It’s Paul in the Thursday slot…
… and back to his more familiar form, after his Cornish Delight last week.
I think there’s actually more than the usual quota of tortuous constructions, quirky surfaces and audacious soundalikes – or perhaps it’s just me, after my enforced two-month absence. I’m certainly (even) more rusty than I thought I was and I need help in a couple of places. My thanks in advance – please try to resist posting a comment simply to repeat others’ suggestions. 😉
Thanks to Paul for the puzzle.
Definitions are underlined in the clues.
Across
1 That’s all on Feds busting politician (3,2,5)
END OF STORY
An anagram (busting) of ON FEDS + TORY (politician)
6 Swinging both ways in the guise of intolerance (4)
BIAS
BI (swinging both ways) + AS (in the guise of)
9 Seriously funny minute where head blown off in which Groucho’s prop backfires? (10)
TRAGICOMIC
[a]TOMIC (minute, minus it’s initial letter – head) round a reversal (backfires) of CIGAR (Groucho Marx’s prop)
10 Equerry’s rump plastered in red sauce (4)
MAYO
[equerr]Y in MAO (red)
12 Fly, say, in starter of soup etc, dining we found funny? (6,6)
WINGED INSECT
An anagram (found funny) of S[oup] ETC DINING WE
15 Pompous, more than is usual at an airport, did you say? (9)
HIFALUTIN
This must mean, I think, how some people might say ‘High for Luton’ – really? – it’s a lovely word, anyway
17 Hitch where consumption disturbed by whiff (5)
THUMB
HUM (whiff) in TB (tuberculosis – consumption) – reference to thumbing a lift, hitch-hiking
18 III wrong? Alternatively, I or II divided by the number (5)
ETHER
An anagram (wrong) of III – THREE – I can’t quite see the wordplay: either… or (alternatively) divided by THE?
It seems a long time since we saw this old chestnut
Please see comments 2 and 3
19 Colour in image on rock for sign (9)
PREDICTOR
RED (colour) in PIC (colour) + TOR (rock)
20 Some Sandinista, get role in a dictatorship after revolution – would I? (6,6)
DANIEL ORTEGA
A clever hidden reversal (after revolution) in SandinistA GET ROLE IN A Dictatorship
24 Member of the orchestra I understand, violin player picked up? (4)
OBOE
Sounds like (picked up) ‘Oh’ (I understand) + bow (violin player)
25 Queasy one, relative gulping oxygen is in a state (10)
ILLINOISAN
ILL (queasy) + I (one) + NAN (relative) round O (oxygen) IS
26 Spot channel on the radio? (4)
MOTE
Sounds like (on the radio) moat (channel)
27 Victorian author set to field question left after fumbles overheard? (3,7)
MRS GASKELL
GEL (set) round ASK (question) + L (left) after MRS (misses – fumbles overheard?)
Down
1 Food waste at several stores (4)
EATS
Contained in wastE AT Several
2 Flat flatfish: that’s about right (4)
DRAB
DAB (flatfish) round R (right)
3 Delicate creatures tomorrow and for another week, according to one’s horoscope? (12)
FRITILLARIES
FRI[day] (tomorrow) + TILL ARIES (until March 21, typically, according to one’s horoscope)
4 17 21 brief, 17 21 to 21? (5)
THONG
I’m sorry, I can’t see this one at all – over to you
5 People staying at home, and stumbling, hopeful steps taken before a fall? (4,5)
RAIN DANCE
RACE (people) round (staying, in the sense of stopping) IN (at home) + an anagram (stumbling) of AND
7 Short, and a quite misshapen nose, ultimately (10)
INADEQUATE
An anagram (misshapen) of AND A QUITE + [nos]E
8 Unctuous windbag, potential killer? (6-4)
SMOOTH-BORE
SMOOTH (unctuous) + BORE (windbag)
11 Show agony and sign the forms (8,4)
ANYTHING GOES
An anagram (forms) of AGONY and SIGN THE
13 Heart palpitating over wife in bedroom, tickler of infant’s bottom? (10)
THREADWORM
An anagram (palpitating) of HEART + W (wife) in DORM (bedroom)
14 Back stabbed by company in African country – warmer in Asia? (6,4)
AFGHAN COAT
AFT (back) round CO (company) in GHANA (African country)
16 A packet with something sticky, work on sweetie that’s wrapped up (3,6)
TOP DOLLAR
TAR (something sticky) round OP (work) + DOLL (sweetie)
21 Aversion to heights is never good where always at the summit? (5)
THING
Initial letters (at the summit, in a down clue) of To Heights Is Never Good
22 Sky, might you have said? Oddly it’s blue! (4)
ISLE
Odd letters of ItS bLuE, for the Isle of Skye
23 Particular Turner turned up? (4)
ANAL
A reversal (turned up, in a down clue) of LANA (Turner)
That was torturous – was only able to get a handful before having to admit defeat. Even for Paul I just could not get on the same wavelength today.
