Guardian Cryptic 29,395 by Picaroon

82 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 29,395 by Picaroon”

1. Thanks Picaroon and loonapick
   What’s happened to the real Picaroon? This was unusually loose. “Rash” for HEADY? Why “whizz” in 10a?.
   Still there was also much to like. SLYEST favourite

2. I didn’t enjoy this as much as I usually do with Picaroon’s, due in part to big gaps in my knowledge. I’d never heard of Yogi Berra, Euler, EREMITIC or Nana by Zola. Collins doesn’t include wigged/scolded, and I’d never heard of it … is it a British thing? And I’d forgotten that bap is bread. So my NHO and “Huh?” lists were longer than usual, and I had to reveal a few at the end.

   Tweeting/beeping?

   My favourite clue, that brought a big smile, was LASSIE.

   Thanks Picaroon, & Loonapick for the blog.

3. No GK problems for me this time, fortunately, but had trouble with “Bewigged” which was LOI. Liked “Lassie”, “Knee” and “Hostage”
   Thank you to Picaroon and Loonapick.

4. A glorious romp. Ticks for everything except 13&6. Doubles for BATHING CAP, HOSTAGE, PEEPING TOM and LASSIE

   I even spotted the theme!

   Cheers L&P

5. GDU@2
   Tweet and peep are both words used to describe high-pitched bird noises.

6. Muffin @1 – from Chambers …

   heady adjective
   Affecting the brain
   Intoxicating
   Inflamed
   Rash
   Violent
   Exciting

7. I don’t see a problem with calling Euler a whizz. Not normally associated with geniuses, I agree, but brought a smile. My knowledge of current English/American pop is limited so ARIANA GRANDE and SHAKIRA had to be dredged up from somewhere, though I guessed the Gershwin would be IRA rather than George fairly early on. I thought this was fairly normal Picaroon fare with some erudition on show. EREMITIC took a while to come to me and I admit that ‘bear’ rather than BERRA was the first association that sprang to mind for 9. Lots to like, including the simple but effective 21 GLEAN. Thanks to Picaroon and loonapick

8. Nice puzzle and great blog!
   Thanks Picaroon and loonapick!
   COTD: DISENGAGED
   Other faves: BATHING CAP, PEEPING TOM and SOHO.

   EREMITIC
   I took the ‘using computers’ as IT.

9. I solved ABERRATION without checking for Yogi Berra, but other than that, all in and parsed.

   The Manchester nail bomb happened after an ARIANA GRANDE concert, SHAKIRA has been around awhile, and Harry Styles is a gift to crossword setters, so we’ve seen a lot of him, and Dua Lipa (there was a crossword based on her latest album recently). So no excuses there.

   The wigged in BEWIGGED I suspect is old fashioned, I link it with Billy Bunter or Jennings books, where the teachers were wigs and to be told off was to get a wigging.

   EULER has mathematical theorems, a number and constant named after him.

   Thank you to Picaroon and loonapick.

10. A nod to Yankees I think, both with the renowned sage of that baseball team, and the American slang “whizz” for “urinate” lending pungency to the EULER surface, although surely a “math whiz” has only one “zee”?

    Here’s a list of Yogi’s sayings, some of which have the definitive ring of Colemanballs:
    https://ftw.usatoday.com/2019/03/the-50-greatest-yogi-berra-quotes

11. Thanks Picaroon and loonapick

    Lots of GK as stated above – but mostly stuff easily picked up in my location. I might have been less happy if I had been outside UK.

    Those who don’t know Yogi Berra should look him up. Whilst he was a baseball player coach it is his sayings (?) that he is remembered for. They are often self-contradictory and bizarre – “it’s deja vu all over again”

12. Yogi Berra … new to me, but I’m happy to understand the naming of https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yogi_Bear at last.
    I found this tough going, but eventually solveable with a bit of guesswork. Failed to parse 1ac. as noted above, enjoyed 4 and 7d.
    Thanks to Picaroon and loonapick.

13. Rather more GK-heavy than the average Picaroon, and some uncommon vocabulary. I didn’t parse SHAKIRA: despite guessing IRA Gershwin, I missed shake=rock (I’m useless at synonyms). Also missed the cross reference in ARABIAN SEA because I’d convinced myself it worked along the lines of those “third thing = thing C” clues Paul is so fond of.

