Amazingly – for me, anyway – my 500th blog – and a squeaky-clean [as far as I can see] puzzle from Paul.
A mixture of some easy clues to keep the ball rolling, a nice variety of inclusion indicators – club sandwiches, classic tours, picture frames – and some more intricate cluing but, on the whole, I found this more straightforward than Paul often is.
An enjoyable solve – thanks, Paul.
Across
9 Wide containers, four in river (9)
EXPANSIVE
PANS [containers] + IV [four] in EXE [river]
10 Batting sides interrupted (2-3)
ON-OFF
Two batting sides
11 Sooner at sea, hard to be kept — away from it? (2,5)
ON SHORE
Anagram [at sea] of SOONER round H [hard]
12 More than one case exists in glens (7)
VALISES
IS [exists] in VALES [glens]
13 Man, failure heading for extinction (4)
DUDE
DUD [failure] + E[xtinction]
14 Ornate picture frames or nothing in US territory (6,4)
PUERTO RICO
Anagram [ornate] of PICTURE round OR O [nothing]
16,23 Old song lyric contested by a number in the south of France? (4,3,5)
NICE ONE CYRIL
Anagram [contested] of LYRIC after NICE ONE [number in the south of France] – Tottenham Hotspurs’ football song
19 Instrument, on which I produce notes, is running (10)
ORGANISING
A simple charade of ORGAN [instrument] I SING [I produce notes]
22 Pudding failed (4)
DUFF
Double definition
24 Argentine trained to shoot Admiral Horatio primarily, as Lord (7)
MESSIAH
MESSI [Lionel – Argentinian trained to shoot] + A[dmiral] H[oratio]
25 In Greece, plain old folly ultimately, politician inspired by cheat no end (7)
OLYMPIA
O [old] + Y [last letter of folly] MP [politician] in LIA[r] cheat minus its final letter
26 Relative seen from behind in codpiece, inconsolable (5)
NIECE
Hidden reversal [seen from behind] in codpECE INconsolable
27 As soon as guards happen to fade away, that’s submission (9)
OBEDIENCE
ONCE [as soon as] round BE [happen] DIE [fade away]
Down
1 O for Officer? (6,2,7)
SECOND IN COMMAND
O is the second letter of COMMAND
2 In various parts, classic tours thus restricted by passport? (8)
EPISODIC
EPIC [classic] round SO [thus] in ID [passport?]
3,17across American saw evidence of deterioration after doing exercises, pathetic (2,3,2,5)
IN GOD WE TRUST
RUST [evidence of deterioration] after an anagram [exercises] of DOING + WET [pathetic] – the official motto of the United States
4 Assuming elected, hold down a cushy job (8)
SINECURE
SECURE [hold down] round IN [elected]
6 High street retailer once seeing value in a fabric? (9)
WOOLWORTH
WOOL [fabric] WORTH [value] – this doesn’t quite work for me
7 Little growth in industry initially, while privileged type stuck up (6)
BONSAI
A reversal [stuck up] of I[ndustry] AS [while] NOB [privileged type]
8 One in unfamiliar surroundings, as 21 5? (1,4,3,2,5)
A FISH OUT OF WATER
This went in immediately, from the enumeration and crossers and I was expecting some of Paul’s intricate parsing but it’s really just a straightforward definition – Edit 15 minutes later: I’ve just realised there’s, of course, more going on here: a fish out of water has left his school! Sorry, Paul.
15 Individual club sandwiches toward the mouth? (9)
DOWNRIVER
DRIVER [club] round OWN [individual] – the cryptic grammar is a bit mangled but it does work
17 Buckinghamshire town upset different town in Kent (8)
WENDOVER
Reversal [upset] of NEW [different] + DOVER [town in Kent]
18 American sport on the rise, game not half taking over (8)
USURPING
US [American] + a reversal [on the rise] OF RU [sport] + PING [pong – game not half]
20 8, perhaps? One’s smoked (6)
GASPER
A fish out of water might be gasping: Collins has gasper = cheap cigarette as ‘British’ [my first thought was ‘kipper’]
21,5 Serve alcohol in a quandary — might one be 16 or 18? (6-6)
SCHOOL-LEAVER
A neat anagram [in a quandary] of SERVE ALCOHOL: students in the UK usually leave school at 16 or 18
Great puzzle and thanks for the blog. 10a should be ON-OFF
Thanks, Eileen
Good puzzle. I had “on-off” for 10a.
Thanks both – silly typo, fixed now.
Congratulations on your landmark, Eileen!
As with all Paul’s puzzles, I found this a real work-out but hugely entertaining. Favourites were NICE ONE CYRIL, SCHOOL LEAVER, MESSIAH and IN GOD WE TRUST. Many thanks to P & E.
Agreed, highly entertaining and satisfying. Agreed, ‘kipper’ was tempting for 20 until the G made it impossible. But ‘primarily’, ‘ultimately’, ‘initially’ – three of those in one puzzle is a bit much. It always seems such a mechanical device, and some setters surely manage without? But 24 was brilliant anyway.
Meant to say that I really liked 1d. And congratulations, Eileen!
