A second appearance from Pavo, a new name for me
I missed Pavo’s first puzzle, in February, as it came out soon after I came home from hospital, before I was back to crosswords. Looking through the archive, I see that it was very well received and I don’t think people will be disappointed in this one.
There’s a quite delightful freshness in the devices and vocabulary / definitions used and I found it a most enjoyable solve, straightforward enough to be accessible but with plenty of wit and ingenuity in the cluing to activate the grey cells and maintain the interest.
I particularly liked the clever anagrams in DEFINITIVELY, IN OTHER WORDS, CARTE BLANCHE and ANTSIER, the constructions of NOT A CHANCE, UNDERSTOOD, ASSESSMENT, SITTING DUCKS and SWEETIE-PIE, along with smooth surfaces throughout. PSST raised a smile to finish with.
Thanks to Pavo for a fun puzzle – I look forward to the next one.
Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Across
1 There is no way to make a cut holding a weapon with no tip (3,1,6)
NOT A CHANCE
NOTCH (make a cut) round A + [l]ANCE (weapon), without its initial letter (tip)
6 Little one eating hot fish (4)
CHUB
CUB (little one) round H (hot)
9 French and German articles written by Rose and Roger (10)
UNDERSTOOD
UN DER (French and German articles) + STOOD (rose) – in radio communication Roger stands for ‘Received and understood’
10 Some included Dahl’s old tales (4) https://www.britannica.com/topic/Edda
EDDA
Contained in includED DAhl’s
12 Clearly identify evil criminal (12)
DEFINITIVELY
An anagram (criminal) of IDENTIFY EVIL
15 Small bird found in whiskey barrel at sea (7)
WARBLER
W (whiskey – NATO alphabet) + an anagram (at sea) of BARREL
16 Discovered your book about origin of Coriolis effect (7)
OUTCOME
[y]OU[r] -‘discovered’ + TOME (book) round C[oriolis]
17 Outside wanting kiss that’s endless (7)
ETERNAL
E[x]TERNAL (outside) minus x (kiss)
19 12 keeping horse in shape (7)
NONAGON
NOON (12) round NAG (horse)
20 That is horrid news to broadcast (2,5,5)
IN OTHER WORDS
An anagram (broadcast) of HORRID NEWS TO – a neat definition
23 Summit talks shunning both sides (4)
PEAK
[s]PEAK[s] (talks)
24 Parts of speech? (5,5)
VOCAL CORDS
Cryptic definition
25 Look back across lake to find slender swimmers (4)
EELS
A reversal (back) of SEE (look) round L (lake)
26 Jack and Jenny excited to tackle beginning of maths test (10)
ASSESSMENT
ASSES (Jack and Jenny – male and female donkeys) + SENT (excited) round M[aths] – I don’t think I’ve heard ‘sent’ = excited since I was a teenager
Down
1 Part of speech given by The Sound of Music extra accepting Oscar (4)
NOUN
NUN ( The Sound of Music extra) round O (Oscar – NATO alphabet)
2 Spruce in yard – it shot up (4)
TIDY
A hidden reversal (up, in a down clue) of YD (yard) IT
3 The cable car travels across Norway with complete freedom (5,7)
CARTE BLANCHE
An anagram (travels) of THE CABLE CAR round N (Norway)
4 Swimming in tears, becoming more nervous (7)
ANTSIER
An anagram (swimming) of IN TEARS
5 Sausage from Australia one served up after work ended early (7)
CHORIZO
CHOR[e] (work) + a reversal (served up) of OZ (Australia) + I (one)
7 Hot dog prepared with last of vegetable fat mixture (10)
HODGEPODGE
H (hot) + an anagram (prepared) of DOG + [vegetabl]E + PODGE (fat) – a variation of hotchpotch, which is more familiar to me
8 Somehow heads across city’s east side with many cycling (2,3,5)
BY ANY MEANS
BEANS (heads) round ‘east side’ of [cit]Y + MANY, ‘cycling’
11 Defenceless targets police trap including one that initially escapes (7,5)
SITTING DUCKS
STING (police trap) round I (0ne) + T[hat] + DUCKS (escapes) – I’m struggling rather with the surface grammar here
13 Start of short emotional film tackling connection and love (7-3)
SWEETIE-PIE
S[hort] + WEEPIE (emotional film) round TIE (connection)
14 Struggle with wordplay for ‘floral’? (4-3-3)
FREE-FOR-ALL
FOR ALL is an anagram (FREE) of ‘floral’
18 Ronald’s cooking some bacon (7)
LARDONS
An anagram (cooking) of RONALD’S
19 Gas upset baby (7)
NEONATE
NEON (gas) + ATE (upset)
21 Something growing in street (4)
TREE
[s]TREE[t]
22 Leaders of private schools start to pay attention (4)
PSST
Initial letters of Private Schools Start To
Nice and gentle from Pavo with only HODGEPODGE (I was anagramming the wrong things) needing a revisit.
