Guardian 26,404 – Paul

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After yesterday’s strenuous tussle with Enigmatist, this was relatively a walk in the park, but with lots to enjoy, including several nice bits of &littish-ness. Thanks to Paul for the entertainment.

 
 
 
 
 
 
Across
5. A TRIFLE Somewhat facing gun (1,6)
AT RIFLE
10. ECDYSIAST Stripper in ecstasy I’d fooled around with (9)
(ECSTASY I’D). This pseudo-learned word for a stripper (which luckily I had seen before, making it an easy entry) was apparently invented by H L Mencken and based on “ecdydis”, meaning the stripping off of old skin
11. SUSTAINING Dyer’s work around America is holding up (10)
US in STAINING
12. SKIN Surface broke, though not entirely (4)
SKIN[T] (broke, having no money)
14. CONDITIONAL Tory laid into liberal, being dependent (11)
CON (Tory) + (LAID INTO)*
18. DUDLEY MOORE 10 player in fanciful Midlands fen, say? (6,5)
Presumably the West Midlands town of Dudley doesn’t have a moor, but if it did (hence the “fanciful”) it would sound like this; and Dudley Moore acted (played) in the film 10, with Julie Andrews as his wife and Bo Derek as the “perfect woman” (with a score of 10/10)
21. IVES US composer into percussive sounds (4)
Charles Ives, American composer, hidden in percussIVE Sounds. Lots of Ives’s music is quite weird, so the surface is appropriate
22. RED CABBAGE Washington pop group good for stuffing trimmed green vegetable (3,7)
D.C. ABBA G in [g]REE[n]
25. TRIMESTER Examiner biting lip in term time (9)
RIM in TESTER
26,1,9. SIMON RUSSELL BEALE Actor‘s interpretation of Lear, no less, sublime (5,7,5)
(LEAR NO LESS SUBLIME)* – you can read an interview with this actor here, where he talks about his recent performance as King Lear, and gives his views on crosswords and some of our favourite setters.
27. CHEERIO Final word, taking a penny off inexpensive English port (7)
CHEAP less A P + E + RIO
28,17. ADHESIVE DENTURE I have endured set slipping around — might this fix it? (7,8)
(I HAVE ENDURED SET)* – with another appropriate surface reading
Down
1. ROBUST Strong, short stick has snapped (6)
RO[D] + BUST
2. SPARSE Thin poles on top of edifice (6)
SPARS + E[difice]
3. EYE-CATCHER Attention-grabber last seen in Tennessee, however touring California with singer (3-7)
[Tennesse]E + CA in YET + CHER
4. LIE-IN Right to tuck one in for a late snooze (3-2)
I in LIEN
5. ANDANTINO TV presenters Dec ___ in love, moving quite slowly (9)
AND ANT (from UK TV presenter duo Ant and Dec) + IN O
6. RUSH Grass or speed (4)
Double definition
7. FRACKING Half of a half, say, overcoming monarch in controversial underground operations (8)
FRAC[tion] + KING
8. ENTANGLE Intertwine ground net and fish (8)
NET* + ANGLE
13. RIVER BASIN Fluid arrives carrying first of buffalo over in area of drained land (5,5)
B[uffalo] in ARRIVES* + IN
15. NUMBER TWO Brown in town, unsettled as deputy (6,3)
UMBER in TOWN* – carefully avoiding the lavatorial possibilities for a change..
16. ADRIATIC Sea a tad icy in reality, starts out cold (8)
Anagram of (A TAD + “starts of “I[cy] I[n] R[eality]) + C
19. MAU-MAU Old Kenyan revolutionaries, two paws cut (3-3)
MAUL (to paw) with its last letter “cut”, twice
20. MEANIE False name, that is, for villain (6)
NAME* + I.E.
23. CURED Might meat be better? (5)
Double definition
24. DEAR Honey at a premium (4)
Double definition

49 comments on “Guardian 26,404 – Paul”

  4. Thanks for the crossword and the blog. A much more straightforward offering than the last two days.

    p.s. I think 16 should include the start of I[CY] too

  5. 2d. I didn’t fall into the N S trap. The memory of steel rods sticking out of the top of building constructions in “Raland” had me laughing. The rods were pulled up each evening by the workers. In the end the rods were very SPARSE indeed and the building fragile.

    Thanks Paul and Andrew, a cake-walk after yesterday, but very enjoyable.

  6. On the easy side, but maybe it just seemed so after Tue and Wed. Didn’t know the actor or the stripper, but got them from the crossers I already had in place.

  7. Thanks, Andrew.

    Fairly gentle Paul puzzle, with typical flourishes, though somewhat lacking in ribaldry this time.

    ESCDYSIAST was a new word for me, but was an early entry, as I was familiar with ‘ecdysis’ from biology. SPARSE was my LOI, as I was another decoyed into thinking that the answer must start SN—.

