The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/29700.
Paul in fine form, with a puzzle woven around the keystone clue 29A GERMANY (which I got via 12A LESSEN), with some tricky parsing.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | SCANDAL |
Newspaper seller in survey wanting youth back (7)
|
| A charade of SCAN (‘survey’) plus DAL, a reversal (‘back’) of LAD (‘youth’). The efinition is cryptic, suggesting a newsagent rather than the required sales driver. | ||
| 5 | LEAPING |
On the rise, she finally featured in City of Angels and You’ve Got Mail (7)
|
| An envelope (‘featured in’) of E (‘shE finally’) in LA (Los Angeles, ‘City of Angels’ plus PING (various related uses in computing, including a message sent over the internet: ‘You’ve got mail’). | ||
| 10 |
See 22 Down
|
|
| 11 | SHOWGROUND |
Who’s for arena? (10)
|
| Wordplay in the answer: an anagram (GROUND) of SHOW is ‘who’s’. | ||
| 12 | LESSEN |
Come down in city in 29 after landing, originally (6)
|
| A charade of L (‘Landing originally’) plus ESSEN (‘city in 29’ – GERMANY). | ||
| 13 | HANGOVER |
Relic back in bag in city in 29 (8)
|
| An envelope (‘in’) of G (‘back in baG‘) in HANOVER (‘city in 29’ – GERMANY). | ||
| 14 | HATCHLING |
Fish placed by entrance for chick (9)
|
| A charade of HATCH (‘entrance’) plus LING (‘fish’). | ||
| 16 | BONNY |
Charming – as a city in 29? (5)
|
| A typical Pauline whimsy – BONN-Y (‘as a city in 29’ – GERMANY). | ||
| 17 | MUNCH |
Champ in city in 29, one knocked out (5)
|
| A subtraction: MUNICH (‘city in 29’ – GERMANY) minus the I (‘one knocked out’). | ||
| 19 | STAND BY ME |
My band, set to play classic song (5,2,2)
|
| An anagram (‘to play’) of ‘my band set’. | ||
| 23 | COLONIAL |
Settler, swimmer from city in 29, could you say? (8)
|
| Sounds like (‘could you say?’) COLOGNE EEL (‘swimmer from city in 29’ – GERMANY). | ||
| 24 | MANAGE |
Dog trouble securing a lead (6)
|
| An envelope (‘securing’) of ‘a’ in MANGE (‘dog trouble’). | ||
| 26 | RIVER BASIN |
Deponent wearing fluttering sari in catchment area (5,5)
|
| An envelope (‘wearing’) of VERB (‘deponent’ – indication by example, unannounced) in RIASIN, an anagram (‘fluttering’) of ‘sari in’. | ||
| 27 | HIYA |
Possible opener further up by one’s ear? (4)
|
| Sounds like (‘by one’s ear’) HIGHER (‘further up’). | ||
| 28 | ENSNARE |
Catch partners in North America gatecrashing earlier (7)
|
| A double envelope (‘in’ and ”gatecrashing’) of SN (‘parners’ – in bridge, for example) in NA (‘North America’) in ERE (‘earlier’). At a guess, some may treat this as a single envelope with contents NS NA, with ‘in’ doing nothing in particular. | ||
| 29 | GERMANY |
Country, origin unspecified (7)
|
| A charade of GERM (‘origin’) plus ANY (‘unspecified’). | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 2 | CHIMERA |
Striker of note, a fantasy (7)
|
| A charade of CHIMER (‘striker’ – a clock, for example) plus A (‘note’ of musical scale’) – or, if you prefer CHIMER (‘striker of note’) plus ‘a’. | ||
| 3 | NEEDS |
Doctor leaving Dresden for surgery – must partner? (5)
|
| An anagram (‘for surgery’) of ‘[Dr]esden’ minus DR (‘doctor leaving’). The definition is a reference to the expression “Needs must (when the devil drives)”. | ||
| 4 | ARSENAL |
Strikers in reserve team (7)
|
| Double definition, the first being the repository (‘reserve’) of weapons (‘strikers’) after which the second, the soccer side, was named. | ||
| 6 | ENGINE |
Three points and incarceration of drink driver? (6)
|
| An envelope (‘incarceration’) of GIN (‘drink’) in E N E (‘three points’ of the compass). | ||
| 7 | PHOTOBOMB |
Hoot when swerving a lot passing leader in panic – crash still? (9)
|
| A charade of P (‘leader in Panic’) plus HOTO, an anagram (‘when swerving’) of ‘hoot’ plus BOMB (‘a lot’ in price). To PHOTOBOMB is to appear unwelcomely in a ‘still’ taken for another purpose. | ||
