Guardian 26186 / Puck

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A wonderful mix of the erudite and the scatological from the ever-inventive Puck. Not since the passing of Araucaria have I learned so much general knowledge – or deployed so much I already had in store – in the course of doing a daily crossword. Edit: Thanks to Shirley @3 for pointing out that there is erudition here but no scatology; my memory was importing it from a different crossword.

Some people don’t like to be made to do that kind of work, and I can see it would be irritating if you were solving on paper far from the woes of the Internet, but for me it is a bonus. The tricky part for the setter is making sure the solver doesn’t get hopelessly stuck, but Puck has mostly followed the Ximenean principle of ‘easy clues for difficult words’, so I got there in the end. Some of the other wordplay was a little fiendish, but I think I have sorted it all out, though a small mystery remains about 5d.

Across

1 Agitator from East London ready to follow revolutionary brief (9)
FIREBRAND
BRIEF* + RAND, the currency of South Africa and in particular of the city of East London.

6 A Monty Python sketch, originally funny (4)
SPAM
Anagram (‘funny’) of initial letters (‘originally’), and a reference to the Pythons’ unique sense of humour manifested in the Spam sketch.

10 Cut corner heading into narrow street (5)
LANCE
C(orner) in LANE.

11 Light grey French perfume ingredient (9)
AMBERGRIS
AMBER (traffic) light + GRIS (‘grey’ in French). Huge boles of the mysterious whale secretion really do occasionally wash up and enrich unsuspecting beachcombers, though there are disappointments, too.

12 Busy actor turned sloth? Split evident here (7)
CROATIA
ACTOR* + (AI)<. Split is indeed found in Croatia.

13 Keeping like a sweet sauce, say (7)
CUSTODY
Or ‘custardy’, as one might say.

14 Dish of boiled hen — it’s fed to a wild dog in India (4-2-3-4)
TOAD-IN-THE-HOLE
(HEN IT)* in TO A DHOLE.

17 Set of steps needed for tossing the caber? (8,5)
HIGHLAND FLING
Def + c.d.

21 Sound advice daughter ignored, in general (7)
AGRIPPA
AGRIPPA was certainly a general but the (tenuous) parsing of this almost defeated me. AGRIPPA sounds like ‘a gripper’, and if you ignore the D (Daughter) in ‘advice’ you’re left with ‘a vice’, which is for gripping.

22 Wine drunk by loveless fiddle player is more disgusting (7)
NASTIER
ASTI in NER(O), the emperor famously supposed to have fiddled while Rome burned.

24 Number I love to sing about opening of railway cutting (9)
TRENCHANT
TEN CHANT about R(ailway). TEN is a number, and Puck pushes his luck by spelling it out as I (=1) 0 (love).

25 Mad as an animal that is trapped (5)
IRATE
Namely a RAT trapped by I.E.

26 Fanatical followers of Brazil and Barcelona? (4)
NUTS
We’ve all heard of Brazil nuts, but Barcelona nuts were new to me. They are a variety of hazelnut, apparently.

27 Former writer’s holding stationery items dear (9)
EXPENSIVE
EX- I’VE holding PENS.

Down

1 Joy of life after moving to Dublin, perhaps (8)
FELICITY
LIFE* + CITY.

2 Copier — one office has it stored away? (5)
RONEO
The answer is stored away in ‘CopieR – ONE Office’, and there may well still be the odd office here and there that has one of these old duplicating machines stored away in a forgotten cupboard.

3 How often we get inspiration — and the rest (9,5)
BREATHING SPACE
Def + c.d.

4 Insistent girl should meet male model (7)
ADAMANT
ADA + MAN + T. Henry Ford’s Model T will never die in Crosswordland.

5 “Lost taxi turns up in river” fiasco (7)
DEBACLE
This appears to be (L CAB)< in the River DEE, but why L should stand for ‘lost’ I am at a loss to say. Edit: Thanks to Simon S @1 for a plausible explanation.

