Thank you to Pasquale. Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Across
1. East Anglian town that’s ‘stumped’ (stumped in time of prosperity) (6)
BOSTON : ST(abbrev. for “stumped” by the wicket-keeper, in cricket scores) contained in(in) BOON(an advantage/something that is beneficial – isn’t that rather different from “boom”/a period of great economic growth/a time of prosperity?).
Defn: …, ie. has a parish church, St. Botolph’s, nicknamed the Boston Stump.
4. Extraordinary chaps putting a learner off, for example (8)
SPECIMEN : “special”(extraordinary/different from the usual) MEN(chaps/blokes) minus(… off) [a + “l”(letter displayed by a learner driver)].
9. Port served during evening all enjoyed (5)
GALLE : Hidden in(served during) “evening all enjoyed“.
Defn: … city in Sri Lanka.
10. Originally Ned’s bits and pieces on the radio (5,4)
LOOSE ENDS : Reverse clue: Anagram of(LOOSE) ENDS = Ned’s. Cryptic defn: Reference to “Loose Ends”, the BBC Radio 4 programme originally hosted by Ned Sherrin (the programme’s name being a reverse clue of “NED S.”) and which featured a mixture (bits and pieces) of interviews, comic sketches, and music.
11. Inventor to shout with information technology beginning to happen? (9)
HOLLERITH : HOLLER(to shout/to yell) plus(with) IT(abbrev. for “information technology”) + 1st letter of(beginning to) “happen“.
Defn: … of an electromechanical tabulating machine for punched cards.
12. Star in The King and I, classy lass (5)
RIGEL : R(abbrev. for “Rex”/king) plus(and) I + GEL(an upper class/classy girl).
Defn: … in the Orion constellation.
13. Husband brought in to be examined and give testimony (4,3,5)
TAKE THE STAND : H(abbrev. for “husband”) contained in(brought in) [TAKE TEST](to be examined/to sit an exam) + AND.
Defn: … in a court of law.
17. Where first I will stand in politics, being slightly radical (4-2-6)
LEFT-OF-CENTRE : In the word “politics”, the position of the first letter “i” in relation to “it”, the centre of “politics”.
20. Shrub (yellow) suffering when cut by half (5)
ORACH : OR(the colour, yellow in heraldry) + “aching”(suffering/in pain) minus its last 3 letters(when cut by half).
21. Capaciousness of old pit traversed by Scottish explorer (9)
ROOMINESS : [O(abbrev. for “old”) + MINE(a pit dug to extract coal or other minerals from the ground)] contained in(traversed by) ROSS(James Clark or his uncle John, Scottish explorers of the Arctic).
23. Radioactive stuff? Putin men you ultimately suspect (9)
NEPTUNIUM : Anagram of(… suspect) [PUTIN MEN + last letter of(… ultimately) “you“].
Defn: …/metallic element.
24. Female star with nothing to hide (5)
MOIRA : MIRA(star in the Cetus constellation) containing(with … to hide) O(letter representing 0/nothing).
25. Times article has last word, incidentally (2,3,3)
BY THE BYE : BY(times, as in “2 by 2 = 4”) + THE(an article in grammar) plus(has) BYE(short for “goodbye”, the last word said after meeting and prior to leaving)
26. Support church president (6)
PIERCE : PIER(in architecture, an upright support for a structure such as a bridge or arch) + CE(abbrev. for the Church of England).
Defn: 14th President of the USA.
Down
1. Prejudiced folk should keep quiet — they can have a lot of influence (3,5)
BIG SHOTS : BIGOTS(prejudiced folk/people totally intolerant of other people’s race, beliefs or opinions) containing(should keep) SH!(spoken to tell someone to be quiet).
2. Like atlas, unfortunately omitting one great feature of Utah (4,4)
SALT LAKE : Anagram of(…, unfortunately) [“Like atlas” minus(omitting) “I”(Roman numeral for “one”).
Defn: …, in the US.
Answer: Great … , to give it its full name.
3. Nothing wrong with you, having absorbed energy from plant (5)
OXEYE : O(letter representing 0/nothing) + X(letter to mark/indicate that a particular text, eg. a written answer, is wrong) plus(with) YE(an old-fashioned or poetic form of the pronoun “you”) containing(having absorbed) E(symbol for “energy” in physics).
5. What’s PM hoped for too stupidly? I predict trouble! (7,2,4)
PROPHET OF DOOM : Anagram of(What’s … stupidly) PM HOPED FOR TOO.
