Guardian Cryptic 28,978 by Picaroon

77 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28,978 by Picaroon”

1. This was a tough one that I nearly ditched. I couldn’t parse NUMERAL, BACTERIA, COMPLEX SENTENCE, HOP IT or UNASSISTED till I came here, whereupon most resulted in a “D’oh!”. When I saw 19a, I feared that it may depend on some specific British knowledge that I lacked, but was relieved when I saw “smog” and confidently entered it. But no. I’ve never heard of ERG. As a result of the smog, 6d eluded me!

   I was unaware that “hep” is an old form of “hip”.

   Unison/harmony are strange bedfellows. Synonyms often, as here, but to musicians often antonyms. “Does your choir sing in unison or in harmony?”

2. But I did enjoy it! Thanks Picaróon & manehi.

3. I found it really tough to get started, and after a quarter of an hour I think I only had GRETA GARBO and MONGREL. But it steadily yielded, and was enjoyable all the way. Tough, but absolutely fair.
   Some lovely feats of construction, such as NUMERAL, EMANCIPATED, DOWN TO THE GROUND. Some slightly less cliched bits of GK making an appearance, such as Michael Faraday and the Hopi Native Americans.
   Chapeau for the brilliant (though sadly accurate) surface of 19a!
   One very mild beef is that strictly singing in UNISON is different to singing in harmony, but I guess that is the same beef as protesting every time it appears that an alibi is strictly not an excuse.
   Grateful thanks to Picaroon and manehi.

4. I agree with Manehi that this was quite tricky. 16a was my first one in after being perplexed by the previous across clues. Variations on 20d have occurred before, but it still took me ages for the penny to drop, which then helped with 19a. Much less polite words came to mind on seeing Rees-Mogg in the clue. I think someone on the Guardian thread complained about 15d being plural, but the clue implying singular. ! liked 11a when I finally saw it, as well as 16d when I saw what the white house was. Thanks to Picaroon and to Manehi for the blog.

5. Absolutely top notch and very fine blog
   Thanks for explaining E R G and parsing of GAUCHERIE (I somehow had ERIC Blair stuck in my mind- as you do)
   Thanks Pickers and manehi

6. Went quite smoothly but then, as usual, had to reveal the last few.

   Shame on Picaroon giving BACTERIA as a singular – I look forward to seeing him quoted in Pedanticus tomorrow. Did like the FARAWAY clue though.

   Thanks manehi and Picaroon

7. Most enjoyable mental tussle with several aha pdms.

   I wondered at bacteria with ‘it’ too but Chambers does list bacteria as a non standard singular usage so fair enough.

   Big ticks for the absent minded scientist, and the ‘abridged’ versions of Hardy and The Woman in White.

   Thanks both.

8. Tough but fair and fun. Very few in on the first pass but lots I felt I’d parsed and couldn’t quite find the right word so quite satisfying as it all fell into place. A nice balance of the technical and the creative, and I always enjoy a slightly surreal parsing challenge a la DOWN TO THE GROUND. Thanks P and M.

9. Bacteria may cause a complaint. It may cause a complaint. What’s the problem? Who says “they may cause a complaint” when referring to bacteria/ums.
   Forget music for harmony/unison. If you’re in harmony with someone else’s views, then you’re in unison.
   My only struggle was with the ERG in BERG which I had to research as it really couldn’t be anything else.

10. Musically, UNISON is not the same as harmony. I had BERK for 19a until came to 20d and changed it. Ir was only an hour or so after I’d finished the puzzle and was half asleep that I parsed BERG, very clever, but berg really needs the ice to be a main hazard.

11. A splendid tussle today. Like others, it would appear, I struggled to find purchase and it took several patient passes through the grid to complete. And, even then, I was beaten by HEPBURN, not knowing HEP and failing to identify either actress as one of a pair. Some really imaginative devices in here – (i)GLOO, BRID(e), NEXT, the boozy clue, SAT(a)YR, the cut frame and even the ERG. Lovely stuff.

