Guardian Cryptic 29,365 by Paul

by

Paul is today's Guardian setter.

A trademark Paul puzzle, although perhaps on the easier side of his particular spectrum. If you get the solution to 21dn quickly, you are in, otherwise it may be a bit of a slog. I saw it immediately and that gave me the start I needed. Apart from the LAV in FLAVOUR, this wasn't as saucy as some of Paul's puxxles can be, but it was a fun solve, as long as you don't mind that clues refer to a solution somewhere else in the puzzle (some solvers do find this annoying).

Thanks, Paul.

ACROSS
8 MISSPENT
Wasted daughter in prison? (8)

MISS ("daughter") + PENT ("in prison")
9 LEVEL
21 from both sides? (5)

LEVEL ("square", rthe answer to "21"dn) is a palindrome, so can be read "from both sides")
10 CONE
100, 21 figure (4)

C (100, in Roman numerals) + ONE (a "square", the solution to 21dn)
11 IRREVERENT
Saucy always in Irish musical (10)

EVER ("always") in Ir. (Irish) + RENT (Broadway "musical" based on La Boheme)
12, 24 BARBED WIRE
Message from berth in pub, perhaps, something sharp (6,4)

WIRE ("message") from BED ("berth") in BAR ("pub"), so BAR-BED WIRE
14 HARD TACK
Ship’s biscuit in tricky way (4,4)

HARD ("tricky") + TACK ("way")

I thought hardtack was one word, and Chambers agrees, but the OED has it with two words,
15 FRIGATE
Vessel’s end of week scandal? (7)

Ever since the Watergate scandal, other scandals have had GATE placed after a word to indicate a scandal (e.g. Partygate), so a scandal occuring on a FRIday may become FRI-GATE
17 ARTISTE
Entertainer, i.e. star, lead in theatre performing? (7)

*(ie star t) [anag:performing] where T is [lead in] T(heatre)
20 ESPECIAL
Particular case with pile for sorting (8)

*(case pile) [anag:for sorting]
22 CYGNET
Little bird impression made on the radio? (6)

Homophone [on the radio] of SIGNET ("impression")
23 LUGGAGE VAN
Railway car where middle button pushed back to load posh goods, article squeezed in (7,3)

<= NAVEL ("middle button", pushed back) to load U ("posh", as opposed to non-U) + GGG (good, three times, so "goods") with A (article) squeezed in
24 WHIG
Reportedly something for fancy dress party individual, once? (4)

Homophone [reportedly] of WIG ("something for fancy dress")

The Whigs were a political party that preceded the Liberals as the main opposition to the Tories in the 18th and 19th centuries.
25 REEVE
Thread on the subject of OT woman (5)

RE ("on the subject of") + EVE ("OT woman")
26 UNNERVED
Tunnel discovered, communist admits very afraid (8)

(t)UNNE(l) [discovered, i.e. with its covers removed] + RED ("communist") admitting V (very)
DOWN
1 DINOSAUR
Building of road in US 21 (8)

*(road in us) [anag:building of]

Dinosuar in the sense of one who has been left behind my modern life, so a "square" (solution to 21dn)
2 ISLE
Dogs, say, in setters and labradors, energetic initially (4)

I(n) S(etters) L(abradors) E(nergetic) [initially]

The Isle of Dogs is a peninsula in the East End of London
3, 18 BEHIND THE TIMES
21, location of 21 in NY? (6,3,5)

Times Square is in New York, so "Square" is located behind Times, and BEHIND THE TIMES means old-fashioned or "square"
4 STARCHY
21 hole through which seen architectural feature (7)

STY ("hole", in the sense of a dive or a dump) thorugh which seen ARCH ("architectural feature"), so ST-ARCH-Y

Starchy could mean "square" (the solution to "21"dn, as in stiff, unwilling to bend to modern methods.
5 CLEVERER
Top off container, one pulling on handle quicker? (8)

[top off] C(ontainer) + LEVERER ("one pulling on handle")
6 EVERYTHING
100% likely to break in for example? (10)

VERY THIN ("likely to break") in e.g. ("for example")
7 CLINIC
Cotton on cut that’s bandaged in hospital (6)

