Guardian Cryptic 27,054 by Picaroon

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A near-pangram from Picaroon

A typical Picaroon offering, if slightly easier than the norm, this morning with some excellent cluing, my favourites being 26ac, 15dn and 16dn

Across
1 ARITHMETICIAN Fresh air and Chianti drinking encountered in summer? (13)
  *(air chianti) around MET
10 ONTHEGO Not working hard? I will be active (2,3,2)
  *(not) + H(ard) + EGO (“I”)
11 SYNCOPE Faint report of crime by policeman close to scene (7)
  Homophone of SIN + COP (“policeman”) + (scen)E
12 DRAFT Leader of Republicans plugging inane plan (5)
 

R(epublican) “plugging” DAFT
13 INFORMANT Hip name in design for person shopping (9)
  IN (“hip”) + N(ame) in FORMAT(“design”)
14 AMIGO European comrade has another try (5)
  AMI (“another” ie another European comrade) + GO
16 BARTENDER This guy‘s skill welcom­ed by drinking party (9)
  ART (“skill”) “welcomed by” BENDER (“drinking party”)
18 OUT OF DATE Fuddy-duddy not having a partner (3,2,4)
 

Definition and cryptic definition
19 THROB Taoiseach’s content to go and pinch pound (5)
  T(aoiseac)H + ROB (“to pinch”)
20 FINICKING Attentive to detail, if back committing crime (9)
  <+IF + NICKING (“committing crime”)
23 CABIN Part of boat or vessel keeps swinging both ways (5)
  CAN (“vessel”) “keeps” BI (“swinging both ways”)
24 RAVIOLI Filled envelopes a fiddle to fill in US state (7)
  A VIOL (“A fiddle”) “to fill” RI (Rhode Island, so “US state”)
25 OREGANO No-go area hasn’t a twining aromatic plant (7)
  *(no go are)
26 PLAYING FIELDS Grassy areas acting as WC? (7,6)
  PLAYING as (W.C.) FIELDS
Down
2 RITUALIST Fan of ceremonies last to leave hotel with posh celebs (9)
 

RIT(z) + U (“posh”) + A-LIST (“celebs”)
3 TREAT Handle drug put in acid the wrong way (5)
  E (“drug”) “put in” <=TART
4 MAORI Native islander to wander around on island (5)
  <+ROAM + I
5 TASK FORCE Special unit’s request to mine ground etc (4,5)
  ASK FOR (“request”) “to mine” *(etc)
6 CONGRUENT Corresponding with Italian chap covering rugby (9)
  CON (“with” in Italian) + GENT (“chap”) “covering” R.U.
7 ALOHA A foreign greeting when turning up? (5)
  A HOLA is also a foreign greeting (“Hola” is Spanish for “hello”)
8 FORD MADOX FORD English author’s cross — really cross — with university (4,5,4)
  FORD (“cross”) + MAD (“really cross”) + OXFORD

Ford Madox Ford was an author whose most celebrated work was the 1915 novel, The Good Soldier.
9 HEATH ROBINSON Oddly ingenious PM’s working to engage crime-fighting assistant (5,8)
  HEATH’S ON (“PM’s working”) “to engae” ROBIN (Batman’s “crime-fighting assistant”)

W Heath Robinson famously created overcomplicated designs for machines to solve simple problems.
15 OLFACTORY Concerned with odour, emptied overfull workplace (9)
  O(verful)L + FACTORY
16 BRAZILIAN Removal of Bush or Blair, unfortunately associated with Nazi (9)
  *(blair nazi)

If you don’t know what a Brazilian is, google it!
17 DARTBOARD Right pig stocked by man who’s bred bull here? (9)
  RT BOAR (“right pig”) “stocked by DAD (“man who’s bred”)
21 NOVEL Coward’s boxing very unorthodox (5)
  NOEL (“Coward” “boxing” V(ery)
22 GO OFF Fire fellow following foolishness (2,3)
  F(ellow) “following GOOF (“foolishness”)
23 CREPE Native American wraps papa eats in France (5)
  CREE (“Native American” “wraps” P(apa)

*anagram

37 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 27,054 by Picaroon”

  2. Thanks Picaroon and loonapick

    Picaroon is in my top two favourite compilers, mainly for the sly humour present in so many of his clues, and this was no exception. – too many to single any out.

