Guardian 27,531 / Paul

62 comments on “Guardian 27,531 / Paul”

1. Thanks for explaining 5 across STABLE, completely eluded me, although I ended up putting it in. Still not sure how fare the cluing is though. My last one in too.

   Also ANIL actually was one of my first in, must have been on the right wavelength, but needed looking up for the definition.

2. Sorry fair not fare!!! Although worth paying for!

3. Up goes my hand, but we got there in the end. Who else went for Woebegone instead of WINNEBAGO before all the crossers were in? I think (Con)STABLE was our loi. Good fun all round – many thanks to Paul and mhl.

4. Thanks to Paul and mhl. Yes, I too started with teal, not ANIL I parsed NO SIDE but had to check it out (again my lack of Rugby terms in play) but  I did know amaranth, a favorite among poets for its link to immortality, as in Paradise Lost: “Immortal amaranth, a flower which once / In paradise, fast by the tree of life, / Began to bloom,”

5. Thanks mhl.  Fine puzzle.  Loved STABLE, once the con was thwarted and that took time.  Most time though was spent on the TROUSERS answer with a phrase that has never been on my radar, and the crossing HEBRAIST, last in.

6. I failed to solve 15d.  Mainly because I put TEAL @ 18a and PATTED @ 26a.

   New words were BASTINADO, NO SIDE (rugby term).

   I could not parse 17a (the first R), and the SC in 11a.

   My favourites were 10d, 1a, 11a, 24a.

   Thanks Paul and mhl

7. Thanks Mhl and Paul.
   Couldn’t explain SC in 11a, so,thanks.

   Another Woebegon(e)r, though Keillor’s was a letter short, with TEAL smugly sitting in 18a…only after fixing that, etc.

8. Though on 20a, wondered if a pair of trousers is one or two trousers, to justify FLIES…

9. note typo in the solution to 17ac: should be RANGE ROVER, not RANGER ROVER.

   ACD@4: AMARANTH had always stuck in my mind from Agatha Christie’s quoting of of W.S.Landor: a rare poetic title ‘NO FIELDS OF AMARANTH’ for the 1958 play that ended up on stage prosaically as THE VERDICT, not that I saw it under either name – few did, though another 1950s play did rather better.

    

10. Thanks, mhl

    In 8d I thought that chain and range were synonymous in the context of mountains.

11. I often do not do the Prize, but I did this one and really enjoyed it.  My hand’s up as a TEAL-firster, and for also having tried to get Wobegon into the solution for 15d.  My favorites included all those listed by Michelle @6, and also A PAIR OF TROUSERS and the pair of Two little boys clues on the bottom line.  They made me think of this, as I expect they were intended to do.

    I know AMARANTH mostly as a grain, not as a flower.  We just had lentil soup over amaranth this week.

    Many thanks to Paul and mhl and the other commenters.

12. Me @11

    Or *I do not often do* the Prize, might be a better way to say it.

13. crosser@10 – I was about to say the same thing.  That’s how I got there anyway.

    Loved ‘A Pair of Trousers’ by the way.   Must be my English upbringing, molonglo – when I lived in Canberra it was just ‘pants’.   (And, no, that wasn’t meant as a sly dig at Canberra.  I very much enjoyed my time there!)

14. Just ‘pants’ in your neck of the woods also, DaveMc, I assume?

15. Gert Bycee @14 – I think “pants” is by far the most common term here in the US, except when the specific type of pants is used as a single word substitute for pants, such as jeans, chinos, khakis, etc. “Trousers” is certainly not unheard of, but usually (in my experience) used mostly to refer to dressier styles, interchangeably with “slacks”. One thing for certain is that “pants” here, unlike in the UK, refers very clearly to outerwear only, unless preceded by “under-” or followed by “-ies”.

16. Me @16 – To clarify, that last word referred to with (-ies) is “panties”, not “pantsies”!

17. Many thanks to Paul and mhl.

    Rattled through this one in fine style until the far NE corner

    My LOIs would have been STABLE and AMARANTH had I solved them.

    I like (CON)STABLE, not so sure about AMARANTH.

    I enjoyed GLASGOW (European city is a neat piece of misdirection) and WATER CLOSET (albeit easy, I’ve learned to look out for JOHN !)

    Thanks again – good fun

18. Another woebegone tealer.

     

    Couldn’t parse CHAMBERLAIN, so thanks mhl, and Paul.

