Guardian Bank Holiday Special by Maskarade

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A musical theme for this August’s bank holiday special from Maskarade, which was much easier than the epic he devised for us last year.

The introduction said: “Thematic solutions are divided into three groups (A, B and C), which are of a kind and not further defined.  Solutions to the three clues marked H form an anagram of 27’s partner”.  It turned out that there was in fact only one theme, sub-divided into three parts.  The theme was The Sound of Music film; A clues comprised songs from the film, B clues were extracts from the lyrics to My Favorite Things and C clues were names of characters.  H was Hammerstein: 27 was Rodgers.  I have tried to highlight the various groups, showing A and B in yellow-green, H in royal blue and C in red, but it was difficult because of crossing letters and because one answer was in two categories.

I solved this with help from my occasional solving companion, Timon, and we both enjoyed the challenge, although the theme became pretty obvious almost immediately (from 1 down).  We needed to do a bit of internet research to establish the correct lyrics, and remind us of some of the songs; once we’d done this, filling in the thematic answers became a matter of matching the song titles to the enumeration.  Parsing the wordplay came later.  As you can see from the completed 21 x 21 grid, Maskarade has done an impressive job of fitting in a large number of thematic entries.  There were one or two little quibbles, but some very nice surfaces, of which perhaps 3 down was the favourite.  Maskarade’s clueing style is very concise, which is perhaps just as well with so many clues to fit in.

wpid-Guardian-Bank-Holiday-Special-by-Maskarade.png
Across
1 DETWEILER
(C) Young Edward returns, sounding worse (9)

TED(rev), sounds like “viler” (if pronounced as a German name).  Max Detweiler is a fictional character in The Sound of Music.
6,48 MY FAVORITE THINGS
(A) What I’m smoking, contents are meagre after turning it over (2,8,6)

*(IT OVER) THIN in MY FAGS.  The American spelling is correct, as this is how the original lyric would have been spelled.
12,22 RAINDROPS ON ROSES
(B) 30 sponsors in trouble (9,2,5)

An anagram of ADORER (see 30) and SPONSORS IN.
13 MEN
(H) Pieces — some fragments (3)

Hidden in “fragments”.  The reference is to chessmen.
14,11 CRISP APPLE STRUDELS
(B) Repercussions about resort in Ulster — County Down, for starters, maybe (5,5,8)

SPA in RIPPLES in *(ULSTER CD).  The letter count doesn’t work because one of the Ps appears in both the across and the down answers.  Like many of the answers in this category, for me this was a question of working out the answer from the enumeration (with help from crossing letters) and then working out the wordplay.
15 MARIA
(A or C) Sondheim’s ultimate song (5)

(Sondhei)M ARIA.  Both a character in The Sound of Music, and a song (sung by the nuns) in the film.  Also of course a character and a song in West Side Story (lyrics by Stephen Sondheim).
16 SORROW
Sadness old bishop revealed in broadcast (6)

O RR (right reverend) in SOW.
17 GREY SEAL
Swimmer’s dismal impression (4,4)

A simple charade; will those solving on the other side of the pond be penalised if they enter “gray”?
19  
See 32
21 CAMP
Conservative politician enlists a group of supporters (4)

A in C MP.
22  
See 12
26 ODOUR
Bouquet of European flower is reported (5)

Sounds like “Oder” (a German river).
28  
See 24
30 ADORER
Lover having trouble about end of affair (6)

ADO RE (affai)R.
33 OVERDUE
Deliveries to Doune oddly late (7)

OVER (deliveries in cricket), odd letters in DoUnE.
34  
See 43
35 READIED
Prepared to study single case of Euclid (7)

READ 1 ED(letters encasing EucliD).
36 ELYSEE
Palace and cathedral diocese (6)

ELY SEE.  The very different pronunciation of the word in French, compared to the English components, added to the difficulty.
37 LEAPFROG
Golfer madly takes in a quiet game (8)

A P in *GOLFER.
38 LIESL
(C) Plaice and sole both regularly chosen (5)

Even letters in pLaIcE; odd ones in SoLe.  Liesl is the eldest child in the Von Trapp family.
40 PAWLS
Spoke of compiler’s catches (5)

