A highly entertaining puzzle from Picaroon, with the usual meticulous cluing and interesting and witty surfaces, with misdirection all over the place.
Most enjoyable – many thanks to Picaroon.
Definitions are underlined in the clues.
[I have to go out for a while shortly and so I hope there are not too many errors / omissions. I’m leaving you a couple of earworms. 😉 ]
Across
9 Name associated with a lot of Allies battling (2,7)
EL ALAMEIN
An anagram [battling] of NAME + ALLIE[s] – &lit
10 She‘s housed in dire necessity (5)
IRENE
Hidden in dIRE NEcessity
11 Ban poetic entreaty to hold the writer back (7)
EMBARGO
A reversal [back] of O [poetic entreaty] + GRAB [hold] + ME [the writer]
12 Lizard‘s egg laid in uncultivated land (7)
MONITOR
NIT [egg] in MOOR [uncultivated land]
13 Pods round ship heading west (4)
OKRA
O [round] + a reversal [heading west] of ARK [ship]
14 Political coterie or cult? Back it to reform (3-3,4)
KIT-CAT CLUB
An anagram [to reform] of CULT BACK IT
16 Rot back in coarse types of wood (7)
EYE-WASH
[coars]E + YEW and ASH [types of wood]
17 Red vehicle by pit (7)
CARMINE
CAR [vehicle] + MINE [pit]
19 What could make apt stage entertainment (3,7)
TAP DANCING
TAP DANCING could be a cryptic clue for APT
22 Stick crumbling, the end falling off (4)
FLAK
FLAK[y] [crumbling minus its end]
24 Parking in great city around shops (7)
EMPORIA
P [parking] in a reversal [around] of AI [A1 – great] + ROME [city]
25 Don’t cook enough food, red nuts having been shelled and sent back (7)
UNDERDO
Hidden reversal [sent back] in [fo]OD RED NU[ts] minus the first and last two letters – having been shelled
26 Go through group of countries, probing distinctive feature (3,2)
USE UP
EU [group of countries] in USP [Unique Selling Point / Proposition – distinctive feature]
27 Type of firm with no money to lose it (9)
BROKERAGE
BROKE [with no money] + RAGE [lose it]
Down
1 Some cheer jazzy rag tune (4,5,3,3)
HERE COMES THE SUN
An anagram [jazzy] of SOME CHEER + THE SUN [rag]
2 Person wittering on about marmalade, perhaps, before English party (8)
JAMBOREE
JAM BORE [person wittering on about marmalade, perhaps] + E [English]
3 Like a close shave, or in need of one (5)
HAIRY
Double definition
4 Pull down pants seldom worn by current husband (8)
DEMOLISH
An anagram [pants] of SELDOM round I [current] + H [husband]
5 Try to bag new sound device that’s hard to get (6)
GNOMIC
GO [try] round N [new] + MIC [sound device]
6 Big shot in golf by idiot breaking record (9)
DIGNITARY
G [golf – phonetic alphabet] + NIT [idiot] in DIARY [record] – one NIT crossing with another but with different definitions
7 Pulse fast on one close to arousal (6)
LENTIL
LENT [fast] _+I [one] + [arousa]L
8 Crack in part of lounge? Ring phone number from America (10,5)
HEARTBREAK HOTEL
BREAK [crack] in HEARTH [part of lounge] + O [ring] + TEL [phone]
15 Several lines as standard on a chart (9)
PARAGRAPH
PAR [standard] + A GRAPH [a chart]
17 Trickster to perform trickery on a person in court (8)
CONJUROR
CON [to perform trickery on] + JUROR [a person in court]
18 Old Dalmatian in bad rain barking around yard (8)
ILLYRIAN
ILL [bad] + an anagram [barking] of RAIN round Y [yard]
20 This stimulates philosopher (6)
POPPER
Double definition – the philosopher is Karl, philosopher of science and POPPERs is ‘a slang term given broadly to the chemical class called alkyl nitrites, that are inhaled for recreational drug purposes, typically for the “high” or “rush” that the drug can create’. [Wikipedia]
21 King of music in racy novel that’s short (6)
CRABBY
BB [BB King – American blues singer] in an anagram [novel] of RACY
23 Reptile steps out of line (5)
ADDER
[l]ADDER [steps minus l [line]
This took me a long time to break into, but when I saw EL ALAMEIN at 9a, things started to open up.
