Guardian Cryptic 28,218 by Paul

114 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28,218 by Paul”

1. Delightful puzzle, almost every clue brought a smile.  First-one-in was GORGONZOLA (I’ll never feel the same about eating it again) and last-one-in was APPLE CORE, which was probably the best of the ‘alphabet’ clues.  My thanks to the setter for very pleasant puzzle-evening.

2. First ‘themer’ in was [You’ll never break this] heart of stone, but no, no more Stones lyrics. Took a couple of hours, first few scattered here and there until the MO emerged, but yes good fun from Paul, many tas. Cut, do, hairdo are chestnuts but I rarely click immediately..sometimes I think my brain likes being misdirected! A few GoD contenders..powwow, wader, agenda, but I think Uncl Oak gets it. Amusing start to the day, thanks to both Ps.

3. Monk on Wednesday (FT), Brendan yesterday, and Paul today complete a trifecta of crosswords that I consider top notch. I thoroughly enjoy wordplay that’s in the answer like the letter clues as well as TURNED ON. Thanks Paul for the fun and PeterO for the blog, especially for explaining UNCLOAK.

4. Loved this one.  So I like both marmite and gorgonzola, both strong flavours.

   Paul has a bit of a reputation for liking clues that mention – I was going to say sex but maybe more accurately body parts and bodily functions – but today there are a couple referencing drugs (TRIP OUT and TURNED ON).  Rock ‘n’ roll next?  Btw I might quibble a bit with equating getting high with tripping out – different drugs, although you could combine them.  Or so I’m told!

5. Agreed, GinF @2 – HEART OF STONE made me look for more Stones lyrics, though my first themer was HEAD OF STATE. My heart quailled at the themed clues at first, and – although an interesting idea, and I did manange to get them all – I’m not entirely satisfied with this sort of clue. Why? Because I think that a really satisfying cryptic clue is one where, once you hit on the solution (either by construction from the wordplay, or from definition and then reverse engineering the parsing) you are certain you are right. A number of these went in (the two above, TIN OPENER, COCKTAIL) on hope alone – or maybe a crosser or two – only to be confirmed by the fact that the now available crossers helped with the next clue. Still, I’m glad I spotted the trick (I toyed with LAST OF…? for 9/18 until PREVAIL knocked that on the head). Dr WO @4 – I agree with your drug terminology quibble. Thanks, Paul and PeterO.

6. I did wonder at one stage if this would qualify as the cryptic that was clued with the least number of characters.

7. I really enjoyed this though would not have solved the single letter clues without the check function. I see where TassieTim is coming from, but this worked for me. I too needed PeterO’s explanation of UNCLOAK. Many thanks to Paul and to PeterO.

8. Well that was fun. Lots of ticks, including the themed clues, but Uncl Oak very good and I chuckeld at ASHY. Thanks to Paul and PeterO

9. I absolutely loved the intrigue of the single letter clues, which finally opened up when I got HEART OF STONE at 23,3d (and I have had the Stones song as an earworm ever since, gif@2 and TT@5!). Of the letter clues, I also really liked 17a TIN-OPENER. Other favourites (a couple of which some others have already mentioned) were 1a POWWOW, 24a GORGONZOLA, 2d WADER (my LOI), 5d ELLERY (my FOI) and 16d TRIP OUT. 7d UNCLOAK was a guess from the crossers, but now that PeterO has explained it, I also like that one a lot! Great crossword, Paul, so thank you, and thanks to PeterO for the blog (glad you liked it too!).

10. I also enjoyed this a lot, but like PeterO I imagine it will have frustrated some people. I saw POWWOW quickly, and that helped me get going and things went in quite speedily, surprisingly. Many thanks to Paul and PeterO.

11. Well I sort of liked it and didn’t.  An internal marmite struggle, just as PeterO predicted.  Putting aside the gimmick, there were some super clues, several of which have already earned ticks from others.  TURNED ON is really neat (echoes of the oft-quoted ‘nommag’); CLOTH EARS and EARSHOT (both ears) were very nicely done and I’m another fan of GORGONZOLA.  The single letter clues were certainly clever but left me slightly dissatisfied.  Was it the lack of a clear definition or wordplay?  Was it that there is room for misinterpretation and little to enable a doublecheck?  What stops mocktail from being the solution to 15ac (apart from being a horrible neologism?).  Strangely enough, that was the solution that sprang to mind immediately before the more obvious.  And, of course, once the gimmick was uncovered – or UNCLOAKed (brilliant clue!) – the themed clues fell quickly into place.  Bit of a curate’s egg for me.

