Guardian Cryptic 26,971 by Picaroon

by

One for fans of container clues

A lot of the clues in this puzzle were “container” types, with a word or letters put in the middle of other words.  Most of them were very good.

There were a couple of excellent clues, especially 24ac.

Thanks, Picaroon.

Across
1 DIRTCHEAP Very economical price had struggling stores close to debt (4,5)
*(had price) “stores” (deb)T
6 SIMON 25 11‘s wrong, stifling way of working (5)
SIN “stifling” M.O. (modus operandi = “way of wroking”)

Simon Cowell, music producer and the man behind shows like the X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent.
9 NUTTY Like muesli and bananas? (5)
Double definition
10 DIACRITIC Maybe grave judge backs withdrawing help (9)
<=AID + CRITIC

A diacritic is a mark showing how a letter should be pronounced, and grave (`) is an example of a diacritic.
11 ELL Distance fellow travellers cover repeatedly (3)
Hidden in both “fELLow” and “travELLers”
12 TRENT BRIDGE First of Tests and opening game could be here (5,6)
T(ests) + RENT (“opening”) + BRIDGE
14 NONPLUS Puzzle not having a positive value? (7)
NON PLUS = “not having a positive value”
15 CHAGRIN Romeo tucked into two drinks, in distress (7)
R in CHA and GIN
16 MIGRANT Traveller‘s plane took off ahead of time (7)
MIG + RAN + T(ime)
19 HATRACK Stand a bit of laughter and song (7)
HA + TRACK
22 FIDELCASTRO Dog guzzling claret’s drunk an old red (5,6)
FIDO (“dog”) “guzzling” *(clarets)
23 DOT I may have one day by Ruth or Daniel’s place (3)
D(ay) + O.T. (ie Old Testament, of which Ruth and Daniel are books)
24 LOINCLOTH Look inside church, securing good deal for organ cover (9)
LO IN CH “securing” LOT

Nice definition!
26 AMBLE Walker’s nude walk (5)
(r)AMBLE(r)

The “nude” tells us to remove the outer letters.
27 STRAW Way to get untreated stable bed? (5)
ST + RAW
28 MUSHYPEAS Problem about marketing, eg for Greens (5,4)
 <=SUM + HYPE + AS
Down
1 DUNGEON Keep order to pay £1,000 a long time (7)
DUN (“order to pay”) + G (“£1,000) + EON

Incredibly, I had never come across “dun” with that meaning before – you learn summat new every day!
2 RITALIN Drug trial failed with it (7)
*(trial) + IN (“with it” = “trendy” = IN)

A rarer way to indicate IN
3 CRYSTAL BALL Lament delay, netting a pound where fortune’s sought (7,4)
CRY + STALL “netting” A LB
4 ENDLESS Lacking mates, having day off that’s tediously long (7)
(fri) ENDLESS
5 PLASTIC Photo frames hang on synthetic material (7)
PIC “frames” LAST
6 SIR Old man‘s unfinished title (3)
SIR(e)
7 MATADOR He makes a killing beginning to market gold stocks a bit (7)
M(arket) + OR “stocks” (i.e. holds) A TAD
8 NUCLEON London university splitting noble gas particle (7)
UCL “splitting” NEON
13 REACTIONARY Conservative, behind May’s back, keeps fighting (11)
REAR + (ma)Y “keeps” ACTION (“fighting”)

I always think “reactionary” should mean the opposite of “conservative”.
16 MUFFLES Fellows wearing ladies’ slippers and cloaks (7)
FF in MULES
17 GIDDIER More frivolous Greek admits: “That would be the end of me” (7)
GR. “admits” I’D DIE
18 TEAROOM Eatery‘s charge low, needing to rise (7)
TEAR (“charge”) + <=MOO (“low”)
19 HITCHES Husband experiences lust problems (7)
H + ITCHES
20 AUDIBLE Car with uneven bulge able to be picked up (7)
AUDI + B(u)L(g)E
21 KITTENS Equipment sent for tidying up litter (7)
KIT + *(sent)
25 COW Intimidate businesswomen? (3)
CO (“business”) + W(omen)

*anagram

57 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 26,971 by Picaroon”

  1. Thanks Picaroon and loonapick

    Great – just the right level of difficulty. I didn’t parse HATRACK, though.

    loonapick – RITALIN is a drug used to treat hyperactivity in children. I think you might be confusing it with rohypnol, the “rape drug”.

    You’ve missed the parsing for MUSHY PEAS – SUM (problem) backwards, HYPE – marketing, AS – eg?

