Paul is the setter this morning.
I wake uo an hour earlier than normal on blog days, then open my laptop and see what awaits. On a Paul day, I normally panic as it takes me a lot longer to solve and especially to parse a Paul puzzle. This morning, it took 65 minutes so I will take that as a win. There was nothing too obscure in here, except maybe KOAN, which I managed to pull from the old memory bank (no mean feat these days, I assure you). So, either I was on Paul's wavelength today or this was a more accessible exaple of his work. As a Scot who pronounces his Rs, the homophone of FORK OUGHTA/FOREQUARTER is dodgy at best, but all in all an entertaining challenge that has set my brain up for the day.
Thanks Paul.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | MARSHAL |
Deity and prince direct (7)
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MARS ("deity") + (Prince) HAL |
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| 5 | SEALANT |
Sticker insect attached to mammal (7)
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ANT ("insect") attached to SEAL ("mammal") |
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| 9, 20 | DO ME A FAVOUR |
A chevron in a figure behind curved shape, really? (2,2,1,6)
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A V (chevron) in A FOUR ("a figure") behind DOME ("curved shape") |
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| 10 | GRANTABLE |
Permitted furniture in retirement home? (9)
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GRAN TABLE ("furniture in retirement home?") |
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| 11 | MONOTONOUS |
Tedious, anything but in the wisdom of cattle? (10)
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NOT ("anything but") in MOO NOUS ("the wisdom of cattle?") |
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| 12 | ULNA |
Bone first of all in upper legs? No, arms (4)
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[first of all in] U(pper) L(egs) N(o) A(rms) |
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| 14 | FOREQUARTER |
Cuts of beef taken from this, say what oughta go with knife? (11)
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Homophone/pun/aural wordplay [say] of FORK OUGHTA *"what oughta go with knife") I have come to accept that I will never win the rhotic/non-rhotic argument in homophones, but this one is right at the endge of my tolerance levels :). |
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| 18 | AIR FORCE ONE |
In this, leader flies solo round outskirts of Chile? (3,5,3)
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AIR ("In this leader flies") + FOR ONE ("solo") round [outskirts of] C(hil)E and &lit. This clue ony works as an &lit. because otherwise the "in this… flies" bit would be doing double duty. Do countries have outskirts? |
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| 21 | KOAN |
Question posed by Buddhist, right out of holy book (4)
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R (right) out of KO(r)AN ("holy book") In Buddhism, a koan is a logically unanswerable question given to students as a subject for meditation, such as "what is the sound of one hand clapping?" |
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| 22 | CONCERTINA |
One gets squeezed in front of carriage as soon as train moves (10)
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[front of] C(arrriage) + ONCE ("as soon as") + *(train) [anag:moves] |
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| 25 | LAGERFELD |
Designer range of beers with one exported? (9)
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LAGER F(i)ELD ("range of beers?") with I (one) exported Refers to Karl Lagerfeld (1933-2019), a German designer for Chanel. |
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| 26 | TANGO |
Smack heel in disco dance (5)
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TANG ("smack") + [heel in] (disc)O |
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| 27 | PIRANHA |
Stripper managed to break a joint, bending backwards (7)
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<=(RAN ("managed") to break A HIP ("a joint"), bending backwards) |
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| 28 | RUSTLER |
Criminal taking the lower street, one going straight on the outside? (7)
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RULER ("one going straight") on the outside of St. (street) The lower in the clue refers to "that which lows", ie a cow, so the criminal is a cattle rustler. |
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| DOWN | ||
| 1 | MADAME |
Title earned, a first in medicine secured (6)
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A + [first in] M(edicine) secured by MADE ("earned") |
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| 2 | REMAND |
Incarcerate bishop for example in robes of cardinal? (6)
