I spent a rather uneasy week after the S and B gathering at Macclesfield: when I told Maskarade that I would be blogging his Bank Holiday special, he chortled and told me with, I thought, unseemly relish for such a genial man, that it was ‘a real stinker’ – something he had never done before nor ever seen done before. He offered to show me the preamble on his phone but I declined: ‘Sufficient unto the day…’ [and I couldn’t be bothered to get my glasses out, anyway.]
It was something of a relief, then, to open my paper the next Saturday to find instructions that I could immediately understand:
Each solution includes a repeated letter, not referred to in its clue’s wordplay. These letters in 52 of the solutions cover the full alphabet [A to Z] twice: once separately, as in EvEry, and once as a double letter, as in wEEk. The solutions to the other six asterisked clues require a third appearance of the letters from the word TALKER.
What a task Maskarade had set himself! – and what an amazing feat of grid-filling, which, inevitably, involved the inclusion of some rather obscure words*, but the cluing was immaculate and, with some witty surfaces, I found the whole solving experience fun rather than a slog. I did it over two and a bit sessions, coming to a complete standstill on Saturday, when nearly halfway through, then getting second wind very early Sunday morning and running out of time, as I was out all day, leaving just a handful for Monday.
[*This time, I have not provided links or explanations for all the obscure words – the definitions are underlined, so you can have some fun googling, if you haven’t already.]
It was evident from the start that it would be helpful to keep a record of the letters used and this worked well until the very end, where I realised I had made a mistake in my record-keeping, which made solving the last handful impossible and I needed a gentle hint or two from Gaufrid to sort out the top right corner. My thanks to him.
Huge thanks to Maskarade for a most absorbing and enjoyable Bank Holiday experience. Bravissimo!
Across
1 Quarterback in France about two miles out, in the shade? (9)
TURQUOISE
Reversal [back] of QR [quarter] in TOISE [‘about two miles out'[side] – but Chambers says this is ‘an old French lineal measure equivalent to 6.395ft [very nearly 2m]’, so there seems to be a typo here – miles for metres]
11 Chin and a toe injured down the pub (2,3,5)
IN THE LOCAL
Anagram [injured] of CHIN and A TOE
12 Resorts for personal assistant (4)
SPAS
PA [personal assistant]
13 Land that’s promised half the drug (6)
CANAAN
CANN[abis] [drug]
14 Smartly eccentric nobody regularly dismissed (5)
KOOKY
[n]O[b]O[d]Y
15 30 initially and one other state (4)
OHIO
H[oosier] [30dn] + I [one]
16 Girl goes round front of ancient necropolis (7)
SAQQARA
SARA [girl] round A[ncient]
19 Bird — one with appeal (5)
PIPIT
I [one] + IT [sex appeal]
21 WW2 headquarters in Europe nearly out of the sun (6)
SHADED
SHAE[f] [Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary [force] – nearly]
23 Great ruler’s home is active (8)
PADISHAH
PAD [home] IS A [active]
25 Share home improvements (5)
DIVVY
DIY [home improvements]
26 Sheep returning round one gallows (6)
GIBBET
Reversal [returning] of TEG [ a sheep in its second year] round I [one]
29 Restrain Lutoslawski’s humour — it’s showing signs of age (8)
WITHHOLD
Two bits of wordplay – WITOLD Lutoslawski, Polish composer and conductor and WIT [humour] + OLD [showing signs of age]
32 Cool-hearted and more generous craftsman (10)
BOOKBINDER
[c]OO[l] + KINDER [more generous]
33 Old Gore has to speak out to Clinton — here? (4,6)
OVAL OFFICE
O [old] + VOICE [speak] out[side] AL [Gore]
35 Irish lad exchanges money for grand birds (8)
SEAGULLS
SEA[m]US [Irish lad] with m[money] changed to G [grand]
37 Told a descendant of Fatima (6)
SAYYID
SAID [told]
38 Cubism regularly presents Palestinian coins (5)
ZUZIM
[c]U[b]I[s]M
39 Puts forward and petitions for street backing (8)
SUGGESTS
SUES [petitions] + reversal [backing] of ST [street]
42 Repeatedly state: “Talisman” (6)
GRIGRI
RI RI [Rhode Island – state – repeatedly]
