Guardian Prize 26,442 by Shed

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A very enjoyable puzzle from Shed.

The eight themed solutions are all MONGERS, sellers of goods.

I thought the instructions added interest to the puzzle without taking it it into the realm of the barred-grid specials.  Shed also includes some unusual words, ENTH and LI SAO for example where I’m sure he could have gone for something easier.  Again enough to add interest without going over the top.

All in all I think Shed has got it just right. Thanks Shed.

completed grid
Across
9 PROCREATE
Make children harp on about heartless shade (9)
PRATE (harp on) containing (about) OChRE (colour, shade) missing middle letter (heartless)
10 SNEER
Show disdain for fortune-teller’s adopted name (5)
SEER (fortune teller) contains (adopted) N (name)
11 TATRA
Name of a range of tawdry goods artist produces (5)
TAT (tawdry goods) RA (artist) – the Tatra Mountains in Poland
12 PROBATION
Before noon, steal into courtyard on which criminals get out (9)
ROB (steal) inside PATIO (courtyard) before N (noon)
13 PARASOL
Sunblock for friend keeping oars moving (7)
OARS* anagram=moving in PAL (friend)
14 DEBAUCH
Cause corruption of French composer embracing upstart (7)
DE (of, French) BACH (composer) contains (embracing) U (start of up)
17 LI SAO
Leonardo’s Painted Lady — love poem that’s big in China? (2,3)
LISA (Mona Lisa, painted lady) O (love, zero) – old Chinese epic poem
19 WAR
Overcooked? Not at all (3)
RAW (not at all cooked) revesed (over) – a warmonger
20 REEDY
Piping like a pig with no head? (5)
gREEDY (like a pig) missing first letter (with no head)
21 SCANDAL
Produce image of inverted boy (7)
SCAN (produce image of) LAD (boy) reversed (inverted) – a scandalmonger
22 CRIPPLE
Physically challenged person‘s cold wavelet (7)
C (cold) RIPPLE (wavelet)
24 FREESTYLE
Order: eyes left? right? whichever way you like? (9)
anagram (order) of EYES LEFT and R (right)
26 WHORE
Sported outside hospital (5)
WORE (sported) containing (outside) H (hospital) – a whoremonger
28 SCARE
Evidence of damage to Spain (5)
SCAR (eveidence of damage) to E (Espana, Spain) – a scaremonger
29 INSOLVENT
Cheeky about 5 being skint (9)
INSOLENT (cheeky) containing (about) V (5, Roman numeral)
Down
1 SPAT
Evinced contempt for minor dispute (4)
double definition
2 COSTER
Wanting a beer mat (6)
COaSTER (beer mat) missing (wanting) A – a costermonger sells fruit from a barrow
3 BROADSWORD
Weapon offering promise of American woman? (10)
BROAD’S WORD (promise of American woman)
4 CARPAL
Tunnel of sorts, putting 24 down on a plate of sorts (6)
CARP (24dn, fish) on A L (L-plate, a sort of plate) – the ‘carpal tunnel’ in the palm
5 RECORDER
Registrar‘s pipe (8)
double definition
6 ASIA
Land mass held back by Karzai’s Afghanistan (4)
found reversed inside (held back by) karzAI’S Afghanistan
7 PEDICURE
Incomplete command interrupting virgin’s attention to extremities (8)
EDICt (command, incomplete) inside (interrupting) PURE (virgin)
8 IRON
Me neither, on reflection (4)
NOR I (me neither) reversed (on reflection) – an ironmonger
13 PILES
Fundamental problem of stately buildings (5)
definition/crytic definition – a problem in the bottom (fundament)
15 BERLIN WALL
Ring to secure termination of father-in-law’s dodgy old partition (6,4)
BELL (ring) contains (to secure) fatheR (termination, last letter of) then (IN-LAW)* anagram=is dodgy
16 HOYLE
Gap filled by unknown astronomer (5)
HOLE (gap) containing (filled by) Y (an unknown, maths)
18 SPACEMAN
Celebrity outdoes returning long-distance traveller (8)
NAME (celebrity) CAPS (outdoes) all reversed (returning)
19 WALKYRIE
Noted rider to tread on bird’s nest, topless (8)
WALK (to tread) on eYRIE (bird’s nest) topless – character from Wagner’s The Ride of the Valkyries (Ritt der Walküren).  I have not seen it spelled like this before, but I am no expert on the matter.
22 CHEESE
Understand revolutionary interrupting revolutionary (6)
SEE (understand) reversed (revolutionary) inside (interrupting) CHE Guevara (revolutionary) – a cheesemonger
23 PLOVER
Bird providing introduction to Petrushka’s sweetheart (6)
Petrushka (introduction, first letter of) has LOVER (sweetheart)
24 FISH
Discounting deception, life is death, ultimately (4)
liFe missing lie (deception) IS deatH (ultimately, last letter of) – fishmonger
25 SEED
Offspring‘s letters returned (4)
DEES (the letter D, plural) reversed (returned)
27 ENTH
Unspecified ordinal number restricted by obsolete letter (4)
N (number) in (restricted by) ETH (obsolete letter) – 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, …, enth.  A new one for me, I have seen nth written many times but never enth.
*anagram
definitions are underlined

40 comments on “Guardian Prize 26,442 by Shed”

  1. Many thanks PeeDee & Shed

    This was very enjoyable although I failed to get 22d ENTH.

