Guardian 27,421 – Pasquale

by

A pinch and a punch for the first of the month, and a relatively gentle puzzle from Pasquale to ease us into February. As usual there are a few answers that may be unfamiliar, but always clued so as to be gettable. Thanks to Pasquale.

 
 
 
 
 
 
Across
1. CAFTAN Something metallic covering behind or something 18 covering much more? (6)
AFT (behind) in CAN – the garment is more usually spelt with a K, but no doubt the C makes it easier to clue; see also 1d..
4. CONTACT Acquaintance gets sealed deal? Not right (7)
CONTRACT less R
9. PINSTRIPE Suit constrains part of belly (9)
PINS (constrains) + TRIPE (cow’s stomach, used as food)
10. ASTON Where some Brummies find home in Glastonbury (5)
Hidden in glASTONbury
11. CREEP Move furtively and quietly behind cowboy’s enemy? (5)
CREE (native American tribe, as in Cowboys and Indians) + P (piano, quietly)
12. PASTORALE Former type of exam: English composition (9)
PAST (former) + ORAL (exam) + E
13. SEATTLE What colonist will do, having captured a foreign city (7)
A in SETTLE (what a colonist does)
15. TIFFIN Meal with nasty smell, the thing to send back (6)
Reverse of NIFF + IT
17. CLERIC Rev in moving circle? (6)
CIRCLE* – Rev as in Reverend
19. PLAYS UP Little dog eats poet’s works and causes trouble (5,2)
LAYS (poems) in PUP
22. LIME WATER Subsequently stifles one pet’s noise, solution being found (4,5)
1 MEW in LATER – Lime water is “a diluted solution of calcium hydroxide” according to Wikipedia, but a “suspension”, which I’m pretty sure is not the same thing, according to Chambers. Both give it as a single word rather than two
24. TEMPO Indication of freezing time (5)
If it’s freezing then the TEMP[erature] is 0 [degrees] (Celsius – sorry, Americans)
26. GENRE Kind of senior officer leading army corps (5)
GEN[eral] + R[oyal] E[ngineers]
27. ORDER ARMS Get your butts on the ground! (5,4)
Cryptic definition of the drill sergeant’s order to “hold a rifle with its butt on the ground close to one’s right side”
28. TUESDAY After travelling, you finally stayed for 24 hours (7)
Anagram of [yo]U + STAYED
29. ARCHLY Like a rogue child invading a railway (6)
CH in A RLY (railway – an alternative to the more familiar “ry”)
Down
1. COPECKS Strikes briefly undermining firm making money (7)
CO (company, firm) PECKS (strikes briefly); one-hundredth of a rouble; more usually spelt with an initial K, which Pasquale could have used he’d had KAFTAN for 1a, but again the C makes the clueing easier
2. FENCE Crime, but not of one type of criminal (5)
OFFENCE less OF
3. ANTIPATER Alexander the Great’s regent rebelling against father? (9)
ANTI-PATER – he was indeed regent to Alexander the Great
4. CRESSET One may shed some light, destroying secrets (7)
SECRETS*
5,25. NGAIO MARSH Maoris hang around New Zealand writer (5,5)
(MAORIS HANG)* – an appropriate anagram for the NZ branch of the ‘Queens of Crime’. I wonder how well known she is today, in comparison to her near-contemporary Agatha Christie, for example
6. ACTUARIES A curate is naughty? We understand the risks (9)
(A CURATE IS)*
7. TINKER Mess about with difficult puzzle, not beginning (6)
[S]TINKER – as an example. the Glasgow Herald has a crossword called the Wee Stinker, notorious for its difficult and highly non-Ximenean clueing
8. TIPPLE Extra money request when in need of a drink (6)
TIP (extra money) + PLE[A]
14. ALLEMANDE In Parisian avenue, fellow would briefly dance (9)
MAN’D in ALLEE (you’d think a Parisian avenue would be an avenue, as in Avenue des Champs-Elysées, but this is a valid alternative)
16. FLATTERER French brother endlessly drinking coffee is 11 (9)
LATTE (coffee – yes, I know the word is Italian for “milk”, but it’s well-estabished in English as a type of coffee) in FRER[E]. A flatterer may be a CREEP (11a)
18. COTTONY Like some fabric in bed, fashionable (7)
COT (bed) + TONY – this meaning is listed under “tone” in Chambers (“high-toned, fashionable”), not “ton” (“fashion, people of fashion”) as I expected
19. PARODY Remuneration restricts staff — it’s a travesty (6)
ROD (staff) in PAY
20. PIOUSLY Collecting financial documents, work steadily and devotedly (7)
IOUS in PLY
21. FLIGHT Escape from land after start of fighting (6)
F[ighting] + LIGHT (to alight, land)
23. WIELD Exercise in part of south-east England being reported (5)
Homophone of “Weald”, an area of SE England between the North and South Downs

54 comments on “Guardian 27,421 – Pasquale”

  1. Thanks Pasquale and Andrew

    When clues will give me starting letters, I look at those first. I was confident that 1d would be COINING, and the explanation for the “ining” bit would occur to me later!

