The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/28803.
No, it’s not Groundhog Day – and anyway the crossword is different. The assigned blogger is unavailable, so you will have to put up with me again. I would describe this Paul as a romp; sound alikes, mostly outrageous, effectively constitute a theme. Thanks for the fun, Paul.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | BELFAST |
Capital found on the Thames? (7)
|
| Devious: Belfast is the capital of Northern Ireland, and the Belfast-on-Thames is HMS Belfast, now a museum ship in London. | ||
| 5 | PIT-A-PAT |
Gentle sound putting butter on bread? (3-1-3)
|
| A pun. | ||
| 10 | PERT |
Forward in Australian city dropping back (4)
|
| A subtraction: PERT[h] (‘Australian city’) minus the last letter (‘dropping back’). | ||
| 11 | TOOTH FAIRY |
A virtual fool, thirty, dressed up as children’s character (5,5)
|
| An anagram (‘dressed up’) of ‘a’ plus ‘foo[l]’ (‘virtual fool’ – but not quite) plus ‘thirty’. | ||
| 12 |
See 9
|
|
| 13 | ALLIANCE |
Union in fun dismissing leader (8)
|
| A subtraction: [d]ALLIANCE (‘fun’) minus the first letter (‘dismissing leader’). | ||
| 14 | ENTHUSING |
Exciting piece from Bremen (thus in German) (9)
|
| A hidden answer (‘piece from’) in ‘BremEN THUS IN German’. | ||
| 16 | SCREW |
Con fixer (5)
|
| Double definition. | ||
| 17 | ABOVE |
Prayer about body half lost in heaven? (5)
|
| An envelope (‘about’) of ‘bo[dy]’ minus the last two letters (‘half lost’) in AVE (Maria, ‘prayer’). | ||
| 19 | TWITTERED |
Idiot called when first of messages missed, produced a tweet? (9)
|
| A charade of TWIT (‘idiot’) plus TER[m]ED (‘called’) minus the M (‘when first of Messages missed’). | ||
| 23 | SRI LANKA |
Country in Iran having disheartened Slovak, unfortunately (3,5)
|
| An anagram (‘unfortunately’) of ‘Iran’ plus ‘Sl[ov]ak’ minus two middle letters (‘disheartened’). | ||
| 24 | EUSTON |
Off past this London station goes old raconteur in speech? (6)
|
| EUSTON ‘off’ sounds like (‘in speech’) Ustinov, Peter, the ‘old raconteur’. | ||
| 26 | CHINCHILLA |
Fur in beard made of ice, did you say? (10)
|
| Sounds like (‘did you say?’) CHIN CHILLER (…) | ||
| 27 | ODIN |
God returned in screen idol (4)
|
| A hidden (‘in’) reversed (‘returned’) answer in ‘screeN IDOl’. | ||
| 28 | ARCHERY |
Novelist and ex-con back in custody for sport (7)
|
| A charde of ARCHER (Jeffrey, Baron Archer of Weston-super-Mare, ‘novelist and ex-con’) plus Y (‘bsck in custodY‘). | ||
| 29 | FLEXING |
Old lover in affair showing some muscle? (7)
|
| An envelope (‘in’) of EX (‘old lover’) in FLING (‘affair’). | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 2 | EREWHON |
Criminal nowhere — Butler did it! (7)
|
| An anagram (‘criminal’) of ‘nowhere’, for the novel by Samuel Butler. | ||
| 3 | FUTON |
Comfortable furniture in airport initially changed (5)
|
| LUTON is the ‘airport’. | ||
| 4 | SETTEES |
Comfortable furniture in place over river (7)
|
| A charade of SET (‘place’) plus TEES (‘river’). | ||
| 6 |
See 9
|
|
| 7 | AVALANCHE |
Overwhelming quantity 15, according to the French? (9)
|
| Ouch. If said with an outrageously fake French accent, 15 HAVE LUNCH might sound like this – possibly with an article in the middle. | ||
| 8 | AURICLE |
Speaker’s authority in chamber (7)
|
| Sounds something like ORACLE (‘authority’) | ||
| 9, 12, 6 | NOT A SNOWBALL’S CHANCE IN HELL |
Drunk low on Stella has Chenin blanc never! (3,1,9,6,2,4)
|
| An anagram (‘drunk’) of ‘low on Stella has Chenin blanc’. Stella is a brand of beer, and chenin blanc a grape varietal, or a wine made from it. | ||
| 15 | HAVE LUNCH |
Eat meat having dropped article inside loin and leg (4,5)