19. Eoin Sharkey @ 17 – sounds like my experience; quite fast (despite having to pause to correct both TEAL and WOEBEGONE), and then stuck in the NE. I did eventually get AMARANTH, but blew it on STABLE, tossing up between STABLE and STAPLE, neither of which I could parse, and eventually penciled in the wrong one on the weak grounds that it felt more ‘secure’ and maybe I’d work out the parsing in the end. It all seems so obvious now! But that aside, all good fun, for which thanks, Paul, and thanks mhl

20. We liked – this – not only Paul, but the blog dleant come up till today, so we managed to complete it and send it in! Very exciting. Like Whiteking @3 and DaveMc @11, had TEAL and WOEBEGONE a for ages before crossers showed it was wrong. Liked CONSTABLE a lot (Almost the last in) with HEBRAIST.
    But main excitement is being able to get a blog in early – we never manage it normally as everyone else is so much quicker than we are.

21. By some miracle, I did get ANIL first time.

    LOI was STABLE but only after much grinding of brains.

    Is it just me or have I noticed an increase in the number of foreign words in crosswords rcently?  2d Vert for green, for example?  I think we had Latin Veni during the week.  As a linguist I’m all in favour of this, but what is the concensus?  What are the limits?  Would a word in Finnish be acceptable, for example?  (I live in Finland).

    Can I just add that I am so grateful to all the bloggers who so often provide explanations when I am at a loss.

22. I was another TEAL until WINNEBAGO put paid to it and ANIL is much better. STABLE took me ages and I didn’t get it unaided but the clue is quite excellent once I saw it. But a fun puzzle overall.
    Thanks Paul.

23. A DNF for me, I’m afraid, as I couldn’t decide if 5a should be STABLE or STAPLE – both of which can mean “secure” The significance of CON and an artist escaped me, so very many thanks to mhl for finishing it for me.

    And yes, I too had TEAL at first, which held me up on 15d for far too long. And I kept trying to justify LINGUIST as the answer to 16d, but it just wouldn’t work.

    Like crosser @10 I thought of mountain ranges

    Loved the trousers and the water closet. Thanks, Paul, for the fun.

24. Thank you Paul and mhl.

    Another TEAL and ‘WOEBEGONE’ here until I checked the spelling of the latter, then I had a time trying to get WINNEBAGO.  All good fun.

    BASTINADO reminded me of when we lived in Alexandria, Egypt.  There was a school the other side of the garden wall, and the boys gave a lot of trouble – we never reacted, but one day something happened (I cannot remember what) that made my husband go and complain. The boy who was at fault was bastinadoed.  My husband, a medical doctor, was so shocked that he never complained again.  Several weeks later I went into the garden while our gardener was having lunch to cut off the lowest leaves of the date palms (he was elderly and cross-eyed, I was scared he would fall), this meant climbing up a height of two stories with a machete stuck in my belt.  When I looked down there was a group of boys watching me – we never had trouble again.

25. Another TEAL here (happens to be my mother’s maiden name too – no, I don’t use it in passwords!).

    Didn’t know NO SIDE and never met SC before, so thanks for those. Paul must be thinking of the old riddle about “what has four legs and flies?” which was around when I was at school. Two pairs of trousers of course.

26. ilippu @8 – can’t a single pair of trousers have either a fly (as in “he zipped up his fly”), or flies (as in “your flies are undone”)?

27. Did anyone else have Seurat instead of stable? I wasn’t sure and had only pencilled it in as ratting isn’t quite the same as conning. But then secure isn’t quite the same as stable (and I must admit it hadn’t crossed my mind).

28. I was lucky with the colours because I knew ANIL from aniline, and AMARANTH is well known (in limited circles) as a shade for vintage Triumph motorcycles. CONSTABLE was LOI and I had to come here for the parsing. So simple (now) – how did I fail to see it?

    Never encountered scilicet or NO SIDE, even having played the game.

    “What has two legs and flies?” and the follow-up “What has one wheel and flies?” were common playground riddles in my youth.

    Good fun. Thanks mhl and Paul.

29. Gladys @ 25 – I think you’re right: it was four legs. (We crossed – I type slowly.)

30. Laura @27, yes, I first entered SEURAT, but had doubts later when I wanted to enter LEGAL, then realised conSTABLE must be the answer.

31. Yet another tealer, and dnk amaranth, and Paul’s clever ?maths without the s’ device was too good. So a dnf, but no matter, I chuckled at the surface of 20a and even more once the crossers were in and the solution
    gelled.

    Thanks setter and blogger.

32. Anna @21

    While I agree with your general point, vert = green in heraldry

33. Thanks to Paul and mhl.

    I really liked 20a.  For ages I thought I was looking for a phrase meaning “difficult issue” – could it be “a case of troubles” or something similar?  So it was great when the penny eventually dropped!

