The four long downs can make this grid rather intimidating, but Picaroon fills and clues it with great style, as usual. Thanks to him for another enjoyable puzzle.
| Across | ||||||||
| 8. | OXONIANS | Stock answer about new and current Bullingdon Club members, say (8) N (new) + I (electric current) in |
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| 9. | ANIMUS | Problem in pirouettes after a bad feeling (6) A + reverse of SUM IN |
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| 10. | TRILLS | After husband leaves, kicks ornaments (6) THRILLS (kicks) less H. Trills are musical ornaments |
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| 11. | TALK SHOW | Walk out with host, perhaps Oprah Winfrey once (4,4) (WALK HOST)* – “perhaps” because Oprah’s show is an example of a talk show, and “once” because it ended in 2011 |
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| 12. | AS IS | The way things stand in lawsuits, ignoring the odds (2,2) The even letters of lAwSuItS |
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| 13. | UNABRIDGED | Without cuts in bread, dug in excitedly (10) (BREAD DUG IN)* |
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| 15. | EDUCATE | Train outside of Eastbourne carrying coin (7) DUCAT (coin) in the “outside” of E[astbourn]E |
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| 16. | RING OFF | Stop calling drummer loudly (4,3) RINGO + FF (fortissimo, very loudly) |
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| 18. | CLOVERLEAF | Chagall’s frame on the next page with plant-like design (10) C[hagal]L + OVERLEAF (on the next page) |
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| 19. | EROS | Figure who may inflame aching back (4) Reverse of SORE |
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| 20. | EVILDOER | Reviled old rogue? (8) Anagram of REVILED O, &lit |
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| 22. | RABBIT | Person who hates games teacher, last in contest (6) RABBI + [contes]T |
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| 23. | URBANE | Primitive scourge is polished (6) UR (original, primitive) + BANE (scourge) |
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| 24. | DISTRAIT | Absent-minded copper’s distinguishing feature (8) DI’S TRAIT |
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| Down | ||||||||
| 1. | EXPRESS DELIVERY | Articulate way of speaking is a plus in post (7,8) EXPRESS (to articulate) + DELIVERY (way of speaking) |
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| 2. | ENGLISH CIVIL WAR | Parliamentarians were on one side of this chair, swivelling around (7,5,3) (CHAIR SWIVELLING)* – the two sides in the English Civil War were the Parliamentarians and Royalists, or, as 1066 And All That puts it, the Cavaliers (Wrong but Wromantic) and the Roundheads (Right but Repulsive) |
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| 3. | PASS MUSTER | Before ruler, fathers and sons have to meet the standard (4,6) PAS + S + MUST (have to) + ER (ruler) |
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| 4. | ASHTRAY | Where butt is awfully hot, sat by sunlight (7) Anagram of (H SAT)* + RAY |
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| 5,21. | HALLOWED | Sacred hearts not breaking any laws (8) H[earts] + ALLOWED |
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| 6. | FIRST‑DEGREE BURNS | Bachelor poet detailed superficial suffering (5-6,4) A Bachelor’s is a FIRST DEGREE + (Robert) BURN[S]. First-degree burns only affect the outer layer of the skin |
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| 7. | PUT ONE’S FOOT IN IT | Blunder, as one may in Balmoral? (3,4,4,2,2) Double definition – the Balmoral is type of shoe |
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| 14. | RAINFOREST | Most unusual, smuggling dope in threatened area (10) INFO (dope) in RAREST |
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| 17. | DEGRADE | Pair of journos about to accept shocking rag’s disgrace (7) RAG* in ED reversed, twice |
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Many thanks Picaroon and Andrew – great fun.
Andrew, the second O is missing from the parsing of OXONIANS. I think the reference is to Oxo, the well-known stock cube.
Thanks Roger, mea culpa (I though OX was a bit unsatisfactory..)
Yep, the stock cube it is.
Thanks Andrew.
Finished this in a steady progress, but I lacked explanations to PUT ONES FOOT IN IT; RABBIT – I still don’t understand the definition; and URBANE – is UR referring to UR of the Chaldees? (I see now after googling it is a prefix)
Liked ASHTRAY, but not so sure EDUCATE is synonymous with TRAIN
Thanks Picaroon
As usual, a delight from Picaroon.
Well, that was fun. The right went in first, but once the left pillars were built it fell into place. After yesterday, 10ac had me going tirty tree trills. And so it seems that a rabbit is both one who dislikes games and one who’s poor at them…makes sense I guess. The bachelor poet hat me guessing a while..nice one. And after vaguely thinking ‘royals, fraffly plummy’, I dimly recalled that Balmoral is a shoe. Enjoyable, thanks P and A.
