Guardian 26,937 / Paul

50 comments on “Guardian 26,937 / Paul”

1. Thanks for parsing of Big Ears- but it hasnt made it my favourite clue by a long chalk.
   Lots else to like.

2. Not difficult but so enjoyable. I really love Paul’s subtle, elegant clueing.

3. Thanks Eileen. I liked this more than you perhaps, despite guessing ‘carpet bagged’ early on for being on the road in America, and struggling with INTRADOS. Lots else to admire.

4. Thanks Paul and Eileen

   I started by filling in the SW quickly, then slowly spread outwards from there. I couldn’t see the parsing of BRIAR (minor typo, Eileen – I think you’ve put a T instead of an I). I agree about the reversal indicator in 9, and I’m not sure 8 quite works either.

   Favourite was GOLF CLUB.

5. I see 14 as a triple definition rather than loose…

6. brian@5 – agreed. Read the whole clue as “country” referring to Tibet and we are quite a long way from loose definition. A clever and elegant clue all round.

7. Having had a few days away, found it great to return to be challenged by my favourite setter.

   Liked this a lot.

   Thanks to Paul and Eileen.

   Best bits for me were 19a NEWARK, 21a ASPIRING and 14d DALAI LAMA.

   Found the slang phrases GEDDIT 9a and 12a OMIGOD a bit odd but in the end was okay with them.

   But one of my favourite solves of all time was “BY THE SHORT AND CURLIES” 1a 15a and 4d.

8. Oh and I did like the echo phrase (I collect echo phrases) “FENDER BENDER” 10a 22a.

9. Thank you Paul and Eileen.

   An enjoyable puzzle. I wondered if the clue for DALAI LAMA could be “&lit” ?

   Like muffin @4, GOLF CLUB was my favourite – I was confused for a while thinking of a baker’s dozen.

10. Thanks, muffin @4 – typo corrected now.

    brian @5 – “I see 14 as a triple definition rather than loose…” I don’t understand, I’m afraid, nor Van Winkle @6: “Read the whole clue as “country” referring to Tibet”. I must be being dim.

11. So BIG EARS was a hobgoblin – I always thought he was a gnome. Is “exile” the definition for DALAI LAMA. Like Cookie @9, I saw the whole clue as an &lit, and as such it is one of my favourites. Others include POSH and STRIMMER.

    Thanks, Paul and Eileen.

12. I meant to say that I enjoyed this a lot (except for the mental image created by the clue for 27a).

    Like Cookie, I wasted quite a while trying to make that thirteen a baker’s dozen.

    If I may respond to Eileen @10, I think perhaps Brian was separating the clue into “Exile”, “a country boy” and “brought up to embody peace at heart” and Van Winkle was just suggesting that if the “country” is assumed to be Tibet, then the whole clue is the definition, as Cookie and I also thought.

13. To be picky, I don’t like “not all” for “some”.
    To me, “some” does not exclude the possibility of “all”.

14. Thanks to Paul and Eileen. STRIMMER and INTRADOS were new to me though accessible from the clues and I took awhile before linking “shiner” to “sun” for SHIPOWNER. Very enjoyable.

15. Thank you Paul, and as ever, Eileen.

    13a Moonshine is commonly known in the US, meaning illegally (to avoid taxes) made liquor, usually from corn. It was made clandestinely, presumably at night (though you wouldn’t think night would be a good time to run a still, when the fire would be seen in the dark) to avoid the revenuers — our excisemen. These days people even make it legally — how can there be legal contraband? — and sell it to tourists.

    5d How can a town be around the corner?

    Intrados was new to me and so (having had a Noddy-free childhood) was Big Ears.

    I agree with Muffin about 8a. “Strimmer” using cutter/trimmer as part of a word for a cutter/trimmer is too close.

16. Tripped myself up by entering “ALDI” (as an anagram of “la-di”) in the top corner – prety much the opposite end of the spectrum! STRIMMER IS a little bit uncryptic, just because it is already short for “string trimmer”, so finding “trimmer” in there isn’t very exciting. Lots of great clues. Thanks Paul and Eileen.

17. Thanks both.
    I liked this a lot, as I do most Pauls. Intrados was new to me, but gettable after one had eliminated ‘istradon’.

18. Many laugh-out-loud moments on the bus, but 14d is my clue of the century so far. It gives you the history and the very essence of the man in 11 words that serve as definition and cryptic plus extended definition, making a brilliant surface where every word contributes to the solution. How do you call something like that? Dazzlingly brilliant nutshell clue, perhaps? Thanks Paul and thanks Eileen for the blog. Helpful, as always. Enjoy the weekend.
    Andreas

19. I’ve had my worst week for ages, when I’ve struggled with clues that on another day I would write in and failed to complete three in a row – I can’t remember when this last happened. So it was with relief that I saw Paul’s name today, a setter I’m usually OK with, and he didn’t disappoint.

