Guardian Prize Puzzle 26,083 by Araucaria

by

A varied and entertaining puzzle from Araucaria as always. I thought the quality of the clueing was a little erratic at times, but on the plus-side I learned some interesting new words and facts along the way.  Thank you Araucaria.

Across
1 MESS AROUND WITH Poke one’s nose into group of servicemen with a candid humour, leading to hospital (4,6,4)
MESS (group of servicemen) with A ROUND (candid) WIT (humour) and H (leading letter of hospital)
9 NONSUIT Action that doesn’t take place in Union St (7)
(UNION ST)* – a legal term for the stopping of a suit (action)
10 BATSMAN Robin’s mate’s second in one increase? (7)
S (second) in BATMAN (Robin’s mate) – on2 “in the crease”, batting at cricket
11 YIELD Give up the harvest (5)
double definition
12 TRIERARCH Transporter (not car) in chart designed by ship’s captain (9)
carRIER (transporter, missing car) in CHART* designed=anagram – the commander of a trireme (ancient ship)
13 NAMECHECK Mention of a mechanical piece in the isthmus (9)
A MECHanical (piece of) in NECK (isthmus) – definition is ‘mention’
14 ROLLO Norman ruler starts to be added to the jackpot (5)
starting letters of ROLLOver (to be added to the jackpot) – Viking nobleman and first ruler of Normandy
15 HIVES Complaint as of the “murmuring of innumerable bees”? (5)
definition and cryptic definition?  Hives is a name for nettlerash or laryngitis, so is a complaint. Bees live in hives (obviously) and “And murmering of innumerable bees” is a line from the Tennyson poem Come Down, O Maid but apart form being generally bee-related I can’t see how this helps.
17 DOWNGRADE Reduce status of dog warden? (9)
(DOG WARDEN)* the question mark is an anagram indicator
20 BANGALORE Indian city’s veto on quantity (9)
BAN (veto) on GALORE (a lot, quantity)
22 LIKEN Compare plant with symbiotic fungus, say (5)
sounds like (say) lichen (plant with symbiotic fungus) – definition is ‘compare’
23 NESTING Sort of box for little gentlemen in trouble (7)
anagram (trouble) of GENTS (little gentlemen) and IN – a nesting box for birds.  This is too close to an indirect anagram for my comfort.
24 TATIANA An island at back of Russian girl (7)
AN AIT (island) AT all reversed (back)
25 See 6
Down
1 MONEY IN THE BANK What generates interest is Araucaria’s home hosting one old Greek king (5,2,3,4)
MY (Araucaria’s) IN (home) containing (hosting) ONE then THEBAN (old Greek) K (king)
2 SUNBEAM Ray to be replacing Rhode Island in Dutch Guiana (7)
SUriNAM (modern day Dutch Guiana) with RI (Rhode Island) removed and BE (to be) inserted – definition is ‘ray’.  I don’t like the word ‘replacing’ here as the removal and insertion are at different placins in the solution.
3 AQUEDUCTS Awfully cute little quadruplets that hold 6 (9)
andgram (awfully) of CUTE and QUADS (little quadruplets).  Again I think this is straying into indirect anagram territory.
4 OCTETTE 6 animal loses tail and so on turning up inside with a group (7)
OTTEr (water animal missing tail) aith ETC (and so on) reversed inside
5 NIBLICK Get a taste of ink in the club? (7)
definition/cryptic definition – a niblick is a golf club
6,25 WATER UNDER THE BRIDGE Deterrent rebid, Waugh’s work for passing time? (5,5,3,6)
 (DETERRENT REBID WAUGH)* work=anagram
7 TUMBREL Vehicle submerged in a sea of lost umbrellas (7)
found in (submerged in a sea of) losT UMBRELlas – a cart
8 See 21
14 REGULATOR Cycle of duty with pistol has backing (of body?) (9)
ROTA (cycle of duty) with LUGER (pistol) reversed (backing) – a regulator is often referred to as a ‘regulatory body’.  I think ‘of’ and ‘has’ are left a bit stranded in this clue.
16 VENISON Meat in the oven is only half cooked (7)
found in oVEN IS ONly – definition is ‘meat’.  I can’t make much sense of ‘half cooked’, there is no anagram and it does not use only half the letters.  ‘The’ also seems redundant, though this could be overlooked as some padding to make the clue read better.  Possibly the original idea was an anagram of OVEN IS ON (half of only)?
17 DROUGHT Medicine man should be here as rainmaker? (7)
DR (medicine man) OUGHT (should be) – the definition of the solution is self-referential
18 WRESTLE Fight with the French after peace (7)
W (with) LE (the, French) following REST (peace)
19 AWKWARD Embarrassed by prize that contains little power (7)
AWARD (prize) containing KW (kilo-watt, little power, abbreviation).  I don’t see why a KW would be a ‘little’ power. It could be a very small or very large amount of power depening on the context.
21,8 A LIFE ON THE OCEAN WAVE Freefone between Alison and Theodore, a new arrangement in the first home to which the marines marched (1,4,2,3,5,4)
FONE* (free=anagram) between ALI and THEO then (A NEW)* in CAVE (man’s first home) – a march and song from the mid 1800s popular with Marine bands in both the US and the UK ever since.

