Guardian Cryptic 29,084 by Paul

77 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 29,084 by Paul”

1. This was hard to get started on but ended up being quite enjoyable once I got to SILLY POINT 🙂 I solved quite a few and parsed them after guessing an answer.

   I could not parse 27ac.

   Favourites: UNTOLD, NINJA, DREAMBOAT, HINDQUARTERS (loi).

   New for me: musical ON THE TOWN.

   Thanks, both.

2. Enjoyed it; thanks for 27ac & 23d, I got them but didn’t know how!

3. Too many clever tricks for my liking – felt this was more of a prize puzzle than a daily. Got there in the end, but couldn’t parse 14, 18/28, 25, 27 across, 1, 3, 15, 17 down.

   Hind? Really?

   Thanks manehi for the blog, and grudgingly thanks to Paul.

4. The usual high qualty puzzle from Paul. Two references to cricket in this one, LEG ( = the ON side ) and SILLY POINT to give additional challenges to our overseas friends !

   I had ticks for WHEN THE CHIPS ARE DOWN,
   EMANCIPATE, FISSION, ON THE TOWN and SAMOSA.

   Here’s a haunting number from ON THE TOWN – the musical – typically Bernstein and impactful ( “Lonely Town” )

   https://youtu.be/T7UK916DHT8

   Thank you Paul and manehi.

5. Good crossword, with some clever constructions: I liked MOTIF, SINGLET, 50-50, IMITATED, HEIGHTEN, NINJA and the long anagram was well put together with a good surface.

   I missed the significance of HIND (groan! should this have a homophone indicator?). FISSION for me is ‘split’ rather than ‘splitter’. ‘It’/SA is getting beyond a joke. And two cricket references in one puzzle is OTT for me – this isn’t the Telegraph!

   Grumbles notwithstanding I enjoyed this a lot.

   Thanks to S&B

6. Crispy @3., re HIND. Yes, it was, I seem to recall, especially Steve Bell in his cartoons for the G who would render the queen’s (and I think also Philip’s) cut-glass upper-class vowels in this way, so Bell’s version of her would always say ‘hice’ for ‘house’. Ergo, HIND for ‘hound’.

7. I was somewhat dismayed to see plenty of commenters on the G’s own site suggest that this was Paul at his more approachable. I think I had two on first pass through the grid and, when the second pass produced only another two, I went and did something else for a while. On returning, I managed to grind my way through to the end with a few reveals in the SW. I’d never have got SINGLET in a month of Sundays and was not on Paul’s wavelength for HEIGHTEN or DREAMBOAT. So a definite victory for the setter this morning.

   Thanks Paul and manehi

8. Gervase @5: I think ‘the old Queen’s’ is acting as the homophone indicator

9. And ‘ten thisand pinds’.

10. SC @6. Sorry, but if we’re going to be that obscure, the mark has been overstepped. I suspect we’ll just have to beg to differ on this one.

11. I loved the way Paul tied 5 across to the long anagram. And I can’t help wondering whether a nuclear family’s favourite meal is fission chips?

12. I’m with those who thought this was a more accessible Paul puzzle.
    My favourites matched manehi’s for the most part, with the addition of HEIGHTEN (for wordplay, rather than surface!). I particularly liked the sheer daftness of 5 and 18,28 – Goodness knows what summons up jokes from my childhood but I do remember ‘I’ve just been down to the Atomic Café for some nuclear fission chips’*, which I thought very clever at the time.

    I’m with Spooner’s flatcap and PostMark re HIND.

    * I’ve just ‘refreshed and seen that Blaise had the same thought. 😉

    Thanks to Paul for the fun and manehi for a good blog.

13. Lovely puzzle, and too good for me as I couldn’t parse SINGLET or the HIND in HINDQUARTERS, though in retrospect the latter is absolutely vintage Paul. If you can’t take a joke you shouldn’t have joined, as they say. And come to think of it, that phrase would make a brilliant composite answer for a Paulian clue.
    FISSION the clue of the week so far.
    Thanks to Paul and manehi.

