Guardian 27,654 – Paul

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A bit of a surprise to see Paul’s name today, as he usually appears later in the week. I found this quite hard to get going on, and not much easier to finish, though, as often in such situations, it all seems straightforward in retrospect. Thanks to Paul

 
 
 
 
 
 
Across
8. TELLTALE Revealing backside reportedly, kiss partner first? (8)
TELL (kiss’s “partner” in the expression “kiss and tell”) + homophone of “tail” (backside)
9. PANTS Useless dad not taken seriously at first (5)
PA + first letters of Not Taken Seriously
10. SKIP Pass over waste container (4)
Double definition
11. SOLAR FLARE Wind far, all wrapped up in swelling burst of energy (5,5)
(FAR ALL)* in SORE (a swelling)
12. SETTEE Furniture item solver suggested? (6)
This raised a smile – the solver is a settee as opposed to a setter
14. ANTIBODY Penning notes on passing back, handyman defender (8)
Reverse of OBIT (“notes on passing”) in ANDY – a (perhaps rather parochial) reference to Andy Kane, known as Handy Andy on the BBC’s Changing Rooms (or perhaps Handy Andy is a generic nickname for a handyman?)
15. FRIABLE Deepest part of script in story likely to crumble (7)
[sc]RI[pt] in FABLE
17. PANTHER Prowler, male part on parade, initially (7)
P[arade] + ANTHER (male part of a flower)
20. ENTR’ACTE Music in middle of performance, played at centre (8)
(AT CENTRE)*
22. PORTER Drink carrier (6)
Double definition
23. JOLLY ROGER Standard for Morgan perhaps, happy fellow (5,5)
JOLLY (happy) + ROGER (fellow), and a reference to the privateer Captain Henry Morgan
24,24d. SWANSONG Gloria Gaynor’s first and last gig? (8)
SWANSON + G[aynor] – nice misdirection to the wrong Gloria
25. ID EST That’s one place to go, briefly (2,3)
1 + DEST[ination]
26. IN TANDEM Together in print and embossed (2,6)
Hidden in prINT AND EMbossed
Down
1. NECKWEAR Tie spoon on last (8)
NECK (kiss, spoon) + WEAR (to endure, last)
2. SLIP Cricketer in female underwear (4)
Double definition
3. HASSLE Problem with smalls filling up well (6)
S S in HALE
4. HELLCAT Whip under the nether regions, as virago (7)
HELL (nether regions) + CAT (whip)
5. OPERETTA Treat Peter to a Trial by Jury, say? (8)
(PETER TO A)* – TBJ was Gilbert and Sullivan’s first collaboration, apart from Thespis, whose music is lost
6. ANKLE-BITER Touring Berlin, take nipper (5-5)
(BERLIN LAKE)* – picturesque slang for a small child: Chambers tells me it’s Australian, though this page traces it back to the US Harper’s Magazine of the surprisingly early date of 1850
7. ASTRID Girl riding without support (6)
ASTRID[e]
13. TEA TROLLEY Server you rolled up, on which a source of milk and bread (3,7)
TEAT (source of milk) + ROLL (bread) + reverse of YE
16. LACERATE Cut tatting speed? (8)
The tatting speed is the LACE RATE
18. ELEVATES Foreign students having secured top grade, time for cheers (8)
A (top grade) + T in ELEVES (French for pupils, students)
19. PENGUIN Publisher taking initiative originally in shooting writer? (7)
I[nitiative] in PEN GUN (a “shooting writer”)
21. NOOKIE Knickers ultimately abandoned, sounds about right — for this? (6)
OK (right) in NOI[S]E (sounds) with the last letter of knickerS removed
22. PARITY Individual opening individual correspondence (6)
I (individual) in PARTY (another individual, as in legal documents etc)

47 comments on “Guardian 27,654 – Paul”

  2. Definitely more of a challenge this morning – thanks, Paul.
    And thanks, Andrew, for parsing TEA TROLLEY.
    Liked SETTEE and LACERATED particularly. Looked for a toilet ref in ID EST before getting it from the crossers but still needed Andrew’s help with DESTination.

  4. I found that tough, and a just-the-one-left DNF. I succumbed – for shame! – to doing a check on the letter common to 24a and 24d until it gave me the S and the answer jumped out. Such a clever clue that I don’t feel too bad.

     

    Thanks, Paul and Andrew.

  5. I guessed the right solution, but still don’t understand the final letter (-e) meaning ‘support’.
    Thank you, Andrew, for your explanations, and Paul, for another brilliant puzzle.

  6. Thanks Andrew. Two marvellous qualities of Paul, inventiveness and the signs that he is having fun, on show eg in some of the first clues – kiss partner = TELL, solver suggested = SETTEE and notes on passing = OBIT. Nonpareil.

