Guardian Cryptic 25961 Araucaria

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A clever puzzle from Araucaria.  24 down led me to the mini-theme but still a mental workout.  Thanks Araucaria.  Definitions are underlined in the clues. [[The pictures at the bottom have unidentified links to the puzzle. Please enclose any comments on them in double brackets. Thank you.]]

Across
1 Adams’ work a tall building? Not now I know (7)

SHARDIK : SHARD(name of the approx. 310 metre high – I guess that’s tall – building in London) + “I know” minus(Not) “now”.

Answer: After Watership Down, Richard Adams’ second novel, Shardik, with a giant bear character of the same name,.

5 A bomb exploding round sticky stuff (6)

BAMBOO : Anagram of(exploding) A BOMB + O(the letter that is round).

Defn: Things that look like sticks, as in the child’s riddle: “What is brown and sticky?”

9 Helium or argon, which could be angriest? (5,3)

INERT GAS : Anagram of(could be) ANGRIEST.

Answer: Two of which are helium and argon, non-reactive chemically.

10 Piano to let by request (6)

PLEASE : P(abbrev. for “piano”, the musical direction) + LEASE(to let;to rent out).

Defn: I think it is “the word that is placed next to;by a verbal or written request”, as in “Do this, please”, as I could not find an equivalence between “please” and “request”.

12 Seceding Spooner’s arousing a comment from an ass (8,4)

BREAKING AWAY : Spoonerism of “raking” “waking”(arousing, as in “raking waking up old animosities”) “a bray”(a comment;a sound from an ass, the animal).

15 What they call us in the course of explosive competition (10)

TOURNAMENT : OUR NAME(what they call us) contained in(in the course of) TNT(abbrev. for trinitrotoluene, a high explosive).

17 Bill’s left off boring another boy (3)

TED : { “IOU”(a promissory note;a bill in obsolete usage) +” ‘s” } deleted from(left off) “tedious”(boring).

Answer: Another boy’s name.

19 I am not dialectical: having 7 I’m an aardvark (3)

AN’T : ANT(together with;having “bear” with me;answer to 7down, gives another name for an aardvark).

Answer: In some British dialects, a contraction of “am not” – similar to the more familiar “ain’t”.

20 Slippery creature gives manager MBE (5,5)

GREEN MAMBA : Anagram of(gives) MANAGER MBE.

22 Male — no, males — with exterior that’s friendly to a remarkable extent (12)

PHENOMENALLY : { HE(third person male pronoun) + NO + MEN(males) } contained in(with exterior that’s …) PALLY(friendly).

26 Jumper, maybe: having 7 I’ll be a tiger moth (6)

WOOLLY : WOLLY(together with “bear”;having “bear with me”;answer to 7down, gives the larva that will metamorphose to a tiger moth).

Answer: A pullover sweater;jumper made from wool.

 

27 Half-asleep state of most rodents with much of home in water (8)

SEMICOMA : { First 3 letters of(most) “mice”(rodents) plus(with) middle 2 letters of(much of) “home” } contained in(in) SEA(large body of water).

28 Prince gets by when in the groove (6)

RUPERT : PER(by;through;by means of, as in “send it per the internal post”) contained in(when in) RUT(a groove that you might get stuck in).

Answer: Prince of the Rhine in 17C, or a British royal, a great-grandson of Queen Victoria.

29 Kept your feet out of water? Your dinner starts with hors d’oeuvre (3-4)

DRY-SHOD : Anagram of(oeuvre, in the sense of a piece of work;an output) [first letters respectively of(starts) “your”, “dinner” plus(with) HORS D].

Answer: Without getting your feet or shoes wet.

Down

1 Covering? Having 7 I’m on guard (4)

SKIN : SKIN(placed after “bear”;having “bear with me”;answer to 7down, gives the tall fur cap worn by certain Guards regiments in the military).

2 Any number of years old? (4)

AGED : Not sure of this. I think it’s cryptic, as in “he’s aged two (or any other number) years”.

3 Take top job away from idle fellow in whom is the problem? (8)

DETHRONE : DRONE(an idle fellow, from the caste of bees that does nothing but impregnate the queen bee – a top job second only to the queen) containing(in whom is) anagram of(problem) THE.

Defn: The top job being the throne.

4 Finish off a US city where I could have 7 (5)

KOALA : KO(abbrev. for “knock out”;to eliminate;finish off, as in “to knock out a target”) + A + LA(abbrev. for Los Angeles, US city).

