Guardian 27,332 – Paul

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I solved this more or less from the bottom up, finding the SE corner very easy but the rest much less so. A few bits of general knowledge needed, though nothing too obscure (at least to the target audience). An outrageous pun provides the icing on the cake – thanks to Paul for the fun.

 
 
 
 
 
 
Across
1. YEREVAN Money boxes maintain returns, capital (7)
Reverse of AVER (maintain) in YEN. Slightly dodgy grammar in the cryptic reading… Yerevan is the capital of Armenia
5. HASHISH Key issue: no girl getting hot tea (7)
HASH (the ‘#’ key on a phone or computer keyboard, officially called the ‘octothorpe’) + IS[SUE] + H[ot]. Tea is slang for cannabis/marijuana/hashish
10,17. HAIRSTYLE Design of Hitler, say, combed across the forehead, perhaps? (9)
(HITLER SAY)*, with the whole clue referring to Hitler’s actual hairstyle
11. STEAM TRAIN Rocket could pull one crew into the air (5,5)
TEAM (crew) in STRAIN (tune, air) – referring to Stephenson’s Rocket rather than a space vehicle, as the surface reading suggests
12. JORDAN Price now for the country? (6)
Double definition – model Katie Price, formerly known as Jordan, and the middle-eastern country
13. LINGERIE Spice Girl in rank underwear (8)
GERI (Halliwell, Ginger Spice) in LINE
14. CRAPULENT Drunk? Poor you, time to abstain (9)
CRAP (bad, poor) + U + LENT (time to abstain)
16,3. CLOTH-EARED Covered cloaks are lacking in a particular sense? (5-5)
ARE in CLOTHED
19. OVEN-READY Remaining bottles primarily noxious and potent, not initially fit for cooking (4-5)
N[oxious] in OVER (remaining) + [h]EADY (potent)
23. LIFE PEER Lord, criminal admitting leak (4,4)
PEE (leak) in LIFER (criminal serving a life sentence)
24. RAFTER Supporter, revolutionary behind outstanding newspaper (6)
FT in reverse of REAR
26. TOOTH FAIRY Parental role not substantial enough — that is absent in criminal being held (5,5)
THIEF less I.E. in TOO AIRY
27. VIAL Bottle snatched by gorilla, I veer backwards (4)
gorilLA I Veer
28. LIBRARY Source of information, one of twelve rapidly emptied (7)
LIBRA (one of the twelve Zodiac signs) + R[apidl]Y
29. IVORIES Climbers pocketing gold keys (7)
OR in IVIES – the white keys on pianos were still sometimes made from ivory as recently as the early 1970s; of course they’re all made of plastic now, but the phrase “tickling the ivories” (not ‘tinkling’, please!) is still used
Down
2. ENAMOUR Entrance way overseas welcoming country on the rise (7)
OMAN in RUE (French “street”), all reversed
4. ARSENAL Star’s first opening scene having left club (7)
S[tar] in ARENA + L
6. ALMOND Seed of a fruit lacking moisture finally died (6)
A LEMON less [moistur]E + D
7. HARPER LEE US author with 22 24 to follow, how might the story end, roughly speaking? (6,3)
A real groaner: 22 24 is HEIFER RAFTER, which sounds a bit like “ever after”, which people in a story live “happily”, or (roughly) HARPER LEE
8. SKI LIFT Mountain climber beginning to shiver, if not wearing pants, traditionally? (3,4)
S[hiver] + IF “in KILT”, referrng to the idea that nothing is worn under the kilt (“not wearing pants”)
9. WELL I NEVER DID Gracious to unite around band with Italian maestro (4,1,5,3)
LINE (band) + VERDI (Italian maestro) in WELD
15. POLYESTER Fabric cut up not long ago, a third off (9)
Reverse of LOP + two thirds of YESTER[day]
18. TRIPOLI Capital error over centre of Catholicism (7)
TRIP (error) + [cath]OLI[cism] – probably a more familiar capital than 1 across
20. NUREYEV Looker, career soaring, very famous dancer (7)
Reverse of (EYE RUN) + V
21. DUE DATE Dude terribly worried when delivery expected (3,4)
DUDE* + ATE
22. HEIFER Fire shot after male bovine (6)
HE + FIRE*
25. FIVER Note minister provided, written up (5)
Reverse of (REV IF)

33 comments on “Guardian 27,332 – Paul”

  1. Thanks Andrew

    I struggled with this – it didn’t have Paul’s usual (sometimes smutty) elegance. I’m not sure 7d really works and 16a/3a was a bit of a stretch. Some chuckles though with 9d and 8d.

