Guardian Cryptic 29,397 by Paul

89 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 29,397 by Paul”

1. Thanks Paul and manehi!
   COTD: ORAL EXAM
   Other faves: SET-TO, ABALONE, EROTICA and LECH WALESA
   Great puzzle overall. Excellent blog as usual!

   ABALONE
   Found this online:
   The word baloney comes from the sandwich meat called bologna, which is typically made of leftover scraps of meat. Around 1920, baloney came to mean “nonsense,” and it was also used to describe an unskilled boxer.

2. Really enjoyed this. TOTES AMAZEBALLS was very entertaining, as were the appearances of ALEXA and ALLY PALLY, not far from where I live.

   Thanks both.

3. Thanks Paul and manehi
   I saw it was a Paul and thought about not bothering, and now wish I hadn’t bothered!
   Lots didn’t make much sense to me, and naturally it was a DNF with 8 completely unknown and clued in a complicated way.

4. Fantastic and not a jigsaw – yipee!

   Top ticks for ALLY PALLY, TOTES AMAZEBALLS & ISLAMABAD

   Took me an age to see the parsing for ORAL EXAM – maybe I should have asked her 🙂

   Cheers P&M

5. DNF. This one beat me on 8 Down.
   It’s fairly clued but the language was far too obscure for me. It sounds like something a semi-literate teenage Tik-Toker would post.
   Strangely I do better with the occasional clues that need French, and I don’t speak French. Well, that’s horses for courses.
   C’est la vie.

6. Great fun! Not heard of TOTES in the amazeballs phrase, although have a friend who says amazeballs frequently.
   Couldn’t parse ORAL EXAM
   so thanks to manehi, and Paul for a fun start to the day!

7. Thanks manehi, and to Paul for one of his (IMHO) gentler offerings. Beaten by the over-convoluted construction of ISLAMABAD but otherwise, all seemed fair – and entertaining.

8. I agree with manehi, tough but fun, and a much less annoying Paul than usual (ie fewer split answers in the grid). Several I couldn’t parse, so thanks manehi, including my FOI ‘set-to’ which just seemed right and was quickly confirmed by the next few. NHO 8d but reasonable with the crossers. Loved 24a and 27a especially. Thanks Paul!

9. Challenging and enjoyable, thank you Paul. It seems to be standard now for why to be y (also see, c) without any sounds like indicator. Maybe justified by text speak as you say. Many thanks for the blog.

10. Brilliant from start to finish. Same likes as KVa @1. I’m sure LOI, TOTES AMAZEBALLS will divide opinion but I loved it. TA on Utube, is most definitely not an ear worm! Grateful for the parsing of ORAL EXAM.

    Ta Paul & manehi.

11. I used to dread Paul’s puzzles, but now look forward to them! This was a lot of fun.

12. 23 down is a triple definition – jolly also means very.

13. I also parsed JOLLY as a triple def as all three words independently mean “jolly”?

    Today we have a “flasher” after yesterday’s peeping tom – icky pervert bingo anyone?

14. That was a tough, but fair offering, I thought. I groaned at TOTES AMAZEBALLS, but the cluing was fair. I have no quibbles with today’s puzzle.

    Thanks Paul and manehi.

15. bc @13: and a stripper…

16. TOTES AMAZEBALLS is clearly dividing opinion! Maybe not surprisingly. I thought it was very funny.

    Excellent surfaces for ALERT (with the political comment) and HOVERED (with the clever double meaning of “hung over”).

    Many thanks Paul and manehi.

17. Too many unparsed today – ABALONE, SET-TO, ALERT, THE OVAL and ORAL EXAM, which all seemed to require far too much lateral/literal thinking. So very well done with explaining those, Manehi. And a final nho and therefore a frustratingly unfinished grid was 8d, even with every single crosser in place. For me, never mind OMG, it might just as well have been an obscure song by OMD. This was definitely not one of my favourite Paul puzzles this morning, sorry…

18. Pleased to say that I failed on 8d and I hope that it’s an expression I do not encounter again.

19. Thanks manehi.
    Quibbles and queries:
    ORAL EXAM’s Alexa was an unknown. Are Amazon devices a thing in the UK?
    Not keen on the wordplay for LECH WALESA. The indication for the letters in the envelope is pretty vague. Solved it from def and crossers.
    AGGRAVATE is one of those words that your English teacher reminds you really means to make things worse, not to simply annoy or irritate, although it’s taken on that meaning colloquially.
    Liked. HEXAGON and ATYPICAL.