    Thanks Paul and PeterO for the early post.

12. I have to say that Paul is versatile-and on form lately-from his last puzzle which was top notch  to this which is his Puckish side and his Mudds which are more accessible.Pretty much back to his old form. May it continue

    Thanks Peter and Paul

13. Thanks Paul and PeterO

    I enjoyed this apart from the single letter clues; the big problem with these is that there is very little chance of solving them without crossers in place. (Though I nearly threw it away in disgust at WADER!; AGENDA doesn’t work as a homophone either unless you are a lazy speaker).

    Favourites DEJA VU, TURNED ON, and CLOTH EARS.

    Two “ears” and two “night”s, the latter crossing with each other?

14. Well, the first Paul that I’ve actually enjoyed for a very long time. Lots to like here. Thanks both.

15. An afterthought that struck in the shower (my own version of a Eureka moment!), one thing Paul does do brilliantly with his theme is address a debate that often arises on this site: there are strong voices on both side of the argument about how to indicate specific letters within words.  Is ‘first aid’ good enough to signal ‘A’ or should it be ‘first of all’?  There are no grounds for quibbles at all in the way Paul has signposted today.

16. Julie@9 and drofle@10   ELLERY was also one of my FOIs – just happen to be reading one of “his” at the moment; POWOW was my LOI.

    I looked for a theme connecting the single letter clues, and many of them seemed to be movies, but not all.

     

    Very enjoyable crossword, so thanks Paul and PeterO

17. Definitely worthy of the Friday spot. I almost gave up at the start but kept at it and with a bit of guesswork everything finally came together. Maybe at a 10a, but I wasn’t fussed.

    Favourites were POWWOW, the ‘call for service in New York’ and the ‘tasty Italian fare’, the latter a reminder of what’s in store for dinner.

    Thanks to Paul and PeterO

18. I’m sure I’ve seen 4a before somewhere.

19. [Aoxomoxoa @14: I’ve just checked and see you have been commenting here for some time but your pseudonym hasn’t registered with me before today and, given we often acknowledge the Stones (today), the Beatles etc – and, of course, we are regularly reminded of Half Man Half Biscuit, it’s good to see a nod to the Grateful Dead.  Now that’s my kind of music!]

20. “AGENDA doesn’t work as a homophone either unless you are a lazy speaker”

     

    Why not? It’s a perfect homophone as far as I can see. (And Chambers agrees – the phoneticizations are identical apart from the initial ‘a’ in ‘agenda’)

21. Thanks both. Sorry muffin @ 13 – WADER made me laugh out loud.
    essexboy @ 18 – I also had a strange feeling about 4a

22. Contrarian @20 and muffin @13 – please, not another rhotic argument!

23. Contrarian @20

    agendAH isn’t the same as agendER

24. Shirl @22 – it’s like deja vu all over again  😉

25. Sorry Shirl – we crossed!

26. Not so much marmite (which I love) and more curate’s egg for me. Hugely inventive and I loved “hot, no” and “aunti ash”. I clocked “ellery” quickly but it still didn’t help with the similarly clued “master of sci fi” as I hunted through Asimov, Le Guin etc. But I found the single letter clues horrible. In many cases I had the idea and part of the solution (“heart of…” was first in and I knew I needed a 5 letter word with “o” in the middle, but which to choose?). The ambiguity and the necessity of crossers – and the fact there were so many of them – did not work for me at all. As well as “mocktail” there is “forktail” (a bird) and that’s one with all the crossers in place.

    Glad it wasn’t a prize and this is probably the most inventive and witty puzzle in ages, even without the single letter clues so many thanks and much kudos to Paul, and thanks to PeterO for the blog.

27. I was trying to build up a head of steam at 9/18 until that was cheesed by GORGONZOLA.

    DEJA VU is where you’ve seen CSN&Y’s Woodstock before. HEART OF STONE is on Out of Our Heads. TURNED ON, TRIP OUT – no wonder the Deadheads enjoyed it and so did I.

    Thanks Paul and PeterO.