  3. This was fine, but I can’t see what I may have got with DOT. It’s French for ‘dowry’ but that doesnt help me, being old and male. By the same token, I do get a little queasy about clues and answers like 25D, where COW is a bit close to ‘businesswomen’, esp at a time when unequal pay is being talked about.

  5. Thanks Picaroon and loonapick.

    Great fun puzzle once more from Picaroon.

    Harhop @ 3: it’s dead straight. I has a dot when written in lower case: i.

    hth

  7. Thanks to Picaroon and loonapick, and to muffin and Cymro for those clarifications.

    I was pleased to have a successful solve, as in previous puzzles I have not been able to get onto Picaroon’s wavelength.

    I had nothing on the first pass. Came back later to see 14a NONPLUS (not even a word in my vocabulary except in the sense of being nonplussed). Then I was on the way to solving the whole NW corner.

    Subsequently, the NE fell gradually. Luckily I had heard of 12a TRENT BRIDGE from cricket broadcasts.

    The bottom half took ages but the SW quadrant eventually yielded. I really loved 22a FIDEL CASTRO. I know “red” as a political colour has been used often as a misdirection, but the pairing with claret here made this one fun! 24a LOINCLOTH raised a smile, and became my favourite.

    SE was tough. Hard to believe that a simple three letter word could stump me, so I am embarrassed to admit that 23a DOT was my LOI. Of course the letter “i” has a dot over it, and I have just been “exegeting” the Book of Ruth with my 15/16 year olds in Study of Religion, so you might well ask how I could miss a clear reference to the OT! I toyed with DEN, as Daniel was in the lion’s den, but 21d KITTENS was so clearly right that I couldn’t make it work. I do love the way that certain puzzles set off a whole range of thought patterns though. The problem is that some of my thought bubbles are totally irrelevant to solving the puzzle!

    Just to say, for some quirky reason, I liked the comfort food of MUSHY PEAS at 28a.

  8. Thanks, loonapick.

    I’ve always had the same thoughts about REACTIONARY, too.

    A wonderful puzzle – I have ticks like confetti. Special mention for DIACRITIC and the teasing little DOT. With the D from AUDIBLE, like Julie in Australia, I first thought of DEN and briefly toyed with DOG [as in ‘every dog has his day’]. And I also particularly liked LOINCLOTH, GIDDIER and MUSHY PEAS and…

    Harhop @3 I admit my hackles started to rise in amazement @25ac [this is Picaroon??] but that’s the brilliance of his misdirection, which had me laughing out loud.

    Huge thanks, as ever, to Picaroon. I absolutely loved it.

  9. Thanks to the two Pics.

    Enjoyed this very much.

    Anyone else first try MANTLES (MANS = FELLOWS?) at 16d?

  10. Thank you Picaroon and loonapick ????

    A most enjoyable puzzle – I had to check REACTIONARY in the dictionary and at the same time, out of interest, tried to find HATRACK, or HAT RACK, in the COED and Collins… Favourite was DOT, last in since I could not get DEN out of my mind.

  12. Very enjoyable. For 20d I toyed with LADABLE which I thought just about worked. 4d had a very good surface. I think we had another variation on FRI/ENDLESS recently.

  13. Thinking further, I seem to remember that the luggage rack on a train was called a HATRACK when I was young, and, looking through references, that seems to have been so – I don’t suppose men feel obliged to take their hats off and place them on the rack these days, hence its absence from the dictionaries? I would not call a “stand” a HATRACK, “coat-stand” is in the dictionaries.

  14. Like Eileen I thought this was a lovely puzzle. Favourites were FIDEL CASTRO (brilliant), KITTENS, ENDLESS and MUSHY PEAS (although I didn’t see SUM backwards). Thanks to P & l.

  17. Picaroon is a big favourite of mine and this puzzle is no disappointment. Like Eileen many ticks – I would single out HITCHES and DIACRITIC.

    Stumped by order to pay = DUN, even wondered about the French ‘dongeon’ for a while, but otherwise parsed OK. And if you can’t have conservative = REACTIONARY in the Guardian, where else?

  18. 12 ac : Long long ago before most of you were born the first Test was always at Trent Bridge, the second always at Lords and the fifth (last) always at the Oval.

    13 dn : Technically a conservative wants to keep things as they are, while a reactionary wants to go back to an earlier state of affairs. Thus a reactionary would want to remove the vote from women, while a conservative would just be opposed to extending the franchise to younger voters. Party names are a different matter – Evelyn Waugh once lamented that the Conservative Party had never conserved anything.

