The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/29026.
That was definitely hard. The keystone 19D did not yield, and my entry was getting the improbable 4A BERCOW from the obvious wordplay – I looked him up, and Bob’s your uncle. Even then, there was plenty of work left to do, not least in consultation of Wikipedia’s list of Speakers of the House of Commons. As said by Greenlander in the Guardian comments “I think I need a good lie down after that. Thanks Paul.”
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | THRUSH |
Singer is withdrawn from this race (6)
|
| A charade of ‘th[is]’ minus IS (‘is withdrawn’) plus RUSH (‘race’). | ||
| 4 | BERCOW |
Queen punches British bully, 19 (6)
|
| An envelope (‘punches’) of ER (‘Queen’) in B (‘British’) plus COW (‘bully’), for John Bercow, a past speaker (’19’) of the House of Commons. | ||
| 9 | DEMO |
March Ides essentially, short time (4)
|
| A charade of DE (‘iDEs essentially’) plus MO (‘short time’). | ||
| 10 | WEATHERILL |
Conditions bad for 19 (10)
|
| A charade of WEATHER (‘conditions’) plus ILL (‘bad’), for Bernard Weatherill, a past speaker (’19’) of the House of Commons. | ||
| 11 | STRATI |
Artist’s high clouds (6)
|
| An anagram (‘high’) of ‘artist’. | ||
| 12 | GARRISON |
Bomb soaring over entrance to Russian fortress (8)
|
| An envelope (‘over’) of R (‘entrance to Russian’) in GARISON, an anagram (‘bomb’, as an imperative) of ‘soaring’. | ||
| 13 | BRACELETS |
Two permits for jewellery (9)
|
| A charade of BRACE (‘two’) plus LETS (‘permits’). | ||
| 15 | TERN |
Might that be Arctic roll, did you say? (4)
|
| Doubly cryptic definition. | ||
| 16 | CHAT |
1 down’s communication (4)
|
| ‘1 down’ TWEETER as a user of Twitter. | ||
| 17 | MOTHERESE |
‘Coochy-coo’ etc: additional vacuous expressions embraced by yours truly (9)
|
| An envelope (’embraced by’) of OTHER (‘additional’) plus ES (‘vacuous ExpressionS‘) in ME (‘yours truly’). I could not find MOTHERESE in my Chambers, but is is in Collins online, and in Wikipedia, under baby talk. | ||
| 21 | INSTRUCT |
Train during parade transports leader of carnival (8)
|
| An envelope (‘transports’) of C (‘leader of Carnival’) in IN (‘during’) STRUT (‘parade’). | ||
| 22 | WOOFER |
19 — 27, for example (6)
|
| Double definition: a loudspeaker, and 27 as a dog. | ||
| 24 | HOUSE STYLE |
Application by the way collected by 19 for publishing conventions (5,5)
|
| An envelope (‘collected by’) of USE (‘application’) plus (‘by’) ST (street, ‘the way’) in HOYLE (Sir Lindsay, current speaker (’19’) of the House of Commons). | ||
| 25 | LUKE |
Book in accident, cover ripped off (4)
|
| A subtraction: [f]LUKE (‘accident’) minus its first letter (‘cover ripped off’). | ||
| 26 | MARTIN |
1 down‘s 19 (6)
|
| Double definition: a bird (TWEETER) and Michael MARTIN, a past speaker (’19’) of the House of Commons, | ||
| 27 | SETTER |
Volleyball player races into spectator (6)
|
| An envelope (‘into’) of TT (‘races’) in SEER (‘spectator’). | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | TWEETER |
19 — 15, for example (7)
|
| Double definition: the loudspeaker (cf. 22A WOOFER) and TWEETER as a bird, although I suspect that is a poor description of a TERN’s vocalising. | ||
| 2 | RIOJA |
Wine: port certainly in Hamburg (5)
|
| A charade of RIO (de Janeiro, ‘port’) plus JA (German for yes, ‘certainly in Hamburg’). | ||
| 3 | SAWMILL |
Understood philosopher cutting works? (7)
|
| A charade of SAW (‘understood’) plus MILL (John Stuart, ‘philosopher’). | ||
| 5 | EXHORT |
Urge in old flame burning: that’s about right (6)
|
| An envelope (‘about’) of R (‘right’) in EX (‘old flame’) plus HOT (‘burning’). | ||
| 6 | CARBINEER |
