Guardian 26,721 / Paul

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An enjoyable puzzle from Paul, with precise cluing, which helped with a couple of less well known words, and some amusing wordplay and surfaces.

The theme is the eight Ivy League Universities – they’re all there in either clues or solutions and, mercifully, all familiar, apart from the one in 5dn, which was perfectly gettable.

Thanks to Paul for the entertainment.

Across

9 Old engine or senior machine’s heart renovated (4,5)
IRON HORSE
Anagram [renovated] of OR SENIOR + [mac]H[ine]

10 Some berries in Cognac inimitable! (5)
ACINI
Hidden in cognAC INImitable

11 University a challenge, Aussie PM virtually admitted (7)
HARVARD
ARV[o] [Aussie PM, virtually – I liked that!] in HARD [a challenge]: it’s a pity that the ‘a’ had to be there, to justify the definition of ‘hard’: the surface would have been so much better without it

12 Small card: unusual being after Christmas — time to open it (7)
NOTELET
ET [unusual being] after T [time] in [to open] NOEL [Christmas]

13,20 Drunk at Cornell swigging last of Lambrusco — something necked at college? (4,6)
ETON COLLAR
Anagram [drunk] of AT CORNELL round [swigging] [lambrusc]O – I really liked this surface

14 Something soft and rich confined to one’s memory? (10)
DOWNLOADED
DOWN [something soft] + LOADED [rich] – a simple charade, but it took a minute or two to get it: I smiled when I did

16 Cooler way back, his home infernally hot (3,4)
OLD NICK
OLD NICK [cooler way back]  – nick and cooler are both slang words for prison

17 Vulgar and pretentious Conservative, wary of clothes to wear? (7)
KITSCHY
C [Conservative] in [to wear] KIT-SHY [wary of clothes]

19 Princeton University finally cracking the art of coding (10)
ENCRYPTION
Anagram [cracking – nice one!] of PRINCETON and [universit]Y

22 Insult sounds like ugly rumour, for starters (4)
SLUR
Initial letters [starters] of Sounds Like Ugly Rumour

24 Socialist left consumed by nonsense, that is (7)
BOLSHIE
L [left] in [consumed by] BOSH [nonsense] + IE [that is]

25 Bottle shown by jollies thus in retreat (7)
THERMOS
THE RM [Royal Marines – ‘jollies’] + a reversal [in retreat] of SO [thus]

26 Lowest point, “bottom” defining it? (5)
LEAST
E [point] in LAST [bottom]

27 Portrayal that’s flipping dark in France, stop it being screened (9)
RENDITION
END IT [stop it] in [being screened by] a reversal [flipping] of NOIR [dark in France]

 

Down

 

1 Save the giblets to stew, some joint being eaten (7,4,4)
TIGHTEN ONE’S BELT
Anagram [to stew] of THE GIBLETS round [being eaten] TENON [some joint] – great surface

2 Mould odorous around top of willow tree (8)
SOURWOOD
Anagram [mould] of ODOROUS round W[illow]

3 Better to keep gas affordable (5)
CHEAP
CAP [better] round HE [gas]

4 One’s frustratingly stuck with this crossword design on Yale? (8)
GRIDLOCK
GRID [crossword design] on LOCK [Yale?], the question mark indicating the definition by example

5 University atop flag (6)
PENNON
PENN [University of Pennsylvania – a private Ivy League university, ‘not to be confused with Pennsylvania State University’, says Wikipedia – that’s Penn State, or PSU]

6 Fly opening for university (9)
DARTMOUTH
DART [fly] + MOUTH [opening]

7 Asked to pay, when cryptically laid up? (6)
BILLED
ILL in BED – cryptically ‘laid up’

8 Third failing to be accepted by Brown here for annual award? (8,7)
BIRTHDAY PRESENT
Anagram [failing] of THIRD in BAY [brown] + PRESENT [here]

15 “Free Willy”: man having penned it blameless (4-5)
LILY-WHITE
Anagram [free] of WILLY + IT in [penned by] HE [man]

17 A great weight lifted, boat ultimately secured by man, tying up rope (8)
KNOTTING
A reversal [lifted] of TON [great weight] + [boa]T in [secured by] KING [man – in chess]

18 University in the country, say? (8)
COLUMBIA
I’m not sure whether the ‘say?’ indicates a ‘sounds like’ or the fact that the country [Colombia] is sometimes misspelt – see here

21 Article on report, no way speculation (6)
THEORY
THE [article] + [st]ORY [report, no way]

23 Dawn‘s bum and hip (5)
BEGIN
BEG [bum, as a verb] + IN [hip]

43 comments on “Guardian 26,721 / Paul”

  1. Yes, loads of fun as usual from Paul, whose clues are somehow always very energetic. Strangely I got stuck on TIGHTEN ONES BELT, which was almost my LOI. Excellent clues include KITSCHY, THERMOS, RENDITION, GRIDLOCK and KNITTING. Couldn’t parse HARVARD as didn’t know Aussie PM – thanks Eileen, and many thanks to Paul.

