Guardian Cryptic 26,982 by Picaroon

by

Tricky fun with plenty of misdirection – some favourites were 16ac, 22ac, 5dn and 15dn, and the biggest laugh went to 18dn. Thanks, Picaroon

Across
9 HAIRBRUSH Hard to improve image of means to treat shock (9)
  in the def, “shock”=a mass of shaggy hair.

H[ard] plus AIRBRUSH=”improve image”
10 HOOKE Scientist‘s fine cutting tool for the garden (5)
  =Robert Hooke [wiki].

OK=”fine”, cutting into HOE=”tool for the garden”
11 RHUBARB Loudly regret insult in actors’ chatter (7)
  =a word muttered by actors to simulate background chatter.

Sounds like/”Loudly”: ‘rue barb’=”regret insult”
12 SUNGLOW Brilliance from a star, having performed bass part? (7)
  SUNG LOW=”performed bass part”
13 READY Trot round a yard is quick (5)
  RED=”Trot[skyite]” i.e. communist, around A, plus Y[ard]
14 HAWTHORNE US bookmaker may close in June (9)
  =Nathaniel Hawthorne, a US novelist or “bookmaker” [wiki].

“may” or ‘may tree’ is another name for the HAWTHORN tree, plus the close of [Jun]E
16 UNEXCEPTIONABLE Saving boring marriage, a bishop’s empty life is beyond reproach (15)
  EXCEPT=”Saving”, boring into UNION=”marriage”, plus A, plus B[ishop], plus L[if]E emptied of its central letters
19 EXTEMPORE Poet inflamed with mere kiss that’s spontaneous (9)
  (Poet mere X)*, where X=”kiss” and the anagram indicator is “inflamed”
21 TASER Exchange rates that can be shocking (5)
  (rates)*
22 CONTOUR It provides relief from cold, travelling around (7)
  a CONTOUR line on a map represents the relief [level] of the terrain.

C[old], plus ON TOUR=”travelling around”
23 CHEROOT Dashing fellow’s got in bed for a smoke (7)
  =a cigar. HERO=”Dashing fellow” in COT=”bed”
24 SUEDE On the radio, did rock’n’roll material (5)
  Sounds like/”On the radio”: ‘swayed’=”did rock’n’roll”
25 MACCHIATO Protection against dripping tea, carrying one to drink (9)
  MAC[kintosh coat]=”Protection against dripping [rain]”, plus CHA=”tea” around I=”one”, plus TO
Down
1 CHARTREUSE Green, cleaner recycling involves tonnes (10)
  =a greenish-yellow colour, from the liqueur of the same name.

CHAR=”Cleaner”=someone who cleans; plus RE-USE=”recycling”; with T[onnes] involved in the middle
2 SIMULATE Encourage theatre leader to go and act (8)
  =act as in ‘imitate’ or ‘play the part of’.

S[t]IMULATE=”Encourage” with t[heatre]’s leader going away
3 ABBACY Pop group with covers of Crosby provides role for elder brother (6)
  =a role for an elder brother/monk.

