The scheduled blogger is not available, so here’s a very quick write-up of today’s puzzle, for which thanks to Paul.
I found this one quite hard when I solved it this morning, though in retrospect there’s not much that’s particularly devious. There’s an obvious theme around the city and university of Cambridge: handy for me as it’s where I live, as well as being my alma mater, but it may have caused difficulties to some.
| Across | ||||||||
| 8 | PARLANCE | Mean weapon for lectures, say (8) PAR (mean) + LANCE |
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| 9 | ATOLL | Circle in a ring (5) A + TOLL (to ring) |
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| 10 | SKYE | Isle, 2 down and red, essentially (4) SKY (blue) + [r]E[d] |
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| 11 | LINE ASTERN | Nothing fired back, going one way in battle formation (4,6) Reverse of NIL + EASTERN – it’s “a formation in which a number of aircraft or ships follow one another in a line.” |
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| 12 | FIESTA | Last of champagne put in punch before a party (6) [champagn]E in FIST + A |
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| 14 | AMORISTS | Those getting hot as I storm off (8) (AS I STORM)* |
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| 15 | DEWLAPS | Some skinfuls necked at auditor’s anticipated error? (7) Sounds like “due lapse” – a dewlap is loose skin on the neck of an animal |
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| 17 | EIGHTHS | Out of sight, he parts (7) (SIGHT HE)* |
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| 20 | NEWCOMER | Order after toilet breaks certainly not fresher (8) WC + OM (Order of Merit) in NE’ER (never, certainly not) |
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| 22 | RESUME | Pick up venture where leader hidden (6) A beheaded PRESUME (to venture) |
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| 23 | DOWNTRENDS | Proceeds securing numerous tasty rolls for starters, alongside party dips (10) DO (party) + N[umerous] T[asty] R[olls] in WENDS (proceeds) |
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| 24 | LEWD | 2 down nest almost knocked over (4) Reverse of DWEL[L] |
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| 25 | STEAK | Reportedly pale 2 down, might that be? (5) Sounds like “stake”, a pale, fencepost, and a very rare steak is said to be cooked blue |
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| 26 | THIEVERY | Criminality all attributed to criminal hit (8) HIT* + EVERY (all) |
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| Down | ||||||||
| 1 | BACKSIDE | Part of Cambridge vision detailed – is that fundamental? (8) BACKS (a part of Cambridge where several colleges back onto the river) + IDE[a] |
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| 2 | BLUE | Crew member, down and dirty (4) Three definitions – someone who represents Cambridge (or the other place) in sports, e.g. rowing; sad; and obscene (as also in 24 across) |
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| 3 | ANGLIA RUSKIN | Cambridge University refitting King’s with a urinal (6,6) (KINGS A URINAL)* – “Cambridge University” is often a tricky definition of MIT, but this is the other university in the British city, formerly a Polytechnic, and previous the Cambridgeshire College of Arts and Technology |
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| 4 | NEWNHAM | Fancy man when in college (7) (MAN WHEN)* – Newnham is one of the two remaining women-only Cambridge colleges: I can see their grounds from where I’m sitting |
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| 5 | MACARONI | Penguin or peacock? (8) Double definition – it’s a type of penguin, and also an 18th-century dandy, a peacock |
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| 6 | FOOTLIGHTS | Measure clues in Cambridge company (10) FOOT + LIGHTS (clues) |
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| 7 | CLARET | College student’s last drink (6) CLARE (Cambridge College) + [studen]T |
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| 13 | SILICON FEN | AstraZeneca etc sees image through lens, if blurred (7,3) ICON in (LENS IF)* |
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| 16 | PEMBROKE | With minimum of equity to invest, financial ruin evident for Churchill College? (8) E[quity] in PM (e.g. Churchill) + BROKE (ruined) |
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| 18 | HOMEWARD | Returning treasure, cry stifled (8) MEW in HOARD |
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| 19 | TRINITY | College venture involves working as coder, say? (7) IN I.T. in TRY (venture) |
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| 21 | EGOIST | Bighead is overwhelmed by rare showbiz achievement (6) IS in EGOT (the achievement of winning all four of Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony) |
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| 24 | LOVE | O dear (4) Double definition: O = 0 = love |
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Thanks Andrew for stepping in. And I’m all for a chewy puzzle but 21d: go forth and multiply!
