Guardian Cryptic 28,731 by Pasquale

82 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28,731 by Pasquale”

1. Thanks Pasquale and manehi
   I found this unusually easy for a Pasquale, probably because of all the anagrams.
   I realise that I have never known what A GOGO actually meant!
   Favourite LAVATORIES.

2. Another good puzzle today – I like Pasquale

   Couple of words I didn’t know UNCIAL, ASCARIS but gettable.

   Favourites were: BEHOLDER, SALESMAN, WHIT, ROUST, RETINAL, MAWKISH (lovely word). Some good anagrams too.

   LOAVES AND FISHES took a while but made me smile when I got it.

   Thanks Pasquale and manehi

3. Fairly easy I thought with a few obscure words to hold things up. Only got UNCIAL with the aid of Mr Google. Not sure what purpose ‘thing’ serves in the clue for SCHIST. Thanks manehi and Pasquale

4. Thanks manehi and Pasquale. Some great anagrams here. All very enjoyable.

   I too got a bit stuck in the NE – 10a made me realise that although I’m vaguely familiar with the word UNCIAL, I don’t think I’ve ever had reason to say it out loud, hence it took me far too long to recognise that’s what I was looking for. ASCARIS also took a while to twig – I got the A….IS but struggled to remember a four-letter word for a cliff that would fit. Another word I don’t use every day, though it does ring a remote bell.

5. You know that slight frisson you experience when a definition you hear might just apply to you? Well, I had one when solving 13a.

   Really enjoyed this, right in my comfort zone.

   RETINAL sounds adjectival rather than a noun (nominal?) but I’m sure The Don would not make such a slip.

   Many thanks, both.

6. ChrisM @3: I thought the same but finally accepted that the clue would be poorer without it. It has a lovely surface.

7. Does anybody else find a strong visual element to solving? For example, I guessed “unc?a?” but couldn’t get the answer until I entered those letters, then I saw the answer immediately.

8. Thanks for the blog, manehi. Once again, I agree with your favourites but want to highlight the splendid anagrams LOAVES AND FISHES and SURROGATE MOTHER.

   William @5 – as you say, RETINAL is adjectival, which I think is indicated by the screen‘s (‘of the screen’).

   Thanks to Pasquale for an enjoyable puzzle.

9. Thank you manehi. Re a possible theme, is it something to do with the eye of the beholder?

   Loved 2D Guest room! LOL.
   And 8D seems to have extended Biblical references with ‘lavish’ as well as the son and the LOAVES AND FISHES. Very clever.

   Then Pasquale goes from the one high to another (or low, depending on your POV) with COKE.
   I thought there were a few too many words in SCHIST and ROUST, and I really can’t pay the homophone in UNCIAL.

   I did find a nominal William@5 for RETINAL to do with pigments and ‘rhodospin’. Thanks for that 🙂

   Yes, ravenrider@7. Sometimes when I leave the crossie and come back the ‘visual’ becomes obvious.

10. I would pronounce UNCIAL as un-see-al, with three syllables, so not at all convinced by an equivalence to “unseal”. However Chambers allows the alternative “un-shell” (though with a schwa) which would work in this case.

11. Fairly straightfoward and no real problems apart from remembering cliff=scar.
    Favourites were SNOW, LAVATORIES and the brilliant &lit with a very apt anagrist.
    Thanks Pasquale and manehi

12. Thanks for the explanation to LAVATORIES, manehi. I was trying to force AVATOR into LIES –
    What’s spewed out by politicians.

    Thanks also to Pasquale for a somewhat easier Xword.

13. Typically well-clued puzzle from Pasquale, with a few unusual words- as we expect from this setter (nothing I hadn’t come across before, as it happens).

    Quite heavy on the anagrams, but they are all good, so no complaints.

    NONELASTIC took me a while to disentangle. I’d have expected this to be hyphenated – the usual expression is ‘inelastic’, but hey-ho 🙂

    Thanks to S&B

14. Eileen @8: Ah, thank you. Missed the ‘s. Told you I was 13a!

15. ravenrider @7: Definitely. Particularly with the down clues. I also find that the answer shows itself more readily if I write carefully so that the letters and spaces are in the right relative positions.

16. I was disappointed that the RICHARDIS worm for 7 down was too many letters. Cliff turned out not to be a bluff after all. LOAVES AND FISHES was my favourite.

17. Liked BEHOLDER, LAVATORIES, OSIRIS.

    New: SCHIST.

    Failed A GOGO.