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(chess) MAN ("bishop, for example") in robes of RED ("cardinal") |
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| 3 | HEALTH FOOD |
The fool had nuts, fruit and veg etc (6,4)
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*(the fool had) [anag:nuts] |
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| 4 | LOGIN |
Personal details with which leader in government accesses sensitive area? (5)
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[leader in] G(overnment) accesses LOIN ("sensitive area") |
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| 5 | STATUS QUO |
Energy repeatedly drained from dignified old band (6,3)
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E (energy) repeatedly drained from STATU(e)SQU(e) ("dignified") + O (old) |
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| 6 | AUTO |
Wheels in a sofa bed sheared off (4)
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A + (f)UTO(n) ("sofa bed", sheared off) |
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| 7 | AMBULATE |
A charger dropping tail in familiar walk (8)
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A + BUL(l) ("charger", dropping tail) in MATE ("familiar") |
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| 8 | THESAURI |
Books everyone can see wrapped in the Indian cloth (8)
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U (Universal cinema rating, so "everyone can see") wrapped in THE SARI ("the Indian cloth") |
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| 13 | WATER RATES |
Sweat produced collecting land tax once (5,5)
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*(sweat) [anag:produced] collecting TERRA ("land") In England, water rates are now metered, but they are still generally a tax in Scotland, being part of the council tax bill. |
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| 15 | ROCK OPERA |
A theatre fine, well set up for musical performance (4,5)
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<=(A + REP(ertory) ("theatre") + OK ("fine") + COR! ("well"), set up) |
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| 16 | BACKFLIP |
Acrobatic flick in roll? (8)
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*(flick) [anag:acrobatic] in BAP ("roll") and &lit. |
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| 17 | ARRANGER |
Florist, say, arrives and rose finally pulled from wreath? (8)
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Arr. (arrives) and ANGER (removing the E [ros(E) finally] from WR(e)ATH gives WRATH, so ANGER) |
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| 19 | SIGNAL |
Indication in slang I screwed up (6)
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*(slang i) [anag:screwed up] |
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| 20 |
See 9 Across
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| 23 | CODER |
Person encrypting information ending on the radio? (5)
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Homophone/pun/aural wordplay [on the radio] of CODA ("ending") |
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| 24 | BRAN |
Label cut for breakfast food (4)
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BRAN(d) ("label", cut) |
18a – I interpreted this as “AIR FOR ONE” (a song for one person, i.e. solo) around the outskirts of C-hil-E, with “In this leader flies” (US president’s plane) as the definition. No &lit required! Thanks P & L
cryptor@1 – Aah, that makes sense.
I couldn’t work out why rep is theatre. FOREQUARTER brought a smile — regardless of any rhotic debate. Never heard of KOAN. Bap/roll I’ve seen in UK cryptics, but can never seem to remember.
Really enjoyed this. I think cryptor@1 has 18a. I couldn’t see it at all until I came here. Lovely puzzle and blog. Thank you. I’m afraid I LOVED forequarter. Made me laugh!
Thanks Paul and loonapick
Curiously, FOREQUARTER didn’t offend my rhotic pronunciation, but CODER did!
14a reminded me somehow of the Two Ronnies “fork handles”/”four candles” sketch!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi_6SaqVQSw
Geoff Down Under @ 3
Rep is short for Repertory Theatre. They would travel around from theatre to theatre with a repertoire of plays.
FOREQUARTER didn’t quite work for non-rhotic me either – because of the Q in “fork oughta” being a hard C instead of a proper KW. It’s just one of Paul’s awful puns, and the fork was enough for me to get it. On the other hand I parsed CODER (wrongly) as CODE=information plus R – another one to annoy the rhoticists.
I had trouble equating PIRANHA with “stripper” and REMAND with “incarcerate”, and even in England people who haven’t yet got a meter have to pay a fixed sum in WATER RATES. Loved the bovine jokes – the MOO NOUS and the criminal taking the lower.
To me FORK OUGHTA and FOREQUARTER sound totally different.
There’s a ‘w’ sound in the latter.
Or am I missing something?
Anna @9: you’re having the same trouble with FOREQUARTER that I did.
