Guardian 27,246 / Shed

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A rare and welcome appearance from Shed, who has always been one of my favourites.

I think it’s generally agreed here that Shed’s puzzles are much gentler than they used to be but, as always, there’s lots of wit here and much fun to be had. 22ac, especially, will keep me smiling for the rest of the day.

In the blog of the last Shed puzzle, baerchen commented, ‘Shed’s surfaces have a certain surrealist quality, don’t they?’ I think the same comment could be applied to some of today’s.

Many thanks to Shed for brightening up a dull morning.

[Definitions are underlined in the clues.]

Across

1 Upmarket — releasing one backside and pinching another, prone to wrinkles (7)
CRUMPLY
CL[ass]Y [upmarket minus ass [one backside] round [pinching] RUMP [another] – I think I remember some discussion here recently about the use of the American version of ‘arse’

5 Lexicographer wearing underpants? (7)
JOHNSON
JOHNS ON [wearing underpants] for lexicographer Dr Samuel Johnson – I’ve only met this word attached to ‘long’, when referring to underwear

9 Capture look capturing fool (5)
LASSO
LO [look] round ASS [fool this time]

10 Ink may run into crone’s activity for sunny days (9)
HAYMAKING
Anagram [run] of INK MAY in HAG [crone] – a reference to the saying ‘Make hay while the sun shines’

11 President‘s musical 21 mostly tinned (10)
CHAIRWOMAN
HAIR [musical] + WOM[b] [21ac] in CAN [i.e. tinned]

12 Temporary home of excavations (4)
DIGS
Double definition

14 Starting to catch a jerk stumbling into crevice? Splendid! (11)
CRACKERJACK
C[atch] + an anagram [stumbling] of A JERK in CRACK [crevice]

18 Head of government to OK thoroughfare stopping short of scaffold (7,4)
GALLOWS TREE
G[overnment] + ALLOW [OK] + STREE[t] [thoroughfare stopping short]

21 Flash car carrying nothing back to incubator (4)
WOMB
A reversal [back] of BMW [flash car] round O [nothing]

22 Looking up passages in love diary, month before: snoop around (10)
PROCTOLOGY
PRY [snoop] round OCT[ober] [month] + O [love] LOG [diary]
My last one in – a new word for me but easily entered from the crossers and wordplay and a real laugh-out-loud moment when I looked it up – wonderful definition!

25 Harmlessness of Old Town hosting university pub, previously (9)
INNOCUITY
O [old] CITY [town] round U [university] after INN [pub]

26 Play prosecutor penning sheep (5)
DRAMA
DA [District Attorney – prosecutor] round RAM [sheep]

27 Rushed around, keeping study caustic (7)
ERODENT
A reversal [around] of TORE [rushed] round DEN [study]

28 Unreal train route leads to genuine province (7)
UTRECHT
Initial letters [leads] of Unreal Train Routes + ECHT [genuine]

 

Down

 

1 Material impounded by evangelical iconoclast (6)
CALICO
Hidden in evangeliCAL ICOnoclast

2 Throw aunties out? Not I! (6)
UNSEAT
Anagram [out] of AUNT[i]ES minus I

3 Mathematical equipment on side of agricultural vehicle (10)
PROTRACTOR
PRO [on side of] TRACTOR [agricultural vehicle]

4 Boor‘s gleeful exclam­ation (5)
YAHOO
Double definition

5 Bird and elk embroiled in conflict with careless pedestrian (9)
JAYWALKER
JAY [bird] + an anagram [embroiled] of ELK in WAR [conflict]

6 Try to pick up (4)
HEAR
Double definition

7 Shaky armistice cut short by weapon (8)
SCIMITAR
Anagram [shaky] of ARMISTIC[e] cut short

8 Ask again about port (8)
NAGASAKI
Anagram [about] of ASK AGAIN

13 Sponger to dance, wearing jaunty fedora (10)
FREELOADER
REEL [dance] in an anagram [jaunty?] of FEDORA

15 Voiceless, is in a phone company? That’s like something out of Ionesco (9)
ABSURDIST
SURD [voiceless, as applied to consonants in phonetics] + IS in A BT [a phone company] – reference to theatre of the absurd

16 Meringue material, for instance, affected weight (3,5)
EGG WHITE
EG [for example] + an anagram [affected] of WEIGHT

17 Musical genre for sweetheart on top of sergeant, say (8)
FLAMENCO
FLAME [sweetheart] + NCO [sergeant, say]

19 Composite picture of patriarch (6)
MOSAIC
Double definition, the second referring to Moses

20 Soldier, perhaps, under war god and despot (6)
TYRANT
TYR [Norse war god] + ANT [soldier, perhaps]

23 Rodent getting self-effacing cat half-cut (5)
COYPU
COY [self-effacing] + PU[ss] [half-cut cat]

24 High point of item carried over (4)
ACME
A hidden reversal [carried over] in itEM CArried

39 comments on “Guardian 27,246 / Shed”

  1. Yes, in the old days I couldn’t get very far with Shed but managed to complete this.

    As you say Eileen some amusement and I wondered about a theme with 1a, 5a, 12a, 14a and 22a but decided it was just my mind.

