A slow solve with several bits of parsing that needed revisiting afterwards. My favourites were 12ac, 1dn, and 15dn. Thanks to Paul for the puzzle.
| ACROSS | ||
| 5 | ICICLE |
Pointed item: observe cutter, did you say? (6)
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sounds like ("did you say?"): 'eye sickle'="observe cutter" |
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| 6 | VEG OUT |
In protest, I only want meat loaf! (3,3)
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definition: "loaf" meaning to be lazy, to veg out VEG OUT could be a protest slogan to only have meat and no veg |
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| 9 | SCAMPI |
Fix good fish dish (6)
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"Fix" as in a fraud, a rigged outcome=SCAM, plus PI (pious, "good") |
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| 10 | ENTHUSED |
So energy has filled object – pumped up (8)
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THUS="So" plus E (energy); both filling inside END=target, objective="object" |
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| 11, 25 | TEAR-JERKER |
Tragic narrative as wally thrown in river? (4-6)
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JERK="wally" in TEARER="river?" to 'rive' is to split apart or tear, so a 'rive-r' is a 'tear-er' |
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| 12 | HYPOTENUSE |
One side hearing report of lofty Harry? (10)
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sounds like ("hearing") 'high Potter news'="report of lofty Harry" (Harry Potter the fictional wizard) |
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| 13 | PASSIONLESS |
Cold hand uncharged? (11)
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PASS="hand" as in to give something to another; plus ION-LESS=without ions that would have electric charge="uncharged" |
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| 18 | WAKEY-WAKEY |
Way to press button on watch for alarm call (5-5)
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WAY (from surface) to go around ("press") both of: KEY="button" plus WAKE=vigil="watch" |
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| 21 | MAID |
Girl in suit’s half twirl? (4)
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"half" of a reversal/"twirl" of DIAM-[onds]="suit" in a deck of playing cards |
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| 22 | AUTOCRAT |
Dictator king fed to Jaguar? (8)
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R (Rex, "king"), inside AUTO CAT="Jaguar", a type of cat used as the name of a car/auto brand |
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| 23 | RHODES |
British imperialist channels on the radio? (6)
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definition: Cecil Rhodes [wiki] sounds like ("on the radio"): 'roads'=pathways="channels" |
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| 24 | ENGAGE |
Enemy, O my, has kidnapped crack recruit (6)
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"O my" is to be read as '0 my' or 'zero my', an instruction to delete the my from ENE-[my] ENE around GAG=a joke="crack" |
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| 25 |
See 11
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| DOWN | ||
| 1 | TIA MARIA |
Drink in The Crown for temptress: they call me Queen of the Night, say (3,5)
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the crown or first/top letter of T-[emptress], plus I AM ARIA="they call me Queen of the Night, say" Queen of the Night [wiki] is the name of an ARIA from Mozart's The Magic Flute |
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| 2 | ELVISH |
Language of spirits the King articulated when tipsy? (6)
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Elvis was nicknamed "the King", and ELVISH might be a slurred pronunciation of 'Elvis' when tipsy |
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| 3 | TEETOTAL |
Dry, English child having been rescued by duck (8)
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E (English) + TOT="child"; both inside (rescued by) TEAL=a type of duck |
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| 4, 5 | COLUMN INCHES |
Trashing of mundane cliches on having forsaken Hamlet, say – critic’s lot? (6,6)
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definition: the amount of space in a newspaper given to e.g. a critic anagram/"Trashing" of (mundane cliches on)*, minus dane=Dane, someone from Denmark="Hamlet, say" |
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| 5 |
See 4
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| 7 | THEIST |
Crime under control in the centre, I believe (6)
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HEIST="Crime", under centre of [con]-T-[rol] |
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| 8 | DEEP POCKETS |
Pots of gravy in bottomless trousers (4,7)
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definition: to have 'deep pockets' or to have 'pots of gravy' is to have lots of money DEEP="bottomless" + POCKETS=takes="trousers" as a verb |
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| 14 | SEWERAGE |
Filthy liquid in vessel quaffed by pandit (8)
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EWER="vessel" inside SAGE="pandit" |
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| 15 | SAM COOKE |
Fiddle embraced by aforementioned soul artist (3,5)
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COOK (meaning 'falsify', as in 'cook the books')="Fiddle", inside SAME="aforementioned" |
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| 16 | SALUTE |
Toast ending on plate with cheese on, port forgotten (6)
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ending of [plat]-E, after SALUT=Port SALUT "cheese" with the "port" forgotten |
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| 17 | LINEAR |
Straight organ, over which zip pulled up (6)
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EAR="organ", with NIL=zero="zip" reversed ("pulled up") going first ("over") |
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| 19 | ENOUGH |
Opera company that’s awful shut up! (6)
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ENO (English National Opera, "Opera company") + UGH=exclamation of disgust="that's awful" |
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| 20 | YORKER |
Ball in house, on having bounced back (6)
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definition: a type of cricket delivery i.e. a "Ball" from a bowler YORK (the English royal "house" of York), plus RE=about="on" reversed ("having bounced back") |
I had nothing after several passes, not an inkling. So today was a first, in that I used the ‘reveal all’ button. No regrets having done so either.
