Pangakupu returns with another enjoyable challenge.
There’s a good selection of clue types, with some nice surfaces, along with one or two less familiar words, gettable from the wordplay. I’m afraid my elderly laptop is playing up a bit today and I’m unable to supply links at the moment but you can find explanations in your dictionary and / or do your own googling.
I had ticks for 1ac STOVEPIPE HATS, 13ac LOINCLOTHS, 16ac AIR GUITAR, 18ac GASLIGHTS, 6dn HYPOCAUST, 8dn BREAKING POINT, 9dn MOTHER COUNTRY, 15dn TRIUMPHAL and 16dn APHORISMS.
As usual, I’ll leave the spotting of the customary Maori Nina to those who have some idea of what they’re looking for.
Many thanks to Pangakupu.
Definitions are underlined in the clues,
Across
1 Holy man almost completed kinky epitaphs – capital things (9,4)
STOVEPIPE HATS
ST (saint, holy man) + OVE[r] (almost completed) + an anagram (kinky) of EPITAPHS (capital – worn on the head)
10 Limits time in power, overlooking Government crime (5,2)
REINS IN
REI[g]N (time in power, minus g (government) + SIN (crime)
11 Opening that is never for supplementary player (7)
RIPIENO
RIP (opening) + IE (that is) + NO (never)
12 In France, Malbec’s served after a second course (5)
ASCOT
AS ( a second) + CÔT (the French version of the Malbec grape)
13 Colin, shivering, reluctant to appear in minimal garment (9)
LOINCLOTH
An anagram (shivering) of COLIN + LOTH (reluctant)
14 Turning tense with alarm, mostly unjustified (5)
INAPT
A reversal (turning) of T (tense) + PANI[c] (alarm, mostly)
16 It produces nothing of note, however plucky you are (3,6)
AIR GUITAR
Cryptic definition, with a play on ‘plucky’
18 Backed flag about minor abuses (9)
GASLIGHTS
A reversal (backed) of SAG (flag) round SLIGHT (minor)
19 Body temperature, at a rough estimate (5)
TORSO
T (temperature + OR SO (at a rough estimate)
20 Has cleverer ideas than vote losers linked to markets (9)
OUTSMARTS
OUTS (vote losers) + MARTS (markets)
23 Question about including Italy gets key support? (5)
QUOIN
QU (question) + ON (about) round I (Italy) – another name for keystone
24 Marks comments about children (7)
NOTCHES
NOTES (comments) round CH (children)
25 Less quiet? Backed change suppressing volume (7)
NOISIER
A reversal (backed) of RE[v]ISION (change) minus v (volume)
26 Loosely tethers single dog (7,6)
ENGLISH SETTER
An anagram (loosely) of TETHERS SINGLE
Down
2 Go after version of Tosca in formal dress (9)
TAILCOATS
TAIL (go after) + an anagram (version) of TOSCA
3 Excursion: one’s taken in a lot of the view (5)
VISIT
I (one) in VIST[a] (a lot of the view)
4 Jury initially not empowered in China (5)
PANEL
Initial letters of Not Empowered in PAL (china – rhyming slang)
5 Inclination to right in European city is a local bias (5,4)
PARTI PRIS
TIP (inclination) + R (right) in PARIS (European city) – ‘local’ to indicate French, I think
6 Feature of Roman villa thus represented with a copy (9)
HYPOCAUST
An anagram (re-presented) of THUS and A COPY for the Roman under-floor heating system
7 Old rhythm picked up in Korean exercise (3,2)
TAE BO
A reversal (picked up) of O (old) BEAT (rhythm)
8 Good topic after burglary: how stressful is this? (8,5)
BREAKING POINT
BREAK-IN (robbery) + G (good) + POINT (topic)
9 Second nobleman beginning to rule in my homeland (6,7)
MOTHER COUNTRY
OTHER (second) + COUNT (nobleman) + R[ule] in MY – a MOment or two wasted here, having taken second as MO and wondering what to do with THERY – nice one
15 Area taken from lobby – quiet room, largely displaying success (9)
TRIUMPHAL
[a]TRIUM (lobby, minus a – area) + P (quiet) + HAL[l] (room, largely)
16 Wise words Miss Oprah broadcast (9)