46 Oil company associated with spill — one needing reform (5)
EXXON
Anagram [needing reform] of ONE
47 Tide’s out and up! (7)
STIRRED
Anagram [out] of TIDES
49 Independent English or Scottish kingdom (4)
FIFE
I [independent] + E [English]
50 Holidaymaker in Cornwall returning type of shirt (5)
EMMET
Reversal [returning] of TEE [type of shirt]
54 It can remove errors — no problem (6)
ERASER
EASE [no problem]
55 *Small former colony’s ritual dance (4)
HAKA
HK [Hong Kong – small former colony]
56 *Fancy cord twisted backing CV (10)
DECORATIVE
Anagram [twisted] of CORD + VITA [CV]
57 Christie’s Orient Express finishing food cut to shreds (9)
JULIENNES
JULIE [Christie] + E [Orient] + [expres]S
Down
2 Scandinavian university with American wing (7)
UPPSALA
US [American] + ALA [wing]
3 Nissan model remains on the Great North Road (7)
QASHQAI
ASH [remains] + A1 [the Great North Road]
4 Fall on the same day and time in Bow (5)
OCCUR
[h]OUR [time in Bow, East London – what a pity that the ‘h’ is silent wherever you live! I didn’t know that meaning of OCCUR, referring to festivals
5 *It flies to the boundaries of Ethiopia (2,2)
EL AL
E[thiop]A
6 *Popular member of a 60s’ group? (4)
KINK
IN [popular]
7 *Essential oil for bosom, even? (4)
OTTO
Even letters of [b]O[s]O[m]
8 Owner may regularly discover pottery (6)
WEMYSS
[o]W[n]E[r] M[a]Y
9 Oil ring round graduate (6)
JOJOBA
O [ring] + O [round] + BA [graduate]
10 31 days in France and Spain for the dance (6)
MAXIXE
MAI [May – 31 days – in French] + E [Spain]
17 Half the holiday homes are of use (5)
AVAIL
VIL[las] [holiday homes]
18 Sparkling team gets draw (5)
VIVID
II [team] + D [draw]
20 Young lovers changing boots (3,4)
TOY BOYS
Anagram [changing] of BOOTS
22 Acknowledging prince’s no good (7)
HAILING
HAL [Prince] + NG [no good]
23 Those captured outside first brought in to discussion groups (7)
POWWOWS
O[utside] in POWS [prisoners of war – those captured]
24 Gods with some plant yielding vapour (7)
DITTANY
DI [gods – a plural of deus [I was surprised to find both words in an English dictionary] + ANY [some]
27 Breakfast crockery suggested for old Scottish copper coins (7)
BODDLES
BOLES [sounds like – suggested – bowls [breakfast crockery]: I had only the B at this point and ‘knew’ the answer must be BAWBEES, so spent a stupidly long time trying to justify it [it had a double ‘e’ and this was quite early on in the solve]; I consulted a list of Scottish coins and bawbee was the only one with the right number of letters, then, eventually, it occurred to me that ‘bodle’ [in the list] might also be spelt with a double ‘d’, consulted Chambers and there it was
28 For a short time, an American warship forces past (7)
THRUSTS
HR [a short time] USS [American warship]
30 Nickname of state or, possibly, shire (7)
HOOSIER
Anagram [possibly] of SHIRE – Indiana is known as The Hoosier State
31 Poor weather troubled idler (7)
DRIZZLE
Anagram [troubled] of IDLER
34 Relict‘s vow (5)
WIDOW
I DO [vow]
36 Opponents accepting question for stage play (5)
EQUUS
ES [opponents in Bridge] round Q [question]
40 Small figure missing from coin made of clay (7)
EARTHEN
[f]ARTH[i]N[g] [small coin] minus fig [small figure]
41 Pedigree blocked by one fan of TV series (7)
TREKKIE
I [one] in TREE [pedigree]
43 *Attacker‘s assistant (6)
RAIDER
AIDE [assistant]
44 Monkey injured rogue right away (6)
GUENON
Anagram [injured] of [r]OGUE [minus right]
45 Purgative from island vegetable (6)
IPECAC
I [island] + PEA [vegetable]
48 Leading two oriental rickshaws to Shinto gateway (5)
TORII
First letters of Two Oriental Rickshaws
51 Lame adult on island (4)
MAIM
A [adult] + I [island]
52 Speaker’s empty, turning up empty (4)
TEEM
Reversal [turning up] of MT [sounds a bit like – ‘Speaker’s’ – ’empty’]
53. This year’s pilgrimage (4)
HAJJ
H A [hoc anno – this year]
Thanks Eileen and I agree with your preamble. This was very clever indeed. I didn’t collect the letters until afterwards and only then learned the importance of TALKER which helped me resolve THRUSTS which I had down as a double S. A really enjoyable challenge and so many new words to impress mates: BODDLES, MAXIXE, TORII and ZUZIM etc, thank goodness for Google.
