Guardian 29,343 – Paul

75 comments on “Guardian 29,343 – Paul”

1. Another two for your research DrWhatsOn, FLAGRANT appearing in yesterday’s Tramp and TEASER, the day before. This was an amusing theme with some obscure inhabitants. I guessed VOLVOX from the wordplay and nho the ornamental 🐸. Couldn’t parse EARN but from the G thread, I was warned that it would be controversial and it is! My favourites were WATER BOATMAN (clever construction), VERSO, SANG and the daft WHEEL.

   Ta Paul & Andrew

2. King Canute! I love it. Paul just hits the right spot with me. A joy to solve although I can guess this puzzle will divide opinion.

   Thanks Andrew and Paul

3. Got stuck on 6D because ‘kink and newt’ also sounds like King Canute, so I was looking for a synonym for him – and, of course couldn’t find one. Gave up and revealed in the end, and still couldn’t see what was going on until I came here. Otherwise this was an enjoyable challenge. Thanks to P for the puzzle, and to A for the blog.

4. I tend to solve in a similar way to Eileen (I think, anyway) where I go across first and then down, so it took me a while to spot the theme and get the linked clues.

   EARN is going to EARN a few hard stares, I don’t doubt. That’s a very dodgy homophone, but raised the customary groan when I did get it. VERSO and SANG were both great.

   Thanks Paul and Andrew

5. AlanC: I also had a strange sense of deja vu solving this. Which was resolved when I checked 225 archives. Paul did this theme in July last year: same grid, same key phrase in the same position, half a dozen of the same solutions. I guess he must have had ideas he didn’t have room to incorporate last time. (Davey @3: he did the King Canute homophone with KINK and NEWT in that one)

6. Thanks Paul and Andrew
   Nothing at all on first pass, but I constructed SWORDSMAN and worked out from there. I gave up on EARN – awful clue! – and didn’t parse VERSO. “painting that’s cut” is pretty poor for NUD too.
   I liked COINCIDE.
   I remember being excited when I first saw VOLVOX under a micrscope!

7. Boa, the other 3-letter reptile (it can be feathered too), very useful. And have met the water boatman before. Volvox too rings the faintest of bells. The other critters were pretty friendly. [Newt reminds me of a Gielgud in Tuscsny tv show, with his frrrooty voice saying Umbriaco as a newt]. Great puzzle, ta both.

8. Great recall PostMark. I’ve just had a look.

9. The king Canute trio were my last in causing me to guffaw in an otherwise peaceful cafe

   I originally had a very silly parsing for ORCHESTRA involving some double duty and other nonsense. A second look highlighted the error of my ways

   The first three downs went straight in which gave me FROG and the theme was revealed. And for once I found it useful

   Cheers P&A

10. Thanks to Andrew for the blog, which helped me to understand the parsing for 6d EARN (strange homophone – I was with AlanC’s comment @1 on this one) and 19d GRUMPY (I’m so naive!). I quite liked hunting down the themed solutions. I did try vainly to make the Aussie WATER DRAGON fit for 12,8a, although the crossers eventually helped me to see WATER BOATMAN, a creature I had heard of; meanwhile 20d VOLVOX (with which I was unfamiliar) was available from the wordplay and cross letters too. I did note the coincidence with FLAGRANT from yesterday’s Tramp, though brain fog from COVID meant I didn’t see the TEASER repetition. My favourites were 13a COINCIDE and 21d TOED (where the reference to lugholes was a clever homophone indicator). I couldn’t help thinking that 5d ATOMIC was some sort of reference to the girl band ATOMIC KITTEN because of the “Puss” part, although that had nothing to do with the clue in the end. Many thanks to Paul for some Friday fun.

11. NEWT
    Could it be…
    evidently caught?=IN NET
    W in NET

    ORCHESTRA
    ART reversed

    Liked many. Top faves: COINCIDE, VERSO, EARN, KERBSIDE (for the novel anagrind) and TOAD (lovely homophone/aural worplay indicator).

    Thanks Paul and Andrew!

12. I forgot to ask why “evidently” is NET.

13. [Took too long to type, so some of my comments do COINCIDE with others’ remarks without acknowledgment.]

14. muffin@12, I parsed it the same as KVa@11 – “evidently caught”. If something is in the net, it is evidently caught 🙂

15. muffin@12
    NEWT
    Does my parse @11 work?

