Guardian 27,397 / Paul

61 comments on “Guardian 27,397 / Paul”

1. Thanks Paul and Eileen

   I’ve said this before, but I feel short-changed by puzzles with long solutions, usually guessed from word pattern and a few crossers (as here, from having M?U?H for the penultimate word).

   I was confused by PIGNUT too, as I know the carrot-like plant. MAN-TO-MAN was an example of clues I don’t like; I did try to work TATE into building up the solution, but MOMA would have been a long way down my list of galleries.

   On the other hand, I did like SCHEME, TRAPPIST and ENIGMATIC.

   Should 10a have had “Short day” rather than just “Day”?

2. Thanks Eileen for SERENADE and DAMSON. Racing drivers are not in my everyday solving vocabulary and see=catch didn’t register though I spotted the Dane.

   And thanks Paul for all the fun – the cocker doodle do was a belter.

3. Thanks for finding the positives Eileen in what for me was a lacklustre puzzle from Paul. I didn’t get LEMONY or PIGNUT, although maybe if I’d felt more like persevering I would have. I was disenchanted because I had YOUR rather than ONE’S in the long clue. It was only when it couldn’t be CARPACCIO or CARBONADO that I got to CARNATION. Surely having one’s in the clue and appearing twice in the solution is not great setting? And I’m not a fan of phrases which fill in several answers at once.
   Having had my grumble I did like DAMSON and agree that 23d is brilliant, so a real curate’s egg for me.

4. Mrs W got PIGNUT and LEMONY straightaway. It just goes to show how one’s 🙂 frame of mind impacts one’s 🙂 ability to think!

5. I do agree about long clues scattered all over the puzzle, which I find irritating to keep track of and I did have a comment to that effect in the preamble but deleted it, because I mercifully got the answer early on from the enumeration [as you say, rather irritating in itself] so didn’t have to do too much dodging about. Re the ‘one’s’ – we’ve had a fair bit of discussion in the past about whether to enter ‘one’s’ or ‘your’  in clues like this: the only way for the setter to make it clear is to use the appropriate word in the clue. They can’t win!

   I have to say, though, that the clues I picked out in the preamble overcame the irritation – this time.

6. Thanks both,

   The NY resolution not to look at the crossword until lunchtime didn’t survive long, I fear. Maybe I’m allowed an exception for Pauls. I’m usually on Paul’s wavelength and this was no exception. I quite like long clues but agree about the ‘one’s’/’your’ problem, made worse in this case as they shared a crosser. And there was a typo in the print version (‘tipy’ for ‘tipsy’).

   Nevertheless, an enjoyable start to the day.

7. What Eileen said in her preamble – Happy New Year and thank you to her and Paul

   My many years of cryptic experience have led me to not write in either ONES or YOUR until I have some checking letters in place – saves a lot of Tippex

    

    

8. Well I enjoyed it! Thanks Paul

9. 23 6 had a misprint in the paper – a pity to spoil a nice clue. All fairly entertaining but nothing special.

   Thanks to Paul and Eileen

10. Like White King @3 I went for YOUR, which did my SW corner no good at all. I shall try to remember crypticsue @7’s bright idea. Doubly unfortunate of course that the ambiguity is possible because of the grid design.

    The real problem of course with long phrases is that the enumeration can lead very quickly to a large part of the grid being filled in with no real effort. If I had not been so sloppy, this would have been a quick solve for a Paul.

11. (I wrote in ONES, but then went online to “Check”.)

12. Hi beery hiker @9

    I copied and pasted the clues from the online version – but 23 6 is the same in my paper.

13. Eileen

    My paper version has “tipy” – perhaps an earlier print run?

14. Oops, no it isn’t! I’ve just stared at it for ages and didn’t notice the ‘tipy’ until just after posting. It’s amazing how you see what you expect to see, isn’t it?

15. We crossed, beery. 😉

16. I have to defend this puzzle for TRAPPIST, YELTSIN and WINEMAKER.

    I was unfamiliar with YODA but the clue was simple. Maybe I should get out more

    Thanks Paul and Eileen.

