A tough challenge from Pasquale, with quite a few names in the answers, which with the need for some “general knowledge” and a couple of obscure words might not make this to everyone’s taste. Having got that out of the way, I enjoyed it, so thanks to Pasquale.
By the way, for those that care about such things, it’s also a pangram.
| Across | ||||||||
| 7. | DOPANTS | Added substances clean underwear (7) DO (clean, perhaps as in “can I do you now, sir?”) + PANTS. A dopant is an impurity added to change the electrical properties of a substance |
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| 8. | JANUARY | Bird outside enclosure returned — outside a period of days (7) A in RUN< (enclosure) in JAY |
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| 9,19. | PAUL NEWMAN | Actor as famous convert, born-again Christian? (4,6) PAUL (famous biblical convert) + NEW MAN (as a born-again Christian might be) |
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| 10. | LAMPLIGHT | Some illumination in difficult situation following escape (9) LAM (US slang for an escape, I find) + PLIGHT |
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| 12,17down. | LINDA LOVELACE | Porn star in dalliance, sadly without affection (5,8) LOVE in DALLIANCE* – Linda Lovelace appeared in the notorious 1970s film Deep Throat, and later claimed she was coerced into it by her violent husband |
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| 13. | CLODPATE | Spooner’s slog, woman for taming being a dull person (8) Spoonerism of PLOD + KATE (Katherina from The Taming of the Shrew). I’m not as much against spoonerism clues as some people, but I’m not keen on ones like this where the words being spoonerised have no particular connection, especially when they lead to a rather obscure answer |
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| 15. | OSLO | Capital performance by one half confused (4) SOLO with its first half “confused” |
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| 16. | HIRAM | Biblical king given greeting with more than just a shofar, seemingly (5) HI + RAM. The shofar is an old instrument made from a ram’s horn, so a ram is more than just a shofar. Hiram was a king of Tyre who appears in the OT in the books of Samuel, Kings and Chronicles |
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| 17. | LYNX | Wild animal‘s connections being read out (4) Homophone of “links” |
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| 18. | TURN IT ON | Try to be more charming? Not I, if you do this! (4,2,2) If you turn “it on”, you get “not I” |
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| 20. | SEVER | Separate river drying up before the end (5) SEVER[n] |
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| 21. | HOW ARE YOU | Introductory enquiry — who played what sounds like rugby, briefly? (3,3,3) WHO* + homophone of RU (Rugby Union) |
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| 22. | LEWD | Rude wife assumed command going about (4) W in LED |
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| 24. | MORASSY | Squelchy tropical fish ship collected (7) SS in MORAY |
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| 25. | SNICKER | Underwear back to front one king removed for a laugh (7) KNICKERS with the first K removed and the last letter moved to the front |
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| Down | ||||||||
| 1. | ZOLA | Cheese nasty woman cut for author (4) [GORGON]ZOLA |
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| 2. | PARLANDO | Funny opera (not English) includes light recitative (8) LAND (to [a]light) in OP[e]RA*.Chambers gives recitative as one definition of PARLANDO, but they mean different things to me |
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| 3,11. | STELLA MCCARTNEY | Designer‘s new maternal style — see more than one Conservative wearing it (6,9) CC in (MATERNAL STYLE)*. Stella M is the daughter of Sir Paul, but no doubt she got her start in the fashion design business purely on her own merits. |
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| 4. | BALLROOM | Cleaner covering everything in part of palace, maybe (8) ALL in BROOM |
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| 5. | HUNG UP | Rang off, being emotionally disturbed? (4,2) Double definition |
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| 6. | FRIT | Terrified female given instruction to slow down (4) F + RIT (slow down, in music) . A word famously used by Mrs Thatcher to accuse Denis Healey of being scared of facing an election |
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| 12. | LASSU | Exotic dance movement with which girl wins Bruno’s heart (5) LASS + [br]U[no] The slow section of a csárdás (a Hungarian folk dance – is that really “exotic”?) |
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| 14. | TUNER | Engineers with crazy guy set up electronic device (5) Reverse of RE + NUT |
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| 16. | HOT PRESS | Horses apt to bolt, abandoning a warm Leopardstown enclosure? (3,5) (HORSES APT)* less A. Irish name for an airing cupboard – Leopardstown is a suburb of Dublin, famous for its racecourse |
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| 20. | SQUINT | One of five children in street seen in a glance (6) QUIN in ST |
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| 21. | HOOT | Someone funny and passionate with extra love (4) O in HOT |
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| 23. | WHEY | Watery stuff from two rivers being baled out of rowing boat (4) WHE[RR]Y |
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Thanks Pasquale and Andrew
I failed to solve WHEY and PARLANDO, and I needed help to parse 16d.
New words for me were LAASU, CLODPATE & DOPANTS.
