Guardian Prize 27,800 / Maskarade

57 comments on “Guardian Prize 27,800 / Maskarade”

1. I took all week with this one, and needed pattern matching to get a couple of the obscure foodstuffs.
   I think I had 14 clues unsolved before starting on the grid, was able to put in BAKED POTATO, and then those three pairs of same-initial lights on the LHS came to the rescue really. Chapeau to anyone who didn’t need elevtronic help.
   Thanks Maskarade and Eileen

2. If you have trouble seeing the whole grid on some devices, it is in fact all there – save the image.

3. Thanks Eileen and Maskarade, both for your respective tours de force.

   I managed to finish, so I entered the prize for a change. The finishing was quite difficult, as, with only a handful of clues to go, I had some words in the wrong places. I thought it might be KIEL (not KEEL) and had that where ZITI eventually went. Sorting that out took some time.

   I had to add quite a few glyphs to the page to get going: entering the lengths of the clues down the LHS and along the top; a table listing how many of each length of solutions there are; another of length of solutions with their starting letters.

   Unfortunately the O 11 letter clue was v difficult and it only went in towards the end; and it took me a long time to find the B one, too. Had these been easier, progress would have been quicker.

    

4. I’m inclined to agree on the quibbles on RIJSTTAFEL and WARDEN and have to say that my electronic support included the use of a spreadsheet to organise the answers when filling in the grid.

   Thanks to Maskarade for an excellent challenge and to Eileen for your dedication to the cause.

   Good weekend all.

5. Once again Eileen says it all in her intro – I (we) didn’t bother to persist with this having got about 80% of the way through the clues. Heaven knows how you teased out some of the more obscure (unfair?) ones you highlighted. For me these type of puzzles have lost their novelty value and don’t provide the sort of solving challenge I’m looking for over a bank holiday weekend – and I’m quite happy to accept others will see it differently. A tour de force of setting I agree for which thanks to Maskarade – and thanks to you Eileen for filling in the missing ones. Enjoy the bard’s birthday celebs (and I’m sorry we won’t be there for the S&B event in Leicester – we’re away elsewhere.)

6. Great blog, Eileen, but I have to disagree with your comment about RIJSTTAFEL. Setting aside the fact that I know it well (and would heartily recommend anyone to give it a try), I don’t think it is any more obscure than some other answers, for example NAARTJE. Since Dutch is said to be the closest language to English (well, Frisian to be precise), one can see that it means rice table, and therefore what the preferred spelling is. For the hell of it, I just looked up naartje, and saw that it too has 3 spellings. It looks Dutch too, coincidentally, but that is a South African (i.e. Afrikaans) layering on top of Tamil, which I would hazard to say people here can be excused for not knowing.

7. Thanks Eileen.  Even more taxing than usual for Maskarade, with more clues per letter and some broken up across the spaces.  And the standard entry technique  – via fitting in and around the longest clues first – was way less obvious.  The Vs in the top left went in early; the excruciating RIJSTTAFEL and NAARTJE went in last.  BERLIOZ made me laugh, as did the French engineer.  Really good fun.

8. For me, this was exactly the sort of challenge I look for over a public holiday weekend, and I enjoyed every minute immensely.

9. Name thanks to both Maskarade and Eileen. This was nearly a whole week involvement as I had to keep coming back to get odd things and the electronic help was essential for me. The ones I did not know have already been mentioned and involved odd letter combinations. Google taught me a bit this time.

   I also started with the V clues and then the two 11 letter ones. My major problem turned out to be where to put ERNIE as, each time I thought I had him, other crossers eventually suggested I did not. I find a grid on graphing paper the easiest way to handle the answers. The 9 letter Y answers went in the wrong way round to start with which did not help.

   Being in NZ my biggest surprise was KIA-ORA. The answer could not have been anything else so it was a case of Google to the rescue.

   So Kia Ora nga mihi.