| 8 | NANKEEN |
Cotton has old lady itching (7)
|
| A charade of NAN (‘old lady’) plus KEEN (‘itching’ – as very eager). | ||
| 9 | NOTHING TO LOSE |
English not too shabby, might as well enter test? (7,2,4)
|
| An anagram (‘shabby’) of ‘English not too’. | ||
| 15 | CYCLOPEAN |
In rotation, work on an epic (9)
|
| A charade of CYCLOPE, an envelolpe (‘in’) of OP (‘work’) in CYCLE (‘rotation’); plus ‘an’. | ||
| 18 | UTOPIAN |
Fairy-tale ending for you and I in panto after transformation (7)
|
| An charade of U {‘ending for yoU ‘ – no textspeak here) plus TOPIAN, an envelope (‘in’) of ‘I’ in TOPAN, an anagram (‘after transformation’) of ‘panto’. | ||
| 20 | NOMINEE |
Agent called before, one day turning up earlier (7)
|
| A charade of NOMI, a reversal (‘turning up’ in a down light) of I MON (‘one day’ – Monday) plus NÉE (‘called before’). One definition of a NOMINEE is a person who acts on behalf of another, especially to keep the latter’s identity hidden. | ||
| 21 | MEG RYAN |
Player from 29 (3,4)
|
| An anagram (‘from’) of GERMANY (’29’). | ||
| 22, 10 | TIMBERLINE |
Sentence about city in 29’s growth limit (10)
|
| An envelope (‘about’) of BERLIN (‘city in 29’ -GERMANY) in TIME (prison ‘sentence’) | ||
| 25 | NAHUM |
Somewhat benign, a humane prophet (5)
|
| A hidden answer (‘somewhat’) in ‘benigN A HUMane’. |
Excellent puzzle. Loved some cryptic/unconventional defs.
LEAPING, COLONIAL, NEEDS, PHOTOBOMB and TIMBERLINE were my
top picks. Thanks Paul.
Superb blog as usual, PeterO. Thanks.
Good fun I thought. Clever way to integrate a theme without making any given solution an actual German city. MEG RYAN is an anagram I’ll remember.
I had ENSNARE as a double envelope as per the blog.
Thanks to Peter and Paul.
Curious that MEG RYAN ‘featured’ in both ‘City of Angels’ and ‘You’ve Got Mail’ at 5a.
No rude ones but a groaner or two — Cologne eel indeed! and Bonn-y, tho the -y trick is common, eg the army octopus. Hangover for relic is a nice oblique, an embarrassing lag before the rusty old tracks shifted from ‘city made of reverse relic inside bag’.
[Plus associations.17ac took me to the Domicil Club in Schwabing, while 4d evoked Emirates, where my little sis recently saw Declan Rice score those two goals [youtube — amazing]].
All great fun, many thanks Paul and Peter.
Thanks Paul and PeterO
A DNF – I revealed LEAPING, though I did parse it after. Favourite MUNCH for the misleading “champ”.
I realise it was needed for the construction, but the “you and I” as object in 18d grated.
Warning to all that there’s a massive spoiler in the Gruan’s comments. I’ve reported that so hopefully it will be removed.
Fortunately I saw that after I’d completed, albeit with a couple not fully parsed. So a points victory to Paul, but I feel I am gradually getting on his wavelength as this is the first of his where I have even got that far.
Thanks to Paul for the workout & to PeterO for elucidating the parsings.
Work of art by Paul! My favorites were NANKEEN, SHOWGROUND, and ENSNARE (the last piece of the puzzle for me). Thanks Paul for a very enjoyable evening solve. And thanks to PeterO for a great blog.
muffin@5
UTOPIAN
Hadn’t noticed the anomaly.
For you & me -it should be. Right?
I have to admit, rather sheepishly, that when my first one in was the hidden NAHUM, giving me the M in the key clue at 29ac, that I looked up a list of all the countries in the world with M as their fourth letter. Revealing only GERMANY and Denmark.
Onwards and upwards from there this morning…
Thanks PeterO. I also went from LESSEN to GERMANY, which I liked once I saw the parsing.
I haven’t been a Paul fan but I found this one satisfying, with very little retro parsing. I might have just got lucky today, a wavelength thing. Paul used to feel to me as if he were on a different universe.
