Guardian Cryptic 27,084 by Picaroon

by

If I were clever enough I’d write this blog in rhyme
But as it happens I don’t have time

This took ages to solve
Even longer to parse
I’ve been sitting so long
I can’t feel my… bottom.

A tricky puzzle from Picaroon
Poets in each across light
I’ve managed to solve it
But 1ac won’t give up the fight

If anyone can help me
with that b****y clue
You’d be doing me a favour,
and saving my sanity too.

Thanks, Picaroon, I think!

Across
7 CHAPMAN May bores drink with an old pedlar? (7)
I can’t parse this.  I can see M for May and AN, but the “drink” has me beaten.  Thanks to commenters below, I can now see that the parsing is P.M. (“May”) “boring” CHA (“drink”) and AN.
8 CAMPION Victor Hugo initially abandons flowering plant (7)
CHAMPION with the H(ugo) removed.
9 LEAR “Old King Cole” artist’s covered (4)
Covered by (ie hidden in) “coLE ARtist’s”
10 GOLDSMITH Artisan might put out stocks sold wrongly (9)
*(might) “stocks” *(sold)
12 POUND Tender from bash (5)
Double definition
13 SUCKLING Small bird’s young daughter leaves baby (8)
S(mall) + (d)UCKLING
15 POPE Roman leader‘s attempt to get back in senate (4)
POP (“attempt”) + (senat)E
16 BURNS Poles following ebb of Polish streams (5)
N and S (“poles”) “following” <=RUB (“polish”, backwards, indicated by “ebb”)
17 POET Fit clothes round anything put across here? (4)
PET (“fit”) as in a fit of temper, “clothes” O (“round”)

And anything put across here refers to all the other across answers, who are all POETs
18 ROSSETTI Painter to resist making amendments (8)
*(to resist)

Referring to Dante Gabriel Rossetti
20 CRANE Means to lift fallen arches, a bit revolut­ionary (5)
Hidden backwards in “fallEN ARChes”
21 BOCCACCIO Was a disheartened Dave Cameron his work? (9)
Boccaccio wrote the D(av)ECAMERON.
22 TATE British art institution, say, a non-starter (4)
(s)TATE
24 SPENDER Rebuffed sellers holding back buyer? (7)
<=REPS (“sellers) “holding” END (“back”)
25 PEACOCK Kiss overwhelms a firm, vain fellow (7)
PECK (“kiss”) “overwhelms” A Co. (“firm”)
Down
1 SHOE Calling out, get lost in Oxford? (4)
Homophone of SHOO (“get lost”), and an Oxford is a type of shoe.
2 APERTURE Erupt violently, punching 100 square metres to make hole (8)
*(erupt) in ARE (“100 square metres”)
3 RAGGED Boasted striking top is worn (6)
(b)RAGGED
4 HASSOCKS Doesn’t go barefoot as comfort for supplicants (8)
HAS SOCKS (“doesn’t go barefoot”)
5 UPHILL Leading 17 across requiring much effort (6)
UP (“leading”) + (Geoffrey) HILL
6 GOSH My turn — pipe down! (4)
GO (“turn”) + SH (“pipe down!”)
11 LASERDISC Sad relics arranged in storage medium (9)
*(sad relics)

This could nearly be an & lit. as laserdiscs themselves are sad relics, these days.
12 PHOTO P&O crossing popular still (5)
P(HOT)O
14 NIECE Pretty inclusive of English family member (5)
NICE including E(nglish)
16 BETRAYED Shopped and risked money, ready to fail (8)
BET (“risked money”) + *(ready)
17 PLASTICS Most recent cutting snaps materials (8)
LAST (“most recent”) “cutting” PICS (“snaps”)
19 SECANT Mathematician’s line is able to divide group (6)
CAN (“to divide”) SET
20 COOLER Jug with extra ice in (6)
Double definition
21 BAPS Rolls heading for Barmouth, a resort on the up (4)
B(armouth) + <=SPA
23 TACT Dry sandwiches a cold delicacy (4)
TT (teetotal, so “dry”) “sandwiches” A C(old)

*anagram

43 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 27,084 by Picaroon”

  1. Thanks, loonapick.

    1ac: PM [May] in [bores] CHA [drink] + AN – I think!

    Yet another brilliant puzzle from Picaroon. How does he keep doing it? Sheer delight -many thanks.

