Guardian 27,745 / Paul

55 comments on “Guardian 27,745 / Paul”

1. Albatross is spelt backwards in the clue

2. Thanks Eileen – Fred is hiding in 14dn

3. I can’t really believe that I’m the first to comment today. I suspect that there have been gremlins at work! Anyway, I’m certainly with Eileen over 14 down, although 1 across is surely just a reversed hidden word. Not that I got that at the time, it was only having read the blog that I saw it. Otherwise, largely enjoyable. C’s OTD – 1 down and 8 down. Many thanks to Paul and Eileen

4. Many thanks, DuncT – I could have stared at that till the cows came home. Dashing out now, I’m afraid.

5. …well by the time I’d actually uploaded, I was no longer the first! But many thanks to DuncT for putting us out of our misery

6. Super puzzle. 1d is a thing of beauty. And two very creative hiddens. We are spoilt.

7. Aw, dang, I thought I might be the first to find Fred, well done to you DuncT. Although, I’m not so sure if exploding is useful in some way that I’m missing. It’s kind of just hanging at the end there.

8. I’ll admit to not seeing the def-by-example ASTAIRE hidden in the 14d clue until DuncT pointed it out. Too clever for me, as was PARDONABLE. I did get ALBATROSS though – one of the clues I liked along with the (ouch) grate-ful.

9. Thanks Paul and Eileen

   I had too many question marks of various sorts to enjoy this a lot. Several of them were just too clever for me (and, to my relief, Eileen as well!). I thought that 24,10 was far too parochial. I had “analytics” first, but couldn’t see where the S came from – this led me to the correct answer.

   Favourite was the lovely LEFT BRAIN.

   In anticipation of discussion on 19a, I used GoogleMaps to find the distance – Watford Gap (the traditional North/South divide, well before the link that Eileen gave) is just over 67 miles from Watford by road.

10. Thank you, Eileen, well done for unraveling PARDONABLE.  The parse eluded me.

    Well done, DuncT @2, that was another of my ?s

    A pity about ASHES.  I liked the grate-ful gag but the clue was otherwise spoiled for me with the strained includer.

    This setter continues to mix good clues with nonsensical sentences like, Using bathroom product, soap on him foaming and popping at last.??  The CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA clue yielded straight away from The Archers reference but, again, the structure of the clue is nonsense.

    Loved Watford as the N/S divide though!

    Hey-ho, can’t please everyone, nice weekend all.

11. I feel I’m in the best of company if the doyenne hadn’t a clue! Even after DuncT’s post it took me a while to see it – and it is very clever. There were some others I really enjoyed 28a and 1 3 7d and then others that were just too contrived (22a) or nonesense surfaces (25 10) so it was the usual mixed bag for me. That said I have no doubt that’s my confirmation bias kicking in as my mindset is that is what Paul’s puzzles usually are.
    Thanks to Paul and Eileen.

12. Spelling of Astair with an e on the end, as it is apparently done explains my hanging exploding. Happy now.

13. Some may grumble, but after finally figuring out why the clue for ASHES made sense (in its own weird way), I fully realized how much I admire Paul for his constant ingenuity. And not a single pseudo-clever cryptic definition in sight. I’ve noticed these have been creeping into the non-Monday slots, and some may not grumble, but I do anytime I stare and stare at a clue, trying to figure out how to parse it, only to arrive at the anticlimax of a CD. YMMV of course.

14. I found this quite hard work but enjoyed the battle – I would agree with Eileen’s favourites 9a and 25/10.  I also liked 19a

    Thanks to Eileen and Paul

15. Thanks Eileen et al – tap dancer and ashes had me foxed, should concentrate on reverse engineering the clue.

16. Slap that bass!

17. I found this very difficult and thus not too enjoyable but probably just my lack of skill/brains. I can see ASTAIRE as a hidden but I don’t understand the definition; if it’s an &lit I can’t make it out – perhaps someone can explain.

