Thank you to Paul. Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Across
1, 11. Cash (both extremes) described by newspaper articles – like so? (4,2,6)
RAGS TO RICHES : 1st and last letters of(… (both extremes)) “Cash” contained in(described by) [ RAG STORIES ](articles in a newspaper).
Answer: The attainment of cash/wealth may be described in a newspaper as a rags-to-riches story.
4. Body, jeepers, exuded fluid! (6)
CORPUS : COR!(like “jeepers!”, an expression of surprise) + PUS(fluid exuded from an infection).
9. Sun with dawn briefly seen (4)
STAR : “start”(dawn/birth) minus its last letter(briefly seen).
10. Mechanism on bike all rider has used, oddly, when changing (10)
DERAILLEUR : Anagram of(…, when changing) [ALL RIDER plus(has) 1st and 3rd letters of(…, oddly) “used” ].
Defn: … which its rider uses to change gears.
11. See 1
12. Take a seat in restaurant, perhaps, not beyond solver? (8)
GET TABLE : [ GET TABLE ](a description of what has to be done, perhaps, before sitting in a restaurant).
Defn: … of a puzzle, say, of a crossword.
13. Llama and ape scrapping, in goes hard chest-beating primate (5,4)
ALPHA MALE : Anagram of(… scrapping) [LLAMA plus(and) APE] containing(in goes) H(abbrev. for “hard”).
15. See 8 Down
16. Wait, POTU? (4)
BIDE : “Biden”(Joe, US President) minus its last letter like POTU from POTUS(abbrev. for the President of the United States).
17. A sign of the swine being completed by cruciverbalist, finally – eureka! (3,6)
AHA MOMENT : A + [ HAM OMEN ](what you might call a sign of a part of the swine) plus(being completed by) last letter of(…, finally) “cruciverbalist”.
Defn: The moment the light dawns on you and you shout …/”I’ve got it!”.
21. Ears ain’t in need of treatment – so well? (8)
ARTESIAN : Anagram of(… in need of treatment) EARS AIN’T.
Defn: Describing a well bored into ground and for which pumping is not required to bring up the water.
22. Exposure of song just written for the radio? (6)
NUDITY : Homophone of(… for the radio) “new”(just written) “ditty”(a short simple song).
24. Flirt cut by villain with end of weapon – as slash seen? (10)
DIAGONALLY : DALLY(to flirt/to play with) containing(cut by) [ IAGO(a villain in the Shakespearean play, Othello) plus(with) last letter of(end of) “weapon” ].
Defn: How the slash sign/”/” looks/as seen
25. See 8 Down
26. Boring thing, jacketed male? (6)
GIMLET : M(abbrev. for “male”) contained in(jacketed …/covered with a jacket …) GILET(a sleeveless padded jacket).
27. Veep unfamiliar with King Edward, game for the reporter? (6)
QUAYLE : Homophone of(… for the reporter) “quail”(a game bird).
Defn: Veep/vice president to George W. Bush, who once “corrected” a student’s spelling of “potato”, of which the King Edward is a kind, to “potatoe”, due to his “unfamiliarity” with it, to put it kindly.
Down
1. Another hearing it, rare rare owl’s back (7)
RETRIAL : Anagram of(… rare) IT, RARE + last letter of(…’s back) “owl”.
Defn: … in a court of law.
2. Measure of corporation in hindsight, rightfully upset (5)
GIRTH : Hidden in(in) reversal of(… upset, in a down clue) “hindsight, rightfully”.
Defn: …/one’s paunch.
3. Killing in order, not everyone for the dictator? (4,3)
TIDY SUM : TIDY(in order/neat) + homophone of(… for the dictator) “some”(not everyone).
Answer: That gained from a great financial success/a killing.
5. Number one in head after zero (6)
OPIATE : [ I(Roman numeral for “one”) contained in(in) PATE(a person’s head) ] placed below(after, in a down clue) O(letter representing 0/zero).
Defn: …/a substance that numbs.
6. Game of cards, simple game where hand thrown in (9)
PELMANISM : Anagram of(… game) SIMPLE containing(where … thrown in) MAN(a hand/a worker).