14. I often find that I’m on Paul’s wavelength, although I was delay for a while by the pass and splitter homophones

15. I enjoyed this, apart from the cricket references which always irritate me. This time I knew silly but not silly point.
    I didn’t think much of old=falling to bits either.
    I didn’t recognise hound=hind, though it’s a common enough point in the UK at least. Hice=house, scite=scout etc.

16. I’m surprised nobody has jumped in yet to challenge Flea@4. Cricket is hardly an unknown sport “overseas”. Perhaps our regular Australian contrbutors can confirm this? – part of the culture, whether the sport is liked by individuals or not.

17. 1d: SA short for sex appeal, as in, ‘it’, is the sort of element to a clue that I really dislike, or at the very least is far too much of a stretch for me. Looking at a clue like 1d and making the link from ‘it’ to SA just isn’t going to happen in my case.

    I was able to work my way through most of the others without any such quibbles – challenging but enjoyable overall.

18. Old does not = falling to bits. I’m old, but I’m not falling to bits.
    1 ac could just as easily be ROASTED, imho.

19. Also, are regulate and normalise synonyms?

20. PostMark @8: Her Late Majesty may well have said something that sounds like HIND (although her accent did get somewhat less fruity as the years passed by) but I’m sure she would have written it as ‘hound’ (= dog) so it is a homophone clue with no specific indication apart from the question mark. A minor point and nothing to get too steamed up about – it’s a fun clue, though not strictly kosher IMHO.

21. I think normalise can mean regulate as in ‘regulate one breathing’ Lizzie.

22. Certainly found this on the chewier end of things, but, as ever with Paul, it revealed itself as all the best crossword should: wholly fair and provoking enough wry smiles and raised eyebrows to suggest a thoroughly good half hour’s diversion.

23. The brains a strange thing! I had finished about3/4 of this but was really struggling with the last few clues at the top of the grid. I took a break and on returning immediately saw how the definition part of 5ac worked. Like a number of clues today, this was very clever. I like the way Paul stretches the rules and brings something new. I failed to pass the same 2 as Manhattan@2 so thank you manehi for showing the way.

24. Not much to complain about here apart from the snail’s pace I went at
    But going slowly I enjoyed the scenery more
    Paul’s annoying habits were mostly ironed out in this
    So an uptick from me.
    (Heavy defeat is TONKING in my neck of the woods)

25. Thank you Manehi for clearing up several parsings.

    23D was my clear favorite once the penny dropped, and I got to learn about the poet Alfred Noyes.

    I found 14A and and 27A unsatisfactory though, the former a stretch and the latter rather contrived.

26. Re. 9A, up until the early 19th century, a “moment” was a specific duration, namely 1/40th of an hour, which equates to 90 seconds. Why people felt the need for a specific word for such an interval is a mystery to me!

27. First Monk in the FT then this tough one from Paul. Of the two I found this a bit less difficult and with fewer obscurities though like Charles @13 I had no hope parsing SINGLET or the HIND bit of HINDQUARTERS.

    The surface for DREAMBOAT was my favourite.

    Thanks to Paul and manehi

28. The chipless fish’n’ and the one t were pretty cute, ta Pnm.

29. I was stuck on 5a for a long time because FISSION is the process of splttING, not a splittER, and besides, I pronounce the word fiZHion, not fiSHion. I defy anyone to claim that they solved 15 directly from the cryptic half, rather than bunging the word in and figuring out how to parse it afterwards. HINDquarters was also a bit beyond the pale. As an Australian who nevertheless has absolutely no interest in cricket, I have finally become used to ON (and OFF)=LEG, but I did have to look up fielding positions to see what SILLY/___N_ might possibly have been.

30. Feel rather battered by a Paul one-two, having struggled with his recent Saturday offering. Thought he was at his gnarliest here today. Though I did enjoy dropping the tray with the tea and the fish and chips ‘n all when 5ac became clear, having solved the long anagram at 18,28 earlier. Had a speculative Mine in at 24d instead of the more suitable WELL, so that meant the SW corner was last to yield. When I know it’s a Paul puzzle I do always keep struggling on, knowing that I’ll be rewarded for my perseverance and things will eventually reveal themselves in the fog. Usually…

31. Managed to finish eventually. Some answers just slid in (8,13) others more of a struggle – NW corner. Like Lizzie was toying with ROASTED for 1a. Loved 5, 22, 13 and 23 but couldn’t parse 9 or 27 so many thanks Manehi and of course Paul. Incidentally, despite being totally uninterested in cricket, silly point was one of first in.

