Guardian Cryptic 27,769 by Paul

by

The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/27769.

I thought this an excellent puzzle from Paul, with misdirection raised almost to the level of a theme. Perhaps there are too many individual letters clued for the tastes of some.

Across
8 IN CAMERA Privately, artist arrived? (2,6)
IN CAME RA (‘artist arrived’).
9 PAUSE Break up as miserable, ending in divorce (5)
A charade of PAUS, an anagram (‘miserable’) of ‘up as’ plus E (‘ending in divorcE‘).
10 HELP Back in March, courthouse, school and shop all closing (4)
Final letters (‘all closing’) of ‘MarcH courthousE schooL‘ and ‘shoP‘. Strangely, the word ‘all’ makes more plausible the exclusion of ‘and’ from the final letters.
11 SALUTATION Victoria, say, welcoming almost everyone with posh greeting (10)
An envelope (‘welcoming’) of AL[l] (‘everyone’) minus its last letter (‘almost’) plus U (‘posh’) in STATION (‘Victoria, say’ – London railway).
12 CASTRO Revolutionary pitched with other ranks on the counter (6)
A charade of CAST (‘pitched’) plus RO, a reversal (‘on the counter’) of OR (‘other ranks’).
14 UTENSILS Domestic equipment silent after breaking in America (8)
An envelope (‘in’) of TENSIL, an anagram (‘after breaking’) of ‘silent’ in US (‘America’).
15 AT FIRST Trees in a thicket cleared initially (2,5)
An envelope (‘in’) of FIRS (‘trees’) in ‘a’ plus TT (‘ThickeT cleared’).
17 ASKANCE Suspiciously civil originally, a snake unfortunately constricts (7)
An envelope (‘constricts’) of C (‘Civil originally’) in ASKANE, an anagram (‘unfortunately’) of ‘a snake’.
20 COLORADO Infirm, old or ancient at the outset, terrible state (8)
An envelope (‘in’-) of OLORAD, an anagram (‘terrible’) of ‘old or’ plus A (‘Ancient at the outset’) in CO (-‘firm’).
22 DEEJAY Player finding water in Aber­deenshire before birdie (6)
A charade of DEE (‘water in Aberdeenshire’, one of several rivers of that name)  plus JAY (‘birdie’), for DJ, disc jockey.
23 SPRINKLING Loading old weapon, smarten oneself up a little (10)
An envelope (‘loading’) of PRINK (‘smarten oneslef’) in SLING (‘old weapon’).
24 MOKE Donkey uninjured, rescued by yours truly (4)
An envelope (‘rescued by’?) of OK (‘uninjured’) in ME (‘yours truly’).
25 STEIN Mug people making pianos? No way! (5)
STEIN[way] (‘people making pianos’) with ‘no WAY’.
26 ADULTERY Cheating male ultimately in wild rut with lady (8)
An envelope (‘in’) of E (‘malE ultimately’) in ADULTRY, an anagram (‘wild’) of ‘rut’ plus ‘lady’.
Down
1 INTERACT Virgin Queen’s gone in to communicate (8)
An envelope (‘gone in’) of ER (‘Queen’) in INTACT (‘virgin’).
2 CAMP Stay in temporary home that’s affected (4)
Fouble definition.
3 LETS GO Building company securing tenements after evacuation, we must leave (4,2)
An envelope (‘securing’) of TS (‘TenementS after evacuation’) in LEGO (toy ‘building company’).
4 CALLOUS Heartless love, something superficial and hard about it (7)
An envelope (‘about it’) of O (‘love’) in CALLUS (‘something superficial and hard’).
5 SPOTLESS Perfectly clean vessel, topsail partly up (8)
A hidden reverse (‘partly up’ in a down light) in ‘veSSEL TOPSail’.
6 PUT TO SHAME Place with book stores has maybe shown up (3,2,5)
An envelope (‘stores’) of SHA, an anagram (‘maybe’) of ‘has’ in PUT (‘place’) plus TOME (‘book’).
7 RECOIL Wind after winter, therefore, ends: spring back (6)
A charade of RE (‘winteR thereforE ends’) plus COIL (‘wind’).
13 TRILOBITES Extinct arthropods, one preserved in lobster, it could be? (10)
An envelope (‘preserved in’) of I (‘one’) in TRLOBITES, an anagram (‘could be’) of ‘lobster it’.
16 SPANKING How far across? Most vulnerable man is hiding (8)
A charade of SPAN (‘how far across?’) plus KING (‘most vulnerable man’, chess).
18 CRACKERS Items pulled, unhinged (8)
Double definition.
19 HOLIDAY Break wind idly and hiccup audibly, ordering starters (7)
An anagram (‘wind’) of ‘idly’ plus HAO (‘Hiccup Audibly Ordering starters’). Maybe a little unfortunate to have the same definition word as 9A, but I would not give up either.
21 OPPOSE Pages breaking free skimmed off counter (6)
An envelope (‘breaking’) pf PP (‘pages’) in [l]OOSE (‘free’) minus its first letter (‘skimmed off’). It could be [l]OOSE[n], but I think ‘skimmed off’ suggests losing just the first letter.
22 DUGOUT Trench expected shortly to get disease (6)
A charade of DU[e] (‘expected’) minus its last letter (‘shortly’) plus (‘to get’) GOUT (‘disease’).
24 MATE Final move for couple (4)
Double definition, the first referring to chess again.
completed grid