Thanks Paul and manehi.
A tough but an enjoyable puzzle. Excellent blog.
My faves: TIA MARIA, HYPOTENUSE, ENGAGE, TEAR JERKER and WAKEY-WAKEY.
Great fun – hard work but still most enjoyable. Everything works in the end no matter how silly an answer appears on the face of it.
Thanks Paul and Manehi
And of course – nice to start the morning with Sam Cooke songs going round my head
Thanks Paul and manehi
Question marks of various sorts against 13 clues. I’ll mention just two: SCAMPI isn’t supposed to be fish, but crustaceans (though often isn’t), and SEWERAGE, though often misused, is the pipework that carries the sewage, not the sewage itself.
Typical Paul… lots to admire, lots to irritate… Half the time I look at his clues and think, yes, that’s clever. Half the time I think, oh come on… I mean, AUTO CAT for Jaguar? One or the other, for sure, but both? I often admire Paul’s determination to bend the rules – for instance, some envelope indicators that are amusingly off-piste, and then something like “press” which seems to me not only off-piste but on a different mountainside altogether. So even though I manage to fill the grid, there’s a lingering dissatisfaction with being unable to parse it all successfully – 1d being a case in point. So thanks very much to manehi for doing the hard work, and, yes, thanks to Paul too for some delightful clues and some, well, not so much…
I found it hard to get excited about this puzzle – often Paul’s inventiveness and bizarre cluing is fun to disentangle with a feeling that I’ve had to flex weird bits of my brain to get out of the obvious ruts, or make some intuitive leap. Nothing in these clues really gave me that satisfaction for some reason. Probably “it’s me not you” as (I am told) they say – I hope others enjoyed it more.
Many thanks to manehi – there were several I could not parse, getting fixated on “tiara” in “tia maria” and not seeing the “river -> rive-r” trick. And thanks to Paul for being such a mainstay of our crossword lives and pushing boundaries every time.
I didn’t have anything on the across clues on the first pass, but starting solving down clues. Then it all came together, slowly, and parsed too Lots of groans as I worked out HYPOTENUSE and PASSIONLESS, for example.
Thank you to Paul and manehi.
Wow! I finished a Paul! Go me! Had to come here for a few of the parsings though. Thanks both.
scraggs@1 I did better: ELVISH and the odd ED here and there after two passes, before revealing one by one. Unprecedented in the last sixty years.
Thanks manehi and, I suppose, Paul
I cheated on WAKEY-WAKEY to get me started in that quadrant of the grid, which was resisting all attempts to yield for a very long time. So a DNF for me, though the rest eventually went in. My last one in was HYPOTENUSE, Paul’s standard outrageous non-rhotic homophone. (Before anyone starts in on me, I’m not complaining–I’m simply stating that it’s one of his favorite tricks, and I’m used to it by now.) Incidentally, in my dialect that word has the S sound in “noose,” not the S sound in “news”; is that not true in Britain?
A number of reveals today and I still needed the blog to understand river = TEARER, Jaguar = AUTO CAT and uncharged = IONLESS.
Thanks Paul and manehi
Dave Ellison@9 – good for you for getting further than me!
On another day I might have put this puzzle to one side and come back to it later, as that often yields a respectable amount of answers. Today, however, I just had a feeling that it wasn’t going to be the case, and seeing the parsings above confirms that. It’s good to see that some people have got some enjoyment/satisfaction from it though.