Sounds like “Paul’s”.
42 AHEM
(H) Hesitant cough put one on edge (4)

A HEM.
43,34,57 SIXTEEN GOING ON SEVENTEEN
(A) No go with ten engines having extensive rebuild (7,5,2,9)

*(NO GO TEN ENGINES EXTENSIVE).
49 NO SECRET
Everyone knows feature is on island out East (2,6)

NOSE CRET(e).
51  
See 32
53 EDITH
Girl cried: “It hurt a bit!” (5)

Hidden in “cried it hurt”.
55 ELISE
Girl is taken to Helen’s heart (5)

IS in (h)ELE(n).
56 ENT
Treebeard, say, in hospital section (3)

The Ents in The Lord of the Rings were tree-like creatures of whom Treebeard was the most prominent.
57  
See 43
58 THIMBLERIG
Gilbert is crooked — get him involved in underhand trick (10)

*(GILBERT HIM).  “Underhand” here is used in a literal sense, since the trick depends on successful palming of small objects.
59 EDELWEISS
(A) Our ungrammatical life in Leeds, ruined (9)

WE IS (!) in *LEEDS.
Down
1 DO-RE-MI
(A) Function extremists have at heart (2-2-2)

DO, (ext)REMI(sts).  An easy way into the theme.
2 THIERS
Rows involving husband and old French statesman (6)

H in TIERS.  Adolphe Thiers was a nineteenth century French politician.
3 ENDGAME
Beckett’s work at the fifth Test? (7)

There are normally no more than five Test matches in a series, so the fifth one is the end game.  The play can be found here.
4 SPOOL
Hanks’ film held up (5)

LOOPS(rev).  Nothing to do with Tom.
5 RESERVE
Book about tennis action (7)

RE SERVE.
6 MINION
Flunky wearing skimpy garment (6)

MINI ON.  This one made us smile.
7 FAME
Film academy — musical entertainment for starters. Yes! (4)

First letters of Film Academy Musical Entertainment.
8 VON TRAPP
(C) Vicar’s first travelling by horse and cart with pastor (3,5)

V(icar) ON TRAP P(astor).
9 ROCKY
Sly boxing role (5)

Just a cryptic definition, referring to the film starring Sylvester (Sly) Stallone, unless I’m missing something.
10 TOILETS
Ladies and Gentlemen (TS Eliot production) (7)

*(T S ELIOT).  Something of an old chestnut, but I can’t find that any other setter has exploited it recently.
11  
See 14
18 MAX REGER
Composer could possibly agree with Mr Cross (3,5)

*(AGREE MR X).  No musical connection with the theme, so far as I know.
20 TOGUES
Fishes from Tobago gutted by short invitee (6)

TO GUES(t).
22 RED BALL
One pointer’s rough beard will! (3,4)

*(BEARD ‘LL).  It’s a reference to the red ball in snooker, which scores one point; a hyphen would have made it too obvious.  I originally thought it was a compound anagram with one pointer equating to 1 W, but I don’t think that works.  It was our last one in.
23  
See 50
24,28 LONELY GOATHERD
(A) Old Nelly, sadly, has to criticise that woman who’s died (6,8)

*(OLD NELLY) GO AT HER D(ied).
25 SHRIMPS
Puny folk, Royal Marines, separately boarding vessels (7)

R M in SHIPS.  “Separately” shows that the two letters inserted are not contiguous.
27 RODGERS
(and H) I understand duke has entered mid-session (7)

D(uke) in ROGER (I understand) sesSion.  The musician in the partnership with Oscar Hammerstein.
29 ANGLESEY
Fish agreement rejected at county (8)

ANGLE YES(rev).
31 RAINER
(With 15, C) I left prince (6)

RAIN(I)ER.  Nothing to do with the poet Rainer Maria Rilke, the film used Rainer as Maria’s surname before she married Captain Von Trapp.  Prince Rainier III was the long-serving monarch of Monaco who married Grace Kelly.
32,51,19 BRIGHT COPPER KETTLES
(B) Intelligent officer on drums? (6,6,7)