    A ‘fen’ is a marshy area, particularly on chalk or limestone – not at all the same as a ‘moor’, I would have thought. And why ‘fanciful’, other than fens being an East Anglian rather than a Midland feature?

    Favourite clues were the allusive 26,1,9 and 28,17.

  9. Never heard of the actor – but I see from Andrew’s helpful link that he likes Paul! (Is ‘fen’ really synonymous with ‘moor’?)

  11. Fens I associate with East Anglia, moors with Yorkshire. I wonder if there’s some confusion with “fell”. Though Chambers has “moorish” or “moory” as meaning marshy or boggy.

    Also fell into the S&N poles trap, and 10ac was new to me.

  12. Thanks Paul & Andrew – pleasant puzzle with not too many surprises.

    I knew ecdysone, so thought that the start of a stripper might be ecdys… Different world, though!

    I liked the DENTURE ADHESIVE, luckily I don’t have to use it yet.

  14. What a relief. A bit of recovery time before tomorrow’s promised horror. Only problem was whichever unlikely combination of ECSTASY I’D made a legitimate English word.

    Personally I don’t find Ives’s music weird, and undoubtedly not percussive. So for me a misleading surface, not an appropriate one. Nothing wrong with that of course.

  15. Trailman @14, you beat me to it today, but with exactly the same hold-up – have to admit I only got ECDYSIAST by using Check to eliminate the anagram fodder, since as you say the last four letters just didn’t look capable of making a plausible word, and the answer was just as obscure as anything Enigmatist gave us, though the wordplay was simple enough. Up to that point I would agree that the rest was fairly straightforward, with plenty to enjoy. Liked CONDITIONAL, DUDLEY MOORE, FRACKING, RIVER BASIN and the very Pauline NUMBER TWO.

    Thanks to Andrew and Paul

  16. Thanks Paul and Andrew.

    I enjoyed this one after miserably failing to complete yesterday’s challenge.

    I was also less than convinced by ‘fen’ for ‘moor’ – I live on a moor and it’s neither lowland nor boggy… well not very often! 🙂 – but as others have pointed out, some references do give that meaning. Interestingly, the Online Etymology Dictionary has this to say: The basic sense in place names is ‘marsh’, a kind of low-lying wetland possibly regarded as less fertile than mersc ‘marsh.’ The development of the senses ‘dry heathland, barren upland’ is not fully accounted for but may be due to the idea of infertility. [Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names]

    Trailman @14: Perhaps you haven’t heard Chromaticmelodtune, which I think can fairly be described as both.

  17. For anyone unfamiliar with moor ~= fen, I have walked though Hatfield Moor near Doncaster, which used to be a huge peat “quarry”, and it certainly fits my idea of a fen, i.e. a low lying plain which is often waterlogged. There are plenty more in the surrounding area (effectively the Trent-Ouse-Humber flood plain).
    See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorne_and_Hatfield_Moors for more details.

  19. Thanks Paul and Andrew
    I couldn’t make head or tail of the parsing of RED CABBAGE, so thanks for that.
    Is MAUL = PAW? My cats put their claws out for the former, but keep them in for the latter.
    Pedants’ corner: rushes, though grass-like in appearance, are not “true” grasses – see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grass

  20. muffin @19: you’re absolutely right about the non-equivalence of ‘grass’ and ‘rush’, but this appears so often in crosswords that I now accede to a weary acceptance.

    beery hiker @17: to a geographer a ‘fen’ is alkaline to neutral, whereas a ‘bog’ is acid – so Hatfield Moor is probably more boggy than fenny. As for ‘fen’ = ‘moor’, this does seem to be corroborated by dictionaries, although it strikes me as another example of the general humptydumptification of the English language: ” ‘When I use a word’, Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less’ “. Still, one man’s terminological inexactitude is another man’s semantic drift, I suppose.

  21. I’m with Trailman. I wouldn’t describe the Ives oeuvre as percussive and overall it isn’t weird. I can think of a lot of music which is very much less accessible- but anyway-
    Nice relaxing puzzle which was sufficiently challenging so as to be interesting. Perhaps the calm before tomorrows promised storm!
    Thanks Paul

  22. OK puzzle from Paul.

    Failed on the stripper as I’ve never heard of ECDYSIAST. Not a good clue IMHO. Not really gettable even with the crossers. (Very unlike Paul to resort to esoteric words!)

    Otherwise quite a nice workout!

    Thanks to Andrew and Paul

  24. muffin @19, yes, but there is a “rush grass” (genus Sporobolus) often grown in lawns and used in pasture, and a “grass rush” (Butomus umbellatis, family Butomaceae, order Alismatales) introduced into North America from Eurasia where it is now a serious invasive weed in the Great Lakes area). Thought I had better not bring the subject up in case it developed into one of those “occasions” (it’s teatime and Eileen isn’t here to keep us in order).

