It’s Paul rounding off the weekday puzzles.
A fairly typical Paul puzzle, a medley of clever constructions, deft definitions, innovative anagram indicators and a rather polemic soundalike. I had ticks for 1ac SIGNIFICANCE, for the wordplay and the definition, 11ac LETTUCE, for the chortle, 27ac BARBENHEIMER, for the audacity, 4dn INDONESIA and 17dn AT RANDOM, for another smile.
Thanks to Paul for an entertaining puzzle.
Definitions are underlined in the clues.
I am fairly soon being picked up by my grandson and his fiancée for a day out. I will keep up with comments during the day but I shall not be able to amend the blog until this evening and so I am hoping there are not too many errors, omissions or typos.
Across
1 Import notice on empty crate, should that be possible for me to pack it? (12)
SIGNIFICANCE
SIGN (notice) + IF I CAN (should that be possible for me) + C[rat]E
9, 10 A pretence, kidnap, conduit other-worldly? (5,9)
ALIEN ABDUCTION
A LIE (a pretence) + NAB (kidnap) + an anagram (other) of CONDUIT – clue as definition, I think
11 Survivor of battle with prime minister leaves (7)
LETTUCE
Cryptic definition, referring to this story
12 Somewhere in Serbia, denied entry to another country, Germany (4,3)
NOVI SAD
NO VISA (denied entry to another country) + D (Germany) – the second largest city in Serbia
13 European argument’s back: radio equipment is put on for shock jock? (10)
POLEMICIST
POLE (European) + MIC (radio equipment) + IS + [argumen]T
15 Muck, say, in unopened passage (4)
ISLE
[a]ISLE (passage) – an island in the Inner Hebrides
19 Earning gift, romantic admits that brought pain (5,5)
MIDAS TOUCH
An anagram (romantic? – as of a romance, something made up, perhaps) of ADMITS + OUCH (that brought pain)
22 Hunter of Welsh snakes (3-4)
SHE-WOLF
An anagram (snakes) of OF WELSH
24 A retreat by yours truly, most uncharitable (7)
MEANEST
ME (yours truly) + A NEST (a retreat)
25 Trouble seeing image ultimately, OK, focus! (9)
EYESTRAIN
[imag]E + YES (OK) + TRAIN (focus)
26 The same outrageous documentation sent back (5)
DITTO
A reversal (sent back) of OTT (outrageous) + ID (documentation)
27 Local boy here, I’m crazy for Hollywood’s plutonium blonde? (12)
BARBENHEIMER
BAR (local) + BEN (boy) + an anagram (crazy) of HERE I’M for this 2023 phenomenon
Down
1 Trace evil farmer via gossip? (9)
SCINTILLA
Sounds (to some) like (via gossip) sin (evil) + tiller (farmer)
2 Game well beyond drunk couple? (3,5)
GIN RUMMY
GIN RUM (two drinks) + MY (well, as an exclamation)
3 A nine, that’s one over the eight, silly (5)
INANE
An anagram (one over the eight) of A NINE
4 Batting accomplished as I played for country (9)
INDONESIA
IN (batting) + DONE (accomplished) + an anagram (played) of AS I
5 A squeeze getting a hundred in anteroom (6)
ALCOVE
A LOVE (a squeeze) round C (a hundred)
I haven’t found this definition anywhere – more usually a recess in a wall, or similar
6 11 bags elected for change (5)
COINS
COS (lettuce – answer to 11ac) round IN (elected)
7 Bitter blow? (6)
WALLOP
Double definition, the first a slang word for beer
8 Anxious, I originally dropped grandma’s eggs (2,4)
ON EDGE
ONE (I) + initial letters of Dropped Grandma’s Eggs
14 Knackered in fact having caught race leader (9)
CHIEFTAIN
An anagram (knackered) of IN FACT round HIE (race)
16 Something for the wet, sweet and sour balls (9)
SOUWESTER
An anagram (balls) of SWEET and SOUR
17 Anyhow, currency the cause of fission? (2,6)
AT RANDOM
RAND (currency) splitting ATOM
18 Motor mogul being on another planet in old banger? (6)
MUSKET
MUSK (motor mogul) + ET (being on another planet)
20 Bath liquid and meat in container with a lid? (6)
HATBOX
An anagram (liquid) of BATH + OX (meat) – lid is slang for hat
21 Vessel for water I see bubbling up? (3,3)
HOT TUB
A reversal (bubbling up) of BUTT (vessel for water) + OH (I see) – another clue as definition, I think
23 Bottom on fire, up-end so be it? (5)
ENEMA
A reversal (up) of AMEN (so be it) + end of [fir]E – and another!