10. Another very clever gridfill, and a satisfying challenge to complete. Realised pretty early that the key to the jigsaw was identifying the split solutions. Several unfamiliar themers – RIJSTTAFEL was guessable once I had a strong hunch about where JAMBALAYA had to go (which immediately made me think Dutch and remember the German tafel) but OLLA PODRIDA and my last in NAARTJE took a bit more teasing out, and the whole think took more than 4 hours.

    Thanks to Maskarade and Eileen.

11. Thanks Eileen for perservering and producing the blog.  I never figured out WARDENS so happy to find an explanation here.

    I like the challenge of grid fitting but this was a bit of a monster.  Kept telling myself that if I got the 11 letter clues it would crack, but OLLA PODRIDA was completely unknown to me and went in relatively late.  I’d never have got anywhere without aid of an electronic aid with grid filling, and googling the other obscure foodstuffs.  A bit of lucky guessing with ICING SUGAR and YARDSTICK sorted out a chunk to get me started.  Getting the other 10 letter words in the right place took a bit of time, particular with the options of splitting HEINZ BAKED BEANS and EGG ON TOAST (my favourite clue).

    Thanks to Maskerade – a very impressive grid.

12. Finally finished on Friday evening when the last few went in easily after a day away from thinking about it.
    Agree with all Eileen’s comments and, even when feeling very frustrated, was determined to get to the end.
    Was thrown by the two ‘sounds like’ clues KEEL and EYEFUL although it should have been obvious if I had read them properly. This meant that I started the grid again because something had obviously gone wrong. The really tricky words had to wait for crossers and a lot of random searches for various combinations of letters looking for obscure foods – the ones with other elements such as the POD in OLLA PODRIDA were more satisfying than the full anagrams.
    Thanks Maskarade and Eileen. It must be very stressful to be the assigned blogger for one like this.

13. So glad I didn’t waste beyond Tuesday on this.

    Thank you Eileen for your excellent (and honest) blog on this.

14. To DrWhatsOn @6

    Totally agree with you about RIJST(T)AFEL.  But then I’m a linguist.  Actually I’m fed up with making linguistic comments here and being ignored.  So I don’t bother any more.

15. This took a relatively elaborate spreadsheet – in particular to keep track of where all 14 five-letter entries were coming from. For example at one point EGG ON TOAST was going in as a 10 an ICING SUGAR as two 5s. Really liked the former and agree that ‘making’ seems superfluous in the clue for the latter. At least it was clear that the 5,5,5 solution had to go in three places…
    Enjoyed The big anagrams and several revelatory moments, especially when I finally saw CAFE AU LAIT.
    Bravo Maskarade and Eileen.

16. I kept to my resolution and spent only 1 hour on this fiasco.

    Identified the “theme” and some awful cluing as is normal with this setter.

    So thankfully I didn’t waste hours of my life that I wouldn’t get back on this awful setter. Why oh why does our editor choose this man for the bank holidays. He obviously doesn’t do much investigation into the actual puzzles which are dull dull dull dull dull.

    Compare these with the delightful Bank Holiday offerings we used to get from the genius Araucaria. He is sadly missed.

17. Favourite maskarade that I’ve done, probably because I got lucky with a couple of guesses on placement early on. Still got quite tangled up with some other clues, such as LONGHORN rather than LIMOUSIN.

18. I took too long on BAKED POTATO as I had HEINZ BAKED BEANS and I did not expect a second BAKED.

    I was also slow on RIJSTTAFEL as I don’t recall seeing the second T before. Anna, can you help me with that? Otherwise, I’ll have to ask one of my Dutch friends.

19. Dutch rijst = rice, tafel + table; the rijstafel sometimes found in English is simply haplolography.

20. Whoops, excuse my dittography.

21. I liked the pacing on this crossword – like Eileen I came back to it over Saturday, bits of Sunday and then Monday. By that stage I too had about 80% of the clues and nothing in the grid. I made a list of all the 5s, 6s etc, with the first letter where I had blanks, and also scientifically worked out which must be the entries across multiple spaces. After that the grid fill started to go more easily but I had to resolve some paradoxes caused by some errant answers (yardmarks, rijstaafel and a couple of the shorter ones including an idiotic error of putting “langue du chat” not “de”). It must be really hard to set so many clues and to fill such a grid so credit to Maskarade. I agree some of the clues were poor, and obscure words could be more clearly clued, but the level of difficulty overall, especially with google and wordsearches, seemed right to me.

