Again, there are no comments on the puzzle on the Guardian site today and so I have no idea how this Pasquale puzzle went down over there but I found it an absorbing and enjoyable challenge.
All the Pasquale hallmarks are here, with some interesting references, a smattering of more unusual words or usages, meticulously clued, ingenious anagrams, smooth and meaningful surfaces and – Hurrah! – a clever use of ellipsis at 1/2 dn.
My favourites were 12ac ROBERT GRAVES, 15ac ECUMENICAL, 20ac PRESCIENCE, 22ac CONSTIPATION, 13dn BESEECHING and, of course 1/2dn.
Many thanks to Pasquale.
Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Across
1 Longing suppressed by a baseball player (7)
PITCHER
ITCH (longing) in PER (a, as in ‘tuppence a bag’)
5 Pet making small mark in The Guardian? (6)
PAMPER
M (mark) in PAPER (The Guardian, for example, hence the question mark) – ‘pet’ as a verb
9 As character making repeated appearance, female artist blocks entrance (8)
GEMINATE
(Tracey) EMIN (female artist) in GATE (entrance)
10 Ask to engage member of parliament – support is not straight (3,3)
BOW LEG
BEG (ask) round OWL (member of ‘parliament’ – collective noun)
12 Writer to act as bodysnatcher? Little hesitation, time to intervene! (6,6)
ROBERT GRAVES
ROB GRAVES (to act as bodysnatcher) round ER (little hesitation) T (time)
15 EU nice and calm after disruption, helping to tolerate different beliefs? (10)
ECUMENICAL
An anagram (after disruption) of EU NICE and CALM
17 Regret impolite daughter being banished (3)
RUE
RU[d]E impolite minus d (daughter)
19 Feature of the ideal religious festival (3)
EID
Hidden in thE IDeal
20 Power to discern the future in a time of no experimentation? (10)
PRESCIENCE
Double definition – PRE-SCIENCE (time of no experimentation)
22 Inability to go against outpost holding minimal cash? (12)
CONSTIPATION
CON (against) + STATION (outpost) round I P (one penny – minimal cash) – this raised a smile, of course
26 One geometrical section as a defining image? (6)
ICONIC
I (one) + CONIC (geometrical section)
27 Six taking time to collect vehicle from house near church? (8)
VICARAGE
VI (six) + AGE (time) round CAR (vehicle) – nowadays, vicarages tend to be smaller, more modern houses, perhaps further away from the church
28 Sound irritates Oxford school (6)
GREATS
Sounds like ‘grates’ (irritates) – the nickname for the Oxford School ‘Literae Humaniores’
29 What could make pest move decisively (4,3)
STEP OUT
A reverse anagram (out) of PEST
Down
1 Servant making contribution to a … (4)
PAGE
Double definition – we need to add TOME for the second
2 … ___, as far as I’m concerned (4)
TOME
TO ME (as far as I’m concerned)
3 Transfer completed finally in German city (8)
HANDOVER
[complete]D in HANOVER (German city)
4 The artist coming first is blooming early (5)
RATHE
THE, with RA (artist) coming first
A completely new word (also ‘rath’) for me but impeccably clued
6 Sailor gets ‘eap up on ship (6)
ABOARD
AB (sailor) + [h]OARD (‘eap up}
7 See nag prevail, somehow talking gibberish? (10)
PALAVERING
An anagram (somehow) of NAG PREVAIL – I don’t think I’ve met palaver as a verb before
8 Listed heart, previously in appropriate colour (10)
REGISTERED
GIST (heart) + ERE (previously) in RED (appropriate colour for heart)
11 Reportedly makes hard bargains (6)
STEALS
Sounds like (reportedly) ‘steels’ (makes hard)
13 Begging rail-destroyer to stay outside home counties (10)
BESEECHING
(Dr Richard) BEECHING (rail-destroyer) round SE (South East – home counties)
14 Irritating bounders upset your setter (10)
BURDENSOME
An anagram (upset) of BOUNDERS + ME (your setter)
16 One time to limit sound of contentment that will rise and suddenly grow (6)
IRRUPT
I (0ne) + T (time) round a reversal (that will rise) of PURR (sound of contentment) – I queried the definition here, knowing it as to attack / invade suddenly, as in Chambers but Collins adds ‘(of a population) to increase suddenly and greatly’
18 Holy group over time offering guidance (8)
PILOTAGE
PI (holy) + LOT (group) + AGE (time) – it’s rather a pity that we have time = age in two crossing entries but that’s a minor quiblet
21 Severe princess once banished from region (6)
STRICT
[di]STRICT (region) minus Di(ana) (princess once)
23 Take off clothes, first to last, making short journeys (5)
TRIPS
STRIP (take off clothes) with the first letter moved to the end
24 Decisive blow upsetting old animal (4)
KAYO
A reversal (upsetting) of O (old) YAK (animal)
25 Church officer, member of a tribe (4)
CELT
CE (Church of England) + LT (Lieutenant – officer)
A super, challenging puzzle which required much lateral thinking, especially the opening PAGE and TOME and yes a clever use of ellipsis Eileen. Ticks for just about every clue but favourites were ROBERT GRAVES, ECUMENICAL, PRESCIENCE, PALAVERING (great word), BESEECHING (had to google the engineer), BURDENSOME and CELT. GERMINATE and RATHE were nho but fairly clued. A setter at the top of his game.
