Guardian Cryptic 28930 Harpo

by

Thank you to Harpo. Definitions are underlined in the clues.

Across

9. Mike and Heather enthralled by an advanced style of country music? (9)

AMERICANA : [ M(letter represented by “Mike” in the phonetic alphabet) plus(and) ERICA(the genus of shrubs, including heather) ] contained in(enthralled by) [AN + A(abbrev. for “advanced”) ].

Defn: …, aka American roots music, combining styles such as country and western, roots-rock, folk, bluegrass, R&B and blues.

10. Fast vehicle ditched by Shell? (5)

APACE : “car”(a motorised vehicle) deleted from(ditched by) “carapace”(the hard upper shell of, say, a tortoise).

11. Knitter knitted knick-knack (7)

TRINKET : Anagram of(… knitted) KNITTER.

12. Excel is almost certain to change (7)

SURPASS : Last letter deleted from(almost) “sure”(certain/doubtless) + PASS(to change from one state to another, as in “he can pass from being docile to being disobedient in a moment”).

13. Force trainee to execute ‘duck and cover’, primarily when retreating (5)

CADET : Reversal of(… when retreating) 1st letters, respectively, of(…, primarily) “to execute ‘duck and cover’“.

Defn: Trainee in a force, such as the army.

14. Old New Zealand admiral on manoeuvres (9)

MAORILAND : Anagram of(… manoeuvres) ADMIRAL ON.

Defn: An obsolete/old name for New Zealand.

16. Literary adventurer disturbed lingerer grabbing tool for opening letter (9,6)

PEREGRINE PICKLE : [ Anagram of(disturbed) LINGERER containing(grabbing) PICK(a tool for breaking up ground or stone) ] contained in(for opening) PEE(the letter “P”).

Defn: …, protagonist in “The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle”, first published in mid-18th C.

19. Condition may seem poor around edges of pitch (9)

EMPHYSEMA : Anagram of(… poor) MAY SEEM containing(around) 1st and last letters of(edges of) “pitch“.

Defn: …, specifically an irreversible disease affecting the lungs.

21. Nine divine females married pursuers off and on (5)

MUSES : M(abbrev. for “married”) + 2nd, 4th, 6th and 8th letters of(… off and on) “pursuers“.

Defn: …, viz. the nine sister goddesses in Greek and Roman mythology each of whom oversee a different branch of the arts and sciences.

22. Notice call to work (5-2)

HEAVE-HO : Double defn: 1st: …/a dismissal from, say, employment, as in “he was given the heave-ho after his major screw-up”; and 2nd: An expression calling for exertion/a call to work, as when sailors are manually raising an anchor.

23. Handcuff a salt arrested by setter (7)

MANACLE : [ A + NACL(the symbol for the chemical compound, sodium chloride, a salt formed from sodium hydroxide and hydrochloric acid) ] contained in(arrested by) ME(self-referential pronoun for the setter of this crossword).

24. Wrestler returned inside box-like zone (5)

OZEKI : Hidden in(inside) reversal of(returned) “box-like zone“.

Defn: …/a sumo wrestling champion.

25. Mobile meters, say — one way to repay debt (4,5)

EASY TERMS : Anagram of(Mobile) METERS, SAY.

Defn: A way of paying money owed/repaying a debt, viz. in multiple instalments instead of one lumpsum.

Down

1. Tiny piece about centrally stripped grammatical form (10)

PARTICIPLE : PARTICLE(a tiny piece/a very small portion of matter) containing(about) middle 2 letters of(centrally) “stripped“.

Defn: …, specifically a word formed from a verb that can function as a verb as well as an adjective.

2. Confuse order to let one’s hair down? (8)

BEWILDER : [“BE WILDER!”](an order/exhortation to be less restrained and more excited/let one’s hair down).

3. Mostly wonderful, tense batter’s innings (6)

WICKET : Last letter deleted from(Mostly) “wicked”(informal term for “wonderful!”/excellent!) + T(abbrev. for “tense”).

Defn: …/in cricket, the time during which a batsman/batter is at bat, and that represents his innings.

4. Engineer, eh? So it’s said (4)

WATT : Homophone of(… So it’s said) “what?”(like “eh?” an expression asking for clarification of what was said, as “Eh?”/”What (did you just say)?”.

Defn: Scottish mechanical …, after whom the unit of power was named.

