Guardian 28,565 – Pasquale

Thanks to Pasquale for taking us into October in fairly gentle style, though as always with a couple of words that may be unfamiliar to some.

Thanks also to Eileen for standing in for me last week while I was on holiday. I extended my stay slightly so am still in a stormy Oban this morning (see 11), but with rather better Internet access than last week. I’m about to start the long drive home so may not be able to respond to comments or make corrections till later.

 
Across
1. GLANCE Good knight with lot lost, hit on the field (6)
G + LANCELOT (knight) less LOT – a glance is a type of shot in cricket, hence “on the field”
4. EDUCATOR Man of class, maybe English, with old money and gold (8)
E[nglish] + DUCAT (old money) + OR (gold), with the “class” being in a school
9. TROUPE Performers walk in the auditorium (6)
Homophone of “troop” (to walk)
10. EVENSONG Service just the same, no good (8)
EVEN SO + NG
11. UNCONVENTIONAL Bohemian learner joining a foreign religious house on holy island (14)
UN (French, i.e. “foreign” version of “a”) + CONVENT (religious house) + IONA (holy island) + L[earner]. I was on the island of Mull yesterday, and had hoped to visit Iona, which is across a short channel, but circumstances prevented the visit
13. MISERICORD Unhappy fellow ‘gutted’, we hear? Support found in church (10)
Homophone of “misery” (as in “he’s an old misery”) + “cored” (gutted). A Misericord is a support – not quite a seat – sometimes seen in churches
14. LEAT Trench in meadow ending with silt (4)
LEA (meadow) + [sil]T – I didn’t know this word, but the clueing is clear
16. NOON Only off when mad dogs go out? (4)
If things are only off then there is NO ON, and “Mad Dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun”, as in the Noël Coward song, though it seems he didn’t invent the saying
18. RINGLEADER Grander lie broadcast by chief villain (10)
(GRANDER LIE)*
21. SATISFACTORILY One left in workplace after final day is all right (14)
SAT (final day, if you count your weeks from Sunday) IS, + I L in FACTORY
23. EMPHATIC Vehement cheat — PM, I fancy (8)
(CHEAT PM I)*
24. PAROLE Downtrodden worker keeping a promise (6)
A in PROLE
25. YIELDING You once linked with doing nothing may be giving up (8)
I presume this is meant to be YE (old “you”) “linked” with IDLING, but if so the letters are in the wrong order
26. PESTER Harry is safe — son’s in hiding (6)
S[on] in PETER (criminal slang for a safe)
Down
1. GATE Not all bowling at Edgbaston will get a wicket? (4)
Hidden in bowlinG AT Edgbaston
2. AMOUNTS First of all, horses must be given numbers (7)
A[ll] + MOUNTS
3. CUPBOARD Conservative meeting leading bosses — are there skeletons hiding here? (8)
C[onservative] + UP (leading) + BOARDS (bosses)
5. DIVINE RIGHT The driving idea originally conjured up for supposed royal prerogative (6,5)
Anagram of THE DRIVING I[dea]
6. CANDID Open Voltaire’s work — don’t close it (6)
CANDIDE (book by Voltaire) less its last letter
7. TROUNCE Pound troy — half-forgotten weight (7)
Half of Troy + OUNCE
8. REGULATOR Soldier keeps to rules I lay down (9)
TO in REGULAR (soldier)
12. VACCINATION Most in French resort upset during holiday? One should minimise health risk (11)
Reverse of NIC[e] (French resort) in VACATION
13. MONASTERY Skill needing to keep working in male community (9)
ON (working) in MASTERY
15. DECREASE Cut back on iron? (8)
Double definition, using the familiar trick of iron = de-crease (clothes)
17. OCTUPLE Top clue cunningly constructed? This one is word-wise! (7)
(TOP CLUE)*, and the clue has eight words, so word-wise it’s octuple
19. DOLE OUT Party with yob carrying drug to distribute (4,3)
DO (party) + E in LOUT
20. ISLAND One with fifty occupying beach, say, in Ibiza? (6)
I + L (50) in SAND
22. FEAR What’s loud has listener showing anxiety (4)
F (forte, loud) + EAR (listener)

79 comments on “Guardian 28,565 – Pasquale”

  1. My FOI, GATE raised a smile after yesterday’s amusing discussion. Lots to like including the two long across clues plus EMPHATIC, CANDID, VACCINATION and MONASTERY. DNK MISERICORD or LEAT but both clued fairly.