28. Very enjoyable.

29. A bit of fun once the penny dropped (perhaps clue this as ‘ence’) albeit surprised that so many clueless clues are allowed.

    Thoughts exactly as muffin @10.

30. Sorry, muffin @13 of course

31. I thought we were heading into a pangram and I think only B and Q were missing. I enjoyed the puzzle despite having FRONT PAGE for 6 d until it did not work with crossers. Chuckled at WADER. Liked UNCLOAK even though my attempt at parsing was not as subtle as PeterOs. Thanks PO for blog and Paul for ringing the chAnges.

32. Contrarian @20

    agendAH isn’t the same as agendER

     

    They’re identical – both schwa

33. Fun and clever, but I took exception to 9,18 where Head of Staff and Head of Steam fit. Only the crossers decide what’s wanted.

    But loved many of the other clues.

34. Nice for a change but the lack of definitions started to grate after a while.

    POWWOW is fine except that “Council hit, I say” doesn’t make a lot of sense as a sentence.

    Many thanks Paul, pleasant diversion.

35. . . . I’m assuming RP.

36. We really enjoyed this… Paul is one of our favourites now, although we found him very difficult when we first started!

    Cobro worked out the theme early on which was a great help, and knowing Paul’s sense of humour helped us with COCKTAIL, which, at first, we hadn’t noticed was one word spread over two spaces.

    Favourites were all of the single letter clues and TURNED ON.

    Thanks Paul and PeterO!

37. Thank you PeterO, I am with you in having enjoyed this. I needed a lot of the straightforward clues to get started on the short stuff and my last one was MIDNIGHT which for some reason took an age. But the penny drop moments for P, T and O especially were worth the effort. Minor quibble on 4A as a Jedi isn’t necessarily a master but it didn’t impede solving the clue.

    But I have a question for people re 2D WADER. The definition is Bird, but as WADER refers to an order of birds (over 200 species apparently) wouldn’t it be fairer to define it as Birds plural? (Could just drop the apostrophe with no loss of surface meaning.) I have usually seen Bird used to define a single or similar species eg Osprey (or the Forktails, new for me thanks TheZed@26). It’s not a big deal here as W-D-R left little room to manoeuvre but given   -A-E- it might have been a different story.

    Anyway I got there and from the same starting point as rodshaw@1 to boot – helped by enjoying plenty of GORGONZOLA on my pizza last night – so despite the excellent 1A and 12A that wins my star prize for today. Cheers Paul.

38. On the never-ending homophone / rhotic argument – I think the convention is that the words should sound the same in Received Pronunciation.  20d certainly works on that basis.  You have to ask yourself, not “Does this sound the same as I would say it?” but “Does this sound the same as an RP speaker would say it?”.

    Speaking of accents, 11a reminds me – what language does a Liverpudlian hairdresser speak?

    Thanks Paul and PeterO.

39. Contrarian @32

    You’re making my point about “lazy”. If you enunciate properly, neither is schwa!

40. Muffin,

     

    Every dictionary I can see has both as schwa. Though, I concede that there is, in some a rhotacization in ‘gender’, but this only applies in certain dialects of RP English.

     

    The crossword setter has to take a single standard form of the language is the basis on which the puzzle is constructed. Paul, for instance, assumes that we would write ‘colour’ not ‘color’. And similarly for pronunciation. The fact that in Somerset or the Isle of Man, ‘gender’ and ‘agenda’ have a slightly different final vowel sound is irrelevant to homophones in the Guardian crossword.

     

41. Whenever we get into a homophone argument I have a feeling of 4a

42. TURNED ON last one in, but not quite sure whether I was by this Paul Friday offering…

43. If I may just wade in with my two penn’orth on the whole ‘is it or isn’t it a homophone’ debate, I recently came across a reference to ‘Ximenes on the art of the crossword’, by D S Macnutt, in which seven types of clue are listed. Homophones aren’t included, puns are. If solvers would just treat this type of clue as such – a play on words – where exact phonetic agreement is not important, this argument need never rear its ugly head again. Let’s put it to bed, and let it lie.