Ta Pasquale &
…Eileen.
Thanks Pasquale and Eileen
As is usually the case, unknown (to me) words in a Pasquale puzzle – in this case GEMINATE and RATHE. Apart from that it went OK, though a slow finish in the NE.
I loved the “rail-destroyer” in BESEECHING; ROBERT GRAVES another favourite.
All good, except for the last two in, which I hadn’t heard of before, GEMINATE and RATHE, that last one sounding a bit like a word from Jabberwocky. Wasn’t quite clear about the precision of BOW LEG or STEP OUT either. Nevertheless, a nice puzzle, many thanks Eileen and Pasquale …
It’s odd how much I miss the grumbles and rumbles in The Guardian comments. I like to anticipate the howls of indignation (from people who have found the puzzle too hard to crack). I did not realise I had made reading the comments an important part of the ritual and that I really enjoy them. Ah well, this blog is important and these comments are always rewarding also. Thanks Eileen and thanks Pasquale – especially for the trademark archaisms.
Lovely – chewy but lovely. “geminate” was new but an obvious etymology once the crossers were in. “page” and “tome” a neat pairing which left me scratching my head for a long time before they became completely obvious (for some values of “obvious” anyhow). Not sure how many non-Oxford graduates would know “Greats” so will be interesting to see how many guessed it from the homophone.
On my first pass a few across clues in the middle yielded and that started to open up some ideas about others but it was one of those neatly judged puzzles where clues which seem impossible or meaningless at first become clear as the fog rises. Great fun – thank you Pasquale and Eileen.
Defeated by a couple. Like Eileen I’ve never come across PALAVER as a verb, nor KO spelt out as KAYO.
Interesting about IRRUPT – this is the definition I knew from a science background, so was thrown the last time we saw it, and I wrote this in.
PAGE and TOME needed the crossers, but were so clever. The GREATS I knew from books, not Oxbridge.
Thank you to Eileen and Pasquale
Thanks Pasquale and Eileen. What a wonderful puzzle! Full of wit, lovely deceptions and ticklesome surfaces. I enjoyed finding new words: well, it’s got to be that … look it up … aha! it is!!!! Great fun. We’re so lucky
DNF for me, but nonetheless enjoyable. The NW corner remained impenetrable despite PITCHER and HANDOVER, so I missed the clever ellipsis link.
Mostly I found it hard but fair, but the top left corner beat me. The meaning of ellipsis in clues is usually unclear, in this case neither 1d nor 2d are complete clues in themselves which seems unfair. In the same corner are two words that I find very obscure.
Beyond that I didn’t know Robert Graves, but I don’t mind unknown to me general knowledge a long as the crossword doesn’t have several examples from the same field. Expecting the solver to know that “school” has a specific Oxbridge meaning and the name of a particular “school” goes too far in my opinion though. I would have defined palavering as talking at length rather than talking gibberish but perhaps it’s close enough.
I struggled at first, but ironically it was constipation that got things moving.
I tend to find a clue I can solve easily, then use crossers from it to expand into the rest of the puzzle – which resulted in all being done pretty quickly, except for 9a, 1d, 2d and 4d, which took longer than all the rest put together. Eventually saw how PAGE and TOME worked, then checked dictionary for RATHE and guessed that GEMINATE could mean repeated. I knew of GREATS but was never entirely sure what was included and have now looked it up. Also, not being a churchy type, I had to choose between ECUMENICAL and ecunemical – and luckily got it right though it’s not a word I often use – so a good learning exercise overall.
Favourites as Eileen’s, plus VICARAGE.
Seems to be a bit of a religious mini-theme – my last-mentioned two clues, plus EID, the icon in ICONIC, the holy group in PILOTAGE and the church in CELT.
Thanks Eileen for usual concise but thorough blog, and Pasquale for a nice puzzle.
Thank you Pasquale and Eileen – a lovely, polished puzzle.
