A challenging puzzle but a very enjoyable one. Thank you Paul.
Hopefully no complaints about the Prize puzzle being too easy this week! I really enjoyed this, but it took more than one sitting to fill the grid. Sometimes setters make the clues easier to compensate for the lack of grid numbers, but I didn’t notice much of a drop from Paul’s usual standard this week. At least there were plenty of hints about how to start guessing where the answers go. In particular:
- two 4 letter answers start with Y and go bottom right corner
- the other two 4-letter answers end with the same letter and go top-left corner
- two 6-letter answers start with J and go bottom right corner
- two of the remaining 6-letter solutions end in the same letter and as a pair go top-left
There are two possible ways to enter the solutions, one is a reflection of the other about a diagonal line running top-left to bottom-right. For example FIGURINE could be placed as either the first across solution or the first down solution, either way would lead to a completed grid. However, the clue to ZUNI contains the reversal indicator “heading north”. This only works if ZUNI appears as a down light, so that is the preferred option.
ATHERTON Cricketer with yet more batting success? No, no! (8)
AnoTHER TON (yet more batting success) missing (no) NO
BLOODSTAIN Mark not bad, so I gathered: student overcome (10)
anagram (gathered) of NOT BAD SO I containing (…is overcome) L (student)
COURSING Turning air blue, having trapped nothing, hunter’s sport (8)
CURSING (turning the air blue) contains (having trapped) O (nothing)
DISC HARROW Machinery with something sharp on end of plate that keeps churning, primarily (4,6)
ARROW (something sharp) follows (on the end of) DISH (plate) containing (that keeps) Churning (first letter, primarily)
EXPECT Sense old setter not fashionable(6)
EX (old) PECTin (a gelling agent, something that sets) missing IN (fashionable)
FIGURINE Carving, waste of tree (8)
cryptically FIG URINE would be the waste from a tree
GLOWER Look daggers, when third of wage cut (6)
waGe (third letter of) and LOWER (cut)
HERD OF COWS Fashion show forced to bring a lot of stock? (4,2,4)
anagram (fashion) of SHOW FORCED
ICICLE Spike Milligan’s second group less ridiculous, initially (6)
mIlligan (second letter of) then CIrCLE (group) missing Ridiculous (first letter, initially)
JA WOHL Talk I see online, certainly in translation (6)
JAW (talk) OH (I see, exclamation) on L (line)
JUNEAU American city you may recall in conversation? (6)
sounds like a lazy rendition (in conversation) of “do you know” (you may recall) – imagine a slurring of the first two syllables so the pronunciation is JOO (do you) NO (know)
KRAKATOA Old blower, puller of the pulled, we hear? (8)
sounds like (we hear) “cracker tower” a puller (a tower) of a cracker (Christmas cracker, something that is pulled) – an explosive volcano (something that bows)
LINOLEUM Covering rule about golf when case dismissed, is that right? (8)
LINE (rule) contains (about) gOLf missing outer letters (when case is dismissed) then UM (is that right?)
MOTION Poet — his work in this? (6)
A poet’s work is poetry, so Andrew Motion’s work in this (the solution) would be “Poetry in Motion”
NARITA Japanese airport with short turnround in a capital city? (6)
A then TIRANa (capital city, short) all reversed (turnaround)
OVERTURE Approach public on river (8)
OVERT (public) on URE (the River Ure)
PYTHON Rejection of class almost, almost perfect for native of the tropics (6)
TYPe (class, almost) reversed (rejection of) then HONe (perfect, almost)
QARI Islamic reader in Islamic country reading backwards (4)
IRAQ (Islamic country) reversed (read back)
REMARK Note recollection of name in Oscar-winning legal drama (6)
a reversal (recollection) of KRAMER (the name in Kramer vs Kramer, Oscar-winning drama)
SUPERSONIC Very quick: posh individual enters thus (10)
U (posh) PERSON (individual) inside (enters) SIC (thus)
THESAURI Short dissertation inspiring writer, tho’ missing word references (8)
THESIs (dissertation, short) contains (inspiring) AUthoR (writer) missing THO
UMBRIA European region: dark area around one (6)
UMBRA (dark area) contains (around) I (one)
VOLVOX Mark of choice by car plant (6)
X (a vote, mark of choice) following (by) VOLVO (car)
WILSON US and UK leaders get to protect players (6)
WIN (get) contains (to protect) LSO (London Symphony Orchestra, players) – Harold Wilson (UK) or Woodrow Wilson (US)
XI BARYON Team leader in industry stealing last of money — it’s too little to be seen (2,6)
XI (eleven, a team) then BARON (leader in industry) contains (stealing) moneY (last letter of)
YORK House party or knees-up’s entertaining? (4)
found inside (that…is entertaining) partY OR Knees-up – the royal dynasty The House of York
YUAN Ready for the Chinese peninsula, when the mice will play? (4)
YUcatAN (peninsular) with CAT missing (when the cat is away the mice will play) – ready cash
ZUNI Pueblo in Spain, Uzbek heading north (4)
found inside spaIN UZbek reversed (heading north, upwards in the grid)
Thanks PeeDee. I found this hard; too hard really and only got there in the end, after spending more time on a crossword than I can remember, by sheer bloodymindedness and the helping hand of Google. Bereft of the benefit of crossing letters I think the jigsaw type puzzle really needs to offer a fair proportion of clues which are not too difficult. In this case, apart from the Ys and Js, I started off with only a small handful of answers to work with and too many spaces where they could go. A lot of frustration followed. I’m not a nuclear physicist and even Google wasn’t a lot of help so XI BARYON was LOI. Even then I got the grid the wrong way round. Too hard for me.
