Paul is the setter is this morning.
If you were told that the theme of a puzzle was underwear, you would probably guess that Paul was the compiler. However, this was Paul on his best behaviour, with all of the clues being done “in the best possible taste”.
I’m not sure I like 20dn as there is no definition as such, but otherwise all was fair, if not at first obvious. Thankfully, I had heard of Monastir, although some may not have. I hope I’ve parsed everything correctly, but with Paul, you sometimes miss things.
Thanks, Paul.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | TIDALWAVE |
Wife and boy with it reflected on prayer ā a bore? (5,4)
|
| <=(W (wife) + LAD (“boy”) with IT, reflected) on AVE (“prayer”) | ||
| 6 | TYPE |
Key in order (4)
|
| Double definition | ||
| 8 | MONASTIR |
North African city where old lady has hooked on bustle (8)
|
| MA (“old lady”) has hooked ON + STIR (“bustle”)
Monastir is a tourist resort on the Tunisian coast. |
||
| 9 | FIRKIN |
Nettle stuffed in codpiece? That would take some beer! (6)
|
| IRK (“nettle”) stuffed in FIN (part of a fish, so “cod piece”) | ||
| 10 | AGNATE |
On the masculine side, āe has underwear sent back (6)
|
| <=(E has TANGA (thong-like “underwear”), sent back) | ||
| 11 | NAMELESS |
Unidentified flying salesmen! (8)
|
| *(salesmen) [anag:flying] | ||
| 12 | DOINGS |
Behaviour evident in wearing boxers, say (6)
|
| IN wearing DOGS (“boxers, say”) | ||
| 15 | MOLASSES |
Sticky liquid in second bevy? (8)
|
| MO (“second”) + (bevy of) LASSES | ||
| 16 | HERBARIA |
Goddess tours Italian city where Rosemary and Basil live? (8)
|
| HERA (“goddess”) tours BARI (“Italian city”) | ||
| 19 | ENTITY |
Being somewhat different, it yields (6)
|
| Hidden in [somewhat] “differENT IT Yields” | ||
| 21 | KNICKERS |
Underwear for Gordon Bennett! (8)
|
| Double definition, the second being an expletive to indicate annoyance or surprise. | ||
| 22 | TRILBY |
Hat within reach after article removed from case (6)
|
| BY (“within reach”) after TRI(a)L (“case”) with A (article) removed | ||
| 24 | DAMSON |
Fruity thing like that in 21 (6)
|
| SO (“like that”) in DAMN (an expletive similar to KNICKERS (the solution to 21ac) | ||
| 25 | REAR-VIEW |
Arrive elsewhere, we having reversed ā allowing vision that way? (4-4)
|
| *(arrive) [anag:elsewhere] + <=WE [having reversed] | ||
| 26 | FLAW |
Crack in bottom discussed? (4)
|
| Homophone/pun/aural wordplay [discussed] of FLOOR (“bottom”)
I suppose FLAW and FLOOR may sound alike in certain accents, but to a Scot, they sound nothing alike. |
||
| 27 | SANITISED |
Tidiness, a new clean (9)
|
| *(tidiness a) [anag:new] | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | THONG |
Third of hornets extracted from swarm in underwear (5)
|
| [third of] (ho)R(nets) extracted from TH(r)ONG (“swarm”) | ||
| 2 | DO AGAIN |
Fashion once more in range, take out corsets (2,5)
|
| DO IN (kill, so “take out”) corsets AGA | ||
| 3 | LATTE |
Drink less carbonated, extremely deficient (5)
|
| (f)LATTE(r) (“less carbonated”, deficient in its extreme letters) | ||
| 4 | ACRONYM |
A fellow muttonhead in NASA, say? (7)
|
| A + CRONY (“fellow”) + M(utton)[head] | ||
| 5 | EN FAMILLE |
Among relatives, Elfin male or female in pants, lady originally covered up (2,7)
|
| *(elfin male) [anag:pants]; or *(female in) [anag:pants] covering up L(ady) [originally]
Two sets of wordplay for the price of one. |
||
| 6 | THRILLS |
Excitement with hero oddly in drawers (7)
|
| H(e)R(o) [oddly] in TILLS (cash “drawers”) | ||
| 7 | PRISSIEST |
Cleric having pinched smalls, one most proper (9)
|
| PRIEST (“cleric”) having pinched S+S (smalls) + I (one) | ||
| 13 | ONE AND ALL |
The whole world on land, a lake drained somehow (3,3,3)
|
| ON + *(land a le) [anag:somehow] where LE is L(ak)E [drained] | ||
| 14 | SERGEANTS |
Rank greatness in officers (9)
|
| *(greatness) [anag:rank] | ||
| 17 | BUCKSAW |
Tool male grasped (7)
|
| BUCK (“male”) + SAW (“grasped”) | ||
| 18 | ALSO-RAN |
Orchestra conducted, led by a humbled player (4-3)
|
| LSO (London Symphony “Orchestra”) + RAN (“conducted”) led by A | ||
| 20 | THIEVES |
One wearing the brief underwear ā 21, did you say? (7)
|
| I (one) wearing THE + [brief] VES(t) (“underwear”)
Thieves nick things, so are NICKERS (a homophone of the solution to 21ac). |
||
| 22 | TOAST |
Brown, like baby clothes ā¦ . (5)
|
| TOT (“baby”) clothes AS (“like”) | ||
| 23 | BREAD |
ā¦ with babeās rear in underwear and daughter in bloomers, say (5)
|
| (bab)E [‘s rear] in BRA (“underwear”) + D (daughter) |
LOI was very slow, until I realised I had a mistyped letter. Never had this problem with the paper version!