Thanks Picaroon and Andrew
This was easier than it looked at first sight. Lots to enjoy. Favourites were CLOVERLEAF and RAINFOREST.
I don’t understand the definition for RABBIT either. I know lots of “rabbit” golfers who still play at least twice a week, so they must enjoy it!
A tough but fun puzzle. Like grantinfreo@6, I had almost all of the right half completed and very little in the left half for some time. Confession time: probably technically a DNF for me as about half way through, when I still couldn’t make much headway in the NW, I opted to look up the unfamiliar Bullingdon Club in the clue at 1a in order to understand the reference that led to OXONIANS. They sound like a charming lot of fellows! My favourite solutions were 15a EDUCATE (at first I thought I would never get that one, as I don’t even know where Eastbourne is – sorry to any esteemed colleagues who live there!), 16a RING OFF (just finished a jigsaw of the cover of Sgt Pepper’s, so had The Beatles on my mind), 1d EXPRESS DELIVERY, 4d PASS MUSTER, and 6d FIRST-DEGREE BURN. My LOI took ages – but in the end I have to say it provided me with a great PDM to finish on – 5,21d HALLOWED.
Many thanks to Picaroon and X.
Sorry – copied from Word and forgot to change the X to the name of our very helpful blogger, Andrew. Mea culpa. Thanks particularly for a couple of explanations that had eluded me along the way, Andrew. I believe our 15² bloggers all deserve a medal for such prompt and clear unravellings.
Oh yes I forgot about ur- the proto- or primitive. There is an apt and somewhat ‘in’ ur-term lurking at the back at the back of my mind…can’t quite hook it out..
Urlicht – primeval light – as set by Mahler?
Not the one, muffin, but a ripper ntl..
Ursprung is another ur-term I can think of, meaning origin.
An enjoyable end to the week’s cryptics. The right went in first, with HALLOWED unlocking the left for me.
I particularly enjoyed URBANE, RABBIT was a new definition to me.
Many thanks to Picaroon and Andrew.
URBANE took me as long as the rest of the puzzle.
Great stuff from Picaroon and thanks to Andrew for the ones I was too lazy to parse!
Urchin – the upper part of a double chin?
Thanks Andrew, I didn’t know that a Balmoral was a shoe but assumed something like that when the answer became clear, and didn’t know the precise meaning of TRILL (i have only heard it in the context of small birds in cages but guessed from that and assume it is similar). Distrait and Urbane were educated guesses with parsing clicking a little later. When I think of a rabbit not enjoying games i can only think of cricketing tail-enders being tormented by pace bowling flying past their ears, certainly not an enjoyable experience for them but don’t know if the term extends to games in general, maybe it’s in a dictionary. Overall this went a little quicker than initially expected and was satisfying and fun, I like RAINFOREST which misled me for quite a while but favourite is RING OFF – thanks Picaroon.
Urtext is familiar to musicians as an edition that tries to be as close as possible to the composer’s original intent.
Thanks both. I hadn’t heard of UR as primitive, only the ancient city. One for the memory bank.
In cricket, a rabbit is someone who enjoys bowling but hates batting, so not one who “hates games”.
Penfold @16, stop it, you’ll start an urthquake..
Dashed in Etonians rather impetuously instead of OXONIANS, so didn’t have the correct crossers for what sort of DELIVERY was required for 1d and ultimately TRILLS as loi, in an excellent and entertaining puzzle as always with Picaroon. Thought AS IS particularly neat.
Finished in quick time this morning – the lovely long pillars really helped and once those were done the rest mostly fell in. FOI was 12a AS IS followed by bits of quite a lot else – strange solve today in that I ended up with a grid half-full of half the words and then the brain clicked into action! Even so, for a Friday (and yes, I know that as-per Hugh Stephenson last week other than Monday, the days are not chosen on difficulty although I think that may have been a bluff…) that was straightforward.
Excellent fun, lovely clues and a couple of smiles – thank you Picaroon and Andrew!
An excellent puzzle. I was impressed by the incorporation of so many long words and phrases without any hint of forcing. I started with PUT ONE’S FOOT IN IT, which got me on to the popular route (right to left) to solving this.
Naturally enough, the German prefix ur- is not often seen, and I happened to recall it from Urlicht, as did muffin (@11).
Thanks to Picaroon and Andrew.