6. Opportunity French finally lost to keep king in authority (9)
CLEARANCE : “chance”(opportunity to achieve or do something) minus
last letter of(…finally lost) “French” containing(to keep) LEAR(the king in Shakespeare’s eponymous tragedy).
7. Social group of chaps ahead of generation (6)
MENAGE : MEN(chaps/guys) plus(ahead of) AGE(a period of time, of which, a generation is specifically that from when children are born to when they have children of their own).
Defn: In Scottish, a kind of cooperative society or savings club.
8. Cosy up with chocolate provider (6)
NESTLE : Double defn: 2nd: The Swiss company manufacturing chocolates and other foods.
10. What could make Celtic yet rise as a football team? (9,4)
LEICESTER CITY : Anagram of(What could make) CELTIC YET RISE.
14. Outdoor shelter rebuilt there to overlook river (4,5)
TREE HOUSE : Anagram of(rebuilt) THERE placed above(to overlook, in a down clue) OUSE(river in England).
15. Rickety shelter housing one in island capital (2,6)
ST HELIER : Anagram of(Rickety) SHELTER containing(housing) I(Roman numeral for “one”).
Defn: Capital of Jersey, one of the Channel Islands.
16. Dwelling for top people featured in communication (8)
MESSUAGE : U(adjective describing the upper-class/top people – “for top people”? “top people”) contained in(featured in) MESSAGE(communication).
Defn: In legal jargon, … house with outbuildings and land assigned for its use.
18. Mix with tramps: not very big important person (6)
HOBNOB : “hobos”(tramps/vagrants) minus(not) “os”(very big/abbrev. for “oversize”, in clothing sizes) + NOB(an important person/one of high social position.
19. That hospital avoided getting medical gear caught in part of machine (6)
TAPPET : “That” minus(… avoided) “h”(abbrev. for “hospital”) containing(getting…caught) PPE(abbrev. for “personal protective equipment”/gear worn by workers, perhaps in healthcare, to minimise exposure to hazards causing illnesses and injuries).
Defn: …, commonly in an internal combustion engine.
22. Confession of giant lacking good feet (5)
IAMBI : “I am big”(as a giant might confess) minus(lacking) “g”(abbrev. for “good”).
Defn: In the study of the rhythms and sounds in poetry, the basic groups of syllables/feet.
Is ORACH a shrub? I only know the one that’s a spinach-like annual vegetable.
On the medium-chewy side this morning with a few DNKs – OXEYE and ORACH caught me out and didn’t know MESSUAGE but fine on HOLLERITH who today we’d describe as the ‘founder’ of IBM.
Many thanks Pasquale and scchua!
The usual irritating googlefest. Sorry to be such a ‘why oh why’ moaner, but I honestly don’t see the point of so many obscurities in one crossword. Do others enjoy having to bung in the answer then check? It just makes it less fun.
I do appreciate the work that goes in to setting and blogging, so excuse my rant.
Thanks Pasquale and scchua
I thought that this was very heavy on GK. 1a was a write-in for me, as I knew about the Boston Stump, but pretty baffling if you didn’t especially as the wordplay (and, according to posters on the Guardian site, the geography) is dodgy. 9, 10, 11,12, 20, 24, and 26 as well needed specialists GK.
Is NESTLE’s 2nd definition within Guardian guidelines?
Favourite was TREE HOUSE.
Lots of new words for me including GALLE, HOLLERITH, RIGEL, ORACH, NEPTUNIUM and MESSUAGE but all gettable. Thanks for pointing out the cleverness of LEFT OF CENTRE and LOOSE ENDS scchua and I also liked PROPHET OF DOOM, TAKE THE STAND and the amusing IAMBI. I was slightly surprised to see chaps used twice for MEN but overall this was a classy challenge
Ta Pasquale & scchua
BOSTON was my first one in, but apparently it is not in East Anglia.
I though the definition of TAPPET was too vague – engine rather than machine would have been more helpful (and better known?), but would not fit the surface of the clue quite so well.
Otherwise a good solve, so thanks Pasquale and scchua
My first one in was BOSTON, despite doubts about it being in East Anglia and what loonapick said about boom/boon. (I see that commenters on the Guardian site had the same doubts too.)
Lots of this I found very easy, but I struggled with a few towards the end, with ORACH unknown to me, likewise the star MIRA, but the crossers and wordplay gave me the confidence to write them in before checking with Google.
Is there a sort of (mini-)theme, with dwelling places and domestic arrangements cropping up a few times, and ‘shelter’ appearing as anagrist in consecutive clues (14d & 5d): ROOM, HOUSE, NEST, MENAGE, MESSUAGE.
