Guardian Prize 26,681 by Paul

by

A most entertaining crossword that I found very difficult.  Usually I solve Paul’s puzzles much more quickly than I did this one.  Was it just me having a bad day or did other people think this was hard too?

Lesser-known Roman Emperors seemed to me an unusual mini-theme for Paul.  My guess is that the joke of GLUTEUS MAXIMUS  as a Roman Emperor was the main event and Septimius and Maximinus were there as afterthoughts.  Maybe he had been thinking of the sequence MAXI, MAXIMUS and MAXIMINUS  beforehand too.  Whatever, thanks Paul, great fun!

completed grid

Across
1 ENRAGE
Wind up close to Stonehenge, stone almost blown over (6)

stonehengE (closing letter of) and GARNEt (stone, almost) all reversed (blown over)
4 OFFSET
Start high, then go down (6)

OFF (high, rancid) then SET (go down, like the sun)
9 SPAM
“Please send money urgently” or “Click here to claim your prize” are plots to be rejected (4)

MAPS (plots) reversed (rejected)
10 UNACCEPTED
About two hundred bananas eaten up — three hundred more despised! (10)

(EATEN UP)* anagram=bananas containing (with…about) CC (two hundred) then D (five hundred, 200 + 300 more)
11 ORANGE
House for the fifth primate? (6)

ORANG A is the first primate, ORANG B is the second…
12 KOOKIEST
Most bizarre, keeper’s header has beaten Stoke 1- 0 (8)

Keeper (header, first letter of) has anagram of STOKE I (one) and O (nil)
13 PROMISING
Concert at which I perform karaoke likely to improve? (9)

PROM (concert) with I SING (perform karaoke)
15 LION
Hero going after rebel in uprising? (4)

LION going after rebel is rebellion (uprising)
16 MAXI
Busy route going over across yacht (4)

MI (M1 motorway, busy route) containing (going over) A X (a cross)
17 SOLIPSISM
Self-indulgence thus with kissers is beginning to mount (9)

SO (thus) with LIPS (kissers) IS Mount (beginning of)
21 EXAMINES
Interrupting date, parent wearing nothing returns in checks (8)

SEE (date, as a verb) contains (with…interrupting) MA (mother, parent) containing (wearing) NIX (nothing) reversed (returns)
22 DATIVE
Revolutionary musical director’s opening a case (6)

EVITA (musical) Director (opening letter of) reversed (revolutionary) – a case in grammar
24 EMANCIPATE
Drunk, I’m at peace swigging last of gin, set free (10)

(I’M AT PEACE)* anagram=drunk contains (swigging) giN (last letter of)
25 RARE
Bloody career’s ending, time to retire (4)

careeR (ending of) then ERA (time) reversed (to retire)
26 SASHES
Series of tests on small items of clothing (6)

ASHES (series of tests, cricket) on S (small)
27 PLEXUS
Positive thing about old network (6)

PLUS (positivve thing) containing EX (old)
Down
1  
See 2
2,1 ROMAN EMPEROR
One is among divine royalty, as leader (5,7)

You will find a roman emperor inside deviNE ROyalty
3,16 GLUTEUS MAXIMUS
Throne’s occupant left in 2011, according to a 2 1, initially upset with Augustus (7,7)

anagram (upset) of L (left) MMXI (2011, according to a Roman) Emperor (initial letter of) and AUGUSTUS – the buttock muscle, the bit that sits on the throne (for which Paul had the toilet in mind I’m sure).   I have a feeling that G.M.was the name of a Roman Emperor in some spoof movie I have watched in the dim and distant past, but I can’t find any reference to it now.
5 FACTOR
Cap for football player, a contribution (6)

Football (cap, first letter of) then ACTOR (player)
6,19 SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS
Pietism aggravated split in the Americas for 2 1 (9,7)

PIETISM* anagram=aggrevated then SEVER (split) in US US (the Americas, two of them) – a real Roman Emperor
7 TREASON
In conclusion, royalist thinking it’s an offence (7)

royalisT (concluding letter of) REASON (thinking)
8 PARKINSONS LAW
Place snail owns spiralling, as a working rule (10,3)

PARK (place) and (SNAIL OWNS)* anagram=spiralling – the law that states work will expand to fit the time available
14,23 MAXIMINUS THRAX
2 1 saw in the Guardian a burden retaining human resources (9,5)

MAXIM (saw) IN US (The Guardian) then TAX (a burden) containing HR (human resources) – by now I was starting to belive that Paul was just making up silly names for Roman Emperors, but no he was a real one too.
16  
See 3
18 INDWELL
Be permanently present at the bottom of a shaft, drinking ditchwater, primarily (7)

IN WELL (at the bottom of a shaft) containing Ditchwater (primarily, first letter of)
19  
See 6
20 INSIDE
One new face serving porridge? (6)

I (one) N (new) face (side) – in prison
23  
See 14
*anagram
definitions are underlined

41 comments on “Guardian Prize 26,681 by Paul”

  1. Thanks PeeDee. My reaction too. I thought it was a lot more difficult than the usual Paul and make no apology for having to seek assistance with the lesser known emperors. It was well after I had finished and despaired of explaining 2 and 1d that I managed to spot Nero lurking there.

