Not easy, but not too hard a puzzle. Thanks to Nutmeg. Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Across
1 Geriatric‘s party I’m a bit annoyed about (6)
DOTARD : DO(a party;social function) + reversal of(… about) DRAT!(what I exclaim when I’m a bit annoyed).
4 Landowner introducing married daughter was embarrassed (8)
SQUIRMED : [ SQUIRE(a landowner) containing(introducing) M(abbrev. for “married”) ] + D(abbrev. for “daughter”).
9 Finish job in WC and look embarrassed (5)
FLUSH : Double defn: 1st: Last thing to do after using the WC;water closet;the flush toilet itself.
10 Travelling kings were sticking together, one might say (9)
SKEWERING : Anagram of(Travelling) KINGS WERE.
Defn: Poking together, say, pieces of meat, one after the other, into a pointed stick.
11 Forged bill in M&S or Aldi, say, a source of irritation (9)
CHILBLAIN : Anagram of(Forged) BILL contained in(in) CHAIN(an example of which;say, is the Marks & Spencer or Aldi chain stores).
12 Slight setback hampering European policies (5)
RULES : Reversal of(… setback) SLUR(a slight;a damaging remark) containing(hampering) E(abbrev. for “European”).
13 Fashion etc, the Tudors extended (12)
OUTSTRETCHED : Anagram of(Fashion) ETC, THE TUDORS.
17 After study, no women find time for revision (12)
READJUSTMENT : READ(to study, say, at a university) placed before(After …) [JUST MEN](only men, no women) plus(find) T(abbrev. for “time”).
20 Run through museum unclothed, ending in shop (3,2)
USE UP : “museum ” minus its 1st and last letters(unclothed) + last letter of(ending in) “shop “.
21 Abandoned rebel leader probed by secret police (4,5)
CAST ASIDE : CADE(Jack, leader of a rebellion in 1450 England) containing(probed by) STASI(secret police of the former East Germany).
23 Order to confine gangster for last two members of panel (9)
COMMITTAL : AL(Capone, alias Scarface, a gangster in Prohibition Era America) replacing(for) last 2 letters of(last two members of) “committee”(a panel;a group of people appointed for a specific function).
24 Single global enterprise returned early deposit (5)
UNWED : UN(abbrev. for the United Nations, a global organisation) + reversal of(returned) DEW(the tiny drops of water deposited in the very early morning hours).
25 Without us, Oedipus Rex collapsed — shock treatment applied (8)
PEROXIDE : Anagram of(… collapsed) [Oedipus Rex] minus(Without) “us “.
Answer: …, specifically hydrogen peroxide, used to bleach;treat one’s shock;mass of thick hair.
26 Dam with added function, not the conventional sort (6)
WEIRDO : WEIR(a low dam built across a river) plus(with added) DO(a social function;gathering).
Down
1 One’ll break faith with failing soldiers (8)
DEFECTOR : DEFECT(a failing;a flaw, say, in one’s character) + OR(abbrev. for “ordinary ranks”, non-commissioned soldiers).
2 Those visiting solicitors holding teacher up (8)
TOURISTS : TOUTS(those who solicit customers or clients) containing(holding) reversal of(… up, in a down clue) SIR(a form of address for a male teacher).
3 Airline lady’s mounted remedial course (5)
REHAB : Reversal of(… mounted,in a down clue) [ BA(abbrev. for British Airways) + HER(possessive pronoun for a lady;a lady’s) ].
Answer: Short for “rehabilitation”.
5 Barman, in short, quite contrary to start with (6,7)
QUEENS COUNSEL : Abbrev. for which;in short, is “QC”, the 1st letters, respectively, of(… to start with) “quite contrary“.
Answer: …, a senior barrister who, obviously, is a man (or woman) of the Bar;barristers collectively.
6 Individual approaching home with zeal (2,7)
IN EARNEST : I(first person pronoun for one;an individual) + NEAR(coming near to;approaching) + NEST(home, for a bird, say).
7 Mum wearing extremely leaky overall (6)
MAINLY : MA(informal term for one’s mum;mother) + IN(wearing, as in “he was in drag”) + 1st and last letters of(extremely) “leaky“.
Defn: …;on the whole.
8 Study comes to an end, keeping good time (6)
DIGEST : [ DIES(comes to an end) containing(keeping) G(abbrev. for “good”) ] + T(abbrev. for “time”).
Defn: To ponder and understand information.