CLIC(k) ("cotton on", cut) bandaged IN
13 BIG LEAGUER
Fat cat sees gerbil with ague shivering (3-7)

*(gerbil ague) [anag:shivering]
16 THINGIES
Their names are forgotten, taking nighties off (8)

*(nighties) [anag:off]
18
See 3

19 FLAVOUR
Hint: where to go in 21 (7)

LAV ("where to go") in FOUR (a sqaure, answer to "21" dn)
21 SQUARE
1, 4 or 9: 1, 4 or 9? (6)

1, 4 and 9 are all SQUAREs (of 1, 2 and 3 respectively) and the solutions to 1dn, 4dn and 9ac all mean "square"
22 CANINE
Semicircle and a 21 for setter, say (6)

C ("semicircle") + A + NINE (a square. the solution to "21"dn)
24
See 12 Across

74 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 29,365 by Paul”

  1. Kudos to loonapick for finding this easy. I really struggled today, and I can usually tune in to Paul fairly quickly. Got 21 quickly, so the first few went in together with seeing that square can (could? is it still used?) can mean BEHIND THE TIMES. Didn’t spot C as a semicircle, so needed to see the full parsing here, leaving me feeling stupid. Didn’t know ‘RENT’ was a musical, and only knew REEVE as an official from the middle ages. So overall defeated. Liked BARBED WIRE and WHIG. Thanks to Paul and to loonapick for untangling the parsing.

  2. The theme was helpful to me for solving some of the clues.

    I could not parse 23ac – I got stuck thinking about LV = luxury goods + AN.

    New for me: REEVE=thread; PENT = closely confined; HARD TACK = hard dry bread or biscuit, especially as rations for sailors or soldiers.

    Favourite: FLAVOUR.

    Thanks, both.

  3. Recent habitual reader, first time commenter!

    Got caught up trying to find famous world Squares (Tahrir, Trafalgar etc) which made me take a bit longer. Also, was too hasty, and eyeballed the anagram of (ie star t) as ASTAIRE, which fitted Entertainer too nicely.

    Had LUGGAGE VAN with no idea why…

    Thanks for your work on this!

  4. There were several I hadn’t heard of — too many to list. My dictionary says HARD TACK is whisky, so I’ve no idea where ship’s biscuit comes from. Not fond of flavour/hint.

    My favourite, which elicited a chuckle, was EVERYTHING.

  5. Could not parse WHIG, so thanks for the explanation. I had 10a as CUBE, since it is a square figure, and it took me quite while to see CONE. Once that dropped, I was able to finish.

  6. I got SQUARE fairly early but wasn’t quite sure about the parsing. I just thought the squares were squared and didn’t bother to go back and check. Nice clue in the end but the presence of “21” in the clues for 1,4 and 9 gives it away a bit in hindsight, at least for a thicko like me.
    Favourite was CANINE for the semicircle.

  7. Neatly constructed puzzle, once I’d pieced it all together. Needed the blog to parse LUGGAGE VAN, which went in from the crossers and a shrug. (I’m better at parsing prize puzzles, daily cryptics I cheat and use the blogs and check button.)

    I went through the squares to see if any were palindromes before getting LEVEL, to get the full parsing of 21D. Doh.

    Thank you to loonapick and Paul.

  8. 21D one of the last ones in for me which made this a slog indeed. LUGGAGE VAN was a bung and hope, and I have yet to find a font in which C is a semicircle. Hmmph!
    Thanks to loonapick for a much needed blog this morning and to Paul for the tortuous workout.

  10. Too many less than sharp definitions for me to appreciate this Paul puzzle. And the instructions for where to insert BARBED WIRE didn’t specify whether the 24 referred to an across or a down location. Not sure about Spy for Hole in 4d, or the clueing for MISSPENT. And BEHIND THE TIMES didn’t quite work for me either. That said, there were some enjoyable clues such as DINOSAUR. Finally, didn’t know that definition of REEVE, only the chap who appears in Chaucer’s Tales…

  13. A collection of stretchy and allusive “synonyms” today (MISS=daughter, square=LEVEL, TACK=way, fat cat=BIG LEAGUER, VERY THIN=liable to break, and all the variants of square=old fashioned). I didn’t find it easy to winkle them all out. I have no quarrel with the “21” clues – fairly restrained cross referencing by Paul’s standards.