24, 18 How might one make team – and what to make of losers? (9)
MINCEMEAT
A reverse anagram: one might ‘mince’ MEAT to make TEAM
I leaned heavily into Word Wizard, and ended up revealing two in the SW – SHE WOLF and MUSKET. Both, I realise, were gettable. A bit like ISLE, which took me a good while, though I’ve been to the set of islands that MUCK is part of. A bit more patience from me and this could have been a completion, but it was close enough that I’ll take it as a win.
On first pass I only managed to solve a couple of clues. I made little headway until things began to reveal themselves much more quickly than I expected. I particularly liked 18d MUSKET and 24d MINCEMEAT.
Thanks Paul and Eileen – have a good day out.
Wallop for beer new to me.
Wow. Wonderful stuff. Oh – that LETTUCE! How clever and how funny. I did not know 27ac and am simultaneously appalled (at some people’s behaviour and slavish following of fashion), impressed by the word play (the false anagram fodder) and hugely amused at the coinage. I did manage to get it and googled afterwards, but only after much guesswork and checking – so do not feel I succeeded. Someone on the Guardian forum says how they slide from “How can I do this?” to “How did I do this?” with Paul and I wholeheartedly agree. Enjoy your day out Eileen. Paul – take a bow, and then another one.
Got there in the end, but ah, this is a reminder of my general feeling about Paul’s puzzles. Namely, that they contain brilliance and annoyingness in pretty much equal measure. One one side there are some super clues: SIGNIFICANCE, LETTUCE, NOVI SAD, HAT BOX, AT RANDOM, POLEMICIST, to name a few. On the other, there are the stretchy definitions and indicators, torturous surfaces, &lits that sort of work but not entirely (HOT TUB more so than ENEMA, I felt), and as for the homophones… I dare say I’m in a more than usually miserable mood today, so I’ll leave it there. Thanks Paul, and especially to Eileen for a super blog.
Loved this puzzle. Thanks Paul.
Loved the blog. Thanks Eileen.
My top picks: SIGNIFICANCE, MIDAS TOUCH, AT RANDOM, HOT TUB and ENEMA.
Thanks Eileen. I liked MUSKET, SHE-WOLF and GIN RUMMY.
Didn’t get one over the eight as an anagrind in INANE. Had to look it up.. British slang for ”drunk”. New to me. Interesting theories as to its origin.
Paul did this? I was expecting a different name.
Ouch indeed! When I gained a foothold in the SE, my hopes raised, but it remained as recalcitrant as first feared. I chipped away stoically, doubting until the end that I’d finish. LETTUCE came only from COINS but the penny dropped eventually. Pleased to get the reverse anagram for MINCE MEAT from the wordplay. I find “clue as definition” a disconcerting format so I suppose it was good practice today, although ENEMA and HOT TUB seem a recipe for disaster.
Favourites, the aforementioned leaves, ALIEN ABDUCTION, SHE WOLF, BARBENHEIMER.
Tough week?
Thanks Paul and well done Eileen. Have a fun day.
Utterly brilliant! Paul at his finest, so many clever and amusing clues. Just when I was starting to think Guardian crosswords were getting too easy as well!
Very entertaining with some really inventive clues. I liked the “drunk couple” for the two drinks in GIN RUMMY. Is “other-worldly” (rather than just “other”) the anagram indicator in ALIEN ABDUCTION? If not, how does “worldly” fit in?
WALLOP is pretty ancient slang for bitter – I remember my father telling me it was current about eighty years ago! Is it still in use?
Many thanks Paul and Eileen.
Paul,from I’ve learnt is a feared and respected?? setter.To me this is akin to what a layman(like myself) would try to make sense of a schizophrenic with loosening of associations and neologisms talking.My apologies for the harsh words but this was just totally ridiculous and I’m sorry i signed up for this one.
