Guardian Cryptic 27,426 by Picaroon

by

The puzzle may be found ar https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/27426.

On seeing the grid, I was expecting something of interest to appear in the periphery. In that, I was disappointed, but not in anything else.

Across
8 ICEHOUSE Reserve hotel with flower in cool place (8)
A charade of ICE (‘reserve’) plus H (‘hotel’) plus OUSE (river, ‘flower’).
9 SOOTHE Ambassador, found with smut, is calm (6)
A charade of SOOT (‘smut’) plus HE (His Excellence, ‘ambassador’).
10 GODWIT Wader‘s good sense on westward track (6)
A charade of GOD, a reversal (‘westward’) of DOG (‘track’) plus WIT (‘good sense’).

Black-tailed Godwit
11 DISLODGE Slate masons remove (8)
A charade of DIS (or diss, ‘slate’ in the sense of abuse) plus LODGE (Free ‘masons’).
12 ELAN Dash in road, back to the start (4)
LANE (‘road’) with the last letter moved to the front (‘back to the start’).
13 PROPRIETOR Landlord‘s stewed tripe scoffed by approving soldiers (10)
An envelope (‘scoffed by’) of PRIET, an anagram (‘stewed’) of ‘tripe’ in PRO (‘approving’) plus OR (other ranks, ‘soldiers’).
15 OF NO USE Vain fellow with sense to wear jacket of organdie (2,2,3)
An envelope (‘to wear’) of F (‘fellow’) plus NOUS (‘sense’) in OE (‘jacket of OrgandiE‘).
16 STARTER Sulphur and more acid in dish (7)
A charade of S (chemical symbol, ‘sulphur’; sulfur is now preferred, but I still go with Picaroon) plus TARTER (‘more acid’).
18 THREADBARE Worn after study, lawyers must don article (10)
An envelope (‘must don’) of READ (‘study’) plus BAR (‘lawyers’) in THE (definite ‘article’).
19 IVAN Russian front east of Iceland’s capital (4)
A charade of I (‘Iceland’s capital’) plus VAN (‘front’), with ‘east of’ indicating the order of the particles, following the conventional map orientation, with north at the top.
20 MUSHROOM Problem around heroin, with opportunity to shoot up (8)
A charade of MUS, a reversal (‘around’) of SUM (‘problem’) plus H (‘heroin’) plus ROOM (‘opportunity’).
22 FLEXED Bent lawman gets round the law (6)
An envelope (‘gets round’) of LEX (‘law’) in FED (American ‘lawman’).
23 WHINGE Wife gets joint that’s beef (6)
A charade of W (‘wife’) plus HINGE (‘joint’).
24 TARTUFFE Pretender wants pastry, having uncovered buffet (8)
A charade of TART (‘pastry’) plus UFFE (‘uncovered bUFFEt’), for the eponymous chatacter in Molière’s Tartuffe, ou l’imposteur.
Down
1 SCHOOL OF THOUGHT Perspective from train, even if stopping regularly (6,2,7)
A charade of SCHOOL (‘train’) plus OFTHOUGHT, an envelope (‘stopping’) of THOUGH (‘even if’) in OFT (‘regularly’).
2 SHOWING ONES HAND Supply inn with hogsheads, now disclosing plans (7,4,4)
An anagram (‘supply’ – in a supple manner) of ‘inn’ plus ‘hogsheads now’.
3 JUXTAPOSED Judge and posh tax criminal sat next to one another (10)
A charade of J (‘judge’) plus U (‘posh’) plus XTA, an anagram (‘criminal’) of ‘tax’; plus POSED (‘sat’).
4 HEAD BOY Potent smell’s caught that’s representative of pupils (4,3)
An envelope (‘caught’) of BO (‘smell’) in HEADY (‘potent’).
5 AS IS In the current circumstances, fool takes one in (2,2)
An envelope (‘takes … in’) of I (‘one’) in ASS (‘fool’).
6 NO MORE MR. NICE GUY English run grim economy badly: things’ll get ugly! (2,4,2,4,3)
An anagram (‘badly’) of E (‘English’) plus ‘run grim economy’.
7 THE GLOVES ARE OFF 2, perhaps, means 6 (3,6,3,3)
2 SHOWING ONES HAND as a literal interpretation of the answer.
14 RUTHERFORD Scientist’s lady’s cross, oppressed by dull routine (10)
A charade of RUT (‘dull routine’) plus HER (‘lady’s’) plus FORD (‘cross’). ‘Opressed by’, in a down clue, places RUT on top.
17 PALMATE Like some leaves having two buds? (7)
PAL and MATE (‘two buds’).
21 OWED Outstanding poet’s encouragement to unite (4)
O WED!
completed grid

