Thank you to Paul. Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Across
8. Oxygen coming in a little lower, excellent source of fuel (8)
COALFACE : O(symbol for the chemical element, oxygen) contained in(coming in) [ CALF(a little/a young bovine animal, a low-er/one that would low/moo) + ACE(slang for excellent/very good) ].
Defn: Part of a mine with exposed coal.
9. Muted sound when treacherous fascist backed (3-3)
WAH-WAH : Reversal of(… backed) HAW-HAW(Lord, nickname of various persons broadcasting fascist/Nazi propaganda to the UK from Germany during WW2).
Defn: … produced on musical instruments – eg. on brass instruments by alternatively applying and removing a mute
10. Flying pig? (6)
GANNET : Cryptic defn: Slang for a greedy person, which is also the name of a large seabird, a flying creature.
11. Comment on article not finished off (8)
ANNOTATE : AN(an article in grammar) + NOT + ATE(finished off/consumed).
Defn: …, as a verb.
12, 15. Might one be looking up a Spoonerism for Mrs Malaprop? (11)
BIRDWATCHER : Spoonerism for “Word Botcher”(a description of Mrs Malaprop, the character in the play, The Rivals, who often uses the wrong word, similar sounding to the correct one).
Defn: …, specifically at birds up in the trees or sky.
13. Arresting boxing scrap, very exciting (4-6)
NAIL-BITING : NAILING(arresting/catching, say, a criminal) containing(boxing) BIT(scrap/a small or amount of what is left after the greater part has been used).
15. See 12
16. Second US president back in A&E — cause of dysentery? (7)
AMOEBAE : [ MO(short for a moment in time/a second) + reversal of(… back) ABE(diminutive of the name Abraham, first name of former US president, Lincoln) ] contained in(in) [A & E].
Defn: … which are tiny unicellular organisms, a species of which are intestinal parasites.
18. Potential success is in doughnuts or fried onions with salt (6,4)
RISING STAR : IS contained in(in) RINGS(circular objects, examples of which are doughnuts and fried onion rings) plus(with) TAR(like salt, slang for a sailor).
19. Fish stick bought at seaside (4)
ROCK : Double defn: 1st: Rockfish, a marine fish; and 2nd: A stick of hard confectionary, often sold in seaside resorts, such as Blackpool and Brighton, and flavoured with peppermint or spearmint.
20. Container for flowers, little one filled with primroses initially on plot (5,3)
PLANT POT : [ TOT(a little one/a very young child) containing(filled with) 1st letter of(… initially) “primroses” ] placed after(on) PLAN(a plot/a detailed course of action for achieving something).
22. Sept, Nov: Dec remains (6)
EMBERS : Cryptic defn: Reference to the last bits/remains of September, November and December after abbreviation.
23. County boundary approached by member of colony (6)
ANTRIM : RIM(a boundary/an edge) placed after(approached) ANT(a member of a colony of, well, ants).
Defn: … of Northern Ireland
24. One with deep ground in which body finally buried, watchful (4-4)
OPEN-EYED : Anagram of(… ground) [ ONE plus(with) DEEP ] containing(in which … buried) last letter of(… finally) “body“.
Down
1. Criminal slain in North Arabian desert — we are all in it together (2,3,2,2,6)
NO MAN IS AN ISLAND : Anagram of(Criminal) SLAIN contained in(in) [ N(abbrev. for “north”) + OMANI(one from the Arabic state of Oman) + SAND(a sandy area, a desert, say) ].
2. Where informal expressions found to align with Syrian code, oddly translated (5,10)
SLANG DICTIONARY : Anagram of(… translated) [TO ALIGN plus(with) SYRIAN + 1st and 3rd letters of(…, oddly) “code” ].
3. Stick all fingers and thumbs right into sponge cake (10)
BATTENBERG : BAT(a stick/a club) + TEN(the number of all fingers and thumbs) + [ R(abbrev. for “right”) contained in(into) BEG(to sponge/to obtain money or food without doing anything in return) ].
An artistic variant:
4. Setter throwing up egg and a piece of chicken (7)
GELATIN : Reversal of(throwing up, in a down clue) [ NIT(the egg of a louse or other parasitic insect) plus(and) A + LEG(a piece of chicken).
