A remarkably good puzzle today from Buccaneer . . .
. . . with some of the parsing a bit complicated to explain in blog-speak. On many clues, I was delightfully surprised to see how the sausage was made. I hope I have done this justice.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | PLUMBAGO |
Complaint after prince makes a bloomer (8)
|
| P (prince) + LUMBAGO (complaint). I have some leadworts in my garden, but I am not familiar with this name. | ||
| 5 | FAIRER |
More attractive fellow, perhaps a clothes horse (6)
|
| F (fellow) + AIRER (perhaps a clothes horse, i.e., device used to air-dry clothes) | ||
| 10 | TORNADO |
Rent trouble? It’s potentially devastating (7)
|
| TORN (rent) + ADO (trouble) | ||
| 11 | OEDIPAL |
Idea people oddly rubbished about psychological disorder (7)
|
| Anagram of (rubbished) (IDEA + P[E]O[P]L[E] [“oddly”]) | ||
| 12 | SHOCK |
At the back, Boris has kind of white, messy hair (5)
|
| Last letter (“at the back”) of [BORI]S + HOCK (kind of white, i.e., wine). Funny surface | ||
| 13 | TINDERBOX |
Can leftist overcome blow in explosive situation? (9)
|
| TIN (can) + RED (leftist) reversed (“overcome”) + BOX (blow) | ||
| 14 | NOTIFICATION |
Telling someone other than me a boring story (12)
|
| NOT I (someone other than me) + A inside (boring [into]) FICTION (story) | ||
| 18 | GOBBLEDEGOOK |
I devoured, to begin with, decent tripe (12)
|
| GOBBLED (devoured) + EGO (I) + OK (decent), with “to begin with” indicating the placement of “gobbled” at the front | ||
| 21 | BATTERSEA |
A high street in Bolivia, empty part of the capital (9)
|
| (A + anagram of [high] STREET) all inside (in) B[OLIVI]A (“empty”), i.e., a district of London (“part of the capital”) | ||
| 23 | OF USE |
Love to join together? It’s helpful (2,3)
|
| O (love) + FUSE (to join together) | ||
| 24 | UNCLEAR |
Foolishly ran with clue lacking definition (7)
|
| Anagram of (foolishly) (RAN + CLUE) | ||
| 25 | HEINOUS |
That man with Buccaneer, the two of us abroad being wicked (7)
|
| HE (that man) + I (Buccaneer, i.e., the setter) + NOUS (the two of us abroad, i.e., “we” in French) | ||
| 26 | DREADS |
Locks door? Emma does after removing contents (6)
|
| D[OO]R E[MM]A D[OE]S “after removing contents” | ||
| 27 | PROTRUDE |
Puritan holding rhubarb stick out (8)
|
| PRUDE (Puritan) around (holding) ROT (rhubarb) | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | POTASH |
Brought up best tree fertiliser (6)
|
| TOP (best) inverted (brought up) + ASH (tree) | ||
| 2 | UPROOT |
Pull out little jumper, put off going outside (6)
|
| Anagram of (off) PUT around (going outside) ROO (little jumper) | ||
| 3 | BLACKPOOL |
Want to enter second-class game in coastal resort (9)
|
| LACK (want) inside (to enter) (B [second-class] + POOL [game]) | ||
| 4 | GROWTH INDUSTRY |
Booming sector to become weak, run in Springfield (6,8)
|
| GROW THIN (to become weak) + R (run) inside (in) DUSTY (Springfield) | ||
| 6 | ADDLE |
Confuse canoeist when taking off clothing (5)
|
| [P]ADDLE[R] (canoeist, minus outside letters [“when taking off clothing”]) | ||
| 7 | REPUBLIC |
China, possibly antique cups where drinkers are (8)
|
| RELIC (antique) around (cups) PUB (where drinkers are). | ||
| 8 | RELAXANT |
Dealing with sloppy worker, say, this is calming (8)
|
| RE (dealing with) + LAX (sloppy) + ANT (worker, say) | ||
| 9 | FOUNDING FATHER |
Supplying bread, including old, podgy lady’s starter? (8,6)
|
| FUNDING (supplying bread, i.e., money) around (including) O (old) + FAT (podgy) + HER (lady’s) | ||
| 15 | APOLOGIST |
Defender of a sweetheart needing a break (9)
|
| A + POLO (sweet) + GIST (heart), with “needing a break” indicating that “sweetheart” needs to be split apart in order for this to clue to make sense | ||
| 16 | EGGBOUND |
Struggling to lay, say, £1000 on black dog losing the lead (8)
|
| E.G. (say) + G (£1000) + B (black) + [H]OUND (dog, minus the first letter [“losing the lead”]) | ||
| 17 | OBSTACLE |
Let in spaniel? Cat’s bolted, retreating (8)
|
| Hidden in (in) [SPANI]EL CATS BO[LTED] reversed (retreating) | ||
| 19 | SUDOKU |
Kudos when cracking Mudd or Julius’s second puzzle (6)
|
| Anagram of (when cracking) KUDOS + U (“second” letter of [M]u[dd] or [J]u[lius]) | ||
| 20 | LESSEE |
Short of time, why don’t we have a look for tenant (6)
|
| LE[T]’S (why don’t we, minus [short of] T [time]) + SEE (have a look) | ||
| 22 | EMEND |
Tough guys in East London given penny in change (5)
|
| [H]E-MEN (tough guys, unaspirated for Cockney [“in East London”]) + D (penny) |
Thanks Cineraria and Buccaneer.
