I got a bit stuck half way through this, though looking back I’m not sure why – I think all the clues are fair and not too hard. Some lovely misleading surface readings here as well. Thanks, Picaroon!
Across
1, 6. Comic film’s aired, cutting a shot (9,4)
EDUCATING RITA
(AIRED CUTTING A)*
Definition: Comic film
8. Result of hit subordinate’s interrupted live (5,3)
BLACK EYE
LACKEY = “subordinate” in BE = “live”
Definition: “Result of hit”
9. Giving away little vest in gymnastics supplies (6)
STINGY
Hidden in “[ve]ST IN GY[mnastics]”; the hidden indicator is “supplies” (as in “X [that] Y supplies”)
Definition: “Giving away little”
10. Way to travel — use your legs! (6)
STRIDE
ST = “Way” + RIDE = “travel”
Definition: “use your legs”
11. Make weak tea, brewed after I returned? (8)
EMACIATE
(TEA)* after I CAME [back] = “I returned” (!) – at least I think that’s how it’s meant to be read
Definition: “Make weak”
12. Fixing two wheels, mend moped (6)
MOONED
(OO MEND)*
Definition: “moped” – as in “to mope around” – nice misdirection here, since it’s hard not to read it as moped as in the type of motorbike
15. Awards one’s received running dodgy business (6-2)
GOINGS ON
GONGS = “Awards” around I + ON = “running”
Definition: “dodgy business”
16. Hiding mint sauce here, we’re told (2,3,3)
ON THE LAM
Sounds like “on the lamb” (lamb traditionally being served with mint sauce)
Definition: “Hiding” – if you’re “on the lam”, you’re hiding (typically from the law)
19. Appropriate and odd aspects of Ezra Pound (6)
NICKER
NICK = “Appropriate” + E[z]R[a] = “odd aspects of Ezra”
Definition: “Pound” – nicker is (I think quite dated?) slang for a pound sterling
21. Begged problem child to get older differently (8)
IMPLORED
IMP = “problem child” + (OLDER)*
Definition: “Begged”
22. Plagiarism in Private Eye a bit naughty (6)
PIRACY
PI = “Private Eye” + RACY = “a bit naughty”
Definition: “Plagiarism”
24. Fond of binding religious books together (2,4)
IN TOTO
INTO = “Fond of” around OT = “religious books” (Old Testament)
Definition: “together”
25. Troubles of new group we’re leaving Valentine’s gift (8)
NEUROSES
N = “new” + EU = “group we’re leaving” + ROSES = “Valentine’s gift”
Definition: “Troubles”
26, 27. Once England’s No. 1 gallery intended heartless cash flow analysis (4,9)
BANK STATEMENT
BANKS = “Once England’s No. 1” (Gordon Banks was England’s goalkeeper in the 1966 World Cup) + TATE = “gallery” + ME[a]NT = “intended heartless”
Definition: “cash flow analysis”
Down
1. Acclaim stimulant powder from the south (5)
ECLAT
E = “stimulant” (Ecstasy) + TALC = “powder” reversed
Definition: “Acclaim”
2. Leaderless party’s attempt to charm people? (7)
UNCTION
[f]UNCTION = “Leaderless party”
Definition: “attempt to charm people?”
3. Singer performing lead, that of Eurydice (5)
ADELE
(LEAD)* + E[urydice] (“[lead] of Eurydice”)
Definition: “Singer”
4. Wings of iconic bird raised, making main threat (7)
ICEBERG
I[coni]C = “Wings of iconic” + GREBE = “bird” reversed
Definition: “main threat” (“main” as in the sea)
5. Development, for example, raised standing (9)
GESTATION
EG = “for example” reversed (“raised”) + STATION = “standing” (like someone’s standing / station in life, I guess?)