7 Composer using piano, so the French one (9)
PERGOLESI
P + ERGO + LES + I. I can’t say with certainty I’d heard of the composer, but I was able to reconstruct him from the easy wordplay.

8 The majority on vacation yearn for North Welsh port (6)
MOSTYN
MOST Y(ear)N.

9 Port model ordered (7,7)
BRISTOL FASHION
I had never heard this delightful expression, but the construction couldn’t be more straightforward.

15 Right inside the bar, no drunk is offensive (9)
ABHORRENT
R in (THE BAR NO)*.

16 Cause pain to Irish horse, say — one mounted the night before (8)
AGGRIEVE
(IR + GG (‘gee-gee’) + A)< + EVE.

18 Vegetation that’s fine in a gale moving east (7)
LEAFAGE
F in (A GALE)* + E.

19 Uninterrupted playing of pontoon’s lacking nought (3-4)
NON-STOP
(PONTO(o)N’S)*.

20 Container one Geordie home put out for recycling? (6)
CARTON
Another &lit, this is an anagram of CONTAINER minus I (one) NE (Geordie home). The question mark is certainly well-earned.

23 National Rail quick? No luck there, sadly (5)
IRAQI
Anagram of RAIL QUICK without the letters of LUCK.

72 comments on “Guardian 26186 / Puck”

  1. Thanks Puck and Writinghawk

    Excellent puzzle, which I very much enjoyed despite scratching my head severeal times and having to check a few.

    In 5 I think L = Lost comes from the column headers in a league table, W D L = Won Drawn Lost.

    hth

  5. Thanks Puck and Writinghawk
    Three I didn’t manage to parse (TOAD IN THE HOLE, AGRIPPA, and CARTON – and also the “I love” part of 24a) so thanks for those.
    My Geography is quite good, but I had to resort to an atlas for MOSTYN.
    I last used a Roneo about 40 years ago – do you think Puck should have indicated its obsolescence?
    I love “East London ready” for rand!

  6. A lot of these I wrote in correctly but was unable to parse. Thank you for the subsequent illumination here. Still don’t understand the ‘IA’ in ‘CROATIA’? All very ingenious, though. ‘(Shipshape and) Bristol Fashion’ allegedly refers to the prosperity of that port in days gone by, although it has also been suggested that in particular it has unpleasant associations with the landing there of slaving ships.

  7. . . .and CARTON still defeats me! (I was trying to wedge CAN in there (as in ‘Canny’), but that’s about all.

  8. Simon @1,2: Ah, thanks. I have waved my magic wand over your typo.

    Shirley @3: Good question! *scratches head* Now where did I get that from? The problem is that I did Donk first this morning (an excellent puzzle by the way), and my vague memory of allusions to naughty bits, coupled with the fact that Puck is quite capable of them when he chooses, led me astray.

    Umpire @6: As the blog hints, IA is AI backwards – the word is linked above for the benefit of readers unfamiliar with this three-toed sloth. (Seasoned crossword-solvers know that the AI is the only sloth worth mentioning.)

  9. Thanks, Writinghawk.

    umpire46, an AI is a three-toed sloth – supposedly from the cry it makes.

    Can’t really add to W’s excellent parsing of CARTON in the blog.

  11. Thanks Writinghawk. Though I got to the end quite quickly it seemed the Python sketch at work here was the Hungarian dictionary, there were so many disjunctions. You’ve explained most of them, but the AI in 12a, the anagram fodder in 14a, the daughter in 21a, the I love in 24a, the space in 3d and CARTON just to name some had me merrily spluttering. Thanks Puck for the fun?

  13. Great fun. I failed to parse 21a. umpire46, CARTON is as explained by Writinghawk in the blog. Re the IA in Croatia, the ai is a sloth, and the letters are reversed. (Ai is much beloved by Scrabble players I believe).
    I loved the clue for ‘spam’, and ‘Roneo’ brought back memories for me as I was on the Company’s payroll for a short while in my late teens.

