A typically well-crafted puzzle from Pasquale, with a couple of nice “anagram &lit” clues. Thanks to Pasquale, and also to all readers and commenters: see you in 2023.
| Across | ||||||||
| 1 | PRACTICE | It makes perfect sacrifice, deed being hidden (8) ACT (deed) in PRICE (sacrifice) – from the saying “practice makes perfect” |
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| 5 | ACHING | Painful bill — object, spending time (6) AC (account, bill) + THING less T |
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| 9 | NEOLOGISM | It’s new in some lingo (9) Anagram of SOME LINGO, &lit |
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| 11 | LARNE | Way river runs into Irish port (5) R in LANE (way) |
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| 12 | VAN ALLEN BELT | Vehicle has all soldiers heading off with speed in upper region (3,5,4) VAN (vehicle) + ALL + [m]EN (soldiers) + BELT (to speed) |
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| 15 | NEAT | Well turned-out exhibits at cattle show? (4) Double definition – neat is an old word for cattle, and a useful item in the setter’s toolbox |
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| 16 | DOMINATION | Control comes with financial gift — main way to get in (10) M1 (UK motorway, a “main way”) in DONATION |
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| 18 | RECIPROCAL | One of two is half expressing mutual relationship (10) Double definition: the reciprocal of two is a half |
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| 19 | FELL | What the devil did is cruel (4) And another double definition: the devil fell (a “fallen angel”) |
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| 21 | DESENSITIZED | I’d sneezed — it’s bad — could antihistamines make one this? (12) (I’D SNEEZED IT’S)* |
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| 24 | EYRIE | Jane keeps one place for eggs (5) I in EYRE (Charlotte Brontë’s titular character) |
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| 25 | TENTATIVE | Insecure in shelter, Argentinian lady turned over (9) TENT (shelter) + reverse of EVITA (nickname of Eva Peron) |
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| 26 | TYPIST | Asian drunk, we hear — one in the pool? (6) Homophone of “Thai pissed”. Younger solvers may not be familiar with the concept of the typing pool |
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| 27 | BLUDGEON | British lord, grand, a very long time in club (8) B + LUD + G + EON |
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| Down | ||||||||
| 1 | PUNY | Feeble joke — start to yawn (4) PUN (joke) + Y[awn] |
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| 2 | AVON | French plane, one ditched in river (4) AVION (French for aeroplane) less I. There are a number of Rivers called Avon |
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| 3 | TOO BAD | Old boy, taken in by baddy, gives expression of resignation (3,3) OB in TOAD |
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| 4 | CLIMATOLOGIST | Weather expert with cold capital to record is taking temperature (13) C + LIMA + TO LOG + IS + T |
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| 6 | CALENDAR | Schedule a novice driver needs to finish up in vehicle (8) A + L (learner driver) + END (to finish up) in CAR |
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| 7 | ISRAELITES | Is artist chosen son from chosen people? (10) IS RA (artist) + ELITE + S |
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| 8 | GREAT-UNCLE | Member of family can let urge get out of control (5-5) (CAN LET URGE)* |
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| 10 | MULTINATIONAL | A mountain — it’ll spread across more than one country (13) (A MOUNTAIN IT’LL)* |
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| 13 | INGREDIENT | Component in dinner I get possibly (10) (DINNER I GET)* |
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| 14 | WATCHSTRAP | Fiddling at wrist, chap may let one slip off (10) Anagram of AT WRIST CHAP less I, &lit |
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| 17 | SPANIELS | Painless barking for dogs (8) PAINLESS* |
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| 20 | REMAND | Looking angry, fellow being caught and put back inside (6) MAN in RED |
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| 22 | HIKE | President once with aspiration for boost (4) IKE (nickname of Dwight Eisenhower) with an initial H (aspiration) |
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| 23 | HEWN | Cut width in layer (4) W in HEN (a layer of eggs) |
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I enjoyed this one, no cheats needed today. TYPIST a beauty.
Thanks Pasquale and Andrew
Nice approachable Pasquale with few of his tricky words this time. And the & lits are lovely. NEOLOGISM,EYRIE, INGREDIENT and SPANIELS my favourites.
Andrew, I think your definition underlining for MULTINATIONAL has embraced part of the fodder and the anagrind and ,in ISRAELITES it’s chosen = ELITE son = S, though I am not sure I like the ‘from’ as link which seems the wrong way round?
