Guardian 29,134 – Paul

100 comments on “Guardian 29,134 – Paul”

1. It was unusually easy wasn’t it? Strategist vs tactician – yes they are, strictly speaking, two different things but in common (political) parlance, commonly interchangeable. I think we can forgive Paul!

2. Thanks, Paul and Andrew!
   Liked INSIPID (call me tasteless!), MUSK MELON (deer to me and more!), WILLY WONKA (A sweet Dahl recipe!), IS THAT SO (hats off! Firing on all cylinders!) and ONWARD (INWARD thought was brief. Got ONWARD soon).

3. Another one wondering about IN WARD. Liked the 1p sofa. Thanks Paul, and Andrew for the crystal clear blog.

4. Until fairly recently I steered clear of Paul’s crosswords but I’ve successfully completed the last few. Are they getting easier or am I getting smarter?

   I must lead a sheltered life but I can’t see where Johnson comes into 22a. Didn’t know Troon was a Scottish golf course, unsurprisingly. Learnt a new meaning for DIET. Never heard of musk melons; are they what we call rockmelons and Americans call canteloupes?

   Favourites were CANADA GOOSE & LIABILITY.

   Thanks Paul & Andrew.

5. Typical Paul.

6. Glad others found this easy. Not so for me. I needed several goes, then several more for parsing. The parsing of CANADA GOOSE eluded me.
   Thanks Paul and Andrew

7. COLD COMFORT
   With the ‘promise’ in place, does the clue become a cryptic definition with a wordplay?
   Ice-COLD luxury (COMFORT?) is promised but that’s no consolation. Or does ‘promise’ have to be
   interpreted in some other way?

8. It is a long time since I enjoyed one of Paul’s puzzles this much.

   Many favourites: LIABILITY, WILLY WONKA (for its subtle dig at Boris Johnson), TACTICIAN, LOVERS TIFF, BARNACLE, AGE BRACKET, WIGGLY, CANADA GOOSE (loi).

   New for me: MUSK MELON.

   Thanks, both.

9. It took me a while to get started but otherwise it was at the more straightforward end of Paul’s work. Some clever definitions (not least 22ac) and some much missed Paulian smut (also 22ac).
   Much thanks Paul and Andrew.

10. GDU@4
    Wiki agrees with you!

    The cantaloupe, rockmelon (Australia and New Zealand, although cantaloupe is used in some states of Australia), sweet melon, or spanspek (Southern Africa) are a type of fruit. They are classified as a melon that is a variety of the muskmelon species (Cucumis melo) from the family Cucurbitaceae.

11. Yes fairly easy for Paul. Unusual for me to complete without a break. HANDSOME made me wince as I was carelessly looking for a 4 letter solution. I don’t understand why an 8 letter word is in 2 bits. Wouldn’t two separate clues of 4 be better?
    But managed to parse everything which is rare.
    Thanks Andrew and Paul

12. Agree that this was straightforward. Classic Paul, though. Birds, genitalia, outrageous puns/homophones, always a pleasure.
    Thanks to Paul, and Andrew.

13. Tim @11. Interesting point re the split HAND SOME. I raised a similar point recently when START OFF was split across two four-letter words and was in a small minority who thought it wasn’t right.

14. Paul Lite for me, probably the quickest I’ve done one of his. Although my LOI was CANADA GOOSE for which I needed all the crossers and did not parse. I think the two-step nature of duck>nothing>NADA is a little cheeky though.

    WILLY WONKA was fabulous. MUSK MELON was new to me but the clue led me there. That meaning of DIET is something I will attempt to file away.

    Thanks both!

15. My experience was like JerryG’s @9 – very little on first pass but with a few entries solved the rest fell out quite easily. It wasn’t helped by my being convinced that ‘cunning’ in 1dn was ‘sly’ rather than ‘wily’. Consequently the NW quadrant was the last to yield.

