Guardian 26,231 – Picaroon

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As seems to be usual when I solve a Picaroon puzzle, I started off thinking I was going to get nowhere with this one, but slow progress became a bit faster as I gradually filled the answers in. There are a few words that may be unfamilar, but they are fairly and clearly indicated; in general lots of good fun here, with some nice &lits. Thanks to Picaroon.

 
 
 
 
 
 
Across
1. HIDEBOUND Conservative scoundrel concealing one plot from the right (9)
Reverse of I (one) BED (a plot of land) in HOUND (scoundrel)
6. INCH Island where the devout may be found? (4)
The devout may be found IN CH[urch]
10. CORNU In France a fantastic bird twirls round — one’s horny (5)
Reverse of UN (the indefinite article “a” in French) + ROC
11. ESSAYISTS Lamb etc? Tries to eat first (9)
1ST in ESSAYS
12. SPENSER This author, originator of stanza, writes to the Queen (7)
S[tanza] + PENS + ER. Edmund Spenser wrote The Faerie Queene, and is know for providing lots of unusual words and spellings for crosswords
13. IMAMATE Picaroon’s on your side in Muslim territory (7)
“I’M A MATE”, as Picaroon might say if he was on your side. Perhaps not a familiar word, but easily guessable as the territory of an Imam.
14. WARREN HARDING US president‘s fighting to restrain Republican — and he’s struggling (6,7)
R + (AND HE)* in WARRING
17. ONE-NIGHT STAND Congress briefly working with English cabinet (3-5,5)
ON + E + NIGHT-STAND (a bedside table, says Chambers, which I suppose could be a cabinet), and a one-night stand is brief, or at least short-lived, (sexual) congress
21. TEASHOP Distaste as hopeless sandwiches sold from here, possibly (7)
Hidden (sandwiched by) in distasTE AS HOPeless; “sandwiches” does double duty here, but there’s also some &littishness
22. ALLUVIA £50 stashed in gold through deposits between banks (7)
L (£) + L (50) in AU (gold) + VIA (through)
24. SPICEBUSH In America, plant leaders of Soviet partisans to assassinate president (9)
S[oviet] P[artisans] + ICE (kill) + BUSH . The Spicebush is an American plant of the laurel family
25. IMSHI Get lost in Rheims, hitch-hiking (5)
Hidden in rheIMS HItch-hiking – military slang (from Arabic) for “go away!”
26. SOME A little hearing problem (4)
Homophone of “sum” ( a problem)
27. DENIGRATE Knock hole at the front of one jar (9)
DEN (hole) + 1 + GRATE (to jar)
Down
1. HACKSAWS Journalists who keep saying cutting things (8)
SAW (saying) “kept by” HACKS
2. DIRGE Lament return of internet network? (5)
Reverse of E-GRID
3. BLUE SUEDE SHOES Titillating lady — she does dances to get the King’s number (4,5,5)
BLUE SUE (who might be a titillating lady) + (SHE DOES)*. The King here is Elvis, who famously sang the song
4. UNEARTH A hunter forced ferret out (7)
(A HUNTER)*
5. DOSSIER Good-for-nothing gathering tip from Iraq for this report? (7)
I[raq] in DOSSER. The surface reference is to the so-called Dodgy Dossier
7. NOSTALGIA What’s lost again aroused such a feeling? (9)
(LOST AGAIN)* – I don’t think this technically counts as an &lit, but the whole clue nicely defines the word
8. HUSHED Soft ex-Chinese leader gets cast off (6)
HU (Chinese leader – probably this one) + SHED (cast off)
9. PYRAMID SELLING Is this simply dealing crookedly? That’s about right (7,7)
R in (SIMPLY DEALING)*, &lit
15. RHOTACISM Pronounced oddness raging in bigotry (9)
HOT (raging) in RACISM. The “oddness” is difficulty in pronouncing the sound R, as shown by Roy Jenkins and Jonathan Ross, for example
16. IDEALISE Business one’s invested in that is to make things perfect (8)
DEAL + I’S (one’s) in I.E (that is)
18. IMPOUND Appropriate introduction from Ezra (7)
The poet might have introduced himself by saying “I’M POUND”
19. HEATHEN It’s barbaric to stick farmyard animal in the oven (7)
To “stick [a] farmyard animal in the oven” is to HEAT [a] HEN
20. STASIS What is extremely stagnant and unaltered (6)
S[tagnan]T + AS IS (unaltered). &lit
23. VISTA Time to block credit card — perspective‘s required! (5)
T in VISA

41 comments on “Guardian 26,231 – Picaroon”

  1. Thanks, Andrew. My experience was a little different to yours: I zipped through the top half but then bogged down on the bottom, although I’m not sure why. Pleasant enough puzzle but no LOL moments.

