Guardian 28,057 / Picaroon

Well, we found this very tough, but I think it’s all fair – Picaroon employs misdirection very well in this puzzle, and the grid is very clever…

We might have found this easier if we’d got 1d (ANAGRAMS) and 21d (PAIRED) earlier! The very special feature of the grid here was that each across clue was an anagram of its rotationally symmetric pair. Those pairs are:

  • SNATCHER and TRANCHES
  • OR ELSE and RESOLE
  • EGAD and AGED
  • INDICATORY and DICTIONARY
  • TASERS and ASSERT
  • TRESPASS and SPARSEST
  • ESSENCE and SENESCE

While I found this frustratingly hard, the clues are very nice and grid construction is impressive, so I do appreciate the puzzle.

Across

8. Who grabs waitress’s bottom? Of course, I don’t know (8)
SNATCHER
[waistres]S = “waitress’s bottom” + NATCH (slang for “naturally”) + ER = “I don’t know”
Definition: “Who grabs”

9. Warning over university restricting theological study (2,4)
OR ELSE
O = “over” (a cricket scoring abbreviation) + LSE = “university” around RE (religious education) = “theological study”
Definition: “Warning”

10. I’m surprised, say, given notice (4)
EGAD
EG = “say” + AD = “notice”
Definition: “I’m surprised”

11. Charge finally dropped, a politician is revealing (10)
INDICATORY
INDIC[t] = “Charge finally dropped” + A + TORY = “politician”
Definition: “revealing”

12. Stuns those trying food, putting tonnes away (6)
TASERS
TASTERS = “those trying food” without T = “tonnes”
Definition: “Stuns”

14. Intrude with spring to break lock (8)
TRESPASS
SPA = “spring” in TRESS = “lock”
Definition: “Intrude”

15. Nature of fuel for Renaults and Citroëns? (7)
ESSENCE
Renaults and Citroëns are both French, and the French for petrol is “essence”
Definition: “Nature”

17. Earl, during riotous scenes, to look older (7)
SENESCE
(SCENES)* around E = “Earl”
Definition: “to look older”

20. Fights set off and most scattered (8)
SPARSEST
SPARS = “Fights” + (SET)*
Definition: “most scattered”

22. Say really continental va-va-voom is back (6)
ASSERT
TRES = “really” in French (“continental”) + SA (sex appeal) = “va-va-voom”, all reversed (“is back”). (I think SA for “sex appeal” is very dated now – maybe it’s time for it to be retired…)
Definition: “Say”

23. Phrasing a line in book (10)
DICTIONARY
DICTION = “Phrasing” + A + RY (railway) = “line”
Definition: “book”

24. Knocking on cottage door frames (4)
AGED
Hidden in [cott]AGE D[oor] – the hidden indicator is “frames”
Definition: “Knocking on”

25. Respecting exclusive work at last (6)
RESOLE
RE = “Respecting” (as in the subject of a letter or email_ + SOLE = “exclusive”
Definition: “work at last” – “last” as in the cobblers tool

26. Red gender-fluid clothes for cash payments (8)
TRANCHES
CHE = “Red” (referring to Che Guevara) in TRANS = “gender-fluid”. My initial thought was that this was wrong, and that being transgender is quite distinct from being gender-fluid, but Wikipedia supports this use in the clue (“it may include people who are not exclusively masculine or feminine (people who are non-binary or genderqueer, including bigender, pangender, genderfluid, or agender)”)
Definition: “cash payments”

Down

1. Like to straddle animals, or like 21 across answers here (8)
ANAGRAMS
AS = “Like” around NAG and RAM (“animals”)
Definition: “like [PAIRED] across answers here” – see the intro to this post for the list of these

2. Only half diligent boss (4)
STUD
STUD[ious] = “Only half diligent”
Definition: “boss” (as in a boss on the beams of a cathedral, for example)

3. Is the president of Switzerland to put on swanky demeanour? (6)
CHAIRS
CH = “Switzerland” + AIRS = “swanky demeanour” (as in “to put on airs”)
Definition: “Is the president of” – to chair a meeting might be to be the president of the meeting, I guess?

