Guardian 26,611 by Paul

56 comments on “Guardian 26,611 by Paul”

1. Thanks PeterO. Needed help with parsing 1d and 6d. Good fun! 5, 28 kind of fell into place by itself. Liked 8d, 13a, 21d. Thanks, Paul.

2. Thanks Paul and PeterO

   I failed to solve 6d (just could not make sense of it at all) and 19d (not familiar with CHAR fish), and solved but was unable to parse 26a and 22d. New word for me was LOCORESTIVE (that’s a very humorous word).

   My favourites were 16d, 8d and 12a. Considering Eric Clapton’s past history with heavy narcotics, it is probably a nice change for him to be associated with narco-something else.

3. Thanks Paul and PeterO

   Fairly straightforward, though I was delayed by having INPUT instead of INSET (just as valid without the crosser). Thanks for the parsing of HONEY BEAR.

   Favourite was 1a – almost an &lit? I think Eileen might say “extended definition”.

4. Actually, I think INPUT fits the definition better than INSET.

5. muffin @ 3&4
   I also started off with INPUT and changed it when I had trouble solving 27a

6. Lots to enjoy thank you Paul – I particularly liked 6d and 5/28. Nice to see the return of the pochard – back in the 70s it was a regular in cryptic crosswords.

   Thanks to Peter too.

7. Thanks PeterO, your opening comments put it beautifully.

   DONKEY HOE TAY made me laugh out loud!

   Muffin @4 Me too, held me up for ages. I’ve come to accept INSET now that I see it’s used in its past tense verbal form rather than the perhaps more comment noun meaning something inserted; text, picture etc.

   Failed to parse ARTIST by missing aristo.

   What an astonishing anagram for ERIC CLAPTON? Loved it.

   Not come across LOCORESTIVE before but can think of a few people I could direct it at.

   Thanks, Paul, as ever for the fun, and for reminding us why we do this funny thing called crosswords.

8. Thanks, PeterO, for the blog and Paul for a lot of fun.

   I really liked DONKEY HOE TAY – it actually works!

   Paul has used the ERIC CLAPTON anagram before but I’ve often said that some ideas are so good that they’re worth repeating for the sake of those who haven’t seen them before. Last time, in Puzzle 25,016, Paul managed to combine the two in consecutive clues:

   14 Composition of 18 regularly dropping off (11)
   18 Musician having brought back passion, kid holding hand beginning to tremble (4,7)

   Very clever.

   muffin @3 – I’m not the one who uses that expression – I can’t remember just now who it is.

9. Apologies, Eileen. I know it’s one of the bloggers here. I’ll keep an eye open.

10. Thanks Paul and PeterO.

    I needed help with parsing ARTIST and HONEY BEAR, the BYE escaped me, and had to check LOCORESTIVE on the web, could not find it in my dictionaries. UPRISEN still bothers me.

    DONKEY HOE TAY was a laugh, as was NARCOLEPTIC, and I also liked GARGANTUAN, NOSINESS and USTINOV.

11. muffin @9, it is PeterO himself who uses ‘extended definition’, last time was Paul, 26,572, 18a, where he worried about what would happen to himself if he used the term!

12. Thanks paul and PeterO, that was great fun.

    Re 9A, you could say that someone who had lifted themself up by their own bootstraps was uprisen, I think. It’s certainly near (sic!) enough for me.

13. Wonderful. I thought I had finished the puzzle but can see DONKEY wasn’t entered, so I missed the joy of DONKEY HOE TAY! Favourites were NOSINESS, SOUTH BANK and ARTIST. Many thanks to Paul and PeterO.

14. If a measure of cleverness is being able to write clues like 5d then I would very much prefer to remain dim, thank you. Some may take the liberal attitude that it is fine to joke about disability, but in the Guardian I think that we are entitled to such jokes being free of ignorance and prejudice.
    Where does the presumption come from that all people with small heads cannot be clever. And for those that are not fortunate to be clever, the representation of them as an “it” in the solution is a horrible depersonalisation, reducing them to their disability.