  7. Julie@5-I wasnt sold on E being support in ASTRID(E) either

    And I thought ID EST was a bit flimsy.And a clumsy surface for ANTIBODY

    I loved everything else, especially PENGUIN-really only small niggles

    Thanks Andrew and Paul.

  8. Yes it was tough but I liked it! As molonglo@6 suggests, when Paul is having fun, so do we! My clue of the day was ANKLE BITER 6d, but I also appreciated the already mentioned SETTEE (me!) at 12a, 23a JOLLY ROGER and the 24s – SWANSON! A few clumsy surfaces (11a, for instance), but in my books, all is forgiven when I have such gems for balance. Thanks to Paul and Andrew.

  9. Damn! Bunged in settle for 12ac, as in suggestion from a solver (e.g. mediator). The correct answer is much sharper. Otherwise a nice steady solve, although didn’t parse antibody, was a bit slow to think underworld rather than something ruder for hellcat (it being Paul), and likewise to think botany for panther (ditto reason). Liked nookie! And tea trolley.

    Thanks Andrew and Paul.

  10. Julie@5 : if ASTRIDE were written vertically, the E would support the required down solution – but I’m not keen on that justification.

  11. PS forgot eleve (with acute? and grave), all the way back to early highschool French, many decades; took a while for that to bubble up from the synaptic depths.

  12. Toughie today but got there courtesy of Madame Google (trial by jury ENTRACTE FRIABLE & ANTHER) and some reverse engineering on a few.

    Like the image of being a SETTEE as I am usually loafing when doing the crosser. Too many good clues to pick any out. Had to wait until the very end for the paulian smut but knew it was coming.

    Thanks to Paul and Andrew for filling the gaps

  13. SETTEE was my favourite today. I had PANTLER for 17a (male part = ANTLER) but that’s a bit rude even for Paul (and doesn’t make sense anyway – doh!).
    Many thanks P&A.

  14. I found the LH side easier than the right.   I particularly liked the ‘deepest part’ in 15a – I don’t think I’ve  seen use only the middle letters of a word clued like that before

    Thanks to Paul and Andrew

  15. I thought I was going to struggle after a first pass or two but gradually the right side came together, and then the left. Too many ticks to name, but so much misdirection, especially with the naughtiness we’ve come to expect, which pretty much all turned out innocent. A little clumsy to have “in” and “roll” in the clue and solution (26A, 13D) and I wasn’t sold on “pen gun” as a shooting writer – the order makes little sense. Thanks Paul, and Andrew for parsing 21D, my LOI – I had “OK” and the definition but could not see where the “noises off” came from (as it were).

  16. Coming to this a bit late and disagreeing with those who liked settee. Maybe I’m missing something and/or taking the clue too seriously but surely the settee is the puzzle itself, not the solver? As, for example, an employee is a person employed.

  17. Mostly enjoyable.

    Tatting was new to me.

    I thought 19 dn and 21 dn were both rather poor.  21 dn specially far to contrived.

    I liked ID EST.

    To grantinfreo @11.  Well remembered, yes it’s élève.

    Thanks to Paul and to Andrew.

  21. Thanks to Paul and Andrew. I’m another who struggled at first, got several solutions, and then parsed (or did not parse) them. I did not know Handy Andy, FRIABLE (which I did parse), and dest.= destination, but for a change I did get a cricket term (SLIP) and much enjoyed SETTEE.

  23. Thanks to Paul and Andrew. Unusually for a Paul puzzle I found this very tough, and got bogged down at the bottom. A DNF for me because I failed on swan song and id est, though in retrospect I should have got both. Enjoyed the rest though and liked hellcat, solar flare and panther. I’m pretty sure I have seen ankle biter in the recent past and thanks again to Paul and Andrew.

  24. Definitely at the tougher end of Paul’s range, though I should have seen my last in TELLTALE much earlier.

    Thanks to Paul and Andrew

  25. Thanks Paul and Andrew

    I didn’t enjoy some of the meaningless surfaces. At first reading I thought “wind far” in 11a was a Grauniad misprint for “wind farm”; several others made little more sense.

    I failed to parse ANTIBODY.

    Favourites were SETTEE and LOI SWANSONG.

  26. Howard March @20 – “on” is relative. If a picture is hanging on the wall to your left then you have a wall and then the picture. If a picture is on the wall to your right you have the picture and then the wall. If there’s a rock on the ground it’s on top of it. If a fly is on the ceiling it’s underneath it. Heck – I’ve got a t-shirt “on” – it’s all around me.

  27. On 17a: I’m reminded of an Ogden Nash poem, which goes, in its entirety,

    If called by a panther,
    Don’t anther.

