Guardian 26,534 / Atë

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[If you’re attending York S&B please see comments 32&33] - here

In view of the date, I was prepared for perhaps a Qaotic or Puckish puzzle but instead found a potentially daunting ‘new’ setter – Atë. She [sic] is, of course, the goddess of mischief –  ‘hot from Hell’ in ‘Julius Caesar – but ATE also happens to form half of ATELES [google this to see the brilliance of this pseudonym] the duo who produced a stunning puzzle for the FT for John Henderson’s fiftieth birthday. Hmm.

However that may be, this was a delicious romp for April Fools’ Day, typified by the four long solutions round the perimeter and a number of other clues. There were several delays in the parsing department, but I think I nailed them all in the end, except one [15dn], where it’s over to you. I can’t begin to list favourite clues – I just hope you enjoyed it at least half as much as I did. Huge thanks to whoever you are for the fun.

[Now to search the rest of the paper for today’s spoof item – I don’t expect it to match the classic San Serife one.]

Across

1 Slow to drop unscrupulous regular string pulling and chicanery (5,8)
SHARP PRACTICE
S[low] minus ‘low’ – unscrupulous] + HARP PRACTICE [‘regular string-pulling’!]

10 Sign lost from pound sterling — nasty trick! (9)
UNDERPLOT
Anagram [nasty] of POUND [s]TERL[ing] minus ‘sign’

11 Asian couple at back of romantic place messing around (5)
PARSI
PARIS [romantic place] with the last two letters messed around

12 Ultimate in conmen starts to inveigle her into lowering zip (5)
NIHIL
[conme]N + initial letters [starts] of Inveigle Her Into Lowering

13 Judge’s sentence of East Londoner will, sparking appeal? (9)
ENDEARING
Cryptic definition – a judge’s sentence would end a [h]earing in East London

14 Outside hotel, is able to adjust this beacon (7)
BELISHA
Anagram [to adjust] of IS ABLE round H [hotel]

16 Vixen’s crony, one engaged in capers (7)
PRANCER
Double definition – one of Santa’s reindeer, as is Vixen

18 Comparatively audacious sermon about fool on the first, taking day off (7)
SASSIER
SER[mon] – ‘taking day off’ – round ASS [fool on the first of April] [Edit: I’m the April Fool – see Simon S @4]

20 Potter’s game? Winning event that’s staged (5-2)
FRAME-UP
If you were a frame up in snooker [potter’s game] you would be winning

21 Fools students over mass reductions in population, we hear (9)
NUMSKULLS
NUS [National Union of Students] round M [mass] + KULLS [sounds like {we hear} ‘culls’ – mass reductions in population]

23 A little mischief on parking space for cabbies (5)
PRANK
P [parking] + RANK [space for cabbies]

24 So good around pervert (5)
SICKO
SIC [so] + reversal [around] of OK [good]

25 I collected rent for Peter Rachman? (9)
PROFITEER
Anagram [rent] of FOR PETER round [collected] I – what a superb surface!

26 Perfidy of busty woman, old source of comedy (6-7)
DOUBLE-DEALING
DOUBLE-D [busty woman!] + EALING [old source of comedy – film studios which produced ‘Kind Hearts and Coronets’, ‘Passport to Pimlico’, ‘The Ladykillers’ et al]

Down

2 Man’s inspiring review of holiday area’s lost retreats (4-5)
HIDY-HOLES
HE’S [man’s] round [inspiring] an anagram of HOLID[a]Y minus A [area]

3 Registered web address to describe a country (5)
RURAL
R [registered] + URL [web address] round A

4,20 Did what Nicole Scherzinger did on the circuit more than once? (6,1,4,3)
PULLED A FAST ONE
Cryptic definition; I had to google this lady, who has apparently had an on/off relationship with the fast one, Lewis Hamilton – brilliant!

