A Paul Prize puzzle…how alliteratively alluring…
Only one of his signature ‘linked pairs’, at 9A/1D, and nothing jumping out at me as a Nina or theme-ette…although some more perceptive than me may beg to differ below.
I made fairly good progress with the gridfill, and once I had FRABJOUS, VEGA and EQUUS I started to suspect there might be a pangram, but in the end it was short of K, X and Z.
I enjoyed the definition of 26A EQUUS as ‘horseplay’; the hidden STONEWASHED in 9A/1D; Madame TUSSAUD at 27A as a ‘woman associated with modelling’; the golfing surface read/misdirection in 13D FOURTH GEAR – I often ‘miscue’ into the rough after selecting my driver(!); and maybe a bit of serendipity in the traitorous SERPENT at 28A appearing in the same week that the new series of ‘Celebrity Traitors‘ started. (**No spoilers in the comments please, as I am a little behind already, and I am sure many others will be**)
I then wondered if the THREEmaster, FOURth gear and EIGHTsomes might be significant…another dead herring? And then there seemed to be a lot of double letters – BUTTERCUP, CHINCHILLA, ABBA, YOBBO, EQUUS, BASSET, etc. But to no avail for your correspondent – time to stop trying to complicate matters and enjoy the fact that I managed to complete it…
So, unless I have missed something glaringly obvious, a ‘straight’ cryptic of prize-worthy difficulty, and my thanks to Paul for the challenge and the mental diversion.
[No golf tomorrow, as it is that time of year again – the Times Crossword Championships….early train to London, with a few practice Times puzzles printed out as a warm-up. Hope to see a few of you there, and good luck to all contestants. I will try to keep across any comments/queries/quibbles below, and will probably have lots of spare time on my hands after the first elimination round, and before we all decant to the George!]
| Across | ||
|---|---|---|
| Clue No | Solution | Clue (definition underlined)
Logic/parsing |
| 1A | WISE GUY | Outspoken characters poke fun at cocky individual (4,3)
WISE (homophone, i.e. outspoken – Ys, characters, can sound like WISE) + GUY (poke fun at) |
| 5A | OREGANO | Fragrant ingredient ending on tongue in mouth, say, not a sausage! (7)
OR_GAN (mouth, say) around E (end of tonguE), plus O (zero, not a sausage!) |
| 9A | STONE(WASHED) | & 1D Worn like a pair of jeans, best one, was he describing trousers? (11)
hidden word in, i.e. trousered by, ‘beST ONE WAS HE Describing’ |
| 10A | BUTTERCUP | With carnation originally pressed, flatter flower (9)
BUTTER_UP (flatter) around (pressing) C (original letter of Carnation) |
| 11A | EIGHTSOMES | Oxford and Cambridge, for example, might see various houses like that (10)
EIGHT_MES (anag, i.e. various, of MIGHT SEE) around (housing) SO (like that) [Oxford and Cambridge are known for their rowing – often featuring crews of eight persons, or EIGHTSOMES!] |
| 12A | TSAR | Ruler that’s serving as ruler, primarily (4)
primary’ letters of ‘That’s Serving As Ruler’ |
| 14A | SO FAR SO GOOD | Seat and doors go around – it seems to be working (2,3,2,4)
SO_FA (seat) + R_SO_GOOD (anag, i.e. around, of DOORS GO) |
| 18A | THREE-MASTER | Prime minister’s initial bloomer – something that would float? (5-6)
THREE (prime number) + M (Minister’s initial) + ASTER (flower, bloomer) |
| 21A | ABBA | A King of blues accompanies a pop group (4)
A + BB (BB King, jazz musician) + A |
| 22A | CHINCHILLA | Nip by jaw on a furry animal (10)
CHIN (jaw) + CHILL (cold nip) + A |