Thanks Paul and Eileen
It’s a Paul, so I won’t comment on the puzzle. I’m just posting to say that the film Barbie is much better than you might expect, and the opening is hilarious if you know the reference.
How does Paul so often achieve that trick of constructing a puzzle that seems impenetrable at first but finally possible, with lots of amusement along the way? Great stuff.
Great fun as usual from a setter who is very much respected by me.
Great puzzle – you have to work hard on Paul’s offerings but I echo what Petert @13 says. Many thanks as ever to Paul and Eileen.
Another enjoyable romp from Paul. Anyone who can come up with a clue like the one for LETTUCE is value for money in my book. Other favourites were ALIEN ABDUCTION, NOVI SAD, INDONESIA, MUSKET and ENEMA. It is many years since I last heard beer described as WALLOP.
Petert@13: My thoughts exactly. From blank grid to a couple of fills until it crumbles like the Suffolk coast.
WIth regard to the “not quite &lit” clues, I really enjoy these. Setting a true &lit is really tough and probably someone somewhere will quibble about a bit of it. With these Pauline conversions the ultimate questions are “Can I solve it?” (eventually…) and, more importantly for me, “Once I have the answer am I sure it’s right?”. The latter is why I dislike weak cryptic definitions but with the examples here, once seen, the answer is clear, even if the wordplay does not quite perfectly add up.
Many thanks Paul – my brain feels like mince meat now – and Eileen for the blog.
My eye immediately lit upon ‘Hunter of Welsh snakes’, and having developed a nose for what Eileen calls Paul’s ‘innovative anagram indicators’, that was my FOI. At my customary solving time in the small hours between tranches of sleep it was not all as easy, but when I woke up at 8.30 with about half a dozen clues still to solve, mainly in the NW, I found that they all fell pretty much instantly. Like many, I loved LETTUCE, although I would have put it down as a double-definition rather than as a cryptic definition.
I was very taken with both SCINTILLA and SHE-WOLF: the surface for the second is delightful.
POLEMICIST confused me when parsing. Paul gives us the beginning and ending of the solution at the outset so surely the MIC IS is put ‘in’ POLE T rather than ‘put on’ it?
Thanks Paul and Eileen
excellent crossword and very astute blog – many thanks!
I can’t see why HIE means race, in 14d.
Am I missing something obvious?
It took me a disgracefully long time to spot the hunter of Welsh snakes, but it’s a good ‘un and I like it. Other favourites INANE, SOUWESTER, AT RANDOM, MINCEMEAT, NOVI SAD.
This one needed to be slept on, and as usual several formerly impenetrable ones were suddenly write-ins next morning. Couldn’t sort out HATBOX (I had HOTPOT based on the crossers, and does ox=meat?), and BARBENHEIMER defeated me. I didn’t find the laborious extended definition for ALIEN ABDUCTION convincing, or ALCOVE=anteroom. Whoever said that Paul is delightful and infuriating in equal measure (it’s been said more than once this morning) is right.
Enjoy your outing, Eileen.
Al@21 According to Chambers, HIE means ‘to hasten, to urge (on)’.
AT RANDOM also has R AND D in ATOM – cause of fission. Thanks to setter and blogger.
Gladys@22 I had HOTPOT too having assumed it was just a slightly weak CD and I was keen to move on to the Killer Sudoku 🙂
Thoroughly enjoyed this with top marks for AT RANDOM, ALIEN ABDUCTION & LETTUCE which I’d struggled with until COINS gave the game away
PM@19 maybe if you think of POLE-T as a “coat” that MIC-IS puts on?
Cheers E&P
Super fun, thanks to Paul and Eileen.
I agree with Balfour @18 that the clue for LETTUCE is a double definition.
Ultimately a DNF as defeated by NOVI SAD and BARBENHEIMER and no shame in that, although my 28 year-old knew the latter term, unsurprisingly. Loved INANE, SHE WOLF, MINCEMEAT, AT RANDOM and ENEMA. Also agree with Balfour as I usually do @18. Toughest puzzle for me in months.
Ta Paul & Eileen for deciphering his convoluted tricks.
I also had HOT POT for 20d, which works as a double definition, since it means both “hot tub / bath” and “liquid and meat in container with a lid”.
That was a tough end to the week. Failed on WALLOP even though I consider beer one of my stronger areas of knowledge but slowly waded my way through the rest with hardly anything flying in. I thought the word BARBENHEIMER had thankfully died but here it was to haunt me again.