Top half was difficult for me.
1d I got that servant = page but I still don’t understand the double definition part of that clue.
I couldn’t parse 8d apart from RED = colour but I had it in the wrong place (at the end). I also had seen GIST but couldn’t parse it as I had parsed the RED bit in the wrong spot!
Favourite: BOW LEG (loi).
New for me: Beeching, Richard = rail-destroyer; GEMINATE; RATHE.
Thanks, both.
EDIT: Oh I see now, a page is a contribution/part of a tome/book/volume – is that how it works?
I too had never seen PALAVERING before, only having met it as a noun. GEMINATE was a nho but easily gettable from the clue. Thanks for the precise parsing of 1d and 2d — not a huge fan of ellipses personally but hey-ho 🙂 And the clue for ROBERT GRAVES raised a chuckle here.
I assume the lack of comments on the G must be some kind of technical problem for them rather than anything against the compiler. Thanks E and P.
I think I learned GREATS from the TV series Endeavour who studied Greats at the fictional Lonsdale college.
I like that experience of working out that it has to be RATHE and then looking it up and finding that the word exists. Luckily Tracey Emin was the first female artist to come to mind, though, I suppose Gentileschi is unlikely to appear in wordplay any time soon.
Too clever for this old cogitator in the places mentioned already, needed some try-then-check for geminate and pilotage. Then went Oh yeah, a page is part of a tome, d’oh! Fun though, taPnE.
Lots of new things for me here, or for most of us judging by the blog and comments. Luckily, Greats went in from the homophone. I completed the puzzle without too much trouble, but why is PI holy?
PI is short for Pious Martin N @19 and crops up a lot in crosswords so it’s worth remembering.
Hard to start, easy in the middle and hard to finish, but very satisfying.
I knew RATH(E) from Old English, meaning “soon”. We still use the comparative, “rather”, which can often be substituted by “sooner”. (Cf. “nigh, near, next”.)
My thanks to Pasquale and Eileen.
Martin N – a perennial question: ‘pi’ is short / slang for ‘pious’ but now accepted as a word in its own right (usually in the sense of ‘holier than thou’) and quite often seen in crosswords – worth filing away.
(I knew someone would get in before me. 😉 )
[Apologies Eileen…. I’m off to bed now 🙂 ]
When I have nothing positive to say about a crossword, I don’t comment.
So, for this one: I really liked BESEECHING, ROBERT GRAVES, CONSTIPATION and the surface of VICARAGE.
I wholeheartedly agree with ravenrider @11 regarding 1D & 2D.
Palaver having “become” a verb is mildly depressing but not surprising (after medalling, summiting and – god help us – GOATing, anything goes) but “gibberish” is a bit of a stretch as a synonym.
KAYO is not a word. No doubt someone will rush to quote its listing in Chambers, but I don’t care. As a FS commenter put it so beautifully, a while back: “Chambers is not a dictionary, merely a collection of neologisms”.
So, a curate’s egg.
Many thanks to Eileen, whose enthusiasm always cheers me, and thank you Pasquale for the challenge.
Me@17 Female artist without life force? They aren’t Jewish (8)
Sorry, I still don’t understand the explanation of the ellipsis in the PAGE/TOME pair at all. Servant and “to me” are clear enough, but…
I missed the PI LOT and didn’t know GEMINATE, but I did remember “the RATHE primrose that forsaken dies” – which I thought was Shakespeare, but turns out to be Milton’s Lycidas. Never seen the word anywhere else.
Enjoyed ROBERT GRAVES, BOW LEG, PRE-SCIENCE, BURDENSOME and Beeching the rail-destroyer.
Good to know that GEMINATE and RATHE are not in other people’s everyday vocabulary either. ECUMENICAL was my first entry and a relief after being perplexed by the first clues. The bottom half filled up quicker than the top, with the NW corner being the last to fall. I’d guessed EMIN for the female artist, but took a while to see GATE= entrance followed by a quick google. Liked ROBERT GRAVES, BESEECHING for the destructive doctor (what a mistake that has turned out to be), BOW LEG and CONSTIPATION, but, as always, lots to like anyway. Thanks to Pasquale and Eileen.
I forgot to ask how “see” fits in to 7d.
You sometimes hear “Greats” as being studied by Oxford students on University Challenge – that’s certainly why I knew it.
PeterT @ 25 – I was thinking along the same lines, but your brain clearly works faster than mine!
Sad to see how few people know ROBERT GRAVES – I loved the I Claudius books. I do mean books not TV series, I ended up reading them as my friends were chatting about the TV.
