Pasquale rounds off the weekday cryptics with a characteristically well-clued and interesting puzzle.
This time there were no words I hadn’t heard of but one or two unusual usages, perhaps and just one answer that might be unfamiliar to non-UK solvers. There are three constellations included in the answers but not enough to constitute a theme, I think.
My favourites were 1ac ESSAYIST, 16ac GOSH, 24ac PAINKILLER, 25ac OVEN, 20dn QUAINT, 23dn THONG and the linked 18dn EMPEROR and 21ac CALIGULA.
Many thanks to Pasquale for an enjoyable puzzle.
Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Across
1 Essayist beginning to draft a letter (6)
LAMBDA
(Charles) LAMB (essayist) + D[raft] + A – I remember a time when Lamb’s pen name, Elia (a fairly common group of letters) was often clued by ‘lamb’ or ‘essayist’ – I don’t think I’ve seen it for a while
4 Bishop blessing one at the pet service? (6)
BASSET
B (bishop) + ASSET (blessing)
9 Fighter going by Circle Line (4)
OCHE
O (circle) + CHE (Guevara – fighter – a change from ‘revolutionary’) for the line behind which a darts player must stand
10 One maybe looking at club’s IT device (4,6)
CARD READER
We have to remove the apostrophe from ‘club’s’ to get someone looking at playing cards
11 Some of the French are about to be eliminated (6)
ERASED
A reversal (about) of DES (French ‘some’) and ARE
12 Fluctuations in very small silver sign (8)
VAGARIES
V (very, small) + AG (silver) + ARIES (sign of the zodiac)
13 Repeated prohibition is applied to male for bad behaviour (9)
BARBARISM
BAR BAR (repeated prohibition) + IS + M (male)
15 First appearance not top-class – a liability! (4)
DEBT
DEB[u]T (first appearance, minus u – top class)
16 My children’s hospital initially (4)
GOSH
Great Ormond Street Hospital, initially – maybe rather parochial but it is a very famous hospital, to which JM Barrie gifted the rights to ‘Peter Pan’ – and which is actually known as GOSH)
17 After company banquet maybe I have livened up (4,5)
COME ALIVE
CO (company) + MEAL (banquet maybe) + I’VE (I have)
21 18? Peace is truncated by one that’s sacked Gaul (8)
CALIGULA
CAL[m] (peace, truncated) + I (one) an anagram (sacked) of GAUL – the answer to 18ac is EMPEROR
22 Servant absorbing scripture – one laps it up? (6)
POTAGE
PAGE (servant) round OT (Old Testament – scripture) – this reminded me of the Old Testament story of Esau selling his birthright for ‘a mess of pottage’
24 Dad taking coloured liquid with hesitation, swallowing bad medicine? (10)
PAINKILLER
PA (dad) + INK (coloured liquid) + ER (hesitation) round ILL (bad)
25 German composer’s last quartet – it contains some hot stuff? (4)
OVEN
The last four letters (quartet) of BeethOVEN (German composer)
26 Checks car, needing test regularly (6)
AUDITS
AUDI (car) + T[e]S[t]
27 Female, just a grotesque person? (6)
FRIGHT
F (female) + RIGHT (just)
Down
1 In carnival, a certain group of stars (7)
LACERTA
Hidden in carnivaL A CERTAin
2 Comes across certain foods in broadcast (5)
MEETS
Sounds like (in broadcast) ‘meats’ (certain foods)
3 Grass turns up to be probed by detectives – that settles things (7)
DECIDER
A reversal (turns up) of REED (grass) round CID (detectives)
5 Capital city surmounted by gold stars (6)
AURIGA
RIGA (capital city) surmounted by AU (gold – to pair with AG, silver in 12ac)
6 Flight path keeps going round it (9)
STAIRWELL
I’m struggling here: is it just that a stairwell goes round a flight of stairs? (I don’t think so!)
