Guardian 27,290 / Paul

49 comments on “Guardian 27,290 / Paul”

1. A thoroughly enjoyable Paul puzzle. Thank you.

2. Very enjoyable – as usual Eileen’s views match mine, particularly on the ‘squeaky cleanness’

   Funny how with 2d, his is the name I most remember of all the people who’ve held the post

   Thanks to Eileen and Paul, the latter for the crossword I’ve enjoyed most of the three I’ve done today.

3. Thanks Paul and Eileen

   I liked SCOTS PINE, EVENING STAR and WET BLANKET. I couldn’t bring myself to write in ROSE without “checking”,as I thought it was just too easy for a Paul clue (though I was thinking of the colour rather than the wine).

   Why is PENALTY BOX an “area of punishment”? Even in football context it’s only potential “punishment” – penalties can be missed.

4. I almost finished this – I was so fixated on Aintree that I couldn’t think of another course. Pushy parents also beat me. Lots of clever clues. I especially liked the misdirect of iron and lead. Thanks to Paul for an enjoyable puzzle and to Eileen for her (as usual) very clear blog.

5. Yes, lots of fun. The only query I had was about CLUED-UP, but I suppose it refers to a crossword being finished by the setter, not by the solver. Favourites were EVENING STAR, TREE and WET BLANKET. Many thanks to Paul and Eileen.

6. Thanks Paul, Eileen
   I thought DOUBLE CHIN was brilliant. Since chicken and chips also both have an I third, I took it as ‘those partial to CHIckeN and CHIps iN, but I dare say that’s overcomplicating it.
   I also refused to write ROSE in, thinking there was going to be some cleverly named river. Even at the end when I checked all, I half-expected it to be wrong.
   I liked BULLY – worthy of the repetition.

7. Hi drofle @5 – I initially had the same query, then concluded that, as I indicated in the blog, ‘finished’ does not refer to crosswords at all.

8. Muffin @3, I associate ‘penalty box’ with ice hockey (though there well may be similar uses in other sports), where it is clearly an area for punishment.

   Loved PUSHY PARENTS when the penny dropped. Thanks, Paul and Eileen.

9. Thanks Ian @8. Not a sport I’m familiar with. Is it like a “yellow card” in rugby – a temporary exclusion? That would be a punishment, of course.

10. Thanks Eileen and Paul.

    I toyed with Aintree for a while.

11. Eileen @ 7: Thanks – I hadn’t properly perused your blog!

12. Thanks Eileen. My first effort at 21a was TOOL , which I thought worked …

13. Thanks Paul and Eileen

    Enjoyable and surprisingly gentle for Paul. My first one in was 1ac: I tend to think when the first clue goes in straight away it makes my brain click into gear much faster.

    Like cryticsue @2 U Thant is always the first name that comes to my mind when I think of UN Secretaries General, and like others I couldn’t quite believe 6dn.

    Particular thanks Eileen for parsing 17,14. Eggs Benedict is delicious for a treat breakfast (though it usually only has one egg).

14. … egg yolk in the hollandaise sauce, hence the plural …

15. Yes – great fun. Thanks Paul and Eileen. Loved the pushy parents – last one in. Also the double chin. Our recipe for eggs benedict is eggs in spinach.
    Has anyone completed Saturdays big prize crossword. We dont think the grid is the right one for the lengths of the words.

16. Apple granny @15
    I think that would be Eggs Florentine?
    I have had Eggs Benedict with smoked salmon rather than ham – a treat!

17. [Apple granny, yes, the enumeration of B should be 7;9 (not 8;8)]

18. Apple granny @15

    Yes, after an almighty struggle all day on Saturday. The printed version had the letter counts for the “B” clues as 8,8: they have now been corrected on the online version to 7,9.

