Guardian Cryptic 27,420 by Paul

by

A pangram from Paul.

I found this a little on the easier side as far as Paul’s puzzles go.  Although I smiled at 4ac, the definition was a bit weak, so I didn’t give it the tick it may have deserved.  I did like 17ac, 6dn and 14dn, though.

Thanks, Paul.

Across
1 ALCOVE Nook in which a copperhead is enamoured? (6)
  A + C(opperhead) in LOVE (“enamoured” = in love)
4 COWPAT Threaten to touch a steamer? (6)
  COW (“threaten”) + PAT (“to touch”)
9, 18 KISS OF DEATH Unfortunately, Ofsted has killed inspirational leaders, the final nail in the coffin? (4,2,5)
  *(ofsted has k i), where K and I are the initial letters (leaders) of “killed” and “inspirational”
10, 19 QUEENS PARK RANGERS  Side with keepers of the royal estate? (6,4,7)
  Rangers looking after a queen’s park…
11 WHEEZE Inhaler for this? That’s a good idea (6)
  Double definition
12 METHINKS I believe printing stuff in spirit (8)
  INK (“printing stuff”) in METHS (“spirit”)
13 JOBSWORTH Nothing to lose in battlefield after short run for a particular worker? (9)
  B(0)SWORTH (“battlefield” with nothing (0) lost) after JO(g) (short “run”)
15 BOXY Squarish front cut with axes (4)
  BO(w) (“front”, cut) with X and Y (“axes”)
16 WHUP Body lacking in width, lifted belt (4)
  W(idt)H (“width” with its body lacking) + UP (“lifted”)
17 DINOSAURS They refuse to adapt and ours is changing (9)
  *(and ours is)
21 BATHROOM Good time to cover a royal seat, wiping one for John’s chamber (8)
  BOOM (“good time”) to cover A THR(one) (“royal seat” wiping ONE)
22 DOZING Not concentrating, skin stuck on zip (6)
  DO (“skin”, as in “to beat easily”) stuck on ZING (“zip”)
24 PINA COLADA Cocktail, a small drink sent over, lay unfinished in the end (4,6)
  <= A NIP (“small drink”, sent over) + LA(y) in CODA (“end”)
25 ICED Decorated more than three weeks before Christmas, looking back (4)
  <=DEC 1 (“more than three weeks before Christmas”, back)
26 GO-KART Mediocre craft behind good racer (2-4)
  OK (“mediocre”) + ART (“craft”) behind G(ood)
27 CHEERS Good health makes you feel better (6)
  Double definition
Down
1 ATISHOO Sound of hooter, it has gone off with two rings (7)
  *(it has) + O O (“two rings”)
2 CASTE Class act finally dressed in suit (5)
  (ac)T dressed in CASE (“suit”)
3 VAQUERO A reservation almost captured by very old cowboy (7)
  A QUER(y) (“reservation”, almost) captured by V(ery) O(ld)
5 ORNATE Elaborate talk about ultimate in decoration (6)
  ORATE (“talk”) about (decoratio)N
6 PEPSI COLA Ground spice infusing most of cold drink (5,4)
  *(spice) infusing POLA(r) (most of “cold”)
7 TURNKEY Old screw‘s failure to secure pole (7)
  TURKEY (“failure”) to secure N(orth) (“pole”)
8 GEOMETRIC MEAN Arbitrary comment, I agree, is kind of average (9,4)
  *(comment i agree)
14 SOUTHWARK London’s Borough Market has endless foil to wrap up (9)
  SOUK (“market”) has THWAR(t) (endless “foil”) to wrap up, so SOU(THWAR)K
16 WHALING This slaughter’s controversial, for crying out loud? (7)
  Homophone of WAILING (“crying”, out loud)
18   See 9
 
19   See 10
 
20 COLOUR Pass over the Guardian’s prejudice (6)
  COL (mountain “pass”) over OUR (“the Guardian’s”)
23 ZAIRE Old country with two sharp bends on river (5)
  Z (“two sharp bends”, on a road sign) + AIRE (“river”)

*anagram

61 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 27,420 by Paul”

  1. Thanks Paul and loonapick

    Easy enough to fill in, but some unparsed – I didn’t see (and don’t really like) QUER(y) for “reservation”, POLA(r) for “cold” or DO for “skin. I’m surprised that a tradename was allowed at 6d.

    QUEENS PARK RANGERS was easy, but raised a smile.