    DUNNO
    Agree with your view. A question mark at the end might have helped?

16. Not my cup of tea as I am never on Paul’s wavelength. Picked up the theme 4d pond life after solving/guessing 12/8 water boatman. It did help me solve some of the other themed clues.

    I forgot to try solving 6 EARN – and I never would have parsed that.

    I did not parse 12/8 apart from BOA= reptile, and 19d apart from G=good and still do not understand why sex = the other. But Grumpy the dwarf was an obvious answer.

    I wrongly parsed 23d as a homophone of “knew it” = evidently but that forgot about the W=wife. Like I said, not on the setter’s wavelength as usual which does not make for an enjoyable experience with his puzzles 🙁

    New for me: FROG = fastening loop; BLANKET WEED; VOLVOX.

    Favourite: SANG.

    Thanks, both

17. Came here to find out the parsing of EARN. Thanks Andrew and Paul

18. I’m so pleased that someone else recalled the theme – thank you Postmark – although I think pondlife was also used as a derogatory term more in that grid. I found this slightly easier than Paul’s usual offering but still challenging. Earn is an Andy Zaltzman quality pun deserving of both groan and inclusion. Thank you Paul, Andrew and the Easter bunny for giving me the day off to finish this in the morning.

19. Utterly defeated today, got about five and spotted the theme but all to no avail. Thank heavens for this blog, the complexity of some of the wordplay reassures me I wasn’t just being useless, just not in sync.

20. Like Postmark, Déja Vu day today…Pond Life theme repeats with the likes of WATER BOATMAN (I liked last year’s clue construction better…) and FLAGRANT repeats from yesterday…DNF due to not getting DUNNO and VOLVOX…Thanks to Paul and Andrew.

21. I wondered if the slug hidden in “one’s lug holes” was deliberate misdirection?

22. I quite liked 7d after spending time thinking how ‘underline’ might fit in, until the theme and the crossers enlightened me. I remembered the King Canute homophone from previously, though I seem to remember the middle was ‘URN’ rather than ‘EARN’ that time. Still raised a groan-cum-laugh though. The clue for COINCIDE was a bit of whimsy that Paul shares with Philistine. Getting the theme definitely helped, though I got to it via ‘TOAD’. ‘DUNNO’ was a trademark clue as well. I can see why some can get a bit 19d with Paul, but I enjoyed it. Thanks to him and Andrew.

23. michelle@16
    GRUMPY
    still do not understand why sex = the other
    It (the other) is an informal phrase for sex/sexual relations.

    Petert@21
    I tried slug first. 🙂

24. Thanks Andrew. I can’t understand how this got past the Editor. Do they have to run a check on previous ones, or trust the setter not to slip one through with an identical theme and several recycled solutions from 29,116 of July 2023?

    Anyway it didn’t help me with 6d EARN. I have to confess my partial ”parse” was even more groanworthy than Paul’s. I saw the KINK and EARN and I thought it might be a Franglais pun, à la Paul’s DESERVE for deux oeufs.
    KINK for Cinque (of the Cinque Ports) and EARN for un. The Lord of the Cinque Ports might be Cinque No. 1?? Nowt about the NEWT though.

25. Actually, the clue for EARN is flawed anyway. Surely the convention is that if a reference to a numbered clue is ambiguous, it refers to the one in the same direction? I never looked at KINK, trying instead to link KERBSIDE with NEWT.

26. I love Brit humour, full of quirk, michelle @15.
    Fancy a bit of the other, darlin’? is one example. What about a bit of How’s yer father? is another.

27. Enjoyed the theme of this puzzler, but some of the clues left us in the weeds… VOLVOX was a step too far for these solvers.

28. Couldn’t find the patience for this today. I got a few clues, saw the theme, and ended up just revealing the rest. Glad I didn’t waste my time on the appalling EARN, not even close to a homophone for me.

29. Interesting puzzle, despite the FLAGRANT plagiarism 🙂 . I don’t remember his previous POND LIFE offering (perhaps it was one I missed?) so this was all as new. EARN was a parse failure for me – I was trying to find some connection between KERBSIDE and NEWT. LOI was VOLVOX – I knew the alga, but it took the crossing letters for me to see it.

