Fun and tricky stuff – my favourites were 1ac, 17ac, 23ac, 26ac, and 10dn. Thanks Pasquale for the puzzle
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | IPECAC |
Picnic area ruined with exceptional rain falling? It can make you sick (6)
|
| definition: ipecac syrup [wiki] was used to purge poison from the body by inducing vomiting
anagram/”ruined” of (Picnic area)*, minus anagram/”exceptional” of (rain)* |
||
| 5 | NIPPLE |
Flower masking very soft body part (6)
|
| NILE=”Flower” (a river is a flow-er), around PP (pianissimo, “very soft” in music notation) | ||
| 8 | BALDRIC |
Unadorned crusading king? Hard to miss warrior’s belt (7)
|
| definition: a belt worn over the shoulder, and used to carry e.g. a sword
BALD=”Unadorned” + RICHARD (Richard I [wiki], “crusading king”) minus “Hard“ |
||
| 9 | STRIPES |
Bands in balls aboard ship (7)
|
| TRIPE=rubbish, nonsense=”balls”, inside SS (steam ship) | ||
| 11 | CHAPTER AND VERSE |
Cathedral staff opposed accepting dean’s ultimate authority (7,3,5)
|
| CHAPTER=a group in a religious community=”Cathedral staff” + ADVERSE=”opposed”, around ultimate/last letter of dea-N | ||
| 12 | HAIR |
Show‘s furniture item about to be disposed of (4)
|
| definition: Hair, the musical ‘show’ [wiki]
c-HAIR=”furniture item”, with c (circa, “about”) removed |
||
| 13 | SNOWPLOUGH |
See winter traveller, refreshed, glow and push on (10)
|
| anagram/”refreshed” of (glow push on)*
I think “See” means ‘see [definition] in [wordplay]’, rather than being part of the definition itself |
||
| 17 | NANOSECOND |
Frolicking can end soon — there’s very little time (10)
|
| anagram/”Frolicking” of (can end soon)* | ||
| 18 | ORAL |
Exam in which a learner gets nothing right to start with (4)
|
| A L (“a L-earner”), with O=”nothing” + R (right) at the “start” | ||
| 20 | EARTH-SHATTERING |
Very significant hater may emerge thus (5-10)
|
| “thus” refers to EARTH SHATTERING, with ‘shattering’ indicating an anagram of (earth)*, to give “hater” | ||
| 23 | SECONDO |
Musical part that oboe has, but not violin (7)
|
| definition: a part in a duet
the word ‘oboe’ has a ‘SECOND [letter] O’, but the word ‘violin’ only has a single letter o |
||
| 24 | PATRIOT |
Threesome laid into Irishman, defender of country’s honour (7)
|
| TRIO=”Threesome” in PAT=”Irishman” | ||
| 25 | POTASH |
Chemical drugs containing poisonous element (6)
|
| POT and H (cannabis and heroin)=”drugs”, around AS (chemical symbol for arsenic, “poisonous element”) | ||
| 26 | THOUGH |
Hard on the outside, hard on the inside nevertheless (6)
|
| TOUGH=”Hard” on the outside, with H (hard) on the inside | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 2 | PALLADIAN |
Chum (boy) one accompanying a knight in classical style (9)
|
| definition: a term for a style of architecture [wiki]
PAL=”Chum” + LAD=”boy” + I=”one” + A + N (chess notation for “knight”) |
||
| 3 | CURATE |
Collect and organise copper to meet judge and minister (6)
|
| two definitions: CURATE as a verb=”Collect and organise”; CURATE as a noun=”minister” in the clergy
wordplay: CU (chemical symbol for “copper”) + RATE=”judge” |
||
| 4 | CICERONIC |
Like a famous orator (Conservative), sarcastic about church (9)
|
| definition: relating to Cicero [wiki]
C (Conservative) + IRONIC=”sarcastic”, around CE (Church of England) |
||
| 5 | NISAN |
Mounting wickedness before a new month (5)
|
| definition: a month in the Jewish calendar
reversal/”Mounting” of SIN=”wickedness” + A + N (new) |
||
| 6 | PORT VALE |
Football team left with final message (4,4)
|
| PORT=”left” on a ship + VALE=farewell=”final message” | ||
| 7 | LOPER |
See human being half cut, one walking in a certain way (5)
|
| LO (exclamation)=”See” + PER-[son]=”human being half cut” | ||
| 8 | BACKHANDERS |
Supporters outside hotel with financial inducements (11)
