The puzzle may be found at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/cryptic/30059.
I thought that the keystone clue 9A RACE was too obvious to be right, until the references confirmed it. Apart from that my only real problem was 7A CHARIOT, where I am not sure whether my stabs at the wordplay are anyway near the mark, or I am missing something.
| ACROSS | ||
| 7 | CHARIOT |
Hoot passing steamer in 9 (7)
|
| The wordplay baffles me: ‘hoot’ is RIOT in the sense of something extremely funny, but where does the CHA come from? It does not seem any help that ‘steamer’ contains ‘tea’, or that tea is normally served steaming hot or that steaming is a process in the preparation of green tea, but I can see nothing else. | ||
| 8 | PANCAKE |
17 across 9? (7)
|
| Double definition. | ||
| 9 | RACE |
Run – and whizz! (4)
|
| I suppose this counts as a double definition, although they are pretty well the same. Perhaps there is a get-out that race can mean run as a noun, a channel’
ngaiolaurenson @1 has a far better take on this. |
||
| 10 | GREYHOUND |
Track associated with 12 down 9 (9)
|
| A charade of GREY (’12 down’ – HORSE) plus HOUND (‘track’). | ||
| 12 | HUMAN |
I’m thinking to enter old ruling dynasty in 9 (5)
|
| An envelope (‘to enter’) of UM (‘I’m thinking’) in HAN (Chinese ‘old ruling dynasty’). | ||
| 13 | DUELLIST |
Challenger with gun anticipated getting shot still (8)
|
| A charade of DUE (‘anticipated’) plus LLIST, an anagram (‘shot’) of ‘still’. | ||
| 15 | IRON |
Fee, one third off – decrease? (4)
|
| ‘Fee’ ‘one third off’ is Fe, which is the chemical symbol for IRON (‘de-crease’). | ||
| 16, 19 | THREE-LEGGED |
9 on and on and on? (5-6)
|
| LEG is ‘on’ in cricket. | ||
| 17 | FLAT |
Boring 9 (4)
|
| Double definition. | ||
| 18 | SEALSKIN |
Snake is swimming around lake – hide! (8)
|
| An envelope (‘around’) of L (‘lake’) in SEASKIN, an anagram (‘swimming’) of ‘snake is’. | ||
| 20 | PIECE |
Musical creation where harmony heard? (5)
|
| Sounds like (‘heard’) PEACE (‘harmony’). | ||
| 21 | SUGAR BEET |
Plant eater bugs cuckoo (5,4)
|
| An anagram (‘cuckoo’) of ‘eater bugs’. | ||
| 22 | DRAG |
Boring thing, 9 (4)
|
| Double definition. | ||
| 24 | SCREW-ON |
Team welcomed by child able to be connected (5-2)
|
| An envelope (‘welcomed by’) of CREW (‘team’) in SON (‘child’). | ||
| 25 | STONE ME |
Partial recollection of theme, not so by George! (5,2)
|
| A hidden (‘partial’) reversed (‘recollection’) answer in ‘thEME NOT So’. | ||
| DOWN | ||
| 1 | WHOA |
Stop pain in the ear? (4)
|
| The answer is generally pronounced without the a, and is thus a sound-alike (‘in the ear’) of WOE (‘pain’). | ||
| 2 | FRIEDMAN |
Economist, possible dish for cannibal? (8)
|
| The economist was Milton Friedman, and the wordplay is FRIED MAN. | ||
| 3 | NOGGIN |
Measure of alcohol in two alcoholic drinks (6)
|
| NOG and GIN. | ||
| 4 | CASHMERE |
Silver no better than fabric (8)
|
| A charade of CASH (‘silver’) plus MERE (‘no better than’). | ||
| 5 | ACTUAL |
Very true, origin forgotten (6)
|
| A subtraction: [f]ACTUAL (‘true’) minus its first letter (‘origin forgotten’). | ||
| 6 | SKID |
Vicious circles ending in deadlock, lose control (4)
|
| An envelope (‘circles’) of K (‘ending in deadlocK‘) in SID (‘Vicious’, punk rocker). | ||
| 11 | ENDURANCE |
9 run, ace played after finishing line (9)
|
| A charade of END (‘finishing line’) plus URANCE, an anagram (‘played’) of ‘run ace’. | ||
| 12 | HORSE |