Definition: “Development”
6. Toper finally sick in bars (7)
RAILING
[tope]R = “Toper finally” + AILING = “sick”
Definition: “bars”
7. Trashed Hitchcock work: it requires balance (9)
TIGHTROPE
TIGHT = “Trashed” (as in “drunk”) + ROPE = “Hitchcock work”
Definition: “it requires balance”
13. Figure raised in Arab land, first person with a drink problem (9)
OENOMANIA
ONE = “Figure” reversed in OMAN = “Arab land” + I = “first person” + A
Definition: “drink problem”
14. Joyful composer touring carnival site (9)
DELIRIOUS
DELIUS = “composer” around RIO = “carnival site”
Definition: “Joyful”
17. Poor wine stores in raised area (7)
HILLOCK
ILL = “Poor” in HOCK = “wine”
Definition: “raised area”
18. Miraculous food cook cuts for sainted figure (7)
MADONNA
MANNA = “Miraculous food” around DO = “cook”
Definition: “sainted figure”
20. Wear out staff, in essence (7)
CORRODE
ROD = “staff” in CORE = “essence”
Definition: “Wear out”
22. Spin doctor due to be no fan of Congress? (5)
PRUDE
PR (Public Relations) = “Spin” + (DUE)*
Definition: “no fan of Congress?” – a nice definition 🙂
23. This man’s involved in court case (5)
CHEST
HE’S = “This man’s” in CT = “court”
Definition: “case”
To my mind, you can make a puzzle harder by using cleverer misdirections, more indirect references (synonyms etc.), more steps in word construction and more specific domain knowledge, and this puzzle had some of all of them. In fact, 26,27a alone was a nice mixture of all, but for some reason fell into place quite early. I would maybe augment the explanation of that clue to mention that “No. 1” referred to the number on the goalie’s jersey, not some kind of ranking. (I even still have the “England Winners” reissue postage stamp. Somewhere.)
Thanks Picaroon and Mhl.
Thanks to Picaroon and mhl. I got through more quickly than expected with a prize puzzle – yesterdays’ Paul gave me much more trouble. Once I got ICEBERG other items started falling into place -and I knew Gordon Banks from previous puzzles and from on-line photos of his famous save against Pele. I had to do a check on NICKER and OENOMANIA but the cluing was clear.
“Pretty tricky parsing in places but all get-able. Some more convoluted cluing (OENOMANIA for one) than I’ve come to expect from Picaroon. NICKER would be difficult for overseas solvers (and dated like you say loonapick). I’d never heard of ON THE LAM. Clever misdirection in 22 & 25a and I liked 22 (loi) & 23d” is what I wrote at the time. Thanks to Picaroon for an enjoyable puzzle and loonapick for the blog.
A grin when I nutted out ‘Once England’s No.1” – as it happens Canberra’s two southernmost suburbs are Gordon and Banks. Had to google the private eye/PI connection. Tick for the EU clueing in 25A. Thanks setter and blogger.
mhl sorry!
Nice weekend exercise, good mix of defs and constructions. Especially liked main threat (4d). 26,27a obtained, but knowledge of UK soccer players of the past (Banks part) is not shared around the world.
Minor quibble also with ‘do’ for cook in 18d. Maybe ok with ‘do a roast’. However reminds me of Aussie prime minister Keating playing with the opposition leader in leadup to election, in which he (Keating) refers to ‘doing you slowly’! https://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-12/the-collected-insults-of-paul-keating/5071412
Thanks Picaroon & MHL.
Ditto acd@2 re degree of difficulty, pretty cruisy for a Saturday. I might have heard of Banks (along with Best and Charlton, but that’s about it), but it had to be anyway. Nicker for quid, of course, is familiar to any antipodean who’s watched any of hundreds of shows starting from the present and going back forever via New Tricks, Minder, all the way to Z Cars. Nice one Picaroon and thanks Mhl.
[Ta for that PK link chinoz, I’ll going to watch them now]
[… I’m going to…]
I was surprised last Saturday when this pretty much flew in. But then spent an entire day trying to figure out why OENOMANIA was ORNAMENTS, before the penny dropped. 🙂
Relatively straight-forward once I got my head around some fun misdirections – “moped” was last to fall. PRUDE was very witty. Thanks Picaroon and mhl.
