Guardian 26,249 / Picaroon

40 comments on “Guardian 26,249 / Picaroon”

1. Coming in at the right time, can I be the first to thank Picaroon and Eileen.

   This is what a Guardian crossword should be – difficult, but not too difficult, and amusing.

   Had to cheat on 24a due to my ignorance of shelving around altars, although I should have got it from the wordplay. 20a a most welcome allusion to a sport other than cricket or football

2. A lovely work out this morning. Never heard of 24ac. Groaner was 25ac – a great clue, I thought.

3. “20a a most welcome allusion to a sport other than cricket or football”

   See also 14dn in today’s FT puzzle:
   “Williams, say, showing remarkable net sense by middle of set (9)”

   [Speaking of which, if you missed it, the excellent Redshank [our Crucible] puzzle from yesterday can be found here: http://im.ft-static.com/content/images/3edd01ae-c55c-11e3-a7d4-00144feabdc0.pdf ]

4. Thanks, Eileen.

   I honestly couldn’t single out any one clue to be favourite – every one is a gem!

5. Absolutely loved 1a, 1d, 8, and 11 – brilliant surfaces and witty clues!

   Did not get NEUTRINO and RETABLE – I didn’t know the words and I couldn’t parse the wordplay either. Hadn’t seen OMISSIVE used anywhere earlier, but got that quite easily from the clueing.

   Thanks to Eileen for a very clear blog, and to Picaroon for a great time!

6. Thanks Picaroon for an entertaining solve.

   Thanks to Eileen for a super blog. I parsed winning=up in 20, with ‘at least six games’=set. Nice idea, I thought Laura was going to be involved somehow.

   I loved the ‘anti-Freudian’ and the ‘looker.’

7. Lovely puzzle – 25ac was stand out for me.

   And another fish to add to the usual trio of eel, ide and ling …

8. Thanks E and P. Isn’t LOVE doing double duty in 1ac? And did anybody else enter ATTILLA at 9ac (anyone that can’t spell, that is). Grrrr.

9. I managed to complete this while waiting for paint to dry (literally). Thanks Picaroon for a wonderful puzzle with some lovely clues and thanks Eileen for enlightening me as to why some of my solutions (guesses) were correct.

   I thought I was quite good at spelling, but I have to admit like cholecyst @ 8, I considered and nearly entered ATTILLA; I didn’t think it fitted the word play well enough, not noticing that if correctly spelt it would not have fitted at all. Oh dear!

10. Thanks, Eileen.

    Enjoyable puzzle. I had a bit of trouble with the LHS; 1d took me a long time to spot (‘shrink’ for me indicates a psychiatrist or a psychologist, rather than a psychoanalyst, though I like the idea) and ‘dodgy’ in 16a looked too much like an anagrind.

    Some lovely constructions and surfaces, as Eileen says. I agree with Robi @6 about the parsing of UPSET (one of my favourites), and I also thought that ‘love’ might be doing double duty in 1a – but I suppose ‘between a man and a woman’ = STRAIGHT in the expression ‘straight sex’, though scarcely in any other context. I wasn’t sure of the parsing of KIND: ‘family’ looked like ‘kin’ with a D for Germany, and I’m not entirely convinced that KIND = ‘family’, though the semantic connection is obvious enough.

    Other starred clues were 25a, 4d, 15d, 18d.

    Marienkaefer @7: ‘Dab’ is an established crossword fish, though it is less commonly seen than the others you mention.

11. Kind = child in German (issue for Merkel)…

12. Needed some help from the ‘check’ button to finish this one. No complaints about the clues, Picaroon was just too good for me.

13. Gervase @10

    Yes, I wondered about KIN + D [and said so, in my first draft] then decided that, since D = Germany rather than German, a double definition [one of them being as stated by Ian C @11, though I didn’t spell it out] was more likely. And I, too, wondered about kind = family, then found that Chambers’ first definition was ‘related people’.