Chuckled at the defs for SCANDAL/newspaper seller, and HANGOVER/relic, MUNCH/champ, and the fission ENGINE (drink) driver.
Can’t say I got anywhere near fully parsing this, and leaned on Word Wizard for a good few. But a near-completion (I revealed 5 and 8) and enjoyment along the way is the best I’ve done with a Paul puzzle in some time.
GrahamInSydney@6 – I regularly used to report spoilers when they appeared, and nothing happened as a result. I’m not saying that to dissuade you (I’ve now reported this one too) but just that if the comment in question does get removed it’ll be a pleasant surprise.
…forgot to mention that I thought ENGINE, SCANDAL, HANGOVER and SHOWGROUND were great clues, and my loi was LEAPING. And they’ve got some rather nice German beers this week at the current Cambridge Beer Festival…
Hmmm, I got GERMANY just from 7 letters and that we should know several cities in it – and the possible hint of Dresden. Paul does that kind of thing, witness MEG RYAN and 5 across.
The wordplay grammar in ENGINE seemed a little strange, but I suppose it works. Altogether, a fun puzzle, with quite a few smiles.
I hear Paul will be discussing this puzzle on his zoom call this Friday evening.
For once I sort of liked this Paul crossword and managed to parse most of them. Thanks Paul and Peter for the remaining parsing. Too clever for me!
Excellent stuff with MUNCH my favourite. By odd coincidence yesterday I was held up in a crossword by thinking of the wrong American magazine of Time and Life and today by picking the wrong one of the two for sentence.
After yesterday’s discussion about Ximenes, a puzzle from one of the more non-Ximenean of setters. And a most enjoyable one, too.
First time through I only managed NEEDS and NAHUM, but then like others I saw LESSEN/GERMANY, MUNCH followed straight away and it went in steadily from there.
An enjoyable groan (COLONIAL – aargh!); learned something new (40 years in the law meant that I was very familiar with a deponent, but didn’t know it as a kind of verb); spent ages waiting for the Pauline smut and finally realised that the surface of the clue for NANKEEN was as near as we were going to get.
Of course, as muffin @5 points out, “for you and I” in UTOPIAN is naughty, and Ximenes would also have solemnly pointed out that there was nothing to indicate that “you” meant U. But were any of us stumped by it? And, having solved the clue, were we in any doubt that we’d got it right? Does that make it a good clue? Discuss (probably at interminable length…)
Yes, the spoiler in the Grauniad blog is monumental; but I suppose the assumption is that you will only read the below-the-line witterings after you’ve completed the puzzle. Allows me to feel superior for printing the puzzle off and going back to bed with it, anyway.
First class puzzle. Excellent blog. Thanks, both.
NeilH@17
UTOPIAN
No assumptions made. Just asking to educate myself.
Ending for yoU (as the blog says) is U. Is there any anomaly in this?
The second question: Shouldn’t the surface grammar always be correct?
If there is a grammatical error, that makes the clue somewhat flawed.
Is this understanding not right?
Paul on top form!
For Radio 4 listeners, BONNY and COLONIAL would be entries in the Uxbridge English Dictionary rather than Pauline whimsies, but that only makes them more welcome. The same book defines SCANDALs as “sandals with socks”.
Had to correct “leading” to LEAPING once I saw PHOTOBOMB but otherwise all good.
Thanks Paul for another sparkling puzzle.
I particularly enjoyed the advance notice of MEG RYAN at 5a, the definition and surface for PHOTOBOMB and ‘must partner’.
KVa @18 –
Yes, of course, the definition is “fairy-tale”, not “fairy-tale ending”, and “ending for you” is completely accurate. Reminder to self – re-read blog before opinionating.
You are, of course, quite correct that the surface grammar ought to be correct. Sometimes, and I don’t think Paul is guilty of it anywhere today, the meaning of the surface makes no sense. That’s a flaw, and I agree with you that bad grammar is also one.
It’s good that we have a limited opportunity to edit posts on here. The next time they tweak the site it might be a good idea to include a “Delete” button. I think I’d apply it to most of my comment.
The clue for UTOPIAN would be grammatically correct if it read “Fairytale ending for you before I entered into panto transformation”,
I got GERMANY from NAHUM and that useful M, which helped and I kept looking at LEAPING, thinking MEG RYAN too.
Thank you to PeterO and Paul.
Thanks NeilH@21 for your detailed response.
Shanne@22 Your clue seems to work better. Thanks.
