The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/29617.
Pasquale gives us a helping of unusual words, perhaps more generous than usual for him, but as usual with sound and not impenetrable wordplay..
| ACROSS | ||
| 4 | ELATER |
Beetle to raise the spirit of driver ultimately (6)
|
| A charade of ELATE (‘raise the spirits’) plus R (‘driveR ultimately’). Yes, it is a genus of click beetles, and a jorum for me. | ||
| 6 | AIREDALE |
Dog given drink after broadcast (8)
|
| A charade of AIRED (‘broadcast’) plus ALE (‘drink’). | ||
| 9 | TODDLE |
Walk unsteadily with somewhat odd legs (6)
|
| A hidden answer in ‘somewhaT ODD LEgs’. | ||
| 10 | DEFIANCE |
Opposition of French chap preparing for the match? (8)
|
| A charade of DE (‘of French’) plus FIANCÉ (‘chap preparing for the match’). | ||
| 11 | ABSTRACTION |
Concept coming from intellectual, one getting on (11)
|
| A charade of ABSTRACT (adjective, ‘intellectual’) plus I (‘one’) plus ‘on’. | ||
| 15 | POTOROO |
Rodent depositing droppings round old pile of rocks (7)
|
| An envelope (‘depositing … round’) of O (‘old’) plus TOR (‘pile of rocks’) in POO (‘droppings’). POO might possibly be a verb, but does not match ‘depositing’. The definition is, I think, rather loose; the potoroo is a genus of Australian animals resembling rodents, but not belonging to the order of rodents. | ||
| 17 | NURSING |
Rush around and celebrate health professional’s job (7)
|
| A charade of NUR, a reversal (‘around’) of RUN (‘rush’); plus SING (‘celebrate’). | ||
| 18 | BEDBLOCKERS |
Hospital patients such as Rob Edwards and Phoebe Davis? (11)
|
| The definition, describing people, often elderly, who remain in hospital because of the lack of alternative care, is also rendered as two words or hyphenated. The wordplay comes from hidden ‘RoB EDwards’ and ‘PhoeBE Davis’. | ||
| 22 | FACTIOUS |
Like dissenter, quarrelsome right away (8)
|
| A subtraction: F[r]ACTIOUS (‘quarrelsome’) minus the R (‘right away’). | ||
| 23 | ELAPSE |
Pass by please in proper order (6)
|
| An anagram (‘in proper order’) of ‘please’. | ||
| 24 | SUSPENSE |
South American writers beginning to exploit what readers of thrillers want? (8)
|
| A charade of S (‘south’) plus US (‘American’) plus PENS (‘writers’) plus E (‘beginning to Exploit’). | ||
| 25 | SIMNEL |
Type of cake made with lemon but no egg is unusual (6)
|
| An anagram (‘unusual’) of ‘lem[o]n’ minus the O (‘no egg’) plus ‘is’, for the fruit cake associated with Mothering Sunday. | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | FELLER |
Man dropped to ground meeting monarch once (6)
|
| A charade of FELL (‘dropped to ground’) plus ER (‘monarch once’; it reminds me that Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, reported that he was known in pidgin English as “Fella belong Mrs Queen”). | ||
| 2 | TIME SIGNAL |
Alert – ligament is torn! (4,6)
|
| An anagram (‘torn’) of ‘ligament is’. | ||
| 3 | BEGINNER |
One starting to ask for money, wicked type heading off (8)
|
| A charade of BEG (‘ask for money’) plus [s]INNER (‘wicked type’) minus the first letter (‘heading off’). | ||
| 4 | ENTHALPY |
Certain amount of energy? Then play around (8)
|
| An anagram (‘around’) of ‘then play’. | ||
| 5 | ANDESITE |
Rock and rubble finally dumped on specified place (8)
|
| A charade of ‘and’ plus E (‘rubblE finally’) plus (‘dumped on’) SITE (‘specified place’). | ||
| 7 | AINU |
Old people in Australia in uniform (4)
|
| A hidden answer in ‘AustraliA IN Uniform’, for the ethnic group in Japan (principally) and Russia – but not Australia. | ||
| 8 | EXES |
Financial allowances for dumped lovers? (4)
|
| Double definition, the first being an abbreviation for expenses. | ||
| 12 | CLOUDBURST |
It could get you drenched? Could possibly! (10)
|
| Wordplay ij the answer: an anagram (BURST) of CLOUD is ‘could’. | ||
| 13 | FINESPUN |
Being very delicate, punishes attempt to provide humour? (8)
|
| A charade of FINES (‘punishes’) plus PUN (‘attempt to provide humour’). | ||
| 14 | EGGSHELL |
Bombs descending on horrible place, making one pale of hue? (8)
|
| A charade of EGGS (‘bombs’) plus (‘descending on’) HELL (‘horrible place’). | ||
| 16 | RABBITED |
Jewish teacher and Irish father talked a lot (8)
|
| A charade of RABBI (‘Jewish teacher’) plus TED (‘Irish father’, a reference to the British television sitcom Father Ted). | ||
| 19 | CALVIN |
Reformer finding murderer full of love oddly (6)
|
| An envelope (‘full of’) of LV (‘LoVe oddly’) in CAIN (‘murderer’ of his brother Abel, in Genesis). | ||
| 20 | EFTS |
Amphibians with little energy – feet start to stumble (4)
|
| A charade of E (‘little energy’) plus FT (‘feet’) plus S (‘start to Stumble’). An eft is a newt – etymologically the same word, with an eft (or ewt) becoming a newt. | ||
| 21 | ACTS |
Information female set out in book (4)
|
| A subtraction: [f]ACTS (‘information’) minus the F (‘female set out’), for the book of the New Testament. |
Turned out not as difficult as it appeared at first (Thank you, crossers). Hadn’t heard of ENTHALPY since A-levels, and nho the beetle at all.