Thanks for the explanations Eileen, even after revealing I wasn’t able to parse most of these.
ETHER: Is the I or II referring to ER which is then containing THE?
Thanks Paul and Eileen.
ETHER
I think I or II refers to ER I or ER II.
ER divided by THE
DANIEL ORTEGA worth the admission money on his own, I thought. Yes, much tortuous trickery as Eileen says. Weren’t AFGHAN COAT’s the thing once, though they became very smelly when they got damp.
Eventually defeated by this, but enjoyed it as far as I got…
Thanks, PM and KVa – that sounds about right.
I wondered whether it was EITHER one or two, divided by I. so the one is dropped. But I feel the sound of straws slipping between fingers… KVas answer is much better!
4d Thumb-thing brief, thumb-thing to thing – a lispy version of something brief, something to sing
For 4d: substitute the answers for 17 & 21 and you get: “Thumbthing brief, thumb thing to thing” – which is how someone with a lisp might say “something brief (i.e. a THONG), something to sing (a SONG, lisped!)”.
4 I had Thumb thing to thing is a thong? Said with a lisp – or lithp if you prefer.
I came here to get 4d wordplay. Not sure whether to be pleased it also puzzled an expert!
THONG, I think is THUMB-THING to THING, i.e. a SONG is SOMETHING to SING, but with Paul, perhaps, poking fun at people with a lisp
Thanks Adam, cryptor and Major – I saw the lispy thing but couldn’t see an indicator!
Thanks Paul and Eileen
Baffled by 4d too, and not impressed by the explanation! Several others went in unparsed too. Favourite ANAL.
Interesting that 3d means that this puzzle could only be published today. I wonder if that was by prior agreement with the editor!
4d is clearly a lisped version of ‘something to sing’, as others have noted but, as Eileen says, there’s no clear indicator for such. I didn’t think (or sink) it was a problem, personally, given that ‘brief’ gives a nod to underwear, hence THONG.
Completed the grid but totally stumped by 4d parsing. And, having read the explanations above, for which many thanks, I’m not surprised I was confuddled.
Again. Thanks to Eileen and posters above.
Excellent puzzle, really enjoyed this one. Paul one of my favourite compilers. I find 4d fun, but I seem to be on my own.
Well that was a toughie.
I got there in the end and enjoyed the surface to ANYTHING GOES – and ANAL made me chuckle
But for the most part it was a gritted-teeth struggle, with a host of ‘guess first, try to parse later’ (plus an annoying pause for research about the Sandinistas) and whilst I eventually succeeded in disentangling AFGHAN COAT, RAIN DANCE, END OF STORY and MRS GASKELL many of the other “tortuous constructions” remained semi-parsed or wholly impenetrable.
So a warm and heartfelt virtual hug for Eileen for all the explanations.
(I could list the clues that really annoyed me, but then I’ll just get attacked by the Paul-fans.) Best if I simply go back to giving Paul a miss…
No fun at all for me today. I wrangled a couple of clues to get MRS GASKELL and THREADWORM then gave up. Some of this might as well have been in another language for all the sense I could make of it.
That was slow, fiddly and difficult, but also a lot of fun: a proper Paul. The thing-thong in 4 made me laugh, as did HIGHFALUTIN. I can’t quite sort out ETHER: it’s a “number” which is an anagram of THREE (III) or EITHER minus I, but I can’t quite make all the bits fit.