    Entertaining puzzle with some nice constructions, though rather at the expense of the smoothness of the surfaces (LANCE is a notable exception). Good to see a bit of smut and a bit of chemistry. I agree that tactics aren’t the same as strategy, but for once Paul has devised an amusing homophone clue without the contentious R 🙂

    Lots of ticks from me, including LOVERS TIFF, IPSO FACTO, AGE BRACKET, CANADA GOOSE – and POLTROON, because it’s such a great word.

    Thanks to Paul and Andrew

16. Good fun and at the less difficult end of the spectrum for Paul. GDU @4, I had the same question about ‘Johnson’ (in fact it’s ‘johnson’); looking it up in Green’s Dictionary of Slang, it is a slang term for “penis”. So now I know.

    My favourites were POLTROON (good word) and working out the not so obvious parsing for CANADA GOOSE.

    Thanks to Paul and Andrew

17. Paul really is a master of aural wordplay, and not a contentious one among them today, as Gervase points out.

18. [That meaning of DIET I have always remembered from an important historical incident. In 1521 the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, summoned Martin Luther to a conference in the German city of Worms, in response to a papal bull from Leo X. Luther refused to recant and was excommunicated, thereby setting off the Protestant Reformation. The conference is always referred to as the Diet of Worms (cue schoolboy snigger)]

19. I’ve struggled with some of Paul’s recent offerings but this one hit the sweet spot, being challenging but not impossible, and clued with scrupulous fairness.
    As others have observed, 22a sees the return of what used to be Paul’s trademark and reminds us of the droll coincidence that the most priapic Prime Minister since Lloyd George has a remarkably apt surname.
    I didn’t know MUSK MELON but the wordplay was so clear that I didn’t feel the need to look it up to check. And, having learned on here what kind of melon it actually is, I am happily reminded of a former colleague who had a remarkable talent for malapropisms (on one occasion, she emerged from the strongroom having cut her finger quite badly and bleeding like a stuck pig, and, thinking of haemophilia, cheerily announced “I must be an ‘ermaphrodite!”). Well, some time after that she was expecting her first child and had been shown one of those charts which tell you how big the growing infant is in terms of familiar fruit (peppercorn, blueberry, plum…) and declared that it was the size of a cantelope. “What’s one of those?” “I think it’s a kind of deer…”
    Some months later, with a homophone of which Paul would have approved, we were informed “She’s got a little dear”.
    Thanks to Paul and Andrew

20. Good puzzle – thanks to Paul and Andrew. To be pedantic: shellfish are molluscs whilst barnacles are crustaceans.

21. Thanks Paul and Andrew
    I had 8 unparsed – 5, 22, 26, 27, 5, 13, 17, and 20, so not a good performance from me. I’ve heard several names for penis, but Johnson isn’t one of them. I thought duck=nothing=NADA was unfair.
    Favourites the unobjectionable homophones TACTICIAN and LIABILITY. I won’t mention DYNAMITE – oh, I just did…

22. Thankyou both.
    The DIET of Worms is my mnemonic for this meaning.Thankyou Luther.
    I took a while to get into this, but when I had a few crossers it became much easier.
    I liked the puns and the WILLY and LOVER STIFF raised a smile.

23. Thank you for the enlightenment, Wordplodder @ 16. Gawd, how many more words for it do we need?

    KVa @ 10, there are very few regional variations of anything in Australia, but I did know that Melbournians call them canteloupe, whereas for most of the rest of the country they’re rockmelons. I doubt that many of us would have heard of a musk melon.

24. Angus @20: Not so. The carapace of crustaceans is commonly called a ‘shell’ (as in ‘shelled prawns’). And in any case, many species of barnacle have a casing of calcium carbonate like the shells of molluscs.

25. Hmm. I would have said that molluscs and crustaceans both come under the heading of shellfish. But I don’t want to get in a fight about it! ?