    I’m a bit surprised that no-one’s moaned about OMIGOD not being in Chambers or wherever – Paul used AMAZEBALLS recently and got opprobrium for his sins. It’s certainly OK by me, indeed it’s good to see a setter drawing on colloquial English. DALAI LAMA got a tick from me on the grounds the whole clue was an &lit, cf cookie @9. There might be the odd infelicity here and there – ‘in decline’ as an across reversal indicator – but overall there is wit and lightness of touch, which can never be a bad thing. Plus I finished this time as well.

20. Mostly straightforward, but a few that I struggled a little with – had to check the unfamiliar INTRADOS, FENDER BENDER was unfamiliar but guessable and BRIAR was last in – not sure I’d come across the pipe before either. Liked POSH

    Thanks to Paul and Eileen

21. fnarr fnarr!

22. I thought we were in for a theme when we got geddit and omigod quite quickly but no. Fender bender suggested, and Arizona, too. But it was not to be. Just enough to fill our lunchtime Thanks to Paul and Eileen.

23. Many thanks to jennyk @12 for making the points about 14d so much more elegantly than I was trying to!

24. BIG EARS was a brownie or elf;so don’t give me any of that hobgoblin jive! Ah, the trivia one retains!
    That said, I thought this was very good. I am a Paul fan and this puzzle didn’t make me any the less of one. I did like OMIGOD and GEDDIT but all of it was good.
    Thanks Paul.

25. I went out soon after my comment @10, so have only just seen the responses.

    jennyk @12 – thanks for the interpretation of brian’s comment but that doesn’t make it a triple definition. I can now see what Van Winkle means, I think. I’ve grown wary of labelling clues as &lit, because I’m often told I’m wrong!

    I’m glad you share my reservations about ‘hobgoblin’ BIG EARS – like Peter Aspinwall, I thought he was a brownie!

26. Jennyk@12 – “Exile” as a noun, perhaps?

27. @11, sorry

28. Have just found some childhood Noddy books and Big Ears introduces himself as a brownie or a hob or a hobgoblin.The stuff you can’t throw away!!! Thanks Paul and Eileen really enjoyed this.

29. This was a distinctly American puzzle, with ARIZONAN and NEWARK being write-ins for me. What do the British call a fender-bender anyway? (Most cars no longer have external fenders, but the phrase persists here.)

    By contrast, the Britishism “by the short and curlies” took me a long while, and I didn’t know of Big Ears. Also unfamiliar with INTRADOS, my last in, though it was the only plausible word that the anagram fodder made.

    No one’s yet pointed out that the LEMUR clue is also very cleverly lemur-ish in its wordplay, which (like with DALAI LAMA) made it among my favorites. I’ve always appreciated Paul’s sense of humor, so POSH was another fave.

    I spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to “download” the letters CD, LP, or EP into a word meaning “actors” to try to get a school.

30. [Also, I’ve always found it very intriguing that the terms for car parts are almost all completely different in American and British English. Since cars are basically a 20th-century phenomenon, and by that point technology was already crisscrossing the Atlantic at the same pace words were, you’d think we’d have standardized our terms.]

31. Oh, another remark–following on to Valentine’s at 15: You can now buy, in many bars here, artisanal moonshine. I’m not sure what that’s supposed to mean, but it feels sort of like the opposite of the original concept. Basically, all “moonshine” seems to mean now is spirits distilled in micro-distilleries. The artisanal stuff I’ve tried is usually flavored with something trendy, and is usually pretty gross. Give me a nice single-malt Scotch instead, thank you.

32. mrpenney @31 et al
    The Irish version is called (in English) “potcheen”. See:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poit%C3%ADn

33. …..there’s also this song, made famous by Joan Baez:
    http://www.metrolyrics.com/copper-kettle-lyrics-joan-baez.html

    I forgot to mention that a version of potcheen was briefly available in supermarkets here a few years ago. It reminded me a bit of schnapps.

34. Muffin @32: Interesting. Since most of the people from American “moonshine country” (Appalachia, essentially) originated in Ireland or Scotland, I imagine they probably brought that tradition with them. (This also explains why bluegrass sounds a bit like traditional Celtic music if you squint your ears just right.)