Isn’t TODDLE missing a hidden indicator? In other clues it might be the “somewhat”, but that is already spoken for here.
Re EXES, an abbreviation for EXPENSES, really? Never saw that in my life, and I claimed a lot of them. I got it right but had no idea why.
Thanks both anyway!
I found this pretty challenging but very fair. Pasquale’s precise cluing of unfamiliar words meant I solved POTOROO and ANDESITE. My favourites were ENTHALPY, CLOUDBURST, CALVIN, and DEFIANCE. I almost managed to solve and parse everything, but BEDBLOCKERS defeated me. Thank you PeterO for the explanation, it was too tricky by far for me.
Dr WhatsOn @1, for TODDLE I parsed it by separating somewhat to read as some (parts of) what etc. If that’s right, I really should have applied a similar approach to BEDBLOCKERS…
Thank you to Pasquale for helping me learn some new things and to PeterO for the blog.
Quite right, PeterO. A POTOROO is most definitely not a rodent (there’s a hint in the last three letters). That error held me up. Some lovely clues here, though: BEDBLOCKERS, DEFIANCE, ENTHALPY, ANDESITE, CLOUDBURST, CALVIN… Thanks, Pasquale and PeterO.
My faves: DEFIANCE, BEDROCKERS, ENTHALPY and CLOUDBURST.
Thanks Pasquale and PeterO.
My tasting notes for Pasquale are “Good, but expect a long NHO list.” Which proved to be the case today. SIMNEL, ENTHALPY, ANDESITE, CALVIN, ELATER, AINU all were unfamiliar. I gave up on 8d, and groaned when I saw here that it was an abbreviation of “expenses”. It took me a while to parse BEDBLOCKERS.
Collins says a potoroo is a rodent.
Thanks for the blog, PeterO.
GDU: Collins is wrong.
TassieTim, yes!
Collins says that it’s a kangaroo rat. That’s not the same as saying it’s a rodent.
And if you click on “kangaroo rat” you get …
kangaroo rat
noun
1. any small leaping rodent of the genus Dipodomys, related to the squirrels and inhabiting desert regions of North America, having a stocky body and very long hind legs and tails: family Heteromyidae
2. Also called: kangaroo mouse
any of several leaping murine rodents of the Australian genus Notomys
I take it back GDU. 🙂
9a TODDLE is a symmetrical Playtex: “in somewhat” -> “in some whaT ODD LEgs”.
Yes some unfamiliar words here made this somewhat tricky and I was slow to fill in the last few, but I was helped enormously by having crossing letters for 4d ENTHALPY, 5d ANDESITE and 7d AINU. I really needed that explanation for 18a BEDBLOCKERS as I didn’t understand what that term means or how the word parsed. So a similar experience to previous posters like Geoff Down Under @6. Thanks to Pasquale and PeterO.
[25a A SIMNEL cake has eleven portions. Judas doesn’t get one. — oed.com dates 18a BEDBLOCKERS to 1975 … no cause for celebration.]
The NW corner of ELATER, POTOROO, ENTHALPY and ANDESITE made that the trickiest area for me today. Thought FELLER was a tad unfair as there was no indication of a slang term, but that’s a very minor quibble, compared to the rodent definition. I can’t however claim that I was misled by the inexact definition of POTOROO. As has been said above, at least you know that Pasquale will provide a clear instruction in the clues if you read them correctly and that was the case today. 12, 14 and 18 were my favourites and nice to see EFTS in a crossword again. Not appeared for quite a while, but used to pop up regularly. Thanks Pasquale and PeterO
A typical example of this setters work. The fact that the obscurities are “fairly clued” is irrelevant to me – hunting around to check answers is boring. We all have gaps in GK, but is it really necessary to throw in so many complete unknowns?
Pity, as there is some good stuff among the nonsense.
