Guardian Prize / 27,417 / Paul

54 comments on “Guardian Prize / 27,417 / Paul”

1. Thanks Eileen.  Agree with every one of your comments.  PARIETAL LOBE lit up early (though parsing its second half eluded me) followed by some other nearby parts before at last cracking the distracting 10A theme word.  My mind soon had the right word for 4D but didn’t crack pallus-y for ages.  The pons in 14A was absolutely the last to slot in.

2. Thanks to Paul and Eileen. I’m not sure why, but I got HEAD early on so initially was looking for chin, eyes, etc., then caught on to parts of the brain, many of which I knew and others I had to check out. I too could not figure out the mob in AMOEBA,  so I’m hoping for some help here (is MOB Main Operating Base relevant?). I correctly guessed FALLACY from the crossers, but needed Eileen to explain why. An enjoyable workout.

3. Thanks Eileen. I had trouble identifying the theme and HEAD revealed itself quite late in the piece. Unlike you I needed confirmation from Google on most of the theme parts. I flirted with ‘entrails’ for 16d and still think it is defensible if ‘going places’ is the anagrind. My LOI was 4d, I knew what it had to be but took a while to see why.

4. Sorry, I should have said that in my experience ‘mob’ is not uncommon as an affectionate slang term for the Army as in ‘join the mob’.

5. Found this a good solve, the various parts of the brain were dredgeable from my memory.  Thanks, Paul, for the workout.

   With regard to 21d and whether army and mob can be equated, I have on occasion seen references to, e.g., an “army of protesters,” who surely are truly a mob.

   Here’s an example:

   https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/we-won-trump-tower-lone-supporter-takes-army-protesters-n723416

   Thanks, Eileen for the blog.

6. Thanks, Eileen. MOB brought to mind the infamous demob suits at the end of WWII. Of course, demob was short for demobilisation but it was the only justification I could see.

7. Thanks Eileen, I agree this was a very satisfying solve.

   I didn’t have a problem with AMOEBA. I think both army and mob can carry the meaning of ‘in large numbers’ – eg ‘they turned up mob-handed’ or ‘they came with an army of supporters’.

   I also knew the second meaning of HEAD (though I thought it always appeared in the plural), having worked with nautical chaps who used the term even for the office toilets. They used to refer to the activity most commonly carried out in such places as ‘easing springs’, which I never understood.

8. My Shorter has for army, as 4th meaning, ‘a vast assemblage, a host.’  For mob, also 4th meaning, ‘a promiscuous assemblage of people.  In Australian use, without disparaging implication, a crowd.’  In current Australian use mob is used by the indigenous population with pride to describe the group they belong to.  I parsed it as Eileen did, but in a matter of moments.

9. Most enjoyable. A bit of head scratching and everything was revealed.  No great problem with MOB/army, and lots of clever clues, so PAR for Paul.  PALINDROME was possibly my favourite, for ROME not being Germany’s capital city.  I feel LAMMAS has appeared in a puzzle recently, with a similar construction.  Thanks Eileen and Paul.

10. Thanks Paul and Eileen

    Sorry if this sounds like boasting, but I found this really easy. I’m familiar with brain anatomy, so AMYGDALA* was FOI, which immediately gave me HEAD (I knew the second meaning from the hilarious Cary Grant/Tony Curtis film Operation Petticoat, about a pink submarine). The only delay was parsing FALLACY; I eventually remembered who the setter was!

    *derives from Latin (Greek originally) “almond”, as it’s almond-shaped

11. Thanks both. As my father was in the Royal Navy during the war, HEAD was familiar, although always in the plural (like g larsen @7). And MOB = army seems fine to me.

12. Having almost completed a “dry January” when I solved this, 23a seemed like the best clue of all time. Nice one, Paul.

    Thanks for the blog Eileen. I had everything but the second def of HEAD.

13. We found this very enjoyable, as Eileen says.

    The fallacy/phallusy link is permanently etched on my mind after seeing a captioned drawing (which I needn’t describe :)) carved into a wooden desktop at school – at age 11 I was very impressed  at its cleverness!

    I also loved the Sobering up/Ignores pub anagram which I was surprised not to have seen before – it’s right up there with Carthorse/Orchestra!

14. I found this quite easy although I wasn’t familiar with a few of the brain parts. However as these were impeccably clued they were easy to derive with a couple of crossers.

