Guardian Cryptic 28,200 by Paul

64 comments on “Guardian Cryptic 28,200 by Paul”

1. Yes, lots of fun. After a slow start a few went in quickly, and I thought “Wow – an easy Paul!” but it was not to be. Favourites were RIP VAN WINKLE, FELICITATE and BLOTTO. Many thanks to Paqul and manehi.

2. Took a bit of time to get going but much easier than yesterday’s Tramp.  Theme helped enormously.  A few very good clues, I thought; I particularly liked 11 ac’s elegance and economy.  Thanks both.

3. Paul is always a challenge for us. I enjoyed the fishy theme! It helped with some answers, and we learnt some new fish names.

   Enjoyed parsing PORTAKABIN, an unknown word for me (a NZer) and BLOTTO caused a smile.

   I agree with @2 Wiggers that FELICITATE is beautifully clued – and another new word for us.

   Thanks Paul and manehi

4. 24A I was thinking ROCK was rock salmon (dogfish), as in rock and chips. Thanks Paul and Manehi.

5. A bit of a panic after the initial run through, with only 3 or 4 solved and a lot of head-scratching done.    Was afraid I was going to have to search for names for types of fish, but in the end they were all familiar once you got round Paul’s misdirections.   A slow but steady solve with pennies dropping along the way.  14 took me a long time (LOI), possibly because my thoughts had been directed by the clue to 21, 22.

6. Almost gave up with an empty grid after two passes. Eventually, got BUNNY GIRLS. Then it was a quadrant-by-quadrant slog with POLLOCK last. Faves were  SOLECISM and PORTAKABIN (which I initially spelled with a C). Interpolating from crossers was essential.

   Thanks Paul and manehi.

7. That was a jolly piscatorial voyage. My puerile alter ego liked POLLOCK and BLOTTO, while BUNNY GIRLS is superb. After Matt Hancock the other day, now we have the government’s Mr Bean, GRAYLING.

   HMHB fans: Can the appearance of EPIPHANY be a coincidence, given that the Biscuits track of that name starts “I can recall the day quite clearly. A Friday in July. A sweltering eighty degrees”? Weird! (spelt right)

8. Thanks for the blog Manehi – like Penfold @4 I parsed “rock” as being the very euphemistically named “rock salmon” which is actually dogfish usually. One of those things you don’t want to think about when you eat it perhaps – like the reason you only see monkfish tails or fillets on the slab, never the whole fish. Google an image of it and you’d see that sales would probably plummet!

   At first I was annoyed by the many fish references, thinking he was doing a bit of a Boatman with 20 different meanings of the word, but actually in the end it was mostly real fish (not reel fish) cleverly used. I guess he was just baiting me, finding a new angle for his word play.

   As well as the very Paul-ish “-ollock” I though both “rip van winkle” and “felicitate” very typical examples of how he likes to break up words or phrases and put them back together in amusing ways.

   Cheers Paul.

9. i always cower when I see Paul’s name but the West slipped in nicely on the first attempt last night. The East was more of a slog This morning, although it shouldn’t have been in hindsight. Funnily enough I ticked the same 3 as you Drole@1 along with Bunny Girls, which was so inventive. Excellent finish to another challenging week (and I include Vulcan)!

10. 2Scotcheggs@7 Yeah, that’s spooky, although I just checked and, rather disappointingly,
    Dr Linda Papadopoulos is in Dictionary Corner today, rather than Martin Jarvis.

11. Even with its obvious theme, this was quite a struggle for me. Was tempted to give up on it but kept going. Needed help from my dictionary for some unfamiliar fish. Luckily, could parse all of my solutions.

    New POODLE = puppet, GRAYLING, ROCK(fish), RUDD (fish), PORTAKABIN, POLLOCK (fish).

    Thanks B+S

12. Anyone remember EL DORADO the BBC soap pitched as Eastenders by the sea? It was often referred to as REAL DODO and only lasted for one year

    2Scotcheggs @7 I take it you’re not driving round with thousands in the bank then?

