Guardian Prize 26,776 by Paul

20 comments on “Guardian Prize 26,776 by Paul”

1. “Where have I gone wrong?” [2d]
   Where did he go wrong!

   Nice enough puzzle but another mistake in a week in which there were more.
   As The Corrs sung way back when, ‘forgiven, not forgotten’.

2. I too was missing an ‘s’ for 2 down which made me doubt 11 across though I had decided that ‘everton’ was the only possible answer. Otherwise a lovely puzzle and much easier than today’s offering by Paul.

3. Thanks PeeDee. I couldn’t work out why EVERTON is as is, and still can’t despite your explanation: always plus 100, yes, but… almost as hard as figuring out the tellytubby. Not since the Middle Ages has the college of cardinals been as low as the numbers in 16A: here those numbers seemed to be red herrings.

4. Thanks PeeDee. Another enjoyable and not too demanding offering from Paul with hardly a theme at all which is a welcome change. I agonised over EVERTON for some time before enlightenment. Sil @ 1 has got it right, the missing S in 2 is not your oversight, I see the error is repeated in the annotated solution.

5. Thanks to Paul and PeeDee. As often happens, I found this prize puzzle easier than some of the weekday items. I did not know TANTALUM or TINKY WINKY but the clues were sufficient, and I needed help parsing the 111 for EVERTON. For TOWELLING the parsing above does not include the “in.” An enjoyable puzzle.

6. Thanks Paul and PeeDee

   Only did the puzzle this morning and was able to finish it surprisingly quickly. Also spotted the missing S without it bringing any doubt to the answer – have built in the occasional potential error as a part of the deal now.

   Paul seems to have had a bit of a thing with plural words ending in I of recent times – two here and one in his Friday puzzle. Interesting the online Oxford had ISTHMI as the plural for the narrow organ connecting two tissue pieces, but ISTHMUSES as the strip of land connecting two larger land masses.

   Was introduced to BLINI by a Russian friend a couple of years ago – it’s OK if you have a taste for caviar – I struggled ! TESTUDO was the only newish term, although have vague memories that it may have appeared in a crossword previously. TANTALUM was definitely new.

   Not quite sure what to make of the fact that the image of TINKY WINKY immediately sprung to mind with the ‘triangular antenna’. Amazing what one retains from one’s children’s television viewing !!!

   Should have seen the relevance of 23 = RED BOOK = CARDINAL NUMBERS, but sadly didn’t – just adds to the quality of the clue.

   Finished up with CARDINAL NUMBERS, IROQUOIS and TANTALUM as the last few in – in what was a very enjoyable puzzle that was over too soon.

7. Thanks Peedee for your explanations of 11a and 23a. I too was worried about the missing “s” in 2d but decided it couldn’t be anything else.

8. A fairly easy workout from Paul though probably just enough of a challenge for a prize.

   I’d never heard of TESTUDO but the wordplay got me there with an inspired guess. (Not many 4 letter games come to mind ending in O and TESTOLO didn’t sound as Roman as TESTUDO!)
   Some nice clues but some very easy ones. However Paul has shown us his more difficult side recently enough)

   I can already hear the moans about 11A but I loved it. If one reads the clue out loud it works fine! I hadn’t parsed CARDINAL NUMBERS correctly and now see that the “23” was cleverer than I thought.(Thanks PeeDee)

   2D was obviously missing the “S” but that’s a small error by Paul and a large error by the Ed. (Basic stuff!)

   Nice to see another appearance of the Teletubbies. (obviously a celebration of their return to the box.). I’m not sure our friends across the pond or our older solvers will be too familiar with them though)

   Thanks to PeeDee and Paul.

9. Ladies and gents,

   My mistake entirely with the ‘S’. Many apologies.

   Enjoy your weekend, all.

