Vulcan is back in his fortnightly spot for the Monday crossword this morning – the crossword is found here
I am covering for Eileen this morning, who is away, hopefully having fun.
I don’t ever find Vulcan particularly easy as I don’t always spot double definitions and cryptic clues cold solving; this puzzle is full of double definitions, starting with the first two across clues, which gets met with brainfreeze. Reading through clues in order, it took me to ESURIENT to start entering letters in the grid, and that’s a word you either know or don’t. I know that’s the way my brain works and others find this type of cluing easier. (I didn’t find Rufus easy either).
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | RAGGED |
Teased, wearing tatty clothes (6)
|
| double definition – the first a verb, the second an adjective | ||
| 4 | STUMPS |
End of play is baffling (6)
|
| double definition – the first referring to cricket and the second a verb that describes solvers when confronted by an impossible clue | ||
| 9 | OMIT |
Love university, but fail (4)
|
| charade of O (for love) + MIT (university) The university here is Massachusetts Institute of Technology – one of the setter’s favourite universities because it’s found in Cambridge, Massachusetts. | ||
| 10 | CREEPINESS |
Virginia’s eerie quality? (10)
|
| cryptic definition – referring to the Virginia creeper | ||
| 11 | BONSAI |
A pretentious type rejected one little-grown tree (6)
|
| reversal of A SNOB (A pretentious type) < (rejected) + I (one) – it’s a little-grown tree because bonsai is a technique of growing miniature trees. | ||
| 12 | ESURIENT |
Bubbling tureen is making us very hungry (8)
|
| anagram (bubbling) of (TUREEN IS)* – esurient means very hungry or starving | ||
| 13 | SEGREGATE |
Isolate small wader scratching back at barrier (9)
|
| charade of S (small) + EGRE[t] (wader, scratching back) + GATE (barrier) | ||
| 15 | KNEE |
One submissively bent is taken to offer respect (4)
|
| double definition | ||
| 16 | SOUK |
Very British marketplace (4)
|
| charade of SO (very) + UK (British) – and I know the United Kingdom is not the same as Britain/British, but they get used interchangeably | ||
| 17 | SHOW TRIAL |
Rehearsal for musical that has prearranged result? (4,5)
|
| double definition – sort of, hence the question mark. A SHOW TRIAL has a prearranged result, and a rehearsal for a musical could be a trial of a show, so a SHOW TRIAL, but that’s a more quirky definition. | ||
| 21 | PASHMINA |
Note a mishap, tumbling shawl (8)
|
| anagram (tumbling) of (N A MISHAP)* where N is note.
These shawls were very fashionable in the 1990s and early 2000s, after a previous heydey in the 1800s. They are still for sale, but no longer the height of fashion. According to Wikipedia, the name refers to the particular cashmere fabric as well as the shawls made from it. |
||
| 22 | REDACT |
Edit colourful performance (6)
|
| charade of RED (colourful) + ACT (performance) | ||
| 24 | ATTACHMENT |
Fondness for use of paperclip (10)
|
| double definition – the first referring to the feelings, and the second to the symbols used in emails which refers to the literal use of paperclips. | ||
| 25 | WHET |
Stimulate husband, outwardly feeble (4)
|
| insertion – H (husband) inserted into (outwardly) WET (feeble) | ||
| 26 | NOTARY |
Charitable society has new head, a public official (6)
|
| swap a letter – [R]OTARY (charitable society) with N (new) replacing the first letter (head) | ||
| 27 | IDLEST |
Most useless papers in case (6)
|
| charade of ID (papers) + LEST (in case) | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | RAM HOME |
Emphasise lost sheep is found? (3,4)
|
| somewhat whimsical charade – a lost sheep found could be a RAM (male sheep) which when it has returned HOME is found – with a question mark to show it’s a quirky use of words | ||
| 2 | GATES |
Bill for garden features (5)
|
| double definition – the first referring to Bill Gates of Microsoft fame | ||
| 3 | ETCHING |
Eating out as an artistic activity (7)
|
| double definition – etching plates for printing is a way of eating out grooves for the ink to be held for printing, an artistic activity as there are some well-known artists are known for their etchings (Lucien Freud, Durer, Goya). | ||
| 5 | TAP OUT |
A penny accepted by ticket seller to leave the Tube (3,3)
|
| insertion (accepted by) – A P (a penny) inserted into (accepted by) TOUT (ticket seller).
