Guardian 29,616 / Paul

92 comments on “Guardian 29,616 / Paul”

1. Another treat with a theme right up my street. Favourites were PARANOID (a nod to OZZY maybe, who will perform for the last time later this year), ROSE PINK, PRINCE HARRY, LION PASSANT, JANE EYRE, PASSPORT, DUKE, HIEROPHANT (nho), DULCIMER and PLATEAUX. Initially, I had another solution for PASTRY, which I don’t think even Paul would try to get away with. I won’t expand! And SEAL is another LEAD SINGER. Great fun.

   Ta Paul & Eileen.

2. Absolutely brilliant fun! So many great clues and a well used theme.

   Loved RESIDUE, ASEXUAL, PLATEAUX and JANE EYRE particularly.

   Thanks Paul and Eileen

3. Wonderfully clever and barrels of fun, as always with Paul. (I just wish there were more themed clues: I liked this theme.)

   Thanks Paul and Eileen.

4. And (Robert) PLANT as well.

5. Lovely puzzle – enjoyed immensely

   Thanks Paul and Eileen – didn’t / don’t quite understand parsing of Duke. Loved clues for Prince Harry and Dulcimer

6. Matthew @5 – If you take the LEAD (W) off WELLINGTON, you get ELLINGTON. Both are DUKEs.

7. Fantastic. No hope parsing JANE EYRE. Never thought of that donkey and Jan is summer here. Easy enough to solve with the checked squares I had. Hard to pick a favourite. Maybe LABOUR CAMP or LION PASSANT which did need a little research. The thematic material was excellent. My tops there would be PRINCE HARRY for the definition or STINGY for the wit. Thanks Eileen and Paul.

8. matthew newell @5 – sorry, I can’t think of another way to explain DUKE. Can anyone else help, please?
   (I see Crispy @6 has done so – many thanks!)

9. Only got to the theme via 9a PARANOID. Hadn’t heard of Rose in ROSE PINK, so a case of trying to find a suitable shade of the colour, nor Fish (or Marilllion, come to that). Thanks. Eileen, for explaining the Tic in TRAGIC, I thought it was just a tic being an eccentricity of sorts. I’m not well up on heraldic features either, so had to grind out the anagram for LION PASSANT. Was pleased to get HIEROPHANT. Did laugh at PRINCE HARRY, though, and liked the rest of Eileen’s favourites. Thanks to her and Paul

10. Wellington and Ellington were both dukes? With the lead i.e W or without.

11. Some really great clues, JANE EYRE, LION PASSANT, PRINCE HARRY, combined with some fairly obtuse solving on my part. I discovered lots of singers called Dove, before the more obvious ROSE came to mind. Nice to see what Roz calls Goddard in D.Ross. I always struggle to think of an example

12. Entertaining puzzle, which took me a while to get going. I had a sinking feeling when my first two entries were DULCIMER and HIEROPHANT – both familiar words, as it happens, but not exactly Basic English…. Once I had cracked LEAD SINGER (which took an unconscionably long time) I managed to squeeze out the rest. LOI was OVID – I kept looking at it the wrong way round.

    Many clever constructions here – my favourites were PARANOID, LION PASSANT, JANE EYRE, DUKE, PLATEAUX.

    Thanks to Paul and Eileen

13. Not my cup of brew. Once I realised that many clues required guessing the name of some singer, I gave up.

14. Thanks Paul, thoroughly enjoyed that! I loved JANE EYRE, RESIDUE and PLATEAUX. HIEROPHANT was a new word for me but easily deducible. I love it when you work a new word out and then find in the dictionary.

15. Thanks Crispy

    I was taking the first letter off Duke, off Lead, but not off Wellington. Obvious when explained (and Eileen your explanation was fine it was my comprehension which was sadly lacking) – just one of those blind spots.

16. Loved this and I’m sure our resident quibblers will have plenty to keep them busy so something for everyone 🙂

    First thoughts were JANE EYRE or Moby Dick but had to write it down to see the parsing – very good. Are there other (4,4) novels?

    Rock & Roll rumour has it that AXL ROSE may be an anagram

    Had to check WIDGEONS – thought it might be a portmanteau word for something

    Cheers E&P

17. bodycheetah @16 – George Eliot’s ADAM BEDE immediately springs to mind but I bet there are more.

18. [No link for 12a D.Ross? Petert@11, Did you mean Gossard?]

