Thank you to Brummie. Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Across
1. Drug dealer going after prison clerk (9)
PENPUSHER : PUSHER(an illegal drug dealer) placed after(going after) PEN(short for “penitentiary”, an American prison).
6. See 22 down
8. Darling bursting at the seams almost? How elegant! (8)
GRACEFUL : GRACE(surname Darling, the heroic daughter of an English lighthouse keeper) + “full”(bursting at the seams/with no room left) minus its last letter(almost).
9. Casual agreement to hold career back leads to destitution (6)
PENURY : Reversal of(… back) [YEP(an informal/casual expression of agreement/yes) containing(to hold) RUN(to career/to rush headlong)].
10. Elastic hem of bikini caught in bush? (6)
PLIANT : Last letter of(hem of) “bikini” contained in(caught in) PLANT(vegetation, an example of which is a bush).
I’ll refrain from commenting on the surface.
11. Juvenile predator gets choice fish circling river (8)
PICKEREL : PICK(choice/the finest out of a group of similar items) + EEL(the slippery fish with an elongated body) containing(circling) R(abbrev. for “river”).
Defn: …/the young of pike, a predatory fish with an elongated body.
12. Forlorn thing, replacing love with one (6)
ABJECT : “object”(a thing/an article) with “A”(the singular indefinite article in grammar/one) replacing “o”(letter representing 0/love in tennis scores).
15. Bloody treatment and daily abuse by sibling (8)
DIALYSIS : Anagram of(… abuse) DAILY plus(by) SIS(short for sister/a sibling).
Defn: Treatment of the blood of people whose kidneys are not functioning properly.
16. Fragrant as a nameless Wordsworthian poet, say (8)
AROMATIC : A + “Romantic”(a poet of the artistic Romantic movement, as exemplified by/say, William Wordsworth) minus(…less) “n”(abbrev. for “name”).
19. Sword-shaped sateen creation (6)
ENSATE : Anagram of(… creation) SATEEN.
Defn: Describing plants with sword-shaped leaves or offshoots.
21. Artist who sounds cheerful (8)
WHISTLER : One who whistles is likely to be happy/cheerful (… or afraid of the dark?).
Answer: James, American artist based in the UK.
Not a painting of Whistler’s mother:
22. Sporty type of male appreciative of painting etc (6)
HEARTY : HE(third-person pronoun for a male person) + ARTY(one who appreciates the arts/painting, etc.).
24. Here Labour begins true representation in America (6)
UTERUS : Anagram of(… representation) TRUE contained in(in) US(abbrev. for the United States/America).
Defn: …, the labour that is childbirth.
25. Inclined to accept roentgen unit study (8)
LEARNING : LEANING(inclined/with a tendency towards) containing(to accept) R(symbol for the “roentgen”, the unit of ionising radiation).
26. See 22 down
27. Joyful orchids cultivated without state backing (9)
RHAPSODIC : Anagram of(… cultivated) ORCHIDS containing(without) reversal of(… backing) PA(abbrev. for the US state of Pennsylvania).
Down
1. Newspaper illustrations carrying risk (5)
PERIL : Hidden in(… carrying) “Newspaper illustrations“.
2. ‘Quite agreeable, collecting rubbish’ (wink, wink!) (7)
NICTATE : NICE(quite agreeable/pleasant) containing(collecting) TAT(rubbish/items that are cheap and bad).
Defn: Blink, by, presumably, making two winks simultaneously
3. Large body to go comfortably round, being out of shape (5)
UNFIT : UN(abbrev. for the United Nations, the large body/organisation of nations) + FIT(to go comfortably round, as with comfortable clothes).
4. Heap laid out, but not a place to land on (7)
HELIPAD : Anagram of(… out) [“Heap laid” minus(but not) “a“].
5. A second chance for foiled contestants? (9)
REPÊCHAGE : Cryptic defn: A sporting contest in which the best of those who failed (were foiled?) in the heats, compete for a place in the final.
I suspect the clue should have read “… failed …” and not “… foiled …”, the latter leading me up the garden path looking for terms in the sport of fencing. Hence, my LOI.
Edit: Following comments below, I now see where I went wrong: I was looking for fencing-specific terms. Doh!
