A classic Paul puzzle with misleading definitions and intricate wordplay, along with one typical lavatorial reference.
Paul’s ability to come up with new ways to define and disguise the words and components he uses is truly astonishing. He consistently produces puzzles of a constant standard, which are more or less guaranteed to provide entertainment. As a blogger, it’s always a relief to see Paul’s name as the setter: I know that I will be able to solve the puzzle and that I will (eventually) be able to parse the answers. This one took Timon and I the usual hour on a Sunday morning: thanks for the coffee and biscuits!
| Across | ||
| 1 | GROUPIE | Admirer pulling sausage skin from dish of game? (7) |
| S(ausag)E removed from GROUSE PIE (dish of game). | ||
| 5 | CERAMIC | Into loveless jive/salsa dancing, am I potty? (7) |
| AM I in CER(O)C. CEROC is not to be found in Chambers, but is in the Oxford Dictionary of English. | ||
| 9 | EVITA | A success for Lloyd Webber, somewhat inevitably (5) |
| Hidden in “inEVITAbly”. | ||
| 10 | See 25 | |
| 11 | SOAP POWDER | Daughter inspired by the influence of granny, perhaps, after heading for shower to get cleaner (4,6) |
| S(hower) OAP, D(aughter) in POWER (influence). | ||
| 12 | SHAG | Avian that’s smoked (4) |
| Double definition: a bird and a tobacco. | ||
| 14 | STAGE SCHOOL | Gloucestershire opener in desperate chase dropping catches — players get lessons here (5,6) |
| G(loucestershire) in *CHASE, all inside (caught by) STOOL (dropping). The definition and the wordplay both suggest cricket, but we are dealing with players of a different kind. | ||
| 18 | MOSQUITO NET | Fine lifesaver having stepped down, one in the majority (8,3) |
| QUIT ONE in MOST. Another nicely misleading definition. | ||
| 21 | OUCH | Head shaved in bed, that’s proved painful! (4) |
| (C)OUCH. | ||
| 22 | AGONY UNCLE | Man offering personal advice, lunacy gone mad! (5,5) |
| *(LUNACY GONE). | ||
| 25, 10 | EMOTIONAL BLACKMAIL | Feeling initially around letter bag, need letters for children’s favourite game? (9,9) |
| EMOTION (feeling) A(round) L(etter) B(ag) LACK (need) MAIL (letters). I’m not sure about the accuracy of the definition here: surely adults can also be guilty of emotional blackmail? Perhaps that’s why there is a question mark at the end of the clue. | ||
| 26 | ICING | Sweet thing hard to forget in ancient Chinese text (5) |
| I C(H)ING. | ||
| 27 | TITANIC | Little jerk inspiring one to beat giant (7) |
| I (one) TAN (beat) in TIC (little jerk). | ||
| 28 | NOMINEE | No explosive energy for runner (7) |
| NO MINE E. | ||
| Down | ||
| 1 | See 4 | |
| 2 | OHIOAN | Welcome in outskirts of Ontario, an American statesman (6) |
| HI (welcome) in O(ntari)O, AN. | ||
| 3 | PLAY POSSUM | Best thing to bury a spy, so desperate to feign death (4,6) |
| *(A SPY SO) in PLUM (best thing). | ||
| 4, 1 | ELBOW GREASE | Joint declaration of nation, great effort (5,6) |
| ELBOW (joint) GREASE (sounds like Greece). | ||
| 5 | CHAMELEON | Fickle type appeared to welcome leadership of Hitler and Trotsky (9) |
| H(itler) in CAME (appeared), LEON (Trotsky). | ||
| 6 | RAKE | Womaniser‘s tool (4) |
| Another double defintion. | ||
| 7 | MEAT HOOK | Point put in to ham about right for butcher’s device (4,4) |
| E (point) in *(TO HAM), OK (right). The unusual separation of in and to led us to unravelling the wordplay. | ||
| 8 | CALIGULA | Single weapon briefly in contact with a Roman emperor (8) |
| I GU(n) (single weapon briefly) inside CALL (in contact with) A. The answer came from the definition; working out the wordplay came a long way afterwards. | ||
| 13 | ECOTOURISM | Cruise too flipping grand for PC travel (10) |
| M (grand) in *(CRUISE TOO). | ||
| 15 | ANTIGENIC | In eating badly, chips primarily causing immune response (9) |
| *(IN EATING), C(hips). | ||
| 16 | IMPOTENT | Weak figure entering testament in support of the devil (8) |
| TEN (figure) in OT (testament) underneath (supporting) IMP (devil). | ||
| 17 | PSYCH OUT | Intellectually threaten to push city’s outsiders around (5,3) |
| C(it)Y in *(TO PUSH). | ||
| 19 | ACTION | Fighting, it arises during a party (6) |
