Guardian Prize 28,261 by Brendan

62 comments on “Guardian Prize 28,261 by Brendan”

1. Thanks PeeDee. An enjoyable and not too taxing diversion I thought. Although the answers were unmistakeable I did have to work on FRIAR and USEFUL before I could explain them.

2. Thanks to Brendon and PeeDee. Tracking the name days helped with solving, but I failed to parse FRIAR and struggled with MODISTE.

3. I think 13 across is that there is also a Saints Day too for Brendan (16th May), which does seem to be the theme!

4. Plenty of ticks for this one. I thought NAME DAY and FRIAR were especially clever, along with DEEP-FRY, with ‘initially’ cluing something other than the first letter of a word. Lots of good misdirection, such as STAYED and ABSCONDED, where I grabbed the clue by the wrong end at first. Also couldn’t see how to parse MONET at 11a until I saw the other picture producer that fit the crossers. All in all a good struggle, so thanks to Brendan as well as to PeeDee for the parsing of SAINTS DAY.

5. Thanks PeeDee, I enjoyed it too and needed your help for the parsing of SAINT’S DAY.

   In fact I more than enjoyed it, every new DAY I spotted added to the pleasure.  In addition to the SAINTS’ DAYS, the whole week was represented: MOTHERING Sunday, MON in SOLOMON, Shrove (PANCAKE) Tuesday, SHEFFIELD Wednesday, MAUNDY Thursday, fish for the FRIAR on FRIday, and SAT in RESAT.

   Not only that, but SOLOMON (Grundy) was there, and even Craig DAVID (I finished the puzzle on Saturday, then chilled on Sunday 😉 )

   Brendan, thank you for the days.

6. Thanks PeeDee and Brendan. The theme was fun.

   Typo in 28a: L in (b)LIGHTY.

   I didn’t know that. Research revealed that it is a derivative of ‘velayeti’ an Indian word for foreigner…corrupted to ‘beleti’ by the Bengalis who pronounce v as b.

7. Thanks for that, essexboy. There was more to the theme than I realized.

8. I still don’t understand 28A. Where does the part that isn’t the L come from? Is BLIGHTY a word for Britain?

9. I know sin die as legalese, but couldn’t spot it in the clue. I think it was the only incomplete parse, but I did wonder what folk with no knowlwdge of UK football teams woild make of 22ac. Enjoyable puzzle though, not hard, and fun finding all the days. Thanks both.

10. Thanks PeeDee. GEORGE led the way to the likeable theme – Onomastico in Italian and ditto almost in other romance languages although the French have the boring ‘fete.’

11. @Iroquois

    Yes!

    @PeeDee

    Thank you for pancake landing and sine die.

    @Brendan

    Go raibh maith agat.

12. Wow. I spent half an hour looking at this last week, and was unable to get a single clue, and, without a foothold, lost interest and gave up.

    Reading this blog today I can’t see anything particularly devious or tricky in the clueing. Must have just been having a brain holiday …

13. I thought I was so clever, finding all the days of the week in the puzzle, but no, essexboy@5 was way ahead of me.

    Is Maundy Thursday only in England? I thought it was throughout the Christian world.

    I loathe Wagner, but I loved 14d MOTHERING, my cod. I didn’t know the pancake landing, so thanks PeeDee for the illumination.

    Happy birthday, Brendan, and thanks for yet another superb crossword.

14. me@13 [ In Canada we call it Mother’s Day. I always think Mothering Sunday is what someone who hates Sundays would call it. ]

15. [Thank you so much essexboy for that link. Wonderful performance that I hadn’t seen before, but hasn’t his voice changed]
    À very clever and satisfying puzzle from Brendan and even i couldn’t miss the theme, which developed to be so much more than I thought at first. Had to come here for the parsing of MOTHERING. Thanks Brendan and Peewee.

16. *PeeDee. Apologies.

17. Cellomaniac@13, Maundy Thursday is a worldwide Christian festival, but in England there is a particular ceremony, when the monarch gives out money to old people in one of the cathedrals. One old lady and one old gent for each year of her life, which is quite a lot now the Queen is over 90. The kings used to wash the feet of the old people, in reference to Jesus washing his disciples, but that was considered infra dig, so was replaced by money (which misses the whole point of the exercise).

    The theme seemed so obvious that PeeDee did not mention it, but well done essexboy @5 in pointing out all the details.

    Did anyone feel like me, that FRIAR and ‘monk’ are not synonymous? A monk lives enclosed in a monastery, while a friar wanders about. But FRIAR was so tempting in the context – I wondered if a joke about preparing fish and chips might come in.