    I liked TIPPLE (next to last in) and TEMPO, despite the definition being loose – it’s more “pace” than “time” in English (though it would be “time” in Italian!)

    I didn’t see how TUESDAY worked, and where the Y in COTTONY came from. I had very little idea what was going on in ORDER ARMS (I tried “under arms” first). I’d never heard of ANTIPATER, but it was easy enough to work out.

    In several clues he has used a part to stand for the whole. (I know there’s a word for this, but I can’t remember what it is.) PINSTRIPE stands for “pinstripe suit”; LATTE (in 16d) stands for “café latte” – by itself it’s just “milk” (as you said); and CREE (in 11a) stands for “all the hostile aboriginal American peoples” – not sure how politically correct it is now to define a race from some of their behaviour 150 years ago anyway.

  3. Thanks Andrew.

    re 22a. As I recall lime water is used to precipitate out CO2 as the insoluble CaCO3 (usually as a test for CO2)- so it is definitely a solution of (weakly soluble) Ca(OH)2

    Enjoyed the puzzle, required a bit of googling to discover the anagram for secrets.

  4. Also enjoyed this, so thanks Pasquale and Andrew. I couldn’t explain 1a, 24a (despite having a similar construct a couple of day’s ago!) and 2d.

    I knew all the words (but not the meaning of ANTIPATER) and, as ever, I had to look up the spelling of Ms Marsh’ first name – one day I will remember it.

     

    I, too, wondered about the PC of CREE.

     

  6. Thanks, Andrew and Pasquale.

    I needed the help of Sgt-Major Grout from Camberwick Green for ORDER ARMS. 😉

    muffin @1 – it’s ‘synecdoche’.

  10. Enjoyed this but took ages over the NW corner.

    Tricked into not looking for Muffin’s synechdoche at PINSTRIPE.

    copmus @9: could agree more.  Check out <a href=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSl4E21CqDQ”>this chap</a>

    Many thanks to The Don.

    Nice week, all

  13. [William @10

    Adding links doesn’t work like that since Gaufrid updated. Instead

    a) copy the URL (Ctrl+C)

    b) type your text

    c) highlight the text you want the link on, then click the link icon above the text box (2nd from right)

    d) paste the URL into the box that appears (Ctrl+V), then click the “enter” arrow]

  18. Thanks Pasquale and Andrew! A breeze today after a bit of a struggle with dear Paul yesterday. Time now for housework, unfortunately.

  19. I didn’t find this gentle but I did find it thoroughly enjoyable and am pleased to be get back in the saddle having been unceremoniously thrown off yesterday. I thought all the anagrams were excellent with CLERIC being my favourite along with PINSTRIPE which brought a smile to my face and reminded me of my grandparents who were tripe connoisseurs. How times have changed – we never ate tripe but still love liver and kidneys which our children won’t touch.
    Like others, the NW corner was the last to yield (with MrsW’s input).
    Most of the clues seem straightforward with hindsight, but were a real test at the time, and that to me is the mark of a great puzzle – at least for my solving ability.
    Thanks for restoring my equilibrium Pasquale and to Andrew for blog and the proper explanation of 18d – I thought it was to do with TON as well.

  20. Thanks to Pasquale and Amdrew. I did not find this easy and for me it was a bit of a struggle, though I got there in the end. A couple of unfamiliar terms (e.g. the tony in cottony) and a few I could not fully parse. I was not helped by misspelling the author’s first name (I and o the wrong way round) therefore got held up on pastorale. That said lots of nice clues (as ex RN 27a was a gift) and enjoyed the battle. Thanks again Pasquale and Andrew for clarifying the parsing.

  21. Yes, 11a is a very creepy clue. Leaving aside that the majority of Cree were and are in Canada (part of North America, admittedly, but lacking somewhat in cowboys), they were noted for their peaceful co-existence with white settlers, even as they were being driven from their traditional lands. (As for Muffin’s “hostile aboriginal American peoples,” most of them, whatever their tribe, were simply fighting to retain what was rightly theirs.) Cree, alas, is a convenient/lazy word for setters.

  23. I found this easier than a lot of Pasquale’s. Like others, was mystified by COTTONY; never heart of CRESSET. Favourites were FLATTERE, PIOUSLY and COPECKS. Thanks to P & A.

  24. Struggled in the NW too, thanks to the C-starter and too much time looking up anatomical words for stomach. If only I’d had a butcher’s …

    My golden rule with Pasquale is not to worry much if a word seems improbable. Here, it worked with ANTIPATER and CRESSET, and with the TONY bit of COTTONY.

