Guardian 24,538 – Rover

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I rattled through this fairly quickly and have filled the grid with convincing-looking answers, but a few of the exact reasons escape me.  I decided to blog it anyway rather than wait and work them out, on the grounds that it’ll spark conversation and that’s half the fun of this site.

* = anagram
(x) = removal
(X) = insertion
dd = double definition
cd = cryptic definition

Across

8. ALLSPICE. (beat)L(e) + SPECIAL*.
9. MOHAIR. MO(zart) + HAIR.
10. LEAR. dd
11. ALTARPIECE. CLAREPIETA*
12. FINALE. raF IN ALExandria
14. RINGWORM. cd
15. ADVANCE. dd
17. CHEMIST. CH. + TIMES*
20. STICKER. S + TICKLER.
22. FINISH. dd
23. ACCIDENTAL. dd. In music, sharps and flats are ‘accidentals’
24. SAIL.  ?  Sal is salt, but not in the sense of a sailor…
25. SETTLE. dd
26. CROSSING. dd. I had thought it was spelt PeLiCon but Pelican is in common usage.

Down

1. BLUEBIRD. BLUE + BIRD
2. USER. caUSE Riot.
3. PIRATE. ‘Rover’ was a term for a pirate.
4. WESTERN. WE + STERN.
5. AMARANTH. Both a real plant and an idealised undying one.
6. CHAIRWOMAN. CHA(I)RWOMAN.  daily = servant = charlady.
7. PINCER. PRINCE*
13. ANARCHISTS. ? Seems to be a not-very cryptic def, unless there’s more going on
16. COLLEGES. ? Jesus fellowships might allude to religious colleges?
18. SESSIONS. cd.
19. CRITICS. cd.
21. TUCKER. Little Tommy Tucker, tucker is a type of bib.
22. FELLOW. Robin Goodfellow is Puck, a mischievous sprite.
24. SASH. (i)S + ASH.

24 comments on “Guardian 24,538 – Rover”

  2. 16D There are colleges called Jesus at both Oxford and Cambridge.
    I too have question marks against Anarchists and Salt.

  3. ‘Anarchists’ I think is as if you’re being told by someone giving a description of ‘An ruly lot that wont take orders’ ???

  6. 20ac STICKLER – I can’t understand this, Don. For a start, what is the definition?

    24ac SAIL – I can’t see the wordplay.

    For my taste, there are too many cds and dds. I don’t mind if the clues are as witty and elegant as Rufus’, but…

  8. Hi JohnR.

    I think the definition for 20A is “stern pedant”, and the wordplay is S + tickler (as Ciaran says). A tickler can be a cane — remember Ken Dodd’s tickling stick.

  9. I enjoyed the top half of this crossword, but got stuck on the bottom left, largely because I wasn’t happy about putting ANARCHISTS, CRITICS and COLLEGES in to the grid – none of them seemed cryptic enough…

  10. I agree with Jvh about SAIL (which I didn’t understand at the time) and STICKLER.

    I found this one quite hard going, and like others wasn’t impressed by some of the clues: 16dn, in particular, needs a question mark or similar indicator, as “Jesus” is an example of a College, not a definition.

    For 13dn I suppose “unruly” could mean “not having rules”.

  12. What’s pincer got to do with hooker?
    Stickler makes no sense, whatsoever way it is looked at.
    14 ac needs a second anagrind for pieta.
    All in all, this was hard work and not in a good way.
    Once again Rover’s attempts to be intricate tend towards the abstruse.

  14. A stern pedant is a stickler (as in ‘a stickler for rules’). The ‘s provides s, + tickler which is a cane (Pip’s sister had that name for it in Great Expectations).

  15. Richard: I quite understand how to arrive at the answer, but I’ve looked up a dozen online dictionaries and nowhere do I find tickler equating to a cane. It’s just that it’s so arcane, (pun intended). I’m sure Pip’s sister would have had no problem with it, but I do.

  17. John, sorry if I was teaching you to suck eggs. Personally I found it hard enough to work out the logic even when I’d got the answer.

  18. A deeply unsatisfying crossword, I too put in most of the questionable answers but was at a loss to explain them. Pretty much gave up on the last few clues as my enthusiasm all but left the building.

  19. I really didn’t like this at all, for most of the reasons put forward above, and also that I thought 18 and 19 dn were weak clues.

    I didn’t intend to comment today, because I don’t like to be so totally negative, but I have been waiting all day for a satisfactory explanation of 20ac. Never mind Pip’s sister’s cane, I’m still struggling to see the significance of the inclusion of ‘stern’: to me, a pedant is, simply, a stickler – and there are those who say I should know. [OED: “Beaufort was no stickler for pedantic rules” 1879] I think we must be missing something: could it be that the ‘s’ is at the end, ‘stern’ of ‘pedant’s’? – but no, surely, because then the definition would not be at the beginning or end of the clue, which is very unusual but not, as I recall, totally unknown.

    Deeply unsatisfying indeed!

  21. re 16dn Oxbridge colleges all have ‘fellows’, and there are Jesus colleges at both Universities. I therefore read this as a cd based on the interpretation of ‘fellowship’.

  22. The last of couple of Rover puzzles have been pretty disappointing.
    I think I will skip any Rovers in future – not much fun to be had.

  23. Richard: No intention of accusing you of unnecessary training in ovi combibendum (Notre Dame University Latin Dictionary). Not having Chambers among my modest collection of dictionaries, I did search the online version. No mention of tickler at all, viz.

    Enter your search and choose your title from the drop-down menu.
    Chambers 21st Century DictionaryChambers ThesaurusChambers Biographical Dictionary 1997 edition
    Search Results for ‘tickler’
    ——————————————————————————–

    Sorry, no entries for tickler were found.

  24. John
    Chambers 21st Century Dictionary doesn’t have anywhere near as many words or definitions as the main Chambers. The on-line version of Chambers 11th Ed. (you can get a 1 month free trial) gives the following (as does the printed version):

    tickler (noun)
    someone or something that tickles
    a puzzle, a difficult problem (informal)
    a feather-brush
    a poker
    a cane
    a device for reminding
    a dram of spirits

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