22. Flavien, thanks. I had assumed that rice was rijs and never thought to check.

23. Thanks (I think) to Maskarade and Eileen for all the effort she put in. A big DNF for me, I managed to complete nearly two thirds of the clues and spotted the theme. However could not really get started on filling in the grid and eventually gave it up as a bad job. However horses for courses and thanks again to Maskarade and Eileen.

24. Flavia, sorry – autocorrect did something weird to your name.

25. This is my first comment.

    I’ve been a recreational user for years, always drawn to the Bank Holiday Specials, historically hoping for a Monkey Puzzling treat. Then I became a Saturday Junkie, again dreaming of an Araucanian Fix, with usually mixed results, commonly finding that the failure to finish was a discouragement, and I would go cold turkey for a while. But I kept being drawn back in – Saturdays Only mind! (I could quit any time I liked, me) – and slowly but surely deciphered the codes and learned the language. Crossword solving is a learnable skill, I discovered to my amazement. A few books – Halpern and Manley – fed the habit, and before long, I was completing each Prize successfully. But only a madman would attempt the daily, with its risk of quotidian frustration…until I did, and now find myself mainlining two or three of the back issues (almost back to the start of the year now). I simply cannot get enough.

    But enough about My Journey. I thoroughly enjoyed Maskerade’s masterpiece. (Reminded me more of the Pop Music Xmas 2016 than this Christmas’s Y-Fronts/T-Junction torture). Cost me four grids to enter successfully, and electronic aids were heavily leaned on, with OLLA PODRIDA pinched from the Answer Bank. But I was done by Monday, in time to change gears down to my methadone Quiptic and regular Cryptic.

    After each solve, I have been on this site for more insight, and loved the charming comments and erudition, although I avert my eyes from the picking of nits…I regard all Setters as deities (and my street dealers whom I dare not offend), and feel that after enjoying your respective contributions from the sidelines, I ought to add marginally to the wealth of nations and contribute myself.

    Eileen – I read of the S&B on 4th May and would have loved to have come and met you all (being Nottingham based) – but alas find myself in Nefyn that weekend. Enjoy!

26. Too hard and I cheated a lot so I am in awe of you, Eileen, and other solvers who did much better than me and got it out. I did like some parts though it was tough going. It was good to learn lots of new things during my attempt and from reading this blog. the theme was fun and my favourite clue of the ones I solved was MAYONNAISE. With many thanks to Maskarade, Eileen and the contributors to the forum who have posted many interesting comments.

27. I enjoy the annual Maskarade puzzle as a different kind of challenge. I cannot argue with some of the comments about the cluing but that is part of the fun. Being laid up with a ruptured achilles tendon I have been going through my book of old Araucaria puzzles. Some of the liberties he took with his clues are not dissimilar to Maskarade’s and I seem to recall plenty of complaints on this website about them in the good old days.

    Well done to M for his efforts in setting the puzzle and thanks to Eileen for the lengthy blog.

28. We’re definitely with the thumbs up department on this crossword, congratulations Maskarade on setting such a lovely Bank Holiday challenge, and where the five thematic distributed clues neatly scuppered the usual grid filling algorithms (many thanks to the Guardian for extra white space) these having to be replaced by FUZZY logic (as in probably goes here, write it in faintly). Alphabetic crosswords can get a bit boring and mechanistic towards the end, but the extra uncertainty meant that this time the drama kept going until the very last corner, where repeated failure to think of art for style, memory loss on wardens pears and tang/ting doubts lead to the Inevitable recrimination: you filled it in all wrong!

    Many thanks and congratulations too to Eileen, although don’t agree that clues were unfair. Think funny words fine for Bank Holiday and can have the big plus of defeating the electronic aids temptation tends to lead us to. Also, Maskarade’s constructions are always straightforward, as Eileen says, no problem with parsing, so fair game.

