Guardian 28,273 / Puck

61 comments on “Guardian 28,273 / Puck”

1. Thanks Puck and mhl

   There’s a second theme of parts played by DONALD PLEASENCE. I didn’t know all of them, but SAMUEL LOOMIS (topical – Halloween series) stands out.

2. I enjoyed this very much, both the crossword and the theme, with the inclusion of those two unusual long words describing certain types of people. Oddly, I already knew SNOLLYGOSTER, which is not in Chambers (2016), or in my (older) hardback Collins dictionary for that matter, but I did not know BLATHERSKITE.

   I first encountered ‘snollygoster’ about 40 years ago, so it was obviously (or let’s say probably) not coined to describe Trump, but it is a word that applies to a certain kind of politician and especially, today, one like the incumbent President.

   I particularly liked PARADISE, FORELIMB and DONALD PLEASANCE among a very good set of clues.

   Thanks to Puck and mhl.

3. To me this was a puzzle that seemed to have two themes: “let’s celebrate the career of Donald Pleasance and think of long snarky descriptions of President Trump.” There was definitely a sub-theme of the other Donald’s roles. I did wonder if the theme might actually be villains: Donald UNPLEASANT and villains played by Donald Pleasance – all the ones I recognised, LOOMIS, Blofeld, Dr Crippen, were villains – I didn’t see the Rev. Septimus Harding in there – so maybe Puck had something along those lines in mind?

   Like many lately, I’ve been mesmerised by the events playing out in the U.S., and have been listening to and reading too much about it (more than one FiveThirtyEight podcast describing their election model and you realise this really can’t be good for you), but I have never ever come across the word SNOLLYGOSTER. At least it was clearly anagrammed, but it took something of a ‘guess and a Google’ to write in in confidently. Other than that, an entertaining time, with some nice misdirections, particularly ‘National Front supporter’. The parsing of BLATHERSKITE and ROUES eluded me, so thanks for explaining those, mhl. And ,Amy thanks to Puck, for the interesting combination of ideas here.

4. Thanks both. In 6d a female cat is a queen

5. Oops, how typical that I completely missed part of the theme! I’ll add a bit to the preamble about the Donald Pleasence references.

6. 6d: the reference is to queen = “an adult female cat”

   [[and congratulations on your parenthood! ]]

7. I couldn’t parse DECOROUS, UNFASTENS, or ROUES, so thanks for the explanations.

   Liked the Spanish answer.  Such a conservative language.

   I wonder what trishincharente will have to say about the political references?

   Thanks Puck and mhl.

8. I parsed ROUES as ROUSES with the first S removed.

9. Thanks, mhl.  A tricky one by Puck, which I failed to finish, my SW corner being almost empty.  Worked out SNOLLYGOSTER and looked it up, but BLATHERSKITE defeated me.

   KeithS@3, thanks for developing the Donald Pleasance theme.  I linked him to the Blofeld reference, but the others passed me by.

   At 6d, I imagined the Queen maybe is Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge – though there have been several actual queens to choose from (to Henry V, Charles II, Henry VIII – three of them – and maybe more).  But the point made by Shirl@4 and Andrew@6 is equally good.

10. Thanks Mhl. Didn’t spot it at the time, but comments on the blog prompted me to check that Donald Pleasence played William Hare in the film “The Flesh and the Fiends”.
    Thanks to Puck for another richly layered puzzle.

11. What a busy week for Puck, indeed, with puzzles in Guardian, Indy and FT.  The Trump theme was clear but I didn’t spot the other Donald, associating him only with Blofeld.  I must get out to the cinema more….Oh, I can’t of course…  I suspect KeithS is onto something too with the idea of Donald Pleasance and Donald Unpleasant with the villainousness being something they have in common.

    Particular favourites in this enjoyable medley included HALF MOON where the definition made me smile, HARE (and I certainly assumed a reference to the bodysnatcher), FOLDABLE which is just lovely, CATEGORY which is so succinct, FORELIMB which had me searching through political synonyms and PERI, agin for the simplicity.  Given my complaints of yesterday, no such problems with this one with mostly good surfaces.  My main struggle was with OTOSCOPE where I was convinced that ‘scrape’ would feature, meaning both to get by on little and the actions of a learner violinist.

