Picaroon never disappoints, and this puzzle is no exception, with a collection of elegant, ingenious and accessible clues. But there’s more:
I suspected there might be a crosswordy theme when I saw LISTENER EDITOR in the second row, followed by TEA AND SYMPATHY, which are software applications for solving and constructing crosswords. The puzzle is a tribute to Ross Beresford, the creator of these applications, who was co-editor of The Listener crossword between 1994 and 2005. He also sets under the name ARCTURUS, to whom Picaroon offers THANKS, and is married to MAGDALEN Braden, who is an AUTHOR. Apart from a hidden ROSS in 18d and a possible connection in 7d I can’t see anything else related to the theme, but maybe others can spot something. Very much a theme for the cognoscenti, but as it’s possible to solve the puzzle without any knowledge of it I don’t think exception can be taken. Thanks to Picaroon.
| Across | ||||||||
| 8. | LISTENER | Sort of gun in story by right bugger? (8) STEN (gun) in LIE (story) + R- the “bugger” being one who uses a bug or listening device |
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| 9. | EDITOR | Journalist‘s rubbish papers English rejected (6) Reverse of ROT + ID (papers) + E |
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| 10. | USER | Guardian with head of state, one on horse? (4) US (The Guardian) + ER (the Queen – head of state), with “horse” being slang for heroin |
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| 11. | ILL-ADVISED | 24 boy taken in by devil is wicked (3-7) LAD in (DEVIL IS)* |
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| 12,14. | TEA AND SYMPATHY | Support many steady moves to cross road (3,3,8) PATH in (MANY STEADY)* |
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| 15. | OLD NICK | What Newgate is for Dickens (3,4) Double definition: Newgate is an old prison (“nick”), and both Old Nick and [the] Dickens are slang for the Devil. Not that it’s relevant to the clue, but Newgate Prison is mentioned is several of Dickens’s works |
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| 17. | EXTINCT | Inactive and without colour, having caught cold (7) C in EX-TINT (without colour) – inactive as in an extinct volcano |
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| 20. | MAGDALEN | A learner admitted to periodical study in Oxford college (8) A L in MAG (periodical) DEN (study). Magadalen College, Oxford spells its name differently to Magdalene College, Cambridge, but both pronounce it “Maudlin” |
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| 22. | AUTHOR | Two lots of gold rings extremely tough for creator (6) T[oug]H in AU + OR (versions of “gold”) |
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| 23. | MISMANAGED | Small chap, following big road over the hill, ran badly (10) M1 (big road) + S MAN + AGED (over the fill) |
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| 24. | RASH | Outbreak of terror as hostage’s grabbed (4) Hidden in terroR AS Hostage |
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| 25. | THANKS | I appreciate that Hollywood actor wants the Order of Merit (6) TOM HANKS less OM |
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| 26. | ARCTURUS | Bow before short performance by American 2 (8) ARC (bow) + TUR[N] + US – a star (2 down) in constellation Boötes |
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| Down | ||||||||
| 1. | MISSPELL | Neglect odd parts of poem, lines showing blunder with words (8) MISS (neglect) + odd letters of PoEm + LL |
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| 2. | STAR | Ace intro for sales pitch (4) S[ales] + TAR (pitch) |
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| 3. | UNWIND | For Les Bleus, a victory followed by day to chill out (6) un (“a” in French) + WIN + D – a nod to France’s recent victory in the World Cup (the French team is known as Les Bleus) |
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| 4. | ARTLESS | Simple man’s abandoned without pity (7) HEARTLESS less HE |
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| 5. | READY-MIX | Material for building awfully dreamy team up (5-3) DREAMY* + reverse of XI (eleven – team in cricket or football) |
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| 6. | MINIMALIST | Note celebrities eschewing ostentation (10) MINIM (musical note) + A-LIST |
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| 7. | JOSEPH | Saintly carpenter‘s record breaking banter (6) EP in JOSH – I don’t know if this name is relevant to the theme |
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| 13. | ANNO DOMINI | Girl with old party skirt’s accompaniment for date? (4,6) ANN + O + DO + MINI |
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| 16. | COLONIST | Person taking land cut kind of irrigation, by the way (8) COLONI[c] (irrigation – quack therapy) + ST (street, way) |
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| 18. | CROSS OUT | Strike through ball from the wing, like a striker (5,3) CROSS (a ball passed from the wing in football) + OUT (as someone on strike is). Note the “ROSS” hidden in this answer |
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| 19. | ANAGRAM | Articles with weight showing what litotes is for TS Eliot? (7) AN + A + GRAM, with an example of an anagram as the definition |
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| 21. | ALIGHT | Settle a match, perhaps (6) A + LIGHT (match – as in “have you got a light?”) |
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| 22. | ADDICT | 10 to do arithmetic with new technology? (6) ADD (do arithmetic) + ICT (Information and Communications Technology) |
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| 24. | ROUT | Thrash troublemaker’s bottom in the open (4) [troublemake]R + OUT (in the open) |
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I agree fully with the first sentence of your preamble, Andrew. I thought the theme might be to do with newspapers in general, following 6a LISTENER and 9a EDITOR, but your theme discovery is much more interesting. Your blog adds greatly to the depth of the puzzle, and was for me, totally new knowledge, so I can generally say the work of Ross Beresford is a TILT!