4. Seize and devour wine, cutting loaf (7)
PREDATE
RED = “wine” in PATE = “loaf” (slang for “head”)
Definition: “Seize and devour”

5. Real Charlie somewhere in Greece (8)
CONCRETE
C = “Charlie” (as in the NATO phonetic alphabet) + ON CRETE = “somewhere in Greece”
Definition: “Real”

6. Bedroom frolics set back? I suggest we should brood (10)
SEXTUPLETS
SEX = “Bedroom frolics” + PUT reversed = “set back” + LETS = “I suggest we should”
Definition: “brood”

7. Underworld figure thus raised flag (6)
OSIRIS
SO = “thus” reversed + IRIS + “flag”
Definition: “Underworld figure”

13. Curse big businessman, one installed in shop (10)
EXECRATION
EXEC = “big businessman” + I = “one” in RAT ON = “shop” (as in to shop someone to the police)
Definition: “Curse”

16. Singer fine with drugs? They have reservations (8)
CHEROKEE
CHER = “Singer” + OK = “fine” + EE = “drugs” (E stands for Ecstasy)
Definition: “They have reservations” – the Cherokee people have a number of reservations in the US.

18. Pulled up floor may be so (8)
CARPETED
Double definition: “Pulled up” (as in “told off”) and “floor may be so”. A very nice clue, I think

19. Princess famed when running out of a capital city (7)
ATLANTA
ATALANTA = “Princess famed when running” (see “Footrace” on the Wikipedia page) without A (“out of a”)
Definition: “capital city” – Atlanta is the capital of Georgia

21. Outrage entering place to live together (6)
PAIRED
IRE = “Outrage” in PAD = “place to live”
Definition: “together”

22. Still off touring US location (6)
ANYWAY
AWAY = “off” around NY (New York) = “US location”
Definition: “Still”

24. Roar conductor’s welcomed with a bow (4)
ARCO
Hidden in [ro]AR CO[nductor] – the hidden indicator is “welcomed”
Definition: “with a bow” – I should have got this much earlier, as a violinist! The Italian direction “arco” in music means “play with a bow” as opposed to “pizzicato”

39 comments on “Guardian 28,057 / Picaroon”

  1. Thanks, mhl.
    Had a slow start – but after I saw what happened here, I actually flew through this.
    Many many years ago Cinephile (our much-missed Araucaria) did exactly the same thing in the FT.
    And I also seem to remember that Monk did something similar like this.
    Nonetheless, a clever puzzle from one the best in the business.
    Last not in (before using resources): 6d’s SEXTUPLETS.

  2. Thanks mhl. Like you I would have finished earlier if I had registered in 1d that all the across answers were anagrams. It didn’t help that I toyed with ‘epigram’ for some time but couldn’t justify it. As it was I saw that the two middle words were anagrams and thought that was enough. It wasn’t easy but I found the construction quite amazing and am left in awe of Picaroon’s ingenuity.

  3. I clocked the anagram game after EGAD and AGED and that helped with the solve, although they still took some working out. I’ve not been doing puzzles regularly enough to recall the previous similar examples of a setter at the top their game, and whilst this didn’t take as long as the week before it was every bit as enjoyable so thanks to Picaroon and to lucky mhl for the blog.

  4. I didn’t understand 1d at first, not having got 21d yet, but it told me that something was afoot, and after ESSENCE and SENESCE it all fell into place.

    I love it where there is some kind of pattern (or trickery) that visits a number of answers, other than the typical theme. In this particular case, though, I felt that it made the puzzle too easy (or alternatively, that the bulk of the clues weren’t correspondingly harder, to compensate). Now, that’s just me, and ymmv.

  5. Yes, in awe, now that I know! A bit dim, given that 1d’s clue tells us that the across answers are paired! Got the tres bit, but not va va voom = SA, so dnp assert fully. Otherwise pottered quite happily along. A long time since I picked the fiddle (in a cupboard somewhere) but did remember arco (plus I think I’ve seen it in a cw before). Are tranches necessarily cash? Headscratched over tranches, not sure why given Che’s such a chestnut. Fun all in all. A Picaroon coup, and thanks Mhl.

  6. I noticed that my first two in, TRESPASS and SPARSEST, were anagrams of each other, and that actually helped me get 1d. I was grateful for that assistance with the other across clues, as I might never have gotten SENESCE or TRANCHES otherwise. A respectful bow to Picaroon for the masterful puzzle and to mhl for the helpful blog, since I came here with several unparsed.

