Guardian 26,522 by Pasquale

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A somewhat tricky Pasquale, he does like his obscure words doesn’t he?

Some of this took a while longer than it should have done, but it’s excellent as you’d expect from him.

completed grid

Across

1 Muse as priest struggling with Job (11)
TERPSICHORE

Good start, when first clue up you have to double check you’ve spelled it correctly. PRIEST* struggling & CHORE (job)

9 Opener of window used in plunder into saloon? (7)
CROWBAR

The “?” I assume is for the double duty of opener. W(indow) in ROB (plunder) all in CAR (saloon). Surface still still seems awry though.

10 Bereaved man gets fatter without old wife (7)
WIDOWER

O(ld) W(ife) in WIDER (fatter)

11 Men returning by vehicle check revealed to be most sturdy (9)
ROBUSTEST

O(ther) R(anks) reversed & BUS (vehicle) & TEST (check)

12 Tragic king losing energy gets to die slowly (5)
LARGO

(king) L(e)AR wthout E(nergy) & GO (die perhaps)

13 To be paid pounds for a fight (4)
DUEL

DUE (waiting to be paid) & L (£, pounds)

14 The car to me is mysterious — this is just one instrument (10)
TACHOMETER

Well they’re more found in lorries than cars but [THE CAR TO ME]* is mysterious

16 Mineral lets delicate little person keep healthy (10)
SPHALERITE

It’s Pasquale, of course there will be unusual words. HALE (healthy) in SPRITE (little person)

19 Light support (4)
BEAM

Rufus like double def

21 One trapped in car in water inlet (5)
FIORD

1 in FORD (car maker)

22 An academic, university lecturer at institute held in high regard (9)
ADULATION

A(n) & [U(ni) L(ecturer) AT I(nstitute)] inserted (held) in DON

24 Effeminate English subject, terribly nice being drunk (7)
EPICENE

E(nglish) & NICE* terribly in (drunk by) P.E, – school subject

25 More distant relation, first in reunion to be hugged (7)
FARTHER

First in R(eunion) hugged by FATHER (relation)

26 Disappeared, as ET had done once (4,2,5)
GONE TO EARTH

Cryptic def re E.T.

Down

1 Wounded marksman may have this process to resolve problem (15)
TROUBLESHOOTING

Two defs , one a bit cryptic

2 Puzzle can be hell without a starting point (5)
REBUS

(e)REBUS – the underworld in Greek myth

3 Bird coming from mire swimming in salt water (7)
SERIEMA

A bird [click clink for pictures] MIRE* swimming in SEA (salt water)

4 Plant one of the others in the coven? (7)
COWITCH

I thought it was COW-ITCH still pics here, CO – WITCH another in the coven

5 Sheep beginning to go down, feeble — there may still be affection for such (3,5)
OLD FLAME

FOLD with the F moved to the end & LAME (feeble)

6 Somehow with regret he’d had to relinquish “‘R” (6,3,6)
EDWARD THE EIGHTH

[WITH REGRET HED HAD (-r)]* somehow. Brilliant clue

7 Injured soldier finally escaping with no desire to fight? (6)
SCARED

(soldie)R removed from SCAR(r)ED

8 Enthusiasm not so easy without leader, you’d say? (6)
ARDOUR

Sounds a bit like (h)ARDER

15 BBC boss spotted in adult performing club (8)
BLUDGEON

D(irector) G(eneral) (BBC boss) in BLUE (adult) & ON (performing)

16 Temper evident in little son time and again (6)
SOFTEN

A litlle bit of S(on) & OFTEN

17 Chemical engineers needing time with conservationists (7)
REAGENT

RE (engineers) & AGE (time) & N(ational) T(rust)

18 Sweet as source of tummy upset (7)
TRUFFLE

source of T(ummy) & RUFFLE (upset)

20 Foreign character covered in horse muck (6)
MANURE

NU (greek letter) in MARE (horse)

23 More beautiful female sent out to provide help in laundry (5)
AIRER

F(emale|) removed from (f)AIRER

*anagram

33 comments on “Guardian 26,522 by Pasquale”

  1. This was indeed very tricky, and took me a long time – not helped by trying to make an anagram for 1a from ‘as priest’ and ‘Job’. Eventually the penny dropped.

    Favourites were COWITCH, ROBUSTEST and OLD FLAME. Many thanks to Pasquale and flashling.

  2. Thanks flashling and Pasquale. Good stuff here. I took 9ac to be a near-&lit. I’d never heard of FOLD = flock of sheep(9dn) – but, needless to say, it’s in Chambers.

  4. Flashling
    Re 14a, all modern cars have a tachometer (rev counter). You’re thinking of a tachograph. Anyway, thanks for the blog and thanks to the setter for a tough, but fair puzzle.

  7. Thanks Pasquale and flashling, no wonder you were late posting!

    Let alone double checking the spelling of TERPICHORE, it was a word I had to Google even though it was vaguely familiar. SPHALERITE, eREBUS, SERIEMA and COWITCH were new words (or forgotten ones).
    6d was a write in and I got lost trying to work out the anagram.

    I did like TROUBLESHOOTING, WIDOWER, EPICENE and MANURE among others.

  9. SERIEMA was new to me but I managed to guess it as the most likely arrangement of the anagram fodder inside SEA. I also wasn’t 100% sure about EPICENE and got to the answer in a similar way, although both RE and PE are school subjects so the answer was even trickier to get. SPHALERITE, while not exactly a common word, was much more helpfully clued.

