Guardian 28,523 / Paul

97 comments on “Guardian 28,523 / Paul”

1. 20 across refers to HERA and Jesse OWENS, hidden in “the rack, or somehow enslaved”.

2. MARS and ZEUS my last interlocking two in. Enjoyed the fun and games of Olympic champions past and present and those looking on from Mount Olympus. DIARIST caused a chuckle…

3. Thank you Andy Doyle @1. That’s been bewildering me since I started this puzzle.

4. Bravo Andy Doyle, like Eileen I was also scratching my head. I’m amazed that I’ve completed a Friday Paul in under an hour without very little help (had to look up Gaia and confirm SERAGLIO). Very clever mixture of gods and Olympic champions, all of whom are very well-known, so he can’t be accused of obscurities. My favourites were COMANECI, HERPES, SOFT PALATE and happily cringed at the amusing UDDERS and DIARIST. Another great week.

   Ta Paul & Eileen

5. Thanks a million, Andy @1 – I’ve amended the bog and will buy you a drink if you’re going to York. 😉

6. Oh, very good Andy. Managed to parse all the rest but hadn’t managed to solve the keystone

7. Re HERPES: it might be the reason for the rash, so the definition is “rash reason”?

8. Thanks for the blog, I saw HERA but not OWENS , well done Andy@1
   HERPES simplex causes shingles, reason for a rash.

9. Sorry Gladys, you beat me.

10. Very nice to see Paul bringing his class to an otherwise rather forgettable week of puzzles – with an offering that was enjoyable in both degree of difficulty and crafting of clues. In spite of solving 2D and 4A almost immediately, the NW corner bogged me down for more than half the solving time, with loi being UDDERS.
    I usually don’t care for puzzles which depend on a master-clue, but in this case I solved 20A fairly quickly from the crossers (though also finding the parsing elusive), and then the rest of those diverse Olympians followed naturally. Especially enjoyed MOBILES, THORPE, ESPALIER & ANATOMY, among others.
    Thanks Paul for an entertaining puzzle.

11. Thanks Eileen and Paul and Andy Doyle @1. I see now how HERA and OWENS are derived, but cannot understand how ‘sporting’ relates to Hera.

12. Maybe 20 AC is easier in the paper. – secured by the rack – is on the top line, I did not really look at the second line.

13. Andy@1 – a gold medal for you. (Though would it have been fairer if the clue let us know that two different kinds of gods were being “sported” in the wordplay?)

14. Enjoyable for the Olympic cruciverble specialists no doubt but rated as one of the worst ever for me in terms of solving and parsing.

15. Could 22 across possibly be a salute to the great Liz?

16. Is Thor an Olympian? I thought he was more likely to be in Nordic lands.

17. revbob@16 Thor just says god as does Mars.

18. I’m in the “I’m just happy to be taking part” class, definitely not a medallist and needed help to find and/or parse some of these. Pleased to remember Mars=bar at probably the fourth attempt in fairly recent crosswords. Strange how hard it is (for me, at least) to switch between thinking of the dofferent types of Olympian. Good that Bolt wasn’t clued as “runs fast”.

19. Topical and clever, well done Paul, and many thanks Eileen. Although not strong on either sportspersons or the Classics, with crossers should’ve got Coe around man + CI, without help from try’n’check…ho hum. And didn’t get how 20 was double hidden, well done Andy and others who did. Couple of lovely groans, like soft palate and udders, and a couple of old staples like Mars and (Adrian) Mole. All good fun, thanks again both.

20. I don’t see why not TROVATORE @15, as Eileen gave us two examples of PETERS. I also see that Jim PETERS died in THORPE BAY(s).

21. I got 20a very early on after getting 10a and 2d. I had no chance of parsing it, as it looks as though even some of the experts were stumped.
    This was a crossword to admire Paul’s cleverness and congratulate anyone who could sort this out.
    It was miles above my solving level.
    Thanks both.

22. Got there in the end but needed Sndy @1 to explain the key.

    Liked SOFT PALATE & MOBILES but found most of this a bit of a grind.

    Thank you Eileen.