    Enjoyable puzzle, thanks Brendan and PeeDee.

18. Quite enjoyable and no real quibbles.

    Perhaps a little heavy on anagrams?  (there are four)

    molonglo @ 10

    They’re called nimipäivä (nimipäivät in the nom pl) in Finland.

    anne @ 11

    Nice to see some Irish.  And Dia duit to yourself, too !

    Thanks to Brendan and to PeeDee.

19. essexboy @5: not often that a post has as much impact on me as the whole puzzle but your observation has thrown a new light on things.  Which I had totally missed and certainly elevates Brendan’s achievement.  Absolutely spendid.  (I’m sure he intended the Grundy reference but I wonder about Craig David).

    sjshart @17: fair observation re monks and friars.  I’ve seen friars described as mendicant monks so I’ve taken the one as being a subset of the other.  It could probably be represented on a Venn diagram.

    Theme aside, I did enjoy the two hidden answers, NORTH and EMENDABLE and FIRST is very neatly clued.

    [I recall a plaintiff post recently along the lines of “there’s a cheetah but no body” (with a Frankenstein theme that day, I rather felt the bodies were implicit!).  I wonder if we’ll see a similar observation today from the nearly namechecked hatter?]

    Thanks Brendan and PeeDee

20. I would dearly love confirmation that Craig David was a deliberate part of this puzzle. 🙂

    Very enjoyable in a logical and procedural sort of way (hey – what can I say? I like logic and procedure). I thought DEEP FRY was clever, but MOTHERING was best. Didn’t clock the second definition of PANCAKE at all.

    Peedee – slight typo in your explanation for LIGHTLY – a few too many ‘L’s have crept in.

21. Iroquois@8.  Yes, Blighty is slang for Britain, common in the forces.  My great uncle copped a Blighty one in WW1 (i.e. a wound which got him home but didn’t maim him), for which he was ever thankful.

22. [essexboy @5. Thanks for the link to Ray Davies at Glastonbury in 2010. It was very moving at first, when he was on the verge of tears and looking to the sky (heaven?), but then he spoiled it by encouraging the crowd to sing along and clap.

    I wasn’t previously aware of Craig David’s 7 Days, so followed a Google link to YouTube, but I’m not going to post a link to that because I wouldn’t want to inflict my experience of it on anyone else. A truly dreadful piece of ‘music’.

    Postmark/Frank @19. Yes, I did think of you and your spotting of 225 commenters’ monikers in the puzzles when I saw SHEFFIELD. The team used to be known as just The Wednesday, until adding the name of my adopted home town in 1929.]

23. Agree with sjhart @17 – a friar is not a monk

24. Another masterpiece of grid-filling from Brendan, with delight all the way, as each layer revealed itself. (Thanks to essexboy @ 5 for spelling it all out – and ‘thank you for the music’ 😉 )

    cellomaniac @14 – it’s widely called Mother’s Day here in the UK these days, too – see here  My children complain that it’s getting increasingly difficult to find me a Mothering Sunday card!

    I agree with Ant @3 – a name day is similar to but different from a birthday – see here.

    This is one of those puzzles where the whole is much more than the sum of its parts but I must single out 24ac DAVID as my top favourites clue – it made me laugh out loud.

    Many thanks for the blog, PeeDee [small typo in 3dn – sine die) and to Brendan for a gem of a puzzle.

25. I don’t think a NAME DAY is the same as a birthday. It’s the Saint’s day that corresponds to your Christian name. I echo the congratulations to essexboy for finding all the days and to Brendan for subtly including them

26. Petert @25 – see my link @24.

27. An excellent themed crossword, and I think I got all the ‘day’ references. I stalled on SHEFFIELD, but if I had stopped to think that Wednesday was otherwise missing from the crossword I would have got it more quickly.
    Many good clues, my pick of them being VOTER, AGENDUM, MOTHERING and SOLOMON.
    Thanks to Brendan, PeeDee and other commenters.

28. Thanks to Brendan and PeeDee. Also to essexboy for expanding on the theme and sheffield hatter for keeping Craig David to himself.

    [sjhart @17 – for proper fish and chips, you need both a fish friar and a chip monk]

29. [Penfold @28: If served up in a monastery, possibly accompanied with peace, mushy or otherwise. …I’ll get my coat.]

30. Thanks all for the elaborations and corrections.  I have updated the blog.

31. Croc @23 & sjhart @17. I was of the same view as you two, that friar and monk are not synonymous. Postmark @19 has commented that he’s seen “friars described as mendicant monks” (and there is support for this from Britannica), but against that the Wikipedia article has this: Friars are different from monks in that they are called to live the evangelical counsels (vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience) in service to society, rather than through cloistered asceticism and devotion.

