Guardian 29,792 – Paul

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I found this rather easier than some Paul puzzles have been of late, though there were a couple of bits of tricky parsing even when the answer was clear. Thanks to Paul.

 
Across
1 SAPIENT Smart dish in toast that’s cut (7)
PIE (dish) in SANT[E] (French toast, meaning “health!”)
5 PIGTAIL Girl with plait, going right and left, plaited – this? (7)
Anagram of GIRL PLAIT less R and L
9,12 COWES WEEK Bullies easy to defeat, we hear, in British sporting event (5,4)
Sounds like “cows” (bullies) + “weak”
10 MOVIE STAR Great player in contest hosted by city of the Balkans (5,4)
VIE (to contest) in MOSTAR (city in southern Bosnia and Herzegovina)
11 ON ALL FOURS As infant’s movement odorous initially, full nappies emptied, or a potty (2,3,5)
Anagram (potty) of O FULL N[appie]S OR A
18 SAL VOLATILE Rousing stuff, I left amid applause at the end of the evening? (3,8)
I L[eft] in SALVO (round of applause) LATE. Sal volatile is a compound used in smelling salts
21 TURD Motion passed in middle of 24-hour period? (4)
The middle of saTURDay
22 LUMBERJACK Feller taking lift on saddle (10)
LUMBER (to saddle) + JACK (lift)
25 RUN ACROSS Find a bridge beside stream (3,6)
RUN (stream) + A CROSS (to bridge)
26 TRUMP Leader in terrifying prat (5)
[T]errifying + RUMP (buttocks, prat), and the whole clue is an apt definition
27 CLEANSE Get rid of tips in cafe when tips collected (7)
LEANS (tips) in C[af]E
28 ENDORSE Support reverend, or several nurses (7)
Hidden in reverEND OR SEveral
Down
1 SECTOR Little time upon hill in region (6)
SEC[ond] + TOR (a rocky hill)
2 PAWPAW Two-foot fruit? (6)
Two PAWs
3 EAST LONDON Fantastic tales concerned with river in South African city (4,6)
TALES* + ON (concerned with) DON (river)
4 TEMPO Speed with which workforce set up? (5)
Reverse of OP (work) + MET (the Metropolitan Police force)
5 PAVAROTTI Italian singer hearing one note in three, famously? (9)
Pavarotti was, homophonically, one of the Three Tenners (£10 notes)
6 GREW Rose garden we regularly cleared away (4)
Alternate letters of GaRdEn We
7 AT THE BAR Ordering a beer – and being judged? (2,3,3)
Double definition
8 LORIKEET Bird with a long extendable neck? Or tucked in (8)
OR in LIKE ET (with a long extendable neck, as the alien in Spielberg’s film had)
13 INTEGRATED Complete gent I suspect highly thought-of (10)
(GENT I)* + RATED
15 GRANULOSE Gritty, I’ve beaten you, nanna! (9)
As a grandchild might say: GRAN, U LOSE!
16 ESOTERIC Puzzling score, tie fixed? (8)
(SCORE TIE)*
17,14 FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE Tender scene where the Ponte Vecchio would take a battering after dark? (8,11)
The Ponte Vecchio is in FLORENCE, where it might be battered by a NIGHT IN GALE
19 JAGUAR Might this car’s engine be purring? (6)
Cryptic definition
20 SKOPJE Funny jokes about capital in particular – one of those? (6)
P[articular] in JOKES* – Skopje is the capital of the country now known as North Macedonia
23 BASTE Hammer beats tack (5)
BEATS* – baste can mean tack in the sewing sense
24 ICON Sign you can’t trust Paul! (4)
Paul says you can’t trust him because “I CON”

53 comments on “Guardian 29,792 – Paul”

  1. Thanks Paul and Andrew
    A couple of usages that were new to me – RUMP for prat and BASTE for tack.
    Favourite GRANULOSE.

  2. Spent ages thinking the Ponte Vecchio was in Venice before the penny dropped. Lovely stuff, enjoyed GRANULOSE and ON ALL FOURS particularly.

  3. Thanks Andrew. I agree that this was pretty approachable with a couple of tricky parsings, thanks for tidying up the last couple for me.

