Guardian 28,194 / Picaroon

69 comments on “Guardian 28,194 / Picaroon”

1. Eileen – some of your down clues appear to be missing! We can’t work out why Tinker bell is right for 15d and we’re looking forward to your explanation!
   Thanks

2. I agree with Eileen – another lovely offering. I started rather slowly with OESOPHAGI followed by much head-scratching, but gradually worked my way through. Favourites were NONPAREIL, TAXMAN, DEBRETT and WING MIRROR. Many thanks to Picaroon, and to Eileen.

3. A bit of a mental workout today but we got there after some tricky parsing.

   LOI was NONPAREIL, favourites were CONE and ESPRESSO.

   LOI was NONPAREIL, a new word for us.

   Thanks Eileen and Picaroon!

4. So nice to see ESPRESSO spelled without an X 🙂 CONE was one of many favourites. DISMEMBER maybe wandering into the bad taste zone? Cheers all

5. 15 D Tinker is a monkey, naughty child? Bell is call. Tinker ell flies in Peter Pan.

6. should be Tinker Bell flies in Peter Pan

7. I think TINKER is a verb meaning to monkey about with something

8. Thanks Eileen and Picaroon.

   I too liked CROSS THE RUBICON, and also COXCOMB and OESOPHAGI (once I’d worked out the spelling), among others. I was less keen on SPOUSE, as the clue merely asked us to convert a verb into its nounal form.

9. Shirley @1  – so sorry  – can’t think what happened there. I’ll correct it immediately. [just give me a minute. 😉 ]

10. Most enjoyable. Among so many other clues today, I really enjoyed solving 9a OESOPHAGI, especially when, to start with, I tried K instead of G for “a grand” and felt rather disappointed that I couldn’t rearrange those letters to form an anagram! Ticks also for 16a CROSS THE RUBICON (chuffed to have remembered some of the “sleep”/”dreams” speech from Hamlet’s soliloquy), 25a NONPAREIL and 18d CONDONED [having met “Johnny” in a previous crossword where I didn’t know the slang (naively), and in which I really loved the Ned Kelly reference (parochially)]. 21d TAXMAN also raised a big smile because of the American guitarist reference. Yes, Eileen, I also recalled HOURI from its plural form as used in that terrific “timely” puzzle by Brendan, one I completed well after it appeared (due to time pressures) and which I enjoyed enormously.

    Many thanks to Picaroon for the Friday “fun” (as Eileen says in her preamble) and to Eileen for the brilliant blog.

11. [Lots of comments since I started typing – there were No Comments when I started. I did wonder where TINKER BELL had flown off to, Shirl@1.

    Sorry to re-mention others’ favourites without acknowledgement. Too late now but I am liking reading what others thought.]

12. [Not sure whether other expats will parse 23d CONE – I couldn’t – only got it from the wordplay – so thanks Eileen for the link]

13. [Sorry meant “furreners” not expats – why did I type that?]

14. We enjoyed this and very pleased to have finished without online aids.

    Spent ages trying to justify HERO in 16a, so thanks for the icon Eileen.

15. Many thanks for your indulgence in the meantime – missing clues added now. Apologies again.

    I think perhaps Philip Kerridge’s ‘monkey’ @5 is better than mine (although Shirley @7 agrees with it 😉 ).

16. 99 rang the faintest of bells, as in me muttering “think that might have been clued before, some sort of icecream”. Thought of “the rub” immediately but needed a crosser or two before rubicon clicked. Liked the, er, short johnny and agree with Shirl that monkey and tinker are verbs. Fun puzzle, pretty plain sailing really for a Pirate, and ta Eileen.

17. This went in fairly evenly, starting with GOURMET. Faves were  CROSS THE RUBICON, SHE-DEVIL, HOURI and CONE.  In the SE quadrant, I always thought that NONPAREIL referred to excellence…, missed the references in 16d, but by that time my crossers sufficed. But 21d and 23ac took me an age, puzzled by the second part of the clue for 21d (did not know AXMAN) nor about a jester’s cap, although COXCOMB not new. Eventually I just went with the first part of 21d. So my last two were TAXMAN and COXCOMB, which google confirmed.

    Thanks Picaroon and Eileen for the blog esp. for 16a. I now see where the French aléatoire (meaning random) comes from; they use un dé, for a die [plural dice], unrelated to alea it seems.

    Overall, learnt some new things and enjoyed it.

     

18. I think that, if I hadn’t made a mess of things and somehow missed it out, COHABITANT might have been some people’s favourite – it’s certainly one of mine.

