Guardian Saturday puzzle 28,614 / Picaroon

61 comments on “Guardian Saturday puzzle 28,614 / Picaroon”

1. I was nearly halfway through this when I first read the ‘key’ clue 23a. I cast my eye over the across solutions I already had but could see nothing in common. But several clues later I saw CELLO, VIOL and one other (SAX, I think it was) almost simultaneously, and that made me stop and admire the setter’s achievement in this remarkable puzzle, especially as it helped me with 23a INSTRUMENT.

   I checked all the instruments and stopped at NUKE, forgetting for a moment that UKE (a less common abbreviation than SAX, for example) was indeed an instrument.

   This was yet another quality Saturday puzzle. Thanks to Picaroon, and thanks to Eileen for the blog, for mentioning my favourite clue HORNET and for the interesting little side story about the OUD (an instrument I have come across before, once in a news item and once in a crossword).

2. Similar experience to Eileen and Alan B @1 – getting several acrosses and puzzling over the connection for 23a until the penny dropped – can’t remember which it was now, but I suspect either RAVIOLI or LOUD (I knew about the oud). That then helped with several others, particularly HORNET which I never did parse and it confirmed SAXONY, which I suspected, but wasn’t sure there wasn’t another European kingdom that might fit. I didn’t like (LOI) TREETOP much but there were plenty of other great clues to compensate. Thanks, Picaroon and Eileen.

3. Great puzzle, and great blog by Eileen.

   I felt the same way as she regarding TREETOP, and ended up thinking of it this way: in a “typical” CD there is the immediate, automatic interpretation of a phrase, which is to be ignored, and an alternate reading which requires a little thought, and which leads to the answer. The difficulty in this particular case is that there is not the black-and-white distinction between the automaticness (!!!) of the two readings.

4. A hugely enjoyable and clever crossword, as Eileen in her enthusiastic and witty blog quite rightly says. (Eileen – you have PLUM in 4d as “something desirable”, but the clue is just “desirable”, so requires an adjective in the parsing, such as a PLUM part in a movie, for example.)

   I couldn’t solve ‘crown of laurel’, and having seen the solution I’m not sure there is anything more going on than a simple cryptic definition (too simple for me – I got as far as the obviously wrong CANOPY and then gave up), with an allusion to the laurel wreath as misdirection. I’m hoping to be proved wrong.

   Many thanks to Picaroon and Eileen.

5. Thanks Picaroon and Eileen – theme right up my street too, and I enjoyed it a lot. I think 3d was my favourite.
   For 4d, think of “a plum job” = a desirable employment position.

6. Thanks Eileen. I wonder if I’ll be alone in admitting that, once again, the theme passed me right by. I know the second phrase in 23 should have alerted me but once the grid was completed I paid it no more attention. Otherwise another pleasant interlude though I share the reservations of others on TREETOP, my LOI.

7. So many favourites but that’s to be expected in a Picaroon crossword — LIMONCELLO, INSTRUMENT, WELLIE, OWNERS, DOTAGE, POLLUTER, and LOUD — I could go on because this puzzle was top drawer. I needed a word finder to get the disappointing TREETOP but that fly did not spoil the ointment. Thanks to both.

8. A bit tough but very enjoyable to solve because of the themed clues.

   Favourites: LENT, INSTRUMENT (which revealed the theme to me), DUGONG, EPEE, REALLY, LIMONCELLO, WELLIE (loi).

   New: CUTPURSE (well-clued); HARP lager (for 8ac).

   I did not parse 5d and was unsure about 19d TREETOP (cd) which I thought of as the crown of a laurel tree / lauurel tree’s crown = TREETOP

   Thanks, both.

9. Thanks Eileen. TREETOP was last in, as being barely cryptic/credible. Then I thought laurel is near-unique as a tree with a human angle (rowan qualifies, too) so ended happy enough. Admirable how Picaroon themed all the across clues.