Thanks to Pasquale & loonapick.
Oofyprosser @3 – yes, I love working through the cryptic content to come up with something feasible that will be confirmed by a bit of delving. The bigger obstacle to not finishing off a crossword like this is being distracted by a leaf through the dictionary or a surf on the internet.
Thank you for explaining 24a, I didn’t know that star. So I can add that to the unknown inventor, the house & the plant I hadn’t heard of either (though in these cases the word play worked well enough for me to get them). 1a does not work, not only for the reason that it should be Bostom according to the clue, but also because Boston is not really in East Anglia either. The stump made clear which town was meant but not the clue.
Oofyprosser @3: You’re justified in your gripe but I, for one, rather enjoy that aspect of solving. I find it quite pleasing to make a stab and find on checking that I was right but for unknown reasons.
Nice to see Eileen’s beloved LEICESTER CITY getting a run out.
Enjoyable romp from The Don this morning with ticks at LEFT-OF-CENTRE and NESTLÉ.
Had to ask Mr Google about the president, Boston’s “Stump”, MESSUAGE, & NEPTUNIUM otherwise all fairly straightforward.
scchua, did you mean stump in your 1a blog?
Many thanks both.
Dave Ellison @6: Yes, I believe East Anglia comprises Norfolk, Suffolk, & Cambridgeshire but not Lincs which is where Boston is. The Don will be mortified.
muffin @4. I solved LOOSE ENDS despite having no recollection of the Ned Sherrin radio prog; HOLLERITH despite not being aware of the inventor of punch cards; I remembered PIERCE from a character in the West Wing who was from the same family as the 14th president; these and others already mentioned I constructed from the clues and crossers. I knew RIGEL (though not MIRA) and NEPTUNIUM (easy to spot the anagram when most radioactive elements end with IUM), and I admit that I knew GALLE from following the cricket in Sri Lanka a few months back – is that specialist knowledge? Perhaps it is.
Looked at BOSTON as a possible solution for ages, utterly unconvinced that boon was the same as boom, or indeed that Lincolnshire was in East Anglia. So in a rather grumpy mood managed to finish the rest of the puzzle, though I never have liked clues that simply demand a female or male name as the answer, as in MOIRA. Favourite clue IAMBI, least favourite aforementioned BOSTON…
scchua: I wonder if your blog at 18d should read, “minus (not) very big rather than not very.
Regarding the Boston wrangle (the booM/N controversy), I came up with a vague idea that if you look on an M as representing cricket stumps (like capital H for goalposts) and you remove one of the vertical strokes you get an N… But football’s my game…
Well that was hard. Lots of use of aids but for the two long crosses the answers sprang into my mind just looking at the clue but I could not parse them – along with a few others. And there were a couple of words I hadn’t heard of. So a learning experience
Like the two long anagrams especially. PROPHET OF DOOM.
Also liked BIG SHOTS and IAMBI (both made me laugh) and I was pleased I remembered that Times = BY for BY THE BYE.
Thanks to Pasquale and scchua
[Sheffield Hatter @12: Loose Ends used to be one of my go-to radio programmes mostly because of Ned Sherrin’s wonderful wit. Clive Anderson now presents it and I smart at his delivery.
TAPPET reminds me of another of my go-to radio programmes, the great “Car Talk” on NPR hosted by Click and Clack The Tappet Brothers (now sadly one gone and the show on seemingly endless repeat). Even if, like me, you have zero interest in cars, it is worth a listen for their banter alone.]
I googled BOSTOM in East Anglia, unsuccessfully. I also had to google GALLE. There did seem a lot of general knowledge required although most of it was somewhere in the back of my mind and I now know what MESSUAGE really means (I thought it was some sort of casserole). So thanks for extending my knowledge Pasquale. And thank you too, scchua, for parsing LEFT-OF-CENTRE for me; now that I see it it is easily my favourite clue today.
Methinks The Don put BOSTON in to encourage spoilers and to upset people
Thanks scchua-and thanks P
A fun puzzle
…and 1ac such a clumsily clued clue, as though it was supposed to be edited, but it never happened. Don’t often get a bee in my bonnet on here…
Like muffin @4, I thought this needed a lot of GK, but I got there anyway with internet help.
Yes, for 1A I think BOSTON is not usually thought of as in East Anglia, and I, too, looked up Bostom because ‘time of prosperity’ is surely boom rather than boon? I now see that LOOSE ENDS is quite a clever reverse clue for Ned’s, which I didn’t appreciate at the time.
