Guardian 26,163 by Paul

by

Many thanks to Pierre and Writinghawk for doing my blogs last week after my eye operation.

I can’t get new glasses yet so this was a bit of a struggle to see and read, let alone understand, but I think it’s done, several double definitions, thought this was a Rufus in places 🙂 11ac leaves me unsure so better suggestions welcome. See update and Muffyword at #1

Across
1 GIBBONS Primates sobbing after conversion (7)
A gentle start, [SOBBING]*
5 GAP YEAR Time off, stuff punctuated by irregular pay (3,4)
PAY* in GEAR (stuff, clothes)
9 LATHE Smoother bubbles having wiped rear (5)
LATHE(r) with last letter wiped off
10 IDA LUPINO A flower was mine, nothing for old actress (3,6)
I (ha)D A LUPIN & 0 for this actress . I don’t remember her alas
11 TWENTY-FOUR A D[H our s]ay? (6-4)
Hmm. I guess this a play on D-DAY and the TV program 24 where all the action takes place over 24 (h)ours say It’s one of Paul’s “Dingbat” clues. HOURS in A DAY back-formed as a question  See Muffyword at #1
12 ET AL And the others still expected to return (2,2)
LATE rev
14 REFUTATIONS Disproving statements, suspect is fortunate (11)
[IS FORTUNATE]*
18 DOWNWARD DOG Stretcher required, as setter in decline? (8,3)
It’s a yoga position, hence stretcher, hence setter (dog) decline (downward)
21 SIDE Face Arsenal, for example? (4)
Double def
22 WOODPECKER Rolling Stones member, one kissing the drummer? (10)
(Ronnie) WOOD & PECKER (kisser), woodpeckers drum on trees to disturb their grub…
25 CALORIFIC Opening cut on source of veal, not entirely fatty (9)
CAL(f) & ORIFIC(e)
26 IOWAN Faint on moon, one in a state? (5)
IO (Moon) & WAN (pale)
27 SYSTOLE Pussycat’s heart lifted, detecting some heartbeat (7)
Heart of (pus)SY(cat) & STOLE (lifted)
28 EAGERLY With some enthusiasm, front and back to glue in antique (7)
G(lu)E in EARLY
Down
1 GELATO A stocking-filler turning to ice (6)
A LEG rev & TO, as in ICE CREAM
2   See 20
3 OVERTHROWN Done with seat of power, say, ousted (10)
OVER & hom of THRONE
4 STIFF Difficult subject for a pathologist (5)
Double/cryptic def
5 GRADUATED Marked by degrees — now possessing one? (9)
Another double def
6,23 PAUL DACRE Care taken with lad up for bullying, as newspaper editor (4,5)
[CARE LAD UP]*
7 EVICTION Removal van is coming to Istanbul, every capital in time (8)
Every capital of V(an) I(s) C(oming) T(o) I(stanbul) in EON
8 ROOFLESS Losers of nuts describing unfinished construction? (8)
[LOSERS OF]* nuts
13 STAGGERING Inebriate movement beyond comprehension (10)
Another double def
15 FOR TOFFEE Loud chains of iron, not one little bit? (3,6)
OF FE (iron) is chained by FORTE (loud)
16 ODD SOCKS Chance to keep strike, as inconsistency afoot? (3,5)
SOCK (hit) in ODDS
17 TWIDDLES Cat grabbing end of bow, fiddles (8)
(bo)W in TIDDLES (cat name not what my puppy does all over the house 🙂 )
19 SKEWER Pin more distorted? (6)
More skewed
20,2 BRANDY BUTTER Seasonal fare connecting Blitzen’s head with rutting stag? (6,6)
B(litzen) & RANDY & BUTTER as they are known to head butt each other
23   See 6
24 ERGO So the hideous thing’s erect (4)
it’s OGRE rev

*anagram

30 comments on “Guardian 26,163 by Paul”

  1. Thanks Flashling -hope your eyes get better soon!

    Thanks also to Paul, for a fun puzzle.

