Guardian 27,826 – Pasquale

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I made slow but (fairly) steady progress with this, with some tricky parsings and, as expected from this setter, a few answers that are on the obscure side. Thanks to Pasquale

 
 
 
 
 
 
Across
1. THATCH Feature of Trump and PM putting the Queen off (6)
[Margaret] THATCHER less ER, and reference to the Donald’s hairstyle
4. DISSECTS Takes apart splinter group in contemptuous talk (8)
SECT in DISS (contemptuous talk)
9. ASHLAR Building block of wood, what’s backed with board in port (6)
ASH (wood) + LAR – if you “back it with board” you get LARBOARD, another word the the nautical term “port”
10. SCRAMBLE Able to move quickly for a take-off in an emergency (8)
ABLE with A replaced by SCRAM (move quickly)
11. DEUTERONOMICAL Old Testament book’s terribly crude and emotional (14)
(CRUDE EMOTIONAL)*. The ‘s tells us that we want the adjectival form of the biblical book of Deuteronomy
13. MANDRAGORA Bother in big house having a plant with narcotic properties (10)
DRAG (a bother) in MANOR + A. Another name for Mandrake
14. CERN Worry when study is neglected in research establishment (4)
CONCERN (worry) less CON (to study)
16. BRAG One of two Nobel physicists said to swank (4)
Homophone of “Bragg” – the Nobel-winning father and son pair of William Henry and Willam Lawrence Bragg
18. RECTANGLES Figures in trouble at sea, reportedly Germanic folk (10)
Homophone of “wrecked” (in trouble at sea) + ANGLES (Germanic people)
21. LET THE SIDE DOWN Disappoint others giving first instruction to unload the truck? (3,3,4,4)
Double definition
23. SWORDMAN Sunday cruciverbalist, maybe, who has cutting edge? (8)
S + WORDMAN
24. EROICA Symphony offering racy stuff (not Beethoven’s Fourth) (6)
EROTICA (racy stuff) less the fourth letter of beeThoven. And indeed the Eroica is not Beethoven’s fourth symphony, but his third
25. DANDRUFF Last thing you want in head and on collar? (8)
Last letter of heaD + AND + RUFF (collar), &lit
26. ADVENT Commercial to air in busy shopping season (6)
AD (advert, commercial) + VENT (to air)
Down
1. TOAD Person who is horrible, just a bit, about nothing (4)
O (nothing) in TAD (a liitle)
2. ACHAEAN A short song about aged Greek (7)
AE (aged, an abbreviation of Latin aetatis, “of his age) in A CHAN[t]
3. CHAPTERS Fellow curtly abandoning diocese and ecclesiastical groups (8)
CHAP (fellow) + TERSELY less ELY (ecclesiastical see)
5. INCINERATED One caught entering square reprimanded, treated as trash? (11)
I C in NINE (square number) + RATED (reprimanded)
6. SMARMY Being obsequious would put Mrs May off (6)
(MRS MAY)*
7. CUBICLE Small room, not half brilliant for accommodating superior writer (7)
U (upper-class, superior) + BIC (pen, writer) in half of CLE[ver]
8. SWELLINGS Renders Happy Birthday, say, with nicely introduced bumps (9)
WELL (nicely) in SINGS
12. RAGGED STAFF Untidy employees making a contribution to Warwickshire’s coat of arms (6,5)
RAGGED (untidy) + STAFF (employees). The coat of arms of Warwickshire features a bear chained to a ragged staff. Very weak clueing of the “ragged” part of the phrase, I’m afraid
13. MOBILISED Crowd is idle, wandering round, to be got going (9)
MOB (crowd) + (IS IDLE)*
15. UNADORED Lacking special apparel, knight is thrown out, not admired (8)
UNADORNED less N (knight, in chess)
17. ALTHORN What could play music in particular key, hard stuff (7)
ALT (computer key) + HORN (hard stuff)
19. LOW TIDE Towel I’d discarded, when lots of bits are dry (3,4)
(TOWEL I’D)*
20. CHADOR Bit of paper stuck on yellow garment worn by some women (6)
CHAD (piece of paper – remember the “hanging chads” of the 2000 US presidential elections) + OR (yellow)
22. TAUT Like school pupil sounding unrelaxed (4)
Homophone of “taught” (like a pupil)

38 comments on “Guardian 27,826 – Pasquale”

  1. This was tough for me but there was plenty to like. My favourites were EROICA, THATCH, CHAPTERS, SMARMY, MANDRAGORA, RECTANGLES (loi).

