Guardian Prize 28,380 by Paul

90 comments on “Guardian Prize 28,380 by Paul”

1. Thanks PeeDee, top stuff as you say from Paul.
   Was the zero-length entry there originally in 11,3,2, or has the Grauniad correctec one error only to introduce another?

2. Tough puzzle. Was not helped by being unable to solve 10/25 on my first pass. Discovered the theme via HENDRIX, then guessed the theme was WOODSTOCK but could not parse it from the clue. Got some help from google for the Incredible String Band.

   Favourite: ARTWORKS, UNEASY, SANTANA (loi).
   New for me: Builder’s tea (to parse 20ac); CANT = tilt (8ac); GIB = wedge.

   Thanks, P+P.

3. I felt this was rather heavily dependent on the theme, and without the little bit of luck I had in breaking into it I would have found this tough. I got HENDRIX and RAVI SHANKAR from their respective clues, not knowing exactly how they might be connected, I guessed THE WHO, and then with INCREDIBLE STRING BAND (which fortunately had the correct enumeration!) I finally twigged what the connection might be, and WOODSTOCK went in, even though I didn’t know these performers were there.

   I liked the non-thematic clues best, except for RAVI SHANKAR (a favourite), but I was also glad to learn a bit more about the subject of the theme. This was my umpteenth Paul Prize in living memory. and I ended up enjoying a puzzle that I found tougher than most of them.

   (It seems there were different errors for 11,3,2 in the printed and online grids! The enumeration (10,6,4) was correctly shown online, but 3d had a bar inserted making it look like (2,4) instead of (6), and the clue numbering wrongly had 11,2,3.)

   In HENDRIX, the female is HEN, and the county is surely TYRONE, Tyre being the city.

   Thanks to Paul and PeeDee.

4. It took a while but eventually the £0.01 slowly slid down the side of my head.

   It was early on the Mon evening, when the Wood and the Stock came together. I decamped to the lounge and dug out my Woodstock triple-decker. I’d got onto the 2nd side by the LOI.

   The album was great, I was less taken by the performers being clued. [As I was about 4 years old when the event happens the sum total of my knowledge is from the aforementioned bit of vinyl. Still playing well now, so it has lasted well since the 1980s!

   The Incredible String Band, Ravi Shankar – at Woodstock — really? Not on my record they’re not – I needed to search the WIkipedia page to find Ravi Shankar, got the ISB from the enumeration but honestly don’t think I’ve ever heard them play anything, at Woodstock or elsewhere. The Who and Santana I’ll grant you, though neither are exactly standout performers there. A music nerd I know told me a lot of the Santana set was overdubbed afterwards and thus not even recorded live anyway. The Hendrix is a neat clue and definitely an iconic Woodstockian.

   By far the best thing about the Woodstock album is the various announcements (‘Stay away from the brown acid’ ‘If you haven’t given up on capitalism buy some burgers from the guy whose stall burnt down last night’ and general crowd noise and rain). That said there are some great performances from people I’d never normally listen to as well like ShaNaNa, Richie Havens. Joan Baez is fantastic and the CSNY version of Wooden Ships too. ]

   Apologies for the extended ramble, plenty of other neat clues apart from the mini-theme that at least got me listening to some great music. Especially loved PEASHOOTER, and the misdirection of TYRONE (kept looking for something with XI in, and of course an Irish county is a neat trick (misspelt in the blog – the city = TYRE) . Liked 6down though as a cricket watcher, I thought the clue could be extended — an ‘inside edge’ can be fatal if the ball smashes the stumps or is caught be the wicketkeeper, but it can also be salvation if it prevent an LBW dismissal.

   All in all a very pleasant diversion. Big thanks Paul for sending me back to a small piece of musical history/heaven and to PeeDee for explaining it all!

