Guardian 28,665 / Pasquale

124 comments on “Guardian 28,665 / Pasquale”

1. Very clever with too many 12dn for my liking, but all educational I suppose. Failed on OLIO and QUADRILLED, so qua = as added to the bank. Ticks for MACARONI CHEESE, MANCHU, DECEMVIR, NELSON and WISHBONE. Earworm for the day https://youtu.be/EeY9IRnVmk8.

   Ta Pasquale & Eileen

2. Thanks Pasquale and Eileen
   Yes, too full of 12ds for me. I wonder if he was trying to make some sort of point? Also trying to get “down with the kids” with DEF in17d? I finished, but only with frequent resort to wordsearches.
   I don’t understand the definition in 8d. Also I’ve never seen ROSTI spelled like that, though often with an umlaut.
   I did like DISPERSE.
   [Eileen you have a spelling mistake in 5d – I noticed because I made exactly the same one! You need 2 Os.]

3. Eileen, I had just TU for SUTURE without the C unless I’m missing something.

4. This will split the audience I predict. Personally I loved it, although it did feel more like an Azed than a weekday Guardian.

   Several words new to me but impeccably clued as one would expect from the Don. DECEMVIR was my favourite today, just nudging ahead of OBSCURITIES.

   Thanks Pasquale and Eileen

5. Well that was hard work, but worth it. Felt rather pleased with myself when I completed it. Filled in SUTURE without a moment’s pause, thinking that it would all be easy. Big mistake. 😀
   Could be said to be full of OBSCURITIES (which made me smile, like Eileen) such as EPIGEAL, ANOMIE, DECEMVIR, OLIO, TREPANG and for me a strange spelling of ROESTI. I guess I’m more used to the anglicised rosti. Also, I wonder how many people are familiar with AFFENPINSCHERS?
   I don’t know why BARMIEST took me so long. I tried to make battiest, weirdest and wackiest fit.
   I was a bit puzzled by DEF for very good, but now confirmed in the blog.

   Many thanks Pasquale and Eileen.

6. Thanks, Eileen, this one must have been a real treat to blog! Like you, I laughed out loud at 12d – not just for the solution but the surface too.

   And thanks Pasquale for a proper mental workout – tough but fair, and rewarding. Great stuff.

7. Crossbar @5 – “oe” is correct if you’re omitting the umlaut in rösti, though as you say, we lazy anglophones just tend to ignore the accents when we adopt dirty forrin words.

8. widdersbel @7 you’re right about the lazy. I couldn’t even be bothered to do the umlaut in my post above. 🙂

9. Thanks, muffin @2 – fixed now.

10. I gave up on this one a third of the way through and, after seeing all the solutions, I’m glad I did! All of the 12ds identified by Crossbar @5 were new for me with the exception of the ROESTI spelling but with the addition of ‘hebe’ in the clue for THE BEYOND. I look forward to meeting all of these words in a future crossword, by which point I imagine I’ll have forgotten them all.

    Thanks Pasquale and Eileen.

11. widdersbel @6 – yes, it was the brilliant surface that made me laugh. 😉

12. Eileen, a typo, I’m sure: the solution to 5 down is AFICIONADOS, not AFICIANADOS.

13. Yes, like muffin @2 I’d never seen R?STI spelt how Pasquale spells it; but as I recall, it is vaguely permissible to write o-umlaut as oe.
    Some lovely stuff in here, my favourites I think being MACARONI CHEESE (brilliant anagram and brilliant surface), DIGITISING, AFFENPINSCHERS (never heard of the little blighters, but was able to work it out from the anagram), NELSON (a good &lit is always pleasing). But for my taste far too many OBSCURITIES. Blah @4 likens this puzzle to an Azed, and I think he’s right. I got fed up with the “oh look at me, how awfully clever I am” running through a lot of Azed’s work (and I frankly don’t care how immaculately Ximenean he may be), and I don’t welcome Azeddery during the week in the Graun.
    Thanks to Eileen as ever, and to Pasquale for the bits I enjoyed – which was most of it.

