I would say that this is a fairly typical Paul puzzle with some easy entry clues and others that need a little more thought (or even a lot!). A bit of Paul’s trademark mild smut (eg 1ac & 3dn) but for some reason he didn’t take advantage of other opportunities (though I think I can understand why!).
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Across
1,22 Lady into bloomers back in underwear, contrary outfit embraced by different fellow (6,4)
FLOWER GIRL – [underwea]R (back in underwear) RIG (outfit) reversed (contrary) in (embraced by) an anagram (different) of FELLOW
5 Single preference, soup slightly off (8)
MISOGAMY – MISO (soup) GAMY (slightly off)
9 Rat killer fighting at a distance and at home (8)
WARFARIN – WAR (fighting) FAR (at a distance) IN (at home)
10 Hill upsetting me? Not Damon, initially (6)
UPLAND – an anagram (upsetting) of PAUL (me) plus N[ot] D[amon] (not Damon, initially)
11 A wake-up call for the Sun? (4,3,5)
RISE AND SHINE – def. & cryptic indicator
13 Long throw dismissing opener (4)
ITCH – [p]ITCH (throw dismissing opener)
14 One little character, after evidence of head lice, considered alone (2,6)
IN ITSELF – I (one) NITS (evidence of head lice) ELF (little character)
17 City on Polish borders, strangely mesmerising (8)
HYPNOTIC – an anagram (strangely) of CITY ON P[olis]H
18 Run one! (4)
RACE – R (run) ACE (one) &lit
20 Married to wife, pain’s learnt the hard way — for her lot? (7-2-3)
PARENTS-IN-LAW – an anagram (the hard way) of PAIN’S LEARNT plus W (wife)
23 Reject is into drink (6)
DISOWN – IS in (into) DOWN (drink)
24 Maintaining cross, return title with bitterness, seeing book’s inscription (2,6)
EX LIBRIS – SIR (title) BILE (bitterness) reversed (return) around (maintaining) X (cross)
25 Picture gives an image, ultimately distorted (8)
ENVISAGE – an anagram (distorted) of GIVES AN [imag]E
26 Fine stuff not entirely describing English breakfast (6)
MUESLI – MUSLI[n] (fine stuff not entirely) around (describing) E (English)
Down
2 Brains in bum (4)
LOAF – double def.
3 Skinny female, shivering in the raw outside (5-4)
WAFER-THIN – an anagram (shivering) of IN THE RAW around (outside) F (female)
4 Most unusual to see god in the centre of Chertsey (6)
RAREST – ARES (god) in [che]RT[sey] (centre of Chertsey)
5 Devices including wrong and right in European language (8,7)
MANDARIN CHINESE – MACHINES (devices) around (including) an anagram (wrong) of AND R (right) IN plus E (European)
6 Private opening in solid square, cube (8)
SQUADDIE – S[olid] (opening in solid) QUAD (square) DIE (cube)
7 Squeeze round corners, leaning heads skywards in ravine (5)
GULCH – HUG (squeeze) around (round) C[orners] L[eaning] (corners, leaning heads) reversed (skywards)
8 Figure taking off in The Doctor, then want sci-fi film (3,2,5)
MEN IN BLACK – NINE (figure) reversed (taking off {going up}) in MB (The Doctor) LACK (want)
12 Home leave always conditional at first, occupying post (10)
STAYCATION – AY (always) C[onditional] (conditional at first) in (occupying) STATION (post)
15 8 can be fixed? (9)
SCREWABLE – CREW (men) in SABLE (black) – see 8dn
16 Infant feeding pot with a European coin (8)
STOTINKA – TOT (infant) in SINK (pot {as in snooker/billiards/pool}) A
19 Winding course of teeth going the wrong way, right to left (6)
SLALOM – MOLArS (teeth) reversed (going the wrong way) with L (left) replacing r (right) (right to left)
21 Infiltrating demo, jingoistic icon (5)
EMOJI – hidden in (infiltrating) ‘dEMO JIngoistic’
Couldn’t finish the NE corner, never having heard of the film at 8d. SCREWABLE was the only word that would fit 15d; but not having solved 8d, obviously I couldn’t parse it. At 10a I tried the correct parsing, but stupidly couldn’t find UPLAND. Kicking myself now over 5a. Thanks all round.
