Guardian 29,015 / Paul

74 comments on “Guardian 29,015 / Paul”

1. Yes good puzzle with no quibbles. GOOD KING WENCESLAS was great.
   Thanks Paul and mhl

2. Thanks mhl. In 7d it’s “bore” as in “bore fruit”.
   Lovely puzzle, thanks Paul.

3. Thanks mhl. I never did quite get why Crucible and Pan should be potty so I’m grateful for that. Google tells me that Araucaria is not a pine but why let the truth get in the way of a good story. I had ‘ship tar’ pencilled in there initially

4. I got well and truly stuck on this. The definition for 4 could well be the ellipsis itself, which is nothing if not spotty, but it does make sense for the join to be a genuine one for a change.

5. Araucaria is called “Chile pine”. Potty is a characteristic Paulism, on the model of “What’s brown and sticky? A atick!”.

6. Re: 2d, I would support our blogger and say that GEN UP is better than MUG UP, except for the minor concern that it doesn’t fit the crossers.

   Interesting that ENTREE means both a small dish and the main dish.

7. I finished, but I was a little worried that I couldn’t see the literal for spotty and wasn’t sure how the cryptic worked for stupor. But those were the obvious answers, so in they went. My biggest problem was spelling the Good King’s name, but dream team helped me correct my mistake. Unfortunately, the music of the Christmas carol requires it to be disyllabic, which swallows up some of the consonants.
   Entree means different things in the US and Europe, but with all the traveling that goes on nowadays everyone is thoroughly confused.

8. In 10A I parsed WAI as “Working As Intended” and that seemed close enough to “perfect” that I didn’t look any harder!

9. Thanks mhl, Never heard the phrase MUG UP. I also entered Gen up.
   GOOD KING WENCESLAS was brilliant, especially considering he was Bohemian.

10. @mhl YIELDED/BORE synonyms. eg in the financial sense.

11. ORBISON. I think he would have seen the funny side of that clue. Liked the OR=if not. Clever.

12. I enjoyed this. Got the long seasonal tune straightaway which helped (liked the anagram indicator).

    Lots to like including: ACROSTICS, SCALLOPS, GOT READY, SECURED, PINE TAR

    Thanks Paul and mhl

13. Such originality. The Big O will hereafter be Roy Sink to me … do you call it a sink or bison?

    Managed to finish but never understood SPOTTY and YIELDED in the NE corner. Those little dots somehow passed me by. Very clever that they both connected the two clues … to allow 1A to define 4A but also as MACO89 @4 points out they are themselves spotty. Brilliant!

    Will doubtless try to sing all syllables in the Good King come Christmas. Many thanks Paul and mhl.

14. On 7D: This borehole yielded oil. Water issued from the well. I bore him three children. The fascinations of language.

15. Paul shines once again. This was a fine puzzle, with plenty of layers (and I don’t mean the feathered variety). So much to love: the good Squire Trelawney who indeed squashed a mutiny, the kind king who trudged through the snow in Bohemia, the two sticky setters Araucaria and Boatman, the miser who took the last of the tasty cheese away.

    No wonder my crosswording heart sings when I see his sobriquet.

    Thank you Paul and mhl for your fine blog.

16. I laughed when I got 3d as Philistine the setter is anything but lowbrow.

    Pdm@9, sorry, we crossed or I’d have acknowledged your take on GKW. 🙂

17. Choldunk@13
    Q: What’s a bison? A: To wash ya fice in! (My Uncle Phil’s joke)

18. Rosella@17. Re your bison joke. You wouldn’t be a Queenslander, eh? (I am/was. Like your Uncle Phil’s sense of humour.)

19. Thanks for the blog,I was a bit exasperated by this, it was the fifth theme in a row (6 out of 7) and I never like “Guardian ” themes. I just wonder about somebody trying the cryptic for the first time that day .
    SPOTTY was clever , GOOD KING WENCELAS a very neat anagram.
    Jorge@5 , something brown and sticky is a branch or a twig.