    Friends and families are often together at holidays, so these crosswords frequently done collaboratively. Perhaps 15 squared might consider an official blogger pairing for next? Then it would be fun, and not a slog!

29. Thanks to Masarade for the tough challenge and to Eileen for the nice blog. This was the first time I completed a bank holiday special where one has to work out where to put the solutions in the grid, so I’m quite happy to have persevered. It took me a lot (!) of time and also quite some help from google and crossword dictionaries, I readily admit. I started filling the grid with the 3-letter solutions because there were only two of them: The bottom right corner had to be either NOH and NAARTJE, or MAE and MANDELA, and one of the two choices led to a dead end quickly. By the way, I tried (and failed) to parse JALAPENOS before I got JAMBALAYA, and KIT KAT before I got KIA ORA, and XIGUA before I got XERES. Like Mw @17, I also tried to parse LONGHORN before I found LIMOUSIN.

    A little typo in the blog: The answer is FETTUCINE, not FETUCCINE. I had actually thought the only correct spelling was FETTUCCINE, but apparently FETTUCINE is an acceptable alternative.

     

30. Eileen sums up this puzzle perfectly for me in her customary fair and courteous way: “…this grid-fill was an impressive tour de force on Maskarade’s part but it’s been said before that such a feat is perhaps inevitably more satisfying for the compiler than the solver.” I agree with those who felt this BH special elicited admiration rather than enjoyment, and I’m glad that contributors so far have followed Eileen’s example and tried to be positive even if they didn’t much like the puzzle (with one glaring exception, of course).

    I didn’t have any real problems with the cluing, but I do wonder whether the jigsaw element was really necessary. It added an extra layer of complexity to an already difficult puzzle, especially as the nature of the grid made for very slow progress in placing the answers.

31. Many thanks to Eileen for the meticulous blog. Managed to solve it over a few days. Got going with the population by taking a punt that strawberry and Yorkshire might intersect. I thought some of the solutions were a wee bit obscure – particularly the eleven-letter [o], given that it was one of just the two. Admiration to Maskarade.

32. I solved about 90% of clues cold and, using the doubled first letters to get in, filled in a lot of the far lhs (+ MAE and MANDELA), but despite suspicions MAYONNAISE went where it did got stuck needing ENTRECOTE  or maybe one of the 11’s to get any further. Don’t think I’d ever have got OLLA PORRIDA, which, like many other of the theme words, I hadn’t heard of.

33. There was a lot to like in this puzzle, especially EGG ON TOAST but…..
    I don’t have the aptitude or patience for spread sheets and the like and am old-fashioned enough to prefer solving puzzle unaided, except to check the odd word, like yesterday’s scientists. Like many others I got most of the answers but didn’t know where to put them. I started with KEEL and KIA ORA where WAKE and WIENER ended up because it was the only 4 and 6 that I could see. Then of course the R didn’t fit. I managed to fill in a handful around BERLIOZ but then gave up.
    Thanks to Maskarade and Eileen, of course.

34. @Flavia, I was going to show appreciation for a good joke (“haplologragraphy”) when I found ‘haplography’ meant “the accidental writing of only one letter or syllable where there should be two similar letters or syllables” (Collins, my Italics) … until I read your apology. Still, that’s two new words now (in addition to all those foods beyond my ken — and purse, probably).

35. I find myself in the slightly odd position of agreeing with nearly all the comments, both positive and negative. I admire Maskarade’s ability hugely and yet I do have a problem. The problem is not with Maskarade however, it’s with the editor. The Easter and Christmas specials are much looked forward to. It is bound to be disappointing to those of us who are drawn to everything the Guardian has to offer in the way of Cryptics if these particular slots have in the last few years offered up much the same fare each time; some variety would be very welcome and is surely necessary. I did persevere with this puzzle and it nearly drove me crazy but I got there in the end and I enjoyed the experience, in a  masochistic kind of way. But please, let someone else have a go once in a while.

