Guardian 25,588 – Paul

by

This has been a very good morning solving quite an easy Paul.

 

Hold cursor over clue number to read a clue.

Across
1 SIDEBOARD SIDE (party) + sounds like BORED (yawning)
6 BOLT dd
8 DIAZEPAM Ins of APE (gorilla) + Z (first letter of zoo) in MAID (girl); whole thing reversed for a tranquillizing drug that relieves tension and acts as a muscle relaxant.
9,23 COMMONPLACE This reminds me of the Wombles of Wimbledon Common
10 STOLID Ins of T (last letter of heat) in SOLID (frozen)
11,24,26 THE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS Sounds like The right to bare arms (with sleeves rolled up)
12 MEGRIM Cha of ME (Paul) GRIM (forbidding) for the scaldfish
15 ROSARIAN Ins of SARI (Indian dress) in ROAN (chestnut and white, horse)
16 ODDBALLS Tichy description of the three balls in an over (six balls) in cricket
19 DEBATE Ins of BAT (creature of the night) in River DEE
21,1D HAWAIIAN SHIRT *(WITH AN IRISH Accent And)
22 BICEPS BIC (Société Bic, manufacturer of pens, cigarette lighters, razors and watersports equipment) E (last letter of inscribe) PS (postscript, a final note)
25 LIBERIAN Cha of LIB (Liberal Party) ERI (rev of IRE, fury) & AN
27 MARTYRISE *(ARMIES TRY)
Down
3 BIPED Ins of PE (physical education, exercise) in BID (attempt) for a two-legged creature like homo sapiens
4 AMMETER A MM (millimeter, short distance) + *(TREE) for an instrument used to measure electric current
5 DECREASED Ins of R (right) in DECEASED (dead)
6 BUMPIER BUM (rear) PIER (jetty)
7 LIONHEART IO are the middle letters or heart of LION. Richard I (1157–1199) was King of England from 1189 until his death.  He was known as Cœur de Lion, or Richard the Lionheart because of his reputation as a great military leader and warrior.
13 ENDEAVOUR END (goal) E (English) FAVOUR (support) minus F
14 MILLIGRAM MAR (sully) GILL (spirit measure) IM ; the whole thing reversed
17 BRALESS BRAINLESS (idiotic) minus IN. Incidentally, this has also been recently clued by the same setter in a competition puzzle elsewhere as Foolish, homeless – and lacking support as a woman?
18 SANDLER SLANDER (defamation) with letter L (left) moved slightly for Adam Richard SANDLER, an American actor, comedian, screenwriter, musician and film producer, best known for his comedic roles, such as in the films Billy Madison & Happy Gilmore
20 BACARDI Ins of A CARD (Club, perhaps) in BIG (large) minus G. Bacardi is a family-controlled spirits company, best known as a producer of rums.
22,2 BOBBY-DAZZLER Another tichy clue for anything overwhelmingly excellent, striking or showy, esp a woman; a young girl who sets out to make an impression. New to me.

Key to abbreviations
dd = double definition
dud = duplicate definition
tichy = tongue-in-cheek type
cd = cryptic definition
rev = reversed or reversal
ins = insertion
cha = charade
ha = hidden answer
rha = reversed hidden answer
*(fodder) = anagram

 

31 comments on “Guardian 25,588 – Paul”

  1. Thanks, UY.

    I read through the across clues, getting one or two, including 11,24,26 which brought a guffaw but finished them thinking this was going to be tough. Happily, then the down clues were mostly straightforward and it was just a question of going back over the acrosses to mop up.

    Last in was 21,1 which was a great finish when the penny dropped.

    Easy but fun, as usual.

  2. Mahalo Paul and Uncle Yap. Enjoyed this puzzle. BOBBY-DAZZLER and ROSARIAN were new to me. Last in for me also was 21,1. This was ironic because I was just getting my Aloha shirts ready for our next trip to Hawaii.

    Cheers…

  3. Thanks, Uncle. Nice fun and not too challenging this morning.

    Being a bit thick with BACARDI however. Can’t quite see why card = club. Some golfing reference perhaps?

  5. Thanks UY and Paul. I really needed the blog this morning, as although I’d filled the grid I didn’t have the parsing for quite a few of the clues. I kicked myself particularly hard when I finally ‘got’ 6ac. Got hung up on ‘Pam’ being the girl in 8ac, so couldn’t decide between Oxazepam (with ox, as in ‘you big ox’, for gorilla) and Diazepam – 21, 1 was my last one in too, which didn’t help.

    Rosarian was a new word for me, but not difficult to derive. I also don’t recall seeing megrim with this meaning before. Having friends from the north of england, I’d come across the term “bobby dazzler” before, but hadn’t gathered the female connotation – just anything excellent or showy.

  6. Thanks, Uncle Yap.

    I can’t always manage Paul (especially when he clues 30-letter anagrams) but this one was a lot of fun and accessible enough. Wit and invention throughout, especially with BICEPS, BIPED and BRALESS (which I hadn’t seen before so it made me laugh). The other B-clue, BOBBY DAZZLER, I had heard, but it’s certainly got an old-fashioned sound to it these days.

