Unsurprisingly, Paul appears in his customary fortnightly Prize slot and thus coincides with my monthly blog.
This was a challenge worthy of a Prize puzzle and I enjoyed solving it. I’m not always keen on Paul’s surfaces but I liked those at 7,26,12 and 20ac. 11ac made me smile, too – thanks, Paul.
Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Across
7, 26 12 more Spaniards ate crackers (8,8)
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
After a week’s thinking about it, I’m still not quite sure how to explain this: it’s an anagram [crackers] of MORE SPANIARDS ATE, with ’12’ as the definition – but, unusually, this refers to the clue, rather than the answer, to 12ac – a straightforward definition, so I’m not sure that this clue is actually cryptic, although the combination of the two clues is clever – I look forward to comments on this
9 It’s not entirely lost on guest speaker (6)
TONGUE
Hidden [it’s not entirely] in losT ON GUEst
10 Shortage in change? Absolutely! (4)
AMEN
AMEN[d] [change, shortened]
11 Possums say Paul is off on another planet (10)
MARSUPIALS
An anagram [off] of PAUL IS after [on] MARS [another planet]
12 Characters listed in play (6)
TILDES
An anagram [in play] of LISTED – great clue and the definition for 7,26
14 Cover a municipal role (8)
CAPACITY
CAP [cover] + A + CITY [municipal – used as a modifier / adjective, as in ‘city life’]
17 Extend length of bird (7)
STRETCH
Double definition, ‘stretch’ and ‘bird’ both being terms for a prison sentence
20 Gun-toting kid somewhere on an island (8)
YARMOUTH
YOUTH [kid] round [toting] ARM [gun]
Yarmouth is a port on the Isle of Wight – not to be confused with Great Yarmouth, the Norfolk resort where I spent my three student summers working as a waitress
22 Reason sensation happening (4,2)
WITH IT
WIT [reason] + HIT [sensation]
23, 15 Dish, one quaking at the prospect of investiture? (10,7)
CORONATION CHICKEN
Cryptic [double? – remembering the nervous young Prince Charles at his Investiture as Prince of Wales] definition
a dish created for the banquet at the coronation of Elizabeth II in 1953 – see here https://www.cordonbleu.edu/london/coronation-chicken/en – [I don’t know why I’ve lost my link ] [I always thought it was a celebratory dish devised to be prepared in advance to ensure uninterrupted television viewing on The Day; whatever – it still seems to be going strong in sandwiches et al]
24, 3 Stalemate followed by defeats, officially stop game (4,6)
DRAW STUMPS
DRAW [stalemate] + STUMPS [defeats] – what happens at close of play in a cricket match
25 Diamonds in cargo, oddly, for Roman consul (6)
CICERO
ICE [diamonds] in the odd letters of CaRgO
Down
1 Search bottom parts, unattractive (8)
FRUMPISH
RUMP [bottom] in [parts] FISH
2 Sign form, seen regularly (4)
OMEN
Alternate letters of fOrM sEeN
4 Actress ultimately given daffy part as tramp (8)
STRUMPET
[actres]S + TRUMPET [part of a daff{odil} – so ‘daffy’ – typical Paul wordplay]
5 Unwise to move since tired (10)
INDISCREET
An anagram [to move] of SINCE TIRED
6 15, something to do with a fast one, say?
PULLET
Sounds like [say] ‘pull it’: a reference to the saying ‘to pull a fast one’ – to deceive / trick
8 Tidy wood (6)
SPRUCE
Double definition – an old favourite
13 Broke down, having erased scores, might you say? (10)
DECOMPOSED
Cryptic definition, the scores being musical ones
16 Sovereign inspiring couple to catch lion, say, for master (8)
EDUCATOR
ER [sovereign] round DUO [couple] round CAT [lion, say]
18 Hit before lunch, perhaps with a new ball (8)
CHINAMAN
CHIN [hit] + AM [before lunch, perhaps] + A N [new] – another cricketing reference
19 Sixties’ model losing weight, tiny little thing (6)
SHRIMP
[Jean] SHRIMP[ton] ‘losing weight’ [‘Tiggy’ wouldn’t fit 😉 ]
21 Lovely person — who’s teaching Oxbridge students? (6)
ADONIS
A DON IS [teaching Oxbridge students]
22 Get to taste bitter (6)
WINTRY
WIN [get] + TRY [taste] – a topical clue!