7 Time after time goddess of youth’s No. 1 (3,4)
THE BEST
T (time) + HEBE’S (goddess of youth’s) + T (time)
8 Supporting friend taking hold of the dream for now (13)
PROVISIONALLY
PRO (supporting) + ALLY (friend) round VISION (dream)
14 Somehow strengthened, a bed is not falling apart (9)
BASTIONED
An anagram (falling apart) of A BED IS NOT – neither Collins nor Chambers has ‘bastion’ (defence) as a verb but I found in my (old) SOED ‘trans. and fig. – hence bastioned’
16 City girl trailing after family member (7)
GRANADA
ADA (girl) after GRAN (family member)
18 Rome is transformed with introduction of a dictator? (7)
EMPEROR
An anagram (transformed) of ROME round PER (a – as in prices)
19 Least clear, opposing a visiting speaker maybe (7)
VAGUEST
V (opposing) + A GUEST (a visiting speaker, maybe)
20 Queen isn’t twee (6)
QUAINT
QU (queen) + AIN’T (isn’t)
23 It’s hot in Pacific location – you must discard a bit of clothing (5)
THONG
H (hot) in TONG[a] (Pacific location, with the a discarded)
Every day’s a school day with Pasquale and today’s topic for me was constellations. Got AURIGA from the wordplay but LACERTA was a guess and Google
Loved the clear reference to HMHB’s “Them’s the VAGARIES” which contains a lyric that always reminds me of Roz: “What I call pleasure, you may call pain, I’m talking five day tests”
And delighted to remember the PER=A trick for EMPEROR which I took perverse delight in reverse solving from CALIGULA
Cheers P&E
The NW was a gentle way in to the puzzle and so it continued. I found this the easiest week ever without the quality being sacrificed. My favourites were EMPEROR, CALIGULA, BARBARISM, PAINKILLER and PROVISIONALLY. I liked CARD READER, although some may object to its construction. I’m still not sure about the definition of BASSET, Eileen, if you could help please. Tomorrow’s prize will probably be impenetrable!
Ta Pasquale & Eileen.
Thanks Pasquale and Eileen
I hadn’t heard of LACERTA – apparently it’s a fairly new coinage. I was also baffled by GOSH. I also don’t think “flight” is quite right for STAIRWELL, and couldn’t see a parsing.
Clumsy of Pasquale to have “live(ned)” in the clue for COME ALIVE. Surely he could have come up with something different!
Very tough. I failed to solve 7d THE BEST.
I did not fully parse several of my answers:
4ac – why does BASSET = one at the pet service?
9ac
16ac apart from H = hospital – I have heard of Great Ormond Street hospital because of JM Barrie but had no idea it gets shortened to GOS
6d = cryptic definition?
New for me: LACERTA.
Thanks, both.
I needed help with parsing GOS (Great Ormond Street didn’t occur to me), and slipped up by entering ‘barbarian’ (with Ian as the requisite male) for ‘barbarism’, corrected by 8d, but otherwise found this quite straightforward. I can’t see anything more complicated going on with ‘stairwell’; and my Chambers has ‘bastioned’ simply as an adjective, not giving ‘bastion’ as a verb.
I’m having a good week. This one yielded gradually but gracefully.
There were three I couldn’t parse and had to hope were right, unfortunately two of them crossed. Great Ormond Street is well enough known in the UK at least but I’ve never seen it abbreviated as GOS. Asset = blessing is rather vague and was coupled with a rather indirect definition. I’m glad to see Eileen is baffled by stairwell too.
Thanks to Eileen and Pasquale
michelle @4 – a basset hound is a dog, so might well be at a pet service.
Sarah @5 – you must have a different Chambers from me (mine’s the 11th edition).
Eileen my Chambers app has BASTIONED as an adjective which I think works for “somehow strengthened”?
I parsed STAIRWELL as michelle @4 – I thought it was rather good for a CD as the wordplay suggested something more complex
Favourites were GOSH, STAIRWELL, OVEN and QUAINT. Agree with @3 muffin – editor might have spotted the doubling up of ‘live’ in clue and answer of 17a, recommending eg ‘pepped up’ rather than ‘livened up’? OCHE was my LOI, I never knew its spelling; impossible (in the mind’s ears of British TV darts viewers at least) not to hear it spoken in the legendary voice of Sid Waddell (RIP). Fun and fair solve all round, thank you Pasquale and Eileen!
Tough! But plenty to enjoy: for me OCHE, BASSET and CALUGULA in particular. STAIRWELL was LOI for me – nice clue. Many thanks to Pasquale and Eileen.