    I made inexplicably heavy weather of this not helped by initially having BRIM instead of ROCK for the stonefish

    I liked the thematic misdirection in CRACKPOT and also though BUNNY GIRLS was masterful

    Cheers all

     

13. Ooh, lovely afternoon nap, now where were we..oh yes, expletive fish. Well I’ve eaten dory but dnk dorado, to be expected given the subject’s not my best, what with the colloquial terms and all. In fact, with the topless bollock, did a quick mental alphatrawl, said it’s either c or p, tried c and checked…bugger, one that got away. Hey ho, all the rest quite fun, though had forgotten that hares boxed (like roos do), so split hairs was a shrug. Ta Paul and manehi, off out now to now to dins with mates, might check in (much) later if, er, up to it.

14. Love Paul puzzles and this was no exception. Made up for yesterday’s tricky offering which I gave up on, not being on the same wavelength at all. 4dn made me laugh out loud – classic Paul.

15. As kids when we ordered “rock and chips” I think it was rock eel

    I think the last three days have had about the same level of difficulty-and fun

    Paul had to put his best foot forward to follow Vlad and Tramp

    Nice blog and a good week

16. Someone on the Grauniad website suggested there might be a theme but I suspected that was a red herring.

    Several comments yesterday posed the eternal question, “why are some puzzles particularly tough?”  Paul can often be tough but I found this one a fairly methodical solve and solutions gradually filled the grid – until I was left with BUNNY GIRLS (which is certainly very clever but I found a bit clunky) and RAFFLE which defeated me due to the misdirection and was a complete tea tray moment when I Revealed.

    The theme (yes, I saw it) certainly helped with some and misdirected nicely for GRANDEE and CRACKPOT.  Favourites include SPACE AGE for the smooth surface, SEA BASS for the double use of ‘deep’, AGAINST and RIP VAN WINKLE for the clever definitions.  Although Paul’s smut can occasionally become a little tiresome, POLLOCK certainly brought a smile.

    We’re also getting some choice language of late: effing and blinding yesterday, bloody and ruddy today.  At least we have prompts if we feel the need to curse the setter or the clue!

    Thanks for the workout Paul and manehi for helping with some of those I hadn’t fully parsed

17. Only got five on the first scan through.  I needed the crossers to get my hooks into most of the rest.  All clever clues and no quibbles over any of the parsing at all from me.  Too many inventive and funny clues to mention.  I found this the toughest of the week.

    Thanks Paul and manehi.

18. I love Paul’s puzzles. But this morning, the first pass gave not an IOTA. Until I had an EPIPHANY, then a clockwise solve from the SE swiftly followed. Some lovely misdirections re fish and a couple of Paul smut chuckles!
    I wonder what Saturday will bring?

19. I should learn not to spell PORTAKABIN with a C, impetuously. Meaning that I struggled to complete the NE corner. Lots of excellent clues with mischievous misdirection. And the Paul trademark (P/B)OLLOCK. Great fun as usual with this setter…

20. Thanks, manehi.

    I’m relieved to see that others got off to a slow start. I was beginning to think that lockdown limbo was affecting my cognitive ability, after struggling with the last two puzzles as well as this one. But it yielded, with some nice “Aha!” moments along the way.

    I liked “kipper” for Rip Van Winkle.

    4d: I’m not keen on clues of the type “take a word and change one letter” that don’t indicate what that letter should be changed to. It’s not about difficulty – the clue just seems unfinished.

21. Toughie today – needed LOTS of help (RBQ points would have been very, very low) but got there in the end!  FOI was 8ac EL DORADO which got me straight onto the fish theme and then had me realising that I know less about fish than I thought I did.

    Massive laugh-out-loud with 4dn – the root of this is never far from my lips at the moment given circumstances.  Next one in was 7dn BLOTTO even at 11am.

    Thanks Paul for the really tough but very good one.

22. There are differences of opinion on the difficulty of this one compared to yesterday’s. I had to give up on yesterday’s – after my first scan, just one and two halves of an answer, and getting beyond that was so hard I threw the towel in. Today, I had a good number entered in reasonable time, and then slowed down. Technically a DNF, though, as I did have to do a couple of partial reveals to get moving again, especially in the NE. My favorite was SOLECISM. Thanks, Paul and manehi.