5 Fool close to van carrying performers caused trouble (5,2)
ACTED UP
DUPE [fool] with the last letter [close] moved to the front [van] after ACT [performers]

6 Bigwig to lead on an anecdote collection (3,6)
TOP BANANA
TO + PB [lead] + AN + ANA [anecdote collection]

7 Toy dog (5)
CORGI
Double definition

8 Deception of crack city job (5,8)
FUNNY BUSINESS
FUN [crack] + NY [New York – city] + BUSINESS [job]

9 Hanky-panky? Like one jerking or like one thrusting? (7-6)
JIGGERY-POKERY
JIGGERY [like one jerking] + POKERY [like one thrusting]

15 Rotating ties aren’t popular joke shop purchase (5,4)
STINK BOMB
I can’t see this one, I’m afraid

17 Set Australian into popping crease, anticipating an incutting delivery (9)
CAESAREAN
A [Australian] in an anagram [popping] of CREASE, anticipating AN – this could be a favourite

19 Run and go by sink (7)
RELAPSE
R [run] + ELAPSE [go by]

22 Swaggering male set up Soho scams without clothes (5)
MACHO
Reversal [set up] of [s]OH[o] [s]CAM[s]

23 Set of three April fools (5)
PRIAL
Anagram [fools] of APRIL – I didn’t know this word for a set of three cards of the same denomination

88 comments on “Guardian 26,534 / Atë”

  1. 15dn is knits backwards and bomb as in it bombed or failed.

    Didn’t care for this at all in spite of some clever clues.

  2. Morning Eileen

    15d STINK is a reversal of KNITS (ties) and BOMB is used to describe when something doesn’t go down well (isn’t popular).

    I did have to work hard to solve this one but an enjoyable time was had. Thanks to the setter(s) – I did wonder about the Spidery part but hadn’t thought about the other one!

  4. Thanks Atë (whoever you are!) and Eileen

    I enjoyed this one, but did find some of the parsing difficult, so I’m grateful for that.

    Could I suggest that 18 is SER(mon) round ‘ASS on I’ (1 = first), as other wise the I is unexplained.

  6. Oh, I meant to mention Eileen, re your search for the spoof – I guess you’ve seen the Clarkson conversion?

  7. Thanks for the blog Eileen – a tough assignment!

    I think 4,20 should count as a double definition, with the first “Did” as a straight definition of “pulled a fast one”, with the rest of the clue as you describe.

    I was worried by the spelling of HIDY-HOLES (I would have guessed it was HIDEY-HOLES), and the use of MACHO as a noun, but both are in Chambers.

  8. Hard work but most enjoyable, and I got there in the end (although I also hadn’t heard of PRIAL, and couldn’t parse TOP BANANA). Many thanks to Atë and Eileen.

  9. Like TH @1 this did not appeal. Halfway through I cheated on 1A, which got me grumpily to the end. HIDY without the E was one of many that grated (10A, the toy in 7D etc) and never heard of the 4,20 character. A slog.

  10. Gosh – well done Eileen for getting to the bottom of all that. I managed to justify almost all the answers, but was glad to come here for the last few explanations. There was a lot of fun and cleverness here, but the cryptic parts quite often only revealed themselves in retrospect I found!

    I like your idea for FRAME-UP, Eileen, but I wonder if she/he/they might have meant:   ‘potter’s game’ = FRAME, and ‘winning’ = UP, maybe?

    Many thanks both for quite a stiff challenge and a fine blog as ever.

  12. I am with Tom @ 1.

    I found it very hard work and slow, and couldn’t parse several (though I did manage 15d!). However, with the explanations, I now quite like many of the clues; perhaps it is a question of getting on Ate’s wavelength, if there is a future.

    I saw the clue for 9d as extreme Pauline, but then I would!

    Thanks a great deal, Eileen, and, belatedly, Ate.

  13. Goodness, Eileen, you did well to only have one that you couldn’t parse. I had lots (but not STINK BOMB, strangely).

    Generally good fun, and seeing that there would be four similar phrases around the perimeter was a help. I also think the Lewis Hamilton reference is too obscure. I abhor F1 so I’m never going to get the ex-girlfriend of one of the drivers in it. Peter Rachman? Who he?

    But I did like BELISHA, and learnt a new word in PRIAL.

