Guardian Cryptic 28683 Paul

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Thank you to Paul – no fooling! Definitions are underlined in the clues.

Across

7. See 15

8. Inflamed area poked by sick fool (7)

PILLOCK : POCK(mark left by an inflammation, say, a pimple/an inflamed area?) containing(poked by) ILL(sick/ailing).

9. Fool, big lump (4)

CLOD : Double defn: 2nd: … of earth or clay.

10. Fools take on county (9)

BERKSHIRE : BERKS(fools/stupid persons) + HIRE(to take on/to employ).

Defn: … in England.

12, 22. Stop feeding wrong dose to fool (5,4)

CLOSE DOWN : Anagram of(wrong) DOSE contained in(feeding … to) CLOWN(fool/an incompetent person).

13. Grid in FT cryptic lacking purpose? (8)

DRIFTING : Anagram of(… cryptic) GRID IN FT.

15, 7. Fool with yellow Caribbean dish (4,7)

JERK CHICKEN : JERK(a contemptibly foolish person) plus(with) CHICKEN(cowardly/yellow).

16. Dip about right for dipso (5)

DRUNK : DUNK(immerse/dip in water) containing(about) R(abbrev. for “right”).

Defn: …/a dipsomaniac/an alcoholic.

17. Twist in tornado? (4)

WIND : Double defn.

18. First of balls found in broken urinal behind entrance of tennis court (8)

TRIBUNAL : [ 1st letter of(First of) “balls” contained in(found in) anagram of(broken) URINAL] placed after(behind) 1st letter of(entrance of) “tennis“.

Defn: … of justice.

20. Fool in defence, City’s back (5)

WALLY : WALL(a form of defence against attack) + last letter of(…’s back) “City“.

21. Turn up to either building, though not hospital (9)

PIROUETTE : Anagram of(… building) [ UP TO + “either” minus(though not) “h”(abbrev. for “hospital”) ].

Defn: …, as would be performed by a ballet dancer.

22. See 12

24. Island where sweet thing faces giant of the ocean (7)

MAJORCA : Reversal of(faces/with the front against/towards, in this case, the answer to the second part of the wordplay) JAM(a sweet thing/spread made from fruit and sugar) + ORCA(the killer whale, the largest member of the oceanic dolphin family/giant of the ocean).

25. Cheap wine, burgundy almost knocked over — fool! (7)

PLONKER : PLONK(cheap, inferior wine) + reversal of(… knocked over) [ “red”(a red wine, of which a Burgundy is an example) minus its last letter(… almost) ].

Down

1. Dish having Asian lentils for starters? (4)

DHAL : 1st letters, respectively, of(… for starters) “Dish having Asian lentils“.

Defn: Indian dish made with lentils.

2. Distorted notes in passport, say, held by a decrepit thing (4,4)

ACID ROCK : ID(short for “identity papers”, an example of which/say, is a passport) contained in(held by) [A + CROCK(a decrepit/worn out or ruined thing, a vehicle, say) ].

Defn: A type of rock music partly defined by distorted notes from electric guitars.

3. Frail worker having broken spirit, lifted (6)

FEEBLE : Reversal of(…, lifted, in a down clue) [ BEE(a social insect, a caste of which is the worker) contained in(having broken) ELF(a spirit/a supernatural creature) ].

4. Fool lowers credit (8)

DIPSTICK : DIPS(lowers/sinks) + TICK(credit, from the expression “on tick/credit”, when refering to a purchase).

5. Grievance expressed when one enters place (6)

PLAINT : I(Roman numeral for “one”) contained in(enters) PLANT(to embed/to place into).

6. High point reached, some problem catching up (4)

ACME : Hidden in(some) reversal of(… up, in a down clue) “problem catching“.

Defn: …/achieved.

11. Swimmer‘s bloody outdated style (3,6)

RED MULLET : RED(bloody) + MULLET(an outdated hairstyle).

12. Marxist revolutionary and British head of state in lift (5)

CHEER : CHE(Guevara, Marxist revolutionary from Argentina) plus(and) ER(abbrev. for “Elizabeth Regina”, the British head of state).