    I needed some assistance from google with the GK clues: RAGGED STUFF + the Nobel laureates named Bragg for BRAG.

    New words for me were ASHLAR, ALTHORN.

    I could not parse 9a (I only got as far as ASH = wood, LAR = ?) and 2d (A CHAN[t] about AE or EA = aged?)

    Thank you Pasquale and Andrew.

  2. Thanks Pasquale and Andrew

    This felt more like work than fun. Too many “guess the answer, then parse” for my taste; also lots of obscurities (which to be fair, we expect from Pasquale). Is SWORDMAN really a word? I’ve only come across swordSman.

    I did like RECTANGLES and EROICA.

  3. Certainly a challenge today. ASHLAR and ALTHORN were vaguely familiar once we had got them. Didn’t know CHAD or CHADOR or MANDRAGORA but liked working out the latter.
    Luckily have passed and noticed the Bear and RAGGED STAFF occasionally..or at least in the days before the M40.
    Thanks Pasquale and Andrew.

  4. I was floundering but enjoyed the struggle. On the whole, a fine puzzle. Excellent blog too, Andrew.

  5. Hard work, and I failed in the NE corner. I suppose I should have remembered ASHLAR, but even if I had, I wouldn’t have been able to parse the clue properly. I didn’t know ACHAEAN (not that it would have helped, but I thought the usual abbreviation for ‘aetatis’ was ‘aet’), CHAD for ‘piece of paper’, ALTHORN or SWORDMAN (without the S), although muffin @2, it is in at least one of the usual places. I thought SCRAMBLE was a (hardly) cryptic def, but your parsing is much better.

    A bit frustrating, but worth it for BRAG, EROICA and the preposterous sounding DEUTERONOMICAL.

    Thanks to Pasquale and Andrew.

  6. How times change. Not long ago, virtually every Guardian reader could have told you all about “hanging” CHADs.

  7. Visitors interrupted the nutting out of the last five in the NW so I came here, and anyway ae in Achaean was too scholarly for this public grammar boy. Lots of ?s on the way: scramble was obvious but dnp ‘move quickly’ replacing ‘a’; couldn’t really get the adjectival form of Deuteronomy, and forgot that there were two Braggs. And should have sussed ashlar, being both builder and beneficiary of the Patrick O’Brian maritime oeuvre beloved of Mrs ginf (now sadly late, hence my recent absence). But the Don is always a pleasurable and didactic challenge. Thanks P and A.

  8. PS: knew chador from having seen women in them in Kabul as a young traveller in ’67, but dnk chad qua bit of paper and couldn’t find it anywhere.

  9. A mixed bag here and very grateful to Andrew for several parsings. I think combining obscure words with obscure abbreviations is asking a bit much (“achaean”) but then one person’s obscure is another person’s commonplace – “chador”, “ashlar”, “mandragola” were all known quantities here, as were the Braggs (though I tentatively entered “bohr” at first a both Neils and his son Aage won Nobel prizes).

    I wasn’t a big fan of some of the homophones such as “taut” with so little to go on in crossers, and a few of the clues were a bit oddly put together e.g. the ‘s in the old testament book is needed as the link word (“is”) so is doing double duty if telling us (and I don’t see how) that we want the adjective. “dandruff” is almost &lit – dandruff is not found “in” your head but on it, and “last thing you want in…” doesn’t quite point the way, but it was a clever construction. “wandering round” in “mobilised” is a bit confusing – round is unnecessary and points to either an “o” or an envelope, but it does neither. In fact it does nothing but confuse. Likewise why “particular key” and not just “key”?

    That seems overly nitpicky for a puzzle with lots to like – “scramble” was clever, ditto “eroica”, “chapters” (for varying the usual riff on Ely), “low tide” and a few other smiles. However, the puzzle is hard enough without having to deal with issues like those I mentioned. I felt happy to be fooled by, and then have explained for me, things like “achaean” but less happy to realise I just had to ignore something to understand it!

    I’m reminded of the old joke (from The Oy of Yiddish IIRC) about the man asking his son what is red, hangs on a wall and whistles. The answer is a kipper. In response to the  obvious objections he points out you could paint it red and nail it to a wall. And the bit about whistling he put in to make it hard. Pasquale is tough enough without any kippers!