Good puzzle, but I’ll go ahead and spit into the wind again and say that “Hiya” and “Higher” are totally different sounds in my accent, and clueing them that way is really annoying. Only Connect does it too “Pours, Paws, Pause, Pores” – these words all sound identical!” Wish setters would not do this.
I groaned out loud when, early on, I solved GERMANY (29ac), but fair play to the setter, nothing too obscure in his use of the theme, and many good clues resulted.
Not so keen on 25(d), NAHUM ; quote, “a minor prophet”.
What we call in racing, “The Desperation Stakes”, ( the last race of the day, when the punters are chasing their losses).
I seem to remember Paul getting some bad press from solvers when I started out (relatively recently). I’ve tackled a few, all of them pretty tough, but original and very satisfying to complete. Ditto, this one.
PHOTOBOMB (7d) is one of the best clue/surface/definition/wit combinations I can recall….”crash still?”….brilliant!
Thumbs up, Peter and Paul.
Wow, I really used to hate seeing Paul’s name at the top of the grid but now I look forward to his puzzles. This was one of his best for a while. So many answers gave me a chuckle. I think I am finally on his wavelength which given his humour is perhaps not a good thing.
So many good clues to list CHIMERA, LEAPING, MANAGE, HANGOVER, SHOWGROUND. My geography is below par but Germany is one of my better countries which helped a lot. I had actually heard of all and visited most of today’s cities.
Only downer was not being able to parse ENSNARE so thanks PeterO. I stared at it for 5 minutes post ‘check all’ and could only get as far as NA.
Cheers Paul and PeterO
Great puzzle, the standout being the brilliant LEAPING with its tie-in with MEG RYAN.
Many thanks Paul and PeterO.
Thought I wasn’t going to get started until NAHUM jumped out and gave me a crosser for GERMANY.
I always feel faintly annoyed by Paul’s setting but others seem to enjoy it. Ho hum.
E.N.Boll& @25 depends where you go, the one and only time I went to HTB (Holy Trinity Brompton) Nicky Gumbel preached for an inordinately long time on a verse from Nahum because it gave him a reason to demand extra spondulicks and support. Having read Nahum, and the rest of the Bible, it was an interesting interpretation.
I enjoyed this clever puzzle most of which fell into place after I solved 12a LESSEN and then 29a GERMANY. Lots of ticks for good clues, but there were several I couldn’t parse fully so I am grateful to PeterO for the blog. Thanks to Paul as setter.
Graham @6 I’m not sure why anyone who has already arrived here would need a warning about spoilers on the puzzle page when we literally type out the answers in capital letters. I far prefer this page as we don’t have to tiptoe around the subject for fear of outraging someone who hasn’t bothered to solve the puzzle yet. Thanks anyway.
I could only think of Denmark and GERMANY that would work with the M from (new to me) NAHUM and it soon became clear which one. Then the city-related clues tumbled pretty easily. I hadn’t heard of NANKEEN or even deponent. I imagine that the references for LEAPING eventually helped me to spot MEG RYAN, I was previously fooled into seeking a German called Max (not something I would generally do!).
I found it a good challenge and was pleased to finish. SHOWGROUND held me up but, with every crosser in place, I finally saw it and thought it was a good one. LEAPING, PHOTOBOMB and SCANDAL all stood out but I liked it all. Without the app telling me, even I could see this was Paul’s work, pretty much from the outset.
Thanks Paul and Peter.
Like others, I got to GERMANY via NAHUM. I was pleased then to progress quite quickly with the GERMANY clues but got seriously stuck in the NW corner, and had to come here for the parsing of ARSENAL. I liked the reverse clue for SHOWGROUND, the surfaces for MUNCH and ENGINE, the LEAPING wordplay, the nice anagrams for STAND BY ME and NOTHING TO LOSE, and the definition for PHOTOBOMB. [Continuing about XIMENES, would anyone object to ‘Nice the’ being used to clue le, la or les in the same sense as Nice taxis etc?]
Thanks Paul and PeterO.
I got GERMANY through the unspecified, which is normally X or Y. Realised there aren’t many seven-letter countries ending in Y and even Paul wouldn’t expect people to have an encyclopedic knowledge of Hungarian cities.
So in went Germany.
[Robi@32, “Nice” is a perfectly acceptable (though perhaps overused) French indicator, though I would argue you should always use a capital N, hence the best place to conceal it is at the beginning of the clue]
I blow hot and cold on Paul’s puzzles, but this was a good one, needing a bit of thought but eventually all falling into place. Like our blogger, I saw LESSEN before GERMANY, but once the latter was in the other German references were straightforward. Last to fall were the CYCLOPEAN RIVER BASIN, each requiring a bit of frowning, pencil-tapping and staring into space. I wonder if I ever have an audience when crosswording.