23. Thanks for the blog, manehi and Paul for an enjoyable puzzle.

    I took ages to see that I shouldn’t be looking for a form of transport in 26ac and I was delayed slightly by my misspelling of 6dn PORTAKABIN.

    My favourites were 23ac SPLIT HAIRS (‘Croatian’ is always a giveaway but I like it) 13dn BUNNY GIRLS and 18dn SOLECISM, because I like the word and its etymology (‘”a small blunder in speech; any absurdity or incongruity, a violation of the conventional rules of society,” 1570s, from Middle French solécisme (16c.), from Latin soloecismus “mistake in speaking or writing,” from Greek soloikismos “a speaking (Greek) incorrectly,” from soloikos “speaking incorrectly, using provincialisms,” also “awkward or rude in manners,” said to have meant originally “speaking like the people of Soloi,” a Greek colony in Cilicia (modern Mezitli in Turkey), whose dialect the Athenians considered barbarous.’)

    The punsters have had a field day today – thanks all – and Vlad would have had fun with GRAYLING. 😉

24. Eileen @23  “Old king sounding sick is a swimmer?

25. Enjoyable offering from Paul today with a dash of his habitual raciness.

    Eileen @23:  Fascinating derivation of SOLECISM, thank you.  (You weren’t alone in mis-spelling PORTAKABIN).

    Favourite (now) was BUNNY GIRLS which went in unparsed until the blog.

    Nice weekend, all.

26.  

    re compus@15, penfold@4

    Rock can be many things, dogfish, catfish, huss, a small  shark that has the advantage of having no bone to their body, skeleton yes but true bone no. Since eating dog or cat is taboo in the UK the dogfish  was renamed by some bright spark as Rock Salmon. In France we call it petite roussette or saumonette. Huss when sold look like skinned pink eels. As a child in 1950 London dogfish was sold as rock salmon Huss was sold as rock eel, catfish could be either, never dog and chips or cat and chips which would never have sold.

    great crossword, now for a fish lunch on the Med, thanks to Paul and manehi

27. A nice end to the week which would have felt really tricky if it weren’t by some stretch the easiest of the last 3. I didn’t parse AKA not know VAN for vanguard/front but neither stopped me getting the answers.

    4dn, so simple, so peurile, so Paul, still made me titter.

    And the use of Babs’ initials and the film together was inspired.

    Thanks manehi for the blog and Paul for a very entertaining solve.

28. Three excellent puzzles in a row. This was not quite as challenging as the previous two, but just as much fun to solve, with glorious clues galore. BUNNY GIRLS especially caused a smile (where is Babs these days? — not that I care much). Few after-the-fact parsing quibbles, and overall nothing fishy about this puzzle.

29. My first trawl yielded nothing, not even a sausage. The fishy theme seemed to have caused brain freeze, but I gradually caught Paul’s drift and soon netted EPIPHANY. For a while things went smoothly, but I couldn’t remember the BS film, so the SW wouldn’t open up. No complaints from me about POLLOCK as the fish was known to me, but I can see how that clue type could irk, with the first letter being both unchecked and unclued.

    Was pleased to get the spelling of PORTAKABIN right by following the instructions in the clue. After thinking about something else for quite a while, Funny Girl suddenly popped up and I was just left with the two short fish in the SE. Kicked myself for not getting RUDD sooner, as I worked for a while with a doctor of that name, but he was the last one to be hooked on my line.

    Thanks to Paul for completing a trio of fiendish crosswords, to manehi for the blog (though for once I didn’t need any help with the parsing), and to Eileen for the interesting origin of SOLECISM.

30. I found the bottom relatively straightforward and then struggled over the top. POLLOCK raised a smile.

31. copmus @24 Thanks for that – but try googling ‘Failing Grayling’.

32. Thanks to Paul and Manehi

    All good fun, though no mention of that crossword stalwart, the ide except backwards in 12ac the other stalwart being the ling.

    Paul is online at 7:30 this evening, where he can be regaled with some of the dreadful fishy puns above …

33. Good Paulian fare. Like some others, I started rather slowly but momentum gradually increased.

    At least in Mallorca, Dorado on the menu usually means sea bream – and it’s delicious!