Well I didn’t find this too bad, actually. Maybe a little harder than normal, but the extra layer of puzzling added to the enjoyment, at least for me. I had done a number of these from Araucaria back in the day, so was familiar with how to approach it, which presumably helped a bit.
I have a couple of really minor quibbles, though. For the WILSON clue, I thought it was traditional to use “and” when the answer was plural, and “or” when it was singular. Of course, “or” here would have led to “gets” and the ripples would spread outwards.
I’m really not sure about the next point, but I’ll put it out there anyway. Does it make sense to say that ZUNI is “heading north” to mean in reverse, when in the clue, as written in Western style, the letters are originally horizontal? I think Paul was trying to get the phrase to do double duty, to both indicate reversal and to be the orientation indicator for the puzzle as a whole.
Quiblets aside, I really like these and would love to see more.
JAWOHL! went in last, early on Sunday as the good news was brought here from Pennsylvania. The US and UK leaders clue was another of many likeable ones like that in this delightfully testing puzzle. My way in was through the JUNEAU-BLOODSTAIN intersection. Thanks to setter and blogger.
I failed on NARITA, as Japanese airports do not form part of my general knowledge. I had all but nine answers with only two entered in the grid (ZUNI and QARI, but among the 8-letter words I was missing were the crucial ones that would determine the orientation of the solution, so I had to cheat by Googling “Xi particle”. I haven’t checked subsequently, but aren’t ‘leaders in industry’ captains rather than BARONS? (Isn’t it ‘press barons’?). No doubt someone will put me right.
This was a most enjoyable challenge. I don’t normally tick the clues I enjoyed, but those that took me the longest to solve were KRAKATOA and LINOLEUM. DISC HARROW was also very good for the surface, which describes the machinery quite well. And REMARK was worth a smile when the penny dropped. Oh all right then, codt had to be FIG URINE, didn’t it.
Thanks to Paul & PeeDee.
Regarding how to approach the orientation of the entries. What can happen if you wait for a clear indicator before entering any is that you don’t get enough answered without crossers to find out, and that leads to paralysis. What I did when I saw the puzzle was diagonally symmetric was to write next to the puzzle “flip” and “don’t flip” in a kind of Schrodingeresque ambiguity. I then proceeded to enter answers when I had enough to pin them down to a unique position, modulo reflection. At the end, I would cross out one of the “flip” phrases, as appropriate. As luck would have it, I chose correctly for the first entries, so ended up with “don’t flip”.
Normally I solve sans refs, with British oriented clues/answers just adding to the challenge as a US solver… but given the difficulty level here (with crossers not a significant help until well into things), I set that aside and used Google as needed, to level the field. With that, I was eventually able to solve/parse everything and fill the grid (albeit flipped the other way), though it took several sittings… doubt I’d have gotten much more than half way w/out refs! Normally solve online, and ended up cutting/pasting the clues into a spreadsheet so could work electronically on this one… ended up being useful as it allowed me to regroup by clue length, which helped alot when filling the grid. In the end don’t know that I could say I enjoyed this, but certainly satisfied to have gotten through it.
Thx to setter, blogger, and commenters…
I completed that with quite a feeling of satisfaction, given how tricky i found it. As you say, PeeDee, not much sign of the clues being eased up on to compensate for the added challenge of the alphabetical. I think I was lucky – I started off with, I think, 8 answers and 4 guesses (one of which was wrong) but these included all the four-letter answers and I picked up the ‘north’ hint in ZUNI. As a bit of a ‘Hail Mary’ play I then guessed where FIGURINE (thank you, Paul!) went on the basis of the U, and went from there. But it was slow going, with some definitions well concealed and sometimes a bit stretched (I didn’t really see EXPECT as ‘sense’). LOI was REMARK because I couldn’t convince myself was right, and then it finally clicked! Clever. Thanks for the blog, PeeDee – reading it, I realise I didn’t parse NARITA, but I happened to know it – we were supposed to be flying there in March, but then the world turned upside down. And thanks for the very satisfying challenge, Paul.