I did like SPECIMEN, PROPHET OF DOOM, IAMBI and LEFT-OF-CENTRE, although I also failed to spot the position of the ‘i’.
Thanks Pasquale and scchua.
Sheffield hatter @12. You got in ahead of me in that response to muffin, and again I am grateful that I refreshed before posting. So, having scrapped the particularities of my intended post, I am left with this: “I don’t think ‘specialist’ should be misappropriated to mean ‘things that irritatingly fell outside the sphere of my personal GK’. LEICESTER CITY very probably fell outside the GK of a number of other solvers.”
Having read and re-read the explanation for LEFT-OF-CENTRE I was about to ask for help – but the penny has just dropped.
And yesyes @18 it is now my favourite clue too.
Fortunately MESSUAGE was the only unfamiliar word, and this fell out easily from the clue and the crossers.
BOSTON seems wrong on several levels, and I agree with gladys @1 that ORACH isn’t a shrub, but an edible plant related to spinach (with which it rhymes).
But the clue for LEFT OF CENTRE is clever, and I liked the allusions in LOOSE ENDS and NEPTUNIUM (although it was polonium-210 that was used against Alexander Litvinenko).
Thanks to scchua and the Don.
[Fiona Anne @16. You seem to be making very good progress! I used to find Pasquale very challenging, but in recent months I’ve been finding, like you, that “the answers sprang into my mind just looking at the clue” – sometimes. I like to think that we’re getting better, rather than Pasquale getting easier. 🙂 ]
Like others I had to look up a few words, but it all went in fairly easily until I got to CLEARANCE. I didn’t connect this with ‘authority’, and wondered whether a clearance sale was an ‘opportunity’, and was expecting R (king) rather than LEAR; it seemed to take forever for the penny to drop.
I thought there were some very good clues, including LEFT-OF-CENTRE, BIG SHOTS and HOBNOB. Many thanks to Pasquale and scchua.
[Spooner’s catflap @22. Yes, I agree that “specialist” should not mean ‘things that irritatingly fell outside the sphere of my personal GK’, especially when the clues highlighted by muffin @4 have a requirement for knowledge that is far from being specialist. (Arcane, maybe.) Also, the point I was trying to make @12 was that I was able to get the answers from the wordplay and crossers, so ended up enhancing my general knowledge rather than cursing its lack.]
You don’t have to know about the Boston Stump for 1a because “stumped, stumped” could mean that “stumped” has ben stumped, leaving just the “st”, making that bit of the clue slightly cleverer than at first sight.
I knew Boston was “over that way somewhere” not whether it was actually in East Anglia, and perhaps you could argue the definition of East Anglia is more of a a convention than a fixed rule?
The “boon” bit is however definitely wrong.
Spooner’s Catflap @22
All the GK (except PIERCE) was inside my range of GK, in fact, but I bet a lot – stars etc. – wouldn’t be familiar to many. “Originally Ned’s” is meaningless unless you remember Sherrin of that ilk – “originally Sherrin’s” would have been fairer, as it would at least give something to Google.
Surprised that those who usually defend the convention of arbitrary capitalisation are not going wild for Pasquale’s excellent misdirection, with Boston being clearly in east Anglia, if not in East Anglia.
Van Winkle @30; as has been said here before, false capitalisation is considered OK, but removal of capitals from proper nouns is thought of as a no-no (I think Pasquale might agree?)
… but I guess the first word could have been ‘east’ and just capitalised because it starts the sentence, so maybe Van Winkle @30 has a point …
It still seems a bit odd though.
Nho ORACH or HOLLERITH but MESSUAGE is familiar from property contracts. (Ditto “curtilage”.)
DE@6 TAPPETs are not confined to engines. They are simply intermediate parts for transferring intermittent motion, often from a cam.
Despite the obscurities, I thought this was quite easy for Pasquale. In contrast to yesterday’s offering, I completed over half of the grid on the first pass.
Thanks to The Don and to scchua for parsing a few that I couldn’t see.
Muffin @29: I also thought that the Ned Sherrin point was a bit offside, but the explanation given by our blogger – that “Originally Ned’s” itself clues LOOSE ENDS as a sort of reverse anagram – really excuses all. I confess that, properly parsed, it’s a fine clue.
Sheffield hatter @7 should read scchua not loonapick, surely, or am I missing some inner knowledge?
And Boston was within the old definition of Easr Anglia which included Lincolnshire, now in the East Midlands. But we gained Essex and some other outer London boroughs.
