An offering from Paul to please those with a sweet tooth and to brighten up a miserable wet morning.
Paul has cleverly worked in two aspects of the sweet theme, as candy or dessert, as well as a further definition in 7 and 17ac. There are also references to sweets in the clues for 24ac and 2dn.
There are quite a lot of double definitions – all good. My favourite clues were 18ac INTERMIT, 21ac SUGAR BEET, 25ac MARSALA, 2dn NONSENSE, 12dn COLON and 17dn CUT A DASH.
Many thanks to Paul for an enjoyable puzzle.
Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Across
7 Sweet nothing in the sack (7)
BELOVED
LOVE (nothing – tennis score) in BED (sack)
8 Last worker, sweet (7)
COBBLER
Double definition – a cobbler works at a last
9 Deer performs (4)
DOES
Another double definition: an old crossword favourite – think of ‘Do(h) a deer, a female deer’
10 Article, so incomprehensible in parts (9)
SECTORIAL
An anagram (incomprehensible) of ARTICLE SO
12 Every other part of icky sweet (5)
CANDY
The alternate (every other) letters of icky are C AND Y
13 Gap in a lively river (8)
APERTURE
A PERT (lively) + URE (my beloved Wensleydale river)
15 Down and dirty (4)
BLUE
Double definition
16 Kiwi’s heading beyond valley — it can’t take flight! (5)
DALEK
K[iwi] after DALE (valley) – please see comment 2 re the definition
17 Sweet stick gathering last of sherbet (4)
CUTE
CUE (stick) round [sherbe]T
18 Temporarily stop during school period, computer studies (8)
INTERMIT
IN TERM (during school period) + IT (computer studies)
20, 19 Cube in sweet sweets (5,6)
AFTER EIGHTS
EIGHT (cube) in AFTERS (sweet)
21 As beer gut wobbles, something sweet in that (5,4)
SUGAR BEET
An anagram (wobbles) of AS BEER GUT
22 Sleuth appearing sweet when spotted? (4)
DICK
Reference to spotted dick, the pudding also known as spotted dog – see here – and dick is slang for a detective
24 Fudge is wrong after starter of dumplings (7)
DISTORT
IS TORT (a civil wrong or wrongful act) after D[umplings]
25 Sweet, in the style of sweet wine (7)
MARSALA
MARS (bar) (sweet) + À LA (in the style of)
Down
1 Sweet turning up a little more acidic (4)
AERO
Hidden (a little) reversal (up, in a down clue) of [m]ORE A[cidic]
2 Facial feature fed nougat initially, same part spitting out old humbug (8)
NONSENSE
NOSE (facial feature) round N[ougat] + N[o]SE again, minus o (old)
3 Top beef? (6)
JERSEY
Double definition
4 Sweet kiss, warmer? (4,4)
POLO NECK
POLO (sweet) + NECK (kiss)
5 Player is inspired by emotionless type, but no leader (6)
OBOIST
IS in [r]OBOT (emotionless type) minus its initial letter (no leader)
6 I say where there’s water (4)
WELL
Double definition
11 Sweet line in fresh torte after drink (9)
CHARLOTTE
L (line) in an anagram (fresh) of TORTE after CHA (drink)
12 Place in Panama : (5)
COLON
Double definition
14 Rubbish or Turner? (5)
ROTOR
ROT (rubbish) + OR – being a palindrome, ROTOR is a turner in two senses
16 Red Sea rising over a source of sweetness (8)
DEMERARA
A reversal (rising, in a down clue) of RARE (red, as in steak) + MED[iterranean] (sea) + A
17 Showboat cancelled, commercial remains (3,1,4)
CUT A DASH
CUT (cancelled) + AD (commercial) + ASH (remains)
I was making rather heavy weather of parsing this until it occurred to me to look up ‘showboat’ – I didn’t know this definition: ‘to perform or behave in a showy or flamboyant way’ (Collins)
20 Cosmic rays primarily penetrating new atlas (6)
ASTRAL
R[ays] in an anagram (new) of ATLAS – I’m not entirely convinced of the definition here
21 Executive clubs, for example (4)
SUIT
Double definition
23 Part of leg in small 3, say (4)
CALF
Another double definition, 3dn being JERSEY
This didn’t seem like a Paul offering, with lots of Quiptic-like short and sweet clues. I liked the devious COLON, BELOVED, CANDY, MARSALA, POLO NECK and SUIT.
Ta Paul & Eileen.
Thanks Eileen. Let me be the first to say that Paul must remember the cartoon of the dalek at the bottom of a flight of stairs saying “This beggars up our plan to conquer the universe”. Anyone who’s watched Doctor Who this century will know they can fly. I’ll now go and clean my anorak!