14. I meant to add that I was reminded of Hamlet’s, “A little more than kin, and less than kind.” 😉

15. Marienkaefer @7

    I don’t know where you live, but if you are in range of a Loch Fyne restaurant go there and you will find whole North Sea dab as a staple on the menu.

16. Indeed dab is well known and fashionable, but not so much in crosswordland where ide and ling in particular are in great demand. Bet they aren’t on the Loch Fyne menu.

    And crossword setters’ favourite drink is definitely Asti. They drink too much and get p***** as an eft.

17. An entertaining Picaroon puzzle. Under competition conditions I would have been tempted to enter an unparsed “Terra Verde” at 14ac from the Italian, but I wasn’t happy with it, used aids, and could have kicked myself when I saw the French TERRE VERTE because the wordplay is so obvious in retrospect.

18. ‘sus’ as an adjective is common parlance, which is to say I have often heard it used and use it myself. And of course it’s in Collins.

    I’m very surprised to find it’s not in Chambers. Especially as I cannot recall ever having heard it used as a noun, even in television dramas. As a verb it is better spelled ‘suss’.

19. Thanks, Picaroon and Eileen. Took an age to see the “revert” in 14ac. I hadn’t heard of terre verte before and although I saw that the “greenish” element of the clue suggested something “ver…” I started wondering if there might be a “terra verde” in another European language. I didn’t cheat by checking in the dictionary so I scratched my head until it dawned. I got too Freudian about 1d, thinking “mother” would be the first word, with the “habits” suggesting nuns. Even when I’d got most of the crossers I was still asking myself, “Could it be parent resistant?” Strange how my mind can go off on these wild goose chases – but then, that’s what a good setter does to one.

20. The first time I came across “Agrippa” in a crossword it took me ages to get it; not so this time. No matter how devilishly future setters clue it, I think it may have a limited shelf life.

21. Cholecyst@8…. This solver who can’t spell entered ‘neutrion’ and therefore failed in the bottom corner. Grrrr indeed. But an absolutely delightful puzzle, with 1d earning the biggest groan (a good thing, in my book).

22. Hi marienkaefer @16

    “And crossword setters’ favourite drink is definitely Asti.”

    Undoubtedly – closely followed, I think, by ‘GIN’ [and IT!] today.

    rhotician @18 “And of course it’s in Collins.” – not in my Guardian Prize [2006] Edition, which, though sadly now coverless, I’m, understandably, reluctant to ditch.

    Hi Gilbert @19, 20

    I don’t recognise your name – if you have commented before, please forgive me. Otherwise, you’re very welcome!

    “No matter how devilishly future setters clue it, I think it may have a limited shelf life.”

    I can’t think of examples now but I know that, even in the last couple of weeks, our setters have come up with really inventive clues for answers that we might think of as stock favourites. They’re usually one step ahead of us!

23. A fine example of the “Picaroon Puzzle”

    Started by looking unsolvable after the first pass but gradually gave up its secrets.

    I was held up at the end by 17d for which I had entered SAND EEL. (I wasn’t happy with the parsing but somehow LEE = LEES = POOR!!!) When I finally saw TROUBLE SPOT for 25A all was revealed.

    As somebody else has said this is how all Guardian cryptics should be, a thoroughly enjoyable puzzle.

    Thanks to Eileen and Picaroon

24. Help, please!

    After an extremely slow start, I got most of this sorted out apart from three clues at the bottom.

    People seem to have liked
    25ac. I thought early on that TROUBLE SPOT was a possibility and I get the connection with “post” but don’ t see where “trouble” comes in.

25. Eileen – I use Collins online, via Onelook, especially when I have not the strength to consult my hard-copy Chambers. The only disadvantage is that you don’t happen upon other interesting and often unrelated entries.