    Thanks to Eileen and whoever. For those that fancy some more of this stuff, there is an excellent Dac in the Indy today.

  14. I quite enjoyed this puzzle. At first I thought I was really going to struggle with it but I managed to make steady progress in the end. Count me as another who didn’t know PRIAL, but once the checkers were in place the anagram fodder made it a much more likely answer than “pairl”.

  15. Don’t know who’s been cleverest, Atë for compiling it or Eileen for unraveling it!

    Loved it!

    Failed on PARSI and missed the parsing of a number of others, but that didn’t detract from the fun.

    The Nicole Scherzinger gag was wonderful and other favourites included PROFITEER, ACTED UP & STINK BOMB.

    I bet Paul is wishing he’d thought of DOUBLE DEALING – brilliant clue.

    What is outstanding about this compiler is not simply the ideas and mechanisms but the smoothness of the surfaces – some achieve the former but leave the surface somewhat clunky.

    Bravi, Madame, more please.

  18. Challenging but ultimately enjoyable. I suppose unfamiliarity with a new setter made this rather difficult at first. PRIAL was FOI because I remember the term from my teenage card playing days. I must admit I tended to arrive at answers prior to parsing and some I couldn’t parse at all e.g. PARSI which was LOI. I loved PRANCER.
    I look forward to more from this setter.

  19. Thanks Eileen for parsing quite a few that I couldn’t! Despite this I enjoyed the puzzle very much.

    By the way, why is ANA an anecdote collection?

  20. ANA: “a collection of someone’s table talk or of gossip, literary anecdotes or possessions” (Chambers).

  21. Most enjoyable solve of the week. Major setback when I wrote in “Hide-aways” for 2d. Took me yonks to sort that out by twitting 14a. Like many others, I parsed that one afterwards. Thanks to Eileen as always.

    More from this setter please

  22. @19 Gladys: It’s a Victorian invention, based on the “-ana” suffix (eg. Shakespeariana, Arthuriana). Chambers can explain more.

    Thanks Eileen and A(t/rachn)e!

  23. Can someone explain about the spider monkeys?

    Also, NY is not a city but a state. LA is a city, and people do say “I live in LA,” but nobody ever says “I live in NY.” Nobody (except British setters) uses NY to mean the city — the abbreviation if used at all is NYC. Yes, we do say and write “New York” to mean the city, but never NY.

    There was an old cook from NY
    Who said, “You should always St P.”
    He said he had tried
    To eat some that was fried
    And that he would rather Ch C.

  25. I did the first half of this online and the check button came in handy more than once – PRIAL, STINK BOMB, PARSI (which I thought was spelt -EE) and so forth.

    Then I went unaided into town and took on trust the likes of TOP BANANA. Ah well, it’s a completion true enough. But may have enjoyed the Clarkson article more.

  26. Great stuff, really don’t get the complaints, 2d well the spelling took me a while to convince myself and I would have put a b in 21a. Didn’t spot the full clue in 25 now its pointed out it’s a cracker.
    Thanks Eileen and I guess the spidery one.

  27. I guessed ANA must be something to do with the “name-iana” idea, but never suspected it of being a word in its own right. Also new to me were PRIAL , and PARSI, HIDY-HOLES and NUMSKULLS in those spellings. I think my favourites were PROFITEER and END-‘EARING for a couple of magnificent surfaces.

  29. We have a well-clued puzzle here. Quite difficult I would say, but due to the good technique everything is gettable, and thus fair. Of course it is Arachne and Monk, whom I know are fair setters.

  30. Thanks to Eileen for the blog. You explained several where I had the answer but not the parsing.

    K’s D@13 About 40 or 50 years ago Rachman was a notorious landlord in London. If I remember correctly he crammed lots of tenants in and did no repairs etc. I also think there was a change in the law after his deeds came to light.

  31. Sorry, another with Tom @ 1. I found this a bit of a slog and ended up trying to think of ‘prank-related’ phrases and words that might fit.