ABBA=”Pop group”, with the covers of C[rosb]Y
4 BULB Onion or what it makes you do, if brought up (4)
  an onion makes you cry or ‘blub’, which is BULB reversed/”if brought up”
5 GHOSTWRITE Wild tiger poked by entertainer with pen for another (10)
  (tiger)*, with HOST and W[ith] poking into the middle
6 CHIN-CHIN Toast’s not fully three inches (4-4)
  “not fully three inches” => [in]CH IN-CH IN[ch]
7 POPLAR Wood‘s in demand, we’re told yew’s dis­counted (6)
  POP[u]LAR=”in demand”, with u which sounds like “yew” discounted
8 MEOW Seagull circles round, making beastly noise (4)
  MEW=”Seagull”, circling O=”round”
14 HIPPODROME Racing venue in case more should run (10)
  HIP=popular=”in”, plus POD=”case”, plus (more)*
15 EXECRATION Hate helping to support boss (10)
  RATION=”helping”, supporting EXEC=”boss”
17 COMMONER I’m amazed, screening 2001 or one without a title (8)
  COR=”I’m amazed”, around: MM=2000 in Roman numerals + ONE, which together equals 2001
18 BESTOWAL Perhaps star in parliament holds a presentation (8)
  BEST OWL=”Perhaps star in parliament” as parliament is the collective noun for owls; around A
20 TENDER Sensitive figure embarrassed when rejected (6)
  TEN=”figure” or number, plus RED=”embarrassed” reversed/”rejected”
21 THE WHO Rock group might laugh (3,3)
  THEW=”might” plus HO=”laugh”
22 COSH Greek island with hot club (4)
  COS=”Greek island”, plus H[ot]
23 COCO Two businesses showing growth, which will bear fruit (4)
  =the tree that produces coconuts. CO[mpany] CO[mpany]=”Two businesses”

45 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 26,982 by Picaroon”

  1. Thanks Picaroon and manehi

    Entirely my fault, but I had too many solutions partly or completely unparsed for me to enjoy this as much as usual. (For those interested the clues were 16a, 2d, 14d, 18d and 21d.)

    I thought Picaroon might have come up with a better way of removing IN CH from “three inches” than “not fully” – only2/3 is left!

    Favourites were HAIRBRUSH and CONTOUR.

  3. Thanks, manehi.

    Once again, I have the same ticks as you, plus several more – HAIRBRUSH, SUNGLOW, CHEROOT, etc… [but I note you say *some* favourites]. Brilliant cluing and lovely surfaces, as always – well worth revisiting after the solve.

    Before looking properly at the definition, I had CANDOUR [C + anagram of AROUND] for 22ac but, of course, it didn’t parse.

    Many thanks, Picaroon, for a cracking start to the day – I loved it!

  4. I’m with you, muffin@1; although some of those were incomplete in my grid, not just unparsed. And to that list I have to add 9a HAIRBRUSH and 13a READY, both bunged in guesses.

    I did get some fun from solving such clues as 11a RHUBARB, 14a HAWTHORNE and 1d CHARTREUSE. Like muffin@1, CONTOUR (22a) was a favourite.

    Not one of my better days, but grateful to Picaroon for some small pleasures, and to manehi for the explanations.

  5. Sorry to miss acknowledging pex@2 and Eileen@3. We crossed. Must be the distance it takes for my post to get to the UK (or the time it takes to do the block caps on my electronic device)!

  6. [Must be the English teacher in us both, Eileen – I also started out with CANDOUR for 22a before seeing CONTOUR. I do find candour very refreshing myself!]

  9. Grateful for explanations. This was hard for me ….. I figured(um guessed!) 21dn The Who ….. but struggled to find an easy interweb def for ‘thew’. And now know that a ‘mew’ is a gull.

  10. Thank you Picaroon and manehi.

    Tremendous fun, especially from the misdirection in some of the clues. I failed to parse THE WHO having forgotten THEW, I should have checked in the dictionary.

    BESTOWAL and CONTOUR were great, and as for “relief from cold”, a teaspoon of CHARTREUSE helps stop a tickle cough. Too many other good clues to list.

  11. Thanks Picaroon & manehi.

    I solved the bottom half but then found the top rather tricky. I was another trying ‘candour’ without much confidence.

    I particularly liked HAIRBRUSH and BESTOWAL.

  12. Thanks to all – enjoyed it too although I had a different answer for 21d. I went for The The which worked for me as a take on T(ee)he(e) and the name of a band.

    Ah well…

  13. Terrific stuff. Came to a halt a few times, but eventually managed to finish, with THE WHO (guessed THEW) my last in. Too many favourites to list all, but CHIN-CHIN, HAIRBRUSH, GHOSTWRITE and BESTOWAL were just some.