I liked the song references at 1d and 8d, so particular thanks to Eileen for the links. I had heard of the KIT-CAT CLUB 14a, but also appreciated learning more about it via that link. Stupidly I had KIT-KAT for a while, so GNOMIC at 5d required me to rethink that, and thus it was my LOI. I really liked 17d CONJUROR and 21d CRABBY, with that clever reference to BB King in the latter! (BB King was very elderly when I was lucky enough to see him perform live in Australia some years ago, but he still had the guitar licks and the charm!)
Thanks to Picaroon and Eileen.
Thanks Picaroon and Eileen
I didn’t enjoy this quite as much as usual with Picaroon, though I did love GNOMIC and PARAGRAPH. I didn’t parse EMBARGO.
I didn’t think it was quite fair to use “distinctive feature” to give an abbreviation for a not very well-known term.
The Guardian site confirms my impression that 20 and 21 would be difficult without the requisite GK.
A certain class of English person would raise an eyebrow at “marmalade” being described as “jam”. I’ve seen a quote from an Englishwoman in France “we never eat jam for breakfast; we want marmalade”!
[Just checked, B.B. WAS 85 when I saw him. Don’t know how old Lucille was!]
P.S. 26a USE UP was a guess – I got EU but not the rest. Tend to agree with muffin@2; I would never have parsed it.
Hi Julie and muffin – I couldn’t make sense of USE UP, either, and looked up USP in desperation – and there it was!
Thanks Picaroon, Eileen
There’s also a philosopher called [Stephen] Pepper, which would also be ok for something that stimulates, but I suppose Popper’s a bigger cheese.
Though it is an abbreviation, USP is what is used (and probably used a lot without knowing what it stands for) rather than the expansion so fair enough.
HAIRY, CRABBY, nits?
Had TACK instead of FLAK, which didn’t help, and therefore gave up on ILLYRIAN (trying a hopeless anagram of bad rain and y). Loved EYEWASH, HERE COMES THE SUN, GNOMIC and HEARTBREAK HOTEL. Many thanks to P & E.
Unique selling point, yes, hardly street argot, but I can forgive the pirate I suppose. But a dnf for BB King, I shrivel in shame; I love BB (lots of vinyl, but never live; jealous, JinA) but bunged in Crabbe (Buster), thinking “Oh, whatever, some old movie”.
Not only, but also bunged in ‘rock’ (as in Brighton) at 22a, which screwed the SE, so had to cheat to get Illyria and straighten it out.
So, not the best of times. Lots of ‘slow!’ annotations too, e.g. 11, 16, 17 and 19d (old trick), and 4, 15, 17d, and LOI 6d.
Not a glorious day, lovely spring weather notwithstanding. Thanks Picaroon and Eileen.
[John Carney yesterday, re the serendipitous 20d today; agree with Popper but do recognise the the drivers of the rage (loss of un- and semi-skilled jobs, marginalisation, discountedness) that fuels their ‘intolerance’. Hence ‘discount at peril’]
Great puzzle and blog. I really struggled with this, with the top left particularly stubborn, until (like JinA @1) the excellent EL ALAMEIN revealed itself, followed by the equally cunning HERE COMES THE SUN, after which things got a bit easier. Other favourites: JAMBOREE, DIGNITARY, HEARTBREAK HOTEL and more. Unfortunately (James @6) I had PEPPER for 20d, so failed to finish by one letter. Annoying, what?
Many thanks to Picaroon and Eileen.
Thanks Eileen, and to Picaroon for a bit of a toughie, but a pleasurable one. Has there ever been a bigger disparity between the erotic promise of a clue (at 7 down), and the drabness of the actual answer?
Overall a very enjoyable and challenging crossword.
I did think that ‘crack in part of lounge’ grated as it could have been a lot better and that 22 was flak(ing) rather than flak(y).