5. I just left a long an rambling comment about how I went and got my vinyl copy of Woodstock out on stumbling over the theme. Suffice to say I had a great nostalgia trip. So the theme was very welcome even if the ‘Woodstock performers’ were mainly not to my taste (Hendrix excepted). [There are better on the album if you can get your hands on it – Richie Havens, Joan Baez in fine form, CSNY probably at their brief peak and of course Country Joe and the Fish. The best thing about the album though is the incomparable sense of time and place. It really is like a time capsule — I was 4 at the time, so wasn’t there and the vinyl is from my mis-spent youth in the 1980s. So many memories from one small piece of plastic. ]

   Woodstock aside I loved PEASHOOTER, TYRONE (typo in blog) and INSIDE EDGE. Of course an Inside Edge can be fatal, but can also be salvation — for instance saving a batsman from an LDW dismissal. Maybe that would have made the clue too 14A (ESOTERIC — I never knew the correct definition until this puzzle).

   So thanks Paul for the memories and the challenge and PeeDee for explaining it so well. Best wishes to all learned contributors on this lovely blog!

6. Well for me this worked out perfectly – got a few clues cold, figured out the theme, which helped with the rest. Familiar with all the performers. Doesn’t always happen so smoothly, unfortunately.

   I agree with Alan B@3’s corrections to the blog, unless PeeDee is subtly and deliberately trying to mimic the Guardian’s effort with this puzzle.

7. I only got into this through the spoiler last week – I had decided to give up, but took one last look. So, while some commenters (quite understandably) dislike spoilers, others can benefit from them (which is not to say that that I am encouraging commenters to make references to live crosswords!).

8. I’ve just left 2 long and rambling comments on here about the theme but the internet ate both of those. Maybe the ‘off topic-o-meter’ was turned up too high. Here goes for the 3rd attempt

   “It was a quiet Mon evening when the PDM happened and the Wood and the Stock came together in my head. Si I went and got my vinyl copy of Woodstock out on stumbling over the theme. I had completed the grid by the end of side 2 but threw on S3 just for pleasure. Suffice to say I had a great nostalgia trip. So the theme was very welcome even if the ‘Woodstock performers’ were mainly not to my taste (Hendrix excepted). [There are better on the album if you can get your hands on it – Richie Havens, Joan Baez in fine form, CSNY probably at their brief peak and of course Country Joe and the Fish. The best thing about the album though is the incomparable sense of time and place. It really is like a time capsule — I was 4 at the time, so wasn’t there and the vinyl is from my mis-spent youth in the 1980s. So many memories from one small piece of plastic. ]

   Woodstock aside I loved PEASHOOTER, TYRONE (typo in blog) and INSIDE EDGE. Of course an Inside Edge can be fatal, but can also be salvation — for instance saving a batsman from an LDW dismissal. Maybe that would have made the clue too 14A (ESOTERIC — I never knew the correct definition until this puzzle).

   So thanks Paul for the memories and the challenge and PeeDee for explaining it so well. Best wishes to all learned contributors on this lovely blog! Slightly serious note — I now find that a Chromebook and an iPad don’t work for contributing on here, and I have to resort to a trusty old PC — any other contributors having issues?

9. I just left a long an rambling comment about how I went and got my vinyl copy of Woodstock out on stumbling over the theme. Suffice to say I had a great nostalgia trip. So the theme was very welcome even if the ‘Woodstock performers’ were mainly not to my taste (Hendrix excepted). [There are better on the album if you can get your hands on it – Richie Havens, Joan Baez in fine form, CSNY probably at their brief peak and of course Country Joe and the Fish. The best thing about the album though is the incomparable sense of time and place. It really is like a time capsule — I was 4 at the time, so wasn’t there and the vinyl is from my mis-spent youth in the 1980s. So many memories from one small piece of plastic. ]

   Woodstock aside I loved PEASHOOTER, TYRONE (typo in blog) and INSIDE EDGE. Of course an Inside Edge can be fatal, but can also be salvation — for instance saving a batsman from an LDW dismissal. Maybe that would have made the clue too 14A (ESOTERIC — I never knew the correct definition until this puzzle).

   So thanks Paul for the memories and the challenge and PeeDee for explaining it so well. Best wishes to all learned contributors on this lovely blog!

10. Was going to give up, after 30 minutes of tumbleweed, until a very thoughtful person, (you know who you are and thanks again) encouraged me to have another peek. I pretty much sailed through it after getting HENDRIX, which I parsed as you did AlanB (still waiting for AlanD to turn up). RAVI SHANKAR, WINDOW-SHOP, ESOTERIC and FREE LOVE were my standouts.

