I was away for a long weekend in Copenhagen when this puzzle was published and didn’t get round to tackling it until mid-week. At first read through, it was not looking promising and I was rather wishing it was not my blog.
When I managed to solve 13dn and discovered what the theme was, my heart sank, as I expected it to be like those TV programmes billed as ‘Celebrity’ editions – full of people I’d never heard of – and that I’d be relying heavily on Wikipedia in order to finish. In the event, the names were all familiar to me and I found that I enjoyed the puzzle rather more than I expected to.
I’ll say again that I know that surface readings are more important to me than to many others: there are some quite neat ones here [14, 23,ac and 6, 17 and 25dn] but others that are rather bizarre [28ac?] – take your pick!
Thanks for the puzzle, Paul.
Definitions are underlined in the clues and I’ve provided links to the billionaires.
Across
1 Dupe contrived by 13, spurious (7-2)
TRUMPED-UP
TRUMP [millionaire – 13 : no link needed for this one, I think] + anagram [contrived] of DUPE
6 13 requiring help to carry gold (5)
SOROS
SOS [requiring help] round OR [gold]
9 13‘s scandal ends? (5)
GATES
GATE = scandal, cf Watergate – I’m not quite sure how the S fits in
10 I prefer women, not men, to build strength in the military (9)
FIREPOWER
Anagram [to build] of I PREFER WO[men]
11 General protected side (3)
LEE
Double definition
12 Very primitive voting system dubious American boxing club’s backing (11)
PRECAMBRIAN
PR [proportional representation – voting system] + anagram [dubious] of AMERICAN round [boxing] [clu]B
14 French philosopher produced European nonsense (7)
DIDEROT
DID [produced] + E ROT [European nonsense]
15 Pastoral poem in English – contrary effort in one of these? (7)
ECLOGUE
E [English] + a reversal [contrary] of GO [effort] in CLUE [one of these]
16 13 philanthropist’s back on strike (7)
BUFFETT
BUFFET [strike] + [philanthropis]T
19 Difficult situation as family briefly hampered by rejection of terms (4,3)
SKID ROW
KI[n] family briefly] in a reversal [rejection] of WORDS [terms] – a rather strange definition?
22 Excerpt in story, heading off for settlement (11)
ARBITRATION
BIT [excerpt] in [n]ARRATION [story]
23 Setter of crosswords, uncensored (3)
SUN
Contained in crosswordS Uncensored – the surface might appear to refer to Paul on occasion 😉
24 Talk with composer, 13 (9)
SPIELBERG
SPIEL [talk] + BERG [composer]
26 Experience in short, short (5)
INCUR
IN CUR[t] [short, short]
27 Poor choice ultimately in US president lacking knowledge (5)
NEEDY
[choic]E in [ken]NEDY [US president lacking ken – knowledge]
28 Primitive house breaks in a serious way (9)
EARNESTLY
NEST [house] in EARLY [primitive]
Down
1 Fastened to goods, was in the van (7)
TOGGLED
TO GG [to goods] + LED [was in the van]
2 Gradual increase arguably prudent (7)
UPTREND
Anagram [arguably] of PRUDENT
3 Tense has never been wrong? (4,7)
PAST PERFECT
Cryptic definition
4 Divert first of lorries in error (7)
DEFLECT
L[orries] in DEFECT [error]
5 Sticker put in hole for conveyance (7)
PORTAGE
TAG [sticker] in PORE [hole]
6 Among fools, a prize idiot (3)
SAP
Contained in foolS A Prize
7 13 investing pound in sport (7)
ROWLING
L [pound] in ROWING [sport]
8 Funny series following outsiders in secret (7)
STRANGE
RANGE [series] after S[ecre]T
13 9, for example, one: one with “loaded” aura? (11)
BILLIONAIRE
BILL [Gates – 9ac for example] + I [one] + ONE round [loaded] AIR [aura] : not quite sure what to underline as the definition here – struggling towards an &lit
16 Supporter and partners working for 13 (7)
BRANSON
BRA [supporter] + N S [bridge partners] + ON [working]
17 Winter bug, running a temperature (7)
FEBRILE
FEB[ruary] [winter] + RILE [bug]
18 Horizontal bar to catch, the showbiz suspense ends (7)
TRAPEZE
TRAP [catch] + ends of thE showbiZ suspensE
19 Nightingale possibly biting head of terrified wasp, say? (7)
STINGER
SINGER [nightingale possibly] round T[errified]
20 Not sweet to stuff bags of diamonds, perhaps? (4-3)
ROSE-CUT
ROUT [stuff] round [bags] SEC [not sweet, as of wine]
21 Get virtual goddess, 13 (7)
WINFREY
WIN [get] FREY[a] [‘virtual’ goddess]
25 Arrange song (3)
LAY
Double definition
This was a joy to solve from start to finish. Some of the clues were tricky, some witty, but all of them fair.
