Guardian Prize 27,166 by Qaos

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A pangrammatic puzzle for this week’s prize from Qaos.

I enjoyed this puzzle rather more than the last one by Qaos that I remember; there were several clever devices and two & lit clues, but I did need to refer to Chambers for 10 across.  It took Timon and I exactly an hour over coffee and biscuits on a sunny Sunday morning in the garden.  There was a range of difficulty, with some easy clues to get you started and others that needed a bit more thought.  Thanks, Qaos, for the entertainment and well done for getting all the letters in!

completed grid
Across
1 OUTLOOK View from large castle — king’s away first (7)
OUT, L (R)OOK.  As Phitonelly @5 points out, this is wrong.  The correct parsing is OUT L OO (0-0) is the notation for a kingside castle move in chess) K (ing).
5 SEISMIC Messi runs by one, then many — it’s shocking! (7)
*MESSI, 1 C (a hundred, or many).
9 YOUSE Yankee river for y’all up North? (5)
Y OUSE.  A brilliant definition, with the added bonus of the misdirection from Yankee.  For those that haven’t come across it, I can’t better Chambers’ definition: A dialect form of you used chiefly to address more than one person.
10 ZOOPHAGAN Chaotic place with heroin injected by heathen meat eater (9)
ZOO (a chaotic place), H in PAGAN.  We hadn’t encountered the term before, but the wordplay is clear.
11 EXTRA COVER Fielding position gets another 1006 balls? (5,5)
EXTRA C (100) OVER (6 balls).  A double cricketing reference here; it’s a fielding position in cricket and an over in cricket has 6 balls.
12 EVE First Lady‘s bit of 17? (3)
Hidden in sEVEnteen; nothing to do with wine.
14 BIOSCIENTIST I may work with insects a bit, not forgetting ant (12)
*(I INSECTS A BIT NOT – ANT).  A sort of compound anagram; you have to remove (“forget”) the letters of ANT from the anagram fodder.  The resuit is an & lit clue, where the definition and the wordplay are one and the same.
18 CHRONOLOGIES Records of English schooling or otherwise (12)
*(E SCHOOLING OR).
21 ANN Mother undressed girl (3)
(N)ANN(Y).
22 REVOLUTION Rising, minister’s answer: “No start to synod?” (10)
REV (S)OLUTION.
25 BUCKETFUL Quantity of money left out to grip Trump’s soul (9)
BUCK, U (trUmp’s centre, or soul) in *LEFT.
26 BILBO A hobbit’s sword (5)
Double definition; we weren’t aware that a bilbo is a sword.
27 EQUINOX Horse’s tail pulled by bull in spring and autumn? (7)
EQUIN(e)OX.
28 DYNASTY Ruling family is extremely dirty and filthy (7)
D(irt)Y NASTY.
Down
1 OXYGEN O Little Town, sung to baby ox, ends in trouble (6)
Anagram (“in trouble”) of last letters.  The definition, cunningly disguised, is the chemical symbol.
2 TAUNTS Makes fun of square relatives (6)
T AUNTS.
3 OPERATIONS Musical drama is not funny, it’s lots of action (10)
OPERA, *(IS NOT).
4 KAZOO Instrument carried by Jack (a zoologist) (5)
Hidden in “Jack a zoologist”.
5 SHOWERING Ex-foreign secretary wears small girdle for washing (9)
HOWE (Sir Geoffrey Howe was Margaret Thatcher’s foreign secretary at the time of her ousting from office, an event precipitated by his devastating resignation speech) in S RING.
6 IMHO Egyptian architect misses pet being around, in my humble opinion (4)
We were familiar with the common internet acronym, but had to resort to Wikipedia to find that Imhopet was the architect of the first Egyptian pyramid.
7, 19 MAGNETIC FIELDS  They produce deft, magic lines when flowing (8,6)
*(DEFT MAGIC LINES).  Another & lit clue.
8 CONCERTS Unions, caught in the past, get right with socialist leader (8)
C(aught) ONCE RT S(ocialist).  Along with SHOWERING, this was the last clue to yield and I only fully parsed it when I came to write the blog, although it now seems obvious.  The definition refers to what may now be a secondary meaning, most commonly encountered in the phrase “in concert with”.
13 INTERURBAN Between cities and at home, queen wears head garment (10)
IN, ER in TURBAN.
15 SILVER FOX Wild animal lives for uncertain times (6,3)
*LIVES FOR) X (times, as in multiplication).
16 SCRABBLE Bends over books by lecturer on “European game” (8)
ARCS (rev) BB (books) L(ecturer) E(uropean).
17 GRAND CRU Magnificent men on board said to make wine (5,3)
GRAND, homophone of crew.
19   See 7
20 SNOOPY Cartoon dog, Spot, catches new balls (6)
N OO in SPY.
23 OILED Head of Ofsted lied about being drunk (5)
O *LIED.
24 JEAN Material girl (4)
Double definition.