5. Character in Othello reported noble group of stars (10)

CASSIOPEIA : CASSIO(a character in the Shakespearean tragedy, “Othello”) + homophone of(reported) “peer”(a nobleman).

6. Damn shower beginning to irritate Gulf national (8)

BAHRAINI : BAH!(like “damn!”, an expression of annoyance) + RAIN(a shower/a large quantity of things that fall or descend) + 1st letter of(beginning to) “irritate“.

Defn: …, specifically from the Gulf State of Bahrain.

7. Covering of slate on a dam (6)

PANAMA : PAN(to slate/to criticise severely) placed above(on, in a down clue) A + MA(a familiar term for “mother”/a female parent/a dam, in reference to an animal).

Defn: … for one’s head.

8. Extremely fickle twin sons own up (4)

FESS : 1st and last letters of(Extremely) “fickle” + 2x(twin) S(abbrev. for “son”).

Defn: Short for “confess”/to ….

14. Spell in which nobody gets the runs (6,4)

MAIDEN OVER : Cryptic defn: In cricket, an over/a spell or period of six consecutive correctly bowled balls in which no runs are scored.

15. Style doctor introducing several points (5,5)

DRESS SENSE : DR(abbrev. for “doctor”) + 1st letters, retrospectively, of(introducing) “east, south, south, south, east, north, south, east”(several compass points).

17. Alcohol clergy bottled at home (8)

GLYCERIN : Anagram of(… bottled/hit, as with a bottle?) CLERGY + IN(at home/not outdoors).

Answer: … or glycerine or glycerol, one of the class of chemical compounds called the alcohols.

18. Lock web address after X linked to copyright (4-4)

KISS CURL : URL(abbrev. for “Uniform Resource Locator”, the address of a webpage on the Internet) placed below(after, in a down clue) [ KISS(in written form, represented by “X”) plus(linked to) C(abbrev. for “copyright”, as in ©) ].

Defn: … of hair … sported by both sexes:

20. Beggar‘s right to stop one who’ll cough up (6)

PRAYER : R(abbrev. for “right”) contained in(to stop) PAYER(one who’ll cough up/pay the bill).

Defn: One who prays/begs would be a “beg-ger”, or ungrammatically, a “beg-gar”.

The clue could have done with a homophone indicator.

21. Tiny setter’s amphibian is caught (6)

MINUTE : Homophone of(… is caught/overheard) [ “my”(self-referential possessive pronoun for the setter of this crossword/setter’s) + “newt”(a lizard-like amphibious creature) ].

22. Catch punch (4)

HOOK : Double defn: 1st: … with, well, a hook; and 2nd: A short swinging blow/… made with the elbow bent.

23. Bible book briefly picked up before end of religious service (4)

MASS : Reversal of(… picked up, in a down clue) SAM(abbrev. for /briefly “Samuel”, a book in the Hebrew Bible) plus(before) last letter of(end of) “religious“.

Defn: A religious ….

88 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28930 Harpo”

  2. Didn’t help matters by bunging in Distress instead of BEWILDER at 2d. Thought this excellent, with the last few in the tricky APACE, PANAMA and WATT, which provided perhaps appropriately a final lightbulb moment.

  4. That was tricky. I did not seem to be on the right wavelength. It was very mixed – two I found impossible and revealed including the long one which I revealed early on and still couldn’t parse.

    Some were quite straightforward to parse but still took me a while and several crosses to get.

    Like Bodycheetah I liked KISS CURL.

    Also liked: BEWILDERED, APACE and my favourite MANACLE

    Thanks Harpo and scchua

  5. Thank you scchua, for explaining APACE. Was convinced shell meant the outside so tried to find ?APACE?

    No chance with PEREGRINE PICKLE. Had to resort to a word search. Likewise with OZEKI although it now rings a vague bell.

    Enjoyed this although felt MAIDEN OVER a tad weak and uncryptic.

  6. Oh, and peregrination one of my favourite words in the English language. Once did some family history for a friend and discovered a PEREGRINE amongst his ancestors who was here there and everywhere, as though his parents had known he might be when they christened him with that forename. So that rather helped when I was eyeing up 16ac with two or three crossers in place…

  7. By no means easy, but some pleasing clues. 24 A: OZEKI is new to be (I couldn’t make sumo work, and should have looked further..). I especially liked 5D: CASSIOPEIA. With thanks to both.