7. Shriek having lost a companion – it sounds like it sucks (7)
SQUELCH : “squeal”(shriek/a long high-pitched cry) minus(having lost) “a” + CH(abbrev. for Companion of Honour, one awarded for outstanding achievements in the Commonwealth).
Defn: A soft sucking sound when pressure is applied to mud, the term being imitative of the sound it describes.
8, 15, 25. Whitehall greed with African trips, that cargo needs protection! (7,6,4,4)
FRAGILE; HANDLE WITH CARE! : Anagram of(… trips) [WHITEHALL GREED plus(with) AFRICAN].
14. Wonder if not immediately apparent in fridge magnet? (6,3)
HIDDEN GEM : Hidden in(in) “fridge magnet”.
16. Action that brings up taste in food? (7)
BURPING : Reversal of(brings up, in a down clue) [ NIP(to taste by taking a sip or sips of spirits) contained in(in) GRUB(informal term for food) ].
Defn: … by air released from the stomach through the mouth.
18. Bomb owed, declared however (4,3)
MIND YOU : Homophone of(…, declared) [ “mine”(a bomb/an explosive that detonates on contact) “due”(owed/outstanding) ].
19. Turn to specious note – that’s what it is? (3,4)
NOT TRUE : Anagram of(… specious) TURN TO + E(a note on the C major music scale).
Defn: …, ie. specious/plausible but wrong.
20. Intended to give tips on cabriole after simple lifts (6)
FIANCÉ : 1st and last letters of(tips on) “cabriole” placed below(after, in a down clue) reversal of(… lifts, in a down clue NAÏF(naïve/simple).
Defn: …/a person one intends to marry, a man, in this case.
23. Ailing – like a detective? (5)
DICKY : DICK(an informal term for a detective) Y(suffix indicating “like”, as in “manly”).
Defn: …/unhealthy.
Bung of unparsed PALLADIUM at 6d my undoing. Had to Google the bike part and didn’t know rhe card game obviously. Otherwise a fun and inventive puzzle, as you’d expect Thanks Paul and scchua.
I think that you need to remove the space in 14a GETTABLE scchua
Undone by nho PELMANISM at the end; I had the anagram of ‘simple’ but could not work out the missing ‘hand’ which seems so obvious in hindsight. Otherwise everything came together OK. Some typical Paul tricks with BURPING my favourite construction for the CAD.
Thanks Paul and scchua
Against my better judgement, I tackled this – and actually completed it!
I really liked BIDE, NUDITY and DICKY, but I can’t honestly say the rest was an unalloyed pleasure. Other than the anagrams, the vast majority were guess-first, struggle-but-fail-to-parse-after.
Still, of those I succeeded in parsing, I only scrawled FFS next to three of them – so presumably I’m growing better at discerning Paul’s mindset.
(I really must get out more…)
Profound and heartfelt thanks to scchua for all the explanations.
Took me a while to remember the Quayle episode for 27 after spending time trying to get ‘ER’ for King Edward into a word. Laughed when I saw it, of course, though strictly it was the spelling rather than the spud he was unfamiliar with. Thought this was quite a challenge from Paul as a lot of the definitions had to teased out. As a cyclist, DERAILLEUR was one of my first few entries on the initial mainly puzzled pass through the across clues. I remember PELMANISM from my childhood as well. Satisfying to solve BURPING. and GETTABLE as well, but enjoyed it all. Thanks to Paul and to scchua.
David Astle’s equivalent in the Grauniad continues to irritae me.
Like Tomsdad, I remember adverts for Pelmanism from my childhood but it was still quite a late entry.
I was tickled to write GETTABLE and AHA MOMENT in the grid rather than, as I’m more used to doing, in a comment on the blog.
I had ticks for BIDE, QAYLE, NUDITY and BURPING and could have given several more (for ingenious construction) if more care had been taken with the surfaces.
Thanks to Paul and scchua.
Excellent puzzle – tricky, amusing, enjoyable.
Thank you scchua for explaining the relevance of King Edward (potato) in QUAYLE. Thanks also for the CH = companion in SQUELCH.
Nho PELMANISM, but worked out from the clue.