*anagram

36 comments on “Guardian Prize 27,166 by Qaos”

  1. I’d never attempted a Prize before but when I saw this one was by Qaos I decided to give it a go – and how glad I was. It took me considerably longer than an hour but I got there eventually with everything solved and parsed. I even noticed the pangram – such things usually pass me by. My favourite clue was MAGNETIC FIELDS. Thanks, Qaos and Bridgesong.

  2. Thanks bridgesong, and indeed Qaos.
    It took me a lot more than an hour to get close to finishing this, but some were great once parsed. I took issue with a couple though. 24 dn – didn’t realise Jean was singular so that was LOI. Also, and it might just be me, 1 dn has Ox in the clue and as part of the answer which didn’t seem too clever – surely the construction of the last letter words in the clue could have come up with an alternative to ox. But I’m probably being pedantic.
    Favourites 25ac and 15dn.

  3. Thanks to Qaos and bridgesong. In my first go I got only the SE corner. Later in the week, with the help of Google for ZOOPHAGAN, EXTRA COVER, Imhotep, and BILBO, I did finally get and parse OXYGEN, but my LOI was BIOSCIENTIST (even with all the crossers I had trouble seeing it). For me a real challenge.

  4. Thanks bridgesong. I enjoyed this as a good balance of clues with varying type and difficulty. The NW corner held me up at the end and 1a was my last to be explained. I had convinced myself that away = out but couldn’t find a castle named Oo. It still only makes sense to me if from = out. Out of certainly but just out?
    9a could also apply down South in this part of the world.

  5. The parsing of 1a as given in the blog was the one I had for a long time too, but it seems to require “away” to do double duty in this case. I think it’s actually L (large) + OO (0-0 = castle on the kingside in chess) + K (king) with OUT (away) first.
    Good puzzle. I failed to spot the pangram as usual. I liked MAGNETIC FIELDS – it reminded me of a nice physics demonstration at school using a bar magnet under a piece of paper covered in iron filings.

    Thanks, Qaos and bridgesong.

  6. Thanks Qaos and Bridgesong. This was just right for me; I chipped away at it for a few minutes a day and finally finished with all the solutions understood. But maybe not 1 Across as I read ‘from’ to equal ‘out’ as in the parentage of a racehorse. I disagree with MTB @ 2 about the ox, as this gives a lovely surface for the Christmas carol.

  8. Phitonelly @5 and Biggles A @7, thanks for pointing out this error: I have corrected the blog. I don’t recall seeing “OO” clued as “castle” before; I think I just assumed the clue was clumsily drafted.

  10. 1 ac as initially parsed by you, Bridgesong, seems entirely correct to me – with the exception that “View” is the definition whilst “from” stands for “out” (so no double duty required from “away”. R, as often, represents King (or Queen) and is the first letter taken away from rook/castle.
    By the way – anybody got any tips on how to find today’s Easter Guardian Prize which is not yet up on the website?

  14. Thank you Qaos and bridgesong.

    A most enjoyable Prize crossword, though it did take me more than an hour, for which I was very glad.

    I parsed 1a as L(large) ROOK(castle) -(minus) R(king, Rex) OUT(away first), away is not doing double duty. I do not see the necessity for castling notation, it could be queenside 0-0-0.

  15. Thanks to Giudice and Caesario for the links.

    You will never guess what is now up as Maskarade’s Easter Prize puzzle – his Christmas one! Crackers…

  16. Hi all,

    Many thanks for the comments and to bridgesong for the excellent blog. Much better than the annotations I included in my submitted puzzle!

    There is another ghost theme in there, which I won’t ruin for you. The ghost theme had so many rarer letters included, that I thought it fun to make the puzzle a pangram at the same time. It *is* a little more obscure, so I’m not surprised the pangram was spotted first.

    I hope you all have a lovely Easter,

    Qaos.

  18. Qaos, thanks for dropping by. I’m struggling to identify the ghost theme, although a little research has revealed that Silver Fox and Equinox have something in common: is that relevant, I wonder?