Paul seems to be working his way through the inhabitants of various US states: ILLINOISAN is the latest.
Eileen: you haven’t parsed DRAB which is DAB(flatfish) about R(ight).
Another brilliant display of trickery, if somewhat tortuous at times. Like ronald @4, I thought DANIEL ORTEGA was a wonderful spot although I don’t understand ‘would I?’ at the end of the clue. I also enjoyed TRAGICOMIC, HIFALUTIN, ETHER, MRS GASKELL and FRITILLARIES. After THREADWORM, I was hoping EATS wasn’t going to be another form of food waste.
Ta Paul & Eileen.
AlanC @21
I think the “would I?” is alluding to some regarding Ortega as a dictator. See here.
Thank you, gladys @20 – sorted now. (I hope no one was held up too long by that one. 😉 )
I can’t understand why some don’t like Paul’s stuff. He is by far the most inventive of the G compilers, and brings a touch of fun to every puzzle. 18a and 20a are impressive, but the prize must go to the genius and hilarious 4d. Bravo Paul, and thanks Eileen.
I’m definitely in the “that was brilliant” camp. So witty, particularly THUMB THING THONG. Very hard work but worth the struggle. Many thanks to Paul and Eileen.
Oofyprosser@24 – I couldn’t agree more.
Thanks muffin @22: I think it’s saying something like ‘would I, DANIEL ORTEGA, get a role in a dictatorship?’
FRITILLARIES was good, but would have been even better if it had been used a year ago. Last year, the Friday was on the 14th, so a week later would have been exactly the start of the star sign Aries.
As KVa says, as well as three*, ether is ‘the’ inside either Eliz I or II. A fun Paul, ta. Lovely to see you back on deck Eileen.
Generally, I’m no fan of this setter, finding his convoluted surfaces too much of a struggle to enjoy, but I rather enjoyed this offering. Had to wait until the last minute to see the THUMB-THING gag, which had me smiling out loud.
BIAS was my loi and, for once, was ok with the airport homophone.
Many thanks, both.
Amused by the THUMB THING (perhaps referring to “Something” by George Harrison), but the clue doesn’t appear to have a definition. You have to imagine that lisping is involved.
I dread the appearance of “sound-alikes” in Paul’s puzzles, but most of them were fine with the exception of HIFALUTIN which simply doesn’t work, for the usual rhotic reasons.
Another vote in favour of this puzzle and of Paul in general. Favourites include HIGHFALUTIN (even though I do pronounce Rs), THONG, ETHER, the concise DRAB and many others.
Thanks Paul and Eileen.
I’m still relatively new to cryptic crosswords and although I have made a lots of progress, I cannot ever find my way into Paul’s crosswords – I’m very grateful for this website on days like today!
Oofyprosser @24 – I usually have issues with Paul’s crosswords for various reasons (not all of which apply to today’s offering). A few bugbears are the overuse of linked clues, frequency of obscure words, the scatological ‘humour’ and clue constructions which seem primarily concerned with showing how clever the setter is. For me (and quite a few other solvers it seems) they just aren’t worth the energy or time – the result is rarely, if ever, worth it. But to each their own!
This thread is developing into a rather tedious repeat of Tuesday’s ‘discussion’. It’s made very clear here, practically every day, that solvers / commenters have different favourites. It would be very DRAB if that were not the case.
Could we please confine comments to the current puzzle?
poc@31 One definition in 4d, as elucidated by Adam @7 and cryptor @8, is a lisped version of ‘something brief’ – a thong here being a female undergarment of minimal dimensions sometimes worn by young women. Certainly my elder daughter went through a thong phase in her teens, something which, as the person in charge of laundry in the family, I could not fail to notice. A supplementary definition is provided by a lisped version of ‘something to sing’ – i.e, a song.