10. I didn’t know the REBEC, but was introduced to the OUD by Bill Bailey.

11. I knew oud from a muso called Lucky Oceans who for years did a late-night ABC radio hour with music from all over the world. Eileen, I’m surprised if it hasn’t popped up in a cw before, like rebec has [And, to our shame, we in Oz are very familiar with refugees languishing for years in limbo]. Anyway, nice puzzle, with 23ac generously telling us what to look for. Vaguely remembered the little Harp lager logo, but not the harp seal, and yes, wondered about treetop, but otherwise pretty smooth. Thanks P and E.

12. My last one in was 1d which I was worried about but put in anyway and now see was totally wrong! I had TAbULaTE. Tab for price, U for you, and (rather mysterious and unexplained) LATE for steep with whole thing being what the model did with a stretch on the tense. Annoyingly I’d thought of models sitting earlier but got fixated on TAB. Oh well.DNF but good fun. I enjoyed teasing out the instruments. It helped with GAS PIPES. Thanks Picaroon fir a Saturday entertainment and Eileen for excellent blog.

13. What fun! I was about half-way through when I solved 23a INSTRUMENT and then spotted the tricks Picaroon was up to in the across clues. This enabled me to get a couple of the acrosses that were holding out. Most enjoyable. I have to admit the REBEC in REBECCA at 15a was unfamiliar to me (cf Bodge@10), as was the brand of lager in HARP SEAL at 8a, so they were new learnings for me, thought I had heard of the HARP SEAL when there was a furore over them being clubbed to death for their fur some years back. My particular favourites were 17a RAVIOLI, 25a CREEDS, 3d REALLY, 16d CUTPURSE and 21s OWNERS, a couple of which have already been mentioned by others. [My 11a LIMONCELLO memory was after a long lunch in Assisi, Eileen!] Thanks for the puzzle and blog, Picaroon and Eileen – music to my ears!

14. I really enjoyed this. Found it tough but took my time and there were lots of clues that made me smile once I got them.

    Did not get LENT and didn’t parse WELLIE or (annoyingly) HORNET which was one of my FOI and helped me get the theme.

    Favourites (like others) were: LIMONCELLO, REALLY, CUTPURSE (lovely word), DOTAGE, POLLUTER

    Thanks Picaroon and Eileen

15. Thanks, Eileen.
    I really must get out of the habit of trying the down clues first, as it meant INSTRUMENT was one of the last ones I reached, though by then I had found enough to find the theme when I looked. Thanks, Picaroon, very clever.
    One minor query – I know there are ‘reed instruments’, but is the REED ‘an instrument’?
    I recall R for ‘recipe’ as, when I was a boy (I am now in my 22d) and doctors actually wrote prescriptions by (famously illegible) hand, they wrote on a pad headed with an R with a slash through the tail ().

16. See ().

17. Super crossword. Brilliant blog. Thanks Picaroon and Eileen.

18. Never realised Harp lager came from Dundalk: much featured in my favourite LD song “The long way home”. No, LD doesn’t stand for lyrical definition! Great puzzle and blog. Belatedly twigging the hidden INSTRUMENTS helped me in the SW corner. Brilliant work, Picaroon

19. Thanks Eileen, cracking blog as usual. For some reason, I found myself really struggling to get onto Picaroon’s wavelength with this one and wouldn’t have been able to finish it without a wee bit of assistance. But I got there in the end, after several visits over the course of the week. Picaroon remains my favourite setter, even when he defeats me.

    On the theme, after much staring and head scratching, it was CELLO and GONG that eventually gave the game away for me. Cue much kicking of self for not spotting it sooner.

    By coincidence, a colleague asked me for assistance with a (non-cryptic) crossword the other day, for which one of the clues was simply ‘Lett’. I don’t recall seeing the word before, but looked it up and LATVIAN fitted perfectly so… Bingo. Luckily, this newly acquired knowledge was still fresh in my mind when solving 13d here. Handy.

20. Enjoyable and easy crossword. Even the more unusual REBEC and OUD were familiar. Like others I thought there had to be more to TREETOP.