As an amateur setter, I doubt that I could have come up with clues as good as those for 15a ECLOGUE, 19a SKID ROW, 1d TOGGLED and 17d FEBRILE. And 14a DIDEROT is a good example of this setter’s typical precision and fairness, defining the answer as a French philosopher and not just as a philosopher. (Some setters seem to overlook this sort of consideration in their clues.)
I rarely have the time to tackle the Saturday Prize, but this was well worth the time (and expense).
I agree that the theme is inherently not an interesting one, but I think all the themed answers were well-known enough to be fair. Fortunately, SOROS was my first themed answer: he is well-known for being very rich and good at making money above everything else, and the themeword was then a doddle with just the ‘B’ to help me.
Regarding GATES, I would say that GATE is the ending for the name of a scandal, therefore GATES are ‘scandal ends’. A bit of a liberty perhaps, but that’s how I saw it at the time, and I think it works.
Thanks Paul and Eileen.
Alan @1, while I do agree that Paul is of those setters that are always fair and precise, I think Eileen does make a point when she refers to the fact that our beloved setter is not one of the best when it comes to the ultimate surface reading.
I mean, Serpent (in the Indy) is also very very [no typo] precise but his surfaces are consistently proper (read: meaningful) English sentences.
Not everyone’s an Arachne, though.
Not even Araucaria was.
That said, this was another very enjoyable crossword but sometimes I can get annoyed when I read clues like 22ac, 8d or 21d.
I would never have thought of Oprah Winfrey being a billionaire.
But apparently she is.
I am in my profession just as good as she is in hers – a different world, I guess.
Thanks Eileen (and good not to highlight to one at 1ac).
SOROS and ROWLING were the first ones in for me but the connection between them took me some time to get as having also got 1a I was focussed on arbitrageurs, entrepreneurs, financiers and the like. I was held up in the SE as I had BUFFETS and SPIELMANN (too eager to write something in) in the SW which meant TRAPEZE eluded me until Mrs W came to the rescue which caused a rethink and then things fell into place.
SUN must be a candidate for the best ever hidden three letter word – Mrs W on her charger again. Many thanks to Paul for the fun and Eileen for the blog.
Thanks Eileen. A pleasant solve with SOROS pointing the way early on. The only bafflements were the ‘loaded aura’ in the theme clue at 13 and (at the very end, in 20D) rout=bags of.
Thanks to Paul and Eileen. I stumbled onto BILLIONAIRE early on and I confess that I worked backwards, looking for other candidates (WINFREY was the last to appear) and with the crossers available gradually filled in the rest. ROSE-CUT gave me trouble, but overall I finished more quickly than I had anticipated. No complaints from me.
This was really quite easy for a Paul and a Prize. I completed it in about 30 minutes without much difficulty, I had some doubt about ‘rose cut’ – is a ‘rout’ really ‘bags’? Apparently, it must be.
It was very nice of the setter not to throw in any obscure billionaires.
Well it took me longer than 30 minutes but then I am not concerned about speed but enjoyment, which I certainly found here. Yes, a couple of question marks over some awkward surfaces but overall, I thought it was a fun theme and an interesting puzzle, so I felt very forgiving of Paul’s little pecadillos.
I agree with WhiteKing@3 that 23a was an outstanding clue with the play on “setter”/”setter of crosswords” as such an amusing distractor – my COW (is that how we abbreviated Clue of the Week?).
Well done Alan B@1 for getting 6a SOROS as your first themed answer; I had not heard of him, so was thrilled to get this one (after a fair deal of thinking) from the wordplay alone, and could then verify my answer by googling.
Many thanks for an entertaining puzzle to Paul, and to Eileen for a great blog. (Eileen, I appreciated the links, and reiterating what Sil@2 said, was also grateful for the omission of one link… I also liked your little “uncensored” joke in the explanation for SUN.)
Hard to believe Mark Zuckerberg is a billionaire at 33, almost half my age. Why didn’t I think of inventing Facebook???
PS Re-reading the posts, I see WK@3 also solved SOROS as one of his firsts. George Soros seems to be “well- known for being very rich” in the UK, as AB said @1?
[These billionaires on the Rich List are worth obscene amounts of money!