I thought the last few Paul offerings weren’t too bad, but have to agree with others that this one seemed particularly torturous and unenjoyable. Too many overly complicated surfaces (e.g. the whole I or II thing in 18 across strikes me as needlessly confusing and adds nothing to the clue) and there are quite a few questionable synonyms imo: Bias/Intolerance and Short/Inadequate seem very loose to me, and I really do not understand how Aversion means Thing at all, unless I’m missing something.
Just so I don’t come across as a completely negative nancy, I will say that I liked 4d a lot, that’s the sort of playful cleverness I can get behind.
Very funny and inventive! And great fun to solve. DANIEL ORTEGA was just brilliant.
Thanks Paul and Eileen
Welcome back, Eileen.
Agree, ArkLark, totally apt clue for the Mugabe syndrome, i.e. liberator-turned-autocrat.
Weirdly, I found this comparatively easy for a Paul. Sometimes he seems to rejoice in the indecipherable complexities of his clues. However, ‘I or II’ meaning ‘ER’ is the sort of construction that does make me ask, “What normal person could get that directly rather than guessing the answer and working backwards?”
For me, Paul’s crosswords can be too fiddly at times. However, as ample compensation, there’s always his cleverness and wit.
True, there was no direct indication that THUMB, THING and THONG had to be lisped, but such an indication would surely have spoiled the penny-drop moment.
DANIEL ORTEGA in reverse was ingenious, and I liked the definition for RAIN DANCE – hopeful steps taken before a fall.
Thanks to Paul and Eileen.
I’m a big fan of Paul even though I sometimes find his puzzles much too hard. This one was perfect for me, hard enough to make finishing very rewarding and with some laugh out loud moments!
As well as all the other delights I enjoyed how the surface for WINGED INSECT evokes “There’s a fly in my soup” jokes.
Mr Marmite strikes again! I admire his inventiveness but his surfaces are often weird, his synonyms way off centre and his homophoneys (I can’t remember who coined that, but it was brilliant) often make me wince. All three were represented here.
But there are always at least a few gems lurking within, which is why I always give his puzzles a go. DANIEL ORTEGA is very clever – we rarely see a reverse hidden &lit – WINGED INSECT has the amusing nod to the fly in the soup, I did like ETHER (rather a Qaotic clue), and THONG made me smile rather than thcream, for once.
MRS GASKELL is an old fashioned and rather disparaging handle for the novelist now more usually named Elizabeth Gaskell.
Thanks to Paul and the indefatigable Eileen
I really struggled through three-quarters of the puzzle, went out for a couple of hours, came home and just wrote in the rest. Who knows how the brain works?
I was hampered by mis-reading the start of 18 as the word “ill” rather than the number III.
Thanks to Paul for a good workout and to Eileen and others for sone tricky parsings.
A DNF for me, but that’s normal for Paul. There was a mix of the clever, the amusing, and the frustratingly head-scratching that made me wonder how anybody constructed it rather than post-parsed it. I could have muttered “Thumb thing?” under my breath for several days without the penny dropping.
Anyway, congratulations to those of you who disentangled all of this.
Welcome back Eileen, and what a challenge to blog! Many thanks, as there were lots I had to reveal today. Even so, I forgive Paul anything as he makes me laugh out loud every single time I tackle one of his teasers. I don’t really understand the moaners, as nobody forces anyone to do a cryptic crossword.
Not easy, but at least I didn’t need to reveal any. Had to come here for the THONG thing. Would never have got that, but do like it.
Also liked ANAL and DANIEL ORTEGA – for the latter checked if he had a wooden eye (“would I”), but of course he didn’t.
Started very quickly. Filled in the NW corner with no problems. Rapidly stalled. Gave up after a few minutes.
I have never seen HIFALUTIN with that spelling.
I really dislike Paul
I found this very hard and had to resort to some cheating. I did laugh out loud at the THUMB / THING / THONG joke when the penny finally dropped.
Protase @45: yes, it’s strange how long “Mrs Gaskell” carried on being used. John Sutherland referred to her as such in his otherwise excellent collection of essays “Is Heathcliff a Murderer?”, published 1996, though he otherwise refers to Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë and so on.
Dr. WhatsOn @49: DANIEL ORTEGA having a wooden eye, ha! (When my son was very young, we were talking about pirates having wooden legs etc, and he asked, “Did some pirates have wooden heads?”)