  4. I am a huge fan of Paul’s but it’s a shame this site doesn’t allow images in the comments so as to display how much of a contortionist you d have to be to view a road sign as a Z. Coupled to a very obscure DO= Skin, the SE corner should not have been passed by the editor in my view.

  5. Having recently exchanged being a headteacher for retirement with the daily crossword, 9,18 still brought on a sharp intake of breath. Mr H’s similar came at 22.

    Really liked the cowboy – getting to the answer without knowing the definition is very satisfying. Also enjoyed QPR, jobsworth and bathroom. Stuck on the 16s for ages.

    Thanks all for keeping me busy each morning. I have certainly improved since spending the time with you and have come a long way since the prize usually kept us busy from Sat to Tues.

  6. Thanks setter and blogger.

    gsol@4: I agree with you in liking Paul’s puzzles, but less with your reservations.
    ‘Z-bend’ is a common term for a pair of sharp bends (not necessarily on a road sign).
    ‘Do’ and ‘skin’ can both mean ‘cheat’ – I am less familiar with loonapick’s ‘beat easily’.

  7. Thanks, Paul and loonapick.

    Thanks for your first couple of sentences, Hedgehog. 😉 It’s good to have you here.

    gsol @4 does this help?

    muffin @1 –  I got QUER[y] immediately – the two words are used  interchangeably so often here. 😉

    I thought SOUTHWARK was a real classic, for the reason muffin mentions.

     

  8. Thanks Paul, loonapick

    V hard, gave up on WHUP, but should have just followed the instructions.  I liked the particular worker and I believe for JOBSWORTH and METHINK

    Of course Borough Market is in Southwark – that’s why it’s called Borough Market.  Southwark is not a London borough, it is Borough, or the Borough.  Not saying it’s not an ace clue, though.

  10. Beaulieu and Eileen @ 6&7. Thank you both for your replies. Paul is SO good that I persevere with his puzzles for much longer than any other setter. For me, he is the most worthy successor to Araucaria.

    The images on the link you posted Eileen were the kind I wished to use to illustrate my point. (I should have thought like you, to add a link!). As the text there states , depending on the angle of the bend, the letter evoked could be a Z or an N.

    As I originally said, I feel it’s the combination of obscurities in two overlapping clues that the editor should have perhaps questioned.

  11. A couple of weeks ago I said I thought I’d climbed a few rungs on the solving ladder – and mused then that no doubt I’d land on the head of a snake soon enough. Well this was it for me – more of a dns (start) than dnf. With many “I wonder if it could be” checks I sort of got there. With hindsight it was more accessible than it seemed at the time and there are lots of clever clues, but I wasn’t on Paul’s wavelength today. Ho hum, let’s see what tomorrow brings. With thanks (I think) to Paul and definitely to loonapick for switching on the light for me.
    And we’ll done Hedgehog:-)

  13. Thanks to both Paul and Loonapick.

    I too loved the Borough Market and Southwark connection which I spotted straight away thanks to visits to the Market before going to S&B gatherings at the George pub

  14. Hubris is a dangerous thing. Just when I thought I was becoming a daily solver, I find myself beaten soundly by a Paul puzzle.
    Did not know 10a QUEENS PARK RANGERS, 3D VAQUERO or 14d SOUTHWARK (nor the fodder SOUK for the latter). I only got 13a JOBSWORTH because it was in a recent puzzle and people helped me then to understand an unfamiliar word, though the Battle of Bodsworth even now only very vaguely rings a bell. I had not heard of Ofsted in 9a18d, though that should not have prevented me from seeing KISS OF DEATH. in the end, only 17a DINOSAURS and 27a CHEERS were solved in the SE. The two sharp bends eluded me totally for 23d ZAIRE and I didn’t twig to 1 Dec for 25a ICED.
    Sigh! Wednesday’s tale is full of woe, to bastardise an old rhyming line.
    I did like the two drinks, PINA COLADA at 24a and PEPSI COLA at 6d, despite the latter being a brand name which I thought was verboten (see muffin@1).
    7d TURNKEY reminded me of a recent debate on this forum about “turkey” being used to describe a stupid person… “clot”, was it?
    I thought the anagrind at 8d “Arbitrary” was unusual, but our setters are always coming up with new ones! At least I got the anagram of GEOMETRIC MEAN, not that I know what it “means”.
    Still don’t understand the dd at 11a WHEEZE, another incomplete.
    Thanks to loonapick for a much-needed blog, and to Paul for the tussle in which I was well and truly defeated. Mortifying when others said it was easy…
    Think I’ll go out and howl at the blue red supermoon, which I am hoping rises soon and is not obscured by clouds…

  16. Good that Paul resisted the go-to anagram of EPISCOPAL for 6d. 🙂

    Alan @2, thank you for the link – will listen later. (Should that be Jan ’18 in the link, if you say it’s recent?)