24 Abandon GP and surgery (4)
DROP
DR [GP] + OP[eration] [surgery]
Thanks Eileen. I take your point about 7,26 and agree it is not actually cryptic but clever nonetheless. This is where I made it hard for myself by confidently entering ‘actors’ in 12a and taking quite some time to recognise my error. LOI was 20a, I kept trying to find some association with Billy and then dithered between Falmouth and Yarmouth.
I think Elizabeth I probably had something else as a dish at her coronation!
Thanks Eileen. Since TILDES was just about my last in, the parsing of the key clue (which I had ‘solved’ early on) stumped me: when the light dawned about the clue itself to 12 I declared “Brilliant!”
chin = hit?
I thought the reference to the surface of 12a was brilliant, because it was unexpected, and there is nothing but tradition to say a reference to another clue must be to its answer. You could possibly argue rather perversely that the reference is indeed to the answer, to which you add on a layer of reinterpretation to get back the surface.
Actually, 12a gave me a momentary problem in another way. I put in TILDES right away because it just had to be that, but was unhappy because they are diacritics that go above characters, as we know in Spanish and Portuguese. But then I realized that they are also mathematical symbols (better) and more than that, keyboard characters (perfect!)
Thanks Eileen and Paul
Biggles A @3: “I chinned him, and he dropped like a sack of potatoes.”
Lovely puzzle. Thanks for the clarification between Yarmouth and Great Yarmouth (the latter on a spit, not an island).
I thought this was one of Paul’s best for ages and definitely worthy of a prize. Unusually I didn’t have any queries over the surfaces and liked his inventiveness with the link between clues. As well as Eileen’s highlights I thought CORONATION CHICKEN was amusing and liked STRETCH. A nice puzzle to look back on – thanks Paul and Eileen.
Thanks for Yarmouth. I think the “island” bit was a “drop of the shoulder” as you have to blow the map up a fair bit to spot it.I was thinking Bryson’s notes from a small island.And the other one is Great if only in name.
It was a pleasure to find a small cluster of cricketing references: to those noted by Eileen, one could add the more marginal PULLET and DROP and even SHRIMP (nickname of a English grandee from the Golden Age). CHINAMAN raises again the PC question (compare recent discussion of the acceptability of TART) since the term is now seen as racially derogatory and is now officially banned by Wisden, the annual “cricketers’ bible”. To Eileen’s very good Wikipedia link in the blog one can add this from Andy Bull in the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/mar/28/the-spin-cricket-chinaman-phrase
– as cited in discussion of the earlier cluing of CHINAMAN in Azed 2341 in April 2017 (thanks to admin for the efficiency of this site’s Search function): http://www.fifteensquared.net/2017/04/30/azed-2341/
Thanks to Paul and Eileen for a fine puzzle & blog
17th April 2017
Had to search under stuff to find my copy, and then search the memory to see how I went. Only one ? on the page, dn think of the daffy’s trumpet, so a biff, tho obvious. 7,26 wrote itself FOI I think, and tildes later, without a thought about the former’s ref to the latter’s surface. The chicken dish was got from crossers then look up, but it then rang a faint bell (I think, hard to tell sometimes). Slow to remember bird=stretch, tho a chestnut. I liked amen and the silliness of cap a city, ditto Yarmouth, via which my geography has improved (for the moment anyway!), so thanks for that Eileen and thanks Paul.
Thank you Eileen for a typically excellent blog of a fine puzzle. I have just one comment – I objected strongly to the inclusion of the term Chinaman in Puzzle 26,033 by Puck in 2013. The debate that ensued generated more heat than light and included some unsavoury aspersions that I do not want to revisit. Puck expressed ignorance and remorse, as did Eileen who blogged that one too. Perfectly understandable.
There is a big difference this time – in 26,033 the term was used specifically to refer to a Chinese Man (with BAREFOOT DOCTOR as DBI). That usage has been pejorative and unacceptable for a long time. There is a personal aspect for me – my wife is Chinese and I was living in Hong Kong.
In this case Paul uses the term as the name of a cricket delivery. Common origin certainly but remained valid usage just as Nigger survived for a while as an acceptable name for a dog or a colour. It is no longer officially accepted for in the cricket lexicon but doesn’t bother me (much) in that context. Thanks Quenbarrow for the link. I hope the term now disappears from the language.