    I didn’t parse TASK FORCE, and thought that BARTENDER was a Rufusesque cryptic definition – should have known better!

    One small query – are GOOF and FOOLISHNESS equivalent? Isn’t a goof a person who exhibits foolishness?

  3. Thank you, loonapick, and good morning everyone.

    Absolutely loved this, right up my street. Wit humour, lovely surfaces (with one exception at CREPE which I thought could have done with a comma after wraps to give it some sense).

    ON THE GO, BARTENDER, CABIN, RAVIOLI, PLAYING FIELDS, all crackers but the pick of the crop was BRAZILIAN in my book!

    Precious few names become adjectival as did HEATH ROBINSON. Struggling to find many more.

    Muffin @2 I took goof in the nounal sense and felt therefore it was OK to equate it with foolishness.

    Many thanks to the witty pirate.

    Nice week, all.

  4. Much for me to like here; plenty of clever misdirection and a good dose of fun – 16d was priceless! Thought the long perimeter answers particularly good.

    Muffin: according to Chambers a goof is also “a blunder”.

    Thank you Picaroon and loonapick.

  5. Thanks loonapick. ‘Oddly ingenious’ is right. Another object lesson from Picaroon, showing me why I could never be a setter.

    D D Robson @1: clue of the year indeed!

    (Nice to have my favourite author at 8 down.)

  6. And as the decorators finally disappear, my solving skills,such as they are,improve! Mind you, I do think this was easier than usual for this setter- but entertaining nonetheless. Too many favourites to list but HEATH ROBINSON made me smile.
    Thanks Picaroon.

  7. @D D Robson (1)
    having read the bizarre ravings of Eric Bristow yesterday, 17 could be in with a shout for topical clue of the year!

  8. This was excellent. Too many favourites to list them all, but I thought INFORMANT was great – really good surface and misdirection.

    HEATH ROBINSON was brilliant, as was the man himself: one of those people whose name becomes an adjective. I’d like to see his design for a crossword-solving machine.

  9. Thank you Picaroon and loonapick – always find those two names sound funny together.

    Great fun, especially FORD MADOX FORD and HEATH ROBINSON, they were contemporaries, I wonder if they ever met?

  10. JimS @ 8 I like the idea of the crossword-solving machine. There must be light bulbs being illuminated and pennies dropping. Oh, and a head-scratching device 🙂

    PS Lovely puzzle from the piratical one.

  12. Yes, a really great puzzle! Loads of other wonderful clues as well as the fantastic BRAZILIAN: I marked DARTBOARD, BARTENDER and FORD MADOX FORD. Many thanks to P & l.

  15. Thanks to Picaroon and loonapick.

    A really satisfying solve and I too chortled at 16D. Couldn’t persuade myself towards BARTENDER (not generally a problem) and needed loonapick’s perspicacity to rescue it from the baleful glare. LOI was DARTBOARD – Doh!

    Goujeers@13 IMHO there is nothing wrong with either “near-pangram” or “almost unique”. Would (and do) growl at “one of the most unique..” and at “very unique..”. FWIW I make 3 letters short of a pangram, so perhaps not really that close.

  16. Alphalpha@15 – you’re right; now that I have had time to look more closely, J, Q and W are missing, so perhaps a near-near-pangram!

  17. Loonapick@16

    It seems to me that setters sometimes set the pangram as a target and unwillingly surrender after a struggle. Certainly the Z in 16D put me (and you?) on the alert for Xs, Ys etc. and sure enough they showed up, their possibility being an aid to solution (e.g. SYNCOPE). I have found this be a useful vector to follow on occasion. There should be a term for this reasonably frequent phenomenon – a pangra?

  18. Thanks Picaroon and loonapick.

    I agree with the consensus that this was a lovely puzzle. BRAZILIAN also my favourite and many more to like including ALOHA and PLAYING FIELDS.

