Guardian Prize 26,782 by Tramp

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It’s been quite a while since we’ve had a Tramp puzzle in the prize slot and this one was certainly worth the wait.

Around a dozen of the clues made direct references to The Simpsons, but fortunately no special knowledge was required to solve them.  I solved this puzzle with my regular solving partner Timon and Mrs B, and we found that the usual hour we allow for this activity proved inadequate for the task.  This was surprising, as there were several very easy clues, particularly among the shorter ones.  There were plenty of Tramp’s usual elegant surfaces, but I did have a couple of minor quibbles.  Favourite clue, once the penny finally dropped, was for NETWORK.

prize26782grid.png

Across
9 PHONETISM Writing in sounds — The Simpsons frame lost in translation (9)
*(THE (S)IMPSON(S)).  It means phonetic writing.
10   See 2
11 SCHWA School with a sound in 9? (5)
SCH W A.  Chambers defines this as “an indistinct vowel sound”.
12 ENLARGERS They blow up both sides — died from grenades exploding (9)
*(L R GRENA(D)ES).
13 CARTOON Box has repeat of old comic’s work? (7)
O(ld) in CARTON.
14 NETWORK Introduction to Krusty — where 21 and 22 across are found turning over channels? (7)
K(rusty) followed by ROW TEN (all rev) – and you will find both 21 and 22 across on the tenth row of the grid!  I should add that Krusty the clown is a character from The Simpsons.
17 DUSTY Small job outside Springfield? (5)
S in DUTY.  This particular Springfield has nothing to do with The Simpsons.
19 YAK Recall comic rabbit (3)
KAY (rev).  I presume the reference is to the TV comic Peter Kay.
20 USE UP Need animated film to finish (3,2)
A simple charade.  UP was a successful animated film released in 2009.
21 SNIPERS We pick off clips to cover TV series (7)
ER (TV series) in SNIPS.  I wasn’t entirely convinced by this, given the similarity between CLIPS and SNIPS, and why is it “we”?
22 HANDSET Homer Simpson’s endorsing characters? He wanted to phone home with this? (7)
H(omer) AND S(impson), ET.  “endorsing characters” is an original way to indicate initial letters.
24 MAGGIE MAY Thatcher with Home Secretary’s number (6,3)
Another straightforward charade of this song.
26 QURAN Question published in book (5)
QU RAN.  Not the most usual spelling, perhaps, but as valid as any other transliteration.
28 SNAIL Lisa Simpson’s right about slow person (5)
(Simpso)N in *LISA.
29 TRADEMARK Custom to record The Simpsons, for example (9)
Another simple charade, although it took us a long time to see it.
Down
1 OPUS Topless American dad on American creation (4)
(P)OP US.
2, 10 MOTHERBOARD Do Bart and Homer play a bit on computer? (11)
*(DO BART HOMER).
3 MELANOCYTE Drunk male — unknown prisoner returned to the empty cell (10)
*MALE, CON(rev) Y(unknown) T(h)E.
4 PIGEON Homer‘s time to gorge (6)
PIG (gorge) EON (time).  Another charade, with a subtly misleading definition, which also involves the theme.
5 SMOLENSK Poles protect spy — ask one to leave Russian city (8)
MOLE in S N, (a)SK.
6 T-BAR Lift Simpson boy’s bottom first (1-3)
BART (Simpson) with the last letter at the front.  It’s a kind of ski-lift.
7 CAKEHOLE Chops tablet to get fix (8)
CAKE, HOLE.  Both “chops” and “cakehole” are slang terms for the mouth.  Chambers gives CAKE HOLE as two words, but I expect that there are other dictionaries which show it as one word.
8 ADOS Pop in America lifted flaps (4)
SODA(rev).  The other sort of pop in America (see 1 down).
13 CODES Puts in Morse lines during Lewis? (5)
ODE in CS (referring to CS Lewis, not to the eponymous TV series).
15 TOURNIQUET Winding round quite tightly, primarily restricting vessel with this? (10)
URN in an anagram of O  QUITE and T(ightly).  I think that this certainly qualifies as an & lit clue.
16 KAPUT Ask Apu? Two bottles smashed (5)
Hidden in “Ask Apu Two”.
18 STINGRAY TV animation artist close to pen (8)
RA in STINGY.  You have to read “pen” as a verb.  Arguably, Stingray was a puppet show rather than an animation.
19 YOSEMITE Yankee, small child following ring on banks of skate park (8)
Y O(ring) S(kat)E MITE.  We had Yosemite only a few weeks ago, in Maskarade’s Christmas special.
22 HEYDAY A man wise in conversation around daughter on American prime time? (6)
HE YY (two Y’s – sounds like “wise”) round D A.
23 SPREAD Marge, maybe, before wearing down (6)
PRE in SAD.  Another Simpsons reference.
24 MASH Mum quiet in TV series (4)
MA SH.
25 ISLE Man perhaps is on shortly (4)
IS LE(G).
27 NIKE Armani keen to show designer label (4)
Hidden in “Armani keen”.