  7. It was a weird mix for me. On the one hand, there were clues where I knew the answer as soon as I read the clue. CHEROKEE, TASERS, TRESSPASS. Then there were ones which I filled in “because they fitted” and although they were correct, I was still struggling with the parsing days later.
    Didn’t get the mirrored anagrams until late in the game, but that helped me fill in the last few for sure.

  8. I nearly gave up on this early on. Although I usually enjoy Picaroon’s puzzles, after a while on this with only five runs on the board, so to speak, I felt I just wasn’t on the same wavelength as most of the clues. Fortunately, among my five were ESSENCE and SENESCE, and because I wasn’t completely convinced the latter was really a verb, I played with other arrangements of the letters. And then the penny dropped. I still didn’t find it easy to complete, I think because some of the clues seemed obscure in various ways, such as ATLANTA, which was my last in, completely unparsed since I’d never heard of the princess in question.

    And having checked again, I see I failed anyway, having quickly written ‘arch’ in instead of ARCO at some point, evidently without thinking too much about the parsing. Somehow, that seems appropriate for this outing, although I did enjoy it once I got going, and was very impressed by the puzzle in the end. Thanks, Picaroon, even though you beat me, and thanks mhl for explaining where I went wrong.

  9. I enjoyed this immensely. INDICATORY/DICTIONARY in early made me suspect the cleverly executed pairing and speeded me on my way. Everything parsed – which doesn’t always happen. Sincere thanks to Picaroon for excellent puzzle, and to mhl for blog.

  10. Very clever, Picaroon!
    I got just over half of it done, with enough clues that I should have spotted the trick. My excuse was that I was doing it on my phone. I really do prefer paper for crosswords.

  11. Am I stupid or what?  I got ANAGRAMS, AGED and EGAD quite quickly and registered what was intended by Picaroon for the across clues.  Then I put the puzzle aside when other duties called.  When I went back to it a day later I completely forgot the trick and spent far too long winkling out the rest of the answers unaided. Doh!! For me then it was a proper Prize Puzzle and I enjoyed it.  Many thanks Picaroon for a brilliant puzzle and to mhl for help with several parsings I could not fully explain.  Favourite, just, among many good ones SEXTUPLETS

  12. Fortunately I worked out two pairs of across clues quite early, and once it struck me they were anagrams (not as quickly as it should have), that explained the strange reference in 1d to ’21 across’, when there was no clue 21a and the number of across clues did not total 21.  That led to getting ANAGRAMS and PAIRED speedily, and then to looking for anagrams where I had one of the pair of answers but not the other.

    It is unusual for a clue for ANAGRAMS not to involve an anagram. I wonder Picaroon had in mind the question you get on Google if you search for ANAGRAM: Do you mean ‘nag a ram’?

    In 3d, CHAIRS means ‘is president of’ in a wider sense than just physically at a meeting.  The president (alternatively ‘chairman’) of a club, company or organisation is said to ‘chair’ that body. A cunning clue, as it looked like a question rather than a definition as ‘is president of’.

    Thanks, mil and Picaroon.

  13. Getting the theme early on with ANAGRAMS, EGAD, AGED, ESSENCE and SENESCE helped a lot.  In particular, having SNATCHER allowed me to get TRANCHES much earlier than I would have done otherwise.  For some reason I couldn’t think of PAIRED for a long time even though I knew what it meant for the theme.

    I particularly liked SNATCHER, TASERS, TRESPASS, STUD, SEXTUPLETS, OSIRIS and CHEROKEE.

    I’ve seen similar themes before, but not the same as this with the rotational symmetry.  A clever idea and a very skilful execution.  I enjoyed the clues, by the way, with their clever misdirections as noted by mhl, just as much as the theme.

    Thanks to Picaroon and mhl.

  14. I was really slow getting going on this puzzle and it was in danger of remaining unfinished by bedtime on Saturday night.  Agree with mhl – thank heavens I eventually worked out the significance of 1 dn and I already had sufficient across clues to enable me to just solve the anagrams and fill in the remaining across clues.  Otherwise I would have struggled to get, for example, ASSERTS or TRANCHES.

    Some really nice clues.  Favourites:  CHAIRS, CHEROKEE, ANYWAY.

    Minor quibble with 26 ac and I see that mhl also deals with this, but I shall still say my bit.  My understanding is that ‘trans’ is not the same as ‘gender-fluid.’  Transexual people (‘trans’) are quite definite what gender they are, it’s just not what it appeared at birth.  The gender-fluid people are whatever gender they feel like at the time.  But there you go, I suspect that the powers that be constantly change their minds on this one.  And can I just ass that I do not accept Wikepedia as gospel.