    Like Eileen @23, I took far too long to see the anagram to give SOUNDEST. I enjoyed the BUNNY GIRLS and the v fishy stain.

    Thanks Paul and manehi.

34. Sorry about the lack of punctuation.

35. Pleased to have finished this after the third consecutive day of having a nearly empty grid after the first pass. As others have mentioned, all three have been tough but very good. I’m impressed that Paul managed to set this without a hake or an ide anywhere to be seen, although we did get a ling. I’ll join Wiggers @2 and brojo @3 in praising FELICITATE, which came to me as I was going to sleep last night and helped me across the finish line this morning. Couldn’t parse RIP VAN WINKLE (didn’t know winkle = seafood), so thanks to manehi for that, and thanks to Paul for the fun.

36. “Ladies scantily dressed” made me think of Playboy magazine – obviously some part of my brain was trying to tell me something, but it took a long time to come to the surface. Great clue though.

37. I have nothing new to add to the comments, I just came here to say that I’ve actually managed to finish a Paul puzzle. Hardly ever happens 🙂

38. ccmack @37: in which case, someone should respond and applaud your achievement!  Congratulations.  Now you’ll be well set for taking apart the Prize tomorrow!

39. My heart sank when I saw all the fish. Having “portaCabin” crossing so nicely with “charcoal” in the NE caused a convolution in the underwear that took a while to clear, but I got there in the end with many a compensatory smile.

    Thanks manehi and to Paul I say:

    So long, and thanks for all the fish!

40. I was going to resist putting this up (I think I posted it once before after a fishy puzzle) but the heat is too much and my brain is fried, so here goes the Halibut Soliloquy:

    “Turbot or not turbot?
    That is the question.
    Whether ’tis all in the mind,
    to suffer the lings and minnows,
    or outrage for tunas?
    Or to grow arms in a sea of bubbles,
    and opposing thumbs to end them?
    Am I? A fish? A fish, perchance a bream?
    Or there’s a dab.

    …

    Soft you now, the fair Ophelia.
    Nymph, in thy incisions
    be all my fins dismembered”

41. That’s quite a threesome to end the week. It says something when Paul is the easiest! That is not the same as straightforward – for me, the NE must have counted for half my solving time, though once I’d puppeted the POODLE the rest did not take too long.

    I wonder how Vlad would have clued (Chris) GRAYLING, the only politician known to have lost an election that he had helped to rig.

42. Hi Trailman @41 – as I said @23. 😉

43. The lyric to the Cliff Richard song “Congratulations” includes the synonym felicitations.

44. Thanks manehi and Paul.

    A host of Paulisms to appeal to my fourth form sense of humour. I sometimes think the place to do Paul’s puzzles is behind the bikesheds. Was I alone in thinking BENNY HILL had something to do with 13d?

45. As others have said, three great puzzles in a row, we have been treated very well this week.

    I don’t normally go into details of my solving process, to spare you, but with 25a I’ll say this.  I only had the A in second place and when I read “not a sausage” my mind immediately went to looking for fish that began with F.  As it happens, that prefix predetermined what I found.

46. A super crossword, incorporating a variety of tricks put together with great skill. I particularly liked what Wiggers @2 called the elegance and economy of certain clues, and I would single out FELICITATE, RAFFLE and SEA BASS in this regard.
    Thanks to Paul and manehi.

47. Sorry for stepping on your toes Eileen @42, come late to the blog with 40-odd comments and you don’t read them all… Let’s just say great minds etc. Maybe Vlad will pop in and have his considerable brain cells sparked. Wouldn’t that be fun!

48. Hi Trailman – no sore toes: I only meant ‘great minds etc’. 😉

49. [PS: I enjoyed 2Scotcheggs’ ‘The government’s Mr Bean’ @7.]

50. Eileen, thank you for the Failing Grayling tip.  Not having heard of him, I googled the phrase and read a Guardian article, as well as another about his attempts to prevent prisoners from reading books.  Mr Bean indeed (never heard of him either but google shows me the relevance).