Soldier in ditch, last of five saved by nurse (9)
|
| An envelope (‘saved by’) of BIN (‘ditch’, verb, discard) plus E (‘last of fivE‘) in CARER (‘nurse’). | ||
| 7 | WALLOON |
Third in milk can collected by white tongue (7)
|
| An envelope (‘collected by’) of L (‘third in miLk’) plus LOO (‘can’) in WAN (‘white’), for Belgian French. | ||
| 8 | MARGOT FONTEYN |
Move forgotten, lady finally caught by male dancer (6,7)
|
| An envelope (‘caught by’) of RGOTFONTE, an anagram (‘move’) of ‘forgotten’ plus Y (‘ladY finally’) in MAN (‘male”). | ||
| 14 | CHASTISER |
Pose kept up by horse flogger (9)
|
| An envelope (‘kept’) of TIS, a reversal (‘up’ in a down light) of SIT (‘pose’) in CHASER (‘horse’). | ||
| 16 | CONFORM |
Do document, toe the line (7)
|
| A charade of CON (hoodwink, ‘do’) plus FORM (‘document’). | ||
| 18 | HAWK-EYE |
Aggressor and detective court witness? (4-3)
|
| A charade of HAWK (‘aggressor’) plus EYE (private, ‘detective’), for the computerized ball tracker in sports such as tennis. | ||
| 19 | SPEAKER |
Into empty shower 22 carries a chair (7)
|
| A double envelope (‘into’ and ‘carries’) of ‘a’ in PEKE (’22’ WOOFER as a dog) in SR (’empty ShoweR‘), with ‘chair’ as a meeting leader. | ||
| 20 | MUESLI |
It’s for breakfast: material detailed, including first of eggs (6)
|
| An envelope (‘including’) of E (‘first of Eggs’) in MUSLI[n] (‘material’) minus its last letter (‘de-tailed’). | ||
| 23 | OWLET |
Monkey doesn’t have wings, time for little 1 down! (5)
|
| A charade of [h]OWLE[r] (‘monkey’) minus its outer letters (‘doesn’t have wings’) plus T (‘time’). |
I thought this was going to be very hard: got few in the first pass and the theme words seemed unreasonably interconnected. Somehow I managed to disentangle and proceed. Knowing BERCOW helped with both crossers and establishing the category – just assumed the other names were speakers and confirmed when finished.
No real stand-outs today, but no complaints. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of CARBINEER, but it seemed analogous to grenadier, so I went for it.
Thanks P&P
In 16A, surely the reference to 1D ‘tweeter’ is to the bird? I don’t know what the call of a chat sounds like but I’m willing to surmise it could be referred to as a tweet.
I also parsed 16A as having been defined as a bird from 1D. This did look difficult but came together steadily, the easier bird theme compensating somewhat for the other. Satisfying to suddenly find the grid almost full before scratching my head for a while over LOI 26A.
Thanks Paul, and PeterO for the prompt blog.
Agree with Autolycus about CHAT. Never heard of CARBINEER or MOTHERESE but both are well clued. This is a very impressive crossword from Paul. I liked the symmetries (CHAT & TERN; TWEETER & SPEAKER) and the symmetrical placing of the four answers including House of Commons Speakers.
Thanks, Paul for the lovely puzzle and PeterO for the beautiful blog.
TERN-I took it as a DD.
Might that be Arctic -referring to Arctic Tern by example.
roll, did you say? -homophone (did you say?) of TURN (roll).
However, calling it a ‘doubly cryptic def’ sounds fine.
CHAT: Both parsings work. I parsed it as PeterO did.
Remembered 6d from Breaker Morant who served in the Boer War with The Bushveldt Carbineers. Hey ho. Yes, a bit of a slog, this; closest to a chuckle was after the groan for ‘understood philosopher’ = saw mill. Knew of Bercow, but not Weatherill or Martin. And yes, I thought ‘chat, bird, tweeter’. Thanks PnP.
… also, after woofer I was looking for midrange 🙂
CHAT
Just learnt that CHAT is a bird (I was earlier thinking only about a bird call).
1 down: CHAT (as a bird/tweeter)
Communication: CHAT (in the routine sense of the word)
A DD.