    Thanks Picaroon and manehi

12. PS. Blah’s comment @7 has reminded me to nominate FARAWAY as another fave device.

13. From the Guardian style guide:

    “bacteria
    plural of bacterium, so don’t write “the bacteria is”; even more important, don’t confuse with viruses”

14. Another vote for GLOOMY, for the wordplay elements and the amusing surface. Similarly, ticks for SATYR, EMANCIPATED, LORDSHIP, MONGREL and IN FOCUS. DOWN TO THE GROUND was a giggle.

    We have 4 politicians mentioned, or 3 plus one’s wife, 2 French and 2 British, and an indirect reference to Trump, but the only GK I needed to look up was the ERG in BERG. ( For a while, with only the second letter E, I was stuck on the ”main hazard” being LEAK, but couldn’t make any sense of the parsing, unless several of R-M’s fellow Tories were responsible for leaks.)

    Very grateful for the HYBRID clue. Didn’t know The Woman in White ( I can hear gasps about this ignorant Aussie) but am heading to my bookshop to see if it’s still in print. On my bucket list.

15. Well Roz got what she wished for, a big bad wolf of a crossword today. That was tough, with some really good penny dropping moments, for example, BERG, when I finally got it.

    Thank you to manehi and Picaroon.

16. Hard to get into and lots I couldn’t parse – thanks, manehi.
    Please, please can we keep bacteria and criteria as plurals?

17. Another superb puzzle from Picaroon although I’m another pedant to grind his teeth over the bacteria/bacterium issue in 15d, just as I grimace every time I see ‘criteria’ and ‘phenomena’ used as singulars.

18. Fantastic puzzle – what a joy, although very tricky! Loved GLOOMY, NEXT and ANGELIC in particular. Many thanks to Picaroon and manehi.

19. Splendid puzzle, a joy from start to finish (with the exception of the bacterial solecism 🙁 ). Great constructions and wonderful surfaces.

    Favourites as for manehi, with particular plaudits for GLOOMY and MONGREL.

    Many thanks to S&B

20. Absolutely loved this. Took ages but all the penny-drop moments made it a joy from start to finish. Chambers does list ‘bacteria’ as a non-standard singular. I guess the idea is a mass noun like ‘data’ which is often used in the singular. Not mad keen but won’t complain.

21. Great puzzle. I spent far too long trying to make GAUCHERIE work as ERI-c inside GAUCHE, even though Macron is only on the left compared to his recent opponent in the election run-off. As ever, the true parsing is far simpler and more elegant.

22. This was certainly one of Picaroon’s tougher challenges but I would never give up on one of his puzzles, because I know that I can utterly rely on the integrity of his cluing. It’s ironical, then, that I find myself in total agreement with George @17. However, there seems to be dictionary justification for 15dn, so I suppose I must just grit my teeth, with a sigh, rather than grind them. (Is it possible that Picaroon is subtly suggesting that ‘it’ (BACTERIA), as the definition, might cause complaint. 😉 )

    As for unison / harmony, I have no problem at all: they’re autantonyms, as others have suggested. I belong to a couple of choirs and we usually sing in harmony, rather than unison: when we’re not singing, we’re usually happily in unison.

    I have far too many ticks to list but I loved GLOOMY particularly, for adding ‘gracious’ to the cor / my / well associations that we’ve been commenting on (again) recently.

    Many thanks to Picaroon for another superb puzzle and manehi for a great blog.

23. Liked SATYR, APRON; BERG (loi).

    New for me DOWN TO THE GROUND; HEP = hip/cool.

    I did not parse 16ac apart from that it looked like an anagram; 22ac GAU (got the CHERIE bit).

    Thanks, both.

    I agree with TimC@9 :
    Forget music for harmony/unison. If you’re in harmony with someone else’s views, then you’re in unison.

