Guardian Prize 26,824 by Tramp

40 comments on “Guardian Prize 26,824 by Tramp”

1. I had a horrible feeling that arcane knowledge of the band Supertramp was going to be needed here but happily this was not the case. This was rather an easy solve in the event but pleasant enough.
   Incidentally,in 31 ac it is EP which is reversed to give the answer ELOPE.
   Thanks Tramp.

2. On 13 August 2013 Tramp launched a crossword built around Supertramp, and here we have another one.
   If I remember well, in those days, our beloved setter was invited at Fifteensquared by band member John Helliwell to attend one of their concerts.
   Mr Helliwell being a fervent crossword solver
   Perhaps, that’s where this puzzle came from.
   Yesterday, one of the 60s/70s symphonic rock icons Keith Emerson died (suspected suicide, unfortunately).
   He was born in the same town as John Helliwelll, in Todmorden, only a year earlier.

   Back to the puzzle.
   I liked this one, a typical Tramp.
   No knowledge required about his SuperEgo.

   Many references to the band.
   Logical Song, Give A Little Bit, School,Breakfast In America and Goodbye Stranger are obvious.
   There are also hints of Right, Right, You’re Bloody Well Right (18ac) and a touch of Crime Of The Century (20ac).
   I also recall ‘another man’s woman’ (30ac) being used in one of their songs.
   And the Rick in 7d is surely Rick Davies, long time member of Supertramp.

   Liked this very much.
   Not very hard but ‘Tramp as Tramp can be’.
   For which thanks from the Dutch Jury.
   Douze points

3. Thanks PeeDee. A good test I thought but even with the bands and the TV show which I had to look up, not too arcane. I’m still not sure about 5d, it’s a bit obscure, and I agree with you about 24d, UV is not a colour. I hadn’t heard of the American breakfast Cheerios, where I come from they are small cocktail sausages.

4. I think it is the partner ‘missing us’, our relationship, being with me, wanting me.
   You may be right on UV, though.

5. Thanks PeeDee and Tramp for a good challenge. I own the BIA album; didn’t much dig these references; didn’t matter. The NE (except 8D) took ages. Lots of excellent pitfalls and relieved escapes yielding SOUPCON, EMCEE etc. Last in was 4D, with the 4th and last ‘record’ clue.

6. Thanks to Tramp and PeeDee. I needed help parsing KNOW-ALL, but did parse STITCHING (it took me much of the week) without getting the operating theatre connection. An enjoyable challenge.

7. Thanks Tramp and PeeDee

   The Supertramp references passed me by, except where they were thrust in my face, so thanks also to Sil for pointing them out.
   I am not sure if this is suggested by the blog, but in 5D MISSUS, I took US as simply colloquial for ‘me’.

8. Tricky for me – I hadn’t come across ‘picked up’ as a homophone indicator before, and struggled for word reversals.
   Although UV light is invisible, UV light *fixtures* are coloured – they give out plenty of violet.
   Thanks all.

9. This is the first Saturday crossword I have attempted – Mrs B and I had a relaxing weekend away and I had time on Saturday to ease(!) myself into a crossword.

   It was a cracker. It took me a fair while, but it was one of the best I have ever tackled. Four clues in particular were difficult to parse at first:
   10A (STITCHING), 13A (TONIGHT), 22A (KNOW-ALL) and 26/28D (STAR TREK)
   but parse them I did, and they were the most rewarding of all to solve. I had several other favourites.

   I solved this unaided and didn’t spot the theme. Naturally, I spotted more than one reference to Supertramp, but that mean anything to me, apart from the obvious similarity to ‘Tramp’. So thanks to Sil @2 for giving me all that background. [Btw Sil, I added a brief late post on 9 Mar in answer to yours.]

   Thanks and congratulations to Tramp for making my day.

   I was and still am puzzled a bit about:
   15A (SOUPÇON) – ‘give’?
   3D (ADOS) – is ‘over’ in the wrong place?
   5D (MISSUS) – ‘me’?

   Apart from these I had no doubts or queries.

   Thanks also to PeeDee for the blog.

10. I started this thinking there was a good chance Tramp would work in a nod to W.H.Davies, or to “What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare?”

    Not to worry, enjoyed it anyway and spent most of the week singing old Supertramp songs to myself.

    Thanks Tramp & PeeDee (& both Supertramps !)