20. Great fun, thank you Paul and manehi.
    I liked ‘hung over’, the ‘pain of spelling’, Beethoven’s 3rd & 4th, and the cold ‘prison meal’.

21. 8d is not a phrase I would ever use, and was thankfully unknown to me, but it was clearly clued, so I didn’t have a problem with it. I think Paul likes to slip in contemporary references. Not a single dodgy homophone today, surprisingly, and though it was tough it was a satisfying solve. Lots to like, including EROTICA, HOVERED and LECH WALESA. Thanks to Paul and manehi.

22. For me, this was a reminder of why Paul used to be one of my favourite setters – a puzzle full of cheeky parsings and unconventional vocabulary, but this time without lots of annoying split entries and cross-references. TOTES AMAZEBALLS indeed 🙂

    Favourites were ALLY PALLY, LECH WALESA, HEXAGON, THE OVAL, OOLONG.

    KVa @1: Although ‘baloney’ could sometimes be made with a mixture of meats it was usually made only from pork, similar to mortadella, the original sausage from Bologna. It is unclear how the word came to mean ‘nonsense’. One suggestion is that it was a euphemism for ‘bullshit’.

    Thanks to JH and manehi

23. I didn’t have time to do this puzzle justice, and only completed less than half. But I thought I’d drop by to register my appreciation of EROTICA — a pearler of a clue.

    [pearler informal, mainly Australian
    something impressive(Collins)]

24. Loi was TOTES, I’d had the AMAZEBALLS for a while and ?O?ES. I had to go away and come back. Loved the clue though.
    I failed to parse SET TO and ORAL EXAM and with a couple more I could see the parsing generally, but CBA to work it out completely. I enjoyed the puzzle and smiled several times, possibly a chuckle or two.
    Thanks both.

25. Surprised at the criticism. I thought both the clue and the puzzle were 8d!

    Thanks both.

26. This was fun – completed with my daughter travelling via changes to a funeral. This cheered us up immensely. TOTES AMAZEBALLS, I got the AMAZEBALLS bit and asked my daughter, but it’s a valley girl thing, sort of thing said in Clueless (bit late for Frank Zappa’s Valley Girls track with his daughter riffing).

    Thank you to Paul and manehi.

27. Liked this except for ISLAMABAD – revealed as couldn’t be bothered to go through a mental list of capital cities and clue too long-winded IMO. Favourites include HEXAGON, ALLY PALLY, OOLONG, TOTES… (I’m often surprised by such yoofspeak being unknown to so many commenters – I’m in my 70s and would definitely never use the expression, but I’m somehow aware of its existence).
    pm@19 – in UK I do know one or two folk who use Alexa and kindred “assistants”. I find it weird to hear someone talking to a non-existent person, and would be faintly embarrassed to do it myself.
    Thanks Paul and manehi.

28. Mercifully free of dodgy ‘homophones’ (I don’t think Y counts as one) and irritating linked clues, but disliked 8d though I have heard the phrase. COTD was STROBE, very witty and clever. 14a I thought a bit dodgy as you have to pick some subsequence from ‘idle chat’ but not a central grouping. I wonder if anyone who hadn’t heard of ALLY PALLY would be able to solve this, even though the clueing is straightforward.

29. Pearler indeed, GDU @23, but the Eroica trick rings a faint chord, and it’s too neat not have been done before. The agony of hexing and oca nada were pretty cute too. I do now vaguely remember that Ally Pally had broadcast, but if not for times pottering round N8 with rellies that clue would’ve been harder. As for Gen Deffo, Totes and Whatevs, it’s like in the air, innit. Fun puzzle, ta Paul n manehi

30. Pdm@19 and Beaulieu@27. I have used ALEXA in a friend’s house in Portugal. She commented on my saying please and thank you, saying that she always did so herself.

31. poc@28 – I can put my hand up as one who had never heard the term ALLY PALLY. I solved it from the clue and then went off to look up what it was.

32. Tough puzzle, tbh can’t say I enjoyed it. Failed 8d and could not parse 10ac.

    New for me: GLOVE BOX = a closed chamber with sealed-in gloves for handling radioactive or other hazardous material; ALLY PALLY TV station.

    Thanks, both.

33. Couldn’t get started except for the seafood which I thought was SCALLOP.
    If I’d known it was Paul today I wouldn’t have bothered buying the paper.