32. I made very slow progress with this; maybe I should have followed JerryG @23’s process.

    I liked the DUNNO/pass; the FA(i)R ENOUGH, which doesn’t seem to be in any of the main dictionaries but is in the Pan Crossword Dictionary and is accepted by Crossword Compiler, the IT copied in IMITATED, DREAMBOAT for the surface, HEIGHTEN with its all the holes together, and the NINJA German/English mishmash.

    Thanks Paul and manehi.

33. Thanks for the blog, very enjoyable puzzle. NINJA clever use of Playtex and even my German was good enough, SINGLET also very neat, like others I thought of Steve Bell for HIND , did not get it until I had quarters . FISSION I like the idea for the word play but I cannot equate it to splitter.
    MACO89@29, I solved it from the wordplay, little bit is nearly always TAD in a crossword so we have DA……T or D……AT , Rambo not much of a stretch and sweetheart invariably E .

34. Splendid stuff. Double ticks for 50-50, SINGLET & IMITATE. Sometimes a lack of specialist knowledge comes in handy as it did today with FISSION

    Cheers P&M

35. I failed to finish this, with a few not fully parsed and a couple unsolved, but reading the blog, I think the clues are fair enough and the failure is all mine. I think most, if not all, of the complaints made above are unjustified – just because you can’t solve / parse it doesn’t make it an unfair clue.
    Thanks Paul, I enjoyed what I could do and thanks Manehi for explaining those I couldn’t.

36. Thanks manehi as I did not understand the HIND nor spot the golf ref in 17d.
    Re 5a, i am another unhappy about the definition, maybe would prefer “Reportedly splitting…”, can anyone offer a definitive equivalence as stated?
    MACO89@29 you are right about 15d (and a few others) in my case at least and I spent a long time thinking that DR..AM was the “little bit” before the fluorescent tube flickered into life.
    A tough challenge for me but rewarding and particularly liked 22A, 27A and 23d, thanks Paul.

37. Thx to Paul for a real challenge, we almost gave up in the NW quadrant but stuck with it and finished.
    Favourites:
    FISSION
    EMANCIPATE
    FAR ENOUGH
    HEIGHTEN
    NINJA
    HINDQUARTERS
    Thanks to manehi for his blog.

38. Nothing much to add here. I did this last night; I remember raising an eyebrow at NINJA being defined as a spy—the pop-culture portrayal has them as more commando than spy–but it appears from some research this morning that the reality was different.

    I agree with those who found HIND not entirely kosher, and I admit I left that unparsed. I also agree with those who feel that the “it”=SA device needs to be given a nice long holiday someplace warm and remote.

    I have an unusual amount of cricket knowledge for an American, which is to say somewhat less than zero, so I did fine with both cricket references today. But I doubt many of my compatriots will have heard of SILLY POINT. We should write a crossword salted with baseball references and inflict it on you just for revenge purposes.

39. Thanks to Paul for the work out – tough but enjoyable. Some lovely surfaces (eg 5D, 15 and 25) and some excellent misdirection (6, 17, 27). Not too much of the seaside postcard humour today but still Classic Paul. Thanks to manehi for parsing the one’s I couldn’t. And, I’m with Sourdough@35 – inability to parse the clue doesn’t make it unfair.

40. I concur with those who aren’t happy with FISSION, meaning the act of splitting (I studied nuclear physics for my degree so I know a bit about it!). To me a ‘splitter’ is a large wedge you drive into a log to split it, when an ordinary axe isn’t enough. A pity because the wordplay is excellent.

    Failed to parse MOTIF, I was stuck on there having to be an S in it.

    I’m not sure the late Queen really did pronounce ‘hound’ as ‘hind’ – whatever Steve Bell et al may postulate! Perhaps one of her many recordings will set the record straight?