I thought the clues were so precise that I was able to finish simply by following the instructions e.g Hollerith (NHO), tapper [also dnk, I am a 20th century female, alas! Although I can change a tyre, not something often required these days) and neptunium]
So thank you Pasquale and Scchua.
Not knowing cricket abbreviations, but knowing the difference between a BOOM and a BOON, and knowing (having lived in our Boston) that yours is (unlike almost all the other eponyms of towns in eastern Massachusetts) not quite in East Anglia, I was guessing at first that there must be a place in East Anglia called BOLCOM or something.
I remember enjoying Ned Sherrin’s Music Quiz, but the World Service never ran Bits & Pieces. You didn’t need to know who the Ned was to get the answer, though.
Yes, too many I had to confirm with Google: HOLLERITH, ORACH, M(O)IRA, ST HELIER. I actually knew GALLE but was surprised to see it defined just as “port”. That would be fine for Hamburg or Santander, but Galle isn’t even the best-known port in Sri Lanka. Still, the word play was such that I finished without cheating, unless confirming with Google is cheating. Does that make it fair enough? Maybe.
[SinCam @35. Yes, thanks for pointing out my error. Apologies to scchua. ]
Lots of nhos: Galle, Hollerith, Rigel, orach and messuage, all pretty much guessable. Plus a couple of gk-lessness: Boston (UK not US, and boon not boom?) and loose ends, obv enough but not via Ned Sherrin. Whatev, all fun, ta both.
The one I had never heard of, though easy enough, was GALLE. The rest were all lurking somewhere and eventually came to mind, though I’m with Ronald@13 in disliking MOIRA: a not very well known star as wordplay for a not very well known girl’s name (of which there are thousands).
I had fun trying to persuade myself that 4a was SUPERMEN, 25a was BY THE WAY and 17a was NEXT TO something: I like all the real answers to those, along with PROPHET OF DOOM and LEICESTER CITY. Thanks PASQUALE and scchua for parsing HOBNOB and ORACH.
[Sheffield Hatter @17: President Franklin Pierce is obviously a favourite with US TV writers: I knew him from Benjamin Franklin Pierce, aka Hawkeye in M*A*S*H]
[GALLE stood out as an inclusion but I resisted googling it to confirm until I had all the crossers. Only later did I suddenly remember that I’d actually been there, on a memorable day trip involving two buses (one air-conditioned, the other definitely not), a train, and at least two tuk-tuks.]
To answer my question @1: ORACH is part of the genus Atriplex which includes both the UK vegetable and a US shrub called saltbush. But whether ORACH = atriplex and saltbush shrub= atriplex, therefore ORACH=shrub is a question I’ll leave to botanists.
Thankyou scchua. I can go to bed now.
yesyes @18, re MESSUAGE being a sort of casserole – you’re probably remembering that Esau sold his birthright for a pot of messuage.
I think Van Winkle @30 has succeeded in getting Pasquale off the geographical hook, if not the boom/boon one (though whether ‘east Anglia’ was actually the setter’s intention I’m not sure). Before reading VW’s post my own attempt at a justification was going to be: well, if Epping can be a suburb of London, why can’t Boston be an outpost of East Anglia?
SinCam @35: “we gained Essex”? It depends who you ask. 😉
Like others, I very much like LEFT-OF-CENTRE.
Thanks P & s
[essexboy @43. So the very first failed Spoonerism was in the Bible?]
[sh: no, that would be a pet of mossuage 😉 ]
We got there in the end from the wordplay despite not knowing HOLLERITH and knowing ORACH as small plant rather than shrub. MrsW knew MESSUAGE which I’d never heard of. I always expect a Pasquale puzzle to provide me with new knowledge and would probably be disappointed if it didn’t. I needed scchua’s help to parse LEFT OF CENTRE – a great clue now I get it. Many thanks to Pasquale and scchua.
Thanks William. Corrections made.
Typical Don, with all those obscurities. I hadn’t heard of several–GALLE, MESSUAGE, the inventor, the radio program–but the cluing was mostly so precise that I didn’t need Google. I won’t add to the BOSTON brouhaha, except to say that I just sort of shrugged and put it in.
Seeing America’s most obscure president appear, I was wondering how many of y’all would be thrown by that one.
Big Norm @34
I missed the “reverse anagram”. Yes, that makes it a cleverer clue (if not necessarily fairer).
Thanks Pasquale & scchua.
VW @30 Yes!
Good to see MENAGE and MESSUAGE together as they possibly share a root?
