Guardian Saturday puzzle 28,111 / Paul

65 comments on “Guardian Saturday puzzle 28,111 / Paul”

1. Thanks Eileen. An enjoyable session with the NW corner holding up completion for a while but that was down to me. I knew 23a had to be TYPEWRITER early on but had to stare at it for a long time afterwards before the significance of the dots dawned on me. 1d and 22a hark back to Paul two weeks ago. I thought astray = wide (of the mark) not necessarily a cricket connotation. Thanks too for the research.

2. Thanks to Paul and Eileen. The puzzle works well after 25 years.TARMACADAM was new to me but this setter’s style is already in evidence.

3. Interesting that the 1995 version of Paul is not so different from the 2020 version, both entertaining with this one perhaps slightly easier than most of his recent offerings. The linked clues at 22/23a and 2/24d were among my favourites. Thanks to Paul and to Eileen for the blog.

4. Many thanks: I very much enjoyed this one.

   TARMACADAM took a bit of figuring out, but a very good ‘classic’ clue.

5. This at first seemed to confirm my suspicion that these puzzles have got harder over the years but then, like Biggles a @1, I was held up in the NW corner, until I remembered learning from Paul’s puzzle 2 weeks ago that Finland Is Suomi. Apart from the ‘old typewriter’ I can’t see what else may have been updated, but I’m not sure about 24d as i thought that Monkeys and Apes were different.

6. This historic puzzle was super and lots of fun! How amazing that our own Paul has been such a delightful setter for over 25 years. He has given so much to this pleasurable hobby we share. How many lovely PDMs has he provided? How many quirky bits of humour? Echoing Eileen, I would like to offer huge congratulations to Paul (John) on this milestone and to express my deep gratitude – and please do keep on keeping on. I love your puzzles! Now I feel I’d like to make my way through your whole back catalogue, as I am a more recent convert – I hadn’t discovered Guardian cryptics back in 1995.

   Lots of favourites here – 8a KNICKERS, 11a TARMACADAM (word learned at school for bitumen – how come some words just “stick?!), 12a3d COMPOS MENTIS, 7d GARAGE and 19d STATUTE.

   Thanks Eileen for explaining a few clues in this one – I had a bit of trouble with the full parses for 1d ENORMOUS (that Finnish river if I did encounter it didn’t stick unfortunately) and 21d ANYONE (how did I miss that hidden? – none so blind as (s)he who cannot see…). I also appreciated the link you embedded. One of my favourite more recent memories is the marathon run John did (26 clues in 26 miles) – April 2017 I think? And I treasure my hardback copy of “The Centenary of the Crossword Puzzle”. Like you, Eileen, I was curious as to which clues were tweaked/updated for this anniversary edition. So I went back to the book and it is there on Page 134/135! [Sadly I see I hadn’t tackled that one when I read the book. (I read it more for the history and the stories the first run through, and have thought often that I should go back and work all of the exemplars. Hmmm – maybe something else to do in these plague times?] There are quite a few differences between the original and this one actually – more than suggested in the preamble – too many to report here. But you are right, Eileen, originally 23a (TYPEWRITER) read “Wire broken in 22 across awful office equipment”.

   Sending sincere thanks to a great setter and a fantastic blogger. I feel so blessed to have met you in crosswordland.

   [Anzac Day here in Australia! Many “driveway vigils” at dawn due to the unusual circumstances.]

7. [P.S. I both cried and laughed when watching the Royal Albert Hall TED presentation. What a gift!]

8. Thanks Eileen.  Signs of rare talent already in this delightful first Paul eg ORFE and the elision at 23-24 (latter updated with ‘old’ – the only update that struck me at all). He seldom recycles his good clues, but the Jack, queen, king, ace one was virtually repeated in 26,394 a few years ago. As noted, the 1d SUOM=Finland, helped by Anna’s comment last time Paul had it, also appeared on 4 April. Congratulations for 25 brilliant years Paul.

9. Thanks Eileen (and Julie) for some background on John Halpern. I’ve enjoyed his work in the FT under the name Mudd for some time and I’m beginning to solve his more difficult (for me) crosswords as Paul. I liked his 1st one though the NW corner left me a bit stymied. Clues like 7d will always keep me coming back.

10. My favourites were ODDBALL & COMPOS MENTIS (loi).

    New for me was TARMACADAM.