I’m also surprised how few know about Beeching – living in rural areas of Britain after the Beeching cuts means really poor transport links and his name being spat out in conversation.
gladys @26
Oh dear – I did ‘Lycidas’ for A level (but didn’t recognise it at all! 🙁 )
Re the ellipsis: does michelle’s ‘EDIT’ @14 help?
Shanne @30 – I entirely agree, on both counts.
I always thought GREATS referred to the course of study rather than the school (actually two courses – Classical and Modern – and two schools, neither of which is called Greats). Nho RATHE nor GEMINATE, but otherwise managed to complete it. Pasquale is always good value.
Thanks Eileen and Tim. I will squirrel that one away.
By the way, I was surprised to find “kayo” in my 1995 Chambers, so not the most newly minted neologism.
Today’s earworm, celebrating (!) Dr. Beeching.
gladys @26 and Eileen @31 – I’m very late to the feast today, but yes. It has been a while, but I still somehow know that passage by heart:
Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies,
The tufted crow-toe, and pale jessamine,
The white pink, and the pansy freak’d with jet,
The glowing violet, …
Like gladys, I have not, I think, ever come across the word elsewhere
Nicely meaty puzzle from the Don, with plenty of his trademark ecclesiastical references – and a few rarities as usual. RATHE was my only NHO today (like ronald @4 I thought it was something that outgrabe when it was mome). I’m surprised that GEMINATE is so unfamiliar – I would have thought that a term used in linguistics would be better known to word enthusiasts such as ourselves.
Favourites as listed by Eileen (not for the first time); PAGE/TOME is one of the cleverest uses of an ellipsis that I’ve seen in a crossword.
Shanne @8 and ravenrider @11: Less of this ‘Oxbridge’ generalisation please! Literae Humaniores/‘GREATS’ is the name given at Oxford for the degree course known less obscurely at Cambridge as ‘Classics’ 🙂 . And that usage of ‘school’ is also exclusive to Oxford.
Thanks to Pasquale and Eileen
I really enjoyed this puzzle. It seemed witty and playful and so accurately clued that I could work out (then check) the couple of words I didn’t know and some UK GK.
It took me a while staring at 1d and 2d before I got the connection – brilliant!
New for me: geminate, rathe, Beeching, that meaning of Greats (despite loving Endeavour).
Favourites: the PAGE and TOME combination, ROBERT GRAVES, CONSTIPATION, PRESCIENCE, BOW LEG (for the 🦉 ).
Thank you Pasquale and Eileen.
An enjoyable puzzle from a reliably good setter! A few NHO words but clued kindly on the whole. I was defeated by the parsing of PILOTAGE but it’s a great clue once I understood it (though I share Eileen’s minor quibble about repetition of exact device in crossing clues, that seems avoidable…).
However I feel that the elliptically-connected PAGE and TOME may end up dividing opinion somewhat… yes, they are clever, but as ravenrider mentioned @11 they don’t work as separate whole clues, and elliptically-connected pairs usually do, with the pair of surfaces making a coherent phrase but the wordplay/def of each clue having its own internal logic, which was not the case here… I got both answers, but only after deliberately discarding what I had previously assumed was a basic rule of how cryptic crossword clues are supplied to work 🙂
My thanks to Pasquale and Eileen.
I was dissatisfied by KAYO and PI. I have never seen the former before, and it seems bizarre to have a word that is longer than the thing it substitutes for (KO). There are plenty of other words that could have completed the grid.
And I will take the word of the long-timers that PI for pious is common in crosswords, but I have never seen it before either in a puzzle or in the wild, and have an aversion to words that are only common in crosswords. It feels a little too circular to be satisfying.
Otherwise a good challenge. Never heard of RATHE, but figured it out from the wordplay and checked online. GEMINATE also new to me, plus I don’t know of Emin (although I have a feeling she is a regular in crosswordland, so I should by now) so that one was doubly difficult. And I failed to parse 8D.
Wellbeck @24 – ‘kayo’ is also in Collins, Cambridge and Oxford, first recorded written use in 1923. Cambridge gives a selection of example sentences: “I remember he was kayoed in nine by the big American.” / “He would wait till the ringside cameraman was changing reels before kayoing his opponent.” / “Mostly recently, he was kayoed by the former world champion.” / He won the rematch, kayoing his opponent in the 11th.”
So it definitely is a word 🙂
Eileen@31: yes, michelle’s explanation does help. I’m not at my brightest this morning.
I don’t like KAYO either, but unfortunately it’s a legitimate word. I thought of TARO and TACO before I found the right animal.