*anagram

33 comments on “Guardian Prize 26,782 by Tramp”

  1. Thanks bridgesong. I liked all the Simpson stuff, and agree the 14A row ten was very neat. But it wasn’t as much fun as it should have been with several clues overly tortuous. Discovered STINGRAY o/l afterwards. Gave up on 7D.

  2. Agreed. Got there in the end, but some were put in first and only parsed, with difficulty, later.
    7d being a prime example. Chops=cakehole, tablet=cake, fix=hole – all the equalities are a bit tenuous and to have 3 in the same clue means the penny never really drops but is forced into place!

  3. A pleasant puzzle from Tramp. Not at the hardest end of his spectrum but still had some challenging clues.

    The ROW TEN device in 14A was amusing although I think it’s been done here before. (Possibly by Tramp?)

    I’d never heard of the film “UP” but the crossers for 20A made it inevitable.

    Yet again a theme which only occurs in the clues and basically no knowledge of the subject was required. (Except that perhaps knowing what “The Simpsons” was would have helped.) I suppose that this idea makes the setting more interesting and does add a little piquancy to the solving..

    A well clued and enjoyable puzzle.

    Thanks to bridgesong and Tramp

    P.S. I disagree with Mr Beaver @2 in that I think that chops=cakehole, tablet=cake, fix=hole are all fine. (the weakest appeared to be cakehole but Collins has this as “mouth”.)

  4. I think I agree with molonglo. Impressively clever, and NETWORK was neat, although I wonder how many actually got it from the wordplay? Like most of these sort of puzzles, there was an element of contrivance – very neat contrivance – to it, and I felt I admired it somewhat more than I enjoyed it in places. But well done, Tramp! I haven’t checked too carefully, but I think only T-BAR actually needed you to know anything about the TV show at all, namely that the Simpson boy was called Bart. I thought it was almost a pity it didn’t have Bart explicitly in the clue – it’s such a small leap from Simpson boy to Bart that it hardly makes it significantly easier, and then there would have been a whole Simpsons themed-puzzle that was in fact nothing about them at all. My favourite was CODES, just for the really neat misdirection.

    Thanks for the blog, bridgesong.

  5. Thanks Tramp and bridgesong.

    This was way too hard for me. I managed to fill in the SE quadrant but only half of the remaining clues, even after going back to it several times in the week. I was certain PIGEON was correct, I parsed it as PIG (to gorge) and EON (time), so could not insert RENEGADES at 12a (anyway it lacked an E).

  6. Thanks bridgesong [et al!]

    Well, my heart leaped, as always, when I saw Tramp’s name on this but then sank just as rapidly when I read the first clue, as I have no interest whatsoever in the Simpsons. I know, of course, that with Tramp’s puzzles, there is usually no need of any actual knowledge of the theme but I found the very thought of it off-putting.

    However, as I worked through the clues, Tramp worked his usual magic and I found myself enjoying the solve almost as much as ever. I knew just enough about the Simpsons to appreciate the DUSTY and PIGEON clues and I was looking out for a marge = SPREAD-type clue from the beginning.

    Lots of excellent clues: particular favourite was NETWORK and I loved the Morse / Lewis connection, too. CAKEHOLE held out to the very end and fell with a great thud.

    Many thanks, Tramp, for winning me over – but you’d never catch me watching The Simpsons! 😉

  7. KeithS @4 You’re right, I forgot that one needed to know Bart’s name for T-BAR’s wordplay.

    I must agree with Eileen in saying that I also would never watch the Simpsons! I must admit to perhaps subliminal knowledge of the subject though. On my 9 year sojourn in Germany I was forced to stay over every other weekend. Sundays would be spent in the local Irish bar for the company and TV football. Unfortunately The Simpsons on “Sky” was bizarrely cult viewing. I of course had my back firmly towards the TV and my eyes on the Guardian prize or Killer Sudoku. I still can’t understand why adults are so taken with such puerile and repetitive “humour”?

  8. Thanks, all for your comments. Cookie, I’ve updated the blog because you made me realise that I had left out the parsing – sorry about that.

    KeithS, I agree that you did need to know about Bart Simpson to understand the clue, so to that extent my initial comment about not needing any specialised knowledge of the Simpsons was inaccurate.

  9. Did anybody else wonder whether a furry pet you keep in a hutch is related to a horned Himalayan mammal? (19a)

  10. Thanks Tramp and bridgesong. I enjoyed working my way through this, until I got to 7d which took me an unaccountably long time to see.