11. An enjoyable puzzle although I admit Supertramp meant nothing to me.

    I notice that the online puzzle no longer gives a ‘check’ button for the prize crossword.

12. Alan @ 9 – I took the ‘Give’ in 15a to be a link word; i.e. Well + excited + do collectively ‘give’ the answer.
    In 3D we have a bit of Yoda-speak, I think. Put a comma in and you have ‘over big, promotion’… sort of works for me.
    5D – that’s how I took it too.
    Liked the puzzle very much. Thought it interesting that my fellow bloggers over at idothei objected to ‘Westlife’ being in a puzzle this week – despite having had 14 number ones – yet Supertramp gets a whole theme on the back of an all time high of Number 7 for ‘The Logical Song’ in 1979. Is this a question of taste, I wonder, or a reflection of the age of the average solver?

13. Sorry, 5D I meant ‘us’ is Northern dialect for ‘me’ – I guess that’s what Tramp meant.

14. Cornick @13, perhaps the Queen uses it, remember the Royal “we”.

15. Cornick @12 (and 13)

    Thanks very much for your answers to my queries. I sussed the first of these (‘give’) after I posted my comment, and I agree with your answer.

    As for 3D (ADOS), you must be right, but it’s not a construction I would use. Now I see it I remember having come across this device a couple of times before.

16. Thanks all for the comments. Thanks to PeeDee for the blog.

    Regarding 15a, Cornick is correct. (plural) give answer.
    As for 5d, PeterO and others are correct: “us” is “me”, as in “give us a chance”.

    Sil is right. I have always been a Supertramp fan and I did write another puzzle incorporating a lot of their album titles into the clues. My twin brother and I used to save up our dinner money at school to surreptitiously buy Supertramp cassettes from Our Price in Wigan; this is why we were five stone wet-through during our early teens in the ’80s. Legendary sax man, John Helliwell, does the Guardian cryptic every day (and Indies when he can) and, through crosswords, has become a friend of mine. He’s a top bloke, lives 30 miles from me, and bought me breakfast in Grange a couple of years ago. As Sil says, I also got to watch him rehearse for a concert he did at his alma mater, the RNCM.

    Supertramp were to play the London O2 last December as part of their Supertramp Forever tour. My brother and I had tickets to go. I knocked up this puzzle to coincide with the event. Unfortunately, the tour was cancelled, due to ill health of their founding member and leader , Rick Davies, and so we pulled the puzzle. Hugh decided to use it last weekend.

    Neil

    (I hope this post reads ok because the preview button no longer works for me).

17. …it should have read:

    Regarding 15a, Cornick is correct: charades (plural) give answer.

18. Thanks Tramp and PeeDee.

    This took me several days to solve, but it was enjoyable. Here is an interesting artcle on UV vision.

19. Tramp @16

    Thanks for popping in. I’m only sorry your theme meant nothing to me. (I’ve heard of Supertramp – please don’t think I’m that dim!) After reading all about the band on this page I feel I must have missed something in my life – nice to see all that enthusiasm.

    And you are so lucky to have a ready-made answer (STAR TREK) to Supertramp as a clue. You should save it up and use it again some time. I’m sure to forget, and I can solve it all over again. That was probably the best of my best four today (referring to an earlier post).

20. A pleasant enough puzzle from Tramp loosely themed around the group Supertramp.

    Not too challenging though as it succumbed rather too quickly.

    It did have the benefit of reminding me that I saw Supertramp in the very early 1970s at the Amethyst Club in Preston. (this was an Irish club all week but on Thurday nights became a progressive music venue. Oooooooh). It was so small and crowded that the saxophonist, who was playing two saxes at once at the time passed out due to lack of oxygen! (Great days 😉 )

    In trying to find the date of this early Supertramp gig I was reminded that I saw Principal Edwards Magic Theatre at the same venue. (Anyone remember them?)

    Sorry about the waffle but this was more interesting than the rather anodyne puzzle.

    Thanks to PeeDee and Tramp.

21. Thanks Tramp and PeeDee

    As per normal, only started on this one today and found it another entertaining puzzle from the Tramp with his characteristic surface-based theme. Grew up with this band, so many of the song / album names leapt from the clues at me.

    Found it a medium hard puzzle that took a couple of looks before getting it completed. Had to give up on the parsing of TONIGHT, even though it had to be right.