  15. Thanks Writinghawk and Puck

    Good to have another fine and very enjoyable puzzle from this setter. Pleased to have managed all the parsings eventually but needed to check ‘dhole’ and only half remembered ‘Spam’ sketch.

    I ticked 1a, 12a, 13a, 22a, and 20d in the course of solving.

  16. Super puzzle with lots of great clues.

    Thanks Writinghawk, especially for the parsing of AGRIPPA and TRENCHANT.

    Missed a bit of a trick with ‘Prince Charming’ in 4d (an Adam Ant song!) Perhaps someone else has already done that one.

    I particularly liked FIREBRAND and post-blog AGRIPPA.

  17. Thanks Puck and Writinghawk.

    I failed on AGRIPPA. I tried “agrapha” which I understand is a collection of the teachings of Jesus that is taught verbally, not written down (“sound advice”). I thought that AGA might be the “general”, but I was struggling to justify “raph” = “daughter ignored”. Ah well.

    Also at 1a I took “RAND” to be an East London pronunciation of “round” (meaning ready). At least it gave me the right answer…

    Loved the rest – especially the toad (when I found out that “DHOLE”, unlikely as it seemed, was correct), the caber tossing and the ship shape 9d.

  18. AGRIPPA came to me on the way up to the dentist’s chair, just leaving CARTON till afterwards. The rest formed the best way to ignore the half-term crowd in the surgery. Thank you Puck for numbing the pain!

    And to you Writinghawk for such a complex set of parsings! This was as tricky a puzzle as I’ve solved for some time, but so much more rewarding than yesterday. I did know of the ai but not the dhole; Agrippa last featured in O level Latin circa 1966. I knew it would be useful sometime.

  19. Thanks Puck and Writinghawk! Great fun. Roneo, agrippa and ai were new words to me – I did think there might be a grip in 21ac.

  20. I thought this was easier than usual for Puck. That said, I could not parse 1a, 23a, 26a, 27a, or 20d, so thank you for the help here Writinghawk.

  21. Thanks WritingHawk, especially for a couple of explanations that I missed. This puzzle rang lots of bells for me, especially the Spam sketch. I was in the Sixth Form at school when it was first shown, and the next day our dinner ladies served up: Spam fritters!

    Also the AI, which I was first introduced to in a game of Scrabble, played with some experts, even earlier than that, I think the same game taught me about the useful (for crosswords) IDE, which is a type of fish, and not, as I guessed at the time, the singular of IDES (of March).

    As for Pergolesi, I once played the harpsichord continuo for an amateur production of one of his operas.

  23. Thanks Writinghawk. Failed to parse quite a few of these, so your blog was particularly welcome! Delightful Puzzle from Puck. Agrippa was my last one in — and no, I didn’t manage to see the wordplay there, either!

  24. I enjoyed this but found it quite difficult in places, and wrote in AGRIPPA (last in) without parsing it. I think the only words I wasn’t familiar with were RONEO (I remember them but didn’t know the name, and the wordplay made it obvious) and AI (but Split made that easy enough too). MOSTYN was vaguely familiar but I’m not sure why and didn’t know it was a port. No problems with BRISTOL FASHION (probably learned from Arthur Ransome, but always accompanied by shipshape). I liked FIREBRAND and NASTIER.

    Thanks to Puck and Writinghawk

  25. I must say that I can have only modified rapture for puzzles where the cryptic element is so cryptic that it is of no use whatsoever in helping to solve the clues. It turns the thing into one of those general knowledge crosswords that you find in magazines or else just a rather elaborate Quick Crossword. 14ac and 11ac along with 20dn were prime examples of this. This spoiled some very nice other clues for me.