My favourites were MORASSY, SNICKER, ZOLA, OSLA & TURN IT ON.
Thanks Pasquale and Andrew
Slightly embarrassingly, 12/17 was my FOI. I then found it hard work, and eventually cheated on 3,11, to discover that 10a wasn’t SPOTLIGHT – very nearly as good an answer, I think.
I didn’t know LASSU, but it was easy enough to work out, and I had only come across Norfolk wherries, which are sailing rather than rowing boats – apparently Thames wherries were rowed, though.
I thought the clues for JANUARY and CLODPATE were rather clumsy.
Paul, Linda and Stella Macartney together? Is there any more to it (or is it just a coincidence)?
Not a good day having got two wrong in the T2 xword (along with everyone else) then failing to solve 7ac and 13ac in this crossword. Clodpate seemed plausible but I could not convince myself that plod=slog.
Quite hard work and didn’t quite complete but very enjoyable. Must say it seemed was a bit misogynistic, what with
nasty woman
terrified female
woman for taming
rude wife
!!
Thanks nevertheless to Pasquale and Andrew
Thanks Andrew and Pasquale. Didn’t finish it, but am consoled by the fact that the words I didn’t get were ones I didn’t know. Linda Lovelace, who I really should stop confusing with Ada Lovelace, was first in, and I’m not terribly pleased at what that says about me.
I missed the Paul, Linda and Stella mini-theme. Nice work.
Thanks Pasquale and Andrew.
I found this quite hard, and really needed help from Andrew.
Unknowns were LAM, CLODPATE and LASSU. The Don does like introducing ‘new’ words!
Favourites TURN IT ON, HOW ARE YOU, ZOLA, HOT PRESS and WHEY.
I must confess that New Man didn’t occur to me. My immediate explanation was the conversion of John Henry Newman to Catholicism in 1845. Perhaps Pasquale could comment.
It’s a pangram, by the way.
> It’s a pangram, by the way.
As I mentioned in my preamble!
Thanks, Andrew
I didn’t get much at all on first pass, but this puzzle yielded steadily. I had never come across LASSU, CLODPATE or the Irish meaning of HOT PRESS (and I had to check that MORASSY really did exist) but Pasquale’s precise clueing led me to what had to be the answers.
I didn’t spot the pangram this time, or the McCartney family connection.
Favourites were DOPANTS, PAUL NEWMAN and WHEY.
LINDA LOVELACE, LEWD, pants and knickers? Unusually risqué for this setter.
@me (9) Ooops: didn’t spot it had already been said.
Thank you for the blog – I got there in the end, save for the parsing of OSLO and ZOLA! In my view this has been an excellent week for the Guardian cryptic – lots to admire and enjoy.
[Gervase @11, Pasquale seems to be washing his dirty linen in public.]
Doubtless many have noticed this already, but it is a pleasing touch that this puzzle appears on 8 January, and JANUARY is the answer to 8 across.
PaulW@4 – think of footslogging = plodding
btw Andrew, you have the wrong word underlined for the definition in 1d – it should be “author”, not “cheese”.
An old chestnut, this one!
Well spotted, muffin – now corrected.
A couple of you seem to think LASSU was clearly clued. “Lisau” also fits the wordplay so I would argue not as it becomes a toss-up without recourse to a dictionary if you don’t know what is a pretty obscure term.
Andy B @19
Good point – LISA never occurred to me.
Thanks all
Fine and I knew all the names but still failed to get Zola and dopants.
Andy B @19: Well spotted – I hadn’t noticed that possibility either. I would still maintain that the clueing was clear – just not unambiguous. But with the crossing letters there are still only a couple of options to check.
And I expect virtually everyone had to check this one in the dictionary. I’m reluctant to use the word ‘obscure’ as it is a bit pejorative (and often it is just shorthand for a rather huffy ‘I didn’t know it’) – I prefer ‘unusual’, and I don’t mind a (light) sprinkling of unfamiliar words in a puzzle. LASSU is likely to be unfamiliar to all but lexicographers and experts in Central European folk dance!
Yes the clueing is clear, but what a rotten daily puzzle. This verges on Azed and even The Listener, so many are the arcane or obscure answers needed. I am amazed, or would be amazed if this wasn’t The Guardian, that this made it into the daily. Duty of care not observed! Compileritis!
Didn’t get WHEY. A consonant as the second letter didn’t occur to me. Grrrrr…
Not overly keen on CLODPATE or HOT PRESS.
I thought the parsing for NEWMAN was born-again = NEW then Christian? = MAN as in Christian as an example (hence the ?) of a man’s name.
This was tough, which serves me right for describing yesterday’s Picaroon as the hardest of the years so far. Having exhausted my time allowance for doing it on paper, I had to use the Check button a few times to finish it, but I did enjoy the challenge.