    Thanks to Picaroon for a real stand-out puzzle and to manehi

  14. Great puzzle! I also put in CANDOUR without trying to parse it properly. Loved HAIRBRUSH, THE WHO, EXTEMPORE and RHUBARB. Many thanks to P and m.

  17. argh, I had also bunged in CANDOUR. I’d forgotten parliament was the collective noun for owls and was trying to understand why 18d was right. Apart from that, all smooth.

    I particularly liked CHIN CHIN, but there was plenty to enjoy

    Thanks Picaroon and Maheni

  18. Thanks to Picaroon and manehi. Like muffin I puzzled over some of the parsing, so the blog was even more helpful than usual.

    What would setters do without Cos and cha I wonder …

  19. Thanks to Picaroon and manehi. I had trouble getting started – and HOOKE, MACCHIATI, and “may” for hawthorn were new to me as was “mew” for seagull – but I did get CONTOUR and did manage eventually to parse most of the clues. A good challenge for me.

  21. [I didn’t see this anecdote in a quick look through manehi’s link. Hooke and Newton disliked each other, and Newton’s famous quote “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants” is partly a dig at Hooke, who was of rather diminutive stature.]

  22. CANDOUR played absolutely no part in my deliberations, indeed CONTOUR was probably my favourite clue, but I have only now, after much deliberation, been able to derive SIMULATE from *I*U*A*E. More than makes up for it, I can tell you.

    Not my absolute all-time Picaroon favourite – 9a rather a laboured surface, for example – but anything with a BEST OWL in it can’t be all bad.

  23. This one was very tough to finish and I resorted to a bit of guess and check – for example I couldn’t parse THE WHO because THEW was unfamiliar. SIMULATE was last in. Plenty to enjoy as always, favourites probably HAIRBRUSH and CONTOUR.

    Thanks to Picaroon and manehi

  25. Great puzzle from one of our favourites. Last one in was HOOKE, misled by the fine (couldn’t get f out of our minds). Thanks to everyone.

  26. Several of these were too clever by half, from my perspective; there was a great deal of “BIFD, then parse after some staring at it, then mutter about how the bejesus was one supposed to figure that out from the wordplay.” There needs to be a name for that.

    I never did parse HIPPODROME (which I also cheated on) or THE WHO.

  27. A great puzzle. Like Robi @11, I completed the bottom half first and found the top half trickier, but it was just as much fun. I liked particularly the little misdirections here and there. My 6 favourite clues were 9a HAIRBRUSH, 12a SUNGLOW, 16a UNEXCEPTIONABLE, 22a CONTOUR, 5d GHOSTWRITE and 17d COMMONER.

    Like Valentine @20, I thought of Hoyle before HOOKE (but of course it didn’t parse!). Like MrsH @12, I thought of The The as well as The Who, thinking it had to be the latter without being sure of the reason. I needed the blog to check the parsing of 14d HIPPODROME, 18d BESTOWAL and 21d THE WHO (which were three on muffin’s list).

    I thought the clue for 6d CHIN-CHIN was not in the same class as most of the others. And 4d BULB looks like an unindicated definition-by-example. These are minor points, and I thougbt this was a most enjoyable puzzle.

    Thanks to Picaroon and manehi.

  28. I’m pleased to see that at least two others thought of THE THE first – surprising in my case, as THE WHO are much more my period.

  29. I’ve been enjoying Picaroon’s puzzles of late, but I didn’t like this one nearly as much. As others have said, some of this was difficult to parse and this is why I plumped for CANDOUR on the basis of the anagram of “around” and “c”. I didn’t really understand MEOW although it was obviously right. I did like SUNGLOW and POPLAR but my favourite was SUEDE especially with, what I took to be, an allusion to the seminal rock n roll record “Blue Suede Shoes” by Carl Perkins. In retrospect, I liked BESTOWAL too.
    A mixed bag!
    Thanks Picaroon.

    P.s. Did anyone really listen to The the?

  30. I’m with the harder camp today, and had to constantly check the online version (eg for chin chin) to see if my guesses were correct.