51. Judging by the number of ticks, this is my favorite puzzle of the week — thanks, Paul. I particularly enjoyed EDIBLE, SEA BASS, POLLOCK, BUNNY GIRLS, EPIPHANY (great surface), SOLECISM, and AGAINST. My lack of GK made it necessary to reveal RIP VAN WINKLE, unaware of “kip” being sleep or “winkle” being seafood.
    Thanks Manehi for parsing especially SPLIT HAIRS, BLOTTO, and MARLIN. As far as ROCK goes it’s what we call striped bass in the US; they’re also know as rockfish or stripers. Striper, being one letter short of stripper, could easily become fodder for another fish clue by Paul.

52. Having only finished Paul’s crossword from last Saturday yesterday, I mentally groaned when I saw his name again today. However I found this a lot more straightforward if not easy (I didn’t have time to attempt yesterday’s and from the blog it sounds as if it was a good one to miss!). Like many others much to enjoy in the mis-direction of many clues. I didn’t get the hairs reference in 23ac but managed to parse everything else. Grinned at POLLOCK.
    Thanks Paul and Manehi

53. Apparently the similarity of POLLOCK to it’s clue word is a cause of its unpopularity in the UK. In 2009, Sainsbury’s tried to increase sales using the French name for hake, “Colin”.  I don’t know if it worked, but it was thought that the name was the reason people were unwilling to buy it, even though it was more sustainable and cheaper – as well as many people being unable to tell the difference in a blind tasting.

54. One of Paul’s best,I thought and a great relief after yesterday’s which I took great pleasure in slinging across the room having only managed about half of it! I may go back to it-perhaps.
    This,on the other hand was just about right although I started slowly- only ROCK in on the first pass, but it unravelled in a satisfactory way. Liked FLOUNDER,BLOTTO and,ooh er,POLLOCK. But special mentions must go to GRAYLING and RIP VAN WINKLE.
    Thanks Paul.

55. Thanks TheZed @40.  Genius.  (Not sure if it was familiar to others here, but new to me.)  Not to have shared it would have been shellfish.

    All the nice things I was going to say about this crossword have already been said, except… (i) I see that, following muffin a little while ago, another 15²-er fins himself name-checked; (ii) I did like the PDM at the end.

    Thanks Paul and manehi.

56. I struggled with this. Don’t know why, really, as most of the wordplay was pretty straightforward. Have to confess to a DNF, but the very-typically Paul clues of BLOTTO and POLLOCK were ample consolation. PORTAKABIN, FELICITATE and BUNNY GIRLS were innovative, and EPIPHANY was simply a very well composed clue that utterly eluded me.

57. Perhaps it was the Grayling influence or more likely a hangover from yesterdays blog, but when faced with a (3,3,6) with no crossers but starting with a kipper,I thought: “Aha! A misdirection!” – and then promptly misdirected myself by searching (trawling, in fact) for a 6 letter word to complete an unlikely expression beginning with FAR AGE. Could I have been the only one? I suppose I’ll never know because I only seem to manage to post on here after most parts of the world hasve moved on into crossword hiatus time.

58. For 16 – Paul to Saul also?

     

59. Damn, ask us…best i kudu

60. Tony@51  I don’t know that striped bass are rockfish all over the US.  They certainly are on the Chesapeake, where I lived as a child, but I’ve always thought it was regional.

61. Valentine @60 I’ve lived near the Chesapeake Bay since 1976 so striped bass and rockfish were always synonymous to me. I’m not sure what they’re called in other parts of the U.S. or if they even exist anywhere but the East coast. In any event they are very tasty.

62. I wondered why I was making such heavy weather of this, until I came here and discovered I had RIP VAN WINKLE in 22a,21 instead of 21,22a. Doh!

63. After several years subediting in local media, it became clear that using Portakabin as a generic term nearly always resulted in a letter from the manufacturer’s legal department: they always insisted on a rather crass alternative — something like ‘temporary demountable structure’ I think, but I wouldn’t guarantee that wording. It always made us more determined to include ‘Portakabin’ regularly. Especially after we had to spend months working in Portakabins while the main building was de-Asbestosised. There’s nothing pleasant about a Portakabin.

64. [bodycheetah,penfold,2scotcheggs you may enjoy this http://crypticcrosswords.net/puzzles/rookie-corner/rookie-corner-330/

    ]

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