44. I thought it was great fun for a one-off. I agree not perfect in that there were other possible words that worked especially for 15,16 (although I did land on all the seemingly “correct” ones) but I do admire Paul for continuing to come up with new themes and tricks to keep us all on our toes. As many have said there were plenty of smiles away from the single letter clues (TURNED ON, WADER, UNCLOAK and more). Thanks Paul and PeterO

45. I enjoyed this, even though it was a DNF for me. I got the idea of the single letter clues fairly early on. I particularly liked CLOTH EARS.

    Thanks to Paul and PeterO.

46. Good fun from Paul if a little Rebusian.
    I was tempted by “head of steam” for S and “kickback” for K until I had crossers.
    Many thanks both and all.

47. Hmm.   Tough.  I have a real problem with 2d having a very South-of-England accent and having spent some years living in the US.   I would say WADER as Waay De – a strong NE accent to me for “Order” would be “Auh dah” or in California more like “Aur Der.”

    This reminds me of a story of my son (then age 9) playing with his friends after I’d been there about 2 years.  The remote control car they were playing with stopped working and he wanted to tell his friends:

    “Dude, the badderies are aut!” with long, lazy Californian drawl…

    I then asked “Alex, what DID you say” and in perfect RP got the reply “I told my friends that the batteries are flat.”

    Certainly two countries separated by a common language.

    Thanks Paul and PeterO for the extreme mental workout and Paul, catchya laytah dude.

48. ….ooops that can’t be right (unless head has five letters!). That’s what comes of solving during a mid night Nature break. One has forgotten one’s musings by coffee time. Still, I do recall that it got me back to sleep and that’s the main thing!

49. Just a note from an American on 2d: WADER and WAITER are homophones in all American accents I’m familiar with, so not just Brooklyn, as PeterO hypothesizes. They are not exact homophones (the “flap” in WAITER is discussed in introductory phonetics classes), but most people can’t tell the difference, so for crosswording purposes it’s just fine. Greensward, your Ximenean comment was most welcome!

50. [MaidenBartok @47 That sounds like a fascinating example of “code switching” – Radio 4 did a programme on it recently though not yet available on iplayer. There is a classic video of Obama greeting white and then black coaches and players from a basketball team – one with handshake, one with a shoulder bump. Fascinating topic. Or should that be off-topic?]

51. It’s strange that after yesterday’s celebration of the vagaries of English pronunciation, we are back to prescription. If I use schwah for both agenda and gender it’s my accent and not lazy pronunciation. I’m happy to accept the odd clue with more than one answer like Head of State, Head of Steam for that feeling you get when you gradually move from thinking you will never complete the crossword to putting the last word in, ASHY, in my case.

52. TheZed @50

    [Thanks – I heard that trailled yesterday so I will have a listen although I’m normally at 91.3 rather than 93.5. I just also remembered when he came home the first day from school saying that he’d met someone called Aaah Dree.  It took us AGES to realise it was Audrey (as in Awe Dree).   Definitely off-topic but illustrates just how difficult homphones must be for the setters].

53. Brilliant!
    Thanks Paul & PeterO.

54. That was fun, and some of the clues were Paul at his best. I’m definitely up for occasional wildcards like this.

    The single letter clues, while a neat enough conceit, were far too imprecise without several crossers as confirmation (William F P @46 illustrates this nicely), so it was a leap of faith to assume that your answer is the correct one, or the only possible one, and they could only really be written in with confidence once most of the puzzle was solved. I think Paul recognised this, but as a result, I felt the “regular” clues were often a couple of notches below his usual difficulty tariff, which was a shame. I feel sure that in a more normal puzzle, the definition for GORGONZOLA would have been less obvious than “tasty Italian fare”, which seemed closer to a Quiptic than Paul’s norm. Likewise “Arid region” for SAHARA.

    But the bolder the theme, the harder it is to pull it off, and it was still a very enjoyable solve. Thanks Paul and PeterO.

55. Contrarian@20: I wasn’t going to bring up the non-rhotic bugbear yet again, but in my copy of Chambers the phonetic endings of GENDER and AGENDA are clearly different, the first ending in ‘r’ and the second in ‘a’.

56. Pity in some ways that 2dn wasn’t “Boyd’s call…” but if it had been, we’d have had even more harrumphing about what is and isn’t a homophone. The slightly crabby pedantry of the Ximeneans is all very well, and, for example, provides Azed with the basis for taking himself as seriously as he does; but ultimately cryptic crosswords are a bit of fun, and the acid test (for me) is – do I enjoy the battle of wits with the setter?

