Guardian Prize 26,077 / Boatman

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At first, this looked impenetrable and therefore pretty daunting, especially as it was my blog.

The first run through produced only 2dn, so none of the crucial ‘next’ clues, but it did give me the E of DOG EARS, which seemed a plausible answer, leaving me with DO to account for – not the most helpful of the ‘nexts’! The next across clue I solved was UN[TI]E, so bells started to ring, even louder when [MI]STRESS followed fairly quickly, then APPA[RE]L, [FA]R OUT and BI[ SO]N went in to confirm the theme.

I soon discovered I had the whole of the bottom half completed but none of the top, apart from the first-in 2dn. I was wondering why the scale had started half-way down the puzzle, then realised that it might be repeated, so tried an anagram of RED WINE DO for 7ac – and Bingo! [or, rather, ‘Doh!’! 🙂 ]

The rest fell fairly easily but very satisfyingly: it was a lot of fun to do and there was some clever cluing, in both the themed and non-themed clues. Great entertainment for a Saturday morning and well worthy of a Prize puzzle. Many thanks, Boatman.

Across

7 Red wine splashed across first cover (9)
EIDERDOWN
Anagram [splashed] of RED WINE and DO [first note in the scale]

8 Article about next number (5)
THREE
THE [article] round RE [next note]

9 Base the next on what might be of use — it’s flawless (9)
MISERABLE
MI [next note] + SER[vice] ABLE [might be of use, minus vice {flaw}]

10 Next, start to sit on next seats (5)
SOFAS
FA + S[it] on [after] SO [next to MI] – very clever!

12 Next, in plainsong? (6)
BALLAD
LA [in BALD [plain]

13 Extended discussions of next report on backing for beards (5-3)
TEACH-INS
TEA [sounds like – report – ti {next note}] + CHINS [backing for beards!]

14 Bent corners of next machine parts (3-4)
DOG-EARS
DO [here we go again] + GEARS [machine parts]

17 Disgust about next type of clothing (7)
APPAREL
APPAL [disgust] round RE

20 Lover puts weight on next (8)
MISTRESS
MI + STRESS [weight]

22 Next flight is unusual (3,3)
FAR OUT
FA + ROUT [flight]

24 Disposed of next beast (5)
BISON
SO in BIN, so disposed of: I liked that one!

25 Next, caught in violent gunshot attack (9)
ONSLAUGHT
LA in a clever anagram [violent] of GUNSHOT

26 Free French one embraces next (5)
UNTIE
TI in [embraced by] UNE [French one]

27 Backing miserable sinner taking next and last gram (9)
ENDORSING
DO in anagram [miserable – nice indicator!] of SINNER + G [gram]

Down

1 Short piece of music, one of low points (6)
MINIMA
MINIM [short piece of music] + A [one]

2 Performed live, reel produces musical awakening (8)
REVEILLE
Anagram [performed] of LIVE REEL

3 Did badly to take vehicle inside pass (2,4)
ID CARD
Anagram [badly] of DID round CAR [vehicle]

4 Interval between notes that soared in sober hearts (7)
TWELFTH
reversal [soared] of FLEW [soared – double duty, unless we take ‘soared’ = ‘flew up’, in which case I might have expected a question mark, but I’m not quibbling, because it’s a nice clue, either way] in TT [sober] + H [hearts]
[Friday: I nearly always forget – having solved and parsed the puzzle over the weekend – that there’s an annotated solution: I’ve just looked it up and found  ‘twelfth FLEW (rev) in TT/H’ – which doesn’t help a lot!]

5 Moving auditory experience for those that love silence (6)
WHOOSH
WHO [those that] + O [love] + SH [silence]

6 One stopped and added: “That isn’t ever even” (8)
DETAINEE
Even letters of aDdEd ThAt IsN’t EvEr

11 Catch some piranha species (4)
HASP
hidden in piranHA SPecies

15 Love binds one’s beliefs (8)
OPINIONS
O [love – again] + PINIONS [binds]

16 Beast backing into grass (4)
REED
Reversal [backing] of DEER [beast] – I think the ‘into’ rules out any ambiguity here – and there’s surely a reference to this [which I’ve resisted until now! – do you remember how rightback always prefaced his Prize blogs with a song?]

