Picaroon is today's Guardian inquisitor.
This was a fun puzzle to solve, with several aha moments when the penny dropped after staring at the clue eventually led to the answer popping into my head. The key to the puzzle is probably getting the two long down answers, but for me at least they didn't come very quickly, so I maybe struggled a bit more than I should have. GUNSHOT and HELLO held out for a while at the end.
Thanks, Picaroon.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | SOD’S LAW |
Turf hunk out of Britain with tendency for trouble (4,3)
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SOD ("turf") + SLA(b) ("hunk" out of (i.e. without) B (Britain)) + W (with) |
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| 5 | WRINGER |
Old-fashioned drier whiskey — double! (7)
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W (whiskey, in the NATO phonetic alphabet) + RINGER ("double") |
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| 9 | PEACENIKS |
Doves sport with great rook from the east (9)
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PE (physical exercise or "sport") with ACE ("great") + <=SKIN ("rook" from the east) |
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| 10 | PASHA |
Turkish bigwig‘s yearly investing has bombed (5)
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PA (per annum, so "yearly") investing *(has) [anag:bombed] |
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| 11 | LAIR |
Refuge of PM once, saving face (4)
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(Tony) (b)LAIR ("PM once", saving (i.e. except for) face (i.e. front)) |
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| 12 | MIDAS TOUCH |
Criminal admits that hurt ability to turn a profit (5,5)
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*(admits) [anag:criminal] + OUCH ("that hurts") |
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| 14 | STRING |
Intently watching, but missing a series (6)
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ST(ar)RING ("intently watching" missing A) |
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| 15 | LINSEED |
Ruled about case of snake oil provider (7)
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LINED ("ruled") about [case of] S(nak)E |
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| 16 | GALILEO |
Guy’s partner, one meeting DiCaprio? The earth moved for him! (7)
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GAL ("guy's partner") + I (one) + LEO(nardo) (DiCaprio) Galileo famously angered the church by postulating that Earth moved around the Sun, rather than the establishment's view that the Sun moved around Earth. |
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| 18 | VELOUR |
Fabric coat from Versace with grim look (6)
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[coat from] V(ersac)E with LOUR ("grim look") |
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| 20 | NURSING BRA |
Race around dodgy bars with gin in mum’s cups (7,3)
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<=RUN ("race" around) + *(bars gin) [anag:dodgy] |
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| 21 | GRAF |
Good service, tennis ace (4)
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G (good) + RAF (Royal Air Force, so "service") Refers to Steffi Graf, a German tennis ace, who won multiple Grand Slam tournaments. |
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| 24 | HELLO |
Periodical suffering, lumbago’s back! (5)
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HELL ("suffering") + (lumbag)O ['s back] |
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| 25 | DO ONES BIT |
Lorna likes men and women with time to make an expected contribution (2,4,3)
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(Lorna) DOONE'S BI ("likes men and women") with T (time) |
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| 26 | TWINSET |
Try pirouettes without success in matching clothes (7)
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<=TEST ("try" pirouettes) without WIN ("success") |
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| 27 | ENCODED |
In need of cracking fish in desperate need (7)
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COD ("fish") in *(need) [anag:desperate] |
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| DOWN | ||
| 1 | SEPAL |
Changing direction initially, Asian country makes a bit of a bloomer (5)
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(n>S)EPAL ("Asian country" changing direction (North (N) to South (S)) initially) |
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| 2 | DIARIST |
Papers about musician, say, releasing tango for recorder (7)
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<=ID (identity "papers" about) + AR(t)IST ("musician, say" releasing T (tango, in the NATO phonetic alphabet)) |
