Guardian 29,729 / Paul

73 comments on “Guardian 29,729 / Paul”

1. The music in 25 is FUNK not FOLK.

2. Thanks Paul and Eileen
   A few unparsed, and I still don’t understand GROOVE. – what does it have to do with “cadence”?
   The PETERS in 1,24 are from the 60s and 70s, and I don’t know what overseas solvers will make of them!
   Favourite DISCO LOUR.

3. GROOVE
   Is the setter referring to the groove on a vinyl record?
   (In addition to the def underlined in the blog)

4. Not as devious as he can be, there were plenty of smiles along the way. Apart from the NHO but gettable APHELION, I particularly enjoyed PUNCH BOWL, GROOVE, ALASKA (groan), DERISION, MOUSE PAD, LORD MAYOR, PETER GRIMES (haven’t thought of Mary and Martin for a long time) and LOOM LARGE. I parsed GROOVE as KVa @3.

   Ta Paul & Eileen.

5. Typo in 25 amended now – thank you, Justigator.

6. KVa @3, The grove on the record was my thought too.

   For me clue of the day was Done For. It’s the sweetest and simplest of those number things that I’ve seen.

7. Liked WADE, MOUSE PAD (yes. a great def), LORD MAYOR, SANDMAN and DONE FOR.

   Thanks Paul and Eileen.

8. Just a typo in the blog for 25 (I also thought the music was FOLK initially), Agree with Eileen that Paul was at his most inventive today, giving what I thought was a tough puzzle. I soon gave up on working through the across clues first in order to get a foothold where I could. The definition for GROOVE was quite allusive and one of the last clues solved. LOOM LARGE and SANDMAN were trademark Paul of course. Liked STARDUST and APHELION amongst others. Thanks to Paul and Eileen.

9. Thanks Paul & Eileen. Just a small point: the anagram fodder for aphelion is hole & a pin. You missed out the a.

10. Thanks, Cat’s Whiskers – will amend immediately.

11. I imagine that anyone coming across today’s filled in grid for the very first time wouldn’t realise most of the clues that went into it had a musical flavour, with the word Music appearing in seven of them. Apart from perhaps noting PETER GRIMES.
    Found that this chimed more with me than some of Paul’s recent offerings, though loi GROOVE made me wonder why this particular word deserved its place there…

12. I think GROOVE and CADENCE can both be a musical rhythm

13. All very enjoyable indeed. Small point, is 8a a double definition – “fine stuff” and then “protagonist in old song”? Thanks Eileen and Paul.

14. Mike@12 I agree, and I think KVa is also right, which makes GROOVE a sort of double definition. Lots of great clues, but ALASKA was the one that made me laugh.

15. Wonderful. Podium places for ALASKA – I was sure it would be one of Paul’s egregious homophoneys, DERISION & DISCOLOUR

    Given the theme, an earworm from the Chordettes: Mr SANDMAN seems apt. Metallica fans may have other ideas 🙂

    Kva@3 that’s how I parsed it

    Cheers E&P

16. The definition for APHELION is a bit overbrief! It’s actually the furthest point away from the sun in an elliptical orbit of, for example, a planet.

17. muffin @16 I imagine more people are familiar with ‘perihelion’, as often applied to comets to denote their point of closest approach to the sun. A bit of rusty Greek and a dash of common sense told me that APHELION is therefore the opposite, although I had not come across it before.

18. Ian Brad @13 – I gave some thought to STARDUST being ‘fine stuff’ but settled on the parsing gave. ‘Old song’ has to be the definition.

19. Yes, I agree with muffin@16, and also thought stardust was the fine stuff.

    Thanks Paul for an enjoyable crossword, and Eileen for the elucidating blog: DICERS and SANDMAN

20. I think Eileen’s parsing for STARDUST is right; if it, rather than just “dust”, is “fine stuff”, what is the protagonist doing there?