  25. Gervase @20 – as usual your knowledge is superior to mine – I didn’t do much geography but I have seen a lot of maps, and soil acidity isn’t shown on most of them…

    For crossword purposes, I still think Paul can get away with it, especially given the question mark, though Dudley is a pretty unlikely place to find either.

  26. muffin@19, forgot to point out that the rushes and grasses both belong to the Order Poales (derived from the Ancient Greek term for grass). I guess crossword setters can just about get away with it.

  27. Hi Cookie
    I did preface my comment with an indication that I was being pedantic! As Gervase said, the equivalence is quite common in crosswords.

  28. muffin @27, you might be being pedantic, but I had “trouble” with 6a. The point is just how inaccurate are crossword setters allowed to be? I am just being the devil’s advocate at 24@ and 26@.

  29. As I used to have family in the Sedgemoor area of Somerset (you know, all those flooded Levels last winter and very definitely a fen or marsh) I didn’t have a problem with 18a. Probably another example of the North-South divide. Though I did wonder at first if the player might be Rodney Marsh. Remember him?

  30. By this time yesterday I hadn’t solved a single clue, so today’s crossword seemed a doddle, although I had never heard of the unpronounceable 10 across.

  31. Getting back to 6a, are we dealing with drugs here, or am I being stupid. There is a speed rush pill, and rush grass and a drug called RUSH. If I am being stupid, what can you expect with a clue that is so inaccurate? Drugs were the first thing that came to my mind when I first read it.

  33. Cookie @31
    The second meaning of “rush” intended is “travel at speed” – drugs not involved. I agree that the grammar is slightly off, as well as the botany!

  34. @Cookie #31

    I’m afraid Paul seems to have snared you – the clue is a simple double definition, suggesting that both words are synonymous with RUSH – any thoughts of drugs are (apart from a twinkle in Paul’s eye) in your mind.

  35. I’m with muffin – being pawed can be pleasant (if annoying); being mauled is not something you’d forget in a hurry.

    I’m also wondering about 5a. “A trifle” is surely a noun, whereas “somewhat” is an adverb – how can they be equivalent?

    Can someone help? Thanks.

  36. Alastair @ 35, I believe Paul is imagining “a trifle” as an adverbial phrase that can be substituted for “somewhat”: “This clue is somewhat bothersome” / “This clue is a trifle bothersome.”

  40. Came to this after work and the Donk elsewhere. Made me happy to be able to solve unaided after yesterday’s.
    Also got caught by the wrong poles in 2d for a while.
    Ecdysiast has appeared a few times over the last few years, I suspect always in a Paul puzzle.
    Thanks Andrew, wanna swap next time E sets? 🙂

  42. I think this is the first time I have ever finished a crossword by Paul (I’m a beginner), but I couldn’t parse everything, so thank you Andrew!

  43. I enjoyed this puzzle but for some reason I struggled to see a few answers that came from, in retrospect, fairly straightforward clues. My last two in, RIVER BASIN and DUDLEY MOORE, are good examples of this, as is SIMON RUSSELL BEALE, and I also couldn’t parse ADRIATIC. Oh, and count me as another who was trying to fit SN into 2dn until the penny dropped.

    ECDYSIAST was actually my FOI, the word having stayed with me from when it appeared in a Times puzzle.

  44. Whew! After being totally flummoxed by Wednesday’s Enigmatist, I now feel much better. Thanks Paul and Andrew.

  45. Funny, ECDYSIAST was my first in. I was totally fooled by 18A. Wanted the ’10’ to refer to the stripper, had D – – – – – / M O O R E. Obsessed with the thought that Demi Moore played a stripper in some horrible movie.

  46. Yes, more fun than last night’s which I thought was unsporting for several reasons, though I did grind to a finish.

    I actually found this hard. LOI the actor: I don’t pay much attention to them, and had to seach having guessed the first names from crossings.

    Re “moor”, my school was on an ancient packhorse route, Moor Lane and led to a boggy flat area.

    Many thanks all.

  47. Maul versus Paw?

    I was a trifle reluctant to accept their equivalence but regarded them both in the light of “unwelcome intimate caresses”.

  48. I know I have done ‘entangle’ – (net and fish) very recently in a puzzle – but perhaps it wasn’t in the Guardian.

  49. Thanks Paul and Andrew

    Maybe I’ve gone a bit ‘off’, but I found this a bit of a struggle … and the comments on the Enigmatist puzzle are daunting as I had shelved it for the weekend :-/.

    I had written RODNEY MARSH in at 18a – not fully parsed, but often leave some of the complex parsing till the end with Paul. That certainly didn’t help my cause at all.

    Enjoyed it … but had to battle right to the end with the NE corner last to fall and ECDYSIAST, A TRIFLE and FRACKING the last few in.

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