15. Yes, 5d I also found tasteless. And I feel 1ac is sexist, usual Guardian stuff.

16. Thanks to Paul and PeterO. I had the same problems as those already mentioned (e.g., input vs. inset), had trouble parsing HONEY BEAR, got ARISTO but only after a struggle, and put in SENOR without seeing the reversal of “ones.” Yes, DONKEY HOE TAY was delicious, but “it’s not big and it’s not clever” is not part of my mental phrasebook.

17. Well I was just going to say what fun this was until I found out from Van Winkle @14 that microcephaly was a disability. I’d just entered the answer thinking “Paul’s so witty”. I guess that will still be the majority reaction though. 1a? Let’s not be too po-faced here please. Let’s just assume it was consensual HH.

    I’d much rather concentrate on the INPUT / INSET controversy, which had me going the wrong way for a while. And the excellence of 6d. Did Paul set on this having realised that HOE and TAY would set it up, or start with DONKEY only to shoe-horn the two three-letter clues for a bit of fun? A real chicken-and-egg conundrum.

18. I thought this was a lot of fun. Regarding Van Winkle@14’s point, I’m sure Paul included 5dn/28ac as his riposte to some of the posters here who have criticised his cluing style with exactly that expression. From what I’ve read about microcephaly the prognosis for those who are unfortunate enough to have it is that their brain function will be poor. That isn’t the same as saying that all people with small heads cannot be clever. Also, I read “microcephalic” as an adjective, not a noun (it can be either) so the “it’s” in the clue and the “it” in the answer referred to the head and not the person. IMHO of course.

19. @hh- but did you like the rest of it- you seem to be a Graunophobe.

20. As often the case with Paul, a mix of delights, some minor coarseness and possible controversy. As is also often the case with Paul, it took a while to find a way in with some initially impenetrable clues, and therefore all the more satisfying to get it done. Well, almost done: POCHARD is a new one on me.

    First in was SOUTH BANK, from which 1ac suddenly appeared, and all those first letters opened up the rest. EC was particularly pleasing – so glad his parents didn’t opt for Erik. Loved the Cervantes and USTINOV clues. I was another who was held up by INPUT.

    I don’t see 1ac as sexist, but rather a clever and apposite anagram.

    I suppose 5dn 28ac might cause a momentary upset to some, though my view is: if you aren’t personally affected, perhaps it’s best to leave the taking of offence to those who are, if they so choose. There could be a can of worms here, so I will leave it there. In any case, the solution is a phrase in reasonably common usage, and a literal description of the condition referred to in the clue.

21. 1961Blanchflower@20 – I feel perfectly entitled to take offense when the advantaged abuse the disadvantaged. The difficulty instead is whether I am entitled to determine that what has happened is abuse on behalf of the disadvantaged. But the more I look at this clue, the more horrified I am by it. It uncritically conflates a physical condition with a mental condition, suggesting that everything would be fine if the individual would just grow up. And it is not a literal description – as cleverness is a personal characteristic (rather than the quality of a head), the second “it” in the solution can only be a reference to the individual with the condition.
    Per Andy B @18, I suspect that Paul was answering his critics – but what a crass way to do it.

22. Re copmus, actually this compiler writes very well. I just wish the Guardoan would stop being so stupidly laddish.

23. Made slightly heavy weather of this, but enjoyed it. I had INPUT too, and STRANGE was last in after INTEGRAL. Liked SOW ONES WILD OATS and IT’S NOT BIG. Paul on Tuesday may be setting us up for another Paul prize on Saturday..

    Thanks to Paul and manehi.

24. 4dn – anyone who knows Spanish also knows that the middle letter of this word is not N; it is a separate letter of the Spanish alphabet pronounced ENYE. There is no such word (in English or Spanish) as SENOR. As for the concern over 5dn, however, are we to ban ‘legless’ for ‘drunk’ and ‘blind’ as a window shade, just in case someone, somewhere does not like it?

