Thanks to Paul for the “doggy” challenge. Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Across
8 Bully almost used, oddly, to be the perfect friend? (4,4)
SOUL MATE : Anagram of(Bully) [ALMOST + 1st and 3rd letters of(…, oddly) “used” ].
9 Man in fleece I pass for a retriever? (5)
PIECE : Hidden in(in) reversal of(… for a retriever;for one that brings back) “fleece I pass“.
Defn: … on a chessboard.
10 Pat possibly good on horse (4)
DUNG : G(abbrev. for “good”) placed after(on) DUN(a brown coloured horse).
Defn: A pat;a lump of soft material that could very well;possibly, be one of animal excrement.
11 Describe nets that, if crossing, unravel initially, as netted (10)
RETICULATE : RELATE(to describe;to narrate) containing(nets) 1st letters, respectively, of(… initially) “that, if crossing, unravel“.
12 Dog in front, I’m impressed! (3-3)
BOW-WOW : BOW(front of, say, a ship) + WOW!(what I’d exclaim if I were impressed by something).
Defn: … in a child’s lingo.
14 Pravda’s leader: revolutionary newspaper in surprisingly moral stand (8)
PLATFORM : 1st letter of(…’s leader) “Pravda” + [reversal of(revolutionary) FT(abbrev. for the UK newspaper) contained in(in) anagram of(surprisingly) MORAL].
Defn: The declared policy of a political party or group.
15 Talk about an obsequious devotee! (7)
SPANIEL : SPIEL(talk promoting an idea, product, etc) containing(about) AN.
17 Boob squeezed by rank dog (7)
TERRIER : ERR(to boob;to make an embarrassing mistake) contained in(squeezed by) TIER(a rank;one in a series of rows or levels).
20 Facial mark: poodle has to live without it (5,3)
BLACK EYE : LACKEY(a poodle;one who is an obsequious devotee, cf. “spaniel”) contained in(has … without it) BE(to live;to exist).
22 Husky gets to bark around tree (6)
CROAKY : CRY(to make a characteristic loud call, or to bark in the case of a dog) containing(around) OAK(a large tree).
Defn: …, not the dog breed, but descriptive of a voice that’s low-pitched and slightly hoarse.
23 Say whippet dogs all in traps right, that’s on the money! (6,4)
DOLLAR SIGN : Anagram of[“whip it”, homophone of(Say) “whippet“]
[ DOGS ALL IN containing(traps) “R”(abbrev. for “right”) ].
Defn: …, literally.
An unusual case of the anagram indicator being a homophone?
24 Dog‘s dinner? (4)
CHOW : Double defn. 2nd: Food in general.
25 A great stop! (5)
AVAST : A + VAST(great;immense).
Defn: …, in nautical parlance.
26 Has sanction a new form? (8)
CONTAINS : Anagram of(… a new form) SANCTION.
Down
1 Medic, American, on senior programme (8)
DOCUSOAP : DOC(short for “doctor”;a medic) + US(abbrev. for things American) placed above(on, in down clue) OAP(abbrev. for “old age pensioner”;a senior person).
Defn: … on TV that follows a group of people in a particular occupation or location over a period of time.
2 Bung dog round back of kennel (4)
PLUG : PUG(a dwarf breed of dog) containing(round) last letter of(back of) “kennel“.
3 Male pointer finds tasty bit of bone (6)
MARROW : M(abbrev. for “male”) + ARROW(a pointer;a sign to show direction or position).
Nice surface.
4 Extreme force set to work, filling hole on roof of office (7)
GESTAPO : Anagram of(… to work) SET contained in(filling) GAP(a hole;a break in an object or between objects) placed above(on, in a down clue) 1st letter of(roof of, in a down clue) “office“.
5 Modern life’s ending in Belgian prison? (5-3)
SPACE AGE : Last letter of(…’s ending) “life” contained in(in) [SPA(a Belgian town) + CAGE(a prison)].
6 Finance company with plentiful supplies and many miles to travel (5,5)
WELLS FARGO : WELLS(sources of plentiful supplies) plus(and) FAR(a great distance;many miles) + GO(to treavel).
7 Peach lieutenant put in drink (6)
BELTER : LT(abbrev. for “lieutenant”, the rank) contained in(put in) BEER(alcoholic drink).
Defn: An exceptionally good example of something.
13 With half-scrubbed cleaner recycling bottles left for bottle bank? (4,6)
WINE CELLAR : 1st 2 letters of(… half-scrubbed) “With” + anagram of(… recycling) CLEANER containing(bottles) “L”(abbrev. for “left”).
Defn: …, for bottles of wine, that is.