26. Jovis – Google reverse anagrams. The crosswordunclued site has loads of good stuff on this and much else.

27. Thanks, Rhotician.

    Never heard of reverse anagrams and trying to get my head round the concept. The link to crosswordunclued looks very useful but it’s getting late and I will have to resume my studies tomorrow…

28. I challenge the definition of 6D. A flibbertigibbet is just an airhead, not necessarily a gossip.

29. Like others have said, this looked quite impossible on first inspection…then suddenly a flurry of solutions…and finally a few hard ones, which needed a trip to the Check button (..as I had limited time for agonizing ( 😛 ) today).

    Thanks Eileen and Pic.

30. Was there something wrong with me(/us) today?
    I am (/we are) possibly the biggest Picaroon fan(s) in the UK but I (/we) thought this puzzle lacked all the sparkle and adventure a Picaroon crossword normally has.
    More a workman-like puzzle with surprisingly unexciting surfaces.

    Everyone else here so far will not agree with me (/us), I fear.
    So, perhaps there must be something wrong with me (/us) today.
    It’s probably me as I also found this week’s puzzles by two of the best setters around in the Independent (eXternal and Donk) also far below par (read: a slog).

    So sorry, if I hurt anyone’s feelings – and Picaroon’s in particular.
    Don’t worry, in my opinion, he is still one of the very best.

    Many thanks, Eileen.

31. Stu @28

    SOED

    flibbertigibbet noun. lME.
    1 Orig., a gossip or chatterer. Now usu. a flighty, irresponsible, or frivolous person. lME.

    I think the now usu. is relevant.

32. I am relatively new to 225, but have swiftly learned to enjoy Eileen’s sterling contributions. However, we are all different; I, for example have some grasp of Latin, Greek and modern Romance languages while German has passed me by. I solved 19 quite easily and my knowledge of kindergarten let me assume that ‘kind’ meant child. But I can’t for the life of me understand why this was not explained in blog. Else, for what is the blog pray?

33. Hi William F P @32

    Welcome to 15²!

    German is not a language that I learned at school, either but, like you, I knew KIND from kindergarten and Kinder chocolates.

    You’re quite right, of course, that the purpose of the blog is to explain the wordplay etc but it’s always difficult to judge how much to take for granted. For a while now, most of us bloggers have been underlining the definitions [though we’ve stopped saying that we do so – maybe we should continue to point this out, for the sake of newcomers to the site] and I thought that underlining ‘issue for Merkel’ was sufficient to indicate ‘German child’. As I hinted in my comment @13, I think that was probably wrong and I should have clarified the cryptic element of Merkel’s issue.

    Please accept my apologies. 😉

34. On the subject of being rude to Eileen 😉

    8d needs the THE for the fodder. Perhaps everyone else thought it de trop to mention…

    A bit mean, since there were a number of others I couldn’t parse at all!

    Thanks, everyone.

35. Thank you, Tim Phillips @34.

    For the sake of the archive, it’s corrected now.

36. Thanks Eileen and Picaroon

    I found this tough but enjoyable and only finished it this morning after a couple of brief stabs during a busy day yesterday. I found it quite hard to penetrate Picaroon’s mindset in some clues e.g. 16a.

    I ticked 15d and my favourite by far was 1d.

37. Eileen –
    Many thanks for your reply. I access the blog from my ‘phone and the underlining is not visible (though colours are). Had I been aware of such underlining, my comment would have been unnecessary. Please understand that what might have seemed to be nit picking was not so.
    Again, my sincere thanks.

38. Thanks, Wiliam. 😉

    [I still think I perhaps should have explained ‘Merkel’s issue’.]

39. Great puzzle. ‘Straight off’ made me laugh. Unlike our esteemed blogger, ‘fair and square’ was my last in. I owe the gossipy/flighty one to endless re-runs of Sound of Music on video when the daughter was a nipper.

40. I had reluctantly settled on Bild (surname & paper), glad I was wrong! Enjoyable. Liked neutrino the most.

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