I’m one of those who haven’t, Crispy – not since my children were small. Thanks for the cartoon.
Dick=detective is one of those definitions that I’ve only ever seen in crosswords.
Enjoyable and not too taxing: though the theme certainly helped. It was fairly obvious that 16 A is DALEK. I had a vague idea that they can now fly, but I’m a child of the sixties so I like my Daleks to be grounded, old style. One of my earliest memories is the regeneration of William Hartnell into Patrick Troughton, and the feeling that nothing would be the same again. How could he protect us from the monstrous evil of the Daleks and the Cybermen (?) Of course, within a week I’d fogetton all about Hartnell.
Eileen, SHOWBOAT is a regular feature, set to music on Sky’s Soccer am, with skilful footballers doing fancy tricks during a game.
A fairly sunny day here Eileen which makes up for a lot of miserable wet mornings and afternoons we’ve had in the past ‘I don’t know how long’.
The sweet theme just made me hungry (given my modern disease) but it was very enjoyable nonetheless.
It took me far too long to resolve JERSEY with top, the second definition of COLON, and who the “last worker” was in COBBLER (I kept trying to end the word in ‘ant’).
I’m with Crispy @2. Even an occasional follower of the Doctor like me (not a Whovian anorak) knows that Daleks worked out how to fly in the year 2254, so that ended up as my only question mark.
I loved CANDY for the C and Y in the every other part of icky.
Well, that was fun. I might have said that it hit my sweet spot, but then I’d have to fetch my anorak.
Thanks Paul and Eileen.
Thank you Paul for an enjoyable challenge which I didn’t quite finish. I didn’t know a cobbler used a last so like Tim c@7 I was looking for words ending in Ant. I wondered about Fondant but couldn’t see why Fond = Last. Also, that would make 6dn a very Paul word which didn’t fit the clue!!
Thanks Eileen for the super blog.
(I have a very clear memory of being scared witless by Doctor Who as a child especially the Cybermen and Daleks. I used to read a magazine, called TV21 I think, which once had an article about what to do if the Daleks actually invaded Earth. One tip was to stay upstairs or head for rocky ground. Good advice that remains with me. )
Yes JerryG@9, I also went down the Fondant rabbit hole.
ravenrider@4 Private Dick?
Unusually, I enjoyed this so thanks, P & E
Liked CANDY.
New: AERO sweets.
Thanks, both.
This has reminded me of the time my three-year-old granddaughter turned to me and asked « Why do you call me sweetheart? It’s not my name? »
I’m another old school ground-based Dalek so I enjoyed the definition. As I did the whole puzzle; this is the kind of Paul theme I really enjoy without the extensive cross-referencing that underpins some other theme approaches. The several different versions of ‘sweet’ were well distributed meaning the key word always had tons of potential and there was little chance of the theme ‘unravelling’ as can sometimes happen.
Favourites, alongside DALEK, included COBBLER, CANDY, ATTITUDE, AFTER EIGHTS, JERSEY, OBOIST and DEMERARA.
Thanks Paul and Eileen
Down here a cobbler is a fresh water fish with a nasty poisonous spine (good eating though). The other sweets were familiar. And yes for nostalgia I’ve seen a flying dalek. Never knew you could intermit something though. All good, ta PnE.
Good topic for a theme. Maybe not to everyone’s taste but it takes all sorts
This continued the pattern, for me at least, of this week’s puzzles becoming progressively more transparent. It certainly isn’t Paul at his knottiest or most inventive, with largely simple constructions and roughly hewn surfaces.
No real favourites today; I did like CANDY, though that device has become rather commonplace. My LOI was BELOVED because I was sure that the ‘nothing’ was the crossing O.
Entertaining, nevertheless – though I felt somewhat hyperglycaemic at the end 🙂
Thanks to Paul and Eileen
… or maybe it’s the something that intermits (intrans)…
PostMark @14 – ATTITUDE?
Bodycheetah @16 🙂
A sweet puzzle, with a cute theme. Took longer than it should have to see POLO NECK, but otherwise a fairly quick solve. Favourite clues included COLON, DALEK, NONSENSE and APERTURE. Thanks to Paul – see you next week.