Yes, the FOREQUARTER clue I thought was a pale imitation of Two Ronnies’ famous Four Candles/Fork Handles sketch, so it was a while before I inserted that with a shrug. Thereafter things fell nicely into place. LAGERFELD was another that opened up the SW quarter once he had been twigged. As ever with a Paul puzzle, I needed Loonapick’s blog to unpick or unravel some of the clueing. But all in all, an entertaining solve this morning, perhaps not quite as tough as this setter can be. Which is also how I found his recent Prize Crossword too…
gladys @ 10
Yes, our posts crossed.
I don’t know why Paul does this nonsense. He is undoubtedly an accomplished setter but for me at least his puzzles are spoiled by these silly errors.
As I’ve observed before, the misleadingly labelled “homophone” is “something that sounds vaguely like” rather than “something that sounds exactly the same as”. And on that basis I guess FOREQUARTER gets past; it’s ingenious, I suppose; just (IMHO) not very good.
I thought GRANTABLE, PIRANHA (it being Paul, of course one thinks of another kind of stripper, and I also spent a while idly pondering paint stripper), HEALTH FOOD, BACKFLIP and ARRANGER were very neat, and the ideas of Status Quo being a dignified old band and cattle displaying moo nous raised a smile.
AIR FORCE ONE was clever as well, though I could have done without being reminded of the Orange Menace first thing.
Thanks to Paul and loonapick.
We though 19d was genius — not only is SIGNAL, an anagram of SLANG I, it’s also hidden backwards in “…sLANG I Screwed…”
This really made my day. As always with Paul, loads of challenges and chuckles.
Loved the mischievous ‘stripper’ and ‘moo nous’: very clever.
Hearty thanks to Paul and to loonapick.
Anna and gladys, I think he’s a bit of a stirrer 😉 …
RUSTLER, AIR FORCE ONE, PIRANHA were my favourites in what was a fun puzzle.
It seems that many people pronounce quarter as kwarter. I don’t think I’ve ever heard that, which just goes to show how varied English pronunciation is.
On the other hand, I can only think of one other word with a qu where I don’t pronounce it as kw, and can’t quite believe I never noticed that. (Quinoa, in case you were wondering, though even then I sometimes say kwinoa just to be awkward).
Top marks for GRANTABLE, MONOTONOUS & STATUS QUO but I draw the line at an earworm
In reality, many “homophones” don’t work in all regional accents and some of Paul’s maybe in none 🙂 So unless we’re suggesting that setters can only use them if they work for all accents then it’s just another thing to keep in mind while solving. It’s up to you if you want to take offence
Cheers L&P
KOAN was my FOI!
R@18 Quiche 🙂
Body cheetah @21 thanks, there had to be something! Also I realised there are some ending like antique.
Thanks Paul and loonapick.
Loved it all especially CONCERTINA (even if you’re more likely to get squeezed at the back of a carriage when it’s moving forwards), the HEALTH nut and the nimble BACKFLIP.
When I saw MARSHALSEA, then REMAND, I looked for a prison theme in vain.
The quarter in FOREQUARTER don’t sound like what it oughta
Anna@12 one person’s ‘nonsense’ can be hugely amusing to another, I would say. You know what you’re getting with a Paul puzzle – some fiendish parsing, plenty of humour (I loved MOO NOUS!) and the odd cringeworthy homophone. For me that usually adds up to an hour or more of entertainment.
Re forequarter… I am from Birmingham and have lived in the south east, north west and north east of England as well as briefly in Wales. I went to a university where RP/‘posh’ English was the norm. I currently live in South West England. I’ve never met anyone who didn’t pronounce 1/4 as starting with a ‘kw’ sound.
As always with Paul nothing flew in but I made my way around. Ticks for BACK FLIP, STATUS QUO, PIRANHA andLOGIN.
Thanks Paul and Loonapick
22a is a bit &lit-ish: the flexible connections between train carriages were often referred to as concertinas in view of their appearance on the outside. Doesn’t quite work as they’d be extended not compressed when the train started (unless the loco was in the rear).
FOREQUARTER was well beyond my tolerance level. Even for non-rhotic speakers it would at best be FORK WATER, not FORK OUGHTA. I doubt that any other setter would get away with this.
My problem with CODER is the definition. In the field of cryptology, one encodes or decodes (also encrypts and decrypts). A coder is a programmer, not at all the same. Chambers agrees.