    Did not parse 6d.

    Thanks, both.

18. Good fun from the Don. I drew a blank with the crossing UNCIAL and ASCARIS – live and learn – and I didn’t really like the ‘slight confusion at the end’ in ROUST mainly because I don’t think of a ‘rout’ as a ‘retreat’ necessarily.

    LOAVES AND FISHES came up recently and I was surprised that nobody referred to recent revisionist research which indicates that only one of the fishes was a miracle. The other, apparently, was a mackerel.

19. (and thanks manehi)

20. [I remember from school biology a large bottle of pickled Ascaris on prominent display – ugh!]

21. Thanks for the blog , I liked the use of LAVA and nice to see the full use of OPERA for once.
    Chambers 93 gives ROUT as DISorderly withdrawal and RETREAT as ORDERLY withdrawal, close enough I think, Dunkirk was certainly both.
    No links to Einstein a gogo ? Probably a good thing.
    SIRIUS is the brightest star for us and easily found using Orion’s belt.

22. LOAVES AND FISHES was delightful; and as one who has frequently argued that the more groan-inducing a homophone is, the better, I had to applaud UNCIAL. Liked LAVATORIES as well.
    ASCARIS was not a word I knew, but I don’t mind obscure words when the wordplay is as clear as it is here.
    Like muffin @1 I didn’t know what A GOGO actually meant, but I do now.
    Thanks both.

23. I don’t know but I think there may be a lot more going on in this crossword, including a few references from various religions. eg Gog in AGOGO.

    Also Pasquale is/was the crossword editor of the Church Times, and it’s Easter and his name is a derivation of Easter and he said this in Meet the Setter: “Let’s use our puzzles to reflect the amazing world we live in – a world of science, religion, arts, culture, politics and millions of oddities. By the way, I am saddened when a reference to religion brings a Dawkins-style response: there’s no excuse for a lack of basic Bible knowledge, even in a post-Christian society.”

    Someone may enlighten me.

24. pdm/poc – for me, UNCIAL/unseal is another talkie/Torquay – all the right vowels, but not necessarily with the right pattern of stress.

    Eye like the eye theme suggestion – eye can see an IRIS in OSIRIS, and the visual root of VISA and VIS-À-VIS, as well as BEHOLDER and RETINAL – but nothing more comes to eye at the moment. Perhaps it will in a twinkling.

    Petert @16 – such a shame RICHARDIS wouldn’t fit for 7d. Richard’s worm snake (Antillotyphlops richardi) might almost be a valid solution, while Saint Richardis was Holy Roman Empress and wife of Charles the Fat. I searched in vain for a connection to the Diet of Worms.

    Thanks P & m

25. [Roz @21: here you go-go]

26. Very enjoyable today apart from the two unknowns (which are to be expected from Pasquale, but having them crossing didn’t help). Like poc@10, I couldn’t hear the homophone, because unseal is two syllables and UNCIAL three, so I failed that one, and like muffin@1, I never knew A GOGO meant that (or that a visa was an endorsement for VIS A VIS).

    A splendid collection of anagrams today. Thanks Pasquale.

    Ravenrider@7: yes, me too.

27. 2nd attempt to post.
    17d how come NO DATE =ND
    NO=O-I have never seen N for NO
    Has the rule book changed?
    Is my crossword dictionary out of date
    (I did like LOAVES AND FISHES)

28. [ Thank you , I think , for your effort MrEssexboy@25, others may not thank you. A challenge for you, AlanC if he pops in and others – any more songs containing a scientific formula ? ]

    I did know the word UNCIAL but I thought , incorrectly, it was something religious. Maybe that is nuncial ?

29. I had 6d as ROUS(E) (stir) with T as the confusion at the end.

30. paddymelon @23 – thank you for your comment.

    I was reminded this morning of Pasquale’s brilliant &lit clue from nine years ago, which is in my little book of classic clues – most appropriate for today:
    ‘Breaker of promise, thrice ultimately (NT) (5,5)’
    It immediately preceded another of them, which I quoted fairly recently, not for the first time:
    ‘Pasquale , inside working, using long obscure words (14)’ – two real gems in the same puzzle!

