Paul’s may 25th jigsaw jaunt

Maybe I shouldn’t be doing this, but for my ‘first’ post (after calming down from a week of crazed bewilderment about WordPress navigation), I’m keen to do the Guardian prize crossword from yesterday. I guess some people may be miffed about the answers being available before they are revealed by the Guardian. But it’s not as if the prize is something that costs more than £2.50 on Amazon, is it? I suppose I’ll find out what people think if there is ever any traffic to this site…

SO, this one was a jigsaw with no clue numbers. Makes it quite a bit trickier – one has to do it in Powerpoint (or on paper if you’re 1000 years old); but then again you get the first letter of every answer for free.

Here is the puzzle as published:https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/article/2024/may/25/prize-crossword-no2-9392

I will reveal answers from A to Z, and then afterwards indicate how they fit in.

Strap in!

Clue: I see a soldier rolling over tongue (7)

ARAPAHO: OH ! (I see …), A para (…trooper) rolling over (from back to front). || Yes, that’s right, Paul expects you to be an expert in native American tribes and their languages. For newbies ‘tongue’ commonly means a language.

Clue: Leave cold water moving upstream, path set on swimming, very strong (4,3,5,3)

BORE THE PANTS OFF: Bore (water moving up stream) the pants o (anagram of paths set on) ff (very strong). || Yes, I know, very apt in the context of this blog.

Clue: Score mark, split when failing to finish (4)

CLEF: Cleft (split) failing to finish — i.e. without the final t. A clef is a very common “score mark”, i.e. it is a thing found in sheet music. || Paul doesn’t score particularly well with that one.

Clue: Anyone can watch sheep entering home of fox in middle of wood (7)

DURAMEN: u (anyone can watch – i.e. ‘U’-rated) ram (sheep) in home of fox (put ‘uram’ in den). Duramen is the hard wood at the centre of a tree – look it up || This was one of those satisfying educational clues, where I figured ‘duramen’ fits – is it a thing? And then I googled it.

Clue: Character poisoned by viper in myth, lament arising over unknown bones (8)

EURYDICE: eur (rue ‘arising’, i.e. backwards) y (unknown — x, y, z are typically ‘unknown’ variables in maths) dice (a stretched but valid synonym for bones). In Greek myth, apparently, she married Orpheus and then stepped on a snake. No-one seems to have followed up to see how the snake fared.

Clue: Flatter cloth (7)

FLANNEL: flannel is an informal word for flattery, and it is also a type of cloth || not sure how well this one travels.

Clue: Split personality, queen in Glasgow district is put out, briefly (5, 10)

GORAN IVANISEVIC: go- rani -van (queen (rani) in Govan) is evic (put out – evict – briefly – i.e. leave off the end). Said tennis player is a ‘Split personality’ because he is a celeb from Split, the second largest city in Croatia || The best clue in this puzzle, I reckon; ‘split personality’ had me racing down all kinds of mental disorder etymology rabbit holes until it clicked. Also, if you didn’t know, rani and raja are Hindu queen and king.

Clue: First of nails under light ring holding large amount of weight (4,1,3)

HALF A TON: n (first of nails) under light ring (after ‘halo’) holding large (with ‘fat’ inside it); the straight clue part being “amount of weight” || one of those very annoying ones with all kinds of dodgy competing possibilities, until I twigged ‘halo’ for light ring.

Clue: Infant out, given the odds, possibly even (2,3)

IF NOT: the odd letters of “Infant out” – i.e. the 1st, 3rd, 5th, 7th and 9th letters, are IF NOT. Semantically tightly linked with even || … not a fan of the straight clue part of that one.

Clue: Alien emperor (6)

JOVIAN: Jovian means ‘from Jupier’ – it is also the name of one of the Roman emperors (had to look that up to make sure) || this is the first clue I got, since I am a Sagittarius

Clue: Big gun: I’ve got it in European currency (6)

KAHUNA: Ah! (I’ve got in) inside Kuna (currency in Croatia, until recently replaced by the Euro); a ‘Kahuna’ as in a big player, big gun, pre-eminent person, etc… || an odd obsession with Croatia this week

Clue: Book on the counter majestic, cover ripped off with some passion (8)

LOVINGLY: lov (vol, as in volume, backwards (on the counter)) ingly (kingly (majestic) with cover (k) ripped off); ‘with some passion’ is the straight clue part. || ‘on the counter’ is a naughty way to indicate backwards, and is a bit too obvious for me in this clue

Clue: Might one take a second to find a different handle? (8)

MONICKER: The idea is that a “Mo nicker” is someone who takes (nicks) a second (mo – as in ‘moment’); a monicker, in case you don’t know, is a nickname, or some other kind of alternative name || I always face ‘question mark’ clues with a little trepidation – they follow their own rules, and tend to represent the setter trying to make a bad joke

Clue: Ncltivated?’ (3-1)

NONU: The clue is the word “uncultivated” without the letter ‘u’ – i.e. the clue is non-u, and the answer is non-u, because ‘non-U’ is an informal British term for ‘not socially acceptable’ || Like I said; question mark clues.

