Guardian 29,217 – Paul

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Thursday fun from Paul. I can’t fully explain 14d, but I’m sure I’ll soon be enlightened. Resolved – thanks to KVa. Thanks to Paul.

 
Across
8 DEMONISE Dress up as Satan, passing masks on (8)
ON “masked by” DEMISE (death, passing)
9 CROWNS Those Charles has? (6)
CR (Carolus Rex, King Charles) + OWNS, &lit
11 SANSKRIT Language teacher finally coming in naked? (8)
Last letter of teacheR in SANS KIT (without clothes, naked)
12 EDIT Check articles etc. translated: Italian features (4)
Hidden in translatED ITalians
13 NUDIST CAMP Naughty pic with dustman where everything exposed (6,4)
(PIC DUSTMAN)*
15 BIRIANI Indian dish I found beside one fed to no Messiah? (7)
I in BRIAN (“he’s not the Messiah, he’s a very naughty boy”) + I
16 FALAFEL Middle Eastern food: some not quite in season for Americans (7)
A FE[w] in FALL
18 CHELSEA BUN Cake: endless sweetener on the side (7,3)
CHELSEA (football team, side) + BUN[g] (bribe, sweetener)
19 CHIC Bird unable to fly having lost right wing, dashing (4)
CHIC[k]
20 OKLAHOMA State where house secured by goodish priest? (8)
HO (house) in OK LAMA
22 CHILLI FLAKES Hot ingredient provided in cold water (6,6)
IF (provided) in CHILL LAKES
23 USED UP Pseud sacked by bureau ultimately finished (4,2)
[burea]U + PSEUD*
24 ENERGISE Switch on back of appliance is green, possibly (8)
[applianc]E + (IS GREEN)*
Down
1 SEALED WITH A KISS As is ‘billet-dou’ in ‘a billet-doux‘? (6,4,1,4)
“billet-dou” needs to have an X added, i.e. to be SEALED WITH A KISS, to make a billet-doux, and love letters are often said to be this
2 POCKET BILLIARDS Lido with black stripe, swimming pool (6,9)
(LIDO BLACK STRIPE)*
3 DISSONANCE Conflict is over issue about which steps taken (10)
IS + SON in DANCE (steps)
4 SEASIDE Resort where character took a deep breath, audibly? (7)
Homophone of “C (letter, character) sighed”
5 SCAN Study that’s barely sufficient, curtailed (4)
SCAN[t]
6 PORK SCRATCHINGS Local favourite takes nothing from disappointing mark in college (4,11)
POOR (disappointing) less O + SCRATCH (mark) in KING’S (college, at Cambridge and elsewhere)
7 ANTI‑IMPERIALIST Standing against British rule where one is stymied by parliament, is it an omnishambles? (4-11)
I (one) in (PARLIAMENT, IS IT)*
14 SWAN‑NECKED Elegant poet drank (4-6)
NECKED is “drank”, but I can’t find a poet called Swan (though there are plenty of poems about
swans), so I must be missing something
17 ABRADES Nail in rising water wears away (7)
BRAD (nail) in reverse of SEA
21 OOPS Oh no ducks, I nearly forgot! (4)
O O (zeroes, ducks) + PS (postscript – “I nearly forgot”)

78 comments on “Guardian 29,217 – Paul”

  2. What on earth are pork scratchings? The only reason I got it was that after completing all intersecting clues, that’s all that would fit. The wordplay was no help. Further investigation reveals it’s the British version of our pork crackling, it seems.

    CHELSEA BUN is another UK tidbit that I had no hope of parsing.

    Otherwise it was a slow and steady solve, my only other discovery being that a brad is a nail.

  3. Collins-Swan
    2. rare, literary
    a. a poet
    b. (capital when part of a title or epithet)
    the Swan of Avon (Shakespeare)

  7. A classic Paul experience this morning insofar as the initially intimidating grid and unfathomable set of clues gradually opened up and resulted in a thoroughly enjoyable solve. DEMONISE, CROWNS, NUDIST CAMP, CHILLI FLAKES, POCKET BILLIARDS and SWAN-NECKED were favourites with BIRIANI COTD for the delightful Messiah reference. Not a complaint but I am more familiar with S.W.A.L.K. as the motto scribbled on the flap of a love letter with the L standing for loving. A slight raised eyebrow for resort = SEASIDE, even though Chambers says Any area that borders the sea, esp one popular as a holiday resort. They don’t feel like synonyms: resort feels it’s either a named place or a series of holiday facilities; seaside a more general allusion.