31. Badly defeated by Pasquale today, too many words I wasn’t acquainted with – UNCIAL, OPERAND, DEMODE to name but three. Couldn’t parse OSIRIS, even though I felt it had to be that with the S in as second letter after getting the gift of the long anagram at 2d. Couldn’t parse VERBALLY either, and like Manehi found the NE corner particularly tough. Did enjoy LAVATORIES, though, so the sun continues to shine here despite my furrowed brow…

32. I’m usually pretty tolerant of dubious homophones but UNCIAL to UNSEAL is too big a jump for me, I’m afraid, particularly in a clue for a rather obscure word. But that’s my only real problem with an otherwise excellent puzzle. Thanks Pasquale and Eileen.

33. Just noticed Copmus’s question at 27. nd (usually lower case) is quite common in bibliographies etc where the publication referenced doesn’t have a publication date.

34. copmus @27, Chambers has nd = No date, not dated.

35. Having one of those days … thanks Pasquale and manehi of course. But please don’t consider yourself unthanked, Eileen.

36. Enjoyed that. Lots of anagrams (too many, maybe?), which provided a relatively easy start – the two big ones were my first two in. NE Corner was definitely the gnarly bit today – needed crossword solver for both UNCIAL and ASCARIS, never heard of them, and thought the cluing of ROUST was a bit weak. Interesting that several above picked out LAVATORIES as a favourite clue – was probably my least favourite, because as soon as I saw “Ladies and Gentlemen” I knew it had to LAVATORIES, given the apparent obsession by Guardian setters with everything toilet-related!

37. brian-with-an-eye @35 – another local reference for me 🙂

38. Messed it up again! – here, I hope!

39. OPERAND looked like a word I’d seen somewhere, but I realize I hadn’t the vaguest idea of what it means. I’ve also never heard of ND = “no date.”

    “Whit” is one of those words that exist only in the negative. Nobody ever says, “Yes, there was a whit.” Much less two whits!

    essexboy@24, thank you for the link to Saint Richardis. she has quite a story!

    Thanks, Pasquale and manehi.

40. A really good puzzle, I thought.

    I for one don’t really mind approximate homophones, and I think setters have to use them because there may not be enough exact homoohones around to make things interesting. As it happens, since UNCIAL was unfamiliar to a bunch of people, and if you don’t know it you probably aren’t 100% sure how to pronounce it, the indicator “as you might say” was spot on.

41. LOIs the obscurities in the NE. I had A _ _ _ RIS and wanted a four letter word for cliff ending in R. I thought ‘scarp’ – no, too long – but took ages to get back to scar. I think ‘scar’ = ‘cliff’ must be Pommy – not familiar with it here (but we did think of Scafell once the penny dropped). I agree the ‘unseal’ homophone is a stretch, but it did lead us to the right answer. ND is very familiar to me, from bibliographies. Nobody else seems to have mentioned it, but I really liked CHEAPO, as well as the much mentioned LAVATORIES. In SCHIST (lovely word, nice rock), I thought the surplus words were ‘for teenagers’, as ‘first thing’ gives the T (though I know some don’t like that). Or even leave out ‘thing for teenagers’, as first = 1st = IST is not uncommon. Thanks, Pasquale and manehi.

42. Very enjoyable, just beaten by the 6d, 10a combination that were unknown to me.
    There seemed a lot of anagrams, which aided solving, particularly the long down anagrams.
    12a was my favourite, says much about my sense of humour…
    Thanks both.

43. I expanded my lexicon by four — ascaris, démodé, Osiris & uncial — but they were all getable from the wordplay. An enjoyable puzzle. 12a was probably my favourite.

44. Thanks both,

    I had ‘weif’ for 23a – an anagram of wife and meaning something unclaimed reverting to the lord of the manor. Also held up by toying with ‘excess’ for 10a – sounds like Ex (old) Ess (letter).

    Good fun.

45. Roz @21 I have had that earworm since I solved the clue…
    “You better watch out, you better beware,
    Albert said the e=mc2…”
    Ahem…

46. Valentine @39 – it’s not “no date” but rather “no” + “date”

47. …at least, that’s how I understood it, until I read TassieTim’s comments just now!

48. Roz@28 I don’t suppose “Thre e is the magic number” counts??

49. I have seen so many computer programs (and indeed written several) ask “would you like to continue Y/N?” for N for NO not to cause any qualms.

50. Big Audio Dynamite had a song titled E = mc2 (can’t do superscript).

51. Louise@34 has the Chambers for ND and it tallies with TassieTIm@41 so no problem at all .
    HYD@45 I vaguely remember someone pretending to play a flute by blowing down it possibly ?
    Petert I do agree with the statement but I have never seen it in a peer-reviewed journal so not allowing it.