    Having become familiar with Paul’s tricks, the LUMBERJACK fell immediately and FLORENCE wasn’t far behind. I found the south slightly easier to get started but it was CLEANSE and ICON that held out the longest. I know we’ve seen them before, but I have properly logged these definitions of BASTE and prat now.

    I noticed that Paul was only in Novi Sad two weeks ago, now we have SKOPJE and MOSTAR, has he been on a Balkan tour or something?

    Thanks Paul. I look foward to other comments.

  4. Like Muffin@1 I had to check the synonym for prat to parse TRUMP, but of course agreed with the clue.. Perhaps Andrew is correct and this wasn’t as tricky as Paul can be, but I thought it was definitely a step up in difficulty from the previous offerings this week, though that might have been influenced by starting the puzzle in the middle of the night due to a troubled sleep. I was pleased to parse 21 (a trademark Paul of course). JAGUAR took me too long despite understanding what I was searching for (though do JAGUAR’s purr?). Liked SAL VOLATILE and LUMBERJACK. Thanks to Paul and Andrew

  5. Possibly the first time I’ve ever said this but I completely agree with muffin@1 🙂

    Kept telling myself it couldn’t be TURD but the parsing penny finally dropped

    Missed the LORIKEET parsing so a win on points for Paul

    Cheers P&A

  6. T @4. From what I remember from nature programmes, no – like other big cats, jaguars don’t purr. The difference in their larynx allows them to roar, but prevents purring.

  7. Unusually for Paul I found myself putting a lot in from the definitions but that almost backfired with an incorrect PARAKEET. Corrected when PIGTAIL went in. Couldn’t see why it was LORIKEET so thanks for the blog.

    Liked EAST LONDON and FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE

    Thanks Andrew and Paul

  9. GeoffC @8
    It’s 5d, not 5a. The “Three Tenors” (one of whom was Pavarotti) sounds like “three tenners”.
    I seem to remember a comedy skit – can’t remember where – that featured the “Three Fivers”.

  10. 26A. “Terrifying leader and prat” would perhaps read better. Of course, as the definition is a matter of opinion a qualifier is required, “some say” or at least a “?”.

  11. I’m not terrified of Paul anymore and this one was less difficult than many. PAVAROTTI is the first Italian singer to come to mind so that went straight in without parsing (thanks Andrew). I thought JAGUAR was a weak cryptic clue. Never heard of EAST LONDON, COWES WEEK or SKOPJE but I knew what I was looking for. Lawyers present their cases AT THE BAR but I don’t see how that equates to (a defendant) being judged…..unless it’s the quality of the legal arguments which are evaluated.
    I really liked PAWPAW and ICON but COTD must (grudgingly) be TURD.
    Thanks Paul, see you next week 😄

  12. Odd to me that people found this approachable, since this was possibly the most inscrutable Paul I’ve seen. Maybe I’m just uncultured, but I’ve not heard of a lot of the answers or their reasons for parsing, so after getting a few I started revealing and still not understanding.

    NHO SAL VOLATILE, COWES WEEK (though I got “week” in at least), PAVAROTTI, “the three tenors” or “the three tenners”, and I never knew Florence was on a £10 note either (though, if I had, I think I wouldn’t have got it, but that’s just experience)

    Definitely a mix of Friday/Paul being more convoluted than my inexperienced brain is currently capable of, and a complete lack of GK.

  13. Filled the grid after many checks understanding/parsing precious little, mostly guesswork… thanks Andrew for the blog, you’re a genius (as is Paul… and many commenters here and on the Guardian website, too…)

  14. Stared at (beats)* thinking htf does spooning hot fat = tack, til a very faint memory said Ah, something to do with sewing. And as for 21ac, well, as Miriam Margoles might say (far more crudely) “We all do them, don’t we”. All part of life with Paul, ta both.

  15. I liked ‘tender’ for FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE (even if the city might be tenderised in a gale), ‘workforce’ in TEMPO, and ET’s extendable neck (when I got my head around it).
    Thanks to Paul and Andrew

  16. NHO SAL VOLATILE, I tip my hat to those of you that have, and not having heard of “salvo” for applause either, I filled in VOLATILE from the crossers and left the middle letter of SAL blank.

    The parsing of 8D defeated me, and and 21A defeated me entirely, so a DNF.