For those who don’t use the Tube (London Underground) regularly, entry and exit requires tapping in and out on yellow discs using an Oyster (dedicated TfL card) or bank card (or phone). |
||
| 6 | MONSIGNOR |
Some Mormons ignore Catholic dignitary (9)
|
| hidden word (some) of morMONS IGNORe | ||
| 7 | SUSANNE |
Girl from South America banned, leaving the borders (7)
|
| charade of S (southern) US (America) + bANNEd (banned leaving the borders) | ||
| 8 | SEVENTH HEAVEN |
To keep smooth, shave, then change: utter bliss (7,6)
|
| insertion: an anagram (change) of (SHAVE THEN)* around (to keep) EVEN (smooth) | ||
| 14 | ROUGHCAST |
Feeling unwell, throw off outdoor coat (9)
|
| charade of ROUGH (feeling unwell) + CAST (throw off) – ROUGHCAST is a form of external wall protection | ||
| 16 | SPARTAN |
Simple skill in bridge (7)
|
| insertion of ART (skill) in SPAN (bridge) – and SPARTAN comes from the traditions of Sparta | ||
| 18 | WORSTED |
Fabric of lowest quality last to be used (7)
|
| charade of WORST (of lowest quality) + the last letters of bE and useD – WORSTED is a way of making a wool fabric, with the name deriving from a village in Norfolk and nothing to do with the quality of the fabric. | ||
| 19 | ANCIENT |
Very old person’s nice tan misguided (7)
|
| charade (misguided) of (NICE TAN)* | ||
| 20 | ZITHER |
Spot that woman’s musical instrument (6)
|
| charade of ZIT (spot) + HER (woman’s) for this group of instruments | ||
| 23 | DOWSE |
A quantity of drug wife’s swallowed: look for water (5)
|
| insertion of W (wife’s swallowed) into DOSE (a quantity of drug).
Apparently people can either dowse or not, and if you can it’s really odd, because whatever you’re holding to indicate the placement of water moves involuntarily in your hands as you walk over the water. As a teenager, a father of one of my schoolfriends owned a farm, and had had dowsers in to find out where the water pipes ran under his farmyard. So when he next had a group of his daughter’s friends around, he gave us the dowsing rods and got us to walk across the farmyard to see if anything happened. Apparently I was useful, as the dowsing rods moved at exactly the right place. |
Perhaps a few more dips into Vulcan’s bumper book of riddles than usual?
Stumped myself with a typo in TAP OUT that delayed the close of play
Cheers S&V
Fans of the Monty Python Cheese-shop sketch will be familiar with ESURIENT. At the start of the sketch, John Cleese walks into the said establishment and announces that he was feeling ESURIENT and thought to himself that a little fermented curd would do the trick, so had infiltrated that place of purveyance to negotiate the vending of some cheesy comestibles.
Tricky in parts and enjoyable.
New for me: ROUGHCAST = plaster of lime, cement, and gravel, used on outside walls.
I didn’t know what was going on with CREEPINESS despite pencilling it in from the outset and, like Michelle, the last 4 of ROUGHCAST held me up for a while, but otherwise everything was fine.
Good Monday workout. Thanks Vulcan and Shanne.
Thanks Vulcan and Shanne
I thought TAP OUT had a very odd definition, not being familiar with Oyster cards.
Why does OMIT mean “fail”? “Leave out”, surely?
There will be complaints about SOUK!
ETCHING was the only one that I couldn’t parse — pretty specialist knowledge required? All else was tickety boo and enjoyed.
Muffin@5:
The useful Oxford that comes with Mac computers, for “omit”, gives this example:
“He modestly omits to mention that he was a pole-vault champion.”
Hence, I guess, “fail”.
muffin @5 – oh dear, I’ve omitted / failed to send the minutes out, mea culpa? (I have just sent the minutes out for last Thursday’s meeting, which is why this is in mind, but there is a list, of which various items I’ve so far omitted/failed to do.)