    Flashling @ 26 – I don’t know why it is really but some are a joy to complete, others a little joyless and I’m afraid that, for me, this was one of the latter.

  32. Enjoyed this a lot – pretty tough to start with but there were a lot of helpful crossers which meant the last few fell fairly quickly even though there were some tricky parsings. Last in was ENDEARING.

    Thanks to Atë and Eileen

  33. Tough workout but not as bad as Io.

    Many thanks S&S&B.

    Do I detect a slight grammatical at #29? Whom would have thunk it?

  36. Re the spelling of numskull – my first thought was the same as flashling’s, but a quick Google search suggests that the variant dates back to at least the early 18th century. Should also have mentioned PRIAL and UNDERPLOT were new to me but quite guessable. TOP BANANA was familiar due to a former colleague who used the phrase all the time…

  37. Great crossword. Full of fun. Just the job for April 1.GThe paper today is full of it-with the Clarkson spoof and the usual BWM one up there with the best.I suspect our beloved Spider Lady is ion there somewhere with a fellow from a monastery. We shall see. Anyway a great day for the Grauniad.

  38. Valentine @23 I suspect that most people outside USA use NY to be the city rather than the state. In the same way Washington is a city – without use of DC.

  42. Just in case anyone is still wondering, the ë in Atë is Alt+137, but cut-and-paste works just as well

  44. Plenty of Americans use NY as shorthand for the city in various contexts. Sure, they don’t SAY it “en wye,” but it occurs a lot.

    The Yankees and the Mets, for example. Or ask people in Buffalo if the NY on this guy’s helmet stands for New York State and I’d be willing to bet that they’d smash a beer bottle over your head.

    Don’t like sports? What does the NY in this long-running TV show stand for? And has Donna Karan ever even been to Schenectady or Syracuse, do you think?

    Okay, point made.

  45. Not in so many words, but the diæresis is missing on a few of the comments above, and it was being discussed in the other place…

  47. Maybe not ‘model Ts’ but this puzzle still uses crosswordese quite extensively. Not that it is a bad thing, I’m just saying 😀 .

  48. Great puzzle, nice blog.

    I thought I was going to struggle, but this went in surprisingly easy. I did put quite a few in without parsing, ending with a wild guess for ‘profiteer/prial’. It’s just a good thing I remembered what a ‘belisha’ is.

    @gladys – Yes, the “I heart NY” campaign is a copyrighted product of the New York state government. if you go to the web page, they are promoting the Finger Lakes and Niagara Falls.

  49. Thanks Ate and Eileen
    Well I finished, but 1,11,18,21,2,4-20,5, and 6 went in on definition alone. Curiously 10 went in on wordplay alone – I haven’t heard of an UNDERPLOT.
    Too hard for me to be enjoyable

  50. Thanks to setter and blogger. I enjoyed this very much.

    15d made me smile – there was a famous scene in Eastenders in which one of the characters appears naked, bar a rotating tie!

    Also liked PULL A FAST ONE – very topical.

    NIHIL is familiar but struggled to see zip, which I presume is an americanism? Now that I think about it, it rings a faint bell.
    However, it is a clever clue and fits the general tone of the puzzle.
    No problems with PRIAL and always pleased to see it.

    Giovanna xx
    Very pleased that Hedgehoggy enjoyed a crossword.

  51. I assumed a crack = a funny (joke). So city job = business, so no New York reference. But I still don’t understand macho as a noun.

  52. Hi JR

    I should have said in the blog that I took ‘crack’ as the Irish ‘craic’, which both Collins and Chambers define as ‘fun’. And both have ‘macho’ as a noun.

  53. If “collected” is an inclusion indicator in 25ac the clue is the wrong way round. A single letter can’t surround anything.
    Or are we letting things like this go nowadays since they are becoming more common. Pity if so.

  55. jeceris @ 53, I think it’s just about ok if you imagine a comma after the word collected. A similar sentence might be “Charlie collected, they drove off into the night” with the interpretation that, after having collected Charlie, they all drove off.

  59. Thanks all
    I cannot disagree with most of the negative comments above, however I will be positive and commend 25across as quite brilliant!