Surely 7,26 is cryptic on a few levels.
Surface is very good. “12 more Spaniards ate crackers”
It has a normal definition which is cryptically pointed to ie “Characters listed in a play”
Plus a normal wordplay “more Spaniards ate crackers” with fodder and am anagrind.
Very cryptic and quite brilliant.
I loved the way 7,26 and 12 worked, and I don’t see any reason why a numbered reference has to be to the answer rather than to the clue. Other than that I’d not seen it done before, but that’s why I loved it. I thought 12 was quite a neat clue in its own right, and actually thought ‘well, dramatic personae won’t fit’ as soon as I read it, but it was embarrassingly long before I realised that was the anagram I was looking for for 7,26. And I liked the daffy trumpet and a number of others. I nearly didn’t finish because I carelessly spelled Discreet as Discrete and – combined with an inability to see WINTRY for ages – I thought I wasn’t going to get WITH IT. But I got there. A splendid puzzle, Paul, and ditto for the blog, Eileen.
Having just re-read your comments about 7,26, Eileen, your point was more that the ‘redirected’ definition was too straightforward to be cryptic, I think. I take that point. I still think it was cryptic, but perhaps that’s just because it took me a relatively long time to get! Is that a sufficient test for being ‘cryptic’?
Thank you, Biggles A @1 – careless error amended now. 😉
A fair puzzle.
Thought 18 dn very good. Chin as a verb, excellent wordplay.
20 ac though very weak definition. Somewhere on an island could be virtually anywhere!
Dr Watson @4 has beaten me to my main point. A tilde is NOT a character. it’s a diacritic. So unfortunately I have to reject the clue. ñ is a character. The tilde itself is not.
I had to look up Shrimpton the model.
Moving house on Monday so will print off today’s prize and do it later in the week.
Many thanks to Paul and to Eileen.
Thanks Paul and Eileen
I enjoyed this – a good challenege.
Isn’t a tilde a diacritical mark rather than a character?
In Libre Office Writer (the Linux equivalent of Microsoft Word) the tilde is listed as a “special character”.
Many thanks for an excellent puzzle, Paul, and the very clear blog, Eileen. “Let me be clear…” seems to be becoming standard usage; I wonder why.
I too questioned tilde as a character but I have seen it used in “texting” (horrid word) so I guess we’re all just a bit old fashioned. But thank you Paul (and Eileen) much fun had with this one.
Paul in good form. Thanks Eileen, especialy for explaining STRUMPET which I hadn’t parsed.
I don’t share any of the doubts expressed above. Re chinaman, I’m Scots, and don’t like being called ‘Scotch’, but if ‘whisky’ were used to define that word I’d have no objection at all. YARMOUTH’s definition was clear enough to anyone with a reasonable knowledge of UK geography, though perhaps harder for non-UK solvers (I know some object to gk definitions, but they’re fine by me). And TILDES was covered by Dr Whatson @4 – ‘key’ = ‘alt’ or ‘esc’ is common enough, so what’s wrong with ‘character’ = ’tilde’?
Thanks Paul and Eileen.
Thank you for the comments so far on 27,6. Just to clarify: I didn’t suggest that there was anything wrong in the clue, rather than the answer, for 12 being used as the clue – I said ‘unusually’ – but that ‘characters listed in play’ is hardly a cryptic definition of DRAMATIS PERSONAE. However, I did think [and say] that the anagram and surface of the clue were clever.
Re CHINAMAN: I was aware that this was a contentious term [although I had totally forgotten [my blog of] the Puck puzzle and the subsequent distasteful discussion] and so I looked it up and read the Wikipedia article carefully and decided to let that speak for itself, as it concluded with the recent Wisden decision to discontinue the term. Many thanks to quenbarrow @8 for the link to the Guardian article, which I have now read, and to KLColin [I nearly wrote ‘HKColin’ 😉 ] @10 for your input.
Sorry – missed the earlier comments about tildes. I don’t think it’s a character, because it would never be used by itself. It looks a bit like the mathematical sign for “roughly equal to”, but I don’t think that is called a “tilde”. (“Approximately equal to” is a tilde-like squiggle over a line.)