    Favourites DISENGAGED (for the laugh), LASSIE (for the slightly inaccurate definition), BEWIGGED and SLYEST: I see Styles has now replaced Potter as the Harry to be harried in clues of that kind.

    Thanks Picaroon, and loonapick for the enlightenment.

14. Thank you loonapick.

    I loved ABERRANCE, for the surface. Still laughing at the deviant Yogi.

    KVa @8. EREMITIC. I just saw ”using” as a link word/pointer to the wordplay.

15. paddymelon@14
    EREMITIC
    I feel Computers don’t mean IT. The use of computers/using computers is IT.
    We have different takes on IT.

16. Fortunately, I had all the requisite GK. I even saw Yogi Berra (and Mickey Mantle) play baseball when I was a little kid. I did notice some of it was very Pommy: baps, wigging, what happened in 1981… The anagrist for COLD HEARTEDNESS was an absolute ripper. Thanks, Picaroon and loonapick.

17. I have seen multiple setters using I SEE for IC (as in 18) without a homophone indicator. Can SEE really just be abbreviated to C like this?

    Otherwise very much enjoyed, slow and steady solve!

18. Enjoyed this. First two in were EULER and PRIMER, so, with “base 3” in 14d, we were expecting a Maths (mini-)theme. For the main (music) theme, one could also include Sweeney Todd.
    Thanks Picaroon and Loonapick

19. I’m yet another who solved ABERRANCE by way of mistakenly thinking at first that yogi gave bear and , again like Shanne, I remembered ‘wigging’ from both Billy Bunter and Jennings.

    I knew all the singers by name, at least and admired the way Picaroon exploited their names. Also impressed by the splendid anagram in COLD-HEARTEDNESS and the link between 3 and 14dn.

    Plenty of smiles today, including KNEE, BEWIGGED, DISENGAGED and LASSIE.
    Ticks also for HOSTAGE, PALLADIUM, PERSONAL, TODD … in fact, as for Bodycheetah, practically everything – a ‘glorious romp’ indeed.

    Many thanks to Picaroon and lucky loonapick – great blog!

20. I thought NANNA was a missed opportunity for Nana Mouskouri. Apart from the songs she was famous for, she did perform in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1963, so that would make her a ”popular” singer.

21. Quite tough.

    I could not parse 1d.
    5d – it seemed as if observer alone would have been enough of a definition without the ‘getting excited’ bit, eww. For me, it was too much information conjuring up an unpleasant image.

    New for me: EREMITIC; WIG = scold/rebuke; baseball player Yogi Berra (1925–2015), American baseball player – totally never heard of him!

    Favourites: GLEAN, DISENGAGED, TEST BAN.

    Thanks, both.

22. Jimbo @17: ‘See’ is given in Chambers as the spelling of the third letter of the alphabet.

23. I liked this one a lot. Probably the most approachable of the GIFT puzzles today but that is no complaint. I enjoyed the music references even if most of the artists are known to me by name only (and often from the role they play in crosswords. Dua Lipa certainly appears to have been somewhat of a gift to the setting fraternity, as well as Harry S as noted in the blog). I did not spot BERRA when parsing but, on reading the blog, I realise I have vaguely heard of him.

    Faves inc ABNEGATED, COLDHEARTEDNESS, PALLADIUM, GLEAN, TEST BAN, BATHING CAP, KNEE and SOHO.

    Thanks Picaroon and loonapick

24. Very nicely done by Picaroon. COLD-HEARTEDNESS in particular is a brilliant spot.
    It’s good to be reminded of Yogi Berra. And Leonhard Euler, who demonstrated that e (the base of natural logarithms) to the power of i (the square root of -1) times pi (the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter) minus one equals zero.
    A mathematician friend of mine once remarked that the fact that five of the most important quantities in mathematics, two of which (e and pi) can’t be expressed exactly and one of which (i) actually doesn’t exist at all, can be linked in this way came nearer than anything else to making him believe in God.
    Thanks, both.