14. Me @12 – sorry, Eileen, I didn’t see this had been reported and fixed already.

15. Well done Eileen! SESQUIPEDALIAN indeed. More than my covid brain fog could manage today.
    muffin@2. That’s conventional English rendering of German ö.

16. LovableJim@10 Here are some examples of Hebes

17. Had to cheat on AFFENPINSCHERS, but enjoyed the usual tussle with Pasquale. The clue for NELSON was a rather odd construction, but gettable. Lots to enjoy. Thanks to P & E.

18. I’ve just noticed your superior parsing of QUADRILLED, Eileen – I had it as sounding like “quad drilled” = drilled 4 times!

19. OBSCURITIES bought a smile from me too as I was battling through this. Managed to get most of them due to a combination of luck and wordplay, only to fail on the not so obscure DEFACES (I had an unparsed “defects”) at the very end. I loved NELSON.

    Not a complaint, but I was put off by the ‘filled’ in 6d, which suggested an insertion indicator for U in MANCH, rather than being tacked on at the end.

    Thanks to Pasquale (look forward to resuming battle elsewhere ? tomorrow) and to Eileen

20. And there have been so many other poests regarding ö since muffin poested. Sorry foeks. Yes, I knoew, it’s not quite the same. A vowel, not a diphthong but you gotta have a joek,

21. So this is Pasquale’s raspberry to those, like me, who don’t enjoy having to google several times in one crossword. All very clever, and clearly the aces like it, but it ruins the fun for the average solver. I accept that one man’s obscurity is another’s general knowledge, but I needed seven googles and I’m not completely thick.

    My guess is that the majority of solvers, most of whom don’t visit fifteensquared, will have given up in disgust. Note to crossword editor- we do this to have fun. Let Pasquale have his fun setting for Sundays, and leave the weekdays for ‘chewy but fair’

22. As Eileen says, Pasquale often drops in a rarity or two but this puzzle laid them on thick, with an amusing acknowledgment at 12dn.

    As it happens, the only words I had never encountered were that meaning of OLIO and the dog – though the PINSCHER element was familiar (and I’ve never seen ‘quadrille’ used as a verb).

    Well made clues and lots of lovely words 🙂

    I was pleased to see the good British expression MACARONI CHEESE, which seems to have lost ground to the imported ‘mac and cheese’.

    Thanks to Pasquale and Eileen.

23. Wordplodder@19, initially I thought the same, but then rationalised it as filled being completed as in having filled in a form.

24. muffin @2 – 8d is a reference to the afterlife.

    WordPlodder @19 – I think 6d is supposed to be read as “northern city half filled” + “superior”

    Oofyprosser @21 – by contrast, I thought yesterday’s Nutmeg would have been better suited to the Quiptic slot. That’s the way it goes, though. The audience for these things is so broad, it would be impossible to make a crossword that meets every solver’s wishes.

25. Thanks Blah @23 – seems plausible.

26. I guess you can be fazed or amazed by this kind of thing 🙂
    Personally I love getting highbrow words for lowbrow reasons with todays being ANOMIE which I only knew from this Scritti Politti album and last week we had a couple of playwrights name-checked by Dexys Midnight Runners in Burn It Down
    FINN was fun after I stopped trying to shoe-horn a two letter US-Irish abbreviation into NT/OT

27. And while we’re bastardising foreign languages, I loved RHEUMY and am reminded of

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsCW2N-6MUM

28. Knew the pinscher bit of the dog from Doberman, and epigeal rang the faintest of bells, but the Roman law chappie was a nho, although not hard to guess as it sounded more likely than Sept, Oct or Nov. And The Beyond was a dnp. So, a bit of a workout, but fun. Ta PnE.