They say that money doesn’t buy happiness, but it must buy something pretty darned close… and I wouldn’t mind having a little more of it to test that theory…]
I agree with Alan’s reading of “scandal ends”: Watergate itself gave rise to a trope which amusingly included the scandal of a minister, Andrew Mitchell, allegedly calling a police constable at the gates of Downing St a “f___ing pleb” (the latter word being the scandal). It was dubbed “Gategate”.
Molongo and Vinyl1,
You’ve read the clue (20d) wrong same as I did. As Eileen says, it’s actually “ROUT [stuff] round [bags] SEC”. Stuff as in “we stuffed the opposition”. “Bags” is the containment indicator.
Sil,
I don’t see what’s wrong with the clues you don’t like.
Eileen,
I think 13d is a sort of double &lit with two definitions run together (ending and starting respectively with “one”) and the whole clue providing the wordplay.
Thanks Paul and Eileen
1ac was my FOI, so I was surprised that PRESIDENTS didn’t fit at 13d! Unimpressed by the “theme”.
Thanks to Paul for the challenge and to Eileen for explaining it all so well.
Too hard for me, even though I eventually stumbled onto the theme via the 45 th President and The former president of Microsoft.
Various others eluded me, of which Precambrian and Sun are the most doh inducing.. Rose-cut is really pleasant when explained and also hard (for me at keast). My efforts in the SE corner badly hampered by entering Pack-ice for this one ! (Seemed plausible at a time when there we’re not many in the grid
Like muffin@10, 1ac was FOI, which sent me on a wild goose chase for other US presidents. Couldn’t understand why I couldn’t find something appropriate for 13dn. When the penny dropped, I was disappointed as I’m not well up on billionaires. Fortunately only Soros was unknown to me.
ECLOGUE was new to me too.
Hard work as befits a Saturday puzzle.
Thanks Paul and Eileen.
Sil @2
I have to agree with both you and Eileen about a few of the surfaces here, but I sometimes miss that quality (or lack of it) while solving and therefore overlook it when commenting how perfect (or whatever) I find a crossword to be.
I also forgot to mention in my first comment a bit of wordplay that jarred while solving, namely the use of ‘virtual’ in 22d WINFREY to indicate the removal of the last letter (or any letter?).
Julie @7
And well done for getting SOROS despite not knowing of this billionaire. I too got it from the wordplay first, but having an S at each end already in place made it easy for me, having heard of this man.
I was with Epee Sharkey in being delayed by putting in PACK (stuff) – ICE (diamonds, perhaps?) at 20d. Yes it made some sense but I did put a ? beside it as it did not seem to have a definition. In the end ROSE-CUT was my LOI, having erased the other but still unable to see it until I had the crossers.
Don’t you get annoyed at those dry gullies you go up?
Alan B @13: I couldn’t understand how Freya lost her final ‘a’ either, and I don’t really see how ‘virtual’ is supposed to justify it. I spent a while with just WINFREY and SUN missing, finally got WINFREY almost by accident and then realised how neat the clue for SUN had been. Nice one, Paul!
My first ’13’ was ROWLING, followed by TRUMP, two people with little in common, it seemed, but eventually I saw the theme. I see J K Rowling isn’t technically a billionaire any more, having, bless her, given too much to charity to qualify. Although there is a Robert Rowling, a current American billionaire who does have more in common, with the gentleman from 1 across – I love how doing a crossword leads you to all this sort of previously unknown stuff…
Thanks to both Paul and Eileen..
Alan @15 and Keith @17
I didn’t like the use of ‘virtual’, either – in fact, I meant to comment on it – but reluctantly took it in the sense of virtually = nearly.
Juiie@8 – I suspect Soros is better known in the UK than some places because in 1992 he helped produce a major Sterling crisis by short-selling $10B of Sterling. At the time many were surprised that one person could have an effect that the UK govt.’s best efforts could not overcome. It helps that his name is quite memorable, being short and palindromic.
Thanks Eileen. I’m still not happy with 20d. Like you and Tony I understood that SEC was within (bagged by) ROUT and accepted reluctantly that ROUT could = STUFF but the surface is still wrong. The answer requires STUFF to bag NOT SWEET but that’s not what the clue says.
‘Not sweet to go into the stuff of diamonds, perhaps?’ might have been better.
Thank you Paul and Eileen.
ECLOGUE was a new word and SOROS unknown to me, but both were gettable from their clues, ROSE-CUT, however, held me up for a long time and finally went in only half parsed.
July in Oz @8, don’t wish for it, check out poor Liliane Bettencourt (L’Oréal) who died recently.