    I did like WHAT FOR and some others.

    Thanks Paul and Eileen.

18. Today I learned about the Watford Gap.  I was thinking as I finally figured that one out, “well gee, Watford is awfully far south to count as the divide between north and south–isn’t it basically a London suburb at this point?”  I was thinking it must be like our comically provincial New Yorkers who think of everything north of the Bronx as upstate.  And the Cambridge Analytica clue I didn’t figure out at all, being unfamiliar with Ambridge.  Thanks to Eileen for enlightening on both these points.

    I did, however, find Fred Astaire.  I cannot explain how there’s a definition lurking there, and if it’s an &lit, it’s an awfully elliptical one.

    I also concur with the comment above that Paul’s surfaces sometimes get a bit dodgy.  A clever device, to my taste, can’t quite sail if the clue itself reads like word salad.  Nevertheless, Paul remains one of my favorite setters.

19. Once Astaire was pointed out to me, I think the clue works, though slightly backwards. Fred was a TAP DANCER, so “One”. (It would be better if the hidden was “tap dancer” and the solution ASTAIRE.)

20. Pretty tricky in places, as most of Pauls recent ones have been, and a decidely mixed solving experience, though there were a few I liked a lot, especially the grateful. The Watford gag was entertaining, but I don’t think many Northerners would regard Northamptonshire as in the North – only linguists!

    Thanks to Paul and Eileen

21. Well, I parsed the bird and the tapdancer eventually, but there were some where I needed Eileen’s help, for which many thanks. I couldn’t get “SHIFT” as a dress – some kind of mental block – and I missed the crew in 20a and PASSÉ in 3d.

    One thing I dislike about Paul is that sometimes his clues appear overcontrived. As an example, I’d point to 22a – “PAR DOABLE” is exactly the sort of construction that makes me cringe (and I didn’t parse it). Though Paul can also be a master of the delightfully contrived clue; see by way of contrast 14a, where the definition by example is hidden, rather than the answer, adding a layer of complexity which I thoroughly enjoyed. Perhaps more complex clues work well when there is humour or an “Aha!” moment to be had, less well when they leave you feeling, “oh, really?”

    And thank you Eileen for pointing out that Watford Gap (and not Watford in Hertfordshire) is the start of The North. Those of us from Northamptonshire have long been aware that the pronunciation of Bath and Grass and Laugh differs depending on whether the speaker is from Northampton (within the Danelaw, or “Oop North”) or Towcester (Down South, or should that be “Dahn Sahf”).

    Thanks to Paul (more to like than dislike) and Eileen.

22. Eileen: I’m surprised that it hasn’t been mentioned it so maybe I’m wrong.

    I rather than LEFT + BRAIN, I took it as the whole phrase ‘LEFT BRITAIN’ minus the IT, as in ”relocated from the UK’

23. The only clue I can recall like 14d’s for TAP DANCER is this one in 27,073 by Puck:

    Animal amongst camel’s ancestors, for example (7),

    which foxed me and many, including the blogger (third time lucky?).  The Puck clue at least has the merit of giving a hint as to what you’re looking for.  My first guess for this one was top flight (Stairex is a brand of loft ladder).

    Thanks Paul, Eileen

     

24. Thanks to Paul and Eileen. I also found this very tough with a lot of guess and then parse (e.g Cambridge Analyitica). Last ones were ashes and tap dancer (it had to be that but I had no idea why until now). That said I enjoyed the challenge and I liked left brain, what for and simple but neat agate. Thanks again to Paul and Eileen.

25. I’m with Robi re: 14d: it’s only half a clue. But well done DuncT for figuring the half out.

26. I find Paul a bit like much modern art – many things of stunning originality and a fair bit I just don’t understand. Unfortunately I agree with others that strained surfaces and indicators that don’t work (“rescued”, “gone down” for example) spoil otherwise really clever and imaginative clueing. Grateful for grate-full is lovely once seen, as were so many others. The doable par was beyond me, as was the tap dancer, though I got both in. The astaire clue was weak in many ways, not least that he was all sorts of dancer plus singer, actor etc so it is not at all well defined as well as poorly indicated.