25. Re Microcephalic, my ignorance entirely, for which I take full responsibility. Poor research on my part. Apologies to anyone offended.

    Many thanks for your lovely comments elsewhere, as ever and I do hope everyone is enjoying the sunshine.

    I am giving a couple of talks at Camp Bestival Lulworth on July 31 and August 1. Do come along! 9.30-9.55 Wake up with The Guardian on July 31, and 18.30-19.25 August 1 How to crack the cryptic code quiz.

    Do come and say hello!

    John (Paul)

26. Setter @25, no need John, the vast majority of Graun crozzers will have enjoyed it for the fun way in which it was meant.

    Thanks again for the joy.

27. An enjoyable puzzle, as always from this setter. Thanks Paul and Manehi.

    To Crossbencher at 24, you are tilting at windmills my friend. I tried in vain to inist that the middle letter of Mr. Borg’s name is not an “o” but since it looks vaguely like one, then an O it must be. The enye in senor has no chance of being anything but an “n” here.

    Re DONKEY HOE TAY, there is a well-known chain of discount, late-open stores in Japan named after the literary Don and written in phonetic katakana equivalent to ‘donkihote’. Their website is http://www.donki.com. I can understand why Japanese friends ask me about the donkey called Hote but many young foreigners are equally oblivious to a connection to Cervantes. “Whatever” is the usual response to my attempts to explain.

28. [A Danish gentleman called Høst checked in to a French hotel. He signed the register and the concierge turned it round to say “Hello Mr…………” and then was stuck. Initial Hs aren’t pronounced in French; neither are trailing STs. That left him the o, but that was crossed out…………………….]

29. muffin @ 28

    What about that well-known French racing driver Alain Pro? 😉

30. Honey Badger was the 6/4 favourite for the 4.30 at Brighton today, but finished out of the frame. I think the Jockey Club should look into this.

31. Don’t beat yourself up Paul. 1ac isn’t sexist and as for 5dn I despair.Microeconomic surely refers to ITS NOT BIG. And “Grow up” gives you the whole thing. I can’t see anything wrong with any of this. Perhaps the heat has got to some people!
    Actually, I found this quite tough. I’m another who had INPUT and,while LOCORESTIVE is a lovely word, I’ve not come across it before. DONKEY HOME TAY was quite brilliant and I also liked USTINOV.
    Generally Paul at his best.
    Thanks to setter and blogger.

32. I can imagine why ‘microeconomic’ would upset people.

    Well it was in the frame (hurhurhur) here at least, birthday girl.

33. Don’t beat yourself up Paul. 1ac isn’t sexist and as for 5dn I despair.Microephalic surely refers to ITS NOT BIG. And “Grow up” gives you the whole thing. I can’t see anything wrong with any of this. Perhaps the heat has got to some people!
    Actually, I found this quite tough. I’m another who had INPUT and,while LOCORESTIVE is a lovely word, I’ve not come across it before. DONKEY HOME TAY was quite brilliant and I also liked USTINOV.
    Generally Paul at his best.
    Thanks to setter and blogger.

34. Paul B.
    See corrected version.
    Er birthday girl?

35. Simon @ 29
    He was Armenian (half, at least.)
    Bretons do pronounce more than French do, though. I was advised by a half-Breton friend that I was more likely to get it right by pronouncing a word in English rather than “French”. For example, the coastal town of Penvins is pronounced, err, PEN VINS, rather than PON VAN.

36. muffin @ 35

    OK, but I think he went on to have involvement with the Peugeot sportscar racing team, which competed in the Le Mans 24 Hours, in a race organised by the Automobile Club de l’Oue– 😉

    Alternatively, what ferries sail from the port of Bre– 😉 😉

    And Paris trains to/from the Gare de l’E–

    OK, I’ll give up now, promise…

37. Don’t give up when you are winning, Simon!

38. …………..although Brest is Breton (see above!)