Thanks Pasquale and Andrew
Dave Ellison @1 Its so old that its almost new again-like a stopped clock!
Different age now-young professionals can type faster than think-and thats just on a phone!@
The clue for TYPIST was worthy of Paul, but I agree with Andrew that typing pools probably ceased to exist with the advent of word processing. Certainly found this on the easier side of Pasquale’s puzzles, but liked the surfaces and the reminder about the VAN ALLEN BELT. Tried ‘mongolise’ for 9 initially until 1d put me right. Thanks Andrew and Pasquale.
Enjoyable puzzle today – I missed a couple due to a lack of vocabulary on my part (didn’t know that other meaning of 15a for example). That’ll teach me to pick up a dictionary sometimes 🙂
Anyway thanks so much Andrew for the blog and to Pasquale for the mental exercise.
Some great clues and surfaces. I especially liked 19a.
~ Matt
Lovely stuff that we have come to expect from The Don.
The typing pool saved many a blush from illiterate managers in the past. I would often receive my draught back for signature and think, “Oh yes, that’s what I meant”.
I’m old enough to remember typing pools and TYPIST was a great clue.
I had Hell instead of FELL, parsed also as a double definition as “what the devil” as in expletive, and “is cruel”. The “did” doesn’t figure in that so Fell is better.
Favourites for me (as well as TYPIST) were the nice &lit NEOLOGISM and EYRIE.
Thanks Pasquale and Andrew.
I agree with Dave E@1 and others about TYPIST (26a) – what a great clue! – but yes, it’s been a long time ago since I sent letters to the typing pool (in my fairly brief career as a public servant back in the 1970s!).
Have to say I thought Pasquale was being fairly gentle with us today. I did love the Jane Eyre reference for EYRIE at 24a, as well as TENTATIVE at 25a and HEWN at 23d.
All that being said, a close check of the blog reveals that I failed to solve it completely – I had HELL for 19a. I thought the definition was the exclamation, “What the devil” = HELL!, with the sense of “cruel” as HELLish. Never mind, all good fun.
A dnf today, filled it in a rush as had to go out, so bunged the wrong vowel in Larne, didn’t parse the neat ‘one of two is half’ bit of reciprocal, d’oh, or pass the &litness test for watchstrap. Yep the public service office I worked briefly in, 1970, had a typing pool. Long gone, along with clerks, filing clerks, accounting clerks & etc. All good fun, thanks PnA.
[I am not sure why/how my moniker transmogrified to “Julie Australia” but I can assure you my surname is not “Australia”!]
[We crossed, gif@9. Yes how weird to think about now – I would write a letter in longhand and send it down to the typing pool. I was an “assessor” but as well as the assistance of the typists, I do recall lots of different clerks and clerical assistants doing support work.]
Thanks for the parsing of NEAT; I couldn’t nut that one out, even though I completed the puzzle.
Thanks also to all the contributors here, as well as the BTL commenters, and have a HNY.
Took ages to get going with this one but the long anagrams were a helpful way in and it all came together nicely in the end. A typically elegant puzzle, thanks, Pasquale. I liked the neatness of AVON.
“Younger solvers may not be familiar with the concept of the typing pool“ – that’s putting it very tactfully, Andrew. Being a tender young 50-something, typing pools were already a thing of the past by the time I started employment. Thanks for the blog, as erudite as ever.
Julie in Australia @8, Snap with Hell.
[Yep ditto, JinA. We assessed applications for child allowance, pension etc, wrote any necessary correspondence, and then it was as you say]
HEWN was a great example of a clever clue for a short word, which I always think is a sign of skill in a setter. I have seen the drunken Asian in the pool before, but it still made me smile.
I had a slightly disjointed experience – quick to spot the long anagrams and then real challenge in filling in the last few short ones. HIKE, HEWN, LARNE and especially FELL gave me a lot of trouble. Thought about just chucking in HELL or DEAL but gave it the full alphabet search in the end.
Lots of cleverness to enjoy, particularly in the shorter clues and also the excellent WATCHSTRAP. I thought it slightly odd that TOO BAD was clued with “baddy” and it made me think twice about my answer, but perhaps that’s an intentional bluff on the part of the setter.