    I had difficulty in accounting for the E in 3.16 and am still not really convinced.

  2. I am a fan of Paul’s puzzles and I enjoyed this one but it was harder than usual. GLUTEUS MAXIMAS was most amusing and quite difficult to get. I hadn’t heard of MAXIMINUS THRAX and had to look him up but at least I’ve learned something.
    I liked a lot of the clues here; my favourite and LOI was LION but KOOKIEST ran it close.
    Lots of fun.
    Thanks Paul.

  3. I did not do this puzzle but I enjoyed reading this blog.

    For 8d, I am wondering why PARKINSONS LAW is an anagram of PLACE SNAIL OWNS – it does not seem to work.

  4. You’re right, michelle, about 8d.
    It should be PARK (place) [a bit loose, in my opinion] + an anagram of SNAIL OWNS.

  5. Thanks PeeDee. Managed it without aids although there was a lot of looking up to verify some of the improbable THRAX-type names. Re your musing at 3,16 it wasn’t GLUTEUS in The Life of Brian but Naughtius Maximus. Loved the fifth primate in 11A.

  6. Thanks to Paul and PeeDee. I got ROMAN EMPEROR fairly quickly but needed Google to help me with the remaining emperors. I had trouble finishing because I could not shake off “outset” instead of OFFSET and therefore could not get FACTOR, and also because I found an obscure emperor named Gellius Maximus instead of GLUTEUS (a wonderful clue once I caught on) so that UNACCEPTED was my last in. I needed help parsing LION and should have known sooner that for INSIDE “porridge” = “prison” (I’ve met that term before). For me, getting to the finishing line was a struggle but I did get there.

  7. Thanks to Paul and PeeDee.
    I had the same problems as ACD @6, having put OUTSET for 4a and, in desperation, GELLEUS MAXIMUS for 2,1!
    I still don’t really understand the parsing of 16a: I get ON (going) but why is LI “rebel in uprising”?

  9. Thanks, PeeDee, for explaining ROMAN EMPEROR, which I solved by crossing letters and cross-reference to other clues, but couldn’t parse. Glad it wasn’t my turn to blog!

    One of the reasons I found this puzzle so hard is that Chambers doesn’t give “start” as a meaning of OFFSET, so like others I had OUTSET. UNACCEPTED is also not in Chambers, but the wordplay (once I’d worked it out) left no room for confusion.

  10. Thanks Paul and PeeDee
    As I said yesterday, I don’t enjoy Paul puzzles as much as some, and I didn’t like this one. I think OFFSET is simply a mistake (though apparently Chambers Online has it – incorrectly, in my opinion), and the real Roman Emperors were ridiculous – surely there should be some chance of solving a crossword without resort to Google or other references?

    I did like ORANG E.

  12. Paul shows us he can still do a challenging Prize puzzle!

    I did reverse engineer 2 & 1D after solving 6,19D. In fact at this point I still haven’t parsed 2 & 1D except as a dodgy CD!

    Lots of nice clues and “Aha” moments in this.

    Thanks to PeeDee and Paul.

    I’m also not sure I noticed that “PLACE SNAIL OWNS” wasn’t a true anagram. I just assumed it was as the answer was do obvious! 🙂

  13. Agreed – much harder than usual – we didn’t finish it until Wednesday!
    Thanks for the parsings of 2d – we hadn’t spotted NERO in the clue, and also of 15a which we also just wrote without fully understanding it.
    I thought it was unlike Paul not to have a precisely constructed clue – of course, he did, the mechanism just eluded me…

  15. crosser @7 – 15 across LION is to be read as :

    when the answer is going after ‘rebel’ you get a word meaning ‘uprising’ – REBEL + LION = REBELLION

  17. Entered three quarters of this and had all but about 3 of the rest but could not parse them.
    Would never have got 1a and 3d. I do not believe OFFSET means start. Can any reference a sentence where offset is used in this way?

  18. Hi Brianjp @17. The Free Dictionary online has OFFSET as ‘The start or initial stage; the outset’ and Collins has it as another word for ‘Set-off’, but I don’t see it in Chambers.