    As usual, Chambers supplies the setter with a get-out-of-jail card: monk: ‘a man (other than a friar, but loosely often applied to a friar also) of a religious community living together under vows’. That just looks so wrong (like ‘insect’ being loosely applied to creatures that do not have six legs and a segmented body), but it’s there in Chambers so it’s good.

32. Thanks so much Brendan And PeeDee. A marvellous Cryptic, and essexboy@5 says it so better than I could. Lovely to see some Gaelic in the comments. Agree with Ant and Eileen about name day. [Brigid was my choice, although whether she is a saint or a godess is a moot point…] Favourite was MOTHERING…

33. Thought Name Day referred to ND in BreNDan.

34. Really enjoyed this. Many thanks. For once, finished without artificial aid. I tried to invent a cryptic solution to DAVID. AID is an advantage. V is at its heart (like a stone/pip is). But sady couldn’t parse the first D.

35. Much enjoyed this and all the various days. After George, David and Patrick (patron saints of England, Wales and Ireland) my Scottish persona was rather offended not to find Andrew! In fact I thought there was one somewhere but cannot find him now. These were for me the name days, though I now see that the clue points me elsewhere. By the way SD is sine die (Latin), not sin die which looks like an autocorrect error. Many thanks to PeeDee for the blog and to Brendan for the lovely puzzle.

36. Beobachterin @35: I’m not sure if you’re pulling our legs or if I’m missing something entirely.  You were right in thinking there was an Andrew.  There still is: hiding in plain sight at 19d?

37. Amazing grid fill.  Very enjoyable to solve, although not especially difficult.

    Thanks to essexboy @5 for laying out all the days of the week references.  There are also a couple of theme related Ninas.  ASH (Wednesday) appears in column 2 and a somewhat staggered EASTER (Sunday and Monday) going north from the E in STAYED.  Maybe the latter one is by chance?  Apparently there are FIRST Friday devotions in the Catholic church too.

    Great fun!  Thanks, Brendan and PeeDee.

38. I hesitated over 3 and 13, thinking that there was a convention that DAY would not be repeated in the same puzzle, but no one else has mentioned it so I must be wrong. Anyway, who’s to complain about a fun crossword like this?

39. PostMark No, I really could not refjnd ANDREW, although now of course I see it quite plainly. Very senior moment…. I should have trusted my memory or done a search on the laptop version kof the blog. So the four patron saints of the UK nations can be added to the beauties of this puzzle. And I agree with PetrerT on the definition of NAME DAY.

40. Very enjoyable, so many thanks Brendan, however, plenty I did not parse straight off so I am indebted to PeeDee for the clarification!  I think I agree with Eileen (well I usually do) that DAVID was the standout clue!

    [I’m not sure this should be in square brackets but I’ll use them nonetheless.  When are the Guardian going to stop calling this a ‘Prize’ crossword, they have not offered a Prize for some time and sadly the way things are going it might be some time before they will again?  If they want to keep doing away with the check and reveal buttons so be it. Perhaps calling it the Saturday Cryptic would be closer to the truth.  Maybe the blog could then be published on the Monday, instead of waiting all week]

41. SPanza @ 40

    On the pdf, the Saturday puzzle is just referred to as ‘Guardian cryptic crossword’.

    For some reason both the website and print version still refer to it as ‘Prize’. Why, I couldn’t tell you.

42. [Postmark are you who I think you were pre post Mark?]

43. Thanks for pointing that out Simon S@41. I did not know that, but it looks like it won’t be long before sense prevails!

44. SPanza @40 – I’m glad you agree! The ‘five-stone advantage’ was just delicious. At risk of seeming patronising, I think it’s worth spelling it out. As a small child in Sunday School, I used to sing a chorus, ‘Only a boy called David’, quoting the biblical account that David took five small stones to put in his sling, to fight the Philistine giant Goliath. I’ve only been able to find an American version, which is a bit different from ours! What made the clue more delicious, of course, is that Goliath is Philistine’s pseudonym for his FT puzzles.

45. Petert @ 42

    Of course he is – all the hallMARKS are there. Welcome back, Postmark – with a brilliant pseudonym!

46. [Thanks Eileen @44, this is the version I remember; perhaps you too? (You have to unmute the sound)]

    [Eileen @45: hear hear!]

47. essexboy@46 – bless you! That’s exactly it – why couldn’t I find it? The only thing missing is the ‘tumbling down’ at the end, which we always loved.