17. Well I thought it was a lovely puzzle despite making a VERY slow start. Like Muffin, it was when I got M-U-H that I got my breakthrough.
    I’m of two minds about long, scattered clues. Although daunting at first, when you solve one you suddenly have a nice lot of crossers.
    16a TRAPPIST was my favourite.
    Thanks Paul for another great puzzle, and Eileen for the blog. I enjoyed the Yeltsin / Clinton clip too.

18. As usual with Paul crosswords the answers leap out from the definitions and crossers. Parsing comes later, sometimes never.

19. Thanks to Paul and Eileen for some parsing. Could not for the life of me see the parsing in compasses, though it seems obvious now. Also could not parse 23d wth the confusing tipy, even though the answer was obvious. Liked this a lot even though failed on pignut. There were plenty of chuckles along the way, 1a, 16a and 22a in particular and this to me is always a sign of a good puzzle. Thanks again Paul and Eileen.

20. I’m another one who put YOUR instead of ONE’S in the long clue.  I really didn’t expect Paul to be so careless (sorry!) as to have the same word in both the clue and the solution!  Needless to say, this held me up for a while (anagrams of “Motor race”  and an &Lit spring to mind ???).

    PIGNUT (my LOI, unsurprisingly) is very much an Americanism – I made acquaintance of the ‘pignut’ or hickory tree during a recent trip to the Appalachians – it’s related to the European walnut but don’t try eating the nuts folks – they’re not very palatable (probably why they’re called ‘pignuts’).  Anyway, the hickory doesn’t grow here, except in arboretums.

    My only other comment is strictly of a personal nature.  I also had KIRTLE (sing.) with precisely the same definition: “old gown”, in my ‘guest puzzle’ submission to Alberich’s website, a few months back.  At least my wordplay was different.  Hmnmmm….. 🙂

    But nevertheless a fine puzzle from Paul (middling-hard, I’d say) – as always!  Thanks to him and Eileen.

21. BTB@18 – that may be true in general, but not when we have the YOUR/ONES ambiguity to cope with – especially when the two instances of the word intersect!  Only one crosser remaining in each word to determine which it was.

22. I also felt aggrieved by ones/your, particularly since

    1. I noted the possibility

    2. it could not be confirmed by the common letter for 26/17

    3. I finished it except for carnation and pignut, and I might have got them if I had known which to go for (ironically I put “ones” in first then realised a little later it could be “your”)

    I failed to parse scheme despite getting shirt=chemise. Doh.

23. Thanks Paul and Eileen.

    I made rather heavy weather of this, as I didn’t get the long answer for a while, and then put in the YOURs at first.

    The ‘tipy’ typo also appears in my paper but I always do the crossword online, so it wasn’t a problem – and ‘tipy’ isn’t a real word, to my knowledge. ‘Russian leader’ is a bit sloppy, I think; the Ximeneans would not like it. It would be easy enough to put Russians’ leader or leader of Russians, I suppose. I missed the anagram, thanks Eileen.

    I quite liked the Paulian spaniels.

     

24. Thanks Paul and Eileen.

    Very entertaining crossword which I enjoyed solving.

    I always look out for Paul’s more lavatorial clues normally better suited 21ac MAN TO MAN. I wasn’t disappointed with the clues for 11ac LAVISHLY and 16ac TRAPPIST.

    Normally Paul would have found a coarser clue to 22,7dn COCK A DOODLE DOO, but his idea of sketching spaniels was inspired. Goes to show a clue doesn’t have to be smutty to raise a smile.

25. I realise my grumpiness became churlishness as I didn’t thank Paul for the puzzle or Eileen for help with parsing a couple. It seems there were many of us in the one’s/your mire, although most seem to have extracted themselves with more grace than me. As always there’s plenty to learn – if only I retained the learning long enough to apply it next time! Thanks to all.

26. Luckily got 13d first so your/ones wasn’t an issue. Enjoyed this but weirdly failed to get 11ac. Most annoying as I rarely complete a Paul.

27. Good fun crossword, as most of Paul’s are. Only complaint would be waiting to see if it was ‘one’s’ or ‘your’. Your is much more common in this money/mouth expression and ‘one’s’ was also in the clue.