Hi Biggles A – I do see what you mean: I think it’s a sort of poetic construction – but I can’t at the moment think of a poetic example. 😉
I couldn’t get the paper version of this so had the initially unsettling experience of solving it online. As I’d already paid for the voucher I didn’t feel guilty about this.
Views on clues already expressed by others above. On the whole very enjoyable.
Thanks to Paul and Eileen.
Tony@8 – your comment on “gate” brought this sketch to mind
Thanks to Eileen and Paul.
Thanks Paul, Eileen
I found the theme pretty dry, but enjoyed the puzzle as a whole.
Biggles A @18
The construction object, subject, verb in that order is quite ordinary. It is used, for example, at 28 across in this puzzle, where it caused no fuss. to stuff bags not sweet/house breaks primitive
I thought this excellent and one of the best from this setter. My FOI was TRUMPED UP,so I immediately thought of Presidents-or lunatics- but ROWLING and SOROS put me on the right track. The latter was a lovely clue as were so many others. I really liked SUN as well.
Most enjoyable.
Thanks Paul.
Very enjoyable crossword with a helpful theme. But why are the prize crosswords consistently easier than the midweek offerings?
I am in the Eileen camp as regards surfaces. All the Guardian setters produce righteous word play but it’s the surfaces that separate the great from the merely very good.
I am not suggesting in any way that Paul is not a great setter.
PS. Loved today’s Prize but again easier than midweek offerings.
Just to clarify, I also took “stuff” to be a container indicator until enlightened by Eileen (thanks!). I didn’t know ROSE-CUT till I found it in the dictionary.
I think that, loosely, someone might say “I’ve virtually finished the crossword” to mean “I’ve almost finished”. A bit of a stretch to “virtual goddess” = “almost all the letters of the name of a goddess”, perhaps, but that’s how I understood it.
ROWLING was the first themer in for me and I spent some time trying to think of a word like “writer” that would fit 13d. I think it was getting SOROS from wp that got me on the right track.
Thanks for the sketch, Dunc T. Gate stuff!
Ihad LEGIONNAIRE AT 13. It almost works (Rowling, Gates) but of course it threw me.
Enjoyable stuff. I failed to parse PRECAMBRIAN since I saw ECAM as “club’s backing” (mace) and was left wondering why BRIAN was a dubious American! Thanks both.
I think I got all the billionaires eventually – now if only I could get hold of their doubloons?! 😮
I had MILLIONAIRE at first, instead of B… which would have opened up a whole lot of other folks. I wonder how many millionaires there are in the world today? Incidentally, I love to joke that, for a brief period last year, I was a ‘millionaire’. But that was during a trip to Indonesia, where the local exchange rate is 18,000 Rupiah to the GB£.
Thanks Paul and Eileen.
No spoilers on today’s Prize from Imogen, of course – but I sure was tickled by 5d. Memories of “YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS!”…..
Gonzo,
I spent quite a while wondering about that dubious American Brian, too, till I twigged
James @ 23. I don’t follow you. 28a is perfectly logical, 20d is not.
Biggles A @31 Late to the party I know but I have to agree with James @23, the structure of both clues is identical – [first word] [second word] [instruction for second word] [definition].
I think the problem comes from reading it as ‘stuff’ = rout rather than the intended reading of ‘to stuff’ = rout.
Thanks to Paul and Eileen (incidentally I thought 28 was fine as a surface – invoked images of glamping, ice hotels and/or whatever the ‘luxury cave holidays’ I saw advertised recently are known as!)
Found this one pretty tricky but entertaining despite seeing the theme pretty early thanks to TRUMPERY and GATES. WINFREY was last in and took me ages. Quite a mixed collection…
Thanks to Paul and Eileen
robert @ 32. It’s even later now but my point is that for 20 to follow the same structure as 28 it would have to read ‘ To stuff bags not sweet of diamonds, perhaps?’ and it doesn’t.
And I know it doesn’t really matter either.
And I’m so late I shouldn’t even bother. But I will. As I think the point raised by Biggles A @ 34 is incorrect. And it does matter. A bit.
James @23 and Robert @ 32 are both correct. Both clues 28a and 20d have the structure [object] [subject] [verb] [definition]. And, like Biggles A, I don’t like that construction either, but I’ve seen it before.
The only difference is that the verb in 28a (breaks) is an insertion indicator, whereas the verb in 20d (bags) is a containment indicator.
To match your reordering of the 20d clue (To stuff bags not sweet of diamonds, perhaps?), the 28a clue would have to read house breaks primitive in a serious way.
For the record, like you, I’m not keen on the
Ignore last line