36. I didn’t use a spreadsheet, just an old fashioned sheet of paper…

37. This was a bit of a curate’s egg for me – definitely good, maybe great in parts. But overall, too hard on too many levels (clues, placement, rubric) for me to finish.

    I didn’t see anyone else comment on the ambiguity of the rubric ( 5 thematic solutions occupy 2 or 3 positions on the grid. While the ones for W, Y, H, L are obvious, either ICING SUGAR or EGG ON TOAST or ADAMS APPLE could also have done same. Just too hard to keep track of all that. When the fun stops, stop.

    As for the clues, I greatly enjoyed the cluster of thematics in the N of t’grid : ENTRECOTE, JAMBALAYA, RIJSTTAFEL but maybe that was because I solved and parsed them pretty easily. Less satisfying were NAARTJE and TANGELO, but then I failed to solve them. I saw it would be EGG ON something-five-lettered, but having biffed in MADISON for the president the SE corner went wrong and I never got the TOAST. Several people seemed to find this the  pick of the clues, but not working for me, EGG ON doesn’t seem great as a synonym for drive, and nor is TOAST a great synonym for drink (I agree it will be in the dictionary etc). Maybe SOUR GRAPES on my part.

    Thanks to Maskarade, Eileen and all learned contributors above, for undoubtedly a fine achievement and much diversion.

38. Thanks to everyone for the comments.

    I was quite anxious about this blog, because I usually adopt the Thumper principle and so I’m relieved that most people also had some reservations – but, on the whole, appreciated the puzzle. Many thanks again to Maskarade.

    I think xjpotter @35 makes a good point. Along with many others, I know, I still sadly miss Araucaria, who traditionally appeared at Bank Holidays and left such big boots to fill. Several setters have been suggested as successors. My own preference is for Puck, who has produced some fine alphabeticals [and, for me, has the same [puckish] playfulness] but so has Paul, who, I know, is favourite for others. There are half a dozen or more of my favourites who, I’m sure, could easily rise to the occasion. If Maskarade has been permanently given the Bank Holiday slot, I feel that’s probably unfair pressure on him to produce ever more ingenious / fiendish puzzles. It would be good to continue seeing him, along with others, to provide some variety, as xjpotter says.

    [I’m finally thawed out after my trip to Stratford. The weather forecast was ‘cold, very windy and wet’. Well, at least the rain held off while we were outside, watching the procession [after Buck’s Fizz and cake at 9.30 in the Theatre with Friends of the RSC, including moving renditions by members of the Company] but the wind was very high, so that the bard’s flag had to be lowered within minutes of hoisting, to prevent damage and we were thoroughly chilled to the marrow. Comfort food at The Dirty Duck did a lot to revive spirits. [Last year, we sat outside there, in glorious sunshine.]

    David Ellison @3 – best of luck with the prize – that’s how I got my beloved, now battered, Collins, 12-15 years ago!

    nefyn Rich @25 Welcome! I enjoyed reading about your Journey [trip?] – looking forward to hearing more from you. Sorry you can’t join us next week.

    major tom@29 – thanks for that. I’ll amend it now. As you see, I had it right in the grid!

    .

39. I conjectured and subsequently confirmed what I think is an interesting etymological connection to one of the answers here that I, and I daresay a few others, were not familiar with: OLLA PODRIDA. Olla is Spanish for pot, and has even made its way into the English lexicon. Podrida looks like a past participle, and also looks like putrid, which suggests it means decayed. That would connect olla podrida with the French “pot pourri”, which literally means precisely “decayed pot”, not exactly something pleasant-sounding. Both terms also have the extra meaning of “hodge-podge”, which is more neutral. However, their common usages are for things that are tasty and fragrant, respectively. Go figure!

40. 90% done, but tripped on misplacing the Y-9 words. The use of little words together (eg 3,2,5/egg on toast) added an extra dimension to the grid filling. Foundered on naartje (art for style?) and langue de chat (take away anagrams – yeuch!). Otherwise much enjoyed with some great surfaces.