Of the 19s, I got WEATHERILL first, and he was no help (there’s also an Australian politician of the same name), and nor was my second 19-adjacent solve, TWEETER. Although I’m an Aussie, I watch enough British news satire to recognise BERCOW when I got him, and 19 was then obvious. 26 was my only solve purely by looking up the list on Wikipedia. Thanks all.
Wonderful. Paul at his infuriating best. Seemed utterly impenetrable at first, with the circular references. But I also found my way in through BERCOW. Always love the way Paul develops a theme. Great fun.
Thanks, Paul and PeterO.
The speakers pan out Labour 3, Conservative 1, so that’s in The Guardian’s HOUSE STYLE.
I very much liked the way the various themes developed off one another. The Commons Speakers ( BERCOW, WEATHERILL, HOYLE and MARTIN ) led to the components of a hifi speaker ( TWEETER and WOOFER / I was looking for “sub” somewhere but it never appeared ). TWEETER in turn led to THRUSH , TERN, OWLET, CHAT, HAWK and a repeat of MARTIN – bird form, this time. Very clever.
Did Paul put some extra heat on by configuring HOUSEMARTIN across two fragments of nearby solutions ? This video cooked “some Westminster” into its opening frames; doing a Paul puzzle is certainly a happy hour again.
https://youtu.be/L9sHfcCwTYA
Thank you Paul and PeterO.
Thought it about time somebody whinged, so here goes. Even for a Brit, the GK was a bit niche. Motherese? Really? Don’t care if it is fairly clued. If that’s what matters, let’s just invent a word. Too many cross references – need 19 to get something, need 22 to get 19, need 19 and 27, need 1 down, etc. Nay, nay, thrice nay.
No, Flea @11, Weatherill and Bercow were both Conservatives, Bercow in his early years very much so.
Agreed, PeterO, about terns tweeting – the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust tells us that “The common tern is very noisy, making a variety of ‘kip’, ‘kek’ and‘kerr’ sounds as it fishes and argues with other members of the colony”. But it’s close enough, I guess, particularly as it ties in to WOOFER.
If the recent Speakers of the House of Commons are “niche GK” that helps to explain why we’re in such a mess; though I agree with Crispy @12 that MOTHERESE is a bit much. I don’t mind Paul’s cross-references when they aren’t overdone, and here I thought they weren’t. One of Paul’s more enjoyable (and more polite) offerings.
Thanks to Paul for the workout and PeterO for the blog.
Honestly not sure if this is peak Paul or if he’s jumped the shark. Pleased to solve it unaided even if it took over an hour. I feel like all the individual bits were just about fair – obscure words, GK, circular references, etc. But altogether I’d have a lot of sympathy for someone who just wanted to chuck this out the window. Thanks p&p, tough blog!
A tough end to what felt like a tough week. BERCOW seems to have been the way in for a lot of us. I did like the multiple uses of the key word as they gradually unfolded though it took a long time for that to happen. I parsed CHAT as the bird and TERN as the bird and the homophone.
Favourites include THRUSH, TERN, WOOFER, SAWMILL, MARGOT FONTEYN and HAWK-EYE. I found a couple of the surfaces rather strange: I’m not sure what image Paul had in mind with the clues for WALLOON and OWLET, for example.
Thanks Paul and PeterO
It;s disappointing that Paul’s couldn’t fit in the best-known (surely) and most popular of the Speakers, recently given prominent obits in the Guardian and beyond: only woman Speaker so far:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/feb/27/lady-betty-boothroyd-obituary
“Motherese” was extensively used by students of child language development from the 1970’s on to describe the ways in which speakers modify and simplify speech when talking to children
Like PeterO, I couldn’t figure out the keystone clue. Unlike him, I had to seek assistance. After that things proceeded, albeit fairly slowly. For those who follow these matters, BERCOW is Paul at his mischievous best.
I thought this excellent. Don’t mind being defeated by this level of inventiveness.
quenbarrow @16: at one point, I did try fitting BOOTHROYD into the slot eventually filled by HOUSE STYLE. The O and the Y do work and I was wondering if there was a truly obscure rule or discipline – BOOTH-ROYDE (a bit like Duckworth-Lewis)!
As usual with Paul, a steady solve, and got there in the end. Favourites BRACELETS and MARGOT FONTEYN.
