Guardian 26,572 by Paul

by

The puzzle may be found at http://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/26572.

Once it dawned on me that the ‘players’ were film stars (15D and 17D gave me the  nudge), mostly identified by their surnames, this went in fairly smoothly. I can generally twig Paul’s ingenuities, but that does not diminish my enjoyment of them.

completed grid
Across
5 DE NIRO
Player in order, not entirely out of order (2,4)

An anagram (‘out of order’) of ‘in orde[r]’ cut short (‘not entirely’). Player Robert.
6 SPACEY
Player Yorkshire opener (6)

Cheeky: I take it that this is a charade of SPACE (what happens between ‘player’ and ‘Yorkshire’) plus Y (‘Yorkshire opener’). Player Kevin.
9 UNMASK
Reveal odd characters in name while in Britain (6)

An envelope (‘in’) of NM (‘odd characters in NaMe’) plus AS (‘while’) in UK (‘Britain’).
10 RAINFALL
Accumulation of water, a final burst splitting both ways (8)

An envelopen(‘splitting’) of AINFAL, an anagram (‘burst’) of ‘a final’ in RL (right and left, when you cross the road, look ‘both ways’. Today’s public service message)
11,21 MEGASTAR
Margaret playing Jack, great player (8)

A charade of MEG (‘Margaret’) plus AS (‘playing’) plus TAR (‘Jack’).
12  
See 5 down
13 JIMMY CAGNEY
Player casually getting agency bewildered by riddle (5,6)

A charade of JIMMY (‘riddle’, rhyming slang for piddle) plus CAGNEY, an anagram (‘bewildered’) of ‘agency’.
18 NORTH KOREA
Other ranks following leadership of Kim in another bonkers nation (5,5)

An envelope (‘in’) of K (‘leadership of Kim’) plus OR (‘other ranks’) in NORTHEA, an anagram (‘bonkers’) of ‘another’. I’m not sure what might happen to me if I suggest an extended definition.
21  
See 11
22 PARALLEL
Similar slowing in spring, reversed (8)

An envelope (‘in’) of RALL (rallentando, ‘slowing’) in PAEL, a reversal (‘reversed’) of LEAP (‘spring’).
23 BOW TIE
Cockney Asian’s sound formal wear? (3,3)

A charade  of BOW (‘Cockney’, born in hearing distance of Bow Bells) plus TIE, a homophone of THAI (‘Asian’).
24 TWELVE
Figure in our hearts losing nothing after time (6)

A charade of T (‘time’) plus WE L[o]VE (‘in our hearts’) without the O (‘losing nothing’).
25 ROCOCO
Male briefly wearing jumper, elaborate in style (6)

An envelope (‘wearing’) of COC[k] (‘male briefly’) in ROO (‘jumper’).
Down
1 ON SAFARI
Massage for Asian holidaying in Africa? (2,6)

An anagram (‘massage’) of ‘for Asian’.
2 KRAKOW
East European city where two vessels turned up (6)

A reversal (‘turned up’) of WOK and ARK (‘two vessels’).
3 UPRISING
University using leverage for the revolution (8)

A charade of U (‘university’) plus PRISING (‘using leverage’).
4 ICE FOG
Wintry weather damaging ego, if cold (3,3)

An anagram (‘damaging’) of ‘ego if’ plus C (‘cold’).
5,12 DENZEL WASHINGTON
Player with a dozen legs, nineteen extremely ridiculous! (6,10)

An anagran (‘ridiculous’) of ‘with a dozen legs’ plus NN (‘NineteeN extremely‘). Nicely bizarre.
7 YELLOW
Express suffering a shade (6)

YELL ‘OW’ (‘express suffering’).
8 DRESS CIRCLE
Garbo? Somewhere in the theatre (5,6)

A charade of DRESS (‘garb’) plus CIRCLE (‘o’).
14 MAKE LOVE
Mate, Brando? (4,4)

A close relative of 8D: a charade of MAKE (‘brand’) plus LOVE (‘o’).
15 EASTWOOD
Player bearing ash, perhaps? (8)