26. Fun puzzle. Thanks, Paul and Andrew. Liked the definition for WILLY WONKA – “character behind bars” had me initially guessing it would be a composer, in the usual crossword fashion. Nice misdirection.

    Mildly surprised so many are unfamiliar with the slang. I guess a lot of people haven’t seen The Big Lebowski – one of the (many) plot strands is some German nihilists threatening Jeff Bridges’ that they will cut off his Johnson.

27. Gervase@15. But isn’t DYNAMITE dineR might for rhotic speakers?

28. I think ‘johnson’ is an American usage; I first came across it in the film ‘The Big Lebowski’. It’s another of the personal name synonyms like willy, peter and the rather old fashioned John Thomas.

29. What a great way to start the day, so many smiles and chuckles. Thanks Paul, and Andrew for help parsing a few.

30. paddymelon @27: Yes indeed – I was referring only to the clue for TACTICIAN. DYNAMITE and LIABILITY both fall into Paul’s usual rhotacism trap.

31. So tried to fit GUANO (bird do) in 1a and even 20/9 (duck muck). Anyone else?

    [KVa@2. Please don’t stop. If the crossword is a fizzer we’ve still got you to look forward to.]

32. Gervase @ 28, you had me wondering where I’d heard “John Thomas”. Then I remembered it was the song in the restaurant in The Meaning of Life. No mention of Johnson there though, if my memory serves me correctly.

    Let’s change the subject …

33. Paddymelon, are you a variety of musk melon?

34. paddymelon@31
    🙂 Noted for ‘compliance’!
    I knew ‘fizzer’ in the sense of ‘excellent’. Your sentence seemed to indicate something else. Looked up ‘fizzer’.
    You guys…I mean…er…you people use it in a negative sense.
    Interesting!

35. Gervase@30. Apologies. Misunderstanding on my part re the clue/s you were referring to with/without the ”rhotacism trap”.
    Had to check with my (Australian) husband about Johnson, which I’d never heard. He also gave the illustration of The Big Lebowski.

36. A very entertaining puzzle. LOVERS TIFF was nice and could I think be said to have an extended definition. MUSK MELON was clever, and reminiscent of the classic “Friend of Caesar, J., or the opposite (7)”.

    I thought “strategist” for TACTICIAN was ok in the very general sense of someone making plans.

    Gervase @30: how does 15d fall into the rhoticism trap? I don’t think anyone would put an R in either LIABILITY or “lie ability”.

    Many thanks Paul and Andrew.

37. I find that the only way I can cope with Paul’s crosswords- which I enjoy- is to start with the definition, find an answer that fits the spaces and then retrospectively parse it. This does sometimes lead me up blind alleys as today trying to make CUCKOO CLOCK work as an answer for 20,9.

38. [KVa@34, I didn’t know ‘fizzer” wasn’t universal in the sense we use it. I’ve always thought of it in terms of your fireworks not going off on ”cracker” (another contronym?) night, or possibly earlier with munitions in the war.]

    [GDU@33. No, I’ve told my story before as to how I chose my moniker, but, to be brief, I didn’t have in mind the pademelon/paddymelon the “poisonous melon which appears following rainfall and looks and smells edible”. It’s not all bad – the juice was used to treat skin infections, ringworm and scabies. (Bushtucker recipes)

    Instead, I deliberately misspelt the name of the cute, furry marsupial pademelon in recognition of my second generation Irish/Australian dad who was intelligent, and fond of punning, and taught me the love of language when he had almost no education himself. paddy melon, geddit? 🙂

39. Some days it’s a puzzle that sparkles, and this one did for me. I ticked more than a dozen clues and laughed out loud at a couple. Some real little gems here with top favourites probably the three from the animal kingdom, 1a WAGTAIL (my LOI), 28a ECHIDNA and 20d,9a CANADA GOOSE. It was kind of fun to find “explosive” in the consecutive clues at 8d (DYNAMITE) and 13d (SMARTWATCH) – one of which was a definition and the other an anagram indicator. I was unfamiliar with MUSK MELON at 10a (as Geoff Down Under@4 said, it’s a rockmelon in most parts of Australia – and thanks for extra info, KVa@10) and 7d POLTROON, but the crossers helped (and some vague memory of TROON as a place in Scotland for the latter).
    A clever, clever puzzle and so enjoyable. Many thanks to Paul for the entertaining challenge, and to Andrew for a great blog.