Difficult for me, but I think Paul has paid more attention to the surfaces than he sometimes does. For example, in CONCERTINA. The last QUARTER (kwater, where FORK water is not very clueable) for me was the NE, where I thought the GRAN TABLE was great. HEALTH FOOD had a good anagram and I enjoyed the wordplays of BACKFLIP, RUSTLER and DO ME A FAVOUR.
Thanks Paul for the fun and loonapick and cryptor @1 for unravelling it all.
This was really good. Seemingly impenetrable at first and then relatively straightforward (or transparency, the app says it took me a while longer than loonapick, but there were no overly extended battles on any given clue – unlike yesterday). MONOTONOUS certainly describes some of our recursive debating points and also reminds us of Paul’s developing enthusiasm for all things bovine. I admired STATUS QUO and ROCK OPERA; more convoluted than my usual taste but very neat. I also liked FOREQUARTER.
Thanks Paul and thanks all.
I have come to accept that “sounds like” clues mean in Received Pronunciation, so all the regions where letters are properly pronounced – R WH etc – have to put up with it. But even with that, it’s FORK WATER because of the W sound from a QU, so it still doesn’t work. I was trying to work out why FORK and WATER went with a knife. I still enjoyed the crossword, though, and the analysis. Thank you.
Like many others I had to shrug off FOREQUARTER – certainly not in my mode of speech either! But at least it brought back memories and a laugh 🙂 – even if this clip is a bit dated now!
Never heard of KOAN – I tried TOAH first (different religion, same idea) but there’s no such word. ‘Koran’ is a rather dated transliteration from the Arabic, it’s usually written ‘Quran’ these days.
Liked AIR FORCE ONE – took me a while to realise that ‘solo’ refers to a song. Also likes for CONCERTINA (tried CLEMENTINE first but it didn’t work); DO ME A FAVOUR; BACKFLIP (good &lit); REMAND; THESAURI; PIRANHA (they’re not as aggressive as in that James Bond film, apparently); RUSTLER.
Have a bit of a gripe about GRANTABLE. Plenty of GRANs I know are nowhere near that trip to the retirement home. A wee bit ageist!
Thanks to Paul and Loonapick.
[I see I’m not the first to recall the Two Ronnies!]
I do feel the whole thing is going a bit feral. I miss the familiar old patterns of Quiptics being easyish, Monday being a bit harder, progressively tougher through to Friday then the Prize, followed by a gentle but inventive and fun Everyman. I also think there are far more sloppy clues being allowed. I’m starting to use the check button purely because I doubt myself as the clueing is sometimes so convoluted, inaccurate or just plain wrong.
And the formatting is wildly frustrating too. The issues have been raised so many times and it really can’t be difficult to fix them.
I agree with loonapick about homophones. For FORK OUGHTA to sound like FOREQUARTER takes at least two speech impediments, I’d say.
I had less trouble with this than I generally do with Paul. Couldn’t parse quite a few but I was much entertained, especially by the ‘sound like’ clues. There often seems to be controversy about them here but the imprecision doesn’t bother me at all. I didn’t even know what rhotic meant until I started reading these blogs and I was an English lecturer for thirty years! Loved the idea of ‘moo nous’ and, as a grandmother not in a retirement home, I wasn’t offended by GRAN TABLE. A fun morning – and it’s cool and rainy here. Hooray!
I’m in the minority it seems, by being in the ‘korter’ camp. Don’t think I’ve ever said ‘kworter’. That said, Chambers only has ‘kworter’ so I see the objections. You can add queue and quay to the list of non-kw q-words and also Quran (thanks Laccaria!).
I do see why FOREQUARTER offends many, especially with the disappearing W, but in my head I heard a foreigner make a sentence with that word but say “fork oughta” instead, and I understood it (!!!), so I grinned and moved on. I didn’t get cryptor@1’s parse of AIR FORCE ONE, so thanks for that.