Thanks both. Not convinced – your examples have slightly different meanings with omit/fail.
Spent longer in SE corner than the rest of the crossword. Was convinced 27a was an inclusion – nice misdirect.
Favourite was SOUK for it’s smooth economy.
Many thanks, both.
SOUK
The clue is perfectly OK, as British is the adjective from United Kingdom.
(There being no such adjective as UnitedKingdomish).
Like William@10, I spent time trying to force ID as an inclusion in something unidentifiable before the IDLEST light dawned: nice misdirection. TAP OUT is a bit London-centric, and it took a while to find the owner of the “outdoor coat” – a house, not a human. And I should have known that of course STUMPS would be cricket, again.
I still fail to understand why SO is acceptable as a synonym for VERY. They have quite different meanings. SO means ‘to the extent that’ – ‘He was SO in love with her that he could think of nothing else.’ Clearly he was also VERY in love but that is a different statement. SO requires a follow-up, implied if not said, whilst VERY is an absolute, complete it itself. ‘I am SO hungry [that I could eat a horse]’. Again, I am evidently VERY hungry but that is a description without a qualification. Ergo: SO is not the same as VERY.
Every dictionary I have access to has “fail” for “OMIT” on the first or second line. My Chambers is from 1993. to leave out; to fail (to do something), which tallies nicely with Shanne’s example. We’re not in the contentious zone here.
Got there in the end but was thrown by 10ac which I thought should be spookiness (a reference to Langley, in Virginia).
CROSSBENCHER@13
Very true that there’s so much difference between “very” and “so” in the contexts you’ve mentioned.
However, when we say
“I love you so much” or “So nice of you”
so=very. Right?
CB @13 – That was SO / VERY good
That was so good that …. [something else said or implied] versus: That was very good. QED – and, for that matter, OED (Oxford English Dictionary). Chambers is not so much a dictionary as an anthology of solecisms.
CB @18. No. I’ve just had a wonderful meal.
That was SO / VERY good. End of statement.
Managed to sail through this, somewhat to my surprise as I often have the same difficulies as Shanne. TAP OUT gave me pause as it’s very parochial GK though I eventually remembered it though it’s been many years since I last used the Tube.
I seem to be on Vulcan’s wavelength and found this an enjoyable and not too difficult solve – easier than yesterday’s Quiptic in fact. My only (joking) grumble is the association of worsted with ‘lowest quality’, living as I do in a town that was once a major producer! Not in Norfolk though.
Thanks to Vulcan and Shanne.
Many thanks to Vulcan and Shanne.
I have to say I agree with Shanne. It may be cheesy to say it, but ESURIENT was my first clue solved as well. I find this style of crossword quite difficult to get my mind around.
ESURIENT gave me a good deal of trouble. As did much else. Thought this on the tough side for a Monday. Perhaps a touch of Imogen sneaking in? Liked IDLEST for the misdirection.
I agree with Muffin on OMIT, pace the dictionary compilers. “He failed the exam” is fine, “He omitted the exam” is nonsense. Etymonline has “fail to use or do, fail or neglect to mention or speak of, to disregard,” which I think well captures the extent to which fail and omit might appear in the same thesaurus entry. Chambers also supports this with “to fail (to do something)”, not merely to fail at something.
An omission can be a deliberate choice; but failure is not an option.
My crosswording brain seems to be running on three cylinders or fewer recently (I failed to finish, or even really get started with, several of last week’s offerings), so it was pleasing to steadily get to the end of this one.
ESURIENT was top-notch, for its smooth and apposite surface and for the fond memory of the cheese shop sketch.
SPARTAN, my LOI, was neat.
DOWSING… Hmm… A caving friend was very keen on this, for locating the routes of underground streams. To me, the results looked no better than an experienced eye would pick up from the lie of the land. Unless someone can explain a physical mechanism for how it might work, other than vague hand – waving about “magnetism”, I’ll file it under “psuedoscience”. Rant over…
Thanks Vulcan and Shanne.