    As Mark @11 points out, there is another perfectly legit answer to 15ac even given the crossers, and since when is the fact that something’s a horrible neologism going to deter Paul? That apart, I think the single-letter clues were few enough to be gettable via the crossers, and were an entertaining feature of an enjoyable crossword.

    Thanks as ever to Paul, and to PeterO for the blog.

57. poc @ 55

     

    Yes, my printed copy of Chambers has that difference too (I previously looked at my Chambers app which doesn’t have the difference).

     

    But if you look at the Pronuncation section at the start of the book (p. xx in 13th ed.), it says this:

    “Vowels followed by r:

    In certain accents, for example in Scots, Irish, General American, r is pronounced wherever it occurs in the spelling and this is the form adopted in the dictionary.

    In certain other accents, for example Received Pronuncation . . . it is pronounced only when it occurs before a vowel.”

     

    As Petert says @51, using schwa for both agenda and gender is not laziness, it’s RP!

58. Greensward @43 Nice attempt at a diplomatic solution to the homphony crisis but to be a pun it would probably have to have a question mark and lose the homophone indicator. When we start our little pun-ic wars we don’t say “Sounds like a six-eggs-full day” when all 6 of our chickens have laid, we just say “six-eggs-full day” and wait for the groan. So your solution would work, but it would mean the clues would have to change too.

59. [MaidenBartok @47. Here’s another example of a child code-switching. Our family did a year-long job and house exchange in Pennsylvania in 1980-1. Our oldest two children went to the local elementary school. On one occasion I remember, our older daughter, then aged 7, invited some of her friends to tea. It was fascinating to hear her switch repeatedly between the local accent and British English, depending on who she was talking to. We thought it a great example of how adaptable children can be.]

60. NeilH @56.  For me, it didn’t detract from the sheer fun – lovely mental work-out and so much better than all that time wasted in nasty, sweaty gyms…

    [Last off-topic from me courtesy of Jimmy Durante as you mentioned da boides:

    Da spring is sprung
    Da grass is riz
    I wonder where
    Da boidies is?

    Da boids is on the wing.
    But that’s absoid!
    I always thought
    Da wing was on da boid!]

61. I was indifferent towards the single letter clues where, as previously stated, crossers are needed to pin down the likes of APPLE CORE which could have been PULLS LEFT or whatever, and HEAD OF STATE/snake/steam/sales.  The enumeration limits the possibilities for MIDNIGHT once you know you’re looking for a positional term. Otherwise there was a lot to like and it was reasonably challenging.

62. Another fine puzzle from Mr H. Something so different from say the Don which makes us very lucky to have such a diverse range of setters

63. POWWOW comes from my own region of New England, though in its present form of tribal gathering I think it was developed in the plains states — picture teepees and war bonnets.  The Narragansett people of Massachusetts had neither.  The word originally meant not an event but a person, a wise elder or “medicine man”.  According to one site I just found, the origanal word meant “he dreams.”

    Narragansett

    Thank you, PeterO, for parsing DEJA VU, which was beyond me.  For the longest time I thought 7d had to be something with UNCL(e) but how could 4a have a 2-letter word ending with U?  I forgot to think about French, which does that sort of thing all the time.

    The single-letter clues remind me of a puzzle I did years ago in the Sunday New York Times, where Y was FOURTH OF JULY, O was SECOND IN COMMAND, and so forth.

    Thanks, PeterO and Paul.

64. Excellent.
    Oddly, Thursday and Friday quickest puzzles of the week.
    I’m in the camp of if I finish the puzzle the clues were fine. Close homophones where the intention is plain are fair game.
    Loved Wader.

65. This seems to have made a lot of people happy and I concur. When I briefly looked at it first thing I groaned inwardly as I couldn’t see any connection with the single letter clues. Having now come back with time to look properly things began to become clear with a few of the ordinary clues leading to solving S as HEAD OF STATE.
    Then things began to fall fairly rapidly. It took
    Me a while to see HAIRDO- excellent misdirection there and a real groan at WADER my loi.
    Much fun thanks Paul and also PeterO

66. We thought “North Pole” was a write-in for 6d “P”, but no!

67. I’ve been reading this blog for a few years now but have never commented before. Firstly I’d like to say a big thank you to all the setters and bloggers here for teaching me about 90% of what I know about cryptic crosswords and how to solve them. Secondly a huge bouquet to Paul for an immensely fun puzzle. I always enjoy Paul’s offerings (I seem to be on his wavelength) and this one was the pick of the bunch so far for mine. I particularly enjoyed the single letter clues.

