A satisfying puzzle, with some easier clues to get things moving, but some stings in the tail with the less-familiar words that are a trademark of this setter. Thanks to Pasquale.
| Across | ||||||||
| 1,2 | GALLANT | Gentlemanly monster, one giving way to everyone (7) GIANT (monster) with I replaced by ALL |
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| 5 | FONDLE | Caress female individual endlessly led astray (6) F + ON[e] + LED* |
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| 9 | OSCULATE | Old form of salute conveying cold kiss (8) C in O[ld] + SALUTE* |
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| 10 | WEASEL | Gaining inner peace, wife left scoundrel (6) EASE in W L |
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| 12 | PREDECEASING | Going before GP, I need care sorted out – pills finally swallowed (12) [pill]S in (GP I NEED CARE)*, with going=dying |
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| 15 | HALBERDIER | The female’s embracing prince, having wasted time with princess and old guard? (10) (Prince) ALBERT less T + DI (princess) in HER (the female’s) |
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| 17 | ASS | Fool that American sits on (3) Double definition |
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| 19 | RUT | The fact of the matter sides denied? A familiar pattern (3) TRUTH less its outer letters or sides |
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| 20 | BOTTICELLI | Artist annoying Violet Elizabeth? One with eyes missing nothing (10) BOTT (the annoying Violet Elizabeth in the Just William books) + I + OCELLI (simple eyes) less O |
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| 22 | ICE CREAM SODA | Troubled medico cares about a fattening drink? (3-5,4) A in (MEDICO CARES)* |
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| 26 | GRIMES | Dreadful French art showing fisherman singing? (6) GRIM (dreadful) + ES (from French tu es = thou art). Peter Grimes is the titular fisherman in the opera by Benjamin Britten, adapted from a poem by George Crabbe |
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| 27 | FREE FALL | Brawl with soldiers coming out in uncontrolled movement (4,4) FREE FOR ALL less OR (other ranks, soldiers) |
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| 28 | RIGGER | Type of building worker, shark with little hesitation (6) RIGG (dogfish, which is a kind of shark) + ER (expression of hesitation) |
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| 29 | LITURGY | Religious rite – it is used during illness (7) IT in LURGY |
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| Down | ||||||||
| 1 | GOOD LUCK | Composer full of love, repeatedly kind, ultimately gives encouraging words (4,4) O O (love, repeatedly) + [kin]D in GLUCK (composer) |
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| 3 | ALLERGEN | Generally inadequate, ill? Avoid this harmful substance (8) Anagram of GENERALL[y] |
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| 4 | TOTED | Carried child on to bed – beginning to drift off (5) TOT + [b]ED |
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| 6 | OMEGAS | Greek characters in ‘ouse maybe chatter (6) ’OME + GAS (chatter) |
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| 7 | DESPICABLE | Vile celebs paid off (10) (CELEBS PAID)* |
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| 8 | EULOGISTIC | Praising group of countries concerned with activity of shifting goods? (10) EU (group of countries) + LOGISTIC |
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| 11 | YCLEPT | Leader avoiding bike training called ‘old-fashioned’ (6) [c]YCLE + PT (training). An archaic word meaning called, named |
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| 13 | WHARFINGER | Husband in conflict, having got caress from someone at quayside (10) H in WAR + FINGER – today’s second “caress”. An unfamiliar word for me, meaning the owner or keeper of a wharf |
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| 14 | FLATTERING | Sugary treat organised during affair (10) TREAT* in FLING |
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| 16 | DEODAR | Party set up in delightful wood (6) Reverse of DO (party) in DEAR (delightful). The Deodar is a type of cedar, native to the Himalayas |
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| 18 | ACID TEST | Had to bring in detectives on street to make critical examination (4,4) CID (detectives) in ATE (had) + ST |
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| 21 | FREEZE | Non-pay area not operating? Stop suddenly (6) FREE (non-pay) + ZONE less ON (operating) |
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| 23 | SOREL | Deer in pain pursued by leader of louts (5) SORE (in pain) + L[outs] – a variant spelling or sorrel, meaning a reddish-brown colour, and hence the red deer) |
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| 24,25 | FAIR PLAY | Rather keeping quiet about a principle cheat violates (4,4) P (quiet) and A (separately) in FAIRLY |
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New words for me today were WHARFINGER, SOREL, lurgy = illness (for 29ac); the character of fisherman Peter Grimes in Benjamin Britten’s opera (26ac); OSCULATE = kiss; YCLEPT (loi).