Tough but great puzzle…
Went nuts parsing GROWTH INDUSTRY, FOUNDING FATHER, NOTIFICATION, GOBBLEDEGOOK, EGGBOUND and OBSTACLE.
Sausage making, indeed!
Although I managed to rattle this off, I kept thinking “how am I managing this?”. Started off getting 1a, having seen similar clues years ago. During the solve, I looked at 9d and thought FOUNDING FATHER fits and then looked at the clue – and it worked. How jammy was that? My first guess for 15d was APOLOGIST but I left it, not seeing how it parsed, then came back to at the very end and it then hit me – very sneaky.
Thanks, Buccaneer and Cineraria. Have to agree with your assessment – remarkably good. And immensely satisfying to solve. I know what you mean about being delightfully surprised – some of the parsing was hard to unravel but once you saw it, it all made perfect sense.
LOI was NOTIFICATION – even with all the crossing letters in place, it took me a while to twig “Not I” (and me a supposed Beckett fan) even after I’d spotted the A in FICTION.
Nice nod to Mudd and Julius too.
Why is rot rhubarb?
Geoff@4: “Rhubarb” also means “nonsense” or “twaddle.”
Geoff, “rhubarb” is a theatrical term: background characters are said to say it just to make it sound like they are speaking. Hence they are speaking rubbish or rot.
Excellent puzzle with some really precise clueing – so many setters would have left SWEETHEART to stand alone without any indication of the “lift and separate”. My COD.
Also liked LESSEE and the well hidden definition and inclusion for OBSTACLE.
Tricky but so much fun. If I was to pick just one favourite, I’d probably go for 19d
Thanks very much to Buccaneer and Cineraria
I had a hunch that that might have been the rot/rhubarb connection but could find no corroberation in thesauruses (thesauri?).
Corroboration, even.
Geoff, in January this year, Boris Johnson said “This whole thing is total rhubarb. […] I can tell you that the military always prioritized human beings and that was quite right.”
I guess that’s an example of the word switching from the theatre to real life.
By the way, congratulations for even attempting to spell “corroboration”. An A- score but probably better that what I would have scored – one “r’ or two; one “b” or two? Yes, “thesauri” is the plural of “thesaurus” but I believe that only pedants (like me) would use the word; the rest would just add “es” to the end. Just like “octopuses” is the recognized plural of “octopus”.
Now, I shall return to melting in this very hot Melbourne evening…
Two crackers in one day from the puzzle machine himself
I feel spoilt!
I find it interesting how different Buccaneer is from Picaroon; in the same vein, I’m constantly surprised that I find Mudd so much easier than Paul. There are other examples, but those two stand out.
What a treat after the festivities. Picaroon and Buccaneer on the same day.
Thanks for the blog Cineraria which for once I did not need as all parsed very nicely.
What would be remarkable in my view would be if a puzzle from JB was NOT absolutely brilliant!
Misspelled ‘Gobbledegook’ (Failed to spot ‘ego’ for ‘I’), and I also missed ’emend’ because I did not check that I had completed the grid. So, I failed on both Picaroon and Buccaneer today, but I did enjoy all the ones I did solve and enter. The ‘lift and separate’ in 15d is delightful, and a very nice nod to Dusty Springfield.
Thanks Buccaneer for an excellent crossword. I found this much more to my liking than Picaroon’s offering in the Guardian. [I think Roz once said that the quality of the clueing can be compromised when a setter has a theme. In my opinion that happened with Picaroon today.] My top choices were SHOCK, HEINOUS, DREADS, EGGBOUND, and LESSEE. I missed the very clever 14a. Thanks Cinearia for untangling this gem.
I found this hard and gave up with one to go – Notification. Probably shouldn’t have capitulated, but I am at home with a cold and spent hours trying to crack this puzzle, slowly finding the answers.
I had to return several times, the top right hand corner proving, particularly tricky for this hack solver.
Thanks for the very helpful explanations. It is so depressing when people say they find these puzzles easy “rattling thus off”. I’ve been trying to solve crosswords for the last 15 years and they still beat me. There should follow this comment lots of tearful emojis.
Thanks Buccaneer and Cineraria
15dn: This went in unparsed, but it is lovely to see a signalled splitting of a clue word.
22dn: Still running a day late, I am surprised that no one seems to have objected to “penny” for D. Chambers 2014 gives the abbreviation as meaning “a penny or pence (before 1971)”. I think the clue would have been fairer had it said “old penny”.
Thank you Buccaneer and Cineraria
I found this very challenging. But also instructive. I managed to convince myself that the answer to 13d was powderkeg as in keg = can, dear = red backward, and pow = a blow as in cartoons. !
Agreed a great puzzle – we only got around to it today – although we neede help for FOUNDING FATHER and NOTIFICATION. We didn’t know PLUMBAGO as a plant, but on checking in Chambers we see that that definition comes befor the lead ore one. Difficult to pick a favourite, but we liked OEDIPAL, POTASH, BATTERSEA and the hidden OBSTACLE.
Thanks, Buccaneer and Cineraria.
Hmm, not such a big fan of the APOLOGIST clue. Also I though EGG BOUND was two words …