34. I wasn’t able to give this one the time it deserved today and didn’t finish. I enjoyed the Beethoven clue and didn’t know that meaning of GLOVE BOX.

35. Some puzzles take 2 sessions to complete; this took 2 sessions to parse the harder ones, even though I had them in the first round.

    ALLY PALLY was FOI. Saw Led Zep and The Dead there back in the early 70’s.

36. This was one of those Pauls that delivered very little indeed on first pass – maybe four solutions – but that was, mercifully, just enough in the way of crossers to allow me to gradually piece everything together bar ISLAMABAD which escaped me at the end. TOTES AMAZEBALLS landed fortuitously when I idly wondered whether ‘bears’ could be TOTES. To anyone who watched the Miranda sitcom, it will be a familiar phrase employed by her tremendously ‘with it’ best pal. NHO GLOVE BOX in that context or encountered BYPATH which, if I had met it before, I would probably have ascribed to a civil engineer with a lisp. I did recall ALLY PALLY – the nickname feels a bit dated – I have no idea whether it is still referred to as such?

    HOVERED, HEXAGON, O CANADA, IMPERSONAL, ATYPICAL and OOLONG were my favourites. As for LECH WALESA, I can’t remember the last time I saw a clue that ran to five lines; fortunately, I had enough crossers to fill in the answer, connected the country with WALES and didn’t put time into backparsing the rest I’m afraid.

    Thanks Paul and manehi

37. Enjoyed this one a lot. 8d made me laugh. ALLY PALLY not just any old tv station but the first in the world. I can see it from my window and yes, PostMark @36, it is very much still called that today.

    Thanks Paul and Manehi.

38. Better than some Pauls to my taste, but still not a setter I enjoy. Interesting that he hasn’t gone for an unfunny Grandad ‘ooh, er, Missus, aren’t ladies wobbly bits funny’ style ‘joke’ for once but instead has gone for some yoof phrase even my teenagers haven’t heard of. But still a better Paul than usual.

39. I knew ALLY PALLY as the racecourse there, which must have been closed for over 50 years now. The Australian maestro jockey Scobie Breasley was particularly good at the track in his heyday…

40. Thanks for the blog, pretty good overall and only one clue referenced out of order. HEXAGON was very neat , TOTES AMAZEBALLS is mainly used ironically even by the students.
    LECH WALESA a worthy subject for a clue but when it goes on to four lines it is time for a re-write.
    PDM@19 , yes for some reason a lot of people in the UK have these things in their house, maybe they enjoy being spied on by evil corporations.

41. I used a GLOVE BOX in my student days to handle toxic and radioactive substances, so the solution came easily to me, obvs 🙂

42. ABALONE
    Gervase@22
    Thanks for the info related to baloney.

43. Paul having fun. I enjoyed this very much – thanks to manehi for the parsing of set-to and oral exam, very clever. Lots to like – the Beethoven clue was right up my street and l also enjoyed working out the great Lech Walesa. Thanks very much Paul and manehi

44. Lots of favourites here.
    I think we had TOTES not too long ago, so fair enough.
    ( Never seen, or heard anyone say BYPATH – unless referring to a main “back” road, and spoken with a lisp.)
    Thanks P and M

45. PostMark @36: yes indeed re Miranda. In Tilly’s case it’s not so much youth-speak as poshgirl-speak. See here (scroll down a bit) for more tremendulant examples.

46. Pangakupu used BYPATH about 6 months ago so lots will have seen it then.

47. Slowly pieced together, apart from TOTES, which I gave up on.

    I liked the good anagram for IMPERSONAL, and the wordplays for HEXAGON, SET-TO, SPARE TYRE and AGGRAVATE. The latter did when I saw why=Y as unindicated textspeak; it’s written as wye.

    Thanks Paul and manehi, although no thanks to Alexa.

48. Agree with prospero@12 and bodycheetah@13 (@4 🙂 ) that 23d is a JOLLY good triple definition.
    Pretty sure I first heard 8d from Richard Osman on Pointless. His House Of Games has a round called “TOTES Emoji”.
    Here‘s a clip: ‘… if Rachel Parris can guess the film from the emojis then it’ll be TOTES AMAZEBALLS!’

49. BYPATH is rather odd; the usual term is “byway”, as in BOAT (Byway Open to All Traffic), and “way” has a long history of use as a synonym for “path”. Unfamiliar definitions made this puzzle tough, but there were no other answers that I hadn’t come across.

