The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/28659.
I started off in fine style in the NW corner, proceeded increasingly slowly in a clockwise direction, with the SW holding out the longest. In all, very satisfying.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | JANITOR |
High point after New Year’s Day for one cleaning up (7)
|
| A chaaade of JAN I (‘New Year’s Day’) plus TOR (‘high point’). | ||
| 5 | SCRATCH |
Nothing on course to relieve irritation (7)
|
| Double definition, the first being of a golfer, say, without a handicap. | ||
| 9 | ANNIE |
Nurses undressed in Broadway show (5)
|
| [n]ANNIE[s] (‘nurses’) minus the outer letters (‘undressed’). I blogged virtually the same clue in a Tramp last September. | ||
| 10 | OVERSPENT |
Poetry covering page in old books was extravagant (9)
|
| A double envelope (‘covering’ and ‘in’) of P (‘page’) in VERSE (‘poetry’) in O (‘old’) plus NT (New Testament, ‘books’). | ||
| 11 | GOOSEBERRY BUSH |
Third person by eighth vehicle? It may be fruitful (10,4)
|
| A charade of GOOSEBERRY (‘third person’ unwanted by an amorous couple) plus BUS H (‘eighth vehicle’ BUS A etc.), with a definition which may be taken literally, or in the sense of a baby”found under the gooseberry bush”. | ||
| 13 | RAMP |
Resistance with some current inclination (4)
|
| A charade of R (‘resistance’) plus AMP (‘some current’) | ||
| 14 | UNREPAIR |
Peru and Iran unfortunately in run-down state (8)
|
| An anagram (‘unfortunately’) of ‘Peru’ plus ‘Iran’. | ||
| 17 | MISNOMER |
Firm is no merchant holding dubious label (8)
|
| A hidden answer (‘holding’) in ‘firM IS NO MERchant’. | ||
| 18 | ISLA |
Scottish island hiding unknown girl (4)
|
| ISLA[y] (‘Scottish island’) minus (‘hiding’) Y (‘unknown’) – ISLA seems also to be a Scottish woman’s name. | ||
| 21 | PRIME MINISTERS |
May Eden, say, tend to be found between 11 and 13? (5,9)
|
| An envelope (‘to be found between’) of MINISTER (‘tend’, verb) in PRIMES (’11 and 13′, with the question mark indicating indication by examples), with Theresa ‘May’ and Anthony ‘Eden’ likewise being examples (‘say’). | ||
| 23 | OWNERSHIP |
Possession of unopened tranquillisers and joint (9)
|
| A charade of [d]OWNERS (‘tranquilisers’) minus the first letter (‘unopened’) plus HIP (‘joint’). | ||
| 24 | PASTA |
Something on the menu is finished article (5)
|
| A charade of PAST (‘finished’) plus A (indefinite ‘article’). | ||
| 25 | END-USER |
A lot of rudeness shocked consumer, finally (3-4)
|
| An anagram (‘shocked’) of ‘rudenes[s]’ minus the last letter (‘a lot of’). | ||
| 26 | EXPOSER |
Retired model is a source of revelations (7)
|
| EX-POSER (‘retired model’). | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | JEAN |
Woman changing gender in France in short trousers (4)
|
| Two definitions and a wordplay: … or one definition and two wordplays … or whatever: JEAN[s] (‘trousers’) minus the last letter (‘short’), for the English woman’s name, which is a male name in France. | ||
| 2 | NON-COMMISSIONED |
Description of rank cod and onion men prepared, tucked into by girl (3-12)
|
| An envelope (‘tucked into by’) of MISS (‘girl’) in NONCOMIONED, an anagram (‘prepared’) of ‘cod’ plus ‘onion men’. | ||
| 3 | THEIST |
One with faith is tense on a job (6)
|
| A charade of T (‘tense’)plus HEIST (criminal ‘job’). | ||
| 4 | RHOMBI |
Character in Sophocles married sexually open-minded figures (6)
|
| A charade of RHO (‘character in Sophocles’ and essentially any other writer in Greek) plus M (‘married’) plus BI (‘sexually open-minded’). | ||
| 5 | SWEARING |
Formally induct government that’s promising (8)
|
| A charade of SWEAR IN (‘formally induct’) plus G (‘government’). | ||
| 6 | RESTYLED |