  2. Thanks Shed and Eileen
    Great fun, but either I was on Shed’s wavelength, or it was particularly easy, as it was one of my quickest solves ever. My only delays were seeing how the CLY bit of CRUMPLY worked, and looking up the phonetic meaning of SURD (I only knew the maths meaning.)
    Favourites were JOHNSON, PROCTOLOGY and MOSAIC.

  4. Thanks Eileen. I had 22a PROCTOLOGY noted as “Clue of the Day” even before I saw your blog.

    So much to like here: 1a CRUMPLY, 5a JOHNSON, 14a CRACKERJACK, 18a GALLOWS TREE, 26a DRAMA, 3d PROTRACTOR, 5d JAYWALKER, 7d SCIMITAR, 8d NAGASAKI, 13d FREELOADER, 17d FLAMENCO and 19d MOSAIC.

    Had not heard of ECHT meaning genuine, but with UTR for the beginning letters, what else could 28a be but UTRECHT?

    Also had not heard of TYR as the War God at 20d (more familiar with THOR), and it was only a vague memory from past crosswords that enabled me to get COYPU at 23d.

    My LOI was 11a CHAIRWOMAN. I just could not see the wordplay for love or money, for a very long time.

  5. Eileen, I am always glad when it is your turn to blog. Thank you, as always, for your excellent commentary.

  7. “A rare and welcome appearance by Shed” – I couldn’t have put it any better. As always (at least recently) this was very elegant but mostly straightforward – TYR was unfamiliar but an obvious choice to look up. DIGS was last in.

    Thanks to Shed and Eileen

  8. A very welcome appearance indeed – great fun throughout – I’ll be smiling at 22a all day

    Thanks to Shed and Eileen too

  9. Very enjoyable. Too many excellent clues to mention them all, but I agree that PROCTOLOGY was great.

    Interesting to see the word “rodent” both in the clue for 23d and in the answer for 27a. (The word ERODENT would seem to lend itself to clues featuring “computer mouse” or similar…)

  10. Thank you Shed and Eileen.

    I wish we saw Shed more often, this was such fun, especially the clue for PROCTOLOGY!

    I had PUma for the “cat half-cut” in 23d.

  12. Fairly straightforward from a setter I’ve always got on well with (though I remember a fairly recent prize that was a bit of a struggle). The odd quibble: not every surface is that smooth (15d, 10a). But there’s a bit of clever misdirection too. I kept trying to start FLAMENCO with an E, courtesy of sweetheart, and nearly convinced myself that the hidden TRIARC was a composite picture.

  13. Thanks Shed and Eileen.

    Very enjoyable, although I had to look up ECHT and SURD among others. I think MOSAIC’s second definition should be ‘of patriach’ and the anagrind in 10 is presumably ‘run’ rather than activity.

    Luckily, I knew PROCTOLOGY, which must be the COD.

  15. I got all of this last night except ABSURDIST, being like Muffin in knowing the maths but not the phonetic meaning of “surd.” And I thought I was a phonetics geek!

    I knew proctology and Tyr, but — are ERODENT and INNOCUITY really words? My spellcheck doesn’t think so. Erode and innocuous certainly are, but these look like something made up. No doubt they’re in one of the canonic dictionaries, but I haven’t got one.

    Thanks to Shed and to Eileen for a blog that makes the morning sparkle.

  16. Agree with most of the above-just high enough on the tuffometer(6-7?) with maximum entertainment value and great surfaces.18 and 22 superb.
    Thanks Eileen and Shed.

  17. Thanks to Shed and Eileen. Very enjoyable. I needed help getting the CLY part of CRUMPLY and the SURD in ABSURDIST – and paused over ERODENT and INNOCUITY – but (to my regret) PROCTOLOGIST (a great clue) was familiar.

  18. Very many thanks, both,

    Just to echo everyone’s appreciation of 22, which made me snort with delight.

  19. Just the right mix of the hard and not so hard with a few obscurities (fine by me) and 22a one of the funniest clues I’ve come across in a long time. Had to resort to guesswork for the unknown SURD and TYR, MOSAIC went in unparsed and ECHT was only dimly remembered.