I don’t see that “key” is relevant here.
muffin – my view is that tilde is nowadays used as a character (else why is it present on a keyboard?) – see Jaydee @18.The fact that it was once only a diacritical mark is neither here nor there.
I thoroughly enjoyed this – CHINAMAN was my LOI and caused a raised eyebrow, although that was largely for the use of an archaic cricketing term. As a younger solver my experience with the word is limited to John Goodman reminding us it’s “not the preferred nomenclature”.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE was the first time I’d seen linked answers like this. I agree with KeithS that making the jump took enough brain power that I’d consider it cryptic! Fairly clued, elegant surface and a very nice penny drop moment.
Many thanks Paul and Eileen.
Beaulieu – I agree, tilde is used as a character now, but is this actually because it is available on the keyboard? Why was it put there in the first place?
Thanks to Paul and Eileen.
I agree that 7, 26 was the standout clue, and I thought the inventiveness of “12” referring to the clue rather than the answer to 12a was brilliant.
Eileen: despite your clarification @20, I still don’t really understand your “non-cryptic” comment. The definition part of a clue isn’t necessarily cryptic by itself, is it? For example “Roman consul” for CICERO (25a), “unattractive” for FRUMPISH (1d), “abandon” for DROP (24d). It’s usually the clue as a whole that is cryptic.
I agree that 7, 26 was the standout clue, and I thought the inventiveness of “12” referring to the clue rather than the answer to 12a was brilliant.
Eileen: despite your clarification @20, I still don’t really understand your “non-cryptic” comment. The definition part of a clue isn’t necessarily cryptic by itself, is it? For example “Roman consul” for CICERO (25a), “unattractive” for FRUMPISH (1d), “abandon” for DROP (24d). It’s usually the clue as a whole that is cryptic.
(Sorry – don’t know how I managed to post twice at exactly the same time!)
Thanks to Paul and Eileen. I am another who really enjoyed this puzzle. As usual with Paul I started off slowly but it gradually all unpacked and last ones were tildes and Yarmouth. My favourites were coronation chicken and shrimp (sadly I am old enough to remember her from the 60’s). Thanks again to Paul and Eileen.
DuncT asked why tilde is on the keyboard, a fair question. It is used as a bitwise negation operator in several programming languages, but that then becomes a chicken-and-egg question. If you’re coming from the world of language, you will rightfully shudder at it being called a character, from mathematics it will be acceptable, but from computer science it’s really a no-brainer since it is part of the ascii character set (126 decimal). If you inhabit all of these as I do, it can require a major context switch, but that is what cryptics are all about.
My wife and I, who struggle with some of the more difficult Guardian crosswords, felt proud to have finished this one just before the week was up. Paul has always been a challenge for us. LOI was 12, which had us totally flummoxed until the penny dropped. When we finally saw the connection between 12 and 7,26 we both laughed aloud. We thought it was brilliant! Thank you Paul and Eileen.
I thought this a little easier than yesterday’s Paul which is not to say that I found it easy per se. I was a little slow to get DRAMATIS PERSONAE which didn’t help but once I did things picked up. My LOI was PULLET, largely because I manage to misspell MARSUPIALS. I liked CORONATION CHICKEN but I remember disliking it intensely as a dish. Mind you, I remember having to sit through the Coronation and it was the most boring experience I have ever had. I often think that it was the reason I became a Left winger and Republican. I don’t suppose the twelve inch TV set helped!
Thanks Paul.
Tilde isn’t a letter, but I can’t see any objection to calling it a character: “a mark of any kind, a symbol in writing, etc” (Chambers).
Thanks to Eileen and Paul
I had a similar feeling about 7,26 as Eileen. If the whole clue were to appear as one, the definition would be too precise.
The separation affords a veneer of difficulty but once you look at 12a the artifice dissolves and it becomes rather a simple clue.
Nice new device, must try harder next time.
Some trademark gobbledegook surfaces but quite fun.
@6d I took Paul to be alluding to either, “a way a batsman might deal with a fast delivery”, or “what one might do with a “loose” woman”.
12@
I’ve recently been asked to provide a new password, including a “character”. I was told that this meant something like ? or =. News to me as I always thought that letters were characters but apparently not in this context.
