The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/29946.
Paul riffing on Cornwall. I found it easier than many of his offerings, with only the SW holding out to the end, but with so many delightful clues, who can cavil?
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | PANTHER |
Feline, wild being on the moor, only tail glimpsed (7)
|
| A charade of PAN (Greek god of nature, ‘wild being’) plus (‘on’) ‘the’ plus R (‘mooR, only tail glimpsed’). | ||
| 5 | PACIFIC |
Serene icon punched by a cleaner (7)
|
| An envelope (‘punched by’) of A CIF (‘a cleaner’, trade name) in PIC (‘icon’). | ||
| 9 | LOOSE |
Debauched son in Cornish town (5)
|
| An envelope (‘in’) of S (‘son’) in LOOE (‘Cornish town’). | ||
| 10 | BEATITUDE |
Joy sees what to do with 8 down, say, in Cornish town (9)
|
| An envlope (‘in’) of EAT IT (‘what to do with 8 down’ – CREAM TEA) in BUDE (‘Cornish town’). | ||
| 11 | SULTANSHIP |
Mischievous pals shut in leader’s office (10)
|
| An anagram (‘mischievous’) of ‘pals shut in’. | ||
| 12 | ATOM |
Tiny amount, nothing to plug hole in the wall (4)
|
| An envelope (‘to plug’) of O (‘nothing’) in ATM (automated teller machine, ‘hole in the wall’) | ||
| 14 | DESSERT WINE |
Gone west, westernised drink! (7,4)
|
| An anagram (‘gone west’) of ‘westernised’. | ||
| 18 | RHINOPLASTY |
Operation where end of scalpel slices through Afro/Cornish meat dish? (11)
|
| An envelope (‘slices through’) of L (‘end of scalpeL‘) in RHINO PASTY (‘Afro/Cornish meat dish?’). | ||
| 21 | GOON |
Gorilla somewhere in Cornwall, where hilly? (4)
|
| The ‘somewhere in Cornwall’ is Goonhilly Downs, the site of the Goonhillly Satellite Earth Station. GOON and ‘gorilla’ both refer to a thug. | ||
| 22 | DIGESTIVES |
What lover of Cornwall might do, scoffing English biscuits (10)
|
| An envelope (‘scoffing’) of E (‘English’) in DIG ST. IVES (‘what lover of Cornwall might do’; St.Ives being a Cornish town). | ||
| 25 | NOT NEARLY |
Less emphatically, train finally coming in late? (3,6)
|
| An envelope (‘coming in’) of N (the second one, ‘traiN finally’) in NOT EARLY (‘late’). ‘Emphatically’ as a stronger statement of ‘less’. | ||
| 26 | OUNCE |
Feline with shaved ball? (5)
|
| A subtraction: [b]OUNCE[r] (‘ball’) minus its outer letters (‘shaved’). | ||
| 27 | SET DOWN |
Group experiencing the blues record (3,4)
|
| A charade of SET (‘group’) plus DOWN (‘experiencing the blues’). | ||
| 28 | THEREIN |
Article with check so enclosed? (7)
|
| A charade of THE (definite ‘article’) plus REIN (‘check’). | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | POLISH |
Coming from Europe – like staff? (6)
|
| POLE-ISH | ||
| 2 | NOODLE |
Around Land’s End, lack of Spanish enthusiasm it seems for pasta (6)
|
| An envelope (‘around’) of D (‘lanD‘s end’) in NO OLÉ (‘lack of Spanish enthusiasm it seems’). | ||
| 3 | HEEL-AND-TOE |
Performance of the ode encapsulates style of fast-paced walk (4-3-3)
|
| An envelope (‘encapsulates’) of ELAN (‘style’) in HEDTOE, an anagram (‘performance of’) ‘the ode’. | ||
| 4 | REBUS |
Very uplifting southern puzzle (5)
|
| A charade of REBU, a reversal (‘uplifting’ in a down light) of UBER (‘very’); plus S (‘southern’). | ||
| 5 | PHARISEES |
Remarkably sharp jackets I detect for ancient sect (9)
|
| An envelope (‘jackets’) of I SEE (‘I detect’) in PHARS, an anagram (‘remarkably’) of ‘sharp’. | ||
| 6 | CAIN |
Murderer in good book residing in Jamaica Inn (4)
|