  10. Thanks Pasquale & flashling.

    As usual, some strange words to instantly forget. I know the Don likes to introduce us to new words but I can’t see me using SERIEMA, SPHALERITE or COWITCH anytime soon.

    I did like the clues for BLUDGEON and EDWARD THE EIGHTH.

  12. Thanks flashling and Pasquale
    An elegant puzzle. To my surprise much of it was a write-in, especially in the upper half. As for Cookie, seriema, cowitch and spalerite were new to me but were all gettable from the instructions.

  13. Thanks, flashling.

    Good puzzle. 1a was almost a write-in for me (the favourite crossword muse is Erato, but this one is very well-known adjectivally) and the RHS went in very easily. The LHS was slower, but I didn’t find this particularly difficult. I had encountered SERIEMA and SPHALERITE somewhere before and, although they certainly didn’t spring to mind, the wordplay was fine – as it was with COWITCH, which was completely new to me.

    I agree with cholecyst @2 that the whole clue for 9a is an allusive definition.

    Loved the surface for 15d, but the standout clue is the splendid 6d.

  15. Yes there were some unfamiliar words but for the most part these were accessible from the clues- COWITCH,SPHALERITE and EPICENE but I thought this rather a good puzzle. LOI was AIRER. A satisfying solve!
    Thanks PASQUALE.

  16. Is 26a still technically correct? It was more than 30 years ago. I’d like to think he’s been back at least once more since.

  18. 22a Adulation — a small point, but I think “a don” replaces “an academic”, so you don’t have to worry about the n in “an”.

    1d — how does “trouble” mean “wounded”?

  20. I was a geology major in college, but I haven’t used what I learned in that degree in a long, long time. I had to dredge “sphalerite” out of the sad remnants of my dimly remembered mineralogy.

    Edward VIII wins Clue of the Month for me (and the month’s only just half over).

    I didn’t parse “crowbar”; I wrote it in eventually based on the crossing letters, assumed “saloon” accounted for “bar” rather than “car,” and then was mystified as to how you get “crow” out of the rest. Thanks for explaining.

    Rullytully @ 4: all modern standard transmission cars have tachs. Automatics—at least on this side of the Atlantic—do not always have one, since the main reason to see the revs is to know when to shift.

  21. I quite enjoyed this and didn’t find it too intimidating, though having done most of it on paper, I had to check SERIEMA, SPHALERITE and EPICENE to confirm the guesses, and COWITCH was new to me too. Liked that, EDWARD THE EIGHTH and TROUBLESHOOTING.

    Thanks to flashling and Pasquale.

  23. Incidentally: We were talking yesterday about how some types of clues are more difficult for younger solvers. I, for one, wonder about the various military abbreviations that seem to pop up with regularity (OR, TA, MO, RE, CO, AB, etc.). I’ve been doing British crosswords for several years now, so I’ve by necessity had to learn more about Her Majesty’s armed forces than I otherwise would have. But it took a while. I would imagine, though, that even if I were British, it might have been a problem: the age when military service in the UK was anywhere near universal is receding into memory, and I wonder how many of those abbreviations are well known to those whose nearest relatives who served were their grandparents (or great-grandparents, soon).

  24. Thanks Pasquale and flashling

    Finished OK, but had the same problems with FOLD = sheep as mentioned above (I thought it was an enclosed area to keep sheep in), and saloon = bar rather than car.

    I did, however, know SPHALERITE.

    I thought ARDOUR was a terrible clue – massive groan!

  26. Thanks flashling. Very posh offering from the Don. Agree with everyone else’s favourites.

    Isn’t it nice to come here and enjoy balanced, erudite, non-acrimonious, and above all correct, comment. I’ve missed this if late. Any chance we could raise a fund to keep the blighter on holiday?

    Nice week, all.

  28. @cookie, yes the blog was a little later than usual, sorry real life and work do get in the way from time to time. Not to mention it was tricky to get some of the explanations written up sensibly 🙂

  29. flashling @28, the later it is, the better for me since I take so long to solve the crossword.
    I think Eileen probably went on her usual Wednesday afternoon walk after the FT train ride.

  30. A pleasant enough solve with some nice clues. (6d especially)

    I found this quite easy as familiarity with the setter does help. With Rufus one expects dodgy clues so one enters what “can’t be right” and with Pasquale one expects the obscure words.

    The only difficulty was SPHALERITE but the H from 1d convinced me that HALE was in there. I played around with MITE as a wrapper for a while (ITE is a good minereal ending after all) but then it had to be SPRITE

    So at least this time the “esoterica” were gettable from the wordplay and crossers.

    Thanks to flashling and Pasquale

  31. I don’t know why Don insists on these arcane inclusions. Or dodgy spellings of FJORD.

    And he doesn’t like footer, or we’d have had Serie A around M!

    Very good puzzle notwithstanding, in which 6 down is rightly lauded.

  32. Thanks Pasquale and flashling

    A back pile one … and what a beauty !!! Edward VIII must go down as one of the all time greats …

    The Don does introduce a lot of obscure words but clues them so that you can derive them fairly and learn something new whilst you do it!!! Am sure that TERPSICHORE has surfaced a few times recently, but that includes the FT puzzles – still always get the S and I the wrong way round.

    I finished mainly in the SW with EPICENE, REAGENT and ADULATION the last few in.

  33. I resolved the 14 ac. anagram to cathometer, which is a scientific instrument. I accept that tachometer is a better fit give the clue’s vehicular reference.

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