    Thanks to Eileen and Shed

  21. There were some unfamiliar words in this, but they added to rather than detracted from the enjoyment. PROCTOLOGY was one of those, and what a great clue that was, with an innocent surface talking about passages in a diary.

    Like Cookie @10, I thought of PUMA rather than PUSS for the cat (half-cut) in 22d COYPU. And like muffin @2 I didn’t fully parse 1a CRUMPLY.

    Many thanks to Shed and Eileen.

  22. Thank you Shed and Eileen

    Shed has always been one of my favourite setters, and was one of my late father’s too. I agree that this was much easier than usual, but most enjoyable. I loved 5dn, and 14ac brought a great gust of memory and a shout of “Hooray”(Eileen – do you remember the cabbages?).

    I visited 8dn last autumn. Unlike many Japanese cities, which are lovely to visit but not exactly beautiful, it is stunning.

  23. Did this first thing this morning then went out and I’m really pleased to come back to see that my appreciation of it, especially 22ac (figuratively speaking of course!), is shared by so many. As Eileen says, Shed’s puzzles do seem gentler than they did, but they still give some pause for thought – I didn’t know either of the meanings of “surd” for instance – and there’s always plenty of fun. More, please!

    Thank you very much to Shed and Eileen, (with whom I shared the memory at 14ac, by the way!).

  24. A Goldilocks puzzle. Not too hard: not too easy, and I liked it a lot. DIGS was FOI and INNOCUITY my last. I did query the latter as I don’t think I’ve ever heard it used but it had to be right. I didn’t know TYR for war God but again, it had to be right.
    Pity we don’t see more of this setter.
    Thanks Shed.

  25. Hi Marienkaefer @22 – in a word association game, my immediate response to ‘Crackerjack’ would be ‘Cabbages!’. 😉

  26. Eileen @25 – I would have to shout “Hooray” first!

    Now let’s hope I don’t receive a cabbage for my first go at the Captcha.

  29. Thoroughly enjoyed this – most fun I’ve had in ages. 22a is my COD as well. Hadn’t heard of SURD but it couldn’t have been anything else.
    Thanks to Eileen and Shed

  30. Enjoyed the puzzle and the blog, and as for Crackerjack in the Leslie Crowther/Peter Glaze era – it meant that I was home early on a Friday evening

  32. Yes. As I recall, each contestant stood on a separate plinth, and they were asked GK questions in turn. A correct answer earned them an armful of (worthless) ‘prizes’ which they had to hang on to for the duration of the contest. A wrong answer also brought them prizes, but in addition a ‘cabbage’. If a contestant dropped anything, another cabbage. Three cabbages and you were out. Last one in got a ‘proper’ prize, the others just got giant pencils.

    Don’t ask how I remember all this! It was Eamonn Andrews compering in my day, too.

  33. It’s the first time I’ve posted in ages – partly because I’ve been on holiday without xword access and partly because I’ve found it strangely difficult to get back into the habit.
    It’s all been said about this puzzle and blog, and 14a reminiscences, but 22a deserves another COD (or year) shout out for its wit and amusement. Eileen – thank you for another great blog and Shed, thank you for the enjoyment and getting me actively back into this community.

  36. Thanks all, esp. Eileen.

    Pex@1: it wasn’t *supposed* to be a theme but you’ve got me worried now.

    Cookie@10 and Alan B@21: my thinking was the same as Eileen’s and puma hadn’t crossed my mind but it does work just as well. Mercifully, so does the clue, whichever way you parse it.

    I’m glad everyone (or almost everyone) liked 22ac so much.

  37. How lovely that we all seem to agree on this one: a delightful confection of gentle fun which proves that a puzzle doesn’t have to be tricky to be enjoyable.
    A great puzzle and a super blog. Many thanks to Shed and Eileen.
    Thanks for the link. I had a feeling there was an offering named “Crackerjack” which the young people enjoy regarding through their “television” screens nowadays.
    And a definite ‘thumbs up’ for 22ac!!

  38. …and thanks to Shed for dropping by; it always adds to the interest, and even gravitas, of fifteensquared when setters are kindly moved so to do.

  39. Thanks to Shed and Eileen, and another thanks to Shed for stopping by, which adds to the fun. I think that this is the first time that I have finished a Shed puzzle in a single go, with no help from the internet or the Reveal button. So I suppose it’s a bit disappointing to read that Shed’s puzzles have become gentler, but ah well.

    I didn’t know erodent, but it was easy enough to construct, and I guessed Johnson, once I had the J, but (in a dim moment) needed Eileen to explain the “johns on” part. Being a Yank, I wondered if you folks called your underpants your johnsons.

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