Guardian 27,575 / Paul

65 comments on “Guardian 27,575 / Paul”

1. Found this to be very straightforward for Paul. Bit of a military theme going on? Carcassonne has a famous castle. Camp nato army ?

2. Thanks Paul and Eileen

   Not my cup of tea. I guessed the long ones from crossers and definition and couldn’t be bothered (all right, had no idea) to parse them. Several others I didn’t parse either. 12d is a good example of “top-down only” solve – you aren’t going to say “river – that’ll be TAMAR, then”.

   ARMY was Rufus on a bad day. CAPUCHIN isn’t cryptic, as the monkeys are named after the monks because of the monkeys’ colouring.

   GLUTEN is an odd definition. It derives from “glue”, which is, of course, sticky, but I wouldn’t describe gluten as “sticky”. It is reslient, essential in forming good doughs.

   I has TEST first for 8d, but thought it couldn’t be right when 14d below started “test”.

   I did like TEE RAGE and INGRAIN.

3. Thanks Eileen, and Paul – but,but but I say again that to call the collection clued at 21, 24,16 a phonetic alphabet is a misnomer. It has nothing whatsoever to do with phonetics. It is a spoken alphabet which indicates how words are spelt. A phonetic alphabet is a written alphabet in which each of the symbols unambiguously represents one and only one speech sound.

4. I totally missed that acronym in 6a Eileen, and thought it was the old rule (law) re under-age sex (also only dimly remembered after a search). Otherwise a fun Paul with some characteristic potty humour, plus the not leggy host (der!) and a LOL at carcass No 1.

   Thanks Paul and Eileen.

5. grantinfreo @4 – I found that rule by googling, too, and then eventually, the light dawned.

6. Thank you Eileen. I’m still not thinking broadly enough after 61 years: I wasn’t considering ‘and’ as a word in 6/23, but as an &.

7. Not only a change to see Paul on a Tuesday and even nicer to see you blogging, Eileen-especially the old rule.

   Much preferred this to his Saturday prize and if I didnt know Muffin better he could have been going for the hedgehoggy award (apologies there!)

8. I seem to be back on Paul’s wavelength which 9a PLEASEs me. I can hear the criticisms of others in previous posts, but I found much to like here. I got 6a 23a ROMEO AND JULIET intuitively, but loved coming here for your very clever parse, Eileen! RAJ indeed!
   Favourites were 11a CARCASSONNE and 18a PLANTAGENET, both appealing to the history teacher in me (admitted reluctantly after admissions from teachers on yesterday’s blog).
   Thanks to Paul and Eileen. Much appreciated.

9. Cartha@3, you’re right of course but my take is that here ‘phonetic’, in the sense of a sound-specifying system, has been borrowed since it’s purpose is just that, i.e. to specify, to eliminate error.

10. BTW, in another embarrassing admission, I only knew 22a AGAR-AGAR from watching Masterchef! “Setter” in this clue was a clever distractor.

11. I found this a mixed bag as I usually do with Paul. Well done for parsing 6 23 Eileen – I never got anywhere near it, and as you say it was a different type of clue. One has to admire Paul’s inventiveness. Unlike muffin I smiled at ARMY (it reminded me of a childhood story in a similar vein) and I liked PLEASE INFORMER INGRAIN and loi AGAR-AGAR for the misleading definition. Whether it’s technically correct or not I was pleased when I eventually got the long one.
    So on balance there was much more that I enjoyed than grumbled about.
    Thanks to Paul and Eileen.

12. JinA – you posted whilst I was typing otherwise I would have referenced our similar experiences.

13. Phew got there finally. So many misdirections and rabbit holes.

    Only got agar agar thanks to the lady violinist from the rather wonderful Bollywood brass band explaining what a Raga was at womad on Saturday.

    Don’t understand the problem with 21 24 16 – rightly or wrongly it is what it is called and gettable from the wordplay.

    Thanks as ever to Paul and Eileen for the comprehensive blog.