Defn: …/a substance that helps a liquid or semi-liquid become solid or thicker/set.
5. Double first’s ultimate achievement (4)
TWIN : Last letter of(…’s ultimate) “first” + WIN(an achievement/a triumph).
6. Wind blows at 3mph — that should be a breeze (5,3,7)
WHAT’S THE PROBLEM? : Anagram of(Wind/coil) [BLOWS AT + THREE(3) + MPH].
Defn: Rhetorical question implying that something should be a breeze/easily done with no problem.
7. Figure meat and grain eaten by King Edward, say, part of English course (9,6)
TATTENHAM CORNER : [ TEN(a figure/a cardinal number) + HAM(salted or smoked meat from a pig’s leg) plus(and) CORN(a grain/cereal crop) ] contained in(eaten by) TATER(informal term for a “potato”, an example of which/say, is the King Edward).
Defn: …, viz. the name of a sharp bend in the track of the Epsom Racecourse in England.
14. Borrow cooler jacket (10)
BUMFREEZER : BUM(to borrow/to get by begging) + FREEZER(a cooler/an appliance to keep things frozen).
17. Stop drug, nothing injected (7)
STATION : STATIN(a blood cholesterol-reducing drug) containing(… injected) O(letter indicating 0/nothing).
Defn: A regular stopping point for a bus or train, say, to take on or drop passengers.
21. Cat rolling up in the early hours, awake (4)
PUMA : Reversal of(rolling up, in a down clue) [ AM(abbrev. for “ante-meridiem”/before noon/the early hours of the day) + UP(awake/out of bed).
A big cat:
Thoroughly enjoyed this, although I miss Paul’s smutty clues which seem to have dried up recently, with only a few now and again?
I particularly enjoyed the reverend and Mrs Malaprop together, and the long down lights.
LOI was gelatin, I was trying to shoehorn me or I for setter in for ages until the penny dropped.
Thanks Paul and scchua.
My heart sank when I saw the setter. My previous attempt at a Paul was hard work and I almost threw in the towel. In contrast, after 10 minutes of getting nowhere, I started enjoying this one as the pieces began to fall into place. Even some of the odd clues (EMBERS, WHAT’S THE PROBLEM) turned out to be doable and likeable.
New: WAH-WAH, BUMFREEZER.
Liked: PUMA, EMBERS, BATTENBERG, AMOEBAE and quite a few more.
1D and 2D: a bit tortured but good to see an anagram for SLANG DICTIONARY.
9A Tricky when you’ve not heard of WAH-WAH or Haw Haw. A case of the obscure illuminated by the equally obscure. The crossers allowed me to guess and Google confirmed the existence of the treasonous Lord Haw Haw(s) .
18A partially parsed but couldn’t work out the significance of fried onions.
ANNOTATE was neatly misdirected and was almost my LOI.
All in all, it was enjoyable and fair. Thanks Paul and scchua for the entertaining and informative blog.
[In order of difficulty this week (fastest solve first): Vulcan, Nutmeg, Kite, Paul, Pasquale.]
Once WAH WAH had appeared, my ear worm for the day was a given. I’m sure I’ve linked to this before but I give you The Bonzo Dog Band and Shirt, complete with Roger and his wah wah rabbits. Absolutely bonkers.
Nothing too tricky in this one from Paul although TATTENHAM CORNER took a pit of putting together and SLANG DICTIONARY was an inspired guess followed by painfully assembling the anagram in reverse. I liked COALFACE though I am getting used to the ‘little lower’ trick. Less sure about fried onions signalling rings, even though I know they exist as menu options.
Thanks Paul and scchua
One man’s obscurity is another man’s common knowledge, but I hope most have heard of Lord Haw Haw, Tokyo Rose, et al.
(Fried) onion rings are an alternative (to doughnuts) example of rings.
Very enjoyable puzzle. Especially loved the BIRD WATCHER spoonerism, which reminded me of the much missed Humphrey Littleton on ISIHAC, where I first heard it. Paul seems to regularly use similar devices to those used on that show. Coincidence or homage? Thanks, of course, to Paul and scchua for the entertainment.