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| 3 | LEEK |
National symbol‘s a revelation, it’s said (4)
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Homophone [it's said] of LEAK ("revelation") |
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| 4 | WAITING FOR GODOT |
Serving, give up point and play without purpose (7,3,5)
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WAITING ("serving") + FORGO ("give up") + DOT ("point") |
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| 5 | WE SHALL OVERCOME |
Darn! Flipping husband entirely rendered powerless in song (2,5,8)
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<=SEW ("darn", flipping) + H (husband) + ALL ("entirely") + OVERCOME ("rendered powerless") "We Shall Overcome" is a gospel song associated with the civil rights movement in the US. |
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| 6 | IMPOTENTLY |
Suggest bottling old wine without any strength (10)
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IMPLY ("suggest") bottling O (old) + TENT (a Spanish red "wine") |
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| 7 | GESTURE |
Sign I’m surprised crossing northerly tracks (7)
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GEE ("I'm surprised") crossing [northerly] <=RUTS ("tracks") |
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| 8 | REACHED |
Hit a socialist, punching another (7)
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A + CHE (Guevara) ("socialist") punching RED ("another" socialist) |
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| 13 | VILLAINOUS |
Football club I sense is very bad (10)
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(Aston) VILLA ("football club") + I + NOUS (common "sense") |
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| 16 | GUNSHOT |
Report composed ought to include partners in play (7)
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*(ought) [anag:composed] to include NS (North and South, "partners in play" (i.e. in bridge)) |
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| 17 | LORELEI |
Mythical creature in mythology, tall tale with a twist in the tail? (7)
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LORE ("mythology") + LEI ("tall tale" (LIE) with a twist in the tail, i.e. it's last two letters twisted) |
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| 19 | UNROBED |
Man in nude possibly could be so described (7)
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ROB ("man") in *(nude) [anag:possibly] and semi &lit. |
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| 22 | FETID |
Rank of Iron Duke, holding appeal up (5)
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Fe (chemical symbol for "iron") + D (Duke) holding <=IT (sex "appeal", up) |
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| 23 | MERC |
Best to leave a reversing car (4)
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<=CRE(a)M ("best" reversing, with A leaving) |
What an enjoyable endeavour. The long down clues are wonderful along with NURSING BRA, GRAF, DO ONES BIT and GALILEO. (Guy Pearce, when receiving an Emmy for supporting Kate Winslet in Mildred Pierce, joked about how he compared to Leonardo DiCaprio. “I keep asking her, but she refuses to tell me,” he added when asked if Winslet has said he is a better kisser than her Titanic co-star. “So there is obviously some bad news there. She might tell me later if I get her drunk enough.” The earth obviously moved for him it seems). Picaroon is hard to beat.
Ta Picaroon & loonapick
Very satisfying. Now back to wrangling the Prize (without much hope).
Initially thought 1d was PETAL: an indirect anagram of NEPAL – I should have known better!
Lorna Doone’s my mum’s favourite book so that was a gimme
Faves were NURSING BRA & GALILEO
Cheers P&L
All done very satisfactorily, though I failed to parse a couple, so thanks to loonapick.
Re: 1a, I managed to convince myself that several SODS could make up one turf, and the “hunk out of Britain” was Jude LAW. I have a bit of a blindspot for ‘with” = ‘W’, and ‘papers’ = ‘ID’ for that matter,
@2 Moth, I’m glad I’m not the only one feeling cowed by the latest Prize.
Thank you so much for the excellent explanations, loonapick. I am trying to renew my crossword solving skills after a couple of years off. Best to all other solvers.
Martin
I did not parse 1ac apart from SOD=turf, and 7d.
Liked DO ONE”S BIT, LINSEED, MIDAS TOUCH, WAITING FOR GODOT, LAIR.
Thanks, both.
MAC089@5 – for 1ac I also toyed with Jude Law being the hunk out of Britain!
An enjoyable endeavour indeed, AlanC!
I really enjoyed the two long ones, which, of course, were a great help with the rest. Other favourites were WRINGER, MIDAS TOUCH, GALILEO, HELLO, VILLAINOUS, LORELEI and DO ONE’S BIT.