41. I echo the remark that RIJSTTAFEL is not terribly obscure–you can get it in Chicago, so it can’t be absent from London either. I solved it readily once JAMBALAYA was placed. Try it–it’s one of those rare happy legacies of colonialism. NAARTJE, though, did strike me as rather unfair–an obscure alternate spelling of an alternate name for a little-known orange–and was the last answer I got.

    I solved this in collaboration with VinnyD, who comments here occasionally, and another mutual online friend. It took us the whole weekend. We never did work out the parsing on either XERES or QUINOA. But it was fun to do one of these in that fashion, so thanks.

    Incidentally, I liked that there were foodstuffs from all over the world represented.

42. As someone who has been a bit critical of Maskarade in the past I thought this was the best bank holiday puzzle for some time – a suitably complex but fair challenge. Alphabetical puzzles can be quite easy to unravel, but the split solutions added a welcome additional degree of difficulty. Many thanks to the compiler and to Eileen.

43. Thanks to Eileen and Maskarade. Managed to complete this by Sunday night, so thankful not to have a
    spent the whole week on it. I always enjoy Maskarade’s bank holiday specials, however I accept they are a very different challenge from normal crosswords so I feel no shame in using whatever aids are available, including Answerbank in real extremis.

    As usual Maskarade makes up his own rules about clueing, which I’ve learned to accept as part of the challenge. However I am getting a touch bored with alphabetic jigsaw- does anyone else feel the same ?? I initially went wrong in the bottom left corner, having not noticed that the W clues were a candidate, but once I’d corrected that I found that slotting the rest together seemed to revolve around getting ENTRECOTE at the top. I’m sure everyone else’s experiences were different !

44. @mpenney, not all Brits live in London, or one of the other major cities that may have Indonesian restaurants! Afaik, there are none in my home town (not that I would have the money to bother examining their offerings if there were). I’m not complaining about the entry, though: if it had been clued with ‘worried’ as Eileen suggests (or maybe better ‘being worried’), I might well have got it. I don’t really see how ‘worries’ indicates an anagram of what precedes it.

    @JohnB, failing to get ENTRECOTE was a big stumbling block for me. I sort of assumed ‘rugby player’ would refer to a star of that sport, of which I’m largely ignorant. It’s a shame that put me off as I might have got it if I’d thought of ‘centre’.

    It was a good puzzle but I couldn’t spare the time to ponder long enough to have a chance of completing it.

45. This was the hardest alphabetical I’ve ever tried.  It took me 3 attempts to produce a correct grid.  As a standard cryptic, it was somewhat disappointing, but as a puzzle, it was addictive and I had to finish it once I’d started.

    On the third gridfill, I carefully used all the logic I could muster, but I still ended up convinced that ERNIE was in the bottom left hand corner, owing to making the flawed assumption that the (3,2,5) E entry would be in a single slot.  My bad, as they say!  There are some what I’d describe as iffy entries, e.g XERES, which uses an old spelling of the town, rather than the drink, and which used an obscure term (Xerotes) in the parsing and has an equally plausible variation (XEREZ).  Hmmm…

    I’m still not sure why “Ship” appears in the FETTUCINE clue.  Surely, “boat” alone would suffice.

    Minor quibbles aside, I thoroughly enjoyed the logic challenge in the end and think it was a suitable Easter special.  Pity the Guardian published it in the Cryptic section as the Jumbo Everyman Christmas special!… but that’s another beef for another day.

    Thanks, Maskarade, and Eileen for the comprehensive blog.

46. The weather was too nice over the Bank holiday so I didn’t start this until the Tuesday and did it in bits only finishing it about an hour ago. I don’t think doing it in bits is very efficient because I kept losing the thread – and pausing to do the daily puzzle. Yesterday’s Paul was a wonderful break. I can’t say I did this without electronic help with the foodstuffs that I’ve never heard of and,you’ll be astonished to learn that RIJSTTAFEL is not readily available in Barnstaple!
    tHese alphabeticals are always a bit of a mixed bag and this was no exception so I can’t say it was an unalloyed joy but was interesting enough to make me keep at it.
    Thanks Maskarade.