    I thought this was brilliant. Thanks Paul & Peedee

11. Like Epee Sharkey, wouldn’t have thought private for esoteric, more abstruse-ish, but hey ho. Great puzzle and theme, tho the (comic) stripped ref for woodstock flew straight over my head. Was there an occasion…we had a 50th anniv puzzle in ’19 I seem to remember. Agree with AlanB and Dr. Wh about hen and Tyrone. Thanks P and P.

12. [ For those who do not want warnings similar to what was posted last week about the error in the online version of this puzzle, do not look at the Guardian blog posts about today’s Prize. I have already completed today’s Prize puzzle and I will not comment on whether I agree with those posts. ]

13. With a grandson’s help the Gate’s baby was revealed, and when I got 25 he knew it was 10. With the theme from there it was memory lane unaided with only the 11, 3,2 needing a wild guess from the crossers. Very nice, Paul.

14. With the repetition of the word performer(s) throughout the clues I guessed the theme would be a festival or other musical event. When I solved THE WHO early and saw they were at (10, 25) I guessed WOODSTOCK without really parsing it. That made the usually difficult Paul much easier for me. Thanks to both.

15. I did eventually finish this although I struggled to start as I wrestled with 10, 25. No definition would have been easier than one that was way over my head, and some other across clues I wrote in before I fully worked out the wordplay; tho’ for ‘yet’ and git for ‘shoo’ I felt were barely fair in an English newspaper, but then I did get there in the end

16. michelle @ 9 – it wasn’t the alerting to the enumeration error that helped me, it was the reference to getting into the puzzle through 17a. I had the IX pencilled in, and was struggling to parse ASTERIX before I gave up. Having another look at it, I twigged to HENDRIX, and hence WOODSTOCK (I remembered the Peanuts bird), then I was away.

17. This was the worst I have ever done on a Guardian puzzle. I solved three clues in an hour, and then gave up. The reason? I didn’t get 10, 25 WOODSTOCK, and so the rest of the puzzle was undoable. Very theme dependent, and even if I had been given the theme I would have been in trouble – although Woodstock was during my prime years, I was not into that music, so the only performer in the puzzle that I knew was there was Jimi Hendrix. (Yes, I remember the 60’s, so I really wasn’t there.)

    So am I complaining? Not in the least. I thoroughly enjoyed PeeDee’s excellent blog, and I thoroughly enjoyed (after the fact) Paul’s cleverness in devising such a great puzzle – I thought the RAVI SHANKAR clue in particular was brilliant. I’m also looking forward to the comments from Penfold, PostMark, et al, who I’m sure will have lots to say about the music and the event.

18. I didn’t start this until Tuesday, when the on-line version had the enumeration correct at (10,6,4) but the clue numbers wrong as 10,2,3. The Guardian does seem to have had problems with this. I couldn’t make much progress at first in my first session with it, completely baffled by 10,25. When I restarted, I remembered Turkey was now run from Ankara and not Istanbul, and got RAVI SHANKAR (lovely clue!). A few minutes later I had HENDRIX and realised what 10,25 must be, even though I had to come here to find out why. (I remembered Woodstock the Peanuts bird, but still missed how it worked. A very clever and well done puzzle, Paul, and a reminder of rather different times! Thanks for the explanations., PeeDee

19. Correction: the on-line version I saw had clue 11,2,3 as (10,6,4). This sort of thing is catching!

20. Interesting to see the divergent experiences and opinions on solving this. I expected that might be the case. I found it hard and very annoying because otherwise clever clues were made more difficult by the excessive (for me) use of obscure (for me) local slang words and expressions. I understand and expect that a Guardian crossword will include colloquial English vocabulary and culture, but when both definition and wordplay are “infected” a solver outside the in set has no path to solution left. Examples of this were 1dn – Demolish/guzzle and delish/tasty, 4dn – Cracker = peach & biscuit, 12ac – Gib/wedge and wig/rug. And PeeDee mentioned the two British idioms in 20ac. The builders I know don’t drink tea! With the crossers in I was trying to justify BUD ON TAP, given Paul’s penchant for Americana.

    I really enjoyed Paul’s effort yesterday and I think this could have been great fun to solve, especially for those of my vintage for whom Woodstock was a defining event of the era. But I ground my way through it using aids and with gritted teeth.