    [SAMUEL is also the name of my eldest son, Mark.  I should warn you, over the course of 20 years they become an awful lot bigger, and so do their appetites!]

    Thanks Puck and mhl

12. Hovis@8 – I thought about that, but then I think the “First” would be superfluous.

13. Lots beyond me here, the two Samuels, snollygoster, [William] Hare, and Loomis, but not gridfill-prohibitive. And forgot about fa=zip, chestnut, another dnp, d’oh. Should have tried hasta (from hasta la vista) and might have sussed 12d, but no, had to reveal. So, not a great effort. The ‘front supporter’ was neat, as was Pistol, but wondered which Gk cbaracter Pi [psi?, 22/7?] was. So, not a hard fill per se, but a few ?s. Ta both.

14. Hovis @8 & mhl @12: I parsed ROUES as Hovis.  The “First” is instructing us to remove the first of the two ‘s’s – ‘s’ being “stripper’s top”

15. [PS loved Donald Pleasance in the Barchesters, not to mention the odd war movie]

16. Very enjoyable Puckish fare.

    I also parsed ROUES as Hovis @8, but I guess mhl’s works also.

    I missed the DP theme, although difficult to ignore the Trump one.

    I particularly liked the zip in the front of underwear, with many other good clues.

    Thanks Puck and mhl.

17. gif @13: I think the Shiraz of the other day is still having an impact.  PI is surely one of the most referenced of the Greek characters representing the ratio of circumference to radius in a circle.  You must’ve come across it in countless puzzles. 😀

18. Postmark@14 and Hovis@8: ah, right – I see what you mean. I’ll correct the post, since that’s a much better parsing.

19. Unusually tortuous I thought. Fortunately Chambers knew Blatherskite but unfortunately, not Snollygoster. So, being unversed in either dialect, the puzzle remained unfinished. I enjoy Puck as a rule but he beat me here. So thumbs up for that. And thank you mhl, without your help I would never have got the parsing of half of these.

20. Annoyingly, I seem to have sent my paper (with my ticks and notes) for recycling, after all, having carefully kept it for several days, so I can’t really add anything useful. I think any points I might have made have been covered by others.

    I do remember having enjoyed the puzzle, though, so many thanks to Puck and to mhl for the blog.

21. I wasn’t entirely comfortable with LOOMIS and am a little surprised that we haven’t had a quiet protest from one of our friends our in the colonies or former colonies.

    Slightly annoyed with myself for not getting OTOSCOPE.

    I couldn’t parse DECOROUS, and thank you mhl for the clarification.

    While we continue to live in dread, a crossword which gives us a couple of new digs at the orange horror is most welcome (And if the dread comes to an end, I look forward to a special being really, really rude about Trump, McConnell and all the rest of them). Thank you, Puck.

22. For some reason it has taken all day for the blog to come up here in Australia, so I feel a little like Eileen, that it has all been said by others already. I really apologise for the repetition but as it is getting late over here and I am watching the result of our State election held today, I have decided to cut and paste something I prepared earlier without referencing previous comments.

    [What fun! Weren’t 11a SNOLLYGOSTER and 20a BLATHERSKITE gorgeous words – in my case, both needed crossers to solve and while SNOLLYGOSTER was unfamiliar, I had heard of a BLATHERSKITE [and in the light of the election for POTUS next Tuesday, it seems to fit 10a TRUMP(S) perfectly!]. I didn’t know LOOMIS at 26a, but I didn’t think LOONIE would fit, so in the end I googled words that started with Loo and found the solution – so technically a dnf/cheat for me. My favourite besides the long semi-nonsense words was 16d FORELIMB for the clever misdirection of “National Front supporter”. Really enjoyed it – so sending many thanks to Puck for the setting and to mhl for the blog.]