21d is a good clue, I enjoyed it and got it quite quickly
Many thanks to Andrew for the blog, and to Paul for the chewy puzzle. It ultimately defeated me, though when I look at the completed grid, it mostly seems relatively innocent … though I couldn’t be bothered to Google ‘Cambridge colleges’. Not convinced by the definition of 1d PARLANCE, but I entered it with a shrug. Feel this puzzle would have been better suited to the Prize slot.
Great crossword for Cambridge student magazine, not for the Guardian.
I agree with judygs @3, though I did google “Cambridge colleges,” which helped…with some of it. I still wound up revealing six or seven things.
Very tricky. I got there in the end, but with loads of checking letters, and looking up Cambridge colleges. I needed to come here for some parsings. SeveralHOs, such as dewlaps, macaroni for dandy and footlights.
Thanks Paul and Andrew for the blog
Another dreary collection of strained defs. Don’t know why I bother with this setter.
I couldn’t get anywhere with this. I managed 8a and 14a then ground to a halt. Usually these days I can muddle through most cryptics with the help of a bit of guessing and checking – not so today. Even after revealing most of the answers, the parsing was quite beyond me. 25a, STEAK, would never have come to me. Thanks, Andrew, for the explanations which were enlightening but still, there was no enjoyment to be had for me today.
Thanks Paul and Andrew
Well, I had sworn off Paul puzzles, then he goes and sets one based around my university, and even putting my college in one of the clues, so I had to try it. Can’t say I enjoyed it much, though.
MACARONI for “dandy” comes up in “Yankee Doodle” – put a feather in his cap and called it macaroni.
Yes EGOIST was one of my quicker ones too, I liked it.
I don’t mind any subject, but Oxbridge stuff makes me feel a bit sad. I googled up a list of colleges which definitely paid off. My first in was FIESTA, last was (maybe) PEMBROKE. Favourites were THIEVERY and MACARONI.
Thanks Paul and good work at late notice Andrew.
Silicon Fen is the nichest of niche references in an incredibly niche crossword today.
As Amma @8 I can normally muddle through toughies with some guessing and checking, but, being a non-Cantabrian, this was a non-starter.
That’s enough of Paul for me.
I didn’t go to Cambridge and am not the slightest bit interested in any GK associated with said university.
My good lady wife agrees….
Read in my paper yesterday that during their recent Freshers Week at ANGLIA RUSKIN they were advertising The Kinkster Society, offering “a vibrant and inclusive community dedicated to exploring and celebrating the diverse world of fetish and kink.”
Whatever is the world coming to, though I did enjoy The Kinks in my earlier days in the Sixties.
Mostly struggled with this, couldn’t parse MACARONI or EGOIST to name but two…
Well done, Andrew. I thought this was really tough. I think I enjoyed it. . .? Thanks Paul, also.
HIYD @ 13 Sorry, but I think it is a bit perverse determinedly not to be interested in any area of GK.
“BACKS (a part of Cambridge where several colleges back onto the river)”…I can’t believe I have not come across that before…
Balfour @16 – Fair comment, but GK tends to stick for subjects that I have an interest in. I have no interest in Cambridge University.
50 minutes in when I’d hoped to have completed I had a grand total of ten solved. Eventually drew stumps with nine unsolved. Just miles off Paul’s wavelength today, ah well.
Once I’d got ANGLIA RUSKIN, allegedly the college, which Wilt was based on, I was hoping for Porterhouse to make a Tom Sharpe mini theme. Nor was there a sentimental Paul homophone for Magdalen. I needed a lot of help to finish this one.