    10A was a write in and as it was referenced in the first clue was the FOI which does help with a “keyword”

    I can’t believe that people weren’t familiar with “the heads”. Toilets are always referred to as “heads” on seagoing vessels as the toilet used to be a hole in the bow (which is also known as “the head”.) I do live on a narrowboat boat but the toilet there is usually referred to as “a toilet” 😉 Bizarrely the road in Keswick which contains some very swanky houses overlooking Derwentwater (mostly hotels and B&Bs now) is also named “The Heads”

     

15. Thanks Eileen and Paul. Very enjoyable from start to finish.

    My way in was on the first run through with CRAMPONS – the PONS could only be bridge or part of the brain. However, HEAD was much, much later and I had to ask my wife, who knew the explanation straight away.

    I knew all the brain parts from the days I researched in the area of artificial neural networks.

    I was pleased to know a Latin/Greek word (AMYGDALA) that must have escaped you, Eileen; presumably it doesn’t figure in Virgil too often 🙂

16. Re mob = [the]  army: I gave this a lot of thought and concluded that, if I parsed it without comment, there might be queries / reservations. I consulted Gaufrid and it was he who plumbed the thesaurus and came up with the equivalence that I mentioned in the blog, borne out by g Larsen @7.

    Thank you, caretman @5 for the article, which I read and didn’t find the word ‘mob’ anywhere – and the article actually said that the demonstration was peaceful. I have marched round London, Edinburgh and Leicester for a variety of causes and would take exception to being described as a member of ‘truly a mob’.

    Thanks, too, NeilW @6 – I couldn’t get the picture of my father’s hideous de-mob suit out of my head and did momentarily wonder if Paul was having a laugh – I do know what ‘demob’ stands for. 😉

    I’m only commenting now to say that, although, for me, ‘mob’ is always disparaging, except when used facetiously affectionately – and I would use it that way myself – I really wouldn’t like this rather minor point to take over the discussion on this entertaining puzzle. So I concede and hope that’s the end of it. [Actually, I’ve spent so long composing this post that I see that discussion  has, mercifully. moved on. Good.]

    r_c_a_d @12 – Happy February! 😉

    Dave Ellison @15 – you’re right!

17. Liked this even though I didn’t know all the brain parts. Easy enough to get most of them though. I liked LATRINES and MR UNIVERSE. I didn’t have any trouble with MOB. It was used by those I knew who had served almost universally. Mind you, that was a long time ago and the term may have died out, but I didn’t trouble to look it up.
    Nice puzzle.

18. Well, I think it’d be appropriate to say, “my brain hurts” after doing this one!  So I couldn’t help but turn to a bit of light relief.  Enjoy!

    All the technical words were fairly clued, all the same – and most of the rang a bell – though – unlike Mr Gumby – I had no idea which parts of my grey cells they rang a bell in!

    Did anyone not recognise that LOAF, as in “use yer loaf!” is Cockney rhyming slang: “Loaf of bread” -> “head”?

    Good Prize – thanks Paul & Eileen.

19. I should have added, I remember (dimly) the word “amygdaloidal” (as opposed to “amygdala”) from my days doing A-level geology.  It refers to a type of igneous rock which contains almond-shaped vesicles infilled with a secondary mineral. Such rocks can often be attractive in appearance and used for decorative effect.

    Like the brain part, the word of course comes from the Greek for “almond”.

20. I think Paul has to be my favourite setter. Though not being quite old enough for compulsory soldiering I have always known that mob = army (amongst other things) so no problem there. I had heard if all the head parts but did have to check most of them to be sure. And I loved 22ac – quite right Mr Beaver.

21. I think HEAD was my first one in – I knew the term and thought about who the setter was. Unfortunately, I found I was more familiar with terms for toilets than for parts of the brain, and getting the rest of the theme clues was harder. Fortunately, Google has some nice labelled illustrations, and they were all very nicely clued. My last in was FALLACY, and I rather kicked myself for not seeing that earlier.. I didnt think twice about ‘mob’ – I had in mind a general sort of crowd.

    Thanks, Paul. Very entertaining. And thanks, too, to Eileen..

22. A well-known mob is the “Barmy Army” of England cricket supporters!

23. Getting the theme early on made this leisurely stroll. Always love the funny names for the parts of the brain. In Numskulls terms the Homophone department wouldn’t work to forward my LOI 4d but what else could it be and the Anagrinders wouldn’t surrender 13 but again . . . i’m touting a conv i had with Paul at the mo find here https://www.mixcloud.com/alanjcannon/alan-j-cannon-talking-with-john-halpern-10-jan-17-xwds/

24. HEADS: I remember a friend, who was in the RNVR, telling me that there were no female toilets on  HMS President (or was it HMS Chrysanthemum?) which was moored on the Thames Embankment in the 1970s (and possibly later). So when they had open days a sign was displayed saying “Ladies may use Officers Heads”

25. Thanks to Paul and Eileen. Wow if ever a puzzle was right up my street this was it. Having been in the RN many years ago head came quite quickly. Then as a retired psychology researcher/lecturer I was extremely familiar. I have spent countless hours explaining the nature and function of these and other structures. Hence overall a pretty straightforward solve for me with lots of nice clues. Horses for courses I suppose and now I will probably come a right cropper on today’s.thanks again Paul and Eileen.