|
| An envelope (‘inside’) of VE[a]L (‘meat’) minus the A (‘having dropped article’) in HAUNCH (‘loin and leg’). | ||
| 18 | BURGHER |
King’s predecessor in restaurant listened to old citizen (7)
|
| Sounds like (‘listened to’) BURGER ‘King’ (‘restaurant’). | ||
| 20 | TOENAIL |
Tail one wags, extreme part (7)
|
| An anagram (‘wags’) of ‘tail one’. | ||
| 21 | EMOTION |
English poet, sensation (7)
|
| A charade of E (‘English’) plus MOTION (Sir Andrew, ‘poet’). | ||
| 22 | ANCHOR |
Attachment to boat behind 25 10 in large ship, by the sound of it? (6)
|
| The answer to 25 is SIOUX, and 10, PERT, so SIOUX PERT ANCHOR sounds like (‘by the sound of it’) SUPERTANKER (‘large ship’) | ||
| 25 | SIOUX |
People in North America (6/4, essentially) (5)
|
| An envelope (‘/’ – divided by)of [f]OU[r] (‘4 essentially’) in SIX (‘6’). |
Yep, several contenders here for GoD (groan of the day): Peter the raconteur Eustonoff, the big ship siouxpertanchor, and then step into an ‘ave lunch evoking both Leonard C and Inspector C speaking on the fern. Great fun, ta PnP.
Well that brought a few smiles. I probably live in the false hope of few complaints about the homophones (so called).
I needed Google to confirm BELFAST and Motion the poet in EMOTION. BURG(H)ER KING didn’t cause me a problem despite being called Hungry Jacks here in Aus.
Favourite has to be ANCHOR. Great clue with a smile.
Absolutely loved NOT A SNOWBALLS CHANCE IN HELL because that usually describes my efforts in trying to complete a Paul crossword. I almost got there but oddities like EREWHON and EUSTON foiled me once again. I couldn’t parse the clue for BURGHER so I missed the whole point but I liked SIOUX-PERT-ANCHOR — so bad it’s good. FLEXING was my top clue due to its splendid surface. Thanks to both.
I enjoyed this immensely. I thought this started out quite easy for a Paul, but the SW corner slowed me down at the end. I guessed NOT A and, with a couple of letters already in, the rest of the long one (9 etc) followed so gave a huge start.
Guessed SUPERT but missed the ANCHOR, and thus the groan.
Thanks Peter and Paul
I liked that there is a further level in 16 across. In that a prison guard (Screw) could be responsible for fixing (punishing/rehabilitating) the convicts.
Agree this was fun from start to finish, despite a couple of groans as PeterO and all previous posters suggest. [gif@1 – I am probably being dim but I didn’t understand the Leonard C reference – Leonard Cohen? – though I got the Peter Sellars ref.]
I thought the same re 16a SCREW, Andy@5. What a neat little clue!
Too many ticks to count and to mention all of them. So just looking to name my clue of the day and think it has to be the excrutiating 26a CHINCHILLA, although only because several other contenders have already been canvassed above.
Thanks to Paul (how does he keep devising such great puzzles?) and PeterO for stepping into the breach with an enjoyable blog.
Good fun after a few hard ones elsewhere today. Favourites as mentioned by everyone else and PeterO. The AVALANCE was particularly good/bad.
Thanks to Paul and PeterO
Paul never ceases to be fresh; as I’ve repeatedly wondered here through the years…..how does he keep on doing it?!
Many thanks, both and all
Of course chinchilla is also an Australian (Qld) town and it does get very cold in the winter. Lots of fun and a call out to ginf with Perth being so near.
Thanks Paul and PeterO
This was a lot of fun. FOI and favouite was PIT A PAT (I didn’t see it as a pun, Peter – PITA is a bread, and PAT is a way of serving butter).
BELFAST and BURGHER were a bit parochial; I wonder what overseas solvers would make of them.