  17. Yes, I thought this was more approachable than some of Paul’s offerings. I liked the image of an infant ON ALL FOURS with a full nappy, FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE having a bad night, the rousing stuff of SAL VOLATILE, GRAN U LOSE, the tips collected in CLEANSE, the well-hidden ENDORSE, and the bird’s neck in LORIKEET. And I should also mention TURD. I failed to parse PAVAROTTI, although I should have got it.

    Thanks Paul and Andrew.

  18. Don’t think I’ve seen 3 Js so close to each other in a puzzle. Great stuff with FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE, GRANULOSE and TURD my standouts.

    Ta Paul & Andrew.

  20. SamW@12 I think you misread the clue to FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE if you thought it had anything to do with currency. The definition is simply ‘tender’ – as in one who tends or cares for others (a nurse), and Florence Nightingale was certainly one of those. The follow-on word ‘scene’ is part of the wordplay.

  21. @3. Mr H (Paul) is married to a lady from that area although their home is in Brighton. Typical crossword from him although turd has cropped up before. When I looked up the salts I thought he was referring to the one in Viagra hence “arousal” but this one was not a Pauline. However a nice way to spend a sunny morning on the south coast . Thanks for a good blog.

  23. Half-finished from me, a lot of things I’d never heard of and a lot of the ones I did get I actually wasn’t sure how to parse!

    Still, better than my usual attempts at a Paul so I’ll take that as a win.

  24. Andy in Durham@20 aha I see! After the other tenners I parsed it as in “legal tender” for money, and thought there had been a very minor theme

    Thank you

  26. In COWES WEEK, I’m a little confused as to how “bullies”, as a noun, is a synonym for “cows” (I can’t readily find a dictionary to support it) nor even that the verb “to cow” has quite the same meaning as “to bully”. Could it be that Paul is ‘wittily’ hinting at a cow being “bullish” or “bully”. But I’m afraid I have my misgivings
    Notwithstanding, this was another great puzzle from a great compiler which didn’t strike me as either particularly straightforward or particularly difficult by Paul’s usual standard
    Thanks to Andrew also

  27. WFP @26 ‘Bullies’ in the clue is functioning as a verb, not a noun. If you bully someone, you aim to ‘cow’ (intimidate) them.

  28. WFP@26, how about “he bullies/cows them into submission”. (Not a reference to 26a of course.)

    (Balfour beat me to it.)

  29. Further to muffin@19. When I did chemistry A-level (back in the 60’s) my father showed me his old text books. In those, a number of compounds had Latin or Latinish names – aqua fortis for nitric acid, muriatic acid for hydrochloric acid and so on. It didn’t do me any good at the time – the examiners as well as everyone else had moved on – but every now and again one of those terms shows up in cryptics, like today, so Bingo! [And as I’ve said before, I can’t remember what I’ve had for breakfast.]

  31. Thanks Andrew and Paul
    GRANULATE tantamount to works for 15d if ‘beaten’ is taken as meaning having reached before.

  32. T@4 I think the only big cat that purrs is a cheetah, which doesn’t roar. I researched it ages ago because my son asked me. You can find YouTube videos of big cats apparently purring but it’s either faked or they’re just making a similar noise that isn’t a purr. Tigers make a ‘chough’ sound when scratched or stroked by braver (more stupid) people than me.

  33. I’m always mystified when I struggle with a puzzle and come here to find it labeled approachable. (The reverse sometimes happens, and that mystifies me too.) Finally getting FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE helped open it up. Hadn’t heard of SAL VOLATILE nor COWES WEEK, but knew they had to be sal something and some sort of week, respectively; both took ages and all the crossers.

    I agree with the majority that GRAN U LOSE! was the best bit of silliness here.

  34. As is often the case with Paul, I found it much easier to complete the grid than to parse it. It’s quite a generous grid, and a number of the definitions are unusually obviously signalled by Paul’s standards. Perhaps that is why some commenters found it easy-ish. I didn’t think it was the hardest puzzle he’s ever set. My favourite was PIGTAIL.

  35. I was one reveal short of completion (not a euphemism), but with plenty unparsed, several NHOs and a lot of leaning on Word Wizard, Google etc. The reveal was the COWES half of COWES WEEK, I was stuck on CROSS as something relating to a sporting event.