21. Thanks, muffin – Protagonist = leading actor / star in Greek drama.

22. Quite a challenge for me but most enjoyable to complete.
    I hadn’t parsed SANDMAN or PETER GRIMES. As an Aussie, I haven’t heard of Mary or Martin, or grime music. And I wouldn’t have thought of S&M. Thank you Eileen for the explanations. And the link to the lovely STARDUST.
    GROOVE – Is this a double definition? I also thought of the groove in vinyl records as well as cadence=groove in music.
    My favourite clue was DONE FOR, very clever.
    I also liked DISCOLOUR and ALASKA for their neat surfaces, DERISION for its surface and MOUSE PAD for the definition.
    Thank you to Eileen and Paul.

23. Musically a cadence and a rhythm are different things. In music a cadence is a sequence of notes or chords concluding a musical phrase whereas rhythm is a sequence of sounds and silences that determine tempo or beat. So a musician who ‘gets into the groove’ will play within the rhythm but might never repeat the same sequence of notes. In literature it has a different meaning. It is the rhythm that is created by the use of certain words in free verse or prose. So the groove refers to a record player, not a person.

24. Very enjoyable, with some clever surfaces. Ticks for NERVOUS and LEATHERED and several others.

    One thing I was a bit unsure about was “to spoil it” in OUTWARD. It makes for a good surface, but how exactly does it mean the WA is inside the rest?

    Many thanks both.

25. Ian @13, muffin @20 et al … I originally parsed STARDUST as a double definition, with “stardust” as “meteoric matter in fine particles” (Chambers), and Ziggy S. being the old Bowie song’s protagonist. But that doesn’t account for the “by”, so I think Eileen’s parse is correct, and the old song is instead the Hoagy Carmichael number.

26. A few references out of my range, the Lady athlete and the footballer, and Stardust evoked Ziggy rather than Hoagy, although with “old song”, and then Jerome Kern, I should have twigged the genre. Thoroughly enjoyable nonetheless, many thanks Paul and Eileen.

27. Not on wavelength today. Had to reveal SANDMAN and PETER GRIMES. SAMDMAN I understood straight away (very Paulesque) not a clue about PETER GRIMES so thanks for the blog. Neither opera or grime is my type of music.

    A slow grind on this one so I am a bit gutted to eventually throw the towel in with two left.

    Thanks Eileen and Paul

28. Lord Jim@24
    OUTWARD
    I had the same doubt, but assumed ‘spoil it’=’break it’.
    Someone should have a better explanation.

29. At the beginning, I solved a few in the bottom half and worked upwards very slowly. I didn’t parse ALASKA, makes a change from “I’ll ask ‘er”. I liked the MOUSE PAD definition, the surface for DOUBLE, and the wordplays for NERVOUS and LOOM LARGE.

    Thanks Paul and Eileen.

30. KVa @28: or perhaps “spoil it” = “contaminate it” = “get introduced into it”? Not sure. But as I said, it is a good surface — with a hint of Spinal Tap?

31. 👍🏼

32. Don’t post here much these days, but since I needed to check whether/how DICERS was right, thought I might.

    Picking up on the bodycheetah @15 reference to the Chordettes, my first SANDMAN (ace clue!) earworm was Roy Orbison ‘In Dreams’, which starts with a sandman reference. Then goes on to trawl Schubertesque levels of sorrow and loss. IMHO.

33. I had at first the same thought as muffin@16 re: APHELION’s incomplete definition, but I realised if you look at it as a kind-of, it is fine (just as we clue red by colour and cat by pet).

    Liked MOUSE PAD and DONE FOR.

34. We have differing views of difficulty, of course, but I found this quite a tricky Paul (not an easy one to blog as consummately as has Eileen I’d hazard!) and derived most of my pleasure from parsing after, rather than before, entering the solution…

    But still a joyous diversion confirming my vertiginous view of Mr H’s brilliance. How does he keep on being so fresh? And what would the cryptic world be without him?

    I’ve said it before – how fortunate are we to live in the time of Paul!

    (And we’re blessed to have Eileen too!)

