Guardian 26,780 / Picaroon

43 comments on “Guardian 26,780 / Picaroon”

1. The last two days were a hard act to follow, but no problem for a setter as talented as Picaroon, since this was just as good, beautifully constructed and a little challenging in places. I’m ashamed to say DE MONTFORT was last in, since I have been to the Leicester hall several times.

   Thanks to Picaroon and Eileen

2. Very fine clues, thanks Picaroon. I especially liked the misdirection in 16d which encouraged mot as a start, suggesting motorcar perhaps.
   But in 15d I’m not sure why neck = down. The best I can do is – eg. get a bottle of beer and neck it. I think you may have to be 40 years younger than me to say that.

3. bagel @2

   Yes, neck = [Chambers] ‘drink [sl]’

4. bagel @2 – re neck in a drinking context – I think it may be one of those where usage is regional – certainly familiar enough in my part of the East Midlands and I’m pretty unlikely to be 40 years younger!

5. Thanks Eileen. This was a lot of fun. But do they really make oops rhyme with hoops in Whitechapel?

6. Thanks Eileen( and Picaroon).

   22ac must have been a shoo-in for you Eileen!

   Especially liked Mills and Boon but was held up for a while by the Renaissance artist in Adventurer because I was desperately seeking an Italian painter whose name ended in R (of course, they nearly all end in a vowel (except eg Titian).

7. Still not sure who De Montfort actually was apart from def but around 1965 it was reltively easy to get a ticket for Dylan at De montfort hall whereas London concerts were sold out instantly.Just him, guitar, harmonica, black leather jacket-first time we heard “Gates of Eden” etc

   Oh- and great puzzle-thanks for blog

8. Hi cholecyst @6 – yes, it was one of my first in!

   copmus @7

   The link I gave gives quite a bit of information and a picture of the statue on the Clock Tower, which I’ll be passing later on this morning. And, of course, as well as the Hall, one of our Universities takes its name from him.

9. Terrific stuff this – particularly liked the low-brow stuff which made me laugh, ‘Art of 60s”, the philosophical pulp for lonely hearts and the ‘Randy Van Warmer’ clue.

   Funnily enough, ‘oops clued similarly occurred in the Times recently (possibly yesterday!). Not only do ‘Cockneys’ say it like that, so do many of us, I dare say, in rapid connected speech.

   Personally, I’d underline the whole of the clue at 12 across, but then who am I to argue with Eileen?

10. great puzzle, what else? 25 brilliant

    @cholecyst
    do you mean Tiziano Vecelli? 🙂

11. baerchen @10. Si – naturalmente!

12. Struggled for ages to find a plausible parsing for BILLS AND COOS. Duh! Got here in the end and thoroughly enjoyed the challenge.

13. Took me quite a long time but very enjoyable, although I couldn’t recognise neck as down, or boon as intimate. Favourites were DE MONTFORT, GARFUNKEL, MILLS AND BOON and ONE-HIT WONDER. Many thanks to Picaroon and Eileen.

14. Hi ulaca @9 – I nearly did.

    drofle @ 13 – I got BOON from ‘boon companion’: I’d never thought about its exact meaning until I looked it up today.

    and DP @ 12 – you must have been thinking of BILL of Ockham, well known for his razor. [I really am getting my coat to go out now. 😉 ]

15. Brilliant – top half went in smoothly but took a while to finish SW. Loved GARFUNKEL, ONE-HIT WONDER, LEAPFROG, HATCHING, SPEED LIMIT

    OOPS – was trying to use rings as OO, thanks Eileen

    and thanks Picaroon

16. @baerchen and @ cholecyst- Son of a Gun”- correct that- son of a dye maker- make that Tintoretto! Mine’s a pint.

17. Thanks Picaroon and Eileen.

    This puzzle took me a little longer than those of the last few days, but was just as enjoyable even though I needed help to parse LOW-NECKED, extra thanks, Eileen. I had the definition of GARFUNKEL as “Art” (Arthur), taking FUNK as “60s’ dance music”.