28. Thanks, Paul and Eileen.

    I found this enjoyable. I did most of this at about 4am during a sleepless period, so missed the your/one’s thing; couldn’t the editor have suggested leaving “one’s” out of the clue altogether?

    “Easy charades… and insertions”? BEGINNING  an RECOVERED were two of my later ones in; they weren’t obvious to this “seasoned” solver. Brings to mind some of the comments from yesterday’s commentators.

29. BEGINNER, that is.

30. I found this mostly very enjoyable and particularly liked TRAPPIST and TANTRUM. Thank you Paul.
    And thank you Eileen for the parsing of SERENADE. I saw SEE, but totally missed DANE. Obvious once it’s pointed out.
    Your/ones caught me out too, though I did stop to think about it. However I decided in favour of YOUR at first as I’ve never heard ONES used in this expression in normal conversation.

31. Never heard of pignut but it couldn’t be anything else when all the crossers were in. We enjoyed this as always with Paul but it wasn’t his best or his hardest. Agatha Christie characters always use ‘one’s’ but nowadays we tend to say ‘your’, at least where we come from, up north.

32. Thanks to Paul and Eileen. I too usually have trouble with long answers, but this time, for whatever reason, I started with “one’s” and quickly got to the solution. That in turn gave me a lot of crossers and led to a quicker finish. I did not know Damon Hill for DAMSON or PIGNUT (so Google came into play) and got stuck for some time on COMPASSES (my LOI). Very enjoyable.

    Re MOMA (as opposed to Tate) in MAN-TO-MAN. At my first visit decades ago I was standing alone in the Mondrian room when two mothers and their teen-age daughters walked in. Three of them were clearly enjoying themselves, but one of the young ladies, clearly exasperated, remarked: “I’ve had enough. That painting looks like our bathroom tile.”

33. You would normally hear the long one as an instruction (to someone boasting, perhaps?), so YOUR would be much more natural than ONE’S.

34. crossbar @30, muffin @33 et al – the ‘one’s’ version is found in Collins, Oxford and Chambers, so I guess that gives good support to Paul.

35. Back to the drawing board for me, the only one I got today was Boris Yeltsin after that I did not get along with this at all, feeling like an absolute 8a, however after see the excellent explanation above I feel buoyed for tomorrow.

36. Enjoyed this a lot. I, too, thought of ‘TATE’ but the Tate is a gallery, not a museum. I rather like long solutions as long as I can get them. (Had to be ‘ones’ because it was in the clue)

37. ACD @32 – the young lady in your anecdote has my wholehearted approval!  I’ve often voiced the opinion “give me a couple of tins of Dulux, a 4″ brush, and a blank canvas: I’ll knock you up a genuine Rothko in half an hour….”.

    Don’t understand why more savvy art-lovers tut-tut my proposal….. 😕

38. Robi @34

    Yes – I just said “more natural”. The usual context is something like:

    “My team will beat your team tomorrow”

    “Put your money where your mouth is!”

39. I enjoyed this, as far as I got, and am obliged to Eileen, again, for the explanations/parsings. Following the your/one’s debate was entertaining. having one’s in the clue is a giveaway, making the double one’s in the answer too easy, I’d say. The objection to one’s in such phrases is partly, I feel, because the royal family is said to use one rather than you and we wouldn’t want to sound royal, would we!

    Thanks Paul and Eilenn and a belated HNY again to all.

40. Sorry, Eileen.

41. This was ok once I got going but actually getting going took quite a time. Then I opted for YOUR rather than ONES which delayed me with the SW corner but my error was easy to rectify.
    Perhaps not the best Paul but a mediocre Paul is better than no Paul at all.
    Thanks Paul.

42. It took me years to realise that bread is CRS for bread and honey.

43. Thanks for that, featherstonehaugh  – new one on me (and I’m a Winnie-the-Pooh aficianado!)

44. [Sorry – aficionado. I didn’t think it looked right!]