42 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 27,426 by Picaroon”

  2. Yes , flexed might have been flawed but i could see that 6d was an anagram with no ‘a’ so couldn’t be flawed. The long anagrams at 6 and 7 took their time. I felt i was playing catchup throughout, but all was fair.
    I liked of no use, and threadbare.

  3. A grid with 4×15 lights, three of which are cross-ref’d, not a dodgy word in sight, and PeterO is disappointed that there’s no funky Nina? Tough crowd!

    Seriously though, thanks to Picaroon for the usual gem and to PeterO for the blog

  5. Thanks, PeterO.

    Wonderful puzzle! – the linkage of 2 and 6 in 7 is just brilliant. And so many other gems, too many to list…

    [I thought 6dn rang a bell: Paul clued it very differently fairly recently as’ “Now I shall become mean“, having croaked, monsieur?’.]

    I smiled to see ELAN after what seems like a long time: it used to crop up nearly every week in the olden days.

    And thanks for the lovely bird picture, Peter: I still remember the thrill, I felt, years ago, when I got GODWIT from the wordplay and found that it really was a bird. It’s been one of my favourite words ever since. [That was long before I met ‘jorum’. 😉 ]

    Huge thanks to Picaroon for such a splendid start to the day.

  6. Back after a brief and unpleasant encounter with the world of employment.  I decided to return to playing golf and writing curmudgeonly blogs about iffy clues in the Grauniad crossword.  Nothing iffy today though…

    Tartuffe was a DNK.  “No more Mr nice guy” was key early on and I was hoping for an Alice Cooper theme but it wasn’t to be.

  7. A wonderful treat indeed – too many splendid clues to pick just one or two for favouritism

    Thanks very much indeed to Picaroon and to PeterO for the illustrated explanations

  10. No progress on first pass, then slow progress with OWED LOI.

    Thanks Picaroon and PeterO; it’s a difficult grid to get started with.

    Strangely enough, of the long ones I got 7 first, due to the crossers. Good clue for THREADBARE.

  11. Thanks to Picaroon for an enjoyable challenge and PeterO for clarifying some parsing. I could not parse of no use, but it had to be that. A funny old solve for me. Started off very slowing yielding only a couple of short answers on first pass. Then it began to unpack steadily, though with some after the event parsing. At one point I had the right hand side fully complete and only elan on the left. However got there in the end, last one in owed and spent ages trying to work out why it might be Owen before the penny dropped. Thanks again Picaroon and PeterO.

  12. An excellent puzzle, through and through!  I thought the four long Down clues/answers were all great, and, echoing the comments of others above, I found Picaroon’s connection of 2 and 6 and 7 to be especially impressive.  My FOI, appropriately, was STARTER.  In addition to the four long Down entries, there were many clever clues, nice surfaces, and chuckles along the way.  My list of “other favorites” included DISLODGE, THREADBARE, and MUSHROOM.  Unlike Gareth @8 and ronald @9, I thought OWED was amusingly clued.

    If I remember correctly, “Don’t Bemock the Godwit” was a song by Genesis on one of their early albums.

    Many thanks to Picaroon and PeterO and the other commenters.

  13. Lovely puzzle, especially JUXTAPOSED and PALMATE. Wrestled with the long anagrams for a time, but eventually got them. Many thanks to Picaroon and PeterO.

  14. Oh thank goodness, something I could cope with after yesterday’s discomfiture. Not that I rate this as Picaroon’s easiest – the two long answers on the rhs eluded me quite some time – but I always felt I was in the presence of a setter who wanted to give the solver a decent crack. So I’m happy again.