21. Great fun for me. I absolutely loved it. Like others HENDRIX was the key to the theme for me after a lot of going away and doing something else and then coming back to think again. Great moment when I finally clicked and then lots of entertainment from then on. I very nearly went up to the loft to dig out my played-to- death double album. Might even still do that. I had a great trip down Memory Lane and I am totally in awe of Paul’s (and in fact all our setters’) cleverness. The last couple of weeks have been fab. Thanks as ever to all on this super site.
    Also looking forward this morning to comments from some of the regular contributors (so come on all of you big strong men (and women)) …

22. Thank you AlanC@7, thanks for the blog. I will not say one word about the crossword today.

23. This was my CUP OF TEA, even though I never drink the stuff. Obviously, getting WOODSTOCK was the key. Once you’ve established the what and the where, THE WHO falls nicely into place.

    Hendrix seems to be getting quite a lot of feedback.

    Thanks to Paul and PeeDee

24. Interesting one from Paul. Many thanks, PeeDee.

    Quite problematic on first going through, but thanks to getting RAVI SHANKAR I realised WOODSTOCK might be the theme, though I never parsed 10, 25. Common = STOCK is one I completely missed, and I guessed the clue bird was based on bird = woodcock.

    Then finding an online list of Woodstock acts helped fill in enough to proceed to complete the puzzle in a few hours. ‘Cant’ and ‘gib’ were new to me and, like others, I am a bit doubtful about ‘tho’.

    Is peach = CRACKER acceptable in a correct publication like The Guardian? Would any of you ladies like to comment?

25. How much you enjoyed this probably depends on how “into” Woodstock you are. There seems to be a thing for the INCREDIBLE STRING BAND among guardian setters (we have had their works as a theme before now) and I guessed them from the enumeration and a few crossers. But I am not one of those who keeps a list of WOODSTOCK performers in my memory or in my album collection, so I had to resort, tediously, to lists. Liked the clues for RAVI SHANKAR, ARTWORKS and WINDOWSHOP, and had to look up gib=wedge which I didn’t know.

26. My FOsI were RARE and NON-EVENT, which gave me R_V_ _______ for 24, 15. Of course, RAVI SHASTRI !! The “performers” were obviously all going to be cricketers. (But was the Turkish currency really the Astrid?)

    I was going to thank Dr WhatsOn for giving us the correct clue order last week for 11, 3, 2. However, looking again today at the online version I see from the ‘Special Instructions’ that the error was in fact corrected on 17th February, a full ten days before the rest of the puzzle appeared. If you can remember that, you weren’t really there. 😉

    Thanks Paul for a peach of a puzzle (the Graun must be OK with it, because Podolski turned the screw with a peach of a free-kick) and PeeDee.

27. sjshart @21 Although we’re not the ladies that you invited to comment, I was thinking along the same lines as essexboy @23, except with a different sport.

    Dan Maskell commentating at Wimbledon:
    ‘Oh, I say! A peach of a volley’.

28. INHERENT was my way in, getting the H of a three letter word, which easily led to THE WHO…. and the gig was finally under way. LOI peashooter, is it me, or is the SW corner always the trickiest to finish?

29. Reading today’s posts, one could be forgiven at times for thinking this was a numeric rather than a word puzzle. Although the 11,3,2’s and 10,6, 4’s also sound a little like trainspotter speak.

    I liked this one and the only spoiler that leaped out at me from last week’s blog was the very helpful comment about enumeration which I felt wasn’t out of place. However, my progress down the theme path wasn’t helped by RAVI SHANKAR being my first musical solution and, of all those who did appear at Woodstock, I have to be honest and say I never did ‘get’ him so WOODSTOCK didn’t jump out immediately. By contrast, SANTANA have been for a long time a band I’ve enjoyed and, as with PeeDee, they were my way in. ISB is a slightly unusual one to have added insofar as they didn’t appear in the film and were always somewhat left field, anyway, so not a name that will resonate with all. (Actually, resonate probably isn’t a word I should associate with them anyway.) Personally, I’d have loved to have seen the Dead squeeze into the puzzle but there we are.