20. Vinyl1 @7. In the carol, “Good King Wenceslas” is trisyllabic. Too many people think the lyric is “Good King Wenceslas LAST looked out”. There is no last.

21. paddymelon @ 18, I might be (blushing) and so might my Uncle Phil!

    Roz@19, While sympathising (but definitely not agreeing) with you, if someone was trying a cryptic for the first time, I doubt it would be the Prize unless they just oozed self-confidence and I wish them luck.

22. Rosella , some people only get the Saturday paper, and it could be a weekend with friends, it is how I started. I just do not like the Guardian clique idea.

23. Jorge @ 5. Not too sure of your logic, there’s a butterfly known as Red Admiral, does that make it a naval officer? Let’s not pursue this example, I have friends in the Navy!

24. Roz @19,22. It`s head above the parapet time. Having stumbled across 225 a few months ago, I am now addicted to it`s (everyone`s ?) helpfulness and humour. Thanks to all.
    I have never heard of many of setters mentioned – and certainly don`t know their personalities or setting characteristics. I didn`t find this to be a problem however, and it turned out as my first complete solve.
    Maybe there is another acronym for such an event. ; )

25. I too started out on the Saturday Prize crossword, in the actual newspaper, with lessons from Mother, and it is only these days with the advent of the WWW, that I will look at the daily varieties, if time permits?

    TBF it was easier to do back then, and must be much trickier for any beginners today.

    Araucaria was our favourite, as I’m sure was many others!

26. Congratulations on your first complete solve, Wellcidered, especially given this was not a straightforward one! It took me years before I managed a complete unaided solve 🙂

27. mhl Thank You. Forgot to say that I am a Guardian Saturday only addict. Maybe it`s been a steeper than usual learning curve,

28. I don’t think there are any clues that require you to know that they are setters: the words are used simply as synonyms. If anything, the capitalisation is more misleading for the regular solvers who will instantly think of Boatman-the-setter instead of boatman-the-tar. By the way, Rover was another Guardian setter

    GOOD KING WENCESLAS (of Bohemia) was a great clue. The surface of SINE made me smile.

    (And now, back to wrestling with Picaroon…)

29. Very tough.

    I did not fully parse 4ac = S (back in business) + POTTY (like Crucible, the setter or a pot/cauldron) but I did not see understand the ‘and Pan’ – also like a pot? What is the definition? The ellipsis/three dots?

    New for me: Squire John Trelawney (for 13ac); FDR’s LEND LEASE act; cheeseparer = miser; WOOD TAR.

    Thanks, both.

30. michelle@29: I also had to check that PINE TAR was a thing, and was interested to find that it was the “Stockholm tar” that Jack Aubrey is always in need of – and also the reason why North Carolinians are Tar Heels.

31. Crucible is also POTTY in the snooker sense.

32. Unlike the Paul Prize from the previous week, which I found quite hard to complete, this one was more to my liking, and I was impressed with the variety of imaginative ways in which the Guardian setters’ names were used throughout. I was yet another to get GEN UP first, as it is a genuine dual solution to that clue, but of course I had to change it later to MUG UP. I remember thinking the SPOTTY clue didn’t quite work, but I forgot to back to it, and of course I now see where the definition comes from – a very good clue after all.

    Thanks to Paul and mhl.

33. Forgot to solve this – again – last Saturday, so coming here fresh from the fun.
    The north-east yielded last. I needed to solve GOOD KING WENCESLAS first.
    It’s a gem. A very far from obvious anagram. Is Bohemian the anagrind or the definition or both?
    Thanks P&m

34. While I do share some of Roz’s unease about the cliquey nature of the theme, I enjoyed this, and, as others have pointed out, you didn’t need any inside knowledge to solve it. [ I was one who grew up thinking it was “Good King Wences last looked out”]

35. What my namesake said @ 32 and of course I marvelled at the Rhapsodic GOOD KING WENCESLAS. Definitely on his wavelength this time. Roz @19: I always try to find an alternative theme for you, but no luck this time.

