Guardian 27,914 / Paul

37 comments on “Guardian 27,914 / Paul”

1. Thanks mhl. I’m not sure whether Paul is becoming more devious or I am getting slower, probably a bit of both. I found this difficult and while I spent far too much time on relatively simple clues like 16a, 19a and 24a I thought 9a was pretty doubtful, I’d never heard of 10,2, I never did come to terms with 5d and really had to wrestle with 27a. Even so, there were a number of clues to admire, 11a, 12a, 7d and 21d –  once the necessary thought processes had run their course.

2. Thanks to Paul and mhl. I’m another who found this puzzle difficult, especially the bottom half, so that I did not finish until the end of the week. I finally got HALL OF MIRRORS after I stopped using FT as the newspaper in question so that others fell into place (e.g., SMASH HIT, UNTHINKING – though “unthin” fooled me) and I had to look up NON-FINITE. ANAGRAM was my LOI only after I had all the crossers;

3. On the whole, I found this a lot of fun with some amusing turns. For a prize puzzle we can expect a little more looseness than usual, and 9a AVALANCHE was a perfect example of this. On the other hand, it seems 19a TACTLESS might have crossed over into plain wrong. You can be tactless even though you think, and you can be tactful without thinking, so neither one implies the other. I have to think to be witty (sorry, not achieving that right now), but that doesn’t mean they’re the same.

   Thanks both.

4. Thanks mhl.  NW corner went in quickly, with a chuckle for the ‘Allo ‘Allo meal.  Tick for 8D which Paul has more or less had before (Picaroon had a nice, similar UNTHINKING on 26/7). Struggled to parse 22,15 and 27A, and, despite getting ANAGRAM, still missed its key anagram. Overall though much fun again from Paul.

5. I found this extremely difficult. I guessed TOBACCO, ANAGRAM, KIMONO, PEAHEN without being able to parse them.

   My favourites were THANKS FOR NOTHING, HALL OF MIRRORS, TYPESET, AVALANCHE.

   Thanks Paul + mhl.

6. Found this easier than Vlad’s yesterday, alrhough the lasf few, including peahen and helluva (great clue that) took a while. The unthin king has turned up a few times (Louis Le Gros, etc), and avalanche was a hoot, and hall of mirrors a devious chuckle, sellotape ditto. And dear old Tony Benn, what would he make of the Wesrminster Circus these days? Nice one Paul and thanks Mhl.

7. [Zulu’s script I can almost recite, it was one of the late Mrs ginf’s favourites, watched at least twice a year, every year; she even had me print out the list of VC recipients!]

8. For once I was disappointed with Paul’s work. I couldn’t finish this one. Then again, I’ve been preoccupied with other things lately. My mother broke her hip around the same time as this puzzle. Not to bring up this week’s puzzle, but I fear I’ll have the same problem with it. Oh well.

9. I loved this. Tough but fair. And ANAGRAM was just spectacular – clues like that don’t come along very often.

   Thanks to MHL and Paul.

10. Glad I’m not the only one who found this hard. Ended up with PEAHEN, KIMONO and NON-FINITE unparsed and a few other half-guesses from def. or wordplay. I agree that ANAGRAM was a beauty with HELLUVA not far behind.  I must say I wasn’t entirely convinced by the ‘faux French speaker’, but I’m prepared to live with a bit of cruciverbal homophonic licence.

    Thanks to Paul and mhl

11. Like Dr WhatsOn @3 I jibbed at ‘tactless’ as the definition of UNTHINKING – not the same thing in my book, though you can find them together in some lists of synonyms.

    Most unusually, I seem to have found this easier than most contributors so far. But perhaps it only seemed easy relative to the previous week’s epic war of attrition with Maskarade. The only thing that really stumped me was the parsing of PEAHEN.

    Thanks to Paul for a wonderfully witty challenge, and to mhl.

12. I was a bit slow to get going on this one.  Perhaps not the best puzzle to do immediately after returning from my long summer holiday away.

    I think I’m out on a limb on this one.  To be honest I thought it was a bit disappointing for a Paul.  There were no clues that I could say were particularly pleasing, though I’m not sure if AVALANCHE is amusing or not.

    There were, though, a number of clues which I simply could not parse at all – 24ac, 5dn, 8dn.

    I failed to spot the anagram in 24ac.

    In 5 dn I suppose I have to accept that ‘male’s train’ is an indication of ‘e’.  A new device to me.