19. What a beauty to round off the week!

    I parsed monkey as the verb but either works and I expect they’re linked anyway.

    So enjoyable when a setter finds an accessible way to clue less well=known words.

    Aren’t SPOUSE and espouse from the same root?

    Many thanks for the Hamlet quotation, Eileen, couldn’t quite remember it.

    Lovely stuff, nice weekend, all.

20. Gosh! I seem to have got involved in a debate. Thus I have consulted my dilapidated Chambers. For 15D, monkey = tinker works either way as a verb and a noun. So hooray everybody is right. Monkey as a noun ‘ … for a mischievous or badly-behaved child’ As a verb to meddle with anything. Tinker as a noun, a rascal (colloq). As a verb meddle is one of the definitions. So you pays your mon(k)ey and makes your choice?

    I didn’t get Tinkerbell. My xword partner beat me to it. Having a 5 year old grandchild probably makes tinker/monkey as a noun more immediately obvious.

21. I liked this even better than yesterday’s Nutmeg, which is saying something.  Favourite was COXCOMB;  as soon as I saw ‘river’ in the clue I started heading up a succession of watery blind alleys… Ouse, Ure, Cam, Exe, Dee, Po, Nile… until a combination of Cadbury’s and HMRC came to the rescue!

    I also have a difficult-to-explain penchant for words ending in -mb where the b is silent.  Favourite word for leg?  Limb.  Favourite SI unit?  Coulomb.  Favourite Greek letter?  Lambda (shame about the da).  I even think I would like my mobile phone better if it had a simb card.

    [Fun language fact: COXCOMB/cockscomb in the ornithological sense is Hahnenkamm in German – which gives its name to the mountain that David Vine used to mis-pronounce every time Ski Sunday paid a visit to Kitzbühel.]

    Thanks Picaroon and Eileen

22. Nice, nice, nice!   Just trying to remember the last time I had SCAMPI.  Oh pubs – those were the days…

23. Plenty to enjoy in this puzzle but I was unable to complete it. Failed CONE – I had never heard of a 99 ice cream cone.

    Liked: OESOPHAGI, WING MIRROR, DEBRETT,  CROSS THE RUBICON, COHABITANT, SHE-DEVIL

    New: Johnny = condom

     

    Thanks B+S

24. Lovely crossword – thank you Picaroon – and the lucky blogger too 😉

25. essexboy @21 I can only hope that the visit to Kitzbühel happened in December, clad in Lowe Alpine

26. Lovely blog, Eileen and super puzzle from Pickers.

    I loved CROSS THE RUB ICON

    He and Nutmeg are in the same bracket as Arachne -ie premier cru

27. Just finished in time for the cricket. Unfortunately not able to complete my comment before England lose their first wicket. Oh dear.

    Picaroon is probably my favourite setter and this was another classy example. I forgive the weak SPOUSE when there are the likes of COXCOMB and NONPAREIL. Always thought that TINKER BELL was a single word but I stand corrected.

28. Thanks for the great blog. Short Johnny went over my head, so ta for that.

29. How good is it to have Picaroon following Nutmeg? It took me some time to get going on this and once CONE went in I was convinced 23a began with CAM – trust Picaroon to come up with another interpretation – and it needed TAXMAN to go in before I ditched the CAM idea. Loi was FORMIC ACID because I’d started 9a with an A and hadn’t checked the fodder. (Thanks for the interesting link Eileen.) DEBRETT was my favourite because I thought “there can’t be an anagram from D and BETTER”. Thanks to Picaroon and Eileen.

30. A lovely finish to a super week. Cone and Taxman brought a smile and Cohabitant was a clever construction. Ta Eileen for a very informative blog and to Picaroon.

31. I found this quite tricky in places with a gratifying sense of achievement having got there in the end, albeit in fits and starts.  Lots of amusing and clever clues and I’d never have got the over-elaborately clued 16 from parsing alone but two crossers alone “R” and “B” were sufficient to give the well-known phrase away.

    Not sure that “…training, one-nil is about average” is as neat as it could be as the inclusion of the ‘is” spoils it, in my opinion.

    I find Picaroon’s “reverse Polish notation” approach where he/she abandons normal grammar to achieve a coherent surface in some cases, e.g. 3, 5, 14, an impediment to solving his/her puzzles which can be annoying.

    Thanks Picaroon and Eileen

32. Andy Smith @28: conjures up a slightly concerning image!

    For once, little to add to the comments above as I’m in total agreement that this was another Picaroon gem which completes a thoroughly enjoyable week.  I wonder who’ll turn up for the Prize tomorrow.  My total agreement extends to crypticsue @24: lucky blogger, indeed!  (Though it makes up for your frustration with the recent Boatman.  I see no-one has expressed displeasure at you voicing your positive opinion on this occasion)

    WING MIRROR gave me real problems as I got fixated on ‘ring’ or ‘king’ at the beginning and thought I was being misdirected towards an obscure golfing term.  Doh!