25. Agree Michelle@21. As you say: it seemed as if observer alone would have been enough of a definition without the ‘getting excited’ bit, eww. For me, it was too much information conjuring up an unpleasant image.

26. Michelle @21 I agree 5 down quite distasteful. Otherwise good fun. Many thanks

27. I really enjoyed this. Thanks very much Picaroon and loonapick. My favourites were COLD HEARTEDNESS and LASSIE. Roger GS @10 loved the quotes. Jimbo @17, C is also text speak e.g. CUL8R … I know, I know… I’ll get my coat 😎.

    [Does anyone have a link to a user friendly version of the Bank Holiday Prize please? As ever, I can’t get the PDF to work. Jay, you sent me the Christmas one, so I’m hoping you might. ]

28. All the usual fun from a Picaroon puzzle. A wide range of GK required, but nothing beyond my ken, fortunately – though all those pop stars are little more than names to me. Good to see the mathematician amongst them. I suspect that the pirate looked for a word that would incorporate the letters of Ed Sheeran rather than find him serendipitously amongst COLDHEARTEDNESS, but that doesn’t invalidate a good clue.

    Too many splendid clues to select favourites. The only one I thought a bit weak was NANNA, since ‘nana’ is a valid and commonly used alternative spelling (though I confess the first thing that came to mind was ‘Cousin Bette’ until I remembered that she belonged to Balzac 🙂 ).

    The first time I remember seeing Lady Gaga used as fodder + anagrind was in a puzzle by Araucaria. That old dog was always full of new tricks.

    Many thanks to Picaroon and loonapick (almost a Spoonerism)

29. Really enjoyed this with the setter getting down with the kids as well as with the oldies. I loved the simplicity of DISENGAGED. Sorry, but I can’t agree with the previous comments about PEEPING TOM. Surely, getting excited, is the whole point of the endeavour and therefore more than being a mere observer? STYLIST was my favourite.

    Ta Picaroon & loonapick

30. NeilH @24. I studied mathematics in my younger days and Euler was definitely the one you’d be most likely to call a whizz kid.
    Incidentally, loonapick, he was 18th-century, not 19th, which makes his achievements all the more extraordinary. (The wikipedia article about him exists in 157 languages. Is this a record for a person?)

31. Hanna Barbera’s picnic thieving bear was called Yogi after the baseball player and homespun philosopher Berra, but the association was probably lost on most Brits.

32. Parsing not my strongest point on many of these clues but that didn’t mar the great fun I had with this. Probably helped by some familiarity with the GK, though I was pleased to get EULER regardless of the name not being one I’d be able to dredge up from anywhere.

    Kicked myself for having to reveal KNEE as the last one, despite it quite literally being there in the clue.

33. me @30. Nowhere near a record: David Woodard (who?) has 307.

34. I think LASSIE is fine – “in Hollywood” the character is a bitch regardless of the gender of dogs that played her.

    Also I thought the “getting excited” was a nice bit of anagrind misdirection although I can see it has icky connotations too

35. I really enjoyed this, as I always do enjoy Picaroon’s puzzles. I found it hard to get started, but then got into the swing (no pun intended on the musical theme). Among many excellent clues, I particularly appreciated 20d.

36. NeilH@24. Good to have Euler eulogised (sorry) but can I get in ahead of Roz in pointing out that your comment should say ‘plus one’ not ‘minus one’.

37. AlanC@29. I’m surprised that you don’t see why that a PEEPING TOM, ”getting excited” has triggered a reaction in the three women who have commented. I get that the peeping Tom gets excited, but the general meaning of ”getting excited” is not this kind of excitement. As you would know, it’s an offence, and can escalate into far more serious consequences. But my beef is with Picaroon, for being a bit insensitive. As Michelle said, ”observer” would have been sufficient, or if anything else was needed, maybe something about windows.

    And thanks Bodycheetah@34 for seeing the ”ickiness”.

    Just to lighten the tone, and something closer to home, my earworm for today, Van Morrison, one of my favourites.

38. Quite brilliant – thanks Picaroon & loonapick

39. Picaroon on absolutely top form, loads of fun in here! Like others have said, ticks for virtually every clue. But I especially liked SHAKIRA, ARIANA GRANDE and BATHING CAP.