Bohemian @15, lack of comments is not a technical fault, it’s the second 48-hr strike by Guardian journalists protesting over the sake of the Observer. PILOTAGE my LOI, my holey brain keeps forgetting PI. Thank you Pasquale and Eileen!
Jacob @39
As Eileen @22 says, “pi” isn’t restricted to crosswords; it isn’t uncommon in general speech. always (in my experience) in the slightly derogatory “holier than thou” sense.
Gervase @36 – sorry, just an oik from Imperial here! I suspect I know GREATS from the Colin Dexter Morse books and Dorothy Sayers’ Gaudy Night. I did, when I think about, know it’s Classics at Cambridge, there is or was a geocache based on that idea.
A personal recollection as contribution to the GREATS discussion: when I took my finals at Oxford (I did not do Greats), the actual examination arrangements were quite bizarre. I can only imagine that things have modernised since then. All students preparing to sit an exam milled around in the lobby of the Examination Schools waiting for their subjects to be announced, along with the room in which that particular exam would be sat. And your exam actually began when the subject was announced. ie. the time it took you to find the room and get to your seat was lost time! Ludicrously anachronistic. For some reason, the announcer would never pronounce the full name ‘Literae Humaniores’: it was always ‘Lit hum’ – which is not easy to articulate with the gravity appropriate to the situation.
Thanks Pasquale and Eileen
Humphrey Appleton also mentions Greats in one episode of Yes Prime Minister. So I’d heard of it but didn’t work it out.
[Petert@25, Nice one! 😉 — (OED dates PALAVER as a noun to 1707, and as a verb to 1713) KAYO can be slang for OK (1923) — Liked ECUMENICAL]
With this puzzle, Pasquale has completed the set of all days of the week within a calendar year for the 4th time, having previously done so in 1992, 1993 and 2017. He’s the 5th to do so this year following Paul, Brendan, Brummie and Picaroon – the first time this many setters have done so since 1974!
Perhaps I should add that now the Quiptic has moved to Sundays, and with Pasquale and Picaroon in recent times having become regular contributors to that series, they are both now true every day treats.
FrankieG@47
KAYO
Isn’t it OK the other way round?
Shanne @44: Apology unnecessary – my comment was tongue-in-cheek. And although a Cambridge man myself, as you may have guessed, I don’t consider that there is anything remotely oikish about that great institution which is Imperial 🙂
I’ve got so used to completely disregarding the ellipses joining two clues that it was a total shock to find that in this case they actually contributed to getting the solution! (Unfortunately, I failed on both the ellipsisised(!) clues.)
KVa@49, “KAYO slang (originally U.S.). 1923– = OK adj.
1923 Anything you say is kayo with me, kid, unless you tell me good bye! H. C. Witwer in Cosmopolitan April 128/2
1928 If you think it’s kayo, then it’s all right by me. P. G. Wodehouse, Money for Nothing v. 103″
[It was a TiLT for me. Join your local (not just UK) library for free access to oed.com.]
The first unlikely solution to R*T*E that I looked up was RATHE, so no great messing around with my LOI. This was a puzzle of three passes for me: not much on first pass, so expecting a hard struggle or worse; great progress next time round, with the NE the main hold out; then the lightbulb moment with PAMPER. That’s pretty much how I like my puzzles – from fear of failure to happy accomplishment.
[Are there others who despise the rise of ICONIC? It’s just lazy shorthand these days for a person / thing that is in some way notable.]
Some unusual words and religious references – it must be Pasquale.
I got a bit stuck in the NW until I resolved the PAGE/TOME conundrum – good use of ellipses. I also liked the hard bargains and holy group, as well as ROBERT GRAVES, CONSTIPATION and BURDENSOME. I DNK RATHE, GEMINATE and GREATS.
Thanks Pasquale and Eileen.
Trailman@53, yes me too, I rather resent the overuse of the word ICONIC these days. Also the word Eclectic, as a matter of fact 🙂
Gervase@36 – I see you note that ecclesiastical references are a trademark of Pasquale – so my post @12 shows how unobservant I usually am about such traits of setters!
[FrankieG @ 52: I rather think KVa was pulling your leg …]
Like others, nho RATHE or GEMINATE. Gervase@36 I think the outgribers haven’t got a final E.
I had heard of GREATS. but had thought it was a course, not a school. I don’t quite understand how it is.
For those who don’t like KAYO, how do you feel about “okay”? I use the latter and have seen the former. I’ve seen “pi” in English fiction — seems to have a sort of public-school feel to it.
Thanks to Pasquale and Eileen. I read Lycidas too in college and didn’t recognize the quotation. Well, ho for pastures new.
Valentine @ 58
I do remember that one!