6. Rather bleak victory, with lame finish in Test (7)
WINTERY : WIN(victory/triumph) plus(with) last letter of(… finish) “lame” contained in(in) TRY(to test/to sample).
7. One who takes lives in central development (9)
LARCENIST : IS(lives/exists) contained in(in) anagram of(… development) CENTRAL.
Defn: .., ie. a thief.
13. Tennis champion off to the small Italian commune (9)
BORGHETTO : BORG(Bjorn, former tennis champion) + anagram of(off) TO THE.
Defn: … outside a city’s walls.
14. Ground is to alter betting system (9)
TOTALISER : Anagram of(Ground) IS TO ALTER.
Defn: … in horse racing.
17. Beneath mountain peak, diverging trails wind (7)
MISTRAL : 1st letter of(… peak, in a down clue) “mountain” placed above(Beneath …, in a down clue) anagram of(diverging) TRAILS.
Defn: … that blows from the northwest across Europe.
18. Carbon ring coil associated with a petal formation (7)
COROLLA : C(symbol for the chemical element, carbon) + O(letter representing a ring/circle) + ROLL(coil/roll, as in a length of photographic film or stamps – remember those? – wound round a cylinder) plus(associated with) A.
Defn: …, petals of a flower, that is.
20. Refrained from releasing a book that’s marked (7)
STAINED : “abstained”(refrained oneself from doing or enjoying something, say, drinking alcohol) minus(releasing) [a + B(abbrev. for “book”)].
22, 6 across, 26. Tip waste food over press and sackings are on the cards! (5,4,4)
HEADS WILL ROLL : HEAD(the tip/the upper part or business end of something, an arrow, say) + SWILL(waste food, fed to pigs) placed above(over, in a down clue) ROLL(press/flatten by passing a roller over it ).
23. Habit of taking a lot of wine with ice-cold starters? (5)
TUNIC : TUN(a lot of wine, specifically 210 imperial gallons of it) plus(with) 1st letters, respectively, of(… starters) “ice-cold“.
Defn: …/a garment.
Another one of my favourite setters, I got off to a flyer in the NW but then held up by the SW until I got ABJECT and then worked out BORGHETTO from the fair clueing. Other new words were PICKEREL, ENSATE and REPECHAGE (what a lovely word). I went up the fencing road as well.
My favourites were PEN-PUSHER, DIALYSIS, WHISTLER and UTERUS. A tough challenge but all gettable from the smooth surfaces.
Ta Brummie & scchua
Thanks to Brummie and scchua.
But REPECHAGE is a prime example of why cryptic definitions are my least favourite type of clue. How is anyone unfamiliar with fencing supposed to get this answer without any wordplay to guide them to it (and without just looking it up)?
Thanks scchua. Fencing is one of the sports in which you’ll specifically see a repechage (rowing is another).
Apart from the 6 new words to me, I can’t find why a pickerel is a ‘juvenile’ predator.
Those familiar with the work of Jimmy Jenson, The Swingin’ Swede, will know that his ‘Little Grass Shack’ in Minneapolis, Minnesota is where the PICKEREL and the mackerel and the lutefisk go swimming by, despite the fact that lutefisk is a type of dried fish. Ja sure!
There is a REPECHAGE in some fencing competitions, where a foil may be the weapon.
Thanks to Brummie and scchua.
Thanks Brummie and scchua
Better surfaces than is often the case with Brummie. As DuncT says, repechage can be appropriate in several sports, but it is commonest in fencing and rowing.
HEADS WILL ROLL went in from the easy definition and crossers, but I made no attempt to parse it, and I’m now glad I didn’t waste the time!
“Large body” for UN is rather loose. My first thought was that it was (s)UN, but there isn’t a decapitation indicator. Perhaps that would have been a better idea?
Favourite was MISTRAL.
Ahh, just found that as well as a species it can be a young pike
I’m rarley on Brummie’s wavelength and today I was not only in a different part of the spectrum, I was using an utterly different modulation. I found that incredibly hard-going with only 2 clues in after 15 minutes!
Many DNKs as others have stated and much head-scratching. Coffee is now brewing but I may need a slug of something restorative in it after that – anyone up for Cafe au Toilet Duck?