*anagram

39 comments on “Guardian Prize Puzzle 26,083 by Araucaria”

  1. Thanks PeeDee. Wonderful to see Araucaria’s name again: especially if it means a return to better health and is not just archival. This puzzle was not especially testing although the 8d song was almost last in, and its marine connection unknown until checking revealed it. Some vintage stuff here: erratic, yes, but jocund.

  2. Thanks PeeDee. I’m also at rather a loss to explain 15,16 and 19 satisfactorily and I’m not sure about your last sentence on 16. Is there not an O too many? Or am I missing something?

  3. Thanks, PeeDee. As molonglo says, a pleasure to see his name again on a prize puzzle. I wasn’t too worried by the couple of slightly loose clues in the circumstances. Also, one of the indirects taught me how to spell (to my embarrassment) AQUEDUCTS!

    “Little power” I took to mean just that KW is an abbreviation.

  4. Very enjoyable – flavour of much earlier Big A puzzles.

    15a surely just alludes to the sound you will hear coming from active bee-hives – they make a murmuring noise. I don’t recommend that you do this without the right gear on.

    16d is just a simple embed. The requirement that only the words used in the embed itself should be present is just a foible of Ximenes. Once you allow yourself to hide the answer in a longer string of words why not include a commonplace anagrind for misdirection – you never know – it might fool someone. The fact that the anagram nearly works just adds salt to the wound.

    19d kilowatt is a unit of power – KW is abbr (little) for it. You can also get WORK abbreviated to WK – not the same thing quite (the one’s the rate of the other) but close too.

    1a was a good joke. 21,8 a Big A classic – held me up for a short while but the def was a bit easy.

    Not a tough puzzle at all really but none the worse for that.

    Thanks for the blog peedee.

  5. Would the persistent Ximenes-hater please desist? I feel very bad about one increase for one in crease, but let’s accept that the Guardian, for good or ill, has setters operating in two codes, who generally rub along together reasonably well. We can do without this Dawkins-type harangue from the Swagman here and elsewhere. As it happens, solving Araucaria is often part of my Saturday morning and (for the most part!) I enjoyed my colleague’s puzzle.

  6. What a joy to see Araucaria again. Many thanks!

    And he makes another appearance today as a member of the Biggles collaboration.

    Also many thanks PeeDee.

  7. I wondered if the first draft of the VENISON clue was as an anagram (cooked), then changed to a hidden word when the anagram wasn’t working and the hidden word appeared as a better bet. Possibly JollySwagman has the right idea and ‘half cooked’ is just padding.

