Two solutions ending in “loo”, yet no toilet references in their clues!
In his invitation to his Zoom session (I didn’t participate) which coincided with the publication of this puzzle, Paul raised the question of smut in puzzles: was he too cheeky? Well, nothing in this puzzle to cause offence, I would have thought, although the clue for 6 down used wordplay of the sort I associate with Cyclops. And, as mentioned above, Paul avoided any toilet references. Timon and I particularly enjoyed the clever imagery conjured up by 1 down. Thanks as always to Paul for the entertainment.
| ACROSS | ||
| 8 | VINDALOO | Dish with dried pulses and duck in wine (8) |
| DAL (a pulse used in Indian cookery) inside VINO, O (duck). I don’t think that dal is necessarily dried, which held us up for a while. | ||
| 9, 24 down | STRAW POLL | Primarily American white people splitting constitutional vote (5,4) |
| Initial letters of American White People inside STROLL (a constitutional). | ||
| 10 | EGGY | Irritated by ultimately adorable, charming gurgling baby? (4) |
| Last (ultimately) letters of adorablE charminG gurglinG babY. I am grateful to Gaufrid for pointing me in the direction of the Oxford Dictionary of English, where this definition is to be found (it’s not in Chambers or Collins). It’s shown as “Brit. informal”. I was misled by the fact that the definition of EDGY in Chambers is “irritated” and assumed, wrongly, that Paul had made a blunder. I have since checked the entry in the online OED, which gives just two citations for this usage, one from a 1930s American novel, and one from Lern Yourself Scouse (1966). | ||
| 11 | UNDERSTUDY | Waiter offstage being pinned down by Casanova, ending in hilarity (10) |
| UNDER STUD (hilarit)Y. A nicely misleading definition. | ||
| 12 | CROTCH | Lap, note with 25% brushed off (6) |
| CROTCH(et). | ||
| 14 | ANTIGONE | Opponent nowhere to be seen, a tragedy (8) |
| A simple charade of ANTI GONE. | ||
| 15 | ESSENCE | Half of necessary things forgotten by Church, concentrate (7) |
| ESSEN(tials) (necessary things), CE (Church). | ||
| 17 | MACRAME | Staff transporting stuff for ornamental work (7) |
| RAM (stuff) in MACE (a staff), | ||
| 20 | WATERLOO | A number from 7 in battle (8) |
| Double definition, referring to this catchy little number from a Swedish group (sorry about the earworm!). We were slightly surprised that Paul didn’t find a way to incorporate a toilet reference… | ||
| 22 | See 1 | |
| 23 | BUNDESLIGA | Bald genius playing for teams like Bayern Munich (10) |
| *(BALD GENIUS). The German equivalent of our Premier League. | ||
| 24, 22 down | PLUM BRANDY | Straight down, hot drink (4,6) |
| A delightful charade of PLUMB RANDY. | ||
| 25 | NAURU | Small country where a spiritual teacher shaves head after meditation, finally (5) |
| (meditatio)N A (g)URU. It’s described by Wikipedia as a microstate in Micronesia. | ||
| 26 | GOD BLESS | Mouth off evidently about daughter for so long (3,5) |
| We parsed this as D(aughter) in GOBLESS: one whose mouth is off could be said to be gobless, I suppose, but it’s a bit of a stretch. Slightly surprisingly, this sense of a blessing bestowed on parting is not to be found in Chambers. | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1, 22 across | BIG GIRLS BLOUSE | Weed — gear found on Amazon? (3,5,6) |
| A very nice cryptic definition: an Amazon might well have been a big girl. | ||
| 2 | EDDY | Current toy unopened (4) |
| (t)eddy. | ||
| 3 | SLOUGH | Bog in shed (6) |
| Double definition. It eluded us until we had the crossers. | ||
| 4 | CORDIAL | Welcoming drink (7) |
| Another double definition. | ||
| 5 | TSARITSA | In motion, a saint stood up for aristocrat (8) |
| ASTIR A ST (all rev). It’s defined as a Russian empress. | ||
| 6 | GRETA GARBO | Rocker covering starlet’s bottom with jelly, might she have wanted some me time? (5,5) |
