled to your opinions, I think your last sentence (“How about the previous 50 that you wasted time looking for a Q/J/Z etc …”) is a bit of a piffle.  First, it takes only a few seconds at most to look over a completed or partially completed grid to determine if any of the usual suspects (Q/J/Z etc.) indicating a possible pangram are present or not, but more to the point, isn’t solving puzzles (for most of us, anyway) an avocation and not a vocation?  We choose to take the time that we do to solve cryptics for purposes of enjoyment, relaxation, mental stimulation, expansion of knowledge, connection with others (for those who solve with partners), or whatever other purposes we may have, but is any of that time really “wasted”, or is it merely spent in the manner that we (presumably having other available options) elected to spend it?

    OK, I’ll step off my soap box now.  Time for me to move on to my other favorite pastime:  Composing dithyrambs about the Quantocks.

40. Me @39

    O ye gods!  If only I could traipse among the Quantock Hills,

    ‘Twould surely give me chills.

    To describe them as brimming with wonders

    Whether in brilliant sun or resounding with rainy thunders

    Would surely be my honest duty.

    But alas, only this I truly know:

    The Quantocks were England’s first Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

    But if ever I should go,

    I shall be fain to behold the rare dead-wood beetles and majestic red deer,

    But shall tread lightly for fear,

    Of disturbing the vipers or other ophidia

    Who also dwell in the Quantocks, according to Wikipedia.

41. Well said, Soapbox DaveMc@39. How anyone could describe Pasquale as “lazy” is quite beyond me!
    You have summed up perfectly the “avocation” of cryptic crossword solving. Yes these are the reasons I engage with The Guardian cryptic, and the connection with others you mention also derives, for me, from connecting on the forum with others like you in other parts of the world. I don’t mind reading differences of opinion on the forum, but injustice to setters and silvers does upset me.
    What a pity not everyone will get to read your fantastic, funny and enthusiastic poem about the Quantocks @40. Your sense of humour on the forum is always refreshing. Thanks for your contributions.

42. Julie in Australia @41 –

    Thanks for your post.  I also love connecting with others from around the world, yourself very much included, here on 15^2.  [And if anyone were still on this thread reading this, I have no doubt they would enthusiastically agree with me in saying specifically about you, JinA, that “You Rock!” and that your posts are one of the great pleasures of frequenting these blogs!]

    I’m glad you read and enjoyed my dithyramb about the Quantocks!  Even if nobody else had seen it, I’m pretty good at cracking myself up most of the time, so I got a laugh out of it myself!

43. Thank you, lurkio (I bet no one expected to ever read that phrase) for being the unwitting catalyst for the delightful interchange between DaveMc and JinA, two of my favourite posters. If a psychologist were to play word association with me and said dithyramb I’m sure I’d blurt out Quantocks and send him/her to Wikipedia for the connection (which is, of course, ophidian).

    Thanks also to Pasquale and Andrew.

44. Just to add some balance, DaveMc and Julie in Australia are responsible for some of my least favourite posts on this site. They might both be charming people, but their posts commonly fail to follow Site Policy 3. If the proprietors of the website wish it to be a forum for chitchat whose only constraint as to content is that the people participating have done the crossword, it can be so. But please change the Site Policy so that those of us that just want to deal with issues relevant to the puzzle can’t have any expectation that this will be possible without having to sift through all the off-topic filler.

    (And, of course, I recognise that this comment is off-topic, so it should be removed forthwith.)

45. Thank you DaveMc for your neat dithyramb @ 40.

    The G crossword has over 40 years increased  my vocabulary and GK enormously. As Simon @ 37 says, its OK having obscure words as long as they can be worked out from the clues. That’s what makes them enjoyable.

    Van W: you’re very brave saying that. I think a bit of chit-chat is acceptable as long as people don’t go down memory lane and past occupations too often.

46. Van Winkle: if people were to come on the site just for a general chat about football or whatever, you would have a point. But policy 3 says “Comments… should be relevant to the puzzle under discussion.” I don’t think this precludes people from making observations inspired by clues in the day’s puzzle, observations which I think add to the attraction of the site.

    Julie in Aus and DaveMc: keep up the good work.

47. Hear hear!

48. Alas! DaveMc @40 – here in Britain the adders (the only species of viper we have) are in serious decline, I have not seen one in years (though I still hope they’re around).  Plenty of deer around though (I’m not familiar with the Quantocks but there are plenty all across the country).

    Interesting that you say you hail from Maryland – one of my B-in-L’s lives there (near Monkton).  And when we went to visit a few years ago, we went for a stroll along a nearby river (not the Wye, it was called the “Gunpowder” as far as I can recall.  Strange name for a river to us Brits!).  We were warned to keep an eye out for copperheads (a sort of rattlesnake, a good deal nastier than an adder).  But we didn’t see any.

    Have no fear if you come across to our side of the pond!  Even in the Quantocks, your chances of being bitten by an adder are as near nil as dammit…

     

49. Got to this very late and finished it this morning. All has been said really- too much in some cases- but I thought this quite a good puzzle. Didn’t get the pangram though.

50. In late response to the criticisms.

    I still hold my stated opinions.

    I do crosswords for other reasons and not to improve my voacabulary. (Using a crossword to improve ones vovabulary seems a little odd as one almost nearly always fails in order to to discover the “new” word.) I read books to improve vocabulary as this actually presents the words in context which gives one a chance to remember them.

    I have found that in the odd crosswords I have compiled it is actually harder to fill in a grid with less esoteric words. When one comes to the last few entries it is tempting to fill in obscure words which will fit. I resist this.

    The comment about seraching for pangrams taking little time  is disingenueous. It’s not the decision that the puzzle may be a pangram that takes times. It’s the pointless searching for answers with the miising last couple of letters which wastes time as of course usually they aren’t there.

51. Lurkio if you’re still lurking:

    In the old days before PCs and the Net, I would often spend all day trying to finish a crossword or even a week for Saturdays. The searches through my thesaurus, dictionary and Pears Encyclopaedia introduced me to so many facts and words. Yes the word may never be found but when you do finally get the answer (up to a week later) you are more likely to retain that word forever as well as some of the many that you encountered on the way.

    Strange way of learning perhaps but it worked for me. Admittedly I don’t have the patience and time these days. Too much temptation to seek help with the touch of a button.

     

52. 51. pex

    Pears Cyclopaedia. I always wondered why it was Cyclo . . . and not Encyclo . . . You’ve given me a reason to look it up. (Haven’t looked in the actual book since the pre-internet era.) “Cyclopaedia is an archaic word for encyclopaedia” = a bit of an anticlimax.

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