    I loved this, not least because my LOI was LION for 15a – appropriate for me given the Latin theme because i was dropping my first born off at Uni for the first time… and his name is Leo.

  19. Very difficult – definitely not one you could solve without reference books, or in my case Mr CS who, when I said Roman Emperors, said ‘Septimius Severus’ and so I was on my way. My last one in was Gluteus Maximus, a nice mislead as I was convinced I was looking for a ‘real’ emperor before the penny dropped.

    Thanks to Paul – definitely a bit too challenging even for a Prize – and to PeeDee too.

  20. I thought this was absolutely brilliant – Life of Brian meets Gibbon. Despite a Classical background, I’d never heard of the Thrax fellow, so he had to be derived from the wordplay. I can’t usually be arsed with these really intricate anagram clues, but, well, I just had to get to the bottom of the Gluteus Maximus clue! Actually, the journey in that clue wasn’t really important; it was all about the destination – like a stooge setting a comic up to deliver his punch line. And what a line!

  21. I should add I failed to get the ‘keystone’ clue (2,1) before coming here, failing to spot the hidden. Was Augustus truly divine, what about some of the nuttier ones, the imperial cults? I wasted a fair bit of time, but will I learn?

  22. I only managed to solve a few clues, thanks PeeDee for a great blog.

    GLUTEUS MAXIMUS was familiar from the Asterix bandes dessinées, but appears to have ‘upset’ the Americans who translated the character as Solar PLEXUS!

    MAXIMINUS THRAX apparently doubled the pay of soldiers which meant TAXes had to be raised; violent methods started to be used by tax collectors and illegal confiscations made thus alienating the plebs.

    SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS travelled to England in 208 with the intention of conquering Caledonia He ‘split’ Britain into Britannia Superior and Britannia Inferior. He died at Eboracum (York) in 211, many altars to roman gods have been found there.

    Thanks Paul for the belated fun.

  24. I found this very tough (as perhaps Prize puzzles should be). I enjoyed it overall, but I felt that it needed too much ‘general knowledge’ that I suspect isn’t very “general”. In other words, I hadn’t heard of Maxi yachts and those two Roman Emperors so they can’t possibly be general knowledge. 😉

    I loved the construction of UNACCEPTED, but I have reservations about the definition. Yes, “despised” is listed in some places as a synonym, but the emotion expressed is so much stronger. “Rejected” would have been better, but then he might have needed to change the clue for 9a. I was initially not convinced by OFFSET/”start”, but came to the conclusion that when giving someone a (head)start, their start(ing) position is OFFSET. I too missed “Nero” in “divine royalty”, so didn’t parse that clue correctly.

    Favourites were GLUTEUS MAXIMUS (lots of misdirection there), also ORANGE, KOOKIEST and LION.

    Thanks to Paul and PeeDee.

  25. Quite enjoyed this even though the emperors seemed fairly obscure. I seemed to get half an answer from the wordplay and then got the other half from Google. As with THRAX, I just keyed in ‘thrax emp’ and there he was in the index. I get annoyed by See 2, See 3 etc and would be quite happy for these to be removed altogether. What do others think ?.

    I got the last one on Wed morning which was LION although I couldn’t parse it but it’s a very good clue once explained. I particularly liked EXAMINES, GLUTEUS MAXIMUS (typical Paul) and INSIDE.

    Many thanks to PeeDee and Paul.

  26. I really enjoyed this, although I was stumped for a long time before the theme started to come out, and then I loved it when it appeared it was all just a leadup to one glorious toilet joke! Like others, I could parse neither ROMAN EMPEROR nor LION, so thanks for clearing that up, PeeDee, and lots of thanks to Paul, who broadened my knowledge of the Roman Empire far more than I ever thought I would need.

  27. Checking Cyborg’s @8 post, I see that the English may also have had a problem with the translation of ‘Cornedurus’, it could lead to something rude (the character in fact looks more like he should be called Gluteus Minimus, he is all top-heavy).

  29. I found this crossword disappointing and uncharacteristic of Paul, who is usually my favourite setter. One of the reasons I like his crosswords is that you know when you’ve got an answer right, and he doesn’t rely on obscure bits of knowledge. I like to do a crossword the old-fashioned way, armed with only my brain and a ballpoint (and possibly a beer). I do most of my crosswords on the beach and I don’t want to carry a shelf-full of reference books or a computer.