I love a proper Paul challenge (and this was challenging!). But clearly any whiff of Oxbridge unsettles a lot of Grauniad types.
Happened to know about CLARE from Norman Podhoretz’s memoir Making It, but otherwise quite tough for this non-Cantabridgian. Thanks Andrew for the enlightenment. I’m curious about LIGHTS in 6D, having always understood these to refer to the answers/entries, not the clues. Thanks as ever to Paul for the challenge.
Thanks Andrew. Whatever you’re tipple of choice, you deserve a large one for stepping in to do this.
As an alumnus of the Other Place, I have no local knowledge of Cambridge, except what I suppose I have picked up during a lifetime in the academic sphere and two or three non-academic visits there. (I did once open the batting for Oxford Australians against Cambridge Australians in Cambridge, on which occasion I was addressed as Bruce by my teammates and told not to attempt the accent.) Paul has drawn a huge amount of rancour in the G thread, and already here, but to be fair, only four answers are provided by the names of colleges – NEWNHAM, PEMBROKE, TRINITY and CLARE(T). Others (Kings, Churchill) are just namechecked in clues.) Anyone who has visited the city will have surely seen The BACKS, and the FOOTLIGHTS is extremely well known far beyond the realms of Cantab. The rest was just tough Paul – I didn’t see/hear DEWLAPS for a ridiculous amount of time.
That’s a no. Shut out on the first pass, managed two on the second pass. Time to throw in the towel. The Cambridge theme didn’t help, along with several nho’s in both clues and solutions. My favourite was 24d LOVE, one of the two I solved. Nice and succinct. Seems like the kind of clue that’s maybe been done before?
Andrew, 15a DEWLAPS, I think you mean “due lapse” (not “laps”)
Thanks for stepping in Andrew!
This one beat me into submitting to guessing and checking, which I don’t mind doing occasionally for a few clues but not for the vast majority. Being non UK based since 1968 and so not a watcher of U Challenge for a half century or more, Silicon Fen and Anglia Ruskin as the long and Nho ones definitely didn’t help.
I really liked it, almost finished, lots of laughs, googled the list of colleges, I don’t see the problem with GK I don’t have…
Thank goodness for the halcyon days of University Challenge, hosted by Bamber Gascoigne, to get me through this. I thought it was a superb puzzle with CLARET, FOOTLIGHTS, PEMBROKE, LOVE and THIEVERY my favourites. MACARONI was a bung and hope from the crossers and confirmed by Mr Google. Great fun the whole way although it was tough indeed.
Ta Paul & Andrew for stepping into the breach.
…further to me@25, I did a fifteensquared search for “O dear” and didn’t find a comparable clue to 24d. Makes this simple clue all the more admirable
I’m with Balfour @24 (and love the cricket anecdote!). The Grauniad comments seem to consist of either “I went to Cambridge and this was easy” or “I hate anything to do with Oxbridge”. Many of the latter still seem to think that the two universities are populated only by Sebastians from Brideshead. I do, however, feel that there is not much specialised knowledge here – a couple of the colleges, perhaps, but are people honestly saying they’ve never heard of Trinity, home of Isaac Newton among many others? It has 34 Nobel prize winners among its alumnae, which would place it equal 4th in a table of all countries in the world! And the Footlights were the source of so much comedy including Monty Python, The Goodies and Peter Cook. I’ll cede that “Newnham”, “Pembroke” and “The Backs” were less general. “Silicon Fen” was new to me but eminently guessable as a silly nickname.
[My own anecdote for “the backs” was when we were performing at Trinity Ball and were setting up a stage there. I’d parked a 7 tonne lorry on the grass to unload the scaffolding at which point a bowler-hatted porter told me off from the path, shouting something I could not make out. I ignored him as there was no way I was lugging 2 tonnes of scaff from the road and anyway, the pressure on the tyres was significantly less that that of any of the high-heeled women who attended the ball so knew I was doing no damage.]