Liked AT RANDOM
Thanks Paul and Eileen
There are several WALLOP beers still in production and I feel duty bound to try them out for the benefit of the community
I parsed ENEMA as Bottom on Fire in a down clue = E + up-ended AMEN.
Managed to get most of Paul today but can someone PLEASE explain to me why the answer to 11 across is LETTUCE ?? My brains are scrambled !
miserableoldhack@5: I entirely agree.
Ruth @32: if you follow Eileen’s link, it explains all. The lettuce won the battle with Liz Truss.
Ah, yes, thanks, Alan
The usual curate’s egg with Paul for me. Too mean post-parsed to really feel like I solved it.
The slang meaning of WALLOP was new to me, so that was a bung-and-shrug, and NHO Novi Sad until I googled.
Afraid I just couldn’t get very far into this, so, hiding behind the Reveal button (yet again, dearie me!) I was able to admire several of these from a rather detached distance – MUSKET, SHE WOLF and MINCE MEAT. Paul having successfully made 24, 18 of me today.
Perhaps today I’m slightly unfocused/preoccupied by a premature unscheduled return from a shortened holiday break…
To complete a Paul puzzle is something to shout about, I suppose and it is very clever but the effort required makes the task onerous rather than truly pleasurable LOI was the plutonium blonde. I got the last part almost straight away but couldn’t see how it worked with the first part. I had entirely forgotten that when I went to see one particular Hollywood film there was a queue of little girls in frilly pink waiting to get into the other screen – it was odd as I wondered what interest they would have had in the Manhattan Project. .
For me, pleasurable rather than onerous. Lots of smiles. Lots of cleverness by the setter.
Usual excellence from Paul, though a dnf – I didn’t get BARBENHEIMER – I knew there was a portmanteau word of the film titles, but couldn’t quite remember exactly what it was. Also had HOT POT instead of HAT BOX, which as others have said sort of works. I agree with JOFT@17 – the important thing is that when a clue is solved, you know it’s correct – HAT BOX is (to me) clearly the better answer.
Favourites INANE, SHE-WOLF, AT RANDOM and several others.
I take Eileen’s point about ALCOVE and anteroom, but I am familiar with the Roman amphitheatre at Silchester; it has an alcove at each side, where the gladiators or other performers waited before their appearance – so they could be said to be anterooms.
Thanks Eileen and Paul.
Not obvious from me @8 but I was in the completer/enjoyment camp. No lettuce was going to beat me – it was close though! I’m glad to see I wasn’t the only one surprised by a WALLOP.
Didn’t get much in last night, but did get ISLE. If you’d asked me to name some Scottish islands I’d never have thought of Muck, but when you hand it to me the little bell tinkles. (Of course the wordplay helped.)
A bit shaky on “snakes” for “anagrind.” No hope of figuring out EYESTRAIN.
I do remember the Truss lettuce carry-on now that Eileen reminds me, but had no hope with COINS/cos beforehand. Put in LETTUCE from the definition.
But a fun puzzle. Thanks, Paul and Eileen. (And Eileen, have a splendiferous day, !)
Utterly brilliant! Paul on top form. So many smiles but AT RANDOM was my favourite
AlanC@31 I had the same parsing for ENEMA
Took me ages to get 27ac but very happy to have finished this one.
PS If you get the chance you should visit Eigg.
Almost impossible for me, but with copious aids I eventually solved it.
I liked SIGNIFICANCE, ALIEN ABDUCTION, HOT TUB, ENEMA, SHE-WOLF, and GIN RUMMY. I couldn’t parse MIDAS TOUCH, SCINTILLA and POLEMICIST, where I tend to agree with PM @19 that ‘put on’ seems rather confusing.
Thanks Paul and Eileen.
Very nice! Started with NOVI SAD (mostly from the enumeration) and also SHE-WOLF somewhere along the way, then was able to work my way around with a bit of the check button on MUSKET–somehow I was trying to get the ET in the middle of MASH or something. Especially liked ALIEN ABDUCTION, EYESTRAIN, the clever atom-splitting in AT RANDOM, and MIDAS TOUCH. And of course we have the obligatory Paulophone in SCINTILLA but that one wasn’t so extreme. WALLOP = beer was new to me and I have the usual grumble about BEN for boy, though hard to see how else to get it into the surface.