    My first thought for IDA LUPINO was Ida Tulipo!

    Re 11ac: Hours in “A Day”

  4. Thanks flashling. Can’t improve on your DH explanation. Didn’t know the actress, editor or 18A but they suggested themselves readily enough from the letters available. Paul’s anagram fodders are so often deft that – as in 8D and 16D – they in fact reveal themselves. Loved his ODD SOCKS.

  5. Thanks for the blog, flashling. I did wonder whether, this being Paul, the ‘pecker’ in 24d might be referring to another member!

  6. My Pauline expectations were so high that my intital 1ac anag was BIGNOBS. It works, sort of. But soon rearranged more appropriately.

    Thanks for parsing 11a Muffyword, it was a mystery to me.

    Never heard of a DOWNWARD DOG. Just googled it expecting some sort of brickwork and there was this woman stretching.

  7. Thanks Flashling and Paul

    Several amusing clues in this entertaining puzzle. I particularly liked 25a, 26a, 16d, 17d!, 20,2d and 24d. I read 11a as did others.

    I did not know ‘downward’ dog but it made some sort of intrinsic sense. I
    wondered for a moment about ‘regency’ for 28a but naturally could not parse it.

    Get well soon!

  8. Thanks, flashling, and best wishes for a full recovery.

    I liked most of this, but TWENTY-FOUR is more Dingbats than daily cryptic, and IDA LUPINO is not exactly the best known ‘old actress’. But CALORIFIC, SYSTOLE and BRANDY BUTTER were all excellent, so Paul is forgiven.

  9. 18: put in from checkers and wordplay, though it didn’t make sense to me – not in Chambers, but ‘check’ gave OK, so didn’t bother to Google it.
    22: assumed there had been someone by the name of Wood in the Stones to give answer.
    6,23: actions of bullying editor well-known from Private Eye.
    16: initially entered RUN SHORT, as you would keep the strike if you do so.

  10. Would anyone mind paraphrasing Muffyword’s explanation of 11A? It still doesn’t make sense to me. If it were ‘hours in a day’, with ‘our say’, as some kind of definition/second cluing, wouldn’t that be “A HD our say”? As it stands, it’s “A DH”, which suggests “day in an hour” or something? What am I missing here?

  11. Thanks Paul and Flashling – hope you are better soon!

    Bit of a shame that fiddles and twiddles were so similar. I couldn’t parse the 24/7. Come on chaps, Ida Lupino is not exactly unknown having 104 credits on IMDb. Nice clue too.

    I liked the woody woodpecker but was less impressed by et al, which was a bit of a giveaway [VTOL, HTML, CTRL etc could have been used.]

  14. Thanks, flashling – good luck with your second sight!

    Enjoyed this one a lot. I was pleased to get IDA LUPINO from just the crossing A and O (though I couldn’t pick her out in an identity parade) but the SW corner proved a bit trickier as DOWNWARD DOG was unfamiliar.

    I couldn’t parse 11a, so thanks to Muffyword. I like ‘dingbat’ clues, but they are better if they are either very succinct or the surface is smoother than this one. But I starred a lot of clues, particularly WOODPECKER, ODD SOCKS, TWIDDLES.

  15. Very enjoyable thank you Paul. Thanks to Flashling too – you have my sympathies – I had eye surgery last January – there were lots of ‘worst bits’, a major one being that I couldn’t look at any crosswords for six days!

  16. Thanks Flashling and all the best with the peepers.

    Muffyword @1 me too! How weird.

    Gervase @14 Well put. Dingbat clues can be fun but this one felt uncharacteristically clunky for Paul.

    K’s D @8 I ticked the same ones as you did.

    Thanks, Paul, nice week everone.