  3. Got stuck on 24 across,
    Tried to parse, but at a loss,
    Couldn’t really be much denser,
    In desperation, bunged in Spenser.

    Fine puzzle from one of my favourite setters.

    Got 1a from the definition, but cannot help with the parsing.

    Happy New Year to everyone.

  4. Not sure I can come up with a verse
    But who’s the Prime Minister (for better or worse)?

    Thanks to Loonapick and Picaroon for a tough but satisfying workout.

  8. Thank you Picaroon and loonapick.

    A great puzzle, took quite a while to solve, and even longer to finish the parsing (1a parsed like Eileen did).

    As regards ROSSETTI, UP-HILL is a poem by Christina.

  10. Thank you, loonapick, don’t give up your day-job for poetry.

    George Clements @3, on the other hand, shows great promise – loved it George!

    Really enjoyed the puzzle but failed to parse the same ones as others.

    Like Cookie, I had Rosetti’s poem but did not properly parse the answer as our blogger did.

    Fine offering Picaroon – do drop in and put us out of our misery on CHAPMAN.

    Nice week, all.

  12. Thanks Picaroon and loonapick

    Entirely my own fault, but it wasn’t a very satisfying solve for me. I was struggling when I constructed POET from the wordplay, and thought “But where’s the definition?”. The penny dropped, but poets are not my speciality, so I’m afraid I got my remaining ones by putting the letters plus :poet into OneLook.

    HASSOCKS made me smile.

  14. Clever use of the theme of poets, Picaroon, but unfortunately most of the right hand side evaded my best efforts.

    Due to my unproductive solve, I was very grateful to loonapick and other blog participants for helping me to see the solutions and the skilful focus on the poets in the across clues.
    .

  16. Sorry, meant 1ac or 7ac? Really resonating with recent comments on this forum about typos when commenting on typos.?

  17. I failed to get the key clue at 17ac so the whole thing was a bit laborious. Now of course it’s all so obvious. Well, sort of. I only recognise about half the poets mentioned. Would never have picked SUCKLING as a surname.

  18. Heavens be praised, I got the link. Mind you, by then only POPE remained, but it did help in finding this solution. Next, I will take some time in noticing the nose on my own face (no mean feat, I can tell you).

    HASSOCKS was a good laugh, as was BOCCACCIO when I twigged what was going on. And I thought, “I bet not everybody on fifteensquared knows about the Decameron”, without making the poet connection until much, much later. A little learning, etc.

    My last in was COOLER, perhaps the weakest clue in an otherwise fine set.

  19. Julie @16. Muphry’s Law (sic) states “If you write anything criticizing editing or proofreading, there will be a fault of some kind in what you have written.”
    I was fascinated to learn that Suckling (13ac) invented the game of cribbage.

  20. Ulyanova @13. “Chokey” was mentally dissected for quite some time until a fresh look showed the error of my ways.

  22. This was obviously quite clever, but as some others have said, the right-hand half was too much for me.

    In several cases, more than one poet could be intended. I’m assuming we’re talking about Hart CRANE (one of my favorites) and Christina ROSSETTI. I have not heard of PEACOCK or SUCKLING as poets.

  23. FWIW, as I suspect mrpenney@22 meant, the reputation of Peacock is nowadays as a comic novelist not a poet. Try Nightmare Abbey if you are not familiar.

    Lovely puzzle, and one of my two favourite poets in the grid (no names, no pack drill, but it took an unconscionable time to get ‘pop’ as ‘attempt’.)

    Thanks to loonapick too.

  24. Just brilliant – the crossword, the blog and the comments! Great! Cheered up the first day back at work <3 Thanks Picaroon and Loonapick.

  25. Poet was our last in so, not surprisingly, we struggled with this one. Aren’t there some strangely named poets around! Great stuff from one of our favourite setters. Thanks to everyone.

  26. Thanks to Picaroon and loonapick. I could not parse CHAPMAN, did not supply Geoffrey Hill for UPHILL, and had particular trouble parsing several four-letter words (e.g., GOSH, POET, POPE). I did know SUCKLING as one of the so-called Cavalier poets thanks to his often anthologized poem:

    Why so pale and wan, fond lover?
    Prithee, why so pale?–
    Will, when looking well can’t move her,
    Looking ail prevail?
    Prithee, why so pale?

