A relatively straightforward and (I think) themeless puzzle from Picaroon today. A certain amount of repetition of a couple of devices, but very enjoyable as ever. Thanks to Picaroon.
| Across | ||||||||
| 1 | CRIMINALISATION | Rule I’m breaking in antisocial partying, getting banned (15) R[ule] I’M in (IN ANTISOCIAL)* |
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| 9 | CRAMPED | Right bores lived temporarily with little space (7) R in CAMPED (lived temporarily) |
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| 10 | SCRAPED | Fought, gently scratched and grazed (7) SCRAPPED (fought) less (one) P (piano, gently) |
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| 11 | PIP | Seedy Dickens character? (3) Definition + hint. Pip (full name Philip Pirrip) is the narrator of Great Expectations |
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| 12 | GROUND FLOOR | Good straightforward puzzle, which is entry level (6,5) G + ROUND (straightforward) + FLOOR (to puzzle) |
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| 13 | ON THE CHEAP | Playing techno, that man has a piano for a song (2,3,5) TECHNO* + HE + A P |
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| 15 | WEED | Dope or whizz getting poor grade (4) WEE (urination, whizz) + D (a poor grade for an essay etc) |
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| 18 | YVES | Frenchman is the second person on the radio (4) Homophone of “Eve” (the second person after Adam) |
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| 20 | AGREEMENTS | American welcomes banking employees providing bonds (10) A + MEN (employees) in GREETS |
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| 23 | GET IT ACROSS | Solve the first clue — about time! — and explain the idea properly (3,2,6) T in GET 1 ACROSS |
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| 25 | WOO | What setter says, not loudly, in court (3) WOOF (what a dog, e.g. a setter, “says”) less F (forte, loudly) |
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| 26 | GORILLA | African vegetarian has toast and a bagel gets eaten (7) O (round shape, like a bagel) in GRILL + A |
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| 27 | HAIR OIL | Toiletry of, say, Louis XIV in freezing shower (4,3) ROI (French “king”) in HAIL |
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| 28 | LOCH NESS MONSTER | Dubious Scotsmen’s lore about thing periodically seen? (4,4,7) Alternate letters of tHiNg in (SCOTSMEN’S LORE)*, and it’s an &lit, meaning the whole clue is both definition and wordplay |
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| Down | ||||||||
| 1 | CACOPHONY | Business concealed by accountant — fraudulent racket (9) CO (company, business) in CA (Chartered Accountant) + PHONY |
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| 2 | IN A SPOT | Struggling son tucks into yoghurt found here? (2,1,4) S in IN A POT |
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| 3 | IMPUGNED | Questioned introduction from Homer’s neighbour, clutching dog (8) PUG (dog) in I’M NED {Flanders, Homer Simpson’s neighbour thanks to Gladys for pointing out my typo) |
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| 4 | AUDIO | Sound of car by roundabout? (5) AUDI + O (another round shape) |
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| 5 | INSENSATE | Foolish US politicians may be here, taking in society (9) S in IN SENATE |
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| 6 | ADRIFT | Off course in Dalmatia’s borders, around Split (6) Reverse of D[almati]A + RIFT (split) |
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| 7 | IMPROVE | Puck and Tramp — perfect! (7) IMP (e.g. Puck) + ROVE (to tramp) |
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| 8 | NADIR | Bottom pinched by flipping horrid antifeminist (5) Hidden in reverse of horRID ANtifeminist |
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| 14 | HIGH-CLASS | Drugged out students getting U (4-5) HIGH (drugged) + CLASS (students), with U = Upper-class, as in “U and non-U” |
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| 16 | DESPOILER | Vandal, one revealing plot following detective’s case (9) D[etectiv]E + SPOILER |
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| 17 | OMISSION | Dropping ball in front of goal (8) O (yet another round shape) + MISSION |
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| 19 | ENTERIC | Individual admitted to centre for treatment of the guts (7) I in CENTRE* |
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| 21 | NEWPORT | Left behind old overcrowded city, northerly Welsh city (7) Reverse of WEN (old word for an overcrowded city, as in “The Great Wen” for London) + PORT (left) – “northerly” indicates the reversal: Newport is actually in south Wales |
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| 22 | STOLEN | Hot sweet bread left out (6) STOLLEN less L – as in 10a, only one L is removed |
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| 23 | GOGOL | Repeatedly try Latin or Russian writer (5) GO (try) twice + L[atin] |
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| 24 | OGHAM | Ancient characters blunder when defending luvvie (5) OG (own goal, a “blunder when defending” in football”) + HAM (actor, luvvie) |
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Easier yhan the last two, but I still failed to parse a few. I think I was not looking too hard by the end. Thanks for clearring those up Andrew and Picaroon for the puzzle.