Too hard for this boy. Had a couple of pecks at it and got about a dozen, then the week ran out. The Genius, also a Paul, was more yielding…only one clue to go…hey ho.
I approached this as did OddOtter @6, with spreadsheet and clues sorted by length. I might have gotten there, but after figuring out the correct orientation for the NW corner I somehow had the other three quadrants flipped about the diagonal, with the result that the crossers for the E, H, N, and S answers were hopelessly incorrect. In spite of that I derived immense enjoyment from this over more hours than any sane person would devote to it. Thanks to Paul for the challenge and to PeeDee for explaining ATHERTON to this cricket ignoramus.
Got about halfway, revisited it a few times during the week, but no more progress. I think my problem was that although I got a few guesses right, for eg ATHERTON, I couldn’t parse them, and with an alphabetic jigsaw, you need to be 100% sure of a clue before you start placing them. So in my opinion, the parsing was a little obscure for the format. With hindsight, delivered above, the clues seemed fair, although the X word wasn’t in any reference I could find online, so possibly a bit unfair.
Very satisfying to finish. My start was slow as I had JERSEY for the American city (jer see?) so where was the 10 letter word ending in R? Also I had to print out two grids to start filling in the sixes and eights and my second attempt came good. I thought DISC HARRow was hard, adding Farm to clue would have made it easier. It held me up on the critical 10 letter solutions to finally force me to let go on JERSEy city! But overall no complaints and lots of fun. Thanks Paul.
Thanks to PeeDee as well. Some parsing eluded me especially THESAURI. I was so certain I was removing THO from Thoreau. So close but so far.
A brilliant puzzle, taking me back to Araucaria jigsaw days. Witty and challenging but to me absolutely fair apart (I concur) from WILSON. Having solved the puzzle, it took quite a while for all but one of the parsing pennies to drop. “Get to protect players” was a loss not a win for me! So many favourite clues with maybe KRAKATOA and ATHERTON top. Many thanks to Paul. Also to PeeDee for the tight parsing. But the plate is DISH not DISC in D clue.
Thanks Choldunk. I was just about to ask where the H comes from in DISC HARROW
Certainly was tough. Mine was done using an old-fashioned spreadsheet i.e. a bit of paper, with the alphabet sorted into four, six, eight and ten letter words. I did have to look a lot of things up. I din’t ahve the sense to work out straight away that SUPERSONIC was going to be a ten letter word as my print-out copy didn’t have the enumeration for the letter “S”.
It took me ages to get sufficient purchase to feel confident in filling in the grid. The obscure words were very challenging. I couldn’t parse NARITA, REMARK (very clever, now that I see it) or WILSON. Thanks to Paul for the brain work-out and to PeeDee for the clarifications.
I photocopied the Guardian page and largely completed this in pencil before having the courage to complete the grid on the page, a wise decision in the event.
As a cricket follower, I was delighted to get the top clue at first glance (though parsing it took a while), but then got bogged down. Six answers are words previously unknown to me, so much research in books and online was needed, but I got there on Sunday evening.
DrW@2, I thought ‘heading north’ was a very neat way of cluing the grid orientation, disclosing it in the last words of the puzzle. And ZUNI was an easy one to identify from the clue (though needing a dictionary to check), and so to place in the grid.
I take DrW’s point about WILSON, though. There I wasted some time trying to get a solution based around Johnson, the only other name common to a PM and President(s).
I think ‘ready for the Chinese’ featured in another Guardian puzzle a couple of weeks ago, as part of the clue for “Yucutan”, which was helpful. And did anyone’s mind, on reading the X clue, turn to Robert Maxwell? He was a press baron, which satisfies SheffieldH@4’s point, though he was not too little to be seen, of course.
Well done PeeDee, and thank you, Paul. What puzzle will Christmas bring, if this comes in November?
I really liked this
We got close, but eventually had to concede defeat. The symmetrical grid added to the difficulty of the clues.
What let us down was putting in XI FACTOR instead of XI BARYON – which seemed a reasonable answer, given that it’s a protein (so too small to see) and FACTOR could be factory (industry), with Y stolen. This left us with an impossible _T_H__ and R_R_T_ with P,R,W,N remaining.
A shame, as I do like an alphabetical jigsaw, though I think Araucaria remains the only setter to present the clues in rhyming couplets!
Not that it matters much, but S was missing its number of letters.
The orientation didn’t matter too much, as I couldn’t submit a prize solution, so I just went ahead knowing if an orientation clue turned up I could mentally flip.