68. I come to the same conclusion as greensward@43 but would use a different argument.  Cryptics use synonyms all the time, but it is rare that two words mean the same thing under all circumstances.  It is a Venn diagram thing – as long as there is enough overlap, we’re fine with it.  So why not treat homophones the same way?

69. On the ambiguity of the single-letter clues: I too had alternate readings for a couple of them, only to be corrected by crossers, but I rather think that was the point.  There is nothing that says that every clue needs to be solvable in isolation.  Many puzzles have cross-references, some of which are mutually reinforcing and can be solved in either order, but some really require one clue to be solved first, so the setter is to some degree laying down your journey through the grid.  Nobody complains about this.

70. Brilliant puzzle from Paul. Best crossword I’ve done for quite some time. I entered FORKTAIL but I’m still claiming completion as it works the same as COCKTAIL or even MOCKTAIL.

71. Dr. WhatsOn@86

    John Venn, the mathematician of diagram fame, also invented the bowling machine. His machine bowled the leading batsman of the Australian cricket team four times in a row when they came to visit Cambridge University. He was from Hull.

72. Oops, Doc@68 rather than 86. I was bowling from the wrong end.

73. Inventive as ever from Paul. Having tried countries and elements TIN-OPENER was my way in to the single letter clues and I thought it was a neat device. WADER amused me and meant I got POWWOW – my loi. CLOTH EARS was my favourite as it was an oft used phrase of my dad’s. As for the homophone debate – why does it keep coming up – there is never going to be agreement and setters are going to continue to use them. I doubt it has ever prevented anyone from solving the puzzle because they pronounce something differently.
    Thanks to Paul for the fun and PeterO for the blog.

74. Inventive, but I didn’t find the ‘themed’ clues particularly engaging. Ho hum.

    WADER was my LOI and also COTD. I had suspected there was something jesty going on but didn’t spot it until the end

75. CLOTH EARS was a favourite of my father’s, too, Whiteking@73! ….
    Delightful puzzle, solved with minimal external help….we must be learning…!

76. Lord Jim @ 38; what’s the punchline?

77. GMJ @76

    I suspect it might be Urdu!

78. Unlike most people here, I didn’t find this particularly entertaining. I know this is a CROSSword but having to rely on a few crossers to complete the single letter clues seemed a bit clunky. In addition, would one not need grammatically to have cock’s tail and apple’s core to give the right initials?

    Maybe some might think that is too persnickety. I did, however, enjoy some clues, such as TURNED ON.

    Thanks to Paul for the quirkiness and PeterO for a good blog.

79. Thanks PeterO, I don’t really like Marmite, but Paul always delivers in my view, and this was no exception.  I did find it a bit forbidding at first sight, and in fact I put it aside to tackle today’s (also excellent) Times puzzle first.  Even after I had warmed up with that, I still struggled to get going until the penny dropped with HEAD OF STATE, after which I enjoyed the process of solving the rest of the themed clues.  COCKTAIL was last in, once APPLE-CORE disproved my uninspired guess of ducktail. None of Paul’s trademark rudenesses, but loads of fun. Favourite answer was probably WADER.

    Although it is too early to discuss last Saturday’s I-themed prize puzzle from Paul, here is a spoiler: it was an absolute classic, with one of my all time favourite clues, the first time a crossword clue has brought a tear to my eye in nearly 50 years of struggle!  Thanks Paul for all the brilliance.

80. Absolutely loved it. I really enjoyed the single letter clues, personally. It also ensured a really-satisfying unpicking of the puzzle, with very few going in early on, but the crossers giving just enough to work with to make pleasing headway. Lots of fun.

    Thanks to setter and blogger.

81. PS. I pronounce ‘AGENDA’ and ‘a gender’ the same way, but even if I didn’t, I would accept that since others do so, it is a perfectly valid clue and solution. It was one of my favourite clues today, beaten only by WADER (which I pronounce as ‘waiter’, but recognise that others do not). Thanks all.

