Guardian 28,875 / Picaroon

64 comments on “Guardian 28,875 / Picaroon”

1. Excellent puzzle from Picaroon and fine blog from Eileen as usual.

   I think ‘Person setting’ is the fuller reference to ‘me’ in 14dn.

2. greyfox @1 – oh, of course it is! I’ll amend it now. Many thanks.

3. Absolutely loved this as much as Eileen.

   Struggled a bit with the double “saints” in BRASS NECK but it didn’t spoil anything.

   Failed to fully parse LION-TAMER due to not spotting the includer clothes.

   Favourites ADMIT & CREAM CRACKER!

   Many thanks both.

4. I agree with greyfox. The bottom half went in reasonably quickly but I found the top much harder. Thanks Picaroon and Eileen.

5. Picaroon is just so good. As Eileen says, his name on a puzzle is always a welcome sight.

6. I think SS is saints, as in more than one saint, i.e. S and S

7. Fwiw Eileen, I think in 14d, that ME is ‘person setting’ rather than just ‘person’.
   Thanks for the ever-excellent blog. And to Picaroon for the meticulously set puzzle.

8. Crispy @6 – but there is only one S in the wordplay.

9. Sorry @1!

10. Eileen’s summary says it all. I’d add RUMBA to the list of favourites. I am more inclined to think of BRA as undies and SS as saints.

11. I assumed it was BRA singular with two saints SS. I think undies can be used to refer to a single undergarment

    Charming as ever from Picaroon – I liked the link between CREAM CRACKER and “Jacob”

    RUMBA was my fave and ABAFT a new word to me

    Cheers P&E

12. [Apologies for the x-post with PeterT @10]

13. Petert and bodycheetah – I think you’re right: that was the way I read it initially.

14. Pickers put his best foot forward today.
    This was hoot even by his standards

15. I didn’t finish this — there were a few that eluded me. In this part of the world, I’ve never heard of ALKY, BRASS NECK or ABAFT, all of which my dictionary informs me are specifically British. I couldn’t parse INAUGURAL, FLEECE, ILIAD nor RERUN. That Spanish wine has cropped up a few times in recent weeks. Wikipedia offered me eighteen Institutes of Technology for MIT — I plumped for Melbourne, but of course it didn’t matter.

    I’m disappointed that I didn’t finish, as I have done in all other recent Picaroons’, but still derived some enjoyment. CORNEA, BUSTLED & DATELESS were among my favourites.

16. An excellent puzzle with lots of great clues.

    “My” (21d) always used to fool me, but I’ve now conditioned myself so that whenever I see it (which is quite a lot) I think COR!

    I think we had “potted” for drunk (18a) quite recently. It always reminds me of the scene in Fawlty Towers where Polly is trying to warn Basil (in front of the guests) that the chef is drunk: “He’s POTTED… the shrimps… He’s SOUSED… the herrings… He’s PICKLED… the onions…”

    Many thanks Picaroon and Eileen.

17. Lord Jim @16 – re 21dn: I included the exclamation mark for you, having agreed with your recent comment. 😉 – and thanks, too, for the FT reminder.

18. Thanks Eileen, agree entirely with your assessment – all the same favourites here, plus the delightful CREAM CRACKER. And agree with copmus @14 too. An immensely satisfying solve with lots of smiles along the way.

19. Yep, bra + ss is how I read it. And isn’t abaft a beaut word, reminiscent of tall ships, a la, e.g., Patrick O’brian [much loved by Mrs ginf]. Lovely smooth puzzle from the pirate … got about ten acrosses on the first sweep and thought This is easy, but found the downs a bit chewier. Enamelled made me think of all those bowls, jugs and large teapots that used to be around … very serviceable, but not what you’d call pretty! All fun, many tas PnE.

20. Superb.

    Ta Picaroon & Eileen.

21. You won’t believe how long it took for the teatray to land on -E-T BANK!
    Didn’t see the Dáil, nho Tent (although I’ve drunk plenty of Tinto) or the cyclist, so thanks for the explanations, Eileen and thanks to Pickers for the challenge.

22. Picaroon tells such good stories, with impeccable grammar, that almost paradoxically manages to bamboozle, and it’s up to the reader to determine where to pause, what’s definition, wordplay and indicators.
    And after the ‘solve’ there’s so much more to see and enjoy. Great crossie.

23. I also had bra + ss for BRASS NECK like Petert @10, bodycheetah @11 and grantinfreo @19. I did like the fact that princess was not Di for once in KARATE.
    Favourites were ABAFT, ALKY (this expat knew the phrase as well as the reference to jelly) and COURSEWORK for the W or K.
    I had a bit of a different take on FLEECE, and referred Jacob not to the sheep (which is valid of course) but to Jacob and his twin Esau (whose name means a hairy man) where Jacob wore lamb skin (fleece?) to deceive his blind father Isaac into thinking he was really Esau and hence obtained the firstborn blessing from him. Maybe that is who the Jacob sheep is named after.