| (starle)T AGAR (jelly) in GREBO. A grebo is apparently a devotee of heavy metal or grunge music – we hadn’t come across the term before. The clue refers to the fact that Greta Garbo famously said that she just wanted to be alone. | ||
| 7 | SWEDEN | Country with Cornish, Cornish project? (6) |
| SW (south-west) England, where Cornwall is to be found; the Eden Project, a tourist attraction in Cornwall. | ||
| 13 | TREMENDOUS | Super finding change in pocket when short of a sovereign (10) |
| EMEND (change) inside TROUS(er) (short of a sovereign); to trouser is to pocket. | ||
| 16 | COLOSSUS | Wonder, perhaps, if business deficit American (8) |
| CO (company, or business) LOSS (deficit) US (American). | ||
| 18 | MUSQUASH | Large rodent: let me think about that climbing over fruit (8) |
| UM (let me think about that, rev) SQUASH (a fruit). | ||
| 19 | FOLIAGE | One restrained by prisoner after punching antagonist, leaves (7) |
| 1 in LAG (prisoner), inside FOE (antagonist). | ||
| 21 | ALUMNI | A learner (I’m untrained) graduates (6) |
| A L *(IM UN). You have to separate UN from “trained”, which is the anagram indicator. | ||
| 22 | See 24 across | |
| 24 | See 9 | |
Thanks bridgesong. I had trouble getting started with this one and even when some crossing letters became available I found it difficult. I had to confirm BUNDESLIGA and TSARITSA and have to wonder how common they are in English usage. Most of the crossing letters meant that I was uncomfortably fixated on GRETA GARBO because I just couldn’t see why and I still think it is obscure.The SE corner held me up until I remembered my mother once was the proud owner of a musquash fur coat when such things were fashionable. I thought squash is a vegetable rather than a fruit but find it depends on whether you are talking in botanical or culinary terms.
I suppose it goes without saying that the Colossus of Rhodes was one of the seven wonders of the Ancient World.
Thanks to Paul and bridgesong. I did not parse SWEDEN, parsed but did not understand EGGY, took a long time figUring out PLUM BRANDY, and even longer to get my LOI MUSQUASH.
I got held up for a long time by BIG GIRLS BLOUSE, not knowing the current context for the phrase, and finally bunged it in, allowing me to get VINDALOO, my loi. Remarkably clean for Paul but still plenty of wit and clever misdirection. UNDERSTUDY and ANTIGONE were among my faves. Thanks to Paul and to bridgesong for parsing a few.
GOD BLESS was among those I couldn’t parse, and I don’t really buy the explanation above, as it appears to leave ‘evidently’ unaccounted for in the clue. Perhaps someone can convince me.
Thanks, bridgesong.
For 26 I had GOB (mouth) + LESS (off, as in 10% off), all enclosing D for daughter. That doesn’t account for “evidently,” though.
Thanks bridgesong. Couple of hours slough-deep in Amazon weeds, MUSQUASH and Grebo=biker. The Cornish reference in 7D mystified although the answer, confirmed by the Abba reference in 20A, flashed up early. The trademark initially/finally indicators also helped then with 9 and 10A. Tour de force, Paul
Thanks Paul and bridgesong
Like DaveinCarolina, I was puzzled by ‘evidently’ in 26A, but I think a more likely parsing is D (‘daughter’) in GOB (‘mouth’) plus LESS (‘off’ as in “Sale – 10% off”).
Miche @4
Snap, down to the percentage!
I liked this one. There were a few which needed the PAGE method (Propose Answer, Google, Enter), but not BUNDESLIGA (pace Biggles@1) I suspect many people who follow the Premier League will hear a lot about the Champions League, and hence the goings-on in and between the major European leagues – at least I do.
As for “evidently” in 26a, I took that as an acknowledgment of the stretchiness Dave@3 referred to, but really could have done without it. On the whole though, a fine puzzle.
I thought the ‘evidently’ in 26was just there for emphasis – ‘apparently lacking a mouth’. I took a while to find EGGY too.
Thanks Paul and bridgesong.