    I do not want to admit to liking EROTICA, so better to agree with gladys @34 that I enjoyed the clue.

50. Dr. WhatsOn @ 35. Me too, all 3 nights in 1974

51. [The Kinks’ Come Dancing(1982) – the lyrics rhyme ‘alley’ with “palais”…

52. … as had Fings Ain’t Wot They Used T’Be(1960)]

53. Loved ATYPICAL and EROTICA. Wonderful clues. On first run through got SPARE TYRE and GLOVE BOX and about three more so confidently (and wrongly) decided there was a theme of car parts. Since no one above has admitted this, it must just be me? Nice misdirection I thought. Being unfamiliar with TOTES AMAZEBALLS (got it from the clueing) looked it up to discover you can buy a “Mum you are totes amazeballs” greetings card, or a T-shirt. I also found the YouTube link referred to by Alan C and for the same reasons decided not to post it… [Thanks to FrankieG for much better earworms.]
    Many thanks Paul and Manehi. Have a lovely weekend everybody 😎.

54. As always with Paul, I wrote in several solutions without bothering to go back and figure out the parsing. Sometimes the destination is not worth the journey.

    For what it’s worth, my teenage son tells me that the expression at 8D is only ever used ironically to mock people trying too hard to be hip.

    Anyway, Paul is clearly a setter who divides opinions, so more power to those of you that enjoyed this, and see you all next week.

55. Isn’t it interesting how commenters here can have such polarised opinions about a puzzle and about a particular word or phrase. I would only ever say 8d in order to surprise my grandchildren that an old codger like me would know it, but it doesn’t upset me. Some other words and phrases would. I am known by friends and family as a pedant (affectionately, I hope), but some things seem OK, especially when it’s something used by younger people. After all, back in the 60s we had our own, now awfully dated, argot with which to annoy our parents.
    Thanks Paul for the entertainment and manehi for a nice blog and help with a couple of parsing.

56. Please excuse the verbosity!

57. Another one who choked over TOTES AMAZEBALLS – do such words really exist?

58. Tough but brilliant, and such fun!

    So much to like esp ALLY PALLY for the Friends surface, TOTES AMAZEBALLS, EROTICA, ORAL EXAM for the woman often asked and HEXAGON for the pain of spelling.

    So many thanks to Paul and manehi

59. Great puzzle apart from TOTES AMAZEBALLS! Really? Total bollocks more like…

60. FrankieG @51: I’d forgotten that top tuuune. Last band I saw at the Ally Pally, was The National, a few years ago. I also sat my Inspector’s exam there in 1993. A bit of a ball ache to get to though!

61. Thanks Paul and Manehi. Challenging and enjoyable puzzle, great blog.
    I hadn’t been able to parse SET TO, ABALONE or ORAL EXAM so thanks for the explanations. ORAL EXAM is especially good.
    Nho ALLY PALLY or TOTES etc, but worked them out from the clues and crossers and then looked them up. Also new, that meaning of GLOVE BOX.
    Some unusual indicators eg ‘right? No’ as anagrind.
    Liked EROTICA, HEXAGON, THE OVAL, ATYPICAL, LECH WALESA, O CANADA 🍁.

62. MCourtney@5: “It sounds like something a semi-literate teenage Tik-Toker would post.” (1) Surely it should be ‘Tik-Tokker’; (2) Could you be just a tad more contemptuous next time? Something about how young people don’t deserve to share this planet with you, perhaps.

63. Never heard of that meaning of GLOVEBOX, though I’ve seen pictures of them. I don’t know whether or not they’re called that in the US. The glovebox in the car we call, or at least I call, the glove compartment.

    Biffed in OOLONG. I would never have worked it out even though I knew about Bond’s 00.

    I liked it. Thanks to Paul and manehi.

64. Apparently TOTES AMAZEBALLS is number one on a list of expressions people detest. (Holibobs in at number two).

    Yorkshire Lass worked out that AMAZEBALLS might be possible, and Google confirmed it really was a thing. So, a TILT for us both.

    Agree with others above that this was the good old Paul back: welcome! Thanks to P&m.

