A tricky, slow solve, with a lot of parsing done after the grid was filled – and some parsing only after the rest of the blog was finished. Favourites were 11ac for the surface, 23ac, 26/9, 5dn, and 18dn. Thanks to Paul for the challenge.
Across | ||
8 | GERONIMO | Call on falling bombs more, in opening shot (8) |
definition as in the war cry used by paratroopers on jumping/”falling” into action (more in)* with “bombs” as anagrind; inside/”opening” GO=”shot” |
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9 | See 26 | |
10 | NITS | Infestation of children, it seems? (4) |
hidden in childreN IT Seems | ||
11 | DANGER LINE | It’s perilous to cross immoral leader invested in Greenland after meltdown (6,4) |
I[mmoral] inside (Greenland)* | ||
12, 4 | DOCTOR JOHNSON | His words exhaustive, deprive our leader of power (6,7) |
Samuel Johnson wrote A Dictionary of the English Language [wiki] DOCTOR=spay, castrate=”deprive… of power”; applied to “our leader”, UK PM Boris JOHNSON |
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14 | OILINESS | Hypocrisy in Lesson One doubly affected (8) |
(Lesson I I)*, with “affected” as the anagrind and the two I‘s indicated by “One doubly” | ||
15 | MELANGE | Jumble sale’s ending after dash to fill car (7) |
[sal]E, after ELAN=verve, style=”dash” inside MG=a make of “car” | ||
17 | See 25 | |
20 | CONFINED | Political party made to pay, shut up (8) |
CON(servative)=”Political party” + FINED=”made to pay” | ||
22 | POLISH | Refinement in Chopin’s words? (6) |
double definition; the second referring to Chopin speaking the Polish language | ||
23 | WELCOME MAT | Nicely shortened business degree secured by force — a walkover for entrants? (7,3) |
WEL[L]=”Nicely”, shortened; CO(mpany)=”business”; and MA=”degree” inside MET(tropolitan Police)=”force” | ||
24 | See 2 | |
25, 17 | LLOYD BRIDGES | Old player in game breaking bank (5,7) |
the American film star [wiki] – “player” as in actor BRIDGE=card “game” inside LLOYDS=”bank” |
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26, 9 | MONOPOLY BOARD | Go in the corner of this room, pal having nobody to play with (8,5) |
there is a square named “GO” in the corner of a Monopoly board (room pal nobody)* |
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Down | ||
1 | SEMITONE | Maybe note is me? (8) |
an interval between one note and the next, so ‘one note higher’ might mean ‘one semitone higher’ (note is me)* |
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2, 24 across | BOSS-EYED | Inward-looking solvers ordered masks (4-4) |
=cross-eyed or squinting YE=you=”solvers”, masked inside BOSSED=”ordering” |
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3 | KINDER | More understanding issue in Europe? (6) |
also the German word for ‘children’ or ‘offspring’ i.e. “issue” | ||
4 | See 12 | |
5 | ABSEILER | Person climbing down depends on people flying up (8) |
RELIES=”depends” + BA (British Airways)=”people flying”; all reversed/”up” | ||
6 | FALLEN IDOL | Dog left to bite bespectacled nebbish, one nowadays missing a lead? (6,4) |
=someone who has lost their position as a leader/role model FIDO=”Dog” + L(eft); around ALLEN=”bespectacled nebbish” ‘nebbish’ is a term often applied to Woody Allen, and means ‘someone with a timid personality’ |
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7 | ADONIS | Dish Chinese lawyer served up (6) |
SINO=prefix meaning “Chinese” + DA (District Attorney)=”lawyer”; all reversed/”served up” | ||
13 | TRAFFIC COP | Ill wind arising, innumerable common criminals initially punching dandy, officer on the way? (7,3) |
“way” in the definition in the meaning of a street or road FART=”Ill wind”, reversed/”arising”; plus the initials of I[nnumerable] C[ommon] C[riminals] inside FOP=”dandy” |
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16 | GANYMEDE | Moon named Calypso’s core, eg rocky (8) |
(named Y eg)*, with the Y as the the central letter/”core” of [Cal]Y[pso] | ||
18 | EASTERLY | Very old houses set to be demolished — that’s a blow (8) |
=a wind blowing from the east EARLY=from near the beginning of a time period=”Very old”, around (set)* |
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19 | EDAMAME | English chap not entirely into American broad beans (7) |
E(nglish); plus MA[n]=”chap not entirely” inside DAME=”American broad” | ||
21 | OVERLY | Republican impressed by topless model too (6) |
R(epublican), inside [L]OVELY=very attractive woman=”model” with the top letter removed | ||
22 | PATENT | Clear case, unpacking middle (6) |
=obvious, evident=”Clear” PAT[I]ENT=medical “case”, losing the middle letter |
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24 | EXPO | Show skinned peach (4) |
[s]EXPO[t]=attractive person=”peach”, with the outer letters removed/”skinned” |
With great respect to Paul – consistently innovative and witty setter whose output is enormous and of high quality – a semitone is not a note, it’s an interval between notes.