Thanks to loonapick for unravelling two parsings for me. 2d and 3d. Dāoh. Always obvious when youāre told the answer ā¦
Really enjoyed this, and all wonderfully clued. I didn’t mind 20d, but it did take me an age to get! Thanks Paul and Loonapick for a laugh-out-loud puzzle and perfect blog
Hm, a few quibbles here and there from me, but hey, that’s Paul for you. Liked FIRKIN and EN FAMILLE. Failed to grasp the TRI[a]L part of TRILBY, so many thanks to loonapick for sorting that out (though in the blog I think you have TRaIL rather than TRIaL). And thanks to Paul too of course.
Slight typo in your blog for 22, loonapick. It’s TRI(a)L=case where the a has been removed. I found this very difficult, though perhaps I wasn’t thinking clearly as many of the anagrams were obvious. Kicked myself for taking so long to see ACRONYM (which I think has appeared clued similarly previously). AGNATE for the masculine side didn’t spring to mind immediately, but it was somewhere there in the memory banks. 20d seemed fine to me as well. I see we’re going to have the normal homophone discussion about FLAW. A homophone to me, but took a while to convince myself that the definition was fair, but I suppose a FLAW in porcelain would be a crack. Thanks to Paul and loonapick.
Sorry moh@3, didn’t see you’d raised the typo before me.
Thanks Paul and loonapick
A DNF – I revealed NHO MONASTIR. NHO BUCKSAW either, but I was able to work that one out. I also failed to parse DO AGAIN and LATTE, and can’t see why “bevy” gave LASSES.
Despite those I enjoyed this much more than usual for a Paul. Favourites NAMELESS, THIEVES (it has a definition, surely – those who “knick”?), and TOAST.
@6 muffin – ‘lasses’ – a bevy of beauties perhaps?
A slight hitch at the very start of this, with me thinking 6ac might be Inch, as both Key and Inch can be used to mean Island. With In combining with CH, the order of Companion of Honour. But no. I think the theme helped me greatly this morning, as I struggled to finish this, though needed Loonapick for several of the parsings afterwards. Loi was FLAW, no problem with the sounds like for me. And I did know MONASTIR as we flew into the airport there on holiday to Tunisia on a couple of occasions a while agoā¦
chargehand @7
It takes several dubious steps (some non-woke) to get from bevy to lasses!
Paul at his best today, I think. Chambers gives bevy as “a company or flock (of larks, quails, swans, roes or ladies)”. Seems very old-fashioned to me in the last sense, the kind of thing Michael Aspel would have said when compering Miss World. Thanks for the blog, loonapick!
I enjoyed this immensely, and completed it with a smile on my face! Paul’s wit and inventiveness were on full display. Although, as always with Paul, I expect there will be complaints…
Thanks to the early commenters for pointing out the typo in TRILBY.
muffin@9 Chambers has bevy (n) a company or flock (of larks, quails, swans, roes or ladies) if that helps.
muffin@6 The definition is someone who does something that sounds like “knicks”, which is also requires “dubious steps”.
I came back on to point out that I had forgotten to mention how unfriendly the grid was as it was essentially two mini-crosswords joined by DO AGAIN and THIEVES.
We crossed, brian_with_an_eye.
loonapick @12
The soundalike is “did you say?”. It seems perfectly valid to me. Is there something wrong with the definition being a soundalike?