    Ta Paul & mhl

36. Petert @34: snap 🙂

37. Nice one, Peter Piper @31! I couldn’t parse the SPOTTY answer through not understanding what the ellipsis (three dots) were doing … but also for a Sheffield reason. Having graduated there in the days when it was very much steel city, I couldn’t think of crucible in the ceramic rather than hardened steel (?) form. Fifty years ago, my mum … a chemistry teacher … might have put me right.

38. I was another who very confidently entered GEN UP for 2d, which left me stuck in the top left for ages. Only when I eventually used a word finder for the letters I had for 1a, and none of the results seemed to make sense, was I forced to reconsider.

    I thought TRELAWNY and GOOD KING WENCESLAS were both brilliant with their extended definitions. I guess the reason that so many of us thought as children that it was “Good King Wences last looked out” is that the rhythm of the song makes you put a stress on the last syllable of his name.

    Many thanks Paul and mhl.

39. I agree with Petert @34 – I think the theme, such as it is, would be intriguing rather than off-putting for unaccustomed solvers. I’ve been solving – or attempting to solve – The Guardian cryptic for half a century, and I have always found it interesting that the setters are identifiable and can elicit frowns or squeals of joy as appropriate.

    I didn’t remember Sphinx as a Guardian setter – and it turns out that I must have missed this one from 2017, seemingly his only appearance. This is partly explained in this piece from The Guardian’s crossword blog.

    Thanks to Paul and mhl.

40. Another good puzzle, enjoyable once I had cracked the last resisting clue, which was ‘SNOG’. Every clue made sense in the end. The deadline for submitting entries is Friday, and so finishing it by then is respectable, I think. It is supposed to be hard. I dip in a few times each day, and like it to last a week.

41. That top NW corner went in last for me as I wasn’t sure which version of GEN UP/MUG UP/etc worked, and I also looked up PINE Tar to check it was a thing.

    Dr Whatson @6, entrée is one of those words I have to check the origination to know which is meant, UK author = starter, US author = main course.

    Michelle @29 pots and pans are synonymous in English English, so a pan is a pot.

    I’m not sure when people are remembering the Saturday Prize as being easier. My memories are of a regular appearance of Bunthorne or Auraucaria at his trickiest, including his alphabetical puzzles and long anagrams across the whole puzzle. The other thing we had then were the themes that Paul and others often do now, when finding the key word unlocked the puzzle. But they tended to only turn up at the weekend.

42. Hi, Choldunk@14&37 – the “…” could be taken as the definition for both PIMPLY & SPOTTY. And if you add on DREARY, it’s the definition of me as a teenager.
    Hi, Wellcidered@24,27 – Welcome. I used to only do the Prize, but now I’ve got a 3-puzzle-a-day habit. I’m a hopeless case. 😉
    Time for an EarWorm … my karaoke go-to … The Big O …
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9lw1joUmMI

43. I thought it was clever to use so many setters’ names which were not a distraction.
    Only one that needed checking was Lend-Lease. I started with Land Drains which I knew was not correct and moved on thinking that it might be a positive attribute of FDR and was wrong. Just the right amount of difficulty for us. Thanks.

44. [ AlanC@35 I enjoyed your “film” theme the other day but I was too late to join in. I have answered my riddle for the blog yesterday , my sincere apologies in advance , I will wear my Breton top later as penance. ]

45. [Roz @45: hoping the taxi driver has a quiet one today 🙂 ]

46. [ AlanC you will get your reward today for your generosity in allowing others to occupy the top spot this week ]

47. Thanks Paul and mhl. What’s the difference between a buffalo and a bison? You can’t wash your hands in a buffalo.

48. This post should have the heading ‘Guardian Prize 29,015 / Paul’ so it can be found later with the search term ‘Guardian Prize’.

