Guardian 29,720 / Pasquale

61 comments on “Guardian 29,720 / Pasquale”

1. It’s ASS thrown out of CLASS for CLEVER CLEVER. Apart from the new words, ORMER, MENHADEN and MEATUS, this had a Monday feel about its level of difficulty. That’s not a criticism, as this was full of witty surfaces and lovely words. Favourites were BEWITCHED (I had such a boyhood crush on Elizabeth Montgomery), QUESTION MARK, CLEVER CLEVER, BAUDELAIRE, PERSECUTES, DWEEB and INTERLOPER.

   Ta Pasquale & Eileen.

2. Many thanks, AlanC and JKM!

3. 15 – set with c in it “gathering around” followed by arian

4. I will add 15ac to my favourites. 🙂

5. Thanks Pasquale and Eileen
   I was confused by the “around” in15d too, so thanks JKM @3
   Never heard of the fish, but it was plain enough once the crossers were in.
   Favourite ACCIDENT, though I’ve seen a similar clue recently, I think.

6. Very pleasing puzzle, with the bottom half proving rather trickier than the top, probably owing to the NHOs MENHADEN and MEATUS. Many will be pleased about tuber being clued as stem rather than root, after yesterday’s potato incident. Concur with AlanC about CL[ass] 18ac and with Eileen about the general elegance of the cluing – many thanks to E&P.

7. I don’t think I’ve ever before been left with one clue unsolved and then discovered the solution was a cunningly hidden word. Take a fishy bow MENHADEN, which was for me one of Pasquale’s obscurities. Liked SECTARIAN and ACCIDENT. Generally a swift, smooth solve this morning…

8. …it’s also a long time ago that I last read and enjoyed Wordsworth’s TINTERN Abbey, the recollection of that helping in the solve ..

9. For me, for once, at the more accessible end of The Don’s range, despite a couple of NHOs and unparsed solutions. Thanks to him, and Eileen, for typically crisp cluing and blogging.

10. We always measure the difficulty of a puzzle by the number of tea breaks it takes to solve it. This was fairly easy for Pasquale, solved over the cuppa in bed, but some nice clues, especially 14 and 18. Like Eileen, couldn’t explain sectarian.

11. Like others, I learned some new words today, notably 17d MENHADEN and 20d MEATUS, though both were gettable. 27a TINTERN shows how long ago study of Wordsworth’s poetry (nearly sixty years ago for me) tends to stick with us. Also recalled studying the ARIAN heresies at some point, which assisted with 15d SECTARIAN. I liked QUESTION MARK at 14a and CLEVER-CLEVER at 15a.
    Thanks to Pasquale, always such a reliable setter, and to Eileen for her usual close attention to detail in fulfilling the blogger’s role.

12. I’m still struggling with SECTARIAN. I get that group is a SET but where does the C come from? Otherwise a very enjoyable solve. Thanks P and E, who’s blogs are always a pleasure.

13. I had to do some jolly research to be convinced of my solve for ARMPIT. ”Jolly”, in my father’s vernacular, was a minced oath.
    Liked the puzzle, and loved how Pasquale led me all the way like a pied piper. PADDOCKS down here aren’t small, and the plant is known but unfamiliar, so that held me up a bit.
    Thanks P and E.

14. A very enjoyable puzzle with lovely clear clues and playful surfaces.
    Three new words, as mentioned by others.
    I hadn’t parsed the ‘jolly lot’ part of ARMPIT or the ‘Arian’ part of SECTARIAN. Thank you Eileen and JKM for those.
    Favourites were QUESTION MARK, CLEVER-CLEVER, as well as BAUDELAIRE and PERSECUTES for their surfaces.
    Thanks to Pasquale and Eileen.

15. MuddyThinking @12 – C is short for Latin ‘circa’, meaning ‘around’ – sometimes seen as ‘ca’. Both quite common in crosswords, which is why I’m kicking myself.

16. I still don’t understand the parsing of SECTARIAN even after the explanation.

    Pasquale’s usual sprinkling of rare words – I think I may once have seen MENHADEN in an Azed, but it took a long time to spot, and MEATUS was a complete unknown. I didn’t know TINTERN was (just) in Wales, and spent ages trying in vain to work SEMESTER into that anagram. Couldn’t think of the “sorrow” for ARMPIT(y), or the ass thrown out of class for CLEVER-CLEVER. But all fairly clued. Favourites BEWITCHED, QUESTION MARK, BARGEES, PERSECUTES.

    Edit: Aha. Thanks Eileen@15.

17. Never heard of ARIAN = heretic

    Agree the fish was well hidden – especially as I hadn’t heard of it – or MEATUS.