A charade of EAST (‘bearing’) plus WOOD (‘ash, perhaps’). Player Clint.
16 BOGART
Player with paintings of the ladies, possibly? (6)

A charade of BOG (colloquial for a toilet, ‘the ladies, possibly’) plus ART (‘paintings’) – though perhaps better treated as a (rather familiar) two word phrase. Player Humphrey.
17 PACINO
Player walkin’ round (6)

A charade of PACIN’ (‘walkin’ ‘) plus O (’round’). Player Al.
19 TRAVEL
Go first in test before scorer (6)

A charade of T (‘first in Test’) plus RAVEL (composer Maurice, ‘scorer’).
20 ALBION
A hero netting billions for England (6)

An envelope (‘netting’) of B (‘billions’) in ‘a’ plus LION (‘hero’).
*anagram

55 comments on “Guardian 26,572 by Paul”

  1. Thanks PeterO. After struggling with Vlad yesterday who was a new setter to me, thanks to Paul, today’s turned out to be familiar fun. Liked 6a, 8d and 14d.

  2. This was the most enjoyable puzzle of the week for me, and I was greatly assisted by the theme and the fun clues. I liked 25a, 17d, 14d, 19d, 2d and my favourite was 8d DRESS CIRCLE.

    I needed help to parse 18a, 6a (I got the “Y” but could not parse SPACE – yes, very clever and cheeky!), and 13a (I could parse the CAGNEY – but I still do not understand why JIMMY = riddle/piddle.)

    Thanks Paul and PeterO.

    NB a belated thank you to SeanDimly who inspired me to inspect an electrical plug – I confirm that I have now seen the letters N, L and E written near the pins!

  3. Thanks to Paul for a fun puzzle and peterO for the blog.

    Lots of ingenious clues here, especially the variations on O; however, until I read the blog, I thought perhaps ‘riddle’ referred to James Riddle Hoffa, aka JIMMY Hoffa, and ‘Margaret’ was the anagram fodder that had me looking for an S to complete the solution.

  4. Thanks Peter, for enlightening me on the riddle, though the piddle to me too is elusive. My entry to the theme was via the cheeky anagram of DENZEL etc. Of the many goodies, Brando stands out.

  5. Thanks to Paul for a nice start to a sunny Friday, and to PeterO for the blog.

    Michelle @2 – in my youth I studied electronics, and I never knew why until now!

  6. SeanDimly@5 – I’m so glad that your studies of electronics were useful to me at least!

    Now, can you explain to me why JIMMY = riddle/piddle?

  7. Loved BOGART, and enjoyed the “space” device to give SPACEY. Among the first “player” clues I looked at was 15d, so I thought we were tlaking sport and put Westwood in. Was I the only one trying to fit dear old Spenser Tracey into the grid somewhere?

  9. Thanks Paul and PeterO
    Although there was lots to like, I found this irritating in places. I too dithered between EASTWOOD and Westwood for my first “player”. ICE FOG could just as easily been the equally nonsensical FOG ICE (neither appears in my Chambers). “Billions” in 20d should be BB rather than B (“a billion” would work better in the clue). I liked the BRAND O clue, but was disappointed to find nearly the same trick in GARB O.

  10. Thanks all
    Much the easiest of recent puzzles, but still enjoyable from my not favourite setter.
    I liked 5,6 across and 16 down. Last in was de Niro.

  11. I’d seen Garbo used for Dress Circle before (possibly the other way around, i.e. Dress Circle was the clue) but not Brando in this style. I suppose you could parse Peter Fonda as “stone-like article” or something (don’t bother to pick holes in that, it’s only a jumping-off point and I know I am no clue composer!).

  12. Thanks Paul and PeterO,

    This was fun after struggling yesterday. I did not know KRAKOW was now spelt with two K’s, Cracow used to be the English spelling, but liked the clue. Also liked Jimmy Cagney; a chamber pot was called a JIMMY when I was at boarding school in England in 1950, but cannot find it mentioned in any thesaurus.