Yes, Philip was “Fella …” and Charlie is “Number one piccaninny belong Mrs Queen”.
Nice puzzle, ta P and P.
GDU@10 – Most references I can find say that POTOROO is a rat kangaroo (Australian marsupial), apart from Collins which links it to the kangaroo rat (American rodent). This looks like a genuine mistake.
Thanks to PeterO and Pasquale
Interesting the irritation because ELATER as a beetle was my.only unknown. I think we’ve had AINU in a crossword before, although it was my last one in. I’ve had to write at least one essay on ENTHALPY and changes in Gibbs free energy, plus ANDESITE is the sort of rock discussed in Earthcaches (Geocaching) and features in Minecraft.
Thank you to PeterO and Pasquale.
The online version now states…
Special instructions: The definition in 15ac has been corrected.
“Rodent” has been replaced by “Marsupial”.
I too had a long NHO list, including the beetle, the Japanese ethnic group, the cake, the Australian pipsqueak, and the bedblockers. But not the rock: I was a geology student in the long-ago, so I know of ANDESITE. As has already been said, the obscure words are (as nearly always with Pasquale) clearly clued, so I got there. I repeatedly pressed the check button, with deep surprise when no letters vanished.
Oscar Hammerstein consistently spelled the word FELLER that way in his lyrics for Oklahoma, which struck me as odd when my high school put the show on (I was a violinist in the pit). For your listening pleasure, here’s Hugh Jackman singing Pore Jud is Daid (yes, Hammerstein spelled those words that way too), where you can clearly hear it.
Enjoyable puzzle.
Favourites: DEFIANCE, CLOUDBURST, FINESPUN.
New for me: BEDBLOCKERS (well-clued); EGGS = bombs (for 14d); FACTIOUS; ANDESITE; ENTHALPY; ELATER beetle (loi)
I agree with PeterO re 15ac – POTOROO is marsupial not rodent. From the wikipedia entry for POTOROO:
They are allied to the Macropodiformes, the suborder of kangaroo, wallaby, and other rat-kangaroo genera.
I think Collins is confusing POTOROO/rat-kangaroo (marsupials found in Australia) with the kangaroo rats of North America which are rodents. In this case, Collins is wrong although they do connect potoroo to marsupial in their entry Word Lists containing ’potoroo’.
I could not parse 8d EXES = financial allowances. Never heard of exes = expenses.
EDIT: Just saw Jay’s post @20 after I posted here. I’m glad the error in the clue has been fixed now 🙂
Speaking as an Australian, I prefer that kangaroos are not/never called rodents!
The oddities may well have been fairly clued but when several of them intersect each other, it is a tad harder to tease them out. Far too few crossers. So the NW was very tricky with ENTHALPY, ELATER and ANDESITE all connected – and FELLER/ABSTRACTION and the L&S hidden TODDLE all caused me difficulty too. Rest of the puzzle was fine.
Thanks Pasquale and PeterO
It seems that either it is a rodent or a marsupial but cant be both.
Crossword dictionary has its drawbacks
Good that its been corrected.
The clue for Potoroo changed sometime between about 7am and 8am GMT, and now says marsupial instead of rat.
Elater, Potoroo, Andesite, and Finespun were new to me, but it felt like there were more while I was solving. Enthalpy, Ainu and Efts felt a little obscure but I remembered them. All fairly clued.
Thanks Pasquale and PeterO
Not convinced by this one. Some lovely clues Calvin – but errors needing correction and unusual spellings, hyphenation questions, and wonky definitions. A lot of setters could be proud of this puzzle – but Pasquale’s standard is so high that this is a bit of a disappointment
Tomsdad @15, sums it up nicely for me. Someone on the G site, from Australia presumably, was up in arms about the definition of POTOROO last night, so I knew that would cause some discussion here this morning. I wondered if the 3 letter acronyms across the top and bottom had any significance but FTB and DTN have various meanings like First Time Buyer, Fade to Black, Full to Bursting, Don’t Trust No One, Door to Needle etc. CLOUDBURST, DEFIANCE and BEDBLOCKERS were my standouts.
Ta Pasquale & PeterO.
As Postmark suggests, having ELATER, ENTHALPY, ANDESITE and POTOROO all connected in the NW corner was verging on the unreasonable! Apart from that, this was enjoyable. I ticked CLOUDBURST, and the RABBI TED was good though I think we’ve had a similar clue for it before.
Anyone else try googling Rob Edwards and Phoebe Davis?
The online correction says “the definition in 15a has been corrected”. This is quite generous as it effectively tells you which word is the definition!
Thanks Pasquale and PeterO.
I got some of the more obscure words, which were satisfying to solve, but ended up revealing 3 or 4 of the remaining ones. I did get EXES, but as with others, NHO it as = ‘expenses’.
