Guardian 26,277 – Picaroon

38 comments on “Guardian 26,277 – Picaroon”

1. Two corkers in a row!

   Thanks, Andrew, especially for the parsing of ASTI – one of my last and I’d run out of steam by then!

   LOI was, of all the clues, LEATHERS! Picaroon had made me work so hard that I was looking for something much more than a simple DD. 🙁

   Tiny point – you need to add the A to your parsing of BOAT RACE.

2. Thanks, Andrew, for the blog, and Picaroon for another great puzzle. [This is the second time in a couple of weeks that we have had Philistine and Picaroon on successive days – a sequence it would be very nice to get used to!]

   I thought 1ac was very clever, along with several others, and even the Spoonerism made me smile. Favourite of all was HIPPOCAMPUS [lovely surface] whuich made me laugh out loud.

3. Wonderful, but in parts too hard for me. I failed to get Asti, Galilean and Gabfests. Wasn’t quite sure what schoolkids was doing in 23,24. Quite hard enough without! My first in was Hippocampus much to my delight, but then I am currently reading a biography of St Augustine. Many thanks Andrew and Picaroon. My days begin later and later. I’m supposed to have a job.

4. Another puzzle worthy of the name! Only two or three on first pass and then a steady progress for the rest. I loved 19d and 11ac! Not sure about ‘peers’ for ‘pries’ , but thought 23 and 24 was a clever clue with a nice twist. FOI was 10ac thanks to my herd of cows, LOI 12d after correcting my original ‘strippers’ to ‘stripping’ after re-reading the clue!

   Thanks all!

5. Thanks Picaroon – not one’s money’s worth for the number of clues but made up for by their quality. (I must remember never to use this grid for alphabeticals because there are only 26 clues.)

   Thanks Andrew; had to Google St Augustine although his brains were very familiar. I tried some anagram solvers for ATROPISM but they all failed! Typo for poisoning in the blog. GABFEST was a good Spoonerism – it must be if it gets Eileen’s approval. 🙂 I was looking for NECKER as a leader, 🙁 so thanks for the parsing.

   I particularly liked MISTERMS and the tripping schoolkids.

6. Thanks to Andrew for the blog – you explained several where I had the answer but not the parsing.

   Your comment on 23,24 reminded me of Araucaria (such a sad loss): he split answers over two grid entries sometimes in quite unexpected ways.

7. Thanks Picaroon and Andrew
   Finished, but I needed Andrew’s explanations for NECK in 18a, PRIZE in 2d and CONTE in 16d -(never heard of that). Favourite HIPPOCAMPUS.

8. Thanks Picaroon and Andrew

   Very enjoyable and took three short sessions across a busy day. Like almw@4, ABOMASUM was the first in even though I don’t have cows :). Needed some help parsing a couple including a better effort than making Jacques NECKER fit a leader definition.

   Had not heard of a LEAN-TO conservatory before and had to Google to confirm. The ATTACHMENT clue was very clever. CONTEMPT was last in after fixing MISTERMS – originally had ‘MISFORMS’ (M IS FOR MS – which did seem to fit the clue in a convoluted way).

9. I haven’t tried many Picaroons before and my experience of solving it was similar to that of the blogger. I made a very slow start, finishing only the top left corner quickly, and really thought I was going to struggle to get anywhere. But one or two started to fall into place and eventually I had enough momentum to finish. Gabfests was my LOI – the word was unfamiliar and I had to work it out from the wordplay. Contempt lost me completely, as I’d never heard of conte.

10. Thanks, Andrew.

    After your explanations, I still had to look up CONTE; and took a while for the penny to drop on “pries” in the sense of looks into (peers).

    I was convinced it was INDIANA, but couldn’t see where the final A came from after INDIAN (of the Nation), so that held me up for a while.

    I also liked HIPPOCAMPUS.

    ABOMASUM would have been first in but I couldn’t remember how to spell it.

11. Yes, Picaroon is always a treat and this one didn’t disappoint. As always plenty of thought required, and at least one new word in ABOMASUM but that was fairly clued. Last in was ATTACHMENTS. Liked HIPPOCAMPUS, ASSETS TRIPPING and GABFESTS.

    Thanks to Andrew and Picaroon.

