Guardian Prize 27,310 by Pasquale

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A themed puzzle from Pasquale at an appropriate time of year.

The theme, beans, was clearly indicated by the answer to 13 across (BEAN COUNTER) but as Timon and I could not solve that at our first pass we deduced the theme by solving a couple of the undefined clues, which in turn helped us solve 13.  I have highlighted the themed answers in the grid and, as they were all undefined, those clues do not have a definition underlined in the blog.  It’s been a particularly good season for beans, and I fear my wife may be unwilling to see yet another dish of them at the dinner table; luckily we have a freezer.  I thought this was perhaps easier in terms of vocabulary than some of Pasquale’s puzzles, but the addition of the theme made it more challenging.

Time now to get over to the allotment and pick the last of this year’s runners and climbing French.  Thanks to Pasquale for the entertainment.

completed grid
Across
5 LENTIL Beam over window for Spooner? (6)
A vocalic spoonerism of LINTEL; we wasted a lot of time with ray and light etc.  This is the first of the undefined thematic clues, although whether a lentil is a bean may be a matter of some dispute.
6 CANUCK North American bird destroying its eggs, a number being squashed (6)
A N in CUCK(oo).  It’s a term used (perhaps disparagingly) to describe Canadians.
9 ADSUKI Commercial is about to grab the nation (6)
AD, UK in IS(rev).  It’s an alternative spelling of ADUKI or ADZUKI.
10 EVENTIDE Flow of water not choppy when darkness falls? (8)
A charade of EVEN and TIDE, but with the order reversed.
11 LIMA A short distance to the west (4)
A mil(e) (rev).  Another bean.
12 ANTE-MORTEM A dreadful torment has this person spinning before death (10)
*(A TORMENT), ME (rev).  This apparently refers to the inspection of an animal by a vet before slaughter.  It is obviously analogous to post-mortem, but neither of us had encountered it before.
13 BEAN COUNTER Accountant and bishop meet outside front of abbey (4.7)
B(ishop) and A(bbey) in ENCOUNTER.  I think the full stop between 4 and 7 should be a comma, but that is how it appeared in print.
18 TROLLEYBUS Belly upset in bumpy tours made by vehicle (10)
*BELLY in *TOURS.
21 SOYA Thereupon chatter but not quietly (4)
SO YA(p).  Another bean.
22 SNOBBISM Playing partners, frightful bimbos showing social discrimination (8)
SN (North and South, playing partners in the game of bridge), *(BIMBOS).
23 RUNNER Game needing number but one missing, right? (6)
RU N(i)NE R(ight).
24 HEARSE Car and train about to be scrapped (6)
(Re)HEARSE (train).
25 ANTRUM Chamber in which worker has drink (6)
ANT RUM.  This is an anatomical term meaning a cavity.
Down
1 INHUMANE Fashionable aspect conceals fellow acting like a beast (8)
MAN in IN (fashionable) HUE (aspect).
2 SILICA Old Roman building from which British Academy’s removed quartz (6)
(BA)SILICA.
3 WATERMEN Chaps on Thames maybe having a fixed period in overcrowded city (8)
A TERM in WEN.  A wen is a cyst; the term “The Great Wen” was coined by William Cobbett as a disparaging reference to what he then (in the 1820s) saw as the overcrowded city of London.
4 BUTTER Second grade, say (6)
B (a second grade ranking) UTTER.
5 LADDIE Boy getting left – tot, that is (6)
L ADD I.E.
7 KIDNEY Pull the wool over the old French commander’s eyes? (6)
KID NEY (Marshal Ney:one of Napoleon’s commanders at Waterloo).
8 NEUTRON BOMB Anti-personnel device – one burnt furiously, restricting revolutionary crowd (7,4)
MOB (rev) in *(ONE BURNT).
14 NEEDIEST Home flooded by one river rising is most disadvantaged (8)
1 DEE (river) (rev) in NEST.
15 ELSINORE Queen on island set up place for prince (8)
ER ON ISLE (all rev).  The prince of course is Hamlet.
16 FRENCH Female to pull wife away (6)
F (w)RENCH.  This was the first of the themed answers that we solved and we wondered for a while if we should be looking for comedians.
17 LYCEUM School story – see them in the auditorium? (6)
A homophone (“in the auditorium”) of LIE SEE’EM.
19 LABLAB Place for scientific working party (6)
LAB LAB.  A kind of bean that we had never come across before but it is its own genus, apparently.
20 STRING Keeping nothing for throwing away (6)
ST(O)RING.  Impressively, Timon solved this cold before we had cracked the theme and, together with French, it was a penny-dropping moment.