40. Gervase @28 – interestingly, that use of John Thomas seems to have developed from an earlier use meaning a liveried footman “popularly represented with large calves and bushy whiskers”.

41. [Thanks paddymelon@38 for repeating the story of how you came up with your pseudonym, which I hadn’t seen before. I did wonder if you were taking on the name of the little furry creature but then thought you had misspelt it if so. Love the Irish-Australian connection with your Dad in this backstory.]

42. I love rockmelon. My favourite fruit by far. Got one in the fridge right now. Only you gotta be careful. It can harbour toxins in the outer, dimpled skin. Always take that off on a different surface to the one you slice it up on. Seriously. Be warned.
    Liked the clue 10A too. I thought it was funny and clever.

43. Good puzzle from one of my favourite setters. Unthinkingly had inward instead of ONWARD. No problem with duck=NADA – no more convoluted than Johnson=WILLY; and I liked both these clues.. Angus@20 – octopuses are molluscs but generally wouldn’t be classed as shellfish, which to me means any marine creature with a hard external shell. Couldn’t care less about homophones being inexact. Favourites aleady mentioned by others.
    Thanks Paul and Andrew.

44. Crispy @13 and Tim @11
    I’m not keen on splitting solutions across lights either, but it happens sometimes and seems to be generally accepted. The convention is that both parts must also be words. The enumeration in the clue makes it clear when it happens.

45. Such a personal pleasure to see Paul’s name as setter for the day. Took a while to see the I’M component to satisfy what was obviously LIMIT as the answer to 4d. I was also trying to fit Sly rather than Wily round the bird required at 1ac. And apart from not being able to parse CANADA GOOSE, and nho the MUSK MELON juicy fruit, thoroughly enjoyed this. Liked DYNAMITE most of all…

46. [JiA,@41, ta, before I get modded out]

47. Lord Jim @36: You’re quite right. Sorry! 🙁

48. Successfully navigated the Inward/Onward trap, but used wile instead of wily for cunning in 1d, leading to Wiggle rather than Wiggly for not going straight. So a near miss today, but no less enjoyable for that…..thanks to Paul for the puzzle and to Andrew for the blog

49. Yes, was easy for Paul but by no means a doddle and some lovely witty clues many of which needed a helping of inspiration (22a, 1a). Loved Musk Melon. Got smartwatch as my grandson’s got one. Like Gervase @15 was initially held up by thinking sly at 1d until got 1a then raced to the finish. Great fun. Thanks Paul and Andrew

50. KVa@7 – “promise of luxury at ice hotel”
    I took it as: you’d be promised luxury – COMFORT – at any hotel – depending on the veracity of its advertising. At an ice hotel it would be COLD.
    Took TIARA as another extended def.

51. [paddymelon @42 thanks for the extra info about (poisonous) rock melons which I hadn’t heard before, although my (Australian) wife, when I read it out to her, knew about it. Amazing what you learn on a crossword forum. 🙂 ]

52. Looked up POLTROON – knew it as an insult, but not what it actually meant.
    Found lots of words to apply to an ex-PM known for his LIE ABILITY, whose surname means WONKA’s first name:
    ‘An ignoble or total coward; a dastard; a mean-spirited wretch.
    1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 38, in The History of Pendennis
    “Strong had long understood ___’s character, as that of a man utterly weak in purpose, in principle, and intellect, a moral and physical trifler and poltroon.”

