Guardian Cryptic N° 25,980 by Picaroon

by

The puzzle may be found at http://www.guardian.co.uk/crosswords/cryptic/25980.

Arguably the mark of a good crossword is that it appears difficult at first, but solves satisfyingly. This one certainly fits that description. Thank you, Picaroon.

Across
5. Hurry to get hold of extravagant bed-warmer (6)
HOTTIE An envelope (‘to get hold of’) of OTT (over the top., ‘extravagant’) in HIE (‘hurry’). A hottie is a hot water bottle, it says here.
6. Continent‘s cold precipitation (6)
CHASTE A charade of C (‘cold’) plus HASTE (‘precipitation’). Two misdirections for the price of one.
9. Joyful, having told Republican to get lost (6)
ELATED A subtraction: [r]ELATED (‘told’) without the R (‘Republican to get lost’).
10. Record of proceedings in Brussels is first to earn praise (8)
EULOGISE An envelope (‘in’) of LOG (‘record of proceedings’) in EU (‘Brussels’ by metonomy) plus ‘is’ plus E (‘first to Earn’).
11. Purveyor of romances good for foreigners taking love to heart (4)
BOON An envelope (‘taking … to heart’) of O (‘love’) in BON (‘good for foreigners’ if the foreigners happen to be French). The definition refers to the publisher Mills and Boon, a division of Harlequin.
12. Advice for bed-wetter showing ambition? (3-2-3-2)
GET-UP-AND-GO Definition and literal interpretation.
13. Girl returned damaged article, opposed like 5 across and 25, 6 and 24 etc (11)
DIAMETRICAL A charade of DIAM, a reversal (‘returned’) of MAID (‘girl’) plus ETRICAL, an anagram (‘damaged’) of ‘article’. The definition refers, of course, to the positioning of the lights, not their contents.
18. Fatigue from worship with leader of Vatican arriving late (10)
ENERVATION VENERATION (‘worship’) with the V moved along from the head of the word (‘leader of Vatican arriving late’).
21. Problem joining tin with something more precious (4)
SNAG A charade of SN (‘tin’, chemical symbol) plus AG (silver, likewise; ‘something more precious’).
22. Lennon’s intro in Let It Be, unfortunately, is rubbish (8)
BELITTLE An anagram (‘unfortunately’) of L (‘Lennon’s intro’) plus ‘let it be’.
23. After grand gambling game, setter’s down (6)
GLOOMY A charade of G (‘grand’) plus LOO (‘gambling game’) plus MY (‘setter’s’).
24. Like a kitchen where saté is prepared with cry of surprise (6)
STEAMY A charade of STEA, an anagram (‘is prepared’) of ‘sate’ plus MY (‘cry of surprise’).
25. Old crone left by date, cracking smile (6)
BELDAM An envelope (‘cracking’) of L (‘left’) plus D (‘date’) in BEAM (‘smile’).
Down
1. Foul smell by one keeping to Bulgarian bread (8)
STOTINKI An envelope (‘keeping’) of ‘to’ in STINK (‘foul smell’) plus I (‘one’). A stotinka is a hundredth part of a lev, Bulgarian currency.
2. Stray animal‘s spotted on northward journey (3-3)
PIE-DOG A charade of PIED (‘spotted’) plus OG, a reversal (‘northward’, in a down light) of GO (‘journey’, verb).
3. Royal consort gets sanctimonious in early Christian city (8)
PHILIPPI A charade of PHILIP (‘royal consort’) plus PI (‘sanctimonious’). The old city in northern Greece is noted for the battle in which Mark Antony and Octavian defeated Brutus and the other conspirators, and, for the purposes of this clue, for Paul’s letter to the Philippians.
4. Italy shortly to maintain government’s shape (6)
ISOGON An envelope (‘to maintain’) of G (‘government’) in I (‘Italy’) plus SOON (‘shortly’). An isogon is an equiangular polygon.
5. This man turned up dirt for the Sun (6)
HELIOS A charade of HE (‘this man’) plus LIOS, a reversal (‘turned up’) of SOIL (‘dirt’).
7. Rock singer not finishing with number that’s a standard (6)
ENSIGN A charade of ENSIG, an anagram (‘rock’) of ‘singe[r]’ ‘not finishing’ plus N (‘number’).
8. These ladies are willing and game with raciest dancing (11)
TESTATRICES A charade of TEST (‘game’) plus ATRICES, an anagram (‘dancing’) of ‘raciest’.
14. Gesture theatrically about late running when fare’s demanded (8)
MEALTIME An envelope (‘about’) of EALT, an anagram (‘running’) of ‘late’ in MIME (‘gesture theatrically’).
15. Extremely dexterous on cab’s nuts and bolts (8)
ABSCONDS A charade of ABSCON, an anagram (‘nuts’) of ‘on cabs’ plus DS (‘extremely DexterouS‘).
16. What yours truly does after wearing gussets (6)
INSETS A charade of IN (‘wearing’) plus SETS (‘what yours truly does’).
17. Old lady supports part of leg in Turkish bath (6)
HAMMAM A charade of HAM (‘part of leg’) plus MAM (‘old lady’).
19. One who holds up royal’s crown to help monarch (6)
RAIDER A charade of R (‘Royal’s crown’) plus AID (‘help’) plus ER (‘monarch’).
20. Raising arm, seize hunk (6)
NUGGET A charade of NUG, a reversal (‘raising’) of GUN (‘arm’) plus GET (‘seize’).