| A hidden answer (‘residing in’) in ‘JanaiCA INn’, with the ‘good book’ being the Bible, specifically Genesis. In the surface, the ‘good book’ is Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier, in which a murderous gang convenes at the Inn (a real one, which still exists on Bodmin Moor in Cornwall). | ||
| 7 | FOUNTAIN |
Nut and oaf dancing in spring (8)
|
| A charade of FOUNTA, an anagram (‘dancing’) of ‘nut’ plus ‘oaf’; plus ‘in’. | ||
| 8 | CREAM TEA |
Put together with jam ultimately covered, a Cornish treat (5,3)
|
| A charade of CREAMTE, an envelope (‘covered’) of M (‘jaM ultimately’) in CREATE (‘put together’); plus ‘a’. | ||
| 13 | STAY-AT-HOME |
So, may hate going out, time taken inside? (4-2-4)
|
| An envelope (‘take inside’) if T (‘time’) in STAYAHOME, an anagram (‘going out’) of ‘so may hate’, with an &lit definition. | ||
| 15 | SOLDIER ON |
Having bagged last of garbage, dumped metal stick with it (7,2)
|
| An envelope (‘having bagged’) of E (‘last of garbagE‘) in SOLD (‘dumped’) plus IRON (‘metal’). | ||
| 16 | BRIGANDS |
Robbers in briny leaving New York, Penzance pirates people? (8)
|
| A charade of ‘bri[ny]’ minus NY (‘leaving New York’) plus G AND S (Gilbert and Sullivan, creators of comic operas, including The Pirates of Penzance, ‘Penzance pirates people’). | ||
| 17 | HIT OUT AT |
Criticise one tipster dressed for Royal Ascot? (3,3,2)
|
| An implied envelope: I (‘one’) plus TOUT (‘tipster’) IN HAT (‘dressed for Royal Ascot’). | ||
| 19 | AVENUE |
‘arbour used regularly as street (6)
|
| A charade of ‘AVEN (‘ ‘arbour’, with the initial H dropped in both cases) plus UE (‘UsEd regularly’). | ||
| 20 | ASTERN |
Towards the back, seat adjusted before service (6)
|
| A charade of ASTE, an anagram (‘adjusted’) of ‘seat’; plus RN (‘Royal Navy, ‘service’). | ||
| 23 | EGYPT |
Country where Eden Project failed, say: ultimately foolhardy exercise (5)
|
| A charade of E.G. (exempli gratia, ‘say’) plus Y (‘ultimately foolhardY‘) plus PT (‘exercise’). The (extended) definition refers to the 1956 Suez Crisis, with UK involvement under the leadership of Prime Minister Anthony Eden. | ||
| 24 | MEMO |
Reminder, a few seconds for myself? (4)
|
| A charade of ME (‘myself’) plus MO (‘a few seconds’). |
Excellent, Paul, thanks.
I needed explanations for BOUNCER and BRIGANDS, thanks PeterO.
DIGESTIVES and then AVENUE LOIs. I thought I would never get the biscuits, but at my second sitting both popped out. DIGESTIVES my favourite clue
Nice puzzle, featuring a number of Paulisms.
Fave was BRIGANDS. I was a little unsure about equating bOUNCEr with ball, since the latter is defined more by shape than, well, springiness, but the question-mark can probably permit the LOOSEness.
I’m glad it’s you blogging PeterO, up before my bedtime, and an excellent explication, as always.
I didn’t get very far with this, and came here to see whether I could/should have persevered. But the GK was mostly beyond my ken, as I expect with a Paul, and for myself. Happy to let this one go through to the keeper and for others to enjoy.
Dr. WhatsOn @2. A bouncer in this case is a type of delivery, i.e. a ball, in cricket rather than the spherical object itself
Yep some dnks, like Cif the cleaner, Looe the town and the satellite place, but all gettable. St Ives is from childhood (As I was going to … etc), but biffed the biccies anyway. Here we used to call tea with scones, jam and cream a Devonshire tea — well it’s next door I guess. Nice cruisy job Paul, and ta PeterO.