39 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 27,769 by Paul”

  1. It took me a while to get going on this puzzle, but I did enjoy it.

    My favourites were IN CAMERA & COLORADO.

    New for me: TRILOBITES.

    I was unable to parse 23a.

    Thanks Peter and Paul.

  2. Halfway through I realized that to solve the ones I had done so far, I had had to parse just about every clue differently than on first reading. I used that idea to shake myself out of idees fixees in the remaining clues. Then when finished I read Peter’s blog which summed up my experience perfectly. Thanks PeterO & Paul.

  3. Top half jogged in, bottom half slow, not sure why afterwards, ie now. Took an age to extract co from in-firm, d’oh, old trick. And to put pp in [l]oose. And to put prink in sling. And to stop grumbling “probably another [delete] soccer player” and get deejay. Nothing too hard there except my own skull! Hey ho, enjoyed the battle nonetheless, sort of. Speaking of things hard, the love in the callus was a great surface. And 19d was a bit of Pauline chuckle. Thanks Paul and PeterO.

  4. I actually liked all the misdirection a lot – I was pushed to keep on thinking outside the square and so I had many “aha” moments. 26a ADULTERY was my clue of the day – it took me forever to get because I kept trying to find a “cheating male” and “adulterer” just didn’t fit! I saw 2d CAMP as a triple definition: “Stay in”, “temporary home” and “that’s affected” and thought that was neat. 18d CRACKERS was another favourite! Thanks to Paul and PeterO.

  5. I was baffled by the mechanism of 20 (cOlOrAdo), but once I had the first three crossers inspiration suddenly struck… Terrible state? mOnOgAmy, of course! Of course not…

  6. Thanks Paul and PeterO

    In contrast to michelle, I had a rapid start but a drawn-out finish. I didn’t spot the reverse hidden for SPOTLESS, or parse CALLOUS (the latter always reminds me of “1066 and all that”‘s version of Queen Mary and “Calais engraved on her heart”:

    Shortly after this the cruel Queen died and a post-mortem examination revealed the word ‘CALLOUS’ engraved on her heart.)

    Favourites were SALUTATION and ADULTERY.

  7. Loved this, particularly TRILOBITES which do count lobsters as a (distant) living relative. Many thanks Paul and PeterO

  8. 19 down last one in after much headscratching. Lots of clever misdirection, and having to work out the clueing after I’d written several of the answers in based on definitions only…

  10. Good exercise for end of week – thanks Paul, Peter (no Mary yet?). 8ac straight in, but then effort required and some challenging constructions. Prink new, but liked the little californian cars.

  11. DEE is in AberDEEnshire, too.

    Thanks PeterO and Paul.

    For some reason I am finding Paul’s crosswords increasingly more difficult to solve than they used to be, though this doesn’t seem to be the experience of others. 19d is a possible reason why: “break”, “wind” or “idly” could be possible anagram indicators; “audibly” suggests look for a homonym; “starters” could be “or”, or several other possibilities. I am not complaining; it is as PeterO says,  very clever misdirection.

  12. David Ellison @11

    If the derivation is similar to Welsh, “Aberdeen” would mean “mouth of the Dee”.

  13. Do we have a category SOTD (surface of the day)? If so, I’d like to nominate 19d – it immediately made me think of Mr Creosote.
    Excellent stuff from Paul even though I failed miserably in the SW. I’m finding Paul more difficult these days too especially Saturday’s prize (which we don’t talk about – sorry!).

  14. Thanks both. A dnf for me, though I feel I should have got most of the 5 or 6 I failed on (not helped by putting unparsed CRACKPOT at 18d).

    muffin@12 – I also thought Aberdeen meant ‘mouth of the Dee’, and that the clue was therefore a bit weak;  but Wikipedia says, fairly convincingly, that it is derived from a mixture of Pictish and Gaelic for ‘mouth of the Don’.

  15. Good challenge with some pleasant clues – I particularly liked IN CAMERA, AT FIRST (for the misleading initially), ADULTERY and HOLIDAY.