53 comments on “Guardian Cryptic N° 25,980 by Picaroon”

  1. Re 13 ac and all the other acrosses – the contents are in fact diametrically opposed.

    Re 12 ac: I had this as a DD.

    I entirely agree that this seemed very hard initially then gradually gave way. I found it most enjoyable.

    Thank you for the blog, especially the succinct definition of ISOGON.

  2. What a fabulous puzzle! I agree that this seemed difficult at first but I was then able to solve and parse all of the clues which was very satisfying.

    I liked a lot of the clues, especially 6a, 19d, 14d, 16d, 1d & 21a and my favourites were ELATED, HELIOS, HOTTIE & BOON.

    New words for me were ISOGON, HAMMAM, TESTATRICES & STOTINKI.

    Like muffyword, I also parsed 12a as a DD.

    Thanks for the blog, PeterO.

  3. Thanks Peter. Shot through the first three quarters then got held up on the delightful 8d – thinking ‘game’ might be part of the anagram; by 1d, not knowing the word let alone the plural; and lastly, for a good while on the gussets, even after looking them up (‘kneels’ seemed vaguely plausible for 16d). Good work, Picaroon.

  4. Thanks, Peter.

    I really enjoyed solving this one from Picaroon – thank you to him. It all came together in the end, but I only got there because I realised that 13ac was the key to the puzzle: that we were looking for antonyms in all the acrosses. DIAMETRICAL was, bizarrely, one of my last in.

    Some less common words, not surprisingly, but all in all a cleverly constructed delight.

  5. I came up short with ‘isogen’ but I can echo other comments – this was enjoyable and not as hard as it seemrd at first. If I hadn’t been to Bulgaria 30-odd years ago, I’d have struggled mightily with STOTINKI. MEALTIME has a beautifully misleading surface.

    (I don’t think I’ve made a comment yet without having it wiped out on account of a failure to do the ‘captcha’. Obviously the shibboleth to determine who the old hands are!)

  6. Thanks, PeterO. A bit of Chambers checking involved for me but the constructions were all fair.

    I think ABSCONDS has to be just one complete anagram with no charade.

    ulaca @5, if you do that, nothing is wiped (at least in Firefox it isn’t.) Just hit the back button, complete the captcha and fire again.

  7. Thanks PeterO and Picaroon
    In contrast to those above, I found this difficult to the end – or rather not to the end, as I failed on CHASTE and had carelessly put EULOGIES instead of EULOGISE, so didn’t get ENSIGN either.
    I also was making a good case for PODSOL for HELIOS – it’s a type of soil, and the SOL bit was the sun. Coulldn’t make sense of DOP (or POD?) for the “this man” part, though!

  9. Thank you, PeterO.

    Nothing short of a Tour de Force from the Picmeister. A hell of a work of construction to get so many opposites into the grid. Bravi!

    Held up for ages by choosing the singular STOTINKA instead of the plural.

    So many smooth misdirections but all soluble with patience.

    Loved it, thanks Picaroon.

  10. Thanks for the blog, PeterO.

    I already thought this was an excellent puzzle but had feailed to see the significance of the ‘etc’ in 13ac and so had missed the brilliance of the placing of the across solutions. Many thanks to Muffyword @1 for pointing it out.

    I was going to say that my favourite clues were 7, 8 and 15dn but, in view of the above, there really isn’t much to choose between them.

    Huge thanks to Picaroon for a superb end to what has been a very good week. We’re very fortunate.

  11. Couldn’t get an Indy today so did this one on the train, bit tricky in places, I was reminded of Donk’s recent Indy puzzle where he put diametrically opposed anagrams rather than antonyms in the grid.

