Guardian Cryptic 26,846 by Paul

by

Lots of fun and not too tricky

…with a colour theme running through the answers as well as the clues. Favourites 26ac and 7dn. Thanks Paul.

Across
8 CHESTNUT Brown, an old joke (8)
double definition: a shade of brown, and an old joke
9 OLIVE Duck has to be green (5)
O=”Duck” as in a 0 in cricket, plus LIVE=”to be”
10 GREY Horse in theory the better gelding, all at the rear dropping back (4)
all of the rear letters of “[theor]Y [th]E [bette]R [geldin]G”, reversed or “back”
11 STRINGLESS Lingo almost unrecognisable in accent, unable to tie anything up? (10)
(ling[o])* in STRESS=”accent”
12 SALMON Pink bum finally squeezed into shop (6)
[bu]M in SALON=”shop”
14 GRAND FIR US wood grain fared oddly after treatment (5,3)
an anagram or “treatment” of: GRAIN plus the odd letters of F[a]R[e]D
15 VIOLENT Extreme north shrouded in reddish-blue (7)
N[orth] in VIOLET=”reddish-blue”
17 CHICKEN Yellow meat (7)
double definition, the first as in cowardly
20 POPINJAY Bird after lemonade, then home for macaroni (8)
=a dandy. POP=”lemonade”, plus IN=”home” plus JAY=”Bird” Edited thanks to doofs and Cookie
22 ANSWER Secured by screwed screws, nails come back (6)
Hidden/”Secured” and reversed/”screwed”, in [sc]REWS NA[ils]
23 SCREEN TEST Audition, as does satellite station, for example? (6,4)
‘screen test’ could be a crossword indication of ‘contains the letters TEST’, which is done by [satelli]TE ST[ation]
24 WINE A taste of yellow in every red and white (4)
Hidden in [yello]W IN E[very]
25 PRICK Best clothes primarily ruined — pink (5)
“pink”=to stab or pierce. PICK [of the bunch]=”Best”, around R[uined]
26 UNCHASTE Battered nuts, each scarlet? (8)
“scarlet”=sinful or immoral. (nuts each)*
Down
1 WHERE AM I Lost in Weimar, eh? No idea! (5,2,1)
(Weimar eh)*
2 ASHY A mousy 10 (4)
=GREY coloured. A plus SHY=”mousy”
3 UNISON Concert hasn’t been cancelled in support of international organis­ation (6)
in UNISON=in “Concert”. IS ON=”hasn’t been cancelled”, supporting U[nited] N[ations]=”international organisation”
4 STORAGE Coach carrying gold making room for carriage? (7)
=room for things that are carried. STAGE=stagecoach, around OR=”gold”
5 DOWNWASH Current that’s forced lower in blue rinse (8)
DOWN=sad=”blue”, plus WASH=”rinse”
6 DIPLODOCUS Lower position defining party, a dinosaur (10)
DIP=”Lower” plus LOCUS=”position” around DO=”party”
7 JET SKI One skimming over the water for black Russian? (3,3)
JET=”black” and -SKI is a suffix indicating “Russian”
13 MULTIMEDIA TV and press etc redistributing mail with tedium (10)
(mail tedium)*
16 NIJINSKY Dancer, curse not quite lifted, elected to put on blue (8)
the ballet dancer [wiki]. Reversal of JIN[x]=”curse not quite lifted”, plus IN=”elected”, plus SKY=”blue”
18 ETERNITY Bird in relationship standing on head of yellowhammer all the time (8)
TERN=”Bird”, inside TIE=”relationship” reversed or “standing”, all on the head of Y[ellowhammer]
19 TYPE OUT Using a keyboard, write your personal emails initially confiscated by solicitor (4,3)
Y[our] P[ersonal] E[mails], inside TOUT=”solicitor”=someone who solicits for custom
21 OCCUPY Fill old vessel in cemetery that’s empty (6)
O[ld], plus CUP=”vessel” in C[emeter]Y
22 ATTACK A thankless introduct­ion course for mug (6)
A, plus T[hankless], plus TACK=”course”=direction of movement
24 WRAP Cover hand up, bandaging end of finger (4)
PAW=”hand”, reversed or “up”, and around [finge]R

43 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 26,846 by Paul”

  1. Thanks, manehi, Paul.

    I found this much more enjoyable than yesterday’s, but also initially quite easy for a Paul, all done and dusted in about 30 minutes.

    Also the theme is not intrusive, no ego trip “play” jarring every clue.

    ATTACK last one in, as I was trying to subtract TA from some word for “introduction” – needed your explanation for this (now obvious) one.