  28. What Andrew says in his preamble, although I needed his help to parse the “ROLLEY” bit of 13d and the “NOIE” bit of 21d – and the TELL part of 8a – so quite a few to that weren’t obvious to me even with hindsight. Like JinA and muffin say there were some iffy surfaces, but there often are with Paul and usually – as here – they are far outnumbered by great clues. As well as those mentioned I also ticked ELEVATES for it’s misleading definition and IN TANDEM which took us ages to see despite being clearly indicated. Thanks to Paul and Andrew.

  32. We enjoyed this one, once we got going.
    Do I detect a
    Mini publisher theme here? Panther, Tandem, Swan and Penguin

  33. Started ok and then came to a stop with about a quarter filled in, and then it was abit of a slog but,looking back, I’m not sure why I found it difficult because everything now makes perfect sense. SWAN SONG was LOI. It took me a long time to dredge up Gloria Swanson but once I had, the answer was my favourite of the day.
    Thanks Paul

  34. I’m amazed that no-one seems to have a problem with SPOON = NECK. To neck is to kiss amorously. to spoon is either to indulge in courtship or to lie close in bed together, back to back like spoons. Whilst I’m sure the two activities often go hand in hand, to say that spooning and necking are the same thing is like saying kissing and fondling are the same, or kissing and thinking about what’s for dinner are the same…

  35. This man’s creativity never abates!

    SETTEE – great stuff! Enjoyed FRIABLE.

    Nice one, Paul!

    (I too recall the Gloria Swanson[g] trick, and more recently than the Shed puzzle NNI mentions – perhaps a Times? Otherwise, it would also have been a favourite. I had no problem with ASTRID which I rather liked.)
    Just like beery hiker TELLTALE was LOI – I may have spent longer staring at its clue than all the others put together! And it was the first across clue – I kept thinking “he’s done this on purpose”! I wondered if this was LOI for others too but it looks as though only beery had same experience?

    Many thanks to Paul for yet another hugely enjoyable crossword and to Andrew for yet another great blog.

  38. Just checking in to make sure everyone else found this as difficult as I did. I always worry that it’s not the puzzle but just that my intellect is failing so I need reassurances.

    I ran out of my allotted time with the entire SW half of the puzzle untouched.  Hopefully I’ll have time to go back and try finishing on a another day.

  39. Bingybing @34 I have a problem with it (and I seem to recall also having a problem with it when Paul used it earlier in the year to clue ‘redneck’).

  41. muffin@40 you beat me to saying that!  though I agree with bingybing@34 that it doesn’t equal to necking even if s/he has a very untidy cutlery drawer. 🙂

  42. What fun!  My CotD was SWAN SONG — I did not recall seeing it before. [NNI @19 or anyone else – How did Shed clue this answer in #23993?]  Actually, the clue that I liked but seemed familiar to me from puzzles past was LACERATE.  I also loved PANTS, ID EST and NECKWEAR.

    bingybing @34 — I think “spoon” = NECK was well and fairly clued.  While you are correct that one of the definitions of spoon as a verb refers particularly to the configuration of a couple lying close together (but facing in the *same* direction, as noted by muffin @40 and Paulus @41!), there is an older (especially popular in the US in the 1920s, I believe) and broader verbal definition, meaning to engage in amorous behavior generally — certainly including “necking”.  I believe the term appears in a number of popular songs from that era.  [Here is an article about 1920s “petting parties” in the US, containing the following great paragraph:  “Soon the lovey-dovey wingdings were popping up all across the country. Southerners sometimes called them necking parties. They were called mushing parties in the West; fussing parties in the Midwest and spooning everywhere, the United Press noted later in 1921. Eventually some flappers began referring to party-petting as snugglepupping.”]

    Valentine @27 — Thanks for the great Ogden Nash poem!  That’s a *much* longer poem from him than “Parsley/Is gharsley.”

    Many thanks to Paul and Andrew and the other commenters.

  43. Hope it’s OK to reveal that this puzzle was the outcome of one of Paul’s Guardian Masterclass sessions, so the words were suggested by the class, and the clues are adapted from those created in the class. Paul has applied a lot of expertise in polishing up the clues to a publishable standard. I had trouble solving it, and supposedly I’d seen all the words a few weeks ago.

    My contribution was FRIABLE – “State consumed by fairy story is liable to crumble” – he kept the base of the wordplay but evidently either thought Rhode Island was too minor a state, or that it required a more ‘definite’ clue for RI.

    Excellent and enjoyable masterclass — would recommend.

  44. Just FYI, this crossword was compiled from clues set by people who attended a Guardian masterclass given by John Halpern.

  45. I was another of the masterclass attendees and contributors to this crossword. I was responsible for clues 22a, 26 and 5. I heartily recommend the masterclass, if the Guardian puts it on again.

  47. A Paulish puzzle to cherish even if I couldn’t parse a few.

    I had too had doubts about NECK but close enough I suppose. Paulus @ 41: good one!

     

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