Guardian 26,068 – Paul

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The usual good (mostly) clean fun from Paul, though with an unusually large number of double definitions. I can’t explain 14a – as always I’m probably missing something obvious

 
 
 
 
 
Across
1. CLEAVE Remain faithful in divorce (6)
Double definition – CLEAVE is a word that famously has two opposite meanings
4. SWATHE Bandage man after slap (6)
SWAT + HE
9. TEMPLE OF ARTEMIS Wonder if poem matters, half left out (6,2,7)
(IF POEM MATTERS LE[ft])*. The Temple of Artemis was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World
10. CRAYON Line written about that writer (6)
ARC< + YON (that)
11. HOT METAL Resort to Hamlet, being typecast? (3,5)
(TO HAMLET)*
12. SPACEMAN Second fast bowler, one rocket-propelled? (8)
S + PACEMAN
14. DASHED Bolted, as half-locked? (6)
Apart from dashed=bolted=moved fast I don’t understand this
15. SPRUCE Trim tree (6)
Double definition
18. DEVILISH Extreme inhumanity in beauty (8)
EVIL in DISH
21. SPOTLESS Virgin son with a flat stomach? (8)
S + POTLESS (i.e. not having a pot belly)
22. NICKER Person taking money (6)
Double definition – to nick is to steal, and nicker is slang for a pound
24. SOW ONE’S WILD OATS Break wind to woo lasses, then spread it about a bit (3,4,4,4)
(WIND TO WOO LASSES)* Probably not to be recommended as an actual way of wooing.
25. SANITY Reason utter fool’s punched (6)
NIT (fool) in SAY (utter)
26. CASTLE Man getting Roosevelt sacked, partially recovered (6)
Hidden in reverse of roosevELT SACked. A castle (aka rook) is a chessman
Down
1. CHEER UP Lift red, then lift white (5,2)
CHE (Guevara, crosswordland’s favourite “red”) + reverse of PURE (white)
2. EMPTY Skim lure over bottom of filthy drain (5)
[t]EMPT + [filth]Y
3. VIETNAM Country with spirit welcoming hothead (7)
ETNA (volcano or “hothead”) in VIM
5. WORSTED Beaten material (7)
Double definition
7. EMIRATE Country has me flipping incensed (7)
EM< + IRATE
8. AFGHAN Hound a strong country, endlessly (6)
A F (forte, strong) + GHAN[a]. Lots of countries in this puzzle!
13. COUNTDOWN Declining figures for game show (9)
Double definition – a spacecraft’s “10, 9, 8..” and the venerable Channel 4 game show
16,6. POP GOES THE WEASEL Song for children in which parent attempts to cut through spiky plant (3,4,3,6)
POP (parent) GOES (attempts) + HEW in TEASEL
17. ELEMENT Water, perhaps, that’s in a kettle (7)
Double definition – there are lots of those here too
18. DISOWN Reject is gripped by melancholy (6)
IS in DOWN (melancholy, adj.)
19. VANILLA Nothing special to find love in a toilet, when head over heels (7)
NIL in (A LAV)<. "Vanilla" can mean "plain, not unusual"
20. SHEATHE Woman holding magazine cover (7)
HEAT in SHE, which incidentally is also the name of a recently-defunct magazine (though others of the same name exist elsewhere)
23. CLOUT Pull or blow (5)
And another double definition – “pull” as in influence, and “blow” as in striking someone. Not exactly opposite meanings, except in the surface reading, but a nice symmetry with the first clue

21 comments on “Guardian 26,068 – Paul”

  3. Thanks, Andrew.

    I enjoyed this and a shorter solve than usual for a Paul.

    I can’t see 14a either – DASH is hidden, but I think that must be fortuitous.

    Favourite was 24a, a laugh out loud clue.

  4. Thanks for the blog Andrew – excellent as always!

    I enjoyed the puzzle and I agree with Dave Ellison @3 about 24 across. 16,6 was also fun! (-:

    With regards to 14 across I can’t do better than catflat @1: “half-locked” has a dash in it and so could be said to be “dashed”.

  5. Thanks, Andrew, for the new-style blog.

    I don’t mind Paul’s themed puzzles, or his 26-letter anagrams, but a plain one like this is always fun. Plenty to enjoy, with SOW ONE’S WILD OATS my favourite too.

