Guardian 28,371 – Paul

82 comments on “Guardian 28,371 – Paul”

1. Did he mean 12 across? I was surprised at his restraint there!

2. Thanks to Paul and Andrew. Nice to get back to ‘normality’ after Tuesday’s one-off.

   Is an Adonis necessarily a stud? Surely the term refers to his physical appearance rather than his…er…performance?

3. Took me a while to get going on this even though the theme was obvious. I did it as 4 puzzles, corner by corner. Bottom half was easier for me. Attempted the NE corner last.

   Favourites: NO-TRUMP, ON ALL FOURS, URANUS, DOORNAILS, SHADOWY, USHERED (loi).
   Could not parse 22d ATHENE, 15d SECRETIVE.

   Thanks, B+S

4. Enjoyed this a lot, but then I always like crosswords which feature my specialist subject. I’m very curious to see how this was received compared to yesterday’s puzzle, given that it too requires a fair amount of general knowledge. I guess the various gods and goddesses are much more fair game than the manifold monkeys of the world, of course.

   One question: isn’t either ‘game’ or ‘outstanding’ superfluous in the clue for SECRETIVE? They both seem to be anagram indicators.

   Thanks Paul and Andrew.

5. Oh no, god/esses, know them about as well as monkeys.. ie not very! So, bit of check button in between the tennis [Ash out, again..needs a year in the late Mrs ginf’s therapy group to unleash her inner roar]. Yes, wondered whether [ ] could have anything to do with ushering. Uranus and Does a turn were pretty neat. Weariness and master bedroom took a bit of unpicking. Quite fun, ta Paul and Andrew.

   [PS “Try fun class A drug hit: lose it, gag and snap” (5). Is this a def record?]

6. Clever. Did not fully parse but finished otherwise. I suspect he did mean 12a.
   I think stud can refer to appearance esp when appled to the human male.
   Thanks to Paul and Andrew

7. Conrad @4, I wondered whether it was game as verb (play with) or as crippled.

8. …with oustanding meaning standing outside of…

9. Paul’s “Restraint” comment must allude to 18d.

10. Thanks grantinfreo @7 and @8, I suppose that makes sense; I’m not too happy with that use of ‘outstanding’, in that case! Could easily have been removed and the clue worked fine…

11. Is it National Overpowering Themes week? I must have missed the announcement. I thought ON ALL FOURS was bad on so many levels it was almost impressive

12. Thanks Paul and Andrew
    Four croners for me too – NW, SE, NE, then SW. I didn’t know SET as a god, and I didn’t parse SECRETIVE.
    Favourite DOES A TURN..
    Is Mars’ in 8d right?

13. I gulped when I spotted the setter and theme after yesterday’s mauling but happily I didn’t have to resort to God Google except to confirm MAENADS. I thought DOES A TURN, MASTER BEDROOM and DOORNAILS were great and thanks Andrew for explaining game in SECRETIVE. There’s even a hidden reverse Moon (pulling ones pants back up?) in the NW corner. I’ll not even go near URANUS. Paul on top form. Thanks both.

14. As usual, Paul has taken rather too many liberties for my taste. For example, as dantheman comments @2, does ‘stud’ really equate to ‘Adonis’ ?

15. Fortunately the deities were mostly familiar (had to dig deep for SET). I might just raise an eyebrow at LLANO as GK. A lot of ROOs lately, it seems.
    My experience was exactly as michelle@3 describes. LOI was 8d.
    Much more enjoyable than yesterday’s offering.
    Thanks to Paul and Andrew.

16. Possibly knowing that Mr. Spock was half-Vulcan is more niche GK than most of the gods!

17. Very enjoyable. Some of the hidden gods and goddesses clues were very clever, especially 14a DOES A TURN and 23a FIVE STAR. (Dare one ask if the Guardian’s stance on “actress” also applies to “goddess”?)

    I do agree with the quibbles about Adonis = STUD. An Adonis (“a particularly handsome youth or young man”, Chambers) may well be a STUD (“a sexually potent or active man”), and vice versa, but they don’t mean the same thing.

    Many thanks Paul, and thanks to Andrew particularly for explaining 15d SECRETIVE which I just bunged in from the definition.

18. It’s about what the kids were watching, muffin @16 …

19. Re Conrad @4, is it really General Knowledge when more than half the clues relate to one particular topic?

    This was at least more accessible than yesterday’s because unlike those monkeys I knew of a good few of the Deity, but some turned out to be obscure and after yesterday’s puzzle I didn’t have the patience to persevere beyond half way with this one. Once again it felt more like quiz than a crossword puzzle.