Nice one. Took a while to get started, but solved all but one — OGHAM (luvvie, I now discover, is a British expression). I guessed NEWPORT — again, my knowledge of things British was inadequate. Why is round straightforward?
Thanks Picaróon & Andrew.
We had the “wen” clue in a puzzle not so long, which enabled me to get NEWPORT. I have never heard of OGHAM, and take almost no interest in football, so I’m not surprised that I couldn’t figure that one out. I thought “defending” referred to an insertion of some kind; way off-beam.
Thanks Andrew and Pickers.
Andrew, Ned Flanders is Homer’s neighbour, not his nephew – which I’m sure you know so it looks like autocockup has interfered.
GDU, same here, except that I got OGHAM from a reference in a Terry Pratchett novel (that man’s breadth of knowledge was astounding). “Round” for “straightforward” is mysterious, given that “roundabout” is pretty much an antonym of it.
Thankyou for the early blog. Much appreciated by this insomniac! ? I needed help to parse a couple. I liked “in a pot” and “in senate”.
Round for straightforward as in “Give me the round tale”?
In the church in Nevern, my home village, There are a couple of stones in the window sill with OGHAM script on them, so it was an easy one for me.
SueB@7: Thanks, but I have never heard that expression either, so round=straightforward remains a mystery.
I’m not sure that luvvie is an exact synonym for HAM, but the general theatrical vibe was near enough. As Andrew notes, lots of round objects in today’s clues (not my favourite device).
But I liked GET IT ACROSS, ON THE CHEAP, WOO, LOCH NESS MONSTER, IMPROVE, and the mental image of Louis XIV in his freezing shower! Nice bit of misdirection in NEWPORT – I was looking in North Wales too.
Thanks Picaroon and Andrew. I was defeated by OGHAM and, as a result, HAIR OIL. WOO made me smile as did YVES.
A ROUND number possibly?
I thought this hit the sweet spot – challenging enough to be interesting right to the end, but all the clues wholly fair. And the two long anagrams are brilliantly contrived.
Thanks both.
Round for straightforward was a bung and shrug – nho in that context. For others similarly bemused, Chambers has a slew of relevant definitions:
Plain-spoken
Candid
Honest
Unsparing
Without mincing
The things you learn, eh?
Plenty to like including Newport (that’s a phrase I’ve never written before 😉 ), OGHAM, GOGOL, PIP, HIGH CLASS, AGREEMENT and WOO.
Thanks Picaroon and Andrew
LOCH NESS MONSTER was brilliant and there were quite a few other clues that raised a grin.
I knew OGHAM, from somewhere but I’ve got books on reading ancient texts from when I was researching a house and books on Celtic history from teaching the Celtic saints, but not OG for own goal, I assumed it was go flipped.
Thank you to Andrew and Picaroon
Gladys, please say more about Ned Flanders. Poor old techy doesn’t get the (classical?) reference.
Despite the spirited defence, still not happy with round/straightforward.
Generally, though, a very enjoyable crozzie. Loved WOO(f).
Thanks for explaining the own goal in OGHAM and the rest of the excellent blog, Andrew.
Loved the simplicity of YVES and WOO
Never tire of this setter
Thanks all!
Thanks PostMark, re round = straightforward… slow typist.
Smashing. I agree with copmus @16. Thanks, Picaroon and Andrew.
William @15 – you’re thinking of the wrong Homer. It’s a Simpsons reference.
More straightforward than I usually find Picaroon but still very enjoyable. LOI was Insensate which was very clever but I thought it meant without feeling rather than foolish. Loved the Simpsons reference and the clever use of 2 fellow setters in 7dn.
Thanks P and A for the excellent blog.
Round – from the OED:
19. Of behaviour, attitude, etc.: open, honest; spec. (of speech) plain, clear, straightforward.
eg: ‘Slife, I’ll be round with you. – James Joyce, Ulysses
As usual, I’m with copmus @16.
Widders @20: an ironic choice of quotation (presumably from OED) to illustrate ‘plain, clear, straightforward’ speech – a sentence beginning with ‘Slife …’
Widders @18: Thanks. I had less chance with The Simpsons than I did with The Classics!