| 25A | GLOBE-TROT | Travel bag, into which throw rubbish (5-4)
G_E_T (bag) around LOB (throw), plus ROT (rubbish) |
| 26A | EQUUS | Horseplay in back of cafe and waiters doubly sapped of energy (5)
E (back, or end, of café) + QU( [‘Equus’ being a play by Peter Shaffer with a horse-related theme] |
| 27A | TUSSAUD | A stud excited about American woman associated with modelling (7)
T_SAUD (anag, i.e. excited, of A STUD) around US (American) [Madame Tussaud, wax models] |
| 28A | SERPENT | Traitor present, not to be trusted (7)
anag, i.e. not to be trusted, of PRESENT |
| Down | ||
| Clue No | Solution | Clue (definition underlined)
Logic/parsing |
| 1D | WASHED | See 9 Across (6)
see 9A |
| 2D | SPONGE | Boozer, bum (6)
double defn. – a SPONGE can be a drunkard, or boozer; and to SPONGE can be to bum/beg/cadge money off someone |
| 3D | GOES TO SEED | Visits daughter and breaks down (4,2,4)
GOES TO SEE (visits) + D (daughter) |
| 4D | YOBBO | Tough lad put up with the same cut (5)
YOB (boy, lad, put up) + BO( |
| 5D | ON THE TROT | Running, then changing pace, nothing ahead (2,3,4)
O (zero, nothing) ahead of N_THE (anag, i.e. changing, of THEN) + TROT (horse’s pace) |
| 6D | EWER | Pipe hasn’t opened in vessel (4)
( |
| 7D | ANCESTOR | Earlier version once with star performing (8)
anag, i.e. performing, of ONCE with STAR |
| 8D | ON PARADE | Single unit impressing soldier, five hundred marching up and down (2,6)
ON_E (single unit) around (impressing) PARA (paratrooper, soldier) + D (five hundred, Roman numeral) |
| 13D | FOURTH GEAR | A miscue in rough after possible selection of driver? (6,4)
anag of, i.e. a miscue in, ROUGH AFTER |
| 15D | FEATHERED | Wearing down iron, heat affected rust (9)
FE (ferrum, iron) + ATHE (anag, i.e. affected, of HEAT) + RED (rust) [down as in feathers!] |
| 16D | STRAIGHT | Aligned, paintings etc put up – where visible? (8)
TRA (art, paintings etc., put up) in S_IGHT (where visible!) |
| 17D | FRABJOUS | Ralph has come up with duck in gravy – wonderful! (8)
FRAB (barf, ralph, vomit, coming up) + J_US (gravy) around O (zero, duck in cricket scoring) [Lewis Carroll word for joyous, wonderful!] |
| 19D | IL DUCE | Fascist leader in Italy clued cryptically (2,4)
I (Italy, IVR) + L_DUCE (anag, i.e. cryptically, of CLUED) [or the I could be the ‘leader in Italy’, and the definition just ‘fascist’?] |
| 20D | BASSET | Canine with crown on basically like every tooth (6)
B (crown, or first letter, of Basically) + AS (like) + SET (a full set of teeth, so every tooth) [the canine in question being a basset hound] |
| 23D | NATES | A little glutton ate seventeen buns (5)
hidden word in, i.e. a little of, ‘gluttoN ATE Seventeen) [‘buns’ being slang for the buttocks, or nates] |
| 24D | VEGA | Herbivore’s wish upon a star (4)
VEG (vegetables, what a herbivore wishes for!) + A |
Thought STONE WASHED was brilliantly hidden took me ages to see it.
Also loved the definition for EQUUS
And liked: ABBA, STRAIGHT
Thanks Paul and mc_rapper67
That’s two puzzles we’ve had from Paul recently which were on the saner side. While I got through this fairly quickly it was a DNF as I’d never heard of FRABJOUS. Didn’t know RALPH meant to throw up and JUS was gravy. Always thought it was a sauce and not gravy. Enjoyed STONEWASHED (cleverly concealed) and FEATHERED, which was a nice bit of misdirection, almost Picaroonesque!
A lovely Paul this, with so many aptly coherent surfaces. Thanks to him and good luck at the Champs, rapper!