Good fun (although despite having just come back from spending a couple of weeks in Japan, it took me forever to get the miso in MISOGAMY). LOI was STOTINKA, which I hadn’t heard of so was a bit of a guess. Favourites were HYPNOTIC, MANDARIN CHINESE, SQUADDIE (great clue) and STAYCATION. Re SCREWABLE: I parsed it in a different (and inadequate) way, featuring a no. 8 size screw! Many thanks to Paul and Gaufrid.
Thank you Paul and Gaufrid.
I enjoyed this, but had to cheat to get STOTINKA.
STAYCATION I parsed STAY (“stay-at-home”, always at home) C (conditional, abbr.) AT I (first) ON (“at work”, occupying post).
The parsing does not really work, but it reminded me of my cousin’s husband, known as Stay-at-home Phillips, who, when asked if he had been abroad, replied “Yes, to the Isle of Wight”.
P.S. My cousins live in Pratt’s Bottom, and checking in the dictionary I find that, as well as meaning a foolish or silly person, “prat” means the buttocks – perhaps the “p” was doubled to lessen embarrassment?
Thanks to Paul and Gaufrid. STOTINKA and STAYCATION were new to me, and I had trouble with LOAF and the “crew” in SCREWABLE, but I did get through and enjoyed the process.
Cookie @ 4 – Small world! My mother lives near Locksbottom, very close to Pratt’s Bottom.
I made very hard weather of this, my struggle exemplified by the last in, IN ITSELF. Really, I couldn’t work out what could possibly fit IN ITS*L*! And despite having twigged the anagram fodder, HYPNOTIC took a long time too. So I’m hard pressed to like it, though that’s probably more my fault than Paul’s.
We had a commentator a week or two ago who complained that they should not be expected to know classical references, on the grounds that you had to have gone to a posh school to do so. Perhaps the reverse is unfamiliarity with MEN IN BLACK (John @1). Ah, the breadth of the crossword community!
Cookie@4 and drofle @6: In the South Downs, very near Sussex and Brighton Universites there’s a valley called Loose Bottom. According to the OS maps the only building in it is a pumping station. There are people in Brightin who’d kill for the address Loose Bottom Pumping Station
Very enjoyable and unexpectedly restrained in places…. But I note Paul triggers related thoughts in others.
re 18a – can anyone explain for me why “r” is always being clued as “run”. I can’t get beyond the cricketing references, but these are either composite (RO for “runout”) or plurals (“runs” in OMRW). Or is it just not cricket?
New words for me were STOTINKA, STAYCATION & WARFARIN.
I could not parse 8d, 17a, 1/22.
My favourites were IN ITSELF, EX LIBRIS & SLALOM.
Thanks setter and blogger
Van Winkle @10, the COED gives r abbr. 3 run(s)
Misdirection of “god” in 4d made me parse ‘heresy’ at first, as all letters are in Chertsey…
meic@8 I believe this setter resides in the Brighton area.
Excellent puzzle.
Thanks Paul and Gaufrid
A typically fluid Paul – no matter how hard it looks at times, you can always be assured that with his clues there will be something that will give and be off again. And so it was here … taking a while to break into the SW corner where I finished up.
I did get SCREWABLE earlyish … and then was wondering where Paul would take me with it at 8 which took a little while after to finally drop. STAYCATION was a new term for me … but after getting it from the wordplay – was pretty confident even before going to the references that it would hold out !
Finished up with ENVISAGE, STAYCATION and DISOWN as the last one in
Cookie @12 – that’s sort of what I said @10. In the cricket bowling analysis format OMRW, the R would be better represented as “run(s)”, rather than “runs” as I had it, on the chance that only one run might have been conceded by a bowler. But the R cannot be abbreviated just to “run” in this instance.
Another enjoyable and entertaining puzzle from Paul. Like brucew (@15), I found myself coming to a temporary halt a couple of times but then got going again by looking at the clues again – also with the help of some guesswork.
STOTINKA, STAYCATION and MISOGAMY were new to me, but all were gettable.