24. Pedantic grumble of the day – the vast majority of BAFTA awards go to people who are not actors.

25. Thanks for that, Tim C @23. I think you’re probably right. The link that I gave in the blog gives the Biblical derivation for the name of the sheep.

26. My apologies Eileen @25. I didn’t read enough of that link before commenting. The NIV and most reliable translations have goats and not sheep (no difference in terms of the clue).

27. TimC@23 and Eileen@25. I wondered about Billy and Jacob, as I usually think of ‘FLEECE’ as referring to sheep, which is probably Aussie-centric, but I found that they are both goats and that goat hair is also considered ‘fleece’. While I also did the biblical research as you both have, I just settled for the goats. I’m sure Picaroon may have had much more in mind, but my mind needed a rest when I got to FLEECE, my LOI.

28. Thanks Picaroon and Eileen
    Lovely puzzle, though quite hard. FOI was CLUE, but thereafter I worked slowly up from the bottom. The top was empty until BRASS NECK (BRA+SS for me too), then the breakthrough BEDTIME STORY; it went quite quickly after that.
    Favourites BRASS NECK, DATELESS, and PTOLEMAIC.
    When TENT has come up before I’ve suggested that “old wine” would be fairer, as it’s not a term in current use.

29. The two letters either side of the U in RUMBA makes an anagram of erm…RUMBA.

30. Great challenge today, but got there in the end – thanks Picaroon, and thanks Eileen and others for the parsing.

31. I enjoyed this, but the NW corner gave me trouble, failing to spot the BAFTA and not having heard of the Ural river. I also wasted a lot of time trying to persuade ALKY (not a familiar word) to be one of the four-letter colours of snooker ball. Heigh-ho.

    I’ve seen TENT often enough now to remember it, though I’ve never met the stuff in real life: perhaps it’s an old term for what is now called tinto? Like many of these elderly crosswordisms, just too useful to discard. Since my local church is SS Philip & James, I parsed BRASS NECK that way.

32. A tough one I thought, with ABAFT and PTOLEMAIC new to me (and I’m with Shirl @6 re the BAFTAs), while ‘tight’, ‘potted’, and ‘tent’ are all only at the very outer reaches of my knowledge.

    But a hugely enjoyable solve for all that. Best of the week so far, I think. GREASY POLE and BEDTIME STORY were particularly good.

    Thanks to Picaroon and Eileen.

33. As usual Eileen’s prologue sums up this excellent crossword just as I would have done

    Thanks to Picaroon for a great stretching of the cryptic grey matter and to Eileen for the blog

34. A lot of great clues here as usual for Picaroon. I found it a bit harder than normal, but I’ll put that down to some annoying mental blocks.

    I didn’t think KY jelly was familiar in Britain, but I confirmed it was by searching for it along with “Boots”.

    I was glad to see a mention of Duke University, where I’ve been teaching for the last couple of years post-“retirement”.

35. Lovely puzzle; great blog. Thanks Picaroon and Eileen. The blog snd comments have saved me laboriously listing the dozen clues I ticked as my favourites as I think they’ve all been mentioned. Apologies from Australia for the infamous Lance 25a STRONG-ARM, Everyone.

36. Does it matter if most of the BAFTAs don’t go to actors as long as some do?

37. Thanks Eileen, especially for the Jacob reference (I wondered if it was a typo for Jason!) and greyfox@1 because I had wondered why Picaroon had not referred to himself explicitly – doh!
    Luckily remembered “tent” from recent clues and also somehow helped on 4d by ENAMELLED having turned up elsewhere lately though clued very differently.
    bodycheetah@36 No I don’t think it does.
    Maybe I am in a minority of one but I didn’t like 24D because “no duplicated ingredient” to me would mean that BA (the duplicated ingredient) does not appear at all. (Cuban piece of cake? Second degree not required)
    Otherwise I am in the majority finding this typically fantastic, thanks Picaroon.

38. Best puzzle of the week but Pickers is my favourite setter so maybe I’m biased. Too many favourites to mention though having said that I’d single out BUSTLED for its concise wittiness. Thanks Picaroon and Eileen

39. Looked up Jacob sheep, looked at the picture and thought That looks like a goat. Funny that.

40. New for me : Jacob sheep (for 8d); ALKY; ABAFT (loi).

    Liked ENAMELLER, GREASY POLE, COURSEWORK.

    I did not parse 14d.

    Thanks, both.