    I’m not usually a fan of themes, but I wasn’t too grumpy about this one. 😀
    Probably the mention of LIMONCELLO swung it for me. I find that’s one of the few holiday drinks that still tastes as good back home (unlike e.g. ouzo, which needs Greek sunshine). Plenty of shops stock it over here, and you can easily make your own even better one.

    Thanks to Picaroon and Eileen.

21. Thanks for the blog and the information for OUD which I have never seen before, the only real obscurity and it must be tricky to find the 4 letter words in a theme like this.
    We need a name for this type of theme that has one unifying clue as in 23AC.
    Not going to list favourites, far too many, only 19D was below an extremely high standard.

22. A thoroughly delightful parley of instruments, thank you Picaroon & Eileen.
    LIMONCELLO conjures up a lovely image of an EV owner parting with a favourite tipple in order to get home.

23. Thanks Picaroon and Eileen
    Very clever indeed. HORNET was last to parse for me too.
    Slight question mark about SATURATE. For “steep” in that sense I would use “marinate”.

24. Very good crossword, and blog. I’m pretty ignorant about music, and usually don’t like, or at best don’t care about, themes; but I did like this, and I think I’d at least heard of all the INSTRUMENTs, though I couldn’t describe a REBEC or an OUD, and I share sjshart@15’s query about REED. Like most, I did think TREETOP was disappointing – I had to reveal it today; I think I’d have got it if laurel was in my mental list of trees, but to me it’s merely a bush. But lots of favourites, mostly mentioned by others, but I’ll add FREE-LIVING.
    Thanks both.

25. Thanks for all the comments so far – I’m glad to see that you all, it seems, enjoyed the puzzle as much as I did. Glad, too, that no one has (yet) detected any typos or glaring mistakes in the blog, as I shall now be out all day today and tomorrow, taking part in what promises to be a brilliant Christmas Tree Festival.

    sheffield hatter @4 and Quirister @5 – re PLUM: I realised it was being used as an adjective but have always assumed that Jack Horner was the origin of it (and I’m delighted to see just now that Chambers agrees!) and just wanted to indicate that.. Both Chambers and Collins give the noun definition first (‘something choice that may be extracted (sometimes in reminiscence of Jack Horner) or attained to , such as one of the best passages in a book, one of the prizes of a career, or a government office as a reward of services etc’; ‘something of a superior or desirable kind, such as a financial bonus’, respectively. Conversely, ‘desirable’, like ‘essential’, can be used as a noun! [I don’t mean the foregoing to be controversial – far from it – just explaining my rather cack-handed expression in the blog. 😉 )

    muffin @23 – Chambers gives ‘saturate’ for ‘steep’ – must dash now!

26. This puzzle reminded me of a Nutmeg a while ago in which all the across clues contained a unit of Imperial measurement. She didn’t indicate a theme on that occasion – it was only noted by a poster about half way through the blog. I’m still wondering whether that was even better than signalling overtly that there’s a theme as Picaroon did with 23ac. Not a quibble; just wondering.

    Otherwise, nothing at all to complain about with just the one, already highlighted, weaker solution. I’m another whose knowledge of the OUD comes from Bill Bailey and CLOUD was one of my favourites. Another was DOTAGE. [Having mentioned Terry Pratchett yesterday, I can do so again. He once said “You ignore graffiti at your peril. It’s the heartbeat of a city. It’s the voice of the voiceless.” Following his decease in 2015, it was rather fitting that a number of street murals were created to celebrate his life and work.]

    Thanks Picaroon and Eileen

27. Brilliant crossword and blog. REBECCA was my favourite among many good clues. [ Crossbar@20 limoncello is definitely in the “only tastes good in the sunshine” class for me.

28. Sheer delight. I got INSTRUMENT early as it was obviously pointing to the theme, and went from there. Agree with the ticks for CUTPURSE, FREE-LIVING and HORNET and I thought TREETOP was fine. I recognised REBEC from previous puzzles but OUD was new. An opportunity to find out by watching the marvellous Bill Bailey again.

