Guardian 26,182 / Paul

45 comments on “Guardian 26,182 / Paul”

1. Thanks Paul and Eileen
   I can’t remember a crossword in which so many of the clues made me smile. Lots of favourites, but I must make special mention of MOLE STATION!
   Thanks to Eileen for explaining how to get GER from Wagner – I couldn’t see how to lose the “wan”.

2. Thanks, Eileen.

   Great fun. I liked the unexpected anagrams at 5d and 13d, the clever construction and surface of 3d, and the cheeky 14a and 17d.

   4d is a great example of Paul’s debt to Araucaria.

   Pleasantly calming puzzle after a very stormy night in these parts.

3. I also intended to mention that BASTE is pretty much an &lit as well – one bastes a roast to keep it moist.

   I tried RAMBLER (as in creeping rose) for SNEAKER at first, which held me up a bit in the SW – the hardest corner, I thought.

4. I know I’m in a minority of one, but I really did not enjoy this very much.
   In 19a, almost any word with the second letter ‘C’ could be substituted for ‘Scotland’, and, likewise, in 21a, almost any word ending in ‘R’ could have replaced ‘Scholar’.
   Thankfully, overt flatulence references were not included in the clue for 25a, but perhaps Paul aficionados can read between the lines.
   For the record, one wrong, but, frankly, I couldn’t be bothered.
   Thanks, as always, to Eileen for an impeccable assessment of the puzzle: while not to my personal taste, I certainly do not begrudge the majority of solvers the enjoyment they derive from Paul’s characteristic puzzles, and, as I have said previously, I accept that some of his clues are superb.

5. Thanks for the blog, Eileen. Lovely puzzle from Paul, with lots of smiles. I needed your explanations for some of the wordplay. I got 3dn by guessing the definition and failed to parse. I also missed the anagram at 5dn. Another case where the blog enhances the enjoyment!

   Last in was OBOIST. Hard to pick favourites, but MOLESTATION made me smile, as did EAT O for ‘fast’.

6. Thanks Eileen and Paul

   As Eileen and others have noted, lots of smiles and some unlikely anagrams here in a very enjoyable puzzle. I ticked 11a, 14a, 2d, 3d, 7d and 17d as I proceeded. ‘Ewok’ did not ring a bell but had to be the answer.

7. Lots of laughs and brilliant surfaces, 3D in particular. 18 A conjured up a rather surreal image. Thanks Paul and Eileen.

8. Thanks Eileen and Paul. BRIDESMAID was a tremendous clue! I couldn’t get BOMBSHELLS despite having all the crossers. Lovely puzzle.

9. I loved this – quite a few clues brought to mind absurd images, like the mole station, the ewok with his e-wok, and the drongo bum! Personally I love spoonerisms – perhaps they’re a bit of a marmite clue. Didn’t get the Pete Rabbi reference sadly!

10. I’m not sure I’ve seen ‘bankruptcy’ used as an anagram indicator before (13d), but I suppose if you think of it as ‘ruin’, then it works quite well.

11. I wasn’t happy with this puzzle, too many clunky surfaces: across 9, 18, 25, 26, 28, down 1, 16, 17, 24. A good clue should tell a story complete in itself. This had some good clues but they were few and far between.

12. Once again Eileen and I agree about a crossword – her intro is probably what I would have written here.

    Thanks Paul for a great start to the day and to Eileen for sharing her delight.

13. Loved it too. In 3 down, see no problem with ‘bid’ for ‘express’ – to bid farewell etc.
    Thanks for blog

14. After yesterday’s Tramp, this seemed fairly straightforward, but no less enjoyable for that. Didn’t see the GERman in GERSHWIN, or more annoyingly the parsing of CLEAVE, which was my last in. Ticked BONGO DRUM, MOLESTATION and RABBI.

    Thanks to Eileen and Paul.

15. In response to entry 4 above, yes, of course there are plenty of other words which could have been used. Scandinavia and footballer would have worked, but so what? The words chosen by Paul help with the misdirection. Nothing wrong with that.

16. Great stuff. So much to enjoy. I can only say to those who didn’t appreciate this that you have either chosen the wrong pastime or you aren’t doing it right. Many thanks Eileen. As (nearly) always I agree with your assessment.