  13. Thanks for the blog and to Paul for a fun puzzle – nice to have a slightly easier one to restore some confidence.

    My main stumbling block today was entering JAMES CAGNEY rather than JIMMY which held me up no end on MAKE LOVE. That’ll teach me to parse the clues properly! It also took me an age to see MASSAGING as an anagrind in ON SAFARI (LOI).

    Re 8d – I first saw this in Times (25606 on 15th October 2013). I was so surprised it has stuck in my brain ever since:

    What might suggest Garbo’s place in the theatre? (5,6)

    Also, 6a appears very differently in the PDF version of the puzzle (presumably in the paper too) and the Guardian app where there is a very elongated space between Player and Yorkshire.

  14. Great puzzle from Paul, full of his usual humour. Loved NORTH KOREA, BOW TIE, BOGART and JIMMY CAGNEY in particular. Many thanks to him and to PeterO.

  15. Fun puzzle. All male ‘players’, though – perhaps that’s what Paul intended.

    MAKE LOVE my favourite this morning.

    Thanks, both.

  16. I enjoyed this puzzle, although a Paul puzzle I don’t enjoy is a rare beast indeed. I twigged the theme fairly quickly so most of the puzzle didn’t take me that long, but it took me a few minutes at the end to get TRAVEL. It didn’t have the trickiest of clues but I hadn’t been reading it the right way.

  17. Thanks to Paul and PeterO. I caught on to the players early on and proceeded quickly but needed PeterO’s parsing to grasp the “space” in SPACEY, the as-playing in MEGASTAR (my first in), and riddle-JIMMY. Lots of fun.

  18. Thanks Paul for an entertaining puzzle. Like ulaca @7, I wondered whether the players were sportsmen/women but once I got BOGART it was pretty obvious what was required.

    Thanks PeterO; I hadn’t seen the truncated space in SPACEY. I, too tried the anagram of Margaret in MEGA STAR and was left with a few redundant pieces. 🙁

    I particularly liked JIMMY CAGNEY, BOW TIE & KRAKOW.

  19. Cookie @12 – I wonder why Cracow was the English spelling. The more sensible change for English readers would have been to Krakov.

  20. David Mop @19, Yes, I agree, Krakov would have been more sensible. If you look on the Web at tour adverts, the old spelling Cracow is often still used. After being Cracow in English since Elizabethan times, its name was changed to Krakow in the second half of the twentieth century.

  21. Thanks to PeterO for the blog. I needed you to explain why BOG=ladies.

    In the printed paper 6a has a big space between Player and Yorkshire. It took me a log time to see its relevance. 🙁

  22. ulaca@8

    thanks – yes, I understand that “Jimmy Riddle is Cockney Rhyming Slang for piddle (urinate).”

    So, when we saw the word “riddle” in the clue, were we simply supposed to think of the answer JIMMY (riddle)?

    Sorry, but I’m still not sure if I completely understand!

  23. As others have said, this was fun and once the players started to appear the rest dropped out fairly easily. Last in was DRESS CIRCLE – which I liked and hadn’t seen before, also ticked SPACEY, MEGASTAR, KRAKOW, MAKE LOVE and PACINO.

    Thanks to Paul and PeterO

  24. Thanks Paul and PeterO

    michelle @ 22: I hope this doesn’t come across differently from how it’s intended, but here goes anyway. Yes, Jimmy Riddle is rhyming slang for a piddle. It in turn is abbreviated to “I’m going for a Jimmy” when you’re trying to avoid buying your round in the pub (or some such similar occason). Oh, and sometimes when you *do* need a wee…

    hth

  25. michelle @22

    I think the answer to your question is “yes”. Certainly riddle is an allusion rather than a definition – and an arbitrary one, since piddle has squat to do with the clue. Indeed before writing up the entry I did cast about for any other connection between JIMMY and ‘riddle’, but came up empty. I think it might be justified in the context of the clue in that the CAGNEY part is clear, and you are given ‘casually’ as part of the definition – and of course it helps to be familiar with Paul’s sense of humour. Whether you regard this as sufficient justification is perhaps your choice.

