Guardian Cryptic 27,632 by Paul

by

A slow and steady solve for me, with plenty of smiles – favourites 9ac, 17/16/17, 11dn, and 19dn. Thanks to Paul.

Across
7 ROMANIA Area regularly cleared, bordering Asian country (7)
  aReA with regular letters removed, around OMANI=”Asian”
8 BOLOGNA Briefly, nation of bandits starts turning over European city (7)
  ANGOLa=”Briefly, nation”, plus starts to Of Bandits; all reversed/”turning over”
9 PROF Extra money gained — it’s not there for teacher (4)
  PROFit=”Extra money gained”, minus “it”
10 COPING SAW Probing farm animal, point injected into swine with a sharp instrument (6,3)
  COW=”farm animal” around all of: N=”point” inside PIGS=”swine” + A
12   See 13
 
13, 12 REVEREND GREEN With sailor’s termination, pine perhaps about death for colourful character on board? (8,5)
  =one of the suspects in a game of Cluedo
sailoR, plus EVERGREEN=”pine perhaps” around END=”death”
15, 23 SAND FLEA Land, safe ground for one shelled on the beach? (4,4)
  (Land safe)*
16   See 17
 
17, 16, 17 down TURN UP FOR THE BOOKS Surprise to arrive at a literary festival? (4-2,3,3,5)
  cryptic interpretation of “arrive at a literary festival?”
18 PARALLEL Engineers admitting everyone in China destined never to meet (8)
  two parallel lines will always remain the same distance apart
Royal Engineers around ALL=”everyone”; all inside PAL=mate=”China” plate in rhyming slang
20 PIECE Audible, quiet man (5)
  =e.g. a chess piece
sounds like ‘peace’=”quiet”
21 PENSACOLA Writers given non-alcoholic drink after a port in Florida (9)
  PENS=”Writers”, plus COLA=”non-alcoholic drink” after A
22 ORFE Some alligator fed fish (4)
  Hidden in alligatOR FEd
24   See 1
 
25, 21 down TICKLED PINK  Happy parasite was ahead of salmon (7,4)
  TICK=”parasite” + LED=”was ahead” + PINK=”salmon”
Down
1, 24 DOOR KNOCKER Gutless benefactor, one criticising Nobel, by the sound of it! (4,7)
  “Nobel” sounds like ‘no bell’
DOnOR=”Gutless benefactor” + KNOCKER=”one criticising”
2 GARFIELD Upset kid to deal with US president (8)
  reversal/”Upset” of RAG=make fun=”kid”, plus FIELD=”deal with” as in ‘fielding questions”
3 ZIRCON Unknown element with carbon in mineral (6)
  Z=”Unknown” maths variable + IRON=”element” with Carbon inside
4, 6 YOU NEVER KNOW Solver always ignorant, perhaps (3,5,4)
  cryptic interpretation of “Solver always ignorant”
5 MOUSER Having stopped short, continue climbing to rescue old cat (6)
  Reversal/”climbing” of: RESUMe=”continue” “stopped short”, around Old
6   See 4
 
11 PORTFOLIO Uplifting painting of chief about right for artist’s work (9)
  Reversal/”Uplifting” of: OIL=”painting” + OF + TOP=”chief”; around Right
12 GHANA Puzzling arrangement with sheep leaving, heading north around hot country (5)
  Reversal/”heading north” of: ANAGram=”Puzzling arrangement” with ram=”sheep” leaving; around Hot
14 NURSE Tender resignation finally, sure to be sacked (5)
  resignatioN + (sure)*
16 UPLOADED Happy getting rich, transferred from a central bank? (8)
  definition referring to a data bank
UP=”Happy” + LOADED=”rich”
17   See 17 across
 
19 ARNICA Medicinal plant — someone taking heart from therapy, did you say? (6)
  =also known as wolfsbane
the “heart” of “theRapy” is an ‘R’; someone taking/stealing this might be an ‘R nicker’
20 PLACID Pattern of Scots crossing cold lake (6)
  =a lake in New York – the area has hosted two Winter Olympics
PLAID=”Pattern of Scots”, around Cold
21   See 25
 
23   See 15
 

47 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 27,632 by Paul”

  1. Failed at the final hurdle – with an unparsed COLOGNE instead of BOLOGNA at 8a. That’ll teach me to rely on hunches! I got ARNICA at 19d but couldn’t see the “taking”/NICA/nicker bit.
    I also really liked 17/16/17 TURN-UP FOR THE BOOKS. Other ticks for 25/24 TICKLED PINK and 1d24a DOOR KNOCKER.
    Well done for pipping me at the post, Paul, and thanks to you and manehi.