&lits with no extra bits are always well-appreciated here, so BACKFLIP counts. And credit to shed53@14 for noticing SIGNAL, and Paul for coming up with it.
interesting that no one has quibbled about the faux pas in 17.
multilayered wordplay is quite rightly discountenanced as a rule.
paul would know this, which is probably why he did it, the imp.
I live in the same county as Paul and have no W in my quarters. (Cue thirsty jokes…)
I am coming to appreciate Paul’s puzzles, but I cannot yet say I am at the point of enjoying them (although MOO NOUS did raise a slight smile/groan). Like loonapick and a few others, I think this was on the gentler side of Paul. Normally I struggle mightily, but today I got everything and parsed all but ARRANGER.
FOREQUARTER as a homophone made me groan, shrug, and move on. When the clue is otherwise adequately clued, IMO the homophone is a bonus(?).
Loonapick, thanks. Please never give solution time. Think of beginners.
Peter999 – I rarely mention my solving time – it was more a reflection of my relief that I was able to solve a Paul before getting out of bed. I didn’t actually mention my solving time, the 65 minutes was the time between opening my laptop and posting the blog, so also included the parsing of the solutions and writing the blog. I do, however, apologise to new solvers as that may come across as showing off and that was never my intention. I’ve been solving cryptics for nearly 50 years, which I hope some beginners would appreciate, and some setters lead me to be late getting up sometimes (Paul, Boatman among others).
Re the mild Gran/ageism controversy, there used to be an advert for John Smith’s bitter on TV. With Peter Kay, the comedian, without warning unplugging his mum’s hoover as she was doing the housework. “Come on, Mum, time to get you to the old people’s home”. Her reply, “But I’m only fifty five” made not a jot of difference, with the final shot being a framed photo of her being replaced by a framed photo of a pint of John Smith’s.
Not sure if I remember things exactly word for word, however…
For the frustrated beginners: I got maybe a third of this before I started hitting the reveal button. So no, not (for me) on the easy end of Paul’s spectrum at all! And I’ve been solving cryptics for something like thirty years (including British ones for twenty).
Oh, and today I learned of the existence of a band called STATUS QUO. They had just one top-20 hit in the US, several years before I was born, so I think I can be forgiven.
mrpenney @47 They opened the London Live Aid concert in 1985, but didn’t fly out to appear in Philadelphia like Phil Collins. They were pretty much dinosaurs even then!
As ever with Paul, the answers flew in and the parsing came later when I felt like it. Odd that I don’t have this experience with other setters. mrpenney@47 Status Quo are a very well known band in the UK, troubling the charts regularly over several decades. Many people think that they were the first band to play at the Live Aid concert, but in fact it was the Coldstream Guards delivering God Save The Queen (one for the pub quiz fans out there).
I didn’t switch on for that bit!
Thanks both,
A very enjoyable puzzle. I usually put a w in quarter, but if telling the time will often say ‘korter to three’ or similar and I think I hear a lot of other people do that too.
ozof@40: My understanding is that operations involving synonyms are kosher as long as letter order (possibly with cycling) is retained:
Bluth in Independent 18,702:
Short song expected (3)
Vlad in Guardian 29,383:
What’s worn by one cycling around? (5)
It’s only pure indirect anagrams that are treyf.
Tyngewick@51 I’ve spent the day pondering this on and off, and that’s exactly the conclusion I came to as well. If it’s mathsy, then kworter; but I
if telling the time, then often korter. I can find no logic for it. (Southern / south-western accent/dialect.)
Thanks at @25. There’s always a sense of humour failure when there’s a rhotic debate. Surely it’s not about how anyone pronounces the word for themselves, it’s about whether the word could conceivably be pronounced that way by anyone with a sense of the ridiculous, and wanting to be entertained.
CODER is CO DURR, CODA is CODE AH. Which one do RP speakers mispronounce?
Ref. 18a, my favourite joke from the old Unix fortune (cookie) program:
If you have ice cream I will give it to you.
If you have no ice cream I will take it away from you.
This is an ice cream koan.
(Complete with Pauline dubious homophone.)