Many thanks Paul and Eileen.
That was tough. Two sessions but I was finding it tortuous towards the end. I am a fan of Paul but this, for me, didn’t get the balance between wit and difficulty right. FRITILLARIES was clever and difficult for example, but didn’t give me that aha moment which is the reward often for Paul. Or is it sour grapes for the time I spent on it?
I did enjoy THONG after seeing what was going on.
Thanks blogger and setter. A lot of guess first parse later with a few missing the second part so the blog was a help.
…hadn’t realised until the other day that Elizabeth GASKELL’s middle name was Cleghorn. A neighbour and friend across the street is entitled to wear the Cleghorn tartan, as that’s his mother’s family name. By the by…
On the Victorian novelist, my glance at Wikipedia has a photo of the first edition of Cranford, showing the author as Mrs Gaskell. I assume that’s the name under which she decided to write, so I see nothing wrong with using it when referring to her. She had agency and exercised it.
Very enjoyable, tricky solve. Ed@50 don’t you find puzzles more rewarding if they can’t be solved rapidly and require more than a few minutes thought?
Difficult, as I usually find with Paul but solved in the end using quite a few word searches. The DANIEL ORTEGA reverse hidden was brilliant. Good communication between Paul and the editor so that FRITILLARIES made sense. I also liked the people staying at home doing a RAIN DANCE, ANYTHING GOES (possibly Paul’s mantra), and the warm AFGHAN COAT. HIFALUTIN was one of Paul’s usual outrageous homophones/puns and gives me the excuse to share again (I know Eileen’s done it before) the hilarious Campari ad.
Thanks Paul and Eileen (great to see you back as the blogger).
Robi @56
I only just managed to resist using it again – I did look it up this morning. 😉
(I just can’t believe that the ‘soundalike’ didn’t produce absolute outrage – and not just among the rhoticians!)
Used to think I was reasonably good at cryptic crosswords until I started doing the Guardian ones. Even after revealing several I didn’t get I was none the wiser, then came across this forum which helped a little but still none the wiser about a few. Doesn’t help that I’ve never heard of 27A or 3D, that I thought 15A was both two words and started “High” rather than “Hi” (or that, being Scottish, I pronounce Rs). Still not understanding 21D and that also didn’t help with the (in)famous 4 down – not seeing a lisp indicator and trying to go T-H-brief?-U-N-G at least gave me an idea but failing to see the “humour” in the clue, I’m certainly not rolling about the floor in fits. Anyway, thanks for clueing me in on this – thought I was going mad.
Stuart @58
Don’t give up! As you can see from the comments, you’re not alone in finding some of this puzzle difficult.
Re 21dn: to ‘have a thing’ about something/body means to have strong feelings, in either a good or bad way about them – so ‘thing’ can, in this sense, mean aversion.
See here: https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/have+a+thing+about
I’m from Gourock, 25 miles west of Glasgow, so I don’t expect many soundalikes to really match my accent, but I thought “hifalutin” = “high for Luton” was absolutely fine! The “for” gets skipped over.
No outrage here!
A much vaunted setter to some,but I would say I’m least impressed.I just revealed all the rest after getting two clues in EATS and MAYO.Really not for the faintest of hearts. Don’t use this as a “template” to enjoy solving cryptics.
Too hard for me. Managed less than half.
But I did enjoy reading the blog and I appreciate how clever it was! Love THONG – having had it explained!
[Sagittarius @54: Following that logic, should we refer to the author of Jane Eyre as Currer Bell, and that of Sense and Sensibility as A Lady? 🙂 . Women in the Victorian era had much less agency; ‘Mrs Gaskell’ might well have suited contemporary propriety, but without a given name it relegates her to simply the wife of a man]
[…. and by Victorian convention, Elizabeth Gaskell would have been known as Mrs William Gaskell]
Eileen @59 That’s what I assumed the parsing for thing must be, but it seems incredibly loose to me. To ‘have a thing for/towards’ is already a very vague term, and in my experience is generally more commonly used to mean the exact opposite of aversion (e.g. ‘He has a thing for redheads’). Seems like it’s not that dissimilar from trying to pass off something like ‘opinion’ as a synonym for aversion, since you could have a strong negative opinion about something which would equate to an aversion. To me it just doesn’t work at all.