    I’d agree with the mild criticisms that there was a degree of colloquial stretch and a few liberties taken but it’s Paul and that doesn’t surprise and I can’t honestly complain that any of it prevented solve. Favourites: WINDOW SHOP, PEASHOOTER and THE WHO. For those who are querying the ‘correctness’ of CRACKER = peach, who’s to say we are talking gender? Today looks like a cracker/peach of a morning and I suspect the Prize will be both as well.

    Thanks Paul and PeeDee

30. eb @23 and Penfold @24: the curse of the post that takes too long to write! I didn’t refresh before publishing – and I got distracted into starting this week’s puzzle half way through typing – so make precisely the same point about peach/cracker. Apologies.

31. Can someone please explain why SAFE = PETER.

    Thanks

32. I didn’t get the Peanuts reference for WOODSTOCK, but confidently wrote it in once I’d got THE WHO. Went through a mental list (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Country Joe and the Fish, Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Grateful Dead) before getting the more obvious HENDRIX. I’d forgotten that the ISB were there, and of course so were the BAND. I just can’t believe that Half Man Half Biscuit weren’t there – perhaps lost in a time warp along with the correction to the clue numbering error.

    “Builders tea” is an expression that is used in my experience to denote a strong, unsubtle tea that the middle classes wouldn’t drink themselves (having more delicate tastes, of course), but keep in the cupboard just in case a member of the working classes has to be offerred a drink.

33. Fiona Anne @28
    In British slang, peter can be a safe, till, or cash box.
    I don’t know the back story though.

34. Roz @19: I hope you’re not being serious. I always enjoy your contributions, so feel the ‘experience’.

35. We found this good fun and completed it in a session. Parsing was another matter…

    19d had to be SANTANA because of the theme but I wonder if anyone could have got it otherwise from the clue.
    Same with WOODSTOCK although I concede its quite amusing if you happen to think of Peanuts.

36. Peter for a safe is thieves’ slang, and the thief who specialises in getting them open is a peterman, but nobody seems to be sure why.

37. Essexboy@23, Penfold@24, Postmark@26 – I take your point. I am watching England batting as I write this, and all the peaches and crackers are coming from the Indian bowlers.

    Fiona Anne@28, michell@30 – one theory about ‘peter’ is that ‘Peter Pan’ is rhyming slang for ‘can’, in the sense of a small safe box. But I believe the word goes back further beyond when Peter Pan was written. Another possibility is that a safebreaker (‘peterman’) used saltpetre to blow the safe.

38. “Tickling the peter” comes to mind, but as to origin….??

39. Great challenge and fun
    One little detail….. HEN (female) not HER in Hendrix
    Thank you Paul & PD

    PT

40. Thanks all for pointing out the typos. Fixed now.

    TIRONE and TIRE seem so glaringly obvious now, I am at a loss why I couldn’t see them at the time.

41. Thanks to Paul and Peedee. Woodstock being more Mr K’s era than mine he contributed the performers including the challengingly numbered ISB and I the yellow bird [I was such a disciple of Charlie Brown’s school of philosophy I used to cut out and keep the Observer’s weekly printed strip in the 1970s]. Mr K also rembers the Peterman being an essential part of the gang from heist movies. I cannot work out how to hide a link neatly in a word but i found this is a fascinating article, including possible origin https://www.ptlockandsafe.co.uk/blog/what-is-a-peterman

42. Nobody seems to have mentioned 12ac which has “cat” in the online version, but “wedge” in the published version. Answer is the same, as a “gib” is apparently a male (neutered) cat.

43. Michelle@12 Re. today’s Saturday ‘prize’, I too completed it while registering the issue in one clue that was drawing the comments that you refer to on the extension of Friday’s cryptic blog on the G website. In fact, on that site the setter has now posted an apology for an error in the relevant clue and proposed a new version of it.

44. Needed Ms Womble to help get going with this with her knowledge of Ankara. Then with Ravi we were off at last. So pleased to guess Incredible String Band that forgot to parse the amusing clue. Only disappointment was the lack of an appearance of the wonderful Country Joe & the Fish.

45. My way in was via HENDRIX and then THE WHO. I couldn’t remember any other performers (I must have been there). I was thinking that WOODSTOCK GK was needed until I realised that the capital of Turkey was Ankara, and not Istanbul, doh!