As George said @5, as usual, a delight from Picaroon.
And, as usual, very difficult to pick out favourites. I’ll just mention 11ac TALK SHOW, 18ac CLOVERLEAF, 2dn ENGLISH CIVIL WAR, and 3dn PASS MUSTER.
Like Dave Ellison @4, I’m never happy with educate = train (I never thought of myself as a trainer but it’s in all the dictionaries) and the increasingly prevalent ‘outside of‘ in the surface reading still jars with me – though, of course, it’s bang on for the wordplay, so no criticism of Picaroon on either count: in spite of myself, I quite liked the clue. ;-).
I smiled at the stock cube and was pleased to remember UR, which I learned (URly) from crosswords.
Many thanks, as ever, to Picaroon and Andrew – a great duo.
Thank you Picaroon and Andrew.
Just one question. In 6d where is the indicator that the ‘s’ has been omitted from the poet Robert Burns?
The two new words for me, DISTRAIT and ANIMUS were clearly clued and went in quickly. I was held up by 5,21 trying to do something with CR i.e “saCRed hearts” to find a definition of laws, until I hit on H for hearts.
In 23A I knew UR as an ancient city but not as a prefix for PRIMITIVE so I hadn’t parsed it fully. Having looked it up in online dictionaries, it seems to be obscure and rarely used. Otherwise, I thought it a fair crossword and an enjoyable solve.
Thanks Picaroon and Andrew
Took a while to get started with this one, then the grid filled up slowly and steadily until we finished. LOI was URBANE.
Favourites were CLOVERLEAF and PASS MUSTER.
Thanks Picaroon and Andrew!
I see it now. De-tailed!
dantheman @25
In 6D the indicator is de(-)tailed.
‘poet detailed’ = Burn(s). 🙂
dantheman @25 it’s the word “detailed”
A beautifully clued and hugely enjoyable crossword but 11a puzzled me – in trying to make it ‘correct’ has Picaroon just made it wrong (was the show ever actually called that and why not just leave it as “…perhaps Oprah.”)?
Thanks to Picaroon and Andrew.
I think Robbie Burns has been properly de-tailed now, rather like a Manx cat!
Mostly excellent – favourite was EVILDOER as it took me an age to unravel the anagram despite knowing exactly what Picaroon was up to. Chamber’s has EVIL-DOER hyphenated but I’m sure someone has a dictionary that doesn’t.
I’m a total RABBIT when it comes to cricket but still love playing it. I tried googling alternative definitions and was delighted to find that rabbit showjumping is a thing 🙂
Cheers P&A
As Eiieen said -great puzzle AND blog.
(I found the grid friendly)Thanks all.
Like Auriga@15, URBANE took me a very long time! Loved CLOVERLEAF, OXONIANS, EVILDOER and FIRST-DEGREE BURN. Was a bit bemused by PUT ONE’S FOOT IN IT as I had forgotten about the shoe – thought it might refer to cowpats on a landed estate? Many thanks to Picaroon and Andrew.
robert @32 it looks like the show went by multiple names
Unfamiliar with Balmoral as a shoe, so I imagined putting one’s foot in a Balmoral cap, which is itself quite a blunder.
6d For Oxonians bachelor can be a second degree – I have one BLitt.
Thanks to both Picarron and Andrew. Between you , you have improved my skills immensely on this one.
Got the answers to all but 9a and 23a which needed the hidden letters to be revealed.
My biggest lesson was from 22a – I couldn’t think of “games teacher” as 2 separate words – too subtle for me until now.
Got the answer from my early golfing days, and now crosswords? Balmoral seemed over the top to give me “one” when it was in the clue, so thanks for the explanation Andrew.
Yesterday I solved and old crossword and someone criticised TERRAPIN being described as an amphibian, and was supported by others.
Same as Balmoral? Found this…
The Terrapin (officially 4-ton amphibian) was a British-manufactured amphibious transport vehicle of the Second World War. It was first used in 1944 at Antwerp during the Battle of the Scheldt.
Maximum speed: 24 km/h; 5 mph (8.0 km/h) in …
Produced: 1943–1944 (Mark I)
Thanks again.
bodycheetah @ 37 I know but at any time was it just ‘Oprah Winfrey’? I thought it started as ‘The Oprah Winfrey Show’ and ended as ‘Oprah’ which would make the last two words not just superfluous but also wrong.
I’ll add my voice to the general chorus of approval. Favourite for me was RAINFOREST.