Reportedly rough 9 (5)
|
| Sounds like (‘reportedly’) HOARSE (‘rough’). | ||
| 14 | SPACE |
9 (5)
|
| Double definition! | ||
| 16 | TAKE ROOT |
Youngster on tour of Korea working to become firmly established (4,4)
|
| An envelope (‘on tour of’) of AKERO, an anagram (‘working’) of ‘Korea’ in TOT (‘youngster’). | ||
| 17 | FIELDING |
Satirist square or deep, perhaps? (8)
|
| The wordplay is a reference to cricket. | ||
| 19 |
See 16 Across
|
|
| 20 | POTATO |
9 that’s eyed (6)
|
| Double definition. In a potato race, the contestants, on foot or horse, must collect potatoes as quickly as possible. | ||
| 21 | SACK |
9 boot (4)
|
| Double definition; a sack race is one in which the participants must wear a sack up to their waists, and ‘boot’ as fire, dismiss. | ||
| 23 | ARMS |
9 heats won’t start (4)
|
| A subtraction: [w]ARMS (‘heats’) minus its first letter (‘won’t start’). |
I think 9 ac is r (run) and ace (whizz).
In RACE, I thought “run” was doing double duty — as definition, and part of the wordplay (R). I didn’t like it.
I thought whizz in 9ac meant race (go fast) as in my heart is racing or the train was whizzing along.
Thanks PeterO. On the CHA in 7, think that your observation that “tea is normally served steaming hot” must be what Paul is getting at. Also, I think ngaiolaurenson@1’s charade for RACE is on the mark. The bang (!) after the clue tells me this is an &Lit. For me this was a “doable” Paul and for that I thank the man.
I believe CHARIOT is indeed a charade of CHA and RIOT. I take my hat off to any solver who looked at ‘steamer’ and thought, ‘that’ll be a steaming hot drink – probably tea – and, therefore, CHA’. Got from the crossers.
Nice for Paul to put out a crossword celebrating my son’s sports day today where for the 4th year running I have unfortunately had to withdraw from the dad’s race.
Got through this with sheer pigheadedness with WHOA and CHARIOT taking up more than their fair share of the time.
I also solved RACE as a dd but can see the arguments for and against both suggested solutions. Thankfully it was obviously right when many of the connecting clues went in.
As an economist by trade I was only mentioning FRIEDMAN yesterday. Not going to be able to read that name the same way again.
Liked GREYHOUND and THREE-LEGGED.
Thanks Paul and PeterO
For CHARIOT, is it relevant that steamer also means thief, in rhyming slang tea leaf?
I was totally not on Paul’s wavelength, even with the obvious theme. I’d never heard of potato races, and still have no idea why pancake goes with race.
Anyway, thanks to Paul and PeterO.
Although 9ac was the first clue I solved, I found this a fairly joyless slog. I gave up on 7ac and 1d and I could not parse 15ac.
Fun theme and puzzle. Defeated by IRON I admit, having not seen the split.
Don’t love the parse for FIELDING I have to say. Just a bit too tenuous for my taste, and that’s from someone fairly into cricket.
Fabulous fun if you like this kind of thing which fortunately I do. I needed four themers before the penny dropped. Agree that RACE is &lit-ish
Top ticks for SKID, THREE-LEGGED, IRON and .
Chuckle of the day for FRIED MAN
Cheers P&P
14 Down. Brilliant.
Words fail me. I’m speechless.
Thanks, Paul and PeterO. Sometimes I just can’t get on Paul’s wavelength but this turned out to be surprisingly simpatico. My way into 9a was via 12a and then just had to think of all the things that could be a race. Nho POTATO RACE but what else could it be?
