The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/28818.
… come out to play. Most of the boys and girls are names – some not particularly common – but with a few ringers thrown in. I would put the puzzle – Boatman’s first foray into the Monday field, I think – as a clear notch harder than we have become used to, but none the worse for that.
| ACROSS | ||
| 7 | PARANOIAC |
One in irrational panic or concealing the onset of anxiety (9)
|
| An envelope (‘concealing’) of A (‘the onset of Anxiety’) in PARANOIC, an envelope (‘in’) of A (‘one’) in PARNOIC, an anagram (‘irrational’) of ‘panic or’, with an &lit (roughly) definition. Take your choice of which A is which. | ||
| 8 | LASSO |
Catch girl with boy’s heart (5)
|
| A charade of LASS (‘girl’) plus O (‘bOy’s heart’). | ||
| 9 | CONSUMERS |
They buy things from menu, cross when order is wrong … (9)
|
| An anagram (‘when order is wrong’) of ‘menu cross’. | ||
| 10 | CARLA |
… because the French girl … (5)
|
| A charade of CAR (‘because’) plus LA (‘the’; both ‘French’). | ||
| 12 | GAWAIN |
… put a whiskey into another drink to catch a boy (6)
|
| An envelope (‘to catch’) of ‘a’ (the second one in the clue)in GAWIN, another envelope (‘put … into’) of ‘a’ (the first) plus W (radio code ‘whiskey’ – note the spelling) in GIN (‘another drink’). | ||
| 13 | CHARADES |
Game prince left, to be replaced by a democratic leader (8)
|
| CHARLES (‘Prince’) with the L ‘to be replaced by’ ‘a’ plus D (‘Democratic leader’). | ||
| 16 | NUT LOAF |
No-fault break-up: it might be what, say, Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth had (3,4)
|
| An anagram (‘break-up’) of ‘no-fault’. The surface points to their divorce, but both have been vegan. | ||
| 19 | EYESORE |
Boatman spotted in report: it doesn’t look good (7)
|
| Sounds like (‘in report’) I (‘Boatman’) SAW (‘spotted’). | ||
| 22 | BASE RATE |
Leaders of banks accept some economic restrictions, as this effectively is a way to control inflation (4,4)
|
| First letters (‘leaders’) of ‘Banks Accept Some Economic Restrictions As This Effectively’. | ||
| 25 | CREASE |
Tuck in before we get growth (6)
|
| With ‘in’ before, we get INCREASE (‘growth’). | ||
| 27 | EDITH |
Girl to change hotel (5)
|
| A charade of EDIT (‘change’) plus H (‘hotel’). | ||
| 28 | FINALISED |
Fixed penalty discussed in connection with compromised ideals (9)
|
| A charade of FIN, as pronounced in the answer, sounds like (‘discussed’) FINE (‘penalty’) plus ALISED, an anagram (‘compromised’) of ‘ideals’. | ||
| 29 | REGAL |
Our queen, looking back to girl as a princess? (5)
|
| A charade of RE, a reversal (‘looking back’) of ER (‘our queen’) plus GAL (‘girl’). | ||
| 30 | ELONGATES |
Extends merger of tech giants (9)
|
| A charade of ELON (Musk) plus GATES (Bill) – two ‘tech giants’. | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | LATOYA |
Girl from outskirts of Yokohama not above dancing a lot (6)
|
| A charade of LATO, an anagram (‘dancing’) of ‘a lot’ plus (‘not above’ – indeed below, in a down light) YA (‘outskirts of YokohamA‘). | ||
| 2 | MARSHALL |
Planet has room for a boy (8)
|
| A charade of MARS (‘planet’) plus HALL (‘room’). | ||
| 3 | NORMAN |
Boy and not adult male (6)
|
| A charade of NOR (‘and not’) plus MAN (‘adult male’). | ||
| 4 | PATRICK |
Boy to prepare for journey with intermittent steroid injection (7)
|
| An envelope (‘with … injection’) of TRI (‘intermittent sTeRoId’) in PACK (‘prepare for journey’). | ||