  2. Thank you Paul.

    I went off Paul crosswords for a while because they were becoming just too obscure during the week.

    This was just right and full of Pauls good old wit and ingenious double entendre.

    Great start to the day

  3. Thanks Paul and manehi

    Quick and not particularly entertaining (though on the whole Paul isn’t one of my favourite compilers). I did like DIPLODOCUS and (LOI) ANSWER.

    I took SCREEN TEST as a sly dig at the unavailability of Test Cricket on terrestrial TV!

  4. It may just be the underlining, but I took ‘macaroni’ to be the definition, rather than ‘bird’.

    Muffin’s screen test was the same interpretation as mine but I see your rather cleverer parsing makes sense!

    Thanks to Paul and manehi.

  5. Thanks Paul and manehi;

    This was just right for a weekday puzzle. ATTACK was my last one in, as it was for Dave Ellison @1, and I was confused over the parsing of SCREEN TEST. I had “macaroni”, a dandy, as the definition for 20a, the use of POPINJAY for a parrot, or other bird, being now archaic.

  6. Thanks Paul and manehi

    Great stuff. You do learn something from doing crosswords – I remembered macaroni was a fancy dresser from a previous outing

  8. Thanks Paul & manehi.

    Good entertaining crossword with no obscurities, although I didn’t know macaroni=dandy. I missed the parsing of SCREEN TEST.

    I see Paul managed to get his pink bum in there. I liked the black Russian.

  9. A relief after the last few and several that made me smile. Paul restrained himself on 25, even if his bum appeared.

  10. Good colour related theme and not as hard as some of Paul’s other offerings. I didn’t know a few words such as DIPLODOCUS or DOWNWASH but the clueing was very clear and made these possible. Favourites were POPINJAY (one of those old-fashioned words that I think deserves to be in wider use) and the terrific JET SKI, my COD.

    Thanks to Paul and manehi

  11. Thanks Paul and manehi

    Not sure that I found this as easy as some others here. Not outrageously hard, but it did take a couple of sittings to get it out … and then found that he had drawn an error from me with my lazy PRINK, instead of PRICK (notwithstanding having gone down the ‘pink’ = stab route !). Missed the TEST in ‘satellite station’ … good one, Paul !

    Appreciated the effort of putting different colours in a number of clues and a few answers.

    Ended up in the SE corner with the well-concealed UNCHASTE anagram, the trickily parsed ATTACK and the extremely well reverse hidden ANSWER. Didn’t help myself by confidently writing in U–EA RED at 26a initially.

  12. All pretty straightforward in retrospect – this was enjoyable without ever being one of Paul’s most memorable, but when you produce so many they can’t all be classics. Last in was ATTACK – the SE corner held out longest, though DOWNWASH was the least familiar. The word POPINJAY always reminds me of George Galloway (so a not entirely welcome reminder)…

    Thanks to Paul and manehi

  13. I enjoyed this very much – even more than yesterday’s because in this one we didn’t have the same syllable forced into every clue. Like yesterday’s, it was a puzzle in which I had confidence in the quality of the clues, so that it was always worth re-thinking any clue that didn’t break quickly.

    I also learned a couple of things: another meaning of ‘pink’ in 25A and another meaning of POPINJAY at 20A.

    11A (STRINGLESS) is a made-up word, but fair as far as I’m concerned and straightforward enough.

    Finally, this wouldn’t be a Paul without … – ah, I see it has been commented on already.

    Thanks to Paul and manehi

  14. ‘End of finger’, ‘bum finally’, ‘extreme North’, ‘clothes primarily’. Isn’t this all a bit too lazy? I say this as a big Paul fan. Really, a job for the editor too. But perhaps no one else minds as much as I seem too. Much else to enjoy. Thanks Paul and manehi.

  17. I had the ‘home for macaroni’ reference at 20a to mean ITALY – all I needed was a type of lemonade to go in front … until the rethink, after NIJINSKY gave that theory a right kicking.

    I wouldn’t have said it was easy, either – took me roughly the same time as yesterday.

  18. And another I missed: ‘thankless introduction’. Also one clue that is all the first letters and another all the last letters read backwards. I’ll shut up now.

  19. Thanks to Paul and manehi. I needed help parsing SCREEN TEST and had to check the spelling of DIPLODOCUS but otherwise proceeded smoothly and much enjoyed the process. As for POPINJAY, I’ve been fond of the word since I first encountered Hotspur’s resentment of “a certain lord, neat and trimly dressed” who accosted him after a battle: “To be so pestered with a popinjay” (1 Henry IV, 1.3).