Wah-wah to me is the pedal, as in that Cream number … White Room was it?… not really a muted sound, but never mind, the reversed Haw Haw was neat. A slow start today, not many on first pass, but then I’m apt to forget things like nit for egg and sponge for beg, but I did remember there was a track with a something corner. And my Uncle Sam had a bumfreezer jacket, circa 1940. Good puzzle, thanks scchua and Paul.
Thanks for the parsing. RISING STAR is missing the insertion of IS in your explanation.
Thanks scchua and Paul. I failed to parse BATTENBERG because I focussed on ‘batten’ as a word for a stick.
The grid looked daunting but I had much less difficulty with this than I feared. I have found some recent Pauls a bit disappointing, but this was back to his best form IMHO.
pdp11 @2 may grumble about obscurities but WAH-WAH was my FOI! Of the four long down solutions 6dn takes the prize for its great surface. The Ascot feature was unknown to me, so it had to be built up piece by piece (I did think the second word might be POTATO, and the solution something culinary, but the crossers disabused me).
EMBERS is difficult to classify – I interpreted it as the three months all being ‘…embers’, so that ‘remains’ wasn’t doing double duty. Perhaps it should have had a question mark?
BIRDWATCHER, AMOEBAE, RISING STAR and BATTENBERG (I love the Mondrian version pictured) were favourites, but there was much to enjoy here.
Many thanks to Paul and scchua
Great! Hard work, but got there in the end. Loved TATTENHAM CORNER, BIRD WATCHING, AMOEBAE and BATTENBERG in particular. Paul is endlessly inventive in his clueing. Many thanks to him and to scchua.
Having grown up in the suburb named after TATTENHAM CORNER, it was a pleasure to see 7d. As so often with Paul, I found myself getting the answers and then reverse engineering the parsing, but, nevertheless, an enjoyable puzzle.
Thanks Paul and scchua
Unusually, I filled this in steadily from left to right, with only OPEN-EYED on the RHS for ages. I thought of stick of ROCK immediatley, but hadn’t heard of the fish. I didn’t parse RISING STAR either.
Favourites GELATIN and COALFACE.
GinF – trumpeters get a WAH-WAH effect by tilting their mutes, hence “muted sound”, as scchua says.
One of my favourite setters on top form – even though, as Blah @1 observes, not a smuttiness in sight (I confess that I enjoy Paul’s sometimes slightly schoolboy sense of humour).
COALFACE, RISING STAR, NO MAN IS AN ISLAND, BATTENBERG and TATTENHAM CORNER particularly good, I thought – but it was all fun.
Thanks to Paul and sschua.
Various persons? I always thought William Joyce was the one and only Lord Haw Haw. According to my Mum, he was listened to very much as a joke – whatever rubbish would he come up with next?
It took two sessions to finish this, but I enjoyed both of them. I wasted time trying to find an Aintree fence to fit 7d, and I thought the onion rings were confusing and unnecessary in RISING STAR – the doughnuts were enough.
ROCK in my youth meant “rock salmon” – the fish and chip shop’s way of selling us dogfish. I liked it.
Favourites GANNET, COALFACE, SLANG DICTIONARY, EMBERS (ha ha), BATTENBERG.
I wonder what overseas solvers will make of TATTENHAM CORNER?
Tough to get started. FOI was a guess at (parsed it later) SLANG DICTIONARY after failing to solve a single across clue on my first pass. I have not been on Paul’s wavelength lately, so this was not very enjoyable. Not his fault by any means. Just saying.
NE corner hardest for me. Failed 19ac ROCK and 7d TATTENHAM CORNER – only got as far as TEN HAM with all the crossers. Never heard of this thing/phrase. Also failed GANNET – a new word for me / slang for greedy person. Maybe I heard of the bird in the past, not sure.
Favourites: WHATS THE PROBLEM, EMBERS.
New BUMFREEZER jacket; Lord HAW-HAW (for 9ac).
Thanks, both.