Clue: Charon’s fee of bronze, often licked originally (4)

OBOL: ‘of bronze often licked’ originally, meaning take the the first letter of each of those four words. Charon is the ancient greek mythical fellow who would ferry you to the underworld for a fee, that fee being a coin. An obol is an ancient Greek coin || I guess Paul went to one of those schools.

Clue: Angel in favour operating diabolically (7,2,6)

PARAGON OF VIRTUE: It’s an anagram of ‘favour operating’ — i.e. those letters arranged ‘diabolically’ || quite a nice anagram

Clue: Slight movement in long case? (6)

QUIVER: It’s a slight movement; it’s also a bag for holding your arrows – hence the long case || As question-mark clues go, quite tame

Clue: Real panicky? That’s wrong, calm down (5)

RELAX: real ‘panicky’ to be interpreted as ‘shake up the letters of ‘real’, then follow it with X (that’s wrong, as in the opposite of ✔) || broadly everyday cryptic there with a touch of creativity

Clue: Model scratching sore back on washboard, beastly poser? (10,5)

SCHRODINGERS CAT: It’s an anagram of (‘model …’ — i.e produce an alternative version of …) ‘sratching sore’ and ‘d’ (‘d’ being the last letter of washboard) – the straight clue part is ‘beastly poser’, which is a tortured crossword-world way of saying it is a deep question / thought experiement which features an animal || This is the type of clue that gives my wife conniptions

Clue: Turner has gathered in neat powder that’s black or white (3,5)

TIN OXIDE: the turner here is TIDE – gathered within it we have ‘in’ (direct from the clue) and ‘ox’ which, believe it or not, is signalled by ‘neat’. ‘neat’ is an archaic term for a bovine animal. The straight definition here is ‘powder that’s black or white’ || the conniptions certainly would continue with this one. Anyway, tin oxide can come along as SnO, or SnO₂ – one of those is a black powder and the other is a white powder! Yeesh.

Clue: By inference, hot and cheesy? (6)

UNCOOL: Cool means ‘with it’, ‘in fashion’, etc.. (I mean, personally, I simply ooze all of that, so I should know). So, uncool of course means ‘cheesy’, ‘old hat’, and other terms that denote the opposite. The fun ‘question mark’ part is that, given the structure of the word, we could infer that it means ‘not at a low temperature’, as in ‘hot’ || Took me a while. I didn’t notice the question mark, so I was treating it like a normal clue and looking up lists of cheeses that start with ‘U’ and contain an ‘h’.

Clue: Kamala Harris upset, not quite climbing to the summit? (4)

VEEP: the definition part is Kamala Harris – she’s the VP of the USA, which is informally expressed as the VEEP. It’s also the word ‘peeve’ not quite climbing, as in not quite (missing the last ‘e’) and climbing (the wrong way around); Paul seems to have added ‘to the summit’ because that’s the sort event a VP goes to, and also fits in with climbing, but that does mess up the structure, hence the question mark.

Clue: Miniature round band that’s fabulous! (7)

WHOOPEE: It’s the letters of ‘wee’ (a word we use for small/miniature in Scotland) wrapped around ‘hoop’ (band); the straight definition part is ‘fabulous!’

Clue: Internal fragment of rock,when curse lifted, certainly not glowing inside (8)

XENOLITH: the definition part is ‘internal fragment of rock’ – a xenolith is basically a rock within another rock! It’s the letters of ‘xeh’ (lifted hex), wrapped around ‘no lit’ (not glowing) || always good to learn new things

Clue: Old car old fellow put in reverse (4)

YUGO: ‘o’ (commonly used for ‘old’ in cryptics) followed by ‘guy’ (fellow), in reverse. It’s a classic recent vintage Eastern European workhorse car || bits of it made in Croatia, naturally

Clue: Spot last of macaroni pasta (4)

ZITI: zit (spot) i (last letter of macaroni) – it’s a type of pasta

Solving the jigsaw

I’m sure you can do this easily, but, for the sake of completeness, I’ll set out the answer.

The across clues, from left to right and top down, are: R, Y, O, G, T, K, W A, Q, L, S, N, C, I.

For the sake of inconsistency, I’ve changed my mind and you can figure the rest out yourself.

So, what have we learned?

Paul, when he holds pasta dinner parties, tends to bore the pants off people with his stories about geological expeditions in Croatia, driving around in his old banger, avoiding the snakes and chatting up tennis players.