    I see you were having so much “fin” solving this “Guadian” puzzle that a couple of typos have crept in: you need to add I to DEB in HIDEBOUND and S to I in IDEALISE.

  2. Thanks Picaroon and Andrew! I agree that this was good fun. I had to check IMSHI and SPICEBUSH (and indeed ICE for kill). Particularly liked TEASHOP and RHOTACISM.

  4. Thanks Picaroon and Andrew
    I too found this difficult to start with – for quite some time I was staring at a grid with only 3 solutions filled in. HUSHER was my last.
    I liked ONE-NIGHT STAND and HACKSAWS.
    I didn’t like “ice” for “assassinate” or “dosser” for “good-for-nothing” – “dosser” refers to someone’s sleeping arrangements rather than their means or capabilities.

  5. Thanks, Andrew.

    Slow start and progress for me too – none in first time through! I can’t see why – they are all quite gettable, though did need 1ac and 20d explaining.

  7. Got there in the end, without aids, but I was grateful that it was possible to deduce ‘rhotacism’ from the wordplay, as it was a word I had not encountered (and I see that the spellchecker on my iPad doesn’t recognise it either).

  8. Thanks for a great blog, Andrew, and Picaroon for another great puzzle.

    Lots of lovely clues: 12ac is a fine &lit, as Spenser invented the Spenserian stanza for ‘The Faerie Queene’, which he dedicated to Queen Elizabeth I. I also liked the dodgy dossier one – I don’t share muffin’s reservations: Collins gives ‘a lazy person’ for ‘dosser’, which will do me.

    [I’m ashamed to say that my first thought for 6ac was HOLY, thinking, ‘That’s not very good, for Picaroon’ – I should have known better!]

  9. @muffin (4)
    I was often called a dosser at university and it certainly didn’t have anything to do with my sleeping arrangements! Not sure what the objection to the crossword staple “ice” (for assassinate) might be either.

  10. Hi Eileen
    I don’t have a Collins. Chambers gives:
    dosser – a person who lodges in a dosshouse, or wherever they can, a vagrant

    No mention of laziness! Out of interest, how many different dictionaries do people here use? I just Chambers and Google. (I do possess SOED, but almost never open it.)

  11. Herb @ 9
    I thought there might have been friendlier ways to clue “ice”. It was one of those that I could only explain “backwards” – I wouldn’t have thought “I must include ice in the solution”.

  12. Hi muffin

    I have a SOED which I bought because it was on offer in the seventies and a Collins, which I won for a Guardian prize. When I started blogging, I thought I’d better get a Chambers, since that was the one usually quoted, but, as I’ve said before, I prefer Collins, for several reasons. I like SOED for the etymology and quotations.

    [Even without consulting the doctionaries, I had no problem with dosser = good-for-nothing and was surprised at Chambers’ definition.]

  13. I meant to say that my Collins is rather old [coverless, in fact] – I stopped sending in entries when I discovered 15²!

  14. @11
    That’s interesting re dosser. I don’t think I’ve ever actually heard it used in Chambers’ first sense – and I certainly would never do so myself as it could so easily seem to imply that people who happen to sleep at a “dosshouse” are lazy, feckless etc. I know that meaning from fiction etc. though. Dosser was a very common word back in the 80s for lazybones, idler, general nogoodnik etc. (also “doss” for do nothing, “dossy” for undemanding etc.) and that was the only sense I knew for a long time. It’s probably rare for Picaroon to go against Chambers (he might claim ‘vagrant’ sort of covers it) but he may have thought the meaning was so common as not to need checking. Also the (one-volume) Oxford Dictionary of English, the Guardian crossword editor’s stated favourite dictionary, gives “2. an idle person”. The ODE is preloaded onto kindles, so I now use it a lot too.