I don’t suppose there’s any point in saying that Luton isn’t an airport – Luton Airport is an airport. Ask anyone from Luton if they live in an airport!
Great fun. Lots of imagination and stretching of rules, boundaries and definitions but not patience. Perhaps with the exception of the cringeworthy homophone that is 7d. Not sure either Clouseau or ‘Allo ‘Allo could better that. If one were so minded, it would be possible to see a – very – topical theme in some of those solutions – at this rate it’s not having Jeffrey Archer back in custody that’s on the cards; it’s having him back in Government!
ENTHUSING and SIOUX my favourites today.
Thanks Paul and the ever-vigilant PeterO
I could not parse 1ac, 24ac, 7d, 18d, 22d.
Thanks, both.
muffin @10: there may be no point in saying it but you’ve said it 😉
[PostMark @13
Perhaps one day someone will agree with me!]
Brilliant! Loved CHINCHILLA, ANCHOR & SIOUX
Bit hard to concentrate with all the shenanigans around waiting for Boris to get exit done 🙂
[muffin @14: there are things we are all waiting on. Some of them may come to pass sooner than others 😉 ]
Hilarious.
Ta both
Very funny. The snowball clue sounds like a proverb.
Ouch indeed. But surely the point of today’s alleged homophones is that they are outrageous, and at least three of them made me laugh. The AVALANCHE brought to mind the cartoonist Steve Bell’s Monsieur L’Artiste accent. (Who’s Leonard C?)
Some fairly tricky GK required for BELFAST and EREWHON (the point of Butler’s title is that it is an anagram of NOWHERE, which sort of helps, but if you don’t know it, you don’t know that either) and the raconteur and the poet.
Thanks Paul – that was fun.
Hugely enjoyable with Paul on great swashbuckling form. Apart from all the puns I liked ENTHUSING for the very clever inclusion and surface.
muffin @10: we have of course discussed this before, but in the right context “Luton” can mean Luton Airport, as in “Which airport are you flying from?”, “Luton”. The clue provides the context by saying “airport”, and we as solvers think “Which airport? Ah, Luton”. (Can’t resist adding link to this.)
Many thanks Paul and PeterO.
JinA @6, gladys @19, Avalanche is on Cohen’s album Songs of Love and Hate:
I stepped into an avalanche
It covered up my soul
etc
[It’s brooding and somewhat sinister, but brilliant, as are other tracks, like Dress Rehearsal Rag (about contemplating suicide). Years after me, my sister used to play it over and over, our poor mum thinking Oh my precious baby girl, what has that boy doing to her psyche. (She survived, and, or do I mean but, is a psychotherapist 🙂 )]
Well, what an intriguing clue One Across was. Couldn’t fathom it out and moved on. Very nearly successfully in the end, though several of these I couldn’t for the life of me parse. And the last one I simply couldn’t get was – BELFAST. Because I’d plonked in Sedan instead of FUTON, thinking a place called Redan in Malaysia might have an airport. Ah, well. Thought also that it was quite bizarre that SCREW can also mean someone on the opposite side of the cell doors to a Con. Usual lively challenge with Paul, though that wonderful long anagram did help hugely….
Oh, and of course I had to look up EREWHON for confirmation once I’d written that one in…
[Thank you so much, Lord Jim @20, for providing that link – I was trying to work out how to do it, to agree with Muffin @10 &@14!]
I forgot about the outrageous chiller of chins, definitely a GoD contender.
[Anna @9, ta for the shout out, nice for the world’s most remote capital to get alluded to (Perth-Sydney is 200 miles further than London-Moscow!!). Got picked up hitchhiking by a chinchilla farmer once, and went to his farm. Hadn’t then heard of the animal, or the town]
[GinF
When I was teaching, I got friendly with a sports teacher over for a year’s exchange from Sydney – back home he coached U XV rugby.
The next year I met at a party another exchange coach, who coached U XV rugby when back home in Perth. I said “you’ll probably know Rod, then?”. Quite gently he explained that Perth to Sydney was further than London to Istanbul!]
About an hour after I left the puzzle, the penny finally dropped with 1 ac. Doubly annoying because:
1. I have actually visited the ship.
2. My uncle served in her during WW2.
Great fun, fast and loose.