It’s not often that I come across two NHOs in the same clue, but after a word search suggested AGNATE I had to look both it and TANGA up in Chambers.
@9 muffin – A bit like BBC 4Extra introductions referencing language and attitudes of the time… Steptoe and Son…
The SOED says for “bevy”: “The proper term for a company of maidens or ladies, of roes, of quails, or of larks”. So it was originally respectful, but in more modern times it has I think become associated with beauty contests and so on, as chargehand suggests @7.
Personally I would have thought Gordon Bennett was an expression of surprise, while KNICKERS is one of annoyance, so they’re not really the same for me.
My favourite was the unidentified flying salesmen.
Thanks to Paul and loonapick.
Thanks Paul and loonapick. Inventive use of underwear taking my small brain this morning.
Liked AGNATE, REAR-VIEW, LATTE, EN FAMILLE, THIEVES (Tho there’s no def, liked the surface and the two wordplays) and TOAST.
DOINGS
‘Def evident WP‘ seems odd (the ‘in’ in the clue is used up by the wordplay).
MOLASSES
No issues with ‘bevy?’
Thanks Paul and loonapick.
I won’t pretend to have finished this. Time was limited this morning so I did reveal a couple in corners where I was stuck. I hadn’t heard of MONASTIR, or AGNATE either, or a BUCKSAW. I suppose SERGEANTS are officers, but that held me up.
Loved the unidentified flying salesmen! Other favourites HERBARIA and FIRKIN. With nettles in the codpiece and a swarm of hornets in the thong, today’s theme is underwear to avoid.
KVa @19: I thought “Behaviour evident” could be the definition for DOINGS.
Lord Jim@21
DOINGS
When ābehaviourā works all right as the def, what value does āevidentā add to it?
Great fun with the NW holding out longest. gladys @20: I thought of SERGEANTS as police officers to cover that doubt. Favourites were MOLASSES, NAMELESS, EN FAMILLE and TOAST. I went to MONASTIR on holiday in 1982, so that was familiar and as an Irishman, I agree with loonapick that FLAW and floor sound nothing alike, but thatās irrelevant, if it does to others.
Ta Paul & loonapick.
Totally bypassed me today; six answers in three hours (on and off) of effort. My issue of course, not a reflection on Paul.
Thanks Paul.
NAMELESS is so neat that you feel it must have been done before, but I can’t remember it. Great fun and less torturous than Paul can sometimes be.
Made good progress with this with all filled in but with the NW corner completely blank. A bit of a grind to finish off and MONASTIR is new to me (but looks nice). TANGA also new to me, canāt see me ever wearing one though. LATTE I wanted to take a C out of something to make it āless carbonatedā. Bunged in from the checking letters in the end. Thanks for the explanation.
I quite liked this puzzle, it was far from pants.
Liked MOLASSES
Thanks Loonapick and Paul
Yay! I spotted a theme in time for it to prove useful. I guess it had to happen one day š
Top ticks for DOINGS, THIEVES & SERGEANTS although tinged with a slight dread that weād have deja vu all over again re the officer/sergeant equivalence
Cheers L&P
Fantastic puzzle which made great use of the “theme” and had all of Paul’s usual wit, quality and trickiness.
I loved the flying salesman clue which is really concise.
I’ll stick to commenting over here as I was being modded into silence at the fraudian web site for some reason and have deleted my account.
I don’t think I’ve seen ‘rank’ as anagrind, and am unsure of its justification. FLAW=floor is genuinely orfool, and not in a good way. The def. for 24a (DAMSON) is incredibly loose. As for 21a I originally had LINGERIE until disabused by crossers. I think Gordon Bennett is a euphemism for God Damn It, cf. Gorblimey (God Bless Me) or Zounds (God’s Wounds), so a euphemism for underwear would be more fitting, and KNICKERS is if anything the opposite.
poc @29
Rank as in “out of control” , as in “after we came back from holiday, the plants in the garden were rank.”
It’s been very cold today where I live, so maybe I’m suffering a bit of a brain-freeze but, can someone please explain how ‘bloomers, say’ (23D) = BREAD?
I totally get the cryptic part, but the actual definition eludes me.
(Please be gentle: I’m Australianā¦ through no fault of my own).
Geof @31
A bloomer can be a type of loaf, so “bread”.
[IO in the FT if anyoneās brain cells werenāt sufficiently fried by this]
Thanks for the blog , some very neat clues with clever wordplay especially inclusions .
I thought we might just get an underwear theme without Hermitian conjugates for kets but BREAD spoiled it .