35. Ferryman @26
    Definitely a noun, but that wasn’t my point. I was just suggesting that it seems wrong to make that on its own the definition when the whole clue is one. I’m not sure whether that makes it an &lit or an extended definition or … ?

36. Jennyk@35: There needs to be a new category for clues (of which this is not the only example I’ve seen) where there’s a wordplay half of the clue, and then the definition is the entire clue, but there’s a word or phrase at one end that’s part of the definition only. Call it a semi-&lit?

    I agree with you that to be a fair definition of DALAI LAMA, we need to include the entire clue.

    –M.

37. mrpenney @36 and jennyk @35

    Please see my comment @25: I usually nowadays call this kind of clue &littish – but I shied away even from that today. Other bloggers talk about extended definitions or allusive clues. PaulB [aka Tees /Neo] often drops in to put us right. 😉

38. [mrpenney @34
    I love the concept of “squint your ears”!]

39. mrpenney @29:
    “What do the British call a fender-bender anyway?”
    A ‘prang’, or more recently ‘a punch-up’.

40. Gonzo @39
    I suspect (though not confidently) thta a “prang” might be a little more serious than a “fender-bender”. A “bump” possibly?

41. It appears that, although Big Ears believed himself to be a hobgoblin, a lot of posters on here seem to know better! No surprise there 😉

    A pretty tame puzzle for Paul. He throws one in occasionally.

42. Apropos of 1 down. I am reminded of what President Theodore Roosevelt said, “If you’ve got them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.”

43. Thank you Eileen and Paul

    New word for me was INTRADOS.

    My favourites were WINSOME, FRIGATE.

    I needed help to parse 25a, 14d, 16a.

44. Again, a truly superb puzzle is somewhat maligned here – most unfairly. The tone is set early with some baseless quibbles so that others follow. I fear rushing to the setter’s defence in this way lest I am castigated for insolence! But I feel it my duty as I owe thanks for so much enjoyment to the likes of Paul.
    There is nothing wrong with BIG EARS. I thought the descriptive surfaces of LEMUR and DALAI LAMA quite brilliant – and add another level to the artistry of crossword compiling.
    In my opinion, the prodigious creations of the genius who is John Halpern are always thoroughly entertaining and beautifully formed; John H must be the Mozart of Cruciverbia!
    Thank you, Paul, so much!
    And to Eileen also.

45. BTW I see no problem in describing 14dn as “&litt”; after all, the present Dalai Lama was born to a farming family in a small village – so undoubtedly “a country boy” etc. A wondrous clue indeed.
    Wx

46. You guys much cleverer than me! I got stuck on basilican (that is soooo hard) and fender bender and intrados and newark…. but enjoyed what i could do!

47. Thanks Paul and Eileen.

    Paul hits the spot yet again with a plethora of wittily and cleverly constructed clues.

    I’m ashamed to admit failing to get BIG EARS – so obvious when you know how.

    Loved the hidden GEDDIT and OMIGOD and giggled at 1,15,4.

    Paul never ceases to entertain.

48. Hi Eileen

    A bit late in the day I know, but I also know from past experience that you get to be notified of all comments, and I have commented to you before a couple of years back. I am from Stockport, but have lived in the USA for 15 years hence I’m sometimes late in doing the crosswords, which I pick and choose from online. I am however coming over to UK for 3 weeks at the start of August, so I’m looking forward to that, as I can get the Guardian every day then – as I always used to.

    One of the answers to this crossword reminded me of a ‘conversation’ my young son, Alastair, had with me many years ago when he was about 9.

    “Dad this book says African elephants have large ears but Asian elephants only have small ones”. “So dad; why do African elephants have big ears”

    I replied “I don’t really know, Alastair”

    “BECAUSE NODDY WOULDN’T PAY THEIR RANSOM” – came the reply.

    Nice memories.

49. Thanks for that, Gordon. 🙂

    Enjoy your trip over here – pity it’s not in October, so that you could join us in York.

50. Thanks Paul and Eileen

    Must have been because I hadn’t done a Paul for a while, but found this one quite tough to get into. BY THE SHORT AND CURLIES was my last one in – so could understand the difference in degree of difficulty that would have been influenced by what would have opened up in the grid by getting that one earlier.

    Lots of his usual variety and sense of wit within his clues to make this a fun journey to go on. Strange the obvious things that one doesn’t see sometimes – I didn’t see the anagram for POSH until being shown here … and now feel a little sheepish! Did like the geographic and the teenage slang clues.

    I have focused more on the FT puzzles these days, and must say that I much prefer the crosswords that JH sets for the Guardian – they do tend to be a little easier over there and with less of the character that he shows here.

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