  60. Thanks to setters and Eileen. Started on this Thursday afternoon and by bedtime had three
    entries. Came back this morning with fresh eyes and eventually completed it. Didn’t use
    the cheat button but the check button took a severe beating. New words or phrases for me
    were PRIAL, UNDERPLOT, SHARP PRACTICE. New spellings were NUMSKULLS and HIDY-HOLES.
    All in all I enjoyed matching wits with the setters.

    Cheers…

  61. I thoroughly enjoyed this although the parsing was more difficult than the solving. (The answers presented themselves as they were nearly all of a kind)

    I managed all the parsings except for TOP BANANA. (I was convinced that the lead was “TOP” as in the verb.)

    I was also familiar with PRIAL as a player of 3 card brag in my misspent youth. (We have had this before though from Bonxie in June 2013)

    Thanks to Eileen and Atë

  62. Grandpuzzler @60
    I’m puzzled about where you live – it’s still nearly three hours short of Thursday here!

  63. Very difficult puzzle.
    In the first half hour or so we had only three solutions.
    An hour later everything was done except 11ac (PARSI).

    Some really wonderful cluing here (12ac, 24ac, 26ac, 6d, 15d and the brilliant 25ac to name a few).
    Was this really the Ateles combi?
    For me, it didn’t feel like Arachne or Monk.
    The struggle (we had) and the deepness of cluing led me to think this was Jim Toal’s work (aka Tyrus and Vlad).

    Anyway, a real crossword.
    Thanks Eileen.

  65. Thank you Atë and Eileen, great puzzle and terrific blog!

    I started it early this morning, but had to break off until now. PRIAL and TOP BANANA were new.

    jaceris @53 and Eileen @54, I interpreted ‘collected’, 25a, implied that letters stuck on to I.
    I would have expected ‘collected by’ if it indicated inclusion per se, and the comma proposed by Aoexomoxoa @55 just is not there. Why not a adhesion indicator?

  66. Cookie @65

    I also included a comma in my explanation. The addition or omission of punctuation in a crossword clue is a common means of deception – and ‘I collected rent’ is just brilliant!

    I think I remember you saying you had a Kennedy’s Latin Primer on your shelf, which implies that you once learned Latin. The best way I can explain ‘I collected’ is to say that in Latin it would be expressed by an Ablative Absolute. Here are some [English] examples http://www.slu.edu/colleges/AS/languages/classical/latin/tchmat/grammar/whprax/w24-aa.html

    [I’m going to bed now. 😉 ]

  67. Brendan @64, I agree, felt almost Pauline. Terrific puzzle, finished it all though couldn’t parse 1, 11 and 4 down. I too thought prial was spelled prile, numskulls included a B and would have gone for hidey hole, but the flying was fair and took you where the setter wanted you to go.
    Many thanks for the blog Eileen, and hope to see more of Ate whoever he/she is!
    (Sorry, can’t figure out how to put the umlaut on an ipad)

  69. Muffin @62: Bellevue,Washington where we refer to the nation’s capital as DC.

    Also, I forgot BELISHA in my list of unfamiliar words.

    Eileen @66: Ablative Absolute – I thought I’d never hear that phrase again after I
    finished Latin class in 1959.

    (I’m going to dinner now)

    Cheers…

  70. [Cosafina @ 67: it’s easy – just press and hold the ‘e’ and you will be presented with the choice of every accent you could wish for. Same with ‘o’, ‘a’, ‘u’ etc.]

  72. Jolly@71 – I also wonder where that comma goes. One possibility, though not correcting grammar, would lead us (intentionally?) to think that both Monk and Arachne are known personally by him/her….
    More elucidation please.