    STUFFED was a bit ambiguous: until I had crossers I thought it might be ROASTED.

    Otherwise excellent stuff from Paul. I put a big tick on WHEN THE CHIPS ARE DOWN but then I am a sucker for long anagrams! Thanks Paul and Manehi.

41. Roz, wots wrong with fission as (atom) splitter … ?

42. I found that tough – first time through I think I’d got about three answers – but it repaid the effort and I found it enjoyable to the end.
    Some brilliant stuff here, possibly WHEN THE CHIPS ARE DOWN being the pick of it, with, for me, HINDQUARTERS (once I’d had it explained to me) not far behind. It’s apparent that taking advantage of the characteristic Windsor mangling of “ou” is a step too far for some people, but I don’t think it’s any less fair than Cockney this or East Ender that. My difficulty with the clue was that the late Queen didn’t have hinds, or even hounds, she had corgis.
    I’m glad there is an acceptable parsing for 7 down. It being Paul, I couldn’t get past the indirect anagram I MATED (reproduced) + IT…
    Thanks to Paul for a fine puzzle and to manehi for explaining the parsings I didn’t get.

43. There’s no mention of nuclear physics in the clue for FISSION. Something that reproduces by dividing could surely be described as a splitter given that we’re in crosswordland and not a science lab?

44. FISSION is the process of division for a nucleus or a cell, the nucleus/cell could be called a splitter but not a fission .
    If something induces the fission , such as a neutron , this could be called a splitter but again not a fission. I cannot find any way to equate the two even roughly.

45. I must say I get a little miffed by criticism of clues involving sports terminology (mainly football & cricket) as being unfair to our friends around the world. They are absolutely welcomed to the party, but this is a British crossword site. I wouldn’t dream of commenting on an American crossword site (what’s that?) that I was unfamiliar with baseball terms. I happen have no interest in or knowledge of gardening or cookery, but obviously regard inclusion of references to such things as totally legitimate in a crossword.

46. Unlike AlanC yesterday I couldn’t finish this on my early morning flight to Catania. I needed a proper Italian espresso to get me over the line. I wondered for a while whether a fermion could act as a splitter, but couldn’t get the homophone to work.

47. Petert@46 a neutron is a fermion , it does induce fission in U-235 and Pu-239/241 so could be called a splitter. The definition works but as you say , not the wordplay.

48. Absolutely horrendous,not familiar with this setters style.

49. monkeypuzzler @45: I wasn’t criticizing anything. People too often mistake my comments about transatlantic cultural differences for complaints; I guess I’m doing it wrong. Either that or it’s another transatlantic cultural difference in that my sense of humor isn’t translating. Anyway, learning about such things is part of what I enjoy about this!

50. Brexit (sorry everyone) was both a ‘split’ from Europe and a ‘splitter’, in the sense of something that divided us from our neighbours. Similarly, marriage can be seen as both a union and a uniter of two people (at least in theory). War is both destruction and a destroyer, a heartbreak and a heart-breaker. The box that cricketers wear is both protection and protector. Manehi’s blog is both an explanation and an explainer, and Paul is a delighter and a delight.

51. [mrpenney @49, I always appreciate your humo(u)r. And thanks to your tip yesterday, if I ever plan to motor west, I shall take care when entering Cheyenne.]

52. essexboy @50: Almost convincing, but not quite. Words like ‘union’ can describe both a process and the result. FISSION is the process of splitting, neither the result – split (fissure!), nor the agent – splitter.

    [mrpenney @49: Your humor also comes over to me loud and clear! Have you ever heard this quotation from Shaw? ‘The English are not a very spiritual people, so they invented cricket to give them some idea of eternity’. ]

53. Good fun, and reasonably smooth – I was undoubtedly helped by getting WHEN THE CHIPS ARE DOWN pretty quickly. The Queen’s pronunciation isn’t a common device, nor is it particularly obvious (unlike, say ‘Connery’s’), but I suppose there was a question mark. Parsed neither that nor SINGLET!

    DUNNO was my stand-out, but I also enjoyed RAMBO’s appearance (perhaps more obvious than my initial instinct of HE-MAN!)