    Thanks to Picaroon and PeterO

  12. Thanks PeterO and Picaroon

    A very clever puzzle, revealed to be yet more so by Muffyword’s comment. I had at first thought we were going to have semantic opposites in the diametrical clues and then failed to see them in the others.

    And on further thought, chaste and steamy and hottie and beldam can be seen as semantic opposites as well which I first thought they weren’t.

    I got stotinki ‘accidentally’ when trying to check a comparable word using ‘stench’. I also had to check hammam.

    My COD was definitely 18a.

  15. Thanks Picaroon and PeterO; a most enjoyable puzzle.

    Not sure about ‘equiangular’, PeterO? If ‘isogon’ means the same as ‘regular polygon’ (a much more common name), then some equiangular figures are not regular. Imagine a regular hexagon and stretch it along one of the long lines of symmetry: all the angles remain 120 degrees but there are different lengths. A regular polygon thus has all sides and all angles equal.

    8 I thought was lovely and was reminded that years ago, I picked up the business card of a B&B in the Western Isles. It read: The Misses McTavish, Joint Proprietrices. Can’t imagine one like that these days.

  16. Thanks, PeterO

    I found this really tricky. Wasn’t helped by my putting in STOTINKA at first (like William @9), so that DIAMETRICAL was one of my last entries and hence its significance to all the across clues was entirely lost on me. The device of the crossword did make for some unusual vocabulary, particularly in the down answers, which didn’t make it any easier. Rewarding, though.

    Some great clues here: 6a and 14d (great defs), 10a and 18a (nice construction and surface).

    Clever puzzle – Picaroon at his most piratical.

  17. Thanks to PeterO for the blog.

    I was a bit disappointed by 11: Boon by himself is not a purveyor. He is just half of a partnership and I saw nothing in the clue to show you had to drop Mills 🙁

  18. Thanks Picaroon; very clever puzzle that explains the slightly strange grid and a handful of rather obscure words. I kept looking for a NINA in the perimeter as I populated the grid. 🙁

    Thanks PeterO and Muffyword @1 – for Chas @17, here is an extract from Wiki that might help with 11: ‘Gerald Mills, Boon’s partner in business, died in 1928 giving a devastating blow to Mills & Boon. However, in 1930, Boon reshaped his company and made it into what it is known for today, a publishing house publishing only romantic fiction.’

    I particularly liked STOTINKI and CHASTE (my last in.)

  19. A very enjoyable puzzle. Tricky in parts, but fairly clued.
    Many thanks to Picaroon, and to PeterO for the blog.

  20. The quest ion isa whethr the obscurioty is jst ifed by the ‘trope’, espeicoally giben the horrivle grid!

    Pic aroon has the talents though, as seen un some cliues.

    Rowly.

  21. chas @17, sorry but I can’t agree – BOON was one of the easiest of the clues and needed a bit of effort to solve only because the definition was a little cryptic (or not, as Robi points out.)

  22. Thanks, Picaroon and PeterO,for a good work-out with some smiles along the way.

    Like ulaca @5; a visit to Bulgaria many moons ago gave me STOTINKI with ease.Even without that advantage, it was a brilliant clue.

    CHASTE, and HOTTIE were favourites, too.

    INSET didn’t go in as quickly as it should have done as I kept thinking of wearing in the nautical sense; although there had to be some reference to setting there.

    As Eileen says, a very good week and I agree that we are very fortunate.

    Giovanna x

  23. Thanks Picaroon and PeterO

    Very nice puzzle made all that much better with the well-picked up diametrical opposites @1.

    Fell into two halves for me with the top half going in quite steadily – the bottom half had only BELITTLE (my first in) and SNAG for a long time. The rest, without exception, took a lot of work to prise out one by one – oh if I had of seen the theme that much earlier!

    Really tight clues that made the lesser known words gettable – think that STOTINKA was served up not so long ago … so wasn’t unheard of – still didn’t help not seeing that there were more than one of them though!

  25. Several people seem to have misunderstood my comment @17. I believe the name of the publishing company is Mills & Boon – this is the purveyor of romance. The clue leads to just BOON with no mention of dropping Mills. I did not say I had failed to solve it – just that I was disappointed. The fact that Mills died years ago is irrelevant as his name is still there in the company name.

  26. Hey Rowly

    Using bread = (slang) money, then the Bulgarian unit of currency is the LEV = 100 STOTINKI

    made up by inserting TO into STINK I (foul smell and one)

  27. Held up by INSETS and PIE-DOG (a new compound to me). But all in all a very clever, well-constructed crossword.

  30. Chas @25

    Mills and Boon were purveyors of romance. Mills was a purveyor of romance. Boon was a purveyor of romance. You haven’t said anything that could persuade anyone otherwise.