| IT (rev, arising in a down clue) in A CON. | ||
| 20 | BEAGLE | Beginning to brag, bird hunter (6) |
| B(rag) EAGLE. | ||
| 23 | NYLON | Stretcher on after awful injury, demolition all ends up (5) |
| End letters of (awfu)L (injur)Y (demolitio)N reversed (up), ON. Nylon may have elastic properties, but does that make it a stretcher? | ||
| 24 | LION | New painting lifted hero (4) |
| N(ew) OIL (all rev). | ||
*anagram
I actually solved all of this 😮
Admittedly, I only solved the second half of it last night! 😀
After I’d completed about half of the grid last Saturday, I got totally stuck. I could see the answers to a couple of the other half but could not, for the life of me, find a way to make those answers fit their clues 🙁
Obviously leaving it to stew in my subconscious for a few days made a crucial difference.
That said, this prize puzzle is far easier (& imo far fairer) than today’s non-prize 27482, which requires its solver to have an intimate knowledge of some obscure Bingo calls.
Thanks bridgesong. The sight of Paul’s name gladdens for all the reasons you give: a funny, inventive and solvable puzzle is practically guaranteed. Here the only qualms for me were the utterly mysterious “cerc” in 5A and the stretcher=NYLON which bothered you too/two. Otherwise, routinely delightful.
Thanks to Paul and bridgesong. For me an exercise in psyching out answers and then parsing. I did not succeed in explaining to myself MEAT HOOK and GROUPIE and I too had questions about CERAMIC and the description of EMOTIONAL BLACKMAIL, but I did eventually make headway. A good and enjoyable challenge.
I too found the solutions easier than the parsing but got there eventually with everything except the STOOL part of STAGE SCHOOL although it is obvious now and typical of Paul and the CALL bit of CALIGULA.
Favourites were MOSQUITO NET, ELBOW GREASE and EMOTIONAL BLACKMAIL where we too debated the definition and decided the? justified it. I thought EVITA was weak and PSYCH OUT let down by having OUTsider in the clue.
As for CEROC having experienced this in real life I can only recommend you remain blissfully ignorant of it.
Many thanks to Paul and bridgesong.
I’m pretty sure he used OHIOAN in one of his recent crosswords too. Anyroadup, this was fun.
Ta v much to Paul & Bridgesong.
I should have said I thoroughly enjoyed this and endorse bridgesong’s opening remarks – other than the blogger bit.
Uncleskinny @5: you’re quite right, and I should have remembered as it was only last December and I blogged that puzzle. Same definition, but different wordplay.
Very enjoyable puzzle, particularly liked the wordplay of EMOTIONAL BLACKMAIL and the subtle definition of MOSQUITO NET. Also great surface readings in the clue for STAGE SCHOOL.
LOI was PSYCH OUT — interesting phrase, not sure it quite matches “intellectually threaten” ?
For this weeks’s prize I tried a new technique which prov d successful : my initial solving session over the weekend left a handful of clues unsolved (5 or 6) In recent week I’ve often found it hard to then progress these by studying my paper copy. So this week at lunch break on Monday I fired up the Prize in the online version, quickly filled in the clues already solv d in the paper version and then found was able to solve most of the remaining clues, (bar one )
Returning home I filled in these clues in the paper copy and then straight away ws able to use the additional crossers to nail PYSCH OUT,
Mixed mode solving seemed to help ! Using the online version makes it easy to try out candidate letters and that seems to move on the thinking process for me at least
Thanks to Paul and bridgesong. Really enjoyed this and found it a fun puzzle. It went in steadily but not too quickly. Last ones were mosquito net and psych out. Lots of clues I liked but I will mention emotional blackmail ( in my experience very true) meat hook and soap powder. Thanks again to Paul and bridgesong.
I enjoyed this- and it’s a relief to type that after the last couple of days- as it restored my faith in Paul and the Guardian crossword generally. Too many favourites but MOSQUITO NET was a goodie.