49. “Solved” this Gielgud-style with an unsatisfactory combination of guesses and hunches for a host of clues which I was unable to parse, particularly in the NE corner.
    Eagerly anticipated the blog this morning for enlightenment to discover to my great surprise that I had struck lucky without beginning to appreciate the brilliance of many of the clues. “Bohemian” led me to the good king rather than the beautiful anagram which completely eluded me. SPOTTY and TOSSED OUT were my final two in though I was mystified by both clues.
    Thanks to Paul for the great puzzle and to mhl for the blog which allowed me to fully appreciate it.

50. I don’t know. I’m pretty muck over this in-joke using other setters’ names theme, which has been done to death by now.

51. I’m probably being a dope, but I can’t see how GEN UP would work.

52. AuntRuth , dope can mean information and so can gen , over=up , GEN UP is to swot , like MUG UP . Both work well with alternatives for dope.
    Greg@50 , next week the theme will be the names of various pet dogs or cats owned by various Guardian setters.

53. Roz @ 52

    Such sarcasm – I am not a setter but my dog’s name is Chippy

54. Thanks Roz@52. Never heard the expression GEN UP so that’s something I’ve learnt!

55. About the theme, I’m with gladys@28 on this one. The setters’ names are all used as ordinary nouns, so you don’t need to know they are Guardian setters to solve the puzzle. The clues were not made more awkward by the use of those nouns, so the theme did not detract from the quality of the puzzle. If you don’t know the theme, the puzzle is good fun, and if you do it is even more fun – what’s wrong with that?

    Having said that, I have to admit that my two favourite clues are non-themed: 13a TRELAWNEY for the surface that reveals the denouement of the novel; and 15.8 GOOD KING WENCESLAS for the excellent anagram and the Bohemian reference – brilliant.

    Incidentally, I and most North American solvers would know 1d PINE TAR from its use in baseball to improve the hitter’s grip on the bat.

    Generally, I thought this was one of Paul’s better crosswords so thanks for that, and thanks mhl for the fine blog.

56. I was just wondering how good the clues could be without this smug, self-referential Guardian theme nonsense. Every time we get a week of themes I just think – why don’t you just write some hard clues?

57. Excellent theme, well within most Guardian solvers’ GK, hopefully (but not important if not)!

    10ac, WAITRESSES: loved this one. So neat.

    2dn, MUG UP: I also entered GEN UP at first and agree it satisfies the clue, but MUG is better as its meaning is not related to the def.

    16dn, SECURED: the definition, “shackled” didn’t make it to the page, it seems.

    20dn, POSTER: I set as Sphinx before that one did … but in a publication with a circulation of about 500, not in a national newspaper with a puzzle linked to a TV programme broadcast nationwide the same day (see SH@39) 🙁

    23dn I hadn’t heard of a cheeseparer before, either, but solved it easily once I looked the word up.

    @Alan B, I seem to recall that a certain amateur setter once brought a puzzle to an S&B that also had the clues full of the names of Guardian setters.

    Rosella2@17: are you sure your uncle didn’t ask “what’s a bison for?”?

    Roz@19: you don’t need to know they’re setters to solve the clues; it just increases the pleasure if you do. {See Wellcidered@24, etc).

    A stick is stickier than a twig or a branch, by tautology.

    Entreé is French for “entrance” (dish). No idea why Americans use it for ‘main course’.

58. Roz @56. Why is the use of words that are also the names of setters “smug”? Genuine question – it really doesn’t seem smug to me.

    If the words that are also setters’ names did not have capital letters, would the clues be better?

59. Tony Collman @ 57: Absolutely sure. “What’s a bison for?” would ruin the intended pun and, ergo, negate the comedic effect. Nothing funny about “What’s a basin for?” “To wash your face in.” Unless it’s the grammatical comedy of ending both sentences with a preposition!

