Guardian 26,339 / Paul

41 comments on “Guardian 26,339 / Paul”

1. An enjoyable puzzle from Paul. Not too demanding, and the inevitable lavatorial elements redeemed by wittiness on this occasion.

2. Thanks Paul and Eileen
   I thoroughly enjoyed this, though there were a couple I got from definition only (ELVIS and SPIRITUALIST). I loved ROYAL FLUSH and the clue for ORCHESTRA (makes a change from “strange carthorse”); LAVATORY PAPER, as you say, could only be a Paul clue.
   This isn’t a complaint, only a comment – some of the clues were “Times style”, relying on general knowledge rather than definition and wordplay. I’m thinking of UNITY, PINEAPPLE and UNFORGETTABLE – these would have been difficult without knowing the references.

3. ……..as the King of Spain (not Ashley Giles – the other one) is Felipe VI, I was trying to work the VI into the solution for ELVIS – unsuccessfully, obviously.

4. All went ok for me in this puzzle. Didn’t see any problems. Liked 12ac and all the Paulian jokes.

5. Very enjoyable as always. I printed off the puzzle without seeing who the compiler was, but the clueing gave it away.

   I particularly liked ROYAL FLUSH and ORCHESTRA. Thanks to Paul and Eileen.

6. Thanks Eileen. ELVIS was last in, and the only trouble: couldn’t parse it, but like Muffin#3 I toyed with a Felipe VI aspect. Otherwise vintage Paul, good on him.

7. I agree with Eileen that visa (feminine in Latin American Spanish) doesn’t really work in the ELVIS clue, given that ‘for Felipe’ just indicates ‘This is Spanish, folks!’ Fun puzzle in toto. Never heard of a TIPSY CAKE.

8. New words for me were TIPSY CAKE and the phrase ‘be for the HIGH JUMP’.

   I was unable to parse 10a & 23a.

   My favourites were 16d, 3/24 and 5d.

   Thanks Paul and Eileen.

   Eileen, for 12a I was thinking of “el” = “the” in Spanish (in the clue – “for Felipe the”) and the definition simply being “king”.

9. Hi ulaca

   I meant to imply that I think it does work: ‘for Filipe’ indicates ‘This is *masculine* Spanish’: Paul does use this kind of clue from time to time.

10. Hi Michelle, we crossed.

    I see what you mean but then the word order is wrong. And Elvis is known as The King. [This clue reminded me of walking through Lymington in August 1977 and seeing a newspaper hoarding, ‘THE KING IS DEAD’ – anniversary tomorrow, I see.]

11. Eileen, yes – I see what you mean about the word order being wrong. It was the only way that I could think of to parse it.

12. Great fun – thanks both.

    Fave 10d – plus 6d must have some record for being the most frequently clued word of all time – at least by (mainly) anagrams.

    I think the gender twist in 12a is intended as a joke. In pig-Spanish the “el” default is always taken. Surely the capitalisation of “king” is only a necessity for ximeneans. But it was still my LOI.

    @michelle I’d previously only ever come across TIPSY CAKE here (towards the end of the very extended intro):

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhGPnG0iU5Y

    but the meaning’s clear enough.

13. Eileen @9, that is unless Paul made an error in believing visa took the masculine definite article. Hence, a permission to enter for Felipe, a Spaniard, would be “el (sc. la) visa [incomplete with the “a” missing], as you point out in the blog. Anything else seems a contortion not in keeping with the rest of the puzzle. There are no masculine and feminine visas.

14. On now reading JS@ 12, I can well imagine a non-Spanish speaker saying “el” for “the” every time. I doubt Felipe would, though.

15. Quite pleasant apart from being annoyed at myself for chasing 11a as being BOK for “South African” especially as I had the first word as Book. Wasted time there.

16. Thanks all
    First in was Elvis, no capital,no Spanish just “king”.
    Last in was tipsy cake, like Michelle I had never heard of it.

17. Even for Paul, I thought there were a quite a lot of excellent &lit, extended definition and otherwise self-referential clues, so in spite of the legimate points that have been raised above, I really enjoyed this one.

    I spent a little while trying to make “WINE LOVER” work for 11a (“South African” immediately made me think of the bottle, and then I tried to work WINNIE (Mandela) in to make it fit).

18. Jeff @ 13 contorted, indeed.

19. Three quarters completed on tube, SW corner needing more thought. Spending the day at the Oval so TIPSY CAKE (never heard of it either) et al have required regular breaks in play. India batsmen have been very obliging in this regard.

20. I didn’t realise that tipsy cake would be so unfamiliar. I’ve certainly heard of it and always imagined it must be something like sherry trifle.

    It’s a very old ‘receipt’ – here’s Mrs Beeton’s version, if you want to try it [I think it would cost more than 22 1/2 pence, though]:

    “Original Receipt in ‘The Book of Household Management’, 1861, edited by Isabella Beeton

    TIPSY CAKE.
    1487.INGREDIENTS: 1 moulded sponge-or Savoy-cake, sufficient sweet wine or sherry to soak it, 6 tablespoonfuls of brandy, 2 oz. of sweet almonds, 1 pint of rich custard.
    Mode: Procure a cake that is three or four days old, – either sponge, Savoy, or rice answering for the purpose of a tipsy cake. Cut the bottom of the cake level, to make it stand firm in the dish; make a small hole in the centre, and pour in and over the cake sufficient sweet wine or sherry, mixed with the above proportion of brandy, to soak it nicely. When the cake is well soaked, blanch and cut the almonds into strips, stick them all over the cake, and pour round it a good custard, made by recipe No. 1423, allowing 8 eggs instead of 5 to the pint of milk. The cakes are sometimes crumbled and soaked, and a whipped cream heaped over them, the same as for trifles.
    Time: About 2 hours to soak the cake. Average cost: 4s. 6d.
    Sufficient: for 1 dish. Seasonable: at any time.”