APHORISMS
An anagram (broadcast) of MISS OPRAH
17 Own goal perhaps is transfixing half of team in scare (9)
TERRORISE
ERROR (own goal perhaps) + IS in TE[am[
21 Some orbit it and a satellite (5)
TITAN
Hidden in orbiT IT ANd
22 What regularly rises is rising, doing for cavity (5)
SINUS
A reversal (rising) of SUN (what regularly rises) + IS
23 Abandon importing large quantity of bedding (5)
QUILT
QUIT (abandon) round L (large)
Loved this, all except the unknown to me, and interconnected in the NE section RIPIENO, PARTI PRIS and TAE BO. So a reluctant reveal and therefore sadly a DNF this morning…
Thanks Pangakupu and Eileen
Several I struggled with here. Despite knowing quite a lot about wine, I’ve never heard of Malbec referred to as COT. I put IS into 3d, so couldn’t work out what VIT meant. NHO PARTI PRIS, but was able to construct it. Never heard of TAE BO either and couldn’t parse it – I guessed TAE for the first word, but completed the second one by guessing and checking! I also tried to explain THERY in 9d.
Favourites TORSO and NOISIER.
muffin @2 – I was very sorry not to be able to give a link re CÔT. If you google ‘cot, wine’, you’ll find several interesting articles.
Challenging as always from Pangakupu, but I thought a fraction below this setter’s usual superlatively high standards. I found a few clues a bit over convoluted for my taste e.g. VISTA and REINS IN, or contrived like SINUS (I couldn’t make sense of the surface of the clue) and OUTCASTS (I got the reference to the “out party” but I have never heard of the losing side or opposition party referred to as “the outs”. On the other hand, it is always good to learn new words such as HYPOCAUST, QUOIN, ‘cot’ for ‘malbec’ and RIPIENO, although from my (new) understanding of the latter the answer should be ‘ripenistas’ or the clue should read ‘players’. Favourites were TAILCOATS, GASLIGHTS, AIR GUITAR, STOVEPIPE HATS, and the wonderfully concise TORSO. TAE BO would also have been a favourite, but I think that the definition is a bit too loose. TAE BO is an American exercise system which has incorporated some elements of the Korean martial art Taekwondo. INAPT/ unjustified was another stretch for me. Reading this back it might sound a bit picky; I really did enjoy the crossword! But perhaps not quite as much as I expected to on seeing Pangakupu’s name at the top. Thank you Pangakupu for an excellent puzzle and thanks Eileen for the blog.
A super puzzle which stretched me to the limit last night especially with new words, HYPOCAUST, TAE BO, COT and RIPIENO. I liked all the perimeter clues but my favourites were LOINCLOTH, AIR GUITAR and GASLIGHTS. Māori words, KOPAE and PUORU meaning record/CD and music can be found going across row 6 & 10. There was a bit of a theme with STOVEPIPE HATS, TAILCOATS and ASCOT.
Ta Pangakupu & Eileen.
10A – are sin and crime the same thing? If sloth, greed and lust were crimes, then we’d have vastly more overcrowded jails.
[Eileen @3
Thanks for that. Surprised I hadn’t come across it in the SW French wines I sometimes drink, though these days most of the Malbec I have is Argentinian.]
All solved and even spotted the Nina KOPAE PUORO, which is apparently a CD player.
Fun solved, thanks to Pangakupu and Eileen.
Me @3
PS – I’d forgotten how far I had to scroll down but the article by Jancis Robinson is particularly worth reading.
[Eileen @9
I haven’t found the Jancis Robinson article, but I did read some nonsense by the “ThurstQueen”, implying that Malbec in only grown in Argentina. It is grown all over the world, and is, indeed, a component grape in some clarets, from Bordeaux, France!]