I parsed SIOUX as six divided by four.
Missed out on one chuckle by failing to parse ANCHOR (I even googled Sue Pert).
Also nearly thrown by BK being defined as a restaurant.
Tanks PeterO and Paul.
Thank you PeterO and Paul.
I only got both Sioux and Anchor once I’d worked out Pert and tried thinking of some big ships.
So much fun, not too easy! Needed help with some parsing. Assumed it was an Irish raconteur O’Feuston that I’d never heard of.
Futon – comfortable? Not in my experience.
ROFL! (always wanted an opportunity to write that). Great fun. Thanks P&P.
Entertaining puzzle, easier than usual for Paul, I thought, with so many homoiophones, from the slightly iffy to the downright outrageous, for it to be impossible to do any thing but sit back and enjoy them 🙂
My sympathies are with muffin today over Luton = airport. I made a similar complaint ages ago about Ely being clued as ‘cathedral’ and got shouted down (very politely, of course). Metonymy schmetonymy, as I remarked at the time (and I agree that ‘pita pat’ is a simple charade rather than a pun).
Favourites were EREWHON for its simplicity and the whodunnit surface, and AVALANCHE and ANCHOR for their sheer chutzpah.
Thanks to S&B
And I agree with Deadhead @30 that describing a FUTON as ‘comfortable’ is highly dubious!
Wonderful, in a dreadful way, especially AVALANCHE. Is it only me that gets irritated if the Quick (which I always do first) makes the Cryptic easier. TOENAIL was in both, and the memory of Quick’s ORACLE made me get AURICLE instantly.
What Copland+smith @34 said
Thanks Paul and PeterO
[Gervase @32: I would not dream of trying to shout you down, but on the Ely = cathedral question you might (or might not) like to look at my comment @21 on General Discussion on 22 November last year.]
Never mind about whether a futon is comfortable or not – is it furniture?
[My counter-argument is that this sort of metonymy is only used in context, where it is clear from the surrounding passage that eg ‘Ely’ is referring to the cathedral, rather than the city or the diocese. But the majority of solvers are comfortable with, or at least indifferent to, the device, so I am resigned to have to grin and bear it 🙂 ]
I thought Paul might ‘av a laugh with us; trademark outrageous (and funny) homophones.
I couldn’t fit Kingston into 1A, but I did like BELFAST. Isn’t SCREW a cd rather than dd, as a con isn’t a screw (prison guard) as far as I know. I liked EREWHON for the ‘Butler did it’, which of course I DNK, SIOUX for the arithmetic, and ANCHOR, once it had been explained to me! Lord Jim @20 beat me to the Campari ad, which I think Eileen referenced not long ago.
Thanks to Paul for the laugh and PeterO explaining it so well.
Robi @39: Con as a verb in SCREW?
Great fun. EREWHON was somehow easier after yesterday’s More work.
Never heard of the formerly seagoing Belfast.
Peter, you haven’t accounted for the L in SRI LANKA. It must come from the asymmetrically disheartened SLovaK.
I put in EUSTON with a shrug, since the definition wasn’t at the beginning or the end, but sure enough, that’s what it was. Hmmm… Besides, I hadn’t thought of Peter Ustinov as a raconteur.
The wordplay in SIOUX defeated me totally, and ANCHOR even more so. SIOUX PERT ANCHOR indeed!
Thanks to Paul and to PeterO for stepping in, and for doing it so well!
Thanks PeterO, struggled with some lateral thinking today and could not explain the BURGHER (luckily a Swiss citizen is a Bürger so it was a short hop once the crossers were there) nor EUSTON (which I tried to deconstruct from pasteurisation and “off…goes”).
Thinking back to Allo Allo I reckon AVALANCHE sounds more like something the Italian officer would have said rather than any of the French characters.
Muffin@10 I have some sympathy on metonyms, would have more here if Luton airport had a “proper” name like John Lennon Airport et al (Lorraine Chase Airport?). In fact it seems to be called London Luton Airport on the website so you may have a point anyway!
Ronald@22 Medan in Sumatra does have an airport (Kualanamu) so you weren’t wrong in that sense.