17. OBOIST held me up too, and I was another who tried RAMBLER before SNEAKER. Otherwise, I was another who revelled in surfaces such as those leading to MOLESTATION and BRIDESMAID.

    Thanks Eileen for enlightening me on RABBI – I had assumed the Potter was Harry, on whom I am clueless.

18. That’s what I’d call hard but not too hard.

    Eileen, re your comment on 15, it isn’t n = amount as per your last words, it’s n = unspecified amount, you said it right first time in the quote marks. Whilst you were immersing yourself in 16 at school, some of us were doing the old schoolboy thing of – think of a number (n), double it (2n), add 1 (2n+1), add 9 more (2n+10), divide by 2 (n+5), take away the number you first thought of and the answer is 5, much to the amazement of our friends who couldn’t hack algebra! n = unspecified number = unspecified amount.

19. Derek @18

    I did just well enough in Maths for entry to University [and I had to wait to get there to do Greek, as my little rural Norfolk [state] school didn’t offer it].

    I’ve since learned [from crosswords] that n = unspecified number – but we English language pedants won’t have it that ‘number’ = ‘amount’, any more than ‘fewer’ = ‘less’.

20. Trailman @17

    My first thought was Dennis Potter characters till the penny dropped!

21. Ho ho! Just for once it’s me saying it, how ironic, but you’d better start telling those dictionary chappies to be more pedantic!

22. Eileen and Derek passim

    To emphasise Eileen’s point at 19, ‘amount’, like ‘less’ is strictly only appropriate for uncountable nouns, whereas ‘number’, like ‘fewer’ is appropriate for countable nouns.

    As I’ve probably said before, you can tell the socioeconomic class of the usual customers of supermarkets by the signs they have over the checkouts for those with a small number of purchases: ‘n items or less’ v ‘n items or FEWER’!

    (In fact, I didn’t really demur at Paul’s clue. My own pedantry is hypocritically patchy).

23. Thanks Paul and Eileen.

    I thoroughly enjoyed this puzzle.

    BRIDESMAID and MOLE STATION were excellent. Of course the train robbery sprang to mind, especially as it took place at Bridego bridge.

    Eileen, I have heard “…any amount of …” and “…any number of…” used interchangeably! Not saying that I agree with it, though.

    OBOIST was my last in, too.

    Giovanna xx

24. Hi Gervase @22

    ” …‘amount’, like ‘less’ is strictly only appropriate for uncountable nouns, whereas ‘number’, like ‘fewer’ is appropriate for countable nouns.”

    Yes, that’s how I used to explain it to my O Level / GCSE English Language students – and then hoped that none of them would point out that you can count money! 😉

25. The one I found poor was ESCORT. The answer was obvious from the checked letters, but I had to come here for the parsings.

    I’m a big fan of pun-laden tomfoolery in crosswords, which generally puts Paul at the head of the pack for me. I agree with others that this one lacked his usual degree of difficulty, although I’ll take clever over hard any day of the week, and this was quite clever.

    I loved the tree wee (but then, I’m big on sophomoric humor, too).

26. To a mathematician the word number is generalised to encompass whole, negative, rational, irrational, transcendental, complex/imaginary (etc.) quantities.

    Having been brought up in the 70s when strict teaching of grammar was out of fashion, and having a maths degree, I’ve always found these distinctions a little baffling, though I have at least come to learn who will care if I use less and fewer interchangeably (< is safer).

    I was unaware that similar distinctions are applied to numbers and amounts, though I'm quite prepared to listen with interest to whatever I've been missing. My Chambers suggests that an amount was originally a sum or total, which in accounting terms would always be a whole number at least when measured in pence (or multiples of whatever coin was the smallest at the time).

    [9 x n = 63 seems an appropriate captcha after that…]

27. Had great fun with this. Somehow failed to get oboist, despite the fact that my wife is one!

28. We have a problem then. Infinity is a number, but not countable. eg. the set of all integers (a type of number) ranges from minus infinity to plus infinity, all members of that set must be numbers by definition, hence infinity must be a number. Any volunteers for counting to it?

29. And Eileen, with money: you can say that it’s countable if you have a stack of actual bills and coins (a number of pounds, quarters, guineas, shekels, or whatever); but “money” in general is measured but not counted (an amount of money). Water works the same way: a number of gallons, but an amount of water.