  25. I too was bothered by CREEP, because the Cree were too far north and east (Quebec and Ontario, mostly) to meet cowboys, and because they were not notably hostile. It’s not a matter of political correctness, but of geographical and historical correctness.

    I was also ticked by SEATTLE being defined unnecessarily as a foreign city. What’s foreign to some is domestic to others, thanks. And it’s a big enough city that you should know it anyway.

    [On the other hand, on that last one I did one puzzle here where you were expected to know TULSA (a much smaller and more obscure city) without any help at all, which I had no trouble with but thought was a bit much general knowledge to expect of a UK audience. I guess the fact that it’s “a slut” backwards was too juicy to ignore.]

  27. Thanks both.

     

    I enjoyed this despite bunging in ‘canvas’ for 1ac (my groping towards parsing included conjecture about ‘Avast behind’ and the response ‘Who has?’) and ‘nonce’ (with a side bet on ‘ponce’) for 2d. The check button set me straight, so a DNF today.

  28. Eileen:
    I too have to thank Sgt. Grout for ORDER ARMS.
    I stumbled across him acouple of days ago whilst looking for Florence and Dougal.
    Thanks to The Don, very elegant, and Andrew.

  29. WhiteKing:
    You might be pleased to hear that there remains at least one Brit who eats TRIPE.
    Sardegna, being deprived of the choice cuts of meat by a seemingly endless succession of colonists, got very good at making the strangest bits of animals palatable. No traditional restaurant here would dare to omit tripa from the menu. Now I must prepare my new (yes, in February)
    potato and carciofo (artichoke) broth; food of the Gods !

  30. Thanks to Eileen and muffin I’ve just spent a few minutes exploring synecdoche – literally translated from the Greek root as “simultaneous understanding” so suit and pinstripe fit the bill in my book. I look forward to it serendipitously appearing in a crossword – hopefully whilst I still retain it in my memory.

  31. I agree that this was fairly gentle in retrospect but there were a few that took me too long to read the right way, which to me is a good thing. OK, ANTIPATER, CRESSET, ORDER ARMS and that meaning of tony all needed to be checked, but none of them held me up very long, but I should have seen PINSTRIPE and TIPPLE much earlier.

    Thanks to Pasquale and Andrew

  32. Il principe@29. Thanks for that – I’ll try it if I’m ever in Sardegna ?. One of my grandmothers was also a fan of pig’s trotters and cow heel – both of which I can only remember as being disgusting both for the smell when they were cooking and their taste and texture when on the plate. Some things are best left in the past.

  34. Thanks to Pasquale and Andrew. Enjoyable. I knew tony and NGAIO MARSH, but not ASTON, LIME WATER, ORDER ARMS, and niff as smell. I knew ANTIPATER (not the same one, I believe) from a little known very lurid Jacobean pot-boiler, Herod and Antipater.

  35. [Also @WhiteKing and il principe dell’etc.:  Times have indeed changed.  While as a child I would never dream of touching it, I now eat TRIPE–in pho.  (As a kid I might have ordered the pho if Vietnamese restaurants had found their way to Indiana by then, but would have insisted on the (less delicious) types without what I would have called “parts.”)]

  36. I found this hard and it took me quite a long time to complete -but it’s cold outside so what the hell! CREEP was my FOI and I found it inoffensive. Cowboys and Indians were enemies in fiction and in childhood games. I don’t know anything about the Cree other than them being native Americans but the setter’s intention seems clear enough to me.
    I liked FENCE, even if it took me ages to get, and PLAYS UP, which didn’t.
    Thanks Pasquale.

  37. Nice to be reminded by the Don about a wonderful writer. Still have my well-thumbed copies of Requiem For a A Wren, On the Beach and A Town like Alice. All worth a read if anyone hasn’t come across them.

  38. Mmmm, cedric – Nevil Shute rather than Ngaio Marsh?

    Her early detective stories (often featuring Roderick Alleyn, and sometimes his wife Agatha Troy) were classic, but she outlived the format, and her late ones were embarrassingly bad (and could have done with a competent editor, too!)

  39. I found this quite tricky, particularly in the across clues, but there were enough “ins” in the down clues to get going.

    I liked the NGAIO MARSH clue.  I was prompted me to read one of her books (A Man Lay Dead, I think it was) as a result of a comment on a Graun puzzle some years ago.

    A couple of niggles:  I was convinced RUE would end up in 14, so that took a while.  If ALLEE means avenue in Paris, what’s an alley?  I wasn’t comfortable with RE being described as an army corps.  I thought the Royal Engineers was a regiment and so different from a corps.

    Entertaining stuff.  Thanks, Lizard and Andrew.

  40. Agree with Canuck that the Cree were not cowboy enemies for at least two reasons – not near any cowboys at all, and generally at peace with the Canadian government.

