Guardian Prize 26,914 / Maskarade

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Maskarade puzzles usually appear at Bank Holidays and, having blogged his Easter one, I wasn’t really expecting to see his name this week – but an alphabetical puzzle is always welcome on a Saturday.

I think this might be a good introduction for anyone who hasn’t met or tackled an Alphabetical before. It wasn’t too difficult to gain a foothold: with only three answers containing fifteen letters and one of them the M combination [a bit of a departure, I think, as when two entries start with the same letter, we’re used to seeing two clues, with two answers], which, since it was a straightforward anagram, was my first entry, it  immediately became clear where A, my first solve, had to go. The right hand side then filled up reasonably quickly – although  I didn’t enter FOUR SCORE until I could justify it, which took a while.

It was obvious now where the L and V answers fitted, which gave an entry into the left hand side. I found the actual solving process not too much of a problem, as there were a number of anagrams, making things easier, but I have one or two quibbles here and there, which I’ll comment on in the blog.

Overall, I enjoyed the solve  – many thanks to Maskarade.

[Again, I am indebted to Gaufrid, for presenting the grid for  me – many thanks to him.]

Maskarade

A Newspaperman ruffled staid stationers (9,6)
ASSISTANT EDITOR
Anagram [ruffled] of STAID STATIONERS – an easy first solve, giving an early entry

B Was furious, one left bone idle daughter (6)
BLAZED
B[one] [one having left] + LAZE [idle] + D[daughter]

C Councillor did preparatory work and received acknowledgement (8)
CREDITED
CR [Councillor] + EDITED [did preparatory work] – the definition / cryptic grammar doesn’t quite work for me: to credit is surely to give, rather than receive acknowledgement

D When one is on the make, it seems, serving porridge (5,4)
DOING TIME
‘Serving porridge’ and ‘doing time’ are both slang expressions for serving a prison sentence and one’s ‘doing- time’ could be when one is making/doing something

E Wife left site workers for churchmen (6)
ELDERS
[w]ELDERS [site workers] minus w [wife]

F Seven ducks: therefore ___ ___ , making 80 (4,5)
FOUR SCORE
If seven players in a cricket team get ducks, presumably FOUR  SCORE, thus filling in the blanks in the clue – as I said, it took a while for the penny to drop

G Eco-friendly domestic cockpit (10)
GREENHOUSE
GREEN [eco-friendly] + HOUSE [domestic – as an adjective] – I discovered from Chambers that GREENHOUSE is RAF slang for ‘the cockpit of an aircraft, having transparent sides’

H Period in the church calendar that’s 100% unconvincing, reportedly (4,4)
HOLY WEEK
Sounds like [reportedly] ‘wholly weak’ [totally unconvincing] – for the period between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday

I Disinclined to move back from centre, nightly (5)
INERT
Hidden reversal [back] in cenTRE NIghtly

J Little Virginia suggests spirit (6)
JINNIE/JINNEE
I don’t know quite what to make of this clue:JINNIE is listed as a diminutive [little] of  Virginia – but I think Ginnie / Ginny is more usual; ‘suggests’  implies a homophone – but, again, there are several optional spellings for the word for spirit:: Chambers gives jinnee , jinni, djinni and genie; I think either answer could be justified by the wording of the clue

K Protection on record during massage (7)
KNEEPAD
EP [record] in [during] KNEAD [massage]

L Thespian left Riviera having one clue to be revised (8,7)
LAURENCE OLIVIER
L [left] + an anagram [to be revised] of  RIVIERA ONE CLUE

M Worst Monday — same bad erratic driving (8,7)
MOTORWAY MADNESS
Anagram [bad] of WORST MONDAY SAME

N Most pleasant time, since at sea (6)
NICEST
Anagram [at sea] of T [time] SINCE

O Simple eyes round small room — one follows (6)
OCELLI
O [round] + CELL [small room] followed by I [one]

P Historical tax offering little interest? (4,4)
POOR RATE
Double definition – for the historical tax, see here

Q Mined some quartz — dire outcome (8)
QUARRIED
QUAR[tz] [some quartz – but no indication of how much!] + an anagram [outcome] of DIRE

R Scottish head teachers trash means of corporal punishment, we hear (7)
RECTORS
Sounds like [we hear – but not to a rhotic Scottish headteacher 😉 ] ‘wreck’ [trash] ‘taws{e}’ [means of corporal punishment, used by a Scottish headteacher  [Collins: ‘chiefly Scottish  – a leather strap having one end  cut into thongs, formerly used as an instrument of punishment by a schoolteacher – I listened to ‘fond’ memories of this from my Scottish husband

