Guardian 28,553 / Paul

83 comments on “Guardian 28,553 / Paul”

1. So many brilliant clues: THE BIRDS and NUDIST BEACH and SALES TALK and YORKTOWN and BIKIN WAXING being my favourites.

   But I too couldn’t parse WRECKING BALL.

   Thanks Paul and Eileen.

2. Multiple light clues are a Paul trademark, but he really went to town here – every other clue seemed to be a “See x”. Like Eileen, I can’t see why your reflection should be beside yourself.

   I liked the sneaky lift and separate in INDONESIA and the &lit for NUDIST BEACH.

3. Thanks Paul and Eileen
   I was a bit careless parsing WRECKING BALL and BIKINI WAXING, so I didn’t notice the error in the former (which I actually solved from 12a etc., rather than its clue).
   Favourites NUDIST BEACH and INDONESIA.

4. Thought the nudist beach was a brilliant piece of work and suspected a Paul trait in 20d from the off so managed to get bikini wax fairly promptly (not really..)

5. A lovely Paulian finish to the week. Tough but fair. Thanks Eileen for parsing a few that I had to guess, like The Birds which I didn’t know and was LOI.
   Not for the first time this week, there’s a debate around a definition that doesn’t quite work. I also wondered whether a reflection had to be beside oneself but then thought that had to be the answer and I could see why so quickly moved on.

6. Lots of fun (plus the messed-up clue for WRECKING BALL). My favourites were CROUTON, BIKINI WAXING and NUDIST BEACH. Many thanks to him, and to Eileen.

7. Fortunately, RIANT appeared in a Monk crossword back in August, so I knew that one. I agree that BESIDE ONESELF is a little odd and reminds me of Harry Worth (one for the older solvers).

8. [Today’s earworm !]

9. Hovis @7 – I had the same thought!

   Other oldies / non-UK solvers, see here

10. I thought this was great after Paul’s last average puzzle. Same likes as others. Again drawn to a musical theme with full names, THE BI(Y)RDS, FREE, The FALL or missing halves – BEACH (Boys), TALK (Talk), BLOC (Party), (Wu) TANG and the one that might have assisted 2, 1 dn, WRECKING CREW.

    Ta Paul and especially Eileen for parsing some real toughies.

11. Kicking myself for entering BANG at 19a. Was taken in by NAB backwards but have to admit I was aware the parsing didn’t work. But I couldn’t parse DIGitISE either and that turned out to be correct. I’d lumped the ‘like 1’ into the definition so could not see where the match was. Thanks Paul for a puzzle that seemed intractable at first and then gave gracefully. Also Eileen got your explanations. I liked ThE BIRDS , YONKS and HADRiAN which was my LOI. Riant is certainly a new word for me.

12. I just assumed ascendant was an anagrind eg “up in the air”. Had a very slow start and them things just started dropping into place once a few crossers went in – you could say I needed to get up to get down

13. I’m mildly annoyed with myself for not getting HADRIAN – it’s difficult but perfectly fair.
    Yes, as Eileen points out, WRECKING BALL doesn’t quite work, and BESIDE ONESELF only works if you are the late Harry Worth (whose character I remember asking with a completely straight face “My jelly hasn’t set. Do you think I should have put in more than one cube…?”). Which is a pity, because in a sense both of those clues do the job – once you see the intended solution, the clue confirms it must be correct.
    Some delightful stuff here. Paul is at his best when he is being slightly rude and being technically brilliant, and 5, 12 and 20, 3 are as good as it gets.
    I particularly liked DIGITISE and THE BIRDS, too.
    Thanks to my favourite setter and to the ever-reliable Eileen.

14. Thought riant… hmm..heraldic? ..but no, it’s a thing and was in a Paul back in 2012, #25,807. Hey ho. Didn’t notice the crew error until the G threaders did. I spose one can imagine someone saying “One was simply beside oneself my dear”. The Orff and tang clues were neat. Quite fun, better than the previous, thanks P and E.

15. On solving WRECKING BALL I thought (a) there’s something not quite right; (b) I wonder if anyone’s going to provide a link to Miley Cyrus (apparently fresh from the NUDIST BEACH)? So glad muffin @8 found an alternative! 😉

    I was happy that a reflection could be BESIDE ONESELF (as long as the mirror is BESIDE ONESELF) but questioned FREE FALL as a chaotic worsening situation. As I understand it, the motion of a body in free fall (in the original physics sense) is totally unchaotic, since gravity is the only force acting upon it. The moon (and the ISS) are in free fall about the earth, which is in free fall about the sun. N’est-ce pas?

    Thanks Paul and Eileen.