  26. @Tom Hutton

    Sorry – can’t agree. As I stated above, I didn’t know the DHOLE part of 14a, but because of the structure of the cryptic part of the clue I thought it might be right and I was rewarded. I don’t really see what you are complaining about regarding 11 – is it that you had never come across AMBERGRIS before? The cryptic element here seemed perfectly clear. Isn’t it a good thing to have one’s knowledge broadened in this way? As for 20 – my second to last in and others have said that it was a real poser. But what’s the problem with the cryptic element? Surely “Geordie” is a very well known Crosswordland clue for NE, and once you spot what is going on (ie take out the appropriate ingredients and stir until perfectly cooked) the &litt-ish-ness makes it one of the cleverest of the lot.

  27. Went to bed (I’m in New York) failing to parse, as so many did I’m relieved to see, 14ac, 20d, and 21ac. I’m not going to beat myself about 14ac. A new word to me. 20d now looks completely straightforward so full marks to Puck for misleading so many so conclusively. I gave up on 21ac after trying da-gripper, ad-gripper, and so forth. It just never occurred to me to take the d out of advice. Brilliant. Such a treat for a Tuesday. Congrats to Puck and thanks to Armonie.

  28. @Tom Hutton

    Though I would apply the charge you make to one particular setter (who is much beloved by the regulars of this site), I cannot agree about this one. Thought this entirely fair and very, very clever, albeit too clever for me in one or two places.

  29. Thanks for the blog, Writinghawk [and the Spam sketch 😉 ].

    I’ve been out since first thing this morning but I’m very glad I found time to do this [and the Donk – it’s been a good day!] before I went.

    It’s really all been said but I just wanted to agree with your preamble, ably endorsed by Mitz @26. I count it a bonus when I learn a new word from crosswords – even if I only ever use it again when doing crosswords – so long as it is fairly clued, as here. There’s a certain delight in finding out that the DHOLE actually is a wild dog in India, when the wordplay has so clearly led me there. Like Andrew, that’s how I learned IDE [as a fish] and AI, which came up fairly recently – and I actually remembered it.

    [I haven’t detected anything more going on, which is unusual in a Puck puzzle – but it wouldn’t be the first time I’d missed it.]

    Many thanks to Puck, as ever, for a really enjoyable and entertaining puzzle.

  30. Thanks to Writinghawk for the excellent blog, and to others for comments.

    Eileen@29: No theme or Nina to spot in this one, but there is something else significant about the solutions. I wondered whether or not anyone would spot it, but no takers so far.

  32. Is it something to do with Chemical symbols? A lot of the answers seem to start with them but I can’t see how Ab, Ex, Le, To, and Tr fit so I’m not convinced by that – there also seem to be quite a lot where you can remove one or two elements and be left with a word, but that seems very tenuous…

  35. And, coincidentally – I’ve mentioned Donk today – it’similar to what he did in his last puzzle. Bravissimo!

    [Mitz, how did you do that? 😉 ]

  36. Puck gave a little extra information on the Guardian website, Eileen: “It would help to be a fairly long-time solver.” Apparently, it was his first puzzle – or at least, the first in the archive.

  37. Just had an inkling from Puck’s hint at #30 that maybe he had put together a puzzle made up of previously used favourite words. Chose one of the more unusual solutions – AMBERGRIS (obviously, eh Tom?) – and bunged it into the search facility up there on the top right hand side. It returned an old Puck puzzle, so I had a look…

  39. Eileen @35: Well, it is what mathematicians might call a natural dual to Donk’s device: two clues per solution as against two solutions per clue. Without wishing to detract at all from Puck’s fine puzzle, the latter device is incomparably more mind-bendingly impossible to achieve.

  41. Well spotted Mitz (I’ve already said the same over at the other place).

    Writinghawk@39: You’re right. Much easier than Donk’s fine effort. I just did it for the craic and to see if anyone would notice (my puzzle checker didn’t). Also to see if I could get a better response on here this time, given my first puzzle with these solutions got rather a harsh reception!

  42. Thanks, Neil and Mitz.

    That made me wonder if this was an ‘anniversary’ – I see the first one was seven years ago last Friday [and it was Valentine’s Day that year, too] and this is Puck’s 76th puzzle.