  2. Thanks Eileen, including for NICK/cooler/prison. Nmanaged without aids except to verify the 10a berries, but struggled with the 5and 6D campuses. DOWNLOADED accordingly was last in – impressive that you dashed it off. The Aussie PM was a joy, as also 17A.

  4. Enjoyable with the Ivy League theme. My COD was HARVARD with honourable mentions to DOWNLOADED and KITSCHY. Thanks for explaining the word play in 1d (wrong anagram fodder), 25 and 7 – another nice clue.

    Thank you to Eileen and Paul

  5. Thanks Paul and Eileen,

    An enjoyable crossword and theme, but a shame ETON had to come into it, why not EYOT, EGOS or EROS for a change?

    RM, Royal Marines as the ‘jollies’ was new to me.

    I did like DOWNLOADED, OLD NICK, RENDITION, GRIDLOCK and BEGIN among many others.

  6. Another name I have found for a Royal Marine, or the Royal Marines in general, is’ Mistress Roper’ because in the opinion of British sailors they handle ropes like girls and are no good at KNOTTING; to marry Mistress Roper is to enlist in the Royal Marines.

  7. Good clues again in The Guardian. I know that it is sheer accident and that we will resume normal surface or service shortly, hahaha, but let’s enjoy it while it continues. Tomorrow is another day.

    The HARVARD clue I think struggles a bit but probably the only one.

    HH

  8. Thanks to Paul and Eileen. Rarely do I catch a theme, but this time the Ivy League jumped out at me (though the inclusion of Brown in a clue only came to my attention late in the process). I did not know “arvo” so needed Eileen’s help parsing HARVARD (my alma mater) and also BILLED. Last in was BEGIN not because the clue was that difficult but because on my screen I read “bum” as “burn” [rn and m look the same] and could not understand why “beg.” I got off to a slow start but then enjoyed the solve.

  9. I thought the ‘say’ in 18d was because COLUMBIA is one of the names (poetic and historical) for the United States.

    I found this quite a struggle, although rewarding when you got there!

    Thanks, Eileen!

  10. Maybe I’m biased, but my two favorite clues were the ones whose sheepskins are on my wall–ENCRYPTION (Princeton class of ’96) and HARVARD (J.D., ’00). In cases like this where the theme is a closed set, it’s kind of a mixed blessing. On the one hand, once you’ve gotten the theme, it makes the rest of the themed clues easier. On the other hand, it becomes a fun game finding the other members of the set and seeing how the setter is going to work them in. Anyway, I bumped into Harvard, Yale, and Cornell first, so DARTMOUTH, PENNON, and COLUMBIA were write-ins.

    Apologies for any typos–I’m doing this on my phone, which is behaving very poorly right now.

    [FYI, Penn was founded by Ben Franklin (among others). Penn and Princeton have something of a rivalry, though it’s kind of one-sided, since P’ton sees its biggest rivals as Harvard and Yale (who, in turn, care only about the rivalry with each other). Part of the Penn-Princeton rivalry is with which is older. The institution that became Penn was founded earlier, but Princeton began actually teaching classes sooner (1746, making mine the 250th-anniversary class). Harvard is a full 110 years older than that, for the record.]

  11. [mrpenney @10, just joking, but perhaps Paul included ETON to keep Harvard in its place, it was founded in 1440, mentioning Oxford or Cambridge would have confused the Ivy League theme.]

  12. My solving was definitely aided by spotting the Ivy League theme, as I’ve got a pair of Ivy sheepskins myself (actually three, but one has a Latin error and had to be reissued), though I won’t disclose the years, and I was on the lookout for them. I still found the cluing devious enough, though, that it was far from a write-in. Thanks, Paul and Eileen.

  13. Cookie @11: maybe, but the real joke here is the way that “at [actually in] college” has a different meaning in the U.S. than it does over there. “In college” (US) = “at university” (UK). We say someone is in college even if they’re not actually in a college (defined here as a post-secondary school that does not award degrees beyond a bachelor’s). And a place like Eton would be called a prep school here.

  14. One of Paul’s better and more difficult offerings, maintaining the week’s very high standards – you know you’ve been doing a lot of crosswords when a word like ACINI is first in, but it makes a change from the very popular ALIBI. BEGIN was last after RENDITION. Liked SLUR.

    Thanks to Paul and Eileen

  15. hh @7 – I think we are due a Philistine pretty soon – that is guaranteed to give you some ammunition…

  16. mypenney@13, and yet Dartmouth College is a university by that definition, and there are US universities with constituent “colleges” that award advanced degrees. But your definition is still one I would generally agree with.

  17. 16a Old Nick — why “way back”? Is “nick” an obsolete term for jail?

    Once again, I’m surprised at the amount of information about the US that solvers are expected to know. I doubt many Americans can name the eight Ivy League universities.

    In most states, “University of [your state’s name here]” means a public university, and I’d never realized that Penn was private, so it puzzled me that it was in the Ivy League. Thanks,mrpenney,for explaining that it’s because it predates the public university system.
    Usually “university of X” is the state’s top-line public system, which may have one or more campuses in a large state — ten in California. Then there will often also be a “Something State University” which will be less elite. To be more confusing, “University of [City]” is generally private, like “University of San Francisco,” though “San Francisco State University” is public. Are you confused yet?