Something like “Putting it roundly … ” sounds familiar, maybe with a boys-own feel (pace Widders and Joyce) …
I’m glad so many found this a breeze – for some reason it was at least as challenging for me as yesterday’s. But I got there 🙂
Lots to like – the long anagrams (though I solved these from the crossers and some of the letters of the anagrists, about which I was uncertain), YVES, WOO, HAIR OIL and those starting with IN. Favourite: CACOPHONY
I have always taken INSENSATE to mean ‘without physical feeling’ (like JerryG) but its usage is rare even with this connotation.
Thanks to the Pirate and Andrew
A question for our Irish contributors – would you rhyme OGHAM with poem?
Good to see General GOGOL – “Send in Agent XXX!”
I’m another who raised a Moore-ian eyebrow at round = straightforward. Strange that ‘square’ could be clued in the same way. “This is a Square House!” Cheers P & A.
You know you’re having a tough week when a Picaroon comes as a bit of light relief. Still had to search for OGHAM, though, which was new to me. YVES and CACOPHONY were amusing, I thought, and like many before me I spent too long looking for the LOCH NESS MONSTER.
Thanks to Picaroon and Andrew.
Very tough, solved only 2 on my first pass of the clues. Slowly solved the lower half.
Favourite: GET IT ACROSS.
New for me: NED = Homer Simpson’s neighbour (thanks, google); OGHAM (loi) – never heard of it.
I did not parse 24d or 10ac which I had assumed was a triple def.
Thanks, both.
I’m with those who are with copmus.
I agree entirely with the sentiment expressed in 7dn – with the addition of Picaroon. Many thanks, as ever, to him and to Andrew.
Thanks Picaroon and Andrew
A couple of places where Picaroon took pity and made the clue easier than strictly necessary – “Russian” in 23d and “Welsh” in 21d.
I luahed at WOO.
I too was thrown by “straightforward” = ROUND. I’ve never heard any of the examples people have found used.
essexboy @26: I think OGHAM is pronounced with a hard ‘g’, rhyming with flog ‘em. I thought this was delightful with wonderful long anagrams. Nice touch with Bottom coming beneath Puck in 7 & 8d. GET IT ACROSS, WOOF and INSENSATE were my favourites.
Ta Picaroon & Andrew.
GROUND FLOOR
ROUND=staright-forward
Came across several examples online.
A round scolding, a round assertion, a round denunciation …
Loved the misdirection in ON THE CHEAP – three musical references in the wordplay
A luvvie might be a ham and a ham might be a luvvie but I’m not sure they’re synonymous? I suppose they’re both types of actor so categorical equivalence saves the day 🙂
Cheers P&A
I’m another who agrees with Copmus about this entertaining crossword from Picaroon – lots to enjoy and clues to pick for favouritism, but I’ll go for 25a as it made me smile
Many thanks to Picaroon and Andrew
Polonius tells Gertrude to be round with Hamlet, I just about remembered. Among many other things I liked the blunder when defending.
I vaguely remembered OGHAM from Nanny Ogg’s underground journey with the dwarf lothario Casanunda in Terry Pratchett’s Lords and Ladies.
…but couldn’t parse it. I realise now that I should have looked up LUVVIE in Chambers, which says “an actor or other member of the entertainment industry, esp when regarded as excessively pretentious or affected.”
So now you all know.
But the thing that made me thing of Terry Pratchett in the first place was WOOf… Gaspode the wonder dog regularly says “woof” and [most] people just accept it as the way that a non-talking dog expresses himself.
essexboy @26 and AlanC @31 – I learned OGHAM (the word!) from crosswords ages ago. This morning, I found several pronunciation sites with the hard ‘g’ and then this:
https://www.youtube.com/c/LoraOBrienIRL
In Twelfth Night Act 2 Scene 3 Malvolio says “Sir Toby I must be round with you” when he is telling him to stop carousing outside his lady’s house.
You’d have had to have studied the play to remember that phrase though I would have thought.
Perhaps Shakespeare uses it in other plays too?
Plenty to like in this puzzle and I particularly was WOOed by LOCH NESS MONSTER, NEWPORT, WOO, YVES and IMPUGNED.
Growing up in England but near the N Wales border I knew St Asaph and Wrexham were the only 2 N Wales cities ). Wrexham ( chartered 1 Sep ’22 : the amazing football loving Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney must have clinched the deal, surely ? ) seemed too recent to consider and NEWPORT it was !