    Thanks Paul and Andrew

  8. Fairly straightforward for Paul (with no dependency between the clues, for a change), but witty and enjoyable. Liked 15 and 20 even though they were easily solved. Didn’t look further than ‘the Swan of Avon’ for 14d, so good to know that swan can denote any poet. Unlike Kva, SEALED WITH A KISS wasn’t one of my favourite clues as it seems a bit contrived, though Paul seems fond of the device, but chacun a son goût. Thanks Paul and Andrew.

  10. GDU @2, Sloes (in lovely gin) yesterday?, and now pork scratchings….? You need to widen your tastes. 🙂

    paddymelon @6. LOL

    I’m now waiting for the homophone police to complain about SEASIDE.

  11. Tomsdad@8
    To start with I didn’t know ‘billet-doux’ meant a love letter. Then found out ‘billet-dou’ wasn’t a real word.
    Still, when I read the surface with the above newly acquired knowledge, it appealed to me a lot. Unless SEALED WITH A KISS, what’s a love letter (it remains incomplete)?
    Kinda found the whole thing superPaulistically lovely!

  12. Very friendly grid, I thought, with the extreme accessibility of the long down clues making it one of my quickest-ever Pauls, I think. Liked SANSKRIT and SEASIDE, very Paulian. Thanks to him and Andrew.

  13. I thought that ‘billet-dou’ needed to be SEALED WITH “a X” – that is, sealed at both ends – to give ‘a billet-doux’. Thanks, Paul, for an enjoyable crossie, and Andrew.

  15. This is one of those puzzles that remind me why Paul used to be one of my favourite setters – I really enjoyed it, especially 8ac DEMONISE, 11ac SANSKRIT, 13ac NUDUST COLONY, 15ac BIRIANI, 20ac OKLAHOMA, 24ac ENERGISE and 21dn OOPS.

    It was Ben Jonson who styled Shakespeare ‘(Sweet) Swan of Avon’ – see here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44466/to-the-memory-of-my-beloved-the-author-mr-william-shakespeare

    And an earworm to last me all day, I reckon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsvTtp-n_a0

    Many thanks to Paul and Andrew.

  16. Thank you for the blog, I needed it to parse CHELSEA BUN (my lack of interest in football, again) and “a few” in FALAFEL. Otherwise an enjoyable very Pauline crossword.

    Omnishambles was coined by The Thick of It to describe complete and utter disasters of management – a bit as the Covid enquiry is currently uncovering, and was OED word of the year in 2012 (the link to the BBC article).

    Thank you again to Andrew and Paul.

  17. Thanks Andrew, especially for the explanation of PORK SCRATCHINGS; that, and others, remind me that many of Paul’s clues especially are designed to be guessed at from crossers etc, then retrospectively parsed to provide the ‘aha’ moment. Much as I generally enjoy Paul’s challenges, never in a million years would I solve a whole puzzle of his from wordplay alone.

  18. Yes, this was fun, even if I couldn’t account for the AFE in FALAFEL or parse CHELSEA BUN or PORK SCRATCHINGS at all. As so often with Paul, it looked impenetrable at first, but gradually opened up. SANS K(R)IT and BIRIANI made me laugh, as did CR OWNS.

    “A billet-doux” is sealed with “a x”, not just the x at the end. And an omnishambles is a term coined for the political comedy The Thick Of It: everything everywhere going as wrong as it possibly can. As you can easily imagine, it has now become an essential part of the British vocabulary.

  20. I completed this relatively quickly so it must have been Paul Lite. However, like several others, I failed to parse all the clues. So, thank you Andrew et al for the enlightenment.

  22. One of those days where I solved quite a few by looking at the crossers and then parsing after, such as BIRIANI (thought there was a Y in the middle), FALAFEL, POCKET BILLIARDS (another ‘naughty’ clue from Paul) and ANTI-IMPERIALISM. You beat me to the earworm, Eileen. Thanks for explaining SWAN, KVa. Another super puzzle from the master, with CROWNS and SANSKRIT my favourites.