HoofIt@18: I agree with you – I would be no good on quiz shows because I could not see me ever retaining information on television programs, most sports other than cricket, or modern popular music ensembles, no matter how hard I tried. Memory is built on networks and links – the more we know of something, the easier it is to slot another bit in and find it again.
It was a dang tough puzzle though, I’ll give it that. Many thanks Andrew for stepping in, and Paul for the wrestling match.
Paul Mr H has been in Cantab recently showing people John Graham’s grave and the colleges. So I guess this was tied up with that. Although not a Cantab man (London for me) I found the colleges easy to get thanks to University Challenge. However found some of the parsing very difficult but that’s the fun of solving crosswords. Late blog really appreciated.
I’ve probably lumped myself in with the “haters” but that’s definitely not the case. My comment @11 is more about paths not taken. I did find this hard today but didn’t find the GK so much of a stretch. (Although the list sped things up!) I would never scratch a setter from my roster and I like Paul’s puzzles anyway.
Another oh-look-at-me-i’m-so-clever puzzle from the master of that style. Nothing enjoyable about today, gonna have to skip Paul in future.
My beef is more the questionable PARLANCE = lectures, say. Have I missed something? Being a Bootle scruff, I’m unfamiliar with Oxbridge, but some googling help me to finish. Not my favourite Paul, but at least I finished a tough test. Thanks both.
My experience mirrors Amma@8 and Mig@25. (My 2 successes on second pass were 8a PARLANCE and 2d BLUE.)
After seeing the answers and explanations I still had at least 10 NIAMYs (not in a million years). Being beyond me, this puzzle was no fun, but I enjoyed reading Andrew’s excellent blog and marvelling at Paul’s inventiveness.
So, not a waste of time, failure accompanied by learning seldom is.
Agree with @RosieLee, this puzzle had no place in the Guardian. I finally finished it after a long slog but at the end it was more a feeling of “thank goodness this is over” than satisfaction. This is coming from someone who usually really likes Paul’s puzzles.
‘… no place in the Guardian …’ Jay @36. Pray explain why. Just because you struggle with a puzzle does not surely, ipso facto, make it unfit to print. It has been interesting, and frankly sometimes hilarious, here and on the G thread, to see how solvers’ frustrations with the crossword have led them to denounce Paul and even the Editor for allowing it to be even published.
After an insanely busy day (work interleaved with dropping my daughter for her final year at Oxford) I saw it was Paul, hit Reveal All and have no regrets.
The most deliberately unpleasant, obnoxious crossword I’ve ever done. Spoiled my weekly crossword evening with my dad. Paul can get in the sea.
🎵 People are strange 🎵 agree Balfour @37. Bizarre reactions all over the place. It’s only a flippin puzzle. Refreshing to know that those naysayers will never comment on a Paul crossword ever again.
I used to manage a Paul puzzle but lately I’ve found them increasingly difficult. There’s just too much lateral thinking to reach the solutions for my addled brain.
Well done Andrew.
I only came by to see what certain contributors made of this. I think muffin@9 is doing his best to be charitable. Others have kept a diplomatic silence. I had a steffen experience so not feeling so inclined. LINE EASTERN, AMORISTS, DOWNTRENDS, ANGLIA RUSKIN, NEWNHAM, SILICON FEN, PEMBROKE (and such an ugly clue – how does the ‘e’ get installed in the ‘PM’?) are just examples of weird words to find in a puzzle aimed at a general audience, and then the peculiarity of references in the clues: Backs, EGOT… (- I can’t go on).
It’s free, it’s online, it’s an entertainment so shaddup! But (I have to say) a rare dud for me.