Filled this in slowly, with some lovely PDMs – WAH-WAH, AMOEBAE, EMBERS, OPEN-EYED, NO MAN IS AN ISLAND, SLANG DICTIONARY, WHATS THE PROBLEM – until I was left with 4d and 7d. I have never heard of TATTENHAM CORNER, but I guessed the course must be golf, car or horse related. As I have zero interest in all of those, it was a combination of guess an element, check, try another – cheating, in other words – until I was left with all but the first letter (I had King Edward down for the ER = Edward Rex). Then a web search of said courses gave me the T. Finally, 4d fell. Hard work, I thought, towards the end. Thanks, scchua, for an excellent blog, and Paul too (I think).
muffin @15 – michelle @ 16 and me @17 give you your answer!
LOI was my favourite clue, 12,15 a. Great misdirections. Got rock first, then batten berg and everything gradually emerged from then on. Quite a quick solve for me doing a Paul, maybe he has got easier? But certainly no less clever. Many thanks to him and to Scchua for the parsing of 16a which totally fooled me, as I thought John Adams was the second US president!
SinCam @19
I was held up by knowing the second president too!
Yaay – finished before the following morning. I got a good sprinkling on my first pass through, got stuck, put it down, came back to it several times, then finally cracked it WAH-WAH and TWIN being last in. No words I didn’t know, although I couldn’t bring TATTENHAM to mind straight away, and I had to check that dysentery was caused by AMOEBAE.
Muffin@16, it’s not just overseas solvers who might have to construct TATTENHAM – there are plenty of UK solvers with no (or very little) knowledge of horse racing. Although I suppose Tater = King Edward might be a hurdle. In any case, not much more obscure than yesterday’s US river.
Muffin@20 before crossers ruled it out I wondered if asmadae was a bacteria or other bug that caused dysentery. It looked very plausible.
ginf @ 6
Tales Of Brave Ulysses
And by moving his mute slowly into and out of the bell of his trumpet, Miles used to get a wah-wah sound, so it’s a fair definition for me.
TassieTim@17 It took me ages to get Tattenham Corner even though I used to drive round everyday on my way to and from work !
LOI WAH WAH, took the late arriving TWIN to get there.
I’m with Gladys @14 on ROCK, I can’t help feeling that rock salmon, commonly referred to as just ‘rock’ would be more the thing than one of a number of rockfish species. Maybe its an English thing, or southern English, or SE English…Not forgetting the very forgettable Rock and Chips – the Only Fools and horses prequel of ten years back.
Thanks Paul and Schua
Thanks Paul & scchua.
I loved all the misdirection and filled in quite a few without making sense of the wordplay.
I worked with both Adams and Obama before twigging ‘Abe’ for AMOEBAE, and I saw the ‘plot’ in PLANT POT before ‘plan’, and I was confused by ‘up’ appearing in the wordplay for PUMA.
Loved 6d for its surface.
Enjoyable despite the couple that had me baffled – the unfamiliar use of GANNET for a glutton or pig at 10a and TATTENHAM CORNER at Epsom at 7d. Most fun was definitely 12,15a BIRD WATCHER as for several others above, and again like some others, GELATIN at 4d was a lovely PDM after trying all sorts of variations on the crossword-type “setter”. Thanks a million to Paul and to scchua for very interesting blog.
P.S. In the light of Australia’s embarrassing performance at COP 23 and in terms of our climate change strategies generally, I am not sure that COALFACE at 8a should be described as an “excellent” source of fuel – though I did see that the “excellent” was needed for ACE and was not part of the definition.
Paul in top form – sparkling and tricky as ever. Many thanks for a tough hour’s solving.
Paul back on top form. All the goodies already flagged up. TATTENHAM CORNER jumped out once I had all the crossers but perhaps a bit unfair as already noted. New for me was BUMFREEZER and what a lovely word. BATTENBURG was my fave, although I detest the stuff.
Ta Paul & scchua
And I hadn’t even read your comment bagel!
[ Julie@28 I agree it’s unfortunate.