    I liked the various anagrams, and THINGIES, FRI-GATE and BAR-BED WIRE made me laugh. I admit to being too lazy to parse the wordy clue for LUGGAGE VAN – which looks as if it would have been worth the effort.

  14. REEVE=thread is nautical – you reeve a rope through eyelets in a sail. Thanks yet again to Patrick O’Brian.

  15. I must admit that when I worked out from all the crossers that last one in MISSPENT simply had to be that, I thought the Pent part of the clue a rather poor shortened version of Pentonville Prison – surely not! Hadn’t thought of Pent as actually meaning a sense of imprisonment, so many thanks Loonapick for putting me right…

  16. I thought this was great. I pieced 21 together from the x-ref clues like CONE & DINOSAUR which was probably more fun.

    Top ticks for EVERYTHING, THINGIES & CLEVER. Not many ticks overall but I think this was greater than the sum of its parts?

    Cheers L&P

  17. Tougher for me than most of Paul’s puzzles – but a few early “stuck it in a parse laters” which turned out to be wrong caused lots of problems.

    Thanks Paul and loonapick

  19. Like some others I did not immediately find SQUARE so this took a while to get into. However, I thought it was highly enjoyable, precisely clued and with lots of lovely stuff. I especially liked EVERYTHING, MISSPENT, BEHIND THE TIMES and CLINIC.

    Thanks to Paul and loonapick.

  20. Thanks Paul & loonapick for this entertaining puzzle.
    Glancing at 21, seeing a lot of numbers and not that they were squares, I had fun taking a more circular path, approaching this in a roundabout, non-conformist way.
    Especially liked EVERYTHING, CLINIC & FLAVOUR.
    I didn’t know HARD TACK which I thought might be a handbrake turn for sailors called ‘the biscuit’!

  21. A mere handful at first pass, then c a nine clued the square, then it wove together. Bit of a slog, then enjoyed the wit more in retrospect; the bar bed wire, the pent miss, the very thin in e.g., among others, are quite amusing. Thanks Paul and loonapick.

  22. Like others, LUGGAGE VAN went in with a shrug, as did HARD TACK. I got SQUARE early so thankfully it became a bit clearer. Same likes as Charles @19 plus CYGNET and THINGIES.
    ronald @10: sty and hole are synonymous with dirty dwellings.

    Ta Paul & loonapick.

  23. Not everything was great, but EVERYTHING was. 12,24 is mislabelled, as already noted (by convention it would refer to 24a, not 24d). Surely all women are daughters, not only MISSes. I did like BEHIND THE TIMES despite it being geographically dubious (the square is in front of the building), and CLEVERER, and thankfully the homophone was uncontroversial, somewhat of a rarity for Paul.

  24. I got 21 early on, a big help for the rest of the puzzle. I couldn’t parse LUGGAGE VAN and a couple of others, but this to me was a much more accessible – and fun – outing than recent Paul offerings. I suspect being bogged down by a couple of clues can sometimes affect one’s outlook for the rest of the crossword, but thankfully not the case today.

    Oh and I thought PENT was a reference to Pentonville…

  26. Thanks gladys@14. I didn’t complete today, but could figure out the whys after a couple of reveals. The reeve as thread puzzled me completely as the internet just gave a load of twaddle to do with threads as in people tweeting what they just had for breakfast.

    Thanks Paul, loonapick and gladys.

  27. Thanks for the blog , big improvement on recent Paul puzzles which have seemed like a tribute act from a seven year old prep-school boy. Even the split clues were in order and the theme was well used although perhaps someone should tell setters that every single number is a square .
    I liked the middle button for LUGGAGE VAN , cotton on cut for CLIC(K) was neat , very thin was also well clued.
    STARCHY was a school nick-name for Margot Leadbetter .

