A fairly mild Prize puzzle from Paul, after some tough challenges during the previous week.
Paul has given us some easy charades, at 12,22,24,27ac and 7 and 18dn, to get us started / help us along the way, together with some nifty bits of wordplay and a few smiles thrown in, too.
Thanks, Paul, especially for the intriguing 13dn, which was totally new to me.
Across
1 Kentish Town revolutionary occupying list (9)
ROCHESTER
CHE [the familiar crossword revolutionary] in ROSTER [list]
6 Currency trickled into Liverpool, perhaps? (5)
FRANC
RAN [trickled] in FC [Football Club, of which Liverpool is an example, hence the question mark]
9 Land report (5)
STATE
Double definition
10 Integrate ductile ore (9)
ARGENTITE
Anagram [ductile] of INTEGRATE
11 This number endlessly drink (3)
TEA
This [clue] number is 11, which in football and hockey is a team, so it’s TEA[m] endlessly
12 Elegant descent down onto joint (7,4)
SWALLOW DIVE
SWALLOW [down – as to down a pint] + DIVE [joint]
14 One left to plug author, right away one’s bored (3,4)
OIL WELL
I [one] + L [left] in [to plug] [George] O[r]WELL [author] minus r [right away] – *I shan’t be able to resist adding to this, later in the day, one of my favourite anecdotes from teaching days
15 Increase in staff replacing us in a month (7)
AUGMENT
A similar device: MEN [staff] replacing ‘us’ in AUGusT [month]
16 Doctor resigns as a way of introduction (7)
INGRESS
Anagram [doctor] of RESIGNS
19 Gentle exercise courses involving a minimum of intensity (7)
PILATES
PLATES [courses] round I[ntensity]
22 House of iron valued with windows (11)
FENESTRATED
FE NEST [house of iron] + RATED [valued]
23 Sheepish female solver on the phone? (3)
EWE
Sounds like [on the phone] ‘you’ [solver]
24 Out of practice, one getting hammered? That’s whisky and Drambuie! (5,4)
RUSTY NAIL
RUSTY [out of practice] + NAIL [one getting hammered]
I remembered this from blogging a Puck puzzle with a cocktail theme – it was a memorable, rather Pauline, clue: K-Y stain unfortunately left after game with hookers (5,4) 😉
26 High time expanded, initially, ghost town population (2,3)
NO ONE
NOON [‘high’ time, as in the film] + E[xpanded]
27 Cricket side ready for attack (5)
ONSET
ON [cricket side] + SET [ready] – a very old favourite
28 Always carrying brand on both sides of label, one putting on a coat (9)
ENAMELLER
EER [poetic always] round NAME [brand] + L[abe]L
Down
1 German knight turns up for Italian dish (7)
RISOTTO
Reversal [turns up] of OTTO [German] SIR [knight]
1 Name outstanding witch he painted (7)
CHAGALL
CALL [name] standing outside HAG [witch]
3 In doubling possible price, agent finally quits (4-7)
EVEN-STEVENS
{[agen]T in doubling EVENS [possible (starting {price in horse raci- I searched for the origin of the phrase and found this:’Earliest origins and associations are probably found in Jonathan Swift’s ‘Journal To Stella’ written 20 Jan 1748: “Now we are even quoth Stephen, when he gave his wife six blows for one”. A separate and possibly main contributory root is the fact that ‘Steven’ or ‘Stephen’ was English slang for money from early 1800’s, probably from Dutch stiver/stuiver/stuyver, meaning something of little value, from the name for a low value coin which at one time was the smallest monetary unit in the Cape (presumably South Africa) under the Dutch East India Company, equal to about an old English penny. An expression seems to have appeared in the 1800’s ‘Steven’s at home’ meaning one has money. The alliterative (rhyming) sound of the expression would have made it a natural reference or paired words expression and ensured common usage.
4 Dog kennels appreciative, volunteer starts work (7)
TRAVAIL
TRAIL [dog] round [kennels] A[ppreciative] V[olunteer]
5 Fancy things beginning to improve in the serving up of a drink (7)
REGALIA
I[mprove] in a reversal [serving up] of A LAGER [a drink]
6 Good time to have some, if unhappy? (3)
FUN
Contained in iF UNhappy
7 Idiotic, a lapse in energy (7)
ASININE
A SIN [a lapse] + IN E [in energy]
8 Fair setter claiming foul, finally (7)
CLEMENT
CEMENT [setter] round [fou]L – definition as in fair / clement weather, I suppose, although clement means mild and fair means not raining – but I did think it was rather neat that the opposite of fair in this sense is foul
13 Look to protect journalist supporting joker in workers’ movement (6,5)
WAGGLE DANCE
GLANCE [look] round [to protect] ED [journalist] after ‘supporting’, in a down clue, WAG [joker]
‘Workers’ in the clue refers to worker bees – I’d never heard of this wonderful and fascinating thing that they do – do google, if it’s new to you, too!
