Guardian Prize 27,250 / Puck

56 comments on “Guardian Prize 27,250 / Puck”

1. This crossword is all about the 50th birthday this month of the ISB’s album “The 5000 Spirtits or the Layers of the Onion”.
   The references in the clues refer to song titles of that particular album.
   But, hooray, one did not have to know anything about it!

   Very enjoyable and cleverly constructed crossword that took me back to scchua’s blog of a Puck puzzle last year (23 June 2016).
   That one commemorated the 50th birthday of their first album.
   What I had or have to say about the ISB I did then and I won’t repeat it here.

   Is Puck a fan? 🙂

   Thanks, mhl.

2. Thanks Eileen. I only stumbled on the theme courtesy of Google and had to admire Puck’s ingenuity. I find Cream is also a 1960s rock group, The Hedgehog’s Song is one of the tracks and that the album was recorded in Chelsea, my LOI for the same reasons as you. I hadn’t picked up the triple definition in 14, just thinking the RN uniform is blue. I wasn’t happy with EONS either but can see no other explanation.

3. Thanks Eileen. I was defeated by the man with no piano. How does he fit into 24A?

4. Chap, got it

5. Thanks to Puck and Eileen. PEGG defeated me, and I thought of MUSE with no confidence it was correct, but I did get CHELSEA (I knew of the Blues from previous puzzles) and knew Frome for FOURSOME. I could not parse EONS. Tough going for me.

6. I missed The Incredible String Band theme entirely as I was not a big fan back in the day, so did not know their repertoire. This meant that I missed the more enjoyable and satisfying side of this solve.

   Yes, Eileen, I too I saw a couple of references to BLUES and thought the theme might actually be music in general, or even colours, but made a judgement that if it was either of those, they were rather weakly themed. Now I think, how could I have doubted Puck? Past experience of his delightful puzzles should have led me to the more obvious conclusion that I was missing something much cleverer.

   Glad to recall CHELSEA as the Blues for 24a, but couldn’t parse the “cha” part at all. I had not a clue who Simon PEGG was (9a), nor what a gimli is (25a), nor who DULCIE Gray (20d) was.

   Thanks to Puck and Eileen, Queen of Solvers. Eileen, it’s good to have you back with such an excellent blog. Glad you enjoyed your holiday in the country. Wensleydale sounds like a beautiful part of the world!

7. Eileen, thanks for the blog and I hope the weather in Wensleydale was kind to you. I can recommend the Chambers app on an iPad mini: it makes it possible to have the BRB with you wherever you go (and no need for the Internet).

   This almost defeated Timon and I, although we got there in the end, but without any understanding of why there were so many words with initial capital letters. I too was tempted to insert Dorian at 20 down but eventually remembered Dulcie, I share your puzzlement about EONS.

8. Thank you Eileen – I didn’t have much trouble with this and enjoyed Puck’s clueing, but didn’t spot the theme. But then I’ve never ‘got’ the ISB either. I know they’re highly regarded but they always sound to me like a bunch of addled hippies having a laugh at the expense of their unfortunate listeners.

9. Thanks Puck and Eileen
   I finished this without much difficulty, but also without having the remotest clue about the theme (I did wonder if there were a theme of colours). Thus I was puzzled by 20a, thinking “why not just say 500 spirits?”

10. I should add that I actually own an ISB album – The Big Huge – and knew of two others, but I’d never heard of the one being celebrated here.

    btw BigglesA @2 “Cream” weren’t just a “1960s rock group”. They were a “supergroup”, featuring one of the most respected rock guitarists ever, Eric Clapton.

11. Hi there Eileen, Chinese White is a water colour pigment. Thanks for your solve, I was an ISB fan so it brought back many memories…

12. Thanks Eileen and Puck. I didn’t unravel the theme, even though there obviously was one. ‘Way back in the 1960s’ is another ISB song in the CREAM clue.
    Equally unsure of EONS.

13. I worked through this for a while, thinking it was a rather weird puzzle, with these odd capitalised words. On a whim, and feeling there must be something I was missing, I googled something like “Sea Eagle Chinese White Gently Tender” and up popped this reminder of a band I had heard of but remembered nothing about. And, as you say, Eileen, Puck had worked the references into the clues in such a way that knowing the theme was almost no help at all! I don’t see EONS either, and had a lightly pencilled in ERAS for most of the time, which meant it took me a long time to finally get PIGMENT, at which time it had to be EONS, but just why remains a mystery. I don’t seem to do Puck puzzles very often, but I always enjoy them, and once I saw the theme I realised how neatly done some of the clues were.

