Guardian 26,643 – Picaroon

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[If you’re attending York S&B please see comments 32&33] - here

I must have been on Picaroon’s wavelength today, because this all went in very smoothly, even though in retrospect there are a few quite involved clues. (In contrast, I found myself struggling much more with yesterday’s “easy” Chifonie.) Very entertaiing – thanks to Picaroon.

 
 
 
 
 
 
Across
1. GREAT APE Forest-dweller needs to feed, tucking into fruit (5,3)
EAT in GRAPE. Technically the Great Apes are the family Hominidae, which includes Homo sapiens, but more loosely they are the Gorillas, Chimpanzees and Orangutans (Chambers also says Gibbons), hence forest-dwellers
5. HI-TECH Problem about electronic gadgets may be so described (2-4)
E in HITCH
9. ORIGAMI Art of oriental love doctor getting mate for foreigner (7)
O[riental] + RIG (to doctor) + AMI (French friend)
10. REFRAIN The Man in Black drops chorus (7)
REF (football referees wear black) + RAIN (drops)
11. TORUS The sound of the bullring (5)
Homophone of “Taurus” (bull) with a lift-and-separate definition
12. ADVERSITY Notice truth’s obstructed by opening of show trial (9)
AD + S in VERITY
13. SON ET LUMIERE Going disguised to unseemlier cross-Channel spectacle (3,2,7)
(TO UNSEEMLIER)*
17. FOURTH ESTATE Journalists united in opposing the 4? (6,6)
U in FOR THE STATE (i.e. against the private sector)
20. TEA FOR TWO We’re told a letter and a number as well, a number in the 20s (3,3,3)
Homophone of “T four too”. The song is from the 1925 musical No, No, Nanette. Whenever this song is mentioned I always have to inlude a link to Art Tatum’s amazing version
22. OSAGE Last of Arapaho, wise old American (5)
O + SAGE
23. MEANDER English fellow’s outside, flushed from the west wind (7)
E in MEN + RED reversed (“from the west”)
24. AGONISE An attempt is ultimately futile to defend New Labour (7)
N in A GO IS [futil]E
25. SPHERE Introductions to Shakespeare plays present in The Globe (6)
S[hakespeare] P[lays] HERE
26. SYNDROME Evidence of a complaint uttered offended the Catholic Church (8)
Homophone of “sinned” + ROME (the Catholic church, as an example of synecdoche)
Down
1. GROTTO Cave painter captures river but not current (6)
R in GIOTTO less I (symbol for electric current)
2. EMIGRE Terrible regime, or its victim (6)
REGIME* – a very precise anagram, as both words have an acute accent on one of the Es
3. TRANSPORT Delight as one’s excused from school games (9)
TRAIN (to school) less I + SPORT (games)
4. PRIVATE SECTOR Overprices tat that’s flogged where profit’s sought? (7,6)
(OVERPRICES TAT)*
6. INFER Conclude there’s no getting out of hell (5)
INFER[NO]
7. EXAMINER He’ll investigate cleaver turned up by digger (8)
Reverse of AXE + MINER
8. HONEYBEE Extremely edgy contest after hand’s shaking and on buzzer (8)
HAND less AND (“shamking and”) + ON + E[dg]Y + BEE (contest, as in spelling bee)
10. REVOLUTIONARY Mistress turned out in a fancy coat of ruby red (13)
Reverse of LOVER + (OUT IN A)* + R[UB]Y
14. METEOROID Crash diet, nothing more, to get heavenly body (9)
(DIET O MORE)*
15. OFT-TIMES Old newspapers using old-fashioned speech, frequently (3-5)
O[ld] + FT TIMES (two newspapers)
16. CUT A DASH Clue regularly getting cheers — it’s to be very stylish! (3,1,4)
C[L]U[E] + TA (thanks, cheers) + DASH (the punctuation mark in the clue)
18. CASINO Place for better business, keeping equally popular (6)
AS IN (equally popular) in CO
19. REVERE Worship Araucaria, say, with a quarter going for Paul in the US? (6)
REVERE[ND] (Araucaria was the Rev John Graham), and two definitions (the US one is the revolutionary hero)
21. ORDER Nun’s in one skirt but no top (5)
[B]ORDER – a nicely concealed definition to finish