I could not parse 20ac (not familiar with Just William books or OCELLI) and the RIGG part of 28ac.
Favourite: FLATTERING.
Thanks Pasquale and Andrew
Several words I didn’t know, and a DNF – I revealed YCLEPT. Disappointing, as I had a flying start with GALLANT and GOOD LUCK!
michelle
The “dreaded lurgy” featured in a Goons show.
French art, eh – must remember that one. 24,25 to Andrew for parsing some of these!
Really enjoyed this late night solve and also learnt a few new words. I was pleased to solve HALBERDIER and YCLEPT from the wordplay rather than reveal. I thought the surfaces in PREDECEASING and FREE FALL were quite brilliant.
Ta Pasquale & Andrew.
Three interlinked unknown-to-me words (WHARFINGER HALBERDIER DEODAR) made this a hard puzzle to finish but satisfying as always from Pasquale, one of my favourite setters. Thanks to him and Andrew.
I found this rather joyless I’m afraid, but then I sometimes do with this setter in obscurity mode. A matter of taste, I think.
I revealed a couple of the nhos (and hos for that matter) to keep moving, but I was pleased to tease others out.
LITURGY and PREDECEASING were both very nice; and chapeau for “French art” which was sublime, albeit a bit incongruous in this puzzle. I’d have expected it of Enigmatist! A lovely PDM, even if it left me puzzled about whether the Canadian songstress is a closet angler.
Tx both
Chewy but satisfying, with the TILTs mostly jorums (e.g. WHARFINGER).
Thanks to Pasquale and Andrew
I suspect most solvers would have thought they had good chances at this with the north west corner giving a good head start, but quickly stymied by a few words they perhaps had never heard of.
However, the clueing was straight forward enough to allow for some educated guesses, although for me YCLEPT remained completely elusive and I had to resort to using help.
The definition for GRIMES was perhaps a little too esoteric for my liking, but nevertheless, I still got it.
ACID TEST makes a repeat appearance with a very similar clue (I think it was only the day before yesterday we had ACID TESTS?)
Having suffered through Chaucer at college I was delighted to see YCLEPT and finally get some return on investment 🙂
Additional top ticks for ALLERGEN, FREEZE and the lovely double envelope in FAIR PLAY
Cheers P&A
I liked it.
Thank you.
Apparently, SOREL is a term for a three-year-old male deer.
Edit – Crossed with PaulD @11 but left in!
Well I didn’t use any checks or reveals! Although three were entered from the wordplay then google for confirmation. SOREL, I am informed, is a fallow buck in its third year which may be a slightly better interpretation. Similarly I could only find the RIG shark spelt with one G. HALBERDIER had me struggling to shoehorn in HAL for the prince until the penny dropped.
Thanks for the workout Pasquale and Andrew for the blog
bodycheetah @9 – for me it was (A Level) Milton’s ‘L’Allegro’: ‘in heaven YCLEPT Euphrosyne’.
I think I first came across ‘French art’ in an Araucaria puzzle – it always jumps out at me and makes me smile. More smiles with the going before GP and the dreaded lurgy.
Perhaps one or two more unfamiliar words than usual today but all worth the effort because we can rely on Pasquale’s FAIR PLAY. I enjoyed the reminders of ‘Dido and Aeneas’, with the sublime Kathleen Ferrier at 1/2 and, as a ‘Just William’ fan, Ms Bott at 20ac – a delightfully incongruous combination.