When I saw that 1d along with enumeration ended with A4, I thought “he wouldn’t…”, but he did.
Nice use of ellipses today–I like the break in convention when it’s fair. BESEECHING was a bung-and-15^2 for me, couldn’t remember which two letters the Home Counties correspond to and NHO Beeching. (Who on rereading that entry is not from the BritRail privatization era but from before I was born.)
DNF because of PILOTAGE and RATHE, forgot about PI and had figured RATHE was the most likely word but just hit the reveal button for the last letter. Gladys@26, no surprise you haven’t heard “rathe” outside the Milton quote; it does not appear in the British National Corpus, and in the Corpus of Contemporary American English its only occurrence (outside of transcription errors and proper names) is from a movie about spelling bees where it is given as an example of a word you can make from the letters of EARTH “like in Boggle.” Which is to say, I found this a bit too obscure. (Fortunately for GEMINATE I remembered the setters’ favorite female artist.)
Ticks for PRESCIENCE and ROBERT GRAVES as well as the ellipses. Thanks Pasquale and Eileen!
Yes Trailman @53 and Ronald @55, I totally agree about misuse of “iconic”. It is losing its meaning, with people describing fairly special people as “the most iconic”, and then describing not so special people as “one of the most iconic”.
I didn’t know you could have degrees of “iconicity”. By the way, I’m fairly certain that I heard the golfing icon Tiger Woods coin the term “iconicity”.
Pete Dawson @62
Not quite as daft as “most unique”…
Valentine @58: ‘Schools’ is Oxford argot for final examinations, but in the singular also as an academic department, which I guess is Pasquale’s reference.
I’m in sympathy with laments re the misuse of ‘iconic’ – but I didn’t take exception to Pasquale’s definition.
Too many unknowns and religious stuff to be enjoyable.
Thanks both.
The word ‘icon’ has a particular meaning in semiotics. From Wiki:
Icons, indices, and symbols. Every sign refers either (icon) through similarity to its object, or (index) through factual connection to its object, or (symbol) through interpretive habit or norm of reference to its object.
For instance, the word ‘smile’ is a symbol, whereas this 🙂 is an icon. Does this mean that a photo of a real smile is more iconic?
…. and the word ‘iconicity’ is certainly used by semioticians – Tiger Woods had nothing to do with this!
Thanks Pasquale. Despite failing with GEMINATE and GREATS I enjoyed this with PITCHER, BOW LEG, PRESCIENCE, HANDOVER, PALAVERING, and STEALS being favourites. I couldn’t parse BESEECHING but all else was clear. I was a bit surprised to see Pasquale, the most meticulous of setters, use ‘time’ twice (27a, 18d) to clue ‘age’ in the same puzzle. Thanks Eileen for the blog.
Agree that this was great fun, with just a couple of unusual words clearly clued.
Particular favourites were BOW LEG, PRESCIENCE and CONSTIPATION
Thanks Pasquale (for consistent excellence) and Eileen (for the same)
I found this quite doable except for a couple which I finished on the second take. 4d LOI I had thought of this but wasn’t sure until the crossers were in and had to google the meaning to confirm. A rather neat word, if you will. Thanks Pasquale and Eileen. Iconic and epic are unfortunately too commonly used but still preferable to the misuse of literal(ly).
GEMINATE nho, but so close to Gemini the twins, so that was good enough to me. Looking it up, it is from the Latin for Twin.
Defeated by PILOTAGE, I was looking for a single five letter word meaning ‘Holy group’. No complaints.
Actually, “pastures new” is the only thing I remember from Lycidas. The phrase pops up as a quotation in various things, so it must be the most memorable thing in the poem. Then again, if somebody quoted some other part, say the dear old rathe primrose, I wouldn’t have caught it, so what do I know? I’m tickled, though, that “rather” is the comparative of that obscure word,, and is one we use all the time!
Apropos 13D, Beeching was appointed head of British Rail by Ernest Marples, the Tory transport minister. He also started the motorway programme. Coincidentally, he was also the Marples in Marples Ridgeway, a major civil construction company. He later left the country pursued by Her Majesty’s Revenue Service.
Valentine @74 – and often misquoted:
‘Tomorrow to fresh fields and pastures new’, instead of ‘fresh woods’.
Vernon Dursley, Harry Potter’s uncle, played by Richard Griffiths, always reminded me in looks of Dr. Beeching!
Valentine @74 The other phrase from ‘Lycidas’ that has enjoyed a life beyond the poem itself is ‘Fame is the spur …’, which gave its name to a novel by Howard Spring and both a film and later TV series based upon the book:
Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise
(That last infirmity of noble mind)
To scorn delights and live laborious days; …
[Thanks for that, Balfour @78 – the novel was recommended to us (in the ’50s) by our O Level History teacher and had quite an influence on me.