    Why so dull and mute, young sinner?
    Prithee, why so mute?–
    Will, when speaking well can’t win her,
    Saying nothing do’t?
    Prithee, why so mute?

    Quit, quit, for shame! this will not move,
    This cannot take her–
    If of herself she will not love,
    Nothing can make her:
    The Devil take her!

  27. Cookie@21

    But really we should be surprised that Shakespeare wrote King Lear with a tragic ending = the “original” King Leir was much “happier”

  28. I’ve never heard of the poet SUCKLING-and I doubt I’ll explore him further- but I knew the others. I could even dredge the UPHILL poem out of my subconscious- and got it before POET!
    A lovely puzzle even if it did lead me a merry dance and took quite a long time. Lots of favourites-CAMPION-(FOI),BOCCACCIO,POPE and PHOTO(LOI).

    More like this please.
    Thanks Picaroon

  29. Happy New Year, everyone.

    Good blog, loonapick!

    I rather underestimated the difficulty of this one – oops! The grid is certainly much more “setter-friendly” than “solver-friendly”, but the parameters of the theme made for some tricky word juggling: all the poets are well-known enough to be listed in Collins, and their names also mean something else (which should mean you can tune out of the theme, if poets aren’t your bag). I had to relax the second criterion for Boccaccio, since the number of poets who fulfil these requirements is pretty small anyway, and dwindles to almost nothing for answers over 8 letters.

    The Geoffrey Hill reference is admittedly a bit niche, but I think the clue is quite apt, given the said gentleman’s reputation. (No, I’ve never read him either.)

    Best wishes for 2017, and sorry if you were hoping for something to gentler to ease back in to work after the holidays!

  30. Thanks, Picaroon and loonapick.

    I wasn’t looking for a theme as P. doesn’t usually have one, but what a feat to fit them in.

    Found this quite tough going until I suddenly noticed “anything put across here”, a typical Brendan ploy.

    Trailman @ 18. “I bet not everybody on fifteensquared knows about the Decameron”. I saw the film of it in the 1970s, so knew about him from there. I failed to parse the clue despite decameron passing through my brain; I was misled by the initial B, I think.

  31. An entertaining puzzle for us with lots of lovely clues. Like others poet was LOI and four letter clues were hardest to parse. Favourite of all was hassocks – big smile. Thanks to Picaroon for the puzzle and contribution and to Loonapick for the unravelling.

  32. Really excellent puzzle – and for once I spotted the theme fairly early. Thanks Picaroon and loonapick (surely some connection?!)).

    But having like others spent a long time wrestling with CHOKEY, I was disappointed that 20d turned out to be a much less interesting word, clued, as Trailman says, rather weakly.

  33. (Just to be really poncey)
    I was pleased that 1ac was Chapman because Keats wrote “On FIRST Looking Into Chapman’s Homer”.

  34. I’m late to the party, but, having just picked up and solved this crossword this morning I wanted to say how much I enjoyed it. The theme was right up my street, and I managed to spot it far sooner than I usually do. (My first in was 19d SECANT, but after that I got 21a BOCCACCIO, 18a ROSSETTI and 16a BURNS and suspected not only that there was a theme but also that it might encompass all the acrosses because of the wording of the clue at 17a.)

    There were a couple of weak clues, but the general standard was high, and some, already highlighted on this page, were brilliant. My favourite was 6d GOSH, which came to me only when I had both ‘O’ and ‘H’.

    Many thanks to Picaroon and the would-be poet loonapick (keep trying!).

  35. Thank you Picaroon and loonapick.

    We found this quite hard work, but help came when Jenny got 17ac and said ‘ah, what a clever man’. Then our list of poets came out and we managed to move on. Failed to parse 21ac,but it is difficult to see that name without getting distracted.

    By the way the medium killer sudoku on the same page was also hard work.

  36. Jenny and Charles

    [I agree the ‘medium’ killer sudoku was hard. I nearly always try them, and this one really stood out as a difficult one.]

  37. I got Rossetti and Boccaccio quite easily with the help of Wikipedia. It was only when I got Burns did I realise there might be a theme. Even then because Rossetti was defined as an artist, I thought the theme was poets and artists. I am an engineer so the two are the same to me!

    Regards Phil.

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