Well, I learnt a children’s hospital today! AURIGA, LACERTA & OCHE were also new to me.
All else fell into place and was enjoyed. Thanks, Pasquale & Eileen.
ravenrider @6 – my explanation of 16ac is not very good: I’ll amend it now.
bodycheetah @8 – I don’t ‘do’ apps. I’ve been waiting for a new dead tree edition of Chambers but I don’t think there will be one. 🙁
Lamb’s Tales were on the family shelf chez the young ginf, but it took a couple of crossers to switch from thinking Pepys. First scan, only barbarism and a few downs, but it all wove in after a while. No quibbles, though it’s a long way from the very general ‘line’ to the totally specific ‘oche’. Much enjoyed, ta to the Don and Eileen.
Managed to get this done, with NE corner last to yield, but completely beaten by the parsing of DEBT, GOSH (would never have got the GOS bit), and STAIRWELL. So many thanks Eileen. Not sure whether Ely Cathedral still has a Pets Service. Used to be a very noisy affair, with I think the Bishop leading a llama up the main aisle of the nave, I seem to once remember. Bringing woofs of delight from the congregation…
I too am a bit baffled by STAIRWELL. Also thought that FRIGHT = “a grotesque person” was a bit of a stretch. Otherwise an interesting and tricky challenge.
A stairwell is a vertical shaft in which stairs are set. The flights (of stairs) go round the shaft.
Enjoyed today’s crossword. I agree that 6D STAIRWELL is just a cryptic definition. Your path up or down a flight of stairs goes round the stairwell.
Thanks for all the suggestions re STAIRWELL as a cryptic definition. I’m happy now.
…oh and yes, gosh was a bung; heard of the hospital but it would never have surfaced…
[cheetah @1, hmhb not in my ken (apart from on here), but what in the clue tells you he’s referencing them?]
Gosh! Wish I’d thought of looking it up on wikipedia, where it’s the first entry…
6d – the flight path goes round the inside of the stairwell.
Agree with Andy in Durham@16. I didn’t see a problem with STAIRWELL. Just a CD, as the path of the flight of stairs goes round the STAIRWELL. GOSH took me a while and needed GRANADA to make me see it. I’d been thinking of the Liverpool hospital rather than the London one. Generally straightforward for Pasquale. Hadn’t heard of the constellation LACERTA, so needed Google to confirm. Thanks to Pasquale and Eileen.
A Basset Hound looks like this and from Google is a sidewalk dog? They have a very low bark and are very low slung – and there used to be a hunting pack, before hunting with dogs was banned – which looked odd but sounded fierce. That I got when I saw it, but I’ve known a few Basset hounds.
Quite a few words I had to dig out of the depths. But all in, and mostly parsed.
Thank you to Eileen and Pasquale.
Agree with Andy in Durham@16. I didn’t see a problem with STAIRWELL. Just a CD, as the path of the flight of stairs goes round the STAIRWELL. GOSH took me a while and needed GRANADA to make me see it. I’d been thinking of the Liverpool hospital rather than the London one. Generally straightforward for Pasquale. Hadn’t heard of the constellation LACERTA, so needed Google to confirm. Thanks to Pasquale and Eileen.
I see several comments have made mine superfluous whilst I’ve been typing. Sorry.
gif@19 the references are always there if you have an eye for them 🙂 as in your own comment with it’s sly nod to HMHB’s “D’Ye Ken Ted Moult?”
Thanks Pasquale and Eileen
An enjoyable workout. Caligula took a while as the sacking of Gaul was in front of my mind as an historical event rather than wordplayb. My favourite once it clicked
10a – not sure Pasquale would be happy with the idea of removing the apostrophe to make clubs; a club is a card, the apostrophe’s the i in is
Various people have referred to GOS in 16a, but “initially” refers to “children’s hospital” (as Eileen said) not just to “hospital”. so GOSH.
There used to be a Fred BASSET strip cartoon in the Daily Mail from about the early Sixties. Don’t know if this is still going, as I’m not a DM reader. Of course…
[ … totally inadvertent I assure you cheetah; must be me unconscious 😉 ]
Hadn’t heard of LACERTA, but otherwise no complaints. However I don’t understand the presence of ‘small’ in 12a, unless it’s just for the surface.