26. Oops should have been familiar with the theme. Anyone know how to get rid of this infuriating cookies banner tha keeps covering my comments?

27. PetHay @26

    “Anyone know how to get rid of this infuriating cookies banner tha keeps covering my comments?”

    Click on the ‘Accept’ button and the cookie consent box should disappear for a period of 30 days. If you are using a mobile device to view the site, you may need to scroll down to the bottom of the page and select ‘desktop view’ before the button will work. You can then switch back to the ‘mobile view’ by using the option at the bottom of the page.

28. I don’t love Paul quite as much as some but I thought this was top class, if on the easy side for a Prize crossword.

29. G larsen@7
    “Ease springs” is apart of rifle drill in which the bolt is moved rapidly backwwards and forwards to eject any ammunition befote presenting the rifle for inspection. In the context you mention I suppose the phrase may be also used in the sense of a water spring.
    You and others may enjoy the poem “Naming of parts” by Henry Reed in which the instructor’s military terms lead the trainee to daydream of the surrounding countryside.
    I too hd only heard of “heads” in the pural.
    Thanks to Paul and Eileen

30. Excellent blog Eileen

31. Thanks Gaufrid gone now, always wary about pressing accept (must be my age).

32. Thanks Pino @29 for resolving my thirty-year puzzlement. What an amazing source of unlikely information this site is!

33. Re the “army/mob” debate – I recall some words from Flanders’ and Swan’s famous Hippopotamus song:

    “A regular army, of hippopotami/All singing this haunting refrain…”

    I don’t suppose there’s any suggestion that the poor hippos were under military orders! 🙂

34. I got on to the theme from 14, CRAMPONS. I knew pons rang a bell, and once I’d looked it up I was away. Happily I found past curiosity about the brain meant I knew all the themers and a penny dropping on the possible meaning of “floating toilet” followed by a look in Chambers (“often in pl.“) confirmed the suspected 10a (but wouldn’t BRAIN have been better if it could have fitted in?).

    I’m kicking myself over not understanding “phallusy” (thanks, Eileen), though FALLACY had to be right.

    In 11, PALINDROME, the “(Germany)’s” seems to be unaccounted for. It’s unusual for Paul to be less than perfect in cluing — or am I wrong?

    I read army = mob = “a violent host” (good cryptic clue, eh?), but that would be better without “the”. I’m happy to accept, though, that it’s affectionate in-slang as pointed out by those in the know.

    22d, POPLAR had me completely baffled for ages and was in fact LOI.

    Thanks, alanjcannon, for the link to the interview which I exoect to very much enjoy listening to later. I wish I’d seen John / Paul on The Chase, too. One of the best programmes of its type.

    Btw, those who follow the Guardian crossword blog will know BLIGHTY was the subject of a cluing competition there recently, and I don’t think anyone came up with Paul’s beautifully simple “Britain at war” as def.

35. Hi all, maiden post for me. I’ve been attempting the Guardian cryptic for about 6 months now, usually try 2 or 3 of the dailies plus the prize. I always come here afterwards but a combination of not starting until the evenings plus still being rather slow means the threads aren’t generally live by the time I arrive.

    I almost finished this one, just failed on LAMMAS having never heard of this, or of LAMAS. My brain knowledge(!) is poor so all the 10 parts bar HIPPOCAMPUS were jorums (jora?) to a degree for me. I did know enough about Paul though to parse phallus-y!

    Thanks to Paul whose puzzles I always seem to enjoy and likewise to Eileen whose blogs I always enjoy 🙂

36. Tony @34 – “In 11, PALINDROME, the “(Germany)’s” seems to be unaccounted for” – Germany supplies the D.

    Welcome, nobby @35! 😉

37. Eileen,

    Germany supplies the D

    Yes, but I should have written:

    ‘the [Germany]”’s” seems to be unaccounted for’

    I.e. there’s a redundant {apostrophe ess} in the clue, isn’t there?

    nobby @35,
    Store that LAMA — you’re going to need it again !