Answer: The “I” in the defn. that could be joined with “bear”;”bear with me”;answer to 7down.

6 Member in liquor, say (6)

ALLEGE : LEG(a limb;a member) contained in (in) ALE(an alcoholic drink;a liquor, though the latter is usually a spirit).

Answer: To claim, with no proof yet.

7 10 wait while I’m accompanied by 1 across, 11 the 24, 17 or 28 (4,4,2)

BEAR WITH ME : … WITH ME(I’m accompanied by …) any one of these BEAR answers: Shardik(1across), Winnie(11down) the Pooh(24down), Ted(17across, presumably short for “teddy bear”, though references show it as short for “teddy boy”) or Rupert(28across, Bear in the children’s comic strip).

Defn: Answer to 10across;please wait.

8 Proverbial king of Venice, perhaps, treating anemone with dye (3-4,3)

ONE-EYED MAN : Anagram of(treating) [ANEMONE plus(with) DYE].

Cryptic defn: Reference to “In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king”, and to Venetian blinds, an invention apparently first brought to early Venice from Persia.

11 Local first in the Guardian for Churchill (6)

WINNIE : { INN(the local;the nearby watering place) + I(the letter that looks like number 1;first) } contained in(in) WE(the first person pronoun for the Guardian, supplier of this crossword).

Answer: The nickname for Winston Churchill.

13 Seedsman embracing meal for member needs energy provider (5,5)

STEAM POWER : SOWER(of seeds;a seedsman) containing(embracing) { TEA(an afternoon meal) plus(for) MP(abbrev. for a Member of Parliament) }.

14 Nasty turn for boat raised this way — it’s usually mocked (6,4)

TURTLE SOUP : TURTLE(a nasty turn for a boat;overturn completely, as in “turn turtle”) + SO(in this way) UP(raised).

Answer: A soup, the mock version of which is an imitation made from a calf’s head or other meat and spices.

16 Sell old ship in custody of police (6)

MARKET : ARK(an old ship) contained in(in custody of) MET(short for the Metropolitan Police).

18 Bird that can’t fly — hence fly is to make milk? (8)

EMULSIFY : EMU(a flightless bird) + anagram of(hence) FLY IS.

21 Tree non-U, if non-U (6)

POPLAR : “popular”(non-U;not upper class, and hence popular with most? Or non-U;not unsatisfactory?) minus(if non-) “U”.

23 Each in the lead (5)

AHEAD : A HEAD(each, as in “tickets are 10 pounds a head”).

24 Ring up to show contempt (4)

POOH : Reversal of(up) HOOP(a ring;a band)

25 I’m in hospital: having 7 I’m Arcturus (4)

WARD : WARD(a less common word for “warden” which together with “bear”;”bear with me”;answer to 7down, gives the Greek derivation of the name of the star Arcturus, “Guardian of the Bear”).

==============================================================================

      Dermot Morgan As An Incensed Irish Catholic

43 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 25961 Araucaria”

  1. Thanks scchua and Araucaria

    More difficult than several recent puzzles from Araucaria. Lots of enjoyment nontheless.

    I ticked 15a, 22a, 27a, and 13d but the set of theme clues was also fun. I came to the same conclusion as scchua when trying to parse 25d having checked that Arcturus etymologically meant ‘guardian bear’.

    I got to the clever 29a quicker than I might otherwise have by lazily trying to look for dry-shoe in the dictionary – the subsequent parsing was very satisfying, however. ‘Woollybear’ was new to me.

  2. Thanks scchua, including for parsing 29a and 14d for me. 2d was so oddly easy it was my second last i:n: last was 1a – I should have remembered that Araucaria had it in November 2011. No aids needed.

  3. Thanks Araucaria and scchua
    I got POOH from WINNIE (and the 7dn clue) rather than vice versa.
    I found Arcturus as “bear watcher” quite easily, but “bear ward” also turned up after I guessed the answer to 15d.
    I would like someone to give adefinitive parsing of 2d too.

    [[I can identify top middle and at least one of top left – and possibly bottom left -, but, as I can’t see a connection yet, I’ll leave them un-named.]]

  4. Thanks to scchua for the blog. You explained several where I had the answer without knowing the reason.

    On 16d I picked Argo as an old ship then tried to make a relevant word from -ARGO- without joy. Eventually I spotted Ark 🙁

    [[I think the first picture is Tiger Woods plus unknown: does he fit in with 26a tiger moth?]]