I quite like Paul’s habit of having a key clue (SPEAKER in this case) which can be solved either directly, or inferred from another clue that refers to it – here, like others, I got there via BERCOW; but it would get tedious if every setter did it. Agree that a TERN doesn’t really tweet; and in 19d I would not describe a peke as a “WOOFER” – more a yapper, surely?
Thanks PeterO and Paul.
Thanks (?) Paul and PeterO
I struggled through to the end, though I’m not sure why, as I didn’t enjoy it at all. For some time I only had DEMO, then, as several others, saw BERCOW, which got me in; however I didn’t know any of the other H of P ones referenced, so several clues only partly parsed.
I agree about MOTHERESE being almost a made-up word. A GARRISON isn’t a fortress – it’s the troops inside it. The “in” in 6d doesn’t make sense in the wordplay. I also agree about the vocalisation of TERNs, though MARTINs and CHATs are more accurately TWEETERs.
I look forward to seeing what overseas solvers make of this.
That was a workout, but I knew MOTHERESE, so it went in earlier than some of the other clues. I have qualifications in working with early years and parent support and have read a fair bit on linguistics and child development.
My way into the speakers was also BERCOW, and was then hoping for Boothroyd, but I can see why she didn’t fit. I was thinking CHAT as a bird – there are a few of them: stonechats are called chats, but the nightingale is a chat tooaccording to the RSPB.. I parsed TERN with the homophone too.
Thank you to PeterO and Paul.
Yes, hard and enjoyable, but a few aids needed on the way to completion. I took far too long on seeing some now obvious answers: BRACELETS, had in mind something like ALLOWLETS, until I saw the TWO was separate; TWEETER, as I had already got WOOFER; THRUSH; DEMO.
I thought jawohl was the German for certainly
Thanks PeterO and Paul
Paul’s clue setting ingenuity is great, but bird calls are not his strength. Canaries tweet; owlets, chats, terns and martins don’t, and defining them as “tweeters” just because they are birds is quite a stretch (on that logic one could clue a vulture, raven or hen in the same way), But it made for a clever puzzle, which I enjoyed. Thanks to Paul and PeterO.
I’m in the ‘tremendous puzzle’ camp. Eventually found my way into the maze, and enjoyed the runaround. Thought I would be ignorant of Speakers’ names, but they all came to mind. Same favourites as PostMark@15. Thanks to P & P.
This was a slog to solve on a smartphone, necessitating a lot of scrolling up and down for all of those cross references. Nevertheless I got there in the end – it helped that I recognised all the Speakers of the HoC (like others I was disappointed that there was no room for Betty B). And there were some good clues to enjoy along the way.
THRUSH was my FOI (mercifully a singer and not a 1dn) and MARGOT F an early entry, plus a few other unconnected ones , but I was floundering until LUKE gave me the K and I spotted SPEAKER – thence BERCOW and so on.
I agree that CHAT is a reference to the bird rather than the twitterati and TERN as a homoiophone. (The latter and the OWLET don’t exactly tweet, but I’m relaxed about that in this context). I’m familiar with MOTHERESE as a term used in the study of language acquisition (yes, it’s a made up word – like ‘homophone’ 🙂 ). CARBINEER I knew from the Carabinieri – the Italian military police force.
Thanks to S&B
BTW it’s curious that MARGOT FONTEYN and her long time stage partner Rudolf Nureyev have the same enumeration – he was my first thought.
NeiH@23 : BERCOW defected !
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jun/19/john-bercow-defects-to-labour-with-withering-attack-on-johnson
Really struggled to only get a toefold in the NW corner, then stared at all the crossers in place for 1 down, with the only possibility being TWEETER. Absolutely none the wiser from the clue provided. Though thought perhaps there might be a bird theme – possibly. Gave up rather feebly, couldn’t penetrate any further, and came on here for enlightenment. I did in fact go and see BERCOW explain himself at the Cambridge Union a while ago when he was no longer Speaker of the House. All above my pay grade this morning, I’m afraid, Paul…
More of a NRGS (never really got started) than a DNF today. Only have a few solved and haven’t read the blog or posts. Had to go shopping this morning for the upcoming trip to the Old Dart (so that messed with solving DA this morning) and then the family came round this arvo and concentration went. So different to the normal Friday just doing crosswords. I think this old curmudgeon is getting grumpier. Might have a go tomorrow. Such is life.