Dump large grass skirts, getting made over (8)
|
| An envelope (‘skirts’) of STY (‘dump’) plus L (‘large’) in REED (‘grass’). | ||
| 7 | THE SUN ALSO RISES |
Work set in France and Spain, then US and Israel’s so awful (3,3,4,5)
|
| An anagram (‘awful’) of ‘then us’ plus ‘Israel’s so’, for Ernest Hemingway’s novel. | ||
| 8 | HIT THE ROAD |
Leave time to get star into successful promo (3,3,4)
|
| An envelope (‘into’) of T (the second one, ‘time’) plus HERO (‘star’) in HIT AD (‘successful promo’). | ||
| 12 | GRAMOPHONE |
Good stuff! Work by Polish player from long ago (10)
|
| A charade of G (‘good’) plus RAM (‘stuff’) plus OP (‘work’) plus HONE (‘polish’). | ||
| 15 | FOIE GRAS |
In a jittery state, go as fire’s spread (4,4)
|
| An anagram (‘in a jittery state’) of ‘go as fire’. | ||
| 16 | PERISHER |
Monkey sports with one female between two rivers (8)
|
| A charade of PE (‘sports’) plus RISHER, an envelope (‘between’) of I (‘one’) plus SHE (‘female’) in R R (‘two rivers’), with the definition of an obstreperous child. | ||
| 19 | PIMPLE |
Spot one like Rees-Mogg occupying grandiose residence (6)
|
| An envelope (‘occupying’) of MP (‘one like Rees-Mogg’; Jacob, Member of Parliament) in PILE (ironic, ‘grandiose residence’). | ||
| 20 | STEP UP |
Return of Pétain and Quisling, say, wanting power increase (4,2)
|
| A reversal (‘return’) of PUP[p]PETS (‘Pétain and Quisling’) minus one of the Ps (‘wanting power’). | ||
| 22 | PAIR |
Piano tune for possible performers of duet (4)
|
| A charade of P (‘piano’) plus AIR (‘tune’). |
I enjoyed this a lot, despite being a little disappointed that the RHO in 4d was not one of the letters in Sophocles, the name. I did rather like the surface for GRAMOPHONE.
It’s interesting, but I suppose irrelevant, that ISLA is an old spelling for Islay.
I sometimes struggle with Picaroon but I whizzed through that with unseemly haste. The only clue which slowed me down was LOI ISLA. I knew it had to be that but wasn’t sure of either the island or the girl’s name. A combination of being more alert after lunch than usual and a set of clues mostly within my GK range I suppose. Enjoyable as an appetiser, but will tackle the Independent to finish my coffee. (To put this into perspective, I come here about once a week with a half-filled grid for enlightenment, so am not grumbling, or boasting.)
Thanks Picaroon and PeterO.
Starting in the NW corner I thought this might be the type of write-in that would incur the wrath of Roz but things slowed down quite a bit for me as I plowed through the rest of this crossword. I guessed GOOSEBERRY BUSH but could not begin to parse it. GRAMOPHONE took some work but it was worth it. I liked OWNERSHIP, RHOMBI, and FOIE GRAS as well. Thanks to both.
A very satisfactory solve and parse to compensate for waking a good hour earlier than I wanted to. Hard to break into – only a smattering on first pass – but, as so often with Picaroon, it gradually unfolded with delight after delight.
GRAMOPHONE has already had two mentions so here’s the third – lovely construction and my LOI. FOIE GRAS nearly defeated me – odd crossers and of course I was misdirected as intended by the alternative anagram indicator. MISNOMER almost escaped detection, PIMPLE made me laugh, I was very pleased to remember the eighth bus trick. NON-COMMISSIONED and PRIME MINISTERS were very clever, if not quite the smoothest of surfaces; OVERSPENT and the superb OWNERSHIP share top billing for combination of clever clueing and smooth surfaces.
One thing I found slightly odd was the double appearance of ISLA – it’s hidden (albeit not that much) in ‘island’ of course. And, so soon after those themed New Year puzzles, encountering the Jan 1 trick in 1 across was a bit deja vu.