This was a great puzzle, and very enjoyable. Thanks setter. Actually I come to this site staggered by solving this week’s prize cryptic (28,201) in under twenty minutes, with every clue an immediate write-in. I know this is not the place to discuss this week’s puzzle, but I had to wonder if anybody else was struck by the extreme differences in difficulty. Is the Guardian playing jokes on us?
I agree with Gonzo@9 on the parsing of GOD BLESS. Well, that’s how I worked it. Didn’t parse TSARITSA , but so clear now that I’ve come here, and even though I was sure on MACRAME early on, I stupidly had CRAM for stuff and was wondering what MAE was. Idiot!
So, completed but slightly unsolved. I’ll take that. Thanks Paul, and Bridgesong for the fine tuning of a thoroughly enjoyable puzzle.
I had a similar thought to rod@10’s main point, but not the rider. There have been too many divergences from the supposed plan of gradual increases through the week from easy on a Monday to very difficult on a prize to conclude it is anything other than a “nice idea” which happens occasionally.
I had just had eggs for breakfast when I started this offering from Paul last weekend, so the word EGGY went in very quickly (I also recalled a phrase “eggy custard” though I didn’t know that word meant irritated as well). While I had not had wine for breakfast (!) I did start out trying VERDELHO for 8a, unparsed, but with “wine” as the definition and a crosser at 4d which I knew made the last letter O, but which had to of course be revised later. So some of the entertainment I found here was of my own making. I really liked this puzzle a lot with the aforementioned VINDALOO 8a a favourite. I also ticked 9a24d STRAW POLL, 11a UNDERSTUDY, 14a ANTIGONE and 25a NAURU (feeling so ashamed that refugees to Australia have been imprisoned there). My stand-out clue was GRETA GARBO even though I had to check in Chambers after I solved it to be sure GREBO was a word – never heard of it (perversely glad to see our esteemed blogger hadn’t either) and I sometimes think I know a little bit about music. Always learning new things though. 7d SWEDEN was also, for me, an unknown reference to that project which I bunged in from definition and crossers, so thanks for explaining, bridgesong. For 23a BUNDESLIGA, I had to ring my brother who knows a bit of German and is quite good at a cold solve, and he helped me with who/what Bayern Munich is and also assisted me with the anagram. I recall GOD BLESS (26a) as a “signing off” phrase as one my dear old Mum used to use – thanks to other contributors for some thoughts above on “evidently” which I too thought was a bit extraneous in this clue. 12a was my last one in – without parsing it properly, I put in the Aussie slang to start with which is spelt CRUTCH. A couple of hours later, it was still bugging me, and then I thought about the quarter note CROTCH(et) and so was able to go back and correct my dreadful and silly mistake. I like all these little ups and downs, setbacks and time taken to see things, as I work my way through these puzzles – they keep me humble and grounded. The speed of the solve is still not a consideration for me even after several years of engagement with the Guardian cryptics: enjoyment and working on improving the plasticity of my brain are my top priorities.
Many thanks to Paul and bridgesong (and Timon). Lots of smiles here!
Agreed, Dr. W @12, and it’s not necessarily a bad thing to approach a puzzle with no prior expectation about the level of difficulty.
I certainly respect the tolerant views of Dr W @12 and Dave @ 14, but on the other hand my own gold standard has moved to the Friday cryptic in the Sydney Herald. These are almost guaranteed to provide a couple of hours of brain-bending-bliss, and an old guy like me, very set in his ways, has come to respect consistency. I live in California but a rel in Oz sends me a copy each week (to end on a happy note, a HAPPY YORKSHIRE DAY to all) .
A long week, but I do remember enjoying this, although totally missed both the (known) agar and the (nho) grebo in Greta Garbo, leaving just the starlet’s bottom as the only parsed bit..should have tried harder! The d in gob less was also a shrug, as was eggy until I looked it up. I thought dish in 8a had to be doing double, as dal is a dish made of pulses (lentils), but even so the ‘dried’ is redundant, so another bit of a shrug. Not to worry, quite fun, thanks both.