19. A Paul puzzle that I enjoyed (and completed). I feel like I was overdue a reminder that such things do happen, so this was welcome. Playful but not overly complicated. My only quibble is that rap = tuneless is enough of an overgeneralisation for that part of the clue not to have meant anything to me.

20. [bodycheetah@16, (AXL ROSE)*, with enumeration (4,3)? 😉]

21. SAX LORE, obviously.

22. This was a good one and as accessible as a Paul can be for me. As ever, no quibbles from me. Thanks Paul and Eileen.

23. It’s very rare to see the ducks with a D in them (and I don’t mean they should be UCKS!)

24. No hope with this theme. As soon as I found it I gave up

25. Loved this tuneful offering, expecting to see Plant (off to see the new Led Zeppelin film tomorrow) pop up somewhere, but plenty of other great singers to be found elsewhere. With Paul I usually have to retro parse several if I am fortunate enough to finish, which I was today. No matter. The “Spare” PRINCE HARRY did make me laugh, and loi was the double helping of ROSE PINK

26. 🙂 Loved the puzzle. {Baby Love (4,4) is a 2022 novel by Dame Jacqueline Wilson. [Also an earworm (1964)]}

27. FrankieG Yes Gossard. Damn autocorrect.

28. Gone Girl… Wolf Hall… (why did that one take so long?)

29. Remember those Blue Peter badges? I’m seriously thinking of getting some little round badges with “I Completed A Paul! ” on them.
    Ask if you want one!
    This one took me half a lifetime to crack, but I grudgingly admit, it’s a good one.
    Not so keen on LENNOX, 25ac, which sort of gives LENNO, and a crafty ” last letter substitution ” would have been more accurate.
    As usual, even though I went gungadin correctly, there is one newcomer to my WHY LIST:- HIEROPHANT.

    Good stuff, both Paul and the redoubtable Eileen

30. The enjoyable version of Paul today. The (W)Ellington DUKEs are a new twist on a classic crossword clue, though I can’t remember how the original goes. I knew that a HIEROPHANT was a word, but not what it was. Completely missed the Lennon/LENNOX business: I found the singer but was looking for a subtraction rather than a substitution: maybe LENNOX with NO X is LEN (except that it doesn’t work). Didn’t get character = I = eye at all.

    Anyway: liked PRINCE HARRY for the def, JANE EYRE for Eeyore, and DULCIMER, WIDGEONS and LION PASSANT because they are just such splendid words (yes, the ducks are usually spelt without the D: I hadn’t noticed).

    Thanks Paul and Eileen. More like this please.

31. Something like “A Duke beheaded is still a Duke” to give ELLINGTON?

32. ronald @25: PLANT is part of the anagram fodder for LION PASSANT. Enjoy the pic.

33. Eileen, if you cold-solved the singers, I am in awe! Mrs ginf, a pancultural polymath, would have loved you!

34. AlanC@32, ah, but that wasn’t Plant with a capital P, so that didn’t really count for me, I was half expecting to see him appearing in the grid🙂…

35. AlanC@32, ah, but that wasn’t Plant with a capital P, so that didn’t really count for me, I was half expecting to see him appearing in the grid🙂…

36. grantinfreo @33
    Not every one of them, I confess – but I was surprised at how many I knew / had heard of.

    gladys @31 – yes, that sounds familiar but I haven’t found it yet (or was that a suggestion of your own?).

    I did find this, from my blog of a Brummie puzzle in 2020:
    “Duke, having lost weight, is a quite different duke (9)
    ELLINGTON
    [w]ELLINGTON (the Iron Duke) minus w (weight) – I’ve seen this a few times before, including in the last week in a different paper, but it may be new to some people, who will therefore like it.”
    As you say, it is a classic!

37. Tomsdad @9 Merriam-Webster (not US myself, just the first to come up) gives “eccentricity” as one synonym of “tic”. I think Eileen was overthinking it.

38. As usual with Paul crosswords, I found this tough. I can’t remember how I eventually got the key LEAD SINGER, and I had to look up Fish as a singer.

    I did like the STINGY pun, the Spare PRINCE HARRY, the dross RESIDUE, the wordplay for PLATEAUX, and the wordplay and clever surface for INDIRA. I assume the loveless donkey in winter in 3D was a JAN EEYORE; the ‘in’ was somewhat misleading.

    Thanks Paul and Eileen.