I was put off ‘Lorna Doone’ when I was given it as a present for my seventh birthday by my great aunt. I really should get round to reading it.
Many thanks to Picaroon and loonapick.
Thanks Picaroon and loonapick
Quite chewy. I didn’t parse GESTURE, and, I confess, didn’t attempt to parse the long ones. Favourite DO ONES BIT. The “Doone valley” is quite near where I was brought up, so we visited quite often. I was shown the church window where (remainder deleted in case of spoiling for Eileen!)
Nearly an hour with still some to go I was getting grumpy … with myself that is, for being a nugbrain. Then it came together and I felt better. Actually, it was a great puzzle. Loved Midas touch, Galileo and Doone’s bit (the book a fave of the late Mrs ginf). The slaw bit of sod, however, was a biff. All good, ta PnL.
Fabulous fun, thanks Picaroon, and thanks Loonapick – I failed to work out how SLA was “hunk out of Britain” but it seems so obvious now. Everything else yielded eventually, but some took a fair bit of head-scratching. Many satisfying PDMs though. Very much the same favourites for me as Eileen has mentioned. DO ONE’S BIT got a proper chuckle.
Lovely puzzle. So nice to have a straightforward offering now and again with no theme, nina, or multiple cross referencing of clues.
Bodycheetah @3: are you sure about your anagram?
Many thanks both.
muffin @10: isn’t there a plaque near there which reads something like, “Dedicated to R D Blackmore who extolled the beauty of the land he loved”?
Feel sure I’ve paraphrased that.
That was fun. I love those aha moments when the parsing suddenly leaps out at you.
However PEACENIKS defeated me so came here for enlightenment and, even with some googling, I still don’t understand how rook implies SKIN!
Thanks to both as always.
[Yep, know that church, muffin @10. Mrs ginf was a Lorna, loved the book as a girl (i.e. a teenager, Eileen 🙂 ), and it was her pilgrimage to see it and the window]
Mark @15: rook is another word for fleece, con and therefore skin
Mark@15 Rook & Skin are both slang for Cheat (out of money)
Too slow again!
Great puzzle meets indifferent solver, result a mix of pleasure and frustration with myself. Lorna Doone brought back happy memories of childhood holidays, though.
OK, muffin and grant – it’s next on my reading list. 😉
Both slang for cheat or rob, Mark @15
[Far, far too slow!]
Much to be enjoyed here. It took me a while, and I came close to abandoning ship a couple of times, but I’m glad I persevered. Never having heard of Lorna Doone nor Hello magazine till I came here meant I was unable to parse two clues. In 9a, why is skin rook?
I see my question haa been answered while I typed.
Another great crossword. Add me to the list of people who have never read Lorna Doone
Many thanks to Picaroon and Loonapick
Thank you loonapick for your blog, and to Picaroon for a very fair crossword, with tantalising misdirections and moments of fun and enlightenment.
I also had trouble with PEACENIKS as I thought the whole lot was from the east.
Similar favourites to Eileen.
When I had the P in 9a I wrote in an unparsed PACIFISTS – well, it fitted! Corrected by 4d, as 2d and 3d were last two in.
We’ve discussed the non-equivalence of sport and PE before.
I googled RD Blackmore this morning and discovered he lived much of his adult life (and died in 1900) in a house just the other side of Teddington station from where I live now. His house is long gone, but there is a Blackmore’s Grove and a Doone Close. He was not best pleased when the railway came in the 1860s, and won a legal battle to divert its path. I’m now inspired to read his most famous work. A very enjoyable puzzle. Thanks to both.
Could only get 16a and 16d today ?
@2 and @6, re the Prize crossword. I simply left that part of the paper on the train as I hadn’t a hope. I wonder whether someone found it and happily completed it. Have always hated the alphabetic crosswords!
Thanks AlanC, Moth and grantinfreo.