On a similar note, 1d and its line “if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less” has recently called to mind Brexit but perhaps it should also evoke the perils of climate change]
Yes, I too, like Michelle@16 found this very tough to penetrate at first. Only had the humble AMOEBAE after first pass. Then, almost miraculously, and very satisfyingly things fell quickly into place, though several were rather lazily unparsed by me. COD the already mentioned BIRDWATCHER, and loi a setter that didn’t turn out to be the on form Paul this morning, GELATIN. I don’t know what it is, but even though I might make a very slow start at his puzzles I always have an underlying confidence that I’ll eventually complete them…
First, thanks for the piccies, scchua.
This did seem to be a return to form for Paul with no particular cross-referencing.
Great to see Spooner and malaprop in the same clue
Maybe some bright spark could come up with “Return of the Rivals” with both of them in it
Tattenham Corner is becoming popular with setters. I’m from UK but I’m not a turf man although I adore horses-so I’ve got to know it from puzzles
Oh and well spotted Julie@28
Thanks everyone
Thank you scchua for explaining GELATIN where my experience was as for Blah@1 and I don’t think I knew (or have forgotten) that Nits were eggs. Coincidentally we got a circular from the school about Läuse only this morning! PostMark@3 thanks for that link which I will add to my evening listening.
This was great, got lucky with BUMFREEZER and as usual with Paul there were many plausible guesses from def + crossers with post-parsing taking a while, standouts for me BIRDWATCHER and BATTENBURG (a close second to angel cake in the Sunday teas of my youth). Thanks Paul.
Julie, I’m also an Australian and 8a also seemed to me to be unfortunately timed at best, and in rather poor taste at worst. I normally dread Paul but this was fairly straightforward, even if the parsing for 1d was obscure.
maarvarq @ 36
Don’t be so ridiculous.
Nothing wrong with COALFACE at all.
It’s a crossword, not a life manual.
Very enjoyable puzzle. The birdwatcher/wordbotcher trick was in Brendan’s 27,784 and (I think) in a much earlier Araucaria, but it was good to meet it again.
A really nice puzzle with the four long down clues giving it a distinctive feel.
Re 8a, scchua you’ve underlined “excellent” but the definition is just “source of fuel”. That being the case, I don’t think people need to be upset as the clue is not in any way implying that coal is excellent.
[The wah-wah guitar pedal was of course invented to imitate the effect that brass players get with their mutes. grantinfreo @6 and Simon S @23: both Tales of Brave Ulysses and White Room feature wah-wah guitar, but I think the latter has the definitive solo with that effect. I saw the Cream reunion at the Royal Albert Hall in 2005. People started applauding after the false ending of White Room – aargh!]
[Simon @23, hmm, Carving deep blue fissures through the tissues of my mind … will have to dig out the vinyl ..just to be sure]
It seems muting is the name of the game when WAH-WAH is applied to brass, but not to guitar.
Lord Jim@39 I’ve heard many versions, and this one seems to illustrate the effect the best. The sound is good, but not so much the video (in 1968 they hadn’t figured out the best ways to use the camera at live performances).
Happy evening spent with Paul, pleasant morning with scchua, whose pictures are enjoyable as ever.
Surprisingly straightforward for a Paul, but full of delight. The four long down clues looked at first impenetrable but each gave way when some brain power was applied.
Favourites were WHATS THE PROBLEM and EMBERS
Thanks Paul and scchua
Anyone interested in seeing and hearing the ‘muted’ Wah-wah sound in action could check out the trumpet and trombone solos here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATajmT5BD6M
Too British for this American (not that there’s anything wrong with that). BATTENBERG, TATTENHAM CORNER, BUMFREEZER, GANNET = greedy person, “King Edward” = potato, either relevant sense of ROCK. I don’t think we use COALFACE here either, although I might be wrong about that.
Perhaps I could add Lord HAW-HAW but I think the name is pretty well known here and that one was no problem.
[Some of you may find this, which includes a fair few examples, as interesting as I did:
https://priceonomics.com/the-invention-of-the-wah-wah-pedal/ ]
I’ve been bypassing Paul’s recent offerings, simply because linked/themed clues are anathema to me. After checking that there was just the one pairing today, I went for it – and am very glad I did, because this was a really enjoyable puzzle. Got COALFACE straight away (great clue though) but then meandered all over the grid before finally realising that EMBERS should have been reasonably obvious – I became fixated on the absence of “Oct” from the sequence, and by the colon.