I thought the connection between 8D (MEN IN BLACK) and 15D (SCREWABLE) was especially clever. Other favourites were 11A (RISE AND SHINE), 14A (IN ITSELF), 18A (RACE) and 2D (LOAF) – also 20A (PARENTS-IN-LAW) because of the neat indication ‘her lot’.
meic @8 – re Loose Bottom. You may know also that there is a WI in Loose [pronounced looz], near Maidstone, called the Women’s Institute at Loose, or simply the Loose Women’s Institute.
Many thanks Paul and Gaufrid.
Van Winkle @16, sorry, I’m stumped, can’t see the problem, you’ll have to check upstairs…
Definitely one of Paul’s tougher ones, but a very enjoyable challenge. Held myself up by writing WISH at 13 (not sure why I believed that could be right) but fortunately I knew STAYCATION and remembered STOTINKA from a previous Picaroon puzzle, and MISOGAMY was clued very fairly. Liked that one, SQUADDIE, MANDARIN CHINESE and SLALOM. Last in was ENVISAGE.
Thanks to Paul and Gaufrid
Good fun. I cheated on STOTINKA. Since I regularly go on STAYCATION, I did know that word. Last in was SQUADDIE, which I thought was quite good. Like others, I thought SCREWABLE was a strong offering, and I liked the woman into bloomers.
I think I understand the problem with R for “run” in the singular. In baseball, box scores always have R over one of the columns of numbers for each player, and you’re meant to read that as “runs”. I’m guessing cricket score reports have something similar.
The problem in cricket, I guess, is that you so rarely get just one run. In baseball, you do see a single player’s scoreline sometimes reported as, say, “Jack Jones (1R, 3H, BB),” which would be read as “one run, on three hits and a walk.”
Another enjoyable Paul offering today. It took me a while to twig LOAF but the rest went in smoothly. Interesting that there were 2 Japanese words today. I didn’t realise that EMOJI was well enough known outside Japan to be clued in a Guardian crossword. But the other had me perplexed. MISO is a paste made of fermented soybeans and widely used in Japanese cuisine. Sure they make soup from it but miso isn’t soup any more than tomato is. No wonder Drofle@2 took a while. Don’t bother telling me it is in some (English) dictionary, that doesn’t make it right.
Thanks to Gaufrid for the impeccable blog.
HKrunner @ 21: I agree about the soup. Paul himself on 24th March clued ‘oxtail’ as ‘something in the soup’, which is much more appropriate.
I found this more difficult than usual for Paul but agreeable enough. It took me an age to get MEN IN BLACK so SCREWABLE was ungettable until I did- I guessed RENEWABLE so that screwed me up somewhat as did putting MONOGAMY for 5ac. Once running repairs were done, the rest went in apace with SQUADDIE being LOI.
A tussle, but my fault rather than the setter’s.
Thanks Paul.
My first solution for “Run one!” (18A) was “ruin”; I chuckled at Paul’s ingenuity as I filled it in. Although it later proved to be the wrong answer, I actually prefer it to the correct one!
PA@24 – I’m another who was wondering what MONO had to do with soup. Which made the NE a challenge and the last quarter of an enjoyable puzzle to fall. Also failed to parse the witty SCREWABLE despite having entered it confidently enough before getting MEN IN BLACK. Thanks to setter and blogger.
HKrunner @21
“Don’t bother telling me it is in some (English) dictionary, that doesn’t make it right.”
OK, I won’t! Seriously though, Collins, Chambers and Oxford all define MISO as a paste but the latter goes further and has a second definition: “(also miso soup) A soup thickened with miso paste, often with added tofu or vegetables”.
Paul aka John Halpern and huis family do indeed reside in Brighton. If he is reading this did he do the Brighton half marathon this year as he could not last year due to illness.
Gaufrid @ 26: As I mentioned above, Paul previously defined a kind of soup (oxtail) as ‘something in the soup’, which seems right; whereas cluing miso or tomato (e.g.) as soup seems pretty iffy. But I suppose it’s definition by example.
In what part of the country/world is “bum” equivalent to LOAF?
Bum around/ loaf around, I suppose.