I guess it’s all much of a muchness, anyhow, since that was probably one of the easier clues in the grid and can be solved without parsing, but still. Can’t see why it couldn’t have been written as something like ‘Object to heights? I’m not great at first’ (or something more in keeping with Paul’s style).
As Eileen noted @35, it’s clear yet again that tastes differ!
On the specific point of a THING not being specifically an aversion, the clue ends in a question mark, indicating some looseness or ambiguity is to be expected.
I quite like Paul, even though he stumps me regularly.
Got to within two of completing today.
Fave was 6ac. As a lawn bowler I got it fairly quickly – our woods can swing both ways dependent on which side the bias is applied!
A bit of a Curate’s Egg today from Paul, with 4d the worst offender. Unusually for me, I persevered and completed the puzzle, but my sense of accomplishment was diminished by the imprecision of some of the clues.
Thanks for the blog , try and be positive first , TRAGICOMIC and AFGHAN COAT were well constructed . I just have a THING about Prep Schoolboy humour and not in a good way .
Protase@63: Mrs Gaskell was perfectly capable of deciding the name under which she wrote – her Life of Charlotte Brontë is by E C Gaskell. The Austen and Brontë examples are either anonymous or pseudonyms, whereas Mrs Gaskell was writing under her own name, set out as she chose. She could of course have done a George Eliot, but she didn’t (and we don’t normally say that Middlemarch is by Mary Ann Evans).
MRS GASKELL was my FOI, as I have read a lot of her novels, (but not Cranford). I am very fond of her novels in which she talks about employment relations. North and South is a masterpiece.
Well, I finished it through obstinacy, and knowing that Paul’s challenges usually yield if sufficient crossers can be developed to hint at potential word constructions. He was at the obtuse end of his spectrum, though, with the aha moments coming more after reverse parsing rather than forward construction.
Thanks to him – and so good to have Eileen on stream again.
No complaints from the Scotbloks… Revealed a few because sometimes you know it’s going to be really obscure and then you kick yourself because it’s obvious..
We’ve been doing the Guardian for three years now so we’re familiar with a lot of the devices used and feel mightily pleased when we spot them.
Loved the reversed cigar (got that one!) and hifalutin and fritillaries. A clue of beauty is a joy.
[Fritillary is also a genus of very pretty plants. Fritillaria meleagris (Snake’s-head fritillary) is found in England – there’s a field near Oxford that is covered in them in season!]
Haha. I got ETHER from the clue, parsed correctly, pretty much FOI. I put THONG straight in for the right reason too. Don’t worry, I took ages to finish. Those two are my favourites but DANIEL ORTEGA was quite something and I liked AFGHAN COAT too.
Thanks Paul and Eileen.
Thanks Paul and pogues to Eileen.
Not really in the mood today so a lot of peremptory reveals and just sat back and enjoyed. At least we didn’t get a homophone proferred for ILLINOISAN.
Thanks muffin@75 – I am minded that one (flying) fritillary is named for a certain Lady somebody who was the female equivalent of Oofy Prosser (was he not the newt-mad one?) Point is that if she were a ‘Lady’ there must perforce have been a Lord, something the equivalent of Mr Gaskell. But if she were the female equivalent of a Lord in her own right she’d be a Dame; and I don’t know what that makes the husband… anybody?
I can usually get on Paul’s wavelength pretty quickly, but I found this one rather laborious. I’m not fond of long wordy convoluted clues with bizarre surfaces. I couldn’t explain THONG at all, though it couldn’t be anything else. THREADWORM was really quite unpleasant.
Also, not everyone does a crossword on the day it is published so FRITILLARIES is not a great clue. I suppose its short lifespan is appropriate for butterflies.
HIFALUTIN is a lovely word, Eileen 😊
Thank you for the blog. Some workout for you!
And thanks, Paul – certainly kept me occupied.