| 5 | CANADA |
Able to take girl into the country (6)
|
| A charade of CAN (is ‘able to’) plus ADA (‘girl’). | ||
| 6 | ISOLDE |
Wagner’s girl is more daring, removing clothes (6)
|
| A charade of ‘is’ plus [b]OLDE[r] (‘more daring’) minus the outer letters (‘removing clothes’). | ||
| 11 | LADY |
Boy to get surgery at last to become a woman (4)
|
| A charade of LAD (‘boy’) plus Y (‘surgerY at last’). | ||
| 14 | DZO |
Beast last to be caught by fleece (3)
|
| An envelope (‘to be caught by’) of Z (‘last’ letter of alphabet) in DO (hoodwink, ‘fleece’). One of various spellings for this animal. | ||
| 15 |
See 17
|
|
| 16 | NAB |
Catch name? Boatman (3)
|
| A charade of N (‘name’) plus AB (able-bodied seaman ‘boatman’). | ||
| 17, 15 | TISSUE |
In time, is girl a soft thing to be discarded? (6)
|
| A charade of T (‘time’) plus ‘is’ plus SUE (‘girl’). ‘In’ is just along for the ride. | ||
| 18 | ALAN |
Unconventional, androgynous: a boy coming out (4)
|
| A hidden answer (‘coming out’) in ‘unconventionAL ANdrogynous’ | ||
| 20 | SHERIDAN |
That girl’s free article for boy (8)
|
| A charade of SHE (‘that girl’) plus RID (‘free’) plus AN (indefinite ‘article’). | ||
| 21 | NEVILLE |
Level up, housing sick boy (7)
|
| An envelope (‘housing’) of ILL (‘sick’) in NEVE, a reversal (‘up’ in a down light) of EVEN (‘level’). | ||
| 23 | ANDREW |
One was even a boy (6)
|
| A charade of AN (‘one’) plus DREW (‘was even’). | ||
| 24 | ENTRAP |
Catch spouse getting up, leaving last part of newspaper (6)
|
| A reversal (‘getting up’ in a down light) of PARTNE[r] (‘spouse’) minus the R (‘leaving last part of newspapeR‘). | ||
| 25 | CRANNY |
Shed a tear about girl’s cleavage (6)
|
| An envelope (‘about’) of ANN (‘girl’) in CRY (‘shed a tear’). | ||
| 26 | STEVEN |
A good person, just a boy (6)
|
| A charade of ST (saint, ‘a good person’) plus EVEN (‘just’) |
Didn’t know that French word for because so didn’t parse CARLA and had no idea about the celebrity vegans. Working out how drew was equal to even took an age in ANDREW. Enjoyed the &lit PARANOIAC and also EYESORE, ELONGATES (haven’t I seen that somewhere recently?) and CRANNY for the surface.
ELONGATES was in 28,468 by Philistine in June as “Stretches from billionaires”
Wow, Peter O, you’re up bright and early. Thank you for the blog.
After wrestling with PARANOIAC I had to come down on the side of &lit.
Started off with PI (irrational), then ‘irrational’ as anagrind, then doing double duty. The light finally dawned.
Quite liked the surface reading of 9,10 and 11 connected by ellipses, but that also came after the event.
Both NUT LOAF and DZO were pretty fair cluing with crossers. Didn’t know either definition.
Favourite was EYESORE for the humour.
Thanks Boatman, it’s always great fun solving your crosswords. BASE RATE was my favourite due to its seamless surface. I was defeated by the little beast DZO, I couldn’t fully parse CARLA, and I too didn’t know about the celebrity vegans. Thanks PeterO for the early blog.
Got a cousin with a kid called Sheridan, and she’s a she; hey ho, fluid times. Yep, a bit chewier than usual, which is fine. Think I might’ve met a dzo before, but not a Latoya. Came across Miley Cyrus recently, can’t think where, maybe while streaming something; know nothing about them, so nut loaf was a whatever. Gawain was one of Arthur’s boys wasn’t he … is anybody actually called that … well, Gavin, I suppose. All good, ta BnP.