I was lucky to solve 3 of the 4 10 letter clues on early run throughs, and their crossing letters gave a good fix.
Thanks Paul for a not too difficult and enjoyable puzzle – I hope it is not so long before we see another Alphabetic one of this calibre. Thanks to PeeDee, too.
I thoroughly enjoyed this puzzle, even though it took me all the weekend and all day Monday to get it finished. And I had to spend all Tuesday doing the stuff I should have done on Monday. Anyway …
Some clues were very easy (I’m thinking NARITA; OVERTURE; YORK) while others had me racking my brain for ages. I was convinced that S was an Italian musical term with O at the end. IN the W clue, I thought that the UK and US leaders referred to the letter U twice, making a DOUBLE-U.
I managed to solve nearly all the clues before attempting to put the answers in the grid. As PeeDee says, it was obvious where the 4 and 6-lettered clues were. I then placed the 10-lettered answers. And got them in the wrong place first time round! But then, all the others fell into place.
Info on the web seems to be divided as to whether VOLVOX is a plant.
I only got XI BARYON at the very end and with help from google.
Excellent fun. Many thanks to Paul and to PeeDee.
Thanks Paul and PeeDee
These rather depend on you being sure of your solutions, whereas I had too many “it might be that, but I don’t see why” answers to fill in the grid confidently. Ironically, one I was more confident about was OUTREACH!
So glad I didn’t waste more than Saturday night on this before deciding not to continue.
I’m really only popping in as courtesy to Alan B who persuaded me to give this a go after I’d signalled an initial turn off. And I feel doubly bad in that he rose to my counter challenge and seemed to enjoy the puzzle I recommended. Whereas I cannot claim the same. Three sessions and a couple of hatter-like distractions still produced nothing more than the four short ones and four others and absolutely no enjoyment whatsoever. Everyone else here seems to have either solved it and/or enjoyed it so I won’t hang around as the grump at the party. Thanks to Paul and PeeDee.
I always struggle with Paul puzzles and I got far too few clues by cold solving to even begin to tentatively enter things in the grid. Quickly gave up on this on Saturday night.
Ultimately defeated by XI BARYON and NARITA. On reflection – and thanks to enlightenment by PeeDee in the excellent parsing blog – I should have got the latter easily enough from the definition.
This was definitely not a walk in the park. Like others I would have preferred a couple of easier parsing clues to get a foothold. Then I might t have spent quite such a long time on the puzzle.
Ultimately still enjoyable. Thanks Paul as ever for a throw back also for me to Araucaria who was a dab hand at setting an Alphabetic puzzle as I recall from tussles I had when cutting my teeth with Guardian Crosswords back in the eighties. I don’t recall Mr Beaver’s rhyming couplets edition though it sounds like a great achievement from the old master and a challenge for Paul maybe.
Alphabetical puzzles aren’t my favourites (more like my bête noir – when I see the setter is Maskarade, I get shivers down the spine), but I managed this eventually. The orientation was luck rather than reading ZUNI the right way up. Thanks to Paul and PeeDee.
Good on Paul for trying something different, but this was mostly solved by ‘guess and parse later’ and some deduction work based on the grid. This meant a lot of whimsical wordplay was lost on me. And, I suspect, quite a few others, looking at the comments here.
I do like alphabeticals and this was good, although tough.
I usually start with at the end of the alphabet for solving, so I got the orientation right with ZUNI. I stumbled a bit with the cricketer as I thought it might have been Anderson (with being ‘and’, the rest being gobbledygook).
If you like alphabeticals, you could try the ‘different’ one at Genius 208.
Thanks Paul and PeeDee.
I found this rather tough for an alphabetical jigsaw. I always aim to solve most of the clues before starting to fit the pieces in, but (unlike Anna) I came to a stop when I had solved just 17 of them (which was ‘most’ but not quite enough). I particularly wanted the fourth 10-letter word (DISC HARROW) before going any further, and by dint of more thought and effort eventually got it.
I started the jigsaw without regard to the correct orientation – it could be changed later. The 18 words I had all went into the grid, and the crossing letters gave me enough to solve the remaining clues. As ZUNI went down rather than across I knew I had the correct orientation.
I was surprised by the setter’s choice of the words ZUNI and QARI in the top left corner: QARI is not in Chambers’ dictionary, and ZUNI is hardly a familiar place name. An alternative pair like QUAY/ZANY would surely have filled those spaces equally well. (And XI BARYON. also in that corner, is not in the dictionary either.)
Thanks to Paul for a puzzle whose clues seemed pitched more for a conventional puzzle with clue numbers – it was quite a challenge to reach a critical mass of clues to start the jigsaw. However, the clues were generally very good and some were excellent. And thanks to PeeDee for the blog.
I wish an english crossword would contain English words.
