Guardian Cryptic crossword No 29,846 by Pasquale

18 comments on “Guardian Cryptic crossword No 29,846 by Pasquale”

1. Quite a toughie in places, but no less enjoyable for that. A couple of short NHOs for me (TUPI, LOTI) but clearly clued, and a few where I really had to dredge the ageing memory banks to come up with the solution (DEFALCATION, SATORI, SOLANDER). Thanks to Pasquale for the early morning jumpstart to the brain, and to manehi for the customary excellent blog.

2. Somewhat startled myself by completing this, although rather too many were entered from the wordplay and then goggled – ‘I suppose LOTI must be a currency’ etc. I see someone in the other place considered ‘back’ to be superfluous in 6a, which I had briefly thought, then rationalised by considering that the detainee had already been arrested once before the REMAND process took place.

   Thank you Pasquale for teaching me some new words and manehi for the most helpful blog

3. I was surprised how quickly I got through this. I was held up at the end while digging in my mind for SATORI, and didn’t TENDER (LOI) until I got it.
   Some nice obscurities in there.
   Thanks to Pasquale and manehi.

4. I’d add LANCELET to the same struggles as miserable @1.

   Felt emit = shed a tad loose, and CANARD went in unparsed as I missed the shortened had.

   A toughie but fairie from The Don this morning.

5. William@4:
   I also wondered about emit=shed, but when I lit a candle it emitted photons and shed some light on the matter.

6. ANGLICANISM, SAN DIEGO, BO PEEP and CANARD were my top faves.

   Thanks Pasquale and manehi.

7. I also had to check some vocabulary. 14 d also works with El as Spanish for European Article. I suspect that both possibilities are intended.
   Thank you Pasquale and Manehi

8. You know you’re going to get a vocabulary lesson from Pasquale, and today we got it in spades. The jorums were LANCELET, SOLANDER (I had heard of his name, but not his box), LOTI and SATORI (not helped by only knowing the “suttee” spelling of the fiery ritual). I lost patience and revealed TUPI and DEFALCATION: my tiny scientific knowledge does not extend to cations. Very annoyed with myself for trying ma, nan, sis, aunt, and all sorts but failing to spot GRAN lurking in EMIGRANT.

9. A most enjoyable puzzle from Pasquale this morning, calculated to jumpstart the brain, as miserableoldhack said @1.

   Perhaps more unknown / unfamiliar / half- forgotten words than usual today but, as usual, scrupulously fairly clued, with the possible exception of SATORI, where a less familiar word included another in its wordplay. I was fortunate here, as I remembered SATI from school, when we learned about the Indian Mutiny and I recognise the definition as the pseudonym of Albie Fiori in the FT (Taupi in the Guardian and much more – see John Henderson’s obituary, which I cited earlier in the year): https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2009/aug/18/albie-fiore-obituary
   I was always delighted to see either of those names on a puzzle – and rather touched to see TUPI (which was a new one for me) at 11ac

   There are some splendid anagrams here: 12ac PLAGIARISM, 13ac ANGLICANISM, 18ac CANAANITES and 24ac DANIEL ORTEGA.
   Other favourites were 1dn ALLUSION, 14dn DEFALCATION and 15dn SOLANDER, an entirely new word for me. I pondered its possible derivation – I hadn’t heard of the man, gladys, @8 – and found he was a Swedish botanist – a genuine TILT.

   Many thanks to Pasquale for the work-out and to manehi for another fine blog.

10. Thanks Pasquale and manehi
    There seemeed to be a lot of anagrams, but possibly I got this impression from the three consecutive ones in the acrosses.
    Several words I hadn’t heard of. 11a could just as easily have been TUPA, so I had to check.
    I was a bit confused by the clue for CANARD, as it is of course French for “duck”, so I thought that was the bird in question.

11. The top half was much easier than the bottom but the obscure words were, as Eileen states, ‘scrupulously fairly clued’. Like gladys, I only knew suttee, and sadly I had CATION but not the DEFAL, so a dnf for me. DANIEL ORTEGA was my favourite anagram, followed closely by ANGLICANISM.

    Ta Pasquale & manehi.

12. I sometimes find it harder to spell in a crossword, than in real life, so I misplaced the double a in Canaanites at first. As Eileen says, some great anagrams.

13. I thought that all the unknowns (11a, 21a, 15d, 16d, 20d, 8d, 14d) were fairly clued and solved except 20d (for me). I’m not as clever as the rest of you and I had NHO SATORI or SATI which made the solution impossible.
    The rest of the puzzle was lovely.
    Thanks both.

14. I know to expect a verbal challenge from Pasquale, which I usually enjoy, but I felt that SATORI was verging on unfair. As Eileen@9 said a less familiar word included another in its wordplay .

    I also thought that DEFALCATION in the central column, connecting the quadrants, was a bit much. If you didn’t know the word you’d at least need to know some Latin or science, but then that would be many of our esteemed solvers and bloggers here. I couldn’t crack it from def or wordplay. ARDENT I don’t consider as too hot’, even with the ”maybe”.

    “Romantic” aren’t “tender” aren’t necessarily synonymous to me, but I do like 2 word double defs which mean something else in the surface, like this one.

    On the plus side for me, happy to solve unknowns such as SOLANDER and LANCELET from wordplay.
    DYNAST my pick today.

15. For 11A I had TUNI (a language variant of Sierra Leone) on the basis of UNIT (one) with the T moved to the front (set right to left).

16. Showaddydadito @5: Very inventive! Thank you.

17. 8 was almost a write-in for me, but then, as a Tax Inspector, I spent a good portion of my career trying to spot defalcations in traders’ accounts. Not easy, as cash leaves little trace (the bookkeeping being debit sales, credit back pocket).

18. Challenging but enjoyable; happy to have completed it with limited lookup (wouldn’t have gotten LOTI or BO PEEP without it). Constructed a few jorums: DEFALCATION, SOLANDER, LANCELET. Liked, basically, the lot! I enjoy Pasquale’s rich vocabulary and how he steers one to the answer even when the word is uncommon (as most of his words are). The generous anagrams definitely helped. Needed the blog for the parsing of SATORI. Thanks Pasquale and manehi!

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