Anyway, I loved BIRD WATCHER; I didn’t realize it wasn’t original with Paul – I still think it was the best clue of the day. I probably haven’t heard the term TATTENHAM CORNER for over 50 years, but there was enough of a faint neural echo to bring it back. The only problems I had were those I caused myself through idees fixes (eg GELATIN).
Where was it I heard ‘You come most speedily upon the wah wah’? Was it the Goons?
Thanks both,
An enjoyable mind-stretcher.
[The requirement for chippies to stop calling huss ‘rock salmon’ seems to have driven it off the menu, which is a shame as dogfish is a tasty and fairly sustainable family of fishes.]
[According to a page I found earlier today, the term Rock Salmon “covers a multitude of sins” (or in this case, fins) and may refer to several small dogfish species, at least one of which, the spiny dogfish, is now classed as critically endangered. Yes, it has disappeared from the chippie menu, and I miss it.]
Love Paul’s puzzles and this was especially satisfying. Funny and inventive but fair, much of the pleasure coming from its apparent impenetrability at first viewing, with the answers going in reasonably quickly thereafter. RISING STAR and GELATIN finally defeated me.
No need for our Australian friends to be upset about COALFACE. As others have said “excellent” is not part of the definition, as scchua, I’m sure inadvertently, suggested.
One I didn’t get but should have (I got stuck with CERAMIC rather than GELATIN) and one I actually got but had never heard of so didn’t enter (BUMFREEZER). Very enjoyable – thanks Paul and scchua
More mature offering from Paul
Surprised no musical mention of the George Harrison song Wah-Wah so far (Apols if I’ve missed it). The first song he ever played live as a solo artist and doubling up the meaning of the term to include a headache. Great, recentish cover version here
Well unlike everyone else I didn’t get on with this at all.
Looking at 7dn you needed to choose a figure (there are lots) meat (there are lots) and a grain (there are lots) to put in a term for a potato (there are a few) to get an answer I have never heard of ……
Going to be a long time before I get proficient.
Fiona Annne@56 I’m glad you mentioned this. I wonder how aware setters are of the permutations of this type of clue, whose mapping is asymmetrical. When faced with a completed grid, it’s relatively easy for a setter to say “ten” is a figure, “ham” is a meat and “corn” is a grain then come up with a clue. However, the reverse operation is much harder to do, as you said. In practice, figures, meats and grains are restricted to a handful of well known answers. But even with five options for each, that gives 125 possible combinations (assuming the order of the three items is fixed). This, to me, makes for a hard clue. And if you’ve never heard of the answer, that’s quite a challenge – which, in this instance, could be the case for non-horsey types or those not UK based. When I’ve got these clues, the crossers have helped immensely, as was the case here.
Thanks Shaun, Lord Jim et al. I’ve corrected my (unintentional) omissions in the blog.
Excellent crossword. I am disappointed that Tattenham Corner seems to be unknown by many, given its major significance in the history of the Suffragette movement.
A two session solve which got tricker and slower, but yielded in the end. Nevertheless enjoyed it all, favourite being BIRD WATCHER
Thx to Paul and scchua.
pdp11 @57 & Fiona Anne @56: I agree with you in principle and have often raised eyes to the Heavens when presented with the challenge you outline. But, in Paul’s defence on this occasion, even with fifteen characters to play with, we know we have to fit in four elements – which means a fairly short average word length. Most likely numbers will be 1, 2 & 4(doubtful), 6, 9, 10. And, of those, ‘ten’ leapt out as most probable. Same approach with meat – beef, lamb, pork are short but tricky to incorporate – ‘ham’ is fairly likely. etc etc. I do have the advantage as a UK solver (and veg grower) of being familiar with King Edwards so then it was a matter of spud, potato (unlikely) or tater. I have only vaguely hard of TATTENHAM CORNER and, tbh, thought it might have been part of the Grand National and bunged it in. And it fitted the crossers!
Postmark@61…the Aintree Grand National has The Canal Turn, the Epsom Derby has Tattenham Corner, or at least any race at Epsom Racecourse that is long enough to incorporate it…
Thanks for the blog , nice to have a bit of a challenge to end the week. NAIL-BITING , RISING STAR and BATTENBERG were super. Stumper @59 I am glad at least someone remembers Emily Davison.