Yuan and Jawhol are a cheat as they are never used as english words.
I did everything except these two and thought it was Atherton but did not put that in a I thought the J doen clue was Jawing.
I think YUAN is fair, the second-most important currency in the world? And surely JAWOHL must be familiar from war films and sitcoms? A Japanese airport, though?
Bring back Enigmatist I say. A bit of light relief after the last couple of Pauls, and I’d have a chance of getting some answers.
PostMark @22
I missed your post when I posted mine. I’m sorry you had such an unenjoyable experience with this puzzle. I recommended it blind, of course, but I generally find alphabeticals just different, with added spice, as it were, compared to conventional crosswords, and (again generally) just as challenging but not more so. You will have seen what I thought about the pitch of these clues and the non-dictionary entries (views echoing many others!), and perhaps, in a sense, you were as unlucky with your experience of this as I was in recommending it.
But I have you to thank for a puzzle elsewhere (an Indy crossword by Wiglaf) that you had actually solved (and, incidentally, had been blogged already). One day I hope to be in a position to be more circumspect and recommend a ‘different’ puzzle that I have actually solved!
Joint effort with the chariot passenger needed to tease this out. I agree there weren’t many give-aways from Paul, so a bit more of a challenge (unlike this week). We liked ZUNI and QARI as fresh fodder for these letters.
Great fun from Paul and enlightenment on a couple of the parsings from PeeDee. Thanks to both.
[Alan B @32: no worries. It has become a bit of a personal/family joke that, whenever I enthusiastically commend a television series, the first episode they watch is inevitably uncharacteristically lousy. So I’m very familiar with the sentiment “you were as unlucky with your experience of this as I was in recommending it”. I’m pleased you enjoyed the Wiglaf and am sure we will overlap in our enjoyment of a puzzle far more often than we will disagree!]
Fortunate for me that the more obscure answers all fell into my span of GK. ATHERTON because I started following Eng Test cricket in the 1990s, NARITA because I once spent a night kipping on a bench there (long story!) JAWOHL from reading those (with hindsight) bizarre comics (Victor etc) in the ‘70s. I also took a complete punt and started filling in the grid from JUNEAU/KRAKATOA and a handful of others. I got the right orientation through sheer luck as hadn’t spotted the N – S indicator ii. ZUNI (cheers PeeDee). I’m not certain but it seems like the different solution categories )8 letter, 10 letter etc) don’t only have different starting letters but also seem to have all different crossers. If this is the case (and it must make the setting even harder) then it means you genuinely can put solutions in wherever they will fit (exactly as the rubric says). That meant that my cavalier approach paid off as with a handful of clues in you start to get crossers which really help!
My (non-crossword-y ) wife spotted FIGURINE and I needed to use a thesaurus (singular) to find group == circle for ICICLE but that aside it was a straight and pretty enjoyable run.
Thanks Paul for the letters and PeeDee for explaining it all and to all commentators on here.
I usually enjoy crosswords set by Paul and alphabetical jigsaws so this one ticked both boxes. I confess to a bit of cheating – Googling to find a type of harrow that began with D, that I needed to work out where to put the Js which I had, and the second word in X. Also N was a guess then check. Life’s too short to go dredge up the names of capital cities that had 6 letters that could be shortened and reversed. Off topic I remember many years ago having difficulty tuning into a radio programme (possibly Radio Three) because it was being jammed by a repeated short musical phrase that I read was Radio Tirana.
Anna@19. I too tried the double U first at W.
Thanks to Paul and PeeDee.
I greatly enjoyed the challenge of this one, though it was a dnf as Xi-Baryon eluded me and it’s not in Chambers, so I couldn’t even cheat by going through everything beginning with XI.
Thanks to Paul and PeeDee.
Pino @ 36
Great minds, eh ? 🙂
Thoroughly enjoyed this, as others have said it was reminiscent of Araucaria (without the rhyming couplets).
Thanks for the blog PeeDee. One minor point – I think you meant to say that the line of reflection runs top-left to bottom-right.
Well, I thoroughly enjoyed this, from start to end! Much the same in time frame and method as Anna@19, dipping in when opportunities arose, solving each clue blind as if starting a particularly tough blank grid. When I thought I had enough solved, about eighteen answers, I jumped in. In pencil.
Right hand side nearly completed, I faltered, but after discounting my DISC CUTTER as nearly parsed but undoubtedly wrong, I worked my way around finishing in the NW. WILSON was my last one solved, parsed while slowly entering into the grid.
As others have mentioned, I really miss Araucaria puzzles, so nice to have a really tough alphabetical jigsaw that needs a while to complete. Thanks to Paul and Peedee for the blog.