No problems with the proper names, but there were plenty of other unfamiliar words – DOPANT, CLODPATE, HOT PRESS, PARLANDO, LASSU and LAM and shofar (HIRAM went in unparsed). Last in was DOPANTS. Liked TURN IT ON and BALLROOM.
PS Thanks to Andrew and Pasquale
Yes, like Moonraker I had MAN = “Christian?” = DBE
Found this quite a slog/plod, and needed artificial resuscitation in a couple of places. But there was a handful of nice ideas in there (the warm Leopardstown enclosure being one). Agree with the hedgehoggy though that this was mostly needlessly arcane.
Don’t quite see how the ‘by’ fits into the OSLO clue.
Thanks Andrew.
PPS Andy B @19 – I also had LISAU until Check wiped it out. And welcome back…
…oh yes, I do now – “performance by one” – Doh!
Thanks Pasquale and Andrew.
Limeni 27: “performance by one” = SOLO
I love it when a blogger writes ‘rubbish puzzle, PS Thank you’ — it kinda makes my day! This was a sort of stream-of-consciousness puzzle started by some idle thought (don’t ask me why) of Paul McCartney, wandering on to other McCs and alternative surnames and filling the rest in as well as possible. I confess that I didn’t know LASSU, but the rest were slightly or very familiar (for example, Hiram from the Bible and dopants from my time working in semiconductor physics many years ago). I had hoped that fair cluing would help most solvers to get there, even for the trickier vocabulary (girl is pretty often lass after all), Newman was intended to be a reference to a ‘born-again’ person but the idea of the cardinal is a nice one (I have in fact linked the two ideas before, you bet!). January happened to go in at 8, so I cheekily suggested that the puzzle should be a dated one. It happens to be my wife’s birthday and the misogynist joking turned out to be an unexpected bonus! With that — a happy new year to all (and maybe the next one will be easier — no idea!).
‘Misogynist joking’ is open to misinterpretation these days, I’d say. I’m sure it is one of those ‘religious things’ we heathens must put up with.
🙂
Pasquale @31, I thought this puzzle might actually be themed for someone’s birthday on the 8th of January. I went through the list on the net, but no-one relevant to this puzzle turned up.
A Happy Birthday to Mrs Manley and a Happy New Year to you both.
Thanks Pasquale and Andrew.
Too tough for me, this one. I’m afraid I only managed to get a handful of answers before having to resort to electronic aids. One question: are MORAY eels really ‘tropical’ fish, only I thought they were pretty common well beyond the tropics?
Pasquale @31: I can’t see how Andrew even hinted that it was a ‘rubbish puzzle’, so I can only assume you’re misusing the term ‘blogger’ to refer to one (or more) of the comments posted below the blog post. I’ve seen that term similarly misused here before, so perhaps it’s a site convention, but it’s atypical usage if so. Elsewhere ‘bloggers’ are those who create original posts, to which ‘users’ then add their comments.
I stand corretced
Angstony @34 – I was almost tempted to comment on the “rubbish” question earlier, since I initially wondered whether it had anything to do with what I wrote but I doubt that it could be – when I say that a puzzle is tough it certainly doesn’t imply that the puzzle is rubbish (as I’ve said before a few times), and I explicitly stated that I enjoyed it (as did Andrew!)
Thanks to Pasquale for dropping in, and happy birthday to Mrs M…
beery hiker@28 – thanks. That was only my second post on the site since I got back from my holiday in the US at the beginning of December. A family bereavement, a move into a new flat, and a new laptop have all combined to limit the time I could put into the cruciverbal art. I still haven’t done an Indie puzzle since I got back and I have deliberately limited my comments on this site, although I have been dropping in to read the comments of others.
By the way, if Gaufrid is reading this could he remind me of the alternative way to access the Indie puzzle as the version of Java I have on my new laptop won’t let me access the site direct. Thanks in anticipation.
Andy B @37
Welcome back to cruciverbalising!
You can get hold of the Indie crosword by installing Crossword Solver: it has a preset to download it, and you can then solve on screen or print & use paper. This subject came up recently: the link I offered also installed something unnecessary, so I hope someone can provide the better one.
Gaufrid: is the link something that could be offered via the FAQ page?
Hi Andy B
See this post, particularly my comment #20 (though some other comments are also relevant):
http://www.fifteensquared.net/2014/12/18/guardian-26446-by-paul/
Many breaks plus intermittent use of check button etc led eventually to a completed grid. If you’re going to set at this level of complexity then you should really make sure that all your intermediate bits of clueing are spot on: like Angstony @34, I was misled by ‘moray’ not having cropped up in the list of tropical fish I had summoned, because it’s not exclusively tropical.