Fun fact: instead of great-great-great-great for increasingly distant relatives, the Germans say Ur-ur-ur-ur.
[JinA @8: how nice to see an unusually affectionate signing-off 😉 ]
Thanks Picaroon and Andrew.
Thanks Picaroon, Andrew
There was a funny play, probably on Radio 4, about a hard-up dim-witted English girl posing as an English tutor and giving a terrible lesson to a German lady. The German explains she is a teacher in a Gymnasium. No, not a teacher, a trainer, explains the girl.
I’d provide a link as it was very entertaining but I can’t trace it.
I’m with the crowd who didn’t know about rabbits disliking games. The only connection I can see is that they are (small) game.
Does 3d have a surplus “S”? “fathers” = “PAS”, and “sons” suggests multiple “S”s. I’d expect one or other to be singular to provide only “PASS”.
[At our golf club – and most others – there is a precise definition of a “rabbit”, needed as there is a competition, The Rabbits’ Umbrella, that only they can enter. It’s players with a handicap of 20 and above (or is it above 20? – I can’t remember). I play regularly with a chap with a handicap of 34, but ne enjoys the game still.]
Urgent = Adam?
Or Abraham?
Urology = the oldest science?
Thanks Picaroon and Andrew
BigNifty @ 44: in genealogy, a reference to progeny can read ‘[parent] 2s 2d’, so S can be either son or sons (ditto D = daughter).
It’s interesting that one of the posters previously said he always started with the long clues. I usually start with the shor(er) ones. Needless to say, that at the beginning I had none of the long ‘uns solved and needed plenty of crossers to get them.
I was another who toyed with Etonians. Although I found it impaling, it was good to finish using lots of aids. In retrospect, it was a fine crossword. I liked the simple EVILDOER.
Thanks Vlad for the sadism and Andrew for a comprehensive blog.
Dave Ellison @4 and Eileen @24: I’ll stay neutral on this, but at Junior School, we had a PT teacher, and at Senior School, a PE teacher. Perhaps training evolves into education? Not forgetting that the armed forces employ PT Instructors!
Dave Ellison @4 and greensward @51, I agree that education and training are not synonymous, but we live in a world where people ( at least in the US) refer to ‘teacher training’ and ‘driver education’, so perhaps distinguishing between then is a lost cause.
3d: Should not either “fathers” or “sons” be singular, or am I missing something here?
A DNF for me – I fell at 5d (I never tried splitting the bits of wordplay anywhere other than at the clue break) and 23a (I know the ur- prefix but it never came to mind) – just had to cheat by giving myself a glimpse of the first letters of the two ‘fails’, and then, finally, they clicked. I was bemused by Balmoral (nho the shoe): like drofle @36, I had an image of Betty stepping in the leavings of one of Her Highland cattle. RING OFF had me smiling for ages. I was another who completed the East much easier than the West, but I nearly got there in the end. Thanks, Picaroon and Andrew.
penfold@16, essexboy@48, & TonyColins@46
Look what you’ve started!
Planet’s most ancient bum. (6)
LHS went in at a gallop, not so the RHS.
Thanks for the explanations.
“You have much to learn, Grasshopper”
BiglyNifty @44 and Barobalti @53 – s can be used as an abbreviation for sons (e.g. 2s, 1d).
[James @43 – I think this is the play you mean. Unfortunately it isn’t available at the moment: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06nrzqw ]
Barobalti @ 53: see my comment @ 49
Robi @ 50: may I suggest an appointment with specsavers 😉
Simon @58 …. I wasn’t impaled after all.
Thanks Picaroon.
[PS Specsavers once gave me a pair of glasses with one reading lens and the other a varifocal – no wonder I’m confused!]
I don’t understand how ‘info’ is ‘dope’ (14 down)
Tony @61
Information = gen or dope.
“Give me the inside dope on that!”
Miche, many thanks. I had forgotten it was John Finnemore, but that explains why I enjoyed it so much. I have found it on youtube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxl26w1XP7o, English for Pony Lovers, starting at about 27 minutes with the trainer jokes at about 34 minutes.
Thanks both,
A friend of a friend was quoted as saying he was very happy for his daughter to have sex education at school but he drew the line at sex training.