16. The NUDIST BEACH clue is Paul at his best.
    For 4d, ARRANGE parses correctly too – which, as it was my last entry, I bunged in albeit thinking that although the definition was a bit wonky, it must have been Paul at his more offbeat.
    Prompted by Gladys @2: another of Paul’s trademarks is his preponderance of using ‘initially’ or ‘ultimately’ or equivalents as parsing ingredients.
    (I see he’s having one of his talk-ins tonight).
    Thanks to Eileen and himself

17. essexboy @15

    My immediate thought was that ‘chaotic’ was the anagram indicator – until I came to write up the blog and realised there wasn’t an anagram.

    Strange stirrings of memories of Harry Worth for at least three of us – I’d almost completely forgotten him.

18. Correction @16 -ARRANGES

19. Never heard of ‘Get Down’ for a dance, so I entered ‘Set Down’ unparsed as, at least, it means entered in one sense. So, one error.

20. Surely IMITATION is a form of flattery, not mockery. I can remember trying (and failing) the Harry Worth thing too,

21. It would seem that the CREW/CERW in WREC-KING-BALL are not quite “ascendant” – but there we are..

22. Very hard to start – nothing on first pass, then got started when I made a guess at 12/17/6 (before solving 2/1). Finished the top half first and did the SW corner last. I used to enjoy Paul’s puzzles but I am rarely on his wavelength lately.

    I liked: THE BIRDS.

    New for me : RIANT (for 7ac); YORKTOWN 1781 siege in USA (and now realise I had not parsed it apart from K=king)

    I did not parse: 16d; 21d Free = underwater system – whoops, I gto it wrong anyway as F+ALL and was confused about the FREE bit!

    * I agree that there is something wrong with 2d which might have been intended as rev of CREW + KING + BALL? Or is ‘ascendant’ an anagram indicator for CREW?

    Thanks, both.

23. Could someone please explain why *as might a 2 1* means BRING THE HOUSE DOWN.

    Thanks in advance.

24. Fiona Anne – the answer to 2 1 is WRECKING BALL, which might bring a house down – see here

25. duh – so obvious when explained….

    Thanks

26. Thanks for the blog and the parsing of some that I couldn’t see.

    My mum, an extraordinarily intelligent and well-educated woman had an extremely primitive sense of humour and fell apart every time she saw the Harry Worth gag (she also giggled every time she heard All Right Said Fred or any Flanders and Swann routine).

27. It’s strange how vertically placed letters sometimes confuse the brain – is there a word for that? I don’t think ascendant could be an anagrind because Paul is unlikely to use an indirect anagram.

    Yes, the Harry Worth reflection was fun. I liked CROUTON, BIKINI WAXING and INDONESIA.

    Thanks Paul for the fun, and to Eileen for working it all out.

28. Paul on form today. With most setters, I expect to solve quite a few clues on first pass, then slow down but continue solving until there are maybe two or three extra-hard (for me, at least) ones at the end. With Paul it’s usually slow and steady all the way through, and this was no exception.
    I had no problem with BESIDE ONESELF being where one’s reflection might appear.
    essexboy@15: of course you’re correct about literal FREE FALL being non-chaotic, but the term as used metaphorically (e.g. “economy in free fall”) usually does suggest chaos.
    Like GC@19 I had SET DOWN for 24a – I assumed it must have some dance meaning I didn’t know, as the right answer is a TILT.
    Thanks Paul and Eileen.

29. Robi@27 – I often use the anagram feature to display vertically arranged lights horizontally – vastly assists pattern recognition for me anyway.

30. Robi @27 – I quite agree: I always write down the letters horizontally.

31. Me @30 – that sounds contradictory but you know what I mean!

32. Didnt notice the error in WERCking ball, as others have said I suspect it’s probably as it’s a down clue, anyway it didn’t spoil this splendid crossword, and still doesn’t for me.

    My only complaint was that it was over too quickly with so many crossers from bring the house down.

    Boo at EB@15 for reminding me of that dreadful racket 🙁 .

    Harry Worth new to me so thanks for the link. Most amusing.

    Thanks Paul and Eileen.

33. Great fun as ever & quite destructive today!
    I liked the corners: FREE BALL & DOWN FALL
    And the besieged YORK bringing the house down?

34. Thanks to Paul & Eileen 🙂

35. Excellent puzzle. Loved BIKINI WAXING and the def and parsing for DIGITISE in particular. Didn’t notice the boo-boo in the wordplay for WRECKING BALL and BESIDE ONESELF went in with a “well, sort of…”.

    In the end though, another to be let down by ‘set down’ for GET DOWN.

    Thanks to Paul and Eileen

36. Thank you Paul and Eileen.

    I took the anagrind of CREW to be ‘one of those (ie CREW , KING and BALL) having a big bash’. It means that the phrase is doing double duty as anagrind and solution, though.

