Guardian Prize 26,418 by Picaroon

by

I didn’t enjoy this all that much when I first solved it, but then when I wrote up the blog a few days later I found plenty to enjoy.  I think I must have just been at a bit of a low ebb at the time.  Thanks Picaroon.

 wpid-Guardian-Prize-26418-by-Picaroon.png

 

Across
1 VICARIOUS
Surrogate father’s admitting obligation (9)
 VICAR’S (father) containing IOU (obligation)
6 FLING
Task for secretary, one retiring and shy (5)
FiLING (task for secretary) missing I (one)
9 VERBAL DIARRHOEA
Overheard Blair struggling with a compulsion to hold forth (6,9)
 (OVERHEARD BLAIR)* anagram=struggling then A
10 DEAL
Trade in Kentish Town (4)
double definition
11 STRADDLE
Lumber covers frame of timber for bridge (8)
 SADDLE (lumber) contains TimbeR (frame, outside letters of)
14 BAKSHEESH
Reporter’s second witness quiet about hot tip from Egypt (9)
 BAK sounds like “back” (to second) then SEE (witness) SH (quiet) containing H (hot)
15 TORSO
Tango roughly, revealing chest (5)
 T (tango, phonetic alphabet) OR SO (roughly)
16 DECOR
Look green, nursed by physician (5)
 ECO (green) in DR (physician)
18 TENDRESSE
Frenchman’s fondness for robe wayward teen’s put on (9)
 DRESS (robe) inside TEEN’S* anagram=wayward
20 EMBITTER
Picaroon knocked back drink in anger (8)
 ME (picaroon) reversed (knocked back) BITTER (drink)
21 SPIT
Double First from Susie Dent (or from Sharon Stone) (4)
Susie (first letter of) PIT (dent) or S (from Sharon) PIT (stone) – double as in look-alike
25 SCARBOROUGH FAIR
Hum discordant note, one interrupting Cliff Richard’s opening song (11,4)
 BO (hum, smell) ROUGH (discordant) FA (note, of scale) I (one) all inside SCAR (cliff) R (opening letter of Richard)
26 REEVE
Old local official respecting vigil (5)
 RE (repecting) EVE (vigil)
27 MILLSTONE
Philosopher’s style is something hard to bear (9)
 John Stuart MILL’S (philosopher’s) TONE (style)
Down
1 VIVID
6 x 2 + 500 — clear? (5)
 VI VI (6, twice) and D (500)
2 CAR PARK
A lot in America fish on boat (3,4)
 CARP (fish) on ARK (boat)
3 REAM
Taking top off, what you might do in bed sheets (4)
 dREAM (what you might do in bed) missing top letter
4 ODDS
Democratic Party rejected second chances (4)
 D (democratic) DO (party) reversed (rejected) then S (second)
5 SMARTPHONE
Apple produce this month, with pears rotting (10)
 anagram (rotting) of MONTH with PEARS
6 FAR EASTERN
Maybe Thai food, first of all, back in steamer (3,7)
FARE (food) All (first letter of) then STERN (back of steam ship)
7 IN ORDER
Nun may be tidy (2,5)
double definition
8 GRACE NOTE
Extra embellishment lit up once in fireplace (5,4)
ONCE* (anagram=lit up, drunk) in GRATE (fireplace)
12 CHARITABLE
Liberal with two pieces of furniture, dropping one (10)
 CHAIR and TABLE (two pieces of furniture) with I (one) dropping down the word
13 KETTLEDRUM
Constrained by police, suspect is one getting beaten (10)
 KETTLED (constrained by police) with RUM (suspect)
14 BUDWEISER
China sensible to adopt English recipe for beer (9)
 BUD (china, mate) then WISE (sensible) containing E (English) R (recipe)
17 CABBAGE
Mathematician losing head after first glimpse of Cheryl Cole (7)
 Charles bABBAGE (mathematician) losing head following C (first letter, glimpse, of Cheryl)
19 SOPRANO
Treble on rocks a pro’s drunk at first (7)
 ON* anagram=rocks following (A PRO’S)* anagram=drunk
22 TERCE
Church service is brief for the audience (5)
 sounds like (for the audience) terse (brief)
23 MULL
Menander’s leading character has lines for muse (4)
 MU (first, leading character of of Menander, ?????????, Greek dramatist) has L L (line, twice)
24 OHMS
Syrian city’s head put down resistance (4)
 HOMS (Syrian city) with H (head) put lower down the word
*anagram
definitions are underlined

