Guardian 26,032 – Paul

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Some tough cluing here, I struggled after getting the long 19d solution almost immediately. Favourites were 11ac, 22ac, 16dn and the groan-worthy 8dn.

edited, thanks to cholecyst and Eileen

Across
1 TESTIS =”ball” IS after TEST=”match”
4 FLOWER =”Plant” If G is higher, then F is LOWER
9,15 GENE POOL “includes everyone’s personal information” GENE Wilder is an American actor + POOL=”game”
10 FRATERNITY =”Order” FRY=”small fish”, around A TERN=”a bird” + IT
11 KITSCH &lit Hidden in “thinK IT’S CHintzy”
12 CRAWLING =”Action of baby” RAW=”naked”, inside CLING=”hug”
13 SEEMINGLY =”on the face of it” ([ox]ygen smile)*, where ox=”bovine”
16 LEGO =”bricks” LE[t] GO=”release”, without the middle letter (heart)
17 SUCCOTASH =”stew” SUCH=”Like”, around COT=”something for a baby” + AS=”like”
21 BIRDS EYE cryptic def a bird’s eye is “Elevated”, and BIRDS EYE is a frozen food company i.e. “freezer”
22 EDISON =”Brilliantly creative mind” If David Milliband is off, maybe his brother ED IS ON
24 UNASSISTED =”solo” (sustained)* around/”without” S[oprano]
25 PAIR =”2″ I=”1″ inside PAR=”score, of course”
26 ZOUNDS =”gadzooks” U[niversity] in ZON[e] + D[etective] S[ergeant]
27 JET LAG =”causing tiredness” Spoonerism of “let Jag”=”Hire Car”
Down
3 ISFAHAN =”Iranian city” IS + FAN=”cooler” around A H[ot]
5 LEEWAY =”play” as a noun meaning “scope” LAY=”Place” around rev(WEE)=”little”
6 WINKLE OUT =”Extract” (in wok l[o]u[s]e [yeas]t)*
7 RETINOL =”Vitamin” A rev(LONER=”hermit” around IT)
8 BACCALAUREATE =”degree” sounds like “Back a lorry at out“=”approach in reverse gear with a truck”
14 MOGADISHU =”African city”, Somalian capital MOG=”Pet” + A DISH=”food” + [men]U
16 LEIBNIZ “German mathematician” rev(NB=”note” + I.E.=”that is”), inside LIZ=”the Queen to her friends” (short for Elizabeth)
18 CHEADLE =”English town” CHE=”Revolutionary” + (deal)*
19,20,1,2 SMOKING BEHIND THE BIKE SHEDS “illicit extra-curricular activity” SMOKING=”Hot” + BEHIND=”butt” + (he kissed Beth)*
23 IMPEL =”Drive” “1,760 yards” = 1 mile = 1m = IM, + [u]P [th]E [hil]L

31 comments on “Guardian 26,032 – Paul”

  1. Thanks Manehi – we thought some of the words here were more like a prize puzzle. Never heard of Succotash, and had to get the atlas out to check Iranian cities. Our atlas shows Isfahan spelt with an E at the beginning which held us up for a bit.
    We couldn’t get 21Ac as the online version shows it as an 8 letter word, whereas Chambers and the OED has Birds eye with a hyphen. I know that the original Clarence Birdseye was a one word name, so thought this clue was a bit cheeky! Otherwise we really enjoyed this. Thanks Paul

  3. Thanks, Manehi.

    Great stuff from Paul today. I laughed at 19 etc, after suggesting the other day that Picaroon had been behind the bike sheds with Paul [not smoking, though].

    Two examples of the type of clue which Paul is particularly fond of in 4ac and 22ac – I liked them both.

    I hesitated for a moment before entering ZOUNDS, although it was so accurately clued, because I couldn’t envisage a down answer ending in Z but there it was – also with a great clue.

    [I think the ‘sounds like’ in 8dn must be ‘back a lorry at’ – it sounds more like it to me and it fits with ‘approach’.]

    Many thanks, Paul – this was a lot of fun!

  4. Thanks, manehi. I found this quite tough in places and it took me quite a while to get the long one. Didn’t see all the wordplay, either. A lot of fun, nonetheless.

    I don’t know whether anyone listened to the Radio Four programme yesterday on word puzzles. I caught a bit of it in the car and plan to listen again later. It made a nice distinction between ‘aha’ moments when you suddenly see the answer and times when you have to work it out bit by bit.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b038c7bs

  5. [Many thanks for that, liz @4. I usually listen to that programme on Monday nights, in bed, and I see from your link that that’s the repeat. I very often go to sleep during it, so perhaps I’ll listen on iPlayer before then! I also see that it features Kathryn [as she spells it] Friedlander, whom a number of us met at the Manchester S and B in May.]