  19. Eileen won’t be surprised to read that once again my views almost entirely coincide with hers.

    Thanks to Picaroon for a splendid crossword and Loonapick for the explanations

  20. Thanks to Picaroon and loonapick. Good fun, and not too tricky: fortunately as I now have to get on with decorating the bathroom.

    I wear mules round the house – they are not just for ladies!

  21. Thanks to Picaroon and loonapick. I took a while getting the RENT in TRENT BRIDGE (yet again my knowledge of cricket slowed me down) and could not parse DOT but was familiar in the US with HAT RACK or HATRACK. As usual, much fun from this setter.

  22. Grim and Dim said what I was going to say about “reactionary” but better.

    I googled “hatrack” and clicked the “images” option, and I got a lot of things that could well be called coat stands. Perhaps Google has an American bias? Now I can’t think what I call the thing — coat stand? coat rack? hat holder?

    I especially liked “giddier” with “I’d die” in it for “That would be the end of me” — original cluing.

    Thanks, Picaroon and loonapick.

  23. A top class puzzle as always from Picaroon. Nice to see my local ground getting a mention even on a morning that has hammered more nails into Notts’s certain relegation. Last in was the clever DOT, also ticked SIMON, FIDEL CASTRO, LOINCLOTH and ENDLESS

    Thanks to Picaroon and loonapick

  26. Ed @ 24 and Cookie @ 25 – wikipedia has the observation that ‘academics’ use keep as dungeon: “The word dungeon comes from French donjon (also spelled dongeon), which means “keep”, the main tower of a castle. The first recorded instance of the word in English was near the beginning of the 14th century when it held the same meaning as donjon. The proper original meaning of “keep” is still in use for academics, although in popular culture it has been largely misused and come to mean a cell or “oubliette”. Though it is uncertain, both dungeon and donjon are thought to derive from the Middle Latin word dominio, meaning “lord” or “master”.[1]
    In French, the term donjon still refers to a “keep”, and the English term “dungeon” refers mostly to oubliette in French.” Being an academic, I think that’s a tad overstated … .

  27. Last in was mushy peas and I have to admit we couldn’t parse it until we saw the blog. Then it was glaringly obvious. We always enjoy a Picaroon. Thanks to everyone.

  28. Thanks geof @26, at first I put “donjon” in italics but then found the word in the COED

    donjon n the great tower or innermost keep of a castle. [archaic spelling of DUNGEON]

    and that is all it says, so left the Frenchy stuff out.

  29. Absolutely appalling crossword. Self-indulgent clueing. This is the sort of crossword that puts people off.

  30. Pretty good but it took me a while to get started. FOI FIDEL CASTRO and then I was away. I did a double take at COW but I’m sure it’s just a tease rather than an opinion. Liked WELL,MUSHY PEAS and,surprisingly for me, TRENT BRIDGE. SIR was LOI and seemed a bit weak but more than made up for by the rest.
    Thanks Picaroon.

  31. To avoid any misunderstanding, I must point out that the ‘John’ at 29 is *not* the John who blogs on this site.

    I would ask the John at 29 to use a more unique username if he posts a comment again.

  33. This was fun, and mostly went quickly–with one exception. MUSHY PEAS isn’t part of my vocabulary; I know peas, but are there really places where you deliberately cook them until they’re unpleasant?

    I had a particular laugh at the thought of KITTENS being equipment to clean up the litter. Usually they do the reverse…. (Brits do call the place where cats do their business a litter box, right?)

    Speaking of which, off to vacuum around our litter box. Kitty kicked up a storm this morning…

    –M.

  34. mrpenney @ 33: they’re generally called litter trays.

    Peter A @ 32 (second sentence): it’s probably code for “I couldn’t do it”. 😉

  35. mrpenney @33
    “… but are there really places where you deliberately cook them until they’re unpleasant?”

    Yes, if you go into any UK chippy you will find that fish, chips and mushy peas is a regular order. Their popularity is such that most supermarkets stock both tinned and frozen mushy peas.

  36. mrpenny @33

    They are marrowfat peas, not garden peas: you need to soak them overnight like chickpeas. So they are mushy in the same way that falafel is mushy, or lentils.

  37. Thanks for the clarification, Marienkaefer: mushy peas are definitely not ‘deliberately cooked until they’re unpleasant’! [I’m sorry, mrpenney, that, over there, you’re denied this delicacy!] That description applies to the unwelcome newcomer in ‘trendy’ pubs – ‘minted mushy peas’, which are simply overcooked / mashed minted ‘garden peas’ – a different thing altogether.