Thanks
J@24 – finding counter examples doesn’t necessarily invalidate the equivalence. If it did you could prove that a Jack can’t be a playing card: I lifted my car with a Jack / I lifted my car with a playing card
Thanks for the blog , some good clues but I thought it was a bit tough for a Monday .
Derek@25 , you are right about dowsing . Many double-blind tests have been done some with very large prizes , no so-called dowser has ever been able to do better than random chance . Devices to dowse for explosives were a bit of a thing for a while , turned out to be an expensive fraud .
If anyone does believe in dowsing can I interest you in a bridge ?
Fell down on NOTARY, as I didn’t take the time to look past ‘nature’. ESURIENT I remembered from the Monty Python cheese shop sketch!
I am one of those (a minority?) whose brain responds well to double/cryptic definitions so I enjoyed this very much. It’s the jigsaw type clues that do my head in!
Yes, I personally found this as difficult a Vulcan as I have come across before. Took awhile before I accepted CREEPINESS as being promoted by the Virginia Creeper, and wasn’t at all sure about TAP OUT, even though the cluing was a clear indication. RAGGED a strange one, in that the “tattily clothed” meaning seems to have more of a double syllable in pronunciation than does the “teased” meaning. There must be a word that describes this. ROUGHCAST was actually my loi, as I wasn’t sure about its definition. Though I did receive tiny echoes in my ear of the Rough Beast in that famous W B Yeats poem…
…prompted…
Roz @27 – I suspect the sceptical farmer was double-checking the dowser’s claims, and was as surprised as I was when something happened. I have never tried again, because it was not an enjoyable experience having things moving in your hands involuntarily. But I’ve never been in a position when it would be a useful thing to know, so haven’t had a reason to see if lightning struck twice.
Years ago in the countryside outside Lagos in Portugal I met a Belgian ex-pat who had bought a dilapidated property there and wanted to know where best to sink a well. He used a local water diviner. And he was apparently spot on with his ancient technique…
As ever with Vulcan, the cryptic clues did for me. The SW was impenetrable (I would never have solved 27a, my brain just does not compute those sort of clues), the anagram of an NHO, 21a and ROUGHCAST (what’s that?).
The rest was enjoyable, but I though this was harder than normal.
Thanks both.
It’s funny that the last several times ESURIENT has popped up, people say they know it from MP – you might think that by now the knowledge comes from prior cryptics. This either means that we have a continuing healthy influx of new commentators, or that MP is more memorable than a crossword from a year or so ago. Or both.
On the question of SO=VERY, I have noticed that young people here in the States nowadays almost always say “Thank you so much” instead of very.
I enjoyed this. RAM HOME was lovely and raised a smile. Ticks also for SHOW TRIAL and ZITHER.
Re SOUK, Collins has, for British: “Relating to, denoting, or characteristic of Britain or any of the natives, citizens, or inhabitants of the United Kingdom”. And for Britain: “Another name for Great Britain or the United Kingdom”.
Many thanks Vulcan and Shanne.
I’m another one who finds double/cryptic definitions difficult, so this was not straightforward for me. I liked the little-grown BONSAI tree, the IDLEST with an unusual ‘in case’, and the ROUGH CAST outdoor coat.
Thanks Vulcan and Shanne.
Like Shanne and many contributors, I often find DD/CD clues tricky and hence I was another who found this less than straightforward. I agree with muffin and Joseph that OMIT strictly means ‘fail to do or use’, rather then simply ‘fail’, but I wouldn’t go the barricades over it.
Pick of the bunch for me were SOUK, IDLEST and ESURIENT. (I don’t think I’ve seen the famous cheese shop sketch since its original transmission in the 70s, but for me the word brings to mind the line in the Magnificat: Esurientes implevit bonis – ‘He hath filled the hungry with good things’ in the Book of Common Prayer translation – which is familiar to me from the many wonderful Baroque settings of the hymn).
Thanks to Vulcan and Shanne
Interesting the debate over so/very. One thing I’ve learnt over time is that synonyms in Crossword Land aren’t always precise. One example from a puzzle the other day that springs to mind is pretty/twee, the former a compliment and the latter an insult. I seldom bother to mention “approximate” synonyms any more, as I expect I’ll be slapped down by someone from the Chambers fan club.