Thanks P&A.
An utter delight from start to finish!
The long anagrams were satisfying, but I agree with Petert at 16: the clever short ones were even more impressive, especially TYPIST, EYRIE, FELL, HIKE & HEWN.
Thank you Andrew for the blog, and a 21-gun salute to Pasquale for being brilliant.
Was Lucifer the devil when he fell or did he become the devil by falling?
Earworm? Desmond Dekker & the Aces ISRAELITES
Cheers P&A
[copmus @3, I’ve left you a note on General Discussion about what we were saying yesterday]
NEOLOGISM my favourite. Brilliant clue. Also liked BLUDGEON with the double duty on British and lord (lud).
Don’t agree that WATCHSTRAP is an &lit.. A few too many words in there and some women still have watchstraps too.
I remember the typing pool, and dictaphones, but unfortunately wasn’t able to take advantage of that before I got RSI.
Liked REMAND for the surface, wordplay and def.
The anagrams were good too, although the long’uns were perhaps overly accessible. DESENSITIZED made me laugh.
TOO BAD was a bit unfortunate, with ‘baddy’ in the wordplay.
Bodycheetah@19. Have had that earworm all day and now I’m going to have to go to bed with that as well.. 🙁
Thanks Pasquale and Andrew
Quite easy but a lot of fun – it reminded me of the Don’s Quiptic on Monday. It helped that the anagrams jumped out at me. Lots of favourites, especially NEOLOGISM, TENTATIVE, and TYPIST.
Is NEAT one of those words that’s its own plural? I was expecting “exhibit”.
[I may have recounted this before: years ago my mother-in-law was telling us about a friend of hers who had climbed all the Lakeland 2000footers. I asked if it had taken him ages.
“No” she said innocently “he did them in one fell swoop”, then wondered why everyone started laughing!]
me @23
Yes, neat can be singular or plural.
Typically well constructed puzzle from the Don.
I particularly enjoyed NEOLOGISM and WATCHSTRAP. The clues for the short words are all good (FELL was my LOI!).
The reason there are so many rivers called AVON (as Andrew notes) is that it is a Celtic word meaning – river 🙂
Thanks to S&B
Sorry about that paddymelon @22 – you could always try sining the alternative lyrics 🙂
Not sure how you “sine” a lyric – maybe the mathematicians can help?
Another HELL here, and I was never enough of a mathematician to know about RECIPROCALs – just got it from the mutual relationship. On the other hand, we did do the Winter’s Tale for A level, where the double meaning of neat/tidy and neat/cattle is used by Shakespeare himself.
As a student, I used to do holiday jobs in the typing pool in the days when they still existed.
Too fine a theological point for me, cheetah @19 but, as a crusty old atheist, chuffed that I did twig it was about Lucifer’s fall (whereas a certain nice Catholic girl did not 😉 xx)
bodycheetah@26. That’s hilarious. An extended mondegreen. Signing off now. 🙂
Anna and I found this a delight, with everything slipping in pretty smoothly. At one stage, though, I spotted NEOLOGISM and Anna said ‘what’s that? It’s a new word to me’. Very apt. There are too many really nice clues to pick out favorites. Thanks, Pasquale and Andrew. [PS paddymelon – thanks heaps for your links late in yesterday’s blog on Indigenous Australian astronomical knowledge . I have heard Krystal talk about this live. Fascinating.]
19 across. Well as in “well well “?
Lots of terrific clues. A few I didn’t get — NEAT, HIKE — and didn’t fully parse RECIPROCAL till I came here — it’s very clever. Never heard of Larne, but Google maps helped, and VAN ALLEN BELT was a surprise.
Very straightforward today but some beautiful clues already mentioned. The best thing about LARNE is leaving it.
Ta Pasquale & Andrew for all your wonderful blogs throughout 2022.
Thanks for the blog, very neat set of clues, I agree with Peter@16 and Wellbeck@18 for the short answers. HIKE and HEWN are pretty good for 4 letters and the last two written as well probably.
For a change I have been using the MrPostMark method of trying the clues in number order, makes it so much easier. back to normal next week.
[bodycheetah@27 – a Fourier transform? You might need a choir of siners.]
Happy New Year to all,. Looking forward to another year of entertainment and collective erudition.
BodyCheetah@27 , you can sine anything using a Taylor series.