I suppose Clinton in 33A should be underlined as part of the definition, not the wordplay.
This was hugely fun, and not too terribly difficult. (Today’s Prize, by contrast, seems more like an Everyman.)
I was thrown off by 20: I’d never heard of TOY BOY, but BOY TOY is common here (is this a UK/US difference?), and either word works with the wordplay: I was then left with 19 unsolved. Thanks for setting me straight, Eileen, and thanks to Maskarade for a great challenge.
It was a great puzzle. Lots of tricks. ‘Saqqara’ seems sometimes to be spelled ‘Sakkara’ but Trekkie eventually knocked that out, and I had a similar problem with ‘Hadj’ and “Hajj’. And for quite some time I had ‘Morris’ at 10d — French mois and the double ‘RR”, and being a sort of dance. Just the wrong sort, as it happened.
Sometimes I take the holiday puzzles into the garden and try them in a hammock. In this case, I am afraid that I needed Google too much for that to work.
It must have taken ages and a deal of effort to set.
My first attempt at a Bank Holiday special, and what fun. I had to stop at around 60% filled in to cook Sunday lunch, but went back for a couple of sessions throughout the week armed with multiple Google tabs. I had the retrace which letters I had used to solve the last few – “Divvy” was my LOI, though it should have fallen on the first pass.
Thank you Maskarade and Eileen for puzzle and blog.
4 Iroquois
It may well be a UK/US thing, as you say. A toy boy is something like the partner of a cougar, which I assume might be a US concept?
Maskarade’s puzzle was a really brilliant piece of work. It’s a pity that the instructions in the rubric were given so confusingly. Missing letters in 52 solutions cover the full alphabet not twice but four times and the solutions to the asterisked clues require third and fourth appearances of the letters in TALKER.
Congratulations to both Maskarade and Eileen
I too tried to keep a record of which letter combinations I had used, but got a bit confused when I had some unparsed answers (OCCUR, for instance) and solutions with more than one double letter. Nevertheless I eventually finished – on Monday, which I suppose is the point of a Bank Holiday special.
Two quibbles (apart from the typo in 1a): “no problem” in ERASER means “easy” to me, not “ease”, and I tried hard to find CV = “vita” but failed – all the references I could find have “vitae”.
WIDOW was the standout for me.
Oh, I was another MORRIS for ages. I knew the French for “month” and assumed from the clue that it was the same word in Spanish; it isn’t!
Another amazing feat of grid-filing, and a very enjoyable crossword to solve. Armed with the right reference material it was fairly straightforward, since the obscure solutions were all fairly clued. A few unfamiliar words must be unavoidable.
Thanks to Maskarade and Eileen
Thanks, both. As a correspondent in the Guardian said, comparable with some of Auraucaria’s Bank Holiday treats. No higher praise than that.
What an engaging and satisfying puzzle, to which is added immense admiration for the grid-filling. I visualise Maskerade going through life noting down useful double-lettered words before being able to start. LOI at breakfast on Monday morning provides just the right degree of challenge.
Absolutely brilliant crossword! Congratulations to Maskarade. And thank you very much Eileen.
My only mistake was on 57 across. I saw ‘cut’ as a past participle, therefore entering ‘julienned’ (finishing fooD). Now I realise I’d left out the word ‘express’ in my parsing.
It was an exhilarating puzzle through and through.