[I remember the very first episode of Dr Who. It was such an immediate hit that the BBC had to repeat episode 1 together with episode 2 the following week. Those were the days when if you missed it you missed it]
Excellent stuff from Paul showing that he can do accessible as well as fiendish. BLUE was my favourite for the beautifully simple surface. Also liked CANDY, COBBLER and DOES a lot. Failed to parse MARSALA (my LOI) and DEMERARA but they were gettable from the crossers. Happy to be enlightened by Eileen on both. Thanks Eileen, thanks Paul
We took an embarrassingly long time to twig to LOI BELOVED (being fixated on the O being ‘nothing’, and looking for a 6 letter word meaning ‘sack’ to put around it). GinF – ‘cobbler’ is a Pommy word for a crumble (apple crumble etc) – I’m told that cobbler has oats in to and crumble doesn’t, but since my crumbles have always had oats in them, I don’t buy that. Our not quite worked out parsing for DEMERARA had ‘a red’ backwards including ‘mer’ + ‘a’. Well, it almost works!
[Dr Who went downhill fast after Tom Baker regenerated, so my daleks are firmly grounded.]
Thanks, Paul and Eileen.
I had FELL for down and dirty for a while, but saw the error of my ways in the end.
[TassieTim @23: Your explanation of COBBLER is a load of …. cobblers 🙂 It’s origin is in North America rather than the UK and a cobbler differs from a crumble in having a more solid topping- typically close packed scones (US biscuits)]
I remember Rowntree’s Aero being the single flavour of bubbled chocolate and then, to bring a choice to the Aero market, peppermint flavour coming out in 1959 ! I had not reached my teens then !
Thanks to Paul and Eileen.
Great puzzle from Paul for which the theme helped me a lot. Could not parse several so thanks Eileen.
You obviously didn’t attend a UK uni if you didn’t know about intermittent, something people did if illness interfered with their studies (or if they had a very kind tutor). Or is it just Oxbridge?
Gervase @25 is absolutely correct about a cobbler, which can also be savoury – a stew covered with scones.
Ta Paul and Eileen
Really enjoyed this, although I got completely stuck at the end for ages. My cause wasn’t helped by forgetting how to spell DEMERARA, which I always think has an extra E, and I was another who tried FONDANT for a while.
Favourites were BELOVED, despite it being my last one in, SECTORIAL, BLUE, and DALEK.
Thanks Paul and Eileen.
I thought I was in for a rough time when the first sweet I entered was AERO, a brand not known in the US (the Web tells me it’s available on a limited basis here as an import). But that was almost fhe end of British chocolate brands, as the many uses of “sweet” turned out to be more varied than I’d at first feared. In fact, as others have pointed out, this was Paul in relatively gentle mode.
I’ve never gotten into Dr Who–I’ve seen an episode or two–so I just sort of assumed from the clue that daleks couldn’t fly.
I’m another who considered and rejected FONDANT. And to commenters above, we do have COBBLER as a dessert here in the US (and I’m surprised that they apparently don’t in Australia.)
I am a big fan of Paul’s puzzles, but this one seemed a bit too straightforward and there weren’t enough trademark twists and fun.
I agree with the comments that this week’s puzzles have been pretty gentle.
Maybe we’re due an Enigmatist?
Thanks Paul and Eileen
Eileen @19: apols – been out dog walking. APERTURE – not sure how the fingers traced out ATTITUDE as I wasn’t trying to display any 😀
While I knew that daleks were no longer vertically challenged, I had no problem with the clue. If you “take a flight of stairs” you certainly don’t fly over them.
Not being a Whovian, I had to ask others as to what the def for DALEK meant. The response was that Daleks can’t go up or down stairs, by the usual robotic means anyway. I laughed out loud at what I thought was Paul’s wonderful cryptic definition/pun, that “it can’t take flight”, as in flight of stairs. I still think that was what Paul intended.
As posters here have said, and as research has shown 🙂 , the Daleks did manage flight later.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BhKu3XXi7E Only 1 min 4 sec, worth waiting until the end.
https://www.digitalspy.com/tv/cult/a78526/classic-moments-dalek-climbs-stairs/
Hurrah! Four in a row for me.
Even now that Daleks can fly, they still can’t manage a Flight of Stairs (unless they fly from one step to the next). OK, so they don’t need to, but it is still true. I remember seeing the episode where they first flew, and thinking “Now we’re in trouble.”
Got stymied for a while by putting in DESSERT instead of MARSALA, but ASTRAL sorted that out for me. And took far too long to spot the COLON.
Enjoyable puzzle.
I once picked up a recipe booklet in the supermarket with recipes for all kinds of fruit desserts and explanations of the differences. There were not only cobblers and crumbles, but bettys, slumps, grunts and buckles. (I may have left out one or two.) I can’t find the booklet now, but I did enjoy the collection of words.
Thanks to Paul and Eileen.