PostMark@19: I parsed that as “European” (POLE) followed by “argument’s back, radio equipment is put on” for MIC IS + T, so that “put on” only applies to T and that whole complex comes after POLE because it’s second in the clue. If that makes sense. A bit of misdirection I’ve seen before, where something that looks like it might go before or around two elements goes around one and comes after the other. It worked on me–until I got the C from CHIEFTAIN I was looking for a way to get ET in the middle.
Also agreed with AlanC@31 that E is first rather than last and reversed, and with Balfour@18 that “leaves” is the double definition for LETTUCE. Like several I got that backward from COINS, and wasn’t sure whether it’d be LETTUCE or ROMAINE (which I guess would require an Americanism indicator?) until I got the joke. Which I always felt was a bit unfair to Truss, if such a thing be possible–that lettuce was in bad shape by the end!
AT RANDOM was very clever, but I seriously doubt that many if any solvers solved it directly rather than figuring out what fitted then seeing what the clue meant.
Very clever and witty puzzle from Paul, certainly tricky but fun to unpick.
Very informative and helpful blog from Eileen – with some of the parsing I missed.
I realised a lot of the challenge for me was in identifying the indicators, more creative anagrinds, definitions and wordplay within some of the more intricate clues.
LETTUCE was a superb clue. That story certainly reached us in Oz.
I also loved SIGNIFICANCE, ALIEN ABDUCTION, AT RANDOM, ENEMA, SHE-WOLF, BARBENHEIMER.
Thanks both.
This was tough, brilliant, infuriating and hilarious.
Tx P&E
Jack of Few Trades @17, I’m broadly with you. But with a really great clue the wordplay does “perfectly add up”, (I am not damning with faint praise, I enjoy Paul’s crosswords, this one included). The 9/10 ac., 21d., 23d. “not quite &lit clues” contain impurities, but they are pretty good clues.
Fantastic puzzle as usual from Paul. I love the more creative style, rather than rigorous syntactic parsing.
A relative newbie, I was just starting to think I was finding my feet having completed a few grids without aid of late. Then along comes Paul and bursts my bubble. Gave up with little more than half the answers in, and couldn’t parse some even after given the rest. Thanks for proving there are challenges yet to overcome, Paul. Thanks for the enlightenment, Eileen.
ChorleyArch@53, agreed, and a creative approach with syntactic accuracy is even more satisfying.
OX is never meat: the name of an animal, yes, but never its meat – as for bull or cow as opposed to beef. Paul often lets himself down like this.
Crossbencher @56
I’ve been told that the different names for animals and their meat dates back to the post conquest days, when the animals were named by the Saxons that looked after them, but the meats by the Norman-French who ate them! Hence pork from porc, beef from boeuf etc.
Arjay, matter of opinion, surely?
Over the time I’ve done cryptics seriously (a year, maybe two now?) I’ve gone from absolutely dreading a Paul (anybody remember “BEND SINISTER”?) to being surprised at how well I cope with them, albeit with the aid of Wikipedia. Not great material for beginners of course but that’s Friday for you.
FOI SHE-WOLF, LOI ISLE. Isle of Muck RHO, WALLOP as beer NHO along with NOVI SAD (opened “Serbia”, Ctrl + F ” n”, repeat until 4,3). LETTUCE made me laugh out loud and I’ve shared it widely, spoilered of course. “Plutonium blonde” was lovely as well. Thanks to Paul and to Eileen of course.
Crossbencher @56: I currently have ox cheek and ox tail in my freezer. I am hoping they are meat and not animals! I have also cooked ox tongue – served cold in aspic it is a classic sandwich meat. So I’m not sure what your beef is with the word.
Arjay@52: Absolutely – a perfect &lit is an amazing thing. But given the choice of a world with only perfect clues and a world which includes some rule-benders I am happier in the latter one. I think we are saying the same thing!
ChorleyArch@58, matter of taste I suppose as to which sort of clue floats your boat. But if blockbuilding is involved precision is an art too.
Jack @60, we crossed (contributions not swords!)