Liked WARBLER and IN OTHER WORDS
Thanks Eileen and Pavo
Thakns Pavo and Eileen
Easy but fun. Particular favourites NONAGON (12 not referring to the clue at 12) and FREE FOR ALL.
Can’t really expand on what Eileen said. Another relatively easy puzzle this week and I missed the first one too in February for some reason. I always thought they were VOCAL CORDS with an H.
Ta Pavu & Eileen.
Good fun. New to me EDDA, LARDONS and weepie. I was unable to parse NOT A CHANCE. No particular favourites.
Like Eileen, I missed the first one, really enjoyed this one, and went to look Pavo up to find out if they really are a new setter. I hope we see more of them!
My only quibble is that it felt a bit heavy on the anagrams (as indeed the first one seemingly did). But great fun throughout despite being gentle. Too many goodies to list, really. I also enjoyed the two different uses of “parts of speech”.
Surface grammar for SITTING DUCKS: it just needs a mental “that” inserted I think, and maybe a comma. “Defenceless targets [that] police trap[, ] including one that initially escapes”.
I couldn’t parse ASSESSMENT so thanks for that Eileen. And please give us more, Pavo.
Thanks Eileen.
I agree that this was very good. There was enough sophistication and variety to be found in the clueing, but I didn’t have to resort to the dictionary, Google, or a thesaurus once. (I wouldn’t have got EDDA if it hadn’t appeared in the Guardian and FT last year) I held myself up slightly, trying to stick an H into a phrase for DEFINITIVELY, before I realised 12 was merely referring to noon in NONAGON. Going back through to make sure I’d parsed everything, I really had to remind myself on a couple (NOT A CHANCE, SITTING DUCKS) but I was complete.
I liked SWEETIE PIE, BY ANY MEANS and FREE FOR ALL (I enjoy reverse anagrams now).
Thanks Pavo, good work.
Thanks to Pavo for the enjoyable puzzle and Eileen for the helpful blog
I couldn’t explain 1a apart from the (l)ance as I failed to spot notch for cut
Other parsings I was a bit short on too, so very happy to have they explained in full
Several where the answer was apparent long before the wordplay was sorted out – a pity when the wordplay was so good. SITTING DUCKS, BY ALL MEANS and NOT A CHANCE fell into this category. I liked the neatly misleading NONAGON and the reverse wordplay of FREE-FOR-ALL, also Jack and Jenny, WARBLER, DEFINITIVELY and IN OTHER WORDS.
On the lighter side but nonetheless most enjoyable.
One thought, in the HODGEPODGE clue, fat and podge feel like different parts of speech. Chambers describes podge as a noun – a fat person. For me the clue required fatty rather than just fat.
…. I’ll get my coat…
I enjoyed this puzzle and I agree with Eileen about the freshness in the devices and vocabulary / definitions.
Favourites: NOUN, OUTCOME, CARTE BLANCE, IN OTHER WORDS.
I did not parse the NOON bit of 19ac as I was thinking that 12 preferred back to DEFINITIVELY and I couldn’t work it out 😉
26ac I solved and parsed my answer but I wondered about SENT = excited – I have not heard that before and can’t think of any examples.
William @9
I had doubts, too, so looked it up and found in Chambers: ‘podge : a squat, fat and flabby person or thing; excess body fat (inf.)’ and so I didn’t comment.