    Ta Picaroon &Eileen got the enthusiastic blog.

29. *for

30. Thanks Picaroon and Eileen

    The flag in 23 was so enormous I wondered if it was an addition by the editor, who has been known to do such things.

    “What sort of instrument is a saxophone?” “It’s a reed” – OK, ‘instrument’ is implicit in the answer, but the sentence works as it stands.

    The oud is also familiar to fans of the (later) music of Leonard Cohen. I think there’s also one on Page & Plant’s Unledded album.

31. I had EMPEROR for Crown of Laurel, which seemed to work for a while, quite surprised to see it was TREETOP!

32. A great crossword with a helpful theme – thanks to Picaroon and Eileen

33. I enjoyed solving this and when I had solved 23a as almost my LOI I enjoyed finding the instruments.
    Thanks to Picaroon and Eileen

34. A really enjoyable solve with the theme slowly appearing.

    I do like using ‘state’ as a synonym for ‘say’ as in SAXONY, or as a homophone indicator. Like Eileen, I enjoyed seeing pants=gasps in GASPIPES. I also particularly liked SATURATE and FREE-LIVING. I toyed with (b)OTHERS for 21D, which sort of works with they=others.

    Thanks Picaroon for a very pleasurable solve, and Eileen for a great blog.

35. Yes, praise all round.

    Just shows how tastes differ – I really liked “Crown of laurel” which gave me a pleasant pdm in what otherwise I found to be a fun but fairly straightforward puzzle. Most of my ticks were for down clues (too many to list); I thought Harp lager would be a bit of a stretch for many but it does appear in a parody* of the Lord’s Prayer which had a certain currency back in the day (but which I can’t find on-line).
    (* writing this I have a strong sense of deja vu)

    Thanks Picaroon, thanks Eileen.

36. There was a theme? I’m with Biggles A – I completely missed it!

37. Thanks Picaroon and Eileen.
    REBEC was the only instrument I hadn’t heard of, and even then I didn’t know what to google (REBE? or BEC?).

38. I did this over several days and got there in the end. Unusually for me, I got the theme early on, which made it all the more enjoyable.

    I was held up because for 3D, an anagram for “I never” is VEREIN, which means union (German) and is in Chambers. To make matters worse, it worked with HARP SEAL. The answer fits the clue (“form another” being the anagram indicator) apart from a redundant “well”. I got back on the straight and narrow only when I decided that 12A had to be SAXONY!

    Many thanks Picaroon for an entertaining puzzle and Eileen for the always illuminating blog.

39. Alphalpha @35 – HARP lager was served up not long since in Everyman 3906 on 22nd August:

    “What’s given to yobs? Spirits, lagers, wine (5,5,5) ” = SHORT SHARP SHOCK

    (It was new to you then as well, michelle @8.)

40. Roz @ 21: any mileage in ‘pivotic’ – either as a noun or adjective?

    Lovely crossword, thanks to Picaroon and Eileen

41. Thanks Picaroon , super crossword with a great (non-essential) theme

    I’ve actually seen/heard an OUD being played by a timeless older gent in the huge central square of Marrakesh. But never seen or heard a REBEC. I’d already gout NUKE and many other of the instruments before the theme revealed itself, hiding ‘Uk E’ like that is an act of genius!

    Also nice to see my nom de cruciverbalism Appear as a solution!

    Harp for lager seems a real stretch. When I was growing up and starting to take an interest in “dhrink” Harp was the only lager type beer served in Irela d I think it was owned by the Guinness corp who essentially had a monopoly on extracting money from the Irish drinking classes in those days. I don’t think it has any great merit as a beverage, so seems tough to expect people to make the association?

    Unlike many others I quite liked TREETOP, though it was my LOI by quite a way.

    Thanks again Picaroon for the fun, Eileen for the enthusiasm and the explanations and to aall learned contributors on here.

