Guardian Prize 27,238 by Qaos

by

Some clever surfaces and ingenious word play in this prize puzzle, but I have a few quibbles.

A couple of obscure words and phrases (land o the leal, ratha) will have increased the difficulty level but Timon and I completed this in our statutory hour, although I didn’t complete the parsing until I came to write the blog.  As I explain below, there are a few clues where I feel that the definitions and/or wordplay are unacceptably loose: others may disagree.  Thanks to Qaos for the challenge.

completed grid
Across
1 COMMENT 1000 1000 1000 — regular telnet, say (7)
C (100) O (0)  M (1000) M (1000) tElNeT.  Although baffling at first sight, it seemed clear that the last three letters would be ENT, and so it proved.  Finding the definition was also tricky.
5 BLOSSOM Grow striking moobs when ingesting powerful drugs, ultimately (7)
(powerfu)L (drug)S in *MOOBS.  MOOBS is slang for man boobs.
9 RISKS Chances, as king’s knight retreats in the opening (5)
SIR (knight) (rev) K’S (king’s).  Tricky to disentangle this, so thanks to Timon for working it out.  “In the opening” refers to the fact that the retreating knight precedes the king.  The surface reference to chess is very nice.
10 OPERATION Campaign speech concerns exercise (9)
PE in ORATION.  On reflection, I’m not entirely happy with the definition, although the wordplay was clear, because Chambers defines a campaign as “a series of co-ordinated operations…”, so really the answer should have been OPERATIONS.
11 OPEN-MINDED Ready for new ideas, I depend on swing to take maiden (4-6)
M(aiden) in *(I DEPEND ON).  This leapt out from the definition and enumeration.
12 SHIP Deliver joint on Sunday (4)
S(unday) HIP.  The reversal of the two elements meant that we didn’t get this until we had the crossers.
14 LAND O THE LEAL Scottish heaven and hell? A lot confused about England’s crown (4,1,3,4)
E(ngland) in *(AND HELL A LOT).  This obscure phrase is in Chambers (under LEAL) although not marked as specifically Scottish.
18 SPORTSPERSON Small drinks for each offspring of athlete (12)
A charade of S PORTS PER SON.
21 OINK Why a printer won’t print noise? (4)
Read it as 0 (zero) INK.  This made us smile.
22 MOUSETRAPS They catch MPs sat squabbling over euro problem (10)
*(MPS SAT EURO).  I’m not happy with the way the clue splits the parts of the anagram fodder, using “problem” to indicate that the letters of euro are to be combined with the rest of the fodder.  It might just have been acceptable if the letters of euro appeared consecutively in the solution.
25 IMAGINARY First girl to swallow gallon in one? Fabulous! (9)
G IN A in 1 MARY.
26 RATHA Democrat hailed some carriage (5)
Hidden in “Democrat hailed”.  A Hindi term.
27 HOLIDAY Jazz singer’s festival (7)
The reference is to Billie Holiday: here’s a link to one of her best known songs.
28 EAST END Meal project forgets starters in London (4,3)
(F)EAST (S)END.  Again I’m not happy that “project” equates to “send”.  Nearly,  but not quite.
Down
1 CARTON Fraud takes skill to make a packet (6)
ART in CON.
2 MASTER Pick up a stumping, then English runs follow Moeen’s debut (6)
M(oeen) A ST(umping) E(nglish) R(uns).  Yet again I have to take issue with the definition: to master implies a greater degree of skill or knowledge than to pick up.
3 EPSOM SALTS Medicine pill initially consumed by some poorly sailors (5,5)
P(ill) in *SOME, SALTS.
4 THORN Spike‘s t-trumpet (5)
T HORN.
5 BEEFEATER Guard busy person with something light, not hard (9)
BEE FEAT(H)ER.
6 OPAL Work with metal and stone (4)
OP AL(uminium).
7 SLIGHTER More delicate girls go crazy over The Kinks (8)
*THE in *GIRLS.  Is “over” an acceptable inclusion indicator, I wonder?
8 MONOPOLY Functioning swimming pool in my exclusive control (8)
ON *POOL in MY.
13 LEMON TARTS When comedian Sue is alone, get up and start baking pastries (5,5)
NO MEL (all rev) *START.  The reference is to the pairing of Sue Perkins and Mel Giedroyc, and to the fact that they were co-presenters of the Great British Bake Off.  A clever clue, although it may have baffled some overseas solvers.
15 DIPLOMACY Qualification on the boundaries of clarity and tact (9)
DIPLOMA C(larit)Y.
16 ASTONISH Surprise is hard when following Villa (8)
ASTON IS H.
17 DOWNFALL Rain leads to ruin (8)
Double definition.
19 BATTLE Barista’s first latte order causes row (6)
B(arista) *LATTE.
20 ISLAND Not sea? So ___ (6)
IS LAND.
23 STYLE Fashion line inside — it’s painful on the eye (5)
L inside STYE.
24 BIRD Time for a lark, perhaps (4)
Cryptic definition referring to prison slang; “BIRDLIME” is rhyming slang for TIME, so “bird” is used to mean time spent in prison.