    Thanks Paul and PeterO.

  16. Thanks Paul and Peter- good stuff, both. And here’s a TILT: Aberdeen is on both the Dee and the Don. Who knew that?

  17. Thank you Paul and PeterO.  Good puzzle and lively blog.

    I didn’t know “on the counter” as a reversal indicator.  Where is it normally used in that sense?

    Peter, you have a typo in 2d — it’s “double,” not “fouble.”

  19. Valentine @ 17: cf counter-attack, counter-strike etc. They all imply coming from the reverse direction.

  20. Thanks Peter and Paul – an excellent puzzle and blog. I make my misdirection count slightly higher than the number of clues and I feel much the better for being tricked over and over! I quibble with “recoil” and the “re” part was clear but then “rewind” sort of works, as does “return” so I needed crossers to get the best solution of the three.

    “Moke” was new to me in meaning a donkey, but I guessed it from the Mini Moke, which turns out to derive its name from the donkey. “Trilobite” reminds me of the fabulous book of that name by Richard Fortey, ex of the Natural History Museum and expert on these amazing creatures which ruled the Earth of 400 million years. As well as being fascinating things it is a glorious tale of a lifelong obsession.

  22. Thanks to Paul and PeterO. My experience similar to grantinfreo@3, top half fell very readily but bottom half, particularly the SW, seemed to take forever. I was not helped by casually putting in mule fir 24a without giving it much thought. Crackers very appropriately put pay to that. Last ones were spanking, sprinkling and holiday. Favourites today included the aforementioned three along with at first for its clever misdirection, which had me searching for some obscure tree. Thanks again to Paul and PeterO.

  23. Thought I was going to finish this one, but failed at 19d, where my experience was similar to that of David Ellison@11. The rest was a good workout with lots of favorite clues, all of which have been mentioned above. Thanks to Paul and PeterO.

  24. Thanks both,
    I solved this with a newly-met friend cruising the backwaters of Kerala. Paul on form, I thought, with some testing clues and some easy ones to give one hope. LOI 19d, which was magnificent.

  25. PS, I discover that, if using an iPad, if one saves the crossword as ‘read later’, one can continue to solve it offline, e.g. when cruising the backwaters of Kerala. I expect nearly everyone else knew that. How does one do it with Android?

  26. Thanks to Paul and PeterO. Slow going for me. I did not know “prink” for SPRINKLING but did know MOKE and TRILOBITES.

  28. Not as tricky as many of Paul’s recent efforts, but no pushover either.

    Thanks to Paul and PeterO

  29. Tyngewick @25: I solve on my Android phone. As long as I’ve loaded the page in Chrome in advance, it’s not bothered at all by the many mobile blackspots in northern England I regularly find myself in.

  31. Couldn’t parse 23a but good Paul crossword. I think I’m on his wavelength cos he doesn’t take me long. Thanks.

  32. I finished it which is a first for me, with a Paul. As with others I found the bottom half tougher. And I needed the blog for several parsings. Didn’t know PRINK or MOKE. Thanks to thezed @20 for the Mini Moke reference as I do remember them but did not realise why they had that name. PUT TO SHAME was my fave. Very tough overall (for me) but very enjoyable.

    Thanks to Paul and PeterO.

  34. Late start again for me and,unlike yesterday, quite slow going.I did like this though. Indeed I thought it one of Paul’s best. Lots of misdirection: most of which I fell for.Top half went in more easily than the bottom with DUGOUT,DEEJAY and HOLIDAY holding out the longest. I did like SPRINKLING- hmm sounds rather rude-despite not really knowing what the PRINK bit meant.
    Lots of fun.
    Thanks Paul.

  35. All splendid stuff. Not easy and struggled to parse a few but got there in the end apart from 21d which I couldn’t make work somehow. Thanks to Paul for the puzzle and PeterO for the explanations.

  36. I’m with David Ellison @ 11. I don’t look forward to encountering Paul as much as I used too. Too many constructions that resemble a rebus. Still, each to one’s own, and I did like 20a.
    Thanks to all

  37. Jerceris@27 There was at least in Oz a moke branded as californian, I loosely associated that to the west coast lifestyle. Of course the moke was British (for that climate?!) and a rebuilt mini.

  38. Probably no one will read this as it’s now Saturday afternoon but there was/is an old music hall monologue, The Jerusalem’s Dead- Jerusalem being abbreviated from Jerusalem Artichoke – cockney rhyming slang for moke – donkey.

  39. Re David Gordon – I’ve just read your comment, not everyone does these cryptics on the day. I prefer working on paper and knowing I would be away brought last Thursday and Friday with me. Still had to reveal 20a, 19d and 22d though. Brain just wasn’t up to those today …

Comments are closed.