    Well done to catflat for parsing DASHED – would never have seen that.

  6. Thanks Andrew and Paul

    Very enjoyable with the NW holding me up a little at the end.

    I came to the same conclusion as catflat re 14a.

    I also liked 24a and also 10a and 3d when I eventually saw them.

  7. Thanks, Andrew

    I found this a bit tougher than Paul’s usual offerings, perhaps because of all those double defs, but it yielded steadily.

    Last in was DASHED, which I parsed, eventually, and with a pleased groan, as did catflat. One of my favourite clues in the puzzle.

    I particularly liked 9a (great def) and the construction/imagery of 24a, 16,6 and 19d. It’s unfortunate that it has the connotation of ‘bland’ or ‘unadventurous’ but as a child I certainly thought that (cheap and nasty) VANILLA ice-cream was simply unflavoured. Of course, that was before the modern practice of using a lot of the real stuff and leaving the orchid seeds in.

  8. Thanks Andrew. Like everyone, I’m full of praise – this was just great. But I needed your parsing for 3d, and catflat for DASHED. 23d was last in. Thanks Paul.

  9. “Half-locked” is not dashed, it’s hyphenated. If that’s really the construction intended, it’s a bit sloppy sloppy.

  11. Thanks for the parsing of 14a as ‘hyphened’, best I could do was D.A. (hairstyle) + shed (so lost hair), but the clue would have to have been ‘unlocked’, so didn’t work.

  12. Thanks Paul; entertaining game of two halves. The bottom one was the last to yield.

    Thanks to Andrew and catflat @1; I didn’t notice the DASHED. HOT METAL is very current, given the latest Red Ed Daily Mail stitch-up.

    I particularly liked CHEER UP and SANITY.

  13. Ian @9; you are correct, although dash=hyphen is in my Bradford’s Crossword Solver’s Dictionary so perhaps it is allowable in crosswordland. 🙂

  14. I think the question mark is an indication that Paul knew that “dashed” is not normally used to mean “hyphened”, so I don’t think he was being sloppy.

  16. Thanks Paul and Andrew.

    In many aspects of business the “80-20” rule is a cliché. The crux of it is that it takes 20% of any organisation’s efforts to create 80% of its profits – the other 20& of the profits require 80% of the effort.

    This rule could readily be applied to today’s puzzle. Breezed through most of it (and had a lot of fun along the way) but ground to a shuddering halt in the SE and took an inordinate amount of time there, until 18a finally fell and the rest followed.

    Thanks very much Robi @12 re: HOT METAL. I’m ashamed to say that I don’t recall it at all, but it sounds like a forerunner to Drop the Dead Donkey – which I loved – so I’ll see if it’s available anywhere…

  17. Re. ‘Dashed’, I tend to go with Dave’s tentative parsing @3, and suspect that the simultaneous letters contained in the clue were not fortuitous but ‘locked’ within the wording of the clue. Having said that, when I solved the puzzle,, I parsed it as Pipegold @11, assuming that Paul was attracted by the derivation of DA in the description of the 1950’s hairstyle, bearing in mind that the DA referred only to the rear of the style, the front half invariably being a well Brylcreemed quiff. Rock on.

  18. I’ve got so used to enjoying the smut in Paul’s puzzles that I almost feel cheated when he produces a cleaner puzzle like this one.

    Still, it was enjoyable enough despite it being a little 19dn from a smut perspective, which, coincidentally, was my LOI.

    I missed the hyphen=dash connection in 14ac but I have no problem with its usage. I’d parsed it as D.A. SHED like a couple of you, although I was wondering how Paul could say that losing a D.A. was losing half of ones hair. Now I know ………….

  20. Kathryn’s Dad @5 – so are you saying this was a bit of a VANILLA crossword from Paul? I’d tend to agree, though like Gervase, I’m rather partial to vanilla these days. A slow start with only DISOWN and SWATHE yielding on first parse but then made steady progress with the NW giving me the most trouble. CRAYON was a “it has to be that” but I couldn’t parse it and CHEER UP was my favourite. Much to enjoy, as ever, from Paul.

    Thanks to blogger & Paul.

  21. “Extreme” is the definition for DEVILISH?

    No wonder I got nothing below the waterline on this one.

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