Collins (my go-to) has only ‘a short chubby person’.
Michelle @10: me too re sent, but I suppose someone a lot younger than I might say, “great band! They really sent/excited me”.
William @9 I don’t know what the dictionaries say, but I would have taken podge to mean excess weight rather than an overweight person, as in “I’ve put on some podge”.
Eileen @11: so glad you found that, Pavo’s off the hook. Many thanks.
the reviewer in the first outing of Pavo thought there was a theme of invertebrates; I wondered if this had continued here: CHUB, WARBLER, EELS, DUCKS
blog
Thanks Pavo for fine entertainment, and Eileen for the blog.
Thank you for the blog, Eileen: I agree with your judgement of this crossword, and share your reservations about SITTING DUCKS.
Despite the latter, I thoroughly enjoyed this. Yes it’s true there were quite a few anagrams, but they all had deliciously satisfying surfaces – as did many other
clues. Amidst a host of happy ticks, my faves were ETERNAL and CARTE BLANCHE
I can’t recall if I tackled Pavo’s previous offering, but I shall certainly keep an eye out for the next one.
Michelle@10 and William@12 – Elvis: Darling you-oo-oo send me ….. Honest you do. Deathless.
michelle @10 – as I suggested in the blog, as schoolgirls in the ’50s we were regularly ‘sent’ (by Dirk Bogarde et al)- but I don’t think I’ve heard it since!
Terri@17 – You Send Me – has to be Sam Cooke!
Alan C
I agree with you regarding “vocal chords”. No doubt we purists will be shouted down.
Eileen @18: I did smile at your choice of pin-up but coincidentally, my son treated me to Mahler’s 5th played by the RPO at the RAH last night. He had returned from Japan via Beijing in the morning (24 hrs flying) and although very tired, I told him the 4th movement was worth staying for. Walking back to the tube I described the emotional death scene in Death in Venice, starring …Dirk Bogarde.
Sorry Pavo @3 for misspelling your name.
I liked the clue for WARBLER. Fun surface as well.
Ed@19. Of course it is Sam Cooke. Yet in my head I heard Elvis. It’s still deathless.
Whibbo @20
Which dictionary do you use? Both Collins and Chambers have ‘vocal cords’, with no variant.
See also here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vocal_cords
And here, for example: https://www.oxfordhealth.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Ten-ways-to-keep-your-voice-sounding-great.pdf
AlanC @21 – nice story 🙂
Liked this a lot. More Pavo, please. Clever wordplay and elegant surfaces (but yes, 11d is the flaw in the Persian rug).
Choristers might use their vocal cords to produce vocal chords, but cords is the right spelling.
Thanks Pavo and Eileen
Curiously, under ‘cord’ the OED has in definition 2.b “…the vocal cords; see these words”, but under ‘vocal’ in definition 6.a it refers to “Freq. in vocal chord…”.
If the OED can’t make its mind up…
Comment #27
Miche@25: that spelling confusion appears the other way round in the guitarists’ insult: “You call that a power chord?! It wouldn’t even hold your pyjamas up!”.
I enjoyed this, though quite a few needed the parsing piecing together after the likely answer had been slotted in: HODGEPODGE for example, which I put in and out again until I saw how it worked.
FREE FOR ALL was neat.
Top stuff, Pavo! And thanks to Eileen for the blog.
Fairly straightforward and enjoyable solve. I liked that Rose and Roger UNDERSTOOD, the good anagram for DEFINITIVELY, the OUTCOME of the Coriolis effect, the VOCAL CORDS good cd, Jack and Jenny’s ASSESSMENT, the surface for HODGE PODGE, and the city cyclists’ BY ANY MEANS.
Thanks Pavo and Eileen.
I’ve never had a write-in before, so I’m feeling quite pleased with myself. I even spotted the reverse clue at FREE-FOR-ALL
Thank you Eileen and Pavo
Nice surprise to see my alter ego appearing as part of the fodder for 18d, though the solution was not a word I am familiar with. Apart from that, a lovely smooth solve throughout, many thanks Pavo and Eileen…
3 days in a row with fairly straightforward clues.
Plus I completed Saturday’s Prize crossword
10a is neat