  15. Like several others, I found it difficult to get going. Indeed, I was on my second pass through the clues before I got my first solution: WARREN HARDING for 14. After that, thank goodness, steady progress. It seems I made a mistake at 24: I had SPIKERUSH (plant) with IKE (president) + RUSH (kill – well, sort of).

    Thanks to Picaroon and Andrew.

  16. [Hi, Eileen, @12 and @13. Like you, I have a Collins (Concise) which I won for a Guardian prize. Unlike you, I didn’t stop sending entries when I discovered Fifteensquared. Dunno why I keep entering, though – I have the books they currently give as prizes!]

  17. Lovely puzzle. Even with all the crossers, BLUE SUEDE SHOES defeated me, but it’s certainly a great clue.

    Re “dosser”, the online version of Chambers (my go-to) gives the “lazy person” sense, but it may be that they’ve only added that definition recently.

  18. Hi Schroduck
    The Chambers I quoted from is the 1998 edition (1999 reprint). Does anyone have a more recent edition to see if the definition has been added to?

  19. Thanks, Andrew.

    Same experience as a few others – got nowhere to start with but then it was a pleasing challenge once I did get going. Just right for a toughish daily cryptic – well done, Picaroon.

    My favourite was ONE-NIGHT STAND. I’d say a short-lived rather than necessarily brief act of congress would be the best definition, Andrew (although not speaking from personal experience, obviously …)

    DOSSER for ‘good-for-nothing’ is fine by me. I’ve always understood it to come from the Latin word for ‘back’ (Eileen will tell us what it is). It gives us DORSAL, and in French, le dos. So etymologically, DOSS does roughly mean ‘to lie down on your back somewhere’, I guess; but Picaroon’s definition works too.

  20. Hi again, muffin.

    My Chambers is the latest [12th, 2011] edition and gives exactly the same definition as yours.

    And Hi K’s D – it’s dorsum, as I’m sure you know. 😉

  21. Thanks Eileen
    I have only heard the “lazy” meaning in a slang sense, and then only very rarely. When I was living in London, a “dosser” was someone sleeping rough (all too common, I fear).

  22. Thanks to Andrew for the blog. There were several cases where you explained why I had the right answer.

    I also thought HOLY island was good for 6a 🙁

  23. @ muffin

    Maybe you never hung out with any dossers at school or University? I’m frankly amazed that Chambers wouldn’t have it defined in the sense of ‘lazing around’. One of those rare occasions when I think the dictionary lags behind (by some time!) a very commonly used meaning

  24. bingybong @23
    It’s possible that I was prone to mis-hearing, but I thought that, in your sense, the first letter was generally a different one!

  25. I started this on the tube, sitting next to my son and hoping to impress him with the speed of my solving. Alas no. But if he’d been there for the journey back …

    The errant HOLY at 6 didn’t help for a long time, and indeed HUSHED was last in. BLUE SUEDE SHOES my favourite but there were many good clues, and great surfaces too, 24 the pick of the crop. Excellent, and a worthy struggle.

  26. I’m with bingybong: in my time as an undergraduate (77-80) the DOSSERS were the ones sleeping in rather than turning up for lectures. I fear I may have been one of them, well for Pathology anyway. 🙂

  27. Thank you, Andrew and Picaroon!

    – Loved “congress briefly”
    – Learnt two new words – imshi and rhotacism
    – A slight problem with 8 – “ex-Chinese” had me going down the wrong path, thinking of Taiwan! Surely “Chinese ex-leader” or “former Chinese leader” would have worked better?

  29. Some very nice cluing but pretty tough for a daily puzzle – seemed more like Saturday fare to me.

    Thanks Andrew; IMSHI seems to be mainly Australian slang, so unlikely to be known by many over here I would have thought. No doubt Picaroon was referring to Rheims Street Queensland Australia. 😉

    Anyway, my computer huffed and puffed a bit but got there in the end. I especially liked BLUE SUEDE SHOES.

  30. Of course 2dn is really Carl Perkins’ number. It didn’t belong to Elvis any more than Yesterday would belong to me if I sang it. I thought that this was a really poor clue in an otherwise very good crossword. Blue Sue doesn’t sound very titillating to me though she does sound sad.