    I think it is difficult to tell with Araucaria as his style varies so much. Sometimes he produces a puzzle with absolutely watertight clues (by anybody’s definition), sometimes he is all over the place. Who knows what he is thinking?

  8. As has already been commented above, not the hardest Araucaria puzzle but still typical of his style and very enjoyable for it.

    NESTINGS was my LOI when I realised the clue involved an indirect anagram.

    I’m a bit surprised by Pasquale’s pop at Jolly Swagman because I thought his point about 16dn was pretty good, and to me it didn’t seem like he was having a go at anyone.

  10. I agree with your quibbles but it was an enjoyable puzzle. 13 was LOI as I was looking for an isthmus that fitted. I am hoping for an Araucaria crossword with “remission” as one of the lights.

  11. This puzzle was solved with my 86 year old mother last Saturday and Sunday. We had a lot of fun and in all cases we knew when we had the correct solution. Araucaria was, as I have said here before, my father’s favourite setter. Whilst this was not one of his best puzzles, it gave us great pleasure to see his name again and to be able to complete it. It took us, as usual, a long while to really get going, but we persevered. By Saturday evening we had a small section remaining that did not succumb to our efforts until the next morning.

    As a Biologist I looked at 22ac and immediately thought LICHEN, which did not fit the letter count. It was much later that the penny finally dropped and I kicked myself for not spotting LIKEN earlier.

    We particularly loved that nasty rash HIVES (nicely misdirected for a while by the quote) and NIBLICK which was a golf club neither of us had heard of and which made us laugh when we came to pronounce and parse the word that fitted in.

  13. Apologies Peedee I forgot to say thanks for the blog, as there were a couple we knew were correct, but eluded our efforts at parsing.

    (Oh and NIBLICK produced a LOL. I didn’t know many of the others on the page I’ve referenced above, but intend to try some of them out on my daughter).

  15. Thanks to PeeDee for the blog. You explained a couple that I had failed to parse.

    I had NIBLICK which I know as a golf club (see PG Wodehouse) but where does ‘taste’ fit in?

  16. Thanks PeeDee,

    Nice to see the Rev back in action and producing an entertaining puzzle which admittedly was on the easy side.

    Chas @15 : the taste of ink comes from a NIB LICK.

    I thought that VENISON was very well hidden.

  17. Thanks to Davy@16.
    The reverend has so many tricks up his sleeve that he can surprise anybody!
    It’s good to see he is not finished.

  18. A lovely Araucaria – it took me some work to get it all sorted and I never did check on 12a (I was on trains while solving it.

    Thanks to setter and blogger.

  19. Two things: first, Swagman has an ongoing agenda, which for reasons of free (if sometimes droning) speech is tolerated hereabouts (though he’s come back on recently after an extended, and for some of us very welcome absence), and second, it’s okay to say that a clue, even one by a wonderful and justly lauded setter, is a lot of tripe, as 16D clearly is.

    Thanks to PD and the Rev for the excellent stuff.

  20. Thanks A and peedee, for a most enjoyable puzzle and helpful blog.

    Even if 16 is dodgy (which I dispute) it is certainly not ‘clearly’ a lot of tripe. It’s a hidden word.

    Over many years, I have repeatedly found that those who like to rubbish Dawkins and his fellow brights, haven’t got a clue how to show precisely where the arguments of the new atheists go wrong. True, Dawkins can get a little aerated at times, so I would recommend the reading of Dan Dennett and Anthony Grayling as a supplement to the passionate debating style of Professor D.

  21. Well, it’s very difficult to argue (in the true sense of the word argument) with someone who believes passionately in something that never reveals itself. I should think the task of convincement from either end of the equation is impossible, but I was impressed by Paul Dirac’s remarks on the subject which he made in 1927. Years later he seemed to roll back from the original position, but I’m not quite sure why. Perhaps Pauli bought him a drink or two, or tied him to a big wooden cross and poked him with a stick.