[ MrPostMark @61 I am rather surprised that a race course has such an effect on you ]
Well at least PM@ 61 you can’t accuse me of not reading earlier postings
Liked the 3 mph anagram especially and like wynsum I also nearly parsed with Obama.
Nice one Paul and thanks scchua
Late to the party today, so I won’t repeat what has already been said, for PostMark’s sake… but thanks to both Paul and scchua. Very enjoyable puzzle, and an enjoyable illustrated blog too.
To add something new to the discussion, I did wonder if 1d might have been partly inspired by a recent exchange on the Guardian crossword blog – there had been some discussion of OMAN being clued as ‘Love Island’, to which one confused commenter said: ‘But Oman isn’t an island!’ – which in turn brought out the wonderfully witty reply: ‘The north is!’
(I may be paraphrasing but you get the idea.)
[widdersbel @66
I recently discovered (from a crossword) that the USA’s smallest state, Rhode Island, isn’t an island!]
Fiona Anne @ 56 & 64. Good to see that, despite a lack of success with the crossword, you still have a fully functioning sense of humour. 🙂
Stumper @59. Good point about the suffragettes. As a racing man myself, TATTENHAM CORNER was a write-in, but it should be better known.
Deegee @55. Yes, George Harrison’s WAH-WAH was my earworm today. He had fallen out with Paul (not that one), who wanted him to play a guitar solo “just so” and why didn’t he try using a wah-wah pedal. George felt this was a betrayal of all the musical understanding they had developed together over the years – “you’ve given me a wah-wah, and I’m thinking of you, all the things that we used to do” – walked out of the studio and went home to write the song. One of the starting points for the end of the Beatles.
A DNF for me, as I went for BIRD-FANCIER (Chambers has the hyphen at the end of the line, so an 11-letter answer seemed possible, though unparsed) and BIRD-CATCHER until “word botcher” (?) was the only possibility. I struggle enough with Spoonerisms without Mrs Malaprop sticking her oar in, so this was an inevitable fail for me.
Thanks to Paul (that one) and scchua.
I think it’s late enough now to post my earworm for today!
Oh, and as for earworms, ‘fried onion rings’ gave me this…
https://youtu.be/k_ukwc_AvZE
muffin @67 – I grew up (for some values of ‘grew up’) on the Isle of Thanet, which isn’t an island either. Well… that is to say it hasn’t been an island for several hundred years.
That was a treat. Busy day here (I know everyone may have a busy day but my plan is relax, relax so any business intrudes somewhat) and only now getting to the blog. A glance this morning revealed little or nothing but as I was shopping (or “about my fodder’s business”) I can almost swear there was a swelling of organs (ooh er missus) as “word botching” floated into the vacant mind. The rest fell elegantly and satisfactorily, causing me to echo Ronald@33 that somehow with a Paul you can be sure to get there in the end.
So thanks to Paul and to sschua for doing the analysis that would otherwise have intruded into my relaxation schedule.
[As mentioned the other day I have only met “woke” in these pages. Would it be reasonable to apply the term to Stumper@59 who seems to me to be looking for offence to take (no pun intended)?]
Alphalpha @71 – no, it would not be reasonable. Here’s another fashionable term for you to learn: dog whistle.
[I gained a reputation for picking horses at college after working a couple of summer vacs in a bookies. The Derby one year (72?, 73?) I told my friends two of the first three, but more relevantly, eliminated the second favourite, ridden by Freddie Head, by saying he would hit the outside barriers at Tattenham Corner. I was prescient! Unfortunately, working in a bookies taught me not to bet….]
Alphalpha @71 – I disagree. I’m in full agreement with Stumper@59. It’s a well known piece of social history (I covered it at Grammar School c1961 when “woke” wasn’t even thought of). If it were just a point on a racecourse, it would be totally unfair to many solvers, especially those based outside the UK, but it’s probably better known to many non-racing buffs because of the Emily Davidson incident.