I was beaten by this one, laregley because my first one in was 8D, and second was KIPPER at 20D, which did for the SW corner. I think kipper a much better answer, as a fish out of water does not gasp, since it has gills not lungs.
I found this enjoyable too, for the same reasons as you, Eileen. Thank you for your 500th blog – keep ’em coming!
Many thanks to Paul.
Congratulations on the milestone Eileen, here’s to the next 500!
I found this easier than many of Paul’s recent puzzles, but familiarity with the references definitely helps. I can remember NICE ONE CYRIL being chanted in the playground when I was at primary school, and it used to infuriate my parents because none of us could explain what it meant. I only found out who Cyril was many years later. DOWNRIVER was last in. I’m another kipper (but definitely not a ‘KIPper!)
Thanks to Paul and Eileen
Thanks to Paul and congratulations to Eileen; that’s a whole lotta bloggin’ goin’ on.
I loved the GASPER gag especially
Thank you Paul and Eileen, and congratulations Eileen on your 500th blog!
An very enjoyable puzzle. I agree with Eileen about the former high street retailer clue, but perhaps it could work if one reads it as “seeing value in stocking a fabric”, i.e. the worth of wool, WOOLWORTH?
I did not enter KIPPER at 20d, since I already had the G, but tried to use GAR, then realised GASPER must be the answer. NICE ONE CYRIL was new to me, but gettable from the clue. MESSI is now firmly embedded in my brain, so I was not caught out at 24a.
Thanks Paul and Eileen, and congratulations on the quincentury.
I think 6D works OK: everyone knew the store as Woolworths/Woolies, but the name on the storefront was Woolworth certainly until the mid 1980s (with FW before it in the earlier days). I don’t know exactly when the ‘s’ was added.
Simon S @12, I don’t think it was a question of adding an ‘s’, but of dropping an apostrophe from WOOLWORTH’S.
Cookie @ 13
It was definitely FW Woolworth, in the UK at least, in my youth. Later on it was Woolworths, without an apostrophe. Googling the name in various combinations of FW & S shows lots of older images in the singular.
Hearty congratulations Eileen! Glad you had a little belter of a puzzle for it.
Re Woolworth[s] – a retailer can be a person as well as the company that he or she founds or works for. Mr F W Woolworth was a retailer.
I realise this might score a high reading on the bore-o-meter, but Woolworth still operates here in Germany, under that name, and in fact a new branch has just opened in our local shopping centrzzzzzzzz
Cookie and Simon S – for me, it was nothing to do with ‘s’, with or without an apostrophe: I just couldn’t quite equate ‘wool worth’ and ‘value in a fabric’ – but I can now!
Eileen, for me the ‘s’ whether there, or not, had nothing to do with the clue as far as I was concerned, I was just answering Simon S’s post.
Thanks Eileen and Paul(nice one)
[Simon S @14, yes, agreed, but it went from WOOLWORTH to WOOLWORTH’S to WOOLWORTHS, usually in capitals as regards shopfronts.]
Congratulations, Eileen, on reaching your first half-century,
Thanks for the excellent parsing, and thanks to Paul. Squeaky-clean, if we discount the codpiece.
forgive the intrusion, dear Eileen, but may I point any solvers who like alphabetical jigsaws in the direction of today’s FT?
Be my guest, baerchen – I have made a [bit of] a start on it. 😉
Hold hard! Quincentennial Blogger, please would you explain ‘guards’ in 27d, it appears to me to have no use. (Of course I rarely am able to parse Paul’s clues, so it could be obvious)
ChrisP @25 – it’s another of those inclusion indicators that I was talking about: ONCE is round / ‘guards’ BE DIE.
Thanks Eileen, penny dropped after I finished cuppa
Congratulations on your landmark Eileen and thank you for your sterling work so far. Like others I found this a more accessible offering from Paul ……. apart from 5,6 & 7d and I came here with them unsolved. On reaching 12a in the blog I found my problem – I had SINGLES in – an incorrect “anagram” of IN GLENS meaning more than one, and ignoring the inconvenient “case”. Oh dear, 3 howlers in one clue! Anyway with VALISES in place 5,6 & 7 became gettable – I already had WOOLWORTH as rejected 6d candidate.
So not my finest hour and entirely of my own making – thank you Paul and Eileen.
I find it often does, Chris. 😉
Thanks to Paul and Eileen (and should #500 be celebrated somehow with a crossword D?). I did manage to parse NICE ONE CYRIL but had to Google it to find out where it came from and also WENDOVER though I did not know the town, and did know Lionel Messi, but had difficulty with GASPER (I’m another who started with kipper), DOWNRIVER, and SCHOOL-LEAVER. Very enjoyable.
Congrats on the 500, Eileen!
Congratulations on 500. We won’t be so uncouth as to ask how many years that adds up to! Lovely crossword from Paul if a little easier than some of his previous. Thanks to everyone.
Kipper here too, and it led to delays in the SW, with DOWNRIVER last in. It even meant a few wasted moments looking for a Farage connection, not something that helps the blood pressure.