Thanks (I think!) Brummie – and scchua for the informative blog.
I must have been all-neutrons-firing this morning: dashed the whole thing off with words like REPECHAGE and BORGHETTO leaping readily to mind. Looked hard for a theme but couldn’t find one – that’s two unthemed puzzles in a row from Brummie, which is unusual.
NICTATE was my favourite today, but RHAPSODIC might be one of my all-time favourite words, which is enough on its own to get a thumbs-up from me.
Started with a bang on PENPUSHER and slowed a bit thereafter. But there were some nice easy ways in. Liked RHAPSODIC, NICTATE, PENURY (when I figured out it all had to be reversed), and UTERUS (where I knew what the wordplay trick was but just didn’t grasp the “here Labour begins” bit for far too long – very clever). A few unknowns that I constructed then checked (BORGHETTO, ENSATE). I was reluctant to put in WINTERY, thinking it was misspelt (‘wintry’). I’m another that was foiled. Thanks Brummie and scchua.
Enjoyed this, ticks for GRACEFUL, ABJECT, DIALYSIS, AROMATIC and RHAPSODIC. Needed all the crossers to get loi ENSATE as I hadn’t come across that before. The PICKEREL was the very first pub I had a pint in when I spent my first day in Cambridge..
An enjoyable puzzle from Brummie as ever. Like SteveB @2, I thought REPECHAGE wasn’t the greatest clue – I put in REPACHAGE from memory before I googled it. Liked RHAPSODIC, AROMATIC and HEADS WILL ROLL in particular. Hadn’t heard of ENSATE. Many thanks to B & s.
[Ronald @11
I hope you later found the bettr pubs – The Merton Arms, for instance.]
NW corner was hardest for me, mainly because of Grace Darling (1815–42), English heroine for 8ac (thanks, google), who I had never heard of before today.
Favourites: STAINED, BORGHETTO.
New words for me today: COROLLA, PICKEREL, NICTATE, ENSATE (loi), and REPECHAGE. I would have appreciated some more wordplay in the clueing for the latter as there was no way to solve it unless one already knew that word. I agree with Steve B. @2 on this.
Did not parse: UNFIT; or HEADS WILL ROLL – easily guessed it from the crossers and word count, and did not think that HEAD + SWILL + ROLL made sense. Oh well.
Thanks, Brummie and scchua.
No acrosses on the first pass, but the downs were more accessible. 5 underivable from wordplay, so I had to surf around fencing. 11, 13 and 19 unknown, but fair.
Thanks, as ever, to setter and blogger.
Well I thought it was fun and I learned a few new words.
Thanks Brummie, scchua and Google!
Muffin@13…yes I soon found the Merton Arms too, just around the corner, but 16 years later it closed, in 1988. Student accommodation now…
I knew REPECHAGE from sport but would not have got it from clue. Loved GRACEFUL
Some days those half-remembered words like PICKEREL, BORGHETTO and NICTATE come to mind, some days they don’t. Today, for a change, they did and a Jorum with ENSATE as well. It must be the impending visit to the dentist that concentrates the mind.
[Michelle @14 There’s a pub named after Grace Darling in Brunswick St on the Fitzroy/Collingwood frontier. (I think it’s still there, anyway.)]
I’m with boffo@9 on this one – it all fell into place very satisfactorily. I’m also with muffin@6 in not trying to parse 22etc. ENSATE was new to me, NICTATE was known thanks to previous puzzles, and the three vaguely familiar (11a, 13 & 18d) all emerged from mists with the help of the clues and crossers. Favourites were PENPUSHER, PICKEREL, UTERUS and TUNIC which led me up the wrong path until the end. I didn’t parse PENURY so thanks to scchua for that and the rest of the blog and Brummie for the puzzle.
[Gert Bycee @20
thanks for the info. Many years ago, I lived in Collingwood, not far from Smith St. I also lived in Rathdowne St in Carlton. At the time, I attended Melbourne Uni.]
Muffin @with 6 and Ronald @11, the best pub in Cambridge is The Flying Pig, with live music and a great atmosphere, but it is under threat of redevelopment. It was originally called The Engineer and was built with the arrival of the railway – it is opposite the end of station road. Nick Barraclough, musician and broadcaster, has written a delightful history of it in the hope that it can be saved. It turns out Nick’s ancestors were once the landlords but he did not know that until he began researching for the book.