Thanks Picaroon and PeterO
And I always thought the stork brought them (babies that is). Thanks PeterO for that comment, I hadn’t thought of that interpretation.
This went in more quickly than I usually manage with Picaroon. I particularly liked JANITOR( although I might have seen that done previously), GOOSEBERRY BUSH and GRAMOPHONE. Thanks to Picaroon for the fun
Very enjoyable, I agree. I got about a third on first pass, and then had to work harder on the rest. Like PostMark @4, my LOI – FOIE GRAS – had me searching for ages for an anagram which meant being jittery. D’oh! Rees-Mogg as a PIMPLE on the body politic was indeed amusing. As well as those mentioned above, I enjoyed JEAN, SWEARING, the Hemingway reference with its neat use of the names of four countries and HIT THE ROAD, with the star/hero. Thanks, Picaroon and PeterO.
Unlike KLColin@2, 18a ISLA was my first one in, perhaps because I was sipping on an Islay single malt as I was working on this puzzle.
Re 5a SCRATCH I took “nothing on course” to refer to a scratched horse race, but the zero handicap works too.
I solved 11a from the definition and crossers, but I didn’t know gooseberry as an unwanted third party, and I am always caught by the h=#8 trick, so thanks PeterO for the help with that parsing.
And thanks Picaroon for this excellent puzzle.
Same here PostMark@4 with FOIE GRAS. Had the def at the wrong end. I was looking for Latin words describing some form of medical condition. Also nearly missed MISNOMER, and distracted by the hidden ISLA.
Favourite GRAMOPHONE, although spent too long trying to put YORE in as the last 4 letters from ‘long ago’. As a child I wondered how they got the orchestra in there, a bit like the dog on His Master’s Voice.
Thank you for the blog, Peter O. Had never heard of babies being found under a gooseberry bush. Interesting theories as to how that came about, including anatomical references. A couple of sources said male children only. Wonder where girls come from?
Picaroon never disappoints does he? Much to like here, too many to list.
Like cellomaniac I got caught by the eighth and couldn’t see where the H came from.
I also winced (and chuckled) at the definition for the delicious foie gras, that will do almost as much for Anglo-French relations as Petain did.
Thanks Picaroon and PeterO.
I was another jittery one. The SW was last to go: if only I had seen the (now obvious) hidden MISNOMER sooner.
Famous ISLAs? Fisher according to Google, though I have never heard of her; then BLAIR, who I would say is the more well known.
Very enjoyable.
Thanks Picaroon and PeterO
Another cracker from Picaroon. I echo PostMark regarding ‘Isla’. As usual with this setter, a gradual unfolding of the solutions and too many super clues from which to pick a list,
Had the same experience as PeterO. Good chuckle at the ‘heavyweight’ PIMPLE and also enjoyed SCRATCH (I wish), GRAMOPHONE, PRIME MINISTERS and PERISHER. Like PM @4, I also thought that ISLA in island was odd and solved it without even thinking of Islay.
Ta Picaroon & PeterO
Anybody else parse 9a as fANNIEs rather than nANNIEs? It was a popular spelling for the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry.
I just chucked in PRIME MINISTERS (yeah, prime numbers) without a second thought and only realised the cleverness of the clue when I came here, so thanks PeterO.
Other favourites were GOOSEBERRY BUSH and GRAMOPHONE.
To a whisky drinker ISLAY is one of the first Scottish islands to come to mind!
Dave Ellison@10 Isla Fisher is an actress well-known down under. She’s also Sacha Baron-Cohen’s wife.
GOOSEBERRY completely defeated me, although I did manage to parse BUSH. Thanks PeterO and Picaroon.
I think I had a similar experience to many with a slow start and a gradual unfolding rather than a rush of solutions at any point. Thoroughly enjoyable, thank you Picaroon. For the third day running no wildly obscure words which suits me. 21 ac was FOI and 11ac followed but couldn’t parse bush so many thanks PeterO. I’ve been enjoying this week after a very slow start to the year when I started worrying that I forgotten how to solve cryptics!!