Being a Westcountry boy, I thoroughly enjoyed this southern puzzle, and didn’t find it a Bodmin beast like some of Paul’s ones can be.
Faves were the brilliant EGYPT, the lovely constructions of HIT OUT AT and
BRIGANDS, the STAY-AT-HOME &lit, the fun NOODLE and “ME MO”, and the inevitably Pauline OUNCE.
Only POLISH let the side down slightly I thought, as our blogger’s terse elucidation intimates.
Thanks both!
I agree with PeterO that this was certainly one of his more straightforward offerings and I had a lot of fun with this last night. My favourites were BEATITUDE, DESSERT WINE, RHINOPLASTY, DIGESTIVES and BRIGANDS. I agree with Crispy @4 re OUNCE.
Ta Paul & PeterO.
Lovely stuff. A steady solve with interesting clues and lovely DIGESTIVES. Delicious. Thanks Paul and PeterO.
Thanks Paul and PeterO
“Wild being” for PAN was rather loose; also “ball” for bOUNCEr, though Crispy @4 makes this a bit closer.
Favourite BEATITUDE.
GinF @5 The St. Ives in the rhyme is the one near Huntingdon, not the Cornish one. Sorry!
When I glanced down and saw all the Cornish clues I immediately wondered whether CREAM TEA would feature, and there it was at 8d, and therefore my very first one in. This got my juices going and I managed to complete this Paul offering without too much bother. A minor triumph for me. Some of the parsing I found tricky – needed PeterO to explain REBUS, and last one in was GOON. Though I had to look up its connection with the Kernow theme. Many thanks P and P this morning…
Fab fun. Double-ticks for the RHINOPLASTY, DIGESTIVES & BRIGANDS
Who can cavil? It being Paul I’m sure we’ll find out as the day progresses 🙂
Cheers P&P
Eden Project is also referring to the Eco experiment in Saint Austell, Cornwall.
@grantinfo #5. Paul being very good with the cream tea clue. Ensuring that the jam is covered Cornish style (with cream being implied). A Devonshire cream tea is, of course, served correctly* with the jam covering the cream.
*SteveThePirate lives in deepest Devon.
Re 1ac – there have been many alleged sightings of ‘The Beast of Bodmin Moore, usually assumed to be a panther
Wasn’t sure if this was more straightforward or I was just enjoying it more. Paul at his best in my opinion and even my limited Cornwall knowledge didn’t ruin it.
Big tick for the Cornish clues of RHINOPLASTY, DIGESTIVES and BEATITUDE.
Took 5 minutes at the end to understand the gands in BRIGANDS otherwise fully parsed which is rare for a Paul puzzle.
Paul and PeterO
A REBUS for today (in a down clue). rEVOLution which I hope people will find uplifting
Fortunately, I know a bit about Cornwall – only GOONhilly (LoI) took some bringing to mind. DIGESTIVES was the real standout for me. Thanks, Paul and PeterO.
SteveThePirate @13
I’m originally from Devon, but I’ve never understood how it is possible to put the jam on the cream!
muffin @18 asking the important questions!
Just dollop it on with a spoon 🙂
It must have been easier than usual as I finished it with only slight assistance – a first for a Paul puzzle. I loved so many of the clues apart from POLISH which I thought weak.
Favourites BEATITUDE, DIGESTIVES, BRIGANDS.
Thanks PeterO for the excellent and timely blog.
Great fun. Aurigina is Cornish (her grandmother once lived in Jamaicky Inn) and we know Goonhilly.
As for the cream teas, I spread whichever component I judge on the day to have the higher viscosity first.
Thanks to Paul and PeterO.
A rare Paul finish.
The parsing of 21a defeated me, NHO Goonhilly Downs.
DIGESTIVES was first class and my COD/COW/COM…
I spent a holiday in St.Mawes many years ago, lovely part of the world. Must go back there again soon.
Lovely crossword, thanks both.
Ronald @ 10 – I associate CREAM TEA more with Devon, but heigh-ho…
Loved “Jamaica Inn” and spent some time looking for it.
