In the preamble to my last Prize crossword blog, four weeks ago, I said that the theme of that puzzle, by Imogen, couldn’t have been more up my street. I count myself lucky to have landed, so soon, another such – quite different – this time from Picaroon.
Following my usual practice of tackling the clues in order, I hadn’t noticed anything going on until I reached 8dn. It’s not the first time that Picaroon has used a theme in this way, helpfully telling us how many theme words we’re looking for. It was fun hunting them all down and particularly satisfying to spot the well hidden IOTA and OMEGA.
As usual from this setter, the cluing was meticulous, making the solve and the parsing relatively straightforward but no less enjoyable and, as always, there were some great surfaces.
My particular favourites were CRETAN, SCHISM, PHILOLOGIST, HOME GAME, URGENT, SHEEP DIP and GREEK LETTER, for making me laugh at the first three words of the clue and sending me off on the merry chase through the across clues with a smile on my face. I hadn’t, at this point, solved them all, so the theme was helpful in some cases.
Many thanks to Picaroon for the fun.
Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Across
5 Islander heading for cinema rushed to catch film (6)
CRETAN
C[inema] + RAN (rushed) round ET (film)
6 Picked up doughnut for some stars (6)
TAURUS
Sounds like (picked up) torus (doughnut – see here)
9 Conservative chap’s into S&M, creating division (6)
SCHISM
C (Conservative) + HIS (chap’s) in S M
10 Oh dear! Is ground in country no longer? (8)
RHODESIA
An anagram (ground) of OH DEAR IS: Rhodesia is now Zimbabwe
11 Native American‘s somewhat faddish opinions (4)
HOPI
Contained in faddisH OPInions
12 What disciplinarians read has man involved in threesome with delicacy (3,4,3)
THE RIOT ACT
HE (man) in TRIO (threesome) + TACT (delicacy) – see here for the derivation of ‘to read the Riot Act’
13 Some wood covered in fancy polish — it’s for expert in 8s, say (11)
PHILOLOGIST
LOG (some wood) in an anagram (fancy) of POLISH IT
18 Outdid frames art gallery trialled (4-6)
BETA-TESTED
BESTED (outdid) round TATE (art gallery)
21 Going out with partner once having personal charm (4)
EXIT
EX (partner once) + IT (personal charm)
22 Ambassador willing to accept honour for England at Wembley, say? (4,4)
HOME GAME
HE (His or Her Excellency – ambassador) + GAME (willing) round OM (Order of Merit – honour)
23 Nurse only half pens records for medical problem (6)
SEPSIS
SIS[ter] (nurse, only half) round EPS (records)
24 Satisfied about cool ending of Rameau composition (6)
MINUET
MET (satisfied) round IN (cool) + [ramea]U
25 I’m not sure about small-scale rebellion (6)
MUTINY
A reversal (about) of UM (I’m not sure) + TINY (small-scale)
Down
1 One dwelt towards the north, given case of Scotch that’s very bad (8)
DEVILISH
A reversal (towards the north, in a down clue) of I (one) LIVED (dwelt) + S[cotc]H
2 Rodent raised two male animals (6)
MARMOT
A reversal (raised) of TOM (cat) + RAM (two male animals)
3 Paddling in ocean incredibly good (8)
CANOEING
An anagram (incredibly) of IN OCEAN + G (good)
4 Primitive fellow’s grave (6)
URGENT
UR (primitive) + GENT (fellow)
5 Firms working to provide protective covering (6)
COCOON
CO CO (firms) + ON (working)
7 Cut treatment for side pain (6)
STITCH
Double definition
8 Queen dons anorak, European queen that’s one of thirteen characters across here (5,6)
GREEK LETTER
R (queen) in GEEK (anorak) + LETT (European) + ER (another queen) – and here’s the theme
14 Oscillations in air currents or foliage around east and west (3,5)
LEE WAVES
LEAVES (foliage) round E and W – a new term for me but impeccably clued, so it just needed a google – see here
15 Rogue peed in vessel for disinfectant (5,3)
SHEEP DIP
An anagram (rogue) of PEED in SHIP (vessel)
16 Buckle from jacket of fleece turned up in bedroom (6)
DEFORM
A reversal (turned up) of F[leec]E in DORM (bedroom)
17 Energise two classical sextets, faintly disheartened (6)
VIVIFY
VI VI (two sixes in Roman – classical – numerals) + F[aintl]Y
19 Getting on and being in harmony but not touching (6)
AGEING
AG[re]EING (being in harmony) minus re (touching)
20 Fight you heard on street during party (4-2)
DUST-UP
U (you heard) + ST (street) in Democratic Unionist Party)
Thanks Eileen. I lacked your application and was remiss in not accounting for a Greek letter in each across clue but still enjoyed it. Some gliding experience wrote in 14d for me but I had to check on HOPI. I spent some time unsuccessfully trying to explain AGEING so thanks for that but I still have to wonder at re=touching.