I agree with Lord Jim’s point @25 (&26!) regarding the crypticity(?) of the definition in 7,26. I felt at first that it offended against convention, but thinking on, I don’t see why such a “double bluff” shouldn’t appear.
I agree with Andrew @32 regarding “tilde as character”.
@Eileen, ‘Tiggy’ doesn’t fit but ‘Twiggy’ (so nicknamed for her exceptional twig-like thinness), who is probably the person you were thinking of, does. In fact Twiggy was my first thought on reading the clue. It took me a long time time get the answer despite thinking of Jean Shrimpton and her nickname quite quickly, because I had no idea shrimps were supposed to have the property of “losing weight” (which of course they don’t), so I took it as wordplay for the removal of something or other. You will tend to lose weight if you eat a portion of shrimps rather than a portion of fatty meat.
Tony @ 36: ‘Tiggy’ = ‘Twiggy’ losing w(eight)
Tony@36 is surely a wind-up.
Thank you Simon S @37 – fortunately, I ‘refreshed’ before posting an explanation of my ‘joke’ – which is never a good thing to have to do. 😉
I’m pretty sure that someone from China would agree that tilde is a character of sorts.
Thanks to Eileen and Paul. I thoroughly enjoyed this, as is quite common with a Paul puzzle. DRAMATIS PERSONAE was a bit unusual but otherwise perfectly acceptable. Being a bit of a cricket buff helped with the cricketing references of course. As soon as I saw it I thought the inclusion of CHINAMAN would cause a degree of moaning and groaning here, just like TART recently, and so it proved; as this was Paul I did briefly wonder whether or not it might be a deliberate wind-up, but perhaps that’s a little too cynical. I’m surprised cricket hasn’t yet managed to create a replacement term for a left-arm wrist-spinner – maybe one day !
Eileen, thanks for putting me right. I had indiscreetly entered INDISCRETE instead of INDISCREET — so the SE corner refused to resolve. Couldn’t figure what I had done wrong until I read your blog.
Well, I did find it a little odd that you seemed to have misremembered Twiggy’s name, Eileen, but unfortunately I was in far too much of a rush at the time to give the blog the attention it deserved.
I spent ages puzzling over that clue, not understanding what the apparently required deletion was, long after I’d decided the answer was SHRIMP, and didn’t notice your explanation in my rush. As you may (or quite possibly may not) have gleaned from my hurried comment, I read it finally not as a deletion but a triple def:
1. Sixties model: Jean Shrimpton was known as ‘The Shrimp’.
2. Losing weight: Go ogle led me to the understanding that some people believe that eating shrimp loses you weight. A bit of a grammar mismatch but not unthinkable.
3. Tiny little thing.
I’m glad Simon S saved you the trouble of explaining (and I hope Dansar accepts that I really wasn’t trying to wind you up) and I can only apologise for not giving your blog the full attention it deserves. Thanks for (finally.) making me understand the clue.
Don’t understand the discussions about this character “~”
Of course tilde is a character. Here are its main uses.
Shorten long file names in Microsoft Windows 95 above. For example, changing the “Program
Files” directory to the “Progra~1” directory.
In regular expressions, the tilde can be used for pattern matching.
In C programming languages, the ~ represents a bitwise NOT.
Get to the home directory on a Linux computer (e.g., cd ~).
Access the console in programs and games such as Quake.
In mathematics, ~ is used to indicate an approximate number.
Access to the Tilda GTK+ terminal emulator.
I have personally used it in for of these ways so didn’t even see a problem!
Re clue 7,26. The only real objection seems to be that it is too easy but definitely cryptic. Quite a common problem recently in Prize Puzzles!
Whilst the subject of tilde as a character has hopefully been resolved, I would point out that if you want to be really specific it is ASCII character number 126.
Here’s the ASCII table. for reference
muffin @ 21 and others ff. Tilde ~ is a symbol (or character) in geometry, meaning “similar.” Two triangles, and perhaps other polygons, are similar if all their angles are the same and all their sides are in the same proportion from one figure to another. (If you have either one of those conditions, you’ll have the other too.)
That which is formed by turns — like a tilde, perhaps? (9)
Valentine said
……triangles, and perhaps other polygons………
(If you have either one of those conditions, you’ll have the other too.)
This is certainly not true for quadrilaterals.
You’re right, Alex, it just works for triangles.