    Finished in the NE corner with NITRIC (took some time to realise that I had to get a homophone of ‘knight’ not NIT to finally write it in), MISSUS (had no ideas until the answer fell out of the sky to me) and STITCHING (finally worked it out by the word play … with the penny crashing on me about the operating theatre and not the stage one !)

22. great puzzle by Tramp, summed up perfectly by Sil, I thought. Thanks to all

23. My comment @18 was very short because I had made an error, but going through the Supertramp songs I feel I should own up.
    I found one titled “Fool’s Overture” – I entered OVERTURE, before performance, at 19d, which lead to other incorrect answers.

    Thanks again Tramp.

24. …I wonder if 19d was to catch half-baked solvers? If so, bravo Tramp – I have followed your advice at 23d.

25. OFF TOPIC – (well sort of) First I would like to say that I very much enjoy Tramp’s crosswords and last Saturday’s was no exception and also very much appreciate his taking part in the blog. [edited…]

26. Now that the storm has eased down, I would like to make two amendments to my post @2.
    I wrote: “I also recall ‘another man’s woman’ (30ac) being used in one of their songs”.
    Actually, ‘Another Man’s Woman’ is the title of a song on Breakfast In America.
    Secondly, there was also a nod to ‘Take The Long Way Home’ (from Crisis? What Crisis?)) in 10d.

27. Sil @26, there is also a nod to “If everyone was listening” at 12a.

28. Another Man’s Woman was on album Crisis? What Crisis? and Take the Long Way Home was from Breakfast in America. There was also a nod to School from Crime of the Century.

29. Thanks all
    As usual a theme ecapes me completely.Just as well in this case as my in depth pop knowledge stems from earlier than ST!
    When is someone going to post a Little Richard themed puzze,I cannot wait for Miss Molly to rip it up.

30. Thanks all
    As usual a theme ecapes me completely.Just as well in this case as my in depth pop knowledge stems from earlier than ST!
    When is someone going to post a Little Richard themed puzze,I cannot wait for Miss Molly to rip it up

31. I’ll see what I can do.

    Thanks for the comments.

32. Found this one pretty tough but in retrospect it is not obvious why.

    Thanks to Tramp and PeeDee

33. Well well, you got me there, Tramp!
    Thought about formulating my comment @26 carefully, then allocated the two songs to the wrong albums.
    ‘Right right, you’re bloody well right’.
    I was not …..

34. Unlike Alan Browne, I am dim enough never to have heard of Supertramp, and also dim emough not to think of googling it, so didn’t even find out that it’s a band. All those funny-looking phrases that were really song titles went right past me. Oh, well, I’m sure I’m good at something else.

35. Thanks Tramp and PeeDee.

    I saw Supertramp at the Empire Pool Wembley in the late 70’s and was a semi-fan ( although more into Prog Rock so gutted to hear about Keith Emerson over the weekend).

    Bloody Well Right! This is a great puzzle with some particularly clever constructions such as STITCHING, SOUPÇON and TONIGHT (my favourite).

    Of course, to American readers, 18ac will look odd – the Democrats there are Blue and the Republicans are Red.

    I wonder how that difference emerged?

36. Hamish – if I remember rightly the modern use of blue and red for socialist vs capitialist originated in the French revolution. I seem to remember that even then red was adopted by both sides at various times as ‘their’ colour.

    I think 18dn would work for Americans as red is recognised worldwide as the colour of communism, regardless of local party politics.

37. So, nobody heard of “Principal Edwards….” then? Pity.

    Just an addenda to say that “Supertramp were a great innovative progressive rock band up until their release of “Crime of the Century”. Rumour has it that the title actually refers to their decision to “sell out” and spew out mainstream Rock Pop Pap!

    Following the 10cc model they had a string of monster hits with a lot of the “same old shite”. Of course they made “loadsamoney” so who can blame them? Utter tripe though and a great loss.

    So who cares which song was on which album, I don’t.All the same, all shite! 😉

38. I’ve heard of Principal Edwards etc, but I can’t remember what they sounded like. Personally, I thought Supertramp were bloody awful!

39. Tramp@31
    If you do I will send you some lovin’.

40. I hadn’t heard of Supertramp either but managed to solve the puzzle in spite of this. I only object to themed puzzles where specialised knowledge is essential. Thank you Tramp. My LOI was 7d in the absence of any alternative and I’m not sure that I would have solved it any earlier if I’d realised, as I should have, that “picked up” indicates a homophone. Thanks to PeeDee for the parsing.

Comments are closed.