Guardian 26,128 – Picaroon

by

This was one of those puzzles where I got almost nothing on my first pass through, but then everything suddenly started falling into place quite quickly. Plenty of good-quality clueing, with a clever twist in 3d and 4d, and a great penny-dropping moment in 8d. Thanks to Picaroon.

 
 
 
 
 
 
Across
9. REPEOPLED After theological study, fidgety pope was first to get settled again (9)
R[eligious] Education + POPE* + LED (was first)
10. RONDO Republican Party keeps playing some classical music (5)
ON (playing) in R DO
11. STRETTI Tritest Brahms and Liszt passages from fugues (7)
TRITEST* – “Brahms and Liszt” is rhyming slang for “pissed” or drunk; stretti (plural of stretto) are sections of a fugue where the subject is played several times in quick succession
12. SUCCOUR Relief from outspoken fool (7)
Homophone of “sucker” (fool)
13. IDOL Promise made by Liberal, one that could be false? (4)
“I DO” (promise) + L, though as I always like to point out ad nauseam the traditional promise in the wedding service is “I will” (I believe “I do” is used in some modern versions)
14. ESPADRILLE Heading for Egyptian resort, bore acquires eastern footwear (10)
E[gyptian] + SPA (resort) + DRILL (bore) + E
16. INSERTS Disheartened topless siren ordered implants (7)
Anagram of T[oples]S SIRENS
17. PROPHET Person regularly sulks about hotel — is it Sibyl? (7)
P[e]R[s]O]n + H in PET ([the] sulks)
19. ICE SKATING Sliding discipline is besetting church racing to get rid of rector (3,7)
CE in IS + KARTING less R
22. TEAR RIP — a sign of mourning (4)
Double definition, with “rip” sneakily (but fairly) written in capitals
24. APPAREL Clobber soldiers going into shock (7)
RE (Royal Engineers) in APPAL. Clobber is slang for clothes
25. FARRAGO Jazzy piece follows considerably old medley (7)
FAR (considerably) + RAG (jazzy piece) + O
26. OWING Where footballer may play with ball is not yet settled (5)
O (ball) + WING (where footballer may play)
27. EARLY BIRD Noble woman embracing unknown, who won’t linger in bed (5,4)
Y in EARL (a noble) + BIRD (woman)
Down
1. PRESTIDIGITATOR Figure captivated by performing artist — rope tricks are his speciality (15)
DIGIT in (ARTIST ROPE)* – nice misdirection in the definition
2. SPURIOUS Debt taken on by football club, not Real (8)
IOU in SPURS
3. DOTTY Crazy like … (5)
The ellipsis is “dotty”
4. ELLIPSIS … one Greek character constrained by measures (8)
I PSI in ELLS, and again the ellipsis is to be taken “literally”. A clever pair of clues
5. ODESSA Port‘s excessive consumption close to binge — idiot’s thrown up (6)
OD (overdose) + [bing]E + reverse of ASS
6. PRECURSOR Page comes back with gold for herald (9)
P + RECURS + OR (gold)
7. UNROLL Open out list containing Ban Ki-moon’s name? (6)
Ban Ki-Moon‘s name would be in the U.N. ROLL (of Secretaries-general)
8. FOUR-LETTER WORDS Will they make smut, rude bits, blue gags, even some vile oath that isn’t very nice? (4-6,5)
Every word in the clue is an example of one, and the whole clue defines them, so &lit. Excellent
15. BROKERAGE Activity in the City gets you skint? Then see red! (9)
BROKE (skint) + RAGE (see red)
17. PINAFORE Head of army in favour of donning long dress (8)
A[rmy] FOR in PINE (long)
18. HIERATIC In conversation, loftier Greek is suitable for priests (8)
Homophone of “higher Attic” (Attic = Athenian)
20. ESPRIT Wit from Rabelais, mischievous creature sending up English (6)
SPRITE with the E moved to the top. The two words are essentially the same, which rather weakens the effect
21. TILLER Ploughman‘s lunch for a starter eaten by workman (6)
L[unch] in TILER
23. FREYA French vote for elevated, divine female (5)
FR + reverse of AYE (vote for), giving the Norse Goddess of love, sexuality, beauty, fertility, gold, sorcery, war, and death. She must be kept busy, then.

27 comments on “Guardian 26,128 – Picaroon”

  1. Thanks, Andrew.

    A delight from start to finish, as always with this setter. Nothing too difficult or obscure but great cluing throughout.

    Having ?O?T? for 5dn, I first thought of POTTY but the excellent following clue soon put me right. How lovely to see an ellipsis used meaningfully!

    8dn is excellent.

    Many thanks to Picaroon for putting a big smile on my face to start the day.

  2. I had the same experience as Eileen and nearly slipped up with the thought of ‘potty’ until I registered the series of ….After a mistake yesterday, I was pleased to get this one correct, and I enjoyed it very much.

  4. Thanks, Andrew.

    Picaroon’s name is beginning to signal good things to come and this puzzle was no exception! My first pass yielded only ODESSA, but the rest fell out fairly smoothly after that.

    I liked 3dn and 4dn very much and I also smiled at RIP = TEAR.

    But 8dn was an absolute knock-out! What a great clue.

    Thanks, Picaroon.

  5. Thanks Andrew. Somehow I had 9a and 1d in the first minute, but it was tougher after that. Lots to like here including OWING and the little dots. Thanks Picaroon.

  6. Thanks, George @3 _ i’d missed that. That explains the question, which had puzzled me, indicating the different spelling – very clever!