Interesting Postmark – I got AUTO CAT and groaned, ditto ION-LESS, but I grew up in a car centric household, and read chemistry. My first in was ELVISH, so I was prepared for HYPOTENUSE with enough crossers to start working it out.
mrpenney @10 I actually say the NUSE in HYPOTENUSE and news about the same.
A slow but steady solve for me. As usual, some really creative clues. My favorite was HYPOTENUSE, with ICICLE and TEAR JERKER finishing close seconds. Thanks Paul, and thanks to Manehi for a great blog.
Very much to my taste. Tough but fair. What others find dodgy, I see as a top setter finding inventive ways to avoid cliche. Thanks Paul and manehi.
I was just not in the right mindset for Paul today. I eventually solved everything but there were lots I couldn’t parse so definitely a ‘could do better’ grade for my efforts today. Thank you manehi for explaining everything so beautifully.
Like JoFT@ 6 I was stuck on tiara and couldn’t get beyond that but I have to admire the deceptiveness of the clue. Now I can see how it works, TIA MARIA is lovely. The clue, not the drink…
My other favourites were VEG OUT, HYPOTENUSE, PASSIONLESS, LINEAR and SAM COOKE. The latter has given me too many lovely earworms to choose from, so I’ll leave that to others…
Thanks Paul.
[PS Muffin @4, I agree about SEWERAGE… one of my bugbears as is “pressurised” when it should be “pressured”..]
I am pleased to have stuck to my principle of “Always persevere with a Paul Puzzle”.
What seemed impenetrable at the beginning slowly yielded.
One reveal (kicking myself for not working out AUTO CAT for Jaguar) and a couple of incorrect parses ( thought the pots of gravy was a cryptic definition) but I got there in the end.
Thanks all
Got off to a bad start by spending a while trying to work out how a seesaw could be a pointed item and struggled throughout. I liked ENTHUSED and ENOUGH for that moment’s delay between assembling the wordplay and seeing the definition.
Independent 10162 / Hoskins
May 9, 2019
Car, Jaguar possibly, carrying Republican despot (8)
(I think I have come across the Auto cat trick more recently as well)
sewˈerage noun (need I mention the C word?)
1. A system, or the provision, of sewers
2. Sewage
In 1d the Queen of the Night in the Magic Flute is the name of the character, not the title of either of her arias.
Way above my ability? Or do I have a blind spot with Paul’s style? I suspect the second as I am able to complete on almost all other days.
After 20 minutes and just four solutions I revealed all. I’m glad I didn’t persevere, grateful that manehi did.
Rather a joyless struggle for me, I’m afraid. I did manage to finish it, but had to use the check button on several occasions, as some of the constructions were much less than obvious.
Several entries remained unparsed – like JoFT @6 is was distracted by ‘tiara’ for TIA MARIA, although I did spot rive-r. True to form, Paul delivers yet another non-rhotic homophone (he only does it to annoy, because he knows it teases 🙂 ).
Auto car was naughty but nice; I was less amused by ionless. I did like VEG OUT, COLUMN INCHES and the characteristically ribald LINEAR.
Thanks anyway to Paul and the long-suffering manehi
(Chambers does give a secondary definition for SEWERAGE as ‘sewage’, although Wiktionary notes this usage as ‘rare or non-standard’.)
KVa @19
As I said at 4, SEWERAGE is often misused – often enough to get into Chambers, it seems. Why would you use “sewerage” for the liquid when the perfectly accurate (and shorter) “sewage” is available?
I have no idea how I completed this, when so many clues were beyond me.
It took me nearly three hours, the last of which I spent trying to unravel the wordplays.
Too many are too deliberately far-fetched, which I’m sorry to say, doesn’t really equate to clever or skilful, in my book.
As someone recently wrote(!), nobody was forcing me to do this puzzle, and doubtless I will tackle all Pauls in the future, too….. but in future I won’t feel too bad about using the cheat buttons. Life’s too short ( at my age ).
Ta, Mr. P + manehi
Offspinner – do the Aria have original/official names? I thought they were just noted as Aria No ? and the first line used as a title if one is required. Nonetheless Aria 14 is well known as the Queen of the Night Aria
Petert@18: yes, me too. SEESAW fits the wordplay perfectly, but not the def, alas.