PS echo JinA @13 re Nauru
I did wonder for a while if ‘weed’ in 1d was going to be a verb, but it wasn’t. I made a slow start on this, with only BUNDESLIGA pencilled in from a first pass through the across clues – I don’t follow German football, but guessed the anagram probably started with BUNDES and the rest sort of sounded right. After that it got easier, with a number of very nice clues – particularly the ‘I’m untrained’ trick. (And another ‘hear, hear’ for JinA on Nauru, by the way.) I didn’t know ‘grebo’ or that meaning of EGGY and TSARITSA only sounded vaguely familiar. Last in was an unparsed MACRAME, since I’d latched onto ‘cram’ as ‘stuff’ and had no idea where ‘mae’ fitted in. Thanks, bridgesong, for spelling out what should have been obvious, and thanks Paul for the good, and clean, fun.
Thanks to Miche @4 and others for improving the parsing of GOBLESS, although I agree that “evidently “, like “dried” at 8 a is redundant.
Having never come across “grebo” before, I inevitably encountered it again when listening to a music-themed podcast during the week. Crosswords are nothing if not educational!
Thanks Paul and bridgesong
I was puzzled by EGGY, GOD BLESS, and GREBO too. I don’t like the “in” in 3d, and the clue would work perfectly well without it – “Bog shed” could be a reference to the little room at the bottom of the garden.
I loved the clue for UNDERSTUDY.
Likewise never heard of EGGY in that sense, so grateful for the explanation. I suppose you might get eggy if someone is being cheesy – or chippy or hammy for that matter.
I rather enjoyed SLOUGH (notwithstanding the ‘in’) as it reminded me of all the different ways we pronounce OUGH – seven common ones and five less so, if I’m not mistaken – a never-ending source of confusion for those learning English.
Last week TOULOUSE. This week two LOOs. Next week perhaps we’ll have FREEDOM ? (just another word for…… )
Thanks P & B
EGGY was part of the playground vernacular when I was at primary school (late 80’s) and GREBO was common at secondary school, although I don’t think I’ve heard either word since so I was still unsure they were right! Like others I didn’t understand GOD BLESS
I enjoyed the BIG GIRLS BLOUSE and the UNDERSTUDY but less keen on ESSENCE with the ‘manipulate a synonym’ type wordplay
I didn’t know ASTIR or TSARITSA so failed on that. I had the other A+ST but couldn’t work out where it was supposed to go!
essexboy @20 – McGee?
muffin @22: you got it 🙂 RIP Janis, viva Kris.
essexboy @20″ regarding OUGH, I’m sure you’ll have come across the poem (in an outrageous French accent) here that highlights several pronunciations.
Dryll @11: you may or may not be an idiot but you’re certainly not alone in battling the CRAM/MAE problem. I’ve only just discovered my oversight on reading the blog this morning!
It seems slightly odd to be commenting on a Paul twice in two days, though it’s not the first time. The grid was correctly filled in last Saturday morning but several remained unparsed (or, at least, not parsed satisfactorily). Thanks bridgesong for helping with TSARITSA and everyone else who contributed to exploring GOD BLESS. However, the faint feeling of dissatisfaction that comes with a few unparsed solutions was outweighed by the pleasure of the rest of the puzzle. So many that I could praise but I’ll restrict myself to BUNDESLIGA – what an anagram (possibly referring to Arjen Robben – [A quirk that might appeal to those of us who enjoy wordplay: Arjen Robben played in the same team as Franck Ribery for many years and they were collectively known as ‘Robbery’]), UNDERSTUDY – hilarious surface and brilliant definition, BIG GIRL’S BLOUSE – which had me looking for all kinds of drugs (as answers rather than assistance) and GRETA GARBO where, like JinA, I had to look up grebo and then fuzzily recalled the word being used to describe rock music fans in my youth (some time before grunge).
Many thanks to Paul and bridgesong
How annoying that someone comes on here and says they did today’s in 20 mins. We won’t even be looking at it till tonight.
We enjoyed this one anyway. Thanks to Paul and bridgesong.