  2. Defeated by the NW and time (have to go out). Forgot that for Brits Asia starts at about Istanbul whereas for us it starts at about Dacca and Oman is Middle East. The gutless donor was too clever for me, as was the R-nicker, so arnica was a biff. I thought Cologne too JinA, but didn’t fall in! And Cluedo was so long ago that the green rev too was a biff, tho obvious.

    Looking forward to tomorrow’s blog (did finish!)

    Ta Paul and Manehi.

  3. Thanks manehi; as with JinA above, I dithered over 8, eventually plumping for Bologna over Cologne, simply on the strength of hoping the ‘B’ in bandits was involved somehow. REVEREND GREEN also pretty much a wild stab (maybe appropriately?). A lot more of a struggle than I usually find Paul. I’ll be interested to hear how others found it.

  4. Yes, didn’t realise an Omani was an Asian, so 7ac last one in after much deliberation. When Reverend Green went in quickly was imagining that Cluedo was going to feature heavily. Usual Paul fun, though…

  5. Thanks Paul and manehi

    Lots to like – 17,16,17; 25,21; and 1,24, for example.

    There were several “guess the answer, then try to parse” (and fail, in the case of ARNICA!). For that reason, I also liked PENSACOLA and PLACID, as I solved them the other way.

    I got held up the the NE by having I’LL instead of YOU. When I eventually checked, I too put in COLOGNE, only changing it to an equally unparsed BOLOGNA showed that it too was wrong. I think both YOU and I’LL work (or don’t work) equally well. I suppose I ought to have looked at it from Paul’s standpoint.

  6. Of all the short fish words (gar, shad, etc) that should be in my (nonexistant) solvers’ notebook, I don’t remember seeing orfe before; perhaps veterans have seen it.

  7. Hi GinF

    Yes, “orfe” is quite a well-known fish. Most “goldfish” are actually golden orfe. “Orfe” is an alternative name for the most famous of all crossword fishes, the “ide”.

  8. It’s a minor quibble, and maybe I’m being obtuse, but surely when you upload something you transfer it TO a central bank.

  9. Ta for that, muffin. No doubt down the track I’ll be wondering “now what was that fish that that nice helpful poster mentioned….?”

  10. Blaise@8: I thought the same. 16d is simply wrong. I’d add that the term “bank” in this context (i.e. “databank”) is obsolete, but I suppose that’s permissible in crosswords.

    <Insert standard objection to dubious homophone in ARNICA>

  11. Another one who couldn’t parse 8ac. Wanted it to start BONB until I got 5d but then couldn’t shift my thinking. Excellent crossword. My fave of the week in another strong week, if not quite as remarkable as last week. We’re spoilt. Thanks Paul and manehi.

  13. Thank you Paul and manehi.

    A slow and unsteady solve for me, but very enjoyable.  The blog was a great help since I did not  know the GREEN REVEREND, only Al Green came to mind…

    I would prefer to see symbols and abbreviations blogged as  C (carbon), not Carbon, O (old), not Old, R (right), not Right, H (hot), not Hot, etc. to distinguish them from initials signaled by ‘at first ‘, ‘initially’, etc. [as at 8a,  “of bandits starts” giving “Of Bandits”].

  14. Thanks to Paul and manehi. I’m another who started with Cologne but shifted when some crossers appeared. I needed help parsing ARNICA, had to look up ORFE to be sure, and had never come across the phrase TURN UP FOR THE BOOKS.

  15. Thanks to Paul and manehi. A steady if somewhat slow solve for me, with last two Romania and Bologna. In contrast to others I had more trouble with Romania than Bologna. I saw the latter quite readily, but spent an age toying with Romania and Somalia for 7, before I eventually twigged. Overall a very enjoyable solve, with Reverend Green, prof and door knocker favourites. Thanks again to Paul and manehi.

  16. Twists and turns aplenty. Better in a way for not having a theme to anchor the solve. Had to look up Pensacola. Arrived at door knocker eventually but still couldn’t parse it. Stroke of sneaky genius that one! Thanks Paul and manehi

  19. Cracking crossword. I failed on ROMANIA, though of course it’s obvious after the event. So many witty and inventive clues!
    Thanks to P&M

  20. As so often with Paul, this got easier after a slowish start largely due to helpful crossers. Nothing too obscure here, though PENSACOLA following so soon after he used TUSCALOOSA makes me wonder abut his reading material.