  2. Thanks to Paul for a very good workout this morning after a few more relaxing days. Thanks also to Andrew for the explanations and the reassurance it wasn’t just me. I was stuck for ages on the pun because I was convinced that heifer and rafter led to ‘cow pat’!

  3. Thanks Paul, Andrew
    Super puzzle, really tough, glad to find it wasn’t just my sore head holding me back.
    HASHISH was beyond me, never heard of tea.
    I loved the HARPER LEE pun.
    Not very keen on outstanding as a container. I think it was used recently, possibly Paul again, but never seen it before that. I tried to use it in a GSCE English essay to mean ‘standing out’ but it got red inked, so it’s probably sour grapes.

  6. No point in sugar-coating it… I was given one hell of a beating today.

    Still, at least I managed to get the HARPER LEE HEIFER RAFTER pun before resorting to the Reveal button for a good few others.

    Thanks, Paul and Andrew.

  7. Enjoyed the workout, even with a GK deficit. Got LIFE PEER though because that’s Paul’s wee bit of fun which he regularly indulges in.
    Thankyou Andrew for the explanations. For 10/17 I missed the anagram and had something like a homophone of Herr/hair (Hitler) etc.

    But when it came to 7d, a doubly groanworthy wordplay… there are homophones and near homophones, but way off homophones are just a pun(t) too far.

  8. Tough and rewarding – Paul at his best for me today. I got everything except 1a and didn’t parse 3d – arena for scene? Anyone else try TURMERIC for 13a with the E and I crossers in – before GERI came to the rescue?
    Thank goodness Paul was kind with a couple of straightforward definitions – 7 & 20d and with the SE corner which gave me hope. Lots to like – 11, 12, 23a and 8d – with my douze points going to 26a.
    Thanks for the illuminating blog Andrew – I’m another who didn’t know tea for hashish – maybe I wasn’t as hip as I thought back in the day.

  9. Thank you for putting me out of my misery on the parsing of HASHISH (LOI) Andrew! I had a vague recollection of tea being slang for drugs which, with the crossing letters and H for hot, led me to the answer but I was none the wiser otherwise.

    I loved the HEIFER RAFTER/HARPER LEE gag and thought this was one of the best Pauls for ages. So thanks to him to for a challenging and enjoyable solve.

  10. Being in eastern North America, I did this last evening. I had 22d and 24a before I came to 7d, which I got from the numeration and couldn’t see any connection at all with the other two. My Australian colleagues did see it, however, and that got me thinking about accents and thus the explanation. What I still can’t figure out is how it is supposed to work anywhere in the UK – though it might fly in Boston MA.

  11. Quite a tricky one but plenty of invention and entertainment. Getting the HARPER LEE HEIFER RAFTER definitely made the rest easier, but I still used the Check button a few times.

    Thanks to Paul and Andrew

  12. Thanks to Paul and Andrew. I guessed HARPER LEE (much in the news recently) but did not get the pun and needed help parsing HASHISH. CLOTH-EARED was new to me as were STEAM TRAIN and Kate Price as JORDAN. A challenge but lots of fun.

  15. An easy start and a tough finish from Paul today – the penny finally clicked on Harper Lee (outrageous!) and then the NW corner took a long time. I ended up looking at a list of countries and finally the link between Price and Jordan dawned on me: Katie Price not top of my recognition list. Much more fun than recent offerings though, so I’m not complaining. Many thanks Paul and Andrew

  16. Really enjoyed this. Off to a good start then stuck for ages, followed by the dawning of the light. The pun was fun, too. Thanks to everyone.

  17. Lots of regulars missing from this thread – is there something going on I don’t know about? 7d was a brilliant (or rather great fun) clue – but only after the event. I don’t think it made any difference what part of the planet you live on – I can’t believe that anyone solved it bottom up from the wordplay rather than from the definition, enumeration and crossers – but there have been plenty of times in the past when I’ve thought that and someone has always come along and said “I did” – so I look forward to being proved wrong again.

  18. Thanks Paul and Andrew

    I didn’t enjoy this at all. Too many unparsed, and I actually had to reveal YEREVAN in order to finish (classic example of an obscure word with obscure wordplay).