Curiously I have no problem with marmalade being a jam but did have a moment of nitpicking about flaky not being the same as crumbly!
Thanks to Picaroon and Eileen.
Thank you Picaroon for a fun puzzle and Eileen for a very helpful blog.
Quite a challenge, I failed to parse 26a, could not get rid of the c in cUSP…
Bullhassocks – yes, loved the disparity between surface and definition of 7 down! And any crossword with two nits in it has got to be fun. Excellent mix of easy, tricksy and downright obscure. And with classic songs at east and west.
USP foxed me and had to look up gnomic. Thanks Picaroon and Eileen
Thanks to Picaroon and Eileen. I really struggled with this with a lot of guess and then parse (use up never fully parsed). I nearly gave up a couple ot times, but glad I persevered and got there in the end. Last one was here comes the sun (which only rings very vague bells). That said I enjoy a challenge and I really liked gnomic, okra and emporia. Thanks again to Picaroonand Eileen.
Thanks to Picaroon and Eileen. I agree – a fun puzzle, I knew Popper but not USP, needed help parsing EYE-WASH and EMPORIA, and did not know the Dalmatia-ILLYRIAN connection.
Indeed, Bullhassocks, reminds me and Mrs ginf of seeing Maggie Smith doing ‘Love Among The Lentils’ live on stage. Superb!
Wasnt amyl nitrate on percussion on one track on Exile on Main Street?
Glad to see you do the blog, Eileen for this amazing puzzle.I didnt care how long it took me as I was having a ball.
Elvis to the right of me, Beatles to the left of me
Stuck in the middle with Gnomic Conjuror. What key’s it i ?
Classics from Qaos last week and now Picaroon. We really are spoilt.
Many thanks to the buccaneer and Eileen.
Tough and very enjoyable. Meticulous and concise clueing indeed with only one clue going on to a second line when printed off. After my grumpy comment on Friday about Paul (which in fairness was more down to a tedious car journey l, despite what I posted) this puzzle exemplifies how clues can be made tricky and still read coherently. Whilst it took a while to get USE UP, USP was a familiar term in my previous life so the parsing was ok. I thought I was being very clever in thinking that 8d was a snake (number) along with ADDER and MONITOR and it was only when all the crossers were in that BREAK led to the musical number – just one of many favourites that have been mentioned. I think I’ll go for JAMBOREE as my cotd because it such a fun word as well as neat clue – and I liked Bullhassock’s comment on 7d’s contrasting parts :-).
Thanks to Picaroon and Eileen for the puzzle and blog respectively, and to all contributors.
Thanks both,
A ‘finish’ for me including the parsing. USP is pretty common management speak and has been for a while, so no more obscure than many initialisms that appear in crosswords. Oed says the pod of okra is actually a capsule – so no wonder 13a held me up for a bit. The two long down clues were my favourites.
Aren’t Cadbury’s Flake bars advertised as being crumbly?
I had never heard of the philosopher POPPER so put PEPPER in the hope. So thanks to James @6 for the assurance that there actually is a philosopher PEPPER too.
I worked out CRABBY without knowing where the BB came from.
The only clue that caused me a lot of problem was EYEWASH, my LOI. Nice, misleading clue. Great.
Thanks to Picaroon and to Eileen.
Another excellent puzzle from the young master. A little tough to break into, but nothing too taxing in the end.
Thanks to Picaroon and Eileen
Evidence of previous blogs is that jam bores find it very hard to prevent themselves wittering on about marmalade and its non-jam status.
Bullhassocks @11 – if being close to arousal represents an extreme of erotic promise, then I do recommend trying the stages that follow.
And commiserations to anyone misled into looking for an anagram for BADRAINY in 18d who found something they would rather have not.
USP was a new one on me, so a TILT. The wikipedia article on it was informative and interesting.
No one has commented on the curious fact that the CHECK button on the Guardian site has decided to appoint itself a CLEAR button instead. I filled in all the answers I’d come up with so far and clicked “check all” and they all disappeared! I couldn’t believe I’d got all of them wrong, and in fact Eileen confirmed my answers when most of them agreed what what she’d set out. I hope the site recovers.