Strike that, I now see it’s just ‘very’ (small, i.e. abbreviated)
I think Michelle can be forgiven for questioning pet service. Makes me sound impossibly curmudgeonly but surely this is a prime example of modern bonkersness.
As I understand it GOS is not an abbreviation for Great Ormond Street, but GOSH is common in the UK as an abbreviation for Great Ormond Street Hospital.
Just to emphasise the point made by Russ Three@28: Great Ormond Street Hospital is commonly referred to as GOSH (and uses the acronym in its own publicity material), so ‘children’s hospital initially’ = GOSH.
James @27@. Agreed. That is how I saw it.
Eileen @7
thanks for explaining that ‘a basset hound is a dog, so might well be at a pet service.’
I must be having a blind spot – I know of basset dogs but I still do not understand. What is a pet service?
I just did a google search – is this what it refers to?
What is a pet service?
Pet care services refer to the provision of care and support for pets when their owners are unable to do so. These services can include activities such as feeding, grooming, exercise, and medical care. They aim to ensure the well-being and health of pets in the absence of their owners.
5 was a write-in, of course!
Thanks to Pasquale and Eileen.
michelle @36
ronald @ 14 mentions a pet service at Ely Cathedral. Believe it or not, it’s exactly what it sounds like – a church service to which people bring their pets. I’ve never been to one but I’ve just googled and found this:
https://www.nationalpetmonth.org.uk/downloads/pet%20service.pdf
Sorry, Auriga @37 – I spotted your name-check when solving but forgot to mention it in the blog. 😉
RussThree@28 – to be fair, my initial (!) parsing of GOSH was ambiguous. I’ve amended it now.
Though I am neither British nor a darts player, I was familiar enough with OCHE purely as a crossword word (like REREDOS, SMEE and ETUI) that I managed to come up with it as a Trivia Night answer a few weeks ago. 16 left me wondering how GO meant ‘children’. I was vaguely aware of the story about the rights to Peter Pan, but not enough to recognise the initialism – I presume that people don’t pronounce it ‘GOSH’, so it isn’t an acronym as such.
As it happens, the Vicar of Dibley’s “Pet Service” episode is screening on UK TV in Australia as I type…. Still thought it was a weak clue though.
Eileen@39 – a happy coincidence that you should be the blogger today.
Tim C @42 – ronald’s recollection of the bishop and the llama fitted nicely with the clue, though. 😉
Plenty to like in this puzzle – and a couple of eyebrow raises. LAMBDA, BASSET, POTAGE, STAIRWELL, BASTIONED, EMPEROR and THONG all made me smile. I agree with James @27: the ‘apostrophe S’ in ‘club’s’ in CARD READER is the link word between WP and definition rather than a cheeky insertion to be ignored. Like others, I was surprised to see ‘livened’ in the clue for COME ALIVE and just a tad disappointed, though no one else has mentioned it so I guess this is a personal thing, to see two constellations defined as ‘stars’ within the first four down clues. I’m sure Pasquale could have come up with an alternative for one of them.
Thanks Pasquale and Eileen
I thought STAIRWELL was a rather marvellous CD
I took pet service to mean a vet (in fact I tried to worm vet into the answer somehow). Eileen @7: my BRB (revised 13th Edition – probably quite cheap second-hand) has BASTIONED under, unsurprisingly, BASTION.
I had to look up the Goddess of youth. I liked BASSETT, OCHE, CALIGULA, PAINKILLER, OVEN, EMPEROR.
[As I may have said before I was not allowed OCHE in a Scrabble game with some friends because their ancient dictionary didn’t have it; so, I bought them a new one!]
Thanks Pasquale and Eileen.
PS The edit facility is a godsend!
Me too, maureen@46
Thanks, Robi @47 – I was quite happy with ‘bastioned’, even without the reassurance from the app. (I didn’t bother buying the 13th edition because of the missing pages.)
Eileen, it doesn’t seem that anyone so far has proposed that ‘about’ in 11a is a reversal indicator rather than an anagram indicator. Apologies if, in a rapid scan of the comments, I have missed it.