I particularly liked 12a 14a TEA AND SYMPATHY even though I did not see the full import of the solution.
Thanks to Picaroon and Andrew.
Oh and I meant to say 25a was fun and I wanted to use T.HANKS as my sign-off, but I forgot.
Missed the theme, but the puzzle is, as usual, wonderful.
Thanks Picaroon and Andrew
I found this hard and it took much longer than usual, but it was worth every minute. I’m not going to mention every favourite, but LISTENER, ILL-ADVISED, STAR and ANNO DOMINI stood out.
The theme entirely passed me by, of course.
I expect everyone here will not what happens if you type “anagram” into Google…
“know” not “not” – don’t not what happened there 🙂
Really enjoyed that. Many witty clues. Particularly liked LISTENER, THANKS and ANAGRAM.
Had no inkling of the hidden theme, and absolutely no knowledge of it required.
25a to Picaroon and Andrew.
Muffin @4 beats me why anyone would want to use an anagram solver. Where’s the fun in that?
Yes, a wonderful puzzle with loads of excellent clues. My favourites were TEA AND SYMPATHY, THANKS, STAR, UNWIND and a few more! Many thanks to Picaroon and Andrew – well done for spotting the theme.
Thanks to Picaroon and Andrew. Great fun with no knowledge of the theme required. For a change I did parse everything though I paused over COLONIST and especially ARCTURUS, my LOI.
Given that I miss themes that are glaring, it was no surprise that this one was stratospherically over my head. Otoh, Picaroon never disappoints, elegance abounding as Andrew says, and all getable sans in-group knowledge (re which, 10a might re-ignite ‘that’ debate). Even his straightforward charades, e.g. 23a and 6d, have nice witty surfaces.
The synapses were slow to switch between rashes for 11a, and to get Jesus’s (earthly) dad in 7d, and in 25a did a convolution to add the t to hanks rather than removing OM from Tom, d’oh. Ex-tint for ‘without colour’ was cute, as was cut colonic. I could go on, but that’ll do.
Many thanks Picaroon and Andrew.
T Hanks Andrew and bravo for spotting that little lot. It all completely evaded me.
Too many favourites to mention them all but particularly admired the invented clueing of un in UNWIND and loved TEA AND SYMPATHY.
What is the ? doing in ADDICT. Seems perfectly fair without it.
Crossbar @7: My name is William and I have used an anagram solver in the past but have been clean for 8½ months.
The Pirate scores again, more please.
Nice week, all.
Wow! This was really great, even if I did not spot the theme – do I ever? 25 brilliant!! Many thanks Picaroon and Andrew.
Thank you Andrew (and Picaroon of course). Great service.
[ Well done William @11 😀 ]
7d Having nothing better to do in this heat a Google search came up with this:
http://games.latimes.com/games/joseph-crossword/
Although I recognised 12,14 I didn’t see the theme – Ross had been a member of my software team at ITT here in the ’80s, but lost touch after he left, so wasn’t aware of his wife or pseudonym.
Thanks to Picaroon and Andrew.
Thank you Andrew, and to Picaroon for the usual pleasurable solve. The crossword (and 13-year-old boy) part of my brain can never see the name ‘TS Eiiot’ without converting it to ‘Toilets’, but maybe that’s one for Paul, rather than Pic’s classier and more literary version. Working out 25 put me in mind of another anagram – in The Simpsons’ – where the star’s name is rendered as ‘Otm Shank’ (India’s answer to Brian Dennehy).
Excellent; thanks to A & P.
Crossbar @7, I confess to using an anagram solver last week for SUMAC POLLEN (NUCLEOPLASM). I did feel guilty for a while but I got over it.
digbydavies @18: You could join my support group (@11) if you like. Confusingly, it’s called AA.
20a calls to mind the old joke: At Magdelen(e) College the students sit in tiers.