My experience was much as Eileen’s. Fave was HOME GAME. Thanks.
We had nearly finished before GREEK LETTER (or at least the ‘Greek’ part of it) suddenly dropped with a clang – actually when I was in that half-awake phase in bed the next morning, not even thinking of it – and it did help with our remaining across (MINUET). So mainly solved without knowledge of the theme, and the hunt for the letters was fun – I would add PSI to your list of lovely hiding, Eileen. Thanks, Eileen and Picaroon.
No problem finding all the Greek letters , but I failed on URGENT, just bunging in Ernest without trying to parse it.
I did like AGEING. “Re” = concerning or touching I don’t see as a problem.
Seeing that GREEK LETTER was the key to the across answers I made quick work of this Picaroon gem. [I learned the Greek alphabet as a fraternity pledge years ago; we had to light a match, hold it between our thumb and forefinger, and rattle off the alphabet before blowing it out. Though this sort of learning is now out of favour, I can still rapidly run through the letters.] Many clues received ticks including COCOON, SCHISM (amusing surface), MUTINY, DEVILISH, and CANOEING among them. Thanks Eileen for your usual wonderful blog.
Thanks Eileen. it was a jolly treasure hunt for the hidden thirteen, when the work was done. Like TimC I laboured over 4 down, discarding priest and Ernest: then memories of a visit to desolate Ur in the 1980s did it for me.
Worked steadily and enjoyably through this without realising there even was a theme, until I had only 12a, 8d and 13a left. I’d speculated on the possible literary tastes of disciplinarians without hitting on anything that fitted, and I’d been misled by the combination of “thirteen characters across” in the 8d clue, and the reference to ‘8s’ in the 13a clue into thinking these were some sort of entangled pair of solutions. Then I sorted out PHILOLOGIST, and that ‘L’ in the crossers finally gave me GREEK LETTER. And at that point, rather like TasieTim @ 3, realisation dawned. Moreover, the only letter left that would fit in the remaining 12a was iota, and there was THE RIOT ACT, which hadn’t been what I was thinking of at all. (It was only after the event that I realised the nerdish connotations of anorak, but I can see where they come from.) Very nicely packaged by Picaroon, and nice work on the blog, too, Eileen. Thanks to both.
Oh dear, didn’t wake up, even with being told in 8d! Talk about dense. [Too busy musing nerdily about Hopi having, according to Benjamin Whorf, grammar that details the relation between duration and intensity.]
Hey ho, enjoyed it anyway, thanks PnE.
Fun puzzle. Took me a while to get going until I worked out the theme after soving RHOdesia, BETA-tested, MUtiny, and 8d. After this, it became a lot more enjoyable.
Favourites: DEVILISH, COCOON, SCHISM, URGENT (loi).
New: LEE WAVES.
Thanks, both.
Enjoyed this a lot
As I worked through this I kept thinking 8 dn might be GREEK LETTER from the crosses but wasn’t sure until I got BETA-TESTED and suddenly realised how to parse it. Then I started looking for other greek letters. Too late to help me much but did help with the last few.
My favourite was THE RIOT ACT – brilliant fitting IOTA in there.
Also loved COCOON
Thanks Picaroon and Eileen
I had no idea of the theme, I see it now, very clever.
Maybe if I had got 8d, that would have helped, missed ANORAK = GEEK.
Thanks Eileen.
Thanks Eileen, I was somehow in the zone for this and thought it was excellent, the ‘theme’ was very handy for checking a few things though I don’t think it actually helped to solve anything. I had the same shrug on removing the RE as Biggles A, after Tim C’s equivalences I think I can get there via “touching on”, so thanks. The maths education that included most of the characters also taught me to derive some equation for 14d, long since forgotten but at least the term stuck. Thanks Picaroon.
I really liked this and hunting out the hidden GREEK LETTERS. I got the theme in time for it to help me – BETA-TESTING helped me to put it all together, like Fiona-Anne @10. Like TimC @4 and molonglo @6 my LOI after a long ponder was URGENT, with a PDM clang. I need to remember UR as a prefix.
Thank you to Eileen and Picaroon.