I solved BRACELETS, MARGOT FONTEYN and completed the SE but then got really stuck. I revealed THRUSH to get going again and steadily ground my way through. I also was looking for Betty and I often see BERCOW jogging/Puffin(g) between Battersea and Wandsworth Bridges. Very clever stuff but I really didn’t enjoy it. Toughest week in memory.
Ta Paul & PeterO.
Flea @28: Yes – but he was a Conservative MP when appointed. The convention is that Speakers are alternately Con and Lab (as you probably know already).
I’m not sure what it is that made Lindsay Hoyle, John Bercow and Sir Bernard more memorable than Michael Martin for me. Dave Ellison@23 I have always wondered how combining the words for yes and probably made a word for certainly.
I’m not sure I like the interconnected clues that seem to be Paul’s signature at the moment. I hammered it out in the end, but I had to check that Hoyle was a speaker and then with a four left gave up and looked up Weatherill. I should have got Bercow from the wordplay early on rather than at the end, which would have helped a lot. For those who follow UK politics, Bercow=>speaker is a simple jump, not quite so much the other way. Tweeter was my way in.
It didn’t help that I identified Martin as a tweeter rather than a speaker. He was the only political speaker of the set here whose name I didn’t recognise.
Tough puzzle. I am not a fan of Paul’s puzzles with interlinked clues like this one which make my head spin in an unpleasant way. Also the GK required was only possible with help from google. This was more slog than fun.
Theme was hard for me but I do know John Bercow and Lindsay Hoyle.
New for me: 10ac New Bernard WEATHERILL, former Speaker of the House of Commons of the UK (1983–1992); CARBINEER; MOTHERESE; Michael MARTIN, Speaker of the House 2000-2009.
1d – guessed tweeter, did not parse it until later, ditto 23d.
I did not parse
13ac – the brace = two bit, should have seen that
21ac
27ac – why does SETTER = volleyball player?
Liked MARGOT FONTEYN.
Thanks, both.
This was satisfying and tough – enjoyed the various themes and misdirects, especially pleased with MOTHERESE, TERN and INSTRUCT. Thanks Paul!
michelle@35
SETTER is a position in the game of volleyball.
michelle @35
I don’t know much about volleyball, but I’m guessing that the setter is the player that puts the ball up in the near the net for a teammate to try and “spike” it – i.e. deliver a winning hit.
I also got this from BERCOW: in my innocence I thought bully was the definition! That enabled me to get the impenetrable but important 19d which I still hadn’t managed to parse until the puzzle was completed. After that the theme emerged and I was able to make slow but steady progress. I wasted time looking for Boothroyde and King. I’m grateful to PeterO for parsing this very tricky puzzle. My relatively quick completion of it was largely down to spotting the theme almost straightaway, seeing a few important clues and then guesswork from the definitions.
Re BERCOW, he was indeed still a Conservative MP when elected Speaker in 2009, but he was already increasingly identified as sympathetic to Labour under Gordon Brown, and was rumoured to be about to jump ship (see here), so I think Flea has a point. After standing down as Speaker he joined Labour, but was suspended in 2022 after Kathryn Stone, and an appeals panel, found he had bullied staff. In fact I wondered if “bully” in 4ac was part of the definition!
Gervase @32, the ‘alternating’ convention isn’t always followed – Michael MARTIN (Lab) came straight after Betty Boothroyd (Lab). Apart from Bernard WEATHERILL, you have to go back to Selwyn Lloyd for another Conservative Speaker – which is possibly why there aren’t more on Paul’s list.
Defining WALLOON as a language is technically accurate, but not incredibly helpful. It’s not the same as ‘Belgian French’, which is the variety of standard French spoken in Belgium (almost the same as French French, with a few variations like septante and nonante for 70 and 90). Walloon, on the other hand, is very different from standard French – it used to be widespread in Wallonia, but is now pretty much limited to the older generation and is in danger of dying out completely.
Thanks P&P. No MASH sub-theme then? Next time maybe.
I’m not a great fan of all the interlinked clues, but it was well done and appealed to many other solvers.
I rather ground this one out using copious aids. Like others, I got started with BERCOW, which gave me the SPEAKER. I liked MOTHERESE and SETTER for their surfaces, SAWMILL for the non-insertion ‘cutting’, MARGOT FONTEYN for a good anagram, and HAWK-EYE for the ‘court witness’.
Thanks Paul and PeterO.
revbob @39 – we crossed!