    Yes indeed, surfboard is a lovely synonym for MOUSE PAD – I’m surprised not to have thought of it myself nor heard it elsewhere. But then, there’s only one Paul!

    Setter and blogger, bless you both!

35. ..an unusually low volume of comments by lunchtime; could this reflect the difficulty others experienced?

36. Thanks both,
    I enjoyed this. A tiny technical quibble. In 25, if your fuel tank contains diesel, the fuel is not volatile.

37. Tyngewick @36
    Less volatile, but if it wasn’t volatile at all, you wouldn’t be able to smell it.

38. Took ages to see my LOI STARDUST and couldn’t parse it in any convincing way. I had thought STARDUST was the fine stuff and that there must be a song I didn’t know in the wordplay, and also spent some time working out how “My Coo Ca Choo” might be relevant, but in the end I could not think of any other word which would fit. Many thanks Eileen et al for the explanation.

    Oh yes, and a great puzzle as well, which helped to while away at least some portion of a still ongoing Oz to England flight.

39. Thanks for the blog , I suppose SANDMAN was quite neat , the Earth will reach APHELION in nine days if the Ricci tensor behaves .
    OUTWARD , good to see that Paul thinks the role of a wife is simply to spoil the fun , how modern .

40. Possibly the first Paul I’ve ever completed. Music right up my alley. DICERS was last one in which I found by a convoluted Consider = Discern minus N. But Eileen’s parsing is obviously correct and much simpler. Paul has taught me to overthink methinks! Had no idea about the Peter’s but got GRIMES so a quick google found the opera. Which led me eventually to them. Nice crossword. Thanks Paul and Eileen.

41. I was lucky enough a dozen years ago to see PETER GRIMES performed on the beach at Aldeburgh in Suffolk. Which of course was the perfect place for it to be shown, with the Benjamin Britten association with this small seaside town…

42. ronald @41
    George Crabbe, who wrote the original poem, lived in Aldeburgh too. “The borough” is based on the town.

43. Lots to enjoy here. ALASKA made me smile, DISCOLOUR is a very fine clue but my favourite was LEATHERED for its surface (due to the association between heavy metal music and the wearing of leather).

44. William F P @34 has it right – always a treat to read Eileen’s blogging of Paul’s setting; many thanks to both.

45. SANDMAN prompts me to post this bit from Hansel and Gretel (best opera ever written? Certainly one of the most tuneful.)

46. Trailman@32 Like you I thought of Roy Orbison’s “In Dreams” and his SANDMAN, who also sprinkles STARDUST. I’m a huge fan of RO, but that candy coloured clown is very creepy.😳

47. If you can’t get enough Paul, he clued this month’s 3-D calendar puzzle too.

48. muffin @45 Better than Figaro?

49. Sorry to come to the party so late, but can anyone explain DM as a private message is 27A?

50. Shirley @49
    I didn’t know that either, but Google tells me that it’s short for Direct Message – a message that can’t be read by anyone other than the intended recipient.

51. pace Shirley@49: And (and I feel I may regret asking this) S and M as ‘controlling excitement’? I’m hovering over sado-masochism but can’t bring myself to stoop…

52. Thank you Muffin

53. Re: Lord mayor. An alternative parsing could make private = other rank = or and DM= message.

54. Alphalpha @51 , if you really are asking – S AND M often invlolves bondage .

55. Shirley @49 – I wouldn’t have known DM = direct message before recently joining my local WhatsApp group. I thought everyone else would know it by now – was so chuffed that I recognised it that I didn’t think to explain it – sorry! 🙁

56. Could not do this today.
    I always seem to struggle with themed puzzles.
    Thanks both.

57. Roz@54: I really am asking. So if I understand you I should stop hovering?

58. I still don’t understand 10a GROOVE as a cadence. Whether you’re thinking of the groove of music or the groove in a vinyl record, I don’t see any connection between that and a cadence, which as others noted is a harmonic resolution.

    I also don’t understand 6a WADE as paddle. Are they not two completely different actions?