    Hi Writinghawk @39

    You’re right of course. I only said ‘similar’ – but I know mathematicians use that word differently, too! 😉

    Keep them coming, Puck!

  44. Oops – I missed one! It was December 2006, not February 2007.

    [It’s a pity the writers of the comments can’t be identified, as the archive has scrubbed the names. It would be interesting to see if any are still around, [I didn’t discover this site until February 2008!]

  45. Mitz @ 43
    Wow! I see what you mean.

    Of course, Donk couldn’t manage the same structure for the down clues………………there’s a challenge!

  46. I am so stunned by Mitz that my banal comment seems even more banal – are the only wines consumed by setters Asti, hock and red?

  47. Thanks to Writinghawk for the blog. I do not remember seeing your name in the past – are you new to this website, or maybe new to the Graun section?

    I am another who found this puzzle hard going. I had several cases of thinking the answer must be xxx but why?

  50. I really enjoyed this puzzle, although I must confess that I didn’t bother to fully parse some of the answers where I was 100% sure of them from their definitions. They were CROATIA, TOAD-IN-THE-HOLE and AGRIPPA. SPAM was my LOI after MOSTYN.

    As Eileen@29 said, there have been a couple of excellent puzzles today.

  51. The comments about single clues to double answers reminded me of a Ximenes puzzle way back when in which he achieved it for every clue bar one, which one enabled the puzzle to be completed unambiguously. Quite amazing, though it completely defeated me at the time. If I remember correctly it was published on April 1.

  52. I found this very enjoyable and managed to parse all: easier than I was expecting from Puck.

    I didn’t know the composer but deduced correctly and guessed DHOLE must be a dog.

    Rufus managed a dual solution last night 🙂

    Many thanks all.

  53. Excellent crossword from Puck.

    I enjoyed this very much although I did finish it quite quickly.

    I failed to fully parse TOAD-IN… and AGRIPPA but had little time because of the footie. Now for the second half.

    Thanks to Wrintinghawk and Puck. (Excellent)

  55. Thanks to Puck and Writinghawk. Finished but several I couldn’t parse including one which I don’t follow even with the parsing in front of me. MOSTYN – why has ear been subtracted from
    yearn? Because it’s on vacation? Don’t get it. Help!

    Cheers…

  56. Chas @47, my usual place is on the Quiptic, but I am occasionally to be found standing in when someone can’t make their regular slot.

    Grandpuzzler @55, YEARN has been emptied or ‘vacated’, upon which it becomes YN.

  57. I with many above I couldn’t parse quite a few clues and had to look up a few more. Reading through the blog I have to (reluctantly) agree that the clueing was fair, except in one case. The grammar of 8d bothers me, even if it didn’t prevent me from solving it. How does “vacation yearn” correctly lead to YN? Why not “vacated” – would require some rejigging – or simpler still, why not just use “vacant”?

  59. “On vacation” can be interpreted as “on being vacated” and using the def from the SOED

    2 Make (a post or position) vacant; deprive of an occupant or holder. l17

    On vacation “yearn” can become “yn” (with a little imagination)

  60. Sam @57, it’s not ‘vacation yearn’ but ‘on vacation yearn’: YEARN upon the act of being vacated. Of course, your alternatives would work for the wordplay, but would lose the nice surface suggesting holidaymakers rushing to make bookings for North Wales.

  62. Mitz @ 33 and others. For one year in 2003/2004 I kept a record of my times for solving all the Guardian crosswords, including the dates published and the setter. At one stage, I managed to solve one in about 7 minutes, if I remember correctly. This is not a boast, but having started the crossword, it felt familiar, and indeed I eventually recalled that I had seen it about a couple of weeks previously – hence the speed.

    I thought at the time publishing the same crossword twice must have been an editorial error and fully expected to read something about it on the letters page or in the Errors and Corrections column, but never did.

    In light of Puck’s whimsy, I am now wondering if that was an earlier example. Can’t recall the compiler unfortunately.