Last in OPIATE, due to being once again misdirected by ‘number’. I thought it was one of those tricky arithmetical clues until the penny dropped.
And one question, is ‘specious’ doing a double duty in NOT TRUE? The definition otherwise seems a little vague to me.
I liked RAGS TO RICHES and FRAGILE HANDLE WITH CARE (great anagram) but my favourite was the clever BIDE.
Thanks to Paul and scchua
Thank you scchua. Especially for QUAYLE and BURPING. I got the def and the homophone for QUALYE but thought the wordplay was some Latin that I didn’t get. And only got the surface reading for BURPING, thought it was a cryptic def.
Thanks Paul and Schuaa
Worth all the struggle for Bide. I was taught Pelmanism by my Mum a long time ago on a rainy holiday in West Country – so an easy one.
Great fun and a real challenge as always from Paul
[Earworm for 8d, 15a, 25a: The Traveling Wilburys’ (FRAGILE) – HANDLE WITH CARE (1988)]
Eileen@7 I think the game (turning over cards to find matching pairs) is still played, not necessarily with playing cards now, but it has lost it’s rather splendid old name.
My thanks to Paul and scchua. I thought the very first clue, for RAGS TO RICHES, was beautifully formed.
Getting the GETTABLE, FRAGILE HANDLE WITH CARE and ALPHA MALE early gave me false hope that this was going to be on the easy side. A true slog but happy to eventually finish with QUAYLE, which was brilliant along with DERAILLEUR and BIDE. I still don’t understand NOT TRUE, but was pleasingly able to parse the nho PELMANISM. As for NUDITY….mmm
Ta Paul and scchua.
Thanks Paul and scchua
I had no idea of the parsing of Quayle, as I had forgotten the potatoe incident.
Favourite LOI BURPING, which I think might qualify as an &lit?
I have to ask, what consistency is there in the dialects of English for Paul’s homophones today? NUDITY (new ditty) yod dropping, and MIND YOU which in my dialect would be mined jew.
Good fun. RAGS TO RICHES was a very clever CAD. And I liked the HAM OMEN in 17a.
Re DERAILLEUR, Ginger Baker once told the other members of Cream that his new bike had “Disraeli Gears”, and that became the title of their next album.
Thanks Paul and scchua.
I really don’t get Paul. Managed 2 answers. 2 disasters and 3 complete this week.
Sometimes Paul’s quirkiness goes too far. Today I think he was spot on. Slight nod to the terrifying goings on across the pond, I suppose, with ALPHA MALE, RETRIAL, NOT TRUE, BIDE(N), (Tricky) DICKY as well as the delightful QUAYLE, but much else to enjoy.
The long one called to mind what became a family catch phrase years ago after watching British Railways employees at a rural station in deepest Warwickshire taking a somewhat, shall we say, energetic approach to heaving potentially fragile freight out of the guard’s van – “‘Handle with care’ – BUMP!”
Thanks to Paul and scchua.
DERAILLEUR is one clue I wasn’t derailed by, being a Tour de France tragic. I can’t ride a bike, but I love the scenery.
Alastair@18. Don’t worry about Paul. I’ve had to give him up for months on end. Not my idea of fun. But lots of others enjoy him. Each to their own. There are plenty of other setters you might enjoy.
There isn’t paddymelon @16. That’s because they’re not homophones and not meant to be homophones.
I rather struggled with this, though as usual in retrospect they were all fair enough. I sometimes think I a good crossword could be used to measure my daily mental flexibility.
paddymelon @16 New ditty works for me, but no doubt there are some variant pronunciations. I’m sure some would pronounce the first syllable as noo, but many pronounce new that way as well, quite possibly the same people.
PELMANISM brought back memories of rainy summer holidays. The HAM OMEN was fun. Love the Disraeli gears story, Lord Jim.
Dredged up 6d PELMANISM from somewhere in my memory, though it might have been a false one, induced by yesterday’s paramnesia.
