Guardian Prize 29518 / Pasquale

44 comments on “Guardian Prize 29518 / Pasquale”

1. Thanks duncanshiell, you’ve said it all. I enjoyed it and furthered my education too. LOI was DIVALENT, not a term I can remember coming across before, and I’d been fixated on ‘amen’ but couldn’t make either ‘filament’ or ‘ligament’ work for me. I’d also flirted unsuccessfully with ‘abrasive’ and ‘delirious’.

2. Another one here going for filament in DIVALENT.

3. Not knowing much about horse racing in Ireland, or caring for it anywhere, I didn’t know LEOPARDSTOWN, but got there with a fair idea of the wordplay, and crossers. I thought what an odd place name in Ireland. Looked it up and found it was a leper colony in the Middle Ages. Not surprising no one wanted to live in a place called Leperstown.

4. Defeated by ADVOWSON (got stuck on IOUS for promises), DIRNDL and, of course, FILAMENT. Excellent puzzle, Thanks Pasquale and duncashiell

5. Likewise totally fixated on “amen” but could do nothing with “filt” so didn’t finish the puzzle. Some delightfully obscure words but divalent was the only one I didn’t actually know. Nice. Thankyou all

6. Thanks PM@3. I had a similar experience with LEOPARDSTOWN. Great to learn from you about the lepers

   This took me two or three sittings. I best liked SATURATED, ABRASION, DILLY DALLIED, and LEOPARDSTOWN as they seemed to be the few clues with natural surfaces.

   So many new words! I am not sure whether I felt rewarded or relieved to have finished this. I am with duncanshiell in not really liking cryptic definitions and I am still shaking my head at OCTANT and READABLE. I understand the explanation in the blog for why MARIONETTE is female but I really do not agree with its logic.

   Thanks Pasquale and duncanshiell

7. PS on MARIONETTE – I want to clarify that I agree with the blog’s logic, but not the setter’s

8. Me@3 and Martyn@6 cont. It appears the Irish for the place now known as LEOPARDSTOWN, Baile na Lobhar, does mean town of the lepers. I’d be interested to know if some of the locals still call it that.

   And a bit of fun trivia from the Wiki entry: The Bob Geldof song “The House At The Top Of The World” includes the lyric “Soon I’d come to the Leopardstown dual carriageway … I don’t remember a town being there and I never saw no leopards.”

9. I knew copper is DIVALENT – another Chemistry degree here – so worked back to VALE, and ADVOWSON, from Austen, I suspect, but it could be other historical reading, but DELIRIANT was only part in for ages, and DIRNDL my last in – even though I know dirndl as a skirt style, a wide tube gathered into the waist.

   Thank you to Duncan and Pasquale.

10. Liked ANGLER, BEWILDERING, DIVALENT, DARTBOARD and STAR TURN.
    Fine with MARIONETTE as a cryptic def.
    DIRNDL, ADVOWSON and LEOPARDSTOWN: Thanks Google (& the setter for neat clueing).

    Thanks Pasquale and duncanshiell.

11. I did seriously wonder about MARIONETTE–surely everyone has seen ostensibly male puppets on strings.

    I had to Google-check for LEOPARDSTOWN, of course–spotty knowledge of Ireland and practically none of horse racing. Otherwise I did finish.

12. I thought the See in ANABAPTIST was a reference to the sect. I hadn’t realised that it’s a collective noun.
    I also think MARIONETTES is quite witty.
    I started DIVALENT looking at amen, but after a few crossers put in bivalent, but that didn’t work, so changed the b to d which did. I was under the impression that it meant multivalent, but that was ok even if wrong.
    Thanks both, good puzzle, good blog.

13. One final (maybe) word on FILAMENT. It doesn’t work because FILT doesn’t work, but interestingly LIFT does (a different meaning of nick). Took way too much time trying to find a way to swap those letters.

14. Thanks, duncanshiell. I see almost everything I’d meant to say has already been said. I’m glad Dr WhatsOn’s observation @13 about FILT and LIFT never occurred to me, or I might never have given up on ‘amen’ and would have missed completing this. As it was, it was a close thing. Thanks, Pasquale – as always, your vocabulary exceeds mine, but mine is now just a little more extensive than it was.

15. In 11a DILLY-DALLIED. the LADY is “upset” (reversed, not anagrammed)

16. Especially liked 19a Madeira MEDEA? (1957) – [3 ζεύγμᾰτᾰ]

17. Roz@34 (iast week) – I thought 27a AD(VOWS)ON could also be taken as a self-reference to the Don(ald) [No, not the Orangeman].
    And It’s a word that has been clued by Bradman (another Don, and alias of Pasquale).