10 No Etonian detected at USA gathering? (5-8)
STATE EDUCATED : Anagram of(… gathering) DETECTED AT USA.
Defn: Descriptive of one who didn’t attend a public school like Eton, but was educated in a state school in England.
14 Inscrutable type — he’s quiet during lean times (3,6)
THE SPHINX : { [ HE’S + P(abbrev. for “piano”, musical direction to play softly;quietly) ] contained in(during) THIN(lean;unsubstantial) } + X(symbol for multiplication in arithmetic;times).
Answer: From Egyptian mythology where sphinxes gave people puzzles to solve, and thus were considered mysterious and inscrutable.
15 He’ll judge about six sheep, first in ring (8)
REVIEWER : RE(with reference to;about) VI(Roman numeral for “six”) + EWE(female sheep) + 1st letter of(first in) “ring“.
16 Mobile characters in Tate don’t care for? (6,2)
ATTEND TO : Anagram of(Mobile characters in) TATE DON’T.
18 Loose car part regularly fixed in hour by champ (6)
HUBCAP : Every other letter, starting from the 1st, of(regularly fixed in) “hour by champ“.
19 Nutmeg’s stopping show in German city (6)
WEIMAR : I’M(contraction of “I AM” or “Nutmeg’s;Nutmeg is”, the setter self-referentially) contained in(stopping) WEAR(to show;to exhibit a particular expression, as in “she would wear a false smile”).
22 Beyond a double bend, river’s clear blue (5)
AZURE : [ A + Z(when lain on its side, a symbol found on road signs indicating a double bend ahead) ] placed before(Beyond …) URE(river in North Yorkshire, England).
Great puzzle. Apart from the (unmentioned?) fact that it’s a pangram, I can’t help feeling that there’s a hidden theme of news providers concealed as ninas: NYT, SUN, MSN,… Any others?
Very enjoyable. Thanks to Nutmeg. 9a FLUSH, 11a CHILBLAIN and 25a PEROXIDE were all fun clues.
Thanks also to Blaise@1 for your post: the pangram and the ninas went unnoticed (though not 100% sure if the latter were intentional). Grateful to scchua for the solve, and for the pictures which always add interest to scchua’s solves.
[WK, AB and Cookie, Re yesterday’s Imogen blog. I have continued to follow the crosswords, the forum and the General Discussion re the Site Policy despite time away on a road trip. Thanks to you and others for kind remarks. Many posts have been dispiriting since the late ones on the Pasquale blog on 9 May. A pity as I have enjoyed the interactive camaraderie and community-building aspects of this lively forum.]
I really struggled to get going on this – it seemed hard compared to the average Nutmeg – but got there eventually. Even noticed the pangram! Favourites were READJUSTMENT, PEROXIDE, STATE-EDUCATED and THE SPHINX. Many thanks to N & s.
Blaise@1 well-mentioned-I saw a pangram in the offing when I got Queens Council but forgot to follow it up.So enthralled in the cuing
Thanks scchuia and Nutmeg.
Thanks Scchua – I took against this at a first scan of the clues, but did warm to it as it went on. Not really happy with ‘Al’ for ‘gangster’ at 23 which held me up til the end, but plenty to enjoy elsewhere, so thanks for an pleasing, nutty challenge to the setter!
What a fabulous puzzle! I really enjoyed this one.
My favourites were 10a, 14d, 25a, 17a, 5d, 22d.
New for me was the rebel, Jack Cade.
Thank you Nutmeg and scchua.
It is probably just a coincidence, but The Sphinx (Greek riddle-posing monster) appears in the legend of Oedipus Rex (in clue 25). I can’t see any other connections to this possible theme though.
Thank you Nutmeg and scchua.
Nutmeg’s puzzle setting is getting better and better (imo). I finished up with many ticks – 9 for its dd, 11 for forged as an anagrind, 17 for just men, 20 for unclothed museum, 25 for misdirecting shock treatment, 5 for barman not being a musician (I had composer for the second word for ages), 14 for lean times and 18 for the misdirection that meant I was trying to get regular letters out of the first half of the clue. All in all a delight.
I didn’t spot and still don’t see how the pangram works.
[Great to see you back JinA.]
Thanks to Nutmeg and scchua.
Thank you Nutmeg and scchua.
A most enjoyable puzzle. Spotted the pangram, which helped get READJUSTMENT since the J was missing, last one in.
[Glad you are back JinA.]
Thanks, scchua.