    Maybe I’ve been lucky as I only started doing the Guardian puzzle every day about 3 weeks ago and was really enjoying them, but two in a row not for me has started to put me off. I think I’m going to read through the clues on-line in future before deciding whether to print and attempt to solve.

20. I agree with michelle @3 and Auriga @15 that it was quite tough to get a proper foothold. At least I’d heard of virtually all the gods, although I had to think long and hard before remembering PRIAPUS. I’m not sure if I’d heard of MAENADS before, but then I thought that Bacchus was the god of racehorses.

    I liked FIVE-STAR, but not their music, so I think I’ll listen to HINDU Love Gods instead.

    Thanks to Paul and Andrew

21. Penfold @20
    🙂

22. I don’t mind STUD being Adonis, but boss=stud seems to be definition of the month: seen several times lately, in both directions.

    A much more familiar theme to me, but then I’m old enough to have done Greek/Roman/Norse gods at school. It still took me ages to remember HELIOS, even with help from 12a. Failed to parse RODIN or SECRETIVE, but I thoroughly enjoyed this. Thanks Paul and Andrew.

23. Having proved that my GK on monkeys/primates is poor yesterday, it is equally apparent that my GK in the god department is also sadly lacking.

    So the best I can do this morning is to offer this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-SUoHmpRdM from 1979 and like Andrew wonder what the 2a is all about – will find out later on the Zoom.

    BTW, if anyone is wondering, the word setting challenge for this evening is TARAMASALATA, the national scaracity of which together with a lack of houmous caused Greece’s double-dip recession.

    As always, a lovely puzzle from Paul – just a rather thick Bartok here today 🙁 Thanks to Andrew for the blog!

24. A great puzzle, thanks, as I normally can’t solve Paul. I stumbled on 17 and 24 and LOI was 7d. Thanks Andrew for parsing all those I guessed!
    And by the way Andrew the online version of this puzzle had no brackets for 28a, but I, too, stumbled over that (I always start the crossword in the paper, except when I get stuck and have to check…)
    We are very lucky to have it delivered every day before 7 am!

25. Conrad @10
    I believe that ‘outstanding’ in the clue for SECRETIVE improves the surface sense significantly. Game receives support but outstanding support finally might have contributed to the success of the victor.
    ‘[O]utstanding is a common containment ind in crosswords, though some solvers may not quite like it.

26. SinCam @24
    No brackets in 28a online, as you say, but they are there in the paper as well as in the online printout.

27. Anyone bored of references to the erstwhile oval office oompa loompa could parse NO TRUMP as the US electorate expressing a preference for sirloin or ribeye?

    [MB@23 :)]

28. muffin @16 – SPOCK was first in for me – and the half-Vulcan bit is probably known more widely than some of these gods. Found this a bit of a slog to finish, but quite entertaining in places. After yesterday it seemed a bit routine.

29. What an interesting experience over the last couple of days. I really struggled with yesterday’s tribute (though I didn’t moan 😀 ), I then found myself beguiled into attempting the memorial Cinephile in the FT late last night and achieved my first ever unaided (apart from the occasional post solve check) completion of one of John Graham’s puzzles. And this Paul has taken me far longer than either of them. But really satisfying to have finished and teased out not only the solutions but a whole pantheon of deities I’ve actually encountered before, albeit many half-forgotten. Like AlanC, I had to check MAENADS and I didn’t spot the anagrind in DOORNAILS, even though I’d spotted the ROO so I needed Andrew’s help for the parse.

    THORNIER, WEARISOME, SPOCK, VENUES, SECRETIVE and the two cleanly clued beauties PRIAPUS and URANUS all got big ticks. ATHENE is COTD – brilliant. And nice to see the Black Country popping in again with a mention for Dudley. Only tiny gripelet, in common with gladys @22, is the boss/STUD combo which appears so regularly it’s almost a write in.

    muffin @12: I misread your second line and thought “where has Paul inserted four Cronos’s”?

    Thanks Paul and Andrew

30. [Rishi @25: since you’re around, I don’t know whether you popped back into the blog yesterday but I did respond to your clue @128]

31. Paul may have restrained himself in the clues, but a lot of the answers offered him possibilities. I can see Priapus, Rump. Moons, Uranus, (T)Hornier, Rod, Stud, and perhaps Master Bedroom. Is this perhaps Paul’s belated Valentine thoughts, or a response to today being Ash Wednesday, and therefore conventionally focused on restraint and self-mortification?

    One oddity; he has clued Rhea as a god in 8D and she is a goddess – and the puzzle elsewhere refers liberally to goddesses. Just wonder why. But many thanks to setter and blogger.