Btw setters, anyone fancy setting a double grid jigsaw that the great man used to offer up? The beauty of those…
Many thanks PeeDee for your illuminating explanations. Now I see how these alphabetical things work I might have a go next time.
This will probably sound idiotic, but I honestly had no idea all the solutions had to start with A, B, C etc. There’s nothing in the instructions to say that they do.
esswxbot @41. Yes, I noticed that the rubric read in a potentially misleading way, with the clues presented in alphabetical order of their solutions, which doesn’t necessarily mean that they start with the designated letters of the alphabet (though of course they did, and also JAWOHL was before JUNEAU, and YORK before YUAN).
Re Araucaria’s rhyming couplets, it’s my recollection that he (nearly?) always used these in his alphabetical jigsaws. I’ve just looked up the first three puzzles on beery hiker’s list (follow this link to the Qaos blog on 4 November #’90), and they are all rhymed.
Took about 3 hours solid
hard work. For a while I was convinced that A must be Anderson on the basis that he’s not known for his batting!
I think I remember some puzzles in which the solutions were in alphabetical order, but some first letters occurred more than once, others were omitted.
Thanks all for spotting the errors. Fixed now.
muffin @44. This is one example of that. There are others listed by beery hiker (follow the link @42 above). (Paper or spreadsheet helpful!)
For one of Araucaria’s with rhyming couplets, try 21825 – I found most of it accessible, if a little loose and allusive, to make the rhymes work, and it’s quite clear from the off where the answers are going to fit (if you can solve W and P), but Z was a total obscurity as far as I was concerned, and I had to reveal the answer. Good luck!
Muffin@44 I have several collections of the name “Chambers book of Araucaria crosswords book X”, at least 4 of them, and if they are still available I heartily recommend them. They have tons of jigsaws in them; the ones like this one by Paul are called Alphabetical Jigsaws, the others which are like you describe are Perimetrical Jigsaw, Thematic Jigsaw, and others.
I’m keen on Paul and on alphabetical jigsaws, so I really liked this, though it took 2 or 3 sessions.
I thought it was a tough grid for an alphabetical jigsaw. Not only was it symmetrical, but only a few start letters were checked. Checked start letters always help to work out where a solution will fit. In the absence of knowing where things went I was tempted to assume that the X of VOLVUX was the X of XI BARYON, because why else would Paul have gone to the trouble of including a word like VOLVUX? Luckily, I resisted. I wonder if Paul included this trap deliberately?
Thanks to Paul and PeeDee.
Am enjoying all the comments!
Amused (relieved?) to find i wasn’t alone in several blind alleys I found myself exploring for far too long, incl: double-U, disc cutter, xi factor, Jersey. And I too began with ”do answers start w/their clue letter?” (confirmed after getting a few such as ZUNI, and noting a couple clue letters repeated).
Like Epee sharkey, knew Narita from a lengthy overnight there, some 30 years ago now. [FYI for others, Narita closes at night due to noise restrictions, so evening delays risk unexpected overnights. Mine was due to airline issues so they bused us into the city to double up in (microscopic) hotel rooms… quite an adventure.]
Most amusing has to be ATHERTON; unsurprised many UK solvers found it easy, but for me was a very difficult LOI, then took eons to parse as well. Like some, guessed/googled/entered Anderson based on supposed crossers… HAD to be it. That enabled/emboldened me to solve several others and fill a good chunk of grid… only to later find it clearly wrong, calling everything into question! WAY relieved to search on variants and find ATHERTON… but still couldn’t parse, even w/vague recollection of the “ton” Britishism fr/another recent puzzle. Took ages for the “no, no” trick to click… phew!
Thx again, all.
Thanks SH and DrWhatson
Didn’t do this one, as I haven’t got a working printer, although, thinking about it, I could have used Crossword Compiler to copy the grid, which is something I do with certain other puzzles that are not interactive online. Not sure I would have completed it though!
I’m sure that in the past I have solved many Araucaria alphabetical jigsaws where the clues were not in rhyming couplets. He is not the only one, btw, to have produced those: Soup has also created at least one. I think they (or it) probably appeared in 1across magazine, of which he (as Hamish Symington) is the editor.
In his Zoom meeting on Saturday, Paul promised that in the future he will produce an alphabetical with rhyming couplets, a double alphabetical and one of the type mentioned by muffin @44, with clues in alphabetical order of their solutions but not consisting of at least one solution for each letter of the alphabet (a type which Soup has also essayed), so watch this (that?) space.