Otherwise fairly gentle. Eileen, congratulations on the 500. There should be a hall of fame for this sort of thing.
Congratulations Eileen and thanks Paul
No-one seems to have mentioned this, but Paul, not noted for his surfaces, seems to have hit an all-time low here. I’ve highlighted 8 that are more or less random words thrown together (though 13a could have made sense with the addition of a second comma).
I did enter KIPPER, and was quite confident it was right – couldn’t find anything to fit 24a, though!
1d was special, though.
My admiration for Paul is well known but I didn’t enjoy this much. I think, perhaps, that Muffin has it about right on the randomness in some of the content here- alternatively, I could be having a bad day. I did like SECOND IN COMMAND and DUDE although I groaned at the latter, and the cheekiness of WOOLWORTH made me smile.
Thanks Paul.
As a lifelong Tottenham supporter, I won’t hear a word against a puzzle including 16 and 23! The Cyril in question was of course the great Cyril Knowles, a hero of my youth. Appropriate that he should be recalled as we are riding high again (and, what is most important, above Arsenal at last).
Thanks to Paul – and a big thank you to Eileen on this notable occasion, for all those incomparable blogs. It always cheers me to see your name at the top.
In my relatively new position as a lurker rather than a regular I still read all the blogs. So let me be the umpteenth person to congratulate you, Eileen, on your 500th blog. And thank you for all your contributions to this excellent forum. Please keep going!
Yet another KIPPER here and I needed the check button online to nail it in the end. Not my favourite clue. I enjoyed all the rest, especially NICE ONE CYRIL.
Cheers, Paul. Nice one, son.
Congrats to Eileen. Well done on the monkey!
Just to say thankyou to Eileen for all your endeavours, and the unfailing courtesy of your contributions.
Many thanks to Paul, and I send my thanks and congratulations to Eileen.
Hear hear (in yesterday’s puzzle, as I remember) to George Clements@39’s comments !
Congratz, Eileen – a great milestone and each of those blogs so important for helping folks get into, and further understand, cryptics. Here’s to the next 500!
I enjoyed this. I really liked SECOND IN COMMAND. And the double misdirection in 21,5 was brilliant: the surface reads as if the 16 and 18 refer to ages; so you think that they must in fact refer to clues 16 and 18; and it turns out that they are actually ages!
May I add my congratulations, Eileen. I hope that all this blogging is leaving you some time to develop your nascent setting career (see “Ariadne” discussion a few weeks ago).
Thanks all
Last in was bonsai but I failed to get downriver.
Favourites were 1 down and the Spurs chant.
Congrats to Eileen for extolling all those surfaces!
Unlike some others I enjoyed this puzzle – nothing too contrived but some lovely misdirection. I especially liked SECOND-IN-COMMAND and MESSIAH. Thanks to Paul, and thanks and congratulations to Eileen, whose blogs are always very clear and helpful where necessary.
I thought this was fine. My own personal view is that Paul’s puzzles are so much better when he doesn’t resort to puerile smut.
Ending my Lenten abstinence from puzzles a day or two early, I enjoyed this. In contrast to Gofirstmate, I enjoy a bit of puerile smut as a relief from having to set a good example.
Very hard going for us, but we managed in the end. As with others we put in “kipper” which held us up. Loved second in command and school leaver. Wendover was the last in because we were looking for a town in Kent. Thanks Paul and Eileen. An enjoyable challenge
Congratulations Eileen on your 500th blog. It’s always a pleasure to read them.
Spurs supporter here too.
Many congratulations and thanks Eileen.
Um, no puerile smut but yet a niece caught in an inconsolable codpiece?
Thanks and Congratulations on your 500th blog, Eileen.
I misread and thought you said 8d went in just from the enumeration; A HARD NUT TO CRACK would also fit without the crossers.
I was KIPPERed for a while too.
I found this one more difficult than usual for a Paul puzzle, perhaps because of the need for local/Brit knowledge.
I failed to solve the BE DIE bit of 27a and new words for me were DUFF = pudding, NICE ONE CYRIL (I am never good at soccer-related clues), and WENDOVER.
My favourite was SECOND IN COMMAND. I liked the misdirection in 21/5 – I spent some time trying to relate the clue to 16a and 19d clues/answers.
Thank you Paul and Eileen. Congratulations on 500 blogs, Eileen. I have learnt a lot from both of you.
Eileen – Thank you so very much for your generosity, and industry, in contributing so much, and so well, to our special site.
The kindness of strangers is one of the pearls in humanity’s crown – and you epitomize this fact. William xx
As for this puzzle – I found it thoroughly enjoyable, but then it is a Paul so, in my experience, it would be unusual if I didn’t. I admired the “ornate picture frames” formation and ticked MESSIAH. (The latter being particularly appropriate as solved on this Good Friday morning. I’m not religious, at least in any orthodox way, but do appreciate the importance of the whole Easter story to both our culture and individual renewal of striving for goodness. I find it rather sad when these virtues are smothered by the material cravings of marketing folk.)
Thank you Paul.
Thank you Paul.
Congratulations on your 500 Eileen. Here’s to the next 500.