Decided fairly quickly that this wasn’t for me today: glad that some enjoyed it.
Noted muffin@23. Thanks. You must be right about the usage of the two words under discussion.
I was just tempted to cite Chambers to defend Paul (one of my favourite setters).
Bunged several of these without parsing. To reiterate what Offspinner@20 says, The Queen of the Night is not an aria. The clue is simply wrong. As for the ghastly ‘homophone’ at 12a the less said the better.
matthew newell @25: Arias are usually named by their opening words (incipits), as you said. The most famous of the Queen of the Night’s numbers is ‘Der Hölle Rache’.
And I agree that the clue is wrong. No wonder I failed to parse it.
Really struggled with this, relying on hope more than anything. So Toast might be SALUTE and Recruit could be ENGAGE with one or two crossers in place. Same with ICICLE, trying out all sorts of ways to enunciate the pointy object to validate its place in the grid. Anyway, pencil them in and try and fathom out the tortuous parsing. Not too impressed by DEEP POCKETS, either. Harrumph. This is pretty much how it went thereafter before I finally threw in the towel with three or four unsolved.
After four solutions last night, I was going to hit the reveal button this morning but thought I’d give it a go, and glad I did. I agree with Oofyprosser @15 about Paul’s inventiveness, he’s a one-off and we are lucky to have him IMO. Another fixated on TIARA and couldn’t parse the POTENUSE bit, groan but funny. Well if no-one else is, here you go
https://youtu.be/wEBlaMOmKV4?si=LpIH47Ql0RMhWN-M.
Ta Paul & manehi.
I’m with the likers. Paul’s terrible puns always make me smile and cryptic definitions are surely part of the fun.
I was A TIARA person, but it helped me solve the clue, so I’m not fussed.One of three unparsed, the others were ENGAGED and DEEP POCKETS, although I should have parsed that one.
Thanks both.
I think the song title sums up my and others experience of this puzzle I suspect.
It was one out of many, don’t get too worked up. I fot one was glad to recognise Q of the N as an opera reference.
Overwrought.
Paul must be our most divisive setter, with many loving his creativity and others frustrated by obscurity. I am in the latter camp. So many of the constructions seem like overreach, and reverse-parsing or failing to parse at all yields little pleasure, even when completing the grid.
For once though I did spot the deleted Dane and the omitted My, so that pleased me.
Thank you Manehi and Paul.
Phew. I finished but left several answers only partly parsed, so really needed manehi’s help here – thank you. Smiled at ENOUGH and ELVISH, and pleased to learn SAM COOKE (knew the songs, but not the singer).
Far too convoluted for a relative newbie. I even had to read several of the explanations twice (!!!), AND after a relatively good week of almost completing the previous day’s puzzles. But fair play only one cricket reference for a change.
Has somebody upset Paul? I mean you can forgive a lot for ‘Elvish’ but haven’t we taken enough punishment now? At least give us a pair of generous crossers to start us off! This is atlas down the trousers time….
One of the toughest puzzles I’ve ever done. I think I was suffering from cryptic concussion by the time I was halfway through this so even some of the easier clues proved bewildering.
I did like THEIST, ELVISH & YORKER
And I had the definition of SEWERAGE as “filthy liquid in” which seems in keeping with Paul’s occasionally allusive style?
Definitely a points win for Paul today
Cheers P&M
Wow! That was a tough one to get into, but it gradually yielded and became easier – the sign of a top-notch puzzle. Hence I agree with Oofyprosser @15’s sentiments.
I tend to agree about the aria (Offspinner @20) ie that it’s the character’s name not the aria’s but I see that the Wikipedia link says one of them is known by her name, so I suppose that’s fair.
An excellent puzzle by my favourite setter.
Thanks Paul and manehi
I got three answers on my first pass, but eventually put it together using copious aids. Congratulations to the people who solved without using aids. Like some others, I didn’t find it a particularly enjoyable experience, although I did manage to parse most.
As I have pointed out on numerous occasions before, non-rhotic pronunciations are the norm (RP) in most dictionaries, so there’s not much point in complaining about it, IMHO. I did like the pun-y pronunciation of HYPOTENUSE, the VEG OUT meat loaf, and SAM COOKE’s fiddle.
Thanks Paul for the brain-stretching and manehi for sorting it all out.