23. [mhl, loved the coincidence of your baby’s name with 1a, Samuel.

    Didn’t get the DONALD PLEASANCE theme/references but never mind.

    Good to read how everyone else fared via the blog.]

24. NeilH @21: I’m curious as to why LOOMIS might prompt protest?  Unless it’s controversial, are you able to explain?  Not being a fan of the gore school of film making, I was unaware of the Halloween connection but knew of the cash carrying and courier business.  But was unaware of any controversy.

    On the LOOMIS topic, I see Puck actually managed to rope in half a dozen bad guys with the one surname.  Researching to try to understand NeilH’s point, (well, if a glance at Wikipedia counts as research) I discover that the name is associated with villains in a number of movies/TV series over and above Dr. Samuel Loomis in the Halloween film series

    Billy Loomis, a character in the first instalment of Scream
    Lila Loomis (née Crane), a character in Psycho and Psycho II
    Oswald Loomis, Superman villain the Prankster
    Sam Loomis, a character in Psycho
    Willie Loomis, a character in the TV series and movies Dark Shadows

25. As much as I admire and enjoy Paul, I’m always happy to see Puck’s name in the Prize slot (along with Brendan, Nutmeg, Philistine and a few others who appear less frequently there), and I was not disappointed here. I loved the barbed TRUMPS, BLATHERSKITE and SNOLLYGOSTER, the conciseness of NITRATES, and the misdirecting phrases ‘double agent,’ National Front’ and ‘stringed instrument.’ Guessed the unfamiliar BLATHERSKITE from crossers and PISTOL and DONALD PLEASENCE from the anagram fodder, without which I would have misspelled the last name of the latter.

     

    Thanks to mhl for the explanations of UNFASTENS and HARE. I suspected that ‘murderer’ might point to an extra definition but was too lazy to check. Thanks also to Hovis for the parsing of ROUES, which I never would have figured out.

     

26. PostMark @21 – Nothing dramatic – I eventually remembered that Loomis was the name of the company that went round various businesses in the UK collecting the takings, but wasn’t sure they would be equally familiar to people not based in the UK. (If at any stage we get something like The Queen implicated in the beginnings of scam – Love money-making exercise cluing SERCO, I shall be similarly unsure)

27. Oh I see. I thought the original Loomis was going to turn out to be some colonialist administrator with a terrible reputation! You’re talking GK which may or may not reach beyond the UK. I wondered whether the word would upset those who don’t like brand names.

28. A prize puzzle worthy of the name.  Loved FORELIMB, HARE and the two new words for me, SNOLLYGOSTER and BLATHERSKITE.

    I only saw the DONALD PLEASENCE theme after completing the grid and checking up LOOMIS on Wiki.  There’s one other theme reference I can see – Donald Pleasence was in the film Suspect (in the PISTOL clue).

    Thanks, Puck and mhl.

29. Hmm,

    this was too tough and not really fun for me. I just failed to parse (partly ignorance, partly just couldnt get motivated) clues like LOOMIS, and ROUES. and just wrote them in from crossers and definition. (Aside  this guy Francis Wheeler Loomis is a very interesting character, possibly an intended bonus bit of GK from the setter).

    I wrote in DONALD PLEASANCE having vaguely heard of this older character actor, and looking now clearly just wasn’t bothered enough to check the anagram fodder to correctly spell his name.

    The 2 long descriptors were interested, even if the first one (SNOLLYGOSTER) isn’t in Chambers. Nor is it as pejorative as people might like to think, one of the meanings seems to imply ‘shrewdness’ and it generally seems to mean a kind of practised politician rather than a rogue. BLATHERSKITE also pretty obscure and while I could see the construction to parse it (only after I cheated with the ‘search’ function on the CHambers app) it seems contrived – maybe just out of my skill level.

    Among the other clues, I did enjoy FORELIMB and FOLDABLE, the former was my LOI.

    Reading here the various filmic references are indeed fun. I’m less convinced about the oppobrium towards the ‘other Donald’, I;m no fan of his, but resorting to cheap name-calling is just descending to his level. Never wrestle a pig in muck as they say.