Thanks to PeeDee and to Paul (I think !!) Well this was a right pain in the posterior, and no mistake. I eventually completed it on Tuesday with the (remote) help of a friend who is a similar Guardian crossword afficionado, but it was hard work. As Biggles@1 touched on, the idea with an alphabetic jigsaw is that a fair proportion of the answers should be gettable purely from the clues without the aid of any crossers, otherwise we poor solvers have no means of building up a list of solutions sufficient to start the jigsaw part of the puzzle. At the risk of being thought out of step, I don’t think Paul really “gets” this – his opinion seems to be that the clues should be more difficiult than normal because we’ve already got the first letter of each answer. Add to this the blandest of ambiguous grids and throw in a handful of decidedly obscure answers – XI BARYON,VOLVOX, ZUNI and we’re almost at Bank Holiday Special level. So, huge satisfaction at having completed the puzzle but little or no enjoyment obtained in doing so !
JohnB
“the blandest of ambiguous grids”
As Paul explained on Saturday, this grid is the only one in the Guardian grid library (from which Guardian setters are generally required to select one) which was suitable for an alphabetical jigsaw (i.e. having exactly 26 squares which start one or more lights).
As an “Azed first” solver I pick and choose over Guardian efforts but Alphabeticals and Paul challenge me, as did Araucaria, and this took me most of the week.
I hate using Google but cannot see how one could avoid it with NARITA or XI BARYON. Nor did my Chambers give QARI My diagram had the usual BLOOSTAIN/SUPERSONIC and HERD OF COWS/DISC HARROW in two places, Likewise JUMEAU/JAWOHL and YUAN/YORK. At least ZUNI gave the top left orientation but all the 6 and 8-letters had no unusual letters to help.
I doubt if any clue would stand a chance set against Azed’s rules but it was more like reading Finegan’s Wake. Nonetheless enjoyable in a gruesome way and at 92 I did congratulate myself.
The number and lengths of the blog tells its own tale.
Keith @54,
Out of curiosity, why would one hate using Google to confirm an answer when (presumably) one would be quite happy to use a dictionary to confirm an answer? This is a sentiment that I read often in comments and I have never quite understood the difference. I don’t intend to criticise at all, I am just curious to understand. Understanding this sort of thing helps to write a better blog.
PeeDee @55, Keith @54,
Keith will have his own answer, but my answer to PeeDee’s question is that the Chambers dictionary is, I think, the recognised authority for Guardian crosswords, and that may even be stated somewhere. (And it is the explicit ‘primary’ or ‘recommended’ reference for other crosswords, including the Azed, to the best of my knowledge.) In the absence of any contrary indication, I thought all answers in a Guardian crossword must be in Chambers, the obvious and clear exceptions being place names, people’s names and the like.
I too avoid Google as much as is reasonably possible, only because I find it not much fun resorting to using that admittedly very powerful resource, but for this crossword I did use it to check NARITA, QARI and ZUNI (but not DISC HARROW or VOLVOX, for which I went straight to Chambers when I worked them out). I took XI BARYON on trust, by the way, and checked it later: the wordplay for that was clear, and I knew BARYON.
I finally completed it this morning after cheating on both the J clues. I did enjoy it but could have done with at least one easier J clue to get me started on entering the answers. I ended up starting with Zuni, Qari and then risked putting in Figurine even though I hadn’t solved all the clues. Thankfully it worked and things started to speed up.
Tony Collman @53,
Ah, I stand corrected ther, thank you. Where did Paul say this ? I don’t recall seeing it here. I can only assume the Guardian’s grid library has changed over the years, since I have DEFINITELY in the past seen alphabetic jigsaws which were not Bank Holiday Specials and did not use this grid. Indeed I think I’ve seen grids which were not two-way symmetrical and therefore the answers could only fit in one orientation.
I am another solver who has no qualms about using Google – indeed we have a slowly-growing number of setters whose puzzles are sometimes impossible wiithout it. At the same time I am old enough to remember the days when our only aids were Chambers, Roget, Pears Cyclopedia and whatever other usefiul tomes might be lying around. Woe betide a setter who used a word not in Chambers !
But it could be worse. I recently assisted a friend who was slowly ploughing through a book of Times Crosswords from the 1970s. For those unfamiliar with the oeuvre, Times crosswords in those days automatically assumed an encyclopaedic knowledge of Shakespeare’s plays and Greek Mythology – not to mention the works of dozens of Victorian authors of no particular merit, the Bible and of course Latin. Many of the clues were barely cryptic by today’s standards. Examples ? OK then – “Moore’s wife (7)”, answer is MUMMERS. Or how about “Arden’s singular stonecrop? (6)”, answer SERMON. Or even “Domestic causes at Oxford ?(4)”, answer LOST. Had enough yet ?? Lol !
@TonyCollman 53
I’m surprised by your post. I have a copy of the Guardian grid library and there are several grids which are suitable for use as templates for alphabetical jigsaws (the basic criterion being that the last across light must be numbered 26). Some of these are “harder” than others…for example, the grid chosen by Paul for this puzzle has two solver-unfriendly characteristics: 1) it’s symmetrical 2) the two pairs of give starts are for words of equal length, so there is a fair bit of trial and error involved, even allowing for the positional indicators for the clues for Q and Z. I needed three goes at fitting in the longer interlocking answers, and even after that there was a fair amount of guesswork.