    Ta Paul & Andrew.

  24. Got there quite quickly in the end, using the definitions mainly as a guide before trying to untangle the parsing. The long anagram at 2d got things going as did SANSKRIT, at which apparently my grandfather was once a leading authority. Last one in was BIRIANI, once I had worked out which spelling variation fitted. Lots of the usual fun and games, and many thanks Paul and Andrew…

  25. Much as gladys said@18.

    I didn’t know POCKET BILLIARDS was a real game. I had always assumed it was, as Woody Allen said, “It’s sex with someone you love”. I am surprised Paul didn’t make a little more of it.

    Thanks Paul and Andrew, for several explanations

  26. A satisfying solve, and not a clue out of place. Happy with SANSKRIT, SEALED WITH A KISS and CHILLI FLAKES. Thanks Paul. The next one is on me.

  27. Dave Ellison @25: I thought the same hence, my ‘naughty’ inference @22. Paul maybe just left it hanging out there, so to speak.

  29. Well spotted, Criceto@28. It certainly was A1 FUN! All my favourites mentioned already and a very entertaining blog to read as well. Thanks to Paul and Andrew, and all contributors – and thanks to those who shared earworms (Eileen@15 and Flea@23)!

  30. BIRIANI made me laugh out loud when the penny dropped. A really enjoyable puzzle. [Thanks for the earworm, Eileen. A reminder of the hours I spent trying to emulate that Brian Hyland quiff.]

  31. Absolute fun, with many clues making me laugh out loud. Getting a bit hungry with all those tasty food items!
    Thanks Paul and Andrew for brightening a dismal day.

  32. nicbach@9 and TimC@10 and Frankie G@19. I was still none the wiser and looked up omnishambles and found it was Word of the Year for the OED in 2012. Whodathunkit.

    Criceto@28. Yes, saw what I thought may be a nina with AIFUN. (Does Paul do ninas?) But whenever I try a Paul, I see him having a wholottafun.

  33. A delight from start to finish. Spent a fruitless few minutes trying to shoehorn CITE into 12ac and couldn’t for the life of me parse CHELSEA BUN, even though that had to be the answer. However DEMONISE, NUDIST CAMP and the four long downs made up for any frustrations. Many thanks to Paul and Andrew.

  35. As Shanne said@16 about the OED entry. Sorry, missed your post re omnishambles. . I’m interested because my Dad, a butcher, used to take me to the abattoirs, and since doing cryptic crosswords, I’ve come across shambles.

  37. Thanks Andrew for the parsing of CHELSEA BUN. I wouldn’t call it a cake, but I now know what a BUN(g) is, and have been reminded what one of many sides could be, ie Chelsea.

  38. Did anyone else bung in DISGUISE for 8across, before crossers. Satan/hell DIS? plus an almost plausible parse for the rest?

  39. Failed 16ac.

    I did not parse 15ac (which I usually see written as BIRYANI but I see now it can be written in various ways) and it now makes me think that Monty Python’s Life of Brian might have been titled for this reason; BUN in 18ac; 6d, SWAN=poet in 14d.

    Favourite: 11ac.

    Thanks, both.

  40. GDU @2 Pork scratchings are evil, rock hard things designed to break your teeth if you opt for them instead of peanuts or crisps in your local pub. ?

  41. Much as PostMark@7 said. Looked intimidating but yielded surprisingly easily for a Paul.

    SANSKRIT was a gem.

    Thanks Paul and Andrew

  42. Didn’t know billet-doux but not difficult to solve once I had the X, and googled. I remember the days when a letter might be SWALK, SEALED WITH A (loving) KISS.

  43. Ronald @24: Interesting. BIRIANI was my first one in. “No Messiah” immediately brought Brian to my mind and then it was just a matter of following the instructions. So, AlanC @22, while I agree with your general thesis about bung then parse, it wasn’t the case with that answer for me.

  44. Lovely crossword with a number of brilliant clues. Am I alone in thinking that a sigh is an out-breath (while an in-breath is a gasp)? But I loved this and am very proud of myself for finishing a Paul in (for me) record time.