This one took three goes until I eventually finished it on Thursday evening. I didn’t even start to parse GRETA GARBO, but it was so obviously the answer I left it at that. I didn’t understand the number from 7 reference to WATERLOO? Is this an ABBA song? Again the answer was obvious from the crossers. I did look up EGGY as this was an expression I hadn’t come across before. Otherwise I managed to parse all the others. Tough but ultimately enjoyable.
Thanks Bridgesong and Paul
Munromad @26: Is Waterloo an Abba song? Click on the link I provided to discover the answer…
Mark @24, what a great link. ThorOUGHly recommended for anyone who is fascinated by rhyme, spelling and wordplay (which is just about everyone here, I should think).
Yes, many thanks for that, Mark!
Bridgesong @27 Ah! I see.20 seconds of that was quite enough! I am afraid my knowledge of popular music is minimal, being a classical musician myself. Thanks.
Thanks Paul, Bridgesong
Excellent puzzle.
6d must be the bluest clue I’ve ever seen in a daily puzzle but not a raised eyebrow to be seen; is it just ‘rude’ words that people object to?
A couple oF bits of K that I doubt are at all G at 25a and 6d and I don’t think that “so long” and GOD BLESS are synonyms though they may be used in the same context. I have more often heard GOD BLESS as a response to someone sneezing.
Pedro@25. Don’t be put off by rodshaw@10. If he says 10 minutes I would expect to take an hour or so, though I don’t count.
rodshaw@15. Thanks for the reminder. When I left the county of my birth Yorkshire Day hadn’t been invented.
Thanks to Paul and bridgesong
Thanks to Paul for a great challenge with the rudeness kept submarine fashion – there but not visible.
And to bridgesong for explaining it all so well. Amazed to hear about grebo. I also did not know of TSARITSA (maybe understandable) and for less understandable reasons wasn’t able to make the leap from leaves to FOLIAGE, so it was a dnf (or at least dnf without the search button on my dictionary).
But good fun, many thanks all.
Thanks to Mark @24 for the link to the poems. Hit him with a rough, indeed!
I had several queries with the parsing of this crossword, all of which have been mentioned by others. “Dried” pulses; obscure meaning of EGGY; half of ESSEN(tials); CRAM a better synonym for stuff than RAM; what does “mouth off evidently” mean?
However, GRETA GARBO was so obvious that I didn’t even bother parsing it, and so missed the vary rare use of the word GREBO, which I probably haven’t heard for nearly fifty years, when it would have been adressed to me on account of my long hair. (Hair? I remember hair: used to have some.)
Favourites were BIG GIRLS BLOUSE and PLUMB RANDY. Thanks for the entertainment.
Dried pulses has come up a couple of times. Personally, I think it’s one Paul should be allowed to get away with. Dals (or dhals or any of the other spellings) are made with pulses, yes. But a vast percentage, probably most, will be made with dried pulses. It’s the absorption of the cooking water into the dried pulse that provides the consistency and turns, almost without fail, what seems to be a watery gloop into the creamy dish we know.
EGGY was obviously the right answer but I’ve never heard it used in the way Paul uses it in this puzzle. I note the blog refers to Scouse slang but I grew up in Liverpool and I never heard the word being used. I remember GREBO and I think it was first used as a synonym for GREASER but then found its way into the NME as a species of rather unpleasant music. I also remember a rather maudlin song,the refrain of which went ‘Goodbye,good luck and God bless you’ and I hope I never hear it again!
Rather a nice puzzle by the way
Thanks Paul.
Mark – I was thinking along the same lines. On reflection, I think I was misled by “dish with dried pulses”, but the definition of VINDALOO has to be “dish”, which then leaves “dried pulses” for dal. This meaning is supported by, for example, BBC Food: “Chana dal, or split chickpeas, is a dried, split pulse…”; kitchn: “‘Dal’ has a double meaning: It is both the word for lentils and beans and the term for a thick purée or soup made from lentils.”; and Wikipedia: “Dal is a term used in the Indian subcontinent for dried, split pulses (that is, lentils, peas, and beans) that do not require pre-soaking. The term is also used for various soups prepared from these pulses.” So I now think Paul is actually spot on.