When I was growing up to ‘skin’ somebody was to run appreciably quicker than them. As in ‘Underwood skinned his opposite number on the outside to go in at the corner’.
Absolutely loved this from start to finish, with HELLO bizarrely bringing the curtain down as LOI . Almost every clue a delight in itself.
A terrific puzzle from Picaroon today. Lots of endorphins as I made each breakthrough, with a particular surge of delight at the two long solutions at 4 and 5 Down. Thanks for mentioning so many of my top clues already, fellow solvers. I also really liked 26a TWINSET and 27a ENCODED. Like others, I needed the assistance of the blog to tease out some parsing, including 1a SOD’S LAW as previously mentioned. Many thanks to Picaroon and loonapick.
That was chewy, fun and when I disentangled the clue parts all there and mostly parsed. I solved the east side, the southwest corner and finally the northwest. PEACENIKS was my last in and I didn’t stop to parse it properly, before coming here.
Big grins when I saw DO ONE’S BIT, GALILEO snd NURSING BRA. But lots of other lovely clues.
Thank you to Picaroon and loonapick.
William @13 yes I meant *NEPAL with its initial letter changed to T – in my defence it was pre-coffee
William @14
I don’t remember a plaque, but it is about 50 years since I was last there!
I found that very difficult and after 30 mins only had 2 clues solved. However persistence paid off and, as others have noted, some great satisfaction when many answers finally became clear. I think the good ones have all been mentioned. Thanks to Picaroon and loonapick for a tough challenge and some very helpful explanation.
(I too gave up on the Prize. Solving each clue without any help from the crossers seems to remove one of the pleasures of doing a crossword. I admire the effort that goes into such a puzzle but as the Dragons would say- I’m out!)
[… and then for dessert, Eileen, check out Clunes, Kitchen et al in the movie and miniseries, pretty good as I remember …]
JerryS @38 and others who gave up on the Prize, I printed it off with the Genius, and because I could solve some of the Genius that’s the one I’ve concentrated on. The printer doesn’t get used enough not to need cossetting every time I use it, so I don’t usually bother. There are a few more days before the Genius deadline.
Thanks, grant @39 – I wasn’t aware of that or I would have given it a go. I’ve just looked it up and see there were a number of my favourite actors in it.
Top marks for entertainment and precision
Favourite was the man in the title who never actually appears
Thanks loonapick and JB
Moth @ 2 et al
I was intrigued by the comments about the Prize crossword (I don’t usually have time to of them), so had a look, and have I think completed it. It took a couple of hours and some reference books and I can only parse about 95% of it, but if anyone needs some guidance, let me know.
JerryG @38 – re the Prize, yes, there is a little cold solving required, and a simple logic puzzle element to getting started on filling the grid, but once you’ve got a foothold you will have a strong idea of where everything is meant to fit and lots of helpful checking letters, so it becomes much more like solving a “normal” crossword. Anyway, that’s enough of an off-topic diversion, and to say any more would risk spoilers, so I’ll stop there.
I’m not sure about the definition of Waiting for Godot as a play without purpose. I would have thought that it had a very particular purpose: to demonstrate that life has no purpose! I once took a party of students to see a performance of the play. Two of them bunked off during the interval in the belief that the play was going nowhere. I think that they were expecting a rollicking from me the next morning but I suggested to them that Becket would probably have approved of their action and they had got his point and moved on, unlike Vladimir and Estragon.
[Eileen@9 I remember listening to a serialisation of Lorna Doone on c
Children’s Hour on the radio when I was a lass. Very atmospheric. I was completely gripped by it. I have tried to read the book since and quite recently, but I’m afraid I didn’t enjoy it. But don’t let that put you off. 🙂 ]
Thanks loonapick as I also failed to parse the end of 1a (very helpful crossers for that one) and had to assume that Tent was a wine although it now rings a vague bell – don’t think I have ever seen it on a bottle though.
