Guardian Prize 26,196 / Boatman

24 comments on “Guardian Prize 26,196 / Boatman”

1. Thanks Eileen. I found it hard and spent rather more time than usual on it. I made it even harder by confidently entering shiploads at 30 but eventually remembered shedloads from a previous Prize. I endorse your comments but have no difficulty with the two ‘in’s in 7. I can’t help with 10, having explored the same possibilities as you have done.

   31 was the last one I had to explain to myself and having flirted with ‘assembling’ I settled on ‘cobbling’ reasoning that the cob is at the end of an ear of corn. Your solution is much better.

2. Thanks Eileen. I’m with you on this one, which needed coming back to on Sunday. Failing to see ‘roi’ for Ireland didn’t help so the Spoonerism was a late solution. While there was no end of brilliance – and 5d exemplified it – the dawning of answers like SHEDLOADS was fitful and there were few hallelujahs when the sun came up. All a bid deadly, as 14d sort of said.

3. Thanks, Eileen. I like a good tussle at the weekend, when I’ve more time available, so was delighted with this. (The fact that it was a prize seems, nowadays, to be just good luck, though…)

   Same parsing as you for ROUND TRIP, except that I decided, perhaps with a bit of a shrug, that it was OK.

   I was happy with CUT SHORT too, being in crosswordland where “no end” of a word and a word “cut short” both mean “no last letter”.

   GASBAG – sag seemed OK: I thought of, “That line has a sag in the middle” and, indeed, “A part or area that sags, eg a depression in an area of glacial deposition.” Chambers again! 😉

   Isomers are molecular mirror-images so I agree the definition does seem a tiny bit dodgy but it was pretty obvious what was meant.

4. I found this one tough going.

   Isomers are not necessarily mirror images (enantiomers are the subset of stereoisomers that are mirror images), but do have different arrangements of the atoms in the molecule, so I think the definition is just about ok. ‘Recombined’ is a bit dodgy but forgivable in a non-chemist.

5. An excellent crossword. Thanks for the explanation of 19d; the brass and tart connection eluded me but I assumed there must be one in order to get the answer. A possible construction for 10ac is that round arises from ground (rough – as after grinding) with no end?

6. Well this Prize took me ages. I finally finished it on Wednesday.

   But why so long as in retrospect no clue was really difficult. I think this was a masterclass in misdirection around the “no end” theme.

   Well done Boatman. This type of puzzle is what makes “cryptics” so intriguing!

   Thanks to Eileen and Boatman.

7. Thanks Eileen. I think the definition for CANOE is ‘Boatman here’, somewhere you will find a boatman, in a canoe. ‘In sight’ is the indicator that the solution will be plainly seen in ‘Africa no end’. Nothing superfluous in the clue.

8. I always approach Boatman puzzles with a measure of trepidation, and with this one being a Prize puzzle I didn’t know what to expect. I agree with Eileen that the variations on the theme were very clever indeed, but I also agree that the solve was more of a slog than a pleasurable experience. However, I certainly enjoyed the feeling of satisfaction when I finished it, and the clue for NUMBER was indeed extremely cunning. I can’t remember what my LOI was but I seem to recall that I finished the RHS much quicker than the LHS.

9. Thanks, PeeDee @7 – quite right, of course.

10. Well done, Boatman. A real work of art, even if I can’t parse 10ac.

11. Thanks, Eileen

    For me, a time consuming but highly rewarding exercise. I didn’t find it a slog – piecing together the imaginative interpretations of ‘no end’ was very entertaining. great puzzle.

    Some of the definitions are a little off-centre: ISOMERIC, as Phil Page explained @4 and especially ROUND TRIP, but the latter could have been entirely redeemed (for me, at least) by a question mark.

    Two comments on Eileen’s queries: the second ‘in’ of 7d is surely a linker – ‘cryptic part’ IN ‘definition’ works for me. And the S in 29a is not doing double duty if we take the clue as an &lit, SAGO being rather old-fashioned these days, in the UK anyway.

    Lots of ingenious clues, but I particularly liked 22a.

12. Thanks for helping with some of the parsing. I thought the spoonerism was something to do with “shut court”.

    I failed on two : 1d and 5d. I think no. is a short cut for number not no

    Many good uses of the theme – I enjoyed it.

13. Thanks, Eileen. Mum and I found this prize tough, but we did manage to complete it.

    ISOMERIC was one of the first I solved as I recognised it from the definition given and thought at first it was an anagram of ‘some rice’, wondering why it was Saki (as in H.H.Munro) rather than Sake, before spotting the hidden solution. As a biologist I am familiar with a group of enzymes known as isomerases that convert one isomer to another. For example, there is one that converts glucose to fructose. These sugars both have 6 carbon, 12 hydrogen and 6 oxygen atoms, but the atoms are arranged differently. I’m not a Chemist so this seems to me to be ‘parts recombined at a molecular level’.

14. I completed this in one go, but it’s not the first Boatman puzzle where the repetition of the same entity in many, or even all clues has caused some weariness.

    The range of different possible meanings one has to imagine becomes something of a wall, against which it can feel you’re tired of banging your head.

    But like that, the relief, when it stopped, was a pleasure in itself.

    Thanks all.

15. Thanks Eileen and Boatman

    I found this hard and intriguing, and in retrospect quite enjoyable. A clever puzzle.

16. I don’t know why there are the quibbles about ROUND TRIP.

    If you draw a “round trip” on a map the line doesn’t have an end.

    I thought this was quite obvious.

17. Good puzzle that did eventually have an end.

    Thanks Eileen; if the ROUND TRIP is as Brendan (not that one) says, I think it deserves a QM, otherwise you are right that it ends where it began.

    I too particularly liked NUMBER.

18. Thanks Boatman and Eileen. But, can someone (Eileen?) please explain how the definition of 4a PROLIFIC, is rank. I can’t find it in any thesaurus or dictionary, and since I did not see the very clever ROI for Ireland this was a guess and my last in!!

19. Chambers second entry for rank has ‘growing high and luxuriantly’.
    Collins has ‘showing vigorous and profuse growth’ – as in rank weeds.

20. Thanks rhotician: not a usage I am familiar with, but hey, that is what makes our hobby ‘no end’ of fun

21. No complaints, totally fair…but I did feel one or two clues had been compromised for the sake of including the theme. That would be understandable if the theme occurred in every clue, but it didn’t.

    For me, the key was doing enough to prove that the theme was used in different ways, thus removing a restriction on a train of thought.

    But whatever, you have to admire all setters at this level.

22. I found this difficult – got about half first go, came back to it on Sunday and found a few more, but forgot to make a serious attempt to finish it. Maybe a wavelength thing since we don’t see Boatman that often these days. Had similar problems with ROUND TRIP, although I thought of the answer straight away I couldn’t see the rough capers bit, and since FIELD TRIP also matched the crossers at that point I didn’t write it in. So nice to see a challenging prize but a challenge I failed…

    Thanks to Eileen and Boatman

23. Re prolific and rank:

    I don’t think one could normally mean the other. But each could be stretched to mean “outstanding” or “notable”, and meet in that shared meaning.

    I personally think “prolific” meaning that is a malapropism, perhaps for prodigious, but it’s common now.

24. rhotician@19

    Just spotted you. I didn’t know that, and sounds sensible.

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