Well I enjoyed that. I had the ideal crossword experience of staring at a lot of blanks after going through the across clues (I think “toddle”, “bed something s”, “suspense” and “simnel” went in) and slowly seeing the light. “potoroo” and “andesite” were new to me but so many minerals and rocks end in “ite” and the rest was almost too easily clued.
“cloudburst” was lovely and has given me a Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon earworm.
My only complaint was in parsing “abstraction” where I really could not equate “abstract” and “intellectual” even as adjectives.
Many thanks Pasquale and PeterO.
Felt a bit like chipping away at ANDESITE with a teaspoon at times
Top marks for CLOUDBURST and BEDBLOCKERS
I was patting myself on the head for remembering “guano” means droppings until the crossers rained on that parade
And personally I like learning new words
Cheers P&P
Like Shanne @19 I was amused by the harrumphing, as ELATER was my only NHO, though I did find the NW quadrant the trickiest, despite ENTHALPY being a write-in for this scientist.
My quibbles were all around definitions: POTOROO has already been much discussed; why are the AINU ‘old’, as there are still at least 10,000 of them, despite centuries of forced assimilation by the Japanese? I recognised ANDESITE as the name of a mineral, rather than a rock (which is typically an agglomeration of different minerals), but on checking I find the name is used for both, so the Don is off the hook here 🙂
ENTHALPY, BEDBLOCKERS, DEFIANCE and CLOUDBURST were my favourites.
Thanks to Pasquale and PeterO
Like JoFT @30, I can’t quite see the equivalence between ‘intellectual’ and ‘abstract’.
It seems there were a few more ‘unfamiliar / unknown words, meticulously clued’ (as I’ve written so many times in Pasquale blogs) than usual today (ELATER, POTOROO, ENTHALPY, ANDESITE for me) – perhaps ‘verging on the unreasonable!’ – but I had a good number of ticks among the other clues, Including DEFIANCE, SIMNEL, CLOUDBURST and CALVIN. It says something for my implicit trust in the integrity of Pasquale’s cluing that it never occurred to me to question whether a POTEROO was a rodent – I was just pleased to work it out from the wordplay.
16dn RABBITED made me smile, thinking of the jokes I’ve seen about ‘a priest and a rabbi’ – there are dozens, if you google.
Thanks to Pasquale for the puzzle and PeterO for the blog, especially for explaining BEDBLOCKERS (yes, Lord Jim @28, of course I did!).
Gervase@32 The AINU were the aboriginal people of Japan so they are ‘old’ in that sense.
Gervase@32: I have a Geology degree and have never heard of the mineral andesite, to which you refer. I can’t find it in any online reference, either. Andesite is an intermediate volcanic rock – stratovolcanoes are often andesitic. Where did you see your reference to the mineral andesite?
Gervase @32: I took the “old” reference for the Ainu to refer to their indigenous status rather than them being “ex” people. I fear, as you point out, their treatment has been no better than pretty much any other indigenous people.
I was sure I had seen “elater” in Grauniad puzzles before and was wondering what the fuss was about. A site search shows it only appeared in last month’s Genius, which obviously many people here do not tackle, so it is more obscure than I had thought.
andesiNe is the mineral, andesiTe is the rock.
I have finger fatigue from going through the alphabet with so many NHOs. And I won’t remember any of them. I liked CALVIN, BEGINNER, RABBITED, FACTIOUS but not a great deal else. A dull offering IMO.
Yes, Lord Jim@28: I had a go at Googling the BEDBLOCKERS before the light dawned. I’d have expected a hyphen or two words, but never mind. Ingenious clue: my favourite today with CLOUDBURST.
Bodycheetah@31: I started with guano=droppings too: found GUANACO and rejected it because I couldn’t account for the AC and (ironically) because it clearly wasn’t a rodent. I got the POTOROO in the end, but ELATER and particularly ENTHALPY were beyond me.
Googling ELATER I found only references to a hygroscopic cell. The only place I’ve found it referenced as a beetle is in this blog! One of the many words I didn’t get. Did not like this one. Got about 50% pretty quickly and the rest was too obscure for me. BEDBLOCKERS though was excellent.
TassieTim and Andy in Durham: Thanks for the correction. Sorry to conflate the mineralogy with the petrology 🙁
Googling “elater beetle” will find the creature for you.
Started this soon after midnight had chimed, but thoroughly defeated by NW corner. Though AINU was a completely new one to me, and although SIMNEL was just about there in my memory bank, thought the clueing was fiendish for that one
However, hardly any further progress in the bright light of day, but no surprise after hitting the Reveal button as I’d nho ENTHALPY, SLATER, ANDESITE or POPOROO.
Soundly defeated today therefore, but did enjoy solving the ones I did succeed with – DEFIANCE, AIREDALE. And many thanks PeterO for unravelling the mysteries of how BED BLOCKERS deserved their place in my hospital ward of sad casualties today…
15 was my LOI because of the definition which was not just loose, but downright wrong.