    But Don wasn’t really talking about all that, as you very well know, Mr ‘Duns Scotus’. He was talking about how tiresome it can be enduring the antics, day after day, of an obsessive.

  22. Thanks, Araucaria – great to see your name and long may you continue to entertain us all. Also thanks to PeeDee for the blog.

    I guessed TRIERARCH and was delighted to see in the SOED that it existed! Trireme sprang to mind but I didn’t know trierarch.

    [ Thanks to dunsscotus @ 20 for your calming words.]

    Giovanna xx

  23. And thanks Giovanna for being an ID of the troll that is the cancer of crossword sites. Shame to you, fool.

  24. Thanks to Araucaria and Peedee. Enjoyed this puzzle. Last in was the Marine Hymn.

    Czecho Jan @23: so that I may mark my scorecard properly, which person is the troll
    and what does ID mean as you have used it?

    Cheers…

  25. Anyone who knows more than one tiny thing about UK cryptic crosswords knows full well that clues in puzzles by Araucaria do not necessarily conform to the strictures laid down by Ximenes.

    It is therefore logically absurd to point out non-Ximeneanisms in his puzzles. That’s unless of course one is intentionally trolling them with a view to making it clear that no setter will ever get a clean sheet of comments until they adopt the Ximenean subset of cluing possibilities – which is of course what goes on.

    In the instant case what I said is true. Ximenes requires (in his book) that in embed clues (Barnard called them “enceinte”) there should be no words in the fodder beyond those in which the answer is actually to be found. Barnard was silent on this point, although the only examples he gave did conform to that. However a great many setters, both of that period and since, would not agree.

    Colloquially one could say that it’s possible to hide a needle in a needlecase, but it’s equally possible to hide it in a haystack – the latter obviously making it harder to find.

    Mathematically – if the various letters represent strings of letters and spaces, we could say that if:

    bc is in abcd

    is true

    we could equally say that

    bc is in abcdefg

    Call it “padding” if you will. That’s a term with a pejorative ring to it, even though Ximenes and Barnard both padded their surfaces with superfluous definite articles – a practice which even the most libertarian of setters rarely does without justification these days. We’ve come to accept telegraphic surfaces as the norm rather than tolerate that.

    It’s not at all obvious to me why Pasquale launched that ridiculous attack on me – other than that he wants to perpetuate the assumption that it’s OK for Ximeneans to troll non-Ximenean puzzles but not OK for anyone to ever demur; and then he brings religion into it!

    Note that I’ve capitalised every reference to his hero in order not to show disrespect to the manifestly quasi-religious zeal with which he worships him – maybe religion did have some relevance after all.

    One might ask of any leading non-Ximenean setter: “Why don’t you write a book like Ximenes did and define your cluing grammar – it’s extents and its limitations.” They might well reply: “No thanks. Look what was spawned by that one.” I for one would buy that as a sound reason not to.

  27. JollySwagman, Pasquale at al –

    I can’t talk about anyone else here but my own comments on what constitutes a good clue are according to my own personal tastes. There are no “official rules” for cryptics, there is no governing body.

    I don’t care what Ximenes (or anybody else) wrote about “padding” (or anything else). I have my own mind. I don’t like padding in clues, it doesn’t work or me. If it works for you then great. What is the problem?

    It mystifies me why people seem so intolerant here. It gets very depressing to read and makes me want to just give up blogging the Guardian altogether.

  28. I was only responding to repeated digs at Ximenes by JS here and on GU — he really does get tedious at times. Most of the time I say nothing, but of course on the few occasions when I do, I am liable to be painted as the bigot. There is generally an anti-X tendency in these and other parts, so I shall still seek to redress the balance every now and then. But since I am not really interested in an ongoing slanging match right now,I am quite willing to shut up for a while about X, but maybe JS will do the same! Peace, sisters and brothers!

  29. “he really does get tedious at times”

    Now he’s just being rude.

    Sorry to have bored you Pasquale.

    What goes round comes round.