Oops, 21a.
poc@29: yes, Chambers defines CODER as a computer programmer, but it also gives as a definition “a person who writes something in code”. Doesn’t Paul’s “person encrypting information” fall within that? [See also the Chambers definition of encryption.]
[Ronald@45 – I don’t recall that advert you mention – but if its quality is as you describe it, it is certainly a match for the quality of the aforesaid beer…! 🙁
Eoink@56: is that Zen saw about “clapping with one hand” another example of a ‘koan’?]
Ronald/Laccaria
I sort of remember the advert (I tend to forget what they were for) but I think the photo was of a snooker player (Dennis Taylor?), as he wanted to install a snooker table.
Laccaria@59 yes, the idea of a koan is a nonsensical question which jerks one out of normal ways of thought. My favourite spin on “one hand clapping” was a flippant one, the Master asked “What is the sound of one hand clapping?”, the Student slapped him over one ear and the Master was enlightened.
My personal feeling is that, like surrealism, koans have lost their ability to shock through familiarity, but that’s another discussion.)
Coloradan @52
i think your right, but only when the indicator is applied to a synonym of the adjacent word
in your examples, the indicator is:
i. “short” applied to a synonym of “song”
ii. “cycling” applied to a synonym of “single”
and yes, anagrams take this a bit too far.
in pauls clue, however, an indicator is applied to an adjacent word, which with a second indicator is applied to another adjacent word, before a synonym must be found.
{“finally” applied to “rose”} “pulled from” applied to “wreath” and then find a synonym!
and this is still only part of the wordplay for the answer.
yes, with the crossers and the definition, an answer could be tested and the wordplay parsed, but i have to believe paul knew he was crossing a line with this one.
so while Vlad’s clue above, while tricky, is OK with me, i really wouldn’t be happy with something like:
Cyclist’s first given to ask one about what’s worn. (5)
which does exactly what paul’s clue does, (but obviously more horribly 🙂
but again, if you had T***C, you would almost certainly land on TUNIC as satisfying “what’s worn”, pull out “one about” for IC and realise that TUN is a synonym od CASK, which is “Cyclist’s first” “given to” “ask”.
Laccaria and Muffin, just to satisfy my curiosity, coming back here at this lateish hour, I’ve had a look at that ad on Youtube, and you’re quite right, Muffin, PK wants to put a snooker table in his absent Mum’s bedroom. So the replacement picture is indeed of one time world snooker champion Dennis Taylor, but placed beside a brimming pint of John Smith’s. See, I would never make a reliable witness in a crime of this nature…
sorry about the messy answer @62 btw.
the editor abruptly closed while i was fixing it and committed my typo-ridden draft.
ah well. hope it makes sense.
That makes perfect sense, ozof@62, 64 (dodgy editor notwithstanding). Thanks for your full explication of “multilayered wordplay” 😃
Coloradan @65
thanks. phew!
mind you, a full explanation would require a pen & paper and at least three pints of good ale 🙂
I’m fine with Forequarter, but then I love Paul’s terrible puns and homophones!
As one born in the SE, lived a long time in Manchester and now Central Scotland I take a relaxed view on homonyms.
CODER caused a wry smile. It has reentered the language as one who writes computer software, but no doubt had the cryptographic and cryptanalytic meanings in earlier times. I’m thinking of the hush-hush activities at Bletchley Park during WW2 and no doubt the Cold War.
As another who still pays the water tax, I quibble with the “tax once” clue. But with 7 living in the house, we are probably better off than we would be having our water consumption metered.
Re 10a and the John Smith’s ad: I can recall a Steptoe & Son episode where Harold tried to park Albert in one of those places.
All completed and parsed. I enjoyed it, but didn’t find the surfaces particularly meaningful or amusing for the most part. 26a TANGO, 27a PIRANHA, 3d HEALTH FOOD, and 6d AUTO were good ones, though
2d Finally got MAN for bishop!
5d STATUS QUO, “band” makes for a dodgy definition, as I think we’ve established on this site that just about any word or phrase can be the name of a band
14a FOREQUARTER was funny and gettable, but non-rhotic soundalikes are still annoying. I wish setters would drop them