   With best wishes,

   John (Paul)

10. Thanks PeeDee and Paul the Penitent.

    Before I had any crossers, I thought 16ac might be NEGATIVE NUMBERS ((23-24)= -1: (23-25)= -2), which I thought exceedingly clever.

    Loved 11ac EVERTON, so ingenious and amusing when the penny dropped.

11. Thanks Paul and PeeDee.

    I was surprised that I managed to finish this enjoyable puzzle last Saturday, but needed some help with parsing.

    EYE TOOTH in particular fooled me, I first entered ELK HOUND before finding that it would not agree with the crossers.

    I assumed that 111 meant 7 in binary numbers in 11a, the crossers were definitely E-E-T-N, but I could not make a word including SEVEN, and in desperation checked Crossword Solver, no word given, so guessed the answer must be EVERTON.

12. I don’t think TINKY WINKY exists “in real life” as claimed in the blog! I don’t see the problem with EVERTON either;I thought this one of the easier ones. I put ASSESSOR in without a qualm but I see what the critics mean.
    I thought this pretty good overall. I loved RED BOOK and CARDINAL NUMBERS. I wasn’t entirely sure of IROQUOIS but I couldn’t see what else it could be.
    Good fun.
    Thanks Paul

13. Some great clues, really inventive. A shame about the goof in ASSESSOR.
    I didn’t need any help confusing myself with this one. I confidently entered NINA instead of VAMP as my first one in, being evocative of both the sound of a siren and the famous Jazz singer. My second one in was TORTUDO – faulty memory and over-confidence to blame there.

14. Thanks John/Paul for apology- we still got it.Great stuff.

15. I wondered about the fourth S in ASSESSOR too, but I assumed there had been a mistake at some point as it was obviously the correct answer. Thanks for confirming that, JH. It didn’t detract from a good puzzle which I enjoyed solving. Favourites include OESOPHAGI and CARDINAL NUMBERS (which I didn’t fully parse, but now love).

    PeeDee, for BLINI, surely “discarded” is just “in bin” as “left” is already in the clue, and as ACD wrote @5, the IN is missing from the parsing of TOWELLING.

    Thanks, Paul and PeeDee.

16. Peter Aspinall @12 – yes, I know the Teletubbies are not real. While writing up the blog I came across this photo of the real life actor Dave Thomson who provided the voice for the original Tinky-Winky. He wasn’t what I expected, and it made me smile.

    jennyk @15 – I’m sure we are both saying the same thing.

    Thanks to all who pointed out the missing IN in towelling. I don’t blame Paul at all for ASSESSORS, if it were not for writing up the blog I would not have noticed either. I learned long ago to be wary of calling clues I can’t parse ‘mistakes’. I have been left ruing my hasty words far too often!

17. Can’t see any excuse for ASSESSOR (surely it should have been spotted by the “editor”), but the rest was fun if a little easy – Paul more than made up for that yesterday!

    Thanks to Paul and PeeDee

18. Thanks all
    I liked Everton especially.16 across seemed rather unnecessary. I failed to parse the Quito part of 27 d and like everyone else couldn’t find the extra s in 2d.

19. Thanks PeeDee and Paul – both for the puzzle and ford the mea culpa.

    I’m in two minds about this one. It was tough, but I seemed to sail through it – which is unusual because it normally takes a while to get on the right wavelength for this setter.

    OESOPHAGI and EVERTON were really neat and I enjoyed the simple elegance of SISKIN and FISHY.

    So is TINKY WINKY not real? Another reality shattered!

20. Update on ASSESSORgate, if anyone is still here. It finally appeared in the ‘Corrections and Clarifications’ column in today’s Guardian (23 Feb, so only a month and a half later).

    ‘The clue for 2 down in prize crossword No 26,776…was given as “Judge fools and you’re dropping the odds (8)”. That left cruciverbalists one S short of the correct solution: assessor. The clue in the online version has been amended and now reads: “Judge beauty coming up to claim second after fool”.’

    A slightly contrived re-write, I’d say.

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