I forgot to say that I liked what Julie in Australia wrote much earlier: “I like all these little ups and downs, setbacks and time taken to see things, as I work my way through these puzzles – they keep me humble and grounded. The speed of the solve is still not a consideration for me even after several years of engagement with the Guardian cryptics: enjoyment and working on improving the plasticity of my brain are my top priorities.”
We often refer to the solving process as a challenge, or a grind, but Julie is right. A speedy solve doesn’t leave much time for enjoyment, and conversely there’s a lot of enjoyment to be had in those “penny drop moments” that show that our brains haven’t yet completely calcified.
Keep on flexing those brain muscles!
radshaw @10 – I always thought Mon-Fri got increasingly difficult but then the prize was not necessarily harder? I usually do better at the Prize than I do on Fridays, i think, though not last Saturday.
Didn’t know that meaning for 10ac, EGGY, but also found it in the ODE
Didn’t know 23ac BUNDESLIGA
Didn’t know 25ac, NAIRU
Didn’t know 18dn MUSQUASH
Couldn’t parse 26ac GOBLESS: I thought to GOB was to “mouth off”, but thinking about it, it’s probably GOB off, isn’t it? I think Miche and others above have it with “off” = LESS and “evidently” to indicate its dubious nature. Wasn’t really sure about GOD BLESS as a valediction, either.
I liked 19dn, FOLIAGE, the answer to which struck me when I looked at the crossers I’d accumulated for it.
Wasn’t too sure about “stood up” for ASTIR in 5dn.
I knew the word GREBO, but had no idea Paul or the dictionaries would. Most amused to find it in Collins. I thought it was just a word we’d made up as an affectionate/humorous version of ‘greaser’, (which I’m pretty sure must be the derivation, as Crimbo for Christmas — possibly Australian originally?). The word will always remind me of someone known to me as “Andy the Grebo”, who didn’t have a motorbike but used to take a crash helmet on the bus to rockers’ night at the local youth club so he could walk through the door with one under his arm like everyone else (as we believed, but to be fair, perhaps he used to get a lift home as compulsory skid-lids were introduced around that time). Sheffield hatter @34, in our town in my day, long hair would have marked you as a ‘Hairy’, not a ‘Grebo’.
Many thanks to Mark @24 for the pronunciation poems.
Is WATERLOO an ABBA song (Munromad @26)? GK is relative! I learnt recently that A & A didn’t know English in the early days (though B & B did) so sang phonetically.
Waterloo is possibly the only good song ever to win Eurovision (Discuss!)
A DNF for me, because of BIG GIRLS BLOUSE, an unfamiliar phrase for transatlantic folks. I think I read it when BoJo used it a while back, but I didn’t remember.
The other places I struggled matched the experience of other commenters: I failed to parse TSARITSA, although in hindsight it seems obvious, and like others I didn’t know this meaning of EGGY but managed to guess the answer from the wordplay. I parsed GOD BLESS like Miche @4. Both that and bridgesong’s parsings seem fine to me, although I agree that the “evidently” is unaccounted for and unnecessary in both.
EGGY was my FOI, so I was surprised at the number of commenters here who’d never heard the expression. I expect I knew it because, like Nobby @21, my children were all at school in the 80s (in UK) and it was a familiar term, particularly in the phrase “Don’t get eggy!” if any exasperation crept into my voice… I don’t know its origins, but for some (illogical) reason it’s forever associated in my mind with the fact that, despite their liking for egg sandwiches, they refused to take them for school lunch because the other children would all make fun of the smell!
Thanks to Paul for another fun puzzle and to bridgesong for a very thorough blog, particularly in enlightening me to the parsing of ESSENCE. I was beautifully misled into trying to fit in (more than) half the letters of NECESSARY before CE, and wondering where THINGS came into it… duh.
Meant to add, top favourite for me was BIG GIRLS BLOUSE, despite initially expecting WEED to be another loo reference from Paul. Amazons WERE big girls: I remember learning at school that they cut off their right breasts to free up their right arms for wielding weapons, and I can’t think they’d have bothered if they were anything less than well-endowed.
muffin @41
I still have a soft spot for Nicole and Ein bisschen Frieden (as well as for the other Nicole in the Renault Clio ads, but that’s another story).