I’ll always think of Nessie as Bill Shankly’s ( progressive Liverpool FC manager’s ) wife, so here’s the 2nd Nessie – 1 month ago today
https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/weird-news/first-official-2023-sighting-nessie-29690002.amp
Fake or real ? I dunno, but impressive don’t you think ?
We had STOLLEN/STOLEN in a Vulcan in mid March, clued as “German cake heartlessly pinched (6)” and blogged by you Andrew. Lots of discussion re bread versus cake but this time the correct “bread” is clued, so no Picaroon is on the money.
Thank you Andrew and Picaroon.
Thanks Eileen. I heard my tutor at QUB pronounce it with the hard ‘g’ so who knows…
In this verse from Fitzgerald’s translation of the Rubáiyát, ‘round’ could be interpreted in either way:
Oh Thou, who didst with Pitfall and with gin
Beset the Road I was to wander in,
Thou will not with Predestin’d Evil round
Enmesh me, and impute my Fall to Sin?
‘Gin’ here means ‘trap’, of course (a crossword chestnut) but the alternative interpretation as ‘mother’s ruin’ adds to the fun of the stanza.
It would have been nice if Ohm’s Law sounded like it had been inscribed in stone in ancient times.
Petert @42 – I thought much the same when I found the link.
Wiktionary on OGHAM:
The pronunciation /?o?.?m/ more closely matches the modern Irish pronunciation of the word ([?o?m?], [?o??m?]), but the pronunciation /????m/, based on the spelling and the Old Irish pronunciation, is also common in English
Flea @39 – There’s another city in north Wales: Bangor.
I think I first came across ogham in Robert Grave’s The White Goddess, many years ago.
Oh dear, so much for cut and paste! In summary, the modern Irish pronunciation is like ‘ohm’ or ‘oh-um’ but the Old Irish pronunciation sounded the g.
essexboy@26: I’ve always heard OGHAM with a hard G, but in Irish I think it can rhyme with ‘poem’. The H aspirates the preceding letter, standing in for a diacritical not used in English.
Petert@42
LOL. That was a good one.
Peter@45 : Yes you’re right. Very remiss of me as I have relations living there ! Old age blunts the mind !
Lovely stuff as always with Picaroon. Though took an absolute age to nail 1ac, even with 8 crossers in place. Nice to see Nessie and Nikolai providing the cornerstone of the SW section. Loi was OGHAM, had to check it, a nho before for me. Nice misdirection for the geographical location of NEWPORT, I thought. Took a while to get Mr Gargery at 11ac, even though I’ve been enjoying the recent series on the Beeb…
Lovely crossword, managed to solve this whilst “attending” a couple of meetings online.
Thank you to Andrew for elucidation in a couple of spots, and to Picaroon for a great puzzle.
Ogham thoroughly defeated me. I am familiar with “own goal” despite minimal interest in either football/soccer or hockey – but it’s used metaphorically often enough, in politics and elsewhere (more familiar to me than “rabbit” for a poor performer in cricket, anyway!) But I would never have thought of OG as depicting own goal. (Perhaps it’s used that way in sports commentaries?) Also familiar with the term ‘luvvie’ but again – wouldn’t have seen it as particularly to do with actors. (And, of course, I didn’t know the script – Irish husband did, though!) Despite being a great fan of the Bard, and all the Shakespearean examples quoted, I still have difficulty equating “round” with “straightforward”. That said – it was a lovely puzzle – thanks to Picaroon and to Andrew!
Very good puzzle. A few clues made me laugh. This Australian had to guess a couple of ‘local’ answers but the reward was to be on this side of the world and not have to wait till the afternoon to tackle it.
Thanks
CaymanCanuck @53 “og” gets used in written reports of football matches in the summary at the top of who scored and when
This week’s puzzle by Picaroon was a doozy! I had to use all my brain cells to solve it, but it was worth it in the end. I love a good challenge
Yet again I struggled with Picaroon but got there in the end, apart from the OG, thanks Andrew!
I liked ON THE CHEAP with the misleading ‘for a song’, GET IT ACROSS for the 1 ACROSS, LOCH NESS MONSTER for a good anagram, CACOPHONY for the surface, and ENTERIC for the ‘treatment of guts’. I had to look up Homer’s neighbour to find Ned.
Thanks Picaroon and Andrew.