It’s unusual to have no U in the grid.
6d, FALLEN IDOL: Is the time-honoured Fido still used much, as a dog’s name, or has it gone the way of boys’ names like Nigel and Reginald? – how would one find an answer to this? Maybe some solvers have a Fido.
A typically enjoyable Paul puzzle: thanks to him and to manehi.
Thanks Paul and manehi
I didn’t like this – full of loose defintions and wordplay, lots of “guess, then parse” clues. I agree with Komornik about a SEMITONE being an interval, so needing two tones to define it (I did wonder if the “me” referred to the note incorrectly used in that appalling song). Several GK only ones too (how would you solve POLISH if you didn’t know Chopin’s nationality, for instance?)
In 9a I pictured the US General riding the atom bomb at the end of Dr. Strangelove, so thought that “shot” was doing double duty – it works as you have parsed it, manehi.
Favourite was ABSEILER.
Couple of NHOs, boss-eyed and endamame, so do what it says then look up. Otherwise pretty cruisy I found, tho a bit slow to twig doctor qua castrate hence disempower, and elan for dash (not em or en), and to stop trying to fit pee into 26,9, and to remember German kinder. For me, a peach is someone gorgeous (or even something, eg a peach of a delivery in cricket), whereas a sexpot is something else, possibly wishful thinking! Unpacking the i in patient was neat. Fun puzzle, thanks Paul and thanks Manehi.
… meant to say, missed the not so oblique ref in 11ac, d’oh.
I have to agree with your beginning, manehi: A tricky, slow solve, with a lot of parsing done after the grid was filled. And some I couldn’t parse fully like 21d OVERLY (didn’t see LOVELY as a noun) and 22d PATENT (didn’t see the PATIENT as a “case” – clever Paul!).
Overall, a tough challenge.
I did like 12a4d DOCTOR JOHNSON, to whom much thanks for the definitions of so many lovely words, though I felt a bit impertinent as a foreigner for smiling at the possible treatment of your current leader.
Thanks to Paul and manehi.
JinA was no doubt a model/lovely child!
I don’t think oiliness is synonymous with hypocrisy.
(Sorry I failed to reference previous posts in my comments – appreciated everything that has been said so far. I have to say that I did know 19d EDAMAME beans, gif@4 – our son introduced them to us a couple of years ago in a Japanese restaurant and I now use them often in salads. I know we have often had the GK discussion before, muffin@3, so am not trying to be painful or to flog a dead horse, but I do think some GK is fair game. I am not a classical music fan, but I still reckon that I need to know that Chopin is Polish in the same way that I know Wagner is German.)
As with many of the comments above, I struggled with Edamame (another quick check to see that I have that correctly represented), Boss-Eyed and Expo. Some typically nice Paul clues nonetheless. Geronimo a bit of a blast from the past, and childhood games…
[Thanks gif@7 for the kindness – I was a “plain Jane” try-hard clever country girl with long plaits who always did the dutiful thing – but not sure about the lovely or even model child.]
I did not enjoy this and gave up. Can’t win them all, and I’m pleased for those who did enjoy it.
Nice blog, manehi- as a muso I can live with SEMITONE but a few of these need VAR.
Thanks for parsing of TRAFFIC COP-could have worked it out but I also had Serpents to solve.
Thanks both. Surely more suited to a Prize slot?
A slow grind for me with plenty of “I can’t quite see why but this is the answer”, so thanks to Manehi for unravelling fallen idol (did not think of, nor see, fido which would have then given me allen) the BA of abseiler, welcome mat (could not see the force and was looking for the mba) and reminding me that doctor=spay. I typically struggle to be on Paul’s wavelength as happened today, so not an enjoyable solve but I did like GERONIMO and also (my FOI) NITS for its simplicity and the wry smile that it evoked and PATENT.
I’m with you GinF re peach and sexpot and you Sandpot re oiliness and hypocrisy.
Thanks to Paul and to Manehi
JinA @9
Yes, some GK is acceptable, but there was a lot here. In addition to POLISH, there was LLOYD BRIDGES, the layout of a MONOPOLY BOARD, Woody ALLEN as “nebbish” (a word I had to look up!), the German for “children”; all would be difficult to solve from the wordplay alone (and more had GK where the wordplay could get you to the answer).