53. Thanks for the blog, not much jumping around for once, only 9Ac was not in the normal clue order. I liked WILLY WONKA for the “behind bars” , WIGGLY for the “stolen goods” and BARNACLE for the NaCl . Shellfish does not really have a scientific meaning, it does include the molluscs and crustaceans.
    I stared at the final comma for 27Ac for quite a while , then decided it was just a misprint.

54. Roz@53. Me too about the missing comma. .I’m so sad. Where is essexboy?

55. [PDM@54 I hope he is okay , maybe just taking a break , some people do, ]

56. I failed to parse 20D/9A although it’s obvious in hindsight. POLTROON was new to me. Loved “behind bars”

    My dictionary has MUSKMELON as one word, but it didn’t cause a problem for me because I came up with the answer and then reached for the dictionary to verify it existed.

    Thank you Paul and Andrew

57. WordPlodder@16 – Green’s Dictionary of Slang suggests this etymology of Johnson = WILLY:
    https://greensdictofslang.com/entry/3opahki
    ‘…the erect penis therefore being called the Johnson bar, by confusion with an actual railroading term for a large phalliform brake handle.’
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnson_Bar_(locomotive)
    Wikipedia is shtum on the subject of willies – wonky or otherwise.
    I’d like to see him “behind bars”

58. But the more probable etymology is ‘analogous with jock or jack; later use link to boxing champion Jack Johnson (1878–1946)’

59. FrankieG@50
    Thanks for your response.
    COLD COMFORT: the first def is pretty straightforward.
    On the second part of the clue, I was making a point.
    ‘Luxury at an ice hotel’ can be whimsically translated as ‘COLD COMFORT’.
    The surface doesn’t work well without the ‘promise’. That part is clear.

    Instead of a DD, if I consider it as a CD, it works for me.
    The ‘promise of luxury…’ seems to work for everyone. To me, it is COLD COMFORT (ref def 1). 🙂

    Wait a sec.
    Is ‘promise of luxury’ the same as ‘the promised luxury’? Is that what you mean?

60. Widdersbel@26 – Wiktionary quotes exactly that:
    ‘1998, Joel and Ethan Coen, The Big Lebowski (motion picture), spoken by The Dude (Jeff Bridges):
    “‘F*ck your sympathy! I don’t need your sympathy, man, I need my f*cking Johnson!”‘

61. I learnt ‘johnson’ from this scene (The Crown):
    https://www.facebook.com/NetflixUK/videos/the-crown-princess-margarets-limericks/2412466159003365/

62. Slowly pieced this one together but a satisfying solve.

    I’m glad to see others quoting The Big Lebowski – it ‘s a great film! I liked HANDSOME, which was well-hidden (why do some people not like split answers, they seem fun to me?), WILLY WONKA for the definition, and the wordplay in AGE BRACKET.

    Thanks Paul and Andrew.

63. KVa@59
    Yes, one would expect COMFORT at a hotel – any hotel would promise it, if it wanted any clients – so it is ‘the promised luxury’. I don’t think it quite works as a CD. But how about TIARA as an extended def?

64. FrankieG@63
    TIARA
    You are right. It works well as an extended def.

65. KVa@61 – I don’t watch The Crown and I don’t do Facebook, but it let me on long enough to watch the clip. 🙂
    ‘…Johnson | Where’s the rest of it? | I believe everyone thought that was long enough… | (pause) | …As it were’ 🙂
    In the next pause left by Jason Watkins as Harold Wilson, I managed to work out “North Carolina” and what to rhyme it with. 🙂
    Were you Googling DYNAMITE and Johnson, by any chance?

66. FrankieG@65
    I was googling for this particular scene. 🙂
    In the series, they show that King George VI was fond of limericks. The purported Margaret-Johnson limerick contest
    probably never took place. In any case, some fun.