    I forgot about the Peanuts strip, so the parsing for that one had to come from the interweb. I thought it must have been ST ripped from some bird name, but not surprisingly, I couldn’t find it (although I thought there might have been some reference to a woodcock {WOOD(c)OCK}, how does that work?? Double doh)

    Overall a pleasant solve with DECANTER one of my ticks. Paul seems to have a habit of using American expressions/slang without any indicators, which I think is a bit naughty.

    Thanks Paul and PeeDee.

46. … the blog doesn’t like chevrons; there’s supposed to be an ST inside {WOOD(c)OCK}

47. Thanks PeeDee and Paul. I did this slowly over several evenings and it wasn’t a “pure” solve because I ended up googling STRING BAND to find the INCREDIBLE to go in front of it. CRACKER was my LOI and like others before me I think it is acceptable as = peach. I too was thinking cricket as @37sjshart.

48. Spooner’scatflap @43: I solved it without noticing the mistake, so much for my parsing skills!

49. If the corollary of “If you can remember it you weren’t there” is “If you can’t remember it, you were there” were true, then I must have been there, so I had to Google a couple of the performers. I was pleased to conclude from the wordplay for BIGWIG that a gib must be a wedge, and discover that I was right.

50. I am surprised that Paul missed out Joe Cocker, he could have had fun with that, especially after he was so restrained with Uranus.

51. Re today’s Prize, online there is now a Special Instruction … with an error in it.

52. Could someone just put the clue number that has a problem please ? I do not want to search anywhere else and it passed me by when I did the crossword.

53. The “special instructions” with the error appear to have been put up 2000 years ago!

54. 19d Having got the crossers I knew that I was looking for a 7-letter word with N and A as the 3rd and 6th and should have come up with bananas but I didn’t and had to resort to Googling a list of performers at Woodstock. I might have had more of a chance if I had ever heard of Santana.
    sheffieldhatter@32. In my experience ” builder’s tea” refers as much to the strength as the blend and is drunk by the middle classes out of reverse snobbery or perhaps, even, because that’s the way we like it. And, like builders, I drink it out of a mug.

55. Hi everybody, as per site rules, please can we stop talking about today’s prize puzzle. Either post you comment next week, or else post on a site which does not have this rule.

56. I thought the “performer(s) at 10 25” had to be something like WOODSTOCK and having convinced myself that 10 25 was that, without understanding “flyer stripped”, my heart sank a bit. Knowing very little about who performed at Woodstock I had two choices: 1) struggle through the puzzle hoping to fill in the acts at the end and probably failing; 2) google Woodstock and write in the answers from the enumerations. I went with the latter… the rest of the puzzle was then easy but still quite entertaining.

    Thanks for the blog.

57. [Spooner’s catflap @43. The error in the clue for 4a in today’s crossword has now been corrected, although the correction refers to 4d, which exists only in a parallel universe.]

58. I don’t mind peach=cracker. The real question is “Is a cracker a biscuit?”
    Thanks Paul and PeeDee

59. The iPhone App still shows the incorrect clue for 4a in today’s prize crossword

60. Despite having devoured a lot of Peanuts books in my youth and having a keen interest in rock n roll, I found it really tough to crack the theme, via HENDRIX as for many others here. But that brought a broad grin and opened the whole thing up, all of which are symptoms of a really great puzzle IMHO.

    Too young to remember Woodstock and not nerdy enough to know the list of performers there, but treating the theme as “well known bands of the 60s” proved just as effective. Cracking stuff, big thanks to my favourite setter.

61. Graham @58 Yes, crackers are biscuits.
    Graham crackers are also biscuits.

62. [Just wanted to thank Epee Sharkey @4, 5, 8, 9 for the ‘long and rambling comments’. Sympathies for your frustrations in the wee hours, but at least you made me chuckle. N.B. Next time you’ll have to add some Special Instructions.]

63. [essexboy @62. It seems like Epee Sharkey was both there and not there, not just in the early hours of last night but also in the 1960s. Was this perhaps Schrödinger’s Woodstock?]