23. … oh and I’ve gone through life pronouncing baize with a zh, like beige.. hey ho …

24. Eileen, I’m often amazed that bloggers seem to have so little trouble parsing everything. It’s reassuring to find that you’re human too! Thanks for the blog.

    For me, this is Paul at his most fiendishly inscrutable, so I have to express respect and admiration, rather than enjoyment. Thanks, Paul!

25. Classic Paul!

    Saw Hera in 20A but having misinterpreted somehow enslaved, spent far too long looking up nonexistent olympians such as Al Vendes or Sal Deven. So thanks to Andy Doyle@1.

    Lovely mix of clues with a couple of real groan-inducing homophones.

    Thoroughly enjoyable Friday fun.

    Thanks Paul and Eileen!

26. Terrific fun. I didnt even attempt to parse 20but snuck in through the back entrance-getting 14 and 13
    and googling BILES and MOSES. And ANTARES appeared recently although it had to be modified.
    So I had gods and Olympic Games stars so 20 had to be OLYMPIANS .I thought I’d leave it to someone else to parse it (thanks Andy@1)-as usual with Paul when there is a pivotal clue its not a bad idea to disguise it (like “TREE” a while ago.
    I got bogged down in the NW-=after cracking the dreaded HERPES I took a breakl
    Later I trolled through the choices for MOLE and groaned when I saw it.
    I did see the construction for 1d UDDERS was double groan (code in the dose)
    Thanks Paul. Eileen and Andy

27. Oh and thanks Eileen for CLAY PIGEON

28. I wouldn’t have parsed 20 in a month of Sundays, and I had heard of very few of the sporting personalities. COMANECI was probably the last one I ever watched, so I had to rely on Aurighetta to supply the names.
    Thanks to all contributors.

29. I guessed OLYMPIAN fairly early from BILES and HOY, but failed to parse it – I like the way the parsing gives both kinds of Olympian, but of course I didn’t see that and thought they were all going to be athletes. It was a relief to find that some of the other kind were included, as I needed to take it on trust that MOSES, PHELPS, PETERS and THORPE fitted the bill. I recognised COMANECI once I saw her, but ending up revealing that one despite having all the crossers and the MAN in the middle. No problem with the gods (do the Roman gods also live on Olympus?)

    Also failed to parse PIGEON and groaned at DIARIST. Thanks Paul and Eileen.

30. As Blah@25 says, classic Paul. Loved it even if 20ac was a struggle to parse. It took me a while to realise Olympians referred to gods as well as sportspersons but that just added to the fun. Many thanks to Paul and Eileen.

31. Goodness me, that was tough. I utterly failed to parse 20ac but it didn’t matter anyway because the subject matter of sporty side is beyond my GK having zero interest in sports of any kind, athletics being especially high on my disinterest-list.

    Enjoyed the homo-groans but that is about all, I’m afraid – too much of a struggle for me.

    Thanks Paul and Eileen.

32. I’ve been negative about Paul recently, but this was a treat – clever and not ridiculously difficult. It took me a while to get (but not parse) OLYMPIAN, which I then realised had two strands – athletes and mountain-dwellers – which led to further progress. Last one in was COMANECI. Favourite was the groanworthy UDDERS.

    Thanks to Paul, Eileen and Andy Doyle.

33. Thanks Eileen and Paul, plus Andy Doyle @1 in particular, for enlightening me on the key word. BOLT and THORPE were the pathways to, for me, a solved but unparsed 20a.

34. Mary Peters also an wonderful olympian

35. Nick Manson @ 34 – Mary Peters is the first Olympian in the blog.

36. Having gone through the answers, what a brilliant crossword.
    Of course, have been scratching my head how MOSES was an OLYMPIAN, just realised its ED MOSES, not the bloke who went up Mount Sinai!
    Doh

37. Quite a slog for me. I needed online help for the GK of Olympic medallists but luckily I was more familiar with the gods/deities. The sportspeople were well-clued, but it was like a guessing game for me to see if they existed after I solved each clue.

    Gave up on 15ac – but haha, that is a good one and it is my favourite today.