  17. JinA @14

    “Wizard wheeze” is an expression that Billy Bunter and other schoolboys of that period might have used for a “cunning plan”. Someone with a wheeze (from asthma perhaps) would use an inhaler.

    Your “battle of Bodsworth” reminds me of your “Blodwin Moor” a few days ago!  🙂

  18. muffin@1, JiA@14: A genuine question. I have never been aware of brand names not being allowed – where does this “rule” come from? And if Pepsi Cola is dodgy, what about Queens Park Rangers – isn’t that essentially just a brand name for a football club?

  19. JinA – soulmate indeed – spookily similar experiences. At least you have good reason not to know QPR (I did get this one) or SOUTHWARK.

  20. beaulieu @18

    I think it’s in their style guide (I was given a paper’s style guide for Christmas, but unfortunately it was the Times – still an interesting read, though!)

    Mass communicators are terrified of accidentally giving publicity to products. You may remember that in Ray Davies’s (of The Kinks) song Lola he “drinks champagne that tastes like cherry cola”. If had said “Coca Cola”, the BBC wouldn’t have aired it.

  21. Thanks Paul, the pangram helped me to get BOXY towards the end of the solve.

    Thanks loonapick; I didn’t find it easy but my computer and I solved it in the end. I did like the clue for SOUTHWARK, although I failed to parse it. I also rather liked COWPAT – I don’t mind if the definition is a bit allusive.

  22. Thanks to Paul and loonapick. I am another who was feeling smug with my recent successes. A dnf for me though only failed by one. Could not for the life of me get 15a and blagged in coxy. That said a couple not fully parsed and whup was a complete guess, so thanks again to loonapick for clarifying things for me. Overall really liked the puzzle despite my failure and there were many great clues, so thanks again to setter and blogger.

  25. This was an enjoyable challenge. Got there in the end, but needed the blog for the parsing of SOUTHWARK.

    Re trade names: I wasn’t aware of any ban on these. Don’t we quite often have makes and models of cars, for example?

  26. Been a little off the crossword since the new format was introduced – which I hate. However, when I saw that the setter was Paul, I decided to put the gloves on! As mentioned in an earlier comment, he is a very worthy successor to our beloved Araucaria. The clue for Southwark was brilliant. Also liked Jobsworth!

  27. Still smiling over the steaming COWPAT at 4a. Lovely how on the radio interview with you, alanjcannon@2, Paul/John Halpern talks about “a huge amount of satisfaction from doing one clue”. I get that.

    JinA

  28. [WhiteKing@19: I have been in London – physically not via literature and film – for only five days in my 64 years … and Great Britain for only eight days – this is my (weak) excuse for missing so many UK related clues. Again, not worried about The Guardian being UK-based: it is my very deliberate choice to engage with such a quality puzzle and such a life-affirming crossword community.]

    Now pelting rain and storming here (11 pm) in “sunny Queensland” after 33 degree heat – went out to check the moon and felt the first drops… so no howling at the moon for me tonight.

  30. Oh muffin@17, more mortification, Bodsworth/Bosworth!!!

    Thanks for the WHEEZE explanation. Much appreciated.

    Will crawl back into my wombat hole.

  31. I enjoyed this tricky offering from Paul (and spotting the pangram as it began to materialize in the grid), but after fairly well flying through most of the puzzle, i landed with a thud in the SW corner and really struggled to get over the finish line.  I think I spent more time solving SOUTHWARK, WHALING (which in retrospect I thought I should have seen much sooner) and especially WHUP, my LOI, than I did on the rest of the puzzle.  All in all, some very nice clues, as always with this setter.  COWPAT gave me a laugh.  I think ICED was my favorite.  Many thanks to Paul, loonapick and the other commenters.

  32. Can someone explain how the containment of C[opperhead] is indicated in 1a please? I mean, if it’s ‘…in which…’ then surely the A must be included, making it LACOVE?

    Thanks to all.

  34. [Great radio interview, alanjcannon@2.

    Thanks for the link. I continue to be blown away by the wonders of being connected via the internet!!!

    I loved this broadcast. The Neil Young and Jethro Tull (?) songs were such a bonus.

    “Paul” remains my favourite solver. You showcased him so beautifully here. I was very moved by his stories of his mother and grandmother.

    It was very heart-warming to hear you both affirming Rufus’ contribution to the crossword world.