BRIGHT COPPER KETTLES.
39  
See 46
41 WASPISH
Is no longer smug, quiet and petulant? (7)

WAS PI SH.  Not sure that the definition quite works; Chambers gives “spiteful, virulent” as meanings for “waspish”, but petulant doesn’t carry quite the same weight.
44 IMPASSE
My old-fashioned confession comes to a dead end (7)

I’M PASSÉ.
45 EVEN NOW
Despite all that’s happened, no longer vengeful (4,3)

Cryptic definition: we’re even now.
46,39 SO LONG FAREWELL
(A) Lawgiver first going to distant town in Surrey (2,4,8)

SOLON G(oing) FAR EWELL.
47 LIGETI
Composer makes flying sea trip regularly (6)

Even letters in fLyInG sEa TrIp.  He was Hungarian by birth but ended up in Austria, so that counts as a thematic connection of a kind.
48  
See 6 across
50,23 CREAM-COLORED PONIES
(B) The pick Pedro broke in settlements (5-7,6)

CREAM, *PEDRO in COLONIES.  Another (correct) American spelling.
52 REVIE
Football manager’s to compete again (5)

Double definition, I think.
54 STIR
(H) Mix porridge (4)

Cryptic definition, rather than double definition, although it can be hard to draw the distinction.
*anagram

39 comments on “Guardian Bank Holiday Special by Maskarade”

  1. Thanks bridgesong and thanks, Maskarade! When I posted here last Friday that I was looking forward to a non-Paul week-end puzzle, I was not imagining this!

    1. Thank God it was a not a double-grid-alphabet-jigsaw. I have never completed one of those. This, I was able to, which in itself was satisfying.
    2. The theme clues were clearly identified (A, B, and C). No guessing required.
    3. H ref was easy enough.
    4. Maskarade is a genius to set a crossword like this, and I am sure he enjoyed setting it.

    I am not sure that it was total fun solving it. Once the theme is identified, it was just OK.

    Please forgive me for saying this: I accept R&H, the movie, the songs etc are great. However, I do feel that it is time to retire these types of themes – that are more fun for the setter and only to some solvers.

  3. Thanks bridgesong, you have said it all. At first glance this was daunting but when the theme revealed itself (8d was the way in for me) there wasn’t much else left to do and it took no longer than a normal weekend Prize. I agree with ilippu @1, it was very cleverly done but I have to wonder whether crosswords should be for the benefit of the solvers or for that of the setter. Ideally both of course.

  4. Thanks Maskarade and bridgesong
    I got 1d and hence the theme almost immediately; then it was just a case if matching the word patterns, without bothering to parse them (or indeed, read the clues, in some cases). Fastest ever Bank Holiday completed grid (I won’t say “solve”), but all the more unsatisfactory for that.

  5. A clever puzzle but much, much too easy for a bank holiday special. Why on earth were the clues labelled A, B, C and H? This left no challenege whatseover. As they were identified, I first attacked the two H clues, write-ins with MEN and AHEM. Thinking of partners, my first guess was HAMMERSTEIN, which meant 54 had to be STIR and RODGERS was another write in — hardly even necessary to look at the clues. The rest of the theme was soon pretty obvious too.

    I’ve often seen Guardian crosswords with special instructions that a certain number of clues are of one sort and some are another, etc., but I don’t recall their being so clearly identified with labels. I don’t know if it was the setter’s or the editor’s idea, but I hope it isn’t repeated. I like a crossword that takes longer than my morning coffee, but our Saturday prize puzzles of late have been easier than many weekday ones.

  6. Thanks to bridgesong, and to Maskarade for a truly impressive feat, though I have to say it was tiresome to have so many “23 See 50” type clues, which entailed scanning the extensive list of clues and the equally massive grid each time.

  7. Sorry but this was another disappointing “Prize Puzzle”. Especially for a bank holiday weekend.

    The conceit was soon revealed by 15A and 38A. it was easy to guess then that all three “thematic groups” were linked with the “Sound of Music”. Of course my heart sank then. “Whoopy doo”, a chance to use my encyclopaedic knowledge of the naffest film of all time. (Or Google it of course)

    Without the aforesaid encyclopaedic knowledge of the film it was damn near impossible to derive the names, songs or lyrics of “Favorite Things” (sic) from the wordplay so reverse engineering was required. To be honest this was more of a slog than a joy.