Arjay, if I can tell it’s a bunch of sunflowers and it’s beautiful then I’m happy. Doesn’t have to be machine readable 🙂
CA@58 it’s a forum so I think it’s safe to assume that all comments, unless otherwise indicated, are opinion rather than fact?
Including this one 🙂
LETTUCE is sheer genius. Nearly spilt my wallop laughing. Thanks Eileen, and congratulations Paul on the best joke of the year, in an excellent puzzle.
ChorleyArch@63, as long as the setter has helped you to see the sunflower I am with you. Would “Yellow River” (9) be a sufficient clue?
Managed to complete this superb Paul puzzle after an epic wrestling match. A real workout, and very satisfying. I decided to enter words I hadn’t fully parsed (ALIEN ABDUCTION, LETTUCE, GIN RUMMY, INANE, AT RANDOM), which helped open things up. Some delightful definitions (“Muck” for ISLE, “earning gift” for MIDAS TOUCH, “Hollywood’s plutonium blonde” for BARBENHEIMER, “anyhow” for AT RANDOM, “old banger” for MUSKET, “container with a lid” for HATBOX), odd anagrinds (Other-worldly? Romantic? Snakes? One over the eight??), delightful wordplay, missing definitions, and one annoying non-rhotic soundalike (SCINTILLA). Except for the last, all good fun!
I didn’t find D = Germany, only DE
Yes, BARBIE is a great flick
Fifth completion in a row — the whole week, with the expected, appropriate, and appreciated, gradual increase in difficulty
Mig @67 – D for Germany comes from the IVR (international vehicle recognition) plates. We see lorries with D plates driving round the UK, along with NL and E.
I really enjoyed this, but it was the chewiest this week.
Thank you to Eileen and Paul.
Arjay, if the setter managed to paint a verbal picture that makes us think of sunflowers, then it’s a good clue. Interesting that you feel clues have to be machine-parseable, when the English language isn’t like that.
As I said, a matter of taste. Did someone appoint you the arbiter of taste?
13 (out of 28) clues ending in a question mark, a record? Tough and brilliant, thank you Paul and hope you had a great day out Eileen!
[Mig @67 It having recently appeared at no extra cost on a well-known streaming platform, I watched Barbie about a week ago. I am with muffin@12 on the opening sequence, which is genius, but I was a little underwhelmed by what followed, although the incomparable Kate McKinnon as Weird Barbie was a delight. I must now seek out Oppenheimer to complete my experience of the cinematic neologism.]
ChorleyArch@69, purely for accuracy, you said “opinion” @58, I said “taste” @61.
Taste definitely leaves room for preferential differences.
I thought this was a great crossword, as did you @53, so we are as one.
Took me all day but I got there in the end. With lots of googling and guesswork. For a long time DITTO was my only one in. Oddly, I got BARBENHEIMER reasonably early with a sense of disbelief that the answer could be that. The LETTUCE parsing escaped me completely until I came here. Thanks to Eileen and Paul, and the rest of you for some entertaining comments.
Came late to this – and not easy!
I vaguely recollect WALLOP as slang for beer, but the only reference in print I know of comes in Nineteen Eighty-Four. Winston Smith goes into a ‘prole’ pub and meets with an old codger (another dated slang word!) who tells him “When I was a young man, mild beer – wallop we used to call it – was fourpence a pint.”
So I guess – being pedantic – ‘wallop’ meant mild beer, which is not the same as bitter. OK – I guess the clue has to pass…
Was totally stumped with BARBENHEIMER – was thinking of BARBARELLA (that Jane Fonda movie) which doesn’t fit. Eventually needed the crossers and the wp to figure it out.
Also, NOVI SAD only emerged after a foray into Google Maps. Perhaps I should have known that one. Excellent wp, though!
LETTUCE took a long time to twig (not quite as long as the lettuce took to go rotten!) and raised a laugh! And MINCEMEAT made me think of that famous WW2 escapade, where a dead body was used to plant fake intelligence with the enemy…
Also liked MIDAS TOUCH, SHE WOLF (that reminded me of a TV series); ALIEN ABDUCTION; HATBOX; INDONESIA. ENEMA sounds very PAUL-ine!
Thanks to Paul and Eileen.
Thanks Shanne@68. I looked on Wikipedia and only saw DE, but now I see it’s an ISO code, not IVR. I had the D early on, but not knowing it could stand for Germany by itself held me up. We don’t see a lot of those IVR stickers in Canada!