    Anyway, a puzzle that kept me occupied right up to bedtime.  Can’t be bad!

    Thanks to Picaroon and to mhl.

  15. The paired anagrams made this a lot easier than it would have been otherwise. Impressive stuff as ever.

    Thanks to Picaroon and mhl

  16. SPanza@12: Me too! In fact a dnf as I got many of the answers, spotted the trick, and then forgot all about the puzzle until this morning, when I got a few more answers, and should have got them all had I remembered the paired anagrams. Finally I gave up and revealed the last 2 or 3 (I don’t take crosswords seriously enough to feel bad about revealing answers if I get stuck).

    Thanks mhl and Picaroon for an interesting exercise.

  17. Yes, nice setting to fit in all the appropriate anagrams.

    I got ANAGRAMS fairly early on, which helped a lot with the solve.

    I liked the DICTIONARY/INDICATORY couplet.

    Thanks Picaroon and mhl.

  18. Thanks for a great blog, mhl.

    Nothing more to say about the puzzle, really, but I just have to add my admiration for such a brilliant grid-fill.

    Many thanks, Picaroon – I thoroughly enjoyed it.

  19. I enjoyed this and the ANAGRAMS did help but I don’t think I saw them all. COD was RESOLE.
    Thanks Picaroon

  20. A superb grid from Picaroon, very nice indeed. I got 21d plus RESOLE / OR ELSE and TRESPASS / SPARSEST on the initial run-through, which helped a great deal with the rest of the across clues, and gave me a head start with the remaining downs.

    ARCO (LOI) was a half-guess, and I was only vaguely aware of IRIS=FLAG (though I thought the answer could only be Osiris).

    Thanks to mhl for the excellent notes, and much thanks and respect to Picaroon.

    Right, I’m off to have a look at Puck’s offering…

  21. Delightful puzzle, delightful device, which of course I missed till almost the end.  Thanks to Picaroon and to mhl for the help.

    In 17a, the surface doesn’t make sense.  And “senescence” is a condition, not an appearance.  To senesce is to deteriorate from age, not to look old.

    To add to sjshart’s point in 13, the president is the person who presides.  The Founding Fathers, who really wanted to prevent anybody from becoming something like a king, chose the word as one that probably sounded so boring and procedural nobody else would aspire to it.  That didn’t work, of course, there are presidents all over the world now.  The king-prevention part worked moderately well until the current presider.

    5a CONCRETE meaning “real” reminds me of a friend’s model railway setup, where among the buildings along the track he had the “Abstract Concrete Company.”

  22. Very well constructed.  My way into the theme was via the AGED/EGAD pair, confirmed by 1 which was quite easily guessable from the crossers.  Even so, I struggled with some of the pairs, particularly the INDICATORY/DICTIONARY one.  Made the NE quite tricky to finish off.  The Atalanta story was also new to me, so I had to consult Wiki to parse the answer.  Nice to see crosswordland’s favorite singer back for another show!

    Thanks, Picaroon and mhl

  23. Well. There we were last week smugly self-congratulating over having completed and fully parsed a Picaroon – ’very hard, but we have his measure now etc etc’. And then to come here and find the elegant task which, although flagged up and unconcealed, we had completely missed. Heigh ho!

    Many thanks to the ingenious setter, and to mhl for his enlightening blog.

  24. I guessed ANAGRAMS early from wordplay and the fact that that’s a type of clue, but although I saw that ESSENCE and SENESCE were anagrams, I was confused by the fact that TASERS and TRESPASS on the one hand, and SPARSEST and ASSERT on the other are also anagrams of each other if you add SP to one of the pair in each case. Anyway, I bumbled along just solving without any thematic assistance until right at the end when I finally cracked PAIRED and used my new-found realisation of the grid design to get my LOI, RESOLE! Very clever grid-filling, but I agree with Valentine @25 about the meaning of SENESCE and wondered if ESSENCE, as a piece of French vocabulary, was known to all.

    22a SA to be retired? It’s still in the dictionaries and not marked ‘obsolete’. It’s also very useful for producing a lively clue for a word containing a common sequence in English.