I for one regularly use an anagram solver (the Chambers Dictionary app has one). Eschewing its use would be tantamount to mental arithmetic, an essentially mechanical process that adds no fun to solving a crossword. Of course it’s of no use when the solution is a proper name, but I wouldn’t be without it. De gustibus non est disputandum, I guess.
For 23 you have ‘over the fill’, not ‘hill’.
What an enjoyable crossword! As well as those clues mentioned by others, I’d like to add my admiration for ‘Old Nick’, given Dickens’s own writing on the prison (as seen here https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/a-visit-to-newgate-from-charles-dickenss-sketches-by-boz).
William, digbydavies and Crossbar, I remember when my bro-in-law in Crouch End bought, before online solvers, a hand-held solver. No way, I cried, it’ll corrupt your brain. But I confess, I’ve succumbed now and then. Very 22d-ive! Hold firm, cruciverbalists!
Excellent puzzle. Particularly liked Magdalen surface
grantinfreo @23 Ha-ha, I remember those.
I committed to memory a ditty on a toilet wall in Shepherds Bush which featured Crouch End…
As an Australian, I did not recognise any of the theme clues but still enjoyed (and solved) this puzzle.
Thanks
David
[Welcome, David Taft! Don’t think we have seen you post before. I am always glad to see another Aussie come here. What’s your location? Julie on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland.]
[btw grantinfreo aka grantinferno, I must say I am really enjoying the sense of humour in your posts, which seems to draw out the same dry wit in others!]
grantinfreo, William, digbydavies. Guess I’m just old-fashioned. Newspaper, pen (yes, pen) and a Chambers when desperate.
…not printable here, I’m guessing, William@25, tho I’d love to relay to said bro-in-law!
…or, poc@21, de gustibus aut bene, aut nihil (to pinch from Chekhov via wiki).
Thank you JinA, for your embracing Eileenesque spirit.
[that was meant to have ‘…and’ as first word]
I wonder, having learned the theme, whether the TS Eliot clue was a favourite of Ross’. I only learned the term Litotes in crosswords. And as an Australian I certainly had to look up the colleges of Oxford. Marvellous unpicking from Andrew and of course thanks to Picaroon
[2 tanners – another Australian! Great to have you as part of the fifteensquared community!]
Thanks to Picaroon and Andrew. As others have said a very nice puzzle, but another who missed (actually did not know) the theme. For some reason it took absolutely ages to even get going and after that it was slow going for a while. However things speeded up when I got a few crossers with lots of “lightbulb moments” and the SE last to go in. Another who liked tea and sympathy and I also liked old Nick and mismanaged. Thanks again to Picaroon and Andrew.
2 tanners @33 You might be interested to know that Cambridge also has a Magdalene College, but with an additional “e” on the end. We remember this because Cambridge is east of Oxford. Might not help those of you living beyond the seas unfamiliar with our geography. And to confuse matters even more they are both pronounced “maudlin’ “
Probably sour grapes because it’s the only clue I didn’t get, but references such as “Hollywood actor” are little help in working out the solution (whether used in definition or wordplay) when there are thousands to choose from.
Picaroon does it again and produces a top class puzzle, and then provides a post-solve bonus with the TILT theme (? JinA). Thanks to Andrew for highlighting it. I could have ticked virtually every clue and am going to single out LISTENER for its splendid definition.
On a general note we seem to be in an appreciative and happy phase in the life of this blog – many thanks to the Australian (and American) contingent for helping to make it so.
And thanks of course to Picaroon and Andrew.
Loved it as I always do Picaroon. Echo Andrew’s preamble “witty, elegant and accessible clues”. Of course didn’t get the theme but I rarely do. It didn’t spoil the pleasure. Favourite probably T.. HANKS. But lots of others too.
Interesting to learn about ‘our’ tools and addictions. Thanks for the enlightenment Andrew.
Re 13D, ANNO DOMINI I saw the definition as accompaniment to date, all underlined.
2 tanners (Bob?)@33, re litotes; I was waiting for the veterans to comment, but if they have it’s evaded me. I’ve never heard of this, notwithstanding its ubiquity (‘it’s not bad’, etc.), esp in poli-speak. Well done for throwing it into the fray. I wonder whether/how it relates to the theme. One never knows.
Thank you Picaroon and Andrew.
A most enjoyable puzzle even though I had never heard of Ross Beresford (Andrew, your link does not come up as it should). I particularly liked the clues for OLD NICK (poor Dickens had a tough boyhood, his father was held in Marshalsea Prison for debt), THANKS, ANAGRAM and ANNO DOMINI.
grantinfreo @30: It’s printable but somewhat off-piste so our dear controller will have to indulge me…
How far to White Hart from Hendon
Harrow Road be thy name
Thy Kingston come, thy Wimbledon
In Erith, as it is in Devon.