21. Oh and I meant to say that, despite its sentiments, I didn’t find 10d a very satisfactory clue. After all, the Mail is a Tory paper too, if from a different part of the forest, so the clue is a bit self-referential.

22. I wouldn’t say an orchestra ‘creates’ a piece by Beethoven. So it isn’t a very good &lit, if that’s what it is trying to be.

    And yes Elvis was indeed The King, so cap definitely needed, just because that’s the way it is, no more no less.

    Perhaps the compiler didn’t realise that VISA is Spanish? Just a guess. It’s a poor clue really.

23. Agree that this was fairly easy by Paul’s standards, but was none the less enjoyable for that, so I’m not going to join in with the nitpicking. Last in was TIPSY CAKE. Favourites were LAVATORY PAPER, ROYAL FLUSH and ORCHESTRA.

    Thanks to Eileen and Paul

24. I don’t think anyone has mentioned that the title and URL of this page have the wrong number – it should be 26339 not 26399.

25. Thanks beery hiker @24. Now corrected.

26. Thanks, gaufrid – just pipped me!

27. Re TIPSY CAKE and the recipe @20 (thanks for that Eileen) – I had heard of it but this amused me because we were having a conversation at my pub quiz last night about what our local baker used to call Russian Cake, which sounds similar except that its filling consisted of lots of different bits of leftover cakes rather than just one, I can’t remember for certain what it was coated with but that was probably different and although it was alcoholic I don’t think it was made with sherry.

28. You clever people obviously know the answer to this as nobody has queried it, so tell me, how does DOUBLE=SPIT please? I’ve found things like “double spit” and “double bbq spit”, but “blue door” doesn’t make blue=door. I have failed to find “to spit”=”to double” or “a spit”=”a double”. I’ve done a bit of searching, but I’m trying to follow two Test Matches!

29. “spit” often used as an abbreviated form of “spitting image”

30. http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/be-the-spit-or-the-dead-spit-of

31. Cheers. Needless to say that’s news to me!

32. Very enjoyable puzzle. I used to find PAUL difficult but I now find him really straightforward. I’ve got used to the clueing I suppose. But I do agree that some of the clues wouldn’t be out of place in a RUFUS puzzle-same went for last Saturday’s -but that’s another story!

33. I agree that some of cluing seemed a little Mondayish but I still enjoyed the solve. I started off slowly and 13ac was my first answer, but after that I rattled through the rest of the puzzle and finished back in the NW with INCUBATE, INJURY and JUMBO JET.

    I didn’t think twice about ELVIS and didn’t try to overanalyse the wordplay. As far as the clues for UNITY, UNFORGETTABLE and PINEAPPLE are concerned, per Muffin@2’s comment, I wouldn’t say that they are necessarily Timesian in style. I take the view that I’ll continue to come across the occasional clue where I’m unaware of a GK reference, but as long as the clue includes a definition that leads unequivocally to the answer then I don’t have a problem with it. In the cases mentioned above I had the necessary GK to understand the whole of each clue, but even if I hadn’t they were solvable because of clear definitions.

34. Thanks, Eileen.

    I think Paul’s crosswords have been generally easier of late (pace Peter Asplnwall), especially the Prize ones.

    I chortled at ROYAL FLUSH and the Lavatory humour one.

    TIPSY CAKE was towards the end. I asked my wife “is there such a thing as…”, and, real deja vu, remembered asking her this before on 14th May 2011. Whose crossword was it? You guessed, Paul’s. (Clue, more or less, “With this the proof is in the pudding”). Who wrote comment 16 about it that day: why, the author of comment 16 today – now there’s a coincidence.

    [Incidentally, peedee was the blogger and he included mouse over the solution to see the clue, a very useful facility which no longer functions in that blog for some reason]

35. I am sure my mother used to say “spit and image”, and that’s what I still use. I am a bit archaic apparently. It arises from “use of spit and mud to create Adam in his [God’s] image”.

36. Yeah, like ‘Steve Bartlett is the spit of Luis Suarez’.

    Cool.

37. AndyB @33
    As I said, I wasn’t complaining, just commenting.

38. Some of the DDs took a while but a few smiles. To be honest I’m not sure I’d use the mail even for that.

39. I totally agree with Eileen’s initial comments so I wont repeat them.

    Although I enjoyed this it was rather easy for a Friday. Recently Paul seems to be “dumbing down” somewhat which I find worrying as I used to enjoy the challenges he set.

    Anyway thanks to Eileen and Paul and here’s hoping for a real stinker of a puzzle for the weekend.

40. muffin –
    FYI Been out all day; reply to yours re theory/hypothesis now posted on yesterday’s blog (26338)

41. Thanks Paul and Eileen

    Only got to this one today – after having to move offices on Friday. Paul does seem to be setting slightly easier puzzles lately, but still with his trademark humour and idiosyncratic style.

    Finished down in the SW with TIPSY CAKE (which I also can’t remember seeing previously), BUMPER and ROCKETRY the last three in. Missed the local knowledge of what the leaning of each of the papers is over there – still thought it was one of the best clues!

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