67. I spot yet another 50-year-old pop music reference and earworm – Mud’s DYNAMITE(1973)
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyna-mite
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQTvsM9_Vck

68. Oops – forgot the hyphen – DYNA-MITE – It even plays with the same homophones if you’re non-rhotic:
    “And by the way she’s moving well DINAH MIGHT | Might she not, with all she’s got
    She’s got the whole town lighting up dynamite | Nobody quite knows what to do wrong or right
    But they all know Dyna is dynamite | And they’re right”

69. Andrew, thanks for parsing IPSO FACTO.

    Never heard of the TROON golf course.

    Thanks, Paul and Andrew.

70. [Next year’s (British) Open Golf Tournament will be at Troon.]

71. Thanks to Paul for another excellent puzzle. A slow start which became an enjoyable romp. 24d introduced me to a new meaning of the world.
    Favourites:
    WAGTAIL
    IPSOFACTO
    CANADA GOOSE
    WILLY WONKA.
    TACTICIAN 🙂
    Thanks to Andrew for the blog and for helping with a couple that we couldn’t parse.

72. One of my rare attempts at a Paul puzzle. Managed to fill in the grid but needed the blog to explain 20,9 CANADA GOOSE and maybe an explanation for the comma in 27a. Still don’t really understand 18a SLAVE LABOUR, although I obviously got the anagram. I liked 7dn POLTROON as I enjoy deriving the answer when I don’t actually know the word. Thanks to Paul and to Andrew for the eplanations.

73. Is SMARTWATCH one word?

74. Frankie G @60. That is the usual quotation from The Big Lebowski, but the word seems to have been picked up by the Dude earlier from Maude Lebowski:

    MAUDE: … My art has been commended as being strongly vaginal. Which bothers some men.The word itself makes some men uncomfortable. Vagina.
    DUDE: Oh yeah
    MAUDE: Yes, they don’t like hearing it and find it difficult to say. Whereas without batting an eye a man will
    refer to his “dick” or his “rod” or his “Johnson”.
    DUDE: “Johnson”?

75. Generally I would skip Paul on a Friday but the Guardian thread hinted that this was on the gentle side. I gave it a go and liked it quite a bit. I used a word finder for ECHIDNA and couldn’t parse WONKA, CANADA, and TROON but all else made sense. I ticked TACTITIAN, IS THAT SO, and BARNACLE as favourites. I enjoyed the Johnson discussion and I wondered if Paul ever incorporated the names Peter, Dick, Willie along with Johnson in a clue. Thanks to both.

76. Never heard of johnson for penis

    MUSK MELON made me smile. Also liked TACTITION and IS THAT SO.

    DYNAMITE not so much – wondered why Dinah might be the consumer with power

    Thanks Paul and Andrew

77. I liked 2d – “Funky, like an LP?” – GROOVY because it reminded me of being on holiday, driving in France years ago, listening to Radio Funky Groovy (FG).
    They played my kind of music, and my initials came up on the dashboard. It felt like my own private radio station.
    And “Funky” is how my eldest nephew (now 44) first pronounced my name.

78. Balfour@74 – so The Dude had only just learnt the word “Johnson” – a tilt for him, and one for me too.
    That word that “makes some men uncomfortable” is what rhymes with North Carolina in KVa’s link @61.

79. [Gervase @18: It’s not only schoolboys who snigger at the Diet of Worms, but the Prince of Denmark himself. Hamlet informs Claudius of the location of the corpse of Polonius thus: “…not where he eats, but where he is eaten. A certain convocation of politic worms are e’en at him. Your worm is your only emperor for diet…”]

80. It is time that GROOVY made a comeback. When we do rotational dynamics I ask my students to calculate the numbers of grooves on an LP . They say “What is an LP? ” . I bring one in , let them take measurements, give them the 33and 1/3 RPM and tell them each side lasts 20 minutes. They do lots of calculations and then get very annoyed after when I tell them the answer.

81. Roz @80
    Ah, but do you play one for them to show them how it works?

82. Alas no, I cannot move our Linn Sondek around. It is far too delicate and valuable.
    They do see records being played in the clubs , it still happens.