    Thanks Paul & manehi.

54. Gervase @52, if fission produces two (or more), where previously there was one, how can it not be a splitter? I think it’s about a different way of viewing the word, not a dispute about the science. Every process is also an effecter. Creation creates, expansion expands, fission fissures.

55. Like JerryG@23 I came back to this one after a short break and polished it off although NINJA was unparsed by me as was HIND. I thought NINJA was a Japanese warrior or a turtle.
    Thanks Paul and manehi

56. Like the turkey in 1a I was thoroughly stuffed today. Didn’t help that I had “mine” for 24a. On the subject of hind/hound here’s the Two Ronnies taking it to the extreme

57. essexboy @54: I think your argument is a wee bit teleological 🙂

58. Upper class shoppers

59. [Gervase @52: Along the same lines, Shaw also wrote, “Baseball has the great advantage over cricket of being sooner ended.” Though that’s the last compliment that essay throws the sport, if I recall correctly–and a backhanded compliment at that.]

    Tim @55: Apparently real-life ninjas functioned variously as assassins, commandos, what we’d today call black-ops agents, warriors, and (yes) spies. Basically anything that was considered insufficiently honorable for the Samurai warrior code.

60. I wasn’t enamoured with the clue for FISSURE as it doesn’t rhyme with FISHER in my idiolect. Apparently the version with the ‘French j’ or ‘Russian zh’ sound is mainly an Americanism and a secondary pronunciation even there according to most dictionaries but I prefer the analysis in both the Routledge Pronunciation Dictionary and Wikipedia which allows for the ‘zh’ form in British English too (as I’m British and I say it that way).

61. I mean ‘Wiktionary’ not ‘Wikipedia’ in the comment above

62. Thanks both.

    I can echo the experience of those who find this a bit of a Pauline ask, but I grind away and suddenly – only two left! To reveal or not to reveal? Further thought and DREAMBOAT led quickly to the hilarious HINDQUARTERS (which I was delighted not to have to reveal). Cheesily pleased – whose rind is it?

63. Paul is my favorite setter and I thought a few of the clues (5A, 27A, 17D) were brilliant. Like a previous poster, I could do without the cricket references. I vote for more rugby, less cricket. Maybe it’s just me, but when I think of American dough I think of dollars, not quarters. Someone with a lot of dough is unlikely to have pockets full of quarters. Also, not a fan of the HIND wordplay. Enjoyable solve—hope to see Paul for the weekly Prize puzzle.

64. Usually when people around here mention “the old queen”, they are referring to me, so it’s use as a homophone indicator went completely over my head.

    Paul is my favorite setter but this was far and away the most difficult of his puzzles that I’ve ever come across. I had to come here for the parsing of about 25% of the clues (thanks manehi!) and I ended up having to reveal about an equal number especially in the top half of the puzzle (really? SILLY POINT is a thing?)

65. What Lizzy @18 said. She took the words right out of my mouth

66. LongTimeLurker @60. The answer to 5ac is fission not fissure (as in fish’n’chips)

67. BlueDot @64: Point is a cricket fielding position right about in the direction from the wicket of what in baseball we’d call a pull hitter would hit the ball. Distance from the hitter is defined with words like deep, mid-, short, and (if it’s really short) silly. So if you’re fielding at silly point, you’re basically expecting what in baseball would be a pop-up to first. People have been laughing at this name for probably centuries, but it’s just a combination of “point” (the direction) and “silly” (the distance).

68. A toughie for me *shakes fist at cricket* but worth fighting through for some very fun wordplay. I needed manehi’s parsing for several—thank you for that and for the little mermaid reference 🙂

69. [Mr Penney @67: no not a pull hitter. A batter hitting to point is hitting the ball the other way (hence called the “off” side), not across the body, which requires a swivel of the hips]

70. What a lot of convoluted solutions! What a lot of bung-and-huhhh??

    This meaning of STUFFED was new to me. Must be Brit. I do know that “silly” has something to do with cricket, though I have no idea what, and this time I managed to remember that leg=on.

    The “hind” part of HINDQUARTERS left me baffled, so thanks manehi for reminding me that some people live in a tine hice.