    Thanks to Paul and manehi

  21. Grantinfreo at 6 and 9 – you’ll never forget the ORFE again now that I’ve pointed out it’s an anagram of FREO!

  22. Paul usually manages to give me plenty to think about, which is just how I like it.  My favourite clue was REVEREND GREEN, partly because I was chuffed at getting it with just the V to help.  Thinking of ‘pine perhaps’, I tried TREE first: no joy.  Then, outrageously, I tried EVERGREEN, accounting for 9 of the 13 letters if it worked.  It did work!

    My other favourites were PORTFOLIO, TURN-UP FOR THE BOOKS, ROMANIA, PLACID and PENSACOLA.  Sometimes my lack of GK holds me up, but I got PENSACOLA readily from the wordplay, as I did with the clue to PLACID (which I knew and recognised once I’d worked it out).  I liked ROMANIA because I had to think hard to get OMANI, the Asian: it was my LOI, or next-to-last.

    Some clues were less elegant (DOOR KNOCKER, PROF and BOLOGNA), and UPLOADED is a bit of a mystery (the definition seeming to point to ‘downloaded’ as pointed out already), but overall this was an enjoyable and quite challenging crossword.

    Thanks Pauk and manehi.

  23. I found ROMANIA and my last in BOLOGNA hard going. I got a big smile out of the ‘Happy parasite’ and the 1,24 ‘no bell’. I agree with Blaise @8 and others about 16d.

    beery hiker @20, maybe Paul has been doing a bit of reading about the American Civil Rights Movement with his recent choice of American city names.

    Thanks to Paul and manehi.

  25. Oman is not in Asia. For all British people (and the Guardian is a British paper) Oman is in the Middle East. The clue is simply wrong. Romania was one of my possible countries for the solution but I dismissed it for that reason.

  26. Crossbencher @25 – why would that be different from saying Wales is not in Europe because it is in the United Kingdom? The Middle East isn’t a continent.

  28. I agree with Van Winkle (for once!). Asia starts as you cross the Bosphorus at Istanbul (I’ve actually walked from Europe to Asia!). The Middle East is a region, for sure, but it isn’t a continent.

    My problem with this one was rejecting UMANI as an Asian…

  29. Thanks Paul; I found this quite difficult but lots of nice touches.

    Thanks manehi; I usually enjoy Paul’s puns and enjoyed R nicker. I thought DOOR KNOCKER was a bit too silly though. A “no bell” is not a DOOR KNOCKER and to me it doesn’t make any sense unless you think of a door with no bell that might then be a door with a DOOR KNOCKER; am I missing something? (probably a few screws, no doubt.)

  31. Sorry, I didn’t acknowledge that ginf had already made the Istanbul connection.

    crossbencher – if Oman isn’t in Asia, which continent is it in?

     

     

     

     

  33. ACD @ 14. Which crosser caused you to switch from Cologne to Bologna? All three work with either answer.

  34. Which continent is OMAN in if it’s not in Asia? Somewhat puzzled by Crossbencher@25.
    Took me a long time to get going on this. I only had ORFE on the first pass and the rest unravelled very slowly indeed and at the end I got stuck on BOLOGNIA and MOUSER.The former was a guess because of the B and the latter was all I could think of. I did play CLUEDO when I was a child but the only character I could remember was Colonel Mustard so while I got the REVEREND I had to look up the GREEN part.
    No Paul tomorrow then.
    Thanks Paul

  35. My solve mirrors manehi’s in being slow and steady.  I was pleased to be able to construct REVEREND GREEN from the clue.  As I already had PROF, I immediately went in search of Plum.  There was a Cleudo themed puzzle a while back – perhaps this one started out as such but was then aborted.  No matter, I still enjoyed it a lot.  PIECE was LOI – quite subtle and difficult to spot, I thought.

    Topically for 7, Paul could have gone with “Gunners touring Asian country” since Arsenal were in Azerbaijan last night ;o ).

    Thanks, Paul and manehi.

  36. Thanks both,

    Quite a tough one but fair clues, although I did have to check there isn’t a Pensasoda in Florida. CotD for me was 10, although I wouldn’t regard the item in question as a sharp implement; I’d let a (supervised) four year old use one.