    I did not parse: OLYMPIAN, PIGEON, COMANECI (apart from the MAN bit); UDDERS.

    New for me: ESPALIER = a lattice for an espaliered/trained tree or shrub; Mary Peters (athlete 1972 Olympics) for 13d; Olympian Edwin Corley Moses for 14ac; Jim Thorpe for 7d; Andrew Hoy or Chris Hoy = Olympians (for 16d). Totally forgot about COE = Olympian for 1d.

    Thanks, both.

38. Thanks Paul, Eileen and Andy. Fun and games, but no podium finish for me, in fact, udder defeat.
    Hera’s an Olympian but not a ‘sporting god’ – maybe that shouldn’t matter, especially as I failed to spot her.

39. Did anyone make my mistake and put Odin in 10a S a first entry? It’s in the clue. Paul devious and on top form as usual

40. My first thought on glancing at today’s offering was “too many 20’s”. It wasn’t helped by getting MOSES as my first themed answer, for obvious reasons. But it all resolved nicely and I had a blast. Thanks all

41. got the sports part but not the Greek part till this morning when ANTARES tipped me off.

    Googling Jim Thorpe taught me that he was the first Native American to win medals for the US at the Olympics — and also that he was stripped of all his medals when somebody found out that he’d been paid to play minor league baseball, never mind that he hadn’t won any baseball medals at the Olympics. The decision was reversed in the 80’s and the Olympic Committee postumously restored the medals. Thorpe had long since died in poverty.

    Thanks fo Paul for the romp and to Eileen and Andy Doyle for the help. I didn’t know that Olympic games chose a “champion” for the whole event, which was Jim Thorpe in 1912 and Andy for this puzzle.

42. Not my cup of tea at all I’m afraid. Paul at his most self-indulgent

43. Valentine @41 – Jim was the first entry I found when I googled THORPE but I thought 1912 was rather a long time ago, so, as you see, I went for the rather more recent Ian. 😉

44. Valentine @41 & Eileen @43 – I’m sticking with Jim Thorpe – what an amazing story! He was the only sporting OLYMPIAN in the grid I hadn’t previously heard of.

    I had DELIMITERS as an idea for quite a while, but then went for PERIMETERS, which didn’t parse of course. Strange that there are three words that all fit the definition – and two of them fit the crossers too. (I got PARAMETERS in the end.)

    DIARIST was a good penny drop moment – I’d been thinking of all the moles I could bring to mind, like freckles, breakwaters, spies; it took ages for the one with a capital M to appear.

    Thanks to Paul, Eileen and Andy @1.

45. …forgot to mention – I almost wrote in ROOT CANALS at 23a, but luckily the word play revealed itself to me before I embarrassed myself!

46. I quite liked this. I placed 20 across fairly early on, but never parsed it. Unlike most of the commentators so far, I had heard of most of the athletes, with apologies to Mary Peters. Lots of Americans, which I guess helped. I’d thought of Cassius Clay, and figured that was it, but was expecting to come here and find that there was also some British dressage rider named Ethel PIGEON or something to add an extra layer there. Good to know that’s not the case.

47. I found this tough, but it offered just enough encouragement for me to complete it. ‘Mole’ is a particularly polysemous word in a crossword clue. I somehow remembered some athletes that I’m surprised that I ever knew. Like many, I completely failed to parse the key to the theme. Thanks to Paul and Eileen and all contributors.

48. I assumed THORPE was Ian Thorpe, the Thorpedo.

49. Odin was also hiding in 10ac, although I guess he was keeping himself a little more concealed than Thor who was also gatecrashing Olympus!

50. No reason THORPE can’t refer to both Jim and Ian, but Jim was the one I think I’ve heard of. Eileen, where to you refer to Ian?

    Jesse Owens (cryptically referred to here, thanks once again Andy) is another Olympian of color who died poor, after humiliating the Nazi whites-are-best party..

    I forgot to object to PARAMETERS as “limits.” It’s misused that way, but a parameter is a variable, such as time or distance or mass, which other things are measured against. I think people conflate it with “perimeter.” You can be within one of those, but not within a parameter, only along it.