I could not decide whether the double use of “up” in 21d (once for the direction of the answer, once for the synonym for awake) is clever or clumsy. I now lean towards clumsy.
Have a splendid weekend everyone.
I disagree. I don’t think that it’s reasonable to take offence at people not knowing where Emily Davidson was killed.
[Alphalpha @71 and muffin @76. There is no evidence that Stumper @59 was either looking to take offence, or actually took offence at the lack of knowledge about the death of Emily Davison after colliding with the king’s horse Anmer at Tattenham Corner during the 1913 Derby. Stumper merely expressed *disappointment* that the place is not better known “given its major significance in the history of the Suffragette movement.” How either of you have managed to manufacture “taking offence” out of that is beyond me.]
SH @77
My response was more to Alphalpha @71 rather than stumper @59.
I’ve had a very busy day and, being so late, wasn’t intending to comment.
I was pondering whether / how to respond to Alphalpha @71 re Stumper @59 and had decided against it. Bless you, sheffield hatter @77 for saying exactly what I wanted to say.
As SH @77 illustrates, there are many details about that incident that one could potentially bring to mind – some major, some relatively minor. I, for example, knew Emily’s name, that it was the King’s horse and may well have been able to bring to mind that it was at Epsom. But the name of the particular kink in the racecourse? Not sure that I ever heard it, let alone remembering it.
Roz @63: very witty but I’m not going to rise to it.
Fiona Anne @64: I definitely wasn’t taking aim at you with my comment of yesterday!
Times Refugee @74 – you may be surprised to learn that ‘woke’ probably was already in use in 1961. It went mainstream in 1962, in a New York Times piece titled ‘If you’re woke, you dig it‘ – about the appropriation of Black slang by beatniks.
The term had real meaning once, but in recent years it has become twisted into a sneering dismissal of anyone who expresses a view suggesting that racial equality might actually be a good thing – or indeed supports any minority cause.
What a difference a day makes. Paul on top form is unbeatable. A delight. Thanks Paul and sschua.
Thanks widdersbel@82. I’ve only encountered its use in recent years. Maybe it’s yet another Americanism that’s insinuated itself into the Queen’s English.
It is Emily DAVISON , can we please get her name right. And I am not taking offence or criticising, I am as bad as anybody for typing mistakes, I would just like accuracy.
Although I knew of the death of Emily Davison at the Epsom Derby, I did not know Tattenham Corner. Having solved from word play and crossers I then googled to check my answer. It confirmed a place name linked with Epsom racecourse. Not a single mention of the suffragettes or Emily Davison in the top half dozen or so search results. Having caught up on the comments (hear hear SH@77) I googled again scrolled past various adverts and gumf, I had to click in several times to find any mention of 1913. There is even a site tattenhamcorner.co.uk which doesn’t even mention the history at all!
In further defence of Tattenham Corner as legitimate (admittedly UK) gk, it is also the name of a suburban village near Epsom, which has a railway station, so anyone who like me has spent more time than we want waiting at London Bridge or East Croydon will have heard the name dripped into our subconscious by the automated train announcer. I’d never heard of the racecourse feature, but assumed it from the geographical proximity.
Unlike earlier posters, Paul’s smuttiness doesn’t appeal to me and the setting has been inconsistent, so I had got to the point of not attempting Paul. But I quite liked this offering and may come back again. I learned a lot about Emily Davison and TATTENHAM CORNER, even though I didn’t have a snowflake’s chance in the proverbial of solving it.
Favourites were EMBERS, GELATIN and WHAT’S THE PROBLEM.
Thank you both S&B.
paddy melon@88: ‘snowflake’ very mischievous after the previous entries :-;
Roz@85 : I knew it was DAVISON, but auto-correct didn’t !
Looks like it’s just Fiona Anne @56 and me then!
I just could not do this, and usually I’m ok with Paul.
“part of English course” = TATTENHAM CORNER… oh my goodness.
Mike@: I have a certain Humpty Dumpty Sympty.
I’d parsed 4d as GEL+(A+TIN)< and thought it quite odd, but not entirely incorrect that the definition was "part of a chicken" (gelatin is made from bone marrow, right? Which chickens might have?). Thanks for the clarification there!