|
| definition: bribes
BACKERS=”Supporters”, around H (hotel) + AND=”with” |
||
| 10 | SEE THE LIGHT |
Be very angry, then frivolous — change for the better? (3,3,5)
|
| SEETHE=”Be very angry” + LIGHT=”frivolous” | ||
| 14 | WENT TO POT |
What hopeful snooker player did — lost form, dramatically? (4,2,3)
|
| a snooker player would ‘go to pot’ a snooker ball in hope of scoring points | ||
| 15 | UPRAISING |
Exalting university with acclaim (9)
|
| U (university) + PRAISING=”acclaim” | ||
| 16 | ASTHENIA |
In haste, struggling with a muscular problem (8)
|
| definition: physical weakness or fatigue
anagram/”struggling” of (In haste a)* |
||
| 19 | GENTOO |
Bird‘s eggs sat on by male (6)
|
| definition: a species of penguin [wiki] – and the males do a share of egg incubation
OO=egg shaped letters=”eggs”; under GENT=”male” |
||
| 21 | RECTO |
Minister not right but is on the right side! (5)
|
| definition: a right-hand side page of a book, or the front side of a leaf of paper
RECTO-r=”Minister”, minus r (right) |
||
| 22 | HOOCH |
House companion storing old drink (5)
|
| HO=”House” + CH (Companion of Honour), both around O (old) |
Ah, Port Vale? Never heard of them. No wonder I couldn’t parse PORT VILA.
I’m always expecting to expand my lexicon with Pasquale’s offerings, and I did, with GENTOO, NISAN, ASTHENIA & BALDRIC. In 11a, I thought “opposed” would be “averse”, not “adverse”, and couldn’t expain the “d”.
All in all, quite enjoyable, my favourite being SECONDO, which brought a smile.
Thanks Pasquale & manehi.
A lot of fun, didn’t find this too tricky, fortunately.
Liked PORT VALE and CURATE especially.
Thanks P&M
All GDU’s new words are new to me as well, as were IPECAC and SECONDO, though I have probably come across secondo before, but my musical vocabulary is very limited. I am much better at cricket. Nonetheless, 1a was my first one in as IU had worked out the parsing and used an anagram finder. I’m not proud.
Thanks both for an entertaining puzzle and blog
STRIOES made me laugh
STRIPES!
Thanks Pasquale. I enjoyed this quite a bit even though I didn’t fully parse BALDRIC, CHAPTER AND VERSE, and PORT VALE. I only guessed PORT VALE, not knowing the team or VALE as a final message. There was a lot to like including IPECAC, EARTH-SHATTERING, SECONDO, POTASH, THOUGH, and ORAL, the latter two for their great surfaces. Thanks manehi for parsing.
Have heard of Port Vale, but only because they are one of two football teams in England with no locator in their name…the other being Arsenal
Liked 23, couldn’t parse 13
Thank you to P & M
Quite tricky. I remember VALE from Latin lessons although I’d never heard of the team. NISAN and IPECAC both new to me. SECONDO made me groan.
Thanks to Pasquale and manehi.
Re 23, I spent some time mentally trying to take an oboe apart, since I was sure I couldn’t take a violin apart. (In French, it’s violon, so this is a very English clue.)
Thanks PeterO. I needed several explanations, including SECONDO; I wish I had spotted that for myself, such a good clue.
The only two words new to me were NISAN and CICERONIC, but both achievable from the cluing. IPECAC I guessed from ipecacacuanha, and ASTHENIA was lurking in the inner recesses.
Last one in was GENTOO, another fine clue – thanks Pasquale for the Xword.
Knew of neurasthenia as an old psych term, but not minus the first bit. Gentoo and Nisan new for me too (equally patchy on Jewish and Christian calendars!), but did know baldric. Pretty gentle anyway, ta to the Don and manehi.
So, TPS @7, does the Port of Port Vale refer to anything …?
I found this one of Pasquale’s more accessible puzzles – with the big proviso that you had to be familiar with the vocabulary. Which I was, fortunately, although several words were in very dusty corners of the mental attic.