32. NO TRUMP is not a call in bridge! NO TRUMPS is though.

    Like jackkt @19, I didn’t have the patience to persevere with this, although I did find the gods parsable once revealed.

33. To clarify, you could call ‘1 NO TRUMP’ but not NO TRUMP on its own.

34. [PM @30. I did pop back in a wakeful moment in the middle of the night and saw your input alluding to the answer. Thanks. (And then I resumed my sleep. Sorry I didn’t acknowledge.)
    Incidentally, several weeks ago someone asked what was the term for the two dots that are above certain letters in words like naïve. Dieresis, I volunteered. “A sign (¨) placed over the second of two adjacent vowels to indicate separate pronunciation…” (taken from dictionary.com)
    I am not sure if the person concerned returned to see it.]

35. ‘Hindu’ sneaked in but alas no Hindu god such as Rama or goddess such as Uma!

36. Re ‘1 No Trump’, the clue is 1 across, thus . . . . .

37. Saw it was by Paul, then saw it was obviously themed (I’m remarkably dense at spotting them, which probably suggests how obvious it was…), and was about to give up for the day as being above my competence… then banged in SPOCK reflexively and somehow found myself drawn into completing it. My thanks to some of the comments on yesterday’s Guardian cryptic for suggesting there might be some pleasure in plugging away at a seemingly futile case, as otherwise I doubt I’d have given this a go – although I suspect I’d have enjoyed it far less had I not got somewhere with it! We all have our different desires from crosswords, I guess…

    Thought the crossers in this made the gaps in my GK and solving ability much easier to cope with, btw – LLANO wouldn’t have come to me even with huge amounts of searching…

38. This was tough but fair; I think that, for most well-educated people, a decent smattering of mythology can be assumed as part of our shared knowledge, and I’d at least vaguely heard of all the deities in question. Priapus is the only one I can’t quite place. Contrast with yesterday, when I knew only two of the monkeys–but didn’t want to pile on, as that puzzle had already come in for more than its share of abuse by the time I showed up.

    The hard part, I think, is that there are so many gods out there that it’s not a whole lot more specific than my personal pet peeve, “boy” to mean any of Ed or Al or Sam or Tim or Tom, Dick, or Harry. So this puzzle took me over an hour, unusual for a non-Saturday.

    Exactly like Muffin @12, I did this in the order NW, SE, NE, SW, with the latter proving particularly stubborn.

    I don’t see the objection to stud=Adonis. Where I’m from, “stud” doesn’t necessarily imply sexual prowess, just a nice hot hunk of beefcake–though admittedly, people too often assume the latter implies the former. “He’s so studly. What a stud.”

39. I don’t know how old Paul is but I would suggest 14a would be the cheeky on for me as a teen of the 60’s

40. As a separate note, why did my hyphens @38, which I typed with one stroke of the hyphen key, appear shorter than my em dashes, which I typed with two? WordPress is weird.

41. As my mythological GK is much more extensive than my simian, I enjoyed this a lot.

    DOES A TURN, REVENGE and ATHENE were favourites. LOI was DOORNAILS – ‘originally’ as an anagrind, rather than an indication of an initial letter, banjaxed me for a while, and ‘game’ as another one escaped me, so SECRETIVE was left unparsed.

    Thanks to Paul and Andrew.

    [To be pedantic, Morpheus first appears as a god of dreams in ‘Metamorphoses’ by the Roman author Ovid, and is probably his own invention. He was one of the sons of the god of sleep: Somnus to the Romans, Hypnos to the Greeks]

42. Er, longer.

43. Should the definition of 18d be “god lifting”? Because he, er….

44. Last two in were the interlocking MAENADS and WEARISOME. Last one in not a reflection of the task today. Dare I say it, but after the trials and tribulations associated with yesterday’s celebratory offering, I was quite glad to see the Godlike theme leavened by about ten clues that didn’t seem to be related to the theme. Enough to keep me plodding on. Hope we’re not ON ALL FOURS by the end of this week. I nearly am!

45. Offspinner @43: Paul is surely too upstanding to have intended any such interpretation…

46. [Muffin @12 asks: Is Mars’ in 8d right?
    If the question is about the possessive, it is a matter of preference, I think.
    Take Keats. I write Keats’s “Ode to a Nightingale”. That is the grammatical rule.
    Some people will write Keats’. That form too is allowed, I think,
    If it is any word ending in -ss, like princess, the possessive is princess’ undoubtedly,]

47. Early morning solve of 30 mins or so with no aids required no siree. Checked my library for books of wordlists to fill the gap and came up with a hardly thumbed Hamlyns . Fascinating as a niche/household SF character might say. Probly gonna need a Bradfords though . . hmmm

48. I thought “Oh no” when I saw it was about gods and goddesses. However, mercifully most were fairly well-known (but not SET, and as Sagittarius @31 pointed out, RHEA is a goddess, as far as I know, and the (what?) MAENADS).