[pdm @3, I think Peter is GMT minus 5, so the previous evening as it were…]
[The Miley C thing was an ep of Black Mirror, not my usual fare but topical in a ‘yoof, tech, AI’ sort of way]
gif @5: as you say, it takes all sorts. One of my middle names – for no reason at all – is Sheridan! The only Latoya I can help you with is Jackson, sister of Michael etc. Gawain is a name of Welsh origin and, I thought, one still in use in the principality so I turned confidently to Wiki for some examples – and they give two Englishmen, a squash player and a chess grandmaster – and two Scots, a poet and an Orcadian folk singer. (Curiously, the original Arthurian Gawain hailed from Orkney, too!) I do hope that helps though cannot explain why you came across Miley Cyrus recently; that’s beyond my ken.
Quite tricky for a Monday and all those Christian names are challenging as you don’t get much of a def to work with; just boy/girl. And it’s amazing how many vowels ended up in the crossers. When you are searching for a helpful M, B, F or J that can set you in the right direction, getting two A’s, an I and an O is most frustrating! CONSUMERS, ISOLDE and NUT LOAF my favourites. Having ended up with the occasional chestnut in puzzles of my own, I wouldn’t dream of criticising but ELONGATES has surely been stretched to its extreme? To think, there was a time when the latter billionaire was criticised for world domination via Windows; when I look at the fecund headline-grabbing alternative, I almost feel nostalgic for dear old Bill …
Thanks Boatman and PeterO
Boatman is on my “avoid” list, but I thought what the heck, and got off to a flying start. I was really enjoying it and looking forward to a warm inner glow upon completion, but about three quarters of the way through I hit rough seas. I chuckled at ELONGATES, but vaguely remembered having seen it somewhere before (Tim C, above, seems to have nailed it). Most of the names fell into place quickly but I must say I’ve not met many people in my life named LATOYA or GAWAIN. I couldn’t get CARLA, and didn’t realise till I came here that one was required to be proficient in French. I’d not heard of a DZO, and was insufficiently familiar with Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth to get the connection, although I’d worked it out from the crossers and the anagram.
So will I remove Boatman from my “avoid” list? I’ll sleep on it …
I felt a chill when the theme emerged and the first example I got was LATOYA, but thankfully they weren’t all that obscure, and I had to stare at the explanation of 12a for a while before I could see where the second ‘a’ came from. High school French was many decades ago for me (and there aren’t native French speakers anywhere near Australia), so I found the parsing of 10a baffling. Finally, it was a bit odd for the definition of 20d to be ‘boy’ and not ‘boy or girl’, when I know that name best from the distinctly unboyish actress Sheridan Smith.
[Geoff @9: these two go back a bit but have some similarity with today’s puzzle. I enjoyed them both hugely. Not easy but worth the effort. If you are still pondering, these might make for interesting research:
Apples
Duck duck goose
I do hope you enjoy.]
@9 Geoff Down Under
‘didn’t realise till I came here that one was required to be proficient in French.’
Quite. There seems to be an increasing tendency to drop extensive French vocab into clues these days.
Thank you, Postmark! I’ll have a look.
Is it really OK, even in a crossword, to “define” someone suffering from a mental health condition (paranoia, or delusional disorder) by reference to two other mental health problems (“irrational panic” or “concealing the onset of anxiety”), neither of which is key to defining or understanding the first?
I don’t think people would be happy with it if we were dealing with a physical condition rather than a mental one. It’s a bit like making up a clue for ‘athlete’s foot’ by means of an attempted &lit involving veruccas and bunions.
Words like dzo always seem a bit of a cop-out to me, as though the setter had the d and the o, and rather than make changes to other answers, did a word search to find something to fit. That said, I thought the clue was fair. My memory of French is that parce que was because. Oh well, c’est la vie.
Tried to justify C-HER-RY = CLEAVAGE but Google only offered some fruitilly inappropriate suggestions.
I thought INCREASE was cute and also CARLA
Not sure about the triple ellipsis?
I’m sure Boatman once said that using names clued by boy/girl etc. was one of his pet hates. I thought it was a fun challenge to have so many clues with no definition to help the solve
I didn’t find this markedly different from standard Monday fare. The profusion of names if anything made solving slightly trickier.
Disappointed to see the billionaires again.
But then again I learned something about Miley and Liam.