    So many good clues, WELL-SET and EYEWASH in particular.

    typo 2d, LUST (desire).

18. Thanks Picaroon and Eileen. A beautiful puzzle indeed.

    I have a slight niggle with 25a on which I’d like to ask opinions. I can see “large parties” on its own is perfectly fine to give an anagram of “large”, but the cryptic reading seems awkward to me when another element is inserted “in large parties”. We have to split “large parties” off into a building block which we can treat as a noun rather than a subject plus verb. It would seem more natural to treat it as a building block if it were “large partying” or “large party” (much to the annoyance of some, for the latter).

    Does it bother anyone else, or is it just me? I’ll hasten to add that I’m not claiming the clue is wrong or bad, I’m just curious how other people see it.

19. Cyborg @18, I had trouble with 25a, and most probably parsed it wrongly since I could not account for the “of” – I took the “in” as an insertion indicator for FUNK.

20. My word, another cracker. Just WELL-SET and EYEWASH, the first two across clues, are worth the price of admission alone, and it hardly dips from that. And just about the right level of difficulty for me – there was a brief delay about half-way when I thought the rest might be impenetrable, but ADVENTURER helped free things up.

    Cyborg @18, I see where you’re coming from but it doesn’t bother me. I admit that this was one of the clues where I worked from the def to the parsing though.

21. I thought that trout moved in SHOALS not schools, which I’d reserve for whales, dolphins and porpoises.

22. Cookie @19 – “in” is definitely the insertion indicator. The sticky bit for me is whether “large parties” works as an insertion target.
    Thanks, Cookie and Trailman, for the responses.

23. Thanks to Picaroon and Eileen. I had trouble getting started, then had trouble with MILLS AND BOON (new to me), missed “boon” as “intimate” and “neck” as “drink,” and was another who did not parse OOPS because I read “rings” as OO. Still, very enjoyable.

    Re NIGGARD (and given the many discussions on this blog of homophones), Macduff says to Ross in Macbeth, 4.3 “Be not a niggard of your speech,” a line that caused a firestorm in a 1995 production in racially sensitive Washington, D.C (the director changed the word to “miser”).

24. I liked this a lot. The best to date in a strong week. Too many favourites to list although GARFUNKEL made me smile. I puzzled over the clue for DUMA- the obvious answer-. Does A MUD= a slander? Does OVERTHROWN do double duty?
    Still,an excellent puzzle overall.
    Thanks Picaroon.

25. Lovely; thank you so much for some really clever and witty clues, Picaroon.

    Thanks for the blog, Eileen. Garfunkel was my favourite too.

26. GARFUNKEL seems to contain an error, as it goes, here and on the Guardian’s website, but still a nice puzzle. And…. I’ve just seen Cyborg’s post, so seems it’s not just me, thank goodness.

    Double duty in 12 across too, but that’s quite common in Guardian.

27. Thank you, Cookie @17 – typo corrected: I’ve been out until now, hence the delay.

    Hi cyborg @18 – I’m with Trailman @20: it didn’t cause me any problems when I solved and blogged it.

28. metatron @26 – we seem to have crossed but I stick by my comment @27.

29. I had no problem with Garfunkel when I solved the puzzle early this morning. Now I’m wondering if I misread parties as parts – Simon & Garfunkel did figure large at the parties I went to way back in the 70s! Anyway, this problem doesn’t detract from my enjoyment of the clue.

30. Re 18 26 27 & 28, the apostrophe can only stand for ‘is’ or ‘has’, I think, unless you are one who allows for ‘the dance music in large parties of Art of 60s’. That also seems a bit weird, so: am I missing something?

31. I found this quite difficult so really pleased when I finished it. It’s been a week for some brilliant clues. Favourites today were EYEWASH, HATCHING & ADHESION. I have to confess that more than a few went in that I couldn’t parse so thanks Eileen for the help.

32. Thanks Eileen June & Paul.

    I hadn’t considered that third possibility, can’t imagine why! The only other thing I thought about was that some people, perhaps wrongly, use 60’s to mean ‘Sixties’, but I discounted it at the time not least because we have 60s’ here.