    But in 8 dn. I am finding it hard to accept ES standing for ‘every sense’ – and what is the ‘in’ supposed to be doing?

    I know Hellas for Greece from Ancient Greek – can anyone tell me if the ‘h’ is pronounced in the modern language?  Do the Greeks still write the breathings?

    (And if Julie in Australia reads this – I saw your comment re FINNS in crossword 27873 but wasn’t able to reply as it was just when I was leaving for my holidays.  What do I think about the ‘Northerners and fellow boozers?’  Er, well, yes, there is an awful lot of drinking going on, though I believe I saw a recent survey to the effect that Finns have one of the lowest alcohol intakes in Europe.  It must be the cost of the stuff!)

    Thanks to Paul and, of course, to mhl.

13. As often with Paul, I solved this slowly and steadily, and with great enjoyment, through most of the week.
    Surely crossword definitions don’t have to be exact synonyms of the answers, so long as they can mean the same in soms contexts. I had no problem with tactless=UNTHINKING, e.g. “he was hurt by her tactless/unthinking remark”.
    I’m with those who thought AVALANCHE was brilliant.
    PEAHEN seemed to me a rather weak cryptic definition, until I came here.
    Thanks both!

14. Much praise to mhl for all that lucid parsing. What relief to be able to finally give up on it and get on with driving round Iceland! Although I had only four or five left unfinished, I shot myself in the foot by desperately entering TROUSER instead of TYPESET. Which also rather dates me, I fear! But the use of “50” as part of a concealed word is deliciously tricky.

15. Anna@12, the ES in 8d is ‘heads in every sense’, where heads=first letters

16. To beaulieu @15

    Ah yes, of course!  Thanks for pointing that out.

    (Clearly I’m not quite back in crossword mode yet!)

17. A pleasingly difficult struggle which was finished only yesterday (Friday) pm.  Put off by Chambers having ‘small rodent’ rather than ‘large’ for 7d.  Very satisfying to solve 24a – ANAGRAM – brilliant!

    Thanks Paul and mhl

18. Managed to finish but for us, too many that could not be constructed from the wordplay unless you had guessed the answer, (such as TOBACCO and PEAHEN which we couldn’t parse anyway)

19. Biggles @1 “I’m not sure whether Paul is becoming more devious or I am getting slower” – I keep having the same thought recently ! 🙂

    As others found, enjoyable overall, though the last few answers were ground out over a few days

20. I really enjoyed this and it was a typical
    slow burner of a Paul. I do enjoy that moment when the penny drops as it did with say, EIGHT BAR BLUES which jumped out with the crossers on a later return to the grid.

    I had to come here for the parsing of PEAHEN where it seemed that Female bird was doing double duty for PEN and the definition!?!

    Very enjoyable, thanks to you and to mhl for the blog today.

21. Thanks Paul another great challenge and mhl for explaining it so well.

    Like others I got this done but not completely parsed. PEAHEN for a small clue with a fairly obvious (quiptic almost) answer packs in a lot of parsing.

    I completely missed the anagram in RADIO FOUR and the TY in 50 held me up for a long time.

    I’m not entirely convinced by Tge AVALANCHE/ HAVE. A LUNCH. joke but the ANAGRAM clue is one for the pantheon surely?

    Thanks again Paul nhl and all learned contributors

22. Thanks Paul another great challenge and mhl for explaining it so well.

    Like others I got this done but not completely parsed. PEAHEN for a small clue with a fairly obvious (quiptic almost) answer packs in a lot of parsing.

    I completely missed the anagram in RADIO FOUR and the TY in 50 held me up for a long time.

    I’m not entirely convinced by Tge AVALANCHE/ HAVE. A LUNCH. joke but the ANAGRAM clue is one for the pantheon surely?

    Thanks again Paul nhl and all learned contributors

23. I’m another who would vote for ANAGRAM as the clue of the year and one for the pantheon. I really enjoyed the puzzle and thought it was Paul on top form – I expect to need help to parse one or two – or three in this case as PEAHEN HELLUVA and KIMONO all eluded me. AVALANCHE amused me and I’m with beaulieu on tactless being fine for UNTHINKING – which I also ticked.
    Thanks to Paul for the challenge and to mhl for the blog and parsings.

24. An excellent puzzle.  I was stuck on one or two parsings, so thanks mhl.  But I really liked 17d TONY BENN and 19a UNTHINKING.  I don’t agree with the criticisms of the latter.  “Tactless” and “unthinking” are not always interchangeable, but the point is they can be, as shown by beaulieu’s example @13.