Alphalpha@77: you’re venturing into treacherous waters here. A Dame isn’t the female equivalent of a Lord; she’s the equivalent of a Knight (who is styled Sir). The husband of a Dame derives no title from her (ie he remains Mr unless he has a title of his own). The wife of a Knight, however, is styled Lady. Beyond that it gets complicated – and for most people other than those personally involved, monumentally unimportant.
Had D(O)RY instead and DRAB so failed on that and TRAGICOMIC but got the rest. Thanks Paul and Eileen.
Out all day, so late commenting. This puzzle seemed opaque at first, with only three solved on the first pass, but gradually became clear after twisting the ol’ brain in weird knots. I only missed 27a MRS GASKELL, with a combination of nho and devious wordplay that put it out of reach. The only three-letter name I could think of with R in the middle was IRA. Enjoyed it
Favourites 6a TRAGICOMIC (“Seriously funny”, and the exploding cigar), 18a ETHER (double wordplay, clever use of numbers, and “ill” misdirection), 11a ANYTHING GOES, 23d ANAL (puzzled for a long time, then LANA suddenly leapt into my head!)
Hector@79: Thanks for taking the time to elaborate. I think my ignorance is a measure of my general interest in these matters, but it does seem unfair that the Dame’s hubby doesn’t get some kind of a styling.
Alphalpha@77: The newt fancier is the esteemed Augustus ‘Gussie’ Fink-Nottle (or Spink-Bottle if you’re Aunt Dahlia). Oofy Prosser, a much smaller role in the canon, was the Drones Club’s resident millionaire.
Great stuff as ever from Paul, I thought.
I was reminded of Sunday evenings on the then BBC Light programme, and the ghastly signature song for THING THUMB THING THIMPLE, however.
Thanks all.
I did wonder if THumb ThinG brief could also be parsed as Th on G. Thought some of this was seriously picky and there were some quibbles in the household as to whether smooth-bore was a weapon in itself but thought it was a wonderful crossword. Thanks Paul and Eileen
I originally had ‘sports bore’ for 8d (double def).
MRS GASKELL (not Ari, Uri, Ira or Sri!) and LANA Turner (They Won’t Forget, well eventually…) are probably reminders that Paul is a tad older me.
I used to hate Paul for his tough puzzles. Now I hate myself for being too daft to finish them. But how can you not love a man who comes up with a gem like 20ac? That’s my COTD, if not COTM.
Thank you Paul, one day I’ll be there.
Paul flummoxed us yesterday and we only completed half the grid. Confidence boosted by making short shrift of Qaos this morning, we returned for another attempt.
We revealed 16d and 25ac and the rest fell into place. Glad we took this short cut so we could enjoy the rest of the puzzle. As a bonus Ms Chickpea avoided listening to Professor Chickpea’s grumpiness for the rest of the day.
I found the discussion of MRS. GASKELL interesting. We in the 21st century do like to impose our values on those who lived in the 19th century under very different value systems. OK, I’ll play that game: Mrs. Gaskell (and that was the name she used) was clearly ahead of her time compared to Currer Bell and George Eliot, who felt they had to hide under a masculine pseudo-identity in order to be taken seriously by their readers.
Protase#63 asks, should we say Currer Bell for Charlotte Bronte, and I would answer, why not if it makes for a good clue?
In any event, I was glad to see that clue, as I maintain that Gaskell is still vastly under-rated. To me she was the greatest of the Victorian novelists, out-Austening Austen with her Cranford and Wives and Daughters, and surpassing Dickens with her Mary Barton and North and South. There was more socio-political content in her character-driven novels than in Austen’s, and more complex characters in her socio-political novels than in Dickens’.
Thanks for prompting this discussion, Paul, although I will have difficulty not hearing Mithuth Gathkell in future. and thanks Eileen for your usual illuminating blog.
I thought 18 could have been clued even more deviously, with “III Ill”. On my device those look virtually identical.
[Eileen – Grrreat to have you back where you belong; some things should never change! Wx]
Loving Paul more and more with every puzzle. Makes me want to thing a thong!
11 down is also a 4 down!