    Geoff@1 NeilH@3 and revbob@10 re UNISON/harmony as far as I can see in this instance, the clue and answer have nothing to do with singing/music but what you say is true otherwise

24. Gove yesterday and Rees-Mogg today. Surely the Grauniad is not going right wing ?

    A lovely puzzle, just the way to start the morning. Loved GAUCHERIE and HYBRID. FARADAY -> FARAWAY – cagey that W D move. 40 winks before I solved it.

    Being an ex-I.T.er, I was happy to see NUMERAL and OCTET ( 8 bits when the use of the word “byte” would confuse ) in the same crossword, although the latter, in context, had a musical connotation today.

    Not completely sure that GREENS is a good collective for party food.

    Hope we’re all in unison about respecting National Holocaust Memorial Day.

    Thank you Picaroon and manehi.

25. I ended up having to reveal 1d (I can’t recall ever seeing COMP though Chambers allows it), but then everything went in fairly smoothly. Also failed on BERG (I wanted REEF for some reason) but liked the rest. Clever and challenging.

26. I’m in total agreement with Eileen. [ I am another who briefly thought that you couldn’t describe Macron as on the left before the penny dropped]

27. I parsed HEPBURN, but only because I’m a Joe Jackson fan: “We The Cats shall hep ya, so reap this righteous riff”.

    I suspect a lot of non-UK solvers didn’t know about the ERG, but it was pretty clear from the definition.

28. I love the unison / harmony autantonym, thanks Eileen!
    Like others I found this tough bout very rewarding. I always persevere with Picaroon even though after 15 minutes I had nothing! Then I got HYBRID and slowly progressed, finishing the lower half and then the Eastern top quarter before the pennies finally dropped in a heap at the last corner.
    As others have said, some really imaginative and original clueing. Thank you yet again Picaroon, long may you set Guardian puzzles, and thank you manehi for the impeccable parsing.

29. Defeated by some of these (NUMERAL, SATYR, GELATIN, ANGELIC) but no complaints: it was all there if I could have seen it, and I did like the def for NUMERAL. Several more unparsed. Took me a while to realise that HEPBURN didn’t start with HIP, and GAUCHERIE wasn’t something ending in TONY. Anyway, I enjoyed what I got: favourites HYBRID and BERG.

30. This was very difficult but getting 1ac first helped a lot. I’ve seen GRETA GARBO clued before in the Guardian and upon searching found that Tramp had clued it in 2018 and Paul in 2020 but in totally different ways, which I found interesting. Had to search types of camels as I only knew Dromedary. GLOOMY, FARAWAY and GAUCHERIE were marvellous but my COD was COMPLEX SENTENCE for its smooth surface.

    Ta Picaroon & manehi.

31. I also wondered if BERG was an actress, sitting alongside GARBO, and found there were more than a pair.

32. Bacteria as a singular noun is definitely a complaint from me

33. Very good puzzle. Couldn’t parse gloomy without your help, so that was last in but couldn’t be anything else. Loved Gaucherie.

34. I somehow managed to get within three of finishing this. That’s real progress on where I was a year ago! Once I’d revealed NUMERAL (really not sure I’d ever have got that) the final two fell into place. I especially liked CHARGRILLED, BACTERIA and (above all) BERG. An excellent puzzle which fits with the tradition for Fridays. With thanks to both.

35. Very tricky for me to get into. I eventually solved the bottom half with lots of white spaces at the top before I managed to finish it.

    I can’t believe people trying to support ‘it’ used for bacteria. And, yes, Tim C @9, I would definitely say: “They (bacteria) may cause a complaint.” I forgot about the ERG, which is the best thing anyone can do about them. I also got my knickers in a twist about GAUCHERIE with gauche and Eri(c) Blair not quite working.

    I liked NUMERAL, MONGREL, EMANCIPATED, GLOOMY and BRUSH UP.

    Thanks Picaroon for the challenge and manehi for unravelling it all.

36. Brilliant crossword that I enjoyed very much. I agree about Blair: Tony, Lionel, Eric, even Isla came to me before Cherie. ERG foxed me. And Everyman on Sundays, for one, could learn from Picaroon’s excellent anagram indicators.