…thought I was imagining things (going slightly gaga?) this morning when rat at 15ac had mysteriously morphed into a marsupial. Has this sort of thing happened before on here, midstream, as it were…?
A typical Pasquale offering with some unusual words. AINU was also a jorum for me – as I typed it in, I thought this cannot possibly be a word.
I liked the some what TODDLE, the FELLER who wasn’t a parachutist, and the BED BLOCKERS, where I was another to look up the names at first. I took far too long to realise that ELAPSE was the anagram for please, doh!
Thanks Pasquale and PeterO.
DNF. New to me were ELATER (which defeated me), POTOROO, BEDBLOCKERS, ENTHALPY, ANDESITE, FINESPUN, and EFTS. That made the NW corner particularly difficult.
I vaguely recalled SIMNEL, possibly from 1066 and All That.
That was all a bit too obscure for my GK, I’m afraid.
[It’s a bit surprising that no one has leapt on Alan C @27 for misusing ‘acronyms’ – they’re ‘initialisms’. Or so I’ve had it beaten into my head elsewhere. Personally I’m not fussed, but there’s usually someone who gets in a tizzy about the distinction.]
ronald@46 I can vaguely recall it happening before when the wordplay was incorrect (one letter too few or too many), but not for a definition.
Others here may have better memories and more time served.
Thanks Pasquale and PeterO
ronald @ 46 Yes, clues have certainly been amended in midstream, generally as today to correct an error. But they usually phrase the notification more generally, just saying that the clue has been amended, rather than that the definition has, so today was something of a spoiler.
I really don’t mind a few unknown words: learning them is part of the charm of crossies. But when they are so numerous, with so many intercrossing, I spend more time with DuckDuckGo than with clue-untangling.
Top left corner was therefore a little beast.
Like Lord Jim & Eileen, I DuckDuckWent Rob & Phoebe, without success – finally guessing the answer from crossers and wondering if both are characters in some medical soap.
Being a benighted resident of the northern hemisphere, I know as little about marsupials as geology, but I suddenly spotted 15A could start & end in POO. DuckDuck gave me the rest.
RABBITED made me snigger.
So, an uphill struggle all the way – but at least I’ve learned a plethora of new words.
Bet I’ve forgotten them all by tomorrow tho!
Thanks to Pasquale – and a big hug to PeterO, without whom…..
The point was made earlier in the thread that learning new words is not a bad thing (I’m paraphrasing). I certainly agree with that, and it’s been a useful corrective whenever I’ve felt a bit frustrated about such things mid-solve. But, in today’s puzzle there are nine that count as new or sufficiently unfamiliar, in my case, and I doubt I’ll retain any of them by the time they might come up in a puzzle again.
Plus, I agree with the first point made by Wellbeck@52. I’m all for new words and expanding my knowledge, but there’s probably some tipping point (different for everyone) at which it starts to reduce the enjoyment of any given crossword.
ronald @46 I think the most recent mid-stream correction occurred in Everyman’s puzzle just before New Year, when he had imbibed too much Dubonnet, so that it both featured in an across clue and served as the definition in a down clue. A special instruction subsequently changed its former manifestation to Drambuie. Not quite the categorical retreat involved this morning, however.
I found this a fair challenge. As expected, a few new words – ELATER, ANDESITE, ENTHALPY. Will I remember that last one?
As an Aussie, I’m so pleased the to-do about the POTOROO was sorted out. No doubt Northern Hemisphere solvers will remember that little marsupial.
BED BLOCKERS is two words, surely. Very clever clue, blocking the ‘beds’. As a former public hospital Social Worker, I’ve only known it as an informal ‘in-house’ term used by bean counter types, but derogatory all the same. It puts unfair pressure on patients and families for what are failures in funding and public policy. But I don’t need to tell Guardian readers that.
Favourites were BED BLOCKERS and CLOUDBURST.
Ticks also to DEFIANCE, FINESPUN and EGGSHELL.
Thanks to Pasquale for the fun and to PeterO for navigating through the shoals.
A real challenge, which I enjoyed despite taking far too long on some clues.
I hadn’t heard of the beetle but the wordplay was clear. I’m surprised that ENTHALPY was a new/rare word to many.
Favourites were BEDBLOCKERS and CLOUDBURST
Thanks Pasquale and PeterO
Thanks Pasquale and PeterO
Again I’m amazed how many people have managed to avoid studying chemistry! You don’t have to have got all that far in the subject to come across ENTHALPY.
Muffin @57 I studied Chemistry to A Level and don’t recall ENTHALPY. Though I concede it was a long time ago now 👴🏻
Rob Edwards is reasonably well known in football circles as the recent manager of Luton Town but the only Phoebe Davis I could find, is a journalist. Hardly household names.
muffin, I scraped a C in Chemistry at ‘O’ Level and never looked back.