    And of course you honoured Araucaria, whose cryptic crosswords I first engaged with (albeit very intermittently) back when they were syndicated to my Brisbane daily newspaper.

    I liked the visualisations I had of “John Paul” in Vatican Square that were evoked by your exchange with “Paul”.

    Uncannily, I was reminded through the whole broadcast of the Bee Gees song “Words” – they may have been British migrants originally, but we now claim them as our own (I have lived in Brisbane Queensland Australia for two thirds of my life). And then, in some kind of amazing synchronicity, you played that song as the finale to your broadcast.

    Many thanks,

    JinA]

  35. Thanks to Paul and loonapick. Tough going for me. I had trouble with WHEEZE (my LOI), JOBSWORTH, DO as skin, WHUP, and the Queen in QUEENS PARK RANGERS.

  36. I couldn’t come up with souk for Southwark.  Thanks, loonapick.  But another point comes up — Southwark is a nod to yesteday’s puzzle, because it’s where Chaucer the narrator met all those other people — “in Southwark at the Tabard as I lay.”

    More Soutwark — what is the difference between a Borough and a London Borough?  and then a Royal Borough, while we’re at it?

    Is whup a word?  It sounds like hillbilly talk to me.  I would think the word is whop.

    Signs for a windy road in the US look like the Irish one.  No Z’s or N’s, just wiggles.

    I’d never heard of Ofsted either, Julie, but it was clearly anagram fodder, so I just ground it up.  I liked methinks.

     

    There’s a Bosworth St in San Francisco, and I’ve always hoped if the Richard III Society ever sets up there that they’d have their office on that street.  Not a good street for offices, though, very residential, and like many San Francisco streets very steep.

    Missed the pangram — I’m even better at missing those than themes.

  37. This was an odd mixture – most of it went in very quickly, but the last few more than made up for it. WHUP was last in, but I couldn’t parse DOZING either, so thanks for that. Full of humour and ingenuity. My favourite was COWPAT.

    Thanks to Paul and loonapick

  38. Unlike a few above, I got WHUP pretty quickly. I’m old enough to remember Muhammad Ali when he really was The Greatest, and ‘whup’ was a word he used several times to describe what he would do to his opponents

  39. [muffin@20: What an evocative reference to one of the classics:

    “You may remember that in Ray Davies’s (of The Kinks) song Lola he “drinks champagne that tastes like cherry cola”. If had said “Coca Cola”, the BBC wouldn’t have aired it.”

    Such a risqué song back in the day.]

     

  41. 16a WHUP completely defeated me. I recognise it as a word but not not one I’d have thought of with just the U in the crossers. I put in CLUB, which I half-parsed as the reverse of BULK without the K with no explanation for the C. This made 16d impossible. Perhaps I should have concentrated on 16d first.

    And, I didn’t notice it was a pangram.

    Despite all that and having to break off several times for other commitments I really enjoed this. Favourites were 10/19, 25, 6 and 7.

    Many thanks to Paul for the fun, and Loonapick for the explanations.

  43. Thanks loonapick and Paul.

    I found this started out quite easy, but, as for beer hiker, it toughened up for me too.

    I am surprised no one else has yet winced at the surface of 22a, or perhaps that is because I am a male with experience.

    Julie @ 14. Isn’t it a red supermoon for you rather than a blue red supermoon. I see the full moon was 1 Feb 2018 at 00.26 (ie not in January) in Sydney, so would be much the same time in Brisbane. You do have a blue moon in March however.

     

  44. Apologies Julie @ 14; I have just found in Brisbane the full moon was Jan 31 at 23.26. I see Sydney and Brisbane are in different time zones, though more or less on the same longitudes (1.8 degrees difference).

     

    So some parts of Australia get the full blue red and others not.

  45. Fairly tough going for me too, and I was left with about five spaces when I clicked on the website and saw PANGRAM!! – in this situation, a welcome spoiler on the login page. So back to the drawing board, and I got DOZING, ZAIRE and JOBSWORTH. Gave up on WHUP, but enjoyed the puzzle nonetheless. Thanks to Paul and loonapick.

  46. I liked most of this and,indeed, most went in smoothly but I fell foul of the 16’s. I should have got WHALING much more quickly than I did but WHUP I had to guess-and resort to the check button. Grudgingly I have to admit that the clue is fine in retrospect!
    Thanks Paul

  47. Technical DNF for me, had to resort to a whole series of ‘Check this’ operations to suss out WHUP.  After that, at least the LOI for me, WHALING, was pretty clear: until then I was stumped.  Trouble is, WHUP is rather archaic, I’d already gone through just about every four-letter word meaning ‘hit’ — except that one…

    OK Paul you got me!  Liked quite a few here – METHINKS especially good.  Also liked COWPAT – conjures up thoughts of muddy tramps across fields….  Of course everyone knows the old joke that starts “What’s brown and steaming, and comes out of….”  Never mind.