Almost a mini-theme with TREEHOUSE? Perhaps not.
And might you find ORACH in a SALT LAKE?
Learnt some new GK today.
New: inventor HOLLERITH, Boston (east anglia), RIGEL (star), St Helier (capital of Jersey) – I only heard about Jersey as a tax haven.
Did not understand the ‘on the radio’ bit of LOOSE ENDS. Got the anagram though.
Did not parse HOBNOB.
Gave up on 20ac (never heard of ORACH), 19d, 16d (never heard of MESSUAGE), 26ac.
Thanks, both.
Auriga @33 – Yes, conveyancing documents used to refer to a “messuage or dwellinghouse”, the same as they referred to a “piece or parcel of land” and an awful low more “a or b”, “x, y or z”. Chambers is slightly different, but the Concise Oxford used to define “messuage” as… dwellinghouse.
The reason for this nonsense was that until the Conveyancing and Law of Property Act 1881, conveyancers were paid by the length of the documents they drew. And old habits die extremely hard.
I suppose the wordplay for ORACH is clear enough for the clue to be fair; I hadn’t heard of the Boston Stump but was aware of the abbreviation “st” for stumped; though like others I wasn’t convinced by BOON; NESTLE and NEPTUNIUM certainly seem to be acceptable GK, HOLLERITH you either know or you don’t.
Not quite as rigorous as Pasquale usually is, but enjoyable all the same. Thanks to setter and blogger.
[Sheffield Hatter @25 – if only – way too much use of aids today. But I am learning. I am refusing to use aids for Everyman – so of course I haven’t finished last Sunday’s yet – I will have a last go on Saturday.]
I thought that was pretty straightforward; only had to google Pierce, but even then only to check.
Thanks Pasquale and all. Found it somehow doable despite all the GK. MESSUAGE and RIGEL new to me.
BOSTON a write-in having left brollie at top of said tower … not quite in East Anglia for very many years. “Fenland” would have been preferable. “It’s a boon” = prosperity seemed fine. Perhaps its acceptability depends on our level of ambition!
I’m with VW@8, finding it more enjoyable parse then delve than biff then parse. Thanks both.
Mmm… straightforward in many respects as the wordplay led pretty clearly to the numerous (too numerous) obscurities. Boon/boom looks like a mistake. Also unconvinced by Orach being a Shrub.
Don’t normally Mia but I’m not a fan of brand names (NESTLE) or TV/ radio programmes – how many people actually listen to LOOSE ENDS, although because I have I found the clue quite elegant. Tricky if you’re under 50 and don’t listen to Radio 4!
All the same an enjoyable little romp so thanks to Pasquale and scchua
LOOSE ENDS would be a lovely clue for the Radio Times crossword (for those missing the old Everyman, not a bad substitute), but it’s a bit obscure here.
[I once worked for an old fashioned legal practice which had within living memory employed an engrossing clerk, whose job it was to write out, or engross, all those conveyances, deeds and indentures by hand, instead of producing them from computer-generated boilerplate text as we do now. But I don’t think he was paid by the word. Old deeds are little works of art.]
Nope, not for me…
I’m afraid I have always swerved this setter’s puzzles as I like tricky clues to be via complex, clever wordplay rather than obscurities.
The only bonus was that there were none of usual obscure 14th century religious artefacts today.
As ever, in spite of the comment, respect to anyone who can set crosswords.
[ From yesterday sorry. HYD , MB, SC, Muffin and others, startling new evidence for ABC Murders. See General Discussion ]
[ Rigel is very easy to find , especially in winter , it is the bottom right for the main cross of Orion, bright and quite blue. Very few stars appear blue to the naked eye. Mira can be tricky, a variable binary and pretty dim most of the time.
Nestle is vegelate not chocolate, look at the ingredients ]
Having owned several Rega MIRA amplifiers (and their Saturn CD player) over the years was a big help in getting MOIRA. I’d never thought to check if MIRA actually meant anything meant anything. I thought BY THE BYE laid a tempting trap to biff in BY THE WAY but luckily the crossers saved me from myself. Agree that the TMO should review BOSTON
5d Why “what’s” and not “what”?
18d Surely the plural of “hobo” is “hoboes”? What about the E?
1a Boon never entered my head. I decided there must be someplace in East Anglia called Bostom, and bunged that in. Needless to say, never heard of the stump, so that was no help at all.
muffin@4 Your GK clues are all across ones. What about having to know about 2d the Great Salt Lake, 3d oxeye flowers, 7d the Scots menage, 8d the Nestle chocolate company, 10d the Leicester City football team, 15d the capital of Jersey, 16d the ancient term for property with buildings, or 19d the tappet in an engine? I knew some of them, bunged in the rest from partial information and was completely defeated by ORACH. Where does obvious GK stop and specialized GK begin?