    WATCHTOWER was interesting in the light of the discussion on last week’s Maskarade prize about indirect (or partially indirect) anagrams.  13a seemed to be technically such a clue in that you have to get W W from “two wives” before solving the anagram.  In this instance I didn’t have any problem with it, and neither did anyone else, judging by the lack of comment above.  Perhaps it just depends how much of the anagram is indirect, and how straightforward the indirect element is.

34. So many excellent clues, but I particularly liked 5a, STABLE (once I got it — I love that technique); 11a, A STUDY IN SCARLET (a book in a crossword I’ve actually read); 20a, A PAIR OF TROUSERS (great pdm. What has got one wheel and flies, Auriga @28?); 2d, OVERTAKEN.

    I knew (3d) NO SIDE, having played rugger at school, and (6d) AMARANTH rang a vague bell once I’d constructed it from wordplay. Can’t understand why so many thought TEAL was ok. Where’s the cryptic element there?

    I got stuck with three missing (5a, 5d and 16d) and put the puzzle aside. Picking it up again a few days later, I twigged STABLE (perfactly good def, btw, Laura @27, to my mind), which got me SAGAS. I didn’t notice I hadn’t got 16d, HEBRAIST until I was reviewing before coming here, and admit I had to use Chambers Word Wizard to get it quickly. “Crime” for heist I thought a little broad; maybe “robbery” would have been more helpful? (Sour grapes?).

    DaveMc @11. That song doesn’t get much airplay since Rolf “Can you see what I am yet?” Harris got banged up. Those clues (25,26) actually made me think of the famous Rufus clue, “Two girls, one on each knee (7)”, which also gave the title to Guardian crossword blogger Alan Connor’s excellent book about crosswords (solution in comments there).

    Lord Jim @33. Yes that’s one of those where the abbreviation letter, W(ives) is on the page, though, unlike the example of my clue using “the Queen” for ER in fodder, which is more questionable.

35. <blockquote>I twigged STABLE (perfactly good def, btw, Laura @27, to my mind), which got me SAGAS</blockquote>

    Probably the other way round, actually, as I guessed it was a palindrome on sight, but forgot to go back after getting 11.

36. Hmm… <blockquote> doesn’t work here, then?

37. Thanks, everyone, for the interesting comments (and quenbarrow, for pointing out that typo – I’ve fixed it now).

     

38. Tony @34 – Until reading your post, I had forgotten hearing a few years ago that RH had been convicted and imprisoned for sexual offenses.  He is not very well known here in the US, but I am familiar with a few of his old songs from the 1960s.  I just read his Wikipedia entry, which provides further details about the crimes for which he was convicted.  Sorry for my being (culturally) tone deaf in linking one of his songs in my earlier post.

39. Tony @34, that’s just it, 18a seemed so cryptic that I could not solve it, I had the L so entered TEAL as a double definition like mhl did (ANIL is not in my COED, but I see now that it is in my compact Collins – I knew it in Jamaica as ‘wild indigo’).

40. Tony @34. A barrowful of manure.

    I’ll get my coat…

41. @Cookie

    I didn’t realise teal was a colour till your post made me check, so fair enough. ANIL is in Chambers and is the root of aniline dyes which you may (or may not) have heard of.

    @Auriga

    Let me get it for you

42. Tony @34, talking about crossword books, one should search out Pretty Girl In Crimson Rose by Sandy Balfour.

    [also a Rufus clue]

43. Sil,

    Yes, indeed. I read that earlier this year too. A very different sort of book, but very enjoyable. Highly recommended.

44. I’ve read and enjoyed both the books mentioned. Although it did seem to me that Alan Connor’s account of the famous Araucaria “Grantchester” clue was heavily influenced by the account of that clue in Sandy Balfour’s book.

    Personally I’m not especially fond of that famous clue, which I think attracts quite over the top adulation. I was a fan of Araucaria, particularly his Alphabeticals, but I wasn’t that keen on his very long anagrams, which could only really be guessed and then worked out afterwards.

45. Interesting point you make, Lord Jim.

    Only this afternoon, tackling the Philistine prize puzzle [so no comments!], we came to mention Araucaria.  His crosswords were the ones that introduced me to this unique world, in 2008 and actually – how apt – in The Orchard, Grantchester. But I am totally with you re these long anagrams. I am not a fan of crosswords with long entries anyway, one of the reasons I find it hard to deal with Nimrod, IO and (to a lesser extent) Enigmatist.  About a year ago, I told John Henderson this but nothing really changed. That said, why should there?  Anyway, this afternoon I said to my solving partner ‘why not print off an old Araucaria from, say, 10 years ago to see whether we still like it’.   I’ve, actually, completely forgotten about what made him stand out in those days.  Yes, his alphabeticals were brilliant.

