The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/29820.
A prime example of what to expect of a Pasquale crossword: sound clues and an exploration of the dustier corners of your vocabularly (or maybe corners that you had not visited before) – the latter on overdrive in this puzzle, and the former definitely up to par. I particularly liked 1A CERVANTES, and 12A CENTRE STAGE – a good spot anagram.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | CERVANTES |
Writer of prose can start to turn verse out (9)
|
| An anagram (‘out’) of ‘can’ plus T (‘start to Turn’) plus ‘verse’. Miguel de Cervantes, whose masterwork is Don Quixote, also published a long poem Viaje del Parnaso. | ||
| 6 | REBUS |
Problem has engineers attending vehicle (5)
|
| A charade of RE (Royal ‘Engineers’) plus BUS (‘vehicle’). | ||
| 9 | CUBIT |
Measure copper coin (5)
|
| A charade of CU (chemical symbol, ‘copper’) plus BIT (‘coin’).12A | ||
| 10 | UROLOGIST |
Our unusual day-to-day record is beginning to trouble medical expert (9)
|
| A charade of URO, an anagram (‘unusual’) of ‘our’ plus LOG (‘day-to-day record’) plus ‘is’ plus T (‘beginning to Trouble’). | ||
| 11 | DOT |
Point made by idiot, learner expelled (3)
|
| DOLT (‘idiot’) minus the L (‘learner expelled’). | ||
| 12 | CENTRE STAGE |
Secret agent put out in prominent position (6,5)
|
| An anagram (‘put out’) of ‘secret agent’. | ||
| 14 | SECTARY |
Office worker about to be dismissed as member of religious group (7)
|
| A subtraction: SEC[re]TARY (‘office worker’) minus RE (‘about to be dismissed’). | ||
| 15 | ETHANOL |
New hotel bringing in a new intoxicant (7)
|
| An envelope (‘bringing in’) of ‘a’ plus N (‘new’) in ETHOL, an anagram (‘new’ – the first one) of ‘hotel’. The chemical name for what is commonly called alcohol. | ||
| 16 | PLUMBED |
Examined excellent item of furniture (7)
|
| A charade of PLUM (‘excellent’) plus BED (‘item of furniture’). | ||
| 19 | FEMORAL |
What’s exciting for male? It’s to do with what mini reveals (7)
|
| An anagram (‘what’s exciting’) of ‘for male’. FEMORAL is of the femur, the thigh bone, or more generally, of the fhigh. | ||
| 22 | MATERIALIST |
Mum, one of the celebs who values goods above godliness? (11)
|
| A charade of MATER (Latin mother, ‘mum’) plus I (‘one’) plus A-LIST (‘the celebs’). | ||
| 23 | CAM |
River settlement not quiet (3)
|
| A subtraction: CAM[p] (‘settlement’) minus the P (‘not quiet’). | ||
| 24 | ADULATION |
Grown-up, one getting on, receiving a fan’s fawning (9)
|
| An envelope (‘receiving’) of ‘a’ in ADULT (‘grown-up’) plus I (‘one’) plus (‘getting’) ‘on’. | ||
| 26 | SAUTE |
Cooked a suet dish (5)
|
| An anagram (‘cooked’) of ‘a suet’. | ||
| 27 | OGHAM |
Old characters travel around to get meat (5)
|
| A charade of OG, a reversal (‘around’) of GO (‘travel’) plus (‘to get’) HAM (‘meat’). | ||
| 28 | TWEEDIEST |
Most fond of outdoor life, stops delving into screen message (9)
|
| An envelope (‘delving into’) of DIES (‘stops’) in TWEET (‘screen message’). | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | CICADAS |
Baddy captured by American agency’s chirpy types (7)
|
| An envelope (‘captured by’) of CAD (‘baddy’) in CIA’S (‘American agency’s’). | ||
| 2 | ROBOTIC |
Bishop into something radical, mostly very cold and inhuman (7)
|
| A charade of ROBOT, an envelope (‘into’) of B (‘bishop’, chess notation) in ROOT (‘something radical’); plus IC[y] (‘very cold’) mnus its last letter (‘mostly’). | ||
| 3 | ANTECHAMBER |
Be got hold of by a merchant working in reception area (11)
|
| A envelope (‘got hold of by’) of ‘be’ in ANTECHAMR, an anagram (‘working’) of ‘a merchant’. | ||
| 4 | TOURNEY |
