A slow and tricky solve, with lots of fun clues – I particularly liked 1ac, 9/23, 13ac, 17ac, 21ac, 26ac, 3dn, and 14dn. Many thanks to Paul.
| ACROSS | ||
| 1 | SESAME | Pith extracted from some aforementioned tropical plant (6) |
| S[om]E with the inner letters/pith removed; plus SAME=”aforementioned” | ||
| 4 | See 16 down | |
| 9, 23 | HUGH GRANT | Squeezing hard, give relative a cuddle before beginning on tennis player (4,5) |
| “player” meaning ‘actor’ H (hard) squeezed into: HUG GRAN=”give relative a cuddle” + T[ennis] |
||
| 10 | NO HARM DONE | Ultimately, Marilyn Monroe had to appear ditzy never mind! (2,4,4) |
| (n Monroe had)*, where the first ‘n’ is the ultimate letter of Marilyn | ||
| 11 | AGHAST | Earliest of settlers in a mountain range in India, speechless (6) |
| the first/earliest letter of S[ettlers] inside A + GHAT=Indian word for a mountain pass | ||
| 12 | DISMALLY | In wretched fashion, baby consumed by putting up shelves etc (8) |
| SMALL=”baby” inside DIY=”putting up shelves etc” | ||
| 13 | SNOW GEESE | Birds currently with holy cow aboard ship heading for Egypt (4,5) |
| NOW=”currently” + GEE=exclamation of surprise=”holy cow”; inside SS=”ship” + E[gypt] | ||
| 15 | SPAY | Doctor talks from the rear (4) |
| YAPS=”talks” reversed/”from the rear” | ||
| 16 | SLED | Light source attached to heel of glass slipper? (4) |
| LED (Light Emitting Diode)=”Light source”; after the last letter/heel of [glas]S | ||
| 17 | SWISS ROLL | Refuse to welcome tourists regularly coming back for cake (5,4) |
| SWILL=”Refuse” as a noun; around regular letters from [t]O[u]R[i]S[t]S reversed/”coming back” | ||
| 21 | COUNTESS | Lady left out of legion (8) |
| COUNT[L]ESS=”legion” minus L (left) | ||
| 22 | BOG OAK | Touring subcontinental state, antelope that’s a bit petrified (3,3) |
| =oak that has been preserved in peat BOK=”antelope” around GOA=”subcontinental state” |
||
| 24 | GINGER BEER | Drink from river after red, black and yellow creature? (6,4) |
| GINGER=”red” + BEE=”black and yellow creature”; with R (river) afterwards | ||
| 25 | ARID | A clear desert (4) |
| A + RID=”clear” | ||
| 26 | GOTCHA | Trapper’s cry when cuppa arrived? (6) |
| or, GOT CHA with ‘cha’=”tea” | ||
| 27 | RAGTAG | Might one identify paper as shabby? (6) |
| RAG=[news]paper, with TAG=something used as identification | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | STUN GUN | Weapon wounded one of the gendarmes? (4,3) |
| STUNG=”wounded” + UN=”one” in French i.e. as spoken by the gendarmerie [armed police] | ||
| 2 | SCHWA | Stress-free character seemingly calm, having walked away initially (5) |
| =an unstressed vowel sound initial letters from S-eemingly C-alm H-aving W-alked A-way |
||
| 3 | MANATEE | Aquatic mammal with 9, everyone said? (7) |
| with HUGH (solution to 9 ac), a homophone ‘Hugh-Manatee’ of ‘humanity’=”everyone” | ||
| 5 | ACROSS | A difficult thing to bear, over (6) |
| A CROSS=”A difficult thing to bear” | ||
| 6 | KIDNAPPER | One having taken another fish, also hooked up (9) |
| KIPPER=”fish”, with AND=”also” on the inside/”hooked” and reversed/”up” | ||
| 7 | TONALLY | Cricket side in match with a certain pitch (7) |
| ON=leg side in cricket; inside TALLY=”match” | ||
| 8 | See 19 | |
| 14 | WEEKNIGHT | Jouster on Shetland pony for hours after work? (9) |
| WEE KNIGHT=”Jouster on Shetland pony…?” | ||
| 16, 4 | SMOKING JACKET | Pack including second two cards one’s worn (7,6) |
| SET=”Pack”, around MO=moment=”second” plus KING and JACK, two playing cards | ||
| 18 | SIBERIA | Greek character more intoxicated, we hear, in region of the far north (7) |
| homophone of ‘Psi beerier’, where Psi is a letter of the Greek alphabet | ||
| 19, 8 | LOADING THE DISHWASHER | Incompetent husband dealing with dirt, so he has to get wife in for chore (7,3,10) |
| H for “husband” as part of anagram fodder in (H dealing dirt so he has)*, around W (wife) | ||
| 20 | SEARCH | Look inside someone’s ear, chortling (6) |
| Hidden inside [someone’]S EAR CH[ortling] | ||
| 23 | See 9 | |
Didn’t know ghat could be a mountain range, but had a good groan and chuckle at hugh manitee and psi beerier. Must have been on Paul’s beam today as I whizzed through this, all over too quick. Thanks both.