    I don’t usually weigh in here, but it’s probably worth saying that this clue would be considered borderline inappropriate in North America. The Telegraph would run it gleefully, but the Guardian would not.

  41. I have now looked up the Royal Engineers on Wiki and I see that I’m completely wrong!  Sorry, Pasquale, my bad.

  42. I did check the Cree on Wikipedia before posting. Although the majority lived in (modern) Canada, they did have a wider range, including the USA west of Lake Superior. Were there cowboys there?

    I still dislike the clue.

  43. Thanks to Pasquale and Andrew.

    I enjoyed this over two sittings, nipping out for some masochistic golf in the interim.  Don’t know from what part of the memory I was pleased to retrieve ANTIPATER, think it can only have been in a recent crossword? The NIFF in TIFFIN brought me back to the Bash St Kids in long ago Beanos, and the TONY part of COTTONY along with the homophone for WIELD similarly emerged from the cerebral darkness rubbing their eyes in the sudden daylight of memory.  Favourite and LOI was TIPPLE.

  44. Quite a few comments on this one – but FOI was in fact NGAIO MARSH.  I’ve read some of her crime stories, her hero is Inspector Roderick Alleyn of the Met.  There was also a TV series back in the 1990s, with Patrick Malahide in the title role.  The plots are in general, I think, even more complex and convoluted than dear old Hercule’s….   Nice surface to that clue.

    OK.  Like Andrew I’m not comfortable with COPECK spelt with a C.  CAFTAN with a C is ok for me though – but for a long time I put CANVAS in there instead (canvas is a type of heavy cotton fabric is it not?).  That held me up for a while.  And I’d never heard of CRESSET (who has?).  Even allowing for the obvious anagram, I needed all the crossers and a look-up to get that one in.

    I won’t contribute to the CREE debate – not well-versed in American history – but I too was a bit dubious about that.

    LIME WATER (not to be confused with lime juice – don’t drink it!) is a solution, not a suspension – so the clue is OK.  It’s only after you bubble CO2 through it (e.g. by breathing into it through a straw) that it turns cloudy with a precipitate of calcium carbonate.  Then it becomes a suspension.

    Fairly tough but I expect that from the Don.  Thanks to him and Andrew.

  45. Thanks to both for an enjoyable afternoon.

    But (don’t you love it when something starts that way?) as a retired Chemistry teacher I have a reservation about the clue to 22A. My understanding of the way these cryptics work is that the answer is first or last and not in the middle. A much better and more accurate clue would have replaced the last three words with “finding solution”. Then that, at the end of the clue, would be the answer as limewater is indeed a finding solution – for carbon dioxide.

    I was starting to think there was a music theme, then a clothing one and in the end could not decide if there was one or not. Lots of little crumbs but not enough of any.

  46. Mrpenney:
    Your mention of Tulsa and its reversal reminds me of a favourite palindrome:
    A slut was I, ‘ere I saw Tulsa!

    Canuck:
    I see I have at least one compatriot on the blog with a common “name!” (Although I don’t chime in too often here, being so late thanks to Sir Sandford Fleming’s standard time.) Whence do you hail, Canuck? I’m in Toronto.

  47. I’m with those who found this quite challenging, and there were not many clues that I could ‘cold solve’ to get started.  As I’ve said before, I need crossers for puzzles like these – and they duly came.

    I enjoyed this a lot, the quality of the clues ensuring that I could solve them one way or another, even for the words I did not know (which always happens with Pasquale, but never to excess).  27a ORDER ARMS, though, was a complete guess, but it had to be that.  I thought ‘allee’ in 14d ALLEMANDE was fine.  The wordplay in 24a TEMPO was amusingly reminiscent of a recent clue for COOK (zero C and zero K), as someone else pointed out.

    Many thanks to Pasquale and Andrew.

  49. 18d TONY with this meaning reminds me of what I remember as one of Edmond Clerihew Bentley’s own:
    Few Romans were as tony as
    The elegant Petronius.
    No-one any snappier
    Walked the Via Appia.
    Snappier is pretty dated too.

  50. phitonelly@ 39 I have been prompted to read several authors for the first time over the years by Guardian crossword clues: Stephen Leacock was a lasting delight, and Lawrence Sterne too, but Smollet’s Roderick Random was an enormous struggle – I wonder if any one reads Smollet any more?

  51. My thanks for all the feedback, especially for the enlightening comments on the Cree not fighting cowboys. I should maybe have done the research, but think I (just about) covered myself with the question-mark. Concerning Tobias Smollett (DE above), I recommend The Expedition of Humphry Clinker, available as an Oxford World Classics paperback.

  53. Having read the blog I wish I’d given up sooner rather than dipping back into this trying to finish it. Too many obscure words and alternate spellings for me. Very unsatisfying. sigh. I see I’m in the minority though.

Comments are closed.