    My favourites were ORCHESTRA (not an anagram for once, and with an excellent surface), BLANKET WEED, COINCIDE, NEWT and SANG (another good surface – not always a Paulian characteristic!).

    Thanks to JH and Andrew

30. I got all the answers but not the parsings. As usual, I am pleased for those who enjoyed Paul’s style.

31. Gervase @29
    See mine @25. Unless 17a is specified, it should be KERBSIDE/NEWT.

32. I agree with Muffin@25 and Gervase@29 that the problem with EARN is not the pun – that’s part of the fun of a crossword – but the ambiguity about which clue 17 was relevant. Obviously writing 17A would have spoiled the surface, and I did get there in the end, but I think it crosses the delicate line and becomes an unfair clue, which is a pity because I loved the idea (and also COINCIDE).
    Volvox, for anyone interested, has a place in scientific history as one of the very first “new” living organisms to be discovered by Leeuwenhoek using his microscopes, in 1700 (he records it).

33. Always enjoy Paul’s crosswords, very entertaining. This one seemed almost impenetrable at first, before slowly giving way, so spot on. However I did have to reveal EARN at the end, and then come on here for the parsing which, as others have said, was just wrong (“Kin Canute”???).

34. I never find Paul’s creations easy – although he does sometimes include a couple of more straightforward clues to give one a bit of a toehold.
    In this case, however, the toehold-clues were simply those I know darned well I’ve seen before. PostMark @5 helpfully confirmed this. FLAGRANT & TEASER were only a day or two back – and though a setter can’t be expected to be aware of all other recent works, a crossword editor really has no excuse.
    As for KINK EARN NEWT: I’m stunned Paul himself thought we wouldn’t remember it. It, too, generated a lively discussion on this site, including whether the quasi-homophone even needed the middle word.
    Oh well. At least I finished this one – so thank you Paul for the challenge –
    though lots of the parsing was only half-done. Heartfelt thanks to Andrew for all the explanations: I wouldn’t have parsed DUNNO in a million years….

35. Pond Life II – “Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water.” But this wasn’t a case of “déjà vu all over again.”
    Same grid. Some of the solutions were the same, and even in the same positions. But the clues and wordplays were all new. I liked it.
    Solving 6d EARN meant that I immediately knew the answers to 17a KINK and 23d NEWT, though. I liked that, too. Loi VOLVOX – dnk – nho – jorum – TTLI
    And AlanC@1 – Where did you get that 🐸?

36. Enjoyed this greatly despite not parsing EARN. I was trying to justify using ERNE as a way in, thinking a sea eagle could be the main commander….

    SANG reminded me of a Paddy Roberts song from many decades ago, when the Englishman was noted for his SANGFROID.

    Agree with Julieinaustralia about ATOMIC KITTEN.

37. Like HoagyM @33: “ This one seemed almost impenetrable at first, before slowly giving way, so spot on.

    I liked the BLANK in BLANKET WEED, the wordplays for WATER BOATMAN and GRUMPY, and the novel way of cluing ORCHESTRA (no carthorse here). Like some others, I assumed the 17 in the clue for 6 was 17D; between the two is the letter A in SANG ??!! I now remember the KINK EARN/urn NEWT discussion from a year ago.

    Thanks Paul for the challenge and to Andrew for explaining it all.

38. @Andrew “Verso is the left of a two-page spread in a book, as opposed to recto”. Strictly speaking, recto and verso are the two sides of the same leaf, recto being the right (front) side and verso the reverse

39. I thought this was a gem (even if it is apparently recycled).

    “Organic matter” made WATER BOATMAN a favourite, but some other superb clueing eg VERSO, COINCIDE, WHEEL and GRUMPY.

    I agree that EARN was one step too far, but it did make me smile!

    Thanks Paul and Andrew

40. Paul at his most idiosyncratic. Loved it. KINKEARNEWT an absolute treasure, imo, especially in an era in which our rulers think they can determine what is real by legislation.

    Thanks to Andrew and Paul.

41. I am with Matthew @2. Loved this. Got the theme which is unusual for me and remembered to use it for once 😎. Loved EARN. VOLVOX and SKINK new. Many thanks to Paul and Andrew.