My first answer to 9a was “dash” which I thought could include the hyphen as a kind of dash. I soon realised that my entry was wrong. As for 7ac I also assumed the CHA was the steamer but then wondered if the hoot was “A RIOT” and CH, for central heating, was a kind of steamer? I also juxtaposed FLAT and DRAG. It took me ages, therefore, to get the satirist. That was only do-able once I’d spotted my error. I agree with many that 15ac was COTD. We (my better half and I) always rejoice when it is a Paul day. Always great fun and always a great work out. Thank you also for the splendid blog, PeterO, and for confessing some doubt about 7ac.
I’m still laughing about FRIEDMAN – brilliant! I enjoyed every moment of this, with its slow, steady reveals. Thanks Paul and PeterO.
Although I spotted the ‘de-crease’ part of IRON straight away, I’m kicking myself that I never saw the other half (spent ages trying to think of a 6-letter word for ‘fee’, 4 of which were ‘iron’), so never appreciated the true brilliance of that clue. Did spot the wonderful 14d though, and the whole crossword was worth doing for that one alone.
I liked FRIEDMAN, SPACE and SKID. I’m not sure I wanted to be reminded of school sports days.
With RACE going in first, parsed as ngaiolaurenson @1, this became a fun puzzle. SPACE was superb as were IRON, THREE-LEGGED and FRIEDMAN; PeterO, you have shown the solution as two words.
Ta Paul & PeterO
Great fun! The theme was a big help. Favourite clue was the cannibal’s dinner. And to think that I recently said I wouldn’t bother with another Paul crossword, oh well…..
Thanks to Peter and Paul.
Not for me. Certainly ingenious, but once I spotted the fairly obvious theme I just couldn’t be bothered and ended up revealing most of it. I did get WHOA, and correctly assumed it was a homophone, but couldn’t see exactly of what.
Paul being very clever in a good way today, rather than the usual too clever by half. I did exactly what Andy in Durham did with de-crease and never saw the Fe chemical symbol. Loads of very tight, short clueing to match the short solutions: SPACE, FLAT, DRAG, etc.
I find it interesting that the theme definitions are not definitions at all, but collocations. A POTATO is clearly not a race (nor are any of the ‘9’-clued definitions). If this style of definition in cryptic clues were to become widespread, then we could see ‘sand’ = STORM or ‘window’ = BOX. Hmmmm.
GDU@2 – 9ac is an &lit. Thanks to Paul – highly enjoyable crossword
I enjoyed 13A, and I’ll leave it at that.
I read that the Spud and Spoon Race is an alternative to the Egg and Spoon Race on certain schools’ sports days. Can’t say I ever got involved in one of those…
as usual with Paul, felt like this was a mixed bag of cheeky inventive clues and rather annoying obscure ones, and unfortunately on this occasion probably more the latter than the former. I got 9ac relatively early on but still struggled through the rest and gave up on most by the end.
Does ‘Flat’ have something to do with horse racing? That seems the most likely explanation from a quick google search, not sure I understand it otherwise.
Thanks for the blog , after a quick glance I started with the Downs but did not avoid the jumping around for long , I just have to accept that some puzzles not to my taste .
I think RACE is a triple , two definitions and the whole clue as wordplay .
IRON very clever , FRIEDMAN a nice idea and SKID is brilliant
Swyftflyght@8 PANCAKE races very common on Shrove Tuesday , run with a frying pan flipping a pancake .
Sen@25 , you are correct . FLAT , hurdles , steeplechase are three types of horse racing in the UK .
For those who like themes there was a Gemelo in the Observer on Sunday , not as scary as it looks and a great theme . Gemelo is Twin , who some might have met before .
I ‘solved’ this with a lot of help but didn’t particularly enjoy it. I still don’t see how CHA is a steamer. I liked IRON, STONE ME and SKID. Apparently: Competitors run a designated distance—such as the famous one-mile Flitton POTATO RACE in Bedfordshire—while carrying sacks of potatoes weighing between 2 kg and 20 kg.
Thanks Paul and the brave PeterO.
Very good one from us today Paul.
I found this quite tricky, despite getting the key word early on. (Still) puzzled by the CHA bit of CHARIOT. I thought maybe “with gun” at 13a could have been left out – plenty of duels were fought with swords.