    And hey, we do treat money like water: “liquidity,” “cash flow,” etc.

30. Derek @28 – I was going to mention infinity but decided that mentioning the distinctions between countable, uncountable and higher levels infinities would be going too far…

31. Spoilsport!

32. Derek, infinity is not a number, but a concept, a state of limitlessness. So when you say that the real numbers range from neg. infinity to pos. infinity, you mean that they are limitless in both directions.

33. Enjoyable as ever. I particularly liked the “drongo bum”, the “mole station” and the “fig urine”.

34. Thanks, Eileen and Paul. C for ton [20D] should not be unfamiliar to lovers of cricket, although England are not doing too well lately but, then, neither are we in the West Indies.

35. If that is true then it is not a member of the set of integers as a set must contain only components of the same type.

    Sorry, going out to the blues club now, it’s their 30th birthday. Free cake! Catch y’all some other day.

    Jeff, that’s why I support the women’s team.

36. Yes plenty of fun here but I seemed blind to quite a few.

    I dropped for “trainer” (creeping plant such as clematis) for 28a which held me up a bit.

    Thanks one and all.

37. 27a even.

38. Mr Penney @29

    I’m not really wanting to prolong this discussion, which I know I’m responsible for initiating …

    but “… with money: you can say that it’s countable if you have a stack of actual bills and coins (a number of pounds, quarters, guineas, shekels, or whatever); but “money” in general is measured but not counted (an amount of money).”

    Of course, you and I know that – but try explaining it to a group of kids whose first language is not English.

    “Water works the same way: a number of gallons, but an amount of water.”

    No, it doesn’t – that’s the point I was making: I would – and do – talk of counting the money in my purse – but I wouldn’t try counting water! 😉

39. Thanks Paul and Eileen
    I needed help to parse GERSHWIN
    OBOIST was last in and best clue

40. Eileen – I agree that 15’s use of ‘unspecified amount’ for N is not good. The surface has been enhanced at the expense of the accuracy of the “crossword grammar”.

    But you shouldn’t really proclaim yourself a pedant. Collins and Chambers are both scathing, as I’m sure you are aware. Pedantry need not be an occupational hazard for a teacher of English.

    Oh, and when you said “cringe” I think you meant “wince”.

41. Thanks both – excellent puzzle – a masterclass in how good anagram clues can actually be.

    “unspecified amount” passes the substitution test for “n” – treating the latter as the commonplace example of a natural number so I’ll buy it on that basis alone – but is there no such thing as “cryptic licence any more”?

    It’s no good folk waving their maths degrees at one another (BTW I’ve got one myself) – maths is really a collection of subjects and in each one you define your terms before you use them – but I have only ever come across < read out loud as "is less than" – never "fewer".

42. … even when dealing with whole numbers and => is read as “implies” under the heading of “mathematical inference”.

    [Had to split that up to stop the software treating the symbols as part of its code.]

43. Thanks to Paul and Eileen.

    I enjoyed this puzzle enormously. LOI was ‘Socrates’ (and my degree is in philosophy).

    If I might be permitted to add to the number/amount water/money debate, I would say that even though we can count our money, the word ‘money’ remains – grammatically – a mass noun. We are misled if we forget that the rules of grammar apply to words, not to things.

44. JS @41 – “waving maths degrees around”? I thought I was just explaining the background to my admittedly mischievous comment. You seem to be taking what was intended to be a light hearted comment far too seriously. Even to me less and fewer are clearly not interchangeable – I would never use fewer when dealing with approximate or fractional quantities, but less (like number) has the obvious generalisation you mention, and it doesn’t come naturally to me to wince (or cringe) if I hear less used when dealing with whole numbers. I’ll be more careful when talking about amounts in future.

45. I was too late back from my 2 day absence yesterday too comment but I did finish this Paul and thoroughly enjoyed it.

    Just a couple of comments on the discussions.

    Infinity is definitely NOT a number for lots of reasons. However an infinite set of things can be countable or not (Countably infinite or uncountably infinite). So some “infinities” can be counted and some can’t! There you go I’ve got at least 2 infinities!? That’s one reason infinity is not a number. 😉

    Also the SOED gives …

    amount
    1 The total to which anything amounts; the total quantity or number.

    Thanks to Eileen and Paul

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