39. RussThree @37, this is the explanation for TIC in the ODE: • an idiosyncratic and habitual feature of a person’s behaviour: they’ve developed a verbal tic which involves repeating odd bits of each other’s utterances.

40. … I meant JAN EEY(o)RE

41. gladys @30: I knew the word HIEROPHANT as the name sometimes given to one of the cards in a Tarot pack, and it leapt out at me from the anagrist – unlike the much less esoteric LEAD SINGER, which took much head scratching. Funny how the mind works…

42. Thanks Paul and Eileen.

    I didn’t know the Fish lead singer, but figured out the answers through the crossers and the anagram. That helped everything else fall into place, and I was pleased to pull the other lead singers out of the trivia bag in my brain. I’m mostly the right generation, which helps. Though I doubt it’s an intended subtext of the clue, I liked that the X in LENNOX suggests the X chromosome (two XXs make a female, XY makes a male).

43. Eileen @36: Not that exact wording, but beheading certainly came into it somewhere.

    Gervase@41: yes, that’s probably where I’ve seen it before.

44. A hard puzzle (built around such a crafty definition at 21,19) but worth the effort. My quibbles are regarding using surnames to represent people. Sometimes this was excusable (Dion, Harry) but in a couple of cases it stretched beyond acceptability. Firstly, Rose is too vague a name to he taken to represent Axl Rose. And, worse, nobody calls Annie Lennox by her surname, so Lennox isn’t really acceptable as the answer when defined as “lead singer”.

    p.s. I think pastry and danish are synonyms, so no question mark is required. “Danish pastry” is effectively a tautology.

45. Adrian @44: Danish pastry is not a tautology, but the full name of a baked good often abbreviated (particularly in the US) to ‘danish’. If the words were synonymous, a sausage roll or an Eccles cake would also be ‘danish’, which is clearly not the case. Eileen is right – it’s a definition by example 🙂

46. PS: in Denmark the ‘Danish pastry’ is known as Wienerbrød – Viennese bread – though in Austria it’s a Kopenhagener Gebäck 🙂

47. Third week running that I completed a Paul. Yay, go me. As always I needed a lot of help though.

48. Adrian @44 – the accepted protocol for quoting names in print is that the surname is the identifier, not the first name. Look at any newspaper story – after the first mention of the full name, the surname alone is generally used. LENNOX is absolutely acceptable as a definition by example of the phrase LEAD SINGER, as is eg HARRY.

49. This was Paul at his brilliant best. I think I must have fallen for most of his red fishy things. I thought I was off to a flying start with PASTRY. However I came unstuck with the next across clue when realised I needed to solve 19,21 before trying to get further. I then discovered the existence of the SIDE ANGLER fish which didn’t help at all. The penny finally dropped and I got LEAD SINGER (to make it worse, I’d even seen the band about forty years ago). So far it appears I was the only one to make that mistake. It’s very hard to pick favourites and I agree with Eileen’s choices. I couldn’t parse DUKE so thank you to everyone for clarifying that. It’s now top of the podium followed by the loveless donkey and in third spot PRINCE HARRY. So many earworms to choose from. Thank you to Eileen and Paul.
    Adding a Brummie earworm just because. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!
    https://youtu.be/0qanF-91aJo?si=aPcYuMmFAYET1Pny

50. Maybe tautology is putting it too strongly, but the two words (danish and pastry) are often used on their own, and are often synonymous. (This is analogous to bunk and bed.)

    btw, no-one who wants a sausage roll would ask for a pastry.

51. Adrian @50
    That’s like saying LATTE and COFFEE are synonymous because people say “latte” when they want coffee!

52. Newbie here. Pls can someone explain the ref to 19 and 21 in some of the clues. Is it as simple as looking at the clues/answers to 19 and 21. Many thanks

53. Funnily enough , I’ve just discovered that Hierophant is the title of an album by a band called Sangdragon. I wonder if Paul knew?

54. Nunoesque @52 Yes!

55. Nunoesque @52
    Numbers in clues usually refer to solutions of the numbered clues, but be aware that this isn’t always the case!

56. Bodycheetah @16: Moby Dick did cross my mind, since Moby is another singer.

    Axl ROSE, then known as Bill Bailey, grew up where I did (the Lafayette, Indiana, area). Everybody’s from somewhere, I guess. For years, he came to town almost annually for a day or two to see his mother, which sounds out of character for him, doesn’t it. Anyway, he was often spotted at a local pizza joint when he was back home.