82. Guessing the letter clues was part of the fun for me even if my 1st attempt was incorrect. Before I figured out TIN OPENER I had “the outset,” since I had the “o” and last “e” in place. Oddly enough, I had to get FACT OR FICTION to rethink my initial answer.

83. PPS.

    Welcome to Desmodeus @67, after your first post.  I echo your appreciation of this site: I have been struggling with these wretched crosswords since the 1970s, and discovering fifteensquared has improved my solving enormously. Many thanks to all bloggers and fellow commenters: you’ve made an old man very happy.

84. Dr. WhatsOn @68 Excellent point – I am put in mind of the clue the other day which equated viscosity with stickiness. As a scientist I would never use such a comparison but it is in Chambers so not only do others, I suppose some definitive reading of others (the equivalent of RP) makes that equivalence so I was forced to swallow my pride and accept the clue was right. Perhaps one could take you analogy further and say that an RP homophone might by trickier for a strongly rhotic speaker, or someone who pronounces “film” as 2 syllables, just as finding odd synonyms might be harder when we have a strong association with another meaning. Best defence of the homophone I’ve seen so far.

85. TassieTim is right. The quick crossword is the place for guessing games. Why Head of State not Head of Steam for example?

86. Loved it, though have to admit didn’t really get started on single letter clues till read PeterO’s hint. Then it was plain sailing and a lot of fun

87. I came to a grinding halt so revealed a couple, and the rest became evident.  The only one I really didn’t like was WADER (which I had to reveal, having not got POWWOW at that point), which I found a bit of a stretch. For those who enjoy the rhotic/non-rhotic discussion, I don’t believe a New Yorker would pronounce “waiter” the same way that a British English speaker would pronounce “wader”. I’m not complaining, it just annoyed me a bit.

     

88. Thanks everyone for your comments. For those who haven’t tried it, do come to the Zoom chat with me tonight at 7.30pm. Subscribe to johnhalpern.co.uk for details…..

     

    Hope to see you soon!

     

    John (aka Paul)

89. I really enjoyed this but needed lots of electronic cheating to finish. My only complaint – no lavatorial reference, and “cock” the only smut. As others have said, I rarely post but really appreciate the site. Thanks to Peter and Paul.

90. Very enjoyable. Only one I missed was WADER!

91. I always enjoy Paul. Thank you to him and PeterO. Did I dream it or was there not a clue quite recently about ordering in a diner and the answer was wader?

92. muffin @77: correct, thank you!

    (I love it in Beatles songs when the rhyme depends on the Liverpudlian accent, as in I’ve Just Seen a Face:

    And I’d have never been aware
    But as it is I’ll dream of her)

    BTW muffin, we established yesterday that you’re based near Skipton.  My better half who is Yorkshire born and bred assures me that no Yorkshire person would voice the “r” in “gender”.  Perhaps (like me) you’re not from Yorkshire originally?

93. Hi Lord Jim

    No -  born and brought up in Barnstaple, Devon, where we emphasise our RRRs (Jim lad!)

94. Great fun and lovely to come here and find the homophone argument reignited. I suspect the doughty muffin was bested for once by the inexorable Contrarian!

    I think the crossword Valentine@63 was referring to (also?) appeared in the Guardian not so long ago. I recall V was third November – Yorkshire Lass’s birthday.

    Thanks to Paul and PeterO.

95. Excellent puzzle. Reminded me of a clue that my erstwhile neighbour the late Henry Livings had once used in a short story.

    E?

    (13)

96. After problems with the drains and the computers I started rather late.

    I thought it an excellent crossword and I particularly enjoyed the single letter clues.

    A few years ago there were the following clues: E (6), O (8) and N (6). The answers are EROICA, PASTORAL and CHORAL. It was years before I worked out why!

97. At last, a Paul that I completed and fully parsed! (I have managed only 4 answers in last Saturday’s puzzle.)

    I’m glad I didn’t instantly give up on seeing the setter’s name.

     

98. I usually save my efforts for Sunday’s Azed but Paul is versatile, often maddening, but in this case really entertaining. I wondered whether I could think of other words susceptible to this one letter treatment but none came to mind. I suspect Paul may have stored these up.for this occasion. In fact I did this in a single sitting once the penny dropped, and felt quite proud!