  5. My first post on this forum. Isn’t 2d a dd? any number of ears as in scchua’s example, plus aged = old.

  6. Thanks scchua for the blog and the Rev for what you rightly call a mental workout. I liked the dual nature of the theme: unreferenced famous bears and the 7s associated with ‘bear’. I found the latter harder, on the whole, but SKIN was last in owing to a lengthy delay on SHARDIK. Foolish me, looking through the dramatis personae of Watership Down and forgetting the follow-up till I started naming tall buildings.

    [[Is the other golfer Jack Nicklaus, aka The Golden Bear?]]

  8. I had both aged & ages as possible answers for 2d initially but I think it works as: Any number of years = aged( eg aged 18); old = aged and &lit

    Rupert is also a bear & I expect Araucaria has Bamboo in as the sole food of the giant panda, another bear.

    A lovely puzzle to solve. Thanks to Araucaria & scchua.

  9. Thanks, scchua.

    Enjoyable ursine puzzle from Araucaria, with some characteristically ingenious clueing: I especially liked 1a, 15a, 29a (the Rev likes using French words as directions, cleverly done here), 14d, 21d. The KOALA isn’t a bear, of course, and the usage is rather old-fashioned now, but it fits nicely – this and SHARDAK were my last entries.

    I agree with the parsing of 2d as a dd (any number of years = old = AGED) and jkb_ing’s comment @7 that the Spoonerism in 12a is ‘waking a bray’.

  10. [[I think the other golfer might be Tom Watson. I recognise top right too, now, but again I can’t see a link.]]

  12. Many thanks, Araucaria and scchua. A pleasure as always.

    [[1, 4 and 6 are the principal cast members of Father TED. John Travolta was in PHENOMENON, and 3 looks like Erasmaus, but I can’t make a connection — perhaps he was a bear fancier.]]

  16. [[Ah, I see — it was Erasmus who allegedly said “In the land of the blind, the ONE-EYED MAN is king.”

    I took 1 to relate to TIGER moth too. Are we done?]]

  18. Enjoyed it greatly. Came here to check a couple where we got the answers but weren’t sure of our parsing – and kicked ourselves when we saw where we went wrong.

    [[Dermot Morgan and Pauline McGlynn were both in Father Ted.]]

  19. BTW: For 8d, we had it that in the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king. So, he would be king of venice – the land of Venetian blinds!

  20. Thanks Araucaria and scchua.

    Unusual solve for me in that I was left at the end with four to go in different parts of the grid with all of their respective crossers in place. WARD made me slap my forehead (and I was pleased to learn more about Arcturus and its constellation Boötes), TURTLE SOUP was a lovely revelation, and DETHRONE was nicely constructed, which just left me with AGED – I was convinced it was right but didn’t want to put it in as it seemed a little lightweight and unconvincing.

    Still, the ursine theme (which for me also fell into place through 11 the 24) was beautifully put together. I have never read SHARDIK but I dredged the name up from somewhere. The various clues that related to BEAR WITH ME were excellent, with SKIN being my favourite.

  22. Thanks scchua and A.

    I had only INERT GAS first run through, so thought it was gong to be hard. However, I got BAMBOO (sticky stuff, indeed!) next and knowing that Arcturus was the guardian of the bear star, 7d followed and the rest relatively easily. SHARDIK I did not know.

    Very enjoyable.

  23. Mostly OK here. Got 7d early, but got stuck on the top-left corner; totally lost on 1a (didn’t know which Adams – assumed it was Douglas) and couldn’t work through 3d.

    Guess things will improve as I gradually get used to the setters…

  24. NeilW @17: ‘awaking bray’ is certainly a possible reading, but Araucaria’s clue reads: ‘…arousing A comment from an ass’, so ‘waking A bray’ is slightly slicker.

  25. Thanks for your comments. You’re right, it’s “waking a bray”. Blog amended.

    [[IanSW3 et al: 2,4,6 Father TED; 5 PHENOMENON; 3 ONE-EYED MAN are right. Well done! Which leaves Pic1. It’s not Watson nor Nicklaus with Tiger, nor did it have to be Tiger for the links (yes more than one) to work.]]

  26. [[Well, other than that they are apparently in a TOURNAMENT (in which Tiger Woods is proably AHEAD), I’m stumped.]]

  27. [[Is the golfer in the picture with Tiger Fuzzy Zoeller, whose unfortunate remarks were exhumed recently with regards to the pickle Sergio Garcia got himself into? And is the link therefore a reference to Fozzy Bear of the Muppets?]]