    Well at least the remaining “real” cryptic clues might have provided some entertainment. Unfortunately this wasn’t the case as they were either banal or led to a few rather esoteric words. (All gettable is must be said.) Some of the cluing appeared to be a bit dodgy but I’ve lost the will to point out which. I’m sure others will do this for me.

    A rather dull hour and a half to be honest. (When is our editor back fom his world record holliers?)
    Thanks to bridgesong and Masquerade.

    One afternote is that the film “The Sound of Music” and it’s “songs” are almost universally unknown in Germany. It’s probably not surprising that the film wasn’t very popular in Germany, (if it was even released), as the plot involves Nazis hunting aristos. (I believe).

    I lived in Deutschland for 9 years and did a little “polling” on this subject. Most films in Germany are dubbed into German and have their titles transmogrified into some German which often has no relation to the original title. Perhaps this was the problem with the lack of recognition? No. A quick hum of “The hills are alive”, “Favorite Things” or even “Edelweiss” gets zero reaction from 99% of Germans. In fact a lot of them thought I was making the whole thing up. 🙂

  8. Got “Maria” straight away so new it was SOM or WSS.
    It soon became clear which though it took a while to twig that the B clues were lyrics – thought they might have been WSS. I could not parse one or two of the B clues but apart from that it was plain sailing. Very rare for me to finish a crossword let alone a special.

  10. I have the same reservations about this as the posters above – clever, but less fun than it might have been. My first two answers were MARIA and LIESL, which quickly led to the theme, though I did wonder for a while whether the overall theme might be musicals with A being “West Side Story”. While it was interesting to find the themed clues, as others have said, it turned the first part of the solving into more of a detective task than a crossword. At least the puzzle was big enough to have a lot of unthemed clues too, even with so many themed ones.

    I didn’t mark any favourites, and with such a big puzzle I’m not going to back for them now as I want to get to today’s instead.

    Thanks to Maskerade and bridgesong.

  11. Thanks Bridgesong and Maskerade.
    Thimblerig (a.k.a. the 3 cup trick) was a new word for me, as was Pi meaning smug (a contraction of Pious?). The American spelling wrankled a bit but it’s valid in themed context. Having to run through all those sugary lyrics wasn’t huge fun but I guess I should be grateful the theme wasn’t Mary Poppins. Bogart films next time, please.

  12. timon @11
    The American spelling of “favorite” nearly caught me out too, but the English one would be incorrect in this context, in fact.

  13. I’ve gone back to read the blog more carefully (sorry bridgesong!) and see that the requirement for American spelling has been noted.

    btw 54d “doing porridge” is slang for being in prison (“stir”), so it is a DD (viz. Ronnie Barker’s sitcom “Porridge”).

  14. I think that producing a puzzle with so many linked answers is an impressive achievement. I can only assume that the majority of the whingers above are solvers who prefer to resort to Google once a theme reveals itself. Although I saw the film as a child I don’t exactly have encyclopaedic knowledge of it, and because I like to solve puzzles without resort to aids I had to rely on the wordplay for plenty of the themed answers. As I finished it correctly without resort to aids it would suggest that the cluing was very good. DETWEILER was my LOI after I remembered how the Germans pronounce W and saw the “viler” element of the wordplay. I also had to rely on the wordplay for LIGETI and MAX REGER.

  15. I can’t say that I’m a great fan of The Sound of Music but it’s amazing how much knowledge of it was in my head. The only one that I had to cheat on was DETWEILER. An encyclopaedic knowledge of the film was definitely not required. I think that the majority of people could quote lines from My Favorite Things if they were prepared to be honest.

    I did enjoy this crossword and got the last three on Thursday with LOOPS being the last. Sorry all you smart-arses but yes I did say Thursday. I like a theme because basically I’m not a very good solver but usually get there in the end.