Muffin@57 I passed Chemistry O-level in 1964, but I don’t remember ENTHALPY, which could either mean it didn’t crop up as a term then, or that it has been deleted from the memory banks. It’s not a word I’ve had cause to use in conversation ever, as far as I can recall. But I don’t mind it in the crossword when it’s fairly clued as today.
AlanC @59 It didn’t occur to me for a moment that Rob Edwards and Phoebe Davis were present in the clue in their real-life identities, if indeed they had such. I intuited that they were names concocted to participate in the wordplay, although it was not immediately apparent how. The penny dropped a little later once some crossers helped things along.
Pauline@3 and Frankie@12 – yes it hit me like a ton of bricks when I awoke this morning, but it was far too late to change my entry. But on the subject, aren’t we recently seeing this device used in new syntactic contexts – here when you do the separation you get an operator and the first part of its operand: I’m not sure I’ve seen that before.
I’m often surprised by the things people have never heard of, but then I’ve never heard of things that surprise other people (like ENTHALPY: I did one year of chemistry and physics lessons before being asked to choose between Arts and Sciences and dropping both of them completely. That was over 60 years ago, and if enthalpy was ever mentioned I have forgotten it.) The ELATER was fine: nobody expects anybody to know about beetles.
As ever, about one-third done.
Thanks for the heads up for the rest.
Many thanks for your various inputs, Balfour@54, Simon S@51 and Ace@50…
And am I right in thinking that the term Bedblocking has been superseded fairly recently by the term Pyjama Paralysis…?
Never heard of BEDBLOCKERS, POTOROO, ANDESITE or the ELATER beetle. From somewhere ENTHALPY and SIMNEL cake struggled through the murk. (And yes, muffin, I did take chemistry in both high school and college, but have no recollection of what ENTHALPY means.)
I thought SIMNEL cake might have something to do with ostensible Princes in the Tower, but it doesn’t seem to.
Thanks to Pasquale and PeterO.
[gladys @40 you’d be in exalted company re BED BLOCKERS – the inner sleeve of Half Man Half Biscuit’s classic “Cammell Laird Social Club” features a set of pastiche album covers including “Bed Blocking Beats” – presumably a pun on the Chemical Brothers single: Block Rockin’ Beats]
Jack @ 30 and Gervase @33, stuck with with 11 ac, I looked ‘intellectual’ up in the thesaurus, not expecting much joy. But there was ‘abstract’ . ABSTRACT?? How ridiculous, and I was much loathe to put ABSTRACTION in, eventually resorting to the paper-solvers check-button (pencil).
Thesauri (?) have some very daft things and I think that if ‘synonyms’ can’t be interchanged in some phrase or other, then best to stick well away. Except in exceptional circumstances, of course…
Really enjoyed finding out about the round-eyed AINU, didn’t mind the controversial POTOROO, since I just glimpsed a picture (clearly a rat) and some very nice clues elsewhere, as mentioned by others here, albeit spouse got all of those.
Many thanks, Pasquale and PeterO.
Me @ 60, actually that was Google’s thesaurus (which appears first in the search) and now I can’t find it anywhere else.
I’m thinking what with the POTOROO coming up with a rat-like picture first, maybe Pasquale was in a rush today?
Me @ 68 I meant.
Caroline @ 68ff
Chambers Thesaurus gives the following as synonyms for ‘abstract’. I think it would be easy enough to construct a sentence where the components of each section would be pretty much completely interchangeable, eg from 2 “It was a(n) adjective of choice argument”.
1 abstract nouns
non-concrete, conceptual, notional
2 abstract reasoning
theoretical, conceptual, notional, intellectual, hypothetical, unpractical, unrealistic, general, generalized, indefinite, philosophical, academic, complex, deep, profound, subtle
TECHNICAL metaphysical, ideational, ideative
FORMAL abstruse, arcane, recondite, suppositional, suppositive
3 abstract paintings
non-realistic, non-representational, symbolic, contrived
Lots of jorums (jora?) for me: ELATER, POTOROO, BEDBLOCKERS, SIMNEL, ANDESITE, AINU. I also didn’t know the accounting meaning of EXES, don’t think I know the expression TIME SIGNAL, and I’d forgotten (although I’m sure I knew at one point) that EGG could be slang for a bomb. But still I managed to finish, so I learned a bunch of things today!
[By the way, although AINU is a jorum for me, I do know the word in a completely different context: It’s Tolkien’s name for one of the divine beings who created and (to some degree) guide the world in his legendarium. This has nothing to do with the puzzle, though. In particular, Tolkien’s “ainu” is singular — the plural is “ainur” — so even if one thought that Pasquale intended to refer to this meaning, it wouldn’t work.