    I liked “albatross” once I polished the dent out of my tea tray. “stoa” was new to me but a fair guess from the clue, and route=root works so long as you are not American (for whom route is pronounced rowt!). I also took the NS divide to be Watford Gap, so it needed a fair bit lopping off. “Cambridge Analytica” jumped out the second Ambridge was parsed, which spoiled an otherwise carefully constructed clue! I liked oratory, rummy, Iran, domain name and widgeon though.

    Much cleverness to enjoy here, but, for me at least, it fell well short of a classic. Thank you Eileen for a very hard morning’s work!

27. Paul can, on occasion, be a joy. But sometimes he’s just, if you’ll pardon the expression, a little too up himself. Today was one of those days.

28. My overall experience of this puzzle mirrored that of thezed (@26). There was a lot of cleverness, hugely appreciated, but there were some bits that I enjoyed less, as detailed already. I winced a bit at the references to Watford and Ambridge, feeling for our overseas friends, but the two clues I am referring to were favourites (as they were Eileen’s). My other favourites were TROTSKY, DOMAIN NAME and LEFT BRAIN.
    Thanks to Paul and Eileen.

29. Thanks to Paul and Eileen. Very tough going for me. I did know Ambridge and CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA  from the news but not Watford and was relieved to find even Eileen not parsing TAP DANCER. Lots of guessing and Google searching.

30. Hi all

    Many thanks for your indulgence this morning – and renewed thanks to DuncT for 14dn. Now that I’ve had time to think about it, I feel no shame at not having seen it – I really don’t think much of it. As for 1ac, though [thanks, Robin Heaney] – deep shame. 🙁

    As ever, thanks to Gaufrid for stepping into the breach, when I had log-in problems + a misbehaving mouse [don’t ask].

    Stop Press: I had to rush off this morning because I was on a mini pub-crawl with Bert and Joyce, finalising an East Midlands venue [Leicester] for a May 4th S and B. You heard it here first – details to follow very soon. Book the date.

31. All solved quite swiftly, but the reasons for albatross and tap dancer needed the help of this blog. Very cleverly hidden nonetheless once revealed…

32. Eileen @30 – Will look forward to that – I will write that in!

33. Did nobody query “monkey nut” as a pulse?  Surely it is a legume -“Although they are related to pulses because they are also edible seeds of podded plants, soybeans and peanuts differ because they have a much higher fat content, whereas pulses contain virtually no fat.”

34. Cor blimey…this was too much for me today. Maybe it was the unseasonable sunshine calling from the garden, or general Friday inertia, but I managed less than half before turning to the finely crafted blog. 1 down is a classic. So simple and yet utterly devious. 9 ac caught me out similarly. As for 14 down, still don’t see why we couldn’t have a definition. Weird. Thanks Paul and Eileen

35. Thezed @26:  Regarding pronunciation of “route,” it depends which Americans.  While the dialect heat map for the two pronunciations of “route” isn’t as sharply regional as some I’ve seen, it looks like “rhymes with hoot” is slightly more common in the Northeast, and “rhymes with out” is slightly more common in the Midwest, with Southerners being agnostic.  (Westerners are always agnostic on this sort of thing.)

    Chuck Berry, famously, is an American who pronounces it to rhyme with “hoot.”

    Incidentally, I’m a rhymes-with-out guy.  Incidentally, one of my favorite linguistic quirks is the fact that there are two totally different devices that are called routers.  One of them is a (computer) thing that routes, the other is a (carpentry) thing that routs.

36. [Joe Root (England cricket captain, featured in yesterday’s) played a few ganes in the Australian Big Bash League. The players all have numbers on their backs. What number was on Root’s jersey?]