I try not to swear in front of the students so I often say KNICKERS to mean drat and I think of Gordon Bennett in the same way .
The IO in the FT is actually very friendly today if anybody likes long entries .
The only word I got on first pass was LATTE, so the rest grew from there. It didn’t grow all the way, though, I needed the check button this morning and then reveal (which I almost never use) for the solutions and the blog for the parsing.
Never heard of Monastir or “Gordon Bennett!” I have met the bloomer loaf in previous blogs, though.
Nice puzzle overall. I also loved the flying salesmen, and the one-word anagram of SERGEANTS/greatness too. Sergeants are non-commissioned officers (NCOs) and so officers.
Thanks Paul and loonapick.
Muffin@9
Oxford Dictionary. Bevy : A group (of women or girls)
Re FLAW/FLOOR, I’m not surprised to see the usual complaints of rhotic speakers. Perhaps we can just type TUCORS to save all that virtual ink… though I doubt there would be agreement on how to pronounce it.
DNF in the SW and needed a bit of GK help. Only got an unparsed DAMSON after trying āraisinā and incorrectly bunged in B(e-)LOW for 26a.
Other than those I thought the clues were clear even with the loose definitions.
I think of DOINGS as the outcome of the behaviour you may be doing.
I hadn’t heard Gordon Bennett for decades – I assumed he had died!
Fun puzzle, fave NAMELESS.
If you don’t like FLAW for 26a, how about BLOW? Reasonable synonym for crack, and sounds a bit like BELOW if you say it fast, in the right accent!
At last an entire underwear themed crossword from Paul – a whole M&S’s worth. Perhaps this represents the grand finale for his obsession and he will now move on to some other preoccupation?
Another vote for NAMELESS as COD.
Ed @36
Good luck in addressing a group of women (or girls) as a bevy!
Iām no great fan of Paul but itās just nonsense to say that FLAW and FLOOR āsound nothing alikeā one another in Scottish or Irish. I am well aware – having grown up with a Glaswegian father – that they are said differently, but ānothing alikeā is just not correct
Re 26a Being Irish I often find “sound like” clues difficult. I often try saying the words in a sort of Michael Caine accent – it often works very well!
I have never heard either Gordon Bennett or knickers used as a minced oath. So that clue was…baffling. It turns out there is an Australian artist named Gordon Bennett, and two father-and-son American newspapermen named James Gordon Bennett. No help there.
Bingy @44: in a rhotic accent, FLAW and FLOOR not only are different because of pronouncing the R, but they have different vowel sounds too. So everything after the FL is different.
Some of this was pretty challenging for me–NHO either Gordon Bennett or knickers as expletives, heavy use of the check in the NE with Monastir and tanga/agnate being NHOs as well, and the Paulophone in 26ac. Lots of good stuff too, FIRKIN my favorite probably (I groaned when I figured out cod-piece).
chargehand@7–that made me think of the phrase “bevy of bathing beauties” and it seems like Mack Sennett’s Bathing Beauties are usually referred to as a bevy–Paul seems justified on this one.
Thanks Paul and loonapick!
Chemist @45: As an American, for non-rhotic references I tend to use a stereotypical Boston accent–think Ben Affleck in Good Will Hunting–because that amuses me more than a British accent would.
I’m not sure I agree with KNICKERS = “Gordon Bennett!”. The first is an more an expression of disdain or disbelief, made memorable by Albert Steptoe (especially in the Scrabble game he played with Harold) – whereas “Gordon Bennett!” is more an expression of surprise or astonishment – supposedly originating with the cable that Henry Morton Stanley sent to his editor after his meeting with Livingstone: “GORDON BENNETT: I’VE FOUND LIVINGSTONE”.
Ah well, perhaps Paul isn’t on quite his best behaviour after all!
I’m quite happy with THIEVES – having a sounds-like (are we allowed the h-word?) as the def. seems a bit libertarian but hey! It’s the Grauniad!
I failed with AGNATE. The word rings a bell but not in my common vocabulary, and I’d never heard of TANGA (I probably live in the wrong universe). Not the fairest of clues, sorry!
I see that FLAW gave lots of solvers plenty of grief: not surprised! Not a good clue but I’ve grown wise to “sounds-like”s that only work in Estuary English…
But top marks for TIDAL WAVE. Most people equate the term with ‘tsunami’ but that’s wrong: most tsunamis are not down to tidal effects. But the Severn Bore certainly is a phenomenon associated with incoming tide. As is the Aegir on the Trent.