If you want a slightly deeper dive, Tolkiens Ainur can be divided into two classes: the Valar and the Maiar. The Valar are the most powerful beings, roughly analogous to the gods in polytheistic mythologies, although Tolkien would object to that comparison. The Maiar are lesser spirits. Gandalf, Saruman, and Sauron were Maiar.]
Valentine @66, there was a Lambert Simnel who was a pretender to the English throne in the late 15th century but the word “simnel” meaning “cake” is derived from an Old French word “simenel” which means “bread made from fine flour”.
I actaully learnt the word AINU many years ago from Grauniad and Indy crosswords when it was relatively commonly used – perhaps because it’s got a useful set of letters. It must have dropped out of use more recently.
I’ve never heard of BEDBLOCKERS either. It makes sense that I wouldn’t have, since in the US our preference is to dedicate our healthcare funds to enriching parasitic insurance CEOs and then just chucking indigent old folks out of their beds to fare as best they can.
And now I’ll tell you how I really feel…..
Thanks Pasquale. For the most part I agree with Oofyprosser @16. Even though I enjoy ‘unusual’ words I felt this crossword had a few too many for my tastes. I ended up revealing the nho BEDBLOCKERS and the nho ENTHALPY and used the guess-then-check method for ANDESITE, ELATER, and SIMNEL. I did find some clues to my liking such as TODDLE (liked the splitting of ‘somewhat’), DEFIANCE, FELLER, and my COTD, CLOUDBURST. Thanks PeterO for the blog.
Too many nhos, uncompelling definitions, and very little humour {though CLOUDBURST was nice} made this a poor crossword for me. Like many others I prefer to have a decent chance of finishing without Googling or other referencing, even if I haven’t parsed everything fully. I don’t object to the difficulty per se but expect more reward for getting there.
Ted @72: I was unsure about “alert” for Time Signal – my understanding is that the time signal, in the UK at least, was the speaking clock which you could phone to check your watch. These days there is also the time signal sent out from Cumbria which suitable devices can tune to in order to remain accurate. It’s not something which signals an alarm or alert though.
Thanks, Jack of Few Trades. I confess I remain a bit uncertain about what the expression TIME SIGNAL is referring to. If it’s just the pips produced by the speaking clock, then “alert” seems odd as you say. I assumed that there was something else called a “time signal” that was more like an alert. For instance, in American football there’s something called the “two-minute warning”, indicating that a game is near its end; I suppose that the phrase “time signal” could refer to something like that, but I don’t know precisely what.
Simon @ 71
Coincidentally, that was indeed the phrase I was toying with (‘it was an intellectual/abstract argument’) but I didn’t feel happy with it. The similarity can probably only exist when these words are used as adjectives and applied to an abstract noun (as opposed to an intellectual noun!) and so things like ‘intellectual property rights’ and ‘abstract reasoning’ come to mind. One dictionary stressed the meaning of intellectual as specific to reasoning rather than emotion, and abstraction is a specific form of reasoning , so maybe ok. Or maybe not!
Fiery Jack @58
You must have forgotten. I don’t think you can have done A level chemistry without coming across enthalpy change ΔH!
Valentine @66
It’s possible that you used internal energy change ΔU instead of ΔH. The former is measured at constant volume; the latter at constant pressure.
Can I (pedantically) point out that TOK Pisin is not baby English, but a full blown language with a grammar and vocabulary (largely loan words from English) of its own. In it, Philip was oldfella Pili-Pili him bilong Misis Kwin [old Philip, the Queen’s husband] and Prince Charles described himself as nambawan pikinini bilong misis kwin [the Queen’s firstborn]. It is only respectful to quote another language accurately.
Thanks PeterO
ANDESITE, and FINESPUN. I thought it unusual for Pasquale, or any setter, to drop chunks directly from the clues into the solutions.
In the case of ANDESITE I thought it can’t possibly begin with AND, straight from the clue, and went looking for an anagram (rock) of AND. Or was that just clever misdirection by Pasquale? They’ll never think that AND means AND.
And then we have PUN and ‘‘punishes”. Is Pasquale punning on ”punishes”? Is that his ”attempt to provide humour” with a tongue-in-cheek question mark at the end?
Thanks TT, duly noted.
AlanC@27. I also thought it was worth looking up the letters in rows 1 and 15. They seemed to be shouting at us.
I found this combo amusing: FTB feed the beast, and DTN, delay/disruption tolerance networking. Setter and solvers?
In our family, Full To Bursting
TassieTim @82: Tok Pisin is indeed a fully fledged language, which means, despite its name, it is not a pidgin.
Pidgins are simplified codes which arise as a means of communication, often for trading purposes (pidgin = business), between people who speak a variety of different languages. But pidgins can develop much further into the full complexity of a natural language and become learnt as a mother tongue – this is classified by linguists as a creole.