  26. Did all but 6a and 3d on the paper edition, and bemused at what was going on in the former, went to check online for the announcement of a typo. Sure enough, there it was: “the layout of the clue originally published online has been corrected”, with an elongated dash inserted between the first two words. SPACEY and hence UPRISING came immediately. But I’m still confused: why not announce that the clue in the paper edition was wrong too? And an elongated dash isn’t a space. And the dashless “Player Yorkshire opener”, while it does give SPACEY, is just three words that don’t work together – they would with a comma after ‘Player’, or indeed a dash, but not without anything.

    I’m probably obsessing too much but it is irritating. Maybe the crossword ed might have picked up on this? Too much to hope?

  27. Thanks petero and Paul. Theme for today maybe links with Cannes Film Festival on at the moment. Favourite was 13a and 18a.

  28. Trailman @26 – my copy of the paper had a large gap (probably 4 or 5 spaces worth) between Player and Yorkshire, which made sense to me. I suspect the problem is that browsers tend to suppress multiple spaces – for me the dash they’ve put in the online version is more confusing.

  29. Thanks Paul and PeterO

    Enjoyable puzzle with an interesting theme that I was able to see after my fourth clue – DE NIRO. It looks like not only were they all male actors, but one that were type cast into tough characters for most part !

    And yes ulaca, I had also entered a not completely parsed TRACEY in at 8a, which did hold me up with UPRISING right at the end of the solve. Paul actually used the ‘zero’ trick in three clues with DRESS CIRCLE, MAKE LOVE and PACINO – and each solved separately and had to get the three aha’s separately !

    took a while to understand the RALL inside PARALLEL and never twigged to the ‘Jimmy riddle’ in my last one in JIMMY CAGNEY.

  30. beery hiker @28, I have the same gap and I’m fully ready to concur that I should have got the answer without going online, but I still think the clue is unsatisfactory on the ‘it’s not even a clause or double definition’ criterion.

  31. I was stumped on the “players” theme for a long time, so I started thinking that my ignorance about football, cricket and rugby was stopping me spotting the correct sport. Once I realised that was misdirection, it turned out that muffin was right to imply yesterday that today’s puzzle might be easier.

    Favourites included NORTH KOREA, BOW TIE, ON SAFARI, DRESS CIRCLE and MAKE LOVE.

    Many thanks to Paul and PeterO!

  32. Michelle @22

    Although I’m familiar with the slang phrase “Jimmy Riddle”, I was only able to recognise it retrospectively, having got CAGNEY from the anagram and then JIMMY from “casually”. I wonder how many people did parse JIMMY first just from the clue – some, obviously, but I suspect not many.

  33. michelle @2 and @22 – I think ulaca @8 and Simon S @24 have answered very well.
    Wiki adds that a real Jimmy Riddle was a musician from Tennessee, but it doesn’t say whether he would later find new fame as a source of rhyming slang.
    Rhyming slang often baffles but amuses me too. I found out only recently that “Let’s have a butcher’s” = “Let’s have a look” simply because “butcher’s hook” has been abbreviated in exactly the way that Simon S describes.

  34. SeanDimly @33, the term Jimmy Riddle dates from the late 19th century, several phrases were coined around then using Jimmy as a generic man’s name.

  35. For the benefit of our overseas solvers, the general way that rhyming slang is used is that you take a phrase where rhymes with a target word , but only ever use to make the connection deliberately less obvious. So, in this case we want to say “piddle” () without saying it, so we use “jimmy riddle” () but it is too easy to guess “piddle” from the rhyme hence we drop the rhyme and just use “jimmy” .

    The other example above @33, “butchers”, clearly also fits the general pattern.