[Balfour@71 I enjoyed BARBIE throughout. Seeing a mainstream American movie with such subversive (even if subversive lite), and overtly and centrally feminist content is a wonder! Maybe the movie execs will finally accept that feminism is profitable? The HEIMER part of the equation is also excellent. What a contrast!]
Don’t read further if you’re squeamish or currently having breakfast somewhere but I didn’t think that an enema was inserted up someone’s end when their bottom was on fire. In fact quite the reverse.
Me @77
How about
Bottom on fire? French wine caught Dad short on toilet. (8) ?
Such a brilliant puzzle. My favorite setter. Kudos, Paul, from across the pond.
#24 dod
Only one D
Despite having been to a wedding on the Isle of Muck many years ago I ended by revealing that solution. I especially liked AT RANDOM and MINCEMEAT.
I heaved a sigh at 27a, but that was completely redeemed by 23d alone.
Thanks one and all.
Looks as if Eileen had a lovely day (hope so) and a late finish. Finally finished this tricky puzzle after breakfast this morning in co-operation with Mrs Job. Worth the effort. Thanks both.
Not going to comment on this puzzle as I didn’t find time to attempt it However the weekend offerings have me thoroughly confused, as follows :-
– The usual Maskarade bank Holiday special appears in the printed newspaper, but it is not the Prize and is not available online.
– There is an Enigmatist Prize puzzle online, but it doesn’t appear in the printed newspaper
This appears to be a special balls-up even by Grauniad standards ! Somebody please make it make sense ?
Job @23 – I’m not really expecting you (or anyone else) to see this but, yes, I had a lovely day, thank you – a postponed birthday treat, planned some weeks ago: coffee in Stamford, with a leisurely mosey around that delightful town, with a bit of retail therapy, then a superb lunch in Oakham (https://www.hitchensbarn.co.uk/), ending up at my grandson’s home in Market Harborough, where we were joined by his sister, my granddaughter, her partner and their two adorable babies – and I was, indeed, home rather later than I expected!
I did dip into the blog from time to time but, for once, I’d managed to avoid any typos or glaring mistakes and everyone seemed to be pretty content, so there was nothing really for me to contribute (though I did share PostMArk’s and Robi’s qualms re POLEMICIST.)
[Sorry, JohnB – I can’t offer any explanation: I looked online at around 6.00am to see who had set the Prize puzzle, then spent some time fruitlessly searching for it in my paper when it arrived.]
[JohnB@84 – not having the paper copy to hand, I’ll take your word for it. Anyway whenever I see the word ‘Enigmatist’ my eyes light up, so I don’t mind missing Maskarade.
I know spoilers are taboo before next Saturday, but I’ll just comment that it’s up to JH’s usual standard! – i.e. me getting seven clues thus far, after hours of puzzlement, is something of an achievement! Will I get it finished come Saturday???]
Paul at his best, I reckon.
Eileen@85,
Yes, I did the same. I will be interested to check the Letters page this coming week to see what the wider readership made of all this, and whether any sort of explanation is offered.
Bit of a late comment – sorry. Barbenheimer took me longer than all the rest put together. I had been assuming that some actress with an unpleasant personality was known as “the plutonium blonde”. Or that it referred to a native of somewhere like Hockenheim. Excellent otherwise.
I was out all day Friday and only managed half a dozen on the train home. Picked it up again this afternoon and really struggled – partly because it’s really tricky, partly because of a head full of cold.
BARBENHEIMER was a jorum for me, and I was another with HOT POT (for the same reason as Conrad@28) though I wasn’t convinced. I thought SHE-WOLF had Paul’s most accurate definition ever; he must be slipping!
Belated thanks to Paul and Eileen. The latter’s day out reminds me that I’ve still never visited Stamford, an oversight that I must remedy soon.
Great puzzle that we really enjoyed. Favourites SCINTILLA, MINCEMEAT and LETTUCE, which Caz worked backwards from COINS while I recalled the PM and the lettuce. (We may have given you “Cobbers” but you have supplied some entertaining sitcoms in return 😊 This one we followed closely on The Last Leg.)
NHO WALLOP or MUCK and a bit dubious about HIE. But a great solve overall. Thanks Paul and Eileen