Guardian 26,171 – Paul

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After yesterday’s excitement, with an outstanding Nimrod and two wonderful Arachnes (well, an Arachne and a “Rosa Klebb”), I was worried that today might be a let-down in comparison. Fortunately we have Paul to keep things going, with, as always, some entertaining and ingenious clueing. A few bits of general knowledge came in handy, but nothing too obscure, I think. Thanks to Paul.

 
 
 
 
 
 
Across
1. BUDDHIST Zola novel this religious (8)
Zola BUDD (once a familiar name, probably less so now) + THIS*
5. THROAT Hunger ends accessing perfectly narrow passage (6)
“Ends” of H[unge]R in TO A T (perfectly)
9. ASTEROID A bodybuilder’s heavenly body (8)
A + STEROID (bodybuilding drug)
12. MINCE Cat food, including last of luncheon meat (5)
[luncheo]N in MICE
13. STORYBOOK Bird carrying child carrying boy off, love being source of romance (9)
BOY* + O in STORK (bird bringing children, in legend)
14. REPRODUCTION Vital process cut, expert gathered (12)
PRO in REDUCTION
18. ROSETTA STONE On this, three scripts came up, as in three times one (7,5)
ROSE + AS in T T T + ONE. The Rosetta Stone has the same text carved three times, in Ancient Greek, Demotic Greek and Egyptian hieroglyphics, and was a key discovery in the decoding of hieroglyphics.
21. IGUANODON Papers full of crap on dinosaur (9)
GUANO (bird droppings, hence “crap”) in ID (identity papers) + ON
23. MOUND First sixteen hours of the week storing uranium in pile (5)
U in two-thirds (16/24) of MOND[ay]
24. SHAGGY Hairy, like a bird? (6)
Double definition: shaggy = “like a shag”
25. MANTISSA Part of a log where prayer sat endlessly (8)
[Praying] MANTIS + SA[t]. When I was doing my A-levels in the days before cheap calculators, we used logs (logarithms) to multiply and divide numbers. These were divided into the Characteristic before the decimal point and the MANTISSA after it.
26. TREBLE Maximum of sixty on board giving voice (6)
Sixty = treble 20 on a dartboard, the highest score from a single dart, and treble is (usually a boy’s) singing voice
27. EDUCATED Money once pocketed by runner sent back, it’s learned (8)
DUCAT in reverse of DEE (river, runner)
Down
1. BRAHMS Half-drunk barman? (6)
“Barman” = musician, composer; and half of “Brahms and Liszt”, rhyming slang for “pissed” = “drunk”
2. DOTING Affectionate pet scoffing preserved food (6)
TIN (preserved food) in DOG
3. HORSEMEAT This for those with mare to prepare? (9)
(THOSE MARE)* &lit
6. HEAVY Bouncer not filled with air then? (5)
A bouncer at a nightclub etc is a HEAVY, and heavy implies not filled with air
7. ORATORIO Large-scale work, or a small-scale piece about nothing (8)
OR A + O in TRIO
8. TWERKING Provocative moves by Third World leaders and royal couple? (8)
T[hird] W[orld] + ER + KING (two royals). Everyone knows what twerking is by now, right?
11. GOLD STANDARD Mature way to poke grandad when tipsy, as mark of excellence (4,8)
OLD ST[reet] in GRANDAD*
15. CINEMATIC Filmed item in a complex, 200 screens (9)
(ITEM IN A)* in CC
16. TRAIN SET Something for the boys, as shower framed in trial hauled up (5,3)
RAIN (shower) in reverse of TEST
17. OSCULATE Pucker up to clue, as cryptic (8)
(TO CLUE AS)* – to osculate is to kiss
19. GUSSET Piece of material for reinforcing some skirts in the wind (6)
The “skirts” of S[om]E in GUST
20,4. EDWARD SCISSORHANDS Picture the king of cutting-edge digital design? (6,12)
Film with Johnny Depp in the title role; plus a kind of cryptic definition, with Edward=King
22,10. NIGEL FARAGE I enrage flag wavers as party leader (5,6)
(I ENRAGE FLAG)* – and a kind of reverse &lit, as UKIP, led by Nigel Farage, is more likely to be favoured by some jingoistic flag-wavers

29 comments on “Guardian 26,171 – Paul”

  1. Very enjoyable crossword. Mantissa was new to me – despite having studied maths at university! I guess that if you’re not using log tables there’s no particular reason to distinguish between the integer and fractional parts of the logarithm.

    Is (or was) Brahms & Liszt commonly used? I’ve never heard or seen it except in crosswords.

  2. Alan R, me too. Maths at university and new to mantissa. I was thinking some kind of Spanish outerwear:) Lovely puzzle. Thanks Paul and Andrew. But what happened to the difficult Friday notion?

  3. Thanks to Paul and Andrew. Loved this puzzle especially when I remembered Zola Budd. Hadn’t
    heard of Nigel Farage but was able to work out the anagram. Caught out again by rhyming slang.

    Cheers…

  4. Thanks Andrew for enlightening me on ones got right but still baffling – the 1d rhymes ought to familiar from earlier puzzles and the TO A T just slid by. We had a 6d politician TWERKING here on prime time recently, so that fell in at once. All good again, thanks Paul.

  5. Thanks Andrew and Paul
    I had TWEAKING instead of TWERKING, but couldn’t entirely see the royal “couple” – I thought the “couple” might be some sort of joining reference.
    I thought Sunday was the first day of the week, but apparently there is more than one view – see
    http://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/days/
    NIGEL FARAGE was a lovely effort! HORSEMEAT was my other favourite today.
    Thanks to Andrew for explaining the parsing of THROAT.