I’ve referred to it here before (more than once, I suspect), with reference to the Peterloo Massacre.]
[At this stage, I can’t expect anyone else to read this, apart from me – but please forgive my self-indulgence: I amused myself with a bit of archive research and found this:
https://www.fifteensquared.net/2019/08/16/guardian-cryptic-27901-by-arachne/ ]
Eileen, there’s always someone watching (and appreciating)!
Eileen @78 Thank you from dropping in again so late in the commenting day – no other blogger is as conscientious in their attention to the comments thread, which is always appreciated. Regarding ‘Lycidas’, I shall now twitch my mantle blue – tomorrow to fresh clues and crosswords new.
.muffin@28. To be a bit more prosaic and less erudite than more recent posts, I’m still waiting to see an explanation of see in PALAVERING.
I wonder why no-one has questioned Pasquale’s cluing of female artist in GEMINATE. There are ‘eaps of artists, mostly male, just clued as artist. Is she the only one? Will we have female scientist cluing curie, in the plural of Roman units of ten men, ie decuries?
me@83 cont. I’m just grumpy that I couldn’t find a word that matched the definition of GEMINATE (not that I got that) with FRA (female artist) in the middle. I felt that Pasquale had a few clues today with unnecessary extra words, eg in 6 (up), 7(see) and 8 (appropriate). I get the up and the appropriate (although I was looking for that other cryptic trick with appropriate, as in cognates of steal), but I don’t see the see. And the surface of REGISTERING doesn’t make any sense, to me.
Many thanks, Mitz and Balfour.
paddy melon @23 (and muffin – I did see your comment! ) – I just saw ‘see’ as padding, for the sake of the surface (which didn’t make a lot of sense, anyway! – perhaps in keeping with the definition).
Re ‘female artist’: thanks for raising that: I resisted making a comment here and awaited reaction: I’ve engaged many times in discussing why setters (notably Arachne) refer to artists, authors, doctors, drivers, actors et al as ‘she’…
Eileen @22, that’ll be an 15a matter.
Thank you Eileen@85. Oh, well, a delayed reaction, but happy not to disappoint. 🙂 Arachne is sorely missed.
A very fine puzzle. While I think “rail-destroyer” does a disservice to the many difficult decisions Beeching was confronted with, it’s a fine clue. As ever with Pasquale, several unfamiliar words clued unscrupulously fairly. Favourite today was the PAGE / TOME ellipsis combination, lovely work.
I couldn’t get anywhere with this yesterday but everything slowly fell in to place today. When I came here it had all been said. Just to add my thanks to Eileen for the blog and the bonus puzzle @80, and to Pasquale for the challenge.
AlanD@86 that Father Jack quote has been my earworm ever since I solved ECUMENICAL 😎.
paddymelon @87 – but she’s back!!
Sorry, AlanD – your comment was lost on me (thanks, Pauline in Brum! – so pleased you looked up the puzzle – a classic: I wasn’t really expecting that).
Coming late to this thread, thank you to Pasquale for a customarily excellent puzzle and to Eileen in particular for explaining how 1d and 2d worked.
I understand paddymelon @83 jibbing at “female artist” (and in most circumstances I’d agree, unless the word being clued contained “…FRA…”) but there is actually a perfectly respectable reason here. The word being clued is very unfamiliar. While “artist” would indeed be syntactically correct, “female artist”, narrowing the field down, plays fair by the solver and makes the clue practically solveable.
Similarly, the clear wordplay plus the crossers made the very obscure RATHE gettable.
“Greats” as I understand it is the modest and self-effacing name that Oxford’s School of Literae Humaniores gives to its field of study (Sorry, but although I have the pleasure of being married to one, I feel it difficult to forgive the School of Lit Hum for inflicting Alexander de Pfeffel Johnson on us). At one stage, those responsible for Politics, Philosophy and Economics (which inflicted Truss on us, which may be seen as an even greater sin) tried to popularise the term “Modern Greats”. I cannot imagine why they failed…
Neil H@91
I never knew how Greats got its name. I thought it might because it was a 4-year course whereas all the others were 3. I benefited from this because National Service was cancelled in my fourth year though, of course, it might have made a man of me. I switched to Law (Jurisprudence) after Mods (5 terms) because Philosophy and Ancient History didn’t appeal. The fact that I picked up two sets of vocabulary to use in crosswords wasn’t a factor.
Thanks Eileen for clarifications on Pasquale’s lovely composition.