29. Thanks widdersbel @24. That makes more sense than the future!

30. [pm@27… and our boys used to love saying “It is note my derg” …]

31. Crossbar @16 Thanks! Also delighted to find it’s pronounced with two syllables, as though it could be followed by “jeebies”. Now we mention it, I’m sure I have seen it in another crossword charade at some point…

32. gif@30. You must have trained your boys well. 🙂

33. Not being a leading blogger, I couldn’t possibly comment. It’s pleasurable to get a Jorum like DECEMVIR, though. Good fun, if you don’t mind revealing one or two.

34. I’ve got a whole garden bed of HEBES, originally from New Zealand. They’re almost unkillable. McDonald’s grow them in their drive-throughs. They can survive almost anything.

35. [paddymelon @34: that’s good to know. I have one looking very sorry for itself]

36. Fabulous puzzle though I had to look up several words in order to complete it. Laughed a lot at many of them, so found it fun – just wished I was a bit cleverer! Never heard of the sea slug but bunged in trepan anyway as boring the skull – and it worked! Similarly with the dog and the ground. Thank you Pasquale and Eileen, and bloggers who also made me laugh – one of the many reasons I am so glad I “discovered” Fifteen squared”

37. Very challenging – I liked the clues for NELSON, DECEMVIR, and OBSCURITIES !

    Thank you Pasquale and Eileen.

38. Several despairing references to Azed here. I rarely tackle barred puzzles – I don’t like the format and there are too many extremely unusual words.

    ‘Obscurity’ is a relative thing. Perhaps I was just lucky, but there were very few words here that were completely unknown to me – the few Azeds I have attempted had a far deeper level of unfamiliarity.

39. [Some here may recall the occasion – it must have been around 40 years ago – when the Queen was served TREPANG at a banquet during a state visit. ‘Queen Eats Giant Sea Slug’was the large headline in one of the next day’s redtops. I remember thinking at the time that ‘Giant Sea Slug Eats Queen’ would have been a story better equipped to capture my attention.]

40. Oofyprosser@21: I think you’re being a little harsh — those rather arcane solutions were clued very fairly, I think, so that if you worked through the wordplay you could arrive at the solution. You don’t have to Google: I had no idea what EPIGEAL was, I never heard of an AFFENPINSCHER, had never encountered OLIO=miscellany, but the wordplay led me to each one. This puzzle requires you to solve the clues to get the solution, whereas so many weekday puzzles can be done simply by biffing and then parsing. It’s a different style of setting, but very fair and satisfying for many solvers.

41. I had to use a lot of word searches but got there in the end.

    I was another misled (myzled, as I used to say) by the ‘filled’ in 6. Should it be half-filled, or was that just the Don playing tricks? I can see why Eileen was tickled with the clue for OBSCURITIES – the Don being playful there. I liked the &lit NELSON. I thought the stars were faces, which left me rather confused about how DE was very good in 17. A good way to clue DECEMVIR, I thought.

    Thanks Pasquale for the struggle and to Eileen for putting me right in places.

42. I enjoyed this one. In particular, I was impressed with Don’s pleasing surfaces. Since he had to work so hard on the wordplay in order to reveal the obscurities, I think he did an excellent job in avoiding any horrible, ugly, mangled surfaces.

43. Got there in the end!
    I didn’t know the dog or loris (both very cute) and was a little stymied by ‘not much’ in 2d, ‘filled’ in 6d and spelling of rösti, but still in the ‘fan of obscurities’ camp, … I think.
    Thanks to Pasquale for the chewy but rewarding challenge & Eileen for enlightenment.

44. I’m struggling with blemishes being a synonym for defaces. I think of the former as a noun only, while the latter is a transitive verb. Are there other usages that I’m unaware of? Or is that that old chestnut that any word in English can be verbed?

45. paddymelon @20, I enjoyed reading your poest in a Hull accent.

    A bit of a slog with all those unknown unknowns, but some fine clues in among them. Quite enjoyable once I had decided to cheat a little with extensive searching for words that fitted the crossers. Unfortunately for me, I was on the wrong wavelength for some of the wordplay.

46. wynsum@43 They may look cute but slow lorises have a toxic bite. Not sure about other kinds

47. Thanks to Pasquale and Eileen – once again I reflect that I am not up to the level required for blogging so (I think the expression is) chapeau!