I prefer these workouts to walkovers, even if I had to use the check button eventually, having entered PHONIC at 22a – an anagram of (refininement) of Chopin to leave ‘words’ as the def. Also lazily entered an unparsed FALLEN HERO at 6d after picking up the Woody allen reference and it fitting with my PHONIC. Got myself into a bit of a muddle!
Thanks Paul and Manehi
Why do I only spot typos AFTER I press ‘Post Comment’!
Oh for an edit feature…
“Words?” would be a very oblique def for phonic, ie refinement of Chopin, Doofs.
Very hard work for me also, as is usual with Paul’s puzzles. But witty and clever cluing as ever (MONOPOLY BOARD was my favourite). Many thanks to him and to manehi.
I don’t understand the prejudice against General Knowledge. How do we know anything? And muffin, I would have thought that nearly everyone would have heard of KINDERGARTEN and quite a few of KINDERTRANSPORT.
In response to queenbarrow;
Can’t speak for the UK but as a vet since 1993 in Australia, I can tell you have not met a single Fido. given i meet about 20 dogs a day, i’d say that’s a no!
cholecyst @21
My objection is principally to clues that can only be solved through GK – POLISH is a good example.
It is entirely possible to know the word “kindergarten” without knowing how it translates – I did no German*, and it was quite late in life when I realised what it actually meant!
(* I did French at O level, and have more recently learned Italian, though. On a visit to a friend in Cologne we drove into Belgium one day, and it was such a relief to understand what the road signs meant!)
Kindergarten again
I’ve just thought of a good example of why it was just a word to me. If you tried to break up and translate “nursery”, you might come up with “railway tender” 🙂
Different kinds of ‘k’, muffin. Child garden is linguistic, nurse ry is crosswordic.
Indeed, GinF. I was just trying to explain why it was reasonable that I didn’t think that it was actually “kinder garten”, particularly as German makes far more compounds than we do in English, so it only occurred to me to split the word quite late in life!
Well I got there in the end, but it was really tough going for me. After first pass I only had nits entered. However, as usual with Paul, I persevered and eventually it unpacked. The NW as last to fall with kinder Doctor Johnson and Geronimo last ones. That said I needed to come here to clarify some parsing. Favourite for me was traffic cop, and muffin@3 I too got an image of Slim Pickins riding the atom bomb waving his hat. Thanks to Paul for the challenge and manehi for clarifying some parsing.
Except for maybe CDs, every clue contains a definition of the answer and most often definitions of some of the parts that go into the wordplay – there is really no difference between any of these cases and what people call out as GK. It’s just stuff you have to know.
As for this puzzle, it was some of the “improper” or loosey-goosey definitions that detracted somewhat from an otherwise pleasurable solve. My issue with EDAMAME was not in knowing what it is, but puzzlement over the redundancy of “American”, since both broad and dame are American slang, so no “translation” is required.
Thanks Paul and manehi
I think there are several loose or incorrect definitions today: the aforementioned 1 & 14, and I’d add 5. Abseiling is sliding fast down a rope, so is hardly ‘climbing down’.
Simon S @29
It depends how you do it! I did wonder about that too, but when I’ve abseiled, I have kept my feet on the rock surface and essentially climbed down (much slower and less spectacular than the SAS, for example!)
Thanks Paul and Manehi as always, definite DNF for me today..
Perhaps this is the car nerd in me, but I wonder whether 15ac could’ve been made more attractive given the mention of car in the surface.. Lotus ELAN, could’ve led to a car within a car..? Don’t get me wrong, totally being picky..
PS. Not bitter for not knowing Elan = Verve.. Honest!
Although I also questioned the accuracy of climbing down and hypocrisy as definitions for ABSEILING & OILINESS, a certain amount of looseness is fine. On train and bus journeys, I have old XWs from the Guardian archive; Paul is continuing the Araucaria tradition of being entertaining rather than Ximenean. Paul also adds farts, digs at squinty-eyed people, sexpots, lovelies and peaches, adding un-Guardianlike political incorrectness to the mix. Long live Paul.
An ill wind… as they say, copland smith, and Paul’s wind blows lots of good. In fact I don’t think he adds ‘digs’ at those you mentioned, but rather rides the pc/non-pc line with great delicacy and skill.
quenbarrow@2 – here’s the origin of Fido; and here’s the most popular dogs names 2018 – I guess in the US … more than anyone needs to know, but google is good at that :-).
I couldn’t get much of a purchase on this one – thanks for the great blog manehi.