    My Favorite Clue (the forgotten song) was EDELWEISS with TOILETS (great surface) being second.

    Many thanks to Bridgesong and Maskarade for all you efforts.

  16. I have never seen the Sound of Music and I certainly don’t plan to. As a music lover I find Julie Andrews voice physically painful!
    I agree that this was easier than Maskerade’s puzzles usually are but I rather enjoyed it nonetheless. I was surprised how much of the plot and songs that I knew. I knew the lyrics to MY FAYORITE THINGS from the sublime version by Sarah Vaughan so that part of the puzzle was a write in. I was a little foxed by the American spellings and the lack of the definite article in the LONELY GOATHERD. THIMBLERIG and PAWLS were new to me but quite easy to get.
    It’s nice to be able to post positive things about a puzzle after the lousy week we’ve had.
    Thanks Maskarade.

  17. Thanks to bridgesong for the blog. I needed you for some of the parsing.

    It’s fascinating to see the different ways into the puzzle that various people found. For me it was H: 13a took me a while but the other two fell easily. There was only one possible anagram for H and the theme then took not much effort so the whole thing fell a little flat.

  18. Thanks both. Like many here, I consider myself allergic to the Sound Of Music, but it was frightening to discover how much of it I have aborbed unknowingly. Only 1ac required a Google, even Liesl was in my brain somehow. I’m not sure Ligeti and Reger would have appreciated being in this company.

  19. Thanks to Maskarade and bridgesong. I enjoyed this one – and not because of the occasional US spelling in titles (including “do” in lieu of “doh” for DO-RE-MI) – though I then had to pause over the choice of “grey” vs. “gray” seal. RED BALL from snooker was new to me as were PAWLS and THIMBLERIG and I needed help with parsing, especially for MAX REGER.

    Those of a certain age may enjoy an alternative version of My Favorite Things.

    http://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Hymns_and_Carols/my_favorite_things__senior_vers.htm

  21. muffin @ 20

    white heat of agreement today 🙂

    [I know the tune very well, but precious few of of the lyrics, for that very reason]

  23. muffin @ 22

    Have you heard the verison on the Japan 66 box set? >50 minutes, the first 17 or so are a bass solo…brilliant, but not something you can listen too frequently!

  25. On 2 March 2015 there was a Gaff prize puzzle in the FT – one I had to blog – that was also dedicated to ‘The Sound of Music’.
    I had hoped that it would have given me an advantage when solving this one – alas!
    Maskarade is very good at these kind of themed crosswords but this one was, I fear, too full of references to a musical genre that’s not really my cup of tea.
    As others did, I looked up a lot of answers and parsed them afterwards.
    Not fully satisfying but at least I managed to solve the puzzle completely.

    On the day mentioned above it was exactly 50 years ago that the film premiere of ‘The Sound of Music’ took place.
    Also, in a few weeks time (on the first of October, to be precise) it will be Julie Andrews’ 80th birthday.
    Perhaps, Maskarade had these things in mind when setting this crossword.

    Many thanks to Bridgesong, and to Maskarade for a clever piece of setting in his familiar concise and unique style of writing clues.

  26. I think some contributors are being a little hypocritical to totally pan the crossword and then write “Thanks Maskarade” at the end!

    I have never seen the Sound of Music and I don’t resort to Google when doing crosswords, so this was a bit of a challenge to me. I failed on DETWEILER and a few others, but for the most part I found this an enjoyable crossword experience. A pity it’s such a long time to the next bank holiday.

    Thanks Maskarade

  28. I fall somewhere in the middle: I enjoyed it but it did seem to be over too quickly. I don’t know the SOM well, so had to work out quite a lot of the answers. It’s quite a feat to compose such a puzzle, so hats off to Maskarade as usual.

  29. This could have been a lot harder for those of us who aren’t obsessive about musicals – the As and all but one of the Cs were familiar – with MARIA and LIESL first too in, but it did take me ages to crack the Bs and I had to resort to looking up the words to get the PONIES. All good fun, and as always a work of art.