    Not a lot of entertainment for me here for reasons already stated by others. I did enjoy the topical reference to self-isolation in the surface for DISBANDED. So a DNF with quite a few reveals but, happily, with no associated tea-tray moments. RHEUMY and DISPERSE failed the homophone test for me but I no longer trust/thrust myself in this area of expertise.

48. Outofmydepth @44 – I had the same misgivings about blemishes / defaces but found that both Collins and Chambers give blemish as a transitive verb (to flaw the perfection of; spoil; tarnish, etc) so I decided not to comment on it.

49. Eileen @48 – thanks. Living down to my name.

50. I don’t begrudge this to those who revel in the tougher stuff, but it was too hard for me.

51. Eileen @48 – Yes, I think you would find that ‘blemish’ as a transitive verb most commonly has, as its object noun, ‘reputation’. This is very common in literary texts from a time when concern about reports that might blemish one’s reputation (male as well as female), and the importance of having an ‘unblemished’ reputation, were a social priority, but a quick check suggests that it remains fairly current.

52. Yes, really good mental workout and thanks to Eileen for the explanations. Only gripe was the use of slang, which I always detest in these crosswords. Today it was “def” for very good which had me spouting my usual mantra of “but it’s not a proper word!”.

53. Thanks, Spooner’s catflap@51
    Yes, of course – I must have had a blind spot earlier on: I didn’t think of the past participle!

54. I don’t begrudge Pasquale his trademark OBSCURITIES here, either, since he’s spent quite a while lately setting some excellent Quiptics for us, and the temptation to fling off all restraint at last must have been irresistible. I realise that I belong mostly to the despised bung-and-parse school of solving, relying more on a good vocabulary than on constructing words logically and Lego-fashion before knowing whether they exist, in the approved manner. Pasquale in this mood exposes all my shortcomings: never an enjoyable experience.

    Of those I knew, I enjoyed WISHBONE, MACARONI CHEESE and OBSCURITIES itself. NELSON was a write-in since I attended Nelson primary school and still live in Nelson Road – and I worked for 21 years for BT.

55. gladys@54 Nothing wrong with bung and parse. Approved by whom? It’s a bit of fun, that’s all. Just do it your way. Surely both parts of the clue contribute to the solution.

56. 26A Coming in late so apologies if someone has already mentioned this, but Nelson is also a cricketing term for the score 111, thus “Ones”

57. I think I counted as many as 9 solutions today that were OBSCURITIES or unknown words to me today. I don’t normally find this to be the case with the Guardian Cryptic. That rather took the gloss off things for me, as it made me slightly irritable/irked rather than admiring of the intricate wordplay. Wasn’t too convinced by SIDE, either. Trying not to sound too negative as this was a good challenge, but slightly above my competency levels…

58. [Togs @56
    I remember when Denis Compton used to do radio commentary and 111 was on the board, one of the other commentators would always ask him
    “Why is it called Nelson, Denis?”
    “Because Nelson had one eye, one arm and”
    “Thank you Denis”]

59. Ronald @ 57 – how about riverbank / riverside?

60. Looking at the grid again, I don’ think it’s just the word “obscurities” which is a message from the setter – surely it’s the phrase “obscurities aficionados” which is right there in the centre. A nod to the nature of all who love his crosswords?

61. [me @58
    Before someone corrects me, Nelson in fact had both eyes, but no vision in one of them.]

62. I found this rather tough – I didn’t know TREPANG (wasn’t invited to dine with the Queen that day) and had trouble justifying “filled” in MANCHU.

    On googling obscure words – I don’t think it’s fair to say that the wordplay gives it to you so no need to google. Wordplay ingredients are almost always ambiguous so can get put together in different ways, so if you can construct an unknown word from the wordplay (and it is not unique by means of crossers and reasonable letter sequences) it is not the only only possibility, so you HAVE to google it to confirm for sure. IMO.