    Anyhoo, thanks Puck for a challenge too great for me, and to mhl for explaining it and other contributors on here for further layers of enlightenment,

     

30. I’m American and sorry to say I’d never heard of SNOLLYGOSTER–it seems to have been around a while, not surprising given some of our late 19th-century political traditions. I didn’t mind LOOMIS; never heard of the company, but the wordplay was so clear it couldn’t have been anything else.

31. At one point when we had a few crossers for 20a, I joked that BLATHERSHITE fit, and would be appropriate – if only it were a word!  So I was staggered later when I found my wild guess was (almost) right.

    But SNOLLYGOSTER defeated us, even with the anagram being plain.

32. Like Epee Sharkey @29 I carelessly wrote in DONALD PLEASANCE, as must have plenty of other commenters here – not many references to DONALD PLEASENCE so far! I had worked out the anagram at 11a as a toss-up between SNOLLOGYSTER and SNOLLYGOSTER, neither of which looked much like a real word. I could have left the light unfilled, but decided (just this once) to use Google, which produced the correct answer after I had typed in SNOLL. So this was a dnf for me on two counts.

    LOOMIS was a company I’d never heard of (and never watched Halloween either), but the wordplay and crossers gave me the answer. Apart from these small sticking points, I enjoyed the challenge of this tricky but ultimately accessible puzzle from Puck. Favourite clue, as far as I can recall at this remove, would have to be UNPLEASANT (no difficulty over the spelling this time), which completed the theme of the two Donalds very satifactorily.

     

33. This was a challenge with a more than usual use of Google to check things out. I messaged an American friend to ask if SNOLLYGOSTER was still in use – he said no, but conceptually very much alive! The Trump reference clearly not lost on him. I also didn’t know BLATHERSKITE – what a great word. I was reminded of George Galloway’s appearance at the Senate House in 2005 which got many of us reaching for dictionaries to find out what lickspittle and popinjay meant.

    Thanks mhl for the blog and others for parsing of in particular 3D, 7d and 16d.

    Thanks to Puck for a great entertaining challenge.

34. As JinA said, the blog came in late today, so some of us overseas folks didn’t get our regular once-a-week chance of commenting before everybody else.  So I’ll say something unprepared that occurred to me on reading the blog on BLATHERSKITE.

    While common sense says that mhl is perfectly right in saying it describes Trump (although not as an &lit., technically), from a purely syntactic point of view, the “he” could refer to Biden too.  Old Joe is nothing like Trump, of course, but he is known for the occasional verbal gaffe, so I think Puck may have succeeded in making this one ambiguous hence politically neutral.  That is, until one considers the other mini-theme answers.

35. It is so easy to misspell ‘Donald Pleasence’ that more than one of us has done so, but as I was the first I apologise.

36. Anna @7
    If trishincharente feels about this a she did about Vlad’s last week I agree with her. (For those who missed it she said that she had enough politics in the rest of the paper and when she came to the crossword she was looking for an escape). I just prefer crosswords without politics. Another reason for hoping that Trump loses on Thursday is that there will be less excuse for setters to take shots at this easy target. I think that we have too much of what Epee Sharkey@29 aptly describes as “wrestling a pig in muck” in the rest of the paper.
    Congratulations to Alan B @2. I was going to ask if anyone apart from our US contributors had heard of SNOLLYGOSTER, expecting the answer “No”. I still think that it is an unfair clue. It isn’t in Chambers and the Google references that I checked said that it was a US usage, mainly Southern, obsolete according to one source, and used by only one person of whom I had heard (President Truman in 1952). On top of that it was possible to get it wrong as sheffield hatter@32 and I both did while following the wordplay.
    I worked out 12d from knowing “Hasta la vista” and
    the wordplay. But is it well enough known in the UK? It could be that it is often used in gangster films which would account for my having missed it.
    Thanks to Puck and mhl

37. Alan B @35. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a case of everyone following your lead! At the latest count there are eight of us who have posted here with an A where an E should have been. No prizes for us this week. 😉

38. Since no one has asked, this must be something I am ignorant of: why is half = drink? Is it some rhyming slangs with quaff, I wonder?