  29. I had to get 3 of the crossers before SQARE clicked, but I concentrated on that corner to start with. I parsed two of the GS and the U in LUGGAGE VAN, which left we wondering what navegl could be. I didn’t find it on the easier side of Paul, but I persevered and got there in the end, the wit stopped it being laborious. I had WHIM for a while, which sort of suited half the clue, but felt wrong.
    Enjoyed this, thanks both

  30. A masochistic solve for me because I didn’t get SQUARE early on.

    I liked UNNERVED, DINOSAUR, CLINIC, FLAVOUR and CANINE. Roz @27: perhaps someone should tell setters that every single number is a square – please elaborate as I don’t understand your comment.

    Thanks Paul and loonapick.

  31. [ Robi @30 every single number complex , real or imaginary has a square root, the complex plane is what we call complete, hence every single number is a square . Paul is referring to PERFECT squares when an integer has a square that is an integer, other numbers are available. ]

  32. Robi @ 30 I assume the commenter means every number has a square root. But “perfect square” would make for clunky clues and in everyday non-mathematician life, “square (number)” is understood to be the square of an integer. When Mr Johns set our homework in 1973 to learn the first 20 square numbers off by heart, we knew exactly what he meant.

  33. Roz @27: “every single number is a square”. Yes, every number has a square root, but google “list of squares” and see what comes up. You know what was meant.

  35. Today must be Reverse Paul day! Normally I struggle mightily with Paul, and sometimes give up without a fight when I see the clue cross-references. But today I plunged in, got 21D fairly quickly, and the rest was satisfactorily challenging. Meanwhile, I see that several people who usually find Paul straightforward struggled with him today.

    I suppose I shall have to revise my reluctance to tackle Paul for the future.

  36. poc@23: not that it matters for the clue, but the New York Times is not even geographically adjacent to Times Sq any more (it’s been about a block away for decades). The clue, though, is referring to the location of the word Square in the phrase Times Square.

    Separately, it feels like fat cat and BIG LEAGUER aren’t terribly close in meaning. Maybe because over here, you generally only see “big leaguer” in its literal sense of a player who has reached the apex league in his sport (usually major-league baseball, where the term originated), or maybe, occasionally, in the slightly figurative sense of someone who has reached the pinnacle of some other profession. “Fat cat” has negative connotations that aren’t captured in the other phrase. At least in American English.

  37. Ronald @15 and Scraggs @24 – PENT is more commonly seen in the wild as “pent up”, but OED is clear on its “confined” meaning:

    Shut up within narrow limits; closely confined; held back under pressure; = penned adj.

  38. I did enjoy this very much. Favourites were EVERYTHING, BARBED WIRE and FLAVOUR. mrpenney@36, I was interested in what you said about BIG LEAGUER. It didn’t work too well for me and I thought that perhaps it worked better in American English. Evidently not.

    Very many thanks loonapick and Paul 😎

    [No earworms today? To be fair I can’t think of one but I’m hoping someone may…]

  39. I saw it was Paul and took a deep breath.
    Looked at 9A, then 10A.
    Then looked at 21D – then made myself a pot of strong coffee.
    Actually, the anagrams got me started. FRIGATE, WHIG and ISLE made me grin. 21D was a guess based on crossers (which I then had to have explained to me. I was off sick the day we did Maths.) I’ve never come across the word LEVERER before, and only know REEVE from Chaucer. (What kind of a thread is it??)
    Others were guess-first parse-later, or guess-first, struggle for bit then give up and come here – so enormous thanks to loonapick for all the help!
    And thank you Paul. Despite my being an innumerate gamma-minus semi-moron, I completed it. This will have been another heavenly day, Winnie….

  40. I solved this really quickly but didn’t know how I’d done it. Had to go back and revisit for parsing. Thanks Paul & loonapick

  41. I enjoyed this very much! Went to 21d and took a deep breath, expecting that the only one I knew would be Trafalgar, but the only geographical reference was to the US so I can’t complain there!

    REEVE was new to me but (like Phil @37) I was familiar with PENT from “pent up” and “pent in.”

    Like some others I found EVERYTHING especially nice.

    JohnW@18: Me too! Well the part about having “WHIP” till I checked, not the fancy dress experiences.