    The only one of the singers here that I hadn’t heard of was Fish. I worked out that keystone answer fairly early on from the anagram only, which I’m proud of. I never got around to looking him up, but I guessed (correctly) that he sang for a British band of some sort that never caught on over here.

    Also, nice to see a singer-themed puzzle with Cher not figuring in for a change.

57. [Mr P @56
    Earworm. It’s from an album I listen to a lot, called “Misplaced childhood”]

58. I knew all the lead singers except for FISH (lead singer of Marillon) – never heard of the man or his band.

    I could not parse 8d apart from reference to Duke of Wellington.

    New for me: LION PASSANT.

59. I’d never heard of most of the singers, so the theme was no help and I didn’t catch the references in most of the clues. I have heard of Eeyore, though, so shame on me for missing that.

    Eileen didn’t mention (maybe everybody knows it) that Prince Harry’s title Spare refers to “an heir and a spare,” as then Prince Charles referred to his two sons.

    Thanks to Paul and Eileen.

60. Valentine @59
    “Heir and a spare” dates back well before this current lot.
    In noble families it was traditional for the eldest son to go into the military, and the second to join the church, where he was less likely to be killed in action.

61. Hi Valentine @5

    I did ponder whether to do so but decided that everybody did know!

62. @59 valentine and also the title of Harry’s autobiography “Spare”.

63. It may be coincidence, but Fish starts his final tour next week, before retiring to the Western Isles.
    Many thanks to Eileen and Paul

64. paul@ 62 I think Valentine meant the title of Prince Harry’s memoir – as in the blog.

65. Gave it as soon as I realised I was not getting the bloke from Merillion.

66. Eileen, yes, that’s exactly what I was referring to. Thanks.

    Valentine

67. The “standard feature” is a reference to the British standard egg, as certified according to the .

    Look in your fridge and you will see a LION PASSANT stamped on every (British) egg.

68. Darn it, I ran out of editing time trying to work out the syntax for embedded links! Never mind, the meaning is clear.

69. No problem, TonyG, if you’re still there. The meaning is perfectly clear and you’re quite right: I was taking ‘standard’ as referring to flags. Many thanks for that.

70. muffin @57: thanks for that. In return, my favorite moments by the other singers here. No links, since that would put this comment into moderation purgatory.

    Pink: Just Give Me a Reason (a duet with Nate Ruess of Fun; if you want a solo Pink song, let’s go with So What)
    Annie Lennox / Eurythmics: Here Comes the Rain Again
    Debbie Harry / Blondie: The Tide is High
    Prince: When Doves Cry
    Sting / The Police: Every Breath You Take
    Axl Rose/ Guns n Roses: This is the hard one, since most of the best GnR songs are more about Slash (the guitarist) than Axl. If you want just Axl singing, that’s the song Patience, but that misses the point of him, which is that in his prime he was one of the very few people who could sing metal without screaming, so the right choice for that is Welcome to the Jungle. If metal isn’t your thing, though, the best choice is Sweet Child o’ Mine.
    Celine Dion: not my thing, really, but My Heart Will Go On shows off her range pretty well.

71. [The Royal Standard of the UK has 2 x three English lions passant (guardant), one Scottish rampant, and an Irish harp.
    (In Scotland only one trio of English passants, two Scottish rampants, and the same harp)]

72. Reminded me why I love Paul!

73. Glad to finish this one! It took a fair while even though it was clearly right up my street. I was just last night reading a book that mentions a HIEROPHANT, and I’ll be seeing Fish on his farewell tour in about a fortnight. (The Tolkien fans out there may be pleased to note that there exists a Fish-era Marillion covers band called, inevitably, Stillmarillion…)

74. FrankieG @71 – many thanks for that.

75. Hi Muffin @55 Thank you

76. A set of very good clues indeed. Top marks for JANE EYRE, MEOW and PLATEAUX.

77. [muffin @56, many thanks, a real blast from the past.
    mrpenney @70, a very good list. I’d definitely go with Sweet Child for GnR. For Blondie mine would be Hanging on the telephone just because in my misspent youth I’d occasionally ring a pal and sing it down the phone to them. Nostalgia ain’t what it used to be…]

78. Late to the game. But I didn’t see any discussion on how ASEXUAL=NEUTRAL. Certainly can’t find that particular definition in the dictionary. Anyway, BISEXUAL would seem more appropriate: neutral as somewhere in the middle of binary extremes, e.g. positive-negative. A DNF for me, not unusual with a Paul.