37. MrPenney @66 thanks for the heat map – I lived in the USA in the time routers (computer) were becoming common and, like to-may-to and boo-ee (for buoy) could never bring myself to pronounce it like the locals. Oddly I was in the NE and never heard “root” except from ex-pat Brits. But I happily refer to the carpentry tool as a rhymes-with-out router, which helps distinguish it from the computer device.

38. @33 Atlanta Dave – yes, but not for long. I vaguely recall hearing peanuts classed along with beans and peas as “legumes” because they grow along the ground rather than hang from trees.

    I did query 16d “LEFT BRAIN” because when I did psychology, the left brain was associated with procedural (sequential) processes such as language, whereas the right was associated with intuitive, holistic processes such as reading maps and music – and mathematics. Now you might think music is sequential (though it isn’t) and wonder why mathematicians tend to be good at music (and vice-versa), but so it is.

    Though this was back in the 1980s and perhaps I have evolved since then.

39. This was a real challenge so relieved to see that even Eileen found it tricky.
    The prize will probably be easier!

40. I enjoyed this.  Like many others, I couldn’t fathom TAP DANCER, but I quite like it now.  It’s become conventional to hide the actual answer, but I see no reason why a DBE shouldn’t be hidden instead and indicated by the ?.

    Lots of inventive clues.  PARDONABLE, WHAT FOR and TROTSKY, TRESPASSES, LEFT BRAIN were my faves.

    I think “gone down” is OK in 9 because the R is in the hose, i.e “gone down the tube”.

    Good fun.  A satisfying test for a Friday lunchtime.  Thanks, Paul and Eileen (it’s nice to know you’re human 😉 ).

41. The trouble with 14d is that when you have solved the clue, what you are left with is a clue, not a solution.  The clue is ‘Astaire’.  Imagine if that was it: 14d Astaire (3,6).  Not a classic.  The answer might be Mrs Rogers.  But if you already have the answer (didn’t everyone get it from enumeration and crossers?) then you look for confirmation, and because you’ve solved wordplay (realised it’s a hidden word) and found a definition, you’re conned into thinking it’s a proper clue.  Wordplay is usually there to confirm or help towards getting the solution.  Here it does neither.

42. Meant to delete the Mrs Rogers bit. How about Guy Holden (role in The Gay Divorcee)

43. [Me @36 So no-one has asked. It was, of course, ROOT 66]

44. 14d seems to have caused much controversy

    Like many others I found the solution but failed to parse the clue.

    Once I saw the explanation of “Fred” on here it seemed fair enough at the time.

    Perhaps the controversy is caused by the fact that this is possibly a new type of clue.

    Rather than a “hidden answer” this is a “hidden definition”. (made even more complicated by the fact that in this case it’s a definition by example. Hence the question mark. )

    You read it here first. 🙂

    A thumbs up from me.

    One caught in blast, air exploding? (3,6)

45. Thank you, Muffin @36 and @43 – worth the wait for the answer. I’m Canadian (linguistically very like the NE United States) so I say Route as “root”, however the computer doohickey is clearly a Router (pronounced “rowter”) whenever I have had to ask for tech support (which, unsurprisingly, has usually involved turning it off and on again).  I make no defense for this, and I assume it is common to pronounce these two differently. Oddly, Watford Gap Service Station was mentioned in a Yes Prime Minister episode – the only reason that it was recognizable to me. Have a great weekend everyone! A long one here in the States – apparently it is Presidents Day …

46. Took several sittings to finish this and I couldn’t parse everything. I think all the points I might have made have already been made. LOI was the brilliant ASHES and I had terrible trouble with TRESPASSES even though the answer was obvious. Simply didn’t see Fred in TAP DANCER but got the answer. I’m a Paul fan but this was more than a tad too clever for me. Good puzzle though.
    Thanks Paul.