*anagram

45 comments on “Guardian Prize 27,310 by Pasquale”

  1. Thanks bridgesong, and to Pasquale for setting pulses racing enjoyably. I couldn’t parse 23 and it even took a few moments for the penny to drop that RU was a game (presumably Rugby League) even after seeing the blog. I was disappointed to see the hoarier old devices (‘IN’ for fashionable; ‘ER’ for queen; ‘NEY’ for French marshal etc). But that’s probably just me showing my age and cynicism.

  3. Thanks to Pasquale and bridgesong. I did not get started on this puzzle until today (Friday) and started very slowly. I too got FRENCH early on and also LYCEUM so that led me astray on the theme, but at last, after getting some crossers, I saw BEAN COUNTER. I did not know all the beans listed (e.g. Lablab) – and ADZUKI clearly did not parse – and needed help with “wen” in WATERMEN. For me a challenge, but well worth the effort.

  4. Thanks bridgesong. This was a nice challenge, with the theme not revealing itself for a good while. The ten items themselves were then pretty well gettable without help; LABLAB was nearly/not quite within reach. Last in was HEARSE, whose parsing was elusive.

  8. Thanks Pasquale and bridgesong

    Sorry, I thought that this was just silly, highlighted by having to have an obscure spelling for an obscure bean at 9a (why not write a clue for ADZUKI, a slightly less obscure spelling?) LENTIL isn’t a Spoonerism of “lintel” under the usual understanding – two words should be involved (see here).

    I finished it quite quickly, having got BEAN COUNTER early on (my favourite clue, in fact), but didn’t enjoy it.

  9. I am with Muffin on this, though it took me a while to get the BEAN COUNTER. I had BUTTER and FRENCH early on, but couldn’t spot the (now) obvious connection.

    I lost interest and dnf. However, finished this week’s prize quite quickly.

    Thanks bridgesong and Pasquale

  10. Thanks bridgesong. Like molonglo, I think, my LOIs were 19 and 24 and I had to stare at them both for some time but I did enjoy the challenge. Like muffin I have my doubts about LINTEL, it was the first word that came into my mind for 9a but didn’t seem to me to fit the Spoonerism definition.

  11. Thanks Pasquale for a great challenge and to Bridgesong for explaining it.
    Greatly enjoyed Bean COUNTER both as a clue and a jokey pointer to the theme.
    It might have been fun to have had some less obvious beans (Magic, jumping, refried, coffee, )

    I could see hearse in 24A but couldn’t see the parsing so thanks for the explanation. As a definition ‘car’ seems a little weak ?

  12. Enjoyed this, and like Bridgesong we have beans for every meal at the moment.
    But LENTIL is not a Spoonerism of lintel, although we wrote it in when it became obvious it must be so. Surprised that such an experienced setter as Pasquale didn’t do better for this clue.

  13. Although Spoonerisms are usually consonantal (queer dean for dear queen) they can also be vocalic (as the wikipedia article to which muffin links makes clear). I don’t know of any rule that two words must be involved, although I concede that the 1924 OED definition does say so. If it is a rule, perhaps the question mark at the end of the clue justifies the breach.

  14. Struggled a bit with this. Beans are not one of my areas of expertise. I got BEAN COUNTER (liked that) fairly quickly, but then saw that there were no 5-letter answers, which ruled out BAKED and HEINZ and left me a bit stuck. I got there in the end, with a bit of help. LOI was HEARSE, which I couldn’t see at all, but could at least be a car. I did learn something, not just about beans – ‘wen’ was new to me, and I’ve just learned ‘vocalic spoonerism’! Thanks for that, bridgesong, and thanks Pasquale, too.