Super puzzle – I gave up giving ticks when I reached ten and was only halfway through the puzzle. As WhiteKing says @8, there are so many different reasons for ticks and I agree with him that Nutmeg’s puzzle get better all the time.
Bravissima, Nutmeg!
Thanks both. Great puzzle,
[J in A – I enjoy your posts and am quite happy with some slightly “off topic” remarks. They add greatly to the camaraderie of this site. Ignore the old grumps!]
Hear, hear, Shirl. 😉
I am going to agree with almost* everything said above. Superb puzzle, Nutmeg is a rising star, and welcome back JinA. But I would like to add a compliment to scchua that I hope others will affirm. Thank you for the exemplary blog. Your extra efforts to explain the references is a great help to newer solvers and those of us not in the UK. I have been doing Guardian crosswords long enough to know that gangster = AL, soldiers = OR and that road signs in the UK look like a toppled Z, but many readers will not, and there are many times that I come to the blog looking for explanations and am no better off. (Yesterday’s lower classes = DE was an example, but I do not wish to sound unappreciative of the blogger.)
* pangram schmangram, and I think the news outlet Ninas are a coincidence given that there is an alphabet soup of such organisations.
Good crossword with some impressive clues.
I missed the pangram, too busy sorting out the last few clues. I did particularly like FLUSH and IN EARNEST among others.
The pangram reminded me of the tour(s)-de-force(s) of both Tees and Vigo who managed to complete triple pangrams (Vigo’s is here, with a reference to the one by Tees.)
Thanks to Nutmeg and scchua.
Thanks to Nutmeg and scchua. As others have said a very nice puzzle. For me the left hand side went in quite readily, but held up for ages on the right, at one point thinking about giving up. However got a break through with squirmed, quickly followed by in earnest, queens counsel (I had convinced myself I was looking for a composer) and finally readjustment. I only spotted the pangram after the last two. Too many nice clues to pick out individual ones and thanks again to Nutmeg and scchua for a very thorough blog.
Jam @7, Oedipus Rex’s feet were SKEWERed when he was abandoned as a baby, his name means “swollen feet” (nothing to do with CHILBLAINS) – guess just chance, Nutmeg was probably concentrating on the pangram.
An excellent puzzle.
Re 5d: just when I have finally got it into my head to think “composer” when I see “barman”, this time it wasn’t!
Interesting that we got “embarrassed” in two consecutive clues. I’m not complaining – sometimes I think it’s nice to have these echoes / repetitions. Anyway, SQUIRMED was one of my favourites.
I’ll add my voice to those saying welcome back to Julie in Aus.
Cookie @16. That hadn’t occurred to me. Thanks. Bet it wasn’t an intended theme though.
Heartily agree with various comments about the care scchua takes to explain the answers.
I now realise I’m confusing my pangrams amd ninas, but fortunately no humans were harmed in th making of this error.
Perhaps of interest, one of the best known examples of a pangram is “SPHINX of black quartz, judge my vow.”, 29 letters, an extra A, O and U.
Gaufrid is upping the captcha difficulty, 8 x 6, perhaps I am going off topic?
Thanks to Nutmeg and scchua.
Couldn’t quite get on to Nutmeg’s wavelength today so a bit of a plod for me. Couldn’t parse COMMITTAL and standing back, I can’t see any way that the clue could be solved “cold” i.e. without crossers. Spotted the pangram early enough and that didn’t help, well it helped a bit (but lurkio is right: we do have to deal with regular offerings which pretend to a pangram and just fall short) but as with themed crosswords a pangram will usually generate obscurities in clues and complexities in cluing which blunt my enthusiasm.
Not so today in fairness and many favourites included FLUSH and PEROXIDE (an X – aha! Pangram? Oh dear….). I sniffed at “double bend” for Z until scchua enlightened me. Again, my fault for not being up to the game today – somewhat distracted by an off-topic matter (no worries, it’s just that my short game has been giving me a lot of trouble and big match today, but enough already – if I can just get 2 across, I’ll surely get 1 down eventually).
Cookie@20: Wow. New one on me – will treasure it.
Thanks for the blog. Finished it, although WEIMAR was a half-guess as I couldn’t work out how ‘wear’ meant ‘show’. Wouldn’t have noticed the pangram if I hadn’t come here. Thanks Nutmeg and scchua.
Really struggled to begin with and went out for a coffee. It was a different puzzle when I returned; after a bit of a grind the finish was easy. Strange how the brain works!
One speaks of ‘S’-bends and ‘Z’-bends according to handedness.
Thanks to Nutmeg and scchua.