31 comments on “Guardian Prize 26,418 by Picaroon”

  1. Thanks to PeeDee for the blog. I had Scarborough Fair but totally failed to see the parsing. Now you have enlightened me.

    On 21a I find myself still baffled. I have looked up POT and I find 8 noun meanings and 4 verb meanings but none of them is Dent or even Stone: so how does this work?

  2. Thanks, PeeDee. Unlike you, I really enjoyed this from start to finish, particularly VERBAL DIARRHOEA and KETTLEDRUM – shades of the much missed Arachne, who I’m pleased to hear is feeling a little better.

    21 should be SPIT.

    You’ve a typo in BUDWEISER – sensible is just WISE.

    I thought MU for the first letter of a Greek name was excellent.

    (This is a repost as the first time didn’t seem to work, so apologies if it suddenly appears twice or more!)

  4. Thanks Peedee. I found this hard and spent quite a lot more time on it than usual, some at least of which was staring at 25 my LOI before enlightenment

    I had SPIT for 21, PIT being synonymous enough with DENT and STONE and the dead spit of something being its double.

    I didn’t much like 18; although it was derivable enough it is not an English word.

  5. Thanks PeeDee. All fun and fair, including FARE-ASTERN, second last in followed by 11A which took a while for the light globe to glow. Had to google ‘kettle’ for this British novelty, ditto for the alternative spelling of ‘tierce.’ All the female names were initially daunting, but the clues retrospectively were nice ones. Excellent, Picaroon.

  7. The annotated solution confirms SPIT at 21ac.

    I found this much harder than usual; here’s hoping for something gentler from Paul today, as it’s my turn to blog.

  8. NeilW @2
    Apologies. For some unknown reason your initial two attempts to post a comment were intercepted by the site’s spam filter. I cannot see why but they were waiting in the moderation queue when I first logged-in this morning.

  9. Thanks, Peedee – I’m glad you enjoyed this more in review!

    Like NeilW, I loved it all – but the classic 9ac was worth the price of the paper on its own.

    As ever with this setter, the surfaces throughout are immaculate and, as I often say, repay a second look when the puzzle’s finished.

    Invidious to pick out favourites but, as well as 9ac, I think I’d choose SPIT and MULL [among others 😉 ].

    Many thanks to Picaroon.

  11. The blog entry for 23 is supposed to show Menander in Greek, but on the tablet device I am using at the moment all I see is a string of question marks. Does everyone get this or can some of you see the Greek script?

  13. Thanks Picaroon and PeeDee.

    Solved most of this last Saturday, then redid it again today. Got stuck on the parsing for SCARBOROUGH FAIR and BUDWEISER, so thanks PeeDee.

    Favourites were SMARTPHONE and FAR EASTERN among others.

    Gaufrid, the solved crossword comes up when one goes into ‘Archive for the Guardian Category’.

  15. Cookie
    There was a brief period earlier this morning when the grid appeared before the preamble but PeeDee quickly rectified this.

  16. I liked this and, having just emerged from the brain mangled that was yesterday’s ENIGMATIST(see yesterday’s blog entered ten minutes ago)realised just how solver friendly PICAROON is. Lots of favourites- VIVID,KETTLEDRUM,VERBAL DIARRHOEA to name but a few.
    Thanks Picaroon.

  17. Peter Asplnwall @60, well done. I see that PeterO is still off the rails after playing with his toy TRAIN SET yesterday, the blog for 19d is still squiffy.