Valentine@42, look again, the l of Slovak is there in the blog (but very thin).
Anyway I thought 25d and its combo with 10a and 22d were great, thanks Paul.
Good Moaning!
I didn’t enjoy this as much as many of those above – ‘meat’ a bit vague as an indicator for ‘veal’ and I would have preferred some indicator of the replacement letter in LUTON. But much to enjoy also. SIOUX was my favourite. Thanks Peter O for explaining TWITTERER (I was stuck on ‘called’ going with ‘twit’). Thanks Paul.
Today’s earworm courtesy of those masters of deep geopolitical insight Boney M and BELFAST
Thanks for the blog , Paul having his fun with homophones today . Perhaps 2D would have been better with a full stop in the middle to disguise the capital B a little.
How many homophones here? (I haven’t counted – but surely a record!) Sadly, some of them don’t work for me. Best nothing said about AVALANCHE (!?) …
…. but apart from that: EUSTON?? AURICLE?? CHINCHILLA? (OK that last one does just about work). But SIOUX-PERT-ANCHOR does work, whatever dialect you speak – so good one Paul!
I’m surprised – though perhaps I shouldn’t be – at the number of complaints about some of the clues; perhaps more surprising, not one about any of the groanworthy homophones! The minor metonymy, if that’s what it is, of ‘airport’=LUTON is in no way a hindrance to solving the clue, so why complain? And if ‘novelist’=ARCHER is ok, or ‘capital’=BELFAST, why is ‘airport’=LUTON complainable? What about changing the clue to read ‘Town’ rather than airport? I think muffin’s punchline @10 – Ask anyone from Luton if they live in an airport! – shows the error of his argument. If the clue were to read ‘Luton’ and the answer AIRPORT there would be a case to answer. And no matter how much they try to call it London Luton Airport, people will always call it just *Luton* Airport (though it’s traditionally pronounced with a glottal stop in place of the T). [Irrelevant factoid: A former owner of Luton Town FC once proposed changing the name to London Luton FC. Needless to say his name is always accompanied by an expletive when mentioned by Hatters fans.]
Thanks to Paul for an enjoyable crossie, and to PeterO yet again.
OK, so Laccaria managed to squeeze in a homophone gripe while I was typing. I suppose it had to happen.
Sh@49 Paul could have used football team instead of airport, of course.
Brilliant from Paul and many chuckles. Especially SIOUX PERT ANCHOR.
Thanks for a few explanations PeterO
Petert @51. Yes, that’s why I put ‘Town’=LUTON with a capital T in Town!
I don’t disagree with muffin@10, but shouldn’t similar logic dictate that BELFAST isn’t the ship without “ship” or “hms” or other indicator? Maybe the question-mark suffices.
Dr WhatsOn @54
I’m not sure that’s the same. BELFAST is definitely a capital, and it’s also a name of a ship moored on the Thames.
SH @49
I know that I’m being picky, but you aren’t going to convince me that Luton is an airport!
muffin – I’m not trying to convince you that Luton is an airport, only that when someone says ‘airport’ it’s a reasonable expectation that someone else will reply LUTON. And if you insist on turning it around, I would echo your “Luton is not an airport” with “Archer is not a novelist and ex-con”. Archer is the *name* of a novelist (and ex-con), just like Luton is the name of an airport and Ely is the name of a cathedral.
Opportunity for “Good moaning” for those who remember “‘Allo! ‘Allo”. SIOUX-PET-ANCHOR was bad enough but ‘AV(E)-A_LA(U)NCH(E) was the last-(in) straw. I imagined all the groans across the globe. Not forgetting (E)USTON-OFF. The boundaries of “sounds like” seem to be very elastic in Paul’s social circle. Nevertheless much enjoyed this, though it needed an acoustic health warning.
I apologise that most of my comments have bee said before. One point is about EREWHON. I’m sure I recall that its title was because it was an anagram of NOWHERE.
SH @69
It’s not the same. “Archer” is the name of a person; “(London) Luton Airport” is the name of an airport (and Ely Cathedral is the name of a cathedral).
I know that it’s common usage, but it’s still sloppy language!
(56)
Got about half way today, which for a Paul crossword is a triumph.