    Funny old world.

46. Tony @41, having done A level chemistry, I had heard of aniline dyes, but that did not help with solving 18a…

47. @Cookie

    Haha! I was just coming here to comment again about that clue. I feel sure Paul hadn’t thought of the possibility of TEAL; he’s not that mean. In fact, (old) Chambers defines it (as a colour) as “dark-greenish blue”, so the clue seems to work perfectly for TEAL (though the “a” would seem a bit odd then). It must be very difficult for a setter to foresee such a coincidence, although I’ve seen advice to would-be setters that this is something you definitely have to watch out for with cryptic def clues,where you’re not giving any indication of the letters in the answer. Same must go for double defs, although of course this was not one of those — just looked like one. If he had realised, Paul could perhaps have used “indigo” as the def, which couldn’t be mistaken for a greenish blue and is the same thing as ANIL.

    [I heard of aniline doing A-level Chem too, Cookie. I believe it was work on aniline which first opened the kaleidoscopic world of artificial colours we live in now. Before that, it was pretty much just indigo or saffron. (Really should check this sort of stuff before writing, but I’m sure I’ve have read something along those lines, and more recently than schooldays.)]

48. Tony @47, yes, in fact the COED gives under aniline [German Anilin from Anil ‘indigo’ (from which it was originally obtained), ultimately from Arabic an-nil]

49. PS, just checked, my COED of 1995 also gives for teal “a dark greenish-blue colour”

50. [Tony, strictly off-topic, as I had no time for this crossword, unfortunately.  I have solved your Whynot crossword on Alberich’s site, and if you would like feedback I would like to give it, but I’m not sure how or where.]

51. Cookie @48

    Chambers traces ANIL to Ar. An-nil (= the Nile, I believe. Perhaps the river is named for the colour of its waters?), but ultimately to Sanskrit n?l? = indigo.

52. Cookie@48

    Referring to Hans Wehr’s Arabic-English dictionary, I see it gives n?l (and n?la) = indigo plant, indigo as well as an-n?l = the Nile.

    ??? n?l
    ???? n?la
    ????? an-n?l

53. Oh, dear, non-standard characters not supported. The ?’s in the transliterations are long ‘i’ (“ee”) and those were Arabic script at the bottom.

54. [Alan

    I would be delighted to receive feedback from someone whose views on crosswords I respect so well. Please ask Alberich for my email address, pointing to this comment as authority so to do.]

55. *authority to give it*

56. Thanks Paul and mhl

    I don’t usually comment on the Prize, as I tend not to remember that far back. On a quick scan through though, no-one else seemed to know WINNEBAGO as a camper-van (as celebrated in Mel Brooks’s Spaceballs) rather than a lake.

    Another rather easy Prize (as surprisingly, is this week’s Philistine!)

57. Tony @51, there is the White Nile and the Blue Nile, they unite just North of Khartoum, but in Egypt the Nile can look pale green (the colour eau de Nil) or dark blue (anil)  depending on the time of year and the weather.

58. Yes, Cookie, I was on the Blue Nile many times when I lived in Cairo (remember? Cockroaches?). Must have been “that time of year” when they named it? Presumably, the Arabic is based immediately on the Ancient Egyptian name. I was just amazed at only realising all these years later what the name means. Didn’t know eau de Nil. Thanks. I will investigate further. (Read the wikis for indigo, anil and aniline last night after blathering. Actually, I wasn’t far wrong).

59. @muffin

    Actually, I only learnt the vehicle wss named after a lake from this clue, just didn’t like to mention my ignorance. Maybe. Is it in/near Canada?

60. [Tony @58,  we had just moved into this villa in Alex, my baby was due, we were eating dinner and suddenly the floor was covered with Blatta cockroaches, I burst  into tears, the only time  ever in my life.  The next day my husband lifted the drain cover in the alley, we were at a dead end,  and blasted it with Baygon.  He did this regularly every 6 months and we had no more trouble.]

61. [Cookie, I wouldn’t have mentioned them if I’d realised just how traumatic that had been. We reminisced about the little blighters a while back. I remembered the trademark of the poison as ‘Cockroach-Be-Gone’. Funny thing, memory.]

62. Mark, did you ever blog a Satrurday crossword with … 62 (!) ‘comments’?

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