Mark@32 I struggled with the skin/rook sporting sense but then thought that to “skin” someone there would usually be some initial hoodwinkery to engineer a gap and/or wrongfoot the opponent through a sidestep, dummy, feint etc depending on the sport so that got me close enough to “rook” although it was post-solution parsing.
JerryG@38 sums it up nicely for me, thanks Picaroon.
[I’ve only just looked at the prize and I’ve copied the clues into a spreadsheet for convenience – feel free to use it if pen and paper aren’t your thing ]
ps: you may need a google account for access
Enjoyed this a lot, as ever with Picaroon. Re 9a, in my old school PE and Sports were distinct, but that might have been a local thing.
[Re the Prize, just have a single sixer to go, but it might defeat me – none of the 26x26x26 possible remaining permutations seems possible, and I’m not going to do a dictionary trawl of each!]
I was doing quite well but ran out of steam in the NW corner. 3d came to me while taking a toilet break, but I still couldn’t get 1a – couldn’t think of a synonym for ‘hunk’, and even if I had, it hadn’t occured to me to take the B=Britain from it! For a long time I wanted GOSH to be in 7d (I’ve been re-reading some Arthur Ransome recently), and GEE was a late revelation.
We visited the Doone Valley on a family holiday when I was about 11, and I think I had read the book already, but can now remember almost nothing about it. (Pretty sure she didn’t swing both ways, though. Maybe it was an expurgated edition. 🙂 )
Thanks as always to Picaroon and loonapick.
[PS Can people please stop talking about the prize puzzle. Many thanks.]
Gazzh @47
TENT is an archaic name for a deep red wine, usually from Spain; hence “old wine”. See here.
Coruscating!
Thanks Picaroon for your tireless efforts in entertaining us. I found this more difficult than usual; except for SODS LAW and MERC, however, everything eventually unfolded happily. MIDAS TOUCH, LINSEED, SEPAL, DIARIST, GUNSHOT, and FETID all earned ticks but my top two were DO ONES BIT and WAITING FOR GODOT, both reasons why Picaroon has become my favourite setter. Thanks loonapick for the blog.
muffin @ 52
Per your parsing, “old wine” gives “tent”, which doesn’t explain how the O arrives in the solution. “old” gives O, and “wine” gives “tent”.
Good point Simon – my parsing gives “old” double duty. It is an archaic term, though…
[btw the name “tent” for wine derives from Spanish “tinto”, used for red wine.]
An enjoyable solve from beginning to end!
Favourites were MIDAS TOUCH and DO ONE’S BIT
Thanks Picaroon and loonapick
Thanks for the blog, AlanC straight in at number 1 yet again. I am close to conceding but too stubborn. LORELEI returns again, must be time for the ICENI with one of them carrying an ASSEGAI .
Anyone else try to make an anagram out of DRIER and two W’s?
muffin @57 – Rio Tinto has the same root. Fortunately the wine isn’t quite the same colour (and isn’t pH2 either!)
Excellent stuff, thanks P & L
[Roz @59: LORELEI is probably celebrating her outstanding A level results.]
essexboy @60. Yes, that was my initial reading of the clue, but it struck me as being unlikely, and in fact WEIRDER looked almost possible at one stage!
[ MrEssexboy @61, almost certainly not, she has dark hair ]
[Roz – according to Heine, sie kämmt ihr goldenes Haar… Clearly Oxbridge-bound.]
[ MrEssexboy you really need to use more highbrow sources , try Pokemon ]
Hard work today, but enjoyable and satisfying. “Tent” for wine and “Skin” for con are new to me. Hope to see them again before I forget them. Too many favourites to name. Thanks loonapick for several parsings that escaped me, and thanks Picaroon.
After noticing that 5D began with the great bowler Wes Hall I started looking for a theme, but it seems to be accidental.
Thanks for the explanation and link muffin. Essexboy yes I wasted some time with the drier double whiskey, not for the first time, and it took a rare lunchtime cider to get me back on track.