AlanC@34 have you recovered from your beloved KPR losing to a team named after an airport ?
Only 27 people have passed through the Van Allen Belt(s) , they do actually give our planet a lot of protection.
[Roz @37: 🙂 Unfortunately your scientific theory is proving somewhat shaky. Thanks for the laughs in 2022].
Enjoyable puzzle even though I failed to solve 12ac (never heard of this) and 22d.
Liked TYPIST, DOMINATION, TOO BAD, EYRIE, HEWN.
New: LARNE.
Thanks, both.
Can anyone please explain how they arrived at fell from cruel in the definition.
The gentler side of Pasquale, with the 4 letter answers being the trickiest.
Loved NEOLOGISM, TYPIST and RECIPROCAL. Also hail the return of Evita!
Thanks Pasquale and Andrew!
PS there was still a typing pool at my work in 2001!
Peter@41 FELL=cruel is in Chambers , first definition for Fell 6 . It does turn up in crosswords quite often, fairly old usage , I expect someone can find quotes.
Nice way to finish the week. Alternate meanings for NEAT and FELL were new to me, but guessed the former from crossers and the other definition.
[AlanC @39 , quantum entanglement works over a long time scale , you are reaping the reward for a string of number 1 hits . VAN ALLEN BELT were a 90s band, there must be more ]
A gentle Goldilocks for me with RECIPROCAL getting the golden gong (for the Aha!).
A VHNY to all involved at 15^2, bloggers in particular.
Thanks Pasquale and Andrew. This was a real treat – esp. favourite ‘neologism’. Was stuck for ages on 23d and guessed straight solution of ‘cut’. Layer=hen one to look out for in future.
Thank you Roz I’ve found it now in my Collins Dictionary.
Very nice puzzle.
[The TYPIST clue reminded me of the curiosity that “I pissed”, “I pissed off”, “I was pissed” and “I was pissed off” can all have completely different meanings.]
Thanks P&A
Thought the several excellent anagrams were a very helpful grid filler today. Always imagined Bradford on AVON was on the same river as Stratford on AVON till I had a proper look at the map one day. Some very pleasing clues today. Ran the terrifying gauntlet of the typing pool as a teenage office junior in the Sun Alliance Insurance place in King Street, WC whatever, in the late 1960’s. Many thanks P and A…
[Peter@41, Roz@44: “There is a fell voice upon the wind” Legolas to Gandalf in LoTR, before they decide to cross the mountains via Balin’s halls.]
Another fine puzzle to end the 2022 weekday cryptic puzzles. Many thanks to all the bloggers for the explanations throughout the year.
[The 90s band VAN ALLEN BELT are not to be confused with the 60s prog rock band Van Der Graaf Generator – they of the gloriously pretentious album ‘H to He Who Am the Only One’]
Does my learned friend plead, m’lud, that “lud” = “lord” with no indications of variant pronunciation? You can’t say “House of Luds” or “Lud of the Rings.”
I hadn’t realized that NEAT could be a plural. “The meadow was full of neat”? Sounds odd.
Fine puzzle. Got all last night except REMAND, a word I don’t really understand, or did until I looked it up this morning. Thanks, Pasquale and Andrew. Happy New Year to you, to all setters and bloggers and to all of us in the cheap seats.
[Valentine @55
You’ve reminded of a reported exchange between a barrister (F E Smith?) and a judge:
Your honour, my client was then as drunk as a judge
I believe the expression is as drunk as a lord, Mr, Smith
Thank you for the correction, my Lord.]
Thanks Pasquale for your usual well-crafted work. I usually find this setter a challenge but this was close to a write-in for me. I had “hell” instead of FELL and only understood half of NEAT and RECIPROCAL but generally this slipped in easily. Favourites included PRACTICE, EYRIE, TYPIST, and the simple HEWN. Thanks Andrew for this and all of your blogs this year.
Roz @44 – well, the obvious quote is the famous one from Macbeth IV.3 when Macduff learns of the murder of his wife and children on Macbeth’s orders: “What, all my pretty chickens and their dam
At one fell swoop?”
It’s interesting that the phrase “one fell swoop” (see mine @23) has lasted when other uses of “fell” in that related sense have become much rarer.
Thank you Spooner’s Catflap @58 , I did not know that phrase was from Macbeth, the secondary meaning seems more common these days.