Eileen, the blog is scarcely less magnificent that Maskarade’s puzzle! Bravissimo indeed.
Lovely puzzle which, once I’d deciphered the instructions, I enjoyed very much. Lots of help required from Mr Google and, in my case, Mrs PA. It took until Monday am to complete the puzzle,but, as Muffin says,this is probably the point of a Bank holiday puzzle. LOI BODDLES.
Thanks Maskarade.
Hi muffin @9
If you look up ‘vita’ rather than CV in Chambers, you’ll find it. [Vita is the nominative case, meaning life: in curriculum vitae it’s the genitive, meaning course of life.] And I think you could say ‘I solved the puzzle with ease / no problem’ – but perhaps not this one. 😉
Very little to say after reading the blog up to here.
It was an amazing feat by Maskarade to construct this. Several words were of oourse unknown, but the clueing was so good that everything was gettable.
I needed help in fully understanding 1A (TURQUOISE) and 40D (EARTHEN), but Eileen has explained them. I was stuck only on 27D (BODDLES), but that broke eventually.
Congratulations to Maskarade and thanks to Eileen.
Thanks Eileen
I knew that you wouldn’t have missed it if it was wrong! However I’m still not quite clear how the clue works – doesn’t the V in CV stand for VITAE, then?
Hi muffin
‘…doesn’t the V in CV stand for VITAE, then?’ – I think that’s what I said. 😉
Hi Eileen
We’re a bit at cross purposes, I think. If the V stands for VITAE, why is the anagram fodder just VITA?
Hi muffin @20
I was equally unable to fully parse 56, but see now in online Collin’s under vita (‘US & Canadian) a less common term for curriculum vitae’ – I have to say I have never seen or heard it used this way in real life.
Thanks Eileen for excellent blog on very fine puzzle.
Superb puzzle and blog. Thank you to both Maskarade and Eileen.
Muffin – DECORATIVE is an anagram of CORD followed by a reversal of VITA (which means CV) with Es inserted. ‘Vitae’ is irrelevant.
Thanks timr and PeeDee
PeeDee = “VITA (which means CV)”. But the normal meaning of CV is Curriculum Vitae -though timr has found the required, more obscure, VITA, it seems.
muffin – not picking the ‘normal’ meaning is what cryptics are all about 😉
….as long as the “abnormal” one actually exists, PeeDee! It seems now that it does, though I wasn’t the only one never to have heard of it.
Thanks Maskarade for a fantastic puzzle, and Eileen for a great blog.
This is the first time I have attempted one of these puzzles, but I plucked up courage to have a go after managing Maskarade’s cryptic a few weeks ago. I failed to complete the top right corner having XERXES for the pottery.
1a is fine, that should be 6,395 ft – Larousse gives 1,949 m for a TOISE.
Cookie, don’t the French use commas for decimal points? Written in French 1,949 meters would be approximately two yards?
Hi muffin
Not ignoring you – I got diverted – but it seems cleared up now: thanks to Peedee @23.
@27, sorry, Eileen, I am wrong, that is an error at 1a – the French use a comma, not a decimal point! Also a TOISE was used to measure the height of people!
PeeDee @28, yes indeed, sorry, we crossed.
Hi Cookie
“Also a TOISE was used to measure the height of people!” Thanks for that. 😉
Thanks Eileen
Actually, it was more timr’s discovery of the US/Canadian usage (@ 22) that resolved the problem for me.
Now that was fun. I’ve now done two Maskarade in rapid succession. Not being the fastest of solvers, I usually tackle whatever turns up in the Weekly over the weekend, then see if I think I have time to have a go at the latest prize on line. So I did his daily one from some time back (#26827) which was in last week’s Weekly and then reading the blog realised there was the Easter one coming up, so made a point of having a go. What an impressive piece of work! Well done, Maskarade. And I realised this was going to be a Googling exercise at some point, and I’d learn something new, which I certainly did. (That’s why i do crosswords rather than Sudoku – I already know all the numbers up to 9.) I learned a lot about the necropolises of the world – and even how many plurals necropolis can have. And right at the very end, with only 1 across left, I learned that I have some mental block about spotting that _u_q_o__e could be Turquoise, but fortunately my wife doesn’t. (And even then, I couldn’t parse it.) And I’ve also just realised that, like Manu @ 14 I fell into the ‘Julienned’ trap. But, it was fun, anyway. Thanks again for the puzzle, Maskarade, and thanks for that extended blog, Eileen.