18 Clue to IRA high-explosive blast (8)
AIRBURST
Reverse anagram: AIR is an anagram [burst] of IRA – a very nice clue

19 Foolish, mad, insane? Boatman’s secret (7)
ASININE
Anagram [mad] of INSANE with I [Boatman] secreted inside

21 Perhaps cancer sufferer’s last to be included in matter for discussion (6)
TROPIC
R [last letter of suffereR] in TOPIC [matter for discussion]
[Perhaps there should be a capital here but I’m not quibbling]

22 Idle chap taking note where point is lost (6)
FALLOW
FeLLOW [chap] with A [note] substituted for ‘e’ [point is lost]

23 Boatman, uniform (Navy) on, gets release (6)
UNHAND
U [uniform] + N [navy] on HAND [Boatman again – but there’s been rather less of him than usual!]

15 comments on “Guardian Prize 26,077 / Boatman”

  1. Thanks, Boatman and Eileen. I was thrilled when I discovered the ‘next’ theme from dog-ears onwards. But I failed on 7a, 1d and 3d – maybe another look midweek might have completed it. What a tour de force though!

  2. Thanks, Eileen. DOG EARS was my first too and I was lucky to guess the theme immediately. This made for a very enjoyable progressive solve. A quick count had had me worried about the sequence but SOFAS solved that problem!

    I was OK with TWELFTH. My Chambers has four slightly different definitions of “soar” but all involve upward motion.

  3. Thanks Boatman and Eileen. A very enjoyable and satisfying workout.

    I was slow to pick up the theme, as the first across I got was 19 (APPAREL) which is a clue (I think the only one) which works perfectly without the insertion of the musical note – ‘about’ = re.

  4. I saw the duplicated theme fairly early on, so, for me at least, this was one of the easier Boatman puzzles. Good fun though.

    At 4dn I saw “soared” as “flew up” which works well in a down clue. I did this puzzle while eating my dinner on Monday, and for the life of me I can’t remember what my LOI was.

    Eileen, good point about the annotated solutions that the Guardian provides. I never look at them any more because of the lack of proper explanations.

  5. Got timetable instead of miserable in 9ac otherwise OK once I got the theme.
    10ac is so fa while 22/24 is fa so? That caused some confusion for a while.

  7. Thanks Eileen for the blog and Boatman for a cleverly contrived puzzle. By the way, does anyone know why the do,re, mi business ids called the sol-fa system when fa precedes so(l) in the scale?

  8. Thanks, Eileen

    Great puzzle from Boatman – very clever. I suspected the theme when I noticed the various musical references in the clues and thought that 8a might be THREE; DOG-EARS was the confirmation. Nevertheless, the rest was no push-over, although the across clues were generally easier to solve, of course.

    MISERABLE took me a long time to insert, because was unsure until I spotted the missing ‘vice’, hence my last entry was TWELFTH, which I couldn’t parse, so thanks for that!

  9. Glad you all enjoyed it! Eileen – I know you’re always partial to a BISON or AIRBURST style of clue, and I’m happy to be able to oblige.

    I won’t tell you how many grids I had to try before I found one that would take enough of my favourites to make the whole thing work …

    Anyone coming to my Masterclass in Manchester on Saturday 16 November?

  10. Well, thanks for your patient grid-hunting, Boatman! – and again for the puzzle.

    [I have no aspirations towards setting, so shan’t be coming to your Masterclass – but will you be joining us in Sheffield next Saturday?]

    Gervase @8: I too thought ‘8ac might be THREE’ on the first run through – but that was before I had any idea of the theme and only because it’s an anagram of ETHER [to give the now familiar ‘number’!]

  11. Boatman, will all the clues be nautical in some way? Will it literally be a mast-erclass?

    I’m going out now to the pub. Here are my two clues for

    HALF-SEAS OVER:

    1) Es? (4-4,4)
    2) Sa? (4-4,4)

    Much easier than THREE SHEETS TO THE WIND as I’m sure you’ll agree!

    Good luck for next Saturday.

  12. Very enjoyable – thanks to Eileen and Boatman. I also got BISON fairly early on and worked out the theme, but needed the help of my 95-year-old mother to complete a couple of final clues.

  13. Yes, I really enjoyed this one and luckily got into the theme fairly early on.

    I got a bit confused when counting the do-re’s until I found SOFAS.

    Thanks to Boatman & Eileen. I think my favourite clue was for for MISERABLE – quite flawless! 😉

  14. I know I am a day late to comment but was in ‘that’ London yesterday and by the time I got home was too tired to even look at the reviews.

    I loved this puzzle. I took a while to spit what ‘next’ was all about but thoroughly enjoyed sorting it all out.

    Thanks to Boatman and Eileen too.

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