WHARFINGER – a strange-sounding word – was totally new but gettable (rather a lot of caressing today!). And two days was surely too short a gap for the repetition of ACID TEST, pointed out by Imaginary Cerebellum @8.
Altogether, a very satisfying and enjoyable puzzle – thanks to Pasquale and Andrew.
Had to resort to the dictionary a few times as there were a few where I parsed the answer but NHO of the actual word, such as 11d, 13d & 16d. Thanks to Andrew for the blog.
I thought this was going to be a breeze as the top half was mostly straightforward but Pasquale gave me plenty to chew as I worked my way down. Lots of novelty fairly clued, though perhaps Grimes was pushing the boat out a bit. My first ever opera and still a favourite – as a friend commented, you always know you’ve come to the right opera with Peter Grimes. (For those unfamiliar with it, the opening lines are “Peter Grimes”, repeated several times.)
It was good to see a prince other than Hal, especially when Hal was hiding in there and I thought the subtractions of “freeze” and “free fall” especially clever spots. There is at least one deodar tree in the pinetum in the park near me, so the word was familiar, even if I could not remember exactly what it was. “Botticelli” definitely today’s laugh out loud moment though.
Many thanks Andrew and Pasquale.
LITURGY made me smile, though slightly surprised that Chambers does have ‘lurgy’, crediting the Goon Show of course.
What Chambers doesn’t have is RIGG, neither in the dictionary nor in the long list of sharks in the Thesaurus so I was reduced to revealing it.
Today’s new words: the RIGG shark, OCELLI=eyes, the SOREL deer. Didn’t think of Albert for the prince, either. I liked the gentlemanly monster, the neat anagram for DESPICABLE, and the topical surface for PREDECEASING.
Thanks as usual for the vocabulary lesson, Pasquale, and Andrew for the blog.
The irritating Violet Elizabeth Bott hath a lithp, and is sometimes used in wordplay to indicate an s-to-th substitution: it took a while to realise that that wasn’t what was happening in BOTTICELLI.
Eileen@13 – did you mean ‘Orfeo ed Euridice’ with respect to Kathleen Ferrier?
(The solution to 1&2d also gives the meaning of the German word Glück, although the composer’s family name is probably Czech in origin.)
Yes Eileen, i too wondered how 1/2 related to D&A .. (but it’s 6 decades+ since we put it on at school, so until wynsum @19 I just shrugged …) Agree about Ferrier tho ..
From the sublime (Chaucer and Milton) to the ridiculous, I first came across yclept in E.E. (Doc.) Smith’s Lensman books, an early space opera series which now definitely shows its age, but is great fun. (I can’t remember the context, but the alien Worsel is at one point introduced by “yclept Worsel”.)
wynsum @19 – and ginf @20 – oh dear, yes, of course I did! Getting my myths and my composers mixed up (there’s a challenge for Violet Elizabeth!) And, of course, I was referring to ‘Che farò senza Euridice?’ – which we used to have played to us often in school music lessons. My apologies to all.
Poc@16 i’m not sure which copy of Chambers you’re using, but the iOS app has RIGG: the dogfish (a type of shark)
[I think Kathleen Ferrier is terribly overrated. Yes, she had a wonderful instrument, but she was curiously unmusical. If I never hear her sing “Blow the winds southerly” again it would be too soon. Here is Andreas Scholl demonstrating how it should be phrased.]
20a. Please explain how I + OCELLI means simple eyes
Started off good, with a few easy ones in, but then stalled. Quite a few unknown words to me, most of them already mentioned in this blog. I had never heard of Violet Elizabeth Bott, but seems I should remember her for her lisp. I needed Andrew to explain a few parsings to me (Grimes, free fall). Thanks, Pasquale and Andrew
Violet Elizabeth takes me back to happy times reading the Just William books. Richmal Crompton took no prisoners with her wide vocabulary and introduced me to a number of new words.