    I did not parse TYPEWRITER. I saw that it was an anagram of WIRE in the middle, but I gave up on the rest of it. Oh I see now, we need to add PRETTY to the fodder – that’s clever!

    I had not read the special instructions, so I had no idea this was an old puzzle…

    Thanks, Paul and Eileen

11. Yes you can feel the Paulian sinews here, which have become stronger, over the quarter-century; more risque too–perhaps a sign of social change; so huge thanks Paul and keep ’em coming. Not a hard solve, but no less enjoyable for that as you say Eileen, although I failed to parse ma’am around cad, d’oh. But I did mentally hear her maj saying orf[e], to get the fish, which looked familiar, no doubt from previous cws. Soumi, otoh, I’m sure I’ve only seen the twice, once in the very recent Paul and now here again a few days later, but 25 years old! A nice bit of history to participate in, many thanks both.

12. ..Suomi, not soumi..

13. [FWIW, SUOMI appeared in Paul’s Prize puzzle on 11 April, for anyone looking back.]

14. [brownphel@5, the clue for 24d APEX was the same in the original puzzle from 1995.]

15. Thanks Eileen. This was a real pleasure to see, and fun to try and nut out. I thought it was perhaps a bit easier than Paul’s modern fare, although I would never have got ORFE in a million years of staring at it.

16. Thanks Eileen. I enjoyed this, especially as I often struggle with Paul. I smiled at ORFE, hearing in my head the plummy tones giving me the answer. Fav clue was TARMACADAM. Thanks to Paul for the fun and congratulations,on 25 years of setting puzzles.
    Happy(seems not quite the right word but I can’t think of another more apt) Anzac Day to fellow Australasians – lots of driveway commemoration here too in NZ, hut notvsadly from me as I was not up at dawn.

17. i certainly wouldn’t have noticed that this wasn’t a new crossword if I hadn’t read the rubric – it’s interesting and impressive that Paul emerged fully-formed as a setter right from the outset. Thanks for all the pleasure over the years.
    Did I complete this in 1995? Probably not, (a) because I was then in a demanding job which left little time for crosswords other than the Prize; and (b) because I hadn’t then had the tuition in the tricks of the trade that this site has given me….

    …..including not least from Eileen, to whom thanks for the blog. But I’m with BigglesA @1, in that I don’t think AS(h)TRAY suggests a cricketing context particularly, or even at all, keen though I am to see references to the game on all possible occasions. This time last year I was watching a good deal of County Championship cricket, in much less suitable weather than we have now. One of the many casualties (though of course by no means the most serious) of the awful virus.

     

18. A great puzzle from Paul in his pre-smut years.  (As Eileen says, KNICKERS is only mildly risqué).  I don’t remember it, though I was certainly doing the crosswords at that time.

    Not much to complain about except that I didn’t fully understand the parsing of TYPEWRITER.  But that can hardly be considered Paul’s fault.  Yes, of course, the significance of the dots … !

    There was however great cluing a-plenty.  I particularly liked ORFE, ODDBALL, BECALMED, PARKIN, APEX.

    Interesting that the Suomi-Finland thing cropped up again – that’s twice now recently.  ‘Finland’s river’ sounds a bit odd, as it implies there’s only one river in Finland, and, if there’s anything Finland has plenty of, it’s water!  By the way, the official name of the country is Suomi-Finland, being in Finnish and Swedish, the two official languages of the country.  And, for the linguists among us, Finland’s river would be Suomen joki in Finnish, Suomen being the genitive of Suomi.  River is ‘joki’ (genitive singular ‘joen’)  You find it in, for example, the place name Joensuu, literally ‘mouth of the river’.

    Thanks to Paul and to Eileen.

19. Excellent puzzle, which as others have said wears well down the years.

    Really enjoyed ODDBALL (maybe even more a relevant association with Labour than 1995) and COMPOS MENTIS.

    I only got LOI TARMACADAM by a bit of dictionary bashing — wondering if it is in some kind of special word category – 4 repeated vowels? Cannot be many of them, at least for ‘A’s.

    Congratulations Paul on the Silver anniversary and ad multos annos.  And thanks Eileen for blogging it so beautifully and all other learned contributors on this blog – how will the 25th anniversary of 15^2 be marked ?