Caroline @68
Re 15A ,POTOROO: It is called convergence when two species not closely related develop similar characteristics in response to the environment. A potoroo may look rather like a rat, but that does not make it a rodent. Drawing on Wikipedia (not necessarily a good idea). I would suspect that Pasquale was confused by the name rat-kangaroo applied to the potoroo; there are critters called kangaroo rats which are rodents – including one indigenous to Australia. Collins dictionary seems to have fallen into a similar trap. Anyway, the clue has been altered for a better match to the answer.
Standard Pasquale in many ways – numerous obscure words but all very fairly clued as PeterO said in his blog. Didn’t take too long even with lots of dictionary checking. I could not for the life of me parse BEDBLOCKERS before I came here, but parsed everything else without difficulty. Thanks to PeterO and to Pasquale
18a – where does BLOCKERS come from?
I got TIME SIGNAL (with a few checks)
gladys@63
70 years I too gave up Physics and Chemistry after a year or two but it wasn’t a matter of choice!
There were 5 jorums for me today and one half jorum in that I knew ABSTRACTION as a word, but with a different meaning. On the other hand EXES has been familiar for most of my working life (in fact longer than that. Claiming them was important to my father, a journalist).
gladys@40
If you enjoyed CLOUDBURST you might like to try my attempt at 39 in the comments on Tuesday’s Qaos.
Steffen @90.
In case you see this…
If you look at the two names in the clue, BED is hidden within them. So BED is “blocking” those names.
I can’t think of a good example of why this device might work, but perhaps “I’m blocking the traffic” = “I’m getting in the way of the traffic”.
But that doesn’t seem to quite work for me.
Doing crosswords requires a bit of free’n’easiness with the English language.
Some seemed very simple, but I had to look meanings up. Simnel was new. But CLOUDBURST had that double take brilliance. Had to read PeterO’s solution twice to understand what Pasquale had done.
Thanks both.
We have so many chemists and physicists here. GK is GK to some. What surprised me was how many didn’t know AINU, but then it may be believed that social scientists don’t count. 🙂
PDM@95 I knew the Ainu from reading Murakami . Chemistry is just a minor subset of Physics , Dirac does the whole subject in one line .
I agree with your point on AND(esite) .
I would take issue with Simnel cake having something to do with mothers day, its an Easter Cake with the balls of marzipan representing the apostles
I agree David , I make one every Easter , our sprogs learned this in Primary school.
David Wilkinson @97
I am not sure whether we are talking about the same thing: at least in the US, Mother’s Day is the second Sunday in May, which has nothing to do with the case. The more English Mothering Sunday is the fourth Sunday in Lent, and a cake made then should strictly be held over until Easter.
Roz @98
I do indeed make a simnel cake for Mothering Sunday in memory of my late mother.
Just in case there is anyone to leap in at this stage, I would point out that Mothering Sunday originally honoured Mother Church (or Churches), but had benn widened to include physical mothers.
Ronald @65 no you’re not right
Sorry, jorums? Nice to have a word for this, but how did ‘jorum’ come to mean unknown/new word? It appears to mean a bowl or its contents. Very much in favour of them anyway, just need to find an occasion to use ENTHALPY in context …
Liam @102
See the FAQs on this site here (also available from the menu bar!)
Thank you @93
Liam 102
A clue such as “Scottish intimates, strange butting in for a measure of drink” would lead to “jorums”. (“jos”, “rum”).
However, it’s a word that most people won’t know, and so has come to mean – by example – any word previously unknown by the solver, but which was deduced by the wordplay alone.
And yes, I find the InSpeak of this site irritating at times too.
Etu @105
That’s what the FAQs are for
Thanks Muffin.
Never end a sentence with a preposition if you can help it 😉
To quote Winston
“That’s the sort of nonsense up with which I will not put” 🙂
Gervase@32, you can include me as a hapless harrumpher. I agree (as I usually do) with Eileen@24 and Wellbeck@52. A few jorums are OK – I do like to learn new words – but I prefer to spend the majority of my solving time on wit and wordplay, rather than looking up words in the dictionary or on google. (And yes, I did google Edwards and Davis, to no avail.)
I did enjoy 12 d CLOUDBURST, but I would have liked more clues like that and fewer Potoroos and e-sites 😊.
Had a tough time with this one. Only completed about half
Of the more “obscure” words, I managed SIMNEL, ENTHALPY, ANDESITE, AINU
Nho BEDBLOCKER, and agree with SueM48 @55 that it’s a rather distasteful term that stigmatizes people for simply being in hospital. I wouldn’t be surprised if the invention of the term (in 1975 apparently) was politically motivated
Solved this all bar elater but only after looking up a few words. I liked bedblockers best. Some things irritated me. Why use ainu when Anne or aunt fits. Or enthalpy at all. Or efts. Stick to words we have heard of please.