49 comments on “Guardian 26,643 – Picaroon”

  1. Thanks Picaroon and Andrew
    I too found this easier than Picaroon generally, but very enjoyable. Favourites were REFRAIN (once I had given up trying to work with Valentine Dyall, Johnny Cash or Gary Player!), MEANDER for the misdirection in the pronunciation of “wind”, SPHERE, and INFER. OSAGE was a new word for me.

  2. Yes, this didn’t seem like a lot of Picaroon’s previous puzzles. I also found it relatively easy but there were some nice clues, such as ORIGAMI, HI-TECH, MEANDER and OFT-TIMES. Many thanks to Picaroon and Andrew.

  4. Thanks, Andrew.

    I agree with your preamble – my quickest ever Picaroon, I think, but by no means less enjoyable for that.

    I really admired the 4dn/17ac combination [especially the wordplay in the latter] and 2dn – not the first time I’ve seen this device but never better executed.

    Other favourites were SPHERE, SYNDROME, REVOLUTIONARY, METEOROID and TRANSPORT, which made me smile, as I remembered that feeling on occasion.

    Lovely surfaces throughout, as ever.

    Many thanks to Picaroon – a gem of a puzzle.

  5. Thanks for the help understanding 1D and 8D! A couple of minor corrections:

    The O in origami is from ‘love’, rather than ‘oriental’, which is part of the def.

    Meander is E in MAN + RED reversed (not MEN)

  6. Thanks you Picaroon and Andrew for a not too time-consuming start to a busy day.
    Re MEANDER – Am I being stupid, but isn’t ‘-DER’ RED from the East, i.e. from right to left, rather than from the West?

  7. Roger @6
    I think you are right – shouldn’t it read “from the east”? Pity, one of my favourites.

    P.S. I now know the distinctions between meteoroid, meteor, and meteorite!

  8. Thanks Andrew and Picaroon. I thought this was a delight from start to finish, with some superbly smooth clues and cleverly concealed constructions. Liked them all.

  9. Osage, which isn’t a particularly common word, has appeared in crosswords on successive days. Vol au vent seems very common of late, too. Do compilers have a “word of the week”, I wonder?

  10. Really enjoyed this, thank you very much Picaroon. I agree wholeheartedly with the description of the clues as “superbly smooth” (MikeP @8).

    Thanks too to Andrew.

  11. Great puzzle – many thanks to setter and blogger.

    Roger @6 and Muffin @7: the way I have seen this explained previously is that if the word “red” was approaching from the west, you would see the letters in the order D…E…R.

  12. Thanks Picaroon and Andrew. I had to finish parsing several answers after solving.

    As well as the FOURTH ESTATE / PRIVATE SECTOR combination pointed out by Eileen @4, there is the SON ET LUMIERE / REVOLUTIONARY combination, probably fortuitous, these spectacles in France mostly taking place at Chateaux, starting historically at the time of the construction and ending at the Revolution.

  14. Rishi @11: the way I look at it is that if something is moving “from the west” it is moving from left to right. Imagine a bus with the word RED printed on the side moving from left to right across your point of view (e.g. coming out of a tunnel) – you would see the D, then the E, then the R. So I think the indicator works, even if it is not frequently encountered.

    Hope this helps!

  15. Didn’t feel like a Thursday puzzle, but celerity of solving compensated by some truly stunning surfacing and masterful constructions. If ever there was a crossword deserving of having its clues reread post solve, this is one.
    16dn is virtually an &lit for the whole puzzle!
    Picaroon – quite brilliant; thank you.

  16. Very entertaining puzzle with lots of clever clueing and not a slog at all. I wish the Guardian had more that were equally smooth and at about the same level of difficulty.