Yes, I found this one on the tough side too, and as with the late Rufus there was a certain amount of having to read the setter’s mind. At least there weren’t any of the latter’s long words with cryptic definitions and no constructional part to the clue, nor 11th century bishops for answers.
Enjoyed the puzzle.
I’m with Protase@38 on “esurient,” in my case from singing the Bach Magnificat in my college chorus.
Thanks, Vulcan and Shanne, thanks for stepping in.
Absolutely loved SOUK for misleading me for quite a while.
Fine Monday puzzle, though maybe too many DDs. Tricky in spots, but all doable. LOI 15a KNEE, delayed by expecting wordplay (“is taken”?)
Shanne, I took the second definition for 4a STUMPS to be “is baffling” — “The final question always stumps / is baffling”
I was lucky with a few of today’s “obscurities”:
– I’m one who does know 12a ESURIENT, from the Latin Magnificat (like Protase@38 and Valentine@41):
deposuit potentes de sede, et exaltavit humiles;
esurientes implevit bonis
…and, of course, the Cheese Shop sketch!
– 5d TAP OUT, fortunately our local (Ontario) GO transit system has TAP ON – TAP OFF, which is close enough for me to get the solution
– 18d WORSTED, Mrs Mig is a knitter, so I’m familiar with the term
Thanks both!
Found that particularly difficult for a Monday. nho ‘esurient’, ‘roughcast’ or the creeper.
Several others purely the fault of a slow Monday brain.
A bit tougher than usual for Vulcan. Lots of ticks but liked BONSAI, TAP OUT, MONSIGNOR and KNEE most. I thought oho when I saw OHO across the middle.
Ta Vulcan & Shanne.
Somehow I found this easy (somewhat) and quite funny in several places. Me with a pashmina goat (for a fee) in Pahalgam Kashmir last year. That was the warmest animal I’ve ever held:
Tapping out is unusual on American transit systems–the fare is generally the same no matter how far you go, so we just tap on the way in. Boston was once not like this; there’s a famous song about a man named Charlie who is trapped on the T because he can’t afford the exit fare. (I think the DC Metro still charges by distance too.) Anyway, fortunately I have been to London, so the clue presented no problems for me.
AlanC@45 in later than me . No doubt a Top Secret Special Branch mission with playing golf as the cover story . I hope you did not miss FOUR easy putts in a row .
mrpenney @47,
That’s interesting. Are you describing the Chicago metro area? Here in the Philadelphia area, SEPTA has a tap in/tap out system and fares do vary over different zones, much like the London Underground system. Certain stations force riders to tap out to exit.
Quite a nice puzzle, but I omitted on ROUGHCAST and NOTARY – no excuse for the latter.
Thanks, V & S.
[Roz @45: I’m in Belfast, so thankfully missed the circus on Saturday.
mrpenney@47 BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) system, which runs through San Franciscoo and the East Bay, charges by the length of the ride. For a ride entirely within San Francisco the fare is the same as it would be on a city bus or trolley, but rides around the Bay Area cost more if they’re longer. MUNI, the bus/trolley system, which stays in the City, charges the same fare all over.
[ AlanC@50 good reminder , I have a genuine question for you and my Irish students away for summer . We have been watching some plays set in Belfast , the “Billy” trilogy starring a very young Kenneth Branagh . The word MESSAGE crops up – do the messages – etc . Is it just an errand ? or is there more to it ? ]
[Roz @52: it means doing the shopping, my mum used to send me to the local shops to do the ‘messages’. People still say it, according to my cousin 💚]
The idea that OMIT and FAIL are synonymous is strange:
“omit to do something” refers to a voluntary decision not to do something, while “fail to do something” refers to not doing something that you should have done.
[Roz, AlanC this is also a standard expression .in central Scotland, which for historical reasons shares many speech idioms with Northern Ireland. I recall being gently mocked about it by my first English girlfriend when I moved south in the early 1970s.]
Enjoyed this, but why is etching ‘eating out’?