This started off fairly easy but rapidly got much tougher. Like others, I had the def/anagrind reversed for FOIE GRAS, and ended up by revealing it. But I did eventually get the rest, even RHOMBI which I don’t think I’d have solved if I hadn’t seen it somewhere else quite recently.
Liked PRIME MINISTERS (nothing to do with ramps or gooseberry bushes, of course), GRAMOPHONE, PIMPLE and PERISHER (who remembers the Perishers comic strip in the Mirror years ago?) Did not like UNREPAIR – one of those words which is undoubtedly in the dictionary, but rarely spotted in the wild.
The usual cleverly-clued treat of a crossword from Picaroon – if I had one complaint, it would be that it was over all too soon
Thanks very much to both Picaroon and PeterO
Found this easier than most from Picaroon, and very good. Didn’t notice the slight oddity pointed out by others in the ISLA clue (maybe it was intentional, being two overlapping wordplays?). My favourites have already been mentioned. I was made to feel old by GRAMOPHONE being from “long ago” – it was the standard method of playing recorded music (albeit more often called “record player”) until CDs arrived less than 40 years ago.
Thanks PeterO and Picaroon.
Very nicely done, particular favourites GOOSEBERRY BUSH, PRIME MINISTERS, RHOMBI, THE SUN ALSO RISES, GRAMOPHONE and PIMPLE (I shall think of that the next time I see the epitome of a Lying Tory )
Thanks to Picaroon and PeterO
And some time, I shall work out how to make the Link function on this work properly…
Re famous ISLAs, here’s Isla St Clair (or could it be Janet Brown?)
Could the ‘course’ in ‘nothing on course’ also be an ab initio learning programme, or any course of instruction, which starts ‘from SCRATCH’?
Now we’ve had JANITOR and JANISSARY, let’s hope Janis Joplin will be next.
A 👍 from me too, thanks Picaroon and PeterO.
Thanks Picaroon and PeterO
I remembered the BUS H trick, so GOOSEBERRY BUSH was FOI – I think “gooseberry” in this sense has been superseded by “third wheel”.
Clues like OVERSPENT and RHOMBI are my favourites, as they can be built up from the parts to give a satisfactory solution.
I agree with gladys about UNREPAIR – surely everyone would say “disrepair”. (It’s not like the distinction between “disinterested” and “uninterested”.)
Another minor quibble – when I was at school we made a distinction between games, which most of us enjoyed, and PE, which most of us didn’t!
beaulieu@20 what is a CD? 😉
Tricky but enjoyable. The lower half was easier for me.
Favourites: GRAMOPHONE, PIMPLE (haha), STEP UP, THEIST, SWEARING, RESTYLED (loi).
New for me: PERISHER = a mischievous or awkward person; GOOSEBERRY – a third person in the company of two people, especially lovers.
I did not fully parse 21ac – thanks, PeterO
TimC@25 cryptic definition perhaps? 😉 .
Thanks PeterO, and PostMark@4 for summing up my experience too. gladys@28 i just about remember the Perishers and that helped me get comfortable with the answer, also essexboy@23 just about remember Isla St Clair (sadly for singing dreary folk songs, hopefully I would be more appreciative today) but still needed a long time before the ISLAY-y penny dropped. I gave up ticking clues today as so many brought smiles. (We have had THROMBI and now RHOMBI in quick succession and I think someone mentioned that this setter and “Matilda” are an item – just struck me as an odd coincidence if so.) Thanks Picaroon.
[essexboy@23 Isla St Clair was the first Isla to spring to my mind too. Can’t remember watching the Generation Game, but she is also a singer. Here is the real Isla. ]
Enjoyed the crossword. Favourites were GOOSEBERRY BUSH, and FOIE GRAS which was such a tricky anagram and my LOI.
Thanks to Picaroon and PeterO.
[I know, totally off topic, but has anyone else got hooked on Wordle. I can’t shake the habit. 🙁 ]
Good fun – not a very rapid solve for me but it yielded steadily.
Some great charades here, giving amusing surfaces. Favourites as above.
ISLA is clued rather awkwardly, as others have remarked (I did briefly try to conjure up a female given name with an x in it). As Dr WhatsOn @1 points out, it is an old spelling of Islay, which is actually the source of the moniker. Also, ISLA and Islay are homophones. Altogether a pile-up of a clue.