My eyes are dim, I cannot see…I’m another who never spotted the COLON till the very end. And BELOVED, and JERSEY and CANDY in the NW corner took quite a while too after the rest of the grid was completed. Strange how often OBOIST is a player in crosswords, and I always preferred Spotted Dick to Bread and Butter Pudding at school, with lashings of custard of course…
I liked Paul’s offering of short and punchy clues.
Query: AFTER EIGHTS. Cube in sweet sweets.
I would have thought that AFTERS was ”sweets” (not sweet as it’s clued here). What are we having for afters/sweets?
You don’t say, What are we having for an after? But you might say, What are we having for a sweet?
Maybe it’s an Antipodean thing, but I/we also call the (singular) pudding or dessert, ‘sweets’ as a course.
Or we did, but I think ‘sweets’ is going out of fashion. “Dessert” is probably the generic word now, if anyone’s lucky enough to have 2 courses.
Pm@37 in Britain you might say “I’m having pavlova for afters/sweet”
Thank you Bodycheetah@38 for the clarification of afters/sweet, and the chuckle. I find it hard to picture Brits having pavlova for a sweet. I think of stodgy puddings for your winters over there. Aussies and Kiwis claim pavlova as our own, apparently named after Anna Pavlova’s 1920’s tour of the Antipodes.
paddymelon @38: my Belfast mother wouldn’t order anything but..
…and Bodycheetah 🙂
[AlanC, your mother has excellent taste! And it’s a pretty healthy option, if you go easy on the cream and load it up with all sorts of fruit, especially kiwi and passionfruit. It satisfies on so many levels, texture and taste. Can you buy the pre made meringue bases over there to make them at home, or take it to a party, without all the trickiness of getting the meringue just right?]
Yes, gentler than many others from Paul, but enjoyable.
I liked the last worker in COBBLER, the C AND Y, although we seem to have had a lot of these recently, and CUT A DASH for the definition. I don’t really watch Doctor Who, but from the clips I realised that a DALEK could fly up a flight of stairs.
Thanks Paul and Eileen.
COBBLER
According to my oldest dictionary (Oxford concise), a cobbler can be a sweet iced drink, and a fruit pie with rich thick crust. I have also known it refer to a scone- or biscuit-topped savoury dish.
[paddymelon et al – just remember we pronounce it pav-uh-low-va!]
I’m with PostMark@14 in appreciating this setting approach when Paul eases off the mangled contortions for which he is better known: this wasn’t too much of a struggle but most enjoyable for me. I like the short punchy clues and the inevitable theme was broadly interpreted so that it didn’t become a tedious catalogue hunt. It’s a pity the surface of 2d is so atrocious!
[Shirl@45 🙂 ]
Would just like to add that I enjoyed the links between NONSENSE and humbug in 2D and COBBLER(s) in 8A.
And (r)obot and Dalek in 5D and 16A.
Bit of a prob with 3d as Jerseys are not beef…more dairy. Heigh ho.
So what would you call the meat from a (retired) dairy cow, or a jersey bullock. It still gets eaten and I would still call it beef.
Very enjoyable.
Raven@4 you can hear “dick” in lots of US film noir.
Thanks Paul and Eileen (wink)
Blaemon @48 & Moth @49. I had the same doubts about JERSEY being a type of ‘beef’, but I think it’s near enough in a crossword. It was my last one in for this reason.
I hesitate to correct our blogger, especially when it’s Eileen, but I think BELOVED is ‘in the sack’=in BED, with the ‘in’ from the surface functioning as an inclusion indicator. I was stuck for a synonym for ‘sack’ or ‘the sack’, but got it straight away when I tried ‘in the sack’ instead.
My other sticking point was also in the NW, where despite, as Gervase says @17, it having become a rather commonplace device, I took ages to spot C AND Y.
Apart from that, I have also found this a fairly easy series of puzzles this week, so an Enigmatist would make a pleasant change. 🙂
Thanks to Paul and Eileen.
While not 100% plain sailing, I found that on the more accessible end of the Paul spectrum. Some quite simple clue constructions here and there, and the theme helped in the right kind of way (rather than being a tortuous Wikipedia hunt like the ‘porcelain’ one of a few months ago).
DALEK was my FOI and I think everything’s been said on that one 🙂 … I also liked DOES, CANDY, APERTURE, BLUE and DISTORT.
Good work both, thanks
I left the UK nearly 50 years ago, but luckily that meant that my growing-up years were perfectly aligned with all the commercial products or cultural references in this puzzle, including the one that I learned today is no longer true. So I found the puzzle very, er, sweet. Tx
Thanks Paul – we really enjoyed that lots of favourites and thx to Eileen for blog. m
[Off topic, I know, but I don’t know where else to ask. Does today’s Guardian Sudoku actually work?]