16 across reminds me of the Frasier brothers playing Air Violin.
And I think the NINA is KOPAE.
Great crossword by the way.
paul @4: you obviously mean OUTSMARTS rather than OUTCASTS.
I was confused by Google searches which appear to show both ASCOT and MALBEC as varieties of cravat, so although I got the answer I had the def wrong (in France, Malbec) and the parsing non-existent (nho COT=Malbec). Not happy about that one. RIPIENO and TAE BO were also unknown to me but derivable from the wordplay.
Heavy going today, and not convinced that point=topic, but I liked LOINCLOTH and AIR GUITAR, TORSO and HYPOCAUST.
Please explain China = PAL?
Very difficult! Solved only one clue on my first pass.
I could not parse the COT bit of 12ac; 25ac, the TISE bit of 17d.
New for me: TAE BO; RIPIENO; HYPOCAUST; QUOIN.
Favourites: TORSO, REINS IN.
Muddy thinking @14, it’s Cockney rhyming slang, China plate = mate = pal.
They do produce Malbec in New Zealand, so maybe the cot grape is better known there.
Not a wine drinker, so nho CÔT, let alone that it’s the same as Malbec. I did find this puzzle a little below par for Pangakupu, though I’d struggle to explain why. Maybe it’s just me.
My favourite was Outsmarts – it tickled my fancy for some reason.
I initially had waistcoat rather than tailcoats. Wait=come after and waistcoat=formal wear both felt a little of a stretch but not excessively, but the wordplay and definition for tailcoats are definitely more precise.
Alan @12. Yes. Thank you!
@14 rhyming slang, CHINA (PLATE) = mate.
COT is the standard term for this grape in my home region, the Loire Valley.
ASCOT took me the longest, due to entering VISTA [snap, paul@4] at 3d (Excursion = visit, take I out, add A – get ‘lot of view’) – so I stared at A_C_A forever, it seemed. They grow Malbec in Oz too, but I’ve never seen it as CÔT. So I DuckDuckWent that one, as for TAE BO and RIPIENO (a jorum for me). NOISIER as a v-less revision reversed was a great spot, and AIR GUITAR (FOI) was a lovely PDM. So, took me a while, but I enjoyed it. Thanks, Pangakupu and Eileen.
I really enjoyed this lovely puzzle.
Very helpful blog, thank you Eileen.
New words slowed down the NE: TAE BO, RIPIENO, HYPOCAUST, PARTI PRIS, eventually solved with wordplay and crossers.
I could not parse COT (Malbec) and forgot to go back to try to parse NOISIER.
My favourites were LOIN CLOTH (for the shivering Colin), AIR GUITAR, TRIUMPHAL, GASLIGHTS, MOTHER COUNTRY (for second=other; I also fell for the misdirection).
Thank you Pangakupu and Eileen.
I don’t think 11 quite works. ‘Ripieno’ refers to the main orchestra, or the parts that they play alone, without the soloist or ‘supplementary player’. So ‘never for’ needs to be part of the definition, which means that either it’s doing double duty or ‘no’ is left unclued.
Well… got there, but not without a fair bit off head scratching.
Pretty sure RIPIENO is wrong. These are the body of players that make up that section of a chamber group or small orchestra.
SINUS for cavity is well known to regulars but will annoy newcomers.
Struggled in the NE due to the interplay between the unknown TAE BO, PARTI PRIS. & HYPOCAUST.
I’ve enjoyed this setter more than this in the past.
Had to look up GASLIGHTS to discover that Gaslighting is the manipulation of someone into questioning their own perception of reality. The expression, derives from the title of the 1944 film Gaslight.
I drink more Malbec than any other wine, but have nho ‘cot’. ‘French malbec’ made me think ‘Cahors’ which got me nowhere with 12a. I did think ASCOT for ‘course’, but then couldn’t make it parse.
You learn something every day here: wonderful!
Thanks Pangakupu and Eileen for the enlightenment.