Loved it. Probably because I (unusually) completed it – with some help from friends. I do like a sociable crossword. One thing, the number of this crossword is 26,463, not 26,462.
Hi Simon S @38
“Gaufrid: is the link something that could be offered via the FAQ page?”
Duly done.
Thanks Ross, error corrected.
Really enjoyed this, esp new words. Moray eels not tropical but W.T.H ! Great for the compiler to drop in, too.
Eel be so upset.
Thanks Andrew and Pasquale
An interesting puzzle. The cluing was very clear and more often than in most puzzles I found myself cheking if the answer or part of it was a word with the required meaning having followed the instructions to get there. In the case of 2d I first tried parlungo and only then ‘saw the true light’.
I must agree with hedgehoggy. I keep going on about this, but some of these puzzles should be in a different paper. We seem to be suffering from “complexity creep”, mainly due to remarks such as ” very easy – finished this over a cup of coffee”. These puzzles should not just be set for a couple of dozen crosswordexpert bloggers.
JohnM @47, I fully agree with you.
JohnM @47, just for the record, 8 people found this hard (myself amongst them), or took a long time to finish, out of 26, roughly one third.
JohnM @47 – I don’t believe your theory of complexity creep holds water – there have always been occasional very difficult puzzles in the Guardian and some of us like them. Maybe there were fewer difficult ones than usual last year, but if so that was the exception not the rule.
I usually give Pasquale a miss but I’m hastening to print this one off.
It’s well worth the effort – an excellent puzzle. Good luck!
My first post, and prompted by comments above. Not too good at cruciverbalism, but usually manage with help from my friends. Yesterday we only managed one clue – today we got all but 1a, 7 and 23 – one of the easiest I’ve seen for ages. Guess it takes all sorts…
I was looking forward to a wek of completions till today! Still got all but 16d,7a and 2d, which incidentally my completer did not give. Still i really enjoyed the rest. Good for the soul not to be perfect!
Thanks Pasquale and Andrew. Didn’t finish but enjoyed learning some new words. I’m with those who distinguish between an infrequently seen word and an obscure/arcane one. How can this be validly described as a ‘rotten’ puzzle?? Nor is it anywhere near the level of difficulty of an Azed! It was quite a difficult puzzle but none the worse for that.
Happy birthday Mrs. Manley. It’s mine too – 60 today.
Agree with everything dunsscotus said including the birthday wishes.
Cheers…
Belated thanks to Pasquale for the clarification about the apparent misogyny!
I enjoy all the daily Guardian puzzles, and can’t really understand why some people moan so much about certain setters, but that’s life I guess.
Maybe we were just having a good day, but we finished this with less trouble than usual – all but OSLO and DOPANTS on the way to bed, then those two became clear in the light of day. Hard to get started – 18a and 21a were first – but once the names went in the rest fell into place. Thanks to Pasquale for lots of nice touches.
Well, I said it was a ‘rotten daily puzzle’, which is not quite the same thing, and then went on to say why (many words in this grid are arcane). And that’s what I meant, actually.
😀
I was very late to this due to a family crisis so only finished this morning.
I didn’t like this at all. Pasquale at his very worst in my opinion. I did complete it without using Check or Cheat but had to look up some of the “answers”
dopants
clodpate
lassu
hot press
parlando
Ridiculous IMHO. Even Pasquale admitted to not knowing one of his answers!!!! Is he not aware that some solvers voluntarily forgo the use of dictionaries? Very lazy setting as choosing an almost unknown word is the easiest way to make a clue difficult and Pasquale is the worst offender.
Our crossword editor is apparently still on his holliers 😉
Thanks to Andrew and Pasquale
Don Pasquale, many thanks … it was my birthday too, and I really enjoyed my present! I had thought that January being clue 8 was just a delightful coincidence. And a pangram to boot!
As a singer I got parlando without difficulty, but was most annoyed with myself for not being able to parse frit until I came over here!
Wouldn’t it be boring if we could all complete every crossword easily! Love learning new words and look forward to the next concert where I can remark “Loved the parlando, but I’m afraid in the Czardas I found the maestro’s tempo for the lassu somewhat de trop …”
Can I change the subject from unusual words and ask for an explanation of pangram? I’ve looked up the definition but don’t see how it applies to this puzzle.
jxm, every single letter of the alphabet appears (at least once) in the grid. That’s simply it.
Thanks Pasquale and Andrew
Very late to this one and although it was hard work, found it was an enjoyable challenge.
I personally don’t set limitations of not using referential help – one of the pleasures of doing these type of puzzles is the knowledge that is to be gained !! Besides, it is a well-known trademark of the Don to make use of less common words.
It took me on and off through the day last Thursday to get it out and was happy to see that all was correct and fully parsed, except for DO=clean in 1a – assumed that it was – but could not find it.