14. From the above comments, I gather Paul doesn’t usually appear this early in the week. So if I’m correct in thinking the Grauniad cryptics get harder as the week progresses, this would explain why I found this puzzle fiendishly tricky. (So far, I’ve not managed to complete anything beyond a Thursday…) This was one of those days where many answers were little more than guesses, semi-parsed – and I’m always disappointed with myself when that happens. Romeo And Juliet was one such: try as I might, I couldn’t parse it at all. Octuple was another that seemed obvious but the parsing defeated me – and I have to confess I’m still not entirely clear about it…
    I should have figured out Carcassonne much more easily: we live only a few hours’ drive from it. Clearly not a good day for me! I really liked tee-rage and Army, though. Thanks to Paul and Eileen

15. I failed to solve 20d, 22a and 21/14/16 which I had suspected was something to do with Romeo = code word representing the letter R, used in radio communication, but I just did not get it. Did not understand how to parse ARMY and only just now worked it out. Also could not parse 6/23 which I had guessed at – I always think of that play as R+J so RAJ did not occur to me.

    My favourite was DOWN AND OUT.

    Thanks Paul and Eileen

16. 6, 23! It was first one in but with little confidence even after 3 crossers. I think the reason so many of us came to it instinctively is that the letters of “old rule” are in the answer – and it is a rather well known play.

    Too much for me but a great clue. Good work Paul.

17. Apart from Mondays tending to be a bit easier, I’m not sure that the “increasing difficulty during the week” rule is still supposed to apply.  If it is, this was hard for a Tuesday!  I got ROMEO AND JULIET (I saw it in Stratford last week so it came easily to mind) but like others was unable to parse it – I too was looking for an old rule somehow being R and J.  But it did lead nicely to NATO PHONETIC ALPHABET.  Carthagodelendaest @3 (I’ve only just understood your username when typing it out!) – this is what the system is normally called, so I think it was perfectly fair.  Wikipedia says that spelling alphabets are often called “phonetic alphabets” although they are “unrelated to phonetic transcription systems such as the International Phonetic Alphabet.”  (An earlier military spelling alphabet gave us “ack ack” and “Toc H”.)

    Sometimes the best clues are the simplest (and I don’t mean necessarily the easiest), and I loved DART, with “River, run” being REDOLENT of Finnegans Wake.

18. Very economically clued, took a long time to solve any at first, loi was 22 across.

19. Thanks to Paul and Eileen. I got off to a very slow start, but after a struggle (and with some help from Google for CARCASSONNE, my LOI) I did finish. Like Lord Jim and others I did not parse R & J.

20. Thoroughly enjoyable, so many thanks Paul.  I needed help parsing 6, 23 and 22, so thank you Eileen.  This would have been worthwhile just for the lovely moment when I realised ARMY was not leggy!!  I think Paul is up there with the very best because he consistently provides those special moments.  I find it hard to understand those who criticise the ‘top down only ‘ clues.  Surely a crossword is solved from the definition, the crossers, the wordplay and perhaps a little bit of memory from previous crosswords.  I am happy to get the answer any way I can.  I struggled with my LOI, 21, 24, 16 because although I know and and use this I had no idea it was called the NATO phonetic alphabet.  But it is good to learn!

21. BTW did anyone else think that 8d River run, might be OUSE.   But it would have been naughty without a ‘sounds like’ indicator, and then I got R and J so forgot about it.

22. Than you Paul and Eileen.

    I just loved this puzzle, but could kick myself for not seeing RAJ…

    Whoever is playing golf with muffin tomorrow had better watch out.

23. I still don’t get the army one. Why is it not leggy?

24. I don’t want to start something, but wouldn’t the IPA be better described as the International PhoneMic Alphabet ?
    WhiteKing – was the story “Where does Napoleon keep his armies ? Up his sleevies ?”
    Thanks Eileen and Paul.
    Great fun !

25. Thanks to Paul and Eileen. Generally found this tough and slow going, largely I think because I struggled to get the long clues. Could not parse Romeo and Juliet (fiendish parsing), but eventually decided that it must be the answer. That then enabled me to get the other long one and finish in the SW. I ldid like down and out and Plantagenet and thanks again to Paul and Eileen.

26. Thanks Eileen and Paul. I enjoyed this, and parsedd everything except 6,23.

    Interestingly, looking at the Wikipedia entry for the Nato Phonetic-or-not Alphabet at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_phonetic_alphabet, the word for J is spelt ‘Juliett’ officially – to ensure that native french speakers pronounce the ‘t’ sound at the end properly.

    This would rather mess up many crossword clues, so perhaps we’d better ignore it!