Racked my brain tor ages over 1a, would never have got that even though I pass it every day on my way to work.
Looking forward to the hints.
Thanks both.
[Congrats for “racked” HIYD – I saw “wracked” in the Guardian today!]
[Wherein Muffin @10 takes her life in her hands by referring generally to “…anyone from Luton…” knowing full well that Sheffield Hatter @49 is not just “anyone from Luton” but the pre-eminent Lutonian of this site. I claim second place to the great SH, since I am not actually “from” Luton but did live for four years in Sundon Park in my youth, when a cub reporter on the Luton News. Plus, my apologies if Muffin turns out not to be a lady]
AndrewTyndall @63
Ah, but did you (or SH) live in an airport?
btw not a lady!
[Omg, both Raffa and Boris have resigned, quel horreur]
[ou quelle joie]
Muffin@55 very reasonable. I was thinking that the ship’s name, in the sense of the way it’s usually referred to (witness PeterO at the top), is “H.M.S Belfast”, but of course there are names and there are names!
For 7D/15D, AVAL HANCHE (which would be pronounced AVALANCHE) literally means swallow haunch, ie eat meat. So it could be argued that it is not just a homophone on ‘Ave lunch’ but also a French homophone on the definion of 15D. And of course HAUNCH is part of 15D. All very clever – whether intentional or not.
Morten @68, that’s ingenious – and turns an excruciating clue into a fascinating one (although I’m 99% sure it’s accidental). My only quibble – as far as I know, ‘hanche’ in French always refers to part of an animal (human or non-human) when it’s alive. I think for the cut of meat they would use ‘cuissot’ (de sanglier, cerf, chevreuil). Perhaps those 15²-ers who inhabit the realms of the Franks and the Visigoths may shed more light on the subject 😉
I tried to parse 7D starting with AV (15, a V) then ALA (a la being vaguely french for according to) but then got stuck on where the NCHE came from (last 4 letters of French???). Thanks for showing me that 15 actually meant 15 in this case!
Homophones are inevitably a risk for the setter – it only needs someone who speaks with a different accent and the thing breaks down.
I thought I was safe with a Spoonerism (a rarity with me) in a puzzle I put up on mycrossword recently. But I wasn’t.
Very daring of Paul to get five into this one (counting the – to me – egregious AVALANCHE)… But respect to him. Certainly an amusing solve.
Enjoyable puzzle, even if it took several attempts to get through it, especially the bottom. Missed some word-plays by not going back at the end and piecing together all the cross-references. (Had AVALANCHE long before I finally got 15d).
I especially liked EUSTON and FLEXING.
I agree with muffin@10 on the parsing of 5a, but not on the airport controversy.
PeterO: there’s a small typo in 28a — back, not bsck.
Waiting for the blog for today’s Picaroon to appear, so I’ll just take the opportunity to make one last comment on the Luton = Luton Airport / Ely = Ely Cathedral issue.
This is not metonymy, which is rather different – the use of “The Pentagon” to mean the US Department of Defence for example. Rather it’s simply shorthand that is used when the context has already made it clear that we’re talking about an airport or a cathedral. You wouldn’t just say out of the blue “I’m going to visit Ely tomorrow” and expect anyone to understand that you meant Ely Cathedral. But “I’m going to visit a cathedral”, “Which one?”, “Ely”, is perfectly understandable and normal usage (and not “sloppy”).
In 3d, the clue says “airport”, so we think “Which one? Luton.” I really can’t see anything wrong with it.
Flobbadob !
(Yes, this is very late… I’m catching up)
The airport controversy is an interesting one. My take is that it depends on the cultural context and notable connotations.
The same clue wouldn’t work if the airport in question was “Manchester” or “Glasgow”, but the undeniable fact is that those cities have multiple ‘identifiers’ whilst Luton is, in the minds of a large proportion of Brits (certainly of a certain age) closely connected to ‘airport’.
As a setter — and I think it’s very wise for solvers to put themselves in the place of the setter — if you need to arrive at ‘Luton’ then word association gives you ‘airport’ very quickly.
So ‘Luton’ IS an airport (as well as a place) and so is Manchester and so is Glasgow etc, but in terms of connotations, Luton definitely has a closer claim to the linguistic connection.