    Thanks, Picaroon and Andrew.

  17. …and thanks to Andrew of course. I enjoyed the Art Tatum link, though more chromatic scales than jazz or music perhaps? (pleased to report I can still play those chromatic scales as quickly as him!)

  19. @Guidice at #14
    You’ve explained it very well and quite imaginatively. Thanks.
    But I am not moved.
    I realise and grant that the phrase “from the west” is required here for the word sequence “west wind” to work, with the expected change in pronunciation of ‘wind’ as the def.

  20. This was very good, and shines a light for the ‘Compileritis Crew’. Good technique and nice invention.

    11a is unfair ofcourse, and out of place in this good puzzle; 13a ‘unseemlier’ is not a word, and so feels weak; 24a ‘defend’ I find loose; 8d quite convoluted, I hope Picaroon is not spending too much time with say Boatman. 😀

    The accent thing I feel is really irrelevant, as you would happily ignore it if either the anagram or answer-word did NOT share it.

    Thanks HH.

  21. I enjoyed this, I think; I did it last night shortly before falling asleep. I had to guess-and-check on SON ET LUMIERE. I’ve been to France a couple times, but I can’t claim to speak the language with any fluency. I suppose I know of sound-and-light shows, but I’ve always heard them called just that.

    Re: OSAGE. Probably a more common word here than there. The recent play and film “August: Osage County” may have helped. But even before that, the osage orange, and the Indian tribe itself, both put in frequent appearances in U.S. crosswords.

  22. Rishi @19
    “from the east wind” would work as well, wouldn’t it? Perhaps better, in fact, as east winds are colder than west ones!

  23. Very nice – no probs – except (agreed) west should be east – and OSAGE was a guess for me.

    Many thanks both – plus extra to Andrew for the Tatum link – Horse -> cart; Tea for Two -> Tatum – it’s just a natural association.

    Others have come close but nobody does Tea for Two like Tatum – a vehicle for all those runs maybe but still sublime in so many other ways.

    The greatest ever.

  24. Yes of course: ‘flushed’ is going from left to right and so is not reversed! Quite a lapse really.

  25. I seem to detect a collective sigh of relief. This was much more accessible than most puzzles from this setter. The answers went in at such a speedy rate of knots that I thought I was doing something wrong!
    I liked METEOROID,SYNDROME and AGONISE (my LOI).
    Good fun.
    Thanks Picaroon

  26. hoggy @24, but then ‘flushed’ would be doing double duty, however, even if it were, Giudice’s analysis @11 & @14 still stands.

  27. To my surprise I roared through this one. Perhaps I was inspired by England’s cricketers. The Australian 21dn went for 60, thus putting the Trent Bridge crowds into 3dns.

    Thanks Picaroon and Andrew. All great fun.

  28. Really, everyone, does it matter if it’s “from the east” or “from the west”? You clearly all realise that the phrase signifies a reversal, so why spend energy on something so utterly irrelevant?

  29. Difficult to concentrate on this with all that was going on at Trent Bridge this morning, but got there with not much heart ache.

    Interesting comment in the blog. Some people think I commit some sort of sacrilege when I point out how totally unreliable Chambers is when it comes to science. Yet, in the face of readily available definitions from everywhere else, they list gibbons as Great Apes! The correct definition for gibbons is quite clearly that they are lesser apes. Which bit of “great is not the same as lesser” are they having trouble with? QED really, unreliable on science.

  30. Pretty easy for Picaroon, but very enjoyable as always. There were a couple that were tricky to parse, but had to be right from definitions and crossers. Last in was HONEYBEE, liked ORIGAMI, TORUS, TEA FOR TWO and INFER. So perfect for a day when the test match is producing so much distraction.

    Thanks to Picaroon and Andrew

  32. No, flushed is RED, but ‘from the west’ doesn’t reverse it. RED from the West is RED. There’s no double duty involved that I can see either.