20. Thanks Paul and Eileen

    I’ve seen somewhere that Paul is quoted as saying that the clue for KNICKERS was the first one he ever wrote for the Guardian. Sign of things to come…

21. Thanks Eileen.  I enjoyed this, but didn’t get ORFE – never heard of it.  So I’ve learnt something new which is part of the joy of doing crosswords.

    Thanks and congratulations to Paul for 25 years of crosswords.  Since I’m not quick enough to do a puzzle every day, I pick and choose, but always have a go at Paul’s crosswords as there is invariably some new invention and wit to be found.

22. I didn’t realise this was an old crossword until now. The only aspect that might be a sign of an inexperienced setter was the excess of question marks (11a,17a,25a, 5d, 16d, 24d) – in fact none of these were really necessary. But that didn’t spoil the crossword for me. Favourites were ABERRANT and TARMACADAM for the varied use of playing-card references.

    Thanks Paul (still one of the best setters IMO) and Eileen.

23. Anna @18. In 1d, ‘Finland(s)’ gives ‘Suom(i’), and ‘river’ gives the ‘r’.

    Thanks to Eileen, and to Paul for this, and 25 year’s worth of entertainment. Carry on Cluing!

24. Julie@6 – that means the original clue for 23a explicitly referenced 22a and didn’t rely on the ellipsis? I wonder if that was an original editorial amendment that has been reversed here.
    Many thanks to Eileen and ePaul

25. Me above – ’25 years’ worth’. Pesky apostrophes!

     

26. To: greensward @ 23

    Oh yes, Iäm well aware of that.  I just thought you may have appreciated a bit of extra information about Finland and Finnish.  Sorry to have wasted your time.

27. Anna @18 – thank you for the interesting linguistic information – and for kindly not mentioning that I’d carelessly missed out out the R in the blog! [you too, greensward @23]. I’ll amend it now.

    Re astray / wide; I know little about cricket – I just assumed a wide ball was one that had gone astray.

28. Congratulations go to Paul (aka John) on reaching this milestone. His first was a good one showing, as many have shown the (already well developed) fledgling that has become the artist that he is today.

    I really enjoy a Paul puzzle even though it can be a struggle to get right through to the end. This one was definitely a touch easier than current offerings but a real pleasure of a solve nonetheless.

    It was lovely to see Paul’s appearance at the Albert Hall and to hear a little bit more about him from the horse’s mouth so thanks very much to Eileen for including that link in your extended excellent tribute blog. You – and the general 15^2 community – also make solving Guardian crosswords a pleasant experience that I have returned to somewhat later than many but will continue as long as I can and will share the joy with whoever will listen.

    I loved ORFE and COMPOS MENTIS and enjoyed the moment when the penny dropped for the ellipsis from a PRETTY to TYPEWRITER.

    And yes, @JinA, it was totes emosh watching the Ted Talks excerpt.

29. Hi molonglo @8 – thanks for that reference to 26,394. I looked it up and found that the clue was ‘Jack, queen, king and ace not extremely unusual’. PeeDee, who blogged it, commented: ‘Great clue, very intriguing.  I wonder why Paul did not go for NT=no trumps in this card-themed clue?’!

30. Splendid stuff, with some very nice clues indeed. I particularly liked the pair of nautical Jacks and the stuttering Labour Party. I did spend quite a while on my very last one in: ORFE, a fish I’d not heard of and a clue that was very neat but which I only understood after, I confess, consulting a list of names of fish. I wondered which clues had been updated, and also picked on the ‘old’ in TYPEWRITER (another nice combination), but thought by 1995 a typewriter would already have been pretty dated equipment.

    Thanks for the blog, Eileen, especially the TED link. And Paul – keep them coming!

31. muffin @20: I’m a bit late to the page this morning and you have made the point that struck me when I completed this last week.  This may well be Paul in what Anna @18 refers to as his ‘pre-smut years’ but for the first across clue to be KNICKERS just seemed so entirely fitting!

    Epee Sharkey @19 taramasalata has even more A’s but is of foreign origin of course, and one of the well known examples of a long word that isn’t an exotic chemical is floccinaucinihilipilification which has loads of I’s.  A word in rather more common use that does pretty well is indivisibility and its plural would add another I.