Grim and Dim @6: I agree, strictly speaking sin and crime are not the same, however it does seem to be a commonly used substitution in crosswordland.
Thanks to Pangakupu and Eileen. I had trouble with some of the parses so needed the blog to assist my full understanding of several clues. Hadn’t heard of 11a RIPIENO, 23a QUOIN or 7d TAE BO. I liked the much-mentioned 16a AIR GUITAR very much, also 8d BREAKING POINT.
Hmm. Without wanting to catalog them all, I had a lot of niggles that took the edge off this one for me. Several NHOs, as previously mentioned, that required a bung and check or google, which is always a bit unsatisfactory.
It appears that I might be the only person unhappy with ‘abuses’ as a defn for GASLIGHTS, which many people have listed as a favorite.
Re RIPIENO – I’ve been struggling with this, following various comments – thanks, everyone.
I found this as a definition:
‘the body of instruments accompanying the concertino in baroque concerto music’: “the concertino is accompanied by ripieno strings” –
and, elsewhere, ‘accompanying’ as a synonym for ‘supplementary’, which I can just about make work, taking the definition as underlined in the blog – but it is rather ambiguous!
It’s not Friday, but it’s still Pangakupu, or is it Pasquale?
Luckily, I used to live in St Albans, where there is a Roman HYPOCAUST, so that one gave me little trouble. I liked the wordplay for REINS IN, but failed to see that in NOISIER. I also liked the AIR GUITAR cd, the anagram for ENGLISH SETTER, and the MOTHER COUNTRY, where, like Eileen and others, I got left with THERY at first to parse until I saw the OTHER. I thought that T?E in 7 was likely to be TAE after TAE kwondo and the rest then went in. RIPIENO and QUOIN new for me.
Thanks Pangakupu and Eileen.
Completed this despite it being my first crossword in 5 months due to illness. I hope to get back to my daily Grauniad puzzle.
William @27: The film is based on the 1938 play in fact, so you can take it back a little further.
I’d not heard the term “ripieno” before but knew enough Italian to know that “ravioli repieni di/per…” meant stuffed pasta and so given so many musical terms are Italian and that it was given as singular it seemed a decent guess. From the definition I looked up it seemed like the ripieno is a musical equivalent to the peloton, the main body in numbers but the side show in terms of the action, albeit with a vital role to play. However, that would make them “players” not “player” so I cannot quite make this one work.
Another wine drinker who’d never heard of the malbec/cot equivalence, so I don’t think those who know little about wine need berate themselves too much.
Lots to enjoy here so the odd slip is hardly going to make me throw my toys out. Thank you both Pangakupu and Eileen.
Jacob @31 – renewed apologies for lack of links, but, if you google ‘gaslighting’ you will find explanations. As William @27, it’s derived from the psychological thriller ‘Gaslight’ (qv), in which a man tries to drive his wife mad.
I’m glad to see that I was not the only one to be initially bamboozled by MOTHER COUNTRY.
Alastair @34 – glad to have you back.
[I’m taking time out now for the webcast of Puck’s funeral.]
Eileen @32 I came to the same conclusion after looking up RIPIENO – it is the body of supplementary players who are sometimes, but not always used to support the concertino (main) players. But I could not find any justification for RIPIENO = player. That should be ‘repienista’. Or the clue should have read ‘players’. Didn’t mar my enjoyment of the puzzle though; I had never heard of either the plural or singular version and needed the crossers and the wordplay to fill in the grid before checking on Wikipedia that it was some kind of player.
Robi@33…I was also tempted to mention the fact that there’s a splendid example of a Roman Hypocaust in St Albans, which the Primary School kids we took there one day many years ago were very impressed by. And the Verulamium Museum nearby. So I’m glad you referenced it for me!
Robi@33…I was also tempted to mention the fact that there’s a splendid example of a Roman Hypocaust in St Albans, which the Primary School kids we took there one day many years ago were very impressed by. And the Verulamium Museum nearby. So I’m glad you referenced it for me!