    Lovely puzzle and like others QUESTION MARK was a favourite.

    Thanks Pasquale and Eileen.

18. MuddyThinking@12. C1984 means about 1984, where c is short for the Latin circa – around, about. I’m sure I’ll have crossed with others. Nothing to add to other commenters’ summary; definitely on Pasquale’s easy side and the clues were as precise as usual. My favourites have already been mentioned. Thanks to P and E.

19. Eileen @15 and Tomsdad @ 18: Doh! (Slaps forehead). Thanks!

20. New for me: MEATUS, CLEVER-CLEVER, MENHADEN.

    Favourite: QUESTION MARK.

    I could not parse 18ac apart from the EVER EVER bit.

21. Hats off to those who managed to get MEATUS. nho and, whilst I knew it ended with US, I just could not bring MEAT to mind. BEETUS seemed unlikely! Not for the first time, I appear to share some favourites with our blogger as I had ticks for INTERLOPER and PERSECUTE as well as SCARPER, QUESTION MARK, ARMPIT and, yes, the delightfully hidden MENHADEN.

    Thanks Pasquale and Eileen

22. Elegant as usual from Pasquale. While it’s nice to parse everything, personally I consider a crossword is completed if I’m sure all my answers are correct, so I wasn’t too fussed that I hadn’t parsed SECTARIAN until I came here. But then I found that 1d should be SCOOTS not ‘shoots’ – I was thinking there must be an obscure bird referred to as a ‘hoot’ – I’ve no excuse as I have coots in my garden every winter when it gets flooded.
    Favourites include TRIMESTER, QUESTION MARK, BARGEES.
    Thanks Eileen and Pasquale.

23. SCARPER, CLEVER-CLEVER, PERSECUTES and INTERLOPER were my top picks.
    Thanks Pasquale and Eileen

24. Weirdly enough, doing today’s Metro Cryptic on the tube, it has a near identical CLOSE-UP in it. In other coincedences, after the brouhaha from Fed yesterday over whether a potato is a root, tuber turns up…

    A lot to like here, but I don’t think I would’ve ever reasoned out that ‘OR’ means ‘men’ (especially having NHO ormer) or ‘RM’ could be jolly.

25. Tachi @24 – it’s well worth filing away OR = men: as I said in the blog, it crops up quite often – and I’ve seen RM = jolly quite a few times, too.

26. Never heard the jolly definition before, so 2d escaped me. An (arm)pit(y).

27. Tachi @24
    OR stands for “other ranks”.

28. As in the blog, muffin. 😉

29. My late Dad was a Kipling fan, and I still have his copies of Barrack Room Ballads and The Seven Seas, so I’ve known who the Jollies were (Soldier and Sailor Too) more or less ever since I could read. But there doesn’t seem to be any explanation as to why “soldiers on board ship were usually known as jollies”.

30. Sorry, Eileen – it’s some time since I read it!

31. Reasonably gentle for a Friday, luckily I spotted the hidden MENHADEN as soon as I saw ‘some’. I liked the QUESTION MARK and ARMPIT.

    Thanks Pasquale and Eileen.

32. I knew TINTERN from cycling there – down one very steep hill to get down into the valley and another steep hill to get back where I was going – up into the Brecon Beacons, from Chepstow, where I’d been to see Bellowhead on their farewell tour in 2016. (Yes, I know, several reunion tours since.)

    I guessed MEATUS and then looked it up, from the parsing, ditto the fish MENHADEN.

    [Peter Bellamy wrote music for the Barrack Room Ballads – there was a performance a few years back, when The Transports was being toured, but there’s not been a recording released.]

    Thank you to Pasquale and Eileen for the puzzle and blog.

33. SCARPER – what am I missing? I see the SCAR, but what’s the PER?

34. I thought this was excellent, just the right degree of a challenge without being too fiendish. The jorums MENHADEN and MEATUS were gettable from the wordplay. I think my favourite was the clever QUESTION MARK.

    (Eileen, I think you meant to say at 1a that PER = “a”, not “one”.)

    Many thanks both.

35. Redrodney @33 – another classic: ‘a’ = PER, as in £2 a / per kilo. I should have written ‘a’ rather than ‘one’, in the blog. I’ll amend it now.

    (Edit: I see that Lord Jim has spotted my error – thanks, Jim!)

36. I fell into the same trap as our blogger, thinking that SECT was the ‘group’, making the parsing impossible. (Thanks to JKM@3 for that.) I quite enjoy being introduced to new words by this setter, although MENHADEN was difficult to see in the Guardian newspaper today as there’s a line split between the D and the EN! MEATUS was one of those that just had to be, but there’s not enough in the clue to be absolutely sure, so I was forced to reach for my Chambers to confirm.