  15. bridgesong @13
    The first sentence of the article I linked to couldn’t be clearer, could it?

    A spoonerism is an error in speech or deliberate play on words in which corresponding consonants, vowels, or morphemes are switched (see metathesis) between two words in a phrase.

    (My emboldening)

  16. Muffin@15: yes, if you accept wikipedia as an authority! It cites the OED definition to which I refer. But seriously, how can it be possible to have rules for something as silly as a Spoonerism?

  17. bridgesong @16
    I have a jaundiced view – not generally my favourite type of clue. There are occasional “laugh out loud” ones*, but this one wasn’t.

    *like this from a recent Paul prize

    Someone enjoying alcohol, one not saving water in Newcastle, says Spooner? (4,6)

  18. I enjoyed this. I couldn’t solve 13a BEAN COUNTER from the clue at first and had to get LIMA and the first N of 13a before the light dawned. The punctuation error in the enumeration of 13a was unfortunate because solvers could be forgiven for thinking that there might be some peculiar significance to the dot as that clue was already indicated as the key to the theme.

    I haven’t looked up the Wikipedia article on Spoonerism, but my understanding of these often-humorous twists of the language corresponds with what Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable and other sources say about them. (It’s always to do with exchanging the initial sounds of words.) Evidently “vocalic spoonerism” is an invented term to describe exchanging vowel sounds, but, remembering that a spoonerism can only refer to sounds, not spellings, I still don’t think the second vowel sound of LINTEL is close enough to the first vowel sound of LENTIL for it to be called a vocalic or any other kind of spoonerism. It seemed to me a strange decision to use Spooner in the wordplay of this clue, unless I’m missing something.

    There were several clues I liked in this, especially CANUCK, TROLLEY BUS, NEUTRON BOMB and ELSINORE.

    I had fun with CANUCK. I had the final K already, and if you take the whole clue as wordplay (thinking a bean might be the answer) you get NARVIK (the bird being ROOK and not CUCKOO). Fortunately, I couldn’t force NARVIK to be a bean and had to return to the clue later.

    Thanks to Pasquale and bridgesong.

  19. Thank you Pasquale and bridgesong.

    I enjoyed this beanfeast, but failed to get WATERMEN since I had entered TEEUCK (lapwing, found googling) at 6a.

    I also questioned LENTIL, but found it defined as a bean in the Cambridge English Dictionary online, “lentil a very small dried bean that is cooked and eaten”.

  21. In support of muffin the current (I can’t embolden the word!) OED defines ‘spoonerism’ as an accidental transposition of the initial sounds, or other parts, of two or more words.

  23. Its all been said really. I didn’t like LENTIL for the reasons Muffin has posted, and I delayed putting it in. It had to be right though. Otherwise, this was Ok. I didn’t know all the beans -LABLAB indeed!- but they were easy to find.
    Thanks Pasquale.

  24. Got bean counter on a first pass, and we spent a bit of time looking for things a bean counter might be interested in (ebitda, cashflow, etc) as per instructions.

    Adsuki and lentil both seemed a bit odd, as others have suggested.

  25. I enjoyed this enormously and thought it the best Saturday prize puzzle (in a retro way) in the Graun for yonks.
    Thanks to Pasquale and bridgesong

  26. I had not heard of vocalic Spoonerisms before either and doubted that LENTIL was a genuine Spoonerism of lintel for that reason. I see that, according to Wikipedia, Douglas Adams used the term kniferism for such. I wasn’t aware, though, of a “rule” that two words should be involved, and in fact myself wrote an
    entry     for the Guardian clue-writing contest this week based on a metathesis within the single word bagatelle, describing it as a Spoonerism. However, I agree with AlanB that a Spoonerism is based on sound not spelling, so Pasquale’s doesn’t really work. I also doubt that a lentil is a bean, strictly — but none of the above stopped me writing it in.

    I got BEAN COUNTER fairly early (not even noticing the misprint in the enumeration), before any of the beans and found it an enjoyable and reasonably challenging puzzle overall. The SW corner held me up at the end but finally, with three beans still to find fell via SOYA (a four-letter bean whose wordplay was solved after the event) and ELSINORE, with STRING as LOI.