DE @23/Petert @33, ‘wohl’ has got a variety of meanings, including ‘indeed’.
I found it hard to get started, but eventually a few checks gave WEATHERILL – looking him up gave me SPEAKER (and a list of others) Then (as Boothroyd doesn’t go) BERCOW was obvious: the rest followed pretty soon, except that I had POST as a communication from a tweeter, which made the SW difficult.
I always forget that “detailed” means “with the last letter removed” but even if I had remembered I don’t think it would have helped today. A tough challenge; I was grateful for PeterO’s elucidation of MARTIN and MUESLI, so thanks for that and, of course, to Paul.
I normally ignore the keystone clues until I can’t any more but getting BERCOW opened the SPEAKER door and we were off to the races.
I enjoyed the linked clues more than usual – maybe I just woke up in a good mood – can’t imagine why
Flea @11 no sub but perhaps some crossover between the themes?
Cheers P&P
kva@35 and muffin@36 – thanks for explaining about the setter in volleyball. I should have googled it earlier. I played volleyball at secondary school but I don’t recall that we called anyone the setter…
Way too obscure. I got OWLET but still didn’t get the theme. In what world is an owl a TWEETER? I had only filled in 3 answers before giving up.
Did anyone else crack the theme from 24a house style? With help from crossers we got this and found that application by the way was use-st. That gave us Hoyle for 19, and it became clear that this wasn’t Fred Hoyle the Astronomer as we first thought. We looked at a list of people called Hoyle in Wikipedia and Lindsay leapt out. That lead to peke the little dog, and then the penny really dropped. Tortuous but fun. Thanks as ever to Maestro Paul.
Hard to get into the theme at first, because of course 22a refers to 19d, which refers back to 22a! But it was all quite cleverly done, with the different meanings of SPEAKER being nicely exploited.
On the other hand I have to agree with PostMark @15 about some of the surfaces. “Third in milk can collected by white tongue”? As Brian Greer (Brendan) says in his book (quoting John Grant), “The most damning thing one can say about a crossword clue is that it could only be a crossword clue.”
A slow solve and initial annoyance at the linked clues but so satisfying in the end!
Flea @11 on the interlinked themes states exactly what I felt once solved. Like many I thought that birds was the theme, then I thought it was about hi-Fi, and only got the HoC reference quite late on.
Thank you so much, Paul and PeterO
Lord Jim @49: Nice quotation. Paul’s surfaces are so often bizarre that I only comment when all of them make sense out of the context of the crossword – which happens vey infrequently!
This was definitely an uphill struggle. I know to expect Paul’s interconnected clues, but this one was tortuous even by his standards.
My FOI was SPEAKER, largely an inspired guess (synonym for “chair” with S & R at each end). I then spent what seemed like an eternity wondering what “peke” had to do with 22A…
I appreciate we can’t expect setters to be helpful to solvers, but having “19 – 27” rather than, say, “19 & 27” led to my thinking it was referring to all the clues from 19 to 27. With the same misunderstanding for 1D.
So, as the birds and H of C Speakers started to emerge, I was none the wiser about 22A.
I genuinely couldn’t see a connection.
MOTHERESE was new to me too. (Do only womenfolk talk scribble to babies?)
Thank you Paul for working my grey cells to exhaustion, and a big thanks to PeterO for the many explanations and for the first sentence of the blog – which I personally found very reassuring!
Small songbirds tweet; terns don’t; martins almost do, chats certainly do. I don’t like words that aren’t printed in dictionaries (MOTHERESE!). And reflexive references – 19 needed for 22, and 22 needed for 19. And all the multiplicity of links between clues. I loved Paul’s previous; I didn’t enjoy this.
Re comments about MOTHERESE being a made up word – most technical terms are coinages. Would it be more acceptable if it were ‘matrilocution’? 🙂
I really enjoyed this, particularly the different uses of SPEAKER. Luckily for me I got 19d pretty much straight away and I did know the various political ones. (Mildly shocked that UK solvers would struggle with such prominent public figures.)
Agree entirely with Widdersbel @10 and Flea @11.
Paul is my favourite setter and this re-inforced my view.