    Similarly the fact that Hobbs and Sutcliffe were opening batsmen (together) doesn’t mean Hobbs wasn’t one. It means he was.

  31. chas, at the risk of boring the gallery, yes your point was fully understood but I don’t see how you can be “disappointed” when the setter requires such a small leap to arrive at the solution especially given the simplicity of the rest of the clue.

    “Disappointment” implies unfairness and the squiffy bit of only having half of M&B just seemed to me to even things up.

    Oh dear, I’ve taken so long trying to make this all sound fair and reasonable, T99 has beaten me to it with a simpler argument!

  32. Thanks, Thoma [where has your ‘s’ gone? – or are you not who I think you are?] @30 – your last paragraph made me laugh out loud! [But I’m sad that that’s the only comment Chas felt able to make on this splendid puzzle.]

    And speaking of the gallery, Neil @31, I’m sure I’ve seen TATE [by himself] clued as a purveyor of sugar, as well as the more common gallery.

  34. Eileen@32

    Yes, that’s me, “Thomas99”, at 30. I can’t imagine what’s happened to that “s”. It’s there in front of me as I write…

  35. Hi Thomas99
    Since 20/4/13, 48 of your comments have been posted by Thomas99 and 15 by Thoma99. When I first noticed the discrepancy back in April I assumed that you were accessing the site from a different pc (or using a different browser)and had mistyped your user name on the second pc (or browser).

  36. Gaufrid @35

    Of course! Sorry, I was being dense – I did in fact post the first comment from my partner’s ipad. I obviously typed the name in wrongly ages ago and never noticed.

  37. I needed aids at the end to get HAMMAM because I either didn’t know or couldn’t remember the word, I couldn’t think of a three-letter word _a_ that meant part of a leg, and the second part of the wordplay could have referred to mam, mum or mom (for US solvers, but far less likely). I found this a tricky solve and I really had to concentrate on the wordplay.

    As far as the surface reading of 1dn is concerned, it didn’t bother me because the Guardian’s surface readings sometimes lack the elegance of those that The Times aspires to.

  38. And I thought we were being spammed.

    Speaking of products we ingest, I wonder what happens, Rowly & Wukka, when one ‘keeps to’ Guinness? Will foul smells emerge?

    Does Rose Kennedy have a black dress?

  40. Nearly managed to finish this. After an initial look when nothing came to mind apart from BOTTLE (oops!) and SNAG, after a little work several answers fell into place quite quickly.

    Stuck mainly on INSETS and BELDAM.

    As many others, I hadn’t spotted all the diagonal links until I read Muffyword @1 – very impressive.

  41. Just a quick word on ISOGON if I may.

    Isogon has tended (in mathematics) to come to mean an equiangular polygon which doesn’t necessarily have equal sides, though it includes those that do. Isogonal = equiangular.

    A simple example would be a rectangle!

  42. Brilliant end to an excellent week
    I forgot about the diagonal opposites, having solved DIAGONAL otherwise it might have been easier.
    Had to look up STOTINKI & couldn’t get HAMMAM.
    CoD 22a
    Thanks to PeterO

  43. I am left uncertain about my own @12 (and Riccardo’s @13) suggestion (if I understood his point) that the diametrically opposed clues may well also be seen as opposites in content. I failed to see this in solving and assumed like PeterO that it was not the case.

    The key clue here seems to be 5a. Hottie is defined as ‘hot-water bottle’ in Chambers but google also reveals it as a term for a physically attractive young person. This seems well opposed to ‘old crone’. In both senses a ‘hottie’ might be thought of as a ‘bed-warmer’.

    The case for chaste/steamy seems more straightforward.

    If this is correct, is there a special term for a clue like 5a where both the definition ‘bed-warmer’ and the answer are similarly ambiguous, or is it just a compact dd where the answer is also a single word so that there is double entendre in both cases?

  44. I stuffed myself for a time, by putting “symmetrical” (which I couldn’t make work, unsurprisingly) rather than “diametrical”. I’m surprised more didn’t do this: usually I’m not alone in my mistakes.

    All told a stimulating and pleasant start to the evening, supplemented, as I walked between the two village pubs, by coming upon standing traffic. A little lady in a small car apparently stubbornly refused, quite rightly, to reverse for a much-embellished 4WD, passing parked cars on the wrong side. I smiled, nodded in support, and gave her the thumbs up. The male in the 4WD moved to get out, when I gestured as to what he thought he was doing, but who should arrive at that moment other than the police. He pleaded: “she won’t move” to them. They pointed to the side of the road further along. He might have thought he was unlucky. Actually, he owes those policemen a debt of gratitude…

    Anyway I digress (luxury of a proper keyboard). Thanks setter and bloggers alike for plenty of fun and interest.