    The heartbroken Newton-John is a new extreme in lift and separate. Never could have figured it out. And even more for SINGLET! (M)onet = one T = Single T! And Noyes = no yes = nein ja minus the E. Oh, my! Thanks, manehi. And who’d-a thunk of FAIR ENOUGH for OK?

    FIFTY-FIFTY accounts for the two L’s in LEVEL, but what’s with the middle? And why all caps?

    Myself, I think that there is no word in English where SS is voiced, or pronounced like ZH. Fission rhymes with mission, not vision. That’s my lexicon anyway. Fission always goes with chips.

    Late to reply, probably no one will read this except manehi. Thanks to manehi and as ever Paul.

71. Bayleaf@66 That was a bit of a brain fart, I should’ve said ‘fission’ not ‘fissure’ but I would have the same issue if the clue was different and the answer was ‘fisher’.

72. Valentine@70 the LEVEL is in caps, I think, to hint at the Roman numeral at either end, or “both sides”, which is why we don’t need the middle for the wordplay although of course the whole word acts as a definition. I was thrown at first by the “so” but think it is intended to help flesh out the definition further. Without the “so” maybe it could be &lit. Essexboy thanks from me too for a noble attempt, though I think the existence of “fissure” does weaken that argument. I was once caught at silly mid on after a mistimed drive bounced off silly point’s head.

73. Late to the show again, but I had to join in the discussion of cricket terminology.

    Quenbarrow@16 seems to think that overseas means Australia (and New Zealand, India, Pakistan, etc.) Most Canadians and Americans have little if any knowledge of cricket. Having said that, I admit that one of the things I like about UK cryptics is that it teaches me a bit about cricket and rugby terminology. When I’m stuck on a clue with all the crossers in place, I just fill in the blanks with letters that sound plausible and assume that the answer is a cricket or rugby term. I’m almost always right. If you can say “silly mid-off” with a straight face, you have found a sport that has to be taken seriously.

    I found this puzzle very difficult and very rewarding. There were many great clues; my favourites were the lone T at 27a, the sly romantic interloper at 15d, the Japanese highwayman at 23d, and the hidden golf course at 17d. This was Paul at his devious best.

74. [Valentine @70, how about scission? The -ss- is normally pronounced /ʒ/, parallelling the /z/ sound in scissors. Curiously though, scission and scissors are from two different Latin roots. Also curiously, scission is close in meaning to schism (from Greek, but same PIE root), which is the only word I know in which SCH can be pronounced as /s/.]

75. MAC089@29. In defiance of your defiance, I solved 15d after getting TAD and seeing where it would fit in the crossers. The last part was then obviously BOAT and the full answer followed immediately. I wouldn’t have been able to do that yesterday – it was one of those days when synonyms were hard to retrieve from the memory banks. Probably because I’m ‘falling to bits’!

    I thought FISSION was a classic (though I did query the definition’s accuracy), Monet’s vest was outrageous, and the old Queen’s HIND was fun. I’ll bet it took me longer to solve this puzzle than Paul took to set it.

    I’m getting a little tired of the gripes about SA and IT, and cricket references in general. They are well established conventions. Get used to them. 🙂

    Thanks to Paul and manehi.

76. A third passing thought for 1a: PLUCKED. Too cautious to enter either that or ROASTED until the crossers proved both wrong.

77. I’m shaking my head in disbelief at Eileen’s extraordinary first sentence; as a seasoned solver, I’m surprised she could make such a comment. Yes, it was “accessible” to me, and Eileen, but I would never have described it as such. And the general feeling in comments here does not support her view. I do hope her opinion hasn’t frightened weaker solvers!

    Paul is a top favourite for me. His originality of construction never ceases. I’ve said it many times before (and keep on doing so) how does he do it?

    And what on earth is wrong with the amusing use of QE2’s pronunciation? Lack of creativity can lead to stagnation and for those of us who have to bear the burden of solving most Grauniad cryptics in short order (but aren’t allowed to mention it – unlike slower solvers whose shortcomings are welcome for broadcast) anything new, or different, is most welcome

    Many thanks, both and all

Comments are closed.