  45. Paddy @24, I once had a girlfriend called Sarah Walker who used to seal her letters with SWALK(er) … fond memories!

  46. Like many others, I tend to find with Paul that I can either get on his wavelength right away or it’s a case of abandoning any attempt at the wordplay, just using definitions + crossers then parse later. This one was in the latter camp, not truly my cup of tea but not my bucket of sick either. In the end, all the long downs made me smile and I thought BIRIANI and OOPS were great.

  48. I’m embarrassed to say that I didn’t spot the hidden letters to give EDIT and had cite also at the beginning. I always find it difficult to get going with longer clues but I liked the anagrams for NUDIST CAMP and POCKET BILLIARDS. I see Wiktionary has the alternative definition for the latter, although the standard dictionaries omit it.

    I liked the wordplays for CHILLI FLAKES, SANSKRIT and BIRIANI.

    Thanks Paul and Andrew.

  49. Martin @33, AlanC @ 36: CITE held me up at 12ac too, on the basis that ‘Check’ could be read as ‘Namecheck’. It seemed convincing at the time…

  51. I thought this was a lot of fun, very Paul, faves were SANSKRIT, OOPS and BIRIANI (when I realized there was an alternate spelling).

  52. I presumed the swan was Shakespeare. Great fun from Paul with SANSKRIT standing out for me.
    Thanks Paul and Andrew

  53. Another thoroughly enjoyable Paul but it took me ages to get a real toehold. It evoked great memories of a highly colourful Chairman in one of my first jobs who always referred to memo’s he sent as billet-doux’s and if you stood near him with your hands in your pockets you could be guaranteed to be accused of playing pocket billiards!! (He hated long-winded people and would interrupt them with ‘will you just sh*t or get off the pot’)
    Thanks for the much needed blog Andrew.

  54. Not much to add except that I add my name to the plaudits.

    All the long entries, BIRIANI, CHILLI FLAKES and especially SANSKRIT stood out for me.

    Thanks to JH and Andrew

  55. This was firmly in the category of “way too British for me.” I had to reveal PORK SCRATCHINGS (which are what?) and CHELSEA BUN (we don’t have those either), and got BIRIANI only from definition. By the way, I’ve never seen it spelled without a y (either biryani or biriyani).

    It is time once again to point out that FALL for autumn in the FALAFEL clue has a pedigree in English that predates the European colonization of America, and that you can still find both words on both sides of the Atlantic. I’d also point you to this magnificent and very British poem.

    It’s also time again to complain (with tongue in cheek, understand) about the asinine British spelling of the word CHILI. Where did you get it? Why did you do it? What purpose on God’s green Earth does that extra L you decided to insert–into a Spanish word for an New World food–serve?

  56. Oddly enough, Fitzbillies, the bakery in Cambridge, is famous for its CHELSEA BUN, quite a tradition, in fact. I believe Stephen Fry is/was a frequent visitor…

  57. This is the kind of puzzle that reminds me why I (used to?) find Paul so enjoyable. The clues were accessible (if often challenging), laced with rather puckish humour and penny drops everywhere. He’s an admirable setter, but I don’t always get the sense of fun I felt in this puzzle.

    All four long downs were lovely, and would be highlights in many puzzles, but it’s the acrosses that stand out, especially SANSKRIT, which has all the right quantities of witty, impenetrable at first and obvious in hindsight.

  58. Oh there were some absolute beauties in this – especially BIRIANI, SEALED WITH A KISS, with SANSKRIT best of all! Many thanks to Paul & also to Andrew for the blog.
    Mr Penney @55: as a Brit I thoroughly agree with you about “chili” – but while we’re on the subject, why is it that Americans don’t pronounce the H in “herb”?

  59. Another great Paul puzzle! I tried so hard and so long to fit Brian into 15 ac but decided it was impossible since BIRIANI has a Y. It never occurred to me to consider an alternate spelling.