  30. Not for anonymous, cowardly trolls, it doesn’t. Look at the mess you’ve ‘created’ here today for example. I bet you’re dancing around under your bridge with glee.

  31. I think the Rev could have done more with 16dn. Meat in the oven is only half cooked; perhaps (or prolly) revision of recipe needed.

  32. I hope I’m not too late to air a thought on the venison clue.

    If we take “only half cooked” to mean that half of “only” is cooked, so that “on”, being half the word “only” is left, then the clue reads “Meat in the oven is on”, which works perfectly well, as others have said.

    This seems a reasonable interpretation to me, and it avoids treating “half cooked” as being mere padding.

  34. @RichardCV22 – I tried that approach myself, but how does “cooked” work?

    Obviously it might often be used as an anagrind, but not here. Do you want it to remove “ly” or to put just “on” into the mix?

    Even though “half” already does the work of getting rid of (or including) two letters from “only”, “cooking” is not necessarily guilty of the sin of padding if it lends another shoulder to the same wheel.

    Padding seems to be one sin which is regarded as such across virtually all cruciverbal religious persuasions but, as I’ve argued above, embed fodder is an exception. The extra words are not idle in the cryptic reading – they’re doing some work – they’re making the hiding place bigger.

    Big A never comments – nor, we are told, does he read blogs such as this (Who can blame him?) so we’ll never know the setter’s original intention and of course sometimes there are “happy accidents” whereby a clue has more to it than its author ever dreamt of (sometimes unhappy ones too).

    I can see the persuasiveness of your argument, but unless you can convince me about “cooking” I think I’ll stay with the long embedfodder reading. Without trawling I can’t be certain but I’m pretty sure A has used that technique before.

  36. JollySwagman. (Just to put a bit more flesh on my argument.) I am thinking of “cooked” as meaning “subjected to intense heat”, which I think can be taken to mean “burned away” or “burned off”. So if “only” is “half cooked” then half of the word “only” is burned away. As the half is unspecified, it is not unreasonable to take it to mean that “ly” is removed.

    I am certainly not a Ximinean, but I find the “extended embed” type of clue unsatisfactory because of its lack of crispness.

  37. @RichardCV22 – We may have to agree to differ on that one. Of course you’re fully entitled to prefer crispness; conversely many may find that the “unextended” embed is a bit of a give-away once you’ve spotted the indicator. Appropriate maybe for some of the cross-non-words from the barred-grid side of town but maybe variety is more fun elsewhere.

    You’ll find that the top setters who do use extended ones don’t use them all the time – it’s not a one-or-the-other choice – they’re both logically valid – and crisp or not the variety of possibilities adds to the interest, makes the clue maybe a bit more difficult, and increases the possibility of having something special going on in the surface.

    BTW – forgetting my manners – that was your first post. Welcome to the forum. I do hope to see you around again. We so often get new posters making one-off comments on topics like this – then never to be seen again!

  38. JollySwagman Thanks for the good wishes, and for the interesting exchange of ideas. Although, having been retired for several years now, I find time to do a great number of crosswords, I tend not to contribute much to blogs because I am often too late to do so. I wish there were more opportunity to have discussions about what constitutes a good clue. A number of setters and solvers seem to have entrenched views about what is allowed and what is not, which I find inexpicable. Surely, the acid test is whether or not the clue leads to the answer by economical means other than via a direct definition? I am pleased to note that the Sunday Times puzzles are breaking away from the straitjacket, and I wish the Times would follow suit, and not be hampered by both Ximines and their arbitrary “house rules”. My favourite is the Indy.

  39. Hi RichardCV22, the definition of a good clue is whatever you want it to be, there are no official rules. I don’t see much wrong with entrenched views either, some people know what they like. The only thing I fail to understand is those who expect everyone else to share their own view, believing their own personal tastes are somehow “correct”.

    It would be sad if all the papers end up following the same editorial policy, variety of editorial policy is why they exist as separate periodicals at all.

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