S Flattery frequently on board with pensioner (4,4)
SOFT SOAP
OFT [frequently] in SS [‘on board’] + OAP [Old Age Pensioner]

T Group of musicians upset  joint (5)
TENON
Reversal [upset] of NONET [group of musicians] – the ‘upset’ helpfully indicates that this is a down clue

U Accustomed, being ousted out (4,2)
USED TO
Anagram [out] of OUSTED – but, again, I’m not happy with the cryptic grammar / definition: USED TO = ‘was accustomed to‘

V Earls’ visit supplied health supplements (10)
VITALISERS
Anagram [supplied] of EARL’S VISIT – we’re used to ‘supply’ as an amusing anagram indicator but ‘supplied’ doesn’t really work for me – unless we’re intended to take it as a whimsical ‘made supple’?

W Two of the “Three Ws” known universally (9)
WORLDWIDE
A rather sneaky clue for two of the Ws in WORLDWIDE WEB

X Genus of gulls unknown to earth mother (4)
XEMA
X [unknown[ + E [earth] + MA [mother]

Y Pined for time to renovate den (7)
YEARNED
YEAR [time] + an anagram [to renovate] of DEN

Z The Greek cross  round bar (5)
ZORBA
ZO  ‘a Tibetan breed of cattle developed by crossing the yak with common cattle’ – Collins] + an anagram [round] of BAR for the eponymous character played by Anthony Quinn in the film of the book

22 comments on “Guardian Prize 26,914 / Maskarade”

  1. Thanks Eileen, and to Maskarade for an enjoyable, if not over-tricky, challenge (Zo-rba excepted). Re Jinnie – maybe it sounds like ‘Ginny’ – ie gin-like, thus suggestive of a spirit?

  2. Thanks to Maskarade and Eileen. I always much enjoyed Araucaria’s alphabeticals and, as was the case here, expect a few terms unknown to me (e.g., XEMA) to get the full gamut of letters. I got FOUR SCORE from the 80 but still don’t get why; guessed JINNIE but was unable to confirm that spelling; caught ZORBA the Greek but did not parse it; and correctly opted for RECTORS without knowing the taws-tors. All in all a good challenge for me that I much enjoyed (and fitting solutions into the grid was, as Eileen notes, easier than usual).

  3. Thanks Eileen. Like you I found this surprisingly straightforward, especially for this setter. Getting the definition and matching it to the initial letter quickly gave the long A and the L answers plus half a dozen others. The F was obvious though the dashes were misleading and X and Z came near the very end. But it was fun to do all the same, and as ACD notes another reminder of Araucaria the master.

  4. Thanks Maskarade and Eileen

    A lot of fun done quite quickly … thought that I’d make a start on this late last Sunday night … and by late last Sunday night it was surprisingly all finished !!! Agree that this would make a great starter for somebody trying their first alphabetical puzzle.

    The unusual XEMA was the first clue to be solved (after recalling from another puzzle) and I think that I plumped to put the long A word down the left hand side as my first one written into the grid (there must’ve been some logic that I’ve forgotten now).

    A couple of new terms – POOR RATE, GREENHOUSE cockpit, OCELLI and taws. Nearly laughed out loud when WORLDWIDE revealed itself – it was very clever. Finished with RECTOR, JINNIE and VITALISERS as the last few in.

  5. Enjoyed this but it was pretty easy for an alphabetical once the 9-letter ones were all in place. OCELLI was the only one I had to check. JINNIE was a character in a Virginia Woolf novel, possibly The Waves, and I remembered it from that. All quite entertaining.

    Thanks to Eileen and Maskarade

  6. All a little too trivial for a prize. At least 60% of the clues were write-ins!

    Placement in the grid was even easier as the 3 fifteen letter clues gave the game away. Only 2 of these clues satisfied the (8,7) shape we were looking for and of these only the “M” would satisfy the same first letter criteria required for the NE corner. (This was obviously necessary as we had no letters with 2 clues!)

    Obviously this was just a good guess at that stage but with so many ready answers it was easy to test.

    The only other diversion was the slightly clever “WorldWide” which had to be somewhere and would surely turn up

    I no longer have a printer as it would be a “space” luxury too far on a boat so I had to shoehorn the answers into the PDF which did add a little extra piquancy.

    Overall disappointing for the weekend.