    My last to parse was SECRETIVE, where game as an anagrind was sneaky (I agree it’s probably OK as a verb). I treated this like a Prize puzzle and liberally used aids where necessary to get to the answers. For those that didn’t like Adonis=STUD, Collins for Adonis: ‘any very handsome young man’and for STUD: ‘a virile or sexually active man’. I think virile could equate with handsome.

    I liked RODIN, DOES A TURN, ONTARIO and DOORNAILS.

    Thanks Paul (2 Across?) and Andrew.

49. Like mrpenney@38 I thought this was tough but fair. I don’t specialise in the names of gods and goddesses, but helped by guessing ATHENE for 22d and then using AE for the 2nd and 3rd letters in 21d, which had to be MAENADS. Favourites were DOES A TURN, WARHEAD and FIVE-STAR. Many thanks to Paul as ever, and to Andrew.

50. @SinCam and @muffin: the brackets in 28a were definitely there in the online version when I wrote the blog around 7am, but they’ve been (silently) removed since then.

51. Tough and themed like yesterday’s. But fun. [Sorry Soup was disheartened by the general response yesterday. He did an absolutely wonderful Genius a few months ago, August I think.]

52. This was a pleasant puzzle and I enjoyed it. Gods and goddesses are among my childhood friends. Thanks, Paul and thank, Andrew.

    11a Why under the table?

    SOCK means “hit”. “Box” means “hit repeatedly.” I don’t see them as synonyms.

53. Valentine @52
    “[P]erhaps” is significant there. If one has to go under the table (ignore the drunk) for some reason, one will necessarily be ‘on all fours’.

54. Valentine @52: A table (usually) has four legs and therefore stands on all fours?

55. Valentine@52
    ‘Box’ does not necessarily mean ‘hit repeatedly’ though we might think like that having a boxing match in our mind.
    Collins gives the meaning “to hit (a person) with the fist; punch or cuff”
    Comments seem to be going to the basics.

56. Lots of witty and inventive clues from Paul today – sometimes skating on the edge of accepted cryptic grammar, I think. And is a reversal of the Spanish word for plain without a foreign word indicator really fair?

    Last in were SPAN, NO SIR and SECRETIVE. It took me ages to think of putting the S from bus before the god (doh!), and I couldn’t parse NO SIR because ‘remove lid from inverted can’ surely gets you OS IRP? (Inverted prison, with the top letter taken off.) Using ‘game’ as anagrind fooled me for a long time, because it also hadn’t occurred to me that ‘receives’ would be the fodder. (Doh, again!) The presence of the square brackets in 28a gave pause for thought; that thought then resolving itself as “the crossword editor doesn’t actually read the clues, does he”.

    Despite the doubts and small quibbles, I enjoyed this puzzle. Thanks to Paul and for Andrew’s help with some of the parsing.

57. Valentine: think “she boxed his ears.”

58. Like AlanC @13, my knowledge of deities is little better than my knowledge of monkeys so I feared another DNF. But this wasn’t too bad in the end, no Google needed, though it had to be fitted in around various zoom meetings (why? I’m meant to be retired) plus a spot of lunch.

    The final delay was over my LOI USHERED. Partly my fault, I clumsily entered Athena not ATHENE which had me trying to justify ‘assegai’ and the like. Partly the Guardian’s, for those sloppy square brackets in the print edition. That forced me online to see if they were still there and they’re not, so someone’s woken up.

59. SH @56: llano is in Webster’s. American English does absorb Spanish in greater quantities than you do over there, but it’s not especially foreign to me, and I’ll wager you’ll find it in at least one British dictionary.

60. jackkt@19: I think your first three weeks have been fairly typical. Consecutive puzzles with an overpowering theme seem an exception to me. I’ve only been doing the Guardian every day for a few years so I am sure there are others far better qualified to comment. Stick with it. Thanks both.

61. mrpenney – thanks for that. I’ve just checked in my Chambers, which does feature the word, so quiblet withdrawn!

62. Conrad @4: General knowledge consists of things I know; specialized knowledge, the things I don’t. Funny how that works. While my knowledge of ancient gods is superficial and nearly as old as the gods themselves most of the ones in Paul fine crossword were familiar.