52. [Looked up “quirky UK place names” after Eileen’s @38 link. They are a hoot … anything from Scratchy Bottom to Pity Me … ]

53. On the easier side for Pasquale, but the two long answers were both great fun, esp the sort-of seasonal 8d.

    I took an unreal time to get UNCIAL.

    Thanks Pasquale and manehi

54. [Roz @28: do mathematical formulae count? If so, here is Lady Gaga with the general solution to a quadratic equation.

    And I can’t resist a link to Tom Lehrer’s New Math.]

55. Very enjoyable puzzle apart from UNCIAL. Just not sure that it is entirely fair to clue a pretty obscure word via a homophone, which some above think is dubious though I have no idea how it is pronounced. I actually entered UNSEAL thinking it was barely cryptic and a pretty poor clue. I do Pasquale an injustice with that thought, but I just don’t think the clue gives anyone who doesn’t know the word a fair chance of getting it via the wordplay. But I now know something I didn’t know yesterday and that is always part of the fun.

    Also failed on OPERAND. Could only see OP for work, but the ignorance of the plural is my problem not the setter’s. I think of an operand as more of a variable than a quantity, probably my mathematical background making me overthink things again!

56. Good crossword. I failed on UNCIAL, which I’d never heard of, and went with UNCLAM as a complete guess.
    I was going to complain about the CHEAPO clue, where “something” appears to be just along for the ride, but then I found that it can be a noun (Collins online), so I think the definition is “something inexpensive”.
    LOAVES and FISHES was my fave by far. Very clever.
    Thanks, P & m.

57. Regarding OPERAND: cryptics are full of them. Most wordplay consists of (one of more instances of, possibly nested) an indicator/operator which tells you what to do, and some adjacent text which is the operand – in the specific case of an anagram we have the words anagrind/anagrist, but it’s the same idea.

58. [EB@54 I cannot do links at the moment and I also smell a rat, I strongly suspect your first link is a spoof , it would not count anyway. If the Tom Lehrer is what I think then it is about number bases and operations so no good either, we are stuck with E=mc^2. ]

59. [Roz – you are right to trust your nose.]

60. Pace Brian @32 I’m inclined to agree with NeilH @22 that the more outrageous the homophone, the better the penny-drop-moment. (Though I acknowledge it is frustrating not to finish because of one.)

    Tassie @41 (and others) SCAR for ‘cliff’ is very much *north* England, so understandably tricky for those of you in the deepest south!

    I counted seven anagrams out of 28 clues, which is probably unprecedented for this setter – but many thanks from me to Pasquale and manehi

61. Here’s probably the best example of a Yorkshire Scar.

62. I had the same trouble in the northeast that others had but even though I failed to solve it, I thought the clue for VERBALLY was extremely clever.

63. …. except uncial is pronounced more like “unshall”

64. JCW @ 63

    from Chambers: uncial /un?sh?l or -si-?l/

    Pasquale is correct

65. Me @ 64 – the ? should be a schwa

66. [If I come across a word I’m not familar with, I tend to pronounce it in Italian (as the pronunciations are fairly consistent). That would make UNCIAL un chee al. Even if that isn’t correct, it seems surprising that it isn’t pronounced as three syllables.]

67. [We crossed, Simon S.]

68. Simon S @64: as a matter of interest, does Chambers not include stress marks in its phonetic transcriptions?

    In most dictionaries, there is a / ‘ / placed before the stressed syllable (so small that it is often missed, but important in defining the pronunciation of a word).

    Merriam-Webster and Lexico, for example, clearly indicate the stress on the first syllable of UNCIAL. (M-W doesn’t use the standard IPA symbols, but Lexico gives /’ʌnsɪəl/ and /’ʌnʃl/ as its two pronunciations).

    ‘Unseal’, meanwhile, is marked as having the stress on the second syllable, which is certainly how I pronounce it (at the very least it’s 50/50).

    (To those who have doubts about how important stress patterns are in defining pronunciation, I always ask them to say ‘I like Africa’ with the emphasis in the ‘fric’, and see if anyone understands them!)

69. eb 2 68 – I don’t know, I don’t often look at the phonetic elements.

70. me @ 69 – 2 should be @ – missed the shift key!

71. Muffin@61
    Thanks for the reminder. I haven’t been there since 1949 on a school trip to Malham Cove. The teacher in charge had been part of a team that had identified the true source of the Aire by pouring dye into the two potential streams and discovering that they crossed at different levels in Malham Cove. In the long vacations in 1957/8 I worked as a waiter in the Grand Hotel in Scar borough, named after the cliffs.