    I did get HALF MOON from the definition (much to my amusement) and assumed half = drink, but googling didn’t help.

    Thanks!

39. [Hasta luego is one of a constellation of W. European phrases that are all saying “see you later” in some form.  Here, the Spanish “hasta” means “until”, and “lusgo” means “then”, although interestingly it comes from the Latin “loco” so you’d think it meant “there”.  Anyway, it’s maybe less common than “hasta la vista” (“until the seeing”).  In French we have “au revoir” (“until seeing again”), in German “auf wiedersehen” (the same), and in Italian “arrivederci/la” (“to seeing us/you again”).  The Portuguese “ate logo” is just like the Spanish.  You tend to learn these as fixed phrases without realizing the internal structure.]

40. [Pino@36
    The Snollygoster I knew long ago was the name of a badly designed suite of software on which my advice was sought. My advice (basically) was to bin it, but obviously what the fate of the modern-day snollygoster should be is none of my business.]

41. Adriana @38: a “half” is a half a pint of beer, as in “Fancy a swift half?”.

42. Pino @ 36

    I am not entirely unsympathetic to trishincharente’s point of view.  The politics does start to get a bit tiring ….

43. Adriana @38. It’s in Chambers: “half a pint usu of beer (inf.)”. In pubs in England it’s quite common to ask for a half rather than a pint. I also do this when visiting my brother’s family in France – when we go to the local bars, it’s normal to ask for a demi, though in that case it would be 25cl – half of a half litre. (I once asked for a litre of beer in a cafe in France – it appeared on the bill as a formidable!)

44. [Blofeld, one of the Pleasence roles, reminded me of a story about Henry Blofeld, the cricket commentator. Arriving in Australia to commentate on an Ashes series, he presented his passport to the immigration offficer.

    “Blofeld, eh? Master criminal, eh?”

    “My dear chap, I didn’t realise it was still a requirement…”]

45. I always took “half” to refer to beer, but I’ve just read a couple of books in which a pair of neighbours get together in the early evenings to drink whisky (Chivas Regal, generally). After the first one is finished, the host invariably asks “the other half?”, and the offer is always accepted.

46. DrWhatsOn @ 39

    I’m so glad you bought up that Spanish.  I was actually hoping someone would ask what I meant @ 7 by Spanish being a conservative language.

    But yes, you’re right, the luego does derive from the Late Latin loco (Classical latin locus).  Displays a lovely typical intervocalic soft mutation in Spanish and Italian.  The Spanish from shows the diphthongisation to /eu/ and the Italian to the next stage /uo).  In the modern French, the consonant has dropped out altogether.  (locus – /loke/ – luego – luogo – lieu).  If you like this, try it with other words.  Ovum, egg, for example.

    Never let anyone tell you that Latin is a dead language.  It isn’t.

47. [Anna @46. Thanks for the interesting insight into intervocalic soft mutation. When you said before that Spanish was a conservative language (I was intrigued, but by the time I’d read a few more comments it had vanished over the horizon), were you refering to the retention of consonants (by comparison with French)?]

48. sheffield hatter @ 47

    Yes, partly.  In the evolution from Classical Latin through to the modern romance languages, the Spanish form is very often ‘stuck’ at an earlier stage than the italian, which is in its turn stuck at an earlier stage than the French.  The Spanish still use the Classical Latin word for a table, for example.  (Mesa < mensa)  Italian and French both dropped that word in favour of forms deriving from the late latin tabula.

49. [me @44

    I think Fleming was at school with one of Henry’s relatives – father? uncle? – from whom he got the name.]

50. When I finished this puzzle, I remarked that it was a week early–Halloween (cf. SAMUEL LOOMIS) is today and the election is Tuesday. [More properly, it ends Tuesday–thanks to the pandemic, there’s been a huge surge in early and nail-in voting, and something like 70 million people, inclusing me, have already voted.]

