Guardian Cryptic 26722 by Tramp

by

The puzzle may be found at http://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/26722.

Quite a tricky puzzle from Tramp, with a theme of the Peanuts cartoon, confined largely to the clues’ surfaces – for the answers, it is only necessary to know that Peanuts is a comic strip.

Across
1 HYBRID CAR
One goes by gas or electric chair — couples on periphery of drive-by set free (6,3)

An anagram (‘set free’) of ‘chair’ plus DRBY (‘couples on periphery of DRive-BY‘).
6 HOWL
Scream — break interrupted by Munch’s head that’s flipped (4)

An envelope (‘interrupted by’) of W, which if inverted (‘flipped’) gives M (‘Munch’s head’) in HOL (iday, ‘break’).
8 OPERABLE
Reclining model, bare, posing a bit, could go under the knife? (8)

A hidden (‘a bit’) reversed (‘reclining’) answer in ‘modEL BARE POsing’.
9 TATTOO
Ink pattern close to Peppermint Patty’s outline missing circles (6)

A charade of T (‘close to pepperminT‘) plus ‘[p]ATT[y]’ without its outer letters (‘outline missing’) plus O O (‘circles’).
10 COFFEE
Sweet thing isn’t introduced when meeting Charlie Brown (6)

A charade of C (‘Charlie’) plus [t]OFFEE (‘sweet thing’) without its first letter (‘isn’t introduced’).
11 KOOKIEST
Magazines with fronts stuck together — Fiesta missing cover that’s most kinky (8)

KO and OK are ‘magazines’, but that leaves ‘with fronts stuck together’ with no obvious purpose. Perhaps the reference is just to OK, and its reversal. The second part of the charade is certainly ‘[f]IEST[a]’ without its outer letters (‘missing cover’). I think the definition is a little suspect as well.
12 INSULT
Taunt Linus about blanket at the end (6)

A charade of INSUL, an anagram (‘about’) of ‘Linus’ plus T (‘blankeT at the end’).
15 ROGATION
Asking back to work to cut dole (8)

An envelope (‘to cut’) of OG, a reversal (‘back to’) of GO (‘work’) in RATION (‘dole’).
16 BRASSICA
Plant one roughly on cheek (8)

A charade of BRASS (‘cheek’) plus I (‘one’) plus CA (circa, ‘roughly’).
19 TOPEKA
Opel nearly parked between two Ford models in Kansas city (6)

An envelope (‘parked between’) of ‘Ope[l]’ without its last letter (‘nearly’) in T and KA (‘two Ford models’ of very different dates).
21 PASTILLE
Sweet Sally cut it off during exercise (8)

An envelope (‘during’) of ASTILL, an anagram (‘off’) of ‘Sall[y]’ without its last letter (‘cut’) plus ‘it’ in PE (‘exercise’).
22  
See 4
24 PRYING
Difficult changing lead for Snoopy (6)

[t]RYING (‘difficult’) with a different first letter (‘changing lead’)
25 INTRUDER
Unwelcome guest in Yorkshire isn’t more offensive? (8)

A charade of INT (dialect form, ‘in Yorkshire isn’t’) plus RUDER (‘more offensive’).
26 STAG
Kind of party animal (4)

Double definition.
27 TEACHESTS
Boxes with pain during matches (3,6)

An envelope (‘during’) of ACHE (‘pain’) in TESTS (cricket ‘matches’).
Down
1 HIPPO
Penultimate set from Aretha Franklin — kept tape for wallower (5)

Last-but-one letters (‘penultimate set’) of ‘AretHa FranklIn – kePt taPe fOr’.
2 BIRD FLU
Girlfriend took off, caught infection (4,3)

A charade of BIRD (‘girlfriend’) plus FLU, sounding like (‘caught’) FLEW (‘took off’).
3 IMBUE
Steep road up and down, Lucy’s first to go (5)

A charade of IM, a reversal (‘up’ in a down light) of M 1 (‘road’) plus B[l]UE (‘down’) minus L (‘Lucy’s first to go’).
4, 22 across CHECKERBOARDS
Schroeder back playing US game on these? (13)

An anagram (‘playing’) of ‘Schroeder back’.
5 RETHOUGHT
About time, even if parts considered again (9)