19. Is the acute accent in rosé essential to finishing the puzzle?
    4/5 was my favourite.
    Thanks Eileen.

20. copmus @19
    I didn’t think so – see mine @3

21. Thanks Paul for a very enjoyable crossword; top marks!

    Thanks Eileen for a good blog. I did like DOUBLE CHIN, but my COD is PUSHY PARENTS, what a great definition!

22. Hi copmus @19 – of course not: just me showing off. 😉

23. Thank you Paul and Eileen.

    A very enjoyable crossword, but I got rather tied up with trying to parse DOUBLE CHIN, thinking CHI ‘N CHI, a shame chub or char are not traditional fish served with chips…

    The clues for PUSHY PARENTS, CLUED-UP, MEATLESS and WET BLANKET were my favourites.

24. Thanks Eileen.
    So that’s why I couldn’t parse YONKERS.
    eejit

25. baerchen @24
    I put YONKERS too, but could only parse parts of it, so I “checked”. The right answer didn’t take long to appear after this left me with Y?NKE?S!

26. Thanks, Paul and Eileen.

    I really liked 27a SO THERE.

    Like James @6, I thought I’d been told that whatever 6d was, it wasn’t ROSE, so must be a river. anybody else try to wrangle AIRE or OUSE in?

    I got stuck on 10a because I think in the US it’s called SCOTCH PINE. The first I thought of was WHITE PINE (common here), but couldn’t think of anything to do with P_W_Y. PAWKY didn’t make it.

    Seems to me that MAGNETISE means “make attractive” rather than “attract,” no?

27. I thought of YANKEES right away, Connecticut Yankee that I am, but couldn’t parse it, so thought it must be something else, and it went in late.

    Connecticut is between New York and Boston, so the southern and western part of the (rather small) state is Yankee-land and the northern and eastern part Red Sox Nation. Somebody has probably figured out where the presumably diagonal dividing line actually lies.

28. Valentine @26, the COED gives for MAGNETISE “3 attract as or like a magnet.”

29. Quite an entertaining Paul, but fairly easy by his recent standards. Thanks for explaining the SKO in SKOPJE – I had the PJE immediately and was sure that was right but my knowledge of Scandinavian languages is clearly deficient.

    Had a few problems in the NW corner but in retrospect I can’t see why, and CANOPY was last in.

    Thanks to Paul and Eileen

30. PUSHY PARENTS was LOI. I had CLUED IN at first which seemed fair enough at the time but effectively snookered me. It was only later that I twigged what “issue driven by these” signified. Like Muffin, I hesitated over ROSE- and YANKEES for that matter- because they seemed too easy. In fact we seem to be having rather an easy week. Perhaps as a relief after Saturday’s Prize- and no, I still haven’t finished it!
    Thanks Paul.

31. Damn I wrote in YONKERS prob because it came up the other day-that’ll learn me to parse when its Paul.(didnt bother to check it)

32. copmus @31 – are we allowed to mention that yet??

33. Thanks to Paul and Eileen. I did remember U THANT and spotted B. CUMBERBATCH without parsing it but I needed help parsing DOUBLE CHIN and SCOTS PINE (Scots vs. Scotch misled me). Lots of fun.

34. With induced magnetism, putting a permanent magnet near a piece of ferrous metal magnetises the latter, as evidenced by the two being mutually attracted.

35. @beery hiker
    Your Scandinavian languages may be deficient, but surely you remember Hagar in this:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gK7n1Q-fDeA

36. Sgt Hathaway @35 – yes, I remember that but I didn’t realise they were just saying Cheers!!

37. Could “punches” in 27a be a Grauniad for “pinches”?

38. eldee @37 – sorry, I’ve been out: no one else has taken this up in the meantime and I do like to respond to queries on my blog but I’m afraid I can’t see where you’re coming from. Could you explain? Collins: ‘punch – to pierce, cut, stamp shape or drive with a punch…’ – the first two of which are pretty common anagram indicators, I think.