Thanks to Eileen and Maskarade. Superb puzzle that held interest right to the end. I managed to keep track of the double letters, although I couldn’t immediately tell whether 23d was to be read as poWWows or powWoWs – obviously resolved when I got 34d).
IW@7: thanks for the explanation of TOY BOY–BOY TOY means the same thing (and yes, “cougar” is indeed US). In exchange for my difficulties with that phrase, I had no problem with the parsing of 56, as “vita” is a common synonym for “CV” over here–the two terms are about equally frequent, though not as common as “résumé.”
Iroquois @36. It is reassuring to have a sighting in the wild!!
Super puzzle and great blog. I thought I’d made a mistake as I didn’t have an XX word until I realised I had stupidly entered ENRON instead of EXXON.
I didn’t think the preamble was confusing.
Neil
Hi Tramp – I did that, too. 😉
I didn’t finish this until late last night, having tackled it over a few sessions during the week. It was fun, challenging, educational, at times frustrating, and a lot more possible adjectives. I initially found the part of the instructions referring to TALKER confusing as I thought it might mean that there were three occurrences of the relevant letter in those words, but that could be ruled out as soon as I realised that most of them were only 4 letters.
There were a few which I couldn’t fully parse. For TURQUOISE, I somehow convinced myself that QRT is a standard abbreviation for “quarter”, leaving me with no way to explain OISE. I didn’t know the ‘festival’ usage of OCCUR, so I was puzzled by “same day”. For DITTANY, I didn’t know that DI is the plural of “deus”, or even consider the possibility. For HAJJ, I didn’t know or find “hoc anno”. I too was side-tracked by “bawbees” for quite a while. Like muffin, I was unhappy about “vita” rather than “vitae”, but the comments here have explained that.
Many thanks, Maskarade and Eileen.
I too had MORRIS for the dance, which I stubbornly refused to give up perhaps because I used to take part! I also had JULIENNED, but EGGCUPS for the breakfast crockery left me defeated in the end.
jennyk @40
I didn’t check either vita or hoc anno at the time (having got both from my knowledge of Latin and assumed that they were ok), but I see that ‘ha’ for hoc anno as an abbreviation for ‘this year’ is in Chambers. vita is there also, but that has been covered already.
jennyk @40
I meant to add that di as an alternative plural for deus was a shock for me also, but it’s there – in Chambers again. My knowledge of Latin didn’t help me there – I only knew dei – but I imagine di might be in some Latin verse somewhere. (That’s not the same as being in English usage though.)
Thanks Maskarade and Eileen, that was a stunner from both parties, and very enjoyable too.
Flavia @ 3: once you’ve finished today’s prize (so I don’t think I’m spoiling), you may realise that there is a whole lot more going on than meets the eye. Remember who the setter is!
Call me old fashioned, but to me a good crossword is a challenge for the mind, not for the solver’s librarianship skills. Living where I do, I want a crossword that I can do on the beach, armed only with my brain, a biro and a beer or three. I don’t object at all to some general knowledge, but I don’t want to have to carry around a computer or reference books.
Yes, it may have been clever for the setter to have accomplished the feat of fitting in the extra letters (though it’s not really too difficult nowadays with reverse dictionaries and word finding applications) but, frankly, to what purpose?
Iroquois @ 36
Thanks — now I’ve learned something. In Australia, where I now live, ‘boy toys’ are just as likely to be things like fancy barbecues or power drills or what we call ‘quad bikes’ and you call (I think) ATVs or all-terrain vehicles. As Churchill said, we are divided by a common language.
David @45
Normally I would agree with you about having obscure words (or too many of them) in a crossword. In fact on Friday (a crossword by Pasquale) I posted the comment:
“Finding six words that I’ve never heard of plus one whose meaning I didn’t know was not the greatest pleasure for me today even though I generally like to learn as well as solve. This is just a matter of taste, though, and I wouldn’t decry anybody else’s enjoyment of new or obscure words. I like to spend most of my solving time away from references.”