I meant Muffin @13 of course.
My first thought for 5D was REPÊCHAGE, but I couldn’t remember how to spell it. I guess if you don’t follow sport (including the Olympics) it might be unknown.
Lots to like here; there seemed to be a lot of Ps in the top half, including 3 pens, if you count the one in column 5. I thought the WILL was maybe a hint to a Shakespearean connection, but I can’t see it.
I liked PENURY, UTERUS and WINTERY.
Thanks Brummie for the entertainment and to scchua for the nice pictorial blog.
One of those puzzles where I thought I was on to a hiding – all the way through the acrosses to 24 before even a sniff. But that was enough to unlock the SW, and so on it goes…
Quite a lot of unfamiliar words plus one or two unknown ones – ENSATE, BORGHETTO – but, as others have said, fairly clued. I was OK with the anagram for ENSATE, it is at least a word in English so there is a bit more to go on than for GOURDES yesterday. I knew REPECHAGE from Olympic rowing competitions, indeed interpreted ‘foils’ as rowing blades not swords.
Overall, pretty chuffed with this.
Thanks scchua, I didn’t know Grace Darling nor that the repechage structure was common in fencing although have heard the word often enough on various sports broadcasts that its meaning was clear. Tough but fair sums it up for me eg the obscure anagram ENSATE left little likelihood of failure once crossers were in place, a few happy doses of Jorum again, and I think there was debate a while back over the equivalence or otherwise of blinking and winking but forget the conclusion. My pick is LARCENIST just edging out RHAPSODIC, thanks Brummie.
[PS Thanks Ronald@11 for reminding me of why I knew the word PICKEREL (though I was variously an Empress, Live and Let Live or Rock man myself – more suburban, and just too late to know your choice muffin@13). SinCam@23 –the Flying Pig may have been my first pint in Cambridge, I think it had bar billiards which was a welcome novelty too. Certainly more pleasant that the Osborne Arms(?) next door.]
Is it a dnf if you miss the circumflex on REPêchage?
I see Cambridge and Collingwood mentioned
I’d like to mention Galbraiths in Auckland. A brewery pub with real handpumps
Nice puzzle Brum,
Got REPECHAGE from having heard of it in Olympic rowing and assuming that oar blades could therefore be referred to as foils. Which sums up my level of rowing knowledge and interest really, but it worked anyway.
There are also pubs called the Pickerel at Ixworth and Stowmarket in Suffolk.
This puzzle challenged and entertained me. I was harrumphing somewhat over the REPECHAGE clueing (not fair to use a cryptic def for a term that’s so recherché) but all-in-all a chewy and flavoursome solve. It looks to me as if the etymology of ‘repêchage’ might be “to fish again” as in cast your line once more to see if you can catch anything. I haven’t looked it up but that would be an curious origin for this sporting term. Like our blogger, I was convinced that this was a technical term in fencing and the Frenchiness of the word confirmed my misapprehension.
Two STRAWBS references at 8a, ‘Bursting at the Seams’ (album), and ‘Grace Darling’ (song, on various other albums). Couldn’t find any other obvious Strawbs references.
Thanks for the entertainment Brummie & scchua.
Enjoyable crossword from Brummie, with some unusual vocabulary, though the only DNK for me was ENSATE – we’ve had much comment recently about the unfairness of anagrams for rare words but fortunately here the crossers fixed what would otherwise have been ambiguous. I searched in vain for a theme….
Re BORGHETTO – Italian terminology for human settlements seems inflated to an English (though perhaps not American) ear. ‘Città’ is used for anything with a population more than a thousand or so. ‘Borgo’ is either something considerably smaller or a suburb or peripheral district of a larger town (which was originally a satellite village). BORGHETTO is smaller still – ‘hamlet’ would be the best translation – and I don’t think it normally carries any connotation of being peripheral to a larger settlement.