Paul is certainly a divisive setter; my own reactions to his puzzles are divided! Some I enjoy a lot, others much less so – and this was one of the latter. He is undoubtedly very inventive, and adds a lot of humour (usually of a broad, slapstick type), but I often find his crosswords rough-hewn and unpolished. I prefer the elegance of setters such as Vlad and Arachne, who can be both inventive and witty and yet weld their constructions into concise clues with flawless surfaces. De gustibus non disputandum 🙂
muffin @23 – language evolves, largely through collective usage, and so if a word becomes sufficiently “misused” as to make it into a reputable dictionary then it’s no longer a misuse but an acceptable secondary meaning. Otherwise we’d all be collecting our salaries in salt 🙂
High Potter news???
Geometry will never be the same again.
Had to come here for river=tearer but otherwise usual Paul laughs &groans
Rob T @44: I suspect muffin @23 knows that. I think it is just that, for many of us on here, precise and beautiful use of language is a joy, as much as inventiveness and wit, and we just like to have a little grumble. I seem to recall having a good moan about “deplaning” or “detraining” or similar a while back. It’s probably (for me at least) nor more than the lexicographical equivalent of “Kids today…” and my etymological angst is always only temporary but it’s good to have a moan in the company of sympathetic ears. I sometimes think of this place as my cruciverbal Shed…
And regarding salaries and salt, there are at least still people who put salt on their salad, appropriately.
I reckon this one was to punish some solvers for snippiness about one or two of his recent previous puzzles.
I got there in the end via a short cut or two.
[Rob T @44: Of course you’re right – this happens and we can’t do anything about it. But there’s a difference between semantic drift – as in ‘salary’, which you quote, or the shift of ‘silly’ from ‘blessed’ to ‘foolish’ – and the blurring of useful distinctions between words. An example is ‘disinterested’, which is often used where ‘uninterested’ would be more ‘correct’. The result of this is that the expression ‘in the public interest’ can too easily be taken to mean ‘the public are eager to read about it’.
And I share JoFT’s distaste for clumsy and unnecessary coinages: my own pet hate is ‘uptick’, which always gives me the image of a bloodsucking arachnid in the nether regions.]
After doing very well on yesterday’s cryptic, I thought I’d give this one a go despite its being a Paul. Didn’t get a single answer, even after some reveals to provide crossers. It’s the first complete failure I’ve had since I started last year.
A difficult but mostly fun puzzle – although ‘rescue’ really doesn’t work as a container. It’s synonymous with ‘save’, but not with the right sense of the word.
Gervase @48 – I agree that there are degrees of such semantic shift, and if we need an arbiter then the reputable dictionaries are the closest we have.
‘Interestingly‘ I looked up “disinterested” in Chambers to find that it does actually include “uninterested” but qualified with “(revived from obsolescence)” – that’s the first time I’ve seen that particular qualifier! So it used to mean that, then it didn’t, but now it might do again! 🙃
Rob T @51 etc.
What particularly annoys me is when a word changes its meaning to one of another, more accurate, and perfectly adequate word. Examples include irritate/aggravate, centre/epicentre, and…. sewage/sewerage!
I often give up early on Paul, but always hear that once you get started, everything slowly falls into place. When I inevitably give it a go, it’s one of his harder ones!
Got 3 in after the first half hour (MAID, SALUTE, LINEAR) and nothing more after occasionally coming back to it throughout the day. Ah well, there’s always next Paul
Thanks Paul and manehi
When I’m really stuck on a clue, I fill in all the spaces with a vowel, starting with A, and then use the check button. I carry on through the vowels until I’ve got enough letters to either guess the word, or if still stuck, use a word-finder. As I had nothing at all on the 1st and subsequent passes, I had to use this method over and over for this one. I did eventually fill in all the answers, but still needed manehi’s help to parse quite a lot, so all in all, not my most successful attempt. But I’ll keep trying! Thanks to Paul for the challenge, and manehi for the help.
DEEP POCKETS reminds me of a passage from a Michael Bentine novel.
” The trouble with him is that he suffers from a combination of an unfortunate physical deformity with a degree of sartorial extravagance.”
” What do you mean?”
“Short arms and deep pockets.”