45. Like Dave Ellison@28, I found myself tackling this in the wee small hours of a wakeful night (in Australia). I loved every minute (and it took me a while). Thanks to Paul for the fun and Eileen for the clarifications.
    [I didn’t know “bread” was rhyming slang either – always thought it came from earning one’s daily bread, or some such…]

46. Can someone put me out of my misery please. How does see=catch?

47. Eric @46

    I see = I understand = I catch (on)

48. If anyone is still on, I can’t see how sharp instrument = compasses rather than just compass? Any help?

49. Gracon@48: The sharp instrument is a “pair of compasses” used for drawing circles; this is a single instrument (the plural is “pairs of compasses).  Does that help?

    I actually loved the puzzle – so many thanks to Paul (and to Eileen for the, as always, excellent blog).

50. gracon @48

    Compasses are a drawing instrument with a spike on one leg and a place for fixing a pencil on the other (used for drawing circles and arcs). Many geometric constructions are only valid if done with compasses and straight edge only.

51. A “pair of compasses” is what you draw circles with at school. Although it’s a plural word, it’s a singular instrument.

52. Eric@46 … see a film = catch a film … was my thought

53. As a maths teacher it was normal to be asked by a pupil: “Please may I buy a compass?” I would usually ask them if they were lost… One day a girl asked “Please may I buy a pair of compasses? “. I made a big thing of how delighted I was that she had used the correct term and I went to get her one from the cupboard. On my return she looked disappointedly at my offering and said “Where is the other one – for my friend?”

54. What is it with hinged things? All of pliers, scissors, forceps and compasses can be singular but sound plural and are often referred to as pairs.

55. Pretty much tangential, but if (a pair of) compasses is the device with a point and a pencil, what is the name of the device used by navigators with a point at each end, used for plotting repeated distances on a chart/map? Just curious.

56. [muffin@44 – I saw a sign on a farm stall out in the country last week advertising “Hunny for sale”. It made me smile. For a minute I thought feartherstonehaugh@43 was referring to Christopher Robin Speak instead of Cockney Rhyming Slang, as somehow I read your comment first!]

57. [Sorry meant muffin@43 and f’haugh@42.]

58. Simon S@55, on our boat we call them dividers or sometimes nautical compasses…

59. Love the story, Gary@53!

60. [pedant’s hat on]

    Tyngewick @54 – true of pliers, scissors and compasses – also ‘spectacles’ ‘trousers’ etc. – all plural words used for singular objects, usually with ‘pair’.  But ‘forceps’ is the odd one out there – it is merely a singular word which happens to end in -s (as does the original Latin).  It is not strictly correct to say “pair of forceps”.  If you want more than one, should you say “two forcepses”?  Probably best to just use “forceps” as both singular and plural.

    Similar arguments apply to words like “gallows” and “innings”, but then you never talk of a ‘pair’ of these.  OK you might collect a ‘pair’ as an inept batsman, but that’s another story…..

61. Late again – I fear I am commenting in a vacuum, but there are some interesting discussions above and ONE wishes to join in!  I often find Paul a daunting setter to start with, but (as with Araucaria), there is usually so much wit and inventiveness that the struggle is worthwhile and the satisfaction from a completed grid is far greater than with other setters.  This one on the other hand went in very quickly, almost to the end, and then I didn’t finish it as PIGNUT was new to me.  GNU will be mentally stored from now on though: very useful for setter and solver alike.  Assuming PASSES for ‘happens’ prevented me from parsing COMPASSES

    The long multi-clue is a Paul speciality I believe, but this one was quite obvious from the word pattern, and the fact that it wasn’t particularly cryptic (I am sure I recall 59 letter anagrams spread across most of the grid in the past!).  The ONE’S/your conundrum is a familiar one; I usually leave it blank until other clues show which it is, but this time I took Paul at his word, since ONE’S appeared in the clue (I consider that helpful rather than lazy setting).

    One and one’s are perfectly acceptable usage in my view, not as a substitute for the first or second person, but more when talking about a theoretical neutral person (“when challenged, one should put one’s money where one’s mouth is”), as opposed to confronting someone’s claims: “put your money where your mouth is”.  I actually prefer to use ‘one’ rather than ‘you’ unless someone specific is being addressed.  Not quite the same as the Royal family who seem to use it instead of the first person: “one is not amused”, to misquote the old Vic.

    Nice one Paul, and as always thanks to Eileen for PIGNUT and all the other lessons!

Comments are closed.