  17. For the dingbat, ADH to a scientist means antidiuretic hormone, so it might have been better to remove the first space……. 🙂

  18. Nice to be reminded of the correct meaning of “refute”. We so often hear this used to mean “reject”, “dismiss”, “rebuff” etc., when no destructive logic is used against a proposition at all, but something’s simply been said, which another would rather had not.

    A decent, workmanlike puzzle from Paul. I didn’t spot 11a’s mechanism, and can’t really see a surface either though.

    Thanks all.

  19. As a red-blooded American male under the age of seventy, DH is “designated hitter,” which I knew wasn’t right (y’all don’t play enough baseball to make that fair dinkum in a crossword) but I just couldn’t stop seeing it. Or else, “das heisst,” (i.e., German for “i.e.”) but German isn’t normally fair game in crosswords either. Then when the answer obviously became “Twenty-four” from the checked letters, I had to come here to parse it.

    Americans don’t have the phrase “for toffee,” and I’d never heard of the newspaper editor either. So those were put in very uncertainly, based entirely on the checked letters.

  20. mrpenney@19 I don’t really think it a (free standing) phrase in the UK either, so I raised an eyebrow at its inclusion. It is always used in the structure “can’t VERB for toffee”, as far as I know.

    Thanks flashling, a few I couldn’t parse: CALORIFIC and FORTOFFEE.

  21. I’ve never come across “skew” as an adjective.
    Askew yes, but even in that case “askewer” wouldn’t pass muster, so neither does “skewer” in my view.

  22. This was a hard but enjoyable one. The only answer we entered without understanding was “downward dog” – not in Chambers or Collins so we chanced it. Otherwise good fun – especially the odd socks when it clicked!

  24. I found this a bit of a struggle, but an entertaining one – DOWNWARD DOG was new to me and I almost gave up on the SW corner until TWIDDLES and ODD SOCKS got things moving again. I liked ERGO, GIBBONS and BRANDY BUTTER. I don’t see the problem with FOR TOFFEE (after all it is a British newspaper).

  25. I found this to be another excellent Paul puzzle even though one answer was entered without full understanding of the wordplay (EVICTION), another entered from the wordplay alone (DOWNWARD DOG), and one entered with a shrug and a “what else could it be?” (TWENTY-FOUR).

    I had the most trouble in the SW and it only opened up when I finally parsed FOR TOFFEE. That gave me the vital “f” checker for CALORIFIC, which in turn led to ODD SOCKS, TWIDDLES, DOWNWARD DOG, and then SYSTOLE, my LOI.

  26. Thanks Flashling for your review.This is my first shot at a Paul and very enjoyable it was too.I never heard of the actress or the editor, and totally forgot about the yoga position. Especially liked 20,2 d and 11a.

  27. I don’t think a lathe is a smoother. It’s a turner and something else does the smoothing. I don’t think calorific has anything to do with fat either. It has to do with energy. These are examples of a creeping habit for setters to use definitions which suit the surface but are not right.

  28. Thanks Paul and flashling

    Tough but very enjoyable challenge today. Like others – I didn’t parse TWENTY-FOUR which is a pity as they are one of my favourite clue types.

    Quite a number of subjects that I was unaware of – IDA TUPINO, PAUL DACRE, DOWNWARD DOG, FOR TOFFEE and TIDDLES, the Paddington Station cat. But it all adds to the learning experience … even at this age :).

    All the best with the post operative recovery flashling …

  29. Thanks, Paul for the puzzle and Flashling, good luck.

    Favourites were WOODPECKER, BRANDY BUTTER and FOR TOFFEE. DOWNWARD DOG reminded me of a post-Christmas keep fit video
    with an impossibly thin and flexible blonde doing impossible things with the greatest of ease.Never did do more than one!

    All good fun and I like our old expressions and quirky sayings.

    Giovanna xx

  30. Too many ‘not heard of’s which weren’t even in the dictionary and dubious defs for me I’m afraid.

    I personally didn’t enjoy this much. More “Oh dear” moments than “A ha”s.

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