Oh deliciously tricky! Hardly anything was in Standard Crossword Speak (cheese = BRIE, my = COR, good = G, and as for river = TEAR…) but you came to expect it in the end and that helped a lot – anything obvious was out.
I only had MAID and ELVISH on first pass, but as a paper solver with the Check Button being write it in in pencil and see if it gets crossers, and absolutely no Reveal All I could not copy Scraggs @1 strategy but limped on until joined by Spouse who pointed out that Hamlet was a DANE and then all went well.
Lovely crossword, much appreciated, thank you Paul and Manehi.
Great earworm, AlanC@31&33! Sam Cooke’s A Change Is Gonna Come, released 60 years ago this month (posthumously, after his death at 33).
“I was born by the river in a little tent | Oh, and just like the river I’ve been a-runnin’ every since.”
My joy at the prospect of a Paul was a little tempered when I went to sleep with only two solved (ELVISH, RHODES). But the morning (and solving aids) brought rapid progress and a full grid, albeit with a couple not fully parsed. Immensely satisfying and amusing as ever with Paul. Thanks to him and manehi.
I usually get Paul’s vibe, but found this too hard to enjoy. Nothing on my first Across pass; only THEIST on first Down pass, and several unparsed. My fault, not his, of course. TTS&B.
GrannyJP @ 54 the last time I used the App I have to confess that my check button tactics had sunk to that too. That button is just too too tempting – cease and desist immediately is my advice! Print it out on paper to make sure! It just makes you feel bad.
These days we‘ll keep a crossword hanging around for days rather than cheat (because missing clues can be so rewarding to get) but if it’s not been very inspiring and we get bored, then come tea-time a word finder is our go-to.
Zoot @ 55 😋
Amma @49, as I’m sure most here would agree, and to quote a fellow climber, “the only failure is no longer trying”. I’ve been trying Cryptics since The Times was half-price to students in the 60s, and I’m still learning the setters’ tricks.
A very long perusal, finally I got ‘enough’. I took the hint and gave up. Shame, I usually enjoy Paul.
Not read the blog yet. I got nothing at all last night (as the vicar said to the actress). But that’s often the case (again – boom!, tish!) so I wasn’t overly worried. But I couldn’t find an in this morning and have just revealed most of the crossword. A few clues in the bottom half seemed eminently gettable but I needed the crossers. Manehi hasn’t flagged this as unusually hard but it was way above my pay grade. Dejectedest 😔
Paul at his best, needed help parsing 11, 18, 1D
Thanks both
Must’ve taken me quarter of an hour to get anything at all, but eventually I got a couple, and then a few more… a very hard but entertaining challenge, and very satisfying to finish. I love Paul’s puzzles, even the fiendishly cross-referenced ones, because I have great confidence in his clues being ultimately parseable, no matter how out-there they might seem initially. Thank you Sir!
Typically idiosyncratic, but it would be a boring game if everyone set in the same way. Didn’t think this was his hardest but I did have extra time available to finish it. Favourites were WAKEY WAKEY (not seen this before), COLUMN INCHES (for the dropped Dane), and SAM COOKE (because it’s Sam Cooke).
I can’t disassociate WAKEY WAKEY from the Billy Cotton Band Show – Saturday nights on BBC in the 60s (maybe earlier – even I’m not old enough to remember). Ring any bells?
Completed without aids, but several unparsed. I’m happy for those who enjoy Paul’s puzzles.
Thanks to Paul and manehi, and especially to AlanC @31 for the video link, opening as it does with Martin addressing a quarter-million people from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963. MLK, whose birthday we celebrated here thus past Monday, is a continuing, precious source of hope.
Like others,I really persevered because I generally find I got there in the end. I kept coming back to this and when l finally gave up with most of it (again like others) Paul isn’t my favourite setter but I usually get some pleasure and recently have enjoyed a few. This was dreadful and not just because it was ‘hard”.
Eventually waded through almost all of this and was finally undone by Paul’s being too helpful in cluing. 15D must have been one of the easier ones if you knew Sam Cooke was a soul musician, which I didn’t (pure ignorance on my part, of course). But I might have got there through the wordplay if not for deciding that Paul would be using “ka” to mean “soul”, and that the solution would be an artist called something like Conka. Ah well.
Meant to say, when I finally checked, I was glad I gave up.