    Ta Pasquale & welcome back Andrew

  2. Thanks Andrew, I missed out on some parsing (eg Iona, Even So, the i of MISERICORD) and agree that YIELDING isn’t quite there (or are we both missing something? I do like the idea of linking = interweaving two words though, I don’t think I have seen it before, has anyone else?).
    I liked this for the solid constructions and as usual I learned something (LEAT and the actual meaning of PAROLE). Iron = de-crease may be old news for some but it was nearly my LOI and got only after ironing a shirt and trousers!
    Also thanks to my old French teacher Mr Smith for wicket = guichet = gate, and of course thanks to Pasquale (nice dig at ABdPJ too).

  3. Peter Owen@2 – but does LEET mean “trench”? My online dictionary has it as a local court or associated jurisdiction (and obsolete!), maybe one of the official sources has more?

  4. 25a: I took the “may be” in the clue to be an anagram indicator – i.e. (YE + IDLING)* (“you once” linked with “doing nothing”).

  5. At 25a unless the “maybe” is intended as an anagram indicator, the clue is a mistake as the answer would be YEIDLING

  6. Thanks Andrew, I was having trouble parsing YIELDING, your comment helped me see idling even if it’s in the wrong order.

    Apart from that very fairly clued throughout as one would expect from the Don.

    Favourite today is OCTUPLE, what a brilliant clue.

    Thanks both.

  7. Very enjoyable puzzle to solve. Filled in the lower half first.

    Favourites: NOON, PESTER, PAROLE, EDUCATOR, UNCONVENTIONAL.

    New for me: wicket gate (for 1d), LEAT.

    I did not parse: 17d – ah, very clever!

    Thanks, both.

  8. Azed occasionally uses the linking device and I quite like it. I cannot in a million years imagine Don would have intended this as an indirect anagram. It’s an error, simple as that. More than made up for by some terrific clues elsewhere.

  9. Like AlanC @1, I smiled at meeting another GATE so soon. I really enjoyed the clues for the longer words today: MISERICORD, SATISFACTORILY, MONASTERY, VACCINATION and UNCONVENTIONAL. All very clearly clued and lovely to go looking for IONA and, unlike Andrew, finding it. OCTUPLE is very clever and, even though I knew I was looking for an anagram, it took several returns to the clue and a crosser or two before the pdm.

    I was also lucky that my patchy education just about got me to two solutions: I know of no other work by Voltaire than Candide – which was just enough – and I misremembered Coward’s lyric as ‘noonday sun’ rather than midday. (It’s interesting that the Wikipedia entry on the song notes that ‘noonday’ does appear in the song lyrics but in connection with the Noonday Gun – fired at 12 every day in Hong Kong. And a rhyme that was screaming out to be used.)

    Thanks Pasquale and Andrew

  10. Cryptor@6, gsolphotog@8,

    At risk of reopening an old argument. If it was intended as an anagram, then it would be an indirect anagram, which Pasquale would be very unlikely to countenance.

    IMO the most likely explanation is an error.

  11. Thanks Andrew, especially for explaining OCTUPLE and NOON, both of which are excellent clues imo. Also liked SATISFACTORILY, UNCONVENTIONAL and VACCINATION.
    Like cryptor and gsolphotog I think “may be” is a somewhat weak anagrind (but still better than many that one sees), for YIELDING. Otherwise these words are redundant.
    Thanks also Pasquale, for a good puzzle.

  12. (Blah@15, you’re right about the anagram being indirect, but personally I have no objection to the device.)

  13. Blah @15, I’m inclined to agree with you really. Not only would it be an indirect anagram, it would be a very weak anagram anyway, with just a couple of letters swapped around from their original positions. But that’s the only way I can see to make the clue as given work.