A first for me; completing a Paul Prize. However, my parsing for LOI 11A was different (and, as I suspected, wrong!) the EIGHTS bit was rapidly spotted but then I had OMES as ‘omes for a synonym of houses, dropping the h for some unknown reason; and the whole lot a reference to houses as starting positions in an eightsome reel. How I missed the anagram fodder is beyond me.
Very happy to see FRABJOUS, one of my favourite words from one of my favourite poems, plus EQUUS; I never saw the play but the film adaptation is one of Burton’s finest hours and the clue was easily COTW for me.
Thanks to Paul and mc_rapper67.
I can never remember my solving experience a week later. I know FRABJOUS held me up, because I’d never knowingly heard of it. The clue construction is very straightforward though.
I assume we get ORGAN from mouth via a harmonica? Or is it “tongue in mouth”?
I liked EQUUS.
A good, challenging solve.
Thanks Paul and Mc_rapper67, good luck today.
Thanks for a great blog , this reminded me why I used to like Paul as a setter . A proper challenging crossword with many fine clues . I agree with Fiona@1 for STONEWASHED , it reminded me of my favourite advert ever , and for EQUUS with the use of fission in the definition . Another crafty definition for FEATHERED and Seat was misleading in SO FAR SO GOOD having the four letters for a total anagram .
Martin@5 , if you are being serious , the mouth is the first digestive ORGAN in humans .
Great crossword with the right level of difficulty for me – favourites EQUUS, TUSSAUD, ON THE TROT, FRABJOUS and others. Being hyper-critical, YOBBO was slightly spoiled because the word is derived from back-slang for ‘boy’, so the parsing was a bit self-referential.
Thanks Paul and mc_rapper67.
Week ago is such a long time. I remember I had SERPENT and not much else after the first run through. Then it slowly fell into place (with a little help). Funny and clever. I liked ‘wearing down,’ ‘visits daughter’ and SO FAR SO GOOD. (Namecheck? Maybe not). Thanks.
I didn’t find that easy, but I did enjoy it. I didn’t know ‘ralph’ as a slang term, but FRABJOUS is such a lovely word and had to be the answer. I liked EQUUS as ‘horseplay’, the way BB King got into ABBA (having ‘King’ with a capital K made that much easier), the definition for FEATHERED, and many more. It was quite late when I finally got STONE WASHED from the crossers as my LOI, and I just wrote it in without spotting it in the clue. I meant to go back to think about how it worked, but didn’t – and it’s so obvious now… Thanks, Paul, best of luck mc._rapper.
After congratulating myself on remembering ralph=vomit and nates=buttocks (both Things I Learned From Crosswords), I never did manage to spot STONE WASHED – beautifully hidden!
Anyone else spend forever trying to make an anagram of SEAT DOORS GO?
Favourites FRABJOUS, EQUUS, TUSSAUD, FEATHERED, FOURTH GEAR, EIGHTSOMES. Yes, I agree with Roz@6: this is the Paul I like (one of several possible Pauls).
Very neat indeed.
EQUUS and VEGA outstandingly succinct answers.
Thanks mc_rapper67. Most of which I was going to comment on has already been covered but put me down as another for whom 9a 1d was LOI, I had to marvel at it and wonder at the same time how I could possibly have missed it.
A great crossword from one of my favourite setters. It took some time, but I finished it over the weekend.
I couldn’t parse EIGHTSOMES but it was obviously right, otherwise all parsed.
Like others I loved STONEWASHED – how did we not see it? Also liked EQUUS and TUSSAUD, but it’s hard to single out favourites among so many good clues.
Thanks to Paul, and thanks and good luck to mc_rapper67
Frabjous, loved the horseplay, driver selection and ‘where visible’ (in SIGHT).
Thanks Paul and mc_rapper67
Roz @6. A bit of a brain fart in the middle of the night! 😃 My main dictionary doesn’t specifically define the mouth as an organ but it doesn’t for many of the others either; too obvious to mention. I remember last week thinking it didn’t fit my idea of one, I guess my AI (actual intelligence) hasn’t been trained properly in this area.