  60. [Wellbeck @58: As a fellow Brit, the US pronunciation of herb also strikes me as odd, but from Wiktionary:

    From Middle English herbe, erbe, from Old French erbe (French herbe), from Latin herba. Initial h was restored to the spelling in the 15th century on the basis of Latin, but it remained mute until the 19th century and still is for many speakers

    So it’s an American archaism like ‘fall 😉 Who knows why the higher register ‘autumn’ took root elsewhere? The original word for the season was ‘harvest’ (cf German Herbst, Swedish höst), now more restricted in meaning]

  61. Mrpenny@55
    Re Chilli, the correct spelling originates from the Aztec language Nahautel. The Spanish dropped one L, which is often the case when they were adopting words from American languages.

  63. [Gervase @60: thanks for the explanation. I knew about herba coming from the Latin, but hadn’t realised the h was only restored in the 15thC. So Americans seemingly plumped for the French pronunciation. Fair enough. The way they say “lieutenant” is also rather closer to the French pronunciation than our English way!]

  65. [Wellbeck @63: we also Frenchify the pronunciation of words like valet and garage. I guess we think it makes them classy?]

  66. Re Pork Scratchings – I’ve lived in Sheffield UK for 15 years and only found out recently that, when you go to the pub with friends and between you maybe buy a couple of packs of crisps, some pork scratchings and peanuts, and open the bags fully out on the table so everyone can take a bit of what they want… that spread of snacks is called “Barnsley Tapas”. Brilliant.

  67. Clive @61: had the Nahuatel heard of the letter L so far in advance of the conquistadors to decide that chilis needed two of them? (Yes, Mesoamerican civilizations had writing systems, but they had no resemblance whatsoever to the Latin alphabet.)

  68. [mrpenney @ 65: who WOULDN’T want a classy garage?!? I suspect, however, just having a valet makes you pretty classy, no matter how you pronounce it.
    RK0000 @ 66: I’m actually very partial to pork scratchings – and whenever we’re back in Blighty in a pub I always grab a packet to go with my pint of bitter. Thank you for introducing me to the glorious concept of Barnsley Tapas, a practice that I, offspring of a proud Yorkshireman, shall adopt henceforth.]

  69. [So–serious question, based on Wellbeck @68–when you drive up to a posh restaurant in an area where parking is difficult, and you hand the car keys to a pimply young lad who promises to park the car for you so you can waltz right in and take your table, in America that’s called valet parking (rhymes with allay). In the UK, is that still valet parking (rhymes with mallet), or is there a different term for it?]

  70. [Flea @23: before its “beautiful morning” burnishing by Rodgers & Hammerstein, Oklahoma was considered to be an armpit of a state, a reputation that has now been restored by the centenary of the Black Wall Street pogrom in Tulsa and Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon on the rape of the Osage Indians. Although, admittedly, Oklahoma! as a whole has a darker narrative that belies the sunniness of its opening number. I recommend Cimarron, the novelisation of the foundation of the state by the famous land-grab rush (Oklahomans are “Sooners” because whoever planted a stake sooner won title to a parcel of land) written by Edna Ferber. Cimarron was subsequently made into a movie (starring Richard Dix & Irene Dunne), which is one of only two westerns to win an Academy Award for best picture]

  71. Mrpenney@68, I am from the same part of Britain as the humble yet magnificent pork scratching, near enough, not known for la-di-da affectations in any way, and would pronounce “valet” to rhyme with the French “Allez” but maybe that’s because it’s a word I only came across after leaving home. Anyway thanks for the blog Andrew and another fine puzzle Paul (echo Postmark’s minigripe re SEASIDE but the homophone outweighed it).

  72. Late to the party after a crowded day. I agree with everybody’s favorites.

    I finally assembled CHELSEA BUN and PORK SCRATCHINGS, for chrissake, without having the foggiest idea of what they were. Just some more stuff that British people eat.

    Thanks to Paul for the morning’s activity and Andrew for a very necessary blog.

  73. Me @55: of course, Hopkins probably deliberately called it Spring and Fall because the poem uses the fall as a metaphor for the Fall. “It is the blight Man was born for / It is Margaret you mourn for.”

  74. mrpenney@73 .. my favorite poem ever. I forget the word for it but there’s a lovely trick in Hopkins – apart from cynghanedd – his wonderful alliteration – I use it in all I write though no-one ever reckons with it :-).

  76. … yes, just looked it up, inscape and instress, descended from Duns Scotus (vaguely remember an Eng Lit tutor going on about it …)

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