Many thanks to S&B
Is it just a coincidence that including Eden & May there were 12 prime ministers Eden, MacMillan, Home, Wilson, Heath, Callaghan, Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown Cameron, May? Between 11 & 13?
revbob@32 as long as you don’t count Wilson twice 🙂
[Crossbar @30: not me but I read a delightful snippet yesterday that there is, apparently, a rather old puzzle called Wordle that some developer put out years ago and which has been quietly gathering dust in an obscure wing of the Web. Thousands of aspirational Wordle players have mistakenly searched for the game in the wrong place, have found and subsequently downloaded his game. And he’s going to give all the money he’s just made to charity!]
Thanks Picaroon and PeterO
I have no quibble with UNREPAIR per se, but I do think it’s a curious word.
It’s OK as a verb-derived adjective (“The road is unrepaired”), but it would take a strange mind to want to unrepair something.
[PostMark@34 I think I’m doing the old one, not the app available in Playstore. You get just one word a day. ]
Picture perfect-as to be expected from Picaroon
Simon S
“Unrepaired” is OK, but I don’t think you would say “in a state of unrepair” – that would be “disrepair”.
Thanks Picaroon & PeterO that was a corker.
Is there a little political commentary?
… the PERISHER should STEP UP, take OWNERSHIP and HIT THE ROAD?
Gervase@31 – I thought the cryptic grammar might work in a convoluted way and used a list to find OXNA, a very small Scalloway Isle (Ona is the name of a friend’s daughter but not too common I suppose). But X was a doubtful crosser for the long down clue so I kept my powder dry.
Simon S@35 not quite the same but distressed denim JEANs were popular once and maybe still are, in a sense if you start with pristine clothes and damage them you might be unrepairing them perhaps?
[Crossbar@30 on my second day it was FAVOR which I got at the last gasp and was enough to kick the habit (sorry to our transatlantic brethren but I’m not having that). I wonder if it is solvable, ie if there is a definite best case starting word or pair of words, eg STARE and DOING, which gets you the most common letters in one or two goes (cf Sherlock Holmes “The Dancing Men”) and guarantee you enough chance of positioning them and spotting the rest?]
This was a short and sweet solve. Most enjoyable, with its well-crafted surfaces, clean and neat wordplay and a generous sprinkling of wit. The tricksy alternative anagrind for FOIE GRAS held me up for a moment or two. UNREPAIR was a bit of a pimple on the smooth face of the vocabulary. I concur with almost all the comments made so far, except for Shirl’s @13 — I absolutely did not think of ‘fannies’ at 9a.
Thanks both and a most enjoyable puzzle. I took SCRATCH to refer to the golf score in Stableford format whereby nothing is scored on a given hole and the hole is therefore “scratched”.
muffin @ 38
I don’t disagree with that. My point is that unrepaired is fine, but unrepair as a verb seems odd.
Unrepaired is verbal but disrepair is a noun, so in one of those quirks of language the same root has different prefixes to convey (pretty much) the same meaning.
[Gazzh @40, re. Wordle. There is a successful opening-word strategy which does not involve using the same word each day. Deploying it, I have a 100% win rate in 4 guesses or fewer, but I am not giving my secret away.]
[Me @me @44. Sorry, I should have added that the one time I have been taken to the fifth guess was the aforementioned FAVOR on January 12th. I too was pissed off, but not sufficiently so to retire from the fray.]
Shirl @13: I thought of the FANY too.
The British meanings of GOOSEBERRY, PERISHER, and “monkey” were new to me, or if not absolutely new at least didn’t come to mind.
Thanks for the blog, nice puzzle with very sound clues.
I did put oatmeal for 5Ac which made a real mess of my grid when I came to put the Downs in.
Agree with MrPostMark @4 and others about ISLA, it does work but a bit clumsy.
I liked RHOMBI ans STEP-UP and many others , nice to have clues where you do not need the definition.
Picaroon’s puzzles are such a pleasure to solve. My favourites have all been mentioned, but GOOSEBERRY BUSH provided particular pleasure as I gradually unravelled the two parts of the wordplay. Thanks, I think, essexboy, for the memories of the (lost) Generation Game.