Found this quite chewy but enjoyed the challenge. One of his better ones.
Thanks to Paul and manehi
Let down by misspelling ‘manatee’. Hesitated whether the second ‘a’ was an ‘i’ and opted for the wrong one. I don’t use the check button so I do sometimes come a cropper over the spelling of words that I do not encounter regularly.
I wasn’t very happy with ‘manatee’ as a homophone for ‘manity’, but I thought that ‘psibeerier’ was cracking.
MANATEE only works if the second A is 2dn-ised.
It frequently is in this part of the world.
As beery@2 says, this was chewy but great fun. Particularly enjoyed HUGH GRANT, SMOKING JACKET and GINGER BEER. Bunged in MANATEE as I had all the crossers, and in the process missed the ‘humanity’ homophone. Many thanks to Paul and manehi.
An enjoyable challenge today, lots of fun parsing.
We particularly liked HUGH GRANT, GOTCHA, and STUN GUN.
Thanks to Paul and manehi!
This was not easy, but very enjoyable. Paul on good form, so thanks. Favourites (among many candidates) were STUN GUN, once I worked out the parsing (now I seem to remember sten gun recently so that went in stupidly at first, until HUGH GRANT came to light), HUGH GRANT, and the delightful KIDNAPPER with its obvious definition beautifully hidden. Thanks are due also to manehi for help with quite a few pardings I was not sure of.
Normally, I look forward to doing a Paul puzzle because there will be something vaguely schoolboy-smutty to amuse me somewhere along the way; this time it was enjoyable just for the pleasure of seeing a brilliant compiler on absolutely top form. I don’t think there was a single clue where I didn’t think to some extent “That’s neat/clever”, save perhaps 5dn which could possibly have been improved by leaving out the comma. That’s how good this puzzle is.
2dn is a copybook example of how to clue a word which is liable to be unfamiliar to solvers (as SCHWA certainly was to me). A couple of most enjoyably groansome homophones, Hugh-manatee and Psi-beerier. Lovely misdirections in 24ac, 6dn, 7dn.
Two impeccably constructed long clues; I thought 19, 8 was particularly fine.
Thanks to Paul for a superb puzzle, and to Manehi for a prompt blog.
Like gif@1, I found a place I like to be today – on Pauls wavelength! The LHS fell into place well before the RHS and the NE quadrant held out for longer than it should have (with hindsight). For me, it was worth the price of my Guardian subscription just to get the delightful 16d,4a SMOKING JACKET, which I see drofle@5 also liked. My other major favourite was 5d, ACROSS [One of my dear Mums oft-repeated sayings was Well, thats just a cross to bear along with Life is but a vale of tears – not that she was a pessimist, quite the opposite: she was just of that generation who used such religious allusions.] I also ticked some already mentioned by manehi and others: my ticks were for 9,23a HUGH GRANT, 10a NO HARM DONE, 11a AGHAST, 13a SNOW GEESE, 21a COUNTESS, 1d STUN GUN and 19,8d LOADING THE DISHWASHER. Can you tell I loved the whole puzzle?
Fortunately, I changed BIG OAK to BOG OAK at 22a when I went back to look for a theme (to no avail, BTW). I couldnt quite parse 22a the first time through, so I should have known my guess was wrong. But I was misled because I had a look at all the antelopes in Bradfords red book, and GOA was listed as an antelope! I was much happier when I saw the petrified bit differently and then could understood the wordplay with the much more familiar BOK for the critter. [Not inviting yet another antelope brouhaha, I hope, but I am sure this clue was deliberately placed by Paul, as he likes to raise a smile, I know.]
Many thanks to Paul and manehi.