    Thank goodness for a setter who isn’t stuck in the 50s/60s/70s.

    Thanks Picaroon and loonapick

40. It was worth it for the genius EULER… e to the i pi plus one equals zero. Say no more.

41. Lol 20d is a superb clue! Peeping Tom had me chuckling.

42. paddymelon @37: I certainly understand the collective reaction, but I just don’t think the clue works without it. Insensitive, I am not. As an ex-cop, I’m very much aware about how serious an offence it is, but I’m commenting on a puzzle.

43. Rats@41. Rats! 🙂

44. Im a big Zola fan yet when I see”Zola novel” in a clue I think novel means anagram
    So I thought this was sneaky (I heavily recommend Nana if you can find a decent translation)
    I am behind the times with divas remembering names such as Franklin, Callas, Fitzgerald and (Sandy) Denny.But the clues worked and that is the mark of a good setter
    Always a pleasure solving Pickers

45. Thanks for the blog, sorry to be pedantic but EULER is very much 18th century.
    I liked the EULER clue for the Playtex back street , HOSTAGE is very neat and I like TAG, EREMITIC is a good construction and LASSIE is brilliant .
    I could do without all the proper names yet again, one usually a fake capital and split the name apart , it all gets a bit Sybil Fawlty.

    A spectacular IO in the FT today if anyone needs a further challenge .

46. Neil@24 , thanks Mike and Tim , e^ipi +1 = 0 actually has the SEVEN most important symbols.

47. Gervase @31, thank you, I wondered about that. Are his Colemanball’s quotes the reason for Boo-boo’s name is my next question?
    Pdm @37, thanks so much for the earworm. Also to say I do agree with you and others about the ickyness of the thought…

48. Don’t know much about contemporary music but worked backwards from ARABIAN SEA but only because of the Manchester incident. Was doing fine but came a cropper in the SE corner with the intersection of an obscure word, someone I’ve never heard of and a London-centric clue. Ho hum.

49. Yes, I know you’re not insensitive Alan C@42. Maybe the def for PEEPING TOM could have been “‘one looking through a glass darkly”?

50. Now that works perfectly without the ickiness 😉

51. Another great one from the pirate.

    I loved the surface for EULER, very clever! COLDHEARTEDNESS was a great anagram find, and I particularly liked the wordplays of EPHEDRINE, BATHING CAP, ARIANA GRANDE (solved after getting ARABIAN SEA), DISENGAGED, and LASSIE. Yet again, I failed to spot the primes; one day I’ll notice them!

    Thanks Picaroon and loonapick.

52. [NeilH @24, your mate would know of John Polkinghorne, a Templeton Prize winner on about the spirituality of mathematical elegance; said stuff like watching Paul Dirac lecture was like watching Bach compose]

53. Tangentially to EULER, I once spotted someone in a T shirt bearing the legend:

    (-1)^(1/2) 2^3 Σ π – and it was good!

54. Completed this in the early hours…hadn’t realised until very recently that the Cryptic comes promptly online at just after the bewitching hour of midnight each morning. Have been over tempted at times to leave sleeping for a while as I tackle the brand new puzzle…
    Strangely, my feelings about Picaroon’s offering today were those of the early birds on here. Didn’t feel as tight and as near perfect as they usually tend to be. Couldn’t parse ARABIAN SEA, BATHING CAP or the tiddly SOHO, at least the business of the middle OH letters. Though COLD-HEARTEDNESS was worth the entrance money on its own. (Listened to a one man band in a pub in Greystoke, Cumbria, over the Bank Holiday weekend murdering one of the Framingham chap made good’s best songs.)
    But I’m more than glad to read that the overall subsequent consensus from posters/solvers is a positive, appreciative one today

55. It’s great for crosswords that two modern pop stars, Lady Gaga and Harry Styles, have names that can be anagram indicators. In fact both of the latter’s names could be! It would be nice to see a setter use “Styles” as such for a change.

    A PEEPING TOM is a very unpleasant individual and the clue correctly conveys that. I agree with AlanC that “observer” by itself would not have been a sufficient definition.

    Many thanks Picaroon and loonapick.