The Guardian app on iPad didn’t show a space in the clue for 14d, making that quite impenetrable until I had the crossers.
Thanks to Paul for an enjoyable puzzle working around the theme of ‘RACE’
Like PostMark@5 the crossers helped me with ‘CHA RIOT’. A discussion point for Paul’s online gathering.
Favourite- – FRIED MAN made me smile.
Thx also to PeterO for the blog
I believe Paul tries to make the gateway clue quite accessible – otherwise what are you going to do in puzzles like this where no fewer than 13 other clues refer to it! Treating 9 as a DD is quite straightforward, but not (imo) correct. With the wordplay (R + ACE) it is a much better clue and what was intended (imo), but harder to spot. Go figure!
That took a while to crack. I was initially baffled by 14D, Space; as in the App on the iPhone, there is no space in the clue. I can see that there is on the online version.
Thanks to P&P.
Loved this from start to finish, my second one in (after the delightful FRIED MAN!) was RACE… which I read as R (run) + ACE (whizz).
Ouch! Paul has taken a real bollocking in the Guardian comments but I didn’t think this was that bad. Ironically I was 2/3 through the crossword before I figured out 9ac. FRIEDMAN and THREE LEGGED got ticks. Not overly impressed with IRON. Felt it was a bit of lazy clueing.
I found this a grind, unlike recent outings by this compiler.
I got DRAG and FLAT in the wrong holes which stymied me. It’s a Paul, tho for which many thanks.
I don’t think it’s yet been said that the clue for 11d spells out the wordplay for 9 (“9 run, ace”), which is rather a nice way of helping out any solvers struggling with 9 (and therefore with the puzzle as a whole)
Disappointing for a Paul – too many tenuous collocations in short clues. Thanks Peter O. for parsing IRON – which escaped me and SKID – for which I’m still kicking myself. Also nobody seems to have got further than me on (CHA)RIOT in finding STEAMER.
I didn’t quite finish this, but enjoyed what I did. It took HUMAN, HORSE and SACK to find RACE, some way into the proceedings, after which I couldn’t get past the mental block when 10a refused to be Goodwood… Never knew about POTATO races, but I liked the SPACE race and the FRIED MAN. I remembered enough cricket to get THREE LEGGED, but FIELDING was too specialised for me. In any case, I thought FIELDING was a novelist more than a satirist. CHARIOT had to be that, but I don’t like cha=steamer (sort of). Like others, spent ages trying to find a 6-letter “fee” for the clever de-crease.
Thanks Paul and PeterO.
When you set every week, you win some, you lose some! It’s like expecting a Michelin star meal every time!
Loved Fried man! Got quite a few others.
Thanks Paul and PeterO
Thanks Paul. I feel a bit more at home with &lit and semi-&lit for having wrestled here. And I like how the theme is essential, not decorative. SPACE race is already memorable.
I think 4d should have included a say, after silver, as I think most solvers would have assumed an “ag” would be starting the answer.Otherwise I found this fiendishly enthralling.
A toughie not helped by going off to golf in between. DNF, mainly through exhaustion as DRAG and FIELDING both eminently gettable. I blame the heat. Thanks both.
Really enjoyed this. The usual Paul pattern, taking a long while to get started on and then gradually unfolding, but even more than usual.
9A is very clever – a double definition that also works as the wordplay.
For CHARIOT, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen such a drink as a “chai steamer” – spicy tea-type drink with a lot of milk in it. Perhaps cha steamer is a variant.
I have taken part in five of the types of races that feature here.
A ‘whizz’ is an ‘ace’. He’s a real whizz at guitar!
I liked this crossword. 15a was a very good clue.
Got 9a after getting THREE LEGGED. After that it was steady going. Couldn’t get WHOA even though I had worked the clue out. CHARIOT also a bung and hope.
Like others I didn’t like some of the clues but really liked the fried man.
For Paul it was doable, just about.
Thanks Paul and PeterO.
Stone me finished a Paul ! Great set of races. Thanks
Solved 9a very early but could do little of the crossword.