  6. I have to disagree with Eileen (no tit for tat after yesterday, I promise) and agree with manehi on 8dn. To add to the various ways of pronouncing ‘baccalaureate’, I can imagine a London truck driver of the type Paul may be depicting rendering it with the last syllable something like ‘art’, the way a ‘Cockney’ might pronounce ‘out’. As for the ‘approach’ point, I think we can read the clue as a word picture, and needn’t bother too much in this clue type with a word by word analysis. Finally, ‘back a lorry at’ is a pretty uncommon collocation, while the phrase with ‘out’ is pretty common.

    Anyway, while this one made me smile, EDISON made me laugh. We non-UK based British solvers appreciate topical cultural/political Britocentric clues that are within our limited range, even if I failed miserably at 21ac (where, as Shirley says, the hyphen would have helped). I thought FLOWER was rather weak. Great puzzle, overall, though.

  8. I think I agree with Eileen re 8d – ‘At’ rather then ‘Out’ this answer was similarly clued by Audreus in 25840. Strangely, in an identical position in the same grid.

    Succotash, I think I knew from ‘Sylvester’ (Thuffering Thuccotash)but vaguely recall a TV chef making it one day?.

  9. Thanks, manehi.

    I was about to make the same point as morphiamonet but will just add that the clue itself makes it absolutely clear that Audreus’s vote would be with Eileen: “Heard to put artic into reverse at some degree.”

  10. Thanks for the blog, manehi. Good fun from Paul as always.

    The frozen food company is “Birds Eye” (two words, no apostrophe), but its founder was Clarence Birdseye, so maybe he is the intended “freezer”.

  11. Thanks, manehi.

    Entertaining puzzle from Paul, which I found rather tricky in parts. The long answer took me quite a while to see, but it did raise a smile. LEIBNIZ, ZOUNDS and the two cities, on the other hand, I got easily. SUCCOTASH was a bit recalcitrant; although I have come across (and eaten) this vegetable dish, I wouldn’t have described it as a ‘stew’.

    I’m in the ‘back a lorry AT’ camp for 8d – ‘approach’ in the clue points strongly to ‘at’ rather than ‘out’.

    12a is clever: my first reading was that ‘hug’ was the container indicator and that the answer required a synonym of ‘clothes’ to be inserted. I agree with Eileen that 4a and 22a are characteristic and fun, but my COD is 14d for its great surface.

  12. Thanks, manehi.

    For some reason I thought he was spelled LEIBNITZ, so entered LORENTZ instead; this, along with (8) – in the paper version, too – for 21a, meant I failed on 21a. I had doubts about Lorentz, as I regard him as a physicist, rather than a mathematician. However, that’s irrelevant as he apparently was Dutch!

    I very tentatively thought of FRANSISCAN for 10a, but of course couldn’t parse it.

    I also toyed with TENNIS for 1a, until I saw the error of my ways when I got 2d.

    A very slow start, but much quickened after getting the long one.

  13. Thanks Paul and Manehi
    I wasn’t able to enter the Birdseye/Birds-Eye debate as I had carelessly spelled the mathematician LIEBNIZ. Several others I was unable to parse as well. Favourite was FRATERNITY.

  14. Thanks manehi. No trouble with this until the last two, 17 and 21A. I guessed the latter, despite it being a one-worder. I forgot that Paul had SUCCOTASH in January 2012- guessed it then because the grid gave S-C etc, this time I looked up the letters I had on TEAS, and voila’. As always, this setter delivered the goods.

  15. A day much improved once I found that Paul was today’s Graun setter. So much to smile at, particularly the ‘lorry’ and the ‘elevated freezer’ which I agree didn’t need a hyphen because it was referring to Clarence himself. Do we assume that baby Halpern is now at the 12a/17a stage of development?

    Thanks to Paul for a great crossword and to manehi for the blog.

  16. Thanks manehi and Paul

    I took too long on this one and still didn’t get 17a. Nonetheless some very good clues as one would expect.

    I ticked 1a, 1a, 21a, 27a (this held me up because I first entered ‘let jag’ and got stuck on the j), 3d, and 19d etc.

  17. Thanks Manehi for the blog. Thanks to Paul for a tough (for me), but enjoyable workout (which reminds me that I am due another Zumba class on the Wii).