I remembered the phrase ‘you frabjous ass’ from way back. I thought it was in P G Wodehouse, but it’s actually in Frank Richards’ Billy Bunter stories. Odd that I remembered it as I was never a fan of BB.
PhilB @16 – I know Frabjous from Stalky & Co – and the Jabberwocky, which is what Kipling is quoting.
Enjoyable puzzle. The thing that held me up for ages was seeing how THREE MASTER worked.
Thank you to Paul and mc_rapper, hope you get on well today.
A host of great clues, with FEATHERED and EQUUS getting rosettes – and STONEWASHED walking away with the camouflage cup.
And what a delight to see Jabberwocky’s FRABJOUS and my student-days’ RALPH, too.
Many thanks Paul and mc_r
I did very well to get two-thirds of this done on a train to Manchester, which I usually find too distracting. Two of my table companions were random young men who were three-quarters of the way through a bottle of wine – each – when I joined the train. One of them kept on looking at the grid and the clues but had no idea what he was looking at, though this didn’t stop him chucking random and obviously incorrect answers my way. I lobbed a few correct ones back, with explanations, until he got bored.
I thought some of Paul’s definitions were friendlier than usual – is this what is meant by being on the setter’s wavelength? ‘Horseplay’, ‘furry animal’, ‘tough lad’ – even ‘flower’ only momentarily had me thinking it would be a river.
Not complaining though – a couple of days later there was a much tougher crossword from the same setter, which some commenters chose to describe as being at the easier end of his spectrum!
Thanks to Paul and mc.
Thanks Paul and mc. I really didn’t expect to find FRABJOUS in Chambers but there it is! SPONGE is one of those words that if you say it to yourself over and over it loses all meaning and eventually sounds comically ridiculous. Any others?
All the best solutions already covered by others. I didn’t know FRABJOUS but being Paul, I knew Ralph would be throwing up and went from there. As a golfer, FOURTH GEAR was my favourite for the beautiful misdirection.
Ta Paul & mc_r (good luck tomorrow).
[AlanC@21. I think it’s today? Mike will have written the blog before midnight… 🤔 ]
I deduced FRABJOUS and was surprised to discover that the word existed.
If it hadn’t been for gastropubs and their beloved jus then this perhaps would have been a dnf for me. I have one thing for which to thank them, then.
Thanks to all.
Hit one of my standard results with this one — 2/3 complete. Most of the N and a smattering in the S
Lots of great clues
4d YOBBO reminds me of my favourite palindrome, “Yo! Banana boy!”
Roz@6 I never thought of the mouth as an organ. TILT
Thanks Paul and mc_rapper67 — curious to hear how things went for you — timestamp of 14:46 and nothing from you yet is maybe a good sign!
Lots to like today, particularly “wearing down” = FEATHERED, “waiters”= QUEUES, and the well-hidden STONEWASHED. Not so keen on 11a. I think it was Paul who recently had Oxford as EIGHT which I thought was loose. Oxford and Cambridge is tighter but EIGHTS for EIGHTSOMES seems loose to me though tyhe clue is a favorite of earlier commenters.
5d I was curious as to whether a trot was a sort of pace or the other way round so I looked it up and found that neither is the case. To an equestrian, but not to an average solver, they are not synonyms but different types of gait. A trot is when a horse moves diagonal legs forward at the same time and a pace is when it moves the legs on the same side of the body forward at the same time – a TILY
Unlike Gladys and Roz I love all the different versions of Paul, and this one was especially frabjous!
Thanks so much for the fun Paul, and to mc too for reminding me that trot is a pace – doh! I hope you’re enjoying the championship today, best of luck.
Pino@25: I’m pretty sure that when I was a young novice rider we always referred to the trot as a pace, likewise canter and gallop. Youthful ignorance, or just lack of a handy dictionary…
I found this tougher than the later mid-week Paul, but thought it was tremendous. One of his finest.