37. 19A was nearly my first in until I realised that my 5 letter answer wouldn’t fit into 4 cells. The first half of my wordplay was a bit iffy too.

    Thought this was a wonderful crossword. Needed a lot of teasing out and quite a few misdirections. Thanks both

38. Is 22A GAUCHERIE also somewhat &lit, being French for “ineptitude” or “awkwardness”, as Macron might say?

    If not it is certainly very clever!

39. Surely it’s unfair to use Rees-Mogg in a four letter clue – it has to be TWAT, ARSE, FOOL etc.

    I thought this was brilliant – I always enjoy Picaroon but even more so when he turns the difficulty dial up to 11

    Bonus point for MY / GRACIOUS 🙂

    Cheers P&M

40. Found this very hard as some others did. Last one in was UNASSISTED, though I have to admit I might have cheated a bit today. Several I couldn’t parse at all. Didn’t quite become SPLENETIC with frustration, but I did have to come back for second helpings with the top half still to be filled. I love the way SPLENETIC rolls off the tongue, however, when spoken. FARAWAY made me chuckle. GAUCHERIE was a bit confusing in that the French word Gauche appears in it, but it’s clued to be mostly about Cherie Blair. Lots to like, and a proper challenge today…

41. This was hard with some great misdirections, but it all ultimately went in correctly.

    I had heard of Rees-Mogg but didn’t know much about him beyond his being a Conservative MP and being disliked around here. I was wondering if he was one of the Wets (4 letters with an E in the right place), so I thought I’d read a little about him. The European Research Group was mentioned in the first paragraph of his Wki page. Was that “cheating”? – dunno, but I felt comfortable doing it.

42. TWAT, ARSE, FOOL
    Surely the answer to 19a has to be what Krishnan Guru-Murthy called Rees-Mogg’s fellow ERGer Steve Baker?

43. This was tricky in places, but very satisfying to solve. My first answer was FARAWAY, and what a beautiful clue it is! I also enjoyed HYBRID and GLOOMY. A plethora of four-letter words sprang instantly to mind in connection with Rees-Mogg, but none was a danger to shipping…
    Thank you Picaroon & manehi
    [PS I live in France and round here they describe Jacob R-M as “BCBG”. It stands for Bon Chic Bon Genre and is generally translated as “posh”. However, for the french this expression is not remotely complimentary and it’s understood to mean the kind of buffoon who goes around pretending they’re well-off…. I asked our local bar-owner, who’s bilingual, how he’d translate it and, after a long pause he said, “a wanker”]

44. Never thought of IGLOO for “White House” in 16d. Never heard of ERG for Rees-Mogg in 19a.

    copmus@5 and gladys@29 I tried and tried to think of a synonym for “ineptitude” ending with -TONY.

    When I had the top half of the puzzle filled in I still had a lot of gaps in the bottom, most of which I filled in this morning. Good puzzle with lots of ingenious clues!

    What or who is Pedanticus?

    Thanks to Picaroon and to manehi.

45. Fine puzzle and blog. Thanks both. My favourite was ANGELIC. A pin-up or a leg over!!!

46. I think Eileen @22 is correct.
    “Is it possible that Picaroon is subtly suggesting that ‘it’ (BACTERIA), as the definition, might cause complaint. ”
    Because it certainly has caused complaints here.

    Excellent crossword. Lots of Penny Drop Moments.
    If you liked this, might I suggest, in case you missed it, Independent 11,319 by Tyrus.
    Full of PDMs and a Triple Tea Tray.
    Brilliant.

47. FrankieG @ 42

    That, in the plural, was my first guess for 19A. Had to be!