Some obscure words challenged me today, and in the end it was a DNF as I didn’t get 11a PICKEREL, 5d REPECHAGE and 13d BORGHETTO (similar to some experiences recounted above, though I enjoyed reading about the associations evoked by some of those clues in previous posts). Nevertheless, I appreciated quite a few of the other solutions especailly 1a PENPUSHER, 9a PENURY, 16a AROMATIC, 21a WHISTLER, 24a UTERUS and 4d HELIPAD (some of which correspond to clues that several others above have already cited). So just because I didn’t get the satisfaction of a full solve, today wasn’t a complete write-off.
My top clue was definitely 8a GRACEFUL [Gert@20 and michelle@22, I appreciated the memory jog and the Aussie reference. I recall going past the Grace Darling Hotel on the tram via Smith St down towards Gertrude St on my last Melbourne visit pre-COVID. Our family of sailors has a huge passion for lighthouses and so I was delighted that day to see an hotel named after the hero of one of my favourite lighthouse stories. I also have to say that I enjoyed reading the English and NZ pub references that precede mine.]
Thanks to Brummie and scchua.
I came across REPECHAGE from watching Olympic rowing, which I hasten to add I do not watch obsessively, and I guess the word stuck because of the eyebrow-raising “fish again” derivation as mentioned by pserve_p2 above. I was pleased that COROLLA was fairly clued with a charade – I did fear at one point that ‘associated’ was being used as an anagram indicator. ENSATE will have been a write in for the Latin scholars among us, but a new word for me. I was quite pleased to solve three-quarters of this crossword in the advert breaks between overs in the test match, with the SW corner holding me up until the close of play allowed me to concentrate fully. Despite a career in the betting industry, I’ve never heard of TOTALISER before; it’s normally abbreviated to Tote, occasionally the nanny goat in rhyming slang and formally as the Horserace Totalisator Board. Can’t complain though, because Brummie’s version is in Chambers.
Thanks to Brummie and scchua.
[Carolynne @32 Yes, I noticed the two Strawbs references in one clue. Bursting At The Seams is probably my favourite Strawbs album. Grace Darling was originally on Ghosts. Still going strong, they’ve just released their latest album called Settlement.]
I assumed the sport was fencing, about which I know nothing, but as I knew REPECHAGE for the same kind of thing in rowing, and it fitted the crossers… and it was right.
New words ENSATE, PICKEREL, BORGHETTO, but all fairly clued. I shall know what to look for in a plant described as “ensata” in botanical Latin from now on.
[SinCam @23
When he was still performing rather than producing, Nick Barraclough was a regular visitor to our college folk club. He later had a band called “Telephone Bill and the Smooth Operators”]
Thank you Brummie for the challenging puzzle and scchua for the illustrated blog.
There is “Heads Will Roll” by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs …
I found this tough. With PICKEREL and REPECHAGE crossing, even my word searcher didn’t help. Also unfamiliar with ENSATE, NICTATE, BORCHOTTO, COROLLA although I managed to get them. I agree with scchua that ‘failed’ rather than ‘foiled’ at 5d might have jogged my memory as I have heard the term in sporting events. However, there was still a lot to enjoy. Thanks to Brummie and scchua
REPECHAGE (nho) is associated with fencing and rowing according to dictionaries and commenters here, but isn’t it also essentially the theory behind the Europa league/cup?
Also nho ENSATE but figured it out thanks to Latin O-level (ensis).
[SinCam @23, Ronald @11, Gazzh @27
As a Cambridge native, I think one of my first every pints was in The Pickerel (1s1d if I remember correctly). And Nick Barraclough was in the year above me at school, already known for his musical talents. ]
Not being a tennis fan – actually I think it must be the most boring game ever invented – I wouldn’t have got 13D in a month of Sundays. Enjoyed the rest of it though. Thanks to setter and blogger.
I’m always reluctant to describe words as ‘obscure’, as any perceived obscurity on my part may be just a reflection of my own ignorance. However, some words are used more rarely because they are limited to particular registers.
I suspect REPECHAGE is more likely to be familiar to Brits because the term is used not only in rowing but also in certain sailing and cycling events – all sports in which Team GB has had a lot of recent Olympic success.
Anyone having some familiarity with botanical terminology will probably recognise COROLLA. But even within this specialised register the word ENSATE is very unusual. In fact, the lengthy glossary of botanical terms in Clapham, Turin & Warburg’s ‘Excursion Flora’ doesn’t list it – ‘ensiform’ is there instead, as a description of a sword-shaped structure, and I think this is the more usual (or perhaps ‘somewhat less unusual’) term.