An envelope (‘parts’) of THOUGH (‘even if’) in RE (‘about’) plus T (‘time’).
6 HIT LIST
People to take out on this bash, mostly drunk on street (3,4)

A charade of HIT (‘bash’) plus LI[t] (‘drunk’) without its last letter (‘mostly’) plus ST (‘street’). In the definition, ‘take out’ has the sense of kill or eliminate.
7 WOODSTOCK
Star of Comedy Store festival (9)

A charade of WOOD (Victoria, ‘star of comedy’) plus STOCK (‘store’). In addition to the famous music festival, the answer gives another Peanuts refernce.
13 NORWAY RAT
Sewer being awry, ran to supply (6,3)

An anagram (‘supply’) of ‘awry ran to’.
14 TAIL LIGHT
Part of American train track’s fine (4,5)

A charade of TAIL (‘track’) plus LIGHT (‘fine’). I think the ‘train’ in the definition must be the Harley-Davidson Night Train.
17 SETTING
What am I doing in this position? (7)

Double definition.
18 AMERICA
Marcie running a country (7)

A charade of AMERIC, an anagram (‘running’) of ”Marcie’ plus ‘a’.
20 PEANUTS
Bottom airbrushed from top magazine strip (7)

A charade of PEA[k] (‘top’) without its last letter (‘bottom airbrushed’) plus NUTS (‘magazine’; I wondered if it was an indirect reference to Mad Magazine, but I discover that there was a magazine called NUTS, with contents which might indeed be airbrushed).
22 BITCH
Pig pen hot — temperature drops inside (5)

An envelope (‘drops inside’) of T (‘temperature’) in BIC (brand of ‘pen’) plus H (‘hot’). The definition is metaphorical – e.g. “This was a pig of a puzzle”.
23 DREGS
Deposit say collected by medics (5)

An envelope (‘collected by’) of EG (‘say’) in DRS (‘medics’).
completed grid

67 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 26722 by Tramp”

  1. Thanks Tramp and PeterO

    I didn’t enjoy this. 15a, 1d, 3d and 22d not only could I not parse – I couldn’t see what the solution had to do with the clue (though in the case of 1d I didn’t help myself by reading “wallower” as “wallflower”!) 20d had to be PEANUTS, but again I had no idea why.

    “Star of Comedy” for WOOD is rather loose.

    24a is ambiguous. “Difficult changing lead, for Snoopy” gives PRYING, but “Difficult, changing lead for Snoopy” gives TRYING.

    Favourite by a long way was COFFEE.

  2. Very tricky! Had TOFFEE instead of COFFEE and couldn’t parse it of course. ‘Light’ for ‘fine’ in TAIL LIGHT eludes me. Favourites were TATTOO, BITCH, DREGS and KOOKIEST. Couldn’t get HYBRID CAR for ages, thinking it must start with ‘hob’ (‘One goes by gas or electric’). Thanks to Tramp and PeterO.

  3. Thanks for the puzzle and the blog.

    Re 11a, I think it just means ‘OK’ twice with their fronts stuck together so one of them needs to be reversed. In 14d light = fine in the sense of (say) ‘a light/fine drizzle’.

  4. A lovely celebration of the 65th birthday of the 20d comic strip.

    Great fun thank you Tramp and PeterO too.

  5. Found this rather tricky & didn’t really enjoy the challenge – sorry, Tramp, may just be the way I’m feeling today! The theme came quite easily to me for a change, even though I’m not really a fan of the comic strip [can’t believe it’s been running that long, crypticsue @4!]

    Thank you very much for the blog, PeterO.

  6. Thanks, PeterO.

    As so often, I’m with crypticsue. With such a variety of clues, it really is impossible to pick out favourites* and, as with all Tramp puzzles, this one is so much more than a sum of its parts.

    Many thanks, Tramp – a delight from start to finish.

    [*but I have to mention Linus’ blanket. 😉 ]

  7. Thanks Tramp and PeterO,

    A computer-animated feature film based on the strip “The Peanuts Movie” is to be released today.

    This was fun, but like muffin I was stuck at 1d for a while reading ‘wallflower’ for ‘wallower’. Too many favourites to list, probably BIRD FLU made me laugh the most.