99. The single letter clues were indeed tricky, and needed some or more crossers before they could be completed – but they made a pleasant change. And I am absolutely in the same camp as Tc: I, too, feel if I finish the puzzle then the clues are fine. CLOTHEARS and GORGONZOLA were delightful, WADER made me snort with laughter. UNCLOAK was a wild, unparsed, guess and many thanks to PeterO for explaining it – I wouldn’t have figured it out in a million years… Thanks to Paul for the entertainment.

100. Loved it, even though the NW corner took much longer than it should have. The first of the themed clues to go in for me was COCKTAIL, which had me thinking for a moment that I might be looking for dresses or drinks. MIDNIGHT put me straight quickly enough. I especially loved UNCLOAK. Many thanks to both.

101. Many more people than I expected appreciated Paul’s inventiveness and sense of fun; I find that heartening. As for the single letter clues, certainly some needed crossers to weed out alternatives – but what are crossers there for? FORKTAIL and MOCKTAIL are alternatives to COCKTAIL which fit, but surely the last has a very much wider recognition. The single letter device is not something I would want to come across vary often, but once is not only acceptable, but welcome.

102. Please Auriga- put me out of my misery – why??? I’m sort of glad that I seem immune to the homophone controversy virus. Otherwise, all I’d say is what an entertaining, mischievous and imaginative crossword. Thanks to Paul and PeterO.

103. Loved this.

104. Togo @102: I’ve been wondering myself. I think Eroica was Beethoven’s thIrd – which is an E – and Pastoral his 6th – which is an O. I’ve just Googled and Choral was his ninth – which is, of course, an N. Thanks Auriga.

105. Sorry, Togo @102. The words are the common names of Beethoven’s third, sixth and ninth symphonies. E, O and N are the third, sixth and ninth letters of Beethoven’s name, so “Beethoven’s ninth” is literally “N”.

106. Thank you so much Mark. Or, to put it more simply duuhhh!!! I rejected the initial letters of the symphonies because of Choral….I would have slept badly tonight. And to Auriga – I’m sort of glad that it hasn’t haunted me for years so sympathy as well as thanks. Can you remember who the setter was?

107. We crossed Auriga – thanks again!

108. And yes, I was even more stupid: my explanation/justification for my ignorance is nonsense – only the E in your answers coincided with the Initial of the name of the symphony…..it must be past my bedtime.

109. I had bookends for 15,16 for some time so a delayed finish. Great fun this week.

110. Wotta lotta fun. Knew all words bar TETRAD … until I got to the blog! Thanks to those trying to lighten the discussion. 26a and 27a a nice numerical coupling. A super puzzle.

111. Is anybody still there? After a long time lurking on this site I finally posted for the first time. (See above). No response. However, it has been bugging me so I’ve been searching and searching and, finally! Paul, crossword number 23,797, 20 June 2020, 1 down. ‘Bird call in a New York diner’. Wader. That said, I am in perpetual awe of our setters. Hard enough to solve them – let alone devise them, and all for our enjoyment. Thank you, all.

112. Bravo trishincharente!!  One thing though:  I’ve just checked the number, and it was 2006, not 2020 – which makes your memory even more remarkable!

     And welcome to the forum – though clearly you’re not new to the Guardian crossword  🙂

113. Haha! Thank you for replying essexboy. My memory cannot possibly be that good. I must have been doing one from the archives.

114. This kind of thing must have been on Paul’s mind for years.
     A long time ago, actually a very long time ago, he came up with B = ‘bottle opener’ and Y = ‘happy ending’.
     Yes, I agree with muffin @13 that you really need crossers to fill the grid but this was Great Fun.

     For example, my first idea for ‘K?’ was ‘ducktail’ (one word in Collins) and why not?
     Because ‘cocktail’ is a more normal word than ‘ducktail’, I assume.
     ‘Bookends’ unfortunately doesn’t work because of being plural.
     Like someone else above I considered ‘north pole’ for ‘P?’ but that’s not crypto-grammatically right and certainly not in the eyes of Paul.
     For the same reason, we didn’t have ‘first aid’ meaning A [see last Monday’s Quiptic] or ‘last chance’ for E.

     Many thanks to Peter O [for the fun you had too] & Paul [for being still …. after all these years].

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