72. brian-with-an-eye@32 and others…
    I’ve never had occasion to pronounce UNCIAL, but if I ever had need to I’m sure the sound would be almost identical to my pronunciation of ‘unseal’. The word SEAL looks monosyllabic on paper, but in speech it usually has two articulated sounds. (Well, one and a half at a pinch – the final L sees to that.)

73. Ian@36
    Given your reply to my post yesterday drawing attention to sniffy comments frequently crtiticising Paul’s apparent penchant for “schoolboy humour”, I was not at all surprised to see that you have an objection to LAVATORIES. You are nothing if not consistent. Now I have no wish to pick a fight with you or anyone else on this site, but I do take issue with your assertion that there is some sort of obsession with bodily functions within the community of Guardian setters. There is no such obsession; any more than there is with subjects relating to the Bible, or Greek mythology, or the arts, or sport, or history, or science, or….well, the list goes on and I’m sure you get my drift. The occasional bit of what you may consider “smut” does not necessarily “lower the tone” as you put it, sometimes it helps to widen it a tad. (And speaking for myself, at least, I’d rather plump for, say, a touch of Rabelais than, say, Little Lord Fontleroy.)

74. Gert@73 I do agree, everything is fair game really , perhaps Ian should try the Cyclops puzzle in Private Eye and then may not find the Guardian so smutty.
    From your list I wish we did have a setter obsessed with science just to occasionally address the usual lack of balance.

75. Coming late to the party, as I left it until this morning to see if 10a, 6d and 7d would give up their secrets (they didn’t!).
    I wouldn’t normally bother anyone with my thoughts this late, but I do have a query, that I hope someone may be able to answer –
    Why does SIMULATED mean AFFECTED?

76. Moth@75 Affected can mean making a show of affectation i.e. a pretence of something not real, hence simulated.

77. Thank you Crossbar

78. Oh this is superb fare.
    A late comment, and after 2 months away from xwords in boatland I maybe rusty.
    But the array of clues here is certainly worth comment. No comments yet read, so apols to those who may have already remarked this. Hope that these observations may most appeal to xword newcomers and to recognise Pasquale’s originality.
    Standout for me was 4d: which end the solution and which the anagrind? The fare also notable, the permutations being so many, the crossers so little help. It was only with solution 1a that 4d yielded.
    5d realised through its phonic design, camouflaged with ‘endorsed’ rather than a standard xword aural suggestion.
    ‘A’ son indeed for 8d, with again the need for a sideways shift to see the solution. (Written post appearance of Martin Rowson’s superb but awful and biting Good Friday cartoon.)
    A smile for 12a, such redolent political imagery cloaking the too, too, obvious answer staring us in the face.
    Nuff said for now, except that I will be well pleasured to see Pasquale’s next offering.

79. Having now read the comments I see that 10a attracted attention.
    An aspect not yet identified is the slight mismatch between the ‘answer’ and the clue. While uncial is a type or form of letter, it is not an actual letter, as the clue suggests ( a(n) letter ).
    Today we could stretch by remarking ‘an italic’, but the ‘letter’ qualifier is quite implicit because the mention of the word italic has already indicated that the subject relates to letters.
    Going backwards though, as in this clue, doesn’t (for at least this solver; shouldn’t?) work: As noun ‘a letter’ (note the singularity) has been stretched to identify a class of letters (noting the plural).
    A single letter may belong to the class (there is an uncial letter), but to infer the class from a singularity I suggest is unfortunate. It might also explain some of the dnf’s (myself included).

80. Crashed and burned in the NE, as I’d never heard of UNCIAL or ASCARIS.
    I thought LOAVES AND FISHES was magnificent.
    One other definition for CHEAPO is an obvious trap in chess which the victim misses.

81. Tricky because of crossing of two unknown to me words: UNCIAL & ASCARIS. While I filled in ASCARIS it was a SWAG.

    From this Texan to the UK cruciverbalists, is this fair puzzle construction???,

82. Chinoz @78/79. Your comments may well be insightful and to the point, but your frequent references to clue numbers rather than actual grid entries make them, sadly, impenetrable. On a phone or computer, where the comments are a long, long swipe away from the clues and their solutions, I’m afraid the default response will be to shrug and move on. That is, if regular commenters haven’t already turned their attention to more recent puzzles.

    I hope we’ll see you again soon. 🙂

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