    Thanks to Paul too.

  8. Thanks, UY.

    Entertaining Paul puzzle with just a dash of seaside postcard humour. No need for the Valium (8ac) today.

    My first entry was the Second Amendment homophone, and the rest was fairly plain sailing. I’m another for whom 21,1d was the last in – the cryptic definition and unusual letter combination is probably the reason. Who would have thought that an innocuous looking _A_A_I_N would include the sequence ‘AIIA’? Great clue; other favourites were DIAZEPAM and BACARDI.

  9. I guessed 6 across from the first part of the clue but can’t find anything to connect bolt to wolf in my dictionaries. Any ideas anyone?

  13. Thanks, Paul; I didn’t find this particularly easy, especially HAWAIIAN SHIRT. BRALESS and ODDBALLS typical Paulian fare.

    Thanks UY; of course I missed the parsing of LIONHEART. MEGRIM about the fish that I hadn’t heard of. I expect it’s a crossword special (?) Mahalo also to grandpuzzler @2 for teaching me a new word.

    I assumed the characters in 16 were A,C,E, which no doubt was the intended misdirection. What an ugly word is MARTYRISE; I can’t imagine wanting to use it. [‘Those who know Parisian life will readily understand how a woman of her temperament suffered, and was martyrized at heart by the
    scantiness of her pecuniary means.’ from Balzac]

  14. Thanks all
    I am not too sure what to make of this puzzle.
    I finished most of it quite quickly but then spent a long time puzzling over 21,1 and 25ac. It was much later when I considered again how to read 18d. I had confidently entered ‘slander’ which of course gave me wrong crossing letters in 21ac and 25ac.
    So I cannot honestly thank the compiler for a good challenge; it was self inflicted.
    Could 18 d be interpreted as ‘slander’?

  15. Thanks UY and Paul

    I was ultimately defeated by Hawaiian Shirt – very sneaky. 🙂 I first thought there might be some special type of vocalic or other linguistic ‘shift’ as part of an and lit, and then I turned my mind to shirt but did not get past bavarian and canadian. I even googled ‘loud shirt’ but to no avail.

    I enjoyed the puzzle and ticked 11, 16a, 3d (echoes of the Inspector though he was a Times man), 17d in spite of bra/support, and 22.

    Well done, those who got 21,1. It’s a long time since I’ve not completed one.

    For those who may still be interested, Hugh Stephenson eventually (if only partially) solved the mystery of xerophile – see blog.

  17. I am nervous about writing anything. I have been told in no uncertain terms to pull my head in.

    My apologies for trying to expand the discussion.

    Regards
    KayLil

  18. Another one where getting to the end left a lot unexplained so ta for the blog.

    I sometimes suspect people here have led quiet lives. The new words for me didn’t include 22 2.

  20. Thanks Paul and Uncle Yap.

    Glad I wasn’t the only one for whom 21,1 was the last in. How unusual is it for one of the longer solutions with several crossing letters to be last to fall I wonder?

    Loads to love here (except for ‘martyrise’ – ugh). The only one new to me was ‘megrim’, but it wasn’t hard to suss. Highlights (apart from the loud beachwear, beloved of my best mate and new father – hi Steve, hope you’re sleeping well!) were ‘oddballs’, ‘bobby-dazzler’ (have none of you ever watched David Dickinson on Bargain Hunt etc?!) and ‘Liberian’, which held me up for far too long because I thought ‘fury rejected’ was at the start leading to ‘Eritrean’. I only didn’t write it in because I couldn’t mangle ‘trean’ out of the rest of the clue, thank goodness.

  21. Kayoz @17
    For “I have been told in no uncertain terms to pull my head in.” read “politely asked to avoid totally off-topic comments”.

    If you have something to say that is relevant to this puzzle then please feel free to add a comment.

    I do not understand your “My apologies for trying to expand the discussion.” since this is the first comment you have added to this post.

  22. NeilW @16
    Mmmm……if you start with ‘slander’ (from definition ‘defamation’) then follow the instruction ‘left in a lower position’ gives (for) ‘Sandler’.
    Never mind, just a thought.

    Kayoz, what on earth are you on about.
    Do carry on digressing, if you already have. We are all just cyber thoughts.

  25. Hi Paul B @23
    As administrator I can, and so can other post authors, but it is not possible for anyone who does not have log-in access to 15² to do so. The site search facility only searches in the main post, not the comments.

  29. Dave
    I have found some of the MB language used here confusing, too.
    I would say that the prize puzzle has a THREAD which contains a BLOG and several POSTS.

  30. Thanks, Robi. I was trying to find H S’s monthly column on the Guardian site. So, the definition CACTUS was omitted from the clue.

    Incidentally, my experience of Paul’s Xword today was very much the same as yours expressed @13.

Comments are closed.