On the subject of PHOTOBOMBs, this is one of the best. https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/jul/24/commonwealth-games-queen-photobombs-australian-selfie?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
Shanne@29 I am sorry for any offence caused.
I am not a religious person, but I fully respect the beliefs of others.
My reference to horseracing , was not intended to be trivial.
Us horseracing gamblers always refer to the last race, as sort of “the last chance saloon”.
So, it was a poor joke, that setters get to their last sequence of squares, and google an answer.
Again, apologies to anyone I have upset.
Thoroughly enjoyed this, although I didn’t get HANGOVER. I thought the answer must have been HANNOVER, city being the definition, HAVER being bag (like a haversack) and ONN somehow being a relic for reasons unknown. Never mind.
Thanks for the blog , big improvement with a keystone theme cleverly used . Many good clues and only one real dud for COLONIAL .
A bit surprised by the clue for NEEDS , surely Dresden could have continued the “city in 29” idea ? Perhaps Paul forgot or maybe , quite rightly , he was thinking of the more important district of Longton .
Real pleasure and a learning experience! Not vocabulary, but how to solve crosswords! Specifically, Paul’s. Great humour, especially in the misdirects. Enjoyed the crossover clue.
Thanks both.
I meant to say that it’s not infrequent that words I’ve never heard of turn up in the solutions, but I think this was the first time there was one in a clue! – DEPONENT in 26a.
Hadrian’s Law: a crossword, however difficult, may always be finished if honoured with enough sittings. Might be loads of sittings like today (or a recent Enigmatist that took five days), but the sittings don’t always have to be very long. Another great composition, thank you P&P!
Roz @38 Wouldn’t –
‘Doctor leaving city in 29 for surgery – must partner? (5)’ –
constitute a dreaded indirect anagram? You would have to deduce Dresden, extract Dr, and then perform ‘surgery’ on what remained without the anagram fodder being directly provided in the clue.
A rare occasion when I actually completed a Paul puzzle, and even then I failed to appreciate all the parsing. By the time I got COLONIAL, I had forgotten the word “swimmer,” and thought the answer merely a whimsical way of saying “one from Cologne.” Sigh.
Come down = lessen ?
Deponent = verb?
Absolutely not on Paul’s wavelength today, but I liked SHOWGROUND, LEAPING and MUNCH. Better luck tomorrow.
If you speak Standard English hiya and higher and hire all sound identical. As do paws, pores, pours, pause.
A M @47
But what are the Rs there for, then? In particular (though not relevant here), you would be speaking very sloppily to make HIRE (one syllable) and HIGHER (two) sound the same.
Great puzzle with a cleverly used theme, no serious quibbles and lots of amusement. SCANDAL, LEAPING, STAND BY ME and NOTHING TO LOSE all excellent.
[A M @47 If ‘Standard English’ means sounding like Brian Sewell, I am more than usually glad to be Scottish. Give me languages in which every written letter is sounded, such as Italian with its double consonants and Finnish with its double vowels as well as consonants. As muffin says @48, the Rs are there for a reason, and the pronunciation system that systematically excises them from ‘proper’ speech marks the historical imposition by a particular regional social class of its own affected speech mannerisms upon the rest of the Anglosphere as somehow ‘Received’. Other ‘standard’ Englishes are available.]
[Balfour @50
You’ve reminded of a bird-watching trip to Costa Rica where I encountered a lady, otherwise unobjectionable, who pronounced “flowers” as “flahs” and “wires” as “wahs”. I joke not!]
Well, muffin, remember that in the Monty Python ‘lumberjack song’, ‘… pick wild flowers’ rhymed with ‘… hang around in bars’. RP clearly made it to the Canadian timber lands (as casually imagined from Cambridge)..
This WA a terribly bad puzzle as shown by my previous comments.
And I should add COLONIAL sounding as COLOGNE EEL takes the biscuit.
KVa @18 et al “For you and I” is such a common grammatical error that I took it to be a deliberate joke on Paul’s part; which means in my opinion that the clue is not flawed.
I often take three or four sessions to solve the Guardian cryptics, especially Paul’s . But today I completed in one session, albeit an inordinately long one. (Almost two hours, if you must know.)
I’m not one to complain about puns or soundalikes – HIYA is absolutely fine, by the way – but with Köln eel, Paul is surely poking us collectively with a very long stick.