  14. ‘Indirect anagram – that will cause some consternation’ was my thought on solving 25a. Then I thought that there must be a cleverer way of parsing it that was eluding me and passed on. I agree that the long answers were most pleasant when the penny dropped. Thanks, Andrew and Pasquale.

  15. Thanks Pasquale and Andrew. I had serious wavelength problems today but got there in the end, with a few left unsatisfactorily parsed, including 25a… and I’m still none the wiser!

    2d had me foxed – can’t remember the last time I saw numbers being used in a crossword to actually mean numbers, so I spent ages overthinking it. Doh!

    Bingybing @13 – agreed, lovely word!

  16. Thanks for clearing up 26a, PETER is a new meaning for me.
    I don’t understand 25a, but I see that there some earlier comments, so I hope they will shed some light.
    Light for a Friday, but at my level of solving abilities, no complaints.
    Thanks for the hints, Andrew

  17. Trust Pasquale to include a few rare words (I’m always reluctant to say ‘obscure’ because such things are relative). I knew MISERICORD, which made it a write-in for me. LEAT was somewhere in a dusty corner of the mental attic but very clearly clued (a la Azed, Roz? 🙂 ).

    I parsed YIELDING as John Arthur @20: ‘linked’, as in a chain, implying interlocking rather than simple juxtaposition.

    Thanks to Andrew (you missed the midge season, I hope) and the Don.

  18. I din’t like 14a. ‘T’ is the last letter of ‘silt’ but ‘with’ is not the same as ‘ending OF’.

  19. @ John Arthur and @ Gervase

    I think we all get what ‘linked’ is supposed to do but as I and others have pointed out it fails because the letters have to change order for it to work!

  20. JA@20/Gervase@23 – yes, that’s fine but as others have said, you still need an indication to swap the positions of the L and D.

  21. Peter Owen@7 fair enough, then I agree with you.
    George Clements@ 25 now you mention it, yes – although I think “ending in” would work (at least I think it is a commonly used term for the last letter) and preserve the surface.
    Thanks for clearing that up Pasquale@29. Interesting device that I will try to remember to look for in future!

  22. Pasquale @29 – all the checking in the world doesn’t stop these things slipping through sometimes. Mortifying when it happens, but onwards and upwards.

  23. Apologies Bingybing I see now that I merely repeated the point you made earlier.

    HYD@22, peter for safe has probably been used often enough now to qualify as a chestnut (N.B. not a criticism who doesn’t love a chestnut now and again?) I first came across it many years ago in the answer peterman, which was defined as a safe cracking burglar.

  24. I recognise Leat as a water channel, often associated with a water mill. I suppose that could be regarded as a trench.

  25. Blah @33 Thanks for that.
    Being a Londoner (not sure if being born in Clapham qualifies me for a cockney), but I often look for rhyming slang for these sort of things. Peter Pan is the closest I ‘can’ come up with being slang for ‘can’ which by a stretch could be a ‘safe’, but sounds a bit too obscure for me.

  26. Thanks Pasquale and Andrew
    Quite easy for Pasquale. I saw what was intended in 17d, but I would count it as nine words – he should have written wordwise instead of word-wise!

  27. Blah @33 – definitely a chestnut, but one that seems to have fallen out of fashion in crosswordland, to the extent that having not seen it for years (as far as I recall), I was slightly surprised to see it in another puzzle recently, and here we have it again. OED regards it as current (most recent citation 2001), though I can’t imagine it’s used much outside criminal circles.

    ravenrider @34 – that’s how I understand the word too. I think trench is fine as a synonym for this.

  28. HYD, I’m not sure about the etymology but I would guess its from the rock or stone meaning of Peter (from Greek? EssexBoy will no doubt know more!). That’s probably where we get phrases like ‘rock solid’ or ‘safe as houses’ and similar idioms from.

    Ravenrider@35, Chambers defines leat (or leet as PeterOwen@2 pointed out) as “A trench for bringing water to a millwheel, etc”

  29. HIYD @35 – the Peter Pan theory is easily debunked since the earliest citation in the OED is 1827 and Peter Pan was published in 1904.