    26a Wikipedia isn’t a good authority in general for the meaning of words. Hopefully, Picaroon will not spend the next twelve months or so getting hate-tweets from special interest groups who have their own idea of what each of those two words means. I see ‘gender-fluid’ is defined at Collins online as “not identifying exclusively with any gender”, whereas I have heard people in the media who call themselves ‘trans’ who will take umbrage at any suggestion that they be identified with any gender but the one they have chosen for themselves. (I see Anna@16 has made  essentially the same point, but I’d already written this when I read that).) Personally, I thought it a very cleverly deceptive clue.

    4d PREDATE I wondered if it should be ‘predate upon‘ but found that ‘predate’ as a cognate of ‘predacious’, ‘predatory’ etc is hard to find in dictionaries, which mostly only give meanings relating to earlier dates. E.g. Collins online.

    Despite these few quibbles and my failure to cotton on earlier, I found this immensely enjoyable with typically clever wordplay and smooth surfaces.

     

  25. Thinking again about 26a, if people can decide themselves what ‘gender’ they are, there’s no reason why Picaroon can’t play Humpty Dumpty and decide what the meanings of words he uses are, is there?

  26. Thanks Picaroon and mhl

    I agree with Dr. WhatsOn (again) – this would have been very difficult without the trick, but the trick in fact made it quite easy.

    I finished with OR ELSE/RESOLE, because I had found a genus of iris that nearly worked in 7d.

  27. A late comment, just as I was late to twig the anagram-pairing in this crossword.

    Hugely enjoyable, I realised about the pairing after EGAD=AGED and SENESCE-ESSENCE, so it was plenty of help on some of the others. Which was needed since some of those clues were pretty hard. A side effect of the anagram nature of the solutions is that there are no anagrams in the wordplay at all (not in the Downs either I think), cannot recollect if that is noted in the foregoing commentary, but pretty impressive to have entire grid well-clued without a single anagram and only 2 (?2) hidden words — rest are all charades.

    Bravo Picaroon and thanks mhl for explaining it and to all other learned contributors on here!

  28. I solved this the hard way, not spotting PAIRED ANAGRAMS until I was finished. I actually thought there was a misprint as there wasn’t a 21across (and this is the Graun after all). An enjoyable, not too tough but entertaining solve. Hey ho.

    Then I had another look at 1 down, and finally the penny dropped and the genius of this puzzle became apparent. I am in awe. Not only to get all the pairs in their places, but to fit ANAGRAMS PAIRED down the side of them? Hat doffed. Thanks to Picaroon and mhl.

  29. Touching on Epee’s comment above that there were no ANAGRAMS, to be fair there was one, as Tony Collman points out. Even so, anagrams were among the SPARSEST of clues (discounting the fact that all 14 across solutions were anagrams).

  30. Fair cop Tony Collins @32!

    Though you might argue that the anagram of scenes only forms part of the answer.

    Still I think it is unusual to have so few anagrammed clues in a cryptic; I’m guessing this was part of the setter’s intention – to have anagrams everywhere except where you normally find them!

  31. Swordfish @35 . Yes, that tickled me “anagrams everywhere except where you normally find them!”

    I fell short of ARCO which I’d never heard of, and missed the ‘hidden’ indicator ‘welcomed’. Hidden indicator indeed. Thanks mhl, and for ATLANTA, which I couldn’t parse.

  32. Picaroon is one of those names that I always know will mean a treat of a crossword. This was a really fun puzzle, and hats off to Picaroon for the construction. I particularly liked that the anagram clues used some slightly unusual words like INDICATORY so it was still a challenge once I clocked the anagram conceit. My favourites were CHAIRS and SEXTUPLETS.

    I liked the TRANCHES clue but don’t think gender-fluid works as a synonym of trans. As I understand it, trans is an umbrella term including gender-fluid people as well as people who certainly aren’t gender-fluid. So using ‘gender-fluid’ to clue ‘trans’ is like using ‘German’ to mean ‘European’ or ‘Britain’ to mean ‘UK’, isn’t it? You’d normally see a question mark or something for that sort of prompt, no?

    Thanks to mhl and Picaroon

  33. I was lucky enough to get the theme early on, which made this relatively easy. I think I would have struggled with quite a few clues if I hadn’t known to look for anagrams.

    I confused myself on 14a, wondering how “spring” could be used to clue PAS. I had to come here to see that it’s actually SPA, which makes perfect sense. I also failed to parse 26a (TRANCHES), which I would surely never have gotten without the anagram!

     

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