However, Maskarade’s puzzle was a ‘holiday special’ prize puzzle that more or less invited you to spend some of the holiday on it. I acknowledge there were several words in it that are unfamiliar to nearly everybody, but a lot of them can be guessed from what in my opinion were pretty good clues, knowing you also have to add two identical additional letters. Assuming (as the setter probably did) that you would have a crack at this crossword over a day or two, or even longer, and would have access to references some of the time, I thought it was fair game to give us a lot to learn with this puzzle. Perhaps it’s a pity there wasn’t a ‘normal’ daily crossword to enjoy in the same day’s paper.
The pangarmmatic double letter idea has in fact been used before, sometime in the 1970s in The Listener. Some eagerbeaver may like to chase this up! ( was it a Sabre puzzle?).I remember that because it was the first time I became aware of EXXON — so I was indeed looking out for that word. But the repetition of the idea didn’t affect the level of my enjoyment.
Great fun! Well done Maskerade, and thanks Eileen for the parsing of a few that stumped me.
Does anyone have an online citation for occur=fall on the same day?
Gonzo @49
I found it in my Chambers, so presumably it’s in the online version.
Eileen, Maskerade…a huge thanks to both of you!
What, no alphabetic jigsaw on double grids!
Ok, then it was worth attempting. Completed by Sunday with a lot of research. Double letter device was great.
Keeping a tab on alphabets used jointly and severally helped a great deal till I had 4 RRs and only one II….till I figured out 48d, of course, was TORII and not TORRI
Maskerade should make weekday appearance without these trappings…his cluing is immaculate, as Eileen says.
Thanks Eileen for SHAEF (21a) which had been bugging me alll week; well, not enough to try the 26 possible last letters in Google, obviously, but you know what I mean…
Interesting post from Pasquale @48 and I must agree with Alan Browne’s points @47, but most off all thank you to Maskarade for a puzzle which was just perfect for my Bank Holiday.
Oh, and the preamble was fine, I thought.
Brilliant feat by Maskerade, but I’m afraid I got disheartened when I got KinK crossing KooKy and still don’t understand that, even though I hadn’t got hOOsier at that point.Can someone explain, please? I’m kicking myself about some of the solutions now, but I’m not sure I would have been able to complete it anyway.
PS On the other hand, did someone say yesterday’s Prize was too difficult? Unusually, I polished it off in one sitting!
Oops! Ok, the penny just dropped — talker.
Thanks Maskerade and Eileen.
Did this over 4 days and it was worth the time. I held myself up right at the end because I’d put RAIDER on my list of “R” words when it had an asterisk – so the last in was ERASER.
Still needed help to parse TURQUOISE and UPPSALA – thanks for explaining the former, I still don’t get why ALA = wing. Can anyone explain?
Got some serious catching up to do now!
Hi Hamish
ALA is actually Latin for wing but it’s in all my English dictionaries, mainly with a botanical meaning, so you should be able to find it.
52d – why does teem mean empty?
jane @57
I took it as referring to rain – it’s teeming down = it’s emptying down
Jane @57 & muffin @58
Collins has “to pour or empty out”, from Old Norse.
As in ‘I teemed a cup of coffee while I watched the rain emptying down’?
Jane @57 – I didn’t see TEEM initially either, and just to complicate things further I found an obscure alternative TOOM which can mean to empty. Only spotted that was wrong when I found I needed the OO somewhere else!
Thanks Maskarade and Eileen
Continuing the mop up of some old ones … and what a brilliant effort of compiling that this was, being right up there with the master A in originality and the ability to make something like this work. I was wondering how he was going to make Q, W and Y work in particular.
It took a little while to work out exactly what was going on with the TALKER clues. My running tally somehow missed the double F initially that and had to go back and cross it off. Needed help with the parsing of three of them – TURQUOISE (that IS obscure), the DI part of DITTANY (didn’t think of plural Deus) and WITOLD as the first name of Polish composer (had managed to parse the second word play and just wondered what that guy was doing in the clue).
Finished in the middle of the LHS with AVAIL, PADISHAH and DITTANY the last few in, Was a very satisfying solve on many different levels.