83. [Roz @80: In the US vinyl records have become popular among young people and some vintage LP’s fetch high prices at flea markets.]

84. [Linn Sondek? Impressed, Roz! I’ve only known one person with one (till now…)]

85. [ Tony we have a huge vinyl collection from our respective parents, original 60s , early 70s first pressings. We added to it in the late 80s, when CDs came out people would sell their whole vinyl collection for a pittance.
    Muffin- hence the Linn ]

86. Loved this one. Did not parse CANADA GOOSE and like Gervase@15 spent time trying to CRAM SLY into 1d.
    POLTROON was the word I used as shorthand for my daughter’s early boyfriends (usually accompanied by feckless).
    My mnemonic for this meaning of JOHNSON is Boris.

87. Oh and Muffin@84 you now know two people with Linn Sondeks.

88. Great fun from Paul today and a blog to match – ‘I appreciate that’.

    Hardly a write-in though: a lot of different devices in play and only those familiar with Paul’s capacity for caprice and elasticity would have been on the front foot.

    IPSO FACTO is a term I would not normally trust myself to use but (ahem): – BARNACLEs, being clingy, are IPShO FACTO shelfish.

    Roz@80 (and muffin@): I put myself to considerable trouble recently to organise turntable, pre-amp, amp and speakers so that I could play LPs. The result?: landed back in the 1960s with the same rubbish record collection. Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be….

    TimW@86: your mnemonic gave me a chuckle.

    (TILT: I have no idea what a Linn Sondek is.)

89. Roz@80: I remember that someone once (probably in the 78 era) had the bright idea that two songs be put on the same side of a disc with separate grooves starting at diametrically opposite points. It wasn’t a success as it was too hard to start at the required place – and at loud points the needle would sometimes jump into the wrong one.

90. Roz, I have a Linn Sondek too. 🙂

91. [Balfour and FrankieG: As Widdersbel @26 noted, in The Big Lebowski the German Nihilists threaten the Dude that they will cut off his ‘johnson’. This scene is much earlier in the film than his first encounter with Maude.

    On another note, the Japanese Parliament is known in English as the National Diet]

92. Spike Milligan’s choice of name for a Johnson was Hampton (an army expression, no idea where it comes from) which might cause some consternation amongst American high society. On at least one occasion he got a character called Hugh Jampton past the BBC censors. Individual planks on the refurbished pier at Yarmouth on the Isle of Wight are named after donors, one of whom had that name, or said he had.

93. Pino@92 – I’ve come across Hampton with that meaning – believe it’s rhyming slang – Hampton Wick (place in London)/dick.

94. Pino @92: Rhyming slang – Hampton Wick

95. Relatively easy for a Paul puzzle, but very entertaining. Canada Goose had me beat despite having all the crossers 🙁
    And Willy Wonka was awesome!

96. PeterM@89 I have heard of this, perhaps because they only lasted 5 minutes. It has also been done as a bit of a joke by Monty Python and I think even Spike Milligan ( Pino@92) , you get a different track depending where you start.
    Geoff@92 we decided to indulge when all the sprogs had flown , we had a Rega Planar3 , great turntable at a fraction of the price and looks beautiful, but we passed it on to MiddleSprog with all our vinyl “doubles” .

97. bealieu@93, Gervase@94
    Thanks. Careful not to get your Hampton Court.

98. One way of insulting Boris Johnson online (a laudable activity) is to simply call him ‘the Johnson’ though I had heard of it before ‘BJ’/‘BoJoke’/‘BoJo the Clown’ became Prime Minister (not that ‘Kid Starver’/‘Keith Stalin’/‘Starmer the Harmer’ is any better.).

99. Back in the day, it always amused me that Trump was British slang for a fart and Johnson was American slang for a prick.

100. Like Matematico @72, I don’t really get the “extended definition” in 18ac (SLAVE LABOUR), although the wordplay makes perfect sense.

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