  7. Thanks, Andrew.

    Nice one from the Pirate. This all fell out for me quite smoothly and steadily, much more so than his previous puzzles.

    Puck used ‘…’ as the definition for ELLIPSIS in a Guardian Prize puzzle last September; like others, I found that the solution to this led immediately to DOTTY.

    8d is ingenious, but it was a write-in from the enumeration. My favourites were the political comment in IDOL, the Fawlty Towers allusion in PROPHET and the higher Attic.

    (My captcha is a multiplication, like muffin’s yesterday. I hope the functions don’t get any more complex).

  9. Good puzzle, although my poor knowledge of PROPHETs and IDOLs did not help the solve.

    Thanks Andrew; 8d was my last in, with a cracker of a clue. πŸ™‚ I thought there might have been a ‘PRU’ in 17 as a nod to Fawlty Towers.

    I also particularly enjoyed OWING, PINAFORE and FARRAGO.

  10. Thanks Andrew and Picaroon

    Thoroughly enjoyable – Eileen sums it up very well. I ticked 11a, 13a, 27a, 1d, 2d, 3d, 4d, aand several others.

    I got 8d without fully appreciating it at first. It is very clever.

  11. I was another for whom this fell steadily, and I enjoyed it from start to finish. Like others, I liked the DOTTY … ELLIPSIS combination, as well as the Fawlty Towers reference with Sybil.

    And FREYA reminded me why it will be FRIDAY in two days’ time.

    Thanks to Andrew for blogging and to Picaroon for a fine puzzle.

  12. Thanks all
    This was a great joy to solve. My last in was 8d- brilliant.
    I did not know of ‘freya’ but the cryptic saved me. Like others I admired 3d and 4d.

  14. Thanks to Andrew for the blog. I had totally failed to spot the word length used in 8d so I was left scratching my head. πŸ™

    I solved 4d (eventually) then realised that the three dots were the definition and not a link to the previous clue. 3d then fell into place.

    On 15d I had the K from 19a so assumed that ‘skint’ in the clue was anagram fodder. I spent a lot of time there but to no avail. I finally spotted it.

    My captcha is a multiplication. I had one last week which I think was the first time I had seen one. Previously they have been additions or subtractions. Logically I ought to see a division one day – I wonder when.

  15. Hi chas
    “My captcha is a multiplication. I had one last week which I think was the first time I had seen one. Previously they have been additions or subtractions. Logically I ought to see a division one day – I wonder when.”

    When I introduced the Captcha to try and reduce the amount of spam, I ruled out the use of distorted images as I find a lot of them difficult to decipher. Having decided on an arithmetical one I then thought it best to keep it simple initially until people had had a chance to get used to it.

    A month or so ago I adjusted the plug-in settings to include multiplication. To answer your rhetorical question – never. The plug-in doesn’t support this more complex calculation ;-).

  17. Good puzzle – I especially appreciated the dotty clues. ‘Four-letter words’ is a fairly common light – cropped up on my watch at the Times for the Times last month (in the singular, clued as ‘What’s tabu’?), and a few years back, clued as ‘What wild, rude lads used’.

  18. Gaufrid@15: thanks for the comment.
    A recent change I have noticed (today in fact) is that if I click Submit before filling in the captcha I now get a response where the captcha box is ringed in red with an error message. This is a big improvement on the original response.

  20. Hi chas @18
    The plug-in is regularly updated, in fact I installed the latest version when it became available within the last day or so. I never see the Captcha as I’m always logged in to the site, so I don’t know when the change took place, but I’m pleased to hear that there has been an improvement.

  21. I thought this was an excellently crafted puzzle that was extremely enjoyable to solve, even though it was probably a little easier than some of Picaroon’s earlier offerings.

    Like a few of you I was considering “potty” for 3dn as a kind of DD until the penny dropped, and DOTTY was actually my LOI. 8dn was a very good clue but it was wasted on me because it became a write-in from the enumeration once the checkers for the first word were in place, and I also didn’t bother to parse 1dn because the answer became obvious enough once I had enough checkers.

  22. Thanks Andrew, some of them needed explanations, as far as I’m concerned. Loved 8d,will have to look up 1d in a dictionary.

  23. Well I seem to be the opposite of everybody else on here.

    My first pass almost completed the crossword! However I was then held up for about 30 minutes by 8d, 20d and 23d.

    Although I parsed 20d I’m still not sure of the definition! Am I missing something or is “Wit from Rabelais” just the equivalent of “French for wit”?

    Rather easy on the whole for a Picaroon but still enjoyable.

    Thanks to Andrew and Picaroon

  24. Picaroon is always enjoyable with excellent surfaces. Actually found the solving fairly straightforward because of confidence in the setter that with concentration the answer would transpire by very deliberately avoiding the sense of the surface.
    1d also a gift because our French teacher regularly used the French equivalent as a tongue-twister to get our syllables unlocked.
    Thanks to Andrew

  26. Brendan @ 23

    Having just read the first three books of Gargantua and Pantagruel (in English), I was on the lookout for some deeper layers of meaning, but I don’t think they exist here. However, our friend Wikipedia has the following, which teh setter may have been drawing on:

    ‘According to Rabelais, the philosophy of his giant Pantagruel, “Pantagruelism”, is rooted in “a certain gaiety of mind pickled in the scorn of fortuitous things” (French: une certaine gaξtι d’esprit confite dans le mιpris des choses fortuites).’

  27. Eileen says:
    “How lovely to see an ellipsis used meaningfully!”
    ==

    Hooray to that from me too!

    A good work-through. Many thanks all.

Comments are closed.