    David, this is a crossword forum where we discuss such things, don’t be a philistine, don’t sell yourself short either.

  33. Hello all – enjoyed this lots, some easy enough, some more difficult = a good crossy! The west v east debate is interesting – & I’ll certainly remember that. Now…apologies if I’m being a bit thick: parsed 3D TRANSPORT no problem, but we don’t understand how that means ‘delight’?!?!!! Can you lovely clever people help????

  34. David @28, agreed, but if someone challenges a clue and says something is wrong, it is only normal that others will defend it if they think they have reason.

  37. Failed on 11a though it’s clear enough. Otherwise very much enjoyed the wit and invention here. Is it Serendipity the HERESY appears in the bottom row?

  38. Thanks to Picaroon and Andrew. I too much enjoyed this puzzle but needed help parsing TAURUS and HONEYBEE – and the phrase CUT A DASH was new to me (though I admit to a fondness for the – or–as punctuation).

  39. Many thanks Andrew and the pirate.

    Eileen said it all, “a gem of a puzzle”.

    Writing from my hospital bed recovering from a general anaesthetic and still enjoyed it!

    Stuart Broad and Picaroon are definitely today’s heroes!

    Nice week, all.333

  40. Thanks Picaroon and Andrew

    A lovely puzzle, I thought, and something so scintillating doesn’t need nitpicking, imo.

    DP @ 37: you can also find MI-RE, S-AD, WO-O and ER-A in the rows, and in the columns a reversal of FO-OT, E-CU, T-OR, and BEE-R…probably all coincidental!

  41. Thanks Picaroon and Andrew; good crossword.

    The Great Apes also include the bonobos but as they are also known as pygmy chimpanzees I guess they are covered.

    Chambers has ‘go west’ and ‘east’ as reversal indicators.

  44. For me, too, this was easier than yesterday’s, but it still made me work for some of the answers. I couldn’t parse ORIGAMI. My favourites are TORUS, GROTTO, INFERNO, REVOLUTIONARY and particularly REVERE.

    Thanks to Picaroon and Andrew.

  45. With apologies for my sporadic appearances of late, and the fact that I never properly introduced myself to begin with either, I thought this a fine puzzle from Picaroon, even if perhaps easier than some from this setter.

    My only petty quibble was the rather “in” clue for REVERE, much as I like to be reminded of Araucaria. Not being well read, I was only introduced to the former by the first verse of Bob Dylan’s Tombstone Blues:

    “The sweet pretty things are in bed now, of course
    The city fathers, they’re trying to endorse
    The reincarnation of Paul Revere’s horse
    But the town has no need to be nervous”

    (The last line rhymes with the next verse’s one. Well, nearly, as was his wont).

    Many thanks to one and all, and a very late hello to all you good gentlefolk.

  46. Thanks Andrew and Picaroon.

    My favourites were MEANDER, REVERE, TORUS, SPHERE, GREAT APE & AGONISE (LOI). I also liked TEA FOR TWO & OFT-TIMES.

    I was unable to parse the DASH in 16d – very clever!

    New words for me were FOURTH ESTATE = the press and TORUS.

  48. Thanks Picaroon and Andrew

    Did this one yesterday and also found it quite a bit easier than what this setter usually puts forward -an unheard of half hour solve for him. Still lots to like, with the normal wide array of device types throughout. Particularly liked TEA FOR TWO and the two long across ones at 13 and 17.

    Finished up in the NE corner with the very busy HONEYBEE, REFRAIN (had to do a double take – our football umpires / referees were typically dressed in white and now green – had to get the thinking back to the EPL) and HI TECH (was looking for a problem that had IT as the electronic gadgets for way too long) as the last one in.

  49. I think ‘from the west’ is indeed an error. To be a correct reversal it should be ‘going west’ or ‘from the east’.

    The latter would work fine here given that the direction is not required for the definition.

    It would be nice if the setters dropped in here now and then to address us.

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