27. Malcolm: Think of Michael Caine in The Italian Job, when buying shirts after getting out of nick.
    “And take the bloody sleeves up, I’m not a bleedin’ gorilla !”
    He could have added “I’m leggY, NOT armY !”

28. +1 with all who really enjoyed this. My only slight reservation was the R&J answer, which I didn’t parse, and having seen it explained by Eileen I still don’t much like it.

    Generally though, I agree with S.Panza@20, in thinking Paul is one of the very best setters, and I also agree that good clues can lead to answers by a variety of routes, and “top-down” clues are just fine by me.

    Thanks Paul and Eileen.

29. Slow going and I found this pretty difficult.

    I confidently put in ‘striking’ for 13 until OCTUPLE popped up. Wellbeck @14, a couplet is six less than an octuple(t), I assume.

    Thanks Paul and Eileen.

30. I agree with your comments, Sancho P, about ‘top down only’ clues. My view is that there are many ways to solve a clue and all are equally valid so long as they lead to the right answer. (Although I have to admit to a slight preference for the Pennydropping-from-a-great-height ones over the Meticulous-letterbuilding-from-the-bottom-up variety. Post-hoc parsing is fine by me, in other words.)
    I’ll also find myself, I suspect, on the wrong side of another of Muffin’s barricades, in that I was pleased to come across the Tamar for once rather than having to play about with one of the usual three waterways of the world we have all become used to.
    I loved R+J and the NATO P A, by the way, especially once the complexities had been explained, so thanks to Paul and Eileen and love to all, including Muffin and all the other cranky old sods like myself on this site.

31. At last I have managed to start and finish a puzzle on the day of issue! Thoroughly enjoyable – and it’s all been said already. Like Cookie (and others), I could kick myself for not seeing RAJ.
    Thanks to Paul and Eileen.

32. Hadn’t heard that one, il principe. And what about the reveal of what the little emperor’s hand is doing behind his lapel; I won’t go on.

33. The ARMY/SLEEVIE thing reminds me of a conversation I had during a spell as deputy manager of the Cambridge, Market Hill Ladbrokes betting shop.
    A guy came with a sack-barrow to exchange an Italian Job-themed fruit machine, which endlessly repeated all of the quotes.
    I said, “Mitts off that, it’s not going anywhere ! It’s making so much loot I’m getting back trouble putting it into the floor-safe at night !”

34. [Great to see you back, Alan B@31]. I have really enjoyed reading back over this forum – so many comments raised a smile. Thanks to all!

35. Thoroughly enjoyed that. Am I the only one who mis-parsed 5 down – I was thinking of back seat drivers (steerage in back of cars causing driver fury). Didn’t spot the golfing. Oh well. And its always nice to appear in a crossword ! (I am a 23).

36. Thank you Robi @ 29: I really hadn’t seen that! Yet another of today’s “d’oh!” moments for me….

37. Talking of the Little Emperor, I once concocted a birthday card for a step-daughter with a DEAL, OR NO DEAL fixation.
    Old Boney is down to the top box ( Domination of the entire planet ) and the bottom box (Permanent exile on St. Helena).
    Noel: “The banker is offering you France.” Boney: “Sacre Bleu ! NO DEAL !”

38. S Panza @20 and Gert Bycee @30

    An ideal clue would be accessible from either direction. If that’s not possible, I get much more satisfaction from building up an answer from its parts and finding that it works than from guessing the answer (as here), then trying (or not) to parse it.

    At least I did parse SANTA MARIA. The Tamar is well-known to me as it forms the Devon/Cornwall border for much of its course – I was born and brought up in Devon.

39. JinA @34
    [Thank you, Julie. It’s a nice feeling to be back in the mix reading all this good stuff and putting in my twopenn’orth.]

40. All pretty straightforward except that AGAR AGAR was last in and took as long as the rest of the puzzle.

    Thanks to Paul and Eileen

41. il principe@24 – yes. Apparently when I was little we were out shopping (unusual in itself) and I was getting fed up trying things on when mum (trying to be nice and encouraging) asked “where are your handies” to which I impudently replied “on the end of my armies”. I was reprimanded for my cheek but I think it was the end of the shopping trip – so a result.

42. [I remember when I was a prefect at school I set an impudent 3rd year an imposition – an essay entitled “Hippies” (they were trendy at the time, thus dating me!). I remember his first sentence:

    “Hippies are found at the top of leggies.”]