Thanks Paul and PeterO
Chickpea @48, HOUSE STYLE was my way in as well, which I got from identifying USEST as a likely middle. So the HOYLE part had to be what 19 was referring to, and I instantly thought of Hoyle’s Rules of Games so set off on a complete wild goose chase looking for reference books. That was considerably tougher than thinking up Speakers, but then Weatherill fell from a few crossers and the wordplay and it was “of course, that Hoyle”. Even after that I was still left with a huge amount of work to do, so all in all very tough but very rewarding. Great stuff!
Loved the gradual unravelling of the three themes.
Fell at the last hurdle with MERLIN instead of MARTIN. Seemed vaguely plausible and I’d think a merlin tweets about as much as an arctic tern… Bah!
Wellbeck @52
Wikipedia and Wictionary also give the gender-neutral parentese.
copland+smith
As I pointed out, motherese is in Collins online, and I would assume also in the printed version, although I do not have a copy to hand to check.
An anagram of motherese is threesome.
Puzzled by several comments relating to whether or not terns could be described as tweeting. The clue for ‘tern’ has no cross reference to ‘tweeter’ or anything else. It’s a double definition: ‘Might that be Arctic’ referring to the Arctic Tern and ‘roll, did you say’ with ‘tern’ being a homophone of ‘turn’ = ‘roll’. No tweeting or other bird noises involved.
Autolycus @53
The clue for1D TWEETER does reference ’15’, which must be15A TERN.
The BBC’s admirable ‘Tweet of the day’ encompasses the full range of bird calls so I think 1d is OK. A lot of heavy lifting here. I too spent time looking for astronomers.
Standard crosswordese uses winger and flyer to define all birds, even flightless ones, so they must all be tweeters no matter what kind of noise they make. I didn’t have time to do this properly but I can see what a doozy it was.
Did anyone else try to remove two OPs (works) from philosopher and anagram the rest? Clue: it doesn’t result in anything, let alone SAWMILL.
PS: I only know carAbineer so that didn’t work either.
I really enjoyed this. Clever the way the themes were interlocked. Rather than use a dash/hyphen sign perhaps a = would have helped. Still only a mild mumble. Paul on top form as usual.
To me, clues that lack realistic surface meaning are also lacking a little in misdirection, and I like being misdirected. It’s part of the fun.
I thought BERCOW looked pretty improbable too, PeterO (could there really be such a word?), but since I do the puzzle in bed at night I couldn’t look him up. I did guess that WEATHERILL, whoever he was, had probably been a speaker, who knew?
As well as a bird theme of TWEETERs, there’s also a mini-dog theme of WOOFERs, PEKE and SETTER, though I’d also call a peke more of a yapper, like
beaulieu@20. Woofers are big guys like my sadly-missed Banjo, who was a sort of black lab.
Then again, an OWLET would be not so much a TWEETER as a hooter.
MARTIN may be a speaker and a bird, but he isn’t a bird’s speaker. That would be a syrinx.
Never heard of this meaning of HAWK-EYE. Once again, my sports nonvocabulary lets me down.
Thanks, Paul and PeterO.
That was a work-out and a half! Thanks Paul.
Interesting to see so many people didn’t like MOTHERESE, especially since, as Don @17 tells us, the term has been around since the 70s. Is GK to do with childcare really any more niche than some of the sporting names and terms we encounter in Crossword Land?
Of course, whether babies really do prefer us to communicate in this fashion is a different question entirely.
Tough but enjoyable today… what made it especially tough was that the only HoC speaker I recognised was Bercow, so that whole theme completely passed me by! Along the way, I figured Hoyle must be a well-known person of some description, and that Weatherill was perhaps a technical term for an (audio) speaker 🙂 My LOI was MARTIN – I needed PeterO’s help today to parse that and several others.
Severely led myself astray on this. On the first pass I intuited HOUSE STYLE but parsed it as USE by STY (“path”, “way”) enveloped by HOLE. This led me off on a wild goose chase for 19d as a synonym for ‘hole’, which consumed a great deal of my time and patience.
As with Welbeck @52, my way in was deciding 19d’s outer letters were S and R, and from some subconscious region thence came SPEAKER. It was still a subsequent slog, though, with a rather disconnected grid not helping.
THRACE at 1a parses perfectly – and works if singer Chris of that ilk is a known quantity.
Thanks to Paul and PeterO
Another excellent Paul puzzle. I got a bit stuck in the SW because I has CALL for 16a (thinking of a bird call) which delayed CHASTISING (probably a good thing?). All done and dusted in the end. I parsed CHAT as bird/conversation too.