Recently I’ve been thinking that either the prize puzzle is getting harder or my brain is getting softer, but this all fell into place quite easily and all made sense, so thanks Picaroon and mhl
No complaints about this one at all! I was very slow starting – for ages the only clues written in were IMPLORED and CORRODE. But gradually the pieces fell into place.
I had far too many ticks to mention them all but MOONED was my favourite. The use of ‘moped’ was cleverly misleading. Similarly ‘bars’ in RAILING.
No question marks at all – another sign of a good puzzle. And this was all achieved without the use of obscure words or phrases. ON THE LAM was new to me but was perfectly obvious.
Excellent puzzle all round, packed with well-written clues. Many thanks to Picaroon and mhl.
“Do” for cook doesn’t really work for me either, but it’s standard crosswordese so I’ve had to learn it. OENOMANIA was new and BANKS didn’t dawn on me as England’s No. 1 (though it should have as his death was in the news very recently).
Some very nice surfaces here.
I liked this a lot. The difficulty cranked up a level, but all eminently gettable. Thanks to Picaroon and MHL.
By the way, and I know it’s not good form to mention today’s puzzle in any detail, but does anyone else think that there’s an error in 3d in today’s (23/3) prize puzzle?
Pleasantly trickly puzzle, with nice misleads, One minor quibble: ‘wear out’ and ‘corrode’ are two totally independent phenomena, which often lead to similar results, but are certainly not synonyms. One is the result of use or overuse, and the other requires the presence of a corrosive agent, physical or even abstract.
Thanks to setter and blogger.
To Skinny @14
We’ll have to wait and see if they amend it. Then we’ll know 🙂
I enjoyed this a lot. Got hung up on 3d for a bit, Eurydice convinced me it would be “nymph” (performing lead plus anagram of hymn) and I ignored that it didn’t really make sense until the crossers put me right!
MOONED, BANK STATEMENT and ON THE LAM were my favourites. Thanks to Picaroon and Mhl.
I had trouble parsing a few of these – I’ve always hated clues that include sports people or cricket positions since I know absolutely nothing about sport and care less but 26/7 fell into place because it couldn’t be anything else – not very satisfactory perhaps but no criticism of Picaroon. I laughed out loud at 11 – that’s the sort of clue I enjoy most. Never heard of oenomania so that’s a new one for the word pool. And, personally, I still hope we won’t be leaving the EU so I suppose one could argue with the certainty expressed in 25. Nicker obsolete – news to me, I didn’t think I was that old!
Thanks for a great blog, mhl and Picaroon for a most enjoyable puzzle.
I think all my favourites have been mentioned – and I can’t see any problem at all with DO = cook [this steak’s overdone].
[Plenty of smiles but the one that made me laugh out loud was HILLOCK – because it always does: it reminds me of Carol Ann Duffy’s ‘Mrs Icarus’, from her wonderful book of poems, ‘The world’s wife’:
I’m not the first or the last
to stand on a hillock’
watching the man she married
prove to the world
he’s a total, utter, absolute, Grade A pillock.’ Apologies for the double spacing – it just happened.]
Highly enjoyable and a good level of difficulty for me, thanks Picaroon. My favourite was 12 for the misdirection. Also loved 4 and 19 for similar reasons. Hadn’t heard of OENOMANIA but worked it out. DNF on UNCTION though, just couldn’t see it
I see no issues raised yet on 26/27 with respect to ME(a)NT – after L(e)G controversy on Weds (empty stage) and F(r)Y yesterday (small fish gutted)… FWIW the device is ok by me although the simpler and more obvious the synonym the better, so perhaps FRY is a bit of a stretch
Hard to comment on a puzzle from a week ago for me but I do remember this going in pretty quickly, being a lot of fun with (to my mind) just the right degree of doublethink and misdirection…the kind where you go “hmm…what?…no…no….ah…<laugh at own stupidity>”. Gordon Banks as GK I thought was pretty fair as he’d occupied a decent number of news slots after his death on Feb 12th.