18. Thanks for your clear, coloured analysis, as usual, duncanshiell. I too eventually put ‘filament’ with a puzzled shrug, so DNF.

    At 2d, MARION on its own is female (though not always in the US), and ETTE is a French female suffix, though it indicates small size, not femininity per se. So I feel the question mark is appropriate, as the logic is unclear. (As with suffragettes, who were aspiring female voters, but not small ones.)

19. Another “Filament” here too! Also 3 new words which I got from the crossers and googled :- “Dirndl”, “Advowson” and “Octant”.
    Thanks Pasquale and Duncanshiell.

20. Yes, marionettes can be male, female, and also non-human, but for the origin of the word and Pasquale’s female reference it’s worth reading the Wiki article about the etymology. I didn’t have a problem with the cryptic definition.
    Chambers has it as a diminutive of Marion, itself a diminutive of Marie Mary.

21. Thanks Pasquale and duncanshiell
    Although it works for the surface, copper is an unfortunate choice for 25 as it can also be monovalent.

22. Long time since I’ve failed so badly on a crossword – and I tried quite hard because I enjoyed DILLY-DALLIED and BEWILDERING. I got close to about half of those I couldn’t fill in, but nowhere near EXTRAS, DIRNDL or STAR TURN.

23. I had left this unfinished last weekend but a five minute session this morning saw off the last half dozen, with DIRNDL the last in. Unfortunately I had bunged in BIVALENT without working out the parsing; I’d never come across the D-version before. (And I’m not altogether convinced that ‘nick’ is a synonym for DINT anyway.)

    With my interest in horse racing, LEOPARDSTOWN was a write in for me, but I’m grateful for pdm’s research @3&8 into the origins of the name and the persistence of the Irish original. Fascinating stuff!

    Thanks to the Don and to Duncan too.

24. Many thanks, Pasquale. Nice puzzle. DIRNDL new to me.

    The DIVALENT/BIVALENT choice intrigues. Greek v Latin. DICHROMATE/BICHROMATE is another. Did an influential scientist choose the prefix without thinking about the etymology of the root word? Why don’t we ride DICYCLES?

25. I liked LEOPARDSTOWN, DARTBOARD and DILLY-DALLIED, and managed ANABAPTIST and even ADVOWSON, but the continual religious references wore this old atheist down whilst ERATO, READABLE, DIRNDL, OCTANT and DIVALENT were either poorly clued or beyond me.
    So I suppose I’m forced to say that this was a curate’s egg of a puzzle for me but I won’t be seeking out Pasquale’s puzzles in the future.
    Still, there’s a Brummie Prize to look forward to today..

26. I’m saddened to see another solver joining the “I’ll never bother with [insert miscreant setter’s name]’s puzzles again” club. As a lifelong atheist myself, I’m happy to treat nonsense like ANABAPTIST as general knowledge. And OT and NT are standard parts of wordplay, are they not?

    Perseverance is the name of the game. I hope Len Masterman reconsiders – Pasquale is a top setter, in my opinion.

27. I agree with Sheffieldhatter. [Was Roz@34 last week being tongue in cheek?]

28. DIVALENT – I’m another with FILAMENT (‘amen’ and ‘lift’) although I wasn’t totally happy with it because there was no indicator to move the letters for ‘nick’ and it didn’t quite fit the definition. But it’s been a long time since fourth form chemistry.
    ADVOWSON, DELIRIANT and LEOPARDSTOWN were new to me, but gettable from the word play.
    I liked CONUNDRUM, BEWILDERING, DIRNDL, and SANDPIPERS for the surface.
    Thanks for the lovely puzzle, Pasquale and the very clear blog, duncanshiell.

29. Hi Duncanshiell, the definition for ANGLER is ” one may take”.
    Thanks for the blog.

30. I thoroughly enjoyed this. I had difficulty with LEOPARDSTOWN because I’ve never seen that name (of a part of Dublin) before. I was surprised that DELIRIANT was a word, but there it was under ‘delirious’ in Chambers.

    I have rarely seen DIVALENT meaning ‘bivalent’, but, again, there it is in Chambers. It may be inelegant for the Latin root to have a Greek prefix, but it is valid. Incidentally, copper (unlike zinc, for example) can be univalent or bivalent, but it is clearly not wrong to choose it as the example in the clue.

    Thanks to Pasquale and Duncan.

31. DNF from me with many tough words but fun nonetheless. Thanks for the blog!

    One question – what’s “see” doing in the clue for 1D? I spent a long time trying to figure out how “See Christian” could mean anything.