Thanks Boatman and PeterO
Thanks, PeterO and Boatman. I’m the opposite of GDU @9 – I’m always happy to see Boatman’s byline on a crossword, and I found this one as enjoyable as ever. DZO defeated me – failed to make the mental leap to ‘last’ meaning Z – and it took me far too long to twig CARLA, though the French vocab is well within my range. Otherwise, found it all pretty plain sailing. Favourites were CONSUMERS, CHARADES, NUT LOAF, PATRICK, ISOLDE, ENTRAP.
When I got LATOYA, I did wonder if it was going to be a Jacksons theme, but I’m glad it wasn’t, because my knowledge of that subject would have been exhausted by Michael and Jermaine.
The first SHERIDAN I remember coming across in my youth was Morley, the theatre critic, but like others the name makes me think more of Ms Smith, the actor, these days. Given that a couple of clues refer to androgyny and sex-change, I wonder if this is deliberate and part of the theme – highlighting how unreliable names are as an indication of gender? (I have a vaguely similar recollection to Bodycheetah @16 – Boatman is toying with us!)
I really enjoyed this – lots of fun, particularly NUT LOAF, PARANOIAC and GAWAIN. Took me some time to get ELONGATES despite having seen it so many times. Many thanks to B & P.
Good fun and getting a name-check to boot, although boring compared to SHERIDAN, GAWAIN, LATOYA and ISOLDE. NUT LOAF was my favourite; I watched Most Dangerous Game with Liam Hemsworth last week and discovered he was divorced from MC but had no idea they were vegans. EYESORE….mmm
Ta Boatman & PeterO
Definitely tougher than most Mondays, when it is quite often interchangeable with the quiptic. I did get to the end, though, with a bit of bunging-and-checking. I belatedly realised that if you complete the puzzle on the Guardian web site then the ‘Check’ feature works at the letter level, not at the word level as in the app… which makes things somewhat easier but tempts some borderline cheating on short words!
I speak French so got CAR-LA but even I think that’s a vocab stretch too far for general knowledge. I know little about celebrity dietary habits so NUT LOAF was a bung with crossers. One could just as easily clued DUO or DIO so choosing DZO was an act of cruelty!
Tough, but satisfying to finish. A lot of the comments on the Guardian are quite negative, not wholly sure why.
I too wondered if there was going to be a Jacksons theme but the next name I found was not germane. This puzzle hasn’t totally cured me of my own aversion to boy and girl as definitions.
Boatman on a Monday was a surprise, but good fun. I thought NUT LOAF was brilliant – I didn’t know that Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth were vegans but that fact was easily guessable.
Nice to see the traditional dual “Boatman” (one being I/me and the other an actual boatman) at 19a and 16d.
I agree with others that CAR as French “because” was a bit unfair.
Many thanks Boatman and PeterO.
Bit of a curate’s egg this one, but more fun than I thought it was going to be, so thanks to the Jolly Tar and to PeterO for the blog.
I speak several languages but French isn’t one of them, so I sympathise with Geoff@9 and others about the level expected of solvers.
[I also regularly solve a puzzle (not cryptic) in a German astronomy magazine, where answers are often English, Latin (helps to know the genitive forms!), Greek or Arabic words.]
Sorry, Boatman, even though I thought ELONGATES was good early on (though TimC@2 points out something similar has been clued before) I didn’t much care for searching for a series of boys or girls names. Just wasn’t engaged enough to discover the likes of LATOYA or GAWAIN, and left D blank O at 14d alone as I’d never come across a DZO before. A grumpy DNF for me therefore this Monday morning.
We really enjoyed this crossword many thanks Boatman!
I don’t think it’s reasonable to complain about use of the french language, every solver has gaps in their general knowledge…ours are in the area of current affairs, celebs and sport, but I wouldn’t dream of complaining when solvers include names that we’ve never heard of ( like Liam and Miley whoever today).
If we make up those gaps by our knowledge of French, it evens the score a bit!
Thanks for the blog and a fun solve.