    Thanks to Maskarade and bridgesong

  31. Thanks Maskarade and birdsong

    I fall in with the ‘ayes’ here. Only looked at it (this weekend) and was mildly surprised at how quickly I was able to finish it, in comparison to his other ‘specials’. Even though I have watched this a few times (as a kid and then as my children were growing up), there were many facets of it that I was still unaware of – Maria’s surname, the Detweiler character and some of the lyrics of “My Favorite Things”.

    This meant a bit of reliance on Madam Internet, but did try to refrain as much as I could to the ‘just go looking for the enumerations and enter methodology’. I enjoy trying to work out the word play after getting the long answers (such as the lyric phrases) and got a couple and missed a couple (12,22 and 14,11).

    It may well have given the compiler a lot of pleasure to set, but it entertained me for a couple of hours as well and generated some new learnings in other areas – LIGETI, REGERS, SAMUEL BECKETT and REVIE were all people that I did not previously know – TOGUE and THIMBLERIG were other terms that were new.

    See this setter a little more often in the FT as Gozo and look forward to his tougher challenges that he seems to reserve for the Guardian.

    Cute clues such as MINION and ENT were good.

  32. 22d was a stumbling block for me . . . I took the definition to be ‘will!’, and with a ‘rough beard’ I assumed that THE BARD would fit the Bill.But the one pointer would have to equate to TH. Took me a while to get around that and to dig out Crisp apple strudels, which I was banking on being Climb Every Mountain. That’ll learn me
    Thanks toMaskarade for an enjoyable challenge and to bridgesong for clarifying a few other points.
    Back to Rufus now . . .

  33. Finished with resort to Google only for Detweiler who I only remembered as Max but have racked brains to think of full parsing of WASPISH. Got WAS and SH but what has PI to do with smug? Was hoping blog would enlighten me.

  34. Finished resorting to Google only for Detweiler who I only remembered as Max but could not parse WASPISH completely.l Got WAS and SH but what has PI to do with smug? Was hoping blog would enlighten me.

  35. Finished, only resorting to Google for Detweiler who I only remembered as Max. But couldn’t parse WASPISH completely. Got WAS and SH but what has PI to do with smug? Was hoping blog would enlighten me.

  36. Cinderpatch @ 33-35: PI is short for pious; Chambers defines it as “obtrusively religious, sanctimonious”, which is fairly close to “smug”, I think. Timon made the same point!

  37. Thanks bridgesong for a great blog and Respect to Maskerade for setting.

    I’m afraid I found this irritating. Once I’d worked out the theme, solving was mostly straightforward – when I could find a 3G signal.

    Whilst the songs are very pleasant, I found the whole musical about as artistically honest as the Monkees. And my abiding memories are the Bonzo Dog Doh Dah Band’s song of the same name and Kevin Philips Bong’s concession speech in the Monty Pythons Flying Circus Election Night Special.

    I didn’t feel that I wanted to finish and in fact left out Pawls, Waspish, and Rex Reger.

    But thanks for explaining the parsing for My Favorite Things and Crisp Apple Strudels which were impenetrable.

  38. I don’t really understand the negativity about this puzzle in the comments above; we certainly enjoyed solving this an awful lot, and there was lots of fun in trying to remember as much as we could about the Sound of Music. (I’ve only seen the Sound of Music once – in costume, as it happens, at Sing-Along-A Sound Of Music at the Prince of Wales cinema :))

    As others had commented, we were also thinking West Side Story might be one of A, B and C after getting MARIA as our first themed answer.

    Anyway, thanks to Maskerade for a very entertaining holiday solve and to bridgesong for the excellent blog post.

  39. I agree with the posters above. the crossword was far too easy and absolutely no fun whatsoever. I have no interest in the Sound of Music, it is populist muzak to me; my idea of music is Wagner or Klimt, not Andrew LLyod-Weber! I’m far too erudite to bother with popular culture, and its inclusion in a crossword- A PRIZE CROSSWORD TO BOOT!- is an abomination! Whatever next? Are we to be treated to a Jersey Shore Xmas spectacular featuring clueings for J-Wow, Snookie and The Situation? Or maybe a Towie alphabetical, with their horde itemised? It’s the thin end of a very thick wedge!

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