I believe ‘mono’ can also refer to a Japanese soup. I was stuck with MONOGAMY for ages as a consequence.
Thanks Paul B. @30. I never would have guessed it.
Aldo @ 31: according to my limited knowledge of Japanese, ‘mono’ is widely used, but means ‘thing’. It’s a bit of stretch to make it mean soup!
I’m thinking of Sui Mono – but have no Japanese only a love of food so will defer!
cedric @27
“Paul aka John Halpern and his family do indeed reside in Brighton. If he is reading this did he do the Brighton half marathon this year as he could not last year due to illness.”
It’s next Sunday 24th April…
https://www.justgiving.com/guardiancrossword
Hope it goes well
Great puzzle. Thanks Paul and Gaufrid. The connection between 8d and 15d very fine but why does ‘can be fixed’ mean screwable. I almost see it, but not really.
18a – when I first registered here there was a great deal of argument about “double duty” in clues. Am I the only person who still gets annoyed by this?
In 10ac we surely have a full-blooded indirect anagram.
I am surprised that so far no-one said something about it.
John Halpern is not someone who I expect the break ‘the rules’ this way but he did.
But – as ever – a nice crossword.
12d was our last one not in, 15d the only one we entered without precisely seeing what was going on.
Many thanks, Gaufrid, for once more stepping in.
Sil @38
I saw the non-anagram in 10ac, of course, but I didn’t mention it as I thought it was the only weak clue in a classy crossword.
15D (SCREWABLE) was one of my favourites, mostly because of what I described as the clever connection between that and 8D (MEN IN BLACK).
MEN IN BLACK = CREW IN SABLE is completely fine, I feel, but the definition is not at all well thought-through. ‘Screwable’ is not a word that means anything apart from ‘shagable’, and ‘can be fixed’ in any case doesn’t quite work. Not very good.
Paul’s crosswords do require a good deal of free association, and to me that’s the beauty of them.
I see that two commenters (Xjpotter @36 and Issy Porter @40) have queried the use of ‘can be fixed’ to indicate SCREWABLE at 15D.
I doubted it at first but came round to thinking that the definition is adequate. To screw can mean to fix, for example in the sense of fixing a batten to a wall: therefore something that is screwable is fixable (‘can be fixed’). The ‘?’ in the clue might be there only because ‘can be fixed’ leads directly to ‘is screwable’ rather than just ‘screwable’, but by convention words like these ending in ‘–able’ or ‘–ible’ are normally clued in this way (‘can be …’ or ‘may be …’). I too would have put a question mark there.
Thanks Paul and Gaufrid.
I really enjoyed this and was especially pleased with myself for sorting out the parsings of GULCH, STAYCATION, SQUADDIE, MISOGAMY, MANDARIN CHINESE and SLALOM which were all pretty tricky.
Paul really throws everything into his art with a wealth of wit, misdirection and creativity in his constructions.
As ever, it took a while to get going, but as Brucew says, there’s alway something to hook you in.
Unlike him, it was the NE corner that held out longest for me needing a third sitting this morning before it finally succumbed.
Thanks again.
@40
” ‘Screwable’ is not a word that means anything apart from ‘shagable’, ”
There are many materials and parts that are described as “screwable”.
It is a feature often desired in, for example, wood fillers, plastic mounting plates, electrical boxes, foam repair, etc.
A very common “screwable” thing is wood epoxy for DIY repairs.
Thanks Paul and Gaufrid
Finished this one on the day but only got around to checking it off now. Found it pretty straightforward after getting a start with what turned out to be a wrongly parsed RAREST (I used the wrong god, RA, with and anagram of [CH]ERTS[EY])- reckon that it still nearly works!
Typical Paul cleverly crafted clues throughout. Am starting to get acquainted with that Bulgarian STOTINKA thanks to the world of crosswords.
Finished in the SW corner with the tricky anagram of ENVISAGE, STAYCATION (which was a new term for me) and DISOWN as the last one in.
13A Long throw dismissing opener (4)
I had “cover” (throw, like a sheet) without opening = OVER defn “Long”. It’s not often that you get two solutions that fit the same clue.