56. Not going to comment on the ickiness, I just thought Picaroon was throwing in an anagram misdirection.

    [gif@52 JP was one of my professors, back in the day]

57. So much to enjoy. Great anagram for cold-heartedness. Disengaged was very good and funny. As a big fan of The Archers (not the radio but the film makers) it was very disappointing that Powell made Peeping Tom in 1960, a most unpleasant film! Not recommended. My favourite film of all time – A Matter of Life and Death. Highly recommended for annual viewing – maybe mix it up with I Know Where I’m Going. Thanks very much Picaroon and loonapick

58. Not a fan of ” educated guess’n’google” puzzles, but this was worth the admission price for LASSIE alone. Thanks both.

59. Thank you Loonapick for the parsing of 2D which eluded me, although with hindsight it is perfectly straightforward.

    And thank you Picaroon for the delightful puzzle. 16A a particular pleasure.

60. 12a, 16a, 22d solved today.

    Amongst many other types, clues with numbers in the, throw me off completely.

    1d – I don’t understand the definition…”in the main, one may use them”.

    Is “the main” some sort of swimming pool?

61. I’d never heard of most of the singers. Yogi Berra was of course familiar, though, but I did think it a little unfair to expect British solvers to have heard of him.

    Blaise — how can anybody know how many translations there are of a Wiki article?

    Gervae@53 Translate, please? I got as far as i.

    Thanks, Picaroon and loonapick.

62. Steffen@60 A trick to keep up your sleeve is that “the main” means “the sea,” as in “over the bounding main.” (And probably as in not much else, I think the word has long since fallen out of use in that sense.) So if you’re in the main yourself, you’re probably swimming, and might need a bathing cap.

    That’s the definition part. The wordplay is “A THING + C (circa, or “about”) inside BAP, one of those British bun thingies.

63. [Nice to know, Dr. Wh @56; so the weft weaves]

64. Valentine @61 it’s not the first time we’ve met Yogi Berra in a crossword. As the man himself said: “it’s like Deja vu all over again”

65. [ Valentine @61: i eight sum pi. A relatively uncontroversial bit of aural wordplay]

66. And as the man himself said: “I never said half the things I said.” According to Wikipedia, he tried to sue Hanna-Barbera for (almost) taking his name in vain, but they claimed it was pure coincidence and got away with it.

    Some of the Yogi Berra quotes are also attributed to Sam Goldwyn, who had a similar talent for verbal hiccups.

67. I’m too young–still in my 40s for a few more months–to have seen Yogi Berra play, but those memorable quotations live on. This puzzle took a while to finish, but as Yogi put it, it ain’t over till it’s over, and I did finally get there in the end.

    Predictably, we have people complaining that they haven’t heard of most of the singers. Last time she came up, I linked to Shakira’s “Whenever, Wherever.” To continue your education in early-21st century popular music, today you get Lady Gaga and Bad Romance. This was during the era when she was trying to out-Madonna Madonna, and that video is something she’d probably like back these days; to her credit, she’s matured as she’s aged. But the song is still extra-catchy.

    Ed Sheeran has a great voice, but I’ll save that one for next time.

    MikeB@36: nice visual pun, but you do know that EULER is pronounced “oiler”, right? I’ve long thought that the Edmonton Oilers of ice hockey should do an alternate jersey wit e^[i(pi)] +1=0 instead of OILERS as the name mark. That’s a jersey I’d actually consider buying.

68. Thanks Picaroon. I enjoyed this because I like inventive and entertaining surfaces. My top picks were ABERRANCE, EULER (liked the ‘backstreet in Paris’), EPHEDRINE, KNEE, PEEPING TOM, DISENGAGED, and LASSIE. I failed to parse DAILY, BATHING CAP, and HEAD BOYS. Thanks loonapick for explaining.

69. Oh, I also wanted to mention that I thought Nana as in grandma was spelled the same as the Zola novel. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it as NANNA. Must be a British thing?

70. mrp @69
    Yes, I’ve seen nana much more often than nanna. I don’t think it’s a British thing.
    I don’t think I ought to explain why Lassie was always played by a male dog 🙂

71. Re PEEPING TOM, the original villain in the Godiva legend was punished by being struck blind, or dead, according to different versions. But it is sobering to recall that voyeurism has only been made a criminal offence relatively recently in most jurisdictions.