  11. Grantinfreo, those of us who lived through the 2000 U.S. election are well familiar with chad. The race came down to a few hundred votes in Florida, many of which were carefully scrutinized; the ballots in use at the time there had little holes the voters had to punch out. Sometimes they didn’t punch all the way out. Hanging chad (attached at just one corner) generally counted as a vote during the recounts; dimpled chad (at three) did not; and swinging-door chad was where judgment calls came in. Anyway, chad was all over the news for like a month.

    I was defeated by the northwest corner, as ASHLAR was unfamiliar and the clue for ACHAEAN was too recherche. As for the RAGGED STAFF, I googled the coat of arms–oh, it’s a bear and a scratching post, how cute–and incorrectly guessed it’d be called a rugged staff.

  12. mrpenney @21 bear and ragged staff is occasionally seen as a pub name. I once saw Worzel Gummidge/Jon Pertwee in one of them!

  13. I gave up on this after ‘revealing’ a couple only to find that I neither knew the word nor could parse them.

    Agree with all muffin@2 says.

  14. Got about 2/3 of the way through before raising the white flag. There were several clues of the “think of a synonym, then subtract something” variety, which often defeat me. I can agree in retrospect with the criticisms made by thezed@9, but I didn’t get far enough to be bothered by them!

    Thanks to Pasquale and Andrew.

  15. Thanks to Pasquale and Andrew. No surprises here because I was another who found this tough and very slow going. There was also plenty of dictionary searches to check on unfamiliar words. At two thirds through I nearly gave up, but persevered and nearly got there. A DNF for me because for 2d (last one for me) I put in Achaeon which I sort of half parsed. I needed to come here to check some parsings but did like rectangles and smarmy. Thanks again to Pasquale and Andrew.

  16. A super crossword. I’ve read the comments about this being hard work. Well, it was quite hard work, but I enjoyed it all the way through. I particularly liked RAGGED STAFF, which I didn’t know, but I worked it out first and checked the answer before inking it in. My other favourites were EROICA, THATCH, BRAG and SWELLINGS.
    BRAG was tricky because there were two Nobel Laureates in Physics named BOHR – father and son in different years. I’d heard of BOHR (Niels) but not BRAG. Obviously the A made it BRAG, not to mention the homophone. Last in was the toughest clue: TAUT.
    Many thanks to Pasquale and Andrew.

  17. Very much at the tougher end of the Don spectrum, and I must admit to using the check button a few times. Liked DEUTERONOMICAL, even if the word was new to me (as were MANDRAGORA and ALTHORN, with ASHLAR and ACHAEAN only distantly familiar), but too difficult for me to say I enjoyed it, and a few went in unparsed.

    Thanks to Pasquale and Andrew.

  19. I enjoyed this, from start to finish. Tough but fair. Thanks to Pasquale and Andrew.

  20. Grantinfreo @7 my sympathy for the passing of Mrs ginf as mentioned in your posting above – I meant to add something to my longer comment but in retrospect perhaps it is better not as an aside but as a comment in its own right.

  21. I enjoyed the difficulty, but groaned at the (expected) unfamiliar words (SWORDMAN, MANDRAGORA, ALTHORN, DEUTERONOMICAL, ACHAEAN & AE IN IT). I’m surprised so many didn’t remember the word CHAD from the US election debacle in Florida. The greatest disappointment was the current president appearing (again), and this time in a clue with that woman!

  22. And am sure from all of us,Grantinfreo@7 and thezed@20. It does feel like a little community on here.

  23. Very difficult and sometimes a bit too obscure-SWORDMAN?-and then there was ASHLAR,of which I’ve never heard and wouldn’t have got in a million years. I did have the ASH part and the second A but got no further. I liked CERN and was pleased to get BRAG, ALTHORN and CHADOR.
    Thanks Pasquale
    Grantinfreo@7 So very sorry.

  24. Thanks to Pasquale and Andrew. I’m another who found this puzzle very tough. With the help of Google I did piece out RAGGED STAFF and BRAG but ASHLAR defeated me.

  25. grantinfreo @7

    I haven’t commented on today’s puzzle but have just read the blog and I was so sorry to read your sad news. I’ve missed your comments lately – my thoughts are with you.