  8. Thanks Harpo & scchua. Unlike Bodycheetah, I loved this one – found it a proper challenge but so well crafted that it was a real pleasure to chip away at the solve and very satisfying. Particularly enjoyed the alliterative clue for TRINKET.

    The only one I had problems fully parsing in the end was PEREGRINE PICKLE – with just the PE_E and “letter” unaccounted for in the clue, I couldn’t make the mental leap to equate the two. Doh! But I didn’t help myself there by reading PICK as “tool for opening” (as in what you use to pick a lock) so didn’t spot that “for opening” was actually an insertion indicator. Thanks for putting me right, scchua.

  9. Too many obscurities (seriously, how could anyone solve 16a who didn’t recognise the character?) and one truly horrendous ‘homophone’. Not for me I’m afraid.

  10. I thought ‘condition’ too weak a definition for emphysema. I’d never heard of ozeki and had to reveal it. Not sure that wicket really defines a batter’s innings. It marks the end of her innings. I don’t buy dam being equivalent to ma either. I thought this puzzle was beyond cryptic. Too much guesswork to be very enjoyable despite some very clever clues eg 10a, 23a, 15d.

  11. There were a few that were beyond the bounds of obscurity for me: OZEKI, PEREGRINE PICKLE, KISS-CURL (only in Britain?), CASSIOPEIA. So I came here before fully completing. Why is “enthralled” in 9a … just for the surface?

    I’ve written off Harpo in the past, so I’m pleased I made it this far, and found it mostly enjoyable. My favourite was BEWILDER, which elicited a small chuckle.

  12. Even reading you parsing for 16a, Scchua, I still don’t get it. Where does the letter pee come into it?
    Overall, enjoyed this, but Peregrine Pickle was an obscurity too far for me.

  18. Canadian politician impolite in letter to Mitsotakis? (7)
    TRUDEAU

    This appeared in an Indy crossword puzzle more than a year ago. ‘letter to Mitsotakis’ is TAU here. A random letter in the language spoken by Mitsotakis (a random Greek). 🙂

  20. Tough puzzle, was tempted to give up halfway through. Failed 4d and 7d. Was thinking to bung in PANAMA but could not see how to parse it. I was thinking of the Panama Canal and it wasn’t maing any sense to me!

    Liked MINUTE, BEWILDER.

    New: EASY TERMS, MAORILAND, PEREGRINE PICKLE (thanks, google); ERICA = heather; OZEKI.

    I could not parse
    23d MASS except S = end of religious

    Thanks, both.

  21. I enjoyed that. COD: MANACLE. LOI: APACE – couldn’t see the CAR. Nice to have a few science references.
    Thanks to Harpo and to scchua for providing a couple of obscure parsings.

  22. Crispy@19
    If a clue says ‘tool’, don’t we look for one from a long list of tools like axe, pick, saw, hoe etc.,?
    In my view, the same principle applies to PEE. The clue seems all right.

  23. There were a couple of serious obscurities here, but OZEKI was gettable from the wordplay and I don’t mind having to check online; having some of the crossers meant I could guess PEREGRINE PICKLE which I hadn’t heard of before.
    But a well-crafted puzzle with some excellent surfaces and some neatly contrived clues; favourites were CADET, EMPHYSEMA, MUSES, MANACLE, BEWILDER, PANAMA, MINUTE.
    Thank you to Harpo and to scchua; and thank you to poc @9 for providing the obligatory moan about homophones. But were you complaining about Cassio’s peer or about my newt 😉

  24. The main challenge for PEREGRINE PICKLE, for me at least, was not so much in it being a not-terribly-well-known character, but pairing that with a double containment with good misdirection. All fair, but sheesh! The large number of crossers came to the rescue in the end.

  25. Fairly tough, but it is a Friday.

    I got the PICK and LINGERER* around it, and thus managed to put together PEREGRINE PICKLE. I liked MANACLE and the alliterative clue for TRINKET. I DNK OZEKI but it was there in plain sight, so OK. For the homophone refuseniks, as usual try the Collins pronunciation of CASSIOPEIA.

    Thanks Harpo and scchua.

  27. Poc@9 Yes, it is possible: I solved 16a, once I had the initial P. I remember one of Smollett’s books (possibly, Roderick Random) appearing in a Guardian crossword in the 1960s, and tried reading one of them. It was a struggle to reach the end, but clearly worth while as it helped me solve a crossword clue, today!