TiLT: Before being used as the “Game of cards” (1923–), it was a memory technique (1916–) ‘taught by the world-famous Pelman Institute. …
1934 Short exercise in Pelmanism enables me to connect wave in her hair with first name, which is Marcella. ‘E. M. Delafield’, Provincial Lady in America 90 …
2003 Iain Duncan Smith has..a ‘hinterland’ of interests beyond politics. His hobbies include whistling, lawn-mowing and Pelmanism. Daily Telegraph (Nexis) 7 October’
(We need to take the second “game” in the clue as “gammy”, like my leg.)
After a first few solved, it was, for me, a case of see what words fit in and then try to parse the most likely answer.
I’d forgotten, or never knew, the Quayle potatoe incident, so no hope of parsing that one. I liked the anagram for DERAILLEUR and worplays for GIMLET, PELMANISM and BURPING.
Thanks Paul and scchua for the nicely pictorial blog.
Just couldn’t get on to Paul’s wavelength today but I struggled on, becoming increasingly exasperated, until I revealed the last four (QUAYLE, PELMANISM, AHA MOMENT and RETRIAL if anyone cares). Thanks to Paul, nevertheless, and especially to scchua for succinct explanations of the ones I couldn’t guess.
Thankyou Frankie G fir IDS;s hinterland of interests.
I too had forgotten Dan Quayle, he probably kept the elder Bush safe from any assassination attempts.Wiki lists some if his more notable quotes.
It took 3 attempts to finish this, but each time I came back things were clearer. PELMANISM was my loi as I had mistyped GETTABLE and Fiance took a long time as I had entered LE instead of CE for some reason. It’s a sort of crossword dyslexia.
Thanks for the blog, pretty good overall despite the usual dreary soundalikes.
RAGS TO RICHES and AHA MOMENT are very neat .
QUAYLE a great definition – Dan Quayle , just say noe.
PELMANISM often called Pairs or Memory Game, children still love playing it , though not with me for some reason .
DERAILLEUR was my first in. Another TDF tragic, despite the time zone differences. Of course the scenery’s not too shabby either.
Straight in with Derailleur, thought this is peasy, then 16a…simples…then hit the wall with 8down et al. Lots of guessing and checking, thank you Scchua for the explanations. Love the ham omen. Surprised no Harry Potter reference to 24a. I still ❤️ Paul’s crosswords.
Chardonneret @30
The Harry Potter reference for 24 would have to make the clue a bit cumbersome, as he would have to clue it to explain why there is an E missing in ALL(e)Y.
DERAILLEUR my first too.
I also know PELMANISM as Remember Remember – I still own a Galt set of over 100 cards called that from the 1960s that we played as children and I used to play with my daughter. (It still has over 50 pairs, I’m not sure how many cards it started with, 120 or 144).
As another cyclist, DERAILLEUR was my first in, followed swiftly by BIDE.
All in and parsed, even the dodgy homophones, really early this morning, then up and doing before the blog was published. It’s chewier than the Mudd in the FT.
Thank you to scchua and Paul.
Great fun! I had forgotten the Dan Quayle episode…
Saw many homonym indicators in the clues and my heart sank…for me, they’re difficult at the best of times…this setter seems to run his own Phonology department…
Finished, but didn’t find much to like…for me, clunky constructions and parsings
16d was LOI, had all the crossers and wrote “Barfing” (thought it was a Paul-y word), then really looked at the clue, and corrected…
Thank you to Paul and Schuaa
Never heard of and didn’t get PELMANISM, and didn’t like it when I revealed. ‘Game’ is not a sound anagrind, while MAN could equally have been LAD. Cluing a word that many solvers will not have heard of, and doesn’t look like the name of a game, in that sort of way is wilful smart-aleckery, not good setting.
Challenging. Got hardly any last night, a few more this morning and then wallowed in the check button.
Suddenly the crossers at 10 made me say, “maybe that’s ‘derailer.’ No, too few letters, there’s a U, maybe it’s French.” So bunged in DERAILLEUR.
Thanks to Paul and to scchua for the pix.
FrankieG@11. Thanks for the link. Wonderful.
Got stuck with most of the bottom half still to do, then a burst of progress made me believe I’d finish it after all, only to get stuck on PELMANISM, which I hadn’t heard of. Like others, PALLADIUM got thrown in, expecting it to be wrong. Close but no cigar.