Sporting contest – time for Jack to travel (7)
|
| JOURNEY (‘to travel’) with the J replaced by T (‘time for Jack’). | ||
| 5 | SCOURGE |
Curse of firm limited in growth (7)
|
| An envelope (‘in’ – or just possibly ‘limited in’?) of CO (‘firm’ – I interpret ‘limited’ as indicating the abbreiation) in SURGE (‘growth’). | ||
| 6 | RIO |
Port imbibed by patriot (3)
|
| A hidden (‘imbibed by’) answer in ‘patRIOt’. | ||
| 7 | BRITAIN |
Country woman given education in statistics group (7)
|
| An envelope (‘in’) of RITA (‘woman given education’ – a reference to the play and film Educating Rita) in BIN (‘statistics group’). | ||
| 8 | SITWELL |
Poet not to lounge? (7)
|
| Definition and literal interpretation. The ‘poet’ is probably Edith Sitwell, although her brothers Osbert and Sacheverell aslo both wrote poetry. | ||
| 13 | SCHEMATISED |
Maybe like things put into boxes or chests I made specially (11)
|
| An anagram (‘specially’) of ‘chests I made’. | ||
| 16 | POMPANO |
Fish old fellow catches quietly in Italian river (7)
|
| A double envelope (‘catches’ and ‘in’) of P (‘quietly’) in O (‘old’) plus MAN (‘fellow’) in PO (‘Italian river’). | ||
| 17 | UNTRUTH |
Story told originally in a French book about a Moabite woman (7)
|
| An envelope (‘in’) of T (‘Told originally’) in UN (‘a French’) plus RUTH (‘book about a Moabite woman’). | ||
| 18 | DIARIST |
Nobody was such a writer (7)
|
| A reference to the comic novel The Diary of a Nobody by the Grossmith brothers. Nobody lived at The Laurels, Brickfield Terrace, Holloway. Who was he? | ||
| 19 | FAIENCE |
Receiver gets hold of excellent glazed earthenware (7)
|
| An envelope (‘gets hold of’) of AI (A1, ‘excellent’) in FENCE (‘receiver’ of stolen goods) | ||
| 20 | RECLUSE |
Hermit with cunning plan to eat half a cake (7)
|
| An envelope (‘to eat’) of ECL[air] (‘cake’), taking just the first three letters (‘half of’), in RUSE (‘cunning plan’). | ||
| 21 | LAMBENT |
Shining, keen to hide slightest bit of blackness (7)
|
| An envelope (‘to hide’) of B (‘slightest bit of Blackness’) in LAMENT (‘keen’). | ||
| 25 | AIM |
This writer’s going after a goal (3)
|
| A charade of ‘a’ plus I’M (‘this writer’s’). |
Nonplussed by nhho Nobody, but with crossers the writer was clear. Also loi, tweediest … eventually an image, tweed jacket, shotgun, “All Creatures .. ” -ish, came to mind. Or is the ref more horsey, Henley On … -ish? Perfectly nice, I’m sure some do this xwd. Otherwise all pretty straight, oh except the put-together fish. Faience I knew … mrs ginf had a necklace of faience beads. All good fun, ta to the Don and Peter.
COTD: FEMORAL
Liked the extended def. Someone may call it below the belt?
Also liked MATERIALIST, SCHEMATISED and LAMBENT.
SCOURGE
Like PeterO, I too thought ‘firm limited’=CO (abbreviated ‘company’).
Thanks Pasquale and PeterO.
Thanks PeterO. Needed you for ”Nobody” the diarist. Thought it was a bit more like a nom de plume or ghost writer. Also needed help with FEMORAL, and POMPANO, despite my nearly-there attempts. Had the parsing for FAIENCE but didn’t know the word. Thanks to Pasquale’s cluing, I got there in the end.
The chirpy types, CICADAS, are familiar to me. Loved the clue. ”Cad” not in my idiom, but it comes up often in cryptic crossword land. They come out here every seven years or so, depending on local and planetary goings-on. It’s such a relief when they rise above my tinnitus, and I know they’re real, not imagined.
A few too many obscurities for my liking. DIARIST, especially, was a bit mean.
FEMORAL, agree with KVa@2, great clue.
For the history of the miniskirt. … Apparently it goes back thousands of years.
