Guardian 29,658 – Paul

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A rather tricky puzzle, though one where the clues eventually led satisfyingly, if sometimes deviously, to the answers. Thanks to Paul.
Across
1 SOLIDIFY One poem filled empty day after sun set (8)
SOL (sun)+ I (one) + IF (Kipling poem) in D[a]Y
5 ANORAK West-facing complex of temples briefly visited by old trainspotter (6)
O[ld] in reverse of KARNA[K] (Egyptian temple complex)
9 NARCISSUS Rainbow is beginning to shine in reflection of light source – bulb! (9)
ARC (rainbow) IS S[hine] in reverse of SUN
11 HUBBY Better half’s other half, central? (5)
HUBBY could mean “like a hub”, i.e. central. I’m not sure about the definition – it could be two (very similar) definitions of a partner, or a joking way for a husband to refer to himself
12 DECIMAL POINT Mark, cryptically intense? (7,5)
A cryptic clue for INTENSE could be “Decimal point” meaning IN TENS + E[ast] (compass point)
15 HEAP A bargain when cap removed, great deal (4)
[c]HEAP – “it’s cheap” = “it’s a great deal”
16 SNAPDRAGON Plant seed covering trail on surface (10)
NAP (surface of cloth) + DRAG (to trail) in SON (seed, offspring)
18 VIDEO DIARY I’ve day without a radio broadcast for onscreen recording of thoughts (5,5)
Anagram of I’VE DAY less A + RADIO
19 E-FIT What might reveal a little of thief, I think? (1-3)
Hidden in thiEF I Think, &lit
21 CRICKET SCORE Heart-breaking condition caught, result of a combination of knocks? (7,5)
RICKETS + C[aught] in (“breaking”) CORE (heart)
24 ACUTE A pretty oblique mark (5)
A + CUTE
25 MAIL ORDER Purchasing system brotherhood discussed? (4,5)
A brotherhood of e.g. monks could be a “male order”
26 ERRATA A seaman concerned with reversing mistakes (6)
Reverse of A TAR RE
27 DEFRAYAL Scuffle in breach of contract in settlement of others’ costs (8)
FRAY (scuffle) in DEAL (contract)
Down
1 SONG Number penned by Gilbert & Sullivan, uplifting composition (4)
Reverse of NO in G & S
2 LARK Flier poet drops in (4)
[Philip] LARK[in]
3 DRIVER Club where loon punched by plonker at the back (6)
[plonke]R in LOON (diving bird) DIVER (diving bird, e.g. a loon)
4 FASHION VICTIM Sucker digging weeds? (7,6)
Cryptic definition, with weeds=clothes, usually only seen in the phrase “widows’ weeds”
6 NO-HOPERS Winner primarily missing in person who fails – one of those? (2-6)
Anagram of PERSON WHO less W[inner]
7 RUBBING OFF Removing leader in bully, house stops Trump (7,3)
B[ully] BINGO (the game of House) in RUFF (trump, in card games)
8 KRYPTONITE Fictional poison pretty OK in novel (10)
(PRETTY OK IN)*
10 SHARP PRACTICE Tricky device, needle-like drill (5,8)
SHARP (needle like) PRACTICE (drill)
13 CHEVY CHASE Player in pursuit of American vehicles? (5,5)
A “pursuit of American vehicles” might be a CHEVY (Chevrolet) CHASE
14 HARD LIQUOR Rough tongue picked up something alcoholic (4,6)
HARD + “licker” (tongue)
17 WONKIEST One Direction welcoming drunk in, OK being most squiffy? (8)
(IN OK)* in WEST (a direction)
20 ARMOUR Love dressing king in what would suit knight? (6)
R (King) in AMOUR
22 EDGY Tense – as lips? (4)
Lips are edges, so “as lips” is EDGY
23 ORAL Said right, introduction not needed (4)
[M]ORAL

61 comments on “Guardian 29,658 – Paul”

  2. Thanks Andrew for sorting out some pretty fiddly parsings here. Small point – 3d should be [plonke]R in DIVER (loon, a diving bird).
    And thanks to Paul too of course

  3. Phew, a proper workout, but satisfying. Thanks Paul and Andrew.
    Andrew, you’ve left out the first I (‘one’) in parsing SOLIDIFY.

  4. Andrew, in 1ac you also need ‘one’ for the extra ‘I’. You have confused yourself in 3dn. Thaks to Andrew, and Paul too. (No credit to Paul in the heading.