    Always appreciate your erudite analysis Eileen, plus a grudging nod to the brilliant Paul who beat me yet again.

79. Sorry for the repetition Eileen@64 and Valentine@59. That’ll teach me to read the blog properly before commenting 🙂

80. …reaches the parts that …. One knows it will be fun!
    Blessings, Paul

81. {The Supremes’ former first lady appeared elsewhere on this day}

82. Loved this puzzle (completed well after the main event). Many many thanks to Paul and Eileen.

83. A truly enjoyable puzzle! Maybe it’s just me, but I liked the feint with Gandhi, had forgotten Indira and was surprised by the result of my parsing. Thanks to Paul and Eileen.

84. Some great clues (JANE EYRE and LION PASSANT) but overall, very very hard for me to be on the same wave length as Paul. Too many interpretations that are well-nigh impossible to guess until after the answer is filled in (CAMP=PARTY, PASS=MOVE, TIC=ECCENTRIC…).

85. As with all Pauls – totally above my pay grade. I really dislike crosswords that hinge on you getting one clue correct in order to have a chance of solving the puzzle, especially when that is as obscure as the lead singer of a band who, let’s face it, were never fashionable and were a decade or two too late. I was listening to post punk and reggae when Marillion were hitting the stage. As was anyone with an ounce of cool!
    With the key of LEAD SINGER in hand I can see that it could have been a fun puzzle. I’m glad so many people enjoyed it.

86. Why does “classy” give “U” in 12a?

    I got the lead singer clues and most of the lead / singer-themed clues (liked “stingy”, “prince harry”). I liked the Jane Eyre clue. I thought HAMLET for 1a and then something more “edgy” like AlanC @1 alluded to.

    Paul’s cryptic level is generally out of my league so lots of cross clues and guess / check, and the odd reveal.

    Thanks Eileen and Paul.

87. AR@86 U and non-U is just snobbery . Introduced by Alan Ross and popularised by Nancy Mitford , certain words said by the posh and other words used by us commoners.
    Paul has now had 7 themes in the last 9 puzzles, Perhaps his next theme should be oscitation.

88. AR @86, if you’re still there – I’ve only just seen your comment. I don’t think I recognise your initials, so welcome to the site if you’re a new commenter and my apologies if not.

    If you are new to cryptic crosswords, it’s well worth filing away U = posh: it crops up quite frequently and raises a query from time to time. See here for an explanation, with examples:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U_and_non-U_English

89. Roz @86 Thanks for the explanation and historical background!

90. Eileen @88 Thank you. I am relatively new to fifteensquared.

    I’ve come to cryptics only in middle age, but initially only did lovattspuzzles – an Australian site where the cryptics are full-sized grids more squarely aimed at beginner level. There isn’t any attempt to misdirect and the parsing is straightforward. The puzzles do have crosswordy definitions like “Jack”, “Tar”, “Salt” for a sailor, “ER”, “Anne” for queen, “RA” for artist etc. I started the Guardian quick cryptic / quiptic so sometimes post about those.

    At the minute, I’m about Everyman / Quiptic / Monday Guardian cryptic level but occasionally there are some other Guardian cryptics that I can make progress on. I got a lot further on this Paul than last week’s (puzzle theme) where I only got one or two clues.

    Fifteensquared is a wonderful resource, so thanks again.

91. If Paul had constructed a puzzle on a theme of lied singers, with clues for Fischer, Dieskau, Holzmair, Bostridge, Ameling, Hotter, etc., it would have been up my alley but would have generated howls of protest.

    The theme puzzles I like are those that do not require knowledge of the subject in order to solve the puzzle. If you happen to have the knowledge there’s an added fillip of delight, but if you don’t, the clues stand on their own and the puzzle is still accessible and enjoyable.

    I did like the two DUKEs at 8d and the loveless donkey at 3d JANE EYRE, so thanks Paul and Eileen for the puzzle and excellent blog.

92. Very pleased to complete a Paul!* Almost gave up a few times, but it yielded very gradually and very satisfyingly. Lucky to get the keynote clue through PARANOID, and the great Canadian singer Celine Dion. Couldn’t parse DUKE, but it’s obvious now. Very entertaining set of clues!

    * But with an asterisk, as I had to make a correction for 5d SLIMIEST through carelessness

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