[If you’re attending York S&B please see comments 32&33] - here
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.