43. I found this quite tricky with AGAR AGAR being LOI- an excellent clue once you’ve got it but this was a check button job! ROMEO AND JULIET was a guess and I didn’t see RAJ annoyingly enough. NATO PHONETIC ALPHABET required the crossers and 6,23ac before the penny dropped.
    Thanks Paul.

44. Enjoyed it too as always do Paul’s puzzles. Still my favourite setter. Had to cheat for Romeo and Juliet and agar agar. Thanks Eileen

45. I’m fully with Muffin on this. I almost finished, amazingly, but found some of the cluing annoying and overly tricksy. I knew the monk/monkey but DNK AGAR or RAGA. Two clues just based on GK seems excessive. Saying that, the misdirection of ‘setter’ was excellent, as was ‘drivers’! I went right down those rabbit holes and never resurfaced (getting STEERAGE purely from the definition + RAGE – the full parsing was post mortem). Glad that most people seem to have delighted in it though.

    Thanks to Paul and especially Eileen, whose detailed explanations are a Godsend.

46. Thank you Paul and specially Eileen for the detailed explanations, as Keyser@45 said. I didn’t get very far with this, too early in the week for a Paul, I felt  and also just too flippin hot here in the Mainz area. Sorry…

47. Don’t think I have ever done a crossword where so many were bunged in from definition and parsed ( or not ) later. Thanks Eileen for explaining the play, which was my first in purely from the enumeration and promptly gave me the Nato alphabet. But you had to guess the play first before you could even try to apply the wordplay, and although it was clearly right I just never got there. Thanks Paul for inventing TEE RAGE, from which I suffered when trying to learn golf!

48. An interesting experience.

    i can’t decide if 7 down is a very good or a very bad clue.  I know I stared at it for a while before the penny dropped…

     

49. A great deal of typical Paul ingenuity and wit. I didn’t get RAJ, but once explained 6, 23 is a delight. Similarly 5D.

    Cartha@3 – I agree with you, but at least it offers a basis for suggesting that Nato does something vaguely useful.

    Wellbeck@14 – I have never had the pleasure of visiting the place, but the game Carcassonne is rather good fun.

     

     

     

50. I really enjoyed this.  I am happy to say that the device of “old rule” = “Raj” = ROMEO AND JULIET popped to mind when I had only a few crossers in for 6ac and 23ac, and this led, albeit after staring for quite awhile at an otherwise (except as mentioned below) completed grid, to an immensely satisfying PDM on finally seeing NATO PHONETIC ALPHABET.  That one (21,24,16) was hands down my CotD, not only for the quality of the PDM (including the nice wordplay explained by Eileen in the blog), but also because of the “full circle” quality, in that “Romeo and Juliet” was used to define (by example) letters — R and J — in the NATO Phonetic Alphabet, while the letters “R A[nd] J” were used to define, sort-of, Romeo and Juliet.  Nice one, Paul.  The definition for INGRAIN was also fun, as was couplet/OCTUPLE.

    Apart from all of the above enjoyment, I was utterly stumped by CARCASSONNE, having never heard of the place, and I ultimately resorted to trial-and-error with the check function on the Guardian website to get all the uncrossed letters.  A pity, too, as I thought the “carcass one” wordplay was clever, once I came here to read Eileen’s’ explanation of it.  [But I thought, from prior puzzles, that “carcass” is the American spelling, and that in the UK (and possibly elsewhere?) the word is spelled “carcase”.]  In any event, after my stumbling, technology-aided finish, I went to Wikipedia and read all about the walled city of Carcassonne, including enjoying the same beautiful photo that Eileen linked to above.  It looks like quite a place to visit, and is my favorite TILT.

    Many thanks to Paul and Eileen and the other commenters.

51. I didn’t see ‘raj’, forgot to parse that one.

    I did see Carcassonne though, twenty-odd years ago and found it too touristic to be really enjoyable.

    The long ones (6, 23 and 21, 24, 16) were more or less the last ones in and I must say that the components of the latter crossing each other was slightly off-putting. Still, a clever and nice touch to this crossword!