Favourites were SECONDO and IPECAC (fun word, though nauseating). CURATE is an unusual clue, with a definition at each end. Ciceronian is more usual than CICERONIC, I think.
Thanks to S&B
IPECAC was the first one in with memories of the dispensary in my Dad’s chemist shop when not everything came in a box and medicines, ointments and sometimes pills had to be manufactured to order.
I found this surprisingly accessible for a Pasquale. SECONDO raised a smile as did EARTH SHATTERING
Port Vale are the only English league team not named after a settlement. The name is a reference to the valley of ports on the Trent and Mersey Canal, according to wiki. I believe Arsenal got the name from Woolwich Arsenal.
Nice puzzle.
Thanks Pasquale and Manehi
Grantinfreo @12: Port Vale are based in Burslem, one of the old Five Towns in the Potteries of Stoke on Trent. Their name is said to derive from Burslem’s location in a valley containing several ports on the Trent and Mersey canal.
….Thanks folks above, Port not entirely non-locational then, but certainly non-specific …
Thanks both.
Crispy@15 – Arsenal might be another (so I have been told).
Also I have been informed numerous times that irony and sarcasm are not overly synonymous – you can have sarcasm with ironic content and irony is often not sarcastic etc.
[SimpleS @18. Given that my source is wiki, you’re probably right!]
When my first solution was IPECAC, I thought this was going to be a slog. It wasn’t but others seem to have had far better access to the dusty corners of their vocabularian memory than I. ASTHENIA, along with IPECAC, were the only two complete novelties but I struggled with four or five others – and completely missed the oboe/violin trick. As a Midlander, I am somewhat more aware of Port Vale, anyway, but it was also the venue for the one and only time I saw Motörhead (and Ozzy Osbourne) live. The venue was chosen because the band’s frontman, Lemmy, hailed from Burslem. Out of consideration for others, I won’t post a link!
Thanks Pasquale and manehi
Another bout of insomnia and so I turned to the crossword around 4 am. I was pleased to see Pasquale’s name. Fortunaetly I managed to finish it without too much agonising, which helped my return to the land of nod. Two or three words I had not heard of before but was able to guess without too much difficulty. I had to come here to understand SECONDO, and then kick myself. I especially liked CICERONIC. With thanks to Pasquale and manehi.
PostMark @20….. “Out of consideration for others, I won’t post a link!” LOL
OO = eggs is surely one of those crossword cliches that is past its sell-by date. I can’t think of a font where O actually looks like an egg
I’m not a big fan of Pasquale’s obscurities, loose definitions and wordplay but I did like EARTH SHATTERING, BACKHANDERS, and CHAPTER AND VERSE
Cheers P&M
O looks like a fishes’ egg to me.
Not as difficult as expected given the setter even though there were a few unusual words. I thought ASTHENIA for ‘muscular problem’ was a bit iffy; it means general weakness, tiredness and debility, which yes, is associated with muscular weakness, but it does not imply a specific ‘muscular problem’, even if “it’s in Chambers”.
Like Gervais @13, I did like the novel structure of CURATE, with a def at each end and wordplay in the middle. Favourite was our penguin friend the GENTOO.
Thanks to Pasquale and manehi
The only item here that was truly new to me was GENTOO, which looked odd, but the wordplay and the crossing letters meant it could hardly be anything else. Anyway, today I demonstrate that obscurity is in the eye of the beholder.
NISAN I know because among my Jewish friends is one who writes a blog about oddities of the calendar. I doubt I could name all 12 months, but thanks to him, I do recognize them when they pop up.
Good point Timc@24. I’ll downgrade my objection to a simple dislike 🙂
Favourites: EARTH-SHATTERING, GENTOO, BALDRIC, SEE THE LIGHT, HAIR (loi).
New for me: ASTHENIA; PORT VAL F.C. (thanks, google); BALLS = rubbish (for 9ac); NISAN.
I could not parse 23ac (a very good clue!) or 25ac apart from POT = drug.
Thanks, both.
Bodycheetah – if your eggs don’t look like Os when you look straight down at them in the box you should maybe worry about the hens.