    Epee

42. I must admit to believing that HARP lager had disappeared. But Mr Wiki confirmed it hadn’t. Very enjoyable start to last Sunday over the mugs of tea.

43. [sc@39: Thanks but that wasn’t what caused the faint tintinnabulation. No matter – just a feeling of having mentioned the parody here at some distant point. It was, as I recall, a “homophonic” treatment of the text which I remember impressed me with the way it strained to keep to the form while rhyming off various alcoholic drinks.]

44. Roz@21 How is this for a first draft of a theme taxonomy?

    UNHELPFUL: all or most clues contain same word or category. Royalty in Brendan 28602 November, 2021.

    HELPFUL: many answers in same category, announced. Instruments, in Picaroon 28614, Nov 2021

    GHOST: many answers all in same category, unannounced. Bathroom items, in Qaos 28611 November 2021

    NUCLEAR: many cross-references, one nucleus. Composer, in Paul 28616 Nov 2021

    CRITICAL: definitions missing from a number of clues, but Special Instructions. Many Maskarade holiday jumbos

45. nametab@40 DrW@44 thanks for suggestions, PIVOTAL perhaps for this one , stealing from the pivotic idea.
    UNHELPFUL could be ANNOYING in my case, I am not a fan of themes in the actual clues.
    GHOST – agreed, others have said this I think.
    NUCLEAR – I really like this idea and will use it in future, this is perhaps the more traditional , still used by Paul, often used by Araucaria , see his “fish out of water” puzzle if you can find it.
    CRITICAL – I think of this as an announced theme .

46. Good points, Roz.

    Under NUCLEAR, I seem to remember Araucaria had some puzzles with two nuclei, but finding them might be a challenge.

    What I called CRITICAL is I think a subtype of ANNOUNCED.

    UNHELPFUL/ANNOYING could be softened to SURFACE.

47. Like you Epee Sharkey @41, whilst growing up in Belfast, Harp or Tennents were the only pissy lagers available. Reminded me of this ironic slogan from the 80’s
    https://youtu.be/8GlfF2_DXR4

48. Anybody else try to work NY into SAXONY as the state?

    My LIMONCELLO memory is of a dinner my sister-in-law offered as part of a church fund-raising sale that had everything lemon, including limoncello.

    DOTAGE 22d. My tag memory is from the prison where I have volunteered for years with the Alternative to Violence Project. One day I was writing up a poster for some exercise or other with my usual flamboyant lettering style, and one of my incarcerated co-facilitators said, “Hey! You’ve been taggin!”

    Loads of fun and I always enjoy a theme unless it totally evades me, which happens all too often. Thanks for that, Picaroon, and when you get back from your tree festival, Eileen, please receive my delighted thanks for the blog as well.

49. DrW, Roz,

    I think surface might be a fairer descriptor than unhelpful/annoying as themes like this aren’t always annoying or unhelpful (at least not to everyone). I remember a Brendan from several years ago where every clue included the word say. It was used most inventively, as definition, as homophone indicator, to be replaced with eg in a charade, as anagram fodder and probably other ways I don’t remember. As I recall it was a masterpiece of misdirection and most enjoyable.

50. The word ‘lute’, of course, derives from the Arabic, al-3?d (?????), the oud (literally ‘the wood’). I saw virtuoso Sudanese oud player, Hamza Al-Din supporting the Grateful Dead at the Pyramids in 1978, so have known what one is for a long time.

    Although the (very interesting) trailer for the film about the asylum seekers shows a beautiful oud, I don’t think you hear it played (a major theme being that the player can’t bear to play it in those circumstances — very handy if you have a good actor but one who can’t play!).