  8. I enjoyed this, tricky but imaginative and good fun all the way. I mistakenly entered TOFFEE instead of COFFEE and failed to parse it (unsurprisingly).

    Thanks all.

  9. This seemed to have quite a wide-ranging clue-quality, from the slightly contrived to the utterly sublime. Some nicely misleading (and often quite long) definitions added to the challenge. “Sewer being” was lovely, particularly when followed by a fodder-word-masquerading-as-anagrind (awry) – the true anagrind being my favourite of all… ‘supply’!

    He must have been pleased when he came up with the marvellous: Plant one roughly on cheek (8)

    Incidentally, PeterO, I think the definition for SETTING is probably meant to be all of: “What am I doing in this”, followed by the other definition: “position”, maybe? Tiny detail.

    Thanks PeterO, and Tramp for the challenge and some great cluing ideas.

  10. Thanks PeterO for the blog and thanks to others for the nice comments.

    I wrote this puzzle over two years ago. On reflection, I think it’s quite good. There are some things I’m not keen on, for example, the link word “in” in 19 across isn’t very good. My original clue for STAG was “Man’s short leg” but I wasn’t allowed this as, apparently, Paul had “Animal’s short leg” back in March. The rewrite is Hugh’s work and I think he did well. Admittedly, the clue for PRYING is ambiguous and that is an oversight on my part: I figured “for” signalled the definition but I now see that it could be read as “lead for Snoopy”. I also had to change the clue for TAIL LIGHT as the original definition was “Part of American car”, but I’d used that as a definition in my Alfred Hitchcock puzzle. I’m not sure solvers mind if I use the same definition in two different clues in different puzzles.

    I have, for now, stopped writing thematic puzzles; I’ve found that the non-thematic puzzles are taking about a third of the time to write compared with the time it takes to write a themed puzzle, like this one. I still have a backlog of twenty puzzles or so and I estimate fifteen of those are themed (some will be deemed as “contrived”, “bitty” and “a curate’s egg” but I’m prepared to avoid the blogs when they appear).

    Thanks again and have a good weekend.

    Neil

  11. Enjoyed this one too – maintaining the standards of one of the best weeks I can remember. Last in was HOWL, probably my favourite too.

    Thanks to Tramp and PeterO

  12. Thanks Tramp & PeterO.

    Pretty tricky with some splendid clues. I don’t know what the surface of 1A means though.

    I particularly liked COFFEE & NORWAY RAT.

  13. Many speculative clueing strategies here which irked a bit, plus the usual Tramp ‘shoe-horn everything in’ tactic. I don’t like this approach at all I’m afraid. It is a pity too I think because this compiler looks as if he could do good clues if the path were clearer. It’s too much to have all these ‘thematic requirements’ in the way.

    The Guardian crossword interface is good unlike the Indy.

  15. Very nice puzzle – some great clues combined with excellent use of a theme. Particularly liked the sticky magazine covers, the sewer resident and the airbrushed bottom.

  16. HH “too much” for you but others seem to have liked it. My last puzzle wasn’t thematic but you didn’t comment which irked a bit. I had hoped you’d got fed up of my puzzles because, when it comes to your comments, I don’t like your approach at all I’m afraid.

    Neil

  17. Tramp @10 – so is it just pure chance that your two-year old crossword turns up today for the film/birthday? Or were you really planning ahead? 😉

  19. Tramp, thank you for your comments. It is illuminating that you point out just how hard the deft handling of a theme can be.

    Robi @12

    In all probably your difficulty with the definition in 1A is ‘gas’. I have lived in the States too long to think that the American usage of ‘gas’ for petrol needs any comment.

  20. I’m with hedgehoggy on this one. Themed clues might provide some pleasure to those interested in the subject, but if the theme doesn’t follow through into the solutions then otherwise it at best risks getting in the way. I gave up halfway through as the suspicion grew that difficulty might not be due to my usual incompetence but the need to contrive clues to fit the theme. And because I was disappointed to find “bitch” being used as a derogatory term.

