Guardian 26,826 / Picaroon

44 comments on “Guardian 26,826 / Picaroon”

1. Thanks Picaroon and Eileen

   Unusually quick finish (for a Picaroon, that is!), wit the SE falling last. Some really great misdirection; I single out CLASH and CHEW for this – the number of different approaches I took on each before hitting the correct ones.

   Amongst a whole lot of great clues, the only ones I don’t like as much are when the answer has to be guessed, then a byzantine (but entirely fair) parsing has to be worked out; PIROUETTE and, to some extent, AGELESS fell into this category for me today.

   Is G really used for £1000? A very quick look on Google didn’t confirm it.K or M would be more common, I think.

2. I also got through this quite quickly (for me, at least). Loved AMARYLLIS, PIROUETTE, GANGSTA and particularly HEY PRESTO! Many thanks to Picaroon and to lucky Eileen!

3. muffin @ 1: I would say that a G is a grand, i.e. £1000.

4. Thanks Eileen for the blog.
   I, too, found this a bit on the easy side for a Picaroon, but enjoyable nevertheless.

   muffin – I have never seen G = £1000, but only = $1000 in US detective stories.

5. Thank you Eileen, lucky girl.

   Very little yielded on first pass, due largely to the excellent misdirects everywhere. The SOFT PEDAL jumped out and the flower opened upwards.

   Lovely misdirection everywhere YEARN, BAY LEAF etc.

   For some reason I got it in my head that ‘WHIR’ was spelled with 2 Rs.

   Had to look up Myanmar for the new name of Burma.

   I think Muffin may have a point – it won’t be easy to find a definition for G = £1,000 but I feel it’s fair enough for crosswords.

   Can’t read ‘Everton’ now without thinking ‘toffee’. Can’t remember who clued it that way recently.

   First class stuff yet again from the pirate.

   Nice week, all.

6. I had INSHORE instead of ONSHORE (I think they both work), so that ruined it for me. And is EAST LONDON a thing? EAST END of course, but I didn’t see this.

7. Thanks Picaroon and Eileen.

   This was great, especially CLASH, BAY LEAF, BYLINES, PUNGENTLY, PIROUETTE, SOFT PEDAL and I could go on…

8. poc @ 6
   East London definitely exists see East London
   It even appears to have a University!

9. poc@6 I don’t think “inshore” and “onshore” are interchangeable. If you’re onshore, you’re on land; if you’re inshore, you’re out at sea, but not very far, as in “inshore fishery.”

10. Max@8: I stand corrected.

    Valentine@9: Chambers defines “the main” as being the high seas, so inshore would still be “not in (or on) the main”. However this is no doubt a matter of interpretation.

11. Ah, that’s more subtle than I was being.

12. EAST LONDON is fine, take it from a native. It’s even got its own postcode (E). Though as with other compass-defined bits of London, it’s written with lower-case at the front. In our case, that helps distinguish us from a South African port.

    What I like about Picaroon is that initial impenetrability disappears as one solves. Totally fair clueing, and very elegant with it. TENANTSHIP my favourite but as Eileen says there is plenty of competition.

13. Thanks both. Clue of the day for me was 14d which made me laugh out loud.

14. As usual from Picaroon, this was a fine puzzle, if not one of his most fiendish. Ticked GRASS, PUNGENTLY, PIROUETTE, HIRST, AMARYLLIS and IMPALES – could have listed many more. Last in were a couple of short ones WHIR and RUIN

    Thanks to Picaroon and Eileen

15. Having finished this well before the end of lunchtime and enjoyed it so much it seems churlish not to say so! Not that I’ve really anything to add to other people’s comments – it took a few minutes to get started, but then flowed remarkably easy for Picaroon. Like Poc @6 I put INSHORE first off and so BIOGRAPHY was last in – stared at all the checking letters for a minute or so and then the penny dropped.

    Trailman @ 12 puts it very nicely in his last sentence.

16. bh @14
    If you’re still about – haven’t we had something very like 27a quite recently?

17. The archive here is throwing up YEARNING rather than YEARN recently – I’m probably mistaken.

18. Bob@15 puts it perfectly: churlish not to express one’s enjoyment of a delightful puzzle. The clues are constructed with such a lovely light touch! Like others, I digressed with INSHORE. before seeing the error of my ways. For what it’s worth, PUNGENTLY was the solution that most tickled my fancy….
    Thanks to setter and blogger.