41. [GinF @39
    If you look at wild-type sheep and goats, the import of the phrase “able to tell the sheep from the goats” becomes obvious. As I recall. it’s only the way the tail is held that is reliable!]

42. Eileen- others have explained ss in brass neck better than I did.

43. Thought the LION TAMER taking on a pride is a bit unlikely. Also isn’t AFT behind ..not heard of ABAFT
    Thanks both

44. tim @43
    “Aft” is the back, “abaft” is “to the back” or “behind”.

45. Mostly enjoyable but I left dissatisfied with 3D. I got there from the rest of the clue (Dail brought up), but “I” for a newspaper seems like a stretch? Also 20D, AR for “a recipe”; is there a convention I’m unfamiliar with, or am I missing some hint to take the initial letters?

46. Jacob @45
    There was a newspaper in Britain called the “I”, though I think that it is now just online.
    It’s R for recipe (quite common), not AR; the A is given in the clue.

47. Eileen, thanks for parsing ILIAD, GREASY POLE and BUSTLED. Also RERUN — I didn’t realize that “Casualty” was a place in a British hospital as well as an injured person.

    I thought the saints in 1d would be ST, leading to (I thought) ______ISTS T______. I keep forgetting that “saint” can also be just S.

    We haven’t seen “tent” for wine in a while, and I haven’t ever seen it anywhere but here.

    I enjoyed everybody’s favorites, and thank Picaroon and as ever Eileen for a companionable blog.

48. Jacob @ 45 & muffin @ 46

    The paper that went online-only was The Independent. ‘The i’ is still a paper newspaper.

49. [Simon @48
    I was never clear what the relationship between them was, though I do know that the I used to recycle old Independent crosswords.]

50. Valentine @47 – not only that but ‘Casualty’ is also a weekly TV drama series (cf ER) which I’ve just discovered from Wikipedia is the longest-running primetime medical drama series in the world, first broadcast in 1986.

51. Is ‘US Casualty’ going to be the new way to allude to ER?

52. Simply superb! Loved it all

    Thanks Picaroon and Eileen

53. Brilliant puzzle by Picaroon. LOI ABAFT. Valentine @47, ‘tent’ for wine is very common in the Times crossword.

54. Waited an age for a paper Guardian to plop through the letterbox before I realised that it would never come today. So printed a copy of the puzzle off for the very first time a little while ago and enjoyed the ride. Arched eyebrows for the provenance of ALKY, but apart from that, good clean fun throughout…give Picaroon something more rewarding than a CREAM CRACKER for his efforts to entertain us today….

55. I couldn’t figure out why ‘parliament’ was in 3d as I thought the definition was simply ‘Epic’ and account was a homophone indicator for ‘daily’ (newspaper)

56. Thanks Picaroon and Eileen. I agree that this is Picaroon “on top form” but isn’t he always?

57. Spent ages trying to find a word xxxFILLER for the French girl and king in 4d.
    “Went to deposit” for LEFT BANK is good, but perhaps “Went after depositing” would have been even better.

58. [Me@35: Not sure why I was trying to take the blame by thinking Lance Armstrong was Australian. I know very little about cycling (clearly) but realised this morning our time that I was wrong – maybe I was thinking about Stuart O’Grady or some of our other “infamous” cyclists?]

59. Eileen@50 And there was I just wondering what might be the longest-running medical drama series in the world! This site is another college degree.

60. Got stuck on 18a for a while, I suppose the whisky didn’t help.

61. DNF for me. I’d never heard of KY and only seen ALKY in speculative fiction: ‘potted’ for drunk is also a new one to me. Would others agree that clue was far too difficult for a very obscure word?
    So I googled KY. Oh! That sort of jelly (warning: NSFW). Wish I hadn’t.

    Also a bit dubious about BRASS NECK – like Eileen I thought it was S (surely the abbrev. is ST?) in BRAS. But that’s already been discussed.

    And BEDTIME etc.? Does ‘getting off’ equate with going to sleep? ‘Nodding off’ or ‘dropping off’ maybe…

    But the rest was fine, thanks Pickers and Eileen for helping out. Liked INAUGURAL and GREASY POLE especially.

62. Thanks Eileen and Picaroon! I did not finish, with nearly identical struggles to Geoff @15, although being from Boston originally there is one clear MIT to me 🙂
    Still lots of great clues with great surfaces to enjoy here; the simple CLUE was possibly my favorite.

63. Loved this, lots to smile at! Did not know Dail and assumed ‘parliament’ was a sound alike cue that I didn’t know (daily newspaper). Also got ‘beetled’ in my head for 11ac (beat=bust) for a while but everything else a god brain tickle.
    Cream crackered by the end, but in a good way!

64. *Good brain tickle, obvs! Although Picaroon a bit of a crossword god….

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