38. Tony @37 yes, I misunderstood you – my apologies.

    I think we’ve had a lot of discussion on this before:  ””s” [is / has] is a very common – and perfectly legitimate, I think, linking device / way of indicating a definition. I must admit that I didn’t give it a second thought but, now that I’m pushed, I think that, here, I’d read it as ‘Germany has’ [is followed by].

     

39. Ha thanks Tony! Yes it did occur to me that this was a sign of my inexperience after nobody else above mentioned it!

40. I hadn’t given it a second thought either but just accepted that Germany in German is Deutschland with a capital D and that Rome is simply a city.

41. Eileen,

    “[“‘s” is a] perfectly legitimate, I think, linking device / way of indicating a definition”

    I agree, but that’s not what happening here, is it?

    Here it’s “‘s” = has to link parts of a charade (as I think you were perhaps meaning to say). That works for me. Hadn’t thought of it. Thanks for the explanation.

    From recollection, in Alberich’s pages about Ximenean cluing he mentions that some don’t approve of this practice, but he is still prepared to use it reluctantly at a pinch.

    On the other hand, Paul doesn’t belong to that school. In fact I recall reading somewhere that when, as a tyro, he asked his mentor Araucaria for advice about cluing he was told (something like) “Make sure you never read Ximenes on the Art of the Crossword“.

42. Ah, rereading what you wrote, I now understand you meant both those ways of using “‘s” = has. Sorry

43. nobby

    There are lots of little words like that which setters find handy for particular combinations of letters. I think these days you can find lists of them on crossword websites. ‘Course, us old-timers had to learn them as we went…

44. Had no trouble with HEAD or AMYGDALA, with LAMMAS or the D in PALINDRDOME but I couldn’t get the two 22s, despite having, at the age of about seven – a long time ago – having noticed the potential link between the tree and the Ford Popular of the oh-so-similar name. Doh.

    And Cake => PASTRY? Doh again. (Dough?)

45. Once again, Paul has proven to be my favorite setter! Leave it to him to have a puzzle incorporating parts of the brain, but they all go back to HEAD at 10 Across. I thought, those are all parts of the brain, but what could 10A be? I also love that, with HEAD, he managed to have a TRIPLE definition clue. Well played, sir! I also learned how AMYGDALA is actually spelled. I’ve heard the word before, but I’d never seen it in print. Y, not I! Had to look up LAMMAS, didn’t take me long to get PALINDROME(though I still wonder how D means Germany), and you have to love FALLACY for phallus-y! My LOI was AMPERAGE, it wasn’t my first time seeing HIPPOCAMPUS in a cryptic(though maybe my first seeing it divided into two words), and after the Guardian’s crossword blog had a cluing contest with the word, to find BLIGHTY mentioned again was like a long lost friend! I can only assume Paul must have been inspired by that contest. I’m not British and had never heard of the word before, but I’ll bet a lot of British solvers must have been quite surprised to see the word come up twice in such a short time! Doesn’t sound like a very common word to me, but trust me, you sure can come up with a lot of clues for it! I also loved the use of the phrase “going places” for LATRINES(ingenious wordplay!), and apparently I had parsed MRUNIVERSE a little differently than Paul. I took “is never really understood” as well as “impossible” to actually be describing the universe! Funny how I sort of missed the anagram. I’m usually much better at spotting those things. Really I had enough across answers by then that MRUNIVERSE had to be it, so I checked the clue again, and obviously “tough poser” meant something else entirely! You have to love the wordplay! It’s one of the main reasons why I love cryptic crosswords in the first place! Again Paul, well played! Another great puzzle! Keep up the good work!

46. Patrick J. Berry @ 45: “I still wonder how D means Germany”. International Vehicle Registration? D for Deutschland? Both are in Chambers. Not to mention in crosswords since time immemorial.

47. Pat,

    How do you get 3 defs for 10a? I had it as 2, like Eileen

    Re D for Deutschland, I guess you don’t see many German vehicles on the road in good ol’ Alabamia?

    Tony (Collman)

48. Sorry. I don’t know how I could have thought it could be three definitions, now that I’ve read it over again. Somehow I must have misread it as three while I was solving the puzzle. I do think the next Prize Puzzle has a clue with triple definitions, but that’s all I’ll say here. And I’m not even sure of that, now that I think about it.(Hopefully I’m not giving anything away here this time.)As for the International Vehicle Registration code, it’s still fairly new to me as a possible charades element in cryptics. We don’t have that here in Alabama, that’s for sure. So then E for Spain represents Espana, right? I did take Spanish in school, so that definitely makes sense. Pity you can’t type a tilde mark on letters in Spanish words on a computer keyboard. That would be cool.