    What sometimes annoys me in Paul’s clueing are these throwaway double definitions and also the clues that give you a construction, then a comma, plus a word that seems to be the definition.  A good example of that is 3d. Put a comma and add ‘evocative’ – clue done.  As to these double definition clues, 4d, 13d and 8d (which easily could have been ‘flow’ [with no crossers, true]) are just a bit lazy. As Mudd (in the FT) he regularly has 5+ of them in one puzzle. That said, when someone is so prolific as he is, one tends to keep one eye shut while using the other one to admire the many good things of the rest!

    This was a good puzzle which seemed at first easy-ish but turned out to be un-Tuesday-ish.

    While I/we did not like the explicit content of 19d’s surface (for others surely a LOL moment) and while I am not sure that the use of ‘plays’ in that long one is crypto-grammatically right [don’t worry, I won’t behave like the prickly one!], some other clues were splendid (like 15ac, 5d and indeed 6, 23).

    Many thanks to Eileen & Paul.

52. The Tour de France visited Carcassonne this year and from the TV coverage the citadel appeared to have been painted yellow in celebration. But apparently (see here for example) it’s an artwork to mark 20 years as a UNESCO world heritage site.

    Thanks to Paul and Eileen

53. I knew the link wouldn’t work! Here it is in longhand.

    https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-general/controversy-over-art-installation-stonework-one-france-s-greatest-medieval-sites-021902

54. To anyone who is coeliac, 19d is both cryptic and straightforward. Also, Muffin, (sorry I dont have numbers), gluten is sticky in the sense that it sticks the grains of flour together to form a viable dough.

55. I agree with beery, as ever; with AGAR AGAR I was thinking of Anax, then Oriental canine setters until I had all the crossers!
    Unusual to see Paul on Tuesday indeed, maybe because it was relatively straightforward or perhaps because, fingers firmly crossed, we’ve some treats in store this later week (perhaps an Enigmatist, a tricksier-than-recently Arachne, a Screw etc. One can but hope!)
    Anyway, this was a super Paul which I enjoyed – my favourite being STEERAGE.

    How does he do it so consistently well, and creatively, given his prolificacy?!

    Many thanks, Paul. And Eileen, of course.

    [Like muffin I too was at a school where I could have given younger pupils impositions. But I never did such a thing. I also very rarely criticize clues adversely (at least not here). Only saying. I enjoyed cookie’s foreboding over possible muffinesque tee rage!]

56. I’m still learning and find this forum extremely useful! Thank you to everyone.

    Could someone please elaborate a little more on 7 Down?!

    Thanks

57. Hi Pianoman,  ARMY = host, that is the definition part, and Arm-ys are certainly not Leg-gys.  A pun I guess on arms and legs.   This sort of clue often suddenly sinks in and when it does, it provides a Tea Tray Moment (related to hitting yourself over the head with a tea tray) or a PDM which I think is a penny dropping moment.  Either way Paul is a past master at such clues and for most of us, this sort of thing, perhaps elevates a very good crossword to something exceptional.

58. Thank you!

59. As normal with Paul for me, both very enjoyable but a DNF…or even close!

    One small gripe but I guess only me, looking at other comments…CASTLE isn’t a piece? The piece is a rook, and castle is a chess move involving the rook and the king? I’m guessing this territory is previously covered ….

60. Over to chess players

61. From Wikipedia:

    “A rook (/r?k/; ?,?) is a piece in the strategy board game of chess. Formerly the piece (from Persian ?? rokh/rukh) was called the tower, marquess, rector, and comes (Sunnucks 1970). The term castle is considered informal, incorrect, or old-fashioned.[1][2]”

    I was told it was a castle when I was being taught chess, but as soon as I took it at all seriously (not very!), “rook” was the term.

    When I was solving the clue, my first thought was a chess piece, but it took me some time to think of one with an L in it – in fact, I didn’t until I had the C too!

62. Thanks Muffin…that was the cause of my frustration too…having gone through the chess pieces one by one and seen no solution, I was irritated when I got it based on crossers and the solution was something no chess player would ever use!

63. Don’t understand why CAMP means PARTY?

64. Tweeks @63 – welcome to the site, if you’re new. Apologies if you’re not.

    Chambers – ‘camp: a party or group supporting a certain set of beliefs or doctrine’.

65. Re: 6,23 “we need first to guess the play from the crossers, which wasn’t too difficult, I think” Speak for yourself.

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