    I was wondering how many schools now had BIKE SHEDS as the large comprehensive that I retired from just had some open-air bike stands, covered by a security camera – and bikes were still stolen! Other locations were of course employed for the illicit activity. One of my colleagues had the memorable experience of a Year 7 student in a large class lighting up a cigarette from a bunsen burner during a practical and, until he was caught, SMOKING BEHIND THE desk in the back of the lab!

  18. I particularly liked 16a, 27a, 26a, 10a, 19/20/1/2, 17a and my favourites were 4a FLOWER, 22a EDISON, 8d BACCALAUREATE, 5d LEEWAY & 25a PAIR (last in).

    New word for me was SUCCOTASH.

    Thanks Paul and manehi.

  19. Yep, morphiamonet@8, it was indeed Sylvester who was heard to lament “Sufferin’ Succotash, what does a pussy cat have to do to get some sustenance?” which had everyone reaching for their umbrellas…

  20. I was well beaten here. Baccalaureate, succotash, birdseye and seemingly all too good for me but thoroughly enjoyed the rest of it and am very grateful for the blog to get the answers and parsing for the ones that got away.

  21. Thanks, manehi. I guess I wasn’t on Paul’s wavelength today; I was never going to solve this 24a. To wit, I needed Chambers Word Wizard for help with 7 answers. Among those was SUCCOTASH, which I know of, but what tripped me up there was COT as “something for a baby.” In the US, a cot is simply a portable bed, and one would never dream of putting a baby in it (but perhaps a mother-in-law :)). Apparently “cot” is the British equivalent of “crib.” Learn something new every puzzle.

  23. My problem with the long one was choosing which illicit activity Paul was alluding to – mind you it was a long time ago that I was at schooland there were quite a few bike sheds!

  24. I found this puzzle a bit tougher than some of Paul’s but I got there in the end. SUCCOTASH was worked out from the wordplay, although once I typed it in I realised that I had seen it before. BIRDSEYE was my LOI, but that was almost entirely due to the fact that I had initially misspelled LEIBNIZ as Liebniz despite having checked the wordplay. Very poor.

    I agree with Eileen that the clues for FLOWER and EDISON are of a particular type that Paul likes to use, and I look out for them now when I’m solving one of his puzzles.

  25. Fun from Paul again but I struggled a few times.

    Technical point: this page seems perhaps not BlackBerry compatible. The parsings are chopped off the blog on my HS.

    Thanks all.

  26. Dear Paul, first, on behalf of my PinC, I want to thank you for including her in 29 etc in such an amusing way! 🙂 🙂

    We thought this was by far the hardest Paul puzzle since ages.
    We failed on BIRDSEYE (21ac) and entered something completely different at 17ac.
    Having never heard of SUCCOTASH, we went for QUACOTASA.
    QUA (like) around {A COT (something for a baby) + AS}.
    A dish we really enjoyed when visiting Ecuador some years ago ….. 🙂 🙂

    Although 1ac (TESTIS) is, of course, typical, it is also a very good clue.
    While we liked the idea of 4ac (FLOWER) it is a bit of a debatable clue. If G is higher then F is lower? Really? Higher and lower than what?

    All in all, another fun puzzle – tough but a pleasure to solve.
    Thank you, Manehi, for your excellent assessment.

  28. Well, Gervase, that was exactly my (unimportant) niggle.
    The clue doesn’t tell me that I have to compare F with G, or the other way around. Like for example “if 10 is higher, then 9 is lower”. Really? Yes, of course, if 10 is higher than 9, then 9 is lower than 10. And I know, that is what Paul means.
    But despite a really nice idea this clue doesn’t fully work for me because of the reason given above. It’s probably just me.

  29. Sil – ‘If G is higher then F is lower’ is not a well-formed formula in terms of the propositional calculus and indeed it cannot be made so by answering your question “than what?”. However ‘If G is the higher member of the subset {F,G} of the letters of the alphabet then F is the lower’ is sound. So just as ‘tree’ can indicate OAK so ‘G higher then?’ can indicate FLOWER. QED?

  30. I do not want to stretch this too much further, rhotician, but my point is that no-one told me that {F,G} is the subset.
    As the clue stands it could just as easily lead to Blower (although that’s not a plant, of course).
    And if one takes eg E as a reference point than F isn’t lower.

    But let’s not make too much of a point of it.
    I think it is a nice clue as such.

  31. Yes indeed, Sil. Both parts of the clue could just as easily lead to lots of things. In Scrabble G is worth less than F.
    But I admit I rather overlooked that in your original post you did say you liked the idea. I just accepted your invitation to debate.
    I liked the clue too. And enjoyed the brief debate.

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