… and thanks to Sheila for ‘a doozy’ – it’s in the dictionaries!
Great fun with lots of ticks all mentioned above.
Gladys@2. Thankyou for ‘autocockup’ I shall never call it anything else from now on.
PM @22 – they have a nice selection of other citations to choose from if you prefer:
I’m not a going to deny the money, Mr. Vavasor. You’ll never find me doing that. I’m as round as your hat, and as square as your elbow,—I am.
– A.Trollope, Can You Forgive Her?
He had a lingering fondness for the good round speech of the Rhineland.
– H.Lamb, Charlemagne
And for Shirley @38:
I will a round vuarnish’d tale deliuer.
– W.Shakespeare, Othello
Actually, that Joyce quote came from a similar but slightly different definition, but never mind. What matters is that there is plenty of evidence of round being used to mean straightforward, whether people are familiar with it or not.
Great fun, though I found it comparatively round.
Thanks Picaroon and Andrew
When your satnav tells you to go straight forward at the roundabout you still go round it?
Enjoyed this though I too was defeated by OGHAM a nho. Some very good fun along the way including the African vegetarian at 26 that to my surprise, nobody has mentioned.
Apologies if already asked but why does R = rule in parsing of CRIMINALISATION?
Very enjoyable, and unlike yesterday, I had the necessary GK.
Thank you Andrew for the parsing of 21D, I will try to remember WEN for the future (although I feel I have said that before…).
In 1a, “in” is doing double duty.
IMPROVE doesn’t necessarily mean “perfect,” just to make something better. It still may have plenty of faults.
Parsing OGHAM defeated me. Now I understand OG, but what’s with “luvvie”?
Shanne@14 If you needed Ogham to research a house, it must have been a very old one!
I enjoyed the puzzle, especially the long anagrams. Thanks to Picaroon for the entertainment and Andrew for the help.
Valentine@66,
breaking is the containment indicator; “IN” is just fodder
and improve may not mean perfect, but perfect (as a verb) does mean improve, so it seems legit to me
Picaroon must be laughing his head off at the discussion of ‘straightforward’=ROUND, and Andrew’s preamble to the blog seems to anticipate the turmoil. I love the way that many of the quotations put forward to illustrate the equivalence are themselves far from straightforward!
Like a good 50% of commenters I had either never heard of or failed to remember OGHAM, and I found the clue unhelpful, so that’s my first dnf of the week.
Lots to like about both the surfaces and the construction of the vast majority of the clues, so despite the incompleteness of the grid, it was an enjoyable solve.
Thanks to P and A.
Valentine@66: cf blaise@36 for ‘luvvie’.
Yes a nice puzzle but why does AGREEMENTS have bank and welcome in the clue if they both indicated MEN is inside GREETS.
Also, yogurt seemed odd to me. Is it only found in a pot. Just an example of something potted?
Thanks both
Pork Scotch @64: R for rule is a common abbreviation in legal citations.
I’m another who was defeated by OGHAM, an obscure word clued obscurely. Other than that, this was a delightful solve.
Tim @70: in that clue, “welcomes” is how you get GREETS, which makes “bank” the insertion indicator. No one has commented yet on the 19th-century patina offered by employees=MEN, though.
I agree with you about the pot of yogurt. Why yogurt instead of say stew? Here in America we’d find a pot a very odd place for yogurt indeed.
ROUND is clearly OK, though the dates of the examples quoted suggest that it may not be a-ROUND much these days!
Tim@70. GREETS comes from ‘welcomes’ as a synonym, and it is only ‘banking’ that acts as containment indicator.
mrpenney @72
In the UK I’ve only ever seen yogurt for sale in plastic pots – see here for a commercial example (perhaps you wouldn’t refer to them as “pots” over there, though). I’ve never seen a plastic pot of stew, though!
TTT@70 : What a result against Brighton ! A = American / Welcomes is synoymised to GREETS, this stuff wrapped around MEN – a synonym of employees. “BANKING” is the anagrind expressing the wrapping around. Now all the clue words have been used up and the parsing is complete.
SH@74 : We crossed but I wanted to express Brighton 1 Everton 5 and, indeed, there was a classical og. ( Own Goal ) in this match !
Muffin @75: no one would ever call that a pot here. It’s a (plastic) cup of yogurt if it’s single-serving size, and a tub of yogurt if larger.
A pot is always, always a piece of cookware in America. A plastic pot sounds unwise.
