Guardian 24694 / Orlando

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An enjoyable crossword, and quite easy for a Friday.

Update: thanks to Beermagnet for pointing this out: apparently some versions of the paper have this Araucaria puzzle printed instead.

Across
1. OVERPOWER OVER = “past” + POWER = “Cube, for example” (a cube of a number being the third power of it)
6. FACED DECAF reversed
9. TASER RESAT = “tried again to pass” reversed
10. NICKNAMES Double definition
11. STRAIGHT UP Sounds like “stray tup”
12. GOBI GO = “Try” + BI = “swinging both ways”
14. BUDGIES BUDGE around I on S[eafront]
15. TEAR GAS (A GREAT S[ide])*
17. BARQUES A joke on “its bark is worse than its bite”
19. BALLIOL BA = “graduate” + ILL = “sick” reversed + O + L
20. LUCE Sounds like “loose”
22. WELLINGTON Double definition
25. GALLIPOLI ALL in GI + POLI[ce] (“churchgoing” implying “remove CE” here)
26. OBESE OBE = “award” + S[omeon]E
27. MASON Double definition, referring to the Mason-Dixon line
28. DEMITASSE (TEA MISSED)*
Down
1. OATHS H in OATS
2. EASY RIDER EASY = “Simple” + RIDER = “addition”
3. PERFIDIOUS (FRIE[n]D)* in PIOUS
4. WENCHES NEW reversed + CHES[s]
5. RECOUNT Double definition; “say?” is the other one 🙂
6. FOND FO[u]ND
7. COMBO B[rothers] in COMO
8. DISMISSAL I = “One” + S[eem]S in DISMAL = “gloomy”
13. FALLING-OUT FALL IN + GOUT
14. BUBBLEGUM BUBBLE = “Unsustainable activity?” + MUG reversed
16. GUILTLESS LT = “officer” in GUILE + SS = “ship”
18. STEROID (OR DIETS)*
19. BELGIUM (BIG EMU L)
21. COLTS Double definition
23. NIECE Sounds like “Nice”
19. LION Someone who has the lion’s share has the biggest part of something

23 comments on “Guardian 24694 / Orlando”

  2. Brr: it sounds from a comment in another thread that the grid from the 30th of April may have been printed by mistake? I’ve updated the post to link to the appropriate fifteensquared write-up anyway.

  3. My paper had the clues for last week’s Araucaria swine-themed effort printed. I didn’t get as far as checking if it was the correct grid.

    Mhl, do I take it the correct puzzle for today is available online? I’m trying not to look at the solutions above…

  6. The paper did have the right grid, Smutchin – I hadn’t done the Aruacaria last week, so was blissfully pig-ignorant of the error.

  10. I’m afraid my paper had the wrong puzzle. “Oh, no,” I thought “He’s not doing more of those bloody swine clues, is he?” Cue sound of penny dropping very, very slowly…

  12. There’s a letter in the Guardian this morning complaining that yesterday’s ‘quick’ crossword took only 3.5 minutes. I could have done today’s printed ‘cryptic’ one as quickly as that! Really hard luck on those who do it on the train!

    Relieved to find when I got back after being out all morning that there was, in fact, a new puzzle to do today – and a very enjoyable one, too. Some nice witty clues – STRAIGHT UP, GALLIPOLI, NICKNAMES, BARQUES, and some elegant surfaces, 12, 15, 19ac and 13,18dn, for example. I thought ‘united’ as an anagram indicator was dodgy, too, but a lovely surface!

  13. I had deja vu when I opened the paper! Printed the Orlando off the website and enjoyed it, tho not getting (or knowing) LUCE stumped me in that corner. I liked 17ac and 12ac.

  14. I thought overpower as a definition of cube was stretching it a bit even with a question mark.

    Come to that, what is the question mark doing in 25ac. I thought a question mark was supposed to indicate a slightly off centre definition like 1ac. The definition is perfectly correct here so is it because the setter thought this was a rather dubious clue. (Well done mhl for the explanation which eluded me.)

  15. I see that bubble-gum has been “modernised” to a single word. My trusty old dictionary, printed in days when people knew the rules, has the hyphen.

    Just to illustrate how dumb modern usage has become, the on-line dictionary, Wictionary gives bubblegum not bubble-gum, but then gives chewing-gum but not chewinggum. Such nonsensical inconsistency should be avoided surely?

    Loved BARQUES, that definitely raised a smile.

  16. Re post 14. overpower is not being used as a definition of cube in this clue, it is being used as a definition of the answer, “master”. cube=POWER & past=OVER. Pedantic I know, but that’s why we’re all here…

  17. Thanks for that Steady Stu. I knew I couldn’t be right there but I couldn’t see it at all.

  18. I thought this was an absolutely brilliant puzzle and the most enjoyable in ages GOBI was hilarious and the bights use totally ingenious.
    Well done Orlando.
    Stiofain

  19. Derek – re 14down – hyphenating to separate repeated letters is fairly common, isn’t it? E.g. shell-like but lifelike.

  20. Baranaby: Discussions of hyphenation often use the nonce word (nonce-word?) ‘subbookkeeper’ as an example.

  22. Barnaby, yes of course, I quite agree, but in the case of bubble/chewing-gum (and others)that isn’t the point.

    Many modernisers claim to want to simplify the language. This is bunkum. What they mean is they don’t know what is correct and are too idle to find out, so they make arbitrary changes with no regard to the consequences.

    Thus it used to be simple. It used to be seriously simple. There was only one way of saying it, you took “gum” and prefixed “type of gum -“. Now, the modernisers tell us that having two rules is simpler than having one rule! One rule applies to clashing letters, the other rule applies to the rest.

    So, increasing the number of rules to handle what should have been identical constructs, thereby introducing spurious differences, is simpler is it?

    That’s the point.

    If bubble-gum had always been bubblegum then no sweat, but it wasn’t, and this is a poor change.

    Obviously some hyphens can be dropped harmlessly as the language develops, but care must be taken, rather more care than some who should know better seem willing to take. (He said, carefully not naming a certain company as requested, grin!)

    OK, I admit it, I worry about the dear old hyphen in the same way that others champion the dear old apostrophe. Somebody has to!

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