    Shouldn’t there be an indication of “textspeak” for “you” = U in 14a?

    Pedants’ corner: Stephenson’s Rocket wasn’t a train, in the same way as Thomas the Tank Engine isn’t a train; Thomas + Annie and Claribel is a train.

    I did like LINGERIE.

  19. I suppose the definition is “Rocket could pull one”, so that refutes my point. It still sounds a bit odd, though, as for it to be a steam train, Rocket would need to be part of it, rather than pulling it (I mean that the bits other than Rocket wouldn’t constitute a steam train).

  20. The NE corner held out the longest against me. Things fell into place when I finally realised Price could be a surname – doh!

    Thanks to Paul and Andrew.

  22. Extremely difficult and I’m ashamed to say that HARPER LEE was a guess from the crossers. Nor did I see the pun. I liked IVORIES and LINGERIE. I did remember that “tea” was slang for HASHISH having read early Beat novels- William Burroughs springs to mind-but it isn’t current usage and I’d have thought it a bit obscure for more youthful solvers – that’s everyone younger than me and I’m 72.
    JORDAN was LOI and I could kick myself for not seeing it earlier.
    Thanks Paul- I think.

  23. Hi Andrew,

    A hard slog solving this one, and i’m not sure 5 or 11 ac really work. With 5, I thought the key issue meant ash, as ash (tree) seeds are keys, the no girl getting being some mangled requirement to put the ‘ash’ in ‘his’, then h for hot on the end.

    Like you, I had to enter through the kitchen window, the front door seeming well-locked. In order to gain entry to the front rooms I did need to smash my way more than I usually like, using the sledgehammer of the estimable cheat ‘a2zwordfinder’ for ‘crapulent’- I really didn’t like that clue. I did like 8d, but overall too little satisfaction for the effort required- a crossword equivalent of Prue Leith’s ‘Not worth the calories’.

  24. I really enjoyed this and found it at the tougher end of Paul’s scale as, I see, did others.
    5a was my last one in and I took a while to dredge up YEREVAN until I remembered that Paul has a soft spot for things Armenian.
    many thanks to S&B

  25. Re 5: it seems nobody’s commented on the ‘no girl’ bit. I think the IS comes from ‘issue: no girl’ being interpreted as ‘1 son’ [but 0d] as in genealogical listings, rather than being an abbreviation of ‘issue’.

  26. Thanks Andrew and Paul. Got all apart from 1ac which I don’t think I would ever have got.

    Really loved the pun.

    An enjoyable puzzle overall.

  27. Tough, but good fun, particularly the HARPER LEE clue. I made heavy weather of the NW corner, with the vocalophobia-inducing 1ac my LOI.

  29. Wow. The entire bottom half went in rapidly this a.m., but almost the entire upper half took me the rest of the day and evening to complete, in dribs and drabs, putting it away and coming back to it during breaks at work and then at home this evening. I finally just got HASHISH, my LOI, just a few minutes ago. Like ACD above (sorry, I’m on my phone and can’t see entry numbers in this display), I found the upper half slow going in large part due to my not knowing CLOTH-EARED, STEAM TRAIN or Katie Price/JORDAN (the last of which I guessed had to be right b/c I could think of no other country that fit the crossers, but then I googled “Jordan Price” thinking that might be the name of a celebrity in the U.K., and that was a close enough query to find the real person and explain the “now” part of the clue). I was also unfamiliar with the “DID” at the end of 9d – the phrase I know is simply WELL I NEVER. But all in all, I really enjoyed this. It was quite a challenge. I *loved* the pun at 7d-22d-24a, which was my (combination) CotD by a wide margin. Other favorites included LINGERIE, TOOTH FAIRY, SKI LIFT and LIFE PEER.
    Many thanks to Paul and Andrew.

  30. Great fun – really enjoyed Harper Lee clue. Nice to have a puzzle that demands some thought. Many thanks

  31. Thanks. Like paddyseven I had “Herr syle” for might be hitler + design, and didn’t spot the pun. On the kilt and pants, I was thinking American sytle pants, so read the clue as not trousers, so a kilt.

  32. Agree with muffin @ 18 and PA @ 22. Too hard and too many try-and-parse after getting the answer.

    Maybe if we had the patience of Dave @ 29 ….

  33. 1a was my last in, and a hell of an obscure clue. Not being from the UK, I had to Google 12a and ‘price’, having never heard of the woman.

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