49. Patrick J. Berry @48 – try this:

    https://forlang.wsu.edu/help-pages/microsoft-keyboards-standard-english-us101/

50. Late to the party so probably no-one will see this, but never mind…

    Thanks to KeithS@21: your description of your solve was similar to mine:
    I think HEAD was my first one in – I knew the term and thought about who the setter was. As cruising boat owners we call our boat toilet “the head” – singular, e.g. “I need to use the head”. So it seems that in common parlance, the recreational sailing fraternity (sorority?) may have singularised the old naval term. I found all this discussion around this clue most interesting, which probably sounds a bit weird to land lubbers (or “land lovers”, as a friend recently said in a very amusing eggcorn). (BTW was there a recent discussion about “dunnies” on this forum???)

    KeithS Part 2: Unfortunately, I found I was more familiar with terms for toilets than for parts of the brain, and getting the rest of the theme clues was harder. Fortunately, Google has some nice labelled illustrations, and they were all very nicely clued. There were only two parts of the brain I really knew (well, three, but cerebellum wasn’t in there and I didn’t know the variation CEREBRUM@18). I did remember the AMYGDALA which I knew from teaching secondary school students: apparently it takes ages to develop and teenagers often engage in risk-taking behaviours or present with unexpected angry outbursts due to this part of their brain not being properly developed until late adolescence. I did know HIPPOCAMPUS as well and kind of liked it being clued as its two component words…But had to have the google diagram for some of the other parts of the brain Paul referenced.

    Full stop new paragraph. alanjcannon@23: I loved that radio interview with Paul/John Halpern which I listened to last week, Really recommended to anyone who hasn’t had time to hear it yet.

    Re the “AMOEBA” clue (sorry Eileen to add to that thread), but I just wanted to thank you, molonglo@8, for explaining the very positive use of the word “mob” by our first nations people in Australia – “Who’s your mob and what’s your country?” being a common greeting when indigenous people who don’t know each other meet up (the latter establishing to which “home country” the person and their kin are connected).

    Agree with others – for me , 23a SOBERING UP was a lol moment.

    Great blog. Thanks to Eileen for setting such a good tone, and to all contributors.

    Still feel that little heart-leap when I see Paul is the setter, knowing it will almost always presage an impeccably clued, intriguing and challenging exercise.

    [Just wanted to add, Patrick J Berry@45, I really liked what you said in your post on this puzzle.]

     

51. [alanjcannon@23

    I listened to the interview last night, and although I enjoyed hearing John / Paul talking about crosswords, I think you’ve got a lot to learn about interviewing. The idea, imo, is for the interviewer to say just enough to get the interviewee talking. Instead, I had to listen to monologues from someone I’d never heard of, with my favourite setter sometimes managing to get a few words in edgewise, despite even being interrupted on several occasions. I even had to hear about the interviewer’s personal problems. Nevertheless, the star was incredibly polite and patient throughout. At least he managed to squeeze in a plug for his upcoming masterclass at one point.]

52. It’s very late in the (next) day now but I wasn’t sure whether I should say something or not.

    However, after so many positive comments I think it’s time for a different view.

    This crossword was excellently clued but Paul’s crosswords are nearly always impeccable, so that’s not something special. At least not for me, apparently the odd one out this weekend and the dumbo who didn’t know the names of most of these brain parts. It meant that I had to check about 25% of the answers. I found that rather annoying. This crossword felt like one scoring high on the GK ladder. This is actually the kind of themed crossword I don’t like very much. And given past discussions on GK I am very surprised that I am more or less the only one.  But so be it.

    Thanks Eileen for another good blog & Paul whose Punk offering yesterday in the Indy I liked a lot more [one in which SOUK (market) made a quick re-appearance!].

     

53. Sil,

    I thought at the time that a lot of people might have the same complaint. I do wonder how many of those words are in an average solver’s GK. Like I said, I felt lucky to have read up a bit about the brain. It seems, though, that people were able to construct the answers from wp then confirm the unfamiliar ones. Also it might have had the positive effect of making some want to read a bit more about the brain. Always nice when a puzzle leads to interesting material.

54. Should have commented on this one over the weekend. I was a little surprised that all of the themers were at least distantly familiar- in fact I got the theme from AMYGDALA very early. I must admit that the HEAD usage was new to me (naval and military slang in general is one of my weaker subjects), but I enjoyed the challenge and thought this was one of Pau;’s better ones.

    Thanks to Paul and Eileen

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