    I would have thought that solving the Theme would have helped with the related clues but this was not so for me.

  2. I wouldn’t have won the prize because I had PORTER for 2d. But of course it doesn’t work.

    The theme certainly helped. Thanks to S & B!

  3. Enjoyed this a lot, after a slow start, and managed to complete it unaided on a train – I think ENTH was last it but had to be right because I had a distant memory of the letter ETH, though like PeeDee I don’t think I’ve seen that spelling before. First two of the theme where WHORE and WAR, which wasn’t enough to see where it was going – I think COSTER was what gave it away and led to me finding most of the others quickly. I think the last MONGER was IRON.

    Thanks to Shed (who we see all too rarely these days) and PeeDee

  4. Thanks Shed and PeeDee
    I got WHORE first and thought “What’s going on?”, but COSTER then explained all.
    I wasn’t happy with the spelling WALKYRIE. It is an accepted spelling, certainly, but “noted” I took to refer to Wagner’s opera, in which case it should be WALKURE in the original German, or VALKYRIE in English translation.

  5. Thanks all
    I enoyed this, the theme was a sensible one ( not as much as Phiistne on Friday).
    I failed to get 12ac, last in was 7d.
    Favourite was 2d.

  6. I wasn’t happy with WALKYRIE either but otherwise I enjoyed this. My FOI was WHORE followed by WAR and I thought of MONGER but had to wait for others to confirm. LOI was ENTH which I didn’t really understand.
    Still nice puzzle.
    Thanks SHED.

  7. Mathematicians use “enth” but would spell it nth.
    I did not get piles and Li Sao.
    I still do not get the construction for piles and think Li Sao is iffy.
    Got scare but now see the construction – thanks.

  8. Brianjp @7
    “Piles” (of stone) is often used to refer to stately homes (“the ancestral pile” for instance), and the “fundament(al) problem is also known as haemorrhoids.

  9. Thanks Shed and PeeDee.

    This was hard going for me, but I really enjoyed it. Special thanks for the blog.

    Liked the CARPAL tunnel. The LI SAO poem was new to me. PILES made me laugh.

    Brianjp @7 PILES of the bottom are haemorrhoids, swollen veins at or near the anus. The term
    “a stately PILE” is used when describing a large imposing building.

  10. Brianjp – PILES is a double definition – piles is a medical condition of the anus (of the “fundament”, slang – see Chambers) and “pile” is an ironic term for a country house, suggesting that the hard-done-by owner lives in a pile of stones that is such a nuisance to keep up that if it were not for family honour they would have moved to a council house long ago.

  12. I enjoyed this puzzle from Shed very much but didn’t get the same two as Brianjp. Now what was Leonardo’s most famous painting called ?.
    Ah yes it was Lisa wasn’t it !. I’d also never heard of Li Sao either and I’m sure that applies to 99% of the population.
    As for piles, yes I’ve got them but had never heard the expression “ancestral pile. I must get out more. Nor have I ever
    heard of fundament (reminds me of Stanley Unwin and his fundamould) being used for anus. It appears that I don’t know very much.

    Thanks to PeeDee and Shed

  14. Thanks PeeDee and Shed.

    Great crossword.

    But I don’t belive ENTH is an alternative spelling of nth. (According to Wikipedia, it is “a structural domain that is found in proteins”.)

  15. Thanks Shed & PeeDee.

    I got IRON and FISH early on, which led into the theme.

    For E?T?, Chambers has EATH,EATS,EFTS,ELTS,ESTS,EWTS. Perhaps Shed has an allergy towards plurals. ENTH doesn’t seem to be a real word.

    However, apart from that it was an enjoyable solve.

  16. Overall a good crossword but I found the clue for 22a unfortunate. Surely it would have been better to provide a clue with the definiton in the sense of ‘to cause severe damage to’, rather than the now offensive usage to describe a disabled person?

  17. Brian @7 – you’ve just reminded my that I had to check LI SAO after completion, so technically that was last in and I can’t really claim to have solved it unaided – I’d never heard of it either but I thought the clue was fair.

  18. berry hiker @17 – me too on LI SAO, I had not heard of it either. But I think that if you can get the solution having discovered the wordplay and correctly interpreted the definition then that counts as having solved the clue. It is only a fail if you write in an answer without being able to say why.