    Thanks to Paul and Eileen

32. Thank you Paul and Eileen

    Only commenting to add my thanks to Paul for being so inventive, witty and original over 25 years, and to you Eileen for the moving link.

33. How appropriate that it should be the doyenne of bloggers’ turn on this milestone. What a great way of celebrating Paul’s silver anniversary – and the puzzle is as fresh today which clearly shows what a talent Paul was and is. Like many I didn’t parse TYPEWRITER as I missed the significance of the ellipses – a great clue. Great to see the blog comments reflecting current usage – “totes emosh” @28 is wonderfully incongruous here. Thanks to both Paul and Eileen and I look forward to many more contributions from both of you.

34. Just watched the excellent TED talk – thanks for the link Eileen.

35. I would have been interested to see what other “updates” had been made to the clues other than the obvious old typewriter, especially after JinA’s hint that they were numerous. Many commenters have said that this 25 year old puzzle shows Paul was just as good then as he is now, with variants, but without seeing the original clues this is just being polite.

    On the subject of question marks (beaulieu @22), I think quite a few were needed in these clues. In particular, in APEX it shows that Paul is aware that monkeys are not apes. In TARMACADAM they are needed because of the reach from Queen to Ma’am. And in BECALMED for the use of tucked in to mean inserted in BED. Fair cluing, I call that.

    Thanks to Paul for the delightful torture over the years. And to Eileen for the usual very helpful blog, and for the revelation @29 that one of our bloggers may have prompted one of the updates in the clues.

     

36. I’ve been doing the Guardian crossword for many years, and before I discovered Fifteensquared I wasn’t particularly good at recognising the different styles of most of the setters, but a few always stood out: mainly Custos (because his were a bit easier) and Araucaria.  Then when Paul came along, he was another whose style seemed individual to me, and I vaguely thought of him as “son of Araucaria”, without being able to pin down precisely why.  I think it was something to do with the inventiveness and love of wordplay that is illustrated here by, for example, 17a ODDBALL.

    Many thanks and congratulations Paul, and thanks to Eileen for a great blog as usual.

37. In the 1995 original Paul had 22a without the ellipsis and 23a as
    “Wire broken in 22 across awful office equipment (10)”

38. You can get a download of the original and read about its creation in this blogpost:

    https://crypticcrosswordplanet.wordpress.com/

    I think the blog was started as part of a promotion for the book commemorating the crossword’s centenary mentioned by Julie in Aus and others.

    Disappointingly, the blog stops after only two posts. Considering how many crosswords John Halpern produces every week, with workshops in between times as well, it’s perhaps not surprising he didn’t continue.

    Not surprised the original of 26a didn’t figure in the rehash, but it’s a shame that 24a changed. It was presumably expressing anticipation of failing to make it. How fortunate for all of us, as well as John/Paul, that it was spectacularly incongruent with the reality which emerged.

    Congratulations, John/Paul. Here’s to the next 25!

    @Eileen in 16d, you seem to have missed out the King (R)

39. Thanks, Tony – fixed now.

40. self @31 Obviously, only one of your examples would actually fit into a 15×15 grid!

41. Thanks for the link Tony (@38).
    I have at home Paul’s book, The History of the Crossword, which is the 2016 retitled reprint of the 2013 original entitled The Centenary of the Crossword. His first crossword is in the book together with its solution (at the back!).
    It’s more than ‘a few’ clues that have changed, by the way. Eight of the solutions are different (obviously with completely different clues)!

42. Lovely to see the various reminiscences from bloggers, and expressions of appreciation for Paul & Eileen. Always enjoy JinA’s contributions to this forum too – but thanks to every participant. I too am likely to have encountered Paul’s very first in the G. which I’ve been solving (or dnf) since long before. It was trying the Telegraph puzzle in the school library (the G would have been paper non grata there, I’m sure) that made me realise there was a cryptic world behind the clues. How staid and boring such newspaper’s crosswords are by comparison with the wit and inventiveness we are served up every day.

    Best wishes to all

43. I also wanted to say how much I enjoyed this puzzle. After a week I’ve forgotten much of that experience except that it was a rather short one, but there was a lot to appreciate at the time. I remember KNICKERS, ORFE and NAIRN best – excellent clues.
    Many thanks to both Paul and Eileen.
    I must also apologise to Julie in Australia for having (supposedly) read the comments on this page before posting mine @37, failing to notice that she had already given us the original clue to 23a. As Julie said, there are more changes than we were led to believe.