16 Ground on fire around bottom of garden, a flaming nightmare! (7)
INFERNO
Anagram [ground] of ON FIRE round [garde]N
17 Book, for example, upset rival, not me! (7)
GENESIS
Reversal [upset] of EG [for example] + NE[me]SIS [rival] minus me
18 Top waves on one (7)
SURFACE
SURF [waves] + ACE [one]
19 Bone in halibut’s tail spoiling Spanish dish (7)
PATELLA
[halibu]T in [spoiling] PAELLA [Spanish dish]
[Which, inevitably, calls to mind Rufus’ classic clue: ‘two girls, one on each knee’, well worth recalling for newer solvers who may not have met it]
20 Arbiter consumed by work in plant (7)-BEAR
TREFOIL
REF [arbiter] in TOIL [work]
21 Happen to wear fleece as a furry female! (3-4)
SHE-BEAR
BE [happen? – I’m sure there are probably better equations but, for now, I offer ‘whatever will be / happen…] in [to wear] SHEAR [fleece]
25 Salt Lake City all ends up, still (3)
YET
Reversal [up] of last letters of salT lakE citY
Thanks Eileen. I agree, most answers wrote themselves in at the first pass but I found 11a, 13 and 19d needed rather more thought. I see 21d the same way as you do.
Thanks to Paul and Eileen. I did know WAGGLE DANCE (we have some colleagues working hard to set up a bee colony nearby) and I got FRANC without seeing FC = football club, but I took a very long time getting STATE (my eventual guess but I was not convinced it was right). Very enjoyable.
Thanks to Paul for the fun and Eileen for the entertaining blog. […And looking forward to your teaching anecdote later, Eileen – is it about Orwell? I love a good story.].
Favourites were 1a ROCHESTER and 8d CLEMENT. However – and it’s just a minor niggle: I was a tad disappointed by the “BE” in SHE-BEAR, 21d, which felt a bit weak.
However this was more than outweighed by some great clues. For example, I also really liked 24a, RUSTY NAIL, and 19d, PATELLA, and my enjoyment was certainly enhanced by the rather naughty clues for the same solutions that Eileen mentioned in her blog from previous Puck and Rufus puzzles.
The back story on 13d EVEN-STEVENS was fascinating for etymologists, while entomologists would have loved 13d WAGGLE DANCE (new to me, only gained from the crossers). Aren’t words wonderful?
(By the way, my collection of Echo Phrases, of which I have a list of hundreds, excludes “even-stevens”, though I have it in an ancillary list of imperfect rhymes that almost qualify.)
thanks
Thanks Eileen. Couldn’t believe it could be waggle dance and was delighted when I googled it. Words are indeed wonderful.
Thanks Paul for a pleasant puzzle and Eileen for an entertaining blog, particularly for parsing 11A; I didn’t spot the clue number relevance.
It could be argued that as Kentish Men live west of the Medway and those to the east are Men of Kent, Rochester is a town of Kent and not a Kentish town, but that would be pedantic, and I’m sure that no one on this blog would be pedantic.
Entertaining as ever from Paul. No problems with WAGGLE DANCE which was familiar as the name of a honey flavoured beer.
Thanks to Paul and Eileen
This was a delightful puzzle – not too taxing and with many neat clues.
Knowing 13d WAGGLE DANCE (which I read about recently – what a lovely descriptive phrase) helped with that side of the crossword. 1a ROCHESTER, my first in, went in double-quick because it’s my home town. 9d STATE (my last) went in more slowly – I made sure it was the only word that matched the DD.
Like Julie (@3), I had my doubts about the ‘BE’ (happen?) in 21d SHE-BEAR, and the best I could do was the same as Eileen’s suggestion.
Thanks to Paul and Eileen.
Thank you Paul and Eileen.
A Prize crossword I managed to solve without too much trouble. I knew the WAGGLE DANCE, but don’t remember ever hearing the phrase EVEN-STEVENS. STATE, as for ACD @2, was my last in.
I love anecdotes about “George Orwell”, “Henry Green”, Evelyn Waugh and all the others of that era…
WAGGLE DANCE is also a very nice honey-flavoured beer.
brownphel @5 – I expected ‘Kentish Town’ to cause controversy and decided to leave it to others – clever clue, though.
* Sorry to disappoint Julie and Cookie but my anecdote does not have a literary origin: it’s one for those like me – and, I know, many here – whose eye is readily caught and attention easily and often lengthily diverted by the word at the top of a column in dictionaries – and a cautionary tale about the use of them. 😉
After Latin was dropped from the state school curriculum, I found myself teaching quite a lot of repeat O Level / GCSE English Language in our [by then] sixth form college to students for whom English was not their first language. Their coursework folder had to include a variety of styles of writing and, since I also did some Careers work, ‘Choosing a career for myself’ seemed a reasonable ‘discussion’ topic. We planned it in class, taking into account qualifications required, personal qualities and preferences to be considered, etc, along with the usual encouragement to use original vocabulary, avoiding ‘nice’, ‘lovely’, etc [and I’m well aware of how often I use those words here]. I was puzzled when one girl wrote that she knew she would be ‘artesian’ working in an office. I only knew this word in connection with wells and assumed [correctly, it turned out] to be derived from Artois. When I gave back and discussed the work, I asked the student where she had found the word and she proudly announced that she’d found it when flicking through her dictionary. When I asked if she had the dictionary with her, she dived into her bag and produced the page. And there it was, in bold, at the top of the page: ‘artesian [of wells] deeply bored’. We used that word in the staff room to express extreme boredom for quite a long time.