  42. I did once enjoy one of Paul’s so I don’t automatically skip his puzzles. I wish I hadn’t bothered with this waste of space.

  44. John W@18
    I was the same as you for 24ac! I first thought of WHIP as ‘something for fancy dress’ before finally settling on WHIG when I slowed down to read the clue properly 😉

  45. Contradicting my Concise OED (11th edition, revised, 2006, 99p in Oxfam),
    oed.com (accessible free with a UK library card) has 14a HARDTACK as one word, but the citations include it as two words, and even hyphen(at)ed.

  46. Pauline in Brum@38. Another earworm. And thanks to mrpenney@36. (I actually got the clue BEHIND THE TIMES (SQUARE). Here’s another one from NYC, and another Paul, and all I have to say about Paul’s crossword today.

  47. Premium Oxford Dictionaries (as used by Susie Dent on Countdown, also available free to UK library users)
    has HARD TACK in its British & World English Dictionary; while its US English Dictionary has HARDTACK.

  48. The Google Books Ngram Graph is interesting (to me at least). In the US HARDTACK prevailed in 1892; that took till 1989 in the UK.

  49. The apparent continuing popularity of Paul’s puzzles is as much a mystery to me as that of James Corden and Blur

  51. Another excellent Paul and very few complaints from the Neverpaul’s!! A good day. Thanks P and loonapick.

  53. I absolutely loved this. I thought the theme was fun – especially the repeat of one, four and nine in three of the answers.
    I particularly liked the way several clues were constructed, in quite quirky ways. LUGGAGE VAN, EVERYTHING, MISSPENT, BARBED WIRE, FRIGATE and CANINE all got big ticks from me.
    (And I completed it, which is rare for me with Paul 🙂 – it did take me quite a while!)

  54. [This is “awaiting moderation” @48, so I’m splitting it. Watch out for the @Numbers going awry.]
    The Google Books Ngram Graph is interesting (to me at least). In the US HARDTACK prevailed in 1892;…

  56. I enjoyed this puzzle. I got the key word tolerably early, and then it went in reasonably steadily, until I got stuck on the last two clues (8ac and 2dn). I was about to give up when they yielded. As is often the case, in hindsight it’s hard to see why I had trouble with those two in particular.

    I failed to parse 23ac (LUGGAGE VAN), but now that I see how it’s done it’s one of my favorite clues. Because I’m still a schoolboy at heart, I also enjoyed 19dn (FLAVOUR). (That’s presumably also why I got such a chuckle out of John W @18’s comment.)

    I would definitely have spelled HARD TACK as one word, but I find it utterly plausible that it can be written as two.

    I hate to level accusations, but I confess I suspect that Roz is teasing us a bit regarding the usage of “square” to mean “perfect square”: as she doubtless knows, this usage is quite standard, even among mathematicians. (Not that I mind a bit of teasing.)

  57. Saw Paul as setter, multiple cross references and thought I was in for a hard slog, but found it surprisingly easy.
    Got the theme early, and apart from wasting some time trying to fit ‘d’ into 8a, no real problems.
    Thank you to Paul and Loonapick

  58. Warning: what follows is all about earworms, so don’t read on unless it is of interest….

    Well I guess I threw the gauntlet down @38, and I was not disappointed. AlanC @43, thank you it’s excellent. [Saw them a few times including at Glastonbury when it was a CND festival]. paddymelon@ 46, what a lovely version [wish I had seen them]. FrankieG @49, how did I manage to forget that catchy number? Finally, gladys @51, I certainly didn’t know, but he really can – wherever did you find it? Thank you all, you’ve really made my day. P x 😎🎆🎇

  59. I found this considerably easier than last week’s Paul offering, though I can see that many others had the opposite experience. It really is a funny old game.

    I often find short solutions are Paul’s forte – and both ISLE and WHIG are excellent here. I also thought UNNERVED and LUGGAGE VAN were very well put together. The theme was nicely used. Very satisfying puzzle all round.