I follow a similar solving route to Eileen and take on the clues in numerical order so reached that same key hint reasonably early. It was a pleasurable experience to parse each across and look out for the hidden element. Thanks Goodness Picaroon was decent and put one in every across. If there’d been one or two missing (not that Picaroon would do that), might have been quite a bit trickier. HOME GAME my favourite, both for the overall surface and for so smoothly incorporating one of the longer letters.
Thanks Picaroon and Eileen
Great puzzle, thanks to Picaroon, and thanks for the commentary, Eileen. I got to the theme through the anagram in PHILOLOGIST and thence ‘characters’ in 8d, which greatly helped complete the across entries. Thought I had finished quickly.
But in fact, like TimC@4, I entered ‘ernest’ at 4d though I could not see why, so in fact I DNF. I am not entirely comfortable with urgent=grave, but Chambers Crossword Dictionary permits it, and of course my word should be spelt ‘earnest’, as without the ‘a’ it is the name (hence the importance of spelling earnest).
LEE WAVES was new to me too.
Great puzzle! My experience somewhat like KeithS @7. Eventually got GREEK but the LETTER took much longer. The theme didn’t help me but added even greater admiration for Picaroon when it finally all dawned. Brilliant. For once, I managed to parse everything. MINUET was my last. Had SLATED/SALTED lined up for that, because satisfied = sated. All very neat. TAURUS was one of many smiles.
Epsilon and Upsilon would have been a challenge.
A lovely puzzle; satisfying to solver and compiler too, I expect.
Many thanks to Picaroon and Eileen
After yesterday’s gem from Picaroon it was a pleasure to read Eileen’s splendid blog and links for another exceptional puzzle. I managed to complete apart from URGENT (glad I’m not alone on that one), but could only do so through getting the theme early. The parsing of TAURUS, MINUET, and MUTINY and even GREEK LETTER were beyond me, hence my gratitude to Eileen, as well as thanks to Picaroon. I’m a huge fan of both.
sjshart@15: I took urgent and grave as both descriptive of a perilous situation. Pressing would be a third synonym in the same sense.
Really enjoyed this one! I often struggle with parsing my answers but once I had the theme it helped – e.g. it proved hOME GAme had to be correct and worth the effort to figure out why!
I had AGEING but needed the blog to understand why. And URGENT came to me as I had one final look just before reading the blog.
Thanks to picaroon & Eileen.
nametab@17
As would the dreaded omicron. This was helpful in working out 6a, my LOI, as TAU was the only feasible letter left by the time I got that far. My experience was the same as Eileen’s in that it took a while to reach and solve 8d and when I did it helped. Similarly LEE WAVES @14d was new to me but clearly clued.
I remember being the first in my class in Leeds to be able to recite the Greek alphabet and thus winning the autograph of Bob Appleyard, the great Yorkshire and England bowler.
Picaroon is on good form, isn’t he? Yesterday’s had lots to make me smile. Thanks to him and to Eileen.
Good setting to get all the themers in Across spaces.
I did manage to solve GREEK LETTER early enough to help with some, although I couldn’t see the letter in HOME base, doh!
I liked the dd for STITCH.
Thanks Picaroon and Eileen.
Another very enjoyable puzzle from Picaroon – precise clueing and some gentle humour. I enjoyed looking for the Greek letters. I note, looking at my puzzle, 4D is blank. So a DNF for me but obvious now that Eileen has explained it.
Thanks Picaroon and Eileen.
I’d barely started on this last Saturday, with RHODESIA & HOPI the only entries in the grid, when some friends suggested meeting for a beer. We’d barely arrived at the pub when the word GEEK suddenly appeared in the conversation, and before I knew it I had solved 8d and got the theme without even thinking about it.
Like quite a few others, I failed on 4d, so kudos to Eileen and anyone else who got URGENT. It required more flexibility of brain than I managed to achieve.
Thanks to Picaroon (again) and Eileen.
Tricky and clever as usual. Obvious that there was a theme from 8d. I managed to fill out 8d without solving the clue (very tricky), but I forgot to go back and check the theme. Dohh! Fell foul of the ‘Ernest’ wrong answer in 4d. I don’t use ‘urgent’ for ‘grave’, so ‘ernest’ (alternative spelling of earnest’) seemed a more likely fit. I did know the prefix ‘ur’ from german, but many solvers wouldn’t know that. Hmmm! Not a satisfying clue.
Thank you Picaroon and Eileen. Amazed that I did so well without seeing the theme despite getting GREEK LETTER fairly early on.
Great puzzle and excellent explanations of why I solved clues without consciously understanding how!