  15. Took me quite a while to get more than a few isolated solutions, but once a couple of the long ones were in the whole thing got much easier. WHINGE was last in, and I found the right hand side the easier, though in retrospect there were a few I should have seen earlier. Liked NO MORE MR NICE GUY and PALMATE for different reasons. Another top class puzzle.

    Thanks to Picaroon and PeterO

  16. Very good from Pickers, I reckon he was hard at it with the Scrabble this time, to figure out those long anagrams!  (Funny isn’t it, how Scrabble is a great help in setting anagrams, but little use in solving them.  Or do you disagree?)

    Anyway, not entirely smooth, I tried OVER and then OPEN at 21d, couldn’t figure out the parsing though, so I had to ‘cheat’ – tried out both words on the online, and neither ‘check’d.  After that OWED eventually clicked – but I was then wondering about homophones of ODE….

    The other one for which parsing took ages was GODWIT, though I saw at once it was the only bird to fit in.  I just took it for granted that “good” was for “G”…

    I suppose 6d was pretty satisfying – seeing as once I’d got several crossers in and divided the light up into words, I (naturally) concluded that the only possibility for the third word was “OR”.  Held me up for ages.  D’oh!

    All good fun though – thanks to Pickers and Peter.

  17. Thanks to Picaroon and PeterO. Like others I started very slowly, but getting the long answers helped a lot. I also had difficulty seeing OWED (I needed the crossers and a lot of guessing). Great fun.

  19. Looking again at PeterO’s opening remark re NINAs – or absence of – I’m wondering about this grid with hardly any first-letter crossers in it.  These grids are supposedly unpopular with many solvers (I personally don’t mind) but only Robi@10 has drawn attention to it.

    What do others think?  Do they mind?  I think for setters this sort of grid is a bonus – easier to fill.

  20. Thanks Picaroon and PeterO

    The drawback of having four 15 letter answers is that we don’t get as many clues! I did love the way 7 related to 2 and 6, though, as had been said before. OWED was my last too, though I quite liked it; DISLODGE was another favourite.

    Only quibble: why do so many people think that “often” (or “oft” in this case, in 1d) means the same as “regularly”, when they are in fact quite different; something can happen regularly but not often, and vice versa.

  21. I hate most of these grids, although this particular one with 4 x 15-letter answers is OK (and hasn’t cropped up for a while.) But I do accept that the Guardian crossword is the spiritual home of grids with no first-letter crossers, and that if I don’t like it I can lump it !

  23. muffin@22,

    It wouldn’t surprise me – as Laccaria says, these grids almost certainly make life easier for the setters.  Sadly I only get to see the Radio Times at Christmas when Mrs. B buys it, she says it’s too expensive to buy for the rest of the year.  When I see all those black squares around the perimeter I instantly start to think that means we are going to get fewer actual clues, although that’s probably an optical illusion.

    The other grids I rather dislike are those which divide the crossword into four almost-separate corners, but they are also rife in the Guardian so put I up with them.

  24. In fairness, it should be pointed out that it isn’t entirely the setter’s fault!

    The Guardian‘s setters (unlike the Independent‘s) are not allowed to design their own grids.  Instead they have to choose a grid from the Graun‘s library – which currently comprises some 60-odd patterns.  This one is number 3 in the set.  Evidently one that isn’t used very often (no doubt someone may chime in and tell us when it was last used)!

    Of these grids, if I’ve counted right, 11 are of the “ends on the edges” type (like this one); 34 are of the “lights on the edges” type (like yesterday’s Vlad), the others are of the ‘mixed’ type, usually with two edges consisting of ends and the other two containing lights.

    I don’t think we can blame a setter for sometimes preferring the easier fill….. and the harder solve….

  25. Came late to this and rushed it so I’m not sure I got the enjoyment sInce should have but this clearly is an extremely good puzzle. PALMATE was LOI and I missed the parsing but the rest was fine.
    Thanks Picaroon.

  26. Not even half the number of comments we had yesterday, thus far.

    So, a crossword not even half as good as yesterday’s (very fine) Vlad?  No way!

    I cannot remember a Picaroon puzzle that wasn’t good but some are (even) better than others.  This was one of those, we thought.