  61. Took me a long time to parse LUGGAGE VAN (they don’t have them on trains anymore, alas!) but once I realised that ‘goods’ could mean any number of ‘G’s I got there…

    I felt some remorse at having panned Paul’s last, so I’m glad to say this was fun and a great solve. But one point about clues with so many cross-refs, they don’t have much of a surface. In the anchor clue 21d I quickly wrote in SQUARE but didn’t twig at first that this was a double def.

    And although I don’t have a problem with DINOSAUR, I can’t help being reminded that (a) dinosaurs were probably a lot more intelligent than we think, and (b) according to modern taxonomists, some dinosaurs are still very much with us – as anyone with a bird feeder in the garden will know!

    Lots to like here – besides LUGGAGE VAN, ticks for MISSPENT, BARBED WIRE, FRIGATE, ISLE, EVERYTHING, and FLAVOUR.

    I failed to parse CLINIC and IRREVERENT, the latter for not having heard of RENT as a musical. But no matter.

    I could raise a query as to whether ONE is technically a SQUARE. If we argue that all squares must be composite numbers, then we’d have to exclude 1, which is a special case, neither a composite nor a prime. But I guess I’ll be overruled on this! Any mathematicians there?

    Thanks to Paul and Loonapick.

  62. I meant to add, I would have ticked BEHIND THE TIMES but I fear the ‘THE’ gets in the way. I’ve never visited NYC myself but I’m quite sure the place in question is never referred to as ‘The Times Square’. If it weren’t for that, it would be a great clue!

  63. When I see Paul’s name I think “EVERYTHING is going to be HARD to TACKle”, and that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. And so I didn’t get 6d, which when I saw the answer became my favourite clue.

    Roz @ 27, you are of course perfectly correct, but we live in an imperfect world.

    Thanks Paul for the old-time but not outdated fun, and loonapick for the parsing help.

  64. Thanks, Paul! I got it all fairly quickly, and was pleased with everything. But. Did anyone else have WORD for 24d? After all, if one gets the message, one gets the “word.“ And a barbed one is “sharper than a serpent’s tooth“!

  65. Laccaria @60 1 is certainly a sqaure along with every other number including zero.
    Cellomaniac@62 , yes an imperfect world where every number is a square.

    Ted@55 I am afraid I spend far too much time teasing the maths faculty , mainly about axioms or the Reimann Hypothesis , every time I read a paper relying on it I rush over and ask them – Who has proved the Reimann Hypothesis ? Why has it not been publicised ?

  66. Finally a crossword that I found easier than many commenters on here did! I was able to finish it while watching the snooker on TV, which maybe tells you the snooker was not so engrossing today.

    BARBED WIRE was correctly numbered 12, 24D in today’s newspaper – it’s rather surprising that the online version would be wrong.

    [It used to be a convention on here that any comments that were not directly about the crossword, like this one, or ones about ear worms, should be enclosed in SQUARE brackets so that people who did not want to read them could skip them.]

    Thanks to Paul for the entertainment and loonapick for the blog

  67. It’s been yonks since I struggled so much and for so long. Thanks to all for shining the bright lights.

  69. [ sheffield hatter @ 66, I like the square brackets too, but for the opposite reason. I enjoy the diversions, so when I see the brackets I make a point of reading those comments. 🙂 ]

  71. [Sorry Dave @68 I cannot really explain it without a lot of symbols which I can’t type . It is to do with something called the zeta function , its zeroes occuring for complex numbers with real part=1/2 and this is linked to the distribution of prime numbers. From about 1860 , no proof and no actual evidence that it is true but countless mathematical papers and theorems assume that it is true, so a giant house of cards which may come tumbling down. ]

  73. No surprise to me – yet another joyous solve (and there’s always something new with Paul; I couldn’t help a little giggle on parsing CANINE!)
    How does he do it? Never boring, ever inventive; what a puzzling genius!
    We’re so lucky to have him ….
    Excellent blog, loonapick, so kind/generous of you…
    And huge thanks to Mr H!

  74. Goujeers@72 perhaps more “proofs” for this than anything except Fermat’s last theorem .
    Unfortunately the Clay Institute has a $1 million prize. No proof has come remotely close to acceptance.

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