  29. [[It’s Kenny Perry with Woods, for what it’s worth. I suppose he’s wearing a WOOLLY.]]

  30. I lost my bearings once or twice. 😉

    Thanks scchua; SKIN was my favourite.

    [[and #1 is Kenny Perry with Woods in the Double SKINs Game of the Memorial TOURNAMENT.]]

  31. A day of nostalgia. Two years ago A created a custom puzzle for my arctophile brother’s 70th birthday which included several references to bears. So it was a real pleasure to see another bear-themed offering from A. Also, a couple of weeks ago, all of my UK relatives were in New York for my son’s wedding, and we all went to see the original 11 the 24 together with Kanga, Eeyore, Tigger and Piglet at the NY Public Library.

  33. Thanks, Araucaria and schhua.

    Much fun as ever. Loved the bear theme.

    ONE-EYED MAN was one of my favourites. Btw, persiane are shutters in Italian.

    Giovanna x

  35. [[Well, Robi, you (bearly?) made it. A golf SKINs TOURNAMENT in general was what I was hinting at.]]

  36. Thanks Araucaria and scchua

    Another classy offering from A again which looked daunting at first but gradually yielded the key with the very clever multi-layered play on bear.

    SHARDIK was spooky – a work colleague and I were talking about Adams earlier in the day – he referring to Douglas and I to Richard and I’d specifically mentioned this book when alluding to RA – had forgotten he was a bear! It still took an age to justify why 1a was it having not heard of the SHARD tower in London.

    I put INERT GAS along with KOALA BEAR – they could be both technically wrong – but at least A instils that doubt with the ? in 9a and the ‘could have’ in 4d – and both make fine clues !

    With WARD, I was thinking that Arcturus from Earth was ‘bearward’ as in towards the bear (Ursa Major) which is behind it – but the guardian view is probably stronger.

    Couldn’t quite relate non-U to popular – aren’t some of the U-class royals quite popular – or am I missing something with the nuance of the non-U definition?

    Thought the depth of both the Venetian ONE-EYED MAN and the mock TURTLE SOUP were brilliant.

  37. An excellent puzzle but I had two wrong. At 1ac I didn’t know the bear/book and I didn’t parse the clue properly. I was convinced that ‘I know’ referred to ‘ok’ so I went with Shardok, and at 2dn I went with ages rather than aged.

    As a few of you have commented, this seemed harder than most recent Araucaria puzzles.

  39. Re TED (17across, presumably short for “teddy bear”, though references show it as short for “teddy boy”)

    I think instead he’s referring to the recent Mark Wahlberg film Ted.

  40. What a fun crossword!

    Re ‘aged’ – isn’t the letter D used to signify any number in cryptic clues? So age:D is any age, as well as AGED being old.

    Some of the bears ventured into areas of knowledge beyond me, a bear of little brain …

    GA

  41. Hi Bruce @36

    I read ‘poplar’ as did scchua, but it is paradoxical that the clue could almost equally have read ‘tree, non-U if U’ if U is taken in its other common x-word sense as Universal (in film censorship).

  42. Delightful. I got 7d early from a couple of crossing letters and PLEASE, and forgot all about the other answers it references until I was basically finished and went back to it to convert pencil to ink. Then I noticed all the bears I had been filling in.

    Minor note, shikasta @ 8, pandas aren’t bears. Pity, that!

    Thanks scchua and Araucaria!

  43. I’m adding a late note as this was just in the Guardian Weekly. Yet again, I seem to be in a minority about Araucaria, who continues to both delight yet increasingly irritate me in equal doses.

    Some of his cluing is still beautiful [as it generally all used to be until about 10 years ago], but some is sloppy or just poor [‘much of home’ = OM?] and “I’m in hospital” = Ward? That is not a clever or even fair definition. I half expect to see Araucaria stating in future for part of a clue to read, ‘with a letter of the alphabet’ for any letter he chooses. 2d [Aged] is a dreadful clue, and there are several other too that are not to his prior fantastic standard. Surely the editor could push him to correct inadequate clues, or is he just as much in awe of Araucaria that no-one can criticise him. Like fantastic football players, [who sometimes never know when to ‘hang up their boots’] we should be allowed to treat him as we would any other setter today, not on his past glories – which were many. I doubt Tramp or many other setters I can mention could be so poor and sloppy with cluing, yet get away with it, without criticism.

    I rarely truly like any Araucaria puzzles any longer and from being my second favourite for 30-40 years [after Bunthorne] he now is not in my top 10.
    Written mostly in sadness, as well as frustration.

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