Had a go at this after cracking Paul this morning (another gem) and wasn’t disappointed. Very clever and like others thought HOME GAME was superb. LEE WAVES and UR were new.
Ta Picaroon & Eileen.
Enjoyable puzzle. I don’t remember after a week at what point 8d revealed the theme (if it did), but it was fun spotting them. I endorse everybody else’s ticks and plaudits.
Thanks Picaroon for the puzzle, and as ever Eileen for the super blog.
I had a look at the definitions of ‘grave’ and ‘urgent’ in my copy of the SOED. As expected, ‘urgent’ implies a need for prompt action. I was not happy with ‘ernest’ as an alternative answer, but it does appear in my SOED as an obsolete spelling of ‘earnest’.
I would put it thus. “The illness is grave, but does not require urgent attention”. I suppose that the muddled usage of ‘urgent’ and ‘grave’ has made it into some dictionaries.
Finally I finished a crossword in time to comment, only to find that everything I thought about this gem has already been said.
I too initially thought of “ernest” for 4d, but didn’t enter it because I couldn’t explain “Primitive” in the clue, and so I eventually landed on URGENT. I knew about UR from “urtext” editions in music.
Thanks Picaroon for the fun, and Eileen for the superb blog.
P.S., nametab@17, I can still get a taste of the pepsi long after uncovering it.
cellomaniac @30 – but you still had something to add: Bravo!
Very clever and very enjoyable and not too difficult. I found myself writing answers straight in as I went through the clues (in the conventional order, like Eileen, not in Postmark@14’s numerical order, which, as previously discussed elsewhere, is different!).
I cracked the theme after getting PHILOLOGIST, I think, when I realised (perhaps with the help of some check letters) that the “characters” referred to in 8dn must be LETTERs and GREEK followed soon after in a beautiful pdm. It was in time to be some help with finishing the puzzle, too.
I, too, was not totally comfortable with URGENT = grave, but I was familiar with ‘ur’ (as in ‘the ur-text’) so I was reasonably sure of the answer and reasoned that a grave situation will often be urgent (although not always, as pointed out by JohnJB@29).
“Touching” is not quite the same as ‘re’, is it? The latter suggests is referring the the central topic, while touching (on) seems more tangential.
Biggles A has impressed me mightily by mentioning experience gliding (which I would love to do) and so knowing about LEE WAVES, which (like many others here) I hadn’t heard of. Now I know what Biggles was doing while I was getting familiar with, e.g., the slang drug terminology I’ve helped them with in the past. Probably also explains the moniker (which I originally thought marked them as one of the “WE Johns” setters).
On Monday, a certain VicTim posted a comment on General Discussion suggesting that the clue for 16dn as printed in the paper was different from that available through the internet. They haven’t posted here (yet?) and no one else seems to have mentioned it. Does anyone know what they were talking about?
Yes always nice to see a theme publicised. Hands up who has seen UR as a prefix. Not me.
Thanks both
tim@33, re UR as a prefix, see Tony@32 and me@30. I can’t say that I’ve seen it outside of the world of music.
Tony Collman @32, if you’re still there –
I solved the puzzle in the paper and used the ‘Print’ online version (which was the same) to copy and paste my draft blog. It was only when I saw the comment you quote that I found there was a discrepancy in the online pdf version, where the clue for 16dn was
‘Having eaten up a bagel, say, marines get out of shape (6)’
– but, by the time I came to post the blog, later in the week, I’d forgotten about it! As you say, no one else seems to have mentioned it..
I learned UR through crosswords and it’s one of the things that have stuck.
Tony @ 32. Thank you. I was at one time an aviator and my nickname unsurprisingly was Biggles. When I came to post here I knew that the title was already in use by the WE Johns so merely added the initial letter of my surname to avoid any confusion.
Eileen@35, thanks for that. I thought VicTim would come on and mention it. I downloaded the pdf when I read about the change and by that time, it was the same as the one I’d solved on my phone in a browser, as annotated by your good self above.
I’m not sure why it was changed, but it seems the definition is transitive in one case and intransitive in the other. Without even looking in a dictionary, I feel sure both are valid.
I’m not sure where I first learned ‘ur’ as a prefix, but it think it might come from German (the ‘ur-ur’?). I doubt very much it was from mentions of music manuscripts. I’ve always thought it must stem from the ancient city of Ur, the origin of the patriarchs, but that could easily just be my own invention
Biggles A@36, I envy you your life as an aviator. I wanted to be an airline pilot when I was a kid. Now, I would quite like to do something like this (hope the YouTube link works).
… or, actually, maybe “a bagel, say” for O was deprecated?