A little encouragement for those who tend to struggle with crossword puzzles:
Today I struggled to get started, decided I had more important things to do today, and gave up. On another day I could probably have made better progress – this is my first almost total defeat this year. Looking through the solutions, I just missed Picaroon’s thought process on most.
I was surprised to find out that I am a little PERISHER.
Very good. I initially thought PRIME MINISTERS was pretty weak, but only because I couldn’t see beyond 11 and 13 as hours. So Prime Minister = PM = somethings that kicks in between 11 and 1 o’clock. A shrug and “can’t be anything else but that is feeble”, but thanks, I now see the excellence of the clue went right over my head!
Managed to solve this gem quadrant by quadrant, NE first clockwise. Some lovely misdirections, not least FOIE GRAS, my favourite.
Re RHOMBI, the character in Sophocles denotes P, as RHO is written as such, so would also work with Euripides but not Aeschylus. Very clever!
Well I’ve only just finished this excellent puzzle, with a longish gap to clean the kitchen. I loved many of the same clues as others, only saw MISNOMER at the last minute, and was totally floored by goose liver pâté. And I did wonder if the wine I drank for my birthday yesterday might have had something to do with it.
“Mother may I go out to swim?”
“Yes my darling daughter.
Hang your clothes on a gooseberry bush
But don’t go near the water”
Told to me by my mother, born 1915, who eventually explained the bit about babies and gooseberry bushes!
Yes Dryll@51, I was also going to suggest Euripedes as an alternative ancient Greek playwright with a Rho in his name, until I saw your further suggestion about RHO of course being represented with a P. Thought SWEARING excellent, and also the aforementioned PRIME MINISTERS. One or two needed help with the parsing here, but generally a straightforward and enjoyable solve for this solver today…
Thanks to both. Failed to solve 19d because I assumed I was looking for 4 letters for “one like Rees-Mogg”.
All over Red Rover (as far as comments go). But just to say that I liked it – thanks to Picaroon and PeterO. In an interesting coincidence with the solution for 18a this appeared in today’s news here: Isla is the new queen of baby girl names in Queensland after overtaking long-running favourite Charlotte in 2021 while Oliver continues a nine-year streak at the top of the list of boys’ names {Queensland is the Australian state where I live]. So of all the girls’ names that could have come up …
Too late to add anything of note, so I’ll just echo George’s comment @11.
Many thanks to Picaroon and manehi.
And I’ll echo Eileen @56. Great stuff, as usual from Picaroon. And thanks PeterO for the blog.
Sincam@52 I learned that rhyme (and had forgotten all about it till you reminded me) as “Hang your clothes on a hickory limb.” That rhymes but hasn’t got the gooseberry/baby connation in it. Is that American? Looking it up, I find that hickories grow in the Americas and Asia, but not Europe. Hickory nuts, by the way, are delicious (there was a hickory tree on my grandfather’s farm) but are very hard to shell, which is probably why nobody’s tried to market them.
Thanks, Picaroon, for a fine puzzle, and PeterO for a helpful blog.
gazzh@40 I believe there is definitely an optimal starting word for wordle, but probably not a starting pair, unless the first word produces no matches, which has not happened to me yet.
Spooner’s catflap@44: I don’t see how using different start words can possibly be a better strategy. It would imply some knowledge about the daily word. Besides, unless it has already been used, eventually my start word will come up and I’ll have a solution in one!
I don’t think it is always solvable without a little luck. I’ve spotted one list of words differing by one letter – brain, drain, grain, train – and there are probably more. If you hit one like that, first you have to get near enough to identify the problem, then hope you can eliminate several at once with an unrelated word – bodge would be good in my example. I think though even in this kind of worst case you would need only a little luck to get it in 6.
[ravenrider@59: that bodge dodge is certainly a good tactic. My family laughed at me because my greens went backwards between two guesses one day, but they need to remember that the objective is to guess the word, not to improve on each turn.]