*anagram

26 comments on “Guardian Prize 27,238 by Qaos”

  1. Thanks to Qaos and bridgesong. I struggled with this puzzle through much of the week and eventually got most of it. I needed Google to confirm RATHA, Sue and Mel for LEMON TARTS, and LAND O THE LEAL, but MASTER defeated me (I guessed “muster” and did not catch “(st)umping”) and correctly put in BIRD without knowing the “time in prison.” I’m pleased I got as far as I did.

  2. Thanks bridgesong. Quick solve then o/l to confirm RATHA, a Sue-Mel double act and the last word in the Scottish heaven.

  5. Thanks Qaos and bridgesong

    I breezed through this, with only RATHA and LAND OF THE LEAL needing checking. Google told me that the latter appears in a few Scottish folksongs, and was also used by Burns.

    I either didn’t notice or wasn’t disturbed by any of your quibbles, bridgesong – I forget which, now. I don’t see a theme either, though Qaos often includes one.

  7. Thanks Bridgesong. Re 7d: I think ‘over’ for ‘surrounding’ is acceptable. At the same time, ‘Kinks’ as an anagram indicator is refreshingly novel!

  8. Thanks Qaos and bridgesong. My experience was similar to that of molonglo. All over in less than 15 minutes, 5 of those on the final 3. My fastest Prize ever I think and I haven’t missed one for about 15 years. I first searched for Sue & Lem. Unwise in hindsight but melon is more popular than lemon in Japanese pastries. I didn’t notice a theme which is not unusual and in this case unavoidable. The string of words in Andrew’s post @3 mean nothing to me.

  9. I really liked this and as it was Qaos, looked for a theme and MONOPOLY seemed like a fair start- a few googles confirmed.Thanks bridgesong.

  10. Thank you Qaos and bridgesong.

    Quite a challenge for me, I managed to fill the grid on Saturday, but I entered LAND O’THE REEL before getting suspicious and googling LEAL, and failed to parse LEMON TART. The theme escaped me but I OINK made me laugh.

  11. This was Qaos’s 50th Guardian puzzle so congratulations are in order. Fairly straightforward apart from the two obscurities and both of those were clued fairly.

    Thanks to Qaos and bridgesong

  12. Thanks Qaos and bridgesong. Good clean fun. I could work out leal and ratha from the clues.

    And thanks to Bridgesong and Andrew for pointing out all the games I missed. The surface reading of the clue for RISKS makes perfect sense as a commentary on a CHESS game and 2D MASTER is a title from same (GM, IM, FM … Grandmaster International M FIDE M)

    My LOI was 25A IMAGINARY and I am still struggling with the parsing – is ‘girl’ = ‘mary’ ? Seems a bit of a stretch…..