    Thanks scchua, and Harpo, for a tough struggle.

  28. Thanks scchue and Harpo. Came here to get the parsing for 16a, which we had to google and still couldn’t parse. The “for” stops “opening” working as a containment indicator, I think. Loved the use of “salt” in 23a—I think that’s the first time I’ve seen a whole molecule.

  29. A toughie to end the week, but like in all good puzzles each clue yielded and it became easier with the crossers.

    I thought that 20d was one of the easier clues and can’t see any problem with it.

    I liked MANACLE, APACE and HEAVE HO.

    Thanks Harpo and scchua

  30. I enjoyed this although it was quite a slow steady solve. Husband helped with cricket references (which I should know by now but he’s quicker). Thanks Harpo, and extra thanks to scchua for such a lovely blog – great pictures!

  31. A real mixture of clues today. Some went in easily but I needed to return twice to get to the end and even then I failed on Panama. 16ac was a real toughie. A difficult and convoluted clue leading to a highly obscure literary figure? In the end I got it but only by googling famous Peregrines! For me, clueing Pee as ‘letter’ is right at the edge of fairness.
    Thanks to Harpo and scchua.

  32. Enjoyed this, mainly because it is the first I’ve fully completed in four days; thought I was losing my touch. I do enjoy a Dad joke so MINUTE was my favourite. Took a chance on PICKLE and was delighted when the App congratulated me.
    Thanks to Harpo for setting and scchua for the beautifully constructed blog.

  33. Anybody else try to work LING = “heather” into 1a?

    Never heard of OZEKI, which (I now know) is one of a series of ranks in sumo. Now that’s obscure! I had heard of PEREGRINE PICKLE, though haven’t read it. I’d never heard of MAORILAND, but I’m sure most of us have heard of Maoris, which makes it gettable.

    Is “peer” in non-rhotic speech actually pronounced with two syllables? Us rhotics give it one. My query is about the pronunciation of “peer,” not of CASSIOPEIA.

    Thanks, Harpo for the puzzle and scchua for the blog and the well- chosen pictures.

  34. Had to Google to check PERIGRINE PICKLE as had various crossers but NHO the character. OZEKI was a guess from a single crosser as I recognised it was a reverse hidden so just needed one letter to get me started. And I had to do a rare Reveal for CASSIOPEIA as neither Shakespeare nor astronomy are high on my GK list, and nothing was jumping out at me despite some hard staring action.

    But you can’t win ’em all. If a crossword is a tussle between setter and solver, it’s only fair that the setter gets to win now and again 🙂

    I loved DRESS SENSE for the ‘several points’, MANACLE for the chemical name, and TRINKET for the wonderful surface.

    Thanks both.

  35. I’m in the camp that found PEREGRINE PICKLE a bridge too far. (An anagram tucked inside a random tool tucked inside a random letter? C’mon man.) [I’d heard of the book, vaguely–my 18th-century fiction class in graduate school didn’t have time for Smollett, but it was on the “additional readings” list; I haven’t returned to that stretch of literary history in the years since.] The rest of this was fair and fun. MINUTE had me saying, “She turned me into a newt! …I got better.”

  37. NeilH@23: Clearly the constellation. I generally only complain about non-rhotics, of which this is a particularly egregious example. The amphibian is perfectly fine.

  38. Thanks scchua, I had to look up the adventurer too, and couldn’t fully parse it but think it is fair to ask us for a letter when there are only 26 possibilities (think how many permutations of compass directions there could have been for 15d!) though the obscurity of the character (to me) didn’t help. I thought a few definitions were on the edge and is it me or were there more cricket references than usual scattered around? But I thought quite a few clues had a good dash of wit and flair.
    Rob T your magnanimity in defeat deserves an appropriate earworm to cement the constellation:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=231uPp8wO6M
    Thanks Harpo for a rewarding test.

  39. Well I got there in the end. All by myself – tho it took a goodly while before I remembered old Peregrine. MINUTE and WATT made me grin.
    Once I’d noticed a few solutions with a cricketing connection (I was including APACE and HOOK) I found myself wondering if there is or was a cricketer called Watt. However, the combined GK of the FS regulars would certainly have picked up on this sort of thing, were it the case…
    Thanks to Harpo and scchua

  40. Well, I failed to google the dramatis personae of “Othello” so assumed CASSIOPEIA was a female character. Aside from that, I pronounce it “cass ee oh PAY a” rather than “cass ee oh PEE ya” No doubt soon the Americans will have us all saying “CAIRSY OP ya” lest we fail to understand each other.