Normally, I’m glad of a handful of solutions on first pass of a Paul but was delighted and surprised to get half completed with the rest falling in record quick time. So rare to be on the same wavelength! Like most, DIGESTIVES a real stand out followed for me by RHINOPLASTY. Thanks, Paul and Peter
Goonhilly Downs played a big role in the history of telecommunications. It was one of the very first places in the world to receive satellite signals (from the Telstar satellite) and was one of the few sites communicating with the Apollo moon missions. It will be fairly well known to people of a certain generation.
Bravo, Paul! Normally, these days, my heart sinks when it’s a Paul puzzle, because I’ve come to expect lots of tedious cross-references, clunky clues and off-the-wall definitions. But this was much more conventional and accessible. Thanks for that. Favourite clue: DIGESTIVES.
Thanks too, to PeterO. I needed your elucidation of PANTHER (‘Pan’ = ‘wild being’), POLISH (‘Pole-ish?’ Doh!) and EGYPT (I hadn’t appreciated that it’s an &lit – again, Bravo, Paul.)
Now for breakfast in a good mood!
Super fun crrossie, many thanks to Paul and PeterO 🙂
An absolute treat – a real breath of Cornish air on a lovely sunny morning.
So many references to that beautiful county, wrapped up in some cracking clues -10ac BEATITUDE, 18ac RHINOPLASTY, 22ac DIGESTIVES and EGYPT my top favourites but ticks too for 14ac DESSERT WINE, 16dn BRIGANDS, 17dn HIT OUT AT.
ginf @5 you’re right, Devon is also famed for its cream teas but there’s an age-old argument between the two counties as to how to eat scones – jam or cream first? – which Paul has demonstrated cleverly in 8dn: ‘jam ultimately covered’!
Here’s the royal verdict:
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/queen-scones-jam-cream-what-goes-first-debate-cream-tea-outrage-a8260686.html
Many thanks to Paul for a brilliant start to the day and to PeterO for a brilliant blog.
As a frequent visitor to Cornwall the geography wasn’t too difficult. Loved some of the splendidly silly wordplay like the Rhino Pasty and the lack of Spanish enthusiasm. I like Paul in this mood.
(Anybody else muttering that the Garden of Eden wasn’t in EGYPT? I’d forgotten about Suez.)
I have said before that this is my favourite 15×15 grid, and gosh, we are seeing a lot of it these days, the most recent instance being only the day before yesterday courtesy of Philistine. Being of the ‘certain generation’ mentioned by Andy in Durham @25, I certainly knew of Goonhilly Downs, and concur with those who thought this to be at the more tractable end of Paul’s spectrum.
Worth the entrance fee for BRIGANDS, THEREIN, GOON – but especially for the brilliant DIGESTIVES (which I was dunking in my tea only half an hour ago).
As for the crucial jam/cream question: I’m with Auriga @21, every time!
Thank you PeterO and Paul
I gave up half way through the last offering from Paul, but thoroughly enjoyed this one. The fact that I was born in Cornwall and have always lived in the South West helped enormously! Favourite clue being Digestives. Thanks Peter and Paul.
Thank you Paul and PeterO.
There are so many clever references to England’s southernmost and westernmost county that I felt sure there must be a lizard in there somewhere. Perhaps there is?
Like many others, I loved the clues for DIGESTIVES and BRIGANDS, and the neat references to Jamaica Inn and the Eden Project, but my favourite clue was the quite brilliant Beast of Bodmin clue at 1 across, where only the tail was glimpsed …
[Eileen – lovely to see you back!]
Isn’t Paul brilliant that he can produce such a straightforward crossword today following the far less accessible puzzle published last Thursday? For myself, I like the puzzling level to be closer to last week’s offering though the variety, innovation and fun in today’s made it more enjoyable if less lasting
Many thanks both and all
I think Paul has been very neat by matching the wordplay for 8d carefully with his Cornish theme — “jam ultimately covered”. But, of course, tea with scones, jam and clotted cream is a Devon cream team. The cream goes on first, obviously, because it is the layer of fat which takes on the role of butter before the sugary layer topping: the gustatory effect is most effective and is cognate with aeons-established bread+butter+marmalade/jam.
The Cornish can have their pasty.
It’s mostly all been said by earlier posters, but I concur with the general pleasure in Paul’s offering today. For me, it was pitched just right: all doable and ultimately done in good time, with a bit of head-scratching but no outside help or checking needed; and some very neat constructions.