[For a minute I thought HUGH GRANT was the theme key, then I realised that it wasnt in this crossword, but in another one this week, where I had been misled by the title of one of his films.]
I presume the Shetland Pony is WEE BOB . whether so or not, he looks delightful.
Very good puzzle. Thanks for blog manehi nowI see how squeezing works.,
And thanks Paul
[NeilH@8, we crossed, but I just wanted to say I thought the comma in 5a was necessary for the clever surface. I would be glad when my cross to bear was over, I think. I can’t see how “to bear over” would make sense. No big deal, just voicing my thought pattern.]
Julie@11; I was thinking of something a bit like the Skye Boat Song, “bear xxx over the sea”; but you’re probably right that it doesn’t work without the xxxx in the word-order. Which just underlines how good Paul’s puzzle is.
Thanks Paul and manehi
Very slow start – reading the clues in order I got to 20d before solving one. A lot of “guess, then parse” clues, though there were a few the other way round – SWISS ROLL and AGHAST. for instance.
I didn’t parse GINGER BEER (ginger = red? – they’re different colours to me, even when applied to hair), MANATEE, or 19,8.
Favourite SCHWA.
I found this up to Paul’s usual high standard, and as usual with his puzzles it was a steady solve which gradually fell into place; though I missed parsing both MANATEE and SIBERIA with their entertaining homophones. (I rarely bother parsing answers if I am certain they are correct from definition/crossers – which is my loss as I miss out on some clever stuff.)
No doubt there are “black and yellow” bees, though “wasp” is the creature that springs to mind. My partner comes from Siberia, so I feel obliged to point out that not all of it is in the “far north” – its southernmost point is further south than London. It’s just big – if it were not part of Russia it would still have the largest area of any country.
Thanks Paul and manehi.
Tough but fun.
Could not parse 3d MANATEE.
I inserted 19/8 without parsing it as it looked like an anagram but I was too lazy to work it out exactly!
Liked SMOKING JACKET, ACROSS, SWISS ROLL, WEEKNIGHT, GOTCHA
New: BOG OAK
Failed SLED
Thanks B+S
Thanks Paul and Manehi. I agree with others: a splendid puzzle, one of Paul’s best.
HUGH GRANT held me up for ages, and therefore SCHWA. Felt a bit of (almost) deja vu with STUN GUN having had the STEN version yesterday, was it? Same feeling with MANATEE which keeps surfacing, like the antelopes. Lots of the usual Paul fun and games, though
Back to the prize puzzle being on Fridays huh? None of that was overly difficult but nearly all of it was hard so a thoroughlygood workout with some excellent surfaces and many oak-boggling clues.
I read “siberia” as the Greek letter “xi” not “Psi”. For me, the leading “P” is not totally silent (but then, for me, wile and while sound very different). In Greek “Xi” is pronounced “ksi” (which is my preference) but the English pronunciation is “sai” so I think this might be Paul’s intention.
Many thanks Paul and also manehi, not least for bothering to work out the exact anagram fodder of “loading the dishwasher”!
Oh the hugh-manatee!
[TheZed @18
I reegistered the Hindenburg quote!]
Another good one from Paul with most of the surfaces being pleasing.
I failed to parse HUGH MANATEE – it’s got me chortling!
I liked SNOW GEESE, GINGER BEER, KIDNAPPER, the WEE KNIGHT and, especially, STUN GUN.
Thanks Paul and manehi.
Great stuff from the Master Blaster of the puzzle world.
Like Muffin took an age to even get a toe hold which finally came with the wordplay for BOG OAk.
As to a favourite perm any one from 10 but the humanitay gag stands out.
Thanks to Paul for the exercise and M for the blog and especially the Wee knight explanation – a wonderful image!
BTW loading the DW is an art form not a chore. In fact, if Horse Dancing, Synchronised Swimming and riding little bikes is allowed, it should be an Olympic sport with time trials and marks for efficiency. Men only tho ladies obvs.
Excellent work Paul and Manehi. I loved this, especially HUGH Grant, WEEKNIGHT and several others. Difficult (for me) but fun and with one exception fair. The exception for me was SIBERIA. When trying to retrospectively parse, I assumed Paul was refereeing to the letter xi. If so, that’s actually pronounced “ksi” (to rhyme with sigh). If, as Manehi assumes, Paul was referring to the letter psi, that’s actually pronounced “psi”, with an audible p – just like it says on the tin as the old wood preserver adverts used to say. The point is that these two Greek letters denote what to us are the double consonant sounds “ks” and “ps”, and this is reflected also in the how the names of these letters are pronounced.