I’ve had a purple patch recently but I struggle with Picaroon. We’re on different wavelengths. This time, however, I eventually finished and even somewhat enjoyed it. I especially like his user-friendly grids and penchant for 14/15 letter entries 😀
[ravendider @59 and others, re Wordle: it also depends on whether you’re running in “hard mode”, in which case you have to use any revealed letters. I start with ADIEU (although I do vary it for variety’s sake) but I’ve heard others use AEROS to tease out the vowels. Wired wrote about this recently.
Thanks Picaroon and PeterO for explaining PRIME MINISTERS.
Lots to like today and by no means a write-in. I wasn’t fooled by the eighth vehicle trick but I was unable to count, so I looked for words with CARI in them… that one was rather late in 🙁 .
I quite like ISLA (St Clair was my first thought too) because I think the hiding of it in Scottish ISLAnd is Picaroon using his multiple wordplay style again, as he does in JEAN for example.
PRIME MINISTERS was very well done, as was THE SUN ALSO RISES anagram. The only trouble with GRAMOPHONE is that they’re currently popular again at least over this side of the pond. My daughter likes to hang LPs as decoration rather than playing them though! Not sure why, TBH.
Thanks, Pickers and Peter.
phitonelly
I think if you told someone that their hi-fi deck, amplifier, and speakers used to play their precious vinyl records was a “gramophone” they might be a bit offended 🙂
pdp11@61 I saw adieu as a suggestion in one of the recent Guardian articles. It’s an excellent choice but since it wasn’t my idea I’m sticking to my own choice.
Enjoyed this a lot. Hard enough to be testing but never too obscure. Some clever, satisfying puzzles to solve. Thanks, Picaroon
I agree that “unrepair” feels odd and it’s not listed as an un-word in my Chambers ED. But I do think it’s OK
DavidS@65 My Chambers (13th ed) does list it as an un-word. I sometimes think they pop in when you’re not looking. 🙂
Going back to UNREPAIR, it’s listed in my SOED with an initial citation of 1873, with UNREPAIRED going back to 1523.
Why are people still commenting on the crossword? Some people are trying to have a discussion about Wordle and these comments on the puzzle, though respectful of Picaroon and PeterO, are getting in the way.
Most of my favourite whiskies come from Islay, so it was a treat, while traipsing through my local (French) supermarket to spot a halal mortadella ( ?! ) branded ISLA.
muffin @63
I’m sure they would, but my point is that you can actually buy new LP-playing gramophones (with bluetooth!) these days.
Good grief, phitonelly! Does anyone buy them?
I quite enjoyed this. As Vinny said up there, GOOSEBERRY for a third wheel and PERISHER for an obstreperous child are both foreign to me, but that didn’t stop the fun. On which note: Gazzh @40 and Spooner’s Catflap @45: if you do an American puzzle, you have to expect American spelling. No sympathy from this quarter at all, as the shoe is now on the other foot!
[My starting Wordle words are STONE and LAIRD, which account for ten of the eleven most common letters (missing only C from the common-in-dictionaries list, which is the one that matters for Wordle; yes, U, in twelfth position, is less common than all of those consonants). I haven’t thought too hard about it, though; there are probably better choices.]
[@ muffin. Who knows? Vintage car lovers, steam train enthusiasts, Sinlair C5 owners?]
I have a vague recollection of reading, or perhaps hearing, someone describe a blow to the testicles as being “a thwack to the gooseberries”. The reproductive organs provided a second connection to “may be fruitful”, but alas, not to “third person”. (Also, for an alarming moment, I thought that GOOSEBERRY BUSH might be a colourful UK term for hairy balls.)
[Me @72: TAILS and CRONE get all of the top ten, although I’m not sure I really want a C rather than a D for this purpose.]
Well this was a workout! I reached a point with three answers left, with all the crossers… and not the faintest idea, until one by one they dropped.
I’d never heard of PERISHER – it might be British, but it’s certainly not contemporary!
Thanks PeterO and Picaroon. And my Wordle starter is ASIDE, followed by COURT if that returns all blanks.
[My apologies to those not addicted to Wordle. I seem to have started this diversion. ]
This is a personal bête noire, but I have an aversion to answers that are given names and defined as just ‘girl’ or ‘boy’ or similar.