  18. Cookie
    “I see that PeterO is still off the rails after playing with his toy TRAIN SET yesterday, the blog for 19d is still squiffy.”

    Not so. PeterO edited his blog yesterday afternoon to correct the error in 19dn.

  19. Gaufrid @18, well, it does not read right for me. He might have sp’i’lled his TUMBLER, I don’t know. It should be TUMBLER (‘glass’), in place of ‘TUNMLER’. Of course, I also could be suffering after effects.

  20. Cookie
    PeterO scored through the TUNMLER and added “Also spelled TUMBLER – thanks Cookie, I missed that one, and yes it was a long session.“.

    It seems that you may need to clear your cache (delete browsing history) and then reload the page again.

  21. Gaufrid @20, yes, I have that, but how can TUNMLER also be spelled TUMBLER when it does not exist? ‘Also spelled’ applies to TUMBRIL and TUMBREL.

  22. Cookie

    PeterO was trying to have a joke with you – acknowledging his misspelling of TUMBLER and your remark about his being tired. 😉

    [He perhaps won’t see these comments of yours, because they’re not on his blog thread, so he won’t receive them by email.]

  24. PeterO, in case you see these comments of mine, I am sorry. I thought jokes could only be in the comments part of the blog, not in the serious nitty gritty part.

  25. Another excellent and moderately challenging puzzle from the reliably entertaining Picaroon. Nothing to difficult to resolve unaided on a train.

    Thanks to Picaroon and PeeDee

  27. A puzzle worthy of a “Prize” from the pirate.

    This took me 3 sittings and I finished the last two clues, 8D and 15A, on Monday after Rufus’s children’s cryptic.

    Lots of fun throughout as the puzzle slowly unravelled. Lots of “Why didn’t I see that?” moments. Which is the sign of a well crafted cryptic.

    Too many favourites to mention. Bravo Picaroon.

    Thanks to PeeDee and Picaroon.

  28. I was stuck on 13d for some time as I was sure that GALLSTONE was the answer to 27a. Gall could be called a philosopher and a gallstone is certainly hard to bear, but, of course JS Mill is a better fit.

  29. I founds this crossword almost impossible. As a relatively inexperienced solver, although I have won the prize crossword once, I would appreciate an understanding of the terms you regulars use and I’m sure other newcomers would as well. Can anyone point us to an explanation?
    I find this site really useful in pointing me towards how compilers think but perhaps the more experienced would consider how smug and dispiriting their comments can be at times.
    I realise there is a community here many of whom know each other well (apparently) but you risk losing newcomers who are both bewildered and sometimes feel belittled.

  30. Hi Jamie, thanks for taking the time to comment, it is rare to get any feedback on how to make the explanation accessible to inexperienced solvers. I also contribute to this site, to help others get started. Please would you let me know the terms that were not explained enough? I can make sure I add the extra info in my blogs.

    I’m sure (apart from couple of trolls who hang around here) people don’t mean to be negative or discouraging, like you say they are just chatting with each other about the puzzle. That is what the comments section is for really. I can’t speak for others, but it took me about 20 years of solving until I could regularly complete all the puzzles. Don’t worry if you don’t find it easy.

  31. Thanks Picaroon and PeeDee

    An old puzzle that I actually did a couple of weeks ago and only got to check off today – so it makes it the second Picaroon that I’ve commented on today. Started this one on a train ride into work and looks like I finished in the early hours of the following morning (obviously not a good sleep that night). Found it pretty tough going from memory and looks like I finished down in the SE with MILLSTONE and the two shorties – OHMS and MULL the last ones in.

    As we have become accustomed to, a lot of really clever clues with a good mix of device types. Top pick for me was SPIT where you have the uncommon meaning of the word along with an actual double of girls who can be identified as S. PIT – seriously brilliant ! Followed not all that far behind with MU – as the leading character of the Greek Meander.

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