I’d heard of WAGGLE DANCE before although I didn’t know it related to bees
Now I know it is the name of a beer all is revealed!
I enjoyed this. It was a middle range Paul unlike the much more difficult
puzzle of his which we had during last week. I liked ROCHESTER and ENAMELLER
amongst others.
Thanks Paul
Thanks Paul and Eileen. Nothing to make you artesian here.
2dn was my LOI as I’d entered TEN for 11ac on first pass. It seemed to fit the clue (“tent” being a wine) and gave no trouble for 1dn. Took a long time to spot the mistake (but I did like the clue once I’d got the right answer).
Thanks Paul and Eileen. Fairly gentle for a prize, but enjoyable nonetheless.
I knew waggle dance, though I am not a bee keeper. Bees also vocalise, and you can hear them if you live in London or are a visitor and go to Kew Gardens where there is a sculpture called the hive which mimics a beehive. The sound of an actual hive is relayed when you stand inside it, and you can hear recordings of for example the Queen Bee “trumpeting”. You could probably do your own waggle dance when you enter it, should you wish. Highly recommended.
Unlike others here, I found this a little disappointing for a Paul puzzle, though still enjoyable. I mis-parsed TRAVAIL as TAIL around (RA + Volunteer). I had thought of RA as a short form of “hurrah” (as in “Rah! Rah! Rah!”), forgetting that it would need an H. I’m glad that 13d introduced some people to the amazing waggle dance. Bees are fascinating creatures in so many ways.
Thanks, Paul and Eileen (to whom special thanks for the nice, lovely but definitely not artesian anecdote).
Ah, now I understand why SHALLOW DIVE didn’t really quite seem to work! I knew about bees’ waggle dancing but found it delightful once solved. 11a was interesting — like a cruciverbal equivalent of a theatrical breach of the “fourth wall”. I was very hesitant about it at first. Btw, I didn’t quite understand the K-Y clue: is K somehow a definition of RUSTY NAIL? Anything but artesian by this puzzle.
Hi Tony @15
Yes, K is the definition – as I said, the theme was cocktails. 😉
[The blog is here: http://www.fifteensquared.net/2015/11/14/guardian-prize-26723-puck/ ]
Tony
Your ‘fourth wall’ was an interesting analogy. In 11a TEA we were treated to a level of indirection that we more often find with parts of anagrams (e.g. ‘west’ directing us to use only ‘W’). Here, where ‘this number’ indicates ’11’ and ’11’ indicates TEAM, the desired word is one level of indirection away from what is given. We’ve seen it before and we’ll see it again, from Paul and others. Given judicious use of this device (i.e. not too often), it adds some zest and fun to a crossword.
[I loved the teaching anecdote, Eileen.]
Do you know I missed the clue number reference in 11a? I guessed “team” without the “m” (“endlessly”) and just thought, oh yes, a team is a number of people in a group or side. So a cleverer clue than I gave it credit for, indicating again why the forum so often enriches the solve.
CocKtail! Ha! Thanks Eileen. I think I remember doing that one now, a while back.
Yes, Alan B. Thanks. One step beyond. I will be quicker on the uptake next time I come across one like that.
Thanks for the anecdote, Eileen! Our village used to be supplied with water from an artesian well, virtually free of charge and not chlorinated, but the village has grown and is now supplied from an underground river, so the water has to be chlorinated since there are cows etc. on the Jura most of the year. Now we pay a lot for this water to SOGEDO – I wonder if they will take over in the UK as EDF seems to have done with the electricity supply? Even bigger wonder, how will this be affected by Brexit?
footnote, Suez and GDF, now combined as ENGIE, are, or will soon be, involved in fracking in the UK.
another artesian footnote, I see that the French company Veolia Water (Vivendi) supplied Greater London area, and some other parts of the UK, but sold out to the American company Rift Acquisitions, an entity established by Morgan Stanley and M&G Investments, retaining a 10% in the new business, Affinity Water.
Of the other UK water companies, many are controlled by Australians, for instance Thames Water is owned by the Chinese people, the people of UAE, assorted Europeans and Canadians and controlled by Australians.
To finish, hopefully, on an upbeat, the Pays de Gex where I live is taking back the control of its water supplies and sewerage disposal at the start of 2018.
Thanks all
To all above passim, yes words are indeed wonderful.
Recently I was taken by ambulance to our local hospital.
The first sign I saw was “resuscitation ward” whereupon I said to the nurse you cannot resuscitate me, I have not been suscitated yet!
I checked later, it does exist.
Thanks all
To all above passim, yes words are indeed wonderful.
Recently I was taken by ambulance to our local hospital.
The first sign I saw was “resuscitation ward” whereupon I said to the nurse you cannot resuscitate me, I have not been suscitated yet!
I checked later, it does exist
I think you should have saved that one for when more people would be likely to see it. 😉