We had Twiggy and Jean Shrimpton coming down here and stirring things up. But their miniskirts weren’t really all that mini. It’s amazing in retrospect that they caused such a fuss. I remember when our school tunics were measured for acceptability at so many inches above the knee line. They did that with our hair length as well, above the collar. Clue earworm. Those were the days ……. (another mini skirt wearing Brit of that era).
[Rainforest cicadas are amazing, pdm @3: big downpour, silence, then one, then two, then a deafening chorus. Here in the west we had the clicking type, reliable heralds of summer. Sadly, haven’t heard one in decades]
Thanks PeterO. Can anyone enlighten me further on why BIN is statistics group?
Me too, Crispy.
CICADAS are not a common thing in the UK, and I spent quite a while thinking the “chirpy types” were birds. POMPANO was a jorum, and I didn’t know BIN=statistics group, but the rest eventually emerged from dusty corners of my memory. I liked CERVANTES and the plum bed.
We had to read the Diary Of A Nobody (Charles Pooter) at school: it was originally a serial in Punch: these days it would be a TV sitcom. The references to this and Educating Rita took a while to click.
Demanding grid with just the two North South linkers, one of which – SCHEMATISED – held out until the very end. Along with TWEEDIEST: it says something about how long I have now been off Twitter/X that TEXT came to mind but not TWEET. I share our blogger’s liking for CERVANTES and CENTRE STAGE and am grateful he set me right on one parse that had caused me some incredulity in the first instance.
Ref BIN: straight from Wikipedia – Statistical data binning is a way to group numbers of more-or-less continuous values into a smaller number of “bins”. For example, if you have data about a group of people, you might want to arrange their ages into a smaller number of age intervals (for example, grouping every five years together).
Thanks Pasquale and PeterO
I too was puzzled by the bin. Thanks for the enlightenment, PostMark.
Thanks Postmark.
Lovely puzzle – Ronseal clues (“do what they say on the tin”) but always with a touch of humour, a slightly extended definition or (for me at least) a thing hovering on the periphery of my knowledge. “Ruth” – knew it was a book of the bible but not more so learned something from solving the clue. “lambent” came out of the memorial backwaters, “pompano” sounded familiar and “diary of a nobody” had a ring to it that suggested it was right, but I could’ve told you nothing more about it. I leave the puzzle more enlightened than I started, which is a good day.
Re the statistics “bin” the most familiar use will be in making histograms. You want to plot a graph showing the height distribution of people in your year group at school? It will look a bit random if you plot a point for every possible millimitre or centimetre so instead you put the meaurements into groups e.g. 1.40-1.45m, 1.46-1.50m etc. These groups are called “bins” and probably most of us did this at some point at school but I imagine many have long since consigned it to the “when will I ever need that?” section of their schooldays.
Many thanks PeterO, especially for the added touches about Cervantes and the Sitwells, and Pasquale.
Enjoyable puzzle. I slowed down in the SE corner.
Favourites: CERVANTES, PLUMBED, DIARIST (loi).
New for me: POMPANO fish; RUTH = Moabite woman (17d); OGHAM; BIN = statistics group; LAMBENT; FEMORAL.
Excellent crossword. Right in the centre of my Goldilocks zone. 19ac is, I think, COTD.
The lovely 16ac was my LOI – although I cannot, with hindsight, understand why it took me so long to get. But isn’t that the joy of a really good clue?
Thanks, PostMark, you’ve bin very helpful.
Very good. Pleased with myself for spotting Nobody (Mr. Pooter). One of the Grossmith brothers was in the D’Oyly Carte company and sang in many G&S operas, notably The Mikado.
Thank you to Pasquale for an enjoyable and challenging solve. Mostly in the past I have found with Pasquale, if you just follow the directions you get the answers, but today I had trouble with several unfamiliar words, most of which have been commented upon already (see the mentions by michelle@14, for instance).
17d UNTRUTH was my favourite.
With appreciation for the blog to PeterO, and gratias to other commenters.
Lots to like here, favorite was BRITAIN. Some NHOs including LAMBENT and TWEEDIEST and the inevitable fish. I dredged up BIN from A Level maths, had vaguely heard of the diarist without knowing anything about it, and the rest of the GK I fortunately knew.
Ta Pasquale and PeterO
Found that the top half went in really quickly – then I slowed right down with the SW holding out for a fair while – not helped by not having heard of the fish or the old characters (or the earthenware).