Defn: …/raise one’s spirits/morale.

14. Fool one in three names with chicanery, finally (5)

NINNY : I(Roman numeral for “one”) contained in(in) NNN(3 x abbrev. for “name”) plus(with) last letter of(…, finally) “chicanery“.

Defn: A foolish and weak person.

16. Condemn fool holding figure upside down (8)

DENOUNCE : DUNCE(a fool, one slow in learning) containing(holding) reversal of(… upside down, in a down clue) ONE(a figure/a number).

17. Far from bloody good job! (4,4)

WELL DONE : Double defn: 1st: …, as with a well-cooked piece of meat.

19. One following fool gripping lead on rabid dog (6)

BORZOI : I(Roman numeral for “one”) placed below(following, in a down clue) [ BOZO(Americanism for a fool) containing(gripping) 1st letter of(lead on) “rabid” ].

20. That man in violent slide reversing car (6)

WHEELS : HE(that man/third-person masculine pronoun) contained in(in) reversal of(… reversing) SLEW(a violent sliding movement).

Defn: Slang for a …, as in “I’ve got new wheels”.

21. Fool covering king in some butter (4)

PRAT : R(abbrev. for “Rex”, Latin for “king”) contained in(covering … in …) PAT(a slab of/some butter).

23. Arouse wife on the ground (4)

WHET : W(abbrev. for “wife”) placed above(on, in a down clue) anagram of(… ground) THE.

Defn: … one’s appetite, desire or interest.

90 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28683 Paul”

  1. For me, much easier than Paul’s usual, and also disappointing – lacking in the setter’s usual wit. I wonder how many of the colloquial terms for “fool” would be familiar to non-UK solvers. Favourites were ACID ROCK and WHEELS.
    Thanks Paul and scchua.

  2. Was that the easiest Paul ever or am I just in stunning form? I even spotted the theme! Got held up briefly with clot for CLOD and my inability to spell BORZOI. Lots of enjoyment to be had; I think DENOUNCE was my favourite.

  3. Many thanks to Paul and csc. Many of the variations on fool are Britishisms? To be very picky, the fish look like red tilapia.

  4. I thought initially that berk was spelled burk but both are apparently acceptable (and of course there is no Burkshire). Interested also to find it’s short for Cockney rhyming slang, ahem.
    A nice workout on the various words for fool.
    Favourite was WHET for the great surface. Ground misleads me in thinking of earth, soil every time, alas.

  6. Thanks Paul and scchua. So, it wasn’t just me being on good form then? BORZOI and WHET were my faves today.

  7. Did someone tell Paul this was going in Monday’s Guardian? Three days and three themes spotted so I’m on a roll. (Although none of them could be described as well hidden!!)
    Thanks Paul for a brief but enjoyable solve. Thanks scchua too.
    (It’s great that these crosswords are solved internationally and that our blog community spans the world, but I’m not sure why setters should worry about whether a non-UK audience will recognise every word? I watch Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert on-line and accept that some very specific US jokes will go over my head.)

  8. I agree that this wasn’t too tough so long as you were aware of plenty of names for members of the current Government, though like yesyes@2 I was held up for a while with CLOT.
    I’m surprised beaulieu@1 found this un-Pauline. The clue for TRIBUNAL seemed quite down to Paul’s best, and there were some delightfully absurd images in the surfaces to PRAT, WHET, and a few others.
    Favourites were DHAL (a lovely &lit), WHET.
    Thanks to Paul and scchua.

  10. NeilH@8 – yes, there was the usual Pauline schoolboy humour but less than average number of witty definitions and clever wordplay, in my opinion. Perhaps because it was fairly easy, I didn’t spend much time analysing the cleverness of the constructions.

  11. This seemed a bit pointed with its many references to solvers :-; but perhaps we’re not such fools. I too found this a bit easier than expected. WHET was my favourite. JERK CHICKEN was quite nice. BERKSHIRE seemed a bit FEEBLE, possibly because I have noticed “Berks” many times when sending letters to friends there; not that the county is necessary in a postal address.

