Guardian 26,538 by Shed

by

Monday morning and of course it’s Rufus, oh hang on it’s not.

Wot no cryptic definitions? Hardly any double defs, what are you doing to me Shed??

A recurrent theme of 8 (drugs) throughout the puzzle.

 

PS a reminder that we’d love to see you in Cambridge on April 25th.

completed grid

Across

9 Instrument with which to damage a coin badly (9)
HARMONICA

HARM (damage) & [A COIN]* badly

10 Eggs flipped to conceal bishop’s booboo (5)
ERROR

R(ight) R(everend) – Bishop inside ROE (eggs) reversed – flipped

11 Sensitive bit of roof covering bit of drama (7)
TACTILE

ACT (bit of a play) in TILE (bit of a roof)

12 Ruler accepting present from fly (7)
KNOWING

NOW (the present) inside – accepted by KING

13 Nomad housed by dodgy psychiatrist (5)
GYPSY

Hidden answer – housed by

14 Excrement a clairvoyant turned into garment (9)
DUNGAREES

DUNG (excrement) & A & SEER reversed – turned

16 Broadcast “Mr H Hippo” (cartoon animal, typic­ally) (15)
ANTHROPOMORPHIC

[MR H HIPPO CARTOON]* broadcast, definition spreads across the rest of the clue.

19 Express affected by 8 8 (4-5)
HIGH-SPEED

HIGH (affected by 8) & SPEED ( a type of 8)

21 A 19 car returns, fuelled by new 8 (5)
GANJA

A JAG (a high performance car) reversed with N(ew) inserted

22 Star status initially accruing to gay slang (7)
POLARIS

POLARI (“gay speak” reversed words from the theatrical world mostly) & S(tatus) initially

23 Protagonist‘s 8s (7)
HEROINE

2 * 8 (drug) – hence plural. HEROINE & E(cstacy)

24 Not one to complain of Daedalus to Icarus (5)
STOIC

Another hidden answer

25 Brave’s not exceptionally orthodox (9)
OBSERVANT

[BRAVE’S NOT]* exceptionally. Took a few sections to understand the definition but think Orthodox churches

Down

1 Penny, keen to return Jason’s vessel to pub, gets shot (10)
PHOTOGRAPH

P(enny) & HOT (keen) & ARGO (jason’s ship – reversed) & P.H. (pub)

2 5 8s (8)
CRACKPOT

Same trick as 23a. See 5d. CRACK & POT (2 drugs)

3 Proposed course making not entirely cold place very cold (6)
POLICY

POL(e) (cold place almost) & ICY

4 Order of magnitude sounds blue, reportedly (4)
SIZE

Sounds like SIGHS as one might sound if blue – sad

5 Deranged poet embracing lord and master (7,3)
BARKING MAD

KING (lord) & M(aster) all in BARD (poet)

6 Elegant overdressed Scotsman included? (8)
DEBONAIR

Guardianism time, need to split overdressed in to OVER DRESSED. IAN (typical crosswordese Scotsman) in ROBED (dressed) all OVER, reversed

7 Perhaps Paddington‘s water contains sulphur (6)
URSINE

S(ulphur) in URINE (water). I thought we were suppposed to use SULFUR these days (musn’t swear loudly about such things but…)

8 Spike emerging from centre of Tudor hairpiece (4)
DRUG

To spike or lace with drugs – middle of (tu)D(or) & RUG (hairpiece)

14 Poser dines out with black dog (10)
DEPRESSION

[POSER DINES]* out. Churchill was infamous for his black dog moods.

15 Bones guys take to US city (10)
SACRAMENTO

SACRA (plural of sacrum, a bone of the pelvis) & MEN (guys) & TO

17 Confine fool almost interrupting others (8)
RESTRICT

TRIC(k) (to fool almost) in REST (others)

18 Chinese 8 turned to Portugal’s disadvantage (8)
HANDICAP

HAN (chinese) & ACID turned & P(ortugal)

20 Big ship dropping 8’s unit of volume (6)
GALLON

E(cstacy) dropped from GALL(e)ON

21 Soldiers wearing women’s clothing upset Frenchman (6)
GERARD

R.E. (soldiers) in DRAG (in women’s clothing) all upset – reversed

22 Decline to respond to come-on (4)
PASS

Gosh, it’s Monday and it’s the second to last clue before I type double definition.

23 Mess with 8 (4)
HASH

And just to show me, another one.