    Nevertheless, with all the caveats I’ve mentioned, that’s the best I’ve done with a Paul puzzle for a couple of months at least (when I’d said I’d completed it bar a couple of reveals, and was told I hadn’t completed it then. Which I thought was clear from my wording…but I’m not bitter 😉 )

  36. LORIKEET was the biggest belly laugh I’ve had from a crossword in ages. Probably because I got it from the definition and crossers, then spent ages trying to parse it before the penny dropped extremely suddenly. Quite brilliant!

  37. I thought this was Paul on top form. I love those parsings requiring phrases to be seen as synonymous with the wordplay, eg a Florence night in a gale, Gran, you lose! and a salvo, late.
    LORIKEET was an awesome PDM too.
    Brilliant puzzle!
    Thanks, Paul and Andrew.

  39. Stupid me – I got Baste for 23d but I thought it was a solution for Hammer (in the sense of basting meaning to thrash someone) and not Tack. I unthinkingly used Tack as the anagrind.

  40. Thanks both and a resounding defeat for me but it’s Paul so I enjoyed the wrestle.

    I offer a new acronym (is that right?) to go with pdm, nho and so forth: – ‘raw’. It means ‘reveal and wonder’ (or ‘reveal and wha!?’ if you must) and reflects my experience this week and particularly with this puzzle. I don’t wish to appear too moany* but SAPIENT, MOVIE STAR, ON ALL FOURS, SAL VOLATILE, TRUMP, EAST LONDON, PAVAROTTI, LORIKEET, SKOPJE and BASTE were all ‘raw’ – 10 in all out of 30 clues. But they presented no problem to our esteemed blogger so no foul.

    *[These crosswords are free and online so gratitude overtrumps any negative experience and while I do lob a bob towards the Grauniad in recognition I don’t take that as license to belly-ache. Nevertheless I feel the audience is entitled not to applaud if their experience is less than up to snuff. (How I long to attend a theatrical entertainment which does not end with a standing ovation and the complusory ‘encore’.)]

  43. If you pronounce Sal Volatile as per Muffin@19 you’ll sound dead posh. Where I come from it was Sal-vol-a-tilly with the emphasis on the flat a . I say was as no-one uses smelling salts any more ..? I remember taking a long sniff of my grandmother’s very small bottle and nearly passing out. Once and once only!

  44. Thanks for the compliment, Chardonneret @43!
    It’s Italian, so the -e ending is pronounced “ay” (more or less). To be “y” it would need to end “i” – masculine rather than feminine.

  45. For me this was a tough one, but I managed it. Holdups were 19d, I had COUGAR instead of JAGUAR for a long time, and 20d SKOPJE I didn’t trust the instructions (once I did, I prospered!), nho 19/12 COWES WEEK or 18a SAL VOLATILE. Lots of favourites, including 26a TRUMP (of course!), 4d TEMPO (I like musical clues, and this was a good one), 6d GREW (for “rose garden”), 23d BASTE (for a concise and meaningful surface), and 24d ICON (funny!)

    15d GRANULOSE brings back an old memory of beating my Granny at Scrabble, a rare occurrence. She was very happy for me, and said “hooray” in her distinctive way

    I feel that posting comments on this blog has made me persevere longer and more intensely toward a solution. I probably would have given up on this one before, so thank you everyone for the accountability!

  48. The TRUMP Clue made me laugh. I remember seeing a picture of him in a pool, (or the sea?) “mooning”! Before he was president.

    The difficulty with local clues is that I have to “learn” them as bits of info. If I learn them and don’t live them, then it becomes a repetitive coded solve – boring. But if I don’t learn them, I can’t solve them cold! A Catch 22 if there was one.

    But a very nice one all the same.

    Thanks both.

  51. Sugarbutties @50,
    The “T” is the leading letter in “terrifying”. The clue is a so-called &lit where the whole clue is both the definition and the wordplay.
    The creature with “a long extendable neck” in 8 is ET, the alien in Spielberg’s film of that name, so “with a long extendable neck?” is synonymous with “like ET”. Then put OR in that for the answer.

  52. Jaguars both purr and mark their territory. That’s assuming all the plugs are sparking correctly, and there’s a de-rigueur oil leak.

  53. Balfour@27, DuncT@28 – I made the point that the verb doesn’t quite work, in my opinion
    DuncT may have addressed my point, but Balfour doesn’t seem to have read my comment fully!
    Ho hum….

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