  21. Thanks to Tramp and PeterO. I struggled a lot with this puzzle but did eventually get through without parsing more than the usual number of items. E.g., I missed the flipped M in HOWL; I was confused by the two OKs in KOOKIEST; I didn’t know the KA in TOPEKA or the INT in INTRUDER; and needed PeterO’s explanation for PEANUTS. In contrast, the term ROGATION was new to me but clear from the clues. Overall, a challenge for me – but fun.

  22. ACD @21
    If a Yorskshireman says “Tin tin tin”, he means “The desired object can’t be located in the can”.

  24. But if they say “Tin tin tin tin”, they mean “the bequiffed investigative reporter has not eaten it”.

  26. as opposed to tin tin t’inn which means something else. I’m not from Yorkshire but int comes more naturally than aint to me too…

  27. Well, I got through COFFEE and HOWL and some of the other tricky constructions but ran into a blank in the SW, very much an empty quarter for some time. I wasn’t quite convinced that AMERICA was right; not ‘officially’ a country. But with a P…E envelope likely at 21a, and a possible ICA ending for 16a, in it had to go. But for ages I had 17d as IMAGING (I am aging/ageing, so I guess Tramp is too), and insisted that 13d was some sort of NEEDLE because don’t you use those to sew? knit? something like that? Very galling it was to see that it was a ‘sewer being’ with a simple anagram construction …

    Don’t like the grid, BTW – it’s essentially a north and south with only two links (2d, 20d) between them. Grids like this pop up from time to time and I wish they wouldn’t.

  28. The grid is almost cut in half, which is just poor design. There are many grids around on all papers that are not helpful, except in The Times where they are vetted by an editor I think. The FT is the worst.

  29. Golly that was tough. I had to admit defeat after several hours of putting in answers without really knowing how to parse them. CHECKERBOARDS is inspired, but I have to say ‘kooky’ and ‘kinky’ are not remotely synonymous.

  30. Hi PeterO @19; I had no problem with gas=petrol. I was just wondering what the second part of the clue had to connect it with the first part in the surface i.e. what’s the connection (if any) between couples on periphery of drive-by and chair? Maybe I’m not reading it correctly.

  33. A hypothetical criminal who planned a drive-by shooting is sentenced to death by gas or electric chair: the two pairs of accomplices are released. That was the story in my head.

  35. Robi @ 30: The couples of letters on periphery of drive-by are DRBY. Take that, and throw it in an anagram stew with the letters of CHAIR, and you get hybrid car.

    –M.

  37. Well, I did finish this but more by luck than skill. I was another who had TOFFEE as I couldn’t parse 10dn, or HIPPO or HOWL. So I was very much flying by the seat of my pants. There was some good stuff in here but I can’t say I enjoyed this much.
    Still, thanks Tramp.

  38. mrpenney @32 and muffin @34

    [This sparks a memory that has not surfaced for sixty or more years. We often used to visit relatives in Devon, driving down in a Vauxhall, which had one light at the rear, serving also to illuminate the number plate. On a particularly bumpy road, the plate and light fell off and were dragged along by the wires. Subsequently the site (I think it was just outside Porlock, where the person came from) was known to us as Backlight Hill.]

    Robi @30

    Sorry – looking back @12 I see you did say surface. Quite often I do not pay much attention to surfaces, but in this case I did note the separation of ‘electric’ and ‘chair’, and formed an image much like Tramp @33.

  39. [PeterO @38
    You didn’t call in on Coleridge, by any chance, did you – he was writing Xanadu at the time, I think 🙂 ]

  40. Thanks PeterO and Tramp (8/10) – difficulty rate high for me today, though I got there in the end.

    I was convinced 13d was something to do with needle; a good clue, a cleverly obscured definition.

    Van Winkle @24 My grandmother once observed: “itititonted”, but she was Lancastrian. (Something fell off the table on to the cat’s head)

  43. Tramp @41
    “thed” sounds specifically Rossendale!

    When I taught chemistry in Blackburn, I always accused the students who fiddled with the taps of coming from Rossendale – the novelty, you see? (Mind you, Darweners referred to the liquid that emerged as “wather”!)

  44. Bitch as synonym for pig? No. Brass as synonym for cheek? No. Kookiest as synonym for kinkiest? No. Norway rat for Norwegian rat? Absurd, unless you play France Cricket in the Germany Bight while suffering from Spain Influenza – just wrong. Tiresome.