I had a go, filled in BACKSIDE (had to be with Paul the setter) MACARONI, SKYE and BLUE and ATOLL, and… ground to a halt. A list of Cambridge colleges gave me CLARET, 11a had to be LINE something… It wasnt so much the obvious Cambridge GK quiz that floored me as the long parade of stretchy synonyms and Paul’s usual awful homophones (DUE LAPSE indeed!). After I revealed two that turned out to be SILICON FEN and ANGLIA RUSKIN (as an anagram, forsooth!) I decided not to do any more slaving over a list, and started revealing the rest of the Cambridge stuff. The only ones I wish I’d solved were FOOTLIGHTS and the cute little LOVE. I don’t mind Paul’s geographical ones (he did Brighton not so long ago) but this one was out of my league.
Thanks andrew for stepping in.
Well, I liked it. But then I would, because I’m a Cambridge bod, and because I like Paul’s puzzles. Defining ANGLIA RUSKIN as ‘Cambridge University’ made me snort.
As for the naysayers… it’s just a crossword; it’s just entertainment. If you don’t like a given puzzle, you don’t have to do it – and if you want another one, just pick a random number less than 28000, create the web address for that puzzle (https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/ , and do a different one. Saying ‘I don’t like this setter’, then persisting for an hour in solving the puzzle, then not liking it, then heading here (or the Guardian site) to point out how much you didn’t like it feels somewhat masochistic to me. A bit like saying ‘I hate what BBC1 is showing these days, but I always watch it of an evening’ – you’ve got BBC2 or Channel 4 or iPlayer or whatever. (And don’t forget that setters read here, and the Guardian comments, and I know many find it actually quite upsetting to see people hating stuff we’ve spent time and effort creating. I’ve talked about this before, I know!)
Anyway, you’re allowed to stop and go for a walk or listen to the radio or read a book instead. Do something that brings you joy. xx
Sorry, that should say h ttps://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/[number] – the posting software removed my tag, unsurprisingly. And I’ve had to put a space after the h here so that the tag I’m *now* using works!
Well said Hamish Soup!
I attended & now live in The Other Place, so I found this pretty hard, more like an Enigmatist than a Paul. Cambridge colleges are easily Googled, but SILICON FEN? I suspect you have to be a local for that to trip off the tongue. But I got there in the end. And I think Cambridge University is a reasonable theme for a crossword. It is after all one of the most famous, eminent, & venerable institutions in the world, even if we don’t like the fact, or are uneasy about Oxbridge’s alleged role in perpetuating toxic class divisions. Would even Grauniad readers be bristling so much about a Donald-Trump or Conservative-Party-themed crossword? I doubt it, yet we have more to thank Cambridge for than we have the Mango Mussolini.
JuliusCaesar @47
I would like to think that Guardian readers would be much more incensed about a Trump or Tory themed puzzle!
“And don’t forget that setters read here, and the Guardian comments, and I know many find it actually quite upsetting to see people hating stuff we’ve spent time and effort creating.”
Good. Paul *should* feel upset to know he made such a bad crossword. Hopefully it will inspire him to do better in future. If we all pretend he didn’t mess up, he won’t know he needs to improve. In the long run it is kinder to be honest. And of course, the truth is its own defence and justification.
Such a lot of whingeing! If you don’t a puzzle or a setter that’s fine, just don’t feel obliged to record your huff here! There are plenty of us who enjoy a tricky puzzle even if we don’t manage to complete it.
Sanctimonious Chris @49 What makes it a ‘bad crossword’ other than the fact that you couldn’t do it?
Balfour @51 – vox populi vox dei
Hamish/Soup @44 summed it up for me. Very hard and took me hours with lots of breaks. I thought having been to Cambridge decades ago would help but only really with the Backs and the colleges. Footlights and Silicon Fen and Trinity were GK. Determined to finish and did and glad that I did.
Paul is a favourite however tortuous he can be. I only have admiration for the setters being personally incapable of composing a single decent clue and the cryptic is one of many reasons I continue to pay actual money for the Grauniad.
Thanks to setter and blogger and all those posting appreciative comments.
As Balfour and others have referred to, I’m surprised that the Footlights wasn’t better known – breeding ground for many subsequently well known comics.