  12. Thank you scchua, and not for the first time lately I am fairly well aligned with NeilH’s summary. My only gripes are that it is possible that the MULLET has made a comeback lately (though not on my bonce, sadly), and once again Paul has clued ELF as “spirit”, which I am sure is justified by a dictionary but not by any encounter with a fictional elf that I can recall. With a theme like this there will always be some favourite synonyms left out but a big thumbs up for DIPSTICK which takes me back to Hazzard County – thanks Paul.

  13. I did consider YORKSHIRE for a while (a yorker will certainly fool the batsman) before the more obvious solution presented itself. However, this isn’t one of those where alternative meanings of the key word are used: all the fools are fools. I particularly enjoyed the bozo in BORZOI.

    Not that difficult once I stopped trying to make DENOUNCE start with DU. Confused by the “facing” reversal indicator in MAJORCA.

    Favourites TRIBUNAL, PIROUETTE, NINNY, WHET.

  14. Most fun I’ve had for a while in a cryptic. Easy maybe and I was imagining Paul writing this after watching an episode of Only Fools and Horses for those familiar with this Brit institution. Had Rodney written all over it.

    Ta Paul & scchua

  15. gladys @13 – I took it that the clue was telling us to place the two components “face to face” (you have to think of the first letter of a word as being its face). I’m sure I’ve seen it used before. No doubt there will be shouts of “that’s not what facing means”, but I for one am OK with it.

  16. Well, this flew in, with one tick at WELL DONE.

    Not convinced by faces as a reversal indicator.

    Many thanks both.

  17. Got held up in NW corner as I wasn’t sure CLOD or CLOT which meant I only had one crossers in ACID ROCK until I eventually got JERK CHICKEN.

    I get irritated when one clue spread over different entries blocks multiple crossers in another answer, but it happens a lot so I guess I’m in the minority!

    But despite initial misgivings at the theme, I enjoyed the solve.

    Thank you Paul and Scchua

  18. As others have said on the easier side for Paul, but I enjoyed being able to work out more than a few at first glance for a change. JERK CHICKEN was my FOI.

    Did not parse ACID ROCK or PIROUETTE (annoyingly).

    Liked TRIBUNAL, PLONKER, BERKSHIRE, DENOUNCE

    Thanks Paul and Scchua

  19. Certainly easier than usual. With lots of 4 letter clues I’m surprised Paul didn’t hide the theme in one of the many 4-letter clues. I did need the check to find the dog; at first thinking the only fitting fool was BOJO. I was once called a pillock by an opposing driver on a narrow country lane in the Yorkshire Dales, which I thought was very polite. As a non-Brit I agree with JerryG @7. Deciphering colloquialisms is half the fun. Thanks Paul & Scchua.

  20. As others have said, I found this on the easy side for a Paul. I amazed myself with how many specifically Pommy synonyms for ‘fool’ I could dredge up – maybe it’s from my time teaching in the UK (kids used them a lot): PILLOCK, BERK, WALLY, PLONKER, PRAT, DIPSTICK, NINNY. No complaints about the cluing, apart from the MAJ bit. Thanks, Paul and scchua.

  21. “That’s not what facing means!” 😉

    The reaction so far again shows how subjective difficulty is, as this took me longer than Crucible and Brendan combined. Not complaining though; I enjoyed the ‘grid in FT cryptic’ and many others. Also WELL DONE to Paul for getting the H in the right place in DHAL (yes, I know, dictionaries and takeaway menus give several dozen alternatives).

    Thanks to him and scchua for blog and pics (but alas none of 80s hair).

  22. Speaking as a non-UK solver, I didn’t know about half the terms, but that didn’t bother me: I just work with the letters I have and guess some stereotypically British-sounding silly word until I come up with something reasonable. Sometimes we make up words like this when we’re making fun of Britishisms anyway, so it’s not much of a stretch. Easier than figuring out political references, that’s for sure.

  26. Michelle @25. Failed 24ac ad 19d.

    Me, too. Got the JAM, made the island Jamaica then wondered what the hell an AICA might be!