37. I too failed to notice the broken CREW, but the rest was enjoyable for the most part. However it was DNF for me because of DIGITISE. The word has a very specific meaning and I don’t think “Write in figures” works as a definition, at least not according to Chambers, Collins and Merriam-Webster.

38. Slow start for me – all these split solutions are a nuisance for iPhone solvers, necessitating much scrolling up and down. Top half went in fairly easily but the bottom half was trickier. I originally put in FALL thinking that that F was the (belie)F – this held me up. Last in was TANG – the clue doesn’t really work for me as the ‘rear’ is pinched ‘from’, rather than ‘in’ (but is that just sour grapes?).

    Nice to see the return of a bit of ribaldry – those clues were my favourites.

    Thanks Paul and Eileen

39. Great puzzle which seemed very, very difficult but opened up steadily like fine wine.

    Shame about the mistake at 2d.

    Like others I loved NUDIST BEACH, BIKINI WAXING and CROUTON (devilish misdirection there).

    Further praise for YORKTOWN – brilliant surface.

    Thanks to Paul and Eileen

40. I don’t see how “get down” could mean “dance”. Can someone help ?

41. As a one-time mathematician, I am happy that you can use reflection in the mathematical sense, not a mirror sense.

42. I tried SET DOWN too, and only corrected it after “checking”. I’d be interested to know the relevance of GET DOWN as well – I only know it in expressions like “get down with the kids”.

43. Give me Harry Enfield anyday!
    I sort of guessed BRING THE HOUSE DOWN by hunch and numeration
    Didnt notice the dodgy wordplay in 2 at the time but there are hawkeyes on the G thread “Drunken team man”?
    I liked YONKS but probably seen it before
    A lot of cross referencing but theres like in the old dog yet!

44. Hi NNI and muffin

    If you google ‘Get down’, dance’, you’ll find a lot of links, including some videos but there didn’t seem to be one specifically helpful for me to give a link to. I hoped others would be more with it than me. 😉

    Chambers gives ‘get down: to disport oneself with abandon (inf)’ !

45. NNI@40 & muffin@42: it’s a stateside thing
    <a href="http://“>

47. how do you do the link thing?

48. Thanks Eileen. I found this.

49. [Hi wynsum
    Copy the URL. Highlight some text in your proto-post. Click on the “link” button. Past your link in the box, then OK it.]

50. [“paste”, not “past”!]

51. Muffin @42 – Kool & The Gang – Get down on it, baby, baby, get down on it…..how you gonna do it if you really don’t wanna dance? By hanging on the wall?

52. Get Down is 1970s Afro/American slang for dancing, among other things

53. Not sure if Andy Smith’s Mum(@26) was a fan of Bernard Cribbens or Richard Fairbrass!!

54. Get Down is just Paul being Paul, a bit ribald

55. Hi wynsum

    PS to muffin @49

    Be sure to delete the ‘http://’ from the box before entering your URL – it’s easy to forget, which is why my links don’t always work first time.

56. [Eileen @55
    When I do it, the “http://” is always highlighted, so pasting overwrites it anyway.]

57. Muffin and others my first thought on get down was Kool and the gang here

58. Sorry Steveb and Cliveinfrance I see you beat me to it, I just really needed something (anything) to get rid of miley cyrus

59. [muffin@49 thank you! I’m a bit of a technophobe. Also, very interesting article on ‘get down’ with respect to its origins/choreography, thank you. It made me wonder if most circle dances are anti-clockwise]

60. Thanks Blah
    My link was to Emmy-Lou Harris, not Miley Cyrus, though!

61. [Eileen@55: thank you – I failed on both highlighting and http! My link should also have led to Kool and the Gang]

62. Bodycheetah @12: I agree that “ascendant” could potentially be an anagram indicator – reminiscent of Hamlet’s “engineer hoist with his own petard” (blown up by his own explosive device). As to whether Paul would use an indirect anagram (Robi @27), he of course did recently (25a in 28,494), provoking some comment.

    Having said all that, WRECKING BALL was probably just an error, but it was a minor one and several people have said they didn’t even notice it. The puzzle as a whole was witty and enjoyable. Many thanks Paul and Eileen.

63. LJ @62 with hindsight I think it’s probably just a snafu – my old boss always advised me to suspect cock up before conspiracy 🙂
    I was struggling to get started at the time and biffed it in without thinking through the indirect anagram issue which, btw, I’d be happy to see the back of

64. Lord Jim @62: indeed – I failed to mention that I had also failed to spot the CREW/CERW error. Easily done in a vertical clue, as others have said.