So that’s not a homophone and the clue doesn’t work for me. But in context that’s a minor quibble as it’s far outweighed by the brilliance of the rest of the puzzle.
No doubt someone will tell me now that Chambers says that xi or pi are pronounced exactly the same as “sigh”. If so, all I can say is that Chambers is wrong 🙂
@TheZed, hadn’t seen your comment when I started writing mine. I see we are an a similar track, but I would go further than you – for me, xi is and should be pronounced “ksigh” not just in a Greek but also in English, not “sigh”. I say this even though I pronounce “wile” and “while” as true homophones 🙂
Right up my street although it took two mugs of coffee and a walk on the heath to sufficiently activate the grey matter. Loved SMOKING JACKET, STUN GUN and SWISS ROLL for the memories of one of my favourite childhood desserts – how easily pleased we were in those days 🙂 I had a feeling someone might call the homophone police but by the time they arrive, Paul has disappeared, chuckling, into the night. Cheers all
@BodyCheetah
Ha, I like that image alot. I’m sure you’re right. Good luck to him too.
As Paul did not state a greek letter either xi or psi might be imagined. And surely no one can say s/he did not get to the answer because the homophone was not perfect. Are they ever? But they can be great fun as here!!
Being a phonetician, I saw SCHWA immediately, and did a Facebook post about it before tackling the rest of the puzzle. Failed to get BOG OAK, and didn’t parse the groanworthy MANATEE.
Hi everyone – thanks so much for your comments.
Tonight at 7.30pm, I’m doing a Zoom with “Paul” – as I’m doing every time I get published as “Paul”. If you subscribe below, you’ll get buzzed with details half an hour before the call. The calls we’ve done so far have been great fun. I hope to see you tonight, and at future Zooms!
https://www.johnhalpern.co.uk/
John aka Paul
Maybe its the slightly cooler weather today but this went in much easier than Puck or Nutmegs offerings for me. I just found myself on Pauls wavelength. SMOKING JACKET and LOADING THE DISHWASHER both fell into place very early which gave me plenty of crossers all over the place.
Second MANATEE of the week (counting Pans EMANATE clue) and STEN GUN yesterday to STUN GUN today.
Anyway I thought this was Paul at his cheeky best. A really enjoyable finale to another vintage week (Qaos, Nutmeg, Puck and Paul are all personal faves and Pan whom Im less familiar with gave a lovely puzzle to start the week too). Crossing my fingers for another P (Philistine, Picaroon or Pasquale) in the prize slot tomorrow. Thanks Paul and manehi.
Well, I didn’t parse MANATEE, TONALLY or KIDNAPPER, and I somehow missed the NO HARM DONE anagram but finished it nevertheless.
Favourites were SLED, SIBERIA and the delightfully silly WEEKNIGHT.
Was a sigh of exasperation evident in LOADING THE DISHWASHER? I think so…
Very enjoyable. Thanks Paul and Manehi.
The aquatic mammal had to be MANATEE. I wasn’t sure how that would fit with the rest of the clue, but Hugh Grant enabled me to seek how.
Well, that was absolutely delightful! Enjoyed pretty much every single clue, the only miniature criticism being BEERIER crossing with BEER, being very minor indeed!
As always with Pauls puzzles, I am always slow to start, but as if by magic I seem to slot them in at a steady pace. LOI was SLED, which quite unfathomably took what seemed an age.
But honestly, an absolute gem right from the top drawer!
Right, time to unload then start LOADING THE DISHWASHER!
Penfold @31 Prize for worst homophone of the day goes to you, I think. Paul’s WEE KNIGHT & HUGH MANATEE on the other hand were top drawer. (perhaps better not to mention the slightly contentious xi beerier.)
Like muffin @13 it took me a while to get onto Paul’s wavelength, and I then suffered brain fade midway, but after doing something else for half an hour the Marilyn Monroe anagram immediately fell into place and after that it was relatively plain sailing, with RAGTAG last one in.
Thanks to Paul and manehi (I nearly typed manatee again).
Thanks to Paul and manehi.
I thought that this was well up to Paul’s usual high standard. I particularly liked the construction of the clue for SWISS ROLL – the perfect cryptic clue – but MANATEE was such a write in, being a crossword regular, that I forgot to try and parse it and completed the puzzle without seeing the pun!