51. Apparently, this system doesn’t support Arabic lettering …

52. Lovely crossword, lovely blog. My thanks to Picaroon and Eileen, and to all contributors.
    Like many others, I admired the clue for HORNET; unlike many others, I liked the clue for TREETOP, which I thought was neat and trim.
    My main moment of dopiness came when checking the across solutions for instruments. I got stuck at LOUD. Well, it could be only LOU or OUD, neither of which seemed at all likely. Until, that is, I remembered the old song “Skip to my Lou”. Of course! If I’d ever given it a moment’s thought before, I’d probably assumed Lou was a girl’s or a boy’s name. But no – it was obviously an instrument, perhaps some kind of guitar or fiddle.
    Well, I know better now. D’oh.

53. Many thanks again for comments.

    A very successful and enjoyable, though exhausting, day, with more of the same to come tomorrow.

    I thought of you folk as we listened to our guest ukulele band. 😉

54. Epee Sharkey @41 et al.
    Harp is still brewed for the NI and County Donegal markets but it must be more than 30 years since I last saw it in a pub in the South of England. I was involved in its advertising in the late 60s. We had a commercial with a backing track by Manfred Mann that was only shown in NI. I remember a meeting in Belfast at the beginning of The Troubles and comforting myself with the thought that it was being held in the safest place possible. Neither side was going to blow up the Guinness brewery.

55. What a wonderful crossword and blog, as most have said. My instrument even appears at 11a.

    I was familiar with the oud (which is anything but LOUD), having been introduced to it by a jazz trio led by Dave Holland and John Surman (two legendary British musicians) and featuring Anouar Brahem, a Tunisian oud player. If you like reflective chamber jazz, I highly recommend their CDs.

    I failed to fully parse 9a HORNET, so thanks Eileen for that, as well as for your additional comments illuminating other clues. And thanks Picaroon for choosing a theme close to my heart and then implementing it so brilliantly.

    This was a DNF for me, caused by overthinking the clue at 19d that some found to simple. Not twigging to the top of the tree, I thought that in ancient Greece, a returning conquering hero, athletic or military, was given a laurel crown as a symbol of being granted the FREEDOM of the city, so in it went, fitting the crossers.

    Pino@54, I enjoyed your reminiscence. We can still get Harp Lager (not that we want to) here in Ontario.

    I’m a week behind, so I’ve just done November 25, 26, 27. Nutmeg, Brendan and Picaroon, all in a row – how lucky can we get?

56. Just picked up my copy of last Saturday’s puzzle and noted I had one left to do. After some thought I tentatively put TREETOP in, but unconvinced as I also thought of laurel as a bush, like beaulieu@24. But I have since thought about ‘flourish like a green bay tree’ which is a biblical quote. And bay is a variety of laurel. So I’m OK with it (I’m sure Picaroon will be very relieved to hear that 😉

    Now back to yesterday’s puzzle – once again one left to do.

57. Pino @54 – the advertising is the only thing I remember about Harp (having been too young in the 70s/early 80s to ‘enjoy’ drinking it) – ‘Stay sharp, to the bottom of the glass’ – was that one of yours?

58. [Pino @54: haha, the paramilitaries weren’t stupid. Thankfully the meeting wasn’t in the Europa hotel, ‘the most bombed hotel in the world’ – 36 times]

59. Widdersbel@57
    No, that came after my time. All I can remember is “The new blonde in the bar” which was just before I became briefly involved.

60. thanks Eileen, this was great although I was also looking for something more from TREETOP (there was an Anto CD this week that left some people feeling short changed but not me as it misled me into several false parsings, this one not so). I have the recent demise of Lionel Blair to thank for HARP being a little fresher in my memory than it might have been. INSTRUMENT was my last across entry and I think this crossword a great example of one where a subtle “linking theme” did not mean a deterioration in clue quality, but did bring a smile when I then picked through the entries to find all the things that had sailed over my head. Thanks others above for extra flavour and musical recommendations and most of all thanks Picaroon.

61. Thanks to an ex-pupil of mine, I got LENT almost straight away. Many years ago I was coaching this gentleman on a piece of French music. When we came to a passage marked Lent he quipped “Ah, so this section must be in March-time!”. It still makes me laugh.

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