paul’s painful puzzlers

A tricky one today at https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/prize/29452, but as ever, some are trickier than others, and here are the three that kept me puzzled the longest:

8ac: I see you getting cooler having rolled over tongue (8)

It’s GUJARATI. I was stuck for quite a while thinking that “I see” was a signal for “AHA” or “OH”. But in the end, what gets ‘rolled over’ is: “I” (‘I‘) “TARA” (‘see you‘) “JUG” (‘cooler‘). And, as some may not yet know, “tongue” is often used to mean “langauge” in cryptic clues.

2dn: Fancy shuffling of top two cards? (4)

This took longer than it should, and is used by several other clues so I thought it may be helpful to include here. It’s CAKE. A ‘fancy’, as in ‘French fancy’ is a type of cake. Meanwhile the top two cards that get shuffled are are ACE and ‘K’ (king).

15dc: Area gets TV ? (7)

This was the last one. It’s AGAINST. A (area) GAINS (gets) T(T) gives you AGAINST, leaving V as the definition part. ‘Evil’ is too small a word to describe this level of clueing nastiness.