  6. Thanks Andrew – needed you to explain throat, bleedin obvious retrospectively. Entertaining cluing but some very clunky surfaces I thought – not a patch on yesterday’s Arachne.

  7. For me, the most enjoyable of Paul’s puzzles I have tackled. I thought that the clues for 1 and 18a were exceptionally good, but there were plenty of others to admire (I particularly liked the misdirection in 1a). The solutions certainly offered potential for the setter to indulge in some of his trademark clues, which are not favourites of mine, but this seems to have been resisted, unless there is innuendo subtle enough for me to have missed it.
    Unlike andy smith, I was not irritated by the surfaces and, on the contrary, thought that some of them demonstrated just how good a compiler Paul can be at his best.

  8. Thanks for the blog, Andrew, and Paul for an enjoyable puzzle, which I made rather heavy weather of, I think.

    I laughed out loud when I finally got 1dn, having spent too long trying to make B?A?M? into an anagram of an unknown word for ‘half’.

    I think 5ac might have taken me longer if Nimrod hadn’t used TO A T yesterday in his clue for TOAST – both very clever.

    I liked [the clues for] NIGEL FARAGE, ORATORIO and ROSETTA STONE – and ‘Zola novel’ was nice, too.

  9. Yesterday, struggling and ultimately disappointed: today, struggling and ultimately delighted. Though apparently in a minority of one,
    much prefer the works of Paul. Thought 25 was brilliant, loved 1a and 13, needed help here to lead me by the THROAT, and my ignorance of the characteristics of 18 has now been remedied by Andrew, many thanks. Would the addition of ‘Working’ in 23 been tidier – or not?

  10. Very enjoyable – unlike Eileen it all fell into place very quickly for me. Lots to laugh at so thank you to Paul and Andrew too.

    grandpuzzler @3 – have you any idea how fortunate you are not to have heard of Mr Farage before today?

  11. Largely good puzzle with some excellent clues.

    Thanks Andrew; missed the TO A T, despite its appearance yesterday.

    I liked the misleading ‘on board’ in 26; pity it wasn’t clue 20. BRAHMS was excellent with me trying to work out why HMS was ‘man’ until the 1d finally dropped. Does anyone understand the surface of 16? It seemed nonsensical to me.

    I particularly liked the ROSETTA STONE and the BUDDHIST.

  13. Another good one, with plenty of inventive misdirections. Thanks for the parsing of THROAT, which I missed too. Ticked BRAHMS, TWERKING, EDWARD SCISSORHANDS, BUDDHIST and MOUND.
    Thanks Paul and Andrew.

  14. Thanks Paul and Andrew

    Very nice puzzle to end the week ! Had three goes to finally get HORSEMEAT (after entering HORSETEAM then HORSEMATE) – funny how the bleeding obvious isn’t sometimes!

    Thought ROSETTA STONE was quite brilliant after reading up and understanding why it was of such historical importance.

    Originally had TWEAKING until doing my last parsing pass when I discovered quite by chance the hitherto unknown provocative dancing called TWERKING – it did make the clue much better than E (Elizabeth) and A KING as the royal couple.

    Had to google BRAHMS and drunk to be reminded of the cockney term … after also trying for a while to make the anagram work.

    HEAVY the last one in to complete a pretty enjoyable week.

  16. 16dn Something for the boys? I’ll have to tell my daughter that then and she’ll have to give it back I suppose. Rotten clue. Otherwise a very good crossword.

  17. I completed this and enjoyed most of it but I have to say that I sometimes find the surfaces a little clunky and disjointed. Not as much poise as some other setters, for me. Have a pleasant weekend, all.

  18. Late start but fairly rapid finish to make up for it. Two early chuckles with BUDDHIST (when neither Emile nor Gianfranco would fit) and MINCE with its cat food. Twerking plus Nigel Farage! Two things one does not expect to see together! Shame really, might finish the latter off.

    Plus any crossword with both TRAIN SET and MANTISSA, features of my youth, can’t be all bad.

  20. TonyC @ 18
    I did look at Emile’s bibliography to see if there was anything starting with B. (There wasn’t!)

  22. On the last day of the transfer window I think Paul must have taken the opportunity to send some of his more risque clues over to Phi at the Indie. Still, it was an enjoyable solve.

    Sue@10 beat me to it with her comment about how lucky grandpuzzler is never to have heard of Nigel Farage until today. As for gp@21’s last comment, I think Farage and Boehner would make a “good” team.

    Back to the puzzle, REPRODUCTION was my LOI after ORATORIO.

  23. mantissa and abscissa – two favourite words from my logarithmic graph-paper days.
    Thanks to Paul & Andrew

  24. A nice Paul to start the weekend.

    Not too difficult for a Paul but some good cluing. I was slightly held up by the NE corner. LOI was THROAT when I finally saw TO A T!!

    Thanks to Andrew and Paul

  25. Unfortunate that the first two I got were the Farage man (in a Guardian crossword? get the garlic out) and the non-pc train sets for boys ( my sister always played with my train set). Almost gave up at that point, but fortunately kept going and enjoyed some excellent clueing – always a pleasure when the surfaces make sense. Liked 19d and 9ac especially.

  27. PaulW – now you mention it, so do I! I think I used to know the log of Pi by heart too, but I had to cheat to remind myself of the value (0.4971).

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