…apologies, this site keeps doing this to me…
Defeated by inadequacies in my French, Italian and Korean today, but really – should it really be necessary to have three non-English languages in one grid and with three of the four solutions requiring them intersecting? And in what context is ‘children’ ever abbreviated to ‘ch’?
Sorry: for me, this one fails to meet expectations on several counts, clever though it is in parts.
I only got about halfway through on this. I whiffed on a bunch of the more esoteric ones, and some of the trickier constructions. I had heard of TAE BO, but hesitated to put it in, since it’s an American invention combining Taekwondo and Boxing — not a Korean Sport, as far as I know. Is there a different Tae Bo?
I encountered and was challenged by pretty much all the points raised by commenters so far! But I did manage to make everything make sense in the end – bar MOTHER COUNTRY which I couldn’t parse. I had to turn to the dictionary to check NHO things like PARTI PRIS, COT, the Korean discipline and the Italian player but I have come to expect that with Pangakupu. I thought the CD for AIR GUITAR was fun and TERRORISE and BREAKING POINT complete my podium.
BigNorm@41: I suspect ‘ch’ for children is from genealogy along with the abbreviations for husband, wife, son, daughter and others.
Thanks Pangakupu and Eileen
Unlike many of the other solutions that I failed to parse, I had no trouble with Cot. But I do live only a couple of hours or so away from Cahors. Thanks both, especially Eileen.
I enjoyed the puzzle and the blog, so thanks to both. I have a pet theory which will no doubt be roundly denounced – which is that setters sometimes paint themselves into a corner and resort to non-English words to complete a grid.
This growing trend often seems to occur in the north-east corner of a puzzle for some reason. Today’s was a case in point. When the words intersect, it seems especially unfair on English solvers.
NB: I have no objection to the inclusion of foreign words which are established ‘borrowings’, or those which can be seen as general knowledge – maybe ‘mer’ as the French word for sea, as a recent example.
oed.com: “RIPIENO noun 1740– Music. Originally: a supplementary player or instrument, whose participation is not required throughout a performance. Now chiefly collectively: the body of instruments accompanying the concertino (concertino n. 2b) in baroque concerto music; (also in brass and military-band music) those performers or instruments not at the leading desk. Cf. tutti n.” [Join your local (not just the UK – Ireland, Oz, Canada, & the US, too) library and get free access to oed.com]
Got my usual half a dozen, and read my book.
Thanks for the enlightenment, Eileen.
[muffin@2 when I first visited Cahors in the early 80s the grape was always referred to as Cot. I think it still is called that locally.]
Good puzzle with some clever constructions, though not all the surfaces are quite up to snuff IMHO. I was also decoyed by ‘second’ = MO – ingenious deception (if intentional 🙂 ). I dimly remembered PARTI PRIS but TAE BO required the wordplay and a check.
RIPIENO (‘full’, or more strictly ‘filled’ in Italian) was familiar enough to me, but in English only as the ‘all together’ musical direction, as FrankieG quotes @46. Wiktionary just gives the meaning I was familiar with:
(music) The part of a concerto grosso in which the ensemble plays together; contrasted with the concertino.
No mention of ‘supplementary’, which seems to be an archaic usage, perversely listed first without comment in Chambers.
Favourites were the peripherals (though the surface for the HATS at 1ac is odd), LOINCLOTH, HYPOCAUST and GASLIGHT (LOI).
Thanks to the Kiwi and Eileen
Did the anagrams at 13a and 26a then gave up. I’ve reached a plateau and don’t seem to be improving at the moment. Many of the clues might as well have been in any language other than English for all the sense I could make of them. Thank you, Eileen, for the clarification.
Almost finished, which is rare for me on a Thursday, and especially with such a high quantity of NHOs, so I quite enjoyed it! That said, was a bit let down by the PARTI PRIS / RIPIENO crossover, (since they were the ones I didn’t finish). Two obscure words crossing feels maybe a bit harsh (three including TAE BO, as mentioned above)
I also don’t usually mind a little “obvious” foreign language clues, but perhaps COT is a bit far for me, since it seems to require actual knowledge of French. Perhaps if it makes it into the regular stable alongside MER I won’t mind it so much in future, though.