  20. beery hiker@12

    I echo your thanks to Paul and manehi. “POPINJAY” always reminds me of the late Christopher Hitchens; George Galloway described him as “a drink-soaked former Trotskyist popinjay”. Hitchens’ response went something along the lines of ” that’s true; but only in parts”

  21. Thanks Paul and manehi

    Definitely at the easier end of Paul’s spectrum.

    Alan Browne @ 13: ‘stringless’ is in E-Chambers, and I’m sure I’ve seen ‘stringless beans’ on sale in supermarkets.

  22. Thanks Simon.
    I’ve since found ‘stringless’ in the Collins on-line dictionary too. It’s not in the Chambers or Collins heavy books, but there’s no question it’s a perfectly formed word. I would probably use it myself to describe those beans in preference to the clumsy-sounding ‘non-stringy’.

  25. I didn’t think this particularly easy. I didn’t know GRAND FOR or, to my shame, DOWNDRAFT. 2dn and 10ac had me stumped for what seemed ages. Both really easy once the penny dropped. I did like NIJINSKY and POPINJAY- lovely word!
    Not one of Paul’s best perhaps, but enjoyable enough.
    Thanks Paul.

  26. btw the dinosaur that normally lives in the entrance hall of the Natural History Museum is a Diplodocus, nicknamed “Dippy”. It’s just a cast of the original fossil, though.

    “Stringless” is definitely in Sainsbury’s!

  27. I saw a different parsing for 23ac –
    Satelite station Sky Sports now show or SCREEN TEST Matches rather than the terrestrial BBC. Does this make it a double definition ?

  30. A language question for whomever cares to comment: I was initially thrown by lemonade = pop.
    To me “pop” is a (somewhat giggle-inducing) regional Americanism meaning a fizzy soft drink or soda. In the UK, does pop connote any soft drink regardless of fizz? Or alternatively, is the lemonade generally carbonated? It didn’t bother me while solving the puzzle. I’m just curious.

  31. Hi BlueDot
    Lemonade in the UK is generally regarded as carbonated – the genuine stuff is rarely encountered, and usually thought of as undrinkable when it is.

  32. BlueDot @30
    To add to what muffin said and to answer one of your questions directly: I think in the UK ‘pop’ connotes any fizzy soft drink. It must be fizzy to be called pop. (But I’m testing my own knowledge here.)

  33. muffin @3:
    Quick and not particularly entertaining (though on the whole Paul isn’t one of my favourite compilers).

    You said it on other occasions but I am just curious why you didn’t find this particularly entertaining.
    We all have our favourites and Paul isn’t one of yours.
    That’s fair enough but as I said, I just wonder why.
    And also, who are the setters that make your heart beat faster?

    As to the puzzle, I liked it.
    The silly but very Paulian JET SKI was first one in, DIPLODOCUS the last one.
    Just like others I missed the parsing of 23ac.

    That said, I am not sure that ‘screwed’ can be taken as a reversal indicator.
    One of the definitions of ‘screw’ is ‘turn like a screw’.
    However, this ‘turn’ feels like a turn forward (clockwise) and not backward.

    Clue of the Day for me: 1d.
    And 8ac was itself, wasn’t it?

  34. Hi Sil
    Thanks for the question. Arachne is my current favourite. I like Picaroon (though not particularly this week’s), and Bonxie (not seen enough).

    I don’t like Pauls’s smuttiness very much (though not really an issue here), and his fragmentary inclsuion of letters (as xjpotter has suggested).

    Some setters bring a smile to my face; Paul rarely does, although I did acknowledge one I did enjoy very much not long ago – I can’t rememeber which.

  35. I used to like Araucaria, of course (I would be astracised if I said otherwise), but some of my most favourite puzzles were set by Bunthorne, as non-Ximenean as you could wish for. My absolute pick, and not just because he lived in Burnley.

  38. Thanks for your reply, muffin.
    Two of the ones you mention are high up my list too, not Bonxie though.
    Let’s not start a discussion here, I was just curious.

  40. Yet, ‘screwed’ doesn’t feel like ‘turned backward’ to me.
    Ps, my eyesight is getting worse – is that a positive smiley there in post 36 or one that’s moaning?

  42. In response to comments 33 and 40, Paul might have been referring to screw in snooker, which is when the white ball comes back to you because you put backspin on it.

  43. Thanks manehi and Paul.

    I’m clearly ages behind the rest of you in getting to this so expect to be last in as usual.

    I enjoyed this. As usual, it took a while to get going after the initial quickies – WHERE AM I and GREY – and even once I got a roll in it took several revisits to get the bottom half.

    Lots of inventive clues and oblique definitions as ever – particularly POPINJAY and UNCHASTE.

    Last in, like others above, was ATTACK which was well misdirected.

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