72. Yes, Loonapick (and thanks for the blog), Yogi Berra was a coach too, but in baseball “manager” refers to the leader in the dugout giving instructions to the team, whereas the coaches are subordinates on the sidelines at the bases supervising the running in the infield (plus a pitching coach and a batting coach). Most would refer to Berra as a player/manager not a player/coach.

73. Needed quite a lot of guesswork here, but it all checks out once I finished and came here. EREMITIC was almost new to me, but I think I’ve come across the word somewhere, somewhen…

    And Yogi BERRA did ring a bell though I had no idea who he was until I looked it up. Apparently (Wiki) he pre-dated the ‘Bear’ of that name and wanted to sue cartoon makers Hanna-Barbera for ‘stealing’ his handle. But they claimed it was coincidence.

    NAN[N]A was another unknown to me but easy enough to guess from the crossers.

    And the other unsure one was SHAKIRA. I plead ignorance of such things but I was sure it must be either SHAKIRA or SHAPIRA (Shap Fell – a place with lots of rocks). At least I guessed right.

    ‘Likes’ for BATHING CAP, GLEAN, SOHO, HOSTAGE, EULER (18th not 19th century: 1707-1783), and TODD.

    Thanks to Pickers and Loonapickers…

74. Jimbo @17 See = C is in the dictionary – it could be a homophone too but in this instance it just means the letter C

    Chambers explains it much more succinctly 🙂

75. I did love LASSIE here. However, came here to ask, as I did on the Guardian page, if anyone else had put SEEDY instead of NANNA and thus got held up for ages. I wonder if the brilliant and ingenious Mr Brydon intended any ambiguity there or if I’m just being loosely-cannonical. I had CD (homophone = “relation of audiobook”: I can justify that because I ONLY know Moby-Dick and Gulliver’s Travels via the CDs I bought before my longest road trip, in 2012) and “seedy” as a version (= translation) of Germinal. I believe it works: unusual for such completely disparate answers to work like that, especially with part of wordplay becoming definition and vice versa. Much appreciated, Picaroon, loonapick, Ken and all.

76. Fine puzzle. I Googled Shalira and Slatira before finding Shakira, so technically a DNF for me.
    Komornik @75, that’s a brilliant parse, but I reckon Picaroon would have been accused of gross indirectness had he tried it 🙂.
    Thanks, loona and Pickers.

77. mrpenney @69. Nannan is the version our (French, basically) grand-kids use. As distinguished from Nanni (grandmother on the Indo-French side) and Papi. I’m just grandad (however you’re supposed to spell it)

78. Thanks to S & B. Good stuff.
    [MartyBridge@57: I’m with you that A Matter of Life and Death is terrific but I’m afraid I don’t agree about Peeping Tom. It’s certainly an uncomfortable watch but I think it’s up there with Hitchcock’s Vertigo as a reflection on the process of film-making and film-viewing (i.e., voyeurism).]

79. Thanks Picaroon and loonapick for the fun puzzle and informative blog. Between Yogi Berra and Euler – his amazing equation has been cited by quite a few above and it would have been nice to show it here in its glorious simplicity but I can’t get superscript to work in the comments section – lots to chat about below the line.

80. The BFI’s Top 100 films of last century, ‘as voted for by 1,000 leading figures of the movie industry’, in 1999: ‘
    9 The Red Shoes (1948, Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger)
    20 A Matter of Life and Death (1946 Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger)
    44 Black Narcissus (1947, Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger)
    45 The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943, Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger)
    78 Peeping Tom (1960, Michael Powell)’ — [P&P had dissolved the partnership in 1957]
    I love them all.

81. … 5% — only outnumbered by David Lean at 2, 3, 5, 11, 27, 46, and 92 — 7%

82. [I know I am late here so this will go unread…but just for the record I side with Marty Bridge @57 and not with Frankie G @80’s BFI voters. I Know Where I’m Going does not deserve to be absent from the list — although my own personal favourite is the truly quirky The Canterbury Tale. I find The Red Shoes pretentious and not as successful in its aspirations towards high art as The Tales of Hoffmann]

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