  27. Lovely images here, especially 12d & 21d, and DRUNK is neat.
    I was another clot for CLOD and also wanted Borjoi to be a dog.

    Thanks Paul & scchua

  28. Acid Rock takes me back a bit, anyone not familiar with this particular ditty needs to check out Rhythm Device on YouTube.

  29. I’m impressed with Iroquois @22 and other non-Brits solving this. Quite fun, although I’m another not seeing that faces is equivalent to reverses.

    I liked CLOSE DOWN and PIROUETTE.

    Thanks Paul and scchua.

  30. Gazzh@12: The folklorist KM Briggs says in one of her books (possibly The Fairies in Tradition and Literature) that in a theological interpretation fairies and elves were angels who after Satan’s rebellion were adjudged neither bad enough for Hell nor good enough for Heaven, and fell to Earth to slowly dwindle away. So Paul’s definition is ok.

  31. Another Clot for CLOD, meaning that ACID ROCK was the last one in. First one in was JERK CHICKEN (and a mouth-watering image that is of it, Scchua). WALLY held me up for a while and therefore WHEELS revealed as a result brought a smile. Quite enjoyed this, though anti-themers might not have…

  32. Definitely on the easier side for a Paul Thursday effort. I thought this was the crossword of the letter K, with 8 solutions containing it. Most unusual.

  33. I’m another one of those who found this relatively straightforward – the theme helped (for this Brit) as with Brendan yesterday. English has a lot of colloquial synonyms for ‘fool’ – and non-British varieties have plenty of their own – perhaps exceeded only by the many English colloquialisms for DRUNK [of which my favourite is the Scots ‘stotious’].

    Nothing to get steamed up about here – ‘faced’ was a novel usage and a bit of a stretch but fine by me. My only quibble, like madman @3, is that scchua‘s picture is of neither species that is known as a RED MULLET!

    Thanks to S&B

  34. Thanks Paul and scchua.

    I’ll join in the general praise although like eb@21 and pdp11@24 it was no write-in for me. Favourite was PLONKER (just a great word) which, with it’s prophylactic meaning, always struck me as very close to an uncharacteristic vulgarity when used in Only Fools and Horses (and I’ve never heard it elsewhere). But at least one on-line dictionary gives that derivation as being of US origin – perhaps some transpontines can confirm.

    My imagination or have we had a plurality of RED MULLETs recently?

    I got from -orca to MAJORCA without skipping a beat and never looked back.

    I’d have loved it if WALLY was my LOI.

  35. When I start a puzzle I read all the clues and put a check mark on the edge of the grid next to those I can solve with no crosser, both across and down, which means that a pair of intersecting clues might each get a check, since I haven’t any crossers yet. With this puzzle I had only two, which makes it harder than most, DHAL and ACME. So the puzzle filled itself in slowly from the top to the bottom.

    My other measure of difficulty is the number of answers I haven’t filled in the night before, and this time there was only one, WHET, which looked easy this morning. So by that measure, this ended up being easier than most.

    So big thanks to Paul for the challenge and scchua for the help and the pictures.

  36. Won’t get fooled again! Easy for a Paul puzzle and I just had to keep thinking of more words for the theme.

    “Faces” seems perfectly acceptable to me to indicate the reversal in an across clue.

    Favourites were WHET and PIROUETTE

    THANKS Paul and scchua

  37. Yes, quite mild for Paul, nothing too squeamish.

    As a “transpontine Brit” I can say that I hadn’t heard most of the fools for years, maybe since school (including PLONKER). It’s also been a long time since I’ve seen Mallorca spelled Majorca,

  38. Yes I enjoyed it too. Finished with WHET after penny dropped for “ground” but thought WHET was just sharpen not arouse.

    Thanks Paul and scchua

  40. ..and Dr W @37 I always remember the now late Bamber Gascoigne pronouncing the j in Majorca… good enough for me

  41. I wasn’t flexible enough to change CLOT to CLOD, despite having got that ID would not fit in the crossers that I had for 2d. And I couldn’t get JERK CHICKEN either, probably something to do with being a vegetarian!