In the interest of full disclosure, I set alphabetical puzzles myself for the FT (Julius) and the problem with the grid library there is that the suitable grids all have long perimeter lights, so the solver can pick up 13 starts simply by solving two outside clues, which makes the puzzle much too easy. So I jumble up the clues in random order (no given first letter)
baerchen @59
Thank you for saying that, glad to see it isn’t just me who thinks the statement attributed to Paul is a bit of an over-simplification . Perhaps something was lost in the translation.
As regards grids generally, I’m one of those who is always complaining that the Guardian library seems to contain a vast number of grids wherein the first letter of every answer is hidden ! If I see one of these with the name of one of the more “awkward” setters alongside it I sometimes don’t bother attempting the puzzle at all. I accept through that these grids may make life far easier for the setter.
JohnB @60
If you try the Radio Times crossword, there are never any clues with solutions along the top, bottom or sides!
No fun! Paul seems to have become the new Enigmatist! Alphabeticals need more readily solvable clues to get you going. Compared to the delightful wit and ingenuity of Brendan’s prize yesterday, this was just a turn-off.
[JohnB@58, apologies if, as it seems, I have misrepresented what Paul said*. Perhaps what he really said (I wasn’t taking notes) was more like “It was the only suitable grid” and I failed to realize that he was taking into account other factors, such as those mentioned by Baerchen @59 (Hello, Rob. Thanks for the simple statement of what constitutes a possible grid for an alphabetical jigsaw)
Puzzles which you have seen in the past may not have been based on grids from the library. I think the technology used to publish the puzzle is different now to what it has been in the past, when setters may have had more latitude to devise their own grids.
Grids which have a lot of lights whose first position doesn’t cross with another are more difficult to solve but easier for the setter to fill, which is useful for themed puzzles. They also allow the setter to incorporate a peripheral nina.
AlanB@56, I don’t think there is a definitive dictionary for the Guardian crossword. I’m fairly(!) sure editor Hugh Stephenson said that at another of Paul’s Zoom meetings where he was a guest. I remember a Paul puzzle (you may, too) which had a clue for TATTARRATTAT, a word coined by James Joyce and possibly not used anywhere except in Ulysses (and Paul’s puzzle) and not contained in any dictionary except the OED (and Wiktionary, as I now discover). However, the clue (“Knock back and forth”) made it obvious it was a palindrome, and with that knowledge and the check letters you could construct the answer unambiguously — though you still couldn’t check it in Chambers.
* That was at an open Zoom meeting, as mentioned in my earlier comment @51. You can find out more about them by emailing him at info@johnhalpern.co.uk.]
WILSON is also an American sporting goods manufacturer producing, amongst other things, protective gear such as shin pads and helmets. Not as good a parsing as PeeDee’s but the leaders do still get to protect players in a sense.
Of course the most well known of their products is probably the volleyball that featured as Tom Hanks only companion in Cast Away …
JAWOHL (6) is what I know and love as it were — however, Chambers has it as (2,4) which held me up for a while.
Speaking as someone who rarely finishes the Guardian puzzles, I enjoyed this as I love the alphabeticals and Paul. After getting about 10 answers with nowhere to put them I almost gave up, then decided to cheat and Google for the place names NARITA and JUNEAU and to verify that QARI was a word, as it wasn’t in my dictionary. It was clear that without putting the key 4- and 6-letter answers in I was going to get nowhere. Then I was well away. I decided to just shove the answers in without worrying about orientation. As it turns out I had it the wrong way round by I’m not bothered. I didn’t parse ATHERTON, REMARK and a few others and never did get DISC HARROW so once again it goes down as unfinished. Enjoyed it though.
Well, whaddyerno, I didn’t finish correctly after all! Had everything in, but not satisfactorily (now there’s a Paul phrase for you).
My usual gripe – if you have to Google several answers it exceeds the allowable GK limit. No objection to the added test of alphabet clues, but please make it fair!
I am usually a great fan of Paul but gave up on this after several attempts having only got 10 solutions.
The best non-Prize puzzle for quite a while, in my opinion.
I started by solving the four 10-lettered ones, which cross one another at the 4th and 7th letters. There was only one way they could be paired together, so I just guessed which pair to put in the NE and which to put in the SW. Then the two J’s went in and I was off and running.
It just so happened that I had the correct orientation, but even if I had guessed wrong it didn’t matter as I wouldn’t have submitted the solution even if there had been a Prize. The grid was complete, and that was all that mattered.