[essexboy @6×9 my Great Uncle Seoma, Russian by birth, lived in Israel, taught for a few years at UCL, could never understand the difference between “Great” and “Grand.” So my great-grandmother was referred to as my Grand Grand Mother and he called himself Grand Uncle Seoma which I think has a slightly imperious ring to it…]
Loved this cryptic – many thanks Picaroon and Andrew, Agreed with Eileen’s (@24) favourites. Really grateful for the de-tailing parse – couldn’t see it. Sadly RABBIT was a new one for me. I must, it would seem, embrace golf terms as well as cricket 🙁
Happy weekend one and all.
Pauline @66
You’ve missed the point I was making about golfing “rabbits” – they (generally) enjoy the game, even though they aren’t very good at it! It makes the definition here for RABBIT rather odd.
Sorry Muffin, trying to get my head around golf and cricket – I just haven’t heard the word used in either context, but I am very thankful for your explanation. ATB Pauline
Great fun – when is Picaroon anything else? TRILLS and UR were new to me, so today is a learning day. Thanks both.
I started quite well on the LHS, and plugged away at the RHS for a long time, before I had an ashtray moment on 4d TEATRAY (see what I did there?), and then a slow motion sprint finish with OXONIANS & EXPRESS my last ones in. Just couldn’t seem to get on Picaroon’s wavelength today – never having heard of Balmoral shoes didn’t help: like someone else above I was thinking of cow-pats. Not as well-informed as others about Oprah Winfrey either, but that didn’t bother me as much as RABBIT. We had this one a few days ago as a tail-ender in a cricket team, but I’ve never come across it as someone who “hates” games; not any good at team sports is one thing, but plenty of people still enjoy golf, for example (as has been pointed out) while being pretty hopeless to the extent of being called rabbits by their club-mates. Not the same as hating games.
What a lovely puzzle! Just the right mix of everything, although I was defeated by URBANE. And I was thinking along the lines of Aesop’s fable as far as RABBIT being “last in contest” with the tortoise (although technically, it was a hare?), but I couldn’t parse the first part!
Thanks Picaroon and Andrew.
I had frills instead of trills. Thank you, Picaroon and Andrew 😉
I’ve fallen out of the habit of commenting, mainly because I’m always so far behind in finding time for a nice solve, but I had to chime in this time to say how much I enjoyed this puzzle. I couldn’t see how frills worked (thanks for the explanation) and HALLOWED defeated me, as do most clues that require splitting a single word.
URBANE was far and away my favorite. So clever!
Great puzzle. Thoroughly enjoyed it. Thanks to Picaroon and Andrew. 4d got me grinding my teeth though. Do others find the current use of sat instead of sitting totally infuriating ? No criticism of Picaroon because here the butt could arguably have been sat (or put) there. but if it was sat, then it should have been sitting … Am I mad or are others with me?
trishincharente @74
My grandmother used to say “I was sat sitting there”!
To reinforce muffin’s comment @ 75, “I was sat…” is a regular expression in NW England (at least).
Okay. So maybe initially used in some regions and now spreading nationwide. Language does evolve of course. No offence intended to anyone or their grandmothers – and I’ll catch up and start using it myself?
Sorry, my winking emoji came out as a question mark
Thanks to both for a thoroughly enjoyable time solving and reading the above. For Balmoral I was originally thinking more corgi pats than cow. Remembered the shoe later.
trishincharente@74 Yes, I always thought of the use of the past rather than the present participle in such constructions as “I was stood in the queue for an hour” etc to be a northern idiom rather than standard English. I was rather fond of it for some reason, perhaps because my dad was originally from Manchester. But having lived in Australia for many years now, I have noticed from a distance that it now seems to be fairly standard usage throughout the UK. Guardian writers use it a lot, for example. It’s not common outside the UK though, so far as I know.
(Very late to comment now, but would just like to add that I enjoyed this a lot. It took me a long time, but it was fun.)
It would have been an excellent puzzle had Picaroon chosen not to include ridiculously obscure references to Balmoral, Rabbit, & Ur.
Shame on him/her.
It’s not big, & it’s not clever, & it just pisses people off.
Lucci @ 81
‘obscure’ is just a short way of saying “I didn’t know them”. That’s a lack of knowledge on the part of the solver, and the term ‘ridiculously’ shows that you don’t seem willing to learn.
Simon S @82. I’m with you for the most part, but I don’t see any support here or anywhere else for “person who hates games”=RABBIT. Your point about ‘obscure’ being a short way of saying “I didn’t know them” is good, and I dare say I’ve been guilty of this just as much as Lucci.
Chambers has “an inferior player”, and to those who are “good at games” this may well equate with “person who hates games”, but to those of us who enjoy(ed) games but weren’t very good at them, it’s just another knife in the back.