    Thanks, Puck, and thanks, Eileen.

14. Worked on this on and off until Tuesday, when with Mrs Lippi’s help it all finally came together.

    I wondered how the person who didn’t know A-Ha the other day would react to 1d and 12d, let alone twigging the ISB 50th anniversary theme that’s here. And yes: once again I was caught out by that colourful football reference – the 14 for me are what Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters turned their hands to.

15. Thanks, Puck and Eileen. Ironically enough, CHELSEA was my LOI too.

    Never heard of the thematic band or any of their numbers. Quite often I find I’ve heard the name of a 1960s band just from people rabbiting on about them, though telling one from another from their music is just as hard as it was back then.

16. Thanks for the info. I don’t usually hang around this site waiting for the Prize answers, but this time – 1d and 9a continually nagging at me – I made an exception.

    Simon PEGG? Never heard of him. MUSE as a pop group? Never heard of them. And don’t imagine I was about to start googling every possible combi of letters, especially seeing as the two words intersect!

    I did for a while have SNUG in. As in ‘Snug the joiner’ which is consistent with Puck’s pseudonym. You could say, a ‘joiner’ might be someone who ‘joins’ broken bones? Then for a while I had LEGG, which google matches with a character name rather than an actor – but one could stretch a point I suppose.

    Sorry Puck! An excellent puzzle overall, but please don’t make too sweeping assumptions about solvers’ GK! A certain level is, of course, essential – but this?!

17. Thanks Eileen. As Bridgesong@7 says we found it tough going all the way. Last in were Pegg and Muse, not a band I would recognise if I heard them (unlike the ISB!) but recalled they played at close of London Olympics. Though familiar with the ISB’s music, I never read tracks titles so utterly missed the theme. Clever stuff from Puck but it did lead to one or two tortuous clues as others have mentioned.

18. A couple more references. Blues [for the] Muse is another album track in the grid and Sound Techniques studios was then situated in Chelsea.
    Great crossword and fun unravelling the theme but it only took me a few minutes in a listening booth [remember them?], back in 1967, to realise I was never going to be an ISB fan.

    Thanks to Puck and Eileen.

19. Did I say ‘mhl’ @1? Yes, I did 🙁
    Sorry, Eileen – many thanks for the blog.

20. I was a bit doubtful about EONS too – for the reasons given (should one be able to add an S to a hidden answer?) but also because it’s an American spelling: in the UK we write AEONS don’t we…?

21. So struggled a bit with 12ac. Was looking for something material to be generated by “Way Back”. Turns ut to be a stretch to accommodate a theme.

    Tantra. I do sometimes think that these “&lits” sometimes seem like wordplays that have forgotten to bring their definition without them.

22. Lippi@14: that person is me. I can say in my defence that I was living in South America at the time. You might be surprised at how unknown many of these groups were there. However I was a big fan of Cream back in the day, and knew ISB from two of their albums (or three, depending on how you count), namely Wee Tam and The Bug Huge (re-issued as a double) and The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter. In fact I still listen to them occasionally. Since I don’t know the specific album referenced here it’s perhaps fortunate that I had no inkling of the theme or would have been lead astray. I’ve never heard of MUSE though.

23. Thank you Puck and Eileen.

    I got suspicious about the capital letters, so googled Painting Box, which led me to the Incredible String Band – I had never heard of them before. This led to a lot of fun trying to spot other songs from the album “The 5000 Spirits or the Layers of the Onion”, I found nine, including “The HEDGEHOG’s song” and “BLUES for the MUSE” in the answers.

    RHUBARBS had to be, but I see in the COED that it is given as US slang for “a heated dispute”.

24. I remember buying the second ISB album back in the day on the recommendation of someone I can’t now remember. I thought it truly awful then and I doubt it has improved with age. Fortunately I was able to unload it fairly quickly. Anyway, I didn’t spot the theme- I didn’t notice the letter either. Some of the song titles do ring a bell but I can’t remember how the songs go. I do remember the overall sound though and not with affection!
    My problem came with PEGG which I couldn’t get until it was pointed out to me. No problem with DULCIE or with MUSE although I’ve not heard the latter. The rest I thought rather easy but,as I missed the point of the puzzle —.
    Thanks Puck

25. I’m another who enjoyed this without making the ISB connection, although I did enjoy their music at the time and even saw them live. I read the blog and then went back to my grid and realised I hadn’t got CHELSEA and had SURELY with question marks by it as it didn’t parse – now I know why.
    Nice to hear you enjoy Wensleydale Eileen – even as a red rose man I am happy to agree it is a lovely part of the country :-). Thanks for the blog, and to Puck for a puzzle that was even better with hindsight.