I look forward to the time that leads to a PAVEL or KHALID. 🙂
I agree with others that ISLA was a strange clue. I was trying to find an ‘ND’ to subtract, it seemed strange that the answer was pretty much spelled out and not a telescopic clue.
Not complaining though, we get lots of free entertainment from our poorly remunerated setters and I really do appreciate their efforts.
Sort of @ mrpenney @ 72
I remember reading years ago that Saki’s short story ETAOIN SHRDLU was titled because they were, in order, the most commonly used letters in English.
Maybe the usage has changed
I’m surprised that 12D has not led to this.
[pdp11: to answer your question of a few days ago – I only asked about vW grammars because I had abbreviated someone’s (van Winkle’s?) name to vW. Although, as it happens, one of my profs was one of the authors of the Revised Report on Algol 68.]
Simon @79: ETAOIN SHRDLU is the correct order in standard written text. For that reason it’s also the order of the first two rows of keys on a linotype machine. But the fact that some words (like “the” and “them”) are more common than others means that if you’re just considering the set of all dictionary entries, the order is different–S becomes more common that way, and H less so, for example.
Gazzh@28
Someone (SimonS ?) wrote here that he had heard that Matilda was Mrs Philistine but he couldn’t vouch for it. The same unverified connection has been made occasionally since.
mrpenney @ 81: Ah, the difference between dictionary entries and usage would explain that.
Pino @ 82: yes, it was I. And having spoken to Picaroon several times, he’s never mentioned Matilda (or her real name). I’m reasonably sure that it’s she and Philistine who are linked.
SimonS @79: the story was by Fredric Brown, and refers to the sequence of letters on the keyboard of the Linotype machine featured.
16d brought to mind Maurice Dodd’s THE PERISHERS in the Daily Mirror
Although Saki didn’t write ETAION SHRDLU, he did write “Sredni Vashtar,” which may account for the confusion.
[ Van Winkle@68 Nice try, but it didn’t stop them, did it? ]
[Pino@82, Simon S@83 thank you and apologies to all concerned. It does tickle me when obscurities crop up in different places in rapid succession eg CHERCHEZ LA FEMME and BAMBOOZLE not long ago.
Not going to apologise for my part in Wordlegate (except to say sorry for the awful practice of adding -gate to the end of anything vaguely controversial) as I have enjoyed the discussion and after all we are all here because of our love of words and wordplay.
Phitonelly and muffin, I own a record player, most of it is older than me – as a result of this crossword and discussion I now know that it is also a gramophone and a phonograph and I would not be offended if you call it one. I had previously thought gramophones were those big wooden cabinets that also had speakers and a radio, but now know that this is a radiogram.
Bear@80 – thank you!]
The reference to Rees-Mogg had me stuck trying to parse ‘Dimple’
Grateful for the parsing of PRIME MINISTERS – I thought that the numbers should have been between 9 and 11, as PMs are found at Number 10.
I’m green with envy of those who found this one such an easy puzzle to solve. Normally I get on quite will with Picaroon, so I must have just had a bad case of concrete brain.
I was stuck with a half-filled grid overnight, and at one stage this morning found myself looking at a nina ‘between 11 and 13’ in the grid, which (with 12d still unsolved) could have been PMT or GMT, neither of which looked likely to help with 21a. That tea tray eventually clanged, but I never did get 15d. As a child I hated being given liver to eat, and at age 28 I became a vegetarian (now vegan) and have never eaten FOIE GRAS. The very thought of the process of making it makes me want to cat, and this somehow made the anagram unsolvable to me.
Strangely, I find myself agreeing with Van WInkle @68. Perhaps Gaufrid can be persuaded to start a Wordle blog?
Belated thanks to Picaroon and Peter O.
Yes this was a good ‘un. Got held up by being misdirected re FOIE GRAS.
Late thanks to Picaroon and Peter O.
Thanks Picaroon for a challenging and interesting (thought-provoking) one.
Thanks too PeterO for a nicely put set of parses. Especially liked the one for 21a – which I got but couldn’t quite get a working parse, and 18a which was also little more than a guess for me.
… Picaroon, especially liked JEAN. Remember thinking a fair bit along those lines when I reached puberty some 4 decades ago 🙂