32. lenmasterman @25, why the religious reference in “curate’s egg”? 😉

33. Saaaam@31, you may well ask. I think it is because, if something like ‘See’ was not there, ‘Christian member’ would be the subject of the sentence, and the verb would have to be ‘abstains’, which messes up the anagram. Perhaps someone could suggest a neater way around that?

34. Having completed this, with help on 25a, I thought I could understand why Roz queried whether it was really by Pasquale. There were the usual uncommon words but also some, to me, iffy clueing.
    5a “not fully” = 7 eighths is missing!
    17a From google I thought DELIRIANT was a noun, gut Chambers gives it as an adjective as well so I was wrong.
    25a I agree with sheffield hatter. I don’t think that “dint”=”nick” and from my son’s explanation I got the impression that copper could be mono- or multivalent. Pity that when muffin gets a chemistry clue it’s iffy. I too started with FILAMENT with LIFT = nick.
    2d Marionette is no more female than serviette is. If the question mark means that the clue should read “highly strung thing with a feminine ending” I don ‘t think it works
    Thanks to Pasquale and duncanshiell.

35. MARIONETTE is specifically derived from Marion from Marie from the Virgin Mary. They don’t come much more feminine than that! (With apologies to fellow atheists.)

36. [Copper is usually divalent, but can take a monovalent form,. Multivalence is a trait of the transition metals and is why so many of them are used by the body in enzymes and other functional organic compounds. The one people know about is iron in haemoglobin (di- and trivalent), but copper is found in the enzyme that forms collagen, and there are other transition metal cores to other compounds. It’s why we need trace minerals in our diets. Copper’s reputation for toxicity seems to be caused by a group of people with a specific genetic disorder, not the general public.]

37. Frankie G @17[😀 I sang this song at a concert years ago. It went down quite well in spite of (or because of) me being a bearded 40 something and the audience mostly A-level students. I’m surprised no-one mentioned it during the fuss a few years ago about Baby It’s Cold Outside.]

38. sheffieldhatter@26 Thanks for your comment. I’m grateful to all of the Guardian setters for the pleasure and entertainment their skill and ingenuity provide, so I do consciously try to stay out of the fault- finding club. I enjoyed this puzzle for the most part, but in failing to complete it I felt that I wasn’t on the same wavelength as the setter in terms of my own interests and terms of reference. I didn’t say that I wouldn’t bother with Pasquale’s puzzles ever again, but that I wouldn’t be actively seeking them out in the way that I do with Picaroon, Paul, Brendan, Brummie, Arachne and a number of others.
    Condolences on the Hatters’ result today btw.
    Monkey@32: Just my lame attempt at irony.

39. Thanks, Len 😀

    [I’ve been watching a different LTFC today – Leek Town held on for a 2-2 draw, unlike Luton Town. 🥺]

40. This was a DNF for me – defeated by MARIONETTE and DIRNDL – but I thoroughly enjoyed it, with 3 or 4 visits over the course of the week. I was extremely pleased with myself when I got ADVOWSON from the wordplay, despite never having heard (or read) the word, so a jorum for me.

    I also had filament for most of the week, only thinking of DIVALENT om my 3rd or 4th visit (I had bivalent as well, and had to google “is copper bivalent” which is when I found out that DIVALENT was equivalent and fitted the wordplay).

    DILLY-DALLIED was my favourite.

    Thanks Pasquale and duncanshiell.

41. Prided myself on filling at least half of every cryptic but this killed me. Even bewildering came well after I’d got the answer. Barely got 4 answers in.

    I’ll move on.

42. None of the words I knew for the crossers in 25A parsed or fitted the clue, so I resorted to a wordfinder for DIVALENT and Google for the fact that copper is divalent (unknown to me). Yes, I was trying AMEN and I wasn’t convinced that DINT=nick. Not much fun. But I liked the rest, especially DIRNDL for a funny surface, DARTBOARD and LEOPARDSTOWN.

43. [sjshart @33:] Christian member: “Abstain!”
    Out to pick up a point?

44. I probably just don’t have the right dictionaries, but I can’t find dictionary support for the definition of DELIRIANT. The sources I’ve found say that, as an adjective, it means “causing delirium”, which is not what “becoming wildly excited” means as far as I can tell. The definition seems to me to define “delirious”, not “deliriant”.

    I also feel sorry for the dehumanized nun, who is apparently a “what” rather than a “who”.

    Still, this was quite an enjoyable puzzle. While certainly not easy, it seemed to me less difficult than other prize puzzles from the Don.

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