48. Hi Valentine @44

    Pedanticus appears in Chris Maslanka’s Pyrgic puzzles each Saturday in the Guardian – see here for last week’s
    https://www.pressreader.com/uk/the-guardian-e-paper-journal/20230121/281629604391547 …

    … and, before you ask, see here
    https://pyrgic.blogspot.com/2011/04/what-pyrgic-means.html

49. FrankieG @46 – my apologies for the missing question mark. ;-0

50. Dnk Minister Reet-Smug’s faction, so berg was a shrug, and hop it took a stare, despite Hopi being a favourite [for Benjamin Whorf-ish reasons]. But it was the last NW few … numeral, next and comp+lex … that held out, and only fell after I’d stopped toggling between this, the tennis and the BBL [the nationwide T20 comp, the Big Bash League … reminds me of Carl Sagan ridiculing the origin theory by dubbing it The Big Bang, now standard of course!]. Thanks Pirate and manehi for adding to the day’s entertainment.

51. For all the Jacob Rees-Mogg fans on Fifteensquared today ( sarcasm, sarcasm ), I’m going to give this list to my younger son whose wife is expecting. An inspirational choice of name should surely evolve from Mr Rees-Mogg’s brood…..

    Peter Theodore Alphege Rees-Mogg
    Mary Anne Charlotte Emma Rees-Mogg
    Thomas Wentworth Somerset Dunstan Rees-Mogg
    Anselm Charles Fitzwilliam Rees-Mogg
    Alfred Wulfric Leyson Pius Rees-Mogg
    Sixtus Dominic Boniface Christopher Rees-Mogg

52. Aoxomoxoa@47.
    I thought that might be what you meant @37.

53. GDU @1, I first learnt about “hep” from a Donald Duck comic. Daisy was worried because Donald had become obsessed with the latest in thing and wanted to be a “hep cat” (something like that … it was about 65 yrs ago).

54. Thanks manehi as I didn’t understand the “complex” part of 1d, otherwise am very much aligned with the consensus regarding difficulty and highlights (though a few regulars are clearly not the hepcats I had previously imagined). On balance decided I’d have been happy without the offending “it” in 15d but can see how that may seem a little undefined. Anyway thanks very much Picaroon.

55. Gaucherie evoked Cherie opening the door the morning after in her nightie, which I loved her for, and the death far too young of Helen McRory who played her in The Queen … sad.

56. Flea @ 51

    Says it all really.

57. I think Flea @51 demonstrates why revbob @10 probably wasn’t the only one to have BERK as the answer to 19a.
    Incidentally, isn’t it fascinating that “berk” is a reasonably strong but generally acceptable derogatory expression (Chambers’ “a fool” doesn’t really capture it, IMHO), while everyone knows that it’s actually a contraction of Cockney rhyming slang for a completely unacceptable term of abuse?

58. [Eileen @ 58 Well done and thanks for finding those references to Pedanticus. I tried quite hard but couldn’t find a suitable one]

59. How lovely to be reminded of the FARAWAY tree (even though it ain’t what it used to be).

    AlanC @31, there may be a mountain of BERGs, but coming straight after Bogart surely Picaroon had Ingrid BERGman in mind? (There’s a MAN further down, so both parts of her name are IN the GRID. I rest my case. 🙂 )

    And what a great tribute to the two HEPBURNs, who were indeed both cool and smart, in their different ways. Definitely &littish I’d say.

    Picaroon does it again; thanks to him, and manehi for a super blog.

60. Thanks for the blog, Shanne@15 not exactly a big, bad wolf . Perhaps a slightly mischeivous Jack Russell .
    I liked BACTERIA for the word play but the “it” spoils it. Can Bactrian refer to camels in plural? Add an S to camel and change it to they.
    EMANCIPATED is also net but police force= CID ? Not sure , we need AlanC.
    HYBRID and FARAWAY very good, so much of the modern world is due to Michael Faraday.
    The ERG is more commonly known as the Economlc Ruin Group.

61. Roz@60. t
    Typically witty entry. Love the faraway clue, but not sure that ‘so much of the modern world’ is a compliment so much as a critique.