Definitely tough. I finally finished this morning – it was the help of the breakfast coffee that did it.
Manehi, in 23a, the channels are probably shipping roads – the areas outside ports where ships wait for cargoes – rather than having to invoke pathways.
Thanks for the explanations – well done.
Mystogre @73
I thought of shipping roads too, but Wiki tells me that they were safe anchorages rather than channels. But perhaps Paul got that wrong too?
For the sake of balance, I thought this was marvellous. I like a tough crossword now and again, and complaining about how outrageous some of Paul’s clues are is rather like grumbling about the greenness of grass 😁
My first pass yielded nothing but slowly I chipped away and (with some external reference aids) managed to finish with only one reveal – and one that I kicked myself for, THEIST.
For me, the sense of satisfaction of cracking a particularly tough puzzle is far greater than rattling though a more accessible one. But to each their own!
Thanks Paul and manehi.
I got THEIST early and few others after a slog but I don’t think god wanted me to finish this. And there was me thinking I had finally cracked Paul. Thanks for the blog, certainly needed it today.
muffin @67 [ The Billy Cotton Bandshow was on every Sunday lunchtime in the 50s. Little choice then. Two radio stations and no daytime TV.]
I often find Paul tough, but this seemed even tougher than normal. I could probably manage the whimsy but add stretched synonyms/definitions and it’s beyond my ability to complete.
I got 10 (no reveals etc) and in retrospect I’m happy with that. I find that when I come here for the parsing of the ones I have failed on, there is a tension between ones where I say “oh, I get it, that’s good” and ones where I go “oh f… o.., that’s too contrived”
Today the balance sat with the latter 🙂
Thanks Paul and manehi
I cannot remember a tougher daily crossword. Started in bed with a cup of tea and only just finished. Almost gave up more than once, very glad I persevered. Thanks Paul and Manehi!
Phew. I eventually finished with a bit of help from the check button, but this was tough. The grid was tough here, since I had absolutely no luck with the long crossers until almost everything else was in. Is the “Dane” in 4/5 considered an indirect anagram? I guess not, because you have a set pool of letters from which to subtract a synonym for “Hamlet” before anagramming.
Oddly, the northeast was the last quarter to get started (didn’t happen till I got COLUMN) even though the wordplay there is more straightforward than the rest. Appreciated TEETOTAL spelled out and didn’t get it until I thought “maybe dry is TT somehow?” Then worked around the long ones to the LOI YORKER.
I liked SEWERAGE because it can be typed with the left hand only and there was a kitten on my right hand at the time. (It was also the only one I solved while the kitten was on my right hand.) About the discussion, from a solving standpoint it’s friendlier when something is technically imprecise but something people use–like SCAMPI perhaps–than when it’s something that’s a technically correct usage but is never seen outside the pages of Chambers.
Hard work but enjoyable. However, as a civil engineer with over 20 years in the water industry the incorrect use of ‘sewerage’ for the liquid that it carries has always been a pet hate. Whatever Chambers might say doesn’t make it right!
Nevertheless, as one of my favourite setters, Paul is forgiven.
Thanks to Paul and manehi.
Oh I forgot to say Thanks Paul and manehi!
So many cross words in these comments, and so many here out to cross swords with the setter. Hey Grauniads, these puzzles are called cryptic for a reason. And they’re called puzzles for a reason. Annoyed with myself for inadvertently pressing ‘Reveal’, which deprived me of the pennydrop pleasure of getting ‘deep pockets’. But that’s on me. Thanks for the revelling, Paul, and manehi, thanks for the unravelling.
14d SEWERAGE – all 19th century – “1.a. 1834– Drainage by means of sewers; a method or system of draining by sewers.
1.b. 1856– The carrying away of refuse.
2. 1834– concrete. Sewers collectively; the system of sewers belonging to a particular locality.
3.a. 1851– Sewage.
3.b. 1859– figurative. Moral filth or garbage.”
[I remember The Billy Cotton Band Show as a TV show (1956-68) with the earworm Somebody Stole My Gal.]
I usually give Paul a miss but last week I persevered and was able to complete it, so I thought I’d try this one. After completing AUTOCRAT, SALUTE and COLUMN INCHES I gave up and revealed the rest. Even then I couldn’t parse most of them. Thanks manehi for the enlightenment and Paul for the brain exercise.