63. Has anyone solved the mystery of the brackets yet ? I agree with those thinking that 2 across was a misprint for 12 across, I am surprised that Paul resisted temptation there.

64. Does anyone else remember a Paul from years (possibly decades!) ago, which featured the various meanings of ‘game’ – the sporty kind, the edible kind, the ‘ready and willing’ kind, and the ’gammy’ kind? It sticks in my mind as being clever, knotty, and ultimately a delight – very much like today’s.

    That said, if the rest of this week carries on at the same level of chewiness I’ll be quite glad to see Double Spock on Monday.

    [Live long and prosper, Paul and Andrew]

65. As so often with Paul this was a real challenge but was a great deal of fun and a produced a sense of satisfaction when completed. I nearly gave up several times but a breakthrough always seemed to arrive at the last moment. Thank you Paul, and Andrew. I did think there was only a fine line in terms of difficulty between today and yesterday but the comments have been streets apart.

66. Seldom do I complete a Paul crossword and this was no exception; there were several I was unable to tease out and more I couldn’t parse. Still there was enough there to keep me interested and therefore amused. I liked the theme of mostly common ancient deities. Favorites included SPOCK, VENUES, and RODIN. I did notice Paul’s restraint from his usual naughtiness — maybe he’s trying to challenge himself as well as solvers. Thanks Andrew for the blog.

67. essexboy@64 I vaguely remember the game theme, quite a few years ago. More memorable was his very naughty words theme, solutions such as “Scunthorpe” and “Widow Twanky ” .

68. Paul can clearly see gods at work, where I can’t. However, with some far from divine assistance, I finally saw the light(s) or filled them in depending on your definition of light.

69. muffin@12 re SET. I see you were too cultured to have been a Denis Wheatley reader back in the distant day: ‘The Talisman of Set’ was the dark grail in one of his novels – ‘The Devil Rides Out’ maybe? I suspect Paul would know!

    Otherwise today was much more fun than yesterday – but I do feel sorry for the flak level that Enigmatist and Soup came in for. Thank you Paul and Andrew.

70. Irishman@69 – I also feel sorry for the flak level suffered by Enigmatist & Soup. Unfortunately it’s still continuing on yesterday’s blog, with a few latecomers putting their oars in.

71. Shouldn’t we have had some sort of indicator that we where looking for a Spanish word for ‘plain’. Got it from ‘under the table’ and first three crossers but couldn’t see anyway to parse it. Llano looks welsh to me anyway 😉

72. “2 across was an open goal” I thought referred to 5 across, with Paul resisting the opportunity to offer an alternative form of flashing.
    Great puzzle as always from Paul. Needed help with some parsing, particularly as never heard of llano. Thanks to both.

73. LLANO didn’t exactly jump into my head but when I parsed the answer I recognised it as a plain, maybe from an Azed puzzle. It’s in Chambers.

74. Have only just started this, having finally given up on Enigmatist and Soup’s concoction yesterday. So have done precisely 3 clues, all of them better than any yesterday. Thank you Paul, you’ve stopped us changing our daily newspaper.

75. Thank you MB@23; I’m still laughing.

76. As if not having studied Classics at Oxbridge is not enough, is it now requisite to search online encyclopedias to solve the Guardian Cryptic?

    Ought not a fair cryptic clue contain all of the information required to solve it, even accepting certain ‘classical’ cryptic hints and wordplays?

    Resorting to lazy cluing and obscurantism, is, quite simply, lazy and obscurantist.

77. As others may have been hinting, 12a would have worked without “”placing 6 and Egyptian equivalent back-to-back”, but too much of a chestnut perhaps.
    1a. The recent Senate decision reminded me of the words of a 19th century Irish judge, “You have been acquitted by a Limerick jury and you may leave the dock with no other stain on your character”.

78. [grantinfreo @5 – I doubt it, but it might take a lot of licking.]

79. Reader, I zoomed with him.

80. MB @23
    If I understand that you’re challenging someone to write a clue for TARAMASALATA, I will try.
    The word was new to me. I looked it up.
    It has RAMA the Hindu god and Ra the Egyptian god.
    My clue:
    Indian industrialist embraces god’s spice in Greek food (12)

81. [“Goodbye, Mum” said Liverpool footballer, “Thanks for the dip”]

82. Deciding very early yesterday not to continue slogging through has been really liberating as I went through all the clues here, realised that unlike many here I did not have that classical education and knew next to nothing about gods, and so gave up within 10 minutes. On checking above, I definitely made the right decision.

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