    Nice puzzle if a little obscure in parts, thanks to Harpo and scchua

  42. Thanks Harpo. There was much I liked such as APACE, CADET, MAORILAND, BEWILDER, DRESS SENSE, and MINUTE but other clues not so much. I saw nothing cryptic about MAIDEN OVER, OZEKI was way beyond my GK, and I hadn’t heard of PEREGRINE PICKLE though I guessed the 1st part of the answer from the anagrist. I was pleased to see CASSIOPEIA because that’s my guide for spotting the Andromeda galaxy when I get to a dark sky. Thanks scchua for the blog.

  43. Odd puzzle, with a mixture of write-ins and headscratchers. OZEKI was new to me, but it was fairly obviously a hidden clue, though I needed the crossers to fix on the right word (the ‘box’ is extraneous). I knew the Smollett novel, but the vagueness of the PEE in the clue didn’t make this exactly straightforward.

    I liked EMPHYSEMA (the clue, that is) and the addition of sodium chloride.

    Thanks to S&B

  45. Mostly okay, but the Cassiopeia clue an absolutely classic example of the sort of rubbish, unsatisfying and (for many of us) hugely inaccurate homophone that is much worse than the beside/b-side one that cause a bit of a rumpus yesterday. Very frustrating when clues like that pop up.

  46. An all round slog but satisfying to grind out a finish & learn plenty of things in the process. Thankfully I didn’t bother with cryptic puzzles in the days before Mr G was an on hand confirmation tool – if I had this one wouldn’t have lasted the course. Thanks for explaining a couple of the whys. Picks for me – BEWILDER, MINUTE, AMERICANA, EMPHYSEMA & TRINKET.
    Thanks both

  47. Deep Thought@40 Cass-ee-o-PEE-ya is the only pronunciation I’ve ever heard, and I’m American. But I still don’t like the “homophone”.

  48. Thanks for the blog , I thought this was really good. I love clues like 16Ac and HEAVE-TO was very neat , OZEKI very obscure but a very fair clue.
    Great to see CASSIOPEIA , a very simple and easy to find constellation . It is circumpolar in the North and dances round Polaris opposite the plough as a W or M or on it’s side. As Tony@42 says it points towards the Andromeda galaxy the furthest naked eye object. Great views last month around the new moon.

  49. I agree with Robin @28 that the “for” in 16a is what ruins the clue. It just gets in the way and is only there for the surface. Literary adventurer disturbed lingerer grabbing tool and opening letter would have been much fairer. Don’t agree with Robin re: “molecule” 😉 .
    I also don’t understand the objection to beggar = one who begs. Begger isn’t a word, is it?
    Liked TRINKET, EMPHYSEMA, BEWILDER and GLYCERIN.
    Thanks, Harpo and scchua. Despite the slagging yesterday, Paul best of the week for my money.

  50. Thanks both,
    A toughie so I resorted to check quite a lot. I liked the way the two black ‘Ws’ in the grid reflected the shape of the constellation.

  51. Good spot Tyngewick @ 50 , they are actually a W and M circling the N (Polaris) right at the centre of the grid.

  52. Hi Roz, my dad always referred to Cassiopeia as “Cassiopeia’s Chair”. Apparently the constellation makes a chair, but I can’t see it myself.
    Good crossword today, I though PEREGRINE PICKLE was a step too far.
    Thanks both.

  54. HYD the whole constellation has at least 18 visible stars and old pictures show Cassiopeia sitting on a throne, although I do not see it either. The five bright stars of the W are actually an ASTERISM , rather like The Plough is only a part of Ursa Major. In the past I think far more stars were clearly visible with no light pollution.

  56. Penfold @53,just checked my paper and I did put HEAVE-HO , the TO must have come in my head later. I did have DO in my mind at first until I got the first H from HOOK .

  57. When I was young there was a sort of Pirate song where they sang – Yo heave-ho – while hauling on ropes, not sure if it was an advert or a programme.