Oh, and from your other comment, I gather that this product never made inroads in the UK?
Mr P @78
Divided by a common language again! We would never call it a cup of yogurt, because cups have handles.
Mrpenney@79: Pot Noodles. Very popular.
(Two nations divided by a common language.)
Brilliant crossword: smooth surfaces, clear parsing, flashes of wit. The pirate goes to number 2 in my personal top 10 for this.
Thanks everyone for clearing up the straightforward=round conundrum. Reading through the comments I remembered phrases that use “roundly” as in “roundly defeated” – could that be connected?
mrpenney I also wondered about EMPLOYEES (banking or otherwise) defining MEN.
Also – as an American married to a Brit, I’ve gotten used to the use of pot, so to speak. My favourite is the UK reference to “pot plants” which in the US is another thing entirely.
Kristi@83. I think “roundly defeated” means completely or indisputably rather than straightforwardly, but I could be wrong.
Ok, sheffield hatter! Thanks for weighing in.
Picaroon never disappoints. After a mauling by Bobcat in the FT this was a welcome relief. I missed OGHAM but all else fell into place with my top choices being LOCH NESS MONSTER, GET IT ACROSS, AUDIO, IMPROVE, and STOLEN. Thanks to both.
[MartinD @82: If the pirate is your number 2, who’s your number 1? Brendan, perhaps?]
Thanks for the blog, good week so far , is it too much to hope for Enigmatist tomorrow or Saturday.
Good to see GOGOL, a big influence on Dostoyevsky . For a short story try The Overcoat , very prophetic . For a big themed Russian novel try Dead Souls.
Eileen/AlanC/poc/Gervase/Petert – and probably some others I have missed – many thanks for your responses to my OGHAM question. I’ve been out all day so have only just seen them.
Widdersbel @60: “I am A Trollope” – thanks for that 🙂
essexboy@88. Thanks for the reminder about the Trollope quote. This, like several others mentioned, seems to rely on the word play between the modern sense of round – “as your hat” – and an older and by implication now forgotten or at least barely used meaning. In the Trollope the implied meaning seems to be closer to trustworthy than straightforward, but I’m not quibbling. No, really I’m not.
I got stuck on HAIR OIL for a long time because I mistakenly took the “…say, Louis XIV…” to be a homophone indicator for “royal” = R-OIL, and could not solve HAI for the life of me.
Reliably excellent from this setter. I parsed 10a as a triple definition.
Thanks Andrew, all for discussion of “Round”, and Picaroon for another belter. Roz@87 I am still working on Nimrod and Io so may need more of a breather before tackling Enigmatist.
[sh @89 – if only lovers were as round as hats… ]
Thanks mrpenney, Flea and Sheffield Hatter for pointing out I’d missed the greets and thanks Flea for mentioning the 1-5 … a startling result. I’m still buoyant.
A pretty straight forward outing from James this time round.
In my part of the world a roundabout is called a traffic circle. So no hesitation there.
It’s rare that I complete any of Picaroon’s puzzles without recourse to professor Google, and this was no exception. Ogham, who knew? Thanks all.
Valentine @66 – yes, a very old house, definitely dates back to early mediaeval period and the newer, still existent building in a slightly different position, to the 1700s. We were digging bits of the older Tudor house. Wrong area for Ogham that I’ve seen walking the Pembrokeshire Coast Path and definitely researching the early Celtic saints
Essexboy @93 – did you know the original of that folk song was collected in Essex? it’s in Bushes and Briars, the 1979 version of the two books by that name. Bushes and Briars is a folk song RVW collected in Essex, which is why it’s tge title of two collections.
Gazzh@92 , the IO is a touch frienldlier than usual , certainly compared to the last one. Unfortunately I have to boycott the Nimrod for obvious reasons.
We have not had a single Enigmatist this year, only two last year, I wonder why ?
[I didn’t know that – thanks Shanne @98 (and for the excuse to be 100)]
In case anyone’s still there, I thought I saw a bit of a “crosswords” theme (a mini-theme?) in these clues:
“Good straightforward puzzle, which is entry level”
“Solve the first clue — about time! — and explain the idea properly”
“What setter says, not loudly, in court”
“Puck and Tramp — perfect!”
Glad some found this easy, I’m obviously not on song this week …can’t do much at all.
I’ve never seen ‘whizz ‘ as wee only as ejaculate.
Technically you can be adrift and still on course, isn’t it without power or not moored.