  63. @marienkaefer #46

    In general (Lee) yes – their favourite birds (pet emus) too.

    Excellent fun solve – highly Puckish – easy start tough finish (for me at least) – that’s a good ting in itself.

    Had to guess DHOLE – but it just had to be – that’s exactly how possible obscurities should be introduced.

    Many thanks to S&B.

  64. A strange puzzle, with some clues that can only be solved with use of the cheat button. I suppose the setters think they are pushing the boundaries or being clever, but without the guidance of a properly experienced editor, they’re just getting excited by their own dreams. A bad puzzle in general, I feel, which I could not really dig.

  65. Hi Bootikins @64, thanks for your input, and sorry you didn’t like the puzzle. I can confirm it was possible to finish without the cheat button, as I did so! You’re right that it wasn’t a puzzle for beginners, though.

    Different papers have different editorial policies. The Grauniad and Indy, while they certainly provide editorial guidance, prefer to let setters use identifiable pseudonyms and develop their own quirky styles. If you prefer a more consistent style of puzzle, you might like the stricter house-style of the anonymous Times puzzle more.

    Sometimes the cheat button can get you out of a hole, and there is the less drastic option of a grid matcher such as this one or this one. Still, as you say, sometimes one just doesn’t dig a puzzle. My advice in such circumstances is to remember you are no obligation to solve it (unless you’re on the rota to blog it!). You only get one lifetime, after all, and perhaps you can find something you’re more in tune with in the archive, or perhaps a brisk walk would be better.

  67. Uachtaran @66: What’s special about the U? Like the other letters in LUCK, it’s omitted from the anagram.

    RAI(l) Q(u)I(ck) -> RAIQI -> IRAQI

  68. Hi Writinghawk

    I can tell by your suggestion that I should ‘take a brisk walk’ that I’ve crossed a boundary of yours, so hey brother, chill: nothing was meant. You direct me too, to The Times, which I already do, but which is in ‘another place’, which may show that you’re a little irked! Or maybe you’re just a natural ‘thorny character’. That’s okay. But I’ll stick with my assessment, this is a puzzle ‘made’ difficult through arcane tropes, that is, with the same set of entries it could have been much more enjoyable. maybe take a look at today’s Guardian puzzle, and that while it too is very hard, there’s justification for it. Just experience I guess, as ‘Enigmatist’ has been going for a while, as far as I know.

  69. Not at all! You’re most welcome here. I was trying to be helpful – I had the impression you hadn’t really enjoyed this crossword, and for myself, since crosswords are a leisure time activity, if I’m not enjoying one I will probably do something else. I do enjoy brisk walks – I don’t prescribe them as some kind of punishment, I assure you. But then we all enjoy different things. I enjoyed Puck’s fine crossword, for example. Luckily the world is a big place and has room for crosswords to suit all palates.

    You’re right that the Times crossword is blogged elsewhere, but plenty of people mix their crosswords (and blog sites). There is no turf war that I know of.

    Glad to hear that you’ve found a setter more to your taste today. Both Enigmatist and Puck are seasoned Guardian setters.

  70. I parsed 21 a little differently (and perhaps even more tenuously!) – Agrippina the Elder was the daughter of Agrippa, so “daughter ignored in” (ignoring, of course, the comma there) could be Agrippina minus in, which gives us Agrippa, the general. This didn’t resolve “sound advice”, which your parsing does resolve.

  71. Re Bob @51, I remember a Ximenes with a largely alternative solution, and there is a link with this Puck puzzle in that AMBERGRIS was part of the false trail. It was, for Ximines, a fairly easy clue (which should have been a warning) – something like “substance extracted from whales and from grim bears”. But actually the correct solution was the rarer alternative GRISAMBER.

  72. just finished this be ( I get it in the weekly, which often sits in the shelf for months waiting to be read).

    Anyone familiar with Kipling’s Jungle Book will know of the dhole… Mowgli tricked them into killing Asher Khan, the tiger

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