Top marks for RHINOPLASTY, DIGESTIVES and BEATITUDE.
I had heard of GOONhilly, as with Andy in Durham @25 and Balfour@30, being of a “certain generation”: it might well have been featured in Look and Learn, which I devoured weekly back in the 60s, as a Wonder of Modern Science.
I’m grateful to PeterO for the explanation of “Eden Project” – I had thought “maybe biblical, sort of, ?garden of Eden?, um Exodus, um…”, but it wasn’t satisfying (or, indeed, correct).
I’m visualising how you could cover a scone with jam on cream or cream on jam at will, using one or two of Wallace’s porridge splurt cannons; but it’s a long way from West Wallaby Street to Bude (now there’s a song title…).
Thank Paul and PeterO.
As I grew up in Cornwall this brought back many memories. I’m impressed by how many Cornish references Paul managed to include. Even for ATOM: the hole in the wall was a debtor’s prison in Bodmin, now a pub restaurant.
Enjoyable. All the more so for being a tad more straightforward than Paul often is, and not a homophone in sight. I was amused by BRIGANDS, once I teased out the parsing, and by the RHINO PASTY.
It’s hard to say anything original at this stage. I rarely do anyway.
For my thoughts, see bodycheetah @11
So happy to have helped stimulate such a rich cultural debate 😉
More easily approachable than a standard Paul, but with the usual high level of wit.
The whole puzzle was worth it just for DIGESTIVES. Brilliant!
Thanks Paul and PeterO
Corn-ish jokes instead of the usual Corn-y ones. Great stuff.
At last, a Paul puzzle that I could really enjoy (like Median @26). Of course, some knowledge of Cornwall required for the full appreciation. Lots of clues I liked. BEATITUDE where the CREAM TEA was eaten and Paul managed to avoid BE A TIT, the good anagram for DESSERT WINE, the Afro/Cornish PASTY in RHINOPLASTY, the ST IVES DIGESTIVES, the PHARISEES with their sharp jackets, SOLDIER ON to stick with it, and HIT OUT AT at Ascot.
Thanks Paul and PeterO (thanks for the G AND S that I had missed).
I’m not sure if Paul is using the device in POLISH more often or if I’m just noticing it more, but as soon as I see “like” in a Paul clue, and it ends with a question mark, I think “This’ll be something -ISH”.
I really enjoyed this — so many clever witty clues. It’s hard to single out favourites but I think DIGESTIVES and BRIGANDS were my top ticks, along with EGYPT for the brilliant play on “Eden Project”.
Many thanks Paul and PeterO.
PS Anyone else getting a lot of “Service unavailable” messages for the site today?
Yes, Lord Jim @45. It has taken three reloads of the page to get back in now.
Lord Jim @44
The “-ish” endings are very common in the Uxbridge English Dictionary, as heard on I’m sorry I haven’t a clue.
@45 – yes, it has just taken me several goes to refresh this thread. I’ve Emailed Admin.
I have to ask – are Paul’s crosswords the puzzle equivalent of Mornington Crescent? That is, an ‘in’ joke that outsiders think has real rules. I’m increasingly thinking that they must be.
[RogerPat@48: I can’t answer that as lateral moves are not permitted on Thursdays.]
It has just come to my notice via another article in the Guardian that today is St Piran’s Day. St P is the patron saint of Cornwall, so Paul’s themed crossword today is precisely timed.
I was late because of a work meeting (on my day off 🙂 and then the service was not available. I found this more accressible than a usual Paul, despite my lack of Cornish knowledge, regrettably never managed to visit Cornwall. I needed this blog to parse panther (even though I had the solution as soon a I had the starting p) and Egypt (lack of historical knowledge; did not connect Eden with the Suez crisis). Like others, loved digestives (the clue; I don’t eat the biscuits…). Thanks also to the bloggers for the additional insight into Cornish and Devonish cream teas (also something I do not eat…). An enjoyable puzzle. Thanks, Paul and PeterO.
LOOE (nho, like most other place names here, shame on me) is a very unusually shaped word — I’m surprised it doesn’t come up more often in puzzles!