I enjoyed this, but fell down on 5D which I had thought might be a fencing term, but couldn’t think of one… In the end I gave up and pencilled in REPACKAGE (thinking of foil, but puzzled as to where the contestants fitted in. Doh!). Shame, as I completed the rest without much trouble. Thanks Brummie and scchua.
[DrWhatson@41, yes I think that’s the case, and moving away from sports I think University Challenge and Only Connect both have an element of repechage about them these days, although they may not explicitly call it that. Pointless does too of course.]
Martin@42…for a few moments there I was puzzled by your 1s1d reference. Then realised that you must have downed that pint some time before Feb 15th 1971….the exact cost of your drink then probably nails it down even further to a more precise date pre-decimalisation.
My only df this week after 3 dnfs.
I found the surfaces very smooth after yesterday’s convolutions.
Loved it. Many thanks Brummie.
Too many odd words — NICTATE, BORGHETTO, PICKEREL, REPECHAGE, ENSATE, and LARCENIST — for me to find this truly enjoyable but there was still some fun with PLIANT (very humourous surface), AROMATIC, WINTERY, COROLLA, and STAINED. Thanks to both
[Ronald, SinCam, Gazzh, Martin passim: my first pint in Cambridge was at the Hat and Feathers on the Barton Road. I never went there again, not having a taste for Tolly Cobbold. It cost me 1s 11p – a few months before decimalisation!]
Loved this. Very slow start but built up a head off steam slowly.
I think REPECHAGE derives from “fishing out” as in “rescuing”. With the connotation of saving someone or a team which would otherwise be out of the competition.
Excellent blog to a fine puzzle, thanks, both.
I thought PICKEREL (which put together nicely from the clue) was a species of fish, not the young of another species.
ENSATE was another dnk, but well clued. My problem with that one is that the well-known Latin word for “sword” is “gladius,” I’ve never heard of “ensis,” though perhaps Eileen has.
I met MISTRAL on a trip to Europe with my parents at age 8. That became the first item on my mental collection of winds with names, such as simoom, harmattan, etc. The only one around here is the Nor’easter, more a description than a name, but the other one I’ve experienced is the Chinook, which blows down from the Canadian Rockies over lands to the east in January and March (but not February) and brings t-shirt weather to the prairies for a few days till things freeze up again.
I met my first TUN on that same trip in Heidelberg, where there’s the world’s largest wine barrel, the size of a small house. It’s the sort of thing that impresses an eight-year-old.
Valentine, PICKEREL is both: in the US it’s one of several species of fish but in the UK it’s a young pike. Two nations divided by a common language.
By the way, in which parts of the world is WINTERY to be preferred to WINTRY?
Penfold @36. My favourite album, by my favourite band. Must check out the new one – any idea of the lineup?
Hi Valentine @52 – yes, gladius is the much more familiar word. My Lewis and Short says that ensis is ‘chiefly in the poets’ and certainly I think I’ve only ever come across it in poetry – notably in the first line of Latin poetry (Tibullus) that I ever met:
‘ quis fuit, horrendos primus qui protulit enses?
quam ferus et vere ferreus ille fuit! ‘
(with a neat play on words in the second line.) I think we learned it by heart.
I’ve also just found this, which Anna could probably tell us more about.
[Carolynne@54 Dave Cousins, Dave Lambert, John Ford guesting and Blue Weaver producing, all from the ‘Bursting’ days, plus Chas Cronk, Dave Bainbridge and Tony Fernandez. Info and reviews here.]
Yet another example of a far-too-difficult puzzle, as complained about in Guardian Letter pages
Hilt @57
In your opinion. I found this (genuinely, not making a point for exaggeration) the easiest of the week so far. Of course, it helped that only ENSATE was unfamiliar, but there was only one way the anagram could fit the placed letters and be pronounceable!
Eileen & Valentine: When I checked ENSATE in Chambers it gave the derviation as Latin ensis= sword, but online searches only bring up razor clams, so I guess that the ensis-type sword would be a very sharp, curved one for use like a sabre (from horse-back), while the gladius is the army’s short sword for close fighting on foot.