63. Once upon I time, i used to look up potential and unknown-to-me words in the dictionary, but considered googling a bit of a cheat. No longer. That Google has sucked me in. I blame it on my aging joints, and the weight of the dictionary.

64. I wish I hadn’t bothered.

65. Some nice clues but overall I found it too irritatingly self-indulgent to be enjoyable, and as I wasn’t enjoying it I gave up.

66. gladys@54: there is surely no despite at all for the bung-and-parse school. Nor I hope for those who like to work out a rare word solution from the clueing.

67. ‘Irritatingly self-indulgent’ @ #65: well, I couldn’t have put it better myself!

    12 down is no excuse for the sins committted in this puzzle, notably at 21 across, 24 across and 20 down, and Mr Manley, author of a book written, shall we say, very much in the style of his hero Mr MacNutt, who was himself advocating clarity and simplicity, should really know better. Didacticism is okay (a placard-in-waiting I’m sure) in small doses but this is verging on the tedious.

68. Oh dear! — my hopes were misplaced, evidently. It seems there’s no shortage of despite from the fifteensquared community.

69. gladys@54: I concur with pserve-p2 – bung-and-parse is emphatically not to be despised. I’m sure it is at least the default approach for most of us , particularly for multi-word solutions where the parsing is complex but the enumeration and a crosser or two gives the game away.

    My own preference is to shake the wordplay and definition together until the solution emerges – not so easy if the word is unfamiliar, of course.

    It was Roz who said she preferred clues with the definition at the end, so that she could solve them before she got to it. Most impressive, but not, I think, a common strategy.

70. Just a passing piece of information but the German and Austrian Wordle programs don’t allow for umlauts, possibly surprisingly, so neither RÖSTI nor ROSTI would be valid entries. Don is spot on here. I remember JollySwagman I think telling me off for being a bit of an umlaut bore a few years ago so I’ll stop there

71. Started off easily enough and then had to grind out most of the grid. All fairly clued, and once solved I wondered what had held me up. A sign of good clueing I’d say.

    Favourites were QUADRILLED and DIGITISING

    “Half filled” didn’t entirely convince me once the penny dropped but I suppose it’s the same as half completed?

    Thanks to Pasquale and to Eileen

    PS I think there’s a typo in the crossword number at the head of the blog

72. [Dr. WhatsOn @62, I never use google, do not even know what it is, but I do use Chambers. However I always try to solve Azed without Chambers and succeed about half the time. I do check everything when I have finished. You just have to trust your judgement , solve the clue from the word play and if it looks plausible for the definition then put it in. The reason Azed has to use some obscurities is due to the nature of the grid with every square filled. }

73. baerchen @70 JollySwagman sounds like a bit of a dire critic 🙂

74. Ark Lark @71
    Thanks for the heads-up. Number now corrected.

75. When I was a novice I would often treat cryptics as a QUICK crossword, The definition is nearly always a word or short phrase at the start or end of the clue. Just check each end and it is surprising how many you can put in. This gives you letters which are invaluable when you are struggling to get started on a grid. With time and a lot of practice you start to see how the word play works.

76. Roz @75
    I don’t do the Quick crossword, but my son-in-law does, and occasionally asks me for help. I find solving it on a blank grid much harder than most cryptics, as I am never sure that I have the right answer – there might be other valid possibilities.

77. baerchen@70: the ban on umlauts is probably because they don’t want to have to invent a new colour meaning “yes, it’s here but you’ve got the umlaut wrong”. Wouldn’t be a problem in Scandinavian languages where all those ås and øs are officially different letters in their own right.

78. @bodycheetah
    Chortle
    @gladys
    Excellent point

79. [Gladys @77
    You’ve probably heard the story of the Dane attempting to check in to a French hotel. He signed his name, Høst, in the register. The concierge said “Bonjour, Monsieur..” and then was thrown; being French, he wouldn’t pronounce the leading H or the trailing ST, leaving him only the O, and that was crossed out….]