What did the (Arch)bishop (Tutu_ say to the (Dalai) L(l)ama? . It gets very funny, about 1min 50 sec in. I love their sense of humour. I once went to a Buddhist teaching where someone asked the lama about vegetarianism. He told the story about the Dalai Lama eating just a little bit of meat (which was slaughtered by non Buddhists) for health reasons. He said, well there aren’t a lot of lettuce growing above 10,000 feet. Made me laugh. My father was a butcher who grew hydroponic lettuce in his semi-retirement.
Just picking up on comments here. Nothing to do with the crossword which I loved. A Pasquale with no esoteric vocabulary. Been great fun.
Agree Balfou@50.. ”About” is a reversal indicator in ERASED
Balfour @50 – well, I’ve done a thorough scan of the comments and I see that you’re right. Thank you – I’ll amend the blog.
MAC089 @41: I know people who work there and call it ‘GOSH’, so it’s very much an acronym, despite your presumption.
Like Eileen, I can never see ‘potage’ without thinking of Jacob and Esau. Maybe ‘could be in a mess’ as a definition would have selected for those of us who used to be forced to go to Sunday School. There has to be some payback.
Have to admit, although I got it from the ‘my’, I don’t recall coming across the acronym GOSH, but that and my complete unfamiliarity with LACERTA is a reflection on me.
This was a satisfying fill for me, only mystery was OCHE. Good to know for the next time I play darts. 🙂
[Eileen @49, maybe the Revised13th Edition doesn’t have missing pages?]
GDU @11. You said @1 that OCHE was previously unknown to you the last time it was used, by Yank on Dec.12 last year. It keeps on coming up … (Apologies for having a perversely good memory for some things, even if I can’t on occasions remember these days why I have gone to the kitchen when I get there,)
Great fun! There were some excellent clues in here – THONG was a favourite, as was GOSH and STAIRWELL was an excellent cd – the path of a flight of stairs does go round a stairwell, no?
Many thanks Pasquale and Eileen. A lovely solve. I find it impossible to choose a favourite so I’m going to nominate BASSET as my least favourite. It did generate a lively debate on pet services though. I’ve never been to one but I wonder if they involve Blue Peter elephant moments? Clip below… Happy weekend all 😎
https://youtu.be/kz9omscQ1F4?feature=shared
Fun fact: GOSH is entitled to royalties for Peter Pan in perpetuity. A special act of parliament was required to exempt it from the normal expiration of copyrights.
Also, TIL that GOSH is in common usage, never having come across it before. Such are the smaller pleasures of crosswords!
I found this mostly satisfactory with a couple of quibbles already mentioned, notably two relatively obscure (to me, at least) constellations.
Perfidious Albion @59 and others – please see my comment @18 re STAIRWELL. I think we’re all agreed. 😉
I’m not entirely clear about GOSH. The definition is My Is that an exclamation of surprise? As in “Oh my gosh!” / “My oh my!”, shortened to just GOSH! = MY!
?
I thought this one might break my streak but I muddled through with OVEN last – a doh! moment.
Thanks both and the Graunid for a week of good puzzles.
Thanks for the blog , tidy clues throughout , PAINKILLER and THONG flow very neatly, STAIRWELL a clever definition , usually my least favourite type of clue.
LACERTA very obscure , even to me, I know all the Northern constellations and this would be at the bottom of my list , small and boring. The clue was very fair. AURIGA is much better and contains the beautiful Capella which has two binary systems and is our sixth brightest star.
I thought that was an enjoyable end to the week, which seemed difficult at first, but unfolded nicely. I’m late to the party, but was equally mystified by pet service. Now I know what one is, I tend to agree with William@32. Although my historical family background is CofE and Methodist, I took an alternative religious path so I often find myself confused by church terms. That being said, I got it from the crossers, even if I didn’t understand it.
I think CALIGULA was probably my favourite, as others have already mentioned, but ticks for VAGARIES and BARBARISM too.
Thanks Pasquale for the Friday fun, and Eileen for the sterling work (and follow-ups).
[ Bodycheetah@1 , it is blissful ignorance for me regarding test cricket now, it no longer invades Radio 4. ]
Ricardo @63
Yes, ‘My!’ and ‘Gosh!’ are both (long-standing, I think) expressions of surprise. ‘Oh my gosh’ is more recent, in my experience.