As always I struggled to get on Paul’s wavelength, but plugged away with a little outside help.
16A and 17A both made me smile when the penny dropped.
I love it when the stars align on a Friday and I have Paul in the Grauniad and David Astle in The Age (an alleged ‘newspaper’ in Melbourne) on the same day! Tricky, cheeky and an enjoyably frustrating but satisfying challenge.
Big thanks Paul and scchua.
Way too hard for me. But, reading the blog, an absolute gem of a crossword. Very clever and witty.
High quality puzzle by Paul. 17AC AHA MOMENT, when finally solved, brought out a smile of pleasure. Didn’t solve QUAYLE, even as an American, because clueing was so misleading to me. But he was definitely no JFK as Sen. Bentsen famously observed.
I’m not a fan of “Iago” being clued as just “villain” – that’s far too much of a logical leap. It should have been “Shakespearean villain” or something, to give me at least a chance of knowing what the setter wanted there.
I seem to have a hate-love relationship with Paul’s puzzles. I don’t get many on the first pass, the rest seem impenetrable and I’m hating it. Then one by one the rest fall, with the terrible puns and aural wordplay making it fun again. Clues like BURPING are just great.
Setter being Paul, I wrote in 16d as BARFING…it shares all the crossers.
geeker@45: I had BARFING as well, and, unlike, TPS@34, I didn’t correct it.
And for some reason I didn’t see AHA MOMENT, and had a srmi-parsed “the moment” instead.
Clever; clever. Chapeau.
Thanks both. I was glad you were the blogger, scchua, as it meant that a picture could paint the thousand words it would take to explain a DERAILLEUR.
Nho PELMANISM so entry to the SE corner was blocked and I eventually threw in the towel. On reflection (MIND YOU) the only iffy offerings in that quarter were DICKY which was beyond my detection capacities (not a clever dick I suppose) and NOT TRUE (mental gymnastics beyond me (and also that ‘specious’ is not a word in my verbal portmanteau)). A 6 for me – took too long with diminishing returns of enjoyment as it progressed. COD – HIDDEN GEM.
geeker@45: I was another ‘barfing’ for a while.
You have to know the potatoe story in order to get 27 QUAYLE. I didn’t so I didn’t.
Like Eileen, I found this to be a typical Paul puzzle – a combination of witty surfaces and iffy surfaces. (“Bomb owed, declared however”??) I did like the pig portent at 17a AHA MOMENT, and the not so tasteful action of 16d BURPING, my clue of the day.
Thanks Paul and scchua for the entertainment.
Is Dan Quayle’s most memorable contribution as VPOTUS his ability to spell potato?
NHO pelmanism
DNF today I’m afraid.
Defeated by QUAYLE at the very end. And had no idea at all why BIDE should take its place in the grid. The rest I enjoyed with all those a la Paul fashioned clues…PELMANISM was a card game that used to infuriate me as a child.
QUAYLE got me, and I’m distantly related to the cretin. A wonderful clue, despite my failure to get it. Otherwise, I tough-ish one that involved a lot of after-parsing.
I also sort of parsed THE MOMENT as THEM (the swine) OMEN (sign). I also didn’t parse BURPING as I thought it was just a slightly cryptic definition.
Haven’t read the other comments, yet, but here’s my two penn’orth.
Paul’s puzzles usually fall into one of two camps for me: surprisingly gettable and enjoyable (if often on the silly side of playful), or way too convoluted and obscure to be any fun for the most part. This one’s different, in that it fell somewhere in the middle, but thankfully being the best of both worlds: one of the more difficult ones, with a good few convolutions, but also enjoyable and navigable.
It’s taken until this morning to complete, but with two reveals: 5 and 27. I needed Word Wizard to finish PELMANISM too. On reflection, if I’d gone away and come back later, I might have got OPIATE but, for a puzzle of this level of chewiness, I’ll take my efforts as a win overall.
Very witty puzzle. Blog on 27ac states that Quayle was veep for George W., but it was for the elder George H. W.
got there in the end bar 17ac – I had “the moment” instead of “aha moment”. I thought them for the swine was weak.