  20. I assumed this was a pangram once I saw that Z and Q were included but I didn’t check further. I quite enjoyed the puzzle, which took me longer than an hour to complete,and I didn’t spot the ghost theme. I haven’t spotted it still! Fancy BILBO being a sword!
    Thanks Qaos.

  21. Hi all. I knew there’d be a ghost theme. I stared at it for a while, then it jumped out at me – Jean Michel Jarre. If you’re of a certain musical vintage, you’ll spot which ones. At least from 18a, 27a and 1d. There may be more.

  23. Cookie @14

    That’s very clever. “-” as minus sign didn’t occur to me. Bridgesong’s original parsing now seems entirely valid.

    Thanks for the heads-up on the ghost theme, Uncleskinny.

  25. Just lost a longish critique of this to a Firefox freeze, and CBA to recompose it (you’ll all be relieved to hear).

    The Jarre album is Oxygene, not Oxygen, isn’t it? Actually, the ghost theme is that Qaos’s secret identity is 004 (geddit?).

  26. Thanks to Uncleskinny for finding the ghost theme; I’m almost completely unfamiliar with Jarre’s work, so would never have spotted it. Oxygene would of course have been a misspelling in English. I misled myself by discovering that Equinox and Silver Fox are both Marvel comic characters, but I could find no others.

    As to how to parse 1 across, I don’t think I can contradict the annotated solution, but thanks to Cookie for coming up with an ingenious way to validate my original parsing.

  27. Oxygene is a proper name (of an album/composition) so, with respect, wouldn’t be a misspelling — though it might give away the undeclared theme quicker.

    The piece has been referred to by the English translation, as in the record-breaking (3.5M attendance) 1997 concert, “Oxygen in Moscow”. I don’t know if the same is true of Equinoxe, and, if I’m not mistaken, the English for Chronologie would be “Chronology”, so I’m not sure the theme could completely accurately be described as “Jarre works” even with “in English” appended.

    Whatever, all of the clues for those works were excellent. O for OXYGEN was a big pdm for me and the &lit anagram for MAGNETIC FIELDS beautiful.

  28. I failed to get 21a, the word “nanny” never occured to me, I think grandmother would have fit better in the clue than mother. The other meaning of nanny is actually a substitute for mother. Sorry to be pedantic.

  29. I spotted the pangram but would never have got the Jarre connection on my own. Learning of this was just an additional bonus to what I thought was an excellent puzzle in its own right: smooth surfaces and grammatically accurate clues to an elegant selection of vocabulary made this a joy to solve. I suppose 6d could have had a more challenging definition but if intended as a double bluff, it certainly worked on me: I waited till I had both crossing letters before filling it in.

    Many thanks to Qaos and bridgesong.

  30. bridgesong @26, my use of ‘-‘ for a deletion was not ingenious, I have come across it two or three times since commencing to try to solve cryptic crosswords in 2014.

  31. [@salsaman

    I didn’t care for “mother” for nANNy, either; I thought “Nurse undressing girl” would have been better (imho!).]

    Incidentally, I don’t think anyone’s mentioned yet that Jarre’s ninth studio album was Revolutions (1988). See 22a.

  33. 1a OUTLOOK was the highlight for me, especially after reading this interesting blog. I only saw that clue Cookie’s way (@14): despite being a keen chess player I would never have thought of the trick 0-0 (castle kingside) to indicate OO in a word. It’s just amazing that there seem to be two valid ways to interpret the clue, although my way (or Cookie’s way if you like) seems neater.

    Thanks to bridgesong and Qaos.

  34. Very enjoyable, though of course I didn’t spot the ghost theme. Thanks to Qaos and bridgesong.

    But I should point out a small inaccuracy in the comment about Geoffrey Howe at 15d. He was not in fact Foreign Secretary at the time of his resignation in 1990 : he had been replaced in that role by John Major more than a year before. He was given the grand titles of Leader of the House of Commons, Lord President of the Council, and Deputy Prime Minister, but these carried little real power and the change was widely regarded as a humiliating demotion. He also had to give up the perk of access to the stately home at Chevening.

    It is arguable that it was this contemptuous treatment by Margaret Thatcher that finally spurred this normally mild- mannered man to make the devastating speech that led to her downfall.

  36. Simon S@35

    Is it? Or is it just a she-goat?

    I think “to nanny” is to perform some of the (traditionally) natural duties of a mother where the mother in question is rich enough to contract them out, so that is perhaps “mothering” in some sense; in which case “Parent [understood as a verb in the definition] undressed girl” works too. I did write in ANN, but I hesitated to. I still like “nurse” better (Tony@31,32), but hey!

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