    It’s worth noting–sorry to burst some bubbles upthread–that Dr. LOOMIS is not the villain of the piece. That’d be Michael Myers. Loomis is the psychiatrist from the mental institution from which Myers has escaped. He represents the “helpless or incompetent authority figure” trope that appears in so many horror movies, leaving the poor heroine to outwit her foe on her own.

    Lastly, may I add that I sincerely hope that the clue for BLATHERSKITE (“Trump finally replaced by Biden…”) hasn’t jinxed it for us.

51. [muffin @44: reminds me of the story from the America’s Cup where one of the Australian entourage – favourites to win – was pulling the legs of the English.  Querying their ability to sail.  Which elicited the response, “Well we managed to sail you lot down here alright.”]

52. [muffin@45 – a traditional round in a Scottish pub is “a hauf an’ a hauf” – a half-pint and a nip of whisky.]

53. [DuncT @52

    Yes, I’ve heard of whisky being followed by beer – or the other way round – but in the books I referred to, It was always whisky followed by more whisky!]

54. Very enjoyable. I loved the idea that gangsters shop at Aldi (21dn). They might have oodles of unearned cash, but they don’t squander it shopping in Tesco’s!

    I parsed ROUES the same way as Mhl and thought it was a bit clunky, so thanks to Hovis for what is clearly the correct parsing.

    I entered DONALD PLEASANCE (with an A) at first, but realized the mistake when I solved the crossing answer.

    I hadn’t heard of LOOMIS, but worked it out.

55. Muffin, great story about Henry Blofeld. I believe I’ve heard him say in interview that it was his father who was the school fellow Fleming named his villain after.

56. Mhl, I think there’s a wee slip in the blog for HASTA LUEGO… as currently written, it doesn’t account for the 2nd A, which I believe comes from the A at the start of the clue, with GLUE supplied simply be “sticker” rather than “a sticker”.

    Definitely a workout here, though I did manage to complete it… albeit with some guesswork due to a few DNKs, and a couple DNPs (Did Not Parse) as well.

    [Don’t mind a little politics with my cruciverbalism, but did find the refs here a bit overly oppressive; at this point I’m just tired of all things orange (in politics, not pumpkin holidays 🙂 )… a situation not helped by suffering from election fatigue/anxiety/overload (on top of covid fatigue) to boot. Am so thankful for thoughtful communities out there with which to share diversions like our daily cryptics!]

57. Yes, there was so much Trump-bashing that I assumed that was the theme and completely missed the Donald Pleasence/Donald Unpleasance angle, not that I would have known the references to the former’s career. It did feel strange that ‘actor’ was considered an adequate definition for someone who sadly has not been a household name for quite some time, and also that the commercial name ‘Loomis’ appeared as an answer when other options were available. I should have realised that a setter of this calibre wouldn’t put DONALD PLEASENCE across the middle of a grid without reason.

58. As a resident of Washington, DC I prefer my crosswords without political references (it’s nice to get a break from the daily bombardment) but since I’m a fan of Puck/Wanderer I managed to squeeze some joy from this difficult puzzle. PARADISE, GEMINI, and CATEGORY were among my favourites. Thanks to both.

59. Merriam-Webster retired SNOLLYGOSTER a few decades ago due to desuetude. Its website notes it decided in 2017 to return it to its dictionary. Enough said.

60. mrpenney, I am still treasuring the remark you posted four years ago the day after election about the turd sandwich our country had handed the world.

     

61. An abject failure this week, with 5 clues unsolved. That normally makes me cross, and I blame the setter  of course. But on reading the blog and seeing the solutions, I was delighted with their brilliance, so thank you Puck for the entertainment.

    Notwithstanding the “too much politics and why pick on Trump he’s too easy a target” thread, thank you Puck for introducing me to two beautiful new words, SNOLLYGOSTER and BLATHERSKITE that I will try to use in reference to people other than Sir Donald of Mar-A-Lago.

    And Thank you mhl for the blog which I needed even more than usually this time.

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