Even with my geography shortcomings, I also found it on the gentler side of Paul’s oeuvre. And not one bit of rudeness! How the naughty have fallen…
Thanks Paul and PeterO!
[The TV series Beyond Paradise,, though supposedly set in Devon, is mostly filmed in Looe in Cornwall.]
Balfour@52, well spotted. I think Perranporth, where we enjoyed a family holiday in 1960, takes its name from the Cornish saint. (Also nice, btw, to see Looe get referenced as we had another really good holiday there the year before…)
In the 1960’s King’s College London Radio Physics group had an outstation at Goonhilly.
Most enjoyable. I completely agree with Median @26 and Robi @43 – this reminded me why Paul was once one of my favourite setters. I particularly liked BEATITUDE, RHINOPLASTY and DIGESTIVES.
[And on the subject of jam/cream, I’m with Auriga @21 – physics trumps sectarianism 🙂 ]
Meur ras Paul & PeterO
Like most furriners, I’ve never heard of Cif. I’m not sure about Looe or Bude, but definitely not the Goonhilly Downs. Congrats to Paul for getting in so many Cornish references, some only revealed in the comments.
Seems to me we’ve had OUNCE recently. It’s a crossword fave in any case.
I first came to Cornwall when a friend and I landed at Falmouth having sailed from Boston. One memory of that time is meeting another boat also recently landed there, where somebody asked us, “Did you have salad? We had salad!” Well, not really, we’ve been at sea for weeks. Turns out the other person was not bragging but complaining. The passengers on that boat were a sales team who had won the trip in a company contest and who had been hoping for a sunny visit to Costa this or that, featuring drinks with umbrellas in them. Instead they got the coast of England with all-too-wholesome meals!
The state of Michigan has a good deal of tin, so it got a lot of Cornish immigrants and also pasties as a local treat, pronounced the traditional way. There’s a Michigan song I’m trying to track down singing the praises of pasties.
Thanks to Paul and PeterO for a delightful nght and morning, and a delight to see you, Eileen!
Thanks Paul for a fun crossword without anything very obscure today. Thanks Peter O for the missing parses – as usual I kick myself when revealed. was BRI(GANDS) among many smiles. I’m also old enough that CIF is still JIF to me, so it took a while for the 5 across penny to drop. Today’s favourite among many smiles 22ac.
I love a cream tea. I’m not from anywhere near the SW myself, so a neutral commentator. I’m firmly with Muffin on the impossibility of spreading jam on cream. Just “dolloping it on with a spoon” results in uneven and too sweet!
sorry for the gobbledegook was in the process of re-editing when I pressed submit
Thanks Paul and PeterO! I was pleased to find this one doable for me, despite having no knowledge of Cornwall, and indeed like our blogger had the toughest time in the SW. I was able to infer the existence of a Looe, Bude, and Goonhilly, but needed PeterO’s help to parse DIGESTIVES (and BRIGANDS, but that’s not Cornwall’s fault.)
I’m out of sync with most solvers apparently because I snorted at POLISH while having a quibble with RHINOPLASTY, because rhinos are as much associated with /southeast Asia as Africa. My favorite was the rather silly NOODLE, and I was also a fan of THEREIN.
And thanks Petert@42 for the giggle/groan.
Obviously the (clotted) cream should go on first, as pserve_p2 @35 has elegantly explained. Although I have to disagree about the Cornish having ‘their’ pasty. As we Devonians know, the pasty actually originated on this side of the Tamar.
But as Balfour @50 notes, today being St Piran’s day I suppose we shall have to let Trelawny’s men and women have their day.
Thanks to P & P for the fun.
My near-complete lack of knowledge of Cornish geography made this rather harder for me than for most of the other commenters thus far. But I did get there in the end, enjoying all the Paul silliness on the way.
Valentine @58: specifically, pasties in Michigan are an Upper Peninsula thing, at least originally. My first time having a pasty was in the UP as a youth. It wasn’t until years later that I found one elsewhere.
[Cornish pasties were made for tin-miners. Traditionally they had meat at one end and something sweet at the other. The miners held them by the ridge along the top, which was discarded when the pasty was finished, as it would be contaminated by the metal ore they worked in.]