    No, Uncle Phil knew how to get a laugh.

60. It’s all been said in terms of so many positive comments here, but I hope that Paul sees this and enjoys another acclamation for an enjoyable puzzle – thank you to him, to mhl for the blog, and to other appreciative contributors. I am very sorry to be so late to the party! I am still smiling about the Christmas anagram of the seasonal song at 15a,8d. Echoing others above, I loved the use of “Bohemian” here which made it one of my favourite anagrams of all time! Not sure why but it just seemed so fitting here and reminded me a lot of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” for some reason. I do love a good theme, and this grid, referencing our wonderful setters, is a paeon from Paul that is well-deserved.

61. Tony @57
    Yes, I remember that amateur (or amateurish) puzzle. It was fun to compile and I hoped to solve too. The setters’ names are a rich source of clue material, as Paul has proved, and it’s perfect when such a theme is non-intrusive, as in this latest puzzle.

62. Like others we confidently entered GEN UP for 2 down, which really held us up in the top right corner. We are surprised it wasn’t picked up by a proof solver or the editor. It’s unusual for Paul to have two possible answers.

    Didn’t spoil our enjoyment too much, thanks Paul and mhl.

63. I decided it had to be ‘tree tar’ and for some reason it never occurred to me that it might be wrong. As a result, and in combination with a presumed ‘gen up’, I was left with blanks along the NW border. Ah well. Shame because SNOG was a lovely clue I would have enjoyed.

    I think I am not alone in being theme-blind so I tend not to be concerned one way or the other. For all that (Roz@19) five in a row does seem excessive. My one thought on themes is that they can tend to over-convolute matters as setters try to limbo-dance their way around the grid – but I haven’t noticed that particularly in recent offerings.

    Thanks Paul. Thanks mhl.

64. Brilliant! Enough said.

65. Great puzzle, thanks Paul & mhl.

    Tony C @57 – the French word doesn’t really mean “entrance” in the sense you imagine. Strictly, the entrée is neither the starter nor the main course – originally, it was the dish that came before the roast, and is preceded by the soup and the fish course. Unlike the roast, it is served plated (whereas the roast would be carved at the table). These days, with meals generally being much simpler affairs, the entrée is the de facto main course. So the Americans are actually correct and the Brits are wrong.

66. My only comment on the theme, which I’m surprised no one has mentioned already mentioned, is that it’s the third time we’ve had this particular theme this year already (after Nutmeg in early Feb, and Kite a couple of weeks later).

    Admittedly the theme treatment has been different each time but it’s still the same theme. And three times in the space of six weeks is just a bit weird. Too weird to be a coincidence?

67. Well I’m a Brit and I always thought the entree was the main course, it was a term I only ever came across in French restaurants, presumably not the most extravagant ones.

    I too was stuck in the top left corner and had gen up – dope can mean gen although possibly old fashioned. I think I had pencilled in tree tar for 1 down.

68. Rosella @59, me and your uncle Phil have obviously got different ideas about what makes funny. Still, it takes all sorts and if that’s what made you and your uncle Phil laugh, then so be it.

    Alan B@61: amateur, in the sense of not paid for, but by no means amateurish in the sense of ‘of a standard well below that of a pro’.

    Widdersbel@65: thanks for the full history of the word. What were your sources? Etymonline gives: Cookery sense is from 1759; originally the dish which was introductory to the main course.

    Personally, I like to just have a lightly-boiled egg between the fish course and the roast 🙂

69. Tony C @68 – well, I just knew it – one of those bits of useless information I picked up from god knows where, god knows how many years ago. However, if you want more concrete sources, I have checked my battered old copy of Larousse Gastronomique, which is about as definitive as it gets on matters of French culinary tradition, and it confirms that my understanding is correct.