Thanks Paul
I agree with you Peter — it’s good to know isn’t it. Great puzzle much enjoyed.
We couldn’t fathom 25, 10 and still cant see why bag = b or why the answer is a children’s favourite game.
Couldn’t get 16d either which meant mostly unsolved in SW corner.
.Ahh penny has just dropped re b=bag initially
Pex – and whether they do it with conscious intent or not (hence the ?) children play the emotional blackmail game all the time – at least that’s how I interpreted it.
I was going to quibble about the use of Ceroc – it has absolutely no elements of salsa in it & is in fact a brand name for a dance that is actually called ‘Modern Jive’. The way it was used in the clue reminded me of how someone in a pub might try to explain to a non-dancer to give them some idea of what it was – however, prompted by bridgesong’s blog I checked the ODE & it has it as having elements of salsa & without an upper case letter for a brand name – the ODE is simply wrong but that’s not the setter’s fault.
Whiteking @4 – a little unfair of you, I think – maybe not your bag but modern jive/Ceroc is the most accessible/simple form of social partner-dancing enjoyed by many thousands of people – not that I do it anymore having moved on to more sophisticated dances, but I would still recommend it to people who have never danced before but want to try.
Thanks to both setter & blogger.
Very enjoyable. Didn’t know the word Ceroc (though I think I may have been involved in its beginnings), but bless Google for answering my query about ‘cerco’ with the info I needed.
Didn’t parse 1a, GROUPIE until I’d filled it in. I only wish I had more experience of game-based dishes.
I think 11, SOAP POWDER is better explained if you take “influence of granny perhaps” as a complete phrase = OAP POWER.
Tried to make 14a DRAMA SCHOOL for some time and had to laugh when I twigged the Pauline “dropping”.
4,1, ELBOW GREASE was very neat, if not too difficult.
I didn’t notice the separation of ‘in’ and ‘to’ in 7d, MEAT HOOK. I wonder if there would have been objections if it was left to the solver to ‘lift and separate’ the elements? It certainly would have made it considerably more difficult. I feel Araucaria might have been happy to do that. Am I wrong? Is Paul getting more Ximenean as he grows older?
A small point, but I think 17d is better represented as (CY TO PUSH)*, as C and Y come in reverse order, scattered amongst the other letters.
23 A NYLON (23) is a nylon stocking, which is certainly stretchy — as in this joke:
Man goes into a bank with a stocking over his head and tells the cashier: “This is a hold-up!”. Boom! Boom!
In my last comment, CY should have had ‘it’ in the middle, surrounded by pointy brackets to indicate deletion, but these obviously confused WordPress due to their use in HTML tags.
Thanks WhiteKing, I see that the ? is vital here. I shall probably spend the rest of the day pondering the extent to which they do (or do not), either consciously or subconsciously. At the moment though I’m inclined to think that most are too innocent for that. Hmmm
Thanks Paul, that was terrific. Not only that, I finished it.
Shikasta@15 – you are absolutely right, it was unfair of me. I know the vast majority of people in the torture sessions (sorry, classes) I endured thoroughly enjoyed it and and kept going back for more. I was persuaded to go to improve my dismal dad dancing technique for a daughter’s wedding – and come the day I was able to manage to move both feet and twirl Mrs W so it did its job. 🙂
Thanks Paul and bridgesong
I think NYLON as ‘stretcher’ works in the (obsolescent?) NYLONS (stockings/tights) which are much smaller in the packet than on the leg.
Sorry to arrive late to the party, but when I went to download this week’s Prize I realised I had overlooked doing this one from last week, and I was very glad I found it and gave it a go. It was a great puzzle though I found it quite a challenge. Lots of smiles along the way. I did need help with some of the parsing (tricksy ones like 5a CERAMIC, 8d CALIGULA and the stool part of 14a STAGE SCHOOL have already been mentioned), so I was grateful for the blog.
Most of my favourites have been covered already, but I also liked 3d PLAY POSSUM, 5d CHAMELEON (there is a French song called “Leon Le Chameleon”, n’est-ce-pas?) and 24d LION.
I did notice that “desperate” was used twice to indicate anagrams – in 14a and 3d – but that was only a minor niggle.
Thanks for the enjoyment, Paul, and the helpful blog, bridgesong.