16 Loathe how much some directors get paid? (8)
EXECRATE : [EXEC RATE](payment to some directors who could be executives;execs as well).
18 Dog beginning to kick hen with loud barking (8)
ELKHOUND : Anagram of(… barking;demented) [ 1st letter of(beginning to) “kick” + HEN plus(with) LOUD].
19 Entrance, dog kennels each way (7)
BEWITCH : BITCH(a female dog) containing(kennels) EW(abbrev. for “each-way”, a type of bet in, say, horse racing)
21 John, with devout belief, renouncing it for a rough scrubber (6)
LOOFAH : LOO(a toilet;the john in slang) plus(with) “faith”(devout belief) minus(renouncing) “it“.
22 Chihuahua, for example, a little Mexican in effect (6)
CANINE : Hidden in(a little) “Mexican in effect“.
Defn: An example of which is the chihuahua.
24 Bird, yak or rabbit? (4)
CHAT : Double defn: 2nd: To talk at length, especially about trivial matters.
Coincidence, or has he hidden the theme in the grid?
Being a dog tragic, I enjoyed this puzzle.
I particularly lapped up 12a BOW-WOW and 15a SPANIEL, as well as the non-themed clues 25a AVAST and 6d WELLS FARGO.
Many thanks to Paul for the usual quirkiness, which adds to the enjoyment, and to scchua for the clear explanations.
endwether@1 – I saw CURS in the grid, but couldn’t spot any other hidden messages.
I used to hate Paul. As I have learnt the art and science of crosswords, with this site being an important tutor, I admire the setter (I don’t know the gender) more each time. Today’s anagrams were brilliant and I can’t add anything to to Scchul’s perfect blog. Thanks to every one who contributes to this site, even those who find the puzzles easy, which I definitely do not.
“Curs all” in third row?
Most enjoyable. It would have been better if I hadn’t misspelled 13d.
I wonder if the usual suspects will find anything offensive.
Thanks, scchua, nice blog.
Some good stuff here but marred (for me, only) by my least favourite clues like DOLLAR SIGN which seem excessively complicated to parse, and a few of Paul’s increasingly typical surfaces which don’t quite make proper sentences.
Enjoyed EXECRATE & SPANIEL though.
Ambergate @4: Paul is John Halpern, a very experienced and long-standing setter here and elsewhere.
Many thanks, Paul, nice weekend, all.
Thanks Paul and scchua.
Could WELLS FARGO be a semi &lit in view of the company’s famous history?
I thought 21d was funny, but I think some may find the surface offensive. But what do you expect with Paul?
Thanks to Paul and scchua. I found some of this quite tough. The bottom half went in quite steadily but I had little in the top, particularly in the NW. However after nearly giving up I managed to unpack it with dung and docusoap last ones. That said, all gettable and particularly liked belter and bow-wow. Thanks again to Paul and scchua and now time to go and celebrate my 70th at a very expensive restaurant.
I thought 14a and 21d were excellent (and I sincerely hope none would find the latter offensive).
By contrast I found 11a and 23a to be nonsensical surfaces and absurdly complex to parse.
following up on @4 and @7 – I do strongly recommend this work by Paul/ John Halpern:
https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Centenary_of_the_Crossword.html?id=Ob0FmwEACAAJ&redir_esc=y
findable in some cut-rate bookshops at an affordable price.
Talking of affordable: can PetHay @9 please reveal where, and which restaurant? I was recently invited by much-richer friends to lunch at Rules in London, which advertises classic British food at ‘affordable prices’. It turned out that the invitation did not include paying my share, and that the definition of ‘affordable’ stretched to £99 per head, leading to a few weeks of bracing economies. But sincere happy 70th wishes to PetHay, wherever, and whoever pays.
Thanks for the enlightening blog, scchua, on a typically entertaining Paul with appropriate scatology, given the theme, at 10. GESTAPO tortured me, and surrendered only with a little artificial help.
Thanks to Paul and scchua. A good workout for me. DOCUSOAP and BELTER = “peach” were new to me as were EW as a bet n BEWITCH and Spa in Belgium.
[Happy birthday wishes for your 70th, PetHay@9. Hoping you are having a wonderful celebration!]
Like Ambergate@4 I’ve come to enjoy Paul’s puzzles the more I’ve done them. Ticks today went against SPANIEL, BLACK EYE, AVAST, CANINE and CHAT. I also like Paul’s trademark lavatorial clues, but don’t enjoy his tortuous parsing ones like 11 and 23 as have been mentioned. My last two RETICULATE and GESTAPO took nearly as long as the rest of the puzzle and neither those nor 23 and the FAH part of 21 were parsed when I came here.