39. Thanks all
    Muffin@4
    I agree totally.
    I really enjoyed don quixote and was amazed at the anagram in 12 across.

40. Peter Aspinwall@33. You’re almost there. So where does the “and it’s not clever” come from but an imprudent presumption that someone with a microcephalic condition is also mentally impaired? What is right with this?
    Whether people like it or not, these crosswords do appear under the Guardian banner, a newspaper with a firm Editorial Code that covers disability discrimination.

41. Just to annoy Van Winkle, Alain Prost in France is pronounced Prost, as it is in Suisse Romande. A friend of mine, Rosie ….., was his secretary, she unfortunately died a while ago. When you get to my age, you have many memories. I am not much good at Cryptic crosswords, even after nearly a year of trying them, but find the effort great fun, and admit to all the subterfuges I use to solve them during the week, but I do not use the cheat button. On Sundays I do the Everyman without help from the check button, but it takes me 3 to 4 hours, and even then there may be a few clues unsolved.

42. I enjoyed this puzzle from Paul and certainly didn’t find it as easy as PeterO apparently did. I suppose it’s the old problem of puzzles with a few longish answers. If you get them early then the rest of the solve is easy.

    Thanks to PeterO and Paul.

    Although John has come on here and apologised I really feel that certain people are looking to be offended. Do these people really believe that John would try and make fun of a disability.

    Anyway I will defend him as he is too gracious to do it himself.

    Of course there is a perfectly non-offensive interpretation of the clue if one would care to look.

    microcephalic? – note the question mark as it is important!

    “It’s not big” – direct definition of microcephalic and not necessarily referring to a disability.

    “and it’s not clever” – definitely referring to illness as in “he’s not clever” i.e. not well.

    To quote Peter Kay “sick minds”

43. Cookie @40.
    You mentioned before that you do not consider yourself as the ‘most experienced solver in the world’.
    Three or fours hours is indeed a lot for an Everyman – even as it is now.
    But I would like to say that the relevance of your contributions at this forum is often inversely proportional to that.
    In other words, amazing.

44. Can I add my support to those who think Paul had no need to apologise for anything about the two clues (1d and 5,28) that have given offence in some quarters.

    I am reminded of the eulogy given at Clement Freud’s funeral, in which it was said (by his son, I think) that “..he not only didn’t suffer fools gladly, but went out of his way to find fools to not suffer gladly”. I really do think that, in a similar way, there are far too many people nowadays going out of their way to find things to be offended by.

    This was a splendid puzzle which gave me several laugh-out-loud moments. Thanks Paul and PeterO.

45. I don’t find 1a at all offensive – neither the clue nor the solution. I do think that 5, 28 is a little ‘off’ or insensitive, but not as bad as some people have suggested. However, I think some of the arguments for alternative non-offensive interpretations seem rather strained.

    I enjoyed the puzzle, my favourites being DONKEY HOE TAY and BOATSWAIN.

    Thanks, Paul and PeterO.

46. What seems to be forgotten is that this is a Guardian crossword and therefore subject to an Editorial Code that takes a particular stance on disability discrimination. Many of you may be happy to live in a world where the mental capacities of people are judged on their physical capacities (whether through prejudice or lack of care) but this is not usually the world of the Guardian.
    I would like to withdraw the inference I made @14 that Paul might have made the link between having a relatively small head and absence of cleverness because of prejudice rather than just not thinking through the full implications of the clue. I apologies for that.

47. [Van Winkle, I think you also owe me an apology. I am probably the slowest solver here, in both senses of the term, and often too shy to ask questions. Your comment @58, Chifonie 26,610, is not just.]

48. Van Winkle @ 46

    I’m pretty sure that I’ve read somewhere that the graun crossword is explcitly *not* subject to the Editorial Code, hence the not infrequent use of anagrinds such as nuts, bananas etc in the sense of ‘mad’. Other colloquial ‘disrespectful’ terms are also used from time to time for their non-PC meanings.