BRITAIN made me laugh.
Thanks Pasquale and PeterO
The usual vocabulary test from Pasquale but well-clued to help us get to the unknowns. I liked the anagrams for CERVANTES, FEMORAL and SCHEMATISED. The often-quoted education girl in BRITAIN, the surface of POMPANO and RECLUSE with a nod to the Chambers definition of eclair.
Thanks Pasquale and PeterO.
Re the discussion yesterday about Arabica and Robusta coffee beans.
I drink Vietnamese coffee which is made from 100% Robusta beans from Vietnam. They are far superior to Arabica beans.
Vietnam is the second largest producer of coffee beans; Brazil the largest producer of Arabica beans, a standard inferior bean.
Fun puzzle. I enjoyed being reminded of Educating Rita. A line from it I still remember is Rita’s, about a new university acquaintance her professor disparages — “Everything about her is dead unpretentious!”
I don’t think I’ve ever heard SCHEMATISED, but schematic is familiar, so the next step made sens.
Thanks to Pasquale and to PeterO, whose help I needed with parsing.
Thanks PeterO and Pasquale. Good fun. 19a was a gem: suggestive, titillating but ultimately innocent.
Sometimes Pasquale can seem a bit like hard work, but I thought this was really entertaining and witty. Favourites CENTRE STAGE, DIARIST and FEMORAL, but lots of other ticks.
I think in MATERIALIST we maybe have to take A-LIST as an adjective (as in an A-list event) so that it = “of the celebs”.
Many thanks Pasquale and PeterO.
12A CENTRE STAGE I liked for its simplicity. It reminded me of the wonderful National Theatre actor, Michael Bryant, who understood the acoustic problems of the Olivier Theatre (at least in its early days) all too well and made the downstairs centre of the stage his personal domain.
Beautiful puzzle. This one fell into place slowly and steadily — no major roadblocks, but not a pushover either. Quite a few unknowns (27a OGHAM, 28a TWEEDIEST, 16d POMPANO (loi), 19d FAIENCE, 21d LAMBENT), all clearly clued to be gettable. Like Fiona@20, the SW was last to fall. I also had a tick for 1a CERVANTES, as well as 14a SECTARY (about to be dismissed), 19a FEMORAL (great surface), 13d SCHEMATISED (nice connection with boxes and chests), 20d RECLUSE (I’d be interested to see the details of the cunning plan!). Didn’t parse 4d TOURNEY, though it makes perfect sense
18d DIARIST, I had DUALIST, trying to justify it somehow with “no body”, but body and spirit, or something weird like that. Okay, dnf
Many thanks to both
Difficult but enjoyable; liked the cultural and Biblical references as always with Pasquale. Didn’t know “keen” as LAMENT; put in “Lambert” without parsing 🙁 Needed the blog for the parsing of BRITAIN, FAIENCE and RECLUSE. Guessed that SIT WELL = “not to lounge” but didn’t quite understand why (not to recline?) Thanks a lot Pasquale & PeterO!
Loved this crossword. Thank you Pasquale.
Progress similar to Fiona @20. At times felt like I was doing two different crosswords, the top half a Tuesday perhaps and the bottom Friday or Prize. NHO POMPANO (among others), came up with it early on as a straight application of wordplay and thought “never heard of that” without Googling until much much later. That one’s on me… (LOI TWEEDIEST. Really!?)
Thanks Pasquale and PeterO
Mostly OK, despite some unknown words, but I thought the defintion for TWEEDIEST (as mentioned by Balladeer @30) was allusive almost to the point of non-existence!
Beaten in the SE corner by NHO LAMBENT and FAIENCE. Otherwise no major dramas. Thanks to setter and blogger, as ever.
For TWEEDY, Chambers has “of a predominantly upper-class, hearty, outdoor type.” Not sure what problem there might be? Is it the superlative?
In years of backpacking, wild camping and fell walking I’ve never worn tweed. It’s heavy and not waterproof. It went out with Frank Smythe and Mallory.
Keith Waterhouse wrote a riposte to Diary of a Nobody – Mrs Pooter’s Diary, which is worth searching out if you know the original.
I must say I didn’t turn a hair at TWEEDIEST. I didn’t need a dictionary to legitimise the reference, which made perfect sense. My only thought was for our several Australian fellow-solvers, where the ‘outdoor lifestyle’ carries a very different set of cultural connotations!