LATOYA clearly rings a bell with enough people to be justifiable, so no point harrumphing. After playing around desperately with different combinations of letters (YA, A from Above, Lots, Not) I opted for TAYONA (apparently a Canadian name meaning peaceful), deciding that the YA, the Not and the A would be dancing a lot. I think it parses as well as the actual answer (ie, not very). The Dzo (or Zho, Zo etc) obviously roams the fields of Crosswordland as prolifically as the Id (or Ide) teems in its waters and the Ling (or Erica) blooms on its slopes. Thanks as ever to setter and blogger.
Sagittarius@27 My first thought for LATOYA was TONYA (and &lit for the ice dancer), but it was a letter too short.
Thanks, Peter and all …
Bodycheetah @16 – I don’t think I’ve ever been exactly that outspoken about boy/girl clues, but it’s true that they’re not my favourites. The trouble is that I keep thinking of new ones, and every few years I have to clear them out of my notebook – the previous time was in July 2018. I’m sensitive to the fact that “boy” or “girl” is a very wide-ranging definition, and that’s why the wordplay here is relatively straightforward. To be fair to those who are starting their working week, I had in mind a summer evening for solving the puzzle rather than a Monday morning!
grantinfreo @5 and Widdersbel @18 – That’s a good point about the ambiguous SHERIDAN, and the fluidity does indeed fit the theme – I wish I’d thought of that and made a deliberate reference to it!
A tasteless start, as Essex Boy points out, to what was for me a rather tiresome puzzle, mainly due to its banal theme, if that is what it is. It is in The Guardian’s tradition of being insensitive towards people’s feelings, or their ailments, however. Crass in my view.
Well, i enjoyed ELONGATES. Made me smile. You had me worried Tim C@2 that something from June didn’t ring any bells, but on further investigation I see it’s June 2021.
Despite being no fan of themes I enjoyed that one, so thanks Boatman, and PeterO.
Well that was certainly harder than normal for a monday. Or has that sort of nicety been abandoned for good?
Thank you Boatman for dropping by – and for your acknowledgment of the Sheridan ambiguity. I’m another who usually harrumphs at clues where ‘girl’, ‘boy’ or – worst of all – ‘lad’ are seen as sufficient, but it was clear this trick was being deliberately pushed to extremes here, which made it more bearable. Funny, even. I know my Wagner and my Morte d’Arthur, and am of an age to recall when Latoya and Michael still had their original noses – although, given the range of monikers, I did find myself considering Leander, Cleopatra, Regan and Adele at various spots where existing crossers fitted…
I share Tony S at 4’s appreciation of 22A. Crispy at 15: I live in France (and so have an unfair advantage for 10A) but you’re quite right – parce que is used the most for because; car is sort of like “for”, as in, “I’m cutting down on pains chocolats for I’m trying to lose weight”.
And, yes, ELONGATES has been seen before, more than once, but it still made me grin. As did LADY.
Many thanks to Boatman and to PeterO for the comprehensive blog
Needed a second go at this, with CREASE holding out the longest. I had to do a bit of googling to see if there was such a thing as a DZO (also tried DOO, with the O coming from the last letter of To – turns out it’s Scottish for Dove, but I thought that might not qualify as a beast, and also be even more obscure). I got NUT LOAF from the crossers and the anagram, and was relieved to find when I googled them they had been noted vegans (but may not be now).
No names I had never heard of, but definitely a few I had to dredge up from the further reaches of my memory. But where would we be in Crosswordland without a bit of obscurity?
Cheating? (Rob T @ 21). Using available technology should be nothing to worry about – it’s a daily crossword puzzle, not even a Prize Crossword.
Since time immemorial we’ve used a dictionary, (or two or three), a thesaurus or an encyclopaedia to assist our solving – moving with the times to help us on is to be applauded or we’ll be accused of being dinosaurs …
Well done you for pointing us towards a way forward when we’re struggling: I for one approve.
I wondered when Boatie would appear again and a slight surprise to see him in the Monday slot
Started getting trickier around the bottom -at times i wondered if it was setter or solver who kept on almost tripping up.
All in all, a jolly jaunt.
Thanks all.
I guess the GK argument will run and run for as long as we are all solving crosswords. FWIW I had no issue with the Miley and Liam reference, despite not having heard of Liam Hemsworth. Google quickly told me that they were once married, which didn’t help, but more helpfully confirmed that NUT LOAF made sense as an anagram solution. As Panthes @26 observed, we all have gaps in our GK, but these days they are very easily filled.