80. muffin@76 they are harder in one sense as you only get one link to the answer.
    If you are new to cryptics though , every clue can just be bewildering.
    Today is not a good example but SUTURE and NELSON certainly, BARMIEST, BIG NOISE , AFICIANADOS maybe, even the dogs.
    Had a quick look at yesterday and perhaps at least a third would go in.

81. Well I liked it, despite the struggle! Some lovely and (to me) different cluing here, with my favourites already mentioned by others.

    I just had one variation from Eileen’s parsing, which is that I saw 10a VIP’s report BIG NOISE as a DD – did anyone else think that?

82. Gervase @22: So, Brits actually say “macaroni cheese”… It seems an odd place for such a windy bunch to suddenly decide to save themselves a syllable. Has the usage carried over to other foodstuffs? Strawberries cream? Tea crumpets? Fish chips? Or even further? I shudder at the thought of toad hole. 😉

83. Interesting, Roz – first pass on this one for me yielded only SUTURE and NELSON, but both were write-ins!

84. DougV @82
    Certainly we do. “Mac & cheese” seems odd, as the macaroni is in the cheese, not alongside it.

85. I loved this, but was slightly thrown by ‘filled’ in 6d. It doesn’t matter, because I got the grid filled.
    As to umlauts, the usual English spellings seem to be ‘Goering’ and ‘Goebbels’ (Sorry to use these as examples, but they were the first to hand in my head, if that’s not too contorted).

86. @bodycheetah
    Chortle

87. I don’t mind the obscurities, but the fun is taken out a little by the cluing style, which I find a bit too wordy in places. Yes, “filled” in 6 can just about be rationalised, but it seems to be there just to mislead rather than to help. Likewise, the pretty unusual AFFENPINSCHERS doesn’t need “exceptional” in the clue at all, since “free” could function as the anagram indicator and “to go” as the exclusion indicator.
    However, some clues to enjoy too. I liked WISHBONE and MACARONI CHEESE. I quite enjoy the transatlantic differences in the language. The one that surprises me most is the US preferring to use “refrigerator” instead of “fridge”, which is common in the UK. Five syllables vs one??

    Thanks, Pasquale and Eileen.

88. Thanks Pasquale and Eileen. Tough but satisfying today. Didn’t help myself by ignoring the apostrophe in the clue and confidently entering “BIG SHOTS” at 10ac. A special smile for 12a – I was tasked with addressing the haggis on Tuesday and looked up olio (“Is there that owre his French ragout, Or olio that wad staw a sow, Or fricassee wad mak her spew…?”), so now have two different uses of an obscure word in one week. Struggled with 2d, both because it’s obscure and because the wordplay uses “not much good “ for G when so often setters just use “good”.

89. I just knew the pasta dressing “aglio, olio, e peperoncino”

90. Regarding #82 and #84, unfortunately such pies or similar are being marketed in my local shops as ‘mac and (something)’, at which ghastly Americanism I take great umbrage. The dish (the original anyway) in English is a macaroni cheese which name has the added advantage of indicating, to an extent, the idea that in the dish the macaroni is necessarily mixed with the cheese.

    Off now to prepare my kat ‘n’ curry.

91. Several new words for me so not finished. I’ll only mention : TREPANG which didn’t seem to need the “not much” in the clue so unable to parse.
    Thanks both

92. Thanks for that, Matt @88 – well done! 😉

    I’m quite surprised that it took that long for someone to comment on ‘good (not much)’. I wasn’t very sure about that.

93. muffin @84 – I am definitely for ‘MACARONI CHEESE’, particularly if you mix in some steamed leeks with lots of black pepper, but, by analogy, ‘bubble & squeak’ would need to have the mashed potato alongside, rather than mixed in with, the greens. These anomalies happen.

94. Another enjoyable puzzle today and very different from the past two days. I solve on my phone and have the Chambers apps on it so checking words is no big deal. Nice to learn new words. There were a few very helpful anagrams that got me on my way. I use the Chambers Dictionary app to solve anagrams (my pencil and paper days are behind me). The solver is especially useful when you’ve not heard of the word 😀

    Some likened this to an Azed. I started my first one and am about half way through after a few weeks. This was much easier.