51. Call me stupid, but even after Andy Doyle@1 I don’t understand the parsing of 20. Can someone put me out of my misery?

52. Rompiballe @51. There are an Olympian god and an Olympic sports star hidden in the clue: ‘secured by tHE RAck, or somehOW ENS laved’.

53. Valentine @50 – Ian is highlighted, with a link (like all the Olympians), in the blog.

54. Valentine@50 I have long given up railing against the misuse of PARAMETERS as limits, though it still grates just as much as when I first heard it (much like the mispronunciations of Sca Fell, Barnard Castle and Heysham do); however, I must object to the use of parameter as a variable. They are quite distinct. In the equation y = mx +c defining a straight line, x and y are variables; however one could vary the value of c (it would shift the line up or down vertically) and c here would be a parameter.

55. Parametric equations certainly use a parameter, often t, that is a variable .
    For example x = r cos t and y = r sin t for a circle radius r.

56. Epeolater@11: As sheffield hatter just pointed out @52, some of the Olympians are athletes and some are Greek gods (Poseidon, Ares, Hermes), so Hera is one of the latter rather than sporting.

    With 28,507 I was cranky about a main clue with an obscure parsing where one of the two crossers depended on it and this week we have a main clue with an even more obscure parsing where three of the four crossers depend on it! But it was much easier to get into, though after gettting MOLASSES and MOSES for the first one I thought it might be prophets or ancient Hebrews! Then with PHELPS I figured it out. The big help was that Sporting God is at least straightforward, and the puzzle is a bit topical.

    When we used to drive from Pittsburgh to New York we would often stop at the All-American diner in Carlisle, Pennsylvania which was full of Jim Thorpe memorabilia (and named after him: Jim Thorpe, All American) so he’s the Thorpe I thought of. Alas, the diner no longer exists.

    Thanks Paul and Eileen! Eileen, I’m impressed that you parsed 20ac; that was well beyond me.

57. Cor Blimey. I breezed through the NE and rather more painfully got all but one of the southerly horizontals, last of which was 20A. I like a stretch but this was just too much of a racking and I didn’t finish. I don’t feel so bad now that I’ve read everyone’s comments, so thanks very much everyone!
    Lastly, I need to nit-pick, even though I believe in saying nothing if nothing nice can be said. 5D is a real NO-NO for me, given the lived experience of so many Muslim women around the world. In fact, it is a place for men, surely, a fetishistic Orientalist fantasy. Sorry, but Grr.

58. Valentine @50. I forgot to object to PARAMETERS as “limits.” Dave Ellison @54 I have long given up railing against the misuse of PARAMETERS as limits… I must object to the use of parameter as a variable. But the clue defines PARAMETERS as ‘boundaries’. Which is in Chambers: “a boundary or limit to the scope of something”.

59. Valentine @ 50 when using differential equations , I will often call the boundary conditions the parameters of the system.
    As for Chambers -parameter – a boundary or limit.

60. MimiBwcyd @57. I had a doubt about SERAGLIO being a ‘place for Muslim women’, but again this is in Chambers: “women’s quarters in a Muslim house or palace”. I understand your Grr, but just because we don’t like the connotations doesn’t mean it’s unacceptable in a crossword.

61. Sorry sheffield hatter, you beat me to it.

62. matt w @56 – but I didn’t parse 20ac!

63. afternoon all, I’m going to stick my tuppence worth in. I thought this was the best crossword in some time. Yes, I (and my sometime solving-together-via-Skype crossword partner) am a biggish Paul fan, but I thought the level of ingenuity with the theme, and the elegance of its overall construction vaulted it over the bar of whichever Olympic analogy you feel like.

    We did manage to spot both HERA and OWENS and it was at that point I felt this was a thing of significant crosswording achievement. Maybe not a PB for Paul, but an impressive feat nonetheless.

    Thanks to Eileen, Paul/John and all the rest of you. (As a very occasional contributor, I enjoy reading many of your comments on a regular basis, in addition to being frequently awestruck by the quality of the explanations (not to mention the setting)).

    Have a lovely Friday and weekend, where’er you all may be.