*anagram

48 comments on “Guardian 26,538 by Shed”

  1. Thanks Shed and flashling
    Very enjoyable, though I am by no means an expert on the theme. I failed on SIZE – too many words to choose from.
    I saw Mr H Hippo in 16 and thought “that’s a bit clumsy”, but in fact it’s brilliant when the solution is discovered – I can imagine an anthropomorphic “Mr H Hippo” in a children’s cartoon.
    I remembered POLARI from “Julian and Sandy” in “Round the Horne”.
    Lots of entertaining clues. Only one question – why is GERARD defined as “Frenchman”? Yes, there’s Depardieu, but it’s not a particularly French name. See:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerard

  2. P.S. yes, the Royal Society of Chemistry now does recommend SULFUR (SULFURIC, SULFATE etc.), but it will take some time before it is accepted. Even scientific publications such as New Scientist still used pre 1960 names for organic compounds (e.g. ethylene instead of ethene).
    Heaved forfend that we have to use ALUMINUM, though!

  4. Thanks Shed and flashling

    Very enjoyable, and a nice change from the usual Monday fare (NB I am not criticising Rufus in the slightest, just observing that’s it’s nice to have a change from his style every now and then.

    A minor point re 5D, if I may: It’s KING and MA inside BARD, otherwise the second A is undefined.

    And to cap it all, the sun’s shining too 🙂

  5. Enjoyed this. Re aluminum: as far as I know, that’s what Sir Humphry Davy called it. I never see the same complaint about platinum or tantalum.

  6. Thanks Shed & flashling, interesting crossword.

    PCP is spelled out from the top LH corner, but I can’t find any others.

    I’m more used to debonnaire, but maybe that’s old-fashioned. I liked URSINE and DEPRESSION.

  7. Oh,also (again as far as I recall) the ph in things like phosphorus came to us from Greek phi,and one reason I saw given for reversion to f in sulfur is that sulfur came from Latin not Greek.

  8. Nice puzzle, but does ‘anthropomorphic’ quite work? For me ‘cartoon’ is doing double duty. Completely flummoxed by the slightly bizarre use of ‘polari’, which, though otiose, since most will bung in ‘Polaris’ from the definition, is an odd choice, given only people of a certain age (over 56, if this solver is anything to go by) will have any chance of getting it.

  9. I meant to say we have a Gerard playing in our tennis team and we call him the Frenchman. He’s English.

  10. A good crossword must have a clue that makes me laugh, so thank you for 7d. Anthropomorphic was another favourite (the clue made me think of Saturday morning TV).

    And Ulaca @8, a decade south of you and I got Polari, I actually wrote in polari and then went and re-read the clue to get the concluding S.

  11. I always enjoy Shed’s puzzles, although this one didn’t seem as tricky as some he’s produced which could be why it was chosen as a Monday puzzle. Having said that, I bunged in POLARIS from the definition, although now I think about it I came across “polari” in a puzzle a few years ago but had forgotten it. I found the SE a little trickier than the rest of the puzzle, and I finished with the HASH/HEROINE crossers.

  12. Enjoyed this – probably at the easier end of Shed’s range but tougher than a typical Monday. Nothing too obscure – liked ANTHROPOMORPHIC, STOIC and CRACKPOT. Last in was SIZE.

    Thanks to flashling and Shed.

  13. Enjoyed that a lot – just the right amount of theme I thought, and seemed like a very good fit for the Monday slot (particularly as it is a Bank Holiday, so people have more time than is needed for a Rufus).

    Lovely elegant blog too – just the tiniest observation: I think in 22d the first definition may be “Decline to respond to” (= PASS); then that stops there being a stray “to” in the clue (as “to” doesn’t really work as a link word). …Is that pedantic enough for everyone? 😉

    I’m 54, and well aware of Polari, which is/was quite an interesting phenomenon, possibly dating as far back as the sixteenth century.

    Thanks both.

  14. Shed is one of my favourite setters and this didn’t let me down. Rather worried that I got all the drug references so easily though. Last in 8d, once I’d twigged it was a metaphorical dog.

  16. Thanks to flashling for the blog.

    I am a fan of Round the Horne, particularly Julian and Sandy, but I failed to spot POLARI. 🙁

    I have one quibble in 8d: how does hairpiece mean rug?

  17. [Off topic: the usual Guardian crossword has 15 squares on a side. In the past I have seen 21, 23 and 25 squares. Now on Saturday we have 19 squares.
    Can anybody tell me why it is always an odd number? ]

  20. Good fun, more difficult than a typical Monday offering.

    As a bookish, Anglophile gay man, I had heard of Polari–it’s a (somewhat obscure) part of gay history at this point. I think you can chalk this up as a “teaching clue”: you enter Polaris because it fits, you reverse-engineer the clue to get Polari, and then you go learn what that was.

    Chas @17: The rules of Crosswordland state that a well-made grid must have 180-degree rotational symmetry, and will have at least 50% of the letters in each word checked (i.e., included in an across and a down). This is easier to accomplish with an odd number of squares on a side. Otherwise, it’s too easy to wind up with clunky things happening in the middle of the grid.