Thanks to Pasquale and manehi
I liked SECONDO and POTASH and, for once, saw the reverse anagram device. The dd plus wordplay in CURATE was interesting. Gent for male didn’t emerge from the recesses of my mind. Cuckoo, instead, would have been a too dismal view of the male experience.
Thanks manehi as I wondered about that “See” in 13a – given that 7d starts the same way (though for a different reason) and it is there is 10d soln I thought it could have been done away with. My jorum runneth over today though needed to cheat in the dictionary with IPECAC, initially thinking EPACIC a more likely medical term. Thanks Pasquale, I loved the GENTOO too.
[PostMark@20 you beat me to it with the Lemmy/Vale link and kudos for having been there, I heard on the radio that he paid for the locals to be bussed up to Blackpool for the day so they wouldn’t complain about the noise!
various – I maintain that Crystal Palace isn’t really a geographical locator either although it has probably become one, I reckon Arsenal has too to some extent.]
Thanks to Pasqual for being reminded of ipecacuanha cough syrup, which as children we knew as hecky pecky wine – not that it made it more palatable.
Thanks too to manehi
A puzzle of contrasts for me today. Flew through the right hand half, though needed all the crossers to confirm NISAN and GENTOO, neither of which I’d stumbled over before. Then struggled with the PORT side, and had to look up IPECAC too as last one in. It’s Pasquale, one has learnt to expect these obscurities after all…
…and I don’t suppose the Valiants supporters have ever seen their team clued thus…
Thanks Pasquale and Manehi. A few very obscure words, but fair wordplay to assist. I would say that Nisan needs an indicator for a foreign word though. I think I remember ipecac in crosswords before though I didn’t remember it in time to help with the clue.
Regarding the football geographical locators, I thought I would point out that Sheffield Wednesday is, or was, a geotemporal locator.
An interesting and entertaining puzzle from Pasquale, in which the only completely unknown word for me was the strange-sounding IPECAC – the only word produced by the word search and I really liked the device when I worked it out.
Other favourites were the anagrams for SNOWPLOUGH and NANOSECOND and I was impressed by the reference to the dean in CHAPTER AND VERSE, as ‘Dean and chapter’ is the formal title of the governing body of a cathedral, consisting of the dean and a varying number of canons or prebendaries.
I really liked the clue for CICERONIC but have never heard the word itself, which I was surprised to find in Chambers (only) as an alternative for Ciceronian.
Many thanks to Pasquale for a fun crossword and to manehi for the blog.
DuncT @29…. You should worry more about Wombats, which produce cube shaped poo
Like others I liked the double definition in CURATE and for once saw the reverse anagram in EARTH-SHATTERING.
Also liked: BALDRIC, STRIPES, POTASH, THOUGH, WENT TO POT
Not heard of several: IPECAC, ASTHENIA, GENTOO, NISAN
Thanks Pasquale and manehi
Thought the BALDRIC clue was cunning!
Old enough for IPECAC to be familiar. Nice to learn about NISAN. 23A made me chuckle in this café.
Crispy@49 😀
A record for us – a Pasquale finished over coffee! So must have been among his easier offerings, but no complaints about that!
The unusual ‘see’ in the clue for SNOWPLOUGH is necessary for the surface grammar. Without it, the clue would have to read ‘Winter traveller, refreshed, glowS and pushES on’ – which would invalidate the anagram fodder.
NISAN is the only month of the Hebrew calendar that is really familiar to me; it’s the one in which Pesach (Passover) falls. I’m sure the Jewish population of the anglophone nations would object to the idea that this should be flagged as foreign.
Thanks for the blog, I just about knew all the slight obscurities , especially PORT VALE , more commonly known as the Soap Dodgers. POTASH and THOUGH were very neat .
Grizzlebeard@ 16 there are SIX towns in the Potteries .
The Phantom Stranger@7, if you came from Burslem you would probably want to keep it quiet.
Somewhat surprised, Eileen, about you not knowing ipecac. Then again, wondering how I in did know, I’m having a disturbing memory trace about slavery in America…. no idea why, just throwing it out there …
Bodycheetah@23: It’s not just that OO is thought by some to look like eggs, but people with an education that includes classical Greek, archaeology, plant biology, gynaecological surgery, or geology know that OO is a literal translation of the Greek for eggs, found in OOLITE (literally, egg stone), a form of limestone from which some Egyptian pyramids were built, OOPHORE, ferns and mosses bearing sexual fruit, and oophorectomy, removal of ovaries and fallopian tubes. When I see “eggs” in a clue my first thought is “OVA”, my second “OO”.