  37. I thought this was great Friday fun – although I would have enjoyed it even more if I had already known the phrase TURN-UP FOR THE BOOKS.  That is not a familiar saying here in the US (as noted by my fellow American ACD @14), but I did get some enjoyment when I Googled it after solving, and read some amusing examples of its use.  My favorites today included PROF, REVEREND GREEN, DOOR KNOCKER, and ARNICA, and my CotD was TICKLED PINK, which provided a laugh-out-loud PDM.

    I enjoyed the comments on geography and fish above, with the latter dialogue culminating in the apt (considering the other commenter involved) mnemonic device for ORFE suggested by Gasmanjack @21.  “Orfe” is one of those words that looks like it has been borrowed from another language — French or Spanish, say — and should be pronounced in two syllables (or-FAY), rather than the correct, one-syllable pronunciation (according to the sound file here) That pronunciation sounds so much to me like “off” (with an “English accent” as we would say here) that I am surprised that Paul, with his love of homophone clues — which, admittedly, are sometimes of a “horseshoes and hand grenades” level of precision, but it’s all part of the fun — did not choose to clue ORFE in this way today.  Maybe he decided the R-nicker and no-bell clues had already scratched that itch, whereas an embedded word clue would add a bit more solving variety.

    [BTW, it’s a fact that orfe are always the best types of fish friends to have.  Why?  Because ide never let you down.  Sorry, that was orfe-ull.]

    Many thanks to Paul and manehi and the other commenters.  We’ve (again) had a very nice week of Cryptic puzzles.  Wishing a happy weekend to all.

  38. The word “Asian” is interesting. There’s no doubt that Oman is in Asia, but I, like many others apparently, initially found it odd to think of OMANI as “Asian”.

    The usual scope of the word is different in different parts of the English-speaking world. In the US, the word almost always refers to east Asia. We tend not to refer to middle Easterners, Indians, Pakistanis as “Asian.” Those of us who are not completely ignorant of geography (sadly, that’s far from all of us) know that these places are part of Asia, but we tend not to use the word for them. I suspect the main reason for this is the word “Asian” came to be used as a substitute for “Oriental” when that word came to be regarded as offensive. Since we used to use the latter only for east Asia, the former adopted that connotation as well.

    In the UK, I gather that “Asian” is commonly used to refer to the Indian subcontinent as well as to east Asia.

  39. Ted @38

    I’m afraid that in East Lancashire there was some prejudice against Bangladeshis, often called “Pakis” (though nearly all aren’t from Pakistan) or “Asians”. In a disturbance in Burnley a few years ago, some yobs were attacking a corner shop, when some protectors rushed out and cried “They aren’t Asians, they’re Indians”.

    All very reprehensible. Things seem to have improved in the last few years, thankfully.

  41. Thank you to Paul and manehi.  As a Canadian, I knew Mr. Green but not Reverend Green, so this was a dnf for me (though admittedly there were one or two others I didn’t solve).  When looking up Clue(do) characters it turns out that Parker Brothers was worried that Americans would not like a Reverend as a murder suspect … I imagine this scruple no longer exists.

     

  43. We did this on a 3 hour car journey – which was more fun than the puzzle. I’m sorry to dissent but I find Paul’s long non-sensical surfaces where there seems to be much more fun for the setter than the solver. Clues like Reverend Green when it is solvable from the crossers (R & V) and definition and then figure out the parsing – but I can’t be bothered. For me there is no pdm – just an admiration for Paul’s inventiveness. But I’m happy to acknowledge that others see things differently and enjoy his puzzles more than I do. Thanks to Paul for keeping us occupied for most of the way and to manehi for explaining everything.

  44. The point might perhaps be made that, though the medicinal Arnica may be also known as ‘wolfsbane’, the plant more commonly given that name is Aconitum napellus and deadly poisonous in all parts. Great puzzle though.

  45. 17,16,17d I knew “turn up for the book” as derived from a”turn-up” = surprise for “the book” = book of bets held by a bookmaker. I’ve probably more often heard “turn-up for the books” but a brief Google doesn’t show how, when or why the plural crept in. As usual with Paul a lot to make you smile if you get them but, perhaps justifiably mutter ” unfair” if you don’t, eg DOOR KNOCKER and ARNICA. Fortunately I only had cause to smile today.
    Thanks to Paul and manehi.

  46. Komornik @44 – not quite all parts. When my wife was a small girl she and her friends used to extract the very tips of the stamens of aconite and eat them. Very sweet, apparently. How they knew to ignore the rest of the plant I know not.
    Do not try this at home.

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