    BTW, I very much doubt Pasquale has anything to prove or needs to appear clever. Obscure words are his shtick, just as smooth surfaces are Nutmeg’s, bawdy clues are (or were) Paul’s and themes are for other setters.

    [bodycheetah@26 – thanks for the Scritti Politti reference. It’s a long time since I’ve heard the name. I remember enjoying their first album, Songs to Remember.]

95. re 14 acc. More years ago than I care to remember my mother had recipes written down in a book with a red and white check cover. It was known as her “OIio” book.

96. PS She was not a good cook!!!!

97. David Wilkinson@96 – was she good at cryptic crosswords?

98. Matt @88/Eileen @92 – I did wonder if the clue was meant to read “something boring, not much” + “good”. After all, you need to be careful not to drill too far when trepanning!

99. True! widdersbel @98 – I think you’re probably right.

100. I got about one third of the way though last night with none of the 12’s. Glad I didn’t stay up any later, but hat’s off to all those who completed. I certainly don’t begrudge the satisfaction that must give and wonder if perhaps you find the ones I complete rather dull. Nice to see the humble hebe make an appearance. (I actually thought it was too much of a 12 in the UK to be considered and my spell check agrees.) Thanks Pasquale & Eileen.

101. Paul, T@100 Hebes very common in UK gardens. Huge number of varieties.

102. Cripes. First time poster here, though I’ve been doing Guardian cryptics and quiptics for some time. I cut my teeth on the Times, and then the Quick Cryptic (where Pasquale sets as Izetti as I’m sure lots of you know) over there.

     Don’s clues are always very fair, even if the vocab, or definition is a bit harder.

     This was by no means easy, but all gettable, I’ve seen far harder cryptics, and I don’t yet dabble in barred puzzles.

103. [ Gervase@69 . today we have 1AC , 3.5.12.13.15 D that can be solved without a definition. Very difficult for them to be anything else. }

104. Didn’t enjoy this at all and gave in around a third of the way through. Always happy to see 1-2 words I don’t know, to extend my vocabulary; eight is *way* too many for me.

105. [hopkinb@102 – welcome 🙂 Is there a knack to the Times cryptic? I’ve got an old book of Times crosswords I picked up in Oxfam and I find the clues fairly baffling. I’m getting better but what would you say is the difference between the Times and the Guardian? I know it’s difficult to compare because the Guardian has named setters and the Times doesn’t, presumably because the editor tries to make them similar?]

106. pdp11
     When I was teaching, some of us always did the Times crossword at lunchtime. We nearly always finished it between us, but I would characterise it (at the time, 15-20 years ago) as much less precise than the Guardian; often you thought you had the asnwer, but weren’t confident. I’ve not seen it since I retired, about 12 years ago, though.

107. AllyGally@81: You know, I think you may have a point there.

     [pdp11@105: In my experience the Times offerings (although I feel that this may be like “mentioning the you-know-what”) are standardised to a house style, with a more limited vocabulary and breadth (but at this point I am closing one eye and waggling my hand horizontally). I will enjoy the occasional X^2-word but the Guardian usually offers the prospect of a chuckle or two (plus it’s online). ‘Nuff said.]

108. [Roz @103: I agree that the clues you have listed have straightforward wordplay, so are potentially solvable without the definition. I’m not sure that I would be able to do it so easily though. You must have incredible self-discipline not to read to the end of a clue. Brava!]

109. AllyGally@81 – I read BIG NOISE as a DD too. (Unusually for me, I parsed the clues today so I just skimmed Eileen’s blog.)

     [muffin@106 – my book is of that vintage and I think you may have hit the nail on the head about the precision.
     AlphaAlpha@107 – there does seem to be less humour in the Times crosswords that I’ve been doing.]