  30. Remembered PETER was a *safe*. I previously had to ask commentators here about it as I hadn’t heard of it before – so it stuck in my mind.

    Took a while but got there in the end with a bit of help as usual.

    Liked: VACCINATION, EDUCATOR, TROUPE, MONASTERY, CANDID

    Thanks Pasquale and Andrew

  31. Like some others above, I took “Linked” to mean the end of one word and the start of the next overlapped – like links in a chain do. This makes the clue OK as the “E” of “YE” links in after the “I” of “IDLING” and I liked the inventiveness.

    However, Pasquale @29 confirms it was an error and I was being too generous!

    I found this tougher than most as there were a lot of unfamiliar words/meanings but managed to complete with some help.

    Thank you Pasquale and Andrew.

  32. I had no problem with YIELDING, but thanks, Andrew, for explaining OCTUPLE. I knew it was something to do with eight, but the fact that the clue contained eight words escaped me. Thanks for the entertaining crossword, Pasquale. A minor typo, Andrew – in the blog for 3 down it should read BOARD, not BOARDS.

  33. Thanks for the mea culpa Pasquale, although the clue did work for me as it stood. The device of interlinking words while keeping the letters in the same order is an interesting one, but probably needs to be signalled more carefully.

  34. I liked how GATE was both about and not about cricket. Coincidentally you can be bowled through the gate if you leave a gap between bat and pad.

    Enjoyed this overall but grimaced at quite a few like the Def for REGULATOR and the “must be given” in 2D but I think Pasquale just has a style that I find a bit grating on occasion

  35. I took it on trust that the cricketing definitions of GLANCE and GATE were right, and failed completely to define OCTUPLE.

    Favourites NOON, PESTER, GLANCE.

    [We used to holiday in my childhood at a watermill in Dorset, and I learned all about the various channels and sluices and spillways that regulated the flow of water, but the LEAT ( that brings in water at a higher level to drop over the millwheel and drive the workings) was very much more than a trench: a wide deep channel with trout in it, covered in a green layer of waterweed that once nearly drowned an unwary dog who thought he could walk across it.]

  36. Steve69 @49: Traditionally this was so – based on Saturday, the Jewish sabbath, being the seventh day on which God rested after the creation.

    It’s still very much the case in Portuguese, which doesn’t have individual words for the weekdays (they are not ‘lexicalised’ in philology- speak). Monday is ‘segunda-feira’ (second day) and so on through to Friday, which is ‘sexta-feira’ (sixth day). The Romance languages still call Saturday ‘sabbath’ (eg sabato in Italian) and Sunday becomes’Lord’s day’ (eg domenico in Italian).

  37. thanks for the blog andrew — very helpful (especially clarifying OCTUPLE – which is a fine clue now that I understand it!)

    No one noted that even for Pasquale the ecclesiastical reference count was high (evensong, religious house, holy island, misericord, monastery, divine right, …) – probably missing a few. Frankly, it’s very much his signature much as Paul flirts with the risqué and Boatman with himself as it were.

  38. [Gervase @53 – similarly in modern Greek – Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday are derived from second (day), third, fourth, fifth]

  39. Peter = safe was explained to me on the old Graun message board thus:

    A PETERMAN is a bank robber/safe breaker as he was robbing Peter to pay Paul

  40. [essexboy @55: Thanks for your helpful addition. And apologies for accidentally masculinising Sunday 🙁 ]

  41. I thought the fact that there seemed to be a great many clues – or answers – that were lengthy in nature made them more vulnerable to solving, somehow, when the crossers from other solved clues were already in place. (Hunting for cleverly concealed MISERICORD’s in medieval English parish churches used to be a bit of a hobby of mine). Last two in were the interlocking FEAR and PAROLE. EDUCATOR and REGULATOR were similar in being a rather dull pair of job titles, but cleverly clued nonetheless…

  42. Lovely puzzle from The Don, in no way spoiled by the tiny error at YIELDING.

    Blundered in with COUPLET instead of OCTUPLE making the SW corner tricky until the gaffe showed itself.

    Fine blog, too, Andrew, many thanks.

  43. Are the words “must be given” in the clue for AMOUNTS superfluous? Not sure how they help the cluing, other than to smooth the surface?