    Those apart, this did seem on the easy end of the scale for Paul, with no real tea tray moments to lend delight to the solve. I did like ‘grid in FT cryptic’, though again the answer was all too apparent.

    Speaking of being obvious, I’ve never liked Paul’s use of the ‘first of balls’ type of construction. The way I read it, this is not a natural expression and it is immediately apparent that a letter B is in the answer. In this clue, ‘entrance of tennis court’ is just as awkward.

    Thanks to Paul and scchua.

  43. “Fool me once”, etc.

    This was Paul at his most benign, to echo numerous posts above. The only query was MAJ, again as others have pointed out. I can sort of see how it works, but ‘faces’ doesn’t really convey reversal to me. Otherwise straightforward solving, as close to a write in as Paul is ever likely to be, and fun to see how many fools he could include.

  46. For those who still don’t like faces as a reversal after widdersbel@13’s helpful post this may help a little (or not)!

    Imagine two people in a queue both facing forward in the direction the queue is (hopefully) moving.

    The one in front turns to face the one behind, effectively turning 180 degrees and now faces the other.

    Thanks Paul and scchua.

  47. I hate to break it to Paul, but alas the mullet is very much in fashion these days. As a teacher, I see several examples of what the yoof might call these ‘lids’ at school on a daily basis.

    It would be easy (and correct) to blame this phenomenon on professional rugby players – more evidence that it may well be a sport for hooligans, but not necessarily played by gentlemen…

  48. Robi@44 – if two things face one another, they invariably point in opposite directions. A fairly worded clue in my book.

  49. I don’t see the issue with “faces”. If the front of “JAM” is J, then to get it to face toward something on the right it would have to turn around. Merriam Webster has “having the front oriented toward a specified direction or location” as its second adjective form.

    Robi @44 – I don’t see it as synonymous with “reverses”. It just achieves the same end. There are countless examples of crossword-isms that can’t be swapped in sentences, but are accepted nonetheless “drunk” for “rearrange the letters of” for example.

    I enjoyed this a lot. Thanks B & S.

  50. I can’t say that I am convinced by the faces examples. If two people face each other, or are face-to-face, they are both looking forwards from their own perspective (not backwards), even though they are in opposite orientations. If a garden faces East, it means it looks towards the East, not the West! 🙂

  52. Thanks for the blog, think I am a bit themed out now, we need to introduce rationing. PIROUETTE was nicely done and a lovely word. I was okay with MAJ but giant is a git loose. ORCA are the largest dolphins but fairly small compared to most whales.

  54. As many above have said, the easiest one from Paul in a long time. Breezed through with barely a pause until BORZOI, but bunged that in from the word play after searching for the two Os for a minute or two.

  55. Dr Whats On @37 – strange. I’d have thought MAJORCA was the standard spelling with MALLORCA as a very rare variant these days. I recognise both and pronounce them identically, but honestly can’t remember when I last saw the version which you find so common. I wonder why that might be? Different newspapers, perhaps? Or do you perhaps live abroad (I’ve been back in the UK for seven years or so now, having been in central Europe for the previous 25 years).

  58. Good puzzle, quite easy. As someone said, we might be a little ‘themed out’ this week, but there it is.

    It is edifying, I think, to see the very rude BERK in a puzzle.

  59. BigNorm@55 I live in the US, where frankly the island isn’t mentioned much at all, except as the home of Rafael Nadal. I just checked the Wikipedia entry for him, and for what it’s worth it uses the LL spelling. I haven’t been there myself for over 50 years, but seem to remember that LL is the Spanish spelling. The J (pronounced as in jam) then is quite curious, since it seems to be two steps removed from the native spelling.

  61. I spotted the obvious food theme after DHAL, JERK CHICKEN, RED MULLET, and DIPS(TICK) went in early. Took a while for the blindingly obvious to shine its light 🙂

  62. Can’t say I’ve ever heard of ACID ROCK (jazz yes) but couldn’t be owt else. Gentle but good fun. Thanks all

  64. The water in Majorca don’t taste like wot it oughta!

    The LL spelling actually comes from a hypercorrection (from ‘maiorca’ – Latin ‘j’ and ‘i’ were the same letter) by Catalan scribes but it’s now standard in most languages.