  5. Andrew, thanks for sorting out Trump [sic]. It’s over 50 years since I last played bridge and I’ve only once played bingo so that was definitely a DNP.

  6. Excellent puzzle for reasons stated by Andrew.
    The term ‘better half’ is usually used by a husband about his wife rather than vice versa, so the better half’s other half would be her HUBBY.
    For DRIVER, ‘Loons’ is the North American name for a family of birds known in UK English as ‘Divers’ – so clue is more precise than just being related to the fact that they dive.
    Needed help to parse ANORAK- I didn’t know/had forgotten Karnak.
    Thanks Paul and Andrew.

  7. Missed the E = point bit of 12ac, and needed crossers for cricket score — a nice semantic switch, and ditto for fashion victim. Pretty neat overall from the prolific Paul, thx to him and Andrew.

  9. Nice to encounter a Paul without multi-light clues and cross-references for once. A smoother solve as a result though I dnk DEFRAYAL and ended up with an unparsed BETRAYAL, plus DECIMAL POINT remained unparsed so thanks for that, Andrew. CRICKET SCORE, MAIL ORDER, ERRATA (COTD) and KRYPTONITE were my faves. A few odd surfaces and, to me, the cryptic grammar feels a little off in NO-HOPERS but not enough to stop the solve.

    KVa @8: I took it to be defined as ‘oblique mark’ but your alternative does work. Slightly trickier to have WP and two defs but not beyond the pale imo.

    Thanks Paul and Andrew

  10. At 15a, I took the answer, HEAP, to denote a substantial quantity of something (a HEAP of …/a good deal of …) rather than ‘good deal’ acting simply as a comment on the bargain, which at first, from the surface, it might appear to be.

  11. New for me: SHARP PRACTICE, BINGO = house (for 7d).

    I could not parse 12ac, 16ac apart from DRAG=trail, 6d.

  14. Scopolax @ 13 I am inclined to agree. Glaswegians have as many synonyms for drunk as Inuit reputedly have for snow, and ‘wonky’ certainly is not one of them. To be fair, though, neither is ‘squiffy’ – in my home city drinkers tend to bypass squiffiness and go straight to steamboats.

  15. Re Scolopax @13 I guess it is a synonym for squiffy, though. Not in squiffy as drunk, but as skew whiff (how do you spell that??) or off beam or -well – wonky

  16. As usual with Paul, I could only semi-parse several (and, after yesterday, have decided life’s too short to spend hours on a crossword) so thank you, Andrew, for all your help. Especially for ANORAK: I’d not heard of the temple – and it’s tricky DuckDuckGoing an incomplete word when you don’t know which bits are missing; also for RUBBING OFF, as the only card game I’ve ever played is Patience (and my reserves of that have not yet been restored).
    ARMOUR was rather neat, as was SONG – and LARK was a little beauty!
    Thank you Paul for the fun

  17. FASHION VICTIM was all that fit the crossers for me.
    Thanks for explanation but Im still not buying it.
    Otherwise OK

  18. Some great clues – enjoyed the trademark EDGY & HUBBY pair. Thought WONKIEST was the shonkiest

    Cheers P&A

  19. Insomnia had me tackle this at 3am. To my surprise I completed. Maybe I should do that more often. Had several imparted so thank you Andrew.

    Balfour @10: I had that parsing too.

    James’s @16: agree that squiffy isn’t really meant to be drunk, though like Balfour it’s a state generally bypassed in my town – we go straight to elephants usually.

    I got E-FIT by deduction, but I don’t know what it is or what it means?

  21. Thanks, Andrew. As often with this setter, there were a few which I hadn’t bothered to parse. Last in, and therefore favourite, was DECIMAL POINT – very clever. For SQUIFFIEST I thought of an untidy row of books on a shelf which could be described as squiffy or wonky. Am I just imagining it or has Paul recently reduced the number of sprawling, multi-part solutions he uses? I very much hope it’s a lasting trend.

  22. FASHION VICTIM
    Surface: A young pig (sucker) digging weeds (plants).
    Cryptic: Victim (sucker) liking (digging) clothes (weeds)?

    Works for me. Of course, there could be a better explanation.

  23. It wasn’t much easier than yesterday, but it was more satisfying. I was pleased with myself for solving the decimal point straight from the clue. There was some tricky parsing elsewhere. Weeds? Ruff? Who knew? Thanks, Paul and Andrew.