Enjoyable solve. Thanks to Picaroon nd mhl
Minor quibble about 22a. Both piracy and plagiarism can involve breach of copyright but that doesn’t mean that one means the other. Not being aware of PI = private investigator until I read molonglo@4 I had been going to complain about the homophone “eye” for “I” not being indicated.
To Skinny: Yes.
Thanks to Picaroon and mhl. Generally found this very slow going but all very gettable. For some reason (I do not know why now) I got a bit bogged down the NE with stingy and tightrope last ones in. Favourites for me were tightrope, neuroses and bank statement, and thanks again to Picaroon and mhl.
A most enjoyable prize puzzle thank you to Picaroon and mhl
I do have to ask, however, whether there was a special outing to the cinema by a group of crossword setters to see the film in 1,6 – it has been in so many crosswords lately, it can’t be a coincidence, surely? 🙂
The play ‘Educating Rita’ was put up here in Madras that is Chennai by a visiting UK troupe decades ago and I as a young man saw it. Such tours have become scarce now and the British Council is nothing like what it was before.
skinny @14, Dr WhatsOn @23 – perhaps it is a deliberate error to catch out people using anagram solvers? Like mappers using trap streets!
Today’s (Saturday) puzzle in the FT set by Arachne aka Rosa Klebb is a delight.
acd @28 – I’m bored so I bobbed to the shop to get the weekend FT – £4?!?!?!?
Very enjoyable and not too difficult. Favourite was 12a, MOONED, for the misdirection.
I might do spag bol tonight.
Re ‘do’ = ‘cook’, I’m with Eileen @ 19 & Tony @ 30
Adressed to the cook,”What are you doing for supper tonight?”, “How are you going to do the potatoes?” etc etc. (Cont p.94)
Much later… didn’t even notice the said error, took one glance at the fodder and bunged it in.. so we’ll see, as anna@16 says…
Great crossword, and it has all been said but thanks to Picaroon and mhl. In answer to Skinny @14 I think there may be two errors in today’s puzzle the one you mention plus one other – we shall see.
I enjoyed this puzzle.
New for me was OENOMANIA.
Favourite was ICEBERG.
Thanks Picaroon and mhl.
Late post but just to add to others’ positivity by saying that this was a fun solve for me. 22a PIRACY was my fave but maybe that was because it was a Picaroon (and despite Pino’s comment @22). 22a PRUDE made me smile. Had met 19d NICKER before in a Graun cryptic and recalled it as my son’s name is Nick, but didn’t really know who Gordon Banks was, so I got 26/27a BANK STATEMENT from the Tate and the crossers. Many thanks Picaroon and mhl. I really enjoyed reading the comments on this blog too, so thanks to contributors.
Am I the only one that thought in 24 across Fond Of was I love (IO) and both NT and OT were the religious books?
Julie Paren I agree because there are plural books not singular book in the clue.
Also wirh Caesario@15 on corrode as a synonym for wear out but really enjoyed the crossword as a whole. Thanks for all helpful posts about do and cook because I was struggling with that.
Thanks Mhl.
@joleroi, the Old Testament comprises many books (as does the New). It’s usually considered a mistake to clue OT or NT by the singular ‘book’.
@S Panza, I think you may be right. As you say, we’ll see.
Did this crossword on the train between Cambridge and Thetford (and could easily finish it – it takes about 40 minutes from A to B).
Picaroon is a favourite (and an inspiration) but this one left me rather cold, sorry. Perhaps, ‘underwhelmed’ is a better word.
The puzzle had three times ‘raised’ as a reversal indicator (4d, 5d, 13d) – now that’s what I call ‘atypical’ for this setter.
Enjoyable but.
Thanks mhl & Picaroon.