Thanks to scchua for the explanations and Paul for the puzzle.
(Also belated thanks to Van Winkle for your comment yesterday.)
quenbarrow@11. We are dining at the Simon Radley restaurant in the Grosvenor Hotel 11Chester. I doubt we will get away with £99 a head (with a bottle of good red) and I will probably foot the bill. Hey ho you are only 70 once.
Sorry that should be “Hotel Chester”
Thanks both,
A gettable Paul, for a Friday. Only 19d really held me up, and that for no good reason.
‘Execrate’ has come up more than once, in the past year or so, with the definition ‘loathe’, or similar, whereas my dictionary has it as to ‘curse’ or to ‘express loathing’, which isn’t quite the same thing.
Otherwise there were some very good clues, 8a, 11a and 13d, IMHO.
Certainly much more straightforward than his prize puzzle last Saturday, regardless of its now notorious enumeration mis-step. That is not to say easy: over the years, it seems to me that Paul has steadily upped his difficulty level.
Comparing this with Picaroon’s themed puzzle a few days ago, I just wish Paul could show some of his colleague’s lightness of touch. As William @7 noted, too often his surfaces feel a bit too clever for their own good. I’m still trying to get my head around the likes of 11a and 23a.
Strictly speaking, the definition in 23a is inaccurate, at least if it refers to US currency: as far as I can tell, staring at a dollar bill, the dollar sign ($) does no appear anywhere on our money.
But maybe I’m being parochial, and it’s really about Australian currency or something.
Just a quibble, of course.
Thank u
@20. The definition of money extends beyond that of currency to wealth (in general and in particular) and where the dollar sign could be appropriate.
Unlike Ambergate @4: I used to be a fan of Paul but cannot fathom a lot of his clues these days – 2 particularly dodgy (as opposed to doggy) ones mentioned above. Very clever I’m sure but I must be losing it.
(Similar problem with less than half completed in last Saturday’s
trenodia @22 — That’s certainly true, but the phrase “that’s on the money” certainly seems to refer to the actual currency.
As one of this website’s regular guardians of morals and re Tc @6, I can confirm that the biggest crime against the newspaper’s Style Guide is the use of OAP in 1d, a phrase outlawed to avoid offence to those slightly less young than those of us who still have to work for a living.
I thought this was the most difficult Paul that I’ve encountered for some time and I had trouble with more of the parsing than I usually do. This meant that there was rather more guesswork than I’m happy with and I was very grateful for the excellent blog.
That said,I enjoyed EXECRATES, AVAST and WELLS FARGO. GESTAPO was LOI and this was a parse after the event.
Thanks Paul.
Off topic, but @Ambergate…is that a satirical dig at the embattled Home Secretary?
Doggy, and I’m no ‘dog’ person – but fair throughout – I’ve come to expect that from Paul, so anything less would raise a moan! Some good chuckles: when I came to BOW-WOW I couldn’t help but recall the arcane (and possibly apocryphal) bit of graffiti scrawled, presumably at some art school: “DADA WOULDN’T BUY ME A BAUHAUS”…
And WELLS FARGO put me in mind of that old TV Western series of the 1950s and 60s – which I used to follow avidly as a kid. Anyone else remember it? Of course in the series WF was a stagecoach company – often beset by bandits and – er – [is it OK to use the I-word in the Graun?]
DOLLAR SIGN ought to have been tougher than it was – once I got all the crossers at least. But “whippet” to me already suggested an anagrind, even without the homophone indicator – although it would have been ungrammatical. Top marks for fiendish libertarianism there – but that’s Paul!
I see some solvers had trouble with BEWITCH. I got lucky there – when I see the word “entrance” I think: what happens if we put stress on the second syllable? I’ve been caught out by that before, so I’m getting wise to these dodges. But (not being of the betting persuasion) I at first thought “each way” merely parses as E[ast] and W[est] – i.e. each way to turn if you’re facing north or south. I think that’s a plausible parsing … is it?
Excellent from Paul – thanks to him and scchua.
Hi Laccaria, yes I remember the TV series. That was partly what made me think that the whole clue could actually be the definition (me @8).
Thanks to both.
This one did, as several above have commented, caused me more trouble than some recently. But it was all solvable and eventually planned out.
But I look sideways at 12a. If I follow the instruction exactly, I get that “in” front (BOW) goes I’m impressed (WOW) so the answer becomes BOW-OWW. Of course it doesn’t work that way but it did make me wonder.