Just come back from a morning of tennis, where a French friend told me that in France, REPECHAGE is also used for students who are given a second crack at failed exams.
As for Cambridge pubs, my first was the Eagle, best known for being where Crick and Watson announced their big discovery.
Re: ensis. I might have been wrong regarding Latin O-level because of the aforementioned gladius. I might have remembered it from the Massachusetts state motto (I lived there for many years).
[Dr. WhatsOn
For completeness, my first pint in Cambridge (outside the college bar) was in the Baron of Beef. I thought I had been given seawater! I grew to like Greene King, but I never went back to that one. (It shared the honour with my college of having the longest bars in Cambridge at the time.)]
[Penfold@56. Many thanks for the link. I’ve got a fair bit of catching up to do!]
I agree with all the negative comments on 5D. if you did not know the word, there was no path to get it. Cryptic definitions are OK, and obscure words are OK, but put together they seem quite unreasonable.
ENSATE and BORGHETTO were in the second category for me, but just needed google confirmation.
Tough but enjoyable. Most of the unfamiliar words – ENSATE, BORGHETTO, COROLLA, NICTATE – had pretty clear wordplay.
The exception was REPECHAGE – I was familiar with the term from rowing, but didn’t know that it applied in fencing as well. I think HoustonTony @64 hits the nail on the head with this one.
All of that being said, there were some very neat clues – I especially liked 7D and 20D.
Thanks to Brummie and sschua
Eileen @55 Doctoral swords, who’d’a thunk it? On the site in your link there are umpteen (by actual count) Latin words for sword, and gladius was the only one I’d ever seen. One of the others came in both masculine and feminine and another in both masculine and neuter. Yes, where’s Anna when we need her? I think she got tired of all the sniping.
I agree with HoustonTony@64 re 5d. I had every letter except the H: I had guessed EPEE for foil (which is in the answer) and it seemed likely it finished in AGE. So that left just one letter and I still couldn’t see the answer – never heard of it!
[ I haven’t had my first pint in a Cambridge pub]
I misread “failed” for “foiled” at 5d which turned the clue into a scarcely cryptic definition. I am going to Specsavers on Tuesday.
At 11a I remembered pickerel from the song “My Father was the Keeper of the Eddystone Light” though Wiki gives “porgy” whatever that may be. I admit that pickerel is improbable as it is a freshwater fish.
I had a friend who was at Cambridge shortly after the war and used to walk a mile to avoid a Greene King pub (whereas now the bitter is OK and Abbot is better than that). Bullards was the bitter we would walk miles to avoid when on holidays on the Norfolk Broads. The locals mainly drank the mild. By the late 60s it had become part of the Watneys Revolution and we still had the long walk.
Great puzzle, just the right level of difficulty.
[Comment merely an excuse to add The Fountain, a Younger’s pub, long gone, in Regent Street, to the roll of honour, and to give another fond mention to The Eagle, conveniently on the route home from the history library to college.]
I have only ever heard the term of 5d in the BBC film ‘Bert and Dickie’ ahead of the 1948 Olympics – apparently they won!
A much more laudable achievement at around the same time was the wonderful film ‘The Best of Men’ about Dr Guttmann and Stoke Mandeville Hospital which led to the inaugural Paralympics.
REPECHAGE is one of those words I’d only ever heard and not seen written down, so had to check the spelling, so found it was originally a fencing term. ENSATE was another one I eventually got from the anagram engine in the Chambers app. I was struggling getting any in at first.
I know I’m very late to this, and no-one will read it. But just to get it off my chest: I’m all for one or two rarer words in a puzzle. All part of the cryptic mix etc. But to have two very obscure words – REPECHAGE and ENSATE interlinking, another non-English word (BORGHETTO), as well as the other obscurities, put this way beyond the enjoyable.
Re 5d, for “foiled”, think of “curses, foiled again” – nothing to do with fencing. Thus a nice bit of misdirection.
Held up for a while at 4d where I had ADELPHI (also an anagram of those letters) and wondered what a Liverpool hotel had to do with this ! My favourite Sheffield pub was the Hadfield (sadly now a supermarket)