64. Thanks Eileen for PIGEON and Andy Doyle for making sense of OLYMPIAN.
    Cedric@39 you are not alone, I hope this brings some comfort – also for quite a while I had unparsed PERIMETERS (and still not quite happy that ram= batter but some dictionary somewhere has it I expect) and thought that COMANECI had to end in BI – so found this difficult, but worthwhile and especially enjoyed the deception of DIARIST and SOFT PALATE.
    Thanks Paul, I am back in a good mood for the weekend after staying up late for the Perseids only for cloud to roll in at c 11:55!

65. Gazzh @64 the Perseids have still got another week at least. The intensity will be decreasing and the moon is getting brighter but can still be impressive. The biggest enemy is the clouds as you say.

66. Thanks Paul and Eileen
    Time for a doubly dissenting voice. I thought that this was tedious, and probably wouldn’t have bothered to finish it if it hadn’t been so easy (I was lucky enough to recognise all the Olympians, though I went for the Thorpedo too.).

67. How does POSE = ASK? The closest Chambers gets is “to perplex by questions”
    I’m sure I’m missing something obvious – I’m aware you can pose a question but you can also pose a threat so pose alone can’t equal the subsequent thing?

68. As for parameters=boundaries, I didn’t like that one much either. Sure, you can justify it as has been done above, but it seems like a stretch, a forced fit, and is just not satisfying.

69. bodycheetah @67. I think we had this one raised before, perhaps last year. I can’t find any support in Chambers, but my (30-year-old) Oxford Thesaurus has these for ‘pose’: “set, put, ask, submit, broach, posit, advance, predicate, postulate. The interviewer posed some questions that were quite embarrassing.”

70. Collins has pose – to put forward or ask .

71. Great stuff! As usual with a theme clue, I went straight to it and guessed OLYMPIAN having no idea of the parsing. Still hadn’t figured it out after finishing so thanks Andy Doyle @1.

    A fairly fast solve once it became clear we were talking gods and athletes.

    I had no problem with the “reason” in 12a. The bug is the reason for the rash.

    I also don’t get the objection to Thor in 7d. It’s parsed by “god” and the 20a only refers to THORPE.

    Favourite for me was HERPES for the definition.

    Thanks Eileen and Paul

72. Beware of the troll!

73. …Couto obviously, not Ark Lark! 🙂

74. Thanks sheffield hatter! I wondered what was so controversial about my innocent entry! Couto just does it to wind people up like all trolls. Best ignored

75. That was a fun solve, and like many others I had no clue about how to parse 20 ac. until I saw the explanation from Andy @1. And I’m still a bit unconvinced by UDDERS – is that really how you’d say “others” if you had a blocked nose?! I was thinking along the line of rudders with its nose blocked, but have no idea how “rudder” and “remaining” would relate to each other…
    Also, didn’t the ZEUS-SUEZ thing show up earlier this week?

76. Hi Jay in Pittsburgh

    I had no problem with UDDERS, because the clue immediately took me back to this song from my youth – way before your time, I’m sure. 😉

77. Jay@76: yes, I’ve seen SUEZ somewhere quite recently, but can’t find where.

78. Sheffield Hatter@52. Thank you, I understood that, but then surely the clue should be sporting gods, not god, and Hera’s relation to sport is still unexplained. Unless she had a reputation for sportiness?

79. Eileen @77 – great memory, but he hasn’t got a blocked nose!

    This suggests that

    The Alan Sherman song, “Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah” derives a lot of its humor from the contrast of this lower-class accent with the classical music used for the melody.

    I didn’t question the clue at the time, but I’m inclined to agree with Jay @76 – bunged-up noses affect nasal sounds (m, n, ng), hence moaning Minnie = bow-dig-biddy.

80. Rompiballe @79: I agree that if you read the clue as an ‘all-in-one’ it doesn’t quite work. But if you separate it into definition (sporting god = OLYMPIAN) and wordplay I think it’s fine. In this case the wordplay gives two hidden indications by example (signalled by ‘or’), one of the sporting kind of Olympian and the other of the Greek goddess kind.