    As an inveterate non-watcher of American TV I came to the Simpsons late, but better late than never. Peurile? Maybe a bit, sometimes. It leaves most (all?) UK TV standing when it comes to satire, irony and intellectual references. Try Googling “Simpsons science” – you might be surprised.

  11. Thanks for the super blog bridgesong and thanks to others for the comments.

    I wrote this in August 2013. I’d taken my wife to Rome to celebrate ten years of marriage and I spent a lot of the time writing clues. Amazingly, we’re still married.

    I have only ever seen one episode of The Simpsons, but I did enjoy it.

    Admittedly, CAKEHOLE was difficult but it was a Prize puzzle. Ok, most people won’t get the answer from the wordplay alone but then most cryptic clues have two ways of arriving at the answer and I think it’s reasonable for one clue in the puzzle (for an entry with 50% checking) to be mainly gettable from the definition. Mr Beaver @2: “all the equalities are a bit tenuous”. I don’t accept that but I do admit CAKE HOLE is two words in Chambers and I hadn’t realised that.

    Neil

  13. A real struggle, but most of the troublesome clues were very satisfying when solved. I too don’t watch The Simpsons but, as with all good themed cryptics, special knowledge of the theme wasn’t required (Bart being the son is surely widely known).

    I couldn’t parse ISLE as I didn’t remember that “on” = “leg”. I considered a convoluted alternative (break “shortly” down to “short” + “le(a)/le(e)” as a homophone of “-ly”) but I couldn’t convince myself that it might be correct. I gave up completely on CAKEHOLE.

    Favourites included 17a for the nice misdirection leading to DUSTY rather than a resident of “Springfield” and CODES for more misdirection, with “Morse” suggesting a different “Lewis”.

    Thanks, Tramp and bridgesong.

  14. Thanks to setter and blogger. Like others, my heart sank on seeing the extensive Simpsons references, since this is part of my teenage kids cultural frame of reference rather than mine. So jolly well done to Tramp for such a coup de theatre – with only 6D requiring any Simpsons knowledge at all (and even I knew of Bart !)

    I got network and tourniquet from the crossers and definition, the parsing eluded me until this blog.

    Cakehole and schwa remained blank in my grid, both pretty tough but fair !

    Enjoyed Dusty, codes and especially the small but very well formed YAK !

  15. I have seen the Simpsons occasionally but I can’t say I know much about them. Still, as long as you knew their names—. I thought this pretty good. I got NETWORK without seeing the wordplay and CAKEHOLE took a long time to see. I liked DUSTY,YOSEMITE and SCHWA – pleased to get that one- oh,and QURAN!
    Thanks Tramp.

  16. Thanks bridgesong. Sadly stumped by SNIPERS and CAKEHOLE, but much to enjoy otherwise. I feel sorry for those who’ve never sampled The Simpsons – about as subtle and clever as TV gets, if you can see past the fact that it’s a cartoon, and thus assume it’s puerile!

  17. great fun from Tramp. CAKEHOLE was my last entry too, by some margin, although it is a word I often heard during my Sheffield schooldays (when it was generally featured in a phrase pronounced “shut thi K. Coil”)

  19. Thanks to Tramp and bridgesong. As a US solver I knew SCHWA, pieced out DUSTY and YAK, got ISLE (though I had forgot “on” = “leg”), and did get MAGGIE MAY (my last in near the end of the week), but STINGRAY and CAKEHOLE (despite having all the vowel crossers) defeated me.

  21. Loved it, thanks Tramp. No specialist knowledge needed, as ever with your themed crosswords.

    CAKEHOLE took an age, but SCHWA was relatively simple as (a) one of my languages degree papers, many years ago, was linguistics, & (b) it was clued by Crucible in spring 2013 – somehow I have a memory for these things, sorry!

  22. DuncT @10

    I assume you’re taking the p*** with your Simpsons comments!

    I did Google Simpson’s Science and was massively underwhelmed. Surely it’s well known that the writers enjoy putting esoteric scientific/mathematical jokes in the episodes but that doesn’t improve the plot lines/humour.

    The references do vary between mainly banal and occasionally unfathomable so what’s the use in that. For instance, how many people would recognise that the numbers 8,128, 8,208 and 8,191 as represented as predictions for the attendance in “Marge and Homer Turn a Couple Play” at the baseball ground. The first is a perfect number, the second is a narcissistic number and the third is a Mersenne prime. I suspect that nobody on the planet would in the time provided. This is just sixth form common room stuff.

    It leaves most (all?) UK TV standing when it comes to satire, irony and intellectual references.

    What UK TV are you referring to here? I can’t believe that you are really claiming that no UK TV programme can match the Simpsons for satire, irony and intellectual references.