[m@55 it did for me 🙂 ]
Thanks Eileen, felt like I spent as long on 7a as on most of the others combined, for reasons mentioned above – but earlier I had also managed to lazily enter SECTIONAL at 10a which held me up until I realised that —-NECK was more plausible than —-PECK for 4d and then POLO had to be right.
Ravenrider@4 – who’s the black private dick that’s a sex machine to all the chicks? It won an Oscar you know!
Thanks Paul, good fun.
[BC @56
Thanks for your response. I seem to be missing something. Bottom middle 9-square, bottom left square seems to have to be either 2 or 5, but can’t be either?]
[Mea culpa! Sorry for the distraction.]
sheffield hatter @51 – I haven’t been ignoring you: I’ve been out since late morning, just catching up now
I’m sure that’s the way I read it (Collins and Chambers both give ‘sack’ as slang for ‘bed’) – sorry I didn’t make it clearer. 😉
I don’t often complete Paul’s puzzles – not at all a fan of the cross-referenced clues which he favours, but of which there is only one pair here – and I don’t think I’ve ever polished one off as quickly as I did this one. Either I was on the wavelength or, more likely, and as others have suggested, this was one of Paul’s easier offerings. Thanks to Paul and our blogger, as usual.
I used to hide behind the sofa when the Daleks were on. But if I remember right (there’s always a first) it wasn’t just that the original Daleks couldn’t fly, but also that they could only move when they were on metal floors. I’m sure there was one episode when the Doctor pushed a Dalek onto his cape on the floor and it was immobilised.
The opening music and images were enough for me. Jammies on and straight to bed.
In 21 down, what has ‘executive’ got to do with ‘suit’?
Jack @64
The executives in a (manufacturing) company are often know as “the suits”, because of what they wear.
If know it’s my being thick but why is eight a cube?
2 cubed is 8
D’oh!!!!
Said I was being thick.
🙂
I so wanted there to be room for an extra “E” in 21D, so sweet could have enjoyed a genuine homophone.
Tassie Tim @23: I too struggled to remember how the spell the sugar (my mother used to sprinkle it as a crunchy surface on semolina). If it had been “demarera” then the sea could have been the (Weston-Super-) “mare” inside a “red” reading upwards. No need whatsoever for a rare steak to precede my dessert.
I remember singing a song at junior school that went:
here we sits like
birds in the wilderness
birds in the wilderness
birds in the wilderness
down in demerara
I’ve searched through Google and discovered that, although they turn up, they aren’t the standard words!
I’ve missed out another:
here we sits like
birds in the wilderness
I’ll have a pint of whatever muffin is drinking. 🙂
Ran out of time for this one so a few reveals and was spitting a bit. JERSEY was the cream of the crop, close by was COBBLER and OBOIST (why are musicians always ‘-ists’?
).
One of today’s clues reminded me of a terrible/brilliant joke:
— Jokes about white sugar are rare enough, but jokes about brown sugar?
(I’ll let you fill in the rest…)
🙂
muffin@71 I immediately knew the tune of that song, I’m sure I used to sing it, or rather we did, whatever bunch of kids I was bunched with, but I can’t for the life of me remember the last line. I looked it up, and the last line of various verses seems to be “waiting for our …” followed by one or another component of a meal. One google got me a photo of a fox which spoke the words in a woman’s voice while exhibiting a more or less human set of lower teeth.
But I did realize that I also knew another song to the same tune (I don’t think I’ve connected them before):
Great green gobs of greasy grimy gopher guts
Greasy grimy gopher guts
Greasy grimy gopher guts
Greasy grimy gopher guts
Great green gobs of greasy grimy gopher guts
And I forgot my spoon!
On with your jammies now and off to bed with you.
Valentine @76 – we sang it too – part of the BBC singing programme for schools in the early 1970s – Singing Together. And the reason it’s come up here is the last line was Down in Demerara. But it’s almost certainly a bowdlerised version for kids from a West Indian song, to give a multicultural mix along with English folk songs like Green Grow the Rushes-O. It’s where I learned Kookaburra Sits and Carry Me Ackee.
This was a fun crossword, thanks to Paul and Eileen.
I loved this ‘sweet” puzzle from Paul which I did well after the party was over. There were so many economical clues in this particular grid. Lovely to read the blog and learn how much this one was also appreciated by others – there were so many nostalgic moments evoked for so many, if the blog is anything to go by. Many thanks to Paul for the clever puzzle and thanks to Eileen for her fidelity to blogging, which makes these blogs so enjoyable to read.
@Crispy – I read it as a flight of stairs rather than flying.