[MB@17 My NPR station has long since stopped playing Click and Clack (Tom and Ray. the Magliozzie Brothers) and I miss them. What station do you get them on?]
[VinnyD@36 Interesting point you make about Eastern MA towns being named after ones in East Anglia. Never noticed that, just that they mostly looked British. Now I’ll have to check.]
Thanks, Pasquale, for a puzzle with not too many obscurities, for me at least. And thanks scchua for the help with parsing.`
[Valentine @63: KQED is my station and they have some ‘Best of’ shows on their feed https://www.kqed.org/radio/program/car-talk
They certainly were characters – Tom had a PhD and Ray had been a high-school science teacher before they dabbled in auto-repair. The show was not really about cars at-all but life…]
Thanks scchua – needed help parsing a few today, including 17ac, which becomes my COTD now I understand how it works. Very good! And thanks Pasquale, mostly enjoyed this.
Like others, there were several new words to me that I was none the less able to fill in confidently thanks to the well-formed clues – HOLLERITH, TAPPET – although OXEYE flummoxed me, which is odd, because I have heard of them. I didn’t know MIRA or ROSS, but they fitted neatly with the likely solution so I was happy to take a guess on those. MESSUAGE is one of those words I’m familiar with without really knowing what it means, but again it was gettable. I vaguely knew ORACH was some kind of plant, but couldn’t tell you whether or not it’s a shrub. All in all, I didn’t think there was anything especially esoteric in Pasquale’s offering today.
Re BOSTON, I wrote in the obviously correct solution without stopping to consider the boon/boom mistake, or whether it’s in East Anglia. Sometimes it pays not to overthink these things!
For LOOSE ENDS, I was looking for a homophone (“on the radio”) until the penny dropped… Clever clue. I used to like that programme back in Ned’s day (and agree with MaidenBartok @17 re Clive Anderson). And I am still just about under 50, Ark Lark @57!
Valentine @63 – ‘hobos’ would be my preferred spelling. Collins lists both variants, for what that’s worth.
Valentine @ 63
Oxeye is a crossword staple, and last appeared in a puzzle by Picaroon in Febuary this year.
Menage isn’t exclusively Scottish: the phrase ‘menage à trois’ is pretty widely known.
Chambers also offers both options for the plural of hobo.
“Oxeye” is most frequently actually “ox-eye daisy”, though there are others, Google tells me.
[Valentine @63, referencing VinnyD @38. Historically, Puritanism at the turn of the 17thC in England, had a particularly strong hold in the eastern counties of Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire. Therefore, these areas must have strongly represented among the early Puritan settlers in eastern Mass, who named new settlements after places back in England that they had lived in, or close to.]
[I recently visited Calgary – in Mull rather than Canada, though!]
Simon S @66 – I’ve never heard of the Scottish version of MENAGE and simply assumed the clue was referring to the French ménage, as in the well known phrase you mention. But now I can’t make up my mind which one the definition “social group” fits better… could be either, or both.
[muffin @69, hope you were in time for the stampede. You have not lived the dream until you have passed the sign near Falkirk that reads, ‘Welcome to California Scotland The Sunshine Village’, while reaching for your tube of sun cream.]
I don’t think anyone has mentioned that the online clue for 1A has now been amended (Lincolnshire instead of East Anglia).
Thanks Offspinner. The correction doesn’t address the boon/boom problem, though. The worst clue that’s ever been a write-in for me!
Hmmm, my on-line version said Lincolnshire and not East Anglia! Anyway, either one would not have meant anything to an American – I just looked at Google maps to see if there was a Boston in Lincolnshire, and lo and behold…
Some very neat surfaces here – I loved BY THE BYE and HOBNOB.
As always, I’d like to record my objection to the dreaded “generic common noun” for a proper noun (“female” for “MOIRA”). Yes, yes, I know it’s kosher but I still find it weak. As a contrast, “Support church president” is so much better than, say, “Support church man” (for PIERCE ).
Jay @74; it might mean something to an American:
Boston’s early European settlers had first called the area Trimountaine (after its “three mountains”, only traces of which remain today) but later renamed it Boston after Boston, Lincolnshire, England, the origin of several prominent colonists.
Auriga@33 Re TAPPET That’s why I added “and better known ?”: I looked up tappet to make sure they were not confined to engines, before commenting.