  13. I remembered LAND O THE LEAL as a Scottish song, so I looked it up. Turns out it’s a poem by Lady Nairne, which she wrote when a friend’s baby died and set to the same tune as Burns’s “Scots Whae Hae”, a bagpipe tune possibly played at Bannockburn. It’s been recorded by Silly Wizard. Lady Nairn’s lyrics are addressed to “John,” but the words in the recorded version are to “Jean.” It seems to be spoken by a dying person to his/her spouse, saying that he/she is going to join their child. Do look it up.

  14. Valentine @13: thanks for that reference. I reproduce below the original definition of Land O’ the Leal in the 1970s editions of Chambers:

    Land o’ the Leal – ‘the home of the blessed after death – heaven not Scotland’

    Although the publishers did reinstate some of the quirky definitions in 1983, this one was omitted.

  15. Add DIPLOMACY to the list of games. (Not that I spotted any theme while solving).

    Spike Milligan did play the trumpet.

    6d OPAL was, coincidentally no doubt, almost the same as a clue for the word in a Crispa crossword for the Telegraph (“Work with aluminium and stone (4)” — 2d, 7 Jan 2005), as I just happened to notice perusing Val Gilbert’s A Display of Lights (9) this week.

    Couldn’t help feeling 20d should have been “Is not sea? So ___ (6)”.

    Hadn’t heard of RATHA or LAND O’ THE LEAL but, like others, worked them out from the wordplay before confirming.

  16. Very enjoyable, even though I did not get the unfamiliar LAND O’ THE LEAL. I thought it was probably an anagram of “and hell a lot” + E, but I didn’t bother to check out all the possibilities arising from that. I didn’t know RATHA either, but it seemed fairly obvious and a quick check online confirmed it is a carriage. I could not parse EAST END even though I guessed the construction method, as I thought the meal was tEA and didn’t think of fEAST. As usual, I missed the theme.

    bridgesong has mentioned most of my quibbles (though the use of “over” to indicate inclusion seems fine to me). I’ll just add 5a – I don’t much like “striking” as the anagrind or that the two extra letters are included separately, not together.

    Thanks, Qaos and bridgesong.

  17. I enjoyed this one.
    Qaos certainly stretches the wordplay a bit in places. I agreed with bridgesong’s qualms about MOUSETRAPS for example. I would have no problem with this one if it had “with” instead of “over”. I also like Tony@15’s suggestion for 20. Perhaps even “Is not sea?” alone would do here.
    Re: the LEMONTARTS comment it may have baffled some overseas solvers. You ain’t kiddin’! Lots of Googling required in my case.
    One more boardgame – MASTERMIND (2 & part of 11). One of my favourites growing up.

    Thanks, Qaos and bridgesong

  18. An instance of the New Guardianist cluers’ work, where none of the indication actually makes any sense.

  19. featherstonehaugh @18

    Neither does your comment (make any sense, that is). Please explain.

  20. Nina alert! The last two letters in the fourth row are “GO”! Coincidence? (Probably).

    I think you could read the wordplay in 20a as:

    ((MPs sat)* over euro)*

    I wonder how the worldwide community got on with Aston Villa, btw?

  21. Thanks to Q and B both. Bridgesong is a tad more Ximenean that I and is justified in his quibbles. Incidentally, I’d prefer “customary” to “statutory” “hour” in the introduction ? but it just shows how difficult it can be to perfect a sentence (or clue) when under a bit of time pressure. I’m prepared to cut Quos a bit more slack because of the .. erm.. elegance of many of his surfaces, 22 for example. 1A is clever and neat and an appetising opener, but 16 was my favourite. Missed the theme, dammit, so thanks also to Muffyword@3 et al for spotting it.

  22. Sorry Gaufrid, yes a bit cryptic there.

    I just find the clues in this puzzle unnecessarily difficult due to how (poorly) they are written, rather than ‘naturally difficult’. It’s become a ‘thing’ in my view in The Guardian, whilst older gurus, like Araucaria and Bunthorne, were genuinely tough — no need to ‘make’ it harder than it really is or should be.

    Apologies and thanks.

Comments are closed.