110. Times style is “tighter” in my experience, Guardian gives a bit more latitude in that more often I *know* I have the answer, but can’t see why, and is more given to themes I think. There was a lovely one here last week, musical theme, Brendan I think was the setter. I started to do the G puzzles maybe 2 years ago just to extend my experience. I buy my mum a Times online sub, and pinch the password, hence get access to their puzzles. Times has the quick cryptic, which is normally very accessible.

     Same but different. There are great puzzles in both papers, but obviously the Times ones are behind a paywall.

111. hopkinb@: Indeed and just to be clear that although the Guardian crossies are free online there is ever the opportunity to slip them a small honorarium. On a general question, sudoku, kenken etc grade puzzles as easy, moderate and so forth: no such offerings for crosswords; that makes it difficult for the beginner to know where to, erm, begin. I think today’s puzzle could be classified as very hard.

     pdp11@: “there does seem to be less humour in…” – and general wit? Perhaps it’s the constraints. But (perhaps) enough of the You-know-what.

112. Yes, I had BIG NOISE as a dd too.

113. Yes, I considered BIG NOISE as a dd, too, awaiting comments!

114. Did anyone else get sump for 16 accross

115. @Alphalpha – I bung the G £15 a week with delight, seeing as that’s ny preferred read.

     The quiptic is meant to be the accessible one here, no? Everyman too perhaps.

     I don’t deny that today’s puzzle was not the easiest, just gettable from precise wordplay. I never find Pasquale “unfair”. The only “doubly difficult” clue was TREPANG in my opinion. I did initially try TRIUMVIR, but crossers put paid to that.

     I’ll not bother commenting here again.

116. There’s an occasional fleeting pleasure in solving a clue for a word you’ve never heard of (essentially a random selection of letters). So I was gratified when I confidently entered 23 across as NOVEMVIR.

117. Buddy@116 We’ve been calling a word like that, one you’ve never heard of but assemble from the wordplay, a Jorum, dating from when today’s blogger said that
     the same thing happened to her with that particular word. Petert@33, in fact, used the term Jorum when he had the same experience with NOVEMVIR as you did.

118. Times clues always parse. Times clues by Don Manley always parse. Guardian clues by Don Manley always parse (even where ‘not much good’ equals G). But Guardian clues by some other compilers do not always parse. And that’s the difference really. Are Guardian clues in general wittier than Times clues? I wouldn’t know, in the absence of a Times vs Guardian wit survey, but I have certainly seen clues in both publications that have raised a smile. For various reasons.

119. [Gervase@108, it is not deliberate, I do not really “read” most clues in the normal sense. I just look at each word with suspicion and if the word play gives an answer before the end then the definition is just a final confirmation. ]

     hopkinb@115, please do comment again, different views are always welcome.

120. [Thanks everyone for insight on Times crossword.

     hopkinb@110,115 – I too struggled with TREPANG because I knew neither that word nor TREPANG! Coincidentally, Brendan (Brian Greer) is the editor of the old Times crossword collection I have. And, as Roz said, please do comment again. Based on your observations so far, I, for one, will be interested in your comments.]

121. Times puzzles are indeed behind a paywall, as are those of the DT, but both are visible for those who are interested in the relevant solving blogs, which can be accessed via the links at the top of any 225 page.

122. Late thanks Eileen for what must have been quite a challenge! I ran out of steam this morning with about a third left but only have myself to blame, eg failing to consider PIG when compiling a mental list of 3-letter animals despite having eaten a ham sandwich only an hour previously. Same “fool’s jorum” as Buddy@116 held me up for a while. Nice to see an umlaut transliterated fully (is it a word in English that way though?), plenty of new stuff here for me and just hope some of it sticks, thanks for the lesson Pasquale.

123. For me, The Times’ crosswords have no personality – being prosaic, stilted and lifeless.

     Thanks to Eileen for theblog, and and to Pasquale for a very challenging puzzle.

124. Novice here, but it seems a tad unfair to include an unknown (trepan) in the clue for another unknown (trepang). Other than that, tough but fair, I thought.

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