    CLEVER-CLEVER was my favourite, once I’d spotted the ASS being kicked out of CL(ASS)!

    The fact that I’m posting this soon after midday having only bought my paper at 11am shows how easily this one fell. Someone will be bemoaning not having had to scratch her head (see#39) for one more day!

    Thanks to Pasquale and Eileen.

37. Another tough one for me. Got there in the end with some Google to verify unknown words, although with ARMPIT and SECTARIAN unparsed, so thank you Eileen.

    New to me: ORMER, MEATUS, and BARGEES; and TINTERN lurked at the fringes of my memory, although I did not know it was in Wales.

38. I didn’t want to get involved yesterday with objections to a potato being described as a root, while thinking to myself that as a student of algebra I could equally say a group and a set clearly aren’t the same, so I thought it was pretty funny when I worked out SECTARIAN.

    Thanks, Eileen and Pasquale

39. Afterthought: I suddenly found I had the phrase “clever as clever” running around in my head, which turns out to be from AA Milne’s Now We Are Six:

    …now I am six,
    I’m as clever as clever,
    So I think I’ll be six now for ever and ever.

40. Not too bad – helped by being in Edinburgh so “wee” came to mind quickly, and having toured the Surgeons’ Hall Museum to assist with “meatus” and “endocrine” (if you can stand gruesome, it is a fabulous way to spend a couple of hours btw). Also it helped to have a wife who loves collecting ormers every time she goes to Alderney so they are very familiar.

    Thanks to Pasquale for such precise setting and lovely smooth surfaces, and to Eileen for (as always) putting her personality as well as her ingenuity into her blog.

41. I had the same new words as everyone else, but since it was all carefully clued, it all went in okay. (“MEATUS? That’s so improbable. Sounds more like a nickname for a dumb jock. Let’s put it in and check. Huh. Meatus.”)

    I do idly wonder how the enlisted women in His Majesty’s Armed Forces feel about OR=”men,” but none of them have stood up to be heard on the subject, so here we are.

42. A great puzzle and a fun solve. Not sure about it being mostly Monday fare but less hairs pulled out than the usual Friday offering. As with others the fish and channel were both new to me but both fairly clued with MEATUS going in last (my excuse is I am vegan).

    Favourite SECTARIAN although my parsing was wrong (and actually didn’t work) having read the comments.

    Thanks Eileen and Pasquale

43. Not one of the hardest, but good fun. Thought ARMPIT was cute.

    I think in casual speech people may use REBUT and disprove interchangeably, but they indicate a (potentially) different quality of argument (in courtroom dramas, if every rebuttal was a disproof the cases would be over in no time).

    In addition to the two given derivations for ACRE, there is the place which Wiktionary defines as “A port city in northern Israel, holiest city in the Baháʼí Faith”. Don’t know if that was part of Pasquale’s thinking, but wouldn’t be surprised, and very clever.

44. Staticman1@42. As a vegetarian and vegan I often have trouble with this sort of clue, but in this case I had all the crossers and MEATUS was my first thought, but I mistrusted it!

45. In looking up MENHADEN I found the following AI explanation: ‘ MENHADEN is a word of two syllables. The second is accented.
    AI answers may contain mistakes.’

46. Thanks both and an entertainment if not too much head-scratching required. I do have a problem with obsure words (MEATUS, MENHADEN) in that I reason if I have got to this point in life without meeting them will I ever have a use for them? Or will I ever meet them again? I suppose one has to be open to enlightenment…

    CLEVER-CLEVER rings a vague bell but how to use it in a sentence? I do have experience of a fellow earthling who uses this ‘doubling’ a fair bit: things are ‘hot-hot’ or ‘heavy-heavy’ et(ad nauseum)cetera. Is it a common thing?

    [Staticman1@42 and sheffield hatter@44: I have enjoyed a lifelong vegetarian diet in that I have never knowingly eaten a carnivore. But I never mention it….]