47. Wow, I thought this was pretty hard, but I finally made it to the end, coming back periodically to pick off a clue or two throughout the workday.  It was a fun workout, with lots of tricky bits, as others have noted.  Although most weeks I don’t attempt the Saturday Prize, I have done a few of Paul’s, and this one felt to me more like one of those, rather than a weekday Cryptic (even a Friday one).  I needed to Google-confirm Watford as the “North-South divide” and Ambridge as the “home of everyday country folk”, but in both of those cases the wordplay was clear enough (even if the surface was awkward and nonsensical) that, with the crossers, these clue components had to be correct.  Favorite clues today included ALBATROSS and MUSIC.

    I enjoyed the “route” pronunciation discussion above.   Had I made it here to 15^2 sooner, I would have guessed (correctly) at the answer to muffin @36’s question before he came back and answered it himself @43.  The song “Route 66” was exactly what I had in mind when I was reading comments to the effect that most Americans pronounce “route” so as to rhyme with “out”.  From Nat King Cole onward, I don’t think I have ever heard anyone (whether American or Brit — I have no idea whether a singer from anywhere else has covered it) sing Route 66 as “rout”.

    I agree with Eileen and the other commenters that, while the hidden Astaire to get TAP DANCER was clever wordplay, there was a lack of a definition, which detracted significantly from the quality of the clue.  [I do not agree that “One” is a satisfactory definition, and the clue when read as a whole is also pretty clearly not an &lit.]  When you think about it, the missing definition was the really only reason 14d was as challenging as it was.  If the clue had read something like “Hoofer caught in blast, air exploding?”, I bet the vast majority of commenters who said 14d (or at least its parsing) stumped them, would have quickly spotted Fred hiding and found the whole clue much easier.

    Many thanks to Paul and Eileen and the other commenters.  It’s been a nice week of puzzles.  Happy weekend to all.

48. Paulus @45 – Since you are Canadian, the question I have is not whether you pronounce Route as “root”, but whether you pronounce About as “aboot”.  Haha!

49. mrpenney @35 – Many apologies, I completely missed that you linked Chuck Berry’s version of Route 66!!  … Until just now, that is — listening to it now, great stuff!  Thanks!  One of the standout cover versions.  I think NKC was first to record it, roughly 15 years earlier.

50. DaveMc @35 … everyone tells me I do, but I can’t hear it myself … I do end virtually every sentence with eh, eh?

51. Sorry, DaveMc @49 … and no I did not make the mistake just to say I’m sorry, I could have found another excuse easily enough, being Canadian.

52. Unusually testing, in parts, for a Paul. Glad I saved for Saturday morning’s coffee as some clues needed application and concentration (like others here, I’m sure, I often solve with half an eye or ear or mind on other things so nice to have one’s attention demanded). I enjoyed this and had no major quibbles – even with TAP DANCER which I thought was a super clue and had no problem with the definition being “one” as in a person. My favourite was ASHES – a lovely demonstration of Paul’s unending ability to think creatively. I just don’t know how he does it!

    William@10 – I cannot agree that “the structure of the clue is nonsense” for CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA. If you see this, would you explain?

    pex@22 – I agree with your parsing of LEFT BRAIN and that Eileen explained incorrectly – but only a small error. (Perhaps she missed your comment?)

    Trismegistus@38 – absolutely right!!

    Many thanks, both and all.

53. Ugh – one of those Paul puzzles that makes me dread seeing his pseudonym. 19ac and 25ac were a massive Screw You to anyone living outside the UK, and 14dn has to take some kind of prize for obscurity of construction. Even given seeing the inclusion, I would NOT have thought of the answer. Other clues were almost as much of a joyless slog.

54. Surprised nobody has mentioned the Australians, who must rhyme route with out to avoid sounding rude.

55. Alton @ 54 – I’ve lived in Melbourne for many decades but still cannot bring myself to say “rout”. I’d rather appear rude!

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