    I thought I’d never heard of sourwood, but when I googled it and saw it’s a southeastern American tree I remembered the Appalachian play-party song, “Chickens Crow on Sourwood Mountain.”

    I like “Free Willy,” another “ark royal” sort of clue with a familiar phrase recombined.

  18. Another good offering from Paul, with a ‘just big enough’ theme nicely handled as partly clues, partly solutions.

    Without the theme, I would have been less certain about entering HARVARD, having no idea about ARV(O). I nearly checked Wikipaedia for a list of Australian prime ministers and am now very glad I didn’t. Did find it though on the Oxford Dictionaries site. Any chance of a US setter clueing a puzzle which references the Russell Group?

  21. beery hiker @19/20 — that’s what I thought. So what are “old” and “way back” doing in the clue?

  23. Thanks Paul and Eileen

    Valentine @ 21: I see it as a piece of Paul misdirection: just because the words are linked in the answer doesn’t mean there’s the same linkage in the clue.

  24. Simon, I think you (and of course Eileen) are right – it works better if you equate the phrases rather than the individual words

  27. Just checked, we had RM (Royal Marines) = ‘jollies’ in the Philistine of Feb. 6th this year, so I had seen it before. The only other appearance I can find was in Private Eye on Oct. 7th 2007, THERMAL, which beermagnet failed to parse.

  28. Took a while to get started on this and I expected it to be harder than it proved to be. My FOI was ACINI which I’d not encountered before. I guessed HARVARD despite not understanding the ARV and, frankly, I still don’t. I couldn’t parse TIGHTEN ONES BELT either although it had to be correct.
    No problems with the rest once the universities went in. KITSCHY was lovely.
    Thanks Paul.

  31. Thanks Paul and Eileen

    I enjoyed this more than I usually do Paul’s. Favourite as I did it was BILLED, but now the ARV in HARVARD has been explained, that takes precedence.

    Technically I messed up on PENNON, as “Penn State” immediately sprang to mind 🙂

  33. [Valentine @17: Just for more background, the U.S. has nine extant colleges and universities that predate independence: seven of the eight Ivies (Cornell is the Johnny-come-lately), plus William & Mary (the second-oldest of the bunch) and Rutgers. W&M and Rutgers are both publicly supported. (So is Cornell, sorta.)

    Princeton was originally called the College of New Jersey, but early on in its life–probably by the time Aaron Burr was there, if not earlier–people started informally calling it Princeton instead. The name was formally changed by Woodrow Wilson when he was president of Princeton. There was a controversy when Trenton State decided, in 1996, to change its name to College of New Jersey. Princeton sued for trademark infringement. They lost (abandonment).

    Of course, the main state university in New Jersey is Rutgers.]

  34. That was easier than yesterday’s (for me). I couldn’t have listed the Ivy League universities, but all were familiar names. I hadn’t heard of SOURWOOD, but it couldn’t be anything else. I missed TENON in 1d, so I couldn’t parse that one fully. For 18d, I took the clue as indicating that COLUMBIA is a near-homophone of Colombia (“say”) – but not very near, hence the question mark.

    Favourites are DOWNLOADED, ENCRYPTION, BOLSHIE, GRIDLOCK and (particularly) BILLED.

    Thanks to Paul and Eileen.

  35. Re Colombia, some dictionaries (e.g. Websters) give the “Columbia” pronunciation, others the one with the “o” sound as written. I think it might be in the process of changing (to the “o” one). (I think I’d say “Columbia”, so as not to sound like I’m pretending I speak Spanish, which I don’t.)

  36. And Brown started life as “the College of Rhode Island.” Columbia began with a more familiar ring as “King’s College.”

  37. I am really thick. I got 12 across the wrong way. Unusual after Christmas I thought “No tele” (vision) then t for time. Back to the drawing board for me.
    ps … I am pretty new to the Guardian cryptics so that’s my excuse.
    Thanks to Paul and all here.

  38. I am really thick. I parsed 12 ac (unusual after Christmas) as “No tele” then the t for time.
    Back to the drawing board.

  41. John McCartney @40
    Because “dawn” as a verb is often used as an alternative to “begin”, perhaps to be less prosaic. An example would be “a new era dawns/begins”.

  42. Thanks Eileen and Paul.

    Typical Paul for me. Slow to get started – FOI was SLUR – and then it gradually fell into place.

    I needed your help to parse ARV(o) but otherwise all made sense.

  43. Thanks Paul and Eileen

    It seems that this is my third Paul-Eileen post in as many days ! I actually completed this one mid last week, but only got to check it off now.

    Another entertaining puzzle from JH with a theme that really didn’t present to me until after completing it. As with the other two recent Paul’s, there were a number of unparsed clues:- HARVARD (embarrassingly missing the ARVO, couldn’t get away from trying to make something from John HOWARD (a recent PM)), LEAST and BILLED.

    Finished in the NE corner with DARTMOUTH (a previously unknown university to me), NOTELET (which I didn’t place as small card) and BILLED (which I couldn’t parse).

    Entertaining as always … and always look forward to this setter’s work.

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