    [FrankieG my phone let’s me do 🐸s and a variety of wildlife but my tablet and laptop don’t…🦎🐢🐊]

42. I am usually an FT silver and this is my first foray into the Guardian for some time. I am not sure I will hurry to repeat the experience. Although there were some delightfully ingenious clues (27 ac for example), the over dependence on 4 down spoilt it for me. And why do all crossword setters seem to be addicted to Carry On- style euphemisms for sex (RUMPY in this case) and why is school invariably ETON?

43. RUMPY is only half of IT! Well. The other half!

44. [Pauline in Brum@41 – This is something new. Kenmac must be changing things. Last year even a pasted bog-standard smiley 🙂 would come up as a “?” .
    I like your selection of pond life 😎.]
    FLA(GRAN)T is just two old chestnuts, either clued as GRAN in FLAT or FLAG+RANT Jack’s tirade.
    Nothing wrong with a few easy clues in a puzzle. Thanks P&A

45. 🐬🐟
    Just testing…

    From my phone, it works! Thanks Pauline in Brum!

46. Thanks for the blog, deja vu all over again, I am all in favour of recycling but not for my crossword. If setter’s must persist with themes can we please have something original for once ?
    WATER BOATMAN would be a good clue if I did not already know the answer. VERSO and COINCIDE were neat clues.

47. @42 Beak: Paul also appears regularly in the FT as Mudd.

48. @42 Beak – don’t be put off. Many Guardian regulars love Paul and at least as many (like me) don’t usually enjoy his puzzles and even less so when he uses linked answers. There are other more broadly enjoyed setters and a range of difficulties so come back! As for the Carry On humour, for some bizarre reason The Guardian, of all newspapers, is the last bastion of 70’s ‘ooh er Missus’ jokes with semi regular outdated references to women’s breasts and underwear which, for those of us who have grown up and who respect our wives, daughters, mothers and females generally, are disrespectful and outdated.

49. Was loving this, especially KING EARNEWT, until it came to the VOLVOX which seems unfair somehow. Thanks both.

50. When stuck in a clue, don’t you ever go through it slowly working out the possibilities of the solution quick crossword style and back parse. With 6d I was thinking CAP’N main commander, but it wouldn’t parse, so I went to the other end and make=EARN and Oh gods Paul, that’s a pun even I would have to apologise for, but it works.
    Thanks both, I think I half parsed a few, but forgot to follow through. Now I’m doing lthem on the Guardian website, no anagram helper, no splitting the multiple word answers, I find I’m seeing anagrams but not checking, which sometimes means I got it wrong and have to go back and check the letters.
    Thanks both.

51. When I say half parsed, I mean that I solved them from the half parsing and forgot to check the rest.

52. Thx Dellers – so Paul is MUDD, whose puzzles I enjoy and generally complete without too much faffing about! I will persevere with the Guardian – even as I wince at the Sid James -style humour ( which also appears in the FT)

53. I should be more trusting: when I saw 1a my first thought was, is that underscore character a typo for a dash? But all was good.

    AlanC@1 The problem is similar to that of the Birthday Problem – how many people do you need to have in a room before the chances of at least two of them having the same birthday is over 50% (answer remarkably is 23) – but the probability distribution is different. Quite different.

54. I obviously haven’t been doing these things long enough, as I have never encountered a rule about the presumed direction of ambiguous cross references. Perhaps Paul hasn’t either? Anyway, a heartfelt OUCH and a smile for Kink-earn-newt (just the way I pronounce him myself!)

55. Two posts today because my phone has developed a nasty habit of losing my half completed post if I scroll up to check something.

    VOLVOX was new and I didn’t get the BLANK – could only see it as an underscore so didn’t know what kind of weed it was. But lots to enjoy here: DUNNO and VERSO (didn’t someone clue RECTO quite recently?) COINCIDE and SANG, KERBSIDE for the bird out of its tree; NEWT for the wife caught in the net.

    Tiny quibble: having ARTS as the reverse at the end of ORCHESTRA gives two Ss: it’s just ART.

56. Paul in Feb
    Priest runs after page 3, for example (6)

57. PM@24 Wow – a lot of repetition. Looks like two drafts of one puzzle. Sadly, I have to take less credit to myself for the king in Soton – I surely did the earlier version of the same clue … .

58. Great fun!
    VOLVOX new to me and thanks for explaining EARN, I got it but I didn’t know why?

59. Probably being dim here, but what purpose do the words ‘the size’ serve in 19? Couldn’t the clue end with ‘the other half’?