However, despite being fluent in French, I raised an eyebrow at CARLA. Just feels like a step too far if you have to fill in a GK gap by reaching for a non-English dictionary.
That aside, I really enjoyed this one!
And lets not forget that (Richard Brinsley) Sheridan gave us Mrs Malaprop
Where would we be without the Irish?
Usually when I see it is Boatman I look forward to solving the puzzle and immediately look out for the dual “Boatman” clues as described by Lord Jim @23.
Today though I found it more difficult than usual – I think, as some have already said, the definition boy/girl was not a great help and neither were the vowel crosses. But perhaps I just wasn’t on the wavelength today.
Thanks Boatman and PeterO
Crossbar @31… so it is (2021). Doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun. I must have been thinking of something else (maybe not the Guardian). I also note that the Philistine (28,468) ELONGATES appeared, as you correctly say in 2021, 3 days after it appeared in Vulcan (28,465) but not with the billionaires but with the anagrammatic “Stretches, so elegant when dancing”. I still enjoyed it (and the clue) today.
I originally has HERMAN for 3d , which sort of works as a definition of “not adult male” if we’re running with the gender fluidity idea.
No interest in celebs, so LATOYA was LOI (after ‘check’ showed TALOYA was wrong) – NUTLOAF was easy from the anagram, though only vaguely aware of the people referred to, and I remember the previous billionaires’ occurrence.
Some great clues.. loved Wagner but soon got bored with naming.. hope tomorrow is better
Didn’t know CAR as because so bunged in LAYLA, and hoped for the best. Had REGAN for 26a, which works about as well as REGAL. RE(ER rev) G(girl) AN(a). REGAN was of course King Lear’s daughter, so a princess
No Longer Stuck @34, ha ha, I generally have no problem using applicational help when needed, I just think some tools veer closer to the idea of “cheating” than others… For example today I only got DZO by literally banging in every letter between the D and the O until I got to the bottom row of the keyboard! But it still counts as not hitting the Reveal button so I’m taking that as a win 🙂
Rob T @ 44 I tend to agree. Whatever I need to do to complete is fine with me, with a very big but that I get less satisfaction from doing so if I have to resort to a word search on the crossers or something like that. Particularly if it turns out to be something I should have got from the wordplay. But if it is an unfamiliar word and obscure GK wordplay, well I take the view that I got enough crossers to make a word search or a Chambers trawl viable, so why not. It’s not very black and white in my book.
If I didn’t know French I would use the next lockdown to learn it, if only to do these cryptics! [Currently tackling Spanish to double my access to football coverage.]
Altogether, I thought this a fine puzzle, even the more GKish clues being gettable from the wordplay.
I did wonder a bit about “not above” being used to mean “below” in LATOYA (since it could also imply “level with”), but then in cryptics we don’t just have synonyms but “specific forms of”, so it works that way.
Thanks for the challenge and for popping in, Boatman.
I think many people would know parce que for because in French, but I, for one, had never heard/seen car. Oh well, to be filed away for another day.
I particularly liked CHARADES and CREASE.
Thanks Boatman and PeterO.
Miss Wilcox was a Latoya, wasn’t she?
nicbach @48, I think she is a Toyah; from Wiki: Willcox has suggested her first name could be reference to Toyah, Texas, or to a Native American word “toyah” meaning “water,” although she notes her parents deny both origins.
That (48) might have been a joke …
Failed to solve 25ac (how to parse it?) and 25d – never heard the word CRANNY before.
I could not parse 16ac NUT LOAF – I had no idea those people are vegans; 19ac.
New: DZO, PARANOIAC.
Thanks, both.
Fiery Jack @45 – totally, one of the bonuses of doing crosswords is learning new words and phrases, and I feel slightly more virtuous picking them up via a ‘crossword helper’ route than simply revealing or coming here. Every day’s a school day!
But I share your frustration for those “gah, I should have got that” moments…
Maybe I’m the exception but although I usually love Boatman’s puzzles this was definitely not my cup of tea; I’ve NEVER been a fan of the “generic common noun for a proper noun” clue and this one of course, had it in spades. I know, I know, it’s completely kosher – it’s just not something I enjoy.