47. @Phitonelly,

    CUTTER: “3. a ship’s boat, powered by oars or sail, for carrying passengers or light cargo” Collins. He’s sctually being helpful (if you know that def, which I didn’t either).

    I worked out that EGG ON and EAGLE went bottom left because of the crossing G, but not which was which.

    I agree with what you say about XERES. “Hard word, easy clue” is a good maxim.

48. Good luck to those who enjoyed this, but like Eileen I thought the theme too vague and the clues in places too easy or else unfair. I won’t be bothering again as there is no fun in having to cheat to finish. Sad because the jigsaw concept appeals.

49. Oofyprosser – for the record, I didn’t say the theme was too vague.

50. Thanks to Eileen and Maskarade

    I didn’t attempt this but I have just enjoyed the blog and comments and I MAY have something to add.

    It seems an almost Sisyphean task to arrange the grid (especially with the split entries), so I wondered if there might be a helpful hint hidden somewhere.

    The feasts of Easter and Seder almost exactly coincided with the publication of this puzzle and contained in the first line completed grid we have

    LENTRECOTE

    Is it too much of a stretch to construe this as LENT OVER and PASSOVER (from and old meaning of COTE)?

    Perhaps, but I like the possibility.

51. Tony@47

    Point taken re: CUTTER.  I should have checked Collins.  It certainly didn’t help me, although I cold solved FETTUCINE, so have no real complaints.  I was unable however to cold solve EGG ON TOAST or EAGLE, so the G crosser didn’t help me to place ERNIE, at least on the first run through.  The puzzle was more of a logic test than a clue-solving test, but I enjoyed that aspect of it immensely in the end.

52. I should have got FETTUCINE but didn’t. I had it parsed as FINE surrounding reversed word for ‘ship’s boat’, even thinking the right meaning as in Collins, but didn’t know the word. In fact, I now find a search for the term would have given ‘cutter’ here: https://www.thefreedictionary.com/ship%27s+boat

    I guess I didn’t try hard enough. It’s very satisfying to complete a puzzle like that and it’s a shame I didn’t. Well done for persevering.

53. After being away for five days last week, leaving this unfinished, I finally completed this tonight. Thoroughly enjoyed it, and hoping for more challenges on the May bank holidays! I love puzzles with a twist or a quirk and rarely do ‘ordinary’ ones these days, (unless they are by the fiendish John H in his many guises!)

54. Returning to this thread – where else could I go? – to crow as I have just received a copy of Can You Solve My Problems? from The Guardian. I don’t know how many completed prize puzzles I’ve sent in over the years so this was unexpected and most gratifying! I wonder how many entries they get for a puzzle as fiendish as this one. Mine was submitted by fax on the Wednesday 🙂

55. Congratulations, Alton – well done! Patience and persistence rewarded.

    [Very few people will see your post – you could always slip it into the next Prize blog, to encourage the others. 😉 ]

56. Congratulations, Alton! It’s always nice to hear when a 15² poster wins the prize 🙂

    I belatedly came here to (a) kvetch that vetch isn’t a grass, which I don’t think anyone else raised, and (b) say what a brilliantly written post this is! I know how much harder it is to write these posts when you have reservations about the puzzle, and this had both a huge number of a clues to explain and a number of problems, which Eileen discussed very fairly.

57. Andy Coghlan says:

    This was a monster because of horrendous ambiguity over how to handle and insert the split clues. I finished it unaided, but it took about three or four goes over as many days, and without electronic grid filling assistance. I agree with Pino and Beery Hiker above, that spreadsheets and electronic grid filling shouldn’t be necessary aids to solving what is essentially a puzzle of wordplay, not a computing exercise. So I hope that in future, Maskarade avoids crosswords with this level of grid-filling complication. I also agree that some of the answers (and definitions) were unfairly obscure, and were only solvable (after a lot of pottering around with guessed alternatives on google) once other letters were in place. Proud I managed to complete it, but I do wonder why I wasted so much time seeing it through to the bitter end. Bank hols shouldn’t be like this, so make it easier next time, perlease!

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