    NONPAREIL is a particular favourite.  At the risk of a second quotation from the Bard, it always takes me straight to the Macbeth line where I first encountered it:

    Thou art the best o’ th’ cutthroats:
    Yet he’s good that did the like for Fleance.
    If thou didst it, thou art the nonpareil.

    Funny how stuff sticks from ‘O’Level set texts so many years ago.

    Thanks as always, Picaroon, and to Eileen for another first rate blog

33. Not a lot to add because it’s all been mentioned above, but a lovely puzzle again from the Pirate. Thanks to him.
    A really quite steady solve for me for a change. Always used to struggle a bit with Picaroon offerings, but I manage to get on his wavelength quickly these days, which makes it a happier solve. I hate using aids, so having no unknown words to trip me up helps immeasurably.
    Really liked COHABITANT and CROSS THE RUBICON in my top to bottom solve, but all excellent clues I thought.
    Thanks as always to Eileen, especially for diverting me down the Formica rabbit hole!

34. Know you’re being patient re the spider lady, copmus, but it’s been an age, hard not to worry…

35. Great puzzle and blog. Thanks both. Andy Smith@28 reminds me of the wonderful Steve Bell’s depiction of former PM David Cameron. Anyone else remember that?

36. I found myself struggling just the teensiest bit with what I originally thought was a number disagreement in 9a OESOPHAGI – according to several dictionaries I checked, here means “in this place”, singular.  However, on reflection I think it is common to find it either way, e.g. “Q: art is found here” – “A: in a museum” or “A: in museums”.  So I conclude Picaroon is perfectly right, and the dictionaries have missed an opportunity.

37. Many thanks to Eileen for her customarily super blog and to all posters for taking the trouble to comment.

    @Pentman, since I agree with you that the syntax of clues is important, I’m going to respectfully disagree that such liberties are taken as you state.

    For 3, it’s standard crossword practice that an adjectival (or even adverbial) indicator may either precede or follow the phrase to which it applies: ‘drunk x’ or ‘x drunk’ both mean ‘anagram of x’. This is a well-established part of the idiom of cryptic crosswords. By way of contrast, an imperative verb form as an indicator is generally considered to need to precede the phrase it applies to.

    For 5 and 14, it’s common English usage to omit the relative pronoun “that”, which is all that happens here. Things people eat = things that people eat.  All we have in both clues is this same construction, which in no way distorts everyday syntax:

    object + [“that”, which is omitted] + subject + verb

    In other languages I know, omission of relative pronouns (or their equivalent constructions, such as ? in Chinese) can’t be done. It’s yet another interesting feature of English that makes it fantastically suitable for cryptic clues.

    (Just finally, on the subject of cruciverbal idiom, or perhaps dialects, in this case, the lack of a space between bed and clothes here is in conformity with Guardian house style. Times house style would require a space.)

38. I only got one (spit) on my first pass through but it all slowly emerged after looking a bit harder. Whether I just woke up slowly or needed the crossers, I will never know. I was left with three I couldn’t see at 8:30 but which were obvious at lunchtime.

    I too thought Tinker Bell would be one word. Makes it a better clue, I suppose, given how many people would get this wrong. Bell=call is an oddity too – I might say “give me a bell” but not “I had a bell from somebody”.

    Thanks to Picaroon and Eileen.

     

39. howard @ 38: a stag’s call is also a bell and the verb form applies too.  We used to enjoy the belling of stags during the Autumn rut when we had the Scottish cottage referred to earlier in the week.  A truly primordial sound.  Whether Picaroon had that meaning in mind, I do not know.

40. Thank you, Picaroon and Eileen.  Good work both.

    I tried ESOPHAGUS (American spelling) in 9a, but the anagram didn’t quite work, and then I remembered the OE bit.

    On the other hand, I’ve been puzzled by the popular British belief that “ax” is the American spelling for “axe.”  It’s not how I spell it, I don’t even think I’ve often seen it (though it is in dictionaries).  Yes, it’s around here somewhere, but not widely prevalent.

    99 for ice cream was beyond me.  Thanks for the link, Eileen.

41. Thanks Picaroon and Eileen

    I had a very messy start. I tried to write in OESOPHAGUS at 9a, to find it didn’t fit. I then thought “he’s done an unindicated American spelling” and wrote over it ESOPHAGUS. Belatedly I noticed that I hadn’t included an I. I think the clue is faulty, though, as “here” implies a singular location.