65. Got “Ally Pally” only because of that show these Arsenal podcasters had held there, one day before end of season…
    DNF since didn’t get the first half of 8d though I thought it was fairly clued.
    Liked “Oolong”, “Erotica” and “Hexagon. Didn’t know Jolly could refer to the Marines…
    Would never have parsed “Oral Exam”.
    Thank you to Paul and Manehi

66. I was off school the day they did science so GLOVEBOX was also a biff & shrug for me – it sounded like a thing 🙂

67. Picaroon had a Zola clue the other day for Nana/nanna – perhaps Picaroon and Paul are both Zola fans, as totes amazeballs is also an anagram for Zola stablemates 🙃

68. [ IM@64 holibobs was ranked a lowly 24th in this list from GQ ]

69. 😊 bc@68.

70. Drill down and Deep dive must be Number 1 and 2 , I now take Paddington to faculty meetings, I have made him a special label saying- Please do not say Drill down or Deep dive in the hearing of this bear , Thank You – as soon as they start I stand him on the table and point at his label .

71. Hmm got me thinking about annoying business jargon now – so l took some low hanging fruit, ran it up the flag pole and put a pin in it…and reinvented the wheel!

72. Thanks both,
    I wonder if ‘amazeballs’ is in Chambers. It didn’t come up in the online version I tried.

73. [Roz@70: I do hope that Paddington`s response is not laser focussed.]

74. Roz @70, my boss (VP Academic and Provost) used to play bullshit bingo at faculty and senior executive meetings. It was amazing (and depressing) how many times we filled our cards.

    The notorious 8d (TOTES…) defeated me, but I’m not complaining. It was a good clue for something I’d never heard of. The clue for 6d ISLAMABAD, on the other hand, was far too fiddly for my liking. Otherwise a most enjoyable puzzle and blog, so thanks Paul and manehi.

75. Since I got my Paddington back from Sprog1 he has been very useful , I have made him labels for all occasions and his grumpy stare always works.
    Cellomaniac@74 I suspect that meetings at a higher level are even worse.

76. Odd mix from Paul today – my first one in was one of the two long ones, FATHER CHRISTMAS, while the other long one I eventually had to reveal as my LOI. Vaguely remembered “TOTES” being used as youngsters as slang, back in the 80s/90s, but had never heard of “AMAZEBALLS”, so that left me completely cold. Have a strong dislike for the use of such non-words in crosswords… surely there are enough proper words and phrases in the dictionary to avoid the need to resort to such garbage? Ugh!

77. MartyBridge@71, I also hope you circled the wagons around some blue sky thinking and came up with a disruptive paradigm.

78. Another tick for EROTICA. Thanks Paul and manehi, especially for the parsing of TOTES my LOI.

79. Marty and Lechien you really need to think outside the envelope.

80. You’re right Roz – moving forward, l’m gonna get boots on the ground and go the extra mile and push that envelope

81. [Lechien@77 – don’t tell anyone but l kinda like ‘blue sky thinking’]

82. Valentine @63,
    Yes, glove boxes are called that in the US. We have 3 in the lab I work in, although used for reactive chemicals rather than radioactive materials.
    Fun puzzle. I stumbled on BYPATH and took an age to find good old LECH.
    Thanks, manehi and Paul. Always good to see you both.

83. Blue sky doesn’t up your KPIs

84. Bypath, detour with a lisp, is that isihac?

85. 19a solved. Way over my head otherwise.

86. Fascinated by all the 8d discussion. If anyone is interested, this link may offer some explanation to the origins of the phrase. https://www.al.com/living/2013/12/behind_the_amazeballs_lingo_of.html.

87. [ GinF above: Only if Miss Bott is announcing the arrivals at her parent`s ball.
    I imagine that in Crosswordland this sort of clue, if not deemed unkind, would be something like “as heard from Violet Elizabeth…” ]

88. Muffin@3-spot on. I did bother, wish I hadn’t. Is there no end to Paul’s increasingly bizarre parsing?

89. NHO “Ally Pally” but figured what it had to be. NHO “corporation” to mean belly fat (though I did suspect TYRE, despite my inherent Yankness). Had BYPASS instead of BYPATH (NHO) — figured that Bass Ale has to come from somewhere. Did not get TOTES AMAZEBALLS but it may be my favorite clue of all time (and a nice comeuppance to those who have no issue with similarly transient obscure UK slang, but can’t stomach the offshore versions). Don’t consider Wales a nation — sorry guys, you’re still part of the UK, devolution and World Cup notwithstanding. The rest went reasonably easily, even with PEELER and JOLLY.

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