  44. Lots of excellent clues some of which I needed Andrew’s help to parse. I’m always happy to see a few lesser used words (LEAT and OCTUPLE )
    Thx to Pasquale and Andrew
    [Lucky to live nr Ludlow where St Laurence’s Church has some of the finest (and, in some cases, the rudest) carved MISERICORDS around]

  45. [ShropsireLass @62
    I’ve seen the misericords in Ludlow, and I agree. The ones in Chester Cathedral are very good too.]

  46. Thanks Pasquale & Andrew – a gentle Friday to start the month.
    I liked the unconventional /monastic theme which, with DIVINE RIGHT, called to mind Henry VIII (dissolution), Louis XIV (whose mistress Louise became a Carmelite nun) and Sisters of Mercy or Miséricorde.

  47. Thanks Pasquale for another solid crossword. Despite needing a nudge here and there I found this enjoyable with clues like EDUCATOR and CANDID. I missed the cleverness of OCTUPLE and needed the blog to fully understand NOON and PESTER. Thanks Andrew for the explanations.

  48. Thanks both,
    I was cleverly misled by 1a as Lancelot was rather a flawed knight (even if the loveliest knight of the year). And I misled myself by trying to think of variants of jus primis noctis for 5d, until the anagram fodder told me it couldn’t have two ‘n’s.

  49. Maybe a bit picky, but I think ‘on’ in an Across clue is generally agreed to mean ‘after’. Anax has said: In an across clue, “on” tags one component to the end of another. This would, I think, give the wrong order for Iona in UNCONVENTIONAL. Anyway, I enjoyed the crossword, and I think the mistake with YIELDING is very easy to make.

  50. As Renraw @52 pointed out, there are actually two mistakes in YIELDING –
    “To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.” as dear, dear Oscar said.

  51. Pleasantly surprised how far I got with this one, I had flirted with SLIT (anagram of SILT) for the trench but got the LEAT in the end although LEET was the word I knew.

    I found this for the PETER=SAFE, just to further muddy the waters.

    Peterman is believed to be a word of Scottish origin and may stem from Peterhead prison in Aberdeenshire. A jail that has housed many different safe-breakers in its time. … The main ingredient in gunpowder is Potassium Nitrate, also known as saltpetre and some lexicographers believe that this is the origin of the word.

  52. Thanks for the blog, good solid crossword apart from yielding. Apology offered and accepted, fair enough.
    We all make mistakes but does the Guardian even have a crossword editor anymore who actually tries the puzzles ? 25 Ac would surely not get through. We cannot proof read our own work and setters deserve better.

  53. Robi @67: I think we’ve discussed the “on” rule previously. There was indeed (and possibly still is) a Times crossword convention that “on” should only mean “after” in an across clue (and “on top of” in a down clue). But that is just an arbitrary convention, and there’s no reason why setters for other publications should follow it.. One perfectly normal meaning of “on” is, as the SOED says:

    2. Expressing contact with any surface, whatever its position

    (There are headlights on a car and brake lights on a car.)

  54. Lord Jim @72; yes, it’s just a convention, but Pasquale generally seems to follow the accepted ‘rules’, which is why I mentioned it.

  55. Robi: fair point. Though perhaps there is a distinction between rules that make sense in terms of fairness to the solver, and conventions that relate more to the house style of particular publications.

  56. LEAT took me back to my misspent years growing up in Truro (Cornwall) where The Leats was a pathway running between two parallel water channels. If I remember correctly, some poor soul got drowned in when when the town was flooded by torrential rain.

  57. Having read the complaints about 2d I wondered if they might be answered by treating “given numbers” as the definition.

  58. LEAT was new and I had UNCONVENTIONAL parsed with convent and union (joining) and a learner though it left some of clue unused. Second appearance of Ibiza in a few days. Was a quick solve for me. Too easy?

  59. Since I’m late getting to this puzzle, I’m in a position to point out that the defective clue for 25ac has now been replaced with

    Lie dying, sadly giving up (8)

    which is of course a perfectly satisfactory anagram clue for YIELDING.

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