Wonderful puzzle – DO ONES BIT and WE SHALL OVERCOME were both brilliant!
I was defeated by SODS LAW (never heard this before) and I had no clue that the LEEK is a symbol of Wales!
Thanks Picaroon and loonapick.
Roz @59: 🙂
It took several visits in between doing other things and slowly but surely those thinking gaps led pennies to tentatively drop and I finally dragged it over the line. The NE corner was last to fall.
Lots of good clues, too many to list. Picaroon is becoming one of my favourite setters – never too easy, always a challenge but also always fair, I reckon.
Thank you both.
Felt very tricky, but I was surprised to see it actually came together fairly quickly (for me). Thanks loonapick and Picaroon.
AlanC, polish the spear with ELEMI, your turn now.
Rob T @71 , taking a break is very under-rated, it seems to work for lots of reasons.
Roz @73 – I totally agree, and I used to think that breaks where the mind rested was the key, but today I was running around like a blue-bottomed fly and my mind was wholly occupied throughout, and still whenever I came back to the puzzle for a few minutes, another few would click into place. A part of my subconscious may have worked them out while I thought I was thinking about other things. A neuroscientist should look into this I reckon.
I think also you look at the clues in a fresh way instead of pursuing the same blind alleys.
Yes – like a little ‘reset’ moment.
[Roz and RobT: Good point about resetting one’s mind. I’ll often leave clues unsolved, go for a short run, and return with a re-charged brain.]
[Roz, RobT, Tony et al above. Strange how the mind works. I don’t even need a longish break. I’ve often solved a tricky clue just by going into another room with it.]
[Crossbar@78 psychologists talk about the Doorway Effect, which occurs when we go into a different room and realize we’ve forgotten why we’re there. Maybe in your case it’s the blind alleys that get forgotten, in which case maybe you’re really onto something.]
Dr/ WhatsOn
Is that like “l’esprit d’escalier” – the witty retort you think of after you have left?
[Dr. WhataOn@79 I do the Doorway Effect too 😀 ]
Well well well, the things one learns from 225… Thank you Nuntius@29, I am also very near Teddington station, just across from the Adelaide, and in spite of having lived here for over a decade – and sporadically dipped into local history – had never, rather to my embarrassment, come across the information that RD Blackmore lived here for many years. So thanks very much for that.
And even more gratitude to Picaroon and loonapick for a great puzzle and blog.
Really enjoyed this! Thought it was above my level at first but once I got a feel for the style of clueing got the hang of it. The surfaces were so well constructed it made all those charades difficult to spot. Forced my brain into working through all the different synonyms of each word, when I normally try find the obvious anagrams or other wordplays. I feel these style of clues will really improve my recall, which is desperately needed, as I’m starting to show the signs of a decline in that area. Also pleased that 1A was the only one I couldn’t parse. Dictionary was required for LOUR, ROOK, PASHA, and LORELEI, so vocabulary was expanded as well. Thanks for the education Picaroon.
[Ditto re printers, Shanne @40 … my old Epson is so seldom used these days that the inks dry up!]
[eb @60, Rio has done a lot of downstream ‘tinting’, e.g. from the Panguna mine on Bougainville. ‘Our’ BHP is no better, to wit Ok Tedi mine on mainland PNG. Both are unremediated environmental bleeping disasters, result being a few $bill to a handful of Cayman accounts and eff all else. Sorry, rant over.
Oh and yes, ditto re drier + double Ws, took a few looks to wake up 🙂 ]
Wonderful puzzle, great for improving word play skills. Thanks Loonapick and Picaroon
Thanks loonapick and Picaroon ! Too many lovely clues to choose from really but my favourite was WAITING FOR GODOT. Re. the Prize I feel that the esteemed setter sailed a bit too close to the wind on this one, but I’ll expand on that when the blog appears….