49. Van Winkle @46

    Please don’t confuse the issue. This isn’t about some irrational prejudice linking head size and intellectual capability in general. It’s about a specific medical condition caused by abnormal brain development which often (though not always) includes intellectual impairment – “Children with microcephaly often have developmental issues” and “the prognosis for normal brain function is poor”. The link is factual, not prejudice.

    Whether it is acceptable to refer to it in a jokey way in a clue is a different issue. Down’s Syndrome is a comparable condition. It typically affects intellectual capacity, but the degree of impairment varies greatly, and some people with Down’s can cope very well with day-today living whereas others cannot. It is usually immediately visible (unlike many other mental conditions) and so people with Down’s often suffer discrimination on a daily basis as a result. Would it be regarded as acceptable to print a clue referring to Down’s Syndrome in a similar way? Probably not.

    I think it was unwise to include that clue, but I’m sure Paul did not mean it to be offensive, and he has apologised for any offence inadvertently caused.

50. jennyk@49 – that was my specific point. Microcephaly is the condition of having a relatively small head, which is not necessarily accompanied by intellectual impairment. But as I read the clue, for it to work, there is an absolute association of smallness and non-cleverness, which is discriminatory against those that have a microcephalic condition but are not intellectually impaired.
    The question of whether it is acceptable to joke about disability is a separate, wider issue.

51. [cookie@47 – not sure what I am supposed to be apologising about. That post celebrates those who are bold enough to ask basic questions, contrasting the value of their contributions with the volume introduced by brushes with Site Policy 3 (making reference to two recent examples thereof – reminiscences about gaslighting and derogatory stories about the Queen of Tonga).]

52. [Van Winkle, OK, fair enough, but if Site Policy 3 were rigidly followed, this would become a rather dull place. Not much volume is taken up by people reminiscing etc. Today, Brummie, I mentioned how happy I was to be reminded of camping holidays, a way of saying an extra ‘thank you’ to the setter. The Indy and FT sites are usually pretty lifeless, so sad when bloggers go to all that trouble and no-one shows appreciation.

    My reference to Queen Salote was not meant to be derogatory, it was sharing a family memory of a very gracious lady.]

53. [Cookie – apologies for inadvertently catching you in both my references. No personal criticism intended, especially as your post about Queen Salote was a gracious one that showed up the derogatory ones. On that day, I was being particularly sensitive to defending the value of basic questions than to opposing digressions, because if RedSoules was not a troll then some horrible things were being said.]

54. jennyk @45

    The fact that you are not familiar with a certain valid usage of the word clever doesn’t mean that that use of the word should be disregarded.

    I can assure you that in the North West if somebody stated that they had visited a friend X and he was not “so clever” nobody in the room would think that X had suddenly become less intelligent than of late.

    My original point was that rather than look for interpretations of clues that show the setter in a bad light one should look for those which don’t. Then, if found, no matter how strained the argument would be this is surely the correct interpretation.

    Oh, and I forgot to mention, a cryptic crossword is only a word game. Consequently it would seem to be stupid to take a clue as actually making a comment on the real world!

55. Brendan NTO @54

    I didn’t say I’m not familiar with that usage – I am. However, in the phrase “it’s not big and it’s not clever”, “clever” refers to intelligence or smartness, not feeling ill. I’m sure no-one was looking for interpretations to show Paul in a bad light. That was the first interpretation that sprang to mind for many of us simply because that is the meaning of “clever” in the phrase in question.

56. Thanks Paul and PeterO

    This one took a while … and only finished it late last night – with SONIC, the new to me LOCORESTIVE and the tricky ARTIST the last few in. Took some time to see what was going on with DONKEY, but it was worth the struggle when the penny finally dropped – quite brilliant! Plenty of others to like as well, including what is becoming a mini-controversy at 6d – hadn’t heard of the phrase before. POCHARD and LOCORESTIVE were other new terms and put me down as another who went the INPUT -> INSET route.

    Well done to the setter …. and no need for apologies here.

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