Not a huge fan of Paul’s approach 🙁
There were some very nice clues, but I had to give up about three fourths of the way through – too hard to figure out things like 1 ac, 2-24, and 26-9…
I’m with the crowd who did not enjoy this much. I found a number of the definitions either wrong (abseiler – as a climbing instructor I would have to distinguish between down-climbing while protected by a rope and abseiling, where you control your descent with the rope) or very loose (oiliness, among others) or not indicated as American (traffic cop) or old (ye) which just made things unnecessarily difficult. A lot of post-solve parsing which often is fun, piecing together the puzzle with a smile and a forehead slap. Here it was more a case of “meh, would never have got to that with the wordplay”. There were some great clues in here but the experience as a whole left me cold.
Thanks Manehi for the clear and careful blog, and for confirming that I had parsed things like “overly” correctly, weak as they were…
As always a challenge with Paul, and as always a rewarding solve. I assumed “Go in the corner” would mean something more coarse, as it was Paul, but instead, what a brilliant definition for MONOPOLY BOARD, my favourite of the day.
Also ticked were ADONIS (“dish”!) and ABSEILER for the brilliant reversal.
Thanks for sorting out the definition of FALLEN IDOL which was puzzling me, and as usual thanks to Paul, Manehi and fellow posters.
A long hard slog. I was pleased to have finished – as I thought – and it was only after coming here that I found my final entry 21d ONEILL (it turns out that several O’Neills have been prominent Irish Republicans) was incorrect, which at least explains why I couldn’t parse it. Mind you, I am not at all impressed with the parsing of OVERLY – a ‘lovely’ is a model? derrr. A few more loose definitions already mentioned above too – particularly hypocrisy.
Having got that off my chest, I must say that I enjoyed most of the puzzle, and that includes a lot of very witty definitions in typical Paul style. MONOPOLY BOARD, WELCOME MAT and BOSS EYED particularly.
I needed Manehi to help out with a few more parsings, Thanks for that, and to Paul for the puzzle, which kept me too long from what I should have been doing.
I gave up with only about half the clues solved. I’ve really enjoyed the last few Paul’s but for me this was back to his meaningless surfaces to clue different bits of the solution in as convoluted a way as possible. Yes, I’m sure there are sour grapes here and am pleased to see there was more to admire than I was able to extract.
I was another who had an unsatisfactory PHONIC – given more credence by the P being correct until I resorted to the check button. I did have ticks by KINDER and ABSEILER and thought the definition for 26,9 was very clever.
Thanks to Paul and to manehi for making sense of it – well blogged.
Finished but did not love… 🙁
Some good fun here, with some of Paul’s trademark cheekiness, though I didn’t manage to parse 22dn.
26, 9 was brilliant, as was 7dn. And 12, 4 brightened up another morning of trying not to listen to the Today programme.
“Bespectacled nebbish” is almost a definition of ALLEN.
Really didn’t like 22ac because “refinement” could be a legit anagram indicator leading to PHONIC. I remember the name Lloyd Bridges, but can’t remember why (and really can’t be bothered to Google).
And yes, a SEMITONE is an interval not a note, but the anagram is so neat I think it’s pardonable.
I always enjoy a good Paul crossword. For 1a I read the the definition as “Call on dropping bombs” and “shot” as the anagrind. I have always thought of ‘Geronimo’ as synonymous with ‘bombs away’ since reading war novels as a teenager.
Many thanks to Paul and Manehi
A real slog for me too and I ended up missing the never heard of BOSS-EYED. Worth doing though, if for nothing else, for LLOYD BRIDGES and the memories of ‘Sea Hunt’ on B&W TV >50 years ago.
Thanks to manehi for a great job in parsing all of this and to Paul.
DrWhatsOn @28 — I think broad and dame as American slang have gone the way of Fido. I’ve lived many decades in the US and have never heard either of them.
This was tough! I failed to solve EXPO as well as BOSS-EYED – I had no idea what is going on with that.
New for me was LLOYD Bridges – but I have heard of his sons who are also actors.
My favourite was ADONIS.
Thanks Paul and manehi.
Only just looked at this, but just in case anyone pops back, I am in the DNE (did not enjoy) AND DNF camp.
Paul is a brilliant setter, but this was like trudging thought a ploughed field backwards. Why ruin a potentially brilliant clue like Doctor Johnson by failing to give a decent definition of ‘castrate’?
So many ludicrously loose definitions, not to mention random people who could have been just about anybody. Just about every single clue I had to guess and work back, which usually convinced me I must have been wrong (since when does MODEL = LOVELY? COVERLY? DOVERLY?).
So I then transferred my efforts from paper to the online version, the check button seeming to be the only reliable judge. Perhaps this crossword was designed with the check button in mind? I sometimes wonder about some Guardian crosswords.
Anyway, I’m sure Paul will be his sure-footed, brilliant self next time, he does not have to be clever-clever and different on every single clue, and many plaudits to Manehi, I have absolutely no idea how he sorted this one out.