Oh, and I completed this puzzle too, although I had to get pencil and paper out for DEODAR and YCLEPT.
Ed@25 – the I comes from “one” in the clue. Ocelli are defined as simple eyes (e.g. in insects), so “eyes missing nothing” gives CELLI
The Y prefix in words such as YCLEPT is interesting. In Middle English it is a legacy of the ‘ge’ prefix in Anglo Saxon indicating a past participle, as the inscription round the edge o/f the famous Alfred Jewel in the Ashmolean in Oxford ”AELFRED MEC HEHT GEWYRCAN’ – Alfred ordered me to be made. It is still found in other Germanic languages such as German itself and Dutch. It is a conscious archaism in the late Tudor period and as such is used freely by Spenser in The Faerie Queene. I don’t recall him using YCLEPT, but he is very ford of ‘yclad’.
I finished, but I’m not sure that “satisfying” is the word that came to my mind. NHO HALBERDIER, OCELLI, RIGG (like others, I can find only RIG), YCLEPT, WHARFINGER, DEODORA, nor SOREL (although I feel like that’s come up before in these parts). YCLEPT in particular seems like an unnecessary obfuscation since ACCEPT or ACCENT would have fit the grid perfectly well.
I figured that “French art” must be ES, but it feels like a stretch since there is nothing archaic about “tu es”, in contrast to “thou art”.
That’s rather too much resorting to internet search or dictionary checks for my taste, and I like to think of myself as having a decent vocabulary.
Conversely, the other clues were enjoyable.
I used wordsearches quite a few times to finish this. My picks were FONDLE, PREDECEASING, FREEFALL, ALLERGEN, and ACID TEST.
Thanks Pasquale and Andrew.
A voyage into the unknown today and unlike others, despite making a good start, the seemingly easier North West was where I finished. The only one not fully parsed was GRIMES.
I never reveal, but did the next worst thing a couple of times where I correctly assumed the words would be new to me – despite being spectacularly old in places.
Good work Andrew and thanks for not calling this easy for once.
[Yes I just listened to both and get what you mean, muffin @24. A style thing I think, like the old, declamatory “O swaar not by the moooon ..” versus more recently the realist, impatient-sounding (conveying No, idiot, don’t swear by something inconstant)]
Thanks Pasquale for the challenge. This was a mixed bag for me and I eventually revealed HALBERDIER, GRIMES, and YCLEPT. I guessed but had no chance of parsing BOTTICELLI. I liked WEASEL, TOTED, and DESPICABLE in particular. I was a bit surprised to see ‘from’ as the link word in WHARFINGER; generally the definition comes from the wordplay; the way the clue reads it looks like the wordplay’s coming from the definition. Thanks Andrew for a much needed blog.
Took me ages to accept Finger as meaning Caress, and therefore the nho WHARFINGER was one of my last ones in. And this didn’t complete the grid for me today as the several unusual (for me) trademark Pasquale words also defeated me. As in YCLEPT, DEODAR, RIGGER and SOREL. Sugary = FLATTERING also held me up for a while.
An excellent challenge, however. Many thanks Pasquale and Andrew
Plain sailing for the first three quarters… then a gap… then I got YCLEPT and suddenly thought “we’re in the deep waters now.” I did get it all in the end and there was nothing unfair, as you’d expect from the Don.
Eileen — thank you for the correction. I’m relieved! I spent a good deal of time scurrying around Google and wondering what Gluck had to do with Dido. Turns out there is a poem called The Queen of Carthage by an American poet, Louise Gluck (with umlaut). She won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2020.
This puzzle had words I’d never heard of — SOREL (a jorum), RIGG the fish, OCELLI and LURGY, a new Briticism for me. And words I’ve run across somewhere but would never think of on my own — WHARFINGER, DEODAR. Sorel reminds me of the fancy hunting language in Children of the New Forest, where I learned such terms as Hart Royal. (A buck with a lot of points, forget how many).
I’m puzzled by the definition of LOGISTIC.