You are welcome, Roz. Also, earlier in the play, in Lady M’s ‘Unsex me here’ speech she talks of her ‘fell purpose’ in prompting the murder of Duncan at her husband’s hands.
I did do Macbeth at school but unfortunately I used to just read my physics books in all my other lessons. “Fell purpose ” is actually a better example , has to be cruel.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
William Ernest Henley
It hadn’t occurred to me until these comments that the “fell” in “one fell swoop” meant “cruel” originally, but I suppose it does. One of my favorite spoonerisms, incidentally, which I often use intentionally, is “one swell foop.”
I found this easy by Pasquale standards, which didn’t make it easy by any absolute standard! The only word I’d never seen was the Irish port, which I gleaned from the Wikipedia list of Irish ports. (Not cheating, in my book, since that’s in the category of knowledge I can’t be expected to have.)
NEAT for cattle shows up often enough in these puzzles that it’s no longer a surprise, but it’s also something that I’ve seen nowhere else.
Re the typing pool: At my very first law-firm job (1997, while still in law school) I was slated to do some off-site document review, and asked the secretary assigned to me to get me a dictaphone (i.e., a hand-held tape recorder) to help accomplish the task. She looked at me like I had three heads for a moment, then sniffed, “And who do you think is going to be TAKING this dictation?” I had to soothe her feathers by pointing out that I would be typing it all up when I got back to the office. Anyway, the point is, she clearly remembered the typing-pool days, but they were far in the past by then.
muffin @59 – yes, it’s interesting how often that happens; I think of it as being like water trapped in a rock pool when the linguistic tide goes out.
Roz @38, re the number of people who have passed through the Van Allen belts – that’s fascinating, I was trying to work it out. Is that three astronauts each, Apollo 8 plus 10 through 17? But didn’t Gene Cernan go twice, Apollo 10 plus 17?
Thanks P & A, and everyone for all the puzzles and blogs this year.
Quite correct MrEssexboy , in fact Cernan , Young and Lovell went twice. I should have said journeys rather than people . Eugene Cernan was the last person on the moon and famous last words.
Thank you Gladys @63.
Very enjoyable.
A few new words to add to my feeble vocabulary…
NEAT = cattle
FELL = cruel
A few parsings needed checking.
Thanks to the Don and Andrew.
HYN all.
I suspect most people use ‘one fell swoop’ without realising the meaning of ‘fell’ in this context. The same happens with other stock phrases where a word has an archaic meaning. My favourite example is ‘the exception that proves the rule’. Illogical, unless you understand that ‘prove’ in this sense originally meant ‘test’ and not ‘verify’.
‘The proof of the pudding is in the eating’ is another example of ‘proof’ = ‘test’.
My favourite typing pool memory is submitting a poorly written draft containing the words peaks and troughs relating to activity. Unable to make out my writing somebody called out what goes with troughs, so my official document went out with a misleading reference to pigs and troughs!
[Roz – I remember seeing ‘The Last Man on the Moon’, about Eugene Cernan, made in 2016, not long before he died. Fascinating watch. When I was a smaller essexboy I wanted to be an astronaut. I haven’t quite given up the idea 😉 ]
HIYD @67 – every day’s a school day here… I was familiar with the meaning of FELL but wouldn’t have automatically associated it with the phrase “one fell swoop” and nor did I know that was from Macbeth. Hopefully some of these things will sink in and we’ll remember them for next time they come up.
Haven’t solved a Friday puzzle this quickly for a long time! Didn’t take long to find 15ac, save checking the plural. Neatsfoot oil is available these days as a leather treatment product. Available in many shoe shoppes.
[ MrEssexboy ESA is still recruiting , it is not for me. I am not claustrophobic but I do not like being cooped up inside for too long. ]
And we often hear “one foul swoop” these days. I guess it’s a case of a common malapropism gradually morphing into correct usage as the language evolves.
For 20d, why the back in “put back inside”. A remand doesn’t mean a return so just “put inside”?
Dwyster @76
Frequently a suspect is arrested, held in police cells, comes up before the magistrate, and is “remanded in custody” – i.e. put back inside?