Hello gentlefolk (probably gentlecrickets, at this late hour). I thought this was a fun Friday offering from Paul. I ground to a halt three entries from completion (1dn, 10ac, 15ac) and made no further advance for about 12 hours (coming back to the puzzle for a few minutes now and then), across my entire workday and into the evening, before the mists finally parted and I thought of the portmanteau word DOCUSOAP. I had not heard the term before, but it sounded plausible and was dead center on the parsing, so it had to be right. SPANIEL then immediately followed, with DUNG on its tail.
Favorites today included PIECE, TERRIER, BLACK EYE and CHAT.
Laccaria @28, I think E[ast] W[est] in 19d is more than plausible. That’s how I parsed it, and after reading scchua’s explanation of Each Way betting, I still like the East West parsing better (perhaps because I am no better — on UK horse racing or on anything else).
Lord Jim @8 – I’m curious: What in the surface of 21d could be found offensive? Is there an idiomatic term somewhere in there?
Many thanks to Paul and scchua and the other commenters. Have a nice weekend, all.
Me @31: I just Googled various terms from 21d and found the UK slang definition of scrubber. Oh. That’s a new one on me. I see Lord Jim @8’s point now . . . and, like him, I now think the surface of 21d is funny (Paul being Paul, all of this being in good fun, and all that).
usually do much better with Paul’s puzzles. This was very difficult for me. I failed to solve a lot – 23a, 24d, 24a, 19d, 9a, 25a, 4d, 26a. I guess that I don’t know much about dogs! I prefer cats 🙂
Of the ones that I did solve I could not fully parse 18d, 6d, 11a
Thanks Paul and blogger
Regarding 21d – I think Grauniad crosswords are full of not-so-PC words in the clues, maybe it’s the only part of that august publication which allows them (I speak as one who had a comment – not crossword-related – moderated out a few days ago … my fault for going way OTT). My feeling is, if many words are taboo’d from cryptics, some of the enjoyment and variety would go as well. Remember – it’s only a puzzle! I trust the Graun doesn’t employ words like “scrubber” in its pejorative sense anywhere else, but in the crossword it’s fine!
Some words still cross the line, though – as a fellow aspiring setter whom I’ve been in touch with, discovered, when he tried to submit something to Alberich. Alberich is very fair but will stand no outrageous offensiveness!
I might get tired of saying this, but it is official Guardian policy that the crossword is expected to comply with editorial standards as much as any other part of the paper/website. It’s not only a puzzle. In this instance, the use of “scrubber” could be seen as just a bit of slang, describing a woman of loose morals, rather than being a pejorative term being applied to all women. However, the problem with its usage in the Guardian comes from reflecting on what the male equivalent would be for someone with comparable morals – ladies’ man, casanova, stud, etc. What a strange argument that any crossword would be improved by a few more slappers, tarts and trollops.
Van Winkle @35: well, if the policy is supposed to be that the crossword abides by the the Guardian’s editorial standards, I don’t think this is actually enforced in practice. A couple of examples:
1. The Guardian requires “actor” for both male and female thespians, but “actress” has appeared several times in the crossword over the last few years, including quite recently in Puck 27,474.
2. Today’s prize (also by Puck) has “OAP” in 1a, but this term is not to be used according to Guardian guidelines. (This is not a spoiler because “OAP” actually appears in the clue.)
As to what is or isn’t offensive, this is obviously a highly subjective matter. Personally I think that apart from extreme cases (racist epithets and so on), if a word is in the dictionary it should be potentially available for a setter to use, even if it is not one they would dream of using in real life.
PS Sorry about the extra “the” in the first sentence!
Thanks to Scchua and Paul ! This one took a while but I got there; in fact having just completed today’s orize I’m starting to think my brain only works properly on Saturdays.
As regards non-PC words appearing in clues, whatever the official policy
may be it doesn’t appear that anyone actually checks so it’s a bit of a moot point. Like others above, it doesn’t bother me so long as setters don’t go all-out to offend. I must admit I’d entirely forgotten SCRUBBER, haven’t heard that one since the 1970s and that was in a Carry On film !
Orize=prize!!
Going for the last comment again (one day we’ll post on the day, but not in the middle of an election campaign…). Always relieved to see a Paul on a Friday as we feel we stand a chance and managed this in just under 48 hours. We get the paper with the shopping. Liked the theme and using the theme in the clues. This was a total contrast to last week’s Brummie which I don’t think we’ve finished yet….
Thanks Paul & Scchua . And the restaurant recommendation from us is Chez Bruce on Bellevue Road in Balham which is Micelin starred and you’ll get away with under £50 for a very special lunch (hoping to go for my birthday next week!)