48. [Eileen @47:  I found it by searching for “only a boy called David” in quotation marks.  We never did the tumbling down!  But the whole ‘ambiance’ is exactly as I recall – even down to the little one in front who looks a bit “Am I bovvered though?” 🙂 ]

49. [Petert @42 & Eileen @45. After David & Goliath, of course we had to have the Prodigal Son. But I’m afraid essexboy beat you both to it yesterday – see his @78 and mine @80, where I muddied the waters somewhat by suggesting that with username PostMark his real name ought to be Frank. Which I thought that a clever bunch of cruciverbalists would have found at least slightly amusing, but apparently no one has felt tickled enough to comment. Or no one has even read it.]

50. [Hi sheffield hatter @49- yes, I did see both your comments yesterday ( hence my ‘of course he is’ @45 – and I loved your ‘Frank’ suggestion, too! Virtual fatted calf duly prepared. 😉 ]

51. [Thanks Eileen. Should have known I could count on you!]

52. [Re my last sentence @44 – Doh! – I was still half thinking of Philistines’ lovely puzzle from yesterday. This is Brendan, of course! Still not totally irrelevant, I hope.]

53. [PeterT, Eileen, essexboy & hatter: rumbled!  Nice to be back and glad you appreciate the moniker, Eileen.  I did want to be able to keep a bit of Mark and I thought it might appeal to those who enjoy wordplay.  Marksman and Trademark (which seemed appropriate, given the reasons for changing it) briefly contended.  As did a childish misspelling from my very early years – Marx – which would have been in keeping with the paper’s political persuasion.  But, knowing my luck, Karl (or Groucho) would have turned up as a commenter and we’d have been back into confusion.

    I must say, you lot do go on a bit…..  😀  ]

54. I am totally mystified  – and mortified – by the wandering apostrophe at 52. There is only one Philistine! 😉

55. This was a bit tougher for me than the last few by Brendan but it was certainly worth the effort. [NAME DAY was a big deal in my grandmother’s Southern Italian village. It was celebrated every year instead of her birthday. In fact, she didn’t even know her birthday until many years later when records were sent to the US after she emigrated. I guess your “saint” was considered more signifant than you.] Thanks to both.

56. Tony Santucci @55. Not only more significant, but easier to remember, because all the saints days would be remembered for you by the priest, whereas who knew the date of their birth? As your nan’s experience testifies.

57. essexboy at 5: I always learn at this site. Solomon Grundy I thought of too late to incorporate in the clue, Craig David (Buffo at 20) I had never heard of. I’m glad Eileen and others liked the clue for DAVID (I considered it ok to have perhaps a somewhat harder clue, since there is another clue from PATRICK/ANDREW/GEORGE). Pica at 38: Everything else being equal, I would have avoided the duplication of DAY, but when is everything else equal? Disconnectedly, in view of today’s news, let me recommend the documentary “You’ve been trumped” watchable at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ShXI51dg-Y

58. Many thanks for the link, Brendan! I heard the news on the radio before I got up this morning.

59. [I’ve been away from the site for a while, so a belated thank you to Eileen@24 for the Mother’s Day / Mothering Sunday explanation – I was unaware of the religious origins of the latter. And thanks sjhart@17 for the elaboration of the British elaboration of the Maundy Thursday ritual. Thanks to fifteensquared, we never stop learning. ]

60. With the initial F of 23down to work with, I was pleased with Fovea for ‘Where the cones are located…’. Unfortunately the rest of the clue didn’t square with that!

61. Belated thanks PeeDee especially for sorting out 3D, I got into all sorts of trouble trying to justify an (unindicated) anagram of ISNT with AD for the innards, but Brendan is scrupulously fair and I knew I had the wrong idea but no better ones. Once again enjoyed this enormously with the theme weaving through clues and solutions but as usual I missed some layers so thanks essexboy@5 and Eileen plus various others for adding to the understanding. Digby@60 I first tried to do something with eyes for 23D, recalling rods and cones from school, but luckily my anatomical knowledge is inferior to yours and I moved on before too long. I did nearly trip up by confidently writing STIR FRY for 18D as I am sure I have seen STIR = sea or deep water somewhere, but maybe it is just prison and in any case the crossers sorted that out. And I wrote in DAVID from the first D and V but didn’t fully understand the clue (I tried the same as Choldunk@34 to no avail) so have now googled for the full details which I did not remember from Sunday School a few decades ago. Thanks Brendan, I printed this off but only solved it a week later and it was well worth the wait.

62. Did not parse PANCAKE, DAVID, FRIAR, USEFUL

    Favourites: MOTHERING, SOLOMON

    New: SHEFFIELD play in the Go Sport Midweek League DIVISION ONE.

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