  27. Michelle@1 (although I knew RAGGED STAFF) and Eileen@25 said it for me. Thanks to Pasquale and Andrew for the much needed help with parsing.

  28. Whew, that was a struggle! I must admit to cheating the unfamiliars: 9a ASHLAR and 17d ALTHORN, so my experience does echo that of others above. I couldn’t parse 16a BRAG as I had not heard of the Braggs. Similarly I didn’t know CHAD in 20d CHADOR, although I knew the mode of dress from teaching Study of Religion. That tricksy spelling of 2d ACHAEAN also came to me courtesy of more of my past life as an Ancient History teacher. The parse of 7d CUBICLE was also beyond me, as was the Warwickshire reference in 12d RAGGED STAFF.

    I was reassured that others found this a tough one.

    My groan was for the fact that ADVENT at 26a is now seen as a “busy shopping season” due to the commodification of religious feasts and seasons.

    I liked a lot of what I solved on my own, including 13a MANDRAGORA, 18a RECTANGLE, 1d TOAD, 3d CHAPTERS and 22d TAUT (some already mentioned in despatches).

    Thanks to Don Pasquale for the challenge, and to Andrew for all the clarifications.

  29. Dear grantinfreo@7, This separate post is to express sincere sympathetic thoughts to you on the death of your wife. I am very sad to learn of your loss. Since you joined 15², your intelligent, often wry, sparkling posts have given me much enjoyment, and I have wondered why I had not seen as many just lately. I am glad you have reconnected with us. (As sailors, we too like Patrick O’Brian’s books, so I resonated with that lovely link to your beloved Mrs ginf.) Sending warm and healing condolences to you and your family from across the continent.

  30. The usual lazy setting from Pasquale.

    It’s very easy to ramp up the difficulty of a puzzle by choosing esoteric words. This changes the puzzle into a vocabulary test and makes it very dull and annoying. IMHO of course.

    Definitely the last Pasquale I’ll waste any of my time on.

  31. [grantinfreo – so very sorry to hear your sad news. Keep going, Grant, treasure your memories (something many will never have had) and enjoy life’s possibilities….
    And……keep posting!
    Wx]

  32. Alex @30
    The main paragraph of your post is fair comment, but ‘lazy setting’ is not fair comment, whatever your opinion of the puzzle.
    You wrote something disparaging (if you are the same Alex) in February about both Pasquale and his puzzle, declaring that the puzzle on that day was ‘really’ the last puzzle by this setter that you would waste your time on, and I can’t help thinking that you would have been better off not attempting today’s crossword – if I may be so bold as to point this out.

  33. A tough puzzle. ACHAEAN floored me..I had biffed in AEOLIAN so DNG ASHLAR although I knew the word. Had to biff BRAG and ALTHORN, CHADOR and SWORDMAN in the SW corner. A collection, to me, of obscure words which needed a walking dictionary to solve, but all the same isn’t that one of the reasons we do these puzzles, to learn new things? Thanks to setter and excellent blog.

  34. Re miserable Alex at 30 . a) If I were a lazy setter, I would restrict my vocabulary and recycle all my clues for familiar words from my 90000+digital  clue base, b) that said, I would not wish you to continue torturing yourself with my puzzles — there is plenty of choice out there! Please don’t hurt yourself!

  35. Thanks to Andrew and Pasquale

    Not really my cup of tea but some very nice ones nevertheless.

    10a and 3d very clever

    I’m a little unsure why the blog sees UNTIDY as weak for RAGGED

  36. Started and finished after dinner today – no harder than most Guardian crosswords. First in was 22d – I only mention that to show how one cruciverbalist’s experience can be so different from another’s. The only answer I mentally queried on the way through was the spelling of sword(s)man. Cricket enthusiasts might have arrived at 12d from their team’s coat of arms. Thanks to all for positive posts.

  37. A bit late to the party as is often the case these days. Excellent puzzle, as you’d expect from a distinguished setter who pays  scrupulous attention to accuracy and fairness.

    @Alan B and Pasquale himself: you’re both quite right of course, but you should know better than to feed the troll!

  38. Usually when I visit this site, I find people being insufferably smug about a puzzle that I’ve sweated blood over (“managed to finish before the bath got cold” type of thing). I enjoyed this puzzle and managed everything except ALTHORN, and it was a bonus to find so many moaning about it.

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