19. muffin @17: OK, must be time for another list:

    Audreus 22515: Long tale about the East (5)
    Araucaria 23598: Long greatly to make brass at start of Yule (5)
    Araucaria 24387: Long time no start (5)
    Gordius 24709: Long story without point (5)
    Araucaria 24812: Long time before 6 (5)
    Gordius 24842: Long time and a quarter (5)
    Gordius 25124: Long time north (5)
    Araucaria 26047: Long time on pole (5)
    Paul 26113: Long thread binding feline’s tail (5)
    Rufus 26730: Long for agreement with British sailors (5)
    Bonxie 26743: Barney scratches head – terrible itch (5)
    Picaroon 26826: Long time before noon (5)
    Mercury 22582: Doctors deny ear ached (7)
    Paul 22964: Desired for rejection of reject, noted discrimination admitted (7)
    Araucaria 23945: Wanted time with small boy (7)
    Rufus 25503: Longed for time to take up study (7)
    Philistine 25966: Desired study reversed after a long time (7)
    Paul 26729: One having a yen for money ultimately, someone bringing in cash (7)
    Gordius 22360: Anxious for young to start bringing in some cash (8)
    Gordius 23124: Desire for youngsters to start in a job (8)
    Brendan 24819: With one kind of yen, making another (8)
    Orlando 25607: One from Yokohama being paid in yen (8)
    Brummie 26749: Year before getting paid results in hunger (8)
    Rufus 26819: Desire of head changing study (8)
    Rufus 23700: Desires half my wages (9)
    Qaos 26044: Desires Japanese income? (9)
    Rufus 26532: Hankerings for last of daily bread (9)
    Paul 24439: Wants to find imaginative conclusion in stories (6)
    Rufus 25719: Wishes for time with game partners (6)
    Gordius 26168: Hankers after a name in time (6)

    EXTOL is even more popular with 21 appearances

20. Thanks, bh – several similar ones, but not recently. I must have seen it elsewhere.

21. With Picaroon, I always start by taking a moment just to enjoy the surfaces. Then I toddle off happily in various wrong directions while marvelling at the inventive wordplay.
    Didn’t quite finish today (PIROUETTE, BIOGRAPHY and BYLINES beat me) but no matter. Lovely crossword.
    Thanks to Picaroon, and to Eileen for explaining it all so neatly. It had to be BURMA, but for the life of me I couldn’t see why.

    William @5: Me too on WHIR/WHIRR. I blame Billy Whizz in The Beano.

22. Thanks to Picaroon and Eileen. I’m yet another who had great trouble on my first pass but then found the process delightful. I took a while before seeing TENANTSHIP (not a term familiar to me) and BIOGRAPHY (though the clues were certainly there) and last in were RUIN and WHIR (I too wanted to add a second R). Great fun.

23. Very little to add. An excellent crossword, perfectly fair and a delight to solve. I wouldn’t call it easy (anyway, I don’t like them easy), but although it made me think it gave me no trouble – I found I could rely on the clues getting me there (and I loved the misdirections).

    I thought at first 20A (ROBE) was at fault with “bishop’s”, but Eileen put me right on this in her blog.

    muffin (@1)
    SE was my first corner to complete! (And then it went SW, NW, NE.) Like you, I don’t like too many ‘guess first and solve afterwards’ clues, but today, as you say, it was mostly great clues. I like especially those where I can work initially from the wordplay to get a partial answer, then spot a potential answer or two and finally force the answer out from the rest of the clue. 8D (HEY PRESTO) and 14D (BIOGRAPHY) were like this – and there were others.

    14D (BIOGRAPHY) was my top favourite of many favourites.

    Many thanks to Picaroon, and to Eileen (lucky you) for the clear blog.

24. Yet another superbly crafted puzzle from Picaroon, to whom many thanks. Like SeanDimly @21 I too always start by enjoying his surfaces – to me they’re like reading a fine work of literature! Too many favourites to list.

    Thank you very much for the blog, Eileen. [Can’t say I was surprised to see your name linked with Picaroon’s yet again. Despite your strong denial I’m really beginning to suspect some funny business! (Imagine a smiley emoticon here – don’t know how to do them!)]

25. Alan Browne @23
    About “guess first, solve after clues”.

    I think a perfect clue should be solvable “top down” or “bottom up”. Although the clue for PIROUETTE was a thing of beauty, for me anyway the “bottom up” approach wouldn’t have worked – I wouldn’t think “ex-PM – that’ll be PITT, then; dissolute man – ROUE, back in office, E – must be PIROUETTE!”. Each part was of course precise and fair after guessing the answer.

    Very minor point in a very enjoyable puzzle.

26. Hi JuneG @24

    Although I’m hurt that you should doubt my genuine protestations of non-collusion 😉 – I sometimes wish we did have some influence – to show that there are no hard feelings, please see here: http://www.fifteensquared.net/2009/06/19/emoticons/

27. muffin @25

    Good point. I said the clues I enjoy most are those where I go from bottom to top, then top to bottom and finally in. I neglected to mention the many like PIROUETTE, where I already had P at the start and T-E at the end. With that one, I ‘saw’ the answer first from the given letters and from the definition ‘spin’ (top down). Almost simultaneously with PIROUETTE I saw ‘roué’ as the dissolute man.

    ALso, of course, with experience, when you see ‘Spin from ex-PM …’ in a crossword clue, you think of ‘rotate’ or whatever straight away and are not misled by the ‘spin’ of (say) press releases. I am, however, misled by misdirections from time to time and always enjoy the experience.

28. Terrific crossword. Smooth, witty surfaces and lots of fun. I often find that more ‘difficult’ compilers present you with some clunky, nonsensical clues but Picaroon always attracts and rewards you. Love and peace.