[Auriga – as a charioteer, I guess you would know Rigel and Mira. I also checked on Auriga and see the Greek hero was chthonic; now that would be obscure GK]
Despite the large number of “obscurities” I found this to be an excellent crossword. I missed GALLE, OXEYE (shame on me), and ORACH but I was able to puzzle out things that were new to me such as HOLLERITH, MESSUAGE, and ST. HELIER. Favourites included SPECIMEN, BY THE BYE (great surface), BIG SHOTS (another wonderful surface), CLEARANCE, TAPPET, and IAMBI. Thanks to both.
[ Had a chance to read comments now. MrEssexboy @43 ” pot of messuage ” is really rather good indeed.
As for ” we gained Essex ” it is difficult to decide who to feel sorry for ]
I am bi can also be a confession !! Not sure if it was intended but might be
There was a rather nice managerial connection in 10D (Brendan Rogers).
Very unusual to see a doubly wrong clue from Pasquale (but I did like the crossword as a whole).
So, the omnipresent editor had even two chances to make clear to us, solvers, that he is still there – what a cock-up!
Like some others I had not heard of Loose Ends being a radio programme.
I just entered it into the grid seeing ‘bit and pieces’ plus because ‘Ned’s’ was an anagram of ‘ends’.
My (English) solving partner explained it all to me.
However, unlike some others I did not find this clue very clever.
‘Originally’ is probably there for the surface – as scchua says in his blog Ned Sherrin was the original host.
Now, this may indeed be a reverse anagram for ‘Ned’s’ but unfortunately ‘originally’ can be an anagram indicator in its own right.
And that spoiled, at least for me, the party.
Surface reading and construction are now so interwoven that I became confused.
Others might call it a great example of misdirection but I think this wasn’t Don Manley’s finest hour.
But, on the whole, still a really enjoyable crossword! (with a lot of good surfaces)
Many thanks to scchua & Pasquale.
I had no idea what was going in with 10a even after revealing, and I’m none the wiser after reading this. I’m not popular when I say this, but it would be nice if setters acknowledged that The Guardian has a worldwide audience now, and avoided the UK-centric obscurities.
I note that notorious Gruniad spelling bug has struck with the on-line correction in 1a to be a “Town in Lincolshre …”.
I listen to Loose Ends still though Ned Sherrin was a hard act to follow. Don’t remember comic sketches in it though. Ned’s TV “News Quiz” was also brilliant but cancelled as BBC said there was no future in joking about the news. Later “Have I got News For You” was commissioned and ran for 100 years or so.
I see the geographical error in 1a has been corrected, but what about BOOM or BOON ?
With regard to Boston (and yes, as a resident of Norfolk I wa shocked to see Boston called East Anglian), but yesterday was St Botolph’s Day – the patron saint of Boston, and from whom the name derives – Botwulfestun. I wonder was that why it was included?
[Long-time reader of this blog to check the answers and elucidate parsings when I’ve completed or given up each day – usually late at night, as I generally do it after dinner in the printed-out format.]
OXEYE and MESSUAGE were both searches in the Chambers app. Wasn’t sure on the spelling of RIGEL, thought it was RIGOL, but obvs that wouldn’t fit the wordplay. The list of POTUSs in Wikipedia provided PIERCE. GALLE was remembered as the town (and cricket pitch) in Sri Lanka that was washed out by the Boxing Day tsunami. Wondered about the homophone indicator in LOOSE ENDS, so Wikipedia again informed me that it is a Radio 4 programme. MIRA a DNK, but it had to be O in the name of a star, and with M-I–, the first to come through was MOIRA.
Back from a short break to apologise for double trouble at 1A. Yes, of course I checked it! Blind spots — very worrying. Sorry, Don
Valentine @ 63, this won’t be complete, but:
Cambridge, Needham, Dedham, Framingham, (King’s) Lynn (no kings here), Yarmouth, Haverhill, Attleboro(ugh), Acton, Hingham, Easton, Newton (but there are lots of Newtons), Walpole, Milton, plus Norfolk and Suffolk counties; and Boston if you count that as East Anglia as apparently some do.
Pasquale @88, it’s (obviously) natural for any setter to make occasional mistakes through workload pressure and other distractions.
Thanks for taking the trouble to drop in to say sorry. Not everyone does.
In case anyone’s interested, I thought I’d note that 1ac has now been corrected not only for the East Anglia problem, but also for the BOOM/BOON problem — the “time of prosperity” is now “kindness”.