33. I struggled, but I got there in the end by using a lot of aids. I had quite a few I couldn’t parse, so was extremely grateful for the blog today. I literally laughed out loud when I saw 3d!

    Too many wonderful clues to select even a handful to mention.

    Thank you for some great fun, Picaroon and Eileen.

34. metatron @26, I’ll duly move from “I guess it’s just me” to “I guess it’s just the two of us”. I’ve got no quibbles with 12a though, I think it works as a complete &lit.

35. I meant to add that sometimes I am genuinely awestruck by the beauty of some clues. And there are many today that are works of art. They read beautifully and the answers are just brilliant.

36. Thanks all, and especially to the incomparable Eileen!

    @Cyborg. I don’t disagree at all. In some series, structurally speaking, you’d need “large partying” or you could turn it around and say e.g. “large parties filled with dance music” (although whether all editors would accept “party” as an anagram indicator is a further question). Personally, I liked the surface reading here and felt that “parties” intuitively made sense.

    @Paul B. I think I’m missing it too. I don’t remember my original clue, but the version with the apostrophe came later. I don’t object to it, but I can’t see it as having an obvious function either. I was happy to take it as decorative instead!

37. What a superb puzzle!

    I had to bite my tongue yesterday as I really didn’t like Crucible’s offering. (Somehow I find his puzzles too obviously contrived although I can see that this is just my own personal taste/bias/hypocrisy)

    This was pure fun from start to finish. Lots of aha moments as well as may “Why didn’t I see that earlier”s.

    25A must be a contender for clue of the year.We’re still in January but it will take some beating! (I parsed it like Eileen by the way)

    Thanks to Eileen and Picaroon.

38. Thanks Picaroon @36, it’s always interesting to hear about these little differences in what editors like to see. Much appreciated.

39. I am a great admirer of both Nutmeg’s and (even more) Crucible’s crosswords but, in the end, Picaroon beat them by a couple of yards.
    Another wonderful puzzle.

    I had no problems with the clue Picaroon mentioned @36.
    Yes, the apostrophe shouldn’t be there perhaps.
    And I agree with Cookie @17 that ‘the 60s’ is not part of the definition (even though it could be) but of ‘dance music’.
    That said, FUNK which originated in the mid-60s was also very popular in the first half of the 70s.
    FUNK ‘in’ [LARGE parties].
    No problem with that either.
    First we take the anagram, then we insert.

    Thanks Eileen.
    And thanks to Picaroon – you’re one of the best in the business!

40. A fine puzzle. I missed the possible issue with the apostrophe in 25a. My only minor niggle was the “school” of TROUT. According to many sites, the correct collective is “hover”, but “member of hover” would have wrecked the surface, and I think most of us managed the leap from “school” to “fish” to “trout” well enough even though it is not technically correct.

    I can’t pick favourites from so many good clues, so I’ll just add my thanks to Picaroon and Eileen.

41. Excellent puzzle – pity about the comments.

    Thanks both.

42. Thanks Picaroon and Eileen

    One that I did about a week ago but only now got to check it off. Agree that this was one out of the box !!

    Had no issues with any of the clues and great admiration for most of them. Failed to parse two of them – didn’t see WE’LL SET – thought that it was the more cocky WELL SET. Also went down the path of OO at 21a and couldn’t account for the PS

    Finished in the SW corner with the brilliant GARFUNKEL clue, LEAPFROG (don’t know why that was near the end) and DUMA as the tricky little last one in.

    There’s been much criticism of the editor in the past on this site and there may be some technical slips that get through, but he must be congratulated on the stable of setters that he has gathered with the quality of puzzles in these first few weeks of 2016 just about faultless.

43. Thanks Eileen and Picaroon.

    Did this over a number of short sittings and appreciated it the more for that.

    A lot to like here including GARFUNKEL, EYEWASH and ADHESION – all creatively clued.

    And I’d like to second Brucew’s comment about the editing above.

    Keep it up.

    I’ve obviously got a lot of catching up to do.

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