1958 was a bit early for me, but by most accounts this one should have won (Domenico Modugno’s Nel blu dipinto di blu, but better known with another title, and another singer…)
Despite being born in Liverpool and having enjoyed Lern yerself Scouse and Fritz Spiegl’s other Scouse books, I didn’t know EGGY was irritated. Otherwise, most enjoyable. Ta to both.
Thanks Paul. Favourites were STRAW POLL, UNDERSTUDY, ANTIGONE, ESSENCE, and especially WATERLOO. Failed at BIG GIRLS BLOUSE, MUSQUASH, and CROTCH. (Note=crochet?) Thanks Bridgesong for the write-up.
Tony @47
Are you pronouncing it ” crotch ett” rather than “crow shay”?
I didn’t get all those things nobody else got. Still enjoyed the puzzle and appreciated th”e blog.
“Musquash” and “nutria” I think I recall from English fiction of last mid-century (mid- last century) of downmarket fur, but to me they both sounded like particularly repellent health foods. Remember how health food tasted like stuff from the feed store in the 50’s and 60’s?
I’ve still not seen a convincing explanation for the “evidently” in 26a . Any more offers?
I meant to reply to Biggles A @1. A squash is functionally a vegetable, but certainly botanically a fruit!
Muffin @48 Definitely “crow shay” but how does “note” figure into it?
Tony @ 51: it’s crotchet, not crochet. The definition is “a note in music”. Crochet is something completely different!
And “crotchet” (quarter note) rhymes with “botch it.” “”Crochet” (needlecraft with a crochet hook) rhymes with “grow hay.”
..to expand on Valentine @53, for some reason I don’t know, a “breve” is regarded as a “note”. A “semibreve” is half the duration of a breve; a crotchet is half the duration of a semibreve, hence a “quarter note”, as Valentine says.
muffin @54
Something doesn’t compute! I also understand a crotchet to be a quarter-note, but a minim is the next one up, making it a half-note, and the semibreve is therefore a note. If you want to call the breve anything on this scale it would be a double note.
Good point, Alan – I hope that someone can resolve this ( I forgot minim!)
And breve is not pronounced “breeve,” as you might think; it rhymes with “Bev” or “Trev.”
muffin
I think we can accept what Wikipedia tells us, namely, that what we call a semibreve is what the US calls a whole note, and what we call a crotchet is what they call a quarter-note. Everything then computes, including breve = double note.
bridgesong @52 Thanks, either way I was not going to figure it out. That’s one of the reasons I frequent this blog.
muffin @50
Re: GOD BLESS. I liked bridgesong’s original parsing. The way I see it, someone or something GOBLESS evidently has no mouth. The evidently is necessary because it is only an assumption that the mouth was there in the first place. I liked it as a clue.
I also liked VINDALOO because of the meaning of DAL that Sheffield Hatter at 37 explains. I wondered whether the definition is actually the whole clue, since VINDALOO is originally a Portuguese dish made with wine vinegar. No reason why it shouldn’t be Duck Vindaloo. Not sure whether there are pulses in it though, or what ones.
Thanks, Paul and bridgesong. Good Saturday puzzle.
Valentine @57: According to Collins, it’s pronounced “breev”, just as I have always said it.
Doesn’t a standard bar of 4/4 use four crotchets (or the equivalent, e.g. an American ‘whole note’)?
Another piece of ABBA trivia: when they offered Waterloo in the Eurovision Song Contest and won with it, the UK’s award was “nul points”.
Incidentally, nobby @21 says ” less keen on ESSENCE with the ‘manipulate a synonym’ type wordplay”, but doesn’t mention any objection to CROTCH.
[Tony@61
Re the semibreve, or ‘whole note’, that’s exactly what 4/4 means.]
Although Chambers’ main dictionary doesn’t have the relevant sense of EGGY, it is in their dictionary of slang, but flagged as U.S., which would account for its unfamiliarity.
I guessed some answers and parsed them afterwards with help from google (eg SW/EDEN)
New: EGGY = irritated, grebo = rocker, Eden Project (in Cornwall), MUSQUASH