44. Congratulations to Paul for all the entertainment over the years. A fine start to the run.

    I thought that ANYONE was very nicely hidden. Of course, apes are not monkeys, although dictionaries, including Chambers give it. Primate could have been used instead and would not have affected the surface. I don’t think the QM can excuse the non-equivalence of ape and monkey.

    Thanks Paul and Eileen for her usual top-class blog.

45. AlanB, my copy is The Centenary of the Crossword … but purchased second-hand in about 2018. It makes excellent reading for a crossword fan but, like JinA, I haven’t got round to doing the puzzles.

46. Congratulations Paul, thank you for all the fun, and thank you Eileen for the helpful blog and the crossword centenary link.

    Thanks also to Tony Collman @38 for the cryptic crossword planet link!

47. [Always appreciative of your contributions, Anna in Finland. Warmest regards from Julie in Australia across the distance.]

48. [DuncT@24. No ellipsis in the original puzzle in 1995.]

49. Not a lot to add to the many excellent comments above but I did want to drop in to say thank you to Eileen for her consistently entertaining and informative blog and to Paul (John) for his consistently entertaining and informative puzzles. I really enjoyed this one – no “it was good for a 25 year old puzzle”, it was good full stop.

    To pick up on a couple of points mentioned by posters – the whole ape vs monkey thing is not as cut-and-dried as some would like to think. I remember Adam Rutherford on BBC’s Inside Science discussing this very point. The essence of the problem is that the terms were originally pretty synonymous, became divided on one scientific basis during the twentieth century but then that basis was replaced by better-evidenced (genetic) methods so the old taxonomy was overthrown. The result is that neither “ape” nor “monkey” is a perfect match to the scientific groupings we use and there is a degree of overlap. So monkeys perfectly well can be apes. It reminds me of the “if it’s got beef it’s a cottage pie, lamb it’s a shepherd’s pie” debate which is an equally false dichotomy.

    Re “ma’am” for her maj, my recollection from when I was scheduled to meet her back about 25 years ago (and I looked it up in Debrett’s for an authoritative view) was that (a) you always wait for her to speak first and (b) She is “Your Majesty” on first speaking, and “Ma’am” thereafter. Things may have changed in the intervening years (I doubt it!) but the event was nearly contemporaneous with the original publication of this puzzle so it’s probably appropriate.

    Here’s to the next 25 years.

50. Nothing to add. I enjoyed the puzzle though!
    Thanks Paul

51. TheZed @49 – thanks for that: I’d forgotten about the ‘Your Majesty’ the first time. [And, of course, another pitfall is  the pronunciation of ‘Ma’am’ in this context. 😉 – see here ]

52. TheZed@49, I think the question would be, not “Is this any good for a 25-year-old puzzle”, but “Is this any good for a first puzzle”. The answer is still, of course, “Yes”, although so much has changed that both questions seem to have limited validity.

53. KNICKERS was a superb start to Paul’s career. I’d seen it before but didn’t remember the answer and it still took me a while to solve it. NAIRN is such a nice name – top-class clue too. ODDBALL was my other favourite. This one sounds just as up to date today as it probably was 25 years ago, sadly.
    Congratulations, Pope, and many more! Thanks, Eileen, for the fine blog. Thanks also, Anna, for the Finnish lesson. Brings back fond memories of a visit to Helsinki many years ago.

54. TheZed @49

    I would say, rather, that “ape” is a subset of “monkey”; hence apes (and humans, for that matter, as a subset of apes) are monkeys, but monkeys aren’t apes.

55. [Talking of fond memories, phitonelly, we had a week in a posh room (no idea why we were upgraded!) with a sea-view in Nairn. Great food. We cycled to Cawdor, which has the most attractive woods we have seen, and also visited Cullen for the Skink and Pennan for the Local Hero location.]

56. [Not such fond memories of Finland, though! Driving south from Rovaniemi, one of the least populated areas in Europe, an old man on crutches stepped into the road in front of our camper van. We missed him, but the van took terminal damage (lots of trees there), and we had to be repatriated by the AA – luckily we had taken out insurance.]