  19. Thanks to Picaroon and loonapick. I took a while before getting RAVIOLI and FINICKING. HEATH ROBINSON was new to me. The US equivalent would be Rube Goldberg.

  20. The best thing about sitting in a dentist’s waiting room this morning, waiting and waiting.

    Thanks to Picaroon for the excellent diversion and loonapick for the explanations.

  21. Fine stuff as always from Picaroon. Did this in the morning but didn’t fancy commenting using the phone, and now the crossword is no longer fresh in the memory…

    Thanks to Picaroon and loonapick

  22. Thanks to William and June for adding to my knowledge of meanings of “goof”. I knew the verb (“goof off”) and the person, but wasn’t aware of the noun for error. I think it’s probably used where I would say “I’ve made a booboo”.

  24. Muffin @22 – Interestingly, in American usage, “I’ve made a goof” is ungrammatical. At least on this side of the pond, it seems one can find a goof in one’s calculations, but not make a goof. Perhaps that’s because the verb usage predates the noun, and “I goofed” solidly fills the niche that “I made a goof” would otherwise infiltrate. In the New York City region, I’ve almost only heard the noun “goof” used to mean the person making an error, and not the error itself.

    Loved this puzzle, though couldn’t quite finish as, first, I’d never heard of Heath Robinson; Rube Goldberg seems to have usurped his fame here. Second, I can’t understand an informant as a person shopping. Can anyone help erase my ignorance on that front?

  26. Zygonix @24
    Thanks for your interesting information about usage of “goof” across the pond.

    In Britain “to turn informer” on criminal colleagues, for example is “to shop”. For example, “the ringleader was shopped by his getaway driver”.

  29. Cracking stuff. A real pleasure to solve.

    Thanks to Picaroon, and to loonapick for the blog.

    Does 16ac count as an &lit?

  31. @#29 – yes – but only semi-&lit in some terminology – because “this guy” is not used in the wordplay reading.

    Great puzzle – easier solve than many Picaroonsters but massively enjoyable.

    Thanks to both setter and blogger.

  33. The Pirate back on top form. Pure genius and very entertaining.

    Of course I didn’t notice but a near-pangram is music to my ears. (All those pangram obsessives wasting time scrabbling around to find those elusive alphabet completing letters. What a shame 😉 ). With cluing as good as this extra solving aids aren’t necessary.

  34. Looking for a pangram in a Picaroon puzzle is a waste of time.
    [for some it is always a waste of time]
    It is not on his list of priorities.

    But what is on that list is care for the surface of a clue, as are precision and originality.
    As for others, Picaroon is surely high in my Top 10 of favourite setters.

    This was again an awesome crossword.
    But I also find that his puzzles – just like Arachne’s – have become milder.
    Not a problem but nowadays solving a Picaroon crossword does not go beyond the hour mark.

    The only clue I found a bit odd was 7d (ALOHA).
    Double duty? Or a question mark that does the trick?
    Somehow I had a feeling that something was missing here.

    Never mind, as I said altogether great stuff [I won’t mention 16d, oops I did].

    Thanks, loonapick, for the blog (and try to ban the word ‘pangram’ from your vocabulary).

  35. muffin @22 and zygonix @24 — I don’t think I’ve heard anyone say “I made a goof,” but they might say, “That was a goof.” Grammatically the same, idiomatically not.

    As for shopper, I think this is rhyming slang, shortened as usual, for “copper”, so “shop” means “squeal.” So does “grass,” short for “grasshopper,” same rhyme.

    This all may be fake rhyming slang and urban legend, but that’s how it looks from over here.

  36. Not much to add. I was late working on this yesterday and didn’t have time to finish it, but it was a cracker. Having read all the comments the morning I can only agree and say how ingenious this was and that everyone’s favourites are my favourites too.

    If I had thought of ‘encountered’ = ‘met’ in 1a ARITHMETICIAN (having already guessed the intended meaning of ‘summer’) I think I would have finished this puzzle without difficulty – it flowed very well, and of course very enjoyably, until it was time to call it a day, with only a few to finish in the NE corner.

    Many thanks to Picaroon and loonapick.

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