81. essexboy @80

    I didn’t question the clue at the time

    Neither did I – I had other things on my mind (20ac!) – but that song immediately sprang to mind. I take your point!

82. Jay / Gladys – ZEUS / SUEZ is a hoary chestnut but I thought it was used to good effect here.

83. Rompiballe @79. It’s ‘sporting god’ because the answer is OLYMPIAN, and so that each clue references a single instance; the ‘or’ between the two hidden examples indicates there are two categories.

    And I think there’s a reference in the clue to Hardy’s Tess of the Durbevilles: “…the President of the Immortals, in the Aeschylean phrase, had ended his sport with Tess.” Or to Shakespeare’s King Lear: “As flies to wanton boys are we to th’ gods/They kill us for their sport.”

    So we then have a double meaning for the phrase ‘sporting god’: Hera the goddess who may sport with us, and Jesse Owens, the man with god-like sporting prowess.

84. essexboy @81. If I’d seen yours before I started typing mine, it wouldn’t have taken me so long to type it!

85. essexboy & Eileen: Might the Elephant’s Child offer some help here?

    At this, O Best Beloved, the Elephant’s Child was much annoyed, and he said, speaking through his nose, like this, ‘Led go! You are hurtig be!’ Then the Elephant’s Child felt his legs slipping, and he said through his nose, which was now nearly five feet long, ‘This is too butch for be!’

    I would suggest that Kipling has made a slight error in transferring the young elephant’s speech onto the page, and what he actually said was ‘Dis is too butch for be!’

86. Eileen @77 – haha, yes; I’ve seen this before! Now that I think of it there was an album of silly songs that my son used to listen to as a baby and this was on it…

87. sh @86: Kipling got it right – Ms and NGs (nasal sounds) get plosive-ified, but dental fricatives (TH sounds) are unaffected.

    sh @84: after Shakespeare and Hardy…

    ‘The gods may throw a dice…’ 😉

88. Thanks to PEA – this took all day on and off! it’s all been said and I’ll cast another vote for UDDERS as my favourite clue.

89. Gladys@78 not much of a spoiler I hope. It is a current live crossword soon to be shown here.

90. Thanks both,
    I’m surprised no one has objected to ‘parameters’ as ‘borders’. Doubtless the usage is supported by Chambers or some other source, but my SOED gives only definitions from Maths eg a quantity that is constant in a given case but which varies from case to case. The ‘borders’ or ‘limits’ usage seems to derive from management speak where the word was mistakenly interpreted by ignorami.

    We had a heated discussion about a clue that treated mass and volume as synonyms. This seems worse to me as there is no pre-existing vernacular usage.

91. Tyngewick@91. See Dr Whatson @68. I also questioned it , trying to put perimeters in there, not knowing the 20 either.
    On-line dictionaries gave mostly the maths definition as you say, but I found ‘limits’ so I ‘spose it’ll do.
    ‘

92. Ugh. Paul at his worst, with a theme that I largely knew little about and care less.

93. I usually enjoy the puzzles where one answer feeds loads of others, but when I guessed 20ac without being able to parse (even if I’d got HERA and OWENS I’d still have been none the wiser), and realised it was all about sport and gods, I decided to give it a miss and read a book instead! It looks like people had fun with it, and it certainly shows Paul’s artistry, but it wasn’t for me.

94. Difficult at first with all the 20’s. Had a feeling for MOSES, ZEUS, (Jeremy) THORPE – so was going down the leader route. Then I got more sporting stars with HOY, so now looking at CHAMPION, Bunged in (Gareth) BALE (a run of cloth). Finally with the crossing L got OLYMPIAN, didn’t go back and fix BALE.

95. PhilinLivi@ 95 (where’s Livi?) I tried really hard to include CHAMPION too — tried to make it something i “chain”, e.g. slavery. Didn’t work.

96. I’ve found the SUEZ-ZEUS thing we’re all trying to remember — it’s in last week’s Everyman! No wonder it sounded familiar.

97. Great fun. BILES was new to me. Loved UDDERS. Didn’t parse Olympian.

    Thanks Paul and Eileen.

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