    For 8d I had a notion a SMEW was a seagull (its a duck apparently) leading to (circles round) MEWS. That and trying also to put an f in 10ac held me up.

    Thanks to Picaroon, manehi and to Eileen for her boundless joy when I was suffering 🙂

  33. Peter @29

    “Did anyone really listen to The The?”
    I think my nephew did once. Years ago his mother sent me a Christmas list for him on which I saw the name of an album “by The The”. I called her to say she’d made a mistake and to ask her for the name of the band.

  35. Totally agree with pex. Both my wife and I had the crossword for 2 hours. Not one answer between us…and then we look at the answers.

    What is the point of this blatant misdirection? This can only appeal to a small number of solvers.

    For goodness sake, give Rufus the job on Tuesday as well.

  36. A mixed bag with some witty ones and a few rather strained ones. I don’t like 1d as recycling is not the same as reusing no matter what dictionaries might say.

  37. A @35

    If you don’t see the point of “blatant misdirection” then perhaps you don’t see the point of a cryptic crossword! (Misdirection is probably the primary aim of all cryptic setters, even Rufus.)

    However I think that your request for two of Rufus’s apologies for a cryptic puzzle a week will reduce a lot of the experienced solvers to tears (either due to excessive laughter or despair)

  38. We found this crossword very hard to get in to.
    For some reason, we had the impression that the surfaces were not as ‘smiling’ as they usually are.
    But as Picaroon is one of favourite setters (top 3, top 5, top 10, difficult to say), we didn’t give up.
    And so it turned out to be another brilliantly clued crossword, even if it lacked the final spark for us.
    Bad day, I guess – didn’t sleep well last night ….

    ‘Did anyone really listen to The The?’
    Yes, I did.
    The The was synonomous to Matt Johnson and not really a band.
    I clearly remember the single Uncertain Smile (1983) with a fantastic piano outro by Jools Holland.
    They had five top 40 albums, two of which reached the top 10, so not that obscure.
    One of them was ‘Mind Bomb’ with the influential Johnny Marr (ex-Smiths) on guitar.
    Just listen to track 2 “Armageddon Days Are Here (Again)” – it was only 1989 and it feels like Matt Johnson was Nostradamus.

    Anyway.
    Many thanks to Picaroon and manehi.

  39. Too hard for me – I had quite a guesses/checks and a few cheats. But in retrospect everything was very fair and my failings were mine alone.

  40. One of my favourite setters too. Loved BESTOWAL. Unaccountably stuck on HAWTHORNE. It is so obvious when you see it.

  41. Looking at this again this morning I noticed: POP and CHART as the first halves of 7d and 1d; and as well as ABBA and THE WHO: SUEDE, the CONTOUR(s) and CHER (first bit of 23a). A hint of Nicky Chinn at 6d maybe?

  42. JimS@41 I wondered about a Britpop angle for a while – once I saw SUEDE, there was also TENDER (by Blur), COMMON[People]ER by Pulp, [I Should] COCO by Supergrass, wondered about [C]ON TOUR, but then it got a bit less likely…

  43. Great puzzle, I thought. Yielded slowly and reluctantly. My favourite was HIPPODROME – I had the answer well before understanding why.

  44. An excellent crossword – superb fun and neither too hard nor, more importantly, too easy.
    I also had CANDOUR, justifying definition with Chamber’s “freedom from prejudice…” which I could (somewhat tenuously) equate with “relief from….”, though I marked definition as a little ‘weak’. Silly me – I should have known better!
    Thanks both.

  45. Thanks Picaroon and manehi

    Great puzzle 12 months on !! Must have been right on his wave length as there were no serious holdups this time except for some reason writing REPROGRAMS in at 14d initially.

    Thought that HAWTHORNE and CHIN CHIN were the standouts in a good variety of clues and nice to see a scientist featured in at 10a.

    Finished with HOOKE (needed the initial letter to get him), SUNGLOW (clever) and POPLAR (easy afterwards but challenging to get).

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