    Having studied classics for my first degree I still remember most of the Roman emperors, but I certainly don’t consider these to be fair clues. Today’s Guardian prize relies on people knowing the name of a current, not particularly well known footballer. No doubt there are people that can recite the names of every player in the first team squad of every top-flight football club. I choose not to be among them. So if there are references to sportsmen I expect them to be people I am likely to have heard of – Pele, Maradona, in the case of footballers, Grace and maybe Compton when it comes to cricketers, and so on. I am sure there must be literally dozens, possibly hundreds of more appropriate clues. So why choose such a stupid one? Is it to show the setter’s laddish, football-loving credentials, a la Tony Blair or David Cameron?
    I see the crossword as a challenge to my intellect and general knowledge as a well-educated person, not as an aptitude test for a job as a librarian. If I want a general knowledge crossword I’ll seek one out.

  30. Found this one pretty tough for a Paul and failed to finish it on the train – needed to check the two real emperors – in fact having got ROMAN EMPEROR and GLUTEUS MAXIMUS early I initially thought they might all be fictional. Last in was LION. Plenty to enjoy though.

    Thanks to Paul and PeeDee

  31. Apologies for being thick if I’ve missed it, but where is the parsing for the letter E in the anagram for 3,16?
    Many thanks

  32. nametab @ 31

    My reading is that the definition is “Throne’s occupant […] according to a 2 {Roman}” with the E coming from “1 {Emperor} initially”.

    Again, it’s only my view, but I think Paul is once again pushing the boundaries, intermingling the wordplay within the definition and rather than including punctuation as a misdirection leaving it out for the same reason.

    Does that work for you?

  33. I had BIKINI for “series of tests on small items of clothing”, which completely ruined any chance I had of finishing this crossword. Luckily, on reading this blog, it turns out that my chances were nil anyway.

  34. [PS did anyone else catch the reference to Septiminius Severus on Thursday evening’s Archers? It was part of a convoluted explanation of why Prof. Jim hadn’t heard of Anneka Rice]

  35. Simon S @ 32
    Thank you for the explanation.
    Seems pretty obvious now – particularly as Paul so frequently uses the first/last letter construction. 🙂

  36. @29
    I think you are mistaken in thinking that a clue becomes impossible (without research) if it requires a solution or component you haven’t encountered before. That footballer and the emperors here were a case in point. It was highly entertaining working out what they had to be, thanks to fair and relatively easy wordplay, and the fun would have been spoilt if I’d resorted to Google before solving – or indeed if I’d happened to know them all already. (If there’s something unfamiliar I try to resist looking it up until I’ve finished the whole puzzle. If the clue is clear even that should be unnecessary, as it is in these instances.)

    This is not to say I didn’t find these clues hard, but they are certainly solvable without the specialist knowledge.

  37. David @29 and Herb @36 –

    As per site rules please do not discuss this week’s puzzle in the comments, especially as you are giving away information about how to solve one of the clues.

    On a personal level I would have liked to have been able to have a go at solving the clue in question without your help.

  38. Simon @32 – If you assume that the definition is “Throne’s occupant […] according to a 2 {Roman}” and then conclude that the construction is “pushing the boundaries”, then surely the answer is that you have the definition wrong.

    “Throne’s occupant” is a more obvious definition, and with it the rest of the clue works just fine.

  39. @37
    I actually thought David was oblique enough not to give anything away, though I see your point of view and am sorry any damage was done. I probably shouldn’t have disagreed with him as I did, as that could be construed as “discussing” On the other hand I added no information at all to what he said. I took care not to. I didn’t make it any easier for you to solve the clue, any more than your comment, which repeats just as much of the relevant information, spoilt it for others.

  40. A very different sort of Paul on display here.

    I always enjoy his creativity but this was at another level altogether.

    This took a long time to get into with 22ac my FOI and quite a while before I twigged the theme which actually came from solving the anagram/charade for SEPTIMIUS SERVERUS.

    Still, I expect the Smut Police were pleased not to see Biggus Diccus in there somewhere.

    I’ll start with my only gripe which is OFFSET in 4ac which to my mind does not mean the same as SETOFF or START.

    But then to the plaudits:
    10ac – so creative – yes we’ve all seen CC for two hundred but I enjoyed the ‘three hundred more’ for D
    16ac – AX for across was new to me
    17ac – liked this mainly because it made me feel smug to know such an obscure word.
    11ac – misdirected well.
    Etc

    So thanks to Paul and to PeeDee for the blog.

  41. Thanks Paul and PeeDee

    This one took a lot longer than normal for Paul – was stuck on the OFFSET / FACTOR pair for over a week, until the penny finally dropped with F ACTOR (after trying to forget the crossing letter at the start of the word.

    Had not heard of the two main Roman Emperors in the grid … and didn’t find the hidden Nero either !

    Noticed a lot of MAXes down in the SW. As stated, finished up in the NE corner, with the very clever LION preceding the two mentioned above.

    Liked 3, 16 from both a humorous surface and a well structured construction of the answer.

Comments are closed.