ELONGATES was a fun clue though!
At 14d, for a while I had DUO, having discovered a Canadian band named Beast. But there was no parsing that “U”!
I also took a detour to see if ALAN could be a girl’s name as well, given the surface.
Thanks to Boatman for explaining the reason for the theme — I had visions of you hunting for baby names. 😉 I actually enjoyed the names as a theme (probably more so than an odd clue in a normal puzzle).
Knew who Miley Cyrus was, never heard of Liam Hemsworth, didn’t know they were married, or divorced, or that either of them were vegan. I’d say that GK was just a tad obscure?
HarpoSpeaks @43 – That’s a very appealing alternative to REGAL! One to remember for the next book …
Rob T and others: yes, we’re just doing these puzzles for our own amusement, so I don’t think there’s really any such thing as “cheating”. If I’m in a hurry I do use a word finder or anagram finder, but when I have the time it’s much more satisfying to wait and let my brain slowly get there – which it often does in the end, no matter how impenetrable a clue may have seemed at first.
[tlp @30: your comment just reinforces my feelings @37 of yesterday’s Everyman blog.]
Hadn’t bothered to join in but noticed HarpoSpeaks @43. I had the same, thought REGAL could only apply to a monarch, never a princess. A curate’s egg of a crossword. CAR-LA is a bit too French and LATOYA a bit too Pop for normal users.
Ian @ 55 – I imagine the setter was looking for famously-broken-up-couples-who-are-also-vegetarian. Perhaps not too many names fit that bill
Well I didn’t remember ELONGATES. I didn’t especially like thinking of names but reasonable. Forgot DZO, doh and missed ALAN!
I do think some of the explanations could be trimmed…hope not to offend… lots of brackets and quotation marks, envelopes and “charades” everywhere.
Thanks both
I found this very tough for a Monday puzzle. Does 20d work? Surely “that girl’s” equates to “her” not to “she”?
tim the toffee @60
No offense taken. In trying to make my explanations as clear as I can, I have fallen into a style which is certainly more wordy than some other bloggers. I am definitely open to modifying this if there is a general preference – the trouble is that it is rather late in the day, and not not many people will see these comments. Perhaps I will bring the matter up in a preamble – I am happy to get feedback such as yours.
Gary @61
This is a perennial. The apostrophe s such as “that girl’s” could be a possessive, an abbreviation for “is’, or an abbreviation for “has”. In 20D “has” is required to convey “is followed by”. A little awkward, perhaps, but just too convenient a sleight of hand for compilers to give up.
Not surprised to have flunked DZO. Thilled, though, to discover DZO (and its variants) to add to our Scrabble arsenal, but (alas) fficial online Hasbro guide doesn’t pass any of them.
I want to support Essex Boy @14 and The Last Plantagenet @30 for their criticism of the conflation of paranoia, anxiety and panic, which are indeed unrelated. However, speaking of the Last Plantagenet himself…didn’t Shakespeare portray Richard II as an anxiety-ridden paranoiac who suffered from panic attacks? Although in his case they were not symptoms of mental illness so much as rational terror concerning the murderous designs of Bolingbroke.
STEPH at 27a works if an abbreviated name is legit.
Thanks Boatman & PeterO
TimC @1 sums it up for me. Not only could I not parse CARLA, but I couldn’t parse LAYLA or PAULA either, so I was a DNF. While some of the names were a bit obscure, I am surprised that some don’t know GAWAIN. Thanks, Boatman and PeterO.
Yes, Steph was my first thought, nametag @65, but my second was that step for change, while juuuust plausible, was too big a stretch …
Interesting that people raise eyebrows about GK relying on people who are famous in the last 10 years … but not things that happened 60 years ago!
Thanks PeterO and Boatman – I like this version of Boatman, with his trademark surfaces but very slightly pared back on difficulty level
Lord Jim #57, over the last couple of days you have appeared here with a real determination to cause acrimony. I invite you to desist.
Andrew #64, many thanks. Mental anguish is no fun, and it should not be the butt of jokes. As to the real last Plantagenet, I hope I am not labouring under a delusion: it was III and not II, I hope!