    Many thanks to Paul.

25. Am I muddling myself in thinking that the PEAHEN clue is misusing “impress”? I have no problem with getting the E and AH, and then “impressing” them by putting them in a “PEN” – on this reading it could be a female bird, or just any enclosure, which I personally think is slightly neater. But the clue implies that the impressing is going the other way round. I feel – reluctantly, because I had huge fun with the crossword – that something is wrong here?

26. I’m rather glad that others found this difficult because I certainly did. As usual with recent Paul puzzles, it did gradually unravel but it took quite a time. In the end, I think this was rather good. AVALANCHE and CAST OF THOUSANDS were amusing – once I got them- and EIGHT BAR BLUES was clever.
    I enjoyed it in the end.
    Thanks Paul.

27. Re 12: Anna, the last time I was working in Greece (many many years ago), there were two versions of the language: “katharevousa” (“pure”), the official formal language, and demotic.  I would guess that this is no longer the case.  Thanks for reminding me of it.

28. This one took a long time, and I considered it on the tough end of the spectrum. A few hmmmm clues though, not least “sellotape”. Is it ok now to use trade names, or what? Favourites Tony Benn and Avalanche.

    Patrick Berry @8 be careful….the moderator does not like references to current unfinished puzzles…you might be chastised!

29. Sellotape (“with or without capital”) is in my ageing Chambers Dictionary.

30. Deliciously chewy. ANAGRAM was brilliant and I’m ashamed to say it was so cleverly deceptive I only got it when I did a search on the crossers and found (not for the first time, in fact) that there’s only one word that fits A _ A _ R _ M!

    I marked the AVALANCHE pun as ‘dreadful’ – but it was laughably so and I enjoyed it.

    I can’t understand what the word ‘on’ is doing in 27, but I suspect the answer is ‘nothing’ and it’s surplus verbiage making the surface work.

    I didn’t really like the double jump involved in 50-peseta. I think hidden words should be there on the page to see (at last). ‘Fifty-peseta’ wouldn’t have made the clue too easy, would it?.

    Is an AGOUTI a large rodent? Chambers defines it as a “small South American rodent”.

    Really liked 3d, CATCH and 23, 13, RADIO FOUR

    6d reminded me for some reason of a favourite clue from some time back, which, checking it out, I find was also by Paul in Guardian 27.070:

    18a Icon that’s silvery peels off (5,7)

    Failed to parse the devious PEAHEN. Thanks for explaining, mhl.

31. mhl and others. 9a was easy and would have been amusing if “ave a lunch” had been a genuine homophone of AVALANCHE in English or French but it isn’t. I don’t think that calling it “faux” is an excuse. 27a was obvious from the crossers but I doubt if anyone got it from the wordplay. I couldn’t parse 5d. But I enjoyed this overall as usual with Paul.
    Thanks to him and mhl

32. Lots to enjoy with Paul usually and this was no exception.

    I find Paul’s homophones are often on the outrageous side and I like them more for that, so loved AVALANCHE.  As many have said, ANAGRAM was brilliant and difficult to spot.  My other fave was RADIO FOUR.  I had the most trouble parsing NON-FINITE but got there in the end.  Tony@30, I think “on” is to be read as “regarding”, so that the answer (adjective) matches the definition, in terms of parts of speech.

    Thanks, Paul and mhl.

33. Anna and Geoff Wilkins, Katharevousa and demotiki do still exist and no, we don’t pronounce the H.

    My only hold up in this lovely puzzle was that 21d would also have been a perfect clue for “chiton” (Greek loose robe) chit (child) + on (e) short.

    Thanks All

34. Too many where the only practical way to a solution was the definition and available letters, leaving one with the longer task afterwards of working out the clue.

35. @phitonelly, ah, yes, I think that explains it. Thanks

36. Just want to thank you, Paul and mhl, for the puzzle and blog. I loved the challenge, Paul, and appreciated the parsings for 9a AVALANCHE, 27a NON-FINITE, 5d PEAHEN and 21d KIMONO, mhl.
    I thought 24a ANAGRAM was one of the best clues I have ever encountered. Gems Ike that make me feel I get such a huge reward for the little amount it costs to be a Guardian subscriber. It gladdens my heart to be part of this crossword community from which I derive so much pleasure.

37. Just a small correction to 1D, your parsing gives a 16 letter answer. It should be SAND for desert in an anagram of SOFT TOUCH AS.

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