  31. Count me as another who started slowly but got there in the end, although I had to check RHOTACISM and CORNU post-solve. I don’t mind answers like that when the cluing is fair, and here it most definitely was. A very good puzzle IMHO. The HUSHED/INCH crossers were my last ones in.

    I confess that I didn’t bother to parse BLUE SUEDE SHOES. I would certainly associate the song with Elvis even though Perkins wrote it and got to #1 with it in 1956.

  32. Knock knock.

    “Who’s there?”

    “Wurlitzer”

    “Wurlitzer who?”

    “Wurlitzer one for the money, two for the show…”

    Coat time.

  33. Good stuff all round
    Picaroon always good value.
    Rhotacism, cornu, imshi – every day’s a schoolday
    Thanks to Andrew

  34. Started slowly as others have said but found this really enjoyable with some great clues.

    I was pleased to see that the 4 14-letter clues weren’t write-ins as they often are when this grid is used which meant the puzzle didn’t capitulate as easily as some do.

    Don’t understand the objection to dosser as SOED gives “someone who dosses” and

    doss d?s ? verb2 intrans. slang. l18.

    …..

    2 Idle or waste time; fool about, mess around. m20.

    Chambers is really a pretty poor dictionary in my opinion. I never even look at mine nowadays.

    Andrew. Surely the “oddness” in rhotacism is more straightforward than you suggest. SOED has

    rhotacism ?r??t?s?z(?)m ? noun. m19.
    1 Linguistics. Excessive use or distinctive pronunciation of the phoneme r (repr. by the letter r); spec. use of the burr or uvular r. m19.

    I think that could be “pronounced oddness”

    Nice to see the setters referring to one of our regulars. 🙂

    Why aren’t all Friday puzzles as good as this?

    Thanks to Andrew and Picaroon

  35. Thanks to Picaroon and Andrew. Great work! IMSHI was new to me; doubt I’ll remember it.

    Regarding BLUE SUEDE SHOES: My well-worn Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits shows that both Perkins and Presley reached the Top 40 in 1956. Elvis’s version was on it for 5 weeks while reaching
    #20. The Perkins version was on the list for 17 weeks and was #2 at its highest point.

    Cheers…

  36. Started slowly … Twenty minutes later gave up with not a single clue in. (Thought of Cornu but it didn’t seem like a word.) I think that’s the first time that has happened in several years. So maybe just a wee bit too hard. It would be kinder to throw in just one or two starter clues, surely?

  37. Thanks all
    In 10ac I was convinced that ‘in’ France was ‘en’ giving corne which is fine.
    Hence I spent a long time trying to solve 3 d and had almost accepted that it must be a foreign phrase.

  39. DOSSER definitely OK – ‘dossing around’ has always meant ‘actively doing nothing’ to me.

    muffin@24; indeed. The version starting with T was defined precisely to my wife and I on holiday in the Isle if Wight in 2007. Cue approach of low-suspension hatchback, windows down, mindless thumping music, driver sitting forward in seat, serious face, no passengers…very ordinary, middle-class chap on pavement mutters loudly ‘tosser’ with no hint of shame; just a statement of precisely-defined fact.

  40. Thanks Picaroon and Andrew

    What a cracking puzzle to finish the week … it well and truly spilled over to Saturday afternoon … filling in time whilst waiting for the better half!

    Finished up in the NW corner with HACKSAWS, HIDEBOUND and DOSSIERS the last ones in. Each clue had to be prised out … but when they were solved, one wondered why – apart from RHOTACISM, CORNU and IMSHI.

  41. Finished this in the pub on Friday evening and was out all day yesterday so I’m just catching up here. I enjoyed this one, which gave way steadily but not too easily. Last in was SPICEBUSH (which was unfamiliar as was IMSHI but in both cases the wordplay was straightforward) – the problem was that I’d put STANDS in for 20 down without really noticing that the parsing didn’t quite work. I’m intrigued by the debate about the verb doss and laziness – I didn’t question it because this usage was common in school slang in the late 70s / early 80s so maybe it’s a generational thing.

    Thanks to Picaroon and Andrew

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