I think TWEETER and WOOFER as generic terms for birds and dogs might not be entirely accurate in all cases, but they seem fine to me for crossword hints.
PS I’m wondering if the complaints that Paul gets about cross-referencing are more to do with modern technology (doing puzzles on phones?) than an intrinsic dislike of lengthy answers.
Thanks, Paul and Peter.
Thanks to Paul & PeterO.
Didn’t get to this till after (late) lunch and grins & groans alternated. It took a while to spot BERCOW but then it was steady going.
I doubt if either OWLET or TERN qualify as TWEETERs. I’ve heard both. Nonetheless great fun.
Shame the (recently deceased and much missed) Betty Boothroyd didn’t fit in.
me@ 71
had, not has
Bercow was definitely the key, after that things started falling into place. I thought the linked speaker/woofer/tweeter themes were very cleverly done.
Thanks Paul and PeterO. Hard but good, I thought. Re “tweeters”, my image is Steve Bell’s cartoons of Prince Philip blasting away at anything with feathers! So I’m not too particular about actual bird calls . . .
Thanks for the blog, I was hoping in vain for a theme free week . Agree with Keith@72 about Betty Boothroyd OM , maybe the name just would not fit .
Thanks PeterO as I never quite managed to justify Margot Fonteyn, if you see what I mean, though it had to be her from the ‘forgotten’ letters plus a few more. I was feeling dense today and at one point was sure I would have to give up but the same entry point as Chickpea@48 saved the day, even down to discounting Fred (StargazeR? No, too long – and with the W and A at first, I wondered about Wharfedale for 10A too). I agree with EmilyW’s last sentence and this means I am overall happy despite somehow not really finding too many of the clues as memorable as Paul’s can be. Maybe just a bit depressed that knowing so many HoC speakers (plus BB who didn’t make the grid) means I must be getting pretty old! Thanks Paul.
Like PeterO my way in was BERCOW and the other speakers and birds are pretty well known. Looked for George Thomas: sadly missing. I bet a TERN doesn’t tweet though.
Thanks Paul and PeterO
Bercow also the key for me. Love how different our reactions are. I despaired of yesterday’s, loved today’s.
chickpea@48
I was another who got 19d from HOYLE in 24a, though I did know him as the current holder of the post.
PeterO @60
Ah, yes, I see. Noticing all the comments I looked again at the clue for ‘tern’ to see what the problem was and missed the devil hiding in the NW corner.
I personally thoroughly enjoyed this puzzle without any quibbles over the clues. I enjoyed your blog too, as always. Thanks for the work you and the other bloggers put in.
If Araucaria was the Mozart of setters, and Rufus the Haydn, Paul is surely the Beethoven. Beautifully composed, difficult (for us) but full of brilliant moments, just genius!
I congratulate the blogger! The circuitous cross references put me off. Eg, 19 and 22 refer to each other! Ok!
There are also Lakes in there: Lake Weatherill and Lake Walloon and wasn’t Sally Bercow captured flipping the bird’
This puzzle was impenetrable for this Canadian. Speakers of the British House of Commons are not featured in news reports here, and the names of former ones are not GK that I am interested in learning. That they are tied in with all the connected clues made this impossible, and uninteresting. I wasted two days on this, not getting any of those clues. Now I’m way behind on my Guardians and FTs, so I’ll be lurking for a while. (I do them in order, so that I can enjoy the blogs.) Cheers, all.
Finally ground my way past the infuriating circular cross references, indirect anagrams etc then wondered why I’d bothered. Nothing to raise even the ghost of a smile and to anyone non British English parliamentarians are even more boring (if that were possible) than English footballers or the royal family.
Didn’t get around to this until today, and despite a sticky start managed to complete in around an hour. An enjoyable challenge, especially with 19 and 22 referring to each other and making the interlinking clues harder than ever.
Since a large proportion of the comments seem to start “I don’t like…” I’ll have a little grouse too. I don’t like the way Paul clues individual letters by phrases like “third of milk”, “first of eggs” and “last of five”, which are a) not misleading and therefore too obvious, and b) clunky, making the surface less like normal English than need be. He seems to be the only setter to do this, and it can’t be because he wants to make sure the cryptic grammar is correct as he seems happy to ignore every other convention!
Anyway, thanks to Paul and PeterO as always.