26. Pi at 25 for very good. Is this usage ever found outside cryptic crosswords, I wonder?

    (Perhaps mischievously: if one wanted a higher ratio of people who have heard of Muse to people who know about the ISB in crossword land, one might avoid this sort of outdated colloquialism.

27. Back in the day, a friend used to rave about ISB, but I never got them. I was pretty sure the capitalised elements were names of racehorses, something I confirmed by googling a couple.

    9a What about actor Michael LEGG? I’d never heard of him (in contrast to the very funny Simon Pegg), but he doesn’t require an indirect anagram

    13a I wasn’t aware of that meaning of RHUBARB, either, but pleased to make its acquaintance

    16a, FLING Anagramised acrostic (“involved”)

    24a, CHELSEA my LOI, too, with exactly the same dead-end analysis, only falling when I finally got 19d, SORELY (Tuesday!)

    25a Chinese White is also a type of heroin, possibly the source of the ISB track(?). Also a fashionable London nightclub at one (much later) time, I think.

    17d, FOURSOME: “the Guardian’s” = OURS

    20d Never heard of Dulcie GRAY — but Google has, luckily

28. Actually, it’s “China White” heroin
    Apologies to extant members of ISB

29. 9a isn’t an anag, but an insertion, isn’t it? My point still holds, if less forcefully. That “a” is irritatingly superfluous too, even if it helps the surface.

30. I do have a copy of The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter which I play when I am on my own. Great puzzle.I remember being stumped on 9a. Whatever I had was not PEGG-but wasnt he one of the bass players for Fairport Convention?His son, matt is also a fine bass player.
    Thanks Eileen and Puck.

31. Thanks all
    I thought 10 AC was superb
    I failed to solve Deng and Chelsea, the latter I misparsed as a blues musician.

32. Tony @27

    I’ve inserted brackets in the parsing of FLING, which I hope makes my intention plainer.

    Careless error in 17dn now amended.

    …and @ 29 – I didn’t understand your comment re 9ac, then realised that it was your own comment you were correcting and not mine. 😉

33. copmus@30: Dave Pegg was bassist for the Fairports, viz. “There’s Pegg on the bass whose tastes in food are very much wider. You’ll see a smile light up his face at a couple of kippers and a glass of cider” (Angel Delight).

34. [poc @33
    Dave Pegg was still on bass for Fairport last time I saw them, a couple of years ago. In fact the line-up in what was once the most fluid of bands has remained stable for at least 15 years – Pegg, Simon Nicol, Ric Saunders, Chris Leslie and Gerry Conway.]

35. Oops! The link I gave above was for actor Matt Legg, not Michael Legg. I see the Guardian gives the right answer as Pegg, but Legg is at least as valid, and there are two Leggs (or “ongs”, as certain setters might have it?).

36. Tony @35
    I think we might have complained if it had been LEGG, as “leg” is in the clue!

37. I remember thinking that this was a pretty odd puzzle as I was going through. For example, LUCERNE is a quiptic level clue and a bit out of character for Puck. Like muffin @9, I couldn’t understand why Puck used 5000 instead of 500, and then reduced the number. It didn’t improve the surface. That’s when I googled “5000 spirits” and the full majesty of the grid came sharply into view.
    Obviously a labour of love for Puck. Unfortunately, I wasn’t a fan, so missed the point at the time, but I can appreciate the clever clue construction now.
    Bravo, Puck. And thanks, Eileen.

    PS My take on EONS is: “the Onion on repeat” = THE ONION THE ONION. Layers in that = EON EON or EONS for short. A little convoluted, but, of course, I now know why!

38. Muffin @ 2above

    Hmm.. charades often use parts of the answer in the clue, while anagrams which don’t give the actual letters (except perhaps with simple abbreviations) are thought unfair. So wouldn’t the only possible complaint for LEGG be “too easy”? Or am I missing an element of accepted doctrine? I hadn’t known “peg” for leg before, otherwise I might have got it.