Timb @56
When an artistic etching is prepared, parts of the metal surface of the printing plate that aren’t covered with masking material are dissolved away in acid, or “eaten out”.
TheFrog @54. After stirring up a hornet’s nest a few weeks ago by questioning Brendan”s ERGO = thus, an issue that rumbled on into the evening long after my own participation had ceased, with Brendan becoming quite irritated and defensive, I had vowed not to get involved in any more semantic controversies here. However, … I cannot agree that ‘omit’ implies a deliberate choice. If I were to say that I omitted to lock the back door last night, I would be owning up to an involuntary oversight, not a conscious decision.
Thanks AlanC and Balfour , shopping makes sense but seems strange use of the word , but I am glad these local quirks continue .
Balfour we also need a literary quote for MOCK = disappoint , I am sure it is old usage but can’t track it down .
[Message for errand, or shopping, is something I heard from a girlfriend long ago who came from Wishaw. My interpretation is that the child was sent with a verbal message to the shopkeeper: “Me mam says can she have….” and it was understood that the child was too young to be carrying money around, so an embarrassing request for credit was avoided.]
Going for the messages or doing the messages was common in the N of Scotland. You could also go for a message which I think meant going to buy a single item, which was more common in the past when fridges or freezers were rare and you shopped in the local shop. There were also message boys who rode message bikes and who would deliver your messages.
This to me was another trickier than usual Monday Vulcan, though I see a small number of commenters have found it easy. I quite like this new challenge, and I ticked several clues that I found to be clever or amusing. CREEPINESS was one – easy if you see it straight away, but harder the more you think about it.
Another I liked was IDLEST, because I’d been looking to put the papers inside a word meaning ‘case’, but then I remembered one of my teachers in my first year at secondary school using LEST from time to time – a new word for me, whose meaning I got from context rather than Chambers (which can’t be trusted, apparently).
I almost omitted to thank the many contributors who ‘failed’ to solve 9a. Yes, omit and fail are mostly used very differently, but so slightly as to not make much difference in ordinary usage. I enjoyed STUMPS in anticipation of the complaints from those who know nothing of cricket.
ESURIENT is one of my favourite words, but I had forgotten the cheese shop sketch. PASHMINA is a word that is often used in a blog I read, so it was delightful to recognise it in the fodder at 21a.
I don’t recall ever lavishing this much praise on a Vulcan. More please!
And thanks to Shanne for your memory of dowsing – I assume you have read Arthur Ransome’s description of the experience in Pigeon Post?
Roz @59 I left that thread early, but will this do? Wordsworth’s The Prelude, Book I:
… welcome light
Dawns from the east, but dawns to disappear
And mock me with a sky that ripens not
Into a steady morning …
Sheffield Hatter @62 – yes, I’d read the account of dowsing in Pigeon Post, but the dowsing rods I was told to hold were nothing like the hazel fork that was used in that case. We weren’t told we were dowsing until afterwards: the farmer just said he wanted to try something, and we all, 3 or 4 of us, tried this walk across the farmyard carrying these wires, from different sides and directions. They were long wires, bent to an L shape with the shorter length held loosely in fists, thumb up, one in each hand. We all started with them carried parallel to each other, and mostly they sort of drifted towards each other or away from parallel, but nothing positive. Part way through my walk across the farmyard, they wires just turned inwards and crossed over one another – and I couldn’t stop them – I was trying to hold them parallel. It was really odd. He did get me to go back in a different direction to see if it happened again, which I wasn’t keen on, and after we’d all tried this experimet, he then told us what he was up to. The farmer was fascinated, because he said where the wires had crossed with me was exactly where the pipes were underground.
Thanks, Shanne. That’s really fascinating. So it doesn’t matter too much what the rods are made of, it’s the strain on the hands that holding them in a certain way imposes, and this is affected in some way by the water.
Or something…
Roz @59 again. This one is from Henry IV part 2, Act III scene 1. I don’t know why this did not occur to me immediately, because it comes from a speech by the king to which I gave close attention when teaching the play over many years:
God! that one might read the book of fate,
And see the revolution of the times
Make mountains level, and the continent,
Weary of solid firmness, melt itself
Into the sea; and other times to see
The beachy girdle of the ocean
Too wide for Neptune’s hips; how chances mock,
And changes fill the cup of alteration
With divers liquors!