    PS. Amused by Balfour @14 re Glaswegians and the Inuit, I’ll drink to that!

  26. Thanks for the blog , no messing about just a set of good clues .
    I agree with Beaulieu@6 for HUBBY , the wife is the better half and the husband the lesser half . Balfour@10 has it right for HEAP , the parts of the clue are separate .
    I think Paul has missed out with DECIMAL POINT , potential for a very devious clue .

  27. Took a long time with this but well worth the effort. Roz @26: DECIMAL POINT was devious enough for me ta v much! 😉. Agree that HUBBY is spot on, despite the sentiment and thx for parsing RUBBING OFF, a bridge too far. Favourites were FASHION VICTIM, CHEVY CHASE and loi, DEFRAYAL.

    Ta Paul & Andrew.

  28. Surprisingly for me I managed to gradually solve this latest Paul puzzle without too much bother and fuss. Though I did rely rather heavily on the definition part of the clue in several instances. Needed Andrew’s clarity to understand what was going on with my last two in HUBBY and RUBBING OFF. Nice to see the reference to Philip LARKin, as I’m presently ploughing through (just a few pages at a time) Andrew Motion’s extremely detailed biography of the poet.

  29. SONG and LARK were a nice way into this. FASHION VICTIM also earned a tick.

    Balfour @10: yes, that is surely correct. I think maybe Andrew meant to say ‘“it’s cheap” = “it’s a bargain”‘. (To clarify how an adjective could be equivalent to a noun.)

    Thanks Paul and Andrew.

  30. I didn’t finish, but came close. It would have taken too much time to really think it all through. I enjoyed it very much. I couldn’t pass DECIMAL POINT, so thank you Andrew.

    Weirdly ANORAK was a write in although I had to check that there was a temple complex, KARNA*. It rang a bell somewhere between my subconscious and my memory. I learnt who Chevy Chase was. It seemed a good use of general knowledge. The clue was obvious enough without having to be familiar with Saturday Night Live fifty years ago.

    I didn’t get LARK, but it is a lovely clue. Ditto DEFRAYAL. I also enjoyed NARCISSUS and CRICKET SCORE.

    I think that I am a Paul fan

  31. MuddyThinking @19 & Ravenrider @24: in my younger sleuthing days, an E-FIT was hand-drawn or even a series of slides for hair, eyes, nose, mouth and chin and in my experience, pretty useless, although some reassurance for the victims that their complaint was being taken seriously. The computer-generated ones are vastly superior of course.

  32. As others, I much prefer Paul in this guise with less jumping around.

    I couldn’t parse DECIMAL POINT, but now see it’s rather clever. I liked the wordplays of RUBBING OFF, SOLIDIFY and DEFRAYAL, the definition for CRICKET SCORE, and the good anagram for NO HOPERS. Somehow, I originally read 8D as fictional person and wondered how KRYPTONITE was one, doh!

    Thanks Paul and Andrew.

  33. I enjoyed this more than the usual Paul, with 1D and 2D, my LOIs, in particular amusing me. I failed to parse 12A so thank you Andrew, and E-FIT was an NHO.

    Robi@32 I also read “person”, very odd.

    Thanks to Paul and Andrew.

  34. [ AlanC@27 I was thinking of using the symbol but will not say more in case it ever gets used .
    I was expecting to see you at Number 1 , you are usually the Abba of the crossword blog , perhaps you were shopping in Ikea or planting your rutabaga ]

  35. Nice straightforward Paul without multi-light clues or multiple cross references, though I can’t say I did very well. I couldn’t for the life of me think of the right poet for LARK (nice clue, though) or the right poem for SOLIDIFY (I was thinking of types of poem rather than titles, and trying to jam ODE in there somewhere), and I didn’t know DEFRAYAL. Also failed to parse DECIMAL POINT and SNAPDRAGON.

    I liked SONG and HARD LIQUOR, the CHEVY CHASE, the MAIL ORDER and the FASHION VICTIM ( which reminds me of today’s earworm: I’m somewhere in that crowd singing along)

  37. [Roz@34: I think that would have been easier to solve than the actual clue, unless the symbol was disguised somehow. As it was I didn’t completely parse it apart from a vague “tens is related to decimal” hunch.
    You remind me of a long distant clue as follows:
    11a. (6,5)
    ]

  39. MuddyThinking@37 you need to hide the symbol more , make it look like a normal clue .
    Demonical pit destroyed . ( 7,5 )

  40. Very nice puzzle from Paul today – a setter who doesn’t always get accolades from me (though I don’t suppose he cares much about that). I struggled to parse HUBBY satisfactorily, but Beaulieu@6 seems to have nailed it. Thanks to Paul, our blogger and Beaulieu.