Thanks, Pasquale and Andrew.
Every spelling I could find of rig (shark) has a single g.
Rigg is rigght there in Chambers, in plain sigght.
Too hard for me. Finished the right hand side but could make no headway on the LHS.
I liked BOTTICELLI though I failed to parse it correctly. Also enjoyed YCLEPT.
Thanks Pasquale and to Andrew for enlightenment.
Eoink #21 Thank you for the memories ! As child/young teenager I devoured “Doc” Smith’s Lensman series. I really must revisit them soon even though it was those books which set me on the course of sheer nerdism or indeed geekery, which plagues me to this day I am delighted to admit.
A fine puzzle from the Don albeit testing so thanks to P & A as always.
I liked this one, but failed on YCLEPT as I simply couldn’t believe a word could start YCL.
Fair amount of online checking needed to square some of the definitions. I was pleased to get WHARFINGER early on. I came across the word in the children’s animated series Chigley, when I bought it for my daughter some years ago. Very educational, British kids TV in the 60s! Needed the blog to unravel the CELLI of the artist. ALLEGEN was my favourite clue. Nicely crafted.
Thanks, Pasquale and Andrew.
Fast start, then nothing.
Knew WHARFINGER from the Sherlock Holmes story, The Sign Of Four.
Thanks both.
Jacob @30: “That’s rather too much resorting to internet search or dictionary checks for my taste”
Yeah me too, googling things to find the solution is about as fun as looking up the answers in the back of a textbook, but each to their own…
Thanks Pasquale for a generally fair but challenging puzzle. Lots of beautiful clues. Favourite has to be LITURGY. Thanks Andrew for a couple of missing missing parses.
Managed to solve it from synonyms crossers or cryptics, so, probably unfairly, I’m going to quibble
anyway
Don’t really like RIGGER. I would never think of a RIGGER as principally or generally a building worker. Together with obscure (NHO) RIGG as a shark, my least favourite clue.
Perhaps a few too many obscurities – YCLEPT – heard of it but had to look up the definition/SOREL(NHO)/OCELLI (NHO)/WHARFINGER/ the aforementioned RIGG, together with a couple of oblique synonyms: Is FINGER really a synonym of CARESS?
Thanks anyway – a good Thursday work-out
A long time ago, when the world was young, I studied Chaucer. A lot.
So YCLEPT was actually a write-in – and left me feeling stupidly pleased with myself.
Pride cometh before a fall.
Ok, I’d heard of Gluck. And knew Peter GRIMES – though I stared at G_I_ES (French art: very clever!) for ages before the opera occurred to me. Would one say “hairdresser singing” for Figaro? Maybe yes…
Alas, my GK is clearly woefully inadequate: I urgently need to brush up on my Himalayan trees, medieval weaponry and quayside jobs. I’d not heard of the blasted fish either – but fish, like Scottish islands, cricketing terms, rivers and footballers are more numerous than the stars in the heavens…
Thank you Andrew for all the explanations.
Pasquale, thank you for showing me how dim I am
When Don Manley set Mephisto, I was a Mephisto blogger, and I got used to his style. He is always fair, but general knowledge does pay off. I couldn’t look up the words while solving, so I had to trust that deodar exists, and that rigg is some kind of shark. I did know everything else.
Wellbeck @46: And the Greek alphabet, the NATO alphabet, and every article in every language …..
Spike Milligan always used the spelling ‘lurgi’, maybe referring to a German company connected with lignite.
Thanks to Pasquale and Andrew
Wellbeck @ 46
“hairdresser singing” 🙂
As always with Pasquale, I walk out not unannoyed (Yclept? Ocelli? Rigg?), but with a few beautiful new words for the notebook. A very advantageous trade!
Sorel, says Wiktionary. “A young buck (deer) in the third year”. Meant in full earnestness: language is beautiful, isn’t it?
Thanks Pasquale and Andrew!
dtrellis@49 Yes, that’s the correct spelling. ‘Lurgi Strikes Britain’.