    Interestingly, many South American Spanish speakers would pronounce a double L much like an English J.

    Re ‘facing’, my problem is this: English words read from left to right, so in JAM ORCA, both JAM and ORCA are standing in a queue, facing in the same direction. JAM now turns round to become MAJ – and in so doing has turned his back on ORCA!

  65. [PostMark@60 Thanks for the link. I’ve known that one verse of this for ever, and never knew where it came from. Just thought it was one of those nonsense poems we used to recite as kids. Another was “The elephant is a bonny bird, it flits from bough to bough. It makes its nest in a rhubarb tree and whistles like a cow.”]

  66. JAM and ORCA are standing in a queue facing in the same direction . J is the face of JAM, O is the face of ORCA , JAM is in front of ORCA , the front of the queue is to the left of both as we look at it. JAM now turns round so they are face to face.

  67. Thanks Roz @66. But that means that if JAM were to have his back toward ORCA (‘backing’ normally being a reversal indicator) he would actually still be JAM!

  68. I tripped on the CLOT/CLOD divot; wondered for a while how to fit BASENJI into a 6-letter light and I tried out DRUCK (which dictionaries tell me almost works) for 16a. So, took me a while longer than most apparently.
    Good puzzle. Was hoping KINE or NEAT or HERD would end up in 4d, but no such luck.
    Thanks, Paul and scchua.

    pdp11@23: pasta farming.

  69. Just think of words as front and back so FB , ORIGINALLY we have JAM and ORCA , FBFB,
    Jam now faces Orca BFFB .
    A non-invariant parity transform.

  71. I so wanted BORZOI to be BORJOI but I suppose I don’t need Paul to tell me BOJO is a fool. I always prefer the MAJORCA spelling as it shows the relationship to MENORCA, which I would then want to spell Minorca. I am totally confused by the sticky issue of which way JAM faces as I was by the debate about whether jam was a liquid, when I tried to take some s hand luggage.

  74. Words like particles can have odd or even parity , these two words are both odd, my point @72 is totally serious. I really must stop now.

  76. I’ll pick a very small bone with scchua concerning 25A as I remember an exquisite bottle of Corton Charlemagne from 35 years ago (before prices skyrocketed). Wine from Burgundy comes in red and white — it’s only when it is hearty and made by the Gallo brothers that it is red exclusively — so the Burgundy in the clue refers to the maroon-like tint not to the drink

  77. [PostMark@60: I’ve heard several variants on the “one fine day in the middle of the night” poem, but yours is by far the longest and most detailed., Do you know the wonderful “Lore and Language of Schoolchildren” which has other examples of this kind of glorious nonsense?]

  81. I was another CLOT.
    Got about 2/3 done which represents a triumph of biblical proportions for me.
    Thanks both.

  82. [gladys @77: probably too late for you to see this but, yes, I do know the book, I think. An elderly relative in Edinburgh had it on her bookshelf and, for some reason, I picked it up whenever I visited. Many, many years ago – I probably haven’t thought of it for the thick end of half a century! Thanks for the reminder. Ridiculous poem but it seemed apposite.]

  84. Thanks both,
    Fairly easy but nonetheless enjoyable, especially ‘borzoi’. The OED has at def 13b of the verb form of ‘face’ the meaning ‘face about’ or ‘about face’ which in military terms means ‘turn round’.

  85. Enjoyed this, perhaps easier than Paul’s usual fare but none the worse for that. I was reminded of Collins’ wonderful definition of MULLET: “A hairstyle that is short at the front, long at the back, and ridiculous all round“.
    Thanks to both as always.

  89. paul b@86, widdersbel@87
    I think that the berk in Berkshire and Berkeley is pronounced the same, as in the example given by essexboy@88. I used to work close by. On the other hsnd I believe the berk in Berkeley, Cslifornis, is pronounced burk.

  90. Agree, nice example with the nightingale, both BARK here. I have had a lot of links with UC Berkeley in the USA and they all say BURK.

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