64. sh @63 (or was it @60?): 🙂

65. I for one was thrown by the enumeration botch with INCREDIBLE STRING BAND, which spoiled the last bit of the puzzle for me. A shame, because I was enjoying the theme. Admittedly this wasn’t helped by not having the crosser from CHILLI at the time. This in turn resulted from my error at 9 where I had RANGE (bit of a stretch having ORANGE as the wood “cut”?). I was thinking of the western song “Home, home on the range” for the STOCK home. C’est la Vie, but I do wish the Grauniad would return to a more active editorial situation.
    Thanks, Paul and PeeDee.
    PS there’s a slight typo in the completed grid with TIRONE at 22d.

66. Enjoyed the puzzle, though I resorted to googling a list of Woodstock performers. They were all ones I’d heard of, none that I can remember actually hearing, even recorded.

    In the US builders are called construction workers, and I don’t think I’ve heard any references to them outside their actual activity. They certainly don’t drink tea.

67. Valentine @66

    Allow me to introduce you to a Great British Institution:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5XX9LX2es4

    (later adapted for commercial purposes 🙂 ).

68. PeeDee thanks for the blog.
    I don’t understand what you mean by
    ‘I have not seen a puzzle with a zero-length ghost entry before. Exceptionally devious!’
    Could someone explain, please? Thank you

69. Katherine @68. PeeDee has (10,0,6,4) after that clue, but I’ve no idea where that zero has come from, as it wasn’t in the print version of the newspaper that I use, and no one else has mentioned it either.

70. Hi Katherine,
    There seems to have been several different botched versions of the clue for INCREDIBLE STRING BAND. The PDF version that I downloaded from The Guardian website has an enumeration of (10,0,5,4). I was commenting on the second word of zero letters, a sort of “ghost” word present in the enumeration but invisible in the clue and puzzle.

71. PS – I just checked again and the (10,0,5,4) enumeration is still in the PDF version now.

72. PeeDee @ 71

    That’s very odd. It’s currently there wrongly on both the print & pdf versions via the crosswords page, but the pdf I downloaded last Saturday (which I do by entering crosswords-static.guim.co.uk/gdn.cryptic.2021mmdd and correcting the date) shows the correct enumeration.

73. [essexboy @67 You’re spoiling our American friends with the cream of our British culture. They give us Jimi Hendrix and we give them Bernard Cribbins. Seems like a fair swap. I’m hoping for a clue about a hole in the ground sometime soon.]

74. Thanks PeeDee and sheffield hatter.
    I thought perhaps it was a crossword terminology I didn’t know, like ‘ghost theme’ that I learnt from here recently.

75. [essexboy @67
    Thanks for the link
    I knew the song, but I never knew there was a video to go with it]

76. [Katherine @75: the song is from 1962, the animation was created in 1967 by Bura and Hardwick, who were also responsible for several more delightful dollops of ‘the cream of British culture’ as Penfold puts it, including Trumpton and Captain Pugwash.]

77. We thought anagram fodder needed to be present in the clue, not referred to. Thus, 14A — which relies on translating “that is” into “i.e.”– seemed non-Ximenean. Paul pushing the envelope.
    Really liked 24-15!

78. Having read last weeks Guardian Blog (I think) I noted that someone had said 17ac was their way in so I concentrated on that to begin with and got HENDRIX without too much trouble; that led me to think of WOODSTOCK and from there I went the way of r_c_a_d @56 with a list of performers. As others have noted, once you had filled in the various bands/artists it made the rest of the piuzzle rather easier. Have to say that I thought “stripped flyer” for WOODSTOCK was an absolute stroke of genius ! Other favourites among many were PEASHOOTER and INSIDE EDGE, atlthough I doubt Ollie Pope would agree about the latter. Thanks to PeeDee and to Paul.

79. pianola @77. I think that particular envelope has been pushed before, hasn’t it? Or if not, then I would say it’s not much of a stretch to there (a double letter standard abbreviation) from some other fairly standard single letter abbreviations being included in the anagrist. I’ve seen it expressed elsewhere that it’s not so much a matter of indirect anagrams being taboo, it’s more to do with whether it’s fair to the solver. In this case it looks fair enough to me.

80. Michelle@12,

    Having already completed today’s Prize puzzle I also ventured to look at the Guardian blog posts after reading your warning, and I can’t decide whether anything I saw in there would have assisted me or not. However I agree that discussion of “live” Prize puzzles should be left to sites like crosswordsolver.org (where the rule is “hints, not answers”) and not take place either here or on the Guardian blog site !