That was a perfect puzzle! Even though I had the same two nhos as others they were still gettable, and loved ROBERT GRAVES and BESEECHING. I see the Slow Train by F and S has already been linked much earlier, but it is always what springs to mind when Beeching is mentioned. Do miss the splother in the caff when it’s unavailable.
NeilH@91. The artist Emin. Pasquale had other wordplay options available for the “unfamiliar” GEMINATE. (But as Gervase said@ 36: I’m surprised that GEMINATE is so unfamiliar – I would have thought that a term used in linguistics would be better known to word enthusiasts such as ourselves..)
Pasquale was a bit mean with the intersecting GEMINATE and RATHE. I wonder which occurred to him first?
Out of interest I looked up the word patterns. They’re very unusual, and there’s nothing familiar (to me) for G-M-N-T- or for R-T-E , except retie and retee, which are pretty boring.
Me@95 cont. On the other hand,, as G-M-N-T- and R-T-E are so unusual, I suppose Pasquale could have assumed that we could easily look them up, that’s provided you’ve got the crossers of course. That NW corner was pretty challenging, but I managed the rest.
paddymelon, thanks for the “female artist” comment. It was needed.
Pauline in Brum, I found the blog on Eileen’s link, but couldn’t find the puzzle. How did you manage?
Eileen, who will be reading this tomorrow most likely, but will surely read it — thank you for the link and for following us along the whole way, which as another commenter said, is all too rare. One of the many reasons we all love you.
Eileen thanks albeit late, I took more umbrage than you (was overumbraged?) re: the “age” duplication – having VICARAGE already I was sure that 18d must therefore end …ARE (= time over) so was held up a good while.
The underscore in 2d also bamboozled me into looking at Morse code for the two linked pairs!
But I liked the SEE….SOMEHOW combo as being a neat way to both improve the surface (a little) and disguise the anagram (a little) at the cost of (a little) parsimony, and EMIN being clued as female was what unlocked the whole NW.
Auriga@21 thank you for linking a word I didn’t know to one I use rather often, and Mitz thanks for the stat – surprising that Pasquale is not often so widely spread around, he seems to be able to dial the difficulty up or down with ease.
Well played AlanD@86 and, of course, thanks Pasquale.
Late to this thread having struggled with this most of today (Australian Friday) as I wasn’t able to get to it yesterday. Having read Eileen’s blog I have no shame in admitting Pasquale defeated me; with two, to me, new words (like many, GEMINATE and RATHE), a NHO (Tracey EMIN) and first encounter of crosswordese (holy = PI) I forgive myself for revealing a few.
Thanks to P & E.
In all the years I was there (1967-70; 73/73; 2009-17) I never heard anyone refer to GREATS apart from dons. The word seemed to be a bit of an embarrassment, and undergraduates talked about ‘classics’. But then passingly few people read the subject. No doubt, even at this late stage, someone will correct me.
Valentine @97, if you Google guardian cryptic 27901 you get the puzzle, works for any previous puzzle. It’s how I found 15^, that link usually appears on the search as well. Enjoy! P
Like SteveThePirate@73 I was defeated by not lifting and separating “religious group” – but would I even have got PI for religious? Or LOT for group? We’ll never know.
And I didn’t get KAYO either – this is not the first time I’ve failed on that word, probably because I don’t see it as a word at all, or only as one of two letters.
Pleased with myself for working out GEMINATE even though it was a never heard of, ditto RATHE. PAGE …TOME was cleverly done.
Thanks to setter and blogger.
Pino @92: Fortunately for me, chemistry was also a 4-year course, which allowed me to switch to law (which I could understand) in my second year, rather than trying to fry my brain with physical chemistry
I remarkably just stumbled across this.
I’m late getting to this, but here’s a comment that I don’t think has been raised yet.
I can’t manage to equate ERE to PREVIOUSLY in 8d. The former is, as far as I know, only a preposition or a conjunction, and the latter cannot be either of these.
I’ll confess that I still don’t understand 1dn and 2dn. In particular, I can see how 1dn works, but there doesn’t seem to be a definition for 2dn, no matter how I interpret the ellipses / blank. But I’ll take the word of those who are so impressed by them that they’re great.
I see the comments are still open, so I’ll thank Mitz@48 for the amusing statistics (since no one else has done so). Thanks for keeping track of those stats since 1974 — a true act of dedication! 🙂
I should add that in January 2021 I started working through the weekday Guardian archive from January 2020, and have finally caught up to open comments on the blog! With the help of bloggers and commenters, I’ve been able to progress from rarely finishing a puzzle to occasionally finishing!
This one I almost completed, missing just four or five.