57. Muffin @54 I wasn’t able to sort out the distinction to really be sure if either is a proper subset of the other! In a cladistic sense it’s a real mess. But even if it were the case, is it really unfair to clue a subset by its superset? “Fighter” for “boxer” for example, or “car” for “RR”, “ford”? The other way round, superset indicated by subset is the usual definition-by-example, typically given a question mark.

    Thanks all for the anecdotes, and the lessons on Finnish grammar.

     

58. Too late now for most people to read this – except Eileen of course, possibly muffin and maybe even Paul himself.

    My excuse is that I got interested in Tony Collman’s link to the original @38, and attempted a little detective work, reconstructing the puzzle’s reconstruction.

    I would assume the trigger for most of the changes was the current pandemic.  With so much grief happening around us, I’m sure it was right not to include the original 26a EPIDEMIC or 13d PATHOGENIC.

    The new 26a TRIMETER meant 18d LOTHARIO had to become LETTERED, which in turn required 24a ARES instead of ALAS (alas! – shame really, as Tony points out, the original clue gives an insight into young Paul’s thinking).

    The new 13d PATISSERIE resulted in 20a OBSOLETE making way for GASSIEST, which then deprived us of 21a BRYONY and gave us ANYONE.

    And finally, GASSIEST and TRIMETER together made the HEATHEN’s position untenable, and she was banished by STATUTE.

    The only substitution not required by the above is 14a DOMINEER for DEMENTED.  I’m rather glad that one went, especially as it was defined “insane”.  One of the positives of the last 25 years has been more sensitivity to mental health issues and to dementia, though sadly there is still a very long way to go.

    As to the ‘same solution/different clue’ changes, we have EXTRA (originally clued as ‘Actor – unknown featuring in “Tearaway” ‘).  As Paul himself points out in the accompanying blog, actor = extra is a bit loose.  He also says “it’s on the way” is loose for TARMACADAM, though intriguingly it’s not the definition that has been changed here but the wordplay.  I’m not sure why the clue for ASHTRAY has been altered, although perhaps again it was felt better to avoid ‘hospital’ at the moment.

    TYPEWRITER has already been mentioned of course.  Interesting that a device which Eileen recognised as one of Paul’s hallmarks (tucked in = in BED at 5d BECALMED) didn’t feature in the original.  Instead it was the much easier ‘Still in bed, cold male shivering’.  The ‘tucked in’ twist must have developed later.

    And then there is ABERRANT.  Why was the original ‘Bras aren’t undone without somebody initially straying’ changed?  It surely can’t be that Paul has become more reticent about mentioning lingerie.  Perhaps it was indeed PeeDee’s comment, and ‘no trumps’ suggestion in his blog for 26,394, that inspired Paul to incorporate it.

    Sorry to have gone on.

    Bravo to Paul, and to Eileen for the entirely fitting tribute, and to the many contributors here who, I trust, will long continue to compliment, carp, bicker, educate, entertain and enrich each others’ lives.

59. Read it, essexboy!

60. Bravo, essexboy! I  was intending to have a look at the original, maybe tomorrow, but you’ve saved me a lot of work – I’m glad you seem to have enjoyed it!

61. thank you for the detailed analysis Essexboy!

62. Thank you essexboy for the interesting analysis, strange that the replaced clues/answers were so topical…

63. … one wonders if Paul had been reading The Hot Zone, but he could not have seen the film Outbreak with the white-headed capuchin monkey, Betsy, since it was not released in the UK until the end of April 1995.

64. @Essexboy, thanks for laying it all out like that. So glad you were able to make such good use of the link.

65. Thank you Eileen, muffin, TheZed, Cookie – and Tony C of course for setting the ball rolling.

    Eileen @60:  Yes, I did rather enjoy myself!

    Cookie @62/63:  I had forgotten ‘The Hot Zone’, but perhaps it was on Paul’s radar at the time the original crossword was taking shape, which might explain the strange topicality.  When you mentioned Betsy the capuchin monkey in ‘Outbreak’, I thought for a moment we were going to get back into the ape/monkey thing! (btw so much easier in French and German, where singe/Affe covers everything, so they don’t have to tie themselves in knots)

    Speaking of which I meant to thank TheZed and muffin for their exchange, which prompted me to do some more reading on primate classification – fascinating.  As a result I think I finally understand the difference between hominoids, hominids and hominins – at least until they change the classification system again!

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