81. Thanks PeeDee, i didn’t get lots of parsing (shoo, peanuts woodstock, gib and more) and failed on Ty/Tirone with a groundless punt on Tirana. Also had to google a list of Woodstock performers to get Santana and the string band. But despite these failures I enjoyed it although reading back through the clues now it is hard to pick one that really satisfies, so i will go with CUP OF TEA because of the cultural gems unearthed above, thanks everyone, and Paul – PS milk six sugars please!

82. Last month, Tees (one of the most consistent setters around), said this at another place:
    “I was about to say that themes are a bit of a nightmare, even mini-ones, as (a) if people don’t know them, they’re in for a slog, and (b) if people know them, they’ll fill half the grid without doing any real solving.”
    I cannot agree more, unless there is a ghost theme but this one didn’t have one.
    Let me first say that I am huge fan of the setter that’s John Halpern.
    However, my solving partner was in category (a) and therefore didn’t like it very much, while for me half of the clues were a write-in. I couldn’t be bothered by parsing ‘Incredible String Band’ (although, I wasn’t aware that they performed at Woodstock) or ‘Ravi Shankar’.
    Woodstock took place when I was up for my school exams.
    But I never ‘loved it’ though I was heavily into pop music in those days.
    Meaning, no added value for me, ‘going back in time’, ‘happy memories’ etc. Not really.
    But to each their own.
    Technically, a good crossword but not a very satisfying experience (for the reasons I mentioned – Tees mentioned actually).

83. [ Spooner’s catflap @43
    thanks for the info. I solved that clue yesterday, warts and all, haha.
    I am glad that the setter apologised and suggested a revised clue.
    Amazingly, the special instructions refer to 4 down! ]

84. essexboy@67 I’ve loved that song for years. It’s never been clear to me just what Fred & Co were moving — I rather liked having it be a mysterious Big Thing with handles and candles and no clear function. But it can be a piano if it likes. Thanks.

85. Valentine – yes, one of the funniest songs ever, and so true to life. (The problems all came from being too hasty, whereas a cup of tea never did anyone any harm.) I was never very clear about the handles and the seat, but I’m sure I’ve seen pianos with candle holders on them, so that always made sense to me.

86. hi michelle, it would help us greatly if you would post comments on this week’s prize puzzle in next week’s blog

87. PeeDee, in general I absolutely agree, but I think one piece of information about it here is the opposite of a spoiler, more of a clarifier.

88. Valentine & others – we don’t have posts on unpublished puzzles to support the crossword providers whose puzzles we use on our site. We want to support their operations, not undermine them by providing a place to post comments that they don’t allow on their own site.

    Whether the comment contains a spoiler is irrelevant. If you have something that does not contain a spoiler then by all means post it, but do so on another site that allows this, we just ask you not to post it here.

89. A theme I was very comfortable with and which I sussed once I’d got HENDRIX and THE WHO, although I didn’t work out what “flyer stripped” meant, and didn’t need to. Similarly, with INCREDIBLE STRING BAND, I didn’t fully parse it. I realised the 4 was BAND from the wordplay and later had enough check letters to see the only possible answer. I wasn’t aware they’d played Woodstock, but I assumed Paul had checked.

    Luckily, I saw something on 15² General Discussion about a problem with that clue. When I came to fill it in (online) I noticed I also got automatically placed on the wrong square after filling in INCREDIBLE.

    I’m pretty sure the rule about not mentioning puzzles for which the solution hasn’t yet been published doesn’t apply to warning about production problems. I can’t think where else one could be guaranteed to save so many puzzlers a headache at one stroke. Perhaps Gaufrid could clarify?

    I felt a bit guilty about mentioning Hendrix, quite coincidentally, on last week’s blogpost when I realised I’d accidentally posted a spoiler for that weekend’s Prize. Still, I’m glad to hear Valentine has indeed heard of him even if he hasn’t yet had the pleasure of enjoying his music.

90. Pianola @77
    “seemed non-Ximenean”

    It is non-Ximenean, but so is Paul. He clues in the libertarian tradition of his mentor, Araucaria, who once told him never to read Ximenes on the Art of the Crossword.

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