Thanks for the reminder of the wonderful Monty Python classic. I knew I’d heard the word somewhere! Slightly trickier than usual for Vulcan but fairly quick overall and some nice clues. Incidentally, I once wrote a novel (never published) in 2009 in which pashminas figured quite prominently. I think it would have to have an update if I were ever to try again to have it published.
Wow this one was brutal. Since starting to attempt every Guardian cryptic around 3 or 4 weeks ago, this is the one I found hardest (not that I’ve been able to fully complete many without cheating). Virgina as CREEPINESS seems quite loose to me, as does IDLEST for most useless. I agree somewhat with the problem with OMIT, but not enough for it to really bother me, it makes sense, with only a small stretch. In Australia we also TAP OFF, not out, so parsing that eluded me. Lots of other things I had never heard of.
I think I just don’t gel with more riddley definitions, and with so little standard fare to find, it felt hopeless. Quite frustrating and depressing a start to the week.
Thanks for the blog, very helpful; and thanks for the crossword, always good to be smacked down to earth every now and then.
Perhaps another for Roz @59, from near the end of _Henry IV, Pt. 2_: Henry V says “… sadly I survive, / To mock the expectation of the world, / To frustrate prophecies …”
To Crossbencher @18, noting the use of a conversational expression doesn’t constitute an endorsement for purposes of formal writing, or indeed any kind of recommendation at all. IME when “so” is used in speech to mean ‘very’ it’s delivered with a peculiar stress, as in Dr. WhatsOn @35’s “Thank you so much!” The same kind of emphasis is heard in “That was such fun!”
I thought of CREEPINESS right away, perhaps prompted by its inclusion of the letters in “eerie”, but didn’t fill it in until I had a couple of crossers for support. Still feels a bit iffy, more “word association football” than a definition. Yes, I’m another who first encountered ESURIENT in the cheeseshop.
Overall fairly smooth going today, although I got held up for a while in the SW.
Balfour @66: quite a coincidence: the last message showing when I started writing the above was #63!
Thanks very mch Balfour and Odysseus , we needed this on Friday .
For those interested in dowsing I suggest the book by the world-famous Japanese dowser Ami Gullible .
Thanks Vulcan and Shanne. Very enjoyable. My mission this week is to drop the word ‘esurient’ into everyday conversation.
Yes, a this was a nice bedtime solve, but perhaps Mini Cheddars rather than Cheese Puffs – as expected on a Monday – on my pub snack-related Hardness Scale.
Thanks all.
Good fun. A couple of minor quibbles that I’m not 100% confident of but they did stand out to me as a bit odd:
– a snob is not necessarily a pretentious person and vice versa
– ‘Feeling unwell’ gives the wrong part of speech for ‘rough’
Thanks Vulcan and Shanne
Struggled with this one after a few recent Vulcans where I’d managed ok. Too many obscure cryptic definitions, double definitions and synonyms. I had to reveal a few, but no quibbles with the wordplay in hindsight and checking here, although I don’t think STUMPS for baffling really works for me while stumped/baffled would. Thanks Shanne for the blog, and Vulcan for the teasing puzzle.
thecronester @75 – someone mentioned a long way up that the definition for STUMPS should be “is baffling”, and I’ve underlined in the wrong place – I didn’t disagree with them, just wasn’t so convinced as to go in and edit the blog, as in: The clue stumps/is baffling the solver.
As usual I was hurling this together before doing something else (a meeting) and then came back later to deal with the comments.
Bruce @74 – A SNOB can be a pretentious person, Hyacinth Bucket comes to mind.
And in British English we would say: “He’s rough” meaning “he’s feeling unwell”.
Shanne #76 I think ‘is baffling’ makes the surface work but it still doesn’t work for me in terms of equivalence. Even as a verb it just doesn’t scan right for me although I suppose I might say ‘this puzzle stumps me’ for ‘this puzzle is baffling me’ perhaps. I guess I’m just being too picky? 😄