Only problem with having a Paul on a Friday is that it means a Paul-less Prize on a Saturday.
dantheman @ 34. I know what you mean; I’m hoping for a Philistine!
sheffield hatter @33 Thanks for my award. Do gongs make appropriate prizes for bad homophones? I’ll let you decide.
Penfold that was superb – my typo auto-filter initially discarded it 🙂
I sometimes struggle with Paul so I was pleased to finish in reasonable time today. The WEE KNIGHT got the biggest chuckle.
BlueCanary @31, LOADING THE DISHWASHER is a cause of friction in this house. Mrs T and I have very different views on how it should be done. But a pump fault has forced us to hand washing for the last few days, with domestic harmony the result.
I’m not always a fan of Paul, finding some of his clues so long and contrived that I fall asleep halfway through reading them, but today’s puzzle featured several gems and was thoroughly enjoyable. I look forward to HUGH MANATEE featuring in ISIHAC’s Uxbridge English Dictionary. And someone has to do the obvious joke: In 1Ac, is Paul taking the pith?
Thanks, Paul/John and manehi for a lovely session.
I thought “ghat” meant a structure on a river bank, or perhaps just the bank. Didn’t know it could be a mountain range — geographically the opposite, almost — the top of the hill instead of the bottom.
Thanks for parsing KIDNAPPER, manehi.
5d reminds me of the beloved hymn, “Gladly, the cross-eyed bear.”
Did anyone else try GNU as the antelope, giving _ _ G NU_ (Big nut? log nut?)
It’s all been said.
Thanks in all directions.
I always enjoy Paul’s puzzles but defeated by Bog Oak this time. Also put ‘tagrag’ for 27 ac from remembering Casca’s ‘tagrag people’ in Julius Caesar II i – fits the clue just as well!
Thanks, Paul — wordplay from one of the best — although I missed the HUGH MANATEE connection I found SIBERIA and WEEKNIGHT to be really funny. Favorite clues were STUN GUN, SWISS ROLL, and KIDNAPPER. As I often do with Paul I get a fair number of answers through definitions and crossings and then figure out the parsing. Thanks Manehi for the blog because I could not parse DISMALLY and GINGER BEER.
“Chewy” seems to be the new favoured term for a tricky puzzle- and this certainly was. I had great trouble getting started but the NW corner got me going. SCHWA was new to me as was BOG OAK in the SE. SLED was largely a guess and I didn’t parse TONALLY. Actually I didn’t bother to work out the parsing of LOADING THE DISHWASHER once I saw what the answer was. All in all,I can’t say I was on Paul’s wavelength today even though I completed the puzzle.
Not unenjoyable but perhaps a bit too,er,chewy!
Thanks Paul.
With Paul it’s always love or hate for me. I’m sorry – but count me as one who definitely did NOT enjoy this 🙁
For the record, Chambers gives the pronunciation of xi as zi, ks? or ks? and psi as (p)s? or (p)s?, so I suppose Paul was referring to psi for a perfect anagram. (Hope the special characters come out.)
I missed the parsing of (Hugh) MANATEE, unfortunately. Thanks to Manehi for explaining. I think it’s probably the fact that the second vowel in MANATEE (and also the third in humanity) is pronounced as schwa that made George Clements@3 unsure of whether it’s spelt with an a or an i.
Ah! The special characters didn’t come out. They were one instance each of an i and an e with a bar over for each word.
Psi for a perfect homophone, not anagram
Thanks Paul, well up to the usual standard. The first time I heard of SCHWA was to describe the odd vowel sounds often spoken by Tony Blair when, desperately trying not to sound too posh, mangled his vowels but, at the last second realised he might sound too common. That’s why when John Wells @27 said he was a phonetician, I read it as ‘politician’!
Thanks to manehi and Paul
Pith extracted, some = se
Some, pith extracted = se
Pith from some =om
Pith extracted from some = om
Some taking the pith?
22a is a very good def – abitpetrified (about 10% typically)
Bullhassocks, posh English-speakers use schwa for unstressed vowels just as much as the rest of us; it’s a general feature of English pronunciation. Russian is another language with the same tendency, I believe.
Re GHAT, i knew the word from on a holiday to GOA during which we visited the Western Ghats – a reasonably well-known range of mountains -so I’m wondering if Paul had those in mind rather than the obscure Indian geographical term from which they apparently get their name.