Great stuff as usual from Paul, though getting started was a challenge.
I should have seen “river” = “tearer” – having lived in The Land Of Riven Flags for some years – but had to come here for that.
Thanks all.
For me this was a “hard but fair”, thoroughly enjoyable workout. Got there in the end, without use of the reveal or check button, and with only a couple still unparsed (TEARJERKER and HYPOTENUSE). Great stuff, and good to have a chewier one now and again, big thanks to Paul and Manehi.
We are fans of Paul, but this one tested our loyalty. Finally finished this morning – without aids – thinking we must be losing our solving ability with age.
So it’s heartening to find others struggled too, and it’s satisfying to have completed something tough, even though it was not always enjoyable.
First post for me although I have been avidly reading the thread for a good while. I didn’t have time (i.e. hours) to gnaw away at this so cheated half way through.
In general I admire Paul‘s crosswords, they are fiendishly clever, but a bit over the mark for my needs: if I take a couple of hours to solve a crossword I wonder if my time would have been better spent otherwise. For the advanced solver they must be a great joy.
When you don’t understand the parsing it must have been difficult. Took me ages to understand the cheesy bit in 16dn. I live in Germany and we don’t come across Port Salut that often.
After reading through the stream of comments above concerning Paul’s peculiar style, I feel that there is a tendency amongst us solvers to conflate the semantics of “tough/chewy/convoluted/tricky/obscure (on the one hand) and (on the other) wrong/inaccurate/loose.
My wife and I do the Guardian crossword every Thursday evening, on-line, with another couple, a tradition that started during Covid, and we have continued for the fun of it. We are all experienced solvers, and we give ourselves an hour, by which time we have normally completed the puzzle, and if we haven’t, we will reveal the remaining answers. After half an hour on this one, we had solved one clue – 23 ac, so we gave up, and did Wednesday’s Brummie instead. That was a fun puzzle, unlike Paul’s. I had been enjoying some of Paul’s recent work, but this one just seemed to be deliberately obscure, both with the definitions and the wordplay.
Never mind! It’s good that some people enjoyed it.
Muffin @67 & Zoot @77: yes, The Billy Cotton Bandshow was on Sunday afternoons in the 50s. It was soon after we had lunch, and just the words Wakey-Wakey take me straight back to our dining room, with my father turning on the radiogram (who remembers those??) and I hear the exact intonation of the shout!!
I found this a hard slog with excessive resort to the thesaurus app. As usual I solve these the morning after and today there’s not much else to do apart from watching out for the flying debris the weatherman promised us.
Failed to parse TIA MARIA and as HYPOTENUSE was the last one in couldn’t be bothered to.
Enjoyed the metallic crunch of nuts and bolts. Very patient blog! Loved ENTHUSED, PASSIONLESS, COLUMN INCHES, DEEP POCKETS, and LINEAR.
A quibble about SEWERAGE. A Pandit is an expert, a teacher in a conventional educational sense. A Sage is not a Pandit. He is a wise man, often an ascetic or recluse.
Thanks manehi and Paul.
Parsing is usually my strong point but I struggled with a lot of these. Interesting to see what how grumpy people get when they can’t do these things. I just shrug and move on.
Normally I really enjoy Paul and feel on his wavelength but felt this was composed by someone else.
Sometimes I can solve a Paul crossword in minutes, sometimes I have to go back to it the next day. It’s always rewarding, funny, clever, and makes me think. I do not understand why people dis him so much. He’s inventive, witty, sometimes a bit brazen. His clues always make sense. I don’t forget his crossword after Araucaria died, which he did with several other setters (including Shed I think) which included the words ‘love Paul’.
I know I’m far too late commenting, but I actually think Manehi (and thus many other commentators) has got 1d wrong. It is more simply “they call me” = “I AM” and “Queen of the night, say” = “ARIA”.
Great, and nicely challenging puzzle, and difficult to finish in one sitting – took me three or four, certainly.
None solved on first pass, so stood down. Nice to see I wasn’t alone, starting with the very first commenter! I enjoyed reading all the clues and admiring how thoroughly Paul had hidden their meanings from me
Andy Luke@98, I don’t see a difference. Your parsing is exactly what manehi has in the blog! “I AM ARIA = ‘they call me Queen of the Night, say'”