Give us this Bray our Maidenhead
And forgive us our Westminsters
As Neath, Orgrieve Road those who Leicester St Regis
And lead us not into Thames Ditton
But deliver us from Yeovil
For thine is the Kingston
The Purley and the Crawley
For Iver and Iver
Crouch End
Thanks to Picaroon and Andrew.
This exemplified why I enjoy cryptics – slow to start but then a gentle acceleration with excitement towards the end stalled by a few clues more impenetrable than the others. LOI and last of many favourites was MINIMALIST. Great fun.
Worth the time this one took today. Also it has just dawned that there is a reason that the Australian contingent always manage to post so promptly! Are you all sitting waiting to press the button?
Enjoyed many..particularly anagram (both words better than toilets) and the ones got from the many parts rather than backwards from the definition – mismanaged, Arcturus, unwind and addict, for example.
Needed help to parse Dickens then that too dawned.
I did not get the theme so grateful for the new GK.
The clue for LISTENER reminded me of my husband ‘phoning a colleague when we lived in Egypt to find out how to get a second gas bottle for the stove (one was sold officially by the government store but extra ones had to be bought on the black market), the colleague quoted a price and a little voice piped up “That’s far too expensive”.
Thanks to Picaroon, Andrew and all the above contributors for helping to make the world a smaller place. Enjoyed the poem and also the anagram banter…I too confess to sumac pollen last week.
Thanks Andrew and Picaroon. Great stuff – and thanks also to Cookie for the link. I (do I even need to say it?) missed the theme but Ross B sounds like a bit of a star!
As always, this was another top class puzzle from the young master. Too many highlights to list. ARCTURUS was last in, but LISTENER took far too long – great misdirection!
Thanks to Picarron and Andrew
William above. Is it not Ian Dury’s bus driver’s Lord’s prayer?
Our Father
Who art in Hendon
Harrow Road be Thy name
Thy Kingston come
Thy Wimbledon
In Erith as it is in Hendon
Give us this day our Berkhampstead
And forgive us our Westminsters
As we forgive those who Westminster against us
Lead us not into Temple Station
And deliver us from Ealing
For thine is the Kingston
The Purley and the Crawley
For Iver and Iver
Crouch End
William and Rewolf both, brilliant! Will relay both versions to the Crouch Enders.
Wow, I planned to come here to rave about Picaroon’s A-plus puzzle, only to find the themed tribute (of which I was of course unaware), which only elevates my estimation to A-plus-plus!
Today’s blog, and the 51 (as I type this) comments above, also rate an A-plus from me. Reading through to this point elicited numerous smiles. Thanks to William @43 and Rewolf @50 for their variations on the imitative poem, which was new to me.
Some brilliant and highly enjoyable clueing (as usual) from Picaroon, with many favorites, most or all of which have already been commended by others, including LISTERNER, RASH, MISMANAGED, MINIMALIST, ANNO DOMINI, COLONIST, and ANAGRAM. THANKS was great and would have been my CotD if not for OLD NICK, which I thought was brilliant (for the reasons mentioned by Sarah @22). I also enjoyed TEA AND SYMPATHY, and felt certain that that phrase appears in a lyric of an Elvis Costello song (or if not that, possibly a song by XTC), but I could not put my finger on it. Or maybe I’m just confused — wouldn’t be the first time (or the last).
Many T.HANKS (cheers to JinA @2) to Picaroon and Andrew and the other commenters.
Me @52 –
I was interrupted by a phone call as I was typing my post above, just as I was discussing OLD NICK, and I referenced the comments of Sarah @22 on that clue, while (inadvertently) omitting to give proper credit to Andrew also, since he first discussed the same qualities of that clue in the blog!
The anagram clue reminds me of this one, whose source I don’t remember:
Regal as Elgar, or as large (7)
Like the rest of you, I found this to be a masterly puzzle, and I completely missed the theme. Highlights for me are the great surface of 3d, the definition in 8a, and the ingenious 15a.
My only quibble: doesn’t convention require the definition in 11a to be “24 across” rather than just “24” (since there is also a 24 down)?
As I’m not one of the cognoscenti the theme meant nothing to me but,as has been pointed out, one didn’t need to be to complete the puzzle. I’ve been on gardening jankers today so I didn’t get to this until late- and found it very tough, I have to say. LOI was THANKS and I’m ashamed to say it was a guess. When I saw the parsing I could have kicked myself round the room!
Oh,and I’m no stranger to the odd anagram solver.