  45. Crossbencher
    Bitch and pig are synonymous, as are brass and cheek (see definitions below. Norway rat is also correct.

    Definitions from Chambers (only because it is on my pc and so easy to copy/paste):

    bitch – an extremely difficult or unpleasant situation or problem
    pig – something very difficult
    brass – effrontery
    cheek – effrontery, impudence
    Norway rat – the brown rat

  46. This was tough for me, but I eventually got all but two answers, 1a and 3d. Like droflr @2, I fixated on “hob” before finally resorting to putting H-B— into a wordfinder (I already had CAR). With that in place, I did see IMBUE, which was my LOI. My favourite was the ingenious HOWL.

    Thanks to Paul and Eileen.

  50. drofle @49
    Mmmm – not sure that “bold as brass” is as close to effrontery as “brass neck”. In either case, “brass” by itself doesn’t seem to convey the full meaning.

  51. Collins gives brass (informal) as ‘cheek’ and it quotes the example of “he had the brass to ask for more time”. It was good enough for me.

  56. There’s no doubt that bitch and pig are synonymous, but in that sense bitch does carry a pejorative extra tings, which can freak us out. It wouldn’t freak Hugh out however, as we have seen here and there.

  57. Quick visit between fireworks, quite tricky today had a smile when howl twigged and was convinced it was trying for 24, sorry Neil think that was careless by your standards. And thanks Peter, hope you enjoyed your trip back to England

  58. Count me as another who finished this but didn’t enjoy it.

    Too many clues were clunky and contrived. I also don’t see any point in placing a theme in the clues. (I know that one word crept in as a clue.) I think that this definitely contributed to the awkwardness of the cluing in this case!

    Of course this is only my opinion and I am sure that a lot of the clues are “sublime” and that this puzzle was a “delight” as other posters have stated.

    Thanks to PeterO and Tramp

  59. Just a small matter on the supposed equivalence of bitch and pig is that of gender. One is very definitely female. The other is not. I found this very unenjoyable. Tail light, pastille tattoo and America were particularly thin and the w for m device in 6 was awful. Another case of a compiler trying too hard. It just felt laboured: the antithesis of yesterday’s crossword.88

  60. Hi David. Bitch and Pig aren’t equivalent when talking about a person, but they certainly are when talking about a situation or a challenge.

  61. Life’s a pig!? There might be some equivalence for a challenge, but the personal reference will be the one that springs to many minds and is not particularly tasteful.

  62. God Bless America: even if officially there is no such country, I think we can safely say that, over there, some folks think there is. In other words, I think it a wee bit picky to snipe at Tramp’s definition there. And in that Marcie here is (presumably) installed as the new President, perhaps some hono(u)r is claimed back for the poor bitch.

  65. I think “tail light” comes out of “track’s fine” if after “track,” “s + fine” is “slight.” I can’t quite make this add up, though, since I can’t make the s go away.

    I’ve never heard of a Ford Ka. I knew about Model T and Model A, and where could the K come from? Never head of Nuts Magazine either — sounds as if I haven’t missed much.

    Thanks, PeterO. Thanks to Tramp too.

  66. Thanks PeterO and Tramp.

    I found this hard but ultimately rewarding work.

    Fortunately the theme didn’t get in the way of the solve – just as well since I’ve always found Peanuts to be a bit lame.

    ROGATION was my new word for the day – all part of the learning experience.

  67. Thanks Tramp and PeterO

    Didn’t find this as hard as some and thought that it was interesting in the way that the Peanuts characters were woven into the clues themselves with only the headline act getting into the grid. Having said that, he drew the two errors from me: the TRYING / PRYING one (which I still think is a 50-50 option) and a not fully satisfactory SITTING instead of SETTING. This has become habitual with this setter in recent times where he is trapping me with at least one error.

    Also could not parse PEANUTS, even though it could be nothing else.

    Have confidently got on to the IN’T term from northern dialects these days. Hadn’t heard of the late Victoria WOOD, who unfortunately lost a short battle with cancer in between this puzzle being published and me getting around to doing it. ROGATION was the other new term. It was my last in after HIT LIST and the clever IMBUE.

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