“Reveal All” and I could understand little of the parsing which explains why. Looking forward to wome enlightenment.
Thanks both.
Intersting that some found RACE tricky to parse, including our blogger. It was about the only one I could parse!
Thanks for the blog. I did not solve any clues.
I am none the wiser regarding 9a (is a whizz a race?)
In 16a….how does 3 legs become 3 legged; where does ED come from in the clue?
14d – there is only ‘9’ in the clue and no other words. How does you get to SPACE? Am I missing something obvious?
Steffen@52 There’s a SPACE before the 9. I had to check online as unfortunately in the paper copy there was a space before the words of one clue which turned out to be a Grauniad-ism
Personal taste, but this type of overly themed puzzle just leaves me feeling I can’t be bothered. I’m perhaps being unfair, but while it’s all very clever, I feel like it’s also very aware of being very clever.
Steffen @52 – 9a whizz / race as a verb rather than a noun
14d – there is space before the 9
I solved SUGAR BEET and hence TAKE ROOT. No idea on 9a, so I revealed it, and I too thought that whizz gave ACE, and Run was doing double duty.
Admittedly, a little rule-breaking … but it’s a Paul and I wouldn’t want our cheeky chappy to be otherwise!
That apart, a fair and reasonably straightforward solve, with loads of fun – inventive fun – and a pretty neat grid fill…
Many thanks, Mr H!
It gives me the morbs when a Paul puzzle has hardly any clues in the second column but got through this with a few short and circuitous attempts. Like others parsed 9a as R-ACE the NW corner needed extra effort, CHARIOT by elimination with WHOA loi.
Identical grid to yesterday so both a bit sparse . Maybe white squares are being rationed .
I enjoyed many of the clues but a little bit too much cricket for me.
Thank you
Nope. Too many obscure synonyms and sneaky general knowledge needed. Struggled my way through with lots of guessing based on detecting the theme, but all in all not much fun. I’m just not a Paul fan I think. Thanks PeterO, and Paul.
Well posting late because this was an epic struggle to finish. Googled all sorts of stuff but no reveals and no incorrect checks. So very satisfying for me. I wonder if anyone else had GUBAS TREE for 23a? It does exist! I thought it was a bit mean but I put it in. Took me a while to sort that one out. Took ages over CHARIOT, GREYHOUND, IRON, CASHMERE. Loved SPACE. I read RACE as a triple definition with the dash punctuation mark contributing to the clue. Hinted at above by TerriBlislow@14. Paul is Guinness for me. Reaches parts other setters don’t get to, enjoyable though they are too. Many thanks to all who posted. Enjoyed reading the discussion.
How does very = actual? I can’t think of a sentence in which they could be exchanged.
Desmodeus@63
I found the very thing I was looking for.
I found the ACTUAL thing I was looking for.
I’m constantly surprised by how far I can get with a Paul puzzle that seems hopelessly opaque at first, if I just give it some time. This one took me all day, little by little, to get to within two. Not quite a completion, but still satisfying
I really liked the keystone clue 9a RACE that works in different ways — both as wordplay (R+ACE), and a double definition (“Run” and “whizz” as verbs). There’s no double duty as such (except for the whole clue, so it’s balanced), and not &lit either. I suspected the solution for a while before entering it confidently
Other favourites 12a HUMAN (“I’m thinking” = UM), 18a SEALSKIN (great surface), 1d WHOA (relieved after fearing a non-rhotic soundalike), 2d FRIEDMAN (funny), 6d SKID (got “Vicious” for once)
Fuddleduddy@62 for 23a I was trying for some variety of TREE at first, though I didn’t get far enough down that road to get stuck
Thanks all!
I agree with the complementary comments about this puzzle.
SKID was outstanding, I thought. I back-parsed CHA – with an aha! – after putting RIOT in the right place from crossers.
Enjoy the shade if you can find any.
Apologies, the previous comment was from me, UN now corrected.
It was a two day struggle for me but thoroughly enjoyed it! Reminded me of wrestling with Araucaria in the olden days.
Thanks Paul and PeterO