39. Re 4,5 – I decided not to make any further comment in the blog on this clue, which seems to have been several commenters’ favourite, but, since it’s late in the day, I’ll say that it immediately called to mind the [for me] disturbing Channel 4 programme last week https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/aug/18/channel-4-child-genius-criticised-exploitative, of which I happened on the penultimate episode and then, I’m ashamed to say, ‘had to’ watch the final. No further comment.

40. Nice straightforward puzzle so we finished it in one day. Yes!! We liked “penalty box” “wet blanket” and “double chin” – last one very clever. Feeling very pleased with ourselves….thanks Paul & Eileen

41. Eileen @39, that is dreadful. We have another problem here in France that crushes creativity, the education system is geared towards “administration”, the equivalent of Oxford is ENA, the École nationale d’administration. When one of my sons aged 8 missed a week of school, due to illness, he wrote a story, I showed it to his teacher, but she said “he is not ready to do that yet” (he was all ready bilingual, it was not a question of his grasp of French) – just checked with my granddaughter and she says she did no creative writing either at primary school.

42. Andy Smith @12

    I went for tool at 21a initially too. Not particularly tight wordplay but I have had worse – not in the Guardian of course! Then the dubloon dropped.

    Otherwise a very satisfying solve. Thanks Paul and Eileen.

43. A pleasant way of ending the evening. Thanks to Paul and Eileen. I too thought that 6D was too simple a non-cryptic definition for a Paul puzzle. The test was to work out what “neither red nor white” was doing there. This was delayed by trying to parse Aire by working out the Lancashire part of the clue as the river is only in Yorkshire, and trying to do something to Ribble, which is in both counties, to make it fit. I too tried Yonkers at 28A but couldn’t parse it and then remembered that it is an area, not a team.

44. On 9a, happily wrote in ‘ashes’. (A)sian leader, he in SS (vessel) and spent inordinate amount of time on wondering why this was ‘from the east’. Many confused thoughts re cricket and Australia before checker put me out of my misery

45. Another enjoyable puzzle, slightly easier than I’d expected given the setter.

    I was briefy tempted by YONKERS, but managed to resist. Unfortunately I also resisted bunging in ROSE first time through as I failed to spot the wine connection then (d’oh!).

46. Eileen@38. Only just back from a lengthy and distant family evening out. “different punches first two of seven” and “first two of seven pinches different” would equally well encrypt “so there”‘ and Paul’s word order more closely matches the latter. Also “pinches” instead of “punches” wouldn’t totally ruin his neat surface.

47. I was another YONKERS and non-believer of ROSE. I also thought UTHANT was barely cryptic. Otherwise much to enjoy – DOUBLE CHIN and BULLY were my favourites along with the definition of PUSHY PARENTS – as several others have said. Definitely at the more accessible end of Paul’s spectrum so thanks to him and Eileen.

48. It’s probably just me and the crickets in here at this late hour. I was on Paul’s wavelength and absolutely tore through most of this puzzle very early this morning … then came to a thudding halt in the NE corner. Had a very busy day at work, but every so often I had an opportunity to pick up the puzzle again, but nothing would yield. Finally, at home this evening, I saw that I has written “Clued In” for 1ac, not being familiar with “CLUED UP”, and then finally I could solve PUSHY PARENTS, SCOTS PINE, and NOISETTE. Apart from my toils with the last few entries, I found this very enjoyable, as ever with Paul. I was actually mildly disappointed, however, with 17,14, because, for me, “served with ham and hollandaise sauce” was such an obvious and wordplay-free definition of BENEDICT that the overall clue was a write-in, i.e., not as fun as it could have been, had Paul elected to concoct a more cryptic clue for the actor’s first name. But on the whole – thumbs up! Thanks Paul and Eileen – and thanks again to the crickets for your company!

49. “First two of seven” = object
    “different” = subject
    “punches” = verb

    Also, “First two of seven pinches different that’ll teach you”, which seems to be what you’re advocating, certainly does ruin the surface, in my opinion.

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