If someone said they’d been fingered, would you assume they’d enjoyed it?
I knew YCLEPT having done Chaucer at O Level.
I thought that it was lurgi rather than lurgy. Apparently it was “lurgi” in the original Goon Show, but it has now migrated to “lurgy”.
Thanks both and the usual Pasquale experience (to be clear: my bad) of progress, stasis and then a reveal-fest with recourse to here for the explanations.
My only experience of YCLEPT (since we are on the subject..) is from Milton: “..in heaven (hea’en?) yclept Euphrosine..” from a long ago forced march through the classics. The thing is that Euphrosine got a name-call on a recent University Challenge and it turns out she was quatro-syllabic. How glad I am that the opportunity never arose in erudite company for me to trot out my mis-pronounciation.
Zoot@52: in answer to your question let’s just say … it depends.
Being old-fashioned I use the print version of Chambers 2016 (and wouldn’t be surprised if Don does too). It certainly has RIGG as a dialect word for the dogfish, but none of its five entries for RIG relates to a voracious fish. It does however give SHARK as an archaic verb meaning “to obtain by swindling”, which might equate to RIG in the sense of “to manipulate unscrupulously or dishonestly”.
google’s a sad place these days, isn’t it? not to say an ad place….
I had ‘sorel’ as one of those words where “it must be this but I’ve never heard of it”, & so off to the browser.
first few dozen hits were a canadian footwear company… had to scroll quite a way down to find the buck.
(‘in its third year’ seems pretty specific)
same thing happened with ‘rigg’, although one of the librarians in my head came running back to the enquiries desk, all out of breath, *certain* that it was a sort of shark. I double-checked & had to wade past several people of that name before coming across the (apparently edible) sea creature.
(‘In British English, a rigg can refer to a type of small shark (the smooth-hound) often used for food.’ collins et al)
& ‘yclept’ was on the spare real estate east of the grid for some time, while I tried to decide if our setter really would’ve dredged up this faintly chaucerian adjective, usually only seen in the aphabetical jigsaws of old.
wasn’t geoffrey in the prizer at the weekend, now I mention him?
‘deodar’ came into my world exactly a week ago, & thus just in time; I’m a bass player, & follow numerous luthiery types on youtube.
enjoyed that- don’t often quite ‘get’ pasquale’s works.
Not the puzzle…but muffin @24 and grantifreo @33…noooooo!!!! He sounds as if he’s singing it as fast as he can to a metronome. At least KF has a bit of feeling in it. But we agree to differ.
muffin@34: yclepting Kathleen Ferrier “curiously unmusical” is so, er, curiously unmusical, not to mention furiously uncharitable. Forget those soppy English folk songs. What about her legendary performances of Das Lied von der Erde? …ewig…ewig…ewig…
I know, we’re here to chat about crosswords. But hey, if there’s a setter who connects with the world of opera and music, it’s gotta be the Don, right?
rusty @58
I’ve got her recording of Das Lied von der Erde. Horrible vibrato (pet hate of mine).
Thanks Balfour 29, I found that interesting.
As for the various words I can almost see Frank Muir’s spotted bow tie now…
Ta everyone.
Gave up halfway through and came here. So glad I did. I’d never have got almost all the ones I gave up on.
Completions hard to come by lately. Got about two-thirds of the way before my eyes went square from staring at empty lights. I agree with Andrew’s preamble. The easier clues fool you into thinking it’ll be an easy puzzle. Not. Kicking myself for some (19a RUT, 29a LITURGY) and not for others (15a HALBERDIER, 20a BOTTICELLI, 28a RIGGER, 11d YCLEPT, 16d DEODAR)
Thanks Andrew for untangling all of that, and Pasquale for keeping me honest
[No Roz today?]
Valentine#37
In the UK “Logistics” seems just about to have replaced “transport” on the side of lorries (sorry, trucks) carrying goods from one place to another.