  7. Thank you Maskarade and Eileen.

    I thought this puzzle would be beyond me, but I managed to solve and enter all the clues correctly, great fun. Parsing was another matter, extra thanks Eileen for RECTORS – incidentally “I am USED TO being thrashed”, “I am accustomed to being thrashed”.

    My COED only gives JINNEE, the other spellings being regarded as alternatives.
    beery hiker @5, Jinny was the character in The Waves.

  8. Cookie @7

    “…incidentally “I am USED TO being thrashed”, “I am accustomed to being thrashed”.”
    My sympathies! But, as your example makes clear, ‘accustomed’ needs ‘to’ to make it equivalent to ‘used to’.

  9. Thanks to Maskarade and Eileen. Like others I was delighted to see an alphabetical, but this was certainly at the easier end of the spectrum. Usually I have to abandon the paper version and print off a pdf because my tentative placement guesses have gone wrong. Xema was the unlocking clue.

  10. I suppose this was agreeable enough but far too straightforward for a prize. This setter’s last cryptic was a doddle as well. XEMA was new to me but the answer was so obvious that it just had to be right. Overall I found this a little disappointing. Let’s see what Paul has for us today.
    Thanks Maskarade.

  11. Eileen @8, I see it now, apologies! I was distracted by your was.

    The only “thrashing” I can remember was in a French lesson at school, “Mam’zelle” asked me to hold my hand out, palm up, for her to thrash with her ruler, I pulled my hand back as the ruler descended, whereupon her hand hit the desk, she chased me around the garden and we both ended up in hysterics.

  12. Hi guys

    Many thanks.

    Nice to be reminded of the Old Master, but it’s true, I did find this very easy. Having said that, the compiler is very good, the clues are well-made, and I like that a lot. The ‘W’ one stretched my mind the most.

    Manda.

  13. Agree that this was fairly straightforward for an alphabetical puzzle, but it was no less enjoyable for that. Jinnie was no problem for me as it was the name by which my grandmother (Jane) was known – she spelt it that way too.

    Thank you Maskarade & Eileen.

  14. Yes, it has easier clues. That is usually desirable for a jigsaw, with the need to get more solutions from the clue alone, but perhaps less so in this case. I still enjoyed it, though. Favourites included FOUR SCORE and WORLDWIDE.

    I agree about CREDITED and USED TO – I think “was credited” is the equivalent of “received acknowledgement” and USED TO should be “accustomed to”. JINNEE is the answer given in the Guardian annotated solution, but I had “jinnie” and I agree that both work. For VITALISERS, I’d have preferred “supplies”.

    Thanks, Maskarade and Eileen.

  15. A bit late here but an enjoyable romp if not the most challenging alphabetical.

    Thanks Maskarade and Eileen.

    XEMA rang a bell, I suppose it’s too late for BH to remind me of the details.

  17. Thanks Maskarade and Eileen.

    I answered all but 4 before I tried to start completing the grid. So my way in was BLAZED (once I had it) because that led to the fifteen-letter L, 5-letter Z and 9-letter D.

    Not too testing overall and as is often the case, many of the clues do need to be relatively straightforward to give solvers a fighting chance.

    XEMA was there like an old friend although ZO was new to me and it’s a very long time since I’ve heard the word TAWSE.

    Still, an enjoyable and challenging solve and a feeling of achievement at the end so thanks again.

  18. Cookie @7 – yes, you are of course right about the Virginia Woolf, but that was how I justified it to myself, and as it turns out I was wrong, and JINNEE has never appeared as a solution before.

    Just for completion, XEMA has two previous appearances, both of them in Araucaria jigsaws:
    Araucaria 23789: Flier contributing to fax, email etc (4)
    Araucaria 24475: Marshal Saxe’s inverted inclusion (4)

    OCELLI was a second appearance, but the previous one was earlier this year:
    Puck 26790: Recalled sickly green eyespots on peacock (6)

  20. Eileen @16. Thanks for that. I remember struggling with XEMA because I found a website that incorrectly had XENA as a genius of gull, which put me off for a while.

  22. xenopus says:
    June 29th, 2016 at 8:08 am
    “… I used to go to bed early” = ” … I was accustomed to go to bed early”.

    You`re mixing up two different constructions here, the straight, “used to” for a discontinued past state or habit and “be used to” which is equivalent to “be accustomed to”. In the example above it may be approximately true that, “… I used to go to bed early” = ” … I was accustomed to going to bed early”, but not “I was accustomed to go..”, and it may also be true that, “though I used to go to bed early I never got used to it”.

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