DNF – thought the King of Music was CROSBY – I blame my dad.
Nonetheless this is the furthest I’ve ever got with Mr P. Just loved CON-JUROR
Valentine at 2:21 pm – I have been commenting on it, to myself and in terms I cannot repeat here. I often depend on the check function to keep within my lunch break! I started off thinking I was just having a bad day, as every solution I put in and tried to check was rejected – but there was more to it that that. It seems from comments on the Grauniad site itself that it was working fine for some people – perhaps a browser-specific fault.
I was also thrown by the check button apparently not working properly, but this did not detract from realising that this was a superb, challenging crossword. DNF (nothing new with me there) but many thanks for the explanations, Eileen, and for the Herausforderung (couldn’t think of a synonym for challenge), Picaroon.
Two confessions: to my shame it took ages to work out CRABBIng the BB reference- I was trying to do something with Nat King Cole, and I simply gave up on OKRA which is obvious now I know.
The rest I found difficult as I usually do with Picaroon but they gradually unravelled. I did like HERE COMES THE SUN when I finally got it. The HERE COMES bit was easy enough but I couldn’t see the rest for a long time. I should say that my difficulties are nothing to do with the setter and everything to do with my abilities.
Now,to drag out my BB King vinyl. Mostly on poor quality ‘Modern’ records but all the more authentic for that!
Thanks Picaroon.
I’m with the consensus that this was an excellent puzzle replete with a variety of well-crafted clues.
USE UP was pretty straightforward given the crossers and the definition ‘go through’, but USP was something I couldn’t dredge up from my memory and I had to look it up. I’m not sure if ‘distinctive feature’ is necessarily a USP, or vice versa, but I convinced myself it was close enough.
I knew POPPER and ILLYRIAN, so they didn’t hold me up, but I was lucky to get CRABBY so readily from seeing the same BB appear in a recent Indy crossword by Dalibor.
Many thanks to Picaroon and Eileen.
Found this very tough going, but very enjoyable. I agree with Muffin @ 2 re USP.
GinF @ 9: LOL re POPPER. Good catch. Though the evidence is against you re drivers. The things you mention are dogwhistles.
John Carney, I’m sure we’ll get busted for irrevelance eventually, but no, the suffering of the marginalised is real, and ignored at our peril, as I said.
Omg. My PhD dissertation was about Karl Popper. Yet I still picked “Pepper.” Sigh.
The CHECK button has acknowledged its proper station in life and no longer obiterates.
So instead of complaining about that I’ll say how much I enjoyed the puzzle and thank both Picaroon and Eileen.
Coming late to this having only just finished the puzzle. All fair, I think, except for Popper. I don’t believe that it is ever used in the ‘singular’ form – the volatile liquid is used by opening the bottle and inhaling the vapour, so that would have to refer to a single molecule…
Surely I’m not the only commenter with a sufficiently misspent youth to pick up on this?
Alton – I do agree; it jars. Rather like referring to cabbage as “green” or y-fronts as “pant”, it doesn’t make sense. I always thought it was amyl nitrate (and Chambers agrees with me rather than Eileen’s wiki source) though I’m no chemist.
Conversely, had no concerns about USP as a synonym for “distinctive feature”. I imagine it is used this way in many episodes of Dragon’s Den and (over)used in end stages of the Apprentice when contestants reveal their masterplans. (I haven’t watched the former in years but sometimes watch the latter – albeit for the wrong reasons!)
This was a superb puzzle – though the SW corner was not a little obstinate.
Many thanks to Picaroon and Eileen
Alton @ 35 & William @ 36
Should you see this, amyl nitrate also used to be available, in the US at least, in a sort of waisted glass phial which was cracked under the nose of someone in order to revive them. These then became used as stimulants in rock band circles in the early 1970s (See Robert Greenfield’s “Stones Touring Party” on their 1972 US tour for accounts of this use). So the phrase ‘to crack a popper’ is perfectly valid, as is the singular form.