  21. mrpenney thanks for that. I thought there must be a good reason for odd-numbered sides but I just could not think of it.

  23. For those who are interested the BBC is currently repeating some Round the Horne radio shows. Go to www{dot}bbc{dot}co{dot}uk/radio4extra and click on the schedules button. The show is on Tuesdays at 0800, 1200 and 1900 and has been for some weeks.

  25. Thanks to Flashling and Shed. The answer to 22a was clear but to verify it I had to look up polari (to add to my collection of UK vs. US terms). Ditto for 14a where initially I missed “turned” to get “rees” from “seer” (obviously the correct parsing) and as a result discovered a Loraine Rees, clairvoyant. A variation on double definition?

  26. Nice puzzle and just about right for a sunny Bank holiday. I liked a lot of the clues but I’d single out URSINE,GANJA and DEPRESSION. I,too, got POLARIS as a result of memories of Round the Horne which I loved at the time but it is now quite dreadful to listen to as are almost all of the rebroadcasted comedies on 4extra. Only the mighty Hancock remains funny and you have to be selective with him.
    But I digress– Thanks Shed.

  27. Thanks to Shed for droll puzzle with a reasonable challenge, and to Flashling for an enlightening blog. Thankfully 8d was staightforward, so the theme was revealed early on.

    Perhaps master in 5d could refer to MA, a master’s degree, to add the missing A

  28. Sorry yes there should be another a in the working for 5d, meant to say MA but forgot when typing up and correcting via my phone is difficult to put it mildly.

  30. Thanks all. I am (just) under 56 and (obviously) have heard of Polari. I admit it’s rather dated but it’s easily verifiable. I still think Round the Horne is hilarious, though I used to dislike the Julian and Sandy sketches because I thought they were homophobic, until I realised that they were *in* Polari so the joke was on straight people who didn’t get it. That was really quite brave at the time. It’s worth remembering these things.

  31. A pleasant change for a Monday, although this did seem to vaguely satisfy the alleged “Easy Monday” editorial policy. (Does this apply to Bank Holidays though?)

    Nice cluing as ever from Shed.

    I failed to parse POLARIS as I’ve never heard of POLARI! (I did consider ARIS as a way forward but the Guardian would never be so non-PC or even so orthographically incorrect 🙂 ) POLARIS was obviously correct though from the crossers.

    Thanks to flashling and Shed

  32. Re All
    When it was first discovered, one of the Napoleon’s ( I think) fed his top guests on Al. The rest had to do with Au.

  33. Chas @17 and Mrpenney @20

    The usual AZED and Mephisto barred puzzles are 12*12, but the convention there is that no more than a third of letters are unchecked.

  34. Thanks all
    Tough going to parse a few but I enjoyed it all.
    Can it be noted that muffin is not gay.

  36. muffin @ 35

    You omitted the apostrophe 😉

    Otherwise, as before, the agreement is of a warmed-up nature…

  42. Lovely puzzle.

    Particularly enjoyed anthropomorphic. Great surface. Plus a favorite word. As a child of logophiles I remember the day in my early teens when I learned a word my parents didn’t know. It was anthropomorphism.

    Thanks to Shed and flashling.

  43. The following statement is by no means a definite fact…but I do remember that often the usual Rufus crossword is switched for an alternative setter after the harder bank holiday crossword.

    It was a nice change of pace, I thought. For both Monday and for Shed, who is usually infuriatingly tricky.

  44. On the ‘sulfur’ point, what chance we can get the medics to accept ‘fetus’ from the same reasoning?
    (Thanks Shed and flashling – very enjoyable and tidy)

  45. re:Aluminum — according to Bill Bryson (“A short history of nearly everything”) Humphrey Davy’s first choice was Alumium. Then he changed his mind and it became Aluminum. Then he changed again to Aluminium and the yanks all said “screw this, we’re sticking with Aluminum”.

  46. Meic @33: Of course, the other thing about barred crosswords is that they have no black squares, which changes the whole symmetry situation.

  47. Initially I missed the ‘over’ in 6d and impertinently (and incorrectly) suggested that the clue lacked an element indicating that the answer was to be read in reverse. I was met by a suggestion that the reversal was something to do with the Scotsman and a kilt which I rejected then and still do. I am pleased to see the explanation in fifteensquared.

  48. Thanks Shed and flashling

    Did this one in the early hours of Thursday morning and a half hour finish made it one of the quickest solves by far of this setter. Picked up the drug theme pretty early on with DRUG being the second in after ERROR with HIGH SPEED closely following.

    POLARI was a new word for me … and only discovered it after writing in POLARIS and finding the S and randomly looking up if there was a word ‘polari’ in the dictionary.

    Had originally written in a not all that compelling PANDA at 21a which stayed there until I got GERARD as my second last one in.

Comments are closed.