Incidentally, it’s worth looking out for ‘my’ in clues: it’s used quite a lot these days to clue ‘cor’, another expression of surprise and another useful set of letters for compilers.
BASSET
Don’t people sometimes hold funeral services for their deceased pets? The officiating Bishop could give a blessing (= asset) to the dearly departed Basset Hound…
Eileen @ 68 I suspect ‘Oh my gosh’ was initially used when folk with tender, or excessively young, ears were present!
I found this on the gentler side for Pasquale: rounding off a fairly gentle week. It was only STAIRWELL that defeated me. I had the same thought as Eileen with regard to Elia (see LAMBDA). Charles Lamb (who had rather a tragic life) does still pop up from time to time, but perhaps his pen name is now viewed as too obscure. I doubt many people read the Essays of Elia these days, or The Tales from Shakespeare: which was written for children. With thanks to both.
I must learn to read through all the comments before posting mine…
Maybe the Australian edition of the Guardian should replace “clothing” with “footwear” for 23 down.
Simon S @70
Indeed – I should perhaps have said that it was a euphemism. 😉
Nuntius @71 – I’m sure you’re right. I don’t want to give a hostage to fortune but I haven’t seen (Beerbohm) Tree for years!)
Eileen @49 thanks! – I think I must have had Chambers 13 – I didn’t know the missing pages was a known problem – I thought I just had a dodgy copy from Amazon
bodycheetah @74 – well, your app seems to have superseded the Big Red Books, anyway. I shall just persevere with my increasingly dilapidated 11th edition!
Thanks Pasquale for another masterful outing. With the exception of COME ALIVE I found this very well-crafted with my favourites being LAMBDA, BASSET, ERASED, BARBARISM, CALIGULA (liked ‘sacked Gaul’), and FRIGHT. I didn’t know OCHE but its parsing was very clear. Thanks Eileen for the blog.
I was puzzled by the puzzlement over 6d STAIRWELL In this puzzle. It and 25a OVEN were my favourites – clever, with great surfaces. Beethoven’s Opus 135 quartet is hot stuff indeed.
Thanks Pasquale for the fun, and Eileen for the always informative and congenial blog.
I’m still not sure I understand STAIRWELL. Doesn’t a spiral staircase have to be specified? Most flights of stairs in the last 400 years or so aren’t spiral!
Eileen, you mentioned three constellations. There’s AURIGA (not too well-known) and LACERTA (even less well known, who knew there were “modern” constellations?) but what is the third?
How do you pronounce OCHE?
Enjoyed the puzzle, thanks Pasquale for it and Eileen for the friendly accompaniment, such a joy to have you popping in.
I’m currently in a hotel in Northamptonshire, in the lobby are a couple of large signs notifying us that they have sweets, hand held fans and other items for sale to support GOSH, the acronym being in large multicoloured letters. When the penny eventually dropped for 16a (about my 4th last in) I felt extremely embarrassed.
muffin @ 78 Many stately homes have staircases which go round three or four sides of a square with a void between the opposing sides.
Valentine @ 79 Hockey without the H.
Muffin@78 my High School had 6 floors , broad stairs going round a stairwell like a square in four directions , an exit at each floor. This made the stairwell itself an empty square that was very tall .
Ah! I think I see it now. Thanks Simon and Roz.
I thought the clue for POTAGE was quite neat, so not a mess on this occasion. Congratulations to Auriga on the name check.
Thank you for the explanations to the clues.
Completely & utterly beaten 2 days in a row.
#humbled
Eileen@49, Robi@57, bodycheetah@74 etc. There are posts in the General Discussion section about the Chambers 13th edition missing words, in particular Twmbarlwm@68 who gave this link to the missing words
https://chambers.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Chambers-Missing-Words-1.pdf
Valentine @79 et al – sorry for the delay (prolonged by the fact that, about to post, I ‘refreshed’ and followed the link on Crossbar’s comment, thus deleting my comment – grrh!)
The third constellation is ARIES (12ac).
I’ve never had any need to say OCHE but I’ve (accidentally) heard it pronounced as rhyming with ‘jockey’.