Thanks Eileen and Pangakupu
Too tough for me in places: never heard of RIPIENO, PARTI PRIS or TAE BO – and couldn’t parse the second part of ASCOT. If I ever spoke any French it’s letting me down now!
I didn’t spot the central nina. I was wondering whether BAIA AYAM was another nina, but I was probably thinking of AYAM as the Indonesian (not Maori?) word for ‘chicken’ (as I recall during a visit, served up at every roadside stall along with Nasi Goreng).
Oh well – a DNF but still enjoyable. Ticks for REINS IN, INAPT, GASLIGHTS, TORSO, NOISIER (took me ages to parse that one!); PANEL, APHORISMS. To name just a few.
Thanks to Panga and Eileen.
Didn’t know côt despite being in the middle of tasting a course on French wines (pun intended). I even tried “In France Malbec” -> BAD plus something with bec, but of course (pun intended) got nowhere. Put in ASCOT anyway. Nice puzzle.
Dr. WhatsOn@53: I went down exactly the same misleading path of separating “Malbec” thinking there was a clever anagrind of “mal” there!
FrankieG@46: Only if your library subscribes. Buckinghamshire county libraries, my local service, stopped doing so a year or two ago and my library card comes back as “not recognised” even though the library is listed on the OED log in. It is still a great idea to join your local library, not least for free access to all sorts of magazines, but it does not automatically mean you can access the OED.
I loved AIR GUITAR. Ticks for APHORISMS, REINS IN, BREAKING POINT. I could not parse TAE BO or MOTHER COUNTRY. Never go past MO and COUNT.. New to me QUOINS and RIPIENO but both fairly clued. Many thanks to Eileen for the blog which helped greatly and to Pangakupu for the challenge.
Alastair @34, I hope you are now on the mend.
Jolly good work out, I found. I battled my way successfully through everything apart from the obscure (unless you are lucky enough to live in the Loire valley) variant of Malbec.
Google translate gives ‘that’s it’ for baya aya.
In the brass band world, the ripieno cornet does indeed play a supplementary role in filling out other cornet parts.
[ Amma@50 progress is never smooth when you are learning to do Cryptics , sometimes it is just the setter being unfamiliar . It is always worth taking a break and trying again later , even the next day , I used to carry the Everyman puzzle around with me all week , twenty minutes here and there which I think is the optimum time for progress .
G2 today has an interview/article with Dave Gorman ( Fed and others ) , crosswords are discussed near the end. I would put a link but my IT skills are too advanced for the current primitive internet . ]
Wow, I actually solved a Pangakupu puzzle. Either the setter is getting softer or I am getting better. Only one new word for me in there (RIPIENO) which is rare for this setter. It’s usually half the grid for me. Managed to pick the right components in the word play though and was pleased to see the ‘check all’ agreed.
Liked: LOINCLOTH and QUILT
Thanks setter and blogger
Staticman1 – good to hear! Glad you enjoyed it.
Thanks to Pangakupu, and to Eileen, in particular for pointing out the role of ‘local’ in PARTI PRIS. Of course — what a brilliant clue! As pointed out by AlanC @5 and Shanne @8, the Maori nina refers to a (music) CD. Could this be a wink from the setter, considering that the nina rows straddle that of the grid’s only instance of this clue type, namely, AIR GUITAR?
I knew of TAE BO from the lyrics of this earworm – Train’s “Drops of Jupiter” – “She checks out Mozart while she does Tae Bo”
Another schoolday with RIPIENO (confirmed in Chambers so no problem with the def), QUOIN, PARTI PRIS and HYPOCAUST all adding to my vocabulary. Also didn’t know that meaning of “capital” and had assumed it was a bit of Paul style whimsy to do with caps 🙂
Cheers E&P
Roz@57 – thanks for the advice.