Thanks to Paul anyway (grrr!), and thanks to Peter O for the blog, especially for parsing those that I couldn’t quite find the energy for.
Is TIMBERLINE really one word?
“Flawed” is rather a precious even pompous assertion, isn’t it? Or have I strayed out of the teasing world of word play … 18d
I in panto with ending for you doesn’t, for me, begin to merit prim disapproval. It’s a setter’s tease, and even a solver’s tickle. Now children, play nicely.
As they say, “so easy that I could have solved it in my sleep”.
Well no, not easy… but I did solve it in my sleep. I was held up for ages over 7d. Had all the crossers filled in. Went to bed. Had a dream about nothing particularly relevant (actually about football and a recent Guardian article concerning VAR and offside). And in the very instant of waking I found myself thinking “PHOTOBOMB”. Then an extra twist: went to fill in the answer and found that after all, I didn’t have all the crossers, as one of them was wrong (LEADING instead of LEAPING).
Left me with a slightly spooky feeling. Has anyone else had a similar experience?
David@58. Yes, that has happened to me in situations just like you describe – though without the VAR, to be honest – or just as I’m falling asleep, or as I’m cycling along a country lane. It’s another version of “if you get stuck, go and do something else for a bit”.
The trick is to not even think about not thinking about the clue. Just let it be.
Doesn’t always work, of course.
Yes i often wake up with a solution that must have been solved during sleep, whether through dreaming, or the time for the stagnant pools of my thought process to allow the little bubble of connaissance to surface
Thanks both,
This was hard going for me but I got there. I’m not even sure there’s a grammatical error in 18d. All that’s needed is to assume an elided ‘are’ between ‘I’ and ‘in’.
Terribly illiterate, T S Eliot, wasn’t he? “Let us go then, you and I” indeed.
And then there’s all those people who refuse to pronounce the g and h in” through’. Terrible. 😉
Wouldn’t have had so much trouble finishing this if I hadn’t begun by using the German names/spellings for a couple of cities!!
TassieTim @62
That’s fine – “you and I” is the subject, not the object (though phrased backwards!)
muffin @54
Sorry, but “you and I” is a restatement of “us” – accusative.
sheffield hatter @55
You use, perhaps deliberately, the German form Köln; the joke works better with the English (cf. 17A MUNCH).
Frogman @53
” … as shown by my previous comments”? All I see from you are @44 (12A LESSEN can be used intransitively, for which ‘come down’ is a suitable definition) and @45 (you do not say, but I assume that you are objecting to the unannounced indication by example in 26A RIVER BASIN, as I pointed out in the blog). Evidently you do not like the joke in 23A COLONIAL, but in all I do not think these account for the description “terribly bad”.
PeterO @65
It’s unclear – it’s a poem of course – but I think the construction implies “You and I go”.
muffin: I tend to agree. And you would of course say “Let’s go, shall we?” rather than “Let’s go, shall us?”
muffin @66 and Lord Jim @ 67
In both cases, that’s not what Prufrock actually says.
PeterO @68
Then perhaps it was Prufrock rather than Eliot who had trouble with subject/object. After all, quite a lot of his monologue doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Re: 18D
Fairy-tale ending for you
Fairy-tale ending for me
Fairy-tale ending for you and fairy-tale ending for me
Fairy-tale ending for you and me
I expected better from Paul
For what it’s worth, I don’t think that the surface of a clue has to be grammatically correct. It should sound like natural language — that is, something you would not be surprised to see / hear an actual person write / say. 18dn passes that test for me.
(I’m generally picky about grammar, but I didn’t notice the grammatical problem with this clue, and, perhaps more surprisingly, I never noticed the problem in the opening of “Prufrock”.)
What a splendid puzzle, great blog and fabulous comments from everyone above!
I’ve come to this very late, as I finished Saturday’s prize (24 May) much more quickly than usual and wanted a crossword for a rainy bank holiday.
I always like Paul and this was a hoot. I didn’t complete 2 or 3 clues in the NW corner but enjoyed the rest.
My favourite was LEAPING and I have always (since misreading it in childhood) thought of Munich as MUNCH.
My recent success with Paul puzzles continues with another completion. Very clever use of the theme (even Roz-approved!), and misdirecting definitions starting with 1a SCANDAL. Loved it
Liked 19a STAND BY ME for the ultra-smooth surface, and 11a SHOWGROUND for brevity
26a I was trying to make MINAS BASIN work (in the Bay of Fundy)
Couldn’t parse 17a because I took the city to be MUNCHen