    I omitted earlier to compliment Puck on a clever construction, of which I had no inkling until coming here. Kindly, we weren’t required to understand it in order to (nearly, in my case) complete the puzzle correctly. No doubt I will now be moved to give the band another listen to see if they appeal any more now.

39. Tony
    Do you remember Rolf Harris’s (he who must not be mentioned) “Jake the Peg, with the extra leg”?

    I’m not sure if your point about “ghost anagrams” is referring to this clue, but it isn’t one – it’s just PEG+G.

40. Thanks to Eileen for the excellent blog (especially in the circumstances), and to others for their comments.

    Re EONS, phitonelly @37 has my intended parsing – admittedly a bit of a stretch, but one I went for to accommodate the second part of the album title.

    Re PEGG, this solution was a late change from BERG because Paul had that solution with a similar clue only the Saturday before. I expected Simon Pegg to be quite well-known and never even thought that there might also be an actor (or actors) called LEGG.

    Re MUSE, the reference to the group was a late addition when I needed to shorten the clue to save some words, but I did think that the second definition would be helpful enough to make up for any lack of general knowledge of modern music.

    A heads-up was given to the two members of the 1967 version of the Incredible String Band on the album in question, Mike Heron and Robin Williamson, that the puzzle would be appearing. One was quite appreciative; the other reportedly said he was stumped and moved quickly on to the Quick Crossword.

    For anyone interested, there will be a concert entitled The Music of the Incredible String Band in Edinburgh on August 17 as part of the Festival, featuring various artists (including Mike Heron himself, Danny Thompson and Barbara Dickson amongst others).

41. Huge thanks to Puck for dropping in to clear up the oddments, especially re EONS [I’d already seen your comment @37, phitonelly – bravo!].

42. There’s just one thing that I would like to ask Puck (because he’s the only one who could answer it).
    The song titles in the clues were all capitalised.
    Many of them could have done without (looking at how they fit in the surfaces).
    For me, personally, it would have made this crossword even more ‘exciting’, with the ghost theme less flagged up.
    But that’s perhaps because I knew straightaway what was going on after I saw “5000 Spirits” (and the fact that Puck showed his love for the ISB on an earlier occasion).
    My question is this:
    Were the first letters in the song titles written in capitals to make the theme less ‘obscure’ for the many who probably found it otherworldly?
    And, if so, who made this decision, Puck or the editor?
    I’m just curious.

    Cookie @23, good to see you had a lot of fun to spot them all – only four were missing from the album.
    As to the Pegg family, I’ve seen father Dave on a couple of occasions as a member of Fairport, while I saw son Matt two months ago in Nottingham (!) as he is the bass player of Procol Harum. Dave also had a spell with Jethro Tull, if I’m well-informed.

    I am a person who only (read: generally) likes two kinds of music: pop and classical.
    July 2017 is really a month for the pop lover in me.
    First this puzzle with the Incredible String Band, last Sunday the impressive Pink Floyd exhibition in the V&A, last week an Alchemi puzzle in the indy which brought back memories of Plainsong’s majestic In Search of Amelia Earhart, then yesterday the All or Nothing show (‘they’ call it a musical, I don’t) about The Small Faces and next Friday day two of the Cambridge Folk Festival, more or less in my back garden, with old (Shirley Collins) and new (Cara Dillon) talent plus a further two to look forward to (Indigo Girls and Lisa Hannigan). Lucky me! [well, that’s what I think]

    Finally, my ISB favourite (by a mile) is Wee Tam.
    The year’s 1968 – wonder what’s going to happen November next year!

43. Muffin

    Funnily enough, I used to hear that as “Jake the pake” and never really questioned why he was called that. Obviously something to do with having an extra leg …

    Yes, anagrams is a bit of a distraction. However, it’s actually an insertion of G(ood) into PEG, isn’t it (“breaking”) — as, indeed, Eileen parses it? Thanks to Puck for giving credence to LEGG.

    I’ve just taken up Sil’s suggestion and listened to the beginning of Wee Tam and the Big Huge (album). It’s reminded me why I didn’t like it at the time, I’m afraid. I’m not the most musical person I know, but isn’t that actually out of tune?