  41. AlanC@31, wasn’t the earlier version a photofit? E-fit came as a name when they moved to the computer system I think.

    Dr Whatson@38, I was assuming the truncated complex was Angko for quite some time, when I realised the solution I spent some time trying to justify removing the g and anagramming before just looking at the solution reversed and reaching for the tea tray.

  42. So if the wife is the better half and the husband is the other half…well, as a man with a husband I’m confused as to where that leaves me. (Avoiding heteronormitive conceits like this, is where.)

    I found some of the parsings here quite elliptical, but the only one I didn’t eventually figure out in the end was SNAPDRAGON, plunked in from definition. Thanks for that one.

  43. [Roz @39: I see what you mean. Thanks.

    The clue I referenced was from a crossword in the 80s sometime – the answer was “letter count” although I spent a long time on variations of “clueless”…]

  44. Can someone please explain BINGO = game of House? Is it that a hotel or some other type of institution might hold a private bingo game for its patrons? Why is House capitalized (capitalised?)?

  45. Blue Dot @44 , when you play this game and your card gets full you shout Bingo or House , the game itself has many names .

  46. Bluedot@44
    The old name for bingo is housey-housey
    Scolopax @13 and James @15
    I think that drunk is the anagram indicator for INOK IN west, and the definition is most squiffy

  49. I found this to be one of my least satisfying puzzles by Paul. Sometimes he tries to be too clever and the puzzles suffer as a result.

  50. A completed Paul puzzle is indeed a rarity, though ultimately unsatisfying as so much is unparsed. 1a, 12a…probably about a third of the clues not fully parsed.
    Looking forward to the enlightenment and reading the blog.
    Thanks both.

  52. For once I found myself in a clue. As an avid railway enthusiast and years ago train spotter it was nice to see anorak This along with gricer is the correct term for those of us who have hugged platform ends and underlined a locos number in our Ian Allan books. Seeing a loco not seen before was a “cop”. Nice crossword up to Paul’s high standards.

  53. I failed to complete in an original way, with DEFRAYED at 27a, after seeing DEED immediately for a ‘contract’, and never bothering about the parts of speech mismatch. This left me with _ R _ D at 23d, and I remembered the Bernard Cribbens song, Right Said Fred (and there’s a band named after it, too, thus confirming the much touted idea that absolutely any word or combination of words is the name of a band). Of course FRED is the wrong answer, despite the clue starting off with ‘said right’, but I like it anyway.

    Thanks Paul (and I hope you can survive being criticised for multi-light answers even on those occasions when there aren’t any in the grid!) and mega-thanks to Andrew for the help with the ones I couldn’t parse.

    I can’t believe I actually got CHEVY CHASE!

  54. Gladys @35, has said it all!

    Thank you to Paul for a pretty tough challenge and to Andrew for parsing the ones I couldn’t manage.

    [Thank you for the earworm Gladys, I’ve sung along many times myself and it brought back some lovely memories]

  56. Unlike some others I relish Paul’s themed puzzles but very much enjoyed this anyway, and loved the blog (which I needed for bingo/ruff parsing) – authoritative without being at all dismissive, bravo Andrew!

  57. Why are people so pedantic? Paul is our favourite compiler and we look forward to his themed puzzles. He is always deft and witty and the clues always parse neatly, even if sometimes we need a bit of help. The only questionable one in this crossword was 10d. I wouldn’t call ‘sharp practice’ a tricky device. More a type of behaviour.

  58. I thought the same thing as Librich @57 regarding SHARP PRACTICE. It seemed to me to have two cryptic indicators but not a proper definition.

    I found this puzzle difficult and had to cheat on a couple of clues.

  59. Mein Host describes this as a “rather tricky puzzle” but I found it averagely difficult. In fact I’m rather impressed by Paul’s ability to produce such a “normal” puzzle as well as the harder and odder puzzles he’s more well-known for.

  60. I am a mediocre puzzler and something of a pedant so I found this extremely difficult, frustrating and the work of a smarmy character. Congrats to all who enjoyed it. I am going back to the Telegraph back page where I belong.

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