12. Usual old Picaroon. The misdirections and variety of clueing do not make for a relaxing solve. And the absence of contrivance in the surfaces suggests a lack of effort on the setter’s part. Simalar to Arachne’s stuff.

13. ‘simalar’ – similar, to ‘similar’

14. Thank you, Picaroon, for a tricky but vastly enjoyable puzzle, and thank you, Andrew, for the blog – I had at least four entries that I couldn’t parse fully.

    At first pass, I didn’t much care for the way ASSET-STRIPPING was broken up, but then realised that both ASSETS and TRIPPING worked quite well independently and even had a clean separation in the clueing – great stuff!

    I did a double take on reading the clue for LEADER, because Hob in yesterday’s Indy used a very similar device for clueing ETHICIST: “Expert in moral conduct – and this is in three different languages”. Coming on top of the very similar themes in the Guardian and the Independent yesterday, with one of the thematic entries also being common to both, this seemed like some more “deja vu all over again!”

15. Not a straightforward puzzle but I got there in the end with all parsed. My last ones in were the MISTERMS/ATTACHMENT crossers. I was held up by the former because I couldn’t get past M for “male” for ages. It was a good mental workout but I didn’t enjoy it as much as some of you seem to have done.

16. Another challenging puzzle after yesterdays.

    Enjoyable as ever from the pirate.

    After a slow start things progressed steadily. I was held up at the end by having stupidly entered ASSET STRIPPERS which made 12D a little difficult as the LOI. Finally saw my error.

    Didn’t parse CONTEMPT or BOOBY PRIZE but the footie is about to start.

    Thanks to Andrew and Picaroon

17. 23/24 across the answer is supposed to fit into a grid of 5,9 letters. But the grid is 6, 8. Unless the print version differs from the web, this is a misdirection too far.

18. Hah. Did exactly same as Brendan re TRIPP-ers, snookering ATTACHMENTS.

    Some nice ones: MISTERMS and LEADER for me, but didn’t fully parse NECKERCHIEF.

    I’d not heard GABFEST, ABOMASUM or CONTE before.

    Thanks one and all.

19. PS: Johnnydee: I think that device was well used by the much missed Araucaria, so as long as the two parts are usable words we don’t seem to grumble 🙂

20. johnnydee @17: Far from being a misdirection this kind of thing gives additional information. The clue indicates that the answer is 5-9.
    The grid tells us that the 14 letters comprise one word of 6 letters and one of 8, to be entered as such.

21. johnnydee @17

    I don’t recognise your name, so welcome to the site if you have not commented before and my apologies if you have and I have missed you.

    “23/24 across the answer is supposed to fit into a grid of 5,9 letters.”

    Who says? The enumeration for the clue is perfectly clear and the answer fits perfectly into the grid.

    See comments:

    almw3 @4a: clever clue with a nice twist

    and chas@6: Your comment on 23,24 reminded me of Araucaria (such a sad loss): he split answers over two grid entries sometimes in quite unexpected ways.

    and abhay @14:At first pass, I didn’t much care for the way ASSET-STRIPPING was broken up, but then realised that both ASSETS and TRIPPING worked quite well independently and even had a clean separation in the clueing – great stuff!

    I’m just sorry that I forgot to include it in my list of favourites!

22. Another splendid Picaroon.
    What more can say?
    Actually, I don’t know.
    Well, perhaps, ABOMASUM was not that fairly clued.
    Yes, fine surface but having all the crossing letters it could also have been ABAMOSUM (even if that doesn’t sound right).
    Therefore, not 100% gettable for an “obscure” or unknown word.

    Maybe, Paul has still the edge over his colleagues when it comes to inventive and precise constructions – something that is very important to me – but Picaroon is approaching quickly!
    Also, in general, surfaces that read well – a real bonus.

    Just very good (again)!

23. A little late but was I the only one to put in ‘nave’ for 7d? A ‘knave’ seemed a moral failure to me and you can get more owrshippers into a nave than an apse

24. @martin p:I do of course have memories of auracaria, but he tended to have split clues with authentic words in both halves, but not with grid sizes mismatched to the indicated word length in brackets. I would concede if any one can link to some guardian cryptics where it occurred like this before. Many folk say its common: it should then be easy to point out.