For what itsworth, none of this was GK acquired for crosswords. As a child I collected fossils and minerals, and developed a fascination for wild plants that never left me, spent 30 years in hospital sttistics and public health, and I’m trying to learn Greek online to keep my brain alive in retirement.
Grizzlebeard @16: Roz is quite right that Stoke-on-Trent consists of the SIX towns of the Potteries. The probable source of the confusion is that the writer Arnold Bennett (from Hanley) set many of his novels in a fictionalised version of the Potteries, which he called the Five Towns.
IPECAC, NISAN and SECONDO were entirely new to me, although I managed to fill them in before verifying them in the dictionary. I’m not sure that the months of the Jewish calendar are reasonable GK, but I may be in the minority. Once explained, the parsing of SECONDO is lovely.
CICERONIC I arrived at by deduction from Cicero, similarly ASTHENIA with the help of crossers.
Thanks to Pasquale for a tricky but enjoyable solve and thanks to manehi for the helpful blog.
Lots of favourites, IPECAC triggered memories from many years ago. [As a former senior nurse working in casualty I administered this obnoxious substance on many occasions to patients who unfortunately had ingested substances not conducive to their wellbeing.]
Liked this immensely. Having put 5a in first and then 8a thought the crossword was by Paul!
Thanks, Pasquale and manehi.
[Goujeers @46: I grew up in Indiana; there’s a town down in the state’s limestone-quarrying district with the name OOLITIC, which is only odd if you don’t know your limestone! Okay, it’s an odd name for a town even then.]
The usual smattering of obscurities from this compiler, making for a somewhat tricky solve.
I started by guessing that the “on board” of 9a was going to give an S at each end, and that gave me a valuable start though identifying what was in the middle of 9a didn’t happen until much later! I found IPECAC correctly but failed to parse it, and took a while to see what HAIR had been subtracted from. I enjoyed the oboe/violin trick, THOUGH, CHAPTER AND VERSE and the two definitions in CURATE.
Eggs come in a variety of shapes and are not necessarily round or even neatly oval – the eggs of cliff-nesting birds are strongly tapered from big to little end to stop them from rolling off! As bodycheetah says, the supposed resemblance to a capital O or a zero is purely a convention – but since it’s one we all recognise – why not?
Also–we have the tennis on here, so I’m reminded that the supposed derivation for “love” = 0 in tennis is a corruption of oeuf (egg). And at least here in America, “goose egg” is a common expression for 0. So the egg thing is very well ingrained.
The world of crosswords has long ignored that 0 and O are not the same, but that’s a different pointless argument.
NISAN was FOI and GENTOO LOI, both new to me, so can’t complain about having my lexicon stretched! Great puzzle, liked CICERONIC in particular.
[Tim C @24
“O looks like a fishes’ egg to me.”
Mr SR wondered if fish eggs could be clued by the 17th letter of the Greek alphabet.
I’m just off to fetch his coat…]
SR@57 I was struggling to think of a ROE pun and hoping someone would Wade in
The OO makes a lot more sense now
Mostly straightforward apart from the obscurities, two of which, SECONDO and GENTOO, I was forced to reveal. BALDRIC was my favourite and cunning indeed Crispy @39 🙂
Ta Pasquale & manehi.
Roz@44, Goujeers@46 I stand corrected. I was indeed thinking of Arnold Bennet when I referred to the Five Towns. (According to the Arnold Bennet Society, the great man omitted Fenton from his list for some reason.)
Turning to the question of football clubs whose names lack geo-locators; Arsenal and Port Vale are the most senior English examples but there are lots more in the lower leagues; some (eg Corinthian Casuals) with illustrious histories. And of course Scotland boasts Celtic, Rangers, Queen of the South and Spartans.
@46 An interesting link to the OO, although the Ancient Greek for egg is actually ?ion (the ‘i’ disappearing as iota subscript), plural ?ia, adapted into technical terms like oology in the same way as z?on and zoology. It’s cognate with Latin ovum, pl. ova – another crossword word, as mentioned. I’m off to look up the etymology now, in a fit of ova-enthusiasm.