  58. Hofzinser@45 and to all the other Rhotic warriors: This is a crossword from an international but UK based newspaper. As such, its orthography conforms to British conventional spelling – and most non-Brits understand and accept that. I would suggest that the same principle should apply to homophones. We all know that many (perhaps most) dialects of English are rhotic. We may happen to prefer them and as a matter of personal preference perhaps I do too. But RP, received pronunciation, is actually a thing in the UK, whether we happen to approve of it or not; and it is not at all difficult to recognise it, however different it may be to our own preferred way of speaking. If a homophone conforms to the online dictionaries’ rendition of a British pronunciation of a particular word then that would seem to me perfectly legitimate and not “rubbish” as you have chosen to describe it.

  59. I always think that homophones are fine if it’s ‘near enough’ and I understand what the setter is driving at. Does PEER = the last 4 letters of CASSIOPEIA in every variation of language? No, but its close enough and a fine clue.

  60. Hofsinzer@45: the phonetic spellings of peer and Cassiopeia in the SOED are respectively p?? and kas????p??, which seems to make the homophone correct rather than ‘rubbish‘.

    Thank you scchua for a fine blog and to all others for positive or negative comments, provided that the latter are rational and/or supported by evidence, of course 😉

  61. Ah. The phonetic symbols in the previous post appeared at the typing stage, but have evidently disappeared in the post. The last two symbols on both phonetic spellings are a dotless i and upside-down e.

    While I’m here, the full Nina comprised three items associated with each of W and M adjacent to the contiguous blocks of those shapes in the grid.

  64. Thank you scchua for your excellent blog and illustrations.
    I’m another who doesn’t believe we need an homophone indicator for PRAYER.

    MAIDEN OVER was cryptic for me in that I read the surface as a period when no one got diarrhoea.
    Memories of (my) maiden voyage from Sydney to Southampton in 1975 when Suez was closed and we went via Panama which included a spell of 11 days without landfall or fresh supplies. A lot of people got the runs and came to the end of passage fancy dress do dressed with toilet rolls as diarrhoea. (I think it might have been the Welsh passengers 🙂 ).

    Also a great memory of seeing the North Star for the first time in my life, instead of the Southern Cross, as a point of reference.

    Tingewick@50, HYD@52 and Roz@54 . Thank you for the W s in the grid. I can see the chair!!
    In the grid, a 2 dimensional chair or throne, facing to the left. CASSIOPEIA is the back and leg. And 2 letters to the left in rows 6,8,10 complete the picture.

  66. I’m getting very confused. I see the M and the W, now that they’re pointed out, but Harpo, what are the three items associated with M and W? I see M’s at the corners 21 a and d and 23 same, but no W’s. And paddymelon, what are you saying about the chair? (I do remember old pictures of Cassiopeia in her chair.)

    Harpo, the M and W are brilliant, I’m so glad somebody pointed them out.

  67. While the Northern Hemisphere sleeps, it seems I’m left alone to fathom the nina. There are a lot of MAs in the area that Harpo mentions. I haven’t understood his directions@61. It seems we’re looking for 3 items.
    Cassiopeia is the mother of Andromeda and Tony and Roz have said the constellation points in that direction.
    Nuh, will give it a rest and go over to the Prize, and hopefully all will be revealed soon.

  68. Valentine@66. I saw a chair, but not as in a nina. Looking at the word Cassiopeia as forming the back and leg of the chair and two letters to the left I can see the seat, the level that joins the legs. and the floor if you like. A side on view.

    Don’t think I’m on the right track though.

  71. Well, yes, I was so livid that this crossword dared to include a word I didn’t know, and was so insulted that one of the clues was a tad iffy, because I don’t pronounce that word in that way, that I snapped a Twiglet. And who’s going to compensate me for that? Eh?

  72. Lovely puzzle! No problem at all as far as Cassiopeia is concerned and had to wrestle with panama before it clicked. Nice pictures in the blog too.

  73. Thanks Roman@63, could well be, I do recall a Russian accent. It may have been Captain Pugwash, one of my great cultural references.

  74. PDM@68 , I sort of see it , a bit like constellations really , you can see any pictures if you try. I often wonder if the ancients had a much better view than us due to less pollution.
    I struggle to see the full “pictures” for any constellations, just the main asterisms.
    Well done Tyngewick originally and I think Dunc@69 is correct.