The Māori term also covers LP and this was the 33rd Pangakupu puzzle. Might use it again if I get to 78.
RIPIENO definition as in Chambers.
English is a magpie language and absorbs words from all over. TAE BO is entering it at present so I suppose seems alien. Is KARATE still Japanese?
I google-translated AYAM KOPAE and it came up with “chicken drumstick”. Sometimes I think it just makes stuff up to get rid of us.
Fine puzzle. Thanks, Panga for the real explanation and Eileen for the blog.
Tough stuff with several new expressions and words for us:
PARTI PRIS
RIPIENO
COT for Malbec wine.
Always glad to learn new things!
Thank you for the blog.
Thanks for the puzzle and blog.
I don’t want to keep banging on about malbec grapes, but it looks to me like the setter has looked online for COT and found the local name for it without appreciating that it is very local indeed. No bottle of Cahors that I have drunk in this country (ie the UK) has said anything about the grape other than “malbec”.
I failed on both TAE BO and the second part of 8d, not so much because ‘topic’ is not a good definition for POINT but more to do with a bit of inflexibility on my part. I had a similar problem with spotting ‘lobby’=(a)TRIUM and ‘quiet room, largely’=P HAL, which unfortunately both occurred in 15d, making it super difficult for me. On another day I might have skated through this, as the very easy RIPIENO, HYPOCAUST and MOTHER COUNTRY had misled me into thinking I would today.
Thanks to Pangakupu and Eileen (hope your computer wakes up in a better mood tomorrow 🙂 ).
Pangapaku@63 thanks for joining. Always a delight to see the setter engaging on this site. I look forward to both no. 45 and no. 78.
Great crossword, hard work for me but well worth the challenge. I’m guessing that RIPIENO was a new word to Pangakupu, hence the archaic Chambers singular definition no musician would recognise; another case for an editing panel rather than a (singular) editor IMHO. Brilliant Nina relevance too, would never have guessed it but love its ingenuity. Thank you P&E
Again, thanks, Pang, that was peng.
Cheers all.
H@70 cryptics would be pretty dull if setters were obliged to use the most obvious definition of a word!
I agree with Hadrian @70 re RIPIENO and with sheffield hatter @68 re looking up definitions online.
bodycheetah @72 I would agree with you if RIPIENO weren’t already one of the most obscure words in the puzzle for the majority of solvers and if the ‘obvious’ definition were in Chambers, which isn’t infallible, as anyone researching concerti grossi looking the word up would be none the wiser.
sh @ 68 (should you see this) I have had more than one different bottle of Cot from The Wine Society, so the word was familiar to me.
Thanks Simon. It was a never heard of for me and for several others. But then several people have said that RIPIENO was obscure whereas I saw it quite quickly. I suppose the difference is that COT was part of the wordplay, so the answer was still gettable from definition and crossers.
Great, so we can now hit both the sack and the cot in more ways than one.
Liked your intervention Pangakupu. Thanks, and to Eileen
Since RIPIENO is a relatively unknown word for many people, I agree that the more common (and current) meaning should have been used, and “player” should have been plural – especially as it would not have impaired the surface.
muffin et al, I knew COT quite by chance. I once bought a bottle of Chilean wine that had COT on the label. I looked at the back label, and it said it was a wine made from the malbec grape, but in an old world style, so they used the French name.
William@27 gives a good definition of GASLIGHTING. Applying it collectively (manipulating a people’s perception of reality), does it not describe the current state of US (and elsewhere) politics?
Hello Cellomaniac – just to say that I did see your comment, thank you, especially for the last bit!
I too was puzzled by the uncommon usage of Ripieno and the unfamiliar Quoin, but mostly by my stubborn attempts to make TAILGATES work for 2d!
So close! Missed three letters of POINT. Couldn’t get ROUND, MOUNT, or DOWNS, etc. out of my head!
NE corner was tricky, with PARTI PRIS, HYPOCAUST, and TAE BO all together, crossed by RIPIENO. I do know the last, though, and was able to get it readily, even with the inaccurate definition