Gervase @68: yes that’s one explanation of the phrase “the exception that proves the rule”, and very possibly the correct one. But I rather like an alternative theory, that the phrase has a legal origin. If you were trying to establish whether there was a historic right, a right of way for example, and you found a document specifying an exception to that rule – say that people were not allowed to use that path between certain dates – that would prove that there was a rule for there to be an exception to.
[I’ve a book on misunderstood expressions, that includes “the exception proves the rule”. I think it mentions Gervase’s interpretation, but instead concludes that it’s the “exception” that is being misinterpreted. I would have to find the book again to be more specific!]
Valentine@55. BLUDGEON. I took British to be doing double duty to indicate the ‘lud’.
[Tassie Tim@31. Glad you enjoyed the link yesterday to two First Nations astrophysicists and story tellers. They had me riveted. And lucky you for hearing Krystal in person.]
I thought of “This fell sergeant death is strict in his arrest” from Hamlet’s deathbed speech.
We can’t leave PG Wodehouse out of it (even if he’s nicked it off Shakespeare):
I could see no happy issue for him from the soup in which he was immersed. No words had been exchanged between Upjohn and self on the journey out, but the glimpses I had caught of his face from the corner of the eyes had told me that he was grim and resolute, his supply of the milk of human kindness plainly short by several gallons. No hope, it seemed to me, of turning him from his fell purpose.
(Jeeves in the Offing, Chap 19 para 2)
Btw, a propos remanding in custard, fell in the dastardly sense is thought to come from the same Proto-Germanic root as felon.
eb @ 82
‘remanded in custard’ is an interesting concept.
[Simon – it’s only getting one’s just desserts.]
[eb @84: … and doing Bird’s the outcome?]
[ 🤣 ]
Great quote from PGW, essexboy, and of course ‘the milk of human kindness’ is nicked from the same source, being what Macbeth is allegedly too full of to catch the nearest way.
[The nearest whey?
Eternal curds fall on you! 🙂 ]
How about Marlowe’s:
Come live with me and be my love
And we will all the pleasures prove
Not only has the meaning of ‘prove’ drifted, but it no longer rhymes with ‘love’!
In Italian ‘una prova’ is a test; the verb ‘provare’ is ‘to attempt’.
[eb et al. Custard would be preferable, I reckon, if I got sent down (a richly evocative British expression, whether it’s in the Old Bailey, where I took my students in the mid 70s, or Oxford, when you’ve been naughty). Not so keen on porridge. But you’d never want to stir the way. Could lead to the dungeon, and never see the light of day. ]
Re 1a PRACTICE, at the music camp for amateurs that I attend the expression we use is “Practice makes adequate”.
I had lots of ticks, starting with 9a NEOLOGISM, for its perfect surface. 4a CLIMATOLOGIST was a marvelous six-part charade. And I was another one who fell for hell (hell bent for fell?) @19a.
Thanks, all. I enjoyed this crossword immensely, but not more than I enjoyed the various comments. (Being partly of Scottish background, I naturally prefer porridge to custard, but I don’t want to stir the pot or leave anyone with a cold in high dudgeon.)
Hi all, first timer here!
Very much a newbie to cryptics myself. Dabbling my toes in here in memoriam to my Dad, who quite liked reading the comments here (not sure if he commented himself, though). I’d come downstairs in the morning and he’d complain to me about the prize crossword, or a clue from Paul or Vlad that didn’t make sense, and he’d try to explain them all to me.
He died quite suddenly and unexpectedly on Dec 18th, so Christmas and New Year without him has been tough. Starting cryptics as they’re one thing I know he loved (and always tried to teach me).
Might become an incredibly talented serial commenter, might end up sticking to the Metro Quick crossword on the tube! Who knows? Sending New Year greetings to everyone!
Welcome poppym, and condolences on your sad loss. Do stick around: you might want to start off with the Monday puzzles. which are usually (though not invariably) on the easier side, and the Guardian Quiptic. It does get easier with practice!
Poppy, please stay with it, and with us. You will find us a congenial group – and ask for help any time you are stuck on a clue. As Andrew says, the Quiptics are a good place to start; you can get old ones on line through this website.
I too started on cryptics with my father, who liked easier ones like the Quiptics. We were working on one on the day he died, sixteen years ago, and even now when I do one of those I feel as though he’s sitting beside me, writing in each solution. It is such a gift. I hope in the time you will feel the same.