  75. [Roz@74. “Us” down here have a much better chance of seeing stars, and eclipses etc. Where I live, I only have to step out outside, or walk a hundred yards or so, to get away from lights. We have quite a few observatories, including backyard ones.

    Growing up on a country plain, with a gradient of 8ft in 40 miles (pre metric, sorry), and no lights, our street fun, before television, was watching ‘shooting stars’ and satellites. You probably know of our ”Dish” at Parkes, involved with Apollo11 and Voyager 2 and JWT etc.

    Regarding the ”ancients”, you may be interested in some of these links: http://www.aboriginalastronomy.com.au/
    Come on down!

    Interesting what we see. In Aboriginal astronomy Orion is seen as a canoe. CSIRO Indigenous astronomer Ray Norris told the Yolngu Dreamtime story of the three brothers to ABC Radio Sydney: (Sun is female, and moon is male):
    “They say three young boys were out fishing and all they could catch were kingfish.
    “One got so hungry he ate one of the kingfish.
    “The Sun was so angry that she created a waterspout that blew them up into the sky as a warning to kids that you’ve got to obey the tribal laws.
    “The three stars we see, they’re the three brothers. On either side of that, which we would call the hand and feet of the Orion, that’s the front and end of the canoe.
    “The Orion nebula where new stars are being born; they’re the fish.” ]

  77. [PS to @75. I don’t know but I’m assuming that kingfish was a totem in that tribe, and therefore forbidden to be eaten. That was a way of protecting key food sources, and maintaining the ecosystem.]

  78. PDM you are lucky with so much open space, I insisted we moved somewhere near the sea and dark skies, we have the Forest of Bowland , 10 minutes walk , mainly open moorland and no trees despite the name. Very dark skies, I saw the Andromeda galaxy last month and Uranus clearly for only the third time. When I say I can’t see the pictures it is just lack of imagination, I only see the geometrical patterns.
    Most Northern constellations are from Ptolemy’s Almagest , which is nice , and most stars have Arabic names.
    Unfortunately some Southern constellations have modern names. I really wish they had used the original names from the original settlers.

  79. Valentine @66: I assume the extra M and W are from cricket. A bowler’s analysis is o-m-r-w: overs, maidens, runs, wickets. The M is next to the MAIDEN OVER; the W is next to the WICKET

  81. Steve@80 wonderful to see such a display of ignorance. This was an outstanding puzzle, shame you couldn’t appreciate it.

  82. I can understand why the Antipodeans might not be familiar with the constellation Cassiopeia, but it (at least the “W” asterism, thanks Roz, for that term) is quite distinctive to anyone who can view Polaris nightly.

    Regarding Harpo’s nina, I suspect DuncT has nailed it, but let me add a question. I also noted, as did pdm, the multiple “MA”s adjacent to the black squares, but also the “ET”s about the black “W”. Was the grotty little ExfraTerrestrial from a planet in the Andromeda Galaxy? (no theory on the “MA”s, sorry)

  83. Jmac@81 you are truly a god of crosswords, and your humility and tolerance is legendary. What a star. Thank you, I shall treasure your comments always.

  84. Following on from Andrew@79 , my paper has gone for recycling so I cannot see the grid and this may be nonsense .
    W a symbol for Wicket and Watt.
    M a symbol for Maiden, Mass, Minute .
    Still one missing.

  86. Too busy to finish this last week, so no one will read this. Gervase @43 says “OZEKI was new to me, but it was fairly obviously a hidden clue, though I needed the crossers to fix on the right word (the ‘box’ is extraneous).”

    Well, that was what I thought, except that I had OBEDI, with ‘zone’ being extraneous. If ‘returned inside box-like zone’ can be rendered as “a reverse of letters inside a box made of (L)IKE ZO(NE)”, can’t it also be (with a bit of “lift and separate” thrown in!) “in a zone made of (S)IDE BO(X), reverse the hidden letters”? The only downside is that obedi has nothing to do with wrestling. 🙂

    Less controversially, I also didn’t see the double envelope of PEE in 16a, and tend to agree that ‘for’ was misleading; whether fairly or not I couldn’t say.

    And I didn’t see ‘cover’ for the PANAMA hat either. This setter is going to take some getting used to.

  87. I rate this puzzle as bizarre. Peregrine Pickle, which I guessed but couldn’t parse, is a terrible clue. Cassiopeia was weak. Dress Sense really overworked the compass points. Yuck.

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