65. For what it’s worth, I didn’t notice the CREW/CERW thing until I came to write the blog.

66. [Muffin@60 your link was very welcome, it was the most heinous Essexboy@15, who was responsible for my unpleasant earworm.

    Wynsum I missed your ref to kool and gang – apologies, I also very much liked your yes minister clue a few days ago ]

67. Kool and the Gang was Get Down on It. But the only known recording of The Get Down dance by Pans People and some doggies from 1973.
    Gilbert O’Sullivan greatest hit

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVBsufru-D0

68. 19/25 – certainly! https://youtu.be/f189hOfyYSY

69. People confused by GET DOWN=”dance” presumably missed the entire disco era. (I mean, so did I–I was a young child when it was happening, but the old disco hits live on in the gay community.) Besides the previously mentioned Kool and the Gang, I give you this earworm.

    I’m wondering who these people are who fry their croutons. Put your bread cubes on a baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil, toss in your favorite seasonings, and bake in a medium-hot oven until browned to taste.

70. I didn’t have a problem with Beside Oneself at all. Look sideways into a mirror, and that’s where your reflection is.

    Lovely puzzle. Bikini Waking an obvious favourite, but plenty more to like. Ta S & B.

71. Waxing obvs. Not sure what Bikini Waking is. Running along a beach with an airhorn, maybe.

72. I too am perfectly happy with BESIDE ONESELF, as a reflection does not have to involve a mirror. If instead one thinks of it as a shadow then it usually is attached.

73. [Blah@66 it was easy to miss! And thank you, now I’ve found the right blog, I really like ‘my sinister empire’ too! I’m looking forward to that tv satire inspired crossword.]
    Does the clue for FREE FALL reflect a newly-formed, anglophone BLOC I wonder? Probably not!

74. Failed on BANG and SET DOWN, but enjoyed the crossword and didn’t notice the CREW error!

    [I can remember waiting to watch Harry Worth on TV when the news of the assassination of President Kennedy came through. If I remember correctly, the absence of any hard facts and especially of any pictures made the cancellation of programmes almost impossible, and it went ahead as planned, though my memory is a little hazier on that point. My brothers and I loved watching Harry Worth, as he reminded us of our grandfather, in his looks and some of his mannerisms, though not the shop window reflection thing.]

75. Apologies to everyone for my heinousness earlier.

    wynsum @59: Perhaps circle dances tend to be anti-clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere, but clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere?

76. Thank you Eileen for explaining RIAN, confirming the not-quite-rocksteady crew, and parsing Yorktown as I had to google that from all the crossers. Thanks to all for discussion of reflection as I am now happy about that, and muffin and others for discussion and examples of getting down ( which I got happily but only penultimately) and I think no-one has suggested this yet:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGKiC2suCHQ
    Sorry if I missed it above and thanks Paul for a good one.

77. [All is forgiven EB as I now have a wonderful mental image of an eightsome reel going haywire and degenerating into a conga as they cross the equator.]

78. [Well I never, sheffield hatter @74, that is exactly what I recall too abut Harry Worth, and I had a flashback to that earlier when contributors here began referencing the window reflection gag. It was a Friday evening; I was 12 years old and watching TV with my mother (my father was probably out hobnobbing with the local Conservative & Unionist Association), and I recall my mother thinking it odd that, after the news announcement, the BBC still went ahead with a comedy programme.]

79. Thanks for the blog, MrEssexboy @15 quite right about FREE FALL being non-chaotic in a physics sense.
    Does it have a different modern meaning ?
    AlanC @ 10 another brilliant theme effort but not quite convinced for once.
    GET DOWN = dance is fine for me, maybe a specific age thing.
    Paul got Brazilian right , it was used incorrectly recently.

80. Roz, nor was I, but I like to have a punt 🙂

81. Thanks to Paul and Eileen for a splendid end to a splendid week.

    poc@37: I have some sympathy for your DIGITISE quibble but if you consider e.g. a piece of music rendered for generation by a computer you might agree that it must be “written in figures” (if only 0s and 1s).

    GET DOWN meant this to me.

82. Didn’t parse a couple so thanks Eileen. Definition of THE BIRDS as old film seems a little vague but thanks to Paul.

83. Put SET DOWN, as I’ve never heard of GET DOWN as a dance – HOE DOWN, yes. Also missed the CERW spelling, but did notice (for once) the lift and separate for IN DONE. Thanks to Paul and Eileen, belatedly, as I’m in the process of catching up with Guardian crosswords, having spent a week in an apparently Internet free part of Scotland. I refuse to go on to the next day’s crossword until I’ve completed the last one. Sad, aren’t I?

Comments are closed.