Eoink @80 – lovely! (I hope you bought something.)
muffin @83 – that’s a relief: STAIRWELL seems to have been my Nemesis today!
Steffen @85 – I’m always glad to hear of your perseverance. Onwards and Upwards!
Crossbar @86 – thanks for the link! (I had actually seen that discussion: as I said, I’d decided to spend no more money on the dead-tree version.)
Straightforward except basset. Asset as a blessing is a stretch.
Not only late, but impudent…. O great Eileen in your opening remarks at the very top of the blog you commend 1ac ESSAYIST. But the answer is LAMBDA. There is probably a technical term for this sort of slip. I am both ashamed and tickled to have spotted it. Even Homer….
Cellomaniac@77 You beat me to it with your Op 135 comment. My favourite (by a small margin) is Op132, first heard 60 years ago.
ronald@29 in case you’re interested:
https://www.gocomics.com/fredbasset
If you’re still there …
Thank you, (dare I say, Smart?) Alec @89
I’m afraid that I nod more often than the great Homer – and, much to my chagrin, I can’t find an example of Muphry’s Law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muphry%27s_law in your comment to respond to – so no touché!
I’m not sure that I recognise your name. If you’re a new commenter, Welcome! – and, if you’re not, I apologise. 😉
I look forward to more exchanges – but I’m going to bed now.
Paul@88. Yes, I thought ‘blessing’ was a bit of a stretch, but it could work if you imagine a school teacher almost at the end of their tether: “Molesworth, you really are an asset/blessing, aren’t you.” *grinds teeth*
Several solvers have mentioned that this was Pasquale at his best, except for [insert clue here]. I haven’t counted all the dubious clues thus cited, but there seem to have been a few.
I found this pretty tough, with only LAMBDA and QUAINT for an embarrassingly long time, which I blamed on an incipient head cold. I’m glad that the clue for LACERTA wasn’t an anagram, as this “small, faint constellation” was news to me, too. Nice to have a fair clue for a tricky word!
After several restarts I was down to the last three before I realised I had got 10a wrong, and it was neither HOLDER nor PLAYER (can’t think why I’d ever thought it might have been), but CARD READER, so I was finally able to write in STAIRWELL. The trouble with cryptic definitions is that it takes me forever to realise that that is what they are, because I always try to ignore the surfaces and concentrate on spotting definitions and word play elements. Ah well.
Thanks to Pasquale and Eileen.
[ Zoot@90, your choice of Beethoven Op. 132 is more than understandable. The slow movement is perhaps the most astonishing piece of music ever written.
My choice, of course, is Op. 59 #3 – the Andante is a favourite of all cellists. ]
Crossbar @86; as I said @57 I have the Revised 13th Edition, which does have all the missing words.
I got – and enjoyed – about 3/4 of this, yesterday morning. I returned and tackled the rest this morning, and I ended up with about four reveals. A mixture of accessible and tough, which is more than fair enough for a Friday. The week generally was on the more accessible side for me, so it’s a bit of a shame not to have been able to complete one that had a few more challenges, but that’s not a complaint.
[ Cellomaniac@94. Op59 No3 is my favourite too and I’m not a cellist]
I, too, was looking for more to STAIRWELL, particularly given the author’s usual care…which is why I’ve popped by. I do see it now, thanks to contributors here – though not sure I’d sing its praises as heartily as may some others….
I have found (it’s probably just.me) that Pasquale’s crosswords have become slightly lighter of touch in recent years. Very enjoyable
Many thanks, both and all
I’m an astrophysicist, and I think LACERTA is a pretty obscure constellation! But the wordplay was clear, so that’s OK.
To answer Valentine’s comment about modern constellations, in the 18th century the astronomical community decided that the whole sky should be divided up into constellations, so that any object could be referred to by the constellation in which it’s located. That meant defining precise boundaries for the pre-existing constellations and inventing some new ones (mostly in the southern hemisphere, I think) to fill in any gaps. I guess they also didn’t want any one constellation to be too big, or something, because they split the constellation Argo Navis into three, whose names, translated into English, are keel, sails, and poop deck. A bunch of the others are scientific instruments (telescope, microscope, octant, …).