  37. Oh further no! the software deleted several words because i was using angle brackets, paragrapgh 1 should read

    For the benefit of our overseas solvers, the general way that rhyming slang is used is that you take a phrase where {word1}{word2} rhymes with a target word {word3}, but only ever use {word1} to make the connection deliberately less obvious. So, in this case we want to say “piddle” ({word3}) without saying it, so we use “jimmy riddle” ({word1}{word2}) but it is too easy to guess “piddle” from the rhyme hence we drop the rhyme and just use “jimmy” {word1}.

  38. Simon S @ 24 and PeterO @ 25 – thank you for your explanations. Now I understand about the Jimmy/riddle. Perhaps I should have mentioned that I was not familiar with this particular rhyming slang and that is why it took so long for the penny to drop. If I had used my online dictionary, I would have seen that there is an entry:

    “Jimmy |?d??mi|
    noun Brit. informal
    1 an act of urination.[1930s: from Jimmy Riddle, rhyming slang for ‘piddle’.]”

    But even then, I might not have got it! And it was more enjoyable to get the explanations from all of you here.

    Thanks also to the others who gave additional explanations.

  39. Michelle@38-waiting for the penny to drop-boom boom!
    This was vintage Paul but it took me a long time to get started. Not until BOGART did the(ahem) penny drop. Loved DRESS CIRCLE and MAKE LOVE.
    Thanks Paul.

  40. Sorry but not at all impressed with 24a – why does ” we love ” equal ” in our hearts ” – can’t see the connection myself – anyone enlighten me ?

  41. Thanks PeterO and Paul

    Pretty accessible once the penny dropped. I liked several clues inclu(e)ding 6, 23, and 14.

  42. Lots of fun, with a relatively straight forward theme (Maybe I was lucky to alight on actors rather than sportsmen from the off).
    The rhyming slang allusion at 13a brings to mind (SeanD@33) other commonly used examples ranging from the inoffensive Use your loaf = loaf of bread = head, to the rude Blow a raspberry = raspberry tart, to the downright offensive He’s a Berk = Berkshire hunt. I suspect that most users of the latter are innocent of the derivation. Just as well, too!

  43. DP @42
    Are you Uncle Yap in disguise?

    (He got into trouble for explaining, in full detail, “Berk”.)

  44. Muffin@43 – oh dear! No, I’m not Uncle Yap. I wouldn’t have chosen those examples if they weren’t in common usage. I hope I’m not going to be run out of town…..

  45. This was a cheerful creation, and fun to solve.

    Thanks to Paul and PeterO (or “Tail off duck (6)” to continue today’s device!)

  46. I thought this was going to be more difficult than it turned out to be.

    The “players” theme was obvious but I surmised that we could have a mixture of “players” – sportsmen’s names, record and CD perhaps, cricket fielding positions etc etc. Actors never occurred to me until I saw Brando and Garbo which I’m sure were there to assist.

    From then on it was all very straightforward and the usual enjoyable offering from Paul.

    Despite all the “explanations” regarding “Jimmy” I agree with PeterO that the use of riddle to clue jimmy is a little tenuous. However it was seeable as CAGNEY was so obvious. (Not sure that’s a justification though?)

    Thanks to PeterO and Paul

  47. Cockney rhyming slang: Whereas “loaf of bread”=head is understandable because we know what a loaf of bread is, what on earth is a “jimmy riddle” in the first place?

  49. Gerry’s dogs in “My family and other animals” were christened “Widdle and Puke” by his brother, Lawrence Durrell.

  50. @40
    It’s “we love” as a subordinate clause as in “the people we love”/” the people in our hearts”

  53. btw I’ve never understood how “Berk” works as rhyming slang, as the county is pronounced “Barkshire” rather than “Burkshire”.

  54. muffin @53

    Perhaps it was invented by American Cockneys, as they would pronounce it like Burkshire? 😉

  55. Wikipedia seems to prefer Berkley Hunt, rather than Berkshire (both exist – at least the Old Berkshire), and, although if you ask the dogs they would pronounce either with an a, again according to Wikipedia, Cockneys would agree with Americans in pronouncing it with an e.

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