  73. I thoroughly enjoyed this and had no problems with solving or parsing though I couldn’t help wondering where the B in NUMBSKULL had gone!
    My real puzzle is the setter’s – or probably setters’ – identity. There was a strong taste of Arachne in the morsels, both in the creativity of construction and elegance of surfaces, as well as the political tone (the Rachman clue was simply terrific) which, as ever with Ms Hayes, I echo.
    However, as a meal, less satisfying than her usual dishes – with even a touch of indigestion! I can only assume that, much as I love Monk (if, indeed, this is the work of these two), this might have been even more delicious had it been a solo effort. But then I am biased. [In fact, I have just started on Arachne’s Guardian back catalogue, having missed most of them first time round. I know this will make Eileen, to whom I still owe an apology, envious – in a generous way!]
    Huge thanks to B and Ss

  74. Eileen @66, thank you for replying. I understand the Ablative Absolute but did not realise a comma could be left out of a crossword clue as a means of deception. I do wish I had had more time yesterday to appreciate this puzzle.

  75. Just for the record, I never suggested that this puzzle might be a collaboration – but that Atë, as well as being the name of the goddess of mischief, forms *one half* of the pseudonym used by Arachne and Monk on one occasion.

  77. Eileen @ 66, excellent! I did Latin but had forgotten the Ablative Absolute construction. Examples 5, 6 etc in the link you provided clearly illustrate the principle involved in 25A. I’m quite happy with misleading/missing punctuation in crossword clues.

  78. Eileen @75 –
    I didn’t assume a collaboration from your remarks. This was my assumption based on others’ remarks above – and I’m not at all sure it was (as made clear in my comment). But I assuredly can detect the hand of Arachne and a feeling that another was involved as I explained.

  79. William F P @78

    My comment @75 was a general response to the foregoing comments that you mention and not specifically to yours. I don’t really understand why my preamble led anyone to think there was more than one setter involved. [I don’t. 😉 ]

  80. One of those puzzles that appeared more designed to elicit swooning comments on this website than to bring amusement to the wider constituency.

  81. Thank you Van Winkle. I couldn’t agree more. We have 80 responses but I would wager that not many people finished, or like me, even started it.

  82. Thanks Eileen and Ate. Didn’t start this till after lunch today (detained by a lengthy, eventually losing, battle with yesterday’s Io). This one seemed very tough, especially at first, but turned out to be doable after all. Needed help with some of the more tortuous parsing, however. I can understand why some people may not have enjoyed the puzzle, but I thought both S & B did a very fine job. More, please.

  83. Limeni @70 thank you sooooo much! Now can you tell me how to do bold?
    And a proper thank you to Atë now that I can spell it properly ????

  84. We have only just tackled the crossword.

    Thanks Eileen – we needed you to check the parsing of 6d and 5d. There are so many comments that we have not bothered to read through, so thanks to Ate whoever she, he, or they are!

  85. Invoking “ana” as part of a cryptic clue brings back memories of my first ventures into US crosswords long long ago when compilers needed lots of three-letter words with useful letters. “Ana” was one of them, but the most unusual (one that has disappeared thanks to Will Shortz and others) was “ers” which was defined as “bitter vetch.” A first-time solver had as much luck with that one as I did with “belisha.”

  88. Thanks Atë and Eileen

    Found this extremely tough. Started it near the time of publication and managed to get NIHIL, RURAL and MACHO back then. Am afraid that it languished at the bottom of my backlog puzzles thereafter, coming out occasionally without any progress at all. A determination to get it finished this week took another couple of sessions to be able to finally complete the grid. After all of that there were still SHARP PRACTICE, PARSI, ACTED UP and TOP BANANA that I needed to come here for the proper (or any) parsing of them. Was another who was able to parse STINK BOMB though …

    Was satisfied to eventually complete the puzzle with all of the correct entries and can see the cleverness in the clues but am still deciding whether I enjoyed it or found it a bit of a slog – I think a bit of both !! If beery@87 is right, then that would make sense – the elegant surfaces of Arachne, the wicked humour of Paul and the sheer difficulty of Enigmatist all rolled into a single entity !!

    Finally finished all over the place (unsurprisingly) with CORGI (hadn’t heard of the toys), PARSI (had parsed that as PAIRS with the I going to the end – the real way was clearly much better!) and the new word for me PRIAL as the last one in. Now another oldie off the backlog !!!

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