I agree with Zoot @34 – I’ve spent a lot of time outside, but I have never worn tweed.
A little while back I pointed out that Chambers is descriptive rather than prescriptive, so “it’s in Chambers, so it’s right” should be replaced with “it’s in Chambers, so it’s fair game for a compiler”.
Further to Zoot@34, for those who don’t know the Diary of a Nobody, I heartily recommend it, along with Keith Waterhouse’s follow-ups. (KW also wrote The Collected Letters of a Nobody.) In addition, there is an equally funny book inspired by the Diary, “Augustus Carp, Esq. by Himself”, by Henry Bashford. These are short reads and thoroughly enjoyable.
Thanks, Pasquale for the fun and vocabulary-enhancing puzzle, and PeterO for the excellent blog which added pieces of information that made several clues even more enjoyable.
Muffin@36 thanks for clarifying. Living in Canada it’s sometimes hard to know what’s in current use in the UK and what’s not. Thanks to Chambers I have the impression that the British countryside is littered with hordes of genteel folk in their tweeds with walking sticks wandering around breathing in the fresh air 🙂
Mig @38
I am hoping that you wear tweed in Canada, as it would boost the revenue on Harris! (Lovely place to visit, by the way, though the people are a bit religious – you couldn’t eat out on a Sunday when we were there, about fifteen years ago.)
muffin@36, it is my impression that all dictionaries, not just Chambers, are descriptive rather than prescriptive (with the exceptions of Dr. Johnson’s and Ambroise Bierce’s). Chambers may be a bit quicker to recognize neologisms, watered down meanings, etc. than some others, but they all have the same approach to changes in the language.
You and Zoot are right about tweed. If you get caught in a rainstorm in your tweed jacket, it will take days for it to dry out.
Thanks PeterO, for the level of detail, and clarity, in the blog. That’s really really helpful for harder cryptics. I needed to understand full parse of ADULATION, ROBOTIC, and POMPANO.
Thanks Pasquale.
Cellomaniac @40
And the dictionary of the Academie Francaise, of course, which is absolutely prescriptive (though not in English, unfortunately)!
[Cellomaniac @40. The battle between prescriptive and descriptive language ‘rules’ was fought out in the late 18th century between conservative and radical grammarians. It was a politicised issue. The radicals in the longer term prevailed. My problem now with descriptive lexicography is that it can normalise ignorance. So for example, if enough people use ‘disinterested’ to mean ‘uninterested’, it ends up as a received usage, which I think has actually happened in some dictionaries.]
[Balfour @43
…and don’t get me started on “epicentre”!]
Thanks for the enlightenment of BIN.
Usual Pasquale puzzle, with plenty of obscurities.
Thanks both.
Cellomaniac@40 And if you’re on a mountain in similar circumstances with nothing to keep the wind out, you might be lucky to survive.
[Balfour @43: I entirely agree about “disinterested” and “uninterested”. Similarly with “refute” being used to mean “deny” (rather than “disprove”). And the spelling of “impostor” as “imposter”, which I’ve moaned about on here before.
But language does change, and I suppose dictionaries have a duty to record this, so what is the solution? Perhaps something along the lines of the “usage” notes that Collins includes? For example it states “USAGE: The use of refute to mean deny is thought by many people to be incorrect.”]
Keen = Lament?
Not in any dictionary I own!
Robruss @ 48
from Chambers:
“ keen2 /kēn/
noun
A lamentation over the dead
intransitive verb
To wail over the dead”
OED:
To utter the keen, or Irish lamentation for the dead; to wail or lament bitterly
In two dictionaries I own!
Look up ‘keenmg’ on Wikipedia, Robruss24,
Thanks.
This was quite tough. I enjoyed it, distributed throughout a busy day. It’s fun to look up new words and find the hoped for definition. Always more fish in the (checks) sea, yep, sea.
Thanks all.
Balfour@43 and muffin@44….and don’t get me started on fulsome, which has lost its deliciously pejorative sense and now just means full.
While I think the Academie Francaise goes too far, I do wish our English dictionaries would do more to keep useful words from losing their utility.
(just catching up — I’ll just note that the new comment enumeration scheme which is sensible of course, also doesn’t let me know how many more comments I need to digest as I quickly scan down — ok, a first-world problem granted)