    Note that your etymonline definition doesn’t actually contradict this: the entrée comes before the main course (ie the roast) but that doesn’t make it the first course – as per my previous comment, the entrée is traditionally preceded by the soup and fish. In fact, in a really elaborate banquet, you could well have several entrées, one after the other. But people’s dining habits have changed somewhat since 1759, and meals typically comprise fewer than seven courses these days, which is why the meaning of the term has become confused.

    I also looked up what Alan Davidson has to say about the matter in his wonderful Oxford Companion to Food, and he proves to be as wise on this as he is on everything else:

    “Entrée, entremets, a couple of French terms which no doubt retain interest for persons attending hotel and restaurant courses conducted under the shadow of French classical traditions, but have ceased to have any real use, partly because most people cannot remember what they mean and partly because their meanings have changed over time and vary from one part of the world to another. Forget them.”

    I wholly agree with him. The plain English terms starter and main course are perfectly good descriptors and much less likely to cause confusion.

70. Thanks mhl and everyone who has discussed the entrée entry. I fell into the Gen Up trap too (Tree tar for a while as well) and was going to complain that using “Gen” = Dope in the wordplay was too close to its sense in the definition – as noted by Julia@67 – but should have had more faith in Paul, and eventually of course realised that it was a much better clue than I had first thought. At least I trusted him enough to know that the double Tramp would be used in two different ways and this helped. Plenty of excellence on show, thanks Paul.

71. One last thought: leaving aside the culinary history stuff and getting back to the crossword, Paul’s definition of entrée as “small dish” is perfectly reasonable and fair, which is all that really matters for our purposes.

    Anyway, did I mention I really enjoyed the puzzle? I’ll shut up now.

72. Widdersbel@69

    “their meanings have changed over time and vary from one part of the world to another. Forget them”

    Indeed. Unless, of course, one of them helps you fill a crossword grid …

    Regarding “small dish”, that probably doesn’t work in the American meaning, does it, where the main course is likely to be a rather large steak, or something else that isn’t at all small? Maybe just bare ‘dish’ would have covered all the bases (as they say over there).

73. [I don’t really want to bang on about something not really related to the puzzle but I thought I should point out that in my version of funny, it’s crucial, when telling the ‘bison’ joke, to pronounce the ‘a’ in ‘face’ in the same way as that in (what turns out to have been) the word ‘basin’ in the setup. So it goes like this:

    A: I say, I say, I say, what’s a bison for?

    B: I don’t know. What is a bison for?

    A: It’s for washing your fice in

    Another (children’s) joke that uses a similar (?) principle is:

    A: Steak and kiddly pie and a bag of chips, please.

    B: You mean steak and kidney?

    A: That’s what I said, diddle I?]

74. Re ENTRÉE – there’s a very informative and thorough explanation here of how and why the American usage diverged from the French.

    Just to quote from the summary at the end:

    The word entrée originally (in 1555) meant the opening course of a meal, one consisting of substantial hot ‘made’ meat dishes, usually with a sauce, then evolved to mean the same kind of dishes, but served as a third course after a soup and a fish, and before a roast fowl course. American usage kept this sense of a substantial meat course, and as distinct roast and fish courses dropped away from popular usage, the meaning of entree in American English was no longer opposed to fish or roast dishes, leaving the entree as the single main course.

    In French, the word changed its meaning by the 1930s to mean a light course of eggs or seafood, essentially taking on much the meaning of earlier terms like hors d’oeuvres or entremets. The change was presumably helped along by the fact that the literal French meaning (“entering, entrance”) was still transparent to French speakers, and perhaps as more speakers began to eat multi-course meals the word attached itself more readily to a first or entering course. So both French and American English retain some aspects of the original meaning of the word; French the “first course” aspect of the meaning (which had actually died out by 1651) and American the “main meat course” aspect.

    For Americans translating their ‘entree’ into French, the French ‘entrée’ is now a false friend, as this helpful WordReference page shows. It recommends instead using ‘plat principal’.

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