44. As it happens I’ve just started playing a lot of the ISB’s wonderful music again on YouTube. I think they’re just great! So I spotted the theme, and finished the puzzle apart from LEGG, as I remember. Many thanks to Puck and Eileen. PS. A Very Cellular Song and Ducks on a Pond are my current favourites.

45. Sil @42

    It was my decision/choice to have the song titles capitalised. I had done the same in my first ISB puzzle, so never really thought to do otherwise. Looking at it now, I think it was the right decision. It’s true that some of the clues would have read well without, but some wouldn’t – and I don’t think a mixture of ‘some with, some without’ would have worked very well.

46. Hi, could smebody put me out of my misery and explain how “Pi” is code for very good ? Seems like you all know it but it makes no sense to me.

    I found this hard going. Call me ignorant but I had never heard of this Incredible String Band before. Still I managed about half the solutions (particularly proud of getting hedgehog).

    The China White clue threw me off. I googled for it and found that china white was another name for zinc. Since I already had the “n” from Eons, I put the zinc there and the Gimbri into made me think to change the c to a g. With the “very good” part I was trying to fit in “amazing” and struggling to figure out the “ama” part. About this point I decided the puzzle was too hard for me and gave up.

47. salsaman @46
    From Chambers:
    pi² (informal)
    adjective
    Obtrusively religious, sanctimonious
    noun
    A pious or sanctimonious person or talk

    ORIGIN: Short form of pious

48. Hi Eileen – well spotted – I was the ‘riposteur’ in the Grauniad letters page – and equally surprised/annoyed that they would print such a spoiler.

    (I had already blithely solved all of it except EONS (which I guessed in my faxed submission) without noticing a theme, so fortunately my experience wasn’t spoiled by the spoiler, but as a point of principle I felt something should be said…)

    Re. Your lack of Chambers at the holiday cottage – there is a smartphone/tablet version available in the Android/Apple play-stores for about a fiver, which I find invaluable on train journeys and other solving times away from by study/bedside…

49. mc_rapper67 @48

    Good to hear from you – and congratulations on your riposte! [I was pretty sure it must be you.] I was mildly surprised that there was no more response.

    Thanks for your tips. You have no idea what a technophobe I am: I have neither smartphone nor tablet, so apps are an unknown entity for me. It is one of my teacher daughter’s holiday tasks, once she comes back from Greece, to help me buy a more modern phone.

    I haven’t met you yet – any chance of your coming to York?

50. I complained to the Guardian years ago about printing letters which give away answers to the prize crossword. The puzzle in question had a Britney Spears theme which was indicated by an anagram of “Presbyterians” – anyone remember that? I spoke to someone at the Readers’ Editor’s office who apologised; but they still don’t seem to have got the message. (Does the Readers’ Editor still exist?)

51. mc_rapper67 @48

    Can we have a link for the correspondence please?

    Incidentally, since so many musicuans have been mentioned here, could I draw attention to one I found while looking for an actor called Legg: one Adrian Legg, voted best acoustic fingerstyle player four years in a row (1993–1996) by Guitar Player magazine’s readership.

52. I meant to comment on this one over the weekend – another lovely tribute that required no specialist knowledge to solve. I spotted a few of the references – I do know something about the ISB but I’m too young to remember them properly. I don’t recall having seen the word gimbri appear anywhere other than on ISB album notes. On the whole this one was at the easier end of Puck’s range.

    Thanks to Puck and Eileen.

53. Re the letters – I am not convinced that knowing about the theme would have made it any easier to solve the puzzle, so I am not sure it is really a spoiler to mention it while the puzzle is live. It was one of those themes that would be obvious to fans and no help to anyone else…

54. Thank you Eileen and Puck.

    We have a number of ISB albums, so spotted the theme straight away. You didn’t need to know about the ISB to solve, but for those of us who do remember them it was fun to be reminded of the songs. Charles’s rendition of First Girl I Loved is something to miss if you can.

    As others we had problems with EONS, but got there in the end. Need some help from a friend on CHELSEA. We are Brummies, if you are talking football teams the Blues are Birmingham City.

55. Tony @ 51 (apologies for the delay – my BT internet has been down for a couple of days…)

    The original letter is here

    and the reply here

    (hope the links work…)

56. Thanks, mc. Links fine. I don’t think the letter really spoilt anything, though, as knowing the theme only conceivably helped with answers like CHELSEA perhaps if you were already very familiar with ISB. Nevertheless, it’s probably better to be over-cautious where there’s a prize at stake.

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