    This puzzle was way beyond me. After getting only two clues on the first run through, I then got one more before starting to reveal answers. With revealing 5 clues, I then was able to finish, with several unparsed. But it was fun, as Paul’s humour shone through as I read Eileen’s excellent blog. Thanks to both.

59. I eventually decided GROOVE was a double definition because I kept thinking of “get your groove on” followed by the vinyl record track.

60. Cellomaniac @58
    The only difference between WADE and paddle is the depth of the water!

61. [Good to see Paul on-form with S&M. A recent commenter feared he may have been “Whitehoused”. Assume that’s a reference to the heretofore nho Mary Whitehouse, who I see looks remarkably like Dana Carvey’s Church Lady.]

62. CM@58 Chambers: GROOVE: 4. “Repeated musical rhythms used in creating dance music” CADENCE: 3. “Rhythm”

    Surely words having multiple meanings is one of the fundamental building blocks of cryptic crosswords?

63. A good deal more user-friendly than Paul’s Saturday offering, but then so is a bag of angry rattlesnakes. Not sure of my favourite, it was a toss-up between PETER GRIMES and MOUSE PAD. Thanks to Eileen and to Paul.

64. Get into the groove, man! Makes me remember Booker T and the MGs.https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=euWA4j0PPpo&si=RnydkkSrfJUGTXDj

65. Bodycheetah@62, your second paragraph is absolutely correct, and I must bow to Chamber’s authority. It’s just that in 60 years of chamber.and orchestral playing, I have never heard the word used with that meaning.

66. I’m very late to this, having had computer problems all day, so I won’t comment on the clues much beyond saying that MOUSE PAD and DONE FOR were spectacular, with “surfboard” as a great definition!

    I somehow didn’t comment on the puzzle last week that Eileen blogged, with the theme of Tom Swifties, so I wanted to come onto her next blog to share my favorite one. “We’re adrift!” said Tom cantankerously.

67. Cellomaniac@58 , a long-distance runner can try to reach a nice cadence/groove . Specialist knowledge often leads me astray .

68. Valentine @66 – that’s got my day off to a good start. 😉
    Thank you.

69. C@65 it’s the curse of specialist knowledge 🙂 luckily as a cyclist cadence means pedal rotation speed which is a lot closer to rhythm

70. Cyclists are familiar with the notion of CADENCE as the rhythm of turning pedals. Lots of people seem to have been distracted by musical cadences (a different thing indeed) and vinyl grooves. I prescribe The Heptones’ Get In The Groove.

71. I’m annoyed enough at MOUSE PAD to comment a day late. One of the worst definitions I think I’ve seen.

    I figured it out on the conceit it might be some surfing equipment I wasn’t aware of. It’s the sort of thing that would be mocked relentlessly if we looked back at Ted Rogers saying it on an old episode of 3-2-1. If you’re putting in clues that poor, I’m nearly immediately reaching for the reveal button for the rest of the puzzle because what’s the point?

72. Tachi @71: “surfboard?” is a facetious definition, so the solver’s enjoyment depends on how funny they find the joke.

    It is not, however, a bad clue in the Ted Rogers 3-2-1 sense. Those were bad because they were underdetermined in a deliberately ridiculous way. In contrast, as soon as I thought of MOUSE PAD it was obvious how Paul intended the definition to work. (And, for what it’s worth, I was most amused!)

73. With this one I had the greatest comeback of all time! On my first pass I had nothing until the very last down clue, LINER. From there I fought my way back from oblivion and gradually completed everything, with the devious 19a DICERS loi. The most satisfying possible

    Some very clever descriptions, including “that’s followed by a music player?” for GROOVE, “surfboard” for MOUSE PAD, and “controlling excitement” for SANDM. Too many other great clues to mention. A delightful puzzle all the way

    Cellomaniac@58, WADE took me to PIRATES OF PENZANCE: “…the sea is as smooth as glass. Suppose we take off our shoes and stockings and paddle?” (horrors!!)

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