    Almost defeated by GODWIT (10ac), almost …

    Picaroon doesn’t need crudeness, Guardianisms and other fancy stuff to write a classy crossword!

    Enough praise, thanks PeterO – glad you liked it too.

  27. Struggled massively – but really appreciated 7d , even if I had to come here to get it.

    Thanks picaroon and PeterO

  28. Muffin @20 — Whether one likes it or not, the word “regularly” often does mean “often”.  If my doctor tells me that I should exercise regularly (as indeed she does), she means I should do it often, not that I should do it at equally-spaced intervals.

    Although it’s a noun, not an adverb, the word “regular” to mean “a habitual customer” suggests the same thing: I’m a regular at a local cafe because I go there often, not because I go there at the same time every day.

    I’m in complete agreement with the consensus: this was a great puzzle.

     

     

     

  29. Delayed solving this one, but so glad I did. Loved it.
    It is a bit bizarre how many commentators mentioned 21d OWED as their LOI. Mine too.
    Even my two unfamiliar words, 10a GODWIT and 24a TARTUFFE, which some others have mentioned, were perfectly gettable from the wordplay for each.
    Huge thanks to Picaroon and PeterO.

  30. Ted @28

    It’s about maintaining distinctions in meaning. “Regularly” has a precise meaning, which is lost if it is used as a synonym for “often”. If “often” is too short a word for you, why not use “frequently” instead? You are a frequent visitor to your cafe.

  31. I struggled with this and didn’t get owed either. So obvious when you see the answer! My husband helped with 2d, from where got 6 and 7. Brilliant! Thanks Picaroon, whose always been one of my favourites

  32. Fine crossword, and thanks to Picaroon and PeterO. But if anyone is still reading this, could they explain to me the parsing of 1d, please?

  33. plotinus … Id depends on seeing that “train” is being used as a verb (to train/school someone) and “stopping” is being used in the sense of “filling up” – “train” = SCHOOL, “even if” = THOUGH, regularly = OFT.  So, SCHOOL, followed by THOUGH filling up OFT = SCHOOL OF … THOUGH … T

  34. Muffin @ 30. I agree with keeping that sort distinction in speech when distinction is necessary. Often, it isn’t, and that’s why words come to have blurrier meanings. Without the blur, a lot of crossword clues wouldn’t be possible!

    Enjoyed this very much, and the blog and comments.

  35. The usual entertaining excellence from Picaroon.  Even after getting the 4 long down clues – challenging despite their distinctive word patterns – nothing was too easy and everything was fair and fun.  I can see posters’ problems with OFT as ‘regularly’, but even if they aren’t synonymous, they do overlap, and that’s usually enough for me.

    OWED was my last one in, and in hindsight probably my favourite.  I was three quarters of the way to writing in Owen as an outstanding poet with an as yet unseen parsing, when O WED popped into my head, and the job was done.  Thanks P & PO.

  37. laccaria @16 Lovely picture of the great man — thank you!  Where did you find it?

    I had OR too — what else could _R mean?  But we had MR UNIVERSE recently, you’d think I’d learn.

    JohnB @23 Perhaps you could Xerox the Radio Times puzzle at the library?

    Loved the puzzle, thanks Picaroon.  Good blog, thanks PeterO.

     

  38. Valentine – just by googling – but I think this is the same pic. as in the Wiki article.

    If you look at the tiles on the desk carefully, you’ll see Araucaria is spelling out THE OLD VICARAGE GRANTCHESTER which must surely be his most famous anagram ever….

  39. Muffin @30 — This is just the old prescriptive-descriptive question rearing its head again. You’re saying that “regularly” shouldn’t mean “often”. I’m saying that it (often) does. Whether it should or not is irrelevant.

  40. I would reckon that compiling a perimetrical message on this grid with its four 15-letter words and closely associated 10-letter words would be nigh on impossible. I reckon that this is one of the more challenging Guardian grids anyway, without the constraints of the perimeter message. Probably why the grid appears so infrequently.

    But I may rise to the challenge,.

  42. Laccaria — I went back to the photo and can’t read the scrabble letters at all.  How can you know what they say?

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