  38. Another good puzzle from Picaroon. I stupidly hit Reveal when trying to Check “nucleus”, so I can’t take any credit for NUCLEON. For 2d, I missed “with it” = IN. Before I came to the blog, I was wondering whether it might be a misprint for “within”, which as a ‘lift and separate’ wordplay would, I think, have been a valid alternative.

    Favourites included ELL, DOT, LOINCLOTH and AMBLE.

    Thanks, Picaroon and loonapick.

  40. mrpenney @39

    It would be great if your next UK visit coincided with one of our S and B gatherings – mushy peas on me!

  41. Thanks to the pics for the puzzle and the blog. This was enjoyable from first (TRENT BRIDGE) to last (AUDIBLE). I admit I needed a few reveals as it was a little beyond my skills but all the clueing was fair and many raised a wry chuckle.

  42. This was right up my street – I enjoy Picaroon at his best, and nine clues in particular stood out as favourites today – tricky but fair, and good fun. There were just a few clues that left me wondering if that was really what the setter meant, but I managed to get through those with a bit of luck and head-scratching.

    Like Julie and others, I thought of DEN before DOT AT 23A.

    I hadn’t heard of RITALIN or NUCLEON, but there’s no harm in learning new stuff. What I’m most ashamed of is not seeing where SIMON (6a) came from! The ‘S’ was already there, I got ‘MO’ for ‘way of working’, and I already had COW and ELL, but I was just too slow (or thick) to see the connection. I filled in SIMON anyway, like I did HATRACK at 19a, and came here to see why.

    Thanks to Picaroon and loonapick.

  43. Lovely puzzle as always from Picaroon.
    I live in the Black Forest nowadays, and I’m looking forward enormously to the S&B in York in October, when I expect to gorge myself on 28 (or Yorkshire caviar as we Sheffielders say)

  46. Why?
    I can see there’s a top half half and a bottom half.
    Does it really matter?
    As a solver, I always take it as it comes.

  47. Late again – it’s my destiny.

    Lovely puzzle as ever from Picaroon. Slightly on the easy side for him I thought – NB – that’s not a complaint.

    Expats may be interested to know that even in this arid wasteland mushy peas are avaiable in cans – at Coles supermarkets – own brand. Best to invert the can occasionally or you end up with the liquid all at one end and the solid stuff all at the other – a bit like an Australian party.

    @B #45 – good to see that you’re assimilating into the traditional German way of doing things.

    @G #31 – excellent demonstration that the word “unique” can indeed be qualified.

    Thanks all round.

  48. @B #45

    @ …Hugh, if you’re tuning in

    An example of extreme optimism is ever I saw one. Why should he look here as he doesn’t even “tune in” to the crosswords.

  49. Thanks all
    Visitors came yesterday to pick my plums so I did this on Thursday morning.
    Quite straightforward except for “dot”; Ruth and Daniel are ,to me ,Archer references not biblical!

  52. Phyllida @51 – S and B is shorthand for sloggers and betters i.e. bloggers and setters – the S & B gatherings are highly recommended, and you don’t have to be a regular or a blogger to attend – there are always some mere solver/commenters like me, and it is a great opportunity to meet setters too. The next one is in York in October – see the Announcements page for more details…

  53. Great fun as always – and impeccably composed. My favourite was FIDEL CASTRO, receiving two ticks (an uncommon accolade!).
    I’m also one who cares little about grid, usually not noticing. I’m with sil.

    Phyllida – S & B stands for setters and bloggers when the good denizens of our fine site gather to enjoy the pleasant company etc. I myself have never been to one; I get the impression that, as a rare drinker (a subteetotaller/teesubtotaller?) I might feel a tad egregious!

  54. beery –
    You beat me to it! A door to answer, coffee to make before remembering I was midpost – that must be age! Still, it’s better than thinking that Chamberlain’s still the PM! I guess that comes later…

  56. Thanks loonapick and Picaroon.

    Definitely a game of two halves with the top half falling easily and the bottom needing a lot more effort to grind out.

    Enjoyable all the same. I particularly liked DOT as well as your favourite 24.

  57. Thanks Picaroon and loonapick

    Lovely to get the opportunity to do a Picaroon again after so long. Also had LOINCLOTH as a favourite along with DOT and DIACRITIC. Have the same ‘it doesn’t seem right’ feel about REACTIONARY, but actually came across it the other day (after solving it here) in context in Umberto Eco’s “The Prague Cemetery” which I’m currently reading.

    Finished in the SW corner with that LOINCLOTH, MIGRANT and MUFFLES the last few in.

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