62. I was thinking of the production and distribution of electricity plus electric motors.

63. An ideal Friday puzzle, testing but doable in a couple of hours. As Eileen@22 said it is always worth persevering with Picaroon ; his clues are generally very fair. Almost completed this, but defeated by NUMERAL,,NEXT and UNISON. Many fine clues but HYBRID and GLOOMY exceptional.
    Flea@24: The definition isn’t party food. GREENS is a double definition for a) party and b)food for the health conscious
    Flea@51: Good to have the list. You could feel sorry for them were they not so privileged.

64. Thanks, Picaroon & manehi. Slow start, quick finish sums it up for me. Didn’t even register the bacteria thing and don’t care about it either. The BERG clue is an absolute beauty. Like others, I had to banish other four-letter words from my mind.

65. Occurs to me that Araucaria would have skirted the it/they issue by omitting the pronoun altogether. Then we would have had a whole other discussion.

66. [Re electricity distribution, Roz @62, some bloke on radio was dissing Tesla as a showman, and I thought But didn’t he invent the A/C generator which, er, powers the entire industrial world?]

67. essexboy @59: I had exactly the same thought about Ingrid and searched for the ‘man’ bit without success and have only got it now after your prompt and seeing EMANCIPATED…and following on from Roz @60, the CID is one of many departments within a force. I have griped about this inaccuracy before but couldn’t be arsed this time…

68. A very nice puzzle despite not getting gaucherie or hop it. Both I’ve not heard of. More familiar with the term beat it for the latter.

69. @59 Essexboy, my mother read Enid Blyton, I read Enid Blyton and now my kids read Enid Blyton. Nothing wrong with the books. In fact we’re listening to the audiobook for the faraway tree series in our car. I especially enjoyed Blyton’s five findouters series with Fatty and co. So much so that I wanted badly to become a detective when I grew up!

70. Thanks AlanC@67 I wanted confirmation from the horse’s mouth so to speak. Both my favourite clues had issues which could have been fixed if the absent=minded professor was doing his job.

71. Grant@66 , Faraday discovered electro-magnetic induction and in a way “invented” the a.c . generator , motor and transformer.
    You are quite right about Tesla though , much important work on the practical side of actual production and distribution , Edison had a rival d.c. system . I am a big fan of Tesla , glad he has an SI unit named after him.

72. Started on the Friday and finished on Saturday. Not at all easy. A fine puzzle, marred only (for me) by the over-use of words to denote their initial letters (nearly half of MONGREL!) but I know that not everyone objects to the device. On seeing HEPBURN (could it be an &lit?) and GRETA GARBO, as well as Bogart in a clue I thought that there might be a theme, but alas not. I am not too sure about BERG – the definition leads to ‘iceberg’ so it would be nice to have some indication that an abbreviation of the word is being used. But small grumbles in the big picture of a very enjoyable crossword, with UNASSISTED, GAUCHERIE, LORDSHIP, BRUSH UP and HOP IT being particular favourites, along with GLOOMY once Manehi had parsed it for me. New to me was ‘lex’ = ‘law’. Thanks Manehi and Picaroon

73. I love Shanne @15’s description of this one as a “big bad wolf of a crossword” – a toughie, but also very fair. I gave up this morning on 2: NEXT (had the X, resorted to running thru alphabet in each space, couldn’t place a T in the last letter, kept trying to make SEXY work) (there’s a joke there somewhere) and UNISON (per above was sure it must end in S). Thanks again Picaroon, Manehi and all above. Great fun.

74. JaneE @73 – the big bad wolf came from Roz’s comment on the Fed the day before, asking for a more challenging crossword after a week of relatively easy ones. I was quoting her comment. I found this Picaroon challenging, but I find he can be the toughest of the current regular setters for me, but that may be a wavelength thing.

75. Paul @ 72

    While I get where you’re coming from, I don’t think MONGREL is a case in point.

    NG for NO GOOD (sometimes NBG) has been a standard abbreviation for at least 50 years, while L = LARGE is in everyday use, eg on clothes.

76. And nobody posted the earworm I had from this crossword – Down to the Ground

77. Insanity level of difficulty. Bravo to anyone who get even a few clues of this done without a lot of assistance.

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