47. We’ve had some complaints recently about Americanisms, but here’s an American word that’s quite familiar to me and nobody’s remarked on it, except that it was unfamiliar and cleverly hidden. I spotted it right away. Eileen’s excellent note refers you to the menhaden fishersy, built around a fish that nobody eats but that’s very important to the industry. I’ll add that the menhaden fishery was hugely important in US East Coast waters, The menhaden fishermen in earlier times would lower a large net that the fish swam into, and then surround it in their small boats and haul up the net. It was backbreaking work, and a way to make backbreaking work easier is to coordinate it with song. The menhaden fishermen, mostly African American, had a repertoire of songs to make it easier. As they point out in a performance, nobody hears what you’re singing, so some of those songs were pretty “colorful.” They’re less so in performance today. Here they are at a folk festival (sorry about the long link, works if you copy and paste it): https://www.google.com/search?q=%22menhaden+fishermen%22+music&client=firefox-b-1-d&sca_esv=66a2fff39d7a4bd5&ei=GDxMaNf2EKT-ptQPnMrZuA4&ved=0ahUKEwjX4uX_0-6NAxUkv4kEHRxlFucQ4dUDCBA&uact=5&oq=%22menhaden+fishermen%22+music&gs_lp=Egxnd3Mtd2l6LXNlcnAiGiJtZW5oYWRlbiBmaXNoZXJtZW4iIG11c2ljMgUQIRigATIFECEYoAEyBRAhGKABMgUQIRigATIFECEYoAFI4BtQ7QVYuxdwAXgAkAEAmAFwoAGIBKoBAzUuMbgBA8gBAPgBAZgCB6ACrQTCAgcQABiwAxgewgIOEAAYgAQYsAMYhgMYigXCAgsQABiwAxiiBBiJBcICBhAAGBYYHsICCxAAGIAEGIYDGIoFwgIIEAAYogQYiQXCAgUQIRirApgDAIgGAZAGCZIHAzYuMaAHsxeyBwM1LjG4B6cEwgcFMC4zLjTIBxU&sclient=gws-wiz-serp#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:c1eb59e5,vid:NHWdvRu3gvY,st:0
    And here’s a field recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFugnaMnJEI

48. [Valentine @47
    You don’t need to clog up your post with a long link. Copy your link, select a word(s) you want to be the link, click on “link” above the text box, paste your link into the box that appears, OK it.]

    Like this: ]

49. Valentine @47 – Wow! Many thanks for that – fascinating stuff.

    And thanks to muffin for the short cut – didn’t see that soon enough!

50. Am I the only one to know MEATUS? Too many anatomy books in my youth?

51. Dave @50
    I’ve heard it applied to the hole leading to your eardrum.

52. Thanks Pasquale for a great set of clues. For once I knew the obscurities – – – MEATUS from college anatomy classes, MENHADEN from living near the Chesapeake, and ARIAN from Catholic grade school. WORDS I didn’t know – – – ORMER & TINTERN were very clearly clued. Favourites included SCARPER, QUESTION MARK, BAUDELAIRE (though not recommended for someone already feeling ‘terribly blue’), ACCIDENT (perfect set-up for a reverse hidden which misled me for a bit), and ACRE. Thanks Eileen for the blog.
    [Poor Roz was hoping for a proper head scratcher – – – I’m afraid this won’t fit the bill.]

53. Having a quick peruse after stumps st Lords [good on the Saffers, tomorrow should bring an historic win for them].

    So, I vaguely remember, perhaps from mrs ginf’s Patrick O’Brian books, that Royal Marines were called Jollies because their tunics were bright red, which contrasted with the ordinary garb of the ships’ crews.

54. gif@53: ‘Garb’ is such a woody word (well it is Friday….)….

55. I thought this was quite hard. Maybe because I mostly solved it in the evening, having battered the lateral thinking out of my brain with spreadsheets. Anyway, solve it I did, with limited haziness in the same spots as Eileen – not that I’m even vaguely at her level. Thanks Pasquale and Eileen, and to the huge number of people who gave me a target; finding this easy!

56. Thought this was Pasquale at his best, and he always follows Araucaria’s advice that if a word is obscure then make the wordplay gentle. MEATUS is a gimme to medics, the auditory ones are in Lesson One on cranial anatomy. Thanks P&E!

57. 17d Last week I came across a clue “Crew ate gutted eastern fish (8)” so no problems this evening with Pasquale’s more gente clueing. With 20d I thought there must be scores of 4-letter words that could mean food to a setter but fortunately my first guess was right.
    Thanks to Pasquale and Eileen

58. Valentine@47: thanks for the musical link.

59. Like a lot of folk, MENHADEN and MEATUS were NHOs. In fact I saw MEATUS almost straight away and thought “No way!”. It was only when I did a search in the Chambers app with the crossers and it stood out in the list did I use it.

    Somehow I thought TINTERN was in the West Country rather than Cymru. I was trying to make something of “pentref” instead.

60. Actually I believe Tintern was at one time in England being in Monmouthshire, don’t know the full history but apparently Monmouthshire was given to Wales at some point in history.

61. Completed. BARGEES loi took a long time

    11a TRIMESTERS a term also used in Canada

    14a I think we had EXCLAMATION MARK recently, so I caught the punctuation this time!

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