    After that it was pretty straightforward. CONE was my favourite too.

42. A fine puzzle with some pleasingly misleading clues, but all scrupulously fair. OESOPHAGI, CROSS THE RUBICON, NONPAREIL and COHABITANT were my favourites.

    Today’s musical references: RACY is a homophone of a rubbish late 70s band; MERCURY (Bloc Party); TAXMAN kicks off one of the greatest ever albums, and 17D Sympathy For – oh no, not quite.

43. muffin @41 – see Dr WhatsOn @36.

44. Thanks Eileen – I missed that comment. Not entirely convinced!

45. Two gems to end the week. OESOPHAGI needed a bit of an alphabet trawl (as with Valentine @40, the British spelling didn’t register right away), and I spent too long looking for the definition at the wrong end of the clue for SPOUSE. Otherwise a steady solve, with faves already mentioned by others. Thanks to Picaroon and to Eileen for the parsing of a few.

46. I had exactly the same problem as Valentine did with the OESOPHAGI. The anagram fodder looked early on like it would give me an esophagus. It took me until near the end (and after I had that final I in place) to remember the British habit of plunking random silent letters in medical terms. (I’m being cheeky–I do know the real story about those letters.) I did remember 99 as ice cream, though–from a previous puzzle.

    Thanks to Eileen for the blog and Picaroon for the challenge.

47. Thanks Picaroon @37 for your explanation and I do appreciate your arguments.  I accept that cryptic clues need not conform to standard English syntax and certainly, your style adds to the challenge, which I enjoy.  Perhaps I should have used “challenging” rather than “annoying”.

    When contemplating 5, it occurred to me that the clue could have been expressed as; “What driver uses with paper covers in golf.” rather than “What driver uses in golf with paper covers”.

     

48. Loved this. Thanks to Eileen and Picaroon – what a great finish to a really good set of Cryptics this week. Favourates were DEBRETT and TAXMAN (which made me laugh). Couldn’t parse condoned, so thank you Eileen. have a great weekend all.

     

49. Lovely puzzle. Thanks Picaroon and Eileen.

    2Scotcheggs @42 Whilst you and I may think that Racey were rubbish, I’m not sure that everyone would agree. I suppose some girls will, some girls won’t.

50. Pentman @31/47 and Picaroon

    Thanks for the discussion.  I think Picaroon’s argument @37 is that 5 and 14d do conform to standard English syntax.  I’m still dubious on that score, because

    object + [omitted ‘that’] + subject  + verb

    normally requires a noun as object.

    ‘Things people eat’ is fine.  It means the same as ‘The things that people eat’.

    ‘In bed people eat’, on the other hand, can only be taken to mean ‘People eat in bed’.  The meaning that Picaroon is trying to establish, i.e. ‘The in bed that people eat’ would be difficult to defend as ‘common English usage’  😉

    But lest I be thought to be a caviller, let me say I like both clues – but I’d be inclined to defend the back-to-front word order on different grounds, namely that we should grant to setters at least the same degree of licence that we do to poets.

    Mary had a little lamb,

    Its fleece was black as soot,

    And everywhere that Mary went

    His sooty foot he put…

    There are limits; I think Yoda-speak a bit much would be.

    Penfold @49  🙂

    2Scotcheggs @42:  hey, what about Freddie??

51. Thanks Picaroon for a most satisfying crossword. I ticked NONPAREIL, ESPRESSO, SCAMPI, TAXMAN, and I double-ticked CROSS THE RUBICON as favorites. I had some problem (like others) with the spelling of OESOPHAGI and I didn’t know side mirrors as WING MIRRORS. DEBRETT and DOHA were new to me. Thanks Eileen for blog.

52. What a cracking week it’s been, and a Paul Prize to come tomorrow too.

    I filled in the difficult bottom half first, felt all pleased with myself for knowing HOURI, DOHA, NONPAREIL and DEBRETT and then ground to a halt for no good reason. FORMIC ACID got me back on track and it was fairly plain sailing from that point on. I had a good giggle at CONDONED because I’m very childish. Didn’t parse CROSS THE RUBICON at all but it was obvious from the crossers.

    Some lovely Tramp-esque diversions in this one: SCAMPI was my favourite clue today.