Thanks Picaroon
RE the anagram solver question – it seems that you all have missed that if you type “anagram” into Google, it prompts “Did you mean ‘Nag a ram’?”
muffin @56 –
Thanks for your reminder. I did not mention it in my earlier post(s), but right after reading your post @4 I did as you suggested and got exactly the search result you describe. I also saw that if you actually *take* Google’s suggestion and click on “Nag a ram”, it brings up “about 9,500,000 results” (!!)
Came late to this, but very glad I did. Spotted the theme only when I was finished, very nice, but, as has been remarked, no need to know anything about it. Aspiring setters might note that anyone can submit a Listener puzzle. Thanks Picaroon and Andrew.
Julie @ 1 and Whiteking @ 38: what is this TILT thing now? Y’all are talking circles around me.
Interesting to learn about the pronunciation of MAGDALEN(e). I probably heard Inspectors Morse and/or Lewis say it at some point without realizing (realising) what they were referring to.
Muffin @56 I thought there must be more to your original Google/anagram comment than I noticed, but I seem to have got bit carried away about anagram solvers. I think I’ve stopped looking at the “did you mean” – I never do mean it, and it stops me shouting “No, I didn’t!”
BlueDot @59 and JinA @1 I’m guessing TILT means “thing I learnt today” ?
BlueDot @59, Crossbar @61 – “TILT” – you are exactly right. One of the wonderful side benefits of doing these crosswords … and available perhaps in even greater abundance by partaking of the blogs and comments here on 15^2!
[Hi Hedgehog@45, in case you are still around. We can start the puzzle mid-morning over here in Australia, when it is midnight in your part of the world. In my typical day I juggle my solve around working frim home, walking, household chores and some social stuff. The blog comes up late afternoon around the time I start preparation for dinner and so I often try to put my thoughts down quickly before the evening takes over and I might forget to do so. Then I come back later just before bed or sometimes not until the next morning (as now) to see what others have thought. So no it’s not that we are faster solvers (not me, anyway), or wanting to pip everyone else at the post, so to speak. As you have hinted here, it’s more about the time of day.]
Just reiterating the comments that this was a fascinating blog to read over so thank you, everyone.
And yes it was you, Dave Mc, I believe, who gave us the TILT abbreviation for “Thing/s I Learned Today” in the first place! Have you copyrighted it? A much more positive framework to apply than “This was unfamiliar/obscure/unfair”!
[Also DaveMc@52, “Tea and Sympathy” is the title of one of my very favourite Janis Ian songs. Also the name of an album by Brisbane boy Bernard Fanning of Aussie band Powderfinger, whose band name was in turn taken from a Neil Young song.]
Julie @64 –
Ha ha, I always prefer a TILT to a “TWUOU”!!
[You will appreciate this: Based on my nagging suspicion that I knew the phrase TEA AND SYMPATHY from a rock/pop song lyric, I found a lyrics search engine on the Internet this afternoon and searched it for this phrase, and . . . NADA!! My search turned up several songs that contained this lyric, mostly from bands that I knew (including Tears for Fears, Split Enz, Elbow, Janis Ian, and David Byrne/St. Vincent, and reference to a “lost” Bob Dylan song called Miss Tea and Sympathy), but the songs themselves were *not* familiar to me, so none of them could have been the thing that planted that nagging thought in my brain. Maybe I really was “just confused” (as I mentioned @52) after all!]
Julie @65 – whoops, we crossed! Maybe I should have more of a listen to the Janis Ian song. The little bit I listened to this afternoon did not seem familiar to me. [And yes, I also saw mention of the Bernard Fanning album title when I searched the phrase on Wikipedia, but his name didn’t ring a bell either.]
Aha! The meaning of TILT is a TILT for me.
The original (I think) Tea and Sympathy was a Broadway play in the 50s. I knew that, but didn’t know until I googled it that the play is set in a private boys’ school and deals with the subject of homosexuality, one of the first plays to do so. When it ran in London it had to play “under membership conditions” because of the Lord Chamberlain’s ban.
This must be one of the best fun days in Crossword Blogland celebrating a good friend, Ross Beresford, born in Taiping, Perak, Malaysia and delivered at birth by Dr Gurmukh Singh (88), himself another cruciverbalist. My advent into setting owed a large part to Sympathy, a software which allowed me to firm up a grid within minutes rather than days, leaving me time to concentrate on devising clues.
Thank you, Ross for getting me started on setting.
@ Valentine: Tea and Sympathy was subsequently turned into a movie, starring the marvellous Deborah Kerr.
Sorry, I can’t remember the name of the young man who played opposite her, and haven’t had time to Google it.