    Anyway, very entertaining puzzle, thanks to setter and blogger

    [I know I shouldn’t, but I can’t help rueing the demise of double entendre humour. Makes me nostalgic for family Sunday lunches listening to the Light Programme and pestering my (ex-RAF) dad to explain why he laughed so much at things mum and I didn’t get. Even the Goons threw a few in, if memory serves – didn’t they have a character called Hugh Jampton?]

60. Martin@38, given we read left-to-right, the front is the first-encountered side of a leaf which, when you hold the leaf up, is on your left.

61. GRUMPY
    KewJumper@59
    My understanding:
    The surface doesn’t work well without the ‘the size’.
    The WP doesn’t get spoilt by the presence of these words.

62. Thanks KVa@61. Fair point, it would be a clunkier surface otherwise

63. [KewJumper @59: Hugh Jampton visited the Isle of Wight – one of the wooden planks which were donated by well-wishers when Yarmouth Pier was restored bears his name.
    Round the Horne and Beyond our Ken went even closer to the line than the Goon Show in the matter of double entendres – in retrospect it’s amazing what the BBC bosses let through, or simply didn’t twig]

64. AlanC@1 ( of course , glad I have retired from competition ) There is a letter in the Guardian today about KPR , fame indeed.

65. Late to the party, so my comments are mostly made

    I remember learning about VOLVOX in college biology, to my great relief. I’d seen one-celled organisms (amoebas and the like) and planaria, but there seemed to be a considerable gap between a one-celler and an animal with several organs and kinds of tissue. What came between, was there a two-celled animal nobody was telling us about? So here I learned that these tiny green basketballs were sort of individual organisms and sort of a collective that sometimes acted like a single entity.

    At a local folk festival in San Francisco (I still consider myself a San Franciscan as well as a New Englander) a friend of mine always leads a workshop on “Songs of -cide” (matricide, parricide, etc.). I usually join in with “The Rat-Catcher’s Daughter,” the only song I know about donkeycide.

    FrankieG@35 TTLI? Thing today that learned I? Is Yoda still on duty?

    Gladys @53 “Art” is clued as “music perhaps,” or one of the arts. No plural needed.

    Thanks Paul and Andrew.

66. KVa@23 – thanks for explaining that ‘the other’ = sex. I never heard that usage before.

67. In 12ac, “organic” is the anagrind, right? How is that justified, or can just anything be an anagrind?

    I found this harder than the usual Paul and had to come here for more parsings than usual, including 6dn (EARN), of course. But there was plenty to like, including the amusing 19dn (GRUMPY).

68. Valentine@65: Indeed, but Andrew’s blog gives it as (T)ORCHES + ARTS reversed, giving ORCHESSTRA. I probably didn’t make it clear enough what I was quibbling about.

69. I am a big fan of Paul’s and I loved this puzzle, but the EARN clue doesn’t work. Sometimes trying to be too cute is not a good thing.

70. Not for me I hate to say. That the solution of POND LIFE is contingent upon the tricksy BLANKET WEED just makes this barely/im- penetrable. Editor please?

    Thanks both nonetheless and not unprecedented astonishment at your capacities Andrew.

71. [Roz @64: please don’t stop abusing me about KPR, I enjoy the bantz. Your students may have told you that we’re on a surge now 😉],

72. [ AlanC I meant retire from competing for Number 1 , I could not keep up. Sprog3 was here for tea and he had Radio 5 on and as I typed that last post there was a KPR goal , I brought you good luck ]

73. Only just got round to this. Much enjoyed. Thanks to Paul and Andrew.
    Like Davey @3 I couldn’t fathom EARN. KINK-NEWT is how I pronounce 17/23. I’m not a Dane but Knut is one syllable and so, to me , is Canute so Earn never comes into existence. If it did there’d be a double N.
    Homophones will always be ripe for argument.

74. Pauline in Brum @41: my late mother Julie Boden was a Birmingham poet laureate and wrote a poem called ‘Volvox Verses’, so I knew it from that. Here is the link to it (https://www.julieboden.co.uk/poetry), just click on the link to ‘Beyond the Bullring’.

75. Nho 20d. Got the idea (with help from crossers) but picked the wrong part of TAX and tried VOLVOT.
    Liked KERBSIDE.

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