25. ‘Assets-tripping’ (6,8 but fitting the grid) is non-sensical & does not meet a definition in the printed clue. ‘Asset stripping’ (5,9 but not fitting the grid, though meeting the indicated shape in the printed clue) is both rational and a known phrase. It also means ‘disreputable business’ and when one gets it, it feels like a mistake in the grid. Shambolic.

26. As our blogger Andrew says upthread: “We quite often see a single answer split into two grid entries, where each entry is a word in its own right, but I don’t think I’ve even seen it done with a long hyphenated word like this.” This isn’t as common in this manner as some think: in fact, I think it breaks convention. So much so that it is in distinguishable from a printers or gridding error.

27. Johnnydee, if you’re a regular Guardian solver you must know by now that ignoring punctuation (including hyphens) is quite common in Guardian crosswords.
    As both 23ac (ignoring the hyphen) and 24ac are words in their own right, the thing’s OK, I think.
    At the same time, I agree that what happens here has not been done very often before (as Andrew made clear, too).
    You say “it breaks convention”.
    I say “not within the Guardian world of crosswords”.
    And, actually, I must admit I am quite happy with it.

28. Fair enough. I have been doing the crossword for a long while and as I say, would appreciate a link if any one has one. I don’t take issue with the hyphen, and haven’t mentioned that because I do ignore punctuation. That’s not my issue. Well known phrases populate our crosswordz, and ‘asset stripping’ is well known. ‘Assets tripping’ is not. Clue fails on that criteria as well as my other gripes!

29. I think, johnnydee, you are being confused a little by the hyphen. ‘asset stripping’ is not a “Well known” (sic) phrase. If it were it would be enumerated (5,9), unlike the well-known expression ‘asset-stripping’ which is (5-9). So let’s forget hyphens.

    Araucaria did indeed split words. Two of his, regrettably, late examples were COMMONPLACE and DOWNCAST, clued as (11) and (8), to be entered separately in the grid, as COMMON and PLACE, and DOWN and CAST. Neither ‘common place’ nor ‘down cast’ are proper phrases.

    Rather than “breaking a convention”, I think Picaroon has, not for the first time, been genuinely original.

    Abhay @14 describes fully the brilliance of the clue.

30. Sil@22 “Therefore, not 100% gettable for an “obscure” or unknown word.”

    Do you mean it was unknown to you, or to the solver at large? Is it so obscure?

    Araucaria has used it twice: July 27 2011, blogged by Eileen, including a comment from…..Sil; and, July 16 2010.

    On the ASSET STRIPPING debate, I don’t recall this device before and I think it is original (enumeration doesn’t correspond to grid space for words). I liked it; in fact, if I had read the enumeration, I would have solved the clue much earlier.

31. I agree entirely with Eileen @21, and as rhotician @20 points out, the enumeration provides an additional clue that the solution can be divided in both places. I think this type of ingenuity should be encouraged, not criticised.

    As for Sil’s comment @22 on ABOMASUM, there aren’t that many permutations of the three vowels to look up (in fact a fairer criticism would be that it’s barely an anagram, just a swap of two vowels). Anagrams almost never eliminate all of the alternative non-words (I remember a prolonged struggle despite having all the crossers with ELEEMOSYNARY – Gordius 25457). In this case I felt ABOMA looked more plausible so it was the first one I looked up.

32. Dave Ellison: “On the ASSET STRIPPING debate, I don’t recall this device before and I think it is original (enumeration doesn’t correspond to grid space for words).” Thanks, seems like you sum it up well.

33. Enumeration indicates 14 letters which is the same as the grid space used. How could it be otherwise?

34. Steve @23 – no – I did too, but it wasn’t entirely convinced by KNAVE, and once I’d looked at the BOAT RACE clue properly I realised there was a better alternative…

35. when it comes to punctuation it seems we should not ignore that hyphen. in fact, it’s a big clue as 2 what is going on unusually.i see the construction and still don’t like it. Oh well

36. For the Americans in the crowd, can someone please explain how TUMS = CORPORATIONS? Google turns up nothing.

37. gbleudot @36 – Chambers gives CORPORATION: a belly, esp. a pot-belly (coll.), TUMMY or TUM: “a childish form of stomach”. The latter is common UK slang, the former would be familiar to many of us but is a little more obscure…

38. Thank you, beery dearie @37! That makes sense (finally)! As is common for me, I was able to get the answer while being completely flummoxed by the cryptic clues.

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