  29. On the subject of lentils, if it’s not a Spoonerism, what is it? A Muffinism? Unfortunately, no one would understand the reference if a setter coined the term but you all understood what Pasquale was getting at, didn’t you? If you want to be Ximinean about it,yes you’re right, but personally I take a more relaxed view and appreciate creative clueing. Chacun a son gout. I’d be interested to hear Pasquale’s comments on the debate and why he chose this particular parsing.

  31. @Muffin 28

    Deadly serious. I only play with a straight bat on this forum.
    As I see it, this reminded me of the old prize puzzles of 25 years ago when I was naive and stupid enough to bung my entry in an envelope

  32. baerchen @31
    It was about 25 years ago (or more?) when I last sent one in too.

    I have complained about some recently being “too easy”, but I found this one the least enjoyable for months. As you said “Chacun a…..”

  33. @Timon
    I think Pasquale would not appreciate the idea that he is liberating himself from the bonds of Ximeneanism. As I understand it, he is known for taking pride in his adherence to Ximenean orthodoxy and for taking a very dim view of innovators such as Boatman. I imagine he would say the question mark is there to excuse the slight liberty taken with the strict definition of Spoonerism. Apologies to Pasquale if he later reads this and would prefer to speak for himself.

    @Muffin
    Isn’t “pulse” in your clue a bit of a giveaway? How about “Learner* following fast setter (6)”?

    *But NOT student! (Lizard and Pasquale are the same person: Don Manley)

  35. Hi Tony
    If you search the 225 archive, there are lots of “fast” definitions for “lentil” – I thought that I should avoid it. “Pulse” does have at leas two meanings, of course…

  36. I solved French first of the theme words too — it had to be a theme word because it had no definition, but what ….??? The next one I got was SOYA and all was clear. But I never did get LABLAB or HEARSE or (shame on me) CANUCK. I did wonder if a NADUCK was some kind of bean I didnt know.

  37. @Muffin
    Sorry, looking again, you wrote a standard clue for LENTIL, so pulse was your definition. However, it was supposed to be one of the special, undefined clues (notwithstanding the question of whether a lentil is truly a bean), so an anagram clue would be, e.g. “About ten ill (6)”.

  39. Hi Tony
    You are right about my giving the definition too – my mistake.

    To search, scroll up to the top right to find “Site search” (just below the “Calendar”. Enter your term in the box and click “Search”. It’s quite clever – it finds terms in clues as well as solutions!

  40. Ah, ok. Thanks, Muffin. I do most of my 225ing on android, but I notice now there’s a search symbol top right in this view too.

  41. I groaned when I saw the special instructions however managed to get BEAN COUNTERS on the first pass which helped enormously. I failed on two clues, however:

    – at 19d I entered LIB-LAB which in retrospect is very plausible apart from the punctuation.
    – Also, I had never heard of ELSINORE and, owing to my error at 19d, I thought this was the last of the undefined beans.

    Overall, I enjoyed the puzzle but do agree with other commenters’ concerns on LENTIL.

  42. I’m amazed that someone has commented on this week’s prize puzzle when it was only 7 hrs 57 minutes old.

    Thanks for that.

    All information about a puzzle however trivial it may appear can be a spoiler to other solvers.!!!!! 🙁

  43. I must admit to having cheated a little using lists of beans to finish this. LABLAB and ADSUKI were unfamiliar but the rest should not have caused too much trouble. Quite a satisfyingly difficult prize puzzle.

    Thanks to Pasquale and bridgesong

  44. Not that anyone’s reading, but I should correct Douglas Adams to Douglas Hofstadter, as I have realised reading
    this post    . Thanks to Boatman for making me realise my mistake.

  45. Almost a year late, but here’s one short note in case anyone cares. Although “short distance” = MIL[e] is certainly a possible justification for this part of 11, there is a simpler one: a mil is a unit of distance equal to 1/1000 of an inch, which those of us who aren’t paramecia would certainly agree is a short distance.

     

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