I’m reminded of the joke about the Devon & Cornwall & Devon Music Festival being cancelled because the organisers couldn’t agree on the running order of the acts – should Cream go on before or after The Jam?
I’m reminded of the joke about the Devon & Cornwall Music Festival being cancelled because the organisers couldn’t agree on the running order of the acts – should Cream go on before or after The Jam?
A good one from Paul
Quite tough but not nasty
To Valentine et al
I say Here’s to the Pasty!
What took me a long time to learn re the cream tea debate is that it’s CLOTTED cream, not whipped as is often served in e.g. the South East. Clotted is much closer to butter, and because putting jam on top of whipped cream is impractical and not even nice, I failed to see why anyone would do this. Now I understand…
Lots of fun. Favorite was DIGESTIVES but obviously in the real world, chocolate digestives are the absolute pinnacle of biscuit art.
So where are you from if you put the clotted cream and jam side by side on your scone??
Thanks to commenters for explaining the Beast of Bodmin allusion in 1 and to Peter and Paul.
I struggled to get beyond a few clues with this. I’m always open to giving a Paul puzzle a go, but won’t persevere beyond a certain point if I get the sense that it’s just not one that I can get on with. So it’s a bit frustrating to see this being overwhelmingly described as a more doable/straightforward one of his offerings: I just haven’t been in the mindset for that today, for broader reasons. Hopefully another such grid will come along when I’m feeling more able to meet one of his challenges.
Thanks for the blog , sorry I am too tired to read the comments so apologies for repetition . DIGESTIVES and BRIGANDS were neat .
Did anyone spot the secondary Mamas & Papas theme ?
I guessed OUNCE but how does feline come into it?
OUNCE is the elusive snow leopard .
Every day is a school day. Thanks, Roz.
Figured this would be a no-go because 1) Paul and 2) Cornwall theme, but was surprised to finish it with only minimal help from DuckDuck. I did know 8d CREAM TEA and the PASTY in 18a RHINOPLASTY, but had to look up 9a LOOSE (LOOE?), 10a BEATITUDE (BUDE?), 21a GOON, and 22a DIGESTIVES (ST IVES being one of the stops in Flanders and Swann’s “Slow Train“, a most beautiful song). I though Paul might try to trick us with something like “grainy” (corn-ish), but nope
Favourites 11a SULTANSHIP (anagram deftly woven into the surface), 12a ATOM (“hole in the wall” = ATM?? Hilarious!), 2d NOODLE (NO OLE!)
Iain @73, Ounce is another name for the Snow Leopard, and well worth remembering when doing crosswords.
Thanks for the blog and to Paul for a lovely tour of the SW.
Roz@72, yes I found the secondary theme! 24d Memo, 12a AtoM, 6d cAin, 4d rebuS, 3d heel-AND-toe, 1a PAnther, 5d PhAriseeS — very cleverly hidden
Really pleased to have finished this one after only just getting past half way on Paul’s previous outing (17 solved out of 30). Apologies for not reading more than the last few comments, as I have to dash; hope I don’t reppeat what others have said. Good to see that Roz@72 spotted the fiendishly difficult hidden theme.
I didn’t think the Cornish stuff was too intrusive, and I’m no expert.
Favourites were POLISH and REBUS, for new takes on old friends.
Thanks to Paul. Good to know you can still set a normal crossword. And thanks to PeterO for the blog. (I struggled with SET DOWN and the tipster in the SW – obviously that part of the grid would have to be harder because that’s where Cornwall is and it’s largely granite. 🙂 )
Happy St. Piran’s day everyone.
Absolutely brilliant. Loved POLISH, DIGESTIVES and BEATITUDE. Mig@76 – Corn-ish/grainy would have been the icing on the cake – thanks for spotting it. Surely the correct order, cream-tea wise, is butter, jam then clotted cream Thanks to Paul and PeterO
Ah a Paul I could actually do! More please.
[Mig@76: You may be pleased to know that the St. Erth to St.Ives line, although it was listed among the casualties in Slow Train, was reprieved and is still heavily used as part of a “park and ride” system for travel into St. Ives. ]
Thanks gladys@84, yes that is good to know! Tempting to travel to the UK just to ride the line! Though not really comedic, Slow Train is one of F&S’s best songs