Thanks to Nutmeg and particular thanks to scchua as I needed a lot of help with the parsing of this one. Does anyone know why the headline puzzle on the Guardian page today is 24003, an old Araucaria?
Another top class puzzle from one of my favourite setters
Thanks to Nutmeg and scchua
KLColin et al, my pleasure!
A great crossword, as I expected it to be. Many points to appreciate, especially some nice misdirections that I had to deal with, and many favourites.
I’m busy today and didn’t give myself time to pass DOTARD or COMMITTAL after completion, so thanks to scchua for explaining them.
And thanks to Nutmeg for a super crossword.
Me @28
I meant to say ‘parse’, not ‘pass’.
I’m slowly getting on Nutmeg’s wavelength, which is great because she’s top notch, and it’s nice to appreciate the clues after solving them rather than visiting 15 Squared. I really struggled at first, with almost nothing on the first pass, but just got enough of a foothold to make progress – and the effort was rewarded with some cracking clues. A DNF with 3 or 4 left to go, but lots of fun. Thanks to setter and blogger.
All this talk of pangrams reminded me of the book Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn which I read a while ago. A fun read which would probably appeal to many here (although some would almost certainly take issue that the title isn’t a proper homophone of LMNOP 😉 )
Too tough for me but I enjoyed the ones I did get and many more from scchua’s breakdown. Thanks to setter and blogger. Two minor quibbles: surely drat is an exclaimation caused by being in a state of annoyance, not the state inself? And ‘do’ twice (party & function) seems a little weak. But both points are trivial in the context of an interesting and (very – for me) challenging puzzle.
But why is there also an old Araucaria puzzle on the Guardian Cryptic page for today?
Thanks to Nutmeg and scchua. Great fun. I needed help parsing WEIMAR and QUEENS COUNSEL but the rest went smoothly.
I assumed this was a pangram once Q Z X and J went in but I didn’t check. I spent quite a long time on this as I always seem to with this setter and, when I look over it after the event, I can’t see why I found it difficult but there you go.
I liked CAST ASIDE.
Thanks Nutmeg.
[Dear All,
The Araucaria puzzle published on the Graun site today has been blogged. It can be found by searching “24,003”. And it still accepts comments! Might be fun to try the puzzle and add a few more??]
Lovely Nutmeg, btw. Not much to add to previous posts, except…
Thanks, Nutmeg and scchua.
Nutmeg, as always, flawless, fair and with clues to take your breath away. Me, as usual, late to the party (I never start till the evening). I loved this.
By the way, Keyser@31, ‘Drat’ means ‘I’m a bit annoyed’, so the clue is perfect. I even thought I found an &lit (I never know what these are, really) in SKEWERING: why else did she need to add ‘one might say’?
And a pangram too – helped me with FLUSH, F being the last letter to find. Loi HUBCAP – brilliant multiple misdirection.
All thoroughly enjoyable – thank you both.
I have been in an unfortunate pattern lately of working late, finishing the puzzle late, and coming here to 15^2 REALLY late.
What a splendid puzzle from Nutmeg today! Some really excellent surfaces — one of my favorites being the run through the museum unclothed in 20ac.
We had the two lettered gangster, the honorary fourth member of the Three Most Important Rivers etc. etc., and a pangram — what’s not to like?? Too many favorites to name them all, but the top of my list would include TOURISTS, RULES, and my CotD, THE SPHINX. [I also got a laugh out of seeing DOTARD (in the sense that laughing is a good way to keep from crying), because of the recent political significance of that word here in the US, but I digress…]
Many thanks to Nutmeg, to scchua for a(nother) great blog, and to the other commenters. This has been a fine week of puzzles so far!
Went to sleep having struggled to complete the southern half … with my only northern inroad being 10d. Made slow progress on waking, but surprised myself by completing without recourse to outside assistance. Nutmeg really stretched me here, but all’s well…
Also needed help with some parsing, so many thanks to you both.
I am an irregular visitor to this site. I find I can easily skip some posts if I don’t fancy all of the friendly frippery. But I always find myself shocked, and disturbed, by the (occasional) blunt, rude and socially inept posting. I suppose that those who resort to such means have not got the time to discover creative or humorous ways of achieving their aims.
I know I’m very late to the game here, but I just had to post this in case anyone is still paying attention. There is another answer to 9A that works almost as well. Finish job is “B”, WC Fields was a LUSH, and to BLUSH is also to look embarrassed.
Dr W @40 I got BLUSH at 9a too.