  19. I agree. I’d only class it as “aided” (as Philistine might have put it yesterday) if you look something up before you’ve got the answer. Checking an unfamiliar word and finding it really does match the definition is for me part of the pleasure of doing crosswords (and surely the only way of tackling something like an Azed).

  20. I have no problem with new words, checking answers or anything like that, it’s just that on Saturdays I’m often travelling to and from walks on trains and buses when I do the crossword, and I find it quite an interesting test to see how much I can do without looking anything up.

  21. I’d never heard of the Li Sao either but somebody else beat me to LASSO, which was my original idea, in a puzzle published a few days earlier. I did try to make it a fairly simple clue.

    The composer of the Ride of the Valkyrie would be Richard Vagner, then?

    Thanks for all the comments.

  22. Hi Shed
    Thanks for dropping in.

    Do you know the old joke…………… “If the answer is 9W, what was the question?”

    “Do you spell your name with a V, Mr. Wagner?”

    …but it is still “Die Walkure” in German!

  23. btw it is the “Ride of the Valkyries”, because there was more than one of them. However the opera is “The Valkyrie” (or “Die Walkure”) because it is about Brunnhilde, one of the Valkyries (Weisshilde in the original legends).

  25. Thanks belatedly to all who commented on my @7. I had forgotten piles relating to stately homes. I was working on “poser” as the answer. And I should have considered Lisa for 17a.

  26. Thanks to Shed for dropping in @21. I won’t get involved in debates about Anglicised German spelling – it was obvious from the wordplay what was required, and I think I’d seen that version before…

  28. Muffin @22-24: yes, you’re quite right, it is Ride of the Valkyries (or Walkyries), though you have to listen to it to figure that out because grammatically it works either way in German. But while we’re being pedantic, the German requires an umlaut (as Cookie @27 has it). And since both the English and the German forms are basically transliterations (rather than translations) of Old Norse, the spelling is a bit of a moot point. Walkyrie is in the (English) dictionary and has a W where I needed one so that’s what I went for.

  29. Shed, thanks again for a super puzzle, such fun, what a shame so may of these “mongers” are disappearing.
    Season’s greetings, Marion Cook.

  30. Hi Shed
    I did say at first that “Walkyrie” is a valid spelling – it’s just not one that Wagner would have recognised. (btw I agree about the umlaut – but I don’t know how to do one).
    I don’t want to give the impression that I didn’t enjoy the puzzle – it was great.
    Merry Christmas!

  32. ENTH seems OK to me. It is in Chambers, so fair enough. Not the spelling familiar in mathematics, but possibly more common in another context?

  33. @29, but what a laugh, what am I saying, what about war mongers and whore mongers, etc. I did not take these into account. Here it is worse than looking into a mirror, one see inside oneself.

    However, I do remember coster mongers in London, and rag and bone men with their horse drawn drays.

    muffin @30, I have an MS-DOS guide, it gives all the codes, try Alt 129 (on the right hand side of the keyboard) for ü.

  34. Thanks, Cookie, but it I think it only works with a numeric pad – this laptop doesn’t have one and (Alt 129) doesn’t produce anything.

  35. PeeDee, “it’s in Chambers”?
    But why is it not in Chambers that comes with Anthony Lewis’ WordWeb Pro?
    If it is indeed in Chambers, it must be very very very deep inside Chambers.
    If so, I am curious what Chambers says what it us.
    So, can you please tell me how Chambers defines ‘enth’? [don’t tell me they only say ‘unspecified ordinal’ – then I’ll sue them 🙂 ]

  36. I didn’t comment on this on Saturday as I had nothing in particular to say.

    I really enjoyed this however and I enjoyed the monger theme which I saw quite early.

    I don’t understand the complaints about Walkyrie. It’s a foreign word so it will possibly have varied English spellings. This is even more likely as it’s a German word starting with “W”. So is the spelling phonetic (“V”) or original (“W”)

    But the SOED is more specific and makes the Valkyrie Scandinavian and Walkyrie Anglo-Saxon

    Walkyrie noun. OE.
    Mythology. In Anglo-Saxon England, any of a group of supernatural female warriors supposed to ride through the air over battlefields and decide who should die. Cf. Valkyrie

    Valkyrie noun. m18.
    In Scandinavian mythology, each of Odin’s twelve handmaidens who hovered over battlefields and conducted the fallen warriors of their choice to Valhalla. Cf. Walkyrie.

    Notice that the Scandinavian versions hover whereas the Anglo-Saxon ones ride. So the SOED exonerates Shed. 😉

    Thanks to PeedDee and Shed

  37. Brendan @36
    BUT the “noted rider” is referring to Wagner’s character. She is “Die Walkure” (with umlaut) in German, but always “The Valkyrie” in English. (Admittedly in French she is “La Walkyrie”, but there was enough French in this crossword already!)

  38. Sil @35 – you are right it is not in Chambers. I looked it up somewhere while I was writing up the blog as I wasn’t sure of the answer. I can’t find it anywhere now. I must be going a bit barmy.

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