Thanks Boatman and PeterO – that one went in a blur
I thought Able Bodied Seaman was AS? Only one I couldn’t parse was CREASE, although took me a while to find the second A for 1A.
Can any Francophones tell me the context in which “car” = “because”? I can only find examples where “parce-que” is correct
[The Last Plantagenet @69: it all depends on whether the House of York and the House of Lancaster are considered to be successor houses or to stand alone. Apparently the terminology is that the “Main Line” ended with the arrival of Bolingbroke…the entire “House” ended with the arrival of Tudor. So it seems that neither you nor I were delusional. We merely have an honest terminological difference. Cheers!]
4:58@70 “Parce que” is the word everybody uses. “Car” is used about as often in French as “for” with the same meaning is in English (as has been noted above). You wouldn’t say, for instance. “I got here late for I had a flat tire.” (Essexboy, have I constructed the wrong sort of sentence for the use of “for” in English?)
I found this one a bit frustrating because of all the possiblities for girl’s and boy’s names as well as the overlay of other references to the theme in order to obtain solutions such as 8a LASS(O) and 11d LAD(Y). Nevertheless, there were some clues like 6d ISOLDE that I enjoyed. So (tardy) thanks to Boatman and PeterO.
[BTW, PeterO@62, I didn’t find your explanations in today’s blog overly-wordy – they were written in your usual clear, careful, detailed and very helpful style as far as I am concerned.]
4:58 @70 – just to add to the responses already given, French is not dissimilar to English in that there are often less-used variants for common conjunctions. In English we usually say because but could, if we wished to sound more formal, use for, since or as (and of course we could use cos if we wanted to go less formal).
The example English phrase by Valentine @72 could be translated variously as “Je suis arrivé en retard parce que / puisque / car j’avais un pneu crevé”.
But I agree it was a tad unfair to use a secondary word such as car in an English crossword!
PeterO @62
Thanks. That’s clear now.
Merci, Valentine and Rob T
VERY late to the blog but an endoscopy got in the way of the crossword yesterday. I have to comment on EYESORE as a homophone for “I saw” as it adds to the increasingly prevalent world of Laura Norder and Isawrim. There is no R on the end of “saw” so even in the rhotic world this homophone should not work! Rant over – thanks to Boatman and Peter O
I know this was Monday’s crossword, but I’m just catching up after being away cycling and camping in the Yorkshire Dales, so if anyone reads this, please bear with me.
I have French to O-level (1970) and although one of my brothers has lived in France for more than 30 years, my use of the language when I visit is far more basic than apparently demanded by the clue for 10a. And yet I got CARLA straight away. As with other crosswords, other clues, the knowledge and use of language demanded by the setter can vary. OK, so I was somehow aware of CAR=because, but there are plenty of uses of English, Spanish, German, French and, let’s face it, American, which trip me up from time to time. I really don’t think this clue was unfair.
The slightly less prevalent complaint has been about the seemingly casual and inaccurate use of words to describe mental health problems in order to make a clever clue for PARANOIAC. A comparison was made with a putative clue for ATHLETES FOOT with mention of bunions and verrucas in the wordplay. Personally I don’t see a problem with either attempt at a clue. We have to deal with all sorts of inaccuracy in clues, such as ‘dejeuner sur l’herbe’ to clue PIC recently, which most seem to have dealt with in one way or another, yet when it comes to mental health the setter has caused offence? I’m quite prepared to be offended by the PIC, if you like.
Someone mentioned being “insensitive to people’s feelings” but when all’s said and done it’s just a crossword clue, not a stand-up routine. This is not about treating mental ill health less seriously than it deserves, and please note that this is coming from one who expressed on this site the shock and horror caused by the clue ‘Death – by hanging?’ which everyone else thought was just fine. And is ‘irrational panic’ or ‘concealing the onset of anxiety’ really so very far away from at least hinting at a definition for paranoia? Think of Stalin, Hitler and Putin and tell me those are not fairly accurate descriptions. (I’d like to see bunions and verrucas in a clue for ATHLETES FOOT, though; I’ll bet it can’t be done.)