    Perhaps you are! (Or perhaps this is some kind of recursive irony? 😉 )

  23. Quite a tricky but entertaining challenge. CAKEHOLE was last in and I was never 100% sure it was right.

    Thanks to Tramp and bridgesong

  24. Thanks to Tramp for an entertaining puzzle and to bridgesong for the parsing. I particularly enjoyed 13D and 14A. All the same a sad day. I’d managed to complete all 2016 puzzles and then 2 failures in a day. See cooments on today’s Imogen too. I knew the possible meanings for cake, hole, and cakehole but didn’t put them together until bridgesong helped. The fact that I didn’t know that “Up” is a film led me to question USE UP though it couldn’t be anything else. Correctly guessed MELANOCYTE but wrongly entered PHONESISM – it depends on how much of The Simpsons you frame.

  25. Thanks Bridgesong. Your blog asks “Why is it we?” in 21. Because “Snipers” is plural.
    As for people who comment on a programme they’ve never watched, well that’s your choice, but there’s a touch of the Mary Whitehouse about it.

  27. Another classic Tramp puzzle with excellent use of theme. MOTHERBOARD especially was a belter.

    Can’t see how anyone who’d watched it closely would describe the Simpsons as puerile, though it probably has gone on too long now. Some of the early ones especially were brilliant.

  28. Late to post, and I’m sure everyone’s moved on.

    I enjoyed this, including all the Simpsons references. CAKEHOLE eluded me; indeed, I still don’t know how tablet = cake or fix = hole. STINGRAY also did not go in for me, since I don’t know that show.

    I can understand disliking the Simpsons, but I don’t get people posting here who apparently dislike it sight unseen. And the show does have more sophisticated humor than some here are giving it credit for. Incidentally, it’s not aimed at a younger audience at all–it was marketed at adults from the start, which was nearly 30 years ago. So the show now has middle-aged fans who grew up with it. (I’m not one of them; I have nothing against the show, I’ve just never been a faithful watcher, whether when it debuted (in my early teens) or since.)

    Perhaps this is another example of how Americans and Brits do not share the same sense of humor. De gustibus non est disputandum.

  29. Thanks Tramp and bridgesong

    Completed the puzzle this last weekend and found it a lot tougher than some. For some reason the themed clues blocked me and even slightly irritated which was very unusual. Anyway, as with Eileen, the magic of Tramp’s clueing warmed me into the task at hand !

    As with others, CAKEHOLE was my last in – hadn’t heard the term since schooldays I reckon. An interesting clue comprising of two slang words for the mouth and two ‘oblique’ definitions of the charade components.

    Had a little difficulty with a couple of the other TV series: STINGRAY (which I did not know and didn’t parse properly – went down the path of STING as the artist and struggled with the RAY bit) and what was expected at 21a (ended up going with an unparsed SLIDERS, which I also didn’t know instead of the ER one which I did, as a part of the answer that I didn’t get!).

    Guess it was appropriate to get an error in a crossword that I appreciated the clue constructions after getting them, but somehow didn’t enjoy as a whole as much as I normally do with this setter.

  30. mrpenney@28 – think of hole as being in a difficult or embarrassing position (as in being in a fix); according to Collins on line, a tablet is a flattish cake of a substance – like soap.

  31. mrpenney @28
    The Simpsons certainly have many loyal and enthusiastic fans on this side of the pond, as do many other US comedy shows.

    As for those of us who are not fans, I don’t think any of us have said explicitly that we have never watched any of it before deciding that we didn’t like it enough to watch it again. Even B(NTO) may have watched at least a few minutes in that German bar before deciding to resolutely ignore it, and others perhaps as much as a couple of episodes. Life is too short to spend a long time watching a programme in the hope we might grow to like it just because so many other people do.

    It’s nothing to do with it being a US show. Some of my favourite comedy shows have been US-made, and there are many UK ones I can’t stand (including some inexplicably popular in the US).

  32. Cinemagoer or not (I’m not), Simpson’s fan or not (I’m a huge fan), you’ve done yourself a disservice if you haven’t seen “UP”! If you aren’t charmed by that film, consult a physician.

    As for the puzzle, being a Simpson’s fan was certainly no help. I gave up after getting about half the solutions in. In ten years of trying, I would never have gotten CAKEHOLE, PIGEON and especially STINGRAY.

  33. Thanks bridgesong and Tramp.

    This was tough. And I made it tougher for myself by originally putting END UP at 20 and PAYDAY at 22 (PA being a fatherly man).

    Got there in the end but couldn’t properly parse STINGRAY or CAKEHOLE. I think that Brucew’s explanation nails it!

    Like many, my favourite was NETWORK.

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