Also liked HERBARIA, TRILBY, REAR VIEW, TOAST, FIRKIN, LATTE (after I’d crossed out LAGER and LASSI). And more.
Thanks to Paul and Loonapick.
Excellent, just couldn’t fathom the NW corner…
In an across clue i always thought ‘a’ on ‘b’ means ‘b’ first then ‘a’? Obviously not in 1a! I didn’t not know AVE = PRAISE, one to remember.
Thanks both…
HIYD @50
AVE actually means “hail”, so possibly isn’t a prayer by itself. “Ave Maria” is a prayer (or, rather, the start of a prayer) – it translates, of course, as “Hail Mary” (full of grace….)
HYD@50 , I will remember this next time you say Paul is too hard for you .
Top left was my last corner , perhaps five of the harder clues were clustered there .
I puzzled for ages over 8a and 10a, and then finally a synonym for ‘bustle’ crept along the neurons, and M(ON)ASTIR was next to last in. Then I found TANGA well buried in the back of the underwear drawer; the answer was a jorum for me.
I’ll not comment on the Paulophone (thanks Matt@47!) and was equally unfazed by there being no definition per se for THIEVES. I quite liked the uses of ‘evident’ as a link word and ‘rank’ as anagrind. ‘Nettle stuffed in codpiece’ was a marvellous bit of wordplay: a bit of fission required to find the fishy part, but before separation, it forms part of the theme, and the surface is excruciating. What’s not to like. š
Thanks to Paul and loonapick.
Can someone please tell me why a tidal wave is a ‘bore’?
I just don’t get it. I’ve given up on Paul before and this is the last f– straw.
He used to be interesting – but now I think he’s just annoying.
Time for him to go. In my opinion.
It was a busy day but I got there in the end. NAMELESS is a beautiful clue. I didn’t parse DAMSON or TRILBY in the time available. No issues with GK except a double vocabulary gap at 10a.
Thanks all.
muffin@51
There’s a line in Danny Boy “And kneel and say an Ave there for me”. Amongst Roman Catholics it used to be common usage.
Mr Penney@46
You were closer than you thought. The Gordon Bennett in the expression was James Gordon Bennett Jr, owner of he New York Herald, responsible for the Gordon Bennett cup which was awarded for motor races in 1900-1905 (from wiki, I only remembered that he was associated with motor racing).
I agree with the others above; “Gord (on Benett)” indicates astonishment, “knickers” annoyance.
@54 Jennaralissima TheSevern Bore is a well known example of a tidal wave on a British river. People surf it miles inland.
Seems like Iām in good company a) taking long time over NW corner b) taking especially ages to drag AGNATE out of my subconscious c) loving NAMELESS, clue off the month?
A mixed enjoyment on my day-after solve. The points I want to raise have been covered.
I was reluctant to write in KNICKERS, as GB is an utterance of surprise, whereas KNICKERS is more of frustration. It wasn’t until I got THIEVES, I decided to put it in and then only needing the C crosser.
AGNATE and TANGA where NHOs.
My LOI FLAW, was well it’s Paul, a diehard Roselander when it comes to homonyms.
To some a FIRKIN is a lot of beer, I suppose. 36 imperial pints (45 US pints).
My mistake. A FIRKIN is half a barrel (72 pints). A kil or kilderkin is a quarter barrel and a pin, one eighth.
Thanks muffin@32
That’s a new one on me. Lesson learned.
Loonapick wrote “Iām not sure I like 20dn as there is no definition as such, but otherwise all was fair, if not at first obvious.”
I have always wondered why cryptic crossword rules exclude the use of double wordplay clues…until now.
Frogman@63. There are no rules, just conventions; in other words, it’s usual to have a definition. But if the definition can be allusive or cryptic (see ‘That would take some beer!’), why can’t it be a soundalike, as long as it’s fair? KNICKERS is an indisputable homophone, and is only one (unspoken) letter different from a straight definition. I think it’s fair.
Actually, it’s more than fair, it’s obvious!
Sheffield hatter@64 Yes. You are right. Thank you.
Managed to complete the NE and SW, while the NW and SE remained unfinished
11a NAMELESS was funny, with “unidentified flying salesmen” creating an amusing picture. Excellent, concise, humorous, misdirecting clue
26a FLAW, annoying non-rhotic soundalike
I AM a Scot and flaw and floor sound NOTHING alike. Gordon Bennett, after nearly 46 years living in England, indicates nothing more than mild exasperation. Did not enjoy this at all and completed just under half before giving in.
Flaw rhymes with law.
Floor rhymes with more.