53. @essexboy, it doesn’t sound like cavilling at all. This site is surely the place for a bit of constructive, technical chat about crossword conventions, after all. I do maintain that there is no strained or unusual word order in this particular case. Take the part of the clue you refer to:

    “Running a bath in bed/clothes” when parsed as wordplay in a cryptic clue (so the referents can only be either sets of letters or operations performed on those sets of letters) breaks down as:

    anagram of A BATH IN, this string of letters functions as a noun object + “that”, with the relative pronoun omitted as per normal syntax + a word for BED, here the subject + “clothes” (= covers), the verb.

    More simply: A BATH IN* [that] COT covers

    Syntactically, this is equivalent to saying “the jumbled papers an envelope contains”, i.e. “the jumbled papers that an envelope contains”. Either form is fine and neither has strained or unusual syntax.

    Right, I think I’ve used up today’s ration of grammar chat, so I’ll (try to!) leave it there.

54. Haha Penfold@49. Racy were very typical of the time so a bit unfair to rubbish it by today’s standards. It was pretty rubbish though 2Scotcheggs@42?

55. ? should have been a ?

56. Oh I give up

57. Thanks Picaroon, excellent and fun as usual. I am glad Pentman@31 referred to the reverse polish notation in mathematics, I have used this as well to describe similar constructs, not saying they are wrong, but they can sound Yoda-like. The friend i was solving with (see what i did there?) also worried about ‘here’ being singular in 9a.

    Loads to like, thanks also Eileen

58. Thanks Picaroon @53.  One of the many pleasures of this site is when setters drop by to engage with the discussion.

59. Always prefer reverse Polish notation logic for calculators etc, and I find the same idiom in language just as neat.
    Many thanks Picaroon & Eileen

60. As a Johnny come lately today, it is entertaining to follow the blog responses. All I can say is it took me quite a while to get going but once I did things moved smoothly. Some delightful clues especially for NONPAREIL and COHABITANT.
    Once I had remembered how to spell OESOPHAGI though!
    Thanks to Picaroon and Eileen

61. I find myself admiring Picaroon more and more with each puzzle I complete! A lovely range of clues and some classy misdirection.
    Have to confess, having solved DISMEMBER and HOURI, my first attempt for 20d was “schtum” but of course I couldn’t parse it. SUBDUE is neater and way better.
    I particularly enjoyed crossing the Rubicon – plus all the comments it provoked. I, too, was running the speech through my mind for a while before the solution hit me. I agree with Mark about the way school set-texts stick in the memory. [I was eleven when I first came across Macbeth’s line: “sleep that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care”, and it never gets old…]
    My fave was TINKER BELL – for its sweet
    simplicity as much as anything else.
    Thanks to Picaroon for the fun – and to Eileen for a classy blog.

62. Very enjoyable puzzle.  I agree with muffin @41 that the “here” in 9 naturally implies a singular answer, but OESOPHAGI was still my FOI, so not really a problem.

    Eileen and Pentman @31, I parsed 25 slightly differently:  NIL holding (taking “training” to mean entraining) ONE, then this placed about PAR.  So, in clue wording, “(after) training one, nil is about average”.  This is a (very) long-winded defence of the “is” in the clue!  Sorry if this has already been covered by another commenter – I only quickly scanned the comments.

    Thanks for an excellent Friday lunchtime entertainment, Picaroon and Eileen.

63. I may have mentioned this before, but I’ll repeat it for overseas solvers.
    A 99 is an ice-cream cone with a small chocolate flake added to it. It was first sold by the Arcari family in the 1920’s and so called because their shop was at 99 Portobello High Street in Edinburgh.

64. Thanks for that, NNI – but please see the link that I supplied in the blog. 😉

65. Thanks to Eileen and Picaroon

    It’s apparently not the setter’s intention, but I usually read clues such as 5d as:

    What driver uses / ing, wmirror covers (that)

    I’m still not quite decided on the plural “here” conundrum. I thought @36 had cracked it but then realised “art is found here” isn’t a question, and if the phrasing is changed to make it one, the answers also change.

    Perhaps it can be made to work but I can’t see it at the moment.

66. copmus @26

    When I said yesterday that Nutmeg was in my top three, I was coupling her with Arachne and Picaroon too. I do hope that all is well with Arachne, but I fear that it may not be.

67. When in childhood I endeared myself to elders by some daring stratagem, I might equally have been called, in jest, a cheeky monkey or a little tinker. Both nouns.

68. Eileen,

    Cadbury claim to have invented it, but the Arcari family say otherwise.

69. Thanks Eileen.  A lovely crossword.  Needed the blog for explanation of 99.  Lots of favs including CROSS THE RUBICON and COHABITANT. Interesting discussion of syntax and grammar; I had no problem with 1a.  Thanks to Picaroon for the fun

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.