29. [Eileen @26: thank you (and Gaufrid) very much for that – very useful for a computer illiterate like me. It appeared quite a while before I started using the site.]

30. Thanks Eileen and Picaroon. My fastest Picaroon solve ever, and I am not complaining!

    Yesterday, I commented on Rufus puzzle surfaces..DDs and CDs yield themselves for smoother surfaces, still, it is nice to see them in a puzzle.

    Charades are harder to clue to also produce smooth surfaces, and, Picaroon has done it so well in this puzzle.

    (We are all familiar with clunky charades).

    Liked 10a, 25a, 28a, 2d, 14d, and 16d

31. Regarding “whir” vs “whirr”, it seemsthat the one-R spelling is more common in the US, with “whirr” being more common in BrEng. I’m a bit surprised that wasn’t hinted at in the clue.

32. As regards PUMP/shoe at 17a, they were on my English school’s clothing list 60 years ago, and are described in my old COED (1963) as a “Kind of light shoe now usu. of patent leather & without fastening, worn with evening dress & for dancing.” Apparently the term is sometimes used nowadays for plimsolls.

33. Yes, Cookie – pump = shoe was entirely familiar to me too. I’m not quite sure what Eileen was questioning.

34. Late on parade today. I started this late and found it rather difficult at first. So I put it aside and when I came back to it,lo and behold, it was quite a quick solve. Perhaps my brain works better later in the day.
    Anyway,too many goodies to mention.
    Thanks Picaroon.

35. Cookie and muffin @32 and 33

    Re 17ac: Eileen wasn’t questioning anything! I simply quoted the clue, which had a question mark for ‘pump’, since it was a definition by example, as I said. My apologies if that wasn’t clear.

36. Thanks, Eileen – I felt sure that you too had worn pumps at some stage!

37. I enjoyed this from Picaroon though I probably wouldn’t rave about it as much as his last few.

    A slow start but then everything fell into place.

    My LOI was AGELESS. I still don’t see “gel” = “stick”. (“Close but no coconut” for me) I suppose I’d like to see the sentence with “gel” and “stick” being interchangeable but I can’t come up with anything satisfactory.

    My other slight criticism was that although 14A was a brilliant &lit when analysed the clue did read as a very simple non cryptic definition and so was a write in which then had to be justified.

    I know people will say I’m being picky but Picaroon has upped the bar lately.

    Thanks to Eileen and Picaroon

38. Brendan @37

    A bit late – I’ve just seen your post. I didn’t get ‘gel’ = ‘stick’ either, and I can’t think of how one could replace the other in a sentence.

    I overlooked this at the time as the NE corner was giving me plenty to think about. I would now call this (gel = stick) a blemish in an otherwise very good puzzle – it must have been tempting to put ‘enduring stick’ together to mislead us. The evidence of this puzzle as a whole is that Picaroon takes time and trouble over his clues (he likes and we like great surfaces), and I still rate it highly.

39. I can’t see how 14a is &lit.

    There’s ‘They say who’s written’ to be accounted for, which is a definition, so the clue cannot be &lit I think.

    Of course what a clue is ‘called’ is nothing to do with the compiler, who has given us a nice solve today. There were one or two niggles that others have covered, but nothing to mar the enjoyment for me.

40. I enjoyed this, as usual with Picaroon’s puzzles. I thought this one might be beyond me when I’d gone through almost all the across clues and still not solved any, but then YEARN got me started and fortunately I found more down solutions on that first pass. It still took me quite a while to finish it, though. There are too many good clues to single out just a few, so I’ll stick to saying …

    Thanks, Picaroon and Eileen.

41. bill_taylor @39

    Of course you’re right. It’s not a true &lit, more &littish! My error. Of course the whole clue gives a fuller definition but the clue can be “normal” with just “They say who’s written” as the def.

    I didn’t pay much attention as the whole clue appeared at first to be a simple non-cryptic as I said. 🙂

42. Eileen @35, now I understand, it is I who must apologise, certainly not you! Gaufrid is asking me eight – 8 = ?

43. Thanks Picaroon and Eileen

    Eileen, not only are you lucky to continually get to blog him, but we all are as he seems to be making more frequent appearances as well – this is the third time in four weeks that he has appeared !

    This one was done in two sessions – the train ride and over lunch on Wednesday but only checking it off now. All has been said of the crisp clueing, full of devious misdirection throughout.

    I enjoyed finally getting AMARYLLIS after trying to justify AGAPANTHA for way too long and thought the BAY LEAF clue was a clever take on the comedy duo.

    Finished in the SW corner with ONSHORE (didn’t even think of the INSHORE option – but was tricky enough to work out the word play for it anyway), BYLINES and the very well constructed BIOGRAPHY with the brilliant surface reading that did a good job in leading one away from the answer.

44. Thanks Eileen and Picaroon.

    Thoroughly enjoyable. Neatly crafted and precise clues.

    I must have been on the perfect wavelength – finished in record time!

    Particularly liked the constructions of AMARYLLIS, BIOGRAPHY and ENAMOURED.

Comments are closed.