[the ?s in my post are long o’s (omega)]
Grizzlebeard@60 it is a common mistake , he did write “Anna of the Five Towns ” and you are right that he omitted Fenton for some reason . He did alter the names of the others , some of them only slightly.
The five minor towns are Fenton, Hanley, Stoke, Burslem and Tunstall. The important town is Longton
[AlanC @59 back in the blogs, I was beginning to suspect that the site failure was Special Branch sabotage to prevent me from winning the Number 1 competition this year.
Is there an actual Kings Park, and does it have park Rangers ? ]
had to give up up on 19d – did look up bertoo – but no such bird?
At first look thought 1a was likely to be “emetic” but the crossers soon put paid to that idea. For 19d had cuckoo at first as “cuck” is a sneery term for a certain kind of man in American slang: the kind of man who might take on a stereotypically female role such as egg sitting.
Grizzlebeard@60 There many more Scots teams without geolocators, including Hibernian, St. Mirren, St. Johnstone and Raith Rovers.
It’s a Pasquale so some obscurities expected, but invariably fairly clued. I liked EARTH-SHATTERING, SECONDO, CURATE and GENTOO. I found the clueing of the PER in LOPER a little iffy but the answer was obvious from the crossers. Thanks to Pasquale for yet another super puzzle.
I don’t usually chip into the daily conversation but had to say “Hello” to TimC@14. My father too was a pharmacist with all the Edwardian kit, scales (with scraps of metal to weigh scruples) and a poison cupboard which would have delighted Agatha Christie.
Thanks to the Don for a great vocabulary and plenty of neat clues, also to manehi for the heavy lifting.
Six NHOs today, but only one (1a IPECAC) that I couldn’t get from wordplay and google, so five jorums – a few too many for my taste, but still a satisfying solve. Thanks Pasquale and manehi for the fun and parsing help.
Wow. I found this impenetrable.
I solved ORAL, and that was it.
Is a “river” a type of flower native to anywhere in particular in the world?
Guessed a few IPECAC and ASTHENIA and couldn’t parse a few especially the mysterious “see” in SNOWPLOUGH with which others seem happy.
Thanks both
Steffen @72 a river flows
Many thanks to Pasquale for a great puzzle. Plenty of new words (BALDRIC, GENTOO, ASTHENIA, NISAN, SECONDO). IPECAC was familiar for some reason. Some thinking revealed a dim memory: it is the name of a metal record label set up by ex-Faith No More singer Mike Patton. Evidence of a misspent youth there!
Hardest cryptic of the last 2 weeks!! But I got there in the end. Thanks to manehi for explaining a good half dozen. Thanks Pasquale for a real challenge.
74. Thank you.
I only knew IPECAC from Dorothy L Sayers’ book Clouds of Witness, in which Lord Peter Wimsey’s sister doses herself with it to avoid testifying… I don’t know if it was published by Penguin, but GENTOO was another word I’d never heard of and was astonished to twig from the wordplay despite being on holiday and miles away from my usual reference material.
I got all but one in about 24 mins but put APECIC instead of IPECAC. Aargh! Glad to see this blog is back up though!
[Jacob @48, despite having (had) a Jewish mother, only Pesach, Yom Kippur and Hanukkah spring to mind, and they are probably legit general GK anyway …]
[They, of course, aren’t the names of months, but you get my drift about GK …]
Ipecac appeared in Cryptic No. 27,484 by Nutmeg clued as “Crushed ice pack not quite what the doctor ordered?”
[Shropshire lass@49. I remember giving ipecac as a paediatric SHO in the 70s to kids who had ingested their parents pills. Not sure if it did any good but they didn’t come back to A&E after that!]
With regards to football teams without geo-locators in the English league, I believe Forest Green Rovers (a relatively recent addition to the top four leagues) are another.
Isn’t language interesting? I got NISAN because it is April in Turkish, thought it was quite obscure to be using Turkish words, came here to find that is is in the Jewish calendar!
Goujeers@46 [I’m often startled by the stray bits of GK that come floating up from the depths of my memory banks! Often they can be traced to random books I have read or, more surprisingly, to school in the ‘60’s. ]
Got ’em all except HAIR, but plenty unparsed and a good few new to me. A cracking crossword though.