    Is there a theme?  I think PINA COLADA and PEPSI COLA sit rather awkwardly together, whether ICED or no.  Sounds a ghastly combination – not even worth a “CHEERS” I reckon…

    Oh, and a minor gripe with loonapick – sorry!  Please try and ensure that any ‘spoilers’ are not visible on the page above this one!  You typed “A pangram from Paul” which didn’t give away much, I grant you – but still that was information I’d rather not have seen when I came back to 225 to add a comment on yesterday‘s puzzle, before doing today‘s…

    Thanks to Paul and loonapick.

     

  48. I didn’t get WHUP either.  Despite attributions of usage to a few Americans, I’ve always seen it spelled as “whoop” and pronounced with an ‘oo’ as in look, not a ‘u’ as in cut. I assume British English is pronounced similarly.   I don’t consider it archaic in American English but it definitely has a redneck connotation, such as in “I’m gonna open up a can of whoop-ass”,  which I suppose becomes “a tin of whup-arse” in British English – and I think I’ll just let that lie.

  49. BD @ 48

    I’ve always heard it pronounced as w(h)-up, as in ‘w(h)-up his ass’. Glad you didn’t decide to go for whip-arse, though, as the implications of that are too painful to think about…

  50. Got poppet for 4 across:

    Threaten  – pop (take a pop at)

    to touch  – pet

    a steamer – poppet = ‘Also called poppet valve. Machinery. a rising and falling valveconsisting of a disk at the end of a vertically set stem, used ininternal-combustion and steam engines’

     

  51. I forgot — to me “whaling” and “wailing” are not homophones.  They, or similar pairs, have been treated as such in these puzzles before.  It reminds me of hearing years ago on BBC the the Russians had stopped hunting for Wales.  Couldn’t someone send them a map?

  52. Laccaria @ 47

    Apologies for the “spoiler”, but I couldn’t resist the alliteration when coming up with a title – consider me censured, however, and I’ll try not to repeat my transgression.

  55. I didn’t get either of the 16s. I read 16a as remove w from a word meaning body, and the nearest I got to a controversial slaughter was sealing. I learnt a lot about kosher and halal slaughter methods researching this clue.

    Wailing was the only crying out loud word I didn’t think of, probably because I have the same non-RP view that w- and wh- don’t sound alike.

  56. Probably I’m too late at the party to get a response to this but I’m puzzled by James’ @ 8 comment (“Of course Borough Market is in Southwark – that’s why it’s called Borough Market.  Southwark is not a London borough, it is Borough, or the Borough.  Not saying it’s not an ace clue, though”). Southwark is one of the London Boroughs (and one which our Treasurer’s football team at LB Lewisham had some feisty matches against)!

    There’s no disagreement about it being a great clue though!

  57. Too late to add this but I will anyway! Had to use the check button only once though – I’d put compel instead of cowpat. I couldn’t parse it but that was the case with several of the others. In the end I kind of got there, although quite a lot of dictionary and even thesaurus work was needed. I did enjoy this – despite the technical DNF. Mrs N-L was invaluable for atishoo. If anyone reading this knows: what is it that makes this a pangram? Is it that all letters of the alphabet are just somewhere in the grid? So if you see an X or Z, for example, you think, “Pangram?”
    Many thanks to Paul and Loonapick

  58. ^  Yes, that’s basically what a pangram is, and how a solver begins to suspect it. I can’t say I always notice one, but some people think it can help if they suspect (say) a Q or a Z is likely to be in whatever unsolved clues they have remaining. I don’t really see that – surely there are many more grids that come very close to being pangrams.

    There can be double pangrams etc as well of course. This recent puzzle was a doozy that you might like, if you haven’t already done it: http://puzzles.independent.co.uk/games/cryptic-crossword-independent/?puzzleDate=20180101#!201801 .

    And this is the blog for it – obviously don’t read the blog before doing the puzzle! http://www.fifteensquared.net/2018/01/01/independent-9740-maize/

  61. Thank you, Nila Palin, most kind of you to reply! I will check out those links. Right then, I’ll put Spotting Pangrams on my Maybe One Day list along with Spotting Themes!

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