  45. As some will know, I am a real Picaroon fan and this puzzle didn’t disappoint (which is an understatement).
    Once more cluing of the highest order with only one minor quibble: 16d, in which ‘sets’ is part of both the solution and the definition.

    Flashling @11 saw flashes ( 🙂 ) of Donk’s recent puzzle for the Indy.
    Well, I had a similar experience.
    For those who are not familiar with Donk’s puzzle, I would say go to http://www.fifteensquared.net/2013/06/06/independent-8313donk/#comments and read the setter’s post @19.
    It explains why constructing a puzzle like this leaves you with the ‘problem’ of avoiding obscure down clues.

    I think, Picaroon did that job very well.
    1d (STOTINKI) sounded better than the other option STITONKI.
    And, even as a Maths teacher, I had never heard of an ISOGON – but yep, perfectly gettable from the wordplay.

    Fantastic puzzle.
    Normally, Picaroon aims for ghost themes but today he was a bit Brendan-like, wasn’t he?

    Many thanks to PeterO for an immaculate blog.

  46. Brilliant end to a good week.

    Like many others I had a slow start but made steady progress as all clues were fair. (I disagree with all the previous objections but I can see I’m not alone!)

    Only really held up at the end by having entered “STOTINKA”.

    Like others I also only saw the antonyms after competing the crossword and reading this blog! DIAMTETRICAL was my penultimate entry just before PIE DOG!

    By the way ulaca @5 I suppose you realise that the CAPTCHA is actually there to stop non-humans, (i.e. programs, web-bots etc) posting on here.) However reading some of the objections on here it doesn’t appear to be 100% successful 🙂 )
    Thanks to PeterO and Picaroon.

  47. Sil @45

    Brendan’s 24017 and 24198 (in 2007!) were based on diametric anagram couplets and both were ghost-themed.

    (Although, since Brendan’s puzzles are always themed, you might argue that they are never ghosted)

    In 24198 they all take a swap halves form, as in ROADSIDE/SIDE ROAD. What stuck in my memory was OLGA/GAOL. Very nice.

  48. Oh dear! Did no-one else struggle to finish like me? Two early mistakes – Pye-dog for 2d (eyed for spotted and og going north but only now seen that I was missing an e), so couldn’t solve 5a. And then had rummy for the card game and tried to make the answer grumpy, though sure I had got hammam right. Also didn’t get stotinki or absconds. With a bit more concentration I should have been able to finish this, so annoyed with myself.

  49. No, Sylvia, you were not alone, I too struggled (as I suspect did other silent ones). I never like this grid. I recognised the diagonal nature early on, and I, at first, had in mind the Brendans which rhotician mentions. However, given the partial answers I had at the time I dismissed the antonym connection; I don’t think it would have helped me much in any case.

  50. Excellent puzzle, great blog.

    So many answers turned out to be easier than they appeared, once solved, like PIE-DOG which I missed and was completely over-thinking (didn’t help that I never heard the phrase).

    Last 3 acrosses in were 24, 25, and 13, which is when the theme finally clicked, too late to help with solving.

    Thanks PeterO, the rest of you lot, and Picaroon!

  51. @Sil #45

    Collins – Gusset
    1: an inset piece of material used esp to strengthen or enlarge a garment

    ie equally an inset as a noun

    What yours truly does: SETS
    after wearing: after IN
    gussets: def

    I see no double use of SETS

    Maybe you read it differently? 🙂 🙂 🙁

  52. @Sil – re-read yours – you’re not complaining of double duty – you’re complaining that SETS is visible in both the clue and the answer.

    Oh per-lease. Give the setter a break. You can be fairly sure that he, his tester, the G puzzle editor, the blogger and all the other commenters (and others that didn’t) noticed that and were’nt offended.

    You are however free to hold that opinion I suppose.

    Agree with the rest of your commment.

    Maths teacher eh. Did